Contradictions

image © mishka henner

In an article in the New York Post, Linda Chavez reports and muses on the big interview Eric Cantor did recently with Peggy Noonan:

‘‘It’s almost as if the president and his party really are bent on promoting a welfare state and then thinking about . . . our free enterprise system second,” Cantor said. “And their emphasis . . . has been in trying to promote programs of economic redistribution. And if you hear them speak, it’s always about ‘everybody should pay their fair share.’ And I think the difference is, we believe everyone should have a fair shot.” That succinctly describes the different worldviews of liberals and conservatives.

Liberals are always trying to come up with programs and policies that even out the differences between individuals. Liberals want to take a bigger chunk of money from those who earn more because they’re harder workers, are brighter or more skilled, have invested more in education or just happen to have been born into a wealthy family. And they want to use that money to create programs to help the less fortunate. Our federal income-tax system is based on this principle.
Conservatives aren’t as concerned about evening out inequalities between individuals and would rather encourage individuals to pursue their own interests, for better or worse. Most conservatives believe that government shouldn’t penalize hard work, risk-taking and success by insisting that government take a larger share of the fruits of those efforts.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/clash_of_visions_WBzl06IUoSOZ3h6IPulHwJ#ixzz1ULRDHi9A

Kinda funny coming from a man who talked himself into a government job that includes premium health care support in perpetuitity, and a life-time pension--all on the taxpayer's Roosevelt dime.  But this is the weird and fundamental contradiction at the foundation of the "modern" Republican Party and its powerful supporting cast of rightwing pundits and a whole television network, Fox.  These alleged representatives get into office riding the stale cant of boilerplate such as "government shouldn't penalize hard work."  It sure doesn't apply to them though, now does it.  What "hard work"?  Mr. Cantor's on vacation again, after an grueling summer of sitting in air conditioned rooms with his elite peers and refusing any compromise with reality until a contrived but real deadline forced the Administration to accede to a "Satan Sandwich" of a bill which didn't even stop S&P from pronouncing the US credit status to be less than AAA.  He toils on, night and day, vacation or not, upholding the right of every American to be an "entrepreneur."  Even in his sleep, Mr. Cantor toils on, for all of us.

Does the typical voter even think about this "entrepreneur citizen" idea, or does this voter just register some below consciousness tickle of warmth at the mention of the phrase.  I've done construction work--masonry mostly--for 25 years or so.  It has been nice, a perk even, to have been working for myself, an entrepreneur citizen.  That meant I could keep my own schedule, and in particular, keep my hand in the music world, where gigs come along as they do, and to be able to play professionally you really do need to be able to play--both available and with your physical skills intact.  Masonry too--particularly when it was accomplished using stones--was its own reward as well for me, the reward of being able, for hire, to fashion beautiful objects out of stones, the reward of being in some small sense in contact with the ethos that gave us all the Lion Gate at Mycenea, for just one example.  Not that any of the stones I worked with weighted 12 tons.

So maybe the folks up in Richmond who voted Mr. Cantor his lifetime health care and pension did it because the artist in them is soothed by his support of entrepreneurship.  But there's another side to this entrepreneurship.  When I entered the building trades nearly everyone was becoming an "independent contractor," which is another term for entrepreneur.  And what this nice term meant and means is that working people do not get any benefits, are not officially "hired" by anyone except on a day or job basis, usually pay for their own health insurance (if they have any), and can depend at best on the good will of a network of independent general contractors (most of them with no or very few employees) for a continuing supply of work (or, as us musicians might call this supply, gigs--since construction has become exactly like the music biz, which is possibly why I found transitioning back and forth in the two worlds a reasonably confortable experience).  The advantage of this world of entrepreneurs, aside from how nice it feels sitting on a horse, on the open range, sun casting purple shadows on the Sierras in the far distance, dogies nursing, the murmur of the herd as it beds down, the smell of wood smoke and beans as cookie sets up the campsite, the...

Well as I was saying, the advantage in this dreamy work of entrepreneurs is that employers save quite a lot of money.  When times are good they can stash more money away, or buy an SUV or a beach house or a boat, go on vacations just like Mr. Cantor.  When times are really good and they've been really lucky (or worked so goldarn hard they have had to manufacture more hours in the day and more days in the year to even manage to get the job done) some of these entrepreneurs can even give money to Mr. Cantor to assure his commitment to a nation of entrepreneurs.  And conversely, when times are bad (as they are these days), these entrepreneurs can simply hunker down, with no concern for employees with nothing to do, or retired employee pensions, or any of that stuff.  Because there were no employees, just subcontractors, other entrepreneurs.  And at a more abstract level of talking, the savings come with and are part and parcel of a removal of any responsibility to the folks who are making the employers the big bucks.  Everyone's an entrepreneur, after all.  Instead of official layoffs and accompanying unemployment benefits, it's just "sorry boys, ain't no droving today, we'll give you a holler in the spring." 

Back in the good years, the Clinton '90s, quite a few subcontractors I knew expanded, "hiring" their own crews of sub-subcontractors.  When this area began to see a sizeable influx of Mexicans and Central Americans, primarily due to big chicken processing plants coming to the area and advertising for the cheapest labor available, some of these people got the hell out of chicken processing and into better jobs, such as sheet-rock installing, and plumbing, and house painting, and masonry.  Often they were "hired" (or even actually hired in some cases--this story is not monolithic) by established subcontractors, who then in some cases became managers of a labor force, made more money, bought SUVs and beach homes.  And so forth.

Meanwhile, in the bigger picture, millions of American jobs went far, far away.  Construction has to happen pretty much where the objects being constructed reside.  Meat processing has to happen, pretty much, in places where the meat can arrive alive, blinking its eyes at the wonder of a world on wheels.  Shirts and televisions and microwaves and computers, on the other hand, can originate far far away, where people work for pennies a day.  As a guy (an American no less) in a PBS documentary about the textile industry in Guatemala said with a straight face back in the late 1980s, the workers down here don't get brown lung. The workers down there mostly don't get older either.  Passing strange, that. 

I know a couple of "entrepreneurs" who spend every working day driving around my county in an elderly small pickup hunting for scrap metal, which they sell for about $65.50 average cash money.  Some days, if school isn't in session, their kids ride around with them all day.  That way the kids learn the entrepreneurial spirit I reckon.  What with the disciplining S&P has just administered to President Obama, Congress,  and our economy generally, could well be the price of metal is going to rocket down to where it was two years ago, and these folks will be "earning" half or less what they're making this summer.  If the damage is severe enough it'll drive gas prices down again.  If not, not.  Hey, it's the cowboy life, and S&P might end up looking a lot like Clevon Little in a cowboy hat. 

But the fundamental question is, why do people like Mr. Cantor, people who believe so deeply in the spirit of American entrepreneurship, strive for careers in the government they hate and want to destroy?  Mr. Cantor is a success--but not at entrepreneurship.  Unless what he does can be translated, with a deeper analysis, an MRI so to speak, into one of the world's oldest "trades."  We all know what that is.  Like Hazel used to sing, "Don't put her down, you helped put her there."  Yep. 

Note: the photograph is from Mishka Henner's collection of google map photos, a controversial ebook called "No Man's Land" about which much can be discovered by operating the google:
http://mishka.lockandhenner.com/blog/?cat=37

Working People, Remember Them?

Nimrod Workman

Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler) has gone back on its own, away from Firedoglake.  Here's a recent post:

http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/08/03/buffalo-hangs-its-head-in-shame-as-lil-luke-laughs-at-slaves-and-dead-workers/

I'm not lobbying for sitting it out next year, please understand.  But how much disgust can a person stand?  The answer is unclear, but remains a psy-ops issue, doesn't it.  On the moral plane the question will remain what it is, like gravity.  D or R.  

Go back and watch Harlan County, USA once a month.  It's worth it just to hear Hazel, Dave Morris, and Nimrod again, but it's not just a history lesson, it's the same battle going on right now in Wisconsin. 

[photo is from
http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/sfc/index.php/category/collections/southern-folk-cultural-revival-project-collection/   ]

Next Year, Pamplona

australiantimes.co.uk

Hey, first thing today I get an email from some Obama functionary which has in it a video of the President explaining the situation re the Great Compromise just past.  Delete.  Whew, that wasn't so hard.  As to the general situation, as it stands.  Well, personally, McCain would still have been even worse, and on top of that, Mrs. Palin would have had a national office instead of a tour bus. 

On the other hand.  Mr. Obama has proven to be profoundly naive when it comes to dealing with the Republican Party and long-time professional politicians.  This was actually one of the criticisms of him going in--it came in the form of, "he has no experience."  We saw this same problem in the protracted Health Care Bill negotiations.  Yes, eventually something called a Health Care Bill got passed.  In the mean time, the whole process came to look anything but transparent, and millions of voters were galvanized to put in power the raging no-nothings who have just been the engine of yet another piece of murky legislation posing as a solution to something or other that might have been a crisis or not.  Even Lawrence O'Donnell, who was Mr. Obama's biggest supporter, said last night that "the President blinked." 

Continuing to make every effort to look at the world as we find it realistically, I have to say that at the very least, Mr. Obama lost sight of the forest while studying certain particular leaves with the intensity only a 5th year botanist grad student can bring to a leaf.  And a body of elected Congresspersons have successfully held our economy hostage, and are even as we speak making plans for the next heist.  As to the Presidential choice which looms next year, it's looking more and more like a sunny day in Pamplona.   No one on the GOP side should ever be elected to anything, since they all believe in the destruction of the government and all its functions save possibly running aspects of a military industrial complex that prove structurally resistant to all out privatization.  That is--how can anyone seriously run to destroy the office they seek? 

But on the other hand.  Four more years of this kind of "leadership?"  What a tragedy that is.  Mr. Obama was probably suited to lead a body of people will true common interests who in fact all wished to achieve good outcomes.  He can give a good speech, and without a teleprompter.  He would probably be the greatest Secretary of State ever, under the command of a leader with a vision.  But Mr. Obama has now proven to be unable to lead against forces of malevolence and ill will.  And that capability is what America desperately needs today.  Mr. Obama is Polonious.  (That he didn't dither with regard to the bin Laden assassination or the Somali Pirates rescue says precious little about his skills at statecraft--a decent county sheriff could have made those two calls, let's face it.) 

These facts do not change another fact--in the United States we have a two-party system, and in the end we have to choose a Democrat or a Republican.  The so called third party option is in reality a fantasy vote, soothing the psychological discord which comes with internal conflict while masking the fact that voting for the third guy usually gives aid to the guy you would never vote for.  In other words, Nader not Gore = Bush. 

Next year, Pamplona. 

Out of the Past

From Franklin Roosevelt's speech at Madison Square Garden, October 31, 1936:

We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

The American people know from a four-year record that today there is only one entrance to the White House—by the front door. Since March 4, 1933, there has been only one pass-key to the White House. I have carried that key in my pocket. It is there tonight. So long as I am President, it will remain in my pocket.

Those who used to have pass-keys are not happy. Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America's working people. Only reckless men, heedless of consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy.

Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.

Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse—it is deceit.

They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague form of old-age insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another dollar. That omission is deceit.

They carefully conceal from him the fact that under the federal law, he receives another insurance policy to help him if he loses his job, and that the premium of that policy is paid 100 percent by the employer and not one cent by the worker. They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company could afford to issue. That omission is deceit.

They imply to him that he pays all the cost of both forms of insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar put up by him his employer puts up three dollars three for one. And that omission is deceit.

But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some foreign flag in which they have more confidence.

The fraudulent nature of this attempt is well shown by the record of votes on the passage of the Social Security Act. In addition to an overwhelming majority of Democrats in both Houses, seventy-seven Republican Representatives voted for it and only eighteen against it and fifteen Republican Senators voted for it and only five against it. Where does this last-minute drive of the Republican leadership leave these Republican Representatives and Senators who helped enact this law?

I am sure the vast majority of law-abiding businessmen who are not parties to this propaganda fully appreciate the extent of the threat to honest business contained in this coercion.

I have expressed indignation at this form of campaigning and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of employers, workers and the general public share that indignation and will show it at the polls on Tuesday next.

Aside from this phase of it, I prefer to remember this campaign not as bitter but only as hard-fought. There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.

It is because I have sought to think in terms of the whole Nation that I am confident that today, just as four years ago, the people want more than promises.

Our vision for the future contains more than promises.

This is our answer to those who, silent about their own plans, ask us to state our objectives.

Of course we will continue to seek to improve working conditions for the workers of America—to reduce hours over-long, to increase wages that spell starvation, to end the labor of children, to wipe out sweatshops. Of course we will continue every effort to end monopoly in business, to support collective bargaining, to stop unfair competition, to abolish dishonorable trade practices. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America, for better and cheaper transportation, for low interest rates, for sounder home financing, for better banking, for the regulation of security issues, for reciprocal trade among nations, for the wiping out of slums. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will continue our efforts in behalf of the farmers of America. With their continued cooperation we will do all in our power to end the piling up of huge surpluses which spelled ruinous prices for their crops. We will persist in successful action for better land use, for reforestation, for the conservation of water all the way from its source to the sea, for drought and flood control, for better marketing facilities for farm commodities, for a definite reduction of farm tenancy, for encouragement of farmer cooperatives, for crop insurance and a stable food supply. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will provide useful work for the needy unemployed; we prefer useful work to the pauperism of a dole.

Here and now I want to make myself clear about those who disparage their fellow citizens on the relief rolls. They say that those on relief are not merely jobless—that they are worthless. Their solution for the relief problem is to end relief—to purge the rolls by starvation. To use the language of the stock broker, our needy unemployed would be cared for when, as, and if some fairy godmother should happen on the scene.

You and I will continue to refuse to accept that estimate of our unemployed fellow Americans. Your Government is still on the same side of the street with the Good Samaritan and not with those who pass by on the other side.

Again—what of our objectives?

Of course we will continue our efforts for young men and women so that they may obtain an education and an opportunity to put it to use. Of course we will continue our help for the crippled, for the blind, for the mothers, our insurance for the unemployed, our security for the aged. Of course we will continue to protect the consumer against unnecessary price spreads, against the costs that are added by monopoly and speculation. We will continue our successful efforts to increase his purchasing power and to keep it constant.

For these things, too, and for a multitude of others like them, we have only just begun to fight.

All this—all these objectives—spell peace at home. All our actions, all our ideals, spell also peace with other nations.

Today there is war and rumor of war. We want none of it. But while we guard our shores against threats of war, we will continue to remove the causes of unrest and antagonism at home which might make our people easier victims to those for whom foreign war is profitable. You know well that those who stand to profit by war are not on our side in this campaign.

"Peace on earth, good will toward men"—democracy must cling to that message. For it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion which gives a nation a sense of justice and of moral purpose. Above our political forums, above our market places stand the altars of our faith—altars on which burn the fires of devotion that maintain all that is best in us and all that is best in our Nation.

We have need of that devotion today. It is that which makes it possible for government to persuade those who are mentally prepared to fight each other to go on instead, to work for and to sacrifice for each other. That is why we need to say with the Prophet: "What doth the Lord require of thee—but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." That is why the recovery we seek, the recovery we are winning, is more than economic. In it are included justice and love and humility, not for ourselves as individuals alone, but for our Nation.

That is the road to peace. 

Thanks to Digby for the link.