President Obama said in the Rose Garden. "We've got to stop blocking emergency relief for Americans who are out of work. We've got to extend unemployment insurance."
ABC News
I. If the Corporate Media Refuses to Talk About Jobs, Is Anyone Really Unemployed? Yesterday, Bob Herbert wrote:
Americans struggling in a down economy are worried about the survival of their families. Destitution is beckoning for those whose unemployment benefits are running out, and that crowd of long-term jobless men and women is expanding rapidly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/opinion/29herbert.html?_r=1&ref=bobherbertFirst, I want to praise him for telling the truth. Once upon a time (during the Great Depression) journalists wrote stories that their readers actually wanted and needed to hear. Call it free market journalism.
Today, with a handful of corporations in control of most of the nation’s news outlets, journalists are more likely to write what their corporate CEO wants and needs to hear. That means when Obama gives a talk about the Gulf oil spill and does not mention “cap and trade”, MSNBC/General Electric employees Tweety and Fineman pout and talk about what a disappointing speech he has given----as if the fishermen who are without work on the Gulf give a damn that General Electric stands to make a gazillion dollars if it can just get the right cap and trade bill through Congress.
Right now, the corporate masters are not interested in talking about recession or unemployment or poverty or starvation. Such talk might stir politicians to raise the minimum wage, something that they, as large employers, do not want to see. Washington might make it more difficult for companies to outsource jobs. So, instead, we get web pages like the one at MSNB, which tells us right up top that “Lindsay Lohan is going to jail”. The good folks at GE have a whole list of articles on Wall Street and its problems
but not a god damned thing about unemployment !
Hmmm. CNN is not owned by a major manufacturing corporation. Maybe they are more interested in unemployment. Let’s see. There is the obligatory headline about Lindsay Lohan going to jail….nope, nothing about jobs. Over at ABC, you “must read” about Lohan, but at least they mention the Jobless Bill which just passed in the Senate.
President Obama said in the Rose Garden. "We've got to stop blocking emergency relief for Americans who are out of work. We've got to extend unemployment insurance."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/unemployment-filibuster-broken/story?id=11205700Now, correct me if I am wrong, but it seem that the nation’s major news outlets are more concerned with Lohan than they are with jobs. Why can’t the president’s words, "We've got to stop blocking emergency relief for Americans who are out of work. We've got to extend unemployment insurance," be a headline rather than a footnote on the second page of an article way down the list of stories? Are the corporate news media’s priorities that messed up?
Yes, they are. And if the press only wants to talk about what a bad girl Lindsay Lohan is and how divisive the NAACP is, then that is what the nation’s news consumers will hear. And collectively, those who still have jobs and homes and health insurance will think
Lindsay Lohan bad, NAACP divisive.
II. The First and Second Wars Against Poverty Just as we have fought two world wars abroad, so we have waged two domestic wars against poverty. The first was declared by FDR during his inaugural address in 1933:
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today… a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment…. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work… This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife. With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems…. in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres49.htmlThree decades later, FDR’s protégée LBJ declared his own war against poverty during his first State of the Union address.
Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty, I submit, for the consideration of the Congress and the country, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964… It will give the entire nation the opportunity for a concerted attack on poverty through the establishment, tinder my direction, of the Office of Economic Opportunity, a national headquarters for the war against poverty.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964johnson-warpoverty.htmlBut, but----modern economists tell us that unemployment (and the poverty it causes) are
necessary , say the media shills. When unemployment under Clinton was too low and wages were too high, the economy
suffered . Milton Friedman
swore that low unemployment would lead to high inflation.
Milton Freidman’s NAIRU (Non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) is a necessary fiction for those who want to avoid a third war on poverty. Under the Friedman model, a few of us (say 10%) suffer from unemployment so that the rest of us can do very, very well. And by “rest of us”, I mean a tiny percentage of the wealthiest Americans. Everyone else is petrified by the thought of joining the bottom 10%. They will take any job at any wage with no benefits.
In other words, the Friedman economy is a slave economy. Which means that the nation is now divided the way it was during the Civil War, with one side battling to keep slaves and the other side fighting to free those slaves. And a divided nation can not accomplish anything but its own self destruction.
III. Can We Get More Talk Like This From Obama? This is the president we need right now:
The 2010 unemployment extension being blocked by the Republicans got blasted by President Obama in his speech in the Rose Garden today. He says they are holding the unemployed “hostage”. Obama goes on to say “The same people who didn’t have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn’t offer relief to middle class Americans”.
http://www.infotipguide.com/unemployment-extension-obama-rips-republicans-in-speech/1120/Hostage. Good choice of words. America understands the war against terrorism. If the unemployed are “hostages”, then somewhere there is a terrorist whom we have to fight.
Yes, the right wing will accuse him of being a “socialist” and of being “divisive”. The racists in the Tea Party will call him a
scary Black man. So what? The right wing is going to vote for the Republican anyway. The people who matter are the nation’s Democrats and Independents, most of whom are working class. Try telling them that unemployment is our friend, and they will kick you to the curb. Tell them that unemployment is worse than Al Qaeda, and they will cheer.
We do not need more of
this (from Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address):
One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt. Experts from across the political spectrum warned that if we did not act, we might face a second depression. So we acted – immediately and aggressively. And one year later, the worst of the storm has passed.
But the devastation remains. One in ten Americans still cannot find work. Many businesses have shuttered. Home values have declined. Small towns and rural communities have been hit especially hard. For those who had already known poverty, life has become that much harder
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/State_of_the_Union/state-of-the-union-2010-president-obama-speech-transcript/story?id=9678572The “storm” metaphor is counterproductive. Storms are acts of God, and you can not battle God. Nope, you just have to swallow your anger and hope and pray that tomorrow He is in a better mood.
But what happens if “God” is the CEO of General Electric, and He wants cap and trade damn it!? What if “God” owns Wal-Mart, and He wants to see the minimum wage lowered? What if “God” is Grover Norquist, whose pals in the gambling, tobacco and alcohol business make money when people are poor and scared? What if “God” runs a major health insurance company that wants to be able to insure only the healthy?
Why then you have to wage war against God. And no one wants to do that, not even to put food on the tables and clothes on the kids.
As we stabilized the financial system, we also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and help Americans who had become unemployed.
Obama, State of the Union
Forget “help”. Help is what angels do for mere mortals. It is what the rich do for the poor---when they feel like it. Anyone who has actually enacted a public program knows that you
empower folks to help themselves, if you want to see real change. Going back to LBJ’s speech:
It will give every American community the opportunity to develop a comprehensive plan to fight its own poverty-and help them to carry out their plans.
It will give dedicated Americans the opportunity to enlist as volunteers in the war against poverty.
It will give many workers and farmers the opportunity to break through particular barriers which bar their escape from poverty.
It will give the entire nation the opportunity for a concerted attack on poverty through the establishment, tinder my direction, of the Office of Economic Opportunity, a national headquarters for the war against poverty.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1964johnson-warpoverty.html“Attack”, “break”, 'fight"---these verbs empower the unemployed, who often have self esteem and motivation issues as a result of their jobless status. (Read Studs Trekel's
Hard Times if you are lucky enough to have friends who are all fully employed) These words tell the American working class “You have a right to fight to improve your life and the lives of your family.” That first line is the most important. Change imposed from on high is never as effective as change that communities create for themselves.
We know from the history books that the FDR and LBJ approaches work. In both cases, the American people rewarded the presidents by
increasing the Democratic majority in Congress during the first midterm elections, so that they could get laws passed. Would not it be great if our goal as Democrats could be to win a filibuster proof majority in the Senate?
We can do it, if we start right now. The first step is to declare war on everything that stands in the way of jobs, education and health. This is a life and death battle for a lot of Americans. I see them everyday in the clinic where I work. People who have labored all their lives only to be tossed aside when they reach middle age. Folks who have a heart attack---and suddenly, they can not find a job. Three generations of the unemployed forced to move into together. Kids being sent to Afghanistan, because the military was the only one hiring in their town. People who can not afford the ten dollar copayment for their drugs, so they do without---and then they wind up in the hospital with a stroke or with gangrene of the leg---
These are people who are worth fighting for and with. Can't we give war a chance?
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