Progressive Voices

Margaret please tell Howard that 100,000 people will show up to a tractor pull if the entry fee is cheap enough.  Big deal. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to ignore them and have some pie.

As I see it dear, if more than a hundred thousand dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan can be dismissed,  so can slightly less than a hundred thousand peckerwoods at a Beck rally.

If the civil rights of millions of gay and lesbian Americans are not important, then neither are the pathetic rants of almost a hundred thousand Palin addicts.

If millions of children without healthcare are  inconsequential then why should I give a rat’s ass about a hundred thousand shitheads who actually think Beck and Palin have something worthwhile to say?

As long as millions of American Muslims don’t have religious freedom, a hundred thousand Tea Party yahoos shouldn’t be allowed to have cable television.  It only seems fair…

I just can’t believe 87,000 people are dumb enough to buy that crap. If Beck and Palin want a government so focused on one God and one religion, they should visit the Middle East and see how that concept is working out.  It’s gotten to the point where you can’t distinguish Fox News from the Christian Broadcasting Network.   It’s nauseating.

Palin and Beck don’t care about you, me or anyone except themselves.  They are getting filthy rich pandering to angry white mobs so transparent in their racist feelings toward the President that a sheet of Saran Wrap would cast a darker shadow.

The greatest threat against America is not terrorism.  It’s not a mosque in Manhattan.  It’s not gay marriage.  It’s not healthcare reform.  And, believe it or not, it’s not even Beck or Palin.  The greatest threat against America are the tens of millions of Americans who won’t turn out to vote this November effectively giving power to 87,000 angry assholes.

Sarah Palin is an idiot.  Glenn Beck is a moron.  And I am sick of Fox News.  I mean it.  Really.

Who says that Republican congress critters don't care about minorities in our society? Why, at this very moment, they are pushing hard to pass a $372 billion federal program to lift the economic fortunes of just one minority group – a far more generous proposal than Obama has even dared to contemplate.

The focus of the GOP's generosity is a true American minority: the richest one-tenth of one percent of our people. Living in penthouse ghettos like Manhattan's upper east side, this tiny minority of about 120,000 people (who have an average annual income of $8 million) would get some $3 million each over the next decade from the Republican proposal. Doesn't that just make your heart bleed with empathy?

This windfall will go to the most un-needy among us if the GOP gets Congress to renew the Bush tax cuts for the superrich. Yes, the same Republican lawmakers who have opposed even modest funding to keep schoolteachers and firefighters on the job, are wailing that we should take hundreds of billions of dollars from our public treasury and hand them to some of the richest people on the planet.

What's at work here is the narcissistic psychosis of the privileged – the delusional belief that they are entitled to special treatment because they're... well, they're rich, and therefore consider themselves to be both superior and especially deserving.

This attitude was expressed in a recent letter to the New York Times by a guy with the rather foppish name of Mr. Standish Fleming. He deplored any effort to deny these special tax giveaways to the elite, declaring that such efforts "discriminate" against the minority of wealthy and "productive" members of our society, thus rending America's "social fabric of trust and respect."

Of all the crying needs in our country today, these Republicans are wringing their hands over the "plight" of the wealthy. I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

Old Congress critters never die, they just fade away. Into lobbying firms, that is.

Take former House speaker Dennis Hastert, former House majority leaders Dick Armey and Dick Gephardt, and former Senate leaders Bob Dole and Trent Lott. The names of these one-time legislative powerhouses aren't mentioned in the news anymore, so perhaps you would assume that they've retired back to the old home place, or even passed away. But, no – they're very much alive and still plying the legislative arts. Only they now do it for million-dollar paychecks as lobbyists for Wall Street financial giants and other corporate interests.

Hastert, Armey, Gephardt, Dole, and Lott are among a cadre of 73 former members of congress who've been working in recent months to weaken or kill new regulations to rein in the gouging and reckless gambling of the big financial firms. They are not the only former public servants who're now using their insider knowledge and personal connections in Washington to serve the bankers. For example, at least 66 staffers for the House or Senate banking committees have moved from Capitol Hill to the K-Street lobbying corridor, and another 82 staffers for members of those committees also are now lobbyists for the finance industry. Adding even more firepower to this special-interest army of influence peddlers are 42 former officials from the treasury department.

In an effort to slow down this shameless cashing-in on public service, the watchdog group, Public Citizen, contacted 47 current lawmakers who are retiring this year. The group asked them to pledge not to take a lobbying job for two years with any corporation that had lobbied them. Not a single one took the pledge. To see who the 47 are, and to get behind stricter lobbying rules, contact Public Citizen at www.citizen.org/revolvingdoor.

Who'll take a stand for America's founding ethic of the common good? You won't get such leadership from Washington – and damned sure not from those in the corporate suites who're ruthlessly pushing an ethic of uncommon greed, saying to the middle class: "Adios chumps."

Instead, look to places like Williamson in upstate New York. This is apple country, home to a sprawling Mott's apple processing plant. But the Mott family is long gone – and so is the sense of shared purpose that had unified owners and workers.

In 2008, Mott's became a subsidiary of Dr. Pepper Snapple, a giant Texas conglomerate that also owns 7Up, Hawaiian Punch, and dozens of other brands. DPS, as it's known, is doing very well, having banked a record profit of half-a-billion dollars last year. But its honchos apparently missed that basic kindergarten lesson about sharing, so they introduced themselves to the area by eliminating the workers annual summer picnic, the children's Christmas party, and other community-building touches.

Then, this March, the new bosses abruptly demanded pay cuts (averaging about $3,000 per worker), slashed pensions, and hiked employee costs for health care. Why? Because they asserted that Mott's 300 workers were paid more than others in the area and should simply lower their standard of living accordingly. This from a corporation that paid its CEO $6.5 million last year! Adding insult to injury, the plant manager called workers "a commodity like soybeans" that can easily be replaced. Take the cuts – or else, demanded DPS

The workers chose "else," going on a strike that's now in its fourth month. This is not just about them, but about what America will be. It's a courageous stand for the middle class and our country's commitment to economic justice. To stand with them, go to www.ufcw.org.

The great state of Georgia is famous for its peanuts, but I still say that my state of Texas produces the most extraordinary goobers of them all.

As proof, I submit Joe Driver, a Republican state representative from the Dallas area. You can't get any more gooberish than Joe.

Until recently, most Texans had never heard of Driver, even though he's been in the Lege for nearly two decades and is a powerful member of the appropriations committee, which doles out Texas tax dollars. His oversight of state spending is relevant to his gooberness, because he recently burst into public consciousness over a rather basic error in accounting, not to mention a gross case of financial ethicalitis.

It seems that Joe, who regularly rails against big spending liberals and demands stringent cutbacks in our miserly state budget, has for years been routinely billing taxpayers for more than $100,000 in travel expenses that his political fund had already covered – including airline tickets, fancy meals, and luxury out-of-state hotels. He would pay for these costs with campaign funds, then submit the same expenses to the state, and merrily slip the taxpayer reimbursement into his own pocket.

Now comes the amazing part. This double-dipping goober insists that he didn't know it was wrong to collect payment from two entities for the same expense! Apparently, Driver's mom never taught him the "play-fair" lesson as a boy.

When confronted by an AP reporter about his curious bookkeeping, Joe claimed that the state ethics commission had okayed it years ago, though he couldn't say who or when. He added that he is apoplectic that his double-billing scheme turns out to be stupid, unethical, and illegal. "It pretty well screws my week," he sighed.

Come on, Georgia, try to match Joe Driver for pure gooberness.

Wall Street is a bizarre place. It masquerades as a sober center of finance, but it operates as a wide-open bazaar of anything-goes gambling games.

Recently, the biggest casino player of them all, Goldman Sachs, made a bizarre effort to strike a sober public pose by imposing a new ethical standard on its bankers/gamblers. Were they instructed to stop rigging the game to profit themselves at the expense of everyone else? No, no, Nanette – Goldman never lets ethics get in the way of raking in more money. Rather, the bank's sudden outburst of morality was directed at the language used by its bankers. Henceforth, decreed the higher-ups, Goldman employees must refrain from using profanity in their emails.

Sheesh – like it was expletive-filled emails that crashed our economy, not Wall Street banksters gaming the system!

Meanwhile, Goldman's pious moralists have already plotted an end run around new regulatory reforms that Congress passed in July. One of the most important reforms was a ban on what's called "proprietary trading," a convoluted form of casino gambling by bankers that led to Wall Street's meltdown and America's ongoing economic catastrophe. Goldman has simply had these proprietary traders change hats, moving them into its "asset management" division, which does not come under the new regulation. So – Hocus-Pocus! – The reckless gamblers slip through a definitional loophole and keep playing the same old game. This slick perversion of the law will be hugely profitable for the bank, and hugely risky for our economy.

But at least we can take comfort in the fact that no profane emails were exchanged by Goldman's ethically-impaired bankers as they conspired to put themselves above the law. And they wonder why the phrase "Wall Street Banker" is now an expletive in our country.