Commentary

Turning Point

By Reginald Johnson

January 23, 2011

The next few months may be a turning point for this country.

What’s at stake is whether America maintains a social compact between the government and the people or whether that compact is destroyed.

The compact is what was created in the New Deal in the 1930s --- in the form of Social Security ---- and in the 1960s in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. There’s other parts of the compact, such as the commitment to provide support for housing and education programs, but Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the main ones.

These programs, while not perfect, have provided vital services and support for hundreds of millions of people. Social Security provides retirement income which many people would not otherwise have. Medicare and Medicaid provide health insurance coverage for millions of people who similarly would not have any coverage if these programs didn’t exist.

If you research back newspaper and magazine articles you would find horror stories about what old people in this country used to go through when there was no income support for the elderly, or government-funded medical services. Or what poor people endured without subsidized medical care.

A lot of folks suffered mightily and died early.

So these programs, such as Social Security, represented an advance for our society.

But now the social compact is under attack. Conservatives, who have never liked the New Deal and Kennedy-Johnson-era social programs and have tried to dismantle them before, are barking at the door again. Backed by big business, the right insists the programs cost too much and add to our debt. They also claim that the government shouldn’t be helping people; everything should be done by the private sector. This of course, is an absurd and backwards notion.

Unfortunately, the right wing has a chance to reach its goal this time. That’s because we have a weak president who --- despite his prior claims about wanting to defend Social Security and Medicare --- is willing to consider changes that will begin the process of undoing these programs. Some of the proposed changes involve raising the retirement age and slashing cost of living increases in Social Security as well as cutting benefits in Medicare and Medicaid. This is all being contemplated in the name of reducing our national debt, which is up around $14 trillion or something.

Raising the retirement age to say, 70, (which is being talked about) would effectively put Social Security benefits out of reach for many, since a good number of the potential beneficiaries will die before being able to collect. Reducing benefits and funding for Medicare and Medicaid would also be disastrous, since these programs are already underfunded. Many doctors right now are rejecting Medicare because the reimbursement rates are too low.

Some of the cost-cutting proposals were discussed by Obama’s deficit reduction commission last fall. Though that commission failed to reach a consensus on recommendations for spending cuts, word is Obama will go ahead anyway and call for entitlement cuts in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

After that, who knows?

Republicans control the House. Many in the GOP, along with centrist Democrats, might support Social Security/Medicare cuts, amid scare mongering in the media about how big deficits threaten the economy. Ditto for the Senate.

So there could be support for this. That is, unless there is a very strong public reaction against it. Here’s the good news: polls indicate that while people are concerned about deficit reduction, they really don’t want cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

A recent New York Times/CBS poll show that a majority of Americans said they’re against the program cuts, and instead would like to see rollbacks in the military budget. A poll of Democracy Corps/Campaign for America’s Future also showed that while there was some support for deficit reduction, people don’t like the social cuts and want more emphasis on job creation and economic growth.

In an article in the Huffington Post, RJ Eskow of The Campaign for America’s Future said if Obama tacks to the political right and stresses deficit reduction for the rest of his term, it will be harmful for many Americans and politically dangerous. “The president’s in danger of moving in a direction that will lose everybody he needs,” he said, commenting on the poll. Pointing to a loss of support from youth and union households, among other groups, Eskow said that “Literally every demographic group he and his party needs will be alienated by a right-leaning set of policies.”

While the news is bleak on Obama’s direction on programs like Social Security, there’s also a moment of opportunity for the left. This is a time when progressives can jump on this issue and rally not only many Democrats, but independents and even some Tea Party people ( I know that will require a lot of work, but it can be done) to a wider fightback. There’s potential for a broad new political coalition.

A key part of building that coalition will be to educate people as to the real causes of the deficit. It’s not spending on social programs like Medicare and certainly not Social Security, which is funded entirely by workers and employers. Instead the debt is driven by the trillions being spent on the military budget, wars overseas and Wall Street bailouts together with revenue shortfalls caused by lavish tax breaks for the rich and big corporations.

Commentary

Uncivil Discourse

By Reginald Johnson

Jan. 19, 2011

Following the horrific shootings in Arizona of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others, there’s been calls that both the left and the right need to tamp down harsh and “extremist” rhetoric.

President Obama and others say that we need a more civil public discourse, and “make sure that we are talking to each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Some have said the angry rhetoric from politicians and pundits in recent years has fueled an atmosphere of hate, and may have helped push unstable individuals, such as the accused Arizona gunman Jared Loughner, over the edge to act in a violent manner. Loughner had reportedly been targeting Giffords for political reasons, though it isn’t entirely clear.

I agree that extremist and hate-filled rhetoric has an effect on people, and has to be condemned.

But I reject the false equivalency of saying that both the left and right are equally to blame for today’s poisoned political atmosphere. Not so.

In recent years it’s clear politicians and pundits on the right have been engaging in hate speech --- through their demonizing and scapegoating of liberals, gays, immigrants, intellectuals and doctors who provide abortions. In many instances, right-wingers have, either explicitly or implicitly, urged their followers to engage in acts of violence towards those they don’t like.

I haven’t seen anything from pundits or politicos on the left that compares with this pattern of irresponsible language and hate rhetoric on the right.

Let’s look at just a few examples concerning actions or comments by right-wingers. Last year, Republican Sarah Palin had her website put up a map with gunsight crosshairs over the districts with congress members she wanted removed. One of those was that of Giffords, a Democratic congresswoman from the Tucson area of Arizona.

Moreover, on a Twitter posting last year, Palin had urged her followers, “Don’t retreat, Instead, RELOAD!”

Or consider Glenn Beck, the wild commentator of the right who has a nightly show on FOX network, a show which reaches millions of people. This man is truly scary. He spends his time every night demonizing people on the left --- “progressives” --- for being a threat to the nation. They’re evil and subversive, he says, and you gotta watch ‘em. He seems to be taking a playbook from the 1950s demagogue, Senator Joe McCarthy, who made a career of labeling anyone left of center a “communist,” and destroyed hundreds of lives in the process.

Recently, Beck has taken to repeatedly accusing noted political science professor, Frances Fox Piven, of trying to bring down the American economic system through her writings about mobilizing the poor and strengthening welfare rights. He even held Piven in part responsible for the Arizona killings. Bizarre. But unfortunately, people listen to this junk or read it in his on-line column, “The Blaze.”

Beck’s rants usually stop short of openly advocating violence against opponents but his constant vilification of individuals clearly engenders anger and resentment among his followers, to the point where they threaten violence. Recently some readers writing comments in “The Blaze” said they would shoot Piven or blow up her house, according to a report on Democracy Now. The messages were not removed from the site.

In some cases, Beck himself has been explicit in calling for violence. “Drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers,” was one comment reported in a book by Dana Millbank of the Washington Post.

There’s many other examples of right-wing pundits and politicos, particularly on FOX, who use the language of violence and vilification. Bill O’Reilly recently said that Millbank should be “decapitated” due to the reporter’s criticism of FOX’s election night coverage. O’Reilly said later that he was, ha ha, only joking. But then he said Millbank should be beaten up anyway. Liberal-hating Ann Coulter a few years ago said she wouldn’t care if the New York Times building got blown up. Later she said that that too, was only a joke. Hilarious.

Right-wing shock jock Michael Savage, as well as other rightist commentators, have called for violence to deal with illegal immigrants. According to the media watch dog group FAIR, in 2008, Savage called for troops to be brought back from Iraq to protect Americans from “the scourge of illegal immigrants who are running rampant across America, killing police for sport, raping, murdering like a scythe across America.”

As noted from letters that come in to Beck, the hate rhetoric whips up anger and appears to fuel a desire to carry out violent acts.

In one confirmed case, a man who said he was influenced by
Beck, set out to kill people at two liberal organizations in

San Francisco. Byron Williams, the man who plotted to assassinate people at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation and who was arrested by police before he got there --- following a shootout --- told an interviewer with Media Matters for America that he was inspired by Glenn Beck.

Those who charge that the left has used a similar language of violence and hate that the right has, have an obligation to provide the evidence. Yes, I’m sure you can find some anarchist somewhere who said we should “destroy the system.” But you’re not going to find much of anything among left pundits or politicians --- who have media stature --- who’ve engaged in a pattern of hate talk or used the language of violence.

FOX, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is heavily responsible for allowing the hate talk to go on. I’m with those who think it’s time to contemplate boycott actions against FOX and have regular protests.

The group Jewish Funds for Justice recently picketed FOX headquarters in New York and submitted a petition with 10,000 signatures of people demanding the cancellation of Beck’s show. They accused Beck of “unchecked hate mongering and public incitement.”

That’s a good start.

Chip Berlet, senior analyst with Political Research Associates, which tracks right-wing movements, told Scott Harris of the Between the Lines radio show that it was time for a campaign to get advertisers to drop their sponsorship of the Glenn Beck program. He said such a campaign had been successful in getting Lou Dobbs removed from CNN, in light of Dobb’s perpetual bashing and unfair portrayal of immigrants.

Commentary

BERNIE! BERNIE! BERNIE!

By Reginald Johnson

Dec. 12, 2010

Hooray for Bernie Sanders! Hooray to a man who finally stood up and said it’s time to stop caving in to the Republicans and it’s time to start really fighting on behalf of America’s working class.

Bernie Sanders of course is the Independent/Socialist Senator from Vermont, who on Friday waged nearly a one-man war against President Barack Obama’s sell-out tax bill. The measure gives the middle class a tax cut, but also doles out hundreds of billions in unneeded tax breaks to the rich and corporations, compounding the nation’s already high deficit. The bill also threatens to undermine future funding for Social Security.

Sanders took to the floor of the Senate and in an historic address talked for more than eight hours --- eight hours!--- blasting the tax bill, which Obama and Vice President Joe Biden had secretly negotiated with Senate Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

“Whose brilliant idea was it that we drive up the national debt, ask our kids to pay higher taxes to pay off that debt, in order to give tax breaks to the rich?” Sanders asked.

The Vermont senator’s long speech captivated people not just in the U.S., but around the world. There were so many people watching the senate’s live video feed, that the chamber's computer server crashed at one point. Sander’s speech was the leading trend on Twitter nationally and the second leading trend worldwide.

Sanders read letters from constituents, who are struggling economically at the same time the government ponders more giveaways for the wealthy. According to an account in the newspaper the Bennington Banner, Sanders related a letter from a woman who described trying to save money by buying food from a “dented can store.”

“Does anybody in Congress know what a dented can store is?” Sanders asked.

Sanders also laid out quite a history lesson, detailing all the factors that have gone into the decline of the middle class over the past 30 years and how the country now has a gross disparity in incomes --- with an upper crust consisting of 5 percent of the population controlling more than 50 percent of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 20 percent have almost no wealth.

Sander’s marathon speech was not technically a filibuster, since no vote was being taken up. That won’t come until Monday. But Sanders wants to slow the process down, and force senate supporters of the bill to come up with a new measure that in his words “better reflects the needs of the middle class and working families of this country.”

And Sanders is getting some support. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and surprisingly, Louisiana’s conservative Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, both said they were against the bill and agreed to hold the floor for Sanders while he took brief breaks. More significantly, eight senate Democrats sent a letter Friday night to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying they had “grave misgivings” about the proposed bill and recommended changes before a vote.

They urged a plan which would restore tax rates on income over $1 million per year to the higher Clinton-era rates and to “dedicate the resulting revenues to shoring up the Social Security trust fund,” according to an article in The Nation by John Nichols.

Meanwhile dozens of Democrats in the House are refusing to back the Obama-McConnell plan and are also demanding changes.

Some Congressional Democrats and Social Security advocates are voicing concern over another aspect of the Obama measure, which calls for cutting the payroll tax by 2 percent to give employees a $1,000 tax break next year. It’s supposed to be a one-year tax cut on employees paying what is known as the “FICA” tax, as opposed to the income tax.

While the tax break seems to be nice on the face of it, and may act as an economic stimulus, the problem is the money is coming from a revenue stream that is supposed to be a dedicated fund only for the Social Security retirement fund.

The administration is pledging that Social Security won’t lose any money, that the Treasury Department will replenish the retirement program with other government funds. The lower tax is also supposed to end in one year.

But the fear is that in one year, a Congress more heavily dominated by Republicans will never approve a tax hike to restore the old rate, and money again will have to be borrowed from the general fund to make up the difference. In later years, the lower payroll tax rate may become permanent, putting Social Security in competition with other funding needs year to year.

With a tight general budget for the foreseeable future, and warnings about deficits, there inevitably will be calls for benefit cuts in Social Security.

“This 2 percent payroll tax cut is the beginning of the end of Social Security as we know it,” said the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, headed by former Rep. Barbara B. Kennelly, D-Conn. “Worker contributions have successfully funded the program for 75 years and that critical linkage between contributions and benefits is what keeps Social Security a self-funded program.”

Commentary

Save Social Security

By Reginald Johnson

If you're upset over the proposed cuts to Social Security --- the most effective public service program in the history of this country --- Tuesday, Nov. 30, is the day to do something about it.

President Obama's deficit reduction commission recently recommended cuts to cost of living increases in Social Security as well as raising the retirement age to 69. These would be major blows to this vital program, which hundreds of millions of Americans have relied on for retirement income since it was first enacted in 1935.

Congress is now considering whether to adopt the recommendations.

At a time when the economy is weak, pensions and 401ks have either been wiped out or lost substantial value, it is critical to save and strengthen Social Security.

Tuesday is "National Call Congress Day" to let members of Congress know that the commission recommendations should not be followed, and you want Social Security left intact. If they want to reduce the deficit, then end the wars overseas, cut the bloated “defense” budget, stop giving trillions in welfare aid to private banks and end tax cuts for the rich.

To reach U.S. Senators, you can call a toll-free 800 number, 1-866-529-7630 and you will be connected.

In the southern Connecticut area, some numbers for members of Congress are: Rep. Jim Himes, 4th District, 202-225-5541 and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, 3rd District, 202-225-3661. If for some reason the 800 number is tied up, the direct numbers for the senators are: Senator Joe Lieberman, 202-224-4041; Senator Chris Dodd, 202-224-2823.

For more information, check http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/

Commentary

Out of Control

Reginald Johnson

People are right to protest the new airport screening procedures --- involving full-body x-ray scans and pat downs of passengers, including checking a person’s privates.

The fact is, these procedures --- set up supposedly to fight the holy war against terrorism --- are a complete outrage.

The scans and pat downs are a shocking invasion of people’s privacy and resemble police state tactics.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says the following: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated…”

What happened to that?

If the government can get away with these intrusive screening procedures at airports, what’s next, pat downs before you can get on a train or bus? How about requiring travel passes within the United States, passes which can be demanded at anytime by a police officer? Doesn’t that sound like South Africa in the apartheid era, or Germany under the Nazis (“Papers please!”) What about roadblocks with officials stopping anyone who looks “suspicious”?

Just where does all this stop?

Already Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano and Transportation Security Administration Director John Pistole have talked about pat downs for passengers boarding trains.

This entire “war on terrorism” thing has gotten way out of hand. There’s no question that terrorists are out there --- in good part because of resentment over America’s brutal resource wars in the Middle East --- but combating terrorism by curbing civil liberties at home is not the answer. Good human intelligence and law enforcement work, together with a more sane foreign policy, is.

We don’t need full-body pat downs and show-all x-ray photos (complete with unhealthy blasts of radiation) to catch terrorists.

Another point has to be made. Being in a democracy with a system of strong guarantees of civil liberties, you cannot have a complete airtight system of preventing every last possible terrorist from boarding a plane, riding a bus, checking a book out at the library, or writing something. If you want that, you have a police state. We have rights here --- freedom to travel in privacy, read what you want, say what you want.

You cannot reconcile police state surveillance with a democracy.

I certainly don’t want a police state.

Commentary

THIS CANNOT STAND

By Reginald Johnson

Nov. 12, 2010

If ever there was a moment when progressives should rise up and say “no!” --- that time is now.

Within the space of 24 hours, from Wednesday into Thursday, President Obama and his group around him have shown what they really are: a bunch of conservative Democrats who are ready to betray the interests of the working people of this country at a moments notice in order to serve their paymasters --- Wall Street and the wealthy elite.

Consider what’s happened in this short period. First, leaders of the bi-partisan deficit reduction commission ---- which Obama set up --- detailed some of the panel’s preliminary recommendations. For the middle class and poor, they’re not pretty. Cut Social Security benefits; raise the retirement age; cut Medicare benefits; cut Medicaid benefits; hike gasoline taxes; and eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction.

The proposed cuts and tax hikes come at a time when working people are already struggling to pay the bills in a bad economy and retirees and near-retirees wonder if they can make ends meet because pensions and 401K plans have been wiped out.

On Thursday, it got worse. The White House announced that it was willing to compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts --- something that the Republicans wanted, but Obama said previously he was against. This would allow high earners (generally those over $250,000 a year) to continue to get a tax break. According to Robert Kuttner, an economist and co-editor of the American Prospect Magazine, continuing the tax cuts for the wealthy will add $1 trillion to the deficit.

Wait a minute. I thought everyone had to sacrifice to help deal with this national problem, the huge deficit. Well, I guess not everyone. Not the Wall Street guys and the rich.

What a disgrace.

By the way, one of those Wall Street guys, Erskine Bowles, is the co-chair of Obama’s deficit panel. He gets paid $300,000 a year for being on the board of the huge investment firm, Morgan Stanley.

One suggestion that’s been floated in the past to raise more money and ease the deficit is by enacting a stock transaction tax. This would raise hundreds of billions of dollars, even with a fractional tax. Investment houses don't like the concept. For some reason, the commission didn’t broach this idea.

Another major area the commission didn’t take up was the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. According to the National Priorities Project, they have cost over $1 trillion since 2001. While the deficit panel did recommend cuts to the military --- one thing they deserve credit for --- they didn’t call for ending the wars. These wars are a huge drain on the treasury.

It seems to me that if the wars were stopped, tax breaks for the rich were ended, and a stock transaction tax was put into place, the national deficit would not be an issue.

This approach would be a lot better than whacking the poor and the middle class.

Progressives ---- and labor in particular --- should let Obama know that their support is no longer a given --- that these outrageous recommendations and the Bush tax cuts have to go, or else.

Third party anyone?

One other thing. Jane Slaughter, the fine writer with Labor Notes, reports that a group of organizations is organizing a national Call-in Day to Congress on Nov. 30. That’s the day the deficit commission will release its final recommendations to Congress, including the provision on raising the retirement age. “They’re saying ‘Owe No You Don’t’ --- the goal is to create a groundswell of outrage that will make the recommendations dead on arrival,” she writes.

You can find out more at strengthensocialsecurity.org or labornotes.org.

Commentary

RIGHT-WARD DRIVE AT MSNBC?

By Reginald Johnson

Nov. 7, 2010

A strong grassroots effort has sprung up to fight the suspension of liberal commentator Keith Olbermann from MSNBC, as many worry that the cable news network may be heading in a more conservative direction.

The group Progressive Change Campaign Committee said Sunday it has gathered over 300,000 signatures on a petition demanding that MSNBC reinstate Olbermann to his show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” MSNBC President Phil Griffin announced Friday that he was suspending the commentator “indefinitely” due to three campaign contributions Olbermann had made to Democratic candidates prior to the Nov. 2 election.

Griffin said NBC rules bar company employees from making political contributions.

But there may be a double standard at work here ---- since in the past MSNBC did nothing to penalize conservative commentators Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough from making donations to Republicans. The media advocacy group FAIR has also pointed out that the head of NBC, Robert Wright, has made political donations in the past as well.

There’s reports that NBC officials have been growing uneasy with the liberal face MSNBC is adopting, with the views of many of its hosts such as Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Ed Shultz. Is there a push going on now to create more “balance” by permanently removing Olbermann, and replacing him with someone more middle of the road?

The loss of Olbermann from one of the three major cable news operations (the others are FOX and CNN) would be a setback to progressives, who already struggle to get heard on the airwaves. FOX has long been a lost cause for liberals. Progressives rarely appear on FOX and if they do, they sit on panels of three or four speakers with all the others being conservative. The liberal gets shouted down. Evening hosts as well as some morning hosts on FOX are hopelessly right-wing and are running a blatant propaganda operation on behalf of the Republicans.

CNN, which tries to maintain an image of being centrist and non-partisan, has actually added a couple of right-wing commentators to its line-up in recent years – Erick Erickson and William Bennett.

So that leaves MSNBC, and why it’s important to bring Olbermann back. While far from being perfect (sometimes he can be too uncritical in analyzing different issues) Olbermann in general has been a big plus on the cable TV news scene. He frequently brings on progressive voices, and his commentaries over the years have been strong.

His “Special Comments” ripping the Bush administration for the lies concerning Iraq and the dismantling of civil liberties were particularly good.

To join the petition to reinstate Olbermann, go to http://boldprogressives.org/home.