Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
I've tried with varying degrees of success to live up to that jounalistic mission in my 22 years as a reporter and with this blog. Blogging has been one of the few pleasures of unemployment, but I'm suspending this blog to avoid the apperance of a conflict of interest in my new job at a Northeastern Ohio newspaper.
I'm grateful to my new employers and to have found a job in this wretched economy in which there are five unemployed Americans for every job. http://workplacepsychology.net/2010/07/21/5-unemployed-americans-competing-for-1-available-job/ Given the "burn the village to save it" economy strategy of Republicans and the acquiescence of many top Democrats, things are only going to get worse and I have tremendous empathy for unemployed people.
However, this is a bittersweet moment for me. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love being a reporter. I was the 8-year-old who ran home to watch the Watergate hearings on television, hung out at court trials on my summer vacations as a teenager and drove around with my portable scanner on days off while a crime reporter.
Unemployment was frightening and frustrating but this blog was a respite. It freed me from the constraints of conventional journalism and allowed be to be an activist/ journalist. Some people say you can't be both, but I disagree.
Some bloggers piggyback off the work of mainstream journalists to take cheap shots and pontificate. I believe the role of a blogger is to offer fact-based analysis and opinion that too often gets lost in the daily mainstream media cycle of he said/she said, who's up, who's down?, journalism.
As a blogger I didn't have to walk the fine line between writing analytical, fact-based journalism that offers context and perspective and editorializing. Reporters don't have that luxury, but too often they either play it safe or become co-opted by the people they're supposed to be holding accountable.
A reporter has an obligation to be fair, but I don't believe that should stop us from crusading against injustice no matter how lofty that goal may sound. I've had the pleasure of working with some outstanding editors and reporters during my career, but also too many reporters who were essentially stenographers.
Our job is to hold the powerful accountable. Not the "manufacture of consent" for them, a phrase coined by the rightwing journalist Walter Lippmann who belived the elite needed to control the masses. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Walter_Lippmann
As I grew more experienced as a reporter I began to understand that being fair is not always being balanced. If I wrote about a Holocaust survivor I didn't feel the need to insert a quote from a Holocaust denier. While seeking quotes from child molesters and neo-Nazis when writing about them, I didn't feel that I needed to approach the story with " an open mind" about them, just treat them fairly.
Too often reporters draw false equivalents between two sides either in a mistaken attempt at balance or out of fear of offending powerbrokers and losing access to them. That can often lead to a trip to the unemployment line.
Pretending both sides are equally to blame for an issue is also a convenient way to avoid taking sides. A good example is America's deficit and national debt.
Ronald Reagan, aka St. Reagan, ran up astronomical deficits and national debt with huge military spending and tax cuts for the rich. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26402-2004Jun8?language=printer
Bush II inherited an approximately $260 billion surplus from Bill Clinton and left Barack Obama with an approximately $1.3 trillion deficit. The deficit was primarily due to tax cuts for the rich, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the Medicare Part D prescription drug giveaway to Big Pharma. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/08/deficit_numbers.html
In fairness, most Democrats supported the war and a handful voted for the tax cuts, but by and large the deficit was created by Republican initiatives. Yet the mainstream media's refusal to state the obvious has helped fuel the perception of tax and spend Democrats and thrifty Republicans.
Journalism should not be about false narratives. Whether you're a blogger or a reporter, good journalism is about rocking the boat which is how I came up with the name of this blog. But when you rock the boat, you better be prepared to swim for your life.
As a reporter I've challenged that conventional political wisdom and taken heat even though I had my facts right. Usually it was local powerbrokers protecting their turf, readers who'd become conditioned to he said/she said stenography, or cowardly bosses protecting their jobs.
While I confess to enjoying raising a little hell, my only agenda was accountability. Whether it was cops, corporations or politicans. I've questioned Democrats as fiercely as Republicans when they deserved it.
I grew up and spent most of my early career as a journalist in Connecticut where Democrats hold sway.
I angered Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd by questioning his ties to the insurance industry and Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro for supporting sending helicopters made in her district to the Colombian military despite it's atrocious human rights abuses documented by our own State Department. Then Republican Gov. John Rowland didn't appreciate my questions about his role in a deal with Enron that cost the state some $200 million (Rowland later went to jail for corruption unrelated to the Enron deal).
Anyone whose read this blog knows my feelings about Obama, aka The Great Capitulator, aren't much different than about Bush II. But that doesn't mean I won't acknowledge that Obama inherited a mess from Bush or that Republicans have been obstructing him since his election to the detriment of America.
While I've always tried to be fair and usually succeeded, writing a personal opinion blog while a working journalist could create the appearance of a conflict of interest. It's tricky ground.
Some journalists believe we shouldn't vote or make political contributions. Or get involved in any kind of political activity like attending antiwar or pro-war rallies, aka Support the Troops rallies.
I don't believe you should sacrifice all your duties or rights as a citizen when you become a journalist or paint yourself into a corner with restrictive rules. I think you should take it on a case by case basis.
I believe voting is not only a right, but a duty. And that journalists have a right to donate to causes or politicians they believe are worthy in the same way a citizen does.
But sometimes we have to take a step back. For instance, I strongly believe in the rights of all workers to collectively bargain. But I understand how a supporter of Ohio's new union busting law known as Senate Bill 5 could question my objectivity if I continued to blog critically about it and then had to report on it. I would honor my responsibility to be fair, but it could unfairly draw heat on my employer.
Ideally, I would be a columnist and get paid to give my opinions. But that isn't my new job.
I want to thank the people who have taken the time to read this blog. Your comments online and in person have made all the time I've put into it worthwhile.
I'll continue to to try to ask hard questions and tell hard truths as a journalist whatever the consequences. That's what we're supposed to do.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Burn the Village
We must burn the village to save it.
That was the American strategy for victory in Vietnam and a good description of the Republican economic strategy for America and Ohio which many Democrats, including our impotent president, are caving in to.
The $38 billion in federal cuts proposed by Republicans and agreed to last Friday by President Obama, aka The Great Capitulator, will severely punish Americans for a deficit and national debt they are not responsible for. The proposal, expected to be approved this week by Congress, is economic and environmental assault. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/us/politics/12congress.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24
Among the cuts are $1.6 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency, which will make it even more of a lapdog to industry than the watchdog it is supposed to be. The budget cuts $47 million for climate change reduction and $10 million for food safety and inspection.
It eliminates $1 billion in proposed spending for high speed rail which would have increased jobs and decreased pollution and plays into the hands of Republican governors like Ohio's Gov. John Kasich who have rejected federal high speed rail money. Their hollow argument that their states couldn't afford to pay their share of the projects further addicts Americans to oil as gas prices inch toward $4 per gallon.
The shameful budget cuts clean energy programs and Pell Grants for summer school students. It even cuts $4 billion for compensation to crime victims.
Ohio's budget is just as bad. "The jobless budget," is how Democratic State Rep. Dennis Murray of Sandusky described it in a Monday night budget presentation.
The biennial budget will force county and local government leaders to take the blame for raising local taxes to compensate for cuts. Erie County, the county I live just outside of in Sandusky County, will see a 21 percent cut in state funding in 2012 ($400,000) and a 36 percent cut in 2013 ($510,498), according to Murray.
The budget paves the way for oil drilling in state parks and privatization of the Ohio Turnpike. It privatizes five state prisons with the $200 million in one-time revenue, in no way compensating for the private prisons never having to pay local or property taxes. Hospital funding will be cut by $597 million while nursing home funding will be cut by $472 million.
Meanwhile, in true reverse Robin Hood fashion, there are $800 million in tax cuts with 40 percent going to the wealthiest 5 percent of Ohioans, Murray said. And over $7 billion in tax breaks for businesses. http://www.policymattersohio.org/pdf/TaxExpendituresReportESum2011.pdf
"These budget cuts are about people," Murray told the audience of about 50 people at the Erie County Office Building. "Living in a civilized society has a cost and it (the budget) worsens it."
Sadly, the cuts are just the beginning as the assault on America escalates to economic and environmental rape. About two-thirds of the $4 trillion in cuts proposed in Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin's "Path to Prosperity" budget plan over the next 10 years would impact disadvantated and poor Americans including $2.9 trillion in Medicare cuts. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3451
And putting a lie to talk by Democrats and Republicans of shared sacrifice, the Ryan plan cuts about $2.9 trillion over 10 years for corporations and the superrich. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=2969&DocTypeID=5
Don't count on Obama to fight hard against the Republicans. Obama is the kind of guy who would expect you to be grateful for him getting you a tent after the Republicans threw you out of your house. Rather than debate whether cutting spending after the worst recession since the Great Depression is a good idea, Obama has allowed Republicans to frame the debate over how much to cut.
In a budget speech Wednesday, Obama is expected to champion the recommendations of the chairmen of his Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform nicknamed the Catfood Commission because that's what the elderly will have to eat with the cuts in Medicare and Social Security the commission recommends.
Two-thirds of the plan by Democrat Erskine Bowles and former Republican Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, the committe co-chairs, recommends cutting costs rather than raising revenue. It reduces the tax rate while raising the retirement age and includes spending freezes that will handcuff government's ability to provide essential services. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3325
Someone asked Murray what could be done to fight the cuts. He suggested letter writing to politicians and local newspapers which is a good idea, but just a first step.
Talk to everyone you interact with each day about why the cuts are bad and how it will affect them. The clerk at the convenience store or supermarket. The mechanic who changes the oil in your car. Your co-workers, friends and neighbors.
Keep it simple. Compare deficit spending to taking out car or college loans or second mortgages. Compare cutting spending in this morbid economy to conserving water when you're house is burning down.
Groups of us will also have to confront our politicians at events. Not in a nasty way like the Tea Party, but in a contstructive, forceful way. Non-violent resistance or sitdown strikes are also an option.
Agitate, educate and organize. But first get mad. Outrage breeds resistance.
That was the American strategy for victory in Vietnam and a good description of the Republican economic strategy for America and Ohio which many Democrats, including our impotent president, are caving in to.
The $38 billion in federal cuts proposed by Republicans and agreed to last Friday by President Obama, aka The Great Capitulator, will severely punish Americans for a deficit and national debt they are not responsible for. The proposal, expected to be approved this week by Congress, is economic and environmental assault. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/us/politics/12congress.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24
Among the cuts are $1.6 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency, which will make it even more of a lapdog to industry than the watchdog it is supposed to be. The budget cuts $47 million for climate change reduction and $10 million for food safety and inspection.
It eliminates $1 billion in proposed spending for high speed rail which would have increased jobs and decreased pollution and plays into the hands of Republican governors like Ohio's Gov. John Kasich who have rejected federal high speed rail money. Their hollow argument that their states couldn't afford to pay their share of the projects further addicts Americans to oil as gas prices inch toward $4 per gallon.
The shameful budget cuts clean energy programs and Pell Grants for summer school students. It even cuts $4 billion for compensation to crime victims.
Ohio's budget is just as bad. "The jobless budget," is how Democratic State Rep. Dennis Murray of Sandusky described it in a Monday night budget presentation.
The biennial budget will force county and local government leaders to take the blame for raising local taxes to compensate for cuts. Erie County, the county I live just outside of in Sandusky County, will see a 21 percent cut in state funding in 2012 ($400,000) and a 36 percent cut in 2013 ($510,498), according to Murray.
The budget paves the way for oil drilling in state parks and privatization of the Ohio Turnpike. It privatizes five state prisons with the $200 million in one-time revenue, in no way compensating for the private prisons never having to pay local or property taxes. Hospital funding will be cut by $597 million while nursing home funding will be cut by $472 million.
Meanwhile, in true reverse Robin Hood fashion, there are $800 million in tax cuts with 40 percent going to the wealthiest 5 percent of Ohioans, Murray said. And over $7 billion in tax breaks for businesses. http://www.policymattersohio.org/pdf/TaxExpendituresReportESum2011.pdf
"These budget cuts are about people," Murray told the audience of about 50 people at the Erie County Office Building. "Living in a civilized society has a cost and it (the budget) worsens it."
Sadly, the cuts are just the beginning as the assault on America escalates to economic and environmental rape. About two-thirds of the $4 trillion in cuts proposed in Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin's "Path to Prosperity" budget plan over the next 10 years would impact disadvantated and poor Americans including $2.9 trillion in Medicare cuts. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3451
And putting a lie to talk by Democrats and Republicans of shared sacrifice, the Ryan plan cuts about $2.9 trillion over 10 years for corporations and the superrich. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=2969&DocTypeID=5
Don't count on Obama to fight hard against the Republicans. Obama is the kind of guy who would expect you to be grateful for him getting you a tent after the Republicans threw you out of your house. Rather than debate whether cutting spending after the worst recession since the Great Depression is a good idea, Obama has allowed Republicans to frame the debate over how much to cut.
In a budget speech Wednesday, Obama is expected to champion the recommendations of the chairmen of his Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform nicknamed the Catfood Commission because that's what the elderly will have to eat with the cuts in Medicare and Social Security the commission recommends.
Two-thirds of the plan by Democrat Erskine Bowles and former Republican Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, the committe co-chairs, recommends cutting costs rather than raising revenue. It reduces the tax rate while raising the retirement age and includes spending freezes that will handcuff government's ability to provide essential services. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3325
Someone asked Murray what could be done to fight the cuts. He suggested letter writing to politicians and local newspapers which is a good idea, but just a first step.
Talk to everyone you interact with each day about why the cuts are bad and how it will affect them. The clerk at the convenience store or supermarket. The mechanic who changes the oil in your car. Your co-workers, friends and neighbors.
Keep it simple. Compare deficit spending to taking out car or college loans or second mortgages. Compare cutting spending in this morbid economy to conserving water when you're house is burning down.
Groups of us will also have to confront our politicians at events. Not in a nasty way like the Tea Party, but in a contstructive, forceful way. Non-violent resistance or sitdown strikes are also an option.
Agitate, educate and organize. But first get mad. Outrage breeds resistance.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
A Great Fight
A day after our impotent president refused to fight Republican blackmail by agreeing to $38 billion in devastating budget cuts to avoid a government shutdown, several thousand brave Ohioans refused to give in to Republican union busting.
Saturday's rally outside the statehouse in Columbus was the unofficial kickoff of a petiton drive for a November referendum to overturn Ohio's new union busting law that forbids strikes and collective bargaining over healthcare and pension benefits and workplace rules by public unions. The law, signed last month by Republican Gov. John Kasich who pushed it through the legislature, also allows local governments and schoolboards to decide on disputed contract negotiations rather than an neutral arbitrator virtually ensuring that union final offers will be rejected.
The public workers and their supporters refuse to be scapegoated for Ohio's approximately $8 billion shortfall which was mainly caused by tax cuts to the rich and corporations and Wall Street legalized theft that triggered the Great Recession.Unlike Obama, aka The Great Capitulator, public workers are willing to fight to prevent the middle class from being eviscerated and our nation turned into the have-nots and the have-a-lots.
They understand that when Congress approves tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans in December increasing the deficit by some $700 billion over 10 years, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/us/politics/11tax.html calls for "shared sacrifice" or Obama's Friday comment that, "we all must live within our means" are a joke. And the joke is on us.
"These policies that they are putting down our throat are the policies that led directly to the Great Depression," the Rev. Rod Kennedy, senior pastor at The First Baptist Church in Dayton, told the crowd. "They're not just trying to destroy collective bargaining, they're trying to turn you into indentured servants all over again."
Kennedy understands America is being transformed from The New Deal to The New Steal. That the new law, commonly referred to as Senate Bill 5, is just the latest in 30 years of reverse Robin Hood economics and taxation.
Speaking as if from the pulpit, Kennedy called the law part of a "century old grudge" by Republicans against unions. Recalling the bloody battles unions fought for child labor laws, a 40-hour work week and decent pay and working conditions, Kennedy called for a new fight.
"This is a great fight to be part of," he said. "This is our moment. Our chance to prove who we are and why we believe in the common good."
Kennedy was one of several inspiring speakers. Like the Columbus police officer paralyzed from the waist down after a 1998 shooting who noted that the new law forbids officers from negotiating over safety equipment like bullet proof vests or staffing.
The prison guard who supervises 120 prisoners in a pod at the maximum security prison in Mansfield with just one other guard. and worries about more cuts. Kasich is planning to privatize some of Ohio's prisons, a recipe for more violence and an incentive to keep prisons full rather than opting for far less expensive alternatives to incaceration.
There was a teacher who spoke of how eliminating teacher's seniority for a merit pay system will turn an atmosphere of "collaboration and cooperation" into one of "retalition and litigation." An Ohio Jobs and Family Service worker spoke of being foreclosed on and living paycheck to paycheck after an illness. "Life is not fair, but there is right and there is wrong and (Senate) Bill 5 is wrong," she said.
The woman mentioned that her union has endured two years of wage freezes and has give up 10 furlough days per years. Don't count on the past concessions unions have made getting much media coverage.
Sunday's misleading Op-ed in the non-union Sandusky Register by Managing Editor Matt Westerhold was typical of the editorials in most Ohio newspapers, most of which are non-union. (Full disclosure:: I was a reporter in 2005-06 for Register.)
Westerhold said a requirement that unions pay 15 percent of health benefits would be "locked in." Does he really think that percentage is in perpetuity? With unions unable to bargain over healthcare, what's to stop the state from increasing the percentage in future years?
Westerhold also employs a race to the bottom, split and divide mentality reasoning that since private unions were forced to make huge concessions years ago, so should public unions. Instead of calling for decent pay and benefits for all workers, whether they are unionized or not, Westerhold's logic is that since private union workers and non-union workers don't have decent pay and benefits, neither should public union workers.
Westerhold never mentions that the reason cities and states are cash strapped is because of financial deregulation voted for by people like Kasich when he was a congressman and public pension fund mismanagement by companies like Lehman Brothers, which Kasich worked for.
Westerhold mentions the high cost of healthcare, but never mentions this is due to our for-profit medical care system and that a single-payer system, essentially Medicare for all, would save some $400 billion per year by eliminating insurance companies from the health care equation. http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources
Instead, Westerhold writes that, "the days municipal unions demanded and received concessions almost at will are undoubtedly over." I've been a reporter for 20 years and I don't remember those days.
Whenever I wrote about public union contracts, unions were lucky to get 2 or 3 percent wage increases - barely enough to keep pace with inflation - and sometimes agreed to wage freezes and health benefit concessions.
Opponents of union busting have never recieved much media support, so negative editorials are nothing new. And in fairness, corrupt union leaders and the decisions of some union leaders to fight the firings of incompetent workers has damaged the reputation of the rank and file.
The truth is there is always deadwood, whether in a newsroom or a union shop. But the majority of union members are hardworking people who aren't getting rich, just like reporters. Government workers are our friends, family and neighbors and they deserve our support. Think about that when the petitions circulate.
Saturday's rally outside the statehouse in Columbus was the unofficial kickoff of a petiton drive for a November referendum to overturn Ohio's new union busting law that forbids strikes and collective bargaining over healthcare and pension benefits and workplace rules by public unions. The law, signed last month by Republican Gov. John Kasich who pushed it through the legislature, also allows local governments and schoolboards to decide on disputed contract negotiations rather than an neutral arbitrator virtually ensuring that union final offers will be rejected.
The public workers and their supporters refuse to be scapegoated for Ohio's approximately $8 billion shortfall which was mainly caused by tax cuts to the rich and corporations and Wall Street legalized theft that triggered the Great Recession.Unlike Obama, aka The Great Capitulator, public workers are willing to fight to prevent the middle class from being eviscerated and our nation turned into the have-nots and the have-a-lots.
They understand that when Congress approves tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans in December increasing the deficit by some $700 billion over 10 years, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/us/politics/11tax.html calls for "shared sacrifice" or Obama's Friday comment that, "we all must live within our means" are a joke. And the joke is on us.
"These policies that they are putting down our throat are the policies that led directly to the Great Depression," the Rev. Rod Kennedy, senior pastor at The First Baptist Church in Dayton, told the crowd. "They're not just trying to destroy collective bargaining, they're trying to turn you into indentured servants all over again."
Kennedy understands America is being transformed from The New Deal to The New Steal. That the new law, commonly referred to as Senate Bill 5, is just the latest in 30 years of reverse Robin Hood economics and taxation.
Speaking as if from the pulpit, Kennedy called the law part of a "century old grudge" by Republicans against unions. Recalling the bloody battles unions fought for child labor laws, a 40-hour work week and decent pay and working conditions, Kennedy called for a new fight.
"This is a great fight to be part of," he said. "This is our moment. Our chance to prove who we are and why we believe in the common good."
Kennedy was one of several inspiring speakers. Like the Columbus police officer paralyzed from the waist down after a 1998 shooting who noted that the new law forbids officers from negotiating over safety equipment like bullet proof vests or staffing.
The prison guard who supervises 120 prisoners in a pod at the maximum security prison in Mansfield with just one other guard. and worries about more cuts. Kasich is planning to privatize some of Ohio's prisons, a recipe for more violence and an incentive to keep prisons full rather than opting for far less expensive alternatives to incaceration.
There was a teacher who spoke of how eliminating teacher's seniority for a merit pay system will turn an atmosphere of "collaboration and cooperation" into one of "retalition and litigation." An Ohio Jobs and Family Service worker spoke of being foreclosed on and living paycheck to paycheck after an illness. "Life is not fair, but there is right and there is wrong and (Senate) Bill 5 is wrong," she said.
The woman mentioned that her union has endured two years of wage freezes and has give up 10 furlough days per years. Don't count on the past concessions unions have made getting much media coverage.
Sunday's misleading Op-ed in the non-union Sandusky Register by Managing Editor Matt Westerhold was typical of the editorials in most Ohio newspapers, most of which are non-union. (Full disclosure:: I was a reporter in 2005-06 for Register.)
Westerhold said a requirement that unions pay 15 percent of health benefits would be "locked in." Does he really think that percentage is in perpetuity? With unions unable to bargain over healthcare, what's to stop the state from increasing the percentage in future years?
Westerhold also employs a race to the bottom, split and divide mentality reasoning that since private unions were forced to make huge concessions years ago, so should public unions. Instead of calling for decent pay and benefits for all workers, whether they are unionized or not, Westerhold's logic is that since private union workers and non-union workers don't have decent pay and benefits, neither should public union workers.
Westerhold never mentions that the reason cities and states are cash strapped is because of financial deregulation voted for by people like Kasich when he was a congressman and public pension fund mismanagement by companies like Lehman Brothers, which Kasich worked for.
Westerhold mentions the high cost of healthcare, but never mentions this is due to our for-profit medical care system and that a single-payer system, essentially Medicare for all, would save some $400 billion per year by eliminating insurance companies from the health care equation. http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-resources
Instead, Westerhold writes that, "the days municipal unions demanded and received concessions almost at will are undoubtedly over." I've been a reporter for 20 years and I don't remember those days.
Whenever I wrote about public union contracts, unions were lucky to get 2 or 3 percent wage increases - barely enough to keep pace with inflation - and sometimes agreed to wage freezes and health benefit concessions.
Opponents of union busting have never recieved much media support, so negative editorials are nothing new. And in fairness, corrupt union leaders and the decisions of some union leaders to fight the firings of incompetent workers has damaged the reputation of the rank and file.
The truth is there is always deadwood, whether in a newsroom or a union shop. But the majority of union members are hardworking people who aren't getting rich, just like reporters. Government workers are our friends, family and neighbors and they deserve our support. Think about that when the petitions circulate.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Piece Now
This week I applied for my Ohio permit to carry pistols and I believe law-abiding citizens have a right to carry guns because police cannot always protect us. However, the lax gun laws in this nation are insane and the gun industry and the politicians who support it have blood on their hands.
Annually, some 31,244 Americans die from gun violence including 12,632 who are murdered. http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence#NCIPC Yet even the Jan. 8th Tuscon massacre in which six people were killed and 13 people, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, were wounded, hasn't spurred change. Like renewing the assault weapons ban which expired in 2003 and banned sales of high capacity magazines like the 33-round clip used in the Tuscon shooting.
Commonsense tells you that you don't need 33 rounds to defend yourself and inconviencing shooters at shooting ranges by making them have to load more clips is a small price to pay to reduce the kind of carnage that occurred in Tuscon or in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre that killed 33.
Another reasonable law would be to require all gun purchasers to obtain permits by undergoing criminal background checks and taking the education and gun safety class I attended on Sunday. In Ohio, everyone seeking to carry a concealed handgun must take the 12-hour class which includes demonstrating an ability to shoot safely and learning self-defense laws.
But instead of national requirements, states have a patchwork of laws. In Indiana, where I have a lifetime permit, no classes were required and all I had to do was pass a criminal background check.
Requiring purchasers of all types of guns to get permits and take the classes would discourage frivolous purchases. It would weed out people who literally can't shoot straight and would be a danger to themselves and others if allowed to purchase guns.
Many people have heard of the "gun show loophole" which allows purchases of guns without undergoing a criminal background check. But how many people are aware that in 45 states including Ohio, individuals who are not licensed gun dealers can sell guns to people without making the buyers undergo a criminal background check.
That's right. A licensed gun dealer has to jump through hoops, but not someone who “makes occasional
sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or
for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.” http://www.lcav.org/content/private_sales.pdf
The only exception in Ohio is in Columbus where private sellers must have a "weapon transaction permit."
Columbus, Ohio, Code §§ 2323.20, 2323.21 However, the Ohio legislature in 2006 passed a law saying state gun laws supercede local laws.
Since private transactions require no paperwork or identification verification, sellers aren't even required to check the buyers driver's license enabling underaged people to buy guns. The Columbine shooters used guns bought by a friend from a gun show dealer. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/opinion/27tue2.html?_r=1&ref=dylanklebold
Kevin Randleman, the suspect in the March 19 fatal shooting Sandusky, Ohio police Officer Andy Dunn, is a career criminal. It's unclear how the .38 caliber pistol used in the shooting was obtained by the shooter, but under Ohio's laws and the majority of other states, criminals like Randleman can buy guns with no questions in private sales. A 2000 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report found unlicensed sellers were involved in a fifth of the agency's gun trafficking investigations and linked to 23,000 diverted guns. http://www.lcav.org/content/private_sales.pdf
Republicans will fight the increases tooth and nail because they are completely subservient to the National Rifle Association. Here in Ohio, Republican US Sen. Rob Portman received the third highest NRA contributions - nearly $42,000 - in the last election. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=q13
However, President Obama aka The Great Capitulator, isn't much better. At the memorial to the Tuscon massacre victims, Obama waxed about 9-year-old victim Christina Green splashing through rain puddles in heaven. But he made no mention of banning the high capacity magazines used in her killing or did he mention gun control in his State of the Union speech.
The best Obama could do was a tepid editorial in the Arizona Star that while calling for faster and more thorough background checks made no mention of renewing the assault weapons ban or closing loopholes involving gun show or private sales of guns. http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_011e7118-8951-5206-a878-39bfbc9dc89d.html
The guys I took the gun class with are responsible gun owners who aren't looking to be vigilantes. They were told to call the police if there's a problem and that they only have the right to shoot as a last resort when their lives, or the lives of others, are endangered.
"At the end of the day, it's all about safe gun handling," our instructor told us. "The people who take this class aren't looking for problems. They're looking for protection."
The instructor made a legitimate complaint about businesses that post no gun signs making it illegal for licensed gun owners to carry in their establishments. Our instructor called them "criminal protection zones" noting criminals aren't likely to obey the signs.
But the instructor also said he believed requiring the class was, "an infringement on our rights." That's part of the problem: a belief by many gun owners that the Second Amendment means no restrictions whatsover on gun ownership. And that any laws are a slippery slope to government confiscation of all guns.
The NRA plays on this paranoia. I let my membership expire in disgust when during the pro-gun Bush II administration, the organization continued to stoke fears of confiscation.
The NRA's answer to gun violence is always to call for stricter sentencing of criminals without supporting laws to keep guns out of hands of criminals before they commit crimes. The carnage isn't just in the US. The majority of the guns seized in the horrendous Mexican drug war that has killed some 30,000 people since December of 2006 came from Texas and Arizona. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121202663.html
Prior to the Giffords shooting, the Obama administration was planning to cut the BATF budget before reversing course and proposing increases. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/02/AR2011020205779.html
But it's not enough. Besides renewing the assault weapons ban and requiring all gun buyers to obtain permits, the BATF needs huge increases agents. The underfunded and the underfunded agency only has about 600 inspectors to check on the more than 100,000 licensed gun dealers who make some 8 million sales per year. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1618392,00.html
When I asked Sandusky Police Chief Jim Lang whether he supported renewal of the assault weapons ban he said yes, but that it wouldn't stop guns from getting into the hands of criminals. That's true, but his logic is flawed.
Airbags and seatbelts and stricter drunken driving laws didn't stop automobile deaths, but they reduced them. The same way stricter building codes and sprinkler systems reduced deadly fires. Reasonable laws that don't infringe on law-abiding gun owners like myself would do the same.
Yes, the NRA and the gun industry are powerful, but few things worth doing are easy. It's the least we owe Officer Dunn and all the other gun victims.
Annually, some 31,244 Americans die from gun violence including 12,632 who are murdered. http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/gunviolence#NCIPC Yet even the Jan. 8th Tuscon massacre in which six people were killed and 13 people, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, were wounded, hasn't spurred change. Like renewing the assault weapons ban which expired in 2003 and banned sales of high capacity magazines like the 33-round clip used in the Tuscon shooting.
Commonsense tells you that you don't need 33 rounds to defend yourself and inconviencing shooters at shooting ranges by making them have to load more clips is a small price to pay to reduce the kind of carnage that occurred in Tuscon or in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre that killed 33.
Another reasonable law would be to require all gun purchasers to obtain permits by undergoing criminal background checks and taking the education and gun safety class I attended on Sunday. In Ohio, everyone seeking to carry a concealed handgun must take the 12-hour class which includes demonstrating an ability to shoot safely and learning self-defense laws.
But instead of national requirements, states have a patchwork of laws. In Indiana, where I have a lifetime permit, no classes were required and all I had to do was pass a criminal background check.
Requiring purchasers of all types of guns to get permits and take the classes would discourage frivolous purchases. It would weed out people who literally can't shoot straight and would be a danger to themselves and others if allowed to purchase guns.
Many people have heard of the "gun show loophole" which allows purchases of guns without undergoing a criminal background check. But how many people are aware that in 45 states including Ohio, individuals who are not licensed gun dealers can sell guns to people without making the buyers undergo a criminal background check.
That's right. A licensed gun dealer has to jump through hoops, but not someone who “makes occasional
sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or
for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.” http://www.lcav.org/content/private_sales.pdf
The only exception in Ohio is in Columbus where private sellers must have a "weapon transaction permit."
Columbus, Ohio, Code §§ 2323.20, 2323.21 However, the Ohio legislature in 2006 passed a law saying state gun laws supercede local laws.
Since private transactions require no paperwork or identification verification, sellers aren't even required to check the buyers driver's license enabling underaged people to buy guns. The Columbine shooters used guns bought by a friend from a gun show dealer. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/opinion/27tue2.html?_r=1&ref=dylanklebold
Kevin Randleman, the suspect in the March 19 fatal shooting Sandusky, Ohio police Officer Andy Dunn, is a career criminal. It's unclear how the .38 caliber pistol used in the shooting was obtained by the shooter, but under Ohio's laws and the majority of other states, criminals like Randleman can buy guns with no questions in private sales. A 2000 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report found unlicensed sellers were involved in a fifth of the agency's gun trafficking investigations and linked to 23,000 diverted guns. http://www.lcav.org/content/private_sales.pdf
Republicans will fight the increases tooth and nail because they are completely subservient to the National Rifle Association. Here in Ohio, Republican US Sen. Rob Portman received the third highest NRA contributions - nearly $42,000 - in the last election. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=q13
However, President Obama aka The Great Capitulator, isn't much better. At the memorial to the Tuscon massacre victims, Obama waxed about 9-year-old victim Christina Green splashing through rain puddles in heaven. But he made no mention of banning the high capacity magazines used in her killing or did he mention gun control in his State of the Union speech.
The best Obama could do was a tepid editorial in the Arizona Star that while calling for faster and more thorough background checks made no mention of renewing the assault weapons ban or closing loopholes involving gun show or private sales of guns. http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_011e7118-8951-5206-a878-39bfbc9dc89d.html
The guys I took the gun class with are responsible gun owners who aren't looking to be vigilantes. They were told to call the police if there's a problem and that they only have the right to shoot as a last resort when their lives, or the lives of others, are endangered.
"At the end of the day, it's all about safe gun handling," our instructor told us. "The people who take this class aren't looking for problems. They're looking for protection."
The instructor made a legitimate complaint about businesses that post no gun signs making it illegal for licensed gun owners to carry in their establishments. Our instructor called them "criminal protection zones" noting criminals aren't likely to obey the signs.
But the instructor also said he believed requiring the class was, "an infringement on our rights." That's part of the problem: a belief by many gun owners that the Second Amendment means no restrictions whatsover on gun ownership. And that any laws are a slippery slope to government confiscation of all guns.
The NRA plays on this paranoia. I let my membership expire in disgust when during the pro-gun Bush II administration, the organization continued to stoke fears of confiscation.
The NRA's answer to gun violence is always to call for stricter sentencing of criminals without supporting laws to keep guns out of hands of criminals before they commit crimes. The carnage isn't just in the US. The majority of the guns seized in the horrendous Mexican drug war that has killed some 30,000 people since December of 2006 came from Texas and Arizona. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121202663.html
Prior to the Giffords shooting, the Obama administration was planning to cut the BATF budget before reversing course and proposing increases. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/02/AR2011020205779.html
But it's not enough. Besides renewing the assault weapons ban and requiring all gun buyers to obtain permits, the BATF needs huge increases agents. The underfunded and the underfunded agency only has about 600 inspectors to check on the more than 100,000 licensed gun dealers who make some 8 million sales per year. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1618392,00.html
When I asked Sandusky Police Chief Jim Lang whether he supported renewal of the assault weapons ban he said yes, but that it wouldn't stop guns from getting into the hands of criminals. That's true, but his logic is flawed.
Airbags and seatbelts and stricter drunken driving laws didn't stop automobile deaths, but they reduced them. The same way stricter building codes and sprinkler systems reduced deadly fires. Reasonable laws that don't infringe on law-abiding gun owners like myself would do the same.
Yes, the NRA and the gun industry are powerful, but few things worth doing are easy. It's the least we owe Officer Dunn and all the other gun victims.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
One Day Longer
Forty-three years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, his name was invoked Monday as I stood out in a downpour in solidarity with striking US Tsubaki workers in Sandusky, Ohio.
King died in Memphis in 1968 supporting striking garbage workers and while the circumstances were different, the fight for decent wages and working conditions is the same.
"Dr. King's dream is alive today and his mission is necessary today," speaker Jack Baker told the crowd of about 75 people. "This is not a black thing or a white thing or a global economy thing. This is an us thing. It's a right or wrong thing."
King has been mytholiged and sanitized over time. His non-violent movement was splintered by the time he was killed and the constant FBI harassment and death threats had taken a deep emotional toll on his psyche. His first march on behalf of the striker had ended in a riot and he had been urged by supporters not to return as author Hampton Sides documented in his recent book on the King assassination. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/books/22book.html
However, King felt obligated perhaps in part because the strike touched on both the racial and economic equality he had pushed for in the last years of his life. The Memphis strike was triggered by a garbage worker being mutilated after falling into an aging, unsafe truck. It was the last straw for the all black garbage workers who later became part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Conditions are not as harsh for Tsubaki workers, but that in no way makes their cause any less just. The workers - who make chains for conveyor belts and rollercoasters - are among the few Americans with decent manufacturing jobs in the 30 years since the deindustrialization of American began. After making wage concessions in the past, they refused to make huge healthcare concessions and struck in January with the company vowing to permanently replace them with strikebreakers.
The strike took courage. The deck is stacked against the workers with a lengthy complaint process with the National Labor Relations Board about whether replacing the workers is legal. And the Japanese-based company could eventually opt to close the plant.
But the workers, who weren't getting rich on wages of less than $20 an hour, have made a stand.
"I commend you for sticking together," Barbara Clark, a Tsubaki worker and local head of the Sandusky NAACP, told the workers. "It might get a little hard, but nothing worthwhile ever comes easy."
The Tsubaki worker's fight is our fight. As King wrote in a Letter From a Birmingham Jail, "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. "
If we don't push back we're going to get rolled.Whether it's Ohio's new union busting law signed last week by Republican Gov. John Kasich which eviscerates collective bargaining rights http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/03/31/31-kasich-sign-sb5.html or the Republican's new federal budget proposal which shreds the social safety net and privatizes Medicare while cutting taxes for billionaires and millionaires http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12128/04-05-Ryan_Letter.pdf the middle class and the poor are under siege.
Like the Tsubaki strikers, we're the underdogs due to the enormous political clout of the corporations and superrich which severely undermines one person, one vote. But like the strikers, we can fight back.
Like the ballot initiative to overturn Ohio's union busting law. And local iniatives to recall politicans.
By confronting politicians in writing and in person - constructively challenging them with facts, not irrationally like the Tea Party - and letting them know that not only will we vote against them, but we'll support opponents. By getting our apathetic friends, family and neighbors to register to vote. And, if necessary, by getting arrested in non-violent protests like King.
"We'll be out here one day longer then they will be," Andy Campbell, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 54 assistant director, told the crowd.
Achieving economc and social justice is a neverending battle, but we can win if we're in it for the long haul. Together. One day longer.
King died in Memphis in 1968 supporting striking garbage workers and while the circumstances were different, the fight for decent wages and working conditions is the same.
"Dr. King's dream is alive today and his mission is necessary today," speaker Jack Baker told the crowd of about 75 people. "This is not a black thing or a white thing or a global economy thing. This is an us thing. It's a right or wrong thing."
King has been mytholiged and sanitized over time. His non-violent movement was splintered by the time he was killed and the constant FBI harassment and death threats had taken a deep emotional toll on his psyche. His first march on behalf of the striker had ended in a riot and he had been urged by supporters not to return as author Hampton Sides documented in his recent book on the King assassination. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/books/22book.html
However, King felt obligated perhaps in part because the strike touched on both the racial and economic equality he had pushed for in the last years of his life. The Memphis strike was triggered by a garbage worker being mutilated after falling into an aging, unsafe truck. It was the last straw for the all black garbage workers who later became part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Conditions are not as harsh for Tsubaki workers, but that in no way makes their cause any less just. The workers - who make chains for conveyor belts and rollercoasters - are among the few Americans with decent manufacturing jobs in the 30 years since the deindustrialization of American began. After making wage concessions in the past, they refused to make huge healthcare concessions and struck in January with the company vowing to permanently replace them with strikebreakers.
The strike took courage. The deck is stacked against the workers with a lengthy complaint process with the National Labor Relations Board about whether replacing the workers is legal. And the Japanese-based company could eventually opt to close the plant.
But the workers, who weren't getting rich on wages of less than $20 an hour, have made a stand.
"I commend you for sticking together," Barbara Clark, a Tsubaki worker and local head of the Sandusky NAACP, told the workers. "It might get a little hard, but nothing worthwhile ever comes easy."
The Tsubaki worker's fight is our fight. As King wrote in a Letter From a Birmingham Jail, "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. "
If we don't push back we're going to get rolled.Whether it's Ohio's new union busting law signed last week by Republican Gov. John Kasich which eviscerates collective bargaining rights http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/03/31/31-kasich-sign-sb5.html or the Republican's new federal budget proposal which shreds the social safety net and privatizes Medicare while cutting taxes for billionaires and millionaires http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12128/04-05-Ryan_Letter.pdf the middle class and the poor are under siege.
Like the Tsubaki strikers, we're the underdogs due to the enormous political clout of the corporations and superrich which severely undermines one person, one vote. But like the strikers, we can fight back.
Like the ballot initiative to overturn Ohio's union busting law. And local iniatives to recall politicans.
By confronting politicians in writing and in person - constructively challenging them with facts, not irrationally like the Tea Party - and letting them know that not only will we vote against them, but we'll support opponents. By getting our apathetic friends, family and neighbors to register to vote. And, if necessary, by getting arrested in non-violent protests like King.
"We'll be out here one day longer then they will be," Andy Campbell, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 54 assistant director, told the crowd.
Achieving economc and social justice is a neverending battle, but we can win if we're in it for the long haul. Together. One day longer.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Community Dialogue
When I saw the George W. Bush "Miss Me Yet?" and "Where is John Galt?" bumper stickers on the van outside the Sandusky Bay Cigar shop I visited Saturday in Sandusky, Ohio, I had a feeling I was in for a fight.
Inside the van owner was watching the Cleveland Indians game and calling for the New York Yankees, baseball's wealthiest team, to pay into a fund that could be used by poorer teams like the Indians, whenever the Yankees spend extravagantly on a baseball player. While a Yankee fan, I told the guy that I agreed with his idea since the Yankees - who benefit from being in a huge television market that enables them to consistently buy the best players, including former Indians - don't operate on a level playing field.
While the proudly libertarian guy was fine with redistributing the wealth of baseball's richest team to help the poor teams gain equality, sort of a sports version of socialism, it was a different story when I suggested we needed the superrich to pay their fair share of taxes. This was after the guy accused public workers of being lazy and overpaid.
I explained to the guy that as the son of a single mother who worked as a metermaid to put food on the table for me and was a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, I know that union benefits and wages are often the difference between being poor or middle class. And that having no union means being at the mercy of bosses who can make up the rules as they go along including trying to make workers do unpaid overtime or endure sexual harassment.
When he said that workers are free to hit the bricks if they don't like their boss, I noted that there are currently five Americans for every job http://workplacepsychology.net/2010/07/21/5-unemployed-americans-competing-for-1-available-job/
When he said that there would be more jobs if there were lower taxes I noted that the highest federal income tax rate was about 90 percent after The Great Depression and about 50 percent in 1981 when St. Reagan took over. During that time the US built a middle class and an infrastructure that were the envy of the world and rich people didn't starve. The top income tax rate now is 36 percent and Americans in 2009 paid the lowest amount of federal income tax since 1950. http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-05-10-taxes_N.htm
Things deteriorated from there. The guy said corporate CEOs deserved to be rewarded with bonuses for shipping jobs to China even if China uses child labor and prison labor. Despite the golden parachutes received by many of the CEOs responsible for the Wall Street crash, he insisted they would "pay for their mistakes." He said Donald Trump got rich from hard work.
I said relying on corporations to to police themselves was as effective as voluntary speed limits and that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a disciple of libertarian goddess Ayn Rand, was one of the biggest a-holes in the world and helped trigger the crash. By this time my $3.50 cigar had been smoked and strongly resisting the urge to threaten to kick the guy's fat libertarian ass all over the parking lot - in fairness he might have kicked my flaming liberal ass - I departed.
While I never could've changed the guy's closed mind, if I'd been more diplomatic, maybe I could've at least gotten him to agree that not all of us unemployed people want to be jobless and that most librarians and teachers aren't rich or lazy. Instead of talking to each other, we were talking at each other.
That's a shame because despite his worship of dog eat dog capitalism I don't doubt that the guy works hard and pays taxes, however reluctantly. Liberals like me don't want to take anything away from people like him, we just don't think it's fair that the wealthiest 1 percent, who earn about $1.137 million annually, just got a tax cut. And that the budget deficits in Ohio and around the US are largely due to the massive redistribution of wealth to the rich http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
I wish the libertarian guy and I communicated the way the people at a community meeting in Sandusky did a couple hours earlier. The meeting was called in the wake of the March 19 fatal shooting of Sandusky police Officer Andy Dunn. Dunn was white and the shooting suspect, career criminal Kevin Randleman, is black. That death unleased underlying racial tension in Sandusky, a mostly white city of about 26,000 in northwest Ohio.
The mostly black group of about 60 people talked about black and white churches working together to decrease violence by addressing issues like absentee parents and dysfunctional children. About volunteering in schools to provide children with the guidance and values they may not be getting at home.
They spoke about how police need to be respected, but also how all officers also need to show respect.
"The Officer Friendly you see on TV is not always the officer you see on the street," said one woman. "Authority needs to be tempered with a little compassion."
I spent a few minutes talking about the importance of pushing for stricter gun control and said it was the least we could do to honor Officer Dunn's memory. I told the audience that as a reporter I've seen the result of gun violence firsthand having visited dozens of homes of families whose loved ones were victims of gun violence. Dunn was one of about 31,244 who die of gun violence annually, 12,632 of whom were homicide victims.
I noted that criminals can't legally buy pistols like the .38 revolver used to kill Dunn meaning someone bought the gun legally and it was either part of a straw purchase, or stolen. I neglected to mention that in individual gun purchases not involving licensed gun sellers, the seller is not legally required to check if the buyer has a criminal background. That gives criminals a blank check.
Of course there will always be gun violence, but I pointed out that if all gun purchasers were required to go through the same one-day education and safety class required in Ohio to obtain a permit to carry pistols, it would discourage frivolous puchases and reduce the likelihood of guns ending up in the wrong hands.
As a gun owner who has pistol permits in Indiana and Michigan, I stressed that I'm not anti-gun, but that the lack of gun laws and lack of enforcement of them in this country is insane. I said they should lobby their politicians to renew the assault weapons ban which would reduce the kind of high capacity ammunition magazines used in the Virgina Tech and Tuscon massacres.
I told the audience they should go to Ohio US Sen. Rob Portman's area office and demand to speak to him about why he accepts donations from the National Rifle Association, an organization funded by the gun industry and dedicated to ensuring as many guns as possible are sold. Portman recieved the third highest contribution of Senate candidates in 2009-10. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=q1
Although the people who take part in these kinds of community meetings are well meaning, not a lot usually comes out of them. Nonetheless, it's important to keep the dialogue going because it's the first step to affecting postive change. I wish the libertarian guy had been there.
Inside the van owner was watching the Cleveland Indians game and calling for the New York Yankees, baseball's wealthiest team, to pay into a fund that could be used by poorer teams like the Indians, whenever the Yankees spend extravagantly on a baseball player. While a Yankee fan, I told the guy that I agreed with his idea since the Yankees - who benefit from being in a huge television market that enables them to consistently buy the best players, including former Indians - don't operate on a level playing field.
While the proudly libertarian guy was fine with redistributing the wealth of baseball's richest team to help the poor teams gain equality, sort of a sports version of socialism, it was a different story when I suggested we needed the superrich to pay their fair share of taxes. This was after the guy accused public workers of being lazy and overpaid.
I explained to the guy that as the son of a single mother who worked as a metermaid to put food on the table for me and was a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, I know that union benefits and wages are often the difference between being poor or middle class. And that having no union means being at the mercy of bosses who can make up the rules as they go along including trying to make workers do unpaid overtime or endure sexual harassment.
When he said that workers are free to hit the bricks if they don't like their boss, I noted that there are currently five Americans for every job http://workplacepsychology.net/2010/07/21/5-unemployed-americans-competing-for-1-available-job/
When he said that there would be more jobs if there were lower taxes I noted that the highest federal income tax rate was about 90 percent after The Great Depression and about 50 percent in 1981 when St. Reagan took over. During that time the US built a middle class and an infrastructure that were the envy of the world and rich people didn't starve. The top income tax rate now is 36 percent and Americans in 2009 paid the lowest amount of federal income tax since 1950. http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-05-10-taxes_N.htm
Things deteriorated from there. The guy said corporate CEOs deserved to be rewarded with bonuses for shipping jobs to China even if China uses child labor and prison labor. Despite the golden parachutes received by many of the CEOs responsible for the Wall Street crash, he insisted they would "pay for their mistakes." He said Donald Trump got rich from hard work.
I said relying on corporations to to police themselves was as effective as voluntary speed limits and that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a disciple of libertarian goddess Ayn Rand, was one of the biggest a-holes in the world and helped trigger the crash. By this time my $3.50 cigar had been smoked and strongly resisting the urge to threaten to kick the guy's fat libertarian ass all over the parking lot - in fairness he might have kicked my flaming liberal ass - I departed.
While I never could've changed the guy's closed mind, if I'd been more diplomatic, maybe I could've at least gotten him to agree that not all of us unemployed people want to be jobless and that most librarians and teachers aren't rich or lazy. Instead of talking to each other, we were talking at each other.
That's a shame because despite his worship of dog eat dog capitalism I don't doubt that the guy works hard and pays taxes, however reluctantly. Liberals like me don't want to take anything away from people like him, we just don't think it's fair that the wealthiest 1 percent, who earn about $1.137 million annually, just got a tax cut. And that the budget deficits in Ohio and around the US are largely due to the massive redistribution of wealth to the rich http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
I wish the libertarian guy and I communicated the way the people at a community meeting in Sandusky did a couple hours earlier. The meeting was called in the wake of the March 19 fatal shooting of Sandusky police Officer Andy Dunn. Dunn was white and the shooting suspect, career criminal Kevin Randleman, is black. That death unleased underlying racial tension in Sandusky, a mostly white city of about 26,000 in northwest Ohio.
The mostly black group of about 60 people talked about black and white churches working together to decrease violence by addressing issues like absentee parents and dysfunctional children. About volunteering in schools to provide children with the guidance and values they may not be getting at home.
They spoke about how police need to be respected, but also how all officers also need to show respect.
"The Officer Friendly you see on TV is not always the officer you see on the street," said one woman. "Authority needs to be tempered with a little compassion."
I spent a few minutes talking about the importance of pushing for stricter gun control and said it was the least we could do to honor Officer Dunn's memory. I told the audience that as a reporter I've seen the result of gun violence firsthand having visited dozens of homes of families whose loved ones were victims of gun violence. Dunn was one of about 31,244 who die of gun violence annually, 12,632 of whom were homicide victims.
I noted that criminals can't legally buy pistols like the .38 revolver used to kill Dunn meaning someone bought the gun legally and it was either part of a straw purchase, or stolen. I neglected to mention that in individual gun purchases not involving licensed gun sellers, the seller is not legally required to check if the buyer has a criminal background. That gives criminals a blank check.
Of course there will always be gun violence, but I pointed out that if all gun purchasers were required to go through the same one-day education and safety class required in Ohio to obtain a permit to carry pistols, it would discourage frivolous puchases and reduce the likelihood of guns ending up in the wrong hands.
As a gun owner who has pistol permits in Indiana and Michigan, I stressed that I'm not anti-gun, but that the lack of gun laws and lack of enforcement of them in this country is insane. I said they should lobby their politicians to renew the assault weapons ban which would reduce the kind of high capacity ammunition magazines used in the Virgina Tech and Tuscon massacres.
I told the audience they should go to Ohio US Sen. Rob Portman's area office and demand to speak to him about why he accepts donations from the National Rifle Association, an organization funded by the gun industry and dedicated to ensuring as many guns as possible are sold. Portman recieved the third highest contribution of Senate candidates in 2009-10. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=q1
Although the people who take part in these kinds of community meetings are well meaning, not a lot usually comes out of them. Nonetheless, it's important to keep the dialogue going because it's the first step to affecting postive change. I wish the libertarian guy had been there.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Thanks Gov. Kasich
Thank you Gov. John Kasich and your fellow Ohio Republicans for passing the union busting Senate Bill 5.
In the same way that you only stop a schoolyard bully by standing up to him, people have realized that they must fight back. Getting the 231,149 signatures for a referendum to overturn SB 5 will be an uphill battle, but it's better to go down fighting than let them take our lunch money forever.
We've been beaten down for a long time. Most Americans are apathetic and brainwashed into believing that government is always inept and a bogeyman rather than people like our postal workers, police soldiers and teachers. The idea that both political parties are corrupt and the power of corporations and the superrich trumps one person, one vote, has been too long used as an excuse to do nothing.
Juggling work and family responsibilites and struggling to make end's meet, it's understandable that most people don't know the minitiaue of politics nor should they be expected to. But the average American's political ignorance is stunning.
While most can rattle off the latest dirt about Hollywood celebrity train wrecks or sports trivia, less than a third know that a member of the House of Representatives serves two years and a US senator serves six years. About half of Americans think foreign aid is a major part of the federal budget rather than 1 percent of it.
During the impeachment of Bill Clinton, only 11 percent could identify the Supreme Court chief justice, as authors and political science proferssors Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson documented in their book on how Republicans have dominated politics in the last 30 years. http://www.amazon.com/Off-Center-Republican-Revolution-Democracy/dp/0300108702
The pols, powerbrokers and pundits count on our ignorance and apathy. The idea that government is always bad and tax cuts are always good has been ingrained in our culture since the presidency of St. Reagan in 1981.
And our worship of celebrity and entertaiment has intensified just like the gap between the rich and poor. It would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic. President Obama's Monday speech justifying taking us to war with Libya was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. to avoid interrupting Dancing With the Stars.
Apathy and ignorance also make us more gullible. That makes it easier to frame the debate. Instead of questioning whether the government should be making cuts after the worst recession since the Great Depression, the debate is over how much to cut.
Most of us nod are heads in agreement when politicians, including President Obama - AKA The Great Capitulator - tell us we need to tighten our belts and run the federal government like a household. As if households print money like the federal government and as if families don't do deficit spending in the form of bank, car and college loans, credit card purchases and second mortgages.
Despite the number of Americans living below the poverty line surging to 44 million http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17poverty.html the poor are almost never mentioned by politicians of either party. Attacks on the poor and middle class are camouflaged as fiscal austerity. And austerity is seen as virtuous even though deficit spending in the form of economic stimulus would create jobs, improve the infrastructure and increase tax revenue reducing deficits in the long term.
But Kasich and his fellow Republicans around Ohio and the nation overreached with their union busting. They counted on the tried and true split and divide tactics of class envy to pit neighbor against neighbor. But even if you don't know the Inside Baseball of economics, you know Wall Street banksters caused the Great Recession, not overpaying librarians and teachers.
And while just 11.9 percent of Americans are unionized, most know somebody who is in one or was in one. We may not be taught much in school about how unions fought for child labor laws and the 40-hour work week, but we know that our firefighters, police and school bus drivers aren't living large.
And that Wall Streeters get bailed out while we get sold out. Some of us are realizing that complaining that we're getting scewed while being content to spend our leisure time in front of a computer or television isn't enough.
As a reporter, I've had to temper my political beliefs and full rights as a citizen to avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of them. But one of the few benefits of being an unemployed journalist is being freed from those constraints.
Now I can do the small things we all can do that addied up together make a difference: networking, attending protests,writing letters to lawmakers and lobbying them in person when possible. Gathering petition signatures. Writing letters to the editor.
Individually, we are powerless to stop SB 5 and the transformation of our democracy to an oligarchy. But collectively we have power.
And not just to overturn SB 5. We need to fight for a living wage and equitable taxation like Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky's proposed Fairness in Taxation Act which would raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. http://schakowsky.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2877&catid=22
We need to educate, agitate and organize. Not with the know-nothing, us-against-them mentality of the Tea Party, but with compassion as well as passion. Waging a principled fight based on common values.
People before profits. Social welfare rather than corporate welfare. Foreign policy committed to leading by example, not at the barrel of a gun.
The idea that we're all in it together. Even the richest 1 percent who control some 23.5 percent of the wealth and must be made to pay their fair share of taxes before the politicians they've bought can talk about "shared sacrifice."
So thank you Gov. Kasich. For making us realize that we're down, but we're not out.
In the same way that you only stop a schoolyard bully by standing up to him, people have realized that they must fight back. Getting the 231,149 signatures for a referendum to overturn SB 5 will be an uphill battle, but it's better to go down fighting than let them take our lunch money forever.
We've been beaten down for a long time. Most Americans are apathetic and brainwashed into believing that government is always inept and a bogeyman rather than people like our postal workers, police soldiers and teachers. The idea that both political parties are corrupt and the power of corporations and the superrich trumps one person, one vote, has been too long used as an excuse to do nothing.
Juggling work and family responsibilites and struggling to make end's meet, it's understandable that most people don't know the minitiaue of politics nor should they be expected to. But the average American's political ignorance is stunning.
While most can rattle off the latest dirt about Hollywood celebrity train wrecks or sports trivia, less than a third know that a member of the House of Representatives serves two years and a US senator serves six years. About half of Americans think foreign aid is a major part of the federal budget rather than 1 percent of it.
During the impeachment of Bill Clinton, only 11 percent could identify the Supreme Court chief justice, as authors and political science proferssors Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson documented in their book on how Republicans have dominated politics in the last 30 years. http://www.amazon.com/Off-Center-Republican-Revolution-Democracy/dp/0300108702
The pols, powerbrokers and pundits count on our ignorance and apathy. The idea that government is always bad and tax cuts are always good has been ingrained in our culture since the presidency of St. Reagan in 1981.
And our worship of celebrity and entertaiment has intensified just like the gap between the rich and poor. It would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic. President Obama's Monday speech justifying taking us to war with Libya was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. to avoid interrupting Dancing With the Stars.
Apathy and ignorance also make us more gullible. That makes it easier to frame the debate. Instead of questioning whether the government should be making cuts after the worst recession since the Great Depression, the debate is over how much to cut.
Most of us nod are heads in agreement when politicians, including President Obama - AKA The Great Capitulator - tell us we need to tighten our belts and run the federal government like a household. As if households print money like the federal government and as if families don't do deficit spending in the form of bank, car and college loans, credit card purchases and second mortgages.
Despite the number of Americans living below the poverty line surging to 44 million http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17poverty.html the poor are almost never mentioned by politicians of either party. Attacks on the poor and middle class are camouflaged as fiscal austerity. And austerity is seen as virtuous even though deficit spending in the form of economic stimulus would create jobs, improve the infrastructure and increase tax revenue reducing deficits in the long term.
But Kasich and his fellow Republicans around Ohio and the nation overreached with their union busting. They counted on the tried and true split and divide tactics of class envy to pit neighbor against neighbor. But even if you don't know the Inside Baseball of economics, you know Wall Street banksters caused the Great Recession, not overpaying librarians and teachers.
And while just 11.9 percent of Americans are unionized, most know somebody who is in one or was in one. We may not be taught much in school about how unions fought for child labor laws and the 40-hour work week, but we know that our firefighters, police and school bus drivers aren't living large.
And that Wall Streeters get bailed out while we get sold out. Some of us are realizing that complaining that we're getting scewed while being content to spend our leisure time in front of a computer or television isn't enough.
As a reporter, I've had to temper my political beliefs and full rights as a citizen to avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of them. But one of the few benefits of being an unemployed journalist is being freed from those constraints.
Now I can do the small things we all can do that addied up together make a difference: networking, attending protests,writing letters to lawmakers and lobbying them in person when possible. Gathering petition signatures. Writing letters to the editor.
Individually, we are powerless to stop SB 5 and the transformation of our democracy to an oligarchy. But collectively we have power.
And not just to overturn SB 5. We need to fight for a living wage and equitable taxation like Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky's proposed Fairness in Taxation Act which would raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. http://schakowsky.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2877&catid=22
We need to educate, agitate and organize. Not with the know-nothing, us-against-them mentality of the Tea Party, but with compassion as well as passion. Waging a principled fight based on common values.
People before profits. Social welfare rather than corporate welfare. Foreign policy committed to leading by example, not at the barrel of a gun.
The idea that we're all in it together. Even the richest 1 percent who control some 23.5 percent of the wealth and must be made to pay their fair share of taxes before the politicians they've bought can talk about "shared sacrifice."
So thank you Gov. Kasich. For making us realize that we're down, but we're not out.
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