Oh good grief!
Almost a quarter century after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Big Steve is still stuck speechifying like a Cold War stalwart?
Harper delivered a proper podium-thumper to the "Tribute to Liberty" annual dinner in Toronto yesterday. Thats a bunch of second generation east Europeans who never got over their parent's fears about the Bolsheviks.
History has moved on, folks.
How modest of Big Steve to claim his spot in history right up there with Mulroney, Reagan, and Thatcher...
It's always nice to know that your leader has his eye squarely on the future.
The Tribute to Liberty folks are all about building a monument to honour the victims of communism.
Personally, I think building a monument to the victims of communism is a great idea.
We could put it in a public square. "Freedom Square" we could call it. Or Liberty Square.
At the other side of the square we could, in the interest of truth, justice, and fair comment, erect a monument to the victims of capitalism.
Communism died an ignoble death in 1991.
Capitalism is still chewing up its victims today.
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Ontario needs Tim Hudak?
Yes we do, according to the Toronto Sun.
Hudak gonna set things right by firing 100,000 lazy-ass civil servants!
Chop down the corporate tax rate to next-to-nothing to boot, and by God, there's gonna be a jobs bonanza right here in the promised land!
A million new private sector jobs!
One shudders to imagine the nature of those million jobs. Yes, you could cut the corporate tax rate to zero, and yes, that would attract a few corporate bottom-feeders who would create a few minimum wage jobs. Is that really what Ontario needs?
Hudak's race-to-the-bottom strategy has failed everywhere it's been implemented. This is just the latest recycled version of the old Thatcher-Reagan trickle-down. You remember that; be nice to rich folks and eventually that niceness gonna trickle down on the regular folks...
Rich folks will of course love that strategy. It works for them. It frees up a little more cash to donate to the pols who are prepared to do their bidding.
Here's the trouble with trickle-down economics; the rich get richer and the rest of us just get soaked.
Ontario does not need Tim Hudak.
Hudak gonna set things right by firing 100,000 lazy-ass civil servants!
Chop down the corporate tax rate to next-to-nothing to boot, and by God, there's gonna be a jobs bonanza right here in the promised land!
A million new private sector jobs!
One shudders to imagine the nature of those million jobs. Yes, you could cut the corporate tax rate to zero, and yes, that would attract a few corporate bottom-feeders who would create a few minimum wage jobs. Is that really what Ontario needs?
Hudak's race-to-the-bottom strategy has failed everywhere it's been implemented. This is just the latest recycled version of the old Thatcher-Reagan trickle-down. You remember that; be nice to rich folks and eventually that niceness gonna trickle down on the regular folks...
Rich folks will of course love that strategy. It works for them. It frees up a little more cash to donate to the pols who are prepared to do their bidding.
Here's the trouble with trickle-down economics; the rich get richer and the rest of us just get soaked.
Ontario does not need Tim Hudak.
Friday, July 19, 2013
The mind-boggling hypocrisies of Governor Rick Snyder
Rick Snyder rode into office on a Thatcherite charger proclaiming the usual grab-bag of certitudes we've all been too well acquainted with since the days of Ron and Maggie.
He would get Michigan working again!
Michigan would be free to re-invent itself!
Mr. Snyder won the Governorship of Michigan because on election day 56% of eligible voters stayed home.
During his campaign he assured the good people of Michigan that right-to-work-for-less legislation hadn't even occurred to him.
It occurred to him right after being voted in, and now the good people of Michigan are saddled with it.
Snyder knows that education is broken, and apparently the main problem is that society spends too much money on it. He had a secret team of consultants and advisers brainstorming how to get education spending down to $5,000 per student per year.
Obviously, if spending too much creates a shitty education system it can be improved by spending less!
Then a fund-raising video turns up from Greenhill School where his own kids go. The private school needs donations because the $20,000 per year tuition doesn't cover the expense of a decent education!
That's right! Poor kids in Michigan can get a great education for $5,000 a year. Sanctimonious Snyder's kids deserve better; at least four times better!
That should tell you something about Snyder's world view.
He would get Michigan working again!
Michigan would be free to re-invent itself!
Mr. Snyder won the Governorship of Michigan because on election day 56% of eligible voters stayed home.
During his campaign he assured the good people of Michigan that right-to-work-for-less legislation hadn't even occurred to him.
It occurred to him right after being voted in, and now the good people of Michigan are saddled with it.
Snyder knows that education is broken, and apparently the main problem is that society spends too much money on it. He had a secret team of consultants and advisers brainstorming how to get education spending down to $5,000 per student per year.
Obviously, if spending too much creates a shitty education system it can be improved by spending less!
Then a fund-raising video turns up from Greenhill School where his own kids go. The private school needs donations because the $20,000 per year tuition doesn't cover the expense of a decent education!
That's right! Poor kids in Michigan can get a great education for $5,000 a year. Sanctimonious Snyder's kids deserve better; at least four times better!
That should tell you something about Snyder's world view.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
How to forget history
On March 16 the New York Times published this article by Elisabeth Malkin about the upcoming trial of former Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt on charges of genocide.
Today an edited version of the same story appears in my New York Times International Weekly. One thing that has been edited out of the original is Ms. Malkin's reference to US knowledge of the genocide;
"...American diplomats and intelligence agencies knew that the Guatemalan army was carrying out the massacres, even though the Reagan administration argued in public that human rights conditions were improving."
Apparently even that oblique concession to reality was too much for the editors at the Times. America's complicity in the murder of tens of thousands of peasants and natives throughout Central and South America goes far beyond knowing about it. These murders in Guatemala and beyond were actively supported as a matter of US policy.
See for example the excellent article by Robert Parry, Reagan's Hand in Guatemala's Genocide.
Thirty years later Rios Montt finally gets a trial.
Ronald Reagan gets statues.
Today an edited version of the same story appears in my New York Times International Weekly. One thing that has been edited out of the original is Ms. Malkin's reference to US knowledge of the genocide;
"...American diplomats and intelligence agencies knew that the Guatemalan army was carrying out the massacres, even though the Reagan administration argued in public that human rights conditions were improving."
Apparently even that oblique concession to reality was too much for the editors at the Times. America's complicity in the murder of tens of thousands of peasants and natives throughout Central and South America goes far beyond knowing about it. These murders in Guatemala and beyond were actively supported as a matter of US policy.
See for example the excellent article by Robert Parry, Reagan's Hand in Guatemala's Genocide.
Thirty years later Rios Montt finally gets a trial.
Ronald Reagan gets statues.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Richard Falk and the New World Order
On the face of it you might expect to find a little truth behind the claims that Richard Falk is an emissary for the New World Order.
After all, he has aligned himself with such ominous sounding entities as the "World Federalist Institute" and the "American Movement for World Government."
And he is a Jew after all. While I don't spend a lot of time studying the various threads of NWO conspiracy theories I am sufficiently acquainted with their overall thrust to appreciate that the chosen people play a central role.
I am also sufficiently acquainted with the work of Richard Falk to know that he is one of those Jews that the Likud crowd love to hate the most.
He is the classic "self-hating" Jew, which of course is the fate of every Jew who disagrees with the Likudniks.
He has, in their view, violated the sacred trust between God and the chosen people by suggesting that Palestinians have rights too, a view that is utterly blasphemous among the crowd of annex-everything fascists who seem determined to drive the state of Israel into the abyss.
Just recently two of the towering geniuses in the Harper cabinet have piled onto the anti-Falk bandwagon, namely Messers Baird and Kenney. They have taken umbrage over statements made by Falk about western corporations that profit from the occupation.
Why these dolts remain in the Harper cabinet is a good question, and I think the answer is that the Prime Minister likes to keep a few buffoons around because they inevitably make him look a whole lot smarter by comparison.
While I am somewhat ambivalent about Falk's position vis-a-vis those companies, I am totally in agreement that pressure needs to be brought to bear on those who profit from the occupation. What that pressure should look like is not for me to judge, but any analysis of the situation must proceed from the fact that the occupation is illegal and immoral, which by the way is the official position of the Canadian government.
Which brings us back to the New World Order.
It seems this has become a catch-all category for a wide range of folks disaffected with the current state of things. Everything from the out-sourcing of the industrial economy to gay marriage is at some point tied into this imaginary NWO.
NWO conspiracy theories thrive in those societies wherein the working classes have suffered a roll-back in their standard of living over the past few generations. Those would be primarily the folks who took it on the chin when the Reagan-Thatcher revolution cemented neo-liberalism as the state religion in the Anglo American universe.
For over forty years we have watched ourselves get poorer while our oligarchs and plutocrats got richer, and rather than hold the oligarchs and plutocrats and the politicians they've bought responsible, we want to blame Jews or Bilderbergers or aliens or Freemasons for the problem.
Which of course is just fine with our masters.
After all, he has aligned himself with such ominous sounding entities as the "World Federalist Institute" and the "American Movement for World Government."
And he is a Jew after all. While I don't spend a lot of time studying the various threads of NWO conspiracy theories I am sufficiently acquainted with their overall thrust to appreciate that the chosen people play a central role.
I am also sufficiently acquainted with the work of Richard Falk to know that he is one of those Jews that the Likud crowd love to hate the most.
He is the classic "self-hating" Jew, which of course is the fate of every Jew who disagrees with the Likudniks.
He has, in their view, violated the sacred trust between God and the chosen people by suggesting that Palestinians have rights too, a view that is utterly blasphemous among the crowd of annex-everything fascists who seem determined to drive the state of Israel into the abyss.
Just recently two of the towering geniuses in the Harper cabinet have piled onto the anti-Falk bandwagon, namely Messers Baird and Kenney. They have taken umbrage over statements made by Falk about western corporations that profit from the occupation.
Why these dolts remain in the Harper cabinet is a good question, and I think the answer is that the Prime Minister likes to keep a few buffoons around because they inevitably make him look a whole lot smarter by comparison.
While I am somewhat ambivalent about Falk's position vis-a-vis those companies, I am totally in agreement that pressure needs to be brought to bear on those who profit from the occupation. What that pressure should look like is not for me to judge, but any analysis of the situation must proceed from the fact that the occupation is illegal and immoral, which by the way is the official position of the Canadian government.
Which brings us back to the New World Order.
It seems this has become a catch-all category for a wide range of folks disaffected with the current state of things. Everything from the out-sourcing of the industrial economy to gay marriage is at some point tied into this imaginary NWO.
NWO conspiracy theories thrive in those societies wherein the working classes have suffered a roll-back in their standard of living over the past few generations. Those would be primarily the folks who took it on the chin when the Reagan-Thatcher revolution cemented neo-liberalism as the state religion in the Anglo American universe.
For over forty years we have watched ourselves get poorer while our oligarchs and plutocrats got richer, and rather than hold the oligarchs and plutocrats and the politicians they've bought responsible, we want to blame Jews or Bilderbergers or aliens or Freemasons for the problem.
Which of course is just fine with our masters.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The never-ending war on America's working class
The war on America's working class has gone on far longer than the war on terror or the war on drugs or the war on poverty.
The war on America's working class is the grand-daddy of all domestic wars.
The high-water mark of working class America's standard of living came with the Teamster's Master Freight Agreement of the late '50's. That agreement set a standard that spread out over all union contracts in all sectors of the economy.
It also attracted the attention of government. The Kennedy administration determined that the workers were getting too large a slice of the pie. All of a sudden Robert Kennedy was investigating corruption in what was then the most powerful union in the land.
It's been a downhill slide ever since. Where are unions now? A lot of your academic types want to pin the decline of unions to Reagan's destruction of the air traffic folks. That's because a lot of your academic types want to absolve the Kennedy administration.
And everone is keen to forget that unions created the modern middle class in America.
Jimmy Hoffa created America's middle class.
The war on America's working class is the grand-daddy of all domestic wars.
The high-water mark of working class America's standard of living came with the Teamster's Master Freight Agreement of the late '50's. That agreement set a standard that spread out over all union contracts in all sectors of the economy.
It also attracted the attention of government. The Kennedy administration determined that the workers were getting too large a slice of the pie. All of a sudden Robert Kennedy was investigating corruption in what was then the most powerful union in the land.
It's been a downhill slide ever since. Where are unions now? A lot of your academic types want to pin the decline of unions to Reagan's destruction of the air traffic folks. That's because a lot of your academic types want to absolve the Kennedy administration.
And everone is keen to forget that unions created the modern middle class in America.
Jimmy Hoffa created America's middle class.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Romney; corporations are people but workers are a liability
There goes Mitt, strutting around Michigan blowing the anti-bailout trumpet. He thinks he's campaigning.
That's not a particularly receptive audience for that particular trumpet, one would think.
Folks in Michigan remember the original Chrysler bail-out, the loan guarantees of 1980. That was a deal originally agreed to by a Democrat. Ronald Reagan was originally against it, but once he saw which way the wind was blowing he was all over it. Got on great with Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca too.
The bailout saved the company and tens of thousands of jobs in Michigan.
And Mitt doesn't seem to want to spend a lot of time talking about how the government bailed out the pension plan at GS Technologies, one of the many victims of the "restructuring specialists" at Bain Capital.
Long story short, Romney's restructuring specialists took control of GS for eight million dollars, paid themselves a dividend of 36 million the following year, and then let the company go down the drain. It was left to the federal government to cover the losses in the GS pensions.
But that's capitalism today. Nevermind the time-consuming process of building a company up through decades of hard work and innovation and struggle in the competitive marketplace.
That's for old-school idiots.
Romney stands for new-age vulture capitalism. Buy it, strip it, dump it.
You'll get a lot richer a lot faster.
That's not a particularly receptive audience for that particular trumpet, one would think.
Folks in Michigan remember the original Chrysler bail-out, the loan guarantees of 1980. That was a deal originally agreed to by a Democrat. Ronald Reagan was originally against it, but once he saw which way the wind was blowing he was all over it. Got on great with Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca too.
The bailout saved the company and tens of thousands of jobs in Michigan.
And Mitt doesn't seem to want to spend a lot of time talking about how the government bailed out the pension plan at GS Technologies, one of the many victims of the "restructuring specialists" at Bain Capital.
Long story short, Romney's restructuring specialists took control of GS for eight million dollars, paid themselves a dividend of 36 million the following year, and then let the company go down the drain. It was left to the federal government to cover the losses in the GS pensions.
But that's capitalism today. Nevermind the time-consuming process of building a company up through decades of hard work and innovation and struggle in the competitive marketplace.
That's for old-school idiots.
Romney stands for new-age vulture capitalism. Buy it, strip it, dump it.
You'll get a lot richer a lot faster.
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