Op-Ed
An Associated Press dispatch from a Thai fishing village summed up the
media spin a few days ago: “Former President Bill Clinton’s voice trembled
with emotion as he and George H.W. Bush put aside their once-bitter
political rivalry...”
Ever since his initial checked-out responses to the catastrophic tsunami two months ago drew worldwide derision, the current president has largely relied on two predecessors to do the image-repair chores. In effect, an ad hoc PR outfit -- Bush, Bush & Clinton -- has the three partners laboring to make themselves look good as compassionate great nephews of Uncle Sam. But there are deeper messages and functions here than mere image-polishing.
When an American president wants to make war, he doesn’t rely on private contributions. The U.S. warfare in Iraq has already cost taxpayers more than $150 billion, not counting the regular Pentagon budget that is now well over a billion dollars per day.
Ever since his initial checked-out responses to the catastrophic tsunami two months ago drew worldwide derision, the current president has largely relied on two predecessors to do the image-repair chores. In effect, an ad hoc PR outfit -- Bush, Bush & Clinton -- has the three partners laboring to make themselves look good as compassionate great nephews of Uncle Sam. But there are deeper messages and functions here than mere image-polishing.
When an American president wants to make war, he doesn’t rely on private contributions. The U.S. warfare in Iraq has already cost taxpayers more than $150 billion, not counting the regular Pentagon budget that is now well over a billion dollars per day.
AUSTIN, Texas -- I have been observing the flappette over the sexist remarks of Harvard's president, Larry Summers, with some amusement. Initially, it was hard to sort out whether we had a case of an educator trying to provoke an interesting discussion, or one of those hoo-hahs where political correctness runs amok, or just another dimwitted sexist being ignorant. Turns out to be all three.
I would worry more about this -- I so enjoy being part of our national intellectual discourse -- except the Texas legislature is in session again, so I have to keep my indignation dry for the real thing. It is a source of constant wonder to me that the Lege, bad as I have known it to be all these years, is yet capable of becoming eternally worse. Among the nasty horrors awaiting us is H.B. 1212, mandating parental consent for the performance of an abortion.
We already have a parental notification requirement in Texas, so how much different can consent be? Of course you don't want your underage daughter getting an abortion without your knowledge, what parent would?
I would worry more about this -- I so enjoy being part of our national intellectual discourse -- except the Texas legislature is in session again, so I have to keep my indignation dry for the real thing. It is a source of constant wonder to me that the Lege, bad as I have known it to be all these years, is yet capable of becoming eternally worse. Among the nasty horrors awaiting us is H.B. 1212, mandating parental consent for the performance of an abortion.
We already have a parental notification requirement in Texas, so how much different can consent be? Of course you don't want your underage daughter getting an abortion without your knowledge, what parent would?
AUSTIN, Texas -- Among those still interested in fiscal sanity, and that includes quite a few Republicans, I bring your attention to two tax cuts that should be repealed right now for the sound reason that they are perfectly nuts.
A whopping 54 percent of the two cuts goes to the two-tenths of one percent of Americans who make more than $1 million a year. And 97 percent of the cuts goes to the 4 percent of the population with incomes over $200,000. (All figures from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Joint Committee on Taxation.)
The two cuts were not part of President Bush's original tax-cut proposals, they were slipped in by Congress in 2001 and will be fully effective only in 2010. One repeals a provision that scales back the magnitude of itemized deductions taken by high-income taxpayers. The other repeals a provision under which the personal exemption is phased out for households with very high incomes.
A whopping 54 percent of the two cuts goes to the two-tenths of one percent of Americans who make more than $1 million a year. And 97 percent of the cuts goes to the 4 percent of the population with incomes over $200,000. (All figures from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Joint Committee on Taxation.)
The two cuts were not part of President Bush's original tax-cut proposals, they were slipped in by Congress in 2001 and will be fully effective only in 2010. One repeals a provision that scales back the magnitude of itemized deductions taken by high-income taxpayers. The other repeals a provision under which the personal exemption is phased out for households with very high incomes.
Dear Free Press:
In modern political parlance, the word "liberal", like Jesus who exemplified it, has been crucified. Only we must not expect its resurrection in our lifetimes.
My fellow Democarts, we should turn the tables. There is nothing "conservative" about launching wars of choice. There is nothing "conservative" about running record federal deficits and burdening our children with what amounts to a birth tax. There is nothing "conservative" about a largely Republican corporate culture that is polluting our earth and the minds of our children while paying little taxes and sending our jobs overseas. There is nothing "conservative" about selling out our future in hopes that God will someday sort things out.
The true "conservatives", honest and civil and fiscally responsible, have been marginalized by Regressive Republicans who want our nation to regress to the days when we did not look after our elderly, when abortions were performed in the back alley, and when social justice was the dream of a black reverend.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Budgets are the guts of government. That's where you find the answer to the first of the three important questions about who runs a society: Who's getting screwed? Who's doing the screwing? And what the hell will they do to us next?
There was a time when reporters actually read budgets to find out what was going on, but the things are so humongous these days, we've given up on that. Consequently, there's usually a bit of a pause after a budget comes out, while we wait to hear from the various special interest groups that study their own section of a budget in minute detail. Then, the screaming from injured parties commences, and the press presumably sits up and takes note of who's screaming loudest.
With President Bush's proposed budget, may it die in committee, no pause is necessary. Read any overview of the proposal, and you can see exactly who's getting screwed: children.
There was a time when reporters actually read budgets to find out what was going on, but the things are so humongous these days, we've given up on that. Consequently, there's usually a bit of a pause after a budget comes out, while we wait to hear from the various special interest groups that study their own section of a budget in minute detail. Then, the screaming from injured parties commences, and the press presumably sits up and takes note of who's screaming loudest.
With President Bush's proposed budget, may it die in committee, no pause is necessary. Read any overview of the proposal, and you can see exactly who's getting screwed: children.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Sometimes the ironic timing of events in our public life is so striking as to cause one to wonder if the Great Scriptwriter in the Sky isn't trying to make a point. Thus, the word that the U.S. Senate voted for tort deform last week came just a few days after the news that seven executives of W.R. Grace and Co. were indicted on criminal charges for knowingly putting their workers and the public in danger by exposing them to asbestos ore.
Hundreds of miners, their family members and townsfolk in Libby, Mont., have died, and at least 1,200 more are sick from breathing the air polluted by the mine. Since the ore was shipped all over the country and was used as insulation in millions of homes, the total health effects are incalculable. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer deserves credit for bringing Grace to public attention with a series back in 1999.
The executives and the company were indicted on 10 counts of conspiracy, knowing endangerment, obstruction of justice and wire fraud.
W.R. Grace & Co. "categorically denies any criminal wrongdoing," said a spokesman.
Hundreds of miners, their family members and townsfolk in Libby, Mont., have died, and at least 1,200 more are sick from breathing the air polluted by the mine. Since the ore was shipped all over the country and was used as insulation in millions of homes, the total health effects are incalculable. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer deserves credit for bringing Grace to public attention with a series back in 1999.
The executives and the company were indicted on 10 counts of conspiracy, knowing endangerment, obstruction of justice and wire fraud.
W.R. Grace & Co. "categorically denies any criminal wrongdoing," said a spokesman.
A system glorifies its winners. The mass media and the rest of
corporate America are enthralled with professionals scaling career
ladders to new heights. Meanwhile, the people hanging onto bottom rungs
are scarcely blips on screens.
Far from the media spotlights are countless lives beset with financial scarcity, often in tandem with chronic illness, monotony, adversity and despair. The same institutions and attitudes that lavish outsized respect on high achievers (the wealthier the better) are apt to convey ongoing disrespect for low achievers.
The flip side of adulation for winners is often contempt for people with cumulative misfortune, who routinely slog through murky quasi-netherworlds and do their best to keep from going under. According to mass-media calculations, they just don’t rate. In a society overdosing on unmitigated capitalism, it’s not just a matter of scant disposable income. As a practical matter, the country treats many people as disposable.
Far from the media spotlights are countless lives beset with financial scarcity, often in tandem with chronic illness, monotony, adversity and despair. The same institutions and attitudes that lavish outsized respect on high achievers (the wealthier the better) are apt to convey ongoing disrespect for low achievers.
The flip side of adulation for winners is often contempt for people with cumulative misfortune, who routinely slog through murky quasi-netherworlds and do their best to keep from going under. According to mass-media calculations, they just don’t rate. In a society overdosing on unmitigated capitalism, it’s not just a matter of scant disposable income. As a practical matter, the country treats many people as disposable.
Since the 1950s, many young Americans have first encountered critiques
of mass media in the pages of Mad. With its intricate cartoons and satirical
sendups, the monthly magazine gained a reputation for skewering politicians,
advertisers, TV shows and a variety of print outlets.
One of Mad’s recurrent shticks has involved making fun of gaps between words and meaning -- an especially welcome form of humor because mainstream news so often amplifies the words of public figures with scarcely a hint of irony, much less deprecation. Notwithstanding the zany image of Alfred E. Newman, the magazine’s grinning icon of absurdity has overseen plenty of sobering antidotes to the phony self-importance of major media.
One-third of the way through February, looking at a few of the day’s top news stories, I tried to imagine the properly Mad way to annotate them. Here’s what I came up with:
* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said to an audience at a university in Paris: “It is time to turn away from the disagreements of the past. It is time to open a new chapter in our relationship and a new chapter in our alliance.”
One of Mad’s recurrent shticks has involved making fun of gaps between words and meaning -- an especially welcome form of humor because mainstream news so often amplifies the words of public figures with scarcely a hint of irony, much less deprecation. Notwithstanding the zany image of Alfred E. Newman, the magazine’s grinning icon of absurdity has overseen plenty of sobering antidotes to the phony self-importance of major media.
One-third of the way through February, looking at a few of the day’s top news stories, I tried to imagine the properly Mad way to annotate them. Here’s what I came up with:
* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said to an audience at a university in Paris: “It is time to turn away from the disagreements of the past. It is time to open a new chapter in our relationship and a new chapter in our alliance.”
AUSTIN, Texas -- I feel snakebite about praising any proposal by George W. Bush. Every time I write a column saying, "Look, he's done something good!" he does something else that makes it either not so good or just plain bad. He welched on his deal with Ted Kennedy in the Lots of Children Left Behind Act, now underfunded by $12 billion. And nobody has ever seen that $15 billion he promised to fight AIDS in Africa.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Last week, The New York Times quoted a Harvard Law student who favors the privatization of Social Security as saying the accounts-formerly-known-as-private are "a no-brainer."
Funny, I'd say that pretty well describes this future legal eagle.
Here's my take: If you aren't smart enough to figure out what's wrong with President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security, then you won't be able to run one of the accounts-formerly-known-as-private, either. (The White House doesn't want anyone to call them private accounts anymore, even though they have always been known as private accounts -- it's the new political correctness.) It's not as though this were all just-too-complex for the average citizen.
Without any math at all, you can understand the most important problems with the Bush plan:
Funny, I'd say that pretty well describes this future legal eagle.
Here's my take: If you aren't smart enough to figure out what's wrong with President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security, then you won't be able to run one of the accounts-formerly-known-as-private, either. (The White House doesn't want anyone to call them private accounts anymore, even though they have always been known as private accounts -- it's the new political correctness.) It's not as though this were all just-too-complex for the average citizen.
Without any math at all, you can understand the most important problems with the Bush plan: