If health care reform gives people a choice, and doesn’t just fatten the rolls of insurance companies, it will be something to run on. If the recovery helps millions of people who don’t have a well-staffed lobby in Washington, it too will be a plus.
History, as always, is a guide for these American moments.
There was once a political party that came out against concentration of wealth. They called for regulation of food, drugs, and big corporations. Called for “square deal” for the average American. And their robust spokesman, the leader of their party, said this of his countrymen:
“There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensitive to every duty, regardless of principle, bent only on amassing a fortune.”
That party was the Republicans, a bit more than century ago, led by Teddy Roosevelt.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Why Prime Minister Omar Khaddafi Insist on Knowing Who Killed President John F. Kennedy
Oliver Stone: JFK and the Unspeakable
The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected. Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it. The subtitle sums up Douglass’s purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the “motive” for Kennedy’s assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction. Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy’s disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK’s shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK’s remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all “inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.” But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy’s back-channel dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground; his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964. All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have another “Bay of Pigs”; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied his own death with those words. Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision — a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls “the Unspeakable.” Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy’s vision of peace. But don’t take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-stone/jfk-and-the-unspeakable_b_243924.html
The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected. Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it. The subtitle sums up Douglass’s purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the “motive” for Kennedy’s assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction. Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy’s disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK’s shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK’s remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all “inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.” But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy’s back-channel dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground; his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964. All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have another “Bay of Pigs”; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied his own death with those words. Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision — a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls “the Unspeakable.” Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy’s vision of peace. But don’t take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-stone/jfk-and-the-unspeakable_b_243924.html
Casino in America "Wall Street" The Game Our Grandchildren Didn't Want to Play
We All Lost
“I don’t think most people really understood that they were in a casino” says award-winning financial reporter Mark Pittman. “When you’re in the Street’s casino, you’ve got to play by their rules.” This film finally explains how and why over $12 trillion of our money vanished into the American Casino.
For chips, the casino used real people, like the ones we meet in Baltimore. These are not the heedless spendthrifts of Wall Street legend, but a high school teacher, a therapist, a minister of the church. They were sold on the American Dream as a safe investment. Too late, they discovered the truth. Cruelly, as African – Americans, they and other minorities were the prime targets for the subprime loans that powered the casino. According to the Federal Reserve, African-Americans were four times more likely than whites to be sold subprime loans.
We meet the players. A banker explains that the complex securities he designed were “fourth dimensional” and sold to “idiots.” A senior Wall Street ratings agency executive describes being ordered to “guess” the worth of billion dollar securities. A mortgage loan salesman explains how borrowers’ incomes were inflated to justify a loan. A billionaire describes how he made a massive bet that people would lose their homes and has won $500 million, so far.
Finally, as the global financial system crumbles and outraged but impotent lawmakers fume at Wall Street titans, we see the casino’s endgame: Riverside, California a foreclosure wasteland given over to colonies of rats and methamphetamine labs, where disease-bearing mosquitoes breed in their millions on the stagnant swimming pools of yesterday’s dreams.
Filmed over twelve months in 2008, American Casino takes you inside a game that our grandchildren never wanted to play.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I don’t think most people really understood that they were in a casino” says award-winning financial reporter Mark Pittman. “When you’re in the Street’s casino, you’ve got to play by their rules.” This film finally explains how and why over $12 trillion of our money vanished into the American Casino.
For chips, the casino used real people, like the ones we meet in Baltimore. These are not the heedless spendthrifts of Wall Street legend, but a high school teacher, a therapist, a minister of the church. They were sold on the American Dream as a safe investment. Too late, they discovered the truth. Cruelly, as African – Americans, they and other minorities were the prime targets for the subprime loans that powered the casino. According to the Federal Reserve, African-Americans were four times more likely than whites to be sold subprime loans.
We meet the players. A banker explains that the complex securities he designed were “fourth dimensional” and sold to “idiots.” A senior Wall Street ratings agency executive describes being ordered to “guess” the worth of billion dollar securities. A mortgage loan salesman explains how borrowers’ incomes were inflated to justify a loan. A billionaire describes how he made a massive bet that people would lose their homes and has won $500 million, so far.
Finally, as the global financial system crumbles and outraged but impotent lawmakers fume at Wall Street titans, we see the casino’s endgame: Riverside, California a foreclosure wasteland given over to colonies of rats and methamphetamine labs, where disease-bearing mosquitoes breed in their millions on the stagnant swimming pools of yesterday’s dreams.
Filmed over twelve months in 2008, American Casino takes you inside a game that our grandchildren never wanted to play.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supply Side Economics / Reagonomics Don't Be Fooled
Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article
Published on Sunday, May 14, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
A Tale of Two Theories: Supply Side and Demand Side Economics
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the era of low taxes. It was the age of high deficits. Prices were up. Wages were down. Oil and gold soared. Housing and big cars cratered. Foreign powers threatened. Foreign currencies beckoned. Some saw a new Jerusalem in the nation's future. Others saw only the glaucoma of gluttonous greed. It was the summer of economic hope. It was the winter of economic despair.
In short, the early eighties were an economic time not unlike our own�a time that scared the Dickens out of most sober observers.
The common thread that unites the two times is Supply Side Economics. In the eighties it was new and promising. In the aughts it is recycled and damaging. In both eras, it stood against Demand Side Economics in its prescription for how to manage the economy. But it is in their outcomes that the two theories present such stark and measurable differences.
In the late seventies, the U.S. economy was falling to pieces. Johnson's Great Society programs and the Vietnam War had produced enormous inflationary pressures. But these were only the beginning. In 1973, Arab oil sheikdoms tripled the price of oil and in 1978, they tripled it again. Inflation soared, interest rates skyrocketed, and the economy tanked.
Higher prices cut into corporate profits, forcing employers to cut back production. The higher prices also reduced the purchasing power of workers, causing a slowdown in the economy. It was the worst of both worlds: a stagnant economy with rampant inflation. Economists called it "stagflation". They were at a loss for a cure.
Traditionally, to fight inflation, governments raise interest rates and cut spending, tampening down demand. To fight unemployment, they do the opposite: cut interest rates and raise spending, increasing demand. But now they had both problems at the same time. The cure for stagnant growth (lower interest rates and higher spending) would only aggravate the inflation. And the cure for inflation (higher interest rates and lower spending) would only aggravate the stagnation. The problem seemed insoluble. Enter Supply Side Economics.
Supply Side Economics claimed that if the government cut taxes on the wealthy, it would jump-start the economy as the wealthy plowed their tax savings back into investments. New factories fitted with new technologies would produce goods at lower cost, taming inflation. And the newly hired workers would tame unemployment. It would, in effect, square the economic circle, fixing both inflation and unemployment at the same time.
Even better, more output meant government tax receipts would grow. The government could continue to spend money without having to raise taxes it would simply materialize as a byproduct of higher levels of production! The economy would bootstrap itself in an ever-expanding, virtuous circle of tax cuts, investment, productivity, employment, and rising tax revenues. It was the proverbial "something for nothing" story. It seemed too good to be true.
It was.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised that, if elected, he would cut taxes, raise military spending AND balance the budget all at the same time. His opponent, George H.W. Bush called it "voodoo economics". But Reagan won the election and kept his promise. He cut the marginal tax rate on the highest income earners from 75% to 38%. What happened?
In 1982, the first full year for Reagan's policies, the economy shrank by 2%, the worst performance since the Great Depression. Investment the magic transmission belt through which all other Supply Side benefits were supposed to flow actually declined as a percent of GDP over the 1980s. Worse, Reagan�s Supply Side policies created the biggest budget deficits in history. The numbers tell the story.
Jimmy Carter�s last budget produced a deficit of $77 billion. At the time, it seemed huge. But Reagan�s first budget swelled the deficit to $128 billion. By the next year, 1983, it had exploded to $208 billion and was creating severe problems for the economy. By 1992, at the end of the "Reagan Revolution, (under Reagan's Vice President and successor, Bush, Sr.) the deficit was approaching $300 billion a year.
Annual deficits, of course, accumulate to the national debt. In 1980, the national debt amounted to less than $1 trillion. By the end of 1992, it had reached $4.35 trillion. In other words, the debt, which had taken over 200 years to reach $1 trillion, quadrupled in the 12 years of Supply Side Economics. A more complete, definitive repudiation of Supply Side�s claims could not be imagined. What went wrong?
According to Supply Side theory, tax cuts should go to the wealthy for only they can afford to use the extra income to invest in the economy to increase its capacity to "supply" goods. But there is nothing to make sure they actually invest, especially in the U.S. economy.
The new money might simply sit in the bank, or be spent on expensive foreign imports. It might be wasted in misdirected speculation, or invested in fast growing markets like southeast Asia. Without the ability to ensure that tax cuts are, in fact, invested in new productive assets, Supply Side Economics cannot ensure any real linkage between tax cuts and the hoped-for economic boom.
Revealingly, Supply-Siders strenuously resisted calls to tie tax cuts to actual productive investments, that is, give the tax cut only after the investment had been made. This led critics to suspect the real motives behind the "theory". The only thing that was certain was that the rich would become richer and revenues to the government would be lower. Beyond that, it is all just wishful thinking.
Contrast this wishful thinking with Demand Side economics. Demand Side Economics, says that if taxes are to be cut, they should go to those who earn the least amount of money. The reason is that low-income workers spend virtually all of their incomes. Money given to them goes right back into circulation, fueling a boom in consumer spending. This is essentially the policy that rescued the U.S. economy from the Great Depression. This, say the Demand Side economists, is the real foundation for an expanding economy. How has this theory held up in practice?
Bill Clinton reversed Reagan's supply Side policies, raising taxes on the wealthy and lowering them on the working and middle class. This Demand Side formula was fiercely resisted by Republican leaders in Congress who predicted a stock market crash and another Great Depression. Indeed, every single Republican member of Congress voted against it. It took a tie-breaking vote by Al Gore in the Senate to get the bill passed. What happened?
The economy produced the longest sustained expansion in U.S. history. It created more than 22 million new jobs, the highest level of job creation ever recorded. Unemployment fell to its lowest level in over 30 years. Inflation fell to 2.5% per year compared to the 4.7% average over the prior 12 years. And overall economic growth averaged 4.0% per year compared to 2.8% average growth over the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush administrations.
It wasn't even close. The economy performed dramatically better in almost every way once Supply Side policies were replaced with Demand Side policies.
The most dramatic outcome was the reversal of the Reagan-era Supply Side deficits. Clinton's Demand Side policies not only paid down the Reagan/Bush deficits, they produced the first budgetary surpluses since 1969. By the time Clinton left office, the government was running surpluses of almost $140 billion per year. This is what he turned over to George W. Bush in January of 2001.
Bush, of course, returned to the Supply Side policies of Reagan and his father. He lowered taxes on the very rich his base as he calls them. His $1.6 trillion in tax cuts give 45% of the benefits to the top 1% of the population. It is classic Supply Side economics. What happened?
According to the Economic Policy Institute, "By virtually every measure, the economy has performed worse in this business cycle than was typical of past ones." GDP growth since the bottom of the 2001 recession has averaged 2.8%. But it grew at an average rate of 3.5% over the prior six recoveries dating back to World War II. Or consider jobs: 1.3% more jobs under Bush versus 8.8% more during earlier upswings.
Private sector jobs an especially telling measure of economic health are up only 1% since 2001 versus an average of 8.6% for past recoveries. Investment? That Holy Grail of Supply Side orthodoxy? Up 3.6% compared to the 8.2% average for the six earlier rebounds. Pick your measure: growth, jobs, income, spending, investment. The recovery based on the Bush II Supply Side tax cuts is one of the weakest ever recorded.
The one thing the Supply Side revival did excel at � not surprisingly � is debt. Bush turned a $136 billion surplus from Bill Clinton into a $158 billion deficit in his first year. When he took office, the national debt stood at $5.8 trillion. It now stands at $8.1 trillion and is projected to hit $10 trillion by 2008 when Bush�s second term is over. The ten-year cumulative deficit forecast by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has changed from a $5.6 trillion surplus in January 2001 to a $3.4 trillion deficit in March of this year�an almost inconceivable swing of $9 trillion to the worse in only six years.
After more than 17 years of experience with Supply Side economics, we now know beyond doubt that this is not an accident.
These mammoth debts are a huge boon to that rich "base" that Bush loves to coddle. It is they, the very rich, who loan the money to the government to fund its debts. And since more borrowing drives up interest rates, they get to do so at higher and higher rates of return. This is simple supply and demand. By increasing the demand for borrowed money in the economy as a whole, Supply Side deficits drive up the cost, not just of government borrowing, but of ALL borrowing�everything from credit cards and mortgages to car loans and municipal bonds.
In other words, Supply Side economics rewards the rich both coming and going. Higher government debt leads to higher interest rates for all borrowing or in their case, lending. And then, they get to pay lower and lower taxes on their higher and higher earnings. It is a magical two-fer worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
This is the real reason Bill Clinton was so relentlessly hounded while in office. It wasn't that he was being serviced by an intern or that he was a particularly radical president. Indeed, Clinton himself described himself as �"an Eisenhower Republican". His big faux pas was that by paying down the Republican debts, he lowered interest rates, the basis of Republican earnings. In fact, real interest rates declined 40% while Clinton was in office. You can see why he simply had to go.
This is the real magic of Supply Side economics: greater-debts-leading-to-higher-returns-but-lower-taxes for the rich. It is one of the reasons the top 20% of income earners has raised its share of national income from 44% in 1980 when Supply Side policies began, to 50.1% last year. They now earn more than all of the rest of the people in the economy combined.
But it only works for the rich. If you�re not rich, it is you who are paying those higher and higher interest rates and it will be you or perhaps, more precisely, your children who will be stuck with the bill for the higher government debts. Paying off those debts can only come at the expense of future economic growth for income spent paying off inflated debts is money that is not available for college tuitions, job retraining, repairing infrastructure, etc.
Rarely in matters of public policy do we have the luxury of such starkly clear, repeatedly proven, empirically founded contrasts. Demand Side economics, as we saw in the 1990s, while far from perfect, produces robust growth, budgetary surpluses, and broad based prosperity. Supply Side economics produces middling growth, soaring deficits, and broad based debt. Mountains of debt. And the mountains are growing.
If we are to salvage any kind of economic sanity and prevent the bankruptcy of the nation, the next Congress must reverse the Supply Side agenda and return the country to a responsible fiscal course.
Robert Freeman writes on history, economics, and education. He can be reached at robertfreeman10@yahoo.com
Published on Sunday, May 14, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
A Tale of Two Theories: Supply Side and Demand Side Economics
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the era of low taxes. It was the age of high deficits. Prices were up. Wages were down. Oil and gold soared. Housing and big cars cratered. Foreign powers threatened. Foreign currencies beckoned. Some saw a new Jerusalem in the nation's future. Others saw only the glaucoma of gluttonous greed. It was the summer of economic hope. It was the winter of economic despair.
In short, the early eighties were an economic time not unlike our own�a time that scared the Dickens out of most sober observers.
The common thread that unites the two times is Supply Side Economics. In the eighties it was new and promising. In the aughts it is recycled and damaging. In both eras, it stood against Demand Side Economics in its prescription for how to manage the economy. But it is in their outcomes that the two theories present such stark and measurable differences.
In the late seventies, the U.S. economy was falling to pieces. Johnson's Great Society programs and the Vietnam War had produced enormous inflationary pressures. But these were only the beginning. In 1973, Arab oil sheikdoms tripled the price of oil and in 1978, they tripled it again. Inflation soared, interest rates skyrocketed, and the economy tanked.
Higher prices cut into corporate profits, forcing employers to cut back production. The higher prices also reduced the purchasing power of workers, causing a slowdown in the economy. It was the worst of both worlds: a stagnant economy with rampant inflation. Economists called it "stagflation". They were at a loss for a cure.
Traditionally, to fight inflation, governments raise interest rates and cut spending, tampening down demand. To fight unemployment, they do the opposite: cut interest rates and raise spending, increasing demand. But now they had both problems at the same time. The cure for stagnant growth (lower interest rates and higher spending) would only aggravate the inflation. And the cure for inflation (higher interest rates and lower spending) would only aggravate the stagnation. The problem seemed insoluble. Enter Supply Side Economics.
Supply Side Economics claimed that if the government cut taxes on the wealthy, it would jump-start the economy as the wealthy plowed their tax savings back into investments. New factories fitted with new technologies would produce goods at lower cost, taming inflation. And the newly hired workers would tame unemployment. It would, in effect, square the economic circle, fixing both inflation and unemployment at the same time.
Even better, more output meant government tax receipts would grow. The government could continue to spend money without having to raise taxes it would simply materialize as a byproduct of higher levels of production! The economy would bootstrap itself in an ever-expanding, virtuous circle of tax cuts, investment, productivity, employment, and rising tax revenues. It was the proverbial "something for nothing" story. It seemed too good to be true.
It was.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised that, if elected, he would cut taxes, raise military spending AND balance the budget all at the same time. His opponent, George H.W. Bush called it "voodoo economics". But Reagan won the election and kept his promise. He cut the marginal tax rate on the highest income earners from 75% to 38%. What happened?
In 1982, the first full year for Reagan's policies, the economy shrank by 2%, the worst performance since the Great Depression. Investment the magic transmission belt through which all other Supply Side benefits were supposed to flow actually declined as a percent of GDP over the 1980s. Worse, Reagan�s Supply Side policies created the biggest budget deficits in history. The numbers tell the story.
Jimmy Carter�s last budget produced a deficit of $77 billion. At the time, it seemed huge. But Reagan�s first budget swelled the deficit to $128 billion. By the next year, 1983, it had exploded to $208 billion and was creating severe problems for the economy. By 1992, at the end of the "Reagan Revolution, (under Reagan's Vice President and successor, Bush, Sr.) the deficit was approaching $300 billion a year.
Annual deficits, of course, accumulate to the national debt. In 1980, the national debt amounted to less than $1 trillion. By the end of 1992, it had reached $4.35 trillion. In other words, the debt, which had taken over 200 years to reach $1 trillion, quadrupled in the 12 years of Supply Side Economics. A more complete, definitive repudiation of Supply Side�s claims could not be imagined. What went wrong?
According to Supply Side theory, tax cuts should go to the wealthy for only they can afford to use the extra income to invest in the economy to increase its capacity to "supply" goods. But there is nothing to make sure they actually invest, especially in the U.S. economy.
The new money might simply sit in the bank, or be spent on expensive foreign imports. It might be wasted in misdirected speculation, or invested in fast growing markets like southeast Asia. Without the ability to ensure that tax cuts are, in fact, invested in new productive assets, Supply Side Economics cannot ensure any real linkage between tax cuts and the hoped-for economic boom.
Revealingly, Supply-Siders strenuously resisted calls to tie tax cuts to actual productive investments, that is, give the tax cut only after the investment had been made. This led critics to suspect the real motives behind the "theory". The only thing that was certain was that the rich would become richer and revenues to the government would be lower. Beyond that, it is all just wishful thinking.
Contrast this wishful thinking with Demand Side economics. Demand Side Economics, says that if taxes are to be cut, they should go to those who earn the least amount of money. The reason is that low-income workers spend virtually all of their incomes. Money given to them goes right back into circulation, fueling a boom in consumer spending. This is essentially the policy that rescued the U.S. economy from the Great Depression. This, say the Demand Side economists, is the real foundation for an expanding economy. How has this theory held up in practice?
Bill Clinton reversed Reagan's supply Side policies, raising taxes on the wealthy and lowering them on the working and middle class. This Demand Side formula was fiercely resisted by Republican leaders in Congress who predicted a stock market crash and another Great Depression. Indeed, every single Republican member of Congress voted against it. It took a tie-breaking vote by Al Gore in the Senate to get the bill passed. What happened?
The economy produced the longest sustained expansion in U.S. history. It created more than 22 million new jobs, the highest level of job creation ever recorded. Unemployment fell to its lowest level in over 30 years. Inflation fell to 2.5% per year compared to the 4.7% average over the prior 12 years. And overall economic growth averaged 4.0% per year compared to 2.8% average growth over the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush administrations.
It wasn't even close. The economy performed dramatically better in almost every way once Supply Side policies were replaced with Demand Side policies.
The most dramatic outcome was the reversal of the Reagan-era Supply Side deficits. Clinton's Demand Side policies not only paid down the Reagan/Bush deficits, they produced the first budgetary surpluses since 1969. By the time Clinton left office, the government was running surpluses of almost $140 billion per year. This is what he turned over to George W. Bush in January of 2001.
Bush, of course, returned to the Supply Side policies of Reagan and his father. He lowered taxes on the very rich his base as he calls them. His $1.6 trillion in tax cuts give 45% of the benefits to the top 1% of the population. It is classic Supply Side economics. What happened?
According to the Economic Policy Institute, "By virtually every measure, the economy has performed worse in this business cycle than was typical of past ones." GDP growth since the bottom of the 2001 recession has averaged 2.8%. But it grew at an average rate of 3.5% over the prior six recoveries dating back to World War II. Or consider jobs: 1.3% more jobs under Bush versus 8.8% more during earlier upswings.
Private sector jobs an especially telling measure of economic health are up only 1% since 2001 versus an average of 8.6% for past recoveries. Investment? That Holy Grail of Supply Side orthodoxy? Up 3.6% compared to the 8.2% average for the six earlier rebounds. Pick your measure: growth, jobs, income, spending, investment. The recovery based on the Bush II Supply Side tax cuts is one of the weakest ever recorded.
The one thing the Supply Side revival did excel at � not surprisingly � is debt. Bush turned a $136 billion surplus from Bill Clinton into a $158 billion deficit in his first year. When he took office, the national debt stood at $5.8 trillion. It now stands at $8.1 trillion and is projected to hit $10 trillion by 2008 when Bush�s second term is over. The ten-year cumulative deficit forecast by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has changed from a $5.6 trillion surplus in January 2001 to a $3.4 trillion deficit in March of this year�an almost inconceivable swing of $9 trillion to the worse in only six years.
After more than 17 years of experience with Supply Side economics, we now know beyond doubt that this is not an accident.
These mammoth debts are a huge boon to that rich "base" that Bush loves to coddle. It is they, the very rich, who loan the money to the government to fund its debts. And since more borrowing drives up interest rates, they get to do so at higher and higher rates of return. This is simple supply and demand. By increasing the demand for borrowed money in the economy as a whole, Supply Side deficits drive up the cost, not just of government borrowing, but of ALL borrowing�everything from credit cards and mortgages to car loans and municipal bonds.
In other words, Supply Side economics rewards the rich both coming and going. Higher government debt leads to higher interest rates for all borrowing or in their case, lending. And then, they get to pay lower and lower taxes on their higher and higher earnings. It is a magical two-fer worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
This is the real reason Bill Clinton was so relentlessly hounded while in office. It wasn't that he was being serviced by an intern or that he was a particularly radical president. Indeed, Clinton himself described himself as �"an Eisenhower Republican". His big faux pas was that by paying down the Republican debts, he lowered interest rates, the basis of Republican earnings. In fact, real interest rates declined 40% while Clinton was in office. You can see why he simply had to go.
This is the real magic of Supply Side economics: greater-debts-leading-to-higher-returns-but-lower-taxes for the rich. It is one of the reasons the top 20% of income earners has raised its share of national income from 44% in 1980 when Supply Side policies began, to 50.1% last year. They now earn more than all of the rest of the people in the economy combined.
But it only works for the rich. If you�re not rich, it is you who are paying those higher and higher interest rates and it will be you or perhaps, more precisely, your children who will be stuck with the bill for the higher government debts. Paying off those debts can only come at the expense of future economic growth for income spent paying off inflated debts is money that is not available for college tuitions, job retraining, repairing infrastructure, etc.
Rarely in matters of public policy do we have the luxury of such starkly clear, repeatedly proven, empirically founded contrasts. Demand Side economics, as we saw in the 1990s, while far from perfect, produces robust growth, budgetary surpluses, and broad based prosperity. Supply Side economics produces middling growth, soaring deficits, and broad based debt. Mountains of debt. And the mountains are growing.
If we are to salvage any kind of economic sanity and prevent the bankruptcy of the nation, the next Congress must reverse the Supply Side agenda and return the country to a responsible fiscal course.
Robert Freeman writes on history, economics, and education. He can be reached at robertfreeman10@yahoo.com
Friday, September 25, 2009
AM Radio Hitler's Deadliest Weapon
The triumph of Nazi propaganda in this period is the subject of a remarkable exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (where I serve on the governing board). Germany in the 1920s was a land of broad literacy and diverse politics, boasting 146 daily newspapers in Berlin alone. Yet in the course of a few years, a fringe party was able to define a national community by scapegoating internal enemies; elevate a single, messianic leader; and keep the public docile with hatred while the state committed unprecedented crimes.
The adaptive use of new technology was central to this achievement. The Nazis pioneered voice amplification at rallies, the distribution of recorded speeches and the sophisticated targeting of poster art toward groups and regions.
But it was radio that proved the most powerful tool. The Nazis worked with radio manufacturers to provide Germans with free or low-cost "people's receivers." This new technology was disorienting, taking the public sphere, for the first time, into private places -- homes, schools and factories. "If you tuned in," says Steve Luckert, curator of the exhibit, "you heard strangers' voices all the time. The style had a heavy emphasis on emotion, tapping into a mass psychology. You were bombarded by information that you were unable to verify or critically evaluate. It was the Internet of its time."
This comparison to the Internet is apt. The Nazis would have found much to admire in the adaptation of their message on neo-Nazi, white supremacist and Holocaust-denial Web sites.
But the challenge of this technology is not merely an isolated subculture of hatred. It is a disorienting atmosphere in which information is difficult to verify or critically evaluate, the rules of discourse are unclear, and emotion -- often expressed in CAPITAL LETTERS -- is primary. User-driven content on the Internet often consists of bullying, conspiracy theories and racial prejudice. The absolute freedom of the medium paradoxically encourages authoritarian impulses to intimidate and silence others. The least responsible contributors see their darkest tendencies legitimated and reinforced, while serious voices are driven away by the general ugliness.
Ethicist Clive Hamilton calls this a "belligerent brutopia." "The Internet should represent a great flourishing of democratic participation," he argues. "But it doesn't. . . . The brutality of public debate on the Internet is due to one fact above all -- the option of anonymity. The belligerence would not be tolerated if the perpetrators' identities were known because they would be rebuffed and criticized by those who know them. Free speech without accountability breeds dogmatism and confrontation."
This destructive disinhibition is disturbing in itself. It also allows hatred to invade respected institutional spaces on the Internet, gaining for these ideas a legitimacy denied to fringe Web sites. After the Bernard Madoff scandal broke, for example, major newspaper sites included user-generated content such as "Find a Jew who isn't Crooked" and "Just another jew money changer thief" -- sentiments that newspapers would not have printed as letters to the editor. Postings of this kind regularly attack immigrants and African Americans, recycle centuries of anti-Semitism and deny the events of the Holocaust as a massive Jewish lie.
Legally restricting such content -- apart from prosecuting direct harassment and threats against individuals or incitement to violence -- is impossible. In America, the First Amendment protects blanket statements of bigotry. But this does not mean that popular news sites, along with settings such as Facebook and YouTube, are constitutionally required to provide forums for bullies and bigots. As private institutions, they are perfectly free to set rules against racism and hatred. This is not censorship; it is the definition of standards.
Some online institutions, such as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, screen user comments before posting them. Others, such as The Post and The Wall Street Journal, rely on readers to identify objectionable content -- a questionable strategy because numbness to abusiveness and hatred on the Internet is part of the challenge.
Whatever the method, no reputable institution should allow its publishing capacity, in print or online, to be used as the equivalent of the wall of a public bathroom stall.
The exploitation of technology by hatred will never be eliminated. But hatred must be confined to the fringes of our culture -- as the hatred of other times should have been.
mgerson@globalengage.org
Washington Post 9/25/09
The adaptive use of new technology was central to this achievement. The Nazis pioneered voice amplification at rallies, the distribution of recorded speeches and the sophisticated targeting of poster art toward groups and regions.
But it was radio that proved the most powerful tool. The Nazis worked with radio manufacturers to provide Germans with free or low-cost "people's receivers." This new technology was disorienting, taking the public sphere, for the first time, into private places -- homes, schools and factories. "If you tuned in," says Steve Luckert, curator of the exhibit, "you heard strangers' voices all the time. The style had a heavy emphasis on emotion, tapping into a mass psychology. You were bombarded by information that you were unable to verify or critically evaluate. It was the Internet of its time."
This comparison to the Internet is apt. The Nazis would have found much to admire in the adaptation of their message on neo-Nazi, white supremacist and Holocaust-denial Web sites.
But the challenge of this technology is not merely an isolated subculture of hatred. It is a disorienting atmosphere in which information is difficult to verify or critically evaluate, the rules of discourse are unclear, and emotion -- often expressed in CAPITAL LETTERS -- is primary. User-driven content on the Internet often consists of bullying, conspiracy theories and racial prejudice. The absolute freedom of the medium paradoxically encourages authoritarian impulses to intimidate and silence others. The least responsible contributors see their darkest tendencies legitimated and reinforced, while serious voices are driven away by the general ugliness.
Ethicist Clive Hamilton calls this a "belligerent brutopia." "The Internet should represent a great flourishing of democratic participation," he argues. "But it doesn't. . . . The brutality of public debate on the Internet is due to one fact above all -- the option of anonymity. The belligerence would not be tolerated if the perpetrators' identities were known because they would be rebuffed and criticized by those who know them. Free speech without accountability breeds dogmatism and confrontation."
This destructive disinhibition is disturbing in itself. It also allows hatred to invade respected institutional spaces on the Internet, gaining for these ideas a legitimacy denied to fringe Web sites. After the Bernard Madoff scandal broke, for example, major newspaper sites included user-generated content such as "Find a Jew who isn't Crooked" and "Just another jew money changer thief" -- sentiments that newspapers would not have printed as letters to the editor. Postings of this kind regularly attack immigrants and African Americans, recycle centuries of anti-Semitism and deny the events of the Holocaust as a massive Jewish lie.
Legally restricting such content -- apart from prosecuting direct harassment and threats against individuals or incitement to violence -- is impossible. In America, the First Amendment protects blanket statements of bigotry. But this does not mean that popular news sites, along with settings such as Facebook and YouTube, are constitutionally required to provide forums for bullies and bigots. As private institutions, they are perfectly free to set rules against racism and hatred. This is not censorship; it is the definition of standards.
Some online institutions, such as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, screen user comments before posting them. Others, such as The Post and The Wall Street Journal, rely on readers to identify objectionable content -- a questionable strategy because numbness to abusiveness and hatred on the Internet is part of the challenge.
Whatever the method, no reputable institution should allow its publishing capacity, in print or online, to be used as the equivalent of the wall of a public bathroom stall.
The exploitation of technology by hatred will never be eliminated. But hatred must be confined to the fringes of our culture -- as the hatred of other times should have been.
mgerson@globalengage.org
Washington Post 9/25/09
Monday, September 14, 2009
"Who The Hell Am I” ...Nas Forgot to Name a 'Coon'
Man I love that song. When an artist takes a stand and confronts a problem that people might not realize because they don’t quite understand the history of our culture. But Nas forgot somebody. Maybe it could be because they play his videos on TV. Hmmmm...I wonder who he missed. I’ve got it! That station that had a young boy doing stand-up holding a pimp cup and yapping about pimpin’. That station that devotes more than 70% of its schedule to showing music videos than decent programming. That station that continues to bestow upon its audience the concept that the only rich people are rappers, singers, and athletes. That station that instead of showing the presidential debates opted to show another round of its useless top 10 videos showcasing half naked women and people who idealize money and cars instead of embracing less tangible items. That station that shows a little more than three quarter naked women after hours. That very station that shows less news than any other minority station. Do you have an idea who I’m talking about? If you don’t you better wake yo punk ass up!
It’s a Coon Picnic over there at BET. BET stands for Black Entertainment Television but lately could stand for Black Exploitation Television because of its lack of anything helpful to African American culture. Sure they have a half and hour news show and from time to time show a decent movie (if that) but that’s where the buck stops. Remember when BET used to have Teen Summit with Prince Dejour and Ananda Lewis? An educational forum that young people tuned into every week that not only gave you insight on problems plaguing our teens but also gave you a decent performance or two (remember the baby faced Usher before he got crunk?). Remember when Donnie Simpson brought personality to Video Soul? Every day it felt good to look at the likeable and well spoken Donnie wake you up to your favorite music. This is before the naked asses you see today of course.
No more BET Tonight, Heart and Soul or Lead Story. But whose fault is it? Robert Johnson sold BET to go after being the first Black owner of a sports franchise. Hooray for Bob Johnson! He’s rich and we are still poor in knowledge and culture. He reportedly once said that the ‘E’ in BET stood for Entertainment not Education. I guess he’s not responsible for what comes on TV but more interested in his bottom line. That makes him a good businessman right? But when will it become someone’s responsibility to help assist in the growth of our culture rather than succumb to the never ending stereotypes that plague BET today.
Now look what BET is. The only outlet for African American television that does damn near nothing for the culture that helps keeps this station afloat. I mean...dammit... I hate BET! It’s a shame when you show more videos than a station whose name says “Music Video” in it! I can’t bear to watch Tip Drill again (okay maybe one more time...but that’s it and I mean it! ) because of its degrading images. I can’t watch another video with zero substance but more than 1,000,000 dollars worth of rims, cars, jewelry and clothing that the next generation idolizes more than content and history.
Speaking of history, where the hell is the history!?!? Geezus! What do you have to do to get a little education around here? I don’t know what the hell videos teach us but I don’t think it would hurt too much to show other great African Americans who have transcended our culture through various outlets besides rapping about big booty bitches who get low and thug out. The Gordon Parks, Bo jangles, Eldridge Cleavers, Bobby Seales, Stokely Carmicheals, Angela Davis, Assata Shakurs, Donnie Hathaways, Marcus Garveys, Ossie Davis, Spike Lees, Omar Tyrees, Michael Eric Dyson, Barack Obamas, Duke Ellingtons, Lena Hornes, Ruby Dees, Josephine Bakers, Harriet Tubmans, Billie Hollidays, Tom Joyners, Princes, Sistah Souljahs, Bill Cosbys, Nikki Giovannis, Cornel Wests, and the many others who have assisted in making African Americans valuable.
Why can’t BET show African Americans how to make money instead of spend it? It’s crazy how a video can influence us go out and buy the silliest items which depreciate as soon as you drive it off the lot, but why not take 1 hour out of the umpteen hours of videos and deliver a show about how to make money and how to make your money make money. Look how we are viewed. No other channel has more “debt free” commercials than BET yet will do absolutely nothing to teach people how to stay out of debt. It’s like we are their prey. But we bite the bait every single time.
Talk about how important credit is for young people. I mean just for entertainment purposes let P. Diddy host it. He’s rich and he got everybody who didn’t know jack about an election to believe in his “Vote or Die” mantra so why not let him show people how he makes money on his various lucrative endeavors. His accountant can hold up the que cards. Oh and next can we please rid ourselves of the crappy shows BET picks up that were booted off of another station? The Parkers?
Awwwww... C’mon! Why not show television shows that meant something like What’s Happening, Good Times, Sanford and Son, A Different World, Living Single, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, In Living Color, Martin, the list can go on and on. BET has crappy shows period.
Take College Hill for instance, an outright bite off of MTV’s The Real World yet looks like it was shot with the world’s first video camera. Viacom owns MTV, BET and VH1 so why is it that VH1 and MTV have the better quality shows while BET shows look like bootleg garbage? They gave us the scraps from the bottom of the barrel and we accepted it. It’s like feeding your two favorite children while the redheaded...or I guess you can say...nappy headed stepchild rummages the crumbs off of the floor. I suppose it all boils down to what we accept as a culture.
Since a high percentage of time on BET is devoted to videos, let’s talk about that garbage as well. How many times can one person watch the same 20 videos? I swear you can catch a video that ends BET Start and then kicks off 106th and Park which is shown again on the BET.com Countdown.
I mean really, there aren’t any other artists out there? Remember when BET was groundbreaking and would show videos that you couldn’t catch on the radio? Remember when Rap City was the @#%$? Now it’s in some dudes basement under his mama’s house. Remember the first time you saw Nas climbing the steps to “The World is Yours”? Or watching the dust rupture off of the instruments on the Roots “Distortion to Static”? Or how about Public Enemy fighting the power?
What if these videos were never shown? Of course hip hop has changed which results in a programming shift but there can be more time allotted to spotlighting more innovative artists. Videos play a huge role in what the public gets behind so why not be a little more responsible with what type of videos are shown? It’s amazing how BET can take Eminem off the air because he dissed Michael Jackson but there was no shame in showing the women degrading “Get Low” over and over and over again. Eminem can’t diss Michael Jackson but Comic View does it every single day.
Hypocritical perhaps? And speaking of Comic View...when will that show die??? The comedy is so linear and not funny it’s unbelievable. But I guess when people view us as dancing, singing, rapping, God fearing jiggaboo comedians; we can’t let them down right? And speaking of God fearing....
There is something I have to get off my chest real quick before many of you send me death threats and make an attempt on my life. ALL AFRICAN AMERICANS DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE CHURCH ALL DAY SUNDAY! Yes... I’m a god fearing individual but why is it that BET is the ONLY station besides the Christian Network that has to show the Gospel all day on Sunday. I don’t go to church (for my own personal reasons of which I will not get into) along with many other African Americans so I really don’t want to sit through TD Jakes as my programming all damn day. That is just as stereotypical as the rest of the programming. If there was a balance none of this would be an issue but it’s either one extreme or the other. So I guess all we can do is laugh, sing and rap about sex, cars, women and money. That’s what BET gives us everyday. 24hrs a day 6 days a week (can’t forget about the whole Sunday dedicated in crooked pastor programming). But what can we do?
Make a statement! Stop supporting BET and the garbage that it is committed in delivering to your television set. Take a stand and fight the power. The only thing worse than another race dissing you is your own race dissing you unabashedly for the fancy of Entertainment. How can we stop the attacks on the outside unless we work on healing our own wounds internally? Be an activist within your community and make others knowledgeable of their history and their culture. Maybe then we can appreciate the path that Bo jangles had to take in order for us to get through the door. Maybe then we can understand that what Amos and Andy did was relevant but was done so we would not have to tread that path once again. But until then I’m still singing along with Nas
“One for the coons on UPN 9 and WB who yes massah on BET” but I’m just a critic...
Who the Hell Am I?
Monday - December 06, 2004
Andreas Hale
www.hiphopdx.com/index/features/id.342
It’s a Coon Picnic over there at BET. BET stands for Black Entertainment Television but lately could stand for Black Exploitation Television because of its lack of anything helpful to African American culture. Sure they have a half and hour news show and from time to time show a decent movie (if that) but that’s where the buck stops. Remember when BET used to have Teen Summit with Prince Dejour and Ananda Lewis? An educational forum that young people tuned into every week that not only gave you insight on problems plaguing our teens but also gave you a decent performance or two (remember the baby faced Usher before he got crunk?). Remember when Donnie Simpson brought personality to Video Soul? Every day it felt good to look at the likeable and well spoken Donnie wake you up to your favorite music. This is before the naked asses you see today of course.
No more BET Tonight, Heart and Soul or Lead Story. But whose fault is it? Robert Johnson sold BET to go after being the first Black owner of a sports franchise. Hooray for Bob Johnson! He’s rich and we are still poor in knowledge and culture. He reportedly once said that the ‘E’ in BET stood for Entertainment not Education. I guess he’s not responsible for what comes on TV but more interested in his bottom line. That makes him a good businessman right? But when will it become someone’s responsibility to help assist in the growth of our culture rather than succumb to the never ending stereotypes that plague BET today.
Now look what BET is. The only outlet for African American television that does damn near nothing for the culture that helps keeps this station afloat. I mean...dammit... I hate BET! It’s a shame when you show more videos than a station whose name says “Music Video” in it! I can’t bear to watch Tip Drill again (okay maybe one more time...but that’s it and I mean it! ) because of its degrading images. I can’t watch another video with zero substance but more than 1,000,000 dollars worth of rims, cars, jewelry and clothing that the next generation idolizes more than content and history.
Speaking of history, where the hell is the history!?!? Geezus! What do you have to do to get a little education around here? I don’t know what the hell videos teach us but I don’t think it would hurt too much to show other great African Americans who have transcended our culture through various outlets besides rapping about big booty bitches who get low and thug out. The Gordon Parks, Bo jangles, Eldridge Cleavers, Bobby Seales, Stokely Carmicheals, Angela Davis, Assata Shakurs, Donnie Hathaways, Marcus Garveys, Ossie Davis, Spike Lees, Omar Tyrees, Michael Eric Dyson, Barack Obamas, Duke Ellingtons, Lena Hornes, Ruby Dees, Josephine Bakers, Harriet Tubmans, Billie Hollidays, Tom Joyners, Princes, Sistah Souljahs, Bill Cosbys, Nikki Giovannis, Cornel Wests, and the many others who have assisted in making African Americans valuable.
Why can’t BET show African Americans how to make money instead of spend it? It’s crazy how a video can influence us go out and buy the silliest items which depreciate as soon as you drive it off the lot, but why not take 1 hour out of the umpteen hours of videos and deliver a show about how to make money and how to make your money make money. Look how we are viewed. No other channel has more “debt free” commercials than BET yet will do absolutely nothing to teach people how to stay out of debt. It’s like we are their prey. But we bite the bait every single time.
Talk about how important credit is for young people. I mean just for entertainment purposes let P. Diddy host it. He’s rich and he got everybody who didn’t know jack about an election to believe in his “Vote or Die” mantra so why not let him show people how he makes money on his various lucrative endeavors. His accountant can hold up the que cards. Oh and next can we please rid ourselves of the crappy shows BET picks up that were booted off of another station? The Parkers?
Awwwww... C’mon! Why not show television shows that meant something like What’s Happening, Good Times, Sanford and Son, A Different World, Living Single, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, In Living Color, Martin, the list can go on and on. BET has crappy shows period.
Take College Hill for instance, an outright bite off of MTV’s The Real World yet looks like it was shot with the world’s first video camera. Viacom owns MTV, BET and VH1 so why is it that VH1 and MTV have the better quality shows while BET shows look like bootleg garbage? They gave us the scraps from the bottom of the barrel and we accepted it. It’s like feeding your two favorite children while the redheaded...or I guess you can say...nappy headed stepchild rummages the crumbs off of the floor. I suppose it all boils down to what we accept as a culture.
Since a high percentage of time on BET is devoted to videos, let’s talk about that garbage as well. How many times can one person watch the same 20 videos? I swear you can catch a video that ends BET Start and then kicks off 106th and Park which is shown again on the BET.com Countdown.
I mean really, there aren’t any other artists out there? Remember when BET was groundbreaking and would show videos that you couldn’t catch on the radio? Remember when Rap City was the @#%$? Now it’s in some dudes basement under his mama’s house. Remember the first time you saw Nas climbing the steps to “The World is Yours”? Or watching the dust rupture off of the instruments on the Roots “Distortion to Static”? Or how about Public Enemy fighting the power?
What if these videos were never shown? Of course hip hop has changed which results in a programming shift but there can be more time allotted to spotlighting more innovative artists. Videos play a huge role in what the public gets behind so why not be a little more responsible with what type of videos are shown? It’s amazing how BET can take Eminem off the air because he dissed Michael Jackson but there was no shame in showing the women degrading “Get Low” over and over and over again. Eminem can’t diss Michael Jackson but Comic View does it every single day.
Hypocritical perhaps? And speaking of Comic View...when will that show die??? The comedy is so linear and not funny it’s unbelievable. But I guess when people view us as dancing, singing, rapping, God fearing jiggaboo comedians; we can’t let them down right? And speaking of God fearing....
There is something I have to get off my chest real quick before many of you send me death threats and make an attempt on my life. ALL AFRICAN AMERICANS DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE CHURCH ALL DAY SUNDAY! Yes... I’m a god fearing individual but why is it that BET is the ONLY station besides the Christian Network that has to show the Gospel all day on Sunday. I don’t go to church (for my own personal reasons of which I will not get into) along with many other African Americans so I really don’t want to sit through TD Jakes as my programming all damn day. That is just as stereotypical as the rest of the programming. If there was a balance none of this would be an issue but it’s either one extreme or the other. So I guess all we can do is laugh, sing and rap about sex, cars, women and money. That’s what BET gives us everyday. 24hrs a day 6 days a week (can’t forget about the whole Sunday dedicated in crooked pastor programming). But what can we do?
Make a statement! Stop supporting BET and the garbage that it is committed in delivering to your television set. Take a stand and fight the power. The only thing worse than another race dissing you is your own race dissing you unabashedly for the fancy of Entertainment. How can we stop the attacks on the outside unless we work on healing our own wounds internally? Be an activist within your community and make others knowledgeable of their history and their culture. Maybe then we can appreciate the path that Bo jangles had to take in order for us to get through the door. Maybe then we can understand that what Amos and Andy did was relevant but was done so we would not have to tread that path once again. But until then I’m still singing along with Nas
“One for the coons on UPN 9 and WB who yes massah on BET” but I’m just a critic...
Who the Hell Am I?
Monday - December 06, 2004
Andreas Hale
www.hiphopdx.com/index/features/id.342
Thursday, September 10, 2009
America's Natural Gas
Andre Johnson
1816 NW 45th Str
Miami, FL 33142-4748
September 10, 2009
[recipient address was inserted here]
Dear [recipient name was inserted here],
While the price per barrel of oil has fallen from the last summer highs,
it's beginning to rise again. What hasn't changed is the percentage of
oil we import every day: over the past 12 months we have continued to
import nearly two-thirds of the oil we use.
Most of the oil we import is used as a transportation fuel - cars, trucks,
aircraft, boats and trains. About one barrel out of every five is used as
diesel fuel to power heavy trucks - 18-wheelers.
I am all for developing battery and fuel cell technology - or some other
technology which is still in the laboratory stage. But neither batteries
nor hydrogen are ready for widespread distribution to our national fleet
of approximately 250 million cars and light trucks. A battery also won't
push an 18-wheeler. The only fuel which is available to reduce our
dependence on foreign oil is domestic natural gas.
Due to recent advances in technology, we now have the ability to recover
natural gas from the enormous deposits in Texas, Louisiana and Appalachia
in the lower 48 states. In fact, a recent study Potential Gas Committee
estimates that natural gas reserves have surged by 35 percent. The 2,074
trillion cubic feet of domestic natural gas reserves cited in the study is
the equivalent of nearly 350 billion barrels of oil, about the same as
Saudi Arabia's oil reserves.
Natural gas is cheaper than diesel fuel. Natural gas is cleaner than
diesel. It's abundant. And it's ours.
The time to act is now and the NAT GAS Act is the best tool we've had in
decades to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
The NAT GAS Act of 2009 is a bi-partisan bill in both the U.S. House of
Representatives (H.R. 1835) and the Senate (S. 1408). In the House,
Congressmen Boren (D-OK), Larson (D-CT) and Sullivan (R-OK) introduced it
April 1 and it already has nearly 80 bi-partisan cosponsors. In the
Senate, Senators Menendez (D-NJ) and Hatch (R-UT) were joined by Senate
Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) to introduce it on July 8.
The NAT GAS Act provides industry with the incentives to replace older
diesel trucks with newer natural gas vehicles - it's a great step in the
right direction. It will provide the momentum for engine manufacturers,
natural gas producers and natural gas distributors to ramp up and make a
real difference in our dependence on foreign oil.
I hope you will sign up as a cosponsor to support this important
legislation. I will be watching your press and floor remarks for
statements of support.
Sincerely,
Andre Johnson
3055551212
1816 NW 45th Str
Miami, FL 33142-4748
September 10, 2009
[recipient address was inserted here]
Dear [recipient name was inserted here],
While the price per barrel of oil has fallen from the last summer highs,
it's beginning to rise again. What hasn't changed is the percentage of
oil we import every day: over the past 12 months we have continued to
import nearly two-thirds of the oil we use.
Most of the oil we import is used as a transportation fuel - cars, trucks,
aircraft, boats and trains. About one barrel out of every five is used as
diesel fuel to power heavy trucks - 18-wheelers.
I am all for developing battery and fuel cell technology - or some other
technology which is still in the laboratory stage. But neither batteries
nor hydrogen are ready for widespread distribution to our national fleet
of approximately 250 million cars and light trucks. A battery also won't
push an 18-wheeler. The only fuel which is available to reduce our
dependence on foreign oil is domestic natural gas.
Due to recent advances in technology, we now have the ability to recover
natural gas from the enormous deposits in Texas, Louisiana and Appalachia
in the lower 48 states. In fact, a recent study Potential Gas Committee
estimates that natural gas reserves have surged by 35 percent. The 2,074
trillion cubic feet of domestic natural gas reserves cited in the study is
the equivalent of nearly 350 billion barrels of oil, about the same as
Saudi Arabia's oil reserves.
Natural gas is cheaper than diesel fuel. Natural gas is cleaner than
diesel. It's abundant. And it's ours.
The time to act is now and the NAT GAS Act is the best tool we've had in
decades to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
The NAT GAS Act of 2009 is a bi-partisan bill in both the U.S. House of
Representatives (H.R. 1835) and the Senate (S. 1408). In the House,
Congressmen Boren (D-OK), Larson (D-CT) and Sullivan (R-OK) introduced it
April 1 and it already has nearly 80 bi-partisan cosponsors. In the
Senate, Senators Menendez (D-NJ) and Hatch (R-UT) were joined by Senate
Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) to introduce it on July 8.
The NAT GAS Act provides industry with the incentives to replace older
diesel trucks with newer natural gas vehicles - it's a great step in the
right direction. It will provide the momentum for engine manufacturers,
natural gas producers and natural gas distributors to ramp up and make a
real difference in our dependence on foreign oil.
I hope you will sign up as a cosponsor to support this important
legislation. I will be watching your press and floor remarks for
statements of support.
Sincerely,
Andre Johnson
3055551212
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
America
This country is coming a loose at the seams. Now we have a president who actually is trying to get needle and thread and sew it back up. Some people who claim to be intelligent, worldly, are not looking at our situation globally. They are acting like enemies of the state. Are they trying to defeat us from the within? To stop this man, our president from repairing a torn republic. Medicare will be bankrupt in several years, our manufacturing sector is not competing at all, we have to borrow money from a previous socialist country to sustain ourselves. Adam Smith wrote a book about "Petro Dollars" because at one time we thought that with all the investment coming from OPEC that they would actually have a majority stake in America. Now it really seems like the Chinese will. The Chinese are the tireless. They are the manufactures of the world. America is far behind in the creation of technology patents. Look at alibaba.com and see what the Chinese are doing with their time, you can buy a watch that is actually a cell phone with a camera that is looks nice. Their children study they don't play and waste time like America's they know they have to compete. We as Americans have become complacent. Sports and the arena is what ruined Rome. Now ask yourself "What are the most looked at television shows in America?" Answer the NFL Monday night Football and the WWE with is on three nights a week. Our children have false hope and dreams with these shows of athletic prowess. Where is the stimulation and brain athletics that count toward a more realistic future. There are commercials on that say that children buy $140.00 sneakers hoping to learn to play basketball and will never have talent enough to be a professional athlete. So is there anything wrong with telling them to exercise their brain where they truly have a chance of real success that will also benefit a country that need their success? Not far behind China in education is India. India's honor role students equal the total number of students in America's schools. We have to compete in this world; our children have to compete in technology and manufacturing. Stop the excuses. Excuses are the tools of the mediocre which what we have become. Wake up America.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man by Steve Harvey
.....Great stuff! I know much of what he said should be common sense for every grown woman.He really put his brain to work on that one. Much of which I already knew, but I got a much better understanding of some things that had me stumped at times. But here are what I feel were the most important and useful points of the book (in my cliffnotes version, lol)
.....Great stuff! I know much of what he said should be common sense for every grown woman.He really put his brain to work on that one. Much of which I already knew, but I got a much better understanding of some things that had me stumped at times. But here are what I feel were the most important and useful points of the book (in my cliffnotes version, lol)
**To women "Unless a man feels like he has established himself as a man, he's not going to establish you as his woman". If he's really the one you want to be with, sit your ass down until it's your turn! Don't try to force him into anything because he'll resent you for it, and honestly, if he's a real man, he won't stand for it. Get a man with goals, short-term and long-term. If he doesn't even have his short-term figured out ain't NO WAY you're going to be incorporated into his long-term.
**Men are simple creatures. Minimalists that thrive off of basic male necessities. Ladies, you know how you say the smallest things make you happy? The same thing goes for him! As Dave Chappelle says, "Make him a sandwich, play with his balls, and don't talk so much!" Ladies I'm just kidding, not.
However, I must also add that just because you want a man with goals and a plan doesn't mean jump on the first man that comes along! Ladies set your standards high and expect the man you want to reach for the bar and go above and beyond. You have all got too much going for ourselves to settle for less than the best.
I cannot and will not get into all that he had to say but he did indeed give me validation and why I don't regret being single since 2004. Some women just aren't ready for it! LOL (but no seriously), this has also given me time to grow and mature as man into the person I want myself to be...to quote (don't judge me) Souljah Boy: "Be yourself, everybody else is already taken."
Seriously though ladies, it's a good read! It's not a man telling you how to live your life, it's a man offering some insight to a man's mind and how to handle certain situations. You're not obligated to take his advice. But don't say you weren't warned when he takes your cookie and runs. Leaving you wondering why his phone number don't work.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Hip Hop the African American's Experience
"Don't think about commin up think about dummin up".... Kinda sounds like Ice Cubes from the Eighties. This man one of the architects of "Gangsta Rap" has grown and matured into a movies maker of quality family movies, why can't we. As a matter of fact we done started dummin up.
The Black man, the Italian, and the Irish, have something in common, racism. Except they new that you will not be given anything your must take what you want. Let take a look at the Italian man coming from distant shore landing at Ellis Island being processed in sometime 1n th late 1890's and early 1900's. He looked white, yes he had fair skin and straight hair and if he did not to open his mouth, he could pass as born on these shores to parents from whose ancestors came on the Mayflower, Pinta or Santa Maria. But as soon as he open his mouth and his thick Italian accent came out he experienced racism. Maybe he was not hanged but he experienced economical racism, maybe not as shocking but just as painful. A father knowing that he is being kept from earning a living and providing for his family. He was not given the ability to get a city job, corporate job or dishwasher unless he had no competion for the job by a secondary native (white man), the primary native of America being the native american.. The Irish man also had the same skin complexion, same hair except sometimes his was red. But again when he opened his mouth it was clear that he was not a descendant of those who came on the Mayflower. He also experienced the same economic discrimination. Now what they did understand from their experiences from across the water in their homeland was that if you want something you must do whatever is necessary to get it.
Italians the Mafia and Irish the Boston Mob who have suffered the stigma of the criminal element but with their ill gotten gains they sent the sons and daughters to private schools, joined country clubs and cleaned up themselves and their grandsons and daughters have doctors, lawyers, mayors, senators and govenors. They thought about "commin up not dummin up". The Irish of Boston hired the own political leaders, secured every job in city government that was a hiring position and hired their own, to make sure that every Irsihman in Boston could make a good living for their families.
As a teacher in the public school system I so not see the children of the crack dealer, the pimp or any underworld figure comin up just the children of the poor dummin up. We must get some political power in our community and use it pull our people up. We must not live the "crab in the bucket" syndrome.
Mothers we must go back to raisng our children with strict standards of our grand parents and discipline children with the understanding and not emotional sentiment. Base the severity of the punishment on the wrong act displayed not on having a pretty child. Talk to your grandparents about how they were brought and lets go back to that. The time of all this superficial nonsense is past and understanding is needed. Malcom X said that Black women are the mothers of our race. Men we need to step up and give the game to our women. Make sure that they know what is important to us as a people for our up and commin like "George Jeffrerson".
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