Happy Chanukah

Conspiracy of Silence: Wage Collapse Caused Crisis

The Huffington Post Jonathan Tasini Posted January 6, 2009 | 09:23 AM (EST)

Every day, there is another example of the conspiracy of silence that pervades the traditional media's description of the current economic crisis. Sure, de-regulation, greed and pure stupidity has a lot to do with it. But, in truth, the underlying reason for the collapse has been a persistent war on the wages of American workers. Call it -- egads -- class warfare. What is astonishing, and aggravating, is that much of the traditional media continues to point the finger at workers -- those wild-spending people who just bought all those yachts, fur coats and mansions in far-away countries. And, now, shame on them, those wild-spending workers are doing something awful -- they are saving money.

 This morning brings another example, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal Rick and Noreen Capp recently reduced their credit-card debt, opened a savings account and stopped taking their two children to restaurants. Jessica and Alan Muir have started buying children's clothes at steep markdowns, splitting bulk-food purchases with other families and gathering their firewood instead of buying it for $200 a cord. As layoffs and store closures grip Boise, these two local families hope their newfound frugality will see them through the economic downturn. But this same thriftiness, embraced by families across the U.S., is also a major reason the downturn may not soon end. Americans, fresh off a decades long buying spree, are finally saving more and spending less -- just as the economy needs their dollars the most. 

Usually, frugality is good for individuals and for the economy. Savings serve as a reservoir of capital that can be used to finance investment, which helps raise a nation's standard of living. But in a recession, increased saving -- or its flip side, decreased spending -- can exacerbate the economy's woes. It's what economists call the "paradox of thrift." U.S. household debt, which has been growing steadily since the Federal Reserve began tracking it in 1952, declined for the first time in the third quarter of 2008. In the same quarter, U.S. consumer spending growth declined for the first time in 17 years. The article goes on to describe how people are now pulling back from spending and doing with less. But, nowhere in the piece do we read about the most important factor that lead to people piling up debt: the lack of wage growth. I have been doing a presentation around the country about the short-term and long-term reasons for the economic crisis facing workers. Here is the slide (courtesy of the Economic Policy Institute and Change To Win) that I think is perhaps the most graphic, clear explanation of why we are where we are. It measures productivity versus wages:

                                                                Productivity Wages

 Basically, the basic bargain was roughly this -- if you worked hard and became more productive, you would see that sweat of the brow in your wages.

And from the post-war era until the 1970s, that deal basically held -- as you can see from the lines that are basically close together until the 1970s. Then, the lines diverge -- dramatically. You can see it yourself. If the lines had continued to track closely together as they did prior to the 1970s, the minimum wage would be more than $19 an hour. The minimum wage! So, in short: people had no money coming in in their paychecks so they were forced to pay for their lives through credit -- either plastic or drawing down equity from their homes. There are lots of reasons that this happened -- greed, the attack against unions, de-regulation, dumb trade deals. But, the point is: we will never fix the economic crisis, whether through short-term economic stimulus and certainly not through tax cuts, until paychecks are re-inflated. Dramatically. I outlined a whole set of solutions to bailout American workers but the main one is simple: raise wages. Dramatically. And end -- and I know some people cringe at the term -- the class warfare that has been underway for the past three decades.

Read More: Debt, Financial Crisis, Greed, Minimum Wage, Unions, Wages, Working Class, Working Life, Business News

I have been too depress to move for a while. but I'm back with a little Butterfield honey.

Iranians in the Streets Again

How to make something a pressing issue

Lucy Lips, November 4th 2009, 1:05 pm


  Over at Socialist Unity Andy Newman notes: The draconian anti-gay laws being introduced in Uganda seem to have received very little attention in the Western press. This will widen the current legal definition of homosexuality, which involves a lengthy prison sentance (sic), and introduces a new offence of “aggravated homosexuality” which would be punishable by death. The lack of media interest is particularly surprising [my emphasis] due to the role of conservative evangelicals in laying the foundation for the law. Well, is it really surprising that there is no media coverage of this issue? I’m not surprised. In the past these issues got coverage because groups like Outrage! and individual activists like Peter Tatchell made a fuss about them, spoke about them and issued press releases about them. For example, last year the issue was on the news agenda because Outrage! picketed a church meeting of the “conservative evangelicals” involved in backing the Uganda law. Another case that Tatchell and Outrage! might ordinarily have publicised involves Nemat Safav, a 21 year old Iranian, arrested when he was 16 for homosexuality, and now due to be executed. So why aren’t gay groups in the UK mobilised around supporting or publicising these new cases? Why aren’t they providing photo ops and briefing journalists. My guess is that genuine international solidarity has been poisoned by far-left activists - often posing as human rights “defenders” and “academics” who smear people like Tatchell with charges of “collusion with imperialism” and “white man’s burden”, or, as George Galloway once put it “the khaki machine now taking on a tinge of pink”. More at Harry's Place

John Mackey and Ron Paul

I had just gotten back from Whole Foods yesterday, where else in South Florida can you buy "grass fed beef, nitrate free hot dogs, I love hot dogs, but then I read news and now I feel sad, no more hot dogs, no more yogurt in glass bottles and no more He' Brew beer... No more Whole Foods, and it was funny, while I was their I couldn't figure out why the store was so... empty, now I know

From Huffington Post
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey faced a vocal backlash earlier this year when he waded into the health care debate, coming out against "ObamaCare."

In a recent interview with Reason, Mackey got back into politics, revealing that he voted for former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) in the 2008 election.

Mackey suggested that, ideally, individuals would purchase their own health insurance, because great plans like the one offered at Whole Foods might discourage people from changing jobs.

Asked about his philosophy, he said, "I believe in capitalism ... I believe in individual empowerment. ... People didn't come to love capitalism because we haven't articulated well ... what capitalism is and all the good things that it does." He did not elaborate.

As for his political affiliation, Mackey disavowed any loyalties. "I don't feel like I'm on any of those teams," he said, adding that he voted for Libertarian candidate Bob Barr in 2008. "I like Ron Paul," he added, "but he didn't get the Republican nomination."

RON PAUL???

Ron Paul and the John Birch Society

Shared via AddThis

79.9 percent rate targets credit-challenged

No, You're Reading That Right By BOB HANSEN Updated 11:02 AM PDT, Thu, Oct 15, 2009 Bob Hansen Gordon Hageman couldn’t believe the credit card offer he got in the mail. "My first thought, it was a mistake," Hageman said. The wine distributor called the number on the offer, gave them the offer code and verified his information. Sure enough, it was right: the pre-approved credit card came with a 79.9 percent APR. Yes, 79.9 percent. The offer is for a Premier card from First Premier Bank, which is based in South Dakota. On its Web site, First Premier says it is the country's 10th largest issuer of Visa and MasterCard credit cards. The site also says it "focuses on individuals who have less than perfect credit but are actually still creditworthy." "I think they’re trying to take advantage of me," said Hageman. Ya think? Hageman acknowleged that his credit isn't perfect, but he said it's about average. He said the pre-approved offer didn’t mention the actual interest rate on the card -- for that, he had to read the enclosed fine-print disclosure. "I think you’re beginning to border on deception there," San Diego State marketing professor Michael Belch said. Belch said the card is offering a bad deal to people who are desperate. "They're just finding different ways to gouge the consumer," Belch said. The California Attorney General's office said there's nothing it can do about the cards since they are issued out of state and out of its jurisdiction. A spokesman with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said interest rate limits on bank cards are set by the individual state and not on a federal level. According to information on the South Dakota Legislative Web site, there is "no maximum or usury restriction." In other words, the individual bank can set its own interest rate limits. Several calls made to First Premier for a comment were not returned. First Published: Oct 13, 2009 4:16 PM PDT

House OKs new pilot rules

For anybody who flies, this may be the the MOST important news of the day, week, month and maybe the year

Brian Tumulty

Gannett Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON —Pilots of commuter planes operated by regional carriers would have tohave at least 1,500 hours of flight experience instead of the current250, under legislation approved overwhelmingly by the House onWednesday.
Thebill, a response to the Colgan Air flight that crashed outside Buffaloin February, passed 409-11. It also would require pilots to be trainedto deal with flight emergencies. Fifty people were killed when theplane experienced an engine stall and smashed into a house.
"Beinga commercial airline pilot is not an entry-level position," Rep. ChrisLee, R-Clarence, said during Wednesday's House floor debate. "Wedeserve to have them as well-trained as possible."
WesternNew York Reps. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, and Louise Slaughter,D-Fairport, also offered floor statements in support of the legislation.

Aninvestigation by the National Transportation Safety Board into theFebruary crash revealed numerous deficiencies in regulations coveringregional carriers, but the Federal Aviation Administration is notrequired to adopt the agency's recommendations.
"It came to me as a surprise that the NTSB ideas were only recommendations to the FAA," Slaughter said.

The House legislation would eliminate the possibility that the FAA will shelve those recommendations.
Instead,the FAA would have 90 days upon final enactment of the legislation toestablish a national database of pilot licenses and safety records forairlines to use in deciding whether to hire a pilot who has worked fora competitor.
Andthe FAA would have one year to update and implement a new rule on howmany hours pilots may work. This is intended to reduce pilot fatigue.

Passengerswho book flights on the Internet also would be informed up frontwhether a flight segment is being flown by a regional partner insteadof a major carrier.
Families of several of the 50 victims of February's crash traveled to Washington to follow the House vote and thank lawmakers.

A similar Senate bill introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is unlikely to pass as stand-alone legislation.
Sen.Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is a co-sponsor of that bill. Itsprovisions probably will be inserted into an FAA reauthorization billlater this year.
Under the House-passed legislation:

Airlines would have to establish FAA-approved programs to address pilot fatigue.
Airlines would have to create mentoring programs in which junior pilots would fly with more senior pilots.

FAA officials would have to form a best-practices task force to examine pilot training.
The Government Accountability Office would compare and evaluate pilot training programs at flight schools and colleges.

Additional Facts

How they voted MichaelA. Arcuri, D-Utica, Oneida County; Christopher Lee, R-Clarence, ErieCounty; Dan Maffei, D-DeWitt, Onondaga County; Eric Massa, D-Corning;and Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport

Middle Israel: Why Leonard Cohen moved Israel

Oct. 1, 2009
Amotz Asa-El
THE JERUSALEM POST

If there is one place along the notoriously hedonistic Coastal Plain that is even less spiritual than the rest of that restless urban sprawl, it is Ramat Gan. The city to Tel Aviv's east prides itself on assorted claims to fame, from the country's first mall, tallest building and largest stadium to the world's leading diamond exchange.Inspiration and introspection, however, let alone repentance, were hardly on the minds of this town's builders - a set of liberals who were even more secular than Israel's socialist founders.That alone, therefore, made last week's encounter in Ramat Gan Stadium between 50,000 mostly secular Israelis and the lone, frail, contemplative and unfashionably capped Leonard Cohen - seem like the unarmed Jonah's improbable conquest of sinful Nineveh.Cohen the singer, poet and novelist needs no introduction to most Middle Israelis; and those who hadn't known of this graduate of Montreal's Herzliya High School who became Canada's leading poet could have learned all about him through the extensive coverage that preceded and followed his concert, a moving event that put to shame recent musical attempts by Madonna and Depeche Mode to sweep the country off its feet.The question, therefore, is not what Leonard Cohen was trying to say here - unique though his inspiring lyrics and caressing tunes are, they have been with us for decades - but what his audience was voting for with its feet, artistically, politically and religiously.ARTISTICALLY, Cohen defies two traits that frequently plague the popular genres to which his music partly belongs: noise and shallowness.The thousands of Americans and Europeans who crowd this septuagenarian's concerts don't just tolerate the minimalism of his tunes, the near-silence of his tone and the quest for meaning that runs through his lines, they crave them. We Jews are passively reminded every fall that for centuries most people ordinarily heard hardly any artificial noise, even that of a shofar, let alone a musical orchestra, not to mention factories, highways, locomotives or jets. Now we have come full circle; modern man's ears are so infused and invaded by cacophony, blabber and clamor that he has come to thirst for the velvet touch of a whisper, the very kind that is Cohen's hallmark. That is why his music has won an estimated 2,000 different renditions over the years.In yearning for this departure from contemporary musical routine, Cohen's Israeli following is no different than others. Moreover, some in the audience that packed Ramat Gan Stadium were there because everyone else was there, or because they wanted to be seen, or just for the heck of it. And yet, the critical mass was there for very Israeli reasons.For Israelis, the sight of a successful man tenderly searching his soul and at the same time worshiping God in quest of repentance is rare.When hearing words like "they sentenced me to 20 years," Israelis don't think of larger-than-life revolutionaries accused of "trying to change the system" but of smalltime politicians charged with wheeling, dealing, embezzling, skimming and double billing, too. When, they ask, will one, just one, of this snaking line of disgraced notables emerge from his jail term and confess, "I did my best, it wasn't much, I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch," and how many of these can credibly say, "I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you," or at the very least concede, as Cohen has to the crowd's delight, "And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my lips but Hallelujah?"Now this is not to say that the large audience in Ramat Gan was really captured by, or even aware of the irony, from our Israeli viewpoint, in Cohen's follow-up on David's surrender to temptation. This context was there, at best, subconsciously. What was not subconscious was Cohen's kind of religiosity.HAVING LOST his father as a child, Cohen was deeply influenced by his grandfather, Rabbi Shlomo Klinitski, who taught him Bible, Talmud and mysticism, and inspired Cohen's The Spice-Box of the Earth, the book that made him famous back in 1961. There, in "Lines from My Grandfather's Journal," Cohen brought together King David and 16th-century sage Rabbi Judah Loew, the Maharal of Prague, for a kind of dialogue that can only be imagined by someone who is intimately familiar with Judaism's sources and attached to its traditions.Though a growing number of Israeli performers, from Shlomo Gronich to Meir Banai, are seeking their Jewish roots, there are very few in the country's cultural scene today, from novelists and painters to academics and rabbis, not to mention singers, who are capable of this sort of creativity.That is why Cohen is an inspiration here. His is a kind of Judaism that has yet to emerge here in full force. That is why 50,000 Israelis joined Cohen in singing "Who by Fire," his version of the 12th-century prayer about the judgment on Yom Kippur of all people, some to life and some to death, and of all states, some to the sword and some to peace - a song he wrote after journeying to the charred battlefields of the Yom Kippur War.Last week, so close to and yet so far from the Diamond Exchange, the Ayalon Mall and the Aviv Tower, and so deep within yet so well above the stadium that ordinarily hears the curses of Israeli soccer fans, a multitude of Middle Israelis swayed as this Diaspora Jew named Cohen, in what may have been his last appearance here, lifted his hands and blessed all at hand in the traditional blessing of the priests.Yet this Cohen is a priest only by name.In practice, he is the antithesis of the caste that cultivated ritual, frosted faith and suppressed spiritual spontaneity, let alone dissent. A man like Leonard Cohen - who in a 1964 conference of Canadian Jewish leaders said money had replaced for them the values of the prophets, and that the very term "Jewish establishment" was an oxymoron - is in his substance more prophet than priest.And that's what is so unique in him to secular Israelis.Here and now, Judaism is also often held hostage by an establishment that cares more for faith's legislation and imposition than for the souls of the people it is meant to inspire. That at least is what 50,000 Israelis voted last week by their feet as they flocked to Ramat Gan Stadium where they joined a distant cousin's prayer, some waving candlesticks, some moving lips and some wiping tears.

www.MiddleIsrael.com

5770

A sweet year for all of us

Simon's Cat 'Fly Guy'

I found this video while looking at blogs with interesting, strange, funny, weird names, totally unconcerned about content, just names... This video was found at "Fetch me my Axe"

This is a comment from a Harry Place's article by Seph Brown, the article is interesting but I really enjoyed the comment.

Stan 17 , September 2009, 2:35 pm

Seph, Thank you for the post. Not being British, I only have a cursory understanding of what happened. Your explanation is plausible and believable.If you wonder why some people here have a hard time accepting you in any way, it is because Israel has been under attack for 60 years. We are tired and our patience has run very thin.Let me give it to you from a base visceral level. These are the feelings. I hope I do not get banned from Harry’s Place, but I need to get this point across.When I hear someone protest the “Gaza war”, my first reaction is to say “fuck you, you cock sucking son of a bitch”.I lived in Sderot for a month and was under daily rocket bombardment. I saw how every morning at the exact time children would be in route to school and could not be protected the rockets came.There was no war more justified than the Gaza war. 5 years of rocket attacks against children, and you did not open your fucking mouth to say a word. Finally Israel defends itself and it is guilty of war crimes. Listen mother fucker, we are not going to walk quietly and passively to the gas chambers. We are going to defend ourselves whether anti-semitic fuck faces like you like it or not.So there you have it. Thank you for the post, and I sincerely wish you the best of luck. I would be happy to meet you some day and have a cup of tea.Stan

Let's Save the Status Quo

Another wonderful video from the Billionaires for Wealthcare, a grassroots network of health insurance CEOs, HMO lobbyists, talk-show hosts, and others profiting off of our broken health care system. We'll do whatever it takes to ensure another decade where your pain is our gain. After all, when it comes to healthcare, if we ain't broke, why fix it?

Billionaires for Wealthcare

DEBTORS REVOLT BEGINS NOW!

Americans Have Been Taken Hostage

Dylan Ratigan

Huffington Post

The American people have been taken hostage to a broken system.

It is a system that remains in place to this day.

A system where bank lobbyists have beenspending in record numbers to make sure it stays that way.

A system that corrupts the most basic principles of competition and fair play, principles upon which this country was built.

It is a system that so far has forced the taxpayer to provide the banks with the use of $14 trillion from the Federal Reserve, much of the $7 trillion outstanding at the US Treasury and $2.3 trillion at the FDIC.

A system partially built by the very people who currently advise our President, run our Treasury Department and are charged with its reform.

And most stunningly -- it is a system that no one in our government has yet made any effort to fundamentally change.

Like health care, this is a referendum on our government's ability to function on behalf of the American people. Ask yourself how long you are willing to be held hostage? How long will you let our elected officials be the agents of those whose business it is to exploit our government and the American people at any cost?

As hostages -- was there any sum of money we wouldn't have given AIG?

Why did we pay Goldman Sachs and all the other banks 100 cents on the dollar for their contracts with AIG, using taxpayer money, while we forced GM and others to take massive payment cuts?

Why hasn't any of the bonus money paid to the CEOs that built this financial nuclear bomb been clawed back?

And more than anything else -- why does the US Congress refuse to outlaw the most anti-competitive structure known to our economy, one summed up as TOO BIG TOO FAIL?

It has become startlingly clear that we as a country, and I as a journalist, had made a grave error in affording those who built and ran those banks and insurance companies the honorable treatment of being called capitalists. When in fact the exact opposite was true, these people were more like vampires using the threat of Too Big Too Fail to hold us hostage and collect ongoing ransom from the US Government and the American taxpayer.

This was no unlucky accident. The massive spike in unemployment, the utter destruction of retirement wealth, the collapse in the value of our homes, the worst recession since the Great Depression all resulted directly from these actions.

Even with all that -- the only changes that have been made, have been made to prop up and hide the massive flaws on behalf of those who perpetuated them. Still utterly nothing has been done to disclose the flaws in this system, improve it or rebuild it.

Last fall was an awakening for me, as it was for many in our country.

And yet, our Congress has yet to open its eyes, much less do anything about it. In fact conditions have never been better for the banks or worse for the rest of us.

Why is this? Who does our Government work for? How much longer will we as Americans tolerate it? And what, if anything, can we do about it?

As we approach the anniversary of the bailouts for our banks and insurers -- and watch the multi-trillion taxpayer-funded programs at the Federal Reserve continue to support banks and subsidize their multibillion bonus pools, we must ask if our politicians represent the interests of America? Or those who would rob America of its money and its future?

As a country, we must demand that our politicians stop serving those whose business models are based on systemic theft and start serving those who seek to create value for others -- the workers, innovators and investors who have made this country great.

Crasher Squirrel & Joe Wilson

Idiot congressman who called the President a liar and that wonderful crasher squirrel

Quinn, my grandson Aug, 2009

Spontex commerical

Hedgehog falls for scrubber.....! only in France

The Republican party is not to the right, it's philosophy is really a leftist idea. This concept came to me in the middle of the night, a dream state and unconsciousness all bubbling to the surface, anyway the Republican's are on the left. Why? Because they are Free-market anarchism (sometimes called simply market anarchism,^[1] and occasionally libertarian anarchism^[2]) refers to an individualist anarchist philosophy in which monopoly of force held by government would be replaced by a competitive market of private institutions offering security, justice, and other defense services^[3] – "the private allocation of force, without central control".^[4] A market would exist where providers of security and law compete for voluntarily paying customers that wish to receive the services rather than individuals being taxed without their consent and assigned a monopoly provider of force.^[5] The belief, among free-market anarchists, is that this competition thus will tend to produce cheaper and higher-quality legal and police services including "a high-quality good of impartial, efficient umpiring of conflicting rights claims".^[6]

This is really the the true definition of 21 Century Republicanism, they are anarchists

This has been a T Bone summer

Palestine Texas, T Bone Burnett with John Mayer

Futurism became fascism

The original Italian Futurism movement became fascism, maybe it is all about the seductiveness of looking forward , cleaning out the closet and throwing it all away.... starting fresh without the control and restraint of the past. But that is impossible, by the very act of rejection you must have something to rejected against which directs where you are going.

postfuturist manifesto #2

i am for an art (response to
Claes Oldenburg's original poem)

i am for an art of aesthetics
i am for an art of creative self-expression
i am for an art that bends over backwards to make itself understood
i am for an art that dips its brush into the paintbucket of dreams
& paints on the canvas of reality
i am for an art of design & craft & intention
and
i am for an art of divinely inspired improvisation
i am for an art of truth
& beauty
& truth & beauty & truth
& i am for an art of shared experience & transcended pain
i am for an art of carefulness & of fortunate happenstance
i am for an art of honesty
& i am for an art
that cares nothing for the title of its creator
artist, writer, dreamer, designer, poet, craftsperson, student or singer
famous or infamous or anonymous
i am for an art that gets itself made

i am not for the art that smears itself on the wall
& i am not for the art that speaks only of itself
& i am not for the art that seeks only to shock, offend, attack & destroy

i am for an art that feeds me
or i am not for art

PS - Even if I hate your art I'll defend to the death your right to do it

��copyright 1996 the spelunkers of the collective unconscious

Post Futurism

I have discovered that I am a Post Futurist and have been all along.

The Post-Futurist Manifesto

Franco Berardi, February 2009

1. We want to sing of the danger of love, the daily creation of a sweet energy that is never dispersed.

2. The essential elements of our poetry will be irony, tenderness and rebellion.

3. Ideology and advertising have exalted the permanent mobilisation of the productive and nervous energies of humankind towards profit and war. We want to exalt tenderness, sleep and ecstasy, the frugality of needs and the pleasure of the senses.

4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of autonomy. Each to her own rhythm; nobody must be constrained to march on a uniform pace. Cars have lost their allure of rarity and above all they can no longer perform the task they were conceived for: speed has slowed down. Cars are immobile like stupid slumbering tortoises in the city traffic. Only slowness is fast.

5. We want to sing of the men and the women who caress one another to know one another and the world better.

6. The poet must expend herself with warmth and prodigality to increase the power of collective intelligence and reduce the time of wage labour.

7. Beauty exists only in autonomy. No work that fails to express the intelligence of the possible can be a masterpiece. Poetry is a bridge cast over the abyss of nothingness to allow the sharing of different imaginations and to free singularities.

8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries... We must look behind to remember the abyss of violence and horror that military aggressiveness and nationalist ignorance is capable of conjuring up at any moment in time. We have lived in the stagnant time of religion for too long. Omnipresent and eternal speed is already behind us, in the Internet, so we can forget its syncopated rhymes and find our singular rhythm.

The Unbearable Lightness of Racism

From Harry's Place

Your View, August 21st 2009, 11:26 pm

This is HP reader Eyal’s view on Aftonbladet’s antisemitic article

"Seeing this story, and others like it that appear from time to time, reminds me of an old joke I heard years ago:

In Nazi Germany, a group of thugs jump an elderly Jew and pin him to the ground.

“Who’s to blame for the war?!” they yell.

“The Jews and the bicycle riders”, the Jew answers immediately.

“Why the bicycle riders?” they ask, puzzled.

“Why the Jews?”

The “joke”, of-course, being that the racists can’t fathom why a group of unrelated individuals would be held accountable for something that they obviously have nothing to do with, but are all too happy to accept the collective responsibility of Jews.

Nowadays, this behaviour is symptomatic of many ‘progressive’ groups in the left. The incredible lightness in which ‘enlightened’ people can blame Jews and “Zionists” for everything that they think is wrong with… well, anything…

Reading HP, I am sometimes absolutely dumb-stuck by how groups on the far left and on the far right find common ground by opposing ‘Zionism’. As if Zionism had some sinister globally-encompassing agenda that sent its tentacles deep into the affairs of all nations. As if opposing Zionism was the only thing that defined them. As if eliminating Zionism would solve all the problems of the world…

Fascists obviously hate Zionists because they hate Jews in general. But what amazes me is how people from the center and leftwards use “Zionism” as some sort of magical bean, some ambiguous dark entity, at which they can funnel all their hatred and bias, without being considered “racist”.

This trend of “opposing Zionism” is all too common among leftist groups. It is how supposedly progressive people associate themselves with authoritarian, right-wing or Islamist homophobes, women oppressors, and bigots. And this is how they can make themselves believe any fairy tale they hear, as long as it blames the “Zionists”.

As DavidT put it earlier this week, this is the anatomy of a lynching.

Imagine why that is.

Maybe next time something like this comes up, perhaps they will blame bicycle riders instead."

The rest at Harry's Place, which is an interesting blog from the UK

Nurses and Healthcare Reform

Someone needs to start talking to nurses about health care reform.

Without real health care reform the nursing shortage will become a nursing

crisis, you need 30% more nurses in the next 10 years and we're are not going to be there," we have left

the building, don't call us we'll call you"

The average age for for RN's is 46.8, only 8% of all RN's are under 30. Over the last 20 years as the the health care industry has become more profit driven there has been a stampede of nurses leaving the profession, for profit health care is driving them out of the profession.

Patient to staff ratios have eroded, nursing jobs have been out sourced to agencies with no benefits, and positions once filled by nurses are now filled by minimally trained personal. the health industry have lobbied and pushed for state laws to allow unlicensed personal to administer medication, which includes narcotics and insulin and fill the positions once held by nurses.

I believe that the health care industry is making a concerted effort to replace nurses.

The industries' unrealistic employment polices, staffing ratios that are dangerous and legislation whose only purpose is to dilute the nursing practice laws are creating a situation where nurses find it impossible to practice their profession, a profession we all loved.

" In at least one state, surgical technologists and radiologic technologists seek to create a monopoly for their area of practice at the expense of registered nurses. Jim Willmann, general counsel for the Texas Nurses Association, explains that in the last Texas legislative session, a proposed law was introduced that would permit the licensing of surgical technicians to serve as first assistants in surgery, prohibit registered nurses from performing that function, and remove the supervisory authority of the circulating nurse. That bill failed."

http://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/Fulltext/1998/10000/Diluting_Nurses__Scope_of_Practice.42.aspxe

Bruser, Susan; Whittaker, Sue MSN, RN

(if you do a search over the last 10 years various organizations have been trying again and again to introduce this type of state legislation. )

In Broward county Florida, the school nurse positions have will be filled this fall by agency health techs, paid minimum wage, with a few days training, no benefits, no health insurance, these techs will pass schedule II drugs, give insulin and make health care decision for children. Each tech will cover one school with an average of 1000 children and they will be supervised by an RN who will cover 5 schools, a total of 5000 children. The RN will cover 5000 children.... !

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/sfl-school-nurses-b081309,0,4017295.story

Nurses are the largest segment of the health care workforce, we are the big expense, we are the ones who advocate for our patients , our main concern is not the bottom line, and we have been vocal about the need for real health care reform for many years, we are fly in the billion dollar honey pot of the health care industry. And we are running away from the nursing profession because we are being chased away by an industry whose only concern is the bottom line.

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/FactSheets/NursingShortage.htm

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2000/rpt/olr/htm/2000-r-0123.htm

http://www.nursingpower.net/union/shortage_fact_sheet.html

http://dissentingjustice.blogspot.com/2009/06/enough-about-doctors-what-do-nurses.html

Weiner Challenges the Republicans to Put-Up or Shut-Up on Healthcar

I love this guy, he is the rep from Brooklyn and was Jon Stewart 's roommate in college

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene. And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen. But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.


Leonard Cohen

Nursing and health care reform

I have been writing comments on various sites concerning the stampede of nurses leaving the profession over the last 20 years. In a opinion piece written by Scott Gottlieb at the WSJ the same anti health care reform arguments are rehashed again and again and they ignore any comments to the contrary. The fact is without reform there will very few nurses to run a healthcare system.


One of my comments addressing Gottlieb's article.


The average age of a practicing nurse in America is 47. No one wants to be nurse anymore, why is that?

I have been a nurse for thirty years, in that time period the health industry has become the multi billion dollars business it is today. In these years as profits have grown, one of the ways to keep costs down has been to targeted nurses, patient to staff ratios have eroded, nurses has been out sourced to agencies with NO benefits and nursing positions once held by nurses are now filled with cheap "techs" , a high school diploma and a week of training is all you need.
Talk about "evil" socialized medicine all you want, but the is fact with out meaningful reform the next time you or a relative are in the hospital and you put a call light on and no one shows up, or if they do they are a tech who doesn't understand why you can't breath and they have to go find someone who does, remember that medicine is a business and the bottom line is the most important thing.

The medical industry has made a concerted effort to drive nurses out of industry to keep costs down and it has worked. Every major nursing organization supports meaningful healthcare reform with a public option and some a single payer. We are the people who see how healthcare really works in this country, you should pay attention.