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Volume 4 Number 21
September 1, 2006 |
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Brickbats and bouquets Cleaning up some random items cluttering the desk Some publications carry regular columns called "Brickbats and Bouquets" or "Strokes and Chokes," in which they do a few quick hits condemning or praising things that are going on. It's a journalist's way of cleaning the desk of little things that pile up and which either don't warrant a full-scale treatment -- or that you know you'll probably never get around to. So, coming off a lazy Labor Day weekend, and having busied myself with a lot of "techie" tasks, I'll offer my own versions, although I have to warn you that I have more brickbats than bouquets. And I don't know whether that says more about me than about the way things are going these days. Let's start with people who are clearly ignoring the message of the magnetic yellow ribbons and who clearly are not supporting the troops. No, I'm not talking about people who dare to question the collective wisdom of the administration. Rather, I'm talking about the people in the predatory lending business. Estimates are that up to one-fifth of active duty military are in the clutches of "loan centers" operating near military bases. These centers take advantage of the financial plight of the soldiers, who make a minuscule fraction of the salaries of the CEOs who send them into battle -- $25,000 a year for soldiers, and about $7.7 million a year on average for military-industrial complex CEOs. The loan centers interest rates would make Mafia loan sharks blush. While the loans are small -- after all, how much can you borrow on $25K a year -- the annualized interest rates run between 390 percent and 780 percent. Sounds like a brickbat is in order here. In a similar vein, bankruptcies have fallen in the wake of the new bankruptcy "reform" bill -- and that should deserve a bouquet, if you were one of the "single metric" crowd that makes sweeping generalizations based on one data point or by looking at only one side of the ledger. People are still going broke -- maybe more than before -- but, as Elizabeth Warren explains, all it means is that bankruptcy filings are being delayed, mostly because the new bill raises the cost of filing. Cash-strapped people can't afford to file, but they will have to eventually. The bill passed, according to Warren, because members of Congress were bombarded with banking industry lobbyists -- several visits a day for months on end. No one was representing working people. Congress heard one point of view, over and over and over. Even members of the public bought into the sales pitch: Bankruptcies were caused by all those greedy people who loaded up their credit cards with consumer goods and then tried to walk away. Right? Maybe you even fell for it. It was this decade's version of Reagan's mythical "welfare queen" in her new Cadillac. The truth is, as Warren inconveniently points out, that about 90 percent of bankruptcies follow a severe medical problem, a divorce, job loss, or a death in the family. About half come from medical expenses. More disturbing is the fact that of those people driven into bankruptcy by medical expenses, about 75 percent had medical insurance when the problem started. People will still go broke. It will just cost them more to file for bankruptcy, and the banking industry will still be able to squeeze money out of them when they do. So, turn that bouquet into a brickbat. In the past few weeks, we've also learned that the nicotine levels of cigarettes have been steadily increasing for the last 10 years. This means two things -- cigarettes are becoming more addictive and all the tobacco industry's folderol about helping people quit is pretty much of a lie. It also makes a lie out of claims that those people who suffer from the long-term consequences of cigarettes "chose to smoke," which has gained some currency among corporate apologists. People may have chosen to smoke one cigarette or even a few cigarettes, but it's not clear that they have "chosen" a lifelong addiction. This is a very short argument, I know. And I know that the public sentiment runs counter to it -- thanks to a relentless effort by the tobacco industry. I have more than a passing interest, as my master's thesis was on this very topic and, oddly enough, I started out from the proposition that people were responsible for their smoking habit. After much research and analysis, I came up with the opposite conclusion. The addictive nature of tobacco -- deliberately controlled -- lessens the personal responsibility. The tobacco industry has long resisted the idea that cigarettes are addictive, claiming instead that they are a "pleasant habit," while at the same time they are manipulating nicotine levels to ensure that the cigarettes are addictive in almost the same way cocaine is. It's the addictive nature of cigarettes that lessens personal responsibility. So, let's toss a brickbat in the direction of Big Tobacco. In a Labor Day sneak attack on working people, the current occupant of the White House has used the recess to appoint a WalMart lawyer to head the Labor Department Wage and Hour Division. A few things stand out. First, a recess appoint says one of several things: they're trying to pull a fast one, the guy couldn't get confirmed through normal channels, the appointee is unqualified -- or all of the above. Second, Paul DeCamp, the lawyer in question, has previously argued in favor of gutting the Fair Labor Standards Act, one of the few protections workers still have in place against corporate greed. Third, and a fact that looms large, Wal-Mart, at least on the day before the appointment, faced something like 70 Wage and Hour Division suits for non-payment of wages. You have to wonder how vigorously those suits will be pursued now that Wal-Mart's lawyer is calling the shots. I can just see the members of the multi-billionaire Walton family dancing in the streets -- or at least ordering the servants to dance in the streets. And, last but not least, we're being treated to the news that Karl Rove's father was openly gay and lived with his partner in Palm Springs. This isn't news to a lot of people in the Palm Springs area, but is just now getting out to the rest of the country. Ordinarily, this would be a huge "so-what" piece of news, but there is something more sinister afoot. Rove Senior, now deceased, had the right to live his life in peace, and apparently he did, but that didn't stop Karl from using gay relationships -- his father's included -- as a cynical wedge issue to gain political advantage in the 2004 election, when he created up a phony controversy around gay marriage. This was specifically designed to appeal to the worst instincts of his "base." What's worse, according to the reports now coming out, one of Rove's last visits to his father was in the midst of a multi-state swing to whip anti-gay bigotry into a froth. This is a disturbing picture. To pay a cordial social call on your father at the very time you're trying to destroy him and his friends goes beyond the limits of political opportunism. I've known politicians who were willing to stick it to other people's families, but they were generally very protective of their own. After all, how many members of Congress or the administration have family members fighting in Iraq? I've even known politicians who were willing to sell out members of their family, usually ones with whom they were feuding. But the picture of Rove, sipping tea and having dinner with his father while he's out to destroy his father and his father's friends in a cheap political dirty trick speaks of a sociopathy that's pretty frightening. It's more frightening when you realize that this person -- apparently devoid of anything resembling a conscience -- is in one of the most powerful positions in the country. Another brickbat. Sorry about the lack of bouquets. Maybe next time. |
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© Copyright 2006 Carlton Vogt |