Clinton Still Gets Out Of Bed Every Day To Lie To You

Remember when Bill Clinton was president and endlessly used to tell us that he got up every day to work his heart out for us?  Well, that was a lie, too.  The ones I have in mind right now are those he told yesterday to a group of graduating high school seniors.

He was here, in New Orleans, to address the Urban League College Track program graduates, all 152 of them.  Each has been assisted by private efforts to receive intensive after school tutoring and college prep training during the last four years.  As a result, they are all now headed off to four year colleges.  Good for them. 

Bad for us though is the political claptrap that sell-outs like Clinton, as well as our own Mayor and U.S. Senator named Landrieu, spread at such events.  They use such small scale, very expensive and exclusive efforts as arguments to support the dismantlement of public education in this country.  They make bogus claims regarding achievements scored by the Charter School movement, which simply do not exist.  They attack teachers' unions for their own political purposes. And they even ultimately get around to attacking all of us as being responsible for the catastrophic condition of the economy, by telling us we are just too stupid or ignorant or inept or whatever to be employed in this high tech savy, uber competitive world. Guess they were just luckier than the rest of us; you know, by being so smart and successful and all.  Please.

Clinton included this specific insult in his talk:  He said the billionaires of Silicon Valley have assured him, as recently as one week ago, that they could hire as many as three million of us immediately, if only we were qualified for the jobs.  That, my friends is not only an ugly insult, it is demonstrably false.  Moreover, the same thing was being said by the plutocrats in the 1930s during the depths of the depression.  Once the government started spending real money to build up for the war effort, stupid people miraculously proved smart enough to be hired en mass, and produce brilliantly effective high tech (for the times) products.  The problem today is that Clinton, and other sell-outs like him, have exported most of our middle class jobs, and think we are stupid enough to let them blame the overall economic decline on us.

Stoking The Fire ... Or Capitulation?

In a carefully choreographed two week performance, the dance ensemble of Biden, Hillary, and the new Nureyev himself, Obama, staged a masterful,  political scene switching ballet, which has effectively changed the subject from the persistent economic calamity to a spring cleaning of the darkest corners of conservative psychosis.  Yesterday Obama's insight on the issue of whether all humans are entitled to full human rights finally achieved a complete human genetic encoding.  So, let's all offer him a big "welcome aboard"  the good ship Human Dignity, although there was no indication from the new crew member of any forthcoming effort to help man the oars.

Let's also note that the crowd of youngsters, once all ga, ga and google-eyed over this guy, are no longer "fired up and ready to go."  No, most of them have either been fired or, more likely, never hired, and gone away.  And the lame, only thinly liberal economic program of this administration is directly responsible for this continuing national disgrace. 

Changing the subject is what yesterday's big gay marriage thing was all about, nothing more.  It is truly  shameful that a Democratic President has pursued economic policies so hollow, the even crazier proposals of the plutocratic party sound plausible to average people.  Shades of  Jimmy Carter.  All Liberalism is economic, all else is merely a costume for a masquerade.  Take down the fear of want and scarcity, and all other targets of social failings become softer and more attainable. Miss the main target, and pulling the trigger on other issues is just shooting blanks.

The Gospel According To Paul

But there is no Gospel of Paul, you say.  That would be good news, if I didn't already know it.  So let's just thank God.  For if there were a Gospel of that self-proclaimed good Catholic, Republican zealot, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul (Ryan), it would be all bad. 

According to the Ryan Republican led House action yesterday, it would preach cuts to social services for the poor, such as food aid and health care, in favor of maintaining the bloat in the most bloated military industrial machine the world has ever seen.  You see, Ryan and his fellow zealots really claim to believe that:

                                         The quality of mercy is not strained.
                                     It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven ...


But that if we want to go around dropping bombs, of course we have to make them ourselves.

This is the same interpretation of the Catholic faith which holds that public financing for religious schools should come at the force of law, but that, on the grounds of religious freedom, church run secular service entities should be exempt from the public law governing employee rights. 

All of which is as believable as a phony Gospel.

General Pershing, We Are Here

In 1917, President Wilson sent the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) to Europe under the command of General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, to bail-out the French and end the slaughter of WWI before Europe ran out of Europeans to kill.  Upon arrival, Pershing was reported to have exclaimed, "Layafette, we are here," in honor of the Marquis de Layafette, the French aristocrat and general who saved Washington's ass, along with all of ours, by cutting off Cornwallis at Yorktown, and essentially handing us victory in the American Revolution.

Now comes Mr. Hollande, the newly elected President of France, with a promise to break the strangle-hold of German led economic warfare against the common man.  Be mindful that the blighting of Europe by the austerity Prussians has not only laid waste to the lives of millions on the continent, but also played a central role in our own politics as well.  I give you the modern day Republican/Teacan party.  Let's hope that Mr. Hollande delivers, let's hope he can shore-up his base and withstand the sure-to-come counter-attack from the right, and, finally, hope his success may inspire a more energetic liberal, anti-capitulation response to the forces of darkness here. Let's put an end to the slaughter, and raise a toast, "Vive La France."

Too Old To Let Happen

Yesterday, Jimmy Buffett did an acoustic set to close out the "locals Thursday" of this year's final Jazz Fest weekend.  The morning newspaper's favorable recounting was a bitter-sweet read.  Quick confession: I really can get into Parrothead frivolity; love that Buffett oeuvre, sometimes too much. But I skipped it in favor of, you guessed it, work.  I'm getting too old to let fun times slip by.  I keep telling myself there will be more chances, but down deep I know I could be wrong.

 I worked not for the money this time, no.  I worked because we are at the very end of a long project and need to push it to completion.  Still, my friend and boss, knowing my weaknesses, offered over and over to cover for me if I wanted to catch Buffett.  I declined. What are friends for?

Also in the morning paper is more sad reporting about the tragic European mistake of pursuing austerity measures in the face of final euro zone collapse.  The entire continent is sinking into a second and worsening recession.  The same story recounts how the U.S. has so far fared somewhat better for having taken at least some expansionary steps via the Obama stimulus.  But the cautionary upshot is that Friday looks like a down day on Wall Street, due to an expected anemic jobs report of only 170,000 new hires this period.  This is far short of the quarter million period-over-period number needed to simply inch ahead in recovery. 

By now, we all know that what is needed is more, much more in the form of governmental outlays to lift the U.S. out of this generation long economic backslide, which really started when Bush II was appointed.  Do we really care nothing at all about the young?  They are being penalized a decade or more at the very start of grown-up life.  What's the matter here, do they not have any friends?  These are precious times they will never see again.

UPDATE:  The actual new jobs number for the period came in at an even more dismal 115,000.

On The Ropes

Low in downest Central City, the truth shelters in shambles and shadows. The blown-out abandoned row house on S. Robertson Street, between Thalia and Martin Luther King Blvd., offers open air accommodations stoop-by-sidewalk: brothers and sisters wedge around the rim of an urban drain strainer, choked amid the of scrapings from Broadmoor and Gert Town.  A mere minutes long bike ride from the haughtiest haunts grants free admission to the daily horror-show ceaseless pounding of the pounded and pummeled.

Pain and punishment versus privilege and power face-off in the final rounds.  The wearying, heavy hands flail the air for more advantage:  additional prisons, less public education, another recipe to smother social activism in an etouffee of non-participation and disaffection?  So close to the crown, but no white flag from the row house corner.  Only a banner scrawled on the weather boards: "death to the sistum."

Perhaps, some will remember Ali coming off the ropes to topple a tired giant.