KCRW's Left Right & Center Links for 08.08.08

Once again, I'm yelling a couple of things at the speakers.

Mr. Scheer, you seem to have backed off a bit on the subprime "disaster," in that you're no longer talking about people losing their "life savings"; yet you still talk about "millions" losing their most important asset. Were you not listening when people (right here, last week) pointed out that a very large percentage of people losing their homes never had any real equity in the first place? Nor do you mention the "young people" who, as a result of the bursting of this bubble, will be able to buy that first home they were formerly unable to buy because of absurdly inflated prices. There are two sides to the coin, and it's unbecoming to an intellectual to talk about only one side with such blind passion.

Secondly, Arianna et al.: the media are not ALLOWING McCain to infantilize the contest between himself and Obama -- they are HELPING him do it. It's not impossible to imagine that higher-ups in the media food chain are even calling his campaign on the phone and giving them advice on how to play dirty, keep off the issues, shape Obama's character to his advantage. The corporate media WANT McCAIN TO WIN!! He's their tax breaks! He's their deregulation!

Which leads to why Obama is having to "trim his sails." Reagan not only didn't operate in a time when the media were so corporate -- to the extent that the media were corporate they were on his side, loved every word out of his mouth. So, of course he didn't have to trim his sails. Duh. Obama has talked about things that are totally inimical to the corporate fat-cats who run this country, so you're damn right he'd better not get too far out there on a limb.

Fer Chrissakes, people, let the man get elected! Stop telling him to put his head in a noose!

Once again Tony Blankley is completely misinformed on energy resources. I have an advanced degree in environmental science and I can tell you that his statement that "we have to depend on fossil fuels for the next 40 or 50 years" is total nonsense! Here is just one example. There was a recent study that showed an area in the Southwest Desert ( I believe in Nevada or Arizona) that is 93 miles square could provide, through solar thermal energy plants, the entire country with electricity. This is with existing technology. No new discoveries or technology needed just the tax incentives that Tony's republican friends in the senate have been blocking! He also says that "he is for any energy source that is not subsidized" that would help with the energy problem. What he conveniently left out is that the fossil fuels have been subsidized for over 100 years and continue to be even with energy companies making record profits! The last energy bill had 17 BILLION dollars in it for fossils fuels and republicans have fought the removal of this corporate welfare at every turn. It is the same propaganda with tire gauges this week and McCain making fun of Obama's suggestion that we use conservation as a means of saving energy! Why do conservatives like Tony hate the idea of conservation so much? You would think that they of all people would support conservation. It probably doesn't have to do with the fact that so many of them have taken millions of dollars in pact money from oil, coal, and gas companies! Ted Stevens is the poster child for this kind of bad behavior! The only reason I can come up with is pure selfishness! If anyones else has an explanation I would like to hear it!

A bit off topic...I am not sure where I would post this comment elsewhere...

I am a bit confused why LRC remains a 1/2 hour show.

the recent discussion comparing our situation now to the great depression. I do agree that we probably don't have it as bad in one factor, but do in another way. In the time of the great depression, we also had a culture that didn't stigmatize poverty quite as extremely as it does today. Many child welfare laws for example expect standards of care that many parents can't afford. Squatting and hitchhiking is more harshly dealt with, as are vagrants. Transportation is also a bigger issue in this day and age, in which employment centers are more centralized, and midwestern urban structures are engineered with the assumption that residents can provide their own transportation. I've seen a couple cities that don't even build sidewalks anymore, outside of downtown. Cheap housing simply isn't available in many areas, and camping or building shacks or cabins in urban areas isn't often allowed. Another reason things look better than in the great depression is merely that there are a lot more capital assets sitting around, even though it's all owed to someone else and not really owned. Credit and Debt was not nearly as all-encompassing in the Depression era. It was also possible to make a decent living wage with only a high school education, when employment was found.

One other factor that seems to be greatly overlooked is this: People point to the "relatively low unemployment numbers" as a sign that we're not doing so badly. What they don't mention is that the metrics used to determine the unemployment rate are extremely misleading, and omit a large portion who should be included. Unemployment numbers list ONLY workers who are elegible for unemployment insurance, which has many disqualifiers. You are only counted as unemployed for one year, because unimployment insurance runs out after that. If you work in a specialized industry, it can often take several years to get another equivalent job. One of my relatives took 3 years of intensive effort and had to get a 5th master's degree, to end up with a lower-paying job. Also, there are large numbers of people taking enormous pay cuts, trying to make ends meet in the meantime until they find another job in their field. These people are also not counted as unemployed. Then there are many who have been released through attrition programs, fired by manipulation of company standards by lawyers rather than any real wrongdoing or shortcoming by the worker. I worked at a call center where they fired the entire workforce of over 1000 within one year in order to move the center overseas without paying extra unimployment insurance fees or severance packages, and to yank away benefits like many very lucrative stock options that were about to mature. None of those people were counted as unemployed, because they were fired, even though they were fired for bogus reasons. I also have reason to believe this is common practice in today's corporate environment. I have also been subject to a few other engineered turnover schemes, as well as blatant and illegal labor practices in my own quest to survive. Also, workers who have simply given up the job search and have become dependent on other family or friends are not counted as unemployed.

So again, my points are these: From whom much is (assumed to be) given, much is expected, and the metrics we are working with in establishing how we're doing are not to be trusted. If you count the actual number of people without jobs, or who are severely underemployed, I am positive that you will reach a radically larger number than the 5.7 percent we are rated.

I say humbug to the idea that cheap consumer goods have greatly benefitted our economy, for two reasons. One, the cheap goods are also much less durable, meaning they must more frequently be replaced. They have also eliminated availability of other, better (more useful, more attractive and more durable) goods in many places. Disposable culture is encouraged, and craftsmanship has been all but forgotten. Two, the biggest purveyor of said goods has also been, in my opinion, one of the largest culprits in driving down incomes nationwide, thus resulting in said "cheap" goods taking a larger percentage of the average income. They don't just put their competitors out of business, they also strangle their own suppliers.

By the way, I love this show and listen to the podcast regularly.

Thanks

Please, please, someone show Matt how to use a tire gauge and then he might learn how it's pronounced. Secondly, I have a beef with the KCRW promo that runs on the podcast. Matt says that Left, Right and Center is the ONLY public radio weekly political roundup show. Not even close: Diane Rehm has a two hour weekly summary on national and international and Tom Ashbrook's On Point out of WBUR in Boston has a very good Weekly review of the news and politics every Friday. There are numerous other excellent weekly reviews from other radio outlets as podcasts, that, taken together, provide a very good summary of the week.

Finally, regarding energy. The airlines are making the same mistake made by the railroads in the fifties except the roles are reversed. They need to realize they are in the people moving business, not the airline business. If they had any sense they would be lobbying for government to build the infrastructure for high-speed rail so they could run their own trains on short haul feeders to their long-haul flights - the only ones that make business. The railroads in the fifties did not partner with the airlines (although the government's anti-trust stance was really complicit in this failure) to provide seamless competitive transportation leading to their eventual decline.

A final thought on peak oil: The Saudi Oil Minister was quoted a couple of years ago regarding supplies of oil. He said, " My grandfather rode a camel, my father drove a car, I fly and airplane, my grandson will ride a camel." He should know.

In Matt's pitch for KCRW fund raising he said LRC is the only weekly news review on Public Radio. What about Diane Rehm on WAMU who has a 2 hour News Roundup every Friday. 1st hour domestic news, 2nd hour international. Tomy B. is often a guest on the News Roundup. It is also podcast. Your pitch should be accurate!

Conspiracy theories aside, it not so much a matter of developing alternative energy sources such as solar, etc, it is also the transition of the massive oil-based infrastructure that will take decades. It’s one thing to develop a prototype electric car that cost double of what it was sold for, it’s another transitioning every car, boat, train, and plane to alternative energy. The transition from the oil-based infrastructure goes well beyond transportation, literally every thing we touch has been touched by oil and it will take time to wash the oil from our hands. So we will need to live with oil until we have evolved into using alternative energy.

To categorize conservatives in a single group that hates conservation is a biased opinion of conservatives you criticize. It’s like believing progressive liberals would rather let humanity starve than to develop existing energy reserves. The fact is the majority of people do want to conserve, but they also want to retain their lifestyle. And, I’m not speaking about their need to drive giant SUVs, I mean bringing the food to our tables, heating our homes in winter, and keeping our jobs. We must use everything that will maintain our lifestyle during the transition to alternative energy, because, getting back to my original point, it will take decades to transition our nation’s infrastructure to accommodate alternative energy options.

McCain agreed that keeping tires properly inflated was good, but the point of his tire gauge stunt was not to ridicule conservation, it was to state that we require a comprehensive approach that includes all aspects of energy development, including off-shore oil drilling.

If you do your research, you will find that Obama is taking just as much money from oil executives as his republican counterpart, perhaps not directly, but huge funds from the wives of executive and pooled funds from their supporters. What’s worse, taking money according to campaign guidelines or covertly receiving money outside of those guidelines and then criticizing your opponent about being worse than you? The fact is corporations grease the wheels on both sides and both sides gleefully take their money with both hands. That’s why congress stagnates.

Conservative and liberal Americans must broaden their views and consider all energy options. To concentrate only on oil development or on solar is an equally biased approach to an enormous and complex problem.

Look, I'm a longtime fan of Arianna Huffington but I found it a bit rich for her to complain about the role of the media in trivialising the campaign. Consider that the news organisation that bears her namesake constantly fed into the trivialisation of the primary campaign to the detriment of the Clinton campaign. Was the Huffington Post really suggesting that a two-time president and his wife were racist-- considering their resumé of good works in the African-American community?

I posted the following on the other 8/8 page, but realized (as is often the case) I was just talking to myself. Reposting here. (Sarah--is there a way to know which is the official page?)

My two-cents about the 8-8-08 show.

Arriana gnashes her teeth about McCain’s campaign capitalizing on Obama’s tire gauge statement because it was made during a townhall meeting. Conversely, she had no problem regurgitating Obama campaign bilge about McCain’s statement of remaining in Iraq for 100 years...which McCain made at a townhall meeting and which democrats conveniently leave off McCain’s very next sentence, “If no American soldier’s lives are endangered.”

Furthermore, pointing out Obama’s celebrity persona is not a trivialization of the campaign, it exemplifies Obama’s campaign structure of Obama standing before American flags reciting soaring messages from teleprompters to shill audiences. McCain challenged Obama to go to Iraq to assess the current state of affairs. Instead of quietly checking on the middle east hot spots, Obama turned his trip into a week long campaign circus with photo-ops, hand shaking, basketball dunking, speeches to German throngs, and flitting about in his BarackObama.com campaign plane. A radio pundit eloquently stated that Obama’s best affirmation of the surge’s success was his ability to safely land his plane in Bagdad airport without a terrorist taking a pot-shot at the “O” in BarackObama.com. McCain’s Paris Hilton dig hit a nerve because that is how Obama has chosen present himself.

Come on Matt, you’re comparing the tire gauge parody to the Swift Boat campaign converting the “war hero,” John Kerry, to someone soft on defense? Kerry’s Senate voting record is sufficient documentation of his defense strengths and weaknesses. Most Swift Boaters were Vietnam veterans who were incensed by Kerry’s accusations about Vietnam war atrocities presented during the Fullbright hearing. Most Swift Boat Veterans gave testimony against Kerry’s accusations. A few, who directly served with Kerry challenged claims that he was a “war hero,” including one of the physicians who documented Kerry’s initial Purple Heart wound. Kerry broke his promise to release his wartime medical records that specifically described these wounds. Kerry eventually had his personal physician release a summary, which suggested a scratch and two bruises. Kerry has yet to refute the Swift Boaters claims that he used trivial wounds to gain three purple hearts so he would be transfered out of combat. Kerry substantiated the worthlessness of his three Purple Hearts when he flung them over the White House fence. Contrast Kerry’s Vietnam war behavior with McCain’s refusal to be sent home early from a POW camp so he would not abandon his fellow soldiers, so you clearly understand the definition of a war hero.

Matt seems entranced by Obama’s universal healthcare. If you want examples of government subsidized and supervised healthcare systems, you don’t have to go to Canada, just look at the mess that is Medicare and Medical. Both are going broke, both ration healthcare, both terrorize healthcare providers, and both suck enormous amounts of money into a gigantic bureaucracy instead of delivering it to the recipients. Take a large breath Matt, and think of any governmental program that doesn’t use more money to do less in a more complicated way than any comparable private program. In California, Medical just cut physician reimbursements by another 10%, which puts the overhead costs of treating Medical patients much higher than the reimbursement...even when Medical does occasionally decides to pay. Many doctors willing to put up with the pains of dealing with Medical now must close their doors to Medical patients or face going out of business. Hillary learned how hard it is to trash the entire healthcare system to rebuild another. The government may best serve healthcare by doing what they supposed to do, regulate the current free market system to provide equanimity. By making a few changes in our current healthcare, which provides great coverage to the majority of the people, it will be possible to provide the same for all Americans. These changes are closer to what McCain and Hillary propose in their healthcare reform recommendations.

It must be the end of days, cats are lying down with dogs, and the sky is falling...for the last three episodes Robert has been making cogent and sensible statements. But, just when I begin to believe Bob developed a right-sided squint that has leveled his view of the world, he makes a statement about the acquittal of Hamdan was a travesty...it’s a glass half empty statement. HAMDAN WAS UBLs DRIVER AND HAD PORTABLE SAMs IN HIS TRUNK! You don’t get to be UBLs driver if you’re not also a trusted believer. You don’t carry portable SAMs in your trunk if you’re hunting ducks, you’re going to shoot down American pilots. It’s like saying that the Secret Service doesn’t sufficiently believe in the president to die for him and would not kill for him. Five-and-a-half years is a relatively gentle sentence for God’s sake. If we (the U.S.) were as horrible as you imagine, then Hamdan would have received Al-Queda’s justice and his head would have been rolling along the floor sans his body a long, long time ago.

Bob, the Republicans didn’t deregulate the banks, the democrats did, and there were plenty of them in congress cheering on the finance industry along side the republicans. McCain wasn’t “up to his eyeballs” in the S&L scandal. Of the Keating Five, McCain & Glenn were acquitted by the Senate Ethics committee, the other three were, how do you say it? Democrats. Some Democrats have ventured to say that the only reason McCain was included in the investigation was because it looked so bad to exclusively have Democrats involved in the mess. If you want to comment on the foibles of candidates and banks, why don’t you comment on Obama’s sweet home loan, that when calculated out for the life of the loan, approaches a $1 million dollar kickback. I guess it’s an okay to do because the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs did the same thing with Citibank. Isn’t Chris Dodd a Democrat too? Strictly speaking these maneuvers may be legal, but are they ethical?

Ah, what can I say about Tony waxing poetic about the virtues of Endive in the electoral process. Alas, Dukakis’ Endive analogy fell short of Tony, like most Americans, except Greek-Americans. Boiled Endive is a peasant dish in Greece, it’s not the effete fair of gourmets. Perhaps you should’ve consulted with Arriana, before making such a claim. Bon Appetite!