Most Americans, the 99 percent, feel the pressure of indebtedness. When they owe a friend a buck, their conscience bothers them until they’re square. They pay their bills, working second jobs if necessary. They meet mortgage obligations even when underwater.
That’s why there was a deficit Super Committee. Americans don’t like debt, including bills owed by their government. It weighs on them, even when it’s borrowing by Washington to create jobs and speed recovery.
But for the majority of millionaires – the 1 percent — incurring debt does not evoke anxiety. They’re numb to the feeling of responsibility that indebtedness induces in the 99 percent. They believe they owe nothing to their country or society despite all they’ve gained. They feel no duty to repay America for creating the environment that enabled them to amass all that wealth.
Thus the Super Committee failed.
The committee was searching for $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The Bush tax cuts, which disproportionately benefitted the rich, cost $2.8 trillion over the past decade. But the 1 percent obstructed a return to the pre-Bush-balanced-budget-era tax rates and would sneer at the mere suggestion that they pay the much higher marginal rates the wealthy accepted after World War II to settle those government debts. In fact, Republicans on the Super Committee actually proposed additional tax cuts for the rich.
More breaks for the wealthy would require slashing social safety net programs for the 99 percent — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, child nutrition. It would mean no funds to create jobs and boost the economy. The result would be less money to build highways, refurbish bridges and renovate schools.
That’s okay with the 1 percent because they feel no obligation for those social responsibilities.
Elizabeth Warren, the former Harvard Law Professor and Special Advisor for the U. S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tried to explain debt to the super-rich:
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you!
But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea — God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.
But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
In addition to paying forward, the 1 percent also is obliged to pay back. That’s because the tax break Bush handed them contributed significantly to the national debt that the Super Committee failed to resolve.
The rich didn’t create the entire federal deficit. And the 99 percent are ready to pay their part, just like they feel compelled to meet their personal debts.
The behavior of the 99 percent during the mortgage crisis best illustrates their morality on the issue of repayment generally.
In the midst of the recession near the end of 2009, as home values relentlessly declined, more than third of all mortgage holders found themselves underwater – meaning that they owed more on their houses than they were worth.
Although financial advisors told mortgage holders who were underwater by hundreds of thousands of dollars that they should walk away from their houses in their own economic self-interest, only a tiny number, estimated at less than 5 percent, chose to deliberately default and dump the loss on the bank.
University of Arizona law professor Brent T. White, writing about this phenomena, said the high moral standard of the average American mortgage holder is key to this. In a law review article, he cited a study that found more than 80 percent of homeowners regard the act of strategically walking away from a mortgage contract as unprincipled. White contrasted the values of individual homeowners with those of the big banks:
“Unlike lenders who seek to maximize profits irrespective of concerns about morality or social responsibility, individual homeowners are encouraged to behave in accordance with social and moral norms that require individuals keep promises and honor financial obligations.”
Political, social, media and financial institutions all convey a clear message to home owners, White said, that it is a borrower’s moral responsibility to pay his debts.
That message is not, however, as clearly directed to the 1 percent. Some of them have gotten it. The 200 who signed on as Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength and who asked Congress and the Super Committee to increase their taxes understand they have a debt to America and seek to honor it.
The debt-shirking remainder, though, and the purchased politicians who support them, are as unseemly, unethical and dishonorable as deadbeat parents.
Blacks have historically suffered the income inequality and job scarcity that the Wall Street protesters are now railing against. Perhaps black America’s absence is sending a message to the Occupiers: “We told you so! Nothing will change. We’ve been here already. It’s hopeless.”
The Scooby Doo mystery about the relationship between race and the OWS movement continues…
The Washington Post is jumping on the bandwagon with their own version of the game Where is Waldo?, with an opinion piece by Stacey Patton entitled, “Why African Americans Aren’t Embracing Occupy Wall Street.”
This penetrating essay, written by a memoirist, citing a comedian named “Alter-Negro” as an expert source, offering up a conspiracy between cable, cell phone, cigarette, and liquor companies to depoliticize the black leadership class in service to the interests of corporate America, commenting on the predatory evils of commercial hip hop, and pondering if the black church has lost all political and moral authority, is a fun read.
It is not a deep political analysis; nor is Patton particularly insightful as she takes a shotgun approach to the relationship between race and OWS.
[A question: who gets to determine the minimum threshold for when the Occupy Wall Street Movement is sufficiently "diverse?" Is there a census, a quota, a barometer, do we have to read tea leaves and chicken bones to know when this magical moment has occurred?]
However, her essay is useful as an entry point for working through why black folks have not flocked to OWS in mass.
Thus, some working working questions and hypotheses:
1. Jaded, well-earned, cynicism. Where was OWS, and the white folks who make up its base, when black and brown people were catching hell this last decade? If OWS is so concerned about a broken economy and a general sense of grievance about austerity and government retrenchment, many, if not most, were deaf of ear to the concerns of people of color, specifically, and the poor, more generally, on such issues as police brutality, predatory banking and mortgage practices, wage stagnation, and a broken labor market. Why should black Americans be expected to ally with people who appeared to be none too concerned with these issues, until they, quite literally, hit home?
2. Exhaustion. Black folks have been either 1) at the forefront of social and political change in this country, or 2) their struggles have served as models for organizing and resistance by other groups. Perhaps, now is the time for white Americans to carry the weight.
3. Common sense. Black folks don’t want to go to jail, understand that their interests are not served by a racist criminal (in)justice system, and know that they will be treated differently by police, judges, and the State, than the (relatively) privileged white folks who make up the backbone of the OWS movement.
4. The failure of the black political leadership class. In the post-Civil Rights era, black political elites have struggled with obsolescence. Many are trying to get their shine back by connecting their glorious struggles of decades past to those of the OWS movement. But, are the models of black political mobilization from the 1950s and 1960s going to upset power, and create social and political change, in the Age of Obama?
5. Experience and vision. Black folks have seen this all before. We know that OWS ends with a whimper and not a bang. Thus, given the perils of the economy, a general sense of instability and political malaise, and a wisdom born of experience, many in the black community are getting ready for what comes two or three steps down the road. As Stacy Patton smartly alludes to, since black Americans have long known that the game is rigged, we are not at all surprised by the Great Recession and the new Gilded Age.
White Americans necessarily bought into a lie as they earned the wages of whiteness. Now, the emptiness of the bargain is exposed. White America simply does not have the political maturity, one born of experience and struggle, that is common to black and brown people in this country. Now they are waking up. Perhaps, White America should put on its critical thinking-political swaddling clothes all by itself? Hope may be born from this experience: White folks may not develop a Blues Sensibility, but maybe, just maybe, they can develop a whee bit of an ear for the sorrow songs.
6. A function of numbers. The percentage of a given population who participates in any type of organized political behavior is not large. The percentage of a given population who participates in political behavior that can be described as “civil disobedience” is rather minuscule. For example, social scientists suggest that the tipping point for an idea to become infectious, and then spread throughout a society, is that approximately 10 percent of a population must buy-in. Yes, just 10 percent.
By implication, and allowing for the indifferent, most folks are free riders who assume that this rather numerically small number of voices speak for the mass public. Ultimately, OWS is comprised of a minority of the general population. To expect African Americans and other people of color to participate in mass–what is a minority of a minority–is unrealistic, and a false barometer for how “diverse” the OWS movement actually is.
7. A thought on strategy and realpolitik. Perhaps, OWS is best served by being a group comprised of the upset, momentarily disenfranchised, and alienated privileged classes? Given the deep linkages in the white popular imagination between black people and “unAmerican” political radicalism, perhaps OWS will be more effective precisely to the degree that it is perceived as speaking for the silent majority–a group that by definition excludes black Americans?
How do you explain the lack of diversity in the OWS movement? Or are these concerns based on a false premise, i.e. that OWS is in fact “diverse,” but the media and the pundit classes are looking in the wrong places, invested in marginalizing the movement?
What hypotheses would you offer to explain the relative lack of participation by black people, other racial minorities, and the white poor, in OWS? How would you correct this dynamic?
Written by Jessica Arons for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
This article is cross-posted with permission from ThinkProgress Health.
As the Obama Administration debates whether to expand an exemption to a new health insurance requirement to cover all FDA-approved methods of contraception, there are some important facts to keep in mind:
– The average woman spends five years pregnant, postpartum, or trying to get pregnant, and at least 30 years trying to avoid pregnancy.
– More than 99 percent of women of reproductive age who have had sexual intercourse have used at least one method of family planning.
– Contraception is the most commonly prescribed medication for women ages 18 to 44
– Eighty-eight percent of voters support access to birth control
– Approximately three-quarters of Americans agree that insurance should cover contraception
– Fifty-eight percent of pill users rely on oral contraception at least in part for non-contraceptive reasons
– Eighteen percent of women on the pill reported inconsistent use, such as skipping doses, as a cost-cutting measure
Under the Affordable Care Act, or the ACA, women will benefit from greatly expanded access to contraception—which has been shown to improve health. But this important consumer protection is at risk of being undermined by an unreasonably expansive religious exemption.
Why is marriage equality so important to the gay community?
This ad from Australia more than makes the argument. It is to the point, universal, and says it all:
Written by Frances Kissling for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
See all our coverage of the Birth Control Mandate 2011 here.
This article was amended at 2:22 pm Friday, November 25th to add a missing paragraph and missing words in three sentences.
When it comes to contraception Catholics have stopped listening to popes, bishops and other institutional leaders. It seems the only person left listening is President Obama. Obama however lacks the theological training –and it would seem the scholarly advice –needed to figuring out if the bishops and various hospitals, universities and social service agencies clamoring for a “religious exemption” from new federal regulations really need them in order to be good Catholics. The regulations require insurance plans offered by employers to cover contraception without a co-pay, although they exempt churches and other specifically religious institutions from the requirement.
The President seems unaware of the fact that Catholic disagreement with the ban on birth control goes far beyond the average Catholic lay-person. Some bishops, many priests, religious orders, theologians and church-related groups have publicly and privately disagreed with blanket prohibition of contraception. All of them, individuals and institutions, are free to follow their conscience on contraception and there is ample evidence that many of the very groups asking for an exemption from the new federal regulations have not followed church regulations religiously. Some within the organizations may agree with the ban, but not all, and none are required to do so.
Of course, it would take courage for organizations such as the Catholic Health Association (which is now siding with the Bishops publicly in their fight to broaden exemptions) or Catholic Charities to publicly buck the U.S. bishops and just follow the law and give their employees health insurance that makes it possible to avoid pregnancies they cannot afford or do not want; but after all, being a Catholic is all about courage and helping the poor and marginalized. A fair number of employees of Catholic institutions are low-income workers, struggling to get by on a minimum wage. We Catholics are taught to follow our conscience rather than the positions of the Catholic church, even if it means getting kicked out of the church. If Obama’s current religious advisors don’t know that, all he has to do is call one of the most trusted of Catholic theologians, Fr. Richard McBrien of Notre Dame. McBrien will repeat what he has said in his widely used text Catholicism:
If, after appropriate study, reflection and prayer, a person is convinced that his or her conscience is correct, in spite of a conflict with the moral teachings of the church, they not only may but must follow the dictates of their conscience rather than the teachings of the church.”
Centuries earlier Thomas Aquinas said the same thing. Yet, the Catholic-affiliated institutions asking for a religious exemption insist that corporations, like persons have a conscience.
There is every indication that the conscience of these institutions tells them the church prohibition on contraception is wrong.
Consumerism is violent. The apologists for ads and products, life styles and brought-to-you-by media are disastrously wrong. The thousands of marketing confrontations that a person must get through daily are not persuasive, clever, or normal. The 50 foot-tall actor wearing a watch and grinning at me – is not my new best buddy, Amen? This is atmospheric assholishness…
The mono-culture of Consumer Society – this corporate economy – can only be created by threatening us with loss of our good looks, status, youth and power. They want us to quietly believe that without their products we will suffer the annihilation of our personal identity.
And what does this psychic aggression have to do with the police I found surrounding Zuccotti Square this afternoon? A longing for a very recent pleasure of freedom from corporate bullying swept through us as we stared at the empty square. When we lived in that little plot of granite, there were no corporations. There were no threats. We had a gift economy. We were being of service to one another. It was a civil revolution. What am I saying? It still is.
What was it that made journalists froth at the mouth and cops come running with their pepper spray on September 17th? At least part of it was – we were starting a new economy. Their products were not inside the square to supervise our desires. And – once Consumerism is established as the dominant economy, it is far easier to militarize police and physically attack those who resist the allegiance to corporations. Yes it is surprising that the shift from psychic to physical violence is that automatic. But sure enough – once Consumerism was banned from a small patch of ground – especially public space in the shadow of Wall Street – that armed police were terrorized and the logos on the sides of the surrounding buildings seemed to angrily glow.
The police are paid directly by big corporations. So they are both city cops and rent-a-cops. They are still spending the 4.5 million given them by JP Morgan Chase shortly after the takeover of the square on September 17th. Was that extraordinary pay-out really a gift to the city to restore order in the face of anarchists? No, of course not. The institution sitting on the top of the present economy saw a clear threat to their scam. The gift economy aspect of Occupy Wall Street was immediately vilified in the commercial press as hippy-esque, bongo-ridden and noble-but-naive. We didn’t listen to those people, watching their anger alongside that of the cops. And that was before two thousand Occupy sites erected their tents around the world. We were learning to start a democracy from scratch, and found it fascinating, and still do, and so do more and more people.
How far will police and law enforcement agencies go in attacking those who enter public space and stay there together, these islands of no Consumerism? At what point does a policeman admit that the refusal to cooperate with consumerism is not grounds for violence? If they are violent, then they have made their choice. But we will continue to say (without violence but full of conviction!) that you police are part of the 99% and – we welcome you!
Crossposted on Tikkun Daily.
by Be Scofield
The American Academy of Religion held its annual conference in San Francisco this past weekend. A large gathering that attracts many of the big shots — both progressive and conservative — in religious studies, the AAR meeting provides a space for critical dialogue about religion and the world. Not surprisingly there was a lack of discussion about atheism. But I was pleased to find one panel discussion on Monday morning called, “Beyond Atheistic and Religious Fundamentalism: Imagining the Common Good in the Public Sphere.” However, my excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I realized they forgot to do one important thing: include an atheist.
After the panel, I asked the organizer John Thatamanil of Union Seminary why there was no atheist included in a panel about atheism. He responded that in the quest for diversity he was bound to leave someone out. “Yes,” I said, “but this is a panel about atheism and you left out an atheist.” He responded that there was a Buddhist on the panel and they are atheists. However, it was a scholar of Buddhism on the panel and just because someone is a scholar of a particular religion it doesn’t mean they are practitioners. I have no idea what this person’s beliefs are. But that is beside the point because the Buddhist scholar didn’t represent atheist positions, nor did he defend atheism from the attacks by the other panelists but rather commented on how he felt Buddhism and the Buddha would see this debate. READ FULL POST
Creative Commons / JMozzolaa
Crossposted on Tikkun Daily.
by Donna Schaper
On Monday night, November 14, 2011 the mayor of New York City ordered the police to evict the 500 or so overnight occupiers in Zuccotti Park. The eviction happened around 2 a.m. He did not tell them to leave within 72 hours. Or 48 hours. Or even by morning. He moved them out by force at 2 a.m. using surprise. In addition the police put the tents and tarps, many of the backpacks, computers, notebooks, sweatshirts and granola bars into a trash compactor and let the grind be heard throughout the park. As Rev. Robert Coleman of Riverside Church said, “I have the receipts for the 100 tents we bought. I’d like the city to repay my congregation for the destruction of our tents.” Sacred space may start with tents and have a middle stage in church buildings, even sanctuaries. Sacred space has no need of one place. It can occupy many, at the same time.
Consider the way in which too many Christians, Jews, and Muslims have imagined the city of Jerusalem as their privately or parochially owned sacred space. We speak often of a two state solution to the “problem” of Jerusalem. That political solution need not stop the sacralizing of space, the universality of the human urge to call one place “Ur” or original home. READ FULL POST
Cross-posted from Tikkun Daily
By Norma Altshuler
Occupy Oakland protesters at the Port of Oakland CC/Steve Rhodes
Tax policy may seem far from the passion of Occupy, but it is essential to this moral movement. We need to leverage this energy and engagement to start a national dialogue about the kind of society we want to live in, and how to get there. By reforming the capital gains tax, we will call upon the wealthiest Americans to pay more for essential economic stimulus and social programs.
At the same time that income equality is growing, states are slashing education and safety nets at unprecedented rates. This leaves the most vulnerable Americans without basic opportunities and protections. We need to channel more money to states to protect social services and reverse layoffs of public employees. We must invest in job training programs, particularly for high-growth sectors like health care workers and home weatherizers.
All of this requires money, and we need to ask the wealthiest Americans – who have benefited the most from the jobless recovery – to contribute more. Reforming taxes on capital gains, the profits from sales of stocks and other financial assets, will target the wealthiest without hurting the economy. READ FULL POST
Congress departs for the Thanksgiving holiday having left us a gift. With the deficit committee failing to produce a plan to cut the deficit and with across-the-board cuts now the default, there remains a real chance for us to untie the Congressional straightjacket and refocus the national conversation on sustainable and constructive job creation.
The war industry knows this, and its allies in Congress are already moving to stop cuts to their piece of the federal budget, a total of $500 billion over 10 years. We’re certain the war industry’s Congressional allies are one among many things contractor CEOs are thankful for.
But as Americans take stock this Thanksgiving holiday, we thought it appropriate we expose some other turkeys that the war industry is celebrating this holiday season.
1. The V-22 Osprey
Not even then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney could spike the V-22 Osprey. Each $70 million unit takes off like a helicopter, flies like a plane, and despite being responsible for the deaths of 30 test pilots, the $54 billion program is still business as usual for Congress. Free flight demonstrations for politicians and influential columnists (flights that manage to not spontaneously combust mid-air), as well as the Marine Corps insistence to institutionalize the aircraft have sustained the Osprey contract into one of the biggest black holes of taxpayer money.
There remains $18 billion left unspent in the fund behind the Osprey, one of two pools of war contractor projects the Project on Government Oversight identified as “cuts that could save taxpayers billions without putting American lives at risk.” But the House committee chairman who oversees the project also represents a rural Texas district where the aircraft is assembled.
War contractors are toasting their lawyers and lobbyists who made this legal.
2. Rep. Buck McKeon
Rep. Buck McKeon is another Congressman who enables war industry CEOs and corporations to both enjoy record paydays and low tax rates. As the Chair of House Armed Services Committee, McKeon is the most powerful link between the war contractors and the power of the purse in the House of Representatives.
Earlier this month, McKeon defended the war contractors’ bloated budget and broke into tears during a hearing about soldiers in Afghanistan. His tears were misplaced: war contractors enjoy a much larger slice of the pie than the troops. Almost on the same day, a Stimson Center study (.pdf) demonstrated how the U.S. military had used money, pegged for soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, on $1 trillion on tanks, ships and jets since Sept. 11, 2001.
Twenty-two percent of that $1 trillion came from “supplemental” war spending bills. In other words, $232.8 billion of taxpayer money that would’ve provided soldiers with better body armor, for example, was spent on Abrams tanks and jet fighters, both projects enrich war contractors while doing nothing to bolster the safety of our troops or our nation’s safety at home.
It’s no surprise then that Lockheed Martin’s biggest political benefactor is Rep. Buck McKeon, who made this all possible. For that, he’s a gravytrain-enabler who lets war contractors parade around in America’s wealthiest 0.01%.
3. F-35 Jet Fighter
The Osprey is a Cornish game hen compared to the 49,500-pound mashed potato keg that is the largest war contract in the history of the Pentagon.
The F-35 Airplane Joint Strike Fighter has never seen one day of combat. It’s, at best, questionably safe for human testing. The Aero News Network reported it was the latest in a long history of FUBAR cranberry sauce.
As those who have followed the program know, the JSF program has been plagued by cost overruns and delays. The test fleet was recently grounded due to a power supply problem, and had only just been returned to operational status. Back in January, then-defense-secretary Robert Gates had put the program on notice by imposing a two-year probation after discovering other structural flaws. Budget hawks have long viewed the program, often described as the most costly defense acquisition in history, as a tempting target. A major program review is also reportedly planned as pressure grows on Congress and the President to cut spending.
The first real flight was pegged for 2016, with a program cost of $40 billion to $50 billion. An independent government report found $28 billion of F-35 spending has been a waste. The aircraft’s makers, Lockheed Martin, like to point out the myriad of ways their profits could be lowered on the project, and we’ve demonstrated how money earmarked for Lockheed Martin executives would create more jobs were it spent on education or infrastructure.
Dear F-35, you make the war profiteers’ belly warmer than a poor man’s glass of whiskey. And for that, Lockheed Martin loves you.
4. Sen. Jon Kyl
There’s failing to lead and leading to failure, and the Senate’s No. 2 Republican is an expert at both.
You might remember Kyl’s knack for making disparaging remarks on the Senate floor that were not intended to be a “factual statement.” But what really makes Kyl the stuffing at the Boeing holiday party is his insistence that millionaire war contractors be spared the same economic pain as middle class families.
Despite adhering to an ideology that equates corporations with living human beings, Kyl sees every reason to exempt war contractors from the belt tightening that’s being forced upon families across the U.S. While favoring austerity elsewhere, Kyl is doing all he can to stop a 15 percent cut to the war budget.
Even with a 15 percent cut factored in, that would be about half the cuts of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon and less than cuts made by George H. W. Bush, according to Lawrence J. Korb, an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Moreover, a 15 percent cut is a child’s plate of peas when the war budget has increased by 50 percent since 2001 and will still be $37 billion more in 2021 than it is in 2011.
5. You and me
We enable the war profiteers. We pay for war contractor pensions, their vast network of lobbyists, and the salaries for top executives.
Technically, it’s our elected officials who transform our tax dollars into self-perpetuating riches for Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens ($21.89 million salary last year), Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush ($22.84 million) and Boeing CEO James McNerney ($19.4 million).
These companies use our tax dollars to further spin the system toward their corporate advantage. In many cases, the war contractors are bigger villains than CEOs at Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase.
Does that make us the war contractors’ juiciest turkey?
It makes me mad and that’s why I’ve stopped whispering and started shouting.
