What would a shut-in Snowmeggedon Sunday morning be without Maureen Dowd’s “fashion politico” column in the NYT? Oh, wait, you mean that’s not what its called? Could’ve fooled me, since today’s profile of potential New York Senate candidate Harold Ford, Jr. (A Scrubbed Toe In The Race, 2/07/10 @nytimes.com) told us everything about Ford’s workout regimen, his favorite downscale eateries, his family history both political and personal, and absolutely nothing about Ford’s reasons for presumably entering the N.Y. Senate race. I guess no explication is necessary after you’re already anointed by Maureen Dowd.  Ford plays it both ways, riffing on his love for NYC while maintaining that “the political bosses” (Chuck Schumer and The White House) shoved him away from the race. And maybe that’s a good idea. Perhaps it’s Dowd’s intention to illustrate Ford’s lack of engagement with political reality by focusing on his lifestyle of cushy accoutrements. It’s really hard to imagine the ex-Tennessee congressman switching gears and running as a raging populist (has he ever been outside of New York City?) in a year when the “man of the people” routine is a necessary political fiction. Although emblematic of the elite that spawned him, Harold Ford Jr. distiguishes himself only by virtue of a pathetically entitled opportunism and an “empty vessel” status (aside from “rainmaker” designation at Merrill-Lynch) that seems entirely deserved.

    From Day one, President Obama’s supposed focus has been jobs, jobs, jobs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, last year’s stimulus has saved or created 2.4 milllion work opportunities, although with 16 million unluckly job-seekers out there this barely a drop in the bucket. In today’s Salon Andrew Leonard refers to the “ever-popular ‘U-6′ measure of unemployment, which puts together ‘Totally employed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part-time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilan labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force fell … from 17.3% to 16.5%”. Of course, the stimulus would have created a lot more jobs  if half the money had not gone to legislative pork and tax cuts, which is how you make sausage in the District Of Columbia. So the question now arises as to what the Administration does for an encore. In Barack Obama’s America, simply taking $30 billion of unsed or refunded TARP money for bestowing tax credits on small business to start hiring should do the trick. After all, $5000 per new employee is a pretty sweet deduction come tax time. Unfortunately, what’s absent in this scenario is that economically universal need for consumer DEMAND, which is not expanding. Most liberal (Krugman, Dean Baker, Robert Pollin) and even centrist economists compellingly argue for getting more money into the hands of working people who will certainly spend it, as these folks (like myself) are holding on to financial “security” by their fingernails. More spending = more demand = more jobs. How this equation is accomplished via a paltry 30 billion dollars is inconcievable to my layman’s consciousness, but you can be sure that successful or not the “jobs bill” will be trumpeted by the Democrats in November (what else have they got?).

       A huge constraint on any new spending to create consumer demand is, of course, THE DEFICIT. Funny, I remember Herr Cheney remarking not too many years ago that “deficits don’t matter”, especially when increases in the military budget are paid for by China. Democrats are not so lassiez-faire. Bill Clinton used budget concerns as an efficient smokescreen to self-derail his own “progressive agenda” in the name of fiscal discipline. A cynic would discern the scam; recent Republican administrations (Bush 41 and 43) run up the debt so “progressive” democrats have no choice but to govern from the right in the name of austerity (I know a rigged game when I see one). For the American people this all resolves in a poisoned cul-de-sac; either be content with a decade of yearly trillion-dollar deficits, with accompanying economic malaise (i.e. 10% unemployment or better ’til 2019!) or throw the Democrats out, strangle the Federal Govt. in a bathtub, and bring back the Ownership Society (stand on your own 2 {white} feet, tinhorn!). It’s a bulwark of Marxian economic theory that economies have to collapse for the petit-bourgeoise (i.e. liberals) to get off their grad-school superstar assses and ally with the working classes to demand radical reform through demographically integrated “populist” movements. I sure hope so.

    By now nearly every Alternet reader is aware of the 2nd catastrophe arising from the Haitian earthquake; the utterly botched and basically ineffectual international aid effort, a pathetic tragedy of errors initiated by the UN’s decision to place “security” first. From the reports that this writer has read and heard mostly from independent news sources, there seems to be no sane reason to have so many boots and weapons on the ground; who is the enemy the UN and especially the United States are fighting? Lavalas supporters are scapegoated as criminals and thugs hindering relief efforts; if so, where’s the evidence? Does this justify the ongoing turf wars over who gets to deliver aid and when? Particularly egregious is the US military’s occupation of the Port-au-Prince airport, and the subsequent refusal to let Doctors Without Borders and other international aid agencies land while permitting the Governor of Pennsylvania’s private plane (flown in to facilitate the removal of 53 orphans shepherded home to Steeltown by 2 native Pittsburghers) full access. Of course this event was front-page news in my hometown’s local papers for 2 or 3 days, while information about the obscene loss of life and the millions of injured was relegated to page 7 or 8. There was more play given in the local media to a Nebraskan woman’s insane contention that the earthquake was a “miracle” because the cataclysm let her adopt a child!

      So into this maelstrom the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sent intrepid reporter Dennis P. Roddy, an unapolegetic right-wing centrist, apparently under orders from his editors to file stories of looting and gunplay so lovingly embraced by corporate media. Mr. Roddy is the same reporter who during the 2008 Republican Convention in Minneapolis enthralled readers with tales of a bucolic weekend in the Midwest, watching regular folks going about their days with no interruption from any hirsute anarchist protestors. Of course, while he was so blissed out said anarchists and fellow travelers were being “pre-emptively” arrested, hundreds of overwhelmingly peaceful protestors and innocent bystanders were cuffed and thrown into makeshift detention facilities, and Democracy Now host Amy Goodman was busted for the crime of, well, being Amy Goodman. Anyone with internet access could have done Roddy’s job thanks to the good folks at The Uptake.com. This time it didn’t take Roddy long to find the real perpetrators of the relief aid boondoggle (Lack of food sparks hostility in Haiti, Pittsburgh Post- Gazette 1/29/10, available at post-gazette.com). By the 2nd paragraph he’s interviewing a Haitian physician who’s seen the hurricanes, the riots, the armed insurrection that drove the Duvailers from power (I guess finally being able to peacefully elect a president in an internationally-monitored fair election was beyond the pale). Roddy then conflates a single incident of a group of desperate, straving people mistaking a private delivery of rice (so he says) for a misappropriation of badly needed food to a metaphor of criminal-minded behavior by an absolutely neglected and traumatized population. Of course “gunshots are not rare here, but they often seem to hit nothing but air.” And, oh yeah, cab fares in Haiti are astronomical (now THAT really hurts, Dennis, insulting my cab-driving brothers and sisters). I know that to some readers this post just falls into the whaddya-expect-so-it-goes category, but shoddy journalism is shoddy journalism, and it makes me sick.

   I was totally infuriated  by the way President Obama framed the rationale for freezing all Federal discretionary spending (save for the obvious 3rd rails: the Pentagon, the VA, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) from 2011-14 in his Staate Of The Union Address on Wednesday night. As a former community organizer, Obama knows too well the constituencies that will most suffer from this spending freeze; the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, the handicapped, the substance-addicted, not to mention the soon-to-be-furloughed state and municipal workers who perform essential and soon to be privatized services that we all depend on. Naomi Klein was absolutely right when she called it a “Herbert Hoover move” on Thursday’s edition of Democracy Now. This is what the American people will receive in return for a bank bailout that “saved capitalism” with $17.5 trillion dollars of our tax money! And for Obama to frame this structural adjustment in terms of the supremely cliched “tighten our belts” analogy is beyond shameful. It’s as if Obama thinks he is Herbert Hoover, living in an age when few people went to college and our forms of instantaneous, mass communication were a pipedream. But that’s not all! The Banksta-In-Chief has also decreed by executive order the formation of a “bi-partisan” (There’s that word again; hey Barry, why not beat the Scott Brown-wannabes to the punch and switch parties yourself!) commission to recommend ways to reduce The Debt, like “restructuring” Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Obviously, this is code for reducing entitlement benefits, which may finally end Republican obstructionism once and for all. And then we’ll all live in Barack Obama’s dream world, where Ronald Reagan rises again on the 3rd day. Tell me again, why did progressives (including me) vote for this guy? Are we all masochistic, or what? Maybe Max Blumenthal ought to write his next book about that!

            We are not dogs, we are not vermin befouling the streets

             We will not sit and wait around to die

              While Dyncorp and USAID establish a security perimeter

              Bring back Jean-Bertrand Aristide, deposed by 2 CIA coups

                       for raising the minimum wage

              Bring back Toussaint L’ Overture

               Bring back Simon Bolivar

               Let the Heritage Foundation rot

                      beneath the rubble of the UN compound

               Forever searching for investment opportunities

                      on ash-encrusted Blackberrys

                Give Bill Clinton a pickaxe

                 Give George W. Bush a rusty shovel

                 Let them dig graves in Petionville

                 While 5 days later no aid or media

                        reaches the epicenter

                  When will the world finally tire

                          of our “feel good” photo-ops

                           our Ryan Seacrest telethons

                            our KISS-FM “Pittsburgh connections to the

                                     catastrophe”

                              and CRUSH US FLAT

                       On the long road to the mountaintop.

(Breaking News – As this initial Guttersnipe  goes to press, we’ve just received word from The New York Times that Obama The Defecit Hawk intends to freeze spending for 3 years on all domestic government programs excluding the Pentagon, foreign aid, the VA, homeland security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Sounds like the Chinese are playing hardball, as increasing deficits mean less return on U. S. Treasuries.)

    In the wake of last week’s Massachusetts Massacree, where the final would have been even more embarassing than Brown 52, Coakley 47 had not Obama parachuted in at the last minute for a bit of the old silver-tongued rhetorico, the Democratic Leadership (Council) has manned the barricades, cobbling together a series of piecemeal reforms designed to pre-emptively strike back at the immanent emergence of Scott Brown sound-a-likes in every contestable Congressional race in the country. Leading the counter-attack was the Big O, with 3 salvos designed to placate THE BASE:

     1) A tax levied on the 50 biggest banks in the nation in order to retrieve the Peoples’ TARP money.

     2) 3 “major” financial reforms suggested by Paul Volcker, who really shold have Tim Geithner’s job, designed to rein in the re-emerging speculative frenzy.

      3) A scathing attack on the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. The FEC that will effectively terminate the democratic electoral process as we now know it. Obama knows full well that the only true redress to overturn the court’s decision would be a constitutional amendment, a long and arduous process requiring 34 states to ratify, which given our fractious political environment is basically untenable.

    In a similar vein, word out of D.C. is that the President’s State Of The Union (SOTU) Address will contain help for the “sandwich generation”, middle-class families struggling to put kids through college/grad school and care for elderly parents. These measures include doubling the child care tax credit for families earning less than $85,000/yr, which would cut their income taxes by $900 with no actual cash refund available. Obama also seeks to cap student loan payments to 10% of income, excluding a basic living allowance (price tag $1 billion) and expand financing to said families caring for elderly relatives ($102.5 million). These modest proposals seem bi-partisan enough, but with “President-elect” Scott Brown holding the 41st vote in the Senate I predict no sale. Of course, the panancea for Republican obstruction would be the simple majority budget reconciliation process which for some reason Obama regards as a third rail. Why? Bush used this procedure to pass legislation at least 9 times, and noone uttered a discouraging word. Maybe thet were afraid W would classify them as an “enemy combatant” and give them a diaper and an orange jumpsuit. But if Obama wants his first year to be remembered for anything other than disappointment and capitulation, he should consider this cold-hearted political maneuver.

     Lost once again in Obama’s SOTU middle-class swing voter pandering will be the fate of the majority of Americans, the folks who didn’t make it to or through grad school and therefore don’t benefit from a benign 5.1% unemployment rate. I mean, what about the rest of us, Barry? Don’t you realize there are 17 million people in this country that can’t find a job, not to mention the tens of millions that are barely holding on (like your humble guttersnipe)? What about an FDR-style public works program or a second stimulus minus the pork? I know, I know;  it’ll never make it through Congress. Well, guess what? Your asleep-at-the-wheel “super majority” will never make it through November! Iwish that just once someone from outside the petit-bourgeois meritocracy would ascend to a position of real power in this society. ‘Cause it’s hard to have your ear to the ground from the back of a stretch-limo.

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