October 29, 2013

A Different Kind of Shutdown: What if progressives took a page from the Tea Party?

from In These Times:



A Different Kind of Shutdown
What if progressives took a page from the Tea Party?

BY Bhaskar Sunkara


During the height of this fall’s government shutdown, Obama spoke to factory workers about Republican intransigence in Congress. He asked them: If they wanted a raise and more vacation time, would they just shut down the plant and walk off the job?

Telling the story to reporters, the president recalled, “I said, ‘How do you think that would go?’ They all thought they’d be fired. And I think most of us think that. You know, there’s nothing wrong with asking for a raise or asking for more time off. But you can’t burn down the plant or your office if you don’t get your way. Well, the same thing is true here. … The American people do not get to demand a ransom for doing their jobs.”

The thing is: They once did exactly that. Workers never got anything by asking nicely. They got it by striking, picketing, and yes, occasionally dynamiting their employers. But in an era of declining industrial action, when few are inculcated in the traditions of union solidarity and the strike, those memories have faded. Obama wants to see them completely forgotten.

During the height of New Deal-era militancy, nearly all of General Motors’ 150,000 production workers were involved in a workplace shutdown or factory occupation. “Every time a dispute came up,” one UAW member remembered, “the fellows would have a tendency to sit down and just stop working.” ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15798/a_different_kind_of_shutdown/

October 29, 2013

NYT: Commuting’s Hidden Cost

.......(snip).......

According to the Census Bureau, more than three-fourths of all commuters drove to work in single-occupancy vehicles in 2009. Only 5 percent used public transportation, and 2.9 percent walked to work. A mere 0.6 percent rode bicycles, although cycling has finally begun to rise in popularity as cities like New York create bike lanes and bike share programs.

But workers are not the only ones driving for hours a day. The mid-20th century suburban idyll of children going out to play with friends in backyards and on safe streets has yielded to a new reality: play dates, lessons and organized activities to which they must be driven and watched over by adults.

In “My Car Knows the Way to Gymnastics,” an aptly titled chapter in Leigh Gallagher’s prophetic new book, “The End of the Suburbs,” she describes a stay-at-home mom in Massachusetts who drives more than her commuting husband — 40 to 50 miles each weekday, “just to get herself and her children around each day.”

Millions of Americans like her pay dearly for their dependence on automobiles, losing hours a day that would be better spent exercising, socializing with family and friends, preparing home-cooked meals or simply getting enough sleep. The resulting costs to both physical and mental health are hardly trivial. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/commutings-hidden-cost/?smid=tw-share&_r=2

October 29, 2013

Turkey's Bosphorus tunnel to open sub-sea Asia link

(BBC) A railway tunnel underneath the Bosphorus Strait is due to open in Turkey, creating a new link between the Asian and European shores of Istanbul.

The tunnel is the world's first connecting two continents, and is designed to withstand earthquakes.

It is being opened on the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for years championed the undersea engineering project, first conceived by an Ottoman sultan in 1860. ..........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24721779

October 29, 2013

Lawsuit: MTA bus driver calls Muslim boy, 10, 'terrorist' and denies him ride

A 12-year-old Brooklyn boy says in a lawsuit that he was barred from boarding a city bus after the driver heard the youngster reciting a Muslim prayer and branded him a “terrorist.”

The unidentified plaintiff was searching for his MetroCard as the B36 Bus pulled up on Sheepshead Bay Road last October, according to the suit, filed Friday in Brooklyn Federal Court.

He began reciting a Muslim prayer: “I stand in the name of God the most merciful, the most beneficent,” the suit states. The driver became alarmed, called the boy a “terrorist” and slammed the door shut, the boy’s lawyer, Hyder Naqvi, told the Daily News.

“The driver said ‘Get off!’” and used the T-word,” Naqvi said, referring to the word “terrorist.” ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/bus-driver-calls-muslim-boy-10-terrorist-suit-article-1.1499629#ixzz2j7hYlXHp

October 29, 2013

Big Food puts up big $$$ to fight the GMO labeling initiative in Washington state

With just one week left until Washington state voters decide on I-522, the ballot initiative to label genetically modified organisms (GMOs), money for the opposition continues to pour in. According to the state’s Public Disclosure Commission, the No on 522 campaign received an influx of $4.2 million last week from just two sources: The Grocery Manufacturer’s Association (GMA) and Dupont Pioneer, the seed and agri-chemical company.

This brings the current “No on 522” campaign war chest total to $21.4 million, the most well-endowed single-issue campaign in state history.

Dupont’s latest contribution is $460,000, bringing its donor monies to $3.87 million, just a million shy of the $4.8 million from Monsanto. But the generosity of the seed and chemical world pales in comparison to that of GMA, which ponied up an additional $3.7 million last week. Its lump contribution now stands at $11 million to fight GMO labeling.

As I reported earlier this month here, the GMA was forced to disclose the source of its massive contribution. Under the threat of a lawsuit by the Washington state attorney general, the GMA formed a political action committee, Grocery Manufacturers Association Against I-522, with a list of contributors and amounts. According to the state’s Public Disclosure Commission, 34 GMA member companies have contributed. They are:

PepsiCo, Inc.: $2,352,965

In addition to Pepsi soft drinks, the line of products include: Doritos, Tropicana orange juice, Gatorade, Lays potato chips, Ruffles, Aquafina bottled water, Lipton tea, Starbucks ready-to-drink beverages, Naked juice, and Sabra hummus. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://civileats.com/2013/10/29/19149/#sthash.FPS97f40.dpuf

October 29, 2013

Joe Manchin and Mark Pryor are the only two Democratic holdouts on ENDA

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) signed on as a co-sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act on Monday night, meaning the legislation is just three votes away from being able to clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

There are now just two Democratic senators -- Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) -- who are not co-sponsors of the legislation, which would bar workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It is already illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age or disability.

Only two Republicans -- Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) -- have so far signed on as co-sponsors, although Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted for the bill in committee in July. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/bill-nelson-enda_n_4173328.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

October 29, 2013

Yves Smith on JPMorgan: "I've seldom seen a financial story where there’s been so much misreporting"

Published on Oct 28, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org - In the largest banking settlement in U.S. history, the banking giant JPMorgan Chase is set to pay a record $13 billion fine to settle investigations into its mortgage-backed securities. Five years ago, the bank's risky behavior helped trigger the financial meltdown, including manipulating mortgages and sending millions of Americans into bankruptcy or foreclosure. JPMorgan's preliminary settlement with the U.S. government may end up costing much less after taxes -- closer to $9 billion because the majority of the deal is expected to be tax deductible. The deal is expected to be followed by a larger agreement with the Justice Department still in the works. Many in the media have portrayed the deal as unfair to the bank. The Wall Street Journal describes it as the government "confiscating" half of JPMorgan's annual earnings to "appease ... left-wing populist allies" of the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the New York Post portrayed it as a kind of bank robbery, running a headline that read: "UNCLE SCAM: U.S. robs bank of $13 billion." We are joined by Yves Smith, financial analyst and founder of the popular finance blog "Naked Capitalism." Smith is the author of the book, "ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism."

October 29, 2013

Public Intellectuals Against the Neoliberal University

Public Intellectuals Against the Neoliberal University

Tuesday, 29 October 2013 09:16
By Henry A Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed

"The University is a critical institution or it is nothing." - Stuart Hall

I want to begin with the words of the late African-American poet, Audre Lourde, who was in her time a formidable writer, educator, feminist, gay rights activist and public intellectual who displayed a relentless courage in addressing the injustices she witnessed all around her. She writes:

Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.

And while Lourde refers to poetry here, I think a strong case can be made that the attributes she ascribes to poetry can also be attributed to higher education - a genuine higher education.2 In this case, an education that includes history, philosophy, all of the arts and humanities, the criticality of the social sciences, the world of discovery made manifest by science, and the transformations in health and in law wrought by the professions that are at the heart of what it means to know something about the human condition. Lourde's defense of poetry as a mode of education is especially crucial for those of us who believe that the university is nothing if it is not a public trust and social good; that is a critical institution infused with the promise of cultivating intellectual insight, the imagination, inquisitiveness, risk-taking, social responsibility and the struggle for justice. At best, universities should be at the "heart of intense public discourse, passionate learning and vocal citizen involvement in the issues of the times." It is in the spirit of such an ideal that I first want to address those larger economic, social, and cultural interests that threaten this notion of education, especially higher education.

Across the globe, the forces of casino capitalism are on the march. With the return of the Gilded Age and its dream worlds of consumption, privatization and deregulation, not only are democratic values and social protections at risk, but the civic and formative cultures that make such values and protections crucial to democratic life are in danger of disappearing altogether. As public spheres, once enlivened by broad engagements with common concerns, are being transformed into "spectacular spaces of consumption," the flight from mutual obligations and social responsibilities intensifies and has resulted in what Tony Judt identifies as a "loss of faith in the culture of open democracy."3 This loss of faith in the power of public dialogue and dissent is not unrelated to the diminished belief in higher education as central to producing critical citizens and a crucial democratic public sphere in its own right. At stake here is not only the meaning and purpose of higher education, but also civil society, politics and the fate of democracy itself. Thomas Frank is on target when he argues that "Over the course of the past few decades, the power of concentrated money has subverted professions, destroyed small investors, wrecked the regulatory state, corrupted legislators en masse and repeatedly put the economy through the wringer. Now it has come for our democracy itself."4 And, yet, the only questions being asked about knowledge production, the purpose of education, the nature of politics, and our understanding of the future are determined largely by market forces.

The mantras of neoliberalism are now well known: Government is the problem; Society is a fiction; Sovereignty is market-driven; Deregulation and commodification are vehicles for freedom; and Higher education should serve corporate interests rather than the public good. In addition, the yardstick of profit has become the only viable measure of the good life, while civic engagement and public spheres devoted to the common good are viewed by many politicians and their publics as either a hindrance to the goals of a market-driven society or alibis for government inefficiency and waste. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19654-public-intellectuals-against-the-neoliberal-university

October 29, 2013

Amsterdam: the roots of a tolerant city

Russell Shorto’s ‘Amsterdam’: the roots of a tolerant city
Russell Shorto’s “Amsterdam” looks at the history, politics and spirit of what is arguably the world’s most liberal city.

By Michael Upchurch
Special to The Seattle Times

‘Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City’
by Russell Shorto
Doubleday, 354 pp., $28.95


This finely spun and illuminating history of Amsterdam explores both a city and an idea. And writer Russell Shorto is well-positioned to investigate both.

He’s an American who has lived in Amsterdam for the last five years.

He’s also the author of “The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America,” a book examining how American diversity and a significant portion of American freedoms had their roots in the colonial settlement on Upper New York Bay more than 400 years ago.



“Amsterdam,” in a sense, picks up where “Island” left off, by giving a millennium-long overview of the country that was the source for the values of colonial New Amsterdam. Shorto has an ardent appetite for understanding all he can about his new home, and he’s especially alert to how the physical fabric of Amsterdam’s city center holds the memories of figures and events from centuries past. ..............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://seattletimes.com/html/books/2022109624_russellshortoamsterdamxml.html

October 29, 2013

Dean Baker: How Alan Greenspan Destroyed America

The Guardian / By Dean Baker

How Alan Greenspan Destroyed America
The former Fed chair is promoting his new book. He should admit his role in the housing crisis, not insult our intelligence.


October 28, 2013 | Alan Greenspan will go down in history as the person most responsible for the enormous economic damage caused by the housing bubble and the subsequent collapse of the market. The United States is still down almost 9m jobs from its trend path. We are losing close to $1tn a year in potential output, with cumulative losses to date approaching $5tn.

These numbers correspond to millions of dreams ruined. Families who struggled to save enough to buy a home lost it when house prices plunged or they lost their jobs. Many older workers lose their job with little hope of ever finding another one, even though they are ill-prepared for retirement; young people getting out of school are facing the worst job market since the Great Depression, while buried in student loan debt.

The horror story could have easily been prevented had there been intelligent life at the Federal Reserve Board in the years when the housing bubble was growing to ever more dangerous proportions (2002-2006). But the Fed did nothing to curb the bubble. Arguably, it even acted to foster its growth with Greenspan cheering the development of exotic mortgages and completely ignoring its regulatory responsibilities.

Most people who had this incredible infamy attached to their name would have the decency to find a large rock to hide behind; but not Alan Greenspan. He apparently believes that he has not punished us enough. Greenspan has a new book which he is now hawking on radio and television shows everywhere. ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/how-alan-greenspan-destroyed-america