I have been thinking about how to express my felt sense of the present mood of the country. Some time ago I wrote a blog on”A Pall “ that was hanging over the land. Now I am past “The Pall.” Well, I played with “angst.” No that’s just anxiety. Yes there’s some of that but yet there’s more. How about “ennui” No thats French for lassitude. How about “miasma?” Thats a “poisoned atmosphere." Okay, if we can think of it a mass psychological condition then I believe it fits the present mood of the country. We are suffering from a Miasma of the body politic. Now that the “Big Lend and Spend Parties of the nineties are over the American middle class is really pissed off. They cannot abide with the notion that all those goodies have gone with the economic bust. Then we elect the first Black President and instead of things getting better as promised they get worse. This makes for ideal situation for the demagogues.
In my 93 years I have lived through a number of Miasma’s. They are never exactly the same but there are a few characteristics that show up in all of them. The present situation with the persistent ten percent unemployment and the continuous home foreclosure is starting to increasingly resemble the 1930s. I estimate that the unemployment is probably now somewhere between 15 to 20 millions. Many people who cannot find jobs are either no longer eligible for unemployment benefits or just quit applying. That's a huge pool of angry folks out there. Who will they blame for their circumstance? People in distress often start out blaming themselves for the disorder. Slowly but surely they will find a need to blame somebody or something for their dire circumstance.
In my Marxist days on the soapbox I could make a good case that capitalist system was to blame for the working class ills. Om my desk is a copy of the IWW songbook. On the cover it says “Fan The Flames of the Discontent.” That is exactly what Glenn Beck is doing. Fanning the flames of the discontent.
The present political Miasma, besides the failing economy, is a fierce hatred spewing forth from the right wing of the Republicans against the Democrats and especially their Black President Barack Obama. This situation sets up an ideal situation for the demagogues to work in. They need enemies to blame the economic crisis on as well as slogans that will arouse people to act. Enter Fox News man Glenn Beck.
Speaking of the 1930s my papa used to say “It is very important in times like these to be on the lookout for hidden meanings of code words and phrases.” Yes of course, welcome to “Give Us Our Country Back.” And today with a huge crowd at the Lincoln Memorial Mr. Beck “Bring God back into our lives.” “Bring honor back to our country.” All of these slogans suggest that the present Administration is a danger and threat to “our country and we need to take it back.” Code for get rid of that Black man in the White House.
Todays caper at the Lincoln Memorial, claiming the mantle of Martin Luther King is a way to scare more people into believing the whole country is signing on to, “Give Us Our Country Back.” The mass rally technique is just another form of stampeding the uninformed, unsure and independents to get on board as “we take over the country.” It’s that old saw “you with us or against us?” You remember that one?
No. there was none of that back in the 1963 March on Washington for, “Jobs and Freedom” where King made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. As it continues today. Blacks back then were suffering a far greater unemployment rate than whites. Freedom was not a code word for get the government off my back as it was used today at the Beck rally. Freedom meant the right to live unsegregated lives. With a couple of hundred kids from Mobilization For Youth I attended that rally. There is no question that the March became a rallying cry for the country to pay attention to the needs of a minority of citizens who for to long have been deprived of their just rights under our Constitution. What went on today at the Lincoln Memorial was an attempt to usurp that great moment from our struggle for civil rights and claim it for the Tea Party. That's what demagogues do. Turn things into their opposites.
This is a real challenge to the Obama administration. They need to to really smack back hard on any of these coded messages so that people can see what they are about. Obama needs to respond to the criticisms that he is just to distant from the average working stiffs. During the Gulf crisis I was hoping he would just go and schmooze with some of those Gulf fishermen. He never did. That has got to change or we will see another big deflection of blue collar people turning once again away from the Democrats as they did in the Reagan years. The administration needs to get back to organizing all those Internet folks who elected the President and alert them to the upcoming election in November. I hope they haven’t got to tired of it all and are able and willing to respond.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Hampton Classic Time, Again?
I confess, I am rerunning this blog again because in some ways it reminds me of the absurdities of our every day news reports. Besides it does remind me of another absurdity, me riding in a horse show in Mexico City. This was long before the drug Cartels took over the country. I still think of my time there as a very happy experience.
It is now Hampton Classic time out here on Long Island and I had another memory jolt. The horses reminded me of an early Sunday morning in Mexico City. I was at the stables of the Presidential Palace for an early breakfast. You are wondering, “What on earth was he doing there?” I was too.
It was probably 1965. I was in charge of Youth Employment programs for the City of New York. John Lindsay, the Mayor, asked if I would be willing to go to Mexico to evaluate a youth employment training program called “Instituto Nacional La Juventud,” National Institute of Youth. It was wintertime and I could not be more delighted to leave the City for whatever reason. (Mayor Lindsay sometimes referred to my job as “keeping the city from burning.” We did that by employing as many as 50,000 kids in summer jobs.)
Once in Mexico City I was treated like royalty, with chauffeured car and airplane at my disposal, to be able to visit any one of dozens of cities and towns that had Youth Training Programs. I would visit the programs, spend a day or two observing, and make notes. Getting back to the Horse Show.
On Friday evening my host, Sergio Alvarez, Director of the Instituto, announced, “Sunday morning we ride with Mexico’s National Equestrian Team at the Presidential Palace in a practice jumping session.” You have to understand that Sergio, a small highly energetic man, spoke in proclamations that came out as major facts that simply could not be denied. Yet I valiantly tried saying, “Sergio, I know how to ride a horse, but for God sake I would not think for a moment I could ride with Mexico’s best riders. Besides, I know absolutely nothing about jumping a horse over a hurdle, and I have no riding clothes.” That last was a desperate attempt to get out of this impending disaster. To Sergio it mattered not. “Roberto,” he announced, “we have all your sizes and your clothes and boots will be waiting for you at the arena.” And so I gave in to Sergio’s determination that this was going to happen.
Early Sunday morning there was Sergio all decked out in boots, jodhpurs, tailored riding jacket, and helmet, assuring me that the very same outfit awaited me at the stable. We arrived at the great hall where dozens of men where already eating breakfast of eggs rancheros. There was no silverware and I noticed people were using there rolls as a way of scooping up the peppers and eggs.
I was greeted as a dignitary from Estados Unidos who will “honor us by riding in our La Pista.” I was still hoping that the riding outfit wouldn’t fit and that would be my way out. At this point Sergio was insisting that it would be a real insult if I were to withdraw. “Roberto,” he exclaimed “do you want to insult us by being disdainful of our riding ability? No Roberto, for the sake of the relations between our two great countries you must ride.” Sergio was what some Mexican friends described as a “declamador,” who declaimed as though he was addressing the multitudes. There was nothing to do but put on the outfit (it fit amazingly well) and make the best of it.
We proceeded to the riding hall and again it was announced that Roberto Schranko from Estados Unidos would be riding with the equestrian team. As I watched these fabulous riders and their horses go over the hurdles from a foot off the ground to what appeared like six feet, I was in awe of the grace and the ease with which they managed the ride. I did not have a clue regarding how they were being judged. It was getting to be late morning and I thought, “Oh well, they probably forgot about me,” when Sergio came to remind me it was time to “mount up.” Back to the stable. There was a beautiful horse held in check by a groom who very graciously, with a movement of his hand toward the horse, suggested I mount; which I did. Once up in the saddle, it seemed to me this was the tallest horse I had ever been on.
Adding to my overwhelming anxiety and prayer that this horse would know what to do, since I didn’t, was the fact that I was sitting on an English saddle instead of a nice Western with that great knob up front you could hold on to when things got hairy. Everything from here on out was now in the hands of the Gods, or the horse, or both.
The groom led us into the La Pista and sent me and the horse off to the very first hurdle. I gave the reigns a little lift, which is what I thought was a signal to the horse to jump. Once past that first hurdle there was a round of applause from the audience. I thought, “Well heck, that wasn’t so bad.” Then came the next and the next and the next, and after each one a loud applause. As I approached that final six-footer I thought, “Man, just hang on here or for sure you will be dumped.” But this dear sweet horse just took it his stride and over we went. Now there was thunderous applause. Sergio came forward to congratulate me on my great spirit. I had sacrificed myself to make the Mexican’s feel good by knocking down every single pole from the first to the last. “Roberto, you are a great friend of Mexico and we will never forget what you did here today.”
As the trophies were handed out, I was given a silver belt buckle with a Road Runner bird on it. I thought that was a perfect portrayal of me at the “Hampton Classic” in Mexico City. This was yet another case of “never look back,” for if I had I would have realized how absurd this whole episode was. I thanked the horse for getting me through the hurdles without a single refusal to jump.
It is now Hampton Classic time out here on Long Island and I had another memory jolt. The horses reminded me of an early Sunday morning in Mexico City. I was at the stables of the Presidential Palace for an early breakfast. You are wondering, “What on earth was he doing there?” I was too.
It was probably 1965. I was in charge of Youth Employment programs for the City of New York. John Lindsay, the Mayor, asked if I would be willing to go to Mexico to evaluate a youth employment training program called “Instituto Nacional La Juventud,” National Institute of Youth. It was wintertime and I could not be more delighted to leave the City for whatever reason. (Mayor Lindsay sometimes referred to my job as “keeping the city from burning.” We did that by employing as many as 50,000 kids in summer jobs.)
Once in Mexico City I was treated like royalty, with chauffeured car and airplane at my disposal, to be able to visit any one of dozens of cities and towns that had Youth Training Programs. I would visit the programs, spend a day or two observing, and make notes. Getting back to the Horse Show.
On Friday evening my host, Sergio Alvarez, Director of the Instituto, announced, “Sunday morning we ride with Mexico’s National Equestrian Team at the Presidential Palace in a practice jumping session.” You have to understand that Sergio, a small highly energetic man, spoke in proclamations that came out as major facts that simply could not be denied. Yet I valiantly tried saying, “Sergio, I know how to ride a horse, but for God sake I would not think for a moment I could ride with Mexico’s best riders. Besides, I know absolutely nothing about jumping a horse over a hurdle, and I have no riding clothes.” That last was a desperate attempt to get out of this impending disaster. To Sergio it mattered not. “Roberto,” he announced, “we have all your sizes and your clothes and boots will be waiting for you at the arena.” And so I gave in to Sergio’s determination that this was going to happen.
Early Sunday morning there was Sergio all decked out in boots, jodhpurs, tailored riding jacket, and helmet, assuring me that the very same outfit awaited me at the stable. We arrived at the great hall where dozens of men where already eating breakfast of eggs rancheros. There was no silverware and I noticed people were using there rolls as a way of scooping up the peppers and eggs.
I was greeted as a dignitary from Estados Unidos who will “honor us by riding in our La Pista.” I was still hoping that the riding outfit wouldn’t fit and that would be my way out. At this point Sergio was insisting that it would be a real insult if I were to withdraw. “Roberto,” he exclaimed “do you want to insult us by being disdainful of our riding ability? No Roberto, for the sake of the relations between our two great countries you must ride.” Sergio was what some Mexican friends described as a “declamador,” who declaimed as though he was addressing the multitudes. There was nothing to do but put on the outfit (it fit amazingly well) and make the best of it.
We proceeded to the riding hall and again it was announced that Roberto Schranko from Estados Unidos would be riding with the equestrian team. As I watched these fabulous riders and their horses go over the hurdles from a foot off the ground to what appeared like six feet, I was in awe of the grace and the ease with which they managed the ride. I did not have a clue regarding how they were being judged. It was getting to be late morning and I thought, “Oh well, they probably forgot about me,” when Sergio came to remind me it was time to “mount up.” Back to the stable. There was a beautiful horse held in check by a groom who very graciously, with a movement of his hand toward the horse, suggested I mount; which I did. Once up in the saddle, it seemed to me this was the tallest horse I had ever been on.
Adding to my overwhelming anxiety and prayer that this horse would know what to do, since I didn’t, was the fact that I was sitting on an English saddle instead of a nice Western with that great knob up front you could hold on to when things got hairy. Everything from here on out was now in the hands of the Gods, or the horse, or both.
The groom led us into the La Pista and sent me and the horse off to the very first hurdle. I gave the reigns a little lift, which is what I thought was a signal to the horse to jump. Once past that first hurdle there was a round of applause from the audience. I thought, “Well heck, that wasn’t so bad.” Then came the next and the next and the next, and after each one a loud applause. As I approached that final six-footer I thought, “Man, just hang on here or for sure you will be dumped.” But this dear sweet horse just took it his stride and over we went. Now there was thunderous applause. Sergio came forward to congratulate me on my great spirit. I had sacrificed myself to make the Mexican’s feel good by knocking down every single pole from the first to the last. “Roberto, you are a great friend of Mexico and we will never forget what you did here today.”
As the trophies were handed out, I was given a silver belt buckle with a Road Runner bird on it. I thought that was a perfect portrayal of me at the “Hampton Classic” in Mexico City. This was yet another case of “never look back,” for if I had I would have realized how absurd this whole episode was. I thanked the horse for getting me through the hurdles without a single refusal to jump.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Thinking Together
Taking a break from all the bad news I was inspired by a visit from my son to write about my kids instead of all the crazy stuff out there. It was a wonderful 5 days. Fred came here from Madison Wisconsin to help his Dad with a bunch of household chores, repairs, additions etc. He and I have had a tradition of doing “projects.” Often as a bored kid he would say, “Dad don’t you have a project?” Back then before cars, and most everything in our lives were run by microprocessors, you could basically do your own servicing. Fred and I could change spark plugs, distributor points, tune the carburetor, change the oil filters etc. etc. Of course you can’t do that anymore unless you have a computer programed to analyze your engine. That’s how we moved into the realm of house repairs.
First project this time around was a motion light over the garage. This was a ladder job from which I have been barred. A few years ago I fell off a ladder. Luckily it was on a lawn so I came away bruised but not seriously hurt. That ended my ladder career. After installing another motion light Fred made the observation, “at night your house lights up like a penitentiary.” Then came sash replacement on some of our old double hung windows. Because we live on the water the salt air is particularly hard on the house.
What’s the fun of working together? I have been wondering about that. As we tackle projects there is a lot of thinking that goes into, the how to. I have always got a kick out of thinking together with my kids. It’s a process in which you both see a problem. Then begins a conversation about how to solve it. Doesn’t matter if its how to get a new lamp-cord through an old lamp. Or how to re-rope a busted venetian blind or clear a stopped up sink. With my daughter it was how do you play an old Appalachian tune on the guitar.What we ended up doing is thinking together. What is that? Okay one of you spots the problem. Then each begin to offer solutions. It is in that problem solving exercise that we get real insights into how the other thinks. Fred grew up in the age of digital. I grew up in the age of the mechanical and therein lies a difference.
Now as a nonagenarian thinking with my son and daughter takes on the character of a new learning experience. Their life experience has given them a myriad of different ways of thinking that come as real surprises. My daughter Elizabeth has spent most of her adult life in foreign countries as part of the International Volunteer Service. That’s a teaching organization. She has probably learned as much from her students than what she had to teach them. She brings an entirely different perspective of how we might deal with our everyday lives. Elizabeth has also been a folk and jazz singer most of her adult life. She has always opened new doors for me to sing myself through a whole world of different music.
What I am talking about in this age of electronic communication might seem quaint. I do believe that this kind of face to face eyeball to eyeball relating results in a deep and abiding respect for the other. It is also a way of helping each other in the process of learning how we can successfully live together. It is precisely because of the absolute presents of all this electronic communicating that I have become such a true believer in some kind of direct interaction between parents and children.
With the ever increasing presence of Twitter, Tweeter, Facebook and what have you I fear we will lose the lasting value of doing real life things together. Thank you Liz and Fred. And my Granddaughter Allie who put me in her High School Yearbook quoting her Grandpa’s “Goodbye and Good Luck.” I love all these kids as they constantly add new dimensions to my old life. I just worry a lot about what kind of a Planet we are going to leave them? More about that some other time. (I don’t want to give up this good feeling I have now.)
First project this time around was a motion light over the garage. This was a ladder job from which I have been barred. A few years ago I fell off a ladder. Luckily it was on a lawn so I came away bruised but not seriously hurt. That ended my ladder career. After installing another motion light Fred made the observation, “at night your house lights up like a penitentiary.” Then came sash replacement on some of our old double hung windows. Because we live on the water the salt air is particularly hard on the house.
What’s the fun of working together? I have been wondering about that. As we tackle projects there is a lot of thinking that goes into, the how to. I have always got a kick out of thinking together with my kids. It’s a process in which you both see a problem. Then begins a conversation about how to solve it. Doesn’t matter if its how to get a new lamp-cord through an old lamp. Or how to re-rope a busted venetian blind or clear a stopped up sink. With my daughter it was how do you play an old Appalachian tune on the guitar.What we ended up doing is thinking together. What is that? Okay one of you spots the problem. Then each begin to offer solutions. It is in that problem solving exercise that we get real insights into how the other thinks. Fred grew up in the age of digital. I grew up in the age of the mechanical and therein lies a difference.
Now as a nonagenarian thinking with my son and daughter takes on the character of a new learning experience. Their life experience has given them a myriad of different ways of thinking that come as real surprises. My daughter Elizabeth has spent most of her adult life in foreign countries as part of the International Volunteer Service. That’s a teaching organization. She has probably learned as much from her students than what she had to teach them. She brings an entirely different perspective of how we might deal with our everyday lives. Elizabeth has also been a folk and jazz singer most of her adult life. She has always opened new doors for me to sing myself through a whole world of different music.
What I am talking about in this age of electronic communication might seem quaint. I do believe that this kind of face to face eyeball to eyeball relating results in a deep and abiding respect for the other. It is also a way of helping each other in the process of learning how we can successfully live together. It is precisely because of the absolute presents of all this electronic communicating that I have become such a true believer in some kind of direct interaction between parents and children.
With the ever increasing presence of Twitter, Tweeter, Facebook and what have you I fear we will lose the lasting value of doing real life things together. Thank you Liz and Fred. And my Granddaughter Allie who put me in her High School Yearbook quoting her Grandpa’s “Goodbye and Good Luck.” I love all these kids as they constantly add new dimensions to my old life. I just worry a lot about what kind of a Planet we are going to leave them? More about that some other time. (I don’t want to give up this good feeling I have now.)
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Soren Chapter 5 the 1960s
(This is the fifth in a series of writings I am doing for my Great Grandson Soren. Hope it gives him a glimpse and a curiosity about the lives of one of his grandparents.)
How to write of the sixties?
God, it’s complicated.
Am I just getting old?
With a new young President John Kennedy
We were on the road to Camelot.
The place where only happiness lives.
Trouble was, a terrible war in Vietnam
Another stop on the domino idiocy road.
Kids born after World War two.
Soldiers came home, went to bed.
Twenty years later 70 million Baby Boomers.
Registered for a military draft. Just a number.
Yeahh, “when your numbers up you gotta go.”
That’s how it started, “Hell know we wont go.”
The government lies, The government lies.
Question Authority, Did they ever.
Communist, Castro in Cuba Russian Nuclear Missiles.
President Kennedy’s supreme test.
Nuclear, total destruction or what?
Our military says, just bomb em.
Kennedy waits, talks with Russians
World is saved for now.
Kennedy shot in Texas, Lyndon Johnson President.
Doesn’t know where Vietnam is. Need to continue war.
Why? Yes of course that domino shit again.
Evening news anchor reads names of the dead.
Baby Boomers “Hell no we wont go.”
Feminists Betty Friedan pleads equality for women.
Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring,” pleads for the planet.
Black youth demand right to sit at a drug store soda fountain.
With 400 Juvenile Delinquents on lower East Side
Your Great Grandpa teaching them vocational skills.
They-re teaching the horrors of Getto life.
Veitnam war protests take over the streets.
Kent State U, National Guard shoots protester.
On her knees screaming girl reflects its horror.
The country mourns. Are we are lost?
LBJ seems lost. He does wonders on home front.
New rights granted Black people.
Grandpa bob takes 400 kids to Nations Capital
They hear Martin Luther King. “I have a Dream.”
Civil Rights Movement in full protest.
Anti War, the Feminists, Civil Rights,
Protest crowd streets. This is the sixties.
Like our President King, too is assassinated.
As cities burn.These are the days of rage.
Beatles are visiting from Liverpool singing
Strawberry Fields Forever. As young girls scream in ecstasy.
And Warhol, art known as pop. A Campbell Soup Can.
Transcendental Meditation, smoking pot helped.
Foul language, dress as you feel, burn your bra.
The new road to enlightenment.
Honestly. As Watts in Los Angele's burned.
And Jerry Lee Lewis was rocking around the clock’
Fred, your uncle on August 14-15 1969 with 400,000 others.
A music wing ding, happening at Woodstock NY in the rain
Listening to Jimmie Hendrix, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Lead Zeppelin on and on.
In the muddy, and loving every minute. Go figure?
The Vietnam catastrophe was ending.
Russians send Yurie Gargarin to space.
We send Alan Shepard. So began the space war,
As the sixties ended it was clear.
America, the US of us will never be the same.
50 thousand US lives lost, millions in Vietnam died.
Civil rights for blacks, women on the march to equality.
We lived through a culture breach.
Maybe, the end of innocence?
Or the beginning. The age of doubt?
Anyway it was one hell-of a ride.
Changed who we are forever.
How to write of the sixties?
God, it’s complicated.
Am I just getting old?
With a new young President John Kennedy
We were on the road to Camelot.
The place where only happiness lives.
Trouble was, a terrible war in Vietnam
Another stop on the domino idiocy road.
Kids born after World War two.
Soldiers came home, went to bed.
Twenty years later 70 million Baby Boomers.
Registered for a military draft. Just a number.
Yeahh, “when your numbers up you gotta go.”
That’s how it started, “Hell know we wont go.”
The government lies, The government lies.
Question Authority, Did they ever.
Communist, Castro in Cuba Russian Nuclear Missiles.
President Kennedy’s supreme test.
Nuclear, total destruction or what?
Our military says, just bomb em.
Kennedy waits, talks with Russians
World is saved for now.
Kennedy shot in Texas, Lyndon Johnson President.
Doesn’t know where Vietnam is. Need to continue war.
Why? Yes of course that domino shit again.
Evening news anchor reads names of the dead.
Baby Boomers “Hell no we wont go.”
Feminists Betty Friedan pleads equality for women.
Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring,” pleads for the planet.
Black youth demand right to sit at a drug store soda fountain.
With 400 Juvenile Delinquents on lower East Side
Your Great Grandpa teaching them vocational skills.
They-re teaching the horrors of Getto life.
Veitnam war protests take over the streets.
Kent State U, National Guard shoots protester.
On her knees screaming girl reflects its horror.
The country mourns. Are we are lost?
LBJ seems lost. He does wonders on home front.
New rights granted Black people.
Grandpa bob takes 400 kids to Nations Capital
They hear Martin Luther King. “I have a Dream.”
Civil Rights Movement in full protest.
Anti War, the Feminists, Civil Rights,
Protest crowd streets. This is the sixties.
Like our President King, too is assassinated.
As cities burn.These are the days of rage.
Beatles are visiting from Liverpool singing
Strawberry Fields Forever. As young girls scream in ecstasy.
And Warhol, art known as pop. A Campbell Soup Can.
Transcendental Meditation, smoking pot helped.
Foul language, dress as you feel, burn your bra.
The new road to enlightenment.
Honestly. As Watts in Los Angele's burned.
And Jerry Lee Lewis was rocking around the clock’
Fred, your uncle on August 14-15 1969 with 400,000 others.
A music wing ding, happening at Woodstock NY in the rain
Listening to Jimmie Hendrix, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Lead Zeppelin on and on.
In the muddy, and loving every minute. Go figure?
The Vietnam catastrophe was ending.
Russians send Yurie Gargarin to space.
We send Alan Shepard. So began the space war,
As the sixties ended it was clear.
America, the US of us will never be the same.
50 thousand US lives lost, millions in Vietnam died.
Civil rights for blacks, women on the march to equality.
We lived through a culture breach.
Maybe, the end of innocence?
Or the beginning. The age of doubt?
Anyway it was one hell-of a ride.
Changed who we are forever.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Is This a Conspiracy?
Back in March I wrote a blog called, “Pall Over the Land’ In it I suggested that the present economic crisis was not like the 1930ies depression. Major difference was the powerful political left that existed back then that no longer exists today.
What we are now experiencing is the emergence of the most conservative orthodox right wing. That is the real danger signal for democratic societies. A good example of orthodoxy gone berserk is a bill pending in the Israeli Knesset that declares that only the orthodox can decide who is and who isn’t a Jew. It is similar to the outcries being heard about who can or cannot become an American citizen.
Yet, there is a piece of economic news that I find very disturbing. From looking at economic indicators like the Stock Market or probably more important corporate profit one might get the impression that the worst of the economic crisis of 2008--9 is behind us. Here, I find something altogether different at work. With all the good economic news for the corporate world why isn’t there good news for the employment world? Lets look at any of the periodic economic crisis in the past 25 years and what do we find? With the upturn in the markets came a concomitant upturn in hiring. Why not now?
Here is where my conspiracy theory comes in. As any regular reader of my blog will recognize, I do believe there is a visceral underneath hatred of Barack Obama on the part of the corporate leaders. I might add that I have many reservations regarding Obama. Never the less, Obama’s recent mild criticisms of Wall Street gave the corporate world a rational for their hatred. “He’s against us.” Okay, so” we will hit back.” How do they do that? In spite of the economic uptick they will refuse to start hiring back their workforce. Thus keeping the unemployment rate right up there near ten percent. They figure that will certainly do Obama in comes the midterm election. The despicable part of this behavior is the price that the average job seeker has to pay for these corporate shenanigens.
Yupp, that’s my theory. Seems outrageous that the captains of capitalism, against there own best interest would let politics dominate their thinking by keeping the unemployment rate at 10 percent. How come that they can get away with this play? Remember my old friend, “social unrest.” Well there ain’t none because there is nobody to organize it. Yes, the Tea Party crowd have siphoned off some of the anger out there by directing it at the Obama administration thus deflecting it away from Wall Street and the big banks. Though I must admit that periodically I have noticed that the Tea Party “leaders” whoever that is at any moment will try to heard these cats back on message. They want the anger directed at Obama in order to get rid of the Administrations control of Congress. That's what I believe is the conspiracy and we need to be alert to what is really going on as regards the unemployment numbers.
What we are now experiencing is the emergence of the most conservative orthodox right wing. That is the real danger signal for democratic societies. A good example of orthodoxy gone berserk is a bill pending in the Israeli Knesset that declares that only the orthodox can decide who is and who isn’t a Jew. It is similar to the outcries being heard about who can or cannot become an American citizen.
Yet, there is a piece of economic news that I find very disturbing. From looking at economic indicators like the Stock Market or probably more important corporate profit one might get the impression that the worst of the economic crisis of 2008--9 is behind us. Here, I find something altogether different at work. With all the good economic news for the corporate world why isn’t there good news for the employment world? Lets look at any of the periodic economic crisis in the past 25 years and what do we find? With the upturn in the markets came a concomitant upturn in hiring. Why not now?
Here is where my conspiracy theory comes in. As any regular reader of my blog will recognize, I do believe there is a visceral underneath hatred of Barack Obama on the part of the corporate leaders. I might add that I have many reservations regarding Obama. Never the less, Obama’s recent mild criticisms of Wall Street gave the corporate world a rational for their hatred. “He’s against us.” Okay, so” we will hit back.” How do they do that? In spite of the economic uptick they will refuse to start hiring back their workforce. Thus keeping the unemployment rate right up there near ten percent. They figure that will certainly do Obama in comes the midterm election. The despicable part of this behavior is the price that the average job seeker has to pay for these corporate shenanigens.
Yupp, that’s my theory. Seems outrageous that the captains of capitalism, against there own best interest would let politics dominate their thinking by keeping the unemployment rate at 10 percent. How come that they can get away with this play? Remember my old friend, “social unrest.” Well there ain’t none because there is nobody to organize it. Yes, the Tea Party crowd have siphoned off some of the anger out there by directing it at the Obama administration thus deflecting it away from Wall Street and the big banks. Though I must admit that periodically I have noticed that the Tea Party “leaders” whoever that is at any moment will try to heard these cats back on message. They want the anger directed at Obama in order to get rid of the Administrations control of Congress. That's what I believe is the conspiracy and we need to be alert to what is really going on as regards the unemployment numbers.
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