Disqus - Friends of jm3

Re: PJ Crowley Stepping Down As State Department Spokesman Under White House Pressure

Alan Bickley — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:33:27 -0000

Military justice is to justice is, as Groucho Marx and Robert Sherrill have asserted, as military music is to music.

Re: https://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/aug/07/elderly-at-risk-pay-outrage-entitlements/

Alan Bickley — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:03:12 -0000

Debra Powers tells us that Third World countries have no programs for the poor and needy. (Presumably she is arguing that neither should the United States have a social safety net.) She is wrong on the premise and wrong on the conclusion. The Social Security Administration publishes information on 167 countries, many of them describable as Third World, that have such programs. In fact, the Guatemalan system provided a reference point for some aspects of the US Social Security system. A system that goes far to eliminate poverty in a class of which all who live long enough will become members is not a gift or a perk or political pork; it is bedrock decency and sound economics.

Re: Tea Party Leader: Liberalism Has "Killed a Billion" People

Alan Bickley — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 16:13:43 -0000

You've made a good argument against the preferred practice of MSNBC, supplier of so much of what the moderate left takes to be guidance about the way forward. An hour of MSNBC consists of 18 minutes of commercial, between 3 and 30 minutes of self-adoration, and the balance a childish harping on the iniquities and stupidity of the Tea Party, the Republicans, and their Midas-like masters. Better, it seems to me, to engage Tea Party types in conversation, encourage them to lay out their grievances, and then either to refute their claims when possible or to agree that their grievances need attention when that is the just thing to do. I hold that there is a slice of the Tea Party that has gone right because the Obama Democrats frittered away the strategic advantages they had in 2009. They may be available for a return to the fold, but not with Obama as the polestar of the movement. Maybe someone like Sherrod Brown.

Re: Tea Party Leader: Liberalism Has "Killed a Billion" People

Alan Bickley — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 16:21:34 -0000

What the left needs is the ability to speak plainly to its opponents. That was the glory of the New Deal in its appeal to a population of battered, frightened Americans who were a paycheck away from the poorhouse if not already casualties of the class war. Plain speech was what made Huey Long and Dr. Townsend so appealing to the millions and so frightening to the Democrats.

Re: So Close

Alan Bickley — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:13:39 -0000

A closer look at the numbers reveals that two of the incumbent Republicans - Darling and Harsdorf - improved their shares of the total vote when this election is compared with the last general election. Republicans Cowles and Olsen were unopposed in the general, so that comparison can't be made. Republican Hopper lost when the winds against him shifted by less than six-tenths of one percent, possibly because of his personal behavior more than his animus toward unions and the common folk generally. Kapanke suffered the only decisive Republican loss. I suspect that message was as much to blame as reactionary money for the result. Suburban middle class voters do not seem to have understand the emergency nature of the need to reverse the work of the Wisconsin Senate. They did not connect the assault on the working class today with their own fortunes as the economic decline of 2011 turns into the depression of 2012 and beyond. If Democrats can't explain that to the comfortable burgers of Elm Grove, Appleton, and Kohler, and yet must account for Barack Obama, the progressive cause is sunk.

Re: Bachmann starred in movie warning public education would spark new Holocaust

Alan Bickley — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:42:29 -0000

Assuming that the level of intellectual freedom that prevailed in the 20th century is restored in the late 21st century, our descendants will marvel at the clownish and often poisonous words and deeds of the political right in 2011. A generation of writers with the sensibilities of Margaret Atwood, H.G. Wells, and Chuck Palahniuk will be required to describe the intellectual swamp whose outposts are Ames, Iowa, Stillwater, Minnesota, and Liberty University.

Re: A Much Improved Mitt Romney Declares “Corporations Are People” | Swampland

Alan Bickley — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:22:41 -0000

Although corporations create jobs they do not do so willingly. They prefer to shed jobs, bank the unpaid wages, and compel the unworthy slackers still on the payroll to work harder and longer. CEOs are given absurdly-high salaries and other forms of compensation when they destroy jobs or hire for pennies people in distant lands to do the work no longer done on these shores. Tip for the unschooled: anyone who says "job creator" instead of rich person or "entitlements" instead of Social Security and Medicare is not your friend.

Re: A Much Improved Mitt Romney Declares “Corporations Are People” | Swampland

Alan Bickley — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:26:47 -0000

It wasn't even a decision of the court. It was merely reported by an over-zealous clerk. So much for constitutional rigor.

Re: Current TV president: MSNBC only ‘trots out’ liberal viewpoints at night

Alan Bickley — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 16:34:27 -0000

A good heart and a humane outlook are sine qua non in a "liberal" program host as are a respect for fact and a keen sense of BS. But fluency is much to be desired in speakers, liberal and otherwise. Robinson's stammer disqualifies him.

Re: Current TV president: MSNBC only ‘trots out’ liberal viewpoints at night

Alan Bickley — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 16:37:02 -0000

Yes, we need more arm-waving, repetition, and self-adoration in our program hosts.

Did no one see Melissa Harris-Perry's superb performance as Maddow's stand-in two weeks ago?

Re: Right-Wing Congressman's Staffers Passing Around Watch-Lists of Citizen-Activists | News & Politics | AlterNet

Alan Bickley — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:10:19 -0000

"There's a man goin' round, takin' names. . ."

Re: McDonnell: It’s not about politics; it’s about math

Alan Bickley — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:14:49 -0000

Much of the confusion about Social Security's prospects for survival arises from the fact that the Trustees of Social Security annually publish three - not one - projections. These are labeled High Cost, Low Cost, and Intermediate, and they correspond, respectively, to pessimistic, optimistic and in-between estimates of the program's future health. Journalists and politicians tend to believe that truth and virtue lie midway between any two extremes, and so their story line is based upon the Intermediate projection.

With every subsequent projection, the dates by which the trust fund and the program's ability to pay full benefits are exhausted is pushed farther into the future But the actual performance of Social Security has been far closer to the optimistic forecasts. In plain words, Social Security is not going broke and will not go broke as long as the labor force is working at or near full employment. The only dangers to it are from its ideological enemies, from generalized ignorance, and from long-range mass unemployment.

Hardened enemies of public programs and of Social Security in particular will not be swayed by these facts. But honest reporters alerted to these facts could end the confusion and do much to save a necessary program from ruin.

Re: Paul Krugman's Inappropriate 9/11 Post

Alan Bickley — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:35:49 -0000

The destruction of the towers and the almost forgotten Building 7 was America's Reichstag moment, used as such by men and women who can scarcely conceal their disdain for democracy and their contempt for civil liberties for the mob, be it unruly or compliant. I salute The Onion, where, in full disclosure, I appear as the reactionary and opinionated old fud in glasses, for scorning the pretentiousness of it down through the decade.

Re: Tea party Rep.: Only $400,000 left after ‘I feed my family’

Alan Bickley — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:58:12 -0000

I am pretty much beyond envy, and in no case would I want to be Congressman John Fleming if that were the price of wealth. But Fleming misses the point with his rant about class warfare. It is not the unruly mob's envy of his sandwich and package delivery-generated wealth that many find repellent. It is his expectation that citizens who make one-tenth of his after-tax business income will pay for the wars and business subsidies so dear to his heart at marginal rates that are 45% or 82% of his rate. And that doesn't include the citizens whose incomes are so low that their taxes consist of sales taxes, FICA tax, and the many taxes that state governments disguise as fees.

Re: Tea party Rep.: Only $400,000 left after ‘I feed my family’

Alan Bickley — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:00:46 -0000

And they wonder why the congress is held in such low esteem.

Re: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/216941/20110920/tax-taxes-obama-budget-deficit-debt-reduction-obama-income-tax-rich-upper-income-groups-wealthy-tax.htm

Alan Bickley — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:01:14 -0000

Why should seniors absorb any of the costs of reducing the deficit? They did not, as a class, create the deficit. The FICA taxes they paid as workers and that today's workers pay to provide a benefit for the elderly retired did not contribute to any deficit in any year; in fact, the Social Security fund was included in the unified federal budget by way of masking the federal deficit in a time when partisans of the Vietnam War were telling us that we could have guns and butter and pretty much anything we wanted at not net cost. Furthermore, Social Security and other social insurance programs constitute about 8% of Gross Domestic Product. Every dollar stripped from that fraction puts us a dollar deeper into recession because it withdraws that much from demand for goods and services - the things that support jobs and that people with incomes buy. Forget about slogans; enough of "tax the rich." Simply restore the progressive taxation of the best of the postwar decades together with their high marginal rates, and the issues of fairness and debt reduction will shrink to the insignificant.

Re: Attention #OccupyWallStreet : BadCop d0x | TARGET: Officer Anthony Bologna #NYPD

Alan Bickley — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:31:59 -0000

His anger would be Olympian. His fellow officers would rally to him and, as a uniformed lynch mob, they would track down that someone and punish him extra-judicially and with a level of damage that could amount to finality. Setting aside the few who behave decently, police officers exist to protect property and the significant owners of property from the lower 90%. Perhaps a police officer has protected a worker against an exploitative boss, but I have not heard of it. Perhaps a policeman has rescued a helpless young woman from an assault by another policeman, but I know nothing of it. Although the police typically are recruited from the working class, they are the natural instruments of privilege, and as such they see themselves as above the law.

Re: 60 Minutes Hearts NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly

Alan Bickley — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:20:46 -0000

Journalism was not a hit-or-miss art when practiced by I.F. Stone and the few others who approached his clarity. But I agree with your final judgement on the worth of 60 Minutes.

Re: Absence of Evidence: The Progressive Policy of Imperial Murder

Alan Bickley — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:05:38 -0000

Bill Maher broke custom last Friday night when he had no conservative guest on his panel of three. Consequently, Salman Rushdie, Jennifer Granholm, and Seth MacFarlane, liberals all, weighed in on the assassination. MacFarlane seemed to be for it, although he was troubled by the arbitrariness of it. Granholm, formerly governor of Michigan, yelped something like: Get him! Get him! (Michigan abolished capital punishment for all crimes except treason in 1846, and abolished it altogether in 1963. Granholm must have chafed under those restraints.) Rushdie, formerly under a lethal fatwa for sacrilege, knowingly muttered that people who commit treason deserve death. He failed to note that Anwar had not been convicted of anything including treason, a crime defined in the Constitution having nothing to do with propaganda whatever you say about Ezra Pound and William Joyce. Maher himself conceded that Anwar had never been charged or convicted or carried a weapon, but he allowed that the late cleric had it "in his heart," and therefore deserved death - the ultimate punishment for "hate crime." It was a depraved performance by self-described liberals, and it has been replicated all around this sad land.

Re: They Thought They Could Take Your American Dream

Alan Bickley — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:15:56 -0000

Many of the people who can work go from one job to another job in the course of a day, and some of these must work at a third job. Many people are unemployed because the available work is not spread around equitably, because the jobs have left the country, because the boss has imposed a speedup and doesn't need more workers. If any person without independent means and with health intact chooses to have no job I have not seen it or heard of it. How can people who have been deprived of jobs, homes, and good health be bloodsuckers? That's an epithet that suits the people who brought on this "turned down economy."

Re: Bloomberg tells ‘Occupy Wall Street’ to lay off banks

Alan Bickley — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 12:46:21 -0000

Mayor Bloomberg hopes that readers will not think overmuch about contemporary capitalists and their views on jobs. While it is true that the owners of capital have, from the beginning, hired employees to make products and to accomplish tasks, the calculation of profit leaves in the dust their desire to hire as many workers as line up for these jobs. Typical employer behavior is to shed employees until the laying-off of workers reduces profit to an unacceptable level. It is a tendency that is inherent in capitalism, which means that capitalism must be regulated in the interest of not having ever-increasing multitudes of unemployed persons drifting into a condition of economic misery. Capitalists hire workers, i.e., create jobs, because they cannot satisfy their desire for an ever-greater share of the rewards of commerce without hiring people to do the work that produces wealth. Otherwise, mutatis mutandis, they do not give a damn about workers. And workers, as we can see, are acquiring pretty much that same view of capitalists.

Re: Assassination plot: US seeks to label Iran an international outlaw - CSMonitor.com

Alan Bickley — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:43:29 -0000

Low level operatives of an American spy-law enforcement-intelligence agency are told to produce or else. They rouse themselves from semi-slumber and, like frat boys sharing bong hits, they confect a tale of conspiracy and attempted murder which they confound at the last minute and to the applause of the grateful multitude. Amid cries of "Wouldn't it be cool if we. . .?" they embellish this scheme, forge and fake documents and phone calls as needed, and select from their database of hapless malcontents a hyphenated nonentity to be the public face of their plot. In the present case no explosives need be supplied, although this is a typical feature of wholly manufactured Terrorist Plots. The day arrives, and the trusting patsy discovers that the swarthy firebrands who have been propelling him toward this rendezvous with history are NOT HIS FRIENDS! They are, in fact, his nightmare, the faces that will be his sole companions as he marks the passage of decades in the concrete and steel wasteland of the Florence Colorado Super Max Penitentiary. The low level operatives rise one pay grade in the anti-terror hierarchy, the organs of mass media experience a swelling of ratings lasting four hours, the President of the United States cuts another symbolic notch on his gun, and the gullible citizens praise their Leaders for Keeping Then Safe.

Re: Rachel Maddow's Earnest Aversion to Accuracy Persists

Alan Bickley — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 17:03:34 -0000

Pathetic.

Re: TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein: Occupy Wall Street’s greedy celebrity hypocrites

Alan Bickley — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:26:17 -0000

http://www.alternet.org/sto...

Re: TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein: Occupy Wall Street’s greedy celebrity hypocrites

Alan Bickley — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:34:11 -0000

Or, more to the point, http://thenewamerican.com/h...