Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Generic political commentary - the msm framing the narrative on the fiscal cliff
The disappointing commentary of Mark Shields -- he's the liberal commentator on the weekly roundup on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer with neoconservative David Brooks allegedly providing some type of counterpoint and this happens every Friday evening. Leaving aside the fact that I'm not clubbing, a sure sign of age I do quite often get their takes on the week's political news and events. So usually what happens is I'm sitting there and I'm slowly getting depressed and agitated, vaguely restless, irritated and I haven't even sipped from my nightly goblet yet. It's not that the commentary is creepy or off-center and one of the few other options is the Filth known as 2 1/2 Men so I stick with it. It's your standard fare, quite mainstream, safe even and Shields looks all serious with his folksy jowls but I'm like when's it gonna happen? it's gonna happen if not this week then the next but it's gotta happen. No not when is Shields gonna drop the word "dick", Vampire Diaries already does that but WHEN is Shields gonna criticize President Obama even a mild anti-? Now I know he's a liberal but he has gotten marks in the past for being a more honest and centrist kind of lib but take the current hot topic of the fiscal cliff. Actually there is no other topic (Sandy, been there/done that). Now I get it that one way to look at it is that Republicans according to most opinion polls will take the heavy blame if we fall off by insisting that the top 2% can't be taxed any higher than they already are and so taxes go up on the rest of us in the vast middle class -- ooooooh populism and pitchforks! OK I get that, I'm not stupid but what Shields should be saying (also) is WHY is Obama still pursuing this class-warfare game??? the campaign's over, Romney was defeated and then taken out to lunch and so then what also happens is Brooks more often than not kinda goes along with Shields because he always has his acute neocon antennae attuned to the prevailing political zeitgeist. Not too long ago Brooks was the one who first made the helpful suggestion that Repubs be willing to close loopholes and deductions instead of raising marginal rates on the wealthy and everyone kinda thought that was the way to go but Obama would have none of it. Obama is now almost overtly Marxist but Shields will never be accused of saying anything ballsy or radical or even mildly controversial. It's always safe plain yogurt, ya gotta go underground for the unpasteurized Stilton. It's the old familiar framework, actually the media are in a rut but the story goes the Dems are somehow wiser and more right and the Repubs are wrong. Tax Cuts along with Obesity is now the New Evil. In the cosmology of the msm Grover Norquist is the Devil, at least Beelzebub never mind that Obama and the Dems have no intention whatsoever of cutting or reforming entitlements, of giving Boehner and his side a few crumbs and scraps off the table. Obama is somehow getting tagged with the populist label but is ginning up hatred for the rich part of the definition of populism? not as I understand it. The new jobs #'s are out and 146,000 new jobs were added for November and the unemployment rate dipped to 7.7% the lowest it's been since Dec. '08. Of course alot of this has to do with lots of jobless folks still dropping out of the marketplace permanently and I think Obama kind of actually encourages a kind of semipermanent dependent circle-jerking culture/malaised social class but don't count on Shields to point any of this out or even his sidekick. My #1 Rule for Blogging -- my commentary is my own. The day it becomes generic I'm retiring:)
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GOP seems alive and well; in Michigan, they have started union
ReplyDeletebusting. My GOP state began right-
to-work back in the mid 1980s. We are now 46th in wages.
First off I want to give a great big shoutout to all those libertarians who didn't vote for Romney thereby giving us four more years of Obama.
ReplyDeleteYou mean laws stating that workers can't be forced to join a union and can't be forced to give union dues but can still work in the same place. Unions LOVE mandatory dues and it's probably how they stay in existence and if you look at the stats unionized workers have been steadily declining as a whole for years now. "Union-busting", it's a matter of semantics.
ReplyDeleteSemantics..mathematics:
ReplyDeleteGoal #1 pay the employees as little as possible.
Goal #2 get as much pay as you can.
..the union is an algorithm...one that began a hundred years ago, you know the stuff-10 year old kids working in mines, 15 hour days and the good old company store. But you are right, Z-man,
unions are going the way of us pipe smokers, and gee folks sure like to pile on. Illinois became the last state to permit concealed carry. Guy shot up a Portland mall.
With your permission I'll light up
my Prince Albert now.
Right to work states have lower wages and lower standards of living. Proven.
ReplyDeleteRight to work has nothing to do with 'rights to work'. It's an euphemism and it's another way for employers to fuck their employees legally.
And Obama is overtly Marxist? In what alternate universe do you currently reside? I mean, seriously, sometimes I think you just write shit to get a rise out of people, because I can't imagine that you actually believe it.
Just in from another blog where they are excited about the Michigan
ReplyDeletechanges. They figure $11/hr will result. Makes them excited and happy. No idea why. Yes Saty,
if a workplace has workers in and out of the union, the union can serve no purpose. I once worked at a place fighting off the union and they threw the scientific salaried
staff into the voting booth to cook the results. Quite upset at such shenanigans, I voted union!
If you live in the world of FoxNews, union bad, evil...big business, kind warm and fuzzy.
Ever read Kafka?
The Left is always about compulsion and coercion hence mandatory union dues. Others say in right-to-work states there is better job creation and wage growth. Of course with a union the price of goods and services go up because of health care and other parts of the contract. Maybe some consumers don't mind paying for the added cost since said workers are benefitting but just pointing out simple mathematics.
ReplyDeleteObama has an obsession with the rich Saty, a real fixation and that's my hunch. He certainly isn't a centrist by any stretch and has no intentions of really reforming or cutting entitlements. Now you might make the case the Republicans should cave a little on taxes, might make that case if they were getting something in return. I can see the logic in this reasoning to a degree but if you honestly think Obama is gonna meet them halfway and negotiate in good faith talk about your alternate universes!
ReplyDeleteFolks absorb generic political commentary through a kind of osmosis until it becomes the only way, the correct way to think. I think you've all drunk from it w/o knowing it. I'm a little busy right now though, I'm investigating the health benefits of kefir for people and pets. Had some today, pretty good.
ReplyDeleteBottom-line...the Messiah is not going to fix this...Conservatives will have to fix this if they can...there is not anyone in Washington that has a clue or the brains to do anything for the people...It's not on Obammy's priority list to do anything that will help America, he's now out of control. It's far more important to play golf, go on TV shows like ..Colbert, Letterman, Leno etc impress the dumb-downed viewers...Just look at the electorate, the Obama phone hand-out crowd who put this creep back in the office after all of his screw-up in the past 4 years. The results of November 6. That tells you everything you need to know about the American education. Anybody can be infantile and liberal - and it takes no work at all - just being lazy and never growing up. The problem is ... the uneducated and undereducated have no way to understand this reasoning. You can't convince a stone wall. The the Main Stream Media is running this country instead of the American people. And you Idiot Liberals, Progressives, or whatever the hell you call yourselves these days have really stuck it to us this time . . . you freaking idiots.
ReplyDeleteRocket guy- when setting up free energy minimization equations with a Newton-Ralston methodology for initial compositions, mols, Lagrangian multipliers and T, using Taylor's Series expansion of the equations and interate towards
ReplyDeletezero, do you recommend Helmoltz free energy values or Gibbs free
energy?
Yeah right you Libs have an excuse for everything well, looka here, The United States will deploy 400 troops and two Patriot air-defense missile batteries to Turkey in the coming weeks to defend against potential threats from Syria
ReplyDeleteMark Mix the president of the Nat'l Right to Work Committee writes in an article ("What Right to Work Would Do for NY", 12/12- NY Post):
ReplyDelete"Over the past decade private-sector employment as measured by the Bureau of Economic Analysis grew by an average of 12.5 percent in Right to Work states. Meanwhile New York's private sector-growth was just 8.8 percent. Indeed Right to Work states as a whole have long outperformed on job creation compared to compulsory-unionism states."
(con't)..."A recent study conducted by University of Colorado economist Barry Poulson showed striking results: Households in Right to Work states enjoy nearly $4,300 more in purchasing power than their counterparts in non-Right to Work states...When you adjust for New York's higher cost of living the contrast is particularly stark. In 2011 individual New Yorkers had an average disposable income of $32,875, a figure that accounts for cost of living adjustments. Residents in Right to Work states, on the other hand, had an average real disposable income of $36,938."
ReplyDeleteRight to work is bullshit. I live in a right to work state and all it means is that you got nothin. NOTHIN.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a right and it doesn't help you work.
What it does is make it easier for your employer to bend you over and make you cry.
There has been a war on unions in this country ever since the late
ReplyDelete1800s. Big business can be very patient. It is working: beginning
with Reagan,
productivity-up, corporate profits-
up, shareholder value-up. CEO salaries-up...wages-same. Results?
Wealth redistribution-up..from workers to the top 1%. Mere facts, which can and are spun any
way you like.
I've mixed feelings on unions as you know. Unions are notorious for corruption and often the mob gets involved. Just 'cause you have a union doesn't mean you work in a better work environment take it from me. It's also harder to get rid of people, the slackers without documenting everything and going through the union and even then. There's often collusion between unions and management believe it or not. You guys make it sound so simple and unions act like they're so indispensable when you have more rights for workers on the books now enshrined in the law. Not every non-union boss is a capitalist Republican ogre btw. I once took a job as a driver for a florist in the Bronx, nonunion of course and the guy promised me health benefits in six months or something like that but I quit early on because my interests changed. Anyway no union was wringing his arm and his other workers were covered. Perhaps your dim view of human nature is correct but it's not across the board.
ReplyDeleteBB I've been meaning to ask you an honest question but have been holding off: do you like capitalism?
ReplyDeleteIMO, non-union workers receive some union benefits: consider an area with unions-local businesses
ReplyDeletewill pay more just to be competitive in the labor market.
Folks complain about ms media, but
ever notice that it is aways union
thugs, union goons, while corporate crime, which ruins any number of lives, is somehow 'cleaner'?
But they're acting just like union thugs in Michigan right now tearing that tent down and punching that guy in the face and then you have Jimmy Hoffa the son talkin' smack. I'd think if they wanna get more folks on their side they'd have a better PR machine, burnish the image a little. Hell while they're at it why don't they rent Al Sharpton for a day?
ReplyDelete"BB I've been meaning to ask you an honest question but have been holding off: do you like capitalism?" ..you mean in theory,
ReplyDeleteor the way it actually works?
So the way it actually works in practice there's nothing good about it (by your implication)?
ReplyDeleteTrickle down is a urology problem.
ReplyDeleteBOOYAH!
ReplyDeleteWe were in the restroom at work one day and some guy said to a manager at a urinal if you shake it more than three times you're playing with yourself.
ReplyDelete..which is why some places have
ReplyDeleteexecutive restrooms?
God knows what goes on in there. I never understood people who stuff those brown paper towels down the toilet and then clog everything up. Is it just stupidity or are they mad at the company?
ReplyDeleteEver wonder how they handle this stuff in China ?
ReplyDelete& a possible offshoot can be some creepy subgenre of Asian fetish porn.
ReplyDeleteRight-To-Work update:
ReplyDeleteIdaho went RTW in 1984.
It is working!!
We are now dead last in median
income, first in both spouses having to work and 20% of our population is on food stamps and
medicare. The idea was to attract
good mfg. jobs. We added 1000 of
those and 213,000 part time service sector jobs. It works:
if you want cheap desperate labor.
(although to achieve that, roads are crummy, schools falling apart and population uneducated...so mfg.
stays away. Economic geniuses, gotta love 'em.
Gosh you know what would we do without unions?
ReplyDeleteSure...
ReplyDelete"Stratification: The working class lived in terrible conditions 12 hour work days; 7 days a week 1 of 115 workers died in work related accidents1 in 8 were injured on the job 182,000 children under 16 were employed in the mining or manufacturing industries"
..and they called it the "Gilded
Age".
& Jimmy Hoffa was also injured:)
ReplyDeleteHoffa was a crook, like Ken Lay of
ReplyDeleteEnron and Bernie Madoff of Ponzis
R Us. We might think there are crooks in unions, but boy, the
business world is full of them.
The unions are pretty much taken
care of...whatcha going to do about the bigtime crooks?
BB you seem to want to talk about unions only being good and doing good things but like most things in life it's a mixed bag. I'll wrap about the union crooks and you'll wrap about the corporate crooks but ya wanna know something? we're both contributing to the discussion, it's all good.
ReplyDelete