Month: September 2008

Paul Newman spoke those words in the classic, “Cool Hand Luke.” “Luke” wasn’t my favorite Newman film; not with his classics like “The Hustler,” The Sting,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” and of course, “Slap Shot.” While his role as “celluloid hero” offers immortality, “Newman’s Own” is his real gift to many.

That 1982 venture with neighbor and writer A.E. Hotchner has grown to a huge charitable enterprise, and donates ALL of its profits to charities. As of 2007, those donated profits totaled $175 million.

Yesterday I asked the mother of my children about the “Newman’s Own” coffee she was sipping. “It’s delicious.” We went on to chat a bit more about his products and charitable mission. “I think he’s going to die soon,” I said.

“You know, when I was a kid,
I always thought I’d grow up to be a hero.”
– Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy

Rather than cite sources that will be dismissed as “liberal-left media,” I’ll use FoxNews’s focus group queried by GOP pollster Frank Luntz. The group of Nevada independents gave the debate edge to Barack Obama.

What I saw was a draw with two candidates holding their own on the issues. Here’s what else I saw:

• Barack Obama spoke directly and respectfully to Sen. McCain and the American people in a knowledgeable, intelligent and charismatic way.
• John McCain, who didn’t have the decency to even look at his opponent, came across as angry, gruff, and unpresidential.

For Senator McCain to promote himself as a “Maverick” that can “reach across the aisle,” to Democrats in a bipartisan way, it’s strange he couldn’t even look across the aisle last night in front of the whole country. Not looking an opponent in the eye is a sign of fear. Might John McCain be intimidated by Barack Obama?

We’ll see how their performances are reflected in the polls.

Speaking of polls, the House Republicans against the Bush administrations Wall Street bailout plan are largely playing election year politics. They are facing a wave of anti-Bush sentiment in their home district races and this gives them one last gasp at an issue they can play up to the home voters:

“We didn’t cave to Bush or Wall Street.”

That’s the game. Hopefully, enough voters will be sophisticated enough to see through the ruse and see these hypocrites who gave Bush everything he wanted for 8 years are now putting “Politics First” in an effort to save their careers. And they’re risking a collapse of our economy doing it.

Just like an episode ending cliffhanger of “24,” we’re huddled together in a room hog-tied (sans lipstick) and blindfolded. We’re hostages. The stolen suitcase bombs are strategically placed for maximum destruction, and the red neon numbers dance toward a vaporizing of all within their blast radius. The suitcase “weapons of mass destruction” as described by Warren Buffett, are filled with toxic debt instruments; the ransom is $700 Billion Dollars, and if we don’t pay it, capitalist terrorists will allow the clock to run out and watch the pancaking of our economy from lower Manhattan penthouses.

The government of course is led by an inept president, and many in congress are united by fear and by terrorist infiltrators whispering the corporate slogan, “just do it.” There’s fear in the air and the drumbeat to deliver “shock and awe” to our financial system is heightening. Today, history provides 4,161 reasons why we should have slowed down prior to invading Iraq, and the magnitude of our financial crisis demands we think this through.

Paying the ransom as currently constituted will transfer a minimum of $700B of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street firms, and nothing to individuals and small businesses preyed upon by them. Just this morning, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is dismissing Democratic efforts to aid households as part of the bailout bill. “We need this to be clean and to be quick,” Paulson said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” This episode of “24” is brought to you by Goldman Sachs, the firm Mr. Paulson formerly led. In a case of naked corporate nepotism, Mr. Paulson actually gets to act in the episode, and is serviceable as the cliché “Fox in the Henhouse.” Many of these people the administration wants to leave in the burning towers were put there by the marketing efforts and slick sales pitches of the builders, and many of them weren’t educated enough to save themselves. I’ve seen it. My daughter hasn’t graduated high school yet, but she receives 1-2 credit card solicitations a week. Just try it… you won’t get hooked.

Of course, the terrorists control the weapons, so any delay in the Bush administration’s “clean and quick” plan will be met by frantic Wall Street selling tomorrow and a ratcheting up of fear, another post-9/11 tactic that swayed public opinion toward war. The men calling for the ransom to be paid and threatening dire consequences if it isn’t, built empires on leveraging leverage and personally profited obscene numbers while doing it. In 2006, Wall Street firms paid $33.9 Billion in bonuses alone. 2007 was an “off” year, and the bonus pool shrank to $33.2 Billion, or $180,420 per employee. The combined $67.1B is nearly 10% of the bailout price tag, and these giants of capitalism stuffed their personal piggy banks with it in just 2 years. We don’t know all of their names, but we know a few of the alleged leaders and their 2007 compensation for helping to get us here:

• Martin Sullivan – former Chairman and CEO of AIG – $14.3 Million
• James Cayne – former Chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns – $38.3 Million
• Kenneth Lewis – Chairman and CEO of Bank of America – $24.8 Million
• Daniel Mudd – former CEO of Fannie Mae – $11.6 Million
• Richard Syron – former Chairman and CEO of Freddie Mac – $18.3 Million
• Lloyd Blankfein – Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group – $68.5 Million
• Richard Fuld, Jr. – Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers – $34.4 Million
• John Thain – CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. – $17.3 Million
• E. Stanley O’Neil – former CEO of Merrill Lynch & Co. – $24.3 Million
• Angelo Mozilo – founder and former CEO at Countrywide Financial Corp. $122 Million in stock options alone.

Will any of these “perps” be held responsible? Will homeowners be helped as part of Bush’s bailout? Will the American terrorists allow the clock to run out? Tune in tomorrow to see if anything remains ticking.

Tick… Tick… Tick…

The blue ticker says “Deal or No Deal,” but it’s been preempted for a CNBC special on our nation’s latest financial crisis. Electronic voyeurs fix emotionless on employees leaving Manhattan towers with their office belongings. Reality TV. As 158 year old Lehman Brothers stands on the cliff of bankruptcy, insurance giant American International Group struggles to find capital and restore investor confidence, and Merrill Lynch desperately seeks a buyer for itself, tomorrow may go down as an infamous “Black Monday” on Wall Street. Lehman and Merrill Lynch gone in a weekend… Before tonight, that was unthinkable.

I have no idea how these financial black holes will impact the day to day of American businesses, but as they suck available capital and again shock the confidence of American consumers, it cannot be good.

So how did we get here? Well, some blame can be um, leveraged on John McCain’s primary financial advisor, Phil Gramm, he of the “nation of whiners” comment who sponsored the deregulation responsible for much of the speculation that depression-era legislation was designed to limit. The Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933 to address the rubble of a large portion of the American commercial banking system that collapsed from over-speculation.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 repealed Glass-Steagall and in the opinion of some economists, contributed to the risk driven subprime mortgage crisis which has now snowballed into a full-fledged financial system crisis. The Gramm law has been described as “corporate welfare for financial institutions and a moral hazard that will make taxpayers pay dearly.”

Oh, here’s how the voting went on Gramm-Leach-Bliley:

• 53 Republican Senators including John McCain – AYE
• 44 Democrats no Republicans – NAY

Are these the guys we want running our country?

Barack Obama is a black man with a Muslim middle name and he’s smarter than you.

Get ready for the onslaught of coded racism and xenophobia that will make the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry look like an afternoon sail off Martha’s Vineyard.

It’s already happening. When Sean Hannity of Faux noise often spews, “Barack Hussein Obama,” he’s implying Obama is somehow a covert Muslim. Of course, let’s not forget their describing Michelle Obama as “Obama’s baby mama,” a term used to describe unwed mothers. I don’t think Faux used that one on Gov. Palin’s daughter…

Then there’s Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) recently using “elitist-class” (smart) and the racially-loaded term “uppity” to describe Sen. Obama: “Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” When astonished reporters asked him to clarify his use of “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.” Behind closed doors, I’m sure he adds the noun.

The right has some history here. In the 1988 presidential election, I was leaning toward voting for George H.W. Bush until his campaign used the despicable “Willie Horton” ad against Michael Dukakis. I could not support a candidate that allowed racial smearing.

We have time for another example, right? In 2006, Republicans smeared Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, a black man, with an ad featuring a white woman saying she had met Rep. Ford at a “Playboy party.” Get it? Black man – White woman – Playboy Party…Sex! Ford lost the tight Senate, um, race.

The wheels of the Repugnantan slime machine are cranking right now and I expect that around Halloween we’ll know the names of any white women Barack Obama has ever dated… One last “Mandingo” scare before the erect… uh, I mean election. Boo!

I haven’t seen the whole interview, but this exchange reminds me of a scene in the first “Austin Powers” flick when Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley) begins repeating herself in tape recorder fashion and Austin realizes she’s a fembot.

But I guess I shouldn’t second guess the coaching job the McCain team is doing…

GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and needed to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?

PALIN: Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.

GIBSON: So if we wouldn’t second guess it and they decided they needed to do it because Iran was an existential threat, we would cooperative or agree with that.

PALIN: I don’t think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.

GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right.

PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself.

The 2008 Presidential campaign is a perfect illustration of the societal decline we’re gunning down in our Hummer, foot to the floor, toward a thick redwood of national oblivion. Instead of focusing on the war, the deficit, education, healthcare and energy independence, both major parties are stuffing our ignorant faces with a fast-food orgy of bridges to nowhere, Muslim smears, lipstick on pigs on private jets on eBay, and the endless adventures of Reverend Wright. And a sad majority of voters are eating it up like stumbling, drunk teenagers on a midnight run to Taco Bell.

This election is going to be decided on “issues” suited for “Access Hollywood” and supermarket tabloids, not “Meet the Press” and “The New York Times.” I’m really concerned about the country my children and grandchildren are inheriting from their elders. I wonder how they’ll pay a national debt that’s nearly ten trillion dollars, and I worry about them paying for healthcare in a system spending billions marketing boners while driving margin by denying care.

We have been a “guns and butter” economy for a very long time. World War II got us out of the great depression by putting everyone who could work to work either dying or building weapons to perpetuate it. Since Ike’s warning about the perils of the “military-industrial” complex, it has grown into a near indestructible monster, protected by thousands of defense contractor lobbyists. Like any business, growth is key. Beginning seven years ago tomorrow, the neocon Bush administration scared the shit out of us and lied us into war. Should we expect world peace anytime soon? Not as long as profits depend on killing and countries are lined up to buy F-16’s and Patriot missile systems. As of ten seconds ago, the cost of the war in Iraq is $552,996,911,265 and most of it’s been borrowed from China, Russia and others. Some estimates calculate the tab will hit $1Trillion dollars before it’s over. Many American corporations are reaping huge profits on this death and destruction. I wonder how much they pay in taxes…

There are voices of reason like former candidate Ron Paul, but instead of reporting the sober reality he speaks, the mainstream media dismisses him as “eccentric” and instead satiates us with “Celebrity Fit Club” chased with a bag of Doritos and a 2-liter Mountain Dew. With more and more of our population uninterested in the civics of our republic, what is the incentive for change?

I’d like to be more optimistic, and echo the flowery lies of candidates telling us about how wonderful we, the American people are, but the reality is they ignore the real issues for salacious sensationalism and half truths and we lick it up along with the cheese from our Doritos. One of these days when we pull our collective heads out of the shiny packaging, we’ll see our country that was once great, is no more.

I’m sitting in a dense “waiting lounge” at the very efficient Acton Toyota Service Department and Neil Young just dropped in. Yeah, evidently he’s their car rental shuttle driver. Most people don’t recognize him, but I do…

AWOL since August 22 has two explanations… I haven’t been inspired to make stuff up and I’ve been wasting time arguing with the delusional right-wing on a singles message board.

Speaking of the right wing, the RNC has been interesting. And what’s up with the term “red meat?” The bloviating heads covering the conventions use it to describe language used by speakers to fire up the crowd. Like when VP nominee Sarah Palin described her job as mayor of Wasilla as “something like a community organizer, except with real responsibilities…” Something like that. Governor Palin is a V-PILF all right, but as shallow as I am, she’s not hot enough to get my vote, even with her promise that parents of special needs kids would have a friend in the White House if she and Uncle Fester are elected.

Actually, the more I listen to John McCain and ignore the press filtering of him, the more I think he’d make a good president. Aside from the “war on terror,” he doesn’t share much policy position with Dubya and Dick. Still, his support of the Iraq war is a biggie. I don’t give a shit whether he was right about the “surge.” We shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Another big issue for me is taxes. The right hits Obama by saying “he’ll raise your taxes.” (Btw, that’s a tepid scare tactic compared to what we’ll hear in the next 60 days…) We either need to raise taxes, cut spending, or both. Dubya lowered taxes and then spent like a “tax and spend liberal,” mostly on a destructive war that has enriched his oil constituency by raising the “risk” factor in oil pricing, and corporations like Dick Cheney’s Halliburton through their war profiteering. My point is the cynical Republicans cling to their religion and guns and “no new taxes” pledge, but bury our children and later generations with a national deficit approaching ten TRILLION dollars.

Is that what they mean by “Country First?”