About The Death Penalty

And so the execution of Troy Davis has come and gone. The black twitterverse and Facebook realm was alight with commentary about this execution and about the death penalty in general. I want to take the time out to discuss my opinions in regards to the death penalty.

The death penalty as "punishment" or "justice" has been around for about as long as humans have been on the planet. I would suppose that other species have death penalties but I don't know that they are actually capable of projecting the concept of "justice" into the future as a consequence of past behavior. Various means of implementing such punishment has come in many forms. The Guillotine being particularly famous but also including death by burning, drowning, stoning, etc.

What generally separates the death penalty in the past from today is that in the past such a punishment was meted out by the community and in front of the community. The consequences of actions that warranted death were generally known and approved of by the community and so there was often not a problem with implementing it. Witness stoning: Done by a community. Burnings: Community events. Also many times the bodies of those who have paid this price are left in public areas as reminders to the community that the community will deal will those who break the rules. It cannot be argued that such a participatory punishment and public reminder had a deterrent effect on those who were more amenable to visual re-enforcement.

A lot of these same societies also didn't have prisons the way we have them now. Personally I think it was due to the clear example of "community justice". Rather than pay to have people locked up somewhere punishment for crimes usually came in the form of servitude (Note that this is how many African-Americans got to the Americas). Those crimes that were deemed too horrible for such punishment ended up being executed. This was often for the safety of the community. You can't have someone who is determined to kill just wandering about.

Today though we house death row inmates away from the eyes of the public. Out of sight out of mind until perhaps the day of execution where there is a news report about it. The place where the condemned is strapped to a table (or chair) behind a partition. A few people, reporters, victim's family and perhaps some state officials get to watch the actual execution. The public can go their entire life not having actually seen the execution much less have to bother with actually participating in the act supposedly done on their behalf and safety. But that's not so strange for a modern society that is very removed from the facts of life. Rather than actually killing our meat for consumption we "outsource" it to farmers and we just have to walk into a store and pick up the end result. Never do we have to actually have our hand in the process. This disconnect from the actual process of execution and it's original intent in small communities (where everybody knows your name) is part of why we can question the practice.

This brings us to the common comment that the death penalty does not deter crime. Proponents of this line of thinking believe that since crimes that qualify for the death penalty still occur (or increase) that therefore there is no deterrent. The problem with this line of thinking is that I have not seen any research presented where they have actually found people who have not committed a crime because they knew the consequences. That is we simply do not know who among us has thought of committing a crime and thought 'you know what...shit's not worth it." For example, there are many people who have considered killing their boss. Some have ruminated on how it could be done and most of those are stopped by the realization that they are likely to get caught and killed (death penalty) and therefore they quit their job and go onto greener pastures. These persons are not included in the "deterrent" argument because they are not included in the research.

Furthermore; how many people who have been convicted of crimes like robbery with a weapon committed the felony with a gun with no bullets because they did not want to trigger harsher punishment? How many people were in a group committing a felony like assault but were put off when a member of a group actually kills the victim? How do we know that person was not aware that such an action has now put him or her in jeopardy of far worse punishment, like the death penalty, than the "simple" assault would have resulted in?

How many suspects who upon discovering that the crime they are being charged with is a capital offense then give up valuable information as to the actual person who committed the crime in question? Is that not an "effective use" of the death penalty?

Furthermore no amount of laws will stop a person who is hell bent on doing whatever it is he or she wants to do. There are plenty of laws against child pornography. Well known too. Still though men get caught with images of children on their computers and they KNOW that it is illegal. Should we scrap laws against possession of child pornography because a segment of the population isn't deterred?

There is a law against assault. Well known. No death penalty involved. Yet and still thousands of assaults happen every year. Perhaps we should scrap the punishment for that since clearly it's not stopping people from committing that crime.

I could go on and on like Badu but the point is clear, deterrence is about the general population and signalling those who may be considering crossing the line. No punishment or consequence will deter those who simply don't give a damn. And personally I don't want those who don' give a damn walking around.

The third argument I've seen put forth against the death penalty is the "redemption" argument. People change and therefore killing them is immoral. I think this argument holds little water. People who like to kill rarely show redemption until the full consequences of their actions are brought to bear. As a matter of fact I argue that in general people are not redemptive until they have consequences brought to bear. Still though I agree that people can change while in prison. I simply do not agree that such a change constitutes a valid argument against the death penalty. I think a person who has redeemed his or herself after the fact ought to come to grips with the idea that they still have caused harm to the community and that by accepting the consequences of that harm they serve as an example to the rest of the community that there is no escape from such consequences.

Let me pause here and state that this is against what most people who are Christian believe in. That is that man is redeemed by the blood of Christ who bore the death consequence of sin thereby allowing the sinner (criminal) a reprieve from these consequences. I refute this particular belief based on the the events at Calvary. When Christ was crucified he was hung with two thieves (I don't think theft should result in capital punishment). The thief on the cross made his last minute statement of belief and Jesus said something to the effect that the thief was "with him" in glory or heaven or whatever. That is that the thief was essentially forgiven and had secured himself a place in the afterlife. However; the thief STILL had to pay the earthly consequences for his actions. Jesus didn't up and say "In that case, my man... come up off this cross right here and sin no more. I got you."

So I think the Christian argument of redemption falls short even if it pulls at the heartstrings and concepts of righteousness.

Lastly we have the issue of racism. It was of particular interest to me that while folks were up in arms over Troy Davis they had little to say about the killer of James Byrd Jr. who was also executed that night. If one is entirely against the death penalty then my twitter timeline and Facebook feed ought to have been filled with equal amounts of dismay over the state execution of Byrd Jr's killer. it was not. The reason for this is that I don't think people are really that bothered by the death penalty. Only a handful of people, including myself raised major opposition to the summary execution of Osama Bin Ladin. Which is relevant because again, if the state has no business executing a murderer, then the US military had no grounds to execute OBL. Gotta be consistent folks.

But the racism angle is important. It is a fact that black men and women face harsher penalties for various crimes. It is a fact that the poor, which black men and women are disproportionately classified do not get the kind of representation in court that could result in far different sentencing (see OJ Simpson and DSK as recent examples of the wealth effect). Knowing this many oppose the death penalty because it is unfairly practiced. Of course the question then is the problem the death penalty or the racism? I say that the problem is the racism and that when you address the racism you then address the disparities in it's implementation. There are a number of things that can be done to accommodate the racism that people bring to the criminal justice system. And let me stress this because people make the mistake of saying the justice system is "racist".

Indeed there was a time when the justice system was specifically racist. There were actual laws on the books directed specifically at black folks. Laws specifically made to regulate black folks behavior and to decriminalize negative behavior towards them. Under such a system there was no doubt that the system itself was racist in fact and in intent. I challenge people to find such laws on the books today. The fact is that the racism we see in the justice system stems specifically from the persons within it. The DA's, the court appointed lawyers and the policeman on the street. But more than anything, the justice system is classist. The better represented you are the more likely you will successfully navigate the system. Success being the lightest possible punishment if any. Clearly those with money and access have more means to vigorously assert their rights and privileges, while those who do not have to depend on the whims of those holding the keys. That is, the laws are neutral, the implementation of them is subject to the machinations of the people. It's like the argument that people have about Taxes. Taxes aren't bad, it's what's done with them that's an issue.

There are those who will say I'm full of shit because prisons are full of black men and women. I only point out the class status of the majority of those persons, not to mention that by the numbers there are not only equal numbers of whites and blacks in the federal system (state is a whole other beast) but those persons represent a relatively small portion of the black population as a whole. And yes, I am aware of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. I'm not saying that you don't have a process, starting roughly in early schooling, that makes a path to prison more probable. That is certainly and indisputably the case. It is simply my contention that the 'justice system is racist" is an easy out for the complex interplay of situations that lands one in prison. For example: Why was Troy Davis hanging out with people who beat up on homeless people? or apparently got into fights with people? Do you hang out with folks like that? No? That's why you're not in prison. Generally speaking, in America racist use the justice system for their own ends, like any other organized group.But that is getting off the point.

The point being I don't think it's proper to predicate one's objection to the death penalty on the basis of racism. Oppose racism simply because it infects everything it touches, but you don't cut off your arm because your finger has gangrene. I don't see many of these folks arguing for elimination of the police because they are racist.

Lastly we have the non-violence principle argument against the death penalty. I'll only buy that argument from people who take that non-violence seriously. And to take that seriously that means you offer no resistance, zero, nada, to anyone who seeks to harm you. That would also mean eliminating any firearms for police. I don't know too many people who are so principled in their attachment to non-violence that they are willing to not defend themselves against assault. If you are one of those persons then I will not argue about the death penalty because at least you are being consistent.

Saved By Washington

From Alternet

One prominent banker tells Suskind his colleagues expected much harsher treatment from the Obama administration in the administration of TARP and other decisions. "For Washington to not demand anything when it saved us, even stuff that we know is for our long-term good, was one of the stupidest moves in modern times ... I feel like I should go over and hug Tim. It's a shame we can't pay him, 'cause that's a guy who really earned a big-time bonus."

I believe the charge was "Black mascot for the Wall Street oligarchs"?

New Forests Company and Ugandan Govt. Toss People off Land

From the NY Times

According to a report released by the aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, the Ugandan government and a British forestry company forcibly expelled more than 20,000 people from their homes here in recent years, emblematic of a global scramble for arable land...

Across Africa, some of the world’s poorest people have been thrown off land to make way for foreign investors, often uprooting local farmers so that food can be grown on a commercial scale and shipped to richer countries overseas...

The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations.

The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad. Its investors include the World Bank, through its private investment arm, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC.

Ron Paul Makes the Case for Single Payer

I meant to post on this when I saw the commotion over the Republican Tea Party Express "debate". Ron Paul was asked a question about a hypothetical young man in his 20's who decides to forgo purchasing health insurance because he is healthy. This young man then ends up on a coma or some emergency situation. Should he be given medical care.

Many people balked at the shout from the crowd to "let'im die" as well as Paul's comment that "This is America where you have choice."

Putting the law aside in regards to emergency care in which anyone who enters any emergency room must be given medical attention regardless of insurance status. And also putting aside the clear mean-spiritedness of the crowd, Paul was being completely consistent with his libertarian views, in a room of "debaters" who change position depending on which way the southern winds are blowing. But there is something hypocritical of making a mockery of Paul while advancing a healthcare "overhaul" that attaches the entire US population to insurance. Let me explain.

The insurance industry is based on risk assessment. People are given a premium based in part on the likelihood that the insurance company will have to pay out. The more likely the company will have to pay out and the more they think they will have to pay out the more they will charge you for your coverage. If the risk is deemed to high they will simply decline to cover.

The second means for insurance companies to make money is to decline to pay for services. They will make claims such as the "effectiveness of the treatment" and other reasons for not covering a particular procedure or medicine. Even in cases where they will pay, often it is not the full cost of the procedure or medicine and the customer is left to pay the remainder. This is what is referred to as a deductible or co-pay. In some cases the co-pay is prohibitively large even though upwards of 80% of the cost is covered.

If you can't afford the premiums or the co-pay, that's not the insurance company's problem that's your problem. In the auto industry if you can't pay then you don't drive. In the health insurance industry you can't pay then you die I suppose. Yet mandating that we sign up with such an industry is what passes for reform.

Under the new healthcare reform, it is proposed that everybody gets insurance from some company (constitutionally iffy but that is a different convo). Companies reportedly cannot turn a person down based on previous conditions. That is they would not be able to deem a person too risky per the earlier discussion. However; since they must cover anyone, they may increase the premiums (and I suppose co-payments) on such persons so long as such rates are "reasonable". Furthermore these companies can still decline to cover procedures or medication they deem ineffective.

I'm not sure how many people caught Michael Moore's Sicko but, one "nice" scene was the person booted from a hospital after receiving medical care because they had no insurance. Many people balked at that scene but really how do you blame a hospital, which is a business, from not wanting to deal with customers that do not pay? Would you work for free...all the time?

It's not like these hospitals get free supplies. Not as if nurses and doctors are volunteering. Not like all the electricity they use is being given to them pro-bono. If a customer does not pay for services rendered these expenses don't up and disappear. So you know what happens? You and I pay via taxes for all those who are uninsured but use the services of hospitals. And when that money doesn't cover the business expenses of a hospital it gets closed. When that hospital closes everyone who depended on it for services and all those employed by it lose. This is the other side of the "let him die" story.

Now some may object to my use of the term "customer" but that is exactly what one is in a insurance based healthcare system. If one objects to this then the only rational solution is single payer healthcare. Under such a system the question posed to Ron Paul could not be asked. No one dies from lack of money for healthcare, because healthcare is "pre-paid" via taxes, be it income or sales or a combination of the two. If one is actually bothered by the whole "let him die" attitude, then one ought to be equally bothered by supporting a system by which a private company can decide whether you deserve to have whatever procedure and medication paid for.

Bullshit!

Obama at the UN speaking on Libya:

But he said the successful overthrow of Colonel Qaddafi, with aid from a NATO bombing campaign, had demonstrated that the world should “not underestimate the aspirations and will of the Libyan people.”

Only the MOST DAFT would even begin to entertain the thought that the Libyan rebels could have done anything more than last a few days had NATO not decided that the events represented a golden opportunity to finally off Ghaddafi.

Troy Davis and the Failure of Integration

As I write this I have just heard that Troy Davis was denied clemency.

I am a habitual ABC News watcher. It's what I grew up on and as they say, old habits die hard. Good Morning America has gone through many changes over the years and is currently "headed up" by Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos. If anyone has been watching the program you'll note that there hasn't been a peep about Troy Davis by the GMA crew or it's black reporters including Ron Clairborn (If it has during the times I've missed please let me know).

This is in stark contrast to the coverage afforded the white girl in Italy who was charged and convicted of murder despite the fact that there was no forensic evidence that linked her to the murder weapon. If you recall, that story ran daily for a while and even after she was convicted reappeared every now and then as the family continued their quest to have their daughter freed from the Italian jail.

Troy Davis, right here in the United States was similarly convicted of a killing of which there was no forensic evidence to link him to the crime. Furthermore; the multiple witnesses that placed him at the scene or as being the trigger man have recanted their stories as well as providing testimony that they were coerced by the police. Clearly with this evidence, killing this man may be another case of an innocent person being killed by the state.

Whether or not the folks at GMA think that Troy Davis is guilty is not the point here. This is simply a matter of fair coverage. How do you explain the coverage given to a maybe innocent white woman in Italy due to lack of evidence, yet not a mention of Troy Davis? Why are we still discussing the wherabouts of a woman who took off to Aruba with a man she met on AdultFriendFinder (internet hook up site) and not a mention of Troy Davis? Is Robin Roberts bothered by this at all? I suppose not and I suppose that I shouldn't expect her to be after how she baited Chris Brown in an interview that was supposed to be about his new CD and not about whether he feels remorse about his actions towards Rhianna. Surely if Robin Roberts (or Ron Clairborn for that matter) had any conviction that the story ought at least be told and Roberts had the power to get it mentioned (would they have fired her if she demanded it? And would that have ended her broadcast career if they did? I doubt it.)

But this underscores the fundamental problem with integration. A problem that was spoken about by the ever spoken of Dr. King Jr. It merely puts black faces on screen, behind a desk, etc. with no fundamental shift in the ideology of society where black men convicted by the state "must have done it" or "done something to deserve it". Where black folks who should be at the tip of the spear for changing the systems in which they have gone into, play a roll no different from those of lesser melanin and kink.

I Suppose It's a Compliment Somewhere

From a NY Times article on NY Gov. Cuomo's car obsession:

first, to drive from his Westchester County home to a breakfast in Harlem honoring the African American Day Parade, where he gave a speech about gun violence, and then to Eisenhower Park

Perhaps I'm the only one who thinks that there are far more interesting, positive and inspiring than a speech on gun violence to give at a Parade celebrating a people/culture. It reminds me of the many times I've said to leave out the commentary about deadbeat dads and the like on Father's day since we have all year to discuss them. But I suppose if not even the POTUS can resist giving attention to the negativity in black communities, I can't expect Gov. Cuomo to do any different.

Follow Up on Jobs Bill

I recently posted on my major issue with the Jobs bill as proposed by the president. I pointed out, among other things the overly optimistic projections on how many jobs would be created by providing supporting evidence of past downward adjustments of employment data. Today we have a piece from Alternet that provides more evidence on the matter:

To illustrate just how wide this model can be off the jobs mark, Bloomberg shows that 824,000 jobs “disappeared” after a birth/death model adjustment in February 2010. That adjustment is important because if it was known that job creation was weaker by 824,000 jobs during 2009, additional job creation efforts could have been considered. At present job creation is stagnant and we won’t know what role the birth/death model has on today’s job numbers until 2012. But if history is any guide, job creation may again be overstated.

I have been regularly pointing to the writings of Paul Craig Roberts who has been pointing out the problems with current birth/death model and how it obscures real unemployment.

“We’ve got to have legislation that is supported by Democrats and Republicans,”

The title statement encapsulates everything wrong with the current Democratic party. You never start negotiations with "What do you want?"

NY Times Some Democrats Are Balking at Obama’s Jobs Bill

Thanks NATO

From the Wall Street Journal:

Now, rebels have been torching homes in the abandoned city 25 miles to the south. Since Thursday, The Wall Street Journal has witnessed the burning of more than a dozen homes in the city Col. Gadhafi once lavished with money and investment. On the gates of many vandalized homes, light-skinned rebels scrawled the words "slaves" and "negroes."


...But amid these diplomatic gains for the rebels, fears of retribution are gripping several segments of the population once viewed as closest to the regime like dark-skinned Libyans from the south and places like Tawergha.

Nope..no anti-black stuff happening in Libya. None at all.

Is it your Pan-Africanist duty to become a billionaire?

Headline is the title of an excellent piece by our brother Minister Faust:

a) Every social justice goal we have is much more easily attained when "we" (whoever "we" are) can pay people to work on the solutions full-time, rather than trying to squeeze in volunteer hours on the side while headed for burn-out. In other words, as Ralph Nader put it so perfectly when discussing his philosophical

In essence this is Garveyism. Garvey (and Delany before him) understood the financial base for any prospect of African liberation whether it be a continent and country or a community. The whole we-must-be-broke-or-we-aint-real ideology is not Pan-Africanism in the least bit. It is the attitude of the money holder (and getter) that is far more important than whether he or she has money. Take a read at the original Bro-log, also linked to the right.

Koch Brothers and FSU

From the Counterpunch article The Koch Whisperers:

The reverse speak of the Koch brand of academic freedom became crystal clear this year with the leak of a contract the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation had previously signed with Florida State University to provide a grant of $1.5 million in exchange for the right to vet and veto faculty hires for an economics program based on “political economy and free enterprise.”

On This Payroll Tax Thing Again

So I had this discussion online about my objection to the payroll tax break for small businesses that was offered by Obama in his address last week. I followed up with a link to a piece in the NY Times which underscored my point with interviews with actual small business owners saying the same thing I said which is that demand fuels employment not taxes (or lack thereof). This is an important thing to understand because it seems that too many Democrats have begun to believe the Republican line that the government is at fault because it taxes too much. In any case I was pointed to a piece on Media Matters (A Democratic Party front group if you ask me) in which they proclaimed Conservative Media Criticism Of Jobs Plan Only Off By Millions Of Jobs as a rebuttal to my position.

The first problem I had with the piece, particularly in reference to my argument was that are we considering the NY Times "conservative media" now? Last I heard the NY Times was a left leaning outlet that occasionally carries water for government interests. In any case I'll skip over the FOX news reference because, well, it's FOX and continue on to the meat of Media Matters argument:

Zandi: American Jobs Act Would Add Nearly 2 Million Jobs. UPI reported:

President Barack Obama's $447 billion job-creation plan would likely add 1.9 million payroll jobs and grow the U.S. economy 2 percent, a leading economist said.

The plan, which Obama outlined before a joint session of Congress Thursday, would likely cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point, Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said as Obama prepared to tout the plan at Virginia's University of Richmond. [United Press International, 9/9/11]

Well it must be so if Zandi says so. Seriously though I will re-iterate that my objection is to the payroll tax break not the entire proposal. So that there will be "millions" of jobs created does not negate that objection.

Some other nice looking quotes:

We estimate that the American Jobs Act (AJA), if enacted, would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term.

The various tax cuts aimed at raising workers' after-tax income and encouraging hiring and investing, combined with the spending increases aimed at maintaining state & local employment and funding infrastructure modernization, would:

Boost the level of GDP by 1.3% by the end of 2012, and by 0.2% by the end of 2013.

Raise nonfarm establishment employment by 1.3 million by the end of 2012 and 0.8 million by the end of 2013, relative to the baseline.

The program works directly to raise employment through tax incentives and support to state & local governments for increasing hiring; it works indirectly through the positive boost to aggregate demand (and hence hiring) stimulated by the direct spending and the increase in household income resulting from lower employee payroll taxes and increased employment. [Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, 9/8/11]

Notice the opening line about "combined with". This is the crux here. No one. Not one of them has stated that the payroll tax decrease will make millions of jobs in and of itself. It is the spending increases to fund infrastructure, etc. that are going to create jobs (or keep jobs from being lost). This is in total support of my argument that it is the spending and not the tax breaks that is going to do the heavy lifting.

But lets forget my particular position for a second. All these economists, who I'm sure know far more about economics than I do, have had to revise projections and jobs reports. Here's one from June 2011:

After ADP Employer Services reported projections showing that employment increased by just 38,000 jobs in May (down from 177,000 in April), a number of economists have tempered their own expectations for the Labor Department's report.

Fox Business reports that High Frequency Economics decreased its projections from 175,000 to 75,000, while Goldman Sachs lowered its prediction from 150,000 to 100,000.

"As far as we can tell, employers have hugely overreacted to the surge in oil prices, which has slowed but not killed consumption; we expect better in the third quarter," Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics told the news source.

The ADP statistics, which are seen by many economists as a bellwether for the monthly Labor Department jobs report - which comes out June 3 - are particularly surprising because the firm had anticipated an increase of approximately 175,000 jobs.

175,000k to 38,000? Whoops!

How about this one from the Huffington Post:

The major U.S. stock indices fell at the open Friday morning and continued falling, on the heels of a employment report that showed the jobless rate tick up to 9.2 percent in June as non-farm payrolls gained only 18,000 jobs. The Labor Department's numbers fell far below economists' predictions of about 100,000 new jobs and made the previous month's disappointing report seem less like a fluke and more like a developing trend, delivering a sobering portrait of the nation's economic health and dashing hopes for future strength.

100,000 to 18,000? Oh WHOOOPS!

Lets take it back to 2010 shall we? Here's the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

For the second consecutive month, the economy created virtually no jobs, net of temporary Census jobs. The Labor Department reported that the economy lost 131,000 jobs in July, 12,000 less than the 143,000 drop in the number of temporary Census workers. The June numbers were revised down by 100,000 to show a gain of only 4,000 non-Census jobs.

Revised down by 100,000 jobs? Oh. My Bad.

Since three data points reveal a pattern I think it is safe to say that we should take economists wild predictions of "millions of jobs" with the appropriate grains of salt. Again, that's not saying that there won't be jobs created but, well, check the quotes again.

Then we have to get to the other problem with the job creation thing. Common economic models have it that the US economy must create between 100k and 250k jobs every month to simply keep pace with population growth. So every time you see a jobs report that falls below that number you do the math to see what's going on. Here's Paul Craig Roberts on that:

This Labor Day week-end’s job report, announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday, September 2, says zero net new jobs were created in August, a number 250,000 less than the amount of monthly job creation necessary to make progress in reducing America’s high rate of unemployment.

So lets look at these predictions when we see what is needed simply to tread water. If these economists are correct and 1.3 non-farm jobs will be created by the end of 2012 and assuming hiring begins January 1 2012 that's 108,333 jobs each month, well below what is needed to maintain employment levels. This means that barring any other change unemployment must rise by the end of 2012.

Going back to my objection to the payroll tax break let's examine a piece by Gwendolin Mink who discusses the dire consequences for Social Security:

he proposed to extend and increase the ill-considered FICA tax cut he embraced last December — a tax cut that directly undermines the financial integrity of Social Security.According to the White House Fact Sheet on “The American Jobs Act” the FICA tax holiday for workers will be increased to a 50% reduction, lowering it to 3.1%. Under the 2010 tax deal, the payroll tax for workers was reduced from 6.2% to 4.2%. In addition to expanding the tax cut for workers, the President proposes to extend the FICA tax holiday to employers by cutting in half the employer’s share of the payroll tax through the first $5 million in payroll...The FICA/payroll tax goes into the Social Security Trust Fund. This is a dedicated fund currently worth $2.6 trillion, which has been built up over time through employee and employer contributions, along with accrued interest. Current and future Social Security beneficiaries receive benefits from this fund. No general revenues are involved, except for administrative and clerical costs.

Under the payroll tax cut initiated in the 2010 lame duck tax deal, the revenue loss to the Trust Fund from the payroll tax holiday is made up through compensatory payments into the Trust Fund from general revenues. The President proposes to continue this scheme — deepening a relationship between Social Security and general revenues (read deficit) that did not exist until the December 2010 tax deal. This will make Social Security increasingly vulnerable to demands for “reform.”

Ahh now we see why Social Security was even mentioned in this jobs speech. Can we say "set up"? Yes, yes we can.

Overall the Media Matters piece is simply reactionary publishing by what I consider a Democratic front group seeking to do battle with Republicans by playing the opposite game instead of doing actual research and analysis. I suppose that's why I don't bother with them too much anymore.

The Icelandic Example

Deena Stryker reports on how Icelanders dealt with the criminal bankers and the government that enabled them:

What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.

Simple concept really. We didn't create the problem and we're not going to pay you to get out of it.

Hiring Only who Would Have Been Hired Anyway

Underscoring my argument that these tax breaks for small business hiring is a bad idea, the NY Times posts an article with quotes from actual business owners (disclosure: I have a small business and I'm also speaking from experience):

“You still need to have the business need to hire,” said Jeffery Braverman, owner of Nutsonline, an e-commerce company in Cranford, N.J., that sells nuts and dried fruit. While a $4,000 credit could offset the cost of the company’s lowest-cost health insurance plan, he said, it would not spur him to hire someone. “Business demand is what drives hiring,” he said.


Chesapeake Energy, one of the biggest explorers of oil and gas in shale fields across the country, for example, said it has 800 positions open, and has already received tax credits for hiring the long-term unemployed. But Michael Kehs, vice president for strategic affairs and public relations, said in an e-mail that the credit “does not drive our hiring.”


Roger Tung, the chief executive of Concert Pharmaceuticals, said the company, a privately held biotechnology firm with 45 employees, would save $150,000 a year from the proposed corporate payroll tax deductions.

But that is still not enough to cover the cost of hiring even one additional employee at the Lexington, Mass., company, Mr. Tung said, once benefits and other expenses besides salary are included. He can only hire, he said, when the economy improves and private investors become confident again.

All of these things I mentioned before. I'll repeat if your hiring and profits are determined by taxes, you won't be in business too long because your business plan sucks.

The Problem with the Jobs Speech

I had a large problem with the Jobs speech that Obama gave last night and it wasn't that Obama was practically yelling at Congress. Actually he did yell at one point but anyway. The problem I had was with the proposed changes to the payroll tax and other tax deductions aimed at small business.

The first problem is that even though these new proposals are touted as being "paid for", I don't think people understand that it is merely either a shift in revenue from small business to others or that some other constituency (apparently medicaid recipients) will have something taken from them.

The second problem is that why exactly is it necessary to give small business (or any profitable business for that matter) such a gift? Generally speaking businesses hire people when they anticipate high demand for their product or services that cannot be met by its current workforce. Demand for goods and services is dependent upon customers wanting and being able to partake in those goods and services. Why would a business hire people for non-existent customers? In other words, I don't see the point for giving a business a tax cut to hire somebody that they don't need because if that business needed that employee that business would have hired anyway. In other words, businesses don't need a government incentive to hire. Businesses already have a profit motive to hire.

I could see if the government was going to purchase goods and services from a company and due to that demand they went out and hired people. That would make sense. But to simply say we'll tax you less to hire people you don't need, doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The third issue is that of the payroll tax or whatever it was that is allegedly taken from the employees cheque. Again while I understand the political motive to putting more money in the hands of the individual I don't see this making a big difference. Remember that this was done before. People who are in dire straights are not going to suddenly go splurge on luxury goods because their cheque has another $25 bucks in it. They are going to go and pay down debt. Those of us who are not in debt are the types who already have a saving habit and you can bet that most of us are going to put that money away as we see the increasing attacks on Social Security threaten our retirement.

I don't think the general population is going to really get back to spending, which isn't necessarily the best thing, until they are out from under the bad debt put on them by the bankers. The fallout from the mortgage scheme needs to be addressed. By addressing the way over sized mortgages a lot of families will have money freed up and would probably get the housing market as well as people like me who simply will not overpay for property go into the market and the spending that requires hits small businesses who will then have a reason to go hire people without government gimmicks.

The Kromanti Language of the Jamaican Maroons

"Show them who was in control. "

Walter Fountry's eyewitness account of the civil war in Libya:

In an interview inside his Northwest D.C. home last week, the noted civil rights leader, told the Afro that he watched French and Danish troops storm small villages late at night beheading, maiming and killing rebels and loyalists to show them who was in control...

The rebels told Fauntroy they had been told by the European forces to stay inside. According to Fauntroy, the European forces would tell the rebels, "'Look at what you did.' In other words, the French and Danish were ordering the bombings and killings, and giving credit to the rebels.

0% of Thieving Bankers have had Contact with Police

The UK Guardian has reported that the police in the UK have discovered that:

It's not yet been widely recognised, but the hardcore of the rioters were, in fact, known criminals. Close to three-quarters of those aged 18 or over charged with riot offences already had a prior conviction. That is the legacy of a broken penal system – one whose record in preventing reoffending has been straightforwardly dreadful. In my view, the riots can be seen in part as an outburst of outrageous behaviour by the criminal classes – individuals and families familiar with the justice system who haven't been changed by their past punishments.

However the bankers who committed massive fraud against the public are reported to have had no prior contact with the police. To paraphrase the paragraph above: This is the legacy of a broken regulatory and penal system...In my view the bank frauds can be seen in part as an outburst of outrageous behaviour by the criminal classes -individuals and corporations familiar with the justice system who haven't been changed because there have been no past punishments.

De-Industrialized America

Paul Craig Roberts says it all:

In a word, the US economy has been de-industrializing, moving from a developed to an underdeveloped economy, for the past two decades. It has been the case for many years that when the US economy manages to eke out new jobs, they are in non-tradable domestic services, such as health care and social assistance, waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks. Non-tradable employment consists of jobs that do not produce goods and services that could be exported to reduce the large US trade deficit.

You need to understand this if you want to understand what the US future is going to look like in the near future. I have to keep reminding people that college educated people are in the minority in the US. Jobs that *require* a university degree to do are even less than the number of "degreed people" out there. Generally speaking the "ideal" capitalist labour market is a pyramid with manual labour (manufacturing) at the base employing the most numbers of people and the number of people employed falls the higher you go to the point. What the US has done, slowly but surely is cut off the bottom part of the pyramid on the assumption that the remaining portion would be theirs to monopolize. The idea that the US would be the intellectual labour market of choice for the world. Of course, this racist and white supremacist ideology (that is what it is) assumed that other people and places were not able to develop intellectual capital and therefore the "West" would always be "the brain" of the world. As skilled workers in IT and other "intellectual" jobs are finding out, their cheap counterparts in other countries can program, account, design, etc just as well as they can, if not better now that the educational system in the US is falling apart.

It's not that people in manufacturing in the US weren't exploited. They were, but not to the extent that they are now. Back then people were apparently bright enough to figure out that paying these workers decent wages allowed them to consume. Consumption is it's own issue but we'll not deal with that here. Now these businesses do all they can to squeeze workers by pitting them against people in other lands who, having lived with next to nothing will gladly work for what for an American would be sub-poverty (as in live in a cardboard box under a freeway) wages. But hey...Americans get cheap shit at Walmart, Target and Dollar General.

And these companies are now so bold as to attempt to dictate to the US govt. what tax rate they are willing to pay to remit income they have stashed away in other countries. Can you imagine YOU telling the IRS that you won't pay your taxes until you come to an agreement as to how much YOU think you should pay. This underscores what we are seeing with "austerity" measures being enacted across the world as bankers do everything that they can to avoid taking actual losses by making sure that the governments they put into a bind make sure to pay their bills. But that's another topic for another day.

Drone Wars

I've written a few times about the increasing use of drones in military conflicts. To say that I am not happy about this course of action is to make an understatement. In times past, the danger of loss of many lives was THE single determining factor on whether a country (or group) not only went to war but for how long that war could last.

One could start a war with a group one thought was easy to defeat, but if the casualties mounted to a certain degree any sane leader would realize that depleting his country (and it's usually a he) of males was simply a bad idea. Groups always had to do the "is it worth the lives" calculus when deciding on whom to pick a fight with (or who to surrender to). Drones changes that entire equation. Since the drone operator does not put his or her (and expect more "her") life in direct risk for the goal, killing becomes easy and bullying other weaker people becomes far easier to do. Even if the enemy can shoot down the drone, it is a drone. Another one, possibly more advanced this time can and will replace it.

Think of that episode of Star Trek, TNG where Riker and crew are on a planet in which all the inhabitants have been killed off by military drones. Each time Riker and crew destroyed one another, more advanced one was created and sent after them. Are we not headed in that very direction? There is already much discussion about the automation of these drones in such a manner that they can pick and choose who and what to kill based on "algorythms" rather than "is this right/moral" or "can I look my wife and kids in the eye?" or other human constraints on wanton killing.

Now that the robot genie is out of the lantern it will not be put back in. The recent Counterpunch article on the expanded use of drones makes this clear:

During the four years from 2004 through 2007, the CIA carried out a total of only 12 drone strikes in Pakistan, all supposedly aimed at identifiable high-value targets of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates...

Under Panetta, the rate of drone strikes continued throughout 2009 at the same accelerated pace as in the second half of 2008. And in 2010 the number of strikes more than doubled from 53 in 2009 to 118...

During 2010, the CIA “drone war” in Pakistan killed as many as 1,000 people a year, compared with the roughly 2,000 a year officially estimated to have been killed by the SOF “night raids” in Afghanistan, according to a report in the Sep. 1 Washington Post.

Now consider the other aspect of the use of these drones...a lot of this is going on in a country in which we have not declared war. If there is no declaration of war, then all innocent people killed during these attacks are not "collateral damage" but are actually murder victims. Furthermore; these activities have shown that the idea of extra-judicial killing is simply non-existent now. If the president of the US declares that you are a terrorist (or Ghaddafi) he (or she at some point) can simply send in the drone and kill without so much as a peep from lawmakers or international bodies.

It is very clear that drone warfare has rapidly changed the face of international conflict, possibly more than suicide bombers have.

RE: What The Left Doesn't Understand

Meant to post a short comment on the piece that appeared in the NYT entitled What the Left Doesn’t Understand About Obama/ particularly this part:

The most common hallmark of the left’s magical thinking is a failure to recognize that Congress is a separate, coequal branch of government consisting of members whose goals may differ from the president’s. Congressional Republicans pursued a strategy of denying Obama support for any major element of his agenda, on the correct assumption that this would make it less popular and help the party win the 2010 elections. Only for roughly four months during Obama’s term did Democrats have the 60 Senate votes they needed to overcome a filibuster. Moreover, Republican opposition has proved immune even to persistent and successful attempts by Obama to mobilize public opinion. Americans overwhelmingly favor deficit reduction that includes both spending and taxes and favor higher taxes on the rich in particular. Obama even made a series of crusading speeches on this theme. The result? Nada.

Does the writer must really think that 'the left"(really left undefined and is actually made up of many constituencies) does not understand the different parts of government? I would say that given what I've seen come out of the mouths of their Republican peers, it would be those on the right who do not understand this concept. Anyway. "The Left" certainly did understand that congress is a co-equal part of government and that is why "the left" voted in a majority of Democrats into office. That 6 months represented a golden opportunity to do a lot of things and after the disaster that were the Bush years they should have gone for it. But that assumes that the Democrats are actually an "opposition party" as opposed to the upper lip of the same beast.

Secondly, in regards to the filibuster, the Democrats ought to have called the Republicans to task for that. To me these threats from the Republicans are like the the bank robber who comes in and puts his finger in his jacket to make it look like he has a gun and demands that you hand over the cash. One response is to do whatever the robber wants, in which case the robber gets away with robbing a bank with the threat of a weapon but never having to actually show and prove. The second thing is to aggravate the robber to get him to show that he actually has the weapon. Of course that tactic takes risk and someone might get killed. BUT the upside is that you know once and for all whether this robber actually has a weapon and he certainly will not attempt the "finger in the pocket" move again. But this is the problem with Democrats (again assuming they aren't the backside of the coin): They simply are not willing to risk pain. Once the enemy (or the opposition) finds your weak point, do expect them to hit it every time you enter the ring.

I'm not even going to get into the taking the public option off the table at the very beginning of the health care debate. That was simply inexcusable.

Krae-what?

Saw this post by the infamous Darth Kriss and rather than comment I'll just link to it because he's basically said what needs to be said:

. I mean look at them, they’re trying so hard too. It looks like she popped the lens out of a pair of Captain Crunch decoder glasses and put them on. And tell me the dude standing next to her doesn’t look like his other car is a Nissan Cube. And what’s up with him leaning over to whisper in her ear all “Drake-like”. Dude looks like his internal bass is set to -100....Seriously, this is a joke right. “Freestylin on you barbie hoes”? What’s next? “Cakin on you G.I. Joe niggas…” “Thuggin on you Transformer bammas”. What is this? Hasbro hip hop?

Read the rest

Zoe Saldana Please Sit Down.

From Fanshare:

It's trendy to hate Americans right now. Deep down, some people are enjoying the fact that the most powerful nation on Earth is struggling a little - and then they deny that's racist! And that frightens me."

Given that there is no American race (Native Americans not included) It is impossible for those who are "enjoying" the fact that the US is struggling to be engaging in racism. Stupid comment. Just stupid.

The Nerve of These Palestinians

So apparently Israel is saying that it would be a ""strategic mistake by the world" if they were to recognize a Palestinian state:

Upgrading the Palestinians' U.N. status would be a "strategic mistake by the world", a senior Israeli official said on Wednesday, cautioning that Israel had prepared a slew of punitive and diplomatic responses.

I mean the NERVE of these Palestinians to assert themselves. How dare colonized and marginalized people stand up and be recognized as a people and a place. The nerve!

The United States has said it would veto any such resolution at the Security Council, but Israel is troubled by the Palestinian fallback option of seeking upgraded "non-member state" capacity at a supportive General Assembly.

'Cause you know the United States knows all about appropriating other people's land, breaking treaties and generally fucking over native populations for "newcomers".

Corporate Blackface

From the Inquisitor

The carrier awarded the prize to two white men who donned blackface – a form of theatrical makeup used to create a stereotyped caricature of a black person – and “afro” wigs in an attempt to “honor” their favorite player, Fiji-born Wallabies flanker Radike Samo.

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While Radike Samo said he was not offended by the stunt and even posed in a picture with the ticket winners

Well in that case.....

It's The Negroes Fault

Rolling out on why the Tea Party is in congress:

Although African Americans voted at record levels during the 2008 presidential race, we fell off dramatically during the midterm elections of 2010 and this inaction gave us our own NWA — the group America loves to hate, the tea party members of Congress. In 2010, preliminary national exit polling, the youth vote — 18-to-29-year-olds — that helped catapult President Obama into office comprised just 9 percent of voters this year, compared to 18 percent in 2008.

Yep...it's the fault of black folks. The question I have for this is as follows: Where did these Tea Party Republicans in congress come from? Since we are speaking of Congress then we know that unlike the Senate these individuals represent relatively small districts within states. We also know that these districts are usually drawn up in a way to favor one party over another. They create Republican "safe" districts and Democrat "safe" districts. We know that black folks vote overwhelmingly Democrat. We're not talking 60% or 70% but 90+%. It is safe to say that in the district level black folks were not voting for Tea Party candidates AND that Tea Party candidates could not even make a showing even WITH low voter turn out. Since there are no Democrat Tea Party members that I know of, then these people came from Republican districts where it is also safe to say have little if any black folks in them. Of the ones who may have black folks odds are they either did not vote for the Tea Party candidate or they are Republicans and agreed with the particular candidate in which case they voted their conscience which we cannot complain about.

So given all this, why even try to write an article blaming low black voter turn out for the relative success of the Tea Party when it is highly unlikely that black voters had ANY impact on those district races? Oh right...gotta do the guilt-the-vote thing.

Who'd a Thunk It?

From the Washington Post:

But a soaring jobless rate among African Americans and a newfound comfort by black lawmakers to criticize Obama’s economic policies are prompting the White House to recalibrate — and to focus more directly on the struggles of black America.

Wait. Let me get this straight. People making demands of the president is causing the president to address their particular constituency? Shocking. SHOCKING!

And the White House announced this week that Obama will pay a Labor Day visit to Detroit, a hard-hit city where a town hall meeting held by the black caucus drew headlines last week when Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) decried the black jobless rate as “unconscionable” and blasted the president for his recent Midwestern bus tour that focused on rural white communities.

Shocking! Shocking! Let me catch my breath because I never ever contemplated the idea that pressuring the president would get results. Never. EVER! SHOCK-the-fuck-ING!

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a top outside adviser to the White House on black community concerns, said that political success in 2012 will require more policy specifics.

“There is going to have to be a different and more direct approach,” he said. “The direct approach has to say, ‘Here’s our jobs plan, here’s the plan to get it done and here’s the enemies against it.’ ”

WAIT WAIT WAIT! This would be the same Al Sharpton who was telling everyone to get off Obama's dick? Really?

“We don’t want to come across as being critical of the president,” Curry said. “But if the president can count on 90 percent of the African American vote, then the African American community should expect something from the man who’s getting 90 percent of their support.”

Well look who finally woke up. How long have I been saying this? How long?

“If he comes and speaks out for black people in the middle of this, he will lose his reelection, and you know it,” said Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.).

Earth to Rep. Frederica: If Obama fails to win re-election it will not be because of attention paid or not paid to black folks. That kind of thinking is called "blaming the victim". Racists will not vote for Obama regardless of WHO he helps out. Republicans who hate Democrats simply because they are Democrats will not vote for Obama. People who think that Obama has either caved to big finance or is a "mascot" for big finance will not vote for Obama (or vote reluctantly out of fear of whatever Republican is in the offering). Obama will win or lose because of the policies he puts into place across the board or not. It will be due to the economic and social environment but it will not be because black folks got a few token construction jobs. This whole "Can't be seen with the Negroes" attitude needs to get dead. Quickly.

Obama Considering Something The Ghost Proposed Ages Ago

From the NY Times:

One proposal would allow millions of homeowners with government-backed mortgages to refinance them at today’s lower interest rates, about 4 percent, according to two people briefed on the administration’s discussions who asked not to be identified because they were not allowed to talk about the information...

But refinancing could have far greater breadth, saving homeowners, by one estimate, $85 billion a year. Despite record low interest rates, many homeowners have been unable to refinance their loans either because they owe more than their houses are now worth or because their credit is tarnished.

This is something I suggested as soon as that bubble popped. Though I would have taken it further and lowered the principle on these homes that were clearly overvalued to begin with. By freeing up the mortgages that people were paying they will spend it on other things. The only ones who will be complaining are those who foolishly invested in mortgage backed securities and frankly I could give a good damn what they think.

Will Obama Denounce MLK at Memorial?

David Swanson has an excellent piece comparing Obama and King. Powerful stuff

Did Martin Luther King, Jr., not face the world as it is? Was he delusional? Did he stand idle in the face of threats? This is President Obama’s position.

Did King oppose protecting and defending people? Of course not. He worked for that very goal!

I'm not a student of non-violence since I do believe that there are people who will simply attempt to kill you because they are simply out of their minds and have no regard for anyone's life, including their own. But in the larger arena Swanson and King have a good argument and if one is going to tell people in the streets to be "non-violent" by invoking King then one has an obligation to carry that same ideology into the world stage.

Strauss-Kahn and Reasonable Doubt

"It's not what you know, it's what you can prove"
-Alonzo
Training Day

As expected the case against Strauss-Kahn was dropped. The easy answer is the privilege answer. People with privilege (read money) tend to get the benefit of the doubt when dealing with the authorities than those without. Of interest is that a good deal of people who would level this charge were happy that OJ Simpson received such treatment (though he made it to court). Still though there is water in that argument. Simply put, if you have a shark of a lawyer you have a better chance at maneuvering the criminal justice system than if you do not. And shark lawyers cost money. Lots of money.

There is however a second issue that is just as if not more important here. The US system of criminal "justice" rests on the concept of reasonable doubt. In a criminal case a jury of 12 "peers" must decide unanimously that a defendant is guilty "beyond reasonable doubt". Not all doubt but reasonable doubt. Furthermore it is the job of the state to furnish this proof. Not the defense. Not the media. Not the organization to which you belong to. The state. A prosecutor must (should) have a reasonable expectation that the charges against an individual will meet this standard. Clearly if the prosecutor thinks that the suspect has a weak defense team or some means of robustly defending himself then the prosecutor is going to be far more careful going about preparing a case than if the suspect is some kid picked up on a street corner drug bust. Strauss-Kahn was a high profile person with a "robust" defense team so even after the show of a perp walk and a stint in Rikers was not going to make him fold like a "regular" jump-out-the-shadows rapist would likely do. The prosecutor knew that if there was ANYTHING in the past of Ms. Diallo, they would use it to destroy her credibility on the stand.

Understand that credibility is what a jury uses to judge whether a witness is credible or not. Why should anybody on a witness stand be believed? Their truthfulness can only be inferred by something else. We use education, diction, body language and the like to determine credibility. We do this all the time. Ask how many people will trust the word of someone caught lying about anything in the past and they will tell you that their trust is lowered by such an event. If that person is caught lying multiple times, then that trust is lowered even more. If that person has been caught lying about the same thing they are trying to convince you about how trustworthy would you find them? Exactly.

This was the problem that the prosecution faced. It is not that it was unlikely that Ms. Diallo was lying about what happened in the Sofitel that day. It was that they had proof that she lied about a number of things including a rape claim. If anything that one lie on her asylum application was the most damaging item that the prosecution had to deal with. Statistically men are less likely to believe in a rape accusation. Men are also far less sympathetic to women who have lied about a rape. There's nothing nefarious about this. It is self interest. As a man being accused of rape is a big deal. If the prosecution had to deal with any men in the jury it would take only one to not believe Ms. Diallo for there to be an acquittal. Add to the rape issue the evidence that Ms. Diallo spoke via telephone to a drug dealer of some sort about the case, allegedly saying that "he's rich" and "I know what I'm doing" you have enough technical reasonable doubt that any prosecutor is going to question the strength of his case, particularly in the face of a high profile defendant.

How would the defense play these two pieces of information? Simple. First they will concede to all the forensic evidence. They will say that a consensual sex act(s) occur ed and that Strauss-Khan is particularly aggressive and that explains the alleged digital bruising to the vagina. They will explain that Strauss-Kahn did in fact comment about his position as head of IMF as a means to take away fear of Ms. Diallo losing her job and the payment that would be coming her way (though that would open him up to solicitation charges but lets run with this). They will say that for whatever reason she was upset about the money (or him having ejaculated in her mouth, who knows) and decided that she either wanted more money (backed up by the recent news of a civil suit) or revenge (also backed up by the civil suit). They will say that Ms. Diallo has, in the past used rape as a means of getting what she wanted (asylum) so it isn't unreasonable to think that she is doing so again. Then they'll trot out all the unsavory people she has been associating with. They would question why this woman did not fight this man off. They will ask where are the bruises. They will ask, what kind of woman would allow a man to do these things and offer no resistance that would mark a naked man. Yes, this would be a "blame the victim" fest at it's ugliest.

Does this mean that I think Strauss-Khan did not commit the crime? No. I think he did. His history, which would have been introduced into court (though I have questions as to it's admissibility )indicates a high likelihood that he did in fact attack Ms. Diallo. But as Alonzo of Training Day fame asked: It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. Prior history may serve as a pointer but it does not prove this case and the burden of proof is on the state not on the defense.

I would have loved to see Ms. Diallo get her day in criminal court and let the jury decide but I completely understand why this went the way it did.

They Learn Quick

While at the laundry I read about the Pakistani couple who were shot at in the street. The wife died. turns out the husband had set it up. The kicker:

Parvaiz, according to prosecutors, initially described a trio of attackers: one white, one black and one whose race he said he could not determine. He later changed his story, describing all three as black, before finally admitting to setting up the shooting, according to his arrest affidavit.

And you know that white folks who hang out with black folk are really "black"

Every group of folk that make it to America learn that the blacks are the ones to shit on. They learn quick eh?

The Cost of Pathologising the Body

The NY Times posted a piece about transgender people who go to unlicensed "doctors" in order to get silicone injected into parts of their bodies in order to look more "feminine". It is a sad testament to the backwards thinking that has gone into making transgender people "normal".

Ms. Quispe, an Ecuadorean immigrant who came to New York at age 9, was determined to get the curves that would make her look more feminine. But she lacked health insurance or the money to pay for surgical procedures that would provide them; they can cost as much as $70,000. So she tried something else: she went to a so-called pumper, a person who illegally injects silicone to modify the body.

For her first injections, she said, she went to the Upper East Side, to an apartment with a view of the East River. In a small room she lay down on a narrow massage table, having paid $1,200 to get four cups of silicone injected into her hips and buttocks — without anesthesia.

When she slid off the makeshift surgical table, she saw bright red drops of blood staining the white sheet. The pumper, she said, dabbed Krazy Glue over each puncture — there were six on each side — to stop the bleeding. Then the pumper covered them with gauze and wound plastic wrap over the wounds before telling Ms. Quispe to get dressed....

t the beginning of July, she was hospitalized for an infection. Her body has been left scarred and misshapen. The skin on her buttocks and legs is discolored, and a lump of hardened silicone the size of a golf ball hangs behind her left knee.

A completely sad event and one that was completely avoidable. This reminds me of an article I read some time ago about the prescription of medication to deal with depression. The author made the point that generally speaking the biochemical process of becoming depressed (and coming out of it) is normal. What is abnormal is the taking of brain altering drugs to "overcome" a natural process of grieving or whatever it is that triggers the episode. The author had a similar problem with the prescription of Ritalin to children who's brains are still developing. Again, the problem isn't really with the brain but with the environment. For example boys being naturally hyper are more likely to be drugged because parents and teachers simply don't want to deal with boys being, well, boys. Of course these drugs have side effects and therefore we have many cases of perfectly fine brains (or brains in development) that are being pathologized for the benefit of pharmacological pushing corporations. And now that the people are on drugs they NOW have actual physiological problems which they did not have before (ever read the warnings about suddenly stopping?).

So back to these "women". What this article fails to mention, and which is absent from the discussion of transgender persons is that there is nothing at all wrong with their bodies. They may think or feel that they inhabit the wrong body but there is, in fact, nothing wrong with these bodies (due exceptions for those born with both genitalia and had gender assignment surgery which is a 50-50% chance of being wrong. And due exception to those with actual chromosomal abnormalities but each of these cases are relatively rare and I mean RARE). The actual problem with these individuals is from the neck up, not from the neck down. Of course this is not a popular thing to say in many circles, but it is the truth. Fortunately at some point it will be possible to identify which gene is responsible for the brain failing to recognize what body it is inhabiting and correct that problem.

I suppose that until then we'll have to continue to point out the fallacy of celebrating a "pregnant" man and other such absurdities in the name of "tolerance". Me I'll just continue to call a spade a spade... or in this case a male a male.

Julius Malema

Heir apparent to the ideology of the PAC:

But after becoming president of the Youth League — a post once held by Nelson Mandela who was also seen as a firebrand in his youth — in April 2008, Julius Malema picked a rich furrow to plough by taking a vocal, populist and nationalist position on issues of race and wealth redistribution.

The stance has won him supporters not only in the youth league but the mother party as well. Among prominent supporters are Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Housing Minister Tokyo Sexwale and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula.

Among many white South Africans, they have made him into a bogeyman who together with his army of supporters could seek belated revenge on them for apartheid.

Isn't that always the case with backboned black men? We speak up and folk get nervous about what we might do. As Bob Marley sang: Guiltiness!

Telegraph of London

Worker Treatment in the Congo

The BBC is reporting on a new project in the DRC which highlights the blatant disregard of the safety of the Congolese workers:

In downtown Kinshasa, where the authorities are hoping to give the area a facelift, luxury building projects are flourishing with at least 20 high-rise buildings under construction.

Most of them are run by Indian or Lebanese businessmen who employ Congolese builders.

They rush towards construction sites at dawn and queue for work. At the new Congo Trade Centre site, Indian staff give the workers instructions in the local Lingala language.

The lack of regulations in the country means that labour is cheap and working conditions are basic.

Carrying piles of bricks on his head, a Congolese worker points at his feet. He is wearing flip-flops and a band-aid on his right ankle.

"It is a big problem because there are nails everywhere," he says.

None of the builders are wearing safety gear and some even work barefoot.

Pay is handed over to each worker at the end of the day while another team prepares for the night shift.

"I earned $4.50 for 12 hours of work," another Congolese man says.

"But I have to spend $1 in transport and another one for food."

I bet I can find a picture of slave labour from the US and colonial Africa that looks the same way. 500 years and we STILL haven't learned?

Clothing, Phones, Etc..A Land of Consumers

The Next Web has an article discussing the proliferation of cell phones in Africa and the fact that prices of smartphones will need to come down as more Africans get hooked up.

TNS Global Market Research recently conducted a study that revealed that low cost Chinese smart phone options are currently putting pressure on more established phone manufacturers to lower their price points in countries like Nigeria. According to the study, “Nigerian mobile consumers are cost-conscious and will embrace low cost smartphones required for dynamic changes in the Internet landscape. Any mobile phone manufacturer that intends to retain its Nigerian customers and sustain its market share must be ready to offer lower cost options.”

This is just another example of how Africa is becoming the dumping ground for China's goods. Whether it be apparel or accessories, the African marketplace is becoming a China market. How can local goods compare or even get off the ground in the face of such competition? Having apparently ceded the market for manufactured electronic goods to the East and West the question will now be whether Africans will be able to get into the application space in their own countries as well as abroad.

Where do we Settle the World Refugees

Title being the question from a Fast Company article on the refugee situation in East Africa:

Perhaps the answer is closer at hand. If famines are ultimately a failure of governance rather than crops--as Nobel Prize-winner Amartya Sen argued in his landmark Poverty and Famines--then what Somalia needs isn’t aid, but good governance. Or at the very least, a pocket of good governance willing to take refugees in.

I've made this point in the past that the frequent famines in this part of Africa has little to do with nature but is rather a result of a perfect storm of bad governing and allowing cultures to not adapt to a changing environment because generally, in my opinion, flying in to help the backward natives is a cute thing for rich, mostly white, people to do. I've asked before, who in the US would tolerate having a nice well dug for them if they had no water. Yet well digging is what a lot of NGO's do in Africa.

Also I reported many years ago that a lot of governments are of the opinion that taking care of the poor is the business of NGO's and not of the government. What is the government's job then? To facilitate tax collection, world "aide" and, I suppose a location for the UN to show that it is doing something other than holding meetings.

At some point these refugees will have to come to a point where they are no longer satisfied with living in the situations where they are. I suppose when tent living and standing in line for handouts from the closest NGO with plumpinut, rice and distilled water comes to constitute daily life the idea of doing anything else even if one had the energy and the relative safety to do it doesn't enter the mind.

"What Is Wrong With US?"

From a NJ.com piece on the string of homicides in Essex County:

"They had 30,000 people out looking for that kid," he says. "The whole community, out for one kid. And here we are burying our kids left and right. What’s wrong with us?"

This is the magic question. When I have so-called conscious people from said communities threaten me due to differences over translation of religious texts, then the answer is simply that we do not value and honor ourselves. I remember when the Kings of Comedy came out and Cedric the Entertainer had a set about the differences between white folk and black folk. He used the example of someone sitting in a seat that did not belong to them. He said the white folks "hoped" that no one was sitting in their seats whereas the black folk said "There betta not be" anyone sitting in the seat. This encapsulates the problem. The willingness to go directly to confrontation and almost culturally bred, yes I said it, willingness to 'Step to" someone who has disrespected us in the silliest way is what is fueling this crisis. Combine that with fear of reprisal from those who commit these crimes and you have a perfect storm.

Police State Alert

So BART shut down cell service in it's station. Too bad if you were expecting an emergency call.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit District acknowledged Friday that it interrupted cellphone service at some stations earlier this week when activists threatened a civil disturbance.

Don't expect the government to do anything about that. It's not like it's the public airwaves. Not like your first amendment right to free speech doesn't cover what you use to make that speech. Not like BART isn't a public "utility" and therefore "owned" by the very same people they blocked cell access to. Nope. not at all.

The Whites have become Black

Check the video and check his definition of "black":

Black: "A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture...This language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that has been intruding in England"

On The London Riots

I had to refrain from posting on the London riots for a couple of reasons. First I simply was not informed enough about the situation and did not want to drag the '85 riot as a stand in for current issues. Secondly, when I saw all the white faces in the crowds I knew that this was not a simple "white-black" thing and therefore required more insight.

Let me say at the outset that my European roots of democracy is Locke. I believe the government runs by the permission of the people and when that government fails to respect the wishes of the people that it is illegitimate and the people are completely within' their rights to rise up against it (and it's agents). My African roots of democracy is from an example I read about many years ago, where the king of a people (I'm guessing an Akan group) wears these sandals. The king's feet were to never touch the ground. If that king abused his authority then the people would petition the elders of the community who would then meet with the king and remove his sandals representing an end of his rule. Again, an example of "by the will of the people".

Anyone who has followed the economic goings on in England knows that there has been quite a bit of unrest around the "austerity" programmes that have been enacted by the government. For example on March 26, 2011 there was a huge protest in Picadilly and oh yeah...there was violence. And do note all the white faces in this particular protest. And who could forget the protest from November of 2010? And lastly we have the rock thrown at Prince Charles' ride?

So it is easy to dismiss the claims by certain government officials that the recent spate of "violence" is simply the work of hoodlums and "people from outside Tottenham". Indeed as with any mass demonstration there are those who are criminals, those who are simply bored and those who are simply excited who join up and do what they like. But given the list of protests that I have given, it is not possible to say that there is not a pattern of people who are tired of the status quo in England.

So let's look at what sparked this particular incident. We have a young man who was allegedly doing something that caught the attention of the local anti-crime unit. In whatever ensued, this young man, Mark Duggan was accused by police to have shot at them. They claimed that they fired in self defense. This is a typical NYPD move and it is not surprising that Cameron has been calling on an old NYPD chief for "help". It turns out that Duggan had not fired a shot. That doesn't mean that he didn't pull it out or point it at anyone, but we know that the initial statement by police was a flat out lie and therefore anything else that they have to say on the matter is suspect.

We know that the community, which according to one man, has the same "stop and frisk" policy as the NYPD, with no doubt the same record of stopping people who have done nothing wrong, never did anything wrong, and will never do anything wrong; had rallied at the police station asking for "justice". There was a scuffle when a young woman was trying to verbally confront a police officer and she was struck. At that point the "rioting" started.

Whatever you think about rioting the details here are important. If we simply isolate this incident, the police made a series of errors. First they confronted a man in a cab who was not leaving a scene of a crime or suspected of going to a scene of a planned crime (as far as we know). In other words, as far as we know the police had no business bothering Duggan at all. Secondly they shot him up. Thirdly when confronted with a clearly angry crowd they decided to manhandle a young woman. A total PR failure. At this point I really have no sympathy for the Tottenham police. As far as I'm concerned had the crowd burnt the police station to the ground I wouldn't have shed so much as a tear. Again, I am of the belief that when the police act in a criminal manner, they are no longer acting under the color of law and are no more protected than any other citizen.



We should not be surprised that a community that is resentful for being harassed by police who may feel that the recent austerity actions by the government says that they are not worth the effort, would decide to burn and loot. Not surprising at all. Now add to this the recent spate of protests due to the austerity programme then we should not be surprised by recent reports that many of the rioters and looters are not poor but are the same people that were seen in the first linked Reuters piece. Folks who are being shafted by the government. When the people see that the bankers who were engaged in RICO (US corrupt organizations) activities and were not held responsible, but the common man has to "tighten his belt" and has to pay to drive in certain parts of town and tighten their belt for the "good of England", will say,"Fuck it, I'm gonna take this TV." When the banks are bailed out but you and I have to see our retirement ages rise, the benefits drop and the cost of education skyrockets, then why would the people feel particularly bad about stealing a pair of trainers? When these politicians talk about "where are the parents?" Where we know they are ignoring the whites, lets answer that they are probably out working second and third jobs.

But I'm going to repeat what I've said to people many times over the years. You put these billboards up with the glamorous lifestyles and televisions commercials where the people who have something are the ones that are something. Don't be surprised when those who do not have the legal means to get that something to be somebody go about it the wrong way. Don't be surprised when the youth, who are not stupid, see the clear double standard and due to not having the same impulse control as their elders and who may be medicating their anger with drugs and alcohol, jump up and decide "fuck it" and make stupid decisions. I'm not condoning that kind of decision. I'm simply not surprised when the decision is made.

Lastly I would be remiss to point out the fact that the British government has made noise about Twitter, Facebook and RIM needing to be blocked or to block user access. The hypocrisy of such a move cannot be going unnoticed by various Arab (and other) regimes. What is also of great importance is how user information is being mined by the English government in such a manner as to show just how much of our so called "private" information is not really all that private particularly when that information is something the government wants or wants to suppress. But anyone who has been paying attention knows that England has been well along the path of government Surveillance of citizens so it's wish to blackout communication is not surprising.

In conclusion, I have to say that my sentiments run as the woman in the above video. Random acts of looting and burning never help a cause. It turns people against whatever legitimate gripes a group may have. And of course that is always the risk of violence, that those who are not really in for "the cause" move in for their own ends and are used by the media to portray the entire operation as lawless. Indeed had the protestors in other cities had kept their violence simply to police and other representations of government, that would have been a powerful message to the "leadership" that this is real business.

Watch The White Supremacy

From the NYT article on Watch The Throne:

Mr. West is expansive:

I’ll never let my son have an ego

He’ll be nice to everyone wherever we go

I mean, I might even make him be Republican

So everybody know he love white people

Let me say that if you're ballin' like Jay and Ye are supposedly ballin' why is it even important that white people love you? I mean I'd think with the bucks rollin' in, the investments made, that who likes who is simply not even on the radar. I guess they're really letting us know that they were truely "Niggas in Paris".

Steve Harvey is Wrong

Though I do not agree with everything that West and Smiley say, attempts by Harvey and his ilk to stifle debate by launching attacks upon Black authenticity of critics of Obama are much more revolting.

From Weblog of Dawud Walid

Eddie Griffin

Decline of the American Market

The LA Times published a report on companies increasing their investments overseas. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to annual (and quarterly) reports from various industries. Apple's profits now come from overseas more than the US market and is still growing. The Big Three automakers have been drawing profits from China for some time now. Matter of fact it may be opined that without the Chinese market GM et-al would have probably gone under a while ago.

The reason for all of this is clear. Capitalism. Capitalism has a rule: Grow or die. It's that simple. It's not merely profits. In corporate capitalism, one must grow a company in order for the shareholders to profit. If a company is stable, that is, it is not growing but is profitable in it's operations, the shareholders don't see any "return" on their investment and therefore don't make money. So a company must grow (increase profits). The two easiest ways to do so is to squeeze the cost of labour and to expand the market (sell more stuff). US capitalism has done the former by outsourcing as much as it can to low cost nations. Those are the ones where there are lax environmental laws, lax labour laws and a large population of desperate people for whom 5 bucks a day, if that, are princely sums. The problem with this procedure is that eventually every competing company has offshored and so the relative advantage of cheap labour disappears (race to the bottom phenomenon). Thus one is forced to option two: expand the market. Unfortunately the US (and much of western Europe) is what we call a saturated market. The consuming class (middle class) has the car, clothes, etc. already. They have brand loyalties. Except for break out items like the iPad and iPhone, there is little growth going on in these markets. So if you're looking to grow and return dividends to your shareholders what do you do?

Well right across the Pacific is this country with a middle class population that is as large as the entire population of the United States. Let me say that again: There is a country with a middle class population as large as the entire population of the United States. Oh, and that population is growing. There's another country on the Indian sub-continent with a huge population of bright people who are like this other country is growing it's middle class at a fast rate. If you are a company looking to grow and profit would you be looking to America or looking to these places. Don't think too hard now.

GM and BMW are in the process of making models of their vehicles specifically for the Chinese market. Buick is alive for the sole reason that the Chinese, for reasons I am yet to fathom, adore the brand. China has a number of Android phones and iPad knockoffs (among other things) that makes the American market the definition of an "not-free" market by comparison.

But back to the American market. Anyone who's been paying attention has seen the writing on the proverbial wall. Offshoring of manufacturing jobs coupled with the huge debts racked up by the "middle class" which represents the bulk of US GDP and the continued off-shoring of revenue to tax havens (legal tax evasion). As discussed earlier the race to the bottom is creeping into the middle class as occupations that require expensive college educations that commanded high 5 and 6 figure salaries can be (and are being) sent to anyone with a fast internet connection and a PC. They will gladly do for $20k, if that much, what you ask $100k for. You do the math. The S&P downgrade is really a reflection of the dire future of the American market. If there is going to be debt payment, much less growth, then there are structural issues that the US will have to deal with. Currently the US is a "first world" country with a "third world" economic mentality. A lot of the reaction coming out of Washington has been generally "we've always paid so what's the problem?" Well you know what I tried that on my auto insurance company. I told them that as long as I've been driving they haven't had to pay out a single cent so why hasn't my premium been going down? Well apparently I'm still "a risk". So the issue is not what I've been doing but what my alleged current situation says to them. The minute it was clear that a part of the US governing establishment would even consider not paying their international bills, that was all S&P needed to see. As a matter of fact I'm surprised that the other rating agencies haven't done the same. S&P is probably thinking that if by some chance the same folk who threatened default were to actually occupy the White House they may actually carry out such a plan. They also recognize the unwillingness of this government to tax the very people who have the means. It's all very bad. Line this up with BRIC and the increase talk of moving away from the US Dollar as the reserve currency there's not a lot of reasons for the ratings bodies to be confident.

So again, you're a company, the US market and finances are not looking very good, what do you do? 300 million middle class Chinese. Think about it. But don't think too hard.

""I ran that nigger over,"

Black Mascot for the Oligarchs

Mike Whitney in Counterpunch

Obama has been zeroing in on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from the very beginning. Why else would Wall Street throw their support behind a total "unknown"; a two year senator with no foreign policy experience and a background in community organizing. That's hardly the type of resume that makes one a shoo-in for Empire's top-spot. There must have been a quid pro quo, a tacit understanding that if Obama was elected, he'd carry out the corporate/Big Finance agenda. And, so he has.

A kinder, gentler way of saying the same thing?

The Deal

Last December I made it clear that I thought Obama had caved when he allowed Republicans to hold unemployment benefits extension hostage in order to protect the Bush era tax cuts. I reported on Obama's comments:

Last night "Angry Obama" made an appearance and scolded Democrats who have been crying foul over his capitulation to the Republicans over the Bush tax cuts. What caught my attention was his "hostage" analogy:

I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers, unless the hostages get harmed. Then people will question that strategy. In this case the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.

Let me also revisit my commentary on the science of "hostage taking":

During negotiations, the hostage taker may be "convinced" to make slight concessions such as freeing a hostage or two, but they do not EVER make concessions on their primary objective.

NEVER.

The proper hostage taker like any skilled negotiator knows what their objectives are and what they are willing to concede on in order to obtain that objective.

In this case the hostage takers represent the financed class (some of whom are not even citizens, but who's registered entities are subject to taxation). The finance interests in the US do not care about the hostages except for how they may be used for capital. They care about their long term interests: less taxes and access to government coffers.
They will gladly allow the unemployed to receive benefits because those benefits go directly to them on the form of debt payments. Seriously, unemployment benefits go to food, rent / mortgages and other non-discretionary expenditures.

Not only did the big money people get an extension of the Bush tax cuts, they got a reduction in the estate tax as well. They reduced payroll taxes as well, meaning that a country currently "at war" will be seeing less income to pay for it. I don't suppose that the defense contractors will be reducing their prices to the government to reflect this. Back to the hostage scenario though.

Now returning to this new, yet to be voted on deal:

White House officials confirmed that there would not be an extension of unemployment benefits as part of the final package. The administration had insisted that an extension be part of the grand bargain it was negotiating with Boehner. But when those discussions fell apart, so too did efforts to ensure that unemployment insurance was part of a final package. A senior administration aide added that the president would push for an extension in the months, if not weeks, ahead.

Note that unlike last time, unemployment benefits, that were held hostage last time, did not make the cut. What is the president going to do? Exactly what he should have done back in December. Introduce an extension later as a separate piece of legislation as to separate it out from the budget "negotiations". Had he done this back in December it is likely that the Bush tax cuts would have been history by now and the budget issue as we know it would be completely different given the amount of the deficit that is due to those cuts.

The Huffington Post article says:

Some observers scored one victory for the president -- the second round of cuts do not kick in until 2013, when the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire. Having a fresh round of deficit reduction that is all cuts with no revenues could give the White House ammunition to end the tax cuts on wealthier Americans, as it failed to do last winter.

So then they will be right back in the same position in 2013. Are we to believe that 3rd time is the charm?

Also written by the Huffington Post:

Liberals were extremely displeased with the final result of the talks, which began with Democrats saying there should be no strings attached to a debt limit increase that would enable the country pay its bills.

Then they insisted that if deficit reduction was going to be linked to the debt limit, then closing loopholes and raising taxes on the rich had to be part of the deal.

They lost completely on both counts, and House Republicans managed to pull the entire deal further and further to the right, even inserting a requirement into the agreement for a vote on a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

So the least vulnerable population in the US continue to be protected? Their stocks and hedge funds that are in dollar denominations stay at value. A "good" deal indeed. There are people who will object to this analysis because for them the whole "debt ceiling" thing has been resolved. What they fail to understand is that the "debt ceiling thing" ought never have been on the table. As explained above it was simply the gun to the nation's head to get a particular objective through.

Why So Quiet?

I'm on vacation. Be back in August.

So This Mean's What?

I saw the news last night. Headlining was a grading scandal in the Atlanta School District:

Three years later, the answers to those questions made national news, with Tuesday’s revelation that a state-commissioned investigation found rampant, systemwide cheating in 44 Atlanta public schools, with 178 teachers and principals routinely erasing incorrect answers on standardized tests and replacing them with correct ones. The cheating inflated the scores of thousands of students, giving the false impression of their -- and Atlanta's -- success.

You know what? The teaching profession is largely female. Women make up the vast majority of teaching staff and there is absolutely no doubt that they played a significant role in this scandal. So I'm wondering how many opinion pieces will be on the news and blogs about "what's wrong with women". Anthony Weiner's personal behavior which hurt nobody except perhaps his wife, was a source of all manner of entertainment as people talked about how men are so corrupt and such. And This Week with Christiane Amanpour even had a panel of women who claimed, with straight faces, how women were better than men because they did not "compete","dominate" or other bullshit. So I'm just wondering when the panel of men are going to be invited to shit on women by using the examples of these teachers. I'm waiting for them to show that more men ought to be teaching since clearly these women are failing our students (when they are not seducing them..another never spoken of trespass).

I'm certain that the following:

Mirroring complaints that Vogell and her colleague Alan Judd had been hearing from the city’s teachers, the state investigation found a culture of intimidation and humiliation under the helm of marathon (now retired) schools chief Beverly Hall

will be placed entirely on the shoulder of some man, any man, somewhere who made Ms. Hall be "intimidating" and "humiliating" 'cause you know, women can't be like that.

From Huffington Post

Frank RIch can Say it But Cornel West Can't?

he is an elitist of a certain sort. For all the lurid fantasies of the birthers, the dirty secret of Obama’s background is that the values of Harvard, not of Kenya or Indonesia or Bill Ayers, have most colored his governing style. He falls hard for the best and the brightest white guys.

New York Magazine