Saturday Morning Copy-and-Paste

by on February 12, 2011
Posted In: politics

From Bob Herbert:

The poor, who are suffering from an all-out depression, are never heard from. In terms of their clout, they might as well not exist. The Obama forces reportedly want to raise a billion dollars or more for the president’s re-election bid. Politicians in search of that kind of cash won’t be talking much about the wants and needs of the poor. They’ll be genuflecting before the very rich.

Perhaps we should take some cues from not only the Egyptians, but the British — demand corporations pay their taxes:

nstead of the fake populism of the Tea Party, there is a movement based on real populism. It shows that there is an alternative to making the poor and the middle class pay for a crisis caused by the rich. It shifts the national conversation. Instead of letting the government cut our services and increase our taxes, the people demand that it cut the endless and lavish aid for the rich and make them pay the massive sums they dodge in taxes.

This may sound like a fantasy—but it has all happened. The name of this parallel universe is Britain. As recently as this past fall, people here were asking the same questions liberal Americans have been glumly contemplating: Why is everyone being so passive? Why are we letting ourselves be ripped off? Why are people staying in their homes watching their flat-screens while our politicians strip away services so they can fatten the superrich even more?

Well, it’s a start. I might go a step further and begin seizing corporate assets and breaking up monopolies and reducing the global imprint of corporations altogether. These things take time.

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Ask Not

by on February 8, 2011
Posted In: cartoons, politics

So the president went to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and asked the nation’s CEOs to give a shit about someone other than themselves. He promised them he will work on that pesky tax code (the one with the loopholes they exploit? That one.) He said he’d go after “unnecessary and outdated regulations” — whatever that means. In return, all he wants them to do is just, ya know, hire a few people before election day 2012. He even pulled a Kennedy:

“As we work with you to make America a better place to do business, ask yourselves what you can do for America. Ask yourselves what you can do to hire American workers, to support the American economy, and to invest in this nation.”

So. How did that go over? Are America’s business leaders suddenly awakened to the civic virtues of an employed and stable working class? Let’s see what this capitalist bastard says:

“Bottom line, the most patriotic thing a company can do is ensure it is in business and take steps to stay in business; otherwise everyone loses and more people lose their jobs,” [Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s chief lobbyist] said.

Read: We’ll look after our profits. Screw you.

Shocking. I am shocked. I can’t believe rich people don’t give a fuck about the working class. I mean, who knew? They’ve been so generous in the past. Why, if it weren’t for capitalism, we’d have no middle class at all to worry about as it’s bled slowly to death by globalization, the demonization of unions, the raiding of pension funds, the predations of credit card companies, the gutting of social services, the abandonment of education, the extortionist costs of secondary education, the hundreds of billions spent on resource wars, deficit hawkism, privatization of every public good….

I could go on, but what a downer. There is a silver lining, after all — Arianna Huffington might be hiring. I hear she pays nothing.

Anyway, here’s a cartoon I once did on Obama’s relationships with capitalists and workers. Enjoy.

“Lossy Compensation” In Contempt 4/7/2009
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And Now the Socialist Caliphate

by on February 3, 2011
Posted In: politics

Remember when right wing fools were trying to give George W. Bush all the credit for democracy movements rising up in the Middle East? Those were the days.

Seriously, this kills me. At least with the “Bush Was Right” meme, there was an underlying agreement that people demanding freedom and democracy in the Middle East was a good thing. But now we can’t even agree upon the fundamental reality that the vast majority of Egyptians are demanding an open, free and democratic government. Now we have the Neo-Birchers — the Glenn Becks, the Sean Hannities, the Frank Gaffneys — insisting that they are dupes of a worldwide conspiracy to impose a socialist caliphate. Not only in the Middle East, but with Muslim Brotherhood affiliates waiting to wreak havoc in Britain and the U.S., egged on by the socialist agenda of the Obama White House.*

What the hell? I understand disagreements about abortion, about global warming, even about evolution — but about this? It’s disgusting. Shameless. The craven authoritarianism and insipid racism underlying this disinformation utterly appalls me.

So does this cartoon. Thanks for spreading Mubarak propaganda, Bob.

*Meanwhile Omar Suleiman, current vice president and former go-to guy for extraordinary rendition and torture, appears on Egyptian state television blaming all thee unrest on meddlers with “foreign agendas.” That pretty much puts him and Beck on the same page.

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