Analysis of Occupy Groups Plain Wrong

I’ve heard a lot and read a little about the Occupy Wall Street groups that obviously started in New York City but have quickly spread to metropolitan areas across the U.S. since September.  A couple of things I read today warrant a small piece of my attention away from more homework than I know what to do about.

First up: Paul West’s “Is Occupy Wall Street a Tea Party for Democrats?“, which can be marked up as another sad example of crappy journalism in today’s corporate media dominated world.

Distinctions are drawn by liberals between the origins of the anti-Wall Street drive, which they say is more spontaneous and authentic than a Tea Party movement boosted into existence by Fox News, a favored news source for conservatives. Another difference: Tea Party followers were focused on one issue — cutting government spending — while Occupy Wall Street is amorphous in its aims.

Beyond that, there are broad similarities. Both movements are decentralized and nonhierarchical, driven largely by an alienated and outraged citizenry that favors the same two-word phrase: fed up.

It’s painful when these journalists parrots cannot distinguish between corporate astroturf groups (Tebaggers – they haven’t formally formed a party like the Greens) and organic groups (Occupy Wall Street).

It’s even more painful when their messages are purposefully misscharacterized.  Where were the Teabaggers when the Bush Regime was spending Trillions of taxpayer dollars and blowing up the debt and the deficit?  They were cheering the Regime on, saying spending wasn’t fast enough.  Why did they choose 2009 to start wailing about the spending they used to support?  Because there is a Black Man in the White House.  I call shenanigans.

The Teabaggers’ assault on the political scene in 2009 was orchestrated and paid for by the same ultra-wealthy entities that Occupy Wall Street is protesting.  It was anything but decentralized and non-hierarchical.  What happened when reporters tried talking to the Teabaggers at the beginning?  Amorphous and ridiculous commentary was offered.  The organizers quickly picked up on this and ensured their well-trained communications liaisons were the only ones talking to the corporate media.  There is no way that any disparate group of individuals getting together are well organized when they first form.  Occupy Wall Streeters prove that; the Teabaggers also prove that.

The Teabaggers are mostly right-wing extremists who should feel alienated – all extremists should.  The Occupy Wall Streeters are a much more diverse group who have rightful grievances against a government that is increasingly under corporate dominance.

Next up: an extremist extraordinaire, Jon Caldara, who offered up this nonsense that a different parrot dutifully made into “news”: “‘They wish (for) European-style socialism,’ he said.  ‘It’s not corporate welfare they hate.  They hate that it’s not all going to their causes.  When they want to end all corporate welfare, I’ll douse myself with patchouli oil and join them.’”

Always available for jack-assery, aren’t you Jon?  When the wealthiest 1% control over 50% of the wealth; when real take home income hasn’t changed for the bottom 99% since 1979 while it’s 240% higher for the 1%; when U.S. and foreign banks are loaned Trillions of dollars while millions of Americans lose their hard-earned jobs and homes, people in the 99% are eventually going to show how upset they are.  It has nothing to do with Jon’s obsession with European socialism.

When Jon and other “free-marketeers” stop free-loading off of the socialist infrastructure this country and its citizens built and operate for them on a daily basis (roads, water, air, police, fire, radio, on and on and on), then they should be quoted in the media.  The ridiculousness of quoting somebody who willfully refuses to live up to his own ideals is pathetic.

Keep going, Occupy Wall Street!

Colorado News Stories: Connecting Some Dots

Today was another day in which a number of news articles caught my eye.  They warrant additional context, especially the connections between some of them.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been working behind the scenes to talk with what the corporate media likes to term “centrist”/”moderate” Democratic Senators regarding health care.  He will continue to try to convince CorporateDems to vote to allow debate on the Senate health bill.  What’s the center position between corporatist lackeys and principled public servants anyway?  Another very popular Washington buzzterm came into play: Salazar is involved because he was involved in several bipartisan agreements while a Senator.  He was at the forefront of what I term the Gaggle of Gangs in the Senate – joining with other “centrists” to keep the filibuster around but ensure Democrats wouldn’t use it while in the minority.  Which is part of the reason why Salazar is being sent back to work on his former colleagues: the Cons are threatening to filibuster the health bill (though Democrats won’t actually force them to carry one out) and -gasp- Democrats might join them.  That’s the answer to “How did that bipartisanship end up working out”.  Whatever happened to the Cons’ “Upper-down-vote!” they couldn’t get enough of?  One person of concern is Sen. Lieberman, the man who campaigned for Sen. John McCain in last year’s presidential election and is doing everything he can to keep himself in the news this year.  Salazar was “mentored” by Lieberman when he joined the Senate, so I’m sure Lieberman can be convinced to play nice – aren’t you?  Oh, and after watering down the bill with nonsense to appease “centrist” Republicans, where are their votes to move to debate?  MIA?  Why did we negotiate with them exactly?  They’re not going to vote for the final bill.

Metro Area Mayors Back Plan to Save FasTracks

When I wrote about FasTracks’ financial difficulties last week, I wasn’t expecting the story to stay in the headlines the way it has. I suppose it was inevitable: a $2.2 billion shortfall is nothing to sneeze at and something has to be done sooner rather than later if the entire project is to continue as originally envisioned.

Today’s Denver Post has the latest: the Metro Mayors Caucus met yesterday and decided to back a plan to put a 0.4% sales tax request on this November’s ballot.

The longer this story goes, the more parallels to similar stories become apparent.

First, here are the facts from the Post story. A majority of the Metro Mayors Caucus voted to ask voters this year for a second 0.4% sales tax increase in order to make up for the shortfall that is the result of bad economic forecasts and even worse economic conditions.

The commitment from the Metro Mayors Caucus is perceived as necessary so RTD can present a unified position to the federal government when they seek additional funds to help pay for the project. Without that commitment, those funds could be shifted elsewhere and FasTracks would have more financial distress. The mayors’ acted yesterday because they want to see the entire project finished by 2017.

A large, looming question is whether such a sales tax could pass in this economic environment. To that, I’ve answered that if a campaign is properly run (a big if, I know), I think voters will continue their support of the project. An easy point to make is that if the tax isn’t passed, a number of transit lines won’t be finished until 2034, if at all: 3 FasTracks lines would be finished by 2017 and the remainder might be started afterward.

Here is a second easy point to make: another option is to shorten all the lines. That makes no sense either. Why would a line go to Stapleton and not DIA? Why would a line go to Westminster and not Boulder? I think those arguments could be presented in such a way that a majority of voters would see the imperative of finishing FasTracks as it was originally proposed.

Okay, onto the part of the article that I was fully expecting to read.

The prospect of a vote reinvigorated FasTracks opponents.

Independence Institute president Jon Caldara, a longtime critic, said backing another tax increase would “reward RTD for lying to us and deceiving us” before the 2004 vote on the original FasTracks tax.

I will mince no words: Jon Caldara is one of the most disingenuous pundits out there. Caldara lies and makes stuff up every chance he gets as long as it advances his ideology. Caldara issues a number of lies here. Backing another increase would in no way reward RTD for anything approaching lies. RTD relied on a variety of economic forecasts when they were drawing up the plans for FasTracks.

While I might agree with Caldara that the economic forecasts were probably too rosy, Caldara fails to call out the correct culprit. Caldara perpetrates what I’ve come to call the Economists’ Infallibility Syndrome. People suffering from this syndrome find themselves unable to hold economists accountable for their forecasts. They instead direct their energy to non-responsible parties when those forecasts bust. In Caldara’s case, he attacks the only thing his extremist ideology allows him to attack: any entity that receives tax dollars. In Caldara’s warped worldview, RTD apparently knew this recession was going to happen and decided to try to bilk the taxpayers anyway. It makes for a cute bumper sticker, Jon, but it doesn’t work in the real world.

This misguided criticism reminds me of the Jon Stewart – Jim Cramer story (which I totally love, btw).  Cramer, just like Caldara, has totally missed the point of Jon’s original piece.  The vast majority of players in the financial industry didn’t have any idea that their sector was about to crater.  Some of us argue that they should have.  More of us are arguing that given their horrible track record, little confidence can now be placed in their opinions today.

The article does contain a worthy response, the first part of which did not appear in the print version of the Post:

In response, RTD spokesman Scott Reed said, “Jon is concocting a statewide conspiracy that would have included the Office of State Planning and Budgeting, the Colorado Legislative Council, the Denver Regional Council of Governments and two different highly-respected financial firms.”

“All of the RTD estimates were based upon their collective work,” Reed said. “The financial plans were public and there was no upside for RTD to over-estimate finances or low-ball costs.”

Whether it’s RTD or climate change, Jon Caldara and his ilk are fond of concocting grand conspiracies which could not and cannot possibly exist. The obvious question is why the Denver Post continues to use nut cases for quotes and present them to the public as serious people. Such is the extent of the mis-named “Independence Institute”. Independence from rational thought, perhaps, but nothing more.

So to sum up, I’m glad the Metro Mayors Caucus has decided on a course of action. The next step is for the RTD board of directors to approve a tax increase ballot measure. In the meantime, there is no time to waste working to build support for such a request. The sooner the public is educated, the more likely I think the increase will be approved. Support must start high now because we know it will taper off as election day draws near.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Global Warming: Disinformation; Poznan; 2008 (so far); Energy Security; European Plan

Jon Caldara (Independence Institute) let James Taylor (Heartland Institute)  spout off global warming disinformation on his show last week.  That’s what passes for proof in Con circles: let each other get away with lies on the media you control and label the results as valid.  When Taylor tells audiences that persons listed on the Oregon Petition have demanded they be taken off (which hasn’t happened, to my knowledge), he can cite the remainder of the delayers as he chooses.  Until then, Caldara and Taylor are charlatans.

As of yesterday, talks were very much behind schedule at Poznan, Poland.  The meeting is supposed to help tame the path toward a Kyoto Protocol upgrade, which many want negotiated at the end of next year (Kyoto expires in 2012).  The rest of the world is still struggling to deal with the inaction of the U.S. under George Bush and the Cons.  Jan. 20th can’t come soon enough.

Global temperatures in 2008 (through November) continued to be high.  Even with a stubborn La Nina working to cool things off for more than 2 years, the 2000s look to be on track to be the warmest decade in human recorded history.  That has real effects on the globe, none of which I would consider good.

The Center for American Progress has released an energy security framework paper.  Highly recommended.

Europeans are thinking of building an incredible renewable energy network.  TREC would combine solar power in north Africa with wind power from the Eastern Mediterranean to the North Sea, bio-mass, and hydropower with a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) system of power lines to provide assured renewable electricity for the Mediterranean basin and Europe.  A massive undertaking?  Yes.  But it’s doable and it might be absolutely necessary.  Oh, north Africans and Middle Easterners would benefit by getting clean, fresh water out of the project, which would undoubtedly improve the geopolitical tensions of the region.