Public Pension Nonsense

A couple of messages to the “capitalists” and “Law & Order” types out there: 1)entities need to honor contracts as agreed to & 2)it’s not the workers’ fault that politicians promise the moon without intent to deliver.

Public pensions were part of contracts that parties negotiated and signed in good faith in the past.  After American citizens worked in their careers for 30, 40 years and in some cases beyond in jobs that private sector folks chose not to pursue because there is no glory or fortunes in them, public sector workers deserve their earned and due benefits.

Meanwhile, private corporations off-loaded their pension plans by privatizing them and putting their management in the hands of respective workers.  You know, the “personal responsibility” and “freedom” mentality at work.  Wall St. turned itself into the biggest group of casinos in the world, betting on those privatized accounts (as well as others) while its lobbyists successfully deregulated the financial markets.  The result?  The 2007 financial collapse and subsequent economic disaster that has unfolded.

Also during this time period, one of the puppets of crony capitalists, Grover Norquist, successfully led a national campaign to ensure politicians cut taxes on the richest Americans.  As a result, local, state, and national governments find themselves in nearly perpetual debt.  Now, crony capitalist supporters are criticizing public workers (in just one more way) for their foresight to secure a solid retirement.  The capitalists’ method didn’t work out so well and the socialists’ were more successful (not completely, obviously).  Again, entities need to execute signed contracts in good faith – public workers more than deserve their pensions (they held up their end of the bargain for decades), they deserve the respect of the rest of us for their choice in life path and adherence to the rules during their careers.  Critics with sour grapes don’t have a legitimate complaint against those workers.

This is just a small part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  While financial titans have seen their tax rates decimated and their bonuses skyrocket, often at the expense of workers’ jobs by the way, public sector employees have continued to earn less in salary per year than their private sector counterparts for similar work.  It’s a classic example of the 99% vs. the 1%.  Polarizing rhetoric of the past 30 years continues: private sector workers are turning their ire from being duped and taken for the ride their lives on those same public sector workers instead of the 1% who engineered the entire situation.

If they fight among themselves, workers can’t and won’t hold the 1% accountable for their actions.  So much for “Law and Order”, personal responsibility and responsible capitalism.

Democratic Machine Wants The Occupy Movement

And that includes President Obama and his advisers, by the way.  Obama’s team is planning on challenging Mitt Romney as being too closely associated with those who every day exert more control over the people’s government.  Really?  That’s Rovian in nature: attack your opponent where you’re weakest.  Obama flooded his economic team with former Wall Streeters once he took office.  The people who have PhD’s on topics like the Great Depression (which we’re still flirting with)?  They left the White House because their voices were being kept from the President.  You need only look at our pathetic economic “recovery” and dismal employment opportunities to see how well that has worked out.

While Team Obama and the Democratic Party establishment might be working overtime trying to figure out how best to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement for their purposes, this demonstrates how tone deaf the President is:

But Obama also defended his support for bailing out distressed banks after the 2008 financial crisis, saying he “used up a lot of political capital, and I’ve got the dings and bruises to prove it, in order to make sure that we prevented a financial meltdown and that banks stayed afloat.”

Wow.  The President wants us all to feel very very sorry for his trials and tribulations “us[ing] up a lot of political capital”.  Yeah, the banks stayed afloat.  Better than that, they’re bigger today than they were in 2008.  They’re imposing new fees on the 99% and continuing to post record profits.  I’m so glad the President used up so much of his political capital to ensure continued abuses on the lower and middle classes.  I totally remember voting for that kind of change.

Millions of foreclosures in the past 3 years.  Millions more unemployed.  Trillions in taxpayer dollars given away for free to the banks.  Billions in bonuses paid to uncharged criminals who should be doing hard time.

Be careful, Team Obama.  I don’t think the Occupy-ers are stupid enough to fall for the same gimmickry they’ve been abused with in the past again.  Your hypocrisy and lack of principle have been on display.  Talking a harsher game doesn’t employ millions of Americans or put them back in their homes.  We didn’t get real change after 2008.  The ante has been upped.  This isn’t the hand where you bluff in return.

Be careful, Occupy-ers.   Do not let the Democratic establishment get their hands on the controls behind the movement.  They want to defang you and keep their favored elites in place.

But Obama also defended his support for bailing out distressed banks after the 2008 financial crisis, saying he “used up a lot of political capital, and I’ve got the dings and bruises to prove it, in order to make sure that we prevented a financial meltdown and that banks stayed afloat.”

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!