Wednesday, September 23, 2009

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Allen Schoer: Are All Bosses Delusional? Top
Why do so many bosses think everyone's happy just to have a job, when more than half of the country's workers are dissatisfied and nearly 20 percent are plotting to take their skills somewhere else? A recent USA Today article reported this disturbing disconnect. It highlights what I call the "Ostrich Syndrome." Tragically, this misalignment between workers and management could imperil the recovery of many companies. The article quoted a Monster.com survey which found that more than eight of 10 employers say their workers are "just happy to have a job." Actually, only half of their employees feel that way. Even in the current market a SnagAJob survey says nearly 20 percent of employees are thinking about changing companies in the coming year. So what's going on? Why are employers so complacent when many of their people are so unhappy that they're thinking of jumping ship? On what are those employers basing such powerful -- and delusional -- assumptions? Here's my take. Often it's a combination of laziness and fear. Assumptions about what others think are not truly examined. It's easier to keep treating employees as things rather than people. And finding out how employees really feel is risky. If companies don't take action now then their sharper competitors -- globally -- will scoop up the talent. And let's not delude ourselves. More cash is not always the answer. Some experts say money is often the last reason motivating people's move. Employees need to know they're being heard, that they're having an impact, and that they're being treated with respect. So if you're one those CEOs who's just realized you're a victim of the "Ostrich Syndrome," here's what you must do right now. First, take a good look at yourself and your assumptions. Challenge the idea that everyone working for you is simply "happy to have a job." Second, commit to creating new relationships with your employees that develop their skills, talents and resources. Ask real questions to real people. Walk the floor. Hold town halls. Don't leave it to your HR team. Take the lead yourself. Dialogue builds trust. And believe me, the employees will be thrilled that you -- not a department head or one of your managers -- actually care enough to ask them yourself. Find out their values and principles. Ask how they're doing in these tough times, and what they need from you. Encourage them to reconnect with why they're working for you and what they bring to the business. Ask them about their deeper motivations. Find out what they want to create and the impact they'd like to have. You'll learn what they need in order to stay and how they think they can contribute more to the business. Dig deeper. Ask for stories about the company and where they see it heading. Prompt them to see themselves at the center of the business. Commit to making this an ongoing conversation. It must become part of your firm's DNA. This will reduce the risk of your best talent walking out the door. This process can at times feel overwhelming and you'll certainly get answers you don't like hearing. But if you invest your time and energy, you'll be rewarded with committed, creative employees. While it won't cost you a penny of your precious cash flow, I guarantee you'll be rewarded with a dramatically more robust culture. You'll see increased alignment across the business, greater collaboration and employees taking ownership of their work. Most important of all, productivity and profitability will benefit. You can't afford to rest on your assumptions. Take your head out of the sand now. Allen Schoer is the CEO of The TAI Group, an international leadership and organizational change consulting firm based in New York City. More on CEOs
 
Lloyd Chapman: Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith Wants Big Businesses to Get Federal Small Business Funds Top
Huntsville Alabama Congressman Parker Griffith (D - AL5) has introduced a new bill in the House of Representatives that will allow divisions of Fortune 500 firms and thousands of other large businesses to receive billions of dollars in federal contracts earmarked for small businesses. Several Fortune 500 firms in Congressman Griffith's district such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman and British Aerospace (BAE) are currently receiving millions of dollars in federal small business contracts through loopholes in federal contracting law. If H.R. 3558 becomes law, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE and their subsidiaries could continue to receive federal small business contracts indefinitely. Boeing and Northrop Grumman are amongst Congressman Griffith's largest campaign contributors. ( http://tiny.cc/JWuUg ) Currently, there are 5,126 small businesses registered to do business with the federal government in the State of Alabama, according to the Central Contractor Registration database. If H.R. 3558 is passed and signed into law, more than 99 percent of the small businesses in Alabama would be put at a significant competitive disadvantage. In 2005, the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General (SBA IG) referred to the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants as, "One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration and the entire Federal government today." ( http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf ) Since 2003, over a dozen federal investigations have found that Fortune 500 firms in the United States and some of the largest firms in Korea, Italy, Holland, France and England have received billions of dollars in federal small business contracts. Another bill that has been introduced in the House of Representatives, "the Fairness and Transparency in Contracting Act of 2009," or H.R. 2568, is designed to close all of the loopholes, and halt the flow of federal small business contracts to large businesses. H.R. 2568 was introduced by Congressman Hank Johnson (D - GA) and has 15 co-sponsors. Congressman Johnson's bill is backed by small business groups and chambers of commerce across the country. Research by the American Small Business League (ASBL) estimates that legitimate small businesses are losing over $100 billion a year in federal small business contracts through various loopholes in federal contracting law and policy. ASBL estimates that if H.R. 2568 becomes law, over $100 billion a year in federal small business contracts will be redirected to middle class firms nationwide. If Congressman Griffith's bill, H.R. 3558, becomes law billions of dollars in federal small business contracts will continue to be diverted to corporate giants. -###- Please click here to watch a short clip about the ASBL's concerns regarding H.R. 3558: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbGwwEaEGSM More on Barack Obama
 
Carl Pope: Is Copenhagen Headed for the Rocks? Top
New York, NY -- President Obama's speech to the UN yesterday made it clear that the United States is emerging as the biggest obstacle to a successful climate summit in Copenhagen. The speech repeated the President's previous policy commitments but failed to call on Congress to make a decisive break with the energy policies of the past. The President did not address the chasm between what the U.S. has offered to date and what the science -- and the world -- are asking us to do. Reading between the lines, it's clear that the President wants to do more, but that he's not yet ready to make a decisive move and throw his political capital into the game. Saying, "One committee has already acted on this bill in the Senate and I look forward to engaging with others as we move forward" is not the kind of signal that will light a fire under the obstructionists. You can blame the politics of the Congress for part of the failure. A firm commitment to reduce U.S. greenhouse pollution by 2 billion tons by 2020 (which is what we really need) simply doesn't have 60 votes in the Senate, and President Obama is determined not to take to Copenhagen any steps than are bolder than Congress will back. But what's more disappointing is the administration's failure thus far to even acknowledge (much less ask Congress for) the kind of funding that will be needed to put the developing world on a low-carbon pathway. When it came to that topic, the President spoke in generalities: "That is why we have a responsibility to provide the financial and technical assistance needed to help these nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and pursue low-carbon development." But Todd Stern, the administration's chief climate negotiator, has been more specific -- repeatedly refusing to join the European Union in making financial commitments to create capital for low-carbon development in the Third World. Perhaps partly as a result, Europe, in the run-up to the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, cut way back on its earlier offer of  $19 to 35 billion, aiming instead at a range of $3 to 25 billion. Unfortunately, the estimates of what will be needed range from $100 billion to $500 billion. The industrial world keeps talking about this as if it were a form of foreign aid, on which we could decide to be less generous because of our economic crisis. But, in reality, we're dumping our CO2 pollution into the skies, the oceans, the forests and soils of other countries -- and just as you would have to pay me if you wanted to use my property to dump your garbage, the coal and oil companies should have to pay the rest of the world for the carbon sinks they are taking (as well as the crops they are risking, the rise in sea level they're causing, and so on). Meanwhile, other nations are stepping up the plate. The Japanese government announced a much bolder commitment to reduce its emissions by 25 percent ; India has committed itself for the first time to emission limits, and China has announced its own emission trading system. Increasingly, it looks like if the Copenhagen summit runs aground, Washington will be to blame. More on Barack Obama
 
Judy Licht: Intents: A Look Back - These Are a Few of My Favorite Things Top
Upon looking back, I realize it's one thing to cover Fashion Week. It's quite another to covet the clothes. After 7 straight days of attempted objectivity, trying to make sense of the emerging images, ideas, trends and designers, there's always this little voice in the back of my head imploring, "Yes, but what about me? What, in all this, do I have to have? Or what, at least, if I could afford it, would I desperately want?" People always ask me what my favorite shows were. The truth is, sometimes I will love a show, but more than that?, I would adore having certain items in that show. So here's my list of all that I covet from the Spring 2009 shows and why: Every single thing in Ralph Rucci's show, as always. Not only is he America's only couturier, a successor to Jimmy Galanos, but everything he makes is timeless, elegant and a true work of art. If I could afford it, I would only wear Ralph Rucci and Michael Kors. This year, his show was lighter, younger and even more beautiful than ever, if that's possible. Forgive me for gushing. Ikram Goldman should dress our First Lady in his clothes. Michael Kors slashed a little here, deconstructed a little there and actually showed pastels for the first time in memory. But he still turned in his beautiful feminine clothes with just enough edge to keep everyone on their toes. The man can do no wrong - I wanted it all. His main accessory was a necklace made of gumball-sized Plexiglas beads, created by one of my favorite jewelry designers, Alexis Bittar. His work in resin, gold, silver and now gemstones, has garnered him kudos and awards. He doesn't create costume jewelry; his pieces are affordable, original luxury...which brings me to my next most covetable accessories.... Kara by Kara Ross . For several years, Kara Ross has been creating showstopping fine jewelry and handbags at heart-stopping prices. But now Kara has come up with a line of affordable jewelry called Kara by Kara Ross. These whimsical, delicious and totally original pieces include starfish cuffs, vintage knot jewelry and deconstructed timepiece chain necklaces. All brilliant. Derek Lam's navy crepe blouses (which would look smashing with Kara's vintage knot necklace). The classic simplicity of his line was a joy to watch AND covet. Other favorites... Everything Donna Karan ever drapes, I want. This season's ode to the elements was a knockout..... Thakoon ! How I love his subtlety and craft. His simple shapes are intensely modern and classic at once...Mark and James, as in Badgley Mischka , turned out one of their best shows. The glitz was still there, but toned down. And the clothes, both day and evening, were perfectly exquisite...Francisco Costa's floating cotton candy coats and dresses for Calvin Klein , which looked as comfortable as they were dreamingly beautiful... Jason Wu , the new Oscar de la Renta. Perfect for the younger ladies who lunch, and do just about everything else... the dazzling brights in bold sportswear shapes by Rachel Roy , whose talent grows every season...And for pure, punchy, all-American fun, NO ONE beats our own hometown hero, Isaac Mizrahi . He not only puts on a great show, but he puts together great clothes. This year, very much inspired by 40s and 50s greats. Now understand, there really is a class, or caste system at Fashion Week. It's a clubby, unspoken snobbism about something that dare not speak its name. O.K., I give up, I'll speak it: COMMERCIAL. Anyone considered too commercial is usually passed over by the Fashion Nuns, the editor ladies in black. That is, unless they buy tons of advertising in the nun's own magazines. These nuns make sure to uphold the true religion that is fashion. In reality, there are any number of houses that make great, wearable, pretty clothes. Diane von Furstenberg and Tory Burch made wonderful day and cocktail clothes. And, for all-out evening glamour, Carmen Marc Valvo makes some of the most beautiful, wearable evening wear on the planet. I would love pieces from all their collections, this season and every season. And so, I can dream. As the action, for now, passes on to Europe, I mull over my loves. In fact, going to the shows season after season resembles nothing more than going to your first high school dance...so much you desire, yet so little you can actually have. More on Fashion Week
 
Morra Aarons-Mele: Women, Men, and Happiness: We're All in Transition Top
We're all talking about the Huffington Post column in which Marcus Buckingham dropped two pieces of disheartening news: "a) women are less happy than they were 40 years ago, compared with men, and b) as women get older, they get sadder." Using data over time from the General Social Survey as well as five other international studies, the study Buckingham cites, by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, indicates that women's subjective happiness is lessening as men's happiness is increasing. In a New York Times column responding to Buckingham's piece, Maureen Dowd asks, "the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?" It is tempting to interpret Stevenson and Wolfers' data as fodder for the popular argument that feminism and the Women's Movement of the 1960s and 1970s somehow betrayed today's women. But when we look at 30 years of workforce data, we see gender roles are still truly in transition, and more so, it seems, with each passing year. This transition breeds disequilibrium as women gain more responsibility to contribute to family income while retaining the major share of family work responsibilities. Men are changing too, and reporting their fair share of stress. Like most things, the picture is complex. Looking at the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce , an ongoing nationally representative study of over 2800 wage and salaried employees in the United States, Families and Work Institute (FWI) has conducted in 1992, 1997, 2002, and 2008, and which began in 1977 with a Department of Labor study, several important data points stand out. For the first time since 1992, young women and young men (age 29 and under) don't differ in their desire for jobs with more responsibility. What's more, there is no difference between young women with and without children in their desire for more job responsibility. Families are also under greater economic pressure, but women have played an increasingly important role in addressing--and for many families--easing this pressure. Women are now in the workforce in virtually equal numbers as men, a trend bolstered by the current recession that has cost more men their jobs than women. Four out of five couples are dual-earner couples today, and women in dual-earner couples contribute about 44% of the family income on average, up from 39% in 1977. In fact, one in four women (26%) now earn 10% or more than their husbands, up from 15% in 1997. The average hours worked per week in all jobs has increased for women, but not for men. Women worked significantly more hours in 2008 than in 1977 (40 hours and 43 hours, respectively) -- while the average work hours per week in all jobs has not changed significantly for men (48 hours in both years). In his piece, Buckingham cites FWI data , noting "men's work-life conflict has increased significantly from 34% in 1977 to 45% in 2008, while women's work-life conflict has risen less dramatically and not significantly from 34% to 39%." And as we just reported in the State of Health in the American Workforce, employees who report some or a lot of work-life conflict are less likely to experience positive health and well-being outcomes. This certainly adds to unhappiness. Gender roles at home are changing too--over the past three decades, mom's time with children under 13 has remained the same -- 3.8 hours on work days, while dad's time has increased from 2 hours to 3 hours. However, as Joan Williams points out on this site, married women still do much more housework than men do (17 hours a week, compared with men's 13, according to a University of Michigan study .) But here, too there is major change; the average married man only did 6 hours in 1976. Since 1992, the number of men who take as much or more responsibility for children has risen 10% and that's according to women (from 21% to 31%)! As we see, data from just the past decade tell the story of of a transition into new gender roles for both men and women. Even as women gain more responsibility at work, their responsibilities at home remain significant. The strong increase in men's self-reported work-life conflict speaks volumes about the huge role shift men are undergoing: from sole breadwinners with little responsibility for child rearing, to dual-earners who are and want to be more involved in family life. The huge societal shift brought about by women's move into the workforce has only begun to play out. It impacts many areas of our lives, and its consequences are complex indeed. When we tell the story, we do a disservice to all of us if we only focus on either women (or men). Morra Aarons-Mele and Ellen Galinsky More on Happiness
 
Scott Mendelson: Huff Post review - Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) Top
Capitalism: A Love Story 2009 123 minutes Rated R (for three 'f-bombs' that Moore should have bleeped for a teen-friendly PG-13) by Scott Mendelson More so than any of his recent projects, Michael Moore the messenger is fatally undone by Michael Moore the showman. Time and time again we cut away from worthwhile factual analysis or a compelling anecdote in order to let Michael Moore have a moment in the spotlight. More so than in any of his recent projects, Michael Moore chooses to undercut the brutal effect of simply stating the facts in order to toss out a lengthy side story that attempts to pull heartstrings yet falters under objective analysis. For the first time that I can remember, a Michael Moore documentary/propaganda piece is less about the subject at hand and more about Michael Moore himself. Some plot - The film purports to be a cliff-notes version of the financial scandal/stock-market meltdown that crippled the economy in September 2008. Hitting all the usual stops along the way (Regan's deregulation of business, the complete destruction of the manufacturing industry, Bush Jr's cozy relationship with fear, etc), Moore attempts to form a deconstruction of the myth of the practical and moral superiority of the economic mode known as capitalism. Along the way, we of course are invited to share in the pain and suffering of ordinary Americans who have been caught in the economic downturn that is not of their own making. And we are again treated to the occasional Michael Moore stunt, but these gimmicks are both useless and counterproductive and serve to take away from the narrative and reveal the director as a self-indulgent entertainer first and a social crusader second. Most problematic is not so much his preaching to the converted, but his narrative choices that render the film downright confusing to someone who already doesn't know what he's talking about. What's a sub-prime loan? You won't find out in any detail in the film, only that they are really evil. What exactly did Ronald Regan do in order to bring about the eventual decline of the American middle class? I couldn't tell you just from the film itself. The film scores some of its best points detailing the abysmal wages of airline pilots, yet makes no specific mention of Regan's deregulation of the airline industry or his firing of striking air-traffic control workers in 1981. Michael Moore's films have always worked best as a jumping-off point for liberal and progressive politics, so it can't be expecting to be the Shoah of anti-capitalistic screeds. But this one is so hell-bent on demonizing the somewhat demonic politicians and businessmen that it neglects to mention just what they did in the first place. This refusal to deal with the nitty-gritty also extends to his portraits of victimhood. As with most Moore projects, we see various vignettes of tragedy affecting the working class of America. While these stories are meant to pull at heartstrings, it's tough not to notice how carefully Moore avoids explaining how each family got into their current foreclosure nightmare. This is doubly foolish, as it allows critics like me to wonder how much blame they share while also neglecting a crucial opportunity to expose theoretically criminal lending practices that are as much to blame as the dreaded sub-prime mortgage. The filmmaker spends a good 10-15 minutes on the ghoulish practice of companies who take out life-insurance policies on their own employees. Yes it's morally icky and a troubling symptom of corporate culture, but 'dead peasant' policies are not illegal and don't really play a direct role in the financial mess that the film attempts to sort out. Yet it remains a token chunk of the film so Moore can have scenes of mourning family members cursing those no-good bureaucrats. As expected and justified, Michael Moore places the majority of the blame on Ronald Regan and George W. Bush (Bill Clinton gets a slap on the wrist and Senator Chris Dodd takes it on the chin). But he also slams Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, while neglecting to mention that President Barack Obama has put these two in charge of his economic policy. Maybe he's saving the presidency of Barack Obama for his next movie, but considering how similar he's been on economic issues to his predecessors, it's unintentionally humorous to see the election of Obama treated as the dawning of a new day. And Michael Moore's trademark 'stunts' are lacking both in purpose and panache. Holding a mock funeral for a man whose health-insurance policy won't cover his liver transplant is at least attempting something productive, as is taking 9/11-rescue workers to Cuba for free medical care. Driving an armored car from bank to bank demanding that the bailout money be returned is only about self-aggrandizing. Time is much better spent detailing shocking examples of greed intermingling with public works with disastrous results. The most potent segment involves a cold detailing of a backroom deal between a juvenile court judge and the owner of a privatized juvenile-detention facility that ended with hundreds of kids being sent to the prison for things as trifling as arguing with friends in the mall, arguing with parents at dinner, or smoking a joint at a party (this was actually dealt with in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit late last season). He is also brutally effective in detailing how the September 08 market crash and subsequent corporate bail out may have been more than just an accidental pre-election surprise. But despite the running thread tying the film to his first picture, Roger & Me (Moore argues that unregulated capitalism has threatened to turn all of America into Flint, Michigan), the picture feels for at least half of its running time like a novice filmmaker doing their take on a stereotypical Michael Moore film. Just because I agree wholeheartedly with the thesis does not mean that the film propagating said message is a good one. While Capitalism: A Love Story gets its shots, it falters and plays it safe and simple rather than serving as a true primer of the issues at hand. Maybe Michael Moore is right when he chimes at the end that 'I can't do this anymore'. If for only one film, the creator of the modern muckraking documentary now looks and feels like one of the pretenders. Grade: C More on Capitalism: A Love Story
 
Laura Carlsen: Clinton, Act to Avoid a Massacre in Honduras Top
This is an urgent plea to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Immediately condemn the violence unleashed against the Honduran people by the de facto regime and take every peaceful measure possible to avoid a bloodbath in that country. The coup has deployed the police and Armed Forces to the Brazilian Embassy where President Manuel Zelaya continues to take refuge. It launched a violent attack on the thousands of protesters who gathered there to support Zelaya. The repression has resulted in scores of citizens wounded and taken prisoner and unconfirmed reports of four dead. The euphoria that erupted in Honduras yesterday with the appearance of the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in Tegucigalpa has rapidly changed to terror as the huge demonstration finds itself under siege. In a blatant violation of freedom of speech, the Armed Forces took over the dispatch center of the electricity system on Sept. 22 and cut off the circuits that supply electricity to independent media, particularly television's Channel 36 and Radio Globo--the most important outlets for information not controlled by the regime. Radio Globo , whose internet site provides firsthand information to people throughout the world, went back on briefly but is now off the air again. Many cell phones are blocked, and all national airports have been closed to prevent the arrival of international diplomats and reporters. Over the past days, observers feared that the coup was planning to order the armed forces to storm the Brazilian embassy. Such a flagrantly illegal and violent act would have converted the Honduran crisis into an international crisis of unprecedented proportions. Although, coup leaders backed down on the attempt to justify taking over the embassy by force under heavy pressure from the U.S. government, they temporarily cut electricity to the embassy where President Zelaya is protected and food and water supplies are running low. In a live interview shortly after his arrival in Tegucigalpa, President Zelaya called on the entire international community to condemn the repression. He remains in the Brazilian Embassy, accompanied by embassy personnel and supporters. "There is a regimen of terror in the country that should be attended to by the international community," he stated. When questioned about the possible siege of the embassy, Zelaya urged the international community to "act with firmness so the regime will not carry out this terrible crime." Meanwhile, coup leader Roberto Micheletti called for the immediate arrest of President Zelaya. Head of the Armed Forces Gen. Romeo Velasquez stated that the army will continue to comply with orders from the coup. Luz Mejias, president of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission told the press that the Commission is receiving "very serious reports of violations of human rights" by the Armed Forces. "We must establish the responsibility of each and every individual who issued these orders to repress protesters... The situation is very grave." She called for the restitution of constitutional order and urged the return to power of the constitutional president "who has been received with violent repression." Mejias noted that the curfew, lifted for seven hours today to allow people to obtain food and permit a march of pro-coup supporters, is a clear violation of human rights and legal norms. An official press report of the Commission "strongly condemns the excessive use of force in the repression of protests that have taken place in Tegucigalpa, near the Embassy of Brazil, the current location of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales." There are calls for the presence of the International Red Cross. Although the coup has reportedly stated it will receive a delegation of the Organization of American States, that has not happened. The coup's actions over the past 24 hours violate international law and the basic principles of U.S. foreign policy. Sec. of State Clinton and President Obama must speak out to condemn these measures, which include: 1. The closure of airports in the entire country 2. Armed Forces cut-off of electricity to independent media 3. The violent eviction of peaceful demonstrators supporting Zelaya's return, including reports of killings 4. The militarization of Tegucigalpa, with the presence of specialized police forces, the army and masked agents 5. Attacks with tear gas and bullets 6. Persecution of movement leaders and arbitrary arrests 7. Restriction of movement at all major entry points to the capital city 8. Imposition of a curfew, now reported to be "indefinite" Juan Almendares, of the Honduran Center for Torture Prevention, reports that Honduras has become "the largest prison in the world." He notes, "There is a permanent state of siege here. Human rights organizations and medics are not even allowed to attend to the tortured and wounded. The office of the Committee for Families of the Disappeared was bombed with tear gas... Children and the sick in the hospitals are undernourished since with the curfew, which is a death warrant, they do not receive food and are dying of hypoglycemia." These facts are not disputed and have been corroborated and denounced in recent days. Amnesty International called the situation "alarming" and called for the de facto regime to "stop the policy of repression and violence and instead respect the rights of freedom of expression and association." The organization added, "We also urge the international community to urgently seek a solution, before Honduras sinks even deeper into a human rights crisis." Daysi Flores of Feminists in Resistance who we worked closely with on the women's delegation last August sent this account yesterday: "Early this morning, military forces attacked those of us outside the Brazilian Embassy. There are no words to describe the brutality of the attack--they chased us, threw bombs, beat us and now are hunting down everyone who took refuge in the surrounding area. There are 65 of us, mostly women and children here; we are under siege, our telephones are tapped, there is a squad three houses away and they are making rounds searching for signs of life to burst in. We have very little water and no food, the tear gas has permeated the atmosphere and our eyes and noses are irritated. Some of the women have been taken prisoners and according to the last communication they have been taken to a stadium called Chochi Sosa. The electricity went back on recently and so we are able to send this e-mail. We can hear the military movements outside, the cars, helicopters, bombs, shots, clashing of metal, stomping of boots, sirens and in a cruel joke on all Honduran citizens they are playing the national anthem at full volume over and over... We call on everyone to contribute by denouncing the violation of basic human rights being perpetrated by the military forces of the de facto regime." The State Department continues to play ostrich faced with the increasing reports of human rights violations by the coup. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton cannot call herself an international advocate of women's rights while ignoring the plight of these Honduran women who are a worldwide inspiration for feminist organizing in the fight for democracy. She cannot call herself a representative of U.S. values abroad while turning a blind eye to the brutality and illegality of a coup regime, crazed by power and isolated among governments for its lack of respect for the rule of law. Clinton continues to make statements divorced from the current dire reality in Honduras. In a meeting yesterday with President Oscar Arias she stated, "...we have certainly communicated very directly our expectation that there will be order and no provocation on either side. This is not just a one-sided request. It goes to both sides. Both sides have supporters who need to be restrained and careful in their actions in the days ahead." Today the reality is that the Armed Forces under the coup regime are carrying out not just a "provocation" but a brutal attack on protesters. Yet the images, the testimonies and the news reports are still being ignored by the U.S. government. The U.S. government must issue a firm statement in defense of human rights and the strongest possible message to the coup to desist in its attack on the Honduran people and the constitutional order. More on Honduras
 
Gavin Newsom: Let's get our priorities straight Top
With the upcoming University of California walkout, we asked our Facebook community recently how the impending UC and CSU cuts were affecting them. The response was overwhelming: Stephanie from SF State needed only two classes to graduate with her bachelor's degree. But one of the courses was eliminated -- graduation will have to wait until next year. A mother from the East Bay worried that her daughter couldn't enroll in a single class she needs and is about to lose her student status, her financial aid, and health insurance. Sarah from UC Davis saw her tuition increase almost ten percent, while her mother, a state employee, just took a 15 percent pay cut. UC Berkeley will be eliminating approximately one out of every ten courses this coming year. UC San Francisco will potentially have to reduce their faculty by fourteen percent because of the recent cuts. UCLA has reduced support to research centers by fifty percent. UC Irvine has completely stopped admitting students into their education program. All across the state, we are choking off opportunity for hundreds of thousands of young Californians to build a better life for themselves and a better future for California. And it's our fault. We've allowed our system of governance to de-fund and de-prioritize higher education, putting our state's economic future in jeopardy. Let me be clear: I favor fully funding the UC system. Cannibalizing our state's future through cuts to education is the exact opposite of the kind of reform and long-term thinking we need from our leaders in Sacramento. But the current resource-constrained situation forces us to make difficult choices about our shared priorities. We must protect our environment, provide universal health care and invest in infrastructure development. And therein lies our statewide dilemma. We have a system in California that discourages thoughtful budget and financial planning, requiring a two-thirds majority every year to pass a budget that paralyzes our state. We have a complex web of ballot initiatives that further complicates the process. Walkouts like the one currently planned will become more frequent unless we undertake systemic reforms and truly take California in a new direction. We need to convene a constitutional convention and get serious about changes to the system. Until we do, we're jeopardizing our ability to be competitive in the global economy. Preparing our children for success in the 21st century necessitates investment in higher education not cuts to it. In San Francisco, we have a robust rainy day fund. We drew down on our reserves to make sure not a single teacher in San Francisco was laid off when the recession hit. We created a partnership between SFSU, the school district, and the city to guarantee a college education to every public school 6th grader who wants one. And if their families can't afford tuition, we help with that too. We operate with a limited budget in San Francisco, just like the state. But we managed to keep teachers in the classroom and promise every student a chance to go to college. We didn't raise taxes - we reformed the budget process and used resources in a smarter way. It's time to shake up the system that's put our state in this mess. We need come together to fundamentally rethink how we govern California.
 
Chris Weigant: The Forgotten War Top
No so very long ago, Afghanistan was known as "the forgotten war." While America's attention was largely focused on Baghdad, many forgot our military was even in another country. But these days, Afghanistan is hard to miss in the headlines. Rumors are swirling over what President Obama will do there -- increase American troops, draw down troops, keep the same troops (it depends on which headlines you read) -- and how he will change our strategy and goals. Talk of "failure" is rampant, except that now it is not coming from the anti-war crowd, but instead from the Pentagon. President Obama needs to get out front on this issue, by beginning to talk about our newly-forgotten war: Iraq. If you're scratching your head over that last statement, allow me to explain. Obama is going to face some criticism over Afghanistan, no matter what he says or decides on the issue. The criticism will come from different directions, depending on what he does decide, but it will come nonetheless. If he decides to boost troops (the media really should say "boost troops further than Obama's already boosted them," but they usually omit that part), then he will face heavy skepticism from anti-war Democrats, and possibly from some budget-conscious centrists or Republicans. If Obama decides to pull troops out, he will face more than a little bit of pushback from Republicans. If he decides to keep everything the same, he'll likely face pushback from everyone, including the Pentagon. No matter what course Obama charts, there are going to be people convinced it is the wrong one, you can bet on that. Which is why Obama needs to start talking about Iraq in the midst of this debate. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it's not. Iraq and Afghanistan are tied together by the thread (more than a thread, but that's how the metaphor bounces, so to speak) of the American military. We have troops in both places. Lots of troops. Troop decisions in one place affect the ability to make decisions in the other. A "zero-sum" situation, if you will. And President Obama needs to announce a troop withdrawal framework for 2010 in Iraq. This will change the entire discussion about troops and about Afghanistan, in several significant ways. For the sake of discussion, let's say Obama announces that 25,000 or 30,000 more American troops will be heading to Afghanistan. But at the same time, he announces that next year we will begin pulling out 70,000 troops from Iraq in a safe and coordinated manner. This muddies the waters, no matter where you stand on Afghanistan. Those who want all of America's troops home (next week, preferably) will criticize Obama for his Afghanistan strategy, while praising his moves on Iraq. And vice-versa, for those on the other side of the argument. The whole raging debate over the "timetable for withdrawal" which took place during the campaign is largely over. President George W. Bush signed just such a timeline, right before he left office. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki got pretty much everything he wanted out of this agreement, including a hard deadline (the end of 2011) for all U.S. troops to be out of his country. Note that that says all troops, and not "combat" troops. That is the deadline for our withdrawal. That is the timetable. We have met the first milestone on this timetable, when we pulled all of our troops out of Iraqi cities at the beginning of the summer. But we still really haven't started to leave, yet. A few thousand troops got rotated out, but we still have somewhere around 130,000 soldiers in the country -- around twice what we currently have in Afghanistan. Obama, during the campaign, liked to talk about withdrawing a few thousand of these troops "every month or so" after he took office. This, to a large part, has not begun. The stated reason is to provide security for the upcoming Iraqi national elections due to take place at the end of this year. Assuming this election is relatively peaceful (which may be a premature assumption, I admit), then once it is over it will be time for those soldiers to start packing up the old kit bag and returning home. Now, much was made during the election about a "precipitous timetable for withdrawal," but anyone in their right mind knows that this will be a gigantic operation, involving enormous numbers not just of men and women but also of all the hardware involved as well. Decisions will have to be made as to what vehicles and other equipment will be brought back home, what will be left for the Iraqis to use, and what is cheaper to destroy or junk rather than spend money shipping it home. In other words, it will involve a lot of planning. That planning needs to be talked about before it happens. And the end of the year is right around the corner. Meaning the time to talk about it is now. President Obama should take the reins of this horse and begin this conversation. This doesn't mean, of course, that he is going to have a fully-developed plan to talk about right away. But he can start becoming a lot more specific about what he intends to do about Iraq in the next two years. When asked about Iraq recently, he merely pointed out "we have to be out by the end of 2011," but didn't take it any further. Obama would do himself a world of good politically if he started talking in much more concrete terms about how this pullout will be achieved. Obama should begin by saying something like the following: "Our goal -- which could change if the situation on the ground changes, of course -- our goal is to bring 70,000 troops home over the course of the next year. I will be speaking with the Pentagon about coming up with a plan to safely withdraw five or six thousand soldiers each month next year. I think that pace is realistic, and that security can be maintained while hitting that pace. We need to have all our troops out in a little over two years, so we simply must begin planning for it now in order to have a timely and safe withdrawal." Of course, the actual number can be different (I just picked 70,000 randomly), as long as it has a lot of zeros in it. If Obama tossed this out into the media shark pit, the conversation on troop levels would change overnight. Instead of focusing solely on Afghanistan (after largely ignoring it for years), the discussion would shift to include what is in danger of being labeled our "newly-forgotten war" in Iraq. This introduces nuance to the argument of where best to station American military personnel. It would also give Obama's base a much-needed boost, in fulfilling campaign promises made on the subject. He's already fulfilled one campaign promise on Afghanistan by almost doubling our troop presence there since he came to office. He may be ready to increase this level even further (again, depending on which headlines you believe). So it's not like he's being inconsistent on Afghanistan. But he should also start fulfilling his promises on withdrawing our troops from Iraq. It's time, Mr. President, to start bringing our troops home. From one war, at least.   Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com   More on Afghanistan
 
Bob Cesca: The Impeachment of President Obama Top
If the Republicans ever manage to retake Congress, they will absolutely try to impeach President Obama. And it'll be based upon a supremely ridiculous charge such as, say, the president refusing to nourish our crops with a sports drink instead of water. Okay, so maybe the Idiocracy example is over-the-top, but if we follow the current trajectory of far-right attacks to their logical yet insane conclusion, it makes sense in a very eerie way. Have you seen the television commercials solemnly defending our right to poison our kids with "juice drinks and soda?" There you go. I've been following the Republican descent into the realms of the bizarre for some time now , and it wasn't until the "czars" thing broke that I became convinced that if they retook Congress the Republicans might try to impeach the president. The grounds for both the impeachment and the language used to sell it will likely be fabricated by either Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. I mean, 100 Republican members of Congress have signed onto Rep. Jack Kingston's cartoonish czar bill . 100 House Republicans out of 177 have attached their names to a bill that was essentially invented as a television bit by Glenn Beck without any regard for the fact that "czar" is a nickname invented by the press, and that every president -- all of them! -- has employed policy and political advisers within their administrations. But it functions as an effective Beck attack because he knows his audience isn't bright enough to distinguish "czars" from "communists." By the way, not to be out-crazied by his House colleagues, Senator Ensign introduced an amendment to the Finance Committee health care reform bill called "Transparency in Czars." This might as well be "Transparency in Hobbits" because it's just that ludicrous. Nevertheless, there's a growing conventional wisdom in the press alleging that both sides of the political spectrum are equally guilty of wackaloon attacks and conspiracy theories. Granted there might be one or two very fringe exceptions but this is otherwise a false equivalency written by the establishment media as part of their self-conscious effort to seem balanced. The distinction is that any "fringe" attacks from the left during the Bush years weren't mainstreamed and legitimized the way the wingnut attacks are today, even though the fringe attacks from the left turned out to be mostly accurate. On the right, we're hearing about communist takeovers, birth certificates, Oval Office dress codes, teleprompters, death panels, czars and a return to segregated buses. During the previous administration, on the other hand, the left insisted that Iraq didn't have WMD. This turned out to be true. The left insisted that there wasn't a connection between Saddam and 9/11. Also true. The left alleged that George W. Bush was incompetent. The rest of the nation caught up with the left when Katrina slammed into New Orleans, shattering the levees while Bush was eating cake with John McCain. Some, but not all, of the left thought Bush had prior knowledge of the September 11th attacks. It's a matter of record that he knew an attack might be imminent based upon the famous PDB titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." So that one was partially true. The left also accused the administration of using illegal wiretaps, torture and other human rights violations. All true. Did Bush have business connections with the Bin Laden family? Yes. Did 100 Democratic members of Congress co-sponsor a bill calling him out for it? Of course not. And throughout the Bush years -- no matter how accurate the left's "fringe" attacks might've been -- liberals were marginalized and laughed off by the establishment press, ignored by certain leaders in our own party and attacked as unpatriotic by the Republicans. Sean Hannity, Tom DeLay and Bill O'Reilly, who are all busily ripping the current president an array of new holes, actively accused the left of undermining the troops because we were criticizing the commander-in-chief during wartime. Ah yes. They abandoned that one faster than Newt Gingrich abandons sick wives, didn't they? As for the name-calling, it's to be expected given its long and distinguished history in American politics. (Teddy Roosevelt once called Howard Taft a "puzzle-wit." Fightin' words!) But again, it's a matter of who's doing it and in what context. Yes, some people on the left were guilty of violating Godwin's Law and compared Bush and Cheney to Nazis. But in terms of the ideological spectrum, it's far more likely that a conservative, reactionary, corporate-friendly administration engaged in secret detentions, eavesdropping, torture and endless war might have fascist tendencies. On the other side of the coin, I don't know when Nazis suddenly began to embrace biracial, liberal children of African immigrants, but if I missed this development then bravo Nazis! You're doing better than South Carolina! Of course I'm kidding, South Carolina. Maybe. Yet on the right, we have legitimate politicians, talkers and writers accusing President Obama of being everything from a fascist to a communist to a foreign usurper -- as if all of those accusations are somehow interchangeable. In other words, on the left there were fringe protesters ballyhooing the "Bush is a Nazi" thing, but on the right, everyone from cable news people to members of Congress are questioning whether the president was even born in the United States. Fortunately, no Republican members of Congress would stoop so low as to compare President Obama to Hitler -- oh wait. Correction. Congressman Gohmert did exactly that back in July on the Alex Jones radio show no less -- Alex Jones, who makes Glenn Beck and Michael Savage appear centered. All of this is all set against the backdrop of the infamous Republican Southern Strategy: a well-known tactic from the GOP playbook employing racially-suggestive code language and imagery for the sole purpose of consolidating white support by stoking racial resentment. This is nothing new, and so it's a little strange and nearsighted of the very serious Sunday morning television people to laugh off racial connotations in right-wing attacks against the president, given the Strategy's prevalence in Republican politics. Pat Buchanan, the official cable news grampy, practically invented it. Later, Lee Atwater laid out the semantics like so : Republicans "can't say 'nigger' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff." In the present day context, Atwater might've been happy with dog-whistles like "ACORN" or "community organizers" or "third world" or "exotic." So some of these Republicans need to drop the "who me?" act. Credit where credit is due: at least Rush Limbaugh, the de facto head of the Republican Party, is honest about his racial dog-whistles and epithets. Calling for segregated buses in order to protect white kids from violent black kids in "Obama's America" is pretty obvious, no? In light of what happens on his show for three hours a day, it's remarkable that there's such denial coming from the press. (The Obama administration has no choice but to deny it, or else they'll only succeed in feeding it.) Ultimately, this is how the Republicans will likely proceed with an attempted impeachment of the president should they manage to take back Congress next year. If precedent is any indicator, they'll likely concoct some sort of ridiculous charge torn from a Beck or Limbaugh transcript, while generating public support for it using a Brundlefly hybrid of the Southern Strategy and neo-McCarthyism. And why not? It's exactly what they're doing now. Vice President Biden said this week that the administration's agenda would be crushed if the Republicans manage to take back Congress. He's right, but I think it'd be worse than that. Much worse. The 1990s will seem quaint by comparison, and it's clear that no matter how ridiculous the charges, the media will devour the spectacular drama while simultaneously excusing their behavior using false equivalencies and overcompensating with right-leaning conventional wisdom. Of course, I hope I'm very, very wrong on this one. Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go! More on Glenn Beck
 
Garrett Johnson: Just How Corrupt are the Bank Regulators? Top
There are regulatory agencies with good reputations, and then there are agencies with bad reputations. There are bad ideas, and then there are criminally bad ideas. That's why it is so disturbing to see a regulatory agency with a good reputation like the FDIC propose a criminally bad idea . (AP) -- Regulators may borrow billions from big banks to shore up the dwindling fund that insures regular deposit accounts. The loans would go to the fund maintained by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that insure depositors when banks fail, said industry and government officials familiar with the FDIC board's thinking, who requested anonymity because the plans are still evolving. The FDIC's fund has fallen to 0.22% of insured deposits, far below the Congressionally mandated level of 1.15%. For whatever reason, the FDIC is looking to avoid another taxpayer bailout, but their solution would compromise the integrity of the FDIC. It's hard to count the number of ways that this idea fails, so I'll just touch on the most obvious ones. 1) Where would this money come from? Why from the same big banks that the taxpayer just bailed out. So while the taxpayer bought toxic assets at face value that private investors wouldn't touch except at a steep discount, the banks will now loan that money back to the taxpayer...at interest. 2) Of course the banks support this idea. Instead of paying a fee to insure themselves (like you and I would), they get to loan money to the FDIC and collect interest on it. It's another taxpayer bailout. 3) Speaking of insurance, this loan from the banks would amount to self-insurance . Writing insurance on yourself is a highly-lucrative business, especially when you can charge interest to the supposed insurer who you are supporting! Insurance is supposed to work the other way around -- you are supposed to pay into a pool to cover the risk of loss that some people in the pool might suffer. Who would have thought that a government agency would actually contemplate paying the insured party for the coverage on their own risk? In a world where we had a rule of law this would be identified instantly as what it is: rank, outrageous fraud . 4) And then there is the worst part of this proposal - the conflict of interest. Can we really expect the FDIC to effectively regulate the banks that have loaned them money so that they can do their job? Of course not. It's the same conflict of interest that got pushed the rating agencies into putting AAA ratings on subprime loans. It has the appearance of collusion. The FDIC has a number of problems, some of which were demonstrated with the IndyMac failure that cost taxpayers $10.7 Billion. The FDIC correctly identified problems with IndyMac's business model back in 2002 , yet failed to act. However, collusion with the banking industry is totally new territory for the FDIC. On the other hand, collusion is very familiar territory for the SEC . Judge Rakoff, Merrill Lynch, and the SEC Our story starts on December 8, 2008, shortly before Merrill Lynch was taken over by Bank of America. Bank of America shareholders had already approved the merger. Merrill gave out $3.62 Billion worth of bonuses, or 22 times the size of the AIG's bonuses that caused such a stir. 36.3% of the money came from TARP funds and only employees making over $300,000 were eligible for the bonuses. Merrill's Compensation Committee determined executive bonuses before the disastrous Q4 earnings had been calculated. This was a departure from normal company practices. Bank of America was aware of Merrill's intentions to award huge executive bonuses, but failed to tell its own shareholders prior to the vote. In fact, on August 3 they had released a proxy statement that Merrill wouldn't pay year-end bonuses before the takeover without consent. Eventually the SEC was shamed into action. After months of investigation the SEC decided that it had built its case and approached Bank of America with a settlement offer that basically amounted to a slap on the wrist. But then something amazing and unprecedented happened: the sitting judge, Jed Rakoff, demanded accountability and disclosure . The judge wondered immediately why, given the "serious questions" raised in its complaint, the SEC wasn't going after more facts. If BofA and Merrill conspired to lie to shareholders about bonuses that had been agreed to when the merger was signed, then why isn't the SEC trying to figure out who is responsible? "Was it some sort of ghost? Who made the decision not to disclose [the bonuses]?" said Rakoff. Judge Rakoff called the settlement a "contrivance", which allowed the SEC to appear to be a regulator, but doing nothing substantially. The SEC was only asking for a $33 million fine and didn't seek to punish any executives, or even to release their names. At least one Merrill executive got a bonus larger than $33 million. The SEC responded to Judge Rakoff with what amounts to a "the dog ate my homework". The SEC, in a court filing on Monday, said BofA's alleged failure to disclose bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch employees before the companies merged was largely the work of attorneys who advised the banks. The regulator said it was constrained by the fact that the bank had not waived attorney-client privilege. Judge Rakoff wisely rejected this pathetic excuse and instead dug his heels in further. Responding swiftly, the judge questioned why the S.E.C. did not insist that Bank of America waive attorney-client privilege before striking a $33 million settlement. He also questioned whether bank executives -- or the outside lawyers -- should be charged in the case. "If the company does not waive the privilege," the judge wrote in his order, "the culpability of both the corporate officer and the company counsel will remain beyond scrutiny. This seems so at war with common sense." The judge added that the filings Monday by the S.E.C. and Bank of America raised more questions than they answered, and set a deadline of Sept. 9 for both parties to come back with fuller explanations of who should be held accountable for the bonus disclosure decision. So this is where we continue to stand: a federal judge preventing bank regulators from avoiding doing their job, and a major TARP bank refusing to disclose information about criminal fraud. Faced with the embarrassment that would be caused by withdrawing the lawsuit, and thus cause people to question the existence of the agency, the SEC has been forced to look tough and take the case to court . That doesn't necessarily mean a trial will occur. Even as it prepares, the agency could still appeal Rakoff's order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. The SEC on Monday left this option open. Will the SEC start doing their job effectively? That seems highly unlikely. Remember these are the same people who failed to investigate Bernie Madoff despite receiving six "substantive complaints that raised significant red flags" about Madoff's operations. Providing further embarrassment for the SEC, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin on Wednesday released a transcript of a 2005 telephone call during which Madoff coached a potential witness about fooling federal regulators, saying "you don't have to be too brilliant" to get away with it. Last week New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo jumped into the SEC/BofA saga. Cuomo subpoenaed five Bank of America board members concerning the merger with Merrill. However, Cuomo isn't limiting his investigation to just the executive bonuses issue. The shotgun marriage between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch has the Federal Reserve's fingerprints all over it. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Department chief Henry Paulson pressured Bank of America Corp. to not discuss its increasingly troubled plan to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. -- a deal that later triggered a government bailout of BofA -- according to testimony by Kenneth Lewis, the bank's chief executive. Mr. Lewis, testifying under oath before New York's attorney general in February, told prosecutors that he believed Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke were instructing him to keep silent about deepening financial difficulties at Merrill, the struggling brokerage giant. Why would the Fed want these bank executives to keep quiet? A safe guess would be that they didn't want the Bank of America shareholders to get spooked and kill the deal. Thus we see that Judge Rakoff might have opened a huge can of worms that leads to some of the most powerful people in Washington, including the Treasury . Our Savior - The Guys Who Created This Mess The keystone of Obama's proposed banking regulations is to strengthen the power of the Federal Reserve. They would be the ones in charge of detecting and dealing with "systemic risk". There are several problems with that idea. First of all, these guys couldn't detect the housing bubble even at its peak. Ben S. Bernanke does not think the national housing boom is a bubble that is about to burst, he indicated to Congress last week, just a few days before President Bush nominated him to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. Secondly, it is the easy money policies of the Fed that allowed the credit bubble to exist in the first place. To give them more power is just another example of rewarding failure. Also, the Fed has been conducting enormous bailouts of Wall Street, putting the taxpayer at risk, without consulting with Congress beforehand. These include controversial bailouts of Bear Stearns and AIG. Much like the SEC and Bank of America, the Fed has refused to disclose information that the public deserves to know. With no government body acting in the interests of the citizens of this country, a private body, Bloomberg News, filed a FOIA lawsuit to force the Federal Reserve to disclose details of its Wall Street bailouts. On August 25, a federal court ruled in Bloomberg's favor. So far the Fed has not acted. They have until the end of the month to appeal. Because of the Fed's attitude that it can give out trillions of dollars of taxpayer dollars without any oversight whatsoever, Congress has pushed back on the Obama Administration. Bills to audit the Fed for the first time ever, HR 1207 and S 604, are getting traction in both houses of Congress. The Obama Administration has since realized that they hadn't done their due diligence, and requested a public review of the central bank's structure. The Federal Reserve flat out turned down Obama's request . (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Board has rejected a request by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for a public review of the central bank's structure and governance, three people familiar with the matter said. The Obama administration proposed on June 17 a financial- regulatory overhaul including a "comprehensive review" of the Fed's "ability to accomplish its existing and proposed functions" and the role of its regional banks. The Fed was to lead the study and enlist the Treasury and "a wide range of external experts." The hubris of the Federal Reserve is beyond tolerance, although it shouldn't surprise much. After all, the Federal Reserve membership and governance is largely made up of current and former Wall Street bankers, and we've seen just how arrogant they can be. All the current proposals by the Obama Administration and before Congress for regulating the banking industry involve giving the regulators more power and streamlining the process. This ignores the most obvious observation that the regulators aren't enforcing the current laws anyway. So why would giving them more power change anything? Does that mean that there is no good solution? On the contrary, there is an easy solution that is proven to be effective. The problem is that absolutely no one in Washington is considering it: roll back the financial deregulation. I'm not just talking about the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. We also need to roll back the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, and the Depository Institution Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. If we did all of that we would fix the Too-Big-To-Fail problem, the predatory lending problem, the usury rates that banks charge, and even tackle the out of control derivatives products. We would even break the control that Wall Street has over our politicians. Could it happen? The status quo would never let it happen without a fight. It won't happen unless the people of this country take to the streets and force it to happen. The people of this country can take back this economy and this democracy, but they have to want to. More on Banks
 
Dan Agin: History Revisited: Psychosis of a Psychiatrist Top
The tendency of any generation is to imagine its uniqueness, engage in a pretense that nothing existed before it and nothing will exist after it. Of course it's a fallacy, and a fallacy that's often dangerous. No generation is alone, and many of the problems that plague us were discovered long ago and not merely yesterday. So consider a story out of 19th century psychiatry. In the 19th century, an essential dichotomy in psychiatry was a split between understanding mental illness with an apparent biological etiology and understanding mental illness without any apparent biological etiology--with the latter case posing the question of whether a biological etiology existed undetected or did not exist at all. What caused madness? No one really knew. At the present time, more than one hundred years later, the issue is still in debate. But four generations back they knew so little compared to us that their debate was too easily clouded and distorted by smoke and mirrors. They had their confusions, particularly in the second half of the 19th century. And yet if confusion reigned in psychiatry during the 19th century, the intellectual debate was really only a footnote to the human tragedies of mental illness. People were just as bedeviled by mental illness as we are--and with no medications that really were of any help. To twist a quip, theories come and theories go, but madness remains. Four generations ago, people had their tragedies as we do, and as in our own time the tragedies of mental illness could be the most devastating. Also as in our own time, psychiatrists then were as vulnerable as they are today to mental disorders. Of the tragedies associated with mental illness, few are more ironic than the madness of a psychiatrist. Victor Kandinsky (1849-1889) (uncle of the painter Wassily Kandinsky) was a physician and well-known research psychiatrist who went mad in his prime. Maybe his most important contribution to neuroscience was his detailed description of his own state of mind during his mental illness. Kandinsky was born in a small village in Siberia on March 24, 1849. His father was a merchant whose home served as a local cultural salon for musical and literary parties. Victor had two cousins afflicted with what is now diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia, both cousins with long-term asylum residence. We know little about Victor's childhood and adolescence, except that he was an only child with a normal birth, and his mother's pregnancy was also normal. Victor had no significant physical problems during his life, and he did not smoke tobacco or drink alcohol. At the age of fourteen he left Siberia to live in Moscow, and there he gained entry into a well-known high school and graduated with honors. He then entered Moscow University Medical School. He graduated in 1872 and began practice as a general physician in one of Moscow's hospitals. Kandinsky became a prolific researcher and published many journal papers on various medical subjects. His colleagues described him as diligent, meticulous, absorbed in his work, modest in his private life, gentle and sympathetic. Beginning at the age of twenty-seven, Kandinsky served three years in the military as a physician, including a year during the Russia-Turkish War of 1877-1878. He served on a battleship as the ship's physician, and in that period, in May, 1877, he became mentally ill, was sent to a psychiatric hospital as a patient, and remained in the hospital eleven months. In the hospital, he fell in love with one of the nurses who treated him, and after his recovery they married. Kandinsky (with his wife) spent the next months abroad on leave, but in October, 1878 he returned to Russia to be readmitted to a psychiatric hospital with an apparent deterioration of his mental illness. In 1879 he was discharged from military service due to his mental condition, and in 1881 he moved to St. Petersburg to work as a psychiatrist in a psychiatric hospital. He worked there eight years until his suicide in 1889. Kandinsky and his wife apparently had a good marriage. They wanted children but never had any offspring. His wife was greatly devoted to him, and after his death she arranged for the publication of his scientific papers and two books--and then she committed suicide herself. What's there to say about the double suicide of a man and his wife barely entering maturity? Intellect seems helpless to grasp it. Madness won out. According to the people who knew Kandinsky, his illness first appeared in 1877, when he was twenty-eight. Already that year there was a suicide attempt: on the battleship during the war against the Turks he jumped into the sea to kill himself. According to Kandinsky's own description of his illness, this first episode lasted two years. In a research paper on hallucinations after the episode, Kandinsky wrote: "To my sadness, during two years I suffered from insane hallucinations ... I felt various and abundant hallucinations in all my senses except taste. The most frequent and vivid were visual, tactile, and common sensibility hallucinations." Kandinsky reported that in the beginning of his disorder there were only delusions, no hallucinations: "In the first months of my malady there were no hallucinations. This period was generally characterized by intense but chaotic intellectual activity ... a lot of ideas that ran speeding but not in the right course, experienced as forced and false." Kandinsky wrote that during the acute phase of his illness he experienced the common symptoms of "mental automatism": imagined telepathy, reading and broadcasting thought, enforced speaking, and enforced motor movements. He described his disturbances in visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile perception. His mood would vary from mania to depression, with depression predominant and often including thoughts of suicide. On the day he committed suicide, Kandinsky went to the hospital where he worked, obtained a large amount of opium from the pharmacy, returned home and swallowed several grams of the opium--a lethal dose. He continued writing as the opium took effect, and wrote his last words describing his condition: "I'm not able to write more because I can't see. Light! Light! Light!" Kandinsky diagnosed his own illness with the psychiatric terminology of his time: primary insanity (insanity not secondary to organic cause) and paranoid hallucinatoria--descriptive labels without biological content. As a patient, he would now be classified as afflicted with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder--also descriptive labels without biological content. With his illness and suicide, Kandinsky illustrated the vulnerability to madness of even the people who studied it--and their ignorance of causes. When Kandinsky died, the human brain was an enigma--and the enigma is still with us. We like to think we know so much, but we really don't know much at all. We remain children in the garden of knowledge. One hundred and twenty years after the death of Victor Kandinsky, mental illness still confounds us, a continuing and devastating plague. We are not alone in history.
 
Mike Elk: Key Senators, Krugman Call for Tariffs on High-Carbon-Footprint Imports Top
Speaking Tuesday on a Campaign for America's Future conference call , Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said that the climate change legislation will not get 50 Senate votes if it does not place a tariff on imports that have unacceptably high carbon footprints. For example, Chinese steel mills produce three times as much carbon emissions as American steel mills As a large body of research has pointed out, most of these savings come from weaker environmental standards and not labor costs, since labor accounts for less than 10 percent of the price savings. U.S. steel companies spend around twice as much per ton of steel to control pollution than does the Chinese steel industry. Chinese industry is expending only about 3 percent of its capital expenditure budget on pollution control equipment, far less than the 17 percent the U.S. industry averaged for the last few years as it was improving its environmental controls. China and many other countries are able to make cheaper products because they cut corners on environmental costs. The U.S. steel industry is the most sophisticated and efficient of steel producers, so advanced that when a group of bloggers toured a steel mill during Netroots Nation, we weren't allowed to take pictures out of fear that competitors could steal trade secrets from the photos. However, the American industry can't compete with nations like China and India who are allowed to cut costs dramatically by poisoning the air and the water at levels that are threatening to us all. To enact strict emissions regulations domestically and not force other countries to do the same would be a tragedy for the American economy as industry would flee for these countries. For this reason, a group of 10 Democratic senators -- including Brown, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Al Franken of Minnesota -- sent a letter to President Obama that said they would not vote for any legislation that does not include tariffs on products with unacceptably high carbon footprints . As the Senators argued in their letter : We must not engage in a self-defeating effort that displaces greenhouse gas emissions rather then reducing them and displaces U.S. jobs rather than bolstering them. Indeed, if the U.S. adopts agreed-upon climate terms and other countries do not live up to their end of the bargain, we will see companies close factories in the U.S. and ship them to countries that allow unlimited harmful pollution. As we have seen in the instance of the Chinese tire import issues, countries have again and again allowed big multinationals to violate their treaty obligations in the name of profits. By putting tariffs on products with unacceptably high carbon footprints, we can effectively combat global warming as many environmental organizations have advocated . Even Paul Krugman, a typical defender of free trade, called for similar tariffs in a must-read piece entitled " the Empire of Carbon ." Krugman dismisses those that cry that a tax on carbon dioxide is protectionism by saying: As the United States and other advanced countries finally move to confront climate change, they will also be morally empowered to confront those nations that refuse to act. Sooner than most people think, countries that refuse to limit their greenhouse gas emissions will face sanctions, probably in the form of taxes on their exports. They will complain bitterly that this is protectionism, but so what? Globalization doesn't do much good if the globe itself becomes unlivable. Furthermore, globalization doesn't do much good if the global economy becomes unsustainable. Manufacturing is the backbone of any economy. If you don't make something, you are forced to borrow until you can't borrow anymore. With credit markets frozen, the American economy has reached that point we can no longer borrow and are unable to buy the world's products on credit. We have seen that unemployment and poverty have risen around the world as a direct result of the global economic imbalance. Leaders of the labor union federations from the 20 countries have called on their leaders to make the economy more sustainable in their "Pittsburgh Declaration." According to their report, unemployment is slated to double over the next 18 months in the industrial countries, and continue to rise with rates over 10 percent well into 2011. Additionally, over 200 million workers worldwide will be pushed back into extreme poverty. Creating a system of global trade that is sustainable and allows all countries including the United States to flourish is necessary for a global economic recovery. To do this, we must enact strong laws that don't allow one country to cheat the other by polluting their way to low prices. Some argue that such measures, such as putting a tariff on products with a high carbon footprint are protectionists and harmful. However, as Steelworkers President Leo Gerard argues today in a must-read New York Times piece defending the decision of his union to call for enforcement of trade laws on tire and paper imports: "Anybody who believes we have a rule-based system, but we shouldn't enforce the laws, they're the ones jeopardizing the global trading system." Without a commitment to live up to -- and a precedent of enforcing -- agreements, any climate change treaty signed at Copenhagen or at future summits won't be worth the paper it is printed on. In the wake of the China tire-import decision, we have heard a lot of rhetoric falsely labeling it as the beginning of a trade war. It is not. What is really happening is that workers around the world are engaged in an effort to protect themselves from the harmful effects of pollution and an unsustainable economy that hurts us all. More on G-20 Summit
 
Tamara Conniff: The Dalai Lama Proclaims Himself a Feminist - Day Two of Peace and Music in Memphis Top
The Dalai Lama smiled mischievously and said, "I call myself a feminist. Isn't that what you call someone who fights for women's rights?" The comment was made during his International Freedom Award acceptance speech, which was presented to him by the National Civil Rights Museum. His Holiness' message is always one of compassion, harmony, warm-heartedness, inner peace and civil rights. During the awards ceremony, which took place in the Peabody Hotel ballroom, he said women are by nature more compassionate because of their biology and ability to nurture and birth children. He therefore called on all women to lead and create a more compassionate world, citing the good works of nurses and mothers. Interestingly enough, there are feminist groups who would claim this kind of biological stance has lead to discrimination against women in the workplace. The Dalai Lama went on to add with his infamous sense of humor that "some feminists have too much emotion, that I don't like." Again, there are some feminist groups that would certainly agree with him on that point as well. (I would love everyone's comment on this subject!) Following the Freedom Award's luncheon, the Dalai Lama gave a public speech on "Developing Peace and Harmony" at Memphis' Cannon Center, one of many events sponsored by the Missing Peace Project. Many see the Dalai Lama as youngsters may see the Wizard of Oz before lifting the curtain - a fact the Dalai Lama himself addressed. He said some people come to hear him speak out of curiosity, some think he has some kind of miracle power or ability to heal the sick, some think he will bestow a wise and important message. "I have nothing to say that is that special," he said with a laugh. As far as healing power, he said, it's "nonsense." In fact he had complicated surgery last year to remove his gallbladder, which he proclaimed, "Is proof I have no healing power!" The Dalai Lama's powerful message is common sense. He does not preach religion. "Whether you believe this religion or that religion, we are all the same human beings." He preaches self-awareness and compassion. In broken English he said, "We need to work together. We need to protect the planet. With fear, harmony is impossible. We need trust. Trust is the basis of compassion. Distrust brings fear. Fear brings violence. Fear brings loneliness and depression. We all come from the same place. We are all brothers and sisters." This year marks the 50th anniversary since the Dalai Lama was forced to flee Tibet under China's takeover and form a government in exile in India. When asked if China and the exiled Tibetan government will ever reach a peaceful understanding, the Dalai Lama became quiet for a moment. "The Chinese and the Tibetans, we are the same human beings...our faith in the Chinese people was never shaken...We need more patience, determination. The Tibetan spirit (in Tibet) among the young is strong. The problem is (Chinese) government censorship and misinformation." Grammy winner Natalie Cole was on hand to introduce his Holiness prior to the public speech. "Deep down inside us, all we want is inner peace," she said. Cole is set to give a headlining performance during the Missing Peace Concert honoring the Dalai Lama, which will also feature the Memphis Symphony, Tibetan musicians, and special guests singer songwriter Matt Nathanson and country artist Joe Nicols. Rebekah Alperin, who produced the Missing Peace Concert along with Chantel Sausedo, and Missing Peace Project founder Darlene Markovich, organized the Dalai Lama's visit to Memphis. Alperin and Sausedo are also working on a worldwide documentary capturing the Dalia Lama's mission of peace, which will be released in 2010. "We all come from the same mother," the Dalai Lama said. "That creates the basis for compassion." More on Tibet
 
Ted Johnson, Maegan Carberry, Teresa Valdez Klein: Infotainment Rules: Should Letterman, DeLay & Ferrell Dominate Discourse? Top
Today, we talk the politics of culture (or is it cultural politics?), starting off with our President. How much should Obama be seen and heard as he runs the country? After Bush kept to himself most of the time, we've got a president who hits all these talk shows on one Sunday morning, and then hits late night with David Letterman (same questions, same answers, same blah). Maegan makes a smart observation - Obama is being very generic in his outreach, and that's why it's not making much of an impact. If he was reaching out online, or at least appearing on Fox News, wouldn't that have been more notable? It is interesting to watch Letterman these days, who is becoming subtly more political. Could Letterman be reaching for some of Jon Stewart's magic? After all, when was the last time Dave won an Emmy? That also brings up the new video from Will Farrell, FunnyOrDie.com, and MoveOn.org , which steps into the health care debate by mocking how much reform could harm health care executives. Do these videos have any real impact, beyond the 1.5 million views? When was the last time Ferrell changed your mind about anything, other than the dangers of babies as landlords? Speaking of danger, the Hammer is loose! But this time, instead of knocking heads in Congress, Tom DeLay is shaking his hips on Dancing with the Stars. The reviews are, ahem... who the hell cares? It's shocking and amazing, and the guy's still under indictment in Texas. Wait until Sarah Palin shows up for the finale! Fingers crossed! While DeLay wasn't in attendance, last week saw the Values Voters Summit in DC, with Carrie Prejean as the keynote speaker . She, um, well, condemned the "intolerance" of the gays and liberals that led her to lose her crown as Ms. California (no irony there) and stated that God had chosen her for this new role in politics. Of course, Teresa validly points out how Prejean was not stripped of her crown for political reasons, a fact that's been glossed over by Prejean herself. It extends the "forgetting reality" theme of the GOP, but then, we all love a little escapism. Just next time, instead of spurned beauty queen, can we stick with robots fighting each other? Finally, we touch on the Yes Men and their wonderful fake New York Post that they handed out this week. They have a new documentary coming out in a few weeks, The Yes Men Fix The World, but do these types of stunt documentaries really change anything? Like the Ferrell video, are they only for the converted? Listen to the show here , subscribe to the iTunes podcast , or use the Blog Talk Radio player: Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein ( www.teresacentric.com ), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry ( www.maegancarberry.com ). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com. More on Miss California
 
New Anti-Gay Ad In Maine Exact Copy Of California Prop. 8 Ad (VIDEO) Top
Frank Schubert, the consultant who did the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign, isn't even trying in Maine. He's just recycling his Prop. 8 ads for the campaign in Maine.
 

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