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Next: Pink Electric Chairs!

[ 63 ] February 3, 2012 | Erik Loomis

In case Komen hadn’t satisfied its desire to paint itself as a right-wing organization with its defunding of Planned Parenthood, it wanted to make it very clear to all of us where it falls on the political spectrum:

Just in time for the rising backlash to its self-created public relations disaster, the Susan G. Komen Foundation—which announced this week that it would pull its funding from Planned Parenthood—has teamed up with Discount Gun Sales to market pink handguns.

An unknown portion of sales will be donated to the Komen Foundation’s Seattle branch in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It retails for $429.99 [sic'd]:

I really think it would be special if Texas would dye the chemicals it uses to execute innocent people pink. Imagine the positive publicity!

….And Komen caves!

….Or maybe Komen is trying to fool us into thinking it has caved.

Nevermind My Optimism

[ 85 ] February 2, 2012 | Erik Loomis

I know I’ve been expressing some optimism about November in recent posts. But forget about it. A total game-changer means we should all give up on reelecting Barack Obama.

Apparently gluttons for more movie critic punishment, the producers of the first Atlas Shrugged movie have announced that production on Part Two will begin in the spring.

John Aglialoro, who independently produced and funded the first movie to the tune of $20 million, and Harmon Kaslow, another producer, announced that they would begin principal photography on the sequel in April, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Ever attentive to timing, Aglialoro and Kaslow said they chose to announce the movie on what would have been Ayn Rand’s 107th birthday and are shooting to release it this October, right before the presidential election.

Between the artistic brilliance of right-wing propaganda films, their huge market share, the legendary financial success of the first film, and the fact that Ayn Rand is better than all of us, I don’t see any reason to hope for an Obama victory. In fact, I’m going to start hording my money from the rest of you leeches.

OR-1

[ 10 ] February 1, 2012 | Erik Loomis

My major goal in election-related blogging is to provide some coverage of state-level politics, which I pay a good deal of attention to. This is particularly true in states that I have lived (OR, NM, TX, TN, OH, RI) and states that I have spent a lot of time (most of the American West outside of California, as well as Kentucky, West Virginia, and New York) so I’ll probably focus on those, but will also look at key issues on state ballots around the country.

I’ll start this with the other and possibly equally important election that took place Tuesday night. While Mitt was busy doing what everyone knew he was going to do anyway, OR-1 had a special election to replace the erratic David Wu, who had recently resigned. This should be solidly Democratic country, but the district mostly makes up the western suburbs of Portland, so theoretically the right kind of Republican could compete there. While I tend to be skeptical of the ability of a single local election to have much predictive power. National pundits always want to nationalize an election and that’s often a mistake.

So I don’t want to read much into Tuesday’s election, where Democratic candidate Suzanne Bonamici beat Republican Rob Cornilles 57-37. This is meaningful because Republicans were showing guarded hope of making this election close. With neither candidate doing anything self-destructive, it became a potential look at how a swingish district in a blue state might roll this fall. A 20 point victory is right where a healthy Democratic candidate should be in OR-1. This district went Obama 61-36 in 2008, Kerry 55-44 in 2004, and Gore 50-44 in 2000. Were this a 5 point race, we might have had reason to worry about Oregon in November, but assuming the relative status quo, this is a pretty good sign that Obama might be in pretty good shape in a state he doesn’t want to have to contest.

On the other hand, Democrats dumped $1 million into this race to make sure this was the result and the margin. Probably a good idea, but it wasn’t completely uncontested.

The Environmental Legacy of War

[ 18 ] February 1, 2012 | Erik Loomis

We are now out of Iraq, at least sort of. So now everyone can start putting their bad memories of the American occupation behind them, right? Of course, Americans forgot this yesterday, after all Real Housewives of Lubbock is on. But the Iraqis have a lot of reminders. Among them–massive and unmitigated pollution.

“Open-air burn pits have operated widely at military sites in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Department of Veterans Affairs notes on its website. On hundreds of camps and bases across the two countries, the U.S. military and its contractors incinerated toxic waste, including unexploded ordnance, plastics and Styrofoam, asbestos, formaldehyde, arsenic, pesticides and neurotoxins, medical waste (even amputated limbs), heavy metals and what the military refers to as “radioactive commodities.” The burns have released mutagens and carcinogens, including uranium and other isotopes, volatile organic compounds, hexachlorobenzene, and, that old favorite, dioxin (aka Agent Orange).

The military pooh-poohs the problem, despite a 2009 Pentagon document noting “an estimated 11 million pounds [5,000 tonnes] of hazardous waste” produced by American troops, the Times of London reported. In any case, it says, the waste isn’t all that toxic, and there is no hard evidence troops were harmed. Of course, one reason for that lack of evidence, reports the Institute of Medicine (which found 53 toxins in the air above the Balad air base alone), is that the Pentagon won’t or can’t document what it burned and buried, or where it did so.

The little media attention that has been paid to this massive pollution has dimly illuminated its potential impact on U.S. troops. Left in mephitic darkness are the contractors, often impoverished South Asians, who did the dirty work at the bases, as well as Iraqi civilians who live and farm nearby. The Times of London reported that “open acid canisters sit within easy reach of children, and discarded batteries lie close to irrigated farmland,” causing people to sicken and rats to die “next to soiled containers.”

The environmental issue is a hearts-and-minds thing. When Iraqis babies are dying of cancer, they will remember why this is happening. I realize that environmental considerations are never going to be a top priority during wartime, proper mitigation of pollution is a very important issue, both for the ecosystem and for the people who live in it.

Barack Obama’s Holiday Card List

[ 14 ] February 1, 2012 | Erik Loomis

If Obama wins reelection, he’s going to have a long list of holiday cards* to send out. Sure, he’ll have all sorts of fundraisers to thank. He’ll even give the normal lip service Democrats give to unions have their massive get out of the vote efforts, even though he won’t really do much for them over the next 4 years.

But Obama’s most elaborate holiday cards will have to go to the many Republicans assisting him in his reelection efforts by saying and doing things most designed to motivate the Democratic base. Of course, Mittens and his “I’m not concerned about the very poor” deserves a big thanks. If you’re not even going to make Democratic strategists work to create a narrative that paints you as a plutocrat, why are you even running?

There’s also the states. John Kasich deserves his own invitation to the Obama reelection party. His attack on public unions has made Ohioans so angry that, despite the bad economy and the cultural issues that have always made older, whiter states like Ohio difficult for Obama, a recent poll has him defeating Romney 49-42. Given Obama’s problems, that’s a big lead. Romney’s plutocrat image won’t play well in the Buckeye State. I’m far from saying Ohio is some kind of a sure thing for the Democrats, but this is a very good sign. And a good sign for Sherrod Brown’s Senate reelection campaign too.

In all seriousness, yes the economy still sucks and gas prices are high and there’s lots of reasons Obama could lose this, including the 40 billion dollars of Citizens United money that is going to paint Obama as Osama on every commercial break for 4 months. But the Republicans are really screwing themselves here. Given that the presidential election is fought state-by-state, I think we should all appreciate the Republicans destroying themselves in so many key battleground states. If Romney can’t win Ohio, I don’t see how he wins the election. Wisconsin Democrats are more motivated than any in the country. Minnesota Republicans are trying to get a right to work a person to death bill on the ballot; that’s sure to help Romney in a red-leaning but theoretically competitive state…. Indiana is really Republican and of all the states Obama won in 08, it seems the least likely to vote for him again. But Mitch Daniels’ own right to work a person to death law isn’t very popular with voters and won’t help Romney be able to ignore the Hoosier state.

And then you have Arizona. Jan Brewer, evidently concerned that Scott Walker and Nikki Haley were outcrazying her, has decided to declare a full-fledged war on public sector unions. She is shepherding a bill through the Arizona legislature that bans collective bargaining for public sector unions, barring cities and counties from paying workers who are using work time to do union business, and eliminating payroll dues deductions. Essentially, Arizona is moving to make public sector unionism illegal. Republicans estimate this will save taxpayers $550 million over seven years. That savings isn’t from paying lawyers to negotiate union contracts either–they are openly saying that they will slash the salaries of government workers.

Now I don’t know if Obama can win Arizona. I do know it is the #1 McCain-voting state that Obama is targeting. It is a very strange state. But its extremism and a motivated Latino populace might make this competitive, especially if Brewer continues to alienate new sectors of the state.

If Obama wins, we have so many Republicans to thank. I hope they continue helping the president will reelection.

* Yes, I am saying “holiday card” intentionally in the hopes of irritating a conservative.

Our Open Government

[ 12 ] February 1, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Josh Fox, the maker of the documentary Gasland and whom one might call today’s Ida Tarbell, was arrested today at the order of House Republicans during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. Why? They tried to film it.

Open government at its finest! It’s far easier to destroy the nation’s environment if you can keep anyone from reporting on it.

Climate Scientists Strike Back

[ 96 ] February 1, 2012 | Erik Loomis

After another dumb climate change denial article in the Wall Street Journal last week, a group of climate scientists had enough. We need a lot more aggressive attacks like this from the scientists. An excerpt:

Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate

Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

You published “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

One of denialists’ prime tactics has been to confuse the public by stretching the definition of “expert” to mean “whoever they find to shill for them.” If you are a member of the general public, do you know the difference between climatologist and meterologist? Or any other kind of scientist? No. You put a guy in a lab on the TV and that looks pretty expert to most people. The Weather Channel passes for expertise for those who are into the weather and TV weather forecasters have been at the forefront of climate denial, even though they lack the knowledge to analyze long-term climate patterns.

Labor Notes

[ 45 ] January 31, 2012 | Erik Loomis

A lot of interesting things under the radar right now:

1. It looks like Minnesota is going to have a right to work a person to death law on the ballot this fall. A right-wing legislator is introducing this bill. Republicans control both houses of the Minnesota legislature. If the bill can pass both houses, the governor cannot veto it, and it goes to the voters. It will join an anti-gay marriage measure, making Minnesota a hot bed of politics this cycle. Minnesota should have a bit enough progressive presence to fight this back, but the state also has odd politics and so who knows.

2. The new Revel Casino in Atlantic City has a very special employment policy: workers are hired for 4-6 year terms. Then they are fired and have to reapply. No seniority, no rights. The second Gilded Age advances another step. Revel received $261 million in tax credits to build this casino and are trying to bust the UNITE-HERE union that represents casino workers.

3. Great Mike Elk piece on the 13 year struggle of Brooklyn’s Cablevision workers to unionize with the Communication Workers of America. CWA used a complex media strategy to undermine Cablevision’s intense anti-union pressure placed upon workers. Winning by a nearly 3-1 margin, which is a blowout compared to usual numbers after companies seek to destroy the organizing campaign, this is a major win for CWA and the workers.

Is the Federal Government Too Generous To Working-Class People?

[ 111 ] January 31, 2012 | Erik Loomis

The Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that poorly educated government workers make more than they would in the private sector. That’s hardly surprising. What’s equally unsurprising is that pro-business writers are saying that government workers make too much money. First up is my new favorite Atlantic hack Jordan Weissmann:

It’s great that the federal government is providing livable wages to workers, and their families, who would probably have a tough time of it in the private sector. But as an efficient use of resources, the current setup doesn’t make much sense. This might sound cold-hearted to some, but this is exactly the opposite of what the chart should look like if we’re interested in attracting the best and brightest to public service, and keeping them there.

So it’s great that the federal government treats working-class people with dignity but this needs to end yesterday? For someone like Weissmann, committed to defending the nation’s income disparity and defending the privileges of the 1%, this is typical but still awful. For Weissmann, the only workers that matter are those with advanced degrees. Working-class people I guess should go work at Wal-Mart or something.

Of course, Kevin Drum also equivocates on whether this is a good thing:

Would the quality of the federal bureaucracy improve if we paid less for low-level jobs and used the money we saved to compete better for top-level managers and other professionals? Maybe! But the CBO punts on this: “A key issue in compensation policy is the ability to recruit and retain a highly qualified workforce. But assessing how changes in compensation would affect the government’s ability to recruit and retain the personnel it needs is beyond the scope of this analysis.” Maybe next time.

Hiring working-class people hurts the quality of the federal bureaucracy? Should you need a master’s degree to work for the Postal Service? A Ph.D. to hold a mid-level job in Commerce?

What’s remarkable is the assumption by both writers that the government should target primarily the highest educated people. Does anyone in this society care about workers with only a high school education? Are we really going to accept their exile to the lowest levels of the workforce and permanent poverty? Should even the federal government follow the corporate social Darwinist model?

….Of course, Megan Mcardle just comes out and says that those lazy fat government workers make too much.

The Extinction of Megaupload

[ 64 ] January 31, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Although SOPA and PIPA were defeated for now, the corporate-government attack on file sharing continues unabated. Most significantly was the government shutdown of Megaupload a couple of weeks ago. Regardless of an overarching bill ending filesharing, the media companies are using their full power to end the practice.

One can make a copyright argument that if you really want a Metallica album, you should buy it. I get that. But the ending of the entire practice has very real consequences. Take for instance, the now deleted site Holy Warbles. In response to the Megaupload ban, Blogspot has deleted many of the blogs that shared files. Holy Warbles was one of these. Holy Warbles was a great site that I sometimes used. It did not traffic in the new Chris Brown. Instead, it found obscure vinyl, largely from foreign artists that would never, ever be released on CD or digitally and made it available to people.

The blog Bodega Pop argues that this is akin to closing the modern version of a library:

Most notably, Owl Qaeda’s Holy Warbles, which first had its Megaupload content stolen by the FBI action. As if that weren’t enough, no doubt freaking out over the Megaupload action, Blogger simply shut his blog down, claiming multiple instances of copyright infringement. Of–we should be clear–expressive cultural artifacts that were either long out of print (and never to be reprinted) or so obscure as to be readily unavailable to anyone whose head is not a giant interactive encyclopedia.

The last thing I downloaded from HW was a rare, completely out of print album by Marie Jubran, a Syrian artist who recorded mostly during the 50s I think and who doesn’t even have so much as an English-language Wikipedia page. I have a lot of Arabic music from the period and a couple of related books, and I’d never even heard of her before visiting Holy Warbles. That is the sort of thing we’re talking about. Gone now. Not just the music, mind you, which is lovely. But an artifact that is now once again unavailable for, say, anyone studying the region and period.

Holy Warbles, and blogs like it, are–for all intents and purposes–libraries. That, really, is their function. Libraries that store things that not even the NYPL or Queens Borough Public Library have. (I should know; I’ve ransacked both for their CD and other media collections, which I–yes, you guessed it–immediately download to my computer. Will the FBI be visiting our libraries next?)

Indeed. Should the government confiscate actual libraries CD collections? After all, I could check out a CD and burn it to my computer. Isn’t that also taking money out of the pockets of corporate shareholders?

The Muppets Take Fox News

[ 36 ] January 30, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Outstanding.

Apologizing for Exploitation

[ 55 ] January 30, 2012 | Erik Loomis

Tom Krazit at Paid Content has a piece up apologizing for Apple’s exploitation of Chinese workers in the creation of its products. Krazit argues that Apple really can’t do anything about the problem–the jobs aren’t coming back to the US, it would be too risky for Apple to open its own factory, and China might not allow any real reform anyway.

Most of this is hogwash. The idea that an enormous multinational corporation which just had one of the most profitable quarters in the history of any corporation in the history of the human race is completely incapable of paying its workers a living wage would be laughable if it it didn’t shill for immorality. Take this paragraph for instance:

The truth is that an entire consumer electronics industry depends on these factories for their livelihoods; the dozens of companies and millions of people that have made a handsome living on the spread of mobile technology, gaming consoles, and high-definition televisions into everyone’s lives. And China depends on the demand for its manufacturing services driven by Western consumers who want quality goods at a low price, knowing that few other operations are able to hit those targets as consistently as its homegrown manufacturing base.

OK, but how does this get in the way of paying a decent wage. Apple prices are not low and people are desperate to own its products, but even given the general principle that people want to buy things for cheap, it’s not at all clear that you can’t provide reasonably priced goods and pay people good wages. We did this during the great period of unionization in this country after World War II; admittedly, our level of consumer spending was not so high as it is today, but people also witnessed rapidly increasing consumer power during those years. Even outside of that, given Apple’s gargantuan profits, there’s no way they can’t ensure better working conditions through throwing their considerable corporate weight around. Those contractors do whatever the corporations want them to do. They want so much product at so much cost. And they get it to them. This does not have to be a constant downward. If the corporations want the contractors to pay more, that will happen.

Krazit’s one point worth serious discussion is the role of the Chinese government, who may well be obfuscating any information coming out about their workers’ lives and who could theoretically provide a structural barrier to a corporation wanting to pay its workers more (assuming any of us take seriously the idea that Apple executives really care all that much about how these workers live, which I most certainly do not). If China truly sees its future as providing cheap manufacturing labor, I can see why it might want to discourage one company from paying too much in the fear of driving off other companies. But that’s happening already. As China begins transitioning to a more mature and wealthy society and as workers get sick of dying in factories and having babies born with cancer, companies are moving to Bangladesh, Vietnam, and other nations with working conditions even more wretched. And while I don’t doubt the power of the Chinese government, I do not at all buy the presumption that Apple is somehow helpless to improve their workers’ lives in the face of the Chinese government. This is patently absurd.

Apple could do any number of things if it were serious about allowing its workers to live better lives. It could slightly reduce profits and earmark this money specifically for workers’ wages. It could open its own factory in China, hiring skilled technicians and creating a modern version of a company town (a scenario also ripe for abuse, but it isn’t worse than the present situation). It could then allow western reporters, environmental consultations, human rights groups, and whoever else full access to that factory. Even if you take Krazit’s point seriously that they jobs can’t leave China because that’s where the expertise lies (which begs the question of how computers were made before they were in China and what will happen when computer companies move their factories to nations with ever-more degraded labor), it hardly means that corporations are helpless to do anything at all about their workers. It’s that they don’t really want to do so.

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