Scary Black Man

-- by Dave Johnson

By the way -- How come I can't play YouTube videos in FireFox, but can in Internet Explorer? The videos just stop after 2 seconds.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:25 AM PST on July 23, 2008.

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"Who Sent You?" -- The Coming Attack on Obama

-- by Dave Johnson

At least one major right-wing smear attack on Obama may be gearing up. I'll call it the "Who Sent You" campaign. As weird as it sounds -- and it is weird stuff -- the gist of it is that Obama's birth was part of a secret plan by communists, Jews and one-worlders to take over the world. As you read this it is going to sound so fanatically wingnut/John Birch Society/black helicopter/precious bodily fluids weird that you are likely to dismiss it as the rantings of crazy people. But I have learned over the years that this stuff resonates with a certain crowd, and they are remarkably effective at tapping the fears of Americans.

Keep in mind how weird and unbelievable the Swift Boat accusations seemed -- and remember the powerful effect they had on the public and election results. In The Swiftboaters Are Back in the Water I wrote about the effectiveness of the dishonest accusations,

. . . [one] reason it works is because it is (excuse the pun) offensive. They say that the best defense is a good offense, and considering their candidates, the Republicans certainly needed a defense.

[. . .] So with swiftboating you spread a smear to raise questions with the public about the opponent's patriotism or service. It doesn't have to be true (how quaint) it just has to raise questions. This "neutralizes" the honorable record of or otherwise "discredits" the advantages that opponent has against a Republican with a poor (like George W. Bush's) or no (like Saxby Chambliss or any number of other "chickenhawks") record.

That post also cited the following description of the results of that smear:

Continue reading ""Who Sent You?" -- The Coming Attack on Obama"

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:18 PM PST on July 21, 2008.

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Racist?

-- by Dave Johnson

Is this headline, Obama’s moneywoman was a subprime mortgage queen, racist? Just asking. I'm thinking it evokes the older "welfare queen" image.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:32 PM PST on July 21, 2008.

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Question About War Crimes Trial

-- by Dave Johnson

First Guantanamo war crimes trial under way | Reuters,

The first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two began on Monday at the U.S. navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, nearly seven years after the September 11 attacks prompted President George W. Bush to declare war on terrorism.

I want to be sure I have this right. According to the Republicans the people at Guantanamo are not subject to the Geneva Conventions because they are "unlawful combatants" not engaged in "war" as defined by the conventions. But now they are being "tried" for "war crimes."

Isn't this having it both ways? Either they are or are not.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:42 AM PST on July 21, 2008.

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Pete McCloskey at Netroots Nation

-- by Dave Johnson

Never mind Bob Barr, I ran into "national treasure" Pete McCloskey at Netroots Nation.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:28 AM PST on July 20, 2008.

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Energy Prices

-- by Dave Johnson

I want to write about something Al Gore said yesterday about energy prices, at the Netroots Nation conference.

Oil is limited. There is only so much, and the amount you can get it out of the ground and refine on any day is limited. That means that the more you depend on it and use it the more the more the price goes up. It just has to go up and eventually run out.

Solar power, on the other hand, is a new technology, so it is expensive today. But the more demand there is, the more factories are built. That means that the more we depend on it and use it, the more the price goes down.

Let me add that once you install solar your ongoing cost is very low. With solar you stop sending those checks to the energy companies.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:40 AM PST on July 20, 2008.

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Al Gore at Netroots Nation

-- by Dave Johnson

Al Gore just surprised Netroots Nation by coming out to talk about energy and global warming during the Nancy Pelosi "Ask the Speaker" session.

Live streaming of this and all major NN events and sessions can be seen here: http://www.netrootsnation.org/node/982 (Note -- after the convention almost all sessions, including the smaller rooms will be archived and available.)

He's got this Johnny Cash thing going on:

Trying to catch some of what he is saying:
On new drilling:

Old hangover remedy called "The Hair of the Dog" -- when you wake up with a hangover you just take another drink. That;'s what this idea is like.

The defenders of the status quo are the ones who have gotten us into this hole.

Am I the only one who finds it strange that our country is so often fooled into picking a remedy for a problem that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem we are talking about?

The machinery of distraction is hard at work. "Oh we can't switch away from oil, that would be unrealistic." In their view it would be far more realistic to just sweep off the end of the cliff.

There is an ability to mobilize public opinion, visit his website for The Alliance for Climate Protection. It is focused on this single objective. The We campaign. WeCanSolveIt.org

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:14 AM PST on July 19, 2008.

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Harold Ford at Netroots Nation on FISA

-- by Dave Johnson

Harold Ford and Markos held a discussion on stage at lunch here at Netroots Nation. I didn't catch all of it, but at one point Ford was talking about FISA and telecom immunity, along the lines of "If you have a company, and the government comes to you and says 'If you do this for us it will help national security' then what can you say?"

I'll tell you what you can say. You can say, "DO YOU HAVE A WARRANT?"

Duh!

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:33 PM PST on July 18, 2008.

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Atria, Lazard, I'm On Randi Rhodes Today at 2pm Pacific

-- by Dave Johnson

I think I will be on the Randi Rhodes show today to talk about senior care. If I am on here is what I am going to say.

I have been working with The Campaign to Improve Assisted Living which is a project of SEIU Healthcare, the nation's largest union of healthcare workers.

Atria Senior Living is a chain put together by the "Bermuda-based" (HA!) Wall Street "buyout firm" Lazard. Atria is owned by a "Lazard-affiliate" which means they have set up a number of companies that are supposedly separate but really are part of Lazard, but it is difficult to learn who owns what. Atria is controlled by Lazard Real Estate Partners and their parent company, Lazard Alternative Investments.

At the top of the Lazard food chain is Bruce Wasserstein, chairman and chief executive officer of Lazard, Ltd. and Lazard Group. Wasserstein and his family own a significant share of LAI and Wasserstein has veto power over many of LAI’s major corporate decisions. He received $41 million just last year, and has signed a 5-year pay package worth another $100 million. This even as Lazard's stock drops.

The reason Lazard put together Atria was that the Boomers are aging, so care for the elderly was seen as a "next big thing" type of investment to get into. Over time more and more retirement and care facilities will be needed. Lazard gathered a number of large investors, and promises a revenue stream. So the investors are the customer -- the seniors and their remaining savings and incomes are the PRODUCT.

To make money a firm like Lazard cuts costs. That is called "efficiency." But what it means is that the services for the elderly are reduced. And it means that the employees are squeezed. They are paid $8-10 an hour. They can't afford health insurance. And they cut back the staff, which means the employees are stretched and the seniors are receiving less in the way of care and services. As a result Atria has been cited thousands of times across the country for care problems (the resident gets someone else's medicine, etc.). Partly this is because it's the wild west out there for assisted living. Everything is different state by state, there's very little regulation, etc. but the main problem is this unaccountable ownership structure -- which results in enabling Lazard and Wasserstein to see the seniors in Atria as nothing more than economic units -- a product they serve up to the investors.

If Atria stops fighting unionization then the staff will be increased and the workers can make improvements for themselves and for the residents. Unions can really help improve care. Hospital and nursing home workers have negotiated improvements to staffing levels, training programs so they can give the best care, and of course raising pay and benefits helps a lot with reducing turnover among the lowest paid caregivers--lower turnover means better care, more qualified and experienced staff, etc.

Please go visit The Campaign to Improve Assisted Living!

This post was sponsored in part by The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:23 AM PST on July 18, 2008.

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Back To The Vulnerable Elderly

-- by Dave Johnson

Atria Senior Living and Lazard -- I've been writing about bigger-picture issues but today I'd like to go back where this started, to the most vulnerable people - the elderly. The residents at the Atria Senior Living facilities are the direct victims of a big company buying up a number of senior living chains, combining them into one big chain and then financializing this as an investment, because everyone knows that the Boomers are getting old so this is a great way to get in on the ground floor of a growing business.

But viewing elderly people as a business and good investment is the wrong way to approach this. It's backwards. It should be, let's take care of elderly people, and do a good job, and provide a good service, and be fairly compensated for our efforts. That is how a business should be run. The goal is doing a great job with the product or service provided, not makingthe quick buck by cutting back services and squeezing employees. This si the new American way of looking at business, but it is just wrong.

Starting this series, I wrote,

To set the stage, think about yourself getting old, or about your parents or grandparents. Think about reaching a point where you just can't quite get by living on your own at home anymore. So at some point you decide you have to move into a senior facility. What about if you need assisted-living facilities -- a place with people to help you take a shower and things like that. And finally, think about when you might need "memory care." (This is a the name for a special facility for people with Alzheimer's disease.)

These are people who are in no condition to fight battles. Vulnerable is the word here. Extremely vulnerable. You would think people in this phase of their live are people who our society would give special care, special attention, special protections. You would think that our society would join together to take care of them, protect them, shelter them, fight for them.

But not in today's America. You see, there is one more fact about these people: the people who move into a senior facility do so because they can afford to. These places are not cheap. In today's America the people without money are on their own without care, but if you have some money you have at least some value -- to a certain kind of company.

OK, we have the perfect combination here. We have elderly, frail, sick, vulnerable, and they have some money. They are a captive audience, too, because people in this situation are not people who can pack up and move somewhere else. Senior care is a big business. You're talking about chains with hundreds of facilities each with dozens or even hundreds of living units you're talking REAL money. So in today's economy you're talking about a perfect target for exploitation. This week I am going to explore what it means to be vulnerable. But I think you can already guess where this is going.

In Reverse Robin Hood: Stealing From The Poor To Give To The Rich : Boztopia.com, Martin notes,

What’s happening at Atria–the gouging of seniors’ meager disposable income to ensure profit margins are met, even while services and benefits are cut and rents are increased dramatically–is an extreme, but all-too-real example of what’s happening all over the globe…the systematic transfer of wealth and the power to create wealth from the larger mass of the human community to a select class of uber-wealthy players at the top of the social scale. It’s worth looking at the issue in a larger context, if only to reiterate what I think most of us already know…that we’re being robbed, cheated, gouged, and nickel-and-dimed to death to make others rich.

To change this, to bring America back to sound business practices, where you provide a good product or service, and then you are fairly compensated, will be a long effort. We have to get peoplo eback out of the quick buck mentality. We have to find ways to prevent the Bruce Wassersteins and the Lazards and the Atrias from gaming the system to their own advantage. (Like how Lazard claims to be a "Bermuda-based" company when they are not.)

Atria could increase its services to the residents, and pay fair wages and benefits to their workers instead of making the seniors into a product they package up for their investors. Lazard could ask its investors to expect a fair return on their investment instead of hoping to cash in big on the next big trend. But then, this would be a very different country for that to happen.

This post was sponsored in part by The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:26 PM PST on July 17, 2008.

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"25,000 Members" But Only 5 Donors? Is This The New Math?

-- by Dave Johnson and James Boyce

Earlier this week, we wrote about the Republican group, Vets For Freedom, and their ability to run $1.5 million dollars in TV advertising with seemingly no support.

In our blog post, we noted that the founder of the group was claiming thousands of donors. And the group claims to have 25,000 members. A number which if true might give a hint of credibility to their claims. However, when it is becoming increasingly clear that more and more real veterans are coming out in support of Barack Obama, is it possible that VFF actually has 25,000 members?

Well, we're not from Missouri but frankly, we'd have to see the membership roster to even believe that they have 2,500 members, why?

First, in their last report, they have exactly 5 donors listed. One, two, three, four, five. So unless their marketing efforts are truly horrific, to the tune of a .00000005 response rate, we have to believe that their member list is slightly inflated.

Second, if you look at their web site traffic on public sites, you'll see that the traffic is very very light; with some recent days in May hovering around zero, wouldn't a 25,000 member person organization have more than a couple of thousand total visits a month?

Unfortunately, many news organizations are taking the 25,000 numbers as a fact versus a 'claim' -- if we claimed that a million people read everything we wrote, it wouldn't make it true -- but who knows maybe people would start writing that -- just like we are seeing these.

There's an old expression, a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on, and today from The Guardian in London, we have proof.

The £750,000 campaign launched by the 25,000-member Vets for Freedom implicitly criticises the Republican senator's anti-war Democrat rival Barack Obama, who has stated he wants to withdraw combat forces within 16 months of taking office.

On the other hand, if Vets For Freedom really does have 25,000 veteran members, we'll post the whole membership list right here, just send us the names guys, we'll put everyone up.

After all, we can easily fit in five names right here.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson and James Boyce at 10:30 AM PST on July 17, 2008.

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Immigration Questions II

-- by Dave Johnson

This post originally appeared at, Speak Out California.

The other day I brought up immigration, asking the practical question of how we would identify people who are here without documentation.

Suppose -- just suppose -- the people who advocate harsh treatment of non-citizens are successful in their efforts, and our government starts an effort to locate and deport them. How do we identify who is here without authorization? This is a practical question.

Americans are not required to "carry papers." We do not have checkpoints, and inside of the country we do not have to prove that we are traveling with proper authorization. We certainly do not have to prove that we are citizens. Many of us could never even locate the documentation necessary to prove citizenship if we were, in fact, required to prove it.

One answer that comes up frequently is to deal with the immigration question through employment. The reason people come here is to try to have a better life, which means employment. So this opens up a two-pronged approach. One, attack the undocumented resident problem through the employers, and the other is to help the countries south of us to improve their economies so people are not desperately trying to come here so they can feed their families. (And opening up markets of people who can afford to buy things we make here, by the way.) Meanwhile, employers here are taking advantage of desperate people for their own gain.

So to approach this problem though employment we ask employers here to check for documentation when hiring. This is a natural time to do this, because people already need to show they are who they say they are when applying for jobs. An employer who hires an undocumented worker is the one committing the crime.

But what happens to families and lives if we cause people working now to be fired? What happens to neighborhoods, businesses, already-eroding housing prices, local tax bases, and all the other things that can be affected if hundreds of thousands -- maybe even millions -- of people are suddenly without jobs and forced to move? Perhaps part of the answer to the problem is to freeze any new hiring of people who are not citizens or have resident status, so the problem at least stops getting worse and ever harder to solve. But it is not a good idea for human and economic reason to punish people who are already living and working here.

The current discussion of immigration is so focused on the word "illegal" and that word helps turn human beings into a faceless, criminal "them." But it really is human beings, with families and lives just like everyone else.

Please discuss.

Ckick through to Speak Out California to join our discussion there.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:13 AM PST on July 17, 2008.

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Six Years!

-- by Dave Johnson

I was at the Burnt Orange Report party at Netroots Nation, and realized that today is the sixth anniversary of this blog!

First post: Ralph Nader is a Scab

In the union movement we learned the hard way that the only way to fight the moneyed interests is to stick together. It's called SOLIDARITY. It's what "union" MEANS.

When unions are in a fight the members stick together, and those crossing the lines are called "scabs".

In the 2000 election it was the usual fragile Democratic coalition fighting the usual moneyed interests. Ralph Nader broke the solidarity, divided the coalition, and lost us the election. Ralph Nader is a scab.

When you're there,. scroll up and look at more of that first day and the first few days. From day two: Seeing the forest,

Recent polls show that the public is blaming Clinton for the business scandals, and Bush's popularity remains astronomical. That's a tree.

Let's see if we can see the forest. Look back to the 2000 election. Step back and look at the candidates. The Democrat's candidate was a well respected, well liked, extremely experienced, Vietnam vet, former seminary student, character beyond reproach, faithfully married family man, foreign policy expert, with many accomplishments including being the person in the Congress most responsible for advancing the Internet... The Republicans ran a foul-mouthed thoroughly inexperienced scandal-ridden (Harken oil, Rangers stadium, recipient of bribes directed at his father) failed businessman, continuously bailed out of jams by his father's connections, draft-dodger (worse, he got into the Nat. Guard through connections and then played hooky!), former drunk, probable drug-user, kids constantly in trouble, with a campaign entirely financed by large corporations obviously looking for favors.

But by election time the only issue was “character”, and the character in question was the Democratic candidate’s! That's the forest.

Issues like the "Love Canal story" and "I invented the Internet" were trees. The forest was how they pulled it off - the smears, the propaganda blitz, the way they spread their message and the way people hear messages these days.

With this weblog I'll be writing about this issue, seeing the forest for the trees.

The more things change...