Archive for August 2010
My latest essay at PajamasMedia:
We are in the middle of an epochal struggle over the direction of American economic policy.
The Democrats, who are currently in charge, want to follow a Keynesian model, which entails massive government spending — with its attendant tax increases and soaring deficit — to jump-start the economy.
The Republicans think the solution to our economic doldrums is to lower taxes and decrease spending, to stimulate business activity and help the nation climb out of its crippling debt.
And then there’s Barack Obama….
You might think he would be the natural spokesman for the Democratic strategy. And when the cameras are turned on, he is. But under the surface he’s also an advocate for a third economic policy, one that isn’t spoken of in polite company: The Cloward-Piven Strategy.
Problem is, the Cloward-Piven Strategy is not simply some alternate theory about the best way to rescue the American economy. Quite the opposite, in fact. Its goal is to intentionally ruin the economy, so as to arouse popular outcry for a revolutionary and fundamental change in our economic system.
I propose that President Obama is simultaneously trying to rescue the economy using the Keynesian/Democratic model while at the same time also trying to destroy the economy through the Cloward-Piven Strategy. His two mutually contradictory plans cancel each other out, rendering all his efforts self-negating, and this explains why the American economy has stalled.
I dub this the Obama-Piven Strategy. And it’s the reason why we remain mired in a deep recession. We are neither recovering, as the Keynesian model predicts, nor is capitalism collapsing, as the revolutionaries hope; the Obama-Piven strategy ensures that we remain in suspended animation between the two extremes.
…etc.!
Read the rest HERE!
My latest essay at PajamasMedia:
Slave-labor conditions at Sherrods’ farm?
Shocking new allegations against Shirley Sherrod (the USDA employee recently embroiled in a controversy over a speech she gave to the NAACP) and the communal farm she ran with her husband Charles Sherrod have been confirmed by an article published 36 years ago in a farm workers’ newspaper.
Combined, the new 2010 allegations and the original 1974 allegations accuse Shirley and Charles Sherrod of:
• Paying farm workers as little as 67¢ per hour, far below minimum wage for the era
• Employing underage children to perform hard labor
• Compelling their employees to work in unsafe conditions, including getting sprayed with pesticides
• Firing any workers who acted as whistleblowers
• Forcing employees to work overtime in the fields at night with practically no advance notice
• Having a capricious payscale under which employees doing the exact same jobs were paid different amounts according to the whims of the managers
• Being unwilling to address the abuse even after it was raised by union representatives
• Seriously mismanaging the farm to such an extent that it went bankruptLet’s first look at the new allegations, and then at the original allegations.
Ron Wilkins accuses Sherrods of Exploitation and Mistreatment
On Monday, August 2, 2010, Ron Wilkins, who was a black Civil Rights activist and organizer in the ’70s and is now a professor specializing in African-American history, published an incendiary article in the magazine CounterPunch in which he describes how he infiltrated the Sherrods’ “New Communities” farm commune in 1974 and discovered horrifying circumstances where black farm workers labored in near-slavery conditions, often being paid as little as 67¢ per hour (far under the minimum wage at the time) and facing intolerable conditions:
Read the rest HERE!
(Note: This is not a photo of me, but rather