Maureen Dowd Gets With It 1-1/2 Years Later

Open Letter to Maureen:

In your 9/9/09 column, "Less Spocky, More Rocky" you divided politicos into three parts, like all of Gaul (remember your Catholic School Latin?). The loco Right, Obama the meek, and "the far left". Who speaks for the unemployed, the foreclosed, those driven into bankruptcy by health care and student debt? Would you consider them "the far left"? If you correctly accuse Obama of countenancing "death panel" epithets, then you as a columnist with a bully pulpit should be cautious of whom you term "the far left".

Is Bill Moyers of "the far left"? Was President Nixon, who wanted some form of government health care (as your colleague Paul Krugman wrote ) of "the far left"? Was President Johnson, who lost the South over the Civil Rights Act, of "the far left"? (By the way, if Obama was presented with the Civil Rights Act, he would have negotiated it down with the late great Strom Thurmond. 3/5 of a vote, anyone?) If the media blithely labels anyone with empathy for regular people as "the far left", then we as a civilization with morals instead of dollar signs are sunk.

By the way, you came late to the party. From 2/2008, my work:

Teflon Obama and
Teflon Obama (Cont'd)

Heed My Words...Hear Me Roar

All media, politicos and especially FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate institutions) are proclaiming the end of the horrendous man-made recession which technically began in December 2007. Maybe it's over for those guys, but not for the rest of us.

The stock market extolls increased productivity, which basically means 1 person now has to do the work of 3. Economic recovery only seems to refer to the stock market and employers taking a chainsaw to their payrolls.

Even today the NYT's Business Section keeps cheerleading "green shoots" in the article, Fed Survey Finds Signs of a Slow, Fragile Recovery even though hidden within the article it's clearly obvious that employers are using their leverage to drive U.S. employee costs to developing nation levels. The only job growth at all is in temporary labor, sans benefits and protections.

Watch out for the head-on collision of the weak federal stimulus mixture of tax cuts and spending working against the cash-strapped states' obligation to balance their budgets with regressive tax increases and slashing social programs to the bone. To quote my friend Richard Wolff's paper: "Meanwhile, massive social needs go unmet (rebuilding center cities, providing daycare, health care, and eldercare to millions, repairing decades of damage to the environment, and so on."

California, with its economy as large as most countries, is a prime example. States are laying off or furloughing employees in such touted areas as education and health care, as property tax revenue decreases and hospitals go bankrupt.

Will the federal government step into the breach? Or will American become the New Serfdom?