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TV Interview On The IMF and World Bank: International Echoes Of Domestic Banking Policies

Did an interview with RT Today on the meeting of the International Monetary Fund, and on the ways that IMF and World Bank policy reflect the same combination of austerity economics and a 'liberalized' financial sector that we're seeing here and in Europe. The video is here:

Posted by Richard Eskow on April 17, 2011 at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wherein I'm Attacked by Rush Limbaugh -- plus, Dittoheads Gone Wild! [audio]

Apparently the august and statesmanlike Mr. Rush Hudson Limbaugh III (his real name) was a little displeased by our piece in the Huffington Post this weekend, "Why Progressives Keep Losing and the Right Keeps Winning." He read it out loud on his show this morning, and I'm about to say something about that which might shock and surprise you:

He was neither as courteous as one might hope nor as well-informed as once might expect. Disappointing, I know.

Rush spent nearly ten minutes of air time reading my piece and commenting on it. (The audio and the transcript are below.) It wasn't all bad: After initially mispronouncing my name, he corrected himself and said it correctly. The man's a pro; gotta give him that. Almost nobody gets my name right.

You'll notice that he does change my words in one way: Whenever "Democratic Party" appears in the text he says "Democrat Party" instead. Oh, and he calls the Huffington Post the "Huffington Puffington Post." Très drôle, no?

Rush was furious at the suggestion that the Right won this weekend's negotiation. Do you feel like you won? he asked his listeners. Who cares? Judging by the hate mail I've received since the show aired, I doubt his listeners can feel their toes.

But what really seemed to get his goat (and quite a horned beast that animal must be!) was this:

Where's the progressive vision for 2021? Where's the dream people can seize upon and make their own? Where's the ideal that can energize activists? Where's the extreme position from which the Democrats can be "bargained down" so that they, too, can only get 20% more than they asked for when the negotiations began? If they're not going to do it, we have to do it for them.

Here's a start: First increase Social Security retirement benefits by 15%, across the board, by lifting the payroll tax cap and imposing a financial transactions tax. Second, increase income taxes on a sliding scale that goes up to 60% for the highest earners in the country. (It's been as high as 90% during periods of our greatest prosperity.) Third, add $500 billion to our stimulus spending over the next two years, and keep adding it until unemployment is down to 4%. Fourth, immediately add a public option, "Medicare For All" plan that's voluntarily available to Americans of all age brackets.

That paragraph has really aggravated the Right, I guess. RedState.com and Hot Air both took strong exception to it as well. We might be on to something. The left really needs to think big, doesn't it?

The big fella also took exception to my assertion that progressive ideas are more popular than those of the Right. Clearly neither he nor his producers clicked on the links, which provide data from a number of polls which prove my point. Facts are troublesome things.

Afterwards he lambasted Paul Krugman, too, before answering my rhetorical question: "Why do you keep losing? Because you elected a false messiah!"

What was really interesting to me was the rage some of his callers directed toward the Republicans. Rushbo's really just a highly-paid Republican Party operative at heart, born into a family of Republican functionaries, although he tries to hide it. He seemed pretty disconcerted by the intensity of their emotion. Rush and his party have channeled a lot of white rage, but there's a chance it could backfire.

Some of that rage is irrational, and some is justifiable anger that's been misdirected. It should be channeled instead toward Wall Street, the big corporations who control the United States Chamber of Commerce, and the plutocrats' political operatives - a group that includes the Republican Party, the Tea Party's backers, and Rush Limbaugh.

Now the Partiers are so worked up that, judging from Rush's callers, nothing less than total annihilation of the Federal government will satisfy them. Of course, then they'll be a little upset when their Social Security check doesn't arrive.

Or their disability check. Or their Medicare coverage. Or when they're poisoned by bad groundwater because the EPA's been shuttered. Or when they're swept away in a flood because the GOP has cut disaster preparedness and emergency warning funds. Or when their house is burglarized because the Republican Congress has cut funds for supporting and training local and state law enforcement.

But in the meantime, that inchoate and uncontrollable rage could make things a little awkward for Rush as he tries to navigate the rockyshoals that lie between his audience's fury and his servility toward the Republican Party. My message for the Tea Party is this: Those political guys'll just use you, folks, and so will their highly-paid operatives like Rush Limbaugh. Start listening to people who will tell you the truth. (And hey, I'm sorry about what I said back there. You know, the toes thing? I was just mad. I know that the vast majority of you did not write me nasty emails, so that was uncalled for.)

Like the saying goes: He who rides the tiger cannot dismount. (It's just a saying, Rush. I'm not suggesting that actual tigers were present at any point during this debate.)

___________________

Here's Rush reading what I've written. I wonder how he'd sound reading poetry? I'm thinking Edna St. Vincent Millay, but I'm open to suggestions.

Rushbo reads RJ

Here's the entire segment, if you're filled with morbid curiosity:

Rushbo segment

And here's the transcript:

Continue reading "Wherein I'm Attacked by Rush Limbaugh -- plus, Dittoheads Gone Wild! [audio]" »

Posted by Richard Eskow on April 11, 2011 at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: blind rage, budget talks, Paul Krugman, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party, US Chamber of Commerce, white rage

TV Appearance: A Little Buzz Kill About Jobs Numbers, Hedge Fund Billionaires, and Other Econ Stuff

I appeared on Russia Today television's "The Alyona Show" to talk about today's job numbers, slow-rising wages vs. fast-rising CEO pay, and the fact that 25 hedge fund managers made $22 billion each.

I think Alonya was suggesting at the end that I was being a downer about those job figures ... I believe the current slang term for that kind of thing is "buzz kill." Oh, well!

(It was last-minute, hence the unshaven look.)

Re the unshaven look: Like it? I mean, is the effect more like this -

or like this?

Vanity compels me to ask.

Posted by Richard Eskow on April 01, 2011 at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Music For Madison: Steve Earle Steps Up (With A Digression About The Fall Of Communism)

Steve Earle, who's hands-down one of the best songwriters of our time, has re-released two union-themed songs on iTunes to support the Madison protesters. “Harlan Man” and “The Mountain” are being issued as a special "2-track digital single" (I didn't know you could do that), with all proceeds going to The America Votes Labor Unity Fund, through SaveWorkers.org.

“Unions are a fundamental component of democracy throughout the free world," said Steve." All eyes are on Wisconsin.” I'll go with that.

In fact, I was thinking about exactly that earlier today - unions and democracy, I mean. I was working with USAID and the State Department when the Communist countries were changing over back in the early nineties. I went to the Silesian mountains in Poland back then to talk to the Solidarity folks about financing a health care plan for the workers. I spent a lot of time in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, even Albania when it was first opened up after forty years as a "garrison state." That was under the first President Bush.

And I was just thinking today how funny it is how some of the people who got so excited about the unions over there are working as hard as they can to destroy the unions over here. You should have seen them: They had Solidarity coffee cups, Solidarity posters in the original Polish ... they had everything material you could acquire that had anything to do with "solidarity."

They just didn't have solidarity, if you know what I mean.

I was in Prague once with a World Bank mission, and on our way home from dinner a group of us saw two young girls playing guitars for spare change. My companions bribed them into letting me play the guitar and sing with them. I don't want to brag, but we made some really good money. They didn't want me to leave. (To be completely honest,, there wasn't a lot of competition on the street that night.)

The only problem with singing for a group of non-musical people from a lot of different countries, like the people on that mission, is that at least back in the nineties you would almost be forced at gunpoint to take a crack at singing "Hotel California" or "Country Roads." On another trip I heard a Hungarian country band play Merle Haggard songs for Mossbacher, Bush's Secretary of Commerce (I forget his first name, although I shook his hand. He was all hair and teeth and tan, like all these guys are.). The event was a "Texas style barbecue" in Mossbacher's honor at an ancient fort overlooking the Danube.

Life throws some weird curves at you sometimes.

Anyway, back to Steve: The songs are from the bluegrass album he did with Del McCoury and his band back in 1999. The whole album's great. Earle's got an uncanny way of writing original songs that sound about 150 years old. (You should hear Levon Helm sing "The Mountain," too. He was born to do it.)

Both songs deal with life as a (union) miner, so you can buy the single for the mineworker in your life.

According to the press release, "The America Votes Labor Unity Fund is the fiscal agent of the AFL-CIO State Unity Fund, a special account of the AFL-CIO and directed by a broad coalition of national labor organizations ... The America Votes Labor Unity Fund united labor organizations, allied progressive groups and individuals to fight for workers -- on the ground and on the airwaves. Contributions help activists campaign in 11 states ..."

You can contribute at saveworkers.org, and you can buy Steve's single on iTunes here. The two actions aren't mutually exclusive, either, so you don't have to make a vexing decision here. Why not do both?

Posted by Richard Eskow on March 17, 2011 at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

From the Huffington Post File

Here are the last gazillion pieces I've done over at the Huffington Post (well, at least six, anyway):

For Adults Only

234 Comments | Posted March 15, 2011 | 03:29 PM (EST)

God save us from sentences like this one: "Don't look now, but an adult conversation has begun on the federal budget deficit." If we've heard this cliché once, we've heard it a thousand times, so we hope we'll be forgiven for the blunt talk that follows.

Let's face it. Washington's...

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