Big business politics

By Ellen Ratner
After spending this past week at the Republican National Convention, I am convinced more than ever that the Republican Party is run like a big business. They treat constituencies, candidates and now national events as though they were products to market and sell. As of this writing, God, American troops, Sept. 11 and tax cuts are the "products" that the Republican Party is selling to the American people.



Take God, for example – or more specifically, Jesus Christ. One Christian friend of mine described the first night of the convention as an evangelical revival meeting. There were "testimonials" and delegates raising their arms in praise during "Amazing Grace." The speakers' podium looked like a pulpit, not a podium. There were two obvious crosses embedded within the wood, one large cross in the main pulpit and one small cross in the pulpit next to it. Intentional? You bet.

When I asked one of the convention directors about the crosses he just smiled. The revival meeting continued through the week, but the capstone was Zell Miller's speech. Sen. Miller was a true convert, sharing his salvation with the congregation by vilifying John Kerry, another Christian.

It's no secret the Republican Party owns the Christian Right. We've been down that road in this column once or twice. They even got into a little hot water when they crossed the line and used church attendance registries to solicit money. It's one thing for Republicans distract our nation in a time of need on social issues that have absolutely no chance of succeeding, (e.g., Gay Marriage Constitutional Amendment). But this use of subliminal symbolism crosses the line, (so to speak).

Jesus is not the only product being marketed. The Republican Party would have America think that a vote against their party, is a vote against our troops. The Republicans would have you believe that John Kerry's vote against the $87 billion Iraq supplemental bill was a vote against our troops. This accounting myth needs a good audit. The $87 billion does not go to the troops. As John Edwards said, "It amounts to writing a blank check."

A favorite Republican sound bite is that John Kerry said, "I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it." The line stops at that. Yes, it does sound ridiculous when taken as it is. But some American brains are actually able to handle more information than can be delivered in a cute line. The reasoning behind this statement is about <i>supporting our troops</i> vs. supporting big business. John Kerry initially voted for the $87 billion until he saw how the money was allocated. John Kerry believes our troops need the money, not the Republican donors and "sales representatives."

Here are the facts in terms of supporting our troops. The men and women who have served and are serving along with their family members are crying out for help. The National Guard and Reserves – the ones who President Bush compares his service during Vietnam to – are still without proper training, pay, and medical care, and many are losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the workplace.

If you are interested in reality vs. rhetoric, I recommend you take a look at <a href="http://www.optruth.org/" target="_blank">www.optruth.org</a>. It's a website which details the pathetic state of this administration's "support" for our troops. They have all served in Iraq and their motto is "We were there." Air Force, Army or Navy Times also shed light on the lack of support these men and women with George W. Bush as their commander in chief.

I could go on with Republican marketing prowess, like the hijacking of Sept. 11. They resurrected the old link between the war in Iraq and Sept. 11. Only few months ago, they admitted that there was <i>no</i> connection. This would be called a "flip flop" if John Kerry had done it.

The green, green grass of a police state

By Ellen Ratner
I celebrated another birthday this past Saturday. Without giving away my age, let's just say that I came of age during the turbulent 1970s. It was a time of enormous unrest. Our nation was embattled in an unpopular war. By the time I marched in my first protest, thousands of Americans had been killed in Vietnam. The grief of the brutal assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were still ingrained in our national psyche. The hope for the future seemed to have been buried with these men. There was a sense of despair, unrest and distrust. We were faced with a choice. We could give into the parochial and dangerously inept policies of the Nixon administration, or take to the streets. We took to the streets, and eventually our troops came home.



As I write this on the eve of the beginning of the Republican Convention, I cannot help but draw the similarities in our nation today and then. We are divided now by socio-economic status as much as we were then by race. We are engaged in a foreign war, approaching 1,000 deaths with no clear end in sight. Yet there is a stark difference today. We are not "allowed" to protest the injustice as we were over three decades ago. Why not? The New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled that a protest in Central Park will hurt the grass.

This "save the grass" legal doctrine applied by the court would be a hysterical "Saturday Night Live" skit if it were not so pathetic. I wonder what our Founding Fathers would think if they knew that a court determined that the grass in Central Park was more important than free speech and the right to assemble; rights that they shed their blood to secure.

Suppose the city of Boston had denied a request on the part of pro-life or anti-gay marriage advocates to peaceful protest on the grounds that they might harm the grass? I suppose the Supreme Court would have heard the case faster than you can say, "Miami-Dade County."

The denial by the City of New York to allow a peaceful protest in Central Park on the eve of the Republican National Convention is another example of the Republican Party's "situational democracy." Situational democracy is like situational ethics. It depends on the circumstances. For example, democracy is good; it is a "birth right" according to our president, if you are a citizen of an oil rich nation that we have recently invaded. Unfortunately, however, democracy is a privilege to be earned if you happen to be a Palestinian in the West Bank.

Of course, situational democracy began when the Supremes chose George W. Bush to be our president. Just ask the Black Caucus members. Few even know that the elected U.S. members of Congress attempted to protest the fact that African-American votes were not counted in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. In the name of "unity" we punted the most basic right of these Americans and so began the slippery slope toward the divisive administration of George W. Bush.

What about the other situations that enable the federal government to declare pockets of our nation constitutional free zones? The Patriot Act is being advertised as a necessary tool to fight the war on terrorism. Its evil twin will enable the U.S. government the right to "revoke" a person's citizenship. The attorney general, John Ashcroft, tells us not to worry. After all, he says, the scariest parts of the Patriot Act have never been used. This line of logic reminds me of the government's counsel telling Supreme Justice Ginsburg that the United States, while having the authority to use torture, does not do so. The Abu Ghraib scandal broke that evening. Our Constitution was written because our nation's founders knew that government must not be trusted completely.

The Bush administration, however, needs us to trust them completely in order to survive. It's an integral part of their campaign strategy. They pander to those who want simple answers to complex problems: "Daddy will take care of everything. Go back to watching your videos, dear." The problem is we have serious issues facing our nation that require more creativity than a JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) can deliver.

I'm not talking about what country John Kerry was in on Christmas Eve of 1968, especially in light of the fact that we do know what country George W. Bush was in that same Christmas Eve. I'm talking about the fact that we have kids still dying each day in Iraq. I'm talking about a terror threat that is still real, while water reservoirs, chemical plants and cargo containers remain vulnerable. I'm talking about the 45 million Americans who are hoping and praying their families don't get sick because they have no health insurance. I'm talking about the millions who have lost their jobs, the millions who now can't make ends meet and those who are facing a retirement with no retirement income because their pensions are no longer part of their company's business plan. These are issues that deserve attention. And if all our government can manage to talk about is what fits in a compact sound bite, then it is up to the electorate to protest. It is our right. It is our duty.

Yes, the grass may be greener this fall in Central Park, but the spirit of democracy is being ground to dust.

Nobody left to speak

By Ellen Ratner
I have penned a slight variation on Martin Niemoller's haunting quote:

<i><blockquote>When they sold out the steel workers, I did not say anything because I was not a steel worker.</blockquote></i>



<i><blockquote>When they sold out the textile workers, I did not say anything, because I was not a textile worker.</blockquote></i>

<i><blockquote>When they sold out the service workers, I did not say anything because I was not a service worker.</blockquote></i>

<i><blockquote>When they sold out the transportation workers, I did not say anything because I was not a transportation worker.</blockquote></i>

<i><blockquote>Then they came to sell out me, nobody was left to speak for me.</blockquote></i>

I could list many more who have been sold out in the new economy to include the small businesses that have historically been the backbone of our economy. They have been consumed by the super-sizing of America a la Wal-Mart and Company.

Here are the facts: 2.5 million jobs have been lost since 2001. According to labor statistics, the few jobs that are being created, pay on average 21 percent lower than the wages for the lost jobs. President Bush explains this unpleasant fact away by saying that what we are witnessing here ladies and gentleman is an economy in transformation.

I agree – our economy is transforming its way overseas along with our standard of living. The economy is transforming, but the American worker is not. Take for example, my friends in Duffield, Va. This southwestern Virginia area used to depend on agriculture, then textiles, then call centers. Now what?

It doesn't take an Enron accountant to figure out why it makes sense to move overseas, particularly when George W. Bush's tax policies reward wealth over work within our borders. Delco Auto Parts is an excellent example. I heard recently that the health-care costs for workers in their one remaining U.S. plant exceed the entire operating costs of their six plants in China.

While President Bush can identify the problem (a giant sucking sound from all directions on the American job market) it comes as no surprise that he has no real plan to transform the American work force. He has thrown a few scraps to the masses with community college educational opportunities or his new, flex-time initiative. Of course, flex time only applies when you have a job. These policies are like taking random baby steps. Our workforce needs directed policies, programs and incentives in order to preserve the middle class and transform this workforce to be able to compete in a global economy.

The president has had over three years to address the other costs embedded within the American work force that make it difficult to keep jobs within our borders. He has done nothing. President Bush is Missing in Action in the health care crisis, arguably the biggest financial burden for companies in our economy. Pensions are another iceberg waiting to be crashed into.

The president's way of addressing these crises is to effectively say that the days of working for a company for 30 years with health-care benefits and a pension are gone. This is one area where his words and actions match up. Under his command, United Airlines was denied federal loan guarantees. United did not ask for a handout. They wanted the government to co-sign a $1.6 billion dollar loan that they obtained from other creditors. The government told United Airlines that they could do fine without the governments co-signature. As a result, United announced last week that they will likely default on $8.3 billion worth of pensions.

Other airlines say they will have to flush their pensions as well in order to be competitive. The dominos start falling rapidly in this scenario from industry to industry. Guess who will pick up the tab? Yes, the taxpayers. Financial analysts predict this pension crisis will make the savings-and-loan bailout look like the cost of a "Made in China" T-shirt. Of course, the president should be no stranger to the magnitude of the savings-and-loan crisis. His brother Neil was up to his ears in it.

Here's the rub: Under the leadership of George W. Bush, the government didn't co-sign a $1.6 billion loan for United Airlines. Now we have a pending multi-billion-dollar crisis on our hands.

If all of this bad news is true, then what is sustaining this economy? Answer, consumer debt. Thanks to Al Greenspan's generous interest rates, Americans have mortgaged and refinanced their backsides in perpetuity. Consumer credit-card debt is higher than ever before. This is no way to run an economy.

This is a time for real leadership. Our workers and way of life are under attack, (and I'm not talking about jihadists). We have sunk over $128 billion dollars into Iraq and the tab is still running. For what? Our soldiers are being ordered to wage a war at the gates of one of Islam's most sacred sites, and potentially unleash a holy war the likes of which we have never seen.

The economy is stalled due to fear and an unwillingness to invest in America and American workers. Meanwhile the president wants to talk about the definition of marriage. You may not like John Kerry, but we need change. To quote a Republican friend of mine, at this point, I'm a Yellow-Dog Republican. That means I would vote for a yellow dog over George Bush.

Baby boomers: Wake up!

By Ellen Ratner
President Bush finally revealed his true "vision" for the American worker last week at a Bush-Cheney '04 rally. He said American workers used to work for one company for 30 years, earn a pension, get health-care benefits and retire. He said this model is no longer valid.



Now, workers rarely stay at one job. Never mind the fact that this "new American worker" may not be choosing multiple employers given the fact that 3 million of them have lost their jobs on the president's watch. But that point aside, the president believes that benefits should be transportable. He believes workers should be able pay into retirement funds and take them with them when they change (or lose) their job.

President Bush's pension vision is consistent with what is happening to pensions around the country. Companies are defaulting on their employees at a rate fast enough to have the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation on Zoloft. The steel industry was arguably the first to be hit. An acquaintance of mine put in 29 years of his life – over half of his life – only to find out there was no gold at the end of the rainbow. The bankruptcy judge and union agreed that the cutoff for pensions was 30 years. Twenty-nine years and 11 months seniority means you get zippo. Thirty years, you get some retirement.

So what does the president propose we do with the millions of Americans who rely on a pension today? His solutions redefine the concept of "long-term." His entire economic plan is "long-term." I can sum up the president's economic policy in two words: "stock market." His tax policy is designed to boost investment in the stock market. The list includes corporate dividend tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, tax cuts for those who already have money to gamble with in the stock market and the crown jewel, the privatization of Social Security.

Granted, he has backed off some of his intentions to privatize social security, thanks to the likes of men like "Kenny Boy Lay" down in Enron country, but there are plenty of new signs that he still holds out hope. I like Carol Moseley Braun's response to the question of privatizing Social Security during the Democratic presidential debates: "I thought we stopped talking about that after Enron and MCI."

Don't get me wrong, the president does feel the pain of American workers. He told a group of Mississippi (read: MCI victims) in August of 2002 that:

<i>We've got to do more to protect worker pensions. Right now, too many workers are locked into plans that force them to hold a large portion of their accounts in their company stock. There are a lot of plans that won't let people diversify. And that's not right. I believe workers ought to be able to diversify after three years in their company's plan. I think we ought to trust workers with their own money.</i>

OK, fine, two years later, almost to the date, he's saying the same thing. Meanwhile, American workers are waiting for the next shoe to drop.

The public sector is not safe either. Take for example the employees of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, home of American's nuclear (or as the president says, nodular) technology. The University of California has had the contract to operate the laboratory since its inception. Many of the laboratory's employees are retiring baby boomers. Oddly enough, the University of California may now lose the contract, and the employees will lose their pensions or be subject to the renegotiated pensions stipulated by the new contract.

One need not look far for the growing pension crisis. United Airlines is about ready to flush its pension in order to emerge from Chapter 11. Why wouldn't a company flush over 4 billion dollars of debt if they could legally do so? There has not been an official announcement – as H.W. Bush would say, "wouldn't be prudent" to do so during peak travel season.

But most employees realize it is a foregone conclusion. These are the same employees who gave up salaries and pension contributions to "buy" the company almost a decade ago. One pilot I spoke with has already lost $500,000 in stock and forgone wages, never to return, and now seems likely to lose the rest of his pension. Expect the rest of the legacy carriers to follow United's lead, as the airline industry resembles a game of dominoes.

Yes, pensions are expensive for companies, expensive for cities. Yes, we have an antiquated network of employee benefits in this country. It's a simple math problem. There are not enough young to support the old. But President Bush's administration has been AWOL (Absent Without Leave) on this issue. He recognized a problem in 2002. It's now 2004 and the only change is that more companies are defaulting on their pensions. Speeches are fine, but action is better.

The president, once again, is determined to let the market dictate the future. Whether it's outsourcing to cheap labor, or importing cheap labor or flushing pensions, it's the market that rules this country, not the president. These are the realities we face, but wouldn't it be nice to have someone in charge who can implement a way for the American worker to transition into the new economy?

Yes, globalization is here to stay. It means that the standard of living of the world is improving, that is, everywhere except in George W. Bush's America.

'Extreme makeover'

By Ellen Ratner
The Republican Party characterized the Democratic National Convention as an "extreme makeover" of the Democratic Party. It is a catchy sound bite and elicits a smirk in the corner of every mouth that spews it, but it amounts to a lot of people hurling stones out of their own glass houses.



The fact of the matter is that the Republican Party has gone under a few makeovers itself. The Democratic Party is simply becoming more inclusive of moderates and even conservatives. It is opening the big tent for <i>all</i> Americans, not just the ones aligned with special interests. Meanwhile, the Republican Party continues to narrow its mind and close the tent to those who do not fall in line with its conservative social agenda.

The party of small government, relatively libertarian ideals, and fiscal conservativism has given way to a government that feels free to kick down every door in the world, including the doors at home, and the biggest federal deficit in our history. Now who had the extreme makeover here?

The Republican Party is barely recognizable to men like Bob Dole who described last week – in an interview with Tim Russert and former Presidential candidate George McGovern – how much his party has changed by saying, "Nixon couldn't win the nomination today. He was way too moderate."

I suspect that the Republican Party transformed itself in order to court evangelical Christians in hopes that they will cast their vote on social issues over their own economic interests. I call this "lose your soul politics." The Republican mullahs (James Dobson, Ralph Reed and the like) have yet to say, "You will go to hell if you vote for John Kerry," but the rhetoric falls just short of that. The Republican Party has managed to use church registries in order to "reach out" to potential Republican voters.

The extreme makeover of the Republican Party comes at a price to every American. It has hampered effective cooperation within our government when we need cooperation most. Tim Russert interviewed former presidential candidates Bob Dole and George McGovern. Both men nostalgically reflected on a time when Democrats and Republicans could be friends and, as Bob Dole reflected, went to each other's offices to visit and talk. What happened to the camaraderie?

I can sum it up in one word, "extremism." It's difficult to cooperate with others who do not share your views if you have an extreme, non-compromising agenda inspired by God. In the minds of many Republican leaders, the Democrats are effectively infidels and can only corrupt the purity of Republican thought – or so they must act in order to pander to the evangelical base. I call it political jihadism. And George W. Bush, formerly, the compassionate conservative is now "jihadi in chief" of this religious war that is infecting our government and nation.

Yes, politics are politics and dirty tricks are standard. As Robert Dole explained after Tim Russert asked him how it was that Republicans managed to portray McGovern – a decorated World War II hero – as a whacko liberal in the 1972 presidential race against Richard Nixon, Bob Dole laughed: "It wasn't easy."

Dirty tricks are here to stay, but this extreme makeover is a gamble for the Republican Party. Remember 1992? Pat Buchanan went off the proverbial ranch and alienated moderate Republicans with his convention speech that would now be considered a "moderate speech." Moderate would be Republican voters didn't vote or at least they didn't vote for G.H.W. Bush and created the opening for William Jefferson Clinton.

Mark my words; the Republican Jihadi strategy is going to backfire in 2004. I don't think many moderate registered Republicans will vote for John Kerry, but I do think they will do what almost 4 million evangelical Christians did in 2000. They will simply stay home. And <i>this</i> will cause George W. Bush to go back to the golf course with his one term president father.

The Republican Party can normally be compared to a Marine Unit. They are a highly disciplined group that tends to fall in line. Whereas the Democratic Party is like a herd of snapping turtles, that, as former President Clinton said, "tends to fall in love." Times have changed.

If I learned anything in Boston last week, I learned that the Democratic Party, for the first time in my life is completely unified behind the presidency of John F. Kerry. Kerry went a long way in his acceptance speech to open the Big Tent of the American ideals liberty, diversity and opportunity. The politically created American jihadism that pits one American against another, intolerant of others and deferential to the interests of money over work is in its last days.

Call the Kerry presidential campaign an extreme makeover if you want to, because soon, American will be calling John Kerry, "Mr. President."