Month: October 2005

Liberal Street Fighter – sick of the double standards

We’ve all read the stories, about how persecuted Christians built the church in pagan Rome (the website where I found the illustration to the right captioned it with The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Congregation.). The rightwing version of Christianity likes to talk about persecution all the time, and the Republican Party frequently uses tales of evil liberal elites, feminazis and gays to scare up votes.

This isn’t just true of the religious right, but of the free-market absolutists and conservative nominees for office and especially for the Federal Bench. There is no willingness to be clear about what they believe, no willingness to be clear and frank about their thinking, their motivations or their goals. Pretty cowardly, when you think about it.

Unlike real martyrs and people who’ve suffered REAL persecution for their beliefs, the Republican Right seeks special treatment, insists that their tender feelings and “rights” be protected, even when they are advocating beliefs or policies that will cause great harm to others.

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Old folks are bad about predicting gloom and doom, and I am among the most notorious. Even considering only the recent past, I have:

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Cross-posted at European Tribune

There is a very important diary over at Daily Kos that may be of interest to BooTribbers (also see the diaries of KlatooBaradaNikto here and here):

The goal IS to reduce the standard of living by Pellice.

The Washington Post ran a very revealing online chat yesterday with one of their business columnists, Steven Pearlstein. He was quite open that what the “economy” [business leaders, I guess] needed now is a working class with a reduced standard of living that will compete with third world labor.

He was using the Delphi, and the automotive industries’ debacles, as his example.  The answer to all the problems is to knock back the workers’ wages below “middle class” standards, and reduce their benefits, particularly health care.

To all comers who brought up the facts that Delphi managers had deliberately underfunded pensions, had stolen funds from the company, had managed it poorly, and, finally, had awarded themselves bonuses even as they demanded that workers take wage cuts, Pearlstein responded:  But that doesn’t matter.  The basic truth is that the workers, all workers, must work for less pay so that their companies will still be competitive with overseas labor.

Sound familiar? More on the flip.

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So says Robert “Steve” miller, CEO of Delphi as it filed for bankruptcy in an interview with the WSJ. He argues that almost every one of the ills that has brought down Delphi can be found in other U.S. automakers, airlines and other industrial corporations.
He says that companies like Delphi have become noncompetitive in the relentless globally competitive environment mainly because of the legacy costs that GM and other automakers have piled up during their sunny days of monopoly in the 60’s and 70’s.

Miller knows whereof he speaks. He joined Lee Iacocca in the rescue of Chrysler.He presided over the bankruptcy of Betlehem Steel before turning that dead hulk over to his friend and mentor, W.L.Ross.He was also present at the bankruptcy of Federal Mogul, another automotive supplier. He is now on the board that oversees the bankruptcy of United Airlines.He is also on the board of several corporations.He has earned his stripes as a remorseless cost cutter.Lest we think he is one heartless SOB, he begs to differ.He says he has to do this to make our corporations competitive and save the jobs worth saving.

In his drive to save Delphi, he has asked the workers to accept wages from $9-10 per hour a steep decline from their current $27-30 per hour wages and generous benefits.He plans to close many of Delphi’s North American plants and have the work performed overseas, mainly in India and China and we know what that means.This will go on until Miller gets rid of all the pension and health costs for past and present employees.That will make the company attractive to people like W.L.Ross, a vulture hovering over the near dead carcass of Delphi.W.L.Ross was an admirer, needless to say, of Miller and has expressed an interest in picking up Delphi after its legacy costs, pensions and benefits are stripped and the corporation is made more “valuable”.And, the Indian billionaire, Laxmi Mittal, who bought a portfolio of bankrupt steel companies from W.L.Ross, is said to be interested in picking up a similar portfolio of auto parts companies from his old friend, W.L.Ross.The world has indeed become a small place, may be even flatter, as Tom Friedman would say.Everything that stands in the way of these men is being flattened.

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Over the past month, many new and deeply troubling revelations about the GOP culture of corruption and cronyism have come to light. Rep. Tom DeLay, Sen. Bill Frist, and now Rep. Roy Blunt have been implicated in various scandals.  It is important to remember that Republicans, just over 10 years ago, entered into a contract with America that was supposed to represent a complete reversal of the Washington culture.  Today, we know Mr. DeLay himself has become one of the worst offenders driving the Washington culture towards further corruption.

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