Remembering the Titanic In A World That May Be Sinking, Protesting Protests on Tax Day

April 14th, 2010 - by: danny

Another natural disaster strikes.

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism writes: “As you may know, a volcanic eruption in Iceland is spewing ash into the airspace over Northern Europe, leading to flight cancellations (ash and jet engines do not get along well, with the engine coming out the loser). Cancellation of flights started in Scotland started earlier this morning, and all of the major London airports have had flights suspended from noon onward.

As it turns out I saw that EyjafjellajÃƒÂ¶kull volcano in Iceland years ago. Pia Raug writes: “The entire air-space over northern Europe has been or is being closed down — flights grounded – because of the volcanic cloud spreading quickly from Iceland across the North Sea towards the south-east. Has hit GB and the northern tip of Denmark already — is expected to reach CPH in an hour or two. The old planet is groaning “

Could this be Iceland’s delayed response to the financial speculators, domestic and international, that pushed their economy into a major crisis?

ONE DAY WE’RE UP, THE NEXT DAY, WE’RE NOT
TEA PARTY EXPOSE ON ROLE OF GOP OPERATIVES
PLUNDER SEEMS TO BE DOING WELL ON iTUNES

The day started by being described in a word we have come to use too much—surge—retail sales were up, hip, hip hooray. THe Washington Post was the first out of the gate with the good news: “Sales at U.S. retailers rose more strongly than expected in March as consumer stepped up purchases of vehicles and wide range of goods, government data showed on Wednesday, suggesting a broadening of the manufacturing-led economic recovery.”

Maybe people have more money because they will pay less in taxes because of all the jobs and money that was lost. At any rate, the media and the political machine went into overdrive, hyping the end of the recession. CBS was up bullish but NBC was noting that the increase in some sales figures just over 1%–not a hell of lot to write home about.

But that doesn’t mean the gnomes at the Fed and in the banks they serve aen’t trying to stoke confidence even if itr is a con. The Financial Times reports:

“The chairman of the US Federal Reserve and the head of one of the country’s biggest banks struck a bullish tone on the economy on Wednesday, hailing stronger spending by businesses and consumers as the harbingers of a domestic recovery.”

Yesterday’s euphoric balloon will be punctured when a report out today, Thursday—tax day—confirms that foreclosures are up too with no end in sight. The Obama programs are not working, and haven’t sine day one because debt relief is not on the agenda. JP Morgan, of course reported another $3 billion plus quarter.

Down on the E train, I overhear a Wall Street wonder tell a friend that 70 people took the day off bring an army of underwriters to watch the Yankee Game. “We ply them with drinks and hope they will buy more of our bonds” he explained. The market went up again but unemployment did not go down. How can anyone make sense of this skitzy economic news – what a disaster.

It is behind the Tea Party rebellion, an organizing effort not matched by labor what’s left of the left. See my piece on the need for a new organizing narrative below. The NY Times is out with a new poll calling their revolt a class thing—that is to say a middle class thing:

“The fierce animosity that Tea Party supporters harbor toward Washington and President Obama in particular is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The Poll numbers now claim 18% of the public supports their screeds. 63%, it is said, rely on Fox to find out what to think. At the same time Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated.

Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public and tend to be Republican, white, male and married, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Many moire Americans believe their tax dollars are largely wasted. One story reports Most Americans say tax dollars are wasted.”

Alternet: Forcing The Rich To Pay Their Taxes

Steven Hill who wrote Europe’s Promise compares what Americans get for our taxes as opposed to Europeans. This concern is NOT on the Tea Bagger agenda:

“Americans are not getting our tax money’s worth when compared to what Europeans receive in exchange for their taxes. That’s because European families and individuals receive a seemingly endless list of services and supports paid for by their taxes, for which Americans must pay extra via out-of-pocket fees, premiums, deductibles, tuition and other charges IN ADDITION TO our taxes.

Compared to Europeans, Americans pay enormous amounts out-of-pocket, yet that is never accounted for in simplistic analyses like Forbes Magazine’s “Tax Misery Index.” In the current “teabagger” climate, with great concern over massive government spending, deficits and a return to Big Government, these sorts of comparisons can serve to bring some balance to the national discussion.”

Personally, I am not thrilled that so much of the taxes I do pay go to fueling our wars. Like many, I feel I am making less and paying more. I never did understand getting benefits I have paid in for all of my life and then having them taxed. My Dissector World is not in good shape, but who do we protest to? Theer’s no bailout in the cards for our company Globalvision where work has dried up as it has for many independent media makers. We can’t afford the lease anymore and the landlord is not accommodating. So our ship–and like ours– is sinking.

It didn’t help to be remineded today that April 14th is the anniversary of the day the good ship RMS Taconic went down, in 1912, on its way to New York.

To be honest, we are in danger of going down too and there is no one to radio for help. Our finding appeals have just barely kept us alive, and the future is not promising. We have known about our icebergs but try as we did, we couldn’t avoid them. The banksters have friends in DC and on the right. We don’t.

Is there a larger metaphor in all of this? Thomas Berry, the visionary thinker, thinks so:

INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION, 2010

“Long before the collision those in command had abundant evidence that icebergs lay ahead. The course had been set, however, and no one wished to alter its direction. Confidence in the survival capacities of the ship was unbounded. Already there were a multitude of concerns in carrying out the normal routine of a voyage. What happened to the ‘unsinkable’ ship is a kind of parable for us, since only in the most dire situations do we have the psychic energy needed to examine our way of acting on the scale that is now required. The daily concerns over the care of the ship and its passengers needed to be set aside for a more urgent concern, the well being of the ship itself.”

~Thomas Berry, from The Great Work

BEHIND THE TEA PARTY: Politico Investigation of How A GOP Consulting Firm Created The Tea Party Express

Joe Conason comments on Salon.com

RELEASE: CITIZENS RALLY ON TAX DAY TO COUNTER TEA PARTY FRINGE AND THANK OBAMA FOR TAX CUTS

Previously Silent Americans Fed Up with Tea Party Whining

WHO: The Other 95% – A new facebook-generated group of concerned citizens who want to thank President Obama for their middle class tax cuts and are fed up with the media’s obsession with the Tea Party fringe.

WHAT: The Other 95% (http://theOther95.com) will be on the National Mall with two huge banners thanking President Obama for giving tax cuts to every American earning less than $200,000 a year.

WHEN: Thursday, April 15, 2010, 4:30 p.m — 7:30 p.m. Unfurling at 4:30pm

WHERE: National Mall, Washington, DC. On Constitution Ave between 16th & 15th (between White House and Washington Monument) and SE corner of 15 & Madison (between Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol). Good backgrounds for photo ops. Will be right across from Tea Party rally.

WHY: American politics have been hijacked by the noisy lies of the Tea Party fringe. They complain about being taxed too much, but do they even know that 95% of Americans received a tax cut from Obama [CBS News report]. And this time the cuts didn’t go only to the super wealthy few like they did under Bush, but to folks like us just trying to get by. We can’t let the Tea Partiers drown out the truth about Obama’s tax cuts. Instead, we’re making sure that Americans get the facts — not just the hype.

Members of the Other 95% will be on the mall near the White House and Capitol Building holding two huge banners that read “The Other 95% Say Thanks For Our Tax Cuts, Obama!” (see visual at top of page) alongside the Tea Party’s planned anti-tax protest near the Washington Monument.

WARS AND CIVILIANS STILL PERISH

Pakistan’s army acknowledged that at least 45 civilians died in a military air strike targeting Taliban leaders last weekend, an admission that could fan domestic criticism of the U.S.-backed war effort against Islamic militants.

CHINA’s QUAKE HURTS TIBETANS

Rescuers used shovels, pry bars and their bare hands to dig through the rubble of collapsed homes and schools as they raced to find survivors of a severe earthquake that authorities said killed at least 400 people and injured more than 10,000 in a remote, predominantly Tibetan community in western China.

Steve Brant, HP: “Wall Street, Nuclear Weapons, MLK Jr, and the Road From Ruin”...

The News Dissector