Now here is an ad from MoveOn.org that rivals in attention grabbing what Karl Rove has been spewing about Elizabeth Warren.

I know people think the OWS movement is a flash in the pan or has not accomplished anything. Tell me if the phrase “The 1%” was in everybody’s thoughts to the extent it is now that OWS has taken this on as its mantra.

This item from MoveOn.org puts an interesting spin on the subject.

Thomas R. Creamer (Chairman of the Sturbridge Board of Selectmen) and Selectman Priscilla C Gimas. wrote a Letter to the Department of Public Utilities regarding the DPU’s investigation specific to National Grid’s October storm response.

At the end of the letter is this very interesting statement:

Finally, we call upon DPU to support legislation that would reduce the impediments to the establishment of more municipally owned and operated power entities. It is our hope that the levying of fines and greater competition by way of municipal power companies are the surest way of establishing a more competitive and proactive customer service approach by National Grid.

The position of Selectman in Sturbridge is non-partisan.  Apart from his position on the board, I know that Thomas R. Creamer says that he is a Republican.  He is the kind of Republican I can like (Sharon and I both voted for him.  We also voted for Priscilla Gimas.)

If you promise to keep this a secret, I’ll tell you that the idea of a municipal power company is a Socialist idea.  Municipal power companies were mentioned in the book The “S” Word: A Short History Of An American tradition … Socialism as a successful application of socialism in this country.

Sewer systems, public health programs, municipal power plants were all public responses to what city-hall Socialists described as “the dirty and polluted legacy of the Industrial Revolution.”
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The “sewer socialists” were not averse to heavenly rewards, but felt that serving up some dessert in the here and now might be necessary to advance the cause.

Somehow, I find it hard to believe that Thomas Creamer would consider himself a socialist.  It is his ability to take pragmatic action without having ideological blinders on that I thought I detected when I voted for him.  So far, I have not been disappointed.

George Monbiot: This Bastardised Libertarianism Makes “Freedom” an Instrument of Oppression is another gem I found on Truth Out. Monbiot quotes author Isaiah Berlin, as follows:

As Berlin noted: “No man’s activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. ‘Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows’.” So, he argued, some people’s freedom must sometimes be curtailed “to secure the freedom of others”.

I have had many philosophical discussions  with libertarians over the years.  I wonder if this article would have made any difference.    Monbiot apparently had good luck with it in a debate.

Yet when I asked her a simple question – “do you accept that some people’s freedoms intrude upon other people’s freedoms?” – I saw an ideology shatter like a windscreen.

He describes the problem with modern day libertarians like Ron Paul:

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free. It denies the need for the state to curb them in order to protect the freedoms of weaker people.

This is how I finally came to realize, when I was a sophomore in college, the flaws in Ayn Rand’s books and in her philosophy.  I learned some truths about the “weaker people” who were the victims of Ayn Rand’s exploiting hero types.  Many of these “weaker people” were born into circumstances that prevented them from even realizing that there were alternatives to their current situations.  There were examples of some extraordinary people among them who found a way to a better life, but the odds were just stacked against the people who didn’t even know their was a way out to be found.  Some of the exploiters were not just innocent partakers of the advantages of their own circumstances.  Many used government policy to prevent the “weaker people” from ever discovering what was being done to them and by whom.

What the 1% so fear about Elizabeth Warren is that her research, her books, and her lectures reveal the ugly truth of how the exploiters keep the 99% down.  See the video of Warren’s explanation at The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class.

The book review McJournalism: The Unbearable Lightness of Thomas Friedman comes from the Truth Out web site.

The fact that this three-time Pulitzer Prize winner’s writing qualifies as serious, award-winning journalism and punditry is why Belén Fernandez latest book, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work is such an important read.

Fernandez writes that the point of her book “is to demonstrate the defectiveness in form and in substance of [Friedman’s] disjointed discourse, and in doing so offer a testament to the degenerate state of the mainstream media in the United States.”

I cannot believe that I have stumbled across a reviewer and an author that hold Thomas Friedman in the same low regard as I do.

I like the description of the book on its web page at The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work.

Factual errors, ham-fisted analysis, and contradictory assertions—compounded by a penchant for mixed metaphors and name-dropping—distinguish the work of Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman.

When I first heard Thomas Friedman being interviewed on the Charlie Rose show, I mistakenly thought he actually knew something about the Middle East. His prescriptions for the Middle East turned out to be nothing but baloney. Then he started touting his insights into the outsourcing of jobs from the United States. I recognized these “new” ideas that he was breathlessly touting to be something I had been observing and commenting on for more than 30 years from my perch in the high tech world. Thomas Friedman certainly holds himself in high regard. I am glad to see that there are many others who are not so easily fooled.

Just to show that Oregon has some really good politicians such as Representative Peter DeFazio, I point you to the commentary, Senator Harkin and Representative DeFazio Introduce Financial Transactions Tax Proposal.

The Harkin-DeFazio proposal calls for the implementation of a modest 0.03 percent financial transactions tax (FTT) on the trading of stocks, futures, bonds, and credit default swaps. This would have a minimal effect on individual 401(k) or mutual funds, however, it would impose substantial costs on those who are engaged in short-term trading strategies that can lead to disruptions in markets, such as last spring’s flash crash. This tax would have no effect on ATM withdrawals, short term revolving loans, or other everyday financial transactions.

Of course, the fact that the FTT is a darn good idea, would be enough reason to mention it even if it had not been proposed by Harkin and DeFazio.

Dean Baker comments on the Ryan-Widen Medicare plan in the article The Cowardly Senator Wyden.

Years ago members of the elite showed their courage by leading troops into battle. They risked their own lives for the greater good. (Never mind that the wars being fought often did not serve anything resembling the “greater good.”)

Things are different today. In the land of the 1 percent, the way you show your courage is by demonstrating your willingness to beat up on the elderly. That gets you bucket loads of campaign contributions, high praise from the Washington Post in both its news and opinion pages, and could even get you named Person of the Year by TIME.

Last week, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon stood up to do the big kick. He decided to join ranks with Representative Paul Ryan on a proposal to replace Medicare with a voucher-type system. The claim was that with increased competition, we will be able to lower costs.

Using competition to lower costs; that seems like such a great idea! If only someone had thought of this sooner.

Of course this has been thought of sooner and tried again and again. Remember Medicare Plus Choice in the 90s? How about Medicare Advantage, the more recent incarnation of the program which still exists? In both cases, analyses from the Congressional Budget Office and others have consistently found that they raise costs. And we have been experimenting with competition between insurers in the private sector for decades, and it has not succeeded in holding down costs.

But in Washington, just because something has failed repeatedly is no reason not to do it again; especially if it protects the interests of the 1 percent.

You cannot use enough sarcasm to describe Ron Wyden’s turn toward the dark side again.

Here are some previous posts on this plan – Ryan-Wyden Medicare Plan Like A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing and The Bipartisan Political Alliance That Will Turn The Fight Over Medicare On Its Head.

The link in Baker’s quote takes you to his post Time Magazine Decides to Throw Numbers to the Wind to Promote Representative Ryan.

Every now and then it is nice to laugh a little.

This interview apparently took place before our troops actually left Iraq.  Nonetheless, it holds up pretty well in the face of the completion of the withdrawal.

It is always useful to hear a different point of view from what we are used to, particularly when it brings out facts of which you might have been unaware.

Thanks again to Hassan Moradi for the pointer to this interview.