Exclusive: The Republican presidential race has taken a detour into the “class warfare” that the party supposedly despises, with Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry tagging Mitt Romney as an elitist who got rich by laying off workers. But this spat misses the larger point of what the Right is doing to America, writes Robert Parry.
Robert Parry
January 14, 2012
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/14/turning-america-into-pottersville/
For many years, it appeared that the Right wanted to take the United States back to the 1950s – when blacks “knew their place,” women were “in the kitchen” and gays stayed “in the closet” – but it turns out that the intended back-in-time-travel was to the 1920s, to an era of a few haves and many have-nots, not only before the Civil Rights Movement but before the Great American Middle-Class.
The Right’s goal has been less to recreate the world of “Father Knows Best” than to establish a national “Pottersville,” like in the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” where the existence of the average man and woman was brutish and unfulfilling, while the 1 percent of that age lived in gilded comfort and held sweeping power.
Actor Jimmy Stewart finding himself in Pottersville in "It's a Wonderful Life"
That is the message ironically coming from the expensive ad wars of the Republican presidential battle, where frontrunner Mitt Romney has emerged as the personification of the 1 percent and has been attacked by rivals who – while supporting similar policies favoring the ultra-rich – have savaged his career as a venture capitalist, or as Texas Gov. Rick Perry puts it, a “vulture capitalist.”
Romney’s response has been telling. The former chief executive of the corporate takeover firm Bain Capital went beyond the Right’s usual lament about “class warfare,” terming the criticism of high-flying financiers who use layoffs to fatten their bottom lines “the bitter politics of envy.”
And, if there remained any doubt about Romney’s status as the nation’s “elitist-in-chief,” he added that it was wrong to have a noisy and open debate about the dangers of growing income inequality. He told Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” that “I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms, and discussions about tax policy and the like.”
In other words, keep the rabble from protesting their lot; leave these matters to the well-bred and the well-off, in their think tanks and their board rooms.
For decades, the Right has largely concealed this elitist agenda behind appeals to social conservatism and flag-waving patriotism. Many working- and middle-class Americans, especially white males, have sided with the economic free-marketers because the hated “lib-rhuls” supported civil rights for blacks, women and gays – and also questioned America’s military might.
Plus, many Americans have forgotten a basic truth: that the Great American Middle-Class was largely a creation of the federal government and its policies dating back to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. For many Americans in the middle-class, it was more satisfying to think that they or their parents had climbed the social ladder on their own. They didn’t need “guv-mint” help.
But the truth is that it was government policies arising out of the Great Depression and carried forward through the post-World War II years by both Republican and Democratic presidents that created the opportunities for tens of millions of Americans to achieve relative comfort and security.
Those policies ranged from Social Security and labor rights in the 1930s to the GI Bill after World War II to government investments in infrastructure and technological research in the decades that followed. Even in recent years, despite right-wing efforts to choke off this flow of progress, government programs – such as the Internet – brought greater efficiency to markets and wealth to many entrepreneurs.
So, not only is Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren right when she notes that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own,” it’s also true that government policies enabled large numbers of Americans to climb out of poverty and into the middle-class.
The Dick Cheney Example
Oddly, one of the best examples of this reality is the life of right-wing icon Dick Cheney, as he revealed in his recent memoir, In My Time. In the book, Cheney recognizes that his personal success was made possible by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the fact that Cheney’s father managed to land a steady job with the federal government.
“I’ve often reflected on how different was the utterly stable environment he provided for his family and wondered if because of that I have been able to take risks, to change directions, and to leave one career path for another with hardly a second thought,” Cheney wrote.
By contrast, in sketching his family’s history, Cheney depicted the hard-scrabble life of farmers and small businessmen scratching out a living in the American Midwest and suffering financial reversals whenever the titans of Wall Street stumbled into a financial crisis and the bankers cut off credit.
After his forebears would make some modest headway from their hard work, they would find themselves back at square one, again and again, because of some “market” crisis or a negative weather pattern. Whether a financial panic or a sudden drought, everything was lost.
“In 1883, as the country struggled through a long economic depression, the sash and door factory that [Civil War veteran Samuel Fletcher Cheney] co-owned [in Defiance, Ohio] had to be sold to pay its debts,” Cheney wrote. “At the age of fifty-four, Samuel Cheney had to start over,” moving to Nebraska.
There, Samuel Cheney built a sod house and began a farm, enjoying some success until a drought hit, again forcing him to the edge. Despite a solid credit record, he noted that “the banks will not loan to anyone at present” and, in 1896, he had to watch all his possessions auctioned off at the Kearney County Courthouse. Samuel Cheney started another homestead in 1904 and kept working until he died in 1911 at the age of 82.
His third son, Thomas, who was nicknamed Bert (and who would become Dick Cheney’s grandfather), tried to build a different life as a cashier and part owner of a Sumner, Kansas, bank, named Farmers and Merchants Bank. But he still suffered when the economy crashed.
“Despite all his plans and success, Bert Cheney found that, like his father, he couldn’t escape the terrible power of nature,” Dick Cheney wrote. “When drought struck in the early 1930s, farmers couldn’t pay their debts, storekeepers had to close their doors, and Farmers and Merchants Bank went under. … My grandparents lost everything except for the house in which they lived.”
Finding Security
Bert Cheney’s son, Richard, ventured off in a different direction, working his way through Kearney State Teachers College and taking the civil service exam. He landed a job as a typist with the Veterans Administration in Lincoln, Nebraska.
“After scraping by for so long, he found the prospect of a $120 monthly salary and the security of a government job too good to turn down,” his son, Dick Cheney, wrote. “Before long he was offered a job with another federal agency, the Soil Conservation Service.
“The SCS taught farmers about crop rotation, terraced planting, contour plowing, and using ‘shelter belts’ of trees as windbreaks – techniques that would prevent the soil from blowing away, as it had in the dust storms of the Great Depression. My dad stayed with the SCS for more than thirty years, doing work of which he was immensely proud.
“He was also proud of the pension that came with federal employment – a pride that I didn’t understand until as an adult I learned about the economic catastrophes that his parents and grandparents had experienced and that had shadowed his own youth.”
Like many Americans, the Cheney family was pulled from the depths of the Great Depression by the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt, cementing the family’s support for the Democratic president and his party. The family celebrated when little Dick was born on FDR’s birthday.
“When I was born [on Jan. 30, 1941] my granddad wanted to send a telegram to the president,” Cheney wrote in his memoir. “Both sides of my family were staunch New Deal Democrats, and Granddad was sure that FDR would want to know about the ‘little stranger’ with whom he now had a birthday in common.”
However, Dick Cheney took a different path. Freed from the insecurity that had afflicted his father and earlier Cheneys – caused by the cruel vicissitudes of laissez-faire capitalism – Dick Cheney enjoyed the relative comfort of middle-class life in post-World War II America. He took advantage of the many opportunities that presented themselves.
Most notably, Cheney attached himself to an ambitious Republican congressman from Illinois named Donald Rumsfeld. When Rumsfeld left Congress for posts in the Nixon administration, he brought Cheney along. Eventually Rumsfeld became White House chief of staff to President Gerald Ford and – when Rumsfeld was tapped to become Defense Secretary in 1975 – he recommended his young aide, Dick Cheney, to succeed him.
Cheney’s career path through the ranks of Republican national politics, with occasional trips through the revolving door into lucrative private-sector jobs, was set. He became a major player within the GOP Establishment, building a reputation as an ardent conservative, a foreign policy hawk – and a fierce opponent of the New Deal.
Demonizing Guv-mint
The Right’s ongoing campaign to dismantle the New Deal also has hinged on the demonization of “guv-mint,” a darkening of attitudes that became more possible when many middle-class Americans lost their memory of how their families had moved into the middle-class.
In the 1960s and 1970s, middle-class white men in particular came to view the government as a force for helping the poor, women and minorities, while putting pressure on white males to change long-established attitudes. Plus, they were told that the government was taking their hard-earned dollars to give to the undeserving.
When these messages – along with a mix of patriotic hoopla and coded appeals to bigotry – were delivered by the personable Ronald Reagan in 1980, middle- and working-class whites rallied to the Right’s banner. It was time, they felt, to dismantle many government programs for the poor and to get tough on foreign adversaries.
But Reagan’s most important policy was slashing taxes, especially those on the rich. Under Reagan’s “supply-side economics,” the top marginal tax rate – that is what the richest Americans pay on their highest tranche of income – was more than halved, from 70 percent to 28 percent.
Yet, since the promised surge in “supply-side” growth didn’t materialize, one result was a dramatic rise in the national debt. Another less obvious change was the incentivizing of greed. Under presidents from Dwight Eisenhower (when the top marginal tax rate was 90 percent) through Jimmy Carter (with a 70 percent top rate), taxes had been a disincentive against greed.
After all, if 70 to 90 percent of your highest tranche of income went to the government to help pay for building the nation, you had little personal incentive to press for that extra $1 million or $2 million. So corporate CEOs – while well-compensated – were happy earning about 25 times as much as their average worker in the 1960s. A few decades later, that ratio on CEO pay was about 200 times what the average worker was making.
As the Washington Post’s Peter Whoriskey framed this historic development in a June 19, 2011, article, U.S. business underwent a cultural transformation from the 1970s when chief executives believed more in sharing the wealth than they do today.
Whoriskey described the findings of researchers with access to economic data from the Internal Revenue Service. The numbers revealed that the big bucks were not flowing primarily to athletes or actors or even stock market speculators; America’s new super-rich were mostly corporate chieftains.
The article cited a U.S. dairy company CEO from the 1970s, Kenneth J. Douglas, who earned the equivalent of about $1 million a year. He lived comfortably but not ostentatiously. Douglas had an office on the second floor of a milk distribution center, and he turned down raises because he felt it would hurt morale at the plant, Whoriskey reported.
However, just a few decades later, Gregg L. Engles, the CEO of the same company, Dean Foods, averaged about 10 times what Douglas made; worked in a glittering high-rise office building in Dallas; owned a vacation estate in Vail, Colorado; belonged to four golf clubs; and traveled in a $10 million corporate jet. He apparently had little concern about what his workers thought.
“The evolution of executive grandeur – from very comfortable to jet-setting – reflects one of the primary reasons that the gap between those with the highest incomes and everyone else is widening,” Whoriskey reported.
“For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent.”
The old New-Deal-to-post-World-War-II notion had been that a healthy middle-class contributed to profitable businesses because average people could afford to buy consumer goods, own their own homes and take an annual vacation with the kids. That “middle-class system,” however, had required intervention by the government as the representative of the everyman.
The consequences of several decades of Reaganism and its related ideas (such as shipping many middle-class jobs overseas) are now apparent. Wealth has been concentrated at the top with billionaires living extravagant lives while the middle-class shrinks and struggles. One everyman after another gets shoved down the social ladder into the lower classes and into poverty.
Those real-life consequences are painful. Millions of Americans forego needed medical care because they can’t afford health insurance; young people, burdened by college loans, crowd back in with their parents; trained workers settle for low-paying jobs or are unemployed; families skip vacations and other simple pleasures of life.
Beyond the unfairness, there is the macro-economic problem which comes from massive income disparity. A strong economy is one in which the vast majority people can buy products, which can then be manufactured more cheaply, creating a positive cycle of profits and prosperity.
Instead, Mitt Romney — and even his Republican rivals who criticize his personal business methods — are intent to press ahead down the dark road of Reaganism toward some nightmarish Pottersville. Instead of a vibrant debate about whether this is the right way to go, Romney instructs the masses to keep their mouths shut with the only permitted conversations about the nation’s future restricted to “quiet rooms.”
For more on related topics, see Robert Parry’s Lost History, Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep, now available in a three-book set for the discount price of only $29. For details, click here.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.
Showing posts with label Rick Perry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rick Perry. Show all posts
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, December 23, 2011
A Rick Perry Christmas Prayer
Greg Palast Saturday, December 10, 2011
GregPalast.com
Rick Perry's right when he says, "Something's wrong when gays can serve openly in the military but kids can't pray openly in school."
What's wrong is that they're missing their copies of Vultures' Picnic. In fact, once my twins took a copy of Vultures' Picnic to school, all the kids began praying openly — for an end to cuts in the school budget!
Want to roast Rick Perry's chestnuts on an open fire?
Then get the man a copy of Vultures' Picnic for Christmas. Make a minimum $60 tax-deductible donation to the Palast Investigative Fund and I will send you a signed copy of the hardbound book the One Percent really doesn't want you to read.
I will sign Vultures' Picnic to you ... or to anyone you are gifting. Send one to "Gov. Rick" or to your pinhead cousin who says over the Christmas turkey, "I don't know why those hippies are sitting in tents on Wall Street and blah blah blah." Just hit him on the head with the hardbound copy (metaphorically speaking) — with the book that Amy Goodman says explains WHY we occupy.
And why not put a little Palast under the Chanukah bush? Take Mike Malloy's advice, "you absolutely MUST get this astonishing book, Palast's best," and, as a thank-you bonus, we'll send you the links to the way-cool companion videos to Vultures' Picnic. Amazon and B&N charge extra for these. But hey, it's Christmas.
Your tax-deductible donation keeps us alive. Did you see our Democracy Now! report on Goldman Sachs beating the hell out of the Occupation's credit union? Our report from the Congo? We DONATE all of these films to Amy Goodman. But it all comes to an end if we can't pay the legal bills and the light bills and for the flights to the Congo.
We really, truly need your gift this holiday time. Check out all the other gifts of books and DVDs. And consider a year-end tax deductible donation.
This year, make your holiday giving make a difference.
Mitt Romney's billionaire, Paul "The Vulture" Singer, is threatening us "We've got a file on Greg Palast." Of course he does. So is Goldfinger's buddy (yes, there really is a Goldfinger and he's in chapter one, which you can download here). The real Goldfinger makes the movie one look like, well, Santa Claus.
Get the file on them: my book, Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High Finance Carnivores.
And let's spend the holiday together. I will be in Burlington, Vermont, this Monday night (Dec 12) and in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, the end of the Vultures' Picnic tour. Info here.
Greg Palast
Palast's reports can be seen on BBC Television Newsnight, on Democracy Now!, and in The Guardian.
Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter and podcasts.
Follow Palast on Facebook and Twitter.
GregPalast.com
Rick Perry's right when he says, "Something's wrong when gays can serve openly in the military but kids can't pray openly in school."
What's wrong is that they're missing their copies of Vultures' Picnic. In fact, once my twins took a copy of Vultures' Picnic to school, all the kids began praying openly — for an end to cuts in the school budget!
Want to roast Rick Perry's chestnuts on an open fire?
Then get the man a copy of Vultures' Picnic for Christmas. Make a minimum $60 tax-deductible donation to the Palast Investigative Fund and I will send you a signed copy of the hardbound book the One Percent really doesn't want you to read.
I will sign Vultures' Picnic to you ... or to anyone you are gifting. Send one to "Gov. Rick" or to your pinhead cousin who says over the Christmas turkey, "I don't know why those hippies are sitting in tents on Wall Street and blah blah blah." Just hit him on the head with the hardbound copy (metaphorically speaking) — with the book that Amy Goodman says explains WHY we occupy.
And why not put a little Palast under the Chanukah bush? Take Mike Malloy's advice, "you absolutely MUST get this astonishing book, Palast's best," and, as a thank-you bonus, we'll send you the links to the way-cool companion videos to Vultures' Picnic. Amazon and B&N charge extra for these. But hey, it's Christmas.
Your tax-deductible donation keeps us alive. Did you see our Democracy Now! report on Goldman Sachs beating the hell out of the Occupation's credit union? Our report from the Congo? We DONATE all of these films to Amy Goodman. But it all comes to an end if we can't pay the legal bills and the light bills and for the flights to the Congo.
We really, truly need your gift this holiday time. Check out all the other gifts of books and DVDs. And consider a year-end tax deductible donation.
This year, make your holiday giving make a difference.
Mitt Romney's billionaire, Paul "The Vulture" Singer, is threatening us "We've got a file on Greg Palast." Of course he does. So is Goldfinger's buddy (yes, there really is a Goldfinger and he's in chapter one, which you can download here). The real Goldfinger makes the movie one look like, well, Santa Claus.
Get the file on them: my book, Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High Finance Carnivores.
And let's spend the holiday together. I will be in Burlington, Vermont, this Monday night (Dec 12) and in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, the end of the Vultures' Picnic tour. Info here.
Greg Palast
Palast's reports can be seen on BBC Television Newsnight, on Democracy Now!, and in The Guardian.
Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter and podcasts.
Follow Palast on Facebook and Twitter.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Poll: Clinton favored over 2012 GOP candidates
David Jackson, USA TODAY
Oct 27, 2011
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/10/hillary-leads-gop-presidential-candidiates-poll-says/1
People can't help but wonder what might happen if Hillary Rodham Clinton ran again for president.
A new Time magazine poll shows Clinton easily defeating the major Republican candidates, were she somehow to become the 2012 Democratic nominee for president.
Clinton leads Mitt Romney, 55% to 38%; Rick Perry, 58% to 32%; and Herman Cain, 56% to 34%, among likely voters in a general election.
(Time magazine notes, "The same poll found that President Obama would edge Romney by just 46% to 43%, Perry by 50% to 38% and Cain by 49% to 37% among likely voters." Clinton's leads are bigger.)
Of course, it's easier to be popular when you're a global diplomat rather than a down-in-the-pit politician.
Clinton --- who lost the 2008 nomination fight to Obama -- says she has no interest in another White House run.
But there's always the 2016 election ...
Oct 27, 2011
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/10/hillary-leads-gop-presidential-candidiates-poll-says/1
People can't help but wonder what might happen if Hillary Rodham Clinton ran again for president.
A new Time magazine poll shows Clinton easily defeating the major Republican candidates, were she somehow to become the 2012 Democratic nominee for president.
Clinton leads Mitt Romney, 55% to 38%; Rick Perry, 58% to 32%; and Herman Cain, 56% to 34%, among likely voters in a general election.
(Time magazine notes, "The same poll found that President Obama would edge Romney by just 46% to 43%, Perry by 50% to 38% and Cain by 49% to 37% among likely voters." Clinton's leads are bigger.)
Of course, it's easier to be popular when you're a global diplomat rather than a down-in-the-pit politician.
Clinton --- who lost the 2008 nomination fight to Obama -- says she has no interest in another White House run.
But there's always the 2016 election ...
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Niggerhead: Rick Perry's Family Hunting Camp
The mainstream media has been burying the lead, so The Konformist will put it in the headline: the "racially charged name" of Rick Perry's hunting camp is Niggerhead. From The Washington Post:
In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance.
“Niggerhead,” it read.
Ranchers who once grazed cattle on the 1,070-acre parcel on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River called it by that name well before Perry and his father, Ray, began hunting there in the early 1980s. There is no definitive account of when the rock first appeared on the property. In an earlier time, the name on the rock was often given to mountains and creeks and rock outcroppings across the country. Over the years, civil rights groups and government agencies have had some success changing those and other racially offensive names that dotted the nation’s maps.
But the name of this particular parcel did not change for years after it became associated with Rick Perry, first as a private citizen, then as a state official and finally as Texas governor. Some locals still call it that. As recently as this summer, the slablike rock — lying flat, the name still faintly visible beneath a coat of white paint — remained by the gated entrance to the camp.
When asked last week, Perry said the word on the rock is an “offensive name that has no place in the modern world.”
But how, when or whether he dealt with it when he was using the property is less clear and adds a dimension to the emerging biography of Perry, who quickly moved into the top tier of Republican presidential candidates when he entered the race in August.
He grew up in a segregated era whose history has defined and complicated the careers of many Southern politicians. Perry has spoken often about how his upbringing in this sparsely populated farming community influenced his conservatism. He has rarely, if ever, discussed what it was like growing up amid segregation in an area where blacks were a tiny fraction of the population.
In his responses to two rounds of detailed, written questions, Perry said his father first leased the property in 1983. Rick Perry said he added his own name to the lease from 1997 to 1998, when he was state agriculture commissioner, and again from 2004 to 2007, when he was governor.
He offered a simple version of how he dealt with the rock, followed by a more elaborate one.
“When my Dad joined the lease in 1983, he took the first opportunity he had to paint over the offensive word on the rock during the 4th of July holiday,” Perry said in his initial response. “It is my understanding that the rock was eventually turned over to further obscure what was originally written on it.”
Perry said that he was not with his father when he painted over the name but that he “agreed with” the decision.
In response to follow-up questions, Perry gave a more detailed account.
“My mother and father went to the lease and painted the rock in either 1983 or 1984,” Perry wrote. “This occurred after I paid a visit to the property with a friend and saw the rock with the offensive word. After my visit I called my folks and mentioned it to them, and they painted it over during their next visit.”
“Ever since, any time I ever saw the rock it was painted over,” Perry said.
Perry’s version of events differs in many respects from the recollections of seven people, interviewed by The Washington Post, who spoke in detail of their memories of seeing the rock with the name at various points during the years that Perry was associated with the property through his father, partners or his signature on a lease.
Some who had watched Perry’s political ascent recalled their reaction to the name on the rock and their worry that it could become a political liability for Perry.
“I remember the first time I went through that pasture and saw that,” said Ronnie Brooks, a retired game warden who began working in the region in 1981 and who said he guided three or four turkey shoots for Rick Perry when Perry was a state legislator between 1985 and 1990. “...It kind of offended me, truthfully.”
Brooks, who said he holds Perry “in the highest esteem,” said that at some point after Perry began bringing lawmakers to the camp, the rock was turned over. Brooks could not recall exactly when. He said he did not know who turned the rock over.
Another local who visited the property with Perry and the legislators in those years recalled seeing the rock with the name clearly visible.
“I thought, ‘This is going to embarrass Rick some day,’?” said this person, who did not want to be named, fearing negative consequences from speaking on the subject.
The hunting camp was simple in the 1980s, just a cabin with a long table for cleaning fish and deer, a few bunks and a porch set along a riverbank in Throckmorton County. There was a sprawling pecan tree and a water tank for showers, an arrangement that got more elaborate as the years went on.
The camp is secluded, situated on a vast, 42,000-acre ranch that reaches into three counties and is owned and managed by the Hendrick Home for Children Trust. Various parcels of the Hendrick ranch, as it is known, have been leased out over the years for grazing cattle, oil drilling and, since the mid-1970s or so, hunting. All sorts of people have been on the winding, rocky ranch roads over the years — cowboys, ranchers, hunters, fishermen, oil workers, power company workers, wildlife biologists, real estate agents, tax assessors, surveyors, locals and outsiders who have visited the hunting camps that dot the property.
This story is based on interviews with more than two dozen people, including residents, hunters, ranchers, government officials and others who live in Haskell County, where Perry’s boyhood home of Paint Creek is found; in neighboring Throckmorton County, where the hunting camp is located; and elsewhere in Texas. Ray Perry did not respond to numerous attempts to reach him for comment. The campaign declined a request to make him available.
Most of those interviewed requested anonymity because they fear being ostracized or other repercussions in their small community. Some are supporters of Perry, whose parents still live in Paint Creek. Others, both Democrats and Republicans, are not. Several spoke matter-of-factly about the hunting camp and its name and wondered why it held any outside interest.
Of those interviewed, the seven who said they saw the rock said the block-lettered name was clearly visible at different points in the 1980s and 1990s. One, a former worker on the ranch, believes he saw it as recently as 2008...
Throckmorton County, where the hunting camp is located, was for years considered a virtual no-go zone for blacks because of old stories about the lynching of a black man there, locals said. The 1950 Census listed one black resident in Throckmorton County out of a population of about 3,600. In 1960, there were four; in 1970, two; in 1980, none. The 2010 Census shows 11 black residents.
Mae Lou Yeldell, who is black and has lived in Haskell County for 70 years, recalled a gas station refusing to sell her father fuel when he drove the family through Throckmorton in the 1950s. She said it was not uncommon in the 1950s and ’60s for whites to greet blacks with, “Morning, nigger!”
“I heard that so much it’s like a broken record,” said Yeldell, who had never heard of the hunting spot by the river.
Racial attitudes here have shifted slowly. Haskell County began observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day two years ago, according to a county commissioner. And many older white residents understand the civil rights movement as a struggle that addressed problems elsewhere.
“It wasn’t the same issues here you were dealing with,” said Don Ballard, the superintendent of the Paint Creek school district. “Certainly were no picketing signs. Blacks were perfectly satisfied with what was happening.”
It is within that context that many people explained the name of the hunting camp.
“It’s just a name,” said Haskell County Judge David Davis, sitting in his courtroom and looking at a window. “Like those are vertical blinds. It’s just what it was called. There was no significance other than as a hunting deal.”
The name “Niggerhead” has a long and wide history. It was once applied to products such as soap and chewing tobacco, but most often to geographic features such as hills and rocks.
In 1962, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names changed more than a hundred such names, substituting “Negro.”
“Typically these were in areas where African Americans were not all that common,” said Mark Monmonier, a geography professor at Syracuse University who wrote a book on the subject of racially offensive place names.
The federal action still left many local names unchanged. In Texas, Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady, lobbied to change the name of a mountain in Burnet, Tex., that had the same name as Perry’s hunting spot. In 1968, it became “Colored Mountain.” In 1989, the Texas NAACP began lobbying the state legislature to change many more names, such as “Nigger Creek” and “Niggerhead Hill,” although there has been resistance from private landowners, according to news accounts.
In his responses, Perry said the managers of the Hendrick ranch appealed in recent years to federal officials to rename Niggerhead, although the name does not appear on U.S. topographic maps. Monmonier could not find it in a database maintained by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. That suggests renaming the property would be a simple matter for its owners or possibly state officials, Monmonier said.
Chuck Wilson, the manager of the Hendrick ranch, said that particular parcel is now called “North Camp Pasture.”
“It was given the name several years ago,” Wilson said in an interview last week. “Probably, I’m thinking, about five years ago.”
To read the full story:
At Rick Perry’s Texas hunting spot, camp’s old racially charged name lingered
Stephanie McCrummen
October 1, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rick-perry-familys-hunting-camp-still-known-to-many-by-old-racially-charged-name/2011/10/01/gIQAOhY5DL_print.html
In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance.
“Niggerhead,” it read.
Ranchers who once grazed cattle on the 1,070-acre parcel on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River called it by that name well before Perry and his father, Ray, began hunting there in the early 1980s. There is no definitive account of when the rock first appeared on the property. In an earlier time, the name on the rock was often given to mountains and creeks and rock outcroppings across the country. Over the years, civil rights groups and government agencies have had some success changing those and other racially offensive names that dotted the nation’s maps.
But the name of this particular parcel did not change for years after it became associated with Rick Perry, first as a private citizen, then as a state official and finally as Texas governor. Some locals still call it that. As recently as this summer, the slablike rock — lying flat, the name still faintly visible beneath a coat of white paint — remained by the gated entrance to the camp.
When asked last week, Perry said the word on the rock is an “offensive name that has no place in the modern world.”
But how, when or whether he dealt with it when he was using the property is less clear and adds a dimension to the emerging biography of Perry, who quickly moved into the top tier of Republican presidential candidates when he entered the race in August.
He grew up in a segregated era whose history has defined and complicated the careers of many Southern politicians. Perry has spoken often about how his upbringing in this sparsely populated farming community influenced his conservatism. He has rarely, if ever, discussed what it was like growing up amid segregation in an area where blacks were a tiny fraction of the population.
In his responses to two rounds of detailed, written questions, Perry said his father first leased the property in 1983. Rick Perry said he added his own name to the lease from 1997 to 1998, when he was state agriculture commissioner, and again from 2004 to 2007, when he was governor.
He offered a simple version of how he dealt with the rock, followed by a more elaborate one.
“When my Dad joined the lease in 1983, he took the first opportunity he had to paint over the offensive word on the rock during the 4th of July holiday,” Perry said in his initial response. “It is my understanding that the rock was eventually turned over to further obscure what was originally written on it.”
Perry said that he was not with his father when he painted over the name but that he “agreed with” the decision.
In response to follow-up questions, Perry gave a more detailed account.
“My mother and father went to the lease and painted the rock in either 1983 or 1984,” Perry wrote. “This occurred after I paid a visit to the property with a friend and saw the rock with the offensive word. After my visit I called my folks and mentioned it to them, and they painted it over during their next visit.”
“Ever since, any time I ever saw the rock it was painted over,” Perry said.
Perry’s version of events differs in many respects from the recollections of seven people, interviewed by The Washington Post, who spoke in detail of their memories of seeing the rock with the name at various points during the years that Perry was associated with the property through his father, partners or his signature on a lease.
Some who had watched Perry’s political ascent recalled their reaction to the name on the rock and their worry that it could become a political liability for Perry.
“I remember the first time I went through that pasture and saw that,” said Ronnie Brooks, a retired game warden who began working in the region in 1981 and who said he guided three or four turkey shoots for Rick Perry when Perry was a state legislator between 1985 and 1990. “...It kind of offended me, truthfully.”
Brooks, who said he holds Perry “in the highest esteem,” said that at some point after Perry began bringing lawmakers to the camp, the rock was turned over. Brooks could not recall exactly when. He said he did not know who turned the rock over.
Another local who visited the property with Perry and the legislators in those years recalled seeing the rock with the name clearly visible.
“I thought, ‘This is going to embarrass Rick some day,’?” said this person, who did not want to be named, fearing negative consequences from speaking on the subject.
The hunting camp was simple in the 1980s, just a cabin with a long table for cleaning fish and deer, a few bunks and a porch set along a riverbank in Throckmorton County. There was a sprawling pecan tree and a water tank for showers, an arrangement that got more elaborate as the years went on.
The camp is secluded, situated on a vast, 42,000-acre ranch that reaches into three counties and is owned and managed by the Hendrick Home for Children Trust. Various parcels of the Hendrick ranch, as it is known, have been leased out over the years for grazing cattle, oil drilling and, since the mid-1970s or so, hunting. All sorts of people have been on the winding, rocky ranch roads over the years — cowboys, ranchers, hunters, fishermen, oil workers, power company workers, wildlife biologists, real estate agents, tax assessors, surveyors, locals and outsiders who have visited the hunting camps that dot the property.
This story is based on interviews with more than two dozen people, including residents, hunters, ranchers, government officials and others who live in Haskell County, where Perry’s boyhood home of Paint Creek is found; in neighboring Throckmorton County, where the hunting camp is located; and elsewhere in Texas. Ray Perry did not respond to numerous attempts to reach him for comment. The campaign declined a request to make him available.
Most of those interviewed requested anonymity because they fear being ostracized or other repercussions in their small community. Some are supporters of Perry, whose parents still live in Paint Creek. Others, both Democrats and Republicans, are not. Several spoke matter-of-factly about the hunting camp and its name and wondered why it held any outside interest.
Of those interviewed, the seven who said they saw the rock said the block-lettered name was clearly visible at different points in the 1980s and 1990s. One, a former worker on the ranch, believes he saw it as recently as 2008...
Throckmorton County, where the hunting camp is located, was for years considered a virtual no-go zone for blacks because of old stories about the lynching of a black man there, locals said. The 1950 Census listed one black resident in Throckmorton County out of a population of about 3,600. In 1960, there were four; in 1970, two; in 1980, none. The 2010 Census shows 11 black residents.
Mae Lou Yeldell, who is black and has lived in Haskell County for 70 years, recalled a gas station refusing to sell her father fuel when he drove the family through Throckmorton in the 1950s. She said it was not uncommon in the 1950s and ’60s for whites to greet blacks with, “Morning, nigger!”
“I heard that so much it’s like a broken record,” said Yeldell, who had never heard of the hunting spot by the river.
Racial attitudes here have shifted slowly. Haskell County began observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day two years ago, according to a county commissioner. And many older white residents understand the civil rights movement as a struggle that addressed problems elsewhere.
“It wasn’t the same issues here you were dealing with,” said Don Ballard, the superintendent of the Paint Creek school district. “Certainly were no picketing signs. Blacks were perfectly satisfied with what was happening.”
It is within that context that many people explained the name of the hunting camp.
“It’s just a name,” said Haskell County Judge David Davis, sitting in his courtroom and looking at a window. “Like those are vertical blinds. It’s just what it was called. There was no significance other than as a hunting deal.”
The name “Niggerhead” has a long and wide history. It was once applied to products such as soap and chewing tobacco, but most often to geographic features such as hills and rocks.
In 1962, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names changed more than a hundred such names, substituting “Negro.”
“Typically these were in areas where African Americans were not all that common,” said Mark Monmonier, a geography professor at Syracuse University who wrote a book on the subject of racially offensive place names.
The federal action still left many local names unchanged. In Texas, Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady, lobbied to change the name of a mountain in Burnet, Tex., that had the same name as Perry’s hunting spot. In 1968, it became “Colored Mountain.” In 1989, the Texas NAACP began lobbying the state legislature to change many more names, such as “Nigger Creek” and “Niggerhead Hill,” although there has been resistance from private landowners, according to news accounts.
In his responses, Perry said the managers of the Hendrick ranch appealed in recent years to federal officials to rename Niggerhead, although the name does not appear on U.S. topographic maps. Monmonier could not find it in a database maintained by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. That suggests renaming the property would be a simple matter for its owners or possibly state officials, Monmonier said.
Chuck Wilson, the manager of the Hendrick ranch, said that particular parcel is now called “North Camp Pasture.”
“It was given the name several years ago,” Wilson said in an interview last week. “Probably, I’m thinking, about five years ago.”
To read the full story:
At Rick Perry’s Texas hunting spot, camp’s old racially charged name lingered
Stephanie McCrummen
October 1, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rick-perry-familys-hunting-camp-still-known-to-many-by-old-racially-charged-name/2011/10/01/gIQAOhY5DL_print.html
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Poverty grows in Rick Perry's Texas
Tami Luhby
September 18, 2011
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/18/news/economy/poverty_perry_texas
Texas Governor Rick Perry likes to brag that his state is an economic powerhouse.
But don't tell that to the nearly one in five Texans who are living below the poverty line.
While it's true that Texas is responsible for 40% of the jobs added in the U.S. over the past two years, its poverty rate also grew faster than the national average in 2010.
Texas ranks 6th in terms of people living in poverty. Some 18.4% of Texans were impoverished in 2010, up from 17.3% a year earlier, according to Census Bureau data released this week. The national average is 15.1%.
And being poor in Texas isn't easy. The state has one of the lowest rates of spending on its citizens per capita and the highest share of those lacking health insurance. It doesn't provide a lot of support services to those in need: Relatively few collect food stamps and qualifying for cash assistance is particularly tough.
"There are two tiers in Texas," said Miguel Ferguson, associate professor of social work at University of Texas at Austin. "There are parts of Texas that are doing well. And there is a tremendous number of Texans, more than Perry has ever wanted to acknowledge, that are doing very, very poorly."
Perry, for his part, believes that creating jobs is the best way to help every Texan. The state is doing "everything we can to ensure that every Texan who wants a job has one," a spokeswoman for the governor said.
Poor in the Lone Star State
A combination of demographic and economic factors contribute to the high poverty rate in Texas, where many families, particularly in the southern swath, live in ramshackle housing with no utilities or indoor plumbing.
More than half the state are minorities, many of them Hispanic. This population often has lower levels of education, making it harder for them to escape poverty, said Steve Murdock, sociology professor at Rice University. And the state's population is younger and the families there larger, on average, which also puts them at greater risk of being poor.
Meanwhile, the Great Recession has driven a new crop of Texans into poverty's grip: the formerly middle class.
Texas Neighborhood Services started seeing a crush of new people seeking help last year, said Bradley Manning, executive director of the Weatherford-based agency. Many of them were unemployed and couldn't find new positions, even after going through job training.
"The middle class are losing their jobs and are not able to replace them fast enough," Manning said. "That's driving them straight into poverty."
Even those lucky enough to get one of the new jobs created in Texas may still find themselves struggling to make ends meet. Many of the positions that have been created are on the lower end of the pay scale.
Some 550,000 workers last year were paid at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, more than double the number making those wages in 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For someone working full-time, that's just over $15,000 a year before taxes, which is under the poverty line for a single parent with two children.
Some 9.5% of Texas' hourly workforce are minimum-wage workers, the highest percentage in the nation -- a dubious title it shares with Mississippi.
Little help for Texans in need
For residents living in poverty, the state doesn't offer many services or even make federally-funded benefits easily accessible.
For instance, it has one of the tightest income limits -- less than 12% of the poverty level -- to qualify for federal cash assistance payments and one of the most meager benefits, a maximum of about $260 a month for a family of three, said Celia Cole, senior research analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income residents. The program serves less than 6% of poor children in the state.
Texas' Medicaid program covers virtually no non-disabled adults. And only an estimated 55% of those eligible for food stamps had signed up for the program in 2008, among the lowest participation rates in the country.
Enrollment has since improved after the state legislature allocated more money for administering the system after coming under pressure from the federal government and being hit with a class action lawsuit. However, Cole says, need has greatly increased as well.
Experts chalk up the minimal services and take-up rates to Texas' anti-welfare attitude. In the Lone Star State, you are expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
"The Texas mentality is you don't ask for help," Ferguson said.
Raising a family on less than $600 a month
Perry, a Republican candidate for president, echoes this view. Asked about the high poverty rate, a governor's spokeswoman said Perry is focusing on creating jobs so Texans can sustain themselves and their families. She pointed out that 95% of the state's jobs are above the minimum wage.
"We're trying to create a culture of independence rather than dependence," said Lucy Nashed, noting the state provides an adequate safety net for children, seniors, the disabled and pregnant mothers.
But advocates say more needs to be done to help people rise or return to self-sufficiency. The state should invest more in public education, job training, health programs and work assistance, such as child care subsidies. Also, it should focus on creating jobs with higher wages and decent benefits.
"We don't have the support system in place to provide economic support or economic opportunity to help families lift themselves out of poverty," said Frances Deviney, senior research associate at the center
September 18, 2011
http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/18/news/economy/poverty_perry_texas
Texas Governor Rick Perry likes to brag that his state is an economic powerhouse.
But don't tell that to the nearly one in five Texans who are living below the poverty line.
While it's true that Texas is responsible for 40% of the jobs added in the U.S. over the past two years, its poverty rate also grew faster than the national average in 2010.
Texas ranks 6th in terms of people living in poverty. Some 18.4% of Texans were impoverished in 2010, up from 17.3% a year earlier, according to Census Bureau data released this week. The national average is 15.1%.
And being poor in Texas isn't easy. The state has one of the lowest rates of spending on its citizens per capita and the highest share of those lacking health insurance. It doesn't provide a lot of support services to those in need: Relatively few collect food stamps and qualifying for cash assistance is particularly tough.
"There are two tiers in Texas," said Miguel Ferguson, associate professor of social work at University of Texas at Austin. "There are parts of Texas that are doing well. And there is a tremendous number of Texans, more than Perry has ever wanted to acknowledge, that are doing very, very poorly."
Perry, for his part, believes that creating jobs is the best way to help every Texan. The state is doing "everything we can to ensure that every Texan who wants a job has one," a spokeswoman for the governor said.
Poor in the Lone Star State
A combination of demographic and economic factors contribute to the high poverty rate in Texas, where many families, particularly in the southern swath, live in ramshackle housing with no utilities or indoor plumbing.
More than half the state are minorities, many of them Hispanic. This population often has lower levels of education, making it harder for them to escape poverty, said Steve Murdock, sociology professor at Rice University. And the state's population is younger and the families there larger, on average, which also puts them at greater risk of being poor.
Meanwhile, the Great Recession has driven a new crop of Texans into poverty's grip: the formerly middle class.
Texas Neighborhood Services started seeing a crush of new people seeking help last year, said Bradley Manning, executive director of the Weatherford-based agency. Many of them were unemployed and couldn't find new positions, even after going through job training.
"The middle class are losing their jobs and are not able to replace them fast enough," Manning said. "That's driving them straight into poverty."
Even those lucky enough to get one of the new jobs created in Texas may still find themselves struggling to make ends meet. Many of the positions that have been created are on the lower end of the pay scale.
Some 550,000 workers last year were paid at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, more than double the number making those wages in 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For someone working full-time, that's just over $15,000 a year before taxes, which is under the poverty line for a single parent with two children.
Some 9.5% of Texas' hourly workforce are minimum-wage workers, the highest percentage in the nation -- a dubious title it shares with Mississippi.
Little help for Texans in need
For residents living in poverty, the state doesn't offer many services or even make federally-funded benefits easily accessible.
For instance, it has one of the tightest income limits -- less than 12% of the poverty level -- to qualify for federal cash assistance payments and one of the most meager benefits, a maximum of about $260 a month for a family of three, said Celia Cole, senior research analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income residents. The program serves less than 6% of poor children in the state.
Texas' Medicaid program covers virtually no non-disabled adults. And only an estimated 55% of those eligible for food stamps had signed up for the program in 2008, among the lowest participation rates in the country.
Enrollment has since improved after the state legislature allocated more money for administering the system after coming under pressure from the federal government and being hit with a class action lawsuit. However, Cole says, need has greatly increased as well.
Experts chalk up the minimal services and take-up rates to Texas' anti-welfare attitude. In the Lone Star State, you are expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
"The Texas mentality is you don't ask for help," Ferguson said.
Raising a family on less than $600 a month
Perry, a Republican candidate for president, echoes this view. Asked about the high poverty rate, a governor's spokeswoman said Perry is focusing on creating jobs so Texans can sustain themselves and their families. She pointed out that 95% of the state's jobs are above the minimum wage.
"We're trying to create a culture of independence rather than dependence," said Lucy Nashed, noting the state provides an adequate safety net for children, seniors, the disabled and pregnant mothers.
But advocates say more needs to be done to help people rise or return to self-sufficiency. The state should invest more in public education, job training, health programs and work assistance, such as child care subsidies. Also, it should focus on creating jobs with higher wages and decent benefits.
"We don't have the support system in place to provide economic support or economic opportunity to help families lift themselves out of poverty," said Frances Deviney, senior research associate at the center
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Troy Davis and the Politics of Death
Sep 13, 2011
By Amy Goodman
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/troy_davis_and_the_politics_of_death_20110914
Death brings cheers these days in America. In the most recent Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Fla., when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked, hypothetically, if a man who chose to carry no medical insurance, then was stricken with a grave illness, should be left to die, cheers of “Yeah!” filled the hall. When, in the prior debate, Gov. Rick Perry was asked about his enthusiastic use of the death penalty in Texas, the crowd erupted into sustained applause and cheers. The reaction from the audience prompted debate moderator Brian Williams of NBC News to follow up with the question, “What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?”
That “dynamic” is why challenging the death sentence to be carried out against Troy Davis by the state of Georgia on Sept. 21 is so important. Davis has been on Georgia’s death row for close to 20 years after being convicted of killing off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah. Since his conviction, seven of the nine nonpolice witnesses have recanted their testimony, alleging police coercion and intimidation in obtaining the testimony. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the murder.
Last March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Davis should receive an evidentiary hearing, to make his case for innocence. Several witnesses have identified one of the remaining witnesses who has not recanted, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, as the shooter. U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. refused, on a technicality, to allow the testimony of witnesses who claimed that, after Davis had been convicted, Coles admitted to shooting MacPhail. In his August court order, Moore summarized, “Mr. Davis is not innocent.”
One of the jurors, Brenda Forrest, disagrees. She told CNN in 2009, recalling the trial of Davis, “All of the witnesses—they were able to ID him as the person who actually did it.” Since the seven witnesses recanted, she says: “If I knew then what I know now, Troy Davis would not be on death row. The verdict would be not guilty.”
Troy Davis has three major strikes against him. First, he is an African-American man. Second, he was charged with killing a white police officer. And third, he is in Georgia.
More than a century ago, the legendary muckraking journalist Ida B. Wells risked her life when she began reporting on the epidemic of lynchings in the Deep South. She published “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases” in 1892 and followed up with “The Red Record” in 1895, detailing hundreds of lynchings. She wrote: “In Brooks County, Ga., Dec. 23, while this Christian country was preparing for Christmas celebration, seven Negroes were lynched in twenty-four hours because they refused, or were unable to tell the whereabouts of a colored man named Pike, who killed a white man ... Georgia heads the list of lynching states.”
The planned execution of Davis will not be at the hands of an unruly mob, but in the sterile, fluorescently lit confines of Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Butts County, near the town of Jackson.
The state doesn’t intend to hang Troy Davis from a tree with a rope or a chain, to hang, as Billie Holiday sang, like a strange fruit: “Southern trees bear a strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/Black body swinging in the Southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.” The state of Georgia, unless its Board of Pardons and Paroles intervenes, will administer a lethal dose of pentobarbital. Georgia is using this new execution drug because the federal Drug Enforcement Administration seized its supply of sodium thiopental last March, accusing the state of illegally importing the poison.
“This is our justice system at its very worst,” said Ben Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Amnesty International has called on the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Davis’ sentence. “The Board stayed Davis’ execution in 2007, stating that capital punishment was not an option when doubts about guilt remained,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “Since then two more execution dates have come and gone, and there is still little clarity, much less proof, that Davis committed any crime. Amnesty International respectfully asks the Board to commute Davis’ sentence to life and prevent Georgia from making a catastrophic mistake.”
But it’s not just the human rights groups the parole board should listen to. Pope Benedict XVI and Nobel Peace Prize laureates President Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, also have called for clemency. Or the board can listen to mobs who cheer for death.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
By Amy Goodman
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/troy_davis_and_the_politics_of_death_20110914
Death brings cheers these days in America. In the most recent Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Fla., when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked, hypothetically, if a man who chose to carry no medical insurance, then was stricken with a grave illness, should be left to die, cheers of “Yeah!” filled the hall. When, in the prior debate, Gov. Rick Perry was asked about his enthusiastic use of the death penalty in Texas, the crowd erupted into sustained applause and cheers. The reaction from the audience prompted debate moderator Brian Williams of NBC News to follow up with the question, “What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?”
That “dynamic” is why challenging the death sentence to be carried out against Troy Davis by the state of Georgia on Sept. 21 is so important. Davis has been on Georgia’s death row for close to 20 years after being convicted of killing off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah. Since his conviction, seven of the nine nonpolice witnesses have recanted their testimony, alleging police coercion and intimidation in obtaining the testimony. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the murder.
Last March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Davis should receive an evidentiary hearing, to make his case for innocence. Several witnesses have identified one of the remaining witnesses who has not recanted, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, as the shooter. U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. refused, on a technicality, to allow the testimony of witnesses who claimed that, after Davis had been convicted, Coles admitted to shooting MacPhail. In his August court order, Moore summarized, “Mr. Davis is not innocent.”
One of the jurors, Brenda Forrest, disagrees. She told CNN in 2009, recalling the trial of Davis, “All of the witnesses—they were able to ID him as the person who actually did it.” Since the seven witnesses recanted, she says: “If I knew then what I know now, Troy Davis would not be on death row. The verdict would be not guilty.”
Troy Davis has three major strikes against him. First, he is an African-American man. Second, he was charged with killing a white police officer. And third, he is in Georgia.
More than a century ago, the legendary muckraking journalist Ida B. Wells risked her life when she began reporting on the epidemic of lynchings in the Deep South. She published “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases” in 1892 and followed up with “The Red Record” in 1895, detailing hundreds of lynchings. She wrote: “In Brooks County, Ga., Dec. 23, while this Christian country was preparing for Christmas celebration, seven Negroes were lynched in twenty-four hours because they refused, or were unable to tell the whereabouts of a colored man named Pike, who killed a white man ... Georgia heads the list of lynching states.”
The planned execution of Davis will not be at the hands of an unruly mob, but in the sterile, fluorescently lit confines of Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Butts County, near the town of Jackson.
The state doesn’t intend to hang Troy Davis from a tree with a rope or a chain, to hang, as Billie Holiday sang, like a strange fruit: “Southern trees bear a strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/Black body swinging in the Southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.” The state of Georgia, unless its Board of Pardons and Paroles intervenes, will administer a lethal dose of pentobarbital. Georgia is using this new execution drug because the federal Drug Enforcement Administration seized its supply of sodium thiopental last March, accusing the state of illegally importing the poison.
“This is our justice system at its very worst,” said Ben Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Amnesty International has called on the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Davis’ sentence. “The Board stayed Davis’ execution in 2007, stating that capital punishment was not an option when doubts about guilt remained,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “Since then two more execution dates have come and gone, and there is still little clarity, much less proof, that Davis committed any crime. Amnesty International respectfully asks the Board to commute Davis’ sentence to life and prevent Georgia from making a catastrophic mistake.”
But it’s not just the human rights groups the parole board should listen to. Pope Benedict XVI and Nobel Peace Prize laureates President Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, also have called for clemency. Or the board can listen to mobs who cheer for death.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Perry Tales: Rick Is Not Who He Says He Is
Jim Hightower, Truthout
Wednesday 7 September 2011
http://truth-out.org/perry-tales-rick-not-who-he-says-he/1315400975
Presidential wannabe Rick Perry is flitting all around the country -- hither, thither and yon -- spreading little "Perry Tales" about himself and the many wonders he has worked as governor of Texas.
His top Perry Tale is a creationist story about what he has modestly branded "The Texas Miracle." While the rest of the country is mired in joblessness, says the miracle worker, his state has added 1.2 million jobs during his 10-year tenure.
I've built "a job-creating machine," the governor gushed during one of his recent flits across Iowa, and a Perry PR aide smugly added, "The governor's job creation record speaks for itself."
Actually, it doesn't. Far from having the best unemployment rate in the nation, the Lone Star State ranks a middling 26th, behind New York, Massachusetts and other states whose "liberal" governments he routinely mocks.
Even more damning, Perry's Texas is not creating nearly enough jobs to keep up with its fast-growing population. Those 1.2 million new positions are 629,000 short of the jobs needed just to bring the state's employment level back up to where it was in 2007. Some miracle.
Worse, probe even a millimeter into the million-jobs number that he is sprinkling around like fairy dust, and you'll learn that Perry's jobs are mostly "jobettes" that can't sustain a family. They come with very low pay, no health care or pension, and no employment security, labor rights or upward mobility -- many are only part-time and/or temporary positions.
Here's a particularly revealing stat that the Perry pixies don't want us to see: On his watch as governor, Texas added more minimum wage jobs than all the other 49 states combined. More than half a million Texans now work for $7.25 an hour or less. He can brag that he's brought Texans down into a tie with Mississippi for the highest percentage of workers reduced to poverty pay.
Spreading even more fairy dust, Perry claims that his Texas Miracle is the result of him keeping the government out of the private sector's way. But peek behind that ideological curtain, and you'll find this startling fact: During Perry's decade, the greatest job growth by far has come from the public sector, which has more than doubled the number of new jobs created by the private sector.
One out of six employed Texans are now teachers, police officers, highway engineers, military personnel or other government workers -- and many of these jobs were created with the federal money that Perry-the-candidate now loudly denounces. Indeed, he's running around ranting about President Obama's stimulus program, but he gladly accepted the third highest amount of stimulus funds taken by the 50 states. There's his miracle.
Interestingly, even his tea-partyish hatred -- nay, loathing! -- of big government's intrusion into the lives of ordinary citizens turns out to be just another Perry Tale. In fact, there would be no Rick Perry without the steady "intrusion" of government into his life.
Local taxpayers in Haskell County put him through their public school system -- for free. He and his family were dry-land cotton farmers, and federal taxpayers helped support them with thousands of dollars in crop subsidies -- Perry personally took $80,000 in farm payments.
State and federal taxpayers financed his college education at Texas A&M, even giving him the extracurricular opportunity to be a cheerleader. Upon graduation, he spent four years on the federal payroll as an Air Force transport pilot who never did any combat duty.
Then, in 1984, Perry hit the mother lode of government pay by moving into elected office -- squatting there for 27 years and counting. In addition to getting regular paychecks from taxpayers for nearly three decades as a state representative, agriculture commissioner, lieutenant governor and governor, he also receives platinum-level health care coverage and a generous pension from the state, plus $10,000 a month for renting a luxury suburban home, a covey of political and personal aides and even a publicly paid subscription to Food & Wine magazine.
So when this taxpayer-supported lifer flits into your town to declare that he will slash public benefits and make government "as inconsequential as possible," he means in your life, not his.
Perry literally puts the "hype" in hypocrisy. Forget his tall tales and political B.S. -- look at what he actually does.
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Wednesday 7 September 2011
http://truth-out.org/perry-tales-rick-not-who-he-says-he/1315400975
Presidential wannabe Rick Perry is flitting all around the country -- hither, thither and yon -- spreading little "Perry Tales" about himself and the many wonders he has worked as governor of Texas.
His top Perry Tale is a creationist story about what he has modestly branded "The Texas Miracle." While the rest of the country is mired in joblessness, says the miracle worker, his state has added 1.2 million jobs during his 10-year tenure.
I've built "a job-creating machine," the governor gushed during one of his recent flits across Iowa, and a Perry PR aide smugly added, "The governor's job creation record speaks for itself."
Actually, it doesn't. Far from having the best unemployment rate in the nation, the Lone Star State ranks a middling 26th, behind New York, Massachusetts and other states whose "liberal" governments he routinely mocks.
Even more damning, Perry's Texas is not creating nearly enough jobs to keep up with its fast-growing population. Those 1.2 million new positions are 629,000 short of the jobs needed just to bring the state's employment level back up to where it was in 2007. Some miracle.
Worse, probe even a millimeter into the million-jobs number that he is sprinkling around like fairy dust, and you'll learn that Perry's jobs are mostly "jobettes" that can't sustain a family. They come with very low pay, no health care or pension, and no employment security, labor rights or upward mobility -- many are only part-time and/or temporary positions.
Here's a particularly revealing stat that the Perry pixies don't want us to see: On his watch as governor, Texas added more minimum wage jobs than all the other 49 states combined. More than half a million Texans now work for $7.25 an hour or less. He can brag that he's brought Texans down into a tie with Mississippi for the highest percentage of workers reduced to poverty pay.
Spreading even more fairy dust, Perry claims that his Texas Miracle is the result of him keeping the government out of the private sector's way. But peek behind that ideological curtain, and you'll find this startling fact: During Perry's decade, the greatest job growth by far has come from the public sector, which has more than doubled the number of new jobs created by the private sector.
One out of six employed Texans are now teachers, police officers, highway engineers, military personnel or other government workers -- and many of these jobs were created with the federal money that Perry-the-candidate now loudly denounces. Indeed, he's running around ranting about President Obama's stimulus program, but he gladly accepted the third highest amount of stimulus funds taken by the 50 states. There's his miracle.
Interestingly, even his tea-partyish hatred -- nay, loathing! -- of big government's intrusion into the lives of ordinary citizens turns out to be just another Perry Tale. In fact, there would be no Rick Perry without the steady "intrusion" of government into his life.
Local taxpayers in Haskell County put him through their public school system -- for free. He and his family were dry-land cotton farmers, and federal taxpayers helped support them with thousands of dollars in crop subsidies -- Perry personally took $80,000 in farm payments.
State and federal taxpayers financed his college education at Texas A&M, even giving him the extracurricular opportunity to be a cheerleader. Upon graduation, he spent four years on the federal payroll as an Air Force transport pilot who never did any combat duty.
Then, in 1984, Perry hit the mother lode of government pay by moving into elected office -- squatting there for 27 years and counting. In addition to getting regular paychecks from taxpayers for nearly three decades as a state representative, agriculture commissioner, lieutenant governor and governor, he also receives platinum-level health care coverage and a generous pension from the state, plus $10,000 a month for renting a luxury suburban home, a covey of political and personal aides and even a publicly paid subscription to Food & Wine magazine.
So when this taxpayer-supported lifer flits into your town to declare that he will slash public benefits and make government "as inconsequential as possible," he means in your life, not his.
Perry literally puts the "hype" in hypocrisy. Forget his tall tales and political B.S. -- look at what he actually does.
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Texas cut fire department funding by 75 percent this year
09.6.11
David Edwards
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/texas-cut-fire-department-funding-by-75-percent-this-year
Under Gov. Rick Perry (R) this year, Texas slashed state funding for the volunteer fire departments that protect most of the state from wildfires like the ones that have recently destroyed more than 700 homes.
Volunteer departments that were already facing financial strain were slated to have their funding cut from $30 million to $7 million, according to KVUE.
The majority of Texas is protected by volunteer fire departments. There are 879 volunteer fire departments in Texas and only 114 paid fire departments. Another 187 departments are a combination of volunteer and paid.
For that reason, aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could be more important than ever to the state where wildfires have recently been raging.
At a press conference Monday, Perry promised to seek federal disaster relief and said that FEMA would be in the state by Wednesday.
While the Texas governor has been highly critical of FEMA in the past, he told CBS’ Erica Hill Tuesday that now was not the time to worry about reforming the agency.
“The issue is taking care of these people right now,” Perry insisted. “We can work our way through any conversations about how to make agencies more efficient, how to make Department of Defense equipment, for instance, more available. There are a lot of issues we can talk about, but the fact of the matter is now is not the time to be trying to work out the details of how to make these agencies more efficient. Let’s get people out of harm’s way.”
David Edwards
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/texas-cut-fire-department-funding-by-75-percent-this-year
Under Gov. Rick Perry (R) this year, Texas slashed state funding for the volunteer fire departments that protect most of the state from wildfires like the ones that have recently destroyed more than 700 homes.
Volunteer departments that were already facing financial strain were slated to have their funding cut from $30 million to $7 million, according to KVUE.
The majority of Texas is protected by volunteer fire departments. There are 879 volunteer fire departments in Texas and only 114 paid fire departments. Another 187 departments are a combination of volunteer and paid.
For that reason, aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could be more important than ever to the state where wildfires have recently been raging.
At a press conference Monday, Perry promised to seek federal disaster relief and said that FEMA would be in the state by Wednesday.
While the Texas governor has been highly critical of FEMA in the past, he told CBS’ Erica Hill Tuesday that now was not the time to worry about reforming the agency.
“The issue is taking care of these people right now,” Perry insisted. “We can work our way through any conversations about how to make agencies more efficient, how to make Department of Defense equipment, for instance, more available. There are a lot of issues we can talk about, but the fact of the matter is now is not the time to be trying to work out the details of how to make these agencies more efficient. Let’s get people out of harm’s way.”
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Ron Paul Deserves More Respect
Ivan Eland, August 16, 2011
http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2011/08/15/ron-paul-deserves-more-respect
Robalini's Note: Let's just take a step back for a second and analyze this. Ron Paul is a fringe candidate who deserves to be mocked and dismissed, while Michele Bachman is a respectable politician who must be taken seriously? This is patently absurd...
Although Ron Paul placed second in the Iowa straw poll, behind Michele Bachmann by the slimmest of margins, most media commentators — both left and right — refused to anoint him as one of the “big three” candidates remaining in the Republican presidential contest. Translated, the media gatekeepers, as they did in his 2008 campaign, are telling the American people that Paul should not be regarded as a serious candidate. Apparently, only Bachmann, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry have somehow earned this exalted designation.
Although the Iowa straw poll does not represent a cross section of the Republican Party, at least some likely voters participated in it. Romney and Perry, both of whom did miserably in the poll, seem to have earned their place in the elite candidates club merely on the basis of media conjecture as to their future viability — based mostly on “political buzz” or fundraising potential.
When candidates are effectively cut out of most media coverage because they are deemed “not serious” or are predicted to have “no chance of winning,” this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite his impressive showing in the Iowa poll, Paul is receiving the same ill treatment by the media this go-around as last. An example of media disparagement of Paul’s views could be seen a couple of days earlier in the behavior of Fox’s Chris Wallace, who was moderating the Republican debate. Wallace zeroed in on Paul’s previous statements on Iran and nuclear weapons, including his opposition to sanctions against that country and this remark: “One can understand why they might want to become nuclear capable, if only to defend themselves and to be treated more respectfully.” Wallace asked Paul if his policy was really that President Obama was too tough, not too soft, on Iran.
In responding to Wallace’s question, Paul cast aside the conventional wisdom on U.S. policy vis-Ã -vis Iran and cogently opined against sanctions, arguing the historically accurate case that they can often lead to war with the sanctioned country — for example, sanctions preceded U.S. wars with Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Manuel Noriega in Panama. Unbelievably (in the eyes of the nearly always sanctimoniously interventionist American media), Paul had the temerity to actually empathize with another country’s feelings of insecurity and to argue for negotiating, even with odious regimes.
Just think of the agitation and the worrying of a country that might get a nuclear weapon some day. And just think of how many nuclear weapons surround Iran. The Chinese are there. The Indians are there. The Pakistanis are there. The Israelis are there. The United States is there. All these countries — China has nuclear weapons.
Incredulous that he was hearing someone actually say that another country might try to develop nuclear weapons for the same reason that the United States had developed them — to enhance its security — Wallace gave Paul another 15 seconds to explain this seemingly astonishing position, saying, “I just want to make sure I understand. So your policy towards Iran is, if they want to develop a nuclear weapon, that’s their right, no sanctions, no effort to stop them?”
Paul calmly replied that trying to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon only makes its feelings of insecurity worse. He added that “we tolerated the Soviets [getting nuclear weapons]; we didn’t attack them. And they were a much greater danger [than Iran] — they were the greatest danger to us in our whole history.” Paul could have added that the United States also declined to bomb the even more radical communist Mao Zedong as he took China into the nuclear club in the 1960s and threatened nuclear war with America. Iran has never made such threats to the United States.
Paul’s yes-to-negotiations-and-no-to-sanctions-and-war-with-Iran position holds up well when all the hype about Iran’s threat to the United States is brushed away and the facts are uncovered:
•Iran is a relatively poor country compared to the United States, and, even if it got nuclear weapons, it would have only a few warheads. Developing a long-range missile to carry those warheads half a world away is also difficult. In contrast, the United States already has such long-range missiles and also has the most capable nuclear arsenal on the planet, containing thousands of warheads. That huge arsenal and those missiles would likely deter, with a threat to Iran’s existence, any contemplated Iranian nuclear attack. With its small number of warheads, Iran could not similarly threaten the existence of the United States.
•A nuclear Iran may be more of a threat to nearby Israel, but Israel has 200-400 nuclear weapons and can also deter any potential Iranian attack with such a hefty atomic response capability.
•Although Iran’s regime has spouted Islamist rhetoric, its government usually behaves pragmatically, especially when dealing with much stronger countries, such as the United States and Israel.
Thus, Paul’s position on Iran is just one example of his opposition to interventionist and jingoistic U.S. foreign policies — about which the media either is astonished (Ã la Chris Wallace) or exhibits disdain. Yet the reason Paul has such resonance with a certain segment of the American people, despite the media’s derision, is because those people take the time to go beyond political slogans and conventional wisdom and listen to Paul’s facts, analysis, and cogent explanations of and solutions to policy problems.
http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2011/08/15/ron-paul-deserves-more-respect
Robalini's Note: Let's just take a step back for a second and analyze this. Ron Paul is a fringe candidate who deserves to be mocked and dismissed, while Michele Bachman is a respectable politician who must be taken seriously? This is patently absurd...
Although Ron Paul placed second in the Iowa straw poll, behind Michele Bachmann by the slimmest of margins, most media commentators — both left and right — refused to anoint him as one of the “big three” candidates remaining in the Republican presidential contest. Translated, the media gatekeepers, as they did in his 2008 campaign, are telling the American people that Paul should not be regarded as a serious candidate. Apparently, only Bachmann, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry have somehow earned this exalted designation.
Although the Iowa straw poll does not represent a cross section of the Republican Party, at least some likely voters participated in it. Romney and Perry, both of whom did miserably in the poll, seem to have earned their place in the elite candidates club merely on the basis of media conjecture as to their future viability — based mostly on “political buzz” or fundraising potential.
When candidates are effectively cut out of most media coverage because they are deemed “not serious” or are predicted to have “no chance of winning,” this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite his impressive showing in the Iowa poll, Paul is receiving the same ill treatment by the media this go-around as last. An example of media disparagement of Paul’s views could be seen a couple of days earlier in the behavior of Fox’s Chris Wallace, who was moderating the Republican debate. Wallace zeroed in on Paul’s previous statements on Iran and nuclear weapons, including his opposition to sanctions against that country and this remark: “One can understand why they might want to become nuclear capable, if only to defend themselves and to be treated more respectfully.” Wallace asked Paul if his policy was really that President Obama was too tough, not too soft, on Iran.
In responding to Wallace’s question, Paul cast aside the conventional wisdom on U.S. policy vis-Ã -vis Iran and cogently opined against sanctions, arguing the historically accurate case that they can often lead to war with the sanctioned country — for example, sanctions preceded U.S. wars with Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Manuel Noriega in Panama. Unbelievably (in the eyes of the nearly always sanctimoniously interventionist American media), Paul had the temerity to actually empathize with another country’s feelings of insecurity and to argue for negotiating, even with odious regimes.
Just think of the agitation and the worrying of a country that might get a nuclear weapon some day. And just think of how many nuclear weapons surround Iran. The Chinese are there. The Indians are there. The Pakistanis are there. The Israelis are there. The United States is there. All these countries — China has nuclear weapons.
Incredulous that he was hearing someone actually say that another country might try to develop nuclear weapons for the same reason that the United States had developed them — to enhance its security — Wallace gave Paul another 15 seconds to explain this seemingly astonishing position, saying, “I just want to make sure I understand. So your policy towards Iran is, if they want to develop a nuclear weapon, that’s their right, no sanctions, no effort to stop them?”
Paul calmly replied that trying to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon only makes its feelings of insecurity worse. He added that “we tolerated the Soviets [getting nuclear weapons]; we didn’t attack them. And they were a much greater danger [than Iran] — they were the greatest danger to us in our whole history.” Paul could have added that the United States also declined to bomb the even more radical communist Mao Zedong as he took China into the nuclear club in the 1960s and threatened nuclear war with America. Iran has never made such threats to the United States.
Paul’s yes-to-negotiations-and-no-to-sanctions-and-war-with-Iran position holds up well when all the hype about Iran’s threat to the United States is brushed away and the facts are uncovered:
•Iran is a relatively poor country compared to the United States, and, even if it got nuclear weapons, it would have only a few warheads. Developing a long-range missile to carry those warheads half a world away is also difficult. In contrast, the United States already has such long-range missiles and also has the most capable nuclear arsenal on the planet, containing thousands of warheads. That huge arsenal and those missiles would likely deter, with a threat to Iran’s existence, any contemplated Iranian nuclear attack. With its small number of warheads, Iran could not similarly threaten the existence of the United States.
•A nuclear Iran may be more of a threat to nearby Israel, but Israel has 200-400 nuclear weapons and can also deter any potential Iranian attack with such a hefty atomic response capability.
•Although Iran’s regime has spouted Islamist rhetoric, its government usually behaves pragmatically, especially when dealing with much stronger countries, such as the United States and Israel.
Thus, Paul’s position on Iran is just one example of his opposition to interventionist and jingoistic U.S. foreign policies — about which the media either is astonished (Ã la Chris Wallace) or exhibits disdain. Yet the reason Paul has such resonance with a certain segment of the American people, despite the media’s derision, is because those people take the time to go beyond political slogans and conventional wisdom and listen to Paul’s facts, analysis, and cogent explanations of and solutions to policy problems.
Rick Perry’s warped tax ‘injustice’
Ruth Marcus ruthmarcus@washpost.com
August 15, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rick-perrys-warped-tax-injustice/2011/08/15/gIQAvzwPHJ_story.html
“We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.”
— Texas Gov. Rick Perry, presidential candidacy announcement speech, Aug. 13
Really? Of all the ills in the world, of all the problems with the economy, all the difficulties with the tax code, this is the one that Rick Perry chooses to lament?
Perry’s statement conjures visions of America as Slacker Nation, where the overburdened wagon-pullers drag an increasingly heavy burden of freeloaders. His number is correct but, like other conservatives who have seized on the statistic, Perry draws from it a dangerously misleading lesson.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that 46.4 percent of households will pay no federal income tax in 2011. This is, for the most part, not because people have chosen to loaf. It’s because they are working but simply don’t earn enough to owe income taxes, based on the progressive structure of the tax code and provisions designed to help the working poor and lower-income seniors.
As the Tax Policy Center’s Roberton Williams has explained, “a couple with two children earning less than $26,400 will pay no federal income tax this year because their $11,600 standard deduction and four exemptions of $3,700 each reduce their taxable income to zero. The basic structure of the income tax simply exempts subsistence levels of income from tax.”
Does Perry truly see this as an “injustice”? Does he believe his “dismay” should be alleviated by raising the tax burden on these households?
Consider: Of those households that do not owe income taxes, about a third earn $10,000 a year and a slightly smaller share earn between $10,000 and $20,000. More than three-fourths earn $30,000 or less.
In addition, the notion that these households pay no taxes is flat-out wrong. They pay — leaving aside state and local sales, income and property taxes — federal gasoline and other excise taxes and, most significantly, payroll taxes on every dollar they earn. These taxes are regressive. Everyone pays the same share, regardless of income, so they hit the poor hardest, and they counterbalance the progressivity of the income tax code.
Indeed, factoring in payroll taxes alone, the Slacker Nation picture looks very different. Two-thirds of the households that pay no federal income tax still ante up for payroll taxes. Fewer than one in five — 18 percent of all households — pay neither income nor payroll taxes. Nearly all of these are elderly (10 percent) or have incomes below $20,000 (7 percent.)
Assuming that Perry isn’t worked up about Slacker Grandmas, the relevant “slacker share” — people who are supposedly comfortably ensconced on that wagon the rest of us are pulling — is in single digits rather than “nearly half.”
And, of course, they pay other taxes. An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, taking into account all federal taxes, found that in 2007 even the poorest one-fifth of households, with average income (including government benefits) of $18,400, paid 4 percent of their income in federal taxes. By contrast, the middle fifth (average income $64,500) paid 14 percent of income and the top fifth (average income $264,700) 25 percent.
In short, the wealthy pay a greater share of their income in taxes — but the poor don’t, as Perry implies, pay nothing.
About those rich people: Perry seems to believe it is wrong to ask more of them. “‘Spreading the wealth’ punishes success while setting America on course for greater dependency on government,” he said.
Perry needn’t worry. In the past several decades the wealth hasn’t been spread so much as concentrated — at the top. The share of total income going to the top 1 percent of income earners more than doubled from 9 percent in 1970 to 23.5 percent in 2007. (The Great Recession has since narrowed the gap.)
And while, as noted above, the rich pay a greater proportion of their income in taxes, the share of total taxes paid by the richest Americans is commensurate with their share of national wealth.
Examining the total tax burden — state, federal and local — Citizens for Tax Justice calculated that the top 1 percent of households (average income, $1.3 million) earned 20.3 percent of income and paid 21.5 percent of taxes in 2010.
The tax code is studded with a costly bevy of deductions and preferences — mortgage interest, employer-sponsored health insurance, retirement savings — that benefit wealthier taxpayers over those with modest incomes. If Perry wants to go after injustice in the tax code, he’ll find ample targets. Failing to tax poor people enough isn’t among them.
August 15, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rick-perrys-warped-tax-injustice/2011/08/15/gIQAvzwPHJ_story.html
“We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.”
— Texas Gov. Rick Perry, presidential candidacy announcement speech, Aug. 13
Really? Of all the ills in the world, of all the problems with the economy, all the difficulties with the tax code, this is the one that Rick Perry chooses to lament?
Perry’s statement conjures visions of America as Slacker Nation, where the overburdened wagon-pullers drag an increasingly heavy burden of freeloaders. His number is correct but, like other conservatives who have seized on the statistic, Perry draws from it a dangerously misleading lesson.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that 46.4 percent of households will pay no federal income tax in 2011. This is, for the most part, not because people have chosen to loaf. It’s because they are working but simply don’t earn enough to owe income taxes, based on the progressive structure of the tax code and provisions designed to help the working poor and lower-income seniors.
As the Tax Policy Center’s Roberton Williams has explained, “a couple with two children earning less than $26,400 will pay no federal income tax this year because their $11,600 standard deduction and four exemptions of $3,700 each reduce their taxable income to zero. The basic structure of the income tax simply exempts subsistence levels of income from tax.”
Does Perry truly see this as an “injustice”? Does he believe his “dismay” should be alleviated by raising the tax burden on these households?
Consider: Of those households that do not owe income taxes, about a third earn $10,000 a year and a slightly smaller share earn between $10,000 and $20,000. More than three-fourths earn $30,000 or less.
In addition, the notion that these households pay no taxes is flat-out wrong. They pay — leaving aside state and local sales, income and property taxes — federal gasoline and other excise taxes and, most significantly, payroll taxes on every dollar they earn. These taxes are regressive. Everyone pays the same share, regardless of income, so they hit the poor hardest, and they counterbalance the progressivity of the income tax code.
Indeed, factoring in payroll taxes alone, the Slacker Nation picture looks very different. Two-thirds of the households that pay no federal income tax still ante up for payroll taxes. Fewer than one in five — 18 percent of all households — pay neither income nor payroll taxes. Nearly all of these are elderly (10 percent) or have incomes below $20,000 (7 percent.)
Assuming that Perry isn’t worked up about Slacker Grandmas, the relevant “slacker share” — people who are supposedly comfortably ensconced on that wagon the rest of us are pulling — is in single digits rather than “nearly half.”
And, of course, they pay other taxes. An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, taking into account all federal taxes, found that in 2007 even the poorest one-fifth of households, with average income (including government benefits) of $18,400, paid 4 percent of their income in federal taxes. By contrast, the middle fifth (average income $64,500) paid 14 percent of income and the top fifth (average income $264,700) 25 percent.
In short, the wealthy pay a greater share of their income in taxes — but the poor don’t, as Perry implies, pay nothing.
About those rich people: Perry seems to believe it is wrong to ask more of them. “‘Spreading the wealth’ punishes success while setting America on course for greater dependency on government,” he said.
Perry needn’t worry. In the past several decades the wealth hasn’t been spread so much as concentrated — at the top. The share of total income going to the top 1 percent of income earners more than doubled from 9 percent in 1970 to 23.5 percent in 2007. (The Great Recession has since narrowed the gap.)
And while, as noted above, the rich pay a greater proportion of their income in taxes, the share of total taxes paid by the richest Americans is commensurate with their share of national wealth.
Examining the total tax burden — state, federal and local — Citizens for Tax Justice calculated that the top 1 percent of households (average income, $1.3 million) earned 20.3 percent of income and paid 21.5 percent of taxes in 2010.
The tax code is studded with a costly bevy of deductions and preferences — mortgage interest, employer-sponsored health insurance, retirement savings — that benefit wealthier taxpayers over those with modest incomes. If Perry wants to go after injustice in the tax code, he’ll find ample targets. Failing to tax poor people enough isn’t among them.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Gone With the Myths
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/opinion/19Ball.html
Op-Ed Contributor
Gone With the Myths
EDWARD BALL
December 18, 2010
ON Dec. 20, 1860, 169 men — politicians and people of property — met in the ballroom of St. Andrew’s Hall in Charleston, S.C. After hours of debate, they issued the 158-word “Ordinance of Secession,” which repealed the consent of South Carolina to the Constitution and declared the state to be an independent country. Four days later, the same group drafted a seven-page “Declaration of the Immediate Causes,” explaining why they had decided to split the Union.
The authors of these papers flattered themselves that they’d conjured up a second American Revolution. Instead, the Secession Convention was the beginning of the Civil War, which killed some 620,000 Americans; an equivalent war today would send home more than six million body bags.
The next five years will include an all-you-can-eat special of national remembrance. Yet even after 150 years full of grief and pride and anger, we greet the sesquicentennial wondering, why did the South secede?
I can testify about the South under oath. I was born and raised there, and 12 men in my family fought for the Confederacy; two of them were killed. And since I was a boy, the answer I’ve heard to this question, from Virginia to Louisiana (from whites, never from blacks), is this: “The War Between the States was about states’ rights. It was not about slavery.”
I’ve heard it from women and from men, from sober people and from people liquored up on anti-Washington talk. The North wouldn’t let us govern ourselves, they say, and Congress laid on tariffs that hurt the South. So we rebelled. Secession and the Civil War, in other words, were about small government, limited federal powers and states’ rights.
But a look through the declaration of causes written by South Carolina and four of the 10 states that followed it out of the Union — which, taken together, paint a kind of self-portrait of the Confederacy — reveals a different story. From Georgia to Texas, each state said the reason it was getting out was that the awful Northern states were threatening to do away with slavery.
South Carolina: “The non-slaveholding states ... have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery” and “have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes.”
Mississippi: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. ... There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union.”
Georgia: “A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.”
Several states single out a special culprit, Abraham Lincoln, “an obscure and illiterate man” whose “opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.” Lincoln’s election to the White House meant, for South Carolina, that “the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”
In other words, the only state right the Confederate founders were interested in was the rich man’s “right” to own slaves.
It’s peculiar, because “states’ rights” has become a popular refrain in Republican circles lately. Last year Gov. Rick Perry of Texas wondered aloud whether secession was his state’s right in the aftermath of laws out of Congress that he disliked.
In part because of this renewed rhetoric, in the coming remembrances we will likely hear more from folks who cling to the whitewash explanation for secession and the Civil War. But you have only to look at the honest words of the secessionists to see why all those men put on uniforms.
Edward Ball, the author of “Slaves in the Family,” is writing a biography of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 19, 2010, on page WK8 of the New York edition.
Op-Ed Contributor
Gone With the Myths
EDWARD BALL
December 18, 2010
ON Dec. 20, 1860, 169 men — politicians and people of property — met in the ballroom of St. Andrew’s Hall in Charleston, S.C. After hours of debate, they issued the 158-word “Ordinance of Secession,” which repealed the consent of South Carolina to the Constitution and declared the state to be an independent country. Four days later, the same group drafted a seven-page “Declaration of the Immediate Causes,” explaining why they had decided to split the Union.
The authors of these papers flattered themselves that they’d conjured up a second American Revolution. Instead, the Secession Convention was the beginning of the Civil War, which killed some 620,000 Americans; an equivalent war today would send home more than six million body bags.
The next five years will include an all-you-can-eat special of national remembrance. Yet even after 150 years full of grief and pride and anger, we greet the sesquicentennial wondering, why did the South secede?
I can testify about the South under oath. I was born and raised there, and 12 men in my family fought for the Confederacy; two of them were killed. And since I was a boy, the answer I’ve heard to this question, from Virginia to Louisiana (from whites, never from blacks), is this: “The War Between the States was about states’ rights. It was not about slavery.”
I’ve heard it from women and from men, from sober people and from people liquored up on anti-Washington talk. The North wouldn’t let us govern ourselves, they say, and Congress laid on tariffs that hurt the South. So we rebelled. Secession and the Civil War, in other words, were about small government, limited federal powers and states’ rights.
But a look through the declaration of causes written by South Carolina and four of the 10 states that followed it out of the Union — which, taken together, paint a kind of self-portrait of the Confederacy — reveals a different story. From Georgia to Texas, each state said the reason it was getting out was that the awful Northern states were threatening to do away with slavery.
South Carolina: “The non-slaveholding states ... have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery” and “have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes.”
Mississippi: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. ... There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union.”
Georgia: “A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.”
Several states single out a special culprit, Abraham Lincoln, “an obscure and illiterate man” whose “opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.” Lincoln’s election to the White House meant, for South Carolina, that “the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”
In other words, the only state right the Confederate founders were interested in was the rich man’s “right” to own slaves.
It’s peculiar, because “states’ rights” has become a popular refrain in Republican circles lately. Last year Gov. Rick Perry of Texas wondered aloud whether secession was his state’s right in the aftermath of laws out of Congress that he disliked.
In part because of this renewed rhetoric, in the coming remembrances we will likely hear more from folks who cling to the whitewash explanation for secession and the Civil War. But you have only to look at the honest words of the secessionists to see why all those men put on uniforms.
Edward Ball, the author of “Slaves in the Family,” is writing a biography of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 19, 2010, on page WK8 of the New York edition.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Texas gov race gets Kinky
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26702.html
Texas gov race gets Kinky
By ANDY BARR 9/3/09
Richard “Kinky” Friedman is making his second run for governor of Texas, this time as a Democrat.
Beginning with an Associated Press interview earlier this week, Friedman has been slowly rolling out his announcement in a series of sitdowns with state media outlets. The popular satirist, musician and Texas Monthly columnist told the AP on Monday that it is “really time for Texas to secede from [GOP Gov.] Rick Perry.”
Friedman won 12 percent of the vote — nearly 550,000 votes — when he ran in 2006 as an Independent, enough to win fourth place in a crowded general election field. He raised $4.8 million for the race and attracted a considerable amount of national media attention, but many Democrats were left with a bitter taste as his candidacy was perceived to have drained votes from Democratic nominee Chris Bell.
Friedman told the AP that he decided to run because he believes he gives Democrats their best chance to win a contest that is so far being dominated by the contentious Republican primary fight between Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
“I look around and I think, I’m the only true man of the people in the race,” Friedman said, insisting that his candidacy would enable the party to “run on ideas, not on demographics.”
Friedman already has a Sept. 16 fundraiser planned with country singer Willie Nelson and expects to raise much of his money online. He claims that 70,000 individuals contributed online to his 2006 campaign.
Four other Democrats are seeking the gubernatorial nomination, including former U.S. Ambassador Tom Schieffer; Mark Thompson, a therapist for the blind; school teacher Felix Alvarado; and rancher Hank Gilbert.
Texas gov race gets Kinky
By ANDY BARR 9/3/09
Richard “Kinky” Friedman is making his second run for governor of Texas, this time as a Democrat.
Beginning with an Associated Press interview earlier this week, Friedman has been slowly rolling out his announcement in a series of sitdowns with state media outlets. The popular satirist, musician and Texas Monthly columnist told the AP on Monday that it is “really time for Texas to secede from [GOP Gov.] Rick Perry.”
Friedman won 12 percent of the vote — nearly 550,000 votes — when he ran in 2006 as an Independent, enough to win fourth place in a crowded general election field. He raised $4.8 million for the race and attracted a considerable amount of national media attention, but many Democrats were left with a bitter taste as his candidacy was perceived to have drained votes from Democratic nominee Chris Bell.
Friedman told the AP that he decided to run because he believes he gives Democrats their best chance to win a contest that is so far being dominated by the contentious Republican primary fight between Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
“I look around and I think, I’m the only true man of the people in the race,” Friedman said, insisting that his candidacy would enable the party to “run on ideas, not on demographics.”
Friedman already has a Sept. 16 fundraiser planned with country singer Willie Nelson and expects to raise much of his money online. He claims that 70,000 individuals contributed online to his 2006 campaign.
Four other Democrats are seeking the gubernatorial nomination, including former U.S. Ambassador Tom Schieffer; Mark Thompson, a therapist for the blind; school teacher Felix Alvarado; and rancher Hank Gilbert.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Schwarzenegger backs McCain for GOP nomination
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/31/mccain.endorsements/
Schwarzenegger backs McCain for GOP nomination
1-31-8
Story Highlights
NEW: Expert says endorsement provides enormous boost in momentum for McCain
NEW: McCain says Texas governor plans to endorse McCain later in day
Rudy Giuliani threw support to McCain after dropping out of the GOP race
McCain's Florida win cements front-runner status before Super Tuesday
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Thursday he is endorsing Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.
In endorsing McCain, Schwarzenegger lauded the Arizona senator's crusade against wasteful spending, his national security credentials and his environmental and economic stewardship.
Flanked by McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who endorsed McCain on Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said he was giving McCain his blessing "because I am interested in a great future and I think Sen. McCain has proven over and over again that he is reaching across the aisle in order to get things done."
"He's a great American hero and an extraordinary leader," the governor said.
Schwarzenegger made the announcement at a solar technologies company in Los Angeles, a day after the four Republican candidates debated at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
McCain is also set to receive the endorsements of Georgia's two Republican senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, in the next two days, according to two GOP sources involved in the planning. McCain said during Thursday's news conference that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would endorse him later in the day.
California and Georgia are two of the 21 states holding GOP nominating contests on Super Tuesday next week. California boasts the most delegates and the most electoral votes in the nation.
Schwarzenegger's endorsement could be key to McCain winning California's delegates. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement of the Arizona senator was cited in exit polls as a key to his winning there. McCain solidly beat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and gained momentum with the win.
Momentum is essential in a race like this, especially in the GOP, and it could trump other factors, including campaign donations, said Dr. Christopher Hull, a Georgetown University adjunct professor and author of "Grassroots Rules," a book on the presidential primary process.
"The party will coalesce around the front-runner to defeat the insurgent candidate," Hull said. "It is a loyalist party at its roots."
California represents an enormous prize for McCain, not only because of the 170 Republican delegates, but also because of Schwarzenegger's support base.
Though observers aren't privy to the level of access, Schwarzenegger's endorsement could come with e-mail, mailers and phone calls encouraging the governor's supporters to get behind McCain.
"If McCain gets access to that organization, he gets a very strong tactical boost," Hull said.
Schwarzenegger has an impressive approval rating among California's self-declared Republicans, said Lynn Vavreck, an assistant professor of political science at UCLA. His popularity, along his fundraising ability, should represent a boon for the McCain, she said.
Vavreck added that McCain's endorsements are especially important among Republicans who have not yet chosen who they will vote for. Undecided voters often look to their party leaders for direction on how to cast their ballot.
"If voters were unsure about how to vote, their party leaders are not giving them signals about which candidate to rally around," Vavreck said. "All of [McCain's] endorsements reduce voters' uncertainty and ultimately help to coordinate their behavior."
On Wednesday, McCain got Giuliani's endorsement as the former mayor announced he was dropping out of the race.
"This is a man who is prepared to be president," Giuliani said of his "old friend."
Giuliani said McCain gives the Republican Party the best chance to hold onto the presidency. Giuliani made the announcement two hours before the Republican's final debate preceding the Super Tuesday contests next week.
Giuliani, who had staked his presidential campaign on a Florida win, had a disappointing third-place finish in the state's Republican primary Tuesday night.
McCain's Florida win essentially turns the GOP presidential race into a two-man contest between him and Romney.
CNN's John King and Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.
Schwarzenegger backs McCain for GOP nomination
1-31-8
Story Highlights
NEW: Expert says endorsement provides enormous boost in momentum for McCain
NEW: McCain says Texas governor plans to endorse McCain later in day
Rudy Giuliani threw support to McCain after dropping out of the GOP race
McCain's Florida win cements front-runner status before Super Tuesday
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Thursday he is endorsing Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.
In endorsing McCain, Schwarzenegger lauded the Arizona senator's crusade against wasteful spending, his national security credentials and his environmental and economic stewardship.
Flanked by McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who endorsed McCain on Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said he was giving McCain his blessing "because I am interested in a great future and I think Sen. McCain has proven over and over again that he is reaching across the aisle in order to get things done."
"He's a great American hero and an extraordinary leader," the governor said.
Schwarzenegger made the announcement at a solar technologies company in Los Angeles, a day after the four Republican candidates debated at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
McCain is also set to receive the endorsements of Georgia's two Republican senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, in the next two days, according to two GOP sources involved in the planning. McCain said during Thursday's news conference that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would endorse him later in the day.
California and Georgia are two of the 21 states holding GOP nominating contests on Super Tuesday next week. California boasts the most delegates and the most electoral votes in the nation.
Schwarzenegger's endorsement could be key to McCain winning California's delegates. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement of the Arizona senator was cited in exit polls as a key to his winning there. McCain solidly beat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and gained momentum with the win.
Momentum is essential in a race like this, especially in the GOP, and it could trump other factors, including campaign donations, said Dr. Christopher Hull, a Georgetown University adjunct professor and author of "Grassroots Rules," a book on the presidential primary process.
"The party will coalesce around the front-runner to defeat the insurgent candidate," Hull said. "It is a loyalist party at its roots."
California represents an enormous prize for McCain, not only because of the 170 Republican delegates, but also because of Schwarzenegger's support base.
Though observers aren't privy to the level of access, Schwarzenegger's endorsement could come with e-mail, mailers and phone calls encouraging the governor's supporters to get behind McCain.
"If McCain gets access to that organization, he gets a very strong tactical boost," Hull said.
Schwarzenegger has an impressive approval rating among California's self-declared Republicans, said Lynn Vavreck, an assistant professor of political science at UCLA. His popularity, along his fundraising ability, should represent a boon for the McCain, she said.
Vavreck added that McCain's endorsements are especially important among Republicans who have not yet chosen who they will vote for. Undecided voters often look to their party leaders for direction on how to cast their ballot.
"If voters were unsure about how to vote, their party leaders are not giving them signals about which candidate to rally around," Vavreck said. "All of [McCain's] endorsements reduce voters' uncertainty and ultimately help to coordinate their behavior."
On Wednesday, McCain got Giuliani's endorsement as the former mayor announced he was dropping out of the race.
"This is a man who is prepared to be president," Giuliani said of his "old friend."
Giuliani said McCain gives the Republican Party the best chance to hold onto the presidency. Giuliani made the announcement two hours before the Republican's final debate preceding the Super Tuesday contests next week.
Giuliani, who had staked his presidential campaign on a Florida win, had a disappointing third-place finish in the state's Republican primary Tuesday night.
McCain's Florida win essentially turns the GOP presidential race into a two-man contest between him and Romney.
CNN's John King and Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.
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