Kudos to UVM: Offering Total Education To Low-Income Vermonters

Hurray for UVM, which happens to be an excellent set of schools.

It's not that UVM isn't feeling the financial stress. But it makes sense for them to want more Vermonters to stay within a state that loses so many of its young adults to other markets (a living wage up here can be damned hard to find).

As The Republicans Regurgitate Everything Reagan...

Sorry, I got felled by hand problems the last few days BUT... I'm even more distressed to listen to the Republicans debate at California's Ronald Reagan Library in the last GOP debate before Super Tuesday next week invoke in every other word the name of Ronnie Raygun - the man who said "fuck the poor; if you aren't a millionaire, I don't want to hear from you" - in every other breath.

The LAST time Ronald Reagan had a salient thought was back in the 1950s when, as a Democrat, he headed the Screen Actors Guild and tried to mediate the damage being done by horrible hatemongerers like Joe McCarthy tried to force everyone in government and Hollywood to name fellow workers and friends as "reds", even when it was not true. After that, he got involved with Nancy Davis, an even less talented actress (but oh so rich and from old California Republican money) than First Lady - not that Ronnie was a good actor), became a Republican and, like too many in the GOP, disconnected his brain. By the time he reached the White House, he was already well into the grips of Alzheimer's Disease - it's a huge lie that the effects came after he left office; Alzheimer's does NOT work like that.

So if you aren't afraid YET that the Republicans want to return to the "glory" days of the Reaganomics 80s, you damned well should be. Anyone who didn't make it rich in the 1980s had a damned hard time... and the people who puppeteered Reagan made sure of that!

RIP: The American Dollar (Or Why You May Be Able to Use Your Paycheck to Wipe Your Butt RSN)

Well, the ruination of the economy and the labor market the Bush-Cheney Administration worked very hard to bring about in record time between the December day they stole the election from Al Gore in 2000 and the first 100 days of them "presuming" office in January 2001, and continued throughout their absolute monarchy is almost complete.

We've already seen - for the first time - economists in many other lands besides our own say the American dollar is increasingly useless and is shunned compared to many other emerging players like China and yes, even Iran and the Euro. Also a firstie: the Canadian dollar has become (significantly) more valuable than its U.S. counterpart, a phenomenon many said would never happen. We've seen the middle class grow poor and more home foreclosures in this country than at any time since the stock market crash and resulting economic phenom known as "The Great Depression" began in 1929. [As Bush would say, look at the good side: at least poverty is up and those we owe money TO are making huge additional money in obscene charges for debt).

Now, many are saying flat out that the dollar's days are numbered, which means ours as an economic superpower also are numbered. I can't help but think that it's all too apt to say that the buck stops with Bush and Cheney, because it quite literally may, even before they leave office on January 20th, 2009.

Here's one example of the dollar's funeral dirge submitted by Reader Sharon (whose typing is only slightly better than her marksmanship).

American Empire Building Disguised As Legit Aid to Third World Countries

Robb Kidd at Evolving Peace (another blog from my neck of the Vermont woods, Montpelier, still the only state capitol without a McDonald's) has a very solid piece up about the World Bank and the whole new horrific levels of corrupt behavior thanks to President Bush's appointment of neocon-man Paul "He puts the wolf in..." Wolfowitz. Wolfie, of course, was allowed to resign when indictment would be much more appropriate - and not just because Wolfie couldn't control his penis or his penis' playmate.

There seems to be a mood of ecstatic joy in regards to the downfall of Paul Wolfowitz from heading of the World Bank and while many may have noticed that Mr. Wolfowitz had been a chief architect of the Neo-Cons disastrous implantation of the war in Iraq, they now celebrate with glee his down fall with little discussion revolving around the harsh reality that he was perfect for the World Bank position.
The World Bank has nothing to do about raising the quality of living for “the undeveloped world” but for the mere purpose of creating further markets of development. While to the mere outsider the World Bank produces an imagery of wholesome concern; however that is far from the real truth of the matter. The World Bank has been a tool for venture capitalists in further procuring their desires of developing and exploiting the undeveloped world. Instead of using military force the World Bank goes into the “undeveloped world” and installs loans to spur economic development that perpetuates them into system of subservience.

On paper it sounds nice, but in reality these loans subject the population to dramatic changes to their environment and create an environment of greater poverty. In Mexico farmers were discouraged from growing corn due to the abundance of US corn and now with the greater demand for ethanol corn prices have skyrocketed and many Mexicans are left without their most basic staple for food. Mexican peasantry who had left the farms for the promises of greater economic freedom are now in a pinch since corn is no longer cheap to them. Now they are unable to support themselves and are in need of work, so left with little options the opportunities north of the border look good to them.

Catch the rest here.

Our Own Tough Times: New Orleans

Although it's unlikely you heard about it (since it's no longer "fashionable" to cover New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was a big demonstration in NOLA over last weekend because these folks are so damned far from being able to call tbeir beloved city worthy of habitation... at least, worthy of habitation outside big and wealthy neighborhoods and major concerns moving in to grab cheapened land.

Let me share a horrific statistic: NOLA was pledged something like $830 million by various countries to provide aid. To date, the Bush Administration's federal government has released no more than $40 million of this to NOLA. We know they have far more sitting there, and other countries keep asking Washington when they can send their money so it can be used.

(facetious mode on) I'm certain keeping the majority low income, people "of color" population from the funds they need, especially in light of a Democratic mayor and a Democratic woman governor, plays no role whatsover.

And if you believe the last paragraph, I've got some lovely "real estate" in the Ninth Ward to show you.

Bob Herbert: "Indentured Servants In America"

Don't think for a minute that this abuse of poor, often immigrant, workers is few and far between. We have very rich folks, for example, who hire these folks only to then treat them like very real prisoners, locking them into the homes, forcing them to pay extravagant prices for small amounts of food and cigarettes, and making up phony "tax" and other charges along with lies to make sure their "employees" feel their very lives are endanger if they so much as walk out the door on their own.

Read all of Bob Herbert's column here or content yourself with my byte:

A must-read for anyone who favors an expansion of guest worker programs in the U.S. is a stunning new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center that details the widespread abuse of highly vulnerable, poverty-stricken workers in programs that already exist.

The report is titled “Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States.” It will be formally released today at a press conference in Washington.

Workers recruited from Mexico, South America, Asia and elsewhere to work in American hotels and in such labor-intensive industries as forestry, seafood processing and construction are often ruthlessly exploited.

They are routinely cheated out of their wages, which are low to begin with. They are bound like indentured servants to the middlemen and employers who arrange their work tours in the U.S. And they are virtual hostages of the American companies that employ them.

The law does not allow these “guests” to change jobs while they’re here. If a particular employer is unscrupulous, as is very often the case, the worker has little or no recourse.

One of the guest workers profiled in the report was a psychology student recruited in the Dominican Republic to work at a hotel in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The woman had taken on $4,000 in debt to cover “fees” and other expenses that were required for her to get a desk job that paid $6 an hour.

But after a month, her hours were steadily reduced until she was working only 15 or 20 hours a week. That left her with barely enough money to survive, and with no way of paying off her crushing debt.

The woman and her fellow guest workers had hardly enough money for food. “We would just buy Chinese food because it was the cheapest,” she said. “We would buy one plate a day and share it between two or three people.” She told the authors of the report: “I felt like an animal without claws — defenseless. It is the same as slavery.”

The rest is available here.