A MESSAGE TO THE TEA PARTY: NOW THAT YOU’RE MAD

After 8 Years Of The Bush/Cheney Disaster, Now You Get Mad?

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed energy company officials to dictate energy policy and push us to invade Iraq .

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got ousted.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when we spent over $800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn’t get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.

You didn’t get mad when over $10 billion in cash just disappeared in Iraq .

You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn’t get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.

You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when Bush rang up $10 trillion in combined budget and current account deficits.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn’t get mad when we let a major U.S. city, New Orleans , drown.

You didn’t get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks.

You didn’t get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in several decades.

You didn’t get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.

You didn’t get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.

You finally got mad when a black man was elected President and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.  Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping fellow Americans who are sick…Oh, Hell No!!

Examining the Tea Party

The NAACP in collaboration with the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights recently released its report exposing the Tea Party, its racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, islamophobia, nativism and its militia impulse. The various Tea Party factions (Freedom Works Tea Party, Tea Party Nation, 1776 Tea Party, ResistNet Tea Party, Tea Party Patriots, and The Tea Party Express) all make up an umbrella of spoke like organizations serving as radial limbs.  At its core the central shaft comprises disaffected white leaders espousing racist ideas and advocating violence and many of whom are formally associated with white supremacist organizations. This well researched documented report is a sobering read.

The Tea Party is not a political party rather a movement that emerged through a series of locally and nationally coordinated protests in response to several Federal laws: the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the health care reform bill.  The movement’s primary concerns, leaders of the movement claim, are cutting back on the size of government, lowering taxes, reducing wasteful spending, and reducing the national debt and federal budget deficit.

“Take America Back” is the Tea Party mantra directed at the African American President and clearly meant to address the nation’s growing population of people of color:  Latinos, Asians, and African Americans. Essence Magazine reveals what is meant in an article written by Gini Sikes, a white journalist, who was hired to go undercover and report on the 2010 convention of the Council of Conservative Citizens who kept their meetings secret from the media. “As a White journalist hired by Essence to tell this story, I’m able to mingle with them,” wrote Sikes. “I discovered they have widely varying agendas, but two things clearly unite the majority: unyielding loyalty to their race and a hatred for President Obama.”

The leaders have a hidden unspeakable agenda with goals directed toward the social realm. The movement claims not to be Republican, but embraces Republican political philosophy to which opportunistic Republicans attempted to control, advising Tea baggers to disrupt and essentially break up town-hall meetings. This attempt at capturing and channeling this new found energy, seems to have failed with the rise of little known Tea party candidates, Sharon Angle, Joe Miller, Christine O’Donnell and Rand Paul, upsetting the establishment in race after race only to later stumble because of their inexperience is delivering their extreme message and dealing with the media.

The Tea Party is like an escaped circus chimp reeking havoc and danger on to all around. The question is will the American electorate wise up and push back on this extremist movement? Voting is the only way to sedate the creature and put it back in its cage.

MWAA Skirts Minority Contracting Suppresses Wages and Undermines Security

Thursday the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority held its 20th Annual Business Opportunity Seminar to attract minority and women entrepreneurs as well as local disadvantaged businesses (LDBs). The problem is its all smoke and mirrors with few contracts going to either minority or women entrepreneurs. The lions share are awarded to “local disadvantaged businesses,” i.e. the good old boys who consistently and overwhelming manage to beat out other qualifying bidders. LDBs usually skim off the cream of these lucrative contracts leaving the curds of low wages and inadequate benefits to seep down to the Black and Latino work force. Senator Rockefeller has recently called for a top to bottom investigation of MWAA contracting practices. This would be the first step toward necessary reform and real equal opportunity.

Senator Rockefeller should begin by reviewing security contracting. Infrastructure security at Reagan National Airport is supported by an unarmed guard force of 40 officers. Five years ago MWAA awarded contract oversight to a Maryland company Master Security. Prior to this award under the company Securiguard officers enjoyed satisfactory benefits and pay. Before the recession Master Security came in immediately cut pay and benefits with MWAA approval and has since refused to grant pay raises or cost of living increases during its 5 year tenure.

The officers organized a collective bargaining unit. Many work long hours sometimes 16 to 18 hour shifts in inclement weather yet they have no sick leave or night differential pay and nor other standard benefits enjoyed by most contract security officers. They have no pension or retirement plan. The situation at Reagan National is particularly untenable because the officers are paid well below the regions prevailing wage standard earning only $12.50 an hour while the prevailing wage is $21.26.
The Reagan officers are paid far below the prevailing wage standard. This deprives them of the ability to maintain comfortable living standards adversely impacting the region. Moreover paying low wages forces MWAA to rely on immigrant workers. This increased reliance diminishes the quality of infrastructure security with lower standards and greater exposure to threats from both outside and within.
MWAA enjoys a unique status an as a recipient of federal funds. It is for the most part a government contractor and as such should be a model employer yet it routinely violates prevailing wages laws. Prevailing wage laws set the floor for wages, overtime pay, training, pension plans, health insurance other benefits paid to workers on public financed jobs.
The cost of living in the Washington metropolitan region is high. The Reagan officers are demanding to be paid the prevailing wage to keep pace with rapidly increasing transportation and subsistence costs. Without the necessary increase workers will be forced to move outside the Beltway for cheaper housing thus incurring higher transportation costs.
MWAA by failing to observe the prevailing wage law jeopardizes airport security and diminishes regional living standards. Enough with the annual dog and pony show touting equal opportunity. MWAA should award contracts to minority and woman owned businesses as mandated by federal law and stop the charade.

Outsourcing and Declining Wages: The Duped American Worker

It is now clear that the accelerated shifting overseas of technical and white-collar jobs undercuts upward mobility for American workers. Politicians, pundits and even some economist are now having second thoughts about free trade-agreements that protect the rights of investors but not the rights of labor. Conservatives have since before the days of Ronald Reagan continued to echo the same refrain: Government is the enemy of the people. This has lead to three decades of eroding government regulation in favor of an unfettered free market rule which ultimately brought the nation to the brink of financial collapse.

Labor unions have been weakened while manufacturing jobs have gone abroad. The educational system is failing while teachers and their unions are being demonized. Outsourcing jobs, harassing labor unions, repealing safety regulations, and undercutting benefits: all of which became the order of the day during the Reagan-Bush era. And now approaching midterm elections we stand poised to put he same players with the same strategy back into the game.

To those players the free market means having free reign to advance their interest at the expense of consumers and workers, the people. It’s been shown time again Wall Street, bankers, and corporations’ only concern is the bottom line. Their self-serving policies have proven disastrous to the economy, the environment, and the American middle class. The very same conservatives who favor tax cuts for the wealthy oppose extending unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed. Yet many Americans continue to vote against their own interest unknowingly lied to and manipulated by the top wealthy 3% who use their money to control the media and the message.

One-third of American workers say they would join a union if they had a chance, and over half support collective bargaining. Yet only 13 percent are union members because existing law make it difficult. Meanwhile companies like Wal-Mart paying low wages thrive and expand abroad. Once one of the most effective lobbying machines was that of organized labor, but unions too have not faired well under conservative domination. Government is not the enemy but the wealthy conservatives who use the media to misinform and mislead American voters.

It is absolutely essential American workers make their elected officials accountable to them and not special interests lobbyists. We are at a cross road and Americans must show solidarity if we want a government for the people and by the people not corporate interest. Government is not the enemy. Corporate greed is.

Diversity and Tolerance

Many believed the election of an African American President ushered in the new age of a post racial American society, one of diversity and tolerance with global impact. Well into Obama’s first term we have witnessed anything but tolerance and acceptance of cultural, racial and religious differences. Unfortunately society’s ingrained prejudices will likely take generations to eradicate. It took 400 years to make racial equality a matter of policy in the United States. A major battle tackling racism came on the education front with the 1954 Brown decision outlawing segregated schools eliminating an impediment to economic progress for many and making great strides in American society. Through desegregation school kids actually experienced diversity and tolerance in their everyday lives. Mere association alone cannot remove entrenched ideology in the war on racism and xenophobia, but the education battlefront remains the best theatre. Teaching tolerance and diversity as part of the curriculum has proven to be an effective strategy in targeting early childhood development. Teaching tolerance in elementary schools reduces the incidence of hate crimes, racism, discrimination and bigotry.

Similarly on the march of progress religious intolerance remains another battlefront. How do we educate the public to understand and respect the various religions of the world? The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a national religion by the Congress or the preference of one religion over another, and at the same time insuring religious freedom. It further outlaws teaching religion or what is known as “excessive entanglement” in the public schools. Public schools did much to eradicate racial discrimination but as for religious instruction there is a laissez-faire policy. When it comes to educating the public the society’s youth remains the better students. By adulthood bias and prejudice become entrenched and are less likely to be questioned.

In 1992, the American Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division (YLD) launched four Tolerance Education pilot projects in elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges throughout the country. The ABA offered a Strategy for Teaching Diversity and Tolerance in schools recognizing children are aware of racial and gender differences at a very young age, and by age twelve they have formed stereotypes. In fact, recent studies show that tolerance education is most effective between the ages of four and nine years. Therefore, it is important to teach tolerance to young children and continue reinforcing the message over time. Age-appropriateness is involved in the creation of the different curricula that educators have developed. For instance, part of the curriculum includes classroom exercises from newsletters and newspaper sections directed toward younger audiences. Additional methods include short theatrical productions and role-playing exercises. Such programs give students a greater understanding of discrimination and prejudice.
Why not incorporate Diversity and Tolerance as part of a civics curriculum nationwide? Granted, States like Texas where political ideology controls curriculum would probably oppose it. Nevertheless its certain, diversity builds a stronger society, tolerance advances democracy, and compassion is essential for a better world.

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