EFTA01141381.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bcc: jeevac,[email protected] Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 02/02/2014 Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 08:35:11 +0000 Attachments: Why_There's_No_Outcry_Robert_Reich_Huff Post_01_25_2014.docx; Working_on_Empty,America's_Workers_Are_Spending_Down_Savings_to_Survive_Huff Post_01_25_2014_Farai_Chideya_Huff Post_01_27_2014.docx; Hydrogen_cars_arrive_in_Washingtonr but are_we_ready_for them_JD_Harrison_TWP_02_27_2014.docx; the:Case_for Snooping_Fareed_ZakariaJanuary_22,2014.docx; PETE_SEEGER_bio.docx; Absurd CEO_Arguments_Against_Laws_We_Take_For Granted_Huff Post+01_29_2014. docx; Tie_Opportunity_Coalition_David_Brooks_NYTJanuary_30„2014.docx; Advice_to_Plutocrat Perkins, Time to Shut Up Bill Moyers 01 31 2014.docx; Bill_Moyers_Essay, 30„2014.docx Inline-Images: image.png; image( I ).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png DEAR FRIEND Peter "Pete" Seeger (May 3, 1919 - January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 19405, he also had a string of hit records during the early 195os as a member of the Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the EFTA01141381 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture and environmental causes. As a songwriter, he was the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" (with Joe Hickerson), "III Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" (composed with Lee Hays of the Weavers), and "Turn, Turn, Turn!", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world. "Flowers" was a hit recording for the Kingston Trio (1962); Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962); and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while the Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn!" in the mid-1960s, as did Judy Collins in 1964 and the Seekers in 1966. Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 196os American Civil Rights Movement, soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCO in 1960. In the PBS American Masters episode "Pete Seeger: The Power of Song", Seeger stated it was he who changed the lyric from the traditional "We will overcome" to the more singable "We shall overcome". Pete Seeger, the man considered to be one of the pioneers of contemporary folk music who inspired legions of activist singer-songwriters, died Monday. He was 94. Seeger's best known songs include "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)" and "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)." But his influence extended far beyond individual hits. His grandson Kitama Cahill Jackson told CNN that the singer died of natural causes at New York Presbyterian Hospital on Monday evening. Familiar with controversy: In a career spanning more than 70 years, Seeger frequently courted controversy. "He lived at a time when so many things hadn't been done yet, the idea of making music about something hadn't really been done,"Jackson (Seeger's grandson) said. "And now people do it all the time." Seeger's opinions didn't always sit well with authorities. "From the start, he aspired to usefolk music to promote his left-wing political views, and in times of national turmoil that brought him into direct confrontation with the U.S. government, corporate interests, and people who did not share his beliefs," William Ruhlmann wrote in a biography on allmusic.com. "These conflicts shaped his career." In 2009, Seeger talked to CNN about the beginnings of his music career in the late 1930s. "I come from a family of teachers, and I was lookingfor a job on a newspaper and not getting one," he said in the interview. "I had an aunt who said, 'Peter, I can getfive dollarsfor you if you come and sing some of your songs in my class.' Five dollars? In 1939, you would have to work all day or two days to makefive dollars. It seemed like stealing." But Seeger said he took his aunt up on the offer. "Pretty soon I was playing school after school, and I never did work on a newspaper," he said "You don't have to play at nightclubs, you don't have to play on TV, just gofrom college to college to college, and the kids will sing along with you." EFTA01141382 Last days: Jackson, said the singer-songwriter had heart surgery in December to replace a valve, which had gone well and had nothing to do with his death. He said Seeger was in the hospital for six days before his death. He couldn't speak for the last three days, Jackson said, but his mind never went away and he continued to recognize people. "He was a secondfather to me, he was a friend, he was a bestfriend," Jackson said. "He was just this wonderful, genuine person." As someone who was touch by Pete Seeger's passion on behalf of needs, tolerance and acceptance of the common man when I first saw him perform at Thompson Square Park in East Greenwich Village in New York City when I was twelve years old, he left an indelible impression. Having finally met him in the late 196os, I remember going with friends to his home in Beacon, New York to find he was exactly what I could have ever hope for A real American original with no airs or pretentions with the heart of a lion who loved everyone and life itself. For this reason, in addition to being the musical guest in this week's offerings, I have also included a comprehensive biography which I urge everyone to both enjoy. One of the big uglies in America that it appears that we haven't learned from our mistakes and one of the latest examples was illuminated this week in The Huffington Post by journalist Farai Chideya in the article - Working on Empty: America's Workers Are Spending Down Savings to Survive — as a majority of people in the country are almost certainly be worse off financially than they were a decade ago. That's not allocating blame, just stating a fact. According to the Pew Research Center, in the first two years following the Great Recession, 93 percent of Americans lost net worth. Only 7 percent got wealthier. Forty-three percent of those sampled in a nationally-weighted survey recently commissioned believe this is a permanent trend. Using the online platform Survey Monkey, the author ran the 2500-respondent query as part of an ongoing book project charting how America's workers are faring, and what qualities allow people to succeed despite the daunting state of the job market. Among the sobering findings were that nearly 35% of respondents said they had spent retirement or personal savings to supplement their wages. Twenty percent relied only on personal savings; four percent on retirement savings, like an early withdrawal from an IRA or 401k, and eleven percent spent both. According to an analysis of data from the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Census Bureau by the firm Hello Wallet, in 2010, one in four Americans withdrew money from their retirement accounts. And the Transamerica Center For Retirement Studies found a third of un- or under-employed workers made early withdrawals. Even more arresting: 21 percent of those I surveyed agreed with the statement "In 2013, I borrowed moneyfromfriends orfamily specifically in order to pay household, medical or credit card bills." All of this adds up to some painful math: Americans, faced with stagnant wages despite pronounced gains in productivity, are spending against their future in order to live today. Here are some of the scenarios we'll see play out in the coming years: 1) Consumers Who Can't Buy (Much) America is a consumer economy, with up to 70 percent of GDP generated by spending and purchases. In 1955, the ratio of household debt to disposable income was 49 percent. By 2010, it had grown to 112 EFTA01141383 percent. In pushing to re-up the lapsed Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, affecting long-term unemployed, President Obama made two arguments -- a moral "therefor the grace of God go I" plea, and a statement that money to the unemployed was immediately spent, not saved, thus aiding local businesses. Those politicians and analysts who disagree say that Americans must be willing to take lower paying jobs or relocate in order to find opportunity. That approach may work in some cases (though people who have already spent down their savings have littlefunds to relocate), but the case remains that jobless Americans and workers in transition cannot bolster a consumer economy. 2) Finance-Draining Retraining Job retraining is essential for many people seeking new employment. For those who return to college to reboot their career and incur educational debt, that debt (unlike credit cards) cannot be dissolved by bankruptcy. That means that some senior citizens are already finding their Social Security checks garnished to pay back educational institutions. If Social Security garnishing becomes widespread, you can bet the government may find itself having to negotiate a solution -- perhaps taking on the student loan defaults (and incurring more government debt) in order to protect seniors. In addition, as I have found during my reporting, many people are too proud to declare bankruptcy even in dire circumstances. Many spend down their retirement savings while looking for work, leaving themselves in a possible bind for their latter years. 3) Cobbled-Together Careers Twelve percent of the respondents agreed "I work multiple part-time jobs, but would prefer to work onefull-time job." With the advent of the (still contentious) Affordable Care Act, people who don't have employer-provided insurance, Medicare or Medicaid can generally find healthcare. The cost and quality vary based on location. Part-time jobs generally offer far fewer benefits than full-time work, not only health insurance but retirement plans and greater job security. Working multiple part-time jobs also often requires additional outlays for costs like transportation, and financial savvy to account for fluctuations in income. Only 34 percent of people surveyed agree with the statement: "I believe I will have enough income (from savings, pension, or other sources) to live on comfortably during retirement." Yet Americans are still a resilient bunch. Half of Americans believe their peak earning years lie ahead of them. Half also say that they work not just for money, but for enjoyment or creativity. One question that lies ahead for America -- for the president, the Congress, business leaders and citizens -- is how to harness the creativity of the American workforce, and provide the tools eager citizens need to succeed in a volatile labor market. There is something wrong here and it urgently has to be addressed. One of the best way to address this would be an intense comprehensive country-wide jobs program. We have saved the Big Banks, Wall Street and the Big Three Automakers, then why aren't our politicians not aggressively pushing programs that would stimulate immediate jobs, and I don't mean tickle-down economics, because after more than three decades of trickle-down policies -- They Don't Work American workers need jobs and one of the easiest ways to creating these jobs would be investing in repairing the country's badly decaying infrastructure, which by the way can't be outsourced to India, China and Brazil. Because if we allow the current trend of Americans using the savings and retirement money to survive today, the problem will only become greater in the future. EFTA01141384 A friend came across this over the week end and thought that I (thus you) might enjoy it. Mark Twain is one of the country's favorite author/philosophers. Here are some of his comments on his seventieth birthday in 1905. Web sate: StfAvvew.pbs.orgintarldwainAeammore/writings 1" seventieth.html Well, if I made that joke, it is the best one I ever made, and it is in the prettiest language, too. I never can get quite to that height. But I appreciate that joke, and I shall remember it-and I shall use it when occasion requires. I have had a great many birthdays in my time. I remember the first one very well, and I always think of it with indignation; everything was so crude, unaesthetic, primeval. Nothing like this at all. No proper appreciative preparation made; nothing really ready. Now, for a person born with high and delicate instincts-why, even the cradle wasn't whitewashed-nothing ready at all. I hadn't any hair, I hadn't any teeth, I hadn't any clothes, I had to go to my first banquet just like that. Well, everybody came swarming in. It was the merest little bit of a village-hardly that, just a little hamlet, in the backwoods of Missouri, where nothing ever happened, and the people were all interested, and they all came; they looked me over to see if there was anything fresh in my line. Why, nothing ever happened in that village-I-why, I was the only thing that had really happened there for months and months and months; And although I say it myself that shouldn't, I came the nearest to being a real event that had happened in that village in more than two years. Well, those people came, they came with that curiosity which is so provincial, with that frankness which also is so provincial, and they examined me all around and gave their opinion. Nobody asked them, and I shouldn't have minded if anybody had paid me a compliment, but nobody did. Their opinions were all just green with prejudice, and I feel those opinions to this day. Well, I stood that as long as- well, you know I was born courteous and I stood it to the limit. I stood it an hour, and then the worm turned. I was the worm; it was my turn to turn, and I turned. I knew very well the strength of my position; I knew that I was the only spotlessly pure and innocent person in that whole town, and I came out and said so. And they could not say a word. It was EFTA01141385 so true, They blushed; they were embarrassed. Well that was the first after-dinner speech I ever made. I think it was after dinner. It's a long stretch between that first birthday speech and this one. That was my cradle-song, and this is my swan-song, I suppose. I am used to swan-songs; I have sung them several times. This is my seventieth birthday, and I wonder if you all rise to the size of that proposition, realizing all the significance of that phrase, seventieth birthday. The seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a generation and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced summit and look down and teach- unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got there. It is what they all do. You shall never get tired of telling by what delicate arts and deep moralities you climbed up to that great place. You will explain the process and dwell on the particulars with senile rapture. I have been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have the right. I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else. It sounds like an eraggeration, but that is really the common rule for attaining to old age. When we examine the programme of any of these garrulous old people we always find that the habits which have preserved them would have decayed us; that the way of life which enabled them to live upon the property of their heirs so long, as Mr. Choate says, would have put us out of commission ahead of time. I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by another man's road. I will now teach, offering my way of life to whomsoever desires to commit suicide by the scheme which has enabled me to beat the doctor and the hangman for seventy years. Some of the details may sound untrue, but they are not. I am not here to deceive; I am here to teach. We have no permanent habits until we are forty. Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins. Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up-and that is one of the main things. I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn't anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to. This has resulted in an unswerving regularity of irregularity. It has saved me sound, but it would injure another person. In the matter of diet-which is another main thing-I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn't agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it. Until lately I got the best of it myself. But last spring I stopped frolicking with mince-pie after midnight; up to then I had always believed it wasn't loaded. For thirty years I have taken coffee and bread at eight in the morning, EFTA01141386 and no bite nor sup until seven-thirty in the evening. Eleven hours. That is all right for me, and is wholesome, because I have never had a headache in my life, but headachy people would not reach seventy comfortably by that road, and they would be foolish to try it. And I wish to urge upon you this- which I think is wisdom-that if you find you can't make seventy by any but an uncomfortable road, don't you go. When they take off the Pullman and retire you to the rancid smoker, put on your things, count your checks, and get out at the first way station where there's a cemetery. I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. I have no other restriction as regards smoking. I do not know just when I began to smoke, I only know that it was in my father's lifetime, and that I was discreet. He passed from this life early in 1847, when I was a shade past eleven; ever since then I have smoked publicly. As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake. It is a good rule. I mean, for me; but some of you know quite well that it wouldn't answer for everybody that's trying to get to be seventy. I smoke in bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once, sometimes twice, sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and precious to me that I would feel as you, sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you've got-meaning the chairman-if you've got one: I am making no charges. I will grant, here, that I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn't break my bonds. To-day it is all of sixty years since I began to smoke the limit. I have never bought cigars with life-belts around them. I early found that those were too expensive for me. I have always bought cheap cigars- reasonably cheap, at any rate. Sixty years ago they cost me four dollars a barrel, but my taste has improved, latterly, and I pay seven now. Six or seven. Seven, I think. Yes, it's seven. But that includes the barrel. I often have smoking-parties at my house; but the people that come have always just taken the pledge. I wonder why that is? As for drinking, I have no rule about that. When the others drink I like to help; otherwise I remain dry, by habit and preference. This dryness does not hurt me, but it could easily hurt you, because you are different. You let it alone. Since I was seven years old I have seldom taken a dose of medicine, and have still seldomer needed one. But up to seven I lived exclusively on allopathic medicines. Not that I needed them, for I don't think I did; it was for economy; my father took a drug-store for a debt, and it made cod-liver oil cheaper than the other breakfast foods. We had nine barrels of it, and it lasted me seven years. Then. I was weaned. The rest of the family had to get along with rhubarb and ipecac and such things, because I was the pet. I was the first Standard Oil Trust. I had it all. By the time the drug store was exhausted my health was established, and there has never been much the matter with, me since. But you know very well it would be foolish for the average child to start for seventy on that basis. It happened to be just the thing for me, but that was merely an accident; it couldn't happen again in a century. EFTA01141387 I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired. But let another person try my way, and see where he will come out. I desire now to repeat and emphasize that maxim: We can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my life, but they would assassinate you. I have lived a severely moral life. But it would be a mistake for other people to try that, or for me to recommend it. Very few would succeed: you have to have a perfectly colossal stock of morals; and you can't get them on a margin; you have to have the whole thing, and put them in your box. Morals are an acquirement-like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis-no man is born with them. I wasn't myself, I started poor. I hadn't a single moral. There is hardly a man in this house that is poorer than I was then. Yes, I started like that-the world before me, not a moral in the slot. Not even an insurance moral. I can remember the first one I ever got. I can remember the landscape, the weather, the-I can remember how everything looked. It was an old moral, an old second-hand moral, all out of repair, and didn't fit, anyway. But if you are careful with a thing like that, and keep it in a dry place, and save it for processions, and Chautauquas, and World's Fairs, and so on, and disinfect it now and then, and give it a fresh coat of whitewash once in a while, you will be surprised to see how well she will last and how long she will keep sweet, or at least inoffensive. When I got that mouldy old moral, she had stopped growing, because she hadn't any exercise; but I worked her hard, I worked her Sundays and all. Under this cultivation she waxed in might and stature beyond belief, and served me well and was my pride and joy for sixty-three years; then she got to associating with insurance presidents, and lost flesh and character, and was a sorrow to look at and no longer competent for business. She was a great loss to me. Yet not all loss. I sold her-ah, pathetic skeleton, as she was-I sold her to Leopold, the pirate King of Belgium; he sold her to our Metropolitan Museum, and it was very glad to get her, for without a rag on, she stands 57 feet long and i6 feet high, and they think she's a brontosaur. Well, she looks it. They believe it will take nineteen geological periods to breed her match. Morals are of inestimable value, for every man is born crammed with sin microbes, and the only thing that can extirpate these sin microbes is morals. Now you take a sterilized Christian-I mean, you take the sterilized Christian, for there's only one. Dear sir, I wish you wouldn't look at me like that. Threescore years and ten! It is the Scriptural statute of limitations. After that, you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, not any bugle-call but "lights out." You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer-and without prejudice-for they are not legally collectable. EFTA01141388 The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave you will never need it again. If you shrink at the thought of night and winter, and the late home-coming from the banquet and the lights and the laughter through the deserted streets-a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends are sleeping, and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never disturb them more-if you shrink at thought of these things, you need only reply, "Your invitation honors me, and pleases me because you still keep me in your remembrance", but I am seventy; seventy, and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and that when you in your return shall arrive at pier No. 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart. There is a new manufactured Conservative controversy, centered on the fact that the Obama Administration recently ordered the US Vatican Embassy to move to a more secure building and the outcry has been so intense you would think that President Obama had ordered the recreation of the Sack of Rome. "A slap on theface on 78 million Catholics in the United States" one Congressman said. "Why would our President close our Embassy to the Vatican," tweeted Jeb Bush. "Hopefully, it is not retributionfor Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare." This week in the New York Times Gail Collins wrote — The Luck of the Potato* — as the above political tweets go, this is a keeper on two counts. First, we can once again marvel a Republican politician's ability to insert the Affordable Care Act into everything. Secondly, we can mark the official end of the former governor of Florida is career as the safe, sane fallback option in 2016. But American Embassy: the State Department has been trying to move it into a compound that includes the American Embassy to Italy. This will save money and improve security. Instantly, certain parties detected a plot. Two former ambassadors to the Vatican, Ray Flynn (Clinton) and Jim Nicholson (Bush), pens a blistering iPad for The Wall Street Journal in which they call the move "a colossal mistake" that would squash the Holy See's separate identity. Diplomatically, they attributed more intense feelings to others, ("... many have seen the move as a deliberate slap at the Catholic Church and the Pope; some even detect veiled anti-Catholicism.') Fast-forward too many variations of the headline "Obama Insults Catholics." The State Department pointed out that the new quarters would be in an entirely different building, with an entirely different entrance then the Italian Embassy. And that was the new Embassy will not be in the Vatican, no there is the current one. Or that of any other country. The Vatican is only two-tenths of a square mile and more than half of that is gardens. "Infact, our new location is a tenth among closer," said Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy. "It's a clear the management of the importance of the Holy See post," said Nicholson. Cynics must wonder why we have an embassy for the second in the first place. The total population of 800 people, which is approximately one-eighth the seating capacity of Radio City Music Hall in New York. It has virtually none of the attributes you would find in an actual country. It doesn't even have a cuisine. But, obviously nobody is going to disrespect the Vatican Walpole Frances is around. He won the world's heart but quickly doing a few things that was so obvious, it's amazing no previous poniff EFTA01141389 figured them out. Such as: if you are going to talk about the poor all the time, you should try to avoid gold furniture. Without changing any of the church is reactionary rules on contraception, homosexuality or abortion, Francis change the tone just by saying that Catholics should stop obsessing about sex. Imagine what the nuns who ran the Catholic schools in the 19505/19605 would have thought about that theory. And instead of just pleading for great a charity to what the poor, Francis who created the world needed to drop the idea that when the rich got richer everybody eventually benefited. Trickle-down economics amounted to a "crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power." Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, call Cardinal Timothy Dolan that's a rich benefactors to be rebuilding project of St Patrick's Cathedral in New York might hesitate to cough up his promise multi-million dollar donation because of the Popes attitude. Cardinal Dolan said he assured Langone the wall of Pope love the poor, "he also loves rich people." Republican budget guru Representative Paul Ryan said the Pope's apparent lack of enthusiasm for the capitalistic system was due to an unfortunate upbringing. "The guy isfrom Argentina. They haven't had real capitalism in Argentina," he told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Even if Francis was down on capitalism, no capitalists wanted to sound down on Francis. Meanwhile, President Obama has spent the last 5 years dodging calls for new taxes I'm protecting the insurance industry from healthcare reform. Stocks have been at an all-time high, and Wall Street hates him. As Collins wrote, "The moral is: its way easier to be pope."As this latest manufactured controversy is just another cheap-shot to discredit the President. ****** Absurd CEO Arguments Against Laws We Take For Granted EFTA01141390  Child Labor Prohibitions Will Ruin Us 'The new child labor law making the willful employment of children under the age of fourteen years a misdemeanor.. will be fought both in and out of the courts by the glass manufacturers.. who claim the glass industry will be ruined by the measure." To Fight Child Labor Law: New Jersey's Statute Will Be Opposed Bitterly by Glass Manufacturers, August 10, 1903 Without Slavery We'd Have No Cotton 'The first and most obvious effect, would be to put an end to the cultivation of our great Southern staple... Imagine an extensive rice or cotton plantation cultivated by free laborers, who might perhaps strike for an increase of wages, at a season when the neglect of a few days would insure the destruction of the whole crop. Even if it were possible to procure laborers at all, what planter would venture to carry on his operations under such circumstances?" "Slavery in the Light of Social Ethics" by Chancelor Harper EFTA01141391  8 Hour Work Days Doom The Railroads 'The railroads have estimated that it would cost them $50,000,000 a year to give the members of the four brotherhoods the eight-hour day, and they are by no means assured that other workers, such as telegraphers and switchmen will not try to come in under its benefits, thus increasing the cost still further." Railroads United In General Attack On the 8-Hour Act, The New York Times, November 16. 1916 Social Security Will Kill American Prosperity "One employer tells me this law will increase his costs between to and 15 percent. If this is added to selling prices, what will it do to sales, and hence employment? If it is taken out of the labor fund, what will it do to the purchasing power of all who work for a living, and hence to national prosperity?" Social Security: Effect of Tax on Payrolls Viewed With Alarm, by Ellis, The New York Times, November 17, 1935 Ban On Cigarette Ads Is Silly! 'The Tobacco Advisory Committee, representing the manufacturers, called the ban unjustified and said it would not solve the question of smoking and health. A spokesman said that all cigarette advertising was brand advertising and that there was little or not evidence that this had increased the consumption of individual smokers." The Cigarette Companies Would Rather Fight Than Switch by Elizabeth 13. Drew, The New York Times, May 4, 1969 Cigarette Taxes Will Kill Small Business Owners "Re-enactment of the city's 1-cent-a-package tax on cigarettes will defeat its own purpose by driving thousands of small retailers out of business, the finance committee of the City Council was told yesterday at a public hearing." City Urged To Drop Its Cigarette Tax, The New York Times, June 16, 1939 EFTA01141392  Minimum Wage Laws Will Hurt Old People 'The first ill effect of raising the minimum wage to the standard of the average wage would be to cause the weak, slow, and the aged--and especially unskilled young women and girls--to fall by the wayside. These classes of workers are always a drain upon the employer, for the overhead charges of a factory are just as great whether the places be occupied by good, quick workers or poor, slow ones, therefore a smaller output of the latter causes a loss by raising the percentage of these overhead charges. An advance in wages... adds to this loss and forces the employer to discharge the sub-average, giving preference to strong workers who already earn the minimum." The Minimum Wage: Should Worthy Laborers Be Sacrificed to Establish It? by Marcus M. Marks, The New York Times, March 25, 1913 Seatbelts Laws Shouldn't Be Legislated 'The auto industry's Big Three told congress today that the public should be educated to use auto safety seat belts and not forced into it by legislation." Car Makers Oppose Law On Seat Belts, The New York Times, August 8, 1957 Bill Moyers and Michael Winship posted this week — Advice to Plutocrat Perkins: Time to Shut Up! — There's a rule of thumb in cyberspace etiquette known as Godwin's Law, named after Mike Godwin, the Internet lawyer and activist who first came up with it. A variation of that law boils down to this: He who first compares the other side to Nazis loses, and the conversation is at an end. Unless you're billionaire Tom Perkins, who seems dedicated to digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself. By now you're probably heard about Perkins' infamous letter to The Wall Street Journal (whose editorial page is the rich man's Pravda of class warfare) in which he wrote: EFTA01141393 "I would call attention to the parallels offascist Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich...' This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 193o; is its descendant progressive' radicalism unthinkable now?" It's astonishing how ignorant (not to mention crude and cruel) the very rich can be. Surely, one of his well-paid retainers could have reminded Mr. Perkins that Kristallnacht was the opening salvo in Hitler's extermination of the Jews, the "night of broken glass" in 1938 Germany and Austria when nearly a hundred Jews were murdered, 30,000 were sent to concentration camps, and synagogues and Jewish-owned business were looted and destroyed, many of them burned to the ground. If Perkins thought his puny point survived the outrageous exaggeration, he was sadly mistaken. Web site: http://youtu.be/VuxoS6tHEag Nonetheless, after a stunned world responded, venture capitalist Perkins went on Bloomberg TV to apologize for using the word "Kristallnacht" but not for the sentiment of his letter. "I don't regret the message at all," he said. "Any time the majority starts to demonize the minority, no matter what it is, it's wrong and dangerous and no good comesfrom it." Perkins also said that he has family "living in trailer parks," but bragged like some cackling James Bond villain that he owns "an (Li:plane thatflies underwater" and a wristwatch that "could buy a six- pack of Rolexes." That watch, on prominent display during the Bloomberg interview, seems to be a Richard Mille, a charming little timepiece that can retail for more than $300,000. At that price, a watch shouldn't just tell you the time, it should allow you to travel through it, perhaps back to the Gilded Age or Versailles in 1789, just as the tumbrils rolled in. Here in the office, our $85 Timex and Seiko watches have crossed their hands over their faces in shame. The fact that this isn't a bigger outrage, is an outrage in itself. If Jessie Jackson, Reverend Wright, Hillary Clinton or President Obama had made similar statements they would be so demonized that Bora Bora or Antarctica wouldn't have been far enough way. And for this insensitive idiot who is a billionaire that flouts his "street creds" as having family living in trailer parks, he is an obvious example why trickle-down economics doesn't work. Especially when every homeboy's first dream after signing his first NBA contract or receiving his first residual check from his record company or corner drug dealer making his first major drug sale, the first thing that they do is buy their Mothers a new home and employ their family members and posse so that they too can make it out of the "trailer park." Hopefully Mr. Perkins will become the social and business piranha he deserves and exiled to the gulag of irrelevance. This is my Rant of The Week WEEK's READINGS EFTA01141394 With three years left on his second term in Tuesday's State of the Union speech president Obama signaled what he plans to focus on with the remaining his remaining time in office. In a strong State of the Union address the President delivered a center-left message without alienating the center-right of the country. He called on Congress to pass an extension of the long-term unemployment benefits, to raise the country's minimum wage, to do something about climate change when to stop endlessly ridiculous votes to kill the Affordable Care Act. He touted the need for equal-pay for women, saying it's time to do away with the workplace policies that he said belongs in a madman episode. While the cornerstone of the speech was strengthening the middle class and building ladders of opportunity for all Americans. He warned Congress that if they don't act he will take executive action in areas that he could. And when it comes to national security, he warned Congress and both parties to not obstruct diplomacy with Iran and that the country move off of "this permanent warfooting" around the world I saw it as a strong message deliver by the President who is willing to do whatever he can, with or without Congress, to help the American people. It was a very American speech what a populist tone. I'm sure that they are people in the president's own party who will be disappointed with the modesty in the speech as it didn't include any grand bargains or major programs that the opposition could rally against, as 'overreaching' or 'expansion of Big Government'. No better example of Republican intense hatred of the President, is that prior to the address Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas tweeted, "Onfloor of house waitin on 'Kommandant-In-Chef ... the Socialistic dictator who's beenfeeding US a line or is it A-Lying?" — from Republicans who immediately dismissed the speech as fluff, with one Congress person asking, "Where was the beef" While representatives of the Tea Party Movement characterized the President as the biggest disaster that has ever happened to the country. Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, the face of the national tea party Tuesday night, delivered the movement's response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, pinning the widening wealth gap on the president's policies and touting the ideas of a new generation of leaders, including himself and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. There is gridlock in Washington, DC and it isn't because the President hasn't tried to reach across the aisle to Republicans in Congress and elsewhere. Conservatives conveniently forget/ignore that that, "when Obamafirst came into office, the head of the Senate Republicans said, my number one EFTA01141395 priority is making sure president Obama's a one-term president." There was never a sense of working together with the President among Conservative Republicans, as a horde of Republican leaders demanded a copy of the long-form of Obama's birth certificate as a way to delegitimize him as a credible candidate and then President. There is a universal belief in the Republican Party that they can run against Obamacare. But you have to ask why? Because where I come from if something is broken you try to fix it, not cheer for its failure. 2,Photo I understand that during his first term the President had to play his cards close to the vest to make sure that he wasn't marginalized like one-term Presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bush 41. But having achieved a number of major accomplishments from enacting the first new healthcare legislation in fifty years, reversing a 800,000 monthly job loss to 46 straight months of job growth and 8.2 million new private sector jobs, got the country out of the senseless Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enacted policies that saved the American banking sector, Big Three Automakers, stopped the free-fall of the financial market with stocks doubling in the last four years, killed bin Laden, decimated Al Qaeda, turned around the housing crash, got rid of Qadaffi without puffing American boots on the ground, kept the country out of potential armed conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere to mention a few I understand that after five years of NO from Republicans in Congress, the President has decided to go- it-alone. Still this doesn't mean that he won't be able to achieve more, because there is a real possibility that a Comprehensive Immigration Bill can be signed, the minimum wage will be raised and the Affordable Healthcare Act become cemented, much like Medicare and Medicaid. And Godforbid, with several more mass shootings, even the most starched supporters of the NRA might embrace some sort of gun- control reform. For me, President Obama knocked the ball out of the park with Tuesday's State of the Union speech. Not because it was one of his best, but because he artfully tacked to the middle (instead ofpresenting new tantalizing targets) for Republicans who believe that by denying him any victory they can marginalize him. President Obama Tuesday's State of the Union speech has put Republicans on noticed that if they continue to the Party of No, they will find that they themselves are marginalized. As Conservative columnist, David Brooks pointed out this week in an opt-ed in The New York Times -- The Opportunity Coalition -- instead of being the lame-duck that pundits are prophesizing, the President should use the next three years as a period of liberation uninhibited by the need to please donors, to cater to various Congressional constituencies and to play by Washington rules over the next few years he is free to think beyond legislation, beyond fund-raising, beyond the necessities of the day-to-day partisanship. He will have the platform and power of the presidency, but, especially after the midterms, fewer short-term political obligations. This means he will have the opportunity to build what he could have used over the past few years: An Opportunity Coalition. He'll have the chance to organize bipartisan groups of mayors, business leaders, legislators, activists and donors into permanent alliances and institutions that will formulate, lobby for, fund and promote opportunity and social mobility agendas for decades to come. President Obama began his career as an organizer. His mobility agenda floundered because the governing majority he needed to push it forward does not exist. He now has the chance to remedy that, to organize, to convene, to build, and to make life a lot easier for the next swimming in the race. EFTA01141396 One of the current biggest scandals plaguing the Obama Administration are the ongoing news reports in the international media revealing operational details about the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and its international partners' global surveillance of foreign nationals and U.S. citizens. The reports emanate from a cache of top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published simultaneously by The Washington Post and The Guardian, attracting considerable public attention. The disclosure continued throughout the entire year of 2013, and a significant portion of the full cache of the estimated 1.7 million documents was later obtained and published by many other media outlets worldwide, most notably The New York Times (USA), Der Spiegel (Germany), Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia), 0 Globo (Brazil), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Canada), Le Monde (France), L'espresso (Italy), NRC Handelsblad (the Netherlands), Dagbladet (Norway), El Pais (Spain), and Sveriges Television (Sweden). In summary, these media reports have shed light on the implications of several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA Agreement in their efforts to implement global surveillance. For example, Der Spiegel revealed how the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA", while Sveriges Television revealed that the Forsvarets radioanstalt (FRA) of Sweden is continuously providing the NSA with intercepted data gathered from telecom cables, under a secret treaty signed in 1954 for bilateral cooperation on surveillance. Other security and intelligence agencies involved in the practice of global surveillance include those in Australia (ASD), Britain (GCHQ), Canada (CSEC), Denmark (PET), France (DGSE), Germany (BND), Italy (RISE), the Netherlands (AIVD), Norway (N/S), Spain (CNI), Switzerland (VDB), as well as Israel (ISNU), which receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens that is shared by the NSA. The disclosure provided impetus for the creation of social movements against mass surveillance, such as Restore the Fourth, and actions like Stop Watching Us and The Day We Fight Back. Domestic spying programs in countries such as France, the UK, and India have also been exposed. On the legal front, the Electronic Frontier Foundation joined a coalition of diverse groups filing suit against the NSA. Several human rights organizations have urged the Obama administration not to prosecute, but protect, "whistleblower Snowden": Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, and the Index on Censorship, inter alia. On June 14, 2013, United States prosecutors charged Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property. In late July 2013, he was granted asylum by the Russian government, contributing to a deterioration of Russia—United States relations. On August 6, 2013, President Obama made a public appearance on national television where he reassured Americans that "We don't have a domestic spying program" and "There is no spying on Americans". Towards the end of October 2013, the British Prime Minister David Cameron warned The Guardian not to publish any more leaks, or it will receive a DA-Notice. Currently, a criminal investigation of the disclosure is being undertaken by Britain's Metropolitan Police Service. In December 2013, The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said: "We have published I think 26 documents sofar out of the 58,000 we've seen." The extent to whic