[Peace-discuss] We are too dumb.

[Chuck Minne]

The DLC Won't Talk About Corporate Power 
   
  Jonathan Tasini
   
   
  The Democratic Leadership Council has, once again, shown why it cannot be trusted with the future of America’s workers. It has rolled out yet another poll-tested, slogan-filled program/manifesto that is neither bold, visionary, and, more important, simply perpetuates a massive fraud on hard-working Americans.
   
  Yesterday, the DLC unveiled “Saving the American Dream,” which claims to be a plan to save the middle-class.
   
  And to deal with the economy we face today, what does the DLC propose as its key solution? College. Yes, apparently, the main reason Americans are struggling with anemic wage hikes, no pensions, dwindling health care coverage, record-high debt and poor, secure and decent-paying job opportunities is that we are too dumb. “College is the key to whether America will get ahead in a competitive world, and whether we can expand and strengthen the middle class here at home,” says the report authored by Sens. Hillary Clinton and Tom Carper and Gov. Tom Vilsack. “We propose a plan to produce one million more college graduates a year by 2015—so that within a decade, more than half our young people will finish college with a degree.”
   
  Let me be clear: there is nothing inherently wrong in going to college (I did it) nor in everyone learning more. But, to offer a vision for workers in America that effectively says, “you are too dumb to compete” and your salvation lies in getting smarter may be the best example of a faith-based initiative since it completely ignores what is happening in the real world workplace and the economy.
   
  Here are some facts. There is no college gap. We’re over-educated. That point has been made repeatedly (see for example Michael Handel’s book on education and skills). The Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that post-secondary school training will be required for only 30 percent of openings occurring through 2010. And if you look at all jobs—new and old—the BLS statistics for the years 2000-2010 (the most recent ten-year study) projects that the jobs requiring more than a high school education will grow only from 29 to 31 percent over 2000-2010. Yes, two percent. At least in the short term, that two percentage point increase will easily be met by the 59 percent of the workforce that will have post-secondary training by that time, even if the DLC proposal never existed. 
   
  The problem for the middle-class (not to mention the poor, which the DLC apparently does not care about) is not that we don’t have college degrees. 
   
  The problem is, as I pointed out that more than a year ago (and others have pointed out as well), is that there has been a break between productivity and wages. Meaning, we are working harder than ever but that increased productivity is not showing up in wages. Joel Rogers, director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, made a stunning calculation that we should all emblazon as tattoos on our foreheads: Had wages tracked productivity as they have over the past 30 years, “median family income in the U.S. would be about $20,000 higher today than it is.” Or, think of it another way, if we had gotten our fair share from our sweat, the minimum wage should be $19.12—which would make it almost 50 percent above today’s median wage (not to mention the pathetic $5.15 current minimum wage or the miniscule hike that we’re arguing over). 
   
  The problem is that we have Democrats who continue to vote for so-called “free trade” agreements (10 Senate Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, voted for the recent deal with Oman) that are creating a global system that is powered not by competition over education or skills, but the lowest wage a corporation can find.
   
  The problem is that we have a health care system that is breaking the back of plenty of middle-class (and poor) people. The DLC’s poll-tested sound bite that “Every family should have the opportunity to afford health insurance for their children, and the responsibility to obtain it” is both ignoring the corporate control over our health care system and offensive. The DLC has never supported a single-payer health care plan—the only true way for every family to afford real health care. And the DLC says not one word about the obscene profits raked in by the drug and insurance companies—and the absolute need to wrest the health care system away from the profit-makers. And the implication of the directive that families should be “responsible” for making sure their kids have health care is insulting: is there any parent in America who would not pay out every last dollar to make sure their kids could be taken care if they were sick?
   
  The problem is that we have a bankruptcy code that allows corporations to shred pensions, yet continue to pay executives obscene amounts of money and benefits. Yet, there is not a word about protecting the middle-class (or the poor) by reigning in abusive corporate power by reforming the bankruptcy laws (this was no mistake since many DLC Democrats voted for the recent bankruptcy “reform” that really hammered consumers in favor of credit card companies). Instead, we get more poll-tested slogans (you can just feel the dissection and triangulation in virtually every word): “Every worker should have the opportunity and responsibility to save for a secure retirement.” Yes, every worker should have the “opportunity” to have a retirement but does that mean having a real pension or one subject to the vagaries of the stock market? The DLC doesn’t tell us.
   
  And, last but not least, in this document the word “union” is not mentioned once. How can a document, written by people who call themselves Democrats, talk about the middle-class and fail to point out the most glaring reason the middle-class is struggling: the greatest force for the creation of the middle-class, the labor movement, represents less than 8 percent of the private sector workforce and is being pummeled by corporations from sea to shining sea, courtesy of a legal system that makes it impossible to form a union—and a Democratic Party that only mouths the word “union” when election seasons rolls around and politicians need unions to turn out votes and fill campaign war chests. 
   
  Since the DLC is so gung-ho on college, I’d give “Saving the American Dream” an “A” for rhetoric and a loud “F” for saying anything truly useful about the economic challenges facing most of us in the coming decade and beyond.


  Current Terror Alert Level


FOX Reporter interviewing Jesus: Jesus, who would you bomb?
Jesus: Nobody, my son, nobody.
FOX: Aw, come on; say you have to bomb somebody.
Jesus: Well, if I have to, I’ll zero in on the White House. 
FOX: Forget I asked.

  


 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20060727/3167975c/attachment.htm