Category Archives: Writing

The National Rifle Association … is opposed to virtually every form of gun control, including restrictions on owning assault weapons, background checks for gun owners, and registration of firearms. NRA’s influence is felt not only through campaign contributions, but through millions of dollars in off-the-books spending on issue ads and the like… Between 2001 and 2010, the NRA spent between $1.5 million and $2.7 million on federal-level lobbying efforts. During the 2010 election cycle, the NRA spent more than $7.2 million on independent expenditures at the federal level — messages that advocate for or against political candidates. These messages primarily supported Republican candidates or opposed Democratic candidates.

“National Rifle Association,” OpenSecretsBlog

On the American Family Association’s radio program AFA Today, the hosts wasted no time lining up a far-right Evangelical minister, Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries, to tell the audience that among the dead in the theater only those who were true Christians have gone to heaven. The rest, he suggested, are already consigned to hell.

“Religious Right Just Can’t Resist Exploiting Aurora Tragedy for Political Gain,” Clay Farris Naff, Huffington Post

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Friday that the shootings that took place in an Aurora, Colo. movie theater hours earlier were a result of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” and questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter.

“Louie Gohmert: Aurora Shootings Result Of ‘Ongoing Attacks On Judeo-Christian Beliefs‘”Jennifer Bendery, Huffington Post

Once the first scare of another gun massacre, is over, lots of us wonder why we (in the U.S.) allow guns, especially automatic weapons , to be so widely available. The answer, in the end, is that we have a permanent scare system in place, led and financed by the National Rifle Association, and reinforced by the Christian right, that responds to disrupt any attempt at creating reasonable gun control by repeating a familiar narrative.

“They are coming to get our guns” is another version of Reagan’s “government is the problem” story and its close cousin, “the Democrats and that Black Foreign President are plotting to take away your freedom.”  It seems impossible that anyone would believe this story but I think is has an impact in the same way as all advertising.  We all think we are immune but if ads didn’t work no one would pay for them.  Think Pet Rock.

What happens when Chicken Little is right? I think that might be the issue of the coming decade as the banking industry, here and around the world, long described as deeply corrupt, begins dropping bits of our blue heaven on our heads.  It’s being called “the largest consumer (or market) fraud in history.”  Usually you have to take the hyperbole with some salt, but this really is the biggest market and consumer fraud in history. Madoff”s 30 (or 50) billion  is nothing compared to these guys.

The financial sector first brought down the U.S. economy, and then Europe (Iceland led the way, oddly) and in doing so they gave the right-wing an invaluable tool (the so-called debt or deficit crisis) to try to reverse a century of political progress in everything from health care to education to police forces. Only a few of the financial criminals have been prosecuted and the few punishments that were doled out were paid by institutions and not people. The people left with their pockets full.

Now, things seem to be shifting, or so we can hope, as the next shoe drops and more evidence emerges of the sheer, breathtaking scale of the corruption (“U.S. Is Building Criminal Cases in Rate-Fixing“). Globalization  and deregulation really made crime pay.  The  London interbank offered rate scandal (aka LIBOR) is, according to reports, only the tip of the iceberg. Here’s the interesting thing : is this a problem finally big enough to spur anti-capitalist debate in time for the election? Papa Mitt hopes not.

This Inside Higher Education story, “Has Faculty’s Role Eroded?” is about a current case at the National Labor Relations Board that could determine if faculty at private universities can unionize.  Why can’t they? The 1980 Supreme Court ruling  (NLRB v. Yeshiva University) said they could not because faculty, under the traditions of shared governance, are in effect managers and so can’t be represented by a collective bargaining agreement. Right.

The faculty at Park Point University want to unionize and so filed a petition with the NLRB arguing that since shared governance is no longer practiced faculty are no longer managers and should be able to organize. “There have been no significant developments,” the American Council on Education‘s brief argues opposing unionization, “in private universities’ decision-making models since Yeshiva.” That’s nonsense of a very high order.

Shared governance was never that much more than an administrative slogan– after all, the administration always controlled the purse strings– but it did make a certain amount of sense as long as the tenure system was intact.  That’s no longer true, especially at universities that rely heavily on part-time adjuncts with no benefits much less academic freedom of speech protections or job security or control over the curriculum or classes.

Administrations (and others) have argued for decades that universities must emulate the market and the corporate practices that arise from it.  The old system, we were told,  of secure full-time jobs and professors creating their own courses and curriculum was archaic.  They destroyed it–and shared governance–in the name of a free-market future that was supposed to be modern, cheaper, more efficient, better.

This ought to be very clear by now:  the so-called free market does not do everything well and if there are no democratic checks on it– via regulations and unions, at the very least– it will inevitably run itself right into the ground, like a car without a driver. That’s the lesson of the recession here and around the world, and in every sector, from education to medicine to housing to finance. The private sector needs unions to stay healthy.