(The following makes an interesting companion to Sue’s tale about income related justice.)  

Nicholas Kristof often travels to banana republics as part of his New York Times reporting. In his column this past Sunday he pointed out what to some hopefully will be a troublesome characteristic the US now shares with those plutocracies.

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.  

C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.

Well,how’s everyone else doing?

In the past three years US households lost 17percent of their wealth which according to the Federal Reserve is more than $10 trillion. Nearly one in ten Americans are unemployed and one in six now receive food stamps, jobless benefits or some form of government assistance  

But enough of that. Can’t we do more for those who have it all?

Washington — how far to extend the Bush tax cuts to the most affluent 2 percent of Americans. Both parties agree on extending tax cuts on the first $250,000 of incomes, even for billionaires. Republicans would also cut taxes above that.  

The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut of $61,000 from President Obama. They would get $370,000 from Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And that provides only a modest economic stimulus, because the rich are less likely to spend their tax savings.  

The photo is telling: a car’s rear window showing a ragged hole surrounded by the crackle-glass effect car windows always have when shattered.

That photo is in this afternoon’s St. Albans Messenger (online content behind paywall). An “openly gay Staples employee,” Nathan Chates, found that his car had been vandalized in broad daylight in a shopping center parking lot while he was at work. The rear window sporting a rainbow emblem and a “Got Gay?” sticker had been shattered with a rock.

So, what is it with these people? Suddenly they’re feeling empowered because the national tea partiers got some seats in Congress? Nah, that can’t be it – bigots and haters at this level don’t tend to follow the ins and outs of politics that much.

They’re feeling frustrated because their ‘copilot’ was defeated by a guy who actually helped queers get the right to legally marry each other? Maybe.

They’re ticked off that they can’t get jobs (can’t pass the drug screen) and here’s this gayboy actually working? More likely.

Right here, in St. Albans Town (there was a different episode of car vandalism a year or two ago in the City). Bigotry, that starts with B, that rhymes with T that stands for Trouble.

The other major question is where were the bystanders? The parking lot is hardly ever empty of moving cars and people walking. Why has no one come forward?

Could’ve been my car with the rainbow stripe in the back window, in a lot where I park when I need office supplies and groceries (Hannaford is next door).

Tomorrow I have to be in St. Albans. I think maybe I need some ink for my printer. I think I’ll ask for him by name and let him know he has a right to be angry and he’s not alone.

If your indignation is temporarily on park thanks to a reasonable outcome of the Vermont election, and you’re tired of Tea Party travesties, here’s a little something to get your social justice juices flowing again.

Apparently, if you have a big enough income and own a local chalet, this may just be the equivalent of a “get out of jail free” card in Colorado!  When a cyclist (Dr. Steven Milo) was struck by a hit-and-run Mercedes driver (Martin Joel Erzinger) in Eagle County, Colorado, the perpetrator was not subjected to felony charges because the county prosecutor felt his job, managing a billion dollars in funds at Morgan Stanley, might be impacted.

According to the local paper, the DA, one Mr. Mark Herlbert offered this defense:

“Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger’s profession, and that entered into it…When you’re talking about restitution, you don’t want to take away his ability to pay.”

To which the victim, countered:

“Mr. Erzinger struck me, fled and left me for dead on the highway…Neither his financial prominence nor my financial situation should be factors in your prosecution of this case.”

One cannot escape the thought that if Dr. Milo, who is a New York physician, had been the driver and Mr. Erzinger (who is a homeowner at Arrowhead) the victim, the DA would have locked-up Dr. Milo and thrown away the key.

(dedicated to Leftfield)

upyourassnews.org…seconds ago

Robert Gibbs’ move to cut short President and First Lady Obama’s trip to India and fly by particle beam to Guantanamo Bay seems to have been a stroke of genius in an otherwise seemingly braindead administration.

While the President met with American officials and troops, Michelle Obama wooed the detainees there with her skillful rendering of the Waterboard Dance, made popular by detainees under the Bush administration.  The First Lady seemed like “a natural at it,” said one detainee.

“Man, she got the moves. I had to say wait, I’m all in, Michelle.  I just want to sit down and talk now.  She gave me a hug.  Said she try to find out about my missing fingers.”

It is also rumored that an ailing Fidel Castro will join President Obama at the electrified and mined barrier separating Gitmo from the rest of Cuba for a quick game of volleyball later in the day, after Obama signs a few death warrants as a personal show of goodwill to the new Republican House.

Gibbs meanwhile met with 8 Cuban reporters to say:  “The President wants to discuss outsourcing a shitload of jobs to the detainees down here.  And maybe to the Cuban people themselves, if you Commie bastards can work cheaper than the Indians.  You’re Commies, right?  Don’t piss me off with questions.  We can go elsewhere.  Somalians can dance too.  If they can’t, we’ll teach ’em how.”

It was reported that one detainee was so overwhelmed by the Waterboard Dance and hug he received from the First Lady, that he died of heart failure, while another detainee was so moved, he gave her a map pinpointing Osama bin-Laden’s second home in Vermont.

When asked about this, the First Lady, rather than actually say anything, observed:  “Well, you know all the people need is some hands-on feel-good booty.  And booty comes in many forms.  A small nuclear bomb is booty.  My husband acting like the weakest President since James Buchanan is booty too.  I love these wonderful detainees here.  Even though they don’t have very much fashion sense, they sure know how to show enthusiasm.  I can still hear them screaming my name.  Excuse me, I’ve got some toes here I need to throw over the fence.”

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

It seems to me that the American people have a great desire to see others fail. Why is that? I’ve experienced it personally and I’m sure others have too. My frustration currently comes from watching and hearing others say about President Obama, “I want him to fail and I will do my best to see that he does”. Do you ever wonder what is behind that notion? What is in it for the person or people who wishes failure on a country or an organization? Actually, they do not only wish it but then do their best to make it happen.

From my personal experience with a few organizations, I have watched as roadblock after roadblock was put up to insure that whatever I was doing would result in failure. Things I said were misconstrued, misinterpreted to the greatest negative message that could be gleaned from the words I said and lies being told. Sound familiar?

I am not by any means comparing myself to the President but I do think I have a unique outlook on how he may feel. Blindsided is one word I’d use for it. Going in with the best of intentions and truly believing that if you do your best then others will follow. Not so true. Others will withhold information, make sure to be as unhelpful as they can even if you show good faith by compromising and spending more time attempting to help them that in the end is worth it.

That does not happen in all in all organizations. For example, the one I work with now answers my email, asks if I need any help with anything and says positive things like good job! And I’m so grateful for that.

So here’s why I think people set you up to fail. They are insecure, devious, greedy, self-indulgent,deceitful and have no conscience. They see that you are smarter than they are and can see the whole picture and they don’t want to be exposed for what they really are up to. The easier way to accomplish that is to keep the focus on you and wear you down until you’re too tired to fight anymore.

I give President Obama a lot of credit. He keeps saying, “Let’s find common ground, let’s work together and see what we can agree on and not concentrate on what we don’t.” I, as another eternal optimist hope that this will happen but I fear there are too many hate-mongers in the world now. I’m not suggesting that we give up but that we see them for who they are and what their objective really is. It’s to get you to give up, not care, not vote and let them control everything with no interference. Don’t be lulled into silence.

The turnover in power in the US House means the Speakership goes to the Republicans, of course, and it also means that the Dems lose one leadership position. Currently the hierarchy goes: Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. Losing the Speakership creates a game of musical chairs for leadership, especially since Pelosi has indicated she intends to stay on as Caucus leader and run for the position of Minority Leader in the new congress.

Whither current Majority Leader Hoyer? He’s not willingly going into the night, and intends to run against Clyburn for the Whip spot and maintain his #2 status in the caucus.

Maryland’s Hoyer is known as one of the most savvy wheeler-dealers in the House. He’s also politically aligned with the moderate Blue Dogs, and got into the position with their support. Indeed, although most say he has worked well in the position, he has often made public statements that would seem to offer quick accommodation to the GOP and have been at odds with the more liberal Pelosi’s statements – often at key times on important policy debates, effectively undermining her position. Clyburn, on the other hand, is more of a liberal, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and is generally preferred by both the netroots and other progressive interest groups. A lot of speculation centers around whether or not Pelosi is intentionally moving to squeeze Hoyer out (she preferred the late Rep. Murtha for the position when the Dems rose to power in the House).

Of all the Dem groups that took an electoral hit, none was more damaged than the Congressional Blue Dogs. The resulting shape of the smaller Democratic Caucus would seem to favor Clyburn, but Hoyer has some surprising allies among the House progressive caucus – including Rep. Peter Welch. With fellow prog caucusers Polis of Colorado, Capps and Garamendi of California and Markey of Massachusetts, Welch signed onto a letter (visible here) supporting Hoyer against Clyburn, and a lot of the netroots is left scratching its collective head.

Welch’s backing should surprise no one, even if it is disappointing. Hoyer worked to help Welch win the office against Martha Rainville, and rose to his leadership position precisely because he has gone out of his way to help a lot of members of the House caucus to build up that sort of currency – currency that he once again needs to cash in on to defeat Clyburn.

And yet, in many ways, Hoyer is the very embodiment of old-school, politics-as-usual and is exactly not the sort of face the Democratic caucus needs right now.

But it’s all about personal relationships on the Hill – which, frankly, is the way all human institutions seem to work. So the question is: Welch’s backing of Hoyer – politics as it shouldn’t be, or simply politics as necessary? And if Pelosi truly does intend to squeeze out Hoyer, and feels strongly enough about marginalizing him that she wants to cash in her own currency with Welch (who has been given some plum positions despite his relative newness to the scene) where will that leave our at-large Representative?

So we have a 15-minutes-of-(in)fame-Bellowing-Bigot-Barber.  Before our newest Face-of-the-State makes Countdown’s “Worst Persons in the World List,” it would be nice if someone who could speak on behalf of the State of Vermont would send a letter of apology to Darryl Fischer, M.D. This situation calls for that type of action and it would be appreciated by the overwhelming majority of all of us.

As I was mulling through my head who would make the best representative for the State of Vermont, our current Governor or our incoming Governor, it seemed to me that if both of them would take the time to send him a letter or call him, that would be the most appropriate way to handle it under the circumstances. Perhaps Governor Douglas could apologize on our behalf and Governor-elect Shumlin could invite the gentleman to give Vermont a second chance.

Dr. Fischer was good enough to expose a cancerous bit of rot on our civic body. He did us a favor and it is absurd for any bigot to suggest that he was acting in a racist or inflammatory manner.

The only person inflaming the situation and tarring the rest of us with his bigotry is Mr. Aldrich who falsely accuses “black people” of causing the trouble. His suggestion that Dr. Fischer is somehow, in any way, responsible for the situation or that the situation is some some sort of “joke,” is particularly offensive. Dr. Fischer handled this in as responsible a manner as any of could expect of him.

Under these circumstances, I would greatly appreciate if the two men who speak for all of us – our outgoing and incoming Governors – would stand up and speak for us now.  Today.

Dr. Fisher has done us all the favor of diagnosing an acute public health issue. A mental health issue. One that needs quick intervention. At this point, the treatment modality is political, however, not medical. Time for our political leaders to make a symbolic house-call on our behalf.

There’s a fairly subtle line between ignorance and hatred that can be difficult to discern from time to time.  If, for example, a barber refuses to cut the hair of a black man…

I am a black physician looking for a change of scenery after 30 years of working in a major U.S. city.

While visiting other medical practitioners in Bellows Falls, I thought I would have a haircut. I walked into a local barbershop.

Two gentlemen were playing cards inside. I asked them if the barber was in and one of the men said the barber was not. So I returned an hour later and the same person who said that the barber was not in was cutting a Caucasian patron’s hair.

I am very pleased to know that I would not want to work or live in Bellows Falls with the above behavior of your local businesses.

Darryl Fisher, MD,

Silver City, N.M

…may not be hateful of blacks, but that doesn’t mean this incident (which has been confirmed by the barber) was handled well or with any grace or tact.  We had a demonstration in Bellows Falls on Saturday to process this incident, possibly respond to it and address it.  It was fascinating, frustrating, and challenging, and I’m not sure if there are good ways for me to describe this well, but I will do my best to try.

So the focus was not on the barber himself.  Most of us seemed to be working under the assumption that he was just someone who did an extremely poor job of handling a situation which was unfamiliar to him.  Not all barbers know how to cut all hair types and if he’d simply said “I’m sorry– I don’t know how to cut your hair,” this would have probably never become an issue.

But it did, and now we’ve got African Americans getting the impression of Vermont as being racist, and we’ve got townspeople in Bellows Falls feeling like they’re unfairly being associated with an incident which, regardless of intent, comes across as racist.

When I said above that the focus wasn’t on the barber, I meant that, and it was a little easier to keep the focus off the barber himself, before I read that he…:

…seems angry that Fisher spoke out about what happened.

“What does he have to go stirring this up for?” he said, adding that he believes black people are more racist than white people.

[…]

He said he’s not worried about the negative publicity affecting his business. A few customers mentioned the letter in the paper, he said, but they tended to bring it up as if it was “a big joke.”

So.

Uhm.

Okay.  The point still isn’t about the barber, but dude?  Seriously?  You’re not helping.  

[sigh]

Anyway, back to the point.

This is hard to address, and it came out easily how hard this is to address based on the conversations that took place during and after the small rally.  Several of us talked about the complexity of prejudice and how much of it there is across multiple levels.  Someone pointed out that there seems to be a lot more prejudice against gays in Bellows Falls than blacks.  Someone else mentioned the dangers of oppression olympics in which you try to figure out who has it worse.  I just suggested that that’s probably because there’s a lot more of us who are visibly queer than visibly non-white, so it’s easy to see homophobic actions directed at people in the town.

But here’s the thing: I’ve seen racist incidents in Bellows Falls in the past.  At one business, I heard one (white) employee making a joke to an African American co-worker (who didn’t respond but looked visibly uncomfortable) about watermelon and fried chicken.   It is not uncommon at all for me to hear people use the phrase “Jew ’em down.”  I routinely see homophobic comments being made by teenagers.  

Vermont’s a strange place.  People from outside the area think we’re super liberal.  About some things, we are, but there are plenty of people here who are afraid of people who are not like them, whether it be non-whites, transsexuals or the homeless.  It’s not something we like to talk about, but in the past, we’ve even seen anti-gay incidents even in Burlington.

Vermont’s unusual, but it’s not immune from these issues.  Before I read the barber’s additional comments, I was willing to attribute the incident to simple ignorance.  I can’t do that now, and maybe it’s for the best that I can’t so easily escape the fact that my area, just like any area, has racist elements to it.  Vermont elected Obama by the highest percentage of any state in the union (though DC beat us by a fairly large margin) but that doesn’t mean we’re post racial.

What this incident and its follow-up tell me is not that there was a single incident in Southeastern Vermont with racial overtones, but that there’s a large enough population supporting a local business’s inartful handling of someone from a different ethnic group to give its owner the impression that the proper response is to be more overtly racist.  

This, for me, just went from being a matter of concern to a serious problem.

Per the Brattleboro Reformer’s Josh Stilts:

The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant was shutdown Sunday night after a small leak of radioactive water was discovered in the system pipe section in the turbine building.

At about 7 p.m., the plant ceased operation. An investigation by plant technicians and engineers identified a leak of approximately 60 drops-per-minute from a pipe in the feedwater system piping.

I wonder how much power we get from a plant that shuts down so often.

Let me see if I got this right.  According to the Brattleboro Reformer’s Saturday edition, quoted by Julie on the Front Page, New Hampshire might experience transmission line problems in 2018 if Vermont Yankee shuts down in 2012. Specifically, the Reformer says:

“In New Hampshire, however, it appears the situation is more acute and that there will actually be lines that overload if Vermont Yankee is not relicensed,” … simulated findings showed potential deficiencies were expected to rise under certain conditions in 2018 absent improvements to the grid, which were similar with or without Yankee in operation.

Where has New Hampshire been for the last 40 years?  Didn’t they know the VY license ended in 2012? And the story also notes that “improvements to the grid” make the problem disappear.  Did they plan on improving their grid, or were they waiting for us to relicense VY?

Did New Hampshire offer to send money to Vermont’s Decommissioning Fund?  Did New Hampshire send fire trucks to put out the fire in 2004, or help look for missing nuclear fuel, or help remove tritium leaking into their river?  We all know the answers.

Why then should Vermonters feel guilty about shutting down Vermont Yankee in 2012 to avoid transmission problems in New Hampshire in 2018?

Remember your motto, New Hampshire:  Live Free or Die!