TAKE CHENEY AWAY
It’s time that we Americans finally admit the obvious: Dick Cheney is insane.
I say this with no malice, but in the sincere hope that his loved ones and close political cohorts will do the compassionate thing, gently leading him off the national stage to some quiet, dark, soft spot where he can rest for a very long time and try to collect his wits.
Of course, Dick has never been too tightly wrapped. He’s a sour, snarly sort of guy, quick to snap at anyone who crosses him. Then there’s that sneering smile of his, slashing across his face like the smile of a landlord who just evicted another widow. Also, we’ve long been exposed to a high level of Cheney’s chronic sense of omnipotence (manifested in his blatant acts of cronyism with Halliburton) and to his frequent bouts of psychotic delusion (such as his maniacal insistence that the occupied people of Iraq would gratefully shower our troops with rose petals).
But recently, Dick seems to have gone from being merely unbalanced … to unhinged. For example, he has been the twisted force so ferociously trying to stop Congress from declaring as official policy that the U.S. government will not engage in torture. Even the Republican-controlled senate voted 90 to 9 against torture, but this has not deterred Cheney, who has continued snarling and snapping like a mad dog to keep torture in the tool kit of American foreign policy.
Speaking of snapping, Dick has also been frothing at Democrats who’ve been making the obvious point that the Bush-Cheney regime misled the nation about its reasons for invading Iraq. He snarled that such Democrats are “dishonest and reprehensible,” as well as “corrupt and shameless.” Excuse us, Dick, but you’ve just attacked 57% of the American people, who now agree that you Bushites “deliberately misled” us about the war.
Cheney’s favorable ratings are already down to 19%. Mad Cow disease ranks higher! Time to take Dick away.
IBM and THE MIDDLE CLASS
The internal memo is dated April 2005 and tagged “IBM Confidential.”
The reason for the hush-hush treatment is that this document is written confirmation of corporate America’s intention to offshore our nation’s middle-class future, shipping out jobs in engineering and other sciences that require advanced degrees and pay top wages. IBM, the world’s largest information technology corporation, has become the leading practitioner of shopping the globe for the cheapest high-tech workers, knocking down the wage floor to the lowest common denominator.
Because of the wrenching economic, social, and political impacts this will have on U.S. society, IBM has not wanted to concede publicly that undermining middle-class opportunities is a corporate goal. This leaked memo, however, confirms that while the top honchos are cutting 13,000 of these high-tech jobs in America and Europe this year, it will add 14,000 in the low-wage tech centers of India.
Experienced software programmers in our country earn maybe $75,000 a year, creating a sound middle-class base for our economy and communities. But to hell with such democratic notions of the Common Good, say the profiteers – we can replace American programmers with ones from India who’ll do the work for $15,000 a year. That’s $60,000 per job, per year, that the corporate and investor elites can take out of the middle class and put in their own pockets.
Adding insult to injury, a top IBM executive says that the corporate rush to India is not merely a chase for the cheapest workers, but “It’s mostly about skills.” He then proceeds to lecture America’s high-tech workers: “You are no longer competing just with the guy down the street, but also with people around the world.”
And there you have a sparkling clear statement of what corporate America thinks of you and has in store for you. How do its members think they’ll hold a society together when they knock down all of our wages to $15,000 a year?
This article appears in December 30 • 2005.