All ‘white men of a certain age’. If they are ‘retired military’, then they’ve spent their careers in uniform but have now crossed the aisle, so to speak, and are paid analysts. But they don’t represent the diversity of the United States, let alone the diversity of the parts of the world we are militarily micro-managing.
Its a global world. We need our military, like our government, to reflect all Americans. The power elites cannot just be white men of a certain age…
Why not?
Because, if you read the rest of the article, your skin will crawl. Retired General Barry McAffrey was hired by a small defense contractor, then went out hawking their wares, for a hefty consulting fee:
He sent a personal note and 15-page briefing packet to David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. “No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,” he said.
Thus, within days of hiring General McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq’s expanding military.
“That’s what I pay him for,” Timothy D. Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.
General McCaffrey did not mention his new contract with Defense Solutions in his letter to General Petraeus.
Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help — “He’s got the heart of a lion” —
or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.
White generals retire from their ‘world cop’ position, to become talking heads and give advice on military spending, hawking their own clients’ wares without telling ANYONE, General Petraeus, Congress or media outlets like CNBC, that they are banking millions of dollars from military equipment manufacturers precisely for speaking up for them and advocating for more, more, more military spending and more, more, more war escalation.
They are sending non-white kids to their deaths in non-white countries, but their integrity-challenged careers continue unabated, these white men of privilege, collecting large paychecks to keep each other in business, at the expense of a generation of young men and women of diverse backgrounds all around the globe.
Perhaps our retired military should work for the Peace Corps or UNICEF for five years before they are allowed to take incomes as talking heads for military contractors. They should be ‘on the ground’ holding hands of dying innocent civilian collateral damage, or should dig wells to provide water in tribal towns, or teach computer skills to kids in refugee camps, before they can make millions selling weapons.
Union autoworkers are being flayed this week, for supposedly making $70 an hour. They are, of course, blamed for the downfall of our three automakers.
Problem is: its not true. They make $41 an hour, at most, and that is not CASH. That includes health care costs and retirement costs.
The auto companies played with their numbers and added in the value of future retirement costs of current workers and health insurance and retirement benefits for retired workers:
The New York Times publishes an incendiary accusation, blaming workers for the failure of automakers, with no correction. The automakers, who could have righted their ships a long time ago by simply listening to peak oil analysts and global warming scientists, decided to stay their unsustainable course, building HUGE gas guzzlers, while their executives flew private jets to Congress, asking to be relieved of the pain of ‘high wages of line workers’.
The autoworkers might actually NEED their unions, to protect them from the lies and false blame of their employers…
They’ve been unfairly hung out to dry by automakers who took jobs out of the US, destroyed communities, refused to be sustainable and now want the US taxpayer to clean up after their bullying, blame-dodging behavior.
Amazing. Its so kind. Its so thoughtful. It asks its people to come in for help… It talks of community and why each part of the community is important to the whole.
I wish our government could come up with a letter like this, and every single company that takes a dollar of bailout money should send out letters like this…
Dear Alumni and Friends,
I write regarding the University of San Francisco’s response to the nation’s economic downturn. The University, like you and your family, is paying close attention to its finances, even as we hope for a quick recovery in the borrowing markets and employment outlook.
USF is approaching this challenge from a position of enrollment strength. In the last 10 years, applications to USF have doubled. They are up 36% in the last three years alone, resulting in a waiting list of several hundred qualified applicants to whom we could not extend an offer of admission. We are also experiencing an increase in applications for the spring semester, 2009. Alumni and friends have played important roles in this increase. I thank you for your referrals and ask that you continue to encourage potential students to visit our campus and apply for admission and financial aid.
Help for Our Students
Nevertheless, we are concerned for our students and their families. Some families will face job loss or experience a reduction in available funds from sources such as home equity loans. Accordingly, this week, I am sending a letter to all undergraduates and their parents, and to all graduate students, promising personalized attention if financial issues threaten their ability to continue at USF. They will be encouraged to email Susan Murphy, Financial Aid Officer at usfcares@usfca.edu.
Also, I am asking the Board of Trustees for the lowest tuition increase in more than thirty years, and for an increase in university-funded financial aid for the 2009-2010 academic year. Now, more than ever, USF is committed to doing everything possible to continue to enroll and graduate all deserving students regardless of backgrounds.
Tightening Our Belts
The University is redoubling its efforts to be fiscally responsible and plan prudently for the potential impact of the downturn on our campus. Each Dean and Vice President is identifying ways to reduce costs and operate more efficiently, emphasizing reductions that do not compromise the high quality of our Jesuit education or the services we provide to students. With cooperation from every corner of campus, we have cut $8.5 million from this year’s operating budget. Examples of these cuts include restricting travel expenses and replacing desktop computers every four years instead of every three. We have also implemented a hiring freeze on most positions.
Reducing expenses is only part of the solution. I have also asked the Deans and Vice Presidents to identify ways we can increase revenue. We have a number of promising opportunities to expand and create new programs, often in areas where a modest investment could add significantly to our bottom line.
Looking Ahead
We do not know where this economy will lead us, but I am confident that USF has the talent and processes in place that will allow us to act nimbly and responsibly. Our community has distinguished itself over 153 years in times like these and even worse. The great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 leveled our campus, but like the phoenix, we emerged from the ashes even stronger. Personal care for our students and prudent management will position the university for growth in the years ahead.
The USF Community
As an alumnus or friend of the University of San Francisco, you are in my thoughts, and I pray that you find the strength to overcome adversity in these uncertain times. I am sure that those who are struggling will find support among other members of the USF community, both on-campus and off.
If you have any comments or suggestions on how USF might address the challenges we face, I invite you to send them to me at: privett@usfca.edu. During this Thanksgiving season, may the serious economic challenges we face not blind us to the many blessings that we enjoy.
This time, I got the job of washing pots and pans, and washing the inside of two refrigerators, scraping crud.
It was so beautiful to be able to help with cleanup.
By being off in a corner with a bucket of hot, soapy water, a sponge and a wet towel, I was able to see things around me in a way I wouldn’t have had I been in the center of the kitchen cutting up food with the other volunteers.
Know what I saw?
The media is only now recognizing that the US economy is in the pits. But there are many, many Americans way below Main Street. For them, there is no oppressively unfolding recession. They’re poor. They don’t have home, mortgages, credit cards. They don’t know where their next meal is coming from. They have lost jobs, lost homes.
Now they are being joined by the first round of those destroyed by the profit-making focus of our business systems, that put multi-million dollar incomes and bonuses before people.
There is a new slide into poverty that is a trickle but will be a huge wave in the next year. You can see it at the soup kitchen. Even while you’re washing the donated Halloween sugar crumbs off the bottom of a refrigerator.
What were they expecting? Weren’t they (apparently economists, or Wall Street, or the US Government, or who knows?) watching or speaking with Main Street?
Because everyone I know cut back their spending last holiday season, watching home prices tumble 15% between November 2007 and February 2008. Homes sat on the market, abandoned by the giddy, easy money buyers of the 1990’s. Homeowners have been worried about the ratcheting up of interest payments on their Adjustable Mortgages or Lines of Credit, scheduled for end of 2008/early 2009. Real estate agents have tried to sell homes with negative equity, for at least ten months. The huge bank-offered rollercoaster rides of ‘free money’, using your home as an ATM, had already slowed to a crawl by mid 2007. And this isn’t because homeowners suddenly found ‘financial religion’, its because the greedy leeches, the banks and the shadow banking industry who sold loans to homeowners, had sucked all the rich blood out and were pulling back from the kill.
Shadow banks had to carry a loan for only 3 months in order to keep their high fees. So they gave out loans, handed out tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars, hoping their hapless debtees could make three months of payments so they could sell off the loans to bigger financial idiots than themselves.
Now we’re bailing out the big financial idiots, as though they deserve it. And we’re SHOCKED? that Middle America has pulled back on spending?
Ask any parent, ask any business owner, ask any employee. They’ve been crunching their numbers for over a year, wondering what variable (credit cards, mortgage, home equity line of credit, business loan) is going to be the eye of the tornado that finally plucks them from their safe spot and destroys them.
Seriously, if this tumble is WORSE THAN EXPECTED, then someone making money as an analyst or an economist should be fired and I should have that job. I have been watching home prices, watching my own budget, watching families around me, watching my community. Its been obvious for over a year that very serious, very dangerous financial grumblings are erupting.
But it didn’t seem to bother him that TIME had a “pro-Bush/pro-war in Iraq” bias for years and did not ask tough questions, calling Bush on his lies and illegalities? Suddenly, when there is hope again in America for a chance at being a positive part of the global community of nations, it is “extreme” to report on the euphoria? Its “a disgusting failure”, when the market jumps 400 points based on a new Presidential appointee because the economy has so precipitously reflected the fear of depression that’s spreading around the US?
That’s hope, Mr. Halperin, not ‘extreme media bias’.
And who can forget Halperin’s lengthy post at his site back in February when he listed 16 things that “McCain can do” in taking on Obama that the vanquished Hillary Clinton could not. The list included “6. Allow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama” and “11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.” Since he is close to McCain’s campaign team, this was readily interpreted as direct advice and offended so many that Halperin later placed at the bottom of the post in red, Note: This is analysis of what is likely to happen, not advice or endorsement. And in that update he disingenuosly commented, “McCain has already been forced to denounce several instances of some of these efforts.” Gee, wonder who might have inspired “some of these efforts”?
It’s the old false equivalency problem. In his “disgusting” remarks at the forum, Halperin cited as the most obvious flaw the NYT’s late profiles of Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama. Why, the McCain profile was more negative! But, come of think of it, Michelle did not have an affair with Barack while he was married to another, did not steal from her own charity and barely avoid jail, did not become a drug addict, did not lie about the the circumstances of adopting a baby abroad, and so on.
And of course, there is the second half of that argument from TIME: “there are too many opinions out there”.
Personally, I believe the proliferation of blogs is essential to reclaiming democracy. The mainstream media sucked at giving Americans well-rounded, global views of our country’s actions. This next generation relies on the voices of ‘the many’ to tell the truth, since we can’t rely on the voice of corporate media.
Um, spending for momentary pleasure appears to be ‘off’,
While dollars are still flowing for Ferraris, Rolls Royces and Maseratis. Who knew? Another factoid that shows rich Americans are looking for VALUE with their spending in this recession?
So, poor guys have to negotiate with the women at brothels for basic services, negotiating DOWN in price, while the super-rich, who already raped the financial system, are able to buy luxury cars for hundreds of thousands of dollars, because the purchase is only a SMALL percentage of their net worth.
I watched the documentary “Jesus Camp”, about an evangelical summer camp for Christian kids and was struck by two scenes, one after another.
The first has a male staffer pulling out his, wait for it, HOLY GHOST HAMMER. He exhorts the kids to break cups that have “GOVERNMENT” written on them. The video clip shows several kids doing just that, praying that the government and its evil will be destroyed, just as they are destroying the cups.
This seems like something the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State should look into. These kids, and the counselors, should have their names on the US Government’s list of possible threats to the government. Right?
This is the same crazy brainwashing that Christians feel Islamists are doing to their children. In Israel, extremists push their militant beliefs on their kids, in Palestine, in the Congo, in Bosnia, all over the planet adults are shoving this down their kids’ throats.
Then there is the boss-lady screaming for WAR, WAR, WAR. Are they all forgetting that Jesus’ message was about LOVE? He never stood and yelled WAR, WAR, WAR.
She’s a bad example for kids and should not be allowed to incite this kind of terrorism in children. Its unholy…
The Big Three CEOs — Richard Wagoner of General Motors, left, Robert Nardelli of Chrysler and Alan Mulally of Ford — went begging on the Hill. (By Chip Somodevilla — Getty Images)
There are 24 daily nonstop flights from Detroit to the Washington area. Richard Wagoner, Alan Mulally and Robert Nardelli probably should have taken one of them.
Instead, the chief executives of the Big Three automakers opted to fly their company jets to the capital for their hearings this week before the Senate and House — an ill-timed display of corporate excess for a trio of executives begging for an additional $25 billion from the public trough this week.
The photo of the Auto Execs caught my eye.
Have you noticed lately how the huge majority of business leaders asking for bailouts are old, white guys? Now my dad was an old white guy, my brothers are white guys, my sons will be old white guys, but its such a cliche in business that the old white guys parade around at the top of corporations, unable to understand or have empathy for their customers.
These guys had thousands of chances to whip their companies into new paradigms. They’ve known we need smaller cars with better gas mileage. But they wanted to sell big, huge tanks. So they did!
Now they’re flying private jets, at a fuel/carrying cost of $20,000, to ask for bailout money from overburdened Americans, the same Americans who’ve been looking for smaller, less costly cars! Excuse me? NO.
They should have taken Greyhound. Or carpooled. But they don’t pay their own transportation costs, so they have no idea how the rest of us live.
I took this photo at my kid’s sporting event: a huge luxury SUV, with GOP and Support our Troops stickers, pulled up and onto a curbed red zone, so the driver wouldn’t have to park in the parking lot like the rest of the families.
Same thoughtlessness as these auto execs, flying their huge planes in while their employees are wondering how they’ll survive the winter.
