We’re all hostages.

Corporate profits are back to normal!

Hiring isn’t.

And clearly it will never be.

Jim Ledbetter: Your article on the economic woes of this country and the economists you quote completely miss the point.

Economists LOVE to make the argument that Americans must retool for a different marketplace because it means that all the blame for the anemic economy can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the working man: He costs too much. He knows too little. He’s not flexible enough. We need him to be fully qualified and experienced in our high-tech position but cheap enough to be competitive against his counterparts in India and flexible enough to work unpaid overtime after moving to a different city. Pardon me while I gag.

For the love of god, employers are not hiring because people aren’t buying their products and services. People aren’t buying their products and services because they, by being un- and under-employed, don’t have the money to.  It’s really as simple as that.

Obama’s problem is not that there is no government solution, as you suggest, but that governance and politics in general is the art of the compromise and as it stands the only thing compromised here was the obvious answer: A large, direct injection of cash into the economy through government works programs. FDR did it. China shrugged off this last economic bust by spending a trillion on infrastructure. But our current circumstance forces half-measures, and even those come at the cost of political expediency: Greasing the right palms, kickbacks to the right subcommittees and special interests, tax cuts for the rich and ever more corporate welfare.

The problem isn’t our stupid workers, it’s our stupid Congress, stupid.

is not dictated by popular vote.

The strongest point of our democracy is not that it reflects the will of the majority, but that it protects the rights of the minority. We are not governed by mob rule.

Bob Herbert points out the distressing and depressing truth on labor statistics (we’re closing in on 11% unemployed if we count those who, by dint of “no longer actively searching” or falling off the unemployment rolls, are no longer counted as part of the labor force) and the lack of decisive action by the Democrats in power.

The solution is easy. It always has been, though getting there requires the Democrats finally saying “fuck you” and stop dithering about: Raise taxes for the top bracket. Put ‘em on a war-time footing. Raise ‘em from the 30-odd percent they are now to 91%, like they were the last time this happened. Tax the rich. Now.

The New York Times did an editorial essentially thanking city officials for unanimously voting to allow a mosque and Islamic community center to be built two blocks from the WTC site, for having done so they have upheld the highest aspirations and values of this country.

That’s all well and good, but what gets me is the sheer unbridled vehemence of those who would deny such – from Republican leaders across the country to the very commentators to that editorial, all of whom repeat a mantra as ugly, hateful and bigoted as it sounds: “The terrorists were Muslim and the mosque is a purposeful statement to the victims of September 11th of that victory of Islam over America, and to spread their cult in this nation.”

The sheer blinded arrogance and hatred of that statement is mind-blowing in this day and age. To list the lack of insight:

• Muslims died along with everybody else during September 11th; New York City is a polyglot city.
• The Muslim community of New York City is no more tied to Islamist terrorists than the Christian community of New York City is tied to the neo-Nazi movement.
• Al Qaeda terrorists are extremists first and Muslims second. If we are to indict Islam as a whole on the basis of these extremists, then we must indict Judaism for Israel’s transgressions, and Christianity for– where to begin? I know:
• If we cannot let a mosque be built near Ground Zero, let’s not allow Catholic churches near schools or playgrounds.
• If we cannot let a mosque be built near Ground Zero, let’s not allow Baptist churches near federal buildings.
• If we cannot let a mosque be built near Ground Zero, let’s not allow missions near any poor community.

The sheer bigotry and prejudice that openly lives in our society must be killed once and for all. The unanimous vote was, as stated by the New York Times, not just the right way but the only way. Let’s go further: Let’s censure every Republican to have stood against this. Let’s not stop until they are no longer a voice in our political process. We must expunge this sort of intolerance now and forever.

Foreign Policy magazine is coming down on Obama for failing to create much positive headway in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Israel. “Zero for Four.”

To which I ask, who has made headway with them in the last 30 years? Stephen Walt says he’ll be blamed for “losing” our two wars. We knew they would be lost in 2003. There is no other possible outcome. I suppose Obama could have said “damn the consequences,” fallen on the grenade, gotten us out of the wars post-haste, watched the region go to shit and had a world of bad press kill the Democratic party’s mandate as the Republicans mocked him for being a second Carter while secretly thankful that we were out of that mess, but… seriously now.

That said, what I got out of the article – the indictment – was that, by so much as having that byline, he has insinuated that Obama could use an executive mandate to fundamentally alter America’s antagonistic stance towards Iran and chummy relationship with Israel. Arguably, Obama does have more official power as the executive than anybody in this or the last century thanks to Bush’s policies and party, aside from, perhaps, the mandates of FDR. Whether that translates to real power, however, is up for debate.

The anemic ministrations of this current administration can only mean two things:

a) The Democratic party was unwilling to use the mandate it got in 2009

b) The Democratic party was unable to use the mandate it got in 2009

Just so I don’t go mad, I’m going to assume the latter. At which point we have our most damning indictment of democracy – its utter inability to turn the ship around in any time-line remotely necessary to stave off disaster.