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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
www.NationalView.org's Note From a Madman
August 4, 2008
The Party of Diminished Responsibility Says:
STAY HOME - DON'T VOTE!
A familiar but successful Republican tactic is now being pursued by the Party of
Diminished Responsibility today. They are making their attempt at lowering the
expectations to keep lower and other working class voters away from the polls
this November.
In a recent joint poll by the Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and
Harvard University, low-wage workers weren't only asked who they supported in
this upcoming election, but were also asked if they were pessimistic about the
election.
I can hear the mouthpieces of the GOP now:
"Stay home. It doesn't make a difference who wins or loses anyway."
All one has to do is look back to the 2000 election and the successful effort
taken by the GOP and its supporters to see that they'll do anything to keep the
vote tally low come this November. You all might remember the road-blocks setup
in the poorer, mostly African-American communities of the Sunshine State; or you
might recall the felon list which contained so many similar names to people who
had the right to vote and didn't; or you might recollect the letters telling
some voters that election day was on Wednesday for them instead of Tuesday.
We've seen those same tactics in the 2004 election as well. Ohio's former
Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, made up eleventh-hour rules as to who
may vote and who may no vote in an attempt at keeping some away from the polls
and vote for John Kerry. Blackwell, himself African-American, made his most bold
moves to keep other African-Americans away from the voting booths. They paid him
back in Ohio's 2006 Gubernatorial contest which saw him defeated soundly by
former Rep. Ted Strickland nearly two-to-one (60.4 to 38.6 percent).
We all know the effort that the Democrats have been making to Get Out the Vote
these past few elections. It's true that those who have a tendency to "have
better things to do" on election day tend to be more Democratic in orientation
than Republican. So there isn't much surprise in seeing that the GOP want to
make those less fortunate than they stay home come this election day.
After all, the lower the turnout the better for them, right?
Instead of GOTV (Get Out the Vote) the GOP can use a KITV (Keep In the Vote)
campaign.
Or maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas.
Certainly organizations such as The Washington Post and Harvard University could
come up with a question or two as to what makes the polled want to vote or that
would make them optimistic instead of pessimistic. Certainly that would be
newsworthy.
Or maybe it wouldn't be?
Senator Obama will have to do what he did in the primary season against
front-runner Hillary Clinton, and he will have to do it as the GOP state
otherwise: He will have to give those who should vote a reason to vote. Not only
will his message of Hope have to be loud, it will have to be convincing and will
have to be heard over the bored ho-hums of the agents of the Republican Party.
-Noah Greenberg
ECONOMIC DOWNTURN HITS WOMEN HARDEST
The recent economic downturn has hit the majority of Americans hard. Steadily
rising gas and food prices, the exorbitant cost of health care, record job
losses, housing foreclosures–all of it has combined to make most Americans
poorer.
The recession has hit women disproportionately hard, however, because women make
far less than men for equal work, and a recent Senate report on this disparity
has led to efforts at balancing the economic books for women.
Last week Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY-D) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced a
major bill in the Congress–the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA)–to help
counterbalance the rising costs of being a working woman in America.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. That law
was supposed to eradicate the gender gap in wages in the U.S., making it illegal
for employers to pay women less than men for the same work.
When Kennedy signed his bill into law, women made 59 cents for every dollar men
made. Yet times have not changed much in 45 years. Overall, women now make 77
cents for every dollar men make. But unmarried women–the majority of the female
work force–make only 56 cents for every dollar made by married men, the majority
of the male work force.
The disparities are proportionally even greater when other factors are
considered. Women now represent almost half the heads of household in the U.S.
compared to 12 percent in 1963. Just over 80 percent of all single heads of
household are women. Which means that women are raising children alone with less
money than their male counterparts.
According to a press release from Hillary Clinton, the wage gap is even wider
among women of color. African-American women earn 72 cents on the dollar while
Latinas earn just 59 cents. While the pay gap has remained virtually unchanged
since 2001, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research says the wage gap costs
working women's families about $4,000 each per year. Studies show women are
eight times less likely to negotiate their starting salaries than men, costing
them hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of their lifetime.
No one can dispute that there has been a consistent shift in the wage gap in the
past 45 years. Women have broken through many glass ceilings, but that
paradigmatic societal shift in the workplace has not been met with commensurate
pay raises.
In addition to the stasis in pay equity, women are also more likely to be fired
or laid off in poor economic times. In the last year alone the rate of
unemployment has increased exponentially nationwide, but the gender disparity is
evident: a 20 percent rise for women compared to a 17 percent rise for men.
Last year, a series of studies showed that women are forced to work longer than
men, particularly if they are unmarried or widowed. The majority of men retire
between 66 and 70, but the majority of women work into well their 70s–of
necessity, not choice–and it is now estimated that a full half of all women
currently over 50 will never be able to retire.
One reason for this is pay inequities: women move into the age range where
saving for retirement becomes more pressing–45 to 64–their wages generally
decrease from the 77 cents on the dollar men make to only 71 cents.
Women have also been struck by economic unfairness during the subprime mortgage
crisis. Women are once again disproportionately represented, with 30 percent
more of the extortionist subprime loans than men. What’s more, women have better
overall credit than men and yet find it far more difficult to obtain mortgages
than men or couples. In addition, housing foreclosures have affected women twice
as often as men in the past two years.
During the debate over the PFA last week, one Congressman, Rep. John Dingell
(D-MI), explained not just how bad the situation was for women workers, but how
unchanging. Dingell told the House, “Between 1963 and now, the wage gap has
narrowed by less than half a cent a year. At this rate, it would take another 50
years before men and women reach parity in pay in this country.”
That means that nearly a full century after Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act
into law it would finally become a reality. Ninety-fives years too late for the
women who needed it most.
Some states, like Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California have higher minimum
wage rates than the federal average, but in no state do women have pay equity
with men. According to a report by the Institute of Women’s Policy Research,
what this means is that in her lifetime, every working woman will lose between
$400,000 to $2 million in wages she should have been paid.
So much for the Equal Pay Act.
Hence the Paycheck Fairness Act now being proffered by Clinton and DeLauro,
which made it out of committee last week and is scheduled for a floor vote this
week. In agitating for the PFA, DeLauro asserted, “ The marketplace alone with
not correct this injustice–that is why we need a legislative solution.”
What the PFA would do, according to the bill itself, is “close loopholes that
have allowed employers to avoid responsibility for discriminatory pay.”
The Clinton-Delauro legislation would increase the penalties for gender
discrimination in wages and would make gender biases in pay equity comparable to
those already in place for race, disability and age.
This means women would be able to file lawsuits–or class action suits–for
compensatory and punitive damages as well as back wages if they can prove they
are being discriminated against in wages based on their gender.
The PFA would also keep employers from retaliatory firings or other sanctions
against whistle-blowing employees who share their salary information with female
employees. Plus, the PFA would require the Department of Labor to “improve
outreach and training efforts to work with employers in order to eliminate pay
disparities” and “creates a new grant program to help strengthen the negotiation
skills of girls and women.”
Not surprisingly, men on both sides of the aisle have objected to the proposed
legislation from Clinton and DeLauro.
On the floor of the House, the objection raised what that the bill was
“redundant” because the Equal Pay Act already requires pay equity.
But pay equity is not being enforced through the 1963 act. The complaint among
House conservatives was voiced as “another unnecessary bill that will result in
increased litigation costs.”
Nevermind that it would also result in *deserved* equal pay for women. All the
Paycheck Fairness Act would demand is that employers follow the law by closing
any and all loopholes that have allowed employers to cheat women of their
rightful wages for the past 45 years.
This is not, of course, a new argument, because the Paycheck Fairness Act,
regrettably, is not a new idea. It was first proposed in 1998, but has been
rejected repeatedly while still in Committee by the Republican-controlled
Congress until it was reintroduced by Clinton and DeLauro last year, after the
2006 elections shifted the majority to the Democrats. The reintroduction now
comes as a result of further studies on the status of women in the workplace–and
how dismal that status is in the new recession.
The Clinton-Delauro bill has large support in the House–230 representatives have
signed on as co-sponsors–but has only 22 member of the Senate behind it, despite
urgent lobbying by Clinton.
Congress has already blocked introduction of another fair pay resolution, the
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was submitted to committee in April. That act
would have sought a legislative remedy to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Ledbetter v. Goodyear which made it more difficult for women to pursue
litigation related to pay equity. While arguing for the PFA, Clinton said, “It
is high time we insisted that women receive equal pay for equal work in this
country. We have dispelled any notion that women aren't up to the task, yet
millions of capable women are still being underpaid solely because of their
gender, and it's time to put a stop to it.”
Clinton said that her purpose in introducing the Paycheck Fairness Act was to
close the gaps that punished women solely for their gender.
What will happen with the PFA this week or next is unclear, but in a cruel
irony, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has already recommend to President Bush that
he veto the bill that would finally help women enter the 21st century pay scale
instead of remaining stalled at 1963 wages.
-Victoria Brownworth
In response to, "There are those of us on the Left side of the aisle who think
that Senator Obama is moving a little too far to the center for their liking,"
Victoria Brownworth writes:
Center? I would find the center acceptable. It's that Obama is moving further to
the right than McCain on so many issues that is so terrible. I had a difficult
time with the fact that the nominee was not the person who won the popular
vote--that's something Republicans do, not Democrats. But to then change
position on almost every substantive issue once he was the nominee--from FISA to
choice to off-shore drilling to the war?
I do wish that the so-called Left could acknowledge that this is a problem for
us. We can chant McSame and McBush all we want and ignore that McCain was John
Kerry's first choice for VP in 2004. I'm not suggesting we embrace Mc Cain. But
the utter lack of critique of Obama is unacceptable. If we don't critique him
now, what can we expect after he's president?
And in response to, "In fairness to then-Senatorial candidate Barack Obama, he
did, repeatedly, state his opposition to the Iraq war while running for his
seat," Victoria Brownworth writes:
Obama was NOT running for the Senate when the war vote was cast at all. Not even
close. Even a quick check of Wikipdia would have told you that.
The war vote was cast in 2002. Obama began running for Senate in 2004. That's a
two year difference no matter how it is counted. In addition to which, there is
videotape of Obama on Meet the Press in July 2004 saying that his view on the
war in Iraq pretty much reflected that of George Bush.
Support a candidate all you want. Just don't invent facts to make your case.
Send your comments to: NationalView@aol.com
-Noah Greenberg