Readers' Responses for October 3, 2011
1. Re: Keynes Was Right
2. Re: Gertrude Stein's "Missing" Vichy Years
3. Inquiry About Helen Phillips
4. Let’s get real about the Post Office


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1.
Date:  	Mon, 03 Oct 2011 
From:  	Stanley Aronowitz 
Re: Keynes Was Right

As usual, Robert Reich has struck a true note, but
misses the symphony. If we accept the most accurate
number, there are at least 20 million unemployed,
partially employed or discouraged workers. Never in
American history has the government been able to aid in
the acheivement of a full employment US economy. At the
end of the New Deal, in 1939 there were still almost
12% out of work Americans. Today, technology, off-
shore outsourcing and plain overwork of the existing
workforce has created a crisis that is far beyond the
government's capacity to fix. To begin with we need to
severely reduce the military and its bloated budget;
this would entail dismantling its vast network of
overseas wars and bases, reduction of expensive
weaponry, especially the nuclear arsenal. 

Next we need
a sharp reduction of the work day and work week. We
could begin with six hours a day and 30 hours a week
and increase overtime pay to twice the base rate.
Reich's tax proposal corresponds to what every
left-liberal has concluded; the question is how much.
How about 75% for the highest 1% incomes? And we need
an industrial policy to encourage goods production in
all sectors. As Marx and Engels suggested(not Keynes)
manufacturing could be undertaken by workers-owned
cooperatives. Finally, a steep raise of the minimum
wage to $12 an hour and a basic guaranteed income for
all. 

Even after these measures, we still face the main
problem: capitalism. To overcome this archaic system
requires really radical politics that breaks with the
duopoly that now dominates our political system. This
politics is not chiefly electoral; the Wall Street
Occupation is an example of the direct action without
which none of the suggestions are likely to see the
light of day.

Stanley Aronowitz


===
2.
Date:  	Mon, 3 Oct 2011 
From:  	Gordon Fitch 
Re: Gertrude Stein's "Missing" Vichy Years

Portside Moderator:
>
> ... It is true that
>France had the highest percentage of Jews
>who survived the Holocaust and that the
>"Free Zone" was slower in sending Jews to
>concentration camps (the Vichy police
>generally rounded up the Jews for the
>Germans). ...

Highest out of what set?  The country which had the
highest percentage of Jews to survive the Holocaust
although involved in World War 2 in Europe was
Bulgaria (100%).  Why don't the Bulgarians count?

Gordon Fitch

===
3.
Date:  	Sat, 1 Oct 2011 
From:  	Eric A. Gordon
Subject:Inquiry About Helen Phillips

Can anyone please help? Does anyone know about the
candidacy of Helen Phillips for office (State
Assembly?) in New York in the 1930s or 1940s on a minor
party, maybe the American Labor Party? Communist Party?

Please send in any leads you may have. She was my aunt
and I am writing a political memoir. 

Thanks. Eric A. Gordon Los Angeles, CA
[log in to unmask]

===
4.
Date:  	Mon, 3 Oct 2011 
From:  	Jack Lohman 
Subject: Let’s get real about the Post Office

R’s guilty of privatization scam; D’s guilty of
short-sightedness. And yes, Dem politicians are in on
the scam!

I support saving the post office, but keeping it on
life-support just digs a deeper hole.

Reality: The post office cannot survive with the
Internet taking away its volume of first-class mail,
all while the workers demand zero reduction in
workforce. Think about it for a moment!

The Republicans started digging the hole in 2006 when
they passed a law to force the PO to store cash for 75
years of employee retirements. No other company could
do that, and the politicians knew it. Without that
burden they’d reportedly have a $1.2 billion surplus.
But even that surplus would disappear overnight without
cost-cutting measures.

Fault politicians for taking campaign cash from FedEx
and UPS to kill the post office, if you will, but
that’s our political system. D’s should get off their
tails and fight against political corruption, rather
than allow themselves to get diverted to the little
fires.

Corruption *IS* our number one issue that affects all
others, and until we eliminate it we are destined to a
bankrupt nation. Privatization

So the R’s want to “privatize’ the post office, because
then they too can give campaign bribes. That’s what
privatization is all about, and our own Governor Scott
Walker is right in the middle of it!

Indeed freeing the post office of the corrupt
politicians is a start, but I’d make it a non-profit
with a CEO paid on the basis of its efficiency, and ban
all political contributions. And I’d cut deliveries to
three days a week (M-W-F and T-T-S) and cut through
attrition all unnecessary employees.

And eliminate underused offices! I live in a small town
with only two businesses: an auto-repair shop and a
one-man post office. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Subcontract it to Walmart or Target!

But I see no need to bury the post office. They allow
voting-by-mail in Oregon, deliver medications where
needed, and even have a contract with our fabulous
FedEx and UPS to deliver their packages to the 25% of
our nation that are out in the boondocks.

So here we are again… political corruption driving
America… all while inattentive voters are diverted to
things that wouldn’t even be an issue under a clean
political system.

Jack Lohman is a retired business owner from Colgate,
WI and author of "Politicians - Owned and Operated by
Corporate America." 

___________________________________________

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