Tidbits and Reader Response - June 15, 2012

- Correction - Silent March Against Stop & Frisk is this
  Sunday, June 17
- Obama Will Reportedly Stem His Record Deportations (James
  Vann)
- Re: Why We Should All Root for the Miami Heat - Readers'
  Responses and an Announcement - June 13, 2012 - More Reader
  Responses (Ringo Hallinan, Jean Damu)
- Fracking in Pennsylvania (Steven Spielman)
- Re: Obama's Response to the Jobs Crisis is Still Too Lame
  (Rep. Patti Fritz, Randy Shannon)
- Re: Lesson for the Left: How the Tea Party Organized
  Wisconsin (Chris Lowe)
- Re: Syria Between Imperialism and Repression (Farras
  Abdelnour)
  Re: It's OK to Add to Debt to Grow Jobs (Per Fagereng)

==========

- Correction - Silent March Against Stop & Frisk is this
Sunday, June 17.

The subhead in the Portside post gave the incorrect date as
Sunday, June 18; while the body of the post has the correct
date of June 17. [Moderator]

==========

- Obama Will Reportedly Stem His Record Deportations

A key plank in President Obama's 2008 campaign was his
endorsement of and promise to enact the "Dream Act" (create a
path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants) -- strongly
supported by Hispanic constituents who voted 70% for the
president.  Once elected, the Dream Act commitment became a
lower priority, and when finally introduced, was weakly
lobbied and failed in Congress.  Meanwhile, President Obama
dramatically stepped up deportations to record levels --
400,000 in 2009 -- more than double the numbers of any
previous administration, including even the eight years of
horrid Bush Jr/Cheney.  Disgust grew to scorn as President
Obama gave no heed to the pleas of Hispanics to withdraw his
unwarranted heavy-handed deportation policies, and support for
the president's re-election dropped sharply.  Over the last
two weeks, Hispanic youth took the bull by the horns and began
a program of "occupying" campaign offices in major cities
across the country.

The message finally hit home with the announcement issued
today by President Obama that deportations of law-abiding
Hispanic youth who grew up in the US would be halted.. Why
must it require being hit with a 2x4 to do the right thing?

James E Vann
Oakland, California

==========

- Re: Why We Should All Root for the Miami Heat - Readers'
Responses and an Announcement - June 13, 2012 - More Reader
Reposes

I spent many years being a jock. I teamed with people that
would consider the Tea Party a bunch of bleeding heart
liberals. Owners (with a few exceptions) are horrible people
with terrible politics. I do not like the ownership of the San
Francisco 49ers. I have been watching them since 1952. I love
them. You can't use politics as the sole reason for backing a
team (unless they are lefties, then it is okay). Root for the
team you love. Go 'niners, all the way to the Super Bowl this
year.

Ringo Hallinan

===

I'm a big fan of Dave Zirin but disagree on certain issues.
I'm OK with that. When Al Davis died Dave buried him as a
reactionary asshole on whose grave we should celebrate. Dave
was completely wrong.

AS AFL commissioner Davis was among the first to recruit pro
players from the black colleges. He brought African Americans
into pro football as officials, hired the first Black and
Latino head coaches, Art Shell and Tom Flores, in the NFL and
a woman, Amy Trask as Raiders CEO. Further Davis hired Navajo
broadcasters to broadcast Raider games to the Navajo nation.
None of this was commented on Dave in his hateful testimony
to Davis's passing-but forgive and forget.

The point of all this is that sometimes Dave can be sectarian
in his leftism-but he more than makes up for his occasional
transgressions in his general wonderful reporting.

I could continue on about Davis and his encouraging some Black
Raiders to befriend the Black Panthers, but that's a whole
other story.

Jean Damu

==========

- Fracking in Pennsylvania

Marcellus Shale - The latest breaking horizon for the Oil
and Gas industry is becoming a silent battleground of small
citizen groups being soundly defeated by large interests
with unlimited research scope and funding.

Here in Pennsylvania they are trying to separate gas and oil
from the term "mineral rights" in deeds and old leases.
They are suing a local government who has passed an
ordinance against injecting drilling fluids into a disposal
well within the boundaries of the local governing body if
the fluids were produced outside the area.

Locally, this week 70 citizens attended a hearing to protest
the permitting of a Class II-D injection well in the middle
of an area that has been drilled extensively for over 140
years - the subsurface is like swiss cheese - and every
household and landowner is dependent of private water wells-
Not one elected official Federal, State, County, or Township
showed up at the hearing.  In fact there was no one
representing any of those entities, including the State
Department of Environmental Resources OR- If they were there
they did not identify themselves.

It appears that the Capital investment firm who applied for
the permit will be granted their request by the Federal-EPA.
And the Dominos continue to fall all across the country -
Pipelines, Fracking and disposal of waste - who will stand
in their way?

Steven Spielman

==========

- Re: Obama's Response to the Jobs Crisis is Still Too Lame

I agree that his response is lame! Tell him to  be bold and
speak like a fearless leader! We are with him and now is our
time to build and repair our country just like FDR!!!

Rep. Patti Fritz
Minnesota

===

This article makes some good points. However the proffer of
a solution by the liberals comes up short. The article
quotes Borosage. "The only question is how deep the crisis
must go and how crippling the pain must be before action is
taken," says Borosage. This reflects a fundamental loyalty
to capitalism and its willingness and ability to respond to
the crises that it creates. Maybe such an eventuality would
have motivated capitalists in a foregone era, but Greece is
a glaring example of the falsity of the notion that the
capitalist class, dominated by finance, will take action if
the crisis deepens. The capitalists are taking action,
vigorous action on massive financial scale, to bail out
their fellow bankers and bondholders. There is no thought
given to the jobs situation other than the militarization of
the police and the elimination of first amendment rights.

Randy Shannon

==========

- Re: Lesson for the Left: How the Tea Party Organized
  Wisconsin

Normally Portside subject lines are similar to the titles
of the forwarded articles.  David Burghart's deep
descriptive article on "The Tea Party Impact in Wisconsin"
was highly informative, if somewhat dispiriting as to the
continued rise of right wing power.

A conclusion not quite stated is that it is time for
progressives to stop hand-waving about the Tea Party being
an astroturf phenomenon.  Clearly it is not.

But beyond that, Portside's headline "Lesson for the Left"
was misleading.  There are no lessons for the left.  The Tea
Party organizers were able to mobilize supporters fired up
by a leader who stood strongly for what they believe in,
despite intense pressure to compromise.  The left has
nothing comparable in the electoral arena, and certainly not
at top of the ticket.  The situations are hugely dissimilar.

It is good to see that Progressive America Rising is trying
to avoid illusions about the opposition.  However it remains
to be seen if they seek a similar realism about "our side."
It is not even clear how they define that.  Does taking out
the Obama name reflect a change of approach, or merely
avoiding problems that the president's exercise of his
tenure raise for many progressives?

The last time around Progressives for promoted a mistaken
vision of the nature of the support for Barack Obama, seeing
it as a social movement when it was really just an electoral
mobilization, and one that was almost immediately captured
and isolated by the Obama camp as a fundraising base and
nothing more.  Progressives for Obama had no strategy for
organizing except to exhort local groups to organize where
they were.  Perhaps that was a realistic assessment of
capacity.  If so, is it different this time?  Last time's
version certainly could not have done anything like the Tea
Party effort described.

Chris Lowe
Portland, Oregon

==========

- Re: Syria Between Imperialism and Repression

thanks for this excellent article. given the seriousness of
the situation, i am surprised by the infrequent articles on
syria here at portside.

Farras Abdelnour

==========

Re: It's OK to Add to Debt to Grow Jobs

The fiscal hawks and the stimulators each tell us that their
prescription will lead to economic growth. But what if they
are both wrong?

Without sufficient growth debts don't get paid. Putting
more people to work will help the economy, but the real
stimulus to growth is cheap energy. It's been that
way for over a hundred years, but now the cheap energy is
gone.

We need to start planning for a steady-state economy.
We need to stop depending on private investors to make
our economy run. We will never catch up to the interest
they charge.

Per Fagereng

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