Government that likes the “idea” of being “leader of the
free world” but fails to work for redress Comment, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett using sources
U.S. President Barack Obama returned to Washington this week Thursday from a Democratic fundraising tour in San Francisco that included appearances at four high-dollar private fundraising events to the consternation of “Washington Republicans and progressive activists alike.”
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| Environmental protection failure |
In the midst of his wars across Asia
and domestic structural disestablishment and economic depression, the U.S. head of state
…appeared Wednesday at a
$5,000-a-head cocktail reception at the $5.8 million Sea Cliff, San Francisco
home of investor and environmental activist Tom Steyer and his wife Kat Taylor,
a philanthropist who serves on the board of directors of organizations including
the Insight Prison Project, which runs ‘emotional literacy’ and ‘yoga’ programs
inside San Quentin Prison.
…spent Wednesday night at the
Intercontinental San Francisco hotel, where the 2,000 square foot presidential
suite has a starting rate of $3,500 per night.
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| Unemployed in Detroit |
…appeared at the Atherton hills
home of Medley Partners Managing Director Mark Heising, where tickets cost
$32,400, and then the Atherton home of Levi-Strauss heir John Goldman, where
tickets ranged from $1,000 to $20,000.
The Common defense and general welfare of the United States languishes
as the U.S. president luxuriates conspicuously in wastefulness:
Labor force participation rate in
the United States was 63.3 percent in March ─ its lowest level in three decades.
Economist Heidi Shierholz said the government’s latest reports
touting lower unemployment was inaccurate in that it shows not that people are “employed”;
but that people have been dropping out of the labor force.
“The number of people working fell nationally by 206,000 even as the number of unemployed fell by
290,000. Those two statistics reflected that the civilian labor force had
shriveled by nearly half a million people.”
Separate records
“The low labor force participation rate,” Shierholz said, “is
not because of demographic factors such as retiring baby boomers; but because
of the lack of demand for workers.
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“I
|
f the 4 million people the Congressional Budget Office
estimates dropped out of the labor force had been looking for work, the
unemployment rate would be 9.8 percent.”
Mixed results, disestablishment
 |
| Foreign relations failure Endless wars Endless domestic neglect |
The federal government cut 14,000 jobs in March ● 11,700 in
the U.S. Postal Service.
State governments added 9,000 jobs ● Local governments subtracted
2,000 jobs in the public schools.
Durable goods production (including 800 auto manufacturing jobs)
added 4,000 jobs ● Manufacturing took a net loss of 3,000 jobs
Food makers cut 1,600 jobs giving food manufacturing and clothing
a big hit ● Textile and apparel companies cut a combined 4,100 jobs.
The construction industry added 18,000 jobs ● Retail trade
cut 24,100 jobs (15,300 jobs lost at clothing stores).
Health care providers added 23,400 new workers ● Temporary
services added 20,300 jobs.
The Globe and Mail, referencing a separate Labor Department
survey of households, reported that the U.S. labor force “declined by 496,000 in
March”; labor-force participation rate decline of 0.2 percentage points to 63.3
percent ─ the lowest since May 1979.
This dire picture of jobless figures, the article said, “argues
against complacency about the U.S. recovery.”
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Y
|
et in the face of an “economy grinding to a halt” and labor
force participation having plummeted to its lowest rate since 1979, the
president returns to a high-rollers’ trail of political campaigning. No wonder demonstrators
and even some officials in Washington were outraged at the president’s “Bay
Area junket of wasteful hobnobbing with billionaires.”
This president seems to like the “idea” of being U.S. president
more than doing the job of head of state; and his failure of leadership is telling
in every sector and issue in need of serious redress:
 |
| U.S. abroad |
…foreign relations, environmental
protection, worker protection and employment, immigration, civil liberties and
human rights, nonviolence, to name a few of his failings.
And he goes on prancing and posturing, making speeches and
vacuous promises, waging wars on the world’s peoples and; in consequential neglect,
waging war against the people and institutions of the United States.
 |
| Dwight David Eisenhower U.S. soldier and 34th U.S. President |
The 34th president of the United States said, “We must be
strong at home if we are going to be strong abroad. We understand that.
So we want to be strong at home in
our morale or in our spirit.
We want to be strong
intellectually, in our education, in our economy and, where necessary,
militarily.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,” President Dwight David Eisenhower warned,
“a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not
clothed.”
Sources and notes
“Obama’s California fundraising trip irks left and right,”
April 5, 2013,
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/05/obamas-california-fundraising-trip-irks-left-and-right/
“Hiring rate slows in March Still unemployment dips to 7.6
percent” (Ann Belser, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), April 6, 2013, http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/hiring-rate-slows-in-march-682327/
“U.S. jobs report doesn’t necessarily signal spring swoon” (Kevin
Carmichael Washington — The Globe and Mail), April 5 2013, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/us-jobs-report-doesnt-necessarily-signal-spring-swoon/article10802541/
The U.S. unemployment rate dropped
to 7.6 per cent from 7.7 per cent, but only because the labor force declined by
496,000 in March, according to a separate Labor Department survey of
households. The labor-force participation rate declined 0.2 percentage points to
63.3 percent, its lowest May, 1979.
Overall, the March jobless figures
argue against complacency about the U.S. recovery. They don’t argue for giving
up on it.
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire
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