September 9, 2012

By Dr. Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The 2012 Democratic National Convention was an exuberant celebration of President Obama, his accomplishments, and the many ways his Presidency has made us better off than we were four years ago.  Between a stirring and incandescent speech by First Lady Michelle Obama and an impassioned charge by former President Bill Clinton, the delegates were roused and the pressure was high for President Obama to deliver an inspiring charge to those who have already spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to participate in the convention.

Truly, he delivered with a tone that was alternately exuberant, defiant, humorous, and apologetic. Most importantly, he spoke of our country as being at a fork in the road, with choices to be made.  Forward with Obama, backward with Romney.  He challenged the delegates to move forward and embrace his accomplishments. Spirits were certainly high as thousands of delegates left the Time Warner Arena chanting, “fired up, ready to go.”

Why are political conventions held, anyway?  Some are convinced they could’ve easily collapsed their three or four day schedule to just one or two days, because they are so scripted. Yet one or two days might not be enough to engender the excitement that was present on Thursday night, the chanting, the hugging, the notion that, despite significant challenges, hard work will bring Democrats a victory in November.  The convention is a tool to bring delegates, who are local leaders into focused campaign activity. The convention is a tool to get the delegates out to organize and mobilize people.

After the euphoria, though, reality sets in.  In other words, on Friday morning, the reality of unemployment rates sets in.  While the unemployment rate dropped just a bit, from 8.3 to 8.1 percent, the level of job creation does not meet expectations.  In other words, with only 96,000 jobs created, the Republicans have hay to make about the employment situation.  On the other hand, Democrats can clearly say that that President Obama’s policies are holding the line, and that absent cooperation on the American Jobs Act, our President is doing the best that he can do.

Is holding the line good enough?  African-American unemployment rates are 14.1 percent.  With the underutilization index, Black unemployment rates were nearly 26 percent, which means that one in four African-Americans do not have work.  Some say this is an underestimate.  There are five million people who are part of the long term unemployed, people who were out of work for half a year or more.  These folks represent 40 percent of the unemployed.  The data can be spun either way.  Not enough?  Holding the line?  Failure?  On the road to progress?

As much as I was fired up by President Obama’s speech, and the ones that preceded it, I also listened it through the lens of Leroy: the brother who has been unemployed, or even out of the labor force, for half a year or more.  Leroy listened, and Leroy applauded, and maybe Leroy even agreed that we are at a fork in the road.  But when Leroy is asked if he is better off than he was four years ago, he is only thinking about his unemployment.  He is thinking that he can’t pay his rent.  He is thinking that he is worse off, and a great speech won’t make him feel better.

The Democratic challenge is to meet Leroy where he lives, to explain to him that his job prospects might be even more restricted under a Romney-Ryan administration than an Obama one.  The challenge is to move Leroy past his angst and indifference to the same enthusiasm that delegates felt on Thursday night.  The speeches are over and the work now begins. Speeches won’t bring electoral victory. A solid ground operation, and lots of elbow grease will.

After the speech, as people filed out of the Time Warner arena, I spent some time with the Pacifica team from Los Angeles, Margaret Prescod, Davey D, and others.   Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Ralph Nader, and I talked about the speech and next steps. Nader is most critical, indicating that President Obama spoke neither of poverty nor increasing the minimum wage.  While he is right, one wonders if, at a fork in the road, these are appropriate criticisms.  Nader is a critic of the two-party political system, but that’s all we have now, so we have to work it.

Julianne Malveaux is an economist and author in Washington, DC.

Sept. 9, 2012

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The employment outlook for young people worldwide is grim, according to an analysis released Sept. 4 by the International Labor Organization.

Fueled by ripples of the collapse in the banking and housing industries in the U.S. and Europe, and by the ongoing financial crisis affecting the European Union, joblessness among young workers is expected to spread to countries in East Asia and Latin America and to get worse overall, the agency, part of the United Nations, warned.

In 2011, an estimated 12.5 percent of job-seekers between the ages of 15 and 24 were unemployed, the agency said. That rate is projected to increase to 12.9 percent by 2017.

The exception to that trend will be seen in “developed economies,” where jobless rates are expected to drop, the ILO said. But even that is “principally because discouraged young people are withdrawing from the labor market and not because of stronger hiring activity among youngsters.”

The global numbers mask more disturbing trends among individual countries and regions. For example, youth unemployment in the Middle East (25.7 percent) and North Africa (27.1 percent) far exceeds that in South Asia (9.6 percent) and East Asia (9.2 percent.)

And even among “developed economies” there are disparities in youth unemployment rates, with less than 10 percent of young people out of work in Germany and Switzerland, and about 17 percent of that group unemployed in the United States and New Zealand, but almost 50 percent jobless in South Africa and Spain.

“Without additional jobs being created, young people cannot expect to find employment,” the ILO said. “However, given the sheer size of the problem, even a quick acceleration in growth may not provide sufficient job opportunities in a short period of time.”The agency recommended that countries adopt “targeted measures” to lower the jobless rates among youth, including job training programs and giving incentives to companies that hire youth.

September 9, 2012

By Rev. Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Inevitably, the Democratic Party fest in Charlotte, N.C., has been compared to the Republican gathering in Tampa, Fla. The speeches by Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama has been contrasted with those of Republican nominees Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.

The Republican convention was marked by patriotic rhetoric, Horatio Alger tales of upward mobility and a diverse lineup of speakers presenting to the overwhelmingly white, older and affluent delegates. Democrats are not lacking for patriotic salutes, uplifting tales and diverse speakers. They addressed a crowd that is younger and more diverse than the Republican crowd. But the starkest contrast was drawn by President Obama and Vice President Biden as they offered the one thing absent from the Republican convention: truth-telling.

For example, Romney opened his speech by describing our expectations when Obama was elected. Families, he said, wanted to “get ahead a little more,” small-business owners wanted “the best years ever” and our nation was expecting to “start paying down the national debt.”

What planet was Romney on? On the day Obama took the oath of office in January 2009, he inherited an economy that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, lost 779,000 jobs that month. The world teetered on the edge of financial collapse and global depression.

Workers were laid off, took pay and benefit cuts, swallowed furloughs without pay. Home values plummeted, wiping out the leading source of wealth for everyone outside the very few. Contrary to Romney, we weren’t expecting a walk on the beach; we were looking for help in a brutal storm. Biden and Obama might do well to remind people of the reality that they saved an economy that was in free fall.

Similarly absent from the Romney and Ryan speeches was mention of the Bush-era policies that drove this economy off the cliff. These included tax cuts largely for the rich, deregulation of big banks, organized assault on unions, record trade deficits, jobs sent abroad, record budget deficits driven by not paying for the tax cuts or two disastrous wars — all of which were championed by Paul Ryan in Congress.

Romney and Ryan couldn’t mention these because that would be an indictment of their agenda. Obama and Biden could benefit by laying out this simple truth.

Or consider the contrast between the pieties of the Republican speeches and the reality of their platform and budgets. Romney expressed concern for the poor, but his budget would throw many more children into poverty and inflict savage cuts on the limited support we offer those in need.

He spoke of his concern about the costs of college, but his budget would slash support for Pell scholarships for deserving students. The Bible says you judge a tree by the fruit that it bears, not the bark that it wears. The president and vice president might remind people of that simple truth, too.

Romney and Ryan spoke eloquently about the rights of Americans, but didn’t mention voting rights. Perhaps that’s because the Republican Party is driving the worst assault on voting rights since the days of Jim Crow, cynically limiting early voting and demanding costly new forms of official ID designed to make it harder for the poor, minorities and young to vote.

As the president and vice president gave their convention speeches, they obviously considered doing what their Republican counterparts failed to do. And that is to tell the truth.

September 9, 2012

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A leader is defined as a person who manages the process of social influence  in which he/she honestly enlists the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. A liar is a person who intentionally delivers a false statement to another person in order to deceive that person. Liars don’t lead, they mislead.

Leadership was a common theme articulated throughout the Republican National Convention.  Republicans contend that President Obama lacks the leadership necessary to move the country beyond the current economic crisis and does not possess the leadership necessary to navigate the treacherous international waters going forward.  Republicans contend that former governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan (D-WI) possess the leadership qualities to effectively manage the economy and strengthen America’s position on the global stage.

There are honest, fact-based debates between President Obama’s supporters and detractors regarding his current record, leadership style and negotiating skills. Many have questioned the President’s willingness to make concessions during budget and healthcare negotiations. His foreign policy decisions, including Guantanamo, the use of drones to perform bombing raids and the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi. The difference between legitimate debate and what was presented at the Republican convention is the utter lack of factual content by too many Republican speakers. They did not make misstatements, exaggerations, mistakes or errors. They lied.

During his acceptance speech, Rep. Ryan falsely accused President Obama of “raiding” Medicare by $716 billion. Ryan falsely attacked President Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville, WI GM plant that actually closed under Bush in 2008. He castigated the president for walking away from the Simpson-Bowles Commission’s recommendations to cut the deficit. Of course, Ryan never mentioned the fact that he was on the committee and that he voted against the committee’s recommendations. Ryan also lied by blaming Obama for a budget deficit mostly created by programs that Ryan himself voted for.  According to the NY Times, Ryan “lamented the nation’s credit rating — which was downgraded after a debt-ceiling standoff that he and other House Republicans helped instigate.”

During his acceptance speech, Ryan said, “I accept the duty to help lead our nation out of a jobs crisis and back to prosperity…”  No Mr. Ryan, you can’t “lead our nation” by lying to it and failing to take responsibility for problems that you helped create.  Liars don’t lead, they mislead.

Former Secretary of State Rice spoke on behalf of the Romney campaign telling America that we “can’t lead from behind.”  Well, suffice it to say, she’s been lying a long time and her lies are well documented. Go to Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) report Iraq on the Record: the Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq.   According to the report,   “Between September 8, 2002, and September 28, 2003, National Security Advisor Rice made 29 misleading statements (lies) about the threat posed by Iraq in 16 separate public appearances…Ms. Rice made significantly more statements that were false — 8 — than any of the other four officials (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, or Powell)… ”

Finally, at the top to ticket the truth is just as hard to find.  Romney said, “Unlike President Obama, I won’t raise taxes on the middle class of America.”  According to the Tax Policy Center, his tax plan lowers on the top 2 percent of earners and raises taxes on everyone else; taxes on the middle class would go up by about $2,000 to pay for Romney’s tax cut for the wealthy. Romney also stated “And unlike the president, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs.” The truth is, President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act, and it was killed by congressional Republicans. According to PoliticusUSA, “The second part of Romney’s lie was a bit more devious. Romney promised to create 12 million new jobs, (knowing) that economic forecasts show that if nothing is done, the econom,y will create 11.8 on it's own..."

Another lie that Romney told during his speech was, “I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour...” As The Washington Post's Fact Checker put it, “The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts, especially if his full quotes are viewed in context.”  In other words, Romney’s proclamation is a lie.

In his speech Romney said about Ryan, “…I saw in Paul Ryan - a strong and caring leader who is down to earth and confident in the challenge this moment demands.”  Ryan’s not down to earth.  He’s a man who has willingly constructed a narrative to create artificial distinctions between President Obama and himself.  He’s not a leader, he’s a liar.

Romney said about himself, “Americans have a choice. A decision. To make that choice, you need to know more about me and about where I will lead our country.”  Well, Romney will lead America back to the polices of Bush 43 and VP Dick Cheney but they were conspicuously absent at the convention, not invited.

Romney/Ryan can’t lead America down the right path with lies and deceit. We saw that movie with their Republican predecessor with the help of Ms. Rice.

Romney pollster Neil Newhouse stated, “Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers…”  In a representative democracy facts do matter and checking the facts is how we hold our representatives accountable. Romney and Ryan have based their campaign on “smoke and mirrors,” “slight of hand,” political prestidigitation, lies and deceit.

Liars don’t lead, they mislead.

, www.wilmerleon.com , email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.