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Today's
Stories
June 19 / 20, 2004
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| June
19 / 20, 2004
Footsteps
of a Fool
Bush and
the Timken Plant, a Year Later
By
CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI
I
claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events
have controlled me.
A.
Lincoln, Letter to A.G. Hodges
Events
conspire to make George Bush look foolish. It’s not that events
are clever. It’s that Mr. Bush is not. His lack of cleverness,
however, disturbs neither him nor members of his administration, a reflection
on them all. A recent example involved the Timken Plant in Canton, Ohio.
On
April 24, 2003, the president stood alongside W.R. "Tim" Timken
in the Timken Company plant in Ohio and urged the employees to support
his proposed tax cut for the rich. He didn’t use those words since
that would have offended the hourly workers most of whom were not among
the rich but many of whom were in the audience. If enacted, said Mr.
Bush, the tax cut would spur economic growth assuring his audience of
continued employment if not huge tax benefits. The only difference between
the effect of the tax cut on the worker and the rich person was the
rich person would get more money for doing nothing whereas the worker
would get more money by remaining employed.
The
tax cut passed in 2003. In that year Mr. Timken earned more than $2.6
million and reportedly received tax breaks of approximately $59,000.
Timken workers had jobs throughout 2003 and, in addition enjoyed a tax
reduction as well. Figures compiled by Citizens for Tax Justice suggest
that 89% of Ohio residents among whom many of the Timken workers were
certainly numbered, received tax cuts closer to $100 than to $59,000.
The small amount of benefit received by ordinary workers from the tax
cut was made up for by the fact that they still had jobs and were, therefore,
earning money.
As
Mr. Bush’s speech made abundantly clear, the tax cut was a win-win
situation for the idle rich and industrious worker alike. Emphasizing
the point and using Timken Company as an example, Mr. Bush said that:
"The future of this company is b right and therefore, the future
of employment is bright for the families that work here."
I
wasn’t there but I can imagine the applause from the workers who
were excited about the fact that their future with Timken was assured.
Mr. Bush’s visit had nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Timken
was one of Mr. Bush’s big supporters and, according to Campaign
Money Watch, raised $600,000 for Mr. Bush in one night. His visit in
2003 was nothing more nor less than serendipitous.
Mr.
Bush spoke at the plant in April of 2003. The future of the company
looked bright for the "families that work here" as Mr. Bush
said. Then a strange thing happened.
On
May 16, 2004, slightly more than a year after Mr. Bush’s visit,
Mr. Timken decided to close the plant in which Mr. Bush spoke and two
other Timken plants in the Canton area. He made the decision even though
the tax cut passed and even though he saved $59,000 in taxes as a result
of its passage. The closure had nothing to do with the fact that the
tax cut didn’t provide the promised benefits. It had to do with
the fact that Mr. Timken decided to close the plant.
Closing
the plant means that 1,300 people who were told by the president one
year earlier that they had a bright future now have neither bright future
nor jobs. They would be forgiven for asking what Mr. Bush had in mind
when he uttered those words. People without jobs, after all, often think
the future is not very bright.
For
the town of Canton the future doesn’t like bright. Timken was
its biggest employer. Its 1,300 newly unemployed will join the 200,000
other residents of Ohio who have lost their jobs since George Bush became
president. Tad Ellsworth, Canton’s finance and service director,
said Timken is the city’s No. 1 taxpayer. He said the plants’
closings will have a devastating effect on the city’s finances
although he was unable to say how much taxpayer money would be lost.
Of
the 1,300 employees affected by the closure, 1,150 are hourly employees
and 150 are salaried. The odds are not good that they will all promptly
be reemployed. That’s too bad but, as the company’s public
relations manager said: "It’s just all about being competitive."
One
wonders what Mr. Bush’s speech would have sounded like had he
known then what he knows now about Timken’s future. Events make
him look foolish. What else is new?
Christopher
Brauchli is
a Boulder, Colorado lawyer. His column appears weekly in the Daily
Camera. He can be reached at: brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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