Compared to Michael Pugliese, the New York Times sounds like The Daily Worker. :-0
<blockquote>They had come from very different neighborhoods and backgrounds, but they were all there for the same reason: to buy government-subsidized food.
The line ran from the basement up the stairs and out the door.
Inside, sugar and rice were selling for about one-fifth of the retail price, a huge savings in a country where according to an opposition economist more than a quarter of the people live below the poverty line - which is defined as a family of five with an income of less than $278 a month.
"I cannot make ends meet," said Hossein Ganji, 49, who works behind a counter in the food distribution center. Mr. Ganji supports his wife and three children on about $150 a month.
"I am the only person that works in my family," he said. "All the others are unemployed."
This distribution center in a crowded basement in southern Tehran and many others like it around the country represent the kind of government assistance that many people here want more of - and that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised to provide in his successful campaign to become the next president of Iran.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, who catapulted to president-elect from near obscurity as the appointed mayor of Tehran, campaigned on a populist message, promising to redistribute the nation's wealth, hold down prices, raise salaries and lift state-supported benefits for the poor. He infused those pledges with the theme of social justice, which resonated in a society where aiding the poor is considered an obligation for the faithful.
His message came at the right time. In 1997 and again in 2001, voters focused their political will on social and democratic freedoms in electing Mohammad Khatami to the presidency. But his promised reforms were hardly carried out, and in the election last week voters appeared to have shifted focus to their pocketbooks. One candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of Parliament, just missed making it to the runoff election for president after promising to pay each family the equivalent of $60 a month if elected.
Average salaries run about $200 a month in Iran, with a salary of $300 to $500 considered generous. But costs are fast outstripping the ability to pay - government figures put annual inflation at about 15 percent, though on some products, merchants say prices rise far faster than that.
In a food store in central Tehran, the owner, Reza Karimi, said pomegranate paste had doubled in price to nearly $2; a bottle of olive oil rose to about $4 from $3, and in the last three months a little more than a pound of rice climbed to $1.80 from $1.30.
The price of dairy products sold by a state-owned company jumped 17 percent on Wednesday alone, he said. "The prices will jump again next month," he said. "And when one company raises their prices, they all do."
Khodabaksh Jalili, 30, is typical of many people in southern Tehran who supported Mr. Ahmadinejad. He moved to the city from Asadabad, a village 200 miles west of Tehran, when the farm that had supported his family for generations failed because of drought and a shortage of supplies, he said.
He has a wife and two children and earns about $200 a month working in a food store. His rent is $50 a month, and he makes extra money on his day off ferrying passengers on his scooter. If he is lucky, he said, he takes in another $20 a month.
"I have very little," he said. "I am married eight years. I have never been to the cinema with my children."
Iran is awash in oil money, as the price of crude topped $60 a barrel this week, pumping billions into the government treasury. But this country's economy is still tied down by a system in which the state and a shadowy collection of foundations controlled by clerics monopolize the vast bulk of its industries, including oil.
With all that money effectively locked up and a state budget weighed down by subsidies, there is little to spur the kind of private sector growth and development that would help provide someone like Mr. Jalili with a job that could support a family.
Past presidents have tried to move the economy away from its dependence on oil revenue and to open Iran to investment, but they have been thwarted by more conservative powers intent on preserving the vestiges of a welfare state.
The clerics - who control vast wealth and power through the foundations, known as bonyads - are also unwilling to give that up, and they answer to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not to elected officials, limiting what any president can do.
The bonyads, which were set up after the 1979 revolution to control assets held by the former shah's family and associates, were to operate as nonprofit organizations dedicated to aiding the poor. Since then, they have amassed great wealth and now control a large swath of the nation's economy.
Though there has been some progress in the past eight years in opening the country to foreign investment, economists say the inability to change the fundamental structure of the economy has allowed unemployment and poverty to climb.
Rahim Oskui, who described himself as an opposition economist working for the Industrial Management Institute, a quasi-governmental agency, said the official figures of 10 percent unemployment and 27 percent living in poverty were most likely understated.
"It is very natural, that when a candidate comes chanting slogans of justice and welfare, which belong to 400 years ago, this population will follow along," Mr. Oskui said.
Iran is a country still making the transition from a village-based agricultural economy to a more industrial economy, he said, with both controlled by the government and the foundations. That change has created a political force of millions who have left their homes and social support networks in villages and towns in search of work in big cities, only to find themselves poor and disenfranchised, Mr. Oskui said.
"They are looking for a source that can help them out," he said.
Hamid Shahrabi, 31, is the kind of person Mr. Oskui was talking about. Because of Mr. Ahmadinejad's economic message, he said, he got involved in politics for the first time. "I never voted in a presidential election before," Mr. Shahrabi said. "This guy put his hand on the Koran and said he would work for poor people - so I worked for him and voted for him."
Mr. Shahrabi lives with his wife, Azam, 30, and two small children in a one-room apartment in southeastern Tehran. There is no furniture in the living room, just a carpet on the concrete floor, a few pillows along the walls and a small television on a stand. They turned a walk-in closet into a separate bedroom, where their 12-year-old daughter sleeps and where they keep their bed cushions during the day. On any given day, the family's refrigerator is almost empty, but for a pot of traditional Iranian stew - a mix of rice, meat and vegetables - three-day-old bread and some tomatoes. They survive on their government rations.
Mr. Shahrabi moved to the city from Arak, a province in central Iran, when he was 15 years old, following his brothers in search of work when the family farm was no longer making enough money. He found a job with a state-owned oil company, which he kept until he was laid off four years ago. He has not found work since, and rides around the city on his battered motor scooter making deliveries and carrying passengers for about $5 a day. Of that he has to set aside $3 a day for rent.
"I feel really ashamed in front of my family," Mr. Shahrabi said, without a trace of self-pity. "My doctor said I need to feed my daughter better. I cannot afford to buy my wife new dresses. My son always feels dizzy. The landlord has asked me to find another place to live."
The Ahmadinejad campaign message of economic hope - as well as social justice - captured the hearts not only of people like Mr. Shahrabi but also of middle-class families. Parts of the middle class have trouble meeting their own financial needs, although their support for Mr. Ahmadinejad also stems from having grown used to buying subsidized food, even if they can afford to pay market prices.
At the distribution center in southern Tehran, Mohammed Javad Moradli, 50, said he backed Mr. Ahmadinejad because he was a religious man. His wife, Fatimeh Ghadani, 47, wrapped in a chador, nudged his arm. "It's also about the economy," she said. "We don't want slogans. We want deeds." (Michael Slackman, "For the Poor in Iran, Voting Was About Making Ends Meet," The New York Times, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/international/middleeast/03iran.html">3 Jul. 2005)</blockquote>
>[lbo-talk] The Bradich 10 Point Plan
>Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
>Sat Jul 2 13:29:29 PDT 2005
<snip>
>Michael Perelman wrote:
>
>>What makes Murdoch a genius? If he is then I am. Give me enough
>>money. I will curry favor with the most powerful forces & cater to
>>the lowest popular tastes.
>
>Sorry, Michael, you're no Rupert Murdoch. It's not just money.
>Compare the NY Daily News with the Post - they're not in the same
>universe. What do you think would happen to The Sun's circulation if
>you became its editor? You think it's easy to "cater to the lowest
>popular tastes"? You think that's all it takes?
Were Michael Perelman Iranian or Venezuelan, he could get elected, just being his plain self in his plain clothes, for the populace in Iran and Venezuela are better at voting their pocketbook (or the elite are less adept at blocking them) than in America. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>