Here's my wish list for 2012.
1. For you, dear readers, health, and love and harmony with all your family and friends.
2. A major breakthrough in cancer treatment.
3. A big drop in the unemployment rate.
4. A serious reduction in the number of wars going on in the world.
5. Continued progress in human freedom.
6. The end of the rule of many more tyrants.
7. The growth of a greater spirit of tolerance in world societies, based on the concepts of letting other people believe what they want and be who they are.
8. A global change of heart on the issue of women's equality, especially in those societies that treat women the most oppressively.
9. Continued reduction in the crime rate.
10. Politics that puts human needs before ideology or the demands of moneyed interests.
11. A real international commitment to end the scourges of hunger, disease and pollution.
12. A spiritual awakening of the kind that will increase human happiness and contribute to the realization of the rest of the wishes listed here.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Misbegotten Iraq War Ends
After eight years and nine months America is finally out of the Iraq War. The last convoy of 110 heavily-armored vehicles and some 500 soldiers, churning through the desert under a heavy umbrella of attack helicopters and fighter jets, crossed the Kuwait border in the predawn dark yesterday. After nearly nine years of trying to pacify the country and win hearts and minds, that description of the exit probably tells us all we need to know about the extent of our success.
We have all heard of the human cost, including 4,487 American dead and 32,226 wounded, (90% of the total coalition losses), and between 103,000 and 159,000 Iraqi deaths. In addition to this is the direct monetary cost of $802 billion, with the indirect costs perhaps bringing the total as high as $3 trillion over the years, considering such factors as 20% of the wounded have brain or spinal injuries or that 30% of the 1 million U.S. troops who served there have manifested serious mental health issues. These are the kinds of costs that never seem to get factored into a decision to go to war, and that will endure and have to be paid for over a span of decades.
Just as important as these considerations, though, are the questions raised by this misbegotten adventure that Americans now say was a mistake by an overwhelming margin. The United States for the first time initiated a war-attacking and invading a country-that had not attacked the U.S. or its allies first. The American government at least exaggerated and arguably even manufactured the evidence justifying the war. The decision for war appears to have been determined by the principals in the Bush Administration even before it took office based on ideological presuppositions, and was not spelled out to the voting public as a likely policy of the candidate upon which the electorate could in part base its election decision. The press failed in its duty to investigate the facts and properly inform the American people about the veracity of the claims being made. Instead, much of it allowed itself to be cowed into silence or support by political pressure. The estimates of the human and monetary costs of the war, its duration, and the reaction of the Iraqi people were all absurdly misrepresented by the top officials of the U.S. government and its spokespeople. And the legislative branch cooperated in eviscerating fundamental Constitutional liberties that have yet to be fully restored.
All these factors are crucial, because although they have at this point at long last achieved widespread acknowledgement by the American people, there is every reason to question whether or not the nation has learned a lesson that will last into the future. Now that the national firewall against aggressive war has been breached, will a recurrence become less likely or more? Now that an Administration has demonstrated the ease with which supposition and fear can be exploited to dupe and stampede the institutions of democracy and the American people into rash action, will this provide a cautionary check against or a road map for new abuses? If the latter, then the thousands of fallen will truly have died in vain.
We have all heard of the human cost, including 4,487 American dead and 32,226 wounded, (90% of the total coalition losses), and between 103,000 and 159,000 Iraqi deaths. In addition to this is the direct monetary cost of $802 billion, with the indirect costs perhaps bringing the total as high as $3 trillion over the years, considering such factors as 20% of the wounded have brain or spinal injuries or that 30% of the 1 million U.S. troops who served there have manifested serious mental health issues. These are the kinds of costs that never seem to get factored into a decision to go to war, and that will endure and have to be paid for over a span of decades.
Just as important as these considerations, though, are the questions raised by this misbegotten adventure that Americans now say was a mistake by an overwhelming margin. The United States for the first time initiated a war-attacking and invading a country-that had not attacked the U.S. or its allies first. The American government at least exaggerated and arguably even manufactured the evidence justifying the war. The decision for war appears to have been determined by the principals in the Bush Administration even before it took office based on ideological presuppositions, and was not spelled out to the voting public as a likely policy of the candidate upon which the electorate could in part base its election decision. The press failed in its duty to investigate the facts and properly inform the American people about the veracity of the claims being made. Instead, much of it allowed itself to be cowed into silence or support by political pressure. The estimates of the human and monetary costs of the war, its duration, and the reaction of the Iraqi people were all absurdly misrepresented by the top officials of the U.S. government and its spokespeople. And the legislative branch cooperated in eviscerating fundamental Constitutional liberties that have yet to be fully restored.
All these factors are crucial, because although they have at this point at long last achieved widespread acknowledgement by the American people, there is every reason to question whether or not the nation has learned a lesson that will last into the future. Now that the national firewall against aggressive war has been breached, will a recurrence become less likely or more? Now that an Administration has demonstrated the ease with which supposition and fear can be exploited to dupe and stampede the institutions of democracy and the American people into rash action, will this provide a cautionary check against or a road map for new abuses? If the latter, then the thousands of fallen will truly have died in vain.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Republican Field: Can Any of Them Win?
Saturday night six Republican hopefuls met in Des Moines for their latest debate. You can read the full transcript here. There will likely be only one more such encounter before the Iowa caucuses, the first official test of strength in the nomination process, are held on January 3, 2012.
Newt Gingrich, as the new front runner in the polls, came under attack from his fellow competitors, as did Mitt Romney. See polling data here. Though he lied several times to obfuscate his former record of support for such measures as climate cap and trade and an individual mandate to buy health care, and drew belly laughs trying to explain his eight-figure K Street lobbying haul as simple "private sector free enterprise," most observers felt Gingrich held his own well enough to retain his late momentum toward victory in Iowa. See the Fact Check report on instances of untruthfulness in the debate here. Suffice it to say this field did not win any awards for accuracy last night.
What stands out more than anything at this time are the glaring deficiencies of all the remaining Republican candidates. One-time front runners Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, along with Rick Santorum, have sought to appeal to the conservative Evangelical Christian vote. Yet Bachmann's and Perry's stumbles have evaporated their following, while Santorum has yet to be able to generate any. None of these three gives evidence of being ready to assume the office they seek.
Jon Huntsman, a fellow who tries to talk sense, suffers the handicap in the Republican electorate of being a former appointee of the Obama Administration as Ambassador to China. Though he is actually quite conservative, the former Utah governor also suffers from sounding far too reasonable when GOP primary voters are howling for red meat rhetoric. Huntsman also gets stuck with being identified as the second-fiddle "other Mormon" in the field behind Mitt Romney.
That leaves the two current leaders, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Romney's Achilles' heel is certainly his reputation as a serial flip-flopper. Gingrich and the others have zeroed in on this, and were he to win the nomination you can rest assured the Obama campaign would have a field day on this score. He is competent to be president, but comes across as rather a patrician wimp, strangely reminiscent of the forty-first president, George H. W. Bush. He might be the most electable general election candidate in the GOP primary field, but he is viewed as too moderate by the typical Republican primary voter.
Newt Gingrich assuredly knows enough to be president, and now has a sizable lead among likely GOP voters in all the national polls. Yet he too has major weaknesses. He has reversed course on the issues perhaps even more than Romney, if that is possible. He is mean and shoots from the hip like a talk radio pundit, making outrageous statements often at odds with reality. His ethics lapses are the stuff of legend. And Gingrich has made over $100 million as a K Street Washington lobbyist for firms the Tea Party excoriates for "crony capitalism." This has all come after he was drummed out of the House Speakership and fined $300,000 by an ethics committee run by his own party in 1998. As Joan Walsh of Salon writes of Newt, "even his baggage has baggage."
Though President Obama should be regarded as vulnerable given the slow recovery of the economy, this field of GOP challengers will be challenged indeed to beat him come next November. And their biggest obstacles might well be themselves.
Newt Gingrich, as the new front runner in the polls, came under attack from his fellow competitors, as did Mitt Romney. See polling data here. Though he lied several times to obfuscate his former record of support for such measures as climate cap and trade and an individual mandate to buy health care, and drew belly laughs trying to explain his eight-figure K Street lobbying haul as simple "private sector free enterprise," most observers felt Gingrich held his own well enough to retain his late momentum toward victory in Iowa. See the Fact Check report on instances of untruthfulness in the debate here. Suffice it to say this field did not win any awards for accuracy last night.
What stands out more than anything at this time are the glaring deficiencies of all the remaining Republican candidates. One-time front runners Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, along with Rick Santorum, have sought to appeal to the conservative Evangelical Christian vote. Yet Bachmann's and Perry's stumbles have evaporated their following, while Santorum has yet to be able to generate any. None of these three gives evidence of being ready to assume the office they seek.
Jon Huntsman, a fellow who tries to talk sense, suffers the handicap in the Republican electorate of being a former appointee of the Obama Administration as Ambassador to China. Though he is actually quite conservative, the former Utah governor also suffers from sounding far too reasonable when GOP primary voters are howling for red meat rhetoric. Huntsman also gets stuck with being identified as the second-fiddle "other Mormon" in the field behind Mitt Romney.
That leaves the two current leaders, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Romney's Achilles' heel is certainly his reputation as a serial flip-flopper. Gingrich and the others have zeroed in on this, and were he to win the nomination you can rest assured the Obama campaign would have a field day on this score. He is competent to be president, but comes across as rather a patrician wimp, strangely reminiscent of the forty-first president, George H. W. Bush. He might be the most electable general election candidate in the GOP primary field, but he is viewed as too moderate by the typical Republican primary voter.
Newt Gingrich assuredly knows enough to be president, and now has a sizable lead among likely GOP voters in all the national polls. Yet he too has major weaknesses. He has reversed course on the issues perhaps even more than Romney, if that is possible. He is mean and shoots from the hip like a talk radio pundit, making outrageous statements often at odds with reality. His ethics lapses are the stuff of legend. And Gingrich has made over $100 million as a K Street Washington lobbyist for firms the Tea Party excoriates for "crony capitalism." This has all come after he was drummed out of the House Speakership and fined $300,000 by an ethics committee run by his own party in 1998. As Joan Walsh of Salon writes of Newt, "even his baggage has baggage."
Though President Obama should be regarded as vulnerable given the slow recovery of the economy, this field of GOP challengers will be challenged indeed to beat him come next November. And their biggest obstacles might well be themselves.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Montanans Vote to Abolish Corporate Personhood
Missoula is the second largest city in Montana and home to the University of Montana. According to the 2010 census, the county seat of Missoula County is home to 66,788 people in the city limits, with a total of 109,299 if you count the "Missoula Metropolitan Area." (Click here to go to Missoula's official website.) Situated at 3,209 feet and located at the conjunction of five mountain ranges, Missoula is also called the "Hub of Five Valleys" and even the "Garden City" for its relatively mild climate. Founded in 1860 as a wagon trail trading post, Missoula shares an independent streak with most Big Sky state residents and indeed, with most Westerners in general. Thus, a recent ballot referendum there really caught my eye.
In the November 8, 2011 municipal election the good citizens there voted almost three to one to declare that a corporation does not have the same rights as a human being. According to the Office of Elections, the vote was 10,729 to 3,605, or 74.85% to 25.15%. City Councilwoman Cynthia Wolken placed the referendum before the council in August, reporting that her constituents had an "overwhelming sense of despair about government." As she was knocking on doors, people kept expressing their view that, "A lot of people feel that what they say doesn't matter, because somebody with more money will come along and drown out their voices." They were particularly resentful of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which declared corporations have free speech rights and the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money without attribution for political purposes. Read the Missoulian newspaper article on it here.
The corporate personhood resolution builds its case with declarations of principle such as:
A group called the Move to Amend Coalition is attempting to spread this message and movement across the country. Click on this link to go to their site.
In the November 8, 2011 municipal election the good citizens there voted almost three to one to declare that a corporation does not have the same rights as a human being. According to the Office of Elections, the vote was 10,729 to 3,605, or 74.85% to 25.15%. City Councilwoman Cynthia Wolken placed the referendum before the council in August, reporting that her constituents had an "overwhelming sense of despair about government." As she was knocking on doors, people kept expressing their view that, "A lot of people feel that what they say doesn't matter, because somebody with more money will come along and drown out their voices." They were particularly resentful of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which declared corporations have free speech rights and the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money without attribution for political purposes. Read the Missoulian newspaper article on it here.
The corporate personhood resolution builds its case with declarations of principle such as:
WHEREAS, corporations are not and have never been human beings, and therefore are rightfully subservient to human beings and governments as our legal creations, ...and:
WHEREAS, the recent Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision that rolled back the legal limits on corporate spending in the electoral process creates an unequal playing field and allows unlimited corporate spending to influence elections, candidate selection, policy decisions and sway votes, and forces elected officials to divert their attention from The Peoples’ business, or even vote against the interest of their human constituents, in order to raise competitive campaign funds for their own re-election, ...It concludes with a call for action:
"The citizens of Missoula, Montana, hereby urge the Montana State Legislature and United States Congress to amend the United States Constitution to clearly state thatClick here to read the entire text of the Missoula corporate personhood resolution.
corporations are not human beings and do not have the same rights as citizens."
A group called the Move to Amend Coalition is attempting to spread this message and movement across the country. Click on this link to go to their site.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
OWS Gains Momentum
The Occupy Wall Street Movement really seems to be gathering momentum now. Breaking up encampments in New York, Oakland, Portland and Fresno appears to have had the unintended effect of dispersing and multiplying new demonstrations rather than stopping them. Though the encampments, marches and demonstrations continue to remain remarkably peaceful, authorities appear to be getting more and more worried and eager to quash the movement. Remarkably, there have been 4,400 arrests as of Thursday, November 17 nationally against Occupy Movement protesters. That is already 400 more than were arrested by the government of Iran during the protests against the fraudulent elections there in 2009!
Last Friday's outrageous pepper spraying of peacefully demonstrating students at the University of California at Davis was the latest impingement on the First Amendment rights of citizens to peaceably assemble and exercise freedom of speech. To read about the incident and watch a video of it, click here.
The movement is gaining strength because its message resonates. First, Wall Street brokers and investment banks got bailed out when their casino securitization schemes came crashing down. With this in hand they turned around and showered themselves with billions of dollars in bonuses. Then, instead of turning to job creation, Congress concentrated on debt reduction, even bringing the U.S. to the brink of fiscal default. Instead of offering real help to homeowners in danger of foreclosure, the Bush tax breaks of the wealthiest 1% were protected. Across the country, instead of asking the haves to contribute to society at the levels they used to, students have been socked with an 81% increase in tuition in recent years, with the prospect of 16% a year more for the next four years.
The pattern is clear. The wealthy pay a 15% tax rate on capital gains while wage and salaried labor pays 25 to 35%. Corporations are allowed to park income in the Cayman Islands to hide it from accountability. Oil companies, big agribusinesses and corporate jet owners receive subsidies while regular folks are told to expect their Social Security and Medicare to be cut and their children's class sizes to go up. Big interests with their campaign cash and their 17,000 Washington lobbyists have gamed the system to help the rich get richer while gutting everything that helps sustain the middle class. Fantastically, now it is the middle class's money which is going to support plutocrats.
The Occupy message in response to is equally clear: this class warfare of the top against everyone else is destroying opportunity in the country and must be reversed. By uniting the vast majority to vote their interests they challenge the comfy arrangements that have grown up over time and threaten to restore some of the social mobility and the safety net that has been so shredded since the inception of the failed trickle-down ideology in the 1980s.
Last Friday's outrageous pepper spraying of peacefully demonstrating students at the University of California at Davis was the latest impingement on the First Amendment rights of citizens to peaceably assemble and exercise freedom of speech. To read about the incident and watch a video of it, click here.
The movement is gaining strength because its message resonates. First, Wall Street brokers and investment banks got bailed out when their casino securitization schemes came crashing down. With this in hand they turned around and showered themselves with billions of dollars in bonuses. Then, instead of turning to job creation, Congress concentrated on debt reduction, even bringing the U.S. to the brink of fiscal default. Instead of offering real help to homeowners in danger of foreclosure, the Bush tax breaks of the wealthiest 1% were protected. Across the country, instead of asking the haves to contribute to society at the levels they used to, students have been socked with an 81% increase in tuition in recent years, with the prospect of 16% a year more for the next four years.
The pattern is clear. The wealthy pay a 15% tax rate on capital gains while wage and salaried labor pays 25 to 35%. Corporations are allowed to park income in the Cayman Islands to hide it from accountability. Oil companies, big agribusinesses and corporate jet owners receive subsidies while regular folks are told to expect their Social Security and Medicare to be cut and their children's class sizes to go up. Big interests with their campaign cash and their 17,000 Washington lobbyists have gamed the system to help the rich get richer while gutting everything that helps sustain the middle class. Fantastically, now it is the middle class's money which is going to support plutocrats.
The Occupy message in response to is equally clear: this class warfare of the top against everyone else is destroying opportunity in the country and must be reversed. By uniting the vast majority to vote their interests they challenge the comfy arrangements that have grown up over time and threaten to restore some of the social mobility and the safety net that has been so shredded since the inception of the failed trickle-down ideology in the 1980s.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Legalized Bribery Continues
Sunday night CBS News ran a feature on 60 Minutes that every American should watch. You really have to see it to believe it. Called The Lobbyist's Playbook, it features Leslie Stahl interviewing convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is out of prison now and telling it like it was. Not only does Abramoff fess up to his own corrupt misdeeds, he makes it clear he feels that despite some tighter laws being passed as a result of his scandal, little has truly changed in the influence peddling game.
In the piece, Abramoff claims to have had strong influence over 100 Washington legislators. One particularly effective technique he used was to tell congressional staffers he would have a job waiting for them after they were through with the government service, often at triple the salary. They would then become amenable to slipping items into bills that would benefit the clients Abramoff represented.
The 60 Minutes segment also includes Stahl interviewing former congressman Bob Ney, the only lawmaker convicted in the Abramoff scandal. Ney is similarly frank about his own corrupt doings. Despite the disgusting nature of how they operated, it's refreshing to see some honesty from inside participants about how the game is often played. Abramoff also talks about legal dodges around attempts to rein in the industry.
The bottom line is that so long as politicians need large quantities of cash to run campaigns, and so long as they have to get it from private sources, interests with business before the government will find ways to get it to them in exchange for the favors and special treatment they desire. The system is in itself tantamount to legalized bribery.
To see the 60 Minutes segment click here. To see my earlier post including suggestions on reforming this travesty, click here.
In the piece, Abramoff claims to have had strong influence over 100 Washington legislators. One particularly effective technique he used was to tell congressional staffers he would have a job waiting for them after they were through with the government service, often at triple the salary. They would then become amenable to slipping items into bills that would benefit the clients Abramoff represented.
The 60 Minutes segment also includes Stahl interviewing former congressman Bob Ney, the only lawmaker convicted in the Abramoff scandal. Ney is similarly frank about his own corrupt doings. Despite the disgusting nature of how they operated, it's refreshing to see some honesty from inside participants about how the game is often played. Abramoff also talks about legal dodges around attempts to rein in the industry.
The bottom line is that so long as politicians need large quantities of cash to run campaigns, and so long as they have to get it from private sources, interests with business before the government will find ways to get it to them in exchange for the favors and special treatment they desire. The system is in itself tantamount to legalized bribery.
To see the 60 Minutes segment click here. To see my earlier post including suggestions on reforming this travesty, click here.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Changes National Conversation
An amazing transformation in the national conversation has taken place over the past six weeks, thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement. What people are talking about has moved off cuts, layoffs and deficit reduction. It is now focused on jobs and inequity, the inequity of a system that watches out for the interests of millionaires, billionaires and corporate giants and neglects the needs of the overwhelming majority of middle and working class Americans.
This change has resulted in a spate of attention to stories about how income inequality has risen since the introduction of trickle-down theory thirty years ago. Click here to see the chart based on Congressional Budget Office statistics showing a 275% gain in income for the top 1% compared to the nearly flat performance for other income levels. It's noteworthy that the link in this paragraph is not from a liberal source, but from the staid Economist magazine's site.
What began in New York's Zucotti Park September 17 has spread nationwide and even internationally. You can get reports from a wide range of "Occupy" goings on in Richmond, Nashville, Portland, Oakland, and from London to Cairo's Tahrir Square here. There have even been a couple of Occupy marches here in Visalia.
The reaction against those with the money and clout to hire an army of lobbyists, bankroll anonymous political action committees and skew legislation and the tax code to their special advantage is widespread across the political spectrum. It is worth noting that before it was co-opted by the Republican Party, even the Tea Party movement was originally set off by the bank bailout.
Remarks by figures such as House Minority Leader Eric Cantor that the movement is motivated by "hatred" or is "pro-Communism" show how poorly some understand the ideals at work here. What spawns the perspective that children should have decent public schools or senior citizens a dignified retirement is hardly hatred. The notion that banks and brokerages should be careful with their depositers' money and cover their own losses is hardly antithetical to the principles of real free enterprise.
Whether Occupy Wall Street has legs will be determined by its staying power and its ability to crystallize and lead opinion. Its basic premise: that ever-lower taxes for plutocrats and corporate giants should not come at the expense of basic human services, retirement security, and jobs for the rest of the population is one that has struck a chord and ought to resonate in these times. We could be in for a wild ride.
This change has resulted in a spate of attention to stories about how income inequality has risen since the introduction of trickle-down theory thirty years ago. Click here to see the chart based on Congressional Budget Office statistics showing a 275% gain in income for the top 1% compared to the nearly flat performance for other income levels. It's noteworthy that the link in this paragraph is not from a liberal source, but from the staid Economist magazine's site.
What began in New York's Zucotti Park September 17 has spread nationwide and even internationally. You can get reports from a wide range of "Occupy" goings on in Richmond, Nashville, Portland, Oakland, and from London to Cairo's Tahrir Square here. There have even been a couple of Occupy marches here in Visalia.
The reaction against those with the money and clout to hire an army of lobbyists, bankroll anonymous political action committees and skew legislation and the tax code to their special advantage is widespread across the political spectrum. It is worth noting that before it was co-opted by the Republican Party, even the Tea Party movement was originally set off by the bank bailout.
Remarks by figures such as House Minority Leader Eric Cantor that the movement is motivated by "hatred" or is "pro-Communism" show how poorly some understand the ideals at work here. What spawns the perspective that children should have decent public schools or senior citizens a dignified retirement is hardly hatred. The notion that banks and brokerages should be careful with their depositers' money and cover their own losses is hardly antithetical to the principles of real free enterprise.
Whether Occupy Wall Street has legs will be determined by its staying power and its ability to crystallize and lead opinion. Its basic premise: that ever-lower taxes for plutocrats and corporate giants should not come at the expense of basic human services, retirement security, and jobs for the rest of the population is one that has struck a chord and ought to resonate in these times. We could be in for a wild ride.
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