Politics
Does "States' Rights" Mean Mississippi Loses the Federal Gravy?
Aug 31, 2011 17:57
Robert Reich, former secretary of labor, points out that if Rick Perry has his way with the federal budget, the blue states will no longer have to support the red states. Think about that. Mississippi receives $2.02 from the federal government for every dollar it pays to Washington in taxes. Louisiana gets $1.78, Alabama $1.66, and Oklahoma $1.36.
The large blue states, on the other hand, are actually supporting the red states: California gets back 78 cents for every dollar it pays to Washington, New York 79 cents, and Massachusetts 82 cents.
My own state, Mississippi, the biggest freeloader of all, seems to be one of the most eager to balance the budget with painful benefit cuts to the less-fortunate, and at the rate we are going down that path, we may just get what we think we want.
Go on and bite the hand!
But read this first:
Robert Reich: Rick Perry's Secret Plan to Save Blue States from the Red States
The large blue states, on the other hand, are actually supporting the red states: California gets back 78 cents for every dollar it pays to Washington, New York 79 cents, and Massachusetts 82 cents.
My own state, Mississippi, the biggest freeloader of all, seems to be one of the most eager to balance the budget with painful benefit cuts to the less-fortunate, and at the rate we are going down that path, we may just get what we think we want.
Go on and bite the hand!
But read this first:
Robert Reich: Rick Perry's Secret Plan to Save Blue States from the Red States
Comments
Issa Subpoenas Internal NLRB Documents in the Middle of Litigation
Aug 11, 2011 10:24
According to In These Times, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has issued a subpoena to the National Labor Relations Board for internal Commission documents dealing with its ongoing action against Boeing. A subpoena issued in the middle of litigation for materials that the judge denied to Boeing clearly constitutes an interference in the commission’s work, as it would reveal the government’s legal strategy in an ongoing case.
Could it be that Issa wants to make sure that Boeing has access to materials that the judge denied it? Imagine the howl that would have arisen if the committee had subpoenaed documents revealing Boeing’s legal strategy. Apparently these modern Republicans will stop at nothing to get their way, which in this case means crushing a labor union. Boeing recently moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago, a great way to get some distance from the workers that actually make the planes.
Ironically, Issa will be forced to duel with the NLRB over a subpoena after the Bush administration’s precedent of refusing to obey inconvenient subpoenas from committees of the previous Democratically-controlled Congress. Is there a distinction between Democratic and Republican-controlled committees such that only subpoenas from the latter need be obeyed?
Issa Subpoenas NLRB, Solomon Could Face Contempt of Congress Charges
Could it be that Issa wants to make sure that Boeing has access to materials that the judge denied it? Imagine the howl that would have arisen if the committee had subpoenaed documents revealing Boeing’s legal strategy. Apparently these modern Republicans will stop at nothing to get their way, which in this case means crushing a labor union. Boeing recently moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago, a great way to get some distance from the workers that actually make the planes.
Ironically, Issa will be forced to duel with the NLRB over a subpoena after the Bush administration’s precedent of refusing to obey inconvenient subpoenas from committees of the previous Democratically-controlled Congress. Is there a distinction between Democratic and Republican-controlled committees such that only subpoenas from the latter need be obeyed?
Issa Subpoenas NLRB, Solomon Could Face Contempt of Congress Charges
Why Manufacturing is Important
Aug 11, 2011 08:49
As you probably know, Mississippi was home to many, many factories, spread out all over the state, most of which we lost to Mexico and parts further south and east about 20 to 25 years ago. Even the non-union wages that most factory workers earned were better than the what they previously earned working on a farm or in convenience stores.
Those jobs disappeared as a result of a high dollar and international trade agreements, like NAFTA. We are poorer because of it in more ways than one.
Economist Dani Rodrick, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, explains why manufacturing is important:
As I have mentioned before, we cannot indefinitely buy manufactured goods from China in exchange for government bonds. We need to be manufacturing goods and selling them at a profit, not pushing money and property around, grabbing a piece each time it passes by, which is basically how the financial system makes money.
Renewing our manufacturing sector will require tax, monetary and fiscal policies that reward manufacturing and discourage the financier and rentier. Today, the incentives run the opposite way and thus encourage highly destructive behavior.
Those jobs disappeared as a result of a high dollar and international trade agreements, like NAFTA. We are poorer because of it in more ways than one.
Economist Dani Rodrick, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, explains why manufacturing is important:
Dani Rodrik: The Manufacturing ImperativeIndeed, the manufacturing sector is also where the world’s middle classes take shape and grow. Without a vibrant manufacturing base, societies tend to divide between rich and poor – those who have access to steady, well-paying jobs, and those whose jobs are less secure and lives more precarious. Manufacturing may ultimately be central to the vigor of a nation’s democracy.
As I have mentioned before, we cannot indefinitely buy manufactured goods from China in exchange for government bonds. We need to be manufacturing goods and selling them at a profit, not pushing money and property around, grabbing a piece each time it passes by, which is basically how the financial system makes money.
Renewing our manufacturing sector will require tax, monetary and fiscal policies that reward manufacturing and discourage the financier and rentier. Today, the incentives run the opposite way and thus encourage highly destructive behavior.
Riots in Britain - Could it Happen Here?
Aug 10, 2011 12:14
Britain is in deep trouble, with riots in numerous major cities and the police helpless to put a stop to it. Ugly as the details of the riots and the reprehensibility of the rioters' behavior might be, the causes are not difficult to ascertain: a large, growing, and increasingly oppressed underclass from which all hope has been extinguished.
When enough people have nothing whatever to lose by barbaric behavior and the prospect of temporary gain, we should expect barbaric behavior.
Is this complicated?
Here's what British blogger Peggy Red writes (via alternet.org):
It's not a coincidence that the vast shift in wealth and income from the lower and middle classes to the wealthy in the United States, beginning with Reagan, was accompanied by the militarization of the police, the dismantling of the Bill of Rights (justified by the war on drugs and then the war on terror), the gutting of the social safety net, the destruction of our unionized industrial base by a deliberate policy of overvaluing the dollar on the international exchanges, and the relentless underfunding of public education from infancy through graduate school. This was all intentional. Margaret Thatcher’s neo-conservative austerity (for the middle and lower classes) happened more quickly, hence more obviously.
The insane but absolute logic of movement conservatism, given its reptilian premises, virtually mandates a political and economic downward spiral for everyone but a tiny and fabulously wealthy minority, along with their political enablers, apologists and enforcers.
And it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how this can be averted. The momentum is powerful and the will to fight back is weak to nonexistent. The middle class of this nation is voting itself into extinction.
More insight:
Nina Power: As London Explodes in Riots, There Is a Context That Can't Be Ignored: Brutal Cuts and Enforced Austerity Measures
William Bowles: Riots in Britain: Back to the Future
Ilona Catherine Burton: Manchester Riots
Michael McCarthy: No shame, no limits: Has the behaviour of the mob destroyed the idea of British civility for ever?
Update 8/11/2011:
Michelle Chen: Police and Thieves: Making Sense of the English Riots (via alternet.org)
Emily Manuel: Why Riot and Not Revolt in London?
When enough people have nothing whatever to lose by barbaric behavior and the prospect of temporary gain, we should expect barbaric behavior.
Is this complicated?
Here's what British blogger Peggy Red writes (via alternet.org):
Panic on the streets of LondonNo one expected this. The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays to a country in flames did not anticipate this. The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong. And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain’t Twitter.
It's not a coincidence that the vast shift in wealth and income from the lower and middle classes to the wealthy in the United States, beginning with Reagan, was accompanied by the militarization of the police, the dismantling of the Bill of Rights (justified by the war on drugs and then the war on terror), the gutting of the social safety net, the destruction of our unionized industrial base by a deliberate policy of overvaluing the dollar on the international exchanges, and the relentless underfunding of public education from infancy through graduate school. This was all intentional. Margaret Thatcher’s neo-conservative austerity (for the middle and lower classes) happened more quickly, hence more obviously.
The insane but absolute logic of movement conservatism, given its reptilian premises, virtually mandates a political and economic downward spiral for everyone but a tiny and fabulously wealthy minority, along with their political enablers, apologists and enforcers.
And it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how this can be averted. The momentum is powerful and the will to fight back is weak to nonexistent. The middle class of this nation is voting itself into extinction.
More insight:
Nina Power: As London Explodes in Riots, There Is a Context That Can't Be Ignored: Brutal Cuts and Enforced Austerity Measures
William Bowles: Riots in Britain: Back to the Future
Ilona Catherine Burton: Manchester Riots
Michael McCarthy: No shame, no limits: Has the behaviour of the mob destroyed the idea of British civility for ever?
Update 8/11/2011:
Michelle Chen: Police and Thieves: Making Sense of the English Riots (via alternet.org)
Emily Manuel: Why Riot and Not Revolt in London?
Riots are what happens when people—almost always young men—stop believing in their communities, in their country, in their rights as a citizen. Riots are what happens when whole groups are treated as potential or actual criminals by the police. Riots happen when anger, resentment, testosterone and yes, consumerist desire are greater than civic pride or fear of the police, when the facade of power finally cracks and people realise they outnumber the forces of order. And mostly particularly, riots are what happens when people despair, when there appears to be few options in the present and none in the future, and no way to fix the situation.
A Sobering Summary of the American Condition
Aug 09, 2011 10:53
When politicians talk about “making hard choices,” they invariably mean that the most vulnerable members of our society—the disabled, the uneducated, the young and the elderly—are due for another “sacrifice,” so that the rentier class can increase its share of the wealth and income of this nation. Hard choices never seem to involve sacrifice by the tenth of a percent of the population that owns 40% of this nation’s wealth. Quite the contrary, they usually profit from hard choices.
On the blog Balkinization, Frank Pasquale paints a bleak picture of our prospects:
It’s an ugly picture.
And we (particularly those of us here in Mississippi) are in denial—deep, deep denial—and our elected officials are doing the very things guaranteed to make it worse.
Read the blog post, Shared Sacrifice of Whom?
On the blog Balkinization, Frank Pasquale paints a bleak picture of our prospects:
When TV talking heads prate about "shared sacrifice," they might want to pause to consider stories like Soto's [a quadriplegic whose story appears earlier in the blog post]. They should also reveal where a particular multimillionaire will invest gains from, say, the continuation of the Bush tax cuts, or the zeroed out estate tax of 2010. How much gold does the rotting teeth of the poor buy? Are volunteer dentists effectively subsidizing summer houses? Executive protection dogs? Private jets to summer camp?
These trade-offs become more compelling as data renders the narrative of "trickle down job creation" implausible. The most recent "recovery" saw 88% of gains go to corporate profits, and about 1% go to wages. Workers are caught in a downward spiral: unemployment reduces their bargaining power, which in turn lets bosses pile more duties onto fewer people, who effectively increase unemployment more by doing the work or 1.5 or 2 or 3 workers for the price of 1. Many women face the brunt of the transition: "When companies decide to lay off secretaries and assistants while making employees pick up the slack, women take the hit." Every margin has to be worked to keep CEOs' pay averaging hundreds of times that of their typical workers.
It’s an ugly picture.
And we (particularly those of us here in Mississippi) are in denial—deep, deep denial—and our elected officials are doing the very things guaranteed to make it worse.
Read the blog post, Shared Sacrifice of Whom?
Krugman on the "Deficit Agreement"
Aug 01, 2011 09:10
Paul Krugman writes this morning in the NY Times:
Krugman concludes, as I do, that the nation is currently ungovernable:
Thanks to our Republican legislators from Mississippi. They just consigned their constituents to a meaner, poorer and less educated existence for the foreseeable future. And thanks to all you fellow Mississippians who voted to turn the entire nation into a banana republic, because that’s what you have been doing.
Pah!
Read the entire article.For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.
Krugman concludes, as I do, that the nation is currently ungovernable:
What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.
Thanks to our Republican legislators from Mississippi. They just consigned their constituents to a meaner, poorer and less educated existence for the foreseeable future. And thanks to all you fellow Mississippians who voted to turn the entire nation into a banana republic, because that’s what you have been doing.
Pah!
Serious Deficit Nuttiness
Jul 29, 2011 18:09
My opinion on the deficit has been made clear already. That things have come to the impasse we see today implies some first-class nuttiness and risk-taking on the part of house Republicans that is inexcusable.
Our three Republican representatives are either scoundrels, who would sell their state and country down the river just to spite Obama, or idiots, with no clue about what every student of first-year economics would flunk for not knowing.
Obama has also failed to educate the American people as to the real issues involved and has allowed the deficit vultures to frame the national debt as a family debt issue, rather than the debt of a sovereign that creates its own currency. In the end, Obama must be held as responsible for this manufactured crisis as the tea-party Republicans.
Boehner is clearly not the sharpest tack in the box and Reid has not exactly distinguished himself as an upholder of American Democratic ideals.
What a sorry bunch.
All of them.
*****************
For a rousing declaration of what the American Dream really stands for read this article by George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith:
http://www.truth-out.org/why-democracy-public-american-dream-beats-nightmare/1311952058
Our three Republican representatives are either scoundrels, who would sell their state and country down the river just to spite Obama, or idiots, with no clue about what every student of first-year economics would flunk for not knowing.
Obama has also failed to educate the American people as to the real issues involved and has allowed the deficit vultures to frame the national debt as a family debt issue, rather than the debt of a sovereign that creates its own currency. In the end, Obama must be held as responsible for this manufactured crisis as the tea-party Republicans.
Boehner is clearly not the sharpest tack in the box and Reid has not exactly distinguished himself as an upholder of American Democratic ideals.
What a sorry bunch.
All of them.
*****************
For a rousing declaration of what the American Dream really stands for read this article by George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith:
http://www.truth-out.org/why-democracy-public-american-dream-beats-nightmare/1311952058
Fukushima: "Biggest Industrial Catastrophe'
Jun 18, 2011 14:09
The news emerging from Japan about the meltdown of three, possibly four, nuclear reactors at Fukushima has not been good. Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president told journalist Dahr Jamail:
A nuclear waste specialist stated that approximately 966 square kilometers near the power station are now uninhabitable. 966 square kilometers is 238,704 acres. Considering the fact that the reactor is sitting on the ocean, we can calculate the radius of a half circle with an area of 966 square kilometers thusly: 966 = .5 x π x r2. Solving for r, we get r = sqrt(966)/(.5xπ) = 24.8 km.
That means that everything within 24.8 km (15.4 miles) of the plant is uninhabitable. And since the damaged reactors are still emitting radioactive particles into the atmosphere, that radius will grow, although its direction of growth depends on the direction of the wind.
The U.S. mainstream media has been unusually quiet about the developing disaster to the west, even though the western United States has received substantial fallout. Researchers have already connected the fallout with a spike in infant mortality in northwest cities that occurred in the ten weeks immediately following the disaster. In the case of NBC and MSNBC, the silence can possibly be attributed to the fact that GE, the manufacturer of the reactors in question, owns the two networks, but there is no excuse for the others not to take more interest. An accident described by an authority in the field as “the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind” ought to be on the tongue of every anchorperson.
Read Dahr Jamail’s article in AlterNet.
We have 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl," said Gundersen. "The data I'm seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man's-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometers being found 60 to 70 kilometers away from the reactor. You can't clean all this up. We still have radioactive wild boar in Germany, 30 years after Chernobyl.
A nuclear waste specialist stated that approximately 966 square kilometers near the power station are now uninhabitable. 966 square kilometers is 238,704 acres. Considering the fact that the reactor is sitting on the ocean, we can calculate the radius of a half circle with an area of 966 square kilometers thusly: 966 = .5 x π x r2. Solving for r, we get r = sqrt(966)/(.5xπ) = 24.8 km.
That means that everything within 24.8 km (15.4 miles) of the plant is uninhabitable. And since the damaged reactors are still emitting radioactive particles into the atmosphere, that radius will grow, although its direction of growth depends on the direction of the wind.
The U.S. mainstream media has been unusually quiet about the developing disaster to the west, even though the western United States has received substantial fallout. Researchers have already connected the fallout with a spike in infant mortality in northwest cities that occurred in the ten weeks immediately following the disaster. In the case of NBC and MSNBC, the silence can possibly be attributed to the fact that GE, the manufacturer of the reactors in question, owns the two networks, but there is no excuse for the others not to take more interest. An accident described by an authority in the field as “the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind” ought to be on the tongue of every anchorperson.
Read Dahr Jamail’s article in AlterNet.
The Presidential Cocoon and Iran
Jun 05, 2011 07:45
I wrote a piece in December, 2008, Rewiring the President-Elect’s Brain, that expressed a concern that the permanent government would successfully establish control over any newly-elected president, chiefly by monopolizing the flow of information to which he or she has access. Apparently, this process begins with the president-elect’s first security briefing, when the intelligence agencies have a chance to impress the official view of the world upon the future commander-in-chief. The experience is said to be “sobering,” which probably means that dangers to the U.S. are exaggerated in such a way as to promote the policies of the outgoing administration. This would be particularly true of the highly politicized intelligence apparatus that the Bush administration bequeathed to Obama.
in the article, I made the point that a president, if he is to be anything other than a passive tool of the permanent government, simply must have alternative sources of unfiltered information that enable him to evaluate the accuracy and relevance of the official channels. Given the ability of our intelligence agencies to monitor communications worldwide, however, it was equally apparent that recent presidents have been encountering extreme difficulty in acquiring independent intelligence. Roosevelt had personal channels he could tap in the certainty that his private conversations in person would remain private. John Kennedy, concerned that his conversations in the Oval Office were being listened to or recorded, often conducted his most private conversations in the Rose Garden. It is hard to imagine any place on earth that Obama could have a truly private one-to-one conversation without it being recorded, either by enemies or our own national intelligence agencies.
Now we have the journalistic legend, Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker magazine that the national intelligence agencies are in rare agreement that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and instead of being relieved at the prospect of one less nation with weapons of mass destruction, the Obama White House is actually chagrined. But not so chagrined that the “two administration officials” and “a senior intelligence official” who responded in Politico.com didn’t insist on anonymity when they told Politico that the International Atomic Energy Agency had been given “new evidence” by its members that Iran is working to develop nuclear weapons.
Hersh has already replied on the radio show “Democracy Now” that the new evidence is not evidence and not even described as evidence by the IAEA. Click on this link for a transcript of the Hersh interview.
Glenn Greenwald scorches Politico for criticizing Hersh for using anonymous sources when it uses anonymous sources itself:
But back to the presidential cocoon. In the interview, Hersh confirmed my worst fears:
When the president gets his economic advice from the very persons that assisted in destroying the economy (who then made fortunes in the process), his advice on the middle east from a rabid supporter of Greater Israel, and his military advice from a geriatric ward of cold warriors in bed with the military-industrial complex, it is entirely predictable that his view of reality will vary considerably from the facts on the ground, and that his decisions regarding both domestic and foreign policy will reflect their views. And as long as he cannot break out of this cocoon, he will continue implementing the policies that the permanent government desires.
Not a happy prospect for the rest of us. Or the nation as a whole.
Or the world.
in the article, I made the point that a president, if he is to be anything other than a passive tool of the permanent government, simply must have alternative sources of unfiltered information that enable him to evaluate the accuracy and relevance of the official channels. Given the ability of our intelligence agencies to monitor communications worldwide, however, it was equally apparent that recent presidents have been encountering extreme difficulty in acquiring independent intelligence. Roosevelt had personal channels he could tap in the certainty that his private conversations in person would remain private. John Kennedy, concerned that his conversations in the Oval Office were being listened to or recorded, often conducted his most private conversations in the Rose Garden. It is hard to imagine any place on earth that Obama could have a truly private one-to-one conversation without it being recorded, either by enemies or our own national intelligence agencies.
Now we have the journalistic legend, Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker magazine that the national intelligence agencies are in rare agreement that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and instead of being relieved at the prospect of one less nation with weapons of mass destruction, the Obama White House is actually chagrined. But not so chagrined that the “two administration officials” and “a senior intelligence official” who responded in Politico.com didn’t insist on anonymity when they told Politico that the International Atomic Energy Agency had been given “new evidence” by its members that Iran is working to develop nuclear weapons.
Hersh has already replied on the radio show “Democracy Now” that the new evidence is not evidence and not even described as evidence by the IAEA. Click on this link for a transcript of the Hersh interview.
Glenn Greenwald scorches Politico for criticizing Hersh for using anonymous sources when it uses anonymous sources itself:
Dutifully writing down what government officials say and then publishing it under cover of anonymity is what media figures in D.C. refer to as "real reporting." But the most hilarious part of this orgy of cowardly anonymity comes at the end, when Politico explains what is supposedly the prime defect in Hersh’[s] journalism:
“Hersh has faced criticism for his heavy reliance on anonymous sources, but New Yorker editor David Remnick has repeatedly said he stands by his reporter’s work.”
That's the criticism that ends an article that relies exclusively on anonymous government sources, appearing in a D.C. gossip rag notorious for granting anonymity to any powerful figure who requests it for any or no reason. The difference, of course, is that the Pulitzer Prize-winning, five-time-Polk-Award-recipient investigative journalist who uncovered the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib scandal grants anonymity to those who are challenging the official claims of those in power (that's called "journalism"), while Politico uses it (as it did here) to serve those in power and shield them from all accountability as they spew their propaganda (which is called being a "lowly, rank Royal Court propagandist”).
But back to the presidential cocoon. In the interview, Hersh confirmed my worst fears:
And I’ll tell you the biggest problem [Obama] has, as awful as those things are, as counterproductive, and as much as he’s following, oh, yes, Bush and Cheney in those policies—and I think the President—I’ll be writing about this—I think he was really sandbagged by the Pentagon after he got into office, when he was new and innocent. And I still think—I think right now—I would almost use the word "cult" to describe what’s going on in the White House. Everything is political. He’s isolated. Very good people say they’ve never seen a president this isolated, in terms of being unable to get to him with different opinions, etc. So [he’s] really captive of a few people there. I know this may sound strange, but I know what I’m talking about. You can’t get to the guy—and even, for example, Pickering, as competent as he is. And Pickering has done some wonderful stuff for the United States intelligence community undercover, and so he’s known as a trusted guy. Those guys who have been involved in talking to Iran off the record, Track II policy talks, for years can’t get to the President. He may not even know they’re looking for him. I just don’t know.
And so, here we have this very bright guy continuing insane policies that are counterproductive, do nothing for the United States, and meanwhile the real crisis is going to be about Iraq, because, whatever you’re hearing, Iraq is going bad.
When the president gets his economic advice from the very persons that assisted in destroying the economy (who then made fortunes in the process), his advice on the middle east from a rabid supporter of Greater Israel, and his military advice from a geriatric ward of cold warriors in bed with the military-industrial complex, it is entirely predictable that his view of reality will vary considerably from the facts on the ground, and that his decisions regarding both domestic and foreign policy will reflect their views. And as long as he cannot break out of this cocoon, he will continue implementing the policies that the permanent government desires.
Not a happy prospect for the rest of us. Or the nation as a whole.
Or the world.
Congressional Leadership Agrees to Renew "Patriot" Act
May 20, 2011 16:26
Once power is acquired in a time of crisis, it is seldom voluntarily relinquished after the crisis passes. Thus frequent crises continually strengthen the hand of the ruler, who will demand at each instance a further concession of liberties by the people in order to overcome the unique threats of each new crisis.
An unjust and odious statute, enacted by fools, sycophants, and scoundrels—the so-called “Patriot” Act—is being renewed for another four years with hardly a ripple on the surface of national consciousness. The American public has apparently become so dumbed-down and ignorant that it has neither knowledge nor concern about what is happening to our constitutional rights. The process of converting citizens into slaves, successfully accomplished countless times in the history of civilization, is well on its way to completion here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
History may very well regard September 11, 2001 as the day the American people were so terrified at the threat posed by a few hundred arabs that they agreed to give up their freedom for the illusion of security. But that would be an historical error; the process started long before then. People do not become sheep overnight.
Truthout: Deal Reached on Extension of Patriot Act
An unjust and odious statute, enacted by fools, sycophants, and scoundrels—the so-called “Patriot” Act—is being renewed for another four years with hardly a ripple on the surface of national consciousness. The American public has apparently become so dumbed-down and ignorant that it has neither knowledge nor concern about what is happening to our constitutional rights. The process of converting citizens into slaves, successfully accomplished countless times in the history of civilization, is well on its way to completion here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
History may very well regard September 11, 2001 as the day the American people were so terrified at the threat posed by a few hundred arabs that they agreed to give up their freedom for the illusion of security. But that would be an historical error; the process started long before then. People do not become sheep overnight.
Truthout: Deal Reached on Extension of Patriot Act
Nuclear Power and the Perception of Risk
Apr 09, 2011 22:10
Nuclear reactors, most of them built in the ‘60s and ‘70s, dot the landscape of the continental United States. They have been in existence long enough for us to forget about them. They generate electric power and that is about the extent of our knowledge and concern.
Nuclear reactors share much in common with other machines and devices which humans have constructed and fabricated: they wear out from use and must be eventually be either discarded or recycled. Many of the reactors in use, however, have exceeded what the manufacturers—mainly General Electric and Westinghouse—specified to be the life of the reactors, but the Nuclear Regulatory Agency has allowed the utility companies to continue to operate the reactors in spite of their advanced age and fragility.
In addition to the age of the reactors, which presents an increased risk of structural failure, the spent fuel rods generated by the fission process have been stored on-site in large containers of circulating water to keep them cool, since they generate enough heat from the remaining radioactivity to combust in the atmosphere if left alone. The government has all but given up its efforts to find a safe repository to store the spent fuel rods for the thousands of years before they become safe.
I wrote a fairy tale for the Jackson Progressive in 1999 that illustrates the problem, The Persistent Genie. The story was prompted by the September 30, 1999 accident at the JCO nuclear fuel plant at the village of Tokaimura, Japan. It began when workers attempted to dissolve 16 kilograms of enriched uranium in nitric acid, although it is considered dangerous to process more than 2.4kg at one time. This set off an uncontrolled chain reaction, resulting in a 'blue flash' at the processing plant. The reaction punched a hole through the roof of the building, radiation began spewing into the atmosphere, and radiation levels went up to 4,000 times normal levels within a minute. There was no containment around the plant, because it was not thought that an accident like this could happen.
Nuclear reactors share much in common with other machines and devices which humans have constructed and fabricated: they wear out from use and must be eventually be either discarded or recycled. Many of the reactors in use, however, have exceeded what the manufacturers—mainly General Electric and Westinghouse—specified to be the life of the reactors, but the Nuclear Regulatory Agency has allowed the utility companies to continue to operate the reactors in spite of their advanced age and fragility.
In addition to the age of the reactors, which presents an increased risk of structural failure, the spent fuel rods generated by the fission process have been stored on-site in large containers of circulating water to keep them cool, since they generate enough heat from the remaining radioactivity to combust in the atmosphere if left alone. The government has all but given up its efforts to find a safe repository to store the spent fuel rods for the thousands of years before they become safe.
I wrote a fairy tale for the Jackson Progressive in 1999 that illustrates the problem, The Persistent Genie. The story was prompted by the September 30, 1999 accident at the JCO nuclear fuel plant at the village of Tokaimura, Japan. It began when workers attempted to dissolve 16 kilograms of enriched uranium in nitric acid, although it is considered dangerous to process more than 2.4kg at one time. This set off an uncontrolled chain reaction, resulting in a 'blue flash' at the processing plant. The reaction punched a hole through the roof of the building, radiation began spewing into the atmosphere, and radiation levels went up to 4,000 times normal levels within a minute. There was no containment around the plant, because it was not thought that an accident like this could happen.
Paul Wellstone: They Killed Him - Video
Mar 16, 2011 14:21
Provocative movie about the death on October 25, 2002, of Senator Paul Wellstone, just 11 days before the senatorial election in which he was expected to beat Republican Norm Coleman. The death of Wellstone, his wife and his daughter in a small airplane came at a critical time in the Bush Administration, because Wellstone, an extremely popular liberal senator, was beginning to look as though he was about to sway national support against the invasion of Iraq. His death came at a particularly convenient time, as the election of Norm Coleman gave the Republicans a majority of one in the U. S. Senate.
Mississippi has had its share of politicians dying in mysterious ways. Former lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate Charlie Sullivan, an experienced pilot and Air National Guard general, died in a plane crash in 1979. Doxey Fisher, gubernatorial candidate in the ’60s, was another. Doubtless there are others.
The crash that killed Wellstone looked suspicious to me from the beginning. Watch the movie on YouTube and see what you think.
Paul Wellstone: They Killed Him
Mississippi has had its share of politicians dying in mysterious ways. Former lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate Charlie Sullivan, an experienced pilot and Air National Guard general, died in a plane crash in 1979. Doxey Fisher, gubernatorial candidate in the ’60s, was another. Doubtless there are others.
The crash that killed Wellstone looked suspicious to me from the beginning. Watch the movie on YouTube and see what you think.
Paul Wellstone: They Killed Him
Lakoff on What Conservatives Really Want
Feb 20, 2011 19:49
George Lakoff, Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, lays it down in words I have been trying to say recently. He explains how conservatives lie about what they believe and about their intentions, because they know that the vast majority of Americans want no part of the world they are working to create.
The Democrats can’t seem to get it through their head exactly what they are up against. They should read this. Thanks to Truthout for carrying Dr. Lakoff’s column.
What Conservatives Really Want
The Democrats can’t seem to get it through their head exactly what they are up against. They should read this. Thanks to Truthout for carrying Dr. Lakoff’s column.
What Conservatives Really Want
On the Arizona Killings
Jan 09, 2011 14:39
The shooting yesterday of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six others, plus numerous injuries, is the predictable result of a campaign of slanderous vitriol waged by right-wing media—the largest and most influential of which is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, with its Fox News cable channel—against liberals and Democrats.
Words have consequences. When you incite people to kill, some of them are nutty enough to do just that. When you demonize your political opponents, there are plenty of people out there who will take you seriously and try do something about those “demons.”
Here are a couple of possible solutions:
1. Resurrect the Fairness Doctrine. Conservatives hate the Fairness Doctrine with a fiery passion, because it would put a damper on the lies and slander that are the standard fare of right-wing talk radio. In a perfect world, the Fairness Doctrine would be unnecessary because commentators would behave ethically, but this is not a perfect world, and the right-wing media have become a vast sewer of political poison and sludge, pouring it into the minds of predisposed persons who don’t know better and haven’t the time, energy, or inclination to actually find out the truth.
The public airwaves are--surprise!--owned by the public, and there is no reason why licensees should not be required to act in the public interest by presenting both sides of controversies, or allowing persons attacked to defend themselves. The Fairness Doctrine is constitutional and it worked well for a long time. Abolishing it was one of Ronald Reagan’s gifts to the right wing. It should be reinstated immediately.
2. Make the inciters of political violence civilly liable to the victims of the crimes they encourage. Right-wing media frequently commits the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, and there is no First Amendment protection for such behavior. If Glenn Beck’s violent fantasies incite a lone gunman to kill a federal judge, then the survivors should be able to bring a wrongful death action against Beck and his employer, Fox, on the grounds of incitement to kill, and Beck should not be able to hide behind the 1st Amendment because he didn’t pull the trigger, or because millions of his listeners didn’t immediately run out and try to kill the demonized judge. Given the size of the audience, such killings are foreseeable, in fact, inevitable. Beck and his ilk know this; they may be corrupt liars and demigogues, but they aren’t idiots.
The same would go for anti-abortion websites that publish the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortion. Killings are inevitable. Are the lone killers the only ones responsible? I hardly think so.
Words have consequences. When you incite people to kill, some of them are nutty enough to do just that. When you demonize your political opponents, there are plenty of people out there who will take you seriously and try do something about those “demons.”
Here are a couple of possible solutions:
1. Resurrect the Fairness Doctrine. Conservatives hate the Fairness Doctrine with a fiery passion, because it would put a damper on the lies and slander that are the standard fare of right-wing talk radio. In a perfect world, the Fairness Doctrine would be unnecessary because commentators would behave ethically, but this is not a perfect world, and the right-wing media have become a vast sewer of political poison and sludge, pouring it into the minds of predisposed persons who don’t know better and haven’t the time, energy, or inclination to actually find out the truth.
The public airwaves are--surprise!--owned by the public, and there is no reason why licensees should not be required to act in the public interest by presenting both sides of controversies, or allowing persons attacked to defend themselves. The Fairness Doctrine is constitutional and it worked well for a long time. Abolishing it was one of Ronald Reagan’s gifts to the right wing. It should be reinstated immediately.
2. Make the inciters of political violence civilly liable to the victims of the crimes they encourage. Right-wing media frequently commits the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, and there is no First Amendment protection for such behavior. If Glenn Beck’s violent fantasies incite a lone gunman to kill a federal judge, then the survivors should be able to bring a wrongful death action against Beck and his employer, Fox, on the grounds of incitement to kill, and Beck should not be able to hide behind the 1st Amendment because he didn’t pull the trigger, or because millions of his listeners didn’t immediately run out and try to kill the demonized judge. Given the size of the audience, such killings are foreseeable, in fact, inevitable. Beck and his ilk know this; they may be corrupt liars and demigogues, but they aren’t idiots.
The same would go for anti-abortion websites that publish the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortion. Killings are inevitable. Are the lone killers the only ones responsible? I hardly think so.
Bill Luckett and the Ghost of Mike Sturdivant
Jan 06, 2011 09:08
The JP has been receiving email fliers from Bill Luckett for Governor for a number of months. Finally, I went through his web site in an effort to discover what makes him different from all the rest of the gubernatorial wannabes, but was unsuccessful. At the best, his web site seem free of the usual obnoxious right-wing propaganda and he seems like a nice, intelligent, and honest man. At the worst, the web site lacks any substantive commitment beyond jobs, education and new perspectives in leadership. The fact that he is not a career politician cuts both ways; while he may not be a creature that crawls in the usual swamp of Mississippi politics, he will have to master that very swamp before he can bring about substantial change in education, government and the state’s economic wellbeing.
Luckett reminds me of Mike Sturdivant, a wealthy businessman and plantation owner from Glendora who lost the Democratic nomination for governor in 1987 to Ray Mabus , who went on to defeat Tupelo industrialist Jack Reed in the general election. Sturdivant, who by all accounts was an intelligent and reasonably progressive person, similarly ran as a non-politician who promised to bring new perspectives to the governor’s mansion. Mabus, who had gained a reputation for fiscal rectitude as state auditor, easily crushed Sturdivant, who spent more than a million dollars of his own money on his campaign.
Mabus, who also campaigned as a fresh face in Mississippi politics, turned out in the end to have few new ideas worth considering, and was turned out of office by disappointed voters in favor of Republican businessman Kirk Fordice, who rode the right-wing wave that was then inundating the nation.
But I digress.
I’m interested in knowing more about who this Bill Luckett really is. Given the fact that 90% of Mississippi whites voted for an elderly and semi-senile former prisoner of war over a bright, highly educated former head of the Harvard Law Review (who just happened to be African-American) in the last presidential election, there is little hope that the swamp of Mississippi politics will ever be drained—or even penetrated—in the near future. But I rejoice that someone is trying. If you have knowledge about Bill Luckett that would help the readership of the JP, put it in the comments.
Luckett reminds me of Mike Sturdivant, a wealthy businessman and plantation owner from Glendora who lost the Democratic nomination for governor in 1987 to Ray Mabus , who went on to defeat Tupelo industrialist Jack Reed in the general election. Sturdivant, who by all accounts was an intelligent and reasonably progressive person, similarly ran as a non-politician who promised to bring new perspectives to the governor’s mansion. Mabus, who had gained a reputation for fiscal rectitude as state auditor, easily crushed Sturdivant, who spent more than a million dollars of his own money on his campaign.
Mabus, who also campaigned as a fresh face in Mississippi politics, turned out in the end to have few new ideas worth considering, and was turned out of office by disappointed voters in favor of Republican businessman Kirk Fordice, who rode the right-wing wave that was then inundating the nation.
But I digress.
I’m interested in knowing more about who this Bill Luckett really is. Given the fact that 90% of Mississippi whites voted for an elderly and semi-senile former prisoner of war over a bright, highly educated former head of the Harvard Law Review (who just happened to be African-American) in the last presidential election, there is little hope that the swamp of Mississippi politics will ever be drained—or even penetrated—in the near future. But I rejoice that someone is trying. If you have knowledge about Bill Luckett that would help the readership of the JP, put it in the comments.
Manning Exposes Torture but Those who Ordered the Torture Go Free
Dec 24, 2010 14:34
Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking thousands of classified messages to Wikileaks, has been held in solitary confinement under conditions that approach, if not satisfy, the definition of torture. Read a description of his conditions on Alternet and ponder what kind of a chief executive would condone what amounts to torture, especially after having been elected by the people as a decent, ethical alternative to the moral dwarfs that ran the White House for the previous eight years. It recalls the treatment of Captain Alfred Dreyfus after having been convicted of treason in 1894 on fabricated evidence by a kangaroo military court.
Manning may have indeed leaked the classified information to Wikileaks, but under the U. S. Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his confinement, particularly when he has not been convicted and sentenced, is illegal if it amounts to torture.
Manning may have indeed leaked the classified information to Wikileaks, but under the U. S. Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his confinement, particularly when he has not been convicted and sentenced, is illegal if it amounts to torture.
On the Election
Nov 03, 2010 18:18
I hated to see it happen to the Democrats.
But they deserved it.
Obama deserved it. He didn’t even try to do what he promised. He asked for a quarter of a loaf when he could have owned the bakery.
What was he thinking of? Wall Street lay prostrate at his feet and he exacted no price whatever to prop those insolvent financial institutions up. It boggles the mind. Executives who should be going to jail are now getting hundreds of millions in bonuses, courtesy of the taxpayers. It’s no wonder that people are outraged. The Democrats are lucky they weren’t tarred and feathered.
I even hated to see blue dogs Taylor and Childers lose to Robo-Republicans, but they both were Republicans in everything but name, so why elect a wolf in sheep’s clothing when you can get the unvarnished wolf, all ready to devour?
The people elected the Democrats to put things right, and they failed. Hell, they barely tried. They are a sorry lot, beholden to big money but claiming to represent all the people, not just the people of Wall Street.
This was not a defeat for progressives, ostracized from the administration (read Chief-of-staff Emmanuel and Attorney General Holder for starters) and their policy suggestions ignored once Obama actually came into office. Their remedies were never even tried.
There is a glimmer of hope: maybe, just maybe, Obama will realize that his idea of bipartisanship will never work with contemporary Republicans, whose idea of bipartisanship consists solely of doing their bidding. Reasonableness is weakness to them and there’s simply no dealing with them rationally, just as there is no reasoning with a bully on the school ground. Obama must stop trying to be nice and bipartisan. It didn’t work and most savvy politicians could have told him that from the beginning. I believe he knows what needs to be done; he just needs to push, hard.
Rabbi Michael Lerner has some words of wisdom for progressives on the Huffington Post I suggest you read.
But they deserved it.
Obama deserved it. He didn’t even try to do what he promised. He asked for a quarter of a loaf when he could have owned the bakery.
What was he thinking of? Wall Street lay prostrate at his feet and he exacted no price whatever to prop those insolvent financial institutions up. It boggles the mind. Executives who should be going to jail are now getting hundreds of millions in bonuses, courtesy of the taxpayers. It’s no wonder that people are outraged. The Democrats are lucky they weren’t tarred and feathered.
I even hated to see blue dogs Taylor and Childers lose to Robo-Republicans, but they both were Republicans in everything but name, so why elect a wolf in sheep’s clothing when you can get the unvarnished wolf, all ready to devour?
The people elected the Democrats to put things right, and they failed. Hell, they barely tried. They are a sorry lot, beholden to big money but claiming to represent all the people, not just the people of Wall Street.
This was not a defeat for progressives, ostracized from the administration (read Chief-of-staff Emmanuel and Attorney General Holder for starters) and their policy suggestions ignored once Obama actually came into office. Their remedies were never even tried.
There is a glimmer of hope: maybe, just maybe, Obama will realize that his idea of bipartisanship will never work with contemporary Republicans, whose idea of bipartisanship consists solely of doing their bidding. Reasonableness is weakness to them and there’s simply no dealing with them rationally, just as there is no reasoning with a bully on the school ground. Obama must stop trying to be nice and bipartisan. It didn’t work and most savvy politicians could have told him that from the beginning. I believe he knows what needs to be done; he just needs to push, hard.
Rabbi Michael Lerner has some words of wisdom for progressives on the Huffington Post I suggest you read.
The Guns of August
Aug 17, 2010 15:07
If you have not read Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, you have missed one of the finest history books ever written. But I digress.
Chalmers Johnson, sometime CIA consultant and author of a series of books on the American empire and the American security state—Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006), among others—has a new book out, Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope. Tom Dispatch, A blog on the website of The Nation Magazine, features what appears to be Johnson’s preface to the book. It’s worth reading.
Johnson argues that the days of American hegemony are drawing to a close and that we would be better off withdrawing from our hundreds of overseas military bases now and spending the money on pressing domestic needs, rather than throwing it away on bases that we will ultimately give up, anyway:
Chalmers Johnson, sometime CIA consultant and author of a series of books on the American empire and the American security state—Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006), among others—has a new book out, Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope. Tom Dispatch, A blog on the website of The Nation Magazine, features what appears to be Johnson’s preface to the book. It’s worth reading.
Johnson argues that the days of American hegemony are drawing to a close and that we would be better off withdrawing from our hundreds of overseas military bases now and spending the money on pressing domestic needs, rather than throwing it away on bases that we will ultimately give up, anyway:
Read the article and the introduction. If you click on the link above and buy the book from Amazon, the commission will go to Tom Dispach, which is worthy of your support.If, however, we were to dismantle our empire of military bases and redirect our economy toward productive, instead of destructive, industries; if we maintained our volunteer armed forces primarily to defend our own shores (and perhaps to be used at the behest of the United Nations); if we began to invest in our infrastructure, education, health care, and savings, then we might have a chance to reinvent ourselves as a productive, normal nation. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. Peering into that foggy future, I simply can't imagine the U.S. dismantling its empire voluntarily, which doesn't mean that, like all sets of imperial garrisons, our bases won't go someday.
Instead, I foresee the U.S. drifting along, much as the Obama administration seems to be drifting along in the war in Afghanistan. The common talk among economists today is that high unemployment may linger for another decade. Add in low investment and depressed spending (except perhaps by the government) and I fear T.S. Eliot had it right when he wrote: "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."
The Jones Act Has Nothing to do With the BP Cleanup
Jul 31, 2010 13:17
Over the last couple of weeks I have been harangued by otherwise intelligent persons on the failure of Obama to waive the Jones Act so that foreign ships can assist in the cleanup. When I point out that there are plenty of foreign ships working on the spill and that the Jones Act doesn’t even apply beyond the 3-mile international limit, I am met by sneers and otherwise “more informed that you” looks that indicate minds that long ago snapped shut.
McClatchy sets out the facts
Text of The Jones Act
42 USC §55113 Use of foreign documented oil spill response vessels
The right-wingnut response to inconvenient facts, even among friends and loved ones, has always been extremely frustrating to me. The idea that if the facts contradict your beliefs then you ought to carefully examine those beliefs seems to be a completely alien concept to this type of person. It is always disheartening to contemplate that a substantial number of adults in the U.S. still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 attack on the WTC when even George Bush finally admitted that the government had no evidence to support Saddam’s involvement.
Here’s a partial explanation from the blog Stop the Spirit of Zossen 2.0:
Read the entire post: Rightist Collective Narcissism And Why Obama’s Own Fantasy Of Rational Dialogue Is Doomed
I felt from the beginning that Obama was in error, if not denial, in striving for a bipartisan approach. There is a certain strategic advantage to appearing reasonable when your opponent is determined to do anything in his power to make you fail, including causing a great deal of unnecessary suffering to the American People, but at some point it becomes imperative to be honest with everybody and state the unvarnished truth about your opponents, that they are scoundrels who would sacrifice this nation’s welfare in a Texas minute to regain political power.
It’s the right thing to do. Secondly, there is the 25-30 percent of the voters who will not change their minds if the Lord himself descended from heaven holding gold tablets with the truth written on them in 7th grade English, if the contents of the tablets contradicted their beliefs. The rest of the electorate expects Obama to do something more that he has done so far. Part of his failure must be attributed to his misguided attempt to appeal to the better natures of the Republicans in Congress. (His other major mistake is in listening to Summers, Geithner and Bernake, the gruesome threesome that played such a huge part in bringing about the current financial mess.) They have no better natures and will stop at nothing to defeat him. That’s a fact.
McClatchy sets out the facts
Text of The Jones Act
42 USC §55113 Use of foreign documented oil spill response vessels
The right-wingnut response to inconvenient facts, even among friends and loved ones, has always been extremely frustrating to me. The idea that if the facts contradict your beliefs then you ought to carefully examine those beliefs seems to be a completely alien concept to this type of person. It is always disheartening to contemplate that a substantial number of adults in the U.S. still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 attack on the WTC when even George Bush finally admitted that the government had no evidence to support Saddam’s involvement.
Here’s a partial explanation from the blog Stop the Spirit of Zossen 2.0:
Narrative radicalization and escalating vehemence through cant and acting out must — by internal logic — treble when fantasy can not surmount the limits imposed by Objective Reality (say Nov. 2008). Obama’s victory is a crisis threatening the ability to segregate their disassociated fantasized self-image with their often fragmented and undeveloped self. Why anyone remotely close to the Movement who said after defeat “now is the time for introspection” was doomed to be mau maued and kicked off the island. And Lord help you if there was a photo with you hugging Obama . . .
Read the entire post: Rightist Collective Narcissism And Why Obama’s Own Fantasy Of Rational Dialogue Is Doomed
I felt from the beginning that Obama was in error, if not denial, in striving for a bipartisan approach. There is a certain strategic advantage to appearing reasonable when your opponent is determined to do anything in his power to make you fail, including causing a great deal of unnecessary suffering to the American People, but at some point it becomes imperative to be honest with everybody and state the unvarnished truth about your opponents, that they are scoundrels who would sacrifice this nation’s welfare in a Texas minute to regain political power.
It’s the right thing to do. Secondly, there is the 25-30 percent of the voters who will not change their minds if the Lord himself descended from heaven holding gold tablets with the truth written on them in 7th grade English, if the contents of the tablets contradicted their beliefs. The rest of the electorate expects Obama to do something more that he has done so far. Part of his failure must be attributed to his misguided attempt to appeal to the better natures of the Republicans in Congress. (His other major mistake is in listening to Summers, Geithner and Bernake, the gruesome threesome that played such a huge part in bringing about the current financial mess.) They have no better natures and will stop at nothing to defeat him. That’s a fact.
The Big Banks are Financial Vampires
Jul 17, 2010 09:39
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures. Typically, they are the undead—not living but not actually dead, and their victims usually turn into vampires themselves. Killing a vampire, according to the literature, requires driving a stake through its heart.
At a Jungian dream seminar I once attended, led by the late Fr. Michael Dwinell, the vampire was presented as the archetype for addiction, a monster that reducea its victim and those close to him to zombies. But that is a subject for another place and time.
Similarly, the big banks of Wall Street, still holding debt assets at their face value for purposes of calculating their balance sheets, have become veritable vampires, lacking solvency themselves and frantically attempting to suck money out of any convenient victims, whether they be the Federal Reserve, the U. S. Treasury, investors, or debtors, most notably their mortgagors and credit card holders. The latest propaganda meme put out by the banks is the threat of “strategic defaulters,” loosely defined as homeowners who can make their house payments but walk away from the house because it is underwater. The meme has the same deceitful purpose as Reagan’s non-existent “welfare queens” and Bush’s “war on terror”: to conceal the real reasons behind otherwise unacceptable public policies.
It would not be too far out to say that the archetype for financial meltdown is the vampire.
For the last few months it has been more and more obvious to me that the behavior of the big banks can be explained only by assuming that they are insolvent and are remaining in existence only through accounting dishonesty, that is, valuing their assets far above their real value. Before I decided to write a blog post setting out these conclusions, a recent post on Naked Capitalism, Strategic Defaulters are the New Welfare Queens, made such an article superfluous. Here’s an excerpt:
The entire article is well-worth reading.
The term “deep principal mods” means that either the banks would be forced to carry the debts on their books at actual value, taking into account the decline in collateral values (the bursting of the housing bubble, in other words) or bankruptcy courts would be empowered to adjust mortgage principals downwards to reflect the actual value of the mortgaged property. The latter process is known as “cram down” and a bill to give bankruptcy cram down power was defeated in Congress by the finance lobby.
The basis of the problem is politics and denial. The housing bubble was, for the most part, a bipartisan project, hence the reluctance of either major political party to make it an issue. The mainstream media, including its economic experts, was inexcusably negligent for years in ignoring the housing bubble and they are reluctant to admit that the emperor has no clothes. With a few exceptions, it is still spouting economic nonsense. Economist Dean Baker has been chronicling this willful blindness for years and his has been a lone voice in the wilderness.
Disconnection from reality eventually exacts a fearsome price. We have already experienced housing value losses in excess of $6 trillion and the reduction in demand that invariably results from such a loss. The financial reform bill, despite all the hype it has been given by its proponents, is inadequate to address the real causes of our current malaise and does little to lessen the likelihood of another speculative bubble and meltdown. Nevertheless, it is a start.
7/19/2010 Update:
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz puts it very well in his latest column:
At a Jungian dream seminar I once attended, led by the late Fr. Michael Dwinell, the vampire was presented as the archetype for addiction, a monster that reducea its victim and those close to him to zombies. But that is a subject for another place and time.
Similarly, the big banks of Wall Street, still holding debt assets at their face value for purposes of calculating their balance sheets, have become veritable vampires, lacking solvency themselves and frantically attempting to suck money out of any convenient victims, whether they be the Federal Reserve, the U. S. Treasury, investors, or debtors, most notably their mortgagors and credit card holders. The latest propaganda meme put out by the banks is the threat of “strategic defaulters,” loosely defined as homeowners who can make their house payments but walk away from the house because it is underwater. The meme has the same deceitful purpose as Reagan’s non-existent “welfare queens” and Bush’s “war on terror”: to conceal the real reasons behind otherwise unacceptable public policies.
It would not be too far out to say that the archetype for financial meltdown is the vampire.
For the last few months it has been more and more obvious to me that the behavior of the big banks can be explained only by assuming that they are insolvent and are remaining in existence only through accounting dishonesty, that is, valuing their assets far above their real value. Before I decided to write a blog post setting out these conclusions, a recent post on Naked Capitalism, Strategic Defaulters are the New Welfare Queens, made such an article superfluous. Here’s an excerpt:
So why all this hysteria about strategic defaulters? If I were conspiracy-minded, I’d say this is a very clever push to stoke jealousy among what is left of the middle class to keep the focus off the way the banksters wrecked the economy, got lots of cash and prizes, and have every reason to repeat that profitable exercise. So focus public ire instead about the commies in our midst, um, the new welfare queens, aka various forms of alleged housing deadbeats. The immediate reason is that the more people are made to resent the breaks they fantasize their neighbors are getting, the more they will oppose deep principal mods, which historically is what banks always did when they had a borrower get in trouble who still had a remotely viable income.
Why would the banks oppose principal mods? It will force an end to extend and pretend, and when THAT happens, a lot of financial firms will be shown to be undercapitalized and in need of rescue or resolution (as we and others have pointed out repeatedly, Mike Konczal’s conservative analysis of second mortgage portfolios at the four biggest US banks, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo, shows that they probably need another $150 billion in equity among them, and others contend the writedowns on seconds should be much more aggressive than Konczal assumed).
The entire article is well-worth reading.
The term “deep principal mods” means that either the banks would be forced to carry the debts on their books at actual value, taking into account the decline in collateral values (the bursting of the housing bubble, in other words) or bankruptcy courts would be empowered to adjust mortgage principals downwards to reflect the actual value of the mortgaged property. The latter process is known as “cram down” and a bill to give bankruptcy cram down power was defeated in Congress by the finance lobby.
The basis of the problem is politics and denial. The housing bubble was, for the most part, a bipartisan project, hence the reluctance of either major political party to make it an issue. The mainstream media, including its economic experts, was inexcusably negligent for years in ignoring the housing bubble and they are reluctant to admit that the emperor has no clothes. With a few exceptions, it is still spouting economic nonsense. Economist Dean Baker has been chronicling this willful blindness for years and his has been a lone voice in the wilderness.
Disconnection from reality eventually exacts a fearsome price. We have already experienced housing value losses in excess of $6 trillion and the reduction in demand that invariably results from such a loss. The financial reform bill, despite all the hype it has been given by its proponents, is inadequate to address the real causes of our current malaise and does little to lessen the likelihood of another speculative bubble and meltdown. Nevertheless, it is a start.
7/19/2010 Update:
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz puts it very well in his latest column:
The “innovations” unleashed by modern finance did not lead to higher long-term efficiency, faster growth, or more prosperity for all. Instead, they were designed to circumvent accounting standards and to evade and avoid taxes that are required to finance the public investments in infrastructure and technology – like the Internet – that underlie real growth, not the phantom growth promoted by the financial sector.
The financial sector pontificated not only about how to create a dynamic economy, but also about what to do in the event of a recession (which, according to their ideology, could be caused only by a failure of government, not of markets). Whenever an economy enters recession, revenues fall, and expenditures – say, for unemployment benefits – increase. So deficits grow.
Financial-sector deficit hawks said that governments should focus on eliminating deficits, preferably by cutting back on expenditures. The reduced deficits would restore confidence, which would restore investment – and thus growth. But, as plausible as this line of reasoning may sound, the historical evidence repeatedly refutes it.
Barbour one of the Worst Governors - CREW
Apr 25, 2010 13:09
Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW) has published its list of the Worst Governors in the nation, and our own Haley Barbour has made the top ten. According to CREW, Barbour’s accomplishment that brought about his membership in this exclusive list are that he:
• Allegedly laundered campaign contributions
• Refused to accept federal stimulus funds to expand unemployment insurance
• Used his position to enrich himself and his family members
You can download the entire report on Barbour here. At first blush, it appears that Barbour’s name tops the list as the very worse of the worst, but actually the list is alphabetical, so we don’t know if his score is worse or better than Sanford (SC) or Perry (TX). As Dr. Johnson once said of Rousseau and Voltaire “Why Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”
In 19th Century England, the term “Bob’s your uncle” was a commentary on the good financial fortune that relatives of prominent Victorian politician Arthur Balfour experienced as a result of his influence. In Mississippi, we can quite appropriately say that if Haley’s your uncle, you are probably doing very well indeed.
• Allegedly laundered campaign contributions
• Refused to accept federal stimulus funds to expand unemployment insurance
• Used his position to enrich himself and his family members
You can download the entire report on Barbour here. At first blush, it appears that Barbour’s name tops the list as the very worse of the worst, but actually the list is alphabetical, so we don’t know if his score is worse or better than Sanford (SC) or Perry (TX). As Dr. Johnson once said of Rousseau and Voltaire “Why Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”
In 19th Century England, the term “Bob’s your uncle” was a commentary on the good financial fortune that relatives of prominent Victorian politician Arthur Balfour experienced as a result of his influence. In Mississippi, we can quite appropriately say that if Haley’s your uncle, you are probably doing very well indeed.
The Census
Apr 12, 2010 14:15
The teabag movement has come up with some pretty strange remedies for the ills (real and imagined) of the nation, but refusing to return U.S. Census forms has to take the cake as the most bizarre of all.
The U.S. Constitution requires that the government undertake a census every ten years, one of the few truly substantive requirements of that remarkable document. Consequently, a census has been taken every ten years on schedule, and the entire nation relies upon the figures as the basis for a host of decisions, the most important of which is the apportionment of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives. States that underreport are very much in danger of losing representatives to more compliant states.
Why an institution that has been an integral part of our history has suddenly turned into an instrument of oppression is a psychological conundrum that would stump Dr. Freud.
The census was even memorialized by the poet Robert Frost, in “The Census-Taker”:
Let us hope that this particular form of idiocy vanishes before it does serious damage.
The U.S. Constitution requires that the government undertake a census every ten years, one of the few truly substantive requirements of that remarkable document. Consequently, a census has been taken every ten years on schedule, and the entire nation relies upon the figures as the basis for a host of decisions, the most important of which is the apportionment of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives. States that underreport are very much in danger of losing representatives to more compliant states.
Why an institution that has been an integral part of our history has suddenly turned into an instrument of oppression is a psychological conundrum that would stump Dr. Freud.
The census was even memorialized by the poet Robert Frost, in “The Census-Taker”:
I came an errand one cloud-blowing evening
To a slab-built, black-paper-covered house
Of one room and one window and one door,
The only dwelling in a waste cut over
A hundred square miles round it in the mountains:
And that not dwelt in now by men or women.
(It never had been dwelt in, though, by women,
So what is this I make a sorrow of?)
I came as census-taker to the waste
To count the people in it and found none,
None in the hundred miles, none in the house,
Where I came last with some hope, but not much,
After hours' overlooking from the cliffs
An emptiness flayed to the very stone.
I found no people that dared show themselves,
None not in hiding from the outward eye.
The time was autumn, but how anyone
could tell the time of year when every tree
That could have dropped a leaf was down itself
And nothing but the stump of it was left
Now bringing out its rings in sugar of pitch;
And every tree up stood a rotting trunk
Without a single leaf to spend on autumn,
Or branch to whistle after what was spent.
Perhaps the wind the more without the help
Of breathing trees said something of the time
Of year or day the way it swung a door
Forever off the latch, as if rude men
Passed in and slammed it shut each one behind him
For the next one to open for himself.
I counted nine I had no right to count
(But this was dreamy unofficial counting)
Before I made the tenth across the threshold.
Where was my supper? Where was anyone's?
No lamp was lit. Nothing was on the table.
The stove was cold—the stove was off the chimney—
And down by one side where it lacked a leg.
The people that had loudly passed the door
Were people to the ear but not the eye.
They were not on the table with their elbows.
They were not sleeping in the shelves of bunks.
I saw no men there and no bones of men there.
I armed myself against such bones as might be
With the pitch-blackened stub of an ax-handle
I picked up off the straw-dust-covered floor.
Not bones, but the ill-fitted window rattled.
The door was still because I held it shut
While I thought what to do that could be done—
About the house—about the people not there.
This house in one year fallen to decay
Filled me with no less sorrow than the houses
Fallen to ruin in ten thousand years
Where Asia wedges Africa from Europe.
Nothing was left to do that I could see
Unless to find that there was no one there
And declare to the cliffs too far for echo,
"The place is desert, and let whoso lurks
In silence, if in this he is aggrieved,
Break silence now or be forever silent.
Let him say why it should not be declared so."
The melancholy of having to count souls
Where they grow fewer and fewer every year
Is extreme where they shrink to none at all.
It must be I want life to go on living.
Let us hope that this particular form of idiocy vanishes before it does serious damage.
Why There Will be More Attempted Bombings
Dec 30, 2009 21:35
The administration can call the fight with Islamic guerrillas a war if it likes, but it's more like the drug war than what we usually mean by the term "war." Typically, wars are fought by large military forces against the military forces of other nations. With an enemy that is small, dispersed, highly mobile, and virtually worldwide, traditional military doctrine is irrelevant, and mostly counter-productive. It's not a war in any traditional sense of the word and to treat it like a war is as big a mistake as treating the problem of substance abuse as a war. Not only that, it's a losing strategy, just like the war on drugs.
To start out, we need to address the question that the political class and the media have consistently avoided: why are these people trying to terrorize us? What is driving them to this pathological extremism?
The profound ignorance of the American people regarding Islam and the Middle East has made it easy to avoid serious discussion of how the great European empires (and now the American Empire) have interacted with Islam and the Middle East over the past 800 years to bring us to this point.
We forget easily; the people of the Middle East don't.
Worse—and it is a serious defect in the American character that will someday do us in—Americans don't believe that history matters. We believe that we are an exception and that the rules don't apply to us. History is bunk, as Henry Ford reportedly said.
Thus knowledgeable scholars and historians who could enlighten us but whose opinions differ from the official line are ignored by the media and the government and no one is the wiser.
Unless we learn some Middle Eastern history--especially the history of the last 150 years--and become willing to seriously discuss how we got to this point, there is little we can do to stop terrorists from trying to hurt us. We can search them out and destroy them, but others will rise to take their place if we don't exercise more intelligence and wisdom in formulating our domestic and foreign policies.
None of us wants to hear this, but the actions of this nation clearly had something to do with our problem with terrorism. It didn't arise out of nothing. A circle of Islamic fundamentalists weren't just sitting around drinking tea when they decided out of the blue to hijack some airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center. They had to be provoked in a big sort of way. Has the American public ever been informed of how they were provoked? I've done some studying, and although I make no claims whatever to any expertise in Middle Eastern affairs, I have learned enough to know that the terrorists have ongoing legitimate grievances that the U. S. Government is not addressing and probably never will address because it would have to make major changes in our foreign and domestic policies that would cost some big American corporations some big money.
In short, I am pessimistic. I expect us to be subjected to more and more petty humiliations and more restrictions of civil liberties when traveling—in the name of making us safer—but the threats will continue as terrorists think up new and more ingenious methods of blowing up aircraft, simply because their grievances never have and probably never will be addressed. They will occasionally succeed in their grisly business, and in addition to the tragic loss of life, I predict that the disasters will be used by the authorities as an excuse to further shred the protections of the Bill of Rights, all in the name of protecting us.
And we, who are as ignorant of our constitutional rights as we are of Islam and the Middle East, will meekly submit to all of it, believing that it is being done in our best interest.
To start out, we need to address the question that the political class and the media have consistently avoided: why are these people trying to terrorize us? What is driving them to this pathological extremism?
The profound ignorance of the American people regarding Islam and the Middle East has made it easy to avoid serious discussion of how the great European empires (and now the American Empire) have interacted with Islam and the Middle East over the past 800 years to bring us to this point.
We forget easily; the people of the Middle East don't.
Worse—and it is a serious defect in the American character that will someday do us in—Americans don't believe that history matters. We believe that we are an exception and that the rules don't apply to us. History is bunk, as Henry Ford reportedly said.
Thus knowledgeable scholars and historians who could enlighten us but whose opinions differ from the official line are ignored by the media and the government and no one is the wiser.
Unless we learn some Middle Eastern history--especially the history of the last 150 years--and become willing to seriously discuss how we got to this point, there is little we can do to stop terrorists from trying to hurt us. We can search them out and destroy them, but others will rise to take their place if we don't exercise more intelligence and wisdom in formulating our domestic and foreign policies.
None of us wants to hear this, but the actions of this nation clearly had something to do with our problem with terrorism. It didn't arise out of nothing. A circle of Islamic fundamentalists weren't just sitting around drinking tea when they decided out of the blue to hijack some airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center. They had to be provoked in a big sort of way. Has the American public ever been informed of how they were provoked? I've done some studying, and although I make no claims whatever to any expertise in Middle Eastern affairs, I have learned enough to know that the terrorists have ongoing legitimate grievances that the U. S. Government is not addressing and probably never will address because it would have to make major changes in our foreign and domestic policies that would cost some big American corporations some big money.
In short, I am pessimistic. I expect us to be subjected to more and more petty humiliations and more restrictions of civil liberties when traveling—in the name of making us safer—but the threats will continue as terrorists think up new and more ingenious methods of blowing up aircraft, simply because their grievances never have and probably never will be addressed. They will occasionally succeed in their grisly business, and in addition to the tragic loss of life, I predict that the disasters will be used by the authorities as an excuse to further shred the protections of the Bill of Rights, all in the name of protecting us.
And we, who are as ignorant of our constitutional rights as we are of Islam and the Middle East, will meekly submit to all of it, believing that it is being done in our best interest.
The Senate Health Reform Bill - Summary
Dec 13, 2009 13:48
mcJoan of the Daily Kos has a good summary of the current Senate health reform bill.
The Senate bill is a pig in a poke compared to what it ought to be, and it will unjustly swell the coffers of the insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations at taxpayer expense. But it looks very much like something will ultimately pass and be enacted into law. Whatever passes will require much improvement over the next few years, but at least there will be something to improve.
The Republicans know this, so expect them to oppose unanimously any health care reform bill, no matter how bipartisan the drafting process has been. When every single Senate Republican votes against the final bill, the Democrats will be finally and fully justified in telling the Republicans to go to Hell and using the reconciliation process to enact important legislation. It’s clear that (1) the Republican “constituency” is Wall Street, big business, and the extremely wealthy—but not the rest of us; and, (2) they will not negotiate in good faith when the interests of their true constituents are affected.
As for Mississippi....
If there were ever a state that desperately needs affordable health care, it would be Mississippi. Yet our senators and representatives have—with only one exception—demonstrated over and over that their loyalties lie elsewhere. If Mississippi were a sovereign nation, they would be guilty of treason.
And a large percentage of voters in this benighted state are too blinded by right-wing bullshit to figure that out, even as they drive their uninsured asses to the local emergency room because they can’t afford a regular doctor.
Exactly what does it take to wake people to reality?
The Senate bill is a pig in a poke compared to what it ought to be, and it will unjustly swell the coffers of the insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations at taxpayer expense. But it looks very much like something will ultimately pass and be enacted into law. Whatever passes will require much improvement over the next few years, but at least there will be something to improve.
The Republicans know this, so expect them to oppose unanimously any health care reform bill, no matter how bipartisan the drafting process has been. When every single Senate Republican votes against the final bill, the Democrats will be finally and fully justified in telling the Republicans to go to Hell and using the reconciliation process to enact important legislation. It’s clear that (1) the Republican “constituency” is Wall Street, big business, and the extremely wealthy—but not the rest of us; and, (2) they will not negotiate in good faith when the interests of their true constituents are affected.
As for Mississippi....
If there were ever a state that desperately needs affordable health care, it would be Mississippi. Yet our senators and representatives have—with only one exception—demonstrated over and over that their loyalties lie elsewhere. If Mississippi were a sovereign nation, they would be guilty of treason.
And a large percentage of voters in this benighted state are too blinded by right-wing bullshit to figure that out, even as they drive their uninsured asses to the local emergency room because they can’t afford a regular doctor.
Exactly what does it take to wake people to reality?
Goldman Sachs and the Brother-In-Law Strategy
Nov 21, 2009 22:54
Frank Rich wrote a scathing commentary today on Goldman Sachs, the financial powerhouse that played a big role in the ongoing economic crisis and yet emerged from it with huge profits, to the extent that it could afford to pay out $16.7 billion in bonuses to its management and employees.
Goldman, having received $10 billion in the initial bailout, has paid it back to the U. S. Treasury, and now claims that it really never needed the money. Rich points out, however, that $12.9 billion of the taxpayers’ money that went to bail out AIG went immediately to Goldman Sachs, to whom it owed the money as the result of its insuring Goldman’s bad debts.
And we do not know how much money the Federal Reserve pumped into Goldman as part of its efforts to preserve the banking system.
The truth is that Goldman clearly knew what it was doing all along, and calculated that the Treasury would have to bail out AIG, which would in turn reimburse Goldman for losses on its own toxic assets. It may have been legal, but if so, it was a legal scam on businesses and the public.
Think about it this way: Imagine yourself at a party where everyone, including yourself, was so drunk that they could barely get off the floor, much less drive their car home. The neighborhood is swarming with police officers with breathalyzers and there is no way you can avoid being stopped and asked to walk a straight line if you attempt to drive home. What do you do?
Simple. You find the brother-in-law of the police chief (who happens to be a guest) and ask him to drive you home. If your host has been smart enough to invite the chief himself or even the mayor, you prevail upon one of them to drive. They won’t be stopped and you avoid even the risk of being charged with public drunkenness, which is what usually happens when the driver is arrested for DUI and the passenger is too inebriated to drive the car home.
AIG was the brother-in-law. The Goldman veterans at Treasury and the Fed running the show—both in the Bush and Obama administrations—knew they couldn’t let AIG go under, and of course, they didn’t mind helping their alma mater in the process of bailing out AIG.
It’s a ripoff of Bromdingnagian proportions, but it looks like they will get away with it.
It is widely and correctly understood that Wall Street, with Goldman as a leader and with regulators in thrall, helped to inflate and profited from a credit bubble that burst and cost tens of millions of Americans their jobs, incomes, savings and home equity. American taxpayers continue to stand behind the bailouts and other government interventions that have stabilized the financial system, including Goldman, enabling the firm to post blowout profits in 2009 and to set aside $16.7 billion for bonuses so far this year.
Goldman, having received $10 billion in the initial bailout, has paid it back to the U. S. Treasury, and now claims that it really never needed the money. Rich points out, however, that $12.9 billion of the taxpayers’ money that went to bail out AIG went immediately to Goldman Sachs, to whom it owed the money as the result of its insuring Goldman’s bad debts.
And we do not know how much money the Federal Reserve pumped into Goldman as part of its efforts to preserve the banking system.
The truth is that Goldman clearly knew what it was doing all along, and calculated that the Treasury would have to bail out AIG, which would in turn reimburse Goldman for losses on its own toxic assets. It may have been legal, but if so, it was a legal scam on businesses and the public.
Think about it this way: Imagine yourself at a party where everyone, including yourself, was so drunk that they could barely get off the floor, much less drive their car home. The neighborhood is swarming with police officers with breathalyzers and there is no way you can avoid being stopped and asked to walk a straight line if you attempt to drive home. What do you do?
Simple. You find the brother-in-law of the police chief (who happens to be a guest) and ask him to drive you home. If your host has been smart enough to invite the chief himself or even the mayor, you prevail upon one of them to drive. They won’t be stopped and you avoid even the risk of being charged with public drunkenness, which is what usually happens when the driver is arrested for DUI and the passenger is too inebriated to drive the car home.
AIG was the brother-in-law. The Goldman veterans at Treasury and the Fed running the show—both in the Bush and Obama administrations—knew they couldn’t let AIG go under, and of course, they didn’t mind helping their alma mater in the process of bailing out AIG.
It’s a ripoff of Bromdingnagian proportions, but it looks like they will get away with it.
The End of Suburbia - 52 minute documentary on peak oil
Oct 14, 2009 18:18
A documentary on peak oil. The only question is whether we humans are wise enough to prepare for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
Obama's Cairo Speech
Jun 05, 2009 11:30
Obama gave a stemwinder of a speech yesterday in Cairo. The press was duly impressed and laudatory, for the most part, but others pointed out that the main thing Obama changed was the mood.
I am optimistic; before U. S. policy can change for the better, the conversation must first change. The speech was aimed mainly towards the American public, and, considering the demonization of Islam and its adherents we have seen in the post 9/11 period, it is indeed a breath of fresh air.
It committed Obama to nothing substantial and concrete, however, and that was surely by design. The political mindscape must change before the political landscape can be transformed. Simply by treating Islam and muslims with respect, Obama is altering the mindscape.
I am optimistic; before U. S. policy can change for the better, the conversation must first change. The speech was aimed mainly towards the American public, and, considering the demonization of Islam and its adherents we have seen in the post 9/11 period, it is indeed a breath of fresh air.
It committed Obama to nothing substantial and concrete, however, and that was surely by design. The political mindscape must change before the political landscape can be transformed. Simply by treating Islam and muslims with respect, Obama is altering the mindscape.
A Special Prosecutor for Torture?
Apr 27, 2009 14:08
Should the Department of Justice or a special prosecutor prosecute the Bush administration officials responsible for the authorization of torture? David Corn explores the problems in a thoughtful article on the Mother Jones web site.
The question is “What do we want?” Do we want to know what really happened, or do we want convictions? We may not be able to get both.
As Corn points out, Patrick Fitzgerald unearthed far more wrongdoing than he was able to disclose, due to the rules and regulations that control the prosecutor’s office. Since he concluded that he did not have enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rove, Chaney and a number of other officials were guilty of crimes, the evidence he had collected could not be disclosed. His hands were tied.
In other words, if the Obama administration prosecutes we may get neither truth nor convictions.
Congressional hearings and even independent commissions have their weaknesses, too. The members of the 9/11 Commission were clearly chosen to favor the government’s version of events and to ignore evidence that conflicted with the that version.
Congressional hearings can turn into three-ring circuses when the stakes are high and one party feels threatened. When members of both parties are compromised, the truth will never emerge.
As I mentioned the other day, Obama’s decision to release the secret memos authorizing torture was most likely designed to test the level of outrage among the public, and thus enable him to gauge the support that he would receive were he to prosecute.
Prosecuting the previous administration carries serious political risks, not the least of which is that the Supreme Court could declare the president immune from prosecution for acts taken in his capacity as commander-in-chief on matters of national security. If you think this is far-fetched, consider that in 2000 the court , on specious legal grounds, stopped the vote recount in Florida and thus determined the outcome of the presidential election in favor of George Bush. The justices appointed since then, having been ideologically vetted before being nominated by Bush and confirmed by a Republican Senate, have not demonstrated that they would have any more scruples about stretching the Constitution to protect Bush and Cheney from prosecution.
It’s a tough question. The only workable solution may be truth and reconciliation commissions modeled partially after South Africa. Persons who are willing to appear before a commission and confess their crimes get a break, ranging from amnesty in the least serious cases, to a reduced sentence in the more heinous ones.
There are serious moral and legal problems inherent with truth commissions, however. As a general proposition, persons who have abused the public trust should not be allowed to escape the consequences of their actions, especially when their misdeeds have resulted in the death and suffering of so many innocent persons. To persuade guilty parties to submit to the commissions, the government must be willing to back up such commissions by prosecuting those who either refuse to appear, perjure themselves, or hold back from telling the entire truth.
Individuals without remorse would have to face the full force of the criminal law. This would probably involve, at the very least, putting Dick Cheney on trial, as he is unlikely to ever admit wrongdoing.
The question is “What do we want?” Do we want to know what really happened, or do we want convictions? We may not be able to get both.
As Corn points out, Patrick Fitzgerald unearthed far more wrongdoing than he was able to disclose, due to the rules and regulations that control the prosecutor’s office. Since he concluded that he did not have enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rove, Chaney and a number of other officials were guilty of crimes, the evidence he had collected could not be disclosed. His hands were tied.
In other words, if the Obama administration prosecutes we may get neither truth nor convictions.
Congressional hearings and even independent commissions have their weaknesses, too. The members of the 9/11 Commission were clearly chosen to favor the government’s version of events and to ignore evidence that conflicted with the that version.
Congressional hearings can turn into three-ring circuses when the stakes are high and one party feels threatened. When members of both parties are compromised, the truth will never emerge.
As I mentioned the other day, Obama’s decision to release the secret memos authorizing torture was most likely designed to test the level of outrage among the public, and thus enable him to gauge the support that he would receive were he to prosecute.
Prosecuting the previous administration carries serious political risks, not the least of which is that the Supreme Court could declare the president immune from prosecution for acts taken in his capacity as commander-in-chief on matters of national security. If you think this is far-fetched, consider that in 2000 the court , on specious legal grounds, stopped the vote recount in Florida and thus determined the outcome of the presidential election in favor of George Bush. The justices appointed since then, having been ideologically vetted before being nominated by Bush and confirmed by a Republican Senate, have not demonstrated that they would have any more scruples about stretching the Constitution to protect Bush and Cheney from prosecution.
It’s a tough question. The only workable solution may be truth and reconciliation commissions modeled partially after South Africa. Persons who are willing to appear before a commission and confess their crimes get a break, ranging from amnesty in the least serious cases, to a reduced sentence in the more heinous ones.
There are serious moral and legal problems inherent with truth commissions, however. As a general proposition, persons who have abused the public trust should not be allowed to escape the consequences of their actions, especially when their misdeeds have resulted in the death and suffering of so many innocent persons. To persuade guilty parties to submit to the commissions, the government must be willing to back up such commissions by prosecuting those who either refuse to appear, perjure themselves, or hold back from telling the entire truth.
Individuals without remorse would have to face the full force of the criminal law. This would probably involve, at the very least, putting Dick Cheney on trial, as he is unlikely to ever admit wrongdoing.
Poor Obama!
Apr 25, 2009 11:59
Poor Obama! He made the egregious mistake of releasing secret memos written by legal prostitutes in the Bush administration justifying torture, and now, as a result, pressure is building for legislative, possibly criminal, investigations of said whores and the higher officials who ordered the memos.
Obama could have saved himself all this trouble with the judicious use of a shredder and some Cheneyesque stonewalling.
Now it’s too late. He may eventually be forced, kicking and screaming, to authorize criminal investigations, and, heaven forbid, even prosecutions.
He should have known that this would happen.
Obama could have saved himself all this trouble with the judicious use of a shredder and some Cheneyesque stonewalling.
Now it’s too late. He may eventually be forced, kicking and screaming, to authorize criminal investigations, and, heaven forbid, even prosecutions.
He should have known that this would happen.
Sunday Thoughts from Several Weeks Ago
Apr 18, 2009 12:47
Any political policy, belief, or theory contains a vision of what the world should be like. That vision is seldom explicit, often unconscious, and sometimes secret, at least in its purest, most unembellished form.
Political dialogue, it it is to be productive, must address this vision, or else it misses the mark.
The ideal polity arises from the projections of our own shadow material onto both the world and the deity that created it (or the physical processes that made it, depending upon one’s belief). Most people do not know why they are attracted to a conservative, liberal or progressive position, because the attraction has its origin in their unconscious.
A conservative vision is easier to come by than a progressive vision, because it is based upon an appealing past. It draws much of its strength from our tendency to forget unpleasant experiences and remember only the pleasant. We are easily convinced that there existed an ideal era, a veritable Garden of Eden, of which evil people and forces have deprived us, and—if we can only defeat those evil forces—Eden will be restored. In our current era, the evil people and forces are represented as misguided do-gooders, socialists and redistributionists that have poisoned the well of pure capitalism and the free market.
At its heart, the conservative vision is profoundly elitist and anti-democratic. Societies governed by conservative principles are invariably plutocracies or timocracies. The few rule and take what they want; the many obey and try to live on the crumbs left over. The first task of the conservative thinker, then, is to conceal this ugly reality from his followers, a task made easier by the almost universal ignorance of history. If he is a decent person, he will have to explain it away to himself first, a task made somewhat easier by the financial support of the elites themselves.
A progressive vision arises from the idea of a possible future different from the past but better than the present. It must change, however, in the face of empirical evidence, or it will become another conservative vision. The progressive vision, therefore, is wedded to reality, which is continually in flux. The conservatives have Plato and the eternal forms. The progressives have Socrates with his questioning and Heraclitus with his river.
To a progressive, the past is teacher, not master. What worked in the past may or may not work today or in the future. Every significant advance of the human race was, by definition, unprecedented. Faulkner notwithstanding, the past is really past, and a society based upon the contrary assumption is sick. A society that believes in an imaginary past that is not yet past is insane.
The weakness of the progressive vision is that it requires imagination and a willingness to question what society accepts as eternal verities. Some “eternal” verities do persist throughout the ages, but many of them serve only to preserve the power and position of elites. Therefore, public progressivism requires political courage, a rare virtue.
Political dialogue, it it is to be productive, must address this vision, or else it misses the mark.
The ideal polity arises from the projections of our own shadow material onto both the world and the deity that created it (or the physical processes that made it, depending upon one’s belief). Most people do not know why they are attracted to a conservative, liberal or progressive position, because the attraction has its origin in their unconscious.
A conservative vision is easier to come by than a progressive vision, because it is based upon an appealing past. It draws much of its strength from our tendency to forget unpleasant experiences and remember only the pleasant. We are easily convinced that there existed an ideal era, a veritable Garden of Eden, of which evil people and forces have deprived us, and—if we can only defeat those evil forces—Eden will be restored. In our current era, the evil people and forces are represented as misguided do-gooders, socialists and redistributionists that have poisoned the well of pure capitalism and the free market.
At its heart, the conservative vision is profoundly elitist and anti-democratic. Societies governed by conservative principles are invariably plutocracies or timocracies. The few rule and take what they want; the many obey and try to live on the crumbs left over. The first task of the conservative thinker, then, is to conceal this ugly reality from his followers, a task made easier by the almost universal ignorance of history. If he is a decent person, he will have to explain it away to himself first, a task made somewhat easier by the financial support of the elites themselves.
A progressive vision arises from the idea of a possible future different from the past but better than the present. It must change, however, in the face of empirical evidence, or it will become another conservative vision. The progressive vision, therefore, is wedded to reality, which is continually in flux. The conservatives have Plato and the eternal forms. The progressives have Socrates with his questioning and Heraclitus with his river.
To a progressive, the past is teacher, not master. What worked in the past may or may not work today or in the future. Every significant advance of the human race was, by definition, unprecedented. Faulkner notwithstanding, the past is really past, and a society based upon the contrary assumption is sick. A society that believes in an imaginary past that is not yet past is insane.
The weakness of the progressive vision is that it requires imagination and a willingness to question what society accepts as eternal verities. Some “eternal” verities do persist throughout the ages, but many of them serve only to preserve the power and position of elites. Therefore, public progressivism requires political courage, a rare virtue.
Give it Back
Mar 12, 2009 08:41
The New York Times reports today that a number of banks, from smaller ones to some of the biggest (Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo), find the conditions for receiving taxpayer bailout cash so onerous that they are talking about returning the money to the federal government.
Some Banks, Feeling Chained, Want to Return Bailout Money
If the banks can afford to return the money, it is rather obvious that they never needed it and their CEOs and CFOs were lying when they told Congress that they were about to go under without massive infusions of fresh capital. Something smells unbelievably rotten about what is happening on Wall Street and we need to get to the bottom of it quickly. It’s looking more and more like a shell game designed to benefit the people at the top of the financial sector at the expense of just about everyone else.
Throughout this extraordinary economic episode that began last September, Wall Street (and its mostly Republican allies in Congress) have protested violently at any government effort to help poor and middle-class families that are losing their jobs and their homes. They are choking on the requirement that if they accept public monies they must actually do something in return for the public whose taxes make it possible for the bailouts to happen.
The government should immediately accept--even demand--a refund of the bailout money and begin investigating the banks for fraud, perjury, and perhaps even worse criminal offenses. Thorough audits by independent auditors of all the bailout recipients should be the first order of the day. The FDIC already has the authority to audit and then take over an insolvent bank. The president should instruct them to do so, no matter how large a bank may be.
Some Banks, Feeling Chained, Want to Return Bailout Money
If the banks can afford to return the money, it is rather obvious that they never needed it and their CEOs and CFOs were lying when they told Congress that they were about to go under without massive infusions of fresh capital. Something smells unbelievably rotten about what is happening on Wall Street and we need to get to the bottom of it quickly. It’s looking more and more like a shell game designed to benefit the people at the top of the financial sector at the expense of just about everyone else.
Throughout this extraordinary economic episode that began last September, Wall Street (and its mostly Republican allies in Congress) have protested violently at any government effort to help poor and middle-class families that are losing their jobs and their homes. They are choking on the requirement that if they accept public monies they must actually do something in return for the public whose taxes make it possible for the bailouts to happen.
The government should immediately accept--even demand--a refund of the bailout money and begin investigating the banks for fraud, perjury, and perhaps even worse criminal offenses. Thorough audits by independent auditors of all the bailout recipients should be the first order of the day. The FDIC already has the authority to audit and then take over an insolvent bank. The president should instruct them to do so, no matter how large a bank may be.
Joe Bageant & the Mental Health Industry
Feb 08, 2009 22:20
Several years ago I told a friend in the mental health business that, considering the epidemic of depression that hit the American middle class in the ’90s, we ought to seriously consider the hypothesis that depression is not an illness so much as the response of a normal, healthy person to a society in which it has become increasingly impossible to sanely live. Knowing that I was recovering from a nasty case of depression, he was sympathetic but non-committal.
Now Joe Bageant, redneck hippie grown mature, author of Deer Hunting With Jesus, has put it as well as it could be put:
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/02/a-commodity-called-misery.html
Rupert Sheldrake, the British biologist, believes that if enough persons start thinking about something, it creates a “morphic field,” that influences the rest of us who find themselves in similar situations. Jung called the phenomenon “synchronicity.” Perhaps this is a partial explanation for what is taking place.
Now Joe Bageant, redneck hippie grown mature, author of Deer Hunting With Jesus, has put it as well as it could be put:
Read the whole column, think about the life you and those around you lead, and attempt to convince yourself that he is wrong.Whatever else can be said of capitalism, it is miraculous stuff, pure alchemy. It can privatize and corporatize any damned thing under the sun, turn a profit on it, and then make it a bulwark of corporate state control to boot. Even human misery and oppression of soul and mind. Psychological practice and its institutions benefit greatly from this. After all, they are in the alienation business. It is entirely in the profession's best interests that it treat us as if our lives are lived in a vacuum, our loneliness and despair are entirely our own, as if there were no such thing as context, much less American society's corrosive and toxic environment in which so many of us live out our lives.
Put another way, it acknowledges our misery, then privatizes it, then administers lonely alienated "treatment" for our emptiness in a private void, one among tens of millions of like emptinesses in similar voids that are in no way supposed to be societal. No matter that there are enough sufferers to constitute an entire society in themselves. The result, whether or not by design, is to perpetuate the most venerable of American myths, that of the completely autonomous self. Which denies us the power and beauty, not to mention the healing and efficacy, of human unity. In the big picture, much of the U.S. mental health industry, and its associated systems, perpetuate and even propagate mental sickness perhaps as much as it alleviates, through its paradigms. In any case, for the most part, psychology as an institution has hardened into part of the national ideology, thanks to the catalyst of gobs of dough from the state. The American Psychological Association's initial refusal to condemn member participation in the Bush regime's torture told me all I needed to know about U.S. psych-officialdom.
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/02/a-commodity-called-misery.html
Rupert Sheldrake, the British biologist, believes that if enough persons start thinking about something, it creates a “morphic field,” that influences the rest of us who find themselves in similar situations. Jung called the phenomenon “synchronicity.” Perhaps this is a partial explanation for what is taking place.
Thoughts on Saturday Evening 3 Days Before the Inauguration of Barak Obama
Jan 17, 2009 22:23
We are in the last days of the most evil and dangerous presidency this country has ever experienced.
To begin to repair the damage wrought by the right-wing wrecking crews over the past 28 years, our nation will require far more than a savior. Obama alone cannot get us out of this mess. The Democrats cannot do it by themselves.
We, the citizens, enabled our presidents, congresses and courts to bring us to this point. We will have to stop the enabling.
The habit will be hard to break.
We voted for men (and a few women) who told us what we wanted to hear.
They told us that greed was good. We eventually came to believe it.
We paid no attention to their crimes--and their crimes were numerous, from Iran-Contra to the looting of the financial industry.
We refused to notice the militarization of our police forces, and the gutting of our constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Without questioning, we allowed ourselves to be terrified by whatever our elected officials told us we should be terrified of, and gave them free rein to do whatever they wanted to do to free us from the fear du jour.
We let them instigate wars and conflicts that we had no business fighting.
We allowed our manufacturing industries either to close or to move overseas.
We spent all our spare time watching television, where we slowly became transformed from citizens into consumers who have consequently almost completely forgotten the knowledge of how a citizen is supposed to act.
And, worst of all, when the nation experienced the trauma of 9/11, which happened because our bozo of a president ignored repeated warnings of the attack, instead of impeaching him for criminal negligence, we bestowed upon him the powers of a Roman emperor, which powers he used to invade a nation that had nothing to do with the attack on 9/11, to torture prisoners, and to reward his political allies by paying them huge sums of money in connection with the Iraq war, much of which they promptly stole.
And nearly half of us who cast ballots in 2008 voted for an elderly half-wit, who, along with his vulpine running mate, promised to carry on the very same policies (if he could only remember what they were) that brought us to this point.
It is enough to deeply discourage anyone who loves his country.
With Obama as president and the Democrats with a majority in Congress, there are grounds to hope that our nation is in somewhat more responsible hands that it was before. To preserve the republic, however, will take more than responsible caretakers. It involves changing the fundamental direction of the ship of state, away from a nation completely controlled by large corporations, banks, mass media, and the military, all of which have demonstrated conclusively that they cannot be trusted on their own to act in the public interest.
A formidable task, indeed. Let the work begin.
Tom Lowe
To begin to repair the damage wrought by the right-wing wrecking crews over the past 28 years, our nation will require far more than a savior. Obama alone cannot get us out of this mess. The Democrats cannot do it by themselves.
We, the citizens, enabled our presidents, congresses and courts to bring us to this point. We will have to stop the enabling.
The habit will be hard to break.
We voted for men (and a few women) who told us what we wanted to hear.
They told us that greed was good. We eventually came to believe it.
We paid no attention to their crimes--and their crimes were numerous, from Iran-Contra to the looting of the financial industry.
We refused to notice the militarization of our police forces, and the gutting of our constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Without questioning, we allowed ourselves to be terrified by whatever our elected officials told us we should be terrified of, and gave them free rein to do whatever they wanted to do to free us from the fear du jour.
We let them instigate wars and conflicts that we had no business fighting.
We allowed our manufacturing industries either to close or to move overseas.
We spent all our spare time watching television, where we slowly became transformed from citizens into consumers who have consequently almost completely forgotten the knowledge of how a citizen is supposed to act.
And, worst of all, when the nation experienced the trauma of 9/11, which happened because our bozo of a president ignored repeated warnings of the attack, instead of impeaching him for criminal negligence, we bestowed upon him the powers of a Roman emperor, which powers he used to invade a nation that had nothing to do with the attack on 9/11, to torture prisoners, and to reward his political allies by paying them huge sums of money in connection with the Iraq war, much of which they promptly stole.
And nearly half of us who cast ballots in 2008 voted for an elderly half-wit, who, along with his vulpine running mate, promised to carry on the very same policies (if he could only remember what they were) that brought us to this point.
It is enough to deeply discourage anyone who loves his country.
With Obama as president and the Democrats with a majority in Congress, there are grounds to hope that our nation is in somewhat more responsible hands that it was before. To preserve the republic, however, will take more than responsible caretakers. It involves changing the fundamental direction of the ship of state, away from a nation completely controlled by large corporations, banks, mass media, and the military, all of which have demonstrated conclusively that they cannot be trusted on their own to act in the public interest.
A formidable task, indeed. Let the work begin.
Tom Lowe
Rewiring the President-Elect's Brain
Dec 06, 2008 22:10
The New York Times reported Wednesday that our president-elect is now talking about withdrawing combat troops for Iraq within 16 months, “... with the understanding that it might be necessary—likely to be necessary—to maintain a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect our civilians in Iraq.” (I haven’t the slightest idea what “potential training,” means within the context—or in any context—and would appreciate some enlightenment if a reader would like to comment. I suspect it didn’t mean anything, but served as a placeholder until his mind could catch up.)
We are now seeing in the result of an intense and concerted effort by the established agencies of the federal government, particularly the Pentagon, to infuse into the head of the incoming president and his closest advisors the worldview held by the permanent government. It is an indoctrination difficult to resist, in no small part because much of it is classified, which limits the ability of the president to tap sources of information outside the security establishment. George Bush, whose lack of curiosity has been commented on for many years, apparently saw little reason to question the official worldview of the neocons, even when it became obvious that much of their worldview was pure fantasy.
But for a president to properly do his job, he must be able to develop his own sources of information outside of the almost hermetic cocoon that is designed to envelop and protect him, not only from physical harm, but from whatever might interfere with the official streams of intelligence that are intended to reach the president thoroughly vetted. We know from bitter experience, however, that a president who relies exclusively on official intelligence places himself at the mercy of those who supply the intelligence, and that intelligence can far too often be filtered in such a way that his decisions are flawed, or even disastrous. A president must have independent sources of intelligence.
A president requires independent intelligence for two reasons: first, it gives him an accurate idea of how well his advisors and the agencies charged with gathering and vetting intelligence are performing. Barring an intelligence disaster, the only way to test one’s intelligence sources is with other sources of intelligence. Roosevelt often surprised his closest advisors with information of which they had just come to inform him. His friends around the nation and the world privately fed him news on a daily basis.
Second, government intelligence agencies are not infallible; they have institutional blind spots, sometimes for political reasons (Douglas Feith is a classic example), and sometimes for structural reasons, such as when management simply doesn’t believe a matter is important when it is actually critical. And then there is the unavoidable human tendency to tell the ruler what the speaker thinks the ruler wants to hear. An informal intelligence network can quietly inform the emperor about his new clothes when he might otherwise find out too late.
Owing to the ability of the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the FBI to monitor communications worldwide, it has become considerably more difficult for any president to maintain unofficial communication with his own informal intelligence sources, but somehow the president must find a way. His advisors will be hesitant to shade the truth when they know he has ways of checking what they tell him, and thus his decisions are more likely to be based on reality.
We are now seeing in the result of an intense and concerted effort by the established agencies of the federal government, particularly the Pentagon, to infuse into the head of the incoming president and his closest advisors the worldview held by the permanent government. It is an indoctrination difficult to resist, in no small part because much of it is classified, which limits the ability of the president to tap sources of information outside the security establishment. George Bush, whose lack of curiosity has been commented on for many years, apparently saw little reason to question the official worldview of the neocons, even when it became obvious that much of their worldview was pure fantasy.
But for a president to properly do his job, he must be able to develop his own sources of information outside of the almost hermetic cocoon that is designed to envelop and protect him, not only from physical harm, but from whatever might interfere with the official streams of intelligence that are intended to reach the president thoroughly vetted. We know from bitter experience, however, that a president who relies exclusively on official intelligence places himself at the mercy of those who supply the intelligence, and that intelligence can far too often be filtered in such a way that his decisions are flawed, or even disastrous. A president must have independent sources of intelligence.
A president requires independent intelligence for two reasons: first, it gives him an accurate idea of how well his advisors and the agencies charged with gathering and vetting intelligence are performing. Barring an intelligence disaster, the only way to test one’s intelligence sources is with other sources of intelligence. Roosevelt often surprised his closest advisors with information of which they had just come to inform him. His friends around the nation and the world privately fed him news on a daily basis.
Second, government intelligence agencies are not infallible; they have institutional blind spots, sometimes for political reasons (Douglas Feith is a classic example), and sometimes for structural reasons, such as when management simply doesn’t believe a matter is important when it is actually critical. And then there is the unavoidable human tendency to tell the ruler what the speaker thinks the ruler wants to hear. An informal intelligence network can quietly inform the emperor about his new clothes when he might otherwise find out too late.
Owing to the ability of the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the FBI to monitor communications worldwide, it has become considerably more difficult for any president to maintain unofficial communication with his own informal intelligence sources, but somehow the president must find a way. His advisors will be hesitant to shade the truth when they know he has ways of checking what they tell him, and thus his decisions are more likely to be based on reality.
Biolab Going to Kansas
Dec 04, 2008 23:21
The Clarion-Ledger reported today that the new Biolab, currently located on Plum Island, NY, will be built in Manhattan, Kansas, not Flora, Mississippi.
We have been spared a very, very risky project. The politicians and economic development people, as well as the local press, have been strong supporters of the project. The JP has opposed it from the moment that Flora looked like a candidate. I’ve never seen such a blackout on unfavorable comment about the project in the press. The possibility of so much money seemed to blind everyone to the dangers of keeping potentially lethal organisms and toxins near our homes.
The lab belongs on a remote deserted island, not on the U. S. mainland.
We have been spared a very, very risky project. The politicians and economic development people, as well as the local press, have been strong supporters of the project. The JP has opposed it from the moment that Flora looked like a candidate. I’ve never seen such a blackout on unfavorable comment about the project in the press. The possibility of so much money seemed to blind everyone to the dangers of keeping potentially lethal organisms and toxins near our homes.
The lab belongs on a remote deserted island, not on the U. S. mainland.
Interesting articles discovered on the way to something else
Nov 22, 2008 22:48
I updated all the links on the Kosovo Pages.
Al Giordano on Hillary Clinton and Human Rights - a Cautionary Tale
From Sam Smith’s Progressive Review: What the Banks, Academics, the Media and Politicians Don’t Tell You About Money
Naomi Klein: In Praise of a Rocky Transition
Al Giordano on Hillary Clinton and Human Rights - a Cautionary Tale
And if - as the mass media seems to agree right now - US President-elect Barack Obama is about to install someone as the next Secretary of State who has shown zero understanding of, much less passion and action for, human rights in Mexico, Colombia and elsewhere (except in isolated cases where the same mass media has turned a particular case into an international cause celébre), we're going to see more of the same terrible story happen over and over again.
From Sam Smith’s Progressive Review: What the Banks, Academics, the Media and Politicians Don’t Tell You About Money
The power to create money is an awesome power - at times stronger than the executive, legislative or judicial powers combined. It's like having a "magic checkbook," where checks can't bounce. When controlled privately it can be used to gain riches, but more importantly it determines the direction of our society by deciding where the money goes - what gets funded and what does not. Will it be used to build and repair vital infrastructure such as levees to protect major cities? Or will it go into warfare or real estate loans, creating asset price inflation - the real estate bubble.
Thus the money issuing power should never be alienated from democratically elected government and placed ambiguously into private hands as it is in America in the Federal Reserve system today.
Indeed most people would be surprised to learn that the bulk of our money supply is not created by our government, but by private banks when they make loans. Most of our money is issued as interest-bearing debt.
We are borrowing this money system from private banks when instead we should own the system, not rent it. Our government has the sovereign power to issue money (Art.1, Sect.8) and spend it into circulation to promote the general welfare through the creation and repair of infrastructure, including human infrastructure - health and education - rather than misusing the money system for speculation as banking has historically done. Our lawmakers must now reclaim that power. . .
Naomi Klein: In Praise of a Rocky Transition
The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.
The Center?
Nov 13, 2008 09:28
I would like someone to define the political “center.” Is it possible to come up with a series of centrist propositions, precisely midpoint between the left and the right?
Logic requires that in order to define the center, we must first define the left and right and then (if politics is what mathematicians call a metric space) find the average or mean of the two positions. The aggregate of average positions on major issues would, by definition, be the “centrist” position.
The political space, however, is probably not a metric space—the latter roughly defined as a mathematical structure that includes a way to measure the distance between two elements of the structure—and thus there really is no way to be sure that any policy described as centrist is actually in the political center.
Logic requires that in order to define the center, we must first define the left and right and then (if politics is what mathematicians call a metric space) find the average or mean of the two positions. The aggregate of average positions on major issues would, by definition, be the “centrist” position.
The political space, however, is probably not a metric space—the latter roughly defined as a mathematical structure that includes a way to measure the distance between two elements of the structure—and thus there really is no way to be sure that any policy described as centrist is actually in the political center.
What is the Significance of the Election of Barack Hussein Obama?
Nov 11, 2008 15:39
There is only one thing of which we can be certain: a majority of the voters have become so dissatisfied with the direction of this nation that they are willing to elect a person they perceive to be significantly different from the incumbent, in the hope that he will bring about positive change. The closeness of the popular vote, however, makes it clear that a sizable percentage of the voters who believe that the country is going in the wrong direction still voted for a candidate virtually certain to keep it going in the same direction and to continue unchanged the policies of the Bush administration. This segment of the electorate bears careful watching and study. Some of it can be attributed to racial prejudice, pure and simple. The Moslem-sounding name may have alarmed some voters too lazy to inquire any further, perhaps the same voters that chose to remain ignorant of Bush’s questionable past when they voted for him in 2000 and 2004.
But now that Obama has become the president-elect, we would be wise, in our celebrations of electoral victory, to remain mindful of the powerful forces that make it very difficult for a chief executive to bring about substantial systemic change. Too many institutions have grown fat on the generosity of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress, and there is nothing to which they will not stoop to retain what they are now getting. This is particularly true of the beneficiaries of the Iraq invasion and occupation but it is also true of all well-connected businesses and organizations that have been favored over their less Republican competitors. In addition, the promiscuous number of governmental agencies, particularly those related to “national security”—a term that has now become a euphemism for the maintenance and extension of the American Empire—with powerful constituencies in and out of government, have come to regard their fiefdoms, often concealed behind the shield of secrecy, as sacrosanct.
That Obama is not a wild-eyed radical was clearly revealed by the faces lined up behind him the other day when he delivered his short press conference on the economic crisis. Dinosaur Paul Volcker, Carter’s appointment as chair of the Federal Reserve System, appears to be in the forefront of Obama’s economic advisors. Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, Wall Street operatives who played a major role in deregulating the securities and banking industry, and who thus bear considerable responsibility for the present crisis, are said to be on the short list for Treasury secretary. Rahm Emanuel, an Israeli citizen legitimately described as a diehard Likudnik, will be Obama’s chief of staff, so the likelihood of justice and a real homeland for the Palestinian people appears to be off the table.
A friend writes: “I predict that Emanuel and Summers will be the least of what’s objectionable about the new White House crew. Zion siegt! Apparently neither perps nor victims ever learn, only historians.”
By definition, historical perspective is ex post facto. I recently read that President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand while simultaneously writing Greek with the other. He died too quickly from an assassin’s bullet for his performance as president to be assessed.
Obama likewise is an intellectual. He taught constitutional law for years at one of the finest law schools in the nation. He reads; he reflects. The most influential philosophers in his life are Reinhold Niebuhr and Nietzsche, which puts him an unusual category. This guy carries in his head a substantial quantity of apperceptive mass.
It remains, however, to be seen whether he—or anyone, for that matter—can stand upright in the face of the tsunami of late-stage finance capitalism, broken and corrupt as it may be. But if he fails—and failure is likely—his fall will at least have a tragic component.
Tragedy is always preferable to farce, at least when the future is at stake.
Emerson wrote that the great confide themselves childlike to the genius of their age. Augustus became the first Roman emperor because the time and circumstances demanded a monarch. Peracles led Athens because Athens had reached a point in its development (empire) that demanded a person with his talents. Like a surfer catching the right wave, Lincoln rode the tide, the Zeitgeist, into greatness, but at the cost of his own life. Roosevelt swept into power on a wave of suffering and revulsion at the crookedness and predations of Wall Street, and enacted the New Deal.
The question today is not so much Obama, but the direction of the tide. Jimmy Carter was a good and able man, I believe, but from the viewpoint of career-enhancement, he was swimming in the wrong direction. The right wing think-tanks, foundations, and mass media in the service of the corporate and rentier class had changed the mindscape of the nation. The delusions of supply-side economics—an intellectual fraud of the first water—conditioned the voters to accept the systematic dismantling of much of the New Deal that has occurred since January 20, 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president.
In the wake of 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the increasing third-worldization of our nation, together with the burst of the housing bubble and the ensuing financial meltdown, this nation might be ready to listen to someone who can articulate alternative paths, who doesn’t mouth uncritical hymns to the virtues of laissez faire capitalism while filling the coffers of the wealthy out of the public purse, who doesn’t believe that social Darwinism is the answer to all the problems of the world, and, perhaps most important of all, doesn’t believe that the only path to national prosperity lies in plundering the rest of the world, especially the poorer nations who cannot resist.
Maybe.
It is, however, already beginning to look as though the financial elite may succeed in keeping the genie of real change in the bottle this time around. Clearly, they saw the crisis coming, and probably were intending for the collapse to happen after the presidential election, when an increasingly senile Republican president-elect and his raptorial vice president-elect would offer no resistance to whatever plans that had already been made to complete the transfer of vast public wealth into private hands. It will not be as smooth as originally planned, but when Obama takes office on January 20, 2009, he will still be presented with a fait accompli that will require years to undo, that is, if it is even possible to undo all the damage. In this quest, he will be bitterly opposed by all those powers that profited from the previous regime.
So, dear reader, the question we must ask is not whether Obama is ready to be president, but whether the time is right for the changes that must be made to preserve our republic, and ultimately human life on the Earth. Is it we who are ready, in other words? Absent this precondition, the most able and prepared president hasn’t a chance.
Remember Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar? Brutus participated in the killing of Caesar, but when he afterwards explained to the mob that he killed his friend and benefactor Caesar to save the republic, there were immediate calls from the mob to make him king. Brutus was resisting a current that ultimately swept him away on the plains of Phillipi. The Roman republic had already ceased to exist in the hearts of the people; there was no republic to save.
So far, I have not seen the kind of willingness that makes for positive revolutionary change, but I live in Mississippi, which is hardly a representative sample of the U.S. Nevertheless, I still suspect it will require something far more serious than the current public discomfiture to render the collective psyche capable of accepting what every sensible and knowledgeable individual knows should have been done twenty years ago. It would have been easy then. Too bad.
My expectations today are not high, but I would like to be pleasantly surprised.
Update: If you think Obama is a socialist, read what the socialists are saying about him.
But now that Obama has become the president-elect, we would be wise, in our celebrations of electoral victory, to remain mindful of the powerful forces that make it very difficult for a chief executive to bring about substantial systemic change. Too many institutions have grown fat on the generosity of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress, and there is nothing to which they will not stoop to retain what they are now getting. This is particularly true of the beneficiaries of the Iraq invasion and occupation but it is also true of all well-connected businesses and organizations that have been favored over their less Republican competitors. In addition, the promiscuous number of governmental agencies, particularly those related to “national security”—a term that has now become a euphemism for the maintenance and extension of the American Empire—with powerful constituencies in and out of government, have come to regard their fiefdoms, often concealed behind the shield of secrecy, as sacrosanct.
That Obama is not a wild-eyed radical was clearly revealed by the faces lined up behind him the other day when he delivered his short press conference on the economic crisis. Dinosaur Paul Volcker, Carter’s appointment as chair of the Federal Reserve System, appears to be in the forefront of Obama’s economic advisors. Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, Wall Street operatives who played a major role in deregulating the securities and banking industry, and who thus bear considerable responsibility for the present crisis, are said to be on the short list for Treasury secretary. Rahm Emanuel, an Israeli citizen legitimately described as a diehard Likudnik, will be Obama’s chief of staff, so the likelihood of justice and a real homeland for the Palestinian people appears to be off the table.
A friend writes: “I predict that Emanuel and Summers will be the least of what’s objectionable about the new White House crew. Zion siegt! Apparently neither perps nor victims ever learn, only historians.”
By definition, historical perspective is ex post facto. I recently read that President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand while simultaneously writing Greek with the other. He died too quickly from an assassin’s bullet for his performance as president to be assessed.
Obama likewise is an intellectual. He taught constitutional law for years at one of the finest law schools in the nation. He reads; he reflects. The most influential philosophers in his life are Reinhold Niebuhr and Nietzsche, which puts him an unusual category. This guy carries in his head a substantial quantity of apperceptive mass.
It remains, however, to be seen whether he—or anyone, for that matter—can stand upright in the face of the tsunami of late-stage finance capitalism, broken and corrupt as it may be. But if he fails—and failure is likely—his fall will at least have a tragic component.
Tragedy is always preferable to farce, at least when the future is at stake.
Emerson wrote that the great confide themselves childlike to the genius of their age. Augustus became the first Roman emperor because the time and circumstances demanded a monarch. Peracles led Athens because Athens had reached a point in its development (empire) that demanded a person with his talents. Like a surfer catching the right wave, Lincoln rode the tide, the Zeitgeist, into greatness, but at the cost of his own life. Roosevelt swept into power on a wave of suffering and revulsion at the crookedness and predations of Wall Street, and enacted the New Deal.
The question today is not so much Obama, but the direction of the tide. Jimmy Carter was a good and able man, I believe, but from the viewpoint of career-enhancement, he was swimming in the wrong direction. The right wing think-tanks, foundations, and mass media in the service of the corporate and rentier class had changed the mindscape of the nation. The delusions of supply-side economics—an intellectual fraud of the first water—conditioned the voters to accept the systematic dismantling of much of the New Deal that has occurred since January 20, 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president.
In the wake of 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the increasing third-worldization of our nation, together with the burst of the housing bubble and the ensuing financial meltdown, this nation might be ready to listen to someone who can articulate alternative paths, who doesn’t mouth uncritical hymns to the virtues of laissez faire capitalism while filling the coffers of the wealthy out of the public purse, who doesn’t believe that social Darwinism is the answer to all the problems of the world, and, perhaps most important of all, doesn’t believe that the only path to national prosperity lies in plundering the rest of the world, especially the poorer nations who cannot resist.
Maybe.
It is, however, already beginning to look as though the financial elite may succeed in keeping the genie of real change in the bottle this time around. Clearly, they saw the crisis coming, and probably were intending for the collapse to happen after the presidential election, when an increasingly senile Republican president-elect and his raptorial vice president-elect would offer no resistance to whatever plans that had already been made to complete the transfer of vast public wealth into private hands. It will not be as smooth as originally planned, but when Obama takes office on January 20, 2009, he will still be presented with a fait accompli that will require years to undo, that is, if it is even possible to undo all the damage. In this quest, he will be bitterly opposed by all those powers that profited from the previous regime.
So, dear reader, the question we must ask is not whether Obama is ready to be president, but whether the time is right for the changes that must be made to preserve our republic, and ultimately human life on the Earth. Is it we who are ready, in other words? Absent this precondition, the most able and prepared president hasn’t a chance.
Remember Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar? Brutus participated in the killing of Caesar, but when he afterwards explained to the mob that he killed his friend and benefactor Caesar to save the republic, there were immediate calls from the mob to make him king. Brutus was resisting a current that ultimately swept him away on the plains of Phillipi. The Roman republic had already ceased to exist in the hearts of the people; there was no republic to save.
So far, I have not seen the kind of willingness that makes for positive revolutionary change, but I live in Mississippi, which is hardly a representative sample of the U.S. Nevertheless, I still suspect it will require something far more serious than the current public discomfiture to render the collective psyche capable of accepting what every sensible and knowledgeable individual knows should have been done twenty years ago. It would have been easy then. Too bad.
My expectations today are not high, but I would like to be pleasantly surprised.
Update: If you think Obama is a socialist, read what the socialists are saying about him.
Obama elected president
Nov 04, 2008 22:54
At 10:00 PM this evening, CNN announced that it projected Obama elected the next president.
We can now hope that things will improve, both domestically and internationally. So many things have been neglected, so much deliberate wreckage to our republic, Obama is faced with a titanic task to repair the damage.
He is a person of intelligence, depth and integrity. It is reasonable to trust him and to hope that he will fulfill our highest expectations.
We can now hope that things will improve, both domestically and internationally. So many things have been neglected, so much deliberate wreckage to our republic, Obama is faced with a titanic task to repair the damage.
He is a person of intelligence, depth and integrity. It is reasonable to trust him and to hope that he will fulfill our highest expectations.
The Meltdown - an Exemplar
Oct 20, 2008 06:58
According to the Associated Press, the government-chartered mortgage company Freddie Mac “secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.” The target of the lobbying effort was a bill by Senator Charles Hagel that would have strengthened oversight and tightened regulation over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The bill was supported by Republicans and (sad to say) opposed by Democrats. The lobbying campaign, focused on 17 Republican senators, was successful in turning enough of them around to keep the bill from passing or even coming to the floor. The “turned” senators were Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Christopher "Kit" Bond and Jim Talent of Missouri, Conrad Burns of Montana, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and George Allen of Virginia.
S. 190 - Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005
It is possible that all this was perfectly legal—but it stinks of corruption. In fact, it was corrupt.
I’m a lawyer, and I know how easy it is to find a way to violate the spirit of a law without violating the letter, and that is particularly true of criminal statutes, which must be strictly interpreted to avoid running afoul of the due process requirements of the U. S. Constitution. On the other hand, using corporate funds to lobby lawmakers for the specific purpose of passing legislation to keep the investigators away from an ongoing crime (or a conspiracy) ought to be a crime, both for the corporations and their officers, and for the lobbyists that do the actual dirty work. It is obstruction of justice, pure and simple.
S. 190 - Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005
It is possible that all this was perfectly legal—but it stinks of corruption. In fact, it was corrupt.
I’m a lawyer, and I know how easy it is to find a way to violate the spirit of a law without violating the letter, and that is particularly true of criminal statutes, which must be strictly interpreted to avoid running afoul of the due process requirements of the U. S. Constitution. On the other hand, using corporate funds to lobby lawmakers for the specific purpose of passing legislation to keep the investigators away from an ongoing crime (or a conspiracy) ought to be a crime, both for the corporations and their officers, and for the lobbyists that do the actual dirty work. It is obstruction of justice, pure and simple.
Post-Debate Conclusion
Oct 16, 2008 08:26
Although it is from the chit-chat after the second presidential debate, Carville’s conclusion seems even more spot-on after the third one:
The 20th Percentile Solution
Oct 15, 2008 16:10
Part of the problem with our national government is a weak alignment in interest between high government officials in all three branches and the guy on the street.
Here’s a proposal for part of the solution: Pass a constitutional amendment fixing the salaries and pensions of the president, vice president, senators, congressmen and all federal judges at a multiple (not necessarily the same multiple for all of them, however) of the 20th percentile of family income. These are folks who are struggling hard to stay in their houses and put food on their tables, so if our congresscritters continue what they have been doing since 1981, their income will either stagnate or decline. Make the salary generous.
Interestingly enough, the income of the president and members of congress have actually been going down as a multiple of the 20th percentile’s family income. For instance, the president’s pay in 1951 was 51.2 times the 20th percentile’s family income (100,000/1953), whereas the multiple in 2003 was 16.6 (400,000/24,117). A fair multiple would be 25.
Congressional salaries, on the other hand, have moved less but still ought to be raised to at least a multiple of 10 times the 20th percentile.
Year Salary 20th per. multiple
1951 12500 1953 6.4
1969 42500 5000 8.5
1979 60662 8000 7.6
1994 133600 17949 7.4
2003 154700 24117 6.4
In order to reinforce this alignment, forbid all outside income, gifts or speculative earnings, irrespective of the source, to all these officials. All outside income goes into the treasury, period. No exceptions. That includes income from blind trusts and retirement income. Officials must live on their government salary as long as they remain in the government. If you happen to own a private jet, you can use it, but you must make the payments for it, maintain it and pay for fuel out of your government earnings. You get the idea ....
There are other provisions that could further strengthen that alignment. For instance, we could add an additional factor - the Gini ratio, a measure of income inequality that has been climbing ever since Ronald Reagan became president. Zero is perfect equality and 1 is total inequality. Subtract the Gini ratio from 1 and multiply the difference by the multiple above, increasing the multiple to meet the initial income target. Then the more unequal society becomes, the higher the Gini index goes, and the folks ultimately responsible for the increasing inequality get a taste of what it is like to see their incomes decline.
Another possibility would be to tie executive and legislative income to the minimum wage. The president’s income has declined compared the minimum wage, but Congress’s income has grown almost twice as fast as the minimum wage since 1951.
Establish a retirement system that enables public servants to retire with a generous stipend, on the condition that they do not lobby or work for the federal government or a corporation that does business with the government until they have been out of office at least 6 years.
Establish progressive tax brackets that are multiples of the 20th percentile of family incomes. In 2007 the 20th percentile earned $27,864, so any family earning less than $27,864 pays nothing, which is a good thing; at that income, taxes literally take food off the table. The brackets would then go $27,865-55,728; $55,729--83,592; $83,593--111,456, etc. If everyone’s income rises in the same proportion, then the brackets would proportionately expand and no one’s tax bite would change. If the income at the bottom stagnates, however, then the brackets stay put and the higher earners suffer tax bracket creep as their income increases. This would have the effect of aligning the interest of the wealthy with the welfare of the far-less-wealthy. It would then be in everyone’s interest to adopt policies to pull up the income at the bottom.
Needless to say, such an arrangement would have to be done by constitutional amendment, as no congress would vote to tie their incomes to the fortunes of the less well-off.
Finally, the money-chase for campaign contributions must cease. It is unrealistic (I originally wrote idiotic) to expect our representatives in Washington to do their job if they must spend most of their time begging the rich and powerful for campaign contributions. All elective federal offices simply must be financed by public funds and those funds must be dispensed in a way that will shorten the campaigns to a reasonable length. Television, radio and cable must, as a condition of doing business, furnish adequate prime time at no cost for the candidates to put their messages before the voters. If it takes a constitutional amendment to make this work, then enact it.
References:
http://www.uscourts.gov/judicialpay.pdf
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/97-1011.pdf
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f01AR.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/fedprssal.html
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f04.html
Here’s a proposal for part of the solution: Pass a constitutional amendment fixing the salaries and pensions of the president, vice president, senators, congressmen and all federal judges at a multiple (not necessarily the same multiple for all of them, however) of the 20th percentile of family income. These are folks who are struggling hard to stay in their houses and put food on their tables, so if our congresscritters continue what they have been doing since 1981, their income will either stagnate or decline. Make the salary generous.
Interestingly enough, the income of the president and members of congress have actually been going down as a multiple of the 20th percentile’s family income. For instance, the president’s pay in 1951 was 51.2 times the 20th percentile’s family income (100,000/1953), whereas the multiple in 2003 was 16.6 (400,000/24,117). A fair multiple would be 25.
Congressional salaries, on the other hand, have moved less but still ought to be raised to at least a multiple of 10 times the 20th percentile.
Year Salary 20th per. multiple
1951 12500 1953 6.4
1969 42500 5000 8.5
1979 60662 8000 7.6
1994 133600 17949 7.4
2003 154700 24117 6.4
In order to reinforce this alignment, forbid all outside income, gifts or speculative earnings, irrespective of the source, to all these officials. All outside income goes into the treasury, period. No exceptions. That includes income from blind trusts and retirement income. Officials must live on their government salary as long as they remain in the government. If you happen to own a private jet, you can use it, but you must make the payments for it, maintain it and pay for fuel out of your government earnings. You get the idea ....
There are other provisions that could further strengthen that alignment. For instance, we could add an additional factor - the Gini ratio, a measure of income inequality that has been climbing ever since Ronald Reagan became president. Zero is perfect equality and 1 is total inequality. Subtract the Gini ratio from 1 and multiply the difference by the multiple above, increasing the multiple to meet the initial income target. Then the more unequal society becomes, the higher the Gini index goes, and the folks ultimately responsible for the increasing inequality get a taste of what it is like to see their incomes decline.
Another possibility would be to tie executive and legislative income to the minimum wage. The president’s income has declined compared the minimum wage, but Congress’s income has grown almost twice as fast as the minimum wage since 1951.
Establish a retirement system that enables public servants to retire with a generous stipend, on the condition that they do not lobby or work for the federal government or a corporation that does business with the government until they have been out of office at least 6 years.
Establish progressive tax brackets that are multiples of the 20th percentile of family incomes. In 2007 the 20th percentile earned $27,864, so any family earning less than $27,864 pays nothing, which is a good thing; at that income, taxes literally take food off the table. The brackets would then go $27,865-55,728; $55,729--83,592; $83,593--111,456, etc. If everyone’s income rises in the same proportion, then the brackets would proportionately expand and no one’s tax bite would change. If the income at the bottom stagnates, however, then the brackets stay put and the higher earners suffer tax bracket creep as their income increases. This would have the effect of aligning the interest of the wealthy with the welfare of the far-less-wealthy. It would then be in everyone’s interest to adopt policies to pull up the income at the bottom.
Needless to say, such an arrangement would have to be done by constitutional amendment, as no congress would vote to tie their incomes to the fortunes of the less well-off.
Finally, the money-chase for campaign contributions must cease. It is unrealistic (I originally wrote idiotic) to expect our representatives in Washington to do their job if they must spend most of their time begging the rich and powerful for campaign contributions. All elective federal offices simply must be financed by public funds and those funds must be dispensed in a way that will shorten the campaigns to a reasonable length. Television, radio and cable must, as a condition of doing business, furnish adequate prime time at no cost for the candidates to put their messages before the voters. If it takes a constitutional amendment to make this work, then enact it.
References:
http://www.uscourts.gov/judicialpay.pdf
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/97-1011.pdf
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f01AR.html
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/fedprssal.html
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f04.html
Bailout Bill Defeated
Sep 29, 2008 17:22
The bailout of Wall Street went down in the House of Representatives this afternoon. A majority of Republicans opposed it and a majority of Democrats supported it. Shame! The Federal Reserve has announced massive support of banks to maintain liquidity, which is what it is in the business of doing.
The proposed bailout was a gift to a gang of thieves.
Back to the drawing board. No mitigation without regulation.
The proposed bailout was a gift to a gang of thieves.
Back to the drawing board. No mitigation without regulation.
The Bailout Scam
Sep 29, 2008 11:44
Upon sober reflection, the bailout is beginning to look more and more like a huge gift to the banks and Wall Street.
Dean Baker in the Huffington Post writes that The Banks Have a Gun Pointed at Their Head and Are Threatening to Pull the Trigger:
Michael Moore puts it even more bluntly on his mailing list:
Remember, Mississippi Republicans, you voted this gang of thieves into office and kept them there. Now all of us are going to pay hell for this folly.
Dean Baker in the Huffington Post writes that The Banks Have a Gun Pointed at Their Head and Are Threatening to Pull the Trigger:
The basic argument for the bailout is that the banks are filled with so much bad debt that the banks can't trust each other to repay loans. This creates a situation in which the system of payments breaks down. That would mean that we cannot use our ATMs or credit cards or cash checks.
That is a very frightening scenario, but this is not where things end. The Federal Reserve Board would surely step in and take over the major money center banks so that the system of payments would begin functioning again. The Fed was prepared to take over the major banks back in the 80s when bad debt to developing countries threatened to make them insolvent. It is inconceivable that it has not made similar preparations in the current crisis.
In other words, the worst case scenario is that we have an extremely scary day in which the markets freeze for a few hours. Then the Fed steps in and takes over the major banks. The system of payments continues to operate exactly as before, but the bank executives are out of their jobs and the bank shareholders have likely lost most of their money. In other words, the banks have a gun pointed to their heads and are threatening to pull the trigger unless we hand them $700 billion.
Michael Moore puts it even more bluntly on his mailing list:
As usual, the taxpayers are getting screwed.Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
Remember, Mississippi Republicans, you voted this gang of thieves into office and kept them there. Now all of us are going to pay hell for this folly.
Obama's Kyber Pass
Sep 27, 2008 19:51
Obama, in my opinion, came off as far more presidential than McCain, and therefore Obama won the debate. He held his own against a snarky and condescending veteran senator whose only real points were his Hanoi Hilton stay, Obama’s relative inexperience, and the fact that he received military briefings when he visited Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and therefore is an expert on the middle east.
What a candidate promises in a debate, however, can come back to haunt him years later, and Obama’s emphasis on capturing bin Laden and pacifying Afghanistan has exactly that kind of potential. The idea that our military forces should be doing in Afghanistan what they have been doing in Iraq, that is, propping up a corrupt and unpopular regime in the middle of even more difficult terrain, against some of the world’s toughest fighters in their own homeland halfway around the world, is precisely what the voters are rejecting.
Just as Sun Tzu predicted—that fighting a remote war impoverishes the people—we have already been watching the wealth of this nation squandered in an illegal foreign war. Only those profiting from war and a few out-and-out wingnuts want this nation to engage in needless combat. No citizen who loves his country wants to see its blood and wealth wasted on a war that can be avoided or that has no compelling cause, which is why the population must be manipulated by lies and propaganda into supporting military adventurism.
Sinking further military resources into Afghanistan is a trap that could sink Obama’s presidency, much as it did Lyndon Johnson’s. Obama has already stepped into the trap but its jaws have not quite closed around him. Let us hope that he does not doom his presidency even before he takes office.
The Kyber Pass
Photo by John Burke 1878. From the Wikimedia Commons.
What a candidate promises in a debate, however, can come back to haunt him years later, and Obama’s emphasis on capturing bin Laden and pacifying Afghanistan has exactly that kind of potential. The idea that our military forces should be doing in Afghanistan what they have been doing in Iraq, that is, propping up a corrupt and unpopular regime in the middle of even more difficult terrain, against some of the world’s toughest fighters in their own homeland halfway around the world, is precisely what the voters are rejecting.
Just as Sun Tzu predicted—that fighting a remote war impoverishes the people—we have already been watching the wealth of this nation squandered in an illegal foreign war. Only those profiting from war and a few out-and-out wingnuts want this nation to engage in needless combat. No citizen who loves his country wants to see its blood and wealth wasted on a war that can be avoided or that has no compelling cause, which is why the population must be manipulated by lies and propaganda into supporting military adventurism.
Sinking further military resources into Afghanistan is a trap that could sink Obama’s presidency, much as it did Lyndon Johnson’s. Obama has already stepped into the trap but its jaws have not quite closed around him. Let us hope that he does not doom his presidency even before he takes office.
The Kyber Pass
Photo by John Burke 1878. From the Wikimedia Commons.
Fear! Fear! Fear! - Like a broken record
Sep 24, 2008 22:22
Wordle is a free web-based tool to create artistic word clouds by pasting text into a window and selecting the style, font, color and a number of other attributes. I created 4 wordles below the fold for the acceptance speeches of Obama, McCain, Biden and Palin at the Democratic and Republican conventions. I leave it to the reader as to whether Wordles of these highly-processed and vetted speeches tell us anything about the character of the speakers, but it was fun creating them.
For those not familiar with tag and word clouds: The relative size of each word in the cloud is based upon the number of times the word appears in the text. Unfortunately, the software does not take into account the various forms and inflection of a word, so the Wordle may understate the number of times words with the same stem appear in the text. Read More...
For those not familiar with tag and word clouds: The relative size of each word in the cloud is based upon the number of times the word appears in the text. Unfortunately, the software does not take into account the various forms and inflection of a word, so the Wordle may understate the number of times words with the same stem appear in the text. Read More...
O the Irony!
Sep 24, 2008 22:16
To think that in 1962, it took federal troops to force the entry of James Meredith, a black man, into Ole Miss. With McCain’s threat to cancel the presidential debate with Obama scheduled Friday at Ole Miss, the folks around here are highly pissed off that a black man might not be debating there.
Times have changed, haven’t they?
Times have changed, haven’t they?
Social Security: The Real Issue
Sep 22, 2008 18:40
Social Security is a moral issue, not an exclusively economic or financial one.
Read the article. PDF version.
Read the article. PDF version.
Political Wordles
Sep 20, 2008 12:24
Wordle is a free web-based tool to create artistic word clouds by pasting text into a window and selecting the style, font, color and a number of other attributes. I created 4 wordles below the fold for the acceptance speeches of Obama, McCain, Biden and Palin at the Democratic and Republican conventions. I leave it to the reader as to whether Wordles of these highly-processed and vetted speeches tell us anything about the character of the speakers, but it was fun creating them.
For those not familiar with tag and word clouds: The relative size of each word in the cloud is based upon the number of times the word appears in the text. Unfortunately, the software does not take into account the various forms and inflection of a word, so the Wordle may understate the number of times words with the same stem appear in the text.
Obama acceptance speech:
Biden speech:
McCain acceptance speech:
Palin speech:
For those not familiar with tag and word clouds: The relative size of each word in the cloud is based upon the number of times the word appears in the text. Unfortunately, the software does not take into account the various forms and inflection of a word, so the Wordle may understate the number of times words with the same stem appear in the text.
Obama acceptance speech:
Biden speech:
McCain acceptance speech:
Palin speech:
She's Toast
Sep 02, 2008 19:05
Governor Palin disappeared this afternoon, purportedly to work on her VP acceptance speech. My guess is that she will withdraw this evening or in the morning.
The revelations about Palin’s abuse of the gubernatorial power in Alaska (Troopergate) will be the impetus and the desire to be with her family will be the public reason.
The biggest casualty of the Palin matter: McCain’s judgment.
If he insists that she stay on the ticket, and she agrees, then McCain will confirm not only his lack of judgment, but his inability to change course in the face of disaster.
Update (9/20/2008): Time to eat crow. I grossly overestimated the intelligence of the Republican rank and file, as well as its leadership. Its embrace of McCain and Palin simply goes to demonstrate the utter unfitness and unworthiness of today’s Republican Party to lead the nation.
The revelations about Palin’s abuse of the gubernatorial power in Alaska (Troopergate) will be the impetus and the desire to be with her family will be the public reason.
The biggest casualty of the Palin matter: McCain’s judgment.
If he insists that she stay on the ticket, and she agrees, then McCain will confirm not only his lack of judgment, but his inability to change course in the face of disaster.
Update (9/20/2008): Time to eat crow. I grossly overestimated the intelligence of the Republican rank and file, as well as its leadership. Its embrace of McCain and Palin simply goes to demonstrate the utter unfitness and unworthiness of today’s Republican Party to lead the nation.
Obama & Biden
Aug 31, 2008 11:18
I haven’t blogged the primaries, mainly because so many other first-class bloggers have been doing that job very well. In a few more days, however, John McCain and Sarah Palin will become the official nominees of the Republican Party and the battle will be joined in earnest.
In the absence of a coup or massive vote theft, Barak Obama and Joe Biden will be president and vice-president of the United States come next January 20.
I’ve always felt that Biden had many good qualities, but I have been concerned for many years at his support of U.S. imperialism in South America (and yes, imperialism in exactly the correct word for a century of military and economic support of right-wing dictators friendly to U.S. business interests). He supported the corrupt and oppressive bankruptcy act that, while allowing millionaires to discharge their debts, forces middle class debtors into Chapter 13 plans, keeping them in bondage to credit card companies for as long as 5 years.
Given the realities, however, Biden is as good a running mate as Obama could have gotten. Biden is the ultimate insider and his senate seat is not in danger of falling to a Republican when he leaves. Besides, given Obama’s relative youth and good health, Biden is very unlikely to become president in the next 4 or even 8 years.
McCain, in announcing his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate, certainly managed to upstage Obama the day after the close of the Democratic convention, but I think he will pay a heavy price for it. The closest I can come to a similar choice was George H. W. Bush’s choosing Dan Quayle or perhaps Ronald Reagan’s choosing Richard Schweiker as his running mate in his attempt to unseat Gerald Ford as the incumbent in 1986. Palin has virtually no qualifications to be president, and preliminary reports on her background reflect very little interest on her part in Federal governance prior to McCain’s inviting her to be his running mate.
It is hard to believe that McCain is even serious about running for president, having chosen a running mate with such patently obvious limitations.
But I thought Ronald Reagan’s limitations were obvious. Boy, was I mistaken!
In the absence of a coup or massive vote theft, Barak Obama and Joe Biden will be president and vice-president of the United States come next January 20.
I’ve always felt that Biden had many good qualities, but I have been concerned for many years at his support of U.S. imperialism in South America (and yes, imperialism in exactly the correct word for a century of military and economic support of right-wing dictators friendly to U.S. business interests). He supported the corrupt and oppressive bankruptcy act that, while allowing millionaires to discharge their debts, forces middle class debtors into Chapter 13 plans, keeping them in bondage to credit card companies for as long as 5 years.
Given the realities, however, Biden is as good a running mate as Obama could have gotten. Biden is the ultimate insider and his senate seat is not in danger of falling to a Republican when he leaves. Besides, given Obama’s relative youth and good health, Biden is very unlikely to become president in the next 4 or even 8 years.
McCain, in announcing his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate, certainly managed to upstage Obama the day after the close of the Democratic convention, but I think he will pay a heavy price for it. The closest I can come to a similar choice was George H. W. Bush’s choosing Dan Quayle or perhaps Ronald Reagan’s choosing Richard Schweiker as his running mate in his attempt to unseat Gerald Ford as the incumbent in 1986. Palin has virtually no qualifications to be president, and preliminary reports on her background reflect very little interest on her part in Federal governance prior to McCain’s inviting her to be his running mate.
It is hard to believe that McCain is even serious about running for president, having chosen a running mate with such patently obvious limitations.
But I thought Ronald Reagan’s limitations were obvious. Boy, was I mistaken!
Bageant Interview on Australian TV
Dec 09, 2007 09:20
Southerners are the most crazy, dysfunctional folks in the nation, perhaps in the world. I sometimes think that we love our guns so much because without them, we couldn't shoot ourselves in the foot so often and with such devastating consequences.
Along with the dysfunction, however, occasionally comes insight. You acquire it at the cost of leaving home and settling in a strange land for a time and then returning to live. That is the plot of the modern southern novel, and it is nothing more than a retelling of a journey that repeats itself in real life over and over. The south is a mother one must leave in order to grow up.
Joe Bageant has made that journey. Here is a recent interview of his on Australian TV:
Click here for video of Joe Bageant interview on Australian TV.
P.S. Posting will be infrequent for another week while I finish what I hope will be my last legal brief and become more proficient on the Dvorak keyboard.
Along with the dysfunction, however, occasionally comes insight. You acquire it at the cost of leaving home and settling in a strange land for a time and then returning to live. That is the plot of the modern southern novel, and it is nothing more than a retelling of a journey that repeats itself in real life over and over. The south is a mother one must leave in order to grow up.
Joe Bageant has made that journey. Here is a recent interview of his on Australian TV:
Click here for video of Joe Bageant interview on Australian TV.
P.S. Posting will be infrequent for another week while I finish what I hope will be my last legal brief and become more proficient on the Dvorak keyboard.
The Moral, Progressive Case for Healthcare Reform
Oct 24, 2007 19:34
George Lakoff of the Rockridge Institute explains the difference between the conservative, progressive and neo-liberal approach to healthcare reform. Progressives should read and heed.
The Logic of the Health Care Debate
The Logic of the Health Care Debate
Why Republican Politicians Don't Care About Childrens' Welfare (Other than the welfare of their own children)
Oct 18, 2007 08:30
Children can't vote. That's the beginning and end of it. Quit listening to what Republicans say and watch what they do.
Bush, Barbour, Cochran, and Lott can count the votes. That's all that matters to them.
Update 10/18/2007 20:02: The House of Representatives failed to override Bush's veto of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act.
Rep. Bennie Thompson did the right thing and voted to override the veto.
Robo-republicans Wicker and Pickering predictably voted to sustain the veto, but amazingly Gene Taylor, a Democrat, also voted to sustain. How representatives from the poorest state in the U.S. can square their consciences voting for gigantic tax cuts for the rich and an illegal and costly war but not for the health of Mississippi's children is a mystery.
But children can't vote. That's all that matters to them. They apparently have no consciences to square.
Bush, Barbour, Cochran, and Lott can count the votes. That's all that matters to them.
Update 10/18/2007 20:02: The House of Representatives failed to override Bush's veto of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act.
Rep. Bennie Thompson did the right thing and voted to override the veto.
Robo-republicans Wicker and Pickering predictably voted to sustain the veto, but amazingly Gene Taylor, a Democrat, also voted to sustain. How representatives from the poorest state in the U.S. can square their consciences voting for gigantic tax cuts for the rich and an illegal and costly war but not for the health of Mississippi's children is a mystery.
But children can't vote. That's all that matters to them. They apparently have no consciences to square.
Clowns, Puppets, Network Neutrality, and the Impending Attack on Iran
Sep 02, 2007 10:06
Clowns, puppets, songs and street drama are no longer effective means of protest, at least not when the purpose is to mobilize public opinion against a war. Their effectiveness depends upon media coverage and the reactionary powers that presently command our media have learned to ignore not only the public spectacles but also the thuggery the demonstrators frequently experience at the hands of the police. In the '60s, the protesters manipulated the media; now the media make demonstrations look more like civil unrest by broadcasting only unfavorable video coverage and by refusing to inform its audience what the demonstration is all about.
Television, radio and newspapers are very profitable. Profits require scarcity. A television or cable franchise is valuable precisely because both air and cable channels are limited, and until the growth of the Internet, there were no electronic alternatives. Now that there is an alternative, the issue of net neutrality has become one of the most important issues of our times, since the outcome of the battle will determine whether the owners of the physical network will either be common carriers, like the phone companies, or gatekeepers, like the media networks.
The mainstream media and the political elite have been implacably hostile to the independent web-based news organizations that have arisen since the advent of the Internet and the Worldwide Web, and have used every stratagem in their arsenal to limit and even destroy their power and independence. One of the best-known of these web-based news organizations, the Indymedia Network, has been the target of police raids, government harassment, and criminal prosecutions as a result of its broadcasting news, audio and video that governments and multinational corporations want to suppress.
Once the Internet can handle full-screen video, channel scarcity will cease to exist, and an independent media, provided with news contributed by both volunteer and professional reporters, will reach into the vast majority of the nation's homes. This will not only diminish the profitability of the networks, which will be faced with serious competition, but the Corporatocracy that secretly controls our nation and much of the world—deriving much of its power by virtue of the public's ignorance of what is really going on—will find itself directly threatened, much as the medieval church found itself threatened by the invention of the printing press and the rapid spread of literacy spawned by the availability of inexpensive books written in the vernacular.
These corporate media folks take the matter of net neutrality very, very seriously, and have consequently spent many millions, both in campaign contributions and media advertising, to wrest control of the Internet away from the public and concentrate it into the same hands that now control the mass media. In an nation already being seduced and frightened into authoritarianism and all the evils that invariably accompany an authoritarian regime, a neutral Internet, protected by the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, may be one of our last opportunities to arrest what is increasingly looking like a slow-motion coup by the extreme right-wing.
So it's time to put away the clown suits, the puppets and the street theatre. In the early Sixties, protesters wore suits and dresses. They looked serious and respectable. They made an impact. They changed the nation.
The media couldn't make them into hoodlums, communists or wild-eyed radicals because they looked and dressed like the viewers, or, even more significantly, their children. Respectable clothes may or may not be the answer today, but the current approach isn't working most of the time. Now that the Bush administration appears to be set on a course to attack Iran, the stakes have become too high not to rethink our approach. If Bush paid no attention to the millions of demonstrators around the world who opposed the invasion of Iraq there is no reason to believe that ten times as many demonstrators will make the slightest difference in his plans to invade Iran.
Here is an IndyMedia NewsPaper. No wonder the powers-that-be oppose them.
Update: Clowns can have a powerful impact, under the right circumstances:
Television, radio and newspapers are very profitable. Profits require scarcity. A television or cable franchise is valuable precisely because both air and cable channels are limited, and until the growth of the Internet, there were no electronic alternatives. Now that there is an alternative, the issue of net neutrality has become one of the most important issues of our times, since the outcome of the battle will determine whether the owners of the physical network will either be common carriers, like the phone companies, or gatekeepers, like the media networks.
The mainstream media and the political elite have been implacably hostile to the independent web-based news organizations that have arisen since the advent of the Internet and the Worldwide Web, and have used every stratagem in their arsenal to limit and even destroy their power and independence. One of the best-known of these web-based news organizations, the Indymedia Network, has been the target of police raids, government harassment, and criminal prosecutions as a result of its broadcasting news, audio and video that governments and multinational corporations want to suppress.
Once the Internet can handle full-screen video, channel scarcity will cease to exist, and an independent media, provided with news contributed by both volunteer and professional reporters, will reach into the vast majority of the nation's homes. This will not only diminish the profitability of the networks, which will be faced with serious competition, but the Corporatocracy that secretly controls our nation and much of the world—deriving much of its power by virtue of the public's ignorance of what is really going on—will find itself directly threatened, much as the medieval church found itself threatened by the invention of the printing press and the rapid spread of literacy spawned by the availability of inexpensive books written in the vernacular.
These corporate media folks take the matter of net neutrality very, very seriously, and have consequently spent many millions, both in campaign contributions and media advertising, to wrest control of the Internet away from the public and concentrate it into the same hands that now control the mass media. In an nation already being seduced and frightened into authoritarianism and all the evils that invariably accompany an authoritarian regime, a neutral Internet, protected by the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, may be one of our last opportunities to arrest what is increasingly looking like a slow-motion coup by the extreme right-wing.
So it's time to put away the clown suits, the puppets and the street theatre. In the early Sixties, protesters wore suits and dresses. They looked serious and respectable. They made an impact. They changed the nation.
The media couldn't make them into hoodlums, communists or wild-eyed radicals because they looked and dressed like the viewers, or, even more significantly, their children. Respectable clothes may or may not be the answer today, but the current approach isn't working most of the time. Now that the Bush administration appears to be set on a course to attack Iran, the stakes have become too high not to rethink our approach. If Bush paid no attention to the millions of demonstrators around the world who opposed the invasion of Iraq there is no reason to believe that ten times as many demonstrators will make the slightest difference in his plans to invade Iran.
Here is an IndyMedia NewsPaper. No wonder the powers-that-be oppose them.
Update: Clowns can have a powerful impact, under the right circumstances:
Draft of Proposed Constitutional Amendment
Jul 31, 2007 07:44
In light of the present difficulties of Congress in obtaining information from the executive branch, I propose the following constitutional amendment:
Update: Upon further consideration, it occurred to me that it is usually the minority party that is refused information by the executive branch. Requiring a super-majority to sustain the objection of the executive branch creates a presumption that the information should be produced.
Any other ideas for constitutional amendments? Put them in the comments.1. The executive branch shall, upon the request of any senator or congressman, promptly produce all documents and information requested within its possession or control to the requesting member, irrespective of classification, sensitivity, or any other danger to national security that might result from the disclosure of such documents or information to the member or to third parties. Such requests may be directed to any employee or officer of the executive branch, irrespective of position, rank or contractual provisions that may require non-disclosure. The duty of the executive branch to respond fully and completely to such requests shall extend to testimony by officers, employees and contractors of the executive branch before either house of the legislature and their committees
2. The agency receiving such request may, within 7 days, object to the production of the documents or information or any portion thereof by serving its objection upon the requesting member, setting out in detail the reasons for its objections, and unless 55% of the members of the house of Congress to which the requestor belongs votes to sustain the objection, the agency must comply with the request. The vote to sustain shall be privileged and each member is limited to 30 minutes of debate.
3. Each house of Congress may, by a two-thirds majority adopt rules limiting the access of all members to certain categories of documents and information, but may by a two-thirds majority exempt individual members from any or all such limitations. Any rules adopted under this section must be drafted with specificity as to the documents and information protected and any ambiguities shall be interpreted in favor of disclosure.
4. Executive privilege is hereby abolished. No member of the executive branch, including the president or vice president, may refuse to provide any information or documents required to be produced under this amendment.
Update: Upon further consideration, it occurred to me that it is usually the minority party that is refused information by the executive branch. Requiring a super-majority to sustain the objection of the executive branch creates a presumption that the information should be produced.
Waking Up to Republican Voter Caging
Jul 28, 2007 21:09
Finally, a program on PBS featuring Greg Palast and his groundbreaking reporting (for the BBC) on how the Republican Party stole the 2004 presidential election.
One of the most effective means of stealing the 2004 election was voter caging—sending letters to newly-registered voters in Democratic areas with instructions not to forward. The Republicans then challenged the voters whose letters came back, including soldiers serving in Iraq and students who had been sent letters while on summer break.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/330/video.html
The mainstream media in the U.S. have avoided this topic as they would a contagious disease.
There was, however, far more skullduggery going on in 2004 than just vote caging. Palast's book (see sidebar), which sets out detailed, virtually conclusive evidence that the election was stolen, is a shocker.
One of the most effective means of stealing the 2004 election was voter caging—sending letters to newly-registered voters in Democratic areas with instructions not to forward. The Republicans then challenged the voters whose letters came back, including soldiers serving in Iraq and students who had been sent letters while on summer break.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/330/video.html
The mainstream media in the U.S. have avoided this topic as they would a contagious disease.
There was, however, far more skullduggery going on in 2004 than just vote caging. Palast's book (see sidebar), which sets out detailed, virtually conclusive evidence that the election was stolen, is a shocker.
What Would Be Your First Presidential Act?
Jul 21, 2007 09:19
Not long ago I posted an article on the JP explaining how I would want the State of Mississippi to be different after my term of office had I been elected governor (fat chance).
http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/misspolitics/electedGovernor050907.html
Since it appears that the campaign for the U.S. Presidency is already in full swing, I am asking you, dear reader, a similar question: "If you were elected president, what would be your first official act?"
In other words, what do you think is the single most important thing our next president should do immediately?
http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/misspolitics/electedGovernor050907.html
Since it appears that the campaign for the U.S. Presidency is already in full swing, I am asking you, dear reader, a similar question: "If you were elected president, what would be your first official act?"
In other words, what do you think is the single most important thing our next president should do immediately?
Slouching Towards Bork
Jun 12, 2007 11:53
Robert Bork, former Harvard Professor, former U.S. Soliciter General, U. S. Court of Appeals judge, U. S. Supreme Court nominee (rejected), fellow at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, public scold, and, most importantly for our discussion, the sworn enemy of large tort recoveries by injured plaintiffs, especially punitive damages, has filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Yale Club of New York City, alleging wanton and reckless negligence on the latter's part which caused him permanent injuries to his leg. Bork fell off a dais from which he was to speak.
Bork is demanding actual and punitive damages. He must believe that he is exempt from following his own principles.
It reminds me of a fundamentalist preacher's hellfire and brimstone sermons that terrified his congregation with predictions of the end of the world until they discovered that he was planting trees around his house.
The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy has a short article on Bork's previous opposition to large personal injury judgments.
See also Blomberg.com, and Bork's paper on Congress's power to enact tort reform.
Bork is another "intellectual" darling of the right-wing whose writings and influence over the past 50 years helped make this nation, weaker, poorer, nastier and more divided than before. I once thought of exposing this conceited windbag with a book of the same title as this article, a parody of the title of Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah, but decided that it wasn't worth the time. Others have done an excellent job.
Bork is demanding actual and punitive damages. He must believe that he is exempt from following his own principles.
It reminds me of a fundamentalist preacher's hellfire and brimstone sermons that terrified his congregation with predictions of the end of the world until they discovered that he was planting trees around his house.
The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy has a short article on Bork's previous opposition to large personal injury judgments.
See also Blomberg.com, and Bork's paper on Congress's power to enact tort reform.
Bork is another "intellectual" darling of the right-wing whose writings and influence over the past 50 years helped make this nation, weaker, poorer, nastier and more divided than before. I once thought of exposing this conceited windbag with a book of the same title as this article, a parody of the title of Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah, but decided that it wasn't worth the time. Others have done an excellent job.
Boneless Wonders
May 22, 2007 21:09
The Democratic leadership caved in to the Bush administration on benchmarks and deadlines on Iraq. When the nation is overwhelmingly against the war in Iraq they have folded instead of raising. Of course, the Blue Dog Democrats didn't help either.
It's a bad day for Congress. And America.
It's a bad day for Congress. And America.
Thanks Again, Thad
May 08, 2007 22:14
Mississippi's own senator Thad Cochran again demonstrated where his loyalties lie: the pharmaceutical industry.
Not the people of Mississippi who elected him.
The issue before Congress was whether Americans should be able to purchase prescriptions medicines sold by American manufacturers abroad at a fraction of the price charged for the identical medicines here in America. It is a fact that pharmaceutical companies charge Americans far more than they charge the citizens of other nations. Naturally, the industry is resisting any change that would cut back on this profitable racket, and it backs up that opposition with an army of lobbyists and a fortune in campaign contributions.
Cochran introduced a poison-pill amendment that for all practical purposes crippled a bill that would have made it possible for Americans to purchase medicines from other nations. It is amazing that the people of this poorest state in the union continue to elect to the Senate a person with so little regard for their health and welfare.
Yahoo: Senate Blocks Bid to Allow Drug Imports
Not the people of Mississippi who elected him.
The issue before Congress was whether Americans should be able to purchase prescriptions medicines sold by American manufacturers abroad at a fraction of the price charged for the identical medicines here in America. It is a fact that pharmaceutical companies charge Americans far more than they charge the citizens of other nations. Naturally, the industry is resisting any change that would cut back on this profitable racket, and it backs up that opposition with an army of lobbyists and a fortune in campaign contributions.
Cochran introduced a poison-pill amendment that for all practical purposes crippled a bill that would have made it possible for Americans to purchase medicines from other nations. It is amazing that the people of this poorest state in the union continue to elect to the Senate a person with so little regard for their health and welfare.
Yahoo: Senate Blocks Bid to Allow Drug Imports
The Real Legacy of Ronald Reagan
May 05, 2007 22:53
All the Republican presidential wanabes want to be like Reagan. This is understandable, since Reagan's ability to read naturally from a teleprompter was legendary.
For those folks who think the Reagan administration brought economic salvation by lifting the nation out of the high interest rates and high unemployment blamed on Jimmy Carter, the following article should show them their error:
The Reagan Years: A Statistical Overview of the 1980s
Reagan left the country meaner, more unequal, less stable, and less free than it was when he became president.
For those folks who think the Reagan administration brought economic salvation by lifting the nation out of the high interest rates and high unemployment blamed on Jimmy Carter, the following article should show them their error:
The Reagan Years: A Statistical Overview of the 1980s
Reagan left the country meaner, more unequal, less stable, and less free than it was when he became president.
Presidential Popular Vote Without Constitutional Amendment
Apr 12, 2007 07:32
How do we convert the electoral system into a presidential election by nationwide popular vote without a constitutional amendment? There is a way.
One state, Maryland, has already enacted into law the National Popular Vote Bill, that, if enacted by enough states whose combined electoral votes equal or exceed 270, automatically gives their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. No constitutional amendment is required.
A National Popular Vote Bill was introduced in the Mississippi Senate this year, but failed to gain traction. New ideas take a long time to penetrate our state's legislative skull.
The mechanics of the bill are simple. Until a sufficient number of states to create a majority in the electoral college have enacted the bill, nothing happens. But when the magic 270 electoral votes are reached, every participating state, including Mississippi if it enacts the bill, automatically chooses electors pledged to vote for the winner of the popular vote. It doesn't matter which states choose to participate; once an electoral majority is reached, the winner of the popular vote will be automatically elected president.
The Jackson Progressive thinks this is a good idea. Congratulate its sponsors, and if your senators or representatives didn't sponsor it, tell them you think it is a good thing.
Read the National Popular Vote web site for a more comprehensive explanation and for the latest news on the national campaign.
Addendum: Here are the sponsoring Mississippi state senators: Gloria Chisholm Williamson, Robert L. Jackson, Deborah Dawkins, David Lee Jordan, Johnnie E. Walls, Jr., Willie Lee Simmons, and Joseph C. Thomas. Let them know that you appreciate what they have done.
One state, Maryland, has already enacted into law the National Popular Vote Bill, that, if enacted by enough states whose combined electoral votes equal or exceed 270, automatically gives their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. No constitutional amendment is required.
A National Popular Vote Bill was introduced in the Mississippi Senate this year, but failed to gain traction. New ideas take a long time to penetrate our state's legislative skull.
The mechanics of the bill are simple. Until a sufficient number of states to create a majority in the electoral college have enacted the bill, nothing happens. But when the magic 270 electoral votes are reached, every participating state, including Mississippi if it enacts the bill, automatically chooses electors pledged to vote for the winner of the popular vote. It doesn't matter which states choose to participate; once an electoral majority is reached, the winner of the popular vote will be automatically elected president.
The Jackson Progressive thinks this is a good idea. Congratulate its sponsors, and if your senators or representatives didn't sponsor it, tell them you think it is a good thing.
Read the National Popular Vote web site for a more comprehensive explanation and for the latest news on the national campaign.
Addendum: Here are the sponsoring Mississippi state senators: Gloria Chisholm Williamson, Robert L. Jackson, Deborah Dawkins, David Lee Jordan, Johnnie E. Walls, Jr., Willie Lee Simmons, and Joseph C. Thomas. Let them know that you appreciate what they have done.
What the Republicans Can Teach the Democrats About Bipartisanship
Jan 04, 2007 16:20
Now that the Democrats have won the 110th Congress, a chorus of Washington wise men have suddenly decided that the new majority should embrace bipartisanship.
<snark>
How appropriate! After twelve years of demonstrating their commitment to collegiality and bipartisanship, the Republicans have much wisdom to impart to the incoming Democrats on how to go about being bipartisan:
</snark>
<snark>
How appropriate! After twelve years of demonstrating their commitment to collegiality and bipartisanship, the Republicans have much wisdom to impart to the incoming Democrats on how to go about being bipartisan:
The Washington common wisdom is correct; the Democrats have much to learn from their Republican colleagues.Tom DeLay could instruct on mid-decade redistricting;
Newt Gingrich on impeaching presidents of the opposite party;
Dick Cheney on courtesy towards senators of the opposite party;
Mark Foley on youth outreach;
Dennis Hastert on transparency and openness in government;
Duke Cunningham on honesty and integrity in government;
Trent Lott on coiffure;
Chip Pickering on net neutrality;
Virgil Goode on religious tolerance;
John McCain on how to fool people into thinking you are moderate and bipartisan;
</snark>
Michael Wallace: It's All Over. No Judgeship
Dec 23, 2006 13:21
Judicial nominee Michael Wallace has announced that he will ask President Bush on Tuesday to withdraw his nomination for appointment to the 5th Circuit.
Wallace is a highly intelligent lawyer, eminently qualified intellectually for the position. Unfortunately, he is a right-wing extremist who clearly lacks judicial temperament and who could not be expected to impartially rule on cases involving civil rights and similar fields of law about which he has never attempted to conceal his opinions and beliefs. Wallace was appointed by Reagan to head the Legal Services agency of the federal government with the intention that he would do his best to destroy the agency entrusted to him, a pattern Reagan and his Republican successors have followed many times since. He nearly succeeded. There is no reason to believe that he would behave any less ideologically as a federal appellate judge. The American Bar Association obviously felt the same way.
Extreme right-wing lawyers, wrong-headed as they may be, do not possess the ability to damage persons, institutions, and the law itself in the way a judge can. The American people have repudiated what Wallace stands for and we are all better off that he remains a very successful practicing lawyer.
Wallace is a highly intelligent lawyer, eminently qualified intellectually for the position. Unfortunately, he is a right-wing extremist who clearly lacks judicial temperament and who could not be expected to impartially rule on cases involving civil rights and similar fields of law about which he has never attempted to conceal his opinions and beliefs. Wallace was appointed by Reagan to head the Legal Services agency of the federal government with the intention that he would do his best to destroy the agency entrusted to him, a pattern Reagan and his Republican successors have followed many times since. He nearly succeeded. There is no reason to believe that he would behave any less ideologically as a federal appellate judge. The American Bar Association obviously felt the same way.
Extreme right-wing lawyers, wrong-headed as they may be, do not possess the ability to damage persons, institutions, and the law itself in the way a judge can. The American people have repudiated what Wallace stands for and we are all better off that he remains a very successful practicing lawyer.
Cochran Helped Abramoff
Dec 14, 2006 22:04
According to TPM Muckraker, our own Thad Cochran benefitted from the largesse of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and in turn helped Mr. Abramoff's client, the Mississippi Choctaws, by quietly inserting language in legislation that exempted the Choctaws from supervision by the National Indian Gaming Commission and by supporting on the floor of the Senate a federal grant of $16.3 million to the Choctaws to build a jail which the Justice Department said that the Choctaws could afford to build themselves.
Which is to say that while Senator Cochran may not have done anything illegal, it seems awful sleazy.
Email: Abramoff Associate Urged Funds for GOP Sen. Who "Never Said No"
Which is to say that while Senator Cochran may not have done anything illegal, it seems awful sleazy.
Email: Abramoff Associate Urged Funds for GOP Sen. Who "Never Said No"
Why Paper Ballots are the Best Way of Voting
Nov 26, 2006 21:31
Cryptography expert Bruce Shneier makes a compelling case for abandoning electronic voting and using only paper ballots, whether filed out by the voter or printed by a touchscreen laptop. His argument: it's just too easy to fix the vote without a paper trail.
I voted this fall on a touchscreen voting machine, but it's doubtful my precinct votecount was hijacked, and if it were, it was probably due to incompetence, since the results of the major federal elections in Mississippi were foreordained. There's no point in committing fraud and risking being caught when the election isn't close. When an election is close, however, all it takes is a few changed votes in a number of "safe" precincts, and the result can be changed without anyone being the wiser.
So read Schnier's article; even better, subscribe to his newsletter, the Crypto-Gram, in which he discusses security of all kinds almost always in non-technical language.
Electronic voting is like an iceberg; the real threats are below the waterline where you can't see them. Paperless electronic voting machines bypass that security process, allowing a small group of people -- or even a single hacker -- to affect an election. The problem is software -- programs that are hidden from view and cannot be verified by a team of Republican and Democrat election judges, programs that can drastically change the final tallies. And because all that's left at the end of the day are those electronic tallies, there's no way to verify the results or to perform a recount. Recounts are important.
This isn't theoretical. In the U.S., there have been hundreds of documented cases of electronic voting machines distorting the vote to the detriment of candidates from both political parties: machines losing votes, machines swapping the votes for candidates, machines registering more votes for a candidate than there were voters, machines not registering votes at all. I would like to believe these are all mistakes and not deliberate fraud, but the truth is that we can't tell the difference. And these are just the problems we've caught; it's almost certain that many more problems have escaped detection because no one was paying attention.
This is both new and terrifying. For the most part, and throughout most of history, election fraud on a massive scale has been hard; it requires very public actions or a highly corrupt government -- or both. But electronic voting is different: a lone hacker can affect an election. He can do his work secretly before the machines are shipped to the polling stations. He can affect an entire area's voting machines. And he can cover his tracks completely, writing code that deletes itself after the election.
I voted this fall on a touchscreen voting machine, but it's doubtful my precinct votecount was hijacked, and if it were, it was probably due to incompetence, since the results of the major federal elections in Mississippi were foreordained. There's no point in committing fraud and risking being caught when the election isn't close. When an election is close, however, all it takes is a few changed votes in a number of "safe" precincts, and the result can be changed without anyone being the wiser.
So read Schnier's article; even better, subscribe to his newsletter, the Crypto-Gram, in which he discusses security of all kinds almost always in non-technical language.
Lott Running for Republican Whip
Nov 14, 2006 07:20
Via Talking Points Memo, The Hill reports that Trent Lott is running for minority whip position in the next senate. You have to give him credit for trying.
Update 11/15/2006: Lott is minority whip and the Democrats are singing Hallelujah.
Update 11/15/2006: Lott is minority whip and the Democrats are singing Hallelujah.
The Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party
Nov 11, 2006 22:30
If it wishes to survive, a party out of power usually learns to face the reasons why it is a minority and makes the necessary changes in order to regain power. There is a nagging question in my mind, however, as to whether the leadership of the Democratic Party has actually gone through this process of awakening and reform. Tuesday's victory was at least in part handed to the Democrats by the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and its utter incompetence in responding to the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Democrats who based their campaign on Iraq did well, for the most part. Those that did not emphasize the Iraqi disaster did less well. In other words, this is an election in which Americans voted against, rather than for.
I think many Americans still don't know what the Democratic Party stands for. The party leaders in Congress have spent almost their entire careers either under Republican presidents or under Republican majorities in Congress. When Reagan won office in 1980, it appears that many Democrats decided that their political future lay in making themselves indistinguishable from Republicans, a strategy that ultimately cost many of them their jobs and ultimately cost the Democrats control of Congress.
The Republicans won control of all three branches of our government by making themselves over into an aggressive, take-no-hostages, party, preaching an agenda to the American people that sounded good, and did whatever it took to win control and to hold it. To give credit where credit is due, the Democrats assisted them by their own scandals and arrogance. Now the circle has finally come around and the Republicans have been clearly repudiated by the voters for their arrogance and corruption.
The soul of a political party is determined by how it obtains power. In this day of mass media, money has been the key to power, and the Republican Party gets it money from wealthy individuals and large corporations, whose interests it represents to the detriment of almost everyone else. Until recently, the Democrats were getting most of their money from the same or similar contributors, and a huge army of consultants grew fat as intermediaries between Democratic politicians and their powerful donors.
That political model is now under heavy attack from two directions. Most importantly, Howard Dean's 50-State project, designed to build viable state parties in every state, will, if successful, almost certainly make Democratic senators and representatives beholden to their local parties, rather than the beltway consultants that provide access to the big money. The D.C. establishment recognizes Dean as a threat to its gravy train and is fighting him viciously. Just today, Clintonite James Carville advocated replacing Dean with Harold Ford of Tennessee.
And it is not just the consultants and power brokers that are opposed to Dean. Think for a second: If you were a congressperson, with whom would you rather deal: rich donors in luxurious surroundings or your state Democratic executive committee, meeting in the basement of a church or the private dining room of a local fish house? It is naive to think that members who are to shortly to become part of the majority party are not being courted by the rich and powerful, even as this column is being written. The way to control the average politician is to control the means by which he is nominated and elected. When a politician is dependent on the state party to be elected, that is where his allegiance will lie.
Dean's project is therefore of critical importance, both to democracy and the long-term health of the party. If he goes, the Democratic Party will almost inevitably resume the very practices that caused it to lose in 1994. Given another two years as chairperson of the DNC, however, Dean will have shifted the party's center of gravity from Washington, D.C. to the state and local parties, where it belongs, and away from dependence on the rich and powerful.
The second attack upon the present arrangement is the Internet, and in particular, what the liberal political blogs have been calling the "netroots." Through the support of the blogs for specific candidates, people are donating to candidates and the DNC in numbers and amounts inconceivable just two years ago. That money comes from the grassroots and every dollar raised this way is a dollar that doesn't have to be solicited from a wealthy and powerful donor who will expect special favors. That's the reason that net neutrality is so important; the Internet is the sole mass medium that is not almost completely controlled by large corporations and the freedom of speech that is possible on the Internet is undoubtedly a thorn in the flesh of every politician and CEO whose misdeeds are likely to be discovered and broadcast to the world.
So Howard Dean needs our help. This plain-spoken doctor turned politician, rather conservative in his political beliefs, is radically changing our party for the better. It would be a disaster to lose him now.
Secondly, we can only insure net neutrality by pressuring our representatives in Congress to put it into law.
I think many Americans still don't know what the Democratic Party stands for. The party leaders in Congress have spent almost their entire careers either under Republican presidents or under Republican majorities in Congress. When Reagan won office in 1980, it appears that many Democrats decided that their political future lay in making themselves indistinguishable from Republicans, a strategy that ultimately cost many of them their jobs and ultimately cost the Democrats control of Congress.
The Republicans won control of all three branches of our government by making themselves over into an aggressive, take-no-hostages, party, preaching an agenda to the American people that sounded good, and did whatever it took to win control and to hold it. To give credit where credit is due, the Democrats assisted them by their own scandals and arrogance. Now the circle has finally come around and the Republicans have been clearly repudiated by the voters for their arrogance and corruption.
The soul of a political party is determined by how it obtains power. In this day of mass media, money has been the key to power, and the Republican Party gets it money from wealthy individuals and large corporations, whose interests it represents to the detriment of almost everyone else. Until recently, the Democrats were getting most of their money from the same or similar contributors, and a huge army of consultants grew fat as intermediaries between Democratic politicians and their powerful donors.
That political model is now under heavy attack from two directions. Most importantly, Howard Dean's 50-State project, designed to build viable state parties in every state, will, if successful, almost certainly make Democratic senators and representatives beholden to their local parties, rather than the beltway consultants that provide access to the big money. The D.C. establishment recognizes Dean as a threat to its gravy train and is fighting him viciously. Just today, Clintonite James Carville advocated replacing Dean with Harold Ford of Tennessee.
And it is not just the consultants and power brokers that are opposed to Dean. Think for a second: If you were a congressperson, with whom would you rather deal: rich donors in luxurious surroundings or your state Democratic executive committee, meeting in the basement of a church or the private dining room of a local fish house? It is naive to think that members who are to shortly to become part of the majority party are not being courted by the rich and powerful, even as this column is being written. The way to control the average politician is to control the means by which he is nominated and elected. When a politician is dependent on the state party to be elected, that is where his allegiance will lie.
Dean's project is therefore of critical importance, both to democracy and the long-term health of the party. If he goes, the Democratic Party will almost inevitably resume the very practices that caused it to lose in 1994. Given another two years as chairperson of the DNC, however, Dean will have shifted the party's center of gravity from Washington, D.C. to the state and local parties, where it belongs, and away from dependence on the rich and powerful.
The second attack upon the present arrangement is the Internet, and in particular, what the liberal political blogs have been calling the "netroots." Through the support of the blogs for specific candidates, people are donating to candidates and the DNC in numbers and amounts inconceivable just two years ago. That money comes from the grassroots and every dollar raised this way is a dollar that doesn't have to be solicited from a wealthy and powerful donor who will expect special favors. That's the reason that net neutrality is so important; the Internet is the sole mass medium that is not almost completely controlled by large corporations and the freedom of speech that is possible on the Internet is undoubtedly a thorn in the flesh of every politician and CEO whose misdeeds are likely to be discovered and broadcast to the world.
So Howard Dean needs our help. This plain-spoken doctor turned politician, rather conservative in his political beliefs, is radically changing our party for the better. It would be a disaster to lose him now.
Secondly, we can only insure net neutrality by pressuring our representatives in Congress to put it into law.
Why Air America is in Trouble
Nov 09, 2006 07:14
Two recurring themes of the JP and the JPBlog are the dangers of concentrated public media and uncurbed corporate power. Here, via the Huffington Post, is the latest example of what happens when corporations control the media.
Air America Blackout - ABC Memo
The reward for investigating the rich and powerful is to be blacklisted. Is there any doubt as to why the mainstream media has betrayed democracy over and over again?
Air America Blackout - ABC Memo
The reward for investigating the rich and powerful is to be blacklisted. Is there any doubt as to why the mainstream media has betrayed democracy over and over again?
Now the Real Work Begins
Nov 09, 2006 07:04
Having won control of both houses of Congress, the role of the progressive movement will not only be to consolidate and increase that majority, but—even more importantly—to keep the Democratic majority honest, open, and progressive, lest we awaken someday with the depressing realization that Lord Acton's maxim still holds.
Reforming the System
Nov 05, 2006 18:32
More than two billion dollars will be spent this year on political campaigns, and much of it will be spent on televised political attack ads that poison elections and lead to widespread cynicism.
Via MyDD, here is a list of candidates for federal office that have pledged to support publicly-funded elections.
Being acquainted with a number of candidates, mostly former candidates, I have listened to nearly all of them lamenting the time they had to spend on the phone asking potential donors for money. The universal feeling was that the money chase was demeaning and poisoned the whole process, and this feeling was shared by both Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives.
Unfortunately , none of our Mississippi candidates have taken the pledge, so it's time to start asking why they haven't. Elections should not be decided on the basis of who has the most money.
Via MyDD, here is a list of candidates for federal office that have pledged to support publicly-funded elections.
The Voters First Pledge asks candidates to commit to support legislation to make elections fair through Clean Elections-style public financing, enhance accountability through stricter lobbying and ethics guidelines, and the protect voters' right-to-know with better disclosure.
Being acquainted with a number of candidates, mostly former candidates, I have listened to nearly all of them lamenting the time they had to spend on the phone asking potential donors for money. The universal feeling was that the money chase was demeaning and poisoned the whole process, and this feeling was shared by both Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives.
Unfortunately , none of our Mississippi candidates have taken the pledge, so it's time to start asking why they haven't. Elections should not be decided on the basis of who has the most money.
The Christian Coalition Voter Guides
Oct 28, 2006 19:28
A good way to keep up with what the fundamentalist right-wing is doing is to read the Christian Coalition's email action alerts. Today's newsletter takes us to the infamous Voter Guides on the CC web site. I encourage you to read several of them to learn how the the CC defines the candidates they support and those they oppose. Here's part of the senatorial voter guide for Mississippi:
The favored candidate, usually a Republican, is on the left. The issues are apparently chosen on the basis of polling data in each state and phrased in a way that skillfully frames the issue to make the conservative candidate appear to be the anointed choice of all true Christians. There is no room for subtlety here. Some questions contain the answer, such as "Appointing judges that will adhere to a strict interpretation of the Constitution," an intellectual position that has no basis in law or history and is code for appointing right-wing judges. Others have no simple answers.
Here's a senatorial voter guide for California:
Note the different list of issues. The table contains a footnote that the position of candidates are ascertained from their votes and public statements. Again, many of the questions cry out for reasoned analysis, such as the first issue, whether to raise taxes. The Federal deficit and the negative balance of international payments are issue of immense concern and simple answers like "no new taxes" are not answers at all but mindless political slogans. Sometimes taxes must be raised and while reasonable persons may differ on the amount and the timing, an automatic opposition to any increase in the tax rate is either idiotic or extremely cynical.
The issue of voluntary prayer is not about voluntary prayer at all; it is impossible to keep kids in school from praying. I recall that in my high school there was often fervent prayer just before final exams. Likewise, there is no way to prevent people from praying in public facilities. What the Christian Coalition actually wants is voluntary prayer for the fundamentalist Christians with the rest of the class being involuntarily forced to participate.
There there is the Gordian sentence, "Holding criminals liable for harm they cause to unborn children." It appears to penalize only criminals who harm unborn children. A person convicted of burglary, for instance, would be liable for selling liquor to a pregnant woman but a non-criminal bartender gets a free pass. What about doctors that perform abortions? And what kind of liability? Civil damages? Criminal liability?
The ineptitude of the drafters, however, is not why the issue is phrased so sloppily from a logical viewpoint. It is enough from their standpoint that "criminal," "harm," and "unborn children" occur together in the same sentence to trigger the message that abortionists are criminals, or ought to be.
"Further restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms" conflicts with the bilge about strict interpretation of the Constitution. If judges strictly interpreted the Constitution, the people could only bear muskets and flintlock pistols, since that is all the drafters knew.
Deconstructing the remaining issues is a similar process. All of them are reductions of difficult and complicated question into memes for the simple-minded or the willfully stupid.
Tags: Christian Coalition, rightwing, abortion, judges, conservative, taxes
It Really Might be a Wave This Time
Oct 25, 2006 07:39
It's beginning to look as though the elections will sweep a Democratic majority into the House of Representatives, if not the Senate. For those still clinging to the GOP (Greedy Oil Party), here are some web sites deconstructing the Republican candidates and their backgrounds in critical contests:
--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
--AZ-01: Rick Renzi
--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
--CA-04: John Doolittle
--CA-11: Richard Pombo
--CA-50: Brian Bilbray
--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
--CO-05: Doug Lamborn
--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
--CT-04: Christopher Shays
--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
--FL-16: Joe Negron
--FL-22: Clay Shaw
--ID-01: Bill Sali
--IL-06: Peter Roskam
--IL-10: Mark Kirk
--IL-14: Dennis Hastert
--IN-02: Chris Chocola
--IN-08: John Hostettler
--IA-01: Mike Whalen
--KS-02: Jim Ryun
--KY-03: Anne Northup
--KY-04: Geoff Davis
--MD-Sen: Michael Steele
--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
--MN-06: Michele Bachmann
--MO-Sen: Jim Talent
--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
--NV-03: Jon Porter
--NH-02: Charlie Bass
--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
--NM-01: Heather Wilson
--NY-03: Peter King
--NY-20: John Sweeney
--NY-26: Tom Reynolds
--NY-29: Randy Kuhl
--NC-08: Robin Hayes
--NC-11: Charles Taylor
--OH-01: Steve Chabot
--OH-02: Jean Schmidt
--OH-15: Deborah Pryce
--OH-18: Joy Padgett
--PA-04: Melissa Hart
--PA-07: Curt Weldon
--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
--PA-10: Don Sherwood
--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
--TN-Sen: Bob Corker
--VA-Sen: George Allen
--VA-10: Frank Wolf
--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
--WA-08: Dave Reichert
--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl
--AZ-01: Rick Renzi
--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
--CA-04: John Doolittle
--CA-11: Richard Pombo
--CA-50: Brian Bilbray
--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
--CO-05: Doug Lamborn
--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
--CT-04: Christopher Shays
--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
--FL-16: Joe Negron
--FL-22: Clay Shaw
--ID-01: Bill Sali
--IL-06: Peter Roskam
--IL-10: Mark Kirk
--IL-14: Dennis Hastert
--IN-02: Chris Chocola
--IN-08: John Hostettler
--IA-01: Mike Whalen
--KS-02: Jim Ryun
--KY-03: Anne Northup
--KY-04: Geoff Davis
--MD-Sen: Michael Steele
--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
--MN-06: Michele Bachmann
--MO-Sen: Jim Talent
--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
--NV-03: Jon Porter
--NH-02: Charlie Bass
--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
--NM-01: Heather Wilson
--NY-03: Peter King
--NY-20: John Sweeney
--NY-26: Tom Reynolds
--NY-29: Randy Kuhl
--NC-08: Robin Hayes
--NC-11: Charles Taylor
--OH-01: Steve Chabot
--OH-02: Jean Schmidt
--OH-15: Deborah Pryce
--OH-18: Joy Padgett
--PA-04: Melissa Hart
--PA-07: Curt Weldon
--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
--PA-10: Don Sherwood
--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
--TN-Sen: Bob Corker
--VA-Sen: George Allen
--VA-10: Frank Wolf
--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
--WA-08: Dave Reichert
Patriot Project Fights Republican Swiftboating
Oct 19, 2006 07:15
Transparent System Benefits Democrats—If They Remain Honest and Smart
Oct 05, 2006 08:40
With the Foley/Hastert/Ford/Reynolds scandal roiling the Republicans, it is becoming more and more likely that the Democrats will take control of both houses of Congress. With this possibility in mind, it is appropriate to point out that from the beginning of Reagan's presidency up until the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, the Democrats themselves gave the Republicans the very instruments they needed to oust the Democrats and to retain power. It is significant that much of the current improvement in the Democratic prospect is due to the Republicans' self-combustion, rather than any improvement in the Democrats' ability to capture the hearts and minds of Americans. Most of the discontent with Bush and the Republican Party has arisen from actions that many, if not most, of the Democrats in Congress initially approved or acquiesced in: the disaster in Iraq, the idiotic and unconscionable massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the Medicare prescription program and the increasing level of illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America. But I digress.
My thesis: After Reagan became president, the Democrats, who had forgotten that they could lose their control of Congress, gradually gave away their natural electoral advantage by weaving the very rope that hanged them in 1994, and that if they wish to regain and retain such control, they will have to unravel that rope that they and the Republicans wove. It will not be easy, and without either a Democratic president or a veto-proof majority, they won't be able to do it. The project will therefore take several years to accomplish, at the least.
To win, the Democrats will have to make the system reasonably transparent and honest. Here's how:
1. Re-establish the fairness doctrine by statute. The fairness doctrine that required licensed radio and television stations to give equal time to opposing viewpoints was abolished in 1987 by a Republican-dominated FCC and has resulted in the ascendency of such luminaries as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage, who were free to advocate extreme right-wing political positions over the public airwaves without contradiction.
2. Re-establish the personal attack rule and political editorial rules which were abolished in 2000. According to the Wikipedia,
The right-wing punditry that currently dominates the airwaves cannot survive real debate. Considering the dominance of a few corporate entities in the cable network business, a good argument could be made for the constitutionality of extending these rules to cable TV, where some of the most vicious right-wing commentary dominates.
3. Amend 18 U.S.C. §201(c)(1)(A) to eliminate the quid pro quo element of the crime of bribery. A Democratic Congress changed the illegal gratuities statute in 1984 to eliminate the receiving of gifts by federal officials as a crime unless it was for something specific, a quid pro quo. If somebody gives an official money or gifts in the general expectation of favorable treatment, neither the giver nor recipient has violated the law. After the Supreme Court interpreted the statute as requiring that the gift to an official must be for a specific official favor, the flood gates opened to all manner of corruption, for as long as a person or corporation gives a congressman a gift merely to gain favorable treatment in general, there is no violation of the law.
4. Repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1986 that sold the public radio spectrum to the highest bidder and permitted extreme concentration of media ownership. Neither the public nor the Democratic Party is served when one single corporation owns thousands of radio stations throughout the nation, especially when only right-wing propaganda is allowed to be broadcast. In addition, defense contractors should not be allowed to own television networks in the way that GE and Westinghouse now own two of the three major networks. In fact, no corporation that does extensive business with the U.S. government should be gatekeepers of public information. Allow only one media outlet per owner in each coverage area, meaning that a corporation may own a newspaper or a TV station in a city, but not both. There is no justification for the situation we have today.
5. Adequately fund PBS and CPB to do the job they are supposed to do and make them independent.
6. Require paper ballots in all federal elections. That means that all electronic voting machines will be required to print a paper ballot which the voter can approve and drop in a ballot box. Make it a felony to unlawfully exclude voters by any means whatever, including reducing the number of voting machines in opposition districts in order to cause long lines, or compiling a grossly inaccurate felony list and using it as a tool to challenge registered voters at the polls. Make it a felony to intimidate election workers, as happened in Miami in 2000. Establish uniform recount and ballot preservation procedures for all federal elections. Establish fair procedures for handling spoiled and incomplete ballots. Had those provisions been law in 2000 and 2004, Bush would have lost both times.
7. Establish federal financing of all federal elections. Appropriate sufficient funds so that candidates will choose to accept government financing rather than forego it for private gifts.
8. Enact an Internet neutrality bill guaranteeing equal treatment of all information providers. The huge advantage of the Republicans in raising corporate cash and dominating the mainstream news organizations has been mitigated by the Internet, which is open to both left and right. The Democratic party thrives on open discussion and debate; the Republicans are at a great disadvantage if they cannot control the flow of information to the public.
It's up to the Democrats to make any successes in November stick. If they don't make changes to open up the system, all their gains will be short-lived, and the nation will be poorly served.
Tags: democrats, communications, congress, bribery, elections, fairness
My thesis: After Reagan became president, the Democrats, who had forgotten that they could lose their control of Congress, gradually gave away their natural electoral advantage by weaving the very rope that hanged them in 1994, and that if they wish to regain and retain such control, they will have to unravel that rope that they and the Republicans wove. It will not be easy, and without either a Democratic president or a veto-proof majority, they won't be able to do it. The project will therefore take several years to accomplish, at the least.
To win, the Democrats will have to make the system reasonably transparent and honest. Here's how:
1. Re-establish the fairness doctrine by statute. The fairness doctrine that required licensed radio and television stations to give equal time to opposing viewpoints was abolished in 1987 by a Republican-dominated FCC and has resulted in the ascendency of such luminaries as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage, who were free to advocate extreme right-wing political positions over the public airwaves without contradiction.
2. Re-establish the personal attack rule and political editorial rules which were abolished in 2000. According to the Wikipedia,
The personal attack rule was pertinent whenever a person or small group was subject to a character attack during a broadcast. Stations had to notify such persons or groups within a week of the attack, send them transcripts of what was said, and offer the opportunity to respond on the air. The political editorial rule applied when a station broadcasts editorials endorsing or opposing candidates for public office, and stipulated that the candidates not endorsed be notified and allowed a reasonable opportunity to respond.
The right-wing punditry that currently dominates the airwaves cannot survive real debate. Considering the dominance of a few corporate entities in the cable network business, a good argument could be made for the constitutionality of extending these rules to cable TV, where some of the most vicious right-wing commentary dominates.
3. Amend 18 U.S.C. §201(c)(1)(A) to eliminate the quid pro quo element of the crime of bribery. A Democratic Congress changed the illegal gratuities statute in 1984 to eliminate the receiving of gifts by federal officials as a crime unless it was for something specific, a quid pro quo. If somebody gives an official money or gifts in the general expectation of favorable treatment, neither the giver nor recipient has violated the law. After the Supreme Court interpreted the statute as requiring that the gift to an official must be for a specific official favor, the flood gates opened to all manner of corruption, for as long as a person or corporation gives a congressman a gift merely to gain favorable treatment in general, there is no violation of the law.
4. Repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1986 that sold the public radio spectrum to the highest bidder and permitted extreme concentration of media ownership. Neither the public nor the Democratic Party is served when one single corporation owns thousands of radio stations throughout the nation, especially when only right-wing propaganda is allowed to be broadcast. In addition, defense contractors should not be allowed to own television networks in the way that GE and Westinghouse now own two of the three major networks. In fact, no corporation that does extensive business with the U.S. government should be gatekeepers of public information. Allow only one media outlet per owner in each coverage area, meaning that a corporation may own a newspaper or a TV station in a city, but not both. There is no justification for the situation we have today.
5. Adequately fund PBS and CPB to do the job they are supposed to do and make them independent.
6. Require paper ballots in all federal elections. That means that all electronic voting machines will be required to print a paper ballot which the voter can approve and drop in a ballot box. Make it a felony to unlawfully exclude voters by any means whatever, including reducing the number of voting machines in opposition districts in order to cause long lines, or compiling a grossly inaccurate felony list and using it as a tool to challenge registered voters at the polls. Make it a felony to intimidate election workers, as happened in Miami in 2000. Establish uniform recount and ballot preservation procedures for all federal elections. Establish fair procedures for handling spoiled and incomplete ballots. Had those provisions been law in 2000 and 2004, Bush would have lost both times.
7. Establish federal financing of all federal elections. Appropriate sufficient funds so that candidates will choose to accept government financing rather than forego it for private gifts.
8. Enact an Internet neutrality bill guaranteeing equal treatment of all information providers. The huge advantage of the Republicans in raising corporate cash and dominating the mainstream news organizations has been mitigated by the Internet, which is open to both left and right. The Democratic party thrives on open discussion and debate; the Republicans are at a great disadvantage if they cannot control the flow of information to the public.
It's up to the Democrats to make any successes in November stick. If they don't make changes to open up the system, all their gains will be short-lived, and the nation will be poorly served.
Tags: democrats, communications, congress, bribery, elections, fairness
Fox News Shows How Easy It is to Hack Electronic Voting Machines
Sep 17, 2006 14:51
A Princeton professor decided to find out how difficult it would be to infect a Diebold touchscreen voting machine with a virus that would alter the results. As it turned out, it was remarkably easy. Click on the arrow below to see the clip. This story by way of the Daily Kos.
Some time ago, I wrote a proposal for an electronic voting system that could be kept honest. It consisted of a card with a barcode and a number drawn from a fishbowl and swiped through the voting machine. The voter gets a printed ballot to keep containing the serial number of the card he swiped through the voting machine. He then goes home and checks his vote over the Internet using the number on his ballot which only he knows. The entire election database would be downloadable, thus allowing totals and subtotals to be independently verified.
Even though there are drawbacks to allowing a voter to have a copy of his ballot, it seems to me that it is the only way the system can be kept honest.
Tags: Diebold, touchscreen
Some time ago, I wrote a proposal for an electronic voting system that could be kept honest. It consisted of a card with a barcode and a number drawn from a fishbowl and swiped through the voting machine. The voter gets a printed ballot to keep containing the serial number of the card he swiped through the voting machine. He then goes home and checks his vote over the Internet using the number on his ballot which only he knows. The entire election database would be downloadable, thus allowing totals and subtotals to be independently verified.
Even though there are drawbacks to allowing a voter to have a copy of his ballot, it seems to me that it is the only way the system can be kept honest.
Tags: Diebold, touchscreen
The Framing of Immigration
May 21, 2006 18:41
George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson analyze the immigration controversy as a framing problem. As long as the problem is framed as an "immigration problem," any proposed solutions to the problem as framed will be unsuccessful. My last post touched upon some of these unacknowledged dimensions. The paper by Lakoff and Ferguson, however, tackles the problem in considerable depth. Another good resource is the NAFTA section on the Public Citizen web site.
Immigration: the Fear du Jour
May 20, 2006 07:36
Yesterday it was terrorism, the Taliban and Saddam, but that unholy trinity is losing its ability to scare people into dangerous and stupid undertakings and, worse, people are becoming pissed off at being duped into supporting a costly and ill-advised war halfway around the world that seems to have no end.
Before Al Qaida it was the Serbs, who turned out in the end to be a pitiful target, and the "victimized" Kosivars a gang of racist, drug-dealing bandits.
Before the Serbs it was Saddam (a former client strongman) and the first Gulf War, followed by murderous sanctions that were responsible for the deaths of over half a million children. Madeline Allbright, our secretary of state at the time, felt that their deaths were "worth it."
Before Saddam it was Noriega, another former ally who became inconvenient.
Before 1992 it was the evil empire. Included along with the Soviet Union was Nicaragua, ruled by the Sandinistas, and the vicious and dangerous island dictatorship of Grenada, ready to pounce upon an unprotected and helpless U.S.
There is also the war against drugs, begun during the Reagan presidency, a continuing assault upon the treasury and our civil liberties with virtually no prospect of victory before the 22nd century.
Fear and greed are the tools used to manipulate the chumps.
What chumps?
Us chumps.
And manipulation it is. The Jackson Progressive web site is getting hit daily with dozens of messages coming from fake grassroots organizations predicting the imminent demise of the country if something isn't done to stop the influx of illegal aliens. A month ago I would receive 1 or 2 such messages a week. An examination of the message headers reveal that they originate from relatively few IP addresses.
Many years ago, I was required to read William Golding's Lord of the Flies as an assignment before starting my freshman year of college. It's the story of how a group of perfectly normal, middle-class boys stranded on a tropical island were turned into murderous savages by fear of an imaginary beast invented almost out of whole cloth by a couple of the boys. I'm beginning to appreciate William Golding more and more.
The country has gone through waves of xenophobia with past migration waves and the republic was never in danger of being overwhelmed by foreigners. In fact every new wave of immigrants brought us priceless gifts, every one of them: the Scots, Irish, Poles, Italians, Czechs, Romanians, Bohemians, Dutch, Germans, Cubans, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Ukrainians, Russians, Indians, Thai, Indonesians, and last but not least, black Africans. (There are many others that do not come to mind immediatly. My apologies.) For most of the life of this nation, there were virtually no restrictions on immigration. We have done pretty well as a nation, I think, not in spite of immigrants but because of them.
My female barber, born in Korea and and adopted as a baby by an American couple, speaks with a pronounced Mississippi drawl, creating a most amusing cognitive dissonance. The Mississippi Delta is full of Italians and Chinese who have been there for generations. Today, the state is home to illegal aliens who work in the big chicken plants and other agricultural industries. For the most part they work hard, take care of their families and don't make trouble. The police and immigration authorities leave them alone as long as they don't commit crimes. Their children will grow up speaking English and live their lives as ordinary American citizens.
Our Mississippi social and economic model has not stood the test of time very well. All the talk of our "southern heritage" pales in the light of the reality. We're the poorest, unhealthiest and most ignorant state in the union. In the unlikely event that Hispanics become so numerous that they control the state it would probably be an improvement.
Historically, Republicans advocated loose immigration laws in order to keep down wages. Now that a substantial percentage of the Republican fundamentalist base is in the lower income brackets, the Republican Party has a big problem, which is why Bush's speech the other night was almost unintelligible. It was unintelligible because it was meant to be unintelligible. He is attempting to sail between Scylla and Charybdis.
Would anyone want to give odds on whether immigration will be an issue after the November election?
Or whether Halliburton will get the contract to build the Rio Grande Wall?
Before Al Qaida it was the Serbs, who turned out in the end to be a pitiful target, and the "victimized" Kosivars a gang of racist, drug-dealing bandits.
Before the Serbs it was Saddam (a former client strongman) and the first Gulf War, followed by murderous sanctions that were responsible for the deaths of over half a million children. Madeline Allbright, our secretary of state at the time, felt that their deaths were "worth it."
Before Saddam it was Noriega, another former ally who became inconvenient.
Before 1992 it was the evil empire. Included along with the Soviet Union was Nicaragua, ruled by the Sandinistas, and the vicious and dangerous island dictatorship of Grenada, ready to pounce upon an unprotected and helpless U.S.
There is also the war against drugs, begun during the Reagan presidency, a continuing assault upon the treasury and our civil liberties with virtually no prospect of victory before the 22nd century.
Fear and greed are the tools used to manipulate the chumps.
What chumps?
Us chumps.
And manipulation it is. The Jackson Progressive web site is getting hit daily with dozens of messages coming from fake grassroots organizations predicting the imminent demise of the country if something isn't done to stop the influx of illegal aliens. A month ago I would receive 1 or 2 such messages a week. An examination of the message headers reveal that they originate from relatively few IP addresses.
Many years ago, I was required to read William Golding's Lord of the Flies as an assignment before starting my freshman year of college. It's the story of how a group of perfectly normal, middle-class boys stranded on a tropical island were turned into murderous savages by fear of an imaginary beast invented almost out of whole cloth by a couple of the boys. I'm beginning to appreciate William Golding more and more.
The country has gone through waves of xenophobia with past migration waves and the republic was never in danger of being overwhelmed by foreigners. In fact every new wave of immigrants brought us priceless gifts, every one of them: the Scots, Irish, Poles, Italians, Czechs, Romanians, Bohemians, Dutch, Germans, Cubans, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Ukrainians, Russians, Indians, Thai, Indonesians, and last but not least, black Africans. (There are many others that do not come to mind immediatly. My apologies.) For most of the life of this nation, there were virtually no restrictions on immigration. We have done pretty well as a nation, I think, not in spite of immigrants but because of them.
My female barber, born in Korea and and adopted as a baby by an American couple, speaks with a pronounced Mississippi drawl, creating a most amusing cognitive dissonance. The Mississippi Delta is full of Italians and Chinese who have been there for generations. Today, the state is home to illegal aliens who work in the big chicken plants and other agricultural industries. For the most part they work hard, take care of their families and don't make trouble. The police and immigration authorities leave them alone as long as they don't commit crimes. Their children will grow up speaking English and live their lives as ordinary American citizens.
Our Mississippi social and economic model has not stood the test of time very well. All the talk of our "southern heritage" pales in the light of the reality. We're the poorest, unhealthiest and most ignorant state in the union. In the unlikely event that Hispanics become so numerous that they control the state it would probably be an improvement.
Historically, Republicans advocated loose immigration laws in order to keep down wages. Now that a substantial percentage of the Republican fundamentalist base is in the lower income brackets, the Republican Party has a big problem, which is why Bush's speech the other night was almost unintelligible. It was unintelligible because it was meant to be unintelligible. He is attempting to sail between Scylla and Charybdis.
Would anyone want to give odds on whether immigration will be an issue after the November election?
Or whether Halliburton will get the contract to build the Rio Grande Wall?
The Impossible Will Take A Little While: Hope In A Time Of Fear - Paul Rogat Loeb (6-Feb-05)
Apr 30, 2006 22:35
Listen to an extraordinarily inspiring speech by Paul Loeb, author and lecturer on citizen responsibility and empowerment. I can't believe I haven't come across his books and speeches until now. You can find out more about him at http://www.paulloeb.org. That people like Loeb exist gives me faith in the future.
An Interview With Mary Mapes on the Killian Memos
Dec 13, 2005 10:34
Hunter on the Daley Kos interviews Mary Mapes about her new book, Truth and Duty. Mapes worked on the CBS story about the Killian memos and lost her job when the conservative right-wing blogosphere went crazy over charges that they were forged and CBS collapsed before the onslaught.
Mapes defends her story and claims that other documents from the Texas Air National Guard typed around the same time show the same characteristics as the Killian memos that were claimed to be impossible on late 1960 typewriters.
This is an important interview and her book looks to be an important book.
Emotionally Framing Political Warfare
Dec 02, 2005 20:48
Somehow or other, I missed The Republican Nemesis, an extraordinary essay on a winning Democratic strategy by economist James Kroeger. This is a website I have bookmarked and plan to explore. Kroeger makes the simple observation that linguist George Lakoff's theory of framing the political language, doesn't completely explain the success of the Republican campaign strategy since 1980. Voters are motivated to vote for a candidate or party by feeling, not clear thinking, and therefore the framing must be emotional to a much greater degree than conceptual or intellectual. The Republicans have masterfully manipulated the feelings of the electorate to be elected even when a significant majority of the voters are more aligned policy-wise with the Democrats:
So it’s not the words we use, Democrats; it’s the emotions we show when we use particular words. Consider the phony outrage that Lynne & Dick Cheney expressed after the third debate. At a time when it was crucial for Kerry to continue to build momentum after a solid debate performance, his advisors ended up losing the post-debate spin. They lost it because they didn’t understand how crucial Kerry’s response would be and they didn’t understand how a candidate absolutely must respond to an Angry Outrage Performance if she wants to win. The big story that Swing Voters saw on TV the next day (those who didn’t watch the debate) was that the Cheneys were really angry that Kerry had called their daughter a lesbian on national TV. What turned this into a home run for the Republicans was Kerry’s unfortunate response; a written statement that sounded a lot like an apology. The overall impression this gave to Swing Voters was that Kerry had apparently done some “dirty politicking.” Then, after the Cheneys apparently called him on it, he offered [what sounded like] a weak apology and then tried to change the subject.
Whenever Democratic candidates are the target of a Republican politician’s expressed anger, it is crucial that they respond properly if they want to win The Image Campaign. Impressions formed during such confrontations are usually remembered on voting day. John Kerry should have responded emotionally by calling for a televised press conference, and then using the spotlight to laugh at the Cheneys’ phony display of anger. Laughter is the appropriate emotion for a candidate to feel and express when he is guilty of no wrongdoing whatsoever. After laughing at the Cheneys, Kerry would then have been able to focus the media’s attention on the real story, which was/is the clever manipulations and deceptions that the Republicans always use to mislead voters. Anyone remember what Karen Hughes did to Al Gore in 2000 with the same kind of expressions of emotion (outrage, indignation)?
Read the article. Kroeger has latched onto something important.
Good and Bad News for the Democrats
Dec 01, 2005 06:29
By all accounts, the Republican party is in the doghouse with the American people. Here is Ruy Teixeira's post at The Emerging Democratic Majority:
For the latest on the polling analysis, Teixeira's centrist Democratic analyses are a good place to start when trying to make out the myriad of national and local polls that often seem to be in conflict.
For those with a left-of-center persuasion heavily committed to developing a sustainable civilization, there is bad news in the article as well:
The position of the electorate reflects this writer's mood. Put in even more stark terms, can the Democrats govern and if they can will they govern any better than the Republicans on a host of critical issues? As I pointed out on November 15th, many of the same people that went along with the Republicans on almost every important issue in the last twenty years still carry the party's banner on Capitol Hill. Is there any evidence that they will do anything differently if they come to power? Can a leopard change its spots?
The Children of Israel were forced to remain in the wilderness 40 years until an entire generation passed away. Jehovah declared them unfit after they refused to enter the promised land for fear of its inhabitants. Sometimes I think that this entire generation of DLC-inspired politicians in Washington must pass on before the party becomes worthy of the trust of the American people.
There is also more bad news. The Republicans have been stacking the electoral deck to make if far more difficult for a Democratic majority to recapture Congress:
The job for progressive Democrats is clear. First, move the party towards a progressive stance. Many politicians and high-level operatives, perhaps the majority, will have to leave before this can happen; they got us into this mess and they have built their political careers on being Republican lite. Second, present a clear, progressive message to the American people. This will require some party discipline until the benefits of progressive policies become apparent to the public, at which point the pols will run out front to lead. Third, the contradiction between Republican rhetoric and Republican policy must be brought home to the public. Their dishonesty must be exposed: that they are family-friendly; that they are responsible stewards of the nation's economy; that their policies promote a strong national defense; that they are Christian, etc.
Accomplishing the third task will be hampered by the fact that many of the Democratic pols in Washington supported the very Republican policies that have so damaged the fabric of our society. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for them to admit that they went along because they were either fools or cowards.
Here are data from the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on which party the public thinks would do a better job on various issues: protecting the environment (+39 points in favor of the Democrats); dealing with gas prices (+28); dealing with health care (+26); dealing with Social Security (+22); reducing the federal deficit (+19); dealing with education (+19); dealing with energy policy (+16); dealing with the economy (+14); controlling government spending (+12); dealing with taxes (+10); protecting America’s interests on trade issues (+10); dealing with foreign policy (+9); dealing with abortion (+8); dealing with immigration; promoting ethics in government (+5); and dealing with Iraq (+3).
For the latest on the polling analysis, Teixeira's centrist Democratic analyses are a good place to start when trying to make out the myriad of national and local polls that often seem to be in conflict.
For those with a left-of-center persuasion heavily committed to developing a sustainable civilization, there is bad news in the article as well:
The Republicans also retain some important leads on party associations like know what they stand for (+14) and security and keeping people safe (+13). The Republican lead on the former characteristic is underscored by a NBC News finding that only 11 percent think the Democrats have a “very clear message and vision for the future”, 7 points less than believe that about the Republicans and 45 percent believe the Democrats don’t have a clear message and vision for the future, 9 points more than think that about the Republicans.
The position of the electorate reflects this writer's mood. Put in even more stark terms, can the Democrats govern and if they can will they govern any better than the Republicans on a host of critical issues? As I pointed out on November 15th, many of the same people that went along with the Republicans on almost every important issue in the last twenty years still carry the party's banner on Capitol Hill. Is there any evidence that they will do anything differently if they come to power? Can a leopard change its spots?
The Children of Israel were forced to remain in the wilderness 40 years until an entire generation passed away. Jehovah declared them unfit after they refused to enter the promised land for fear of its inhabitants. Sometimes I think that this entire generation of DLC-inspired politicians in Washington must pass on before the party becomes worthy of the trust of the American people.
There is also more bad news. The Republicans have been stacking the electoral deck to make if far more difficult for a Democratic majority to recapture Congress:
There are structural reasons why Democrats may have difficulties translating their substantial issue advantages and Republicans’ political woes into big gains in November, 2006, ranging from the concentration of Democratic votes in House districts that are lopsidedly Democratic (a problem that has been exacerbated by GOP-led redistricting efforts) to a well-oiled GOP political apparatus with an extensive bag of tricks designed to insulate the party from the consequences of its unpopular policies. All these advantages are usefully summarized by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson in their New York Times magazine piece last Sunday (which should whet your appetite for reading their excellent new book, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy.)
The job for progressive Democrats is clear. First, move the party towards a progressive stance. Many politicians and high-level operatives, perhaps the majority, will have to leave before this can happen; they got us into this mess and they have built their political careers on being Republican lite. Second, present a clear, progressive message to the American people. This will require some party discipline until the benefits of progressive policies become apparent to the public, at which point the pols will run out front to lead. Third, the contradiction between Republican rhetoric and Republican policy must be brought home to the public. Their dishonesty must be exposed: that they are family-friendly; that they are responsible stewards of the nation's economy; that their policies promote a strong national defense; that they are Christian, etc.
Accomplishing the third task will be hampered by the fact that many of the Democratic pols in Washington supported the very Republican policies that have so damaged the fabric of our society. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for them to admit that they went along because they were either fools or cowards.
Suppose the Democrats Won
Nov 15, 2005 12:36
Thoughts while blogging at the free WiFi hotspot at the AmSouth Building downtown.
The last time the Democrats ran Congress, they were a sorry lot, snuggled in bed with so many deep-pocketed donors that they were almost indistinguishable from their Republican counterparts across the aisle. It's not good for any party to remain in power too long. It corrupts, thank you Lord Action.
Where is the Democratic Party now? Is it substantially different from what it was in 1994? Kerry's presidential campaign and Joe Biden's agenda give little grounds for optimism. Much of the Democratic party is still in the hands of operatives whose influence rests upon their relationships with big donors.
Big donors expect access and sympathy from the public officials they support. Really big donors expect something approaching obedience. The interests of big donors and really big donors do not necessarily coincide with the interests and desires of the rest of us who work hard, earn a modest living and would like to bequeath a decent world to our children and grandchildren and perhaps even a little nest egg to help them get started. In fact, the interests of the big donors are often in direct conflict with the interests of the people of this nation.
Where do the current leaders of the Democratic Party stand on this matter? If the party is like it was in 1994, it might as well not bother with the election, because it will offer little more than the Republicans. If it wins, its governance will be a failure and its victory ephemeral.
The last time the Democrats ran Congress, they were a sorry lot, snuggled in bed with so many deep-pocketed donors that they were almost indistinguishable from their Republican counterparts across the aisle. It's not good for any party to remain in power too long. It corrupts, thank you Lord Action.
Where is the Democratic Party now? Is it substantially different from what it was in 1994? Kerry's presidential campaign and Joe Biden's agenda give little grounds for optimism. Much of the Democratic party is still in the hands of operatives whose influence rests upon their relationships with big donors.
Big donors expect access and sympathy from the public officials they support. Really big donors expect something approaching obedience. The interests of big donors and really big donors do not necessarily coincide with the interests and desires of the rest of us who work hard, earn a modest living and would like to bequeath a decent world to our children and grandchildren and perhaps even a little nest egg to help them get started. In fact, the interests of the big donors are often in direct conflict with the interests of the people of this nation.
Where do the current leaders of the Democratic Party stand on this matter? If the party is like it was in 1994, it might as well not bother with the election, because it will offer little more than the Republicans. If it wins, its governance will be a failure and its victory ephemeral.
Does the Republican Party Hate Veterans?
Nov 11, 2005 18:28
This is an enigma: while spending hundreds of billions on a disastrous military operation on the other side of the world and cutting taxes over and over for the most wealthy and powerful, the Republican-controlled Congress is de-funding the VA. What is going on? Is this conservatism? Are we soon to have Bushvilles, the modern version of Hoovervilles?
So much for the patriotism of these pious frauds that are currently in power. A pox on their house.
So much for the patriotism of these pious frauds that are currently in power. A pox on their house.
Good Link on why GOP rules
Oct 17, 2005 20:06
The article "No Right Turn: If Americans haven't gotten more conservative why is the GOP in charge?" in The Washington Monthly is an eye-opener on the brilliant tactics and strategy of the Republican party in gaining and holding onto power. The article is a review of the book Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy by political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson. The authors and the reviewer, Christopher Hayes, undertake to explain just why the far right wing of the Republican party is running the country when the American public is no more conservative than it was in 1972 on issue upon issue. A sample of the article:
Another disturbing quote:
Go read the article; it gives much food for thought, especially for progressives. Thanks to The Emerging Democratic Majority for putting us on to it.
Polls might be the best way of figuring out the public's stance on a wide variety of issues, but insofar as they carve the world into issue categories, they build in a way of thinking about politics that isn't necessarily reflective of what motivates people when they actually cast their ballots. If you ask the public if the growing deficit is a problem, they say “yes” overwhelmingly, but in the words of one Bush aide “Name me one person who has lost an election because of the deficit.” In other words: It doesn't matter what people think about issues, it only matters what they vote on. In this respect, Bush is telling the truth when he says he doesn't listen to the polls. He realizes that on a whole host of issues, he doesn't have to.
And the tax cuts are another perfect example. Tax cuts are a kind of political junk food. If you ask Americans if they want them, they may say no, but when they're actually right there in front of the voter on the plate, they're hard to resist. Instead of choosing between its wealthy paymasters and the public at large, the GOP figured out a way to have their tax cuts and eat them, too. They just had to muddy the waters long enough to get them passed. So they lied about both the intentions and the effects of the policy—Davis told O'Neill it was “crucial that your remarks make clear that there is no trade-off” between the tax cuts and spending on other programs. And more insidiously, they structured the cuts themselves in such a way as to hide their intent and effect. Republicans front-loaded the few benefits there were for the middle class while slowly phasing in the porcine pay-offs for the über wealthy.
Another disturbing quote:
As lurid as the details are, one can't help but ask: Why didn't previous majorities do this sort of thing? Tip O'Neill was a smart guy. Why didn't he provide his members with “backlash insurance,” or change the Ethics Committee rules so that the majority party could single-handedly stop an investigation? While Off Center never explicitly addresses this question, the implicit answer is a simple as it is disturbing. Much of what kept prior governing coalitions in check were informal, generally agreed-upon norms rather than black-letter law or immutable rules. Consider that for years state legislatures have, as a matter of custom, redistricted congressional districts only every 10 years, following new census data. There was nothing stopping a majority party from engineering a mid-decade redistricting for its own partisan advantage other than a generalized sense it would be cheating to do so. Such considerations mean little to Tom DeLay and Karl Rove.
Go read the article; it gives much food for thought, especially for progressives. Thanks to The Emerging Democratic Majority for putting us on to it.
Scarcity of Foxes
Oct 15, 2005 20:42
I had been visiting this afternoon with Junior Sawyer at the local coffeehouse when the conversation turned to national politics. I asked him "Junior, with all the power those folks in the Whitehouse had, how come they couldn't put the screws to Fitzgerald and get this Plamegate business stopped?" Junior is well over seventy-five and has seen a lot during his life.
"Well, sonny, they've had a lot of trouble getting enough of the right kind of employee, and it looks like it's going to bite 'em where it hurts. They got a fox problem."
"I'm not sure I follow."
"Too many henhouses. Can't find enough foxes to guard 'em."
"Well, sonny, they've had a lot of trouble getting enough of the right kind of employee, and it looks like it's going to bite 'em where it hurts. They got a fox problem."
"I'm not sure I follow."
"Too many henhouses. Can't find enough foxes to guard 'em."
The Problem with Congressional Democrats
Oct 08, 2005 15:47
Throughout liberal bloglandia debate rages on over our Democratic senators' and representatives' lack of courage or even the inclination to fight over issues highly critical to the welfare and even the survival of our nation as a democratic republic. It's astounding that many of them still support the Iraq invasion or the oppressive and corrupt bankruptcy bill scheduled to take effect later this month.
The obvious problem with the Democrats is the loss of their traditional base in the lower middle class and as a result they can no longer depend upon the labor movement for the organizational and financial support that for decades had been their mainstay. The reasons for the decline of organized labor and the blue collar abandonment of the Democratic party must be discussed elsewhere. Suffice it to acknowledge for our purposes that it happened.
A party that has lost its primary constituency must either win it back or find another constituency to replace it, or it will relegate itself to insignificance in short order. The Republicans' constituency has always had plenty of money and it used that money to dominate not only the executive branch, but to set the national agenda through the media and the right-wing think tanks it set up during the '70s.
During the Reagan regime some Democrats, observing that the public discourse had shifted well to the right, decided that the Democratic Party would not win elections as long as it remained liberal. They formed the Democratic Leadership Conference, a business-oriented organization dedicated to moving the party to the right in order to tap into the same sources of contributions that typically went to the Republicans. They were successful but the ultimate result was disaster. Other than the election of triangulation-master Bill Clinton, the DLC led the party to a catastrophic series of reversals: the Republican takeover of both houses of Congress, the appointment and subsequent election four years later of George W. Bush, and the Republicanization of the judiciary, including the Supreme Court.
Almost all the Democrats now serving in Congress have been shaped during a twenty-five year period during which the party lacked a natural constituency big enough to win elections decisively. Their conversion to corporatism deprived it of any real reason for its existence. The corporate world, having little to fear from the business-friendly Democrats in any case, understandably preferred their right-wing beverage undiluted. The result is a Democratic leadership that moves to the right in order to be seen as centrist but never receives the benefits that should naturally accrue to the center. Worse, their lack of steady principles has deprived them of their ethical rudder, and the Democratic ship can now sail only where the wind blows. The public knows that, and the fact that it preferred a candidate with the patently obvious mental and moral limitations of George W. Bush over John Kerry, his superior in almost every imaginable way, is a stark testimony that the people prefer stupidity and corruption with principles, no matter how foolish, over intelligence and honesty without clearly-articulated principles.
One cannot contemplate the Democratic leadership without recalling Yeats's famous line: "The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with a passionate intensity." This is not an original thought, by the way. The Democratic Party purports to be the party of the people, yet its leaders seem to be under the illusion that it can fill its political role by the support of the very people and institutions that it must vigorously oppose in order to fulfill its reason for existence. In other words, they believe that they can call the tune without paying the piper. With no convictions beyond the general desire to do the right thing (usually) and the very specific desire to retain their positions and power (always), they are a sorry lot, a church of Laodicians, neither hot nor cold.
The predictible result is a party of politicans habitually seeking money from the rich and powerful and making whatever concessions to principle necessary to get that money.
The Republican Party stands in a totally different posture than the Democrats; its right-wing policies are perfectly aligned with the interests of its constituency, i.e., the rich and powerful. Its task is to con enough voters into voting against their own interests to win elections. Thus we see the curious alliance between the fundamentalist and millenarian churches and the powerful and wealthy plutocrats whose political agenda is neither Christian nor beneficial to anyone but themselves, a powerful example of people's ability to blind themselves to the obvious. To achieve this level of deception, one of the right wing's chief objectives over the past 20 years has been to create a deregulated media monopoly, so that public opinion, based on knowledge of the world gotten exclusively from radio, television and print, could be molded to suit the Republican power elite. The first obstacle to fall, thanks to the Reagan administration, was the Fairness Doctrine, an FCC rule that required radio and television broadcasters to give airtime to opposing viewpoints. The subsequent communications "reform" legislation consolidated the control of the mass media into four large conglomerates that now control the information most persons receive and tailor it to the propaganda needs of their elite owners.
When the Democrats weren't sitting on their hands, they were collaborating with this project from Hell. Bill Clinton, to his everlasting infamy, signed the Communications Reform Act of 1996, a corrupt piece of legislation written by the industry for the industry. It utterly betrayed the people of this nation. The Democratic Party, by acquiescing, ran a sword deep into its own side. Virtually all the information we now receive over the waves, by cable, and through magazines and newspapers, has been filtered through an ideological sieve designed to instill in us a world view in which the Republican right-wing agenda appears to be the only possible and reasonable course of action. Only the Internet offers the possibility of getting politically incorrect information to people.
The Supreme Court was the ultimate prize and the right-wing won that battle during the Nixon and Ford administrations, with the appointments of Burger, Powell and Rehnquist. We are still living with that bitter legacy, the gift that lasts and lasts. Rehnquist was one of the decisive votes in Bush v. Gore that stopped the Florida recount in 2000 and made Bush president by judicial fiat. The public issues involving the Supreme Court that fill the media, however, are no more than red herrings, designed to distract from the real objective: the corporatization of the Court.
There have been many different types of persons nominated and confirmed over the past thirty years, but they all, without exception, have one thing in common: they are sympathetic to the extension of corporate power. They are hostile to anti-trust legislation and have, with the assistance of their like-minded brethren in the lower courts, gutted the anti-trust statutes (many of which were enacted by Republican congresses). Abortion, gay marriage and prayer in the schools are no more than meat thrown to the masses. Although there might be much roaring and screaming by the fundamentalist base when a candidate such as Harriet Miers is nominated, the players at the top know perfectly well that no matter how Miers rules on those hot-button issues, her allegiance is to the corporate world and that is what counts. In fact, it would be better from their standpoint that Miers votes to uphold abortion, gay marriage and the ban on prayer in the school, for without those emotional issues, the fundamentalist votes that have given the Republican Party an edge in critical elections would probably stay home on election day.
People can be briefly roused to reform or change the government, but gardens must be weeded, lawns mowed, children raised and income earned, and most citizens have little time left over, day in and day out, to remain vigilant. After all, one must live. The corporate plutocracy, however, like T. S. Eliot's True Church, can sleep and feed at once, with armies of lobbyists and trainloads of cash, plying their trade in the halls of Congress and the regulatory agencies. Is there any question who has the upper hand most of the time? Historically, the public gets its dander up only when the hubris and overreaching of the ruling party brings about a general collapse, like the Great Depression. Since the New Deal, the business of keeping the government accountable has fallen to the great intermediary institutions, such as labor unions, voter leagues and other organizations that have the time and resources to hold our public servants to account. Those institutions are in decline and as a result the lobbyists go unopposed with the exception of the fragmented world of special interest public-advocacy organizations who seldom offer the one thing that influences a politician's vote: campaign contributions.
The Bush administration's overreaching, it appears, is getting to the point that the chickens will finally come to roost. Many of the president's men could go to jail. It would be a pity, however, if the Democrats regained power only by the stupidity and arrogance of the Republicans. I have serious doubts about the ability of the current Democratic leadership to do things very differently. Having pandered most of their careers to the very people with which they must ultimately do political battle if they are to regain the confidence of the nation in their ability to lead, most of them are irretrievably compromised. The current lineup of Democratic presidential hopefuls is deeply discouraging. Having neither principle nor imagination, they have no courage, and are merely chair-warmers.
This is the time for new people with new ideas.
The obvious problem with the Democrats is the loss of their traditional base in the lower middle class and as a result they can no longer depend upon the labor movement for the organizational and financial support that for decades had been their mainstay. The reasons for the decline of organized labor and the blue collar abandonment of the Democratic party must be discussed elsewhere. Suffice it to acknowledge for our purposes that it happened.
A party that has lost its primary constituency must either win it back or find another constituency to replace it, or it will relegate itself to insignificance in short order. The Republicans' constituency has always had plenty of money and it used that money to dominate not only the executive branch, but to set the national agenda through the media and the right-wing think tanks it set up during the '70s.
During the Reagan regime some Democrats, observing that the public discourse had shifted well to the right, decided that the Democratic Party would not win elections as long as it remained liberal. They formed the Democratic Leadership Conference, a business-oriented organization dedicated to moving the party to the right in order to tap into the same sources of contributions that typically went to the Republicans. They were successful but the ultimate result was disaster. Other than the election of triangulation-master Bill Clinton, the DLC led the party to a catastrophic series of reversals: the Republican takeover of both houses of Congress, the appointment and subsequent election four years later of George W. Bush, and the Republicanization of the judiciary, including the Supreme Court.
Almost all the Democrats now serving in Congress have been shaped during a twenty-five year period during which the party lacked a natural constituency big enough to win elections decisively. Their conversion to corporatism deprived it of any real reason for its existence. The corporate world, having little to fear from the business-friendly Democrats in any case, understandably preferred their right-wing beverage undiluted. The result is a Democratic leadership that moves to the right in order to be seen as centrist but never receives the benefits that should naturally accrue to the center. Worse, their lack of steady principles has deprived them of their ethical rudder, and the Democratic ship can now sail only where the wind blows. The public knows that, and the fact that it preferred a candidate with the patently obvious mental and moral limitations of George W. Bush over John Kerry, his superior in almost every imaginable way, is a stark testimony that the people prefer stupidity and corruption with principles, no matter how foolish, over intelligence and honesty without clearly-articulated principles.
One cannot contemplate the Democratic leadership without recalling Yeats's famous line: "The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with a passionate intensity." This is not an original thought, by the way. The Democratic Party purports to be the party of the people, yet its leaders seem to be under the illusion that it can fill its political role by the support of the very people and institutions that it must vigorously oppose in order to fulfill its reason for existence. In other words, they believe that they can call the tune without paying the piper. With no convictions beyond the general desire to do the right thing (usually) and the very specific desire to retain their positions and power (always), they are a sorry lot, a church of Laodicians, neither hot nor cold.
The predictible result is a party of politicans habitually seeking money from the rich and powerful and making whatever concessions to principle necessary to get that money.
The Republican Party stands in a totally different posture than the Democrats; its right-wing policies are perfectly aligned with the interests of its constituency, i.e., the rich and powerful. Its task is to con enough voters into voting against their own interests to win elections. Thus we see the curious alliance between the fundamentalist and millenarian churches and the powerful and wealthy plutocrats whose political agenda is neither Christian nor beneficial to anyone but themselves, a powerful example of people's ability to blind themselves to the obvious. To achieve this level of deception, one of the right wing's chief objectives over the past 20 years has been to create a deregulated media monopoly, so that public opinion, based on knowledge of the world gotten exclusively from radio, television and print, could be molded to suit the Republican power elite. The first obstacle to fall, thanks to the Reagan administration, was the Fairness Doctrine, an FCC rule that required radio and television broadcasters to give airtime to opposing viewpoints. The subsequent communications "reform" legislation consolidated the control of the mass media into four large conglomerates that now control the information most persons receive and tailor it to the propaganda needs of their elite owners.
When the Democrats weren't sitting on their hands, they were collaborating with this project from Hell. Bill Clinton, to his everlasting infamy, signed the Communications Reform Act of 1996, a corrupt piece of legislation written by the industry for the industry. It utterly betrayed the people of this nation. The Democratic Party, by acquiescing, ran a sword deep into its own side. Virtually all the information we now receive over the waves, by cable, and through magazines and newspapers, has been filtered through an ideological sieve designed to instill in us a world view in which the Republican right-wing agenda appears to be the only possible and reasonable course of action. Only the Internet offers the possibility of getting politically incorrect information to people.
The Supreme Court was the ultimate prize and the right-wing won that battle during the Nixon and Ford administrations, with the appointments of Burger, Powell and Rehnquist. We are still living with that bitter legacy, the gift that lasts and lasts. Rehnquist was one of the decisive votes in Bush v. Gore that stopped the Florida recount in 2000 and made Bush president by judicial fiat. The public issues involving the Supreme Court that fill the media, however, are no more than red herrings, designed to distract from the real objective: the corporatization of the Court.
There have been many different types of persons nominated and confirmed over the past thirty years, but they all, without exception, have one thing in common: they are sympathetic to the extension of corporate power. They are hostile to anti-trust legislation and have, with the assistance of their like-minded brethren in the lower courts, gutted the anti-trust statutes (many of which were enacted by Republican congresses). Abortion, gay marriage and prayer in the schools are no more than meat thrown to the masses. Although there might be much roaring and screaming by the fundamentalist base when a candidate such as Harriet Miers is nominated, the players at the top know perfectly well that no matter how Miers rules on those hot-button issues, her allegiance is to the corporate world and that is what counts. In fact, it would be better from their standpoint that Miers votes to uphold abortion, gay marriage and the ban on prayer in the school, for without those emotional issues, the fundamentalist votes that have given the Republican Party an edge in critical elections would probably stay home on election day.
People can be briefly roused to reform or change the government, but gardens must be weeded, lawns mowed, children raised and income earned, and most citizens have little time left over, day in and day out, to remain vigilant. After all, one must live. The corporate plutocracy, however, like T. S. Eliot's True Church, can sleep and feed at once, with armies of lobbyists and trainloads of cash, plying their trade in the halls of Congress and the regulatory agencies. Is there any question who has the upper hand most of the time? Historically, the public gets its dander up only when the hubris and overreaching of the ruling party brings about a general collapse, like the Great Depression. Since the New Deal, the business of keeping the government accountable has fallen to the great intermediary institutions, such as labor unions, voter leagues and other organizations that have the time and resources to hold our public servants to account. Those institutions are in decline and as a result the lobbyists go unopposed with the exception of the fragmented world of special interest public-advocacy organizations who seldom offer the one thing that influences a politician's vote: campaign contributions.
The Bush administration's overreaching, it appears, is getting to the point that the chickens will finally come to roost. Many of the president's men could go to jail. It would be a pity, however, if the Democrats regained power only by the stupidity and arrogance of the Republicans. I have serious doubts about the ability of the current Democratic leadership to do things very differently. Having pandered most of their careers to the very people with which they must ultimately do political battle if they are to regain the confidence of the nation in their ability to lead, most of them are irretrievably compromised. The current lineup of Democratic presidential hopefuls is deeply discouraging. Having neither principle nor imagination, they have no courage, and are merely chair-warmers.
This is the time for new people with new ideas.
The Liberal/Progressive Opportunity
Oct 03, 2005 06:40
Decent people give their political opponents the benefit of a doubt at least once but usually more than once. That willingness to believe that the other guy is really concerned about the people's welfare is indispensable to the functioning of democratic institutions. To deny your opponent's good will is to cross a boundary that makes compromise difficult, if not impossible.
That Rubicon was crossed many years ago by the conservative movement in this country. A little exploratory thought easily leads one back as far as the Alien and Sedition Acts during the presidency of John Adams. Other pre-Goldwater manifestations include the Palmer Raids and the McCarthy persecutions. Much as they insist on their intellectual sophistication and depth, conservatives don't have a good argument in favor of their aristocratic model of government by the most talented, by which they mean government by the wealthiest. It has failed over and over again, leading to much suffering by the less fortunate and outright oppression by the plutocracy of constitutionally-protected dissent. When the odor of corruption becomes too much for anyone to bear, the response of the right wing is usually to ignore reality until the entire enterprise collapses.
The ability of the right to spin came home to me about ten years ago when I worked on a commercial project with an intelligent young woman who had spent some time in Washington, D.C. working for conservative congressmen and other like causes. With a straight face, she told me that all the ills of the world were due to liberals and their philosophy. This intrigued me because by then conservatives had been occupying the presidency for twelve out of the past 15 years and the conservative agenda had been almost universally applied to the running of government. It was my first encounter with what is now referred to as the Kool-Aid. It was an ideology that you couldn't argue with because it had little, if any, basis in reality.
While the conservative intelligentsia preached the Kool-Aid from the hallowed halls of the right-wing think tanks, the people with real power quietly engineered and executed the corporatization of the government and the nation, accompanied by loud hosannas from the media shills of the newly-formed Fox cable network and the other mainstream media.
Reality intrudes eventually. The miserable and tragic paralysis of the federal government in the face of hurricane Katrina opened many eyes. In spite of all their bragged-about expertise, the crony government of the Republicans did what it always did so successfully, and the only thing it could now do in the face of disaster: spin. Since 2000, FEMA had been gutted both of competent management and funds to address a disaster like Katrina.
The Democrats, provided they behave like real Democrats, have a chance to reverse the decline of the public purpose. The conservative regime has been shown for what it is. Here are two articles that discuss that opportunity, courtesy of The Emerging Democratic Majority: A Perfect Storm from the American Prospect and To Rebuild and Restructure from tompane.org.
Read and heed.
That Rubicon was crossed many years ago by the conservative movement in this country. A little exploratory thought easily leads one back as far as the Alien and Sedition Acts during the presidency of John Adams. Other pre-Goldwater manifestations include the Palmer Raids and the McCarthy persecutions. Much as they insist on their intellectual sophistication and depth, conservatives don't have a good argument in favor of their aristocratic model of government by the most talented, by which they mean government by the wealthiest. It has failed over and over again, leading to much suffering by the less fortunate and outright oppression by the plutocracy of constitutionally-protected dissent. When the odor of corruption becomes too much for anyone to bear, the response of the right wing is usually to ignore reality until the entire enterprise collapses.
The ability of the right to spin came home to me about ten years ago when I worked on a commercial project with an intelligent young woman who had spent some time in Washington, D.C. working for conservative congressmen and other like causes. With a straight face, she told me that all the ills of the world were due to liberals and their philosophy. This intrigued me because by then conservatives had been occupying the presidency for twelve out of the past 15 years and the conservative agenda had been almost universally applied to the running of government. It was my first encounter with what is now referred to as the Kool-Aid. It was an ideology that you couldn't argue with because it had little, if any, basis in reality.
While the conservative intelligentsia preached the Kool-Aid from the hallowed halls of the right-wing think tanks, the people with real power quietly engineered and executed the corporatization of the government and the nation, accompanied by loud hosannas from the media shills of the newly-formed Fox cable network and the other mainstream media.
Reality intrudes eventually. The miserable and tragic paralysis of the federal government in the face of hurricane Katrina opened many eyes. In spite of all their bragged-about expertise, the crony government of the Republicans did what it always did so successfully, and the only thing it could now do in the face of disaster: spin. Since 2000, FEMA had been gutted both of competent management and funds to address a disaster like Katrina.
The Democrats, provided they behave like real Democrats, have a chance to reverse the decline of the public purpose. The conservative regime has been shown for what it is. Here are two articles that discuss that opportunity, courtesy of The Emerging Democratic Majority: A Perfect Storm from the American Prospect and To Rebuild and Restructure from tompane.org.
Read and heed.
Thom Hartmann column
Sep 11, 2005 08:54
I usually do not publish whole articles in the blog, but this one by Thom Hartmann hits the nail on the head perfectly.
Mississippi voted overwhelmingly for George Bush twice. Because our state is safely red it is now obvious why Florida did so much better in the Federal aid department after hurricanes.
Wake up, Mississippi. They are playing us for chumps.
"You Can't Govern if You Don't Believe in Government"
by Thom Hartmann
In a May 25, 2001 Morning Edition interview, Grover Norquist told National Public Radio's Mara Liasson, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
Norquist got his wish. Democracy - and at least several thousand people, most of them Democrats, black, and poor - drowned last week in the basin of New Orleans. Our nation failed in its response, because for most of the past 25 years conservatives who don't believe in governance have run our government.
As incompetent as George W. Bush has been in his response to the disaster in New Orleans, he wasn't the one who began the process that inevitably led to that disaster spiraling out of control.
That would be Ronald Reagan.
It was Reagan who began the deliberate and intentional destruction of the United States of America when he famously cracked (and then incessantly repeated): "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
Reagan, like George W. Bush after him, failed to understand that when people come together into community, and then into nationhood, that they organize themselves to protect themselves from predators, both human and corporate, both domestic and foreign. This form of organization is called government.
But the Reagan/Bush ideologues don't "believe" in government, in anything other than a military and police capacity. Government should punish, they agree, but it should never nurture, protect, or defend individuals. Nurturing and protecting, they suggest, is the more appropriate role of religious institutions, private charities, families, and - perhaps most important - corporations.
Let the corporations handle your old-age pension. Let the corporations decide how much protection we and our environment need from their toxics. Let the corporations decide what we're paid. Let the corporations decide what doctor we can see, when, and for what purpose.
This is the exact opposite of the vision for which the Founders of this nation fought and died. When Thomas Jefferson changed John Locke's "Life, liberty, and private property" to "Live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it was the first time in the history of the world that a newly founded nation had written the word "happiness" into its founding document. The phrase "promote the general welfare" - another revolutionary concept - first appeared in the preamble to our Constitution in 1787.
Talk show cons and TV talking head cons and political cons - both Republican and DLC Democratic - repeat the mantra of "smaller government," and Americans nod their heads in agreement, not realizing the hidden agenda at work.
Reagan was the first American president to actually preach that his own job was a bad thing. He once said, "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." One can only assume he was speaking of himself and his fellow Republicans, and certainly the current Congress's devotion to the interests of inherited wealth and large corporations displays how badly his philosophy has corrupted a role so noble it drew idealists like Jefferson, Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts.
But cons can't imagine anybody wanting to devote their lives to the service of their nation. The highest calling in their minds is to make profit.
As Reagan said: "The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."
This mind-set - that the only purpose for service in government is to set up the interests of business - may account for why not a single military-eligible member of the Bush or Cheney families has enlisted in their parents' "Noble Cause," whereas all four sons of Franklin Roosevelt joined and each was decorated - on merit - for bravery in the deadly conflict of World War II.
There are, after all, no reasons in the conservative worldview for government service other than self-enrichment. As Ronald Reagan said: "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
What they don't say is that the reason they want to remove government in its protective capacity is because they can then make an enormous amount of money, and have a lot of control over people's lives, when they privatize former governmental functions. They want a power vacuum, so corporations and the rich can step in. And with no limits on the inheritability of riches after the "death tax" is ended, wealth vast enough to take over the government can emerge.
Given this conservative world-view, it shouldn't surprise us that in 2001 George W. Bush appointed his 2000 presidential campaign manager (Joseph Albaugh) as head of FEMA, or that two years later Albaugh would have left FEMA to start a consulting firm to marry corporations with Iraq "reconstruction" federal dollars, and put in charge of FEMA his assistant (and old college roommate), an equally unqualified former failed executive with the International Arabian Horse Association.
It also shouldn't surprise us that although Dick Cheney has stayed on vacation in Wyoming through all of this, his company, Halliburton, has already obtained a multi-million-dollar contract to profit from Hurricane Katrina's cleanup.
It's not that these conservatives are incompetent or stupid. When their interests are at stake, they can be very efficient. Consider when Hurricane Charley hit Jeb Bush's state - a year earlier than Katrina - on the second weekend of August, 2004, just months before the elections. The White House website notes:
As of noon Monday [the day after the hurricane left], in response to Hurricane Frances, FEMA and other Federal response agencies have taken the following actions:
All of this aid was vitally important to Bush family political fortunes in the upcoming election of 2004. Disaster relief checks were in the mail within a week. In just the first thirteen days after Hurricane Charley hit Florida, the White House web site notes that the Bush administration had succeeded in:
That, of course, was for a Republican State, with a Republican governor, the crony brother of the President. Republicans needed to act like they cared about governing, because they wanted people to vote for them three months later.
But now, with no election looming and with death stalking a Democratic State with a Democratic Governor unrelated to the President [Louisiana], we once again see the Reagan philosophy held ascendant.
Bush's call to action? "Send cash to the Red Cross." One of those "thousand points of light" non-governmental organizations his father told us about.
As Brian Gurney, a listener from California, noted: "You can't govern if you don't believe in government."
But you sure can make a buck, and take care of your brother, your campaign manager, and your vice president's company.
________________________________________
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author, host of a daily progressive talk radio show syndicated nationally by Air America Radio, and host of a morning progressive talk show on KPOJ in Portland, Oregon. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection," "We The People," "The Edison Gene", and "What Would Jefferson Do?"
Mississippi voted overwhelmingly for George Bush twice. Because our state is safely red it is now obvious why Florida did so much better in the Federal aid department after hurricanes.
Wake up, Mississippi. They are playing us for chumps.
"You Can't Govern if You Don't Believe in Government"
by Thom Hartmann
In a May 25, 2001 Morning Edition interview, Grover Norquist told National Public Radio's Mara Liasson, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
Norquist got his wish. Democracy - and at least several thousand people, most of them Democrats, black, and poor - drowned last week in the basin of New Orleans. Our nation failed in its response, because for most of the past 25 years conservatives who don't believe in governance have run our government.
As incompetent as George W. Bush has been in his response to the disaster in New Orleans, he wasn't the one who began the process that inevitably led to that disaster spiraling out of control.
That would be Ronald Reagan.
It was Reagan who began the deliberate and intentional destruction of the United States of America when he famously cracked (and then incessantly repeated): "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
Reagan, like George W. Bush after him, failed to understand that when people come together into community, and then into nationhood, that they organize themselves to protect themselves from predators, both human and corporate, both domestic and foreign. This form of organization is called government.
But the Reagan/Bush ideologues don't "believe" in government, in anything other than a military and police capacity. Government should punish, they agree, but it should never nurture, protect, or defend individuals. Nurturing and protecting, they suggest, is the more appropriate role of religious institutions, private charities, families, and - perhaps most important - corporations.
Let the corporations handle your old-age pension. Let the corporations decide how much protection we and our environment need from their toxics. Let the corporations decide what we're paid. Let the corporations decide what doctor we can see, when, and for what purpose.
This is the exact opposite of the vision for which the Founders of this nation fought and died. When Thomas Jefferson changed John Locke's "Life, liberty, and private property" to "Live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it was the first time in the history of the world that a newly founded nation had written the word "happiness" into its founding document. The phrase "promote the general welfare" - another revolutionary concept - first appeared in the preamble to our Constitution in 1787.
Talk show cons and TV talking head cons and political cons - both Republican and DLC Democratic - repeat the mantra of "smaller government," and Americans nod their heads in agreement, not realizing the hidden agenda at work.
Reagan was the first American president to actually preach that his own job was a bad thing. He once said, "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." One can only assume he was speaking of himself and his fellow Republicans, and certainly the current Congress's devotion to the interests of inherited wealth and large corporations displays how badly his philosophy has corrupted a role so noble it drew idealists like Jefferson, Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts.
But cons can't imagine anybody wanting to devote their lives to the service of their nation. The highest calling in their minds is to make profit.
As Reagan said: "The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."
This mind-set - that the only purpose for service in government is to set up the interests of business - may account for why not a single military-eligible member of the Bush or Cheney families has enlisted in their parents' "Noble Cause," whereas all four sons of Franklin Roosevelt joined and each was decorated - on merit - for bravery in the deadly conflict of World War II.
There are, after all, no reasons in the conservative worldview for government service other than self-enrichment. As Ronald Reagan said: "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
What they don't say is that the reason they want to remove government in its protective capacity is because they can then make an enormous amount of money, and have a lot of control over people's lives, when they privatize former governmental functions. They want a power vacuum, so corporations and the rich can step in. And with no limits on the inheritability of riches after the "death tax" is ended, wealth vast enough to take over the government can emerge.
Given this conservative world-view, it shouldn't surprise us that in 2001 George W. Bush appointed his 2000 presidential campaign manager (Joseph Albaugh) as head of FEMA, or that two years later Albaugh would have left FEMA to start a consulting firm to marry corporations with Iraq "reconstruction" federal dollars, and put in charge of FEMA his assistant (and old college roommate), an equally unqualified former failed executive with the International Arabian Horse Association.
It also shouldn't surprise us that although Dick Cheney has stayed on vacation in Wyoming through all of this, his company, Halliburton, has already obtained a multi-million-dollar contract to profit from Hurricane Katrina's cleanup.
It's not that these conservatives are incompetent or stupid. When their interests are at stake, they can be very efficient. Consider when Hurricane Charley hit Jeb Bush's state - a year earlier than Katrina - on the second weekend of August, 2004, just months before the elections. The White House website notes:
As of noon Monday [the day after the hurricane left], in response to Hurricane Frances, FEMA and other Federal response agencies have taken the following actions:
- About one hundred trucks of water and 280 trucks of ice are present or will arrive in the Jacksonville staging area today. 900,000 Meals-Ready-to-Eat are on site in Jacksonville, ready to be distributed.
- Over 7,000 cases of food (e.g., vegetables, fruits, cheese, ham, and turkey) are scheduled to arrive in Winter Haven today. Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT) are on the ground and setting up comfort stations. FEMA community relations personnel will coordinate with DMATs to assist victims.
- Urban Search and Rescue Teams are completing reconnaissance missions in coordination with state officials.
- FEMA is coordinating with the Department of Energy and the state to ensure that necessary fuel supplies can be distributed throughout the state, with a special focus on hospitals and other emergency facilities that are running on generators.
- The Army Corps of Engineers will soon begin its efforts to provide tarps to tens of thousands of owners of homes and buildings that have seen damage to their roofs.
- The National Guard has called up 4,100 troops in Florida, as well as thousands in other nearby states to assist in the distribution of supplies and in preparation for any flooding.
- The Departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and Defense together have organized 300 medical personnel to be on standby. Medical personnel will begin deployment to Florida tomorrow.
- FEMA is coordinating public information messages with Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina so that evacuees from Florida can be informed when it is safe to return.
- In addition to federal personnel already in place to respond to Hurricane Charley, 1,000 additional community relations personnel are being deployed to Atlanta for training and further assignment in Florida.
All of this aid was vitally important to Bush family political fortunes in the upcoming election of 2004. Disaster relief checks were in the mail within a week. In just the first thirteen days after Hurricane Charley hit Florida, the White House web site notes that the Bush administration had succeeded in:
- Registering approximately 136,000 assistance applicants
- Approving over 13,500 applications for more than $59 million in housing assistance
- Establishing 12 disaster recovery centers, which have assisted nearly 19,000 disaster victims
- Deploying medical teams that have seen nearly 3,000 patients
- Disbursing 1.2 million liters of water, 8.1 million pounds of ice, and 2 million meals and snacks
- Delivering over 20,000 rolls of plastic sheeting and nearly 170 generators
- Treating more than 2,900 individuals through FEMA Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, supporting damaged hospitals
That, of course, was for a Republican State, with a Republican governor, the crony brother of the President. Republicans needed to act like they cared about governing, because they wanted people to vote for them three months later.
But now, with no election looming and with death stalking a Democratic State with a Democratic Governor unrelated to the President [Louisiana], we once again see the Reagan philosophy held ascendant.
Bush's call to action? "Send cash to the Red Cross." One of those "thousand points of light" non-governmental organizations his father told us about.
As Brian Gurney, a listener from California, noted: "You can't govern if you don't believe in government."
But you sure can make a buck, and take care of your brother, your campaign manager, and your vice president's company.
________________________________________
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author, host of a daily progressive talk radio show syndicated nationally by Air America Radio, and host of a morning progressive talk show on KPOJ in Portland, Oregon. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection," "We The People," "The Edison Gene", and "What Would Jefferson Do?"
The Really Nasty Side of the Right Wing
Aug 18, 2005 08:58
When a local Texan shows his disapproval of Ms Sheehan's demonstration on the doorsteps of the Bush estate by driving his pickup through the site and knocking down memorial crosses, it's a sign that her vigil is beginning to grab some real traction in the media, and therefore in the public consciousness. Only a real crazy could applaud such an act; those with the slightest vestige of decency are appalled and ashamed. Law enforcement officials, state and federal, haven't exactly shown themselves anxious to protect the lives and property of the demonstrators, either.
Now that one of Bush's neighbors has given the demonstrators the use of his private property so that they don't have to stand in ditches to which they have thusfar been relegated by the president's men and the local gendarmes, at least they will not be in danger of being driven back to Crawford, seven miles away. The neighbor, a veteran, opposes the Iraq war.
In light of the fact that he is the single most powerful person in the world, it is hard to imagine that Bush refuses to grant an audience to Ms. Sheehan. Maybe he has worn that smirk so long that it has become permanent and smirking at a bereaved mother would be politically damaging. Riding his bicycle, however, while she stands outside demanding a meeting does not present a very flattering picture of Bush the man. Every day she stands there in the August heat and Bush hides from her behind the chain-link fence reveals to the nation and the world a little more about the character of our chief executive.
The longer Ms. Sheehan stands before the imperial gates, Bush looks sorrier and sorrier. I predict that ultimately the sheriff and the Secret Service will concoct a pretext to drive her and her supporters away using far more force than necessary. The old ones of us who have lived in the Deep South have burned into our memories a similar event: the attack on the civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama by Alabama state troupers as they attempted to cross the Pettus Bridge. That unprovoked attack and the murder of Mrs. Luizzo, along with the murder of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney in Neshoba County, Mississippi, were the tipping points for the civil rights movement. It outraged the nation and led directly to the passages of the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act.
The stage is already set. A majority of the nation is disenchanted with the Iraq war, but not yet outraged, probably because the national media have been particularly disingenuous in their reporting and painting the situation as far better than the disaster it has become. If Ms. Sheehan is mistreated (and many already believe that she has been mistreated by being forced to stand in a ditch) that disenchantment could quickly turn to anger
Now that one of Bush's neighbors has given the demonstrators the use of his private property so that they don't have to stand in ditches to which they have thusfar been relegated by the president's men and the local gendarmes, at least they will not be in danger of being driven back to Crawford, seven miles away. The neighbor, a veteran, opposes the Iraq war.
In light of the fact that he is the single most powerful person in the world, it is hard to imagine that Bush refuses to grant an audience to Ms. Sheehan. Maybe he has worn that smirk so long that it has become permanent and smirking at a bereaved mother would be politically damaging. Riding his bicycle, however, while she stands outside demanding a meeting does not present a very flattering picture of Bush the man. Every day she stands there in the August heat and Bush hides from her behind the chain-link fence reveals to the nation and the world a little more about the character of our chief executive.
The longer Ms. Sheehan stands before the imperial gates, Bush looks sorrier and sorrier. I predict that ultimately the sheriff and the Secret Service will concoct a pretext to drive her and her supporters away using far more force than necessary. The old ones of us who have lived in the Deep South have burned into our memories a similar event: the attack on the civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama by Alabama state troupers as they attempted to cross the Pettus Bridge. That unprovoked attack and the murder of Mrs. Luizzo, along with the murder of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney in Neshoba County, Mississippi, were the tipping points for the civil rights movement. It outraged the nation and led directly to the passages of the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act.
The stage is already set. A majority of the nation is disenchanted with the Iraq war, but not yet outraged, probably because the national media have been particularly disingenuous in their reporting and painting the situation as far better than the disaster it has become. If Ms. Sheehan is mistreated (and many already believe that she has been mistreated by being forced to stand in a ditch) that disenchantment could quickly turn to anger
Elephant Trap
Aug 18, 2005 08:49
Oil and Architecture
Aug 04, 2005 21:53
When I consider the irrefutable fact that the world is burning five barrels of oil for every barrel that is discovered and that we cannot, as a matter of simple arithmetic, continue to burn through non-renewable energy at this rate indefinitely, or even for very long;
And when I drive through the countryside outside the urban area of Jackson and see streets being paved, utilities being extended and large houses being built on large lots;
And when I further consider the fact that these expensive houses on large lots that consume water, electricity and natural gas on a grand scale are purchased by well-to-do professionals—educated persons in positions of responsibility requiring mature and informed judgment;
And when I further consider that the educated dwellers in these houses seem to be unable to connect the incredible waste that results from their lifestyle—the suburban low-density sprawl that consumes open farmland and makes such a demand upon infrastructure, the energy and resources required to heat and cool large homes, water to fill swimming pools, water lawns, make hot water and wash dishes and clothes—with the rapid depletion of the very resources upon which they depend,
I am amazed that some enterprising architect or builder has not already designed and built a community in which almost everyone can get to work and obtain the necessities of life by walking; where high-density residential areas are pleasant and conducive to neighborliness and voluntary participation in one's community; where homes are energy-efficient and as much as possible make use of renewable energy for heating and cooling; where autos are driven only for pleasure and not out of necessity; where children can walk almost everywhere safely and not be simply tolerated but loved, nurtured and guided by the entire community; and most of all, where everyone, young and old, can make a contribution.
Anyone who can come even close to profitably creating such a community would be doing the world a huge favor and making himself/herself wealthy as well.
Success in such an endeavor would require skills far beyond architectural, engineering, building and landscaping; social entrepreneurship and vision would be essential. The idea is not to create a utopia but a satisfying place to live, work and love. It is almost certain that we will be forced to do more with less in the next few years as the cheap oil that sustains our modern suburban civilization becomes a thing of the past.
Surely we can plan for such an eventuality, rather than motoring blindly into what could be a calamitous economic and societal breakdown.
Ideas?
And when I drive through the countryside outside the urban area of Jackson and see streets being paved, utilities being extended and large houses being built on large lots;
And when I further consider the fact that these expensive houses on large lots that consume water, electricity and natural gas on a grand scale are purchased by well-to-do professionals—educated persons in positions of responsibility requiring mature and informed judgment;
And when I further consider that the educated dwellers in these houses seem to be unable to connect the incredible waste that results from their lifestyle—the suburban low-density sprawl that consumes open farmland and makes such a demand upon infrastructure, the energy and resources required to heat and cool large homes, water to fill swimming pools, water lawns, make hot water and wash dishes and clothes—with the rapid depletion of the very resources upon which they depend,
I am amazed that some enterprising architect or builder has not already designed and built a community in which almost everyone can get to work and obtain the necessities of life by walking; where high-density residential areas are pleasant and conducive to neighborliness and voluntary participation in one's community; where homes are energy-efficient and as much as possible make use of renewable energy for heating and cooling; where autos are driven only for pleasure and not out of necessity; where children can walk almost everywhere safely and not be simply tolerated but loved, nurtured and guided by the entire community; and most of all, where everyone, young and old, can make a contribution.
Anyone who can come even close to profitably creating such a community would be doing the world a huge favor and making himself/herself wealthy as well.
Success in such an endeavor would require skills far beyond architectural, engineering, building and landscaping; social entrepreneurship and vision would be essential. The idea is not to create a utopia but a satisfying place to live, work and love. It is almost certain that we will be forced to do more with less in the next few years as the cheap oil that sustains our modern suburban civilization becomes a thing of the past.
Surely we can plan for such an eventuality, rather than motoring blindly into what could be a calamitous economic and societal breakdown.
Ideas?
Why our "Government is the Problem" Attitude is Hurting Us
Jul 25, 2005 06:42
Paul Krugmans's column in the NY Times this morning says it all. Toyota decided to put a large factory in Ontario, Canada instead of a southern U.S. low-wage and low-tax state for two reasons: poor quality of worker here and the national health system in Canada. It's not hard to figure out why this is true and why our idiotic policies in Mississippi (and nationally) are compounding the problem.
O'Conner retires from the Supreme Court
Jul 02, 2005 08:43
It was surprising that Justice O'Conner resigned before Justice Rehnquist, who is suffering from cancer and was expected to resign first. This is Bush's chance to change the direction of the Court for a couple of generations.
Expect a nasty battle. If Bush manages to have someone like Scalia or Thomas confirmed, it is conceivable that the Court could eliminate all business regulation and even find Social Security unconstitutional. I don't want to sound alarmist, but the Supreme Court prior to the middle 1930s declared constitutional nearly every attempt to regulate what was at that time a vicious economic oligopoly.
Suppose, for instance, that Bush nominates Robert Bork, a former nominee rejected by the Senate. Bork, the intellectual father of modern anti-trust jurisprudence, preaches a social philosophy that is almost indistinguishable from the 19th social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, author of the phrase "survival of the fittest." Bork, in short, has never seen a monopoly he didn't like.
It should be an interesting summer.
Expect a nasty battle. If Bush manages to have someone like Scalia or Thomas confirmed, it is conceivable that the Court could eliminate all business regulation and even find Social Security unconstitutional. I don't want to sound alarmist, but the Supreme Court prior to the middle 1930s declared constitutional nearly every attempt to regulate what was at that time a vicious economic oligopoly.
Suppose, for instance, that Bush nominates Robert Bork, a former nominee rejected by the Senate. Bork, the intellectual father of modern anti-trust jurisprudence, preaches a social philosophy that is almost indistinguishable from the 19th social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, author of the phrase "survival of the fittest." Bork, in short, has never seen a monopoly he didn't like.
It should be an interesting summer.
The Christian Coalition and the 1st Amendment
Jun 27, 2005 21:02
As the publisher of an Internet "newspaper," my mailbox fills up with pieces from all sorts of organizations and individuals. I receive several pieces a week from the Christian Coalition, commenting on political events and pushing the cause de jour, calculated to arose the fear of the true believers towards spectre of godless liberalism and secular humanism that is destroying this Christian nation.
Today, the primates of the Christian Coalition directed their wrath towards the Supreme Court, which handed down two cases on public display of the Ten Commandments, one prohibiting the display of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, the other one allowing them to be displayed on the Texas state capitol grounds.
In McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU, the court held that a copy of the Ten Commandments, framed in gold, and posted in a high-traffic area of the county courthouse, together with the expressed intent of the county governing body to affirm the religious nature of the display, was an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and upheld the district court's preliminary injunction ordering the county to remove it.
In Orden v. Perry, however, the court ruled just the opposite. A large stone monument on the Texas capitol grounds containing the Ten Commandments together with an eye inside of a pyramid, the Star of David and the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, was "passive" and therefore not in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Both cases were 5-4 with Sandra Day O'Conner as the swing justice.
Oddly enough, while the Christian Coalition bitterly condemned McCreary County, it failed to mention Orden, a classic example of seeing the glass half-empty.
Church-state jurisprudence has always been unsatisfactory. The Supreme Court over the years has found it impossible to consistently develop workable rules that can guide judges through this difficult and highly emotional litigation. Today, it failed once again to establish consistent guiding principles, stating that the issue had to be decided case by case.
My theory is that the law as we understand it has never dealt well with institutions and practices that preceded the development of the written law -- like marriage, religion and war. When the clash is unavoidable, as in a divorce case, the outcome is never completely satisfactory, as any judge can testify. A judge, in all of his or her wisdom, cannot through the law put back together family relationships that are broken or settle a church fight.
The Christian Coalition is just one example of the countless movements in our history that attempted, and often succeeded, in usurping the civil authority. When they succeeded, it was usually not for long. Probably the most brilliant of those victories was the Puritan revolution in England, which abolished the monarchy, executed the king and established the reform faith as the established church. The Puritan-dominated parliament, however, shortly dissolved into anarchy and was ended by Oliver Cromwell, who ruled England as an absolute dictator. Shortly after Cromwell died, the monarchy was revived, the Stuart kings returned, and the Puritan dream of a nation dominated by the righteous ended in failure and disappointment.
The founding fathers drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with first-hand knowledge of how the established churches had for centuries oppressed the people of Europe, and they were determined not to let it happen here. They wanted no witch-burnings or inquisitions in this new republic. When right-wing evangelicals claim that the founders did not intend state and church to be separated, they are incorrect. The founders were seeped in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, having studied such luminaries as Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Bayle and Diderot. They learned from these writers a faith in human reason and a healthy skepticism towards the claims of ecclesiastical authority. Having defeated the British with their established church, they were not about to be dictated to by clergymen of any ilk.
James Madison, who can justly be called the father of the Constitution was very clear about this:
Today, the primates of the Christian Coalition directed their wrath towards the Supreme Court, which handed down two cases on public display of the Ten Commandments, one prohibiting the display of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, the other one allowing them to be displayed on the Texas state capitol grounds.
In McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU, the court held that a copy of the Ten Commandments, framed in gold, and posted in a high-traffic area of the county courthouse, together with the expressed intent of the county governing body to affirm the religious nature of the display, was an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and upheld the district court's preliminary injunction ordering the county to remove it.
In Orden v. Perry, however, the court ruled just the opposite. A large stone monument on the Texas capitol grounds containing the Ten Commandments together with an eye inside of a pyramid, the Star of David and the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, was "passive" and therefore not in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Both cases were 5-4 with Sandra Day O'Conner as the swing justice.
Oddly enough, while the Christian Coalition bitterly condemned McCreary County, it failed to mention Orden, a classic example of seeing the glass half-empty.
Church-state jurisprudence has always been unsatisfactory. The Supreme Court over the years has found it impossible to consistently develop workable rules that can guide judges through this difficult and highly emotional litigation. Today, it failed once again to establish consistent guiding principles, stating that the issue had to be decided case by case.
My theory is that the law as we understand it has never dealt well with institutions and practices that preceded the development of the written law -- like marriage, religion and war. When the clash is unavoidable, as in a divorce case, the outcome is never completely satisfactory, as any judge can testify. A judge, in all of his or her wisdom, cannot through the law put back together family relationships that are broken or settle a church fight.
The Christian Coalition is just one example of the countless movements in our history that attempted, and often succeeded, in usurping the civil authority. When they succeeded, it was usually not for long. Probably the most brilliant of those victories was the Puritan revolution in England, which abolished the monarchy, executed the king and established the reform faith as the established church. The Puritan-dominated parliament, however, shortly dissolved into anarchy and was ended by Oliver Cromwell, who ruled England as an absolute dictator. Shortly after Cromwell died, the monarchy was revived, the Stuart kings returned, and the Puritan dream of a nation dominated by the righteous ended in failure and disappointment.
The founding fathers drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with first-hand knowledge of how the established churches had for centuries oppressed the people of Europe, and they were determined not to let it happen here. They wanted no witch-burnings or inquisitions in this new republic. When right-wing evangelicals claim that the founders did not intend state and church to be separated, they are incorrect. The founders were seeped in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, having studied such luminaries as Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Bayle and Diderot. They learned from these writers a faith in human reason and a healthy skepticism towards the claims of ecclesiastical authority. Having defeated the British with their established church, they were not about to be dictated to by clergymen of any ilk.
James Madison, who can justly be called the father of the Constitution was very clear about this:
I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst by an entire abstinance of the Govt from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect agst trespasses on its legal rights by others. -- Letter from James Madison to Reverend Adams (1832), in 9 The Writings of James Madison, 1819-1836, at 484 (Gaillard Hunt ed., 1910)
I will go even further: Religion, and particularly the Christian religion, has succeeded in this nation because of, and not in spite of, the separation of church and state. In countries with an established church, or which have a history of an established church, religion languishes. There is nothing so inimical to the flourishing of the faith than enforced observance, which invariably becomes in short order an empty exercise. The third temptation of Christ was the lure of earthly power, which he refused. The religious right appears to be pursuing earthly power with all its might. It is setting itself up for a nasty fall.
Why the Democratic Establishment doesn't like Howard Dean
Jun 26, 2005 12:15
In essence, the author of the article says that the Democratic Establishment doesn't like Dr Dean because he wants to court and raise money from the Democratic base, instead of a few wealthy donors. If Dean succeeds, it will amount to a revolution in the Democratic party, and the elites of the party (including many if not most of its elected officials), see their position threatened. Read the article.