Sent: Thu, November 5, 2009 8:22:44 AM
Subject: Call Now: Vote on Single-Payer Soon
 | ||||||
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| *** I'll be at this event representing Sisterhood. Bookstore. Hope you can make it! Adele
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Thursday, November 5, 2009
Single-Payer to Reach Floor of House Fri.!, This Saturday is National Bookstore Day
Sent: Thu, November 5, 2009 8:22:44 AM
Subject: Call Now: Vote on Single-Payer Soon
Honduras: Solution or Stall?
editorial, which begins:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-honduras5-2009nov05,0,64597.story
"Waffling on Honduras
LA Times Editorial: November 5, 2009
A U.S.-brokered deal to return ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to
office is unraveling, and the Obama administration seems to be wavering."
- - -
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091116/grandin
Honduras: Solution or Stall?
By Greg Grandin
The Nation: October 30, 2009
The Honduran crisis may soon be over. Maybe. The leader of the coup
government, Roberto Micheletti, agreed to a nine-point plan to end the
country's political impasse, brokered by Thomas Shannon, the former US
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Barack
Obama's yet-to-be-confirmed ambassador to Brazil. The deal would return
Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected president deposed in a military
coup four months ago, to office; in exchange, the international community
will end Honduras's diplomatic isolation and recognize upcoming presidential
elections, scheduled for November 29.
Hardliners in the coup government, however, see a loophole in the accords,
which gives the Honduran National Congress the power to approve or reject
Zelaya's return. And no sooner was the ink dry on the accord than a top
Micheletti adviser, Marcia Facusse de Villeda, told Bloomberg News that
"Zelaya won't be restored." In a barefaced admission that the coup
government was trying to buy time, Facusse said that "just by signing this
agreement we already have the recognition of the international community for
the elections." Another Micheletti aide, Arturo Corrales, said that since
the congress is not in session, no vote on the agreement could be scheduled
until "after the elections."
But such a calculated reading of the agreement will not play well with most
countries, including the United Nations, the Organization of American States
and the European Union, which have repeatedly called for restoration of
Zelaya. Brazil--whose Tegucigalpa embassy has given Zelaya shelter since his
dramatic surprise return to Honduras over a month ago--applauded Shannon's
deal, yet made it clear Zelaya had to be reinstated. And in Honduras, the
National Party, whose candidate is expected to win next month's vote, wants
this crisis to be over. Its members in Congress may join with Liberal Party
deputies loyal to Zelaya to approve the deal.
The accord leaves unresolved the issue of whether the widespread human
rights violations that have taken place since the coup will be investigated
and prosecuted, only vaguely rejecting an amnesty for "political crimes" and
calling for the establishment of a truth commission. More than a dozen
Zelaya supporters have been executed over the last four months. Security
forces have illegally detained nearly 10,000 people; police and soldiers
have beaten protesters and gang-raped women. And the very idea of a
negotiated solution to the crisis grants legitimacy to those provoked it.
Still, if Zelaya were to be restored to the presidency, even just
symbolically, to preside over the November elections and supervise a
transfer of power to its winner, it would represent a significant victory
for progressive forces in the hemisphere. Here's why:
1. The attempt by Micheletti and his backers--both in and out of
Honduras--to justify the overthrow of Zelaya by claiming it was a
constitutional transfer of power will have definitively failed. If this
justification was allowed to go unchallenged, it would have set a dangerous
precedent for the rest of Latin America.
2. Efforts to rally support for the coup under the banner of anti-leftism,
or anti-Chavismo--much the way anti-communism served to unite conservatives
during the Cold War--will likewise have failed.
3. It will confirm the political influence--and unity--of Latin America's
progressive governments, particularly Brazil and Venezuela, which have taken
the lead in demanding that the coup not stand--a position that aligned them
with much of the rest of the world.
4. It will be an important pushback for Republicans like South Carolina
Senator Jim DeMint and Otto Reich, who tried to use the crisis to push for a
more hardline US policy against the left in Latin America. It is DeMint who
has put the hold on Shannon's confirmation, as well as on the confirmation
of Arturo Valenzuela, Obama's pick for Assistant Secretary of State for
Western Hemisphere Affairs.
5. It will hopefully help the Obama administration realize that in many
Latin American countries, there is no alternative to working with the left.
In Honduras, the violence of the coup government, as well as the fact that
the extended crisis smoked out its less than savory supporters, like Reich,
awoke not too pleasant memories of the cold war. Reich recently penned an
essay urging Obama to replicate Ronald Reagan's successful Latin American
policy, which the Iran/Contra alum believed paved the way for the fall of
the Berlin Wall. Many, however, remember too well Reagan's patronage of
death squads and torturers. And reports that Honduran planters were
importing Colombian paramilitaries to protect their interests were not
helping defenders of the coup make their case. As protests continued, it
became clear to all who paid attention that it was the good guys--trade
unionists, peasants, Native Americans, environmentalists, feminists, gay and
lesbian activists and progressive priests--who were demanding the return of
Zelaya.
6. Zelaya's return would be a huge boost for those good guys, who are
largely responsible for the inability of the coup government to consolidate
its rule. Against all expectations, they have defied tear gas, batons,
bullets and curfews, and engaged in creative and heroic acts of resistance,
growing stronger and more unified than they were before the coup four months
ago. They will engage with the new government from a position of strength,
while the elites who have long ruled Honduras will be fractured and
chastised.
The accords brokered by Shannon force Zelaya to renounce any attempt to
convene a constitutional convention, yet the National Front Against the
Coup--the umbrella group that has coordinated opposition to Micheletti--has
made it clear that that demand is "non-negotiable" and that it would
continue to push for it, no matter who is president.
It was of course fear of a constituent assembly that provoked the coup in
the first place, and it is an irony probably not lost on those who executed
it that a large majority of Hondurans, according to a recent poll, now think
that such an assembly would be the best way to solve the country's political
crisis.
The last thing Micheletti and his supporters want to see is Mel Zelaya, with
his white cowboy hat and wide smile, addressing a large crowd filling the
streets of Tegucigalpa celebrating his reinstallation, building momentum for
fights to come. And this is why Shannon's deal is anything but done.
About Greg Grandin
Greg Grandin, a professor of history at New York University, is the author,
most recently, of Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten
Jungle City (Metropolitan). He serves on the editorial committee of the
North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA). more...
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Scheer: Keeping Afghanistan Safe from Democracy, Kucinich: Last Chance for Single Payer
Keeping Afghanistan Safe from Democracy
opponent's demand for changes in the election commission that had stuffed
the ballot boxes."
Trughdig: November 3, 2009
The most idiotic thing being said about America's involvement in Afghanistan
is that the best way to protect the 68,000 U.S. troops there now is by
putting an additional 40,000 in harm's way.
People who argue for that plan clearly have not read Gen. Stanley A.
McChrystal's report pushing for escalation. The general is as honest as he
is wrong in laying out the purpose of this would-be expanded mission, which
is to remold Afghanistan in a Western image by making U.S. troops far more
vulnerable, rather than less so.
He is honest in arguing that American troops would have to be deployed
throughout the rugged and otherwise inhospitable terrain of rural
Afghanistan, entering intimately into the ways of local life so as to win
the hearts and minds of a people who clearly wish we would not extend the
favor. He is wrong in indicating, without providing any evidence to support
the proposition, that this very costly and highly improbable quest to be the
first foreign power to successfully model life in Afghanistan would be
connected with defeating the al-Qaida terrorists.
As the president's top national security adviser has stated, there are fewer
than 100 al-Qaida members left in Afghanistan and they have no capacity to
launch attacks. These remnants of a foreign Arab force assembled by the U.S.
to thwart the Soviets in their hapless effort to conquer Afghanistan are now
alienated from the locally based insurgency.
As Matthew Hoh, the former Marine captain and foreign service officer in
charge of the most contested area, said recently in his letter of
resignation, we have stumbled into a 35-year-long civil war between rural
people "who want to be left alone" and a corrupt urban government that the
U.S. insists on backing. Hoh, who quit after a decade of service in Iraq and
Afghanistan, wrote that he was resigning not because of the hardships of his
assignment but rather because he no longer believed in its stated purpose:
" . [I]n the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan . I have
lost understanding and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United
States' presence in Afghanistan. . To put simply: I fail to see the value or
the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in
support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil
war. . Like the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state,
while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and wanted by
its people. . I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for
the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign
soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul."
Just how unrepresentative was amply demonstrated in a very low-turnout
election which the U.S.-backed candidate, Hamid Karzai, won after stealing
one-third of the ballots he claimed for his victory, according to U.N.
observers. In a message of congratulation to Karzai, President Barack Obama
made reference to the need for reform and an end to the corruption that is
endemic in the Karzai regime but then stated, "Although the process was
messy, I am pleased to say that the final outcome was determined in
accordance with Afghan law, which I think is very important."
What law? A runoff was avoided only when Karzai refused to accede to his
opponent's demand for changes in the election commission that had stuffed
the ballot boxes.
When Bob Schieffer of CBS said of the election "the thing was a fraud,"
White House senior adviser David Axelrod had the arrogance to defend the
rigged process as having "proceeded in the constitutional way." Just what is
it we are telling the world about our belief in the integrity of elections?
It is no different from our having extolled those garbage elections that
occurred with great regularity in Vietnam during the war there, a point made
to great effect by Hoh:
"Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of
the insurgency's true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with
South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense
of our Nation's own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism
we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War
ideology."
Obama must know the truth of those words and should heed them before he
marches down the disastrous path pursued by another Democratic president,
Lyndon Johnson-who, we now know from his White House telephone tapes,
sacrificed the youth of this country in a war that he always knew never made
sense.
From: Dennis Kucinich <reply@kucinich.us>
To: saidychess@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Wed, November 4, 2009 11:16:20 AM
Subject: Our Last Chance on State Single Payer Option
| Our Last Chance on State Single Payer Option
Dear Friends,
| |||||||||||||||
| PO Box 110475 | Cleveland | OH | 44111 | 216-252-9000 |
| ||||||
The new faces of day labor
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/nov/02/new-faces-day-labor/
The new faces of day labor
U.S. citizens are joining immigrants in store parking lots
"The point is, do we really want a labor market with day labor work
as a career path? It's more a commentary on the economy right now,"
By Timothy Pratt
Las Vegas Sun: November 2, 2009
It sounds like a George Lopez joke.
"Times are so bad that I saw an Anglo day laborer standing outside Home
Depot the other day."
Except it's true.
In the latest sign of the Las Vegas Valley's economic free fall, U.S.
citizens are starting to show up in the early mornings outside home
improvement stores and plant nurseries across the Las Vegas Valley, jostling
with illegal immigrants for a shot at a few hours of work.
Experts say the slow-starting but seemingly inexorable trend is occurring
nationwide.
"It's the equivalent of selling apples in the Great Depression," said Harley
Shaiken, chairman of the Center for Latin American studies at the University
of California, Berkeley.
But it is not only a sign of the times, they add. If the numbers of citizens
among the day laborers in cities across the country continue to grow, it's
likely to increase the ire of followers of TV host Lou Dobbs and others who
will see illegal immigrants as stealing food off the tables of the nation's
native-born or naturalized poor.
Or, it may flip certain canards upside down in the immigration debate,
easing tensions in some communities.
In the Las Vegas Valley, where the most recent unemployment rate was 13.9
percent, one face of this phenomenon is Ken Buchanan. The 50-year-old
describes himself as a "food and beverage" guy, most recently working for
four years at Renata's Sunset Lanes casino and, before that, 30 years in a
string of restaurants, hotels and casinos here and in his birthplace,
Chicago.
But in 2006 Renata's closed for remodeling. When the casino reopened as
Wildfire, the management did not rehire Buchanan, he said.
In the months that followed, Buchanan discovered the difficulty of seeking
work in his fifth decade, eventually winding up at Green Valley Car Wash,
where he stayed for about two years, he said.
The banks foreclosed on the house he was renting. In the attempt to grab his
things two steps ahead of the constable, he wound up missing work. He lost
his job. He became homeless.
A Hispanic man Buchanan met in Renata's sports book told him he had picked
up work standing outside the Home Depot on Pecos Road at Patrick Lane. One
July day, Buchanan gave it a try. At first, he got nothing but sunburn. But
then he started to get work. Now he's at the Home Depot six days most weeks.
Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the Los Angeles-based National Day
Laborer Organizing Network, said he has been seeing the same thing
elsewhere. "It's happening, though still not in massive numbers," Alvarado
said. In the past six months or so, he has heard of "americanos" on the
street corners and parking lots of Silver Spring, Md., Long Island, N.Y.,
and Southern California locations.
"It's just beginning," he said. "But I think it's only going to increase."
A recent morning's swing through the valley produced reports of the same
phenomenon. At Star Nursery on Cheyenne Road west of Tenaya Way, Nicolas
stood shivering under a hooded sweatshirt, hoping a car or pickup would
stop. The Mexican immigrant said he had seen a couple of "white guys"
showing up recently, though not on the blustery cold days last week.
At Home Depot on Decatur Boulevard north of Tropicana Avenue, Jose said the
same thing, adding that "it's never more than three or four, but they're
coming out."
Farther south, in front of Moon Valley Nursery on Eastern Avenue, Israel
said a couple of "americanos" - white and black, he added - have come out
for work in recent months. "But they tend to stay only a few days."
As a salesman at Moon Valley, Mike Fugitt's job includes making sure the
laborers don't come into the nursery's parking lot, because their presence
draws complaints from some customers. In the past three months or so, he
said, more of those laborers have been telling him, "But I'm an American."
That includes some Hispanics, he added. "But I treat them all the same; they
can't be trespassing," he said.
Workers at all the sites said the presence of the americanos hasn't made
work scarcer or produced any conflict. Some suggested that people hiring day
laborers prefer Hispanics anyway, because of their reputation as hard
workers.
Shaiken said shaking up the mix at day labor sites may eventually produce
conflict in the greater society. "It essentially shreds the argument that
Americans don't want certain jobs," he said.
In the current economy, he added, "we're almost sure to see die-hard
opponents of illegal immigrants seize on the fact that we have legal workers
in day labor markets," heating an already-inflamed debate.
In the longer term, it may also lead to a more rigorous analysis of future
labor markets, including revised estimates of how many immigrants would be
needed under a guest worker program, as proposed in recent congressional
bills.
At the same time, Shaiken said, the issue won't become central to the debate
before Congress over what is known as comprehensive reform, including a
pathway for legalizing millions of workers. "The point is, do we really want
a labor market with day labor work as a career path? It's more a commentary
on the economy right now," he said.
Although Alvarado allowed that the change in day labor sites was an
undeniable sign of the withering economy, he also sees a "beautiful irony"
in U.S. citizens seeking work as day laborers.
That's because his organization has defended the free-speech rights of day
laborers in at least 10 court cases over more than a decade. Up to now,
courts have ruled in favor of the laborers.
"We always knew (these cases) would be useful not only for immigrants, but
also for U.S. citizens," Alvarado said. "We knew there would be a time when
the economy would reach this point, and they also would be looking for work
this way."
Buchanan likes to wear a Cubs or White Sox cap as a sign of his Chicago
heritage when he stands with one or two Hispanic laborers about 20 yards
south of a larger crowd. He said he has gone through an education of sorts
in the past four months. He has always worked around Hispanics in
restaurants, hotels and casinos, but now he understands the issue of
immigration from up close.
His sojourn got off to a rocky start. On one of his first days on the street
outside Home Depot, another laborer told him he should move along because
too many people were at the spot.
"I told him, 'I'm an American citizen and you're trying to push me off
American soil?'?" The man walked away, and Buchanan says he hasn't had
another problem with his competitors since.
Instead, Buchanan has found himself defending the rights of his fellow
laborers on more than one occasion. One day, a man tried to hire a bunch of
them for $5 an hour. Again, Buchanan pulled out the "citizen card." But this
time, he was telling the other person that he, a U.S. citizen, knew about
minimum wage laws, and was going to make sure those laws were followed. "I
said, 'You want me to write down your license plate number?'?" Buchanan
recalled. The guy drove away.
Now, he said, "I get along with everybody here."
He stands in a smaller group because he thinks that helps to get work. He
reads the daily tea leaves of the trade, like the end of the month being a
good time for moving jobs, because many people are moving in or out. His
best week so far: $140. His longest stint without work: the first two weeks,
"until I learned to be more aggressive."
Antonio Bernabe, day labor organizer for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant
Rights of Los Angeles, said the appearance of more and more U.S. citizens
seeking day labor work on corners and in parking lots poses new challenges
for organizations such as his. In recent months, he said, he has found
himself explaining to a whole new group the legal rights of workers, as well
as approaching local authorities to discuss the entry of new people into
what he called "the world of day labor." That group includes blacks and
Asians, he said.
Another difference is that now he's giving those explanations to laborers in
English.
Bernabe said organizers came across one case where a local sheriff had been
sending officers to answer complaints about day laborers and then found one
day that the sheriff's neighbor, a citizen, was among them. Police in that
area have been less likely to harass laborers since then, he said. These
events will occur more, changing people's attitudes in the process, he said.
"For a long time, people have looked at day laborers and said, 'The problem
is the immigrants.' Now the economy is changing. Now people may see it's a
problem of the labor market, of the rights of workers," Bernabe said.
Buchanan, meanwhile, looks forward to a future that includes a steady job
and an apartment. "I'm trying to dig my way out of this," he said. When he
does, however, he sees himself as a changed man.
"Before, I was part of the majority. Now I'm part of the minority ... I'm
not going to forget this. I'm not going to forget any of this."
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Income and Spending Drop, Crisis Hits States and Municipalities
Americans' Income and Spending Drop, Despite Stimulus
by: Mark Trumbull
The Christian Science Monitor: Friday 30 October 2009
Household disposable income stagnated in September, and spending fell
0.5 percent, the government reported. The figures call into question the
strength of the economic recovery.
American households cut spending and saw income stagnate in September,
despite a massive government stimulus program propping up their bank
accounts.
Personal disposable income decreased 0.1 percent, after adjusting for
inflation, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Personal spending fell
0.5 percent, after four months of gains.
The hit to household bank accounts would have been worse without the
massive federal stimulus program designed to prop up economic activity. The
nation's inflation-adjusted personal income has been sloping downward during
2009, when government transfer payments are subtracted out. But including
the transfer payments - which have risen because of the stimulus efforts
since February - total personal income is about where it stood early in the
year.
"Households are depending on transfer payments from the government just
to stay even," economists at the investment firm Goldman Sachs wrote in an
analysis of the report. "While the downward momentum [in wages] has abated,
it has not turned positive. Meanwhile, income on assets - interest and
dividends - continues to drop."
The report raises questions about the strength of the economic recovery
that economists believe is now beginning.
Incomes have fallen for many Americans because of unemployment, while
others have seen pay raises vanish. In this tough climate, consumers remain
reluctant to spend. The end of one government stimulus program - the "cash
for clunkers" incentive to buy a car - contributed to the overall weakness
in consumer spending.
The concern about consumers helped push stock prices down Friday in
morning trading. The news also came as the Obama administration released an
estimate that its $787 billion stimulus program has saved or created 650,000
jobs. Critics say the stimulus so far failed to create genuine job growth in
the economy.
Many of the stimulus provisions have bolstered disposable incomes,
however. Americans are paying less in taxes because of the stimulus, and
they are getting more money from programs like Social Security and
unemployment insurance.
"Only an increase in government transfer payments prevented an overall
decline in incomes," says economist Nigel Gault of IHS Global Insight, in a
written report Friday. "Consumer spending will probably continue to grow,
but at a more subdued pace" than the 2.6 percent annual rate seen from June
to September.
To some extent, transfer programs naturally go up during recessions,
and people naturally pay less in taxes. That's because of programs linked to
economic hardship, such as unemployment insurance, and because a recession
drags down taxable income for people who lose jobs or who have stock-market
investments. But the stimulus measures this year have added greatly to that
typical pattern.
***
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/268.php#continue
Economic Crisis Hits States and Municipalities
"At a time of crisis, while the federal government injects unprecedented
stimulus (tax cuts and expenditure increases) into the U.S. economy, the
fifty states are doing the opposite."
by Rick Wolff
The B u l l e t: November 2, 2009
Crises expose the system's irrationalities and wasteful resource
allocations. For example, Madoff and his many, smaller imitators reveal the
tips of corruption icebergs. More important, the crisis-induced fiscal
emergencies looming in most of the 50 states demonstrate several absurdities
in our economic system.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) in Washington, DC monitors
and calculates the gap between the fifty states' tax revenues and
expenditures. The following recent *CBPP chart compares the total state
budget shortfalls in both the last recession and the current one. Today's
record shortfalls measure how many billions states will need to raise in
additional taxes or cut their expenditures (or combinations of both) in this
and coming years. (*The chart was 100kb's, too big for many on this list.
Much of the information is in the text below, or click on the URL -Ed)
At a time of crisis, while the federal government injects unprecedented
stimulus (tax cuts and expenditure increases) into the U.S. economy, the
fifty states are doing the opposite. State tax hikes and expenditure
reductions will continue to undermine or slow any recovery. Moreover, the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Obama's stimulus program) has offset
only modest portions of the states' fiscal budget shortfalls for 2009 and
2010. The CBPP estimates that the worst of the budget crisis will hit states
in 2011 and 2012. The carnage will total a huge net $260-billion even after
allowing for the federal stimulus funds still available then to flow to
states. Another way of putting this is to note that the just released third
quarter (Q3) of 2009 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) number was lower than it
would have been without the depressing effect of the fifty states' tax hikes
and expenditure cuts. We saw states and municipalities spend 1.1% less in Q3
than they had in Q2, despite rising need.
State taxes are generally more regressive than the federal income tax and so
fall relatively harder on middle and lower income groups. Likewise, state
expenditures tend more immediately to impact those same groups since they
include major supports for public education and myriad social programs. The
negative economic effect of the states' fiscal crises will heavily impact
the mass of U.S. citizens already angered by high unemployment and
foreclosure rates as they observe trillions of bailout dollars flowing to
banks and corporations 'too big to fail.'
The CBPP also studied what kinds of budget decisions the states have already
made because of the crisis. Key findings include the following:
a.. 27 states have reduced health benefits for low-income children and
families;
b.. 25 states are cutting aid to K-12 schools and other educational
programs;
c.. 34 states have cut assistance to state colleges and universities;
d.. 26 states have instituted hiring freezes;
e.. 13 states have announced layoffs; and
f.. 22 states have reduced state workers' wages.
Since the worst of the states' budget shortfalls lies ahead, we can expect
all of these numbers to deteriorate further.
These state actions not only undercut the federal government's short-term
stimulus goals; they also impose long-term costs on the economy in the
diminished health and education of the U.S. workforce. Just when the mass of
Americans need more help and support from their state governments, our
economic system provides them with less. This raises the human and fiscal
costs of the crisis.
If the states represent a fiscal train wreck, then the nation's cities and
towns represent another train not far behind and hurtling toward the wreck.
The basic revenue for U.S. cities and towns comes from property taxes on
land, homes, stores, factories, offices, and automobiles. As the prices of
most of those properties fall, eventually the local property tax revenues
from them also fall. Reassessing those property values usually takes a few
years. Thus, the likely drop in tax revenues for cities and towns will only
hit over the next few years. Their fiscal distress will then pressure them
to raise tax rates, cut expenditures, or both. Doing so will counteract what
the federal government is trying to do for the economy thereby worsening
what the states are already doing.
The depth and duration of this crisis has thus only begun to bite deeply
into the economy. Its negative social consequences, in the short and long
runs, are rising fast. Recent GDP numbers point to the ability of torrents
of deficit spending (and a fall in the U.S. dollar's exchange rate with
other major currencies) temporarily to lift the total volume of sales.
However, the much touted GDP numbers for the second half of 2009 do not
represent beneficial economic change for the mass of citizens.
For those who are willing to look beyond the usual economic blinders, here's
an old suggestion that only seems new because of the effective ban put on
public discussion for so long. At the present time, the vast majority of
U.S. states and municipalities exempt intangible property from property
taxes. That is, stocks and bonds are kinds of property not subject to the
taxes on other kinds of property (land, houses, etc.). If we imposed a very
low rate of property tax on intangible property, it would cover the present
and anticipated fiscal shortfalls of U.S. cities, towns, and states.
Moreover, an intangible property tax would fall on those most able to pay,
those who fared best since the 1970s as the gap between rich and poor
widened sharply. If coordinated across all states and cities (perhaps levied
and collected by Washington and then returned to states and municipalities),
intangible property owners would have no incentive to move it from one place
to another.
In short, an intangible property tax is a logical as well as long-overdue
reduction in the unfairness of a property tax system that exempts just that
kind of property - stocks and bonds - mostly held by the richest citizens.
Indeed, an intangible property tax could exempt, say, the first $150,000 of
intangible property per person to avoid hurting small owners and compensate
by a progressive intangible property tax schedule for all the larger owners.
By falling most on the wealthiest among us, it would have a significantly
less negative impact on total spending than broad-based state and local tax
increases or public expenditure cuts. An intangible property tax thus
represents the best state and local response to the current crisis,
minimizing its long-term costs and bringing some justice to the tax
system. .
Rick Wolff is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in
Amherst and also a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program in
International Affairs of the New School University in New York. Check out
Rick Wolff's documentary film on the current economic crisis, Capitalism
Hits the Fan, and his website at www.rdwolff.com. This article first
appeared on the MRZine website.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( The B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Savagery and Silence, Constraining America's Brightest
Savagery and Silence in the First World
by Sandy Leon Vest
CommonDreams.org: October 30, 2009
In America -- in my country -- I fear we are losing the battle for our
humanity. Some say we have already lost it.
Deep down I think they may be right.
Such is the level of violence, voyeurism and detachment displayed this
October in Richmond, California, when at least two dozen students cheered,
laughed or simply stood by and watched as a 15-year-old girl was repeatedly
raped, beaten and brutalized by an "unknown number of assailants."
This horrific act of terrorism took place in the parking lot of Richmond
High School, just yards away from where the school was holding its annual
homecoming dance.
One school administrator told a reporter that, "the dance itself was
successful."
It seems the perpetrators of the crime had also staged a "successful" event.
The assault reportedly went on for between two and three hours. During the
entire time, everyone was cool, no one freaked out, no one called 911.
Some of the onlookers took photos with their cell phones. Others were
composed enough to text their friends. Still another had the presence of
mind to take the victim's wallet before leaving the scene of the crime.
An officer at the scene could barely contain himself as he spoke to
reporters. "They treated [the rape] as if it were something to be viewed,"
he said. "Like an exhibit."
"She was raped, beaten, robbed and dehumanized by several suspects who were
obviously OK enough with it to behave that way in each other's presence,"
another patrol supervisor in the city's Northern Policing District in
Richmond said. "What makes it even more disturbing is the presence of
others. People came by, saw what was happening, and failed to report it."
*We Like to Watch *
"Being an American has become a spectator sport," wrote Bob Herbert recently
in his column for the New York Times.
Herbert was right.
The savage nature of the rape at Richmond High is horrific enough on its
own, yet at least as alarming is the national pandemic of 'violence as
spectator sport.'
The passive voyeurism of those who stood by cheering and laughing like an
audience at some macabre sideshow while their classmate was being ruthlessly
dehumanized is only one of many such incidents making news recently. This
phenomenon further demonstrates how complacent Americans have become even in
the face of unspeakable crimes and real life inhumanity.
Coincidentally, the cowardly act of terrorism that took place in Richmond,
California came virtually on the heels of a less publicized, but equally
disgusting display of soullessness. This one however, was perpetrated not by
thugs in a Richmond schoolyard but by 30 Republican Senators in the Hallowed
Halls of the US Senate when, in early October they opposed an amendment to
close a legal loophole denying employees of private defense contractors the
right to sue if sexually abused or gang raped while on the job.
The amendment, sponsored by Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.), was inspired by
the brutal gang rape of KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones in 2005 by her fellow
employees. It passed on October 21 by a vote of 68-30 over the vehement
objections of Department of Defense, who lobbied the 'Gang of 30'
Republicans relentlessly. In a transparent attempt to justify their
unjustifiable position, DOD wrote in a memo to the Senate that, "Enforcement
would be problematic."
*The Savagery of Silence*
American youth have garnered an arguably well-deserved reputation for being
lazy, self-absorbed and detached from reality, a phenomenon that may well be
(at least in part) the result of too much television and gaming and not
enough natural and social contact. To be sure, television marked the
beginning of the 'spectator mentality,' and there is little doubt that the
high-tech industry, with its relentless hype of texting and tweeting on
trendy, over-priced toys has taken this spectatorship to a dangerous new
level.
Here in the US, most people understand that (if we have not already reached
it) we are approaching critical mass -- not only with respect to our
'spectator mentality' or our detached indifference to violence, but with
respect to almost everything. The problem isn't that we don't know what is
wrong. The problem is that we fail to act -- or to speak out -- even when we
do. This was no more apparent than when the mother of one of the alleged
perpetrators in the Richmond attack told police, "My son wouldn't do that.
He knows better."
I often read the comments of readers, many of whom express feelings of
hopelessness and despair over the degree to which American culture is
disintegrating or the state of the world in general. Others have nothing but
contempt for anyone with a shred of idealism or who (god-forbid), still
believe the American political system -- or Democracy itself -- can be
salvaged. Still others seem to be falling into darkness. I recall in
particular one reader who asked, "What good are all of your eloquent words?
No matter what you or anyone else says, America is hopelessly lost."
Those who make such comments might be interested to know that I actually
agree with most of them - - or at least with their basic sentiments. But
I've long since accepted that being an activist and a writer, futile though
it may be, is who I am. The ship may be going down, but like the orchestra
on the Titanic, I keep playing.
To those who content themselves with sitting in the bleachers heckling
rather than doing or sneering rather than speaking out, I would submit that
the process of de-humanization is a slow and stealthy one. Like the incident
at Richmond High School or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or
over-consumption waste and greed, de-humanization requires at least some
degree of complicity.
One click and it can cross over.
*Sandy Leon Vest is a radio and print journalist and the editor-publisher
of SolarTimes, an independent quarterly energy newspaper with a progressive
point of view. SolarTimes is available online at www.solartimes.org, and
distributed in hardcopy throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
Sandy Leon Vest's work has been published nationally, as well as
internationally, and includes 15 years at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, CA.*
***
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31herbert.html?th&emc=th
Constraining America's Brightest
By BOB HERBERT
NY Times Op-Ed: October 30, 2009
That period right after college graduation is when young people tend to
think they can set the world on fire. Careers are starting, and
relationships in the broader world are forming. It's exciting, and optimism
is off the charts.
So the gloomy outlook that this economy is offering so many of America's
brightest young people is not just disconcerting, it's a cultural shift, a
harbinger. "Attention," as the wife of a fictional salesman once said, "must
be paid."
Maggie Mertens graduated in May from Smith College, where she was an editor
of the student newspaper. She applied for "tons" of jobs and internships,
probably 50 or more. "I was totally unemployed all summer," she said. She
eventually landed an internship at NPR in Washington, which she described as
"awesome," but it is unpaid.
"I was lucky enough," she said, "to connect up with a family that let me
live with them for free in exchange for watching their baby a few times a
week." But there was still no money coming in. So in addition to the
40-hour-a-week internship and the baby-sitting chores, Ms. Mertens is doing
part-time seasonal work at a Whole Foods store.
Welcome to the new world of employment in America as we approach the second
decade of the 21st century.
Josh Riman graduated from Syracuse University in 2006. "I had a job at a
great advertising agency," he said, "but was laid off in 2007. I found a job
the next day, amazingly enough, and worked at this next advertising shop for
about a year and a half. Then, on my birthday, the place went bankrupt. We
all lost our jobs."
Since then, Mr. Riman has been doing freelance and "pro bono" work. He has
been unable to find anything even reasonably secure.
As jobs become increasingly scarce, more and more college graduates are
working for free, at internships, which is great for employers but something
of a handicap for a young man or woman who has to pay for food or a place to
live.
"The whole idea of apprenticeships is coming back into vogue, as it was 100
years ago," said John Noble, director of the Office of Career Counseling at
Williams College. "Certain industries, such as the media, TV, radio and so
on, have always exploited recent graduates, giving them a chance to get into
a very competitive field in exchange for making them work for no - or low -
pay. But now this is spreading to many other industries."
Lonnie Dunlap, who heads the career services program at Northwestern
University and has been advising young people on careers since the mid-70s,
said today's graduates are experiencing the worst employment market she's
ever seen.
"There's a sense of huge emotional anxiety among our students," she said.
The young people are not only having trouble finding work themselves; many
feel a sense of obligation to parents who are struggling with job losses and
home foreclosures.
"In the past two years," said Ms. Dunlap, "we have seen a huge uptick in the
number of recent alums coming back for services because they still haven't
found work, as well as midcareer alums who have been laid off and need our
help."
Like Mr. Noble, she mentioned the growing use of interns versus paid
employees and said she can see the value of such unpaid work for some recent
graduates, "though, of course, not everyone can afford to do that."
Despite the expansion of the gross domestic product in the quarter that
ended in September, there is no sign of the kind of recovery in employment
that would be needed to bring the American economy and the economic
condition of American families back to robust health. It would be nice if
some of the politicians and economists so obsessed with the G.D.P. would
take a moment to look out the window at what is happening with real people
in the real world.
They might see Laura Ram, who graduated from Baruch College in New York in
May 2007. She was laid off from a full-time job almost exactly a year ago
and hasn't worked since. She's been diligent about submitting applications
and showing up at job fairs and so on, but nothing has come close to panning
out.
"I haven't gone on a single interview," she said, "which manages to shock
just about my entire family."
These recent graduates have done everything society told them to do. They've
worked hard, kept their noses clean and gotten a good education (in many
cases from the nation's best schools). They are ready and anxious to work.
If we're having trouble finding employment for even these kids, then we're
doing something profoundly wrong.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Fletcher: Listening to Justice Goldstone, M.E. Nukes
Listening to Justice Goldstone
By Bill Fletcher, Jr., Executive Editor
Black Commentator: October 29. 2009
On Friday night I was completely engrossed in an interview conducted by Bill
Moyers of Justice Richard Goldstone. [http://tinyurl.com/yllft94]
Justice Goldstone, a Jewish South African with impeccable credentials as an
international human rights advocate and investigator, was charged by the
United Nations with the task of conducting an investigation into allegations
of human rights abuses and war crimes which took place at the time of the
Israeli invasion of Gaza in December 2008. The result, a report adopted by
the United Nations Human Rights Council this past week, while finding war
crimes committed by both sides, represented a stinging indictment of the
activities of the Israeli military in its attack on Gaza.
Moyers, an outstanding interviewer, posed tough questions to Goldstone, many
of which were derived from criticisms of Justice Goldstone by
anti-Palestinian forces for alleged bias. In fact, a clip of Israeli Prime
Minister Netanyahu addressing the United Nations (played during the show),
made such charges quite explicit. Justice Goldstone never wavered. A
committed Zionist and long-time friend of Israel, Goldstone described the
Israeli behavior in no uncertain terms as an act of collective punishment
against the people of Gaza for having elected Hamas (the Islamic resistance
movement) in the first place.
The executive summary of the report (the report itself is more than 500
pages) is extremely compelling. Drawn from interviews conducted by Justice
Goldstone's committee, the report paints a picture of what one can only be
described as barbaric vengeance on the part of the Israelis. The supposed
reason behind the attacks lay in the firing of rockets at Israeli
communities by Palestinians from Gaza. While the firing of rockets against
civilian targets is understood internationally to be a war crime, the
Israeli government had been manipulating the situation against the Gaza for
some time, conducting a blockade and, in fact, breaking the truce that had
been agreed to with Hamas. In that sense, the Gaza invasion seemed to be a
logical extension of the behavior of the Israeli government to neutralize
Hamas. It was also consistent with the sort of behavior one observed when
Israel conducted its aggressive war against Lebanon in 2006, destroying
civilian targets, e.g., airports, and using cluster bombs.
On Friday night Justice Goldstone was absolutely steadfast in his commitment
to the conclusions of his report. This has been striking not just in his
responses to Moyers' questions on Friday night, but also in terms of his
responses to criticisms in the immediate aftermath of the release of his
report. While many people with less courage would have retracted their
report or, at least, segments of their report, Goldstone stood firm and
absolutely unapologetic.
The issuing of the Goldstone report, and its adoption by the UN Human Rights
Council, is another signal that something is changing with regard to
attitudes towards Israeli aggression and the Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territories. Try as anti-Palestinian pundits might, it has been
very difficult to debunk the report. Had the chair of the investigating
committee been someone more closely identified with the Palestinian struggle
for self-determination, the Israeli allegations of bias might have had
greater international weight. In the case of Goldstone's report, such
charges simply did not/do not pass the straight face test. Even the United
States, with the shameful criticism of the Goldstone report by Ambassador
Susan Rice, could not identify one factual error in the report or one
concrete reason that would support a notion of alleged bias.
The Goldstone report needs to be popularized. While most people will not
read its 500+ page analysis, the gist of the report needs to be broadly
circulated. It is a condemnation of the horrific approach that the Israeli
government has taken, not only towards Gaza, but towards the entirety of the
Occupied Territories. As such, it must be used as another argument as to
why economic, political and military support for the Israeli government and
its Occupation needs to be halted.
BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior
Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president
of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in
Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of
California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA.
***
From: Sid Shniad
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124839.html
Turkey PM: If you don't want Iran to have nukes, give yours up
By Reuters
Haaretz: 31/10/2009
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that countries
opposed to Iran's atomic program should give up their own nuclear weapons,
and attacked as "arrogant" the sanctions imposed on Ankara's neighbor.
He also said he wanted the Middle East, and then the whole world, to rid
itself of nuclear weapons.
During a trip to Iran this week, Erdogan said he backed Tehran's "right to
peaceful nuclear energy" and called its approach in nuclear talks with
Western powers "positive."
The trip added to Western concern that NATO's only Muslim member may be
shifting its foreign-policy focus towards the Islamic world and turning its
back on Western allies.
Iran says the sole aim of its nuclear program is to generate electricity,
but Western powers suspect it of secretly planning to produce nuclear
weapons and are trying to persuade it to stop enriching uranium.
"... those who criticize Iran's nuclear program continue to possess the same
weapons," said Erdogan, according to an advance copy, carried by state-run
Anatolian news agency, of a televised address he was scheduled to make at 8
p.m.
"I think that those who take this stance, who want these arrogant sanctions,
need to first give these [weapons] up. We shared this opinion with our
Iranian friends, our brothers."
United Nations and U.S. sanctions have already been imposed on Iran over its
nuclear program, and if current talks fail to produce agreement, Western
powers may push for a further round of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Israel is assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal. Turkey, a
European Union candidate, has been Israel's closest Muslim ally, but
relations have soured since Israel's December-January offensive in the Gaza
Strip.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad this week praised Erdogan for his
"clear stance against" Israel.
Erdogan also said Turkey wants the Middle East, and in time the world, to be
free of nuclear weapons. "We want to live in a region completely purged of
nuclear weapons. We want to live in a world in which nuclear weapons no
longer exist," he said.
Erdogan has tried to expand Turkey's influence in the Middle East and make
it a regional power since his party, which traces it roots to an Islamist
movement, took office in 2002.
Erdogan also reiterated previous remarks that Turkey and Iran have set
themselves a target of more than tripling annual bilateral trade by 2011 to
$30 billion.
Tomgram: Why All the President's Afghan Options Are Bad Ones
excellent LA Times op-ed by Peter Gailbraith focuses on the election
and should be considered a valuable supplement. I usually send you a
short article on Monday mornings, but didn't find any, of any length, near
equivalent on this most critical, pivotal situation. Imagine how much
money would be available for health and education if this damned,
doomed project were stopped. Not to mention lives, there and here.
Ed
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175133/afghanistan_as_a_bailout_state
Too Big to Fail?
Why All the President's Afghan Options Are Bad Ones
By Tom Engelhardt
Tomgram: November 1, 2009
In the worst of times, my father always used to say, "A good gambler cuts
his losses." It's a formulation imprinted on my brain forever. That
no-nonsense piece of advice still seems reasonable to me, but it doesn't
apply to American war policy. Our leaders evidently never saw a war to which
the word "more" didn't apply. Hence the Afghan War, where impending disaster
is just an invitation to fuel the flames of an already roaring fire.
Here's a partial rundown of news from that devolving conflict: In the last
week, Nuristan, a province on the Pakistani border, essentially fell to the
Taliban after the U.S. withdrew its forces from four key bases. Similarly in
Khost, another eastern province bordering Pakistan where U.S. forces once
registered much-publicized gains (and which Richard Holbrooke, now President
Obama's special envoy to the region, termed "an American success story"),
the Taliban is largely in control. It is, according to Yochi Dreazen and
Anand Gopal of the Wall Street Journal, now "one of the most dangerous
provinces" in the country. Similarly, the Taliban insurgency, once largely
restricted to the Pashtun south, has recently spread fiercely to the west
and north. At the same time, neighboring Pakistan is an increasingly
destabilized country amid war in its tribal borderlands, a terror campaign
spreading throughout the country, escalating American drone attacks, and
increasingly testy relations between American officials and the Pakistani
government and military.
Meanwhile, the U.S. command in Afghanistan is considering a strategy that
involves pulling back from the countryside and focusing on protecting more
heavily populated areas (which might be called, with the first U.S. Afghan
War of the 1980s in mind, the Soviet strategy). The underpopulated parts of
the countryside would then undoubtedly be left to Hellfire missile-armed
American drone aircraft. In the last week, three U.S. helicopters -- the
only practical way to get around a mountainous country with a crude, heavily
mined system of roads -- went down under questionable circumstances (another
potential sign of an impending Soviet-style disaster). Across the country,
Taliban attacks are up; deadly roadside bombs or IEDs are fast on the rise
(a 350% jump since 2007); U.S. deaths are at a record high and the numbers
of wounded are rising rapidly; European allies are ever less willing to send
more troops; and Taliban raids in the capital, Kabul, are on the increase.
All this despite a theoretical 12-1 edge U.S., NATO, and Afghan troops have
over the Taliban insurgents and their allies.
In addition, our nation-building "partner," the hopeless Afghan President
Hamid Karzai -- known in better times as "the mayor of Kabul" for his
government's lack of reach -- was the "winner" in an election in which, it
seemed, more ballot boxes were stuffed than voters arrived at the polls. In
its wake, and in the name of having an effective "democratic" partner in
Afghanistan, the foreigners stepped in: Senator John Kerry, Richard
Holbrooke, and other envoys appeared in Kabul or made telephone calls to
whisper sweet somethings in ears and twist arms. The result was a second
round of voting slated for November 7th and likely only to compound the
initial injury. No matter the result -- and Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's
opponent, has already withdrawn in protest from the runoff -- the winner
will, once again, be the Taliban. (And let's not forget the recent New York
Times revelation that the President's alleged drug-kingpin brother, Ahmed
Wali Karzai, whom American officials regularly and piously denounce, is, in
fact, a long-term paid agent of the CIA and its literal landlord in the
southern city of Kandahar. If you were a Taliban propagandist, you couldn't
make this stuff up.)
With the second round of elections already a preemptive disaster, and
foreigners visibly involved in the process, all of this is a Taliban
bonanza. The words "occupation," "puppet government," and the like
undoubtedly ring ever truer in Afghan ears. You don't have to be a
propaganda genius to exploit this sort of thing.
In such a situation, even good imperial gamblers would normally cut their
losses. Unfortunately, in Washington terms, what's happened in Afghanistan
is not the definition of failure. In the economic lingo of the moment, the
war now falls into the category of "too big to fail," which means upping the
ante or doubling down the bet. Think of the Afghan War, in other words, as
the AIG of American foreign policy.
Playing with Dominos, Then and Now
Have you noticed, by the way, that the worse Afghanistan gets, the more the
pundits find themselves stumbling helplessly into Vietnam? Analogies to that
old counterinsurgency catastrophe are now a dime a dozen. And no wonder.
Even if it's obvious that Vietnam and Afghanistan, as places and historical
situations, have little in common, what they do have is Washington. Our
leaders, that is, seem repetitiously intent on creating analogies between
the two wars.
What is it about Washington and such wars? How is it that American wars
conducted in places most Americans once couldn't have located on a map, and
gone disastrously wrong, somehow become too big to fail? Why is it that,
facing such wars -- whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican --
Washington's response is the bailout?
As things go from bad to worse and the odds grow grimmer, our leaders, like
the worst of gamblers, wager ever more. Why is it that, in obscure lands
under obscure circumstances, American administrations somehow become
convinced that everything -- the fate of our country, if not the planet
itself -- is at stake? In Vietnam, this was expressed in the absurd "domino
theory": if Vietnam fell, Thailand, Burma, India, and finally California
would follow like so many toppling dominos.
Now, Afghanistan has become the First Domino of our era, and the rest of the
falling dominos in the twenty-first century are, of course, the terrorist
attacks to come, once an emboldened al-Qaeda has its "safe haven" and its
triumph in the backlands of that country. In other words, first Afghanistan,
then Pakistan, then a mushroom cloud over an American city. In both the
Vietnam era and today, Washington has also been mesmerized by that
supposedly key currency of international stature, "credibility." To employ a
strategy of "less," to begin to cut our losses and pull out of Afghanistan
would -- they know with a certainty that passeth belief -- simply embolden
the terrorist (in the Vietnam era, communist) enemy. It would be a victory
for al-Qaeda's future Islamic caliphate (as it once would have been for
communist global domination).
By now, the urge to bail out Afghanistan, instead of bailing out of the
place, has visibly become a compulsion, even for a foreign policy team that
should know better, a team that is actually reading a book about how the
Vietnam disaster happened. Unfortunately, the citizenry can't take the
obvious first step and check that team, with all its attendant generals and
plenipotentiaries, into some LBJ or George W. Bush Rehabilitation Center;
nor is there a 12-step detox program to recommend to Washington's war
addicts. And the "just say no" approach, not exactly a career enhancer, has
been used so far by but a single, upright foreign service officer, Matthew
P. Hoh, who sent a resignation letter as senior civilian representative in
Zabul Province to the State Department in September. ("To put [it] simply: I
fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or
expenditures or resources in support of the Afghan government in what is,
truly, a 35-year old civil war... The United States military presence in
Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of
the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan
government in its current form continues to distance the government from the
people.")
More or Less More?
In this context, despite all the media drama -- Is Obama "dithering" or not?
Will he or won't he follow the advice of his generals? -- we already know
one thing about the president's upcoming Afghan War decision with a painful
degree of certainty: it will involve more, not less. It will up the ante,
not cut our losses. As the New York Times put it recently, "[T]he debate
[within the administration] is no longer over whether to send more troops,
but how many more will be needed." In other words, we know that, in response
to a war everyone on all sides of the Afghan debate in the U.S. now agrees
is little short of disastrous, he will, in some fashion, feed the flames.
Admittedly, President Obama himself has offered few indications of what
exactly he plans to do (if he even knows). It's now being said, however,
that, at the end of a highly publicized set of brainstorming sessions with
his vice president, top advisors, generals, the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Congressional representatives, and cabinet officers, he may (or may not)
announce a decision before he sets out for Tokyo on November 11th.
Nonetheless, thanks to an endless series of high-level Washington leaks and
whispers, beginning more than a month ago with the leaking to the Washington
Post's Bob Woodward of Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal's report to
the president, we do know this: Every option Obama is considering has the
word "more" (as in the Vietnam-era term "escalation") attached to it. There
isn't a "less" (a de-escalation) option in sight. Withdrawal of any sort
has, so press reports tell us, been officially taken off the table.
The most publicity has gone, of course, to the "counterinsurgency" or COIN
option put forward by General McChrystal and clearly backed by George W.
Bush's favorite Iraqi "surge" general and present Centcom commander, David
Petraeus. According to this option, the president would significantly
increase the number of American boots on the ground to "protect" the Afghan
people. The actual numbers of extra troops urged on Obama have undergone a
strange process of growth-by-leak over the last weeks. Initially, as the New
York Times reported, the general was supposedly recommending three
possibilities: a low figure of 10,000-15,000 ("a high-risk option"), an
in-between figure of 25,000 ("a medium-risk option"), and a top figure of
45,000 ("a low-risk option"). More recently, it's been suggested that
McChrystal's three choices are: 10,000, 40,000, and 80,000 (or even possibly
44,000 and 85,000) -- his preference, for now, reportedly being 40,000.
These new American troops would, of course, be over and above the
approximately 70,000 already slated to be in-country by the end of 2009,
more than a doubling of the force in place when the Obama administration
came into office. The striking increase to almost 70,000 has, so far, led to
a more intense but less successful war effort.
In a recent grimly comic episode, a meeting of NATO defense ministers put
its stamp of approval on General McChrystal's robust COIN option -- despite
the fact that their governments seem unwilling to offer any extra soldiers
in support of such an American surge. (The only exception so far has been
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who agreed to send a paltry 500 more
troops -- with hedges and escape clauses at that.)
Beyond General McChrystal's ultimate "more" option, at least three other
options are reportedly being considered, all representing "less"; think of
these as "less more" options. They include:
*An option to significantly bulk up the training of the Afghan army and
police force, so that we might hand our war off to them ASAP. This is, in
reality, another "more" option, since thousands of new U.S. trainers and
advisors would be needed. It has reportedly been favored by Senator Carl
Levin and other Democrats in Congress fearful of major Vietnam-style troop
escalations and the ensuing fallout at home.
*An option to leave troops numbers in Afghanistan roughly at their present
level and focus not on counterinsurgency, but on what's being called
"counterterrorism-plus." This, in practical terms, means upping the use of
U.S. drone aircraft and Special Forces teams, while focusing less on the
Taliban in the Afghan countryside and more on taking out al-Qaeda and
possibly Taliban operatives in the Pakistani tribal border regions. This
option is said to be favored by Vice President Joe Biden, who also
reportedly fears (perfectly reasonably) that a larger American "footprint"
in Afghanistan might only turn Afghans even more strongly against a foreign
occupation. This option is, in turn, often discussed by the U.S. media as if
it were a de-escalatory approach and the next thing to an antiwar position.
It, too, however, represents more.
*An option recently put forward by John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, for what Jim Lobe of Interpress Service has termed
"counterinsurgency lite." This would, according to the senator, involve more
training of Afghan troops and the commitment of perhaps 10,000-15,000
additional American troops immediately. (In his typical way, however, Kerry
managed to stop short of mentioning actual numbers.) Meanwhile, we would
wait for other factors considered crucial for a successful counterinsurgency
campaign to kick in: "enough reliable Afghan forces to partner with American
troops," "local leaders we can partner with," and "the civilian side ready
to follow swiftly with development aid that brings tangible benefits to the
local population." Wielding a classic image of imperial control, the senator
claims to want to put an "Afghan face" on the Afghan War -- that is, though
no one ever says this, an Afghan mask over the American war. (Since the
crucial factors he lays out for a successful counterinsurgency campaign are
never likely to come into being, his, too, is a "less more"-style option.)
Quagmires, Then and Now
It's quite possible, of course, that the president will choose a "hybrid
strategy,", mixing and matching from this list. He might, for instance, up
drone attacks in Pakistan, raise troop levels "modestly" à la Kerry, and
send in more U.S. trainers and advisors -- a package that would surely be
presented as part of a plan to pave the way for our future departure. All we
do know, based on the last year, is that "more" in whatever form is likely
to prove a nightmare, and yet anything less than escalation of some sort is
not in the cards. No one in Washington is truly going to cut U.S. losses
anytime soon.
In the Vietnam era, there was a shorthand word for this: "quagmire." We
were, as the antiwar song then went, "waist deep in the Big Muddy" and still
wading in. If Vietnam was, in fact, a quagmire, however, it was so only
because we made it so. Similarly, in changed circumstances, Afghanistan
today has become the AIG of American foreign policy and Obama's team so many
foreign policy equivalents of Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. And as
with the economy, so with the expanding Af/Pak war: at the end of the day,
it's the American taxpayer who will be left holding the bag.
Let's think about what this means for a moment: According to the U.S.
Congressional Research Service, the cost of keeping a single American
soldier in Afghanistan is $1.3 million per year. According to Greg Jaffe and
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post, it costs the Pentagon about $1 billion
per year to station 1,000 U.S. troops in that country. It's fair to assume
that this estimate doesn't include, among other things, long-term care for
wounded soldiers or the cost of replacing destroyed or overused equipment.
Nor do these figures include any civilian funds being spent on the war
effort via the State Department, nor undoubtedly the funds being spent by
the Pentagon to upgrade bases and facilities throughout the country. In
other words, just about any decision by the president, including one simply
focused on training Afghan soldiers and police, will involve an outlay of
further multi-billions of dollars. Whatever choice the president makes, the
U.S. will bleed money.
Let's say that he makes the Kerry choice -- "just" perhaps 15,000 troops.
That means at least $15 billion for starters. And there's no reason to
believe that we're only talking a year here. The counterinsurgency types are
talking 5-10 years to "turn the tide" of the insurgency. Those who are
actually training the Afghan military and police, when quoted, don't believe
they will be capable of taking what's called "responsibility" in a major way
for years to come, if ever.
Throw in domestic politics where a Democratic president invariably feels
safer kicking the can down the road via escalation than being called
"weak" -- though Obama is already being blasted by the right for
"dithering" -- and you have about as toxic a brew as can be imagined.
If the Afghan War is already too big to fail, what in the world will it be
after the escalations to come? As with Vietnam, so now with Afghanistan, the
thick layers of mythology and fervent prediction and projection that pass
for realism in Washington make clear thinking on the war impossible. They
prevent the serious consideration of any options labeled "less" or "none."
They inflate projections of disaster based on withdrawal, even though
similar lurid predictions during the Vietnam era proved hopelessly off-base.
The United States lived through all the phases of escalation, withdrawal,
and defeat in Vietnam without suffering great post-war losses of any sort.
This time we may not be so lucky. The United States is itself no longer too
big to fail -- and if we should do so, remind me: Who exactly will bail us
out?
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation
Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture,
a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days
of Publishing. He also edited The World According to TomDispatch: America in
the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), an alternative history of the mad Bush
years.
Copyright 2009 Tom Engelhardt
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Moyers on Amy Goodman, FDR and Ike on Socialism, A Single Call to Action
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Time%20for%20change/516
On the subject of Socialism
At the 1936 National Democratic Convention, FDR made this statement:
"Out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties.
New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things.
Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of
industry and agriculture, of labor and capital the whole structure of modern
life was impressed into this royal service."
"The privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for
power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new
despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new
mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property.
And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced
the Minute Man."
Years later, in a letter to his brother, Republican President Dwight David
Eisenhower wrote:
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment
insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of
that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group
that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil
millionaires. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
***
http://www.truthout.org/1027098
Amy Goodman: Breaking the Sound Barrier
by: Bill Moyers,
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed: 27 October 2009
Bill Moyers writes this introduction to Amy Goodman's latest book, "Breaking
the Sound Barrier," published by Haymarket Books.
Introduction
You can learn more of the truth about Washington and the world from one
week of Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" than from a month of Sunday morning
talk shows.
Make that a year of Sunday morning talk shows.
That's because Amy, as you will discover on every page of her new book,
"Breaking the Sound Barrier", knows the critical question for journalists is
how close they are to the truth, not how close they are to power. Like I. F.
Stone, she values the facts on the ground; unlike the Sunday beltway
anchors, she refuses to take the official version of reality as the
definition of news, or to engage in Washington's "wink-wink" game, by which
both parties to an interview tacitly understand that the questions and
answers will be framed to appear adversarial when in fact their purpose is
to avoid revealing how power really works. Quick: recall the last time you
heard a celebrity journalist on any of the Sunday talk shows grill a
politician on what campaign contributors get for their generosity. Try
again: name any of those elite interrogators who skewered any politician for
saying that "single-payer" wasn't on the table in the debate over health
care reform because "there's no support for it." OK, one last chance: recall
how often you have heard any of the network stars insist that Newt Gingrich
reveal just who is funding his base as the omnipresent expert on everything.
See?
Now read "Breaking the Sound Barrier" for a reality check. And tune in
to "Democracy Now!" to hear and see the difference an independent journalist
can make in providing citizens what they need to know to make democracy
work.
It takes the nerves, stamina and willpower of an Olympic triathlete to
do what Amy Goodman does. That's just who she is, this quiet-spoken tornado
of muckraking journalism: Edward R. Murrow with a twist of Emma Goldman, a
Washington Post reporter once noted - willing to take on the powers that be
to get at truth and justice, then spreading the word of those two
indispensable gospels to the republic and the world beyond. Amy Goodman goes
where angels fear to tread. Beaten by Indonesian troops while she and a
colleague - also beaten - were covering East Timor's fight for independence.
Hiking dangerous African deltas to get to the bottom of Chevron Oil's
collusion with the Nigerian military. Or closer to home, in New Orleans or
Appalachia or facing down the police when her colleagues were arrested in
Minneapolis during the 2008 Republican National Convention (they threw her
in the slammer, too).
Through her reporting, we hear from people who scarcely exist in news
covered by the corporate-owned press. We learn about issues of war and peace
and social wrong. She is impervious to government subterfuge or spin.
"Goodman is the journalist as uninvited guest," that Washington Post
reporter wrote. "You might think of the impolitic question; she asks it."
And once it's been asked, she refuses to take "no comment" for an answer.
She returns to a story time and again, continually digging, refusing to let
her audience or investigative target forget how important it is to nail down
just who's responsible and what needs to be done.
On top of everything else, she finds time to take her message out to a
broad public with speeches and books and a weekly newspaper column, from
which her collection of essays, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," has been
selected. I'd be envious if it didn't appear unseemly. Let's just say I'm in
awe. Read this collection and revel in the truth-telling. Be outraged by
what you learn from it and renew your oath as a citizen. "We stand with
journalists around the world who deeply believe that the mission of a
journalist is to go where the silence is," Amy Goodman said in December 2008
when she accepted the Right Livelihood Award for personal courage and
transformation. "The responsibility of a journalist is to give a voice to
those who have been forgotten, forsaken, beaten down by the powerful." And,
at a time when the future of journalism is in question, this ringing
rationale for our embattled but essential craft: "It's the best reason I
know for us to carry our pens, our microphones, and our cameras, both into
our own communities and out to the wider world."
Right on.
Bill Moyers is managing editor of the weekly public affairs program, Bill
Moyers Journal, which airs Friday nights on PBS. Check local airtimes or
comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers
***
CRITICAL TO MAKE CONTINUOUS CALLS ON THIS ALL WEEK
From: Steve Tarzynski tarzynski77@verizon.net
Date: Oct 31, 2009 2:12 PM
Subject: Fw: CALL TO ACTION FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTH REFORM
Dear friends and family, if you can spare a minute or two to make a call or
two to any or all of these "masters" then it would add pressure to insert
the "Manager's Amendments" needed as noted below. You do not have to be a
Californian since any state may in the future have a political opening for
single payer. Even if single payer is not on the immediate agenda in
Congress, pressure from that quarter cannot but help get a stronger version
of a public option. It would also be show of force to demonstrate how much
Congressional support there is for Medicare-For-All/single payer.
Everything is interconnected. Many thanks. Share this with your own email
lists. Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: California Physicians Alliance
To: tarzynski77@verizon.net
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 3:17 PM
Subject: CALL TO ACTION FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTH REFORM
CALL TO ACTION FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTH REFORM
Yesterday the House unveiled its healthcare reform package. The news is bad.
The Kucinich Amendment, which would give California a clear path to state
single-payer legislation, was stripped from the bill.
The Weiner Amendment, which would substitute the single payer language of HR
676 for the inadquate, unaffordable, and frankly immoral House leadership
bill may not be given its vote in spite of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's promise.
While single payer hangs in the balance, we have a small window of
opportunity (perhaps 4 days) to get the Kucinich Amendment back in the bill
and to make sure that Speaker Pelosi follows through on her promise to allow
a vote on single-payer-the first ever in the House.
Democratic House leaders can insert what is called a "Manager's Amendment"
into legislation, even when it's closed to any other amendments. (The
managers are the majority and minority members who "manage" debate for the
bill on each side.)
Before November 4th, we need to call these "managers" and insist that: the
Kucinich Amendment be restored to the healthcare bill; and Speaker Pelosi
must follow through on her promise to put the Weiner Amendment to a vote.
Call your representative and the following NOW:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
CA office 415-556-4862; Washington, DC (202) 225-4965
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Washington, DC (202) 225-4131
Rep. Henry Waxman
Chair, House Energy and Commerce Committee
CA office 323-651-1040; Washington, DC (202) 225-3976
Rep. Charles Rangel
Chair, House Ways and Means Committee
Washington, DC (202) 225-4365
Rep. George Miller
Chair, House Education and Labor Committee
CA office 510-262-6500; Washington, DC (202) 225-2095
Look up your representative at: www.votesmart.org
Then forward this email and ask your colleagues, patients, friends, and
family to do the same.
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or
the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Mahatma Gandhi, "Non-Violence in Peace and War"
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