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The US lists 865 bases in foreign countries, but it's building new bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the total could come to 1000. Excluding the new ones, these bases cost the US $102 billion a year.
Some bases might be temporarily justified: bases in Korea appear to be necessary to counter the irrational North Korean regime, although an argument could be made that the US presence also inflames the North.
But why must we maintain 225 bases in Germany? When I was there in 1963-4, my mission was to keep track (through electronic means) of Soviet units in Eastern Europe. Well, now the USSR is gone, we've expanded NATO to Russia's borders, and we have more bases in Germany than we did in 1964.
Further, since 2000, the number of US bases worldwide has risen from about 500 to nearly 1000, and many other countries are involved.
What do US bases do for American interests? The US can pre-position supplies and equipment there in case of hostilities nearby; it can carry out joint maneuvers with the local military, and perhaps it can be used as leverage.
But US bases give host governments leverage over the US, as in Kyrgyzstan, which has just held up the US for an increased rent of $60 million, after first demanding US withdrawal. US bases are also a constant source of friction with the local people.
When I was stationed in Turkey (1962), most soldiers stayed on base and complained about the "abies," the Americanized version of the Turkish word 'agabey," meaning friend; it didn't mean that in GI-speak; it meant dirty, shiftless and untrustworthy. I befriended local Turks, but few other GI's bothered. And there were "incidents" in which American soldiers were less than sensitive to the local people.
I expect that base is still there, although its purpose was to monitor Soviet missile tests, which have long since ended.
So, calling progressive, anti-war Democrats! Propose cutting unneeded bases around the world, and save maybe half a trillion dollars!
Either that, or we'll continue to bankrupt the US, and it will go the way of all previous empires--either into receivership, or into dissolution.
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An American soldier has (probably) been captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan.
Immediately someone commented: I hope he's treated better than we've treated them.
It's the immediate question. And it's one of the reasons why so many Americans were adamantly opposed to torture, and shocked to discover that Bush/Cheney were not only authorizing it, but also publicly justifying it. So, now it comes home to roost.
Why shouldn't he be waterboarded? Or slammed into walls? Or deprived of sleep? Or any of the other imaginative things our soldiers or special ops devised to wring information--or the false testimony desired--from our "detainees."
Or should he be subject to Geneva Convention rules, when we've said the Taliban, as a non-state organization, is not? Under W, the Geneva rules were "antiquated." At least Obama has reinstated them.
I wonder, however, if the reactionary Taliban, whose young men are taught only the Quran and weapons skills, would have the sophistication to think of the above.
We should always remember, but few do, that the Taliban was a result of our Afghan policy under Carter that precipitated the Soviet invasion and the whole project to drive the Soviets out, using the most rabidly fundamentalist Arabs and Afghans as our main striking force. When the Soviets decamped we left Afghans, especially the legions of orphaned boys, to their own devices--and Saudi money. Voila! Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and now it's a spreading disease in South Asia, as well as the Middle East.
The Taliban will hold the soldier for released detainees, or money under the table--or both. My impression of the Taliban leadership is that they are very shrewd, ruthless, opinionated, corrupt, but very clever men.
Maybe not as corrupted by bribes as Karzai's government, but they sell heroin to the West, after damning it (and effectively shutting down its production) when they were in power. The worst of their corruption lies in using young men as suicide "martyrs," while they stay safely in their fortresses, or venture abroad with a large armed guard.
The Taliban leaders are just more obviously like gangsters than were Bush/Cheney. And while Obama is no gangster, there seems to be strong gangster influence in both parties.
Since the Taliban know they can't win the war with one prisoner, they will use him to swagger and maneuver.
I pity the poor soldier. I even identify with him. When I was stationed in Turkey (in 1962), I left base just like he did, often. I befriended the local Turks. But that was before American inattention and Cold War ideology spawned al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Jun 30, 2009, Democracy by Lobbyists
For Lobbyists
We have a President who takes admirable positions, but then doesn't fight hard when Congress writes a bill, ostensibly carrying out his policies, but actually compromising away the store.
That's what Congress is beginning to look like. The major problem is: Americans generally support Obama's ideas, and not those of his opponents, but his opponents--big oil, say, or big Pharma--have incredible resources: money, and the mass media, which they pay for and control.
Let's not pretend. A skillful President, like Obama, may agree with, or be able to persuade a good part of the American people (like the 72-76% supporting a public option for health care). But he might not be able to persuade the major funders of Congressional campaigns: corporations and interest groups protecting their privileges: it's their livelihoods. Major donors funding Congressional incumbents come from interest groups especially pertinent to the Congressperson's expertise, or are major employers in his/her district. Both Democrats and Republicans think of themselves as in office to help local businesses, or unions: that creates or maintains jobs, which translates into votes.
I was shocked to learn that my Congressman, who just won a special election, had almost as much campaign money as the heaviest fundraiser in the state: Senator Schumer. Gillibrand, his predecessor, had only slightly more than Murphy--but now she's a Senator. Most New York Congresspeople have campaign funds of between $50,000 and $150,000. Congressman Murphy had $2,153,940 and $200,000 of it was self-financed! No wonder he won (by only 400+ votes) even in a still-Republican district, against a well-known Republican Assemblyman (who didn't live in the district--he had a second home there).
This money probably comes from the financial industry, perhaps even from bonuses paid for by the Bush and Obama bailouts. Our district is second home to many of the recipients.
So, we have a global warming bill coming out of the House, which, as I predicted on 6/26 (below) gives away the store: promotes coal, takes away EPA enforcement power, gives away most pollution credits….
The public option in health care may be compromised away for a weak cooperative system, despite overwhelming public support for the former…
This is happening because special interests spend scads of money, and have multitudes of lobbyists on the ground. What does the public have? Emails. Phone calls. Letters. Demos?
What's most telling is that special interests are zealous in pursuit of their interest: for most, it's their livelihood/fortune. The public is not zealous.
So, we may have health care "reform" that is no reform, and climate change "reform" that insures our global doom, all because of what I call the selfish class.
It's not Democracy; it's corporatism/Fascism.
Jun 26, 2009, Horrible Climate Change Bill
[posted 6/26, passed 6/28]
Waxman's newly negotiated (compromised to death) bill on climate change is worse than useless. This bill would prevent EPA from regulating CO2, period, and also subsidizes coal and oil and gives away carbon credits. It's a classic case of special interests getting their way because they have more lobbyists (and money) on the ground than environmental organizations.
Waxman has just allowed farmers to be regulated on carbon offsets by USDA, instead of the EPA, so that farm state Congressmen would support it. Of course the reason they will now support it is that USDA is expected to be a much less determined regulator; that's not its main function.
Coal interests were brought on board, or their Congressmen were, by including subsidies for coal--$60 billion for the worst contributors to green house gas emissions. Doesn't sound much like reducing them, does it? The subsidies may be wrapped up in the fiction of developing "clean coal" technology, but so far the best "clean coal" CO2 reductions achieved have been only about 8%. And what's this about blocking EPA's current powers to regulate CO2 emissions? Since there is no new entity created to regulate them, this makes us worse off than with no bill.
Worse, some environmental organizations are so hungry for some achievement that they are urging their supporters to press for passage, and not telling them about all the pork and worse, the limitations on regulatory powers built into this bill.
Without it, EPA would have the power to regulate CO2. We'd better off without the bill, and if it doesn't pass, that, I hope, would strengthen the argument for a real climate change bill.
Here is a case study of how Congress works, and why American policy almost always turns out to be corrupted by powerful corporate interests. And this is why 'compromise' in a time when there are commanding Democratic majorities in both houses simply does not make sense. Democrats should have learned how to get things done from the Republicans, who enforced party discipline and pushed their agenda through--admittedly an awful agenda. The leadership should have pushed a good bill through. Instead, they said to all and sundry within their party: Let's Make a Deal.
This deal does not serve the people, nor does it serve the climate or the world. It surely will not, in its present form, persuade China and India et al to cooperate on global warming in any adequate way. They'll be encouraged to subsidize their coal operators, too.
If this is our response to climate change, then we might as well forgetaboutit. We'll do Rome one better: we'll take the world with us.
Jun 25, 2009, Managed News
On ABC there was a "town hall" with President Obama answering questions from health industry "stakeholders." He did very well, was impressively fluent on all aspects asked, and did get around to answering each question, although sometimes after his own talking points. However, the town hall seemed to get stuck on the cost issue, and never got to the main issue of contention: the public option.
It's the one issue that advocates say is most necessary: to force the health care providers to compete for all patients and to cut costs.
Republicans call the public option "socialism," yet they accept Medicare; they even extended it with Part D, covering prescription drugs. A public option would be little different from Medicare, which has a far lower overhead cost than any private plan. Medicare civil servants are not paid millions in salary and bonuses, and Medicare doesn't have a huge bureaucracy set up to deny applicants, and then to deny claims of those insured by them.
I suspect that Bush II and his Republican Congress set up Medicare Part D with malicious intent: partly to pay off big Pharma and for-profit HMO's. Part D virtually requires you to sign up with (government subsidized) HMO's in order to cover prescriptions even in the future. And Medicare is forbidden from negotiating (haggling) prices with drug companies. The most malicious part, I believe was a sly hope that with these changes, Medicare would bankrupt itself sooner rather than later.
Nevertheless, you'll never hear any elected Republican say he or she is against Medicare, or even Medicaid, nor Democrats, either. But Republicans, and a few Democrats, fear a public option because it would cut the profits of their favorite campaign contributors: the health care industry.
Obama stated, there would still be opportunities for providers to make profits, but it was his least convincing answer.
Actually, I think the US could learn a lot from the German system, in which providers complain about low earnings: Germans have universal, high quality, largely private, regulated health care--and low costs. Of course, Obama didn't point to Germany.
Was it no accident that ABC's host kept on deferring the question of a public option? Insurance companies hate the idea; people, generally, support it. While the AMA is against it, some physicians even support Single Payer. Why not? With Single Payer they'd only have to contend with one bureaucracy, not hundreds, and one with a mandate to insure care, not corporate profits, the same mandate as a public option.
So, ABC provided another demonstration of how our "news system" is managed by the "stakeholders." Again the people lost.
Jun 24, 2009, Get Ready for
A Capital Strike!
"The markets" are beginning to look skittish about all the money pumped into the financial system by the Fed, and all the money committed by Obama to bailouts, takeovers, the stimulus and, potentially for health care reform. Gold is going up and may hit $1000 an ounce (does anyone remember when the US bought all gold at an enforced price of $35?). More ominously, long-term Treasuries are going up, too. If Treasuries go up, then so do interest rates for mortgages: refinancing, and new home purchases, just barely rising, will fall once again.
Wall Street is worried that the Fed doesn't have an "exit strategy;" It hasn't made clear how it can prevent inflation, while keeping interest rates low; investors fear it would do so by buying up debt, creating more money, which could be inflationary. They realize that there will be political pressures preventing the Fed from raising interest rates--they anticipate an inflationary spiral, because the US is creating so much money to bailout and stimulate the economy.
Many business critics also warn darkly of Obama and Congress's "leftward tilt." They worry about the very things that Obama must do to insure we don't have another massive collapse: like re-regulating the financial industry, including the shadow finance industry, while breaking up entities that are too big to fail. Their solution: business as usual?
Perhaps Obama's most egregious move, according to the same critics, was the GM settlement, in which bondholders received less than they were legally entitled, while "the union" was "given" the lion's share of the company. Since the UAW had to agree to concessions on top of concessions, including the loss of many more jobs, it wasn't a great deal; workers did build the company, however; the bondholders only loaned it money.
What these critics seem to capture accurately, however, is the attitude of capital; the dollar is falling against gold, while the Euro is rising. Financiers are beginning to flee the dollar, betting it will continue to lose value, because Obama's administration--and the Fed--keep on committing themselves to more deficit spending and/or money creation.
True: even the US doesn't have a big enough economy to refloat the grounded world economy alone, which was why Obama sought international cooperation. Now, with the right-ward tilt of the new EU legislature and the fiscal timidity of France, Germany and Italy, that support isn't there.
A capital strike/flight is now possible; it could sink both the recovery and progressive politics; the latter would please the financiers, the former might not--unless they got wealthier anyway--so like the Senators of late Imperial Rome.
Jun 19, 2009, Revolution on Twitter?
Most commentators seem surprised that it's the well educated, tech-savvy, who are demonstrating, outraged by what appears to be the brazen theft of Iran's election (it probably was). Twitter and Facebook enables them to keep in touch instantly.
It's not really surprising that it's the twitter folks in Tehran and other cities who are involved. Nor is it surprising that they're proving instrumental in coordinating and maintaining contact. Every revolution in history, including the Chinese, depended on an educated middle class.
It is doubtful that the under-class is as alienated from the regime. No matter how bad the economy, Ahmadinejad's main domestic issue was providing welfare for the poor. The paramilitary Basij is likely recruited from the same people, and they are probably disproportionately represented in the Revolutionary Guards. Together, they enforce religious--and now political conformity.
This is the moment when other groups might begin to join the twitter rebels, groups beginning to realize how the regime has screwed them over, too.
But the forces of repression could still prevail. If they do, the Iranian regime would be unstable. Elections were its legitimacy among the people. It is now widely perceived that the elections were falsified. It sounds like election officials, on orders from Khamenei, simply cooked up the numbers, because past electoral patterns were ignored, and native sons lost their provinces by ridiculous margins--including the main opposition candidate, Mousavi. It was blatant.
Why would the regime blatantly falsify? Is it desperate to stop social change? Ahmadinejad is its bulldog to keep change at bay.
I wonder if Khamenei realized that he was unleashing such chaos, but his brazen falsification may have been an intentional statement saying: the regime can do whatever it wants. Ahmadinejad's re-election, he said, was a gift from God--(note: not the people). That's the kind of statement that foments rebellions, because he's claiming absolute power, and most people in the contemporary world won't stand for such claims, even if they crave authoritarian government (some peoples do). Falsification in front of everyone says that the regime really doesn't care what people think.
Iran may have a very effective security apparatus, but if a regime has only that, given modern techniques of organizing, then the revolutionaries have a chance--if some of the security apparatus defects.
Is the resistance US-inspired? I doubt it. An Iranian tweet last night said Obama did well by not coming out in favor--US support would unite Iran's repressive and nationalist forces.
But the uprising could be a gift to Obama either way: nuclear negotiations could prove easier even if Ahmadinejad prevails; the regime will need legitimacy.
Change is possible in Iran; how about the US?
Jun 16, 2009, The Right on Money and Violence
Armageddon isn't just religious; it's also economic. Bob Livingstone's Personal Liberty Digest feeds on economic paranoia. The posts from his site, however, are much more extreme than he is: he encourages survivalists, gold purchasers--all the world's currencies are unsafe--and fear of "Government" taking over, making your personal decisions for you.
Livingstone describes a pilot study in the UK in which inspectors go into people's homes to tell them whether they are eating sensibly, by looking at what they have in their refrigerators. He then concludes that the "Government" will be doing this in the US--if we get health care reform, er, "nationalized medicine."
Livingstone is extreme when it comes to the Fed. Without the Federal Reserve, we'd go back to the frequent financial "panics" that precipitated its creation in 1913. It's true that the member banks profit from it (Livingstone calls them a cartel), but without it, or direct government currency control, the money supply would be subject to gold discoveries--or shortages. But to Livingstone, and other gold bugs, money created by the Fed system (fiat money) is the problem.
Livingstone inveighs against "fiat money," because it can be (and is) inflated to maintain steady growth of the money supply and concomitant economic growth. He claims that inflation is theft. His solution: buy gold, although gold is a commodity that rises and falls in value. The Roman Senators held a lot of gold--a major contributor to Rome's centuries-long economic depression--but the barbarians stole it over their dead bodies, anyway.
Livingstone also links to the Obama birth certificate hysteria--the claim that Obama was born in Kenya, his birth certificate is a forgery, and he's a Muslim. There is even fundraising for a lawsuit attempting to prove Obama ineligible to be President.
Livingstone also insists that Democrats, especially Obama, are Socialists. So does Fox News. Bill O'Reilly states it as fact! The Limbaughs claim Obama is setting up a left-wing dictatorship--never mind that he's having a hard time getting a moderate program through Congress, despite dire economic times.
They all want Obama to fail, because if he succeeds, liberal politics becomes plausible again.
Desperation also leads to violence: Tillman's assassination, Adkisson's murders, the Holocaust Museum shootings: if they don't overtly encourage them, it's clear where O'Reilly or Limbaugh's rhetoric leads. It puts their promotion of "gun rights" in another light. On Fox, they discuss whether revolution or secession makes more sense.
Like Roman Senators, these "patriots" are out for themselves. If they can't keep it all, they'll willingly destroy it: or they might contract with something like Blackwater/Xe: Roman Senators contracted with the Ostrogoths in 476.
Jun 10, 2009, The Most Corrupt State Legislature
I live in New York State, so perhaps I'm biased, but the sudden takeover of the State Senate by Republicans, after Democrats were in power for only five months--after 40 years out of power--is shocking.
What is more shocking is why the two Democratic Senators defected, and the deal they've pulled off. It seems that Pedro Espada had asked for two large earmarks. One was for over $1.3 million for a not-for-profit set up in March, and sharing an address and personnel with a health clinic that Espada had reputedly used as a bank for his campaign funds: Soundview Healthcare Network, which is currently under investigation by the State Attorney General's Office. The other earmark request was for over $800,000 for an even newer not-for-profit, sharing an address and personnel with Espada's staff.
The Democratic leadership did not accept Espada's requests until he changed the nominal recipients to the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, but by that time Espada and Montserrate had participated in the inter-party coup.
Hiram Monserrate has been indicted for assaulting his girlfriend, and before the Republicans allied with him, they denounced him. If convicted he would have to resign.
So, now, Pedro Espada has been named, by the new "bipartisan coalition," as President pro tempore of the Senate, one of two positions of real power in the Senate chamber (the other is Majority leader, going to Republican Dean Skelos). The position puts Espada in line to become Governor, if Patterson had to resign (there is no Lieutenant Governor: Governor Patterson held that post until Eliot Spitzer resigned).
What this coup illustrates is how corrupt politics is in Albany: apparently, it's all about earmarks, "saving your ass," as the New York Daily News put it, and power.
Further, it appears that the "new President of the Senate" does not really live in the Bronx neighborhood he represents. He lists a condo address there, but neighbors have never seen him; meanwhile he has been seen frequently at his house in a nice, suburban neighborhood in Mamaroneck, in Westchester, the affluent county to the north. Not only that, but Espada's listed "office" in the Bronx appears to be vacant.
The Republicans complained that the Democratic leadership kept most earmark funds for party members: exactly what Republicans had done for over 40 years. Meanwhile, they have taken on two of the most corrupt and questionable Senators of the bunch, to gain a two-seat majority.
The big question is whether the Republican gambit will really regain for them the majority they will need in 2010 to fend off a Democratic-only redistricting of the State. Or, will this blow up in their faces?
Jun 9, 2009, Reform Ain't Revolution
Health care reform, the one that "players" in Washington are talking about, will not solve our health care problem, nor reduce costs. In fact, with Kennedy's employer mandates, 10% higher payments to providers than Medicare, individual mandates, subsidies for low income people, about the only factor that could be seen as a real change would be Kennedy's public option, allowing anyone to subscribe. But the health-care "industry" would get bigger, and it could run into the same problems as Medicare Part D; it could bankrupt the system, while benefiting the "industry."
That's what we get with "reform." Another example was the credit card "reform," which added some safeguards, but did not establish an upper limit on interest rates charged. We used to have anti-usury laws.
So far, we've had bank bailouts, which include attempts at drawing up new regulations, but these are very modest reforms. They do not get to the heart of the financial sector's real problem: institutions are so big they can take risks that normal corporations wouldn't dare: government will bail them out again because they're too big to fail. They're also too powerful to control--even though they've received so many billions of our money.
There's the environmental or climate change bill that was supposed to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and subsidize "green" energy, but so far the oil and coal companies have protected their interests, subsidies for solar, etc. are much too small, and mandates for renewable sources for energy have been reduced from 20% to 4%. This is mild reform, too.
And then we have the stimulus package. Before it was even passed, economists like Krugman and Stiglitz said it had to be much bigger if it were going to have an impact; now Krugman is calling for a second stimulus package to make up the difference.
Why, after an historic election in which change clearly won a mandate, in which Obama won handily, and Democrats won large majorities in both houses of Congress, why has real change been so hard to reach?
The American government system was designed to inhibit change. On top of the Constitutional system, parties and interests have organized, while a market-based electoral system hamstrings the political process. Money counts far more than votes: organized, moneyed interests are vigilant in protecting their self-interest over any public or common interest. For example, oil and coal producers are not concerned about the effect of their products on global warming, but only on a policy's impact upon their bottom line.
Mild reforms will not solve our economic, health, or environmental problems. The President needs to push for real change, and we do, too.
Jun 7, 2009, Buried in the News
A Real Story
Susan Boyle, a reality show contestant, runner-up, instant celebrity has gone to the hospital for, well, some kind of break up, mental, all that. Sad.
But that's the news? That's what Larry King Live thinks is news. And then all the other celeb crack-ups, and how the culture of celebrity is causing them.
Fox News concentrates on the "Marxists" at Acorn, and how the Obama administration is "far left," but we won't know how far left until Obama has been in office for two years.
There is no MSNBC news. It's Saturday. What is Lockup? I don't want to know.
What are the big stories on CNN, when "the news" comes on? The lost airplane being found in fragments, the Marxist President (Oh, sorry, that was Fox) making another superb speech at Omaha Beach; he commemorated the landing, perhaps the turning point in the European theater of WWII, and what else? A Mexican childcare center burning up, along with a terrible number of children--we even see shots, over and over, of screaming children. There's the beginning of a health care debate. It includes Republican "leaders" complaining that Obama is "using" his campaign organization to do what? Gain an unfair advantage against the millions of dollars marshaled by the health care industry?
There was also the story, very brief, about the American contractors to be tried, for the first time, by the Iraqi courts.
Actually, this is a significant story, if they really are tried. Why? Because part of the Obama plan for withdrawal, is to place more and more contractors in Iraq--and Afghanistan. If they are truly to be subject to Iraqi law--and if American troops really do leave--then perhaps we just continue to subsidize contractors--perhaps different contractors, combat contractors--who are under the orders of, well, whom, exactly? If they are subject to Iraqi law, then it might evolve to being not the bill-payer, but the legal sovereign, i.e. Iraq gives the orders.
But, who in Iraq? The elected Shiite majority government: it appears increasingly determined to ensure Shiite dominance over Sunnis (a revolutionary reversal, historically), repressing the Sahwa, (Awakening) groups, not integrating them into their security forces, or other government jobs as per the supposed agreement between them and the US military. The US subsidized the Sunni Sahwa groups to hunt al Qaeda-in-Iraq. It was probably the US's most effective tactic; it nearly eliminated the Sunni insurgency. But now that it's over (if it is), the Iraqi government is going after Sahwa.
What do you think will be the outcome?
How about renewed civil war, in Iraq, mercenaries fighting Sunnis, paid for by? And in Afghanistan?
Jun 3, 2009, Stimulus, Meet Counter-Stimulus
The Obama administration has pushed a stimulus program through Congress, and is attempting to "save jobs" and create new green jobs. But there is a counter-stimulus "program," as well.
We all know that the stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is supposedly worth $787 billion, but we don't know if it's big enough--especially given the escalating trillions of dollars thrown at the financial sector.
What few people know, unless they are faced with a plant closing or a corporate move, is that while corporate America may be doing what it can to take advantage of as many of government's proffered billions as it can, it is also continuing to carry out what can only be described as a massive counter-stimulus. Arcelor-Mittal (see page on permalink-- below), the largest steel company in the world, is actively shutting down plants in Illinois and New York, despite both being consistently profitable. In addition, the workers' union not only agreed to major give-backs and work-rule changes, but also gained local concessions on property and other taxes for their plants. Arcelor-Mittal has apparently refused to consider selling the plants: it wants to reduce competition and production capacity, not increase it.
Cerberus, a private equity group, closed down a profitable paper mill in Kimberly, Wis. and refused to sell it for a similar reason: its aim was to reduce paper production, so that prices could rise. Other corporations act less dramatically, but continue to cut jobs, jobs that won't come back, and leveraged buyouts continue to dismantle plants to sell off the parts for more than their purchase price.
No one has calculated what the counter-stimulus is "worth," but it's anyone's guess whether it's more or less than the government's stimulus. In any case, a counter-stimulus subtracts from the overall effect of the stimulus; it may completely negate it.
Managing the US economy would be so much simpler if it were China: there, the government decides--to promote wind power, for example---and Chinese businessmen scramble to make money on the government's decision. But the US is a democracy (a plutocracy, apparently), and governments (local, state and federal) are unable to control, or even lightly regulate corporations, despite their involvement in the wholesale dismantling of what is left of our manufacturing economy.
Obama's "centrist," moderate approach is not working. The corporate powers-that-be will have to be directly confronted: the counter-stimulus stopped. Workers, sympathizers, consumers will have to conduct sit-downs, plant occupations, labor organizing, and more radical and confrontational approaches. Either that, or the US will end up a hollow shell, Americans unemployed and unemployable.
Economic collapse? We ain't seen nothing yet!
Permalink -- click for full blog post
Jun 2, 2009, Lakshmi Mittal Reverse Imperialist
Lakshmi Mittal demonstrates reverse imperialism on American workers, and inststs on a reverse stimulus, too.
Permalink -- click for full blog post
May 31, 2009, Nazis or CIA
Torturers Keep Records
What is it about torturers that they want to record their hideous acts? Both Americans and Germans had an obsession to record--in America's case with pictures as well as files. The Nazis kept obsessive records, too. They also took pictures, even movies, much like the videos the CIA took of their "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Meticulous Nazi records proved useful in establishing guilt at the Nuremburg war crimes trials, and at other trials like Eichmann's in Israel. Will the photos, the ones Obama doesn't want released to the public, be used in prosecutions? I hope so. However, what's more important are the records documenting who ordered what. Here is where the perps were more careful, but the trail is sure to be there--as well as the public admissions already made.
Almost everything that happens in this country is recorded somewhere--and government can track you down. I got a parking ticket in Santa Cruz, California. Since I live in New York State and was driving a rental car, I tore up the ticket. But Santa Cruz contacted the rental company; they contacted me. California needs money: they'll collect, whether I like it or not, by debiting the credit card I used to rent the car.
So, it's hard to believe that the people, who authorized the barbaric behavior caught in those photos and videos, have not gone on trial. Not only are there their own public boasts of responsibility for torture--er, "enhanced techniques"--but there should be reams of records like the DOJ legal memos recently released, plus Presidential orders, and emails urging Bush to authorize those "techniques."
The point about obsessive recordkeeping: if it happened, it's somewhere recorded on paper (or electronic record), partly for the same reason that motivated German record keepers: to insure that responsibility lies somewhere above you in the hierarchy; in other words, the record keeper wants to make clear he's not responsible. He's covering his ass.
Pilate washing his hands is a great role model to bureaucrats everywhere, those who go along, yet want to evade responsibility for their actions.
Roman bureaucrats like Pilate, hid behind law and defense of the Empire. In a way they were precursors to both the Nazi record keepers and the American CIA: the latter even kept track of how many times Khalid Sheikh Mohamed was waterboarded (183 times). He seems to have "confessed" to almost everything.
It's unlikely they were trying to uncover the truth; dying empires prefer to have fantasies confirmed: like links between Saddam and al Qaida.
The truth, that torture was used to manufacture "facts," could set us free.
May 29, 2009, Blagojovich and the Free Market
Blagojovich demonstrates why free markets need to be regulated.
Permalink -- click for full blog post
May 29, 2009, US Troops Urged to Evangelize Afghans
It is not innocent when an American chaplain, in an overwhelmingly Muslim country, prays with assembled American soldiers urging them to "spread The Word in Jesus name," and distributes Pashto and Dari bibles to them to give to Afghans in hospitals, schools, wherever. Americans are foreigners, invaders and occupiers, remember.
Americans, who live in a predominantly post-Christian, secular country, probably have no idea how fraught Christian evangelizing can be in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. Most Americans know nothing of Middle Eastern and South Asian history. They have no idea how Christian proselytizing, by occupying foreign soldiers, would be perceived by Afghans.
Afghan Muslims would see it as confirmation that the covert reason for American intervention is conversion.
Muslims have a history of fighting off Christian invaders to protect their lands, culture and religion. Believing Muslims see Christianity as an earlier, less complete version of The Truth; they count Jesus as one of the prophetic precursors to Mohammed, not as savior. During the Crusades (from 1096 to 1291) Europeans attacked the region with the ostensible purpose of "regaining" the Holy Land; they put many Muslims to the sword and forced mass conversions. At the time, Europeans were considerably less civilized than the Arabs. While some crusaders temporarily controlled parts of Palestine and other coastal areas, the overall effect was to bring back elements of civilization to Europe that ultimately led to the Renaissance, and modern Europe. Muslims drove them out of the region until the colonial era, when Britons and Russians fought to control Afghanistan--and to Christianize it. Europeans temporarily controlled the Middle East after World War I.
So, distributing Pashto bibles in Afghanistan is not innocent, and it is not just "defending religious freedom." It is perceived as an aggressive attempt to ram Christianity down the throats of the besieged Afghans, whom we are supposedly "helping" to fight the "militants."
The pastor at Bagram airbase facilitated distribution of the Pashto bibles, but then the military, foreseeing the damage those bibles could wreak among Afghans, had them collected and burned.
But the religious right now has an issue: the "anti-Christian" Obama administration "is now enforcing atheistic silence upon our troops, against their private rights."
So, Congressmen, Mike McIntyre (D-NC) and Walter Jones (R-NC) are co-sponsoring a bill (HR 268) supporting the right of military chaplains to pray publicly, according to their faith; it's called the "Pray in Jesus Name Project."
This is classic Imperialism: an attempt to use American military dominance to promote evangelical Protestantism to a deeply Muslim country. It's explosive! Evangelical aggressiveness certainly doesn't bode well for "winning hearts and minds:" one more reason why Afghanistan could likely be Obama's--and America's--quagmire.
May 27, 2009, The Politics of the Surreal
The Republican Party of Rush and Dick appears determined to alienate almost everyone. If almost all African-Americans are repelled by Rush's remarks about Obama, and Dick supports him and promotes torture, if people like Tancredo bob up out of the woodwork to insist on ill-treatment of "illegal" aliens (they're as illegal as the bozo who drives 85 in a 65-mile zone), then who, exactly, will the Republicans appeal to?
Angry white males? Republicans' recent "triumph" in inserting the right to carry guns in national parks (in an unrelated bill), demonstrates this strategy. But consider: in the recent Congressional election between Scott Murphy and Jim Tedisco, about the only positive issue Republican Tedisco ran on, in a majority Republican district, was that he was a (gun) sportsman. He lost by enough votes that he didn't contest the result.
Will Republicans become the party of angry white males and CEO's anxious about losing their privileges and power? The money collected by the RNC might indicate this, too.
On the other side, we have Obama doling out trillions to financial swine, allowing bankers to get away with outrageous bonuses, and still not open up the lending spigots, while at the same time he gets "tough" with the auto industry, which at least produced something tangible. He even earns kudos from Republicans for pursuing Bush policies (lite) in Afghanistan and Iraq! Yet he's condemned as a "socialist" by the same Republican "leaders." Is that because he's for a little bit of change from the extreme Market First policies of his predecessor? Because he wants to solve the health care mess; because he wants to end tax preferences to firms that export jobs and production; or is it because he wants to do what he can to ameliorate the worst consequences of global warming?
Republicans are on their way to becoming an angry, rejectionist rump, and Obama should realize: meaningful change is not going to come from compromising with them, or with the Blue Dogs, nor will he survive politically by doing so, because the economy will tank again if he does. He should take a page from Bush's Congressional strategy: use his popularity to push for real change, like Medicare for all; transfer subsidies from fossil fuels to green energy, and seek real alternatives to savaging other people in Afghanistan and elsewhere. He should also break up financial firms so that none are "too big to fail."
The Powers-that-were must be wrested of their privileges; they almost destroyed the US and world economies. There will be losers, but the people and the world would be winners.
If the Selfish Class wins, everyone will lose, much like Rome's downfall in 476.
May 25, 2009, Health Care: Whose Ox Will Be Gored?
The health care debate is about something larger than health care: it's about whether the selfish classes can keep their undeserved privileges and profits, or whether people's needs come first and whether the US again becomes competitive, or not.
People say over and over that this is the "richest country in the world." And yet we're so impoverished that we can't pay health care coverage for all our citizens, when all other developed nations and some "emerging" nations do?
I don't believe that. In Obama's Organize America there has been a call to support the President's push for health care reform, but so far it is the insurance companies, health "provider" companies and Pharmaceutical corporations that have expended millions--to prevent any "public option" to be realistically included in reform legislation.
What we really have here is highly organized, mobilized special interests, which are afraid their ox will be gored. But it should be. If providers preserve their license to mint money on the backs of everyone else, then, obviously everyone one else loses.
Health insurance companies have made their money by denying coverage, not by providing it, by cherry-picking the healthy and extracting premiums from people who are unlikely to get sick--and refusing to cover an awful lot of them when they do.
Pharmaceutical companies make billions on drugs they've patented, and therefore can earn monopoly profits from, but most of those drugs began in government-funded labs. Meanwhile big Pharma spends much more money attempting to persuade people to take drugs they don't need, than it does developing new, life-saving drugs. And now it's spending millions to keep its corner of its government-supported, monopolistic market.
Meanwhile, health-provider corporations make billions on double billing, pushing unnecessary procedures (like the 1/3 of births delivered by Caesarians), and by billing the states and US for un-insured services at the absolute top rates for emergency care, for example. They also make billions from prolonging seniors' lives far beyond their wishes, whenever the poor old person hasn't filed a current DNR.
If we are to have real health care reform, then all three of the above are going to have to lose, and lose a lot.
Did anyone worry about the Mafia losing its profit-engine when Prohibition was repealed? I suggest that health care reform is similar, and the three main sectors of the "health care economy," are going to have to say goodbye to the easy profits gained from ripping off everyone else.
Either that, or we won't have health care reform. If we don't, this will prove that the US cannot change even when necessary for its survival; it will go bankrupt instead, just like the Roman Empire.
May 21, 2009, Blog Archives 6
Blog archives of posts from January to May 2009
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May 21, 2009, Loan Sharks Own Congress
There was a time, not very long ago, when the United States had usury laws. Back then, only the Mafia charged above about 20% and if a "loan shark" was caught, he appropriately went to jail.
Then along came Reagan. Paul Volcker's Fed was driving prime interest rates to 12%, so Reagan Republicans persuaded Congress to do away with the usury law. The banks loved this; they ran with it.
This brought us the world of "credit card offerings," in which banks and affiliated entities proliferate mailings to all and sundry (even recent bankrupts), offering them credit cards at teaser rates, that are then hiked to "normal rates" of 20% or so. Then, if the borrower makes the mistake of being even a little late on his payment, the rate goes through the roof.
It's all legal. The only difference between the bank and the loan shark of old: the bank doesn't threaten to break your arm or burn down your house. Meanwhile, the financial system muscled Congress into passing a bankruptcy law that protects them, but not you. Now the industry, despite receiving hundreds of billions in taxpayer bailouts, has succeeded in browbeating Congress again, this time to pass a "credit card reform" act that is nothing of the sort.
The credit card law does not reinstitute protections against usury. In effect, the banks and credit card companies are again being given carte blanche to play loan shark legally! But then they got what they paid for. As Senator Durbin noted: the banks own Congress.
Theoretically, we own the banks, since taxpayers laid out the money to bail them out. Actually, the Fed, "owned" by member banks, has been the prime conspirator in this scam. The Fed and banks, together, create money. Banks can "borrow" money from the Fed at virtually no cost, and then can turn around and loan it out at 20%. What a deal!
Who said the banks weren't the new Mafia! Congress, meanwhile, is the corrupt accomplice, while Americans are held hostage to the Wall Street Mob.
Unfortunately, it looks as if the credit card bill is a model for other "reforms." Unless we scream bloody murder, "health care reform" will look similar: a bit of icing on current practices, and a crippled public health insurance option, if even that: the same with the global warming law.
Why are these things happening? Because the powers-that-be, the selfish class, is holding onto power by using its money, and media clout, to bribe Congress into keeping the old corrupt system.
It will break down, again. Then, will we have "change you can believe in?"
I'm not optimistic.
May 20, 2009, Tamil Tiger Defeat Will Embolden Militaries
The civil war that had been raging for more than 30 years in Sri Lanka has been declared over by its Sinhalese majority government. The whole leadership of the Tamil Tigers was wiped out, and the Tigers' last redoubt in Sri Lanka's north has been occupied.
The Tigers had so many elements in their favor: a nearly impenetrable jungle homeland, popular support by Tamils, the majority community in northern Sri Lanka, support from neighboring Indian Tamils, many ports, and a dedicated, ruthless organization.
How did the government win? Despite international protests, it continued its offensives even when the Tigers surrounded themselves with civilian human shields. The Tigers were ruthless, but so was the government. Of course there were casualties, but the government won, ignoring international outcry.
This will embolden militaries the world over--even a well-organized insurgency, supported by a numerous, oppressed minority, can be defeated--if the state's military is at least as brutal as the insurgents.
The Sinhalese victory was not about winning hearts and minds, but about militarily crushing all resistance. For 30 years Sri Lankan Tamils, and some Tamils in Indian Tamilnadu, supported the Tigers. They had a shared grievance--discrimination by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority. However, the Tigers were one of the more brutal and ruthless contemporary insurgencies, possibly inventing some of the worst terror tactics today, like organized suicide bombing.
In this case, the victory was State power over terror power. The over-dog won.
The Tigers' defeat demonstrates that political movements and non-cooperation might be more effective resistance to oppression than outright rebellion, given the superior weaponry of a State. A democratic movement for autonomy or non-discrimination would have gotten much further.
On the other hand, the proponents of the toughest state repression and state violence have won this round. That may have larger consequences: for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
However, Sri Lanka is an effective state; Afghanistan hardly has a state (even with massive US and NATO support) and Pakistan is becoming more fragile by the day. Furthermore, the Sri Lankan government put down the civil war itself; it did not invite or permit international intervention. If it had, the Tamils might have rallied even more strongly behind the Tigers and Sinhalese might have joined them, to oppose foreign troops on Sri Lankan soil.
Foreign armies put both Pakistani and Afghan governments at risk; their need for direct military support, military aid, or covert drone attacks, taints both governments as foreign puppets. The best strategy for the US would be to build up their governing institutions, and to get out. Foreign "intervention" doesn't work well in either nation; homegrown repression might have a better chance.
The time for empire is past.
May 13, 2009, Prosecute Torture--and War Crimes
Legal journalist Elizabeth de la Vega points out that when it comes to torture, the argument of statute of limitations as a reason to rush to judgement is a false issue, because crimes like torture and conspiracy to torture continue until at least the end of Bush's term: Jan. 20, 2009. Some of the crimes may face 8-year limitations, others have NO statute of limitations.
It would be heartening if Obama's AG named a Special Counsel to investigate not just torture, but war crimes, which were at least as serious. Think about it: a handful of people were tortured, probably yielding a little information each time that they might have given up more voluntarily if treated differently. Some apparently died, so that's murder, too, isn't it?
On the other hand, Bush-Cheney misled the nation with lies and false information to lead the US into a war in which over 4,000 Americans and from 100,000 to several million Iraqis were killed.
And then there are the acts of illegal wiretapping of virtually every American, thereby depriving us of our right against illegal search.
Holder and his team, and Congressional committees charged with legal oversight have a lot of homework to do before criminal indictments are brought; they have to lay out probable cause, make their preliminary cases public, and indict the perps. If they do this carefully, then even Cheney and the ranters at Faux News. will see that the "game is up."
But prosecution, preferably by a Special Counsel appointed by Holder, will eventually have to happen, if the US is ever to again claim that it is a land of "Laws, not Men." De la Vega's point is that we have considerable time, especially since the popular outrage against other "fat-cats" like banksters is unlikely to go away.
On the other hand, sooner would probably be better, to keep the political pressure for some rectification of our grossly unconstitutional Imperial Presidency.
If the US does not prosecute, then this website is even more predictive than I thought: the values of American democracy will have been permanently subverted by a dying Imperialism. After all, if there is no legal action, only Presidential commitments from Obama not to use turture, then the next President, or the one after that could do the same thing all over again and there would be legal precedent.
The Roman Empire used torture freely, all through its history, but, as times became more desperate, so did the torture. It didn't save the Empire.
May 7, 2009, Swine Flu: Thanks Nafta!
Hog farms on the scale that Smithfield (Hams) now boasts, are way beyond the size that most of us can imagine. A relatively small hog farm run by a Smithfield affiliate in La Gloria, Mexico produces a million hogs a year. The hogs are penned in huge barns in pens so small they cannot turn around, and that's where they live for all of their short lives. Since there are so many pigs crammed so close together, they are subject to disease, and therefore are sprayed more or less continuously with a cocktail of sub-therapeutic doses of practically everything, plus, they are vaccinated against whatever varieties of flu appear to be endemic: vaccination does not eliminate the flu; it only insures that it won't be serious.
The new H1N1 flu that people are worried about first emerged in a child near La Gloria's farm. It makes sense. Not only are there all these hogs and all the endemic varieties of flu extant among them, but viruses have perfect conditions for incubating new strains there. Smithfield, faces millions of dollars in fines in the US for unsafe conditions (they will be required to better contain the pig manure than the open lagoons they were using). The Gloria farm represents a way out for Smithfield: operate in Mexico, from which, thanks to NAFTA, it can export to the US and Canada with no restrictions. At the same time, the corporation can avoid the laws it tripped over in the US. Those manure lagoons are huge, breed flies that spread disease (whether they spread the flu is not known yet), and the nearby town reported 50 (out of 3000) were struck ill in February.
This is what NAFTA has bred. Perhaps this particular H1N1 won't prove to be a deadly pandemic that mows down millions, but it does have genetic elements of human and avian flu as well as swine flu, and its particular configuration of parts makes it highly infectious, and renders all previous immunities irrelevant.
The point is: NAFTA, and loosely regulated "free trade" more generally, lays the whole world open to pandemics of this kind, because it encourages agri-businesses to seek out those parts of the world where environmental, safety and health regulations can be ignored to realize lower costs. But when products and people move all over the world, what is unregulated there can come back here to bite you.
That's what H1N1 did. Maybe it should be called NAFTA flu; that's probably how it was concocted, and how it spread.
A world pandemic might destroy civilization. It might be better to regulate hog farms--and other businesses--worldwide.
May 4, 2009, Iraq: A Case for Non-Intervention
Violence is escalating in Iraq. There are daily bombings in Baghdad, there is fighting in Falluja and Anbar, and the Iraqi regime tells the US that it's negotiated withdrawal schedule is still on, meaning that all US troops will leave the cities by June (sites of most of the violence).
So what's happening? Why is the government so keen on Americans withdrawing? Don't they want us to stop the violence? The short answer is No.The Iraqi government announced that there would be no exceptions to US withdrawals from cities by June.
What's unchanged has been the Iraqi government's determination to enforce Shia dominance. Most of Baghdad has been cleared of Sunnis, and those who remain are reportedly in besieged enclaves.
Americans don't fully appreciate the dramatic changes the US invasion wrought in Iraqi society. Until Saddam was toppled, Sunnis were dominant in government and business, (as they had been for generations). They lived in all the best neighborhoods in Baghdad and in most cities of northern Iraq. Saddam killed thousands of Shiites who opposed his rule, especially after Bush I's first Gulf War momentarily emboldened them to resist him.
The US has put into place a sectarian government. Shiites used to be oppressed by Iraqi governments going back a long time before Saddam. So, the parallel might be a bit like Zimbabwe, in which the oppressed take power and oppress the former oppressors. Like the Africans in Zimbabwe, the Shiites in Iraq are flexing their muscles, and expropriating the wealth and property of Sunnis favored by Saddam.
The tragedy is that Iraqis do not have a Nelson Mandela, who brought blacks and whites together. Instead, in Maliki, they have a Robert Mugabe, who used blacks' past grievances and anger to destroy Zimbabwe's economy.
The only hope for Iraq is a non-sectarian nationalist movement, but unfortunately opposition to the Shiite government seems to be most effective when it's sectarian as well--Sunni, al Qaeda, not nationalist.
The lesson: when W invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam, he let loose a hornet's nest, only barely contained by our occupation (and sometimes used by us to divide and rule). With our staged withdrawal that suppressed conflict is coming out into the open: it won't be pretty.
The US has no proper role in mediating this conflict. I hope (but probably in vain) that some disinterested body like the UN can get Sunnis and Shiites to talk and maneuver politically, rather than take up arms. But what are the chances of that?
Iraq: another in a long list of interventions the US Empire should never have attempted, and that's still bleeding us white.
Apr 6, 2009, Attila was Not Osama is Not Attila
There are many parallels between Attila and Osama, but there are also some significant differences.
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Apr 3, 2009, Free E-Books
download free e-books
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Apr 3, 2009, Twitter and Facebook
twitter and facebook technologize vapidity, but people may twitter when armageddon comes.
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Apr 2, 2009, Saint Maeve's Day
Maeve is outrageous, courageous: her own woman. She's also Mary Magdalen, and in the Maeve Chronicles she's not only Jesus's wife, she's also an unrepentant ex-whore--and mother--dealing with life after "the Resurrection."
Novels can be revolutionary. Novels like Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, or Sender's Seven Red Sundays, but one of the most revolutionary is one you wouldn't expect: Bright Dark Madonna, by Elizabeth Cunningham. It was released April 1, 2009.
Why is it revolutionary? Anti-clerical hardly begins to describe Maeve, who confronts, battles, and momentarily allies with a Paul of Tarsus. She confronts Peter and James, too. She refuses to behave the way women are supposed to. And she has her own power, quite independent of the vanished "Lord Jesus."
The sacred "chalice" that supposedly brought forth the seed of the Anointed, brings forth a daughter even more rebellious and wild than Maeve, herself. Talk about sacred bloodlines! Talk about social revolution.
Bright Dark Madonna is the third in The Maeve Chronicles--the fourth and last is only beginning to take shape--but BDM stands on its own. It's the story of Maeve's middle years, when she has to face motherhood, middle age and an emerging church she wants no part of.
Cunningham writes lucid, beautiful prose, occasional real poetry, song, high comedy and tragedy. Her characters have become more real to me than the people I know: Maeve and "Ma" (the Virgin Mary) are absolutely unforgettable.
People have written to Cunningham, and not just one or two, to tell her that her previous Chronicles: The Passion of Mary Magdalen and Magdalen Rising have "saved their lives." Counselors have told their clients to read them. Cunningham, a counselor herself, has found some of her clients speaking to Maeve quite frequently.
For the last few years, Cunningham and a devoted band of local--and sometimes not so local--readers have held a Passion reading of the last chapters of The Passion of Mary Magdalen, instead of the Bible. One will be held again this year on April 10th, entitled An Unorthodox Easter. For details go to http://www.highvalley.org/calendar.html.
For more on Bright Dark Madonna, or on the Maeve Chronicles, click on the permalink (passionofmarymagdalen.com) where you can find Cunningham's book tour schedule, reviews, can order the book from the publisher, or, armed with the necessary information, can go to Amazon or your local bookstore. If a bookstore doesn't have her books, ask for them.
Another thing: the Maeve Chronicles take place in a time and place relevant to this website: in or near the Roman Empire, but in the first century, not the fifth.
Personal disclosure: Elizabeth Cunningham is my wife of 30 years.
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Mar 28, 2009, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Obama
Obama's Pakistan and Afghanistan policy is a real miscalculation.
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Mar 19, 2009, Antitrust and AIG
Obama's nominee for Antitrust should use the Division to go after firms like AIG, which should be broken up as Standard Oil was in 1911.
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Feb 22, 2009, Capitalism vs Socialism
Do somemore study on socialistic societies. They have never worked and never will. All they do is breed mediocritiy.(similiar to unions) Our nation
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Feb 11, 2009, Braveheart and Leadership
Braveheart sets out a model of leadership that legitimized a ruler like Bush, but Obama needs a different model.
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Feb 8, 2009, Blog Archives 5
Blog archives of posts from July through September, 2008
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Feb 2, 2009, Racism
I have been a cowboy most of my life. When there was not enough money to pay the bills I would take on other work. I train horses for a living, and
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Feb 1, 2009, drsheila
there are quite of few of us out here who believe that obama is more of an elite than any bush or clinton or any other president before him. he is
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Oct 14, 2008, Socialism for the 21st Century
Now is the time for socialism of an updated New Deal variety, as a new and better way to manage the US and global economies.
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