Blog Archives 6: Jan-Sept, 2009

Blog archives 6: latest to earliest:

Sep 8, 2009, Corporate Takeover II

The Supreme Court is rehearing arguments on the campaign finance law, McCain-Feingold, and one expected line of attack is that prohibiting corporations from financing campaigns is a violation of free speech: that money is speech. But if money is speech then what is poverty? Censorship? Elizabeth Cunningham pointed out this parallel: See link below. .

If corporations, as "artificial persons," can fund election campaigns--large ones have huge amounts to spend--then where does that leave real people?

Would an insurgent campaign, like Obama's, based on small donors, ever again be viable? Probably not. In the name of 'free speech,' we would have un-free elections. During the Robber Baron era, Senators were referred to, as the Senator from Dupont, the Senator from J.P. Morgan, the Senator from Standard Oil, and those weren't jokes. That could happen again.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the US Supreme Court is holding hearings to determine whether the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law squares with the First Amendment. Reputedly, the four conservative Justices want to strike down the whole law. In the case, the FEC ruled that Citizens United, a non-profit corporation, could not show Hillary, the Movie during last year's election campaign, since it was expressly political, and corporations are forbidden, by McCain-Feingold, from spending money on political campaigns.

The ACLU defends Citizens United against the government, saying it has the right, as a legal person--like the ACLU, itself--to spend money for political purposes. McCain-Feingold bans corporations and unions from direct expenditures on political campaigns.

One of the planks of the defense argument rests on the dissent by Chief Justice Burger, in the Supreme Court decision: Buckley v Valeo, 1976: the majority struck down only parts of the 1975 Federal Election Campaign Act. In effect, Burger held that money is speech, and since, as per the First Amendment, Congress can make no law to abridge freedom of speech, he held that the financial restrictions in the earlier act were unconstitutional. Justices Scalia and Thomas have long promoted this position on McCain Feingold. Justices Alito and Roberts now join them, one vote shy of the majority needed to throw out the campaign finance law entirely.

But, if money is the equivalent of speech, and therefore cannot be restricted in elections, what does that say for democracy? What does Free Speech cost? If you don't have money, do you have free speech? Rather than give corporations power to fund elections, the Court should revisit the whole question of corporate personhood.

If not, if the conservative bloc prevails in Citizens United, then it is questionable whether democracy will survive; the decision could complete the corporate takeover temporarily interrupted by Obama.

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Sep 6, 2009, Thar's Gold in Them Vaults

Gold traded for $1,004 in March 2008 and after dipping back to the high 800's in November, it's been on the rise since; it is now trading at $993. To put this into perspective: until gold was untied from the dollar, gold in the US was fixed at $35 an ounce from the 1930's to 1971; no longer fixed, it began to rise; it was selling for $260 in April, 2001.

Gold prices go up when there is economic uncertainty, especially about the currency. Due to the stimulus and bailout spending packages, the government is now committed to anywhere from $3 trillion to $7 trillion in loans, or guarantees, depending upon how you count it. The willingness of Geithner and Obama to borrow and spend huge amounts of cash has tight money and anti-fiat money folks extremely anxious.

It's true, the Fed, et al are creating this money, and it's a lot of money. However, even more money was "destroyed" in the financial collapse. Has there been an accounting of the pluses and minuses?

The economic consensus, so far, seems to hold that the newly created money has not yet made up for the loss of the old money; deflation is still a problem, despite rising energy prices; inflation is a possibility when and if the new money produces more demand than the economy can handle. So far, inventories are still large, although diminishing, and inflation is not yet a problem--despite the higher energy prices.

Yet gold is climbing again, after reaching a peak before most people realized we were heading towards an economic crisis. Gold bugs, who perennially tout gold as a secure haven, are again saying that you've got to put money in it before the real collapse comes. Every fall in the dollar is seen as proof of this, although, against other currencies the dollar is still holding up relatively well: it's fallen from $1.324 to the Euro in January, to $1.428 in September, a small drop considering that the Euro nations borrowed less and stimulated less.

But gold bugs have another agenda: dismantle fiat currency and central banks. But where would we be without the Fed interventions (and Treasury and FDIC)? The largest banks would have collapsed, and the economy would have made the Great Depression look like a mild rehearsal. Plus, there would be almost no money!

When Roman Senators held huge savings in gold, the Roman economy remained in depression until it self-destructed; all that liquidity was in the ground not in the economy. If it had been spent, instead, Rome might have survived.

Even before 476, the barbarians carried it off: it's so "secure!"

Sep 1, 2009, Sanctions Against Iran

Bush's UN Ambassador, Bolton, says sanctions wouldn't deter Iran, but they'd be worth trying, anyway. Neo-conservatives in Washington want the sanctions, and some claim that Obama could claim a "win" if they were imposed: it seems that conservatives in Germany and France are also promoting sanctions, so chances of pushing it through the UN would be likely.

But none of the policy-makers appear to consider the impact upon Iran's people. Since Iran imports a large portion of its gasoline, banning exports to them (the sanctions being debated), would severely impact its people. Iran is building and upgrading refineries to provide more of their own fuel (they have enough oil), so you can be certain that Iran's military or security forces will not feel shortages; the people would feel them. In fact, gasoline sanctions are just the ticket for the unpopular conservative Ahmadinejad regime to rally most of the progressive opposition. That opposition still manages to rally against the regime, despite repression and horrendous prisoner abuse. So far, it knows that the West sympathizes.

But if the US under Obama pushes for gasoline sanctions, most Iranians will rally to the regime--against the hostile world. An export ban on gasoline is the stupidest move the international community could make; it would consolidate conservative, pro-nuclear control of Iran, and it would justify to them an all out effort to produce nuclear weapons before the US decided it would have to attack--Yes, Obama could be pushed in that direction, and so could Congress.

In other words, gasoline sanctions wouldn't deter--even Bolton says so--but their political effect within Iran would be precisely the opposite of what the international community is trying to achieve. And war could be the result.

Unless you are a hawk, who wants to make more super-war profits or war promotions, or a paranoid who really thinks that Iran would be irrational enough to attack Israel if it had a few bombs, war really doesn't make sense. Even if Iran produced as many bombs as Israel, its leaders know that the US has more than enough to obliterate it: nuclear threats are absurd. Nuclear weapons only make (some kind of) sense as a deterrent against attack.

Further, without gasoline sanctions, the Iranian government may bluster, but it was weakened by the unexpected, and so far unbowed, inventive opposition. Negotiations, not sanctions, could take advantage of that, even if Obama had to try harder to get them.

The Iraq and Afghan wars are too much already; Iran is larger than either, its military stronger, its people more nationalistic: war with Iran could destroy the west, as well as Iran.

Sep 1, 2009, Attila and Other Books

Several hundred people have downloaded Attila or The Selfish Class from this site, for free. I hope you've read them.

I would welcome comments (See Comment form). I might email back!

I have two other books available on smashwords.com, just published: a thriller, Body Destiny, and a mystery, From Renata With Love.

Check 'em out. They're available in almost any e-book format now out there, including I-phone and Blackberry.

Aug 31, 2009, Managing News--And Elections

The Stars and Stripes Newspaper has documented that the Pentagon profiles journalists going into Afghanistan, and details ways to elicit more positive coverage from them--but this is a war we're fighting, and Americans are shelling out billions and losing their lives, as well!

We live in a managed world, or at least the Pentagon wishes we did, and increasingly we are. It seems that large, powerful institutions are in the business of keeping themselves in business; it hardly matters what the business might be. In this case it's fighting a war in a country on the other side of the globe.

This is not "making sure their operations are secure," nor in carrying them out "in a more efficient manner," as a spokesman opined; this is information manipulation. When the military can manage the appearance of their operations, then we no longer receive reliable information. When we are deprived of the truth, then we no longer live in a democracy.

Some people don't really want us to live in a democracy; it's too messy. For them, military control is much, much better. There's a lot more people who think that way in Russia--and support the highly popular, authoritarian Putin--than in the US. I hope.

If the Afghan war is becoming unpopular, oh well! Maybe we should get out!

If Afghans don't like the Taliban, then let them fight them off. Why should the US and NATO? It's not as if the Taliban are aided by a hostile power; they're pretty much self-sustaining--through the opium trade for which the developed world provides the demand, and probably through the shiploads of weapons and explosives we (yes, the US) ship in daily. That's how almost every successful insurgency arms itself.

Problem is: a US/NATO withdrawal would likely mean a Taliban takeover, because the Afghan "government" we've encouraged is no government for most of the nation. Look for Karzai to find a way to avoid a runoff in the election. The "Independent" Election Commission in Afghanistan delayed the count and a spokesman stated: "We will come up with new figures and information on Saturday." 'Come up with' is a rather interesting turn of phrase. The Afghan government, such as it is, is also in the business of staying in business.

I don't know of ready solutions, but the manipulation of news, or of elections, is not among them. Nor is torture, despite Cheney.

If Afghanistan is a losing battle--it seems to be despite the Pentagon twisting the news--then we need a new paradigm, or we'll go the way of Rome. New ideas anyone?

Aug 25, 2009, Stop the Corporate Takeover I

Did you think that the election of Barack Obama, and the success of his grassroots movement marked a significant victory of politics by the people? Did you think that the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court was a triumph?

Do you think that the huge amount of money opposing any kind of health care reform is obscene? Were you reassured that at least big corporations were forbidden from directly buying elections? They've done a pretty bang-up job of bundling money from their upper level employees, even so.

We ain't seen nothing yet!

The Supreme Court on September 9 hears a case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which it intends to revisit the principle that corporations cannot fund elections. This has been one of the foundations of whatever weak, ineffective election/campaign finance laws we've had up until now.

It is already evident with the lobbying campaigns over the stimulus package, the global climate change bill, and now health care reform, that large amounts of money dominate the dialogue. I noted earlier that as a result, the US is a "stalemated society," because large concentrations of capital naturally represent the status quo: those interests have profited from the way things are; they have strong incentives to resist any change.

Now, focus on the Supreme Court: GW successfully appointed Alito and Roberts, to join Justices Scalia and Thomas in a near-majority for corporate-friendly law. The ideologies of Justices do make a difference. With Justice Kennedy joining this corporate-friendly bloc, there are four votes guaranteed, and a fifth vote likely to eliminate the long-standing prohibition of corporate money in elections.

Prior to the Progressive movement around the turn from the 19th to the 20th century, Senators were routinely known as representatives of Standard Oil, the railroads, or JP Morgan and the banks. This could happen again, only this time, Senators and Congressmen would be representatives of many other large corporations. They'd no longer even have to make a pretense of representing the people of their districts or states.

You think corporate money figures too strongly in politics now!

The problem goes back to a court decision in the early 19th century, in which the court ruled that corporations were legal persons. Following from that premise, a prohibition against corporate money financing elections violates the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law--abridging the freedom of speech--.

If corporations prevail in court, the US will become a corporate plantation, dominated by the equivalent of the Roman Senators of the Fifth Century.

Logic isn't the reason: corporate power is. American democracy could be the casualty. Protest on Sept. 9th.

Aug 24, 2009, Time to Get Tough

The Republicans in the House and Senate have no intention of supporting a health reform bill. They know that health reform is a big deal. They know it's the equivalent of Social Security and Medicare (both passed with Democratic Presidents, both with minimal Republican support). They also know that like those two landmark laws, Democrats will get the credit for health reform, and will win votes on the basis of it.

With perhaps one or two exceptions, it is highly unlikely that any Republicans will sign on to any health reform legislation; Republicans have said as much, including Senator Grassley, who has been "negotiating" a health reform "compromise" with Senator Baucus for months. Those negotiations have gotten nowhere because Republicans simply cannot, politically, support such a major Democratic initiative.

So, it's time to get tough. The question is: is Obama tough enough? He has shown his compromising side, but not yet braved the firestorm of vituperation that will be unleashed, not only by the Palins and Limbaughs, but also by the kept media and supposed moderates like Grassley in the Republican ranks.

My sense is that Obama would win more support by becoming a Roosevelt, than he does now by channeling Bill Clinton post 1994. Hell, I think he'd gain more support by channeling Truman--denouncing the Republicans as obstructionists, the way Truman ran against a Republican "do-nothing Congress" and won.

Even W was more popular when he overrode Democratic opposition than when he tried, after 2006, to work with the Democratic Congressional majority. Americans may have become wary of various aspects of health reform, because of media miss-representation, but they'll rally to the idea of getting health reform through Congress, and of a President demanding decisive action. Then, when people begin to learn about the advantages of the reform to them, and that the insurance industry and the for -profit health industry will bear most of the costs, they will applaud. Seen any polls showing that Americans trust the insurance industry or big Pharma more than Obama? Both are highly unpopular, even if their media strategy against reform has been somewhat effective. Most Americans really are not stupid enough to think that their health insurance/pharmaceutical/provider corporation actually has their interests at heart. They've just been scared by the media campaign.

This issue does come down to Obama and Democrats delivering on the reforms they were elected for. If a large Democratic majority in both houses can't figure out a way to pass reform, then the party is doomed, Obama is doomed, and American survival as a first world nation is as well. Even the "yellow dogs" should know that.

Aug 13, 2009, Abandon Afghanistan?

The Talibs are pretty nasty, but I'll bet a lot of their nastiness has to do with Pashtun culture. Pictures of them evoke the barbarians who flooded into the Roman Empire and eventually destroyed it. But Afghanistan is on the other side of the world! Why are we there? It's true the Talibs are brutal bullies; it's true they subjugate women and men, and depend on the heroin trade to keep their operation going. But why is it our business to stop them?

Here are some reasons, but I'm not sure I accept them as justification. If the Taliban prevailed now, they'd redouble their power in Pakistan; it has nukes. That's even more serious than subjecting Afghans to their brutal rule--and supplying the world with heroin.

The demand for drugs, however, is our problem, not theirs.

It's also true that the CIA helped create both the Taliban and al Qaeda, in Afghanistan, when the US helped arm and train the Mujhadeen to fight the Soviets in the 1980's. And then we abandoned them, once the Soviets withdrew, leaving the power vacuum they filled.

One does have to ask, though: why can't the Afghans fight them off? Why does the rest of the world have to step in to "help" them? Also, if we're doing that in Afghanistan, why are we not doing it in Burma/Myanmar?

I question whether it's any business of ours to fight a war in someone else's country, except that we already blundered into it (under false pretenses) back in 2001, and messed up the place royally back in the 1980's.

What would Afghanistan look like if we just decamped? (Again.) It reminds me of a house of mine I'd like to blow up--the problems in it are so huge--but I don't do that because people live in it, because you don't do things like that, and the insurance company would (rightly) suspect fraud. Instead, I try to fix things as they have to be fixed, and try to do so as inexpensively as possible.

Is that the position we find ourselves in Afghanistan? But there, 'inexpensive' will mean 100's of billions of dollars and thousands of people--Afghans, Americans and allies--killed and wounded. And billions in damage.

Is there a way out? Could the AfPak war be our downfall as Afghanistan was to the USSR?

The minimal way out, if we take responsibility for our past idiocies, and the damage we've inflicted on Afghanistan, is to restore civilian security and to rebuild (and improve) infrastructure the US and Taliban destroyed, in order to enable (but not force) Afghans to join the modern world.

Aug 13, 2009, Attila and the Selfish Class

Several hundred people have downloaded one or both books from this site, for free. I hope you've read them.

I would welcome comments, if you sent them through the contact form. I don't want to list my email because when I've done so in the past, I've been flooded with spam. However, from the contact page, you can email me. I might even email back!

I have two other books available on smashwords.com, just published: a thriller, Body Destiny, and a mystery, From Renata With Love. Check 'em out.

Aug 11, 2009, Barbarians Inside and Out

Current news: Palin rants about a fictitious "death panel" in the healthcare reform proposal, right wing mobs scream and threaten moderate Congressmen, and abroad, General McCrystal lets slip that the Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan. Also in the news cycle are discussions of whether we are seeing the resurgence of Fascism, this time in the USA, and, NY Senate Democrats admit they paid off Espada with a job for his son, worth $125,000, to persuade him to return the Democrats to the majority.

Barbarians didn't really bring down the Roman Empire; they weakened it, while barbarous Romans ripped out its innards--taxing the poor, but not the rich, and administering the Empire as their private racket. By the Fifth Century, Romans also depended upon barbarian mercenaries to protect them from the turmoil beyond their (shrinking) frontiers.

The Late Roman Empire was about as close to a Fascist state as their technology would permit: a small, wealthy elite controlled everyone through mobs and their vast properties, that era's equivalent of today's huge corporations. Their Senate was even more corrupt than NY State's.

Baitula Mehsud may be dead in Pakistan, but what he and the Taliban represent are the "modern" equivalent of the Huns and Vandals. Their inspiration appears to be the second wave of Islamic invasions, which attempted to wipe out whatever civilization others had created in places like North Africa, pulling down the aqueducts, for example, which had made possible the huge grain production of what are now the arid nations of Libya, Tunisia and Algeria.

Huns and Vandals were less destructive than the Arabs; Huns did destroy cities, but attempted to recreate Roman amenities on the plains of Hungary; Vandals ripped off Rome, hence their reputation, but reproduced the life of the Roman gentry in North Africa--absent the Romans.

So, are we facing the imminent fall of western civilization? It's not 476 yet (when Rome fell), but the confluence of violent know-nothings mobilized at home against healthcare reforms that would make their lives easier, and Taliban/al Qaeda resurgence abroad, apparently committed to the destruction of western civilization does not bode well.

Why must health care reform be passed? First: unreformed health care would be measurably worse (I wish the CBO would draw up a cost comparison, but unreformed health care could cost double, with even worse outcomes--more people excluded from it), but in addition, if the mobs scare enough Congressmen to defeat it, then they--and their handlers and financial backers--will be in control, not elected government.

Then the barbarians will have prevailed inside, like the Senators in Rome who sold out the Empire to Odoacer.

Aug 10, 2009, The Worst and Passionate Intensity

"The best lack all conviction

And the worst are filled with passionate intensity," Yeats declared in The Second Coming, and it seems to be coming true--again. Yeats described the rising Fascist/Nazi storm, but organized violence, and death threats against sitting Congressmen, home in their districts for the August recess, looks awfully like the intimidation faced by middle class members of the Reichstag, who stood between Hitler and power.

Where do these people come from? There's only Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, not Hitler.

House Speaker Pelosi and other Democratic leaders dismiss the harassment as "Astroturf," as opposed to "grassroots" authentic protest, but it's probably not so simple.

It's true that a lot of conservative spokespeople are heavily subsidized by big corporations, or wealthy individuals like Scaife, Murdoch and Moon. They pump millions--over time, billions--into profit-loss media and spokespeople, and into bringing out the "troops." Some violently vocal protesters may have gone to meetings in more than one Congressmen's district, traveling hundreds of miles to do so.

The protests are aimed at health care reform. It may be obvious why big Pharma, or the insurance industries oppose reform; their profits depend on stopping it. But why do seemingly ordinary Americans so violently oppose reform? 69% of Americans think that reform will only insure those now uninsured, that it's a poverty program. They think their insurance is fine and want to keep it.

A commentator pointed out, however, that only Medicare recipients can be certain they have health insurance; the vast majority can lose it if they are laid off or fired, or if they get really sick and the insurance company decides they had a "pre-existing condition."

But the protestors claim Obama is trying to force the nation into a Communist dictatorship. At a minimum, government should regulate insurance companies and providers: is that Socialism? A public option, why that's Communism, they claim.

Medicare for seniors is not? During W's reign, conservative Republicans expanded Medicare; their motive seemed twofold: to pay off the providers, especially big Pharma, while setting up Medicare to go bankrupt. Medicare Part D, which gives Pharma non-negotiable prices, could cause that, although Obama's administration is trying to cut costs, reducing above Medicare rates to private providers of the Medicare Advantage program, for example, and gaining Pharma's agreement to lower prices.

Providers drown out facts with misinformation, but as one analyst pointed out, conservatives have lost control of Congress and the Presidency; all they have is their (crazed) activists--and Sarah Palin to whip them up.

The danger: if they prevail, Fascism could be their winning strategy.

Perhaps a know-nothing like Palin could then lead them to victory!

Aug 2, 2009, Does Gloom Sell?

Is there a constituency for gloom? According to commentators on TV and radio, chances for passing health care reform look poor. According to commentary on Change.org, Waxman's agreement with Blue Dog Democrats changed very little in the health care bill. This includes the public option and a provision for the federal government to cover all people with Medicaid who earn under 133% of the poverty level. Reducing Federal coverage to 93% (states would have to pick up 7%) was not major change, nor was the reduction in the overall price tag for the bill: from $1 trillion to $900 billion. So, it looks as if the bill will have the necessary votes to pass--unless opponents can marshal major opposition during the August Congressional recess.

Perhaps gloom, or alarm sells; reassurance doesn't. Alarm at the outrageous positions of the right wing opposition--fear of socialism, federal takeover, funding all abortions everywhere--also sells, among liberal and conservative lobbying groups.

However, various parts of the health care industry--Pharmaceuticals, hospitals and doctors have been placated--or bought off. The insurance companies may not have been brought firmly into the tent--their profits are more directly at risk--but the constellation of forces favoring broad health care reform has grown larger. It includes a good deal of the business community, or that part which recognizes the escalating costs of the current "system," which also makes them less and less competitive in the world economy. There really are very few major interests that want health care to remain the way it works right now.

That's not to say that the interests that have been partly bought off aren't extracting their pounds of flesh--Pharma with a no-price-negotiations promise for Medicare, hospitals and doctors with higher than Medicare rates, and so on.

In an ideal world, Congress could debate the actual merits of single payer vs private health insurance, but this is no ideal world. It's a messy one in which a lot of very well-funded interests have a lot more to say than does the general public. And that's not going to change unless Obama gets a chance to remake the Supreme Court (unlikely); the conservative majority has consistently held that money spent on political issues, i.e. lobbying and campaign donations, are the equivalent of speech, protected by the First Amendment.

In the meantime, change may take place, but it will be messy, partial and unsatisfying to practically everyone. That's our "democratic system," which includes a strong component of plutocracy--money counts more than most votes.

The big question: will big money allow sufficient change responding to climate change so that civilization can survive?

Jul 27, 2009, Blades of Grass Amongst the Rubble

The rubble was everywhere we looked, it seemed, in northern New York. I don't mean literally, but leaving our relatively affluent area, weekender territory for New York City, we saw how depressed other parts really are!

Coming off her Saratoga book "gig," the last until Fall (see earliest blog: "Saint Maeve's Day"), my wife wanted to get away, up north for a day. Since we live in the mid-Hudson valley, what would be more appropriate than canoeing on the Hudson River, way up where it's a swiftly flowing, shallow creek?

The land is beautiful up there, and amazingly empty of people. We purposely avoided the more touristy places, like Lake George Village, especially since Saratoga was tourist mecca to the max.

When you leave the tourist places behind, you find the mountains, rivers and lakes. While some lakeshores are heavily developed, even here you begin to realize: something is not right--all those for sale signs: not just a few, but three or four every quarter mile. When you leave the more thickly settled areas and set off along secondary roads to small towns like Thurman, Johnstown, Northville and Stony Creek, you begin to see devastation (real rubble in some cases).

In a prosperous-looking village, huge mansions were for sale, some announcing "reduced price," but many little towns were down-at-heel, bleak, nearly every building needing paint. And then there were the little towns with large houses at their centers, not even for sale, just abandoned and falling down. Here, depression has been going on for far longer than since 2007.

In one small town, there was a house partly demolished, right in the middle of the village, its tin roof heaped in front of what was left of the house.

It wasn't just the little towns and villages that had an abandoned look. There were stretches of road where every other house gaped empty, and none of the remaining ones looked prosperous enough, or new enough to have replaced them, the way weekender homes do nearer NYC. Some farms looked abandoned, too: barns falling down along with the houses, grape vines taking over.

Then we began to notice: there were no gas stations for 20 miles, no supermarkets, no convenience stores, no hospitals: only "central" schools, town halls, law offices and banks. There were hardly any hotels or restaurants, either: tourist-land was somewhere else.

The blades of grass? There were signs for farmers' markets in almost every village. At least people can now get fresh vegetables, and more. I hope it's a new model growing out of the old.

Jul 22, 2009, Returning to an Unsustainable Economy

NAFTA was supposed to set up Mexico as an economic partner with the US and Canada, receiving technical help and capital from both, and providing cheap labor in return, to create jobs and wealth. It didn't happen. After Rubin, Clinton and Senate Republicans made their deal with Mexico, Wall Street saw that it could make much greater profits in China.

So, American corporations bent their efforts towards China, not Mexico. Mexico had to compete with Chinese workers instead of Americans and Canadians. Thus, Mexican wages fell--and so did American wages, a result that American corporations welcomed: it meant that corporate profits rose.

John Miller, writing in Dollars and Sense (7:2009), calls the current downturn a "Repression," not a depression or recession, because it was caused by the repression of wages of all but the top 1/10th of one percent of incomes in the US, starting at least as far back as 1980, with the Reagan "revolution." The NAFTA-China trade triangle was simply a piece of that overall economic policy; it helped drive down wages, weaken unions and disconnect corporate profits from the American economy.

Wages barely rose in the 2001-2007 "recovery," and employment grew extremely slowly; it actually lost ground for a good part of the period. Meanwhile, profits grew by almost 11% per year.

The result: levels of indebtedness grew to unsustainable levels as Americans borrowed against the ballooning values of their homes, in order to maintain an American standard of living, despite repressed wages. And then the bubble burst. Not only did housing lose more value than it did even during the Great Depression, but consumption dove as well, which drove (and still drives) unemployment up to levels not seen since the 1930's.

Repression means that wages for most of us have been kept artificially low, while corporate owners reap virtually all the benefits of tremendous increases in productivity and profitability. That was the conservative project. It succeeded beyond Conservatives' wildest dreams, except that the result was an economy that is unsustainable; it caused the collapse, once the air went out of the housing balloon.

If Goldman-Sachs and JPMorgan, and their like, prevail, we will simply have a repeat of the same repressive pattern, perhaps a bit more regulated, to prevent its "excesses."

Sustainable growth will require stronger unions--passage of the Employee Free Choice Act--a restructuring of our wildly inequitable tax system, greater protection from the race to the bottom, epitomized by the NAFTA-China triangle, and stronger national and international regulation of business.

Will that be the second stage of the Obama "revolution" (like the post-1936 New Deal)? It certainly hasn't happened yet.

Jul 16, 2009, Saving Capitalism

I'm amazed at the ignorance and paranoia displayed in conservative blog posts! They fear Socialism, world government, Communism, "Marzism," and Obama's destruction of the USA! It seems that any government action to bring the excesses of unregulated Capitalism to heel, is considered a sneak attack on all that's holy.

Socialism? I wish! What the Obama administration is attempting to do, over the resistance of a Congress that is largely bought and paid for by the most well-financed lobbies--including Wall Street, Insurance, big Pharma, and large corporations in general--is to undo some of the damage done by Reagan, Bush I and II and, yes, Bill Clinton.

Deregulation got us into the economic mess in 2007-2008, just as it did back in 1929-1932. Bankers must be restrained. Their incentives are to make as much money as possible, and if there are no rules, they will promote ridiculous speculation like inventing default swaps and the securitization of already securitized mortgage portfolios over and over, until no one knows what these pieces of paper really represent. Bankers, unregulated, will heat up a boom until it's a bubble, and will abandon the market when there's a bust and demand is needed to revive the economy.

That's why government action and regulation is necessary: it's not to institute socialism; it's to defend and protect Capitalism.

Who saved Capitalism in the 1930's? FDR.

What we need is not less action from government, but more, because businesses continue to lay off workers, which escalates the fall in demand. Since private businesses are reducing demand, the only entity left that can restore and grow demand becomes the government.

When Hoover did nothing, the Depression deepened. When Roosevelt began deficit spending, it lessened, and then returned in 1937, when he was advised to cut spending. That's why spending was revived in 1938, and by 1940, with lend-lease, the US began to boom.

Conservatives also, unbelievably, go on about how Bush (GW) was the greatest President! He transformed huge surpluses into huge deficits through the war in Iraq, and the profiteering of his friends. He presided over one of the greatest transfers of wealth in history from the middle class and poor to the top one-tenth of one percent of the nation and the economy tanked. Under Clinton, the top rate was raised, and business boomed.

When you have the levels of wealth inequality we had in 2008, and in 1929, any downturn is going to be magnified many-fold: ordinary people don't have the resources to keep consuming; the rich can only consume so much.

In the booming 1950's, the top tax rate was 90%.Follow the Right and we'll fall off a cliff!

Jul 13, 2009, Gut the CIA!

Revelations keep on surfacing, that the INTEL BIZ engaged in widespread surveillance in this country. The latest involves Cheney, which is no surprise. Cheney seems to have been committed to torturing and secrecy, but it's no surprise, either, that the CIA was involved; its fingerprints are all over so many abuses.

One of the most essential rules of an intelligence agency in a democratic country is that it does not carry out any spying at home. That was a rule enshrined in the CIA's founding charter: no spying and no covert activity against American citizens, or at home.

The CIA has probably broken that rule routinely since the advent of W's "War on Terror," justifying itself by saying "these are really bad guys."

Can we point to successes by the CIA? It's most oft-cited was its rent-a-mob coup in Iran in 1953, but we know the consequences of that: the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The current outrageous repression, post-election 2009, harks back to the danger of just such a coup.

Another "success" was the CIA-aided overthrow of a moderate leftist, Jacobo Arbenz, in Guatemala. The aftermath of that was a near-genocide of the indigenous Maya and a civil war that lasted more than 20 years.

A third "success" was the Pinochet takeover in Chile! A fourth was arming and inspiring the "mujahedeen" in Afghanistan to drive out the Russians. The result of that success was the creation of the Taliban and al Qaeda, who even cribbed their slogans from the CIA playbook: Islam in Danger.

And then there are its obvious failures: Operation Phoenix and other covert activity in Vietnam, fueled by the heroin trade that swamped American cities; the failure to foresee the Soviet collapse (some kept on warning about the USSR's hidden strengths); and its willingness to provide false information on Iraqi WMD's and ties to al Qaeda when Cheney, et al requested, in order to justify the Iraq invasion. The CIA even introduced LSD to an unsuspecting world.

Why do we need the CIA (and related institutions)?

We need information. An Intelligence-Only agency could be a first step. Any covert action should be controlled by the DOD and should be overseen, stringently, by Congress. More than four separate committees should oversee it so that no one Senate or House committee could be so easily bought off as both Intel committee leaders have been.

Democracy won't survive dominance by covert institutions, nor will the US; they sap confidence and weaken civilian government. In Rome, the military took over, which only hastened the empire's fall.

A personal note: I was an "analyst" in the Army Security Agency, and trained at the NSA.

Jul 9, 2009, Now, Emperor Obama

Obama continues to disappoint on national security. The Constitutional scholar President claims, through his spokesman at DOD, Jeh Johnson, that he has more indefinite detention power than was even claimed by GW Bush! Not only did Johnson claim that the President could indefinitely detain non-citizens deemed a danger to the US; he claimed that the President could continue to detain someone even if they've been acquitted of charges! He would have been acquitted of past charges, but if the President still deems him a future danger, then he will continue to be detained.

As outlined, there would be three classes of detainees: those for whom DOD has enough evidence to convict; those for whom it has evidence not acceptable to a court, but only to a military commission--coerced testimony or hearsay--and, finally, those for whom there is not enough evidence to convict even by a military commission--but the President knows they are still dangerous. This is a heads I win, tails you lose proposition. As Congressman Jerrold Nader commented, this will create show trials, not Justice.

So, who's going to stop this? Congress? Don't make me laugh. The courts? The only possibility there, in view of Roberts-Alito-Scalia is if Justice Kennedy steps down and Obama can appoint a justice who is strong on civil liberties. That's a slim reed. The conservative lock on the USSC makes likely that the continuation (and bolstering) of the President's claimed powers of detention will pass court muster: National Security seems to trump everything else. Unlimited executive power appears to be a conservative goal.

Obama's expansion of detainment powers was predictable, not because he was Obama, but because he is President. That's why it was so urgent for Congress to stop those abuses under Bush. No President, apparently, is willing to give up powers won for his office; that's one reason why we have the Imperial Presidency today; each President seems committed to leave the office more powerful than it was when he entered it.

What's the ostensible reason for the detainment powers? There are some people who are just too dangerous to release, officials claim. Terrorists must not be allowed to roam free, they argue. But the detainees, or future detainees, will never get a chance to prove they are not terrorists.

The President has the legal mandate to safeguard the American people, but I have visions of scenes in the Count of Monte Cristo: people moldering indefinitely in prison just because someone doesn't like them.

France's Louis the 18th was deposed; it might take something similar in the US, or the collapse of the American Empire, before these abuses cease.

Jul 6, 2009, Gangsters Take Over World

That seems to be the model that is spreading across the world (again, as in the 30's). Some leaders are "elected" like Ahmadinejad and Medvedev--and; others are selected, like Honduran Michelletti. What appears to be happening worldwide is that government by gangsters backed up by armed thugs (army, Basij, whatever), are turning their backs on democracy.

Why? In the case of Russia, an authoritarian government that abrogates almost all rights is popular, because it restores "security." In the case of Iran, thugs maintain unpopular religious repression; in the case of Honduras, elites are rebelling against "leftist" rule, to insure it will go away and with it any threat that their wealth will be taxed or restricted.

And then there's Burma, and so on. Clearly, the forces of repression have been emboldened, especially by the Chinese example .

In fact, democracy appears to be in retreat worldwide.

Meanwhile, in the US the forces of repression are getting a free pass--no prosecution of CIA torturers, for example, or pictures released because of the possible "damage" to our security services. In fact, it seems as if even in the most democratic of countries, security services, spy agencies and police are feared, not controlled.

Why? Is it because we are all so terrified, still, of "Terrorists?"

This is why Obama's kid-gloves handling of the CIA, et al, is so ultimately self-defeating; it does not put any security service on notice anywhere in the world.

Secret police and military of the world UNITE! You have only yourselves to blame if you allow "democratic" governments to take away your money, or your power.

Even if we don't count Maliki's government in Iraq, or Karzai's in Afghanistan (both have been accused of serious abuses and flouting their constitutions), the US is not encouraging democracy, even the Obama administration: the same policy of favoring "our man in…" still seems to be operative. US policy towards Honduras is more ambiguous, even under Obama, than almost any other country.

Right wing, left wing, it doesn't seem to matter. Repression seems to be the new game in town. Perhaps its popularity is in part because the most economically successful nations at present are authoritarian, as well: China and Russia. Even US clients, Maliki and Karzai realize that their power depends upon the forces of repression (Maliki's US-supplied military, Karzai on US and NATO forces).

Democracy? Forgeddaboutit! Maybe this is how the US "Empire" will survive. Given the examples of our Congress (derisory climate change legislation) and sorry state legislatures (NY, California), is democracy worth saving?

It is, but we need to realize: democracy is under siege, even in the US.

Jul 3, 2009, Close US Bases Abroad

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, here's an opportunity to save US taxpayers money! In order to save billions, and also to promote a more peaceful world, we should cut virtually all bases in places like Germany with less political difficulty than closing bases in the US. We could realistically cut the number of bases by more than half, and save a good chunk of that $102 billion each year (1 trillion in ten years). And we need the money, especially money that's spent abroad.

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.

Jul 3, 2009, Does Taliban Abide by Geneva Convention?

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!

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, 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, 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?"

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.

May 3, 2009, Will Revolution be Necessary?

Democratic "moderates" in the Senate recently blocked the extension of $400 middle class tax credits beyond 2010, as well as limits to deductions for high-income earners; they protected agribusiness, by striking down a limit to farm subsidies that would have eliminated payments to "farms" earning over half a million.

The Senate also short-circuited the "cramdown" provision in bankruptcy legislation: it would have enabled judges to modify mortgage contracts, thereby permitting homeowners facing foreclosure to renegotiate their mortgage terms with court support. The financial industry, as Senator Durbin remarked, is still the most powerful lobby on the hill, despite the fact that it created the economic collapse.

In addition, the Obama administration, under the guidance of two of banking industry's most persuasive proponents, Treasury's Geithner and White House advisor, Larry Summers, has subverted its own change mandate by trying to reconstruct the whole financial house of cards, at great taxpayer expense. Why, because of the power of the Wall Street lobby? Probably. It exercised its power to extort, indicating that without bailout money and negligible safeguards, it wouldn't play and the economic system would shrink even faster. You could call it a subtle "capital strike." Obama appears to have capitulated.

He should have done an FDR, and taken over the banks, temporarily, but he blinked first.

So, after huge effort, a mass mobilization large enough to qualify for the history books has been stalemated and subverted by the powers-that-were, so they continue to be the powers-that-be.

Even with Obama, we appear, still, to be ruled--more behind the scenes than before--by what I've called "the Selfish Class."

If the financial system is merely reconstituted, without Lehman Bros. but with the same huge actors otherwise, and with only cosmetic changes in regulation, then we'll probably be headed for another bubble (perhaps green industry this time), and then an even harder bust.

However, a large part of the progressive legislation just blocked by Congress was sponsored by Obama's administration. Frustration with slow progress could help Obama bolster enough progressive support in Congressional elections in 2010 to strengthen momentum for reform. If the bust happens before 2012, Obama could turn the election year into his version of FDR's 1936. Then, Roosevelt ran against "economic royalists" and won overwhelmingly. Much of FDR's most progressive legislation came after that victory.

If Obama persists in supporting the powers-that-be, revolution might be the only way to change the system radically enough to survive. I hope we don't have to go there, but Americans are not as cowed as were the Romans in 476. If there is revolution, I hope it would be non-violent, but what's the chance of that?

May 1, 2009, Obama and Torture

Obama's performance and ability to answer questions directly and fully at his One Hundred Days press conference, was nearly flawless, and such a contrast to the smirking inarticulate who preceded him. However, it was notable that Obama's answers on torture did not respond directly to the questions: should past torture be prosecuted.

I agreed fully with his answer as far as it went. He was answering the mainstream-rightwing argument in which torture is justified a la the 24 Hours show: the bomb about to go off scenario. His answer was directed at those folks, not to us. He's trying to change people's minds about all the waronterra bullshit with which we've been inundated since 911. He's answering with these kinds of arguments, and I think he's being very persuasive. He's doing exactly what he first talked about: using the bully pulpit to change the way people think about issues. The last President who created a change like that was Reagan.

On the other hand, Obama didn't address the legal question at all. Yet DOJ policy is relevant to the question (special counsels, legal briefs in related cases), and the President ultimately sets that policy. So far he's discouraged talk of legislative investigations, as well--the look ahead, not behind position. Perhaps he believes that confrontation now would be premature before a new consensus about torture has been nurtured.

But the very logic of his argument: that the country is corroded by torture and more credible (and safe) without it requires legal action against past wrongs. Only legal action would insure that the US wouldn't do this again; it would make the US credible again. A Presidential directive that we don’t torture is only a first step; it can easily be reversed.

It might fulfill our fantasies of revenge if Spain or the UN prosecuted instead, and somehow put some of the people responsible for torture behind bars. But that wouldn't cleanse the US in the eyes of the world; in fact, if there were no legal action here, but action there, then the US's reputation would be damaged further.

I hope Obama will allow the appointment of a special counsel to pursue the legal cases, and that the legal positions taken by DOJ do not continue to shield the people responsible for torture decisions. People who carried out the policy should not yet be pursued, not because they are blameless, but because the focus should be on the people like Yoo, and Cheney, who authorized their actions.

Without action by government to enforce through law that torture is illegal, the US will still be tarred with the torture brush.

Apr 29, 2009, Distress and Affluence

Snow-capped mountains and dust storms in New Mexico, a heat wave in upstate New York, that's what we went from and to: hotter here than in LA last week.

Everywhere we went we heard and saw distress and affluence cheek by jowl. The Plaza in Santa Fe was crowded with tourists on a Sunday, but on Monday there were nearly a hundred men waiting for day jobs at the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe; it didn't look like there were many takers. In New Mexico it's the well-off, the poor, and then the Mexicans and Indians.

The economy is churning towards higher job losses and a restoration of the same corrupt financial system--with a few cosmetic changes--which will only lead to another bubble, another collapse, and the maintenance of enhanced inequality; that inequality was engineered by Republican dominance since Reagan.

It doesn't have to be this way. Even if Obama is dazzled by Geithner and Summers (I'm hoping he's just using their inside know-how, but I doubt it), he is vulnerable to voices on the left; progressive Democrats are his core constituency. If we are vocal about the need to restructure banks, perhaps even really nationalize them, we may persuade him; at least we offer an alternative to Wall Street's political dominance.

What is needed: financial conglomerates, which combine speculation, insurance and banking, conglomerates like CITI and JP Morgan-Chase, must be broken into their functional parts, at very least. If they are still "too big to fail," those parts should be broken up as well.

What we have now is the political equivalent of the Roman Senators of fifth century Rome: Wall Street financiers. They expect yearly bonuses in the millions of dollars even if they drive their businesses into the ground; they are supported by the federal government through money paid for by the Joe Schmoes who pay taxes: who never expect a million dollars to be handed to them, certainly not for incompetence.

Roman Senators bought their offices; the financial industry just buys their Senators--and Congressmen--with the largest campaign contributions of any industry.

If bank holding companies are not restructured, if government subsidizes the rich, while giving only tokens to the poor, like $250 for Social Security recipients, it will continue to be like the Roman Imperial system, in which the wealthy cornered the Empire's wealth, and the poor got the dole. Imperial government went bankrupt because the rich refused to pay taxes, even though their riches depended upon government largess.

Their empire was unstable and ours is too: Rome collapsed in 476; will we collapse?

Yet Finance is just one of our problems!

Apr 20, 2009, Depression on the Road

In Gilroy, California, the "Garlic Capital of the World," the air is slightly redolent of garlic, and there are great swathes of flat land between two mountain ranges: rich land, poor people?

We were on our way south, from the Bay Area to LA, the second stage of a book tour, when we stopped in Gilroy for the night. We had some scotch, before dinner, so we were in search of a restaurant with a bar; there are none in Gilroy. The diner next to the motel had a wait of 20 minutes, at least, and only served wine and beer, so we went in search of better.

Downtown Gilroy was two traffic lights down, at right angles to the strip. There was a Restaurant Gilroy announced on a large building, and it looked substantial, but it was locked up tight. Out of business. Across the street there were two Mexican restaurants. One was also closed. The other served only wine and beer.

Another large building was set back from the main street, surrounded by parking lots, identified by a neon sign as Gilroy Cafe and Casino. The back room nearest our parked car was only a casino, dreary in fluorescent light, with drawn, Hispanic men lounging disconsolately at green tables. Coming round to the front we discovered another casino, but also a cafe in one corner offering only beer, wine and pre-packaged meals. The scene at the tables was the same as the casino in the back, except that the whole room had a garish greenish cast: the patrons barely looked up.

Still on our quest, we stopped at yet another Mexican restaurant nearer the strip; it boasted "Margaritas on tap." It served only beer and wine--not margaritas--dinners and "Karaoke," but by now it was too late to look further. It was strewn with long tables for large families; three or four, including children, were listening to the over-loud sound-track (not karaoke), eating, drinking. Only one waitress spoke English. Dinner was edible, ridiculously cheap, and the beer was thin. Our fellow diners were out on the town; it was Saturday night. Hard liquor is only in bars: "Too much fighting," the waitress said.

For breakfast the next morning, at the diner next to the motel we were served huge platters with towering muffins and were surrounded by very large people. Then I remembered: my wife's new book (Bright Dark Madonna) was offered at "20% off" at the bookstore in seemingly affluent Healdsburg and inventory was 20% down; clothes stores were having sales.

It's a depression, all right, but a strange one.

Apr 10, 2009, Don't Pay Bankers! They Broke US

While Geithner and Obama scramble to hold things together preparatory to rebuilding the economy, others are demanding that the economy, when recovered, should be significantly different than the one that has failed. One aspect of that is the financial system.

There is nothing sacrosanct about huge bank holding corporations. They were made possible by what we now know was irresponsible deregulation. A New Way Forward has mobilized people all over the nation, in more than half the states and in most major metropolitan areas for April 11 demonstrations, promoting "a new way forward."

What does that mean? The demonstrators are protesting the trillion dollars of taxpayers' money that the Geithner plan commits, essentially, to buy out the disastrous bank speculation, the bad bets, aka "toxic assets." The demonstrators are not protesting attempts to get credit markets moving again. They protest leaving the bankers whole, and dumping all that money into the laps of the people who caused the financial credit catastrophe; they are protesting a bailout at taxpayer expense that leaves these swindlers even wealthier than before.

What that trillion dollars does not do, is restructure the banks, fire the decision-makers who got us into this mess, or make more than minimal changes to the system created by Rubin and Goldman Sachs, in which huge financial conglomerates became "too big to fail." Since these are private entities dependent on huge public subsidies, too big to fail should mean too big to exist, too big to be allowed. CITI, JP Morgan-Chase, B of A, none are just banks; they are bank holding companies that are massively involved in speculation, and insurance, as well as in commercial banking. The banks were driven to insolvency because they didn't stick to banking; speculation on "derivatives" and insurance (credit default swaps) meant that banks made and lost massively bad bets. Those holding companies must be broken up; banks MUST be limited to banking and banned from speculation, the way they were under Glass-Steagall.

But banks should also eat those bad bets, not the taxpayer. The assets of the Captains of Industry should be stripped bare to compensate the investments made by the taxpayers up until now. In addition, the banks should be broken up into small enough entities that they can fail if badly managed. We need to return to the discipline of the market in the financial sector.

The bloated financial system was made possible by irresponsible deregulation; it has to shrink back to normal size. Otherwise we'll be headed down the same road, and the selfish class, aka Masters of the Universe will rip us off once again and our progress toward 476 (the fall of Rome) will hardly have been interrupted.

Apr 9, 2009, Only Politics Will Win in Pakistan

The Communists took over Afghanistan with Soviet help, and began reforming society: sending girls to school, stripping off the chador. Their radical social policies were the primary reason why Pakistan and the CIA could mobilize the mujahedeen in an anti-Communist jihad.

The Communist failure was political before it was military, but their political takeover could also be a model. If the US put half as much support into political or social aid as it does in the military, it might be able to effect real change: modernization would destroy support for the retrograde politics of Muslim extremists.

The US and NATO have been trying to do this in Afghanistan, but with paltry resources compared to those going to the military. We have poured money into the Pakistani Army, too; it's been a poor investment; the military seems to have no backbone for fighting the Taliban. The government's "compromise" with the Taliban in Swat, agreeing to enforce Shariah law there, has been seen, even by civilian Pakistanis, as limp appeasement caused by the Army's reluctance to fight.

And then there was the flogging of a girl on video.

Pakistan is now ripe for a politics of modernization. Americans should ally with the lawyers who succeeded in forcing the government to re-seat the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Americans should support the rights of people to live, as they please, not dictated to by draconian, violent bullies. They should help political parties of the left, even help to organize them.

What? We shouldn't interfere in domestic politics? As if we don't now: as if sending billions of dollars to the Army, which ruled over Pakistan for half its existence, is not political interference? The Army needs to become much more effective in fighting the extremists, but more training and military equipment won't accomplish that. Its attitude has to change, but that will only happen when the country has changed politically, when the support for driving the Taliban out, for modernizing, for democracy, is stronger than the forces of reaction. Reactionary Muslim politics is supported in important parts of Pakistan's population: in the Inter-Services Agency (ISI) (their CIA), in parts of the military, in the Northwest Frontier (FATA), and among some political elites. The US should expend resources in offering meaningful alternatives, and should help the government establish civilian control over the ISI.

The Taliban would take over Pakistan by terrorizing the country, province by province, but a popular, political revulsion could stop them: it would force the Army to fight.

How likely is this? We won't stop the Taliban with drones: with political aid we might have a chance.

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 (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.

Mar 31, 2009, Break up the Financial System!

Merrill Lynch's rip off of more taxpayer billions (over $3 billion in bonuses after receiving bailout money) demonstrates that Geithner, Kashkari et al are driving the bailouts in the wrong direction. Bankers, brokers, hedge and equity funds managers may look respectable; they may wear beautiful business suits, and speak in modulated sentences, but these guys should be seen for what they are: they're gangsters, and should be treated accordingly.

Maybe Geithner and Kashkari are gangsters, too, like their clients; maybe they're honest and motivated by what they think is best, but this beginning to what will be a series of revelations shows that the whole financial industry must be completely overhauled. I'm more in sympathy with France and Germany that what is needed is stringent regulation at both national and international levels, but there should also be wholesale restructuring.

I'm hoping that Obama-Geithner's proposal to Congress to provide wide-ranging powers to the government is actually followed by--restructuring.

The big banks must be broken up; their larcenous leaders must be sacked. I hope indictments are also handed down. Brokerages, investment houses, hedge funds--all of them--should be broken up into entities that are large enough to stand on their own, but small enough to fail without a ripple. Then an actual market could again operate. What we have now is private profit--socialized/taxpayer loss; it must not be allowed to continue.

The financial system must be returned to a free market, which is only possible with stringent regulation and liberal use of powers to restructure, or break up non-functioning or insolvent firms.

In connection with restructuring, the cash-for-trash toxic asset program outlined by Geithner should be scrapped. The banks should eat those losses, and if that makes them insolvent, then government should take them over, lock stock and empty bank vault, through the FDIC, or some other entity.

Yes, that would stop the credit market cold--until those entities are taken over. That is why the newly empowered government (given passage through Congress of the new powers requested) should move very quickly in the takeovers, reminiscent, perhaps, of FDR's Bank Holiday.

Incidentally, Geithner et al might sell the new powers proposal more effectively if he pointed out that these powers would enable government to avoid spending the trillion dollars he's committed to toxic assets. Blue Dog Democrats should like that; so might "fiscal conservative" Republicans.

Or we could continue on the current road, until all our wealth has been siphoned off by the banksters, everyone else is in hock, and we march on to a debacle like 476, when a bankrupted Roman Empire fell to Gothic gangsters.

Mar 28, 2009, Obama, Afghanistan and Pakistan
A Miscalculation

I heard Obama on Afghanistan and Pakistan. It does sound like more war, not much else. He did not address the main problem with the war effort--that it alienates the civilian population with its bombings and attacks on "insurgent" hideouts that then turn out to be peasants with a large admixture of women and children.

If I were an Afgan peasant, and my family was killed "inadvertently" by American or Nato troops, I'd be pretty receptive to the seduction of any "insurgents" who came along.

It's probably true that the Taliban are pretty nasty people; it's probably true that they don't really offer anything positive to the Afghan people--the same could be said for the Republicans in Congress--but I don't see the US, realistically, being able to offer some alternative. Only Afghans can do that.

Actually, the metaphor is only half right in Afghanistan: when you push one way, Afghans are likely to push back, something they have been doing to foreigners meddling in their affairs since Alexander the Great, and in modern history since the Russian and British Empires tangled there in the 19th century.

Obama's re-emphasis on helping Pakistan is welcome, however. Pakistan is key. But if, as some were predicting, the US begins to bomb (using Predator drones) in Baluchistan, then all bets are off.

After all, the Pakistanis did suffer colonialism, and they are wary of westerners taking over their country again. If we bomb in Baluchistan, we're striking at areas directly governed by the fragile democratic government, not in the tribal no-mans land of the FATA. I wonder if American aims will survive the outrage such bombings could unleash.

It's true that the Taliban and Al Qa'ida are murderous gangsters, distinguished from groups like the Mafia only by an ideology that justifies their violence. But the fact that they are like gangsters leads me to wonder: wouldn't it be better to treat them like gangsters, esp. their leadership? That would mean hunting them down in places like Peshawar, imprisoning them, and trying them for the crimes they have committed.

How would New Yorkers feel if the government decided to go after drug cartels in NYC by bombing their houses?

Mayor Rizzo tried that against MOVE in Philadelphia, do you remember? A whole block went up in smoke; people were NOT pleased.

But that's, in essence, the tactics we're proposing to escalate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. How would we have reacted if, instead of Mayor Rizzo, it had been the British, or the Russians, who bombed the MOVE house?

[For the rest of this article click on the perma-link.] It will start you at the beginning.

Mar 24, 2009, Make $ on Toxic Assets

Tim Geithner's toxic assets plan? It's Great! A huge opportunity, don't you see? We can all make our fortunes buying up toxic assets--all of us who are in the financial world, that is, and have a few millions, just to play around with. If the "assets" really are worthless, we just walk away minus a small part of the million, but if they're valuable, we pocket a 20% profit!

I agree with the outrage at Geithner's proposed "cash for trash," but if the credit markets are not "normalized," then we could revisit the Japanese experience of the 90's--no growth for over a decade.

Krugman and Baker rail against the plan. But what's the alternative? Close the banks, declare a bank holiday a la FDR? Take them over, cut them down to size, and reorganize them so that they're re-capitalized and lending? Fine. But AIG, CITI, Morgan et al aren't banks. Government lacks the powers to take over "non-bank" institutions, institutions that dominate the financial scene. Geithner is finally asking for those powers.

In the meantime, if the government doesn't get the toxic assets out of the way, we could lose a lot before restructuring became functional. We could end up extending the depression--a lot more in unemployment, in lost companies, lost jobs and lost homes.

If the toxic assets are off the banks' books, they'll be able to loan again, which is what the economy needs from the financial system. They should be pressured to lend, but the Fed is already trying. I doubt that legislation would accomplish this, although creating a public bank might; the idea of a public bank should be debated. If private reorganized banks don't lend, the public one would. Employ some of the hundreds of thousands of laid off finance workers to run it.

As for institutions that are "too big to fail," once Geithner gets the powers to take them over, they should be broken up into smaller units that could be allowed to fail; that way they would be forced to abide by market discipline. That's the kind of bank nationalization we need--unless the current outrage creates broad support for a government-run bank.

A public bank might keep private banks honest through public-private competition. Private banks would hate the idea, of course, but it could be a useful institution, and would be a way to channel the anger against banks that has been unleashed by the AIG bonus scandal.

However, if toxic assets remain untamed, and government has inadequate powers to restructure financials, we could remain in this mess for a long time to come, like the terminal depression that led to Rome's downfall.

Mar 24, 2009, Control Pakistan's ISI!

Early on, Zardari's "democratic" Pakistani government tried and failed to gain civilian control of their ISI (Inter Services Institute, Pakistan's CIA/FBI), cited often as one of Pakistan's bogeymen; it's not clear whether the Army controls the ISI, or vice-versa.

Unfortunately, the ISI may be the key to whether militant Islam gains headway in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or whether more secular forces prevail. Think of how powerful the CIA is in this country--and yet it's under civilian control, while the ISI is a rogue agency, more the power behind factions in the military, than under any external control.

The ISI was able to get so big and bad because the CIA and Reagan used it extensively in the early 80's. It was the siphon through which US aid went to the mujahedeen fighting the Soviets. These included Osama bin Laden's Saudi irregulars, who later became the core of al Qa'ida, and the Afghan groups that later created the Taliban.

Ironically, it was the CIA that promoted the theme song among the militants: "Islam in Danger!" The Muslim League had earlier used the slogan to mobilize Indian Muslims to support Partition and the creation of Pakistan. The CIA decided that it was the perfect way to mobilize Afghans against the Soviet occupation and it worked. But what a Frankenstein it created!

The Taliban/al Qa'ida are nostalgic for movements like the 8th century militant Arab surge, which destroyed North Africa's post-Roman civilization, pulling down its precious aqueducts and driving the arid region back to subsistence--and "pure" Islam. The Taliban has similar motives today.

After the USSR left Afghanistan, Pakistan's ISI continued and expanded its support of right-wing Islamic militants. It recognized them as much more effective weapons against India than Pakistan's thrice-defeated Army. That's probably why al Qa'ida and the Taliban are resurgent, despite official government hostility.

the US's most important diplomatic task in Pakistan should be to help the civilian, elected government gain control of the ISI. Until the ISI is tamed, the militants have a most powerful ally, one that probably diverts or defeats most military action against them before it even starts, as well as financing, equipping and advising them.

Pakistan is highly-subsidized by the US to fight the militants, but the ISI uses them to fight India: the Taliban--and al Qa'ida--are useful in combating growing Indian influence in Afghanistan, while militants like Lashkar e Taiba, are useful for attacking India directly in Kashmir, and for bombings in Mumbai. It's probable that the ISI operatives dealing with these groups are sympathetic to Islamists.

Therefore, to really stop al Qa'ida and the Taliban, Pakistan's ISI must be controlled, or destroyed.

Mar 22, 2009, Obama's Economic Multiplier

In macro-economics I taught about the multiplier, how dollars injected into the economy--from whatever source: drugs, government--would be spent over and over, multiplying those dollars three to five fold: a dollar added created three to five more. The basic problem with the world economy is falling demand, caused by credit markets freezing up, caused by banks in economic difficulty, caused by toxic assets, etc. The way to turn the economy around is to pump money into it--the stimulus--to re-invigorate demand. This is basic Keynesian Economics.

However, in Keynes's world, and FDR's, the multiplier was larger. When the government spent a million dollars, almost the entire million was re-spent within the US, because we made everything.

When we spend a million dollars today, somewhere between $400,000 and $600,000 is re-spent in the US, but the rest goes abroad: we don't make everything anymore. We import everything from oil to computers, to phone answering services. Therefore our multiplier will be much smaller than it was in the 1930's.

When the government finances a construction project, it puts money into the hands of the company and its employees, but only 40% to 60% of the money will go for goods and services produced here. Many workers will buy cheap Chinese goods at Walmart: the money goes to Walmart, and to China. Will $850 billion of stimulus be recycled in the USA to re-start our economy?

NO, only $340-$510 billion will be created here in the second cycle.

Unless Obama can persuade other major nations to spend stimulus money as well, the US will be pumping dollars into their economies, but they won't be pumping Euros or Yen into ours--they fear inflation. They'll happily suck in all the stimulus money they can attract, but their governments won't be adding demand in their own economies. This is akin to the beggar-thy-neighbor strategy of the 1930's; it produced a decade of misery, Fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, and World War II.

Globalization was wonderful when demand was artificially boosted by the creation of some $10-20 Trillion in debt instruments; it may not be so advantageous with the debt bubble deflated, when only the US and China create the extra demand needed. The world trade system is so porous that our stimulus money will spread out all over the rest of the un-stimulated world; it could spread out so thinly that it could hardly cause a ripple: with such a diminished multiplier, it could take a decade to recover.

Obama's failure could lead to a new Hitler, or more likely a Mussolini. Then the march would resume towards a collapse like Rome's in 476.

Mar 19, 2009, Antitrust: a Way to Fix AIG

Antitrust is a tool that should be used assertively by the Obama administration, and the outcry over AIG bonuses demonstrates why: AIG is a monopoly that ought to have been broken up a long time ago, but antitrust enforcement has been lax for almost a generation.

There are reasons: conservative economic analysis has demonstrated that economically the practices targeted by antitrust law (price-fixing, linked contracts, creating a monopoly) can be benign, that vertical mergers and even horizontal mergers of companies can lead to greater efficiencies and higher production.

While the above may be true, conservative economists have failed to consider the social and political effects, and the market-wide effects of monopoly and oligopoly behavior. Now we have the example of AIG and its Financial Products Division as a prime example: its huge proliferation of securitized mortgage default swaps are as much to blame for the economic collapse as any other single factor.

The costs go well beyond the $173 billion the government has so far paid out to it to keep it from going bankrupt. Why has the Treasury, under both Bush and Obama, continued to bail out AIG? Because it is too big to fail: unfortunately, the managers at AIG knew that, and acted accordingly, i.e. took on risk that no company should have taken, ever.

There are many ways in which our marketplace needs to be reformed, but one place to start is by using the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice to begin restructuring the corporate landscape so that disasters like this can't happen again.

This blog, and the connecting page, represent the hope that Christine Varney, Obama's nominee for Antitrust, will reinvigorate the Division, and bring it back to its function, which is to prevent monopoly and oligopoly behavior that endangers the smooth functioning of the marketplace.

If Varney and others do not begin to break up firms like AIG and CITI that are "too big to fail," that act as if they can control markets, then this depression will be only a prelude to an even greater collapse some time in the not too distant future. Then, we very possibly would face our own 476, the collapse not only of the economy but also of American ascendancy, and possibly of the whole global system.

Mar 18, 2009, Angry Populism

The bonuses to AIG management is what did it. These people who think they deserve one and two million dollar bonuses after screwing not only their company, not only Wall Street, but the world, these people live on a different planet. It makes Marie Antoinette's indiscreet bon mot--let them eat cake--seem trivial by comparison.

Chuck Schumer, privately referred to as "the Senator from Wall Street," was heard to growl that if the AIG people didn't give the money back, Congress would find a way to "get it back." Republicans, always so respectful of big corporations, were shouting, too.

Obama chimed in, outraged, and said that something would have to be done about it, reversing his Treasury Secretary Geithner, who had agreed with AIG's CEO that the bonuses were contractual and couldn't be rescinded.

Some conservatives defended AIG, worried about the sanctity of contracts, saying contract law couldn't just be swept aside, but any politician who was sensitive to popular opinion was speaking out against the bonuses.

I think this is wonderful! There is a downside, and I'll get to that, but this is a movement to the left, and even some Republicans are going there. It's the fat cats, not illegal aliens, not minorities, not lazy welfare mothers, who are being blamed, and rightly so. Finally, the people, or a growing proportion of them, are beginning to get it: the rich high flyers did not have everyone's best interests at heart; they were not the most productive, nor the most talented; they were, and are, greedy and unethical, and believe they are entitled, regardless of what they do.

The AIG bonuses are the perfect example of how these people have operated all these years. One million, two million dollars! To people who so completely screwed up? Oh, but of course, these are the guys who swam atop the social swim, who played at country clubs--golf, tennis, it doesn't matter--went to the best schools because Daddy paid, and everything always came easy for them. Of course they deserve those bonuses; they deserve everything, because it's their due,: probably got a Mercedes gull-wing when they graduated.

GW Bush came from the same class, but things have changed. And because of their stupidity, they're changing a bit faster.

Now the downside: until our financial system is working again, the real economy isn't going to work, either, but a third bank bailout, costing even more money, may be necessary. The problem is: in the current climate, in the current populist climate, it's going to be very hard to get enough people to agree to give bankers any more money.

Mar 16, 2009, "Green Shoots" Says Bernanke

Bernanke spoke about green shoots sprouting in the economy of gloom, rays of hope that the Fed has averted the worst, a collapsing economy, and that things may already be getting better [Sixty Minutes, 3/15/09].

He also spoke about how the Fed had done the opposite of its predecessor in the Great Depression. In 1929 and after, the Fed let the money supply shrink, did nothing to stimulate the economy, and allowed thousands of banks to fail.

Bernanke stated unequivocally that he wouldn't allow big banks to fail. The failure of Lehman Brothers demonstrated the damage multiple failures might cause; he appeared determined to prevent them.

There was something in the whole CBS interview that made me feel we were being fed Propaganda, and yet Bernanke's actions make economic sense.

On details, I don't agree with either Bernanke or Geithner who appear to think that you shouldn't go after the bankers during the crisis. Bernanke did say, however, that a reckoning would come due after the crisis was over; at very least it should.

AIG, insurer to bankers, is paying out million dollar bonuses to managers, funded by bailout money--it hardly has any other. They justify their outrageous rip-off by claiming these were contractual obligations from last year, and "retention" bonuses are necessary to keep expert managers. If they're so expert, how come AIG has been bailed out not once, but three times?

Bernanke didn't comment on this--the recorded interview was taped before news of the AIG bonuses--but he deplored this kind of behavior.

The bankers/CEO's just don't get it; they don't deserve being flooded with our money and acting as if they can do anything they want with it: they should use it for the purpose for which it was intended: to lend money. They are the ones who got the whole world into this mess; the last thing they deserve is a munificent reward.

Obama doesn't get it yet, either. Perhaps banks need some management to stay, but the bank leadership, the people who promoted the disastrous explosion of the credit market and its esoteric "securitized" paper should be sacked without severance. They aren't talented; they're the worst screw-ups the financial system has ever seen.

The FDIC should directly supervise the big banks, but they should not survive in their present form; they should be split up so that none is "too big to fail. Now is the time to reform and shrink the financial system.

Maybe there are green shoots. Hope springs eternal, but until this rotten system is purged, those green shoots could wither pretty fast--or grow into the rankest weeds.

Mar 15, 2009, Class War and EFCA

The reason the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) eliminates the need for a secret ballot is to prevent employer repression.

Current labor law obligates a company to hold a secret ballot election when a majority of employees petition for one. However, that is the last time employees get to express their preferences before the company begins to pressure them, to fire organizers, and bring in union-busting law firms that specialize in threatening workers IF they vote for a union. Many secret ballot elections are lost, even though a majority of workers wanted a union--until they were threatened with job loss, company relocation and reprisals for union activity.

That's why EFCA short-circuits an election: when a majority sign cards supporting the union--and notice, this kind of organizing can go on under the radar in an anti-union company (the great majority of companies)--then the union wins certification: too late for the union-busters to be brought in.

The other important part of EFCA is requiring binding arbitration for the first contract after union certification. I've heard of many cases, and know of one personally--The Fund of CalPirg--where the company stalls negotiations until the mandatory year is up, meanwhile picking off union activists, and then moves to decertify. In the case of The Fund: it simply closed the unit after firing, seriatem, all but the last two employees.

The result of de-unionization was a huge increase in inequality as stockholders and managers accrued the gains from productivity that workers were creating. Talk about Class Warfare! One of the main reasons why Americans incurred so much debt was the declining wages brought on by weakened unions. Reagan simply accelerated this process. The very wealthy got very much wealthier; while the middle class lost relative income and so did the poor.

When Republicans complain about income redistribution now, people should point out: the Reagan Revolution caused the most massive income redistribution of several generations--in favor of the top 1% and even more the top 0.1% of the "selfish class." Redistribution in favor of workers is just a beginning to redressing balance in the economy.

The problem with the Reagan-Republican formula was that the very wealthy couldn't consume enough to maintain the economy. Ordinary people had to borrow. The debt economy was born as a response; it kept the American consumption machine going--until it collapsed.

The stimulus is also borrowed money, and can't be sustained; only a more equitable income distribution can do that. That's why EFCA is necessary: to re-balance the distribution of American income.

If the selfish class succeeds in blocking EFCA, people won't earn enough to consume: the depression will last for years--or decades.

Mar 11, 2009, US Soldiers as Mediators?

The American military is acting as go-between and broker in Kirkuk, Iraq, between the potentially warring factions of the Kurds and the federal government's army.

"They will say, 'The only solution to Iraq is political, not military,'' remarked an American officer.

Isn't it?

It's admirable that the US forces can do what they're trying to do in Kirkuk, but the US destroyed that country and sooner or later it will have to get out in any case.

The Iraqis are going to have to learn to live together, unless the Kurds and Sunnis decide they can't possibly remain in Iraq, in which case there will be a bloody civil war.

If there were civil war, it would be best for the US to get out of the way.

This is why Poppa Bush didn't try to take over the country in 1991. His son should not have done so in 2002. Saddam was an SOB, but he forced Iraqis to live together. It's very possible that Maliki, or someone replacing him, will become the new Saddam.

The US is not going to prevent that from happening by military force, it may only delay it. However, if Iraqis learn to live together, no Saddam will be needed.

Can American soldiers persuade Iraqis to live together? American soldiers as occupiers? Doubtful. Besides, Americans have too much baggage: we have favored the Kurds over Sunnis, and Shiites over Sunnis, too. We're also responsible for the wholesale impoverishment and destruction of their country.

The US would be in a lot more powerful position if it withdrew ALL troops, but announced that it owed Iraq x billions of dollars for reconstruction, but would only dispense the $ to a federal government that could demonstrate support and cooperation from all sectors of the nation.

The money would force Iraqis to see the profit from working together, instead of attempting to grab territory and control all for themselves. The experience of actually working together to rebuild their shattered nation (shattered by the US), would be a whole lot more effective in creating lasting peace in the region than having American troops keep the two (or three) sides apart and acting as go-between.

Think of how Americans would react if an occupying army, having destroyed the country, killed millions, broken down thousands of doors, and favored southern fundamentalists, took it upon itself to mediate between fundamentalists and liberals, while still holding military control. Would Americans think them credible?

I still hope that the US has learned that Empire doesn't pay, but Obama's emerging policies in both Iraq and Afghanistan seem to say "not yet." Let's hope we learn before it's too late.

Mar 10, 2009, Are the Media Like Pravda?

We need free speech, not broadcaster controlled speech, that's why we need to revive the Fairness Doctrine, at least. Not only should Congress reject the "Broadcaster Freedom Act S. 34," it should stiffen, not loosen, rules of ownership in media markets, and insist that the FCC re-institute some version of the fairness doctrine so that right-wing media as well as left-wing media carry plausible alternative arguments on radio and TV.

After all, no media outlet exists that does not use public resources to broadcast its message: the broadcast spectrum, or publicly approved rights of way (through eminent domain). Therefore, it should be required to, at very least, carry plausible opposing views, instead of foisting its editorial/political biases unmediated on a public that depends upon it for information.

Why is this an issue? The mainstream media portrays events as if Obama is responsible for the deepening depression, the loss of jobs, the housing meltdown and the financial collapse. Yet, he's trying to resolve these issues, which he inherited from the reckless, incompetent and hopelessly corrupt former regime. Watch Fox, watch NBC, listen to most talk radio and you'd think that all the economic gloom was because Obama is a Socialist bent upon dismantling a healthy capitalist system. Bush-Cheney had nothing to do with it; they lowered taxes for the rich, for corporations; Obama wants to raise them!

When the USSR was getting ready to collapse, the official media was part of the reason: it was viewed as completely non-credible, because it reported about the world through ideologically distorted lenses. Russians felt that if Pravda said Brezhnev was as honest as driven snow and would lead them to a Socialist Heaven, then obviously the opposite was true: he was corrupt and his policies were leading to stagnation: the latter was obviously true and everyone else was corrupt.

The mainstream media (MSM) are busy driving down the same road. The policies they favored have proven disastrous for the economy, and for most Americans, but they still promote them. They attack the policies pushed by Obama to deal with the economic collapse (and its causes) from the perspective of the policies that failed. Are the attacks losing credibility, and the media with them? Obama's high approval ratings support that conclusion.

Why are newspapers dying? Why do so many young people get their "news" from the Comedy Hour and the Internet? Perhaps, because the MSM is like Pravda--but on behalf of its Republican-friendly owners, so people are beginning to distrust them--just like Pravda.

Mar 5, 2009, The Stupid Rich

This happened before: the filthy rich, people like the Ogden-Mills, who had an expansive estate up the Hudson from Hyde Park, spoke sneeringly of "that Man in the White House," their sometime neighbor three miles downriver.

From their point of view, FDR was a traitor to his class; he raised taxes on them and regulated their banks and their companies. That's all they saw. They didn't see that FDR was instilling the nation with hope, that he was creating jobs so that armies of jobless didn't terrorize the countryside--they almost had; they didn't see that the banks were their own worst enemies, as well as antithetical to a stable economy--unless confined by regulation; banks expanded credit during the boom until it collapsed, then contracted credit during the downturn, making it much worse. The wealthy were lucky; FDR saved capitalism, but they never thanked him for it.

In the New Deal the SEC was established to oversee the stock markets; banks were both guaranteed by FDIC and regulated. Glass-Steagall separated banking from speculation--it was repealed only 10 years ago by a Republican-Clinton conspiracy, returning banks to speculation. Now we pay the price. A lot of other "automatic stabilizers" built into the economy during the New Deal and after were also stripped away: unemployment coverage for many, welfare for many more and bankruptcy protection. The rich opposed all of these, because they cost them a bit of their profits. But automatic stabilizers not only made people better able to cope in a downturn, they also moderated downturns--people still had some money in their pockets; they still kept buying and the banks didn't speculate and then go bust.

At least the FDIC wasn’t dismantled. Why not? It's a government guarantee to depositors; even the rich can see some utility in that.

The representatives of the stupid rich are the right wing media, the lobbies for big corporations, especially in finance, and the clueless Republicans in Congress; they opposed the stimulus package--because it might work and they'd be proven wrong?

Rush Limbaugh has a very different style than the Ogden Mills of yesteryear, but it's the same message: I hope he fails.

The rich are not just selfish, they're stupid: can't they see that paying workers too little, flooding them with credit, while paying themselves too much, only worked temporarily? If the stimulus, bank rescue and housing bailout don't work, that will mean no jobs and no demand for their companies' goods or services. And yet they hope for Obama's failure, even though they'd be poorer, too.

They're as shortsighted as the Roman Senators conniving with the Goths to overthrow the Roman Empire.

Mar 3, 2009, Barack's Budget

Wow! Barack's no Clinton, Halleluja! Imagine, $120 billion for Pell Grants! That's big! And children's nutrition over agri-business!

Yeah, it's all going to cost, but at least the government will be spending money to help the people, for a change, and not just a tiny elite. And the elite will be the first to pay. Yes, down the road, social programs probably will require somewhat higher taxes, but if people perceive these programs as beneficial--the way Canadians do for their health care system, for example--then they'll be willing to pay for them--through progressive taxes.

As for the deficit hawks within the Democratic caucus: progressives should point out that it's the Defense budget that is so bloated out of control: cut that! What should not be cut are the, up until now, perennially underfunded social and economic investments, from scholarships to highways.

This really is what people want, and need, regardless of how the media try to persuade them otherwise. But like-minded people should help defend Obama's budget, since we know it's going to be under assault, not just from Republican politicians, but from "objective" and "mainstream" media, representatives of the people the Republicans represent--the very wealthy.

It is significant that the ideological torch-bearer for the Republicans--Rush Limbaugh--said he hoped Obama would fail. In my local downtown I see everyday a gargantuan SUV parked with bumper-stickers that read: "I have ALWAYS been PROUD to be an American," and, on the other side: "1/20/13: End of an Error."

But if Obama fails, think of the cost to the nation: the economy will not recover; millions more will be thrown out of work and out of their homes; millions more will be homeless and hungry; desperate people will roam the country the way they did during the Great Depression. Is that what the Republicans are wishing for!

It was the New Deal that began to ameliorate those conditions, but it took World War II to mobilize support for deficits large enough (for massive war spending) that they killed the Depression.

Republicans represent the elite, who will pay more under Obama's budget, or make less in the short run, and for whom questions like health care and jobs are simply not that important--no one they know has to worry about things like that.

The elite are still a very powerful, vocal minority, but just like their predecessors, the Roman Senators, they are only Patriots when the President pays them off. Wishing President Obama would fail reminds me of the Roman Senators conniving with the Goths to overthrow the Roman Empire.

That happened in 476.

Mar 2, 2009, Iran: Disagreement in the Pentagon

According to Defense Secretary Gates, Iran has a long way to go before it could develop a nuclear weapon, but according to Admiral Mullen, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it has enough nuclear material for a bomb.

Here's an instance where the military (the Admiral) tries to hold onto justification for war--like attacking Iran to destroy its fissionable stockpile--while the civilian (holdover) insists that Iran's "not close" to developing nuclear weapons.

The disagreement, in this case, depends upon what you decide is "enough." Iran has enough first-stage enriched uranium to make a bomb, but only if it is enriched to the second-stage. So far, according to our best intelligence, it hasn't done that. So, it has enough to eventually make a bomb, but it has nothing at all for an actual bomb, hence Gates' and Mullen's disagreement. The uranium would have to go through an additional enrichment process (to be concentrated from 1% uranium 235, to 10%), a considerable refinement. From other sources it's apparent that Iran has not built the facilities for doing this.

Iran claims that it is only enriching the uranium to be re-used as nuclear power plant fuel, a recycling process the French use freely. On the other hand, Iran's out of control President, Ahmadinejad, who may or may not be re-elected, keeps on insisting that Iran has the right to do what it will with nuclear material.

This may be why Gates was held over by Obama; he can be reasonable if his boss is, yet because he's a Bush holdover he can control the military; it might see Obama as much too willing to use non-military means to solve problems. Gates may even be insurance against extremists among the brass.

Iran may demonstrate, also, why Obama had to modify (compromise on) his Iraq withdrawal plans, adding another three months (it was originally 16) and keeping 50,000 soldiers in Iraq even afterwards. The military would have been too outraged and, possibly, non-cooperative if he had insisted on the original timetable.

Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan all challenge Obama in different ways, and demonstrate why he needed to hold over Gates and some of his underlings from the awful Bush regime. It's not to carry on the same policies, but to insure that the military will cooperate as policies change. After all, the Pentagon could, physically, take over the civilian government if it were alienated enough. Some conspiracy theorists still insist that a disgruntled Pentagon did away with JFK.

So the case can be made that Gates is necessary insurance, and can be expected to broker compromises between hawks like Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus, and President Obama, who's committed to disengagement.

Feb 26, 2009, The Taliban: Feudalism as Future

The Taliban may be hated, or feared, but they're winning, nevertheless. As Dexter Filkins said on Fresh Air (2/25/09), it's like Frankenstein coming alive: the Taliban, who were nurtured by the US and Pakistan, and still by Pakistan's ISI, have come back to haunt Pakistan, the US, and the Afghans. They've trained a youth cohort of zealous fighters and are now attacking both west into Afghanistan, and east into Pakistan.

They're brutal; they're ruthless; and they're absolutely convinced that they are fighting jihad, holy war against the infidels. That's us, and anyone more secular, more moderate, more modernized: they're against them, too. The Taliban are more reactionary than the Nazis. They want to re-establish the mores and lifestyle of Islam in its earliest years, before the Arab flowering of arts and culture. They ban music and art, and women outside the home.

People in Afghanistan say they know the Taliban movie; they didn't like it and don't want to see it again.

At least the Taliban don't control a country, yet.

Imagine if they overthrew the elected government of Pakistan/and/or Afghanistan. They wouldn't do it through direct military confrontation; they would take over the way they've taken over the tribal area on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border; they move in, terrorize by night, establish themselves as the government; levy taxes, enforce their draconian laws--beheadings, that kind of thing. At the same time they keep their contacts with allies in Pakistan's government, especially with their covert sponsor, ISI, Pakistan's CIA-plus, and in Pakistan's Army.

There could be a military coup in Pakistan supported by the Taliban, and then the world would face a nuclear state controlled by Muslim extremists, ones dedicated to driving the world back to an eighth century they idealize as pure, converting India and then the world--or they could blow everyone up!

Neither Pakistanis nor Afghans want the Taliban. Both peoples, according to polls and behavior, prefer modernity. But both governments are corrupt, the Afghan government incredibly so, and neither effectively protects its citizens.

The Taliban wins if these governments fail; yet no one from outside can prevent political failure. The US, other concerned nations, and the UN, can offer development aid and help in creating effective administration (we've been trying in Pakistan for decades), but NATO and the US cannot win militarily; the battle is about governance, establishing a peaceful nation--or feudalism--one with promise for the future--or a brutal, mythical past.

There is no role for the US military in Pakistan, except training. In Afghanistan, Americans should insure local security, train Afghans to replace them--and not attempt to "defeat" the Taliban. That way leads to alienating the Afghan people.

Feb 23, 2009, Wrong on Afghan Detainees

I campaigned for Obama, gave money to his campaign, and voted for him. I can't believe that permitting Afghan detainees no rights (no rights to be tried in US courts) is Obama's considered policy.

I can believe that a DOJ appointee may be against setting up judicial processes in places like Bagram, or Iraq, supposed war-zones, or allowing appeals to US courts--that could get difficult--but I also think that if called on this issue by a more vigilant public, that this President will not be unresponsive like GW. After all, how long is this state of war going to last? Will Afghans be held in Bagram until we leave, prisoners picked up in random sweeps, or turned over in corrupt transactions (prisoners as a source of income for local warlords)?

We don't know who submitted that "two-sentence opinion" to the court considering a detainee's csse. Very likely it was a Bush holdover/civil servant. Second, we don't know how far up it was reviewed. Third, it is an interim position, while a case is ongoing.

One of the problems Obama is going to have to face is that the "ongoing war" in Afghanistan is not only not going well, but may be going in entirely the wrong direction. Are we going to hold onto detainees there until we withdraw or are thrown out?

Obama has agreed to send 17,000 additional troops to buttress the current effort against the Taliban, but that additional 17,000 could be either: the beginning of an escalation a la the Iraq surge, or the beginning of what is really needed, an attempt to protect the Afghan people and train up security forces that will provide real security in that very insecure country. Only with good security would development programs offer positive outcomes, and only then would our actions in Afghanistan be of aid to the Pakistani government fighting extremists within its borders.

I hope that the Afghan policy is still in the very opening stages of transformation into something that would work. Otherwise, the Afghan war could truly be to Obama what Vietnam was to LBJ, or, even more dramatically: the failure that finally forces Americans to forgo imperial adventure.

I'm still hoping that the US will gracefully withdraw from empire, much like Britain, rather than be driven to collapse, like Rome. At this point it looks as if Obama could go either way. As a supporter and critic, I will do what little I can to advocate for graceful withdrawal, but I know what I and my progressive colleagues face: a trillion dollar defense establishment/industry intent on maintaining their profits and power, much like the Senators of the Late Roman Empire.

Feb 19, 2009, Nationalize Banks!

Treasury Secretary Geithner's "plan" for solving the financial system seems to be a non-starter, and Greenspan, of all people, has suggested something more useful: nationalization of the banks, on a temporary basis, possibly under the aegis of the FDIC.

There is a lot that could come out of such an approach: the banks would extend credit as government policy, thereby loosening the tight credit market, and would re-negotiate mortgages, again, as government policy. Also, all toxic assets could be isolated (in a "bad bank"), and asset price would not be an issue. In addition, high flyers would be out on their behinds--they should all be fired--and any who continued to work as managers would do so as government employees with their pay capped at $400,000.

A lot of posters on the Internet seem to think that the Fed is to blame for all our ills, and that we should get rid of it, but that's a little like saying that we should get rid of government because Bush made such a mess of it. We need the Fed more than ever: we need a flexible monetary system administered in a non-partisan fashion. Reforms are necessary, but abolition and the gold standard would be disastrous--money would be scarce and supply would be arbitrary.

Without the Fed, we'd have to create a government-run equivalent. The danger would be that it would be subject to political control and could be used by a President to single-handedly control monetary policy for political purposes. The current Fed is public/private, and chaired by a Presidential appointee whose term overlaps the presidential term on purpose: to remove him from direct political manipulation.

That former Fed Chair, Alan Greenspan, probably as much responsible for the current collapse as any single person, is suggesting temporary bank nationalization is huge. It's an admission that banks can't really manage in this crisis that they had such a large hand in creating. On the other hand, Greenspan suggests "temporary" because governments really aren't the best institutions for administering banks.

What should happen: the banks should be nationalized to carry us through this crisis, but then, instead of just restoring them to their former shape--after the taxpayers get repaid for any gains made--the big banks should be broken up (like Standard Oil in the early 1900's), so that not a single one is "too big to fail:" mismanaged banks could be allowed to go under.

Breaking up banks would also lessen the danger, once the economy is stabilized, that the selfish class would regain its power to destroy everyone else--by doing the same thing all over again.

Feb 18, 2009, A 17,000 Man Place-Marker to Afghanistan

Obama announced more troops to Afghanistan, but not as many as the military asked for. If the increase is to have "enough new troops to stem the violence without becoming an occupying force that would alienate the population," [AP: 2/18/09] then perhaps all is not lost.

I can understand why Obama has not preceded this small increase with the statement of goals and end-game that he promised: the situation in Afghanistan is dire and 10-17,000 more troops is not going to resolve it, but might stop the Taliban's progress long enough to put a more comprehensive strategy in place. Diplomacy and development, which Obama has touted as important parts to any solution to Afghanistan, will take a lot longer.

I'm not ready to go marching in the streets just yet (street demos had little effect on Bush; would they on Obama?), and I can appreciate Obama's dilemma: if he doesn't increase troops to respond to the Taliban offensive, more Americans will be killed and we could be driven out--on his watch, remember.

To me the 17000 looks like a minimal response, a place marker, necessary to gain the time for a positive, comprehensive strategic change. That's what I'm hoping for. Let's give Obama time, but also tell him what I've been saying in these pages for at least the last couple of months: If the US under Obama is committed to some kind of resolution in Afghanistan, then the best course would be the one Obama appears interested in pursuing: providing basic security for Afghans, and then diplomacy and development.

If, on the other hand, Obama decides to send more troops to pursue and kill the Taliban, then he will be no better than Bush in Iraq. In that case, the anti-war movement better start organizing street demonstrations to at least make people aware that the Peace President is pursuing more war.

While 17,000 additional soldiers and marines in Afghanistan may be necessary for the moment--they might even be necessary if the decision were to withdraw, given the resurgent Taliban--a long-term commitment to "winning" there would be disastrous, could actually sink Obama and his programs, and the US as a major power, could launch us in the direction of imperial collapse a la the USSR in the same stony location, and could pitch us into a decline more rapid than that of the Roman Empire outlined on this website.

If Obama comes off his review of options and says we're going to double or triple the number of troops there, then I'd be receptive to street demos. However, I favor scorching letters to editors, blogs and change.gov

Feb 17, 2009, Get The Bankers!

Can't make it on $500,000 a year? Try being homeless.

These guys, the bankers whose "technical expertise" got us into this mess, whose bad decisions made them hundreds of millions of dollars and drove the world into a depression that could become a Depression, these guys shouldn't be coddled, Secretary Geithner: they should be fired!

Their "expertise" is fungible, but their interest is only in ripping off the American taxpayer. Well, maybe not 'only,' but they are continuing to act as if they can do whatever they want, but now it's our money! They are, in effect, working for the American taxpayer.

CITI was handed over $50 billion, and guaranteed over $300 billion on its questionable assets, and will probably have to get bailed out again, yet the "leadership" is still in place, and even though the CEO has announced he'll only take $1 in pay until Uncle Sam is repaid, compensation for other bank officers is still excessive.

I don't care if they have high expenses: private schools and nannies, chauffeured limos, townhouses, houses in the Hamptons and Westchester as well as vacation condos, golf clubs, alimony, dinners in NYC, whatever. They'll just have to slim down--like the rest of us.

Any corporate officers who presided over creating, buying and selling assets that now pose huge credit risks to their institutions, ought to be fired. Maybe, since they were so "brilliant" in creating this "securitized" disaster, we should learn from Mao: they should be sent to "re-education" camps, prison camps where they would learn what is real, like shoveling horse manure, or splitting wood.

In the meantime, banks like CITI and Morgan Chase ought to be "intervened," i.e. taken over by the FDIC and split up into much more manageable sizes, banks that are small enough to fail if they are mismanaged.

We may face more pain before intervention and the changes necessary to financial leadership and structure happen, because the Obama administration is still trying to be "nice" to bankers. Barack apparently buys the argument that he needs their expertise; he has both Geithner and Sommers advising him to treat the bankers with kid gloves.

He should take the gloves off!

The financial "leaders" are members of a selfish class, like Roman Senators in the late Roman Empire; they have no conception of the common good; they think they're winning. Their co-conspirators are the obstructionist Republicans in Congress. Their leader: Rush Limbaugh. Rush said he hopes Obama fails.

If Obama fails, so does the nation, but Republicans don't seem to care! They just want to keep their marbles, like the Roman Senators who connived in the fall of Rome.

Feb 15, 2009, Home Relief?

I hope the Obama administration figures out what to do about mortgages pretty soon. Speculation is still rife, details vague.

I think Acorn's Home Defenders and other comparable direct actions, which embarrass banks into renegotiating mortgages, will build pressure for a real foreclosure relief, or Home Relief program.

Tim Geithner has to begin to understand that protecting bankers is not his job; it's saving the economy. The most direct way to do that, which a lot of progressives, including me, have written about, is to guarantee mortgages at present value, and make banks take the losses from the popped bubble; it was their fault. They promoted speculative bubbles for profit; they should swallow the losses.

Yeah, banks would lose a lot of money, but they'd see the market bottom, and then, having reached it without collapsing they would start to lend again (they have the money, just not the confidence, because of their toxic assets). Eating their losses, they would be less likely to ignite yet another popping bubble.

The banks know they're going to have to do things differently, because of the pressure and the general outrage. I think at this point, if Obama were willing to let the Republicans scream (unfortunately he's not there yet), that the best interim measure would be to nationalize the banks--just for the crisis.

A whole lot of things could change if Obama-Congress nationalized, even if temporarily. Nationalization may be necessary to get us out of the debt trap we've dug ourselves into. It doesn't seem as if coddling the bank execs that got us into this mess is working.

And if bank nationalization went some way towards reigniting credit markets, then the conservative bias against government action in the economy would be shown for what it is: advocacy for a class, not policy for the good of everyone.

The Congressional Republicans don't even represent a class: they represent a failed ideology promoted by investors and corporations for their self-interest. Everyone outside their small circle (and insular regions) knows that the policies derived from the ideology are precisely what got us to where we are today: they got us escalating debt (personal, state, corporate, federal, international: remember when we ran a surplus?); toxic assets; gaping holes in the safety net (contributed to by both Congressional Republicans and Clinton Democrats); astounding inequality, and vanishing demand fueled by fear that worse is yet to come.

And still, for stimulus, Republicans propose ONLY tax cuts, again mostly for business and the rich; they oppose government spending. It's as if they think Capitalism still works unaided!

Well, has it?

If Obama's interventions don't work, we'll all go down the tubes.

Feb 8, 2009, Direct Action!

What is a Home Defender? In response to the rising tide of foreclosures, they mobilize to stand in the way. Acorn has already successfully defended some foreclosed homes. When someone is about to be evicted from their home for foreclosure, Acorn wants to organize nationally, so it can bring a crowd of local people to protest an eviction; they would literally stand in the way of Sheriffs Deputies driving a family out of their home. They would work to gain local news coverage, too--publicity pressuring the foreclosing bank to negotiate. Then, Acorn home defender specialists would step in to help the family bargain with the bank for better mortgage terms, or at least to hold on until the Obama administration comes up with a solution.

That's the model, anyway: direct action by community organizers. Acorn has sent out a call for anyone in important housing disaster cities like LA, Oakland, Orlando, and secondary ones like Albany, NY. For those of us who don't live in these zones of disaster (just in major recession), we're to stand by--or donate--or possibly volunteer for training in the nearest hotspot.

This is a radical model, but it's the kind of direct action that has to start to happen: people doing for themselves, putting pressure on Congress to follow. We are facing a crisis, and Senators dither in Washington. Our President urges quick action.

Direct action like this could work; it will put pressure on the neck of the Senate for quick action. Some, moderate Republicans like Collins and Spector will finally act out of fear of the radicalism to come if they don't act now, or they'll realize that they better get on the train--mortgage reform, for example--or they'll soon be out of a job. Others, blue dog Democrats, perhaps, will act because they see where the wind blows.

MoveOn is also mobilizing, but its method is more traditional--groups in each Congressional district organized to have regular meetings with their Congress-person, so that they can share concerns.

And then there was Republic Windows and Doors. The workers occupied the vacated factory until they got a decent settlement with the company and Bank of America, aided not only by allied unions but by both the now-dismissed governor of Illinois, and Obama before his inaugural.

It's beginning to happen: people are mobilizing--what else do they have to do when they're unemployed and soon-to-be homeless. So far, nothing that has been done as far as rescue has changed the economy substantially--but people aren't waiting; they're taking their fate into their own hands. Politically, it's beginning to look like 1933.

That's a good sign.

Feb 5, 2009, Gates' "Plan" for Afghanistan

I'm glad to read that Gates' plan for Afghanistan is "limited." It will be easier to chuck it all.

I think what's really needed for Afghanistan is to provide basic security and massive development. But the NATO and US are probably incapable of providing the first (too few troops), so the second becomes impractical. You can't build girls schools, and roads and bridges, and expect to have any impact if the Taliban come along and blow them all up as soon as they're completed, or shoot up the construction sites before completion.

Perhaps what would be more practical would be to just get out and leave the Afghans to sort it all out, but there is one large problem: Pakistan has been infected by the sickness, which is George's fault. We need to help the Pakistanis resist the Islamists, rebuilding girls' schools that were blown up in Swat, for example, but going further.

Essentially what the West needs to do (Japan and China are included here) is to seduce the hill people in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, by providing means for them to join the West: radios, TV's, but also development that will improve their lives, so that they will reject the radical Islamic worldview.

If we just continue to blow up Pakistanis and Afghans, the millennial worldview of al Qaeda becomes more and more attractive. And as analysts have shown, foreign powers blowing up people doesn't make them more agreeable; it makes them more resistant--like the British being bombed by the Nazis in the Battle of Britain, or the Vietnamese by the US, or the Iraqis ditto. If we're not going to have adequate "boots on the ground" to provide even basic security, then we should just admit that it was a mistake and get the hell out.

Obama does face a problem in Afghanistan, though. If the Taliban re-establishes power in Afghanistan--not unlikely if we left--there would not be just a hostile government in the region (not a big deal), but an aggressive, revolutionary one that would push militant Islam in the region, as well as support Al Qaeda initiatives against the West.

The Taliban and AQ mindset is a bit like the Muslim militants who destroyed the aqueducts in North Africa in the 8th century: their goal was to send the region back to the darkest of dark ages, and it worked. Agriculture has still not fully revived there, the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. The Taliban are already exporting their reactionary "revolution" to Pakistan: blowing up girls' schools, forcing barbershops to close.

Pakistan is where we need to hold the line: with development aid and military training, not bombing.

Feb 1, 2009, Diplomacy? What's Obama Thinking!

There has been the "revelation that President Barack Obama's team is drafting a landmark letter to the Islamic Republic [Iran] aimed at thawing a three-decade freeze in relations." The Guardian UK, 1/29/09

What a bizarre concept: diplomacy, talking to, or offering to talk. It puts Iran's leadership into disarray--without a shot fired!

President Obama is onto something. He could try the same in Afghanistan, and even Pakistan--make overtures to the "militants" for them to come in out of the cold and talk--maybe, in the cases of Afghanistan and Pakistan, there could be inducements: cold hard cash: both countries desperately need development funds. With tangible development, support for militant politics would likely wane.

It sure would cost less than the war going on now, and a lot less than a war that could explode between India and Pakistan--from all of the tension, the episodic terror attacks on India and Pakistan's government, and our ongoing war across Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan.

In any case with Iran, Obama comes out ahead if Iran responds, and also if it doesn't, or gives a negative answer.

Iran can come out ahead if it offers a date for a top-level meeting, but if Iran's government is divided on whether to negotiate, and if nothing happens in terms of reconciliation, that will weaken their credibility at very least; it might strengthen reformers. It would be a lot harder to pump up the Teheran street on Hate America rhetoric if the American President has offered to talk on reasonable terms.

Reaching out first is at least an early attempt to undo the 55 years of a skewed relationship between the US and Iran. It probably won't produce effects immediately, because Ahmadinejad and company are the equivalent of right-wing Republicans in the US, xenophobic and inflexible (like the Republican minority in the House of Representatives that provided not a single vote for Obama's stimulus package). But this initiative could strengthen the equivalent of the Democrats in Iran, the reformist parties, people who are politically moderate and willing to consider the other side.

Nah! Talk when we could bomb? What ever is Obama thinking!

Note the likely response of the Israel lobby. It'll be as if the sky is falling, and Mitchell, Obama's Mideast envoy is not only considered reasonable, he's got Lebanese family relations!

Is this change? Would we be ready for peace in the Mideast? Would we even know what to do with it?

And what about al Qaeda? Osama bin Laden might find it hard to recruit followers if Obama keeps this up. What would we do if the "Terror" threat dribbled away to nothing? That's scary!

Jan 22, 2009, The Peace Corps To Afghanistan!

It's a bit like three-card Monte! Obama accelerates withdrawal from Iraq and then sends more troops to Afghanistan; we're hardly getting a break here.

It's absolutely the worst strategy for Afghanistan, where there is already widespread anger at foreign troops, who seem to be adept at killing civilians--or Afghan troops--and missing the Taliban/al Qaeda.

Afghanistan is a tribal country, which means that it is going to be hostile to foreign armies regardless of their reason for being there. Karzai is appealing to Afghans by demanding concessions from Americans and NATO, but he knows damn well he wouldn't stand a chance if they actually left the country.

The problem is, Afghanistan's government hardly exists outside Kabul, and anywhere it does exist it's one of the most corrupt and incompetent in the world. Enclaves actually governed are run as local fiefdoms by warlords who happen to be Governors, but who aren't really answerable to anyone. The warlords might or might not support the government against the Taliban, but certainly not outside their provinces.

What makes this more convoluted: our ally, Pakistan, has elements in its security apparatus (the ISI) that have supported the militants in order to keep India off-balance, perhaps to help "liberate" Kashmir and to counterbalance Indian influence in Afghanistan.

President Obama should not send in more troops. There is no military solution to this mess; adding more soldiers and marines will just increase civilian casualties, which will build support for whomever opposes the foreigners most forcefully--the Taliban, not Karzai.

Karzai's government might win if civilian deaths fell off enough that people felt safe again, because he successfully negotiated a favorable Status of Forces Agreement. But that's not going to happen with 30,000 more troops! Civilian deaths will go UP, and the Taliban will hide--just like Hamas in Gaza.

Gaza is an example of why more troops are a bad idea. Israel tried to eliminate Hamas by throwing a whole army into a tiny, over-populated enclave. Over a thousand civilians died, and yet Hamas still has the chutzpah to claim victory! Afghanistan has much more difficult terrain, is vastly larger, and Pashtuns are more likely than Palestinians to support their (Pashtun) brutes over even the most enlightened foreign military. Additionally, 30,000 troops is a drop in the bucket in a country the size of Afghanistan. More US/NATO military victories would mean killing more civilians. The Taliban would only have to survive, regroup and recruit to eventually triumph.

Send 30,000 development workers, instead, to build roads, wells, schools, etc. Obama should call for a new Afghan Peace Corps mission. That would be change we could believe in!

Jan 19, 2009 The Left Should "Get Over It."

It's obvious what Obama is saying. It's obvious also in the crowds we saw at the concert: multi-racial, multi-generational and joyous. Obama is saying: we're all in this together: the more people he can bring on board, from every point of view, the better. His other point: we are all Americans; we better get along, because we have a lot of damage to undo, a lot of work to be done.

I see comments on pieces in progressive forums, which still insist that Obama is the tool of financiers, who only "allowed" him to be elected, because they knew they could control him, or financed him (not true). Some of the comments even claim that all our money has been stolen by the Fed, since it is a private institution.

The Federal Reserve Bank is neither public nor private. It has private subscribers--banks--but also the Federal Government. Its chair and Board are appointed by the President with Senate approval, but its constitution was written to create terms that overlap government terms: Obama will be stuck with Bernanke until 2010, when he'll probably appoint someone not tarred with the housing collapse and a Bush appointment.

However, the Fed is almost beside the point. By Obama's nominations of former opponents, and even of Gates, a current Bush appointee, he has made it clear that he will welcome whatever he thinks will work, and will make a point of appealing for cooperation and support from the broadest spectrum of the American people. This position was manifested in Sunday's concert--black groups, white groups, mixed groups, even foreign groups performed, and Bishop Gene Robinson started it off.

My wise spouse made the title observation. The Left's anxiety that everything must be PC or it must oppose Obama is self-defeating and silly. For the first time since 1964, the Left has played a significant role in electing someone President, but he has to govern. To say and do all the things the Left would approve of would have lost Obama the election, and could lose him significant support that he (and we) need if he is to address the myriad problems we face as he takes office.

Obama's organization will muster momentum for his agenda, but he will need the broadest possible support, not leftist carping, to overcome the moneyed interests on taxes, the stimulus, EFCA and healthcare. The Left should graduate from high school and its sloganeering cliques.

Jan 18, 2009 Too Big to Fail: Too Big to Exist

On the other hand, the banks now are dangerous to the economic system, as shown by the credit debacle--and to the political system. What, we can now re-negotiate mortgage terms because Citi is backing down from its opposition to renegotiation? This demonstrates how toxic it is to democracy, too. If Citi, JP Morgan and others could stand in the way of Congress finding a reasonable solution to the mortgage crises many people face, then clearly they have way too much power.

So, for both economic and political reasons, now is the time to begin a wholesale reform of the financial system. The idea of "too big to fail" needs to be transformed into "too big to exist." Banks (and other corporations) that are so big they threaten the whole economy and can lean on Congress to get what they want, or prevent what they don't want, ought to be split up into more manageable size. Then, failing institutions should be allowed to fail, but their failure wouldn't destroy the economy, it would strengthen it.

If an institution needs to be that large in order to survive international competition, then it should be nationalized. It should not remain a private entity.

Instead, what the Bush Treasury and DOJ has done has been to encourage mergers, so that institutions have gotten even bigger with the financial crash; Paulson has even been helped banks buy up failing firms, which makes them even bigger, and more vulnerable, and even more prone to being "too big to fail." Arguments about being "big enough" to compete internationally ought to be treated with large doses of salt.

Here's hoping that Obama's Anti-trust Division gets back its teeth, and goes after all these "too big to fail" corporations. The break up of Standard Oil and AT&T ain't nothin' compared to what we need now.

Time to stop the Selfish Class, the equivalent of Roman Senators, from controlling this country: they've done enough damage.

Jan 14, 2009 Where is That Movement?

And we are in a "depression," not a recession. I wouldn't put capitals on it yet, in part because it looks like Obama and the new Congress have a better idea of how to cope with a depression, and we know a lot more about them than FDR did in 1933.

But FDR's presidency was transformational. Change with Obama might be less dramatic, in part because there is no militant labor, or civil rights movement, no marching generation at all, at least so far. If Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment proposal works the way he claimed it would, then there may be no need for marchers, especially since Obama, himself, is a natural peacemaker.

There was an anti-war movement that might have offered the kind of energy that labor and civil rights movements provided for both FDR and LBJ, but anti-war energy has been pretty much diffused, in part because Obama was an important figure in that movement--even if he now has to deal with the real world as in 'how the f-- do I get them out of there?'

Other than anti-war, there was the immigrant rights movement. It could gain the kind of energy that drove the Second New Deal (after 1935), if it could broaden its appeal. If labor and civil rights, African-American and progressive groups joined, for real reform, that would galvanize a lot of people. But immigration reform is less likely in a depression, and I wonder if that movement didn't peak in about 2006, when Bush promoted immigration "reform." When it failed in Congress, that's when the big demonstrations stopped.

MoveOn, Daily Kos, Obama-istas, none are driven by the kind of energy that drove workers into sit-down strikes, or blacks into lunch counter sit-ins, either. I just came from a MoveOn meeting with a representative of our Representative. We stated our case, and the representative said, "Well, you know, the Congresswoman has been talking about green jobs for the last few years; of course she's with you on this."

But that's just grassroots lobbying, one issue at a time. Not a movement.

Where is that Movement?

Well, let's hope grass-roots lobbying will have some effect, at least. We're like community organizers of each other, in order to counteract THE MONEY. Think about that. MoveOn versus The Roman Senators of the 21st Century. Stay tuned.

Jan 8, 2009 Panetta For Change?

"Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise." "We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that."

What's clearer than that? The Obama team's search also demonstrated how compromised the whole Intelligence business has been for years: they couldn't find a professional who had not in some way signed on to torture.

Panetta is someone anyone to the left of Attila the Hun should applaud: he's got the smarts and political savvy and the administrative expertise to take on the Agency from the outside (like Poppa Bush).

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An aside about Attila: I wrote a fictional "autobiography" of his, which led me to research fifth century Rome, revealing to me the parallels to our own day: memorialized in this website. The novel is available free, here, for a limited time as a pdf file.

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Some conservatives, and intelligence professionals are shocked by Panetta's nomination, but intelligence has been too politicized--by professionals. Panetta, having been Clinton's Chief of Staff and sitting in on his daily briefings for years, has enough knowledge of the intelligence world to know where the skeletons lie. Ironically, a politician is needed to take intelligence out of politics.

If we must have intelligence--I wish we didn't--it must be objective if it is to serve its purpose; politicized intelligence got us into Iraq. But intelligence can be a force for peace; I should know. I was trained for months at the "super-secret" NSA in Maryland, and was an "analyst" in the Army Security Agency almost a generation ago. I helped monitor Soviet missile tests from Turkey, fulfilling international treaty provisions. I also interviewed with the CIA, after I had earned a Ph.D and was teaching. The Agency was intrigued by my intelligence background and by my training in South Asia, and wanted me as a researcher. "We can have any material you want, on your desk in 24 hours," the interviewer boasted. But he kept on nervously looking over his shoulder (there was no one there!), making me realize: the Agency was no place for me.

Still, we do need objective intelligence, and Obama's pick demonstrates his willingness to buck the intelligence establishment to get it. Senator Feinstein get over it; we don't want the CIA to become like Pakistan's ISI, a government within a government.

Maybe we really will have change we can believe in!

Jan 5, 2009 Gaza's Catch 22

The Israelis hope that either they can destroy Hamas's military capability, or its popularity. Hamas hopes it can humiliate the Israelis, or force them to stop their attacks first, thereby proving Hamas is more macho--really it's at that level.

Meanwhile, the Gazans support for Hamas had been slipping, but has now rebounded; what do Israelis expect? Hamas is Gaza's elected government and the Israelis are trying to destroy it, without worrying overmuch about how many innocent civilians they also destroy.

About the only way to put a stop to this whole madness would be for the world to withhold trade and aid to both sides. Since this won't happen--US support of Israel appears open-ended on the part of both Bush and Obama, while Syrian and Iranian support will continue to sustain Hamas--and Gazans will continue to get blown up.

Israel might have to do a lot of destroying before Hamas will fade away. But if Hamas does, it will come back stronger underground, and popular support will sustain it through many more suicide bombings and random rocket attacks.

Meanwhile, the extremely unpopular Israeli government gains support from its disproportionate response; nobody likes to see rockets occasionally, randomly, falling from the sky, even more occasionally blowing up people. So, their government is "doing something," even if it's totally counterproductive.

In other words, the incentives for either side to back down are close to zero--unless the whole world sits on both of them to make them stop. That's not going to happen, either. The UN will be constrained by Russia and China, at least, and neither the US nor NATO has the capacity or the stomach to intervene directly.

So, what's the most likely scenario? We can hope that eventually both sides will get tired of this whole deadly dance, and then some diplomatic initiative from Arab and western powers together might be able to induce both sides to stop--simultaneously--and then international peacekeepers could keep them apart.

It's a pity that humans are capable of this kind of stupidity, but we are, over and over again. In this case the impotence of the US demonstrates how far we have come from the short time ago (2000) when there was consensus that the US was the unrivalled superpower that would keep the world safe from its idiocies. The American Empire seems to have flown into the void--along with all those trillions of lost dollars from the economic collapse.