In a new low even for credit cards, Visa weasels its way onto the Game of Life (remember that Hasbro game with the "wheel of life" that you spin to move around the board?) A plastic credit card will now replace cash in a move that hearkens to Joe Camel. Talk about growing up too fast - according to industry it seems children are never too young to smoke OR to start building up credit card debt!
[NOTE from Larry C Johnson: I have been pressing Brent to write on this issue for several weeks and he has kindly obliged. The actual title of his article is: The CIA Leak Case And The Truth That Keeps Us Free. Much more professional and high-minded, which is typical of Brent. Hopefully this will put to bed the canard that Victoria Toensing is some kind of qualified expert on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Bullocks.]
The CIA Leak Case And The Truth That Keeps Us Free
by Brent Budowsky
The CIA Leak case embodies all that has gone wrong with American national security policy, the war in Iraq, and America's role in the world during the Presidency of George W. Bush.
I began working on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act shortly after CIA station chief Richard Welch was murdered in Greece when his identity was disclosed. The orginal sponsor was my boss Senator Lloyd Bentsen, who I worked very closely with over many years on this matter, along with representatives of CIA management, legal counsel, public affairs and representatives of clandestine services in extensive meetings to develop legislation to best protect those who serve our country covertly.
This just in--Speaker Pelosi's office sent out a press release this morning announcing that she will address the Israeli Knesset this Sunday. Pelosi will be in Israel leading a bipartisan congressional delegation and she will also meet with Palestinian President Abu Mazen. This is striking for several reasons, the most important of which is that President Bush has yet to step foot on Israeli soil as the President of the United States. He did so when he was Governor of Texas.
Pelosi's appearance in Israel --and President Bush's non-appearance, is yet another example of how lax this Administration has been in dealing with the Israel/Palestine issue...
This has been a disappointing week for those of us who believe that continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens the survival of Israel, American interests in the Middle East, and the ability of the Palestinian people to achieve an independent state.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the region, and her meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, did not achieve everything she wanted.
As the son of a community organizer and now a reporter who covers organizing, I've been following Marshall and Heather's dialogue with interest. They both zero on the question of why it is that there has been this resurgence in organizing over the last few years. It's a resurgence I've been covering, and every time I call around to my sources, I always hear the same thing: "This is different; it hasn't been like this before."
I’m a huge fan of Glenn Greenwald, but his interesting dissection of David Brooks’ column today, in which Brooks co-opts the Jacob Hacker/Mark Schmitt mantra “security leads to freedom” [or opportunity, in the parlance of our guys], doesn’t fully capture why movement conservatism is imploding under Bush. Glenn, paraphrasing Brooks, argues that the right's belief system has inverted from restraining government power in order to maximize freedom into "expanded government power on every front." Glenn’s emphasis on authoritarianism in foreign affairs and matters in which civil liberties are at stake certainly leads logically to that conclusion [and allow me to plug a newly published collection of essays by people like Gary Hart, David Cole, Alan Brinkley, and John Podesta, titled Liberty Under Attack, affirming that view].
But in many other realms of domestic policy, the Bush administration’s actions have been completely consistent with movement conservatism’s longstanding agenda to dismantle, or at least weaken, government. That’s what the tax cuts have done, yet again. That’s what Social Security privatization would have done. The politicization of virtually every government agency -- diverting them from missions like responding effectively to hurricanes, enforcing environmental and public health safeguards, and implementing voting laws – is entirely consistent with the Goldwater/Reagan heritage. So, too, the evisceration of the regulatory system generally, led by John Graham. Health savings accounts are nothing more than a diversionary tactic to buy time in staving off real health care reform – which would indeed require more government.
Terry Gross and I talked about credit cards on Fresh Air yesterday.
For TG fans, this might be fun. For those who worry about credit cards and American families, it might be depressing. Even so, I don't know what to do except keep on talking.
In my friend Heather's telling of the story of the last 30 years, most of the problems progressives faced seem to have been due to "objective conditions" whereas most of our successes resulted from choices we made. I'm concerned that this perspective may keep us from learning key lessons - perhaps our most important lessons - from what we got wrong as well as what we got right.
It’s inspiring to read Marshall’s contribution—it’s sweep through history from de Tocqueville to Alinsky is breathtaking; his optimism about the hope for a Democratic Renewal is inspiring. May it be true (and I also think it is). He ends by addressing, “what has changed that may be giving organizing a new lease on life, especially in electoral politics?” and suggests four reasons:
All this is true. And more. So for this commentary, I’ll note a few other things that are part of the flowering (explosion?) of organizing and where it leads with a democratic promise—in other words, can we win for progressive change?
The meeting of Arab states in Saudi Arabia is an historic moment that must not be dismissed by the U.S. or Israel, yet due to the weak leadership in America and in Israel today, it just might be.
When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat came to Israel, he showed the Israelis that there was someone with whom they could talk, who would recognize their status as a nation in the region. Now, the Saudis, in their own way, are doing the same, along with the slim, but still hopeful, chance that there could be a resolution to the Israeli/Palestininian conflict. But, the leadership in Israel, under Ehud Olmert, is the weakest --and perhaps most corrupt--in Israel's history. And with a White House under seige, it's difficult to see what Condi Rice can pull off without extra reinforcement from President Bush himself. yet, the stakes couldn't be higher--for the U.S., for stability in the region, and for Israel and the Palestinians.
The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) released a report yesterday demonstrating that subprime lending decreases homeownership. Their study found that only 9% of subprime loans are extended to first-time buyers, while 15% of all subprime loans end in foreclosure. This finding undermines claims that, whatever its faults, subprime lending allows more Americans to own homes.
Mike Calhoun, the president of CRL, testified before the House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit yesterday. His line of the day: "Homeownership has been thwarted rather than supported. There's a difference between increasing access to home loans and expanding home ownership."
I really appreciate Marshall Ganz highlighting the importance of civic organizing and, particularly, introducng Saul Alinsky to new folks, since Alinsky was an early bible for me when I first became a political activist twenty years ago.
I do think Alinsky himself might not fully recognize himself in the context of Ganz's invocations of Tocquevillian community-- I mean, Alinsky was the man who gloried in tales of threatening to organize a "shit-in" where poor Chicagoans would protest neglect by taking over all the toilets at O'Hare airport.
Alinsky was not about the virtue of community, but the assertion of the pragmatic power that even the disgarded and poor could wield.
I applaud John McCain for serving his country in Vietnam. I commend his bravery and strength for enduring captivity. But just because you get shot down over Vietnam by a Soviet missile does not mean you are entitled to your own fantasy world in Iraq. He has become the Jack Nicholson character in the The Shining. What hallucinogens is this guy on?
If you missed McCain's performance on Bill Bennett's radio show and Wolf Blitzer's the Situation Room it is must hear radio and must see TV. McCain repeatedly made the following laughable, outrageous claim:
Now that the subprime market is imploding, it seems that better regulation a few years ago would have saved us. Even market stalwarts such as Larry Summers concede that the market didn't provide enough discipline to prevent lenders from pushing lousing loans. But the no-regulation crowd isn't giving up. Summers, for example, says that the answer to the current crisis is not to regulate because that's just the generals fighting the last war.
A regulatory moment comes around rarely, but one is nearly upon us. Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank are pushing hard on the lack of regulatory oversight of subprime lending, and folks on both sides of the aisle are beginning to ask the regulators and business people some tough questions.
But the no-regulation crowd hasn't given up. They want non-regulation in response to the crisis precipitated by non-regulation.
Last week, I posted about a new report from the Center for American Progress laying out potential ways the federal government should respond to the subprime mortgage meltdown. Today, I attended a hearing in Massachusetts to learn more about how officials are tackling these issues on a state level.
I’ve been delving into the case for public investment. One thing I tried was reading a leading text in development economics by Parkins, Radelet and Lindauer. This book alternately bored and annoyed me. The authors are at some pains to distinguish themselves from a traditional and prevalent view that they dub “capital fundamentalism.” I don’t think they succeed. The whole dismal story looks like yet another effort to push everything through the meat-grinder of conventional theory.
There are few things more vital. As Robert Lucas said, “I do not see how one can look at figures like these without seeing them representing possibilities. Is there some action a government of India could take that would lead the Indian economy to grow like Indonesia's or Egypt's? If so, what exactly? If not, what is it about the "nature of India" that makes it so? The consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.”
“Democracy is based on the promise that equality of voice can balance inequality of resources.” Prof. Sidney Verba, Harvard University, 1993.
"In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835.
In 1831, French aristocrat Alexis De Tocqueville came to America to study our penal system, but used the opportunity to investigate American democracy. He worried that political equality could so erode social relationships rooted in family, church, and guild that citizenship would turn into a series of arid exchanges between isolated individuals and a powerful state. That individualism uncurbed by claims of community, could not sustain a healthy polity in which the common good would receive its due.
But what he found was a vibrant society, sustained by civic associations. Modeled on parties organized to contest political power, the art of association had reached into all realms of public life. Associations had become the great “free schools” in which citizens learned the “habits of the heart” that made their new democracy work – an understanding of self-interest linked to the interests of others and thus requiring active collaboration in pursuit of common goods. When scale was required, collaboration was also modeled on parties – and government itself – that organized across locality, state, and nation as a self-governing three tiered representative associations.
We'll have a first post from Marshall Ganz on the rise of the "organizer" later today (apologies for the delay). In the meantime, the floor is yours.
Some folks have noted that the prosecutors scandal means that the plan to push Gonzales onto the Supreme Court has been undone. But what's incredible is that this corrupt guy was ever even under consideration. Partially, he owed his theoretical viability to the idea that he was more liberal than other people Bush might appoint.
But I take a certain perverse satisfaction in long hating Gonzales as embodying the corruption that would be the Bush administration. From a Common Dreams piece I wrote in December 2000:
it is shocking that he would appoint as White House Counsel a man embroiled in controversy for taking contributions from Bush's Vice President's firm and favoring that company in judicial decisions. Bush has a history of using the courts to favor his corporate supporters and the appointment of Gonzales shows that he has no attention of abandoning that tradition he established in Texas.
Gideon Levy is one of the most respected journalists in Israel.
That is why his column in today's Ha'aretz deserves to be read, whether you accept his premise or not. His premise is that Middle East negotiations will go nowhere unless the United States, the UN and the EU start dealing with Hamas.
Here's the piece.
As relevant today as it was then, this op-ed I coauthored with Shibley Telhami appeared in the Christian Science Monitor in June of 2002.
As violence in the Middle East continues, hopes for a settlement have been further dimmed by an alarming polarization. Palestinians and Israelis have returned to the language of maximal demands, and to pointing fingers at all that has gone before. This trend can only make peace more elusive.
For now, we say, seek peace, not historical judgment. Far too much public discourse focuses on who is to blame - and by implication, who should carry the main burden of ending hostilities and settling the conflict.
This week at TPMCafe we'll host a conversation about the rise of the "organizer" in Democratic politics. The Dean campaign and the Netroots, the sudden prominence of the legendary Saul Alinsky, and ongoing conversation about infrastructure and the "50 state strategy." All of it points to a growing small d democratic trend in the big D Democratic Party.
Starting things off will be Marshall Ganz.
What I heard from some camps in response to Mommy Wars -- the anthology I published last year presenting 26 different women's views on juggling work and motherhood -- was the criticism that whiny, white, overprivileged moms were too spoiled by all of our "choices" and that the real problems in this country exist only for working class women.
I have the following letter in this morning's Times, "The Toll of War:
To the Editor:
In “Renewed Interest in Japanese Who Died in Epic Battle” (Iwo Jima Journal, March 19), you say, “Japan is not alone in struggling with how to remember a war that it lost, and those who died in it." You add, by way of analogy, “During the Vietnam era in the United States, many soldiers came home to indifference and ridicule, and there was an emotional debate over the erection of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.”
But this omits another eerie parallel between the Japanese and American experiences: the refusal to formally recognize the damage done by the home armed forces to others, including civilians.
One of the most effective tactics my 11-year twins have is to tell me that whatever activity I have proposed is boring. Once that word is vocalized, it’s pretty hopeless to try to explain why, say, taking a walk in the woods, or bowling, or whatever the hell else Daddy thinks might be fun, isn’t boring. God knows I’ve tried to make my case in such instances, to great personal embarrassment but little effect. Once someone says something’s boring, it is, in fact, a snore.
So now there’s been one of those weekend DeLong-Klein-Yglesias exchanges about Time mag superwonk Karen Tumulty’s complaint that the Dem candidates’ health care discussion was, sigh, boring. Even Matt Y. thinks so – this from a guy who can get all pumped at the mention of any generic obscure philosopher. And Ezra kind of feels the same way, though he’s embracing health care wonkery’s boringness given his own preoccupation with the subject. But wake up!: movement conservatives love it when journalists describe any discussion of public policy issues as boring...
The story needs to be read in the context of revelations earlier this month about the lobbying that deleted the language from the supplemental Iraq war funding bill that would have required the President to consult Congress before attacking Iraq.
Ironically some of the same Democrats who threatened to oppose Pelosi's bill as being too soft on Iraq are the self-same Dems who wanted to preserve Bush's prerogative to unilaterally attack Iran.
People keep proposing to change the paid workplace to make it easier for women to do both mothering and waged labor. It all sounds so appealing – months of paid maternity leave, part time work with full benefits. America’s current maternal policies are like something from an obscure third world country. Lesotho. Totally missing from the happy discussion is the cost. Not to the employers, the cost to the women. The work/family story is not a tale of one workplace. It is the tale of two workplaces.
Imagine a young woman, let us call her Betty.
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