Madden is doing the play by play again on NBC while I await SNL. Its in the seventy fifth overtime or something.  I gave up on football after the Vikings made it to the super bowl for the fourth time and lost.  But I would be wooed back to watch Madden.

Two great Generals recently described Feith as the single dumbest m....t.....f  cker they had ever met. As far as football goes, they never met Madden by others.

Madden will use some computer squiggle and diagram plays for you.  He will x out the entire goal area and tell you that this is where the offense has to go, or they will get no points.
He will show you how a defense might keep you from getting a first down by not letting you move the ball down field.

If you have a three year old boy, Madden is fun to watch.  Although the three year old will, from time to time, point out how repetitive Madden is. But the boy will not be lost as far as the game is progressing and neither will your dog.

While watching this football tie progress, I thought of w.

Stewart has oftimes chided w for talking to his constituents like they were three year olds.
Naturally that is because Stewart has a three year old and he will even admit that is one of the many reasons his show works.

But w has said things like 'I am the Decider". Or 'America is the best place to live.' Or
'we are at war with terrrrrrrrrists.'

Now everyone knows that we live in a nice place. 

But a war on terrorism is a ridiculous mantra.  Terrorism will always be with us. Terrorism was with us when Cain hit Abel over the head with a rock when Abel's back was turned.

Terrorism was with us when Alcibides would change sides during the Peloponesian Wars and be paid as a military advisor. He did not even need monies from MSNBC.

Terrorism was with us when Caesar invaded Gaul.  Pick which side you  feel were the real terrorists. 

Ghengis Kahn and his brother Don kept on keepin on and terrorized all of Asia.

Ghengis' grandson appears to have been a civilized ruler but even he had to keep a sharp eye toward the terrorist.

Dicky and w keep telling us that we can have our constitutional rights restored as soon as the War on Terrror has been won by the good people. 

w has told us that he has political capital and he wants to spend it.  He pretends that prestige is like a bank account.  And now he will spend that capital, so to speak.

All w has needed over the last eight years was a magic marker and a board so he could splain what was happening in this country.

Do you realize that only Stewart attacked this idiot on this point?  Where was Gregory?
Why did he never stand up at a press conference and inquire "Why cannot the President to us like we are adults?"

"Why does the President talk to us like we are the first graders at his reading lecture on 9/11/01?"

Why did Gregory not object or at least make an inquiry?

Harry never spoke to us like that.  Ike never spoke to us like that.  JFK never spoke to anyone like that. Ask Caroline.

LBJ would never have thought that he would get away with that type of speech.

Nixon seems like Diogenes compared to this idiot that we are still forced to call Commander in Chief.

Clinton did not lie to us like that.  He did not say, 'I did not have coochy coo with that
woman."

We let this son of a bitch speak to us like we were unread. Like we were ill educated.  Like we were w. 

I am the decider.  WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?

If Gregory would have once, just once, stood up and said WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?  we might have had a different history.

I despise w.  But I really despise Gregory.  The man who loved to dance with Rove.

AND GREGORY GETS TO HOST MEET THE PRESS.

During this new year, why do we not all send emails to NBC and tell them what a horse's ass Gregory really is.

Amnesty International is asking people to join in sending the following letter to Secretary Rice. If you want to send a copy, just visit the AI web site.  ___________________________________

 

Secretary Condoleezza Rice

Amnesty International USA is deeply concerned about the escalation of human rights abuses following the series of Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip that began on December 27th. Since the beginning of the offensive, some 390 Palestinians have been killed, including scores of unarmed civilians, including some 62 women and children. Some 1,900 Palestinians have also been injured.

Amnesty International is also concerned about the rocket fire by armed Palestinian groups including Hamas. These attacks are against international law and have killed four Israelis and injured scores more.

But Amnesty International USA is particularly dismayed at the lopsided response by the US government to the recent violence and its lackadaisical efforts to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Amnesty International, as indeed other human rights and humanitarian organizations, is concerned about attacks directed at or resulting in harm to unarmed civilians. We expect the US government to share this concern for all unarmed civilians, be they Israeli or Palestinians, who are caught in this conflict, and we urge the US government to spare no effort to pressure all sides in the conflict to immediately cease indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks which cause civilians fatalities and casualties.

Without diminishing the responsibility of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for indiscriminate and deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians, the US government must not ignore Israel's disproportionate response and the longstanding policies which have brought the Gaza Strip to the brink of humanitarian disaster. While Israel has the right and the duty to protect its citizens, it must do so in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law. International law takes security concerns into consideration and allows states to use reasonable means to confront legitimate threats. However, operations must be strictly necessary, proportionate and make every effort to discriminate between combatant and civilian. The least intrusive means must be selected to confront the threat.

In its latest bombing campaign, Israel is completely failing to meet these requirements under international law. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. The attacks also come at a time when the civilian population already faces a daily struggle for survival. According to reports authored by Amnesty International, UN aid agencies, OXFAM, CARE, and several other organizations, the humanitarian crisis is at an all-time high level and is now worse that it has ever been since the 1967 Israeli military occupation. Rising unemployment, crippling prices of food and basic supplies, and inadequate medical facilities have created a man-made disaster. According to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, "The civilian population, the fabric of Gaza, the future of the peace process, stability in the region, and goodwill among people throughout the world: all are trapped between the irresponsibility displayed in the indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas militants and the disproportionality of the continuing Israeli military operation."

At present there is an urgent need for access to humanitarian aid, food and essential supplies - as both aid agencies and residents of Gaza have long ago run out of provision reserves due to the Israeli blockade which has so restricted the flow of goods into Gaza for months. The quantities which the Israeli army has allowed into Gaza in recent days are nowhere near what is necessary to meet the basic needs of the population of 1.5 million.

AIUSA is further concerned that weaponry and military equipment supplied to Israel by the US (or developed with US military assistance) have also been used in the recent Israeli strikes against densely populated civilian residential areas of Gaza, resulting in scores of unarmed civilians fatalities and hundreds of casualties, in violation of US law. The U.S. Arms Export Control Act of 1976 requires governments that receive weapons from the United States use them only for legitimate self-defense.

The U.S. government can play an important role in ending this crisis by strongly condemning unlawful attacks by both Hamas and Israel which indiscriminately and/or disproportionately kill and injure civilians.

The U.S. must also take an active role in reversing the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza by exerting pressure on Israel to open the crossings into Gaza to allow adequate quantities of humanitarian aid into the strip - including food, water, medicine and fuel. Humanitarian and human rights workers as well as media must be allowed to enter to aid in the recovery and to serve as neutral, third party observers. Israel must also grant the wounded access to hospitals in Israel and to Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.

The United States should also take steps to insist that the Egyptian authorities open Egyptian hospitals to those in need of medical care which is not available in Gaza and ask that Egypt guarantees that its border guards do not resort to excessive use of force against those fleeing the bombing. Hamas must also ensure that its security forces and militias do not, under any circumstances, hinder or prevent the passage of the wounded or others patients trying to leave Gaza.

Finally, it is vital that the United States suspend the transfer of weapons to Israel immediately and conduct an investigation into whether U.S. weapons were used to commit human rights abuses.

Thank you for your consideration of the above concerns and recommendations.

Sincerely

I just wrote a book review/editorial on Amazon.com of the military manual, Counterinsurgency Warfare; Theory and Practice, by David Galula, with a forward by General David Petraeus [pictured at left]. Lacking other more significant resources, the book review/editorial is my heartfelt attempt to help support the suffering Palestinian civilians of the Gaza. I've also posted it to my FaceBook site. The review follows:

If Israel would employ this strategy [detailed in the book] in dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah, I am convinced they would be able to achieve a lasting peace with the Palestinians. The ultimate goal of an effective counterinsurgency is to win the hearts and minds of the people themselves -- to establish yourself as the protector of the people in turning the tide against terrorism and the urban guerrillas who exploit the civilian population and endanger their lives and well being by hiding among them.

General David Petraeus has already offered his expertise to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and has toured the Middle East, visiting Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians themselves. Indeed, Petraeus is the world's foremost expert actively working in the field of counterinsurgency technology [which includes law enforcement technology] and wrote the forward to the latest edition of this classic. He now uses it to train the American military and its principles became the foundation of "The Surge" in Iraq, which has miraculously begun to achieve stability there despite initial doubts expressed by Petraeus himself that it was already too late to win in Iraq after Rumsfeld's brutal policies radicalized the entire region and turned the civilian population against "The Great American Satan."

Currently, the IDF is conducting the same conventional military strategy in The Gaza that hopes to render short-term gains against the Hamas insurgents but will eventually set the Israelis up for the continued long-term struggle that has been the hallmark of their relationship with the Palestinians.

Rumsfeld's strategy in destroying Fallujah twice over with air strikes and heavy artillery is the classic example of this self-defeating brutality. Israel's debacle in South Lebanon in 2006 is another. They laid cluster bombs in carpeted attacks attempting to clear out the population of South Lebanon and thus create a safe zone wherein there would be no civilian population among whom Hezbollah could hide. The strategy was a humanitarian and political disaster. Mossad-trained Georgian troops recently unsuccessfully employed such brutality in South Ossetia, attempting to roll-up the civilian population and send them northward into exile in Russia and then following-up with bulldozers to destroy South Ossetian habitations in order to discourage their return -- just as they did in South Lebanon and in the West Bank. The Russian military intervened but was much more humane in her treatment of Georgia, leaving egg on the faces of the CIA and the Bush Administration who sponsored the debacle in an overreaching attempt to secure the oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian at Baku to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

The fact that Israel refuses to deploy the more functional and civilian friendly counterinsurgency suggested by Galula and Petraeus can only indicate one tragic conclusion -- that Israel intends to hang onto a quixotic and archaic strategy of expansionism against the native Palestinians, institutionalized in the early 50s by the government of David Ben-Gurion and maintained to this day. The strategy is grounded in early 20th century Zionism with a grandiose but painfully understandable goal, given the tragic history of the Jews throughout European history, of recreating the ancient Davidic Kingdom of a "Greater Israel" beyond the current piecemeal boundaries they've achieved in establishing a Jewish homeland. Despite their idealism, the continued stubborn use of this strategy by Israel has led to polarization and radicalization of the native populations in the Middle East, resulting in the stridently Jihadist Islamism we see today taking over the region.

The United States alone has the influence and responsibility to insist this effective counterinsurgency strategy upon Israel in the interest of a lasting peace in the region. Again, its hallmark is its overall goal of winning the hearts and minds of the people themselves, winning friends and influencing enemies. Yet, American politicians continue to speak of "surges" in conventional military terms without having a clue about what they speak. The American people, who overwhelmingly support Israel's right of statehood, are even more disinformed.

This book should be read by every member of Congress, by Obama's new Chief-of-Staff and dual citizen Rham Emmanuel, by his National Security Adviser General James L. Jones, by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by Barack Obama and Joseph Biden themselves and by every member of the Israel Lobby who are so obsessed with the security of Israel that they don't see the solution under their noses.

Today I noticed repeated Hyundai advertisements on TV promising that if you happened to lose your income, you could return your new Hyundai and “walk away.” I’ve got to give them some credit because fear of losing my job is at least part of why I am reluctant to buy a car right now. But what could be more futile than walking away from a car after absorbing the initial depreciation and making a few payments towards interest?

Hyundai’s website calls their vehicle return program Assurance: Certainty in Uncertain Times.

They do promise to cover up to $7,500 in negative equity. But the small print lays out a more complicated transaction than simply returning the car. You must file a benefit request, which must be approved, and you must pay the difference between the dealer’s determination of the car’s value and something called the Assurance benefit. IOW, if you’re having trouble making payments, you’re probably going to get stuck paying more than just one payment to walk away from the car.

The program may be better than being stuck with the car payments, but it isn’t enough to bring me into the showroom.

The word Assurance reminded me of the Monty Python short, The Crimson Permanent Assurance, which you can enjoy here:

Part One

Part Two

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I admit that I'm writing about something I know next to nothing about, but I have to believe that one of the main reasons that the Israelis have done this now is that in 18 days, knee-jerk approval of any military action in the Middle East will not likely be one of the hallmarks of US foreign policy.  And by then, what is done will be done.

The Minnesota Elections Canvassing Board has finished counting all remaining ballots in the Senate race - and Al Franken has ADDED To his former 50-vote lead - reaching a margin that is more than any remaining COleman dispute can hope to erase.

Here I go... about to be pushed off a cliff, (or to fall through the cracks).  I'm about to forgo the safety net of health care insurance due to a pre-existing medical condition that has made obtaining a affordable version impossible.  More on that later.

First let's get some facts on the table. 

Our multi-payer privatized health care insurance 'system' wasn't designed to provide coverage for all of us.  In fact, it wasn't 'designed' at all.

The US is the only major wealthy developed country without a public health insurance program for all of its citizens.

The lack of a national health care system is the domestic economic factor with the largest negative impact on our national budget and one of the few portions of that budget that can be modified to produce significant budgetary savings.  Designing a new health care system, passing the necessary legislation, and implementing such a system won't be straightforward, but the cost of delay will far outweigh the effort spent accomplishing these goals.  

Our health care costs in 2005 accounted for 15.3 % of our GDP.   In Canada it's 9.8 , Britain 8.3 , Japan 8.0 , Germany 10.7 .  Switzerland comes closest to the US with health care costs comprising 11.6% of its GDP.   Frontline, a PBS investigative journal compares the costs and services of the health care system of the US unfavorably with five other major capitalist democracies here.

The rate at which our healthcare expenditures are increasing is greater than any other OECD country.  At the current rate of growth, healthcare will eat up 20% of our GDP by 2016.   

We must enjoy some benefits for all that extra money, yes?  Actually, no, we don't.  We do however have higher infant mortality and lower life expectancy to name two things.  You can go here if you think that the extra 5+% we pay for health care isn't significant.  If you still aren't impressed, you probably work in the insurance or pharmaceutical industries and can go here*. 

*Note:  Italicized links in this post are to humorous and/or musical sites, therefore ignore, or open in separate window as you may be so inclined.

Authorizing a universal single payer health care system would be good for stimulating job growth and the economy in general. The cost of employee health benefits is as out of control as the nations.  By reducing the costs of the system and direct costs to employers, there is less of a downside for businesses expanding or maintaining their work force. 

One of the most important steps we can take as a nation is to initiate a single payer health care system.  Part of the difference between our healthcare costs and those other countries is what the private insurance companies would call profit.  A single payer national healthcare system is not run with the object of making a profit.  Such a system is managed in order to control the overall costs of medical care for the national population.

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To see so many otherwise seemingly reasonable people here at a mainstream Left site supporting what Israel is doing now, squabbling over tactics at most, is sickening.  Josh himself, has no comment other than to note, "Israeli troops enter Gaza."  Ho-hum. 

Really, folks, what do you think the solution is for those pesky Palestinians Israel long ago decided to lord over?  

A one-state solution will never fly, as that would upset the carefully constructed Jewish demographic majority and give lie to the "only democracy in the middle east" bullshit.  It would be the end of the "Jewish state" established by force many decades ago, although if Israelis ceded their dominant power gracefully they might still have a place in a truly democratic Israel (or whatever that country might be called).  At any rate, to even write such things is heresy, so the likelihood of that happening in the foreseeable future is next to nil.  

Keeping the Palestinians in the stone ages ain't doin' it, although that seems to be the preferred method, whereby Palestinian hostility, no matter how asymmetric to Israeli power, is used as justification for perpetuating Palestinian suffering and squalor.  "It's all the Palestinians fault and the Israelis are only doing what they have to," blah, blah, blah.  It's like blaming the victim for being angry about the things the clearly dominant party has unjustly done to them.  It's contrary to everything the Left, as I understand it, is supposed to believe in.  Really.  When a slave burns down the master's barnhouse, who carries the largest responsibility, the slave or the slavemaster?  When it comes to Israel, and only Israel, I think many supposed Leftists have lost their minds and their bearings.  Suddenly, in contravention of every Left value I know the oppressed are blamed for their situation.  Suddenly, we, the Left, are all Afrikaners and we blindly accept that the proper response is to try to whip the barn-burning out of the slave.  

Call me a pessimist, but I believe that most Israelis, and many if not most of its supporters here and abroad, do not really want a one-state, or even a two-state, solution, if they really look within themselves and be honest -- or they would toe a tougher line with Israel and stop acting as apologists for its offensive actions.  Maintaining the status quo of Palestinian apartheid indefinitely seems to be the preferred third way.  If it's not, then prove me wrong and clearly stand up to this gross power imbalance.  Or just keep rationalizing the situation and effectively do nothing to change it.   

Until I see so-called Leftists taking a harder stance against such asymmetric horrors, all I hear is so much yapping, and things like we are seeing now will continue for generations more.  Cynically, I would have to assume that's okay with you. 

They blamed Chevy Chase for literally chasing President Ford out of office in the 70s.  Letterman might have done more to diminish the power of the 'Decider' than any other event or powers that be. Great Moments in Presidential Speeches finally demonstrated over the last couple of years that the Emperor has no clothes. Bushisms will be with us as long as those great sayings recorded from the likes of Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra.

HuffPo, per the AP has published a bunch of them today.  I realize that there are already best selling books just recording the statements made by this imbecile.  I have just picked up a few of them here for analysis.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee _ I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee _ that says, fool me once, shame on _ shame on you. Fool me _ you can't get fooled again." _ Sept. 17, 2002, in Nashville, Tenn.

This fool fooled the majority of Americans for four long years.  The American voter reelected the single worst president in hundred years, maybe longer.  We did get fooled again.  Regardless of The Who.

_ "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." _ Aug. 5, 2004, at the signing ceremony for a defense spending bill.

No terrorist or communist or socialist or felon or billion dollar thief has caused as much trouble for this country than w.  Our currency would be totally worthless like pre Nazi Germany's was, if the rest of the world were not so reliant up US. Millions of people have been thrown out of their homes. Literally thrown out of their homes. Two trillion dollars have been lost by home owners. Medical care has skyrocketed in price over eight years. Only a few states like mine have attempted to take up the slack. Outsourcing by the Pentagon and many other cabinet departments has literally taken hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars overseas. Thousands of our soldiers are dead along with hundreds of thousands of civilians in other countries.  We, the USA is now viewed as a center of torture and lawless internment of prisoners.

_ "Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." _ Sept. 6, 2004, at a rally in Poplar Bluff, Mo.

Suffice it to say, a lot of doctors have lost the ability to practice their love with sick people all over the country.

_ "Our most abundant energy source is coal. We have enough coal to last for 250 years, yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge." _ April 20, 2005, in Washington.

You almost forget how w has hurt the environment from Omaha to Moscow.

_ "I can't wait to join you in the joy of welcoming neighbors back into neighborhoods, and small businesses up and running, and cutting those ribbons that somebody is creating new jobs." _ Sept. 5, 2005, when Bush met with residents of Poplarville, Miss., in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.'

There will actually be something akin to a net loss of jobs in our country over the last eight years while Clinton was responsible for an increase of tens of millions of jobs over his tenure. And even in tragedy, like Louisiana, this idiot was absolutely vacant.

_ "It was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship. After all, 60 years we were at war 60 years ago we were at war." _ June 29, 2006, at the White House, where Bush met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Yes, w has enabled the USA to become at war with itself.

_ "Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech." April 16, 2008, at a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the White House.

Anybody's speech can sound awesome compared to w.

[This is a companion piece to my previous blog - both started during the 2006 War on Lebanon - both efforts to take all the emotions prompted by events which I found so anguishing, that I needed to find ways to place them in some healing context.  I offer this here as a way to help all of us as we struggle to cope with whatever difficulties we are currently experiencing, including this recent escalation in Gaza to a ground attack.]


Why do we have wars?  What makes terrorists?  Or bullies?  This is a very important question, because only if we answer it accurately, can we ever have peace. In the face of aggression, we see more aggression.  Indeed wars and aggression are often justified by citing prior aggression or potential aggression, which "can only be met" with violence, people often say.

I submit that hostility and aggression are aspects of all of us.  Unless we admit that - to start with - we are simply viewing bullies or terrorists or warmongers as different humans than ourselves, sub-humans who merit being destroyed.  And we rationalize our wars and executions as a kind of virtuous activity, different from the carnage pursued by those we deem worthy of extermination.

If we take a look at our reactions to wars, crimes, atrocities, anything which bothers us, we notice we feel scared or tormented, pained or frustrated, angry or outraged.  These are normal human emotions.  And we have to own them.  But notice what happens when we find ourselves full of rage or pain or frustration.  Something in us wants to lash out.  We want to channel all those painful emotions.  We feel an urge to act on our rage, to vent our frustration.  Even if we urge war or the death penalty, this urge to action is coming from our own emotions - and we seek a solution through destructive actions, whether we act on our own or urge others to act as our surrogates.

But what if we learned to tolerate those painful feelings?  What if we learned to pay attention to the feelings and to calm them down inside ourselves?  What if we tried peace making, the transformation of pain, of anger, of frustration, of rage into peace and compassion?  What I am suggesting is of course not an easy route to follow.  Some might call it a "way of the cross."  Others might term it meditation or mindfulness.  You can situate this process within many traditions - but it remains essentially the same:  Essentially transformative - if you give yourself to it heart and soul for an extended period of time.

I believe that we are all called to inner transformation. Each of us, in our own way, within whatever tradition we choose to follow (or not), can allow ourselves to be transformed through the renewal of our minds and hearts. We may not be able to personally guarantee world peace.  But on a daily basis we can endeavor to immerse ourselves in the pain and suffering of the world, whether the small world of our own lives or the larger world of society, economics, politics, even religion - sadly.

The task is to simply "take in" all the pain, terror, suffering, sadness, anguish, hostility, madness of things going on - seen on television, the internet, the newspapers.  Take it in.  Let it sit there.  Dwell with it, painful as that is.  Allow this world of hurt to dwell in your heart.  Without doing anything more.  Take it into your heart. And dwell there.  Cry some tears, if you need to.  But do not let yourself do anything more.  No matter how pained or enraged you may begin to feel.  No matter how strongly you want to eject all of the evil and madness that begins to seethe, ejecting it onto others or into action.
 
If you try this, slowly - over time - you will find a change occurring within your heart. .  The stony heart that would stone your neighbor or enemy is replaced with the understanding that the other person, like you, is prone to strong and painful emotions they want to eject onto others or into action.  Slowly, your compassion for your own inner struggle - to make peace where there is turmoil - becomes a lens for seeing others with compassion.  Slowly, you will find your inner mind being renewed.  Indeed you may find compassion and a greater sensitivity to suffering growing.  You may find yourself surprised by becoming super sensitive, more caring, open, even exposed and vulnerable.  It might even be a bit scary at first - but stick with whatever feelings arise.

And the Peace "that passes understanding" will come to dwell in your heart and mind.

Peace Making starts with each individual person.  We cannot expect more of others, whether leaders or nations, than we expect of ourselves.

Some people are able to do this quite alone.  Without the support of a group.  But often the process is so painful that most traditions urge you to find a group to start you on the path.  However, no matter what path you choose, ultimately you arrive at a point where you need to leave that path behind (because it's no longer marked) and, in effect, strike out on your own - with nothing to guide you except your inner life and your devotion to this inner transformation. 
 
There are others on this site who can guarantee, as I can, that this process is worth it, though extremely demanding.  Many may be willing to offer suggestions, whether here or in separate blogs.  In its simplest form what I'm urging is no different than  "the Beatitudes...love your neighbor... love your enemies."  No different than practicing "compassion toward all beings."  No different from the type of non-violent self-discipline that Gandhi or MLK urged.  I'm telling you - it's all the same.  Certain traditions have developed specific practices, which assist this.  Among Buddhists, the Tibetans have taken this to a high art - such a high art that the Dalai Lama did not attempt to work on "compassion" until he was in his 40's.  Because... we're talking about "embodying" compassion.  Making it central to your being.  But that's not really where you start.  You start at the hard part, working on your anger, your resentment, your fears, whatever inner knots you have that get in the way of a compassionate heart.

Think of the process like this.  You want to go down the path of peace.  But the path is full of rocks, ruts, alluring sidetracks.  The path is steep.  It's full of bad weather.  Negative people.  Nasty events.  And your job is to clear your own path.  To either remove the inner obstacles (that appear to be outer) or to ignore those along the way who want to sidetrack you, discourage you, incite you, scare you.  Your task is to find ways of managing your own emotions so as to continue hiking.  And you need to make it not only all the way to the top - where you must let go of whatever you find there -  but back down to the bottom, bringing your peace process with you and continuing to "wander" among your fellow persons - with whom you are now united more closely than you could imagine.

Peace.  Compassion.  May you be gently guided along the way.

President-elect Barack Obama plays a little golf during his vacation last week in Hawaii. Al Jazeera contrasted footage of Obama on vacation with scenes of the carnage in Gaza, noting what it called "the deafening silence of the Obama team." (Tim Sloan / Getty-AFP / December 29, 2008)

Israeli ground troops have started to enter the Gaza Strip, Israeli military officials have confirmed, a week after the offensive against Hamas began.(...) Earlier, Israel intensified air and artillery attacks on the territory. (...) The UN has warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis, and believes 25% of more than 400 Palestinians killed by Israel so far were civilians.(...) there are said to be some 10,000 Israeli troops and hundreds of tanks massed on the border with Gaza. The office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has also announced that the government has ordered the urgent call-up of "tens of thousands" of extra military reservists. BBC News

"We want him to say something at least to stop the bloodshed," said Suhail Natour, a Palestinian activist who lives in the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. "Waiting until the 20th, with the bloodshed continuing, I don't think is an acceptable way of confirming a new policy in the Middle East. Silence on this means complicity." Chicago Tribune

Readers of mine will know that I am no fan of Barack Obama's, but I confess that I never expected him to prove me right by defining himself so quickly... even before being sworn in as President.

What is happening in Gaza is huge, grotesquely tragic... It is like watching a cat play with a small animal before killing it... endlessly mauling it... warming to its work.

People all over the world have placed great hopes in Barack Obama and his "yes we can - change we can believe in" and they are waiting for a word... only a word... and while people are dying horribly, he is playing golf.

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As a life-long Illinois resident, I'm getting a bit tired of Harry Reid. First he says he won't seat Roland Burris because any Blagojevich appointment couldn't possibly represent the people of Illinois, as if he has any standing on that issue. Now, as it turns out, Reid apparently called Blagojevich to oppine that he didn't think Jessee Jackson Jr., Emil Jones or Danny Davis were suitable selections. Harry Reid can kiss my ass. I hope he has a primary opponent in 2010. If he does I'm writing him a check.

It is apparently widespread conventional wisdom that Blago is "corrupt". 

Here's a governor who has never been convicted of anything (as far as I know), has not even been indicted, yet even that wouldn't truly allow the use of the label "corrupt", would it? 

It just seems like it is a given he is corrupt simply because a US Attorney says so.  Is that enough?  Should that be enough?  Should partial transcripts from a criminal complaint be enough?  Is seeming to be "creepy" enough?

I just wonder what kind of horrible precedent [by Democratic leaders, especially, in their hurry to fall over themselves condemning this man] we are setting.  Does anytime a prosecutor file corruption type charges against a sitting governor, senator, whatever, mean from now on guilty of being corrupt until proven innocent?

You have to wonder if the glee Democrats have taken from the Abramoff scandal (and the many actual convictions resulting therefrom) has somehow forced them to "jump the shark" so to speak in convicting one of their own in sad sort of "...Caesar's wife must be above suspicion..." way.

What good can come of this?

 

 

 

Amnesty International has sent an urgent letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on the worsening humanitarian conditions resulting from the siege of Gaza, in which it expresses it's dismay "at the lopsided response by the US government to the recent violence and its lackadaisical efforts to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

Gaza is at this point little more than an joint Egyptian-Israeli internment camp stuffed with 1.4 million impoverished remnants of the dispossessed, and the descendants of the dispossessed.  Israel with its massive war machine, and well-connected and wealthy Western backers, continues its long-run strategy of domination and oppression, designed to crush forever that little which remains of the Palestinian resistance.  It inflicts outrageous amounts of collective punishment on the wretched Gazans, allegedly in response to generally ineffective Hamas pin-prick attacks with homemade rockets,  while the outgoing US administration responds with corrupt and malevolent diplomatic assistance to the Israelis, and the incoming adminstration chooses the path of cowardly and complicit silence.

And as I write, almighty Israel has just launched a ground invasion of the impoversihed strip of Gazan slum-dwellings it claims to fear.

While this is occurring, I received an idiotic email letter from "Obama for America" today, asking for another $100, this time to fund the upcoming inauguration bash, which the letter informs me will take "unprecedented resources".  If I give, I may even win a contest and be flown to Washington to attend the parades, the ball and the swearing in, and presumably rub shoulders with the Democratic poohbahs!

Obama's people have all sorts of time to pen juvenile financial pitches, but no time for issuing statements on an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe wrought by America's dubious ally in the Middle East.  My emailed reply:

Fuck off.  Do you think I am going to send Obama another $100 as a reward for his cowardly silence on the devastation in Gaza?  Enjoy your damned inauguration party.  Have fun dancing and gorging yourself while the world's dispossessed and miserable are trampled underfoot.

I do not regret helping elect Obama, because he will be far better than McCain would have been.  But I am extremely disappointed in the choices and decisions Obama has already made in the foreign policy sphere.   And I see no reason to support decadent and wasteful indulgences like an inauguration blow-out.

And if Obama stupidly sinks his administration by wading into another Vietnam-like quagmire in Afghanistan, don't come running to me for more money in 2012.  I'll be supporting a more progressive alternative.

Dan Kervick 

The Times of London has this reprint of a 1951 article on its website today (excerpt below). How is it that so little progress has been made in 57 years?

 

Homeless In Gaza

From a Correspondent lately in Gaza

To most people the name of Gaza brings a picture of blind Samson pulling down the pillars of the house upon the Philistines and himself. Today the reputed tomb of Samson is inhabited by a family of Arab refugees. They form part of the horde of some 200,000 people from Palestine who poured into the Gaza Strip  in 1948, during the troubles between the Arabs and Jews which broke out after the partition plan was announced. Many moved out under orders from their leaders, although implored to stay by Jews with whom they had been on friendly terms for years. Others, particularly the townspeople of Jaffa, were driven to flight by the brutality of the Irgun terrorists, and a massacre of innocent villagers at Dir Yassin, magnified by rumour, struck panic into the hearts of thousands. The refugees in the north gravitated to the Lebanon and Syria, those to the east to Judea, the Jordan valley, and Transjordan, while those in the south turned towards Gaza, which was held by the Egyptians and is now under military government. The " Strip," only 25 miles long and five miles wide, runs from Gaza to the Sinai frontier at Rafah. Last August the total number of Arab refugees receiving rations from the United Nations was 860,000, and because of the high birth-rate this number is steadily increasing. Roughly half of these are in the Kingdom of Jordan, a quarter in the Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and a quarter in Gaza . . . .

 .  . .The only exit from the Gaza Strip, which is hemmed in by Israel, is to Egypt, and there the refugees are not welcome. They are virtually imprisoned in the area, their only means of escape being a dangerous moonlight flit through Jewish territory. Meanwhile, 70,000 of them have crammed themselves into Gaza town, more than doubling its inhabitants. Over- crowded rooms are let at extortionate rents and those unable to afford them have taken to tents, makeshift shelters, even holes in the ground. On every bit of spare ground pitiable shacks can be seen, made of canvas, sacking, boughs of trees, and bits of tin. Outside the town huge scattered camps have grown up round the villages and two former British Army camps. In Breij about 8,000 refugees are in tents or makeshifts and 6,000 in buildings of varying degrees of soundness. Many of these are large barracks with fairly sound walls and roofs but lacking doors and windows. Inside each is a honeycomb of 30 or 40 cubicles, divided by mud walls or partitions of blankets. In each cell live one, two, or three families, the lucky ones being those with a window. In the larders and kitchens of these ex-Army canteens the refugees huddle among the sinks and stoves, and in the bath-houses they lie down to sleep among the showers or in the boiler rooms. Those under canvas have fared no better, for many tents which were in reasonable shape when issued quickly rotted in the rain and gales of winter, and total replacement was im- possible. The tents, too, are over- crowded, and even the small ones are often divided by a canvas partition separating two families. Privacy, even by Arab standards, is impossible in such con- ditions. In addition, there is the corrosion of idleness and despair, eating into moral fibre and breeding bitterness and discontent . . . .

There are no possibilities of agricultural or industrial development, and all the Clapp Commission could sug-gest was some road works and tree planting to prevent the encroachment of the sand. The United Nations rations keep the recipients above starvation level, and there are extras for those who can afford them; but resources are running out, and hunger makes the temptation to cheat and steal overwhelming. A few hundred are employed on weaving and tailoring and 1,500 on relief work, but many thousands of able-bodied men have no occupation whatever. Bodies as well as hearts grow sick with hope deferred, and though there has been no major epidemic there is a high incidence of tuberculosis and respiratory diseases and inadequate means of treating them . . .

The effect of such conditions among the children is tragic. In the schools the teachers, mostly very young, are doing a fine job against great handicaps; but only about a quarter of the children of school age go to school, the rest run wild, and many cannot attend because of lack of clothes . . .  

Colonel Howard Kennedy concluded his report to the United Nations Political Committee on November 1 with the words: As Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency I feel it my duty to bring these matters to the attention of the United Nations, because explosive forces are being generated which should be dealt with before the point of detonation is reached . . . the United Nations is on trial in its handling of the Palestine situation, and wise and sympathetic handling of the current refugee problem is imperative if the situation is not to experience further deterioration. Grave difficulties and dangers elsewhere should not blind us to this great human tragedy of the Middle East. The Clapp Commission recognized that, though the measures it recommended to reduce the refugee problem would not of themselves bring peace, yet "if the refugees be left forgotten and desolate in their misery, peace will recede yet farther from these distracted lands."

My mother and I have a little ritual when it comes to professional sports, recycled every time my dad puts a game on the tv for any length of time. It goes something like this:

Mom: "I don't care about sports. Who could? The players move around so much, you're not really voting for your own team anymore." (Mom grew up in Brooklyn before the Dodgers played chicken with Robert Moses)

Me: "But it's not the players you root for, it's your team. It's a pseudo-replacement for the community we don't have anymore."

Mom: "but how can you feel like a part of the community when all the players are strangers?"

Me: "The players are like the employees of the community. The team is Rome, they're the slaves. We're gods, they're peons. We're generals, they're the grunts. So we're really rooting for the fans. Ourselves."

Mom: "but that makes no sense. Why would you bother with the team and sports to begin with?"

Me: "good point."

Both of us: "well, at least it gives people an avenue to vent their frustrations about life and society in a safe (usually) manner (unless you're wearing a g-men jersey to the linc). Boy, those fat dudes in philly must have a lot of angst in their lives."

Hi mom, and go Eagles! Congrats on making the playoffs despite doing everything humanly possible to avoid the overtime.

Cross-Posted from The End of the American Century

In The End of the American Century, I point to China as one of America's new rivals, but also as a major factor in U.S. profligacy and in U.S. economic decline. To a large extent, the false U.S. affluence of the last decade has been underwritten by China, in two ways: the country has supplied American consumers with cheap toys, gadgets and clothes; and has been bailing out the federal government by purchasing U.S. debt.

The rapid growth of foreign ownership of U.S. debt is yet another dimension of the unraveling of the U.S. economy. In 1970, only 4 percent of U.S. debt was held by foreigners; now almost half is. In recent years, foreigners have financed about 80 percent of the increase in public debt. The two biggest holders of U.S. debt are Japan and China, with China alone owning about $1 trillion in U.S. debt. Senator Hilary Clinton raised concerns about foreign ownership of U.S. debt in early 2007, when she sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. "In essence," she observed, "16% of our entire economy is being loaned to us by the Central Banks of other nations."

This was a major reason why both the American consumer and the federal government could spend so far beyond their means in the last twenty years, and why the U.S. economy has gotten so severely out of whack. The large-scale purchases of U.S. debt by foreigners helped keep interest rates low, encouraging consumers to borrow more than they could afford for the purchase of cars and houses and other consumer goods. It was a kind of giant international Ponzi scheme. The Chinese lent us money so we could purchase their products. But when the bottom fell out, the economies of both countries began to fall apart.

It is astonishing that so few public officials and economists recognized this enormous looming problem. It is not so surprising, perhaps, that the Bush administration missed the boat on this, because they were either oblivious or willfully ignorant on just about every major issue facing the United States, economic or otherwise. As the New York Times observes in a long and helpful overview of the situation, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and the Bush administration "treated the record American trade deficit and heavy foreign borrowing as an abstract threat, not an urgent problem."

Ben Bernanke, an esteemed economist if there ever was one, acknowledges that "a better balance of international capital flows early on could have significantly reduced the risks to the financial system." But "this could only have been done through international cooperation, not by the United States alone." Bernanke's view of the problem, according to the Times, "fit the prevailing hands-off, pro-market ideology of recent years."

This illustrates, in two ways, why the U.S. has fallen so far, so fast. The problem, as Bernanke correctly noted, required international cooperation. This has been a serious weak spot for the U.S. of course, particularly in the last eight years. The U.S. has ignored, denigrated or flouted international laws, conventions and institutions--especially during the Bush administration but before that as well. Because we did not welcome international cooperation in the past--on global warming, the Iraq War, the International Criminal Court, etc.--other countries were increasingly disinclined to look for the U.S. for leadership. This is now being played out in the international economic realm as well as the political.

The second telling aspect of the Bush/Greenspan/Bernanke approach is the "pro-market ideology of recent years." Under Bush, the "hands off" approach to economic and social problems in the U.S. has indeed taken on the rigidity of an "ideology." It is no longer simply a policy advocated by policy-makers, but a set of ideas promoted by ideologues. We see this in a whole array of hugely important issues facing the U.S., which have all been ignored or marginalized for eight years. The lack of regulation of financial markets is the most obvious example, but one also sees the "hands off" approach causing tremendous deterioration of U.S. schools, health care, welfare, infrastructure, and the environment, to say nothing of the elephants in the room--Social Security and Medicare.

Treasury Secretary Paulson told the Times "you don't get dramatic change, or reform or action, unless there is a crisis." This seems a strange way to run the ship of state. But the crisis is here, Mr. Secretary. Now what do we do?

Multiple choice math question: 

Organization X invests $10 million with Bernard Madoff, which, due to his brilliant investing strategy, grows (he says) to $100 million.  Madoff  tanks and loses it all.  How much of the principal* of its investment did Organization X actually lose?  

a) $100 million
b) $10 million
c) $6 million* ($10 million plus/minus whatever the principal would have earned if legitimately  invested in the stockmarket. (Most IRAs, 401Ks, stock portfolios are down an average of about 40% at the moment.)

Answer:  C

I just read an interesting article in Haaretz that points out that most victims affected by the debacle initially reported their Madoff losses as being whatever they thought their portfolios were worth at the time Madoff's scheme was revealed.   Those amounts were far in excess of the initial investments, whose owners were misled into believing their investments had grown exponentially thanks to the phoney gains Madoff had reported to them.

Furthermore, if the Madoff investors had put their money into the stock market or mutual funds like the rest of us rather than giving it to Madoff to invest, their portfolios would also have lost an average of about 40% from their  highs before the 2008 economic crash.  Of course the hypothetical "$6 million" investments are gone forever, while those made by us not-so-clever or well-connected shmendricks, to whom Madoff wouldn't have given a second glance, may someday rebound, if not to their historic highs, to somewhere above their nadirs.   The damage to individuals, institutions and organizations is very real, even when not inflated by imaginary gains.

The low figure of Answer C, by the way, does not take into account the supposed "interest" that investors, including philanthropic funds, non-profit organizations and foundations, received as payouts during the years the funds were invested with Madoff. The payouts received would have to be deducted from the $6 million loss to accurately assess the damage.

This doesn't excuse Madoff's thievery nor his vile strategy of deliberately targetting non-profit organizations and foundations because they were happy with the alleged interest they received from him, while inclined to leave the principal in place.  It just puts it into perspective some questions that should be asked with regard to how the actual dollars and sense, or lack thereof, should, in point of fact, be calculated not only in the Madoff scandal, but in assessing the meltdown of the economy has a whole and what it will cost to address the problems this meltdown has brought about.

Which got me thinking about the general financial meltdown and the bailout of the big banks being foisted upon U.S. taxpayers...

Here's are a few more interrelated multiple choice math problems:

X lends Y $10.  Y promises that he will pay X back $100. If Y doesn't pay X back anything at all, X has lost:

a) $10
b) $100

X's insurance company agrees to reimburse him  for his financial loss.  The insurance company should reimburse X:

a) $10
b) $100

Taxpayers are told that X's insurance company (IC) has so many customers like X, who they can't afford to reimburse, that they will go bankrupt.  Taxpayers should provide IC with a bailout equivalent to:

a) $10   x the number of customers who have made $10 loans
b) $100 x the number of customers who have made $10 loans expecting to get back $100
c) An amount equal to or between a) and b) PLUS additional  millions or perhaps even billions, to cover IC salaries, expenses, bonuses, exective meetings (including massages--"aye, there's the rub!") to decide how much of a bailout they need.

Gives an entirely new meaning to "no pain, no gain," doesn't it?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/14/iran.acid.justice/

A few days ago, a friend emailed the above link to me, asking the questions..

*What is the definition of justice?   An eye for an eye?
*Will this actually make men think twice before they try the same thing?
*Why are women still thought of as something less than human?

Good questions, but I couldn't answer them with any fresh perspectives concerning women's issues.  It's been discussed almost to the point nobody giving a rip anymore.  In this country, at least.

This post isn't about those issues anyway.  It's about Ameneh Bahrami.

I could not get this Iranian woman out of my mind.  The horrible thing she lived through.  And the reasons she is doing what she is doing.  I had a difficult time absorbing this story.  Why would anyone want to stay disfigured and slowly die when they didn't have to?

But then, something came to me. 

This isn't just a simple story of a woman being disfigured by a man who was rejected by her and the consequences of his actions.  There's a whole lot more to it.

Ameneh Bahrami is not unlike Rosa Parks.  She had reached her tipping point like Rosa Parks reached hers when she decided to keep her seat on the bus.  This Iranian woman is saying,. "Okay...enough is enough.  I'm not taking this crap anymore.  No one needs to take this crap anymore.  EVERYONE is gonna see the ugly...not just my face, but the ugly injustices behind the situation."  She is making a stand.  She is very brave considering the restrictive country in which she resides.  And she has my admiration...not my pity.

It's little braveries that start big revolutions.

"Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment and the American dream slipping further and further out of reach," Obama said.

"could see" and "could lead"... [edit: I call this Could Squared, weakly weak scare talk] What other plausible scenarios and considerations are recognized more or less across the spectrum?

This "stimulus" just looks like more of the same old scare talk to push an agenda of dubious net merit.  Tax cuts without spending cuts are like unemployment benefits without looking for a job.  The economy is not a welfare queen or sacred cow.  It needs work.

[The following essay was begun during the 2006 Israel/Lebanese War, but it applies right now to the Gaza bombing by Israel.  Some of the terms are a bit dated, but the analysis is still all too sadly applicable.  And the proposed solutions aren't really new - just hard to implement, because they'd have to be agreed to by both sides.  I provide these ideas as food for thought and discussion.]

The human brain operates on many different levels.   And whether world leaders can ever unite to bring about peace may well depend on which brain areas they choose to utilize.  Will it be those giving rise to raw emotion, those stirred by propaganda, those which assume fight or flight?  Or will leaders strive to promote reality-testing, delay of gratification, and the wisdom inherent in spiritual or philosophical modes of thinking and being?  Since different areas of the brain evolved at different times, it is an interesting exercise to categorize our current national and international strategies and coping mechanisms in terms of this evolution.  Once we have done that, I suggest, we arrive at an interesting choice-point:  The case to outlaw war.  War, it seems, is very old brain.

So I pose these questions:

• To what extent are strategies, tactics, and goals of factions or nations  - or of any of us - consistent with the most primitive brain systems versus the most highly evolved brain potentials? 
  

• And, if evolution gave us advanced brains, why are we so reluctant to use our potential?

• And finally, what would it look like to put our highest potentials into practice?

There are a number of different ways to succinctly categorize brain function - and the conflict resolution activities arising from them.  We can observe the characteristics of how information is processed in the two hemispheres of the brain.  We can look at the midbrain and it's tendency to urge fight versus flight.  And we can observe the development of the frontal lobes, whether during adolescence or as the latest stage of evolution in the human brain.

If we begin with the fight or flight response, a very early midbrain process, one we share with nearly all members of the animal world, we can see the analog in the simplified alternatives posed in Iraq, Israel, etc.  Instead of fight or flight, we hear terms like "bring it on" versus "cut and run" or "terrorism" versus the "right to self-defense" etc.  But consider this fact about such simplistic mantras:  Our four-legged friends have the same limited options.  So, there is little room to maneuver, if humans rely on the midbrain  (no matter how hard-wired such reactions may be), because all "fighters" are assuming they can provoke "flighters."  In ever-escalating chess moves.

Terrorism along with "shock and awe" bombing may be calculated to reach the midbrain.   And it must be midbrain thinking (on the part of aggressors) that assumes these tactics will automatically result in flight or capitulation - a rare occurrence. What is currently happening in the Israel-Gaza situation (as well as in Israel's 2006 incursion into Lebanon) seems explainable by an escalation of midbrain actions and reactions.   Like a series of knee jerks, or a fight between cats or dogs, we see little evidence of higher-level brain function - unless it is in the sophistication of the weaponry or the (imagined) brilliant military plans.  Certainly we see little except more escalation.  No sitting down and negotiating.  Like kids on the elementary playground there is little evidence that frontal lobes have evolved at all.

Now let us look at how the different hemispheres of the brain play into this.  Our right hemisphere is specialized to take in information all at once.  It could be said to process information digitally both in terms of imagery as well as overall emotional tone.  Indeed, images presented to the brain, so fast that your eyes cannot identify them, nevertheless result in emotional reactions.  So the right hemisphere really swings into gear in the face of images, particularly images, which evoke strong emotions.  We all recall images of emaciated Jews from the Holocaust.  But we are also moved by images of the dead and wounded, the tortured, or the frail elderly left amidst the rubble, the children and medical personnel in Gaza (in southern Lebanon and in Iraq or Afganistan, etc).  Such images powerfully and immediately impact the right hemisphere of our brain - and prompt the well-known adage that "one picture is worth a thousand words."   Which brings us to the left hemisphere - the site of the thousand words, an area, which processes information in analog fashion, bit by bit.

It is via our left hemisphere that we can use words, seemingly without emotion, as if wars, tactics, suffering were simply like pieces on a chessboard, devoid of humanity, but laid out one by one in a lovely pattern or rearranged at will in order to bring about "the new Middle East."  This would perhaps all work well, in terms of propaganda, were it not for actual events on the ground, all too often initiated by these verbal flights of fancy logic.  For the right hemisphere, that digital wonder of the brain, codes the information (even if it is only visualized based on detailed news reports) in terms of an emotional and visual whole.  And if the imagery carrying the "news" is not in accord with the advertised propaganda, then the message arrives in a package of untrustworthiness.  And that is precisely what we see happening - in the world or our nation - when leaders today seek to justify the "midbrain-rationalized" but "frontal lobe-generated" goals, tactics, and strategies of war.   Whether rendition and torture, bombings or land invastions - Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon - it all plays on a world stage.   In the end, the strategists who try so hard to frame midbrain war plans in terms of propaganda seem only to reach those whose right hemispheres have not yet made up their minds emotionally.  And even then, the unconscious may, over time, subvert even the most die-hard adherents who profess a strategy of punishing enemies - due to the current 24 hours news cycle - as ultimately, even these may not be able to live with the vivid photo-heartrending consequences or the world's condemnation.

Now let's consider the frontal lobes.  Our frontal lobes mature late.  They allow for planning and assessing (even reassessing) one's current situation in terms of projected plans.  They allow for flexibility, the formation of new and more sophisticated methods of analysis and problem solving.  They allow us to reflexively think about ourselves, second-guess our motives and behavior, and monitor ourselves in terms of ethics and morals.  At the same time our frontal lobes can be subverted by unconscious processes (prompted by the midbrain's fight or flight urges or other conflicts), thus interfering with sound judgment, flexibility, reflexive self-criticism, or the adaptive inhibition of action .  These subversive and unconscious processes are what we psychologists call "defenses" and we categorize these defenses in terms of the degree of dysfunction, if they become characteristic ways of handling information, particularly information which is deemed threatening.

The midbrain exercises a powerful pull.  It's like something pulling us back to being two-year olds or rebellious teenagers.  But it's possible for individuals to resist that pull (via good advisers, methods of meditation, etc).  And I suspect it's up to us voters to find leaders who can do that.  Leaders, both in government as well as in industry, finance etc. who are able to formulate strategies and make decisions based on long term good rather than just short-term pandering (to the market or the voters).  I'd suggest that so many of our current financial woes and governmental/international problems are related to leaders who use maladaptive defenses (just think of bush for one example) rather than higher level coping mechanisms.  But of course that also means we voters need to exercise those frontal lobe powers as well, resisting attempts to bring us down to our lowest level of midbrain functioning - just like our four-footed friends.

I also wonder if "war" is actually becoming something altogether new in our digital age.  So that it's not just about weapons that explode and harm people or buildings.  But the information age, the web, the rapidity of the news cycle itself may be changing the dynamics - as more and more people "see" what's happening from the perspective of the "victims."  And the idea of an "enemy" as someone subhuman becomes harder and harder to justify in terms of tactics of extermination.  And thus, "shock and awe" have now been exposed as another form of terrorism.

What I mean is that for a while the distance between armies, and the use of high tech killing machines, was able to detach the killer from the act of killing.  But now, with cell phones and digital cameras, every civilian can be a reporter and the whole world can see the results - the humanity of the victims.  And thus supposed "surgical strikes" (from the perspective of the war planners) become heartrending stories on the evening news and only further the intransigence of the other side - while gaining sympathizers across the world.  The visual images tug at hearts - and that does not necessarily lead to "flight."  Indeed, it may lead to worldwide condemnation - as the battleground becomes more the battle for the hearts and minds of viewers - not just in the home country, but across the world.

So the effort to bring people to their knees, to make them flee in terror, not only can lead to a hardening of positions (rather than the "defeat" intended by the attackers), but  it may be less and less productive as a strategy in our age of instant media.  Indeed, it may turn out to be altogether counterproductive as a strategy going forward.

So therein lies the trap.  For those who would utilize brute, overwhelming force, in a world, which can "see" the results almost immediately, become the victims of their own assault - as the whole world looks on.  And thus the media may become an accessory to the frontal lobes - a kind of collective, monitoring conscience - prompting us all to not only reconsider the strategies of war, but to reconsider war itself.   

Today, winning is not just about destroying the enemy.  It is also about winning the PR war.  And the former seems increasingly to negate the latter.

Our midbrain, fight and flight, responses work in zero-sum situations:  War is zero-sum.  But the frontal lobes seem highly specialized to work out win-win situations.  To do that, however, you need to talk to your enemies.

Talk Therapy.  I guess that's what I'm proposing.  But, as I always tell people in couples' therapy, it takes two to make a relationship, but only one to break it.  I suspect it takes more than just leaders doing the talking.  I think it takes people in groups - over a long time.  Getting to know each other.  Finding out what they have in common.  Working to try and solve common problems.  And ultimately finding out what Harry Stack Sullivan, a man who worked with schizophrenics a long time ago said:  "We are all more simply human than anything else."

Paul Krugman and other economists have been attributing the 1937 recession to actions by FDR. They say he was merely following advice regarding the attempt to cut spending and balance the budget. However, whatever FDR did, there still would  have been a recession. This is because the Fed, which is independent of the executive, raised the reserve requirement substantially during the same period. From 1917 until August 1936 the Central Reseve City Banks had a reserve requirement of 13% Starting if August of 1936, through May if 1937 , the Fed raised the rate to 26%. The rate for Reserve City Banks went from 10% to 20% an d for country banks the rate went from 7% to 14%.

 The reserve requirement is the percentage of deposits that banks are required to hold at the Fed. This is money that cannot be loaned out. If the reserve requirement is raised banks have to either gather in a large number of new deposits and/or reduce lending. Given that the recovery was still ongoing, substantially increasing deposits was problematical. Instead, given the substantial increase in the Reserve Requirement, banks had to virtually halt all new lending. This alone would have caused what we now call a recession. (Note: I believe that FDR coined the term "recession" as a description of a slowdown in economic activity at this time)

 

So stop blaming FDR.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

This man is a nasty piece of work, but you have to admire the shear ballziness that he has exhibited in the past few weeks by appointing Burris to the Senate.

It's kind of like watching the villains in pro-wrestling, which I did when I was rooming with a wrestling fan. You hate them, but you love them, because they are so much more engaging than the heroes.

Of course, the adult in me realizes that pro-wrestling is really primarily theater, and pro-wrestlers don't have the power of life and death, as governors do with pardons, or just through the vicissitudes of budget process, which frequently determine who shall live and who shall die.

The Illinois legislature should dump him as soon as possible, and rationally he should never be allowed near the public sphere again, but my yetzer hara^* will miss him.

Cross posted from 40 Years in the Desert.

^*Yetzer hara is Hebrew for one's evil inclination, and yetzer hatov is the inclination to do good. Imagine if you will, going to a store, and paying with a $10 bill, and getting change for a $20. When you correct the cashier, it is your yetzer hatov, and when you walk out of the store calling yourself a moron for not keeping the money, that's your yetzer hara.

I have been thinking about the new age that we are about to experience. Our site is focusing upon certain issues.  Certain issues that have broader implications.

Iraq and Afghanistan plague us.  The old USSR got stuck in that rat hole for a long time.  We were arming Sadaam during that war. We are in this mess because of a war mongering administration that never did give a damn what the citizens thought.

Afghanistan at least had something to do with 9/11/01. Sadaam had nothing to do with it.
Now the enemy in in Pakistan and that place is a hell hole.

Check out Carol G's blog today.  I think we must deal with the military industrial complex.

I got so damn mad at the 72 generals hired by w to propagandize the entire mess. On another blog I noted that they had their pensions, they had free access to information, they had paid trips to the war zones with full cover.  Then they sold this info to the military industrial complex.  They were given contractual promises that if they could keep our forces in Iraq long enough, they would receive millions. They were given hundreds of thousands of dollars by 'our own' media--that being NBC as well as MSNBC. As well as the normal conservative media that I cite as Fox and ABC.

I am afraid that because of our current economic mess, there will be strong tendencies in the New Congress to allow more and more military spending to keep the economy going.  Haliburton and Blackwater and hundreds of other traitorous organizations have not done one goddamn thing for this economy.  Haliburton at one time was taking in ten percent of the gross spent on these two wars and now they are in Dubai and paying no taxes whatsoever.

I do not want to use the current economic crisis as an excuse to keep the MIC going.

This mess in Israel has to be dealt with by our new President and Secretary of State and their Security Advisers. We have severe problems with at least twenty other countries.

I believe that a great deal of the international mess has to do with out troops in Iraq.  I want out now. Iraq does not want us in there. we are giving away monies that have nothing to do with our economy.

I want the defense budget cut.  Cut now. 

I do not wish to proceed into an un-winable war in Afghanistan.
 
Naturally I wish that the 72 gnerals are properly tried for being traitors. And I want their corporate sponsors tried as well.
 
I will not abandon my new President if he chooses to do otherwise.  But I want an end to our warmongering.

Under the Bush administration the United States was introduced to several new national security wrinkles, sold to us as ways to keep us safe. Within the framework of a president claiming unitary authority as the commander in chief, the measures included: 1) preventive, or preemptive, war with Iraq; 2) secret, warrantless wiretapping through massive data mining within the U.S.; 3) authorization to suspend habeas corpus and to torture; 4) politicization of the Justice Department; and 5) successfully co-opting the leaders in Congress as well as Intelligence Committee chairmen.

"Hold on Mr. President-elect!" -- What are the chances of the "military-industrial complex" becoming less influential in the Obama administration? There are ominous signs that it may not happen any time soon. First, a couple of personnel issues cause me some concern.

Intel baggage, the DNI and the CIA -- Transitioning into national security competence and being able to "hit the ground running," is not turning out to be easy for President-elect Obama. He lacks extensive intelligence experience, though he did propose that the DNI have a fixed appointment like that of the FBI Director. The President-elect has yet to name his Director of National Intelligence or a new CIA Director. Serving currently are DNI Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden, who came later in the Bush administration. Both of the current officials are military men and are willing to stay on in their positions. The CIA was blamed for the intelligence failures before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as the bad prewar intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs. The CIA was also involved in the rendition of captured terrorism suspects to countries known to use torture, secret prisons all over the world for high-level captives, as well as the use of torture in interrogations. According to a recent (12/3/08) Washington Post analysis by by Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus, "Experience will be prime asset for Obama's Spy Chiefs." To quote:

President-elect Barack Obama faces a dilemma in selecting his top intelligence advisers: finding experienced leaders who understand the challenges facing the various U.S. intelligence agencies -- but who are untainted by the controversies and problems that have plagued the intelligence apparatus during the Bush era.

. . . Prominent voices in the intelligence community and the Obama camp have argued that a seasoned professional is needed when the country is waging two wars and a campaign against terrorism, and that a newcomer would face an excessively steep learning curve.

Pincus cont'd:

[DNI] Mike McConnell warned against yet another structural overhaul for a community that has been the subject of 41 high-level studies since 1946

. . . The creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2004 was in part an attempt to forge a clear chain of command; yet the restructuring has led to new squabbling over turf and control over the intelligence community's budget, which currently totals $47.5 billion. Some independent experts have argued that the office is an unneeded layer of bureaucracy, and many in Congress have called for reducing its size.

. . . While acknowledging that reforms are still needed, intelligence officials expressed concern that reformers could inadvertently reverse hard-won progress achieved over the past three years. . . . "For the first time, there's someone who wakes up each morning and has the interest of the entire intelligence community as his No. 1 job," office spokesman Richard Willing said.

. . . Other frequently mentioned candidates for top intelligence posts in the Obama administration include retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair, seen as a favorite for director of national intelligence; Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), formerly the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee; and John Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary who is also considered a candidate to eventually succeed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, whom Obama has nominated to remain at the Pentagon.

In related matters, 1) This comes from Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com (11/26/08): "Exceptional news: John Brennan won't be CIA Director or DNI." And 2) This was by Jeff Stein from CQ Politics (12/5/08): "Send Dollar Bill to the CIA" To quote:

The former New Jersey Democratic senator (1979-97), presidential candidate and NBA star -- so named for the $500,000 contract the Princeton grad and Rhodes scholar landed with the New York Knicks -- impressed many a CIA official when he served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

"I distinctly remember briefing Bradley on counterintelligence and other intelligence matters and being blown away by how serious, informed, and supportive he was," James Olson, a former head of CIA counterintelligence now teaching at Texas A&M, said by e-mail.

People are betting that this will be the headline when President-elect Obama names his new Director of National Intelligence: "The New Team: Dennis C. Blair." I am ready to accept this news because Blair would, in my opinion, be a huge improvement over Admiral McConnell, whom I believe has become deeply compromised under Bush. The story comes originally from the New York Times author Mark Mazzetti and it was published November 22, 2008. It is one of a series of profiles of potential members of the Obama administration. A former four-star Admiral, Blair was in the Navy for 34 years, with much of his work in the intelligence field. Born Feb. 4, 1947, in Kittery, Me., Blair graduated from Annapolis. In addition to being a high achiever, "a workaholic," and an avid fisherman, he is married, with two grown children, a son and a daughter. He worked at the Central Intelligence Agency and served on the National Security Council. He also directed the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, and, to quote,

. . . commanded the Kitty Hawk Battle Group and the destroyer Cochrane. In civilian life, Mr. Blair was president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit largely financed by the federal government to analyze national security issues for the Pentagon, from 2003 to 2006.

Admiral Blair was an occasional adviser to Mr. Obama in the Senate, but the relationship was short and it did not include being a close adviser during the campaign. He is close to the Clintons, however; he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford with Bill Clinton. He is very smart, an Asia expert and evidently a good leader. He commanded the U.S. Pacific fleet and, to quote,

. . . is considered adept at running sprawling organizations, seemingly a prerequisite for heading an office that is still grappling with the task of fusing 16 spy agencies.

. . . In his own words: ''The use of large-scale military force in volatile regions of underdeveloped countries is difficult to do right, has major unintended consequences and rarely turns out to be quick, effective, controlled and short lived.'' (Congressional testimony, Nov. 7, 2007)

Mazzetti reports that Blair "carries as baggage," quote:

Had to step down as president of the Institute for Defense Analyses amid concerns that his positions on several corporate boards constituted a conflict of interest. The Pentagon's inspector general later concluded that he had violated the institute's conflict-of-interest standards by serving on the board of a military contractor working on the Air Force F-22 jet while the institute was evaluating the program for the Pentagon.* The inspector general found, however, that Mr. Blair did not influence the organization's analysis of the F-22 program. Another possible hindrance: The selection of a retired admiral to the national intelligence post could fuel worries about the militarization of intelligence. . .

[*see] Correction: November 26, 2008, Wednesday A brief profile on Monday about Dennis C. Blair, who is among the candidates for top positions in the Obama administration, gave an incomplete description of findings by the Pentagon inspector general's office on his role as president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, which conducts research for the Defense Department. While the office concluded that Mr. Blair had violated the institute's conflict of interest standards by serving on the board of a military contractor working on the F-22 fighter program while the plane was under evaluation by the institute, it also found that he had not influenced the institute's analysis of the program.

Mazzetti added that Blair speaks Russian, and that "he was in the same Naval Academy graduating class as Oliver North and Senator Jim Webb of Virginia. He was passed over for chairman of the Joint Chiefs by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who considered him too independent and was wary of his views on engagement in Asia."

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My "creativity and dreaming" post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news news and politics presidential transition national security national intelligence

What with all the shenanigans outed from the closet lately, and after reading Paul Krugman's ditty on the timeliness of Dickens (and Trollope), I couldn't help but think back to what I was supposed to learn during my school days.  Eight years ago, I was shoveling down a diet of Jefferson and Franklin and Madison for a semester dedicated to continental American political thought, e.g., the Federalist Papers and ilk.  Sort of a cheap bastardization of Hobbes and Locke, except in better English.  It was an awkward class: a very motivated, energetic young professor; jaded undergraduates focusing the bulk of their concentration on job hunting and the next best happy hour beer special.I suppose we Americans like to think that our form of government can transcend that of Dickens' age -- we can burn out evil through the bright lenses of democracy and education.  Personally, I can't convince myself that there's really any difference.  Education seems to give people a tool to cheat the rest of us even more efficiently.  From my perch, I see only that what we've got is a putrid blend of tyranny of the masses (prop 8, anyone?) and philosopher kings (clintons? Bushes? hey, didn't say you had to AGREE with the philosophy).  And we don't have the guts to follow through with the one or the other.  

A very wise man once said that there are only two kinds of people in the world: those that think that there are only two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.

The readiness to quickly divide the world into "us" and "them": this need to stimulate tribalism, is at the heart of right wing populism and the only difference between right wing populism and fascism is the degree of organized violence that they finally produce.

Read more »

I'd been contemplating a blog about Hawaii, when I came upon an article in the Washington Post that says it better than I could.

I have read criticism about the time our PE is spending in Hawaii, rather than getting down to work, and it has really irritated me. The man's life has been a roller coaster for 2 years and he's about to spend the next (dare I hope) 8 years in the biggest pressure-cooker-in-the-world of a job. Coming in fresh and "centered" is a good thing.

We started going to Maui every year about 12 years ago. We both had pretty high stress jobs that could be 24/7 when we let them. We decided to buy a time share in Maui that could not be delayed or traded easily, that would force us to spend a defined period of time every year away from the pressure.

What an amazing gift to ourselves that turned out to be. There truly is something about the the "aloha" spirit that is regenerating. It's hard to be in too much of a hurry, because the "flow" just won't let you rush. Everything moves slower. If it doesn't get done today, it will tomorrow, or the next day, maybe. If not, who cares? Was it really all that important, anyway?

Over the years our adult children, and now grandchildren go with us. Per her request, we scattered the ashes of our oldest child offshore of our unit last year. The times spent there as a family were so important to her that she wanted her remains to be there forever. We chartered a boat at sunset to dispense the ashes. That is not a time of day when you see many whales. We had seen none the whole time we were on the water. Within seconds of the final bits of remains hitting the water a whale came to the surface, right where we had spread the ashes. No big leap... Just a blow and a gentle hello. We wept in silence and said goodbye, knowing she was in good hands. True story.  Hawaii is like that.

We head out for this year's trip in a couple of weeks and will be there for the inauguration. If we couldn't be in D.C. it's at least the next best place...should be quite a party.

I'm glad our PE is gearing up for his new job with a couple of weeks of aloha. He'll need it.

Dear Josh,
A great leader cultivates great talent and gives it wings to fly on it's own at the right time. You are clearly demonstrating that kind of leadership.I am most grateful for it. May your leadership be recognized far and wide for the gift it is to our society.

Dear Greg,
You are a formidable talent. I have enjoyed your good work and look forward to keeping it in front of me and supporting it as I can.  Hopefully there will be a link from TPM when your new home site is launched.

Dear TPM community,
As surely as a peaceful domestic regime change is a sign that democracy is alive and well in the United States, this kind of happy succession is a sign of a healthy business, of fair exchange and an empowering environment. How wonderful to be part of this!  It is a great return on my investment as a reader and contributor. We have much to celebrate!

With investments falling in price recently people have been looking at the whole concept of money and value more closely again. Money is a topic which has confounded thinkers for several thousand years, so I don't think I'll be able to explain it either. Instead I'll just ask some questions.

Until the invention of paper money, money was based upon some relatively rare tangible object. Silver and gold have been popular choices for a long time. Their virtue was that one can't counterfeit them, although there have been cases of adulteration and "clipping".

Having a governing body issue coinage was a way of simplifying trade since the provenance eliminated the need to verify each coin every time a trade was done. The problem with gold and silver is that the "wealth" of a society was based upon an arbitrary commodity which had insignificant purpose aside from as a medium of exchange. Jewelry is just another way to hold on to this commodity.

It was only in the past 100 years or so that gold and silver have been needed for actual industrial production. Silver in photography and some electronics and gold in electronics. Even today industrial use of gold is only about 20% of the amount mined.

With the rise of mercantilism and industrialization the limits on the actual amount of gold and silver acted as a barrier to trade. One might have a large amount of grain to sell, but if the buyer didn't have the gold to pay for it there was no deal. This led to the creation of credit. So "money" was now created without any connection to scarce commodities, but only based upon a promise. From letters of credit to central banks and the issuance of paper money has been a long path in time, but a short leap conceptually.

Once we permit trade to take place based upon credit then we have allowed money to be created outside the direct control of national mints. Credit is a promise and the "value" of the promise is based upon expectations that the loan will be paid in a timely fashion.

Those who see the evil in "fractional banking" and "fiat money" have confused a specific mechanism for the creation of credit with the idea that money is based upon trust, regardless of how this is defined. So proposals to limit banks to lending only what they have in reserve, for example, just put the entire creation of the money supply in the hands of the government. If they fail to put enough money into circulation (either in the form of paper or bonds) then trade becomes constrained just as it was with a limited amount of coinage in circulation.

Proposals to substitute something for credit all are variations on going back to the old system. Should we base wealth on land or a basket of commodities? If so then how do you determine the "value" of these things. We have seen recently that land and oil can change value just as rapidly as anything else. There are no physical commodities which have a value independent of what people assign to them.

One could argue that the use of credit has worked well since it became the norm in the 20th Century, but this isn't true. There have been dozens of revaluations of money and a successions of international mechanisms set up to deal with problems. Going off the gold stand, Bretton Woods, the creation of the IMF and World Bank have all been attempts to systematize a process which is fundamentally based only on trust. We are now going through the latest international convulsion over money and will probably see some new ad hoc mechanisms put in place to restore confidence.

As I said, I don't have any ideas, but it seems to me that we will be stuck with trust-based credit for the foreseeable future.

Residents of nine states  - Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington  - will see a boost to their local economy from a state minimum wage increase taking effect in the new year.

Unfortunately, media coverage of the change varies across place and often undermines public support for this progressive step.

For example, an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer begins with the suggestion that the raise benefits only the workers getting the increase:

"Local minimum wage workers will have something to celebrate with the coming of a new year."

The reporters continue with this narrow frame by implying that certain employers and the state's 300,000 minimum wage workers will be the only ones to feel the impact of the change.

The online comments regarding the article illustrate the destructive debate that inevitably flows from this framing. When the reporter suggests the impact is only felt by a small group of employees and certain employers, the debate devolves to the worthiness of workers and an us-vs-them depiction of who benefits and who suffers.

For example, one commenter shares an out-of-date (but widely held) perspective on the ability of workers to climb the wage ladder.

"You're not supposed to survive on minimum wage as an adult, because it's supposed to be the starting point not what you make an hour when you have chosen to add more mouths to feed. Secondly, if you start at minimum wage, within a very short period of time you will get raises. now the conditions are: you have to show up on time, do a good job, and make yourself a valuable employee. Wow, big surprise, then you continue up the ladder."

Another commenter illustrates how the "charity" framing leads to the us-vs-them debate that undermines public support for improving jobs.

"all this does is hurt the middle class. Push up the wages off teenagers and young college students, which force up prices in stores for the average middle class america....stupid stupid stupid."

We could debate the assertions of these commenters. But that's not an argument we really want to have - or that we can win with "facts". Public understanding of this issue won't change just because we have good data.

Instead, it's our job to work for better media coverage.

Our own talking points should start with the fact that these increases strengthen the local economy by ensuring that there are better jobs in the community - a benefit that accrues to everyone.

Not that Krugman needs more props, but this kind of Op/ed sure is cathartic.  It also helps that he's been, you know, right about a lot of things over the past eight years.

Uri Avnery draws our attention to the fact that shooting off the odd unaimed rocket is just one way to break a ceasefire. In fact, the Israelis “broke” it the first day they turned off the electricity so the Palestinians could drown in their own shit; shut down the food so they could starve; held up the ambulences in which they died like dogs, waiting for some IDF corporal to decide to grant them life:

“The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets.”

This is an important detail to hold in one’s consciousness, when assailed by pious bleatings, the schrei SDEROT.., SDEROT…from the replicators of the *Warsaw Ghetto for a million and a half people.

*without the amenities…

It's hard to believe that Rod Blagojevich could be considered a winner, well, ever, after his nasty travails with Patrick Fitzgerald and his handy wiretap, but it appears that Blago has found a way to win one against an admittedly easy target: Harry Reid and the wussified Senate Democrats.

Reports that the Dems plan to block Blago's choice to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat, one Roland Burris, by any means necessary, have taken on dramatic proportions:

The Democratic leadership's current contingency plan for next week is reportedly for Burris to be met at the chamber by a doorman telling him he's not allowed inside. If he still tries to go in, armed police officers could intervene to get him away. Burris told the Los Angeles Times that he wants to avoid a scene and have all of this negotiated before he arrives, but it's unlikely that he could negotiate his way towards actually being seated.

And even if Burris does manage to physically enter the chamber, there are still a whole lot of avenues to keep him from being sworn in. The Senate is expected to launch a Rules Committee investigation to determine the legitimacy of his appointment, thus delaying him from being seated. They'll look at everything from the facts of the Blagojevich scandal to Illinois Sec. of State Jesse White's refusal to sign the certificate of appointment. Every undotted "i" and every uncrossed "t" will be scrutinized.

At that point, Burris might just be able to go to court and force the Senate to admit him. Many legal scholars believe he has a genuine case here. But even this could take a while -- which would appear to be the whole point.

Really? Do they really plan to do all of tthat? For real for real??? Because if they do, we will have the intriguing mental picture of the party that used to be the party of segregation sending armed police-like figures to stand at the Senate chamber door, George Wallace-style, to keep a black man from taking up the seat being vacated by the first black president of the United States, who was also the lone black member of the United States Senate, who was nominated to the presidency by the former party of segregation. If the circular irony is killing you, join the club.

Enter Bobby Rush, former Obama nemesis, and current Spokesman Pro Tem for Black Illinois:

"The recent history of our nation has shown us that sometimes there could be individuals and there could be situations where school children--where you have officials standing in the doorway of school children. You know, I'm talking about all of us back in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas. I'm talking about George Wallace, Bull Connors and I'm sure that the US Senate don't want to see themselves placed in the same position."

Well, Mr. Burris is no schoolchild, by nominating a black candidate who is by all accounts qualified, and more importantly, posesses a burning ambition to have the seat, and therefore will fight for it, Blagojevich has succeeded in chumping the party in the midst of its tissue rejection of him. His nomination of Burris is, whether the Dems like it or not, probably legal, and if Burris fights for the seat all the way up to the Supreme Court, his affirmation would be a giant spit wad in the fact of Harry Reid, whom the right (and some black folk who are not on the right,) could then portray as the Bull Connor of our time. I can just see in-coming RNC Chairman Ken "Shady Election" Blackwell, his candidacy having been energized by the Democrats' blundering, wailing before black America, begging them to come home from the party of Robert Byrd. Of course, few black folk will buy it, but it will be one hell of a spectacle.

The fundamental problem is, of course, bigger than the Democrats. The fact that so much wrangling is taking place is testimony to the fact that despite the Democrats' superior electoral diversity, the Senate remains virtually an all white institution. The fight recalls the upheaval over filling the "Thurgood Marshall seat" on the Supreme Court. As flawed a character as Clarence Thomas was (and is, I mean, referring the "where was Obama born" lawsuit to his colleagues was a new low, even for him...) the vast majority of black America supported his nomination (and viciously rejected Anita Hill. Oops...) and I'll take a wild guess that most black folk will react rather negatvely to pics of Burris being frog marched out of the Senate. Just guessing. This despite the fact that Blago has earned no cool points in black America with the nomination. For most, this won't be about him.

The Republican Party is officially Out of Gas, consigned to three-fifths of the former Confederate States of America, and demographically moribund. But thanks to my party, and its crackerjack Senate leadership, they're being handed the race card.

Thanks for nothing, Harry.

There's a lot of truth in what this guy says, but I'm afraid he will be designated a self hater by those he is trying to enlighten.

The Paradox of Israel: Regional Super Power and the Largest Jewish Ghetto Ever Created

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans back Israel's decision to take military action against the Palestinians, but only half as many Democrats (31%) agree. A majority of Democrats (55%) say Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first, a view shared by just 27% of Republicans.

In general. there is a virtual tie: 44% in support, to 41% against, with a few undecided. 

Rasmussen poll.

Republicans to flee DC for inauguration

While millions descend on Washington for the historic inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, some Republicans see it as an occasion to get out of town.

<snip>

"What better way to mark the Obama Inauguration (and his millions of adoring fans that will be in DC) than to get out of town to fabulous Las Vegas!" wrote Charlie Spies, a Republican lawyer ..."

Update, Jan. 6:

Perhaps it was a bit obscure to everyone but me. I'm undecided on the point; but in case it was:

Criminals made Las Vegas.

It pains me to have to remind the crew here that Blago hasn't even been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one.  Whatever crimes that Fitz is or isn't going to bring against the man, his current status should be unaffected by that prospect.  Fitz did a rather poor job of convicting Libby of lying in lieu of treason.

Why is it that the democrats are so quick to tar and feather one of their own (not yet even indicted) when there are scores of Republicans on the hook for war crimes, some as vile as the torture of toddler's testicles?

That ought to be something that receives at least as much scrutiny as Blago.    Like it or not, Blago has the authority to pick Obama's replacement, and lacking any FORMAL charges, Congress will be abusing the law they ACT like they are so eager to support.

Enjoy.

Gaza.....

I have just one word:

No more.

I wrote a comment to another TPM thread, one which I think is worth keeping here.

The context was the crisis in Gaza.  The primary foil is the notion of "justified" in that article.  The substance of the comment is:

Mass murder is not a defensive action.

Justification is inherently anti-moral. That is, people justify their conduct BECAUSE it is not moral; they make excuses. Making excuses for anti-morality is itself immoral. Moral conduct needs no justification. What the Middle East needs is human morality, not partisan justification.

Hamas can be said to have provoked the Israeli mass murder war crimes which were clearly out of all proportion to the provocation. However, it's clear that Israel's intent had nothing to do with proportionality, rather it is closer to extermination regardless of the cost in life and with only regard to Public Relations of what it could justify in the way of "collateral damage". Further, Israel planned this over many months, just waiting for an excuse to "justify" its criminal behavior. So Israel is in the wrong here. While Hamas' rocket attacks are unfortunate on the small time frame scale, Israel's response is criminal.

The immorality of Hamas in no way justifies Israel's reactive immorality in this case.

Tough talk? Better than abusive PR. Cut the bull. A nation state is murdering people in Gaza because some "thugs" have been firing more or less impotent rockets into Israel. Are the "thugs" behaving morally? No. Can they justify their conduct? Duh, in their terms, yes. But they are of course, thugs, not a nation state.

Israel knows it has behaved immorally. Shame on Israel. Shame on Israelis who through greed or fear have blocked substantive peace processes in the past.

The rhetoric of Hamas can change. What Hamas needs, if not extermination, is a path to modify its extremist charter while not losing face. When the rhetoric of Hamas changes, Israel will have lost one justification for its immoral conduct. It will then have a political opening.

Israel needs to learn a Christian lesson it may know about but has not embraced effectively for far too many years. Israel needs to act with greatness instead of with raw power.

Hamas needs to stop thinking of itself as weak thugs, and step up too, or be exterminated.

I've noted several times that a big problem in a pave-our-way-out-of-distress stimulus program is that it also means a heavy CO2 impact from all that cement. But over at OpenLeft the blogger Freeranger notes a couple of articles on the use of fly ash to drastically lower the carbon impact of cement. Hooray for innovation (even if not exactly new).

It's important not to get in a mad rush to fix things that create bigger problems. Our approach to ethanol 2 years ago is a case of furiously flawed policy in the guise of alternative energy - both the huge industry payouts without creating competition and new solutions (actually blocking foreign providers of efficient ethanol through draconian tariffs), along with eco- and food supply damage through the willy-nilly rush to grow and conver to ethanol crops.

The reason the needed solutions are complex is because the problems are complex. The solution chosen may not be ideal, and sitting still doing nothing is typically not a good choice, but there's no replacement for reading the fine print. We need a forward-looking energy policy, there will be lots of experiments and mistakes, and we need to switch gears when we find a mistake - not "full speed ahead whatever the problem". Even with fly ash, there might be unforeseen problems (it got an unfair bad reputation some time ago, and it seems that proper usage has addressed these, but widespread usage in various scenarios can bring out new issues - caveat emptor).

There's no free lunch. Unless you're a fly. 

Okay, my first blog entry, in the waning hours of the first day of 2009 (in my time zone anyway).  I'm going to limit the beefs to "political" beefs and will deal with the abject state of the rest of my personal life somewhere else.

1. Obama straying from telling us the truth:  Blago and Gaza.  Blago has not been accused of selling the Senate seat, but Obama is quoted as having said that.   Gaza is a war crime zone and both sides, but esp. Israel, should be openly and loudly condemned, but what has the President-elect said?  "One President at a time" does not require silence from upstanding public figures on important issues.  What truth is Obama not telling us here?

2. Upcoming stimulus package:  Unless we increase productivity, government spending via borrowing only churns the economy, leading to future ownership of the country by debt holders (domestic or foreign), hyper-inflation to defeat that, or violent revolution (aka war).  Massive borrowing to generate spending is generally not productive, unless the interest rate is both negative and real (an imaginary scenario, I think).  Fixing inflated infrastructure leaves us with a better oiled  Stretch Limo when we should not be using Limos at all (well, not so much).  Green jobs sound good, if we are willing and able to keep the lion's share of the spending at home and we don't mind shelling out what wealth we have to keep the new industry going.  Green jobs are like airbags and power steering, for the most part costly luxury items now more or less mandated.

3.  Intrusive and abusive ads, and dysfunctional posting software, at political blog sites:  TPM runs ads from vendors such as Circuit City which block functionality of the web page for long periods of time, generate false clicks on the ad, and consume huge amounts of processing time.  Dysfunctional posting software often causes my computer to run at 40-50% capacity for up to 90 seconds after I post a comment in a thread (yes, Al, after the alleged script fixes last night, too).  Find some other way to make money, or set some strict rules for your advertisers and their agents. 

4. I'm not going to mention Paulson's Pig, Cox and Donaldson's [attempted] murder of good government at the SEC, Bernanke's insanity at the Fed, and other very important beefs, today.  Just imagine I didn't post beef #4 even tho' I hinted at it.

5. The MNSC's strange notion of justice in the recount of the MN Senate race:  Count all 1350 or so "erroneously rejected" ballots, or none of them.  Cherry-picking ballots does not serve due process nor does it serve democracy.  Let any unhappy candidate contest the election formally (including the 1350) later, but don't muddy the waters here.  What kind of sense of humor hath Justice?


Thanks for visiting, and thanks in advance for your cogent or enlightening comments! 

PS - NYD was quite nice otherwise.

For general information purposes . . .

As this new year comes upon us the most pressing issue will undoubtedly be the reform of the current health care provider systems and health insurance plan coverage of all Americans.

Please keep in mind that this post is NOT a request for anyone to join The Alliance for Retired Americans.

This has been provided as an additional source of current timely information related to the upcoming efforts with the reform of the health care issue.

I am personally a long time supporter of the so-called "single-payer " plan as outlined in the long standing Rep. John Conyers, Jr. [D MI-14] House bill as outlined at the following link:

H.R.676

United States National Health Insurance Act
(the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act)

THOMAS Home > Bills, Resolutions > H.R.676

With that said, I must tell you that I was born September 4, 1946. That was the first year of the baby boomer generation that approximately 80 million individuals in total were born between 1946 and 1964. So my take on this issue really has very little to do with me. Fortunately my wife and I have been in a non-profit medical system for the past 27 years that has already begun the process for us for our coming MediCare coverage that beings in a little over two years from now. Our situation will not be changing whatsoever for us.

Many individuals in our situation have the attitude of "...oh well, I have mine..." But I have never been that type of person, nor has my wife. (she continues her work as a Spec. Ed teacher as she has over the past 30 years.)  So, my concern has to do with what the future will hold for those who will carry on into the future under the coming strain and rising financial burden of the medical costs that will undoubtedly be incurred over the next 20 years.

If the current situation remains the same the burden will only get worse. You can doubt that if you wish, but you're only denying  the on coming train.

If things remain the same, all data points to a rising financial burden on every working person in the United States on the average of approximately 1.5 to 2.0 percent per year over the next 10 years for each and every working individual or family's combined yearly budget due to the rise in health coverage costs alone.

The current status is unsustainable, let alone the future rise in costs.

NOTE UPDATED: The following has been added as of August 1, 2009:

From eMaxHealth.com...

Post-Recession Incomes Will Be Hit Hard By Health Care Spending

According to a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) by Daniel Polsky, Ph.D., and David Grande, M.D., M.P.A, of the University of Pennsylvania's Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.

Using a series of vignettes premised on typical health care budgets for a mixture of income levels, the authors found that wage growth for middle class workers will no longer be sufficient to keep pace with the rapidly escalating costs of health care. As health care swallows a larger proportion of their family budget, standards of living will decline.

"For many families, one inevitable solution will be dropping private health insurance coverage altogether," write the authors.

In other words, even when the economy turns the corner, the problem of health care won't go away.

The authors emphasize that the key to affordable health care for all is decisive action to contain health care costs. However the authors caution that for health care reform based on private health insurance to be genuinely affordable, it will also require shifts in the distribution of health care costs within the population.

The piece, "The Burden of Health Care Costs for Working Families -- Implications for Reform," notes that absolute increases in income for the nation as a whole are outpacing absolute increases in health care spending, suggesting that health care spending is not eroding the overall capacity to purchase other goods and services. But this is not the case for an increasing number of middle class families.

--snip--

The authors note that as family income increases, employee-paid and employer-paid premiums as a percentage of overall compensation decreases. In other words, middle-income families pay a larger percentage of their income in the form of health care premiums and forgo a larger percentage of what would have been direct income to themselves compared to upper-income families.

For example, health care expenditures, which represent 25 percent of a two-income family's total $48,000 compensation, consist of employee-paid premiums and out-of pocket expenses (8.6 percent) and health care premiums paid by an employer with wages that the family otherwise would have received, and by the government from a share of the taxes paid by the family (16.5 percent). In the case of a family with a combined income of $97,000, health care accounts for 16.7 percent of the compensation, with employee-paid premiums and out-of pocket expenses totaling 6.4 percent and employer contributions and taxes totaling 12.2 percent.

Finally, at the $175,000 level, health care accounts for 13.9 percent of a family's compensation -- with 2.6 percent being employee-paid premiums and out-of pocket expenses and 11.3 coming in the form of employer contributions and taxes.

continues at this link

The following is the chart from:

The Burden of Health Care Costs for Working Families -- Implications for Reform

Compensation Remaining after Health Care Expenditures for U.S. Households with Various Income Levels.

The proportion of total compensation devoted to health care includes expenses for health care for the worker and his or her family, forgone wages due to the employer's expenses for health insurance premiums, and the proportion of taxes that support government health care programs. Our assumptions about real income growth (0.6% for the median income level, 1.0% for the 80th percentile of income, and 1.5% for the 95th percentile of income) and growth in health care spending (3.0%) are based on 30-year historical trends.

SPECIFIC TO MEDICARE AND RETIREES


My wife and I (when I hit the Big-50) have been associated with the Alliance for Retired Americans through our union affiliations ever since 1996 when the organization was known as the The National Council on the Aging. Of course we had been contacted by AARP, but we felt the NCA and since 2001 the Alliance for Retired Americans was better oriented to our personal belief in grassroots efforts to reach out to, not just those of retirement age, but to all working people within the community.

Below is a quick overview  of the Alliance relating to the ongoing health reform efforts with some key links provided:

The Alliance for Retired Americans believes that any health care reform passed by Congress must:

• Allow Medicare to negotiate volume discounts with drug manufacturers.  The Veterans Administration does this and its prescriptions cost 30 percent less.
  
• End wasteful taxpayer subsidies to private insurance companies who run Medicare Advantage programs at a cost nearly 20 percent higher than Medicare.
  
• Provide early retirees the option to purchase Medicare coverage.  Many of the 5.1 million Americans between 55-64 who lack health insurance are victims of mass layoffs.
  
• Close the "donut hole" in Medicare Part D coverage.

NOTE: Updated Links Below as of August 2009:


Frequently Asked Questions (html)

The following links are in PDF format

Fact Sheet - Health Insurance Reform Myths August 13, 2009

Fact Sheet - Health Care Reform and Seniors, August 2009

Health Insurance Reform Bill Comparison August 12, 2009

Legislative Conference Health Care Work Book

Comments to Senate Finance CommitteeMedicare Buy-in

Comments to Senate FinanceHealth Care Financing Options

Issue Brief: Retirees and Health Care Reform

Issue Brief: Stop Medicare Privatization

Issue Brief: Medicare Part D

Please keep in mind that this post is NOT a request for anyone to join The Alliance for Retired Americans.

This has been provided as an additional source of current timely information related to the upcoming efforts with the reform of the health care issue.

~OGD~

What do my wife and I do on New Year's Eve? Think up e-mails on the need for universal health coverage to send to our fellow South Dakotan Tom Daschle and the Obama Administration. Here's a message I submitted this morning through Change.gov. Mr. Daschle, pay attention!

To Secretary-Nominee Tom Daschle:

A friend of ours told us about the hard times her sister and brother-in-law have hit. She is recovering from breast cancer and still undergoing some treatments. Her husband just received a heart transplant Christmas Eve. He has lost his job, because, of course, he missed a lot of work. He has thus also lost his health insurance. Chances of finding an affordable policy that won't exclude either him or his wife are slim to none. His employer-based health plan covered the transplant, but how they'll pay for the follow-up medicines and treatments is anyone's guess.

It occurred to us that if insurance worked the way it was supposed to--a bunch of us pool our money to take care of the few of us each year who will need health care, in return for the promise that if something bad happens to us, we'll be covered--these folks wouldn't have to worry. If they were in my insurance pool, I'd never deny them coverage. I'd say, "You can't work right now? No problem, neighbor. Come in the pool, we'll cover you, and then when you and your wife are better and can contribute to the pool, we'll expect you to help us if we're in a bind."

Why can't we do that? Because we, the insurance purchasers who provide private insurance companies with their capital, aren't the real stakeholders. Private investors buy stocks in health insurance companies, creating a distinct and conflicting interest group. We join the insurance pool for it to function; private investors buy stock in hopes that it won't function (i.e., won't pay out for health care).

I want my health care dollars to go toward health care, toward helping my neighbors, not toward profit. Health insurance should be one giant public pool in which every American pledges to help protect every other American (and anyone else who happens to be our guest).

Single-payer not-for-profit health care: it's decent, it's practical, and it's how insurance is supposed to work.

As we see from the case of of the couple paying bills for breast cancer and a heart transplant, it doesn't make sense to tie health insurance to jobs. You don't deserve health care because you are a good employee. You deserve health care because you are human.

Similar conversation about both the morality and practicality of universal health coverage was on MPR's Midmorning with Kerri Miller yesterday. Give it a listen, then get hold of Tom Daschle yourself and tell him to do health care reform right.

Many have written in the past week about the current crisis in the Gaza Strip.  I have confessed an ambivalence and genuine uncertainty about whether Israel's actions are justified, in whole and in part, and candidly it just doesn't seem genuine that so many of us, posters and contributors alike, have staked out positions that are devoid of the uncertainty I freely admit to have.  Like many of you, I have tried to look past cable news channels and the so-called mainstream media in an effort to move beyond shallow analyses and garden-variety and simplistic explanations more akin to spaghetti westerns with those black and white hats as guides for distinguishing the good guys from the bad.

In the course of my internet wanderings, I stumbled across the statement by the Israel Policy Forum ("IPF") on the crisis in Gaza.  I offer it as a possible touchstone for rational discussion between decent people at the TPM Cafe.  IPM's statement is presented because I understand it to be a group that has reflected a far more even-handed approach to the I-P conflict than other so-called "mainstream" organizations in Washington, and because our own MJ Rosenberg IPF's Director of Policy Analysis.

At the threshold, IPF calls on the United States to push for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but appears to squarely and without ambiguity blame Hamas for what has taken place:

Israel Policy Forum (IPF) urges the United States to push for an immediate end to hostilities and resumption of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The ceasefire was terminated by Hamas on December 19, despite the stated willingness of the Israelis to extend it and the efforts of the Egyptians to negotiate an extension. Israel's blockade was a response to continued Hamas firing of missiles at Israeli communities and other infractions, and the use of the ceasefire for building up its arsenal of longer range and more sophisticated missiles, the impact of which is now being felt in ever wider areas of Israel.

The statement continues with a declaration that "IPF deplores all loss of life and the suffering of people on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border", and that the military action threatens the long-term interests of Israel, the United States and the Middle East peace process. That said, IPF Executive Director Nick Bunzl also states that Hamas provoked Israel "for its own reasons", and further states that he understands Israel's need to defend its citizens:

"Hamas, for its own reasons, provoked Israel's military response without regard for the civilian population of Gaza, and we understand Israel's need to defend her citizens," Bunzl added.

Finally, IPF calls on the United States, with the assistance of the Quartet and the Arab states in the region, to push for a mutual and long-term ceasefire defined as follows:

IPF therefore calls on the United States to push for an international effort to bring about an immediate Hamas-Israel truce, negotiated by intermediaries. IPF also urges immediate exploration of a long-term armistice, also through intermediaries, in which there will be absolutely no attacks on Israel of any kind and the end to the import of advanced weapons by Hamas in exchange for a commensurate lifting of the blockade by Israel."

IPF's statement resonates with me, but I understand that many of you will have good faith reasons to feel otherwise.  Pennies for your thoughts.

 

Bruce S. Levine

New York, New York

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it possible that as the large conglomerate financial model for newspapers show its failure in bad coverage, more levels of management needing support, greater demands for profits to fund hierarchy and bankruptcy that the seeds of a rebirth of the media is being laid.

I know it's rather pollyannish to say something like, "Deep down we're all the same." But what if such a sentiment were actually conducive to a hard-nosed, realist foreign policy? Besides, when to be pollyannish if not New Year's?

The U.S. and Israel share a language about terrorism, and the most common refrain is, "Every country has a right to defend itself." And indeed, who can argue with that? Here's NYC Mayor Bloomberg, in a gratuitous media availability with Israel's Consul General at City Hall Tuesday, delivering the Israel/U.S. position:

Until Hamas stops lobbing rockets into Israel, I think Israel has an obligation to its people, just as the U.S. government would have to its people, to respond and do everything possible to end the threat.

Alright, Mr. Mayor. But is Israel doing "everything possible" to end the threat, to keep its citizens safe? After all, more Israelis are dying now that Israel has escalated the conflict. Putting aside one's feelings on who's at fault, or who's more right, in this conflict (and I don't personally have a cut-and-dried view - as my late stepmother used to say, "They're all meshugah over there"), I don't think it's clear that Israel's actions even accomplish its ostensible immediate goal: ending the threat and protecting its citizens.

I understand the attraction for Israel of using overwhelming force. Quick, massive shows of force served the country well in its earlier history. But the current strategy in Gaza - much like the "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq - is implicitly premised on a view of the Palestinians as fundamentally different from "us."

The desired outcome of overwhelming force is that the enemy will recognize the hopelessness of further resistance and give in to the demands of the superior force. But both the U.S. and Israel are countries whose national mythologies are built on the battle cry of resisting superior, but unjust, forces. We understand better than most the mindset of Palestinians whose will to fight Israel is only cemented by further Israeli attacks. Yet Israel bases its military strategies on the premise that the Palestinians will at some point see that their position is untenable and give up.

Said Defense Minister Ehud Barak over the weekend about the Israeli operations in Gaza:

I don't see any other way for Hamas to change its behavior.

Barak may not be able to see any other way - but his government has chosen the one way that has consistently, without fail, not caused any Palestinian group to change its behavior - that has, in fact, consistently caused them to redouble their commitment.

I'm not suggesting that Israel is wrong on moral grounds. My argument here holds whether or not you think Israel is right. If the goal is to be right no matter how much more violence and bloodshed is involved, then Israel can do whatever it wants. But if the goal is less violence, Israel would do well to consider its opponents as more like Israelis.

Many if not most Israelis and Americans believe, and have every right to believe, that Palestinians' fight against Israel has nothing whatsoever in common with their own nations' fights for independence and security. But it does nothing for Israel's security to refuse to acknowledge that Palestinians see themselves that way.

Speaking on On Point on New Year's Eve, Aaron David Miller said there's a rigorous logic to the Israeli/American position: Gazans will realize that Hamas is bringing this destruction on them and that they must throw their support to a government willing to negotiate on Israel's terms. But this willfully ignores all the evidence that the vast majority of Gazans have always, and almost certainly will always, side more forcefully with Hamas when attacked. As Miller put it (paraphrasing), "Americans are experts in seeing the world as we'd like it to be, rather than seeing the world as it is...and the Israelis are getting pretty good at it too."

After all, American supporters of Israel's current actions like to pose the hypothetical, If we were being shelled from Canada or Mexico, wouldn't we do the same thing? Most likely - but they refuse to acknowledge that, if we were we militarily outmatched by, and being bombed by, Canada or Mexico, we would respond exactly as Hamas has. Any policy that fails to take this into account - that the Palestinians are essentially "like us" - is doomed.

For Americans who are attracted by the revolution in Venezuela

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE When is Being Cool, Too Cool to Survive? As a young man growing up, dividing my time between the Pueblo Del Rio projects and Watts, in South/Central Los Angeles, one of the first things I learned about survival in the Black community was the importance of being cool. To be cool meant to gain popularity through a well developed sense of style, while at the same time maintaining an air of feigned indifference. The key to being cool was to be able to play it off as though the very demeanor that you were dedicating every waking hour trying to perfect, was absolutely meaningless to you. If a young man could pull that off, it would go a long way towards keeping him safe in a very dangerous environment. Thus, in a very real sense, one of the most important qualities for a young man to learn in order to survive in the Black community, was how to become the most effective phony that he could be. That continues to be the case today, among many of the weak in the community, because it is primarily the weak, those youngsters who lack parental support, who find it necessary to turn to the street and gangsterism to find a sense of identity. The only difference between when I was growing up and today is, the sense of style, the first component of what it meant to be cool (and the very characteristic which often made it possible for a young man to escape to a better life), has been completely overwhelmed by the latter, feigned indifference, an attitude that all but guarantees that many of today's young people will be trapped in a downward spiral for life. The problem is, feigned indifference has become, actual indifference-an indifference towards life, dignity, knowledge, responsibility, and all the social tools and resources that are necessary to establish any kind of viable lifestyle in a modern society. Social indifference has become so much a part of these young people's lives that they go out of their way to corrupt even the most routine social conventions, like tying their shoes, pulling their pants up, or wearing their caps straight. The message is, I don't have time to be bothered with such nonsense. But unfortunately, that's exactly the kind of nonsense that goes into being able to raise and support a family. Ordinarily one would be safe in saying, ok, each to his own. If they don't want to tie their shoes or pull up their pants, that's their prerogative. But it's not as easy as that. We're not just dealing with the chosen lifestyle of one individual, or even a handful of individuals-we are now tasked with having to stamp out an attitude that is permeating our entire community. This attitude of gross indifference towards society is perniciously insidious, and due to its widespread dissemination through the hip hop and gangster rap culture, it's affecting an entire generation of young people. And I'm not only talking about a dress code here--this antagonism towards social convention is also having a negative impact on our young people's ability to speak business English-"What it is?"; "What it be like?!!!" Verbal constructions such as these can all but guarantee that a young man won't be able to get through a job interview, or support a family. Our young people aren't born with an antagonism towards societ, they are taught these attitudes early in life as a defense mechanism against the lowered self-esteem attendant to their early failures. Due to the Black community's low priority for education, many of our young people don't have the support either in the home or the community to become effective learners. As a direct result of that lack of support, if (make that when) they fall behind in school, they stay behind, and as the material becomes progressively more complicated, they see it as impossible to catch up. Once that downward spiral begins, these young people become frustrated, and start looking for a defense mechanism to salvage their self-esteem. Then with the able assistance of those in the community who insist that their "inability" to learn is a "White plot" to keep the Black man down, our young people are given both a convenient excuse for failure, and a foundation upon which to build a lifetime of hostility towards society. But before I go on, I'd like to make several points abundantly clear. First, it is not my contention that the larger society is completely blameless in this scenario, but Black people are not helpless children, so in the final analysis, it is primarily our responsibility to salvage our own community. In addition, since knowledge is free, while we can blame the White man for a number of atrocities over the years, trying to blame him for our failure to educate ourselves stands as a direct assault on our own credibility. Education is a proactive endeavor. One cannot BE educated--one must educate one's self. And since there is just as much knowledge in the corner library as there is at Harvard University, if one is undereducated, it's one's own fault. And finally, I'm not so old-school that I don't realize that with every generation the older generation brings up some of these same issues, but sometimes they're right. They were right, for example, about some of our excesses in the sixties. Many of the problems that we're currently having with crime, drugs, the disrespect of our women, and political corruption is a direct result of our laissez faire attitude towards social convention during that generation. Think about it-if Richard Nixon had done anything close to what George Bush has done over the past eight years, he would have been impeached, and maybe even jailed. But George Bush is literally getting away with murder, and a flagrant assault on the United States Constitution-and the reason he's getting away with it is because our society is rapidly slipping down the slippery slop of decadence, due to the apathy brought on by society's growing tolerance for ignorance. So now is an excellent time for Black people to level the playing field, but in order to do so, it is incumbent upon us to step up to the plate to curb the excesses in the Black community. We must start by refusing to settle for the status quo, and insisting on a lot less talk, and a lot more action from our churches, politicians, and others who benefit from our community's support. Our churches do an excellent job of spreading the word, now we need them to become just as prolific at spreading the deed-we must insist upon it. We must also insist that these institutions initiate, encourage, and support programs in the community that assist low-income families, promote the education of our young people, and thereby, lift their self-esteem. And finally, we must begin to lavish our props and rewards upon those who bring excellence, knowledge, and honor to our community over those who simply bring entertainment. Because, to paraphrase an old sports announcer from years past, in the department store of life, you'll find music and sports in the toy department.   Eric L. Wattree wattree.blogspot.com A moderate is one who embraces truth over ideology.

And soon we will be saying goodbye to George W. Bush, The Decider, the commander in chief. On the 20th day from today President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office. Between now and then gives us a chance to make judgments about what we would hope our next President might avoid or modify during his tenure. But one thing is certain; there will be change and uncertainty for some time to come.

More than meets the eye -- Many of us are still asking, as did AlterNet's Gary Brecher, "How did we let this guy get away with being a war president#?" Unfortunately, the bill for our current president's so-called "war on terror" is not going away anytime soon. Time Magazine reported recently that the tab will be a trillion dollars#. They say that it is even costlier than expected, "$775,000 a year for one soldier in Afghanistan." In December of 2006, the NYT reported, "The Iraq war will cost more in 2007 than the $110 billion projected by the White House, said the head of the administration's budget office#." This figure was just a tad off, I would say.

We wondered whether this would ever happen -- "Iraq takes control of the Green Zone from the U.S.," is the headline from the 1/1/09 Yahoo! News. To me war has never been about the threat of WMD, the politics of sectarian divisions within the country, or which brilliant General was in charge. To me the war has always been about the fatalities, both American and Iraqi. To quote:

The United States handed over control of the Green Zone and Saddam Hussein's presidential palace to Iraqi authorities on Thursday in a ceremonial move described by the country's prime minister as a restoration of Iraq's sovereignty.

. . . Violence around Iraq had plunged in 2008, with attacks declining to an average of 10 a day from 180 a year ago. The murder rate in November was less than 1 per 100,000 people -- far lower than many cities in the world. U.S. military deaths in Iraq also plunged by two-thirds in 2008 from the previous year, a reflection of the improving security following the U.S. military's counterinsurgency campaign and al-Qaida's slow retreat from the battlefield. According to a tally by The Associated Press, at least 314 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq in 2008, down from 904 in the previous year. In all, at least 4,221 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in 2003. For Iraqis, the fatalities had also plunged: During 2008, at least 7,496 Iraqis died in war-related violence according to an AP count, including 6,068 civilians and 1,428 security personnel, down 60 percent from 2007.

And we have no idea what will happen in Iraq in 2009 -- On C-SPAN last evening I watched a fascinating presentation by U.S. News' author Linda Robinson, who wrote "Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search For a Way Out of Iraq." Her analysis was solid, her reporting excellent and her conclusion open-ended. In the same vein about a month ago Time Magazine asked, "When the U.S. Leaves, Will Iraq Strut or Stumble?"# To quote:

. . . don't expect peace to break out anytime soon. In a country seething with ancient animosities, it's almost certain that politics will be attended by violence. Ahead of provincial elections in January, there's a potentially explosive Shi'ite-vs.-Shi'ite clash brewing in the south. In Sunni areas to the west and north of Baghdad, a new alliance of tribal sheiks, many of them U.S.-funded ex-insurgents, are challenging the Sunni parties currently in power.

But it is in Kirkuk where the disputes seem most intractable. At its simplest, this is an old-fashioned turf war. The Kurds want the city and its hinterlands to be folded into the northern province of Kurdistan. Turkomans (a distinct ethnic group sharing ancestry with modern Turks) and Arabs would prefer it to remain outside Kurdish hegemony, in the separate Tamim province. Each group points out that the city was once ruled by its forebears. All know that outside Kirkuk is one of Iraq's largest oil fields. Also at stake is the larger, constitutional question of whether Iraq should have a powerful central government, favored by Turkomans and Arabs, or highly autonomous regions, as the Kurds wish. And finally, there are outside influences: Turkey backs the Turkomans and, with Iran, opposes greater Kurdish power.

Even in these tough economic times the remainder of the Military Industrial Complex continues to thrive. See this 12/15/08 essay from Mother Jones: "Back to the future with the Complex." To quote:

Is it possible that one of the Pentagon's contractors has a tripartite business model for our tough economic times: one division that specializes in crock-pots, another in adult diapers, and a third in medium caliber tactical ammunition?

. . . It isn't hard to imagine more civilian firms, especially ones which are already Pentagon contractors, getting into (or back into) the weapons game. After all, when the Big Three Detroit automakers were scrounging around for a bailout just a few weeks ago, they used America's persistent involvement in armed conflict as one argument in their favor. For example, Robert Nardelli, Chrysler's chief executive, told the Senate that the failure of the auto industry "would undermine our nation's ability to respond to military challenges and would threaten our national security." While that argument was roundly dismissed by retired Army Lt. Gen. John Caldwell, chairman of the National Defense Industrial Association's combat vehicles division, it probably wouldn't have been if the automakers made more weapons systems.

Will Presto be the back-to-the-future model for Pentagon contractors in the lean times ahead? Only time will tell. At the very least, it seems that, as long as Americans allow the country to wage wars abroad, require their salads to be shot, and have bladder issues, National Presto Industries has a future.

The wars will move to Afghanistan, or Palestine, or Iran, or Pakistan, or India or . . . We will arm our own soldiers or sell arms to others. The complex seems dug in for the foreseeable future.

Hat Tip Key: Regular contributors of links to leads are "betmo*" and Jon#.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest)

My "creativity and dreaming" post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics war middle east iraq military

Barack Obama's continued silence on Gaza is now officially embarrassing, and effectively pernicious.  Diplomats and private individuals around the world are working to end the bloodshed, but will be challenged to find a way out of the present conflict if they do not get clearer signals prom the US president-elect.  Unless Obama makes his intentions clearer, interested parties will have no idea which proposals are politically realistic and can be made to stick, and which are not.  Seen in that context, the silence from Obama is not simply a case of non-interference with an executive branch he does not yet control.  It is a calculated decision, and a pro-active measure of support for the continuation of the Israeli campaign.  If Israeli ground forces invade Gaza without even a peremptory peep from Obama, the river of blood that will be shed will flow partly over his own hands.


The observation that there is "only one president at a time," is a dodge. Barack Obama doesn't get to choose when to start leading.  History has chosen him, and placed him in a leadership role.  That leadership role was carved out and established the moment he was elected president, quaint anachronistic traditions about our elaborately extended White House transition periods notwithstanding.  People are following his lead now, whether he likes it or not.  Obama must accept and fulfill the responsibilities that have been thrust upon him  If he does not, he risks looking like a passive and ineffectual fool.  Worse, he risks prolonging the suffering of many innocent people.


As he enters the fray, Obama must find time to read this memo from Uri Avnery.

I was feeling unreasonably serene this New Year's morning. To balance my humors, I decided to take a trip to the Wall Street Journal editorial page. As expected, I was richly rewarded.

Holman Jenkins' free-market screed on the U.S. auto industry was just what I needed to turn my mellow into venomous bile. Predictably, Jenkins lays blame for the Big Three's profit swoon on CAFE standards, the UAW, and the Wagner Act. While his proposed way out is buried under a gimmicky blanket of irony, it apparently (and predictably) involves the dismantling of unions and a commitment to let Detroit do what it does best: make three ton gas pigs.

This is stupid on so many levels. To maintain what's left of my holiday spirit, I'll focus on just a couple.

First off, placing yet another bet on an endless tide of cheap oil is disingenuous at best, ignorant at worst. Just a few months ago, gas was at $4 a gallon. While Jenkins points out that half of U.S. vehicle sales at that time were light trucks, anyone who tried to trade in an Expedition, Suburban or Escalade for a Civic Hybrid could tell you that people weren't exactly storming car lots in search of Detroit iron. If it takes five years to get a new model to market, would you retool for Navigators or Priuses?

Jenkins argues that CAFE is a global laughingstock, and the foreigns simply pay their fines and keep the X-6s, Cayennes and Mercedes staff cars coming 'cause that's what Americans want. Of course they also build what those over-regulated Europeans want, which is fuel-efficient vehicles using clean diesel technology. CAFE is a laughingstock because the standards were never given real teeth. As a result, big Three "leadership" has never been able to view oil as a finite and dirty resource and plan accordingly. A $80 price floor on oil might stimulate discussion around the boardroom table. 

Then there's the union thing. Blah, blah, blah.

No question, UAW members retire too early and will have to share the pain of other Big Three stakeholders if Detroit is to survive. Yet as I pointed out in my previous post, non-legacy compensation accounts for about $800 of the price of a Detroit-made vehicle. And American brands are already cheaper than Hondas, Toyotas, Benzes and Bimmers.

Come on, Holman, at least spread the blame around. Detroit's ridiculously overcompensated leadership is guilty of gutting American brands and profits, and they should be held to account.

Back in the (really) bad old days, when shoddy quality and hideous styling had Americans fleeing Big Four Three showrooms and the Japanese were tooling up on U.S. soil, Detroit executives decided to counter their corroding brand equity by cooking up a potent and addictive blend of financial incentives. Rebates, zero percent financing and leases became crack cocaine to American consumers. Cash back became table stakes in showroom negotiations. Sweet lease deals put folks of modest means into immodest vehicles. Profitability vanished.

Since then, quality is vastly improved, but reputation trails reality and it will take time before Americans fully embrace U.S. brands. And it will take serious rehab to walk into a dealership and sign papers without a $5,000 rebate and employee pricing sweetening the deal. The response by our fearless leaders, naturally, is to incorporate GMAC as a bank so it can hit the TARP trough and offer no-interest loans to folks who really can't afford to borrow money.

The last car I bought was a used Honda. Why Honda? It was to be our family car, and would you buy a seven-year-old Chevy for your family car?

RUSH THE MAGIC FASCIST LIVED BY THE SEA
AND FROLICKED IN A RECORDING ROOM JUST INSIDE MIAMI
LITTLE WACKY RACISTS LOVED THAT MAGIC RUSH
AND BROUGHT HIM MANY RATINGS AND BOUGHT ALL HIS RACIST MUSH

TOGETHER WITH THE RABBLE, RUSH WOULD ALWAYS RAIL
RIGHT WING BLOGS WOULD KEEP A RUSH THAT NEVER REALLY FAILED,
CLOSET HOMOPHOBICS  WOULD  VOW TO SUPPORT HIS FAME,
CORPORATE HEADS WOULD BUY AD TIME AND PROSPER WITH HIS NAME, Oh!

RUSH THE MAGIC FASCIST LIVE BY THE SEA
AND FROLICKED IN A RECORDING ROOM JUST OUTSIDE MIAMI,
A FASCIST LIVES FOREVER BUT NO SO RACIST BOYS,
CORPORATE HEADS AND REPUBLICANS MOVED ON TO OTHER TOYS

ONE GREY NIGHT IT HAPPENED,THE RATINGS ROSE NO MORE
AND RUSH THAT MIGHT RACIST FINALLY CEASED HIS FEARLESS ROAR.

HIS HEAD WAS BENT IN SORROW, OXYCONTIN FELL LIKE RAIN,
RACISTS NO LONG WENT TO THE AIRWAYS TO HEAR THE FAT BOY'S PAIN.
WITHOUT HIS LIFE LONG FRIENDS, RUSH  COULD NOT BE BRAVE,
THE EMPTY BUZZ  OF FASCIST PRONE AND RACIST PRONE AIRWAVES! OH

RUSH THE MAGIC FASCIST LIVED BY THE SEA
AND FROLICKED IN A RECORDING ROOM JUST INSIDE MIAMI
LITTLE WACKY RACISTS LOVED THAT MAGIC RUSH
AND BROUGHT HIM MANY RATINGS AND BOUGHT ALL HIS RACIST MUSH

The World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001 just as I finished reading this Tom Friedman column (a link that may not work unless you subscribe to the NY Times):

[T]he status quo is politically quite tolerable for both the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, and Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon. For the moment, each is riding high in the polls, and neither has to confront his hard-line base and say the game is up. The status quo is also tolerable for President Bush, because as long as there is no peace process he doesn't have to pressure Israel to compromise, which is the last thing he wants to do, since it would inevitably force a clash with U.S. Jews, whose votes and donations he needs to protect his G.O.P. majority in the House.

But while the leaders are unable to forge the big partition, and can tolerate the status quo, the people increasingly can't. So what's happening on the ground is a million little personal partitions. People all over Israel are building their own walls to separate themselves from danger. ''Everyone is now their own minister of defense,'' said an Israeli colleague.

West Bank settlers are isolated from friends in Israel because they are afraid to take responsibility for inviting anyone to visit their settlements for fear they will be shot on the roads. Israeli parents refuse to let their kids go to malls, cinemas or discos that might be targets of suicide bombers. ''First I decide which movie theater I think will be the safest, then I check which movie is playing,'' an Israeli mother told me.

You drive north to the Jerusalem suburb of Psagot, which overlooks Ramallah, and you find that the houses with the best view of the Ramallah hills now have an anti-sniper concrete wall in front of them and sandbags on the windows. You drive south, between the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo and the Arab village of Beit Jala, and there is another long concrete wall blocking snipers from hitting Gilo, but also sealing in Gilo. There are Hebrew posters all over this wall that read: ''The New Middle East.'' Some Israeli coffee shops now have security guards at the door to deter suicide bombers.

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Why the Academicians Have Usually Failed in Economics

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

December 19, 2008

There is rising consternation stirring within the international press, in leading circles of governments from the U.S.A., in western and central Europe, in Russia, in China, and from around the world generally. Reluctantly, it now dawns upon these circles, that virtually nothing which is essentially crucial has occurred in those patterns in the world's economy generally, which I had not forecast in my international webcast of July 25th, 2007.

Among the powers of evil which still appear to control some of the governing powers in the world, there is now a creeping sense that if it were possible they might destroy the prophet, but, then, be destroyed, themselves, by the prophecy.

What I had forecast, on July 25, 2007, was a general breakdown-crisis, which I had warned, was to unfold by about the close of that July. Three days after that webcast, the actual breakdown of the world's present monetary system began exactly as I had warned it would. Since then, the tocsin of a spreading, global tragedy of the nations of this planet, were heard here, then there, and then beyond, louder and louder, with a growing resonance, a resonance taking the planet as whole into its grip.

From that moment on, the ongoing, global, general, physical breakdown-crisis of the entire world's present monetary-financial system, has never ceased to worsen. It grows uglier and uglier, wider, deeper and deeper, and, for those who had deemed themselves the reigning powers of our planet, seemingly more hopeless, than what it had been a bare moment before.

There has been nothing like this, as I had repeatedly forewarned, since the U.S.A.'s 2000 Presidential primary campaign. There has been nothing comparable to this in the history of European civilization since the outbreak of medieval Europe's mid-Fourteenth-Century collapse of the House of Bardi into a Europe-wide "new dark age." It comes on as a planetary tragedy. As I had repeatedly forewarned since that time, what has been oncoming, is a general breakdown-crisis of the presently doomed financial-monetary system of every part of this planet as a whole.

One senses an approaching moment, like that silence heard by those either in the life-boats, or swimming in the chilling Atlantic ocean waters, in that moment when the S.S. Titanic had vanished under the waves.

So, since July 25, 2007, almost as soon as leading circles in any nation's government, in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, attempted to deny the possibility of a condition against which I had warned, exactly that kind of sign of an oncoming general, planetary breakdown-crisis had erupted. Essentially, not only have events around the world proceeded according to the pattern which I detailed in that webcast, but each such development had erupted seemingly moments after fresh, emphatic denials, by leading governments in the world, and others, denials that such a development as I had forecast had been possible.

So, now, in the oncoming, January 20 inauguration of a new U.S. Presidency, the crisis accelerates, building up like a rising, terrible storm. Yet, for a moment, there is an awful stillness, while this legendary Titanic is sinking into the deep, where it would lie under all the waters of the world.

Yet, ironically, at the same time, still today, even after the clear accumulation of proof of the accuracy of my July 25, 2007 warning, leading opinion often responds with a curious kind of effort at stubborn denial. In a moment when the virtual Titanic of today is already sinking. Yet, as absurd as it is for them to say, leading press and governmental circles attempt, again, to deny what is happening, by reassuring one another, that I am not a certified product of the economics department of virtually any university.

I can proudly confirm their view that I refuse to associate myself with anything as provably silly as that which passes for academic qualifications in economics among the usual academics of today. Meanwhile, they, each time, hearing their own voices on this subject, appear to be much more frightened, this time, by hearing the reverberations of their own attempted denials, than when they had uttered them a moment or so before.

Suddenly, in these moments, the threats to me from my would-be critics, appear as less ominous than tragically silly. This is a coming moment in my world, not a triumphant moment, but a moment like that experienced by a Noah floating on a vast, silent sea. So, the ominous, oncoming global tragedy, has now overtaken the world--for those who are willing to hear, and act accordingly.

I am no wizard. There is no uncanny miracle involved in my repeated, uniquely exceptional record of successes as a long-range forecaster. There is only science. As I had already emphasized back during the last four months of 1971, what had been taught as economics in most of the known universities, even then, was simply the result of the increasing rates of incompetence in what has been usually taught as economics at leading universities, since Harry S Truman was inaugurated as President.

Look back to the time and place at which the presently unfolding tragedy actually began.

My Experience
The tragedy began in that moment that the right-wing Wall Street choice for Vice-President, Harry S Truman, would seize the opportunity of President Franklin Roosevelt's death, to sabotage Roosevelt's Hamiltonian, post-war intentions. What Truman would introduce, instead of Secretary Hamilton's American System of political economy, is the intrinsic incompetence of sometime pro-Nazi economist John Maynard Keynes.[1] The widely practiced methods of statistical forecasting today, are the worst existing on this account up to the present date. Otherwise, generally, the incompetence of my academic rivals' failure as forecasters, lies presently in the way in which they define the subject itself. They have employed a method of forecasting which might be compared to the zeal of a passenger searching to upgrade his stateroom assignment on a sinking ship.[2]

This downward trend in quality of thinking about economies, a downwardness against which I have warned, as a forecaster, over the interval of two generations past, has been the principal source of the failure of the leading academic economists, and also leaders of corporate finance more or less world-wide, today. This has been a trend to be seen more clearly, more ominously, since the ousters of the last great post-World War II leaders of Europe's post-war resurrection, such as President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

This subject of widespread academic incompetence in the teaching of economics has been a recurring issue of my memorable, 1971 and later debates with spokesmen for leading academic economists. It came up yet once more, in a press conference which I held at Strasbourg this past Wednesday, (Dec. 17, 2008) In a press report on that subject, by Corriere della Sera during the same and the following day, notably, Corriere wrote: "LaRouche goes back to the XVIII century and to the [first] Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton," as, in fact, did U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Corriere was correct on precisely this point.

Looking back toward the fateful inauguration of President Harry Truman, we must recognize that the U.S. government's fiscal year 1967-1968, is notable as the point in the history of the post-President Franklin Roosevelt U.S. economy, at which the U.S. economy reached a net down-turn in physical, as distinct from merely monetary output per capita and per square kilometer, a downturn which has not merely persisted, but accelerated, from that time to the present day. An earlier, but less severe decline had been characteristic of the post-Franklin Roosevelt U.S.A., a decline in rate of growth caused by the policies under Presidents Harry S Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, as reflected in what I had forecast, in Summer-Autumn 1956, as an oncoming deep recession to hit approximately February 1957.

Later, there had been a partial, even promising resurgence of the economy under President John F. Kennedy, a resurgence which ended with the assassination of that President, and the consequent, fraudulent decision to send the U.S.A. to a war in the region of Indo-China. However, although the long, useless, wasting warfare in Indo-China, did contribute significantly to the ruin of the U.S. economy, it was not the actual cause of that collapse of the U.S. economy which has continued up to the present point of a global, general, chain-reaction mode of physical breakdown-crisis which brings the world as a whole to the brink of a threatened, prolonged, planet-wide "new dark age" now.

During most of my adult lifetime's experience since what is called World War II, there has been a dwindling, now tiny fraction of professed economists who have been competent; but, in each such latter case, the competence was gained despite, not because of the teaching of that subject for which graduates in economics from leading universities of the post-Franklin Roosevelt decades had been awarded their professional titles.

This crisis is not a U.S. failure, but a global one, despite those exceptional, known, or little known figures who have been of relevance for understanding the unfolding character of our presently looming global tragedy. For example, the incompetence which the Soviet and other Marxists have shared with their academic and political rivals in Europe and the Americas, is a direct outcome of the influence on scientific thinking of the foolish followers of the Seventeenth Century's Rene Descartes, and the Eighteenth Century's radical reductionists David Hume, Abraham de Moivre, Jean le Rond D'Alembert, and Leonhard Euler, et al. This was the characteristic incompetence of such followers of the British East India Company's Haileybury school as the plagiarist of A.R.J. Turgot, Adam Smith, as of Smith's avowed follower Karl Marx, or as the standpoint of Immanuel Kant who dared not publish his famous Critiques until the great Moses Mendelssohn was, from Kant's standpoint, safely dead.[3]

The world did not fail us. The examples of competent heroes, variously prominent or little recognized, are evidence of the contrary, willful sources of our presently looming threat of a planetary tragedy.

Economics As Science
What might have been taught as a competent approach to the subject of economy, would be essentially a branch of physical science, specifically the viewpoint of physical science from the vantage-point of the discoveries of Gottfried Leibniz and Bernhard Riemann, or, a refined view of that work of Leibniz and Riemann provided by considering the discovery of the concepts of Biosphere and Noösphere by Academician V.I. Vernadsky.

To wit: There is nothing mysterious in this bit of irony. The only science of economy which has existed in any part of modern European civilization, is that which was introduced by Gottfried Leibniz, which was an explicitly anti-Cartesian science of the dynamics of physical economy (rather than monetarist varieties of economy). Thus, simply said, the incompetence prevailing among most of the nations' so-called "economics experts" today, is a product of that on which they, and misguided governments, have premised their stated academic claims to competence in this field.

Despite the numerous, important, and even great achievements within the work of physical science generally, these individual achievements have become, more and more, notable exceptions to the more general trend launched by the replacement of such leaders of France's Ecole Polytechnique as Gaspard Monge and Lazare Carnot, by the British-appointed charlatans Laplace and Cauchy. Despite the circles of Alexander von Humboldt, Carl F. Gauss, Lejeune Dirichlet, Bernhard Riemann, Max Planck, and Albert Einstein, the Twentieth Century's science emerged as dominated, as a current trend, by a succession of hoaxsters typified by, first, the mechanistic nonsense of Ernst Mach and, soon after that, the psychotic numerology of the evil Bertrand Russell and such among his typical dupes as Professor Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, and the Russellite Cambridge school of systems analysis.[4]

The marker of this long trend in corruption of the teaching of Anglophile "science" has been that cult of the practitioner of black magic, Isaac Newton (who, probably, to his credit, actually discovered nothing), but who has been credited with the discovery of the mathematical expression for gravitation which was known, on published record, and in massive detail, by Johannes Kepler from whom Newton's boosters pilfered that mathematical formulation.

Competent instruction in economics will reappear in universities and kindred institutions, only if, or when what passes currently for competence in such institutions, today, has been suitably replaced.

I explain the nature of the widespread incompetence of the economic departments of universities and kindred institutions. My emphasis is upon economics; but, it can not be competently overlooked, especially after considering the wreckage of the world's economy now, that competent economics is a branch of physical science, not the childish witchcraft of mere monetary and related statistics.

Let us therefore resolve to learn this lesson before it comes too late to rescue the planet from the present lurch at the brink of a planetary new dark age.

 

For the complete text above, go to

http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/12/26/why-academicians-have-usually-failed-economics.html

In the late 70s, during one of the gasoline crises, I decided to improve on the three-speed Raleigh I had ridden since Jr High and get at least a ten speed. I shopped and shopped and was torn between a Puch Brigadier and a Raleigh SuperCourse. They had virtually the same components, and this was before I knew the word gruppo, but I obsessed over the frames. One of the bike store managers seemed impressed that I actually seemed to care what I bought. He said with gas prices rising, many men were rushing in, and all they knew was that they wanted a good bike.

That seems to have been happening again this last year:

A Surge in Bicyclists Appears to Be Waiting

Business skyrocketed last summer along with gasoline prices, Mr. Graves said, especially sales of hybrid bikes that can be used for recreation and transportation. So Mr. Graves ordered plenty of cold weather gear for what he believed would be legions of new bike commuters.

“We wished we hadn’t gone in quite as heavy,” Mr. Graves said. “Business is not growing at the rate it was earlier in the year.”

Lower gas prices may have changed the picture, or:

Industry analysts … said even then that bicycle store owners … were misreading the indicators. What owners perceived to be a commuter trend was probably not. The analysts argued that bicycle commuters were generally a fixed group. These riders account for less than 1 percent of commuters in the United States; in isolated pockets like Portland, they might account for about 6 percent.

What I noticed a few years ago in Frederick, a small Maryland city swallowed by DC exurbs, was a lot of hispanic and other working class types riding very stripped down mountain bikes to work. I saw one fellow carrying his drill with the plaster mixing head in one hand. There was also the public employee guy I passed every day. I didn’t count recreational types wearing colorful jerseys and riding expensive road bikes. I figure they had the day off.

Here in Federal Hill, I’m so close that I walk to work, but I see a lot more riders, many without helmets, heading for nearby downtown Baltimore every morning, but I’d have to agree that they are probably part of that fixed group mentioned above.

One view contends that the sluggish coda to the summer bicycling boom is not the end of the refrain.

“I don’t think any of us are fools that $1.89-a-gallon gasoline is really going to be the way it will be from here on out,” said Fred Clements, executive director of the National Bicycle Dealers Association. “I don’t want to appear to be too bullish, but some of the longer term trends — how we get out of an economic recession like this — don’t necessarily put bicycles in a bad spot. Bicycles are part of a solution to the problem.”

I can’t seem to respond to comments, so here’s an update:

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Yesterday was, of course, last year and day to look back on what, surprisingly from this vantage point, might be a year we look back on with great fondness because it started our country and planet on the way back. But yesterday, was the day when the New York Times also carried a paragraph that should give hope to even the most worried among us that things are going to get better.

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If you check the front page of politico44 right now, the leading piece is entitled "Obama's paparazzi presidency", and the story immediately following it is a very paparazzi-esque breakdown of Obama's enjoyment of golf. I just found this little irony slightly amusing, and a good in-a-nutshell snapshot of what I don't like about Politico.

Here's a screen cap in case the stories change by the time you check.

I like to start each new years with a fresh start.  I tend to spend the ends of the year going over how my year has gone, looking over past mistakes, checking in with friends and family I haven't talked to, even trying to fix things between friends, family and myself, if needed.  This year, I am able to say, most of my past conflicts were resolved (well, except the one with the cousin who has all his parents money and won't share with his other 3 brothers, like they intended).  But that one, I am afraid, God will have to take care of, as it seems my cousin is no longer interested in talking to me or his brothers, if our conversations don't include "You're right Curt, you're entitled to your ALL your parents money, because they didn't kiss your ring at your Mom's or even your Dad's funeral!"  Ok, so this year, couldn't fix THAT one, but the interesting thing is, I, for ONCE in my life, didn't leave a trail of broken relationships in my wake.  Now, I know what you are thinking!  Maybe its cause I matured?  Maybe its cause I have gotten older and wiser?  Yeah. yeah....THAT could be it! OR......maybe I have narrowed my social life so much I don't have as many people to piss off?  OR THAT?  Maybe.....in any case, I once again, have that feeling of being reborn, ready to go at it again for another year, with fresh new resolutions in my hand, and a houseful of sleep overs from the party we had till 2 am (Oh it WAS FUN!).  Lets see who feels like eating before leaving.........HAPPY NEW YEAR YA'ALL!

Will Senate Democratic leadership commit itself to fight for the seat of Al Franken of Minnesota as much as it has committed itself to fight against the seat of Roland Burris of Illinois?

As we hear the barrage of news reports demonizing the Palestinians for attacking civilians, let's recall our own history here in the US, where we once demonized in very similar language the Native Americans whose land we were appropriating for ourselves. Native Americans were viewed as "savages" (an old word for terrorist) who indiscriminately murdered the European men, women, and children--the "innocent" civilians--who were settling Native American lands. These words from our own declaration of independence perfectly express the sentiment:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Looking back, we are now embarrassed at the way we demonized--and cruelly destroyed--Indian lives and cultures. I wonder if the settler-colonialists in Israel will some day look back on their current attitudes and actions with the same sense of shame?

There is a myth circulating in the mainstream media that Israel's missiles are finding their targets with surgical precision.

The lie entails comparing something like the 250-pound GBU-39 "smart bomb" to a surgeon's knife. A small side-note: the United States Congress approved the sale of this bomb to Israel. Actually, they approved the sale of 1,000 of these bombs to Israel. Second side-note: Your tax dollars bought the bombs.

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So-called 'free trade,' which pits high-cost American businesses and workers against low-cost foreign producers,  was sold to the American public on the promise that poor people in China and Mexico would soon become middle class consumers of American exports.  

We were told that by moving industries and jobs Americans once did to cheap overseas labor markets like Mexico (through Nafta) and China (through PNTR/Permament Normal Trade Relations and WTO accession),  wages and living standards in those benighted lands would rise and create One Billion Customers who would dutifully purchase products made by Americans in new enterprises that would spring up in the US to replace the "sunset industry" textile mills and auto parts plants that had moved offshore.

Apart from the fact that those new high wage jobs never materialized (old news), we now learn that Chinese consumers never materialized either.

In a recent column, Tom "Flat Earth" Friedman informs us that
 

China's whole system and culture nourish saving, not spending, and changing that will require a huge "cultural and structural" shift, said Fred Hu, chairman for Greater China for Goldman Sachs.

Friedman explains why the Chinese citizen chooses to save rather than spend:

China has no real Social Security, health insurance or unemployment insurance. Without that social safety net, it's hard to see how Chinese don't end up saving most of their stimulus. "You open up the newspaper every day and you hear about this factory shutting down or that supplier going belly up," said Willie Fung, whose company, Top Form International, is the world's leading bra maker. "You can never be too careful in this financial climate."

In its news columns, the NY Times reports why a consumer society could not emerge in China, even before the latest downturn:

Shorn of the social safety net of the old Communist state, they [Chinese workers] squirrel away money to pay for hospital visits, housing or retirement.

This may sound like a great revelation, but it's really a fancy way of saying that workers with few benefits, minimal leisure time and no social protections do not a consumer society make.

Before someone claims hindsight is 20/20, let's remember that the perils of a lack of a social safety net in China (and Mexico) were well known - and often cited by opponents of trade deals.  Critics had argued that it's disastrous for a country with a social safety net to open its markets to one without.  

Businesses knew that the taxes and costs necessary to support Social Security, unemployment insurance, employee health insurance, pensions and other worker protections placed them at a significant disadvantage to foreign producers who had no such costs. 

Organized labor understood that America's enviable standard of living (read consumer society) springs from social guarantees (unemployment, Social Security etc) that labor had fought for,  not just "jobs."  

Proponents of PNTR and Nafta ignored the fact that government-mandated programs (the safety net) played midwife to the birth of consumerism. Consumer society requires people who have money in their pockets - and the disposition to spend it.

Instead of creating Chinese consumers for American exports, Wall Street-biased trade with China resulted in American consumers purchasing Chinese exports - with money borrowed (against their homes) from China. 

But the American consumer has reached his credit limit.  

What's the way out?

Who knows. Maybe China will invest its people's hard-saved export earnings in American industry in order to create a middle class (here) that has the disposable income to buy China's exports.  Turnabout is fair play.
 
Cross posted at Relevant Information at http://ellisinfo.blogspot.com/.

As long as the torturers are not American.

AP reported Wednesday that " U.S. prosecutors want a Miami judge to sentence the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 147 years in prison for torturing people when he was chief of a brutal paramilitary unit during his father's reign."

Meanwhile, in a related note, The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus argues for the second time in less than two weeks that Bush administration officials who engaged in torture should not be prosecuted. Excerpt:

 

If someone is caught breaking into your house, by all means, press charges. But you might also want to consider installing an alarm system or buying stronger locks. Responsible congressional oversight, an essential tool for checking executive branch excesses, was lacking for much of the Bush administration.

Marcus was apparently bothered by the fact that her previous pardon-the-torturers piece drew approximately 100% disapproval from readers in the comments section.

Glen Greenwald has more on all this.

 

 

 

 

Is it just me or have there been a lot of headlines on here lately with $*%&^%' profanity in them?  Don't get me wrong, I'm no prude, but can't we have some civil discourse on this site like we used to?

Inspection- 00 to 08; a Preamble to New Year: 09

    I'll start with a quote by "Elvis" at Bartcop.com...

"(ask the MSM)...why Michael Connell's death is not has suspicious as Vince Foster's..."

    New Years, 00. I was haunted by November and I have no idea if Michael Connell had something to do with it. But it doesn't matter if he did or not. As far as being haunted...

    We all know why.

    New Years, 04. I was haunted by November, and Michael Connell may well have had something to do with it.

    Why did I feel haunted?

    My wife and I were at a Kerry election night "celebration," Nashville, TN in November. Why do both candidates create something resembling a high class frat party, when one always turns into a funeral, I'll never know. They could at least have plans to do a New Orleans type funeral. Now that would be going out with class.

    About 8:30 Central, things had been going fairly well, and suddenly the numbers on the board started going screwy. I told my wife, "It's like someone pulled a switch." The local Kerry phone bank head had just met us in a hallway and acted rather nice, another "switch," since she had stopped talking to me. A couple of months earlier I had mentioned I had a lot of information in E-mail accounts about vote rigging, and if she wanted, I could E-mail her a couple things I had just to see what she thought.

    Her response?

    Basically, "Shut the hell up, I don't want to even know, now get back to your phone." Then she stopped talking to me and acted haughty towards me until election night.

    And we wonder why Dems kept losing?

    Remember that time; about 8:30 Central: 9:30 Eastern.

    Michael Connell's recent plane crash has brought up an old wound. At 9:30, Eastern, 08... Republicans funneled votes through a server in Tennessee, the lawsuit that Connell was supposed to testify in after being warned several times not to fly due to possible sabotage says. The claim: votes were switched; Kerry to Bush. Connell had agreed to testify concerning this. That was the approximate time I said, "It's as if someone threw a switch..."

    Spooky.

    Inspection- Questioning, Yet Hoping, for More "New" in the New Year: 09

That's right! Now 'new and improved!' Here it is, old man time, now reformulated: born again. Washes cleaner, brighter, younger, filled with more intelligence... though maybe not 'whiter.' You need it now. Right now!"

 

    ...yes, we do "hope." But will it be, or even have a chance to be, "as advertised?"

    Here we go again. We've circled the sun another 300 plus times, the seasons have swirled around us by four and someone... something... is getting ready to or flip a switch, or press a button, or signal a computer, to drop a ball on Times Square.

    Worse than believing in an old bearded man who never dies and goes down fictitious chimneys at every home worldwide, just one night every December, every year ...

     As feeble minded as the Neo Con who believes Bush can do no wrong...

     Many revelers all across the country actually seem to believe it's being dropped exactly when their time zone oriented "new" year rolls around: Central Time, Mountain Time, Pacific Time, Lithuanian time, Bongo Bongo time; only that's not a ball. It's a boiling pot with preacher in it. When it hits the bottom a bell goes off and revelers feast!

    What, A1 doesn't sell a sauce specially formulated for the formerly ordained, now somewhere between rare to well done?

    It's our regular prerecorded New Year's "miracle." At 12:00 midnight, wherever you are, some snot nosed baby thumbs his nasal orifice at humanity as Old Man time gratefully keels over saying, "Damn, I'm glad to be outta here!"

    As we will be after tonight; once 08 becomes 09 and a few weeks pass.

    In just a fistful of days we hopefully move on from torture is not torture, away from where not paying attention is considered being a responsible leader, past considering using an American tragedy for political gain fair game, as far away as possible from the obscene concept that a victim shot by a Vice President has to apologize for the audacity of taking away from his greatness... or just being in the way of the gun, light years beyond the idea that bodies floating in swill that floods the street of a great American city while mercenaries shoot anyone on site for any reason is acceptable; or beyond using such horrendous events as an excuse to funnel money to corporate friends: not rebuild, and definitely the opposite end of the universe from mercenaries who execute whole families and machine gun down crowds and passerby-ers in Iraq...

     Dare I continue?

     No, least you vomit all over your computer screens.

     Will the new year bring "better?"

     Burping up another over wrought cliche': yes, there is hope. But is hope enough? I doubt it. The forces that made Bill Clinton's life Hell, and anyone who wouldn't lie about him, are taking down the War on Christmas "your enemy's guts," pagan warrior-based, garland. At the same time they're also preparing to slice, dice, smear and butcher anything, anyone, who isn't them: especially those represented by the presidential seal.

     Happy New Year, America!

     But, despite Mad Max-like economic times, I'm so glad to be here. The little bratty children who called themselves "adults" are leaving, though they don't have their beaten tails tucked between their legs as they should, it's glad to see them go. Kind of like when the cousins visited when you were all kids and stayed way too damn long. You know, the ones who; instead of playing with you, thought "play" was tormenting you while insisting you were the immature one for not accepting the torture?

     I now understand the "audacity of hope," but know that "audacity" may well become known as the operative word in that phrase.

     Storm clouds on the horizon tell me that the new precedent will let the guilty go free and unpunished for the sake of a better future: a bad precedent as far as recent history goes. Look at what happened to Nixon and his get out of jail card buddies. Notice how it eventually morphed into trading arms with the enemy with many of the same cast. Who wrote this Broadway musical, the same demons who made the deal at a crossroads called Nixon? Did they make the same deal for 2000? 2004? And what will the massive shrug off of Buschco guilt actually achieve?

     I'm frightened.

     But I am glad to be here. Hope you are too. Let's enjoy what we can and fight the good fight against what we shouldn't have to tolerate. We have been wandering in a desert absent of decency while thirsting for it: intellectually starved and parched while the president insists our children "is learning."

     We have been lost in some less than Z grade "documentary:" the George W. Bush/Linda Blair-like Witch Project. The past eight years have been more than enough to turn your head 360 degree. And the projectile has splattered us all; some worse; and some far more dead, than others.

     But the clamps are about to be released that have held us here; at least we hope so.

     The jail cells unlocked, for now.

     And I think the sun is shining outside.

     Or at least I have hope it is.

                                                 -30-

    Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.

                                                           © Copyright 2008
                                            Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
                                                         All Rights Reserved

Well things were hot and heavy here during the primaries, and although they cooled down a little for the general election, this was still a place to here some interesting viewpoints.  Despite Billy Glad's insistence, this was never an echo chamber, even though the contributors generally self-selected on the basis of political perspectives.  But now (and I hate to break it to some of you) the election is over.  Everyone left.  I'm not even sure if there's anyone out there to read this.

So, I'll see you next time.  And by "next time" I mean the next time intelligent liberals and progressives have been forced to endure eight years of an increasingly horrifying right-wing evangelical conservative dictatorship bent upon undermining civil rights, the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, global stability, and the general welfare of our democracy.  It's been a unique year in terms of the transition we've now chosen to make.  Historic, really, and not just because of our new President's skin color.  We're reversing course, thank God, and just in time.  We've seen the heyday of the comment boards here come and go, and although some day they could return to the same level of vibrancy and immediacy, I hope I'm not cursed to live through such interesting times again.

Allsburg signing off.

No. That's not a typo sitting up there.

A year ago I posted a few

hopes for the new year... skipping the blatantly personal...:

1. A political campaign that is based at least in some part on the best aspects of our country: our optimism, our commitment to freedom and equality, and to the general welfare of our people and others around the world.

2. A political campaign that results in the election of a president who was nominated by the Democratic party and a United States Congress with two houses under sufficient control of the Democratic Party that it might accomplish something to rid ourselves of the stench of the years since people of ill will conspired to seize control of the government of this country.

3. Another world championship for the Boston Red Sox (and a 17th such championship for another team would be nice, too.)

and I got 2 1/2 of the 3, which ain't bad, and, oddly, I think 2008 will be remembered as a a great, perhaps watershed year, even though it is ending on a decidedly down and somewhat frightening way, and for good reason.

This paradox of sorts is discussed below:

Read more »

Last night an email came in from the AndroidMarket team laying out some plans for the new year.  Thus far, participation in the Android Market has been sort of like living as a mushroom, so it was really nice to get some indicator where they are heading that is not rumor based.

The first significant point is an announcement that they will be expanding availability into additional markets.

I'm happy to inform you that Android Market will become available to users to download apps in additional European countries starting early Q1 2009. Some of the countries we will initially support are Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

My excitement over this announcement is tempered by the fact that they don't really have any devices in many of those markets and that it's a bit of work to localize applications when you don't speak the language.  But knowing where they are expanding makes it possible to have localized apps ready to go when they do come online.

Another interesting part of this is the ability to target the regions developers want to make their applications available in.

Note that your apps will not become available in these new countries unless you specifically select them in the publisher website, after we update it.

I imagine that this capability will also allow the applications to be censored in areas where they don't have the same freedoms that America has, but that's just speculation on my part.  Google wouldn't announce anything like that until a foreign government made it a public issue.

Their announcement also confirms that their schedule for releasing priced applications seems to still be on track for early Q1 2009 and gives some details that mesh with their announcement about additional countries.

...we will enable priced app support in Q1 for developers operating in these countries in the following order: (1) United States and UK; (2) Germany, Austria and Netherlands; (3) France, Italy and Spain.  By the end of Q1 2009, we will announce support for developers operating in additional countries

They still are totally lacking details about the mechanism that will be used for accepting payment or how compensation will be delivered to software developers.  Hopefully they will give some indicators before they start the process.

What they don't do is discuss the major shortcoming of the market to date: zero integration with the internet.  I would have really liked to see them announce that they were making a web front-end for users that would allow developers a higher level of communication about their applications.  Currently, the information is limited to a 250 character description that makes it difficult(impossible) to address things like required security permissions and such.

So far, the Android system had been rock-solid on the G1 and the development suite has been mostly a joy to work with.  Hopefully 2009 will also bring an OS upgrade that completes some of the last pieces in terms of capacity - specifically fleshing out the bluetooth stack.

Any way it goes, with the announcement of several new devices early in 2009 and the expanded audience for the Market, this should be an exciting year for the new platform.

In 1776 the American colonies rebelled and Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, and both events caused revolutions that transformed the world.  America and the free-market capitalism espoused by Smith rose to power together, in a successful partnership of society and ideology, and now that partnership has stumbled and is again being challenged. 

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, capitalism's greatest crisis ever, its major ideological opponent was Marxism, which was its exact antithesis.  Free-market ideology said that government should always leave markets alone, despite clear evidence that free markets often do not work.  Marxism said government should always control markets, despite equally clear evidence that free markets often do work.  The trial-and-error process inherent in democracy eventually produced a mixed result that functioned well, in which free markets that worked well were mostly left alone (e.g., manufacturing), and free markets that worked badly were tightly regulated (e.g., finance). 

Despite the clear set of facts on the ground, however, the struggle between all-or-nothing economic ideologies has continued to this day.  The left maintained its Marxist sympathies up until the fall of the Soviet Union, while the right developed a free-market critique of the welfare state that resonated widely with the public.  After the fall of communism, the right had the ideological field to itself, and so it put in place the misguided policies that have led to the present economic collapse. 

Just as the right went back to an extreme position when the regulatory state faltered, so now the left is acting similarly.  The right failed in the 1930s and today because it was unable to say, "This is when markets do not work".  Similarly, the left has failed to persuade the country because it has never been able to say, "This is when markets DO work".  This is what the left must have, in order to be able to govern. 

This leaves the question posed in the title, "When do markets work?"  Here is a modest proposal, which I believe progressives should embrace: "Markets work when they are beneficially competitive.  This means that markets work when the only way for firms to make profits is by outcompeting other firms in benefiting people, without harming others".  

People on the left need a more clear understanding of how markets are beneficial, because when markets work well they serve progressive goals.  Well-functioning markets are not only productive, they are also redistributive.  The reason is that competition reduces profits.  If an industry is unusually profitable, then firms will produce more of what is profitable, or other firms will enter the market, and the increased supply will cause prices to drop.  The lower prices represent a transfer of income from producers to consumers, which redistributes income and wealth.  It promotes equality. 

When this happens it is very powerful.  Computers are a good example.  This is an extremely high-tech business, that produces a very sophisticated product of quite high value.  And computers have been improved by producers very rapidly.  But, due to competition, profit margins in the computer industry are pretty low.  Most of the increased value that has been created by this very productive industry has gone to consumers, with shareholders getting a much smaller fraction.  Many other industries have followed this pattern in the history of capitalist economies. 

The key aspect of this process is open competition.  When firms have to compete beneficially against all comers in order to make money, their activities then are tightly controlled by consumers.  This is itself a very strong type of regulation, and one that can ultimately be extremely effective.  When this type of regulation of business activity by consumers is operating naturally, then government regulation is superfluous. 

Now, I imagine that many leftist readers will be immediately objecting that this pattern is often not followed in a lot of other industries.  Well, of course not, that's the point.  People on the right tend to focus their attention mainly on those cases in which markets work, and to overgeneralize from those cases.  This limiting of attention and overgeneralizing from it is how the free-market ideology was created.  Of course, people on the left do exactly the same thing.  They focus attention mainly on those cases in which free markets do not work, and overgeneralize from those.  This is how the left-wing anti-business ideology is formed. 

Progressives should realize, however, that an anti-business ideology is politically very limited.  It works politically only in bad economic times, and when times get better it will be discarded.  But that is not the worst thing about it.  The worst thing about it is that it is simply wrong, just as a blindly-pro-business ideology is wrong.  Free markets do work sometimes, and the progressives desperately need an economic ideology that acknowledges that and does not needlessly alienate large sectors of the economy that are functioning well. 

We are now at a point where free-market ideology has been discredited and the voting public would consider an alternative.  I would love to see progressives offer something in that area that is economically sound, morally progressive, and politically appealing.  I like the phrase 'beneficially competitive' because it combine a nice-person word with a tough-guy word, so it can't be emotionally pigeonholed by people as either too hard or too soft, and the dissonance between the two makes it interesting.  But my major point is that progressives need to show the entire voting public that they understand markets and businesses as tools that society should use wisely to benefit people rather than as enemies to be subdued and subjugated.  I feel that a moment of possible liberalization is at hand in America, and I would hate to see that opportunity for progressives go to waste.  

Contrary to public statements, the US and Isreal are planning on more talks with Hamas. The goal of the Israeli operation in Gaza against Hamas is different than what we've being led to publicly believe.

We discuss the basis for this conclusion, and the real problems facing Israel at the jump.

Read more »

would get off your asses and call your congressman about Single Payer Universal Health Care!

 

Seriously though, I wish  EVERYONE the following

      1. Curiosity

      2. Health

      3. Wealth

      4. Peace

      5. Love

      6. Happiness

 

Enjoy tonight, but get ready to push hard in '09 for the important things this country needs! There is NOTHING that will be more important than "US" being heard by our elected representatives on issues from health care and poverty to the economy and accountability for things like torture and outing CIA agents. We simply must insist that prosecutions take place for those senior officials that pushed others into breaking the law.

It is also important to keep in mind that just because we have a president our work is not yet done. As a matter of fact it NEVER will be. So keep their feet to the fire and keep speaking up for those things you believe in. Hell, you might even want to run for office... you never know where you might end up.

So Happy New Year and "God Bless "US" Everyone"

Nir Rosen is out with a worthy OpEd at the Guardian UK in which he examines the on-going disaster in Gaza and Palestine in the context of  colonialism and resistance to it.

I highly recommend the entire piece, but one part struck me because it recalled an observation by Israeli historian and military strategist Martin van Creveld because I think here we can see why the present Israeli violence as with its Lebanon adventure is doomed to bloody and pointless failure

First Rosen:

An American journal once asked me to contribute an essay to a discussion on whether terrorism or attacks against civilians could ever be justified. My answer was that an American journal should not be asking whether attacks on civilians can ever be justified. This is a question for the weak, for the Native Americans in the past, for the Jews in Nazi Germany, for the Palestinians today, to ask themselves
Terrorism is a normative term and not a descriptive concept. An empty word that means everything and nothing, it is used to describe what the Other does, not what we do. The powerful - whether Israel, America, Russia or China - will always describe their victims' struggle as terrorism.

Van Creveld observed in comparing Iraq and Vietnam (an observation equally applicable to the Lebanon invasion which I believe he supported):

In international life, an armed force that keeps beating down on a weaker opponent will be seen as committing a series of crimes; therefore it will end up by losing the support of its allies, its own people, and its own troops. Depending on the quality of the forces - whether they are draftees or professionals, the effectiveness of the propaganda machine, the nature of the political process, and so on - things may happen quickly or take a long time to mature. However, the outcome is always the same. He (or she) who does not understand this does not understand anything about war; or, indeed, human nature.

In other words, he who fights against the weak - and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed - and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force however rich, however powerful, however, advanced, and however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat...

It is a lesson that, after 60 years of unremitting violence and oppression of the Palestinians, the Israelis, to their ulitmate peril, have not learned

Now I fear it is too late for them to learn.

Why Iraq Will End as Vietnam Did

http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00108/cartoon311208_108022a.jpg

or

http://tinyurl.com/9hx9aj

Come and  listen to a story 'bout a girl  named Palin
Poor Alaskan huntress barely kept her family fed
Then one day while she was rootin' for  Republicans,
And up out a nowhere her VP spot just came in
(Vice Presidency that is, media gold, lower class reputee)

Well first thing ya know old Sarah's a millionaire
Wassilla kinfolk yell "Sarah move away from here"
Said Washington is the place you outta be
So she bundled up her truck and she moved to Washington
(DC that is, Bubblin Crude Lobbyists that is)

Well now its time to say goodbye to Sarah and all her kin
She thanks all those who tried to go and have her voted in
You're all invited back agin for next election spin
While she rakes in all the monies from all the things she's written in
(Down, that is, after publishers edit and rewrite and amend.)
Y'all com back now. Ya hear?

I would like to see some comments from economists on how the inequality of wealth and income between the capital and consumption sectors affects economic stability. It seems to me that over the last several decades wealth and income has become concentrated in the capital sector while the consuming sector has required debt to sustain its consumption. When the world is awash in investment capital and investors can't find productive places to invest, they drift toward riskier investments and look for ways to sustain their diminishing returns through the use of leverage and derivatives that expand the money supply and hide risk. This leads to bubbles of fictitious wealth of one kind or another as the price of assets are bid up artificially. These bubbles ultimately burst and the economy freezes up as investors and consumers lose trust in the system.

 I see no way to avoid such instability unless government is willing to step in and rebalance the wealth and income in the capital investment and consuming sectors through adjustments in the way these sectors are taxed. It doesn't seem to make any sense to reduce taxes on capital gains when money is piling up in the capital sector, while the consuming sector is using debt to sustain its consumption. At such times it would seem more reasonable to increase capital gains taxes and reduce taxes on the middle class, which make up the largest portion of the consuming sector.

Do current economic models account for this wealth distribution effect? The federal reserve is an institution of the capital sector and it has control of monetary policy. Does this lead to wealth and income accumulation in the capital sector at the expense of the consuming sector? GDP growth seems to be the main goal of this institution, while it is a poor measure of the well being of the greater society. It seems to me that government should have more control to prevent bubbles from developing.

Cross-Posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

by Erin Ferns

After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld one of the country's strictest voter ID laws in April, several states rushed to pass similar bills before the year's end. By December, more than 25 states introduced legislation to require voter ID at the polls. Though none of these bills were successful this year, lawmakers in several states are hoping to revive such restrictive requirements in 2009.

Since July of this year, at least seven states have pre-filed or carried over voter ID legislation for the 2009-2010 sessions, including Nevada, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Read more »

Is it just me, or do the incoming democrats appear to have had their spines surgically removed (for the third time, some of them)? Why is it I fear that all the talk during the election cycle is gradually being homogenized into the more acceptable platitudes of political-speak?

One cat

Crates full of cats

LisB and I were chatting about cat food last night, but this is something else altogether:

At 3:37 on December 10th, the K25 train arrived at Dongguan East Station. About 1,500 cats had been sent on the train from Nanjing. Eight men wearing camouflage got on the train and started to move off the cages crammed with cats. Every time a cage landed on the ground, cats screeched in pain.

The invoice showed that this shipment contained 1,500 cats, and included a sterilization certificate and an animal quarantine certificate issued by official veterinarians.

Following a man who bought some cats, the reporter arrived at a Cantonese food restaurant where cat is priced for 36 yuan per kilo. In the restaurant, customers ordered a dish called “braised cat,” which cost 147 yuan. Describing the dish, the waitress said that cat meat has the medicinal property of “nourishing yin and boosting yang.” The customers said that they wanted to try it because they were curious.

Cats are packed in cages (from Nalan Jingmeng’s blog)The reporter traced the source of the cats to suburban counties of Nanjing, where some people make a living catching cats and selling them for about 10 to 20 yuan each to wholesalers. These cat thieves are called “cat fishermen.” A fisherman can catch about 20 cats in one night. A Nanjing-based organization which is committed to helping stray cats confirmed to the newspaper that there are far fewer stray cats in the city this year than normal.

More

Photos and blog

Every year, I make a list.  Every year, something changes.  One year, it was to quit smoking.  My first and ONLY try at that one.  Lucky for me, I did it that FIRST time!  So this makes my 9th year of NOT SMOKING.  One that keeps going on the list, is getting organized.  Every year, I try to get organized.  I seem to have buried myself in my stuff.  I have reams of colored fancy papers to write letters on for Christmas, yet, every year, if I don't get the Christmas cards addressed by Thanksgiving, chances are real good they are not getting done.  This year, I was much too busy, other than to look at the box of XMAS cards, much less, whip out the old address book and start writing cards, or doing the annual Christmas letters.  But the reams of colored paper for this project, still take up space in my office.  Mounds of unread catalogs of stuff that looked interesting enough to throw in the IN pile, piles of baskets to organize the mess now sit in the living room.  The thing is taking on a life of its own!  I did start early this year (a key to success for me it seems!) by just making piles of piles of stuff.  All neatly sorted by catagory of stuff (like house papers, catalogs, cards, presents, etc.).  That cleared out 3 bags of garbage.  I moved the armoire out, and stacks things went up on Craigslist and out the door to others who could use it.  But, here I sit, I New Years Eve, loooking at the progress and realizing, I have trashed the rest of the house, cleaning up my office, which is neither organized (although it does look much better and roomier!).  I can see, I have only nicked the thing!  Nothing a can of gas and a match wouldn't take care of, but really, I don't want my bedroom to burn down with it!   Hmmmmm....a controlled burn you say?  Mmmmmmm......its a thought, but I am afraid of taking the house with it, and all that I own and treasure.  I am having a small soriee of family tonight, to play drinking games with until the ball drops.  Then I will go hug my bed and sleep till noon.  But organizing is still on the list for this upcoming year.  Perhaps this is the year I will lose a 100 lbs, put in the pool and waterfall, organize my life and my house, win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, recycle more and make the world a better place.  It COULD HAPPEN!

In his republished Forbes.com Op-Ed, China Buys Wall Street, economist and China expert Donald H. Straszheim wrote with poorly guarded optimism about heavy investment in cheap Wall Street stocks by Chinese sovereign funds and firms. Straszheim was once Global Chief Economist at Merrill Lynch and now heads China initiatives at Roth Capital Partners.

Straszheim discussed China Investment Company's investment in Morgan Stanley and Blackstone and how far CITIC Securities was into Bear Stearns. He told of CNOOC's (Chinese state oil and gas) unsuccessful 2005 attempt to buy a controlling stake in Unocal led Chinese firms to a more passive investing strategy that eschews directorships and control. For now.

Straszheim, whose work since 2006 has involved winning over Chinese officials for his firm's initiatives in mainland China, tells us (surprise-surprise) about the bright side of Chinese investment in top US financials. Straszheim does mention Western powers' unease that China's investments will become geopolitical instead of straight investments. He writes:

It is understandable that foreign governments are guarded, given that explicitly stated policy in Beijing is to develop centrally owned state enterprises into positions of global dominance.

Yet his tone echoes that of a therapist helping a child patient come to terms with accepting her single parent's forced marriage to an unfair, authoritarian abuser to whom the therapist owes back rent. Don't worry, he seems to say, it's not that bad. Where is the explicit disclosure of the extent of Straszheim's stake in China? Or his firm's? It would help readers weigh his words.

Straszheim portrays China's plunge into US financials as an opportunity for China's finance sector to learn more about free market financial systems. This is darkly ridiculous given what has just happened to the US financial sector. I can hear Chinese officials now, their yellow-starred epaulets clicking against austere cement floors as they roll around laughing at visions of the Politburo Standing Committee of the PRC leaping from their seats to hear the latest Western financial sector wisdom.

Two more of Straszheim's thoughts bear closer scrutiny for what they imply:

Morgan Stanley's people now can travel China with business cards saying they are partly owned by the prestigious CIC. The way business and government are intertwined in China, few would dare to refuse talking to a Morgan Stanley representative at the door.

Astounding. With the US buying into its own banks and China buying into US financials, Straszheim's words chill anyone with a memory of what the US stood against in the 20th Century. Yet there he is, extolling as virtue the visit of the government agent at the door.

In another eerie piece, Straszheim writes of watching China's censors at work on his Beijing hotel's TV during the Olympics:

As soon as the news report turned to the Tibet demonstrations, the screen went blank, only to turn back to regular programming in two minutes or so when the Tibet news was over. The censors are alert and on the job.

Despite this, he sums up the piece:

It would be a shame if the uproar on these games became so fierce that improving economic relations--where everybody wins--were derailed to everyone's detriment.

I do not think Mr. Straszheim wants to upset the Chinese government, nor does he remember what America is. Chinese officials are the gatekeepers of what his firm wants from China. He confesses and avoids for China's regime, stating its sins softly to blunt public perception of their outrage; he implies that stopping regime tyranny over Tibet, for example, is not worth interrupting the flow of money (between China and his firm?).

Similar to how Wall Street firms bought into bad paper, too many China experts and US officials have bought into China while granting unwarranted political credit to the regime in exchange for lucrative market access. Where are the political results promised from free trade with China? People are still imprisoned and sometimes killed for protesting in China; China strictly censors its press and Internet; China coerces Internet firms into helping it censor its people in exchange for official access to markets; and China has subsidized its surplus-building economy over the years to obtain its current advantage.

China should have to make its money from the US the old fashioned way. Non-level playing fields are not old fashioned.

 

 

 

2008 was quite a year for gubernatorial scandals, from Spitzer to McGreevy to Blago. We'll even throw in Sarah Palin. (True, that one might not have been a scandal, but it certainly was shocking.) As we say goodbye to another year, let's remember all the statehouse headliners of the past year, and musically reflect on a truly memorable '08. I can't wait to see what '09 will bring....

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

 

 

Thanks,

                Bruce and Ross Hopman

(a.k.a. Parody & Son)

 

"ALL -STAR JAILHOUSE ROCK" starring Rod Blagojevich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBdkTaoavXI

 

"WHO ARE YOU?" (VP MIX) starring Sarah Palin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdRrqkgTGNk

 

"THREE'S COMPANY (NJ STYLE) starring Jim McGreevey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6jKSp68CGc

 

"CLIENT #9" starring Elliot Spitzer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LdcsZZsv80

 

               

P.S. Please feel free to post or just pass around.

 

SEE MORE PARODIES AT http://parodyandson.blogspot.com

Parody & Son - Purveyors of Premium Parodies since Last March.

Israel is no longer the land of plucky settlers carving a green homeland in the desert. That romantic image was always partly dishonest and now it is simply untrue. Israel today is a land of aparteid, oppression, intolerance and, occasionally, massacre, most of which is bought and paid for with American military aid and donations from American charitable foundations. 

Ah, vindication.

Yesterday, I felt like I was the only one criticizing the Roland Burris pick for Roland Burris (as opposed to Blagojevich having the gall to make an appointment in the first place).

Today, the truth about Burris and his planet-sized ego is coming out.

Some fun links:

Burris already has his grave site, complete with a massive memorial.

The Chicago Sun-Times documents Burris' belief that he is divinely directed to hold office.

Burris makes my point for me on MSNBC.

You have to read pretty far into this one for the payoff. Burris is described as friendly and honest. But he's also quoted as saying Barack Obama wouldn't have been possible without Roland Burris.

Friendly and honest, he may be. But he's still a putz. And one who has been repeatedly rejected by the voters of Illinois.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Cross posted at Dagblog.com, where Prophet has been counting down the top 10 albums of 2008. He made it just under with wire with his 3, 2, and 1 picks.

By Dave Zirin

x-posted from Edge of Sports with permission.

As supporters of Gay Marriage have discovered, it's never easy to be on the Mormon Church's enemies list. The Church of Latter-Day Saints backed the anti-Gay Marriage Proposition 8 in California with out-of-state funds, and gave the right a heartbreaking victory this past election cycle. But the Mormon Church has been challenged in the past. Just ask Bob Beamon.

If you know Beamon's name it's almost certainly because he won the long jump gold medal in legendary fashion at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Beamon leapt 29 feet, 2.5 inches, a record that held for twenty-three years. Great Britain's Lynn Davies told Beamon afterwards, "You have destroyed this event." This is because Beamon was not only the first long jumper to break 29 feet, he was the first to break 28.

Read more »

Update: According to Bloomberg News today, Milan-based UniCredit SpA holds 25% of Bank Medici, not the Bank of Austria. The Wall Streeet Journal also reported on Sonja Kohn and her husband, Erwin, here and here.

Update II: Bloomberg News is now reporting the Dublin-based Thema Fund gave $1.1 billion to Sonja Kohn who "invested" the money with Bernie. According to Bloomberg, the Bank Medici website claimed  Kohn, 60, had "active relationships" with more than 70 fund management companies representing 2,000 funds.   

Update III: Sonja Kohn maintains an address and telephone number in Monsey NY. See comments below.

Sonja Kohn owns 75% of Bank Medici and the Bank of Austria owns the other 25%.

According to Reuters today, the exact amount of the losses haven't been reported but Bank Medici said earlier this month two of its funds -- Herald USA Fund and Herald Luxemburg Fund, with a total volume of $2.1 billion -- were exposed to the alleged fraud.

This 12/22/08 Financial Times profile of Sonja Kohn is fascinating:

Sonja Kohn, an Austrian bank executive who helped raise funds that invested with Bernard Madoff, is hard to ignore in Vienna's small financial community.

With her heavy jewellery and her loud voice, Ms Kohn built up a reputation in Vienna over the years as a successful money manager. She was born and raised in Vienna in a traditional, but not religious Jewish family. In the 1970s, she and her husband moved to Milan and later Switzerland. Her life changed when she moved to New York in the 1980s. The family became orthodox and settled in Monsey, NY, a suburb with a large orthodox community.

In 1990, she founded Eurovaleur, which managed various funds for other institutions. During her time in New York she became acquainted with Mr Madoff.

Ms Kohn returned to Vienna in the early 1990s. In 1994, Ms Kohn founded Medici Finanz in which Bank Austria took a 25 per cent stake. At Bank Austria, Ms Kohn was known for her connections and the private way she conducted her operations.

Most of her time was thought to have been spent in Israel, Switzerland and New York. She also travelled to eastern Europe and Moscow, where some of her biggest clients apparently lived.

There seems to have been a lot more going on in the world of banking than I ever knew about.  

Rarely does one find comedy in the Wall Street Journal. They saved all their punch lines for the end of the year.  In an article this morning entitled: "Gonzales Defends Role in Antiterrorist Policies",  EVAN PEREZ comes up with one punch line after another:

" Alberto Gonzales, who has kept a low profile since resigning as attorney general nearly 16 months ago, said he is writing a book to set the record straight about his controversial tenure as a senior official in the Bush administration."

You cannot make stuff like this up. The guy who could not remember what he had for breakfast while being grilled by Congress, is writing a book to set the record straight. I recall that almost two decades ago, there was a book entitled: The Wit & Wisdom of Dan Quail and it was basically a book cover and a bunch of blank pages. Later on WSJ records:

"Mr. Gonzales, 53 years old, doesn't have a publisher for his book. He said he is writing it if only 'for my sons, so at least they know the story.' The chapters on the Bush administration's surveillance program, which involved eavesdropping without court warrants, and other controversial aspects of his work, remain blank. That is in part because he remains under investigation regarding allegations of political meddling at the Justice Department."    

So basically, the book so far is blank and he cannot find anyone to publish it. I really do not know what I can ad to this.  I have five or six blank notebooks lying around and I do not have a publisher either. The article goes on to describe this mental giant as a Harvard graduate and one time Justice on the Texas Supreme Court. You are left with severe questions as to the standards at Harvard as far as admission policies and as to the standards for deciding state law in Texas.

Gonzo certainly has some boldness however as when he asks: "What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?"

This is definitely the wrong question because thousands of pages will be written in response to this query over the next decade.  A question that might take a great deal shorter time to answer might be: What the hell did Gonzo do that was fundamentally correct?

That might end up as a book with a cover and a lot of blank pages, also.

Another hilarious line from the former AG: "for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror." Does not he even sound more stupid when he attempts to characterize himself as heroic?

Even when Gonzo thinks he is being candid, he has a humorous take on it although he has not a clue as to how stupid it makes him look:

"He says that while he bears responsibility as former Attorney General that 'doesn't absolve other individuals of responsibility.'  Now try and parse that statement. I think he is saying that he made some mistakes, but others fucked up too.  That is the only sense I can make out of this ridiculous remark.

Gonzo's present situation is funnier than his comments. He says that he is unable "... to land a job. He has delivered a few paid speeches, done some mediation work and plans to do some arbitration, but said law firms have been "skittish" about hiring him."

Skittish?  Would you buy a legal opinion from this butt head?  I told you, you cannot make this stuff up.  

The article goes on to discuss the famous meeting in the Hospital with Corney and Ashcroff.
If you recall Corney's side of it, Ashcroft appeared almost dead from surgery and drugs. Corney's testimony is somehow ignored by WSJ which is to be expected. But if you recall, Gonzo could not get Corney to sign off on some more illegal wiretaps, so Gonzo showed up in the hospital to get Ashcroft to sign off on it.  So what is Gonzo's take on the meeting?

"I found Ashcroft as lucid as I've seen him at meetings in the White House."

I really do not know what I can add to that statement. It stands on its own as one of the greatest depictions of w's cabinet over the last eight years.

But the best line of them all, was saved until last."In one of his final acts before leaving office, Mr. Gonzales denied he was planning to quit, even though he had told the president of his intention to resign. Asked about the misleading comment Tuesday, he said:

                                   "At that point, I didn't care."

I recently had a story sent to me about the Siemens bribery and corruption cases currently be investigated and prosecuted, which point to a very disturbing trend in corporate culture worldwide.  The person who sent this to me was William Corcoran Ph.D., P.E., the moderator of Whistleblower 411.  He posed these questions after reviewing the story:

 

"Where were the whistleblowers?

 

Is this case typical of the cases in which multiple ordinary individuals know that wrong is being done and choose to remain silent?

 

is loyalty to one's organization stronger than one's loyalty to safety and justice?

 

For every person who chooses to report a safety issue or an ethical issue, how many others remain silent?

 

What do the silent legions tell themselves the first few times they go home without taking action?

 

After that does cognitive dissonance reduction take over?"

 

Thank you Dr. Corcoran.  This case is a significant one and elicits a number of important questions including those stated above.  Employees of Siemens, a large German engineering corporation, had been participating in a system of bribery for contracts in the multiple millions of dollars per incident.  And this is only an example of one type of corruption that is being uncovered in the news.  How are companies in the United States and worldwide using such unethical business practices and for the most part why are they using them with impunity?  And since it appears so many people ostensibly in these companies know about the practices, why are more employees not blowing the whistle?

 

 

So, where were the whistleblowers? This is a compelling and important question.  In most cases, there are whistleblowers, or potential whistleblowers, but even though they are trying to blow the whistle, their activities are not in public view.  Only occasionally does a whistleblower's story surface and capture the attention of the media. 

 

I've been following a number of cases of wrongdoing in which there are (and should be) whistleblowers.

 

I believe that it is more typical for observers of criminal acts or commissions of wrongdoing to remain silent.  Many find it easy to remain silent; they do not seem to be bothered by conscience.   Far too few find it difficult to follow the advise of friends, co-workers and supervisors.  That advice is typically:  "SHUT UP AND DON'T CAUSE TROUBLE!"  This advice is often followed by a friendly, (or not so friendly), reminder of the supposed value of one's job and future, and then if needed, a caution of what may happen to oneself or one's family should one be so imprudent as to "blow the whistle."  All in all, it is a pretty intimidating and dangerous world out there for ethical people.

 

Far too many have adopted the attitude so sadly showcased in the movie "Office Space" where the employees are bombarded with the message "Is it good for the company?"   As the climate becomes progressively worse, employees become more paralyzed and compliant.  The corporate climates in cases I am aware of create an atmosphere of loyalty through fear.   These employees put company first...ahead of the employee's personal life, family, ethics and personal character, as evidenced by decisions made and actions taken (or not taken). 

 

A fictional book that I read recently by Seattle author, Donna Anders, did a superb job of showing a corporate environment where corruption abounded in a large airplane manufacturing company.   People were not standing up to those who were doing wrong. The main character found herself a whistleblower.  This book contains well-written suspense.  And it appeared to me this author has more than a passing knowledge of a certain real aerospace company's inner politics and manner of doing business.  For some of you, this fiction will resemble a curiously similar representation to what you know in your real lives.  (Dead Silence, Pocket Star Books, 2000, New York, NY.  ISBN 0-671-03881-8)

 

In our real day-to-day experiences, many have seen unethical and in some cases criminal actions (or inactions) being done by employees, supervisors, or corporate leaders.   Even if someone tried to blow the whistle, these whistleblowers are pounded into the ground, and the same types of corruption continue to take place over and over again.

 

Through real life experiences, I have come to understand that the majority of people are not very courageous.  These same people are not willing to risk going outside of their safety margin, in order to serve a greater principle.  They may fuss about the problems.  They may complain about the lack of oversight to catch the wrongdoers.  They may commiserate with their compatriots about their crappy work/life, but when it comes to taking a breath and standing up, not many will take that last step - to stand up!