JULY 31, 2005

SOME COMMANDER IN CHIEF

A lot of the commentary I see from the rabid right emphasizes that George W. Bush is the commander-in-chief. You can't criticize the war or Mr. Bush because you're "undermining the commander-in-chief." Commander-in-chief is just one role of the president. He's also, theoretically, an elected official who is accountable to his constituency, the entire voting population of the United States. The First Amendment doesn't exempt freedom of speech during a time of war. If anything, when a war is underway the president should be under even stricter scrutiny because lives are being sacrificed. War should be the last resort for any president. The right-wingers want us to take Mr. Bush seriously as a commander-in-chief, but he doesn't take it that seriously himself judging from the amount of vacation time he takes. He's taking is 50th vacation at his Crawford "ranch." William Rivers Pitt has some thoughts at www.truthout.org:

The First Marine Expeditionary Force, which took part in the initial invasion of Iraq more than two years ago, is suiting up for another deployment to the war zone. For many in this vaunted crew, it will be their third deployment to that country since all of this began.

And George W. Bush is heading off for another month-long vacation in Texas.

One thousand, seven hundred and eighty-four American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the Marines first landed two years ago. Thirty nine of those deaths have taken place in the month of July. The civilian casualties in Iraq have skyrocketed. The man who has run the Baghdad morgue for the last 15 years, Faik Amin Baker, says, "Before the war we used to get maybe 250 bodies a month. Now it is 800 or 900 a month from the Baghdad area alone. The situation has worsened dramatically. We cannot cope."

AN ALTERNATIVE ENERGY FUTURE

Does breaking away from a petroleum based economy mean going back to life in the seventeenth century? This article shows that some people are keeping modern conveniences and using solar and wind technology. It's the kind of vision we should be exploring. This article is by Rose Miller at www.utne.com:

Letting go of electric appliances and other modern conveniences is a form of environmental asceticism that most people aren't willing to undertake. But unlike those in the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s, not everyone who moves off the grid has to do away with all, or even any, modern accoutrements. Contemporary back-to-the-landers aren't retreating from modernity; they're bringing it with them, constructing homes and retreats equipped with solar panels and wind turbines that provide plenty of power year-round.

A CASE FOR LINKING MORALITY AND TAX DOLLARS

Republicans have for some time tried to cast the spending of tax dollars as a moral issue. I can remember Ronald Reagan's ascendancy being spurred by his assertions that "welfare queens" were prospering off the work of downtrodden taxpayers. More recently, Republicans have used tax spending on abortion as a similar moral equation. What about if we talked about taxes spent on wasteful and downright barbaric military spending? What if we talked about taxes spent to further enrich the very wealthy? That's the case presented in this article by Susan J. Douglas at www.inthesetimes.com:

But I find myself warming up to this taxes and morality equation; the Democrats should steal it immediately. And the savings would be enormous: If those of us in the true moral majority withheld our tax dollars from spending that we find immoral, the deficit would shrivel up.

For example, a recent CNN poll found that 57 percent of Americans said it had not been worth going to war in Iraq, an increase since January. Many of us feel that it is highly immoral to have spent at least $180 billion to terminate the lives of 1,700 U.S. soldiers and probably more than 100,000 Iraqis, and to further destroy the lives of thousands of our soldiers who have returned home horribly maimed and injured. Carrie Gordon Earll of the right-wing Focus on the Family asserted in her opposition to stem cell research, “Federal dollars should not be used to destroy young humans. “

JULY 30, 2005

IN BUSH ECONOMY IT'S FULL SPEED IN REVERSE FOR WORKERS

The productivity of American workers continues to drive the economy forward, but the rewards go to executives and investors, not to workers. A new report shows that wage and salary gains are lagging behind inflation. It's a case of the harder you work the more you lose. This story by Nell Henderson is at www.washingtonpost.com:

Workers' pay and benefits rose more slowly than inflation in the second quarter, even as the U.S. economy expanded at a healthy pace, the government reported yesterday.

Employers' costs for wages, salaries and benefits rose 0.7 percent in the quarter, the same pace as in the first quarter and the smallest gain in six years, the Labor Department said.

MORE STRONG EVIDENCE FOR GLOBAL WARMING

In Fresno you get accustomed to really hot weather every summer, but this summer has seemed especially brutal. You hear about killer heat all across the country. The people who deny global warming is a reality will claim this is nothing new. It's just part of the cycles the earth has gone through, they say. But a new survey of ice at both the north and south poles suggests once again that what we're seeing isn't part of a usual pattern. This story is at north.cbc.ca:

Satellite data for the month of June show Arctic sea ice has shrunk to a record low, raising concerns about climate change, coastal erosion, and changes to wildlife patterns.

The National Snow and Ice Data Centre in the United States uses remote sensing imagery to survey ice cover at both poles.

The centre says 2002 was a record low year for sea ice cover in the Arctic, since satellite observations began in 1979.

There's evidence that may have been the lowest coverage in a century.

THE DISGUSTING SELLOUT ON CAFTA

Is there anything more boring than trade agreements? I know my tendency is to have my eyes glaze over when I hear about tariffs and other related matters. But the consequences of trade agreements are far-reaching. We've seen the devastating effects of NAFTA, which was one of Bill Clinton's biggest mistakes. The Bush administration took a bad idea and expanded it with CAFTA, which will clobber small farmers in Central America and cause a loss of jobs in the United States. Free trade carries a heavy price. It's amazing that fifteen Democrats sold out their constituency once again and voted for this disgusting legislation. This article by Deborah James is at www.commondreams.org:

At 12:03 am on July 28th, the House of Representatives approved the Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA. CAFTA, which would expand NAFTA to Central America and the Dominican Republic, would devastate farmers, privatize essential public services, and accelerate the race to the bottom on wages in the US and all over Central America.

At the end of the allotted 15 minutes of voting time the count was 180 to 175 against CAFTA, so the Republican leadership kept the vote open over an hour, in order to bully legislators into approving the bill. In the final tally, which was 217 to 215, a full 15 Democrats voted in favor of big business by supporting CAFTA, while 25 Republicans defied the Bush Administration and voted against it. Democrats deserving of punishment include Representatives Bean (D-IL), Cooper (D-TN), Dicks (D-WA), Cuellar (D-WA), Hinojosa (D-TX), Jefferson (D-LA), Matheson (D-UT), Meeks (D-NY), Moore (D-KS), Moran (D-VA), Ortiz (D-TX), Skelton (D-MO), Snyder (D-AR), Tanner (D-TN), and Towns (D-NY). The full roll call vote is available at http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2005&rollnumber=443.

The Republicans who refrained from voting were known CAFTA opponents who evidently caved into hard-core bullying from their leadership. Yet stiff criticism also goes to the Democrats who could have prevented handing Bush a win on a silver platter by sticking to labor and their environment rather than corporate interests.

JULY 29, 2005

SUPPORT THE TROOPS: GET OUT OF IRAQ

I remember the arguments for continuing the Vietnam war. We were constantly lied to by the military that victory was just around the corner. The body counts of the Viet Cong and other resistance fighters in Vietnam were surely proof that we were winning the war. We couldn't pull out, the government said, because Vietnam would fall to the Communists and the United States would lose all credibility. In the meantime, the bombs continued to rain from our B52's and the body count went up on both sides. Finally North Vietnam did fall to the Communists and the world continued to turn and the sun continued to shine.

We will hear similar arguments when you talk about getting out of Iraq. But we were wrong to invade Iraq in the first place. Our presence there is fueling hatred of the United States and acting as a recruitment tool for terrorists around the globe. We're draining our treasury on a war that can't be won. Andrew Greeley writes about it in this article at www.commondreams.org:

The Big Muddy is deeper and darker. Two Pentagon reports this week show just how muddy. In a survey of the morale of soldiers in Iraq, the Pentagon found that more than half said that morale in their units was either "low" or "very low." Morale was especially low, as one would have expected, among the National Guard and Reserve units. Only half of them said they had "real confidence" in their ability to carry out their mission, probably because they were not trained for the kind of war in which they are involved.

Another report raises questions about the development of the Iraqi fighting units. Half of the police units are still in training and cannot conduct combat operations. The other half, and two-thirds of the army battalions, are only partially capable of combat and then only with the help of Americans.

UNBELIEVABLE P.R. FROM BIG OIL COMPANIES

It's hard to believe the p.r. departments of the big oil companies have latched on to a word like "sustainable" when talking about their business, but they have. There is nothing sustainable about fossil fuels. We're depleting the planet's reserves of fossil fuels every day, and we're also causing warming to our planet that may kill every living thing. This article by Charles Burch is at www.commondreams.org:

Sustainability is big in corporate America today. The word, that is. Once an arcane term used chiefly by foresters and agricultural researchers, "sustainable" has become the label of choice that executives use to describe their businesses.

Perhaps the most laughable of the newly sustainable corporations are the oil companies. Although they laud the tax incentives to encourage oil and gas exploration in the energy bill that Congress is expected to pass this week, they are continuing to spin the idea that what they do is somehow sustainable. Pumping a finite resource like oil out of the ground must be one of the least sustainable endeavors on the planet. But this doesn't bother the oil industry, which knows a powerful public-relations word when it sees one.

BUSH WILL CAST A DARK SHADOW FOR A LONG TIME

I don't think it's too early to say that George W. Bush has been the worst president in U.S. history. His policies have hurt not only the United States, but have planetary implications. It would have been bad enough if Bush had only stolen the 2000 election and pursued the policies of Ronald Reagan and his father. Those policies were disastrous, but Bush has taken disaster to a whole new level, whether it be destroying our economy, making health care unaffordable, wrecking the educational system, creating a dangerous breech in church-state separation, violating or ignoring international treaties, making us international pariahs in starting unnecessary wars and descending to torture, and shredding civil liberties. It will take decades, if we're lucky, to undo the damage created by this administration. That's the subject of this article by Charles Cutter is at www.makethemaccountable.com:

Americans have not yet begun to pay the price for the Bush presidency. The global ramifications of his foreign policy, the long-term impact of his budgetary excesses, our depleted military, the ongoing erosion of civil liberties and church/state separation, the unprecedented acquiescence to corporate power…all these factors, and more, will dictate the course of this nation for decades to come.

Had Al Gore assumed the presidency in 2001, he would have confronted the same challenges—a nation, and world, simmering in a mix of cultural/religious extremism and declining resources. Realistically speaking, Mr. Gore could probably not have solved any of these problems, but he would have worked in the direction of long-term solutions—and by doing so, minimized the overall impact.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, has worked feverishly to exacerbate virtually every problem confronting America and the world. The differences between these two men—on policies both foreign and domestic—are surprisingly black and white.

RIGHT-WINGERS CAN'T STAND THE HEAT

Right-wingers are only effective when they can dish out bombast. Because their world vision is such a mess, they have to use vitriol, hate, and lies to distort the positions of liberals to make their case. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. We can see the cataclysmic results of conservative governance. Life is worse for most of us, and it isn't going to get better until right-wingers are out of power. This article by Doug Thompson is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

My, my, the rabid right got their anal sphincters twisted up in all kinds of knots when I suggested they were traitors to their country for supporting the treasonous acts of George W. Bush.

Didn't see them getting so damned self-righteous when they called liberals, Democrats and anti-war protestors unpatriotic for suggesting Bush's decision to invade Iraq was, at the very least, a serious mistake in judgment.

That's the problem with these conservative blowhards. They can dish it out but they sure as hell can't take it.

JULY 28, 2005

KUDOS TO THE TOLEDO BLADE

The Toledo Blade deserves credit for being a real honest to goodness newspaper and not a stenographer for the government. In this editorial The Blade assesses the situation in Iraq the way it really is. The editorial is at www.toledoblade.com:

IN SPITE of expressions of determination by President Bush and members of his administration to stay the course, the flow of bad news out of Iraq indicates that it is a mess which will get worse before it gets better.

The fighting has transformed itself largely into civil war. The 170,000 Iraqi security forces, largely Shiite in composition, represent the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. They are opposed and targeted by the largely Sunni insurgents. The Kurds of the north mostly go their own way, except that their autonomy is encouraging Kurds in Turkey and Syria to bestir themselves against their host governments.

U.S. WILL STAY IN IRAQ BECAUSE OF OIL

Right-wing talking points these days tend to ignore the Bush administration's bogus claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and center instead on what a bad guy Saddam Hussein was. They don't mention that Saddam Hussein was once a friend of the Reagan-Bush administration and that it was with U.S. support that he maintained power. Rape rooms and all the rest weren't as bad back then, I guess. Neocons were talking about invading Iraq years before September 11 ever occurred, so September 11 was mainly an excuse for doing what they wanted to do all along: seize the oil reserves in Iraq. Bob Herbert writes about the bottom line in Iraq in this column at www.nytimes.com:

The point here is that the invasion of Iraq was part of a much larger, long-term policy that had to do with the U.S. imposing its will, militarily when necessary, throughout the Middle East and beyond. The war has gone badly, and the viciousness of the Iraq insurgency has put the torch to the idea of further pre-emptive adventures by the Bush administration.

But dreams of empire die hard. American G.I.'s are dug into Iraq, and the bases have been built for a long stay. The war may be going badly, but the primary consideration is that there is still a tremendous amount of oil at stake, the second-largest reserves on the planet. And neocon fantasies aside, the global competition for the planet's finite oil reserves intensifies by the hour.

SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT "CHRISTIAN" USA

According to right-wingers, we're a Christian nation. They claim that the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, that the Founding Fathers were Christians, that it's entirely appropriate to have the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and "In God We Trust" on our money, and that it's the terrible secular humanists who are bringing the country down. You wonder, then, why so many "Christians" can't even name most of the Ten Commandments. This article by Bill McKibben is at www.harpers.org:

Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans—most American Christians—are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.

THE FAR RIGHT AND THE ACLU

I've come to the conclusion that right-wingers are better at one thing than we on the left. They're far better at being snide and condescending. Throwing up waves of snide and condescending scorn is a cover for not having much to support your argument. A good example is this discussion of right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin, who was busily trashing the ACLU because the ACLU objects to government spying on various groups that don't happen to applaud the Bush agenda. This column by William Fisher is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

No one wants to see mass destruction of anything by anyone, but Ms. Malkin would do well to acknowledge that it was acts of civil disobedience that gave her many of the rights she now enjoys.

Ms. Malkin concludes: "'Dissent is patriotic' is a bromide no responsible agent can swallow blindly. Tolerating the unfettered free speech of saboteurs has threatened enough lives already."

How about your free speech, Michelle?

I forget who said it, but it's a statement Ms. Malkin needs to think about: The greatest threat to democracy is the unbridled power of government.

JULY 27, 2005

THE UGLINESS BEHIND CHEAP WAL-MART PRICES

From their commercials you'd think Wal-Mart was the epitome of down-home apple pie Americanism. They have the greeters in the front of their stores and they have the cute commercials with the little guy rolling back prices. Never mind that their cheap prices are because they buy cheap stuff from China, or that they bust unions, or that they don't pay their employees a living wage. Now Wal-Mart even refuses to sell newspapers that publish anything negative about Wal-Mart. This article comes from Randy Hammer at www.pensacolanewsjournal.com:

Mr. Hart, however, said he and his stores couldn't tolerate a newspaper that would print the opinions of someone who was as mean and negative as Mark O'Brien. But, you know, Mark's not nearly as ornery as that left-wing rabble-rouser Molly Ivins, whose column the newspaper also publishes. At any rate, Mr. Hart said he wanted the newspaper to get its racks off his lots. But he also said that if I fired Mark, we could talk about continuing to sell the newspaper at his stores.

Wal-Mart is a company that wraps itself in red, white and blue.

I might understand it if Wal-Mart said I ought to fire Mark because what he said wasn't accurate. But that isn't the case. Mark accurately reported that there are 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees in a health-care program that is costing Georgia taxpayers nearly $10 million a year.

MAD COW CASE DISCOVERED

The Department of Agriculture admits discovery of a cow that may have had mad cow disease, but says the food supply isn't threatened. The subject cow was killed and burned, they say, but the farm where the cow lived hasn't been quarantined. Eating beef these days with the disgusting feeding practices that take place in factory farming is playing Russian roulette. This story by Libby Quaid is at www.sfgate.com:

The government is investigating a possible new case of mad cow disease but says there is no threat to the U.S. food supply.

Testing indicated the possible presence of the disease in a cow that died on the farm where it lived, John Clifford, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian, said Wednesday. The animal was burned and buried, the department said.

"It is important to note that this animal poses no threat to our food supply because it did not enter the human food or animal feed chains," Clifford said.

IS HOUSING BUBBLE ABOUT TO BURST?

As bad as it is, the Bush economy has been a mirage. It is actually far worse than many people realize. We know that unemployment is higher than official statistics state. We know that salaries are stagnant while the cost of living, particularly in health care, continues to escalate. We know that the United States is running deficits that will be unsustainable. What has propped the economy up until now has been the housing market. Artificially low interest rates prompted people to refinance their homes and use the proceeds to spend, spend, spend. Now, though, interest rates are on the rise, and there are lots and lots of people who took out variable interest rate loans. When the interest rates rise so do the payments. How do people who are already stretched to the limit keep up with the higher payments? This article by Mike Whitney is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Greenspan has said that he will continue to ratchet up interest rates to head off inflation. This means that an economic slowdown is a near certainty. Remember, "class-warrior" Alan Greenspan lowered the prime rate to a ridiculously low 1% in 2002 to keep the economy humming-along while $300 billion was sluiced into Bush's "preemptive" war in Iraq and while the tax cuts were siphoning the last borrowed farthing out of the public coffers. The Bush tax cuts transferred an average of $400 billion dollars per year into the flannel pockets of Bush's primary constituents; American plutocrats. Now, the country is flat-broke and Greenspan will have to "incrementally" raise rates to stabilize the sagging dollar. This means a sluggish economy for most of us and doomsday for over-extended homeowners.

JULY 26, 2005

BUSH'S VISION THING

The first George Bush once commented that he had a problem with the "vision thing." His offspring, George W. Bush, certainly has a vision, but it's more a nightmare for the rest of us. It's a vision that says a very few plutocrats should be able to stomp all over the planet, steal the resources from other countries, abolish civil and individual liberties, shove their version of religion down everyone's throats, and by golly if you don't like it we'll torture you, bomb you, and maybe even nuke you. This commentary by Ed Naha is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Bush's "legacy" will be felt globally for years to come but, sadly, it will be felt longer in America. He has single-handedly created a back-breaking deficit, crippled the public school system, made it harder for ordinary Americans to declare personal bankruptcy while at the same time knee-capping them in terms of class-action lawsuits, dragged religion into politics, passed tax cuts to benefit the rich and kissed the collective butt of every major CEO in the country. (Maybe we should see how much the White House spends on Chaptstick, as well.)

His grand vision for the future involves destroying Social Security, further crippling the economy via CAFTA, aiding the rich by eliminating the estate tax, promoting a guest-worker immigration policy to benefit businesses who don't want to pony up to minimum wage, endorse private border patrols and diverting much needed "Homeland Security" dollars from highly populated areas in order to protect the weeds in Wook, Iowa. (No offense to Wook.)

SOME QUIET, PLEASE

When you get accustomed to the noise that surrounds you all the time quiet is something strange and mysterious and almost luxurious. We're surrounded by noise, whether it be traffic, someone's booming and vibrating car stereo, jet planes roaring overhead, trains rumbling by, loud televisions or stereos in the house next door, and possibly the most obnoxious machine ever invented, the leaf blower. In this article by David Schimke we learn about a movement to tone down the noise. The article is at www.utne.com:

"I call it the noise industrial complex," says Ted Rueter, director of Noise Free America. "A lot of people get off on noise and think that there's something wrong with peace and quiet. We're still fighting a public perception that this is a trivial issue and anyone who's concerned or interested in curbing noise is a crank."

Headquartered in Indianapolis, Rueter's organization, which he founded while he was teaching political activism at UCLA, now has chapters in 25 states. Members conduct petition drives, host informational meetings, and buttonhole local cops and city council members. Their hope is to pass ordinances aimed at auditory assault weapons such as car alarms, gas-powered leaf blowers, motorcycles, and boom cars (a term used to describe vehicles armed with just enough supersonic sound equipment to make your gums bleed). Besides lobbying for state laws that would impose stiffer fines for window-rattling music, time limits on construction projects, and stricter regulations for ATVs and Jet Skis (known by noise activists as "thrill craft"), Rueter says he has two long-term goals. First, he wants to see the Environmental Protection Agency re-establish its Office of Noise Abatement and Control, created by President Richard Nixon in 1972 and de-funded by President Reagan some 10 years later (ironic, given his hearing loss, which was caused when a gun accidentally went off near his ear on a film set).

A REMINDER FROM ERIC HOFFER

Eric Hoffer's book The True Believer may be one of the most important books of the last century, and it's certainly apropos when so many "true believers" are in the process of destroying our civilization and our planet. There are the true believers in laissez-faire capitalism, which is a form of religion, and we know about the madness of the true believers who wage wars or stage suicide bombings because their mission is one from God. In this article Christopher Dickey examines the carnage of true believers like Timmy McVeigh and Eric Rudolf. The article is at www.msnbc.msn.com:

But the Rudolph case seems to stand apart in the headlines and in most commentary because the pathology of what Eric Hoffer called “true believers” has come to be portrayed as fundamentally different if they are Muslims than it is if they are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Aryan or animal-rights zealots willing to kill innocents to defend their beliefs. Hoffer, writing soon after World War II about the seductive power of mass movements, was mainly concerned with communism, fascism and Nazism. But the basic truth of his judgment that “faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves” fits the profile of terrorists everywhere. “Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless,” wrote Hoffer. “There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless."

JULY 25, 2005

ATTACK OF THE YAHOOS

Yesterday a letter to the editor of The Fresno Bee was a prime example of the yahoos among us. The writer tapped into the old reservoir of Republican cliches about the liberal media and how any criticism of George W Bush is undermining the commander-in-chief. By extension, that means you don't support the troops, of course. This guy even brought in Bill Clinton to complete the cliche mix. It was okay for Republicans to attack Bill Clinton, who was also commander-in-chief, even though Clinton never lied us into a horrendous and bloody war. Leonard Pitts, Jr., has some thoughts about the loudmouthed and ignorant yahoos among us in this column linked at seattletimes.nwsource.com:

Granted, the presence of yahoos in daily life is not a new torment. They have always been among us, the simplemindedness of their thinking exceeded only by the volume at which they express it. Think Cliff Clavin, the cogs of his brain lubricated by generous applications of beer, holding forth from his stool at the end of the bar. Of course, the only thing you had to do to avoid Cliff was to stay out of Cheers.

But the 9/11 attacks have unleashed yahooism on an unprecedented scale. Cliffy is no longer confined to his barstool. Under the name Mona Charen, he once wrote a newspaper column advocating the expulsion of Muslims from America. Under the name Rush Limbaugh, he has a radio talk show on which he compared the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to a fraternity prank. Under the name Ann Coulter, he calls for the racial profiling of travelers from the Middle East. And under the name Tom Tancredo, he is apparently a member of Congress.

AMERICAN CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE NOT TRADITIONAL AT ALL

From all the talk you hear about "traditional family values" you would think the American concept of the nuclear family defined the way marriage always worked. It doesn't. The very idea of romantic love as a basis for marriage is relatively new. Stephanie Coontz has a new book examining the whole concept of marriage. The book is discussed in this article by Monica Mehta at www.alternet.org:

As Stephanie Coontz reveals in her new book, Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, human unions have gone through a number of evolutions. We would be remiss to think that it was ever a stable institution. Instead, it has always been in flux. It has only been based on the concept of love for 200 years; before that, it was a way of ensuring economic and political stability. Through painstakingly-detailed descriptions and anecdotes from hunter-gatherer days to the modern era, Coontz points out that "almost every marital and sexual arrangement we have seen in recent years, however startling it may appear, has been tried somewhere before." So when we think of cohabitation, gay marriage, or stepfamilies as deviating from the "norm," we are wrong, because there has never really been a "norm."

RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM "MODERN FAKE"

In this country it's fashionable to paint the Koran as a book of hate, but the so-called Christians who do that are ignoring the dark sides of the Bible. You wonder why people who are supposedly such devotees of Christianity don't embrace the gentle compassionate side of Christianity instead of the dark and bloody visions of the Book of Revelation or the vengeful god of the Old Testament. In this article Giles Fraser has a look at modern fundamentalism. The article is linked at www.guardian.co.uk:

The assumption is that bad religion - the sex-obsessed religion of violence and superstition - is the real thing, and that good religion - the religion that encourages peace and respect for human life - is a modern fake, a religion that disingenuously reinvents itself to reflect modern values and consequently does not entirely believe what it says.

The truth, however, is that rigid fundamentalism is the modern fake. Most belief systems have huge and historic recourses of self-criticism. The gospels contain some of the most biting attacks on pathological religiosity; the Hebrew prophets are involved in a constant campaign of subversion against the misplaced theology of narrow sectarianism. As Isaiah has it: "When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen, your hands are full of blood."

NEW SEC NOMINEE JUST ANOTHER GREEDHEAD

George W. Bush's nominee to head the Security and Exchanges Commission is just another Republican who believes in predatory capitalism. Democrats, if they had any spine, would oppose this nomination, but we know how that goes. Jamie Court writes about nominee Christopher Cox in this column at www.latimes.com:

In a better world, next week's Senate confirmation hearings on the nomination of Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission would be the Democratic Party's finest hour. The hearings offer a perfect opportunity to decry Wall Street's looting of Main Street and to put the GOP on trial for creating the conditions under which corporate criminals flourished.

Instead, Democrats have been eerily silent on Cox, a right-wing Republican who wrote a 1995 law making it harder for investors to take corporate swindlers to court. Cox's Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which became law over President Clinton's veto, has been blamed for allowing some of the nation's worst financial scandals - including those at Enron and WorldCom - to proceed unchecked. The law let corporate executives off the hook for exactly the kind of utterly misleading statements Enron Chief Executive Kenneth Lay made to keep his company's stock price artificially high.

JULY 24, 2005

THE GREAT CORPORATE TAX-JOB SCAM

Corporations like to use the carrot and stick approach. They play off cities and states against each other with the ploy of saying give us tax breaks and we'll give you jobs. But it often doesn't work that way. That's the subject of this interview with Greg Leroy, author of the book "The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation." The interview is linked at www.democracynow.org:

As you mentioned, it's a $50 billion a year scam. That's total spending by states and cities in the name of jobs. The average state subsidizes jobs more than 30 different ways now, and those subsidies are often granted by local bodies of government. The trouble is nobody's watching the store in too many cases. Companies get huge subsidies, in many cases to do exactly what they were going to do anyway, to go where they wanted to go, to lay off people, or to outsource, or to pay poverty wages, or bust a union, or privatize work anyway. And governments don't even enforce the promises made originally when companies say they're going to create x number of jobs or create x amount of additional tax revenue. So taxpayers are often losing twice or three times by losing jobs, not getting as much tax revenue as they promised, and losing tax revenue that could be really used to create good jobs through other means.

WHO GRIEVES FOR INNOCENT IRAQIS?

The loss of innocent lives in the London bombing causes justified outrage, but where is the similar outrage for all the innocent lives lost in constant bombing attacks in Iraq? The Iraqi people are just as human, have feelings and hopes and dreams just like we do. Where is the grief for the innocent people killed there, all brought about by this immoral and criminal war? This article by Richard Crouter is at www.commondreams.org:

Would that we all knew Arabic fluently and had it streaming into our kitchens and living rooms. If we did, I doubt that we could live with ourselves as Americans. Musayyib's dead are not known by name and are never seen. They count only as statistics, human lives dispensable for the sake of an allegedly greater good. But what happened in Musayyib last weekend has occurred all over Iraq on a daily basis, ever since we declared victory in 2003. The equivalent would be random daily bombings all over the United Kingdom over the last two years.

Apart from the special case of Israel, the Middle East seems far away. The faces from Musayyib appear alien and "other." We can hardly pronounce Iraqi names, let alone remember them. The occasional human interest story about an Iraqi child who took shrapnel in the face and is heroically brought to the United States for plastic surgery serves to mute our outrage and remind us that we are a moral people, intent on doing good in the world. But such stories also blind us to a sense of injustice and natural outrage in the face of Iraqi killings for which we are also responsible.

JUDGE ROBERTS IS A REPUBLICAN PARTY HACK

For all the insipid oratory by George W. Bush about Judge John Roberts having wisdom, integrity, yada, yada, it appears his major qualification for nomination to the Supreme Court is being a Republican party hack and decidedly biased toward big business. Roberts has served just three years in the judiciary, but has a history of working in Republican administrations and of representing corporate clients as an attorney. Matthew Rothschild writes about Roberts at www.progressive.org:

From 1989 to 1993, he was Bush I’s Deputy Solicitor General, where he helped formulate the Administration’s legal positions and then advocated them before the Supreme Court. It was in this capacity that he argued that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, among other reactionary positions.

Roberts reappeared in Florida after the 2000 elections to help out Jeb Bush with the legal shenanigans that ensured his brother the White House. “The governor’s office issued a statement on Wednesday confirming that Roberts had come to Tallahassee, Fla, at his own expense during the recount, and said he advised Gov. Bush on his responsibilities under Florida law in the disputed Presidential election,” wrote William E. Gibson of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

AN INCREDIBLY MORONIC LETTER IN THE FRESNO BEE

This jerk talks about Democrats "nitpicking" the "honesty" of George W. Bush and about the Democrats' "media cohorts." I guess he hasn't bothered to check who owns the major media. George Bush honest? The man has stolen and lied his way through his whole presidency. As the old saying goes, sometimes it's better to be silent and be thought an idiot than to open your mouth (or your pen) and prove it. This gem is at www.fresnobee.com:

The pitiful attempts by Democrats and their media cohorts to undermine our commander-in-chief have apparently fallen to a new low ("Bush pledges to fire anyone guilty of a crime," story July 19).

JULY 23, 2005

RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM IS INSANE

One of the most disturbing aspects of religious fundamentalism, no matter under what religion it parades, is that its adherents are immune to reason. Their truth is the only truth, their way the only way, and they speak directly to God. Because God's instructions supersede any laws made by humans, all the rules go out the window. This article by Polly Toynbee is at www.guardian.co.uk:

All religions are prone to it, given the right circumstances. How could those who preach the absolute revealed truth of every word of a primitive book not be prone to insanity? There have been sects of killer Christians and indeed the whole of Christendom has been at times bent on wiping out heathens. Jewish zealots in their settlements crazily claim legal rights to land from the Old Testament. Some African Pentecostal churches harbour sects of torturing exorcism and child abuse. Muslims have a very long tradition of jihadist slaughter. Sikhs rose up to stop a play that exposed deformities of abuse within their temples. Buddhism too has its sinister wing. See how far-right evangelicals have kidnapped US politics and warped its secular, liberal founding traditions. Intense belief, incantations, secrecy and all-male rituals breed perversions and danger, abusing women and children and infecting young men with frenzy, no matter what the name of the faith.

NEW ROLLING STONES SONG NOT FLATTERING TO RICE

The Rolling Stones have a new CD due for release and one of the songs is reportedly called "Neo-Con," an unflattering look at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Bush administration. The Stones have been pretty much apolitical throughout their careers, unlike the Beatles, who took some strong stances against the Vietnam war. This article by Paul Cashmere is at www.undercover.com:

The Rolling Stones will deliver a musical attack on George W. Bush with their new album.

One track 'Neo-Con' is reported to question the political ambitions of Bush's war ethics.

Some fans are already questioning if the politically correct Stones go through with releasing the song on the album. The lyrics don't flatter in any way National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

WELLS FARGO: MESS UP, GET REWARDED

Wells Fargo Bank failed miserably the past couple of years in protecting the confidential information of its customers, but now Wells Fargo is finding a way to profit from its incompetence. That's the way it is with banks these days. For the bank, it's heads I win, tails you lose. This article by David Lazarus is at www.sfgate.com:

Federal regulators say Wells Fargo jeopardized the personal information of hundreds of thousands of customers through a string of security breaches over the past two years. Wells in turn has found a way to profit from the problem.

The San Francisco bank, in conjunction with marketing behemoth Trilegiant, is offering a new service called Wells Fargo Select Identity Theft Protection. For $12.99 a month, this includes daily monitoring of one's credit files and assistance in dealing with cases of fraud.

BUSH UNDERMINES NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION TREATY

George W. Bush and his administration use fear as their modus operandi. It's fear of attacks from whoever with whatever motive and the administration's supposed ability to protect us that has garnered them support from the American pubic. But Mr. Bush and his administration have pursued policies that actually make us more subject to attack. They've alienated a good part of the Muslim world with their war against Iraq and with the torture scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. They're talking about militarizing space. They've pursued tactical nuclear weapons. Now they're selectively undermining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is likely to mean more nuclear weapons that could fall into the wrong hands. This editorial is from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:

The Bush administration is full of tough talk about opposing the spread of nuclear weapons. But it keeps undermining the world's most effective instrument for doing so: the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In May, top administration officials stood aside as a crucial review conference meant to strengthen the treaty ended in a stalemate. Now Washington wants to allow India an end run around the treaty's basic bargain - the one that rewards the countries that are willing to renounce nuclear weapons with the opportunity to import highly sensitive nuclear technology for power reactors.

The strength of that bargain has dissuaded many countries that are capable of building or buying nuclear arms from doing so, including Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Japan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The bargain's credibility has depended on the willingness of the major nuclear exporters to uphold it. One of the most powerful examples of the price a nation would pay for ignoring the rules has been the nuclear export restrictions the United States has imposed on India for decades, ever since India declined to sign the treaty and tested a nuclear device, using materials and technology diverted from a civilian nuclear power program.

JULY 22, 2005

ROBERTS: CRUELTY WITH A SMILE

George W. Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge John Roberts, reportedly has a winning personality. We heard the same thing, as I recall, about George W. Bush. But Roberts is a ticking time bomb if he gets confirmed to the Court. His abysmal record, such as it is, on women's issues, environmental issues, church-state separation issues, and consumer issues should alert us that he is far out of the mainstream. He could make a disastrous imprint on our society by his rulings from the bench. E. J. Dionne writes about Bush's new hatchet man in this column at www.washingtonpost.com:

If you doubt this, consider that no one disputes Justice Antonin Scalia's intelligence or sense of humor. Many of us would welcome the chance to have Scalia as a professor. But outside the ranks of the right wing, few Americans want their country defined consistently by Scalia's choices. In shifting the balance on the court, Roberts could give Scalia the power to impose his worldview.

The issues at stake are not abstract. They have to do with the government's power to protect the environment, to safeguard civil rights, including the rights of the disabled, and to provide protections for employees and consumers. It's admirable that this son of a steel executive worked some summers in a steel mill. More important is how he would rule on cases involving steelworkers and other working men and women.

RIGHT-WINGERS' DUMB ARGUMENTS AGAINST MINIMUM WAGE

You know right-wingers aren't really concerned about protecting jobs because their policies create absolutely the opposite effect. Globalization anyone? But any time you talk about raising the minimum wage to some humane level conservatives will screech about losing jobs and the terrible effect on small business (even though their real concern is big corporations). This piece at www.motherjones.com shows how stupid the right wing arguments are. The item is by Bradford Plumer:

By the by, every time the debate over the minimum wage comes up, some conservative will ask, as Powerline does, "Well if you think the hourly minimum needs to be raised to $7, why not $14, or $140?" As if this is some sort of refutation. Conversely, we could ask, if you think a $400 billion deficit is okay, why not $800 billion, or $4 trillion? If you think 15 years is an acceptable prison sentence for manslaughter, why not 50, or the death penalty? If you think 60 Senators are enough to filibuster a law, why not 70, or 100? We could play this game all day and it won't get any less dumb. For instance, an interesting 1999 survey by the Levy Institute found that over three-fourths of employers wouldn't change their employment decisions if the federal minimum was raised to $6, but found small effects if it was raised to $7.25. So there are trade-offs here, as always. That's why most liberals nowadays think a combination of a modest minimum wage hike and a boost in the Earned-Income Tax Credit is the way to go.

BUSH TO CONGRESS: I WANT TO TORTURE

The White House has put Congress on notice that a massive defense appropriations bill may face a veto if Congress wants to block torture. They may couch it in different language, such as "protecting Americans," but that's what it amounts to. This story by Vicki Allen is at news.yahoo.com:

The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.

The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.

WE ARE NOT AN ISLAND

The Bush administration has strutted and threatened and bullied and attacked countries that didn't attack us. They have succeeded, like no other administration before them, in making most of the world hate us. This would be bad enough if there were any justification for the attack on Iraq, but there is none. The Valerie Plame leak story is just one more piece of the puzzle in how this administration deliberately lied us into a war. This editorial comes from www.iconoclast-texas.com:

Bush’s faith-based assumption regarding WMDs — void of facts, or perhaps worse, ignorant of facts — should teach Americans to take a lesson from their Missouri counterparts with a “show me” attitude. Governance through blatant lies is treason. Fired? Does such tempered remonstrance answer so monstrous a charge?

Rove is due a rendezvous with Congressional interrogation, as are President Bush, George Tenet, and other governmental officials who participated in “fixing” a war that has killed our young men and women and made our nation a pariah in much of the rest of the world. The citizenry of this planet increasingly sees us, the American people, as liars and bullies because we do nothing to rein in the thugs we have elected. Even a cursory reading of the world’s press reveals that the majority of the world sees us as humankind’s enemy.

We do not live on this planet alone, and cannot survive on the pretense that those millions who fear us are irrelevant.

JULY 21, 2005

GO BACK TO MAKING BAD MOVIES, GROPER

The bloom is off the rose for our Governor Groper. The guy with the steroid build and Austrian accent and movie career made a big splash in what was in effect a coup in California to remove Governor Gray Davis. Arnie talked big about being the "people's governor," but he forgot to mention that it's just a few of the people. He has been terrible for working people, making open war against public service unions. We learned that he had a sweetheart deal with some "health and fitness" magazines to be a "consultant." It was just coincidental that he could veto or sign legislation to help the advertisers for those same magazines. So the Groper is dropping like a rock in the polls. This story from Reuters is linked at www.nytimes.com:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's approval rating dropped to a new low even before a controversy developed about his hefty side income from fitness magazines, according to a poll released on Thursday.

Only 34 percent of adult Californians approve of the job Schwarzenegger is doing as governor, compared with 51 percent who disapprove, according to a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The institute's poll mirrors sinking numbers in a Field Poll last month among registered voters which found approval dropped to 37 percent from 55 percent in February.

THE FRANKENSTEINS IN WEAPONS MANUFACTURING

The people who make weapons never stop thinking of new and unusual ways to hurt and kill people. There's a new riot control weapon that is described as being something out of Star Wars. It's not a light saber, but a microwave beam that inflicts "intolerable pain." It can also cause "hot spots" if you're carrying coins or wear glasses or God knows what else. Even though they're describing this monstrosity as not lethal, it sounds pretty horrific to me. This story from Reuters is linked at www.msnbc.msn.com:

Scientists are questioning the safety of a "Star Wars"-style ray gun due to be deployed in Iraq for riot control next year.

The Active Denial System weapon, classified as “less lethal” by the Pentagon, fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds.

The idea is that people caught in the beam will rapidly try to move out of it and therefore break up the crowd.

GLOBALIZATION IS TERRIBLE FOR MOST OF US

The power elites in politics, business, and the media tout the wonders of globalization. We're breaking down borders, you know, and allowing the free flow of goods, services, and information all around the globe. It's a whole new world. The costs for those of us who work for a living are astronomical, not only in the United States, but all around the world. Small farmers in Mexico, for example, get devastated by cheap corn from the United States. Thanks to globalization, China is propping us up while we run massive deficits. Yeah, we get cheap stuff from Wal-Mart, but our manufacturing jobs are disappearing like ice in July. Molly Ivins writes about it this column at www.workingforchange.com:

Forget what the Supreme Court thinks about teaching creationism in the schools: Think about what it will contribute to the spiraling disasters of globalization by dismantling the entire economic regulatory system built up over the past 100 years. As Greider notes, "Washington defines 'national interest' primarily in terms of advancing the global reach of our multinational enterprises." Problem is, our multinational corporations increasingly work against the interests of Americans themselves. In addition to outsourcing jobs, the companies locate sham headquarters in off-shore tax havens to avoid paying taxes. The only restraints we have ever had on multinational corporations are government regulation and the right to sue the bastards for the various kinds of harm they cause. It is precisely those two forms of control that are being not just undermined but tossed out entirely by an increasingly activist right-wing judiciary.

Recommended reading: Greider's "One World, Ready Or Not"; David Korten's "When Corporations Rule the World"; and Paul Krugman's "The Great Unraveling."

BUSH WANTS TO MILITARIZE SPACE

It's not enough that the U.S. has tried to extend its hegemony throughout the world. Now George W. Bush wants to extend our military domination into space. This is a very dangerous policy because it's likely to set off a new arms race. I can't see other countries willing to sit back and let the United States command the heavens. And military spending is bleeding us dry. We need the money that gets burned in military spending for so many other things. You think of the old Beatles song: "Give peace a chance." This article by Lawrence J. Korb and Peter Ogden is linked at www.commondreams.org:

If the president does announce such a deployment, it would mark a radical shift in U.S. security policy. Never before has a country attempted to dominate outer space with military force. During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States invested in the development of anti-satellite technology, yet both countries determined that deploying these weapons was not in their respective national interests. The space race has been on for half of a century, and still the skies are weapon-free.

Nevertheless, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is determined to change all of this. In 2001, he chaired a commission that warned of an impending "Space Pearl Harbor" in which our space assets would be eliminated in an enemy attack. In order to prevent this, the commission urged the United States to pursue "the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats and, if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests."

The reality, however, is that the deployment of space-based weapons would not only undermine U.S. national security, but would be an enormous misallocation of defense resources.

JULY 20, 2005

WHINY REPUBLICANS CAN'T STAND THE TRUTH

You wish Republicans could get as upset about an illegal war, deepening deficits, child poverty, global warming, and all kinds of other issues as they are about a painting in a exhibit in the state Capitol. The painting shows an American flag being flushed down a toilet and suggests that's the direction George W. Bush has taken the country. This story by Greg Lucas is at www.sfgate.com:

A painting of the United States sinking into a toilet now on display in the cafeteria of the state Department of Justice has raised the ire of the state Republican Party, which is demanding that Attorney General Bill Lockyer remove the image.

The painting -- part of an exhibit of more than 30 works by lawyer artists and pieces with overt legal themes -- has an American flag-painted continental United States heading into a toilet. Next to it are the words: "T'anks to Mr. Bush."

EXAMINING THE RECORD OF JUDGE ROBERTS

One of the things George W. Bush is counting on in his new Supreme Court nominee is lack of a comprehensive record. But what we do know about John Roberts is appalling. We know he has a terrible environmental record, a terrible record on women's rights, and a terrible record on church-state separation issues. This story talks about one specific case where Roberts ruled that a 12-year-old girl could be arrested for eating French fries on Washington's Metro subway. Sounds like a great guy. This story by Jennifer C. Kerr is at www.washingtonpost.com:

Judge John G. Roberts' views on abortion may be murky, but there's no question where he stands on the issue of girls eating fries in a subway station.

As a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Roberts wrote a decision last year upholding the arrest of a 12-year-old girl who violated the ban on eating food on Washington's subway system, Metro.

BUSH ENDANGERS THE PLANET SOME MORE

All right, class, let's review. Only a few people in the world know how to make nuclear weapons. Only a few people in the world have the technology to make or deliver nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons can kill lots and lots of people and other living things. The less people who have nuclear weapons the better, unless you believe everyone should have them, which creates a standoff of sorts. George W. Bush must believe that more people having nuclear weapons is a good thing because he has offered to share nuclear technology (supposedly for just non-military uses) with India. This article by Norman Solomon is at www.counterpunch.com:

The silver-spooned cowboy in the Oval Office just presented a fine new saddle to the nuclear horseman of the apocalypse.

It was a gift worthy of hell. "President Bush agreed yesterday to share civilian nuclear technology with India, reversing decades of U.S. policies designed to discourage countries from developing nuclear weapons," the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The lead was more understated in the New York Times: "President Bush, bringing India a step closer to acceptance in the club of nuclear-weapons states, reached an agreement on Monday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to let India secure international help for its civilian nuclear reactors while retaining its nuclear arms."

No matter how the story was spun, it could only be read in the world's capitals as further proof that U.S. nuclear policies are grimly laughable -- thanks to policymakers in Washington who simultaneously decry and promote nuclear proliferation. And nowhere will the hypocrisy-laced ironies be more appreciated than in Tehran.

JULY 19. 2005

NO SURPRISE: A ROTTEN SUPREME COURT PICK FROM BUSH

And now the drum roll please. George W. Bush's nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court is Judge John G. Roberts. The Alliance for Justice has a detailed report in Adobe format that is linked to buzzflash.com. Roberts is hostile to about everything most Americans believe in, right out of the typical Bush mold. Roberts has favored weakening church-state separation, for one thing, and he has been opposed to the federal courts enforcing environmental protections. I say we block this nomination.

GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS LESSEN POVERTY

Right-wingers like to talk about failed government programs, unless it's their huge tax cuts for the rich or the black hole that is defense spending. They especially hate social programs because helping people is just not part of the conservative ethos. But government programs do help lift people out of poverty or mitigate the effects of poverty, and the cost is nothing compared to the boondoggles favored by conservatives. E. J. Dionne writes about it in his column at www.washingtonpost.com:

Does all this cost a fortune? Not by any fair reckoning. Federal spending on Medicaid and SCHIP represents 1.5 percent of gross domestic product. Federal financing for the rest of the low-income programs consumes just 2.3 percent of GDP. For a sense of comparison, consider that defense spending consumes 4 percent of GDP and interest on the national debt gobbles up 1.5 percent. President Bush's tax cuts -- which go in large part to the wealthiest Americans -- will consume roughly 2 percent of GDP.

And federal spending for the poor does a huge amount of good. Food stamps, the center notes, "help more than 25 million people with low incomes afford an adequate diet." The school lunch and breakfast programs provide free and reduced-price meals to 22 million schoolchildren from low-income families. The supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children known as WIC helps about 8 million pregnant and postpartum women and their children under 5. One of its effects has been to reduce the incidence of low birth weight among infants. Think of WIC as one of our most important pro-life programs.

NRA'S BULLYING TACTICS IN OHIO

Would we be a better and safer country if the NRA just went away? I have to think so. The NRA is fanatical in its stand for guns, rejecting even reasonable controls such as banning assault weapons. I believe strongly in the Bill of Rights, but I don't think the Founding Fathers gave carte blanche to owning any kind of weapon anywhere you want. This item comes from corrente.blogspot.com:

"Looking to punish this city for enacting a ban on assault weapons, the National Rifle Association announced on Monday that it had canceled plans to hold its national convention here in 2007, an event that was expected to pump more than $15 million into the local economy...

The announcement came five days after Mayor Michael Coleman signed legislation outlawing the sale of certain kinds of military-style semiautomatic weapons and requiring people who purchased such guns before the law's effective date, Aug. 12, to register them with the police.

Columbus officials and gun control groups condemned the rifle association's decision, calling it an effort not only to embarrass the Council but also to bully the State Legislature into passing a bill that would invalidate the Columbus ban and prohibit other cities from enacting similar measures. A Republican lawmaker is expected to introduce such legislation this fall."

THE ASTRONOMICAL COSTS OF THE IRAQ WAR

We should always be clear that the worst costs of the war in Iraq are the human costs in unnecessary deaths and casualties. But, even when you factor in the monetary costs, there is a human element as well. Money we have blown in Iraq could have been used here at home to make us a safer and healthier country. We could have invested in education, health care, housing, and infrastructure. We could be finding alternative energy sources to end our dependence on fossil fuels. Instead, we're killing and maiming people and inciting the Muslim world to hate us. This editorial from The San Francisco Chronicle is linked at www.commondreams.org:

Even the most strident hawks in Washington could not have anticipated the stunning costs of the war in Iraq, but that is no reason to keep blindly throwing money to fund what has become an elusive and questionable campaign. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost American taxpayers more than $314 billion so far and the Bush's administration's open- ended commitment has rightly raised concerns, even among war supporters.

At the rate the United States is spending to fund the war efforts, the military campaigns could become the most expensive operations in the past 60 years, far exceeding the costs of the Korean and Vietnam wars. One nonpartisan Washington think tank estimates that the cost of the war in Iraq could exceed $700 billion -- a remarkable sum considering that polls show a majority of American believe that the war wasn't worth starting and feel that they are no safer today than they were before Sept. 11, 2001.

JULY 18, 2005

OUR LOUSY HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Right-wingers had the audacity to describe the Clinton health care plan from a few years ago as "socialized medicine." It was actually very business friendly. But it might have been a start toward getting a decent health care system in the United States. As it stands now, we have the most expensive health care in the world and millions of our citizens have no health insurance at all. This editorial is at sptimes.com:

Businesses and health consumers already know this, but the medicine just isn't working. Whether the prescription was for managed care or fewer malpractice lawsuits or higher copayments or low-cost clinics, the political fixes have fixed little. America's fragmented health care system is still the costliest in the world.

The latest study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University researchers and reported this month in Health Affairs, offers more evidence of the same. The United States spent $5,267 per person on health care in 2002. That's more than double, per capita, what 29 other industrialized nations spent. The total amounts to 14.6 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. The United Kingdom, by comparison, spent 7.7 percent.

THE REPUBLIAN PARTY'S RACIST TRADITION

If you looked at just the last few presidential elections, you would think the Republican party always had a lock on the South. It wasn't always so. But then along came the 1960's and the civil rights movement. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations finally made moves to end segregation. Later on, the Supreme Court took other action to stop segregated schools. It made a lot of racists in the South furious and they started voting Republican. Richard Nixon even developed the so-called "Southern strategy," which was designed to exploit the racism of white Southerners. There's a big difference between political expediency and doing what is morally and ethically right, and the Republican party doesn't quite grasp the difference. Bob Herbert writes about it at www.nytimes.com:

The Southern strategy meant much, much more than some members of the G.O.P. simply giving up on African-American votes. Put into play by Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon in the mid- to late 1960's, it fed like a starving beast on the resentment of whites who were scornful of blacks and furious about the demise of segregation and other civil rights advances. The idea was to snatch the white racist vote away from the Democratic Party, which had committed such unpardonable sins as enacting the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and enforcing desegregation statutes.

The important thing to keep in mind was how deliberate and pernicious the strategy was. Last month a jury in Philadelphia, Miss., convicted an 80-year-old man, Edgar Ray Killen, of manslaughter in the slaying of three civil rights workers - Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney - in the summer of 1964. It was a crime that made much of the nation tremble, and revolted anyone with a true sense of justice.

WHAT A DEAL: LOWER PAY AND HIGHER HEALTH CARE

You hope that the current generation suffering under the economics of the Bush administration will take note and that they will tell their children and their children's children that you don't vote for Republicans if you care about a decent standard of living. Everything gets worse for working people when Republicans are in power. Salaries stagnate or actually decrease, health and safety rules get gutted, basic protections like overtime get assaulted, and jobs get shipped abroad. Now working people are getting paid less while health care costs are going into overdrive. This story from the Associated Press is at www.nytimes.com:

Employees are facing a double whammy when it comes to health care costs: Many companies are likely to ask workers to pay more for their insurance while rising health care costs means companies may dole out lower raises.

Half of large U.S. companies said that increased health care costs have contributed to slower profit growth and as a result more than 75 percent may ask employees to bear an even greater share of the cost, according to a new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers released Monday.

AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT BURIES ITS HEAD IN THE SAND

When you hear about free trade or laissez-faire economics you're supposed to immediately genuflect and say how wonderful it is, so much better than those socialistic systems elsewhere in the world. The only problem is that free market capitalism has lots of flaws. Many higher ranking officials in the political and economic establishment don't want to acknowledge that. This article by William Greider is at www.commondreams.org:

DURING the cold war, as the Soviet economic system slowly unraveled, internal reform was impossible because highly placed officials who recognized the systemic disorders could not talk about them honestly. The United States is now in an equivalent predicament. Its weakening position in the global trading system is obvious and ominous, yet leaders in politics, business, finance and the news media are not willing to discuss candidly what is happening and why. Instead, they recycle the usual bromides about the benefits of free trade and assurances that everything will work out for the best.

Much like Soviet leaders, the American establishment is enthralled by utopian convictions - the market orthodoxy of free trade globalization. The United States is heading for yet another record trade deficit in 2005, possibly 25 percent larger than last year's. Our economy's international debt position - accumulated from many years of tolerating larger and larger trade deficits - began compounding ferociously in the last five years. Our net foreign indebtedness is now more than 25 percent of gross domestic product and at the current pace will reach 50 percent in four or five years .

JULY 16 and July 17, 2005

UNEMPLOYMENT WORSE THAN THOUGHT

I believe we should move to a full employment economy. Right-wingers don't like that because it means workers have far more leverage in demanding salaries and benefits. So we have 5% unemployment or so being considered good. The problem these days is that the official unemployment rate understates how many people really are unemployed This article linked to www.dailykos.com shows that unemployment may be several times higher than the official rate:

A study out of the Boston Federal Reserve argues current unemployment numbers are out of wack and undercounting millions of the unemployed. As one story summarizes the report:

Labor force participation rates "have not recovered as much as usual and the discrepancies are large," [the author of the study] wrote. "Current low rates of labor market participation thus potentially represent considerable slack in the U.S. labor market"...While the official unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 6.3% in June 2003 to 5% in June 2005, the labor force participation rate remains close to 15-year lows of 66%.

SMALL WEAPONS KILL MORE PEOPLE THAN WMDS DO

We love guns in the United States. We have a whole cultural history built around guns, whether it be westerns or police shows or hunting magazines. Although we certainly should be concerned with weapons of mass destruction, a new study shows that more people are dying each year from the use of small weapons than from WMD's. This story by Olivia Ward is at www.commondreams.org:

With each new terrorist attack, world leaders warn of the danger of weapons of mass destruction, which could devastate entire continents in the hands of malevolent militants.

The threat posed by unconventional weapons can't be underestimated. But those who study worldwide violence say the real and present danger is not the technically complex, expensive and hard-to-obtain nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, but small arms, which have proliferated in the past half century to kill millions of innocent people.

REPUBLICANS AND DIRTY TRICKS

Richard M. Nixon got tagged with the name "Tricky Dicky" because he built a political career on dirty tricks and smearing his opponents. Today's generation of Republicans learned well from Nixon. There is no group more ruthless or more adept at dirty tricks than the Bushes and their campaign staff. This story by Mark Crispin Miller and Jared Irmas talks about how the Republicans spent $8 million to suppress votes for Democrats in the last election cycle. The article is linked at www.truthout.org:

In the months before the 2004 presidential election, a firm called Sproul & Associates launched voter registration drives in at least eight states, most of them swing states. The group - run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Christian Coalition and the Arizona Republican Party - had been hired by the Republican National Committee.

Sproul got into a bit of trouble last fall when, in certain states, it came out that the firm was playing dirty tricks in order to suppress the Democratic vote: concealing their partisan agenda, tricking Democrats into registering as Republicans, surreptitiously re-registering Democrats and Independents as Republicans, and shredding Democratic registration forms.

BUSH'S WAR HAS CREATED MORE TERRORISTS

George W. Bush launched an unnecessary and criminal war against Iraq and in so doing has radicalized Muslims from all over the Middle East. People who were not terrorists before are now becoming terrorists because of Bush. This story is about a study done by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank. The story by Bryan Bender is at www.boston.com:

New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank -- both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States -- have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself.

The studies, which together constitute the most detailed picture available of foreign fighters, cast serious doubt on President Bush's claim that those responsible for some of the worst violence are terrorists who seized on the opportunity to make Iraq the ''central front" in a battle against the United States.

JULY 15, 2005

DESPITE BUSH RHETORIC, TAX REVENUES HAVE FALLEN

The Bush administration has recently been touting a rise in tax revenues and the right-wing echo chamber claims it's a vindication of supply side economics after all. Not quite. In 2003 tax revenues fell to their lowest point since World War II when the government was much smaller. The recent "surge" in tax revenues was due mostly to temporary factors. Soon we'll be back to the lower tax revenues we've experienced before. Supply side economics is a sham and a disaster. This column by Jonathan Chait is at www.latimes.com:

First, the rise in revenues mainly reflects temporary factors. Economic growth is nothing special at this point in a business cycle, and revenue from individual income tax withholdings - that is, regular wages - are actually growing very slowly. As Mark Zandi of economy.com has noted, the primary factor is the red-hot housing market, which is causing capital gains, as well as bonuses for brokers and underwriters, to skyrocket. A second factor is the hot stock market from 2004, which is already cooling. On top of that, a provision in a 2004 tax bill encouraged corporations to bring home overseas profits right away, causing them to pay more in taxes in 2005 but less in subsequent years.

The upshot of all this is that a bunch of short-term factors have come together to cause revenues to shoot up this year. It has nothing to do with President Bush's "pro-growth" tax cuts, unless you think the tax cuts have somehow caused the housing run-up.

REPUBLICAN SPIN ON PLAME DOESN'T HOLD WATER

Karl Rove should be fired and he should be prosecuted for leaking the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Republicans are spinning the story every which way, but the fact remains that Karl Rove leaked classified information to get political revenge against an opponent on the Iraq war. Part of the latest spin is that Ms. Plame was not undercover at the time of Rove's leak, so what's the big deal? But Molly Ivins makes a good point in this column. Prior to the leak, Ms. Plame did work undercover. Leaking her name exposed an intelligence asset and may have resulted in people being killed. This column is at www.workingforchange.com:

A consistent theme of the spin is that "no crime was committed," that outing Plame as a CIA agent meant nothing since she was then working as an analyst in Langley.

Unfortunately, Plame spent years overseas for the CIA working for a civilian firm without benefit of a diplomatic passport, meaning that she was especially vulnerable, could have been executed if caught and showed special courage. True, she was not working undercover when Novak named her in his column. However, as many CIA officers have pointed out, the outing left her former company and colleagues vulnerable. That this was done for petty political revenge is unforgivable. It is a result of being so focused on your political opponents that you take them more seriously than you do the country's real enemies.

TRUE SPIRITUALISM IS IN LIBERAL IDEAS

If you listen to right-wingers, we on the left are just about laziness, sponging off the government, smoking pot or taking other drugs, hugging trees, and "hating America." But if you look at the history of the United States you will find that the idealism and heroism that have driven us forward has come from liberals. It was liberals who fought slavery, it was liberals who fought the concentration of wealth to just a few while others went without, it was liberals who stood against Nazism and fascism. We need to open people's eyes to the higher purposes that are inherent within liberalism and expose the corruption that is the whole basis of right-wing ideology. This article by Andrew Bard Schmookler is at www.commondreams.org:

The earth is our mother. And the other creatures are our cousins. Are there not "family" values of the loftiest kind involved in protecting the biosphere that sustains such a rich web of life, including our own?

That liberalism can go beyond merely formulating sensible policy to give voice also to a spiritual dimension goes likewise for providing decent health care and ensuring genuinely equal opportunity for all our children. Likewise for upholding the constitutional system of checks and balances that was brought forth on this continent as a virtual historical miracle.

But if liberalism has failed to present this kind stirring vision, perhaps it's because the world view of too much of American liberalism has lost touch with the sense of the sacred - with what's sacred about the liberty in liberalism, about the love of humanity at the heart of humanitarianism, about the care for all life that drives environmentalism, about the devotion to the greater good that motivates progressive economics.

THE POLITICAL SOUL OF SPORTS

Dave Zirin has a new book coming out about the political side of sports. Sometimes you get lost in the thrill of the game and you forget all the human dimensions that are at stake. When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball it was more than a great player playing the game. When Muhammad Ali stood up and refused to be inducted to fight a war he thought was morally wrong he was far more than a great fighter. This column is at www.commondreams.org:

We need to know this history because it is a living history - which is precisely what makes it so threatening. As Carlos said to me, "So much is the same as it was in 1968. Look at Mississippi or Alabama. It hasn't changed from back in the day. Look at the city of Memphis and you still see blight up and down. You can still see the despair. It's alive"

He's right. But it's also alive anytime athletes today attempt to use their platform to speak on social issues or draw inspiration from struggles in the street. It's alive when NBA Most Valuable Player Steve Nash says, "The war in Iraq is based on oil," while wearing a t-shirt that reads "No War! Shoot For Peace." It's alive when then-Toronto Blue Jays slugger Carlos Delgado made clear that he wouldn't stand on the steps during the seventh inning stretch to God Bless America because the war in Iraq is "murder based on lies". It's alive every time when the NBA's Etan Thomas shows up at anti-death penalty events to read his slam poetry; poetry that calls out the racism of the system in utterly stark terms. And it's alive when the US Congress feared calling Barry Bonds to testify on steroids for concern that he would say to them what he has been saying to reporters, namely "Why is steroids cheating but making a shirt in Korea for 50 cents and selling it here for $150 isn't?"

JULY 14, 2005

JOE WILSON TELLS THE TRUTH, ROVE DOES NOT

Since it has become apparent that White House adviser Karl Rove leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the right-wing spin and attack machine has gone into action. The right-wingers have done their best to smear Ambassador Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame as liars. But Wilson's findings that Iraq did not try to buy enriched uranium from Niger have held up under the relentless assault. This story is at www.bloomberg.com:

Two-year old assertions by former ambassador Joseph Wilson regarding Iraq and uranium, which lie at the heart of the controversy over who at the White House identified a covert U.S. operative, have held up in the face of attacks by supporters of presidential adviser Karl Rove.

Rove is a subject of a special prosecutor's investigation into how the name of the agent, who is Wilson's wife, was leaked to journalists. There has been no evidence made public that Rove identified the agent to reporters. Rove's allies are arguing that he was in fact trying to steer journalists away from taking too seriously Wilson's criticism of President George W. Bush's reasons for going to war in Iraq in 2003.

THE GROPER'S CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Governor Arnie "The Groper" has a major conflict of interest allegation to answer now. The Groper accepted a consulting job that pays $8 million over five years to "further the business interests" of health and fitness magazines. That's a nice euphemism for steroids, which the Groper has used. It turns out the Groper then vetoed a bill that would regulate steroids. If it walks like a conflict of interest and talks like a conflict of interest it's probably a conflict of interest. This article by Peter Nicholas and Robert Salladay is at www.latimes.com:

Two days before he was sworn into office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger accepted a consulting job paying an estimated $8 million over five years to "further the business objectives" of a national publisher of health and bodybuilding magazines.

The contract pays Schwarzenegger 1% of the magazines' advertising revenue, much of which comes from makers of nutritional supplements. Last year, the governor vetoed legislation that would have imposed government regulations on the supplement industry.

NEW POLL SHOWS BUSH LOSING CREDIBILITY

I have to ask again: what took so long? How has George W. Bush ever enjoyed any credibility? The guy has left a trail of slime everywhere he has been. He got Daddy to pull strings to get him into the Air National Guard so he could avoid going to Vietnam, and then he even reneged on his Guard duty. He was probably guilty of insider trading when he was on the board of Harken Energy. He has left business associates high and dry time and time again. He acquired a good portion of his fortune in a sweetheart deal with the Texas Rangers baseball franchise. A good part of that wealth came from cheating local land owners so that the Rangers could build their ballpark. As president he failed to prevent the attacks on 9/11, and has since pushed through major tax breaks for his rich friends and eviscerated programs for the middle class and the poor. He and Dick Cheney have seen their buddies at Halliburton profit handsomely off no-bid contracts in Iraq. It just goes on and on. How can anyone except the brain dead right-wingers think Bush has any credibility at all? This story is linked at www.commondreams.org:

President Bush's personal credibility appears to be eroding at a time when Iraq has become the top public priority and the White House is engulfed in controversy over senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, a poll released on Wednesday suggested.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed the percentage of Americans who believe Bush is "honest and straightforward" fell to 41 percent from 50 percent in January, while those who say they doubt his veracity climbed to 45 percent from 36 percent.

The telephone survey, which was conducted July 8-11 and included responses from 1,009 adults, also showed that Iraq has replaced jobs as the leading issue among Americans.

IS ROVE JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG?

You have to wonder if Karl Rove leaked the name of Valerie Plame strictly on his own. It doesn't seem likely that Rove acted without any knowledge by higher-ranking officials in the Bush administration. Is Dick Cheney involved? Is Bush himself involved? That's the subject of Ted Rall's column linked at www.commondreams.org:

Imagine, for a few paragraphs, that you were the U.S. Director of Central Intelligence. Rove's seditious behavior requires you to wonder about the possible extent of his inside job against U.S. national security. Did Rove act alone? Probably not. His Plame operation, no doubt conceived in league with Dick Cheney and other high-ranking scoundrels, may merely represent the tip of a huge iceberg of duplicity. How else did "Bush's brain" subvert our intelligence community? Are Rove's intimates, who include Bush himself, running interference for him out of personal loyalty, or are they trying to cover up their own treasonous acts? Someone at Langley provided highly classified personnel information to Rove, a dirty tricks specialist and pollster. Who?

JULY 13, 2005

KARL ROVE AIDED THE TERRORISTS

The Bush administration, including Karl Rove himself, has claimed that anyone opposed to the Bush administration's "war on terror" is aiding the terrorists somehow. But wasn't Rove himself aiding enemies of the United States by compromising our intelligence when he leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame? You wonder how many have been killed or compromised thanks to Rove, and how much valuable intelligence we never received. This story by Evan Derkacz is at www.alternet.org:

There's a certain irony at work when the president's most trusted adviser, Karl Rove, outs Valerie Plame, a WMD specialist, while waging a war on Iraq which was, publicly at least, about protecting America from WMD.

Outing her not only jeopardized whatever she was working on at the time but, as the Washington Post reported, "Every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities."

The article also warned that, "Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered."

REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION TOUCHES PBS

Republicans in power are a lot like the sea being defiled by an oil spill. Everywhere you look you see muck. We know that a right-winger named Kenneth Tomlinson got to head PBS and promptly set out on a mission to turn PBS into a right-wing echo chamber. Now it appears political meddling may be responsible for the hiring of the new president at PBS. This story is at online.wsj.com:

An investigation into allegations of political meddling at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has expanded to include the hiring of the agency's new president, according to a Democratic lawmaker.

Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said Tuesday he was told of the investigation in a letter from the corporation's inspector general, Kenneth Konz.

Mr. Dorgan requested the inquiry after complaints that last month's selection of Patricia S. Harrison as president and chief executive was rushed and didn't follow normal protocols.

IT'S ABOUT OIL

Let's get back to the concept of Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the right explanation. Does anyone seriously believe the United States would be hip deep in the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan if oil weren't a major consideration? But you'll never hear the Bush administration talk about oil. They'll throw out terrorism, establishing democracy, and other specious rationales. This article Mark Biskeborn is at www.interventionmag.com:

Dick Cheney often speaks bravely about how well the U.S. is winning the wars to spread democracy. Cheney receives deferred salaries and stock options from oil companies like Halliburton, but he never mentions oil, even though it is the primary reason why U.S. soldiers fight and die in the Middle East. He avoids this topic probably because if the American people became too aware of the real reasons behind the war, public support would crumble even more than it has already.

In similar vain, the Bush Administration’s former attorney general, John D. Ashcroft spent over $6,000 in public funds to hide the nude breast of a statue, “Spirit of Justice.” The former attorney general saw a nude, obscene hooter where most folks admire the beauty and strength of a mother’s breast as symbol of nourishing justice. Apparently, the sexual excitement proved too much for Ashcroft’s sensibilities so he concealed the naked tit of taboo titillation. Covering up and obfuscating --the hallmark of the Bush Administration.

IN ATTACKING CIVIL LIBERTIES THE GROPER IS ALL REPUBLICAN

You get the feeling Republicans are offended by concepts like freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. They do everything they can to stifle dissent. They have the convenient excuse of terrorism these days. Years ago it was that Communists were hiding under every bush. You can always trump up some reason to stifle things you don't want to hear. This article talks about California Governor Groper's attempts to squelch opposing speech. The article by Carol Norris at www.commondreams.org:

CodePink, the main organizer of the Mother's Day rally in Sacramento, has been a visible fly in Schwarzenegger's ointment since the day he opened his campaign headquarters, calling for an investigation of the multitude of sexual harassment charges lodged against him. It organized a 16-city "No Groper for Governor" day of protest. Its members were peaceful yet vocal at stump speech after stump speech. And CodePink was there on inauguration day, letting Schwarzenegger know we heard his promises and that we would be watching him.

But little did we suspect that soon he would be watching us. Could it be that CodePink is feeling the payback for its outspokenness? Or with fast- plummeting public support, is Schwarzenegger scrambling to put out any and all dissenting sparks, lest they fan into a raging fire?

State Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Garden Grove (Orange County), and others are calling for an investigation to find out how much the CHP spends on Schwarzenegger's security as well as whether the California National Guard's intelligence unit was acting as a spy agency. Dunn, whose budget subcommittee oversees Guard funding, asked the Guard not to destroy any evidence. It nevertheless erased the computer hard drive of Col. Jeff Davis, the man overseeing the unit and its projects who has since retired and left the state.