July 17, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE STRATEGY OF CAPTURED AGENCIES

Conservatives love to fulminate against "big government." But they have no problem with government that acts as a tool for their friends. For instance, you appoint people who are anti-environment to head up agencies charged with enforcing environmental regulations. Or you put a corporate lackey like Elaine Chao in charge of the Labor Department. The agency has dragged its feet repeatedly during Bush's term in investigating abuses against working people. This editorial is from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:

President Bush has filled top posts across his administration with people who do not agree with the missions of their organizations. His Environmental Protection Agency has failed to protect the environment; his Justice Department has promoted injustice.

To lead the Department of Labor, Mr. Bush appointed Elaine Chao, who took office in 2001 arguing that states should be able to opt out of the federal minimum wage — a terrible idea that would drive down wages for the lowest-paid employees. For more than seven years, Ms. Chao has run a department that has tilted toward employers and failed to properly enforce labor laws.

"RANDOM" JURY SERVICE

Today I got my fourth jury summons from Fresno County in just eight years. Fresno County has a fairly sizable population. Granted, some of those people wouldn't be eligible for jury service due to age, physical handicaps, being too young, etc. But this is still astonishing, especially since most people I know have never gotten a jury summons.

I know we're supposed to feel "privileged" by jury service. I wonder, then, why you get threatened with jail if you don't follow their orders. Some privilege. I wonder why juries will slave away on lawsuits, only to have some elitist judge reduce or throw out the judgment. We saw that recently in a case involving a female basketball coach who sued California State University, Fresno, for sexual discrimination. And I wonder why employers are not required to pay your salary when you get shanghaied into jury service. You're magically supposed to make it on $15.00 a day.

This is just another example of why Fresno County wouldn't my first choice of places to live.

July 17, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE INEQUALITY GAP

When George W. Bush sauntered off the stage at the latest summit he arrogantly crowed, "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." The United States is number one in too many bad categories. We do lead the world in contributing to greenhouse gases. We lead the world in military expenditures. We have an astonishing infant mortality rate for such a rich country. We rate well down the list for life expectancy, especially for African-Americans. There is something very wrong here. You can attribute much of it to our rotten free market economic system. This article by Leonard Doyle is at http://www.commondreams.org/:

The United States of America is becoming less united by the day. A 30-year gap now exists in the average life expectancy between Mississippi, in the Deep South, and Connecticut, in prosperous New England. Huge disparities have also opened up in income, health and education depending on where people live in the US, according to a report published yesterday.

The American Human Development Index has applied to the US an aid agency approach to measuring well-being - more familiar to observers of the Third World - with shocking results. The US finds itself ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in survival of infants to age. Suicide and murder are among the top 15 causes of death and although the US is home to just 5 per cent of the global population it accounts for 24 per cent of the world’s prisoners.

Despite an almost cult-like devotion to the belief that unfettered free enterprise is the best way to lift Americans out of poverty, the report points to a rigged system that does little to lessen inequalities.

July 16, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

FREE MARKET ONLY WORKS FOR SOME

Right-wingers idolize the "free market." To hear them speak, you would think we lived in a virtual Garden of Eden before there was regulation of markets. Read a little history and you find out differently, of course, but history and reading are not trademarks of right-wing "thought." You really only have to go back to the Great Depression to see what a miserable failure free markets are. It took the interventions and innovations of the New Deal to save the United States economy. Right-wingers would rather spit about "socialism" than look at the real world. We're seeing the poison fruit of free market orthodoxy now: the bank crisis, the home mortgage crisis, the health care crisis, rocketing gasoline and food costs, and the incestuous relationship between big corporations and the federal government. This column by Peter G. Gosselin is at www.latimes.com:

Spurred by the continued housing crisis, turmoil in financial markets, spiking oil prices, disappearing jobs and shrinking retirement savings, the nation and its political leaders have begun to sour on the notion that the current market system is the key to a fair, stable and efficient society.

"We're at a hinge point," said William A. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who helped craft President Clinton's market-friendly agenda during the 1990s. "The strong presumption in favor of markets, which has dominated public policy since the late 1970s, has been thrown very much into question."

Now, to a degree not seen in years, politicians and outside experts are looking with favor at more, not less, government involvement in the economy.

REGULATION IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY

Imagine, if you will, driving your car on roads and freeways with no rules. Everyone would do what they wanted. It would be survival of the fittest. There would be no pesky rules about speed limits and merging and stopping at lights or signs. It would be horrifying. But that is essentially what right-wingers want in the economy. We're supposed to believe that big corporations will police themselves and that the "market' will make them toe the line. It's absolute nonsense. What's more, it's a prescription for disaster. This column by Cenk Uygur is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Complete deregulation is an intellectually indefensible position. It is also the current Republican platform. We have been trained, and yes even brainwashed, into believing that the government is a bad thing and the less you have of it, the better. That is until of course your house is burning down, then all of a sudden government help -- in the form of the fire department -- seems like a pretty good idea.

The reason we have government is because it serves a role that we need in society. Police, fire department, public education, common defense and financial regulation of the markets. If you don't have a check on insider trading, the rich get richer and the average guy gets screwed. So, you need the cops of Wall Street. But this isn't just the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is every regulatory agency that watches over the financial industry to protect the interests of all of us.

Even Adam Smith realized the need for government regulation. And it is a perverse situation we find ourselves in that I even have to make the case for such fundamental and obvious points. But yet, here is the campaign for one of the major party candidates for president hiring as their top economic adviser the man who embodies this bloodlust for limitless deregulation. This is probably the one person who best represents all that is wrong with radical deregulation. His name is Phil Gramm.

July 13, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

SEE HOW THEY WHINE

Today's Fresno Bee letters section had yet another whiny, poor pitiful me letter from a right-winger who thinks the country should be partitioned by county. He claims, without any sourcing, of course, that Bush won over 2,000 counties in the 2000 election, whereas Al Gore allegedly won 600 counties or so. Of course, Al Gore actually won more votes. The counties that supported Bush are mostly inhabited by prairie dogs and tumbleweeds.

The right-wing meme of late is that they are just terribly put upon. They can't practice their "Christian" beliefs. The gays are coming and abortion is legal, oh my! Heaven forbid they should pay any taxes that might possibly benefit someone else, especially if the someone else is disadvantaged somehow. How does that jibe with the basic tenet of Christianity called the Golden Rule? Oh, never mind.

The world would be a far better place without the selfish, me first, ignorant and bigoted philosophy called conservatism.

July 10, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

ANOTHER RIGHT WING HISSY FIT

Yesterday I read a letter in The Fresno Bee by another anal-retentive right-winger upset that anyone would suggest banning fireworks. As anyone around here knows, fires have been blazing throughout California. The smoke from those fires has made bad air even worse. For people with asthma and other respiratory ailments, it has to be sheer misery.

You can always tell the prototypical nut job right-winger because they manage to slip in the word "liberal" somewhere and go on a rant about liberals denying them their freedoms. According to Mr. Brilliant, we want to ban guns and ban drilling and ban nuclear power plants and, now, even ban fireworks. Oh, the humanity!

If this guy represents right-wingers, I guess we can believe that right-wingers like dirty air, people getting slaughtered by guns, the oceans getting filled with toxic oil and other wastes from drilling, the despoliation of ANWR for oil that won't help us much at all, and nuclear plants, which are really like nuclear bombs ready to explode, in our very own neighborhoods. What visionaries they are!

On the other hand, they have no problem with interfering in people's personal lives, ripping up civil liberties, bankrupting the government, and starting immoral wars.

THE WORKING CLASS DESERVES A BREAK

A trend I've noticed over the past several years is that employers want you to possess world class skills, but they don't want to pay even decent wages and benefits. No matter how hard or well you work it's never quite enough. They find excuses to deny raises, take away benefits, or even outsource jobs. In the meantime, the richest people in the country are rolling in money. They whine about government regulation or about taxes while they live like kings. This commentary by Steven Greenhouse is at tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com:

In talking with workers--be they software engineers or hotel housekeepers, factory workers or freelancers--I often sensed a frustration, even an anger, that unfairness has muscled aside fairness in America in recent decades and especially in recent years, and it goes far beyond stratospheric C.E.O. salaries. Many workers are upset that their families have been sinking economically--median income for working-age households fell $2,375 from 2000 to 2006 (after accounting for inflation). For the typical worker, wages have inched up less than 1 percent since the most recent economic expansion began in November 2001, even as corporate profits have soared and productivity per worker has jumped more than 15 percent. And there's also widespread resentment that while middle-class and low-wage workers have been treading water, average income for the top 1 percent of households, averaging $1.1 million in annual income, has more than tripled over the past quarter century. The top 1 percent of household has more after-tax income than the bottom 40 percent of Americans.

And I hardly need to point out that for the great majority of workers, the pain has grown only worse in recent months as fuel prices, food prices and foreclosures have soared.

July 08, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

CARTER WAS RIGHT ABOUT ENERGY

It became popular in right-wing circles to suggest that the Carter administration was a massive failure and it took the "savior" Ronald Reagan to restore us to greatness. I know that I did better economically during the Carter administration. Reagan's supposed great economy wasn't all that great. One area where Jimmy Carter stands out is his vision about energy policy. The United States experienced its first oil shock in the 1970's. It should have been a wakeup call, but Ronald Reagan and right-wingers never liked to face a reality that means inconvenience or sacrifice. This article by Stephen Pizzo is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Have you forgotten what real leadership and real straight talk look and sound like? No wonder.

Well here's a refreshing refresher course. Back in 1977 the much maligned, President Jimmy Carter, showed genuine leadership and political courage, two traits almost entirely missing from today's "leaders." Following the Arab oil boycott of 1973, Carter took a cold, hard look at world oil supplies and declared them a national security threat just waiting to happen. He laid out a vision of what must be done, and done quickly to avoid just such a threat to America's robust, but excessive, lifestyle. Carter, as was his wonkish wont, laid out both his vision and his solutions in painstaking detail in a prime-time television address.

It was filled with hard truths and bitter pills, neither of which pampered Americans had (and still have) no use for and conservatives scorn as "defeatism" and "surrender." On a ship of fools it's always "full speed ahead -- and stop with the iceberg business! Yahooooooo."

July 02, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

BUSH'S TOXIC WASTE

George W. Bush, as far we know, will shuffle off the stage next January and it will be a temporary moment of celebration around the world. But the harm Bush has wrought will live after him. I'm hoping a President Obama can take us in a new progressive direction that will do something about global climate change, end this filthy war in Iraq, do something about restoring the middle class, take action on health care, and make the federal government responsive to the needs of the majority, not just a tiny elite. But Obama won't be able to work miracles. It is far easier to destroy the way Bush has than it is to build. This article by Mark Morford is at www.sfgate.com:

Let us be reminded, the Bush virus will be with us for years, generations. Aside from the shambles of Iraq and the Middle East, aside from handguns and the decided mixed blessing of the Supreme Court's recent spate of decisions, there are maneuvers and decisions we don't even know about, nefarious arrangements, a corruption so deep that normally staid historians are behaving more like alarmed climate-change scientists: We know it's going to be bad, but we just don't know how bad.

There are destroyed nations, mauled infrastructures, horribly compromised federal agencies from FEMA to the EPA, the CIA to the FCC. There is a rogue outsourced military, citizens who can no longer sue gun manufacturers, six straight years of increased poverty, untold numbers of homophobic, misogynistic judicial appointees, devastating environmental policies the consequences of which could take generations to comprehend, much less repair.

July 01, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

OH THE OUTRAGE!

On a Sunday talk show General Wesley Clark said that John McCain riding in a fighter jet didn't necessarily qualify McCain to be commander-in-chief. You would think Clark had burned the flag on national TV. McCain likes to make a big deal of his military record, which frankly isn't that distinguished. I'm sorry he was a POW and I'm definitely sorry he was tortured. No human being should be tortured. But the people displaying such outrage at General Clark's remarks seem to conveniently forget the "swift boating" of John Kerry in 2004. Attacks against Kerry were smears; General Clark's comments about McCain were simply the truth. This commentary by Zachary Roth is from the Columbia Journalism Review at http://www.cjr.org/:

So: The latest round of mock outrage—in a presidential race that has turned the tactic into an art form—now comes in response to comments made by General Wesley Clark. Appearing as a surrogate for Barack Obama on CBS’s "Face the Nation", Clark, in reference to John McCain, said

I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war…But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded—that wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall.
When moderator Bob Schieffer interjected that "Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences, either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down", Clark responded: "Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."

The McCain camp, sensing an opportunity, complained that Clark had "attacked John McCain’s military service record." Of course, Clark had done nothing of the kind. He had questioned the relevance of McCain’s combat experience as a qualification to be president of the United States. This is a distinction that you’d expect any reasonably intelligent nine-year old to be able to grasp.

REPUBLICAN ROLE IN HIGH GAS PRICES

The right-wing bluster these days is that Democrats and environmentalists are responsible for record high gas prices. Those Democrats and pesky environmentalists just won't allow drilling, we're told. The fact is that offshore drilling or drilling in ANWR would do little to alleviate our problem. Oil companies already have federal land leases they are not using. Even if we drilled all our offshore oil and all the oil in ANWR it would take years, and the supply would be exhausted pretty quickly. When Jimmy Carter was president we had our first oil shock and President Carter talked about conservation. People didn't want to hear it. Ronald Reagan said we didn't have to worry. If we had taken steps back then to improve fuel efficiency and break our dependence on oil, we would be in a far better position today. This commentary is from Richard H. Serlin at richardserlin.blogspot.com:

For decades Republicans have constantly blocked Democratic attempts to increase fuel mileage and many other efficiency and conservation measures. They've also constantly blocked or cut spending on alternative energy, all the while mindlessly chanting "Free market". The economics community had proven long ago that there are many situations and ways where a government role can add greatly to efficiency, wealth, and welfare, but this is a party that long ago refused to think beyond slogans. They acted as though not being simple-minded was a vice, liberal and un-American, when in fact, thinking, and believing in science, evidence, and logic is one of the things that made this country great, and the richest and strongest in the world.

Now we're paying a big price for Republican ideology in energy and so many other things. Had the Democrats not been outvoted, filibustered, and vetoed from enacting their "big government" mileage, conservation, research, and other energy measures over the last almost three decades, gasoline might be less than half its price today, and mileage more than twice as high, making the gas cost per mile less than a quarter of what it is now.

June 28, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MISSING CARLIN

In the past few years I've seen several people I grew up with pass away. I think of people like Johnny Carson, Buck Owens, Don Knotts, Harvey Korman, Norman Mailer, and now George Carlin. I didn't know the full extent of Carlin's ideas until now, unfortunately, but it makes me admire him even more. This article by Joyce Marcel is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Carlin, bless him, was dangerous. Yes, it was Lenny Bruce who set him free, and yes, at the same time Richard Pryor was doing the same thing in a different area. But these three giants told giant truths to an America that didn't really want to hear them.

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it," he said.

Carlin was fearless about religion.

On God: "Something is wrong. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty. crime, torture, corruption and the ice capades. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. This is not what you expect to find on the resume of a Supreme Being. It's what you expect from an office temp with a bad attitude."

BETTER USES FOR MILITARY EXPENDITURES

The fall of the Soviet Union should have ushered in a new era. We went from decades of the Cold War to suddenly being the only super power left on the planet. We heard talk then of a "peace dividend." Instead, military spending has only continued to increase. The terrorist attacks on 9/11gave the military-industrial complex another excuse to ramp up military expenditures, even though the terrorists used the most low tech weapons imaginable. The end of the petroleum age gives us another opportunity to reevaluate defense spending. True defense spending takes into account the health and wellbeing of our citizens. It takes into account the life of our planet. What we wastefully spend on weapons, military bases, and war could be redirected to developing new energy technologies, to education, to housing, and to health care. This article by David Korten is at www.alternet.org:

The United States is well positioned to take the lead among nations in renouncing war as an instrument of national policy and dismantling the means of conducting war. We account for roughly half of world military expenditures and our military expenditures account for more than half of the U.S. federal discretionary budget to the neglect of major education, health, infrastructure, and environmental needs.

Yet the only military threat to our domestic security is from a handful of terrorists armed with box cutters and a willingness to die for their cause. We face a greater danger from our own children brandishing guns in our schools than from any opposing army. If a band of terrorists were to attack us with an atomic weapon, it would likely be delivered in a suitcase or packing crate. Such threats share in common the simple fact that even the mightiest military force in the world offers no protection. The solutions depend more on strengthening our families and communities, than on increasing military budgets.

June 27, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

OFFSHORE DRILLING WON'T SOLVE THE PROBLEM

George W. Bush, John McCain, and others of the right-wing crowd are engaging in pandering of the worst sort when they advocate offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR as a solution to our energy woes. It would take years for any oil drilled offshore to have any effect. The amount of oil offshore is limited. Based on our current consumption, it's a supply that would last just a few years. The dangers to the environment are incalculable. Instead of pursuing a technology that is quickly becoming antiquated, we should devote our resources to new and clean technology. This article is from:http://southernstudies.org/

Furthermore, the problem of drilling-related pollution is not limited to the aftermath of natural disasters. Offshore oil production also brings with it the risk of spills from tanker accidents, which are devastating to ocean and shore life as well as seaside tourist economies. Then there's the chronic pollution from drilling operations. The Rainforest Action Network that over its lifetime one normally operating oil drilling rig will:* dump more than 90,000 metric tons of toxic drilling fluid and metal cuttings into the ocean;* drill between 50 and 100 wells, each of which will dump as much as 25,000 pounds of toxic metals including lead, chromium and mercury, and potent carcinogens like toluene, benzene, and xylene into the ocean; and* pollute the air as much as 7,000 cars driving 50 miles a day.

THE CASE FOR NATIONALIZATION

The Fresno Bee is a good barometer of right-wing talking points. If you read the letters page of The Bee, you can pretty much find out what Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, and their ilk are bellowing out on the talk shows every day. And The Bee also features Victor Davis Hanson, an "intellectual" guru of the far right. Lately, the talking points have been calling Barack Obama a "socialist." One horrified right-winger is aghast that some members of Congress have suggested that oil should be nationalized. It's better for most of us to live without essentials like food and energy than to have any hint of "socialism," according to these fruitcakes. Capitalism hasn't been all that good to me or to countless others. Maybe a little socialism could be a welcome change. This article by Ted Rall is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The problem isn't the weak dollar or the non-existent housing market. It's capitalism. A sane government doesn't leave essential goods and services--food, fuel, housing, healthcare, transportation, education--to the vicissitudes of "magic" markets. Non-discretionary economic sectors should be strictly controlled by--indeed, owned by--the government.

Consider, on the one hand, snail mail and public education. The Postal Service and public schools both have their flaws. But what if they were privatized? It would cost a lot more than 42 cents to mail a letter from Tampa to Maui. And poor children wouldn't get an education.

Privatization, particularly of essential services, has always proven disastrous. From California's Enron-driven rotating blackouts to for-profit healthcare that has left 47 million Americans uninsured to predatory lenders pimping the housing bubble to Blackwater's atrocities in Iraq, market-based corporations' fiduciary obligation to maximize profits that is inherently incompatible with a stable economy whose goal is to provide people with a decent quality of life.

June 24, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE ENERGY PERFECT STORM

We have arrived at an important juncture in the history of the human race and our use of energy. We used fossil fuels in the 20th century and on into the 21st century. But the end of the petro age is upon us. First, the supply of oil is finite and in a few decades there will be no more oil. Second, the use of fossil fuels is not compatible with life on this planet. The evidence for human caused global climate change, mostly due to the use of fossil fuels, is everywhere around us. And yet we have the political dinosaurs on the right who believe the Good Oil Fairy will continue to deliver oil forever and that global climate change is just a nasty liberal plot. This article by Harvey Wasserman is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Contrived or otherwise, today's soaring gas prices are a tangible bonanza for Bush/McCain. Off-shore drilling would put billions in their cronies' pockets, but would not lower gas prices a single cent. Nuke power could mean billions more in radioactive lucre for reactor builders who may never deliver a single electron of electricity.

It's no accident that what Bush/McCain are NOT advocating is a massive shift to increased efficiency and renewable energy.

Prior to the Enron disaster, green power advocates proposed that some 600 megawatts of renewables and efficiency be installed in California. They said this "floor" was needed to protect the state from precisely the kind of gouging Enron then did.

But Southern California Edison's John Bryson helped kill the green power proposal. Bryson now likes to be photographed in front of photovoltaic arrays. But he used a deregulation package promising a "free market in energy" to help pay off failed reactors at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon. Then he stepped back while Enron cashed in.

June 22, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

THE JOHN MCCAIN SHOW

The image the media gives us of John McCain is that he's a war hero, a straight talker, and a maverick who has frequently broken from Republican party orthodoxy. They don't mention that McCain has flip-flopped on countless issues, or that he has voted with George W. Bush 95% of the time, or that he's an extremist who would outlaw abortion, or that he's a war-monger who wants to attack Iran. I don't even accept that McCain is a war hero. He even once described himself as a "war criminal" for dropping bombs on innocent people. This article by Paul Harris is at www.guardian.co.uk:

Welcome to the John McCain show 2008. It's powerful stuff, portraying McCain as the decent patriot of the middle ground and a steady hand for difficult times. For a lot of Americans - including many Democrats - it is a beguiling vision. They see a war hero whose courage was forged in a North Vietnamese POW camp. They see a maverick who spoke against the tortures of Abu Ghraib. They see a reformer who acts against lobbyists and political favours. They see a politician who has spent a lifetime serving his country and won a place in the hearts of the nation.

Now McCain is also trying to win the White House. He has taken his campaign to places far from the projected Republican road map to victory. He has spoken in the 'black belt' of rural Alabama. He has toured Appalachian coal country to talk about poverty. He has gone to the hippy enclave of Oregon to lecture on global warming. In short, he is a Republican that even liberals can love. And many do. McCain's appeal to America's vital middle ground could easily propel him to the Oval Office.

But there is another, very different side to John McCain. Away from the headlines and the stirring speeches, a less familiar figure lurks. It is a McCain who plans to fight on in Iraq for years to come and who might launch military action against Iran. This is the McCain whose campaign and career has been riddled with lobbyists and special interests. It is a McCain who has sided with religious and political extremists who believe Islam is evil and gays are immoral. It is a McCain who wants to appoint extreme conservatives to the Supreme Court and see abortion banned. This McCain has a notoriously volatile temper that has scared some senior members of his own party. If McCain becomes the most powerful man in the world it would be wise to know what lies behind his public mask, to look at the dark side of John McCain.

June 19, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

NO COASTAL DRILLING

Right-wingers frequently remind me of vultures. Use any opportunity to advance the "free market" and gouge the rest of us. George W. Bush was spouting off yesterday that we need to lift restrictions on coastal drilling. The idea is that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil if we drill off our coasts, in protected lands, and in ANWR. It's absolute nonsense. Like so many other of Bush's proposals, it's another gift to corporate America. We are at another turning point in our history. Humans have gone from hunter gatherers to agriculturally-based economies to industrialization largely powered by fossil fuels. Now is the time to move on to a new and environmentally cleaner age. This editorial is from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:

It was almost inevitable that a combination of $4-a-gallon gas, public anxiety and politicians eager to win votes or repair legacies would produce political pandering on an epic scale. So it has, the latest instance being President Bush’s decision to ask Congress to end the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along much of America’s continental shelf.

This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading. It will make only a modest difference, at best, to prices at the pump, and even then the benefits will be years away. It greatly exaggerates America’s leverage over world oil prices. It is based on dubious statistics. It diverts the public from the tough decisions that need to be made about conservation.

There is no doubt that a lot of people have been discomfited and genuinely hurt by $4-a-gallon gas. But their suffering will not be relieved by drilling in restricted areas off the coasts of New Jersey or Virginia or California. The Energy Information Administration says that even if both coasts were opened, prices would not begin to drop until 2030. The only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power — Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — exit the political stage.

BEWARE OF NUCLEAR POWER "SOLUTION"

A few decades ago nuclear power was thought to be the answer to our dreams. It was "clean" energy. We know now that nuclear power is not clean and not safe. Nuclear waste is toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. Even the mining of uranium to produce nuclear power is a very nasty and toxic process. John McCain, of course, is advocating nuclear power. We also shouldn't forget that nuclear plants are, in essence, ticking time bombs. If there is a meltdown toxic nuclear material can get spewed into the atmosphere. Nuclear plants would also be prime targets for terrorists. This article by Chip Ward is at www.truthout.org:

Nuclear power is now offered as an alternative to coal power. But, in actuality, Big Nuke is Big Carbon's mad-scientist cousin. Both externalize their costs: to the land, to the atmosphere, to miners, to consumers, to communities near the mines and refining facilities, and especially to future generations who will live with the long-term consequences of our short-term gains. The damage that both do is, of course, justified as necessary and unavoidable.

In addition to the ecological devastation they cause, their most compelling similarity is that both can get under your skin and make you sick. Westerners who live near uranium mines and mills will tell you that those activities can be as dirty and noxious as coal mines, coal-fired power plants, tar sand pits, and oil refineries. Cancer from inhaling coal dust feels the same as cancer from uranium dust. In the age of carbon and fission, what we refer to as "environmentalism" could just as well be called "embodimentalism," since the decisions we make about what we allow into our air, water, and soil get translated into flesh, blood, bone, nerve, and experience.

Perhaps those iconic cooling towers we picture when we think about a nuclear power plant are like industrial cathedrals, monuments to our hubris and the unsustainable materialism it generates. Our fervent faith in economic growth makes us blind to natural processes, ecological relationships, the long scales of time, and ultimate consequences.

June 18, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCAIN HAS ZERO INTEGRITY

In the 2000 presidential campaign the George W. Bush campaign did "push polling" to suggest that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. They did this in the South, where racism is a very significant factor. Even after that, McCain essentially embraced Bush. Opportunism trumped principle. The behavior has continued. McCain denounced Bush's tax cuts for the rich back in the day, but now wants his own version of tax cuts that go even beyond Bush. McCain was tortured in Vietnam, but has not supported legislation to stop torture of alleged terrorists. This column by Joe Conason is at www.observer.com:

By the time Mr. McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, he had established a strong position against their regressive effects. That stance marked him as a true maverick in his own party and a straight talker who spoke for the national interest against his own personal interests. Running against George W. Bush in the 2000 G.O.P. primary, he mocked the Texas governor’s "misplaced" bonanza for the affluent.

"Sixty percent of the benefits from his tax cuts go to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans—and that’s not the kind of tax relief that Americans need," he said. Despite his wife’s inherited wealth, he criticized proposals to repeal the estate tax for the same reason, noting that such legislation "would provide massive benefits solely to the wealthiest and highest-income taxpayers in the country."

As the chance to run for president again drew closer, however, Mr. McCain shifted toward conservative orthodoxy. In 2005 he voted for cuts in capital-gains taxes that he had previously opposed, and in 2006 voted for essentially the same estate-tax repeal he had once denounced. And today, his economic platform extends to the Bush tax cuts and renders them still more regressive—and more expensive.

THE OIL BUBBLE

Today George W. Bush was pontificating that we need to drill, drill, drill to solve our gasoline price crisis. Right-wingers have their greedy little hearts set on offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR, neither of which will solve our energy problems. We are nearing the end of the fossil fuel age, and it's time to go in a new direction. But it's interesting that lack of supply is not driving this huge inflation in gasoline prices. As the author points out, if supply was the problem we would have rationing and other drastic measures. This article by Michael Fox is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

According to Rep Peter DeFazio (D-Or), the entity that owns the most oil in the United States right now is not ExxonMobil or Chevron or Valero: it’s Morgan Stanley. So what’s Morgan Stanley doing with all that oil? Speculating on the petrofraud bonanza.

The problems with the short-sightedness of this utterly stupid investment pattern are many:

1. The faster they ratchet up the cost of oil, and, in turn, the gasoline that comes from it, the faster the public will change its patterns of consumption, the demand will go down, and the bottom will fall out of the market. That is the most logical supply-and-demand scenario, which ends in Morgan Stanley left holding billions of dollars of lost equity on the oil futures contracts. Note that Ford, GM. and Toyota – so far – have shuttered factories building large SUVs and trucks (the behemoth Toyota Tundra got axed today), thus, even the opportunity to continue buying these gas guzzlers has begun to be eliminated. GM has already hybridized the most ostentatious gas sucker of them all – the Cadillac Escalade – thus more than doubling the city mileage of that vehicle.

June 15, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


WAR IS A GREAT EVIL

We often like to describe battles and wars in heroic terms. We use terms like "glory" and "honor" and "sacrifice." But the reality is that war is a great evil. It should be avoided if possible. There have been times, I believe, that war was necessary. The war against Hitler and the Axis powers is the best example. War has often been used as a geopolitical tool, though. It has been used to make money for war profiteers. It has sacrificed life unnecessarily and perhaps deprived us of people who might have made great advances in human progress. The war in Iraq is an example of war that is purely evil. It was not necessary. Its destructive effects will endure for generations. This article by Chris Hedges at www.alternet.org:

American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The killing project is not described in these terms to a distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract terms of glory, honor, and heroism, in the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a virtue. The campaign to rid the world of terror is expressed within the confines of this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed evil itself will vanish.

The reality behind the myth, however, is very different. The reality and the ideal tragically clash when soldiers and Marines return home. These combat veterans are often alienated from the world around them, a world that still believes in the myth of war and the virtues of the nation. They confront the grave, existential crisis of all who go through combat and understand that we have no monopoly on virtue, that in war we become as barbaric and savage as those we oppose.

June 12, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


THE RICH ARE A BURDEN ON US

It's very well documented that over the past few decades there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to a small global elite. You tend to think of inequality mostly in terms of money. But it's so much more than that. Inequality even affects the places we can visit for recreation. Sports have been taken over by corporations and the very rich. The rich buy their "sky boxes" and other amenities and drive up prices for everyone else. The rich move into scenic areas and drive up house prices to unaffordable levels for everyone else. This article by Barbara Ehrenreich is at www.thenation.com:

Of all the crimes of the rich, the aesthetic deprivation of the rest of us may seem to be the merest misdemeanor. Many of them owe their wealth to the usual tricks: squeezing their employees, overcharging their customers and polluting any land they're not going to need for their third or fourth homes. Once they've made (or inherited) their fortunes, the rich can bid up the price of goods that ordinary people also need--housing, for example. Gentrification is dispersing the urban poor into overcrowded suburban ranch houses, while billionaires' horse farms displace rural Americans into trailer homes. Similarly, the rich can easily fork over annual tuitions of $50,000 and up, which has helped make college education a privilege of the upper classes.

There are other ways, too, that the rich are robbing the rest of us of beauty and pleasure. As the bleachers in stadiums and arenas are cleared to make way for skybox "suites" costing more than $100,000 for a season, going out to a ballgame has become prohibitively expensive for the average family. At the other end of the cultural spectrum, superrich collectors have driven up the price of artworks, leading museums to charge ever rising prices for admission.

June 09, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCAIN NO FRIEND TO VETERANS

Republicans love to use the military to further their own political ambitions. George W. Bush has used the military as a backdrop constantly, even though he has been busily slashing veterans benefits. John McCain is no better. He loves to talk about his Vietnam service and take his tough military stance on the war in Iraq, but his record is consistently anti-veteran. This article by Edward Humes is at www.madison.com:

From 2004 to 2006, the Disabled Veterans of America gave him annual scores ranging from 50 percent to 20 percent on supporting the group's legislative priorities. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave him a grade of D in its most recent analysis of voting records. The American Legion says he is dead wrong on the GI Bill, as does the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

When Sen. Barack Obama (who has averaged an 86 percent rating from the Disabled Veterans of America) criticized McCain on the GI Bill, the Arizona senator angrily suggested that Obama's status as a nonveteran rendered his opinions on military matters worthless (this standard would also discount the opinions of 85 percent of American men, 98.8 percent of American women and two-thirds of Congress). Then he invited a look at his own record by asserting, "I take a back seat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans."

THE IMMORAL LEVEL OF INEQUALITY

Thanks to the policies of people like George W. Bush the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is at the levels that existed during the infamous Gilded Age. This is no small matter. Money or the lack of money dictates almost everything about your life in this society. The kind of food you eat, the kind of housing you can afford, your transportation needs, your medical care, and the kind of education that is affordable all come down to money. We have seen policies put in place that reward the already wealthy while taking from working class Americans. This column by
Katrina Vanden Heuvel is at www.thenation.com:

The good news is that Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, quickly spoke out against the decision by Democrats not to take on the loophole after more than twenty lobbying firms worked to preserve it. At the time the campaign issued a statement saying, "If there was ever a doubt that Washington lobbyists don't actually represent real Americans, it's the fact that they stopped leaders of both parties from requiring elite investment firms to pay their fair share of taxes, even as middle-class families struggle to pay theirs. When I'm President, the American people won't have to spend record amounts on lobbying to get their voice heard in Washington. I will close tax loopholes for big corporations...."

But it will take a lot more than closing an obscene tax loophole to reverse thirty years of tax cuts for the rich, union-busting, and deregulation that promoted corporate interests at the expense of consumers--all of this bankrolled by conservatives and corporations to instill blind faith in the market as a magic elixir that can solve any problem.

The result is that we now live in a Second Gilded Age. (And The Nation will hold a name Name Our Epoch! contest starting next week. The winner will be selected by our all-star progressive panel of judges--historian Howard Zinn, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich and novelist Walter Mosley.) The richest 1 percent of Americans currently hold wealth worth nearly $16.8 trillion, $2 trillion more than the bottom 90 percent. According to the Center for American Progress , since 1979 the average income for the bottom half of American households has grown by 6 percent. In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners have seen their incomes rise by 229 percent during that same period.

June 08, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCAIN IS BUSH VERSION 2.0

John McCain advertises himself as a "straight talker" and a "maverick" who has broken from the Republican party numerous times. In fact, McCain has consistently supported Bush's policies. Mr. "Straight Talk" is in the hip pocket of Washington lobbyists. They have even ridden on his campaign bus! This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:

Since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has sought to hide the forest of his neoconservative alignment with George W. Bush amid the trees of details, such as stressing differences over military tactics used in Iraq.

But the larger reality should be clear: McCain is a hard-line neoconservative who buys into Bush’s "preemptive war" theories abroad and his concept of an all-powerful "unitary executive" at home.

From McCain’s pre-Iraq invasion speeches to his campaign’s recent embrace of Bush’s imperial presidency, American voters should realize that if they choose John McCain, they will be locking in at least four more years of war with much of the Islamic world while selling out the Founders’ vision of a democratic Republic where no one is above the law.

THE POSITIVES OF HILLARY'S CAMPAIGN

My first choice for the Democratic nomination was John Edwards. When Edwards dropped out my allegiance shifted to Hillary Clinton. There were things about her campaign that irritated me. Some of what occurred will be used against Barack Obama by the Republicans. But she's intelligent, strong, and dedicated to the things she believes in. Even though she won't get the nomination, she has assumed an important place in history. She has proved that a woman should be judged on her individual accomplishments and policies and not on her gender. Women of future generations should thank her. This column by Gail Collins is at www.nytimes.com:

Over the past months, Clinton has seemed haunted by the image of the "nice girl" who gives up the fight because she’s afraid the boys will be angry if they don’t get their way. She told people she would never, ever say: "I’m the girl, I give up." She would never let her daughter, or anybody else’s daughter, think that she quit because things got too tough.

And she never did. Nobody is ever again going to question whether it’s possible for a woman to go toe-to-toe with the toughest male candidate in a race for president of the United States. Or whether a woman could be strong enough to serve as commander in chief.

Her campaign didn’t resolve whether a woman who seems tough enough to run the military can also seem likable enough to get elected. But she helped pave the way. So many battles against prejudice are won when people get used to seeing women and minorities in roles that only white men had held before. By the end of those 54 primaries and caucuses, Hillary had made a woman running for president seem normal.

June 01, 2008


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IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCLELLAN DIDN'T TELL US ANYTHING NEW

From all the commotion, you'd think former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's "tell all" book gave us stunning new revelations. All McClellan really did was verify what many of us already knew, that Bush and company took us into an unnecessary war. Despite the hideous immorality of that war, McClellan claims he still feels an affection for Bush. In this column Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel look at the craven media and its failure to hold Bush accountable as Bush took us into this war. The column is at washingtonbureau.typepad.com:

Until now, we've resisted the temptation to post on former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book, which accuses the Bush White House of launching a propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq.

Why? It's not news. At least not to some of us who've covered the story from the start.

Second, we find it a wee bit preposterous -- and we are being diplomatic here -- that a man who slavishly - no, robotically! -- defended President Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere is trying to "set the record straight" (and sell a few books) five years and more after the invasion, with U.S. troops still bravely fighting and dying to stabilize that country.

But the responses to McClellan from the Bush administration and media bigwigs, history-bending as they are, compel us to jump in. As we like to say around here, it's truth to power time, not just for the politicians but also for some folks in our own business.

BLEEDING OURSELVES DRY

The United States is addicted to military spending. We have bases all around the world. We have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet several times over. We are looking at militarizing space. We have aircraft carriers and bombers and fighter planes and attack drones. There's no real enemy now except for ragtag bands of terrorists armed with low tech weapons. But military spending continues to increase. This commentary by Robert Scheer is at www.latimes.com:

The Soviets had developed the most modern arsenals, and the 9/11 hijackers were armed with box cutters, so how could we justify spending more to defeat Al Qaeda than we ever did to combat the communist enemy? That is the third-rail issue that politicians and the media dread touching because of the national security hysteria generated after the 9/11 attacks. Yet no presidential candidate can be serious about cutting the federal debt, improving education, holding down taxes or paying for any of the other things that the candidates of both parties promise without cutting military spending.


Without slashing the inflated military budget, the next president, who will inherit at least a $400-billion current-accounts deficit along with debt service on seven years of profligate military spending, will not be able to finance any of the domestic reforms that both the surviving Republican candidate and his two Democratic opponents advocate.

May 31, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


TRY BUSH FOR MURDER

If you suggest that George W. Bush be tried for murder there will be those who claim that you're only a "Bush hater" or some other nonsense. But when you look at some of the mass murderers in history, people like Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, or Pol Pot what separates Bush? The evidence is clear and overwhelming that Bush lied the United States into a war against Iraq that has resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 of our own military and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Bush and the senior members of his administration shouldn't be allowed to go into a quiet retirement living on government pensions and their obscenely-acquired wealth. Vincent Bugliosi is calling for Bush to be tried for murder with the death penalty as a possible penalty. This article by Russell Mokhiber is at www.commondreams.org:

If Vincent Bugliosi were prosecuting George W. Bush for the murder of the more than 4,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq, he would seek the death penalty.”If I were the prosecutor, there is no question I would seek the death penalty,” Bugliosi told Corporate Crime Reporter in a wide-ranging interview.

Bugliosi is the author of the just published book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (Vanguard Press, 2008).

“I’m urging here that an American jury try George Bush for first degree murder. I want to see him on trial for murder before an American jury. And if they convict him, it will be up to the jury to decide what his punishment is. One of the options would be the imposition of the death penalty. If I were prosecuting him, absolutely I would seek the death penalty. As Governor of Texas, George Bush signed death warrants - 152 out of 152 - most of them for people who only committed one murder.”

Bugliosi said he is sending a copy of his book to all fifty state Attorneys General, offering his assistance in prosecuting Bush for homicide.

“I’m herein enclosing a copy of my book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,” Bugliosi writes in the letter to the Attorneys General. “I hope you will find the time to read it and that you will agree with its essential conclusion - that George W. Bush is guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers who have died fighting his war in Iraq.”

May 29, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

BAD COMPANIES

I've been thinking about the bad experiences I've had working for some companies down through the years. In some cases, the companies are "clients" of the company where I'm working. But this is a brief list:

Inland Starr Trucking--I worked there as a temp for one day. It was the single worst day of my working life. "Training" essentially consisted of demeaning me throughout the day.

Zenith Insurance--I guess they're proud of their new office in north Fresno. It was more like a mausoleum than an office. You're so far from windows you have to depend on artificial lighting. When I went there as a temp I had to read something like 30 pages of rules about their policies and procedures. You have to use an electronic key to go almost anywhere in their office. It's more like a prison than a workplace.

Producers Dairy--Years ago, when I was even more down and out than I am today I applied for a clerical job that paid $7.50 an hour. You had to get a background check for a miserable job that paid $7.50 an hour. Somehow that exemplifies control.

Gottschalk's Department Store--I had a temp job one Christmas season in their corporate credit department out near Riverpark. You took phone calls all day from their stores. You had to shout out "over limit!" any time a customer exceeded their credit limit. You had to get permission even to take your scheduled break. We constantly got complaints about how many calls were in the queue.

Travelers Insurance--I haven't directly worked for this company, but more in the capacity of a vendor. Their system is extremely cumbersome, which makes it difficult to do your job well, but then you get constantly barraged by complaints that you didn't do the job to their satisfaction. They have something called "Millennium," which sounds strangely cultish to me.

May 25, 2008

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IMPEACH CHENEY

TORTURE CAME FROM THE TOP

Republicans self-righteously talked about "the rule of law" during the Clinton years. But as George W. Bush makes up the rules as he goes along Republicans don't seem concerned about Bush's flagrant disregard for the law, for the Constitution, and for basic human decency. Agents from the FBI documented countless human rights abuses against prisoners held as alleged terrorists. The consistent pattern of the abuses and other evidence shows that orders came from the highest levels of the United States government. There is no justification for this torture just as there was no justification for this war. This editorial is from The New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/:

The study said F.B.I. agents reported this illegal behavior to Washington. They were told not to take part, but the bureau appears to have done nothing to end the abuse. It certainly never told Congress or the American people. The inspector general said the agents’ concerns were conveyed to the National Security Council, but he found no evidence that it acted on them.

Mr. Bush claims harsh interrogations produced invaluable intelligence, but the F.B.I. agents said the abuse was ineffective. They also predicted, accurately, that it would be impossible to prosecute abused prisoners.

For years, Mr. Bush has refused to tell the truth about his administration’s inhuman policy on prisoners, and the Republican-controlled Congress eagerly acquiesced to his stonewalling. Now, the Democrats in charge of Congress must press for full disclosure.

SOME PERSPECTIVE, PLEASE

This article caught my eye because I received a mailer from a mayoral candidate in Fresno that appropriated the text from the e-mail the author discusses. I respect veterans who actually have defended freedom. Too many of our wars haven't been protecting freedom, though. They've had other motivations even though they've been dressed up as something far more noble. This article by Monica Benderman is at http://www.smirkingchimp.com/:

Truth Matters.

How can there be freedom of religion if we are not willing to tolerate the religions of others?

How can there be freedom of the press if we are not willing to question the information we are given?

How can there be freedom of speech if the speeches we give are nothing more than a criticism of what others are trying to say?

How can we expect the exercise of our freedom to assemble to have any value if the assembled masses are doing little more than throwing temper tantrums at not being in control?

How can we expect fair treatment in a court of law if we are not willing to respect the laws in our own actions of living?

May 22, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


BUSH'S WAR CRIMES

There is little hope the United States Congress will fulfill its Constitutional duty to impeach and remove George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from office, although the case for impeachment reaches to the skies. As this author expresses, I hope that prosecutors in other countries will indict Bush and the senior members of his administration as war criminals. Bush is responsible for unspeakable crimes against children in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, among his other atrocities. This article by Dave Lindorff is at www.buzzflash.com:

In the 2004 assault by U.S. Marines on the city of Fallujah, things were even worse. Dexter Filkins, a reporter for The New York Times, reported that before that invasion, some 20,000 Marines encircled the doomed city, which the White House had decided to level because it harbored a bunch of insurgents and had angered the American public by capturing, killing, and mutilating the bodies of four mercenaries working for U.S. forces. The residents of the 300,000-population city were warned of the coming all-out attack. Women and children and old people were allowed to flee the city and pass through the cordon of troops. But Filkins reported that males determined to be "of combat age," which in this case was established as 12 and up, were barred from leaving, and sent back into the city to await their fate. Young boys were ripped from their screaming mothers and sent trudging back to the city to face death.
In the ensuing slaughter, as the U.S. dumped bombs, napalm, phosphorus, anti-personnel fragmentation weapons, and an unimaginable quantity of machine gun and small arms fire on the city, it is clear that many of those young boys died.

NO DISTRACTIONS THIS TIME

Republicans have won presidential elections in recent years over non-issue issues. George H. W. Bush ran on Willie Horton. George W. Bush ran by "Swift boating" John Kerry. At the station where I normally buy gas the price shot from $4.11 a gallon two days ago to $4.31 a gallon today. Fresno has among the highest gas prices in the country, but you can be sure it will be this bad or worse everywhere unless there is a change. The working class has been trampled during this administration. CEO's and the wealthy have done very well, but we have seen stagnant or falling wages, disappearing pensions, unaffordable health care, and jobs getting outsourced. Bush has us stuck in an unnecessary and never-ending war in Iraq. This article by Bob Herbert is at www.nytimes.com:

In his book, "Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?," Jared Bernstein reminds us that the economic expansion from 2000 to 2006 was something less than nirvana for working people. The economy grew by 15 percent during that period, and the official rates of joblessness and inflation were low. But as most of us know, the benefits of that expansion were skewed to the high end of the economic ladder.

Mr. Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, writes: "Over the course of this highly touted economic expansion, poverty is up, working families’ real incomes are down and some key prices are growing a lot faster than the average."

May 19, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

DISTURBING HISTORICAL PARALLELS

George W. Bush frequently uses historical analogies. He uses them completely wrong, of course. His most recent historical reference was to "appeasement" of the Nazis in the years before World War II. Bush suggested that diplomacy with today's terrorists would be equivalent to appeasement back then. But history if used correctly can be instructive. There are disturbing parallels in the fall of previous world powers and the United States today. This article by Kevin Phillips is at www.washingtonpost.com:

More than 80 percent of Americans now say that we are on the wrong track, but many if not most still believe that the history of other nations is irrelevant -- that the United States is unique, chosen by God. So did all the previous world economic powers: Rome, Spain, the Netherlands (in the maritime glory days of the 17th century, when New York was New Amsterdam) and 19th-century Britain. Their early strength was also their later weakness, not unlike the United States since the 1980s.

There is a considerable literature on these earlier illusions and declines. Reading it, one can argue that imperial Spain, maritime Holland and industrial Britain shared a half-dozen vulnerabilities as they peaked and declined: a sense of things no longer being on the right track, intolerant or missionary religion, military or imperial overreach, economic polarization, the rise of finance (displacing industry) and excessive debt. So too for today's United States.

May 18, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH



IMPEACH CHENEY


SLIME BY ANY OTHER NAME

Republicans are worried they are going to get clobbered in the November elections. Why would that possibly happen? We're mired in a war that is bleeding us dry and killing thousands upon thousands of innocent people. What's more, it isn't doing anything to negate the threat of terrorism. The economy is worse than even the usual Republican economy. We see no action from Republicans to address the very real threat of global warming. What we get are the usual tactics of more tax cuts for the wealthy, nothing to protect the working class, and bigotry everywhere--against gays, against immigrants, against racial minorities. Talk now is that the party has to "reinvent" itself. Whitewashed graves are still graves. This article by Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten is at www.latimes.com:


The bad news has come from Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi -- a string of unexpected Republican defeats in congressional elections that have prompted GOP leaders to say, with candor unusual in politics, that the party is facing an outright catastrophe this November.

Increasingly, top Republicans are calling on their party to reinvent itself or risk driving away more voters and donors. The GOP image is so stale, said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), in a memo to colleagues last week, that "if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf" because nobody is buying it.

May 14, 2008


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IMPEACH CHENEY


ALL MCCAIN HAS IS WEDGE ISSUES

If most of us voted for our own interests, Republicans would never win an election. Republicans consistently represent the rich and powerful to the detriment of everyone else. But Republicans have consistently used racism, abortion, "family values," flag burning, school prayer, and bigotry against gays to arouse the most primitive instincts of people. This article by Harold Meyerson points out that all John McCain has is wedge issues. Republicans lose on all the issues that matter most to Americans. The column is at www.washingtonpost.com:

There are good reasons Republicans are focusing on identity rather than issues this year: In poll after poll, there's not a single major issue on which the public agrees with them or their presumptive nominee. Not Iraq, certainly. Not the economy. Should the election turn on the question of "What are you going to do for America?" rather than "Are you a real American?" Republicans are doomed. They offer no solutions for the stagnation (or decline) of American living standards, or for the weakening of America's economic power. They offer no resolution to America's war of choice in Iraq. Their party leader, the incumbent president, let a great American city drown. They are the American party, and McCain the American nominee, that hasn't a clue about how to help America in its (prolonged, I fear) moment of need.

What remains for the GOP is a campaign premised more on issues of national identity, aimed largely at that portion of our population for which "American" is synonymous with "white" and "Christian," than any national campaign has been since the American Party (also known as the Know Nothings) based its 1856 campaign chiefly on Protestant bigotry against Irish and German Catholic immigrants. In Appalachian America (the heart of which went to the polls yesterday in West Virginia), as Mark Schmitt notes in the forthcoming issue of the American Prospect (which I edit), a disproportionate number of people write "American" when answering the census question on ethnic origin. For some, "American" is a race -- white -- no less than a nationality, and it's on this equation that Republican prospects depend.

May 11, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR

War is an integral part of the history of the United States. It took a war to break away from Britain. We had a second war against Britain in the War of 1812. Then there were wars against Native Americans, a contrived war to steal territory from Mexico, the Civil War, and the bloody wars of the 20th century. The 21st century has given us the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and George W. Bush would really like a war against Iran. Former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev has observed that the United States seems to need war. This article by Walter C. Uhler is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Mikhail Gorbachev is not a frivolous man. He was the Soviet leader who introduced the conceptual breakthrough of "mutual security" to Soviet-American relations, as well as the man who did more than any other individual to bring the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion . In my opinion, he ranks as the greatest statesman of the twentieth century (something I was able to tell him personally, when we talked in St. Petersburg, Russia in May 2006).

So, when Mr. Gorbachev says, "Every US president has to have a war," and "I sometimes have the feeling that the United States is going to wage war against the entire world," - as was reported by the Telegraph.co.uk on May 7, 2008 -- I take him seriously. More to the point, Gorbachev's assertions probably elicited widespread agreement, not only in Russia, but also across Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

May 10, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE GHOST OF NIXON PRESENT

Richard Nixon was a paranoid and bitter man. People were always out to "get" him, so he was determined to "get" them back. He used his inherent mean streak effectively in his political career. He tarred a Senate opponent as a Communist sympathizer. As president, he used racism as a tactic to arouse the rage and get the votes of working class whites. A media coach named Roger Ailes worked for Nixon and went on to create the FOX Network, which has carried on Nixon's mean-spirited tactics, doing anything it takes to win elections. There is a new book about Nixon by Rick Perlstein called "Nixonland." This review by Evan Thomas is at www.newsweek.com:

Nixon understood. Full of bitterness about his hardscrabble youth, he knew how to exploit the bitterness of others. At Whittier, the small California college attended by Nixon, the smoothies and swells had formed a club called the Franklins. The campus Big Men were envied—but they were also resented, Nixon perceived. So he formed his own club, of strivers and nerds, called the Orthogonians. Nixon knew that there were many more natural Orthogonians than Franklins at Whittier—and before long he was elected student-body president.

Nixon was the ultimate striver. At law school they called him "Iron Butt," but he still got turned down by all the white-shoe law firms on Wall Street. As a politician, he told a friend, he would do anything, make any sacrifice, to get where he wanted to go. "Anything," he said. "Except see a shrink." Nixon's base was the "silent majority," the vast mass of white middle-class Americans who felt threatened by the tumult of the '60s. As the Democrats' New Deal coalition of rich and poor collapsed, he was able to "co-opt the liberals' populism, channeling it into middle-class rage at the sophisticates, the well-born, the 'best circles'—all those who looked down their noses at 'you and me' (a favorite phrase of Ronald Reagan's, who was both a student and a teacher of Richard Nixon)," writes Perlstein.

May 09, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCAIN THE RIGHT-WINGER

If you hear about John McCain's "straight talk," or how he's a "maverick," beware. It's on a par with the "compassionate conservatism" we heard from George W. Bush back in 2000. An analysis of McCain's voting record shows he votes very far to the right on most issues. This article by Ronald J. Hansen is at www.azcentral.com:

Over the years, Sen. John McCain has publicly condemned Republican Party leaders and occasionally voted against the GOP on selected issues.
But an Arizona Republic analysis of his Senate votes on the most divided issues in the past decade shows that McCain almost never thwarted his party's objectives.

The presumptive Republican nominee arguably cast the decisive vote 14 times since 1999 to ensure Republicans got their way, and he had five other close cases where his vote may have made a difference, Senate records show. By comparison, McCain effectively handed Democrats a win on roll-call votes four times in the same period. On one of those occasions, Republicans could still have won if Vice President Dick Cheney had cast a tie-breaking vote.

BUSH'S MURDEROUS RECORD

Serial killers like Ted Bundy gain notoriety and infamy for killing ten or twenty people. That is heinous. But leaders of governments who are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people get lauded as heroic. The evidence is clear that George W. Bush deliberately lied the United States into war. He proceeded with full knowledge of what he was doing. He has been responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 U. S. military and possibly as many as one million Iraqi civilians. If there were any justice, Bush would be prosecuted for murder. This article by Vincent Bugliosi is at www.commondreams.org:

In his first nationally televised address on the Iraqi crisis on October 7, 2002, six days after receiving the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a classified CIA report, President Bush told millions of Americans the exact opposite of what the CIA was telling him -a monumental lie to the nation and the world.
On the evening of October 7, 2002, the very latest CIA intelligence was that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the U.S. This same information was delivered to the Bush administration as early as October 1, 2002, in the NIE, including input from the CIA and 15 other U.S. intelligence agencies. In addition, CIA director George Tenet briefed Bush in the Oval Office on the morning of October 7th.

According to the October 1, 2002 NIE, "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW [chemical and biological warfare] against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war." The report concluded that Hussein was not planning to use any weapons of mass destruction; further, Hussein would only use weapons of mass destruction he was believed to have if he were first attacked, that is, he would only use them in self-defense.

Preparing its declassified version of the NIE for Congress, which became known as the White Paper, the Bush administration edited the classified NIE document in ways that significantly changed its inference and meaning, making the threat seem imminent and ominous.

In the original NIE report, members of the U.S. intelligence community vigorously disagreed with the CIA’s bloated and inaccurate conclusions. All such opposing commentary was eliminated from the declassified White Paper prepared for Congress and the American people.

May 07, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

SPECULATORS 1, HUNGRY PEOPLE 0

I've written before that war profiteers are the lowest of the low. But we have some other speculators who can join the war profiteers in their own circle of hell. People are making money now by driving up food prices, which has the effect of starving millions of people around the world. How proud they must be, those canny investors! Governments around the world should make it against the law to profit from exploiting people for basic necessities such as food and energy. This article by Geoffrey Lean is at www.alternet.org:

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor -- who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food -- into hunger and destitution.

The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world's richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (£275m) to $1.12 billion. Its profits increased from $1.44 billion to $2.22 billion.

Cargill's net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030 billion over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.

May 04, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

TELL BUSH'S STATISTICS TO SHUT UP

In "Peanuts" an exasperated Charlie Brown once told Lucy, "Tell your statistics to shut up." That's the way I feel about the blather you get from George W. Bush and right-wingers. They can take any statistic, shake it up, turn it around, and upside down and make it say something that doesn't fit with reality. We see that with the latest unemployment numbers. We still had a net loss in jobs, the fourth month in a row, but it was less than expected. So that's a good thing! Unemployment statistics are among the most deceptive we get every month because they don't include all the people who have gotten discouraged and aren't actively looking for work. The true unemployment numbers are two to three times the "official" count. This article by Allison Kilkenny is at http://www.smirkingchimp.com/:

I'll let it pass that Dubya's a douche bag, a condescending, spoiled brat who is more preoccupied with preserving D.C. cronyism than protecting American citizens' interests. But what I won't let slide is how he has treated the American people like children when he dressed up a recession in a clown suit and called it a "slow down." In this regard, President Bush and his sterling troop of economists have executed nothing resembling "decisive action." They have spent their time in denial and casting blame everywhere but at their own failed policies. They certainly have done nothing to fix the economy.

Unless, of course, you count forcing a shotgun wedding with JPMorgan and Bear Stearns with $236 million of taxpayer money. Personally, I see that as the rich protecting the wealth, but I've been called paranoid and moody in the past.

But I know when I'm beat, so if protecting rich people is decisive action, then yes, George W. Bush is the most decisive president in the history of the United States. Call him "the Decisiver." Tell him it's a real word. He'll believe you.

FACING THE FACTS

Despite all the screams about the "liberal media," the media in the United States swing very far to the right. They are all owned by big corporations and corporations are more interested in profits than anything else. Right-wingers also put the value of profits and the "free market" above human life and the environment. It should be abundantly clear to all but the most ignorant right-winger that conservative policies and economics don't work. But the media continue to act as if the right wingers have legitimate counterpoints to the reality we on the left acknowledge. The war in Iraq is a lost war. It's a war that should never have been started. It does nothing to deter global terrorism. Global warming is a fact and all the denial in the world will not make it go away. Tax cuts for the rich do not produce prosperity for all. This commentary by Arianna Huffington is at www.huffingtonpost.com:

So that 28 percent of the population that continues to support George W. Bush no matter how many bodies pile up in Iraq, how many jobs disappear overseas, how many For Sale signs go up on their block, or how high gas prices get, continues to dominate our politics.

Let's take them one by one, starting with the media which remains hopelessly addicted to the false belief that in order to be fair and balanced every story needs to be given the "on the one hand... and on the other" treatment. But not every story has two sides -- and the truth is often to be found not in the middle but solidly on one side or the other.

The earth is not flat. Global warming is a fact. Evolution is a fact -- sorry Mike Huckabee. And not even Republicans still believe in the unfettered, free market. Look how they rushed to Big Government to save their beloved Bear Sterns.
Nor are there two sides to the proposition that Iraq is our generation's greatest foreign policy disaster. It is. Period. Full stop. Yet the same media that enabled the administration to sell us the multi-trillion dollar war are -- nearly six years later -- still pushing the Right's line that "the surge is working." Green Zone bombardments be damned.