Underground Sanity

Lipstick on a Pig, Once Again

2012-01-17T09:39:00.002-06:00

Gov. Bentley showed up at a rally in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Montgomery on Monday and gave a short speech in which he urged the audience to “be like King.” One has to question, by the way, whether this is a case for advice of “be careful what you wish for” because there are a number of serious issues in the state of Alabama that would motivate Dr. King to renew mass protest and civil protest against social and economic injustice. That aside, the appearance by the Governor would seem more superficial, a “PR move,” than a sincere effort to bridge the racial divide in the state and country. Let us examine some of the disjuncture between word and deed.

“As we meet the difficulties, let’s continue Dr. King’s message to be brothers and sisters,” said Bentley, who attended a unity breakfast earlier in the day in Huntsville.

This is a current statement from a Governor who stated upon his inauguration that, unless a person was a “born again Christian,” the person could not be deemed one of Bentley’s “brothers.” Was Bentley backing off from his religious intolerance? Was he contradicting himself in calling upon everyone to adopt his fundamentalist dogma? Certainly Dr. King would never have imposed such a limitation upon the concept of brotherhood, and so there are few who are so “unlike” King than Gov. Bentley appears to be in word and deed.

Take as another example the Alabama “immigration” law championed by Bentley that has promoted Alabama to the forefront of overt ethnic bigotry by targeting Hispanics. The fallacy and deception behind the law - the arguments that it was necessary to protect jobs and reduce unemployment, to eliminate economic burdens caused by social welfare to illegal immigrants or criminal suppression of "undesirable elements" - have all been thoroughly debunked. That has left the state with serious problems and loss of revenue because of the number of Hispanics (including many legal citizens) that have left the hostile environment of the state, as would any rational person. Agricultural and food processing companies have lost crops and have had to curtail operations due to the unavailability of workers. The recovery from the April 27 tornado has reportedly been delayed because many of the Hispanic laborers who were skilled in construction and roofing have departed. Contract jobs are not scheduled and completed as quickly as they might previously have been done because skilled workers were unavailable to fill the job vacancies. School officials had to publicly beg Hispanic parents to allow their children to come back to school in light of the hostile atmosphere and persecution promoted by the legislation. Bentley defends the law as a “states’ rights” issue, an argument traditionally used to defend state sponsored racism and discrimination going back to the Civil War and through the Civil Rights Movement.

Again it is inconceivable that Dr. King would have supported such measures. Indeed, if the people of Alabama were to heed the Governor’s advice there would be tens of thousands in the streets marching in peaceful protest until the law is brought down. This also suggests again that the rally attendance and speech by Gov. Bentley were contrived as a public relations move to try to camouflage his manifest record in support of actions and principles that are directly contradictory to the values and the admonitions of Dr. King: “injustice anywhere is an injury to justice everywhere.”

And so we again are confronted with a high profile politician seeking self-promotion by public appearance and statements that try to gloss over and to obscure a shameful record, an attempt to “put lipstick on a pig.” Once again, it may be incumbent to extend apologies to pigs in light of this unfortunate sham and the metaphor.

Iowa Caucuses and the Road to Hell

2012-01-04T00:18:00.002-06:00

How sad and fitting that the two leading exponents and contenders for standard bearer for the GOP are a corporate elitist who made millions liquidating companies and eliminating jobs to secure shareholder profits, and an unabashed racist who spouts platitudes about the virtues of "free markets" while simultaneously working to preserve corporate subsidies and privileges that prevent market entry and survival by smaller companies and businesses. Romney and Santorum appear to be the best that the GOP has to offer to defeat Obama. These candidates, based upon their campaign statements, could not be more out of step with what the country needs. Yet they do probably represent the sentiments of the GOP "base." The term base is really a misnomer because it goes not reflect the majority of probable GOP voters but rather fringe and extremist elements who control a lot of campaign money and use it to force candidates to pander to extremist views. [If that is hard to grasp, just think of how the Ayatollahs in Iran dictate what Ahmadinejad says and does.]

Of course, one has to consider the source as well. In Iowa, there were even prospective GOP caucus attendees who still think that Bachmann is a viable candidate. Their mentality obviously is that ANY white candidate is preferable to a non-white in the White House. So we will have to wait for other primaries to see if there is some consensus.

How ironic that Newt Gingrich now becomes the champion of "true conservatism" ethics, the one to brandish shibboleth and sword in battle against the "moderate" Romney. Gingrich is agile with rhetoric and the turn of a phrase, even if he is unpredictable and what he says has neither truth nor substance. But he is a worthy verbal champion to send out to slay the dragons of moderation, compromise and reason. It is a little like asking Al Capone take on the role of the primary crime fighter to clean up politics, isn't it?

After all, Newt has applauded the universal mandate in health care reform - but of course now opposes it. Newt is in favor of "honesty" and candor for Romney, but is a confessed adulterer and betrayer of his family, spouse and his oath sworn before whatever religious doctrine he happened to "believe in" at the time. And of course it is difficult to trust Newt's public proclamations, as he was committing adultery at the same time he was publicly persecuting Clinton for sexual indiscretions. Hypocrisy does not seem to be in Newt's vocabulary despite his erudition. And for a History professor, he has a remarkably short term memory.

Again, it all seems so sad because the country is facing serious challenges and really needs two serious candidates with intelligence, integrity and vision to face off in the 2012 election. Above all, what is needed is a contest between two candidates that actually care about and are interested in serving ALL the citizens of the nation and finding strategies to cooperate and work together for the common good. The polarization we are now experiencing is the path of doom. Without someone actually willing and able to do something to bring unity instead of just lip service [like the pronouncements by Romney that talk about unity in one sentence, and follow in the next sentence by blaming all the ills on Obama] we will just see the same kind of obstruction and stalemate that characterize Congress over the past 3 years. After all, based upon pure logic and not substantive merit, if the GOP captured the White House, why would the Democrats not use the same strategy that McConnell and the GOP have used to preclude virtually every policy initiative by a GOP president in order to produce a record of "failure" for the administration? It would be no more foolish that what we have seen from Boehner and McConnell. And unless the GOP moderates its current proposals to impose such drastic cuts in the budget that would push the nation into a serious depression, there is a plausible reason to oppose their initiatives. If Obama is re-elected we can expect another round of GOP intransigence, obstruction and extremism. If the GOP candidate wins the White House we will see continued stalemates and inaction. [After winning by a majority of 50.6% the GOP will doubtless claim some phony "mandate" for draconian and muddled policies.] All the while, the middle class is dying and the GOP has used the procedural tactics in Congress to block any attempt to create jobs while blaming the lack of job growth on the Administration.

Only some miracle that pulls the Congress out of the throes of corporate dictated campaign policies and restores some semblance of democratic voice for the middle class can hope to improve the situation. There has to be a change of mind and change of heart. If people are confused about what OWS is all about, this failure of government to govern lies at the heart of their complaints. Different segments point to different manifestations of the failures, but the theme is consistent and constant. "Public servants" [political leaders and representatives] no longer feel obliged to serve the public.

Banking Lessons on Racism and Bigotry

2011-12-22T16:59:00.002-06:00

Some people have a difficult time understanding the distinction between bigotry or discrimination and “racism.” The recently announced settlement regarding Bank of America and its subsidiary, Countrywide Mortgage, provides a helpful concrete example and its implications. Racial bigotry is the prejudgmental attitude or belief regarding someone different from one’s own racial or ethnic group that is based neither on fact nor experience. It may or may not be acted upon by word or deed. When that bigotry is acted upon, it is discrimination that serves to accord certain advantage or privilege to a member or members of one group over another based upon race or ethnicity. The race or ethnicity may be real or perceived, in that one may discriminate against another believing the recipient of the discrimination to be of a certain race even if the person is not of that race or ethnicity. In contrast, racism is the operation of institutional and systemic power to privilege and accord advantage to one dominant group and to disadvantage a subordinate group because of race or ethnicity. Racism is dependent upon systemic power where bigotry is not.

In the case of Countrywide Mortgage, purchased by Bank of America with the indirect benefit of TARP bailout funds from taxpayers, the company engaged in a systematic course of discrimination against people of color seeking home mortgages. It extended loans at higher interests than mortgages offered to whites and systematically steered people of color to loans that were riskier and which contained traps of ballooning interest rates. These differences were strategic and systematic, and as a government official described: “the cost and quality of loan that you received from Countrywide depended upon the color of your skin.”

Looking to the implications of the difference, we can see how racism can be more insidious in a society. When an individual engages in acts of bigoted discrimination, the individual may be held accountable for such actions, up to and including criminal prosecution for hate crimes. Let us look, however, at the consequences of institutional racism. Not one individual was terminated or disciplined from bank of America or Countrywide specifically because of the strategic and concerted policy and practice of discrimination against tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals solely on the basis of race or ethnicity. The evidence is that the borrowers of color were equally qualified for the superior quality and lower cost loans offered to white customers. Bank of America has agreed to a “settlement” following the investigation demonstrating the practice, which was not termed a penalty or fine and so can be written off as a business expense – which the taxpayers ultimately bear as a cost. That settlement of approximately $353 million represents about 5% of ONE QUARTER’S profit for Bank of America.

What we see is the deliberate and strategic use of institutional power, aided and abetted by the government, to disadvantage certain customers and privilege others solely upon the basis of race and ethnicity. The white controlled and operated bank of America has direct economic power and the support of governmental power in the effectuation of this systematic discrimination. That is the essence of racism. Some talk about reciprocal or “reverse” racism which is a fallacy and a misconception in the United States. The simple reason is that the power and the ability to exercise that power does not rest in the hands of the people of color affected. If the large national institution like bank of America were owned and operated by people of color and engaged in a practice of discriminating in lending in favor of people of color and against whites, it would be racism. But it would not be “reverse” racism. The notion of “reverse” is appended to the false term precisely because it occurs in practice only by whites against people of color. In other words, we have only experienced white operant racism and so there is a desire to look for a term to describe an occurrence when systemic discrimination is used against a target that is not the norm or the expected target.

One final point in this argument relates to the methodology. The corporate and institutional nature of racism serves to aid its operation and to shield it against consequences. An individual can be deprived of property or liberty as a consequence of personal and individual acts of bigotry and discriminatory conduct. It is conceivable that an individual bigot may experience remorse and alter his or her behavior in the future. A corporation is not a person, despite the pronouncement of the US Supreme Court. As a result there is no individual that will feel the loss or pain from any consequences that might result from a determination of wrongful damage based upon racist practices. There is really no person to learn from a mistake and no way to imprison a corporation that is unrepentant. That same corporation, directly or through reformation of a new corporate entity under another name, can continue and repeat the practice of racial discrimination knowing that the government and judicial system will not be able to do much about it.

Only if the financial cost exacted from the corporate or institutional racist is so high as to preclude it from operating or reformation s a new entity can anything approaching effective regulation of such behavior occur. Obviously, 5% of profits [not operating revenues – net profits] from one quarter is not the kind of consequence that is likely to deter recurrence of the racist practices. Indeed, the settlement is more likely to be read as confirmation that the “authorities” cannot or will not do anything to stop the racism. More subtlety and deception may be employed in order to avoid the nuisance of the payment of small settlement amounts and further increase profits. The message to the racist corporation is mainly that they were too blatant in the discrimination.

Somebody Hail the Chief!

2011-11-15T18:13:00.002-06:00

At this crucial time in the history of jurisprudence, it is not a good sign that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States appears to be missing in action. The Court announces that it will take up arguments and deliberation on the Heath Care Reform legislation that has garnered mixed results in the lower courts. Perhaps a watershed case in connection with the 2012 Presidential Election. The same day, two Justices of the Court not known for their "discretion" slip out and attend a fund raising dinner for an organization lobbying against the law[and incidentally are paid generous speaker fees]. Now we can all accept that the Supreme Court is an elite club. And these guys were just out doing their usual grifting for pocket money from fat cat organizations supporting corporate interests. The engagement was probably pre-booked.

But even elite clubs are supposed to have some basic rules of decorum and behavior. Since it is the highest court of the land, it is not unreasonable that the Judicial Code of Ethics might be expected to apply, at a minimum, to the Justices of the club. After all, every other judge in the land is subject to those basic rules of behavior. They are really not that hard to follow either. Honest! Most people heard them at home when they were children: Don’t lie, cheat or steal! That can be expanded to: don’t solicit or accept bribes from parties in interest or regarding issues that you have to sit and decide, supposedly as an impartial judge. That would not seem too onerous.

HOWEVER, consider the following news report:
A few hours after the Supreme Court justices met last Thursday, November 10, to consider hearing challenges to the national health care overhaul, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were the honored speakers at a fundraiser for a conservative legal group that was sponsored in part by health care reform opponents involved in the litigation.

For goodness sakes, where is the club President Roberts? Is he sleeping on the job? Has he lost the cell phone numbers of Thomas and Scalia? Didn’t he warn them that they should keep a low profile and not be “out on the take” in the run up to perhaps the biggest decision the Court has to make since the decision to sell out the country to corporations in the Citizen’s United decision? Now it is not secret how Scalia will vote. Thomas only has to hope that Antonin and Ginny can agree on what will be most profitable personally for the Thomas family so he can be told how to vote. He has no time to bother with looking up the law and stuff like that, he never understood too much of it anyway. He was more inclined to take the word of “cute” female law clerks that laughed at his raunchy and lame jokes.

But it is going to be difficult at club meetings when you have a couple of rogue members who choose to completely disregard the ethical rules and do so in public meetings. The old wink and nod ratio decidendi of be as corrupt as you want as long as you do it in private parties seems to have slipped the minds of Antonin and Clarence. Or perhaps they have decided that the power elite have reached total victory and they simply don’t care about appearances any more. In any event, someone should put in a call to the Chief Justice to see if he cannot round up the boys and give them a stern finger shaking and talking to. [p.s., if they offer to split their take with him…he should decline]

Poor Cain; is he Able?

2011-11-07T13:55:00.002-06:00

Herman Cain has gotten very testy and combative with the media lately over persistent questions about allegations of sexual improprieties when he was head of the Restaurant Association lobby back in the 1990's. He has changed his story so many times that it would take an accountant to keep track. He tries to put a stop to questions and to direct what the media will ask and what he chooses to answer.

We may recall that other "so-called" candidates thought that they could control or muzzle the media, and that they could choose what was reported. Christine O'Donnell walked off an interview because she could not pick and choose the interview questions. Palin blamed the "lame-stream" media for her being characterized as uninformed and vapid [history suggests that the characterization was more accurate than not]. Now Cain calls the media "nit picky" because it demands details of allegations pertaining to his past conduct and character.

Gloria Allred now announces that she has a client who was harassed by Cain and is willing to come forward, in light of Cain's declarations that he "never" harassed any female subordinate. That was a dangerous public proclamation by someone who knew that there were at least two settlement agreements to buy silence of women who had made formal and specific allegations against him. It is true that Allred is a "self-promoter" but we cannot forget that Cain is one as well. No amount of deflection [that Allred contributed to Democratic candidates] can erase the factual testimony of witnesses. If Allred's client is credible, and the fact that she is one of multiple independent accusers suggests that she probably is, then Cain has to face up to the events and explain why they do not disqualify him for office requiring public trust.

The deflection toward Democrat supporters when Cain has already taken the public position that the leak came from the Perry [GOP] campaign is inconsistent and makes Cain look desperate. The so-called "advisor" [who is white, by the way] that called the current situation a "high tech lynching" certainly did Cain no favors. He should be fired immediately. While race is an issue in some aspects of Cain's candidacy, and he has made it so by denigrating Black folk as "brainwashed" because they don't support his candidacy, these allegations of sexual impropriety have little to do with race. They are no more racial than the allegations against Clinton, Spitzer or Wilbur Mills and a host of other male politicians of all colors and political stripes.

My grandfather used to remind me that: "when you step up to start a fight, don't forget that you have to bring your own nose along. And it might just get bloodied too!" Cain wants to be treated as a serious candidate. He had better wise up and learn that he is playing on a bigger stage than he has ever tried before. The stakes and the risks are all much higher. If he does not have the character, stomach, skills and staff to handle the challenge, he should sit down and shut up.

[Pawlenty and Palin have vanished to obscurity. The same should go for Bachman, but some people are not bright enough to realize when they have lost.]

Farm Produce and Sound Bites

2011-10-18T13:16:00.004-05:00

BIRMINGHAM | Jerry Spencer had an idea after Alabama's tough new law against illegal immigration scared Hispanic workers out of the tomato fields northeast of Birmingham: Recruit unemployed U.S. citizens to do the work, give them free transportation and pay them to pick the fruit and clean the fields.

After two weeks, Spencer said Monday, the experiment is a failure. Jobless resident Americans lack the physical stamina and the mental toughness to see the job through, he said, and there's not much of a chance a new state program to fill the jobs will fare better.

Gov. Robert Bentley has called such claims "almost insulting" to Alabamians.

Facile sound bites and slogans about "illegal" Mexican immigrants [who have been invited by local businesses and hired by them] taking jobs away from citizens during a period of high unemployment were used to fuel passage of a racist anti-immigrant bill aimed at undocumented workers of color and their families living in Alabama. There were claims about how these illegals were hurting the economy by using resources like schools and hospitals.

Last week the news story showed a schools Superintendent pleading with Hispanic parents to bring their children back to the schools after hundreds in the Tuscaloosa area and thousands across the state have left the system when the law went into effect. Schools lose funding when their student population level drops. This week the above article appeared showing how local farm businesses across the state are losing tens of thousands of dollars, and that the supposed "unemployed" laborers are not showing up or willing to do the work abandoned by the Hispanic workers after the Nazi-like law went into effect. As in Georgia, not even Alabama parolees or inmates are eager to take the jobs and the Constitution probably would not allow the state to force them back into the "chain gangs" of old.

The problem with sound bites, political slogans and jingoism to advance a cause rather than hard evidence is that the problems ultimately come to light. Research, including the experience in Georgia, showed that the labor shortage was predictable. “Ghost-like” images are used to incite and create irrational fears, like claims that Hispanics were taking jobs away from citizens eager to fill them. When light is shed on these claims, they disappear from lack of substance, just like shadows and ghosts. All that is left exposed is the irrational hatred and bigotry and ignorance. There is also dishonesty. How many of those who have posted callous replies attacking welfare recipients would line up the next day for tomato picking jobs if they were laid off tomorrow. What if they were told, no unemployment benefits if you refuse to work in the fields or a chicken processing plant? I suspect there would be a very different attitude about “entitlements” in that case, assuming basic intelligence.

The reason Gov. Bentley had to qualify his comment to say "almost" insulting is that the facts show that Alabamians are not willing to take the jobs left open when the Hispanics were driven out. Many ignorant and bigoted Alabamians have responded that people on welfare and the sick should be trucked to the fields and forced to perform the jobs. This ignores that fact that the unemployment statistics about the labor force used to support the legislation are not made up of people on welfare. It consists primarily of able bodied people out of work and who have not yet given up on finding employment. They are the ones that comprise the 9.9% unemployment rate. And they have not come forward to take the farm labor jobs abandoned in fear by the hispanic workers.

In For a Penny, In For a Pound

2011-07-25T17:42:00.000-05:00

The idea or question has been bouncing around in my head for a while. The huge push to corporatize public education in this country has been damaging to the overall quality of education as well as to the profession. But perhaps part of the damage has been a lack of resolve, dues to a half hearted effort. After all, if you are going for ideological dogmatism, why not go all the way.

First we would need to have a public offering and see how many investors would pony up significant cash to run a business with a steady stream of raw material of variable quality and a constant demand for high quality output, regardless of the revenues. The apparent first managerial decision would have to be to reduce output and drive up the unit price using the supply and demand market based theory. If far fewer people graduated from public education, then the amount that employers would be willing to pay for such “skilled” workers would increase and the willingness to invest in the enterprise should also rise.

Second, the employers would need individuals who were adept at critical thinking and problem solving. These would be the valued output criteria for the select few who would graduate. As a result, standardized testing would be shelved and the emphasis would shift to professional teachers who demonstrated high skills and talent for producing students with initiative, creativity and ingenuity. These teachers would be highly paid in line with maximizing production of the proper students.
Finally, the basic corporate principle of profit and efficiency would prevail, and schools that were unable to efficiently produce adequate product with available resources and expertise would simply have to close. If the schools were not adequately funded by investors, they would be shut down or “mothballed.”

Memphis, Tennessee has taken a page from this manifesto. The school district has decided that if it does not have the necessary resources from the city to operate the school district; it simply will not open schools. The school year has been delayed indefinitely. More school districts should seriously consider this practical option. If the state and local government do not wish to fund the operation of public education, then schools should simply close their doors until the funding is made available. Instead, school districts routinely open schools with grossly inadequate staffing and resources which means that the chances of producing students that meet the desired quality outputs are negligible. Would any responsible capitalist invest in losing money in order to produce a product that is below standards of accept ability in the market? Of course many parents would be very unhappy to see the great majority of schools closed, and especially if their children do not gain admission to the few remaining “profitable” schools.

If a corporatized educational system is what is really desired, then as the saying goes: “in for a penny, in for a pound!”

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

2011-07-01T10:04:00.002-05:00

A recent news article about the recent enactment of legislation called the most restrictive anti-immigration law in the nation showed a group of elderly white males, including Gov. Bentley, standing around in the Capitol congratulating each other. Only from a limited and rather myopic perspective can the enactment of such a law be considered a good thing. Here are a couple of snippets from local news stories regarding what the law entails:

The Alabama law would force schools to ascertain if their students were here legally, make it a crime to knowingly give an illegal immigrant a ride — even to a hospital in an emergency — and provide for individuals to report people they think might be in the county illegally to law enforcement agencies.

The new law gives local law enforcement agencies the right to detain suspected illegal immigrants without bail until their status is determined, which could lead to even more strain for the legal system.

Sheriffs of Alabama met with officials of the US Department of Justice [DOJ] seeking an indication or commitment whether the federal law enforcement agency would file suit to challenge the Alabama law. Portions of a similar and less onerous law in Arizona have been challenged and partially invalidated. The Alabama law even requires that a person who believes a law enforcement officer is not responsibly enforcing the law has a duty to report that law enforcement personnel to authorities. It is not a great overstatement to say that such mandates seek to create a public atmosphere similar to Nazi Germany, in which average citizens were obligated to “inform” on anyone suspected of harboring or not persecuting Jews. In the case of Alabama, the anti-immigration law is a pretext for discrimination and persecution of persons of color and Latinos in particular. The sheriffs are very concerned about the way in which the law encourages, if not mandates, racial and ethnic profiling.

While the sheriffs in Alabama and other states facing similar mandates are understandably concerned about the harm such legislation does to law enforcement programs and relationships, and how the necessary training stresses current budgets which are already underfunded, immediate help from the US DOJ is not likely for practical reasons. Unfortunately, it is more advantageous from a legal standpoint to observe how the law is actually implemented in order to have evidence with which to challenge it. In the case of Alabama, there will undoubtedly be case examples in which civil rights are abused or in which it can be shown that local law enforcement agencies are failing and refusing to enforce the law as written because of concerns about Constitutional violations. So the DOJ is likely to let the drama play out a while longer before intervening.

In the interim, what happens to the social and cultural climate of Alabama? Some would argue that the legislation simply demonstrates that the moral psyche of most people of Alabama has not really changed and when the opportunity to roll back civil rights protections against racial and ethnic persecution arose, the good citizens simply claimed a victory for the “Old Southern Resistance.” That is perhaps too cynical, but the virulence of the bigotry that lies beneath the law cannot be easily ignored or justified. Arguments in support of the law as a labor or public service bill have been shown to be false and disingenuous. The asserted “threats” against which the law is purportedly erected are illusory at best and are not effectively addressed by the law in any event.

Study after study by bipartisan researchers show that undocumented immigrants actually contribute more net funding to the income tax and public welfare systems than do poor citizens. They do not obtain tax refunds for withheld wages and are not eligible for grants or tax earned income credits. Many are less likely to use emergency medical services for fear of revealing their status. Moreover, the “jobs” that undocumented immigrants have traditionally taken are jobs that go unfilled when they are removed from the labor market. Georgia farmers are clamoring for a guest worker program to be implemented after legislation against undocumented immigrants removed field workers; and crops lie rotting in the field causing millions of dollars in losses. There is no demonstrable evidence that undocumented Latino immigrants present any greater threat of crime or challenge to national security than citizens.

The argument that the law is "just" simply because the persons are in the country “illegally” is a valid but shallow argument. In this country, there have been many laws that create illegal status that history has shown to be unjust and immoral. Teaching a Black man to read, marriage between a white person and a person of color [miscegenation], having an abortion to save the life of the pregnant woman and other conditions have resulted in “illegal” status in the past. Virtually every expert who has weighed in on the subject acknowledges that the immigration system is flawed and broken, resulting in many injustices and impractical classifications. Under current law an infant who is a US citizen can be orphaned or left destitute by deportation of one or both of her parents. The fear mongering that supported enactment of the law has been exposed as false and pretextual.

Because the law impacts not only persons who are undocumented immigrants, but also people who may be mistaken for undocumented immigrants, the law casts a pall over public behaviors and social relationships. Any person of color may be suspected of being an immigrant despite the fact that his or her great grandparents were born in the US. White persons even if illegally in the US from Canada, Europe or some other countries are not likely to be noticed or impacted by the law. The law also has an indirect damaging impact because it causes whites to be presumptively suspect of racism [supportive of official discrimination] by people of color and required in some ways to justify their opposition to the law. Since it was a law passed by the white dominated legislature elected by the white dominated electorate, it is presumptively the “will” of the people of Alabama. The law justifiably establishes an imprint regarding the moral character of the state. Where mean spirited legislation is enacted that fails to substantively serve any public purpose, and that law encourages the persecution and criminalization of persons because of their ethnicity or color of their skin, the law of the state brands Alabama and its leadership as racist. The implementation of official power of the state to disadvantage a group of people because of their ethnicity through institutionalization of discriminatory forces and pressures is the definition of racism.

Failing invalidation of the law by federal intervention, only a similarly forceful consensus of citizens of Alabama in opposition to the law can bring about countervailing balance and suggest that the majority of Alabama citizens are not in accord with the anti-immigration law as it is written. Moreover, being forced to abandon the measure by the courts will not eliminate the moral taint that attaches to the state because such intervention can be seen as a constraint upon what remains the “will” of the good people of Alabama. How odd that in over 50 years and two generations since the enactment of Civil Right laws the state of Alabama has made so little progress in evolution toward an understanding of social justice, even in the face of an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural world. Sweet home Alabama, indeed.

Bin Laden is Dead?

2011-05-02T08:42:00.002-05:00

We heard news that a discrete mission based upon months and years of quiet and professional investigative work resulted in tracking down and killing Osama Bin Laden. This was a successful team effort that brought a criminal to justice. Everyone should feel good that a murderer has been brought to justice.

The histrionics of "war on terror" and stoking of religious bigotry, however, must recede and be put into more realistic perspective. The focus has to be on individuals who commit and seek to commit acts of murder and indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, NOT on the basis of some religious affiliation. Stupid and simple minded people on any and all sides want to turn this into an excuse for their own religious bigotry. The leader of Hamas is a prime example, just as many of the postings we have seen on sites like this from anti-Muslim bigots. More importantly, adherence to dogma of any kind instead of looking at the facts only serves to create more extremists. This mission was done well and was successful. However, there have been other US efforts that have resulted in killing innocent civilians and given fuel to the demagogues who claim that the US is an oppressor. When the Hamas leader says that the US engages in oppression, there is some truth to that, even though his respect and affection for Bin Laden is badly misplaced. We must be willing to look honestly at BOTH and hold ourselves accountable for when we screw up as well as high five when we succeed. That is what real justice means.

We forget that when Bin laden is lionized, we give him too much credit. Somewhat like the Unabomber, he was a craven criminal who spent the last ten years hiding out in caves and backwoods holes. To give him more credit than that just to feel good and do chest beating is unwise and unproductive.

Finally, Osama Bin Laden has been found and brought down. However, we must remember that his legacy actually lives on and we experience it every time we try to take a flight. Alive or dead, Bin Laden as a symbol has robbed and continues to rob every traveler of dignity and freedom, we have lost fundamental rights more because of the political exploitation of fear by politicians like Bush and Cheney than because of anything Bin laden could have accomplished directly. GOP and Democrat politicians alike have continued to exploit that fear.

Solution? I would gradually drop down this omnipresent publicity stunt of an "Orange Alert" and reduce many of the so-called "security" measures that have been shown to do nothing to actually enhance security. I am not saying to do so immediately, that would send a wrong message, but this could be done over the course of 6 months to a year. Many TSA workers admit that most of their procedures are for show and to create a public impression rather than actually catch terrorists. The idea that Americans "agree and understand" that these intrusions are necessary is BS. I would also revise the so-called "Patriot Act" and restore many of the civil liberties taken away from American people.

At the same time, I would not reduce one iota the efforts or reduce funding support of specialized and coordinated national and international intelligence and crime investigation units. These are the people who actually get the job of tracking down criminals and suspected terrorists done, quietly and effectively. Gasbags and torturers like Cheney create more terrorists than they capture, they create more risk than they solve. But the professionals who go about the business of detecting and arresting actual criminals goes on outside the spotlights and political speeches. They do not ask us to give up our Constitutional rights for political gain. Thy just do their jobs.

President Obama states that this is a victory because of who Americans are and what they can do. It is time to take a hard look at what Americans have become and start to reassert and re-establish some fundamental values and principles that have been forgotten. We need to reject the fear mongering for political gain and start actually looking out for each other, ALL of us, instead of divisive politics and class warfare. President Kennedy was on the right track when he stated that we should ask what each of us can do for our country, our fellow citizens, instead of asking what's in it for ourselves as individuals. That individualistic egotism is what has us fearful of our neighbors and against efforts to seek the welfare of children, seniors and others most vulnerable in our society. It also is what makes us vulnerable to terrorism. "Divide and conquer."

The Libyan Dilemma

2011-03-19T12:43:00.002-05:00

The current situation in Libya raises the dilemma that some international critics raised about the US intervention in Iraq, and how it has damaged US credibility in foreign affairs. Bush claimed that the US was attacking to prosecute the "war on terror" and to defend against the campaign of Al Qaida. The US bombed and demolished towns, caused many civilian casualties, including women and children. We now know that Bush was lying [See Downing Street Memos] and that he knew that Bin Ladin had nothing to do with Iraq. That duplicitous action undercut any moral authority of the US regarding foreign interventions. The same holds true about any US complaints against the use of torture, now that it has become official US sanctioned policy. The US has no moral standing to accuse other countries of misconduct in the use of torture against prisoners, or even innocent civilians, since the US has done both with approval of its highest leaders.

Now, Ghadafi claims that his military is responding to the threat of Al Qaida against his cities and government, even though he knows [along with the rest of the world] that it is not true. Ghadafi is bombing cities and killing civilians. Yet his direct response to the US is that he is protecting against an Al Qaida invasion of Libya. He sent a message to President Obama stating that Al Qaida was attacking its cities with force of arms, "what would you do?"

There is a larger picture here. The US has lost moral authority in international affairs, and the US public is in disarray regarding what constitutes a legitimate exercise of force in the international arena to uphold standards of international law and human rights. Bush appealed to the baser instincts and the immorality of segments of the populace for support of his intervention in Iraq. In so doing, he depleted the US economic reserves and has stretched this the available military resources to respond in necessary situations. Now the US public questions whether it should be involved in the humanitarian mission on two grounds. First, there is a question whether the US should get involved in another foreign mission when the economy is weak and the moral obligation is unclear. Second, that baser segment of the population whose racist, religious and ethnic prejudice has been empowered by Bush argue that the brown and Muslim people of that area should simply be allowed, if not encouraged, to kill themselves without any foreign intervention. This is the level of ethical ambivalence and moral decay that has come to typify the US populace in the wake of policies and actions in the Iraq adventure.

By failing to hold Bush accountable and by continuing to prosecute the mistaken Iraq intervention, Obama has effectively ratified the actions of Bush and Cheney. Whether or not Obama would have taken the same action as Bush [which is doubtful] his protection of Bush after the fact claims the actions of Bush as the standing policy of the USA. The US will not begin to recapture its standing until a US leader steps up and says, "we are better, stronger and more ethically clear than the US behaved under the George W. Bush Administration. Mistakes were made and the US rejects those mistakes as misguided and morally unsound. In the future, the US will do better, BE better."

The "chickens have come home to roost." Ghadafi has cleverly turned the US strategy in Iraq, and the failure of the rest of the world to hold the US accountable for it, directly against the US regarding its participation in the UN Resolution. The current intervention in Libya is justified. the current action is "doing the right thing" despite the fact that we have no moral authority to take the action. The US still needs to own up to the fact that its international standing as a respected power will not be re-established until it deals honestly and directly with the actions of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld which were criminal by standards of international law and humanitarian decency. Only then will the US be able to walk into any international forum and advocate for action on the basis of international law and human rights with integrity and a sense of moral authority.

The US may never be mature enough to accept responsibility for those actions, but it will never deserve full respect until it does. We teach our children that a person of character admits his or her mistakes and accepts responsibility. Yet we do not hold our national leaders to the same ethical standards.

And So the Uprising Begins

2011-03-12T16:54:00.003-06:00

The Police and Firefighter unions in Madison, Wisconsin have initiated a drive to direct attention toward major financial contributors to Gov. Walker and those complicit in the Governor’s ideological push to disembowel public employee worker rights in Wisconsin. The “Move Your Money” campaign targets the bank across from the Wisconsin Capitol which is a major contributor to Walker and which has a tunnel linked to the Capitol used by Walker to ferry lobbyists in to meet with Walker beyond the public eye and even when the Capitol was shut down to public access.

One can only be encouraged by the show of courage, ingenuity and solidarity by the Wisconsin police and firefighters in opposition to Gov. Walker’s bare-knuckled and abusive distortion of the legislative process to push through a union destroying measure. That law to denude the public employees, except police and firefighters, of the right to sit at the table and bargain in good faith over wages, benefits and working conditions reverses a tradition of over a half century in Wisconsin.

The campaign is gaining momentum in Wisconsin as the list of major contributors is being circulated and the public is encouraged to boycott those businesses as long as they continue to support Walker’s ideological war on public workers either publicly or financially. The first step was for patrons to close their accounts with the bank that is so aligned with Walker. Although the withdrawals at the branch only amounted to about $190,000 in one day, the symbolic nature of the effort and the risk of it expanding should draw the attention of Bank officials. The irony was not lost that the M&I Bank involved has taken $2 billion from the taxpayers in TARP funds that have not yet been repaid.

To be effective, this effort needs the support of all others throughout the country who have previously expressed support for the Wisconsin public employees. Boycotting products like Johnsonville Meats, Wal-Mart, Miller Beer and Sargento Cheese is something that we all can choose to do as an act of solidarity. The Wisconsin Police and Firefighters have two points exactly right. First, the attack on public employees is just a preliminary move that will impact police and firefighters as well if it is allowed to succeed. Second, backers of the regime attacking public employee rights care nothing about people or the noise from protests. They are concerned only with the transfer of wealth that underlies their strategy. Walker gave $200 billion dollars in tax breaks to corporations while taking over $1 trillion from schools and local governments.

The protesters believe that the only language that Walker and his supporters understand or respect is money. By the process of boycotting and reducing revenues to the financial backers of Walker and his supporters, there will be direct consequences. Perhaps the businesses that thought it wise to purchase influence through support for Walker will rethink that strategy. There are collateral consequences as well. People act by association and by habit. Once people get in the habit of making alternative purchases, they may not go back to purchasing the old products and services even after the boycott ends. Moreover, every time a consumer goes to make a purchase and chooses to buy an alternative motivated by the boycott, that consumer will be reminded of the need to vote against Walker and the GOP legislators who conspired with him. So the impact of the boycott may have greater and more long-lasting impact than may appear at first blush.

To be clear, no one doubts that Wisconsin and other states require stern and perhaps drastic measures to put their respective fiscal houses in order. It is also true that some reforms to employee pensions and benefits, public and private may be necessary adjustments as all share in the belt tightening. However, it was the financial collapse causes by mismanagement and Wall Street style greed and profligacy that stripped more than $14 Trillion from the economy and helped reduce tax based revenue by almost a third. It was not public employees who caused the collapse. To use the public employees unfairly as a scape goat for the problems that have a different and wider cause is unjust. It is fitting, and ultimately democratic that the people rise up and demand fairness and accountability. If that means loss of business for Walker supporters and loss of political office for Walker and other GOP legislators, so be it.

Government by Ambush

2011-03-11T13:29:00.002-06:00

The Wisconsin State Legislature is making an interesting mockery of the term “conservative,” as its GOP controlled Senate and Assembly have resorted to deceitful and possibly illegal maneuvers to avoid the procedural safeguards meant to protect and preserve the people in a democratic society. One such protection is that if a measure is to be debated and adopted, the moving party [typically the majority] must give clear advance notice to all regarding the proposed action. This has been termed the “Open Meeting Law.”
Under the open meetings law, 24 hours' notice is generally needed to hold any public meeting, with at least two hours' notice required in an emergency.

These laws were enacted to put an end to backroom deals and slick maneuvers that had allowed legislators to abuse majority power by enacting surprise or covert measures. If the opposition could not muster the votes to defeat the measure, it should at least be made aware of the content and purpose of the measure in advance in order to express opposition on the record and in open public debate.

That process of procedural fairness seems to have escaped the Wisconsin GOP in its zeal to attach and destroy collective bargaining rights of public employees. Previously, Gov. Walker has argued that the attack on worker rights was a necessary strategy to help balance a budget deficit. However, the act of stripping the union busting measure from the fiscal bill makes evident that he was not being honest to the public about his motives and agenda.

The law was further advanced in the Assembly when the GOP majority there arbitrarily cut off debate and passed the measure that had been adopted by the Senate in its surreptitious bill. The legislative enactment will certainly be signed with maximum haste by the Governor, anxious to claim “victory” in his ideological battle. The issue really is about who he is in battle with and who he has defeated. He may see it as a victory over the opposing political party, but it may also be seen as a temporary victory over the people, especially the middle and working class, that he was elected to represent. That “victory: may turn out to be a case of winning the battle and losing the war.

Several incidents have come to light recently in which Governor Walker has openly misrepresented facts regarding his motives and political actions that he has advanced. The most recent example is when he represented to the Court that the cost of the demonstrations to the State was $7.5 million, in order to obtain a restraining injunction to remove the demonstrators. Subsequent analysis puts the cost at less than $375,000, including the usual costs of maintenance and security that would be incurred without the demonstrations. Inflating the estimate by 20 times in order to induce official court action could be an abuse of process offense leading to sanctions against an attorney signing such pleadings, so it is not just a matter of “puffery.” The point is that Walker has a record of prevarication to achieve ideological ends. Whether his decimation of public employee union rights will actually result in taxpayer relief, balanced budgets and more jobs is a doubtful proposition that awaits proof.

In any event, when the majority party uses closed room strategy sessions, backroom deals and violation of open meeting laws to push through measures, it suggests that those measures would not stand up to scrutiny if dealt with openly. When representatives of the people resort to deceitful strategies that conceal information from open and public debate and ignore procedural safeguards, the process of government becomes one of ambush and not democracy. Those safeguards were put in place as conceptual principles in support of founding values that a democratic government should not allow for the oppression of the minority interests through abuse by the majority. The people may well respond, and it will be no ambush. There are already a number of recall petitions circulating to remove legislators from office.

King of the Hill

2011-03-06T21:18:00.002-06:00

Modern TV fans will recall the animated comedy in which the lead character is a relatively clueless but goodhearted redneck embattled by children and wife, and winds up taking on misguided adventures to try to break out of his mediocrity. That character is now being displaced by Rep. Peter King of New York. Pete’s newest adventure to rise above the crowd is even more misguided and not so good hearted. Rep. King wants to anoint himself as the new scourge of all things un-American and “Inquisitor in Chief” of the USA polity.

Not content to let the shameful past lie buried, after the country has tried to live down the era of HUAC and the tyranny of Sen. Joe McCarthy, King now wants to carry out a similar campaign against Muslims. Keep in mind that we are NOT talking about targeting Al Qaida or Taliban camps in the Middle East, we are talking about US citizens who happen to be Muslim. King apparently believes that the most pressing issues that face the nation include the threat of law abiding US citizens who do not look like King and who may worship a different religion. If King has his way, every single Allah fearing Muslim in the US will be investigated, brought before his hearing tribunal and forced to testify in blood as to their unswerving loyalty to Uncle Sam. In addition, they will undoubtedly have to testify under oath that they do not know anybody, who has ever known anybody, who has ever thought about supporting any Islamic cause.

It is often said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to face them again and again. Maybe it is another example of the failure of our educational system. But this circus is not just misguided, it threatens to shred any remaining coherence of what had been the fabric holding together some semblance of common ground for the American people. Public scapegoating for political gain is one of the worst forms of chicanery. It is dishonest, mean spirited and cynical. It seeks to capitalize on a period in which the public is under great stress and feed that fear and encourage hatred, pitting US citizens against each other. That is the lesson of McCarthyism.

We can only hope that someone in the House of Representatives will have the courage shone by Joe Welch, Head Counsel to the US Army, who confronted McCarthy publicly and asked:

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…. Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

We can only hope that someone will stand up to King and similarly confront his antics. We can also only hope that this will happen before King is able to inflict similar cruelty and injustice to the disgraceful behavior of McCarthy.

Reaping What One Sows- Media and the Youth Movements

2011-03-01T04:05:00.002-06:00

If one takes a step back to gain perspective, the wave of youth activism and committed opposition to the economic and political disenfranchisement that has been imposed upon marginalized young people is breathtaking. Consider the following examples of such protests and public uprisings: London, Puerto Rico and Ireland [tuition increases foreclosing higher education opportunity]; France and Greece [economic austerity measures]; Spain and Italy [unemployment levels over 30%]; Tunisia and Egypt [unemployment, marginalization and repression] and Libya [economic disenfranchisement and repression].

To the nature of the response, one may wonder what took so long for the cauldron to boil over. The rhetoric and political discourse orchestrated by elite moneyed interests with a stranglehold on power and the economy has been conflicting if not schizophrenic. While mouthing blandishments about the need to take action to secure the future for youth and the generations to come, actions by these powerbrokers toward today’s youth has been to marginalize, demonize or ignore their needs and concerns. Such systematic disenfranchisement and disinvestment has been carried out with the arrogant belief that young people were either not paying attention or did not care about even their own well-being and future. A very dangerous assumption.

The narcissistic mainstream media has become to believe that what it publishes is the official and only truth, and that young people are even remotely interested in such broadcast content other than as white noise. In fact, young people abandoned mainstream media quite some time ago in favor of electronic social media and blogs that spread information more efficiently and often more accurately across town, across the country and across the globe. The attention that the feature film “the Social Network” received this year is but a tacit recognition of a manifest history relating to new ways in which youth communicate. Yet the movie is already historical and outdated. The irony is stark when one realizes that youth who were believed to be asleep or complacent have managed to shake the fundament and even bring down repressive governments using tools that the powerbrokers had dismissed as toys and diversions. Henry Giroux* remarks:

Mass demonstrations have been organized through the emergent screen
cultures of a generation well versed in new technologically assisted
forms of social networking and political exchange.

Youth across the globe have joined together to speak with a collective voice against the marginalization and profligate stewardship by the power elite of economic and natural resources that represent the future of these young people. The information necessary to organize resistance, to record and to report the events of these youth movements ran like synaptic currents throughout a virtual brain that connected and assisted youth movement groups. And while the action was taking place, the mainstream media was more of an afterthought than a true journalistic presence, the high school senior without a prom date. Perhaps network executives have come to realize the truth that one thing worse than being hated is being deemed unimportant. The same media that turned its back on any sincere efforts to speak to, for or about the genuine needs and interests of young people now has come face to face with the realization that young people have mobilized while turning their backs on mainstream media. Recall the words of Gil Scott Heron who cautioned decades ago that “the revolution will not be televised.”

*Henry A. Giroux | Left Behind? American Youth and the Global Fight for Democracy

Fool me once, Shame of you. Fool me twice, Shame on me!

2011-02-22T01:25:00.002-06:00

The dueling partisan debate over government spending cuts and the continued operation of government services draws to a climax on March 4. Atmospherics aside, the positions of the opposing sides are rather clear. The Democrats have declared the position that a continuing resolution to maintain spending at current levels, including the freeze in spending that Obama has already imposed and which yields reduced spending at an annual rate of $41 Billion, should be adopted as an interim measure. This is the approach that the government and Congress have taken in the past when a budget impasse has arisen. The GOP demands that a spending cut amounting to a reduction rate of $100 Billion be accepted in exchange for an agreement to avoid a government shutdown.

The Wall Street Journal reported: “In exchange for extending the deadline, Republicans want Democrats to agree to cut spending even in that short-term measure, and will try to put the onus on Democrats if they oppose it.”

Now we have the posturing about who gets the blame if the government shutdown actually occurs. The GOP is trying to construct some form of contrived logic to shift the blame to the Democrats and President. However, the continuing resolution is likely to be a short term and purely temporary measure that the public will not see as a sufficiently big deal to require agreement on the GOP plan. Why not simply continue the present course until a new plan and budget is enacted. Indeed, it is customary in the minds of most of the public that the old contract continues until replaced by a new one. Sen. McConnell has trotted out, once again, a specious pronouncement that his opinion represents what “the people” of the country want, despite no evidence whatsoever of any basis for that conjecture or credibility on his part to so proclaim. Recall the supposed public election mandate to create jobs, followed by McConnell’s proclamation that his primary goal was to defeat Obama in 2012. That does not sound like someone closely in touch with the will of the people.

The last showdown yielded an adoption of the status quo by extending the Bush tax cuts, including tax relief for the most wealthy who do not need it and which exacerbated the deficit that the GOP now wants to cut spending to address. It may sound simplistic, but it appears that the GOP made a mess and now wants to blame someone else for the cleanup cost. In any event, the Democrats, if they have the spine for it, ought to simply hold firm and demand that the status quo again be maintained. If the GOP really wants major spending cuts, then they ought to be more focused upon crafting a long range budget plan that can gain bipartisan support and avoid a Presidential veto. The quicker they achieve that solution, the shorter period of time the stopgap measure will be in place.

Given the recent past behavior of the Democratic Party and the President, there is room for serious doubt about the combined courage and wisdom to remain firm on a continuing resolution that does not make things worse than they already are, and insist on maintaining the current spending levels. This is, however, a test of leadership and will be a strong signal to the public about whether Obama can expect support from liberal and moderate voters in 2012. If he caves once again, especially when it is totally unnecessary, the damage to his credibility and reputation for leadership may be irreparable. The GOP bluffed last time, and the President blinked and caved. What he called conciliation was actually appeasement, as the current pseudo-crisis reveals. With appeasement, giving ground unnecessarily typically leads to the bully demanding even more concessions. This time around, the GOP is again bluffing and people will be looking to see if the President has learned any lessons.

Education Policy - Donkey or Jackass?

2011-02-04T15:06:00.002-06:00

All too often as I listen to current pronouncements about education policy from the current so called leaders and pundits, I am reminded of the old [borrowed] saying my mother taught me. “Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool, than to open it and prove them right.” The other sad complement to such musing is that in establishing education policy, the “Golden Rule” applies, that is…he who has the gold makes the rules. Consequently, those who establish policy need have no knowledge or expertise about education in order to set policy, only the power to control funds badly needed for educating the nation’s most vulnerable youth. The Secretary of Education’s main qualification for shaping education policy seems to be his participation in pickup basketball games with President Obama. This proximity connection provides him influence over federal purse strings for education and a pulpit for pushing his neoliberal agenda of corporatizing public education. While I would not denigrate student athletes generally, those are not the quarters I would turn to first for intellectual capital and academic leadership. After all, LeBron James is a tremendous athlete, but I would not put him in charge of developing national policy on anything. Moreover, the slash and burn strategy and promotion of charter schools adopted under Duncan’s brief reign over Chicago schools has, in hindsight proven a failure.

We are now told by these vocal “experts” that teachers are the primary problem for student failure to improve academic performance. Teacher unions that seek to maintain a voice in the decisions about school curriculum [to the extent that this has not been totally emasculated] and insight as to what really occurs in the classroom, we are told, should be abolished. Students of impoverished backgrounds, undernourished and with enormous socio-economic disadvantages are branded failures before they start classes and their academic performance [which may take a backseat to mere survival] is to be the measure for teacher competence. We are also told that teaching effectiveness is the same whether a teacher has 20 or 30 children in a classroom; yet any teaching professional with even the least experience will confirm the ample research demonstrating that to be a falsehood. And, to throw salt in the wounds inflicted by these assaults on the teaching profession, we are told that Teach for America is a prime solution to the problem of poor teacher quality. The facts show us that an extremely low percentage of Teach For America participants stay in the teaching profession, if they even complete their required tenure commitment of only a couple of years in the classroom.

My experience as student and teacher is that students can tell almost immediately whether the person who presents as a teacher has the skills and talent to be a good teacher. Having a firm grasp on the course content is important, but not every content specialist can teach. This is a pervasive fallacy that runs through the public consciousness and is perpetuated by bureaucrats who know little or nothing about pedagogy. To be sure, most Teach for America participants leave teaching because it was, from the inception, simply a way to put a “service” marker on their resume. They move on to a more lucrative career that was their aim all along, following “missionary work.” But they also leave because they simply cannot handle the pressures and the demands of teaching and they do not want to work in the substandard conditions and with the poor children that exist in the schools to which they are assigned. It is like joining the Peace Corps, but not having to go abroad or learn another language. And despite these glowing pronouncements about Teach for America's benefits, the evidence that school with Teach for America participants experience lasting academic improvement is lacking.

So despite the repetitious and passionate rhetoric by the likes of Arne Duncan, the factual and knowledge based foundation for many current federal education policies is absent. However, over $4 Billion dollars of federal largesse is handed out based upon unproven theories, misguided policies and directed to largely irrelevant goals. The kernel of truth is that there are a small number of teachers who should not be in the classroom, and that some measure of assessment or accountability is important to the educational process. Branding all teachers as incompetent and demonizing the profession is better directed toward getting the high quality teacher to leave than it is to removing the few incompetents. Seeking accountability by measuring rote learning through standardized multiple choice and machine scored tests is feasible, but actually tells nothing about the quality or improvement of the learning process that is supposed to be measured. As an independent observer, I may risk losing my invitation to Democratic cocktail chats. I have learned not to wait for invitations to those GOP soirees foolishly preaching corporate “free market” ideology as the template for public education. But, if this all leads you to the conclusion that what comes out of Secretary Duncan’s mouth is foolish braying. I can only say that my mother would have warned him….

"Nobody knows..." or "the changing light bulbs riddle..."

2011-01-19T00:36:00.003-06:00

When I announced my plans to move to Alabama to complete and advanced degree in education, I was met with a fair amount of ribbing from my professional educator colleagues. The obvious ones came first, such as the line that “they really don’t believe in education in Alabama,” and “the math scores in Alabama dropped because they started making the children wear shoes.” Ok, I can take good spirited jest. But other friends gave sincere looks and asked if I had a Mother Theresa complex, as if pursuing education in Alabama was akin to laboring in the slums of Calcutta. They pointed to news stories about potential governor candidates idiotically seeking to ban the use of any language other than English on drivers’ exams and license applications, despite the fact that doing so would forfeit millions in federal highway funds. In summary, they pointed out that they were willing to give George Wallace a pass because of the passage of time, “but what has Alabama done lately?” Well, of course they did win the NCAA Football Championship, but that is hardly a testament to intellect or a socially progressive environment. I took the ribbing in stride, mustered hope and convinced myself that if my belief in improving the quality of education was strong and true, what better place to apply my labors than areas that appeared to have the greatest need.

Today, an article hit the news that would try the patience and faith of the most stalwart:
CBS News) -- Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley said in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day message Monday that he does not consider Americans who do not accept Jesus Christ as their savior to be his brothers and sisters. ------------And in a brilliant rhetorical flourish, he declared: -------- "Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters," he continued. "So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother." http://www.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=118271

Now I have no problem with a man of faith taking on the challenges of public service in a democratic society. The demands of such office no doubt require courage and a bit of divine inspiration, particularly in these financially troubled and morally challenging times. The “fly” in the veritable ointment is that there just happens to be a substantial segment of the citizenry of Alabama who are not fundamentalist Christians; and the oath of office, as well as the Constitutions of the United States and Alabama call upon elected officials to apply and enforce the laws giving equal protection to ALL people in the State.

The American Atheists president and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League representative expressed dismay over the new Governor’s remarks. After all, the Establishment Clause of the Constitution should give pause to a reasonably intelligent person in such office seeking to use the Governor’s “bully pulpit” to proselytize a particular brand of religion. But perhaps, as was the case with Ms. O’Donnell who unsuccessfully ran for the US Senate, the new Alabama Governor never took the time to actually read the document that he has sworn to uphold. Fair enough, a little on the job training may be in order. A bright guy ought to be able to pick it up as he goes, right?

But then the new Governor was asked about his duty to represent all the people of Alabama. His odd response lines up with the likes of “some of my best friends are colored people” as he asserts that he will be “color blind.” After all, no one had raised the race issue in the questioning. So why did the Governor feel the need to assure people that he would not discriminate on the basis of color? And did he not even register that the immediate problem with his remarks was about religious intolerance and not race? Makes one kinda wonder what gears were creaking in his head, doesn’t it?

So I guess all I can now say is….Roll up my sleeves, and move over Mother Theresa, we’ve got a LOT of mess to clean up around here. Let’s just hope this brain eating virus disease is not contagious!

Requiem for Dr. King

2011-01-17T13:28:00.001-06:00

On this day of memoriam for the slain civil rights leader, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a time of reflection and perspective seems appropriate. Looking about at the seemingly pervasive culture of incivility and self-indulgent divisiveness today, it is difficult to see a way forward towards a more humane society. When even the suggestion that all people in the United States should have access to basic and affordable health care brings a chorus of derision, how can one hope for restoration of a social contract that affords liberty to all while protecting the most vulnerable? When education is touted as the key to global competitiveness and the future, teachers are being demonized by the top Education official of the land, and funding is doled out to the privileged at the expense of large numbers of children denied adequate resources for educational opportunity, what realistic hope can we see for that golden future? Yet Dr. King saw a world and a society that was at least as divided and in which the soil for growing a verdant future seemed even more barren, and he did not despair. He acted.

In that time, a Black man could be lynched simply for being on the road alone at night. A Black family could be denied public lodging simply because of skin color, as happened to me. The Governor of a State, supported by barricades and police, could stand in the doorway to publicly funded educational institutions reserved for Whites and deny Black youths entry. People did not talk about discrimination in employment based upon race and ethnicity; they simply did it as a matter of common practice. Black people who misunderstood the plain words of US Constitution, and thought that it provided a right to vote in public elections faced potential arrest or worse if they sought to go to the polls. The right of assembly to protest these injustices was a doubtful proposition, at best, that could lead to serious consequences, including death. This was the “America” that Dr. King faced.

He called upon the people of the country to look within and decide whether the society that they were actually living in reflected the kind of society that they aspired to live in. And despite the resistance to change that would undermine unjust privilege and ability to abuse power, the consciousness of the society changed. There was a belief, not in a perfect society, but that the fabric of society had become soiled and tattered. There was a consensus that the country could do better, be better, than it was. The vicious response to freedom and civil rights protesters, especially Whites who went to the South to support civil rights, sparked an awakening that transformed the nation.

Progress and change are not linear processes. There are steps forward and faltering retreats. We believe Human evolution is inexorable, but it is not constant or as persistent as we might like. There will be dissemblers and prevaricators, beyond the pale of honest debate, who seek retreat to the baser levels of humanity. Some will argue that maintaining the right to self defense and protection requires the permission of individuals to carry lethal weapons of indiscriminate and massive destruction in public, and try to wrap that justification in the cloak of patriotic rights. Some, who themselves are descendant from illegal immigrants to North America, would deny basic human and civil treatment of other immigrants who seek only a chance to invest their hard labor in order to build a life for themselves and their families. And there are those who claim the benefit of a nation of laws founded upon a principle of religious freedom and tolerance who would demonize, discriminate against and preach hatred against people because of their religious faith. Government of and for the people cannot do everything, but there are minimal things it must be willing to do to hold faith with its principles and ideals.

The outlook today seems bleaker, perhaps because there is at least some awareness that the vision described by Dr. King is potentially more attainable than ever, though it is at the same time more fragile. When we have made manifest laws and standards that prohibit unjust discrimination against people because of their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion, there is a subtle gut wrenching when we see public pronouncements by so-called leaders calling for revival of such base practices. There is, on some level, a fear of going backward into the pit from which we have climbed. We know that such “leaders” make such calls out of greed for privilege and power, not from any sense of integrity or belief in the common welfare. Yet they are listened to and followed nevertheless. Leaders are not rebuked or shunned who publicly advocate violence, directly or through rhetoric, against those who disagree with their agenda. This despite a basic understanding that the society can survive only if a system of change based upon the vote and not the bullet is preserved.

And so, in the wake of the recent attempted assassination and murders in Tucson, we honor the life of Dr. King who was taken from us by the same type of violence that is being condoned and even fomented by purported leaders of government and society. Many of the accepted “conservative” mantras faced by Dr. King have been proven false: Black and White children could not learn together, Catholics and Jews should not be allowed to live among “respectable” White folks, women did not deserve equal say with men on matters of importance, etc. Many of the ideas now being touted by today’s conservatives are equally unfounded: corporations have the same right to participation in the electoral process as human citizens, trillions of dollars can be spent on foreign wars while billions for health care and education at home is too expensive, fundamental rights of speech, privacy and against unnecessary search and seizure must be surrendered to meet some vague and pervasive notion of “national security,” etc.

Perhaps it is time to once again ask the question that Dr. King posed so eloquently. Is this the kind of society that we want to live in and maintain? Can we do better, and if we can, why don’t we? No one ever said that the climb would be easy. But the future is still within our grasp. We must decide whether to stand shoulder to shoulder with others to pull ourselves upward. We must lend our efforts along with those we disagree with on some issues, while agreeing that there is a common desire for all to succeed. Dr. King reminded us of the wisdom of Sir Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Dr. King declared, "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." People of good will and honest desire for a better society must do more than rue the decline, they must act.

If we can recall this, perhaps we will do honor to Dr. King, not just give lip service.

An Environment Under Fire

2011-01-15T16:43:00.001-06:00

Today in the news, a story recounted a man in Michigan who shot and killed his two young children and wife, then took his own life. He was found in his car in a parking lot with weapons presumably used to kill his family and then himself. There was no history of criminal behavior or even official reports of domestic violence. There was some indication of financial difficulties and a potential impending divorce. This follows on the heels of the shooting massacre in Tucson that garnered national attention because a Congresswoman and a Federal Judge were shot, along with bystanders in a calculated rampage by a young man with a semi-automatic assault weapon with high capacity ammunition clips that he easily obtained despite a history of anti-social behavior.

Unfortunately, the majority of the public seems too shortsighted, self centered and egotistical to look beyond the surface and consider implications. The common belief is that: “I would never do anything like that, so it is not necessary to consider that such tragedies happen or why they happen –conditions that make them more likely rather than less likely.” Because the individualist thinks that he or she is totally responsible with guns at all time, the belief is that guns should be readily available to everyone under all circumstances. In truth, most people do not really know or understand [or perhaps even care] what depression can do to a person. If an analogy is needed, consider the mudslides being experienced in Brazil and Haiti. The landscape was denuded so the conditions were ripe for disaster in the event of a heavy rain. No one person takes responsibility; it is just the deteriorated environment that everyone accepts. In the same way, the widespread possession of handguns creates an environment that makes disaster more likely when a bad spell occurs.

It is doubtful that we will or even should know the intimate details that led this man to crisis and the murder of his children and spouse. What is evident, however, is that most of these tragedies do involve shootings. It is conceivable that he might have strangled or stabbed the victims, but shooting was apparently more convenient and the method of choice. But the knee-jerk reaction is to blame the man as a “madman” which is also too convenient. It is true that he is to blame, but to fail to ask whether the ubiquitous presence of firearms made the event more likely and more feasible is socially irresponsible.

There are two directions that the debate can go. In the first instance, the basic position is that having firearms in the possession of so many people and so readily available is a social norm that is more important than the thousands of deaths each year from events like this family in Michigan and the massacre in Tucson. In this case, we rationalize the actions of the shooter and crazy and ignore the conditions that facilitated the event. The second direction is to question what type of society we want to live in and whether conditions that facilitate, if not promote, gun violence are socially acceptable. In this case, we seek to balance the freedom to own guns for legitimate sporting and true defense protection against the danger to society that having too many guns so readily available will result in too many deaths from abuse of those rights. In my view, carrying a gun around just in case someone might offend you is not legitimate protection need. The first argument seems to hold sway in the US, despite the weekly or daily deaths that result from the permissive and indiscriminate possession and use of handguns.

Thus, it is hard to accept as sincere the expressions of dismay or even surprise that such deaths occur. It would be like expressing surprise that a person who walks in a snake pit gets bitten by a snake. The death would be regrettable, but in no way should it seem surprising that the result flowed from the conditions. We buy into phony arguments and rationalizations. We make false and insincere expressions of sadness and regret, knowing that the conditions that facilitated the tragedy are ones we would fight to maintain despite also knowing that such tragedies will be repeated.

The gloss that the Supreme Court has layered on the Second Amendment to turn a provision initially intended to enable militia to be formed to protect against a foreign threat, when a national army was not fully established or readily available, into a supposed right of every person to own and carry automatic weapons in public is fait accompli. Despite its lunacy and historical inaccuracy, it has passed into the normative culture of US society. The question that we all should now consider is whether to continue to follow an irrational dogma or to consider the implications of too many guns. Having shotguns in the hands of licensed hunters for use during regulated seasons in regulated areas for purposes of duck and pheasant hunting is not the same as carrying a Glock 19 in an urban parking lot. That is a dangerously silly false equivalency. Yet preserving the former is used as an excuse for the latter. And the gun lobby is not even consistent in its lunacy. By its simplistic logic, there is no reason why every individual ought not to be able to own and carry incendiary grenades or even nuclear devices if they could be miniaturized so that a person could carry them. Yet the NRA would probably [note the uncertainty] that permitting such conceal and carry freedom would not be a good idea.

It is time, if there is a sincere concern about the recent shooting injuries and death, to start thinking about what can be done to begin the process of disarmament of the country. The cold war mentality that says that there are crooks and robbers out there with guns, so I must be armed, is a false goal. It leads to the next step of saying that the crook has a bigger gun, so I need a more powerful weapon, until everyone is armed with weapons they do not need for purposes that they will never face. And thus we find ourselves in the veritable “snake pit” in which the present of so many guns creates a danger in and of itself. When someone loses a temper, it becomes easier to take a gun than to just punch a fist into a wall or some other relatively harmless method of letting off steam. When that anger is directed toward a specific person, the potential of a shooting then becomes far more likely than if there were no guns readily lying about. That is the environment that we now have. The challenge is whether we want it to continue and to worsen, or do we want it to get better and less lethal.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

2011-01-11T01:17:00.002-06:00

How deep we have sunken. One respondent to an article criticizing the incredibly high number of automatic assault weapons in the hands of US citizens, claimed that guns are not the problem, just crazy people and evil murderers. He claims that gun regulation deprives us of "our freedoms." Under his logic, anyone is a "dumbass" who advocates reasonable safety regulation. There is no reason to encroach on our "freedoms." No reason for preventing food manufacturers from putting rat poison in food, no reason why pilots should be licensed or regulated [anyone should be able to fly any plane they want to anywhere they wish, right?] and no reason to limit semi-automatic assault weapons in peaceful rally sites where there are young children.

I do not see anyone advocating elimination of gun ownership, just reasonable regulation of who can purchase and how they can be stored and used. The historical facts surrounding the Second Amendment only call for a regulated militia, not for individual ownership of guns with a right of individuals to carry concealed weapons in crowded pubic areas in time of peace. Yet folks as crazy as Loughner have a knee jerk reaction any time someone mentions the idea that maybe we don't need assault weapons in Safeway parking lots. Some of those folks argue that everyone at the Meet Your Congresswoman event should have been armed and opened fire. [Loughner would probably have been killed, along with a couple hundred other people in the crossfire.]

The idea of "common welfare" suggests that we create as a society areas or zones where certain conduct is prohibited for the benefit and safety of all. If I go to a gun range, I can expect to see guns and maybe get shot. If I wander in the woods during deer hunting season, I assume some risk. But I should not have to expect danger from Glock 19 pistols at the local Safeway. I do not think it unreasonable to require that, if you own a gun, you must be responsible for it and have it inspected and accounted for each year just like cars and emission certification. Then if a gun is missing, it will be known. The owner would bear responsibility for not securing the gun against loss or theft. I do not think it unreasonable to require trigger locks to prevent accidental injury by children. Most gun accidents come from children playing with unattended weapons. The problem is that extremist gun ownership advocates attack even the most reasonable protections. They demand the right to misuse of weapons, in the name of protecting gun ownership. That seems absurd. Does my right to own a car include a right to be reckless and to run down anyone I choose? Of course not. And it is hard to imagine that even the founding fathers would have contemplated the Second Amendment as authorizing the use of guns for people to walk into town meetings and start shooting everyone in sight. All perspective is lost.

Quite simply, it is time to stop the duplicity. If Loughner was deranged and mentally unstable, then why was he able to easily purchase a Glock 19 and large magazines for $500 locally? If he is the sort that should NOT be able to own and use such weapons freely and easily, then it is clear that the existing regulations are not working. If guns should be allowed "for legitimate" sporting purposes, what "sport" involves use of an automatic assault weapon in a supermarket parking lot? The "justifications" for rampant gun toting have risen to the level of the absurd, at the same time that the death rate from guns in the United States is THOUSANDS times higher than other developed countries. If we are not to restrict gun toting, should not all buildings and public establishments be equipped with metal detectors so that at least everyone will be alerted to the fact that a gunman is present?

There are no easy answers, but putting more guns on the streets clearly is NOT an answer. Like nuclear arms reduction, the survival of our society calls for disarmament. There is a need to reduce gun ownership and restrict areas and ways in which guns can be stored and used. Perhaps then public servants will only need to fear free speech expressions against them in the form of heckling, and not from the burst of an assault weapon.

An “Indelicate” proposal of “Just Say NO.”

2010-12-22T09:52:00.002-06:00

President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are trotting about the country touting a federal government policy that the goal of all public schools is to prepare students to be college and career ready. Toward this aim, substantial funds are directed to support beleaguered public schools if they buy into the Administration policies. Further, penalties and threats to deny or take away funding are brandished if schools do not embrace this policy.

To be clear, as a holder of undergraduate and advanced degrees, I am not in any way opposed to the pursuit of college and higher education. As a former school district board member and advisor, I am also well aware of the aspiration to provide students with the educational services best designed to help student maximize their intellectual development and curiosity. At the same time, my experience tells me that not every student is suited for or prepared for the demands of higher education at the time of graduation from high school. Keep in mind that the notion of immediate entry into university from high school has not always been the norm. So while I agree that public schools should strive to provide a foundation for each student who wishes to build an academic career, I am not in agreement with a federal policy that drives a system to force students into modes and paths for which they are indisposed, ill suited and ill prepared. But that is not the gravamen of this essay.

Recent reports suggest that the average undergraduate education in the United States now has a price tag of around $80,000. Some of that cost is covered in grants and scholarships but a substantial part is covered by loans and indebtedness. The average college graduate has at least $24,000 in remaining debt, and many have six figure obligations. In perspective, graduation from college mortgages the future of our youth more heavily than would purchase of a home. A mortgage on a home can be discharged in bankruptcy while a student loan cannot be discharged for the student or the parent who co-signs.

In an economy where a very large portion of graduates do not have jobs to go to that will enable them to pay these mountainous debts, the exhortation and federal pressure that pushes college education as the "norm" is a cruel hoax. Absent federal government allocation of funding and reform of predatory lending programs and practices, the Administration should rethink and rescind its policy. I am not suggesting abandonment of efforts to improve the quality of public school instruction. It is not the goal, but rather the methodology that is unsound. There is an old challenge from the streets: “put your money where your mouth is.” And the challenge applies to the federal government and its policy of college readiness.

Young people should not be forced into college at the expense of their future economic health simply to advance a slogan. Unless the college opportunity and experience is made economically viable, the policy lacks balance and coherence.

Of course this simply exposes the class division in the country. The wealthy have always been able to purchase college educations for their children. Unless demonstrably talented enough to merit large grants and scholarships, by white middle and upper class standards, poor and minority students have been denied equality of opportunity. The middle class has been under increasing pressure and attack, and these are the ones who suffer the ironic deception of graduating from college with a pile of debt in one hand and a useless resume in the other.

So the indelicate suggestion to the federal government should be to take the policy of “college readiness” for all students and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. Until the same federal government is prepared to enact measures that provide reasonable financial support that makes a college education economically viable, it is guilty of the same type of irresponsible predatory tactics that induced home buyers and owners to take out unaffordable mortgages that led to the housing bubble and subsequent economic tragedy from which the country is still suffering. Pressuring youth with the message that a college education is essential when seeking such a degree can lead to financial indentured servitude or ruin is simply wrong.

One more point might be added. The “trickle down” theory does not work. One would imagine that wealthy business owners who depend upon a well educated workforce would act in their own self interest by providing endowments for colleges and universities with the tax breaks that are served up by Congress and the Administration. If the theory worked, talented students should have financial support available so that going to college would not result in a huge loan obligation. But the reality is not so. Employers could also offer to pay the equivalent of up to one year’s salary toward a new hire’s student loans for each position filled which requires at least an undergraduate degree, with a substantial tax deduction for doing so. Such a targeted proposal would be far more beneficial to the economy than extending tax breaks to the wealthiest 2% in the nation. It would also be a coherent strategy that would help make the policy of universal college readiness rational. But no such proposal is on the table or even being considered. So when the federal government comes knocking with demands to change public education programs to require college readiness for every student…..Just Say NO.

Wikileaks and the Big Bad Wolf

2010-12-06T09:18:00.001-06:00

A good doctor seeks to determine and reduce or eliminate the cause, not just treat the symptoms.

Why is it that no on seems to consider the strategy that the US government should stop lying to its citizens and engaging in a policy that creates more terrorists and terrorism?

We are supposed to take as a "given" that the terrorist fear and hysteria is a "way of life." But it clearly has not always been so, even under the Reagan Administration, and he was the darling of the Right Wing. Bill Clinton warned of GWB's foreign policy ineptitude by saying that: "you cannot kill enemies as fast as you can make them, so it is better to try to make friends." Bush never listened and declared a "Crusade" against Islam and the Arab culture. To consolidate his domestic power, Bush sought the Patriot Act to take away civil liberties and create a climate of fear and hysteria. Obama has done little to change this climate, despite mild push back from the public in the form of objections to airport "security" measures.

I do not condone all that Wikileaks has done, but this is something [like the Pentagon Papers] that the government has brought upon itself. Everyone knows that diplomats make candid and derogatory comments about their counterparts. The list of critical sites could probably be developed by any college student with a computer and Google Earth, just like information about military installations of any country, so I think the reaction is deliberately overblown. For example, we know exactly where and at what pace North Korea and Iran are building facilities that may or may not contain work on nuclear projects. Is it reasonable to think that other countries do not know about US installations? seriously? But the volume of disclosure runs the risk of being indiscriminate and releasing a couple of things that could actually be damaging.

The government insists on a culture of deception and concealment of information the public has a legitimate interest in knowing. If national security were actually used as a claim or complaint when national security was really at issue, people would be more respectful of government claims. But knowing what books people check out at the local library is a long stretch from any legitimate claim of national security. So no one believes or respects the government complaints anymore. They have lied and cried wolf too many times in order to maintain a climate of fear about "terrorism." They can threaten to prosecute Wikileaks, but that will not alter the deep distrust that exists about government integrity and transparency. A wise man once said that trust cannot be obtained at the end of a barrel of a gun, it must be earned. Does the US government want to be just feared, or respected?

True journalism [whose duty is as a watchdog to keep the government honest] has died or been sold to corporate greed. The youth of today have abandoned "mainstream media" as a source of credible information. Sadly, no one respects the media [Fox, MSNBC, etc] as a source of credible information any longer. Weather reports, to the extent that one could ever rely on them, are about the only thing people take seriously at all anymore.

That opens the door to a form of citizen action or vigilante justice [depending upon your viewpoint] that is Wikileaks. Prosecuting Assange may give the appearance of control, from the storm trooper perspective, but it is just symptomatic treatment. It will only deepen the distrust and disrespect toward a government that lies to its people, and crushes anyone who threatens to expose the deceit.

Long Live Sanity!

2010-10-31T15:10:00.003-05:00

The Rally to Restore Sanity was a much needed break from the negative, ad hominem and vitriolic discourse that has come to characterize US elections and politics. Held in Washington, DC and sponsored by Comedy central stars Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert, the rally was estimated to have drawn over 215,000. I am, of course chary of placing much credence on crowd estimates, but even with a huge margin of error it is fair to say that the crowd outnumbered the right wing pep fest hosted by Beck and Palin that drew about 85,000. Though the margin is still less than I would like, a representation that there is at least a 2:1 ratio of people who favor sanity and compassion to intolerance, suppression of civil or human rights and divisiveness is somewhat encouraging.

One need not search for the deeply profound in the humor inspired rally, other than the affirmation that there are still a lot of people in the US who have not totally lost their sense of humor. But we may consider some very apt quotes taken from the crowd that seem to express the sentiment that inspired the rally and that may represent a substantial feeling among average US citizens.

"It's the first time a message like this has resonated with me," said Jonathan Dugan, 37, a product engineer who flew from San Francisco to stand on the mall on a sunny fall afternoon. "We need to get people to talk to each other in a meaningful way."

With politicians seeking to attack their opponents on a personal level and claiming to state what “the people” want, without ever taking the time to consult the populace, it is a desire profoundly to be wished.

"I'm really concerned that we're not agreeing on anything," said Jean Mathisen, 63, who runs a seniors fraud-prevention program in Seattle. Reminded that the country was bitterly divided over Vietnam and civil rights during her youth, she said, "I felt that back then, at least a lot of people wanted to work together."

The GOP in the Senate voted unanimously to block virtually every initiative of the Obama Administration, and now chastises the administration for "failing to deliver” the promised change. Such is the hypocrisy that now colors the highest legislative body of the nation. And the Senate majority leader stated openly that he “wished that they could have obstructed more," as if that were possible. So it is no wonder that there are people in the country who are frustrated with the lack of action.

But what remains to be seen is whether they will be rational enough to recognize the reasons and the mechanics of the inertia and vote accordingly. One might speculate that the Democrats could have capitulated further in order to gain GOP support, but we must remember the statement from the GOP leadership that no proposal from the White House would gain GOP support. So such speculation would be futile.

“People,” as suggested by characters as diverse as Thomas Jefferson to P.T. Barnum to Elmer Gantry can be fooled almost all the time. So the media hype, backed by billions of dollars spent by anonymous entities on ad campaign attacks, will undoubtedly influence some beyond those who have stopped thinking and seek only to convince themselves of their preconceived convictions. They are unlikely to be persuaded, and will only get confused if you try to throw facts or intelligent arguments at them.

Yet the best thing that could happen to the country might be the awakening of the sleeping, and sometimes apathetic, middle group of people represented by the attendees of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Not consulted by any of the horse race and dog fight pollsters, this huge group has the power to speak with a loud voice to politicians and perhaps send a message that artful dodging and mindless intransigence are not acceptable. The message might be that the electorate demands better from its government. That would be the makings of a seismic political shift not seen since the War for Independence from Britain.

But maybe it is just wishful thinking…

Lessons from Arkansas

2010-10-30T19:54:00.002-05:00

We are all, for better or for worse, teachers in what we do and fail to do. The impact of our pedagogy may be limited to our friends and immediate family; and it may possibly reach to other people, communities and to the world. And so Mr. Clint McCance, a commercial carpet cleaner from Midland, Arkansas has stepped to the lectern, perhaps unwittingly, to provide us all a lesson. Our task is to draw what we can of value from his teachings and see how they may help us make sense of an ever perplexing world. Mr. McCance also happened to hold elective office as the Vice President of the local school board, and so the concept of education should not be altogether foreign to him. This coincidence may seem ironic as we examine the wisdom which he apparently seems to be imparting.

McCance, an immigrant to the technology of the day like many of us, participates in social networking over the internet. Last week, he posted a message responding to a general call for people to wear the color purple in support of families who have lost loved ones to suicide because they were or were perceived to be gay and had been bullied. Several such cases have been made public in the recent past, and suicide prevention organizations tell us that only a fraction of all such cases reach public notice. Mr. McCance opined that all gay people, including children, should commit suicide and that would be the only event that would induce him to don purple. His vitriolic rant included numerous scurrilous references and offensive terms that need not be repeated here. McCance cloaked his commentary in a proclamation of his Christian faith and beliefs, suggesting that his views are examples of Christian values. But the tone was steeped in the vilest hatred one might see posted in any public sphere.

This screed was picked up by a former student of the school district and came to the attention of a wider public when communicated to a support group that serves gays and youth. The story quickly became viral as the words of McCance were transmitted across the internet at blazing speed that the medium permits. The school district promptly posted a disclaimer and condemned the statements of McCance and the hateful and bullying attitudes it expressed. Later, the State of Arkansas Education Commission posted an announcement stating that the comments were unacceptable and that they should not be associated with education or the State of Arkansas. It said that it had no direct authority to take action as McCance is an elected official. Apprised of the offensive rant, US Secretary of Education Duncan declared that an individual expressing such views has no business in a position supervising the education of children.

We turn now to what lessons McCance has to teach or that we might glean from events that his actions have sparked. First, and most obvious, must be the demonstration of the low level of public dialogue and the moral bankruptcy of debate that we seemed to have reached. Whether the commentary by McCance is the nadir can be hoped, but cannot be assured. His seemingly unprovoked outburst suggests that what we might want to consider as commonly accepted voluntary social filters on exercise of free speech in public debate may either be non-existent or seriously dysfunctional.

The ease and speed of internet communication provides wide access to a vehicle of public expression of ideas and opinions. At the same time, the ability to engage in such dialogue from the “cover” of one’s office or room does away with the face to face element that previously typified public debate. No longer does one feel compelled or constrained to consider the impact of one’s words on others who are exposed to the communication. Such consideration tended, in the past, to impose some social constraints and a measure of civility. That McCance is a publicly elected official is salient as well, in that the aforementioned filters in the past would cause such officials to consider the consequences of their action on the constituents that elected them, in addition to the social and political consequences for themselves personally.

The decline in civility is not confined to McCance. Politicians seeking national office suggesting that the answer to the problem of insuring those with pre-existing illness would be solved if those persons simply died quickly, and other politicians suggesting that if their views do not prevail that the alternative response should be the “Second Amendment” solution, a thinly veiled reference to taking up firearms in lieu of the electoral process. Another candidate seeking office requiring support and defense of the US Constitution apparently does not know what the founding document says, and another wants to do away with fundamental protections of the 14th Amendment. And so the comments by McCance, which he now acknowledges were “over the top” and “ignorant,” are not altogether aberrant in the context of current public dialogue. And so one lesson that we might take from the McCance lecture is that the costs of free speech in a democracy may be at time greater than we would like to consider or than we are comfortable with in what we might consider a “civilized” society.

The screed by McCance was not without repercussions. He reports receiving thousands of phone calls and emails mostly protesting and condemning his actions. He suggested that he felt compelled to send his family out of the State, based upon some unspecified threats. A social networking page was set up to denounce McCance and demand his resignation, a site generating support of over 60,000 in less than 72 hours. His business was identified so that the public could express its disapproval by submitting negative feedback to discourage potential customers. He was contacted by the head of an Arkansas suicide prevention organization to discuss and explain to McCance the terrible import of the suicide tragedies that he was promoting. Finally, he appeared on network television to publicly apologize and announce that he plans to resign his post as school board officer and member. While any threats to McCance and his family would be deplorable, such responses do suggest that the public can and will rise up to respond when the level of dialogue descends to a level that is too low. In other words, there still seems to remain “some” standard of civility below which the public generally will not accept without pushing back.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the hopeful lesson that may be gleaned from this episode is that a society still exists that seeks to maintain some minimal standards of common values and civility. There are still a substantial number of people who believe that, although a citizen has the right to express opinions in the exercise of free speech, but also believe that such personal views may disqualify the citizen for holding public office, particularly when the office is to specifically oversee the formation of children’s character in public education. It can be hoped that the viability of such a popular view, weak or hidden though it may be, can gain strength and that its voice can come forward.

Regardless of differing views along the political and social spectrum, perhaps we can regain some sense of decorum and civility in public dialogue. What calls for suppression is only the idea that one need not think before speaking, and that one need not consider the impact of one’s comments before a public rant. Not to ask for too much, perhaps we can hope that candidates for and holders of public office will treat the positions of public trust that they hold with greater respect. If they cannot respect the office and cannot make the effort to educate themselves regarding the responsibilities entailed by the position, they should withdraw or resign in favor of others willing to shoulder the burdens that go along with the prestige.

These are some lessons that we might derive from the thoughtless, hateful and intemperate outburst by an official charged with the duty to oversee the public education of impressionable children. Though he lives in a small town in Arkansas, and will no doubt soon fade from public notice, in this regard McCance has indeed provided a public service as educator.

Fare Well Senator Byrd

2010-06-28T14:48:00.000-05:00

Senator Robert Byrd passed away this weekend and the passage merits acknowledgment. At the age of 92, Byrd was the longest serving senator in Congress. As such he has both seen and experienced the changes in US society and values that have transpired during his long years of service.

It is not without irony that Senator Byrd has been one of the strongest defenders of civil rights in the last decade. Yet it is Senator Byrd who teamed with Senator Strom Thurmond in 1964 to insert an amendment to cover discrimination against females into the 1964 Civil Rights Act because they believed that the amendment would kill the Civil Rights legislation completely. Now more than 35 years later, Senator Byrd would argue that some aspects of the legislation have not been forceful enough to remove vestiges of slavery based discrimination in US society, culture and business.

Racist tinged GOP strategies cloaked in pseudo-patriotic jargon, with the support and proxy help of extremist Tea Party zealots would roll the clock back and reduce or eliminate egalitarian and remedial measures that the government tries to impose to create a more participatory democracy and to encourage the growth of social justice. Sadly, as was recognized when the Civil rights Acts were passed, the protections provided by such legislation goes beyond race gender and religion to protect fundamental freedoms purportedly guaranteed by the Constitution. These freedoms have been seriously eroded in recent decades by a craven and fearful mentality that makes every neighbor a potential threat and every person who is not "alike" a potential enemy. Intolerance among cultures and ethnicities is rising to levels not seen since the days when the civil rights Acts were first passed. Psychological and political warfare between social classes is increasing and threatens to erupt into physical warfare if not checked.

The growth and evolution of Senator Byrd from a champion of racist and exclusionary policies into a true statesman who championed a pluralistic and participatory society in which every American citizen had at least the opportunity to participate according to his or her talents and willingness to work and sacrifice is a lesson to us all. People can change, and in the process of that change they can influence change toward a better society and a better tomorrow. In contrast to the current conventional wisdom that even the most honorable of men will fall to corruption and venal servitude to their own egos and powerful corporate lobbyists, Senator Byrd's example suggests that a man may indeed grow in character and respect for the true duties of his position while in the service of country in the US senate.

In addition, Senator Byrd's long years of service made him a procedural expert and strategist. Thus, he was able to give wise counsel not only on what should be done, but on how to steer legislation through Congress even against determined obstructionist

Yet for every transformation toward social justice, there arise multiple objectors and obstructionists who would revert to a discriminatory and exclusionary alternative in the name of "Conservatism." These defenders of privilege, including privileges that they themselves may not enjoy [yes, they are employed as proxies and stooges], in order to maintain an imbalance between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots. They would defend the right of capitalist enterprises to destroy the environment in pursuit of profit without regard to the consequences for "we the people."

We can only hope, with bated breath, that some few members of Congress will recognize the true loss that the people and the country have sustained in the death of Senator Byrd. And with that realization, that a few will put aside their pettiness and egos in favor of a bona fide effort to be the public servants that the country and the people deserve.

How Stupid …. Part ???

2010-06-13T11:59:00.002-05:00

Like the “Rocky” franchise, this saga of US government insanity seems to have innumerable sequels. The term “stupid” is used intentionally and advisedly. Ignorance is the lack of information or understanding. Stupidity is choosing to remain ignorant or choosing to ignore basic common sense and understanding and electing the irrational option. So the following example falls in the category of stupidity on the part of the US government by acting with knowledge and information in a manner that is both illogical and against the interests of the citizens of the USA. The alternative characterization is almost too cynical to consider, as discussed below.

Witness the recently released report regarding Pakistan funding and support of the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. The report issued by the London School of Economics is based upon sources in Pakistan and present and former Taliban officials in Afghanistan. [See -http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e8f6f5c-76b4-11df-ba79-00144feabdc0.html] The report also confirms previous reports within the US military command that indicated belief of complicity by the Pakistan government with the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Thus, it is fair to say that the US government had reason to believe Pakistani involvement and has further confirmation of that charge.

Her lies the stupidity. The US government spends billions of dollars in aid to prop up the Pakistani government. At least some of these funds are being used to supply intelligence, munitions and supplies to the Taliban to wage its insurgency in Afghanistan. At the same time, billions of dollars are being spent by the US government to wage a fight against Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. These funds and the soldiers they support are being “expended” in a deadly war to prevent Taliban insurgency from taking control of Afghanistan. In simple terms, the US is funding a government effort by Pakistan to undermine and defeat the US mission in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban – waging a war against itself. Consider the role of Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, in firing top security officials in his government because they were too aggressive in their pursuit of Taliban leadership. The only beneficiaries of this lethal game of duplicity are the government officials in Islamabad and Kabul who are building multi-million dollar palaces with US government funding siphoned off through corruption and venality.

Pakistan has nuclear capability and is banking [literally] on the US unwillingness to withdraw financial support due to fear that the country might switch alliances. In reality, this is an empty threat because the alternative alliances could not and would not fund the corruption that currently exists. Karzai is playing a duplicitous role by taking US funding to defeat the Taliban while handicapping his subordinates who truly attempt to eliminate the Taliban capacity to threaten the government. Karzai relies upon support in Taliban controlled areas to stay in office. The Taliban see a sweet irony in taking US funding to wage a campaign to defeat a US backed effort to oust them from control of areas in Afghanistan and from seeking to take control of the Afghan government.

My grandfather used to tell me about a saying on the “street” regarding treatment of foolish attempts to get involved in a game that one does not understand and is not savvy enough to play. “Catch a sucker, bump his head!” The meaning is fairly clear in this case. Any street hustler would spot the game immediately, and Obama’s experience in Chicago community organizing should make him wise enough to spot it as well. The government “leadership” of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban in the supposed “conflict” are capitalizing on the ideological blindness and naivety of the US and bilking US taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars while also exploiting the people of Afghanistan who are caught in the middle of this military gamesmanship. The advantage that these hustlers have is that the game will never end as long as there is so-called “strategic” territory to fight over and people living in the area.

The Losers are the US taxpayers who are funding this scam with dollars that could be better spent alleviating the suffering caused by the Bush recession and reviving the struggling US economy. In addition, continued involvement in this game feeds Anti-US propaganda being used in the Islamic world to recruit extremists who in turn support non-religious criminal terrorism activities. There is virtually no way that continuation can be rationalized as in the long term interest of the US citizenry. The cynical view referenced above relates to the other potential beneficiary in this scam, weapons manufacturers. No matter what the political landscape may be, lobbyists for the military-industrial complex urge continuance because that means greater sales of more weapons to wage lethal conflict. Since the US government funding is actually supporting the purchase of weapons for the Taliban as well as the Afghan military, the weapons makers profit as long as the conflict continues. Isn’t that too cynical to be true?

2010-05-30T16:36:00.001-05:00

The Feedback Loop

In my pondering about the current state of affairs in the USA and the apparent doldrums of the Obama Administration, I have been searching for unifying themes. We need a way to try to make sense of what is happening; we need a way to direct and operationalize the frustration and anger that is felt when so many things seem broken and with leaders unwilling or unable to fix these problems.

That search has led me to two tentative conclusions. The first has been articulated by research linguistic expert George Lakoff in a way that exceeds any attempt I might make to articulate the idea.

http://www.truthout.org/obamas-missing-moral-narrative59968

Lakoff eloquently speaks to the failure of Obama to refocus on his core message and values that derive from empathy as a driving and unifying theme for his Administration and for his dialogue with the public.

The second point relates to the concept of a feedback loop. Static is generated by sound that is generated and amplified and then rebounds to the source to be re-amplified and rebroadcast in a continuous loop. Only when the sound is redirected to an audience that is not stuck in that loop does the broadcast of sound become rational instead of redundant. The Obama Administration seems caught in a trap that seems inherent inside the Washington Beltway, listening to the same group of pollsters who are talking to the same “experts” and commentators who listen to the administration and themselves almost exclusively. The result is static and noise instead of message and intelligible content.

When Administration insiders consult these pollsters as a way of informing decision making, they hear the feedback from the right wing that virtually any initiative will be opposed and doomed to probable failure. The result of taking this advice is for the Administration to balk on progressive initiatives that would better serve the public who elected him and who exist outside this Beltway feedback loop.

Add to the loop the fact that much of the “media” supplying the “advice” to the Obama Administration is captive of the right wing GOP and corporate driven interests. As such, they are predisposed to react negatively to any proposal that would favor the welfare of the general public over the profits of the corporate interests. To the extent that the President gives access to and listens to this so-called “feedback” from advisers, instead of listening to his own heart and values, he will be paralyzed and unable to act upon the promised initiatives that got him elected. We have all been to concerts in which feedback has gotten out of control and is painful or deafening.

To solve the problem, any good sound engineer knows that you must reduce the volume of the broadcast sound, figure out where the message is being generated and where it is targeted and then redirect both the amplified sound and the source of generated sound in a way that broadcasts an outgoing signal instead of a feedback loop. Sadly, it seems that the Administration sound engineers have gotten lazy and been unwilling to get off their collective backsides to redirect the President’s message and to assess the locus of reception and source of feedback. Until that is done, the right wing and corporate message machine will continue to generate static and prevent any intelligible message from getting through. To the extent that the corresponding actions of the President are like those of a bat that needs the responding signal to determine the lay of the land through which it navigates, he will need to break out of the feedback loop in order to fly.

The US electorate has grown extremely tired and frustrated by the continuous static and incoherent feedback. When those citizens live outside the Washington Beltway and are directly impacted by the failures of policies and failure to take decisive action to fix them, they will ultimately respond. That response may be to attempt to shut down the noise by ousting current officials and starting over. That strategy may not ultimately work, but the current course of events seems to provide no other alternative. The lesser alternative would be for the electorate to go deaf from the useless noise, a deafness that would signal the death of democracy.

Politicians: Listen up! CAREFULLY

2010-05-29T11:25:00.002-05:00

While the incoherent rants of the extremist Wing Nuts seem to capture the limited and warped attention span of the mainstream media, the voices of the populace seem to get little more attention than a cry in the wilderness. The proper role of the media is to inform the people and reflect the pulse and sentiment of the general public. Yet an increasingly corporate controlled and market driven media has all but eliminated the traditional line between the “newsroom” and the Board room. The responsibility of the former used to be objectivity and credibility, while the latter was motivated by profit. Just as a judge cannot function as a just and neutral arbiter of the law when there is an appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest, the news media cannot function in its proper role when the information it presents is developed and edited through the filter of corporate agendas with a primary goal of “infotainment” and is supported exclusively by unnamed and unidentified “anonymous” sources. This transition is of no small moment in a society where collusion, corruption and abuse of the official functions of government and commerce threaten permanent destruction of the ecosystem and the global economy. Democracy can only survive in the context of a reasonably informed and educated electorate. But when the nightmare of Orwell’s 1984 type of media is becoming more of a reality than fiction, the ability of the public to function independently and intelligently is undermined. Democracy is neither conquered by an “evil empire” nor threatened by “terrorists,” rather it simply rots from within.

Public commentary in blog type postings is not the most reliable diagnostic for testing the pulse of the electorate. However, such information may provide symptoms of a pervasive infection that lies deeper and may be more dangerous to the body politic. Consider responses to a recent article detailing the record of malfeasance and environmental incidents involving BP Petroleum, the most recent being the huge spill from the well opened by the Deep Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. [http://www.truthout.org/ex-epa-officials-why-isnt-bp-under-criminal-investigation59936]

The article cites sources and details obtained from former EPA [US Environmental Protection Agency] officials who worked on prior criminal investigations relating to environmental disasters, including prior investigations and convictions against BP. The article appears well researched and very well written in contrast to the type of coverage seen in mainstream media. Information and assertions are not hidden behind speculative generalizations or posited only by sources who claim anonymity. Specific and documented information is cited regarding past violations of environmental regulations, damage to environment and economic interests [such as trade, tourism and fishing] in areas surrounding prior spills or toxic dumping by BP.

In addition, references to experience with corporate cover-ups, misrepresentation of facts and destruction of important evidence and documents. This latter concern is raised, in terms of basic criminal investigative procedures, asking why BP is allowed time and access to manipulate, hide or destroy evidence of what led up to and followed the blow out that killed workers and is spewing millions of gallons of oil into the gulf. The overall theme or question of the article is why there appears to be no formal criminal investigation against BP by the US Government in light of the magnitude of the disaster and the track record of BP – specifically including the fact that the corporation is on probation as a result of prior criminal violation of environmental laws. We should add the corollary and perhaps rhetorical question – why has such an article not appeared on the front page of the New York Times or other major news outlets?

Perhaps more revealing is what the readers of this article say in response to the questions raised. The visceral sentiments and expression of disappointment or lack of confidence in the government should be very disturbing to politicians on up to the Chief Executive who sits in the White House. The precision of their attacks and the specific grounds for their tirades is less significant than the coherence of the collective expression of distrust and dissatisfaction regarding the way government is being run. Implicit in their outpouring is the sense of despair that there really is no one in the governmental system anymore with the courage and the desire to honestly represent the public welfare. Let us look at a few examples:

Why? Because the government doesn't run things here; corporations do, and it wouldn't do to upset the capitalistic apple cart now, would it?! Just a bit of history; there has been thirty years of administrations, beginning with Reagan, that have downsized, defunded, and detoothed our regulatory departments whose job it is to watchdog industry on behalf of the citizens of this country. Next time they call for LESS government remember that that's what they intend to do. What they mean is: we will have money and you will have NO representation. Taxes come down, only for the wealthy, the military-industrial complex, and the corporations. Collection of wealth goes to the top 1% and wages for the lower and middle classes are stagnant.... oh and we get to pay the lion's share of taxes. We reap what apathy has sown.

BP will end up exonerated just like the financial Banksters, Our government is run by politicians who were raised by and with corporate interests. They will never see the harm to this country because they are too busy mining [sic] their own interests

"Why hasn't the government launched a criminal investigation into BP?"
Because our neoliberal President, who always favors, and kisses the ass of, Big Business, and promotes Corporate-Based Law Making -- measuring all things in market terms with neoliberal market lingo -- is in their pockets. He's one of them.

BP must be investigated, following whistleblower testimony that BP upper management gave the order for a highly risky series of events, despite advice to the contrary, that culminated in the explosion. If the government does not investigate BP for criminal negligence/recklessness, it is abrogating its responsibility to those who pay their salaries, the taxpayer, and we must get them out of office as fast as possible.

This small sampling provides a window into the growing sentiment that is apparent in the public. Many of these commentators appear to be voters who supported the election of Obama and the current Congressional representatives of both parties. The comments seem heartfelt and indicate deep distrust of the ability of the current government to act in the public interest, especially against powerful moneyed interests. The underlying theme seems to be that one can get away with anything, including causing multiple deaths through intentional misconduct or callous disregard, as long as you have enough money to bribe politicians and exert significant influence over the political process. Indeed, it seems that one can even prevent or forestall investigation into wrongdoing so that prosecution and criminal conviction would be the remotest of possibilities. This reflects discord with the recent Supreme Court decision in which corporations were deemed to have the same right to participation in the political process as individual citizens.

The pollsters and pundits who have the responsibility for taking the pulse of the public would do well to listen a bit more closely to those cries in the wilderness as the midterm elections approach. If all that the politicians value is keeping their jobs, instead of public stewardship and service, then perhaps a news flash that job security is a MAJOR concern in November might get their attention. If these expressions of distrust and dissatisfaction are indeed representative, then it would appear that representatives of both parties are in serious trouble. The concern is not liberal or conservative, but independence and honesty. It may be late in the day, but a representative who is willing to stand up and truly REPRESENT the voters is more likely to get my vote. And from what I am hearing, I am by no means alone in this persuasion.

Education Has Clearly Failed Us

2010-05-27T19:07:00.004-05:00

The push is on from US Congress and the Obama Administration to develop and implement “national standards” for academic competency and performance as a way to raise the quality of public education in the country. This initiative would presumably seek to establish a floor or minimum standard for what is deemed a "well educated person" in the country. Sometimes, however, well meaning policy initiatives expose embarrassing facts when run through the sausage mill of the legislative process. The education initiative is no exception.

Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has joined with leaders seeking $23 Billion in emergency funding from Congress. The funding is needed to avoid as many as 300,000 teacher layoffs as a result of budget cuts stemming from the economic recession. One might think that these distinguished members of Congress would recognize the importance of maintaining the infrastructure of the educational system (i.e., teachers) if there is any hope of reaching the goal of implementing national performance standards. That conclusion is not exactly (pardon the expression) rocket science. Yet members of Congress appear to be balking in their support of the funding request. The reasons given are a need for corresponding budget cuts to offset the expenditure, and that such funding would be a “bailout” of education.

(Pause a moment for the laughter to subside.)

Now let us address reality for just a moment. The same Congress has authorized over $700 Billion in taxpayer funds to bail out financial institutions, and it looks like the public will never see even a small fraction of those dollars in tangible benefit. We are told that the expense was worth it because of the damage that might have occurred if the money had not been given away to huge banks and investment firms. The same Congress has authorized the expenditure of more than 50 times the amount requested for education to be spent in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The experts may have been right in their speculation that failure to bail out the financial institutions might have worsened the economic collapse. The cost of such speculation was enormous, and the failure of those institutions to expand lending and increase flexibility in mortgage foreclosure as a result of the bailout – the payback the public was supposed to get from the decision to risk their tax dollars on the bank bailout- renders the wisdom of the bailout questionable at best. Yet it is a near certainty that failure to provide emergency funding relief to education: a) will damage the quality of instruction to the nation’s children, b) will have immediate negative impact on the functioning of the educational system by increasing class sizes significantly and c) will set the goal of raising performance toward national standards back several years. And the cost of a “risky” bailout of education amounts to the mere fraction of the interest that would be earned on the money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan for a year. A person who cannot reason through such an alternative and conclude that the choice to support education in the short and long term interests of the country is a “no-brainer” may well be, in fact, a person lacking a functioning brain. Simple logic and the most rudimentary grasp of the concept of public service would demand immediate aid to education.

It is apparent that these Congressional representatives could not pass any proposed national education standards in math, economics, reading, history or social studies. This is even greater reason why Congress should hasten to support the request for emergency support to education. If our current system produces leadership of such caliber, there is cause for despair unless urgent measures are undertaken to improve the quality of instruction in the country. Imagine a new crop of leaders who are less educated than the current crop....

No More..No Less

2010-05-04T22:10:00.000-05:00

Politicians, pundits and pusillanimous pontificators have all been pondering the next step in campaign finance in the USA electoral process. They puzzle the impact of the Roberts Court decision to allow corporation the same [or more] rights as natural persons in the arena of citizenship relating to the electoral process. Congress, the Supreme Court decreed, had placed unconstitutional constraints and burdens on the free speech rights of corporate citizens. Such restraints, the Court reasoned, are unfair and unjust when such limitations could not constitutionally be imposed upon natural persons.

Considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth over the demise of the electoral process, at least in any shape of form intended by the Founders, has obscured practical thinking. Suggestions have been made that a constitutional amendment is necessary to overturn the ruling. But that ignores the sad reality that the current Congress is so deadlocked that it could not even readily pass a simple measure to extend jobless benefits, making a so controversial a measure as a constitutional amendment little more than a pipe dream. Others suggest that Congress pass requirements that force greater disclosure of the origin and funding source of corporate poetical speech. That suggestion is far from a level playing field because corporations are so adept at the shell game. For example, the media is focusing attention on BP petroleum because of the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico while the BP executives accurately respond that neither the rig, the operation of the equipment that exploded nor the installation that was probably faulty was done by BP. All these tasks were done by various different contractors and sub-contractors. So much for tracking responsibility or transparency!

A humble suggestion is to focus not on limiting the corporations, but rather upon empowering the individual “natural” citizen. Corporations can and will undoubtedly spend billions of dollars on lobbying and political speech to influence elections; their contributions are deducted from their profits in the form of business expenses. This creates an actual “inequality” that effectively gives corporations greater rights than the natural citizen in the expression of political speech and participation in the electoral process. The more appropriate response is to pass legislation that equalizes this situation by giving individual taxpayers a deduction for every dollar that they expend on political speech or to make their views known in the political process. If I use my phone to discuss the election or candidate views, then part of my phone bill should be deductible. If I use my computer and the internet to comment or express my political view in favor or against a candidate or to address an issue subject to referendum, then part of those expenses must be made deductible as well. It goes, without saying, that every cent that I contribute to any candidate or political cause must be deductible from my taxable income.

Instead of worrying about giving corporations equal free speech rights as natural citizens, the Congress should be focused upon making sure that natural citizens have no less right to participate in the political process than do corporations under the Roberts Court ruling. Won’t that approach severely deplete the taxable revenue, you ask? Perhaps it would. But if that happened, it is only the necessary logical consequence of the decision and interpretation of the Supreme Court regarding citizenship under the US Constitution. Maybe the consequence of actually equalizing rights will demonstrate how absurd the reasoning and judgment of the Court was in the first place. It will not be the first time that the wisdom of experience has caused the Supreme Court to reverse itself. And the survival of the electoral process envisioned by the Founders requires…No more…No less.

A Pig With Lipstick

2010-05-01T14:16:00.002-05:00

The pundits and politicians have responded with amazing alacrity to the negative public response to the Arizona Immigration Enforcement Act that frees local law enforcement officials to target, harass and arrest any person that they “suspect” may be an undocumented foreigner. Since the act of walking down the street or sitting in a restaurant is all that is required to entail potential felony liability, the State of Arizona has entrusted the determination of “probable cause” to the subjective judgment and prejudice of each local cop. The Governor, upon signing the law admitted that she had no idea how to fairly enforce the law or to constrain the ethnic biases of the police officers entrusted to apply it. Honestly, how many blond haired and blue eyed pale complexion people do you think will be detained? Given this sweeping detention authority and the inability of top State officials to explicate any rational assurance that it is even possible to enforce it in a Constitutional and non-discriminatory manner, it is logical that protesters would suggest that it would be prudent to avoid traveling in Arizona as long as the law is on the books. Now the politicians come forward to argue that a Boycott would be unfair and ineffective. They even argue that the Boycott would harm those it seeks to support. These arguments are both facile and false. They are akin to trying to “put lipstick on a pig.”

Those that argue that the Boycott would be counterproductive seek to deflect the core issue and stand it on its head. They argue that a Boycott would be “unfair” and (if you can believe it) “discriminatory.” For any rational person who seeks to avoid mistreatment and harassment, it would seem entirely fair and just to avoid a State which has endorsed an open license to harass individuals based upon skin color or any other predilection the police officer may use to justify “suspicion” of illegal status. If this were an action or policy of a single business or establishment, consumers and the public could simply avoid visiting the enterprise or using its products. But in the present case, the ENTIRE STATE of Arizona has adopted this odious policy and practice. If Arizona citizens believe that the consequence of the law their duly elected representative and Governor have approved, then the remedy they should seek is to communicate to those officials that they disapprove of the policy. But to cry foul to those who would be discriminatorily subjected to the law is absurd. Do not blame the victim. As the quote attributed to Edmund Burke says: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” If you believe it is wrong, then fix it and stop squealing.

The argument that the Boycott would hurt Latinos because the shift of conventions and business away from Arizona will reduce employment in industries like hotels, restaurants and convention centers is even more misguided. This is indeed a twist of sophistry. First, we have to assume that the workers in those industries are legal employees and have the right to vote. If they are not, then it would be hypocrisy for Arizona not to be focused upon the employers who hire undocumented workers, rather than individuals on the street. Yet we know of the hypocrisy in Arizona of politicians who decry illegal immigrants while taking campaign contributions from businesses that profit from underpaying the illegals they employ. But more to the point, the victims of the law and the target of support the Boycott aims to support is virtually every citizen, and especially citizens who are of color. It is by no means clear or logical how advocating Boycott of a state that openly discriminates against brown skinned people would be against their interests, or the interests of all people who hold some genuine belief in equality and non-discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity.

Former Presidential candidate, John McCain advances the argument that the issue of Arizona’s refusal to adopt a holiday for Martin Luther King, as virtually every other state had done, is different from the present situation and that a Boycott is unjustified. Let us set aside for a moment whether McCain was in favor of, or against, the King Holiday Boycott. Many who would try this argument are the same people who fervently opposed honoring the slain Civil Rights leader. The truth is that the issues are not, at the core, different. The State of Arizona has given voice and sinew to the underlying racial prejudice and ethnic bias held by the apparent majority of citizens and voters of that State. That was the message from the people of Arizona two decades ago, and it apparently has not changed despite the passage of time or even the national election of a President of color. McCain would distort the issue and claim that the Boycott is in support of illegal immigration status, as compared to a fallen hero who fought for justice and equality. While it is true that many supporters of the proposed Boycott would like to see due process and fair administration of justice applied to ALL, they do not advocate that immigration restrictions be abandoned. Those who support the Boycott want the same respect for all, regardless of the color of their skin, as did Dr. Martin Luther King. Any law that blatantly defies and violates that basic principle of humanity and social justice should be opposed. And it is the State of Arizona, the home of Sen. McCain that has adopted such a measure.

Finally, there is the question of impact. The politicians and the heads of tourism for Arizona are concerned that the Boycott relating to the King Holiday cost the city of Phoenix alone almost $200 Million. It took considerable time to recover that loss in revenue even after the State reversed course. That impact certainly affected jobs, and some such jobs were held by Latinos and people of color. Yet the facts tell us that Arizona has been experiencing a loss of workers for several years, since the inception of the public campaign against brown skinned people. One report cited concerns by Arizona manufacturing companies that were losing experienced craftsmen and supervisors, who happened to be Hispanic and had legal status, because those workers were moving to Nevada and other places to avoid racism. If the law is to be a permanent fixture instead of a public relations gimmick for political gain, then anyone living in Arizona should be able to plan their life and future around the social and political environment of that State. It would be foolish to think that the Arizona legislature will voluntarily repeal that measure, and the court system is slow and uncertain as a remedy. Indeed the current US Supreme Court seems to provide no great hope for relief in matters of racial and ethnic justice or due process for the individual against corporate driven political interests. So a shift of workers of color from the State of Arizona is a sad but logical and direct consequence of the legislative measure. The removal of professional sports franchises should, but will not likely, be another consequence of the measure. Many athletes, their friends, families and the multitude of fans that are of color do not deserve to be treated with disrespect. And it certainly is not beyond logic to assume that local police would try to use a sporting event that draws many thousands of people to a central location as a tool for conducting a “sweep” to detain and harass “suspected” undocumented persons. When is the last time you took your passport to a sporting event?

Just as the legislators who pushed for and adopted the law should have thought about the logical and inevitable consequences [short and long term] of enacting the law, the organizers of the Boycott should also assume and plan for short and long term impact. Contact with employers outside Arizona should be coordinated so that those areas can take advantage of the potential recruiting opportunity to lure experienced workers to their states and companies. Neighboring states like California, Nevada and New Mexico could benefit from a shift of investment and increase in production capability. While it may sound cynical, even bigots can benefit from the proposed Boycott. An exodus from the State would cause a further drop in the price of homes and make it easier for those who harbor the same prejudice as the supporters of the law to afford homes. Many experienced workers, from laborers to managers, would welcome the offer to move themselves and their families to a different state where the collective voice of the people has declared: “Show us your papers; we don’t want you here!”

Travel Advisory!

2010-04-27T20:34:00.002-05:00

People of “a certain age” (myself included) remember when it was common knowledge that persons whose skin was darker than a very mild tan should take care in traveling in territories of the USA south of Nebraska or Maryland and in areas less populated than major cities. I personally recall traveling by car with my grandfather to Louisiana, to visit relatives, and having to sleep in the car because even third rate hotels and motels would not rent a room to two respectable and reasonably well dressed persons [one a child and the other a middle aged gentleman] driving a Cadillac. In the early 1960’s, this was considered “normal” social behavior for white folks and something to be accepted by people of color “or else.”

One would think that the sacrifice and struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, the deaths of Rev. King, Bobby Kennedy, three little Black girls in Alabama and many others might have awakened a sense of morality and elevated social decency in the US populace at large. Some people rejoiced in the election of Barack Obama, a person of color, as US President. They apparently believed that the election was a watershed moment in which the US had put behind the virulent racism that motivated social and political policies of the past. Much to their dismay, these optimists may be terribly wrong.

The State of Arizona has enacted an authoritarian, at best, [perhaps Nazi is more apt] system that enables and encourages police to stop and question any person who does not look “American” [substitute “Aryan”] to require that they prove their US citizenship. Anyone who actually believes that the Arizona police will be detaining white folks under the law is hopelessly naïve or simply self deluded. The so-called “probable cause” the Arizona cops will be looking for will be skin color and physical features that suggest Hispanic ethnicity. Virtually every published statement by Arizona authorities makes reference to “illegal aliens” and equates the term with Mexican or Hispanic origin. Now there are many US citizens who happen to be of Hispanic ancestry, just as there are of Asian, Eastern European and Southern European and just about every other background. So how do you profile a non-citizen on sight? An equally mystical question is how the State of Alabama plans to “train” its law enforcement officials to spot illegal immigrants, as opposed to simply targeting brown skinned folks who do not appear to be upper middle class.

One commentator provided cogent documentation and historical analysis that suggests that racism is only the tip of the cynical iceberg in official Arizona politics. The current Arizona governor, when Secretary of State, improperly kicked many thousands from the voter rolls; and a very substantial portion of those removed were persons with Hispanic surnames. Then when these people sought to re-register to vote, many experienced rejection of their application, despite ability to establish citizenship. This history suggests that the broader agenda is to intimidate and keep Hispanic citizens from voting. After all, who wants to be harassed by police, even when trying to exercise legitimate rights of citizenship? Now it is probably true that the right wing Gestapo-like tactics and the hate mongering by right wing fringers [egged on by GOP leaders and spokespersons] have not endeared the GOP to many Hispanic potential voters. So preventing them from voting probably favors GOP candidates. But at some point there needs to be a choice whether the US Constitution still means anything of substance, or whether it is simply cute wallpaper suitable for framing, but little else.

If the State of Arizona were honest and sincere about a legal measure to identify and prosecute illegal immigrants, it could have used existing laws to systematically inspect and monitor every business establishment that has employees. The existing law requires employers to check I-9 documentation respecting persons that are employed. In that circumstance, EVERY person of any race, religion or walk of life would be monitored to confirm legal status and authorization to work in the US. The penalty would properly fall upon companies that encourage and support illegal immigration.

But the business community that survives and thrives from the employment of non-documented immigrants has not and would not stand for such enforcement measures. It is easier and more profitable to support the racist blowhards and hate mongers while quietly employing illegal immigrants at substandard wages and disingenuously proclaiming “patriotism.” Green, after all, is the only color that they respect.

For now, however, anyone [non-Aryan] considering traveling to or even passing through Arizona should be forewarned. The summer brings tourist season and travel. There are 49 other US states in which a citizen is not required to produce a birth certificate or a passport to prove citizenship simply to walk on the sidewalk or drive a car. A prudent traveler would do very well to plan accordingly and avoid Arizona at all costs. The government of Mexico has already issued an advisory to its citizens that travel to Arizona should be avoided, and all other Latin American nations would do well to follow that prudent example. Indeed the US Department of State should issue a similar advisory to its own citizens inside the USA, as it does to citizens in other countries, to avoid trouble areas in which USA citizens may be subject to inconvenience and potential law enforcement harassment.

Link Posting- Tea Party / Black Tea?

2010-04-24T15:30:00.003-05:00

My son graciously sent me the following posting that I think is important to share with you. I did not write it, Tim Wise wrote the piece. But it deserves to be forwarded, read, discussed an thought about as widely as possible.

It has been said that a greater threat to democracy than those who do evil, are those of good will who see and recognize evil and yet say nothing and do nothing. Wherever you are, speak out!

"Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" - Tim Wise

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.

Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.

Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.

Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”

Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

Game Over.
http://ephphatha-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html

The Skinny on Plus Size Advertising

2010-04-24T08:50:00.002-05:00

It would seem to the objective observer that Media Network Management, ABC [Disney] and FOX in particular, have gotten so deep in denial that they simply cannot recognize truth, reality or reason. The latest flap comes over the refusal of the networks to air commercials for lingerie sold by Lane Bryant, the seller of “plus sized” clothing for women. The lingerie ads come at a time when the airwaves are inundated with sexually implicit and physically explicit ads hawking perfumes and intimate wear in advance of Mother’s Day consumerism. Lane Bryant accuses the networks of rejecting, demanding edits and delaying broadcast of ads because the Executives do not consider plus sized women to be appropriate images of “beauty” or “sexiness” that should be shown to the public. Network Executives deny the allegation and claim that they applied the same standards as to all other advertising.

Hold the phone! Do these network mavens not realize that anyone with an IQ above 50 can simply take a look at the Lane Bryant ads and the other fare currently being freely aired (for example the ads for J’Adore or Irresistible perfumes & Victoria Secret)? Even a moment’s viewing will expose the patent discrepancy and hypocrisy in the network’s claim. If the models are wafer thin, they are considered sexy and beautiful. But if the model is normal sized [let’s be honest, most women are not sized 0-4 like the Victoria Secret and perfume ad models], the exposure of the same sexy format is deemed too salacious or indecent to televise.

A couple of years ago, the fashion industry running the show in Barcelona attempted to back away from the destructive ideology of “women’s fashion” by requiring that exhibitors could not use models unless they had a body mass index that was not emaciated or anorexic. While this effort failed to gain industry acceptance around the globe, it was at least a clear admission of the unspoken strategy to make women feel insecure and inadequate with their normal weight and size. This recent action by the ABC and FOX network executives only completes the admission. Their message is simple: If you are thin, you can be beautiful, but If you wear a size 10 or up, the display of your body is not only unsexy, but indecent.

The ultimate question, however, is whether women of all shapes and sizes will recognize this insult and assault on their collective self esteem. Will women object to the double standard and discriminatory filtering on publicly aired television? Or will they meekly accept the “status quo” and self-deprecatory message that the networks are broadcasting? Will they declare their outrage over the mistreatment, covered up by outright lies and dissembling justifications? Or will they go buy more diet pills, cellulite reducing creams and spend more time in the gym trying to look like the skinny models they see on TV, but whose shape they will never attain? It was not always thus, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield and Raquel Welch were not size 2 women, and they were some of the most iconic beauties of their time.

Can we really blame the media for this destructive campaign if the women who are targeted by it quietly accept the mistreatment? After all, if the image and message sells products to women, it is doing its intended job. Whether or not it is moral or healthy matters little to profit oriented Executives when even the most deleterious actions actually work. As soon as women collectively decide not to accept this open and public denigration, the networks will have no choice but to change. I will be marching with them in protest, though they won’t need my help. For it is about women defining who they are and not what men want or how Ad Men would define them. And as to female Executives and apologists for the ABC and FOX [note how they cynically put women out front to explain and defend their actions], we can only say: “shame on you!”

The “Blind Side” and the Plebiscite

2010-04-05T06:11:00.002-05:00

Both the movie going public and Hollywood seem to have embraced the recent picture starring Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side” but both seem to have failed to look beneath the surface to the more important lessons to be learned from the entertaining experience of the movie. In times of challenge and strife, the US public loves to embrace “feel good” movies that represent some of the better values to which the public might aspire. In the movie, a White suburban wife challenges her family to take in a young Black man, Michael Oher, who literally has no place else to go. The young man is able to reach his potential and the wealthy White family both learns and grows from the experience. Based upon a true events [with liberal Hollywood artistic license taken] the story is about, but ultimately transcends race. The heroine, played by Bullock neither loses sight of her humanity, nor is she willing to be bullied or persuaded by her peer group to ignore that humanity. One might argue that the hero is the young Black man who takes what life has given him and never really gives up a belief that something good will come of life, no matter how unlikely that may seem. And one may also argue that the true hero of the story is the young son of the family who befriends Michael Oher without artifice or guile and never seems to see race as an issue. Michael goes on to become a successful student and athlete who is ultimately drafted by the NFL and plays pro football.

But beneath the surface of the movie lie more significant messages and questions. If Michael had not been a rare physical specimen with athletic potential, would any of the Whites reached out to him to help a child survive and succeed in that society? Why was the Sandra Bullock character set in a wealthy suburb with a multimillion dollar home? Would any White private “Christian” school today really take a chance on a homeless and destitute Black child like Michael unless he had the likely potential to excel in sports? And most important, what does the movie say about the hundreds of thousands of young Black, Hispanic, Asian and White children in similar circumstances to those faced by Michael? Is the movie a representation of real hope in US society, or simply a cruel Hollywood hoax?

The reality in US society today seems quite different from the ethic depicted in the movie. Millions of children are homeless in the USA today and without their most basic needs of survival and care being met. Until passage of the recent Health Care Reform legislation, those children did not even have hope of access to basic medical care that they would likely need as a result of their destitution and living conditions. Yet instead of reaching out to those children, adults organized in unruly mobs to shout racial slurs and epithets at the legislators who voted to extend at least some measure of basic support to those children. The media pundits and prognosticators are treating such rabble as a “political movement” likely to challenge sitting Congressmen in the Fall 2010 elections, rather than as a small and insular group of mindless hooligans making fools of themselves. Some pundits tout the group as symbolic of the voice of the “average American.” Sandra Bullock, the star actress who won the Oscar for her portrayal of the wife who took in Michael, has no children of her own and is being challenged for not really being the “perfect wife” in the tabloids because of the infidelity of her husband. The media loves to tear down anything and the public appetite for such destruction seems endless.

Now it must be noted, in fairness, that the corporate control of media requires reservation before adopting its line as a true representation of the public spirit and the public will. The same media pundits seriously doubted that the US public would ever really vote to elect a non White President. The same media has spared no expense in attacking President Obama, perhaps in an effort to show that it was on the right side of the issue and the public should not have elected a Black or non White President. This media would claim that the average American is now gathering in the shadow of the Capitol to yell “Nigger” and “Faggot” at duly elected Congressmen going to vote in favor of legislation that would not only help millions of children like Michael Oher, but also provide benefits to these same protesters if they should happen to fall seriously ill or lose health insurance through their job. That conduct is a far cry from the selfless humanity portrayed by Bullock in the movie, and it does not even approach enlightened self interest – the American value supposed to undergird the democratic process.

The real question and the true plebiscite presented for the Fall elections is whether the media and the pundits are correct in proclaiming that the Tea Party and protesters like those who gathered on the Capitol, and the 14 Attorneys General who have sued to overturn the law actually do represent the current spirit and character of the “American People.” Each voter should ask him or herself, when entering the voting booth, whether their personal values, ethics and character are better represented by the family in “The Blind Side” movie or by the group of mean spirited and hate filled hooligans who gathered outside the Capitol. Would you rather be like the Sandra Bullock character or like Sarah Palin? Given what is at stake in the recovery of the country, economically and morally, this is no simple Hollywood poll.

It may prove true that “Average Americans” have become a mean spirited and hate filled mob that is more interested in being against something than in favor of anything representing the common welfare, for that is the rhetoric and agenda of the Tea Party and the leadership it appears to follow, even to the point of speeches advocating armed violence against elected officials who disagree with them. This is becoming a question that defines a divided Nation in which major social legislation must be passed without a single vote of bipartisan support. It has been said in times of prior division and heated public discourse in the USA that: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Which of these two visions does the American voting public truly hold? The question goes to the very heart of what the United States of American really is at present and whether it ever hopes to return to the values of fairness, opportunity and justice upon which it proclaimed freedom and strove to be a beacon of liberty.

Through The Looking Glass Darkly

2010-03-20T20:35:00.003-05:00

Looking in the mirror can sometimes be a painful act. For those with courage, a pause at the looking glass provides a vision of public discourse in the United States and what divisive Right Wing politics hath wrought. As elected representatives of the US Congress tried to cross streets of Capitol Hill to their offices, the following scenes unfolded.

Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., told a reporter that as he left the Cannon House Office Building with Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leader of the civil rights era, some among the crowd chanted "the N-word, the N-word, 15 times." Both Carson and Lewis are black, and Lewis spokeswoman Brenda Jones also said that it occurred."It was like going into the time machine with John Lewis," said Carson, a large former police officer who said he wasn't frightened but worried about the 70-year-old Lewis, who is twice his age. "He said it reminded him of another time."

Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said a protester spit on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who is black. Clyburn, who led fellow black students in integrating South Carolina's public facilities a half century ago, called the behavior "absolutely shocking." "I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus," Clyburn told reporters.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, said protesters shouted "abusive things" to him as he walked from the Longworth building to the Rayburn building. "

Whether this type of activity is rejected or actually supported by the unified GOP leadership and caucus who have been rallying this type of constituency in opposition to Health Care Reform legislation is evidenced by the fact that the news report yielded not one statement of condemnation by the GOP leaders. In their eyes, this must seem like fair minded public debate, despite the fact that some of the overt actions by the crowd may border on hate crimes under existing legislation. The police apparently contained the boisterous crowd and used restraint in dealing with the more aggressive protesters.

While race and affectional preference have absolutely nothing to do with the substantive elements of the proposed legislation, the resort to hateful personal attacks on the legislators based upon race and sexual preference show the low minded and desperate nature of the protesters. It also suggests the emptiness of their arguments in opposition to the legislation. The opposition, grounded primarily upon resistance to ANY progressive legislation proposed by President Obama, has caused a regression in the character and quality of public discourse to a time reminiscent of the Pre-Civil Rights era. It exposes the dark and ugly underbelly of the Republican Party and its agenda. Whether such racist attitudes lie at the core of the GOP agenda, or if the GOP simply sees fit to stoop to the low level of using these sordid mobs as surrogates, the result makes little difference.

The state of affairs is indeed deplorable when major legislation that affects the fundamental well being of millions of US citizens and is focused upon the question of the role of the federal government as an active agent in attempting to address the common welfare faces a stone wall of opposition from GOP legislators. The fact that not a single GOP legislator is willing to exercise free will and the courage to support the legislation on its merits suggests that the GOP has abandoned any guise of acting as responsible representatives in the best interests of the public. If this were a true philosophical debate, there would be a plurality of positions in the GOP caucus, with the majority lining up in opposition. But unequivocal resistance and blind opposition strongly suggest that the vote turns on an agenda other than the merits of health care reform.

It is indeed a sad commentary that both parties have allowed the country to sink so low. Whether the country can ever again return to a level of debate and public service ethics, when representatives were more interested in the common good derived from fair and open minded debate than in the status of their campaign treasuries and relations with lobbyists who would stuff those accounts with cash, is a question that the clouded mirror does not allow us to see. But what is certain is that the current corrupt and morally depleted system will likely continue until the electorate demands better. Yet it will certainly take a more intelligent and more civil electorate that those protesting at the Capitol to bring about such improvements.

[Footnote: GOP leader, Rep Boehner, today -Sunday Mar. 21- effectively endorsed the tactics of the racist mobs on Capitol Hill claiming that they represented confirmation of his party's conviction that "the people" of the US do not want Health care reform legislation to pass.]

Throwing The Bath Out With The Baby.

2010-03-20T11:31:00.005-05:00

The current negotiations with so-called Conservative Democrats to get sufficient votes to pass the Health Care reform legislation reminds one of the verity of the following adage: “There are two things you do not want to watch being made, sausage and legislation.” The process is ugly and we would rather not be exposed to the ugly and sometime disgusting steps in the process.

Rep. Stupak is apparently trying to hold the legislation and potential health care benefits for millions of US citizens hostage over language that MIGHT allow some insured to obtain a pregnancy termination procedure that is covered or partly covered by insurance premiums that MAY OR MAY NOT be subsidized by federal funds. As such, Stupak’s position is not about principles, not about health and welfare of his constituents or the public and not really even about abortion. First of all EXISTING US policy prevents the expenditure of federal funds for abortion procedures, so the posturing by Stupak is unnecessary. The Catholic Church, which opposes abortion on doctrinal or dogmatic grounds, has not declared opposition to legislation that will insure 30 million more people and save millions of lives.

His position is simply about public posturing on a controversial issue to bring attention to himself. The patients who may get federal support for a medical procedure that should be a personal choice will be denied that option if Stupak is successful. At the same time, the clumsy nature of legislation will also deprive many women of health care whether or not they arrive at the decision to seek to terminate a pregnancy, by choice or of necessity. To comply with the type of restrictions Stupak is demanding, insurance companies will be required to impose blanket exclusions for pregnancy related care. Health care providers fearing sanctions or loss of reimbursement will decline to see or treat women at the prenatal stage in order to assure that they do not get involved in a pregnancy termination. Arguments that the providers could review procedure records after the fact and then deny reimbursement are naïve and unrealistic. Stupak is seeking not only to deny funding, but to insure that no pregnancy termination procedures occur under the aegis of federally subsidized insurance coverage.

The problem with these tactics and grandstanding is that such measures have never had any real impact on the availability or performance of abortion procedures. Nor have they even attempted to address the social and medical issues that lead up to a woman’s decision whether to have an abortion. Let us set aside the very real question whether including the types of provisions that Stupak seeks are unconstitutional attempts to “establish religion” through federal statutes. The more practical question is why the entire legislation should be held hostage to the inclusion of language that is ineffectual even for the purported reason it is advanced. Millions of children will be denied preventive as well as remedial health care because Stupak wants to make a personal political statement. That makes no sense, logically, ethically, politically or morally. Were his objections based upon the cost of the legislation, that it fails to contain measures that would effectively deliver what it promises, or even that the government should not be in the business of providing health insurance subsidies his opposition could be rationalized as legislative discretion. But holding legislation hostage over a point that will not be achieved even if his demands are met is irresponsible.

The greater question is why the Democratic leadership feels the need to negotiate with this type of political or legislative terrorist? The label may seem harsh, but what else would you call someone who seeks deliberately to cause the death and denial of necessary health services to millions of innocent people simply to make a political statement? Other Representatives who either support the right of women to make personal decisions about medical procedures with the aid of their physicians, and others who recognize that the demands of Stupak are pointless from a practical standpoint, ought simply to say that THEY will oppose the legislation IF the Stupak demands are appeased. They should also state quite clearly that the reason for their position and the potential failure of the legislation must be laid directly at the feet of Stupak. If this Representative thinks he is playing to his constituency, then let him explain why the majority of them lack health care insurance because of his grandstanding and ego.

Dear Mr. President: Educate Yourself

2010-03-01T20:25:00.002-06:00

In several recent articles, President Obama has been reported to offer tough talk about his plans for the reauthorization of NCLB [No Child Left Behind] legislation. That law, a holdover from prior administrations and corrupted by the Bush regime, purports to hold schools accountable for raising the academic competence and performance of students. However well-intended the law may have been initially, it has generally been proven a failure in meeting the desired goals. Illogical provisions that punish and remove funding from schools that are not performing well, often because of a lack of funding in the first place, are hallmarks of the law. Now Obama states that he plans to raise the performance standards by requiring states to sign on to an agreement to establish and implement “college readiness” curricula in the schools.

To his credit, the Obama Administration has taken steps toward the carrot rather than the stick approach to gaining support and cooperation at the state and local level. Rather than threatening to take over control of under performing school districts, as Bush had done, Obama places the responsibility on the school districts and states to adopt reforms in exchange for funding incentives. No reform, no additional funding. But states that adopt new measures, embrace greater flexibility and charter schools can receive significant help from the Federal government to help implement those reforms. This can be a bit illusory in a context of a failing economy that has stretched education budgets so thin that accepting reform is a survival imperative rather than a progressive option.

But Obama’s call to require all states to adopt curricula that prepare students for college and careers may suffer from an elitist fallacy. The idyllic “American Dream” may look like sending the kids to college to become doctors and lawyers, a house in the suburbs and 2.5 children. To be sure, an education that prepares students capable of and who seek that path should be available. The reality, however, is that not all students are suited to or desire college education. A crude analogy is played out in the US medical system. Currently, there are too many surgeons and specialists and not enough General Practitioners and primary care physicians. The point is that gearing a system that trains every student to be a career professional is neither necessary nor necessarily a wise application of resources.

I am not suggesting that the curriculum be “dumbed down” or should be let off the hook in any way. At minimum every school system must prepare every one of its students with a comprehensive set of basic skills to function in society productively and in a self sustaining manner. No less effort is worthy of such a great nation as a responsibility and goal for its people. But in the process of “raising the sights,” our aim at the appropriate target has been lost and damage may ensue. If we state that going to college is the minimum requirement, then do we not also implicitly declare that any student who is not college ready is a failure? While technology is advancing at a rapid pace, there are still jobs and occupations that are very respectable and capable of sustaining families that do not require a college degree. As a K-12 teacher, I strive to maximize the potential and dreams of each and every student I am entrusted with. But not every one of my students aspires to or performs at the academic level to be successful in a liberal arts or technical college. I am loath to label these students a failure.

Perhaps this is simply a matter of semantics, but I don’t think so. For Presidential decrees and initiatives carry a heavy pressure. When former President Kennedy announced a fitness initiative, millions of US citizens took to the jogging path and bicycles. In addition, huge industries of “natural foods” products, diet pills and weight control programs were spawned. And the public began to develop an antipathy for people who were not deemed “fit.” People who were overweight though no fault of their own were discriminated against. Fashion turned even more toward anorexic models with the resulting damage to the psyches of millions of young women. So I would be reluctant to pass this off as mere semantics.

The pendulum swings back and forth. A capitalist education that was designed to simply prepare students to work in factories is hopefully a thing of the past. The age of technology has shown the way to developing students that are capable of nearly incredible new discoveries. However, in a modern society there must be room for a democratic education that leaves room and supports [not simply tolerates] persons who either lack the academic acumen or the honest desire to pursue a professional career. Those who do seek that path to higher education must be encouraged and supported. But those who do not should not be condemned or labeled as failures.

We are also learning more and more about emotional and intellectual development. More and more people are “late bloomers” who return to the educational system with a purpose and a vengeance to develop their skills and competencies. It seems wrong to impose upon them the handicap of having to overcome a stigma of being labeled a failure because they did not have the desire, vision or readiness to enter college right after high school. Mr. President, I know that it is difficult for someone whose life has been marked by an insatiable drive for self-improvement and high achievement to envision the aspirations of someone who really dreams to become a fine auto mechanic or perhaps a plumber or metalworker. Those jobs may conceivably disappear or be overtaken by technology, but it is unlikely that this will happen completely for several generations. If a student wants to pursue such a path and does not need academic performance at a level that would garner college admission, why would you want to crush that student with the stigma of failing to meet your standards?

The “WAITING GAME”

2010-02-28T06:49:00.003-06:00

Democrats in Congress showed what resembles a spine in connection with their responsibility to govern when they met to discuss possible strategies for passing legislation without GOP support. The public impatience toward Congress because of the continuing economic slump and anemic recovery demands action. The technical requirement of a super-majority of 60 votes in the Senate to move legislation forward is little understood by the average voter who maintains a simplistic idea of democracy, thinking that "majority rules." In light of the GOP resistance to any constructive measure, and rebuff of any sincere attempt to work out compromises, the Democratic leadership has begun exploring strategic ways to get some legislation passed without relying upon GOP legislators to "cross the aisle."

For all the blather about “bipartisanship” in the media, the reality is that the GOP leadership has issued a clear and unequivocal directive to its members of obstruction and obfuscation toward any initiative that relates to public spending for the benefit of the poor and average US citizen. Witness the GOP wrath directed at the rookie Senator Brown of Massachusetts for voting in support of cloture [precluding a filibuster] on a major jobs bill so that it could be voted on by the full Senate. [You may recall that I previously opined that the GOP would expect Brown to be their lap dog and follow the "party line."]

Measures like true health care reform and jobs or unemployment benefits support are prime targets. Yet the scope of the opposition is made clearer when one looks at the recent report of more than 275 legislative measures passed by the House of Representatives that are stalled in the Senate. Some measures are earmarks and pork for specialized local constituencies that deserve to wither and die, but the majority of bills are broader measures directed to helping the country recover from the years of profligacy and ineptitude of the Bush Administration and to provide immediate relief to pressing public needs. Given this “stonewalling” approach to governance by the GOP, the only logical and sensible approach for the Democrats is to proceed with the country’s business as best they can in spite of the GOP, instead of waiting for some miracle of conscience or compassion to cause a change in GOP strategy.

Consider an interesting comment by Senate Majority leader McConnell regarding the Blair House health Care Summit. He declared that there was no point in attending a Summit on health care reform sponsored by the President because the Democrats were preparing to try to pass legislation without GOP votes. Now keep in mind that the reason the Democratic strategy may be necessary is the obdurate obstructionism by the GOP and a complete unwillingness by the GOP to put forward any constructive proposal. In essence, he was saying that the GOP need not attend a meeting in which they were invited to present and responsibly discuss constructive legislation to address the health care crisis because the GOP is going to oppose any reform legislation and the democrats are preparing to circumvent that obstruction. McConnell made no mention of an intention to offer any constructive approach to health care reform.

The GOP strategy is a form of waiting game. With an inability to lead or come up with constructive ideas, Republicans are hoping to curry favor with the public in two ways. First, by obstructing any useful broad based legislation proposed by the Democratic majority, they hope to portray the Democratic leadership as ineffective in the eyes of the public. Since the public tends to hold a negative view of politicians generally and Congress in particular, the GOP believes that the public wrath can be directed toward the party in the majority. They trust that the public is too stupid to realize that the REASON for the inaction on important matters affecting the public is the GOP obstruction. In this regard, ignorance and stupidity of the electorate, recent history has proven them right. The delay tactic is positioning for the midterm elections.

Second, the GOP hopes to stall any legislation that might have a real positive impact upon the economy and the jobless rate for as long as possible. The purpose of this delay is to strengthen the argument that the responsibility for the economic crisis the country faces lies in the lap of Obama instead of the Bush Administration. This too is an effective, if cynical, ploy to manipulate public opinion. The further we are from Bush’s departure from office, the more plausible it is that people will forget the true genesis of the economic misery they are facing. The sitting President is a much more likely target for the weak minded and those with limited attention spans. And yet a failure of the current President to devise a strategy for overcoming the deliberate obstruction DOES represent a failure of leadership. It is not how good government is supposed to work, but it does indicate the depths to which the US government and the game of politics have fallen.

While this gamesmanship continues, the jobless rate remains unnecessarily and unreasonably high. The blockage of financial reform means that small businesses remain starved for credit and capital they need to revitalize the economy. Millions of families without health care insurance, joined by more families losing such benefits in the worsening economy, are threatened each day that the Congress fails to pass effective health care reform. The GOP is playing the “waiting game” in hopes that the US voters will get angrier as they stew in their misery. They are betting that the public will blame the party in the majority for failure to help, instead of the party who has obstructed every effort to help. Unless the electorate wakes up and smartens up, the GOP strategy will succeed. And we will all be the worse for it.

Mental Illness and Health Care Reform

2010-02-07T13:19:00.003-06:00

In 2009, health care spending grew by 5.7 percent, now reaching $2.5 trillion. It is the largest increase since the federal government began tracking these figures in 1960, according to a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Health care costs also made up 17.3 percent of the US's gross domestic product (GDP), which was 1.1 percent higher than in 2008. CMS's 2009-2019 projections indicate that health expenditures will continue to grow "increasingly faster," at an annual rate of 6.1 percent - 1.7 percentage points faster than annual GDP growth - and climb to $4.5 trillion.

With the loss of the Democratic 60 vote supermajority in the Senate, it seems likely that the Health Care Reform legislation passed by both houses of Congress and scheduled for Conference Committee deliberation is on terminal life support. While the legislation produced to date is a weak excuse for real reform of the industry stranglehold on the economy and well being of the public, it was a step in the right direction. Even if the Conference Committee could craft a compromise that satisfied a perceived majority and was in the best interests of the public, that compromise would have to pass both houses. The new configuration provides the GOP their coveted procedural tool of blocking any form of public oriented legislation. The lobbyists for Insurance Industry groups and major health care conglomerates like WellPoint, Humana and Blue Cross-Blue Shield, that hold legislators in their thrall [if not by their scrota] will not allow any reform to pass that might challenge their irrational profit scheme.

In an environment of recession, economic meltdown and sacrifices that have destroyed not only economic stability but even the hope of many families and households in the country, these so-called “health care industry” agents have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to preserve increasing revenues that outstrip the economy by approximately 200%. But that is not the true problem that the country and the people face.

In light of this seeming irrational imbalance of power in which the health care industry is figuratively raping the populace and at the same time excluding more and more families from basic health care, the voters are following, like a herd of lemmings, the clarion call of the Right Wing leadership to advance a campaign to block any real effort to try to restore a modicum of balance. Brown was elected as a new GOP Senator from Massachusetts to replace Ted Kennedy with the express purpose of defeating health care reform. Using fear mongering tactics about "government expense" and taxes associated with health care reform, they conveniently ignore the fact that, according to the CMS Report: “Without the passage of a health care reform bill, currently stalled in the House, public spending will comprise more than 50 percent of all national health expenditures by 2012.”

Ironically, major factors in the inexorable climb of health care costs and public spending for health care in the form of Medicare and Medicaid are: a) the amount of per patient usage and b) the rising unemployment rate from a worsening economy. In the first instance, the health care industry has managed to induce US customers to spend more than twice the average per capita amount spent by developed nations for health care, although the impact and level of overall health derived from such expense places the USA below average among the same developed nations. In the second instance, the Health Care industry has managed to profit from the disadvantage of millions of people in the US resulting from the failing economy.

Behaving as though it is experiencing a psychotic break, the public is being exhorted to get behind right wing demagogues in an effort to prevent any development or passage of legislation that might actually benefit the average citizen and which might both limit the increase in health care costs and provide basic health care coverage to all families in the country. It is only a few steps removed from the mass insanity that led the group in Jonestown to drink the lethal kool aid punch. As long as the public can be driven to mass delusional behavior, believing in actions directly contrary to their own future physical and economic health, then the health care industry will be able to exploit this public mental illness to their economic advantage. And why not? Can you name a single health care executive who does not have the best health care services available 24 hours a day for his family? How fortunate that the very people being exploited can be duped into attacking the ones seeking to help them, rather than the ones profiting from their misery.

The P. Diddy School of Business – “Bling Academy”

2010-02-02T18:07:00.002-06:00

I read a news article, or actually an “infotainment” article yesterday that made me laugh. In the article, it describes a plan by P. Diddy to form a business school for “young entrepreneurs.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I am no hater. I won’t even get down on the source of much of the entertainer’s wealth, the promotion of misogyny and violence. He does own other more “mainstream” enterprises that manufacture and sell consumer goods. If anyone wants to establish an enterprise to promote educational opportunity, I am usually one of the first in line to support such efforts. Considering the wealth that P. Diddy has gained from his entertainment career and enterprises, the benevolent idea that he may want to give something back to the community by helping inspire and support nascent Black entrepreneurs is heartwarming. So, why the chuckle, you ask?

Earlier in the week, I also read an “infotainment” article about the very same P. Diddy spending over $360,000 to buy a car for his 16 year old son. Yes, this astute businessman who would want to establish a school to communicate his ideas, values and methods to a new generation of entrepreneurs apparently has the sensibilities and the sensitivity to spend well over a third of a million dollars on one vehicle to be driven by an inexperienced 16 year old boy. The purchase was announced at the same time that millions of Haitians are homeless and starving and well over 100,000 have been confirmed dead. I can understand the deep wellsprings of a father’s love for his son. But what lesson is P. Diddy teaching his son by spending in such a profligate and irresponsible way just to demonstrate “Bling” or perhaps to buy the affection of his child. Remember that this child to whom the car is entrusted is in the highest risk rating category of all drivers. Will it be necessary to hire a bevy of bodyguards to surround the child whenever he wants to drive his new toy, in order to prevent damage to the expensive vehicle?

But more to the point, would it not have shown better judgment and parenting to buy the kid a moderately priced, say BMW or Mercedes, car and make a donation of a quarter of a million dollars to Haitian relief in his son’s name with the leftover cash? That would have done more to advance the formation of the son’s character than having the boy walking around bragging that he owns one of the most expensive cars in the world. As a proposed educator, what values and lessons can P. Diddy be expected to teach others that are less dear to him, if that is the caliber of teaching he demonstrates to his son?

Perhaps P. Diddy lives in a different world that the rest of us and has no need for regular values of honesty, compassion for fellow human beings or hard work. Considered judgment and careful planning may be outdated values in the world of P. Diddy entrepreneurs. Unreasonable risk, reckless spending and disregard of humanitarian concerns may be the touchstones of this new “school of business” that P. Diddy wants to establish. Unfortunately, the throng of wanna-be rappers, street hustlers and pseudo gangsters that emulate the image P. Diddy cultivates to promote his career and enterprises would probably be waiting in line to sign up for his business school. And if P. Diddy is true to form, he would charge them high tuition and give them nothing but smoke, in true Barnum & Bailey flim-flam style.

P. Diddy certainly has learned some lessons that his progenitors, like M.C. Hammer, failed to learn when they rose to the top of a somewhat peculiar market of entertainment. But along the way, he appears to have never learned or lost sight of some basic values that generally apply to humanity and those seeking a worthwhile role as contributors to society. There are, to be sure, people who have struck it rich by scamming and deceiving others, selling nothing for something and getting people eager to throw money to purchase that valueless “thing.” Bernie Madoff is a good example, and current heads of Wall Street concerns like Bank of America who are walking off with millions of bonus dollars essentially from scamming public taxpayers are too numerous. The DIFFERENCE is that none of these latter gentlemen are offering the pretense that they have anything to share or teach to budding entrepreneurs. They understand that their wealth and success derives from unwholesome greed and deception, from taking advantage of a defective system. Their money does not come from exceptional hard work or even superior talent. Their revenues are wholly disproportionate to the value of their service. So they have nothing of value to “teach” without exposing the chimera that has enabled them to get over.

I am not suggesting that P. Diddy is a crook like Madoff. I am suggesting that if he believes, for even a moment, that he has something of true value to provide as an educator to aspiring young business people he should think again. The judgment that allowed him to spend a third of a million dollars on a car for a 16 year old amply demonstrates his inability to guide the formation of business leaders of the future.

Two Steps Back.....

2010-01-21T16:49:00.002-06:00

"The Supreme Court in essence has ruled that corporations can buy elections. If that happens, democracy in America is over. We cannot put the law up for sale, and award government to the highest bidder." Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida) statement introducing legislation to counter the High Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The US Supreme Court has issued a ruling that effectively guts the McCain-Feingold Act which regulates campaign practices and funding in federal elections. A lower court had ruled that the broadcast of a corporate funded attack campaign advertisement against Hillary Clinton within the 30 day window preceding a federal election violated the McCain-Feingold Act. Two issues were at stake in the case.

First, and probably most important, was the question whether corporations have the same free speech rights as human citizens in the context of campaign funding. Opponents, including legal scholars, argue that corporations are fictitious “persons” or “citizens” whose rights are a creation of statute and not derived from any Constitutional principle. The limited rights created were for the purpose of allowing corporations to make legally binding agreements on behalf of the entity instead of in the name of a regular person representing the interests of the organization. In addition, corporate persons could go into a court of law to enforce those legal agreements. From its inception, the corporation acts were never intended to grant these fictitious persons the “natural rights” deemed inalienable under the Founders’ concept of government and society.

There is good reason for the distinction. Corporations were created to permit the aggregation of wealth and economic power that individuals typically could not muster. When the purpose was limited to the commercial sphere, this “accommodation” in the form of a fictitious person or entity enabled the investment of private capital to be employed for economic growth and expansion. This salutary purpose is, however, the precise reason why corporations should not be given unbridled license in the sphere of electoral politics. The ability to amass huge amounts of capital to influence or even “buy” elections distorts the electoral process and takes it out of the realm of democracy. Individuals simply cannot compete with these aggregated economic giants in trying to communicate a message relating to candidates or elections.

And there is currently a more insidious level in the communication process. The individual seeking to get his or her opinion or message to the public has to purchase airtime from the media. Aside from the obvious disadvantage in competing with corporation budgets in attempting to bid for that airtime, the media is owned and controlled by corporations. This incestuous relationship of corporate campaign funding through corporate owned media conglomerates further excludes the individual citizen from the democratic electoral process.

"With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” President Barack Obama

The Supreme Court ruled that corporate speech could be regulated through “disclaimer and disclosure” requirements, but could not be precluded altogether. The Court did not squarely address how such disclosure requirements, such as the name of the organization sponsoring the advertisement, would counter the damage or imbalance when the corporate speech is effectively the only message broadcast.

Ironically, those Justices who rant most audibly against judicial legislation and in favor of “strict construction” or “original intent” look like the most shallow hypocrites by turning their backs on the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution in order to accommodate the interests of the corporate elite.

The second issue in the case relates to the window of 30 days prior to elections in which certain types of advertisement are banned under the McCain-Feingold Act. Logically, if Corporations are free to spend as much as they like on campaign ads, then we can expect a barrage of attack ads up to the opening of polls in future elections. Since there will be virtually no time to investigate blatantly false, misleading and even fraudulent ads until after the election has been held and the damage done, the Supreme Court can reasonably be said to have sold and subverted the democratic electoral process. On its face, this is not a partisan issue because progressive messages could be broadcast as easily as right wing advertisements. However, experience tells us that corporations nearly always favor deregulation, reduction of protections for average citizens and government interference only for the purpose of granting corporate subsidies.

The idea that corporate funding in elections would go to support candidates who favor environmental controls, fair trade regulation, restrictions on Wall Street and Investment practices, universal health care, additional public support for education of our children or any other concept directed to public well-being is fanciful at best and more aptly described as delusional. Corporations have no ethics, conscience or moral constraints as natural citizens are believed to have. Corporations only have economic interests. This is no more a condemnation than is the assertion that cars have no emotions, it is simply a fact due to the inherent nature of the thing.

That is why cases like the Ford Pinto case, deadly drug recalls, Bhopal, Black lung cases, Asbestos Cases, Exxon-Valdiz and a host of other remedial lawsuits have been necessary. Corporations act to increase and protect corporate profits, even if it means the death or destruction of thousands of human lives. A Corporation cannot be subjected to the theoretical deterrent of the death penalty for acts of intentional murder. A corporation cannot even be effectively put to death to prevent future crimes or reckless behavior. Its shareholders simply incorporate or “reincarnate” the entity and continue on with business as usual.

Congress was designed to provide a House of Representatives to balance lawmaking with the voice of individual citizens. Perhaps a third House of Congress needs to be established to channel the voice and representation of corporations. Then corporate funding would have to be directed only to election of representatives speaking and acting in behalf of these “corporate citizens.” Without some form of alteration, however, the current electoral process has just been destroyed and sold to the highest corporate bidder.

Bye Bye Miss American Pie – or – Death of the Commonwealth

2010-01-20T13:16:00.003-06:00

If one is to believe the “national consensus” as reflected in the “dialogue” of the Blogosphere and internet commentary, the events in Massachusetts are a fitting memorial to the death of a republican democracy, a true “Commonwealth.” In the main, the rhetoric of these commentaries is characterized by self-righteous and self-centered “nattering nabobs of negativity,” to borrow a phrase from former GOP Vice president Spiro Agnew. Government can do nothing right when it attempts to aid the jobless, homeless, aged or infirm. We are urged to ignore years of destructive and divisive policies by the former Administration that pushed a solvent nation into near bankruptcy, lost or wasted jobs at a rate in excess of three quarters of a million or more each month, expended billions of dollars every month to support a war effort that was proven to be fraudulently and unnecessarily started in Iraq, and guided financial markets to a point where pensioners lost a minimum of one-third of the value of their retirement savings or benefits. Attempts to ameliorate the devastation wrought by such faulty and mean spirited policies and incompetent stewardship are attacked as “too costly” or because they failed to remedy over a decade of damage in less than one year.

The legacy of the Kennedys is hallmarked by the phrase coined by former President, John F. Kennedy, when he chided and challenged the American people to “ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country.” It was a philosophy, belief and commitment that the collective good will of the American people, when channeled through the reasonably efficient machinery of government, could improve life for the citizens of the country and give hope to the world. Robert Kennedy, prior to his assassination, used his power and talents to try to shape government policy in the direction of providing equal rights and equal protection under the law to all citizens. Ted Kennedy, the last of the brethren clan gave his last full measure and his dying breath to see the enactment of legislation that would bring universal health care to the USA, the richest and most powerful so-called developed nation lacking such fundamental regard for the well-being of its people.

Now Massachusetts has turned its back on Ted Kennedy and elected a GOP senator who is almost certain to derail the dream that Teddy fought tirelessly for decades to bring to fruition. While brain cancer technically laid the "Lion of the Senate" to rest, it is perhaps best that he did not live to see his constituency stab him in the back and turn from his values as they have done.

As a practical matter, what Freshman Senator Brown thinks is irrelevant. His ego may cause him to believe that his personal views matter, but his party affiliation is all that really does count. He is merely a tool of the GOP and the Health Insurance lobby to sabotage the health care legislation. As a new senator of the minority party, he cannot realistically be expected to achieve or even try passage of any meaningful personal initiative. As the 41st GOP vote in the opposition bloc, he can be expected to do exactly as he is told and support the obstruction of any and every progressive or citizen oriented initiative of the White House or the Democratic Majority in Congress. In 2012, the citizens of Massachusetts may recognize their folly and elect a different senator to represent their interests, but the damage will have been done. It will be interesting to see how hard the GOP fights and how much they are willing to spend to actually retain the Brown US Senate seat at that time.

Let us be frank, the GOP is intelligent. As a party of leadership, they have proven repeatedly to be a failure in the last three decades. They understand that limitation. While Democrats cannot claim any great comfort in their leadership accomplishments, there is a record of at least trying to make the life of US citizens as a whole better. For all his faults, Clinton left the nation with a positive budget and a relatively stable economy. The subsequent Administration turned that surplus into a staggering deficit by granting tax cuts that the country could not afford to people and corporations that did not need them. No, leadership is not the objective, that would be too difficult and require more work and more risk.

Instead, the GOP has adopted a strategy of negation and negativity. Consider the children playing on the beach. How easy it is for the belligerent bully to knock down the hours of effort spent by a child constructing a sand castle. And if the child tries again to construct anything of beauty or value, the bully can knock it down and destroy it in seconds. Maybe the sand castle was not of the best design, but it was a positive effort to build something. The bully stands by the side, proud of his efforts, but never having to build or defend anything worthwhile. His sole accomplishment is to destroy and frustrate constructive effort.

Look at the record, if you think this assessment unduly harsh. Other than some earmarks and pork for his home state, I have struggled to identify a single constructive initiative by Mitch McConnell. The former Senate majority leader was known, not for any constructive legislation, but rather for browbeating and intimidating fellow GOP members into submission to his will or whimsy. Until beaten down by criminal prosecution for his misconduct, he was justifiably known as "The Hammer." There have been Senators who have made furtive attempts to cross the aisle in the interests of the people of the country as a whole, but they have been chastised, ostracized and punished by GOP leadership for doing so. Witness the public opprobrium heaped upon Sen. Collins and Sen. Snowe of Maine for supporting full consideration of the Health care legislation on the senate floor. This despite their equivocation and backpedaling that they had not committed to vote for the legislation, but only to enable it to be debated openly. Their votes really symbolized only a rejection of blind, mindless opposition and obstruction. They were brought to heel on the final vote.

On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats need to shoulder blame as well. They were elected and given a majority mandate. they promised to act with vision and courage to repair serious damage by the prior Administration and to change the course of the country back to one in which the collective well being, the “Commonwealth,” once again meant something real. Weak kneed pandering to GOP representatives who had already openly declared that there was “No set of circumstances" under which the GOP would support an Administration health care initiative, was a mistake. The Democrats failed to move forward with a reasonable measure, regardless of GOP opposition. They instead allowed that measure to be shot down by unified GOP obstruction and disinformation. They opted to risk the measure being undermined by allowing the GOP time to expend hundreds of millions in lobbying funds to sabotage the effort, while pretending to “bipartisanship.” If the GOP threatened filibuster, make the issues clear and let them go on public TV. No matter how much sophistry they might employ, their fundamental opposition to any measure that would benefit average citizens in favor of protecting the interests of large corporate and private investment campaign donors would smell so ripe that even the least sophisticated citizen would have to detect it. Their argument is tautological. Because GOP Administrations have failed to provide for the common good, government is incapable of working for the common good.

But the Obama Administration has generally walked in the same path as his predecessor in too many ways. He has failed to make a clear and instill faith in his promise to end the phony and expensive military escapade in Iraq. Indeed he is embarking on another costly adventure in Afghanistan. He appointed the foxes to oversee the hen house in the financial industry, and we are still seeing executives rewarded with multi-million dollar bonuses while reporting billion dollar losses, after being bailed out by public taxpayer funds. The sham of military trials for GITMO detainees continues to mock the fundamental values and principles of the American Justice system. And no effort has been made to hold prior Administration officials accountable for clearly provable criminal actions. An ethic of non-accountability and a philosophy of "it doesn't matter what I should do, it only matters what I can get away with" carries over into much of the current Administration. It is no wonder the public has lost faith in all quarters of the government, at least based upon what they have seen for the past 13 years. But just because this is what HAS happened, does not mean that this is what MUST happen.

The pundits would have us believe that support for the jobless and universal health care are unworthy and unachievable goals, despite steps in the direction of both having seen some success. But perceptions can too quickly become reality in the political sphere. If the Democrats continue to act without spine and without principles, they very well could play into the GOP strategy and lose the Congressional majority. The GOP does not want or need the White House [consider McCain’s running mate] to achieve its goals. It needs only a sufficient voting block to obstruct or derail any Administration initiative. The democrats appear to lack the stomach and the nerve to take the initiative and the fight to the GOP and publicly expose them.

If we look behind the curtain of the loud mouthed spokespersons attacking the progressive agenda, we see how little they really have in common with the “people” they purport to speak for. When is the last time Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck ever entertained a concern about health care or unemployment benefits? [While Limbaugh’s did have concerns about obtaining his OxyContin legally, this was not an economic issue.] When is the last time either of them had to manage a small business payroll? I recall Jesse Ventura running for Governor of Minnesota pledging to end student aid subsidies [Jesse never went to college] and obtaining support from misguided college aged students, the primary beneficiaries of such public support. Perhaps these college students thought it was a rerun of "Animal House." But in any event, so many people were swayed to act and vote directly contrary to their self interest and the interests of average people generally. People who fail to hang together, as the saying goes, are likely to hang separately. And the current plight of the individual families all across the USA attests to the wisdom of that adage.

This can only occur in an environment where all faith and trust in a government’s ability to protect and advance the common well being of its citizens has been abandoned. This is not a time for alarmist rants, but it is a time for cold eyed and realistic assessment. The title of “United” should legitimately be removed from the name of a nation in which a policy of “every man for himself” prevails. And the government should be ashamed to proclaim a Judeo-Christian foundation when the admonitions of Jesus concerning care for the poor and “whatsoever thou doest unto the least” of my people are rejected as unworthy values. If that kind of nation is not truly what the people want, then they should wake up and realize that it is what they currently HAVE and get to work changing the status quo.

Say It Ain’t So….

2010-01-17T12:03:00.002-06:00

Despite continual protests that it is unfair or untrue that the media and US society has a virulent racist undercurrent, repeated experience tells us that the charge rings true. Consider the recent and ongoing tragedy in Haiti. Tens of thousands of people are already confirmed dead. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced and without adequate food, water and shelter. It is, by any human standard, a tragedy warranting an international outpouring of assistance.

What is the response of the US mainstream media? Alleged Christian and televangelist Pat Robertson makes a public statement that the Haitian people deserved this calamity because of some “pact with the Devil” made to free the Haitian people from oppression by the French colonizers. Rush Limbaugh, that sage of the GOP limelight, announced that US citizens need not worry about giving aid to the sufferers in Haiti because the US government has already provided some foreign aid to Haiti. And today MSNBC features a “top story” attacking an aid foundation led by Haitian born recording artist Wyclef Jean. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Aside from the abject and deplorable ignorance of Robertson regarding some alleged superstition, making an announcement that the people of Haiti deserved such a disastrous fate at a time when calls have gone out for immediate international relief aid is, at best, monstrous. It is insensitive and falls outside the realm of acceptable human behavior. If that is the mindset and the value system of Robertson and his true believers, it is a wonder that the Bible does not shrivel up on his desk or in his pocket. What WOULD Jesus do in response to such human suffering? Would he have turned his back and declared that they victims deserved to suffer? I think not.

Rush Limbaugh may have been on another of his drug induced stupors when he announced that aid was not really needed, in the face of clear and irrefutable evidence of deaths, injuries, hunger and suffering. Rush has never been one to extol the virtues of treating your fellow humans with respect or dignity, but this rant lacks even the appearance of logic or common sense. When actions defy logic, rationality and simple standards of human decency, chances are that we are dealing with bigotry. How else can you reconcile his positions advocating the “rights” of white folks in the Southwest against an “invasion” by brown skinned Mexicans without mentioning white illegal immigrants from Canada and Eastern Europe, this latest pronouncement against Black skinned Haitians and the basic principles of coherent logic. I suggest that it cannot be done by any stretch of sophistry.

The MSNBC story lacks all sense of proportion or relevance. It fails to consider that the entire revenue of the Haitian Foundation set up by Wyclef Jean last year was $1.9 million while a single couple in the US just won a Power ball lottery of $128 million. The need in Haiti will certainly exceed hundreds of millions as schools, hospitals and other basic systems need to be rebuilt. But the lead story is to attack a Haitian for making an attempt to help the people of his birthplace, and indirectly accuse him of tax fraud or the lack of organizational resources to provide effective aid. Step aside and let the white-run big boys agencies provide the aid. A Black man is unfit to help his own people. Those are the messages of the MSNBC story, both in content and decision to lead with the story. No mention is made of the many Haitian American communities, as in Boston, who are banding together to raise and deliver aid and reconnect with relatives in Haiti. No, that story element would have provided balance and focused upon the FACT that aid is needed no matter where it comes from. It would have shown how working class and professional Haitian born US citizens [yes, I did say professionals] are shouldering an effort to help in this human catastrophe. But all that MSNBC can do is denigrate such aid efforts.

Now, what of this "unfounded" charge of racism in the US media?

How Bizarre – How Hypocritical

2010-01-09T12:12:00.000-06:00

Having lived in and spent considerable time in New England, and particularly in Boston, there is little that can be truly surprising anymore. However there are stories that can still amuse and perhaps dismay. A very recent news article details how dozens of immigrants, accused of illegal status and under detention from INS, were trucked to Gillette Stadium to clear snow before the NFL Playoff Game.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/08/detained_immigrants_were_set_to_clear_gillette_snow/

While the article spent considerable time bemoaning the fractured immigration agency operation and faulty immigration policies, little attention was focused on the obvious issue of the use of detainees for impromptu labor details for the convenience of the city’s professional sports franchise. In years gone by, it was common in the Southern States of the USA for local police to arrest people on charges of “vagrancy” and other pretextual justifications and turn them over to be used as slave labor to politically influential landowners or companies. Their labor was supposed to be part of their penalty, though frequently the impressments occurred prior to any presentment or judicial determination of guilt. Of course, the police officials received “gratuities” for assisting the local politicos in obtaining virtually free labor.

We do not know whether these detainees forced to shovel snow at Gillette Stadium were actually paid for their services. If they were, then there was a direct breach of law relating to employment of illegal aliens. Claims that the contractor did not know the workers' status seems flimsy, at best, when a truckload of workers arrive in a vehicle marked “INS.” If the workers were not paid for their services, then the problem of using work gangs as slave labor rears its ugly head.

Certainly, in light of weather problems, Boston and its beloved professional sports franchise and fans needed to have the snow cleared. And the practice of graft and questionable "under the table" schemes involving government officials and local bigwigs is all but endemic to life in Boston. Police and Fire employees on disability collecting more from off duty jobs than they did for regular service is fairly common. The current head of the Massachusetts National Guard is to be court-martialed for fraudulent creation and misuse of a “slush fund” of about $6 million. So it is not surprising that the event sparked little outrage in Boston. I suppose if the fruit of their labor were actually going to be put to use to pay for deportation transport, a thin rationalization could be constructed. But my experience in Boston causes me to seriously doubt that the money paid for the services will ever wind up in the pockets of the workers or public coffers.

However, the question begs asking whether it is appropriate, legal or ethical to force detainees to perform work in this manner. Many of the immigrants came to the USA to flee poverty and political instability in their home country. They would gladly have taken jobs performing the same kind of backbreaking work that they have been forced to do, legally, if that were possible. After all, in the current economy, if the work assignment paid a reasonable wage and there were plenty of legal workers who wanted the job, why was the impressment of detainees necessary? So, if these workers were performing manual labor no-one else wanted, why are they denied legal opportunity to do the much needed work? Seems to me more than a little hypocritical. And for a city that was once the center of the abolitionist movement, this corrupt use of slave labor seems especially unworthy.

Small Meditation

2009-11-28T08:23:00.000-06:00

What we strive for daily is to accomplish “something.” Like tuning a fine violin in a changeable climate, we each hit the high notes from time to time. Yet even failing to reach such pinnacles may often yield pleasant and sometimes even beautiful results. The magnitude of our deeds, and their worth, is really not for ourselves to judge. To entertain the notion that our works are of great importance would be the height of hubris.

We are, after all, just cogs in a much larger machination. As such, our respective roles should neither be inflated nor diminished. For the functioning of the whole is but a reflection of collective contributions of the multitudinous parts. Any facet improperly honed or poorly employed will lessen the effect of the whole and create disharmony.

And lest the realization of the limitations of our individual roles be disheartening, meditate upon the watchmaker’s dream. For even the smallest lever, wheel or cog is important. When finely crafted and polished, when properly placed and employed to its fullest potential, even the smallest cog may observe and measure the tics and tocks of inexorable time, and record with exquisite precision the march of eternity.

Public Finance - an Oxymoron?

2009-11-22T17:04:00.000-06:00

There has been a great deal of heat, but far less light shed on the state of affairs surrounding the financing of public debt and investments through the use of speculative and risk laden derivatives. Like impressionable juveniles, officials of cities, municipalities, public pensions and utility coops were lured into investment schemes that promised euphoric high returns. Once hooked, they scarcely paid notice to the perilous provisions tied to a failure to pay for the continuing “fix” or the cost of “withdrawal” should the entity need to divorce itself from these derivative schemes. After all, Congress and the White House had driven regulatory monitors underground and given a clear green light to these bankers and financiers to peddle these feel good products. Why should the cities and municipalities worry about a downside?

The underbelly of these wonderful "investment opportunities" was indeed ugly. Let us start with the fees. Many of these derivative peddlers charge the funds they speculate with a management fee of from 1% to 3% of the total fund. A reasonable charge for dedicated expertise you say? Well, consider the Texas Teachers Retirement Fund with assets of more than $15 Billion. Do the math! THEN consider that the dedicated expertise has resulted in a loss of between 15% and 33% of the Fund’s value. Retirees under the Fund have not seen a cost of living increase since 2001 and are very unlikely to see another in the lifetime of many beneficiaries. Yet the investment managers continue to get paid the investment management fee. In addition, penalty clauses for failure to make payments or for withdrawing from these toxic deals can reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars, in addition to the lost values of assets suffered.

The fact that these funds are public assets should not be overlooked. Many of these assets are needed to serve very important functions, like providing public transportation, keeping public schools open and maintaining public utilities. The collision of two very interesting forces created this perfect storm. The first was the desensitized condition of public officials. They had been so used to constant operation on the verge of financial crisis because of tight budgets, continuous borrowing and shifting funding levels that they believed that they would be able to find some solution, somewhere. The lure of investments that promised to save on borrowing costs and provide potential breathing room was a seductive offer. The second force was the GOP mantra, essentially anti-government, that created a public hatred of any suggestion of tax increases. Even when things actually COST more, the ideology was that taxes should not be raised to generate the money to pay those additional costs. The combination of these forces drove the public officials into the waiting arms of the derivative peddlers.

The result, in human terms has been the cut of public services, the reduction of educational programs and closure of schools, public transportation systems required to push aged equipment to the margins of safety, and the reduction of police and fire safety services. Social services, or what was left of them from the anorexic taxation philosophy being employed, have nearly disappeared in many larger cities hit by these derivative scams.

But all this is merely prologue to the real punch line, the genuine travesty in all this. In the starving and emaciated condition of the cities as a result of decreased tax revenue when the housing bubble burst, municipalities and public coops faced failure to make payment on these speculative investments. The federal government responded by giving billions of dollars to the bankers and financiers to bail them out and relieve them from the pressure of the failed and reckless investments. This decision apparently reflects a belief that, while the cities and the people of the country whose tax money was being thrown about were not important enough to save, the banks were “too big to fail.” It is not at all clear why a moratorium on termination payments or late payment penalties could not have been used, and the federal money used to help cities and municipalities meet their current payment obligations in the form of federal no interest loans. The process seems to stand the notion of public finance [emphasis on public] on its head.

To add insult to injury, the banks and financier receiving taxpayer bailouts have taken hundreds of millions of dollars of the public bailout funds to pay bonuses to executives whose primary accomplishments have been to dupe investors, lose their assets and hoodwink the federal government into handing over billions of bailout dollars.

It may be too much to ask, but perhaps someone in charge of the federal public funds should take a moment to peruse the US Constitution and see what purposes taxpayer money was supposed to be collected and used for. I doubt that paying bonuses to Wall Street charlatans who have helped to bankrupt cities and endanger citizens through starvation of capital and public services would fit under even the most tortured reading of the founding document.

Congressional Chicanery – Parliamentary Perversion

2009-11-15T10:19:00.000-06:00

The USA legislative process has been held up as a model of democratic process to the world; but the homage may be ill deserved. Too often, the legislative process is corrupted by greed, unethical conduct and deceitful methods that prevent fulfillment of declared goals and aspirations. This concern is well illustrated in the current debate and legislative process involving reform of the health care system in the USA.

With slightly less than 300 million people in the richest country on the planet, it is shameful that over 50 million lack reliable access to health care services and health insurance coverage. This is exponentially embarrassing in a country supposedly founded upon the principle that government’s duty is to provide for the common welfare of its citizens. From the standpoint of Sociology and Psychology, the distorted use of legislative tricks seems abusive. There is a cognitive dissonance in claiming to be a government of the people committed to the welfare of all, with representatives sworn to uphold those principles, and at the same time allow use of disingenuous procedures to prevent the poor and disenfranchised from governmental protection and largesse. This is not a question of socialism, but rather a question whether government intervention is needed when individual and private commercial interests cannot or will not meet a critical public need. It is then that the national government is supposed to rise up as the champion and the protector of the lesser and indeed ALL citizens of the country.

Deception is so deeply embedded in the US legislative process and psyche that the term “honest politician” has become largely oxymoronic. People in the USA no longer generally expect their elected representatives to act honestly and with the best interests of the public or constituency in mind or heart. Sometimes that failure is a result of ignorance and incompetence, a failure to investigate or think through legislative measures before acting. Too often, however, the failures are a direct result of deceit and trickery intended to corrupt the process.

Historically, sleight of hand and semantics have played a critical role in the legislative process. When the founders of the nation spoke of “We the People,” they were not referring to women or people of color. That tradition of deception has been refined and repeatedly used to deprive people ostensibly protected by national and Constitutional principles of equal protection under the law. When the Civil Rights Acts were adopted in the 1960’s to protect against actions of willful discrimination in employment and housing, an amendment to cover gender was inserted with the insidious intent of derailing the legislation. National embarrassment over the treatment of Blacks and the backroom deals of Lyndon B. Johnson had forced a vote on legislation to ban overt discrimination against Blacks, but it was believed that extending such protection to women would galvanize Southern resistance and block passage of the laws. The underhanded ploy failed and women were extended protection under the law, accidentally.

In the current example, relying upon the same “poison amendment” strategy, Rep Stupak has engrafted an amendment to the Health Care Bill that prohibits any poor person from gaining access to government supported health insurance if the plan includes coverage for abortion services. It is like saying that the government will agree to provide necessary support for health care as long as coverage is denied to Black people or to Gays. The belief or strategy is that the amendment is so offensive to fair and decent Congressional representatives, that they would rather kill the entire legislative measure than adopt it with a provision that is morally and ethically offensive. This was a typical strategy of the Late Jessie Helms, representative from North Carolina who championed racism and bigotry through such deceit and indirection.

The Stupak Amendment has additional power to corrupt, by perverting the medical lexicon, which is an added twist and level of sophistication. Medically and scientifically, the D&C procedure [dilation and curettage] used to perform safe abortions is indistinguishable from routine medical procedures to treat such conditions as endometriosis and to remove cysts, ectopic pregnancies and polyps from the uterus. Indeed the procedure would even be denied when the fetus is dead and the risk of sepsis and death of the woman is involved. The procedure is coded the same for insurance and medical record purposes. As a result, poor people who may need any level of government subsidy to afford health insurance under the reform legislation would be denied access to virtually EVERY insurance plan currently available. In addition, Roe v. Wade and state insurance laws would probably prohibit insurance companies from drawing a line and provide coverage for D&C procedures, generally, while denying coverage for use of the procedure for abortion related purposes. So even if passed, the amendment may render health care reform legislation unconstitutional and invalid.

To be sure, the government cannot and should not be expected to do everything. And past failures of government, particularly in the last decade of the George W. Bush administration, urge caution against the government trying to do too much. There is a fair debate whether extensive use of government financial resources can be sustained in light of current economic struggles. At the same time, it is argued that the cost savings from employing health care reform will actually reduce the federal deficit over time, while reducing the growth of health care costs. This latter proposition is central to the debate, because reduction in health insurance industry profits is the primary reason why billions of dollars are being spent by these special interests to kill any type of reform. These economic projections do not even include the less tangible and less measurable positive impact on productivity for a healthier labor force and population. So the economic debate centers on saving money [actually, not spending it on health care is more accurate] in the short term, or investing in the general welfare of the citizens over a longer term.

Another very unfortunate aspect of this process is the insidious dishonesty involved, the parliamentary perversion. Rather than face these difficult questions directly and openly, the opposition would rather resort to backdoor measures to kill the legislation while pretending to take principled stances. Examination of the bank accounts of the campaigns of Congressmen Stupak, Sen. Lieberman* and others leaves little room for doubt that their motivation is more about garnering a share of the large purse of contributions doled out by health insurance lobbyists than about taking a moral stand. Playing a numbers game, however, Stupak and his ilk realize that mindless GOP opposition to reform plus a few negative votes from Democrat [or pseudo-Democrat] legislators could derail reform and thus create a potentially powerful bargaining position. Such manipulation is not inherently bad, if the intended use of power were for ethical and honorable purposes rather than simply to have power and for personal financial gain. But ethical use is not Stupak’s or Lieberman’s goal.

Perhaps the ultimate parliamentary perversion lies in the ulterior motives of legislative posturing. It is said that many GOP representatives actually want health care reform to pass, but are voting against it because they know that the majority support will assure passage. Yet they can posture publicly against the reform measure. In the case of Stupak, it may be even more subtle. His obstructionist Amendment can be stripped from the legislation in Conference as a concessionary move to gain passage, and the reform measure enacted while he keeps his treasure trove from the moneyed interests. This is the type of political corruption and chicanery that led to the Principate rule in Ancient Rome and to the Caesars declaring the ostensibly democratic, but in practice totally corrupt, Senate an irrelevancy. The Roman populace, the citizenry, was unable or unwilling to rise up and demand more honest government from an increasingly corrupt and insular Senate ruled by greed and venality. The experiment in representative democracy thus failed and Rome ultimately fell as a result of internal corruption. Will the USA experience the same fate? Will the US citizens rise up and demand more honesty of their “elected” representatives? The future of the nation hangs in the balance.

* Lieberman had taken a stance against inclusion of a “public option” in health care reform, a proposal that would allow for creation of a government alternative to private insurance in order to assure that insurance and health care costs will be restrained and health insurance will be truly available to all, a safety net. The device is different than the one used by Stupak, but the strategy is the same.

“Differentiated Education”

2009-11-11T04:12:00.000-06:00

A recent report in an education journal caught my attention. Some schools in New Jersey are experimenting with a form of modified “curriculum” that enables schools to provide students with courses that focus exclusively on standardized test preparation instead of taking elective courses. While perhaps not exactly innovative, the approach is rational and pragmatic. The idea is to free teachers from the burden of training the students to pass the standardized tests, a special “skill,” and allow them to spend time on teaching actual content.

In the current raging debate about how to reform education, the corporate and commercialized product driven philosophy seems to be holding sway as the “sausage” making process of education policy progresses [and I use the term cautiously]. Thus, the move to tie funding and public support for education to standardized test results – production metrics- is gaining momentum. The ethic of mass production, however, does not inherently incorporate the concept of quality. If the corporate goal is to produce as many units as possible that meet minimum criteria, then the system derived from that goal will be one that yields high numbers of units that satisfy minimum criteria.

The New Jersey approach, then, is a logical and pragmatic response to the corporate directive. Whether or not it is proven that students who pass the standardized tests are actually better educated, this approach is likely to yield higher numbers of students that satisfy that minimum criterion. As a consequence of producing the “results” defined by corporate policy, the New Jersey schools should obtain the reward of continued or additional funding that will enable them to go about the real job of educating students. In some ways, this strategy is like shoveling snow in the winter or removing lint from the dryer filter. These chores have no intrinsic value, but they are necessary to maintaining access to the building or continued operation of the appliance.

The teachers view this strategy as a beneficial adaptation that supports their mission. Many feel that the standardized tests emphasize “reading, rote and regurgitation” skills, rather than critical thinking and higher order analytical competencies. Thus, removing that type of training from the regular classroom frees their time to spend with students trying to further their education in competencies that will be more crucial to success in life and their careers. Moving the test training process to elective or “differentiated” classes is seen as politically expedient, although not directly educationally germane. The realities of politics these days dictate that these students will need to pass the standardized tests as their ticket to that future life and career. Driver’s license exams have not been historically or empirically shown to ensure competence to actually operate a motor vehicle safely and well. However, they are required to enable the driver to get behind the wheel legally. Similarly, standardized tests have not been proven as an accurate or effective measure of the students’ competence to critically analyze and creatively resolve a broad array of problems that they are likely to face in the future. Yet education funding requires that schools demonstrate that the students can pass the tests.

The politics of production/scarcity has thrown education in the barrel with other taxpayer supported governmental services that are perhaps more easily amenable to metrics. For example, fire protection services can be measured by response times and resources can be allocated to that function with predictable and measurable consequences. Social services, including education, are more difficult to qualify if taking the quantify approach to evaluation. The number of cases that a social worker processes does not tell us about the well being of the clients processed. Indeed, we may speculate that there is an inverse relationship. Similarly, the number of students passing standardized tests does not tell us how well they are educated. It does indicate whether the school factory is effective at producing units.

And taxpayers have been encouraged, if not misled, to believe that the decision to allocate resources to education should be measured by such production numbers. At the same time, the taxpayers are reading study after study that shows the failure of schools to improve the quality of education and that large gaps remain in student achievement. What politicians are reluctant to focus attention on, however, is the logical disconnect. Simply put, the level of production does not indicate the level of quality. In many cases, the increase in production, for its own sake, will yield no better and perhaps poorer quality.

And so the New Jersey schools have taken a pragmatic approach. Let’s give the politicians what they want, and try to give the students what they actually need. By differentiating the two, they have dispensed with the illusion that the two are the same.

Take a Deep Breath

2009-10-18T12:25:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it is useful to take a step back from posturing and argumentation to assess whether what one is arguing actually makes sense any longer. In the heat of an argument it is not unusual to continue ranting and pursuing heated and entrenched positions even after the basis for those positions has been thoroughly discredited.

Witness current relations between the US and Iran. US Secretary of State, Clinton recently met with Russian President Medvedev in an attempt to get the Russians to endorse sanctions if Iran failed to satisfy US demands that it does not intend to use its nuclear research capability to develop nuclear weapons. This diplomatic ploy was rejected by Medvedev and by Russian Prime Minister Putin as “premature” in light of ongoing negotiations and signs of Iranian cooperation. The US approach could fairly be interpreted of a continuation of the George W. Bush strategy of bluster and threat diplomacy: “Do what I tell you to do or face aggressive punitive actions against you.” It is not really unpredictable that the Russians would reject that approach. The question to be asked is whether the Russian rebuff was really a rebuke or simply a wake up slap on the cheek.

Consider the current circumstances. Iran is struggling to maintain control of Ahmadinajad as the legitimate head of state, after an election that yielded massive protests and claims of fraud and vote rigging. Iran just suffered another suicide attack against its Revolutionary Guard leadership in its southeastern region, the Sistan-Baluchistan province, presumably by an insurgent Sunni group. These signs of internal struggle suggest that Iran has more pressing issues at the moment than developing nuclear weapons to threaten its neighbors. It is not very likely that Iran would be developing such weapons for use inside Iran against insurgent forces or protesters.

Consider also that Russia has more to lose directly from Iran achieving nuclear capability than does the US. Given geographic and geopolitical realities, Iranian support of rebel factions in the former Soviet states of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, and the risk of international warfare in the region are a greater direct threat to Russia than to the US. Of course, both superpowers have “interests” in the area. But the point is that there is little reason to believe that Russia has not taken a carefully considered stand regarding its positions on threatening sanctions against Iran. Although it has not yet complied, Iran has apparently promised to allow International inspection of its facilities and has agreed to send plutonium from its research program to Russia for refinement. This latter concession of sovereignty could be viewed as a gesture of good faith by the Iranian government by anyone unbiased enough to accept such a gesture.

Finally, consider the position that the US is pursuing. It is generally agreed that Iran does not currently have nuclear weapons or the ability to effectively make them. Iran’s government has stated that it does not plan to develop such weapons, though it reserves the right of any sovereign nation to decide whether to do so in the future. Russia and the international community are in negotiations with Iran regarding international concerns about nuclear development for peaceful purposes in Iran. The great majority of nations agree that Iran cannot be precluded from developing nuclear capability for peaceful purposes, such as electricity generation for commercial production and consumer uses. However, the position of the US is to demand measures [as yet unclearly stated] that satisfy the US that Iran does not really have intentions of developing nuclear weapons at some point in the future.

The US demands could be viewed as not only unreasonable, but unduly paranoid. If the shoe were on the other foot, would the US be prepared to satisfy Iran that the US has no intention of unfairly exploiting oil reserves in Iran’s region or that the US does not intend to engage in covert activities to destabilize and overthrow the current Iranian government? Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the US is not already engaged in such activities, it is pretty clear that the US would never agree to accept whatever demands Iran might make to satisfy itself that such threats would not occur in the future. How reasonable then, when one steps back, is the US position in the current context. The current approach appears driven by political, and some would say racist, desires by the US government to demonize Iran. Of course, to even consider such an argument would entail respecting Iran as a sovereign nation. It requires acceptance of the idea that a nation has a right to self determination, even when its policies or philosophy does not hew to the desires of the US government.

The lesson from Iraq, and the philosophy espoused by President Obama when campaigning for office, was that diplomacy should be given an opportunity to work, and reasonable measures must be exhausted before engaging in threats and gunboat diplomacy. It is an open question why that philosophy is not being pursued by Obama in the current circumstances toward Iran.

There is undoubtedly time to intervene in Iran if diplomacy fails and there is actual evidence of Iranian action to manufacture nuclear weapons [or otherwise develop Nuclear weapons capability]. Given that objective reality, the Russian rejection of the US position seems both prudent and wise. If cooler heads exist inside the Obama Administration, they should counsel that Obama return to the philosophy that he espoused in seeking a mandate from the electorate and refrain from hysterical tactics that are likely only to remind the international community of the reasons his predecessor failed.

AH, STATESMANSHIP!

2009-09-19T12:40:00.000-05:00

Ah, statesmanship! The ability to shape facts, to bend truth to manipulate a situation to advantage and achieve a determined goal is a practiced art. Witness the drama or “mini-series” being played out in Washington respecting the Health Care reform proposals. The latest plot twist has been President Obama’s assessment that the basis for the belligerent and uncivilized reaction to proposed reform is not fundamentally racism, but rather an exhibition of the political dialectic regarding the ability of government to function in the best interests of the common good.

Following a summer of staged insurrections and histrionic disruption of reasoned debate about the actual details of proposed reforms, the battle erupted in an intemperate outburst in front of voracious media cameras by Rep. Joe Wilson accusing president Obama of “lying” to Congress. President Obama's actual statement that drew the specific outburst was entirely accurate, and it reflected the language of the reform proposal. But accuracy and truth are not the currency of this debate. Wilson either knew or cared little about the actual details of the reform proposal, as his agenda was simply to incite opposition and embolden right wing extremists. As with any “show stealing” maneuver, Wilson’s subsequent apology is but a small price to pay for the advantage of hijacking the debate and disrupting rational consideration of the underlying issues. the news media focused upon the outburst, minimizing the content of Obama's speech.

Former President Carter stepped forward to assess the behavior as generated, at its root, in racism. He lamented that there are a substantial number of people in the United States that refuse to accept any proposal made by a Black President, precisely because he happens to be a Black man. This pre-emptive rejection and denial of any political authority because of race is the essence of racism. Bigotry is only the superficial manifestation. Those who rose to Wilson’s defense mistake or misunderstand the difference. It does not matter whether Wilson and his followers are patent bigots, when their actions and strategy is primarily to emasculate any political initiative by the President because of his race.

Like the dynamics that underlay the incident involving arrest of Harvard professor Skip Gage, an amicable meeting for a beer to eschew personal animosity does not eradicate the existence of the systemic factors that caused the abusive exercise of police power against Gage because he is a man of color. Police professionals from as varied quarters as the head of the national Black policemen’s organization to the chief of police of a white North Carolina community agree that the white officer in the Gage incident overreacted and sought to “put Gage in his place” when he challenged the white officer. That the officer may well have not even been acting on a totally conscious level, but rather responding viscerally to what he perceived as a challenge to a construct of white privilege, serves not to excuse, but rather to reinforce the racist nature of the actions.

Obama, in statesmanlike fashion, has come forward to state that the basis of the confrontation is about the proper role of government in addressing public welfare issues. He focused upon the contention of some that government fundamentally lacks the ability to do ANYTHING right in the public interest. Obama, contrary to the media headlines, did not dispute Carter’s assertion that there is a large contingent of US citizens who oppose his efforts because of race. His strategy, however, was to try to reshape the issue to a less emotional playing field where at least the potential for rational discussion might occur. Obama wisely understands that as long as the debate is based upon name calling, the emotional component would overshadow any consideration of the practical issues. The right wing opponents know this as well, and that is likely the reason for attempting to obstruct debate by racist assaults. The disruptions in the summer town hall meetings, as well as the Wilson outburst, are merely tactics to derail debate. They are not attempts to assert or defend a position or to argue the merits of any reform strategy.

Statesmanship has, at its base, the pragmatic objective of moving some policy initiative forward. Obama understands that nothing he can do will eliminate the racist attitudes that have been part of the fabric of the American psyche since at least the time when Europeans first stepped upon the soil of the American continents. The history of the US is replete with examples of how repeated attempts to expose and overcome such racism have failed. It is so ingrained in the system that even those progressive white individuals who oppose the philosophy are unable to shed the cloak of privilege and counter the force of the collective weight of a racist system. While it is likely that Obama knows in his heart of hearts that much of the opposition against him is racially motivated, and one reading his actual interview transcript sees that he concedes as much, he also knows that engaging the battle on that front is unlikely to yield any significant progress toward the goals of providing access and reasonable health care options to the millions who lack such basic protections.

The False Health Care Debate – Part 1

2009-08-23T17:16:00.000-05:00

“Grant me a premise and I will construct you a world.”

This principal tenet of sophistry lies near the core of the current controversy surrounding the Health Care Reform debate. The converse of the maxim is that a false premise will yield a false construct. If the argument of the debate were based upon a fallacious premise, then the whole of the rationale used would be unfounded. Much of the opposition concerning Health care reform proceeds, intentionally or not, from false premises and assumptions. A more careful examination of the arguments reveals their flaws.

The first obvious flaw lies in the generalized description of “Health Care” as the object of discussion. In the context of delivery of medical services, it is critical to note that the components of medical services and health insurance are very different subjects. To institute real reform in the system, measures must address BOTH aspects. The experience in Massachusetts is a clear object lesson. Hailed as a “breakthrough” in reform, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted legislation and a program to provide universal health insurance. Employers were obliged to cover employees, and those without employment based insurance were required to purchase coverage. However, what the program lacks is a system of limits on health care costs. As a result, the premiums for health care in Massachusetts are about the highest in the United States. The compromise struck with the Industry to obtain universal coverage was to refrain from imposing mandatory controls on health care costs. The compromise now threatens to swallow the program, as the government costs to subsidize the rising insurance premiums could bankrupt the state budget.

A second glaring flaw in the arguments raised in opposition is the presumption or premise that the current system is of sufficient quality that it is inherently worth protecting. The medical care systems that operate in the US are not the worst in the world, but they collectively are far from the best, despite being about the most expensive on a per capita basis. The reference to medical care delivery as a plurality is intentional, because there are different delivery systems for different classes of people in the country. For the wealthy, the best technology and the most skilled health professional specialists are available. They have no significant barriers to access or to the best care that their information and networking sources can identify.

A second tier of health care delivery is available to those with employer sponsored health insurance. These people have access to a broad range of primary and specialized health care services. Their options are limited by the provider networks that are established by the insurers in ways that the customer/patient is not even aware. This group pays the illusory cost of “co-pays” that creates a false impression of the true charges being assessed for their health care services. What most failed to realize, until the recent loss of 7 million jobs in the current recession, is that their protection is transitory and is not really “insurance.” It is subsidized health care coverage that can be taken away at the discretion of others, even when the employee is paying a substantial part of the cost of premiums for his or her family.

The third class of health care is for those who are poor and or unemployed. They have no health insurance to protect them from catastrophic or even moderate health incidents. The full impact of the high medical services costs are evident to this group and most simply avoid or defer medical care until the condition is severe. At this point, their deliver system is the local emergency room of the nearest hospital, if the institution will admit them even for temporary urgent care. Of the approximate US population of 300 million, there are about 50 Million in this third category, approximately 1/6 of the entire population.

Thus, on a macro view, the health care delivery system in the US provides no guaranteed support for about 17% of the population, limited and rationed services to the majority of the population and true health care insurance and coverage to less than 5%. The “outcomes” of this delivery system, the statistical measure used in medical parlance to assess the quality and effectiveness of medical services delivery, place the US in the middle of the pack of “developed” nations in quality of care. The per capita costs of the system, however, are nearly the highest. Consequently, it would be very difficult to sustain an argument that maintenance of the status quo is a critical objective.

The mentality of the US consuming public is easily misled and inclined to self delusion. The adherence to buying habits for automobiles is a prime example. When damage to the environment from excess carbon emissions from cars was evident and the cost of gasoline for energy inefficient vehicles was consuming higher and higher portions of the consumer’s take home pay, the public stubbornly refused to embrace change and resisted a shift to smaller more energy efficient cars. They preferred to stay with a broken model to accepting change and adaptation to a new model that was in their own best interest. This same problem is evident in the Health Care Reform debate, as fear mongering and disinformation seeks to turn consumers away from any reform that would alter the status quo. In their fear and stubborn “conservatism” they seek to retain and protect a seriously dysfunctional system that fails to serve the needs and best interests of the public.

To Be Continued….

Americans, What Are Your Values And Standards?

2009-08-22T12:23:00.000-05:00

A recently released report from the Inspector General of the CIA reveals what many have already known. We do not know whether life imitates are or the reverse. We do know that film depictions of a rogue agency with operatives who feel respect no constraints of law, morality or human rights are pretty accurate images of the type of agency run under the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld regime. It may well be that such practices went on at some level in prior administrations, but the heinous practices described in the report and in prior leaks to the media appear to have become systemic during the George W. Bush Administration. The level of abuse is directly related to the level of permissiveness and tolerance shown at the top.

Practices that have been detailed at Abu Ghraib, at GITMO and other detention facilities cannot be excused as necessary or effective. They simply defy all principles of human rights and violate conventions against torture and cruel and inhuman treatment. Threatening a detainee with execution by putting a gun to his head, water boarding, putting a power drill to his head or other body parts has no place in a civilized society. It is not only unethical and morally corrupt, it is expressly illegal. Urinating on the holy book of a prisoner, or using psychological tactics that are intended not to extract information, but primarily to humiliate and degrade the prisoner or mock his religious and cultural beliefs is morally unjustified.

Right wing devotees who fall into the easy hateful and racist inspired rhetoric argue that “suspected” terrorists or terrorist supporters, in their view, are subhuman and deserve no rights. This way of reasoning, if it can be called such, is fallacious and short-sighted. The adherence to fundamental standards of humanity and the rule of law is primarily an internal value. When a murderer enters a health club and guns down several customers in an exercise class, such action is both illegal and immoral. But the societal response is not to torture and kill the perpetrator without due process. The internal values of the society are upheld and strengthened when a process involving the rule of law and incorporating human rights and civility standards is applied. To argue that the response should drop to the level of the actions of the perpetrator, or lower, only degrades and undermines the society.

President Obama is wrong in his position that we need to look forward instead of prosecuting the perpetrators of these horrible activities in the name of, and with the sanction of, the US government and its people. It will not suffice to try to sweep these activities under the rug. The people of the US are entitled to know the types of activities that have been carried out in their name and the legal and moral standards that govern such officially sanctioned conduct. To fail to expose these behaviors, such as assassination squads, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition for the specific purpose of promoting torture and the official use of unregulated mercenaries like Blackwater, is to advise the perpetrators that their conduct is acceptable and can be renewed at the first wink and nod from higher ups in the Administration.

This is not about one President or Administration trashing a predecessor. It is a concern that goes far beyond political retribution. The US citizens and the world need to know that certain minimum standards of conduct are valued and upheld, regardless of the political stripe of the current Presidential Administration. At present, and until Obama take more assertive steps to change the message and image, the standards to which the US government holds its agents is one that ignores the Geneva Conventions, condones and supports torture and promotes racial and ethnic profiling and bigotry. President Obama needs to make a decision whether he accepts that message and image on behalf of the country. If he does not, then he needs to take more aggressive action to hold accountable those who are responsible for approving and carrying out those practices, including George W. Bush if that is where the evidence leads.

When Greed and Arrogance Equal Economic Opportunity

2009-08-21T13:16:00.000-05:00

Recent publication of a nearly 900 page report in China preceded an upcoming debate by Chinese lawmakers on a resolution to cap emissions by 2050 and to accelerate CO2 reduction strategies as soon as possible. If the Chinese, who have shown greater discipline than the US in organizing its financial markets, can organize its industrialization processes this suggests a positive path forward for China as it continues aggressive development. While there has been significant discussion and debate in the US about climate change and global warming, the discipline and commitment to actually do anything concrete and constructive about the problem is at best questionable. President Obama has touted the development of “green industries” as a significant component in his plans to revive the economy. Yet the mobilization of opposition by the GOP and the Right Wing Conservatives to any measures that would change the status quo ante bode ill for effective change. This penchant for individualism, greed and arrogance may well serve as an important resource that China can use to build its competitive future.

In the past, debate about the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 has bogged down over the issue of differentiated responsibilities. The US negotiators, predominantly from the conservative camp, have demanded that lesser developed or industrialized countries like China should match emission reductions called for on the part of the US. In response, the developing countries have argued that the US got rich off of industrialization and pollution that has created the existing crisis and was in no position to deny those countries the right to develop as the US has done. In fact, they argue that the US has greater responsibility for emission reduction because it had a greater role in creating the mess that the world now must collectively address. At this point the discussion has broken down and the US has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. With the expiration of the Protocol comes the new conference in Denmark [U.N. Climate Change Conference that will be held in Copenhagen this December]. Subsequent developments in climate change and scientific evidence of accelerating deterioration lend urgency to the debate. In addition, the importance of climate change to sustainable economic growth has also risen.

The opportunity for the Chinese in this situation is to focus on the development of technologies that limit or reduce carbon emissions while providing manufacturing and industrial production capacity that is needed for economic growth. For example, the growth of the auto industry in China is staggering. More Chinese are able to own a car now than ever before. The development and production of alternative energy and low emission vehicles would not only further Chinese goals for CO2 limits, but would provide potential export capacity for those countries seeking to meet emission targets but that lack capacity to produce low emission vehicles. This is the “green industry” model that Obama refers to but which the US public is slow and resistant to embrace.

This arrogance on the part of the US public, including both politicians and consumers, will continue to be a weakness that developing countries can exploit. At present, the bulk of growth in sales for US based car manufacturers comes from overseas markets. Though stepping back from the brink of oblivion through bankruptcy, government bailouts and reorganization, these companies still have not been able to convince the US consumers to purchase energy efficient and low emission vehicles. Their near term future depends upon sales to non-US consumers of products manufactured by US workers. However, if China succeeds in developing a strong production capacity for alternative fuel and low emission vehicles, it can continue on its development path while competing effectively with the US for those foreign markets.

At the same time, China has nowhere near the saturation level that the US market has regarding automobile purchases. A recent study suggested that the US was approaching the point at which there was one vehicle owned for almost every licensed driver. In contrast, China may only have less than 10% saturation in the coming decade. If incomes rise to the level that allows more Chinese to purchase cars, the population provided an almost unlimited market potential. In any event, the demand will almost certainly outstrip supply and manufacturing capacity for quite some time. Think back to the US during the inception of Henry Ford and you can grasp a comparison. Yet the difference will be that the Chinese will start with the production of environmentally sensitive products while the US will still be in the process of retooling to manufacture a different type of vehicle that might satisfy US consumer tastes. At the same time the US manufacturers would be stressed with the duality of manufacturing cars to sell in foreign markets in competition with makers like Toyota, Kia and others who have been focused for years on manufacture of environmentally friendly vehicles.

The questions presented are whether the Chinese can take advantage of the economic opportunity presented by the arrogance of the US consumers, and whether the US public can recognize and overcome its arrogance and convert to a more environmentally conscious attitude before other developing countries like China can effectively take advantage of the weakness that current attitudes creates. Unless and until the US consumers and policy makers can get their collective act together, the greed and arrogance of the US public will serve as an attractive economic resource and competitive advantage for developing nations seeking to increase industrialization and prosperity.

Opinions and Opinionators

2009-07-30T16:56:00.000-05:00

There is a very crude saying about “opinions” that has been around a long time. It says – “Opinions are like A#@ holes, everybody has one.” The tag line is that just because everyone has one, does not provide any quality assurance of the product.

Reading the stream of so-called “experts” advancing opinions on just about every current issue of importance reveals how lax the journalistic establishment has become regarding its duty to provide reasonably reliable information to the public. We have shifted from an information based media to an infotainment based media. Talking heads are pushed in our face, not because they have any credibility or special knowledge to justify their labels as “experts” in the subject, but because they are willing to provide good theater in an organized shouting match.

The agenda seems to be to pit two talking heads against each other and let them battle until time for the interview runs out. Never mind that the so-called experts lack substantive knowledge and are being paid or subsidized by the corporate interests whose “position” they are arguing. Forget that very few if any real facts are being published to actually inform the audience. News has become just another branch of PR and propaganda.

And reporters no longer have any semblance of objectivity in this process. If they want to write an article, like one I read today, about rising taxes in State governments, [http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com] they go find a representative from a [conservative] “tax monitoring organization” to provide sound bites to support the opinion or slant that the writer has chosen in advance. While railing against the increases in tax rates on higher bracket incomes, the representative “expert” makes no mention that these same protesters have demanded level or increased services from the State governments while resisting any measures to fund those services.

If one looks at the situation rationally, the gravy train had to come to an end. The “No NEW Taxes” mantra of the GOP resulted in continued services to the wealthy with tax reductions and no increases in taxes to pay for the rising cost of the public services. The benefit to the wealthy came at the expense of reducing essential social services and education funding. Now, in a recession economy when all the fat and flesh is gone and State governments are hacking at the bone, these same wealthy folks are whining because State governments are increasing marginal tax rates on those with income over $150,000. I weep for them in my cheap beer as they cry in their Perrier-Jouet. But the “reporter” seems to feel no obligation to take a critical look at the views of the so-called “expert.” There seems little if any effort to challenge the logic or veracity of the opinions being espoused.

Not every issue has two sides of equal merit or is appropriate for drama. I heard one interview a few days ago on Public radio that backfired. The host put on two police chiefs to discuss the Gates arrest in Cambridge and the police officer’s handling of the situation. One Chief was the head of a Black Police Officers’ organization, the other a White chief in a southern town in North Carolina. To the dismay of the host, looking to incite a race debate, BOTH chiefs said the same thing. They both gave the opinion that the police officer should have withdrawn and de-escalated the situation rather than arrest Prof. Gates. Despite several attempts by the host to incite an argument, both chiefs maintained that solid professional training of officers requires that they not allow themselves to be baited by irritated detainees or persons they encounter during investigations. Neither would recommend arrest of Gates, even if he had used abusive language after becoming upset. To the disappointment of the radio host, the experts actually knew what they were talking about and gave insightful information and opinions during the interview. Though this SHOULD have been the purpose of the interview, it resulted more from accident than from design or intent.

Another appalling example has been the media time and attention given to the “Birthers.” This right wing group of nutcases is arguing that President Obama has not sufficiently “proven” that he is a real American that was entitled by birth to US citizenship. Given that Obama went through perhaps the most scrutiny of any Presidential candidate in US history prior to election, and was sworn in as an official act by a Supreme Court Justice, it is absolutely certain that there is no shred of credible or even newsworthy evidence to support the position of this fringe group. Yet at a time when the public should be getting reliable information about health care proposals, media time and attention is devoted to supposed “debates” involving the position of these “Birthers.” If any example supports the saying, this example shows its veracity.

It is questionable whether the news media will ever be able to return to a level of professionalism in which stories are checked out before publication, in which the financial or political [often synonymous] interests of the so-called “experts” are disclosed when allowing the talking heads to offer their opinions. There is a line between censoring or filtering the news and exercising professional editorial judgment. By all means publish opposing viewpoints on important issues of the day. But in doing so, take care to do the homework expected of good journalists. Expose bias, hidden agendas and interests on the part of so-called experts. And above all, exercise some common sense. The freedom of press also entails some responsibility. Not every opinion deserves to get on the air or in the newspaper. Newspapers are going under in this country daily or being sold to conglomerates like News Corp. If a media organization cannot hew to the basic principles of solid honest professional journalism, why should we really care if they fail? But if we find a news organization that DOES adhere to those standards, then the public should rally to their support and help them stay alive.

American Justice, in Black & White

2009-07-22T07:30:00.000-05:00

Time will shortly give us a glimpse of the so called “progress” that so many claim to have been made in race relations in the United States, as evidenced by the election of President Obama. Compare two cases of interpretation of “justice” and the rule of law in present day America.

In one case, the question was whether a school system acted unlawfully in requiring the equivalent of a strip search of a young white student who authorities suspected of hiding prescription drugs. The court decided that the school authorities acted outside the law by treating the student inappropriately when they were not faced with any serious threat and they lacked sufficient evidence to suggest that the student was, in fact, in possession of any dangerous substance. The situation reflected a routine school policy enforcement process that got out of hand. Although the authorities had the right to maintain the policy against drug possession, the manner in which they enforced that policy was subject to constraints relating to the respectful treatment of a student suspect. Without sufficient justification and probable cause to believe that the student was violating the law or school policy, the school was not entitled to humiliate the young student by subjecting her to a search of her underwear. Moreover, the court suggested that the nature of the alleged violation should inform the nature of the enforcement response. In other words, if the student were suspected of gun possession accompanied by evidence of a threat against other students or staff, harsher treatment may have been justified. But in this case, suspicion of having Tylenol or some similarly innocuous substance did not justify the invasive assault on her person. The student's rights were violated by the humiliating treatment, the court ruled, although there was no force used, no arrest and the search was done by female officials in a private setting.

Now consider the case of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Returning home to his Cambridge, MA, house near Harvard Square, Gates found the front door stuck. After he and his driver were unable to open the door, he went around to the back door, unlocked it and went inside to disarm the alarm system and to unlock the front door. He then returned to the front door and again tried to open it forcefully and was successful. Apparently, a neighbor called police to report a break-in and a police officer came to the door to confront Gates. Understandably surprised, Gates first challenged the officer, who would not accept that Gates owned and belonged in the home, and then Gates showed him his Harvard Identification as well as his personal identification, proving that he lived at the house. This should have been the end of the incident, since the alarm system had not gone off and the resident had shown documented proof that he lived there.

In light of recent events at Harvard, including other instances in which Black male professionals have been targeted and detained or questioned by Harvard Security and Cambridge Police, Gates questioned the officer whether the same encounter would be happening if he had been a white professor. In particular, Gates questioned why the officer continued to treat him disrespectfully and with suspicion after having been presented with ample proof and documentation of Gates’ legitimate presence in the house. He demanded of the officer his name and badge number so that he could follow up. The officer refused and Gates was then arrested for “disorderly and tumultuous conduct” and placed in handcuffs and taken to jail. In addition to being one of Harvard’s most distinguished professors, Gates needs a cane to get around, so he obviously was not a threat to the officer or the community.

Most of the Harvard professional community hopes that the charges will be dropped and that the matter can be resolved peacefully. Other professors were stunned and disappointed by the treatment that Gates received. The underlying motif here was that a Black man did not belong in the neighborhood and could not possibly be a legitimate resident in a nice home in such a prestigious location. For that reason, the police officer was unwilling to follow what would have been typical protocol for a white citizen, and demanded additional proof that Gates belonged in the house. When questioned about the underlying racism, the officer responded defensively with the use of force to arrest Gates, not for any charge of unlawful entry onto property or breaking and entering, but for questioning the officer's authority.

The test will be whether the obvious racism that was the foundation for the actions of the officer are exposed. We will see whether the police are reprimanded or sanctioned as were the authorities in the student case. In the case of Gates, placing an elderly Black man in chains [an obviously humiliating and culturally insensitive action] and taking him to jail was at least as invasive as the search in the student case. The official justification was even weaker, because the officer had PROOF that there was no crime BEFORE making the arrest. In the student case, the administration still had at least a weak suspicion that the search would have revealed a violation of school policy.

Taking action that impacts some in a racially distinct way requires justification under current precedent. In the case of the white firefighters’ challenge to the New Haven authority's decision to abandon the results of a promotional exam because the results suggested improper race bias, the Court ruled that discriminatory treatment requires solid evidence rather than mental impressions or “belief” on the part of officials. The officer in the Gates incident clearly acted beyond his authority and the law, if this is the standard applied. There was no “evidence” of wrong or wrongdoing other than the racial stereotypical “belief” on the part of the officer that the Black man [regardless of his credentials or accomplishments] was out of place in a prestigious white neighborhood. The community, he thought, had to be protected from the presence of someone of color. At a second level, the officer apparently believed that a Black man, wrongly accused and inappropriately treated, had no right to challenge or question the actions of the officer.

Perhaps a more intelligent or more culturally competent officer would have diffused the situation and would have acknowledged the excessive questioning of Gates’ presence in his home as error. It is likely that such a response would have ended the encounter; Gates [being a teacher] would have felt that the officer had learned something in the encounter and would be unlikely to react as he did in the future. The officer’s response is typical of those who wield the legitimized authority to use force, but who are culturally stunted and perhaps intellectually challenged. The officer instead chose to react defensively and “put the Black man in his place” by arresting him. This case adds to the Black males' suspected crime portfolio experience of "driving while Black" and "shopping while Black" the new level of "entering your own home while Black."

There has been much debate in the selection of Judge Sotomayor as nominee for Supreme Court Justice about racial bias and the rule of law. That her cultural background may make her more sensitive to the context and fair application of the law than a white male judge with no similar exposure to cultural differences got conservatives up in arms and salivating like rabid dogs. Yet clearly a typical white judge with limited cultural competency may fail to see the injustice in the treatment of Gates, where someone with cultural competency would recognize the elements of racism in what transpired. Such competence is critical, whether that competency has been gained through learning and education, or through the inescapable experience of growing up in America as a person of color. Recognition of those elements by a jurist is essential to the administration of true justice and fair application of the rule of law.

Without understanding the reasons for Gates’ challenge to the officer and the impropriety and provocation in the officer’s prior actions, a judge might simply find a charge of disorderly conduct supportable. Authorities felt that the young woman, as a female and a student, deserved less respect and had fewer rights than an adult male would receive. It is a good thing that the court had the sensitivity to recognize that bias and consider it in applying the rule of law. It remains to be seen whether the same cultural competence is applied in the context of racial bias. Without the ability to tie construction of the letter of the law to the real world and real world experiences, including the pervasive cultural nuances that color and motivate the facts to which the law must be applied in American society, there will continue to be a racially divided system of justice in America, one for Blacks and another for Whites.

Sotomayor Hearings: Much too much ado about NOTHING.

2009-07-13T12:32:00.000-05:00

Does anyone truly believe that the Supreme Court Justices who denied freedom to the plaintiff in Plessey v. Ferguson, stating that the Black man had no rights regarding which the White man need be concerned, made the decision free of the inherent prejudices of personal ethnicity and upbringing? A brief look at the decisions of current Supreme Court Justice Scalia will show virtually NO decisions in which the rights of ethnic minorities have prevailed over Whites, despite his southern European heritage once viewed as a negative by the same power elite he currently bows down to. Roberts and Alito were chosen precisely because they would rely upon their White heritage to protect the interest of the WASP establishment from any significant attempt to protect or expand the rights of ethnic minorities [swiftly becoming majority]. Clearly the Right has been burned in the past,Rehnquist turned out not to be as racist as his right wing champions had hoped and O'Connor was virtually branded as a traitor. So they are very prickly about any attempt to rebalance the Court by appointment of a non-White female who is exceptionally bright and qualified.

So all this claptrap about Sotomayor persists in nonsense and hypocrisy. Sotomayor wisely acknowledged that her background gives her a perspective and backdrop against which she could evaluate issues that might come before her, and perhaps view them with greater sensitivity than someone from a more limited experiential background. There are, unfortunately, still people in the echelons of power who have never had a genuine encounter with an everyday person of color, a person in poverty or someone disenfranchised. These "select few" are the ones who Sessions and others of his stripe would prefer to see on the Supreme Court Bench. How sad. The very essence of the values upon which the country and the concept of a Supreme Court was supposedly founded lies in the ability to recognize, understand and empathize with people of any walk of life, ethnicity and socio-economic class.

The fallacy of slavish adherence to "law" or precedent is that many of those precedents were created by Courts and justices who lacked comprehension and empathy. This is where precedent can depart from "law." Prior decisions, stare decisis should not be cast aside lightly, but sometimes it is just plain WRONG, as in the example of Plessey v Ferguson. A wiser, more mature and empathic reading and interpretation of the "law" later obliged the Supreme Court to cast that decision aside. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." It is these small minds that are attempting to conjure fears built upon ignorance of the public [and perhaps their own] about the legal process and the selection of Judge Sotomayor.

By any objective measure, Judge Sotomayor is more qualified by intellect, maturity and experience, to be a Supreme Court Justice than half the men with who she will share the responsibilities of the Court. It is fondly to be wished that she will share that wisdom borne of her experiences [the quote being used to attack her] with those empathically stunted jurists with whom she will work. If she does, we can indeed hope for better and wiser decisions from the Court that reflect the rights, needs and interests of all Americans instead of decisions that merely use twists of sophistry and talismanic references to reliance upon the "law" to preserve and protect the current system that unjustly favors a small group of socio-economic elitists.

History Repeats Itself, Or A Reasonable Facsimile Thereof….

2009-04-26T18:40:00.000-05:00

Reading the cascade of disclosures now pouring forth about the torture and prisoner abuse practices that were authorized and condoned by the Bush Administration, from the White house to the Secretary of Defense on down, is a sickening process. Even more disturbing are the excuses and facile explanations why such information should be concealed or is of no serious importance presented by officials involved in the torture or who were responsible for preventing such abuses under their command. The most recent revelation is in testimony by Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted the investigation that revealed the abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison back in 2004. He states that it is now beyond question that systematic torture was conducted against prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba with Bush Administration approval. He characterizes those actions, at least the worst of them, as “war crimes.” The only remaining question, he asserts, is whether those responsible for authorizing and condoning such tactics will be held accountable. This question is on the mind of many US citizens who long for the restoration of respect, integrity and moral authority that the US once enjoyed.

These allegations are supported by extensive documentation, including examination and interviews with former detainees. The argument that such detentions and abuses were necessary is belied by the number of prisoners held for years who were NEVER charged with any crime.

“Doctors and mental health experts examined 11 detainees held for long periods in the prison system that President Bush established after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. All of them eventually were released without charges.” Report by Physicians for Human Rights.

The Pentagon spokesman seeks to dismiss the accusations as irrelevant. Attempting to sweep the information under the rug, the Pentagon incredulously states with a straight face:

"All credible allegations of abuse are thoroughly investigated and, if substantiated, those responsible are held accountable," said Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman. "It adds little to the public discourse to draw sweeping conclusions based upon dubious allegations regarding remote medical assessments of former detainees, now far removed from detention," Gordon said.

Such responses would be laughable if the matter were not so serious. The Bush Administration denied the International Red Cross access to many of the detainees and held them without the ability to communicate with anyone. Now the pentagon would argue that evidence of their treatment while held captive is not reliable because it is not direct evidence or eyewitness testimony obtained during the period when these people were actually detained. That is like arguing that Nazi concentration camp survivors cannot testify reliably about their experience because the testimony was not transcribed while they were held prisoner by the Nazis.

Indeed, many of the excuses and rationalizations used by former Nazi officials are chillingly resurfacing in the form of rationalizations used to support the Bush Administration torture regime. Terrorists and those suspected of supporting terrorist activity are not really people, so they have no rights, they argue. They presented a threat to the security of the motherland, so they had to be removed, is the explanation. Practices such as electric shock, simulated drowning, intense physical abuse such as slamming heads against walls is not really torture, any more than human experimentation by Josef Mengele was any more than scientific inquiry is the rationalization. And so the excuses and rationalizations go. While no gas chambers were employed by the Bush Administration, which we know of, there are numerous instances in which prisoners died in captivity as a result of their “harsh interrogation.” Since they were neither charged with any crime, given the right to counsel or a trial, such deaths can only be deemed executions.

Technically, the tactics by the Bush Administration were not as extreme as those used by the Nazis. Yet with the history and knowledge of what happened in Germany over 60 years ago, can the conduct of Bush Administration officials be deemed any less reprehensible? The world wanted to pretend that the Holocaust was not happening. But the world now knows undeniably that it did happen, and has expressly vowed that it shall not happen again. Armed with that knowledge and bound by that commitment, how then can the systematic physical torture, starvation and deliberate psychological abuse of detainees be seriously countenanced? We should know better. We owe ourselves and the world a higher standard of conduct.

Perhaps even more distressing are the results of a poll recently published in which approximately 50% of US citizens believe that the use of torture against “terrorism suspects” is justified or justifiable. To note that certain renegade officials engaged in war crimes is significant. That Congress stood by and failed to reign in such criminal behavior when evidence of it was manifest is a tragedy. Yet for the moral compass of the nation as a whole to have veered so far off course as to condone such barbarity is monstrous. In that regard the history of Nazi Germany is paralleled. Hitler could not have perpetrated the heinous war crimes that took place under the Third Reich without the support and consent of the German people.

It would be well to note that the self righteous, “don’t give a damn what the law says or other nations think,” arrogance of the Bush Administration does not play well outside the myopic and self deluded confines of the US borders. It is not because other nations hate the US, as Bush sycophants and apologists would argue. Outside the US, people simply look at the facts objectively and measure the US conduct against the values and ideals that the nation publicly espouses. A nation that systematically violates international laws, human rights standards and spies upon its own citizens in violation of its own Constitution cannot be respected or taken seriously when it preaches to other nations about “freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights.”

Indeed the US has stooped so low that it will take some time before it can legitimately hold its head up among nations of the civilized world. Respect must be earned. Taking deliberate and systematic steps as prescribed by the US Constitution, the court system and the Hague Conventions respecting war crimes would be the most responsible first step toward regaining that respect. This is something that the Obama Administration must support if it is to fulfill its Constitutional duty and if it hopes to regain stature as a world leader.

“Never again,” the motto declared after the Holocaust, must truly mean something. The only way it can have true meaning is that its lessons be understood and that steps are taken to hold those persons that choose to follow in the steps of Hitler and Nazi Germany accountable for their actions. That gas chambers and human dissection were not employed this time is only a matter of degree, and the comparisons of morality are far too similar.

Civil Rights Decisions: Supreme Court Has the Chance to Hit or Miss the Point

2009-04-19T11:46:00.000-05:00

The United States Supreme Court currently has under consideration a cluster of cases that deal with the issues surrounding government action in the application and enforcement of civil rights laws. These cases involve employment discrimination claims, voting rights issues, education policies and mortgage lending practices. The most visible of the cases involves claims of reverse race discrimination by a group of white firefighters who claim that they were unlawfully denied promotions when promotional exam results were thrown out because of major racial disparity in the passing rate. The Supreme Court is being asked to address whether the racial disparity in the exam results was a sufficient basis for denying assignment of promotions based upon the exam. The case is not totally unlike the prior Bakke case involving use of scores for admission to law school.

A little background is in order to understand the process. In typical fire department and police promotional systems, employees with a minimum level of experience are permitted to take a promotion exam in order to qualify for a pool. When promotional positions open, assignments are made from the pool of employees who score high enough on the exam. Other factors may influence specific job assignments, but the primary step is to qualify for the promotional pool. The pool usually lasts for a specified period or whenever there are no qualified pool members left to fill openings that may arise.

In the past, promotional practices of public service systems have been challenged by Black and Hispanic employees because of either the exams used or the selective failure to appoint employees of color once they made it into the pool as alleged in Minnesota. In some cases Black qualified pool members were targets and discredited in order to make then ineligible for actual promotion. Other devices used to discriminate have been supplying white candidates with test preparation materials prior to the exam and prior to release to non-white applicants, as alleged in Jacksonville, Florida. In some cases, even the test questions have been released to selected candidates to provide advantage. These systems have long been tainted by the spoils system and by a “good ol’ boy” network that has given unfair advantage to whites and relatives.

Conceptually, the main issue is the importance of the exam used for qualification purposes. Without question, fire departments are allowed to apply some criteria to determine minimum qualification for promotional positions. Exams have been used traditionally, but over the years the nature of the exams has come under closer scrutiny. Civil Rights laws against discrimination allow use of exams, but only if they are “validated,” that is shown to be valid measures assess competence and that predict successful performance. It is presumed that race is not a valid criterion for predicting successful performance. For example, the screening device used at airports detects metal objects like knives and guns. These items are presumed to present a potential safety risk to the flight operators and other passengers, the intent and purpose of the “test.” A ceremonial blade carried by a passenger may not be intended for illicit use on the flight, but it will nevertheless be picked up by the test because of its intrinsic properties and the passenger will be disqualified.

Imagine, however, if the same test screened out every passenger who happened to have dark skin or appeared to be of Arabic ancestry. Since the “test” is still applied to all, it is non-discriminatory in its application, but the results are flawed because the criteria measured and the way it measures are not valid. Thus, a focus on only one aspect of the exam is incomplete and flawed. If it is improper to make a judgment about qualifications on the basis of race or ethnicity, then the use of a “facially” neutral test that yields discriminatory results is not a valid process. If the test, on the other hand can be shown through repeated use and proper administration to yield results which are not significantly different based upon the race or ethnicity of the applicant, the test is valid even if the results in a specific examination application are skewed toward or against a particular racial group.

The judicial review system is supposed to be designed to answer narrow questions, rather than make advisory pronouncements or sweeping policy directives. Nevertheless, commentators are looking to past decisions and statements by current Supreme Court justices to predict the outcomes on these pending cases. The role of the current political environment and composition of the Court are always potentially influencing factors. Chief Justice Roberts has previously stated dislike for government intervention based upon race. Justice Scalia has traditionally been opposed to any government action that might aid minorities or correct past discrimination, and Justice Thomas has trotted along behind him in the great majority of cases despite a cultural heritage that should have made him more sensitive. These so-called “conservatives” tend to focus primarily upon the remedy aspect of the problem and ignore the fundamental causes that created the dispute. In their view, government is virtually powerless to use race as a factor in applying corrective measures even to patently discriminatory systems and practices, as long as the process appears to be facially neutral. Other justices acknowledge the existence and effects of racism and discrimination and allow governments certain narrow latitude in attempting to remedy specific discriminatory situations.

In the firefighter case, the issue is not really whether the white firefighters who passed the exam were discriminated against by throwing out the results. The larger issue is whether the fire department could demonstrate the validity of an exam in which not one single Black firefighter passed. If the fire department [government] believed that it could not do so, it was OBLIGATED to throw out the results because any appointments based upon the resulting pool would have violated existing laws. The true issue is the sense of privilege that causes the white firefighters to believe in and rely upon an exam, just because it is an “official” exam. Ample evidence shows that exams can be content and structurally biased and thus cause results that do not accurately measure the relevant criteria. In some instances, they do measure basic functional qualifications, but the added factors in the test so disadvantage applicants of some races that the results are skewed. It is not possible to tell who would have passed the functional part if the biased part had not been included.

The Supreme Court has the chance to focus on the real issues here and determine whether the exam could unquestionably have been defended as a validated instrument, that no reasonable examination of the exam could have caused the fire department to question that the results were non-discriminatory. If the answer is in the affirmative, then the results should not have been thrown out and the white firefighters allowed participation in the qualified pool. [The lead plaintiff Ricci still might not have been actually promoted to a desired position because his dyslexia may have been a bona fide occupational issue for actually performing the specific functions of a firefighting supervisor.] If the exam was not clearly defensible, the fire department was correct in refusing to rely upon the results. The racial disparity of the results should have been a “red flag” that the exam or its application was flawed. If the infirmity of the exam was racial bias, then it would stand logic on its head to say that use of race to identify and throw out a flawed exam would be illegal.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to miss or deliberately avoid the real issues and decide that the test results should be upheld simply because the factor of race was used to throw out the results. This simplistic analysis would assert that the government is prohibited from using race as a factor in any of its employment actions. The philosophy behind this position tends to reinforce racism. It says that no matter how we arrived where we are, any action that we take at this point must be racially neutral. Neither affirmative steps to shape the system nor remedial steps to correct identified problems can be based upon racial factors. In the firefighter case, it would oblige the government to support a system and an exam that it truly believed to be discriminatory because it would be powerless to do anything to correct the racial disparity yielded by the results.

This notion ignores the very existence of racism, as it is axiomatic that current practices can serve to perpetuate past discrimination and further ingrain disparities that disadvantage people of color. A well meaning government official faced with a system that has embedded historical discrimination and biased practices would be powerless to take corrective action to create a more non-discriminatory system. It is like saying that, although white participants in a race were allowed to start the race ahead of the starting line, the race cannot be adjusted in order for the people of color to remedy the advantage that the whites started with. Some people of color will have such superior skill and talent that they are able to finish ahead of some whites. But the race cannot be called, in any true sense, a fair competition.

These case present a fundamental question as to the nature and character of governmental power in the US, as interpreted by the Roberts Court. The “original intent” of the Constitution, when written, did not consider Black people in the United States to be citizens, and laws which prohibited Blacks from presenting cases or acting as witnesses in court were considered Constitutional. The express language of the US Constitution, however, states that the government must act, when necessary, to protect the rights and welfare of all citizens. Subsequent decisions interpreting the Constitution as a “living document” have applied those protections to all people, regardless of race or ethnicity. The current Supreme Court will have a chance to deliberately hit or deliberately miss the most significant issues of these pending cases. Their decisions will provide evidence of the Court’s view of the current character of the nation.

Obama Falls Down

2009-04-17T13:01:00.000-05:00

The Obama Administration has much to recommend it for the courage to address the frightening distress in which Bush has left the country mired. But despite such determination, there are some areas in which a display of courage is demonstrably lacking. The decision to forego prosecution of Bush administration CIA officers for torture crimes is an example of a “cave-in” to political pressure that disserves the country. Leaving potential prosecution on the table is not primarily a retribution driven tool, it is predominantly pragmatic.

Rather than disavow prosecution at the outset, immunity should be offered strategically in order to get the detailed information necessary to dissect and analyze how the government went so badly off course, legally and morally. Unlike torture as a means of extracting useful information, the current Justice Department should know that plea bargaining and offers of transactional immunity are both humane and effective ways to get at information. The information is often more reliable because the effectiveness of the immunity bargain is predicated upon verification of the information offered. In contrast, a tortured detainee will say anything the he or she believes the captors want to hear in order to stop the abusive treatment. If the true goal is to get to the bottom of the course of events that now has the US deemed irrelevant in the advocacy of human rights around the world, then retaining the option of pressuring material witnesses and participants to provide verifiable details would seem critically important and well as functional.

Much that the Obama Administration has tried to do is laudable, patient and moderate. Critics, other than the Obama haters who are negative on anything he does, tend toward two extremes. The first are the critics who trot out the old “cut taxes and let the capitalists run amok” portfolio of the Reagan/Bush ilk. This is the failed strategy that has led to the current sad state of affairs. Reagan was deliberate in his drive to disassemble governmental regulatory functions. G W Bush was reckless and unable to grasp the probable consequences of doctrinaire policies. As such, his kneejerk response to “terrorism” was to ensnare the US government in the same types of immoral and inhuman tactics that the so-called “war on terror” was supposed to eradicate. The notion that the end justifies any means is viable only when a nation is willing to abandon moral authority.

The second camp of critics tends to believe that excessive zeal in pursuit of truth and democracy is not a fault. They champion more vigorous measures to prosecute and punish wrongdoers who followed dogmatic orders and policies of the G W Bush administration. As in the Viet Nam My Lai massacre, the idea is that the foot soldiers should have known better than to carry out orders that were illegal and human rights violations. This position is also too extreme for the current situation. The probable truth lies somewhere in the gray areas between these positions. Many acts of torture were doubtless carried out sadistically and enthusiastically, but under the cover of an express legal opinion by hight government officials. While reprehensible, punishing these acts may not be as useful as information about who gave orders and which superior officers had specific knowledge of such conduct. When detainee claims of torture surface, as is now occurring more frequently, information to verify or refute is important.

In some instances, CIA and military officials appear to have acted in applying torture techniques PRIOR to the DOJ legal memorandum appearing to authorize such tactics. In other situations, torture was conducted after express concerns and reservations as to the legality, effectiveness and humanity of the treatment were raised. In these latter two instances, the argument that the personnel were “just following orders” simply does not wash.

And beyond individual actions and culpability, the testimony of these participants is vitally important to a full understanding of how torture came to be an institutionally sanctioned practice of the US, despite decades of international prohibitions and directives against its use. The argument that the country needs to “move beyond” the dark period of its history cannot withstand logic or scrutiny in this instance. It may be a policy decision not to mire the country further in vengeful public trials of Bush functionaries. But to sweep the matter under the rug by abandoning traditional prosecutorial tools is like denying the Holocaust. The wrong and the evil done in the name of the country is manifest and needs to be acknowledged. Whether or not participants are jailed, the simple truth of what happened and how it was allowed to happen is important to enable the country to truly move past that dark period. This is the argument of those sponsoring a truth commission, a laudable goal. However, conducting such an inquiry in the context of Congressional hearings is likely to generate more publicity and more heat than light.

The die may be already cast, in that Panetta already gave assurances of no prosecution that Obama seems to have ratified. But the move was nevertheless a mistake. Obama’s greatest power to govern stems from a belief that he will have the courage to govern justly and will move to restore some measure of integrity in government and moral authority to the image of the United States. Moves like the decision to abandon, a priori, the option of prosecution against war crimes only serves to weaken public confidence in his leadership.

A New "Economic" Monroe Doctrine

2009-04-07T09:20:00.000-05:00

Centuries ago President Monroe announced a doctrine, somewhat arrogantly because of a lack of real ability to back up the demand, that the Western hemisphere should be free from further colonization or interference from European Powers. At the time, the power and reach of the colonial giants Great Britain and Spain was on the wane and their colonization efforts in the West crippled by infighting on the European continent. The upstart nation, the United States of America, was growing rapidly and beginning to feel the pride and responsibility of becoming a world power. Surprisingly, the established nations of the world took this dictate of the upstart nation seriously and focused further colonization efforts elsewhere.

On more than one occasion, the USA has been obliged to defend that doctrine in order to maintain its sphere of influence, militarily and economically. By the 1950’s, however, the USA had proven capability to back up the demand and the doctrine. The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of another war when the former Soviet sought to establish a blatant military presence at the doorstep of the USA. The fear of nuclear disaster helped to avert a war and the matter was resolved through a detente that left all concerns aware that the Monroe Doctrine was still an important piece of the nationalist identity of the USA.

In the twenty-first century, the balance and character of the threats have changed. The world power pantheon has changed and new principal players have joined the game. Most significantly, China has now become a major factor in the geopolitical maneuvering for influence and control. The ability to shape world events now relies less upon military strength than upon economic power. Many in Washington, over the past several decades never would have dreamt of the decline in both power and influence that the USA now faces in the world.

Indeed, it could be argued that the ideological myopia of the George W. Bush Administration ignored signals of change in the real world power structure while playing “cowboy” politics in Iraq. That debacle squandered critical time and resources that the USA sorely needed to adapt to a new set of realities. In its folly of attempting to justify violation of international human rights standards of conduct with the talisman of a “war on terror,” the Bush Administration also expended the bulk of its moral leadership capital. As a result, 2008 arrived with a world in economic turmoil and the lack of any true claimant to world leadership. The USA is no longer feared or able to wield major moral authority in the world arena. This brings us back to an analogy nearer to the status where Monroe stood that many would care to acknowledge.

Another aspect of this geopolitical chess game is the atrophy of US relationships with and the alienation of Latin American neighbors. This is a process wrought by US foreign policy since the Reagan Administration. Arrogance and cultural incompetence are major causes of this decline, as the USA has attempted to use its economic might to bully governments of South and Latin America or to intimidate them with military alliances with surrogate leaders. Vague political tropisms such as mindless anti-narcotic trafficking and anti-terrorist policies have been applied without thinking through the real world implications of the manner in which they have been carried out. The result, to date, has been a high level of distrust and strained relationships with governments and peoples of Latin America.

The examples of failure are almost too numerous to mention. From the misguided embargo against Cuba [which achieves no actual political benefit while perpetuating humanitarian suffering as well as disrespect for US foreign policy] to Iran-Contra and up to the recent expulsion of the US Embassy official from Ecuador for overt meddling in Ecuadorian government internal affairs [his CIA role, under the cover of diplomatic status, was the probable justification for his activity – again signifying a wrongheaded mindset]. The cumulative effect of these misguided policies, together with a loss of confidence in the economic wisdom and prowess of the US, has been a distancing of Latin American governments from Washington and a distinct leftward shift. The shift toward more socialist policies is not, in itself, a negative development when the long neglected actual needs of the populations in these countries are being addressed [not by any means a foregone conclusion]. However, the alienation and enmity respecting the USA is a very unfortunate and development.

Into the chasm have stepped a number of the new players in the geopolitical chess game and some old players as well. Witness the weekly press coverage of State visits and new trade agreements between Latin American governments with China and Russia. Iran and India have entered the game as well, striking advantageous trade and investment agreements involving both economic development and trade of manufactured goods. This is all taking place while the USA is going through an historic decline in its economy and loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector. Ecuador buys helicopters from India while potentially superior units from USA manufacturers are ignored. The Russian weapons purchased in Venezuela and Chile to re-equip military forces could probably have been supplied by manufacturers in the USA. President Bachelet of Chile just met with Putin of Russia to commit to again redouble the amount of trade between those two countries. The hottest selling autos in Chile are now manufactured in China. The list of examples could continue.

None of these purchases have presented a risk to USA military security. Neither does the existence of global trade present an eminent threat. In short, there is no legitimate reason why the US could not have pursued competitive participation in these economic developments.

The cumulative effect of the lost economic opportunity and the sensibilities that have caused these Latin governments to seek out other trading partners and avoid relations with the USA should be a wake up call regarding the infirmity of relations with our neighbors and presumptive trading partners. The advantages in terms of potential common interests as well as basic advantages in terms of the cost of delivery should be obvious, if the USA was able to shed its neo-liberal blinders and view the situation in a more realistic and less ideological way.

The old mantras ring especially hollow. The USA cannot trumpet human rights as a clarion call unless and until it deals in a forthright way with the crimes of the Bush Administration to restore its moral authority. The billions spent in anti-drug campaigns have proven ineffective, as evidenced by the recent acknowledgement by Secretary of State Clinton that the USA market for drugs and USA supplied weapons in the hands of drug trafficking cartels are as much to blame for the current violent illicit drug trade as the laxity in enforcement of the conduit countries like Mexico.

If money alone were the issue, the use of financing vehicles similar to those used by these other countries certainly would be an option for the Obama Administration. After all, the only effective way to reinvigorate jobs in the manufacturing industry is to increase and generate customers to buy the good manufactured. Spending billions to extend unemployment benefits is a necessary temporary step. But until the source of the problem is squarely addressed, the revival of markets for goods those unemployed workers would produce, the economic conundrum will persist. The open question is why at least a portion of the money being directed toward bailout of corrupt and incompetent banking and manufacturing concerns is not used to rebuild economic relations with our Latin American neighbors? The demand for goods is clearly present, as we see the volume of trade with other countries continuing and increasing. Perhaps the recession in the USA will create an opportunity for readjustments in the cost of manufacturing that enhance competitiveness. However, much of the purchasing that comprises this international trade involves issues of superior product quality and technology that the purchasing countries do not have. Here the USA has had a traditional advantage.

But the dual purpose of a change in policy cannot be discounted. Throughout human civilization the establishment of trade ties has led to the development of political alliances. If the USA truly seeks to protect its geopolitical interests in the Western Hemisphere, it must re-evaluate the deteriorated relationships with Latin America. The new policies should not stem from a hegemonic and racist fount, combined with the arrogance displayed by Bush. Instead, Latin America should be approached respectfully as one would a neighbor with the goal of establishing lasting positive relationships. If the USA seeks to deter further economic colonization of Latin America by China, Russia and others, it must stop treating Latin American governments like a colonizing bully.

A new Monroe Doctrine based principally on economic foundations is warranted. The “troops” from the other hemisphere that are currently establishing strongholds in Latin America are not wearing camouflage gear and carrying weapons. They are wearing business suits and carrying checkbooks. With these vestments and tools, they are securing ties that may present as much of a risk to the long term interests of the USA as the missiles that the Soviet Union sought to install in Cuba.

Many Want To Play the Hero, Few Are Willing To Die For Their Beliefs

2009-04-07T09:15:00.000-05:00

Spanish Magistrate Baltazar Garzon, charged with investigating credible claims of torture arising from detention and interrogation of prisoners in the Iraq conflict and the Bush “War on Terror” associated with that post-9/11 set of US policies, ordered prosecutors to investigate the actions of several Bush Administration officials. Douglas Feith, former US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, along with Alberto Gonzalez, David Addington, John Yoo and Jay Bybee were names as targets of the investigation. The roles of Bybee and Yoo are fairly well known as legal counsel responsible for drafting and approving legal memoranda that rationalized and appeared to authorize aggressive interrogation techniques deemed by the rest of the international community as illegal torture. Former Attorney General Gonzalez was named by Condoleeza Rice as the designated Administration official coordinating DOJ advice to the president regarding interrogation policy. Addington was Cheney’s primary functionary and the principal conduit through which the War on Terror policy moved.

Feith was a principal player in his role cooking up false and misleading “intelligence” alleging ties between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda to justify the invasion of Iraq. He also served on a work group that developed harsh interrogation technique policies approved by the Bush Administration and used against detainees in Bagram, Guantanamo and the many “secret” prison facilities to which prisoners were taken as a result of “extraordinary rendition” practices.

Feith, in response to news that he was being investigated, recently replied in an interview that he had not advocated the policies and practices under scrutiny. This position seems facile at best, as the basis for initiating the investigation came from direct quotes in interviews given by Feith himself. The 98 page report upon which the magistrate acted contains multiple corroborating sources that describe a fairly clear picture of the parties involved as well as the actions that arose from the deliberations of the Bush administration work group. As direct testimony accumulates from detainees subjected to the aggressive interrogation practices, the focus of both cause and effect begins to sharpen.

At the time of his central involvement and public pronouncements of the importance and necessity of using such techniques that, even then, raised questions of Geneva Conventions and international law violations, Feith wrapped himself in the cloak of a hero promoting and protecting the national interests of the United States and the “American people.” Now, when his actions are being scrutinized in the cold light of history and without the backdrop of a sycophantic Congress and enabling White House, Feith seeks to rewrite history and claim that he never supported such policies.

A man of courage and integrity would simply have acknowledged his willing and enthusiastic role in the Bush fiasco. An honest man would accept responsibility for what he actually did in helping to shape and advocate approval of measures that he believed were important to advancing the interests of his superiors and their regime. That would be consistent with the posture of hero in which Feith tried to cast himself at the time of his participation in the work group. If those were his beliefs, then he ought to have the courage to stand up for them. John Yoo has remained unapologetic respecting his legal memos that the great majority of legal scholars, liberal and conservative, have assessed as both legally unfounded and professionally incompetent. Yet John Yoo has maintained the courage of his convictions, no matter how flawed and indefensible, morally and legally, they are.

Perhaps it is in keeping with the character surrounding the falsified intelligence activities of Feith and the general pattern of deceit and dishonesty of the Bush Administration, that he would now seek to disavow activities regarding which clear documentation exists. In more forthright times, his current posture might be called a “bald faced lie.” Yet the Bush Administration was not generally in the same arena as the truth when it came to justifications for its policies regarding Iraq and its War on Terror. Instead, it typically chose to deceive the public and most of Congress while claiming privilege or classified status as a basis for refusing to turn over any corroborating or supporting documentation for the claims it made or policy positions it took. So it is not entirely clear whether Feith actually did support the torture of prisoners in his heart, while he actively advanced torture policy in his actions. He may have simply chosen to abandon any morality or to act against his personal values in order to advance his career and public posture.

One thing is clear, however, Feith took an active role in advocating for the use of torture against detainees in connection with the War on Terror and the Iraq invasion and occupation. His current denial of such actions is cowardly and unseemly. Nothing other than his own venality required him to set aside moral opposition to torture in support of the Bush regime policies. If he had no such moral objection then, it is cowardly to effect the posture that he did object when his actions are now under objective scrutiny. It is a sign of weak character to seek to portray oneself as a hero to aggrandize a public posture, only to disavow both actions and responsibility when held accountable for the actions upon which such heroism was claimed.

See Also: Spain investigates what America Should -
Marjorie Cohn - Monday, April 6, 2009 - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/06/EDSG16SH3N.DTL

Cleaning up the Economic Environment

2009-03-01T09:00:00.000-06:00

For too long the pundits and so called “experts” have submitted to the obstructionist politicians who have cast environmental responsibility as the opponent of economic development. The two are not even inconsistent, much less antithetical, if one has the intelligence and willpower to think things through. Let us consider a fairly simple premise. If the economy can generate trillions of dollars based upon carbon emission producing technologies, is it not logical that at least billions of dollars could be generated on technologies that reduce or eliminate carbon dioxide emissions?

To be certain, the level of dependence that the world now has on carbon fuels and the existing supply lines for coal and petroleum suggest that such production and consumption will not go away in the near future. But much of the consumption that we are experiencing is a result of a lack of available alternatives. Let’s be clear, it is not a lack of viable alternatives, but rather a failure of the economy and vested corporate interests to make the viable alternatives available. Most of us are aware that automakers have owned and controlled fuel efficient technologies that they have buried and failed to make available in their products. It is also likely that the oil industry has patented technologies under control and hidden from the public that could reduce oil consumption. Power companies collectively have spent billions of dollars fighting regulations to retrofit coal fired plants with scrubbers and emissions cleaning technologies that have existed for decades.

There are signs of the air clearing a bit from this fog of polluted thinking. President Obama has signaled a desire and intention to seek a path toward more responsible environmental stewardship. In so doing, he has rejected the notion that such an approach would be too costly. Instead, he has posited that an aggressive investment in clean technologies provides an opportunity for economic growth and development. How refreshing to have a thinking President in the White House.

The United States, despite the declines in education and R&D over the past decade, still has the edge regarding the development of new technologies. This ingenuity, if supported by substantial investment, can develop and deliver technologies that are environmentally responsible and economically accessible. Young engineering students at MIT are developing solar energy systems that can be constructed from readily available used car parts. These inexpensive systems can be built and maintained in areas that are underdeveloped and provide clean energy sources for small factories that can employ local residents. Other bright young minds are developing water sanitation systems that are self supporting and can also be employed even in economically depressed areas.

The ramifications of these opportunities are staggering. Not only can such technologies help improve the environment, but they provide the opportunity for companies to manufacture, franchise and distribute these technologies throughout the world. On a global scale, the creation of jobs alone would be huge. The injection of new industries based upon clean and energy efficient technologies would boost the economies throughout the world. These are not environmental pipe dreams, but latent potential that we have simply failed to explore and exploit. The US has the chance to help the world recover economically from the economic disaster that it had a major role in creating, and in so doing reclaim a deserved position as leader of the free world.

The problem is that we have spent so much time looking down and staring at our feet that we have lost the ability to envision the sunrise. Moneyed interests have conditioned the people to limit their perspectives and to only focus on what serves the interests of those in financial control of the status quo. That control has widened the gap in socio-economic classes, destroyed economic opportunities and future prospects for the vast majority of middle and lower income families and continued the path of damage to the environment that Al Gore and environmental scientists have been warning us about for decades. It is time that we lifted our heads and elevated both our vision and our aspirations toward something better. We can revive the economy AND help to clean up the environmental damage at the same time. What better legacy to strive for and to leave to our grandchildren?

Piercing The Bubble

2009-03-01T07:32:00.000-06:00

A recent article in the Washington Post illustrates an important issue regarding the modern process of governance in the White House, and the challenges that face President Obama as he seeks to deliver on his campaign promises. The article [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29448953/] details the nature of the seclusion and exclusion that envelops the President, all in the name of “security” and “efficiency.” These measures are what we commonly refer to as “the Bubble” inside which Presidents live. The challenge for Obama is to force Washington and the country’s politics to function in a different way, a new way, if the sad direction in which his predecessor took the country is to be altered. Yet how can a President effectively change the way business is done if he continues to do business in the same old ways? Surrounded by a large cadre of “assistants” and “Senior Advisors” who have an understandably vested interest in maintaining control of access to the President, because in the White House and in Washington access is power, the obstacle to objective leadership is in finding advisors who will tell him what he does not want to hear [but needs to know] as well as what he wants to hear.

Consider the quote from White House Staff Secretary Lisa Brown:
"The way I would frame the job is that I want to maximize his time," said Staff Secretary Lisa Brown, an assistant to the president who works out of an office on the ground floor of the West Wing. "So it's making sure that, when we send him something, it is what he wants to see, when he wants to see it, and we are helping him be as efficient as he could be."

While this formulation of the job is obviously well intentioned, it contains the seeds of serious problems. Who decides what and when Obama wants to see? Is it truly Obama or one of these staffers? Certainly, Obama does not have sufficient time to review all inputs that are sent to him. The array of issues and the amount of information needed daily is too vast for anyone to absorb in a day, a week or even a month. Yet there is also a maxim that Obama should recall, that he who frames the question controls the debate. In other words, if the options presented to Obama for decision are too biased or limited, then his thinking and decision making will be skewed in the direction that his staffers desire instead of being based upon the President’s own instincts, intelligence and beliefs.

Barack Obama has demonstrated his innate intelligence and we can only hope that he has taken the time to address this chronic problem. He has spent too much time seeking the Office and building the hopes of the country to allow that victory to be snatched from under him by a subverting staff. But a wise manager knows that sufficient time has to be spent on process if one seeks to assure effective and quality results. Obama needs to regularly review the staffing process in order to assure that his information input is not becoming skewed or myopic. In the tremendous power games of Washington, the forces seeking to control and delimit the options of the president are both strong and subtle. Obama has thrown down the gauntlet and publicly acknowledged that the lobbyist factions will attack his agenda any way they can and without scruple. But he must also recognize that within his circle of advisors there will be factions seeking to influence, if not control, his decision making.

It could easily be argued that his predecessor, George W. Bush, really did not know why he wanted to be President other than to acquire the Power and prestige of the position. Thus, it was fairly easy for Cheney and Rumsfeld to wrest control of the White House from him, effectively using ideology bound Senior Staff members who placed loyalty above competence. Their loyalty, however, was not to the president or the country, but rather to special interests who promised them hefty payoffs both during and after their time in the Bush Administration. In addition, Bush was not the brightest of men and was not intellectually active or curious. Consequently, he would have been unlikely to critically analyze what was going on around him and recognize that he was being “managed” instead of truly leading.

To date, Obama has shown that he is not entirely comfortable with the swarm of staffing that surrounds him and controls his time and movements. That is a GOOD sign, an instinct that he ought to preserve. As time and the pressures of the office begin to wear on Obama, as they inevitably will, he needs to revisit those instincts and determine whether it is truly HIS agenda that is being pursued. He must never forget that it is he that the people elected as President, and that his primary responsibility is to be himself. My own experience for decades as a lawyer and advisor, and working with other, has made me acutely sensitive to how easy it is for an advisor to forget that it is they who work for the client and not the reverse. Obama must seek to reaffirm and to remind the Staff and Senior Advisors that they work for him. It is not their place to set policy; rather they serve to assist the President in exploring all relevant options and ramifications in the process of helping HIM determine policy.

One of the major dangers of “the Bubble” is that one who is enveloped within it does not even recognize his occluded condition. Obama would do well to maintain, indeed insist upon, steps that fight against the seclusion and myopia that the traditional process creates. Trips outside the White House are important. But review of the internal process within the White House on a regular basis is perhaps even more important if Obama is to retain the reins of leadership in this Presidency.

Hope Rewarded, Faith Restored

2009-01-23T14:55:00.000-06:00

With a single action, the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama has initiated a ripple that may grow to a tidal wave of change impacting the US government, its citizens and the world at large. President Obama signed an Executive Order effectively declaring an end to the Bush “War on Terror.” In addition, he nullified legal opinions issued by Bush Administration lawyers regarding Presidential powers purportedly engendered by the “war” since September 11, 2001. The ramifications of this seemingly small action could be immense.

Many scholars and legal experts have questioned or challenged the basis upon which Bush grounded his claims of executive prerogatives and power, by simply declaring a “War on Terror.” To invoke true legal war powers, under the Constitution, there must actually be a war. Moreover, Congress holds a vital role in declaring such measures. That is how the US government is supposed to work. Instead, Bush contrived a phony peril, based upon fabricated “intelligence” information and hyperbolic Elmer Gantry style demagoguery, and duped Congress into authorizing military force in Iraq. Because the power grab could not be sustained or justified by the situation in Iraq alone, especially after the non-existence of “weapons of mass destruction” was revealed, Bush chose to declare war on an amorphous indefinable enemy – i.e. terror. Since the enemy could never be defined, it could never actually be defeated. That permitted Bush the opening to pursue a strategy of unbridled executive power for as long as he wished.

The strategy was as clever and cynical as it was evil and immoral. Any attempt to challenge or even uncover government actions of questionable legality could be met with a refusal to disclose information on the basis of “national security.” Any legal challenge to action that was revealed would be met with efforts to suppress or arguments that any restraint on executive discretion would harm efforts to fight “terrorism.” People were kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured and killed in the name of the US government and for the purpose of waging this war on an enemy that could not be identified or defined. In Joe McCarthy style persecutions, individuals with “alleged ties” to subversive or terrorist groups were held in prisons without charges and without any civil or human rights guaranteed under the US Constitution and the Geneva Conventions and protocols for humane treatment of prisoners. And the American people were told that it was too much of a security risk for the public to know what types of actions were being taken in its name.

Obama called a swift halt to this cynical mentality, as he presaged in his Inaugural Address. He had told us that it was a “false choice” to declare that protecting our safety and security required abandoning and ignoring the fundamental Constitutional principles the country was built upon and the standards of human decency that the International Community considers basic. To those who still harbored belief in the potential fidelity to democratic ideals and possible embodiment of humanity in US government policies, Obama rewarded their hope at a time when it seemed that the government was capable of stooping to almost unimaginable lows.

Apparently convinced that the standards, ideals and principles that have served reasonably well for centuries under severe testing could still serve to resolve any current threats, Obama reaffirmed the public’s faith in the principles that have allowed the US to claim moral world leadership for decades. Those principles had been ignored or abandoned by the Bush Administration, who brought the US to a level of disrepute not seen in many decades, if ever.

There is still much work to do in cleaning up the mess created by the prior Administration. However, this small initial act provides the impetus for a cleansing wave to wash away the stains left by the Bush Administration. Those still within positions of responsibility now know that the sophistry and lame excuses that were previously used to justify improper actions will no longer be considered valid. If a policy or practice is to be continued, it must be justified upon sound Constitutional principles and supported by the rule of law. As Obama told us this past Tuesday, only when government is responsible and accountable will the American people and the world be able to once again place faith and confidence in its actions and its leadership. But Obama has rewarded hope that a change for the better is possible; and he has reaffirmed faith that the ideals and principles of government by and for the people are not totally moribund. We can only hope that the small ripple will gain substantial momentum, for the magnitude of dirt and stain to be swept away is not yet known. Indeed, a tidal wave may well be what is required for the country’s honor to be washed clean again.

It Comes With the Job Description.

2009-01-19T16:48:00.000-06:00

There has been much discussion regarding whether President-Elect Obama should or must authorize and initiate investigations and prosecution of illegal actions by President Bush and his Administration. All sorts of political dissembling have been advanced about “moving on” and letting bygones be bygones. Others argue that such investigations would be an unwelcome distraction when the nation faces a great deal of work simply to recover from the economic devastation wrought by unwise policies and unethical mismanagement by Bush officials. None of these arguments seem to carry as much weight as some more basic imperatives that, quite simply, cannot be avoided as part of the job Obama undertakes as he takes an oath of office.

Former Congressional Representative and former federal prosecutor from New York, Elizabeth Holtzman articulates perhaps the most compelling obligation in an article published in The Nation magazine:

There is another important reason for not "moving on." On January 20, Barack Obama will take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution, which requires the president to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Much as President Obama might like to avoid controversy arising from investigations and prosecutions of high-level Bush administration officials, he cannot let them get away with breaking the law without violating his oath. His obligation to pursue justice in these cases is all the more serious given his acknowledgment that waterboarding is torture-which is a federal crime-and the vice president's recent admission of his involvement in and approval of "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
Moreover, under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, our government is obliged to bring to justice those who have violated the conventions. Although Bush smugly ignored his constitutional duty to enforce treaty obligations and laws that punish detainee mistreatment, Obama cannot follow the same lawless path.

Simply put, Obama swears to uphold the law and faithfully prosecute the laws of the United States. Where there is manifest probable cause and documented evidence of such violations, failure to investigate and to prosecute based upon strong evidence would be a dereliction of his Constitutional duty as chief law enforcement officer of the land. The recent Cheney public admission of authorizing measures that constitute torture, and the numerous other flagrant examples of obstruction of justice [including but not limited to concealing millions of e-mails that the law requires be preserved and held for public archives simply to impede court proceedings investigating corruption in the Justice Department] clearly constitute probable cause, if not veritable "smoking gun" evidence of criminality.

Holtzman goes on to argue that there are many reasons why this public responsibility should be honored, including the prospect that ignoring the violations will certainly encourage disregard for the laws and disrespect for law enforcement in the future. We are well aware that the notion of an “Imperial Presidency” was harbored in the breast of Cheney following the demise of his mentor, Richard Nixon. He clearly waited for the opportunity to advance the doctrine at a later time. It can be forcefully argued that fuller prosecution of the Nixon Administration, instead of the pardon, would have established the fallacy and illegality of that doctrine.
Moreover, the disregard – contempt even – for the public interest shown by Bush cronies and bank officials regarding the use of public bailout funds suggests a widespread belief in impunity for the rich and well connected, while the rest of the public is bound to comply with laws relating to unethical and illegal conduct. Only a thorough investigation of the misconduct, followed by appropriate prosecution for crimes when evidence suggests that prosecution is warranted, will break the spell of corruption and change the mindset that the US Government leadership is irretrievably corrupt.

The ability to truly “move on” in terms of implementing measures that will require huge sacrifice on the part of US citizens demands that some measure of faith be reestablished in the White House and its inhabitants. That process must begin with a Chief Executive who places high value in the oath of office that he takes to uphold and defend the Constitution and the rights that it guarantees to the citizens of the United States. Beyond this, the new President must show the world that there is a “new sheriff in town” and that past corruption and lawlessness will no longer be tolerated. Such bold steps are essential to reestablishing the belief of the world that the USA can still represent and stand up for the ideals and values embodied in its founding declarations. Otherwise, it is all just so much empty rhetoric. It is a tough course to follow, but it comes with the job description.

Fool Me Twice....

2009-01-18T17:45:00.000-06:00

Sometimes the handwriting is so clearly on the wall that it is simply amazing that it remains unread. As the federal government prepares to dole out the second half of the $700 Billion bailout fund authorized by Congress, documented evidence – the little that we do actually know about what happened to the bailout money already given to financial institutions – shows that these banks have no intent to use the public funds to help with the public’s economic crisis. Instead, Bank executives are using the public funds received to cover their backsides and bolster their balance sheets. Public needs be damned! Consider the following quote from a bank receiving about $300 million in public bailout funds:

At the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton last November, John C. Hope III, the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, stood before a ballroom full of Wall Street analysts and explained how his bank intended to use its $300 million in federal bailout money.
“Make more loans?” Mr. Hope said. “We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”

Before we condemn the bankers, we ought to put their actions in context. They have been led to believe that the bailout money is a no-strings payback for their loyal support of the GOP controlling majority in Congress and unflinching support of all policies that Bush has implemented. They do not see any contradiction in private use of these public funds. These banks never believed that the true purpose of the bailout was to help the public. Instead, they convinced themselves that their institutions were either “too big to fail” or that they were too connected to the Bush administration to be allowed to fail. The “business model” that is referred to above has led these institutions to the verge of collapse, but these executives remain committed to that model. What the heads of these institutions are effectively saying is that they deserve to be bailed out, despite their own incompetence and mismanagement. As the old cliché reminds us, it is not what you know but rather who you know.

One of the difficulties that the American public has repeatedly faced in dealing with the Bush Administration is a failure to understand and accept the level of venality and corruption that lies at the very core of its policies and actions. There seems to be a yearning to find some level of integrity and humanity that simply has not been evidenced. Early in the Bush Administration, excuses were offered that the President was being duped by cynical and conspiratorial “handlers” like Cheney and Rumsfeld. To some extent, these agents did have their own agendas that they were able to execute through manipulating power and resources within the Bush Administration. However, it is now fairly inconceivable that the magnitude of corruption that pervades the Bush Administration could have proceeded without the knowledge and consent, if not at the express direction, of the President.

Thus, as decisions are made regarding further bailout funding, careful examination of the true intended purpose is required. In addition, strict measures to ensure that the funds are actually used for a public purpose must be attached to the disbursement of any additional funds. The first half of the $700 Billion was spent for the purposes that the Bush Administration intended. It simply was not the purpose that the public was led to believe was being served. The deceit must come to an end. If not, shame on us.

Isn’t it Possible?

2009-01-17T18:22:00.000-06:00

News reports of the current trip by President-elect Obama as he heads toward the Capitol for his historic inauguration raise feelings of exhilaration and hope. Perhaps more importantly than anything, his journey represents the manifestation of the “possible.” Many in the United States of America had not envisioned, though they had perhaps dreamed, of the possibility of a President of color. During the past eight years, clouded by contrived and amplified fear, the country has not been able to look forward. The country has been in the mindset of a crowd riding a sabotaged roller coaster over the crest and plunging toward the bottom. Scared out of their wits, the crowd’s only focus has been on whether it would survive the plunge.

The crowd has been unable to focus on what has actually been happening, oblivious to the deceit that led them to board the ride and unable to muster the discipline to halt the potentially fatal dive. Now the country is in the throes of the worst economic disaster it has faced in more than 70 years. In addition, the country has been further weakened by the wasted commitment of more than a trillion dollars to a manufactured “war.”

The preparations for the inauguration are unprecedented in terms of anti-terrorist measures. Tanks, barriers, electronic surveillance and much more have been planned and put in place to avert a terrorist attack. At the risk of cynicism or even naiveté, perhaps the truth is that the terrorist are not eager to destroy this opportunity for hope and a positive step into the future.

The secret service states that there are no credible threats of a terrorist attack relating to the inauguration. It would be foolish to discount the possibility of some lunatic who might plot to take the life of the incoming President. Yet is it not possible that Obama represents something quite different than did George W. Bush, and his “bring it on” arrogance and provocation? Rather than foolish bravado and divisive antagonism toward imagined and created “enemies,” Obama represents calm, intelligent and rational consideration of realistic problems.

The incoming President states that he will carefully assess problems that he faces and that he will sit down with both friends and enemies in order to attempt to find peaceful and constructive solutions. His predecessor, in contrast, views the world in terms of “good and evil” and refuses to even communicate with those that he has placed in the category of his “enemies.” The old President offers his opponents only the option of violence and vengeful response to hateful rhetoric and actions. The new president offers the possibility of new and different options. There is a reality to the cliche about "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword." One who casts the world and relationships only in terms of have, division and enmity will generate a corresponding level of fear, distrust and hatred against him. In many ways, the climate of fear and risk to security that pervades is the creation of the policies and attitudes of George W. Bush and his small minded politics. Obama has called upon the United States and the world to turn away from small minded and divisive politics and to look toward the possibility of a more enlightened future.

The headwinds of challenge into which Obama will step as he takes the oath of office suggest to us the monumental courage that the man who will become the 44th President has. Yet he seems confident, humble and prepared for the undertaking. And perhaps more than any President in recent history, there is a huge supporting population that yearns for his success, a cadre that dreams of the possible.

“All in All, It’s Just Another Stone in the Wall.” [Apologies to Zappa]

2009-01-15T20:45:00.000-06:00

One day after a federal court judge ordered the Justice Department to undertake a sincere and thorough search for millions of White house E-mails that the Bush Administration has been contending “may” have been missing for the past 4 years, the Justice Department represented today in a sworn statement to the court that the E-mails have miraculously been “found.”

In an historic example of deliberate obstruction of justice at the highest levels of government not seen since the Nixon era, the Administration of George W. Bush has tacitly admitted to stonewalling Congress and the courts who were seeking to determine the Office of the President and Vice President involvement in and authorization of illegal and unconstitutional activities. Those activities ranged from exerting improper political influence on screening and appointment of government employees in the Justice department and other Agencies to sanctioning interrogation and spying activities that contravene the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.

The logical and apparent reasons for stonewalling Congress and the judicial system were to avoid probable impeachment. The tragedy is that when the highest law enforcement official in the most powerful country on the planet corrupts the system in order to cover up his own criminal activity, the foundation of the system of representative democracy fails. The protection of the civil rights of each individual citizen lies in the principle that no man is above the law. Whether based upon pure arrogance or upon some contrived theory of an “Imperial Presidency,” the notion that the President can do whatever he chooses and is immune from constraints established in the laws of the nation is pure hubris.

Moreover, the audacity shown by the Bush Administration in withholding evidence that it was legally bound to disclose, for no reason other than to obstruct justice, is amazing. Even more stunning is that Bush and Cheney are likely to get away with the stonewalling and obstruction without even the least formal sanction. The press has proven a toothless watchdog at best, and a willing accomplice at worst. This, more than anything, shows the degree to which the system of government supposedly “by and for the people” and supposedly protected by "checks and balances" has been corrupted and degraded.

Some would argue that pursuit of Bush Administration officials for misconduct amounts to political retribution, payback by the victors for abuse by the GOP when it was in power. That is how GOP stalwarts and Bush apologists would like to see the scenario play out. Such dismissal would be cynical, untrue and unfortunate. It is natural and appropriate when serious damage has been done or a system has seriously malfunctioned as a result of a series of events to conduct a thorough inquiry to determine the cause of the damage and the nature of the malfunction. This is practical and remedial; it is common sense and not vengeance. Only by carefully examining what happened can we hope to repair the damage and to prevent similar harm in the future.

But all in all, the cynical and arrogant behavior of the Bush Administration is simply in keeping with its form for the past eight years. Vice President Cheney in his parting interviews bluntly challenged the American people, the press and the media with comments to the effect "what are you going to do about it? He admitted to authorization of activities that the rest of civilized society considers torture and was unrepentant. In establishing a bulwark between his elitist cronies and the rest of the American people, in erecting a protective barrier to prevent being held accountable for criminal and inhumane actions that have disgraced a nation, the obstruction of justice by withholding e-mails was just “another brick in the wall.”

Thou Dost Protest Too Much, Methinks.

2009-01-07T11:00:00.000-06:00

In two separate pieces of political theatre in the past few days, we have been served up excellent examples of what causes us to distrust and dislike politicians and Washington, DC. If the politicians involved were able to step back from the blinding glare of their own narcissism, they might be able to see the foolishness of their behavior. Yet their life in a self created bubble apparently causes them to be oblivious to common sense and in some cases common decency.

In the first example, the leader of the opposition GOP forces suggested that the Republican minority might delay or impede the passage of a much needed stimulus package. Sen. John Boehner, in an act of political grandstanding, announced that his caucus was very concerned about the prospect of a projected “trillion dollar” national deficit as a result of a proposed stimulus. He complained that the price tag was so large that it would have to be “borne by future generations.”

Sen. Boehner did not, however, explain where this solicitude was hiding when he and his “Conservative” cohorts beat down every attempt [Democrat or GOP initiated] to restrain spending for the Iraq fiasco. Where was this concern when a multi-Billion dollar surplus was plundered by an incompetent administration and turned into a half-Trillion dollar deficit? The US Treasury was being looted by President Bush to pay for a military adventure and “phony war” while the Iraqi Treasury ran a multi-Billion dollar surplus. Boehner implicitly accused any dissenters as being unpatriotic and irresponsible for not backing the President. Meanwhile, the tab to be paid by present and future generations of taxpayers grew wildly.

Such public posturing and patent hypocrisy by so-called “Leaders” may be the reason why so many in the United States are turned off when the subject of public service comes up. Representatives like Boehner point out the inconsistency of the term, making it often appear an oxymoron. It would indeed be difficult to explain how Boehner’s position is in the interest of the public. It was nothing more than public grandstanding for self-aggrandizement, to show that he still considers himself a force to be reckoned with in Congress, despite the drubbing his party took in the polls and the disaster the country faces as a result of his cabal's failure of leadership.

More recently, former Illinois Attorney General Burris showed up at the inaugural of the new 111th Congress and was turned away because he lacked proper credential certification. This political theatre was intended to embarrass the new Democratic Congress in its refusal to seat a fellow Democrat. So Burris went outside and held separate press conferences posing as the badly treated stepchild and “victim” of unfair treatment.

Burris has been, up until now, a respected public servant and should have displayed more character. First, he knew full well that the Illinois Secretary of State had refused to certify his appointment to fill the seat vacated by President-Elect Obama. The reason is that the appointment was made by Gov. Blagojevich who is under investigation and impending indictment for attempting to sell the appointment for personal gain. No matter how qualified, the appointment of anyone by Blagojevich, is suspect and the person so appointed would fall under that shadow unless and until the matter is cleared up.

Second, knowing that the proper credentials were lacking, only an egotistical politician would choose to mar the historical event of the inauguration of the new Congress by drawing personal attention to a personal dispute that he knew could not be resolved. The Senate had previously informed him that he would not be seated that day. Greater character would have been shown by staying away and continuing to work with Senate leadership and the Illinois authorities to resolve the matter. There is no apparent evidence that Burris was involved in the scheming by Blagojevich. As a result, a formal process of inquiry would have cleared him and allowed the Senate to seat him free of any taint. Instead, Burris chose to act like a typical political clown and seek the spotlight to demand personal attention and to implicitly support the improper and corrupt behavior of Gov. Blagojevich. Such behavior can only lower public perception of Burris. It also might lower public opinion of politicians, if there were room for descent in the level of opinion the public now holds.

Obama and the Rule of Law

2009-01-03T10:32:00.000-06:00

As Barack Obama enters office, he will be faced with one of many problems created by the Bush administration, the case of Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, No. 08-368 that will go before the US Supreme Court. The case involves a Qatari man who was captured while in the US legally and has been held indefinitely without charges as an “enemy combatant.” The case will challenge Obama to state his position with respect to the operation of the rule of law in the United States and the primacy of the US Constitution. Under a rule of law, a person has the right to know what crimes he is being charged with, the right to see and confront evidence against him and the right to defense in a speedy trial. None of these Constitutional protections have been afforded Al-Marri.

Bush administration officials claim that the man is “too dangerous” to be allowed free as he might provide aid to Al Qaida or other terrorist groups. Yet these vague assertions are not backed up by any coherent supporting facts. They amount to a standard that if a president declares someone dangerous, that person is stripped of all due process rights. The US judiciary has forced the Bush administration to defend its position by requiring the hearing on the Al-Marri case. Now Obama will be obliged to submit a brief stating his position on the matter. Looking for clues as to Obama’s approach, the New York Times cited the following in an article:

A year ago, Mr. Obama answered a detailed questionnaire concerning his views on presidential power from The Boston Globe. “I reject the Bush administration’s claim,” Mr. Obama said, “that the president has plenary authority under the Constitution to detain U.S. citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.”

However, this response partially sidesteps the core issue. Bush’s claim to authority is that he has the power as President that exceeds the US Constitution in times of war. This raises an old legal conceptual question whether an office can exceed the authority of the law or body that creates it. Traditional restraint and a desire to avoid the excesses of King George III that led to the American Revolution have caused the judiciary to reject such arguments of an “Imperial Presidency” in favor of protecting the balance of powers that is built into the fundament of US government and embodied in the Constitution.

Some of the legal issues have been obscured by racist antipathy because the detainee is Muslim. However, the strength of a legal system is not in its ability to deal justly with the popular cases, but rather with those that present unpopular contestants or issues. Much of the Bush argument is based upon fear mongering and deliberately fomented hatred of Arabs and Muslims precipitated by his own political agenda. Part of the Bush administration argument must rest upon the assertion that Al-Marri is not entitled to protection under the Constitution. However, many cases have established and upheld the principle that the Constitution speaks to the limits of authority of the government and the means that it may use to enforce laws. There is no clear legal answer why the detainee cannot be tried under traditional principles of jurisprudence and due process that this country has stood for in the past. If he has committed acts of terrorism or tangible support to terrorist organizations, let that be proven in court.

This, however, brings us to the tangled web of the Bush administration fiasco, again as cited in the New York Time article:

Another alternative for the new administration is to prosecute Mr. Marri as a criminal. But it is not clear that there is admissible evidence against him.

The basic problem is that the supposed evidence upon which the Bush administration would rely to imprison Al-Marri is based upon torture. This presents several major problems for Bush. First, to be required to present such evidence would expose the Bush administration to potential war crimes prosecution. Second, the evidence would be inadmissible as such evidence is deemed inherently unreliable. Third, to maintain prosecution on a theory that the government cannot charge the defendant and cannot prove the basis for his detention would stand basic principles of law and criminal jurisprudence on end. It is simply irrational. Beyond that, to continue to indefinitely detain a man without charges simply to avoid embarrassment to the Bush administration relating to its use of internationally outlawed interrogation practices would undermine basic principles of justice and human rights.

What makes very little sense from an objective standpoint is why the case even need reach the Supreme Court. There is no one man who is so dangerous that he cannot be subjected to the rule of law. If, as happens routinely, Al-Marri were acquitted because of illegal interrogation or police abuse, he would be one of the most scrutinized men on earth. It is doubtful he could ever present any real threat approximating the imaginary one concocted by the Bush administration. If the threat were genuine, the Bush administration would not be so reluctant to put it forward for judicial scrutiny. The case is about power and prerogatives, and about whether the President is subject to the Constitution. Even the purported “war” that the Bush administration uses to support its exercise of presumed war powers is a fabrication. So the Bush administration argument is a legal house of cards.

Hopefully, Obama will exercise his rigorous legal training and sense of integrity to submit a brief that disavows the expansive claims of the Bush administration. In doing so, he will make great strides toward bringing the country back onto the course of a “rule of law.” To fail to do so simply suggests that we can expect more of the same politically corrupted jurisprudence and sophistry that we have experienced under the Bush regime.

America’s “Separate but Equal” Foreign Intervention Policy – There in Black & White

2008-12-30T14:50:00.000-06:00

There is a blindness and weakness in US foreign policy when it comes to developing, articulating and executing missions of intervention. The rationales developed and used for public consumption simply do not add up. They lack any coherent moral or policy theme or values that could support a sensible organizing principle other than themes based upon hegemony and racism. One would like to think that the US is somehow better than such amoral behavior, but read on.

Reports currently coming in from the Democratic Republic of Congo about cruel massacres that took place over this Christmas have trouble gaining attention in the media. So much attention is paid to the Israeli attacks on Palestinians that the deaths in the Congo go seemingly unnoticed, or at least unremarked in the US press. Yet over 400 villagers have been brutally murdered and thousands displaced while the world sits by with hands folded. And the US, who claims the lead in eradicating such attacks through a “war on terror” is embarrassingly silent.

Consider the following report posted by the BBC:
News of the attacks in north-eastern DR Congo began to come out after the weekend when the Ugandan army accused the LRA of hacking to death 45 civilians in a Catholic church near Doruma.

Bruno Mitewo, head of the Catholic aid agency, says that from information they have collated from their parishes on the ground, more than 400 civilians have died in the attacks. He said that in Faradje 150 civilians had died, almost 75 people in Duru and 215 in Doruma. The victims had been hacked to death and forced into fires, he said.

"All villages were burned by rebels... we don't know where exactly the population is because all the villages are empty," he told the BBC. "We have almost 6,500 displaced who are refugees in the parishes of the Catholic Church around the city of Dungu, more than 20,000 people displaced are running to the mountains," he said. Those who were hiding in the bush and forest were mainly the young, as the LRA tends to kidnap children and recruit them as fighters, he said.

A fair question would be to ask why the international community would sit by mutely as such brutal destruction of human life repeatedly unfolds. The LRA has been terrorizing these Congolese villagers for more than a decade and its forces are said to number less than 700. Yet the armies of Uganda, Sudan and DR Congo cannot control them. Where are the “technical support” personnel and the weapons aid contributions from the West? They can be sent to the Middle East, to Georgia and to Columbia but not to the Congo. If the US can waste billions of dollars on Blackwater agents that seem to thrive on the type of violence inflicted by the LRA rebels, could the US not lend these primitive mercenaries to be used by DR Congo military to hunt down LRA forces in the jungles of the Congo and help protect the innocent villagers? While the behavior of Blackwater agents in Iraq is unsupportable, placing them in an environment better suited to their talents and expertise would seem a more useful deployment since the US cannot spare any Ranger or Special Forces details because of the quagmire in Iraq.

When ethnic cleansing was occurring in Caucasian populated Bosnia, international forces were sent in to halt the war crimes and “crimes against humanity.” Are the people of the Congo less deserving of protection under those international standards? Could the reason be that their skin color does not warrant the same intervention? Are the Congolese villagers less equal than other people on behalf of whom humanitarian intervention has been invoked? Where is the “war on terror?”

A follow up question would be the following: If the people in the Congo who are regularly and repeatedly being subjected to terrorism by the LRA were white or Jewish, would the US be responding in the same way? If the villages were located on proven oil reserves, would the US response be the same? The questions are more than rhetorical, but the answers to them are quite obvious. In that regard, the old policy of “separate but equal” seems to have continuing vitality. The US publicly espouses policies against global terrorism and violations of human rights to defeat democratic governments. However, when it comes to taking action to carry out those policies, some world citizens are apparently more deserving of protection than others. If the victims are Black Africans, it is okay to sit by and watch the massacres.

To paraphrase what the US Supreme Court stated in the Dred Scott Decision, the Black man has no rights worth protecting or with which white men need be concerned. That is the separate but equal philosophy that the US has been following to date, publicly denounce terrorism and human rights violations generally, but provide resources only to situations where perceived interests of whites are involved. But now that an African American will assume the Oval Office, careful scrutiny should be applied to see whether such attitudes that were perhaps to be expected from George W. Bush will be carried forward by Obama’s administration. Change should be expected not because Obama is of African descent, but rather because he claims a more intelligent, balanced and humane platform than Bush. We should aspire to examine the problems of the world through human eyes, and not just white eyes.

Perhaps when flagrant violations of human rights, open terrorism and genocide are taking place, some action is appropriate. Perhaps the size of one’s wallet or natural resources to be exploited, strength of a religious lobby or color of skin should not be the factors that determine whether international intervention on behalf of declared minimum standards of international law and decency will occur. Perhaps...

[See source BBC article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7804470.stm]

Insanity of War and Escalation

2008-12-29T13:07:00.000-06:00

The current “offensive” by Israel on the Gaza strip has all the earmarks of the inherent insanity of war and escalation. The euphemism of a “military offensive” does not truly mask the fact that it is a deliberate massacre. As such, it has no justification. That by no means suggests that indiscriminate rocket fire by Hamas into Israeli towns is justified either. The point is that NEITHER is justified. Equally clear is that neither action is likely to yield any positive impact or move the sides anywhere nearer a solution to an age old conflict. Objectively, it is simply senseless bloodletting and venting for its own sake. Insanity of the first water.

Some topics are difficult to discuss because of emotion and intransigent views. Mention abortion or race and discussion quickly becomes irrational. The same seems true of any critical examination of Israeli – Palestinian conflict. Most want to jump to partisan sides and engage in unproductive defensive illogic. Israel deserves to live in pace with its neighbors. That is a given. Palestinian people deserve to have their own truly autonomous state, a place where they can live in peace and be able to prosper without restraint from an overseer like Israel. That too is a given. The quandary is how both objectives can be attained. Massive airstrikes that kill dozens hundreds of people and dozens of innocent women and children is not a step in that direction. Neither is indiscriminate lobbing of rockets into the backyard of your neighbor to create fear and panic.

The public must be released from the bondage of irrational fealty to the Israeli cause that seeks to rationalize and justify any action, regardless how ill conceived, hate based and inhumane in impact. To allow critical discussion is actually in the best interest of Israeli people and the world. A responsible parent would not sit and justify a child taking a rifle to school to kill and maim hundreds of school children, and then justify it by saying that the child was being bullied by other students. Yes, the bullying was wrong and should be stopped. But the actions of shooting and maiming many innocent people, and even those who were bullying is not rational, moral or justifiable. Likewise, we should not be expected to rationalize and excuse any and every action by Israel toward the provocations by Palestinians.

Israel has imposed a chokehold on the Palestinian people for many years, long before Hamas was elected as the Gaza Strip representative. Indeed, it could be argued that the single strongest reason for the rise of Hamas in the area has been Israeli government oppression. The Israeli government has treated the Gaza Strip like a Nazi Germany Jewish Ghetto, using cheap Palestinian labor for Israeli backed projects, but strictly limiting any food or resources available to the civilian population. When irritated, with or without some provocation, the Israelis have responded with disproportionate force and violence to exact collective punishment.

The sad observation is that violence and cruel inhumanity begets the same. Having learned the bitter impact of a policy of subjugation and genocide under Hitler, Israel now uses those same tactics, albeit modernized, against the Palestinians. It is not unlike the abused child who becomes the abusive parent. The main difference between the Israelis and the Nazi storm troopers is that the Israelis have the power now and in Hitler’s Germany they did not. Yet even in the Ghettos and prison camps, Jews formed a resistance. Is it reasonable to expect that Palestinians would not resist?

Although Israel and its apologists may try to characterize the current actions as “defensive” action, that is transparently false. Less than five Israelis have been hurt or killed by the rockets fired by Hamas, while more than 300 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli action. The supporters of such action argue that massive retaliation will stop the Hamas rockets. But that has not and will never work, except by the implementation of the Israeli’s “final solution” of extermination of all Palestinians. As long as Israel continues to target hospitals, refugee camps and universities and kill civilians (at least 51 women and children, some as young as a few months old at last count, as “collateral damage” of course) in the holding pen of the Gaza Strip, more martyrs will be created and the effect is exponential.

While Israel and its apologists decry as “irresponsible” the statements of Iran’s Ahmadinejad about “wiping Israel from the face of the earth,” Israel proceeds with a similar strategy without openly declaring it regarding Palestinians. In so doing, Israel is losing moral authority for its behavior and supporters for its cause. The enlightenment that came to Gen. Ariel Sharon came too late or his death came too soon. In any event, his legacy was too short lived.

As long as Israel continues the insane game of “shooting fish in a barrel” that it apparently enjoys playing with the lives of Palestinians, the feud will continue. Moreover, such senseless escalation has spillover effects. Clearly, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West bank are no match for the Israeli military machine armed with nuclear weapons, advanced weaponry and telemetry and US backing. As a result, the predictable response of Palestinian supporters is to target any Israeli anywhere in the world. That is the only way to counteract the imbalance of military power, terrorism. So the Israeli actions are actually breeding terrorism throughout the world, a fact that should concern all of us.

The more likely truth is that violence will subside only when a way to address the daily oppression and continuous threat of extinction that Israel is visiting upon Palestinians. There will certainly still be vengeful feelings on both sides. That cannot be helped, given the history of the blood feud. And neither side can completely control individual acts of revenge and terrorism. The policies of terrorism and oppression can, however, be undone and abandoned. Healing can only begin when the basic underlying causes of the hatred are removed and the fuel to the fire is abated. The insane notion that “might makes right” has been proven false throughout the ages and is equally true in this case. Unless Israel is prepared to completely adopt its own “final solution” and exterminate all Palestinians and their supporters, and bear the consequences of such a strategy, this course of disproportionate retaliation must stop. They can kill 100 so-called “security forces” in the Gaza Strip, but killing one innocent child undoes all benefit of the attack. Therein lies the insanity of war and escalation.

[See a subsequent article posted 12/30/2008 at http://www.truthout.org/123008A]