Small Meditation

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?

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

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”

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

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!

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

“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?

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

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

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

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.

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….

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

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

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

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.