The current situation in Libya raises the dilemma that some international critics raised about the US intervention in Iraq, and how it has damaged US credibility in foreign affairs. Bush claimed that the US was attacking to prosecute the "war on terror" and to defend against the campaign of Al Qaida. The US bombed and demolished towns, caused many civilian casualties, including women and children. We now know that Bush was lying [See Downing Street Memos] and that he knew that Bin Ladin had nothing to do with Iraq. That duplicitous action undercut any moral authority of the US regarding foreign interventions. The same holds true about any US complaints against the use of torture, now that it has become official US sanctioned policy. The US has no moral standing to accuse other countries of misconduct in the use of torture against prisoners, or even innocent civilians, since the US has done both with approval of its highest leaders.
Now, Ghadafi claims that his military is responding to the threat of Al Qaida against his cities and government, even though he knows [along with the rest of the world] that it is not true. Ghadafi is bombing cities and killing civilians. Yet his direct response to the US is that he is protecting against an Al Qaida invasion of Libya. He sent a message to President Obama stating that Al Qaida was attacking its cities with force of arms, "what would you do?"
There is a larger picture here. The US has lost moral authority in international affairs, and the US public is in disarray regarding what constitutes a legitimate exercise of force in the international arena to uphold standards of international law and human rights. Bush appealed to the baser instincts and the immorality of segments of the populace for support of his intervention in Iraq. In so doing, he depleted the US economic reserves and has stretched this the available military resources to respond in necessary situations. Now the US public questions whether it should be involved in the humanitarian mission on two grounds. First, there is a question whether the US should get involved in another foreign mission when the economy is weak and the moral obligation is unclear. Second, that baser segment of the population whose racist, religious and ethnic prejudice has been empowered by Bush argue that the brown and Muslim people of that area should simply be allowed, if not encouraged, to kill themselves without any foreign intervention. This is the level of ethical ambivalence and moral decay that has come to typify the US populace in the wake of policies and actions in the Iraq adventure.
By failing to hold Bush accountable and by continuing to prosecute the mistaken Iraq intervention, Obama has effectively ratified the actions of Bush and Cheney. Whether or not Obama would have taken the same action as Bush [which is doubtful] his protection of Bush after the fact claims the actions of Bush as the standing policy of the USA. The US will not begin to recapture its standing until a US leader steps up and says, "we are better, stronger and more ethically clear than the US behaved under the George W. Bush Administration. Mistakes were made and the US rejects those mistakes as misguided and morally unsound. In the future, the US will do better, BE better."
The "chickens have come home to roost." Ghadafi has cleverly turned the US strategy in Iraq, and the failure of the rest of the world to hold the US accountable for it, directly against the US regarding its participation in the UN Resolution. The current intervention in Libya is justified. the current action is "doing the right thing" despite the fact that we have no moral authority to take the action. The US still needs to own up to the fact that its international standing as a respected power will not be re-established until it deals honestly and directly with the actions of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld which were criminal by standards of international law and humanitarian decency. Only then will the US be able to walk into any international forum and advocate for action on the basis of international law and human rights with integrity and a sense of moral authority.
The US may never be mature enough to accept responsibility for those actions, but it will never deserve full respect until it does. We teach our children that a person of character admits his or her mistakes and accepts responsibility. Yet we do not hold our national leaders to the same ethical standards.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
And So the Uprising Begins
The Police and Firefighter unions in Madison, Wisconsin have initiated a drive to direct attention toward major financial contributors to Gov. Walker and those complicit in the Governor’s ideological push to disembowel public employee worker rights in Wisconsin. The “Move Your Money” campaign targets the bank across from the Wisconsin Capitol which is a major contributor to Walker and which has a tunnel linked to the Capitol used by Walker to ferry lobbyists in to meet with Walker beyond the public eye and even when the Capitol was shut down to public access.
One can only be encouraged by the show of courage, ingenuity and solidarity by the Wisconsin police and firefighters in opposition to Gov. Walker’s bare-knuckled and abusive distortion of the legislative process to push through a union destroying measure. That law to denude the public employees, except police and firefighters, of the right to sit at the table and bargain in good faith over wages, benefits and working conditions reverses a tradition of over a half century in Wisconsin.
The campaign is gaining momentum in Wisconsin as the list of major contributors is being circulated and the public is encouraged to boycott those businesses as long as they continue to support Walker’s ideological war on public workers either publicly or financially. The first step was for patrons to close their accounts with the bank that is so aligned with Walker. Although the withdrawals at the branch only amounted to about $190,000 in one day, the symbolic nature of the effort and the risk of it expanding should draw the attention of Bank officials. The irony was not lost that the M&I Bank involved has taken $2 billion from the taxpayers in TARP funds that have not yet been repaid.
To be effective, this effort needs the support of all others throughout the country who have previously expressed support for the Wisconsin public employees. Boycotting products like Johnsonville Meats, Wal-Mart, Miller Beer and Sargento Cheese is something that we all can choose to do as an act of solidarity. The Wisconsin Police and Firefighters have two points exactly right. First, the attack on public employees is just a preliminary move that will impact police and firefighters as well if it is allowed to succeed. Second, backers of the regime attacking public employee rights care nothing about people or the noise from protests. They are concerned only with the transfer of wealth that underlies their strategy. Walker gave $200 billion dollars in tax breaks to corporations while taking over $1 trillion from schools and local governments.
The protesters believe that the only language that Walker and his supporters understand or respect is money. By the process of boycotting and reducing revenues to the financial backers of Walker and his supporters, there will be direct consequences. Perhaps the businesses that thought it wise to purchase influence through support for Walker will rethink that strategy. There are collateral consequences as well. People act by association and by habit. Once people get in the habit of making alternative purchases, they may not go back to purchasing the old products and services even after the boycott ends. Moreover, every time a consumer goes to make a purchase and chooses to buy an alternative motivated by the boycott, that consumer will be reminded of the need to vote against Walker and the GOP legislators who conspired with him. So the impact of the boycott may have greater and more long-lasting impact than may appear at first blush.
To be clear, no one doubts that Wisconsin and other states require stern and perhaps drastic measures to put their respective fiscal houses in order. It is also true that some reforms to employee pensions and benefits, public and private may be necessary adjustments as all share in the belt tightening. However, it was the financial collapse causes by mismanagement and Wall Street style greed and profligacy that stripped more than $14 Trillion from the economy and helped reduce tax based revenue by almost a third. It was not public employees who caused the collapse. To use the public employees unfairly as a scape goat for the problems that have a different and wider cause is unjust. It is fitting, and ultimately democratic that the people rise up and demand fairness and accountability. If that means loss of business for Walker supporters and loss of political office for Walker and other GOP legislators, so be it.
One can only be encouraged by the show of courage, ingenuity and solidarity by the Wisconsin police and firefighters in opposition to Gov. Walker’s bare-knuckled and abusive distortion of the legislative process to push through a union destroying measure. That law to denude the public employees, except police and firefighters, of the right to sit at the table and bargain in good faith over wages, benefits and working conditions reverses a tradition of over a half century in Wisconsin.
The campaign is gaining momentum in Wisconsin as the list of major contributors is being circulated and the public is encouraged to boycott those businesses as long as they continue to support Walker’s ideological war on public workers either publicly or financially. The first step was for patrons to close their accounts with the bank that is so aligned with Walker. Although the withdrawals at the branch only amounted to about $190,000 in one day, the symbolic nature of the effort and the risk of it expanding should draw the attention of Bank officials. The irony was not lost that the M&I Bank involved has taken $2 billion from the taxpayers in TARP funds that have not yet been repaid.
To be effective, this effort needs the support of all others throughout the country who have previously expressed support for the Wisconsin public employees. Boycotting products like Johnsonville Meats, Wal-Mart, Miller Beer and Sargento Cheese is something that we all can choose to do as an act of solidarity. The Wisconsin Police and Firefighters have two points exactly right. First, the attack on public employees is just a preliminary move that will impact police and firefighters as well if it is allowed to succeed. Second, backers of the regime attacking public employee rights care nothing about people or the noise from protests. They are concerned only with the transfer of wealth that underlies their strategy. Walker gave $200 billion dollars in tax breaks to corporations while taking over $1 trillion from schools and local governments.
The protesters believe that the only language that Walker and his supporters understand or respect is money. By the process of boycotting and reducing revenues to the financial backers of Walker and his supporters, there will be direct consequences. Perhaps the businesses that thought it wise to purchase influence through support for Walker will rethink that strategy. There are collateral consequences as well. People act by association and by habit. Once people get in the habit of making alternative purchases, they may not go back to purchasing the old products and services even after the boycott ends. Moreover, every time a consumer goes to make a purchase and chooses to buy an alternative motivated by the boycott, that consumer will be reminded of the need to vote against Walker and the GOP legislators who conspired with him. So the impact of the boycott may have greater and more long-lasting impact than may appear at first blush.
To be clear, no one doubts that Wisconsin and other states require stern and perhaps drastic measures to put their respective fiscal houses in order. It is also true that some reforms to employee pensions and benefits, public and private may be necessary adjustments as all share in the belt tightening. However, it was the financial collapse causes by mismanagement and Wall Street style greed and profligacy that stripped more than $14 Trillion from the economy and helped reduce tax based revenue by almost a third. It was not public employees who caused the collapse. To use the public employees unfairly as a scape goat for the problems that have a different and wider cause is unjust. It is fitting, and ultimately democratic that the people rise up and demand fairness and accountability. If that means loss of business for Walker supporters and loss of political office for Walker and other GOP legislators, so be it.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Government by Ambush
The Wisconsin State Legislature is making an interesting mockery of the term “conservative,” as its GOP controlled Senate and Assembly have resorted to deceitful and possibly illegal maneuvers to avoid the procedural safeguards meant to protect and preserve the people in a democratic society. One such protection is that if a measure is to be debated and adopted, the moving party [typically the majority] must give clear advance notice to all regarding the proposed action. This has been termed the “Open Meeting Law.”
Under the open meetings law, 24 hours' notice is generally needed to hold any public meeting, with at least two hours' notice required in an emergency.
These laws were enacted to put an end to backroom deals and slick maneuvers that had allowed legislators to abuse majority power by enacting surprise or covert measures. If the opposition could not muster the votes to defeat the measure, it should at least be made aware of the content and purpose of the measure in advance in order to express opposition on the record and in open public debate.
That process of procedural fairness seems to have escaped the Wisconsin GOP in its zeal to attach and destroy collective bargaining rights of public employees. Previously, Gov. Walker has argued that the attack on worker rights was a necessary strategy to help balance a budget deficit. However, the act of stripping the union busting measure from the fiscal bill makes evident that he was not being honest to the public about his motives and agenda.
The law was further advanced in the Assembly when the GOP majority there arbitrarily cut off debate and passed the measure that had been adopted by the Senate in its surreptitious bill. The legislative enactment will certainly be signed with maximum haste by the Governor, anxious to claim “victory” in his ideological battle. The issue really is about who he is in battle with and who he has defeated. He may see it as a victory over the opposing political party, but it may also be seen as a temporary victory over the people, especially the middle and working class, that he was elected to represent. That “victory: may turn out to be a case of winning the battle and losing the war.
Several incidents have come to light recently in which Governor Walker has openly misrepresented facts regarding his motives and political actions that he has advanced. The most recent example is when he represented to the Court that the cost of the demonstrations to the State was $7.5 million, in order to obtain a restraining injunction to remove the demonstrators. Subsequent analysis puts the cost at less than $375,000, including the usual costs of maintenance and security that would be incurred without the demonstrations. Inflating the estimate by 20 times in order to induce official court action could be an abuse of process offense leading to sanctions against an attorney signing such pleadings, so it is not just a matter of “puffery.” The point is that Walker has a record of prevarication to achieve ideological ends. Whether his decimation of public employee union rights will actually result in taxpayer relief, balanced budgets and more jobs is a doubtful proposition that awaits proof.
In any event, when the majority party uses closed room strategy sessions, backroom deals and violation of open meeting laws to push through measures, it suggests that those measures would not stand up to scrutiny if dealt with openly. When representatives of the people resort to deceitful strategies that conceal information from open and public debate and ignore procedural safeguards, the process of government becomes one of ambush and not democracy. Those safeguards were put in place as conceptual principles in support of founding values that a democratic government should not allow for the oppression of the minority interests through abuse by the majority. The people may well respond, and it will be no ambush. There are already a number of recall petitions circulating to remove legislators from office.
Under the open meetings law, 24 hours' notice is generally needed to hold any public meeting, with at least two hours' notice required in an emergency.
These laws were enacted to put an end to backroom deals and slick maneuvers that had allowed legislators to abuse majority power by enacting surprise or covert measures. If the opposition could not muster the votes to defeat the measure, it should at least be made aware of the content and purpose of the measure in advance in order to express opposition on the record and in open public debate.
That process of procedural fairness seems to have escaped the Wisconsin GOP in its zeal to attach and destroy collective bargaining rights of public employees. Previously, Gov. Walker has argued that the attack on worker rights was a necessary strategy to help balance a budget deficit. However, the act of stripping the union busting measure from the fiscal bill makes evident that he was not being honest to the public about his motives and agenda.
The law was further advanced in the Assembly when the GOP majority there arbitrarily cut off debate and passed the measure that had been adopted by the Senate in its surreptitious bill. The legislative enactment will certainly be signed with maximum haste by the Governor, anxious to claim “victory” in his ideological battle. The issue really is about who he is in battle with and who he has defeated. He may see it as a victory over the opposing political party, but it may also be seen as a temporary victory over the people, especially the middle and working class, that he was elected to represent. That “victory: may turn out to be a case of winning the battle and losing the war.
Several incidents have come to light recently in which Governor Walker has openly misrepresented facts regarding his motives and political actions that he has advanced. The most recent example is when he represented to the Court that the cost of the demonstrations to the State was $7.5 million, in order to obtain a restraining injunction to remove the demonstrators. Subsequent analysis puts the cost at less than $375,000, including the usual costs of maintenance and security that would be incurred without the demonstrations. Inflating the estimate by 20 times in order to induce official court action could be an abuse of process offense leading to sanctions against an attorney signing such pleadings, so it is not just a matter of “puffery.” The point is that Walker has a record of prevarication to achieve ideological ends. Whether his decimation of public employee union rights will actually result in taxpayer relief, balanced budgets and more jobs is a doubtful proposition that awaits proof.
In any event, when the majority party uses closed room strategy sessions, backroom deals and violation of open meeting laws to push through measures, it suggests that those measures would not stand up to scrutiny if dealt with openly. When representatives of the people resort to deceitful strategies that conceal information from open and public debate and ignore procedural safeguards, the process of government becomes one of ambush and not democracy. Those safeguards were put in place as conceptual principles in support of founding values that a democratic government should not allow for the oppression of the minority interests through abuse by the majority. The people may well respond, and it will be no ambush. There are already a number of recall petitions circulating to remove legislators from office.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
King of the Hill
Modern TV fans will recall the animated comedy in which the lead character is a relatively clueless but goodhearted redneck embattled by children and wife, and winds up taking on misguided adventures to try to break out of his mediocrity. That character is now being displaced by Rep. Peter King of New York. Pete’s newest adventure to rise above the crowd is even more misguided and not so good hearted. Rep. King wants to anoint himself as the new scourge of all things un-American and “Inquisitor in Chief” of the USA polity.
Not content to let the shameful past lie buried, after the country has tried to live down the era of HUAC and the tyranny of Sen. Joe McCarthy, King now wants to carry out a similar campaign against Muslims. Keep in mind that we are NOT talking about targeting Al Qaida or Taliban camps in the Middle East, we are talking about US citizens who happen to be Muslim. King apparently believes that the most pressing issues that face the nation include the threat of law abiding US citizens who do not look like King and who may worship a different religion. If King has his way, every single Allah fearing Muslim in the US will be investigated, brought before his hearing tribunal and forced to testify in blood as to their unswerving loyalty to Uncle Sam. In addition, they will undoubtedly have to testify under oath that they do not know anybody, who has ever known anybody, who has ever thought about supporting any Islamic cause.
It is often said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to face them again and again. Maybe it is another example of the failure of our educational system. But this circus is not just misguided, it threatens to shred any remaining coherence of what had been the fabric holding together some semblance of common ground for the American people. Public scapegoating for political gain is one of the worst forms of chicanery. It is dishonest, mean spirited and cynical. It seeks to capitalize on a period in which the public is under great stress and feed that fear and encourage hatred, pitting US citizens against each other. That is the lesson of McCarthyism.
We can only hope that someone in the House of Representatives will have the courage shone by Joe Welch, Head Counsel to the US Army, who confronted McCarthy publicly and asked:
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…. Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
We can only hope that someone will stand up to King and similarly confront his antics. We can also only hope that this will happen before King is able to inflict similar cruelty and injustice to the disgraceful behavior of McCarthy.
Not content to let the shameful past lie buried, after the country has tried to live down the era of HUAC and the tyranny of Sen. Joe McCarthy, King now wants to carry out a similar campaign against Muslims. Keep in mind that we are NOT talking about targeting Al Qaida or Taliban camps in the Middle East, we are talking about US citizens who happen to be Muslim. King apparently believes that the most pressing issues that face the nation include the threat of law abiding US citizens who do not look like King and who may worship a different religion. If King has his way, every single Allah fearing Muslim in the US will be investigated, brought before his hearing tribunal and forced to testify in blood as to their unswerving loyalty to Uncle Sam. In addition, they will undoubtedly have to testify under oath that they do not know anybody, who has ever known anybody, who has ever thought about supporting any Islamic cause.
It is often said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to face them again and again. Maybe it is another example of the failure of our educational system. But this circus is not just misguided, it threatens to shred any remaining coherence of what had been the fabric holding together some semblance of common ground for the American people. Public scapegoating for political gain is one of the worst forms of chicanery. It is dishonest, mean spirited and cynical. It seeks to capitalize on a period in which the public is under great stress and feed that fear and encourage hatred, pitting US citizens against each other. That is the lesson of McCarthyism.
We can only hope that someone in the House of Representatives will have the courage shone by Joe Welch, Head Counsel to the US Army, who confronted McCarthy publicly and asked:
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…. Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
We can only hope that someone will stand up to King and similarly confront his antics. We can also only hope that this will happen before King is able to inflict similar cruelty and injustice to the disgraceful behavior of McCarthy.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Reaping What One Sows- Media and the Youth Movements
If one takes a step back to gain perspective, the wave of youth activism and committed opposition to the economic and political disenfranchisement that has been imposed upon marginalized young people is breathtaking. Consider the following examples of such protests and public uprisings: London, Puerto Rico and Ireland [tuition increases foreclosing higher education opportunity]; France and Greece [economic austerity measures]; Spain and Italy [unemployment levels over 30%]; Tunisia and Egypt [unemployment, marginalization and repression] and Libya [economic disenfranchisement and repression].
To the nature of the response, one may wonder what took so long for the cauldron to boil over. The rhetoric and political discourse orchestrated by elite moneyed interests with a stranglehold on power and the economy has been conflicting if not schizophrenic. While mouthing blandishments about the need to take action to secure the future for youth and the generations to come, actions by these powerbrokers toward today’s youth has been to marginalize, demonize or ignore their needs and concerns. Such systematic disenfranchisement and disinvestment has been carried out with the arrogant belief that young people were either not paying attention or did not care about even their own well-being and future. A very dangerous assumption.
The narcissistic mainstream media has become to believe that what it publishes is the official and only truth, and that young people are even remotely interested in such broadcast content other than as white noise. In fact, young people abandoned mainstream media quite some time ago in favor of electronic social media and blogs that spread information more efficiently and often more accurately across town, across the country and across the globe. The attention that the feature film “the Social Network” received this year is but a tacit recognition of a manifest history relating to new ways in which youth communicate. Yet the movie is already historical and outdated. The irony is stark when one realizes that youth who were believed to be asleep or complacent have managed to shake the fundament and even bring down repressive governments using tools that the powerbrokers had dismissed as toys and diversions. Henry Giroux* remarks:
Mass demonstrations have been organized through the emergent screen
cultures of a generation well versed in new technologically assisted
forms of social networking and political exchange.
Youth across the globe have joined together to speak with a collective voice against the marginalization and profligate stewardship by the power elite of economic and natural resources that represent the future of these young people. The information necessary to organize resistance, to record and to report the events of these youth movements ran like synaptic currents throughout a virtual brain that connected and assisted youth movement groups. And while the action was taking place, the mainstream media was more of an afterthought than a true journalistic presence, the high school senior without a prom date. Perhaps network executives have come to realize the truth that one thing worse than being hated is being deemed unimportant. The same media that turned its back on any sincere efforts to speak to, for or about the genuine needs and interests of young people now has come face to face with the realization that young people have mobilized while turning their backs on mainstream media. Recall the words of Gil Scott Heron who cautioned decades ago that “the revolution will not be televised.”
*Henry A. Giroux | Left Behind? American Youth and the Global Fight for Democracy
To the nature of the response, one may wonder what took so long for the cauldron to boil over. The rhetoric and political discourse orchestrated by elite moneyed interests with a stranglehold on power and the economy has been conflicting if not schizophrenic. While mouthing blandishments about the need to take action to secure the future for youth and the generations to come, actions by these powerbrokers toward today’s youth has been to marginalize, demonize or ignore their needs and concerns. Such systematic disenfranchisement and disinvestment has been carried out with the arrogant belief that young people were either not paying attention or did not care about even their own well-being and future. A very dangerous assumption.
The narcissistic mainstream media has become to believe that what it publishes is the official and only truth, and that young people are even remotely interested in such broadcast content other than as white noise. In fact, young people abandoned mainstream media quite some time ago in favor of electronic social media and blogs that spread information more efficiently and often more accurately across town, across the country and across the globe. The attention that the feature film “the Social Network” received this year is but a tacit recognition of a manifest history relating to new ways in which youth communicate. Yet the movie is already historical and outdated. The irony is stark when one realizes that youth who were believed to be asleep or complacent have managed to shake the fundament and even bring down repressive governments using tools that the powerbrokers had dismissed as toys and diversions. Henry Giroux* remarks:
Mass demonstrations have been organized through the emergent screen
cultures of a generation well versed in new technologically assisted
forms of social networking and political exchange.
Youth across the globe have joined together to speak with a collective voice against the marginalization and profligate stewardship by the power elite of economic and natural resources that represent the future of these young people. The information necessary to organize resistance, to record and to report the events of these youth movements ran like synaptic currents throughout a virtual brain that connected and assisted youth movement groups. And while the action was taking place, the mainstream media was more of an afterthought than a true journalistic presence, the high school senior without a prom date. Perhaps network executives have come to realize the truth that one thing worse than being hated is being deemed unimportant. The same media that turned its back on any sincere efforts to speak to, for or about the genuine needs and interests of young people now has come face to face with the realization that young people have mobilized while turning their backs on mainstream media. Recall the words of Gil Scott Heron who cautioned decades ago that “the revolution will not be televised.”
*Henry A. Giroux | Left Behind? American Youth and the Global Fight for Democracy
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