Health Care: Democrat feeds the GOP a bitter pill

In his short career in Congress, Florida Democratic freshman Alan Grayson has become one of my political heroes. You remember those pages Republicans kept waving during Pres. Obama's health care address to Congress? Rep. Grayson found out what is in those pages -- the Republican health care plan: "1. Don't get sick. 2. If you do get sick... 3. Die quickly!"
Naturally, the Republicans, who can dish it out but oh so can't take it, started whining and puling, demanding an apology. And they got it:
Grayson, by the way, is the member of Congress who used a little-known parliamentary maneuver called “extension of remarks” to expand the impact of the House's opportunistic bill to defund ACORN (HR 3221) to every contractor who has ever submitted a fraudulent form of any kind to the Government.

House rules allow a short period for members to offer a "legislative history," instructing the courts and the executive branch on how to interpret a law. According to "Thomas," Congress’s website on legislation, Grayson is the only member of Congress to provide such instruction on this bill. His extension of remarks now becomes the official interpretation of what the bill means:

"The purpose of this bill is to cleanse federal contracting and grant-making, completely and permanently. The purpose of this bill is to put an end to the invidious practice of rewarding those who steal taxpayer money by giving them more taxpayer money. The bill imposes, and is intended to impose, a corporate death penalty on contractors who fall within the scope of its prohibitions," Rep. Grayson wrote in his extension of remarks. So long, Halliburton. Bye bye, Blackwater.

At last, a fighting liberal (just for the fun of it, watch Grayson take on Fed chair Bernanke), a Democrat worth supporting. And you can support him by sending contributions to his office. And you'd better support him, because you can bet the long knives are out for him now.

Health Care: Fake reform is worse than no reform

It's time to draw a line in the sand on health care insurance reform. A bill that forces everyone to buy health insurance but doesn't include a mechanism to control prices can't fairly be called reform at all -- it's nothing more than a windfall for the parasitic insurance industry, and neither universality nor portability will make it palatable. The Democrats in the House who support HR676 should stick to their guns: Medicare for All.

Here's a bit of nostalgia from the 2008 campaign:
We don't have the luxury to be nostalgic, however. If the Democrats fail to pass Medicare for All -- or if, as seems likely, they pass legislation that requires people to buy health insurance they can't afford, voters will not be wrong to turn them out in 2010 and 2012. Contact your senators and representative. Tell them you demand affordable, universal health care. Say it like you mean it. It's now or never.

Further reading: The "public option" is not dead by Scott Galindez (truthout 2009-09-30)

HR 676 (Conyers) The United States National Health Insurance Act
S. 703 (Sanders) Bill to provide for health care for every American

Take action: Contact your congressional representatives

Clip File: Talk about a graduated tax

The next time someone is whining about the burden of U.S. taxes, have them consider this: "In 2009, roughly 47% of households, or 71 million, will not owe any federal income tax, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center." -- 47% will pay no federal income tax (CNN 2009-09-30)

Change Watch: Plus ça change...

Gary Wills has a very fine essay in the current New York Review (Entangled Giant 2009-10-08) on the failure of Obama's minions to bring change with them to Washington. The transformation of liberals into neocons is so striking and so complete one White House insider compared it to Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

George W. Bush left the White House unpopular and disgraced. His successor promised change, and it was clear where change was needed. Illegal acts should cease—torture and indefinite detention, denial of habeas corpus and legal representation, unilateral canceling of treaties, defiance of Congress and the Constitution, nullification of laws by signing statements. Powers attributed to the president by the theory of the unitary executive should not be exercised. Judges who are willing to give the president any power he asks for should not be confirmed.

But the momentum of accumulating powers in the executive is not easily reversed, checked, or even slowed. It was not created by the Bush administration. The whole history of America since World War II caused an inertial transfer of power toward the executive branch. The monopoly on use of nuclear weaponry, the cult of the commander in chief, the worldwide network of military bases to maintain nuclear alert and supremacy, the secret intelligence agencies, the entire national security state, the classification and clearance systems, the expansion of state secrets, the withholding of evidence and information, the permanent emergency that has melded World War II with the cold war and the cold war with the "war on terror"—all these make a vast and intricate structure that may not yield to effort at dismantling it. Sixty-eight straight years of war emergency powers (1941–2009) have made the abnormal normal, and constitutional diminishment the settled order.

It may be true that "the Constitution has become quaint and obsolete." Capitalism has had its run. Maybe representative democracy has, too. If so, do you think we could schedule a few hours to mull over what we might replace them with?

The rest of the story: Entangled Giant by Gary Wills (The New York Review of Books 2009-10-08)

The Long War: How not to get bogged down in Oilistan

"On our occupation, we need to consider three issues. Does our presence lead toward a sustainable result after our withdrawal? Can the occupation be maintained without turning a large part of the Afghan population and others against us? And can we afford it? I think the answer to all three is no." -- An Open Letter to President Obama by William R. Polk (The Nation dated 2009-10-19)

Change Watch: White House Proposes Changes in Bill Protecting Reporters’ Confidentiality

Sounding like Bush-Cheney never left the building,

[t]he Obama administration has told lawmakers that it opposes legislation that could protect reporters from being imprisoned if they refuse to disclose confidential sources who leak material about national security, according to several people involved with the negotiations.

The administration this week sent to Congress sweeping revisions to a “media shield” bill that would significantly weaken its protections against forcing reporters to testify.

The bill includes safeguards that would require prosecutors to exhaust other methods for finding the source of the information before subpoenaing a reporter, and would balance investigators’ interests with “the public interest in gathering news and maintaining the free flow of information.”

But under the administration’s proposal, such procedures would not apply to leaks of a matter deemed to cause “significant” harm to national security. Moreover, judges would be instructed to be deferential to executive branch assertions about whether a leak caused or was likely to cause such harm, according to officials familiar with the proposal.

The rest of the story: White House Proposes Changes in Bill Protecting Reporters’ Confidentiality by Charlie Savage (New York Times 2009-09-30)

The Media: Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010

Project Censored, founded by Carl Jensen in 1976, is a media research program working in cooperation with independent media groups in the US. Project Censored’s principle objective is to train Sonoma State University students in media research. First Amendment issues and the advocacy for, and protection of, free press rights in the United States are central to its mission. Each year, Project Censored publishes a ranking of the top 25 national news stories that are under-reported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by the US corporate media in Censored: Media Democracy in Action, a yearbook released each September.

1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products
6. Lobbyists Buy Congress
7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past
8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza
10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
11. Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine
12. Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief
13. Katrina’s Hidden Race War
14. Congress Invested in Defense Contracts
15. World Bank’s Carbon Trade Fiasco
16. US Repression of Haiti Continues
17. The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan
18. Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature
19. Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor
20. Secret Control of the Presidential Debates
21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team
23. Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
24. Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion
25. Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon

Clip File: Obama should listen to Biden

"Vice President Joseph Biden is emerging as an important voice within the White House on the war in Afghanistan.

"The New York Times reported that during a meeting in the situation room on September 13, Biden urged the president to consider reducing America's troop presence in Afghanistan. Rather than embracing a mission to protect the Afghan population, the U.S., Biden reportedly said, should target al Qaeda cells in the region through special operations forces and targeted missile attacks."

The rest of the story: Obama should listen to Biden by Julian E. Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.

Health Care Insurance Reform: Medicare Scare-Mongering

"...far from harming elderly Americans, the various reform bills now pending should actually make Medicare better for most beneficiaries — by enhancing their drug coverage, reducing the premiums they pay for drugs and medical care, eliminating co-payments for preventive services and helping keep Medicare solvent, among other benefits." -- Medicare Scare-Mongering (editorial: The New York Times 2009-09-26).

Clip File: High Cost of Death Row

"To the many excellent reasons to abolish the death penalty — it’s immoral, does not deter murder and affects minorities disproportionately — we can add one more. It’s an economic drain on governments with already badly depleted budgets." -- Editorial (The New York Times 2009-09-27).

Resource: Death Penalty Information Center

Accountability: US Congress Bought & Paid For?

Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont, thinks he knows why the Congress has not reined in the financial industry:
Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont, is a socialist. Don't you think it would be a boon if Congress had a few more like him?

Change Watch: Obama Keeps Bush Rules On Indefinite Detention

NPR stays on the habeas corpus beat: "The Obama administration has decided not to ask Congress for a new law that would allow terrorism detainees to be held indefinitely — in other words, it'll stay with the rules set up right after the Sept. 11 attacks by the Bush administration. What does this decision say about Obama as president?"

The broadcast: Obama Keeps Bush Rules On Indefinite Detention (NPR 2009-09-26).

Clip file: Tomato workers in historic new labor pact

"From hardscrabble beginnings in a borrowed church meeting room in 1993, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has fought to transform the way Florida’s $400 million tomato industry treats its workers....Compass will pay a penny and a half more a pound for all tomatoes it buys annually. One cent goes directly to the workers; the other half-cent covers administrative costs. Tomato harvesters will now earn 82 cents for each 32-pound bucket they pick, up from 50 cents per bucket. The raise means their annual earnings could rise from about $10,000 to between $16,000 and $17,000. There are at least 30,000 migrant farmworkers in Florida, from which 95 percent of the nation’s tomatoes come between October and June."

The rest of the story: Tomato workers win new pay deal (Fort Myers News-Press 2009-09-26)

Resource: Coalition of Immokalee Workers, "a community-based worker organization" [whose] members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout the state of Florida." Formed in 1993, the organization has had major successes, including an historic agreement with Taco Bell in March 2005.

quote unquote: James Madison on Checks and Balances

In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.
- James Madison (The Federalist No.51),
a formulation that led the Founders to open the door to the unitary executive.

Civil Liberties: Repeal telecom immunity and roll back Bush-era abuses

Three key provisions of the USA PATRIOT act (a.k.a., the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism act -- you have to give the Right props for salesmanship) and related legislation, set to expire on December 31, are up for renewal in the House and Senate. The Obama Department of Justice has asked Congress to renew three sections, set to expire, that give the government the authority to access business records (the so-called library-records power);  to deploy roving wiretaps; and to conduct surveillance of “lone wolf” suspects with no known links to foreign governments or terrorist groups.

Sens. Dick Durbin, Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold, along with Sens. Jon Tester, Tom Udall, Jeff Bingaman, Bob Menendez, Jeff Merkley, Daniel Akaka and Ron Wyden, have introduced the JUSTICE Act (for the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools in Counter-Terrorism Efforts act -- there, now the liberals are getting the hang of it) to use the reauthorization process to reverse laws passed in the aftermath of 9/11 that were designed to undermine civil rights traditionally considered to be protected by the Constitution.

The JUSTICE Act will completely repeal the provision of the FISA Amendments Act that immunized from civil and criminal liability the big telecom companies that illegally assisted in the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping activities. It will restore protections for the privacy of library and bookstore records. And it will add strong checks and balances to PATRIOT ACT provisions governing FISA orders, wiretaps, and national security letters.

Working Assets' CREDOaction is participating with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Campaign for Reader Privacy (which includes the American Library Association, American Booksellers Association, Association of American Publishers, and PEN American Center) in an effort to undo the worst of the damage of the PATRIOT fiasco. You can help by signing CREDOaction's petition to restore civil liberties stolen by the Bush administration in the wake of September 11:

"It's time to repeal telecom immunity for illegal spying," the petition reads, "restore privacy protection to library and bookstore records, and roll back the worst abuses of the PATRIOT ACT. I urge you to co-sponsor and vote for the JUSTICE Act, a bill introduced by Sens. Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin which reinstates much-needed safeguards to our constitutional rights."

Take action: CREDOaction petition
CREDOaction
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Campaign for Reader Privacy
American Library Association
American Booksellers Association
Association of American Publishers
PEN American Center

Action: Mobilization Against the War October 5

The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, a nationwide network of individuals and groups committed to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and working for the abolition of torture, is calling for a nonviolent action next week at the White House. The organization, utilizing the nonviolent practices and disciplines of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Dorothy Day, will deliver a petition to President Barack Obama calling for withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, ending the illegal bombing with US drones, including in neighboring Pakistan, and the closing of the Bagram prison and ending indefinite detention and torture.

The letter will also call for the conversion of U.S. resources to life-sustaining uses, including the funding and the rebuilding of Afghanistan's and Iraq's infrastructure and and the provision of medical assistance to Afghans and Iraqis, in addition to poverty reduction programs in the United States and world wide. Finally, the groups are seeking to hold accountable those who have committed war crimes.

The gathering will begin at McPherson Square, 15th and I Streets NW, at 10 a.m. on Monday, October 5th and then silently proceed two and a half blocks to the White House to deliver a document to the president and request a meeting with him. Liz McAlister will speak. Participating will be various affinity groups, such as the Atlantic Life Community, Witness Against Torture, Veterans for Peace, The World Can't Wait, and Activist Response Team (A.R.T.). Other groups fully endorsing the action and participating are Peace Action, Code Pink, The War Resisters' League, Voters for Peace, The Washington Peace Center, and Student Peace Action Network. Participants are asked to wear either a "We Will Not Be Silent" t-shirt or a simple black shirt.

Conference: In a democracy, who decides about war?

From the website:

Who decides about war and peace? Congress? The President? The Courts? The People?

What kind of national defense should the U.S. have? What type of military?

"Who Decides About War" will confront essential questions raised by the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. These questions are timely, as the process that brought the United States into those wars is widely recognized today as having been flawed at best, dishonest at worst.

This engaging event will bring together activists and academics, public officials and veterans, lawyers and military families. We will use facilitated discussions, panel presentations, and workshops to accomplish two goals. First, to educate ourselves and each other about the issues involved, the state of the law, and alternatives. Second, to develop a statement of common principles leading to a more democratic, comprehensive, and durable national defense policy — one that will honor the Constitution and help keep the United States from entering into unnecessary wars.

October 2-3, 2009 -- Georgetown Law School, Washington D.C.: For more information on the topics to be addressed at this conference, please see our background> and the full schedule.

Clip File: USW Local Fights to Block Steel Mill Demolition

by Roger Bybee (In These Times 2009-09-24)

There's a very interested buyer for one of the nation's most productive steel mills, but owner ArcelorMittal appears to be racing to demolish the 300-worker mill before public pressure for a sale to the prospective buyer becomes too intense.

The mill, located in Hennepin, Ill., about 100 miles west of Chicago, is one of two mills that steel industry giant Arcelor Mittal has been fixated on reducing to rubble.

In a parallel situation in Lackawanna, N.Y., ArcelorMittal shut down and demolished a steel mill that had been consistently profitable, according to United Steelworkers Local 2604 President Anthony Fortunato, who watched the 260 jobs disappear as the plant was torn down.

In both cases, Arcelor Mittal-a frequent target of price-fixing charges in Europe-appears to be motivated by a desire to shrink capacity in the steel industry in order to raise prices.

But in Hennepin and the surrounding area, public support for United Steelworkers Local 7367 has been so strong that ArcelorMittal has been blocked from the speedy shutdown of the mill that it had planned. Originally, ArcelorMittal planned to begin tearing down the plant in June.

The rest of the story: USW Local Fights to Block Steel Mill Demolition by Roger Bybee (In These Times 2009-09-24)

Resource: United Steelworkers Union

Clip File: When workers take charge

It's a unique model - the worker-owned business. Some say it sounds like socialism, but these six companies say it's helped them tough out the recession.

The rest of the story: When workers take charge (CNN Business 2009-09-23)

Call Murphy

Whoops: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud
by Ryan Grim (HuffPost)

 Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately -- but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

The language was written by the GOP and filed as a "motion to recommit" in the House, where it passed 345-75.

POGO is reaching out to its members to identify other companies who have engaged in the type of misconduct that would make them ineligible for federal funds.

Grayson then intends to file that list in the legislative history that goes along with the bill so that judges can reference it when determining whether a company should be denied federal funds.

The Florida freshman is asking for direct assistance. He has set up a Google spreadsheet where people can suggest contractors who have been charged with violations and include a link to a media or government report documenting the alleged transgression.

The weapons manufacturers might have a better line of defense in court, however. Immediately after the bill passed, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), a constitutional whiz, noted that the measure appeared to be a "bill of attainder" -- specifically targeting a company or organization or individual -- and is therefore specifically barred by the Constitution. If it's not targeted at one group, then Northrop Grumman is in trouble.

Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the Congressional Research Service on Tuesday asking it to clarify, among other things, if the Defund ACORN Act is constitutional.

The rest of the Whoops (Huffington Post) 
------------------------

Clip File: CIA Torturers Running Scared

by Ray McGovern (After Downing Street 2009-09-23)

"For the CIA supervisors and operatives who were responsible for torture, the chickens are coming home to roost. That is, if President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder mean it when they say no one is above the law — and if they have the courage to stand up to brazen intimidation.

"Unable to prevent Attorney General Eric Holder from starting an investigation of torture and other war crimes that implicate CIA officials past and present, some of those same CIA officials, together with what in intelligence circles are called 'agents of influence' in the media, are pulling out all the stops to quash the Department of Justice’s preliminary investigation.

"In what should be seen as a bizarre twist, seven CIA directors—including three who are themselves implicated in planning and conducting torture and assassination— have asked the President to call off Holder.

"Can someone please tell me how could the whole thing be more transparent?"

The rest of the story: CIA Torturers Running Scared by Ray McGovern (After Downing Street 2009-09-23)

Change Watch: New American cluster bomb may blow up anti-weapon treaty

Once again, the U.S. appears to ready oppose an international treaty designed to limit the use of inhumane weapons.

The Sensor Fuzed Weapon is a marvel of military technology, says its maker, Textron Defense Systems. An advanced "cluster bomb," it is designed to spray 40 individual projectiles of molten copper, destroying enemy tanks across a 30-acre swath of battlefield.

But the bomb ... violates terms of a landmark international treaty limiting cluster bombs to 10 bomblets or less. The pending treaty, signed by 98 nations last year in Oslo, has been sought for decades by human rights groups, which say that cluster bombs kill indiscriminately and leave behind duds that kill or maim unsuspecting civilians.

Now Textron, with the support of the Pentagon and the State Department, is mounting a campaign to derail the cluster-bomb treaty and write a new set of rules under the United Nations that would make it easier to sell its weapon around the world.

The rest of the story: Made in Mass., bomb stirs global debate - Textron seeks to quash cluster munitions pact by Bryan Bender (Boston.com 2009-09-29)

See, also: Landmine Ban Treaty Turns 10: Past Time for U.S. to Join
World Marks Ten Years Of Landmine Ban Treaty

Politics: Obama to Paterson: "Quit race." Paterson to Obama: "No."

Voicing concern over whether the currently unpopular governor of New York, David Paterson, who succeeded to office when Eliot Spitzer resigned, will drag down the ticket in the general election next year, and thus potentially affect control of Congress, President Obama has asked the incumbent not to run for a full term. (Paterson says he's running anyway.) This comes after the White House drove three more-progressive primary candidates out the race earlier in the year in order to protect Blue Dog Kirsten Gillibrand who was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Paterson, ironically over White House objections, when Hillary Clinton quit to go to State. Wonder how long New York Democrats will accept being dictated to by the national party.

Change Watch: "Obama Will Respect International Law More Than Bush Did." Not.

Writing in Foreign Policy, University of Chicago law professor Eric A. Posner observes that governments respect international law only when it suits their national interests.

During his presidential campaign, Obama expressed support for the International Criminal Court and humanitarian intervention. In office, he has done nothing for the ICC and has stood by while the killing continues in Sudan. He has promised to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay; the problem, however, was not that the facility itself violated international law but that the detention methods practiced there (arguably) did so. These very same detention practices have continued in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Obama has sought to give immunity to Bush-era interrogators -- another possible violation of international law, and certainly in tension with it. Bush's unlawful tariffs on steel are matched by the "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill signed by Obama and the tariffs that he has slapped on Chinese tires. Obama has provided some symbolic support for international law in a few ways, but where it counts -- obtaining Senate ratification of the Law of the Sea treaty (which Bush also supported) and numerous international human rights treaties -- he has expended no political capital. Don't expect this to change.

"[I]nternational law should be looked at as a worthy means," he concludes, "not an end in itself."

It remains, then, for the American people and their democratically elected representatives to decide whether the policies pursued in our name by the military-industrial/foreign policy elite are in our national interests.

Go. Read. Think Again: International Law by Eric A. Posner (Foreign Policy 2009-09-17)

quote unquote: Mill on Liberty

"The only purpose for which
power can be rightfully exercised
over any member of a civilized community,
against his will,
is to prevent harm to others.
His own good, either physical or moral,
is not a sufficient warrant." - John Stuart Mill On Liberty.

Audio: Pristine Classical remasters vintage music

Pristine Classical, a company that remasters vintage classical, jazz and blues recordings, is the biggest historical music download site on the net. The website streams substantial full-quality audio previews of its hundreds of titles (at the moment, for example, I'm listening to a remarkably clean remastering of a 1930 recording of Tchaikovsky's 5th, with Leo Blech conducting the Berlin State Orchestra). You can choose between high quality MP3 files -- mp3 technology is much improved -- or lossless FLAC files to get CD-quality downloads, then click on artwork to download and print out CD covers. You can also order custom-made CDs priority air mail, if you can stand the wait. Pristine Audio Direct Access is a paid streamed audio service that provides hundreds of additional historic recordings that can be streamed and/or downloaded by subscribers. Pristine Classical.

Listen for free to the Pristine Audio Direct Access Radio Player.

Must Read: The Nation

The Nation has been restored over the past couple of years to a deserved place as essential reading on the Left. Here, for example, are titles from The Most Popular and Most Read lists today on the weekly's website:
» The Nightmare of Christianity
» Obama's Presidency Isn't Too Big to Fail
» Slide Show: Race in the Obama Era
» The Right's Fringe Festival
» Stewart Slams Beck, Tea Party Protesters
» Double Standard for Serena Williams
» Stop the Sex Scare in Sports
» Why Is Obama Still Using Blackwater?
» Slide Show: The Palin Saga
» Operation Rollback
» The Unauthorized 9/12 Teabagger Tour
» Right On
» The Crusade Against Sex Trafficking
» A Method to Their Madness
» The Death of Adam Hermanson
» Three R's and a Why
» Sexual Healing
» The Tel Aviv Party Stops Here
» Aracataca and Sucre

Go. Read. The Nation.

Job Op: Orbital Debris Removal (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

The DOD's cutting edge research lab, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a.k.a. DARPA, is looking for somebody to dispose of the zillions of pieces of space detritus* that threaten the space station, shuttles, satellites and future missions to Mars or wherever. Actually, there's no real job yet -- DARPA's TTO (Tactical Technology Office)'s RFI (Request for Information) regarding implementation of an ODR (orbital debris removal) capability is only a fishing expedition, but you might as well be ready: surely there'll be a whopping contract at some point. Probably wouldn't work to send sanitation workers in space suits up the space elevators, but I'm thinking we could double up on those pipes we're going to need to pump carbon into space and have them suck the space junk back down to Earth for recycling.

* ZPSD?: "...more than thirty-five thousand man-made objects have been cataloged by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network. Nearly twenty-thousand of those objects remain in orbit today, ninety-four percent of which are non-functioning orbital debris. These figures do not include the hundreds-of-thousands of objects too small to be cataloged, but still large enough to pose a threat to approximately nine-hundred operational satellites in orbit around the Earth. In addition, collisions between debris objects could potentially lead to a continuously growing debris population...." -- from the RFI.

quote unquote: unndocumented workers

"I work for the U.S. government, but as an individual I have a right to my personal opinions. Having 12 million undocumented people here means there's something wrong with the system, and the system needs to be fixed." -- U.S. astronaut Jose Hernandez

The rest of the story: Mexican American astronaut isn't changing course on immigration stand (LA Times 2009-09-17)

Resource: Help for campus activists

Campus Progress, part of the Center for American Progress, works to help young people -- advocates, activists, journalists, artists -- make their voices heard on issues that matter. Through an online magazine and student publications, public events, multimedia projects, and grassroots issue campaigns, Campus Progress acts to empower new progressive leaders nationwide as they develop fresh ideas, communicate in new ways, push policy outcomes in a progressive direction, and build a strong progressive movement. -- from the Campus Progress website.

Campus Progress health care reform blog: Funding Our Future.

Clip File: How American Health Care Killed My Father

After the needless death of his father, the author, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. And the health-care reform now being contemplated will not fix it. Here’s a radical solution to an agonizing problem that would make the health care consumer the focus of any solution.

by David Goldhill (Atlantic Monthly 2009-09)

Almost two years ago, my father was killed by a hospital-borne infection in the intensive-care unit of a well-regarded nonprofit hospital in New York City. Dad had just turned 83, and he had a variety of the ailments common to men of his age. But he was still working on the day he walked into the hospital with pneumonia. Within 36 hours, he had developed sepsis. Over the next five weeks in the ICU, a wave of secondary infections, also acquired in the hospital, overwhelmed his defenses. My dad became a statistic—merely one of the roughly 100,000 Americans whose deaths are caused or influenced by infections picked up in hospitals. One hundred thousand deaths: more than double the number of people killed in car crashes, five times the number killed in homicides, 20 times the total number of our armed forces killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another victim in a building American tragedy.

Go. Read. How American Health Care Killed My Father by David Goldhill (Atlantic Monthly 2009-09)

Accountability: Senators’ Patriot Act ‘fix’ would eliminate telecom immunity

"A group of US Senators unveiled legislation Thursday aiming to strip telecommunications firms that took part in a hugely controversial Bush-era spying program of immunity from lawsuits.

"The bill aims to 'fix problems with surveillance laws that threaten the rights and liberties of American citizens' without crippling the government’s ability to track suspected terrorists, the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

"The legislation would affect the way the US government can search Americans’ personal records, conduct wiretapping, and otherwise collect and use information on US citizens....

"Democratic Senator Russell Feingold, long a critic of government spy powers on Americans, was a chief author of the legislation presented Thursday.

"The others included the number two Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, as well as Democratic Senators Jon Tester, Tom Udall, Jeff Bingaman, Daniel Akaka, Ron Wyden, and Robert Menendez, as well as Independent Senator Bernie Sanders."

Go. Read. Senators’ Patriot Act ‘fix’ would eliminate telecom immunity by Raw Story (2009-09-17)

Update -- Reality intrudes: "The Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly passed a bill Thursday to extend several controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the counterterrorism law hastily drafted in the aftermath of 9/11...The bill - the USA Patriot Act Sunset Extension Act - was co-sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and committee member Dianne Feinstein, who also chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, and passed was passed by a vote of 11 to 8." - Senate Panel Extends Controversial Patriot Act Provisions by Jason Leopold (truthout 2009-10-09)

Resources: Health Care Insurance Reform

Some places to go with questions about health care insurance reform: HealthReform.gov, Kaiser Family Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund.

California Taxes: When You Hear the Word "Reform," Reach for Your Gun

The “blue ribbon” California State Commission of the 21st Century Economy, chaired by Republican heavyweight Gerald Parsky, was created by Gov. Schwarzenegger to provide bipartisan recommendations for changes to California’s tax system. According to Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, the commission is recommending "a massive shift in the cost of financing public services from the wealthy and corporations to middle-income families."

Writing on Calbuzz, Ross says

the biggest winners would be the state’s millionaires, who would receive personal income tax breaks averaging $109,000 per year. The biggest losers would be middle-income families who would receive a tiny, if any, reduction in their personal income taxes and who would pay substantially more for goods and services due to the new “value-added” tax the commission proposes to replace revenues lost due to the tax cuts for the wealthy and repeal of the corporate income tax.

The magnitude of the shift proposed by the commission is nothing short of stunning. The changes to the personal income tax structure alone would reduce income taxes paid by the poorest 62 percent of California taxpayers by $4 per year, on average, while providing six-figure breaks to the millionaires. The bottom 81 percent of the income distribution – the vast majority of all Californians – would receive 10 percent of the personal income tax cut, while the top 0.2 percent would receive 27 percent of the benefits.

And that’s the “good news.” The commission would repeal the corporate income tax and the state’s portion of the sales tax and replace it with a new tax on business net receipts – a tax that has never been tried anywhere in the US – that the commission’s own consultant notes would raise prices of goods and services, while exerting downward pressure on wages and benefits.

"Reforms" would "flatten" taxes

Specifically, the commission wants to tax groceries to pay for tax cuts for millionaires, and would tax child care so that oil companies no longer have to pay corporate income tax. Proposed changes would encourage relocation of California jobs to firms outside California, beyond the reach of California’s tax collectors. Interestingly,

the commission’s own estimates predict that revenues raised by the new tax system would grow more slowly over time than those raised by the state’s current tax system. Thus, the commission’s recommendations would lead to larger, not smaller, budget shortfalls in the future.

Over the five-year period covered by commission estimates, the difference in revenue growth would be substantial – the increased deficit under the proposed tax code would be approximately equal to what the state spends for today for the University of California and California State University systems combined.

Finally, Ross points out that more straightforward reforms that would increase revenues, such as aggressively pursuing collection of sales taxes from out-of-state retailers (out-of-state businesses pay no taxes, giving them an unfair competitive advantage against California companies) or extending the state’s existing sales tax to a broader array of services while lowering the overall sales tax rate, were ignored by the commission. "Similarly, the commission could have used tax policy as a tool to mitigate, rather than exacerbate, the widening gaps between the top and middle- and top and lower-income households." The governor's commission may have been "bipartisan" (the commission has 14 members, seven appointed by the governor, seven by the legislature), but how well the interests of middle-class and working-class citizens were represented is open to question.

Go. Read. What’s Wrong with the Parsky Panel Tax “Reforms” by Jean Ross (Calbuzz 2009-09-14) and The California Budget Project’s analysis of the Commission’s proposals (pdf)
Also, California State Commission of the 21st Century Economy: Staff Presentation: Proposed Tax Structure (pdf 2009-09-14)
California tax panel set to recommend sweeping, controversial changes (Sacramento Bee 2009-09-15)
California tax overhaul plan almost ready (LA Times 2009-09-15)
Our View: Tax fix would do more harm than good (Marysville CA Appeal-Democrat 2009-09-15)
State tax reform panel blew its opportunity by Michael Hiltzik (Los Angeles Times 2009-10-05)

Thanks for the tip on this story from California State Senate candidate Cindy Varela Henderson.

Resource: How to think about America's health insurance crisis

"Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage. To help policy-makers, elected officials, and others judge and compare proposals to extend coverage to the nation's 43 million uninsured, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies offers a set of guiding principles and a checklist in a new report, Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations....

...the committee offers a set of...principles...for guiding the debate and evaluating various strategies...:

1. Health care coverage should be universal.
2. Health care coverage should be continuous.
3. Health care coverage should be affordable to individuals and families.
4. The health insurance strategy should be affordable and sustainable for society.
5. Health insurance should enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered, and equitable.

Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies)
See, also: Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies)
A Shared Destiny: Community Effects of Uninsurance (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies)

Health Care: The Future Costs of the Afghanistan War

The pro-empire policies of the ruling elite have distorted our national priorities for 60 years. Finally, they have become too much to bear.

We can no longer permit American citizens to suffer and die because they can't get health care. The condition of our collapsing infrastructure courts catastrophe. Our schools and our prisons have become warehouses for people without futures.

Beginning now, federal revenues must be expended on programs and policies that increase national wealth and well-being. Profit can no longer be the sole measure of value. The role of national government must be redirected toward the common weal. But this will only happen if the American people make it happen.

We are engaged in two debates today that our leaders will try to keep separate. But they are not separate: in the short run, they are about how we will allocate scarce resources: in the roughest sense, we can't afford both universal health care and world dominance, and so we will be forced to choose. In the long run, we will decide who we are, a social democracy whose first priority is the well-being of its people or a corporatist oligarchy that uses the trappings of democracy to put the interests of a tiny minority ahead of the good of the country and of its people. As Jeff Ley writes, "The choice is clear: health care or warfare; the Common Good or Common Destruction."

On Wednesday, President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on health care. Later this year, he will decide whether to deploy additional troops to the war in Afghanistan on top of the 69,000 troops already deployed. The struggle for health care and the struggle to end warfare are inextricably linked. The cost for substantive (though imperfect) health care reform, as envisioned in the House of Representatives approach (with the public option), is projected to average $100 billion per year for the next ten years. The cost to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are projected to cost anywhere from $55 billion to $100 billion a year, with a few modest reductions to the baseline military budget, and the difference is paid.

The rest of the story: Health Care vs. Warfare: The Future Costs of the Afghanistan War by Jeff Leys (truthout 2009-09-12).

Democracy: Why have elections?

Post-Partisanship Depression
"People talk about a bipartisan agreement on health care as if its the highest goal. We had an election in 2008, and the Democrats won the presidency and significant majorities in the House and the Senate. The notion that those of us who won the election with a solid majority should compromise 50/50 with those who lost; well, then why not randomly choose sides? Why not just make it a game like a color war at summer camp? Why have elections?" -- Rep. Barney Frank

Clip File: Friends of the Earth Warns That Relying on Offsets Can Lead to Climate Disaster

Report exposes carbon offsets as a dangerous gimmick
The controversial practice of carbon offsetting, via which U.S. polluters send money overseas in exchange for promised — and often pretend — pollution reductions elsewhere, came under fire today in a new report published by Friends of the Earth. Offsets are a centerpiece of the energy bill that passed the House of Representatives in June, and they may be included in soon-to-be-introduced legislation in the Senate. The report explains how offsets work and concludes that they are a flawed approach to combating global warming. -- from the press release for A Dangerous Distraction: Why Offsets Are a Mistake the U.S. Cannot Afford to Make (Friends of the Earth).

Clip File: Glenn Beck and The 9/12 Marchers: Subversives From Within

"A big part of the answer to understanding the heightened climate of outright hate and fear of the 'other' is the home school and Christian school movement. It is a modern incarnation of the anti-federal government ideology of earlier firebrands such as John Calhoun who was the 7th Vice President and a Southern politician in the 19th century. Calhoun embraced slavery, states' rights, limited government, and said that Americans should secede from the union if it went against their wishes." -- Glenn Beck and The 9/12 Marchers: Subversives From Within by Frank Schaeffer (Huffington Post 2009-09-12)

The Fed: Geithner wants to let the fox run the henhouse

A New Way Forward is a citizens' action group formed last spring that aims to transform the public's relationship to the monetary and economic policies that govern our lives by pushing for structural reform of the financial industry. They

demand an end to taxpayer bailouts without solutions for working-class America; policies that address the problem of too big to fail; reorganization so that the financial elite who managed us into this crisis are not in charge as we try to fix it, and we believe banks should be broken up — decentralized — and sold back to the private market with strong new regulatory and antitrust rules in place.

To keep your irritation with the bailout finely tuned, watch this video of the Federal Reserve's so-called internal watchdog being questioned by Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida. Like Mafia bookmakers, the nation's bookkeepers are apparently determined not to leave a paper trail, claiming to have no clue where the trillions of dollars in public money they have transferred to private hands have actually gone. $9 trillion in Fed off-balance sheet transactions this year? Don't know. Lost from the Fed's $2 trillion portfolio? Can't say. The Congress not only needs to get back the $ trillions. They should ask these hacks to return whatever they've been overpaid for not doing their jobs.

"I am shocked," Grayson tells the committee chairman, "to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve is keeping track of anything." He's shocked. How about you?

A New Way Forward has a petition to back up efforts of reformers in Congress to block the plan by Obama's treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, to expand the Fed's control over the banking system:

Let's get at the root problems of the crisis. The seat of power, the Federal Reserve, is corrupt. With the banks, the Fed co-founded the biggest crash since the Great Depression. The banks have become political giants on the backs of working America, receiving trillions of dollars they don't deserve. Do we want the banks to continue to watch over themselves? To restore our economy for all, we demand the Fed stop operating in secret and Geithner drop his attempts at giving the Fed new powers to be the "supercop."

It's time to break up the big banks.  If an industry is too big to fail, it's too big to exist. A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.  Old Ev must be turning in his grave.

quote unquote: Bryan on Democrats

There are two ideas of government.

There are those who believe

that you just legislate

to make the well-to-do prosperous,

that their prosperity will

leak through on those below.

The Democratic idea has been

that if you legislate

to make the masses prosperous

their prosperity will find its way up

and through every class that rests upon it.

-- William Jennings Bryan

(addressing the Democratic National Convention, Chicago 1896)

Change Watch: Is Obama Tossing Out the Constitution With His New Anti-Terror Plan?

Closing Guantánamo Bay's prison will do little to shut down the debate on what we should do with alleged terrorists. This week NOW, as part of a collaboration with the nonprofit investigative unit ProPublica, explores the controversial tactic of "preventive detention," a government plan that may detain suspects indefinitely without trial or even formal charges. Implementing such a plan may have far-reaching consequences on not just our fight against terrorism, but the integrity of the U.S. Constitution and the cause of human rights.

Even with President Obama in office and Guantanamo's days numbered, we're still asking: What price will we pay for peace on the ground and peace of mind? -- from the PBS website.

Watch NOW now.

See, also: A prosecutor set on convicting an alleged 9/11 conspirator makes a surprising decision -- Duty vs. Conscience at Gitmo.

ACLU: Close Gitmo
Liberty: Control Orders: Unsafe and Unfair
Center for Constitutional Rights: Illegal Detentions and Guantanamo

Resource: Executions, Deterrence and Homicide - A Tale of Two Cities

Abstract: We compare homicide rates in two quite similar cities with vastly different execution risks. Singapore had an execution rate close to 1 per million per year until an explosive twentyfold increase in 1994-95 and 96 to a level that we show was probably the highest in the world. Then over the next 11 years, Singapore executions dropped by about 95%. Hong Kong, by contrast, has no executions all during the last generation and abolished capital punishment in 1993. Homicide levels and trends are remarkably similar in these two cities over the 35 years after 1973, with neither the surge in Singapore executions nor the more recent steep drop producing any differential impact. By comparing two closely matched places with huge contrasts in actual execution but no differences in homicide trends, we have generated a unique test of the exuberant claims of deterrence that have been produced over the past decade in the U.S. -- Boalt Working Papers in Public Law, University of California, Berkeley,

Download: Executions, Deterrence and Homicide - A Tale of Two Cities (pdf)

Activism: David Swanson on Healthcare Reform and Democracy Reform

David Swanson is the founder of AfterDowningStreet and author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. His book tour will bring him to Los Angeles and Orange County on November 23-24.

Health Care: Obama endorses HR 676 - Medicare for all

From the advance text of a speech to be delivered by Pres. Obama to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Sept 9, 2009:

During the campaign, I promised that if I was entrusted with the job of president I would do everything in my power to put an end to political divisiveness and partisanship in Washington. In the months since then, my administration and the Democratic members of Congress have done everything we can to reach a compromise with the Republicans on the essential task of reforming a health care system that all side agree needs to be fixed. Even before we approached our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we Democrats indicated our willingness to work with the opposition by removing from the table, even before they asked, an element of reform -- single-payer health insurance -- that has been a central tenet of Democratic health care policy since Harry Truman was president, because we believed it was something GOP leaders would never agree to. Neither that nor a dozen other concessions made by the majority since January has made a difference, however, and I have had to conclude, very reluctantly, that we made a mistake: there is nothing that we can do that will satisfy the opposition. Despite their protestations to the contrary, the leaders of the Republican Party do not want to give all Americans equal right to quality health care. We do.

As long ago as 2003, when I was running for the U.S.Senate back in my home state of Illinois, I said "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program." I saw no reason then, and there is no reason now, why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 17 percent of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. Everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That's what I wanted to see. But as all of you know, back then we had a lot of work to do first. We had to take back the White House, we had to take back the Senate, and we had to take back the House. We did those things, and now it's time to take the next step. It is time to make good on our party's promise of universal access to health care.

So, today, we go back to page 1. We start over. We do what we should have done all along. Beginning today, the Democratic Party stands together to guarantee that quality health care will be the right every citizen. Today I join the 93 Democratic members of the House of Representatives who have already endorsed House Resolution 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act to provide expanded and improved medicare for all. This administration will work closely with Representatives Conyers, Kucinich and other leaders in the House to pass HR 676 by the end of September. I am confident that the passage of Medicare for all by the House will encourage Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Senate to support the Senate version, S 703, the American Health Security Act of 2009, and they will join Sen. Sanders in endorsing the equitable and fiscally responsible course of bringing the benefits of Medicare to all Americans. -- Pres. Barack Obama 2009.

Hey, it could happen.

The Citizens Alliance for National Health Insurance - HR676.org,Inc.
Take action: Support Single Payer Health Care (Democrats.com)

Health Care: There will be a health care bill. It just won't be anything recognizable as reform.

Dear Dr. Healthcare Reform,

I know I've been a bit disconnected lately, but what exactly IS Obama's health care plan? It seems that he would be well advised to do a little proactive sales on his plan, but does anyone know what it actually is?

-- Perplexed.

Dear Perplexed,

You haven't missed anything. It's true that the Right has been attacking "Obamacare" for months, but they don't have any better idea what it is than you do. We may find out more tomorrow when the president addresses congress, but then again, maybe not. He seems to have a problem with any kind of governing that doesn't involve an executive order or a signing statement. Still gives a hell of speech, sometimes, though.

The Obama administration, committed to "health insurance reform" by the candidate's vague promises during the campaign, knew it wanted something it could call health reform, but apparently didn't know what. They parsed the failure of the Clintons to pass health care reform, not necessarily coming away with the lessons you might have. The Clintons' massive bill was drawn up in secret without input from the legislature. That might have led to the conclusion a) that the process should include elected representatives and b) that it should be public and transparent. The White House decided that the corrective of too much control by the White House was none. The president should stay completely out of the process -- in other words, he would decline to lead at all. The part about transparency went right by them -- at the same time that they left the legislature to tack this way and that without a rudder, White House officials were holding secret meetings with drug companies, insurers and other big players in the health care industry. Instead of the promised "change," as far as secrecy goes it was business as usual in the new administration.

It's not like the Obama White House had to lay out a program in Clintonian detail, every t crossed, every i dotted. But he owed it to other leaders in his party to make clear, in general outline at least, what he expected. Since House bill HR 676 that would establish Medicare for All only takes up 13 pages, it's obvious that you can say a lot in a very few words. During the campaign, Obama stood to Hillary's right on insurance reform, so it's not as if anyone expected him to propose socialized medicine, but his supporters were not wrong to anticipate some minimal changes: even those of us with the lowest expectations thought that, at the least, health care insurance would be made more affordable, universal and portable; costs would be controlled; and no one would be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

Naturally, because no one can think of any other way to control costs, many believed that Medicare for All, or single-payer health insurance, would have to be considered. But in another misreading of the Clinton health care debacle, the administration, in its only glimmer of leadership, took Medicare for All "off the table" for being too radical, even though the president himself acknowledged that it is the only way to bring down the cost of health care. It never seems to have occurred to anyone in the White House that part of the reason the Clinton plan foundered was the degree complexity that came from trying to devise a mechanism that would save the parasitic insurance industry. Like the massive bill that has emerged from the House of Representatives, Clintonian health care reform lacked the simple directness that made "Medicare for All" an easier sell.

The "public option" that has the Right so exercised is a compromise introduced in an attempt to put a brake on costs by providing a publicly financed alternative to exploitative private insurance. It probably wouldn't have worked as intended, so we shouldn't be too disappointed if the president throws it under a bus tomorrow. But it has to be understood that with out it, or Medicare for All, or the conversion of the insurance companies into not-for-profits, whatever the president conjures up tomorrow will be as a bandaid on a hemorrhaging wound. A public option that is triggered a decade from now by some vague set of circumstance is the same as no public option; probably worse, because it will leave the impression that something was done.

At the end of the day, this is what is likely to happen: every person in the United States not eligible for Medicare or other existing government programs, will be forced into a private insurance plan, with the tab for those who can't pay picked up by the taxpayer. In other words, the insurance companies will sell many millions of additional policies and get massive government subsidies for the trouble. Businesses will probably still be on the hook for huge insurance expenditures, although some industries may be excepted. Insurance may become more "portable," that is you will be more able to carry it from job to job, and to a much larger extent than now insurance companies will not be able wriggle out medical payments. There will be no significant reduction in insurance industry overhead, however, beyond the loss of a few claims adjusters.

Should this pass -- by no means a sure thing given the profoundly undemocratic nature of the U.S. Senate -- the administration will call it a victory and move on to less vexing tasks. Like bombing the crap out of Afghanistan.

Health Care: Consider the public option 'trigger' pulled

"Serious reform doesn’t mean capitulating to the private healthcare industry, mandating private coverage, failing to control costs, the government subsidizing private insurance industry, and then Obama calling it 'the public option.' A real public option controls costs, expands coverage, and regulates the insurance industry." - Allison Kilkenny (Consider the public option 'trigger' pulled -- hTrue/Slant 2009-09-08)

Afghanistan: The U.S. Army's pre-deployment reading list

All of us, not just those with an interest in international affairs and U.S. foreign and military policy, can gain advantage from a dig through the

back-to-school-style stack of texts recommended by the Army to G.I.s enrolled this semester in the war zone in Afghanistan and Pakistan (actually, since conflict on the latter campus is unauthorized, it is granted no official mention). The list includes dozens of books and online resources, with reading levels carefully calibrated from grunt to officer, selected to give our men and women an introductory course in the history and culture of Afghanistan and the role and tactics of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Some of the titles ought to be required reading at the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and the White House, too:

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid, a study of the Taliban's evil reign that benefits from having been written prior to 9/11.
Oil. Who'd've thought.
Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid -- Think we have problems in Afghanistan? Wait'll this farpotshket mess spreads to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid's devastating critique of our efforts thus far to nation-build in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, a first-hand report on what might be accomplished by American largesse if it were less frequently visited upon its beneficiaries from the barrel of a gun.
Afghanistan: A New History by Martin Ewans, a textbook-ish account of Afghan history for the 1,000 years leading up to September 11, 2001.
Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the War against the Taliban by Stephen Tanner puts the current imbroglio in historical context.
The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost by Michael A. Gress and Lester W. Grau: if you ever wanted the inside dope on "what were they thinking?" -- they, in this case, being Russian military leaders -- this, in grinding detail, is your book (Amazon gives "Russia" a by-line on the volume -- glad they got something out of the mess; hope our generals do as well).
Culture and Customs of Afghanistan by Hafizullah Emadi -- the only time the disparate tribes of the region come together as anything that might fairly be labeled "Afghanistan" is to fight off foreign invaders. Maybe we're nation-building, after all.
Flashman: A Novel by George MacDonald Fraser, an entertainment set during one of the British Empire's turns at failure in Afghanistan.
The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars And The Rise Of American Power by Max Boot, a gloss on (and apologia for) the U.S.'s intrusion into "other countries' internal affairs since at least 1805."
The Man Who Would be King: The First American in Afghanistan by Ben Macintyre, the true story of a 19th century adventurer from these shores who recommended to the Brits that they consider using "fiscal diplomacy" as persuasion instead resorting to "invading and subjugating an unoffending people."
The Great Game: Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Pete Hopkirk, a book that makes you wonder why we would place a bet on a game that no player before us has been able to win.

The Army's list includes handy links to retailers and to online resources, such as the USMC's Warfighting. Here in pdf format is the complete United States Army pre-deployment to Afghanistan reading list [the list is no longer available; the DoD probably figures, after 17 years of getting nowhere, why bother? - ed.].

If, tired from hitting the books (as much as 200 pages a week is recommended), our expeditionary force wants to take a break with a movie, I'm thinking Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers might be just the ticket.

Resource: New Organizing Institute

"The NOI runs the only progressive advocacy and campaign training program focused on cutting-edge online organizing techniques (e.g. writing effective emails, engaging bloggers, leveraging social networks, utilizing video), political technology (e.g. using data effectively, progressive technology infrastructure), and the intersection with field and management of these areas of new organizing." -- from the New Organizing Institute website.

Clip File: Obama’s in the ER but he’ll get his reforms

Writing in The Times, Andrew Sullivan argues that the right’s healthcare scare tactics are hitting home – but to little purpose:

"...I remain convinced Obama will win this fight. Not totally; not without political cost; but win it he shall. And the strategy is really very simple. The most popular elements of the bill will be kept in and the most contentious left out.

"The fundamental issue of costs will be deferred. A bill that prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing illnesses; that creates healthcare exchanges, where people can buy their own insurance policy subsidised by the government; that brings agreed price reductions by the drug companies in return for all these new, previously uninsured clients: this will pass and be popular. How could it not? The option of a government-run insurance plan to compete with private ones will be either dispensed with or held in reserve. If, after a few years, health costs keep soaring and the private companies have not mended their free-spending ways, it could be brought back."

The rest of the story: Obama’s in the ER but he’ll get his reforms by Andrew Sullivan (TimesOnline 2009-09-06)

Making Lemonade: California Turns Its Prisons Into Travel DestinationsGives new meaning to "tourist trap"

"Bristol Zoo Gardens now has a special enclosure for Humans (Homo sapiens), featuring the world’s most widespread species." -- Humans on Display at Bristol Zoo by Scott Beale (Laughing Squid 2009-09-01)

When the governor called, I have to admit I thought he was kidding. At least once I understood him, I thought he was kidding. After all this time that Austrian accent still throws me sometimes. And anybody who's seen him play with that giant knife while talking about the Legislature knows what a great kidder he is. Even after I figured out that he meant zoos instead of Zeus, I still thought that his plan to turn California's prison system into a tourist attraction was a joke.

Not that we shouldn't be ready to try anything to ease the Golden State's financial woes. You've probably heard we're in the hole. Depending who you ask, we've got a budget deficit between $26 billion and $41 billion. As Sen. Everett Dirksen once said, "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money." Whatever, it's a big hole.

Once somebody thought better of furloughing the prison guards, we had to do something. We tried selling off junk in state warehouses, but you couldn't have picked a worse time, economy-wise. Everybody's looking for a bargain these days. How much could we really be expected to make? People give away better stuff on Craigslist than we had to sell. Besides, how many people are looking for a baseball bat in "fair condition"? It didn't help that every blowhard editorial-writer and stand-up comedian made fun of us. "Great California Garage Sale." What were we thinking?

I guess the governor was a little disappointed when the garage sale brought in only $1.6 million ("a million here, a million there," I hear you thinking, "pretty soon it's hardly worth getting up in the morning"). I didn't think it was so bad, really, for staplers and pencils and old office equipment. It's not like we were selling the Los Angeles Coliseum or something.

Anyway, not my department. I run the California Travel & Tourism Commission. Or used to. Now I mostly run the prison system. Or, as it is officially called now, the Department of Travel, Tourism, Corrections & Rehabilitation. You can thank the guards' union for that one.

Even though I was skeptical, I threw myself into realizing the governor's vision. Honestly, I had never paid much attention to jails before, but when I thought a little I realized that he was right, as usual: prisons are a lot like "Zeus."

To save time, we lifted at lot of material and displays from a zoo in England that had a pioneering exhibit on the subject of homo sapiens: "The human is one of the world’s most widespread species, and is present on all continents. In adolescence, the offspring adopt a more nocturnal lifestyle and engage in ritualised activities of drinking liquids and dancing to fermented rhythmical sounds, which scientists believe may help them to find a mate.”

And: “The human diet is very adaptable to regional crop varieties and personal taste, with some groups able to live almost exclusively on chipped potatoes and sugary drinks."

And particularly aptly: “Groups of humans are often fed by unrelated individuals in exchange for tokens made of paper, metal and plastic – behaviour which can frequently be seen inside this enclosure."

In California we're very lucky because we have so many human varietals to put on display, some, like Charles Manson and Phil Spector, that people will pay to see. Although two-thirds of our prisoners are of black or hispanic origin, 25% are foreigners from just about everywhere on the planet. With 170,000 inmates to choose from, most of them nonviolent drug offenders, it wasn't hard to find participants for various displays and exhibits. It's already beginning to look like instead of spending $10 billion a year, or about $49,000 for each adult inmate, we can make this thing turn a profit.

At first we thought people would just look from a safe distance, but folks are very interactive these days, so we've been able to help close the budget deficit by adding all kinds of special packages that let tourists interact with residents, by hanging around the exercise yard, say, or by dining with mean-looking but carefully selected "criminals" in the cafeteria. We were worried about including the maximum security Pelican Bay State Prison in the program, because not much goes on there, but we've had unexpected success with a premium tour that includes several days in solitary confinement. And all before we've even had the opportunity to complete a deal with Disney to turn San Quentin into an interactive theme park.

I Went to San Quentin and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

Our biggest problems weren't with finding fun things to do or with arranging thrilling but safe interactions between inhabitants and visitors, but with infrastructure. As you might expect, most lockups were situated originally without giving much thought to tourist amenities. Since the prison facilities themselves are packed with twice as many inhabitants as they were designed for, we had to come up with enough food, water, parking and lodging off campus to accommodate what has turned out to be a flood of visitors. In the end the governor's plan has not only been a boon to the treasury and to the prisoners who have been provided with all kinds of opportunities to polish their social and acting skills, but also to the 36 local communities all around the state that have benefited from new roads, water and sewer systems, motels, and eateries, nearly all of them built by volunteers from the jails.

And the prisoners' gift shops have been doing land-office business with cups, hats, t-shirts, prison model kits, uniforms, clubs, handcuffs and other paraphernalia. Demand for the Taser Toddler, which delivers a dramatic but usually non-lethal jolt of electricity, have been through the roof.

As the governor himself put it, turning the prisons into "Zeus" has been a "win-win-win" for everybody involved.

Activism: Progressives Pay the Price for Confusing a Party With a Movement

For some on the left during the last national election season, watching the peace, green, and economic and social justice organizations squander their resources of money and manpower backing a campaign that had almost no likelihood of delivering on its promise of change, instead of using those hard-earned resources to build a movement, was more than a little frustrating, irritating and depressing. In the following paragraphs, David Sirota explores how many of these groups confuse the fortunes of the Democratic Party with the interests of their members.

by David Sirota

The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda; movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it. This is one of the few enduring political axioms, and it explains why the organizations purporting to lead an American progressive “movement” have yet to build a real movement, much less a successful one.

Though the 2006 and 2008 elections were billed as progressive movement successes, the story behind them highlights a longer-term failure. During those contests, most leaders of Washington’s major labor, environmental, anti-war and anti-poverty groups spent millions of dollars on a party endeavor—specifically, on electing a Democratic president and Democratic Congress. In the process, many groups subverted their own movement agendas in the name of electoral unity.

The effort involved a sleight of hand. These groups begged their grass-roots members—janitors, soccer moms, veterans and other “regular folks”—to cough up small-dollar contributions in return for the promise of movement pressure on both parties’ politicians. Simultaneously, these groups went to dot-com and Wall Street millionaires asking them to chip in big checks in exchange for advocacy that did not offend those fat cats’ Democratic politician friends (or those millionaires’ economic privilege).

This wasn’t totally dishonest. Many groups sincerely believed that Democratic Party promotion was key to progressive movement causes. And anyway, during the Bush era, many of those causes automatically helped Democrats by indicting Republicans.

But after the 2008 election, the strategy’s bankruptcy is undeniable.

As we now see, union dues underwrote Democratic leaders who today obstruct serious labor law reform and ignore past promises to fix NAFTA. Green groups’ resources helped elect a government that pretends sham “cap and trade” bills represent environmental progress. Health care groups promising to push a single-payer system got a president not only dropping his own single-payer promises, but also backing off a “public option” to compete with private insurance. And anti-war funding delivered a Congress that refuses to stop financing the Iraq mess, and an administration preparing to escalate the Afghanistan conflict.

Of course, frustrated progressives might be able to forgive the groups that promised different results, had these postelection failures prompted course corrections.

For example, had the left’s pre-eminent groups responded to Democrats’ health care capitulations by immediately announcing campaigns against these Democrats, progressives could feel confident that these groups were back to prioritizing a movement agenda. Likewise, had the big anti-war organizations reacted to Obama’s Afghanistan escalation plans with promises of electoral retribution, we would know those organizations were steadfastly loyal to their anti-war brand.

But that hasn’t happened. Despite the president’s health care retreat, most major progressive groups continue to cheer him on, afraid to lose their White House access and, thus, their Beltway status. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that Moveon.org has “yet to take a clear position on Afghanistan” while VoteVets’ leader all but genuflected to Obama, saying, “People [read: professional political operatives] do not want to take on the administration.”

In this vacuum, movement building has been left to underfunded (but stunningly successful) projects like Firedoglake.com, Democracy for America, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and local organizations. And that’s the lesson: True grass-roots movements that deliver concrete legislative results are not steered by marble-columned institutions, wealthy benefactors or celebrity politicians—and they are rarely ever run from Washington. They are almost always far-flung efforts by those organized around real-world results—those who don’t care about party conventions, congressional cocktail parties or White House soirees they were never invited to in the first place.

Only when enough progressives realize that truism will any movement—and any change—finally commence. © 2009 Creators.com

David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--And How We Take It Back and The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington. He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com.

This essay appeared first on truthdig.

Firedoglake is an online news site featuring political reporting and blogs including Emptywheel, TBogg, Christy Hardin Smith, Laura Flanders, Spencer Ackerman (Attackerman), the Seminal, and La Figa. The FDL Book Salon also features online discussion with book authors every Saturday and Sunday at 5pm ET.

Howard Dean's Democracy for America is a nationwide progressive political action community of one million members providing campaign training, organizing resources, and media exposure in support of progressive issues and candidates up and down the ballot.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee provides "needed infrastructure and strategic advice early to progressive candidates so they can run first-class campaigns and win. And when PCCC-endorsed candidates get elected by working hand-in-hand with the progressive movement, they'll trust the political instincts of progressives and be sturdy allies as we work with them to pass a bold progressive agenda."