“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.” -- Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, Commander, International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan
The rest of the story: McChrystal admits Afghan atrocities, press yawns by Allison Kilkenny (True/Slant 2010-03-28)
See, also: Tighter Rules Fail to Stem Deaths of Innocent Afghans at Checkpoints by Richard A. Oppel Jr. (New York Times 2010-03-26)
Propaganda: Don't let Texas rewrite your kids' history books
Led by far-right ideologues, the Texas State Board of Education recently gave preliminary approval to a plan that would radically change what children across the country learn in history class.
The ultra-conservative majority on the board - none of whom are experts in any academic discipline and many of whom are explicitly anti-science - took the curricula proposed by teachers and made over a hundred changes to "correct" the perceived left-wing bias.
But it gets worse. Since Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the country, material written to cater to the Texas curricula will find its way into textbooks across the country unless textbook publishers take a stand.
Children who use textbooks conforming to the new standards will not learn anything about the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson or his thoughts on the separation of church and state. When they learn about the Civil War, they'll have to study Jefferson Davis' inaugural address alongside Abraham Lincoln's. And when they study the civil rights movement they'll have to learn about the "unintended consequences" of Great Society programs, affirmative action and Title IX.
It's outrageous. Education will fail if we can't teach our children history. We can't let these far-right ideologues co-opt our educational system.
Sign the petition to tell the textbook publishers: Don't let Texas rewrite history. -- from the CREDO Action website
Action: Sign the petition
Background: How Christian Were the Founders? and Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change (both New York Times)
The ultra-conservative majority on the board - none of whom are experts in any academic discipline and many of whom are explicitly anti-science - took the curricula proposed by teachers and made over a hundred changes to "correct" the perceived left-wing bias.
But it gets worse. Since Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the country, material written to cater to the Texas curricula will find its way into textbooks across the country unless textbook publishers take a stand.
Children who use textbooks conforming to the new standards will not learn anything about the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson or his thoughts on the separation of church and state. When they learn about the Civil War, they'll have to study Jefferson Davis' inaugural address alongside Abraham Lincoln's. And when they study the civil rights movement they'll have to learn about the "unintended consequences" of Great Society programs, affirmative action and Title IX.
It's outrageous. Education will fail if we can't teach our children history. We can't let these far-right ideologues co-opt our educational system.
Sign the petition to tell the textbook publishers: Don't let Texas rewrite history. -- from the CREDO Action website
Action: Sign the petition
Background: How Christian Were the Founders? and Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change (both New York Times)
Saturday Catchup: Must reads (and sees) from the past week
Taxing Cannabis: This Time, Pot Really Might Become Legal by Kevin Drum (Mother Jones 2010-03-26) -- The only thing that can stop legalization in California is massive spending by the prison guards union.
War Crimes: State Department Declares Illegal Drone Attacks to Be Legal as Part of Eternal Global War by David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet 2010-03-26) -- Because they say so, that's why.
Change Watch: The horrible prospect of Supreme Court Justice Cass Sunstein by Glenn Greenwald (Salon 2010-03-26) -- or Elena Kagan, for that matter. Will Obama move SCOTUS to the right?'
The influence of the Israel Lobby on America's Iran policy (Obama continues Bush's Iran policy 3) by Daan de Wit, translated by Ben Kearney (Deep Journal 2010-03-23) -- Why Washington lives in fear the lobby's long reach. Also, see Obama continues Bush's Iran policy 1 and 2.
Jon Stewart does (in) Glenn Beck:
Is this the Birth of a Nation? by Melissa Harris-Lacewell (The Nation 2010-03-22) -- The return of Jim Crow.
Health Reform Bill Summary: The Top 18 Immediate Effects by Jeremy Binckes and Nick Wing (Huntington Post 2010-03-23) | It's not affordable or universal, but it's a damn sight better than what was there before.
The real hero of health care reform: Nancy Pelosi by Mark Greenbaum (Christian Science Monitor 2010-03-22) -- Whatever you think of the outcome, leadership came from the House not the White House.
If you want to see why Carly Fiorina will never be US Senator you have only to watch this wacko ad for Carly Fiorina:
Secrets of the Tea Party: The troubling history of Tea Party leader Dick Armey by Beau Hodai (In These Times 2010-03-21)
Two Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit by Jim Hightower (AlterNet 2010-03-19) -- The Moneybags behind the corporate coup d'état.
War Crimes: State Department Declares Illegal Drone Attacks to Be Legal as Part of Eternal Global War by David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet 2010-03-26) -- Because they say so, that's why.
Change Watch: The horrible prospect of Supreme Court Justice Cass Sunstein by Glenn Greenwald (Salon 2010-03-26) -- or Elena Kagan, for that matter. Will Obama move SCOTUS to the right?'
The influence of the Israel Lobby on America's Iran policy (Obama continues Bush's Iran policy 3) by Daan de Wit, translated by Ben Kearney (Deep Journal 2010-03-23) -- Why Washington lives in fear the lobby's long reach. Also, see Obama continues Bush's Iran policy 1 and 2.
Jon Stewart does (in) Glenn Beck:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Conservative Libertarian | ||||
| ||||
Health Reform Bill Summary: The Top 18 Immediate Effects by Jeremy Binckes and Nick Wing (Huntington Post 2010-03-23) | It's not affordable or universal, but it's a damn sight better than what was there before.
The real hero of health care reform: Nancy Pelosi by Mark Greenbaum (Christian Science Monitor 2010-03-22) -- Whatever you think of the outcome, leadership came from the House not the White House.
If you want to see why Carly Fiorina will never be US Senator you have only to watch this wacko ad for Carly Fiorina:
Secrets of the Tea Party: The troubling history of Tea Party leader Dick Armey by Beau Hodai (In These Times 2010-03-21)
Two Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit by Jim Hightower (AlterNet 2010-03-19) -- The Moneybags behind the corporate coup d'état.
Health Care: The Unbearable Lightness of Reform
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
That wickedly satirical Ambrose Bierce described politics as "the conduct of public affairs for private advantage."
Bierce vanished to Mexico nearly a hundred years ago -- to the relief of the American political class of his day, one assumes -- but in an eerie way he was forecasting America's political culture today. It seems like most efforts to reform a system that's gone awry -- to clean house and make a fresh start -- end up benefiting the very people who wrecked it in the first place.
Which is why Bierce, in his classic little book, The Devil's Dictionary, defined reform as "a thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation."
So we got health care reform this week -- but it's a far cry from reformation. You can't blame President Obama for celebrating what he did get -- he and the Democrats needed some political points on the scoreboard. And imagine the mood in the White House if the vote had gone the other way; they would have been cutting wrists instead of cake.
Give the victors their due: the bill Obama signed expands coverage to many more people, stops some very ugly and immoral practices by the health insurance industry that should have been stopped long ago, and offers a framework for more change down the road, if there's any heart or will left to fight for it.
But reformation? Hardly. For all their screaming and gnashing of teeth, the insurance companies still make out like bandits. Millions of new customers, under penalty of law, will be required to buy the companies' policies, feeding the insatiable greed of their CEO's and filling the campaign coffers of the politicians they wine and dine. Profits are secure; they don't have to worry about competition from a public alternative to their cartel, and they can continue to scam us without fear of antitrust action.
The big drug companies bought their protection before the fight even began, when the White House agreed that if they supported Obama's brand of health care reform -- not reformation -- they could hold onto their monopoly. No imports of cheaper drugs from abroad, no prescriptions filled at a lower price by our friendly Canadian neighbors to the north.
And let's not forget another, gigantic health care winner: a new report from the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity says the battle for reform has been "a bonanza" for the lobbying industry. According to the Center's analysis, "About 1,750 businesses and organizations hired about 4,525 lobbyists, total -- eight for each member of Congress -- and spent at least $1.2 billion to influence health care bills and other issues."
But while we're at it, a cheer for the federal student loan overhaul -- Democrats managed to pass that reform with an end run around powerful lobbyists, cleverly nestling it in the health care reconciliation package.
Nonetheless, under pressure from the lending industry, it, too, was watered down from its original intent. The three Democratic senators who voted against -- Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor -- have all received campaign contributions from Nelnet, the student loan company based in Nelson's home state of Nebraska, or its lobbyists.
(And would you be amazed to learn that one of the student loan industry's lobbyists used to be Blanche Lincoln's chief of staff? The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call described Kelly Bingel as Lincoln's "alter ego," and cited a former colleague saying Bingel was "first on the list of the Senator's callbacks," words that would sound like heaven to any Washington lobbyist's ears.)
Another case of reform gone off track: this week, a year and a half after Wall Street brought us so close to fiscal hell we could smell the brimstone, a crippled little financial regulation bill seems to be hobbling out of the wreckage, but still faces an array of well-armed forces gunning for it.
No wonder. In the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, members of the Senate Banking Committee -- which sent the bill to Congress this week -- received more than $39 million from Wall Street and the banks; members of the House Financial Services Committee raked in more than $21 million -- so far. Just how serious do you think they're going to be about true reform?
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut has sounded like a champion of reform ever since he announced he will not run for reelection. It's about time. Since 2005, his top ten campaign contributors have included Citigroup, AIG, Merrill Lynch and the now deceased Bear Stearns, all front-line players in bringing on the financial calamity.
Then there are the Republicans, shamelessly hawking their favors en masse to the highest bidder. The website Politico.com reports that the reelection campaign of Tennessee Senator Bob Corker -- who's one of the key negotiators on financial reform -- sent an e-mail to Wall Street lobbyists and others soliciting contributions of up to $10,000 for a chance to meet or grab a meal with the senator.
Informed of the e-mail, Corker was shocked -- shocked! -- saying the e-mail was "grotesque and inappropriate." But did House Republican leader John Boehner think it was inappropriate last week when he advised the American Bankers Association to fight back against the proposed rules and regulations?
This is, of course, the same John Boehner who in the summer of 1995 walked around the floor of the House of Representatives handing out checks to his fellow Republicans -- checks from a tobacco company. And the same John Boehner who was the grateful recipient of campaign contributions from the four Native American tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, the corrupt lobbyist currently cooling his heels in a Federal corrections facility.
So wouldn't it have been fascinating to have been a fly on the wall earlier this year when Boehner sat down for drinks with Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase? Reportedly, he invited Dimon and the rest of the financial community to pony up the cash and see what good things follow.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Republicans already were receiving an increasing share of campaign contributions from the Street. In the game of reform, it's the political version of loading the dice.
We can't know for sure what Ambrose Bierce would have made of all this; what The Devil's Dictionary author would say about the current DC scams. But he might have agreed that the only answer to organized money is organized people. That would be one hell of a reformation.
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog.
This article originally appeared on CommonDreams.Org.
That wickedly satirical Ambrose Bierce described politics as "the conduct of public affairs for private advantage."
Bierce vanished to Mexico nearly a hundred years ago -- to the relief of the American political class of his day, one assumes -- but in an eerie way he was forecasting America's political culture today. It seems like most efforts to reform a system that's gone awry -- to clean house and make a fresh start -- end up benefiting the very people who wrecked it in the first place.
Which is why Bierce, in his classic little book, The Devil's Dictionary, defined reform as "a thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation."
So we got health care reform this week -- but it's a far cry from reformation. You can't blame President Obama for celebrating what he did get -- he and the Democrats needed some political points on the scoreboard. And imagine the mood in the White House if the vote had gone the other way; they would have been cutting wrists instead of cake.
Give the victors their due: the bill Obama signed expands coverage to many more people, stops some very ugly and immoral practices by the health insurance industry that should have been stopped long ago, and offers a framework for more change down the road, if there's any heart or will left to fight for it.
But reformation? Hardly. For all their screaming and gnashing of teeth, the insurance companies still make out like bandits. Millions of new customers, under penalty of law, will be required to buy the companies' policies, feeding the insatiable greed of their CEO's and filling the campaign coffers of the politicians they wine and dine. Profits are secure; they don't have to worry about competition from a public alternative to their cartel, and they can continue to scam us without fear of antitrust action.
The big drug companies bought their protection before the fight even began, when the White House agreed that if they supported Obama's brand of health care reform -- not reformation -- they could hold onto their monopoly. No imports of cheaper drugs from abroad, no prescriptions filled at a lower price by our friendly Canadian neighbors to the north.
And let's not forget another, gigantic health care winner: a new report from the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity says the battle for reform has been "a bonanza" for the lobbying industry. According to the Center's analysis, "About 1,750 businesses and organizations hired about 4,525 lobbyists, total -- eight for each member of Congress -- and spent at least $1.2 billion to influence health care bills and other issues."
But while we're at it, a cheer for the federal student loan overhaul -- Democrats managed to pass that reform with an end run around powerful lobbyists, cleverly nestling it in the health care reconciliation package.
Nonetheless, under pressure from the lending industry, it, too, was watered down from its original intent. The three Democratic senators who voted against -- Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor -- have all received campaign contributions from Nelnet, the student loan company based in Nelson's home state of Nebraska, or its lobbyists.
(And would you be amazed to learn that one of the student loan industry's lobbyists used to be Blanche Lincoln's chief of staff? The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call described Kelly Bingel as Lincoln's "alter ego," and cited a former colleague saying Bingel was "first on the list of the Senator's callbacks," words that would sound like heaven to any Washington lobbyist's ears.)
Another case of reform gone off track: this week, a year and a half after Wall Street brought us so close to fiscal hell we could smell the brimstone, a crippled little financial regulation bill seems to be hobbling out of the wreckage, but still faces an array of well-armed forces gunning for it.
No wonder. In the 2008 and 2010 election cycles, members of the Senate Banking Committee -- which sent the bill to Congress this week -- received more than $39 million from Wall Street and the banks; members of the House Financial Services Committee raked in more than $21 million -- so far. Just how serious do you think they're going to be about true reform?
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut has sounded like a champion of reform ever since he announced he will not run for reelection. It's about time. Since 2005, his top ten campaign contributors have included Citigroup, AIG, Merrill Lynch and the now deceased Bear Stearns, all front-line players in bringing on the financial calamity.
Then there are the Republicans, shamelessly hawking their favors en masse to the highest bidder. The website Politico.com reports that the reelection campaign of Tennessee Senator Bob Corker -- who's one of the key negotiators on financial reform -- sent an e-mail to Wall Street lobbyists and others soliciting contributions of up to $10,000 for a chance to meet or grab a meal with the senator.
Informed of the e-mail, Corker was shocked -- shocked! -- saying the e-mail was "grotesque and inappropriate." But did House Republican leader John Boehner think it was inappropriate last week when he advised the American Bankers Association to fight back against the proposed rules and regulations?
This is, of course, the same John Boehner who in the summer of 1995 walked around the floor of the House of Representatives handing out checks to his fellow Republicans -- checks from a tobacco company. And the same John Boehner who was the grateful recipient of campaign contributions from the four Native American tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, the corrupt lobbyist currently cooling his heels in a Federal corrections facility.
So wouldn't it have been fascinating to have been a fly on the wall earlier this year when Boehner sat down for drinks with Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase? Reportedly, he invited Dimon and the rest of the financial community to pony up the cash and see what good things follow.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Republicans already were receiving an increasing share of campaign contributions from the Street. In the game of reform, it's the political version of loading the dice.
We can't know for sure what Ambrose Bierce would have made of all this; what The Devil's Dictionary author would say about the current DC scams. But he might have agreed that the only answer to organized money is organized people. That would be one hell of a reformation.
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog.
This article originally appeared on CommonDreams.Org.
Finance Reform: What A Progressive Victory Would Look Like
Ending Corporate Welfare To Help Regular Americans
"Yesterday was actually big victory for progressivism. Not in health care, but in student loan reform. Finally, a wasteful and worthless corporate welfare program was eliminated. The taxpayer dollars that were being thrown away on private profits will now be redirected to help low income students attend college and pay down the debt. This is what progressive victories look like."
The rest of the story: What Progressive Victory Looks Like: Ending Corporate Welfare To Help Regular Americans by Jon Walker (FireDogLake 2010-03-26)
See, also: Clunker Healthcare Bill Protects Private Insurers Damages Democracy by Billy Wharton (ConterCurrents 2010-03-25)
"Yesterday was actually big victory for progressivism. Not in health care, but in student loan reform. Finally, a wasteful and worthless corporate welfare program was eliminated. The taxpayer dollars that were being thrown away on private profits will now be redirected to help low income students attend college and pay down the debt. This is what progressive victories look like."
The rest of the story: What Progressive Victory Looks Like: Ending Corporate Welfare To Help Regular Americans by Jon Walker (FireDogLake 2010-03-26)
See, also: Clunker Healthcare Bill Protects Private Insurers Damages Democracy by Billy Wharton (ConterCurrents 2010-03-25)
quote unquote: Mario Savio (1942-1996) on the obligation to resist illegitimate authority
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious -- makes you so sick at heart -- that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that the machine will be prevented from working at all.” – Mario Savio, 1964Mario Savio (Wikipedia)
Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s by Robert Cohen (Oxford University Press, 2009).
War Crimes: Spanish criminals get our criminals off the hook
The big news while I was in Spain last month was the investigation by a local judge of the policy of systematic, institutionalized torture by Bush administration officials as part of the "war on terror." When I got home, I wasn't surprised to find the story hadn't gotten similar play in American papers, even though the six former 
Bush officials in the judge's sights include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, torture memoist John Yoo, and David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff.
The judge in question, Baltazar Garzon, one of six investigating magistrates of the Criminal Court of Spain, acts on the legal theory that there is no statue of limitations on war crimes or crimes against humanity. He has pursued investigations of massacres of political opponents by Spanish fascists, murderous regimes in Chile and Argentina, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's involvement in Operation Condor.
Now it looks like the Bush co-conspirators can rest easier in their beds, if not their souls. Judge Garzon is being targeted by the Spanish Right for investigating "disappearances" during the Spanish Civil War and Franscisco Franco era in contradiction to the granting of an official amnesty by the Spanish state. Since it seems clear the United States will not clean its own house with regard to criminal activity by past leaders, all we can hope for is now is that an international tribunal like the World Court will be moved to hold responsible for their crimes the torture perps of the Bush era.
Further reading:
Spain considers prosecuting U.S. officials for torture by Marjorie Miller (Los Angeles Times 2009-05-06)
Spain rejects US 'torture' probe (BBC News 2009-04-16)
Spanish judge opens probe into Guantanamo torture (Agence France-Presse 2009-04-16)
Spain Allows Case Against Noted Judge by Andrés Cala (New York Times 2010-03-25)
Also, although it is only tangently related, the drily titled Secondary Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century is worth filing for future reference.
Bush officials in the judge's sights include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, torture memoist John Yoo, and David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff.The judge in question, Baltazar Garzon, one of six investigating magistrates of the Criminal Court of Spain, acts on the legal theory that there is no statue of limitations on war crimes or crimes against humanity. He has pursued investigations of massacres of political opponents by Spanish fascists, murderous regimes in Chile and Argentina, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's involvement in Operation Condor.
Now it looks like the Bush co-conspirators can rest easier in their beds, if not their souls. Judge Garzon is being targeted by the Spanish Right for investigating "disappearances" during the Spanish Civil War and Franscisco Franco era in contradiction to the granting of an official amnesty by the Spanish state. Since it seems clear the United States will not clean its own house with regard to criminal activity by past leaders, all we can hope for is now is that an international tribunal like the World Court will be moved to hold responsible for their crimes the torture perps of the Bush era.
Further reading:
Spain considers prosecuting U.S. officials for torture by Marjorie Miller (Los Angeles Times 2009-05-06)
Spain rejects US 'torture' probe (BBC News 2009-04-16)
Spanish judge opens probe into Guantanamo torture (Agence France-Presse 2009-04-16)
Spain Allows Case Against Noted Judge by Andrés Cala (New York Times 2010-03-25)
Also, although it is only tangently related, the drily titled Secondary Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century is worth filing for future reference.
We may be in more trouble than we know
Republicans on Obama:
Two-thirds think he's a socialist, 57% suspect he's a Muslim, and 24% say "he may be the Antichrist."
Press Release O' the Day: Real Socialists Don't Heart Obamacare
Reality check:
Socialist Party USA Co-Chair Opposes Obama Healthcare BillThere you go. Word's still out on whether he's the Antichrist, but at least Obama is not a socialist.
March 22, 2009- Co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, Billy Wharton, opposes the healthcare bill passed yesterday by the House of Representatives and scheduled to be signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Wharton’s opposition is based on the belief that this bill is not a reform. Instead, it is a corporate restructuring of the health insurance industry created to protect the profit margins of private insurance companies.
The bill passed by the House yesterday would mandate all Americans to purchase health insurance coverage or face a fine. It would also create health insurance exchanges, an idea crafted by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, where people would purchase insurance from private companies. Those not eligible for Medicaid but who still could not afford to purchase insurance would receive public funds from the federal government to purchase bare bones coverage insurance plans from private insurers.
Wharton opposes this restructuring on the grounds that the mandates allow private insurers to use the coercive power of the state to enhance their private profits. Insurance credits will serve as a public subsidy to private companies. It is yet another case of public money that could be used for necessary social programs being funneled towards companies that engage in practices that are abusive and detrimental to the overall society. He believes the bill is also a demonstration of how deeply corporate lobbyists and campaign contributions have infected the country’s political system.
“This is not a healthcare reform bill,” says Wharton, “It is instead a corporate restructuring of the American healthcare system designed to enhance the profits of private health insurance companies disguised with the language of reform”
Instead, Wharton believes that public funds would be better spent in creating a national single-payer system. Democratic socialists see such a system of open access to care as one part of a larger transition toward making healthcare a guaranteed human right for all. Wharton calls for people to take power into their own hands by supporting the demand for single-payer health insurance and by conducting a red and green rebellion at the voting booth and in the streets to claim our human rights.
Wharton encourages people to visit the website of the Socialist Party USA to gain more information about the struggle for healthcare and the organization’s broader vision of a democratic socialist society. -- Socialist Party USA
Health Care Reform: Mr. Weiner kicks butt
If health care reform had been left in the hands of Anthony Weiner (and Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers and Alan Grayson and Sheldon Whitehouse and Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders), the bill would deliver real affordable universal care and ass would have been kicked to get it done. Watch how Weiner does it:
Despite lukewarm expressions of support from the president, it was never intended by the White House that a public option would be part of the final plan. Now, however, a majority of senators is on record in support of a public option to create competition for the private insurers and thus lower costs. When the dust settles and the Senate bill has been passed and amended, will a public option survive, or did the senators who indicated support for competition -- the 43 who signed the pledge and the eight others who said they were "open" to it -- do so only because it seemed a safe bet at the time that they'd never have to make good on it?
Despite lukewarm expressions of support from the president, it was never intended by the White House that a public option would be part of the final plan. Now, however, a majority of senators is on record in support of a public option to create competition for the private insurers and thus lower costs. When the dust settles and the Senate bill has been passed and amended, will a public option survive, or did the senators who indicated support for competition -- the 43 who signed the pledge and the eight others who said they were "open" to it -- do so only because it seemed a safe bet at the time that they'd never have to make good on it?
Health Care: Is that all there is?
“We are on the verge of taking a decisive step to providing access to all Americans, to affordable quality health care. If we do nothing, the system will go bankrupt, premiums will keep skyrocketing and benefits will keep getting slashed.” -- California Democratic Rep. Henry A. Waxman, a steward of the leadership's version health care reform in the House.
While this is true as far as it goes, if the Congress doesn't do enough, the system also will go bankrupt, premiums will keep skyrocketing and benefits will keep getting slashed. Although Obamacare delivers improvements over the current system, it doesn't do nearly enough to cut costs. The irony is that instead of shutting down the rapacious, corrupt and inefficient private insurance industry, the current plan expands it and cements it in place. The industry already has undo influence on policy; after the "reform" delivers 35 million more policy holders and $500 billion in public money into its pockets over the next decade, real reform will become impossible. The Democrats are about to force people to buy health insurance products no matter how substandard they are or how much they cost. This is not what people think they're going to get when they vote for Democrats. In addition, some of the public funds that will go to subsidize the private insurance industry will be taken from Medicare. The most popular, effective and necessary social welfare program in American history will be weakened to strengthen the private insurance giants. This is not what people think they're going to get when they vote for Democrats. As Harvard Department of Social Medicine professor Marcia Angell MD told Bill Moyers, "we have chosen, alone among all advanced countries, to leave health care to for-profit industries, to leave health care to businesses that then distribute health care as a market commodity according to the ability to pay and not according to medical need." Nor is this what people thought they were getting when they gave Democrats control of the legislature and the White House.
The rest of the story: Bill Moyers' Journal (2010-03-05)
While this is true as far as it goes, if the Congress doesn't do enough, the system also will go bankrupt, premiums will keep skyrocketing and benefits will keep getting slashed. Although Obamacare delivers improvements over the current system, it doesn't do nearly enough to cut costs. The irony is that instead of shutting down the rapacious, corrupt and inefficient private insurance industry, the current plan expands it and cements it in place. The industry already has undo influence on policy; after the "reform" delivers 35 million more policy holders and $500 billion in public money into its pockets over the next decade, real reform will become impossible. The Democrats are about to force people to buy health insurance products no matter how substandard they are or how much they cost. This is not what people think they're going to get when they vote for Democrats. In addition, some of the public funds that will go to subsidize the private insurance industry will be taken from Medicare. The most popular, effective and necessary social welfare program in American history will be weakened to strengthen the private insurance giants. This is not what people think they're going to get when they vote for Democrats. As Harvard Department of Social Medicine professor Marcia Angell MD told Bill Moyers, "we have chosen, alone among all advanced countries, to leave health care to for-profit industries, to leave health care to businesses that then distribute health care as a market commodity according to the ability to pay and not according to medical need." Nor is this what people thought they were getting when they gave Democrats control of the legislature and the White House.
The rest of the story: Bill Moyers' Journal (2010-03-05)
Health Care Reform: Medicare For All
It's still the best option, as Florida Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) blogged yesterday on The Hill:
In the Senate-Obama plan, universality is achieved at the expense of affordability. Regardless of what happens in the House on Sunday, H.R. 4789 should be voted up as soon as possible.
Health care reform -- here's where we are. The House of Representatives is about to vote on a Senate bill without a public option. It looks like the reconciliation amendment will not have a public option. The House bill had a public option, but once the House passes the Senate bill, that's history.
Which is why I introduced H.R. 4789, the Public Option Act. This simple four-page bill lets any American buy into Medicare at cost. You want it, you pay for it, you're in. It adds nothing to the deficit; you pay what it costs.
Let's face it. Health insurance companies charge as much money as possible, and they provide as little care as possible. The difference is called profit. You can't blame them for it; that's what a corporation does. Birds got to fly, fish got to swim, health insurers got to rip you off. And if you get really expensive, they've got to pull the plug on you. So for those of us who would like to stay alive, we need a public option.
In many areas of the country, one or two insurers have over 80% of the market. They can charge anything they want. And when you get sick, they can flip the bird at you. So we need a public option.
And they face no real competition because it costs billions of dollars just to set up a national health care network. In fact, the only one that's nationwide is . . . Medicare. And we limit that to one-eight of the population. It's like saying that only seniors can drive on federal highways. We really need a public option.
And to the right-wing loons who call it socialism, we say, "if you want to be a slave to the insurance companies, that's fine. If you want 30% of your premiums to go to 'administrative costs' and billion-dollar bonuses for insurance CEOs who figure out new and creative ways to deny you the care you need to stay healthy and alive, that's fine. But don't you try to dictate to me that I can't have a public option!"
And there is a way left to get it. By insisting on a vote on H.R. 4789. Three votes on health care, not two. The Senate bill, the reconciliation amendments, and the Public Option Act.
We got 50 co-sponsors for this bill in two days. Including five powerful committee chairman. But we need more.
Sign our Petition at WeWantMedicare.com.
Call. Write. Visit. Do whatever you can do to get you Congressman to co-sponsor this bill, and push it to a vote. Right now, before it's too late.
Let's do it!
In the Senate-Obama plan, universality is achieved at the expense of affordability. Regardless of what happens in the House on Sunday, H.R. 4789 should be voted up as soon as possible.
Health Care Reform: House Democrats are sacrificing their seats for a plan they don't believe in
The House of Representatives will vote Sunday for a bill nobody wants. Partly as a result, 2010 will be a Democratic massacree. It doesn't have to be that way.
The House Democrats don’t need to vote for a bill with the “Cornhusker kickback,” the “Louisiana Purchase,” the publicly toxic excise tax, the hated individual mandate to buy private insurance, or the special Medicare Advantage deal for Florida, and they would still be able to pass comprehensive health care reform. All it would take is for Joe Biden plus 50 Senate Democrats, willing, as a result of unprecedented Republican obstructionism, to exploit the existing rules to the maximum extent possible. Heck, House Democrats should proceed with the strategy anyway and drop the burden for passing health care reform squarely on the Senate Democrats instead.The rest of the story: Why Do House Democrats Care More about Protecting Weird Senate Rules than Protecting Their Seats? by Jon Walker (FireDogLake 2010-03-16)
Press Release O' the Day: ACLU Seeks Information On Predator Drone Program
Group Files Lawsuit For Data On Targeted Killings Of Suspected Terrorists And Civilian Casualties
Are there legal, ethical or policy justifications for a program that by all outward appearances violates common sense, common decency, and the rules of civilized behavior?
Link to the ACLU's complaint
Link to the ACLU's FOIA request
NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today demanding that the government disclose the legal basis for its use of unmanned drones to conduct targeted killings overseas. In particular, the lawsuit asks for information on when, where and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, the number and rate of civilian casualties and other basic information essentialfor assessing the wisdom and legality of using armed drones to conduct targeted killings.
"The public has a right to know whether the targeted killings being carried out in its name are consistent with international law and with the country's interests and values," said Jonathan Manes, a legal fellow with the ACLU National Security Project. "The Obama administration should disclose basic information about the program, including its legal basis and limits, and the civilian casualty toll thus far."
The CIA and the military have used unmanned drones to target and kill individuals not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in Pakistan and, in at least one case in 2002, Yemen. The technology allows U.S. personnel to observe targeted individuals in real time and launch missiles intended to kill them from control centers located thousands of miles away. Recent reports, including public statements from the director of national intelligence, indicate that U.S. citizens have been placed on the list of targets who can be hunted and killed with drones.
The ACLU made an initial FOIA request for information on the drone program in January. Today's lawsuit against the Defense Department, the State Department and the Justice Department seeks to enforce that request. None of the three agencies have provided any documents in response to the request, nor have they given any reason for withholding documents. The CIA answered the ACLU's request by refusing to confirm or deny the existence of any relevant documents. The CIA is not a defendant in today's lawsuit because the ACLU will first appeal the CIA's non-response to the Agency Release Panel.
"The government's use of drones to conduct targeted killings raises complicated questions – not only legal questions, but policy and moral questions as well," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. "These kinds of questions ought to be discussed and debated publicly, not resolved secretly behind closed doors. While the Obama administration may legitimately withhold intelligence information as well as sensitive information about military strategy, it should disclose basic information about the scope of the drone program, the legal basis for the program and the civilian casualties that have resulted from the program."
The ACLU's lawsuit seeks, in addition to information about the legal basis for the drone program, information about how the program is overseen and data regarding the number of civilians and non-civilians killed in the strikes. Estimates of civilian casualties provided by anonymous government officials quoted in the press and by various non-governmental analysts differ dramatically, from the dozens to the hundreds, giving an incomplete and inconsistent picture of the human cost of the program.
Are there legal, ethical or policy justifications for a program that by all outward appearances violates common sense, common decency, and the rules of civilized behavior?
Link to the ACLU's complaint
Link to the ACLU's FOIA request
Accountability: Freedom of Information - Online
The Sunlight Foundation has proposed Federal legislation that would require government to provide meaningful access to its information online. In the words of its organizational sign-on letter, the Public Online Information Act (POIA)
Sunlight Foundation proposes Public Online Information Act, LII Announce (Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School 2010-03-16)
More about the Public Online Information Act (Sunlight Foundation)
Read a summary of the Public Online Information Act or read the entire bill
requires government information that is public to be made available in the broadest, most accessible manner — online. Our vital public information can enhance accountability, spur commerce, and empower citizenship, but only if we create and require meaningful digital access to it. POIA creates this meaningful access through two mechanisms.The act also creates procedures similar to those available under Freedom of Information Act to enable organizations and individual citizen to pry loose information from reluctant bureaucrats.
First, POIA mandates that the Executive Branch make public records permanently available on the Internet, with a few exceptions....
Second, POIA creates an advisory body of government officials and private citizens to ensure that all three branches of government...will coordinate the development of government-wide Internet disclosure policies.
Sunlight Foundation proposes Public Online Information Act, LII Announce (Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School 2010-03-16)
More about the Public Online Information Act (Sunlight Foundation)
Read a summary of the Public Online Information Act or read the entire bill
Tibi gratias ago pro caelo paulo Pueri
"Pope in sex scandal":
Think he'll step down to spend more time with his family?
A little late in the day to "find Jesus."
The Long War: Why Hayden's Wrong, Why Pelosi's Lying
[I was about to post about Tom Hayden's odd, defeatist piece in The Nation seeming to hold antiwar members of Congress responsible for prolonging the war by challenging it -- "The war now has greater legitimacy" -- but David Swanson said it better than I could]
by David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet.org 2010-02-12)Challenging the security state is not going to be easy, but militarism can only be stopped by being confronted directly. Hayden's muddled incrementalism strikes me as of a piece with the magical thinking that caused him to urge Barack Obama's election even in the face of clear evidence throughout the 2008 campaign that the candidate would be just the sort of chief executive he has turned out to be. The vote in the House is a small step in a long road to peace.
Tom Hayden wants peace, but he's sincerely mistaken about how to get it. He claims that Wednesday's unsuccessful vote to end the war in Afghanistan makes ending the war less likely, and that the way to end the war is to pass a bill that would then have to pass the Senate and the President, a bill requiring an exit strategy, any exit strategy -- it could be "redeployment" to Iran in 2038 or anything else.
I'm not against moving bills forward, even meaningless bills if they send a helpful message. I'm not against ending the war in a way that leaves the president in charge of Congress, if that proves the fastest way to end the war -- even though it leaves us in a state in which more wars are inevitable. I don't think we're especially likely to force the House to cut off the funding next month.
But forcing a debate on the war, and forcing congress members to put their names down on one side or the other, does not make those members more likely to stick with those positions. It makes them more likely to oppose the wars. Why? Because it raises public awareness and public pressure. Those who voted to end the war are now being thanked and rewarded and pressured to vote no on funding what they just claimed to want to end. Those who voted to keep the war in Afghanistan going are now being pressured to change that position in a way that they were not when all was silent. Hayden, of all people, is leaving the public out of his calculations.
If we are handed an opportunity to -- at least temporarily -- block the funding, because all the Republicans vote No for some unrelated reason, we will need to seize that opportunity. It will increase the same dynamic of public involvement. It will advance a strategy that is one of the most likely to eventually end the wars. And it will advance an understanding of power dynamics in Washington that will discourage wars by shifting war powers back away from presidents, something that will also be needed in the coming months if we are to end the war in Iraq that too many people naively believe we've already ended.
Those who think that opposing wars should involve, you know, opposing wars, should build on the recent debate and vote, by joining in upcoming actions including:
Brown Bag Vigils, and Peace of the Action.
Pelosi does not sincerely want anything substantive and tends to lie whenever her lips move. And here's what she says about war and impeachment:
Pelosi: The issue that … bothers me the most is the issue of the Iraq War. There's so much evidence that there was no reason for us to go into that war at that time or to go into it period. But to think that thousands of lives have been lost, lives affected to the tune of hundreds of thousands, the cost in terms of our military readiness it has not made our military stronger, in terms of dollars to the treasury, but again most of all loss of lives our precious treasure on this war and there was really no price to pay for it so . . .So it is. And truly tragic as well is the brazenness of it. Pelosi's poodle, John Conyers, who backed off impeachment at her command, offered a wide and varying and self-contradictory list of excuses why, but never present among those excuses was any claim of lacking evidence. Conyers' committee staff spent most of the relevant years publishing books documenting the evidence. His excuses were about electoral campaigns and the corporate media and the likelihood of winning conviction in the Senate.
Maddow: Do you regret having taken impeachment off the table?
Pelosi: No, no, I believe that the if there was evidence, if we could have the evidence to impeach the president then that could come forward. Just because I say it's off doesn't mean if the evidence is there that something wouldn't go forward. It's not a question of not knowing where the culpability is, it's what you can demonstrate and what you can prove. But I do think that those who had a hand in perpetrating not just going to war but misrepresentations to the American people - . Every piece of evidence that we have points to the fact that there was no reason in terms of weapons of mass destruction to go into Iraq…. It's one of the great tragedies.
The level of mendacity in Pelosi's remarks above, her dedication to obeying the president (articulated just prior to what I've quoted), and her allegiance to the war machine: this is what we are up against. We will not defeat it without a massive public movement. We will not generate a massive public movement if we are afraid of raising the issue, pressing our demands forward, naming names, and rewarding and punishing elected officials as merited.
This is a life and death struggle, brothers and sisters, and it's not going to be won through fear, stealth, or timidity.
Health Care Reform: In one day, Grayson piles up another 40 co-sponsors for Medicare buy-in bill
by Chris Bowers (Open Left 2010-03-11)
In just two days, Alan Grayson has piled up 50 co-sponsors to his Medicare buy-in bill, which is designed as a stand-alone bill rather than as an amendment to the health reform bill. Here is the complete list of 50 co-sponsors:
In just two days, Alan Grayson has piled up 50 co-sponsors to his Medicare buy-in bill, which is designed as a stand-alone bill rather than as an amendment to the health reform bill. Here is the complete list of 50 co-sponsors:
50 CURRENT COSPONSORS : Bob Filner, Jan Schakowsky, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, Donna Edwards, Jared Polis, Chellie Pingree, Sheila Jackson Lee, Carol Shea-Porter, Diane Watson, John Lewis, Anthony Weiner, Jerrold Nadler, Nydia Velazquez, Keith Ellison, Loretta Sanchez, Hank Johnson, Maxine Waters, Luis Gutierrez, Lynn Woolsey, Marcy Kaptur, Charles Rangel, Patrick Kennedy, Raul Grijalva, Donna Christian-Christensen, John Olver, Corrine Brown, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Marcia L. Fudge, Danny K. Davis, Pedro Pierluisi, Grace Napolitano, Alcee Hastings, John Hall, Shelley Berkley, John Conyers, Jim McGovern, Phil Hare, Betty Sutton, Jim McDermott, Gregorio Sablan, Maurice Hinchey, Carolyn Maloney, Barbara Lee, Elijah Cummings, Gregory Meeks, Edolphus Towns, Al Green, David Wu, and Rush Holt.Every indication has always been that there is overwhelming support for a Medicare buy-in among Congressional Democrats. This could very well pass as a stand-alone bill, especially in 2011 once filibuster reform has taken place. This is definitely one of the ways that progressives can viably continue the fight for real health reform no matter what happens to the current bill.
The Military: DoD’s new idea portal
The War Department has a new website, Defense Solutions, designed to encourage companies and inventors not already supplying the armed forces to come in with new ideas.
Coming soon to CBS: "AfPak CSI"
"Propose an Idea -- Funding decisions fastUnfortunately, the DoD appears currently to be unable to hold more than one idea at a time in its collective head, so for the nonce new ideas are being accepted only in Battlefield Forensics, that is, in the application of criminal forensic capabilities and technologies typically used in law enforcement to meet needs in national security and counter-terrorism. "Military operations in the Global War on Terrorism," it says, "demand new capabilities from forensic science, ones that can be used on the battlefield, in exigent circumstances, by non-professionals."
"The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is looking for a few really good ideas –- that have the potential to advance our military’s missions. This program focuses on the development of leading edge, research-oriented technology culminating in the assembly of a pre-acquisition prototype or multiple prototypes suitable for field testing.
"DefenseSolutions.gov is a portal through which innovative companies, entrepreneurs, and research organizations can offer potential solutions to the DoD needs. Although anyone can submit an idea, this portal, and the team behind it, primarily are designed to encourage companies to participate that have never considered doing business with the DoD.
Use this portal to submit your ideas and get an initial response in less than 30 days. For the time being, we can accept ideas in only one theme area, but new themes will be added. To begin the submission process for a current theme, click on the theme below, or join our e-mail list and we will notify you when other topics are added.
Our process depends on direct communication with you when you submit an attractive idea in an area needing a solution.
Coming soon to CBS: "AfPak CSI"
Public Policy: How the War on Drugs gave birth to a permanent American undercaste
The War on Drugs would be a laughable waste of dollars and public resources, if not for the horrible toll it has taken in lives lost and destroyed. Ostensibly a prohibition campaign, it has resulted in the militarization, economic colonization and literal poisoning of vast swatches of other countries, especially in the Americas, and has been used to justify military campaigns against leftist political movements and insurgencies in various parts of the world. Here at home, it has resulted in the destruction of the lives of millions of Americans, especially young black males, as this article by Michelle Alexander explains.
On the other hand, although the Obama administration doesn't plan to significantly alter drug enforcement policy, according to Gil Kerlikowske, the current director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, it's counted as progress that it won't use the term "War on Drugs" because it's counter-productive. Still, the next national drug control budget proposed by the Obama Administration will increase spending on prevention and treatment of drug abuse.
Undoing the damage caused by hapless drug policy will not be cheap or easy. But it must be done. The growing support for legalization in the states and in other countries offers a way out. Although proponents of legalization have won the moral and intellectual debate, political leadership is unlikely to come from the White House or Congress, as irrational and dysfunctional here as in so many other policy areas. But with drug use being decriminalized (or legalized de facto) from Concord to Sacramento and from Berne to Mexico City, the end of the War on Drugs may be in sight.
Michelle Alexander's essay was originally published on TomDispatch.com
To track the $ billions that have been burned in the drug war, visit the Drug War Clock, at DrugSense.Org, supported by Media Awareness Project and Drug Policy Central
Further reading:
Brief History of The War on Drugs by Claire Suddath (Time 2009-03-25)
Drug faqs from the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, sponsored by a company that promotes the commercialization medical marijuana
What's Wrong With the Drug War? by the Drug Policy Alliance Network
The War on Drugs Is a Failure by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, César Gaviria And Ernesto Zedillo (Wall Street Journal 2009-02-23)
War on drugs is insane by Jack Cafferty (CNN 2009-03-31)
Ending the 'War on Drugs' by Misha Glenny (New York Times 2009-09-18)
Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its 44th president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation’s “triumph over race.” Obama’s election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America.There is a small chance that some of this damage can be repaired. New York has rolled back the Draconian drugs laws imposed when then Gov. Nelson Rockefeller sought to appear tough on crime in GOP presidential primaries. Cash-strapped California can no longer afford it's huge prison system; the natural way to reduce it is to release nonviolent drug offenders. Colorado is aggressively pushing medical pot production and California voters are likely to legalize -- and tax -- cannabis. Even in New Hampshire this week, the state assembly overwhelmingly decriminalized possession of small quantities of marijuana.
Obama’s mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that “the land of the free” has finally made good on its promise of equality. There’s an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you. If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you. Trust us. Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars. You, too, can get to the promised land.
Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand. Racial caste is alive and well in America.
Most people don’t like it when I say this. It makes them angry. In the “era of colorblindness” there’s a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have “moved beyond” race. Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:
Excuses for the Lockdown
- There are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
- As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
- A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
- If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80%.) These men are part of a growing undercaste — not class, caste — permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.
There is, of course, a colorblind explanation for all this: crime rates. Our prison population has exploded from about 300,000 to more than 2 million in a few short decades, it is said, because of rampant crime. We’re told that the reason so many black and brown men find themselves behind bars and ushered into a permanent, second-class status is because they happen to be the bad guys.
The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years.Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades — they are currently at historical lows — but imprisonment rates have consistently soared. Quintupled, in fact. And the vast majority of that increase is due to the War on Drugs. Drug offenses alone account for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population.
The drug war has been brutal — complete with SWAT teams, tanks, bazookas, grenade launchers, and sweeps of entire neighborhoods — but those who live in white communities have little clue to the devastation wrought. This war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies consistently show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. In fact, some studies indicate that white youth are significantly more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than black youth. Any notion that drug use among African Americans is more severe or dangerous is belied by the data. White youth, for example, have about three times the number of drug-related visits to the emergency room as their African American counterparts.
That is not what you would guess, though, when entering our nation’s prisons and jails, overflowing as they are with black and brown drug offenders. In some states, African Americans comprise 80%-90% of all drug offenders sent to prison.
This is the point at which I am typically interrupted and reminded that black men have higher rates of violent crime. That’s why the drug war is waged in poor communities of color and not middle-class suburbs. Drug warriors are trying to get rid of those drug kingpins and violent offenders who make ghetto communities a living hell. It has nothing to do with race; it’s all about violent crime.
Again, not so. President Ronald Reagan officially declared the current drug war in 1982, when drug crime was declining, not rising. From the outset, the war had little to do with drug crime and nearly everythingto do with racial politics. The drug war was part of a grand and highly successful Republican Party strategy of using racially coded political appeals on issues of crime and welfare to attract poor and working class white voters who were resentful of, and threatened by, desegregation, busing, and affirmative action. In the words of H.R. Haldeman, President Richard Nixon’s White House Chief of Staff: “[T]he whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
A few years after the drug war was announced, crack cocaine hit the streets of inner-city communities. The Reagan administration seized on this development with glee, hiring staff who were to be responsible for publicizing inner-city crack babies, crack mothers, crack whores, and drug-related violence. The goal was to make inner-city crack abuse and violence a media sensation, bolstering public support for the drug war which, it was hoped, would lead Congress to devote millions of dollars in additional funding to it.
The plan worked like a charm. For more than a decade, black drug dealers and users would be regulars in newspaper stories and would saturate the evening TV news. Congress and state legislatures nationwide would devote billions of dollars to the drug war and pass harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes — sentences longer than murderers receive in many countries.
Democrats began competing with Republicans to prove that they could be even tougher on the dark-skinned pariahs. In President Bill Clinton’s boastful words, “I can be nicked a lot, but no one can say I’m soft on crime.” The facts bear him out. Clinton’s “tough on crime” policies resulted in the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. But Clinton was not satisfied with exploding prison populations. He and the “New Democrats” championed legislation banning drug felons from public housing (no matter how minor the offense) and denying them basic public benefits, including food stamps, for life. Discrimination in virtually every aspect of political, economic, and social life is now perfectly legal, if you’ve been labeled a felon.
Facing Facts
But what about all those violent criminals and drug kingpins? Isn’t the drug war waged in ghetto communities because that’s where the violent offenders can be found? The answer is yes… in made-for-TV movies. In real life, the answer is no.
The drug war has never been focused on rooting out drug kingpins or violent offenders. Federal funding flows to those agencies that increase dramatically the volume of drug arrests, not the agencies most successful in bringing down the bosses. What gets rewarded in this war is sheer numbers of drug arrests. To make matters worse, federal drug forfeiture laws allow state and local law enforcement agencies to keep for their own use 80% of the cash, cars, and homes seized from drug suspects, thus granting law enforcement a direct monetary interest in the profitability of the drug market.
The results have been predictable: people of color rounded up en masse for relatively minor, non-violent drug offenses. In 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession, only one out of five for sales. Most people in state prison have no history of violence or even of significant selling activity. In fact, during the 1990s — the period of the most dramatic expansion of the drug war — nearly 80% of the increase in drug arrests was for marijuana possession, a drug generally considered less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and at least as prevalent in middle-class white communities as in the inner city.
In this way, a new racial undercaste has been created in an astonishingly short period of time — a new Jim Crow system. Millions of people of color are now saddled with criminal records and legally denied the very rights that their parents and grandparents fought for and, in some cases, died for.
Affirmative action, though, has put a happy face on this racial reality. Seeing black people graduate from Harvard and Yale and become CEOs or corporate lawyers — not to mention president of the United States — causes us all to marvel at what a long way we’ve come.
Recent data shows, though, that much of black progress is a myth. In many respects, African Americans are doing no better than they were when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and uprisings swept inner cities across America. Nearly a quarter of African Americans live below the poverty line today, approximately the same percentage as in 1968. The black child poverty rate is actually higher now than it was then. Unemployment rates in black communities rival those in Third World countries. And that’s with affirmative action!
When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our “colorblind” society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure — the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate.
This is not Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream. This is not the promised land. The cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare.
On the other hand, although the Obama administration doesn't plan to significantly alter drug enforcement policy, according to Gil Kerlikowske, the current director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, it's counted as progress that it won't use the term "War on Drugs" because it's counter-productive. Still, the next national drug control budget proposed by the Obama Administration will increase spending on prevention and treatment of drug abuse.
Undoing the damage caused by hapless drug policy will not be cheap or easy. But it must be done. The growing support for legalization in the states and in other countries offers a way out. Although proponents of legalization have won the moral and intellectual debate, political leadership is unlikely to come from the White House or Congress, as irrational and dysfunctional here as in so many other policy areas. But with drug use being decriminalized (or legalized de facto) from Concord to Sacramento and from Berne to Mexico City, the end of the War on Drugs may be in sight.
Michelle Alexander's essay was originally published on TomDispatch.com
To track the $ billions that have been burned in the drug war, visit the Drug War Clock, at DrugSense.Org, supported by Media Awareness Project and Drug Policy Central
Further reading:
Brief History of The War on Drugs by Claire Suddath (Time 2009-03-25)
Drug faqs from the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, sponsored by a company that promotes the commercialization medical marijuana
What's Wrong With the Drug War? by the Drug Policy Alliance Network
The War on Drugs Is a Failure by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, César Gaviria And Ernesto Zedillo (Wall Street Journal 2009-02-23)
War on drugs is insane by Jack Cafferty (CNN 2009-03-31)
Ending the 'War on Drugs' by Misha Glenny (New York Times 2009-09-18)
Fights Worth Fighting: Stupak Gets A Primary Challenge From The Left
From Talking Points Memo:
A former teacher and county commissioner will challenge Rep. Bart Stupak in the Aug. 3 Democratic primary in Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reported this afternoon.The rest of the story: Stupak Gets A Primary Challenge From The Left by Evan McMorris-Santoro (TalkingPointsMemo 2010-03-09)
Connie Saltonstall, a former commissioner in Charlevoix County, told me this evening she's challenging Stupak over his refusal to allow health care reform to move forward without abortion language attached.
Saltonstall told me her "two passions" are health care reform and choice. And after spending the last 20 years voting for Stupak, Saltonstall said he managed to run afoul of both of them.
Health Care Reform: With friends like this...
Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California wrote an op-ed in Roll Call Monday pandering to liberals about her commitment to a public option. It comes on the heels of her public announcement that she will break every single pledge she’s ever made to vote against a health care bill without a public option. (Woolsey is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. In addition to abandoning her promise to support affordable, universal health care, she has endorsed Rep. Jane Harman, the leading Democratic proponent of the security state in the House of Representatives, over her liberal anti-war challenger Marcy Winograd, further evidence that progressives must build alternatives, including third party and independent candidacies, to their codependent relationship with the Democrats.)
The rest of the story: Lynn Woolsey: Closing Barn Doors Since 1993 by Jane Hamsher (FireDogLake 2010-03-09)
The rest of the story: Lynn Woolsey: Closing Barn Doors Since 1993 by Jane Hamsher (FireDogLake 2010-03-09)
Lies, damned lies & statistics: Reconciling reconciliation
The Republicans will say anything, no matter how unencumbered by fact, if they think it will hurt their opponents and return the GOP to power. Currently, they are shocked --shocked -- that to pass health care reform the Democratic majority plans to use "reconciliation," a wonky term for a legislative process that allows a bill to be adopted by a simple majority, as if the Republicans had never employed the mechanism themselves when they controlled Congress.
"Consider three bills -- two of them passed under budget reconciliation, the third heading for budget reconciliation. Each had an effect on the fiscal health of the nation, calculated by the Congressional Budget Office. The first two, the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush, blew a hole in the budget.
The third, the Senate's health reform bill? As you can see from the CBO projection, that's a different story." -- from The Rachel Maddow Show blog, based on a graph originally prepared by Econbrowser.
"Consider three bills -- two of them passed under budget reconciliation, the third heading for budget reconciliation. Each had an effect on the fiscal health of the nation, calculated by the Congressional Budget Office. The first two, the tax cuts pushed by President George W. Bush, blew a hole in the budget.
The third, the Senate's health reform bill? As you can see from the CBO projection, that's a different story." -- from The Rachel Maddow Show blog, based on a graph originally prepared by Econbrowser.
Time for a U.S. Revolution? Fifteen Reasons Why
Writing today on the progressive organizing website Common Dreams, Bill Quigley, who is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, argues that the time is right for a revolution. "Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.
"Look at what our current system has brought us," Quigley continues, "and ask if it is time for a revolution?
It's past time. But a lot of questions need to be answered before it can happen.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.In fact, in the years since the assassinations of King and Sen. Robert Kennedy, there has been a revolution in this country. Since the early 70s, there has been a glacial but enduring shift in power from the people to the multinational corporations and the mechanisms of the security state. During those years the collective goal of a humane community has been replaced by an ideology that makes selfish ambitions primary in nearly every area of American life.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached “a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.” It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change.
"Look at what our current system has brought us," Quigley continues, "and ask if it is time for a revolution?
Over 2.8 million people lost their homes in 2009 to foreclosure or bank repossessions – nearly 8000 each day – higher numbers than the last two years when millions of others also lost their homes.Although Quigley outlines clearly some of the reasons why radical change is necessary, he does does less well with identifying revolutionary forces capable of challenging corporatist and militarist power.
At the same time, the government bailed out Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the auto industry and enacted the troubled asset (TARP) program with $1.7 trillion of our money.
Wall Street then awarded itself over $20 billion in bonuses in 2009 alone, an average bonus on top of pay of $123,000.
At the same time, over 17 million people are jobless right now. Millions more are working part-time when they want and need to be working full-time.
Yet the current system allows one single U.S. Senator to stop unemployment and Medicare benefits being paid to millions.
There are now 35 registered lobbyists in Washington DC for every single member of the Senate and House of Representatives, at last count 13,739 in 2009. There are eight lobbyists for every member of Congress working on the health care fiasco alone.
At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations now have a constitutional right to interfere with elections by pouring money into races.
The Department of Justice gave a get out of jail free card to its own lawyers who authorized illegal torture.
At the same time another department of government, the Pentagon, is prosecuting Navy SEALS for punching an Iraqi suspect.
The US is not only involved in senseless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. now maintains 700 military bases world-wide and another 6000 in the US and our territories. Young men and women join the military to protect the U.S. and to get college tuition and healthcare coverage and killed and maimed in elective wars and being the world’s police. Wonder whose assets they are protecting and serving?
In fact, the U.S. spends $700 billion directly on military per year, half the military spending of the entire world – much more than Europe, China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and Venezuela - combined.
The government and private companies have dramatically increased surveillance of people through cameras on public streets and private places, airport searches, phone intercepts, access to personal computers, and compilation of records from credit card purchases, computer views of sites, and travel.
The number of people in jails and prisons in the U.S. has risen sevenfold since 1970 to over 2.3 million. The US puts a higher percentage of our people in jail than any other country in the world.
The tea party people are mad at the Republicans, who they accuse of selling them out to big businesses.Well, okay, some people are mad as hell and are saying they're not going to take it any more. A few members of the mostly inchoate tea party movement are asking the right questions, but so far the teabaggers have been easily manipulated by corporatist shills and political hustlers like Dick Armey, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. As far as liberals in the Democratic Party go, we see the New York left being browbeaten to support blue dog Kirsten Gillibrand against one of their own, Jonathan Tasini, to protect a Senate majority the Democrats have been disinclined to use; nearly the entire party leadership seems intent on delivering a Senate seat to GOP-reject Arlen Specter over Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak; in California witness the pathetic sight of supposed progressives Reps. Henry Waxman and Lynn Woolsey endorsing the ultimate agent of the security state, Rep. Jane Harman against a challenger from the left, Marcy Winograd, in a pattern that repeats itself across the country. Only a handful of Democrats, such as Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson, Anthony Weiner, Marcy Kaptur and Barbara Lee appear to be willing to take on the conservative majority that controls both parties.
Democrats are working their way past depression to anger because their party, despite majorities in the House and Senate, has not made significant advances for immigrants, or women, or unions, or African Americans, or environmentalists, or gays and lesbians, or civil libertarians, or people dedicated to health care, or human rights, or jobs or housing or economic justice. Democrats also think their party is selling out to big business.
Forty three years ago next month, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached in Riverside Church in New York City that “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” He went on to condemn the Vietnam War and the system which created it and the other injustices clearly apparent. “We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing oriented” society to a “person oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
It is time.
It's past time. But a lot of questions need to be answered before it can happen.
Design & Environment: Architects Envision Green Transportation Solutions for Los Angeles
by Evelyn Lee (inhabitat 2010-03-02)
The rest of the story: Architects Envision Green Transportation Solutions for Los Angeles by Evelyn Lee (inhabitat 2010-03-02)
The passing of Measure R at the end of 2008 provided Los Angeles County with funds for up to $40 billion in transit-related projects over the next 30 years. The measure also inspired a competition to design new transport solutions, and Paris-based Odile Decq Benoit Cornette Architects have proposed an extensive plan to make the ‘freeway city’ a little greener. The project proposes large stretches of green space, a system of small vehicles with designated transportation lanes and parking stations, and a complete overhaul of the city’s streets, overpasses, culverts, right of ways, power lines, and underutilized rail lines.
The rest of the story: Architects Envision Green Transportation Solutions for Los Angeles by Evelyn Lee (inhabitat 2010-03-02)
Reform: Majority Rule for California
In today's mail:
Get a Backbone on the Budget Crisis!
Just getting a majority on the budget alone won't make the pie any bigger, we need to solve the revenue problem.
Join teachers, firefighters, nurses and students who support majority rule for budget and revenue.
Majority rule for both budget and revenue has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party, the California Young Democrats and California College Democrats.
Sign, download and print the petition at CaliforniansForDemocracy.com
---
Democracy Goes Viral by George Lakoff & Californians For Democracy Team
Dear Friends,
The California budget crisis is a democracy crisis.
The 2/3 vote rules have destroyed democracy. A small minority of extreme conservatives - 37 percent - has been controlling the state legislature by saying no to all proposals until it gets what it wants. They want to destroy the ability of the state to serve public needs. They like the budget cuts. They don't care about the pain they have caused.
We - the majority of voters - can change all that. We can pass the California Democracy Act, an initiative on the November 2010 ballot. It is one sentence long - only 14 words. It is simple democracy.
All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.
It would make two minor changes in the Constitution: In two places, "two-thirds" becomes "a majority." That's all. And it can be passed with only a majority vote!
To get this initiative on the ballot and to pass it, we will need your help. Go to http://www.CaliforniansForDemocracy.com
- now. Download a petition, sign it, and send it in. Then donate.
We need donations, large and small. $5000, $1000, $500 if you have it. $100, $50, $20, even $10.
Ask yourself, what are these worth to you? Excellent public education from K thru college, parks and beaches, our environment, roads, public health, child care, care for the elderly and disabled, fire departments, housing for the homeless, shelters for battered women, food safety. That's what's at stake.
This is the only initiative that can end the crisis by permitting sufficient revenue to be raised - without hurting lower and middle income Californians.
It is the only one that can return democracy and give you, the voters, a voice. You, the majority, will finally have the power to tell your legislators what you need and how to get it.
Go toCaliforniansForDemocracy.com, click on Sign the Petition, and click on Donate. Do it now. Our state can't wait.
Our Hungry Planet: Could Manhattan Feed Manhattan?
How much space is needed to produce food for the entire population of Manhattan, including those who live there and those who visit? With current US production yields, this would require 150 times the area of Manhattan. With a combination of hydroponic farming to boost crop efficiency, organic farming for animals to increase quality and animal well-being, while maintaining minimum livestock surface areas as specified by Dutch regulations (US organic farming regulations do not specify minimum), the area needed for food production is reduced to 46 times Manhattan. To grow all food for Manhattanites in one tower, a tower of 23 miles in height would be needed, including the food for animal production (or 8.7 miles tall without food). By distributing various ingredients over Governors Island in different towers—cereal tower, chicken tower, fruit tower, fish tower—a gigantic food city would appear next to Lady Liberty. Alternatively, distributing the towers over all the rooftops of Manhattan would result in a food layer of 656 feet on top of every building of the city. -- from the website.
This silent video by MVRDV explores what it would take to feed the people of Manhattan with the land of the island:
The upshot: We'd need a 23-mile high vertical farm. Or truly pervasive urban agriculture
Dietary changes would also reduce a city's foodprint, of course.
Food Print Manhattan was presented at Pioneers of Change, a festival of Dutch design, fashion and architecture on New York's Governors Island, curated by Renny Ramakers.
For more info visit http://www.droog.com/presentationsevents/pioneers-of-change/
This silent video by MVRDV explores what it would take to feed the people of Manhattan with the land of the island:
The upshot: We'd need a 23-mile high vertical farm. Or truly pervasive urban agriculture
Dietary changes would also reduce a city's foodprint, of course.
Food Print Manhattan was presented at Pioneers of Change, a festival of Dutch design, fashion and architecture on New York's Governors Island, curated by Renny Ramakers.
For more info visit http://www.droog.com/presentationsevents/pioneers-of-change/
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