It ought to be shocking to anyone that in the wake of the recession the number of Americans living in poverty has jumped to 44 million -- one in seven citizens is now living below the poverty line, more than at any time in the past 50 years. More specifically, one in five American children, more than a quarter of African Americans and Latinos, and over 51% of female-headed families with children under 6 is impoverished. According to poverty expert Peter Edelman, 19 million people are now living in "extreme poverty," defined as under 50 percent of the poverty line, or $11,000 for a family of four. "That means over 43 percent of the poor are extremely poor."

But Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, argues there are ways to attack the problem:

Half in Ten, a coalition working to cut poverty by half in 10 years, is pushing Congress to renew the TANF Emergency Fund, which is set to expire on Thursday. Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have used the program to provide 250,000 low-income and long-term unemployed workers with subsidized jobs. The coalition is also pushing to make the Obama administration's Recovery Act reforms to the child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit permanent. These progressive policies keep families from falling into poverty and reduce long-term costs such as crime, public benefits and lost consumption. Estimates of costs associated with childhood poverty run at $500 billion annually, or 4 percent of gross domestic product.

The rest of the story: As 44 million Americans live in poverty, a crisis grows by Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Washington Post 2010-09-28).

Politics: There'll be no hope of "change" until we change the system

Historian Paul Street is interviewed by Truthout's Mickey Z.

Independent policy researcher, historian, journalist, activist, political commentator and speaker Paul Street harks back to the day of the public intellectual, a quaint time when facts and reasoned analysis were essential components of our political life.

Mickey Z.: So much of the American experience is based on myths like the two-party system, "land of opportunity," and more. How do you offer a more nuanced view of US history in your work?

Paul Street: I agree on the power of those great American myths and would add some other and related ones: the notion that the United States is a benevolent force for democracy and good in the world; the idea that that the profits system is a form of freedom and democracy; the myth that we can achieve significant democratic change simply by voting in quadrennial corporate-crafted and candidate-centered elections; the notion that we live in a "post-racial" era wherein racism has been mostly defeated; the myth of an independent and objective media. What I try to do to explode these and other key national legends is fairly similar to what you and other American dissidents like Bill Blum and Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn do. I try to rescue from what E.P. Thompson called "the enormous condescension of posterity" (and from what George Orwell termed "the memory hole") some of the many inconvenient facts that do not fit the official narrative imposed by the dominant fables. And I try to fit the doctrinally inappropriate alternative facts into a compelling, accurate counter-narrative that links past to present and vice versa.

Read Obama, Democracy and the "Drum Major Instinct": Interview With Author Paul Street by Mickey Z. (Truthout 2010-09-28).

Books b Paul Street:
The Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (2010); Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (2008); Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History (2007); Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in Post-Civil Rights America (2005); Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Cultural Politics & the Promise of Democracy) (2004).

The Long War: Just end it.

Bob Woodward reports that Pres. Obama made the political decision to announce a date certain for withdrawal from Afghanistan out of fear of angering the base if he left the impression that the adventure is open ended. This is being taken in some quarters as evidence of the left's influence on policy. But there is nothing to suggest that the pledge to withdraw is anything more than dressing up as Gandhi for Halloween: the loose costume leaves plenty of wiggle room.

If the left really wants to influence the Democratic Party, there are ways. 1. Contribute and work for members of Congress who have a record of opposing the war. And only them. Do not work for or contribute to any candidate who actively supports militarism. 2. Contribute to and work for -- and field -- primary challengers to Blue Dogs and other Democrats representing the Pentagon and the security state. 3. When no antiwar Democrat is available, support libertarians like Ron Paul who are willing take on military spending, no matter what party colors they sport. 4. Support -- and vote for -- third party candidates who make opposition to the war machine central to their campaign. In California, for example, the Peace & Freedom Party offers to disgruntled Democrats third party candidates for Congress who are not only antiwar, but as a bonus also favor policies promoting economic justice.

2010: Bye Bye Boehner?

It could happen.


Even though the Democrats apparently have settled on running against "Speaker Boehner" as their principle strategy for November, the national party has offered no help to its candidate in Ohio's 8th district. Justin Coussoule has been forced to rely almost entirely on small contributions from rank & file Democrats, but, as blogger Howie Klein reported, the returns

are minuscule compared to the $4,504,493 Boehner’s campaign has collected so far this year. And we’ve begged the DCCC and the DNC for help. We could have been begging the NRCC and the RNC. They flatly refused every time. Even apart from the serious problem sleazy sugar industry shill and DCCC power-behind-the-throne Debbie Wasserman Schultz has with veterans and with progressives, the DCCC is determined to spend all the money they suck out of concerned Democrats on the actual Blue Dogs who have voted most frequently against the Democratic agenda and crossed the aisle to vote with Boehner– reprehensible anti-Choice, antigay, anti-reform, anti-healthcare conservatives like Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD), Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL), Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID), Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS), Mark Critz (Blue Dog-PA), Harry Mitchell (Blue Dog-AZ), and Chris Carney (Blue Dog-PA). Financial help for Alan Grayson? Not. One. Dime. Financial help for Justin Coussoule? Well, they don’t even invite him to Democratic events down the road from his own home.

Thank God for independent-minded Members of Congress like Alan Grayson, Barney Frank, Raul Grijalva, Henry Waxman, Bob Filner, Earl Blumenauer, Mary Jo Kilroy and Betty Sutton and for organizations like the AFL-CIO, DFA, Vet-PAC and People For the American Way, who have endorsed Justin and have been trying to help him get his message across.

The Clinton HRC Legacy PAC has given him its endorsement and is working on his behalf.

Justin Coussoule has a real chance to defeat John Boehner. Click on the banner if you'd like to help:

Change Watch: Forget "hope." Get mad as hell -- and do something about it.

Change, as we may have finally learned for good in 2008, is more than a matter of electing sweet-talking liberals. Bringing permanent change to this nation, in the form of economic and social justice, will take a lot of dedicated effort by many thousands of ordinary people. Jamie Court's new book, "The Progressive's Guide to Raising Hell," shows how. Using examples of actions that have succeeded in the past, Court has created a handbook for citizen activists to use at every level of government. When he was president, Franklin Roosevelt once met with a group of activists who pressed him to adopt a variety of reforms. "I agree with you, I want to do it," FDR said, "now make me do it." Court shows how to lead the way. The "leaders" will follow.

Buy The Progressive's Guide to Raising Hell: How to Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws, and Get the Change We Voted For -- A Direct Democracy Toolkit by Jamie Court.

Reproductive Health: Programs and policies that could actually lessen the need for abortion.

Here, from an article on RH Reality Check, are a few simple actions that if taken would be guaranteed to result in fewer untimely pregnancies, and hence fewer abortions:

1. Make long-acting, effective reversible birth control methods like IUDs available free of charge to any women who want them. These birth control methods are effective for 5 to 10 years and don’t require a woman to remember to do anything in order to be protected from pregnancy. They can be used by women of any age. If a woman wants to get pregnant, she simply has the IUD removed and her normal fertility returns. This birth control method is widely used in Europe, but quite expensive and less frequently used in this country.

2. Cover all reproductive health care including all methods of birth control, infertility, tubal ligation, and vasectomy, under affordable health insurance.

3. Create excellent and affordable childcare so that women who want to have children can also make a living to support them.

4. Make sure young people learn how to create successful relationships as well as how to be responsible with their sexuality. That will give them the tools to create healthy families and be good parents with enough resources to care for their kids when the time is right.

5. Promote vasectomy as a very safe and inexpensive method of permanent birth control for men. This would be especially helpful for couples who have completed their families so that a late and unexpected pregnancy doesn’t throw everyone into emotional turmoil.

6. Increase research into developing safer, more effective and long lasting methods of birth control.

7. Make sure the Morning After Treatment is easily available, inexpensive, and covered by health care insurance.

8. Require by law that all pharmacies either fill prescriptions for birth control and Morning After Treatment, or else inform over the phone, in advertisements, and by posted signs that they are Anti Choice Pharmacies, and the location of the nearest pharmacy that respect a woman’s choices.

These sensible proposals have little chance of becoming policy because so many  anti-abortion leaders are more interested in imposing their crabbed moral vision on the society at large than they are on helping unwed mothers and unwanted children. As Barney Frank once said, the anti-abortion movement's concern for "life" begins at conception and ends at birth.

The  rest of the story: The Anti-Choice Hoax of the Century by Charlotte Taft (RH Reality Check 2010-09-15).

Politics: Bluedog Day Afternoon

Here are some of the Democratic voices plumping for continuing the Bush tax giveaway to the richest 2% of Americans. If you want to know why the base is alienated from the party, give a listen. Many of these folks are running for reelection. Don't help them; there are plenty of progressive Democrats in tough races who need your money and time.

Letter from Reps. James Matheson (D-UT), Melissa Bean (D-IL), Glenn Nye (D-VA) and Gary Peters (D-MI) to Speaker Pelosi: "In recent weeks, we have heard from a diverse spectrum of economists, small business owners, and families who have voiced concerns that raising any taxes right now could negatively impact economic growth. Given the continued fragility of our economy and slow pace of recovery, we share their concerns."

Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL): “Every day, I hear from families that are still struggling with bills and people who can’t find a job no matter how hard they try, so I believe right now, our top economic priority has to be job creation. In order to achieve that, we need tax credits for small businesses that will help create new American jobs, while also promoting investment and growth. As we work to rebuild the economy, I support a one-year extension of the so-called Bush tax cuts.”

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT): "The economy has by no means fully recovered, so my bias is that those high-end tax cuts should be extended."

Rep. Bobby Bright (D-AL): “I don’t care if it’s the wealthiest of the wealthy, you don’t raise their taxes,” he said. “In a recession, you don’t tax, burden and restrict. The economy is like a ship, and if you sink the ship, all the good you might do goes down with it.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): “We are managing a very fragile recovery, and now is not the time to raise taxes on anyone. The timing is wrong and we should not do anything at this juncture that could jeopardize or slow the nation’s economic growth.”

Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI): “Extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all earners is the right thing to do as anything less jeopardizes economic recovery.”

Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ): “I strongly believe that this is the wrong time to let key tax cuts expire.  We need to encourage investment, not discourage it by letting these cuts expire. Extending these cuts would bring some much needed certainty and predictability to our tax code."

Rep. Michael McMahon (D-NY): "We're not creating jobs, and raising taxes now would not be a great idea."

Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN): "I think in this fragile economy, now is not the time to send that message to business owners and those who are fortunate to have the wealth in this country, because indeed they are the ones that make investments, that start businesses investing in companies."

And we shouldn’t forget the Senate Democrat opposition:

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND): "The general rule of thumb is that you do not raise taxes or cut spending during an economic downturn. That would be counterproductive."

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA): "I don't think they ought to be drawing a distinction at $250k.”

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE): “I support extending all of the expiring tax cuts until Nebraska’s and the nation’s economy is in better shape, and perhaps longer, because raising taxes in a weak economy could impair recovery.”

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN): “The economy is very weak right now. Raising taxes will lower consumer demand at a time when we want people putting more money into the economy.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT): “I don't think it makes sense to raise any federal taxes during the uncertain economy we are struggling through.”

You'll find progressive candidates who need your help at ActBlue.

Democratic Congressman Fights To Save Cancer Victim’s Home From Foreclosure by Union Bank

Despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, not every Democratic member of Congress is a spineless quivering blob.

[The] progressive vision was on full display yesterday during a vigil led by Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) that halted, for now, the foreclosure of a cancer victim’s home. For months, Bonita, California resident Luz Maria Villanueva had been facing impending foreclosure on her home by Union Bank. Villanueva’s situation was especially dire due to the fact that her son has a kidney disease as well as cancer. As medical bills began to pile up, Villanueva had to choose between the life of her son and her home, and she chose her son....Comparing the struggle of families trying to keep their homes to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s which landed him in a Mississippi jail for two months, Filner announced that he’d be holding a community vigil on the steps of Villanueva’s house on the day a local sheriff was scheduled to come foreclose on her. He warned that doing so “may result” in his arrest, but that he was willing to risk it to help her save her home. Thanks to the publicity Filner and the surrounding community brought to the case, Union Bank decided to call off the foreclosure, for now.

Note to Bluedogs and other lily-livered Donkeys terrified of angry voters: here's how to get reelected. Fight like a pit bull for your constituents; stop shivering like a fear-maddened cur at every bleat from Fox News and the Chamber of Commerce.

The rest of the story: Bob Filner Risks Arrest To Save Cancer Victim’s Home From Foreclosure By Zaid Jilani (Think Progress 2010-09-14).

Action: Jobs Emergency National Day of Action Tomorrow

Protest Senators (and their corporate backers) who are blocking good jobs and a real recovery.

• Our Demands
• Media Advisory 08-27-10
• Sign up to join us
• List of Local Actions
• Endorsing Organizations
• Student Call to Action | Factsheets: Youth Unemployment; Affordable Education

We will not accept a “Jobless Recovery”!

We demand:

• Full and Fair Employment. Congress must recognize the jobs emergency. Pass legislation like the Local Jobs for America Act, extend the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families emergency fund jobs subsidies program, extend unemployment insurance, heed President Obama’s call to renew the countries’ infrastructure and create a national infrastructure bank, and other bills that will create jobs, protect public services, and help get our economy going again.
• Wall Street must pay their fair share for the crisis they created. A tax on financial speculation could raise $200-$500 billion every year.

Sign up to join us on September 15th.

The Jobs Emergency:

• Fifteen million workers – about 10% – are unemployed
• There is only one job opening for every 5 people seeking work
• Cuts to vital public services that will put another half million+ people out of work are looming
• Without a major Federal investment, jobless rates will be 8-13% into the next decade
• This jobs deficit is deeper and longer-lasting than any post WWII recession.

We need government intervention

to lift this country out of deep joblessness.

While the Corporate agenda is creating hysteria about the federal budget deficit, Congress – particularly the Senate - is doing nothing to help the REAL crisis: the JOBS DEFICIT. When Wall Street was in crisis, Congress found hundreds of billions of dollars to bail them out. We need to respond to the jobs crisis with the same urgency. The best way to get our economy going again is to put people back to work.

Over the next 3 months, JwJ coalitions are mobilizing in multiple important ways to redefine what’s possible and make job creation a federal priority, including:

• August 28: March for Jobs, Justice and Peace with the UAW & Rainbow/PUSH in Detroit
• September 15: Jobs Emergency Day of Action
• October 2: “One Nation” march on Washington, DC
• October 7: Defend Education Day of Action
• On-going: “bird-dogging” candidates, Worker Rights Board hearings, voter education, etc.

Take The Pledge: I'LL BE THERE TO DEMAND JOBS WITH JUSTICE

Learn more about our campaign to win Full & Fair Employment and an economy that works for everyone.

September 15 Jobs Emergency Day of Action is organized by Jobs with Justice. National endorsing organizations include:

American Federation of Government Employees
Americans for Democratic Action
BanksterUSA.org
Center for Media and Democracy
Communications Workers of America
DefendEducation.org
Grassroots Global Justice
National Domestic Workers Alliance
National Employment Law Project
Progressive Democrats of America
Right to the City
Service Employees International Union
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
United Food & Commercial Workers
US Action
US Student Association

Environment: Never has greenwashing been quite so moving

Afghanistan on Life Support

I'll consider our occupation of Afghanistan a success if we avoid having to airlift the last Americans off the roof of the U.S. embassy.

"Almost 10 years of U.S. and allied occupation, development, mentoring, reconstruction aid, and assistance has taken the country from unbearably dismal to something markedly poorer. And yet even worse is still possible for the long-suffering men, women, and children of Afghanistan. As the U.S. war and occupation drags on without serious debate about withdrawal on the Washington agenda, questions need to be asked about the fate of Afghan civilians. Chief among them: How many more years of 'progress' can they endure, and if the U.S. stays, how much more 'success' can they stand?" -- How Much “Success” Can Afghans Stand?: The American War and Afghanistan’s Civilians by Nick Turse (Tom Dispatch 2010-09-12).

The Long War: A decade of war has intensified the militarization of American society

Veteran military correspondent David Wood reports in Politics Daily that in 10 years of continuous fighting since 9/11 the United States has created a class of professional warriors separate from and in many ways alienated from their fellow citizens.

This is an Army that, under the pressure of combat, has turned inward, leaving civilian America behind, reduced to the role of a well-wishing but impatient spectator. A decade of fighting has hardened soldiers in ways that civilians can't share. America respects its warriors, but from a distance.

The consequences are many: the rise of a new warrior class; a sharp decline in the number of Americans in public life with the sobering experience of war; a fading respect for civil authority; the declining ideal of public service as a civic responsibility; a perilous shrinking of the common ground of shared values that have shaped the way Americans think about war.

The rest of the story: In the 10th Year of War, a Harder Army, a More Distant America by David Wood (Politics Daily 2010-09-11).

R.I.P.: Irwin Silber

There was a time, not so long ago really, when the Left actually made a difference, not only politically, by fielding an army of citizens passionately determined to make the lives of ordinary people better and by providing the intellectual foundation and institutional muscle behind progressive change, but also by helping to shape popular culture. The passing of folk music champion Irwin Silber this week gives us a chance to look back on an era when a group of avowed lefties like The Weavers, for example, could be stars.

Here's an interview with Silber from 2002.

The Long War: Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan

Nine years in, the American war against Afghanistan is the longest in our history. With the surge, it is costing taxpayers nearly $100 billion per year, a sum roughly seven times larger than Afghanistan’s annual gross national product of $14 billion and well more than, for example, the total annual cost of the new U.S. health insurance program. Thousands of American and allied personnel and countless thousands of Afghanis have been killed or gravely wounded in the conflict.

The centralized government we have attempted to impose on the highly decentralized Afghan polity has failed to take: "President Karzai has had nearly six years to build a legitimate and minimally effective government, and he has manifestly failed to do so," says this report sponsored by the New America Foundation. "His re-election last year was marred by widespread fraud. Karzai has been unable or unwilling to crack down on corruption or rein in the warlords on whom his government still depends."

It's clear that the current occupation is a failure, amounting to not much more than a Kissingerish policy of destroying a society in order to save it. To avoid being thrown out, you might think we should end our involvement preemptively by leaving of our own volition, but that is not something the foreign policy establishment is willing to contemplate, so we have this attempt to come up with an alternative plan:

The way forward: A five point approach

1. Emphasize Power-Sharing and Political Reconciliation
2. Scale Back and Eventually Suspend Combat Operations in the South and Reduce the U.S. Military Footprint
3. Keep the Focus on Al Qaeda and Domestic Security
4. Promote Economic Development
5. Engage Global and Regional Stakeholders.

The authors of the report, holding to conventional faith in western-style economic and security arrangements, believe the United States should not "abandon" Afghanistan even though "U.S. interests at stake in Afghanistan do not warrant this level of sacrifice;" instead they argue it's time to rethink the current strategy. Trying to pacify Afghanistan by force of arms has not and will not work, but even if you accept the premise that America’s vital security interests are engaged there, the costly military campaign is more likely to jeopardize than to protect them. Although the authors continue to find the invasion justified because the attack was initially targeted at al-Qaeda, they admit that "there are only some 400 hard-core al-Qaeda members remaining in the entire Af-Pak theater, most of them hiding in Pakistan's northwest provinces." Since we can't attack Pakistan for various reasons, Afghanistan will have to do, but at least the U.S. should ratchet down its goals to ones that are both more consistent with what the authors define as America’s true interests and that, being more modest, are more likely to succeed.

A New Way Forward | Re-Thinking US Strategy in Afghanistan is a report of the Afghanistan Study Group sponsored by the New America Foundation. Read the report on-line or download it (pdf) to find out what some of the more rational members of the foreign policy establishment are thinking about the war.

Is an infrastructure bank a practical proposal?

This week President Barack Obama announced steps to boost economic growth and job creation, including a national infrastructure bank. The Brookings Institution's William Galston reviews the proposal and the various factors that will contribute to whether it is successful.

The rest of the story: Infrastructure Bank Proposal Would Spur Economic Growth by William A. Galston (The Brookings Institution 2010-09-07).

Change Watch: U.S. trying to cram DRM rules down the world's throats

The ardor of the romance between the Obama administration and big business is undiminished, their latest tryst occurring in secret at negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to adopt a copyright treaty that US corporations hope will bring oppressive American-style copyright rules (and worse) to the whole world.

Particularly disturbing is the growing support for "three-strikes" copyright rules that would disconnect whole families from the Internet if one member of the household was accused (without proof) of copyright infringement. The other big US agenda item is cramming pro-Digital Rights Management (DRM) rules down the world's throats that go way beyond the current obligations under the UN's WIPO Copyright Treaty. In the US version, breaking DRM is always illegal, even if you're not committing any copyright violation -- so breaking the DRM on your iPad to install software you bought from someone who hasn't gone through the Apple approval process is illegal, even though the transaction involves no illicit copying.

. -- Latest leaked draft of secret copyright treaty: US trying to cram DRM rules down the world's throats by Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing 2010-09-06).

See, also: Unintended Consequences: Twelve Years under the DMCA (Electronic Frontier Foundation 2010-03).

Economy: The United States of Inequality

Must read: The Great Divergence 2010: What's causing America's growing income inequality? by Timothy Noah (Slate 2010-09-03).

Change Watch: Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Speaking of our colonial war in the Philippines (see Peace Games, below) that followed in the wake of our defeat of Spain, in protest of that folly, an angry opponent of empire, Mark Twain, composed in 1901 this still-timely lyric to the melody of The Battle Hymn of the Republic:

The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Brought Down to Date)

by Mark Twain

Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps--
His night is marching on.

I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!"

We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;*
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!

In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom--and for others' goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich--
Our god is marching on.

* NOTE: In Manila the Government has placed a certain industry under the protection of our flag. (M.T.)

(Btw, that is Twain's version of the imperial flag illustrating the note on O's withdrawal speech.)

Press Release: Public Transit Projects Create More Jobs than Highways

(Washington DC 2010-09-02) New data released today by the Transportation Equity Network reveals that investment in public transit can create hundreds of thousands more jobs than highway projects.

More Transit Equals More Jobs examines official project lists from 20 federally authorized Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and concludes that “if [they] shifted 50 percent of their highway funds to transit, they would generate an additional 184,801 jobs over a five-year period without spending any more money.”

“This report reveals just how much more bang we can get for our buck if we invest in transit,” said Dan Smith, a transportation associate for U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG). “Transit provides important benefits to communities and, with unemployment so high, this is data that should not be ignored.”

Previous studies, including examinations of federal Recovery Act spending, have consistently found that public transportation creates more jobs than highways. Investment in public transit tends to be more labor-intensive than highway projects because the work is generally more complex, involves the purchase and maintenance of vehicles, and requires much less spending on land acquisition.

More Transit Equals More Jobs makes a broad case for larger investments in our public transit systems. More money for transit not only means more jobs but would additionally lead to less traffic congestion, hazardous pollution, and global warming emissions. # # #

U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization. For more information visit http://www.uspirg.org.

Part of the way with... oh, never mind.

"You all are combat troops not doing a combat mission, although it looks, smells and feels and hurts a lot like combat." -- Lt. Col. Andy Ulrich, Hawija, Iraq (August 31, 2010).

You may remember a time when Barack Obama was widely admired for a speaking style that was compelling and forthright. Even when you disagreed with him, as I did during his late run for the White House, you admired the clarity, directness and emotional uplift of his addresses. So you had to be disappointed with his uninspiring performance last Tuesday, even as you sympathized with the spot he's in. The chasm between the American self-image as the defender of freedom and justice and its true role as the enforcer of class and property rights around the globe has become so vast that no U.S. politician can be clear and forthright about anything.

The president's immediate problem Tuesday was that he was trying to paint the lipstick of withdrawal on the pig of our continuing occupation of Iraq. However you describe the actions of the 50,000 plus troops and many more thousands of "security contractors" who remain in Iraq, "it looks, smells and feels and hurts a lot like combat."

A mission statement is a form of marketing: it is meaningless without action. The new mission statement for Iraq can't alter reality; as Matthew Yglesias wrote yesterday on American Prospect, "there's simply no redeeming an irredeemable mission." All Obama's version of "mission accomplished" really offered was another opportunity for George Orwell to roll over in his grave.

The most chilling aspect of the speech was its unequivocal embrace of American militarism (the expenditure of "vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home," as he accurately put it). Even as he admitted that "our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work," the president had no concrete proposals to take us from making war to creating jobs.

Somehow in the past two years the Iraq war has mutated in Obama's mind from something illegal and "dumb" to the penultimate stop in an unbroken line of heroic actions "that stretches from Lexington to Gettysburg; from Iwo Jima to Inchon; from Khe Sanh to Kandahar," an "unbroken line" that the president presumably knows includes a barbarous civil war and almost continuous episodes of territorial expansion, genocide, colonial brutality, war crimes and unprovoked aggression. Khe Sanh, for pete's sake (along with the Tet Offensive, it was Khe Sanh that turned the tide of public opinion against the war in Vietnam).

Ultimately the speech was less about the conclusion of military operations in Iraq than it was a billboard for American militarism in general ("the steel in our ship of state") and in particular this Democratic administration's embrace of permanent war in Afghanistan ("As we speak, al Qaeda continues to plot against us" -- all four or five dozen of them). The peace movement and the left in general have some tough decisions ahead. It is clear by now that taking sides reflexively with the Democrats in every fight ends with being taken for granted by the party's leaders on every front. There may be times when supporting a pro-military Democrat makes sense -- because he or she has been a reliable ally (in the fight for affordable, universal health care, say, or for equal rights under the law), but it is becoming increasingly difficult to take seriously on economic justice issues those Democrats that support aggressive militarism and runaway DOD spending.

The Democratic Party needs to learn that progressives are serious about change.

Are we?

Peace Games: Part of the way with... oh, never mind.

"You all are combat troops not doing a combat mission, although it looks, smells and feels and hurts a lot like combat." -- Lt. Col. Andy Ulrich, Hawija, Iraq (August 31, 2010).

You may remember a time when Barack Obama was widely admired for a speaking style that was compelling and forthright. Even when you disagreed with him, as I did during his late run for the White House, you admired the clarity, directness and emotional uplift of his addresses. So you had to be disappointed with his uninspiring performance last Tuesday, even as you sympathized with the spot he's in. The chasm between the American self-image as the defender of freedom and justice and its true role as the enforcer of class and property rights around the globe has become so vast that no U.S. politician can be clear and forthright about anything.

The president's immediate problem Tuesday was that he was trying to paint the lipstick of withdrawal on the pig of our continuing occupation of Iraq. However you describe the actions of the 50,000 plus troops and many more thousands of "security contractors" who remain in Iraq, "it looks, smells and feels and hurts a lot like combat."

A mission statement is a form of marketing: it is meaningless without action. The new mission statement for Iraq can't alter reality; as Matthew Yglesias wrote yesterday on American Prospect, "there's simply no redeeming an irredeemable mission." All Obama's version of "mission accomplished" really offered was another opportunity for George Orwell to roll over in his grave.

The most chilling aspect of the speech was its unequivocal embrace of American militarism (the expenditure of "vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home," as he accurately put it). Even as he admitted that "our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work," the president had no concrete proposals to take us from making war to creating jobs.

Somehow in the past two years the Iraq war has mutated in Obama's mind from something illegal and "dumb" to the penultimate stop in an unbroken line of heroic actions "that stretches from Lexington to Gettysburg; from Iwo Jima to Inchon; from Khe Sanh to Kandahar," an "unbroken line" that the president presumably knows includes a barbarous civil war and almost continuous episodes of territorial expansion, genocide, colonial brutality, war crimes and unprovoked aggression. Khe Sanh, for pete's sake (along with the Tet Offensive, it was Khe Sanh that turned the tide of public opinion against the war in Vietnam).

Ultimately the speech was less about the conclusion of military operations in Iraq than it was a billboard for American militarism in general ("the steel in our ship of state") and in particular this Democratic administration's embrace of permanent war in Afghanistan ("As we speak, al Qaeda continues to plot against us" -- all four or five dozen of them). The peace movement and the left in general have some tough decisions ahead. It is clear by now that taking sides reflexively with the Democrats in every fight ends with being taken for granted by the party's leaders on every front. There may be times when supporting a pro-military Democrat makes sense -- because he or she has been a reliable ally (in the fight for affordable, universal health care, say, or for equal rights under the law), but it is becoming increasingly difficult to take seriously on economic justice issues those Democrats that support aggressive militarism and runaway DOD spending.

The Democratic Party needs to learn that progressives are serious about change.

Are we?