tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14616410548781843522024-02-20T08:45:41.033-08:00Fred DrumlevitchProgressive Food for Thought.
Welcome. Are my positions novel? No; they represent basic progressive thought, expressed (at least for the longer pieces) in a fairly formal way. They are the editorials that should be in the mainstream press, but seldom are. They are something to show your aunt, to counter what your right-wing uncle says.
I won't be delivering frequent updates, stream-of-consciousness, or witty denunciations. (Others currently do that very well).
Onward!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-85819615033877711522019-01-04T18:19:00.000-08:002019-01-05T04:41:07.682-08:00The New York Times delivers an appreciation of caviar, and an ode to a purseI haven't updated this blog in years, for a variety of reasons that I won't explain now. But I'll break that "radio silence" with a nomination of the New York Times for Bullshit Reporting of the Month. (Well, OK, I actually mean last month, since it's now January). And no, the nomination is not for reporting about the machinations of the "evil Russkies", nor some other recent absurdity which the newspaper has alerted us to; rather, it's about the latest instance of the NYT as stenographer to neoliberalism, serving up absurdity on something no less important than how the plebes, if they can somehow just swing it, should fill their bellies and transiently experience a (literal) taste of luxury:<br />
<br />
"This Sandwich Is a Luxurious Holiday Gift to You.<br />
Caviar on white toast celebrates excess while honoring the lean times too."<br />
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/magazine/caviar-sandwich-holiday-gift.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/magazine/caviar-sandwich-holiday-gift.html</a><br />
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Yeah, right, that really honors lean times, whatever "honors" now means. And in what universe of inequality? Reading it, I almost puked my rice and beans. The New York Times once again demonstrates, with what has become standard operating procedure for neoliberalism, how any serious considerations of social and economic injustice and inadequate opportunity all too often get replaced by supposedly-inspirational tales of hope and aspirations and now, "honoring".<br />
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Of course, the contorted psycho-economic rationalizations at the New York Times aren't limited to the alimentary tract. Here one other recent example:<br />
<br />
"Why We Cover High Fashion.<br />
The Times’ fashion director and chief fashion critic reflects on what makes haute couture relevant."<br />
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/reader-center/why-we-cover-high-fashion.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/reader-center/why-we-cover-high-fashion.html</a><br />
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Then there was the coverage earlier this year — by the New York Times, as well as other media — of the death of designer Kate Spade, coverage that I'll call an "ode to a purse", because stripped of all pretense, that's what it ultimately was, virtually poetic in its exaltations. The publicized reactions to the death of Spade were so over the top — in a world of so many truly pressing problems — that I feel I must formally comment, albeit a bit late. (I must also add that I almost didn't do so. Normally I wouldn't write about someone's death by suicide, unless perhaps it was that of a war criminal thereby evading justice. Nor do I care about purses. And one other, very specific, consideration also gave me pause: the possibility that devotees of the brand would take offense at what I'd say, fill their Kate Spade purses with rocks, and bludgeon me to death! Ultimately, I've decided I needn't worry — they probably wouldn't want to damage their precious handbags.)<br />
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The odes to Kate Spade flowed ad nauseam, and reading them, one might have thought that she was Jonas Salk, and that what she had developed was the first vaccine for polio. The New York Times took it one step further, collecting reader comments to her obituary and synthesizing them into an article titled "Why Kate Spade Felt Like a Friend".<br />
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/style/kate-spade-death-responses.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/style/kate-spade-death-responses.html</a><br />
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Well, perhaps — if one subscribes to the Facebook-devalued meaning of "friend".<br />
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It included assorted plaintive bleats, lamentations about her death, and laudatory rationalizations about the value of her products — a veritable bouillabaisse of bullshit that the New York Times attempted to infuse with meaning. Consider this soaring bit of what can only be categorized as commercial rhetoric by Times reporters early in the article: "Her work had reached into people’s minds and helped express their sense of self. A bag became more than a bag: it became a symbol of an important moment in a life and part of an individual’s biography."<br />
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Which was followed by testimonials from product owners such as:<br />
<ul>
<li><i> "... I saved from my paycheck for many months to buy this purse" [...] This cocktail bag made me feel special..."</i></li>
<li><i> "... Your gorgeous yet practical art made me feel a little less lonely at work every day.”</i></li>
<li><i>"... they didn’t have any following then, so they would let me save up
my salary for a week or two and then coordinate a time when they would
be at another street fair when I could pick up the bags I was saving up
for. ..."</i></li>
<li><i>"... It was the most money I’d ever spent on a single object in my life,
and something that required saving for weeks on end to do, but I still
remember walking into the office my first day back with it, and having
my boss compliment the bag — I’ve never felt more like an adult in my
life."</i></li>
<li><i>"... You walk in the store and there are neon signs and stuff talking
about being yourself and the best version of yourself. ..."</i> </li>
</ul>
Jesus Christ!! Who writes this stuff? Who says it? Who even thinks it? (The Times' article also included a quote from Chelsea Clinton, but I'll spare readers of this blog the thoughts of someone whose wedding costs three million dollars).<br />
<br />
But those comments do at least allow an observer to know that the truth is at once considerably more complex yet simpler than this astute businesswoman being your "friend". Simply put, Kate Spade made a small fortune manipulating and exploiting the insecurities of women (while, ironically, apparently neglecting to remedy her own). She convinced countless women to spend sums of money they couldn't really afford on a product that they didn't, by any stretch of the imagination, need. Judging from the absurdly adulatory comments, I have to conclude that the Kate Spade brand was simply capitalism at its most elementally manipulative (unfettered capitalism's proponents might say at its finest), that is, the ability to without factual basis engender in consumers the fervent belief that a particular purchase was precious, necessary, even beneficially transformative.<br />
<br />
Of course, the Kate Spade brand was not alone in doing a "head trip" on consumers, such psychological manipulation is more often than not a major component of the modern marketing of countless products as diverse as pickup trucks and perfume — something to remember as the 2018 Pavlovian-Capitalism Christmas shopping season finally terminates.<br />
<br />
I won't say that a purchase can never actually be transformative. A good camera acquired by a budding photographer, quality brushes for a developing painter, a set of fine chisels for someone interested in woodworking, a word processor for an aspiring wordsmith, the proverbial guitar described in that old Foreigner song "Juke Box Hero" — all might be beneficially transformative. These are all tools by which genuine creativity and accomplishment might be unleashed. But by what measure of capitalistic psychological delusion does a consumer subscribe to the belief that the acquisition of a designer fashion accessory, or consumption of a tin of caviar, is significant and transformative? — and that such activity is laudable in a world where untold millions of people are not only dressed in little more than rags, but also go to sleep hungry?<br />
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This might be the place where a dedicated Marxist might launch into a lengthy essay on alienation, its causes and consequences and cures. I'm not yet one, so I won't. All I will say at this point is that it's a good thing that I'm not prone to depression. Were I, the thought that the selling, acquisition, or possession of a purse, or the eating of caviar, could be considered so important as to warrant such laudatory odes would probably leave me completely unable to function, and despairing of the future of mankind.<br />
<br />
But I will ask: When will this world — its people, institutions, nations, political and economic systems — begin to value what ought to be valued? What will it take for such a transformation to occur?<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Text (other than links and quotations) copyright Fred Drumlevitch.</i><br />
<br />
<i><i>Fred Drumlevitch blogs irregularly at </i><a href="http://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #1b91ff;"><i>www.FredDrumlevitch.blogspot.com</i></span></a><br />
<i>He can (sometimes) be reached at FredDrumlevitch12345(at)gmail.com</i> </i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-27246603062783041992014-11-03T07:14:00.000-08:002014-11-03T07:14:19.555-08:00Call Northside 666 — Or why the AZ. GOP now pretends to denounce the Paul Ryan Budget!<br />
Perhaps The Devil made them do it.<br />
<br />
Longtime readers of this blog will know from my generally-leftist positions as well as <a href="http://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.com/2012/12/democratic-party-politicians-chicken.html">a past post</a> that critiqued the Democrats broadly and Democratic Congressman Ron Barber specifically, that I'm no fan of Barber, as he has often voted in ways that are quite unprogressive, and even downright right-wing.<br />
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But the day before Halloween I received in the mail an attack advertisement against Barber from the Arizona Republican Party that is really quite astonishing in what it says, considering its origin.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd1pt4yEy_eKYMqyHvX7uUiUHio8VDt4lyjbXorhiwXSNd0t6Zn302-AhOLDrRAZOssHuhKY1dOndNv9pxbTQrpSM6d6i9W7q6e8cleVlnezZStHLCzWEEczWZ8WWc3WCL33_P9oKVQNE/s1600/S_4001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd1pt4yEy_eKYMqyHvX7uUiUHio8VDt4lyjbXorhiwXSNd0t6Zn302-AhOLDrRAZOssHuhKY1dOndNv9pxbTQrpSM6d6i9W7q6e8cleVlnezZStHLCzWEEczWZ8WWc3WCL33_P9oKVQNE/s1600/S_4001.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHMFVnpW1oJkdHGxFv3obE2KTtEoFIviCcfgopjbOhHMFxTJ3UieruPR-bGSSgqnFlNhVtAJ5ZKsSssWEAcv2Jcc-2k1-HJImaE6c8RxB48lcVQC2iUQwx4-WLqiZfQkuK6aVJlyvDVGQ/s1600/S_3002+-+addr+remov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHMFVnpW1oJkdHGxFv3obE2KTtEoFIviCcfgopjbOhHMFxTJ3UieruPR-bGSSgqnFlNhVtAJ5ZKsSssWEAcv2Jcc-2k1-HJImaE6c8RxB48lcVQC2iUQwx4-WLqiZfQkuK6aVJlyvDVGQ/s1600/S_3002+-+addr+remov.jpg" /></a></div>
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That AZ. Republican Party origin is only mentioned in small print, sideways near the right edge of side 2.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6_CdmTTRq-qVE-VDpc3aESBjaP9bTovkAQ9D4ifkDugSd6zXy7U7CZICb_HhHvpWJhe31KBYfQDuPmEPvcMU4SDFJGqEoWf1O5SHG_yg9WSDS_ZA-eQemROtskDf7qgyD1gSDsaSOKTs/s1600/S_2a+Republ+anti-Barber+adv+-+side2002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6_CdmTTRq-qVE-VDpc3aESBjaP9bTovkAQ9D4ifkDugSd6zXy7U7CZICb_HhHvpWJhe31KBYfQDuPmEPvcMU4SDFJGqEoWf1O5SHG_yg9WSDS_ZA-eQemROtskDf7qgyD1gSDsaSOKTs/s1600/S_2a+Republ+anti-Barber+adv+-+side2002.jpg" height="640" width="193" /></a></div>
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It is <i>not</i> mentioned at the top, where the originating address and postage-paid permit number are to be found.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwqfr0snnUJj_Muqm_1WIZ4TzBX6bzfQzm3KvDdkcSTqfUL1PGID91QGhjms1-4RWxbLXMjdKSBrP81_Kp8qTgQ100BO1FHaSCFjm-vWD9u-taK8gTdHlgj49VknnTiQS3B8QgF0cyPR4/s1600/S_5001+-+addr+remov+-+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwqfr0snnUJj_Muqm_1WIZ4TzBX6bzfQzm3KvDdkcSTqfUL1PGID91QGhjms1-4RWxbLXMjdKSBrP81_Kp8qTgQ100BO1FHaSCFjm-vWD9u-taK8gTdHlgj49VknnTiQS3B8QgF0cyPR4/s1600/S_5001+-+addr+remov+-+b.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
Anyway, they're denouncing him <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span> "What Makes Ron Barber So Scary? His Vote For The Terrifying Ryan Budget" <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span> and then they continue on to list some of the adverse consequences of that Ryan budget! <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKTn5GBQovw0k_l8Mh0KR5adWZM9VNXI4tBOaLMXp5s51wPVJ7_ExYmrKDqdO3lYKa-ckkU2aQzlcPjy_fwzLNJWeOlCfYqfV-ijZ_UUZLvB_NCQeGe_MFEHGahHdB34orcT6-ItwjxJ0/s1600/Republ+anti-Barber+advertisement+-+side+2+-+detail003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKTn5GBQovw0k_l8Mh0KR5adWZM9VNXI4tBOaLMXp5s51wPVJ7_ExYmrKDqdO3lYKa-ckkU2aQzlcPjy_fwzLNJWeOlCfYqfV-ijZ_UUZLvB_NCQeGe_MFEHGahHdB34orcT6-ItwjxJ0/s1600/Republ+anti-Barber+advertisement+-+side+2+-+detail003.jpg" height="321" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
In fact, Barber apparently voted twice <i>against</i> the Ryan budget, but did vote in favor of the Ryan-Murphy budget deal:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/mailer-attempts-to-terrify-democrats-about-barber/article_d2166895-d143-5b54-a57e-e16ed429b0a3.html">http://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/mailer-attempts-to-terrify-democrats-about-barber/article_d2166895-d143-5b54-a57e-e16ed429b0a3.html</a><br />
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That's still highly objectionable to me, to be sure, but not exactly the same thing. And here's the kicker <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span> <i>not</i> as objectionable to me as the Republican Party hypocritically misrepresenting <i>its</i> position on Ryan's (and other) slash-and-burn budget proposals. Paul Ryan has been the darling of the Republican Party, and his budget proposals have received a very high level of support from Party members. Seeing that Republican-originated ad, I could barely believe my eyes at the level of deceit that the Republican Party is apparently willing to engage in. (That is, unless they've had an epiphany, and actually no longer worship at the alter of Ayn Rand and Social Darwinisn, and their slicker modern advocates such as Paul Ryan. But I've not seen any such epiphany reported, nor seen any other indications of Republican moderation. In fact, just the opposite seems to be true). <br />
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Given the data-driven sophistication of modern campaigning, the Arizona Republican Party <i>must</i> have tested this advertisement in focus groups, and found it sufficiently effective to proceed with a mailing.<br />
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So I ask, first, of the Republican Party: Have you no shame, are there no limits to your hypocrisy and deceit, and do you really believe that those behaviors will go unnoticed? (And know this: Even though I consider Barber to be pathetically unprogressive as a Democrat, and the modern neoliberal Democratic Party itself an embarrassment in fights for social justice <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span> and swore that this election cycle I wouldn't vote for the lesser-of-two-evils <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span> the hypocrisy of your mailing <i>will</i> prompt me to vote for Barber on Tuesday). Hypocrisy in politics is nothing less than formalized lying to the electorate about one's position and intentions <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">—</span> and I for one don't like to be lied to, doubly so on matters of great importance.<br />
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And more broadly I ask everyone: Is the American voter really, ultimately, as dumb as modern political campaigning suggests? (Yes, I know some of what P.T. Barnum, H. L. Mencken, Mark Twain, and others have said, but we are now many years later, so the question should be asked anew).<br />
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I'm not sure that I want to know the answers.<br />
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<i>Text Copyright: Fred Drumlevitch<br /><br />Fred Drumlevitch blogs irregularly at </i><a href="http://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #1b91ff;"><i>www.FredDrumlevitch.blogspot.com</i></span></a><br />
<i>He can be reached at FredDrumlevitch12345(at)gmail.com</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-48100595682313381472014-10-11T02:00:00.001-07:002014-10-11T11:42:46.264-07:00Neoliberal Voyeuristic Entertainment, 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Yu2vRhfryJ8thfNAY_tER5nqxZI1T-lGPzDqE86i2sW-ZgowZ0Bj3pe9rDmLVac7wBQXiBcDsvAOnZdGuSKIr6CnIGmvUxUjimKEnjB2RfbDlLGCTlVXdh5rKnahVtGpjgPlQeyYYGQ/s1600/Capture+---+food+plate+-+c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Yu2vRhfryJ8thfNAY_tER5nqxZI1T-lGPzDqE86i2sW-ZgowZ0Bj3pe9rDmLVac7wBQXiBcDsvAOnZdGuSKIr6CnIGmvUxUjimKEnjB2RfbDlLGCTlVXdh5rKnahVtGpjgPlQeyYYGQ/s1600/Capture+---+food+plate+-+c.JPG" height="537" width="640" /></a></div>
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article with video: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/magazine/fine-dining-for-second-graders.html"><em><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/magazine/fine-dining-for-second-graders.html</span></em></a></div>
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video: <a href="http://nyti.ms/1stkqAN"><em><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://nyti.ms/1stkqAN</span></em></a><br />
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I won't begrudge these kids this visit to a fancy restaurant. It may well be highly memorable for them, and as an indirect result, one (or more) of them may grow up to become a great chef — or more fittingly, an activist pursuing things that really matter, such as social and economic justice, that have gotten short shrift in recent years at the hands of both major political parties.<br />
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Some may see this visit as "charming" — and indeed, in the most literal sense, it is. Still, considering that the tasting menu alone runs $220 per person at this restaurant, and that New York State Education Department data for the 2012-13 school year shows that <a href="http://data.nysed.gov/reportcard.php?instid=800000045157&year=2013&createreport=1&freelunch=1">81% of students at this school are eligible for a free lunch</a>, an honest look must also see that this arranged restaurant visit filmed for The New York Times delivers a neoliberal/neoconservative-style minimally-beneficial gesture with the usual out-of-proportion attention and laudation, an aura of voyeuristic entertainment from how these out-of-their-environment children will comport themselves, and perhaps even a hint of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady">"My Fair Lady"</a>, writ small.<br />
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Update:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZhTvq1olJyha-G3xMDh0A7lD6SxtoHMYgWwON0z440eoTP80SsJdPQVimvXlfzPMLhFghaixOuGI7U-f0Nu0DDp0Gn_5PTmSgPFTO3XOs21p2q8I01e8Czc40silc7d49038rOeVtqos/s1600/Capture+---+NYT+children+-+restaurant+-+new+headline.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZhTvq1olJyha-G3xMDh0A7lD6SxtoHMYgWwON0z440eoTP80SsJdPQVimvXlfzPMLhFghaixOuGI7U-f0Nu0DDp0Gn_5PTmSgPFTO3XOs21p2q8I01e8Czc40silc7d49038rOeVtqos/s1600/Capture+---+NYT+children+-+restaurant+-+new+headline.JPG" height="130" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
I note this morning that the NYT apparently changed the article's headline subsequent to my first screen grab, with both the original headline and the change revealing their (perhaps subconscious) pro-"1%" outlook, something that had escaped my notice at the time of my original post.<br />
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Their headline now reads "What Happens When Second Graders Are Treated to a Seven-Course, $220 Tasting Meal". Previously, it read "Can Second-Graders Appreciate A Seven-Course, $220 Tasting Meal?". <br />
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Now, these children are <em>"treated"</em> to the largesse of the upper class. Previously, the focus was on whether they could <em>"appreciate"</em> what they couldn't afford.<br />
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(In both cases, the primary photo run by the NYT was the same, a minority child at the restaurant table. My screen grab shows a food plate, because I made the screen capture as the Times' video ran).<br />
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<em></em><br />
<em>Text Copyright: Fred Drumlevitch<br /><br />Fred Drumlevitch blogs irregularly at </em><a href="http://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.com/"><em><span style="color: #1b91ff;">www.FredDrumlevitch.blogspot.com</span></em></a><br />
<em>He can be reached at FredDrumlevitch12345(at)gmail.com</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-91142809611004198872013-10-11T07:11:00.000-07:002013-10-11T07:11:52.010-07:00Guest Post: Liberals & The Second Amendment by Zee<span style="color: orange;">Introduction by Fred Drumlevitch</span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">I am pleased to have the opportunity to run my first guest post, a fine piece by "Zee" on the subject of the Second Amendment, cross-posted here with permission from both Zee and Sardonicky's Karen Garcia, who served as editor on Zee's post.</span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">That I support it undoubtedly comes as no surprise to Sardonicky regulars given my own past comments about such matters on that forum. As I've previously said there, my own opinion derives in part from my background, which includes rural connections via one side of my ancestry, my current residence in the Southwest, the long-ago murder of someone I knew who was unable to defend herself from an infamous serial killer, and the deaths of many distant relatives in the Holocaust.</span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">But my opinion derives from more than the personal. </span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">First of all, though my politics are unabashedly well to the left of the current so-called center, I've long thought that the often-substantial leftist/liberal opposition to private firearm ownership has been a grave strategic mistake, alienating large numbers of lower-middle-class working Americans — who should, more often than not, identify with progressive economic positions, but who have been peeled away by Republicans based on hot-button social issues, one of the most inflammatory being the prospect of highly-restrictive gun control. The Democrats (and progressives too, whether formally Democratic or not) have often shot themselves in the foot (or a worse place) so to speak, with gun control pronouncements that have fueled such fears. Even when leftist or liberal politicians have made a deliberate show of being at ease with firearms, it has often come off as insincere. And when they have made statements supporting gun rights, those statements have often focused on hunting, not the issues that were more clearly the inspiration for the Second Amendment. </span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Which brings us to perhaps the most important point of my introduction. The 1960s and early '70s resonated with chants of "power to the people!", but matters have gone very much downhill since then. We have witnessed a long-term erosion of fundamental civil liberties that we thought were guaranteed by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and subsequent Amendments. Meanwhile, the power of government has increased exponentially — but in all the wrong ways, in all the wrong places. Serious regulation and criminal penalties for the banksters who brought our economy to its knees, the frackers and industrial waste disposers who inject toxic liquids into the ground, or the corporate bosses who endanger workers? Dream on! (Oh, an occasional prosecution might occur in the most egregious cases, but the deregulation-of-corporate-activity trend is clear). Instead, in recent decades government has come to view <em>the people</em> as threat. National, state, and local governments have all overtly militarized, while at the same time building a massive (at least at the national level) covert surveillance apparatus that vastly exceeds that of the Communist East German Stasi. Fundamental civil liberties such as those supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution's Fourth Amendment have disappeared via secret Presidential directives or ill-conceived legislation. Militarization of the police, marginalization and sometimes even violent dispersal of peaceful protest, a vast expansion of no-knock warrants, huge prison expenditures and a per-capita prison population that is the highest in the world, and ubiquitous governmental spying on the communications, associations, and geolocation data of law-abiding citizens — simply put, we are building an infrastructure for tyranny. </span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">The founding fathers of this nation understood the value — and <em>interdependence</em> — of our fundamental <em>individual rights.</em> Certainly, the entire Bill of Rights is important. But paradoxically — I say "paradoxically", because while people of a rational, moral, progressive bent certainly desire an end to gun violence, and may fervently wish that firearms had no presence in the civil affairs of man — we must consider that given current conditions and the deliberate violation by government of our other supposedly-guaranteed liberties, the widespread distribution of private firearms enabled by the Second Amendment may well be the most important still-operational deterrent to the transformation of our nation into a fully totalitarian one.</span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Lest the reader in some way misinterpret the nature of my points above, I'd like to state most emphatically that I am NOT seeking to advance insurrectionist rationalizations. No one in their right mind should romanticize violent rebellion. My main point is a simple one, that widespread private firearms ownership has a significant deterrence value against the conversion of our expanding current softer-and-gentler "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism">inverted totalitarianism</a>" (<em>sensu</em> Sheldon Wolin) into a more brutal traditional one.</span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">Deterrence. I chose that word carefully, and I mean precisely that. And I believe it to be an accurate assessment of the situation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;">In his guest post, Zee makes a thoughtful, well-documented case for the Second Amendment as an individual right — and it's a case based on arguments and sources that, for the most part, cannot be labeled as right-wing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Liberal Professors and Historians of Constitutional Law </span></span><span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Who Hold </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Surprising Views on the Second Amendment</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: orange; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>guest post by Zee</em></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has long <em><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-rights_drug-law-reform_immigrants-rights/bill-rights-brief-history">generalized</a> </span></em>that the Bill of Rights — or, at least, the first Eight Amendments — <span style="text-decoration: none;">protect </span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">individual</span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"> rights,</span> an assertion with which I agree. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: lime;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Yet the ACLU — along with perhaps most American liberals — <span style="text-decoration: none;">has decided</span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;">to assign a </span><i>special,</i> <em>“collective rights”</em> <a href="http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-rights_drug-law-reform_immigrants-rights/second-amendment">interpretation</a></span><span style="color: #ffe599;"> to the Second Amendment (hereafter, SA), directly contradicting <span style="font-style: normal;">its/their own</span> <i id="yui_3_7_2_1_1376657512900_4605">general</i> assertions. This needless torture of plain language is done, IMHO, strictly for political purposes, and is damaging to the entire Bill of Rights. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dershowitz">Alan Dershowitz</a>, liberal professor of law at Harvard Univ. and an expert on constitutional law and civil rights, has recognized the serious danger lurking behind this interpretation of the SA. From <span style="font-style: normal;">Wikipedia</span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> (and note that all bold emphases that follow are mine):</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><em>“Dershowitz is strongly opposed to firearms ownership and the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span>, and supports repealing the amendment, but he vigorously opposes using the judicial system to read it out of the Constitution because it would open the way for further revisions to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution by the courts. <strong>'Foolish liberals who are trying to read the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA] </span>out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.'</strong>”</em> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">But Dershowitz is by no means the most respected professor or historian of constitutional law who has decided that the SA protects an individual right to own firearms. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Let's start with the person who is probably the biggest “intellectual constitutional gun” on the field, and who has undergone pretty much a complete reversal from his earlier position in support of the “collective model,” liberal Harvard law professor and constitutional law expert, <a href="http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/fact-sheets/1999/contrary-evidence-to-waxman-letter.aspx?s=%22Other%22&st=&ps">Laurence Tribe</a>:</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"> </span></span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">“Perhaps the most accurate conclusion one can reach with any confidence is that the core meaning of the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span> is a populist/republican/federalism one. Its central object is to arm 'We the People' so that ordinary citizens can participate in the collective defense of their community and their state. But it does so not through directly protecting a right on the part of the states or other collectivities, assertable by them against the federal government, to arm the populace as they see fit. Rather, the amendment achieves its central purpose by assuring that the federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification consistent with the authority of the states to organize their own militias. <b>That assurance in turn is provided through recognizing a right (admittedly of uncertain scope) on the part of individuals to possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes </b>— not a right to hunt for game, quite clearly, and certainly not a right to employ firearms to commit aggressive acts against other persons — <b>a right that directly limits action by Congress or the Executive Branch and may well, in addition, be among the privileges or immunities of United States citizens protected by sec. 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment against state or local government action.</b>” -- Laurence H. Tribe, “American Constitutional Law (3rd edition),” 901-02 n.221, Foundation Press, 2000. </span></span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">What a complete reversal from his position on the SA in the two earlier editions of his highly-respected textbook!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Note that Tribe's year-2000 textbook predates the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) cases <i>Heller v. DC</i> and <i>McDonald v. Chicago</i>, of which the latter's decision “incorporated” the SA under the Fourteenth Amendment. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Tribe acknowledged his epiphany<span style="text-decoration: none;"> i</span>n <span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/us/06firearms.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">a 2007 NYT article</a></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"> regarding an appeals court case, <i>Parker v. DC</i>, which was later consolidated into <i>Heller v. DC </i>when it arrived at SCOTUS:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><em>“Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, said he had come to believe that the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span> protected an individual right. <b>'My conclusion came as something of a surprise to me,</b><span style="text-decoration: none;"><b> and an unwelcome surprise,</b></span>' Professor Tribe said. 'I have always supported as a matter of policy very comprehensive gun control.'”</em> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Earlier, in <a href="http://www.saf.org/TribeUSA.html">a 1999 USA Today article</a> </span><span style="color: #ffe599;">that followed closely on the heels of the release of his 3<sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;">rd</span></sup> edition, Tribe said:</span></span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">“I've gotten an avalanche of angry mail from <b>apparent liberals</b> who said, 'How could you?...But as someone who takes the Constitution seriously, I thought I had a responsibility to see what the <span style="font-style: normal;"><b>[SA]</b></span><b> says, </b>and how it fits.”</span></span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"> (So, after two editions of his textbook, he finally gets around to seeing what the SA <i>really</i> says? Well, better late than never.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">And now that SCOTUS has incorporated the SA just as Prof. Tribe thought might happen, that protection — <i>“admittedly of uncertain scope” </i>— extends right down to the individual.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Another respected constitutional law professor, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/books/review/americas-unwritten-constitution-by-akhil-reed-amar.html?pagewanted=all&_r=">Akhil Reed Amar</a></span></span><span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> (Yale Univ.) has reached the same conclusion, both in his book, <i>The Bill of Rights</i>, and in several related newspaper, magazine and webzine articles. He has been described as a “liberal” in a NYT review of his most recent book. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">From <i>The Bill of Rights</i>: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">“<em>What's more, the 'militia,' as used in the amendment and in clause 16 <span style="font-style: normal;">[of Article I, Sec. 8 of the U.S. Constitution] </span>had a very different meaning two hundred years ago than in ordinary conversation today. <b>Nowadays, it is quite common to speak loosely of the National Guard as the 'state militia,' but two hundred years ago, any band of paid, semiprofessional, part-time volunteers, like today's guard, would have been called a 'select corps' or 'select militia' — and viewed in many quarters as little better than a standing army. </b>In 1789, when used without any qualifying adjective, 'the militia' referred to all citizens capable of bearing arms. The seeming tension between the dependent and the main clauses of the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA] </span>thus evaporates on closer inspection — the 'militia' is identical to 'the people' in the core sense described above. Indeed, the version of the amendment that initially passed in the House, only to be stylistically shortened in the Senate, explicitly defined the militia as 'composed of the body of the People.' This is clearly the sense in which 'the militia' is used in clause 16 and throughout 'The Federalist,' in keeping with standard usage confirmed by contemporaneous dictionaries, legal and otherwise. As Tenche Coxe wrote in a 1788 Pennsylvania essay, 'Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves?'”</em> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">Amar goes on to spike the notion that either the term “well-regulated” in the SA, or Article I, Sec. 8, clause 16 of the U.S. Constitution somehow trumps an individual right:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><em>“First, it appears that the adjective 'well-regulated' did not imply broad state authority to disarm the general militia; indeed, its use in various state constitutional antecedents of the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span> suggests just the opposite is true. Second, and connected, the notion that congressional power in clause 16 to 'organiz<span style="font-style: normal;">[e]</span>' and 'disciplin<span style="font-style: normal;">[e]</span>' the general militia logically implied congressional power to disarm the militia entirely is the very heresy that the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span> was designed to deny. How, then, can we use the amendment's language to embrace the same heresy vis-a-vis state regulations? What's more, as shall become evident in Part Two <span style="font-style: normal;">[of Amar's book]</span>, the right to keep and bear arms was plainly viewed by the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment as a 'privilege of national citizenship' that henceforth would apply, and perhaps should always have applied, against states.”</em> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">It seems clear that Prof. Amar has come to the same conclusion as Prof. Tribe, again, well before <i>Heller v. DC.</i> And he similarly anticipated the extension of that protection right down to the <i>individual</i> based on the Fourteenth Amendment, which we now know has happened. So again, here's another highly respected, liberal constitutional scholar who has determined that the SA protects an individual right to own firearms.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">However, Amar's position on the SA and “reasonable” gun control is also informed by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, as well as by simply examining customary firearms ownership, usage and laws in America since colonial days. From <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/28/opinion/well-regulated-militias-and-more.html">an article</a> co-authored with Tribe, </span></span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">“The fact is, almost none of the proposed state or Federal weapons regulations appears to come close to offending the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA's]</span> core right to self-protection. [Excluding, of course, the near-absolute bans of DC and the City of Chicago, both of which SCOTUS found to be unconstitutional!] The right to bear arms is certainly subject to reasonable regulation in the interest of public safety.”</span></span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">I might argue at length with Profs. Tribe and Amar as to what is “reasonable gun control,” but I don't deny their basic premise: <i>“Laws that ban certain types of weapons, that require safety devices on others, and that otherwise impose strict controls on guns, can pass Constitutional scrutiny.” </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another liberal law professor — <i>not </i><span style="font-style: normal;">of constitutional law </span>— who has been quoted favorably in this forum on other matters, <a href="http://jonathanturley.org/2007/10/04/a-liberals-lament-the-nra-might-be-right-after-all/">Jonathan Turley</a>,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> published in <u>USA Today</u><span style="text-decoration: none;"> i</span>n 2007 an article entitled <i>A Liberal's Lament: The NRA Might Be Right After All.</i></span></span></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">“Principle is a terrible thing, because it demands not what is convenient but what is right. <b>It is hard to read the </b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>[SA]</b></span> and not honestly conclude that the Framers intended gun ownership to be an individual right. It is true that the amendment begins with a reference to militias...Accordingly, it is argued, this amendment protects the right of the militia to bear arms, not the individual.”</span></span></em></blockquote>
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">“Yet, if true, the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span> would be effectively declared a defunct provision. The National Guard is not a true militia in the sense of the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span> and, since the District <span style="font-style: normal;">[of Columbia]</span> and others believe governments can ban guns entirely, the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA] </span>would be read out of existence”</span></span></em></blockquote>
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<em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">“<strong>More important, the mere reference to a purpose of the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span></strong> does not alter the fact than an individual right is created. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is stated in the same way as the right to free speech or free press...” </span></span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><em>“Considering the Framers and their own traditions of hunting and self-defense, it is clear that they would have viewed such ownership as an individual right, consistent with the plain meaning of the amendment</em>.<em>”</em></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><em>“None of this is easy for someone raised to believe that the <span style="font-style: normal;">[SA]</span> was the dividing line between the enlightenment and the dark ages of American culture. Yet, <b>it is time to honestly reconsider this amendment and admit that...here's the really hard part...the NRA may have been right.</b> This does not mean that Charlton Heston is the new Rosa Parks or that no restrictions can be placed on gun ownership. But it does appear that gun ownership was made a protected right by the Framers, and while we might not celebrate it, it is time that we recognize it.”</em> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1280/article_detail.asp">Leonard W. Levy</a> was not a professor of law, but he <i>was</i> a respected historian regarding the Bill of Rights. <span style="text-decoration: none;">He </span>won<span style="text-decoration: none;"> t</span>he 1968 Pulitzer Prize for History with his book, “Origins of the Fifth Amendment.” In an obituary, he was described as a “New Deal liberal.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">From his book, <i>Origins of the Bill of Rights</i>:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">“<em><b>Believing that the </b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>[SA]</b></span><b>does not authorize an individual's right to keep and bear arms is wrong. The right to bear arms is an individual right. </b>The military connotation of bearing arms does not necessarily determine the meaning of a right to bear arms. If all it meant was the right to be a soldier or serve in the military, whether in the militia or the army, it would hardly be a cherished right and would never have reached constitutional status...”</em></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;"><em>“The right to bear arms is by no means unlimited. Public regulation may specify the kinds of weapons that are lawful and the conditions under which those weapons may be kept; but no regulation may subvert the right itself. The very language of the amendment is evidence that the right is a personal one, altogether separate from the maintenance of a militia. <b>Militias were possible only because the people were armed and possessed the right to be armed. The right does not depend on whether militias exist.</b>”</em> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">So there you have it. Five highly respected, liberal professors — three, of constitutional law, the fourth a professor of law, and the fifth a distinguished historian of the Bill of Rights — have reached the same conclusion as have I and many others, <i>viz.,</i> that the SA protects an<i> individual right </i>to own guns for personal protection independent of “enrollment” in any militia; a right that may neither be <i>completely</i> <i>prohibited</i>, nor <i>made impossible to exercise — </i>by, for example, complete bans on firearms ownership, imposition of exorbitant taxes on firearms and ammunition, expensive liability insurance requirements, or burdensome “fees” for background checks, <i>etc. </i>— at <i>any</i> level of government. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffe599;">This interpretation also brings the <i>entire</i> Bill of Rights into conformance with the ACLU's general assertion that it does indeed protect<i> individual rights</i>. Which is as it should be.</span> </span> </div>
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<span style="color: lime;"><em>introduction copyright Fred Drumlevitch</em></span></div>
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<span style="color: lime;"><em>guest post copyright by its author</em></span></div>
<span style="color: lime;"></span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-40228563103819968132013-09-10T16:26:00.000-07:002013-09-10T16:59:36.419-07:00Wargasms On The Potomac: U.S. Weapons Good, Syrian Weapons Bad<span style="color: orange;"><strong>by Fred Drumlevitch</strong></span><br />
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The sound of war drums rose over the Potomac. As did also certain other items. The tumescent political “leadership” and their rent boys of the mainstream media alternated between stroking each other to the point of wargasm and oh-so-seriously rationalizing to the public why they must let loose their dogs of war. Fortunately, many ordinary Americans have begun to realize just how tired <em>they themselves</em> are of getting screwed by the imperial overreach of what is supposed to be <em>their</em> government. Ostensibly elected by public vote, supposedly beholden to the people and meant to serve them, “our” government has over the past 30+ years transformed into one dedicated to delivering benefits to the rich, the banks, the corporations, and the military-industrial-surveillance-security complex — and that perpetuates its malfeasance through lies, manipulation, the marginalization and repression of protest, and the distraction of never-ending war.<br />
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Never-ending war? Well, nearly so. And this refers to far more than the duration of our most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or our ongoing assassinations via drones in several sovereign foreign nations including Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Time dulls the memory, especially for those who weren’t active participants, but a recent <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-31/national/41627991_1_u-s-marine-u-s-embassy-u-n-security-council">Associated Press story</a> summarized major U.S. military actions over the past three decades: Beirut (1982-83), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991), Somalia (1992), Iraq (1993), Somalia (1993), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1994-96), Iraq (1996), Sudan and Afghanistan (1998), Iraq (1998), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), and Osama bin Laden (2011). <br />
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It doesn’t end there. The United States probably maintains at least 500 military bases in at least 100 foreign countries, and it is likely that actual numbers are considerably higher. (The exact numbers are hard to know for a variety of reasons including deliberate obfuscation by the U.S. government. See <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/47998/737_u.s._military_bases_%3D_global_empire">here</a>, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175338/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121213122226666895.html">here</a>, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175721/">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/">here</a>). We spend more on our military than the next highest-spending fifteen to twenty nations <em>combined</em>. Is our country destined to forever undertake foreign military actions with the compulsion of a salmon swimming upstream to spawn? What will our unending pursuit of worldwide military domination beget? <br />
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And I haven’t even yet referenced our covert operations, which, since WWII, have been instrumental in the overthrow of several legitimate foreign governments (and significantly subverted many more). The overthrows of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadegh">Mohammed Mossadegh</a> (Iran, 1953), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_%C3%81rbenz">Jacobo Árbenz</a> (Guatemala, 1954), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba">Patrice Lumumba</a> (Congo, 1961), and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende">Salvador Allende</a> (Chile, 1973), stand as but the most prominent examples in a long and sordid history of covert U.S. actions.<br />
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The covert operations and smaller military interventions may seem (by our imperial-capitalist metrics) to be fabulously successful, but are in fact profoundly dangerous, for they set the stage for later blowback, plus overreach elsewhere and spectacular failures. Our frequent foreign interventions, whether large or small, overtly military or instead covert, are part of a highly-dangerous feedback system of U.S. action and arrogance, a runaway self-righteousness that puts our entire foundational national purpose at profound risk. Do we exist to be the world’s policeman? The preamble to the United States Constitution does state that it was established "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity", but these refer to <em>this</em> nation. Nowhere in our founding national documents do I recall any mention of world policeman.<br />
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As important as are the issues of imperial overreach, media failure, and perversion of the purposes of a democratic republic, they and their psychological underpinnings have been thoroughly examined countless times, and I will not further pursue them here (beyond including these links to recent posts by <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175744/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_drama_from_obama/">Andrew Bacevich</a>, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/05-0">Ira Chernus</a>, and <a href="http://georgelakoff.com/2013/09/06/obama-reframes-syria-metaphor-and-war-revisited/">George Lakoff</a>). Instead, my focus in what follows will be on something else: a brief look at U.S. governmental hypocrisy in its current characterization of chemical weapons as so abhorrent as to necessitate U.S. military action in Syria.<br />
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To understand the scope of this hypocrisy, we might examine any of a wide variety of weapon systems that have been deployed, used, and, in many cases, provided to others by the United States: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm">napalm</a> and other <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incendiary_device">incendiaries</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange">Agent Orange</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_munition">cluster munitions</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_mine">land mines</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon">thermobaric bombs</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon">nuclear weapons</a>. President Obama, Secretary Kerry, Senator McCain, and all others so eager to militarily strike Syria — surely you are aware of the massive death and suffering these American weapons have inflicted on civilian populations. Please spare us your outraged denunciations of Bashar al-Assad and your insistence that we must act — unless you are also willing to denounce and adequately hold accountable American soldiers (and allies) who have caused the deaths of foreign civilians using the aforementioned weapons. Ah… I thought not.<br />
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(The United States is not even willing to properly hold accountable those soldiers who have murdered with more conventional weapons; while Major Nidal Malik Hasan was quite deservedly sentenced to death for his murder of thirteen U.S. soldiers at Fort Hood, Army staff sergeant <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bales">Robert Bales</a> was allowed to plead guilty and thereby escape the death penalty for his brutal murder of sixteen Afghan civilians. And most American war criminals are never properly punished. For example, in 2012 a U.S. military court would release with absolutely no prison time the leader of a U.S. Marine squad that in 2005 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings">massacred 24 civilian men, women, and children in Haditha, Iraq</a> — a war crime within the even broader war crime of a war of choice by the U.S. against a country that posed no threat to us.)<br />
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Let’s consider napalm and other incendiary weapons. (Open in front of me is the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Napalm-American-Biography-Robert-Neer/dp/0674073010/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378700978&sr=1-1&keywords=neer+napalm">Napalm: An American Biography</a>, by Robert M. Neer, published in 2013 by Harvard University Press. Extensive in scope and supporting references, it should be required reading for those wishing to learn how weapons come to be developed, used — and misused. It and Wikipedia are my main sources for what follows).<br />
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British RAF bombers using magnesium weapons incinerated eight square miles of Hamburg in July 1943; the death toll from the Hamburg attack was an estimated 44,600 persons. A German doctor wrote “Bodies were frequently found lying in a thick, greasy black mass, which was without doubt melted fat tissue… All were shrunken so that clothes appeared to be too large.” (Neer, p.62-63). The RAF aided by the United States Army Air Forces incinerated fifteen square miles of Dresden in four raids in mid-February 1945, with a death toll estimated at around 25,000 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II">Wikipedia</a>). <br />
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These attacks would be dwarfed by the aggregate of later U.S. incendiary attacks on Japanese cities. The night of March 9-10, 1945, U.S. Air Force general <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay">Curtis LeMay</a> dispatched over 300 B-29s to wage an incendiary attack on Tokyo using napalm, magnesium, and white phosphorus, creating a firestorm, incinerating 16 square miles of the city, and producing approximately 100,000 deaths and tens of thousands of injured. But that was just the beginning. “After Tokyo, American bombers attacked Japan’s largest cities with napalm for ten days, […] until supplies ran out on March 19, 1945. After a three week pause to restock, incendiary bombardments started again on April 13, and continued again until the end of the war. […] During the five months until the end of the war over 33 million pounds of napalm in about 13 million M-69 bombs, along with napalm in other bombshells, explosives, and other incendiaries, laid waste to 106 square miles in Japan’s six largest cities, and destroyed or damaged 169 square miles in sixty of its largest metropolises” (Neer, p.83-84).<br />
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Of course, the above statistics do not convey any of the specifics of the human suffering experienced. “‘In the dense smoke, where the wind was so hot it seared the lungs, people struggled, then burst into flames where they stood’. … Jammed bridges became funeral pyres. Civil guard commander Kinosuke Wakabayashi and his daughter, shielded by a concrete warehouse, saw thousands ‘streaming towards the Sumida River bridges, and leaping into the river, clothes and even their bodies aflame. Soon both banks of the river were clogged with bodies. The bridges were so hot that anyone who touched a bit of iron or steel was seared like bacon on a grill.’ On the Kototoi Bridge, another recalled, ‘The steel grew white-hot and people who touched the metal were seared like steaks on a barbeque’. ‘[I]n some of the smaller canals the water was actually boiling from the intense heat’ recounted a U.S. government after-action report. Pools and ponds vaporized.” (Neer, p.79). “‘The updrafts brought with them a sickening odor, an odor that I will never be able to get completely out of my nostrils — the smell of roasting human flesh. I later learned that some pilots and crewmen gagged and vomited in reaction to this stench, and that a few had passed out,’ [ace pilot Robert] Morgan wrote.” (Neer, p.81). … “Dr. Shigenori Kubota […] described his travels in freezing temperatures through the devastated area just before dawn on March 10: ‘There was no one to rescue. If you touched one of the roasted bodies, the flesh would crumble in your hand. Humanity was reduced to its chemical properties, turned into carbon.’” (Neer, p.82).<br />
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg/640px-Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg/640px-Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg" /></a><span style="color: red;">"Charred remains of Japanese civilians after the firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March 1945"</span> <span style="color: red;">(</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo">Wikipedia</a><span style="color: red;">/</span><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg">Wikimedia</a><span style="color: red;">)</span></div>
<span style="color: red;">photographer: <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_Ishikawa">Kōyō Ishikawa</a></span> 1904-1989</span><br />
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Tokyo_kushu_1945-2.jpg/640px-Tokyo_kushu_1945-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Tokyo_kushu_1945-2.jpg/640px-Tokyo_kushu_1945-2.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: red;"></span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Charred bodies of woman and child, firebombing of Tokyo</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">photo taken March 10, 1945 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo">Wikipedia</a>/<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-2.jpg">Wikimedia</a>)</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">photographer: <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_Ishikawa">Kōyō Ishikawa</a></span> 1904-1989</span><br />
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Such barbarism was not unique to World War II. I could continue with similar details from U.S. use of incendiary weapons and strategic bombing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Bombing_North_Korea">in Korea</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War">Vietnam</a>. I could describe the birth defect and cancer effects <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Health_effects">on the Vietnamese</a> (and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Effects_on_U.S._veterans">on U.S. veterans</a>) produced by Agent Orange, the contamination of which during manufacture by a[n at that time unidentified] toxic substance was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#Chemical_description_and_toxicology">known to the U.S. government as early as 1952</a>, long prior to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. I could document the continuing deaths and maimings (including of <em>children</em>) produced by anti-personnel land mines — <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty">an international treaty on which</a> the U.S. has refused to sign. But I believe that I have made my point. War is indeed hell, and any attempt to characterize chemical weapons as somehow worse than other weapons that have been widely used by the United States is not just disingenuous, it is a bald-faced lie, and cannot be used to justify military strikes. It is in fact just one of many bald-faced lies that have come to dominate the U.S. political stage and been used to manipulate us during the past several decades. Those lies must end. The manipulations must end.<br />
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We, the people of the United States, do hereby declare that we will no longer offer blood and treasure to the gods of war. We will not replenish the coffers of the military-industrial complex. We will not sacrifice our own lives — nor will we take the lives of others — for the delusions of small men in high places. We ourselves hold no delusions about our ability to dominate the world, and we have no desire to do so. We will not be bamboozled into believing that our security is dependent on us acting militarily every two or three years in some far-off land. We will not accept being spied upon by our government, nor will we tolerate governmental repression of our dissent. We are reclaiming our country, and rededicating it to the purposes envisioned by its founding fathers. We <em>will</em> fight, but it will be domestically, for our Constitutional rights, opportunity for all, and social and economic justice. To the current politicians of this land we say: Understand that, accommodate yourselves to that, or vacate your offices, for you will be irrelevant to the future.<br />
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<em>Text Copyright: Fred Drumlevitch<br /><em></em><br /><em>Fred Drumlevitch blogs irregularly at <a href="http://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.com/">www.FredDrumlevitch.blogspot.com</a></em><br /><em>He can be reached at FredDrumlevitch12345(at)gmail.com</em></em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-85528877265773144982013-05-13T07:34:00.000-07:002013-05-13T07:34:39.110-07:00Information Flow and Action in Progressive Politics. 2013 and Beyond, What Is To Be Done?<strong><span style="color: orange;">by Fred Drumlevitch</span></strong><br />
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Why do we blog? Do progressive political bloggers and the more structured progressive information sources matter, in the context of contemporary mainstream media’s massive footprint? What is the nature of mainstream media’s betrayal of democracy? How are mathematical models of infection relevant to dissent? Most important, what is to be done to advance progressivism? Those seemingly diverse questions are in fact intimately related, and can provide useful guidance as we strive to reverse the decades-long deterioration of the national social compact.<br />
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<br /><em>Bloggers: Pissed Is Prologue</em></h3>
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It is apparent that serious political bloggers (and online commenters, as well) do so for a wide variety of reasons that may include the honing of one’s thoughts that hopefully results from formally presenting them, the desire for full control over their exposition, and the benefits of dialogue with like-minded individuals and rational opponents who may be quite dispersed geographically. Some old-fashioned idealism, a dash of ego, a hogshead of outrage, and a visceral appreciation for that old A. J. Liebling quip that “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” might also be involved! We believe that we have an inalienable right to make our voices heard with regard to the governance of this country, and that right includes frequent and detailed expression if desired, not simply a largely co-optive vote every few years. We hope, in bits and bytes, for at least a modicum of influence with regard to the future of the nation.<br />
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Truth be told, though, the average independent blogger/commenter’s audience is minuscule, and even those that are most widely read reach an audience orders of magnitude smaller than that influenced by mass media’s “news” coverage and pundits. Worse yet, we are often “preaching to the choir”, addressing a self-selected group of generally similar-thinking people; much the same might be said about the more traditional progressive sources. In the parlance of an infectious disease political analogy, our contact rate is low, and mostly with those already “infected” with our political opinions — and that will not do much to further the spread of progressivism.<br />
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<em>An aside:</em> While the analogy of dissent in general and progressivism in particular as a communicable infection may initially be a bit off-putting, it ultimately should not be. A related metaphor is already in common use, the rapid spread of information being labeled “viral”. If an “infection”, progressivism is a beneficial one that immunizes people against the pustulant selfishness currently widespread among American right-wingers, much as cowpox protects against smallpox. If progressivism is an infection, I’m thankful to be infected. I assert that such a model is analytically useful even when the spread is not rapid, and has not — yet — produced an “epidemic” of rebellion.<br />
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<br /><em>Mass Media: Memory Holes and Burial Mounds</em></h3>
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Moving on, well, what about the mainstream media as vector for progressivism? Here, we encounter other issues relevant to the control of information flow, and therefore to the control of dissent: unwarranted trust, and the low signal-to-noise ratio and high structural biases of modern Western mass media.<br />
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Despite the wide <em>availability</em> of alternative information sources in the Western democracies, the <em>relative influence</em> of accurate, bona fide alternative sources, measured across the still-important <em>broad political middle</em> of the population, may not be that much greater here than under authoritarian regimes. This occurs because some of the alternatives are not what they seem, and because the mainstream media in the democracies, inadequate though it may be, retains enough credibility with the bulk of the populace to maintain its dominance despite the many alternatives available.<br />
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That dominance comes at great cost to our society. Certainly, it is obvious to the thoughtful citizen that adequate coverage by the mass media of important problems and progressive solutions does not occur; the scant reporting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget proposals and of <a href="http://www.sanders.senate.gov/">Senator Bernie Sanders</a>’ trenchant analyses — even by the New York Times, the supposed U.S. “newspaper of record” — stand as clear examples. Even Paul Krugman, avowed liberal columnist for that paper, admitted <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/the-progressive-budget-alternative/">on April 22, 2011 in his NYT “The Conscience of a Liberal” blog</a> to inadequate coverage of the Progressive Caucus “<a href="http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70">People’s Budget</a>”; he did mention it favorably <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/opinion/25krugman.html">two days later in his regular column</a> at the paper, but never again referred to it by name within the Times. Nancy Folbre, of the University of Massachusetts, <a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/how-the-budget-war-was-framed/">writing July 18, 2011 in the NYT “Economix” blog</a> also noted the poor coverage of it by the Times, and elsewhere.<br />
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More recent coverage remains similarly deficient. The Progressive Caucus’ subsequent budget proposal, the fiscal year 2013 “<a href="http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/Executive%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf">Budget for All</a>”, was released March 26, 2012. According to my own searches, done May 12, 2013 using LexisNexis, Google, and site-specific search tools, <a href="http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/CPC%20Budget%20One-Pager%20FINAL.pdf">this moderately-progressive budget alternative</a> has in the more than a year since its release received no formal news coverage or analysis whatsoever from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, or USA Today, all “top-ten” newspapers based on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_States_by_circulation">U.S. circulation data</a>. Upon release, it was superficially looked at in the Washington Post’s “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/democrats-release-budget-to-compete-with-ryan-plan/2012/03/26/gIQACQQ3cS_blog.html">2Chambers</a>” blog of March 26, 2012. As <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/democrats-release-budget-to-compete-with-ryan-plan/2012/03/26/gIQACQQ3cS_comment.html?commentID=washingtonpost.com/ECHO/item/1333315404-271-278">commenter “kwilson4” succinctly noted</a> there on April 1, 2012: “Ryan's budget got news stories in this paper. This budget is mentioned in a blog. Hardly balanced coverage. What gives?” There would be neither answer nor improved coverage from the Post. The only other (and very brief) mention of the “Budget for All” in that paper was in their “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/21/liberal-democrats-want-to-fix-social-security-by-raising-taxes/">Wonkblog</a>” of November 21, 2012. The CPC’s later and more limited “<a href="http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/deal-for-all/">Deal for All</a>”, House Resolution 733, was the subject of an <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://content.usatoday.com/topics/photo/People/Athletes/NFL/Keith%2BEllison/0gm57TqajRaqN/1&sa=U&ei=knKQUb_kM-TAiwLx34GgCA&ved=0CBwQFjAB&usg=AFQjCNHgjSXrSZZdpa-fk9szRCpACjLouQ">August 1, 2012 photo and caption</a>, and an <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/16/keith-ellison-fiscal-cliff-tax-cuts-jobs/1707157/">op-ed piece by Congressman Keith Ellison</a> on November 18, 2012, both in USA Today (and neither indexed by LexisNexis). An <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-fixing-the-economy-a-new-focus-for-congress/2012/12/31/f4e206ae-5364-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html">online column by Katrina vanden Heuvel</a> at the Washington Post on December 31, 2012 made passing reference to that “Deal for All”. And <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/02/05/memo-to-congress-to-bring-down-the-deficit-focus-on-jobs/">Greg Sargent penned a WaPo opinion column</a> February 5, 2013 on the CPC’s more recent “The Balancing Act” proposal, H.R. 505 (<a href="http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/balancing-act/">summary</a>, <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr505ih/pdf/BILLS-113hr505ih.pdf">full bill</a>). Then, on March 14, 2013, the CPC’s just-released FY2014 “<a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/back-to-work-budget-analysis-congressional-progressive/">Back to Work</a>” budget was referred to briefly by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/opinion/krugman-after-the-flimflam.html">Paul Krugman in his NYT column</a> and in more detail by <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/14/do-congressional-liberals-have-the-only-serious-budget-in-washington/">Jamelle Bouie</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/14/house-progressives-have-the-best-answer-to-paul-ryan/">Ezra Klein</a> in two blogs at the Washington Post — with Klein beginning favorably, but pivoting to deride it as a “fantasyland” … “analogue to Ryan’s budget”. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/opinion/senate-democrats-finally-take-a-stand.html">New York Times editorial board</a> gave this latest CPC budget a one-sentence derogatory reference in a March 15, 2013 editorial, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/opinion/brooks-the-progressive-shift.html?hpw">columnist David Brooks</a> devoted his March 18 NYT opinion column to lambasting it, and the Times referred to it in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/us/politics/senate-approves-spending-house-debates-next-budget.html">a March 20 article</a> focused on House of Representatives budgetary polemics — all three assiduously avoiding mention of the CPC budget’s actual name. A Washington Post opinion column <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-progressives-budget-merits-a-closer-look/2013/03/19/7b1a0f20-8d83-11e2-b63f-f53fb9f2fcb4_story.html">by Katrina vanden Heuvel on March 19</a> did a good job of advocating for it, while the Post’s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/19/the-morning-plum-so-whos-winning-the-sequester-fight/">Plum Line blog of March 19</a> references that vanden Heuvel column and adds one sentence of comment. And an article <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-pn-house-defeats-alternative-budgets-20130320,0,5260088.story">in the Los Angeles Times on March 20</a> (not indexed by LexisNexis) gave it one sentence of superficial description after its defeat in the House. <em>These citations constitute the full extent of more than thirteen and a half months “coverage” by the above-referenced “journalistic” enterprises of all CPC budget proposals released since March 26, 2012.</em> In contrast, a Lexis-Nexis search for co-occurrences of “budget” and (“Paul Ryan” or “Paul D. Ryan”) at those same four publications during the same March 26, 2012 – May 12, 2013 period produces a total of 1285 hits. And the Obama budget released April 10, 2013, which violates basic principles of progressivism (and morality), has already received extensive favorable coverage from those newspapers. Lastly, let us not forget the 2012 presidential election, where Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, and all other third-party candidates were barred from the televised debates, and virtually ignored by the mainstream media not only during the campaign but even in defeat. My November 7 examination of the web sites for the New York Times, the PBS NewsHour, and the news divisions of NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX, found <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/election-results-2012/president.shtml?tag=breakingnews">national vote totals for the third-party presidential candidates only at CBS News</a>. <br />
<br />
The conclusion is inescapable: For the majority of the populace that does not take the initiative to actively seek out reputable alternative information sources, mainstream media’s minimal to non-existent coverage of progressive thought effectively equates to suppression. In our “kinder-and-gentler” megacorporation-run, advertising-sponsored information tyranny, no “ministry of information” directives prohibit certain coverage. No reporters are brutally “disappeared”. But the effect of the invisible hand is much the same.<br />
<br />
In fact, mass media’s poor coverage of politics and other issues of great importance is, in some ways, <em>worse</em> than nothing. The trivial is abundant, and the most absurd far-right claptrap is presented with a frequency and deference unwarranted by any objective standard — while actually being fully explainable. Much of it may be understood as part deliberate noise component that obscures the signal of rational and moral solutions, part strongly-repeated Social-Darwinistic/ pro-business/ authoritarian/ militaristic/ jingoistic/ xenophobic content that seeks to phase-lock the populace to its reactionary paradigms. In 1956, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev ranted at the West “We will bury you”. He did not succeed, but the mainstream media of our modern so-called democracies has. That mainstream media, in its service to corporate, plutocratic, military, and governmental interests, has adopted a highly effective interment strategy with regard to progressive solutions to national problems, burying them under a never-ending flow of distracting rubbish and manipulative falsehoods. (For an in-depth look at this process, see the classic “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368434957&sr=8-1&keywords=manufacturing+consent">Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media</a>”, 2002 updated edition, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky). Progressivism has been thoroughly marginalized via domination, distraction, dilution, and distortion, the four horsemen of a disinformation apocalypse. Returning to the communicable infection analogy, both the absolute amount and relative strength of the infectious progressivist agent have been much reduced, thus greatly reducing the rate of transmission.<br />
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Under those conditions, waiting for progressive thought to passively spread to the majority of the American people is as futile as waiting for Reagan-inspired economic trickle-down to occur. The megacorporate mainstream media will not voluntarily assist — indeed, as I have argued, it is often an impediment — though profit considerations and fear of audience desertion may push them to anemically follow once a trend becomes too big to ignore. And the universe of progressive bloggers, websites, and traditional alternative press, alone or together, cannot solve the problem. In the United States, these elements have managed to communicate to a significant minority of the populace the ideological foundations for progressive opposition, plus important news and encouragement, but they have not remade the political landscape. <br />
<h3>
<br /><em>What Is To Be Done: Overall Strategy</em></h3>
<br />
A rational analysis suggests that a multi-pronged strategy is necessary, the first part of which is that progressivism should be <em>actively</em> communicated to <em>all</em> potentially receptive citizens. And one size does <em>not</em> fit all. We need a wide spectrum of information dissemination and involvement, ranging from modern electronic methods to old-fashioned leafleting and broadsides, picketing, marches, direct co-worker and neighbor engagement, broader organization, satire, and yes, even the theatrical absurdity, carnival-barkery of the late-1960s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_International_Party">Yippie movement</a>. We have begun to see those things episodically, and hopefully they will grow; in any season, the nation would certainly benefit from an “American Spring” rebuttal to the authorities’ anti-democratic efforts to quash visible protest.<br />
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But for the progressive message to be considered <em>relevant</em> by the broader target audience, it must be coupled with substantial progressive <em>actions</em> — serious electoral challenges by authentically-progressive candidates, unrelenting pressure by progressives on core issues such as adequate and fair taxation, proper national spending priorities, a livable minimum wage, the protection of civil liberties, and restraints on U.S. militarism both abroad and as expressed in corollary form by domestic law enforcement. We also need a broad range of other actions including the development of non-governmental institutions beneficial to the people and the movement (as suggested in Michael Kazin’s September 25, 2011 New York Times op-ed “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/whatever-happened-to-the-american-left.html">Whatever Happened to the American Left</a>?”). The breadth and depth of the national systemic rot necessitates a wide diversity of nonviolent actions both inside and outside of the system, vigorously pursued irrespective of which persons or parties hold political power.<br />
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Yet in all of that strategizing, there exists a significant paradox, game theory 101: A logical plan and extensive groundwork may well be a recipe for defeat, for the movement does not operate in a political vacuum, and every day the reactionary right acts in a multitude of venues to consolidate and extend its multi-decade dominance and looting of the nation. The seemingly-beneficial strategy of strengthening progressive foundations will actually be counterproductive if we excessively delay the actions that should arise from the foundations, or if enhanced foundations can be easily neutralized. We need to act accordingly.<br />
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Therein lay the genius of “Occupy”: finally, dramatic popular democratic action that hadn’t been expected, accompanied by a narrative at least part of which resonated quite broadly — a currency of protest, made current. Occupy melded action, education, consciousness-raising, solidarity, resistance to co-optation, unpredictability, and media spectacle. Even that combination, however, is insufficient to guarantee victory, particularly in the context of a mass media that shirks its duty to investigate and inform and an American public that has been extensively brainwashed into the meme of unfettered capitalism. As noted by Chris Hedges a year and a half ago (“<a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/occupiers_have_to_convince_the_other_99_percent_20111024/">Occupiers Have to Convince the Other 99 Percent</a>”, at Truthdig, October 24, 2011), the bulk of the American people do not consider themselves to be even liberal, let alone leftist; they often view those political philosophies as alien by reason of style and ideology, or discredited by past accommodation and ineffectiveness. But one must be careful to not take away an incorrect conclusion from that. While a better political education of the public in the value of true progressivism would be desirable, it should never be forgotten that <em>to act</em> is semantically implicit in the word <em>activism</em>, and that to delay action until some supposed necessary fraction of the populace has first been thoroughly schooled in progressivism is simply a prescription for permanent impotence. Drawing upon an old metaphor, I would say that the workers of the world <em>aren’t</em> much impressed to hear yet again that they have nothing to lose but their chains; they could, however, be responsive to clear evidence of timely actions to help free them. Or to put matters in a more modern way (and as any salesperson can attest): Interest in a product is not sustainable if there are no signs that the product will be available within a reasonable time frame. We need to bring some examples of the product to market <em>now</em>. The most impressive argument for progressivism would be progressivism’s dynamic, determined, contemporary actions in support of the people — and there are countless ways that such desired actions could find expression.<br />
<h3>
<br /><em>What Is To Be Done: Let’s Get Specific</em></h3>
<br />
“Occupy” made a good start, and showed that strategy and tactics should include an amorphous and unpredictable component. However, I believe that achieving progressivism’s ultimate goal of an equitable, just, and humane society requires a greater current focus on a strategically-chosen set of more proximate goals, plus crystal-clear relevance, a broader permanent base, a diversity and flexibility of tactics yet resolute firmness with regard to goals large or small. None of that should surprise — it was the playbook of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._civil_rights_movement">African-American Civil Rights Movement</a> during the time of its greatest gains, and such a strategy is needed once again, this time in the service of broader public needs, <a href="http://billmoyers.com/2013/04/10/dr-king%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9ctwo-americas%e2%80%9d-truer-now-than-ever/">as Martin Luther King, Jr. and others envisioned</a>. If social justice and economic justice are fundamental human rights as we claim, surely they merit, <em>right now</em>, specific substantive widely-supportable truly-non-negotiable demands, and concerted nonviolent action in furtherance of those demands, not merely the expression of anger or general yearnings that history indicates will likely permit continued co-optation and suppression by the traditional power structure. <br />
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In the near term, the most pressing item on the agenda must be to block all moves by the wealth-lackey Social-Darwinist Republicans and spineless complicit Democrats to cut social spending as even a partial response to the contrived crisis of the “fiscal cliff” and its sequelae. Members of the poor and middle classes have for decades been losing ground not only relative to the wealthy but also in comparison to their same-class historical peers, particularly when costs such as higher education, health care, and retirement are included. Note, though, that with regard to the poor, the argument needn’t — <em>shouldn’t</em> — be based solely upon a relative decline. By absolute measures, many in this country <a href="http://www.news-leader.com/interactive/article/20120916/NEWS01/120913001/No-way-live?nclick_check=1">live under conditions of appalling deprivation</a> that should shame the well-off who clamor for reduced taxes and cuts to government-funded social services. The bottom line is that our less-fortunate citizens bear little or no responsibility for our national economic problems, and it is patently unjust — actually, <em>immoral</em> — for them to be expected to bear <em>any</em> of the burden of economic remedies.<br />
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We must also effect a transformation of the very <em>nature</em> of the U.S. national economy, both governmental spending as well as the spending that comprises the rest of our economy.<br />
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Substantial cuts to our bloated military spending should be front and center in any attempts to reform U.S. governmental finances. It is often stated by progressives that U.S. military spending exceeds that of the next fifteen or so countries combined. Less well publicized is what that military spending would buy for this country and its people if applied to more rational and moral uses. <a href="http://costofwar.com/tradeoffs/state/US/program/14/tradeoff/0">The tradeoff is astounding</a>, far in excess of the even-then high costs that President Eisenhower cited in his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech">April 16, 1953 “The Chance for Peace” speech</a>. At that time, Eisenhower equated the cost of one fighter plane to one-half million bushels of wheat. (Note: Eisenhower’s reference to one-half million bushels of wheat could <em>not</em> have been the lower <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyaway_cost">flyaway cost</a> (marginal cost), which for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-86#Production_costs">F-86D</a>, the most expensive F-86 variant/derivative <a href="http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf86.html">operational at the time of his speech</a>, was <a href="http://www.minneapolisfed.org/index.cfm?">at 1953 prices</a> the equivalent of only <a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/datafiles/Wheat_Wheat_Data/Yearbook_Tables/Domestic_and_International_Prices/WheatYearbookTable18Full.pdf">about 183,000 bushels of wheat</a>. So he was probably referencing full life-cycle costs). Now, the procurement cost of the modern F-35B/C is an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35">estimated $237 million <em>per plane</em></a> — <em>nearly thirty-four million bushels of wheat</em> (<a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/WK3/historical">at May 10, 2013 closing prices</a> for May futures) — with the estimated life-cycle cost even higher, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35#Program_cost_increases_and_further_delays">$618 million</a> — <em>more than 88 million bushels</em> — per plane, and <em><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/02/us-lockheed-fighter-idUSBRE8310WB20120402">$1.51 trillion for the entire F-35 program</a></em> — <em>216 BILLION bushels of wheat</em> at current prices! (Time Magazine in its U.S. <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2129797,00.html">December 3, 2012 issue incorrectly reported</a> the F-35B cost at $160 million apiece, and $400 billion for the whole program; the New York Times in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/us/in-federal-budget-cutting-f-35-fighter-jet-is-at-risk.html?ref=f35airplane&pagewanted=all">November 29 article incorrectly reported</a> cost per plane as $137 million, and total program cost as $396 billion. All those lower (but still massive) costs appear to be based on outdated and/or optimistic estimates of both the flyaway cost and R&D costs, both of which have already <a href="http://nation.time.com/2012/07/09/f-35-nearly-doubles-in-cost-but-you-dont-know-thanks-to-its-rubber-baseline/">ballooned far more than the GAO and the Pentagon have been willing to admit</a>. <em>Most important</em>, though, is that the vast majority of mainstream media references have grossly under-stated the true cost by ignoring all operating costs). Calculate some relevant equivalencies — in health care, education, physical infrastructure, social services, environmental preservation and restoration — and then talk up — no, shout, <em>scream</em> — all the various numbers, as loudly and as often as possible, so that the obscene opportunity costs of our national militarism can be brought to the forefront of public consciousness. U.S. military spending should be significantly reduced, and it can be, without harm to either our national security or economy. The military spending reductions mandated by “sequestration” are actually only a tiny fraction of the much more substantial military cuts that should begin now and continue over at least several years. Worth noting is that an <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist.pdf#page=51">89% cut in U.S. military spending occurred post-WWII, 1948 vs. 1945</a>, and that very large cut, even at a time when military spending comprised a much greater percentage of our GDP than it does now, did not cause our economy to collapse. Rather, it heralded an era when our industry would greatly increase output of products that our populace needed and wanted.<br />
<br />
As to the non-governmental portion of our economy, much of it has failed both the nation and the people. While so-called conservatives continually denounce the government for its supposed distortions of what they see as an otherwise wondrous free market, the truth of the matter is that our most damaging systemic distortions originate with inadequately-regulated capitalism itself, and include: reckless financial system speculation and other misuses of capital; unfair advantage resulting from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry">information differentials</a>; anti-competitive domination by a small number of large corporations in many economic sectors; subjugation of labor leading to the exploitation, endangerment, and even deaths of workers; off-shoring and outsourcing destructive of individuals and communities; sophisticated manipulation of consumer demand via advertising; and countless instances of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage">environmental damage, the costs of which are not borne by the perpetrators</a>. All of this is greatly exacerbated by business’ subversion of democratic political processes through undue influence over politicians and by concurrent marginalization of opposition viewpoints. Not only are fundamental global, national, and human needs not being beneficially addressed by contemporary capitalism, they are often very much worsened by it. As FDR understood (but many contemporary capitalists do not), governmental policies and regulations reining in the excesses of capitalism and promoting basic social and economic justice do not harm capitalism, they assist its survival.<br />
<br />
Fundamental changes to that non-governmental segment are necessary. The excessive political influence of corporations effected through advertising and political contributions must be ended; corporations are <em>not</em> people, and artificial economic constructs should <em>not</em> have the free speech or other rights of individuals. An increase of the minimum wage to living levels would permit those at the bottom of our economy to live with a measure of dignity. Progressive import tariffs based on the degree to which trans-border businesses <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalities">negatively externalize costs</a> would partially counter the current “race to the bottom” in worker compensation and environmental degradation caused by so-called “free trade”. Our present tax revenues being wholly inadequate to correcting the well-documented needs in this nation, particularly in the context of American capitalism’s inherent dedication to maximizing its own profit regardless of societal costs, we need a much more progressive domestic tax structure with some significant (but certainly bearable) tax increases on the well-off, on capital gains, on corporate profits, and most of all, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax">on financial system transactions</a> (especially for short-term holdings, which cannot with any honesty be called socially-useful investments). This would not only help fund government-directed infrastructure and social programs, it would also discourage the non-productive speculation that has become rampant in modern capitalism. The stick can be accompanied by carrots: a concomitant expansion of tax credits and subsidies for individual and business activities that responsibly address true needs could provide a modest financial incentive to “do the right thing”, as well as promote a competitive diversity of approaches to remedy our problems. (Caveat: Strong controls are absolutely essential to prevent inter-governmental “bidding wars” and other abusive manipulations by business of governmental incentives such as were detailed in New York Times articles in-print December <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/us/how-local-taxpayers-bankroll-corporations.html?hp&_r=0">2</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/us/winners-and-losers-in-texas.html">3</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/us/when-hollywood-comes-to-town.html?pagewanted=all">4</a>, 2012). A further benefit of an economic restructuring that increases our focus on true needs and genuine desires is that such an economy would be more resistant to recession.<br />
<br />
For the long term, none of these issues should even require debate. Our fundamental human rights, as well as the obligations of government, the corporations, and the wealthy, to both the nation and the people, should all be legally codified via new Constitutional foundations — a <em>twenty-first century</em> Bill of Rights that establishes a framework for a rational and moral social contract. However, the degree to which our <em>older</em> Bill of Rights has been shredded during the past decade by deceptive or demagogic politicians aided by reactionary courts and a complicit mainstream press suggests that serious sociopolitical activism will always be necessary. <br />
<br />
The great mass of ordinary Americans must escape the abattoir of mainstream-media-assisted co-optive American politics — where we are first herded to a place of individual and collective paralysis; then drained of our hopes, dreams, and future; carved up into manipulable political-demographic chunks; and finally rendered completely powerless. Genuinely-liberating transformative action is essential, and time is short.<br />
<br />
<em>Copyright: Fred Drumlevitch</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Fred Drumlevitch blogs irregularly at </em><a href="http://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.com/"><em>www.FredDrumlevitch.blogspot.com</em></a><br />
<em>He can be reached at FredDrumlevitch12345(at)gmail.com</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-76385641224999238252012-12-20T09:27:00.000-08:002012-12-20T09:27:02.891-08:00Democratic Party Politicians — The Chicken Men (and Women)<span style="color: orange;"><strong>by Fred Drumlevitch</strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;">Congressman Ron Barber, "Congress on Your Corner" </span><br />
<span style="color: red;">open meeting with constituents, June 23, 2012.</span><br />
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Sometimes a broad problem is best understood through a look
at specific examples. So I begin by asking: Who is Congressman Ron Barber, and how
does he exemplify — indeed, what is — this more general problem of vital
importance to the future of both the Democratic Party and the entire United
States?</div>
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Well, to answer the first part of the question, Ron Barber
is the Democrat first elected in June 2012 in Arizona Congressional District 8
to fill the vacancy produced by Gabrielle Giffords’ resignation. He was then
reelected in the November general election to a full term representing the new
Congressional District 2 created by Arizona Congressional redistricting.</div>
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The answer to the rest of the question is of necessity much
longer, taking up the remainder of this piece but getting to the heart of
contemporary American political dysfunction.</div>
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I live within both the old and new aforementioned districts,
and thus have a more than passing interest in the positions taken by the
politicians ostensibly representing them. There are many indications that Mr. Barber
has the intelligence and basic human decency desirable in a public official. With
his white hair, small beard, and cane, he also bears a bit of a resemblance to “Colonel”
Harland Sanders, of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, hence “The Chicken Man” nickname
light-heartedly applied to him by others. Unfortunately, the relevance of that moniker
extends beyond its intended allusion to an iconic purveyor of poultry, for what
Congressman Barber does have cannot mask what he appears to lack: <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cojones">cojones</a></span>, and a commitment to rational
political stands even in the face of the right-wing opposition that is to be
expected in early twenty-first century America. (And the Newtown murders
notwithstanding, the “rational political stands” and “right-wing opposition” to
which I refer are broad-based; this piece is not a polemic on the subject of gun
control).</div>
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I have no quarrel with many of Congressman Barber’s votes,
but some others have been so objectionable that I have been obliged to
reexamine my opinion of both the man and the Democratic Party. On June 19,
2012, the very day he was sworn in as congressman, Mr. Barber would cast a vote
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in favor of</i> H.R. 2578, a 14-section
collection of anti-environmental legislation, one of the components of which
included the gutting of, in the name of “security”, <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/other-resources/house-votes-to-put-public-lands-at-risk-85899361611">virtually all environmental regulations within one hundred miles of the entire U.S. land border</a></span>.
One month later, July 19, 2012, he would vote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">against</i> a defense appropriations amendment that sought to freeze
fiscal 2013 core military spending at 2012 levels, this assuming that
sequestration did not occur. (That proposed freeze had been denounced by some as
a cut because it reduced by just over $1 billion the 2013 levels previously
approved by the House Armed Services Committee, though not the entire House.
However labeled, the $1 billion at issue was neither the <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist.pdf#page=51">89% cut in defense spending that occurred post-WWII, 1948 vs. 1945</a></span>, which did
not cause the sky to fall, nor even the <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/unified_security_budget_fy2012">10-15%<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pruning and redirection</a></span> urged last year by
a group that included retired U.S. military officers; rather, it amounted to only
an extremely thin slice (0.2%) of the $528 billion core military budget, and an
even smaller percentage of <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175545/">true total military spending</a></span>, large portions of which are “hidden in plain sight”
within the budgets of other government departments. Accordingly, this amendment
could not be credibly characterized as a threat to our national security, and opposition
to it was patently unwarranted. See the discussion for Amendment number 1, <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2012-07-19/pdf/CREC-2012-07-19-pt1-PgH5027-3.pdf#page=28">pages H5054 - H5057 of the Congressional Record</a></span>). More recently, on September 12,
2012, Congressman Barber would vote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for</i>
H.R. 5949, which extended for five years the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a measure
that in effect nullified many of our Constitutional protections against
wide-ranging governmental search and seizure, protections that served this
nation well for more than two centuries. This act, rationalized in the name of
national security, has legally enabled <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1">an ever-expanding</a></span> multi-faceted domestic surveillance infrastructure <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/ny-times-reminds-us-nsa-still-warrantlessly-wiretapping-americans-and-congress-has">that spies daily on millions of ordinary law-abiding U.S. citizens.</a></span> </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
An aside: Although not part of the above-referenced Congressional
discussion on the military “budget”, it is at this point worth noting as a
matter of morality and priorities that the Global Polio Eradication Initiative,
which seeks to collect and spend just over $2 billion during 2012-2013, found
itself as of October 2012 <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.polioeradication.org/Financing.aspx">$700 million short in contributions</a></span> for that two year period. (See <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.polioeradication.org/Portals/0/Document/FRR/FRR_ENG.pdf">here</a></span>
for a more detailed accounting). And consider that during the January 2008
through early October 2012 time frame, U.S. governmental contributions to the
GPEI <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.polioeradication.org/Portals/0/Image/Financing/FRR/FRR_Historical_Contribution.pdf">totaled only one-half</a></span> of the amount provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates
foundation. While the money saved by a sensible reduction in U.S. military
spending could fully erase the 2012-2013 GPEI shortfalls, as well as fund a
multitude of other highly worthwhile projects both domestically and
internationally, which would probably gain this country far more admiration,
respect, security, <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.thenation.com/print/article/167811/dont-buy-spin-how-cutting-pentagons-budget-could-boost-economy">and employment</a></span> than would hundreds of billions of dollars of military expenditures,
the military-industrial-security-governmental complex has had and will continue
to have <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175542/tomgram%3A_william_astore,_hail_to_the_cheerleader-in-chief!/">its own warped priorities</a></span> for our tax dollars. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I am not privy to Congressman Barber’s thought processes,
and I can only speculate about what motivated his votes for the abominable anti-environmental
H.R. 2578, against even a freeze in our bloated military spending, and for the
H.R. 5949 extension of the totalitarian-style FISA amendments. Perhaps he genuinely
believed that these absurd and dangerous positions were desirable; in that case,
he is at minimum badly mistaken, and this will call into question his judgment
in all future matters. On the other hand, perhaps his votes were simply crass
political maneuvers, attempts to establish political “street cred” with the
conservative portions of his district, or the corollary, due to fear of being
tarred by future conservative charges of being soft on border enforcement
specifically or national security in general. That last possibility is perhaps
the most insidiously dangerous of all motivations, for it represents a
continuation of the Democratic Party’s fear-driven political behavior of the
past three decades, which, above all else, has been marked by a nearly-complete
failure of political nerve at the first insinuation of weakness. Such fear was
a major motivation for Democratic support of the Congressional resolution that
authorized the insane U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and for the passage and
subsequent expansion of the liberty-destroying, perversely-named Patriot Act.
However, the adverse impact extends much further; in countless other areas, the
absence of adequate Democratic advocacy for reason and social justice has
allowed Republican politicians to frame the debate, and these Republicans have thereby
successfully dragged the political center far to the right of any rational
location for it.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLdCMBiZRBsrVoRH4VLf8INEBRQiqh4keVLRVitTC8CKa1lRLp6GJ6ZFrY09VkcclkCsQPMvD0VnxgHYSYu5SFVjFJH4GFfkc-4BIwZUygMmJekfzfRgNLMNw3O1vPWmH-OA-eHxokI4/s1600/Congressman+Ron-Barber+--+news+conference.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLdCMBiZRBsrVoRH4VLf8INEBRQiqh4keVLRVitTC8CKa1lRLp6GJ6ZFrY09VkcclkCsQPMvD0VnxgHYSYu5SFVjFJH4GFfkc-4BIwZUygMmJekfzfRgNLMNw3O1vPWmH-OA-eHxokI4/s1600/Congressman+Ron-Barber+--+news+conference.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: red;"></span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Congressman Ron Barber, news conference, June 23, 2012.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Partly in fairness to Mr. Barber, but mostly because of its wider
and more fundamental implications, I must emphasize that this positive-feedback
loop of deficient advocacy and constrained or faulty action is apparently a significant
affliction among Democratic politicians. With regard to H.R. 2578, <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2012/roll387.xml">16 Democrats joined 216 House Republicans in voting for it</a></span>, and 6 Democrats failed to vote. On the
amendment to freeze defense spending (sponsored by Republican Mick Mulvaney and
Democrat Barney Frank), <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2012/roll495.xml">21 Democrats voted no</a></span>, while 12 did not vote. Often, even greater numbers of
Democrats cast their votes in favor of (usually Republican-originated) bills
that, at best, rate as political scat, or against (usually Democratic) bills
that constitute the mildest of necessary reforms. In the case of H.R. 5949, <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2012/roll569.xml">74 Democrats voted in the affirmative</a></span><span style="color: #ffe599; mso-themecolor: text1;">, supplementing
the 227 Republicans who voted for passage.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But a high incidence of such political cowardice in no way excuses
or mitigates it; indeed, in such a situation, every increment of cowardice
weighs ever more heavily, greatly reducing the likelihood of a favorable
outcome for the nation. A large number of insane ideologies course through the
veins of the contemporary body politic, including: a belief in American exceptionalism
(despite our inferior rankings by a multitude of measures); <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a desire for worldwide military supremacy (and
a blank check for the vast military spending that accompanies our futile
pursuit of it); a worship of unfettered capitalism and some imaginary “free
market” (all the while enabling anti-competitive corporate behavior and socializing
the losses of corporate speculators and incompetents); an opposition to
planning, regulation, and the moral use of national resources (never mind that
the “wisdom of the market” is often antithetical to the true long-term
interests of the people); and a rationalization of poverty and insecurity for a
large portion of the populace (while aiding the accumulation of extreme wealth
by those at the top). The unvarnished truth is that the successes of the
Republicans and the gains of their worse-than-Social-Darwinistic agenda are not
due to Republicans alone — Democratic unwillingness to boldly challenge these
delusions has inexorably led to the national ascendancy of such views.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Additional local evidence of such Democratic deficiency
comes via the Arizona Congressional District 2 primary election held in late
August. Consider newspaper coverage of the positions of the two Democratic (and
two Republican) candidates (Arizona Daily Star, August 7, 2012, page A4, “<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://azstarnet.com/news/candidate-q-a-us-congressional-district/article_d6cf74d2-830e-5d73-b1c6-f984cc864f87.html">Candidate Q&A: US Congressional District 2</a></span>” -- CD2 candidate bios sidebar). Asked
their “top priority”, all candidates unsurprisingly listed multiple items. However,
for Congressman Barber, who would win the Democratic race, the first item was
“bipartisan problem solving for Southern Arizona”, while for his Democratic opponent
Dr. Matt Heinz it was the similar “build consensus”. Whether evaluated
abstractly or morally or strategically, those are highly flawed top goals, mealy-mouthed
conflations of process with concrete objectives. (And it should be noted that like
most Republicans already in office, neither of the two Republican candidates gave
even a hint of willingness to compromise or work with the opposition). A further
look, to <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.heinzforcongress.com/AboutMatt">Dr. Heinz’campaign website</a></span> [dead link], saw him referring to his time in the
Republican-dominated state legislature and speaking of “building consensus… working
diligently to find common ground with other representatives”. As for <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://ronbarberforcongress.com/meet-ron/">Congressman Barber’s campaign website</a></span>, it originally showed his stated desire “to put politics aside …
lead with civility… ”. Those phrases were later removed, prior to the general
election. Did the congressman have an epiphany, or was the change simply one of
election strategy? What positions will he take on the extraordinarily-important
matters to be addressed during the remainder of this term and in the one
beginning January? Support for a “Grand Bargain” that largely protects our bloated
military spending, barely imposes on the wealthy, but shafts the remainder of
the people — and all arrived at with the utmost of “civility” of course? What
will your moral legacy be, Congressman Barber?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
News flash, Mr. Barber, Mr. Heinz, and Democrats everywhere:
Those goals of procedural harmony, admirable though they might be in a perfect
world, are unattainable in this one — except at the cost of a surrender of most
substantive Democratic principles. When the overwhelming majority of your Republican
opposition is malevolent, obstructionist, and seeks to take this nation into a
social-political-economic structure reminiscent of Dickensian England, no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rational</i> bipartisan consensus is possible,
and it is fundamentally counterproductive for Democrats to either believe or pretend
otherwise. Any possible political gains among independent voters produced by Democrats
making conciliation with Republicans a high priority are more than offset by
that preoccupation’s destructive impact on Democratic ideology and self-respect,
and its communication of weakness to the opposition. Democrats, striving ever
harder to demonstrate their accommodating reasonableness, have over the past
several decades ceded not just the hair and hoof trimmings of a <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democratslogo.svg">Democratic Party symbol</a></span>, they have surrendered the muscle and vital organs of a once proud
ideology of social justice. It came as no surprise when the Democratic Party in
2010 abandoned the kicking donkey as its logo. All that remained was a skeleton
stripped nearly bare, with the predatory wolf packs of the Republican Party
howling in anticipation of their next meal.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Perhaps Democratic politicians should take a cue from the
natural world (especially since they have ignored the lessons of the political
one). David J.T. Sumpter <span style="color: #3d85c6;">(</span><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9382.html">Collective Animal Behavior, 2010, Princeton University Press</a></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;">)</span> describes the process by
which a honeybee swarm chooses a new home: Scouts explore and return to the resting
swarm, dancing in support of potential new locations; additional trips are
made, competition for viewers and fading of the dance intensity over time
occur. “Mathematical models of this process predict that the site at which the
bees give up dancing for most slowly is eventually the focus of all dancing”
(Sumpter, p. 214).</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
With regard to the human political environment, no biologist’s
empirical description or mathematical model should actually be necessary. It is
obvious to any sentient observer (even if not to the Democratic politicians
seeking votes) that a political position with inferior advocacy is unlikely to
prevail. Progressive advocacy shouldn’t be confined to the few days of a highly-scripted
quadrennial presidential nominating convention, or even to the months of
campaign season. All Democratic politicians — from the President on down to the
lowliest local office-holders — need to strap on their balls, every single day unabashedly
make the case for progressive positions, and then — because advocacy is a
necessary but insufficient condition for favorable political results — <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">act</i> courageously in the spirit of that
advocacy at every executive, legislative, and judicial opportunity. Within the
system, only that course will reverse the decades-long deterioration of this
country and improve the future for the people; only that course will halt the
accelerating slide towards a plutocratic national neo-fascism, prevent the
eventual appearance of the well-justified but unpredictable pitchfork brigades,
and ensure preservation of the Republic.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The perceptive reader will have noticed that in focusing on
a Democratic failure of courage, my critique of Democrats has been much
narrower in scope than it could have been. Considerably more damning
assessments equating them to Republicans and attributing their political
behavior to a complete sellout to corporatist, plutocratic, and/or
military-industrial forces have been made, backed by substantial evidence. But
while the influence of these corrupting forces is certainly large and sometimes
even dominant, I believe that the situation is frequently more nuanced, with a
mixture of mutually-reinforcing causes at work. The outrageous cost of
campaigns, the human tendency to follow the path of least resistance, the political
careerism of those who hold political office, coupled with their egotistical tendency
to see themselves as indispensable, thereby rationalizing any action in order
to retain such office — all contribute to the current situation.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But whatever else may have contributed, the failure to demonstrate
political courage in support of rationality and social justice has played a
significant role. Notably, a dearth of courage is potentially the most easily
remedied factor, ultimately dependent as it is only upon oneself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such political courage (or lack thereof) from
current and future politicians — and if necessary, directly from the downtrodden
ordinary citizens who may yet bring us a transformative “American Spring” — will
ultimately be decisive in determining the future of this nation.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p></o:p> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Copyright: Fred
Drumlevitch. Permission hereby granted to any registered voter (but not a
commercial website or publication) to copy this post in whole or in part for
the express purpose of directly transmitting it to one or more Democratic Party
politicians, provided that attribution, a link to the original complete post, and
notice of any excerpting are all included.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fred Drumlevitch blogs
irregularly at </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.com/">www.FredDrumlevitch.blogspot.com</a></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">He can be reached at:
FredDrumlevitch12345(at)gmail.com<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<h3>
</h3>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-30530147681825231222012-12-04T13:25:00.000-08:002012-12-04T13:25:42.853-08:00The Well-Dressed War Machine Wears GreenWith that title, I’m referring not to the color of soldiers’
uniforms or St. Patrick’s Day attire, but rather, to modern attempts by the
armaments makers to greenwash their operations, and to the taxpayer greenbacks
that pay for American militarism instead of genuine environmental preservation and
other beneficial programs.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Of course, “Raytheon Celebrates Earth Day”. <span style="color: red;">From their
corporate website:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXTivlYPac42yVRjpRMVU30HnQfGdtfoZ4UMkzCuRwmZSks6t9z9a5ReJ4RXMOB0AJPZiAUw8D4YKE-AkHQwXqgd1InTcG8OI8r-NOJWKibZRmKZLm6SRKIkhuUxU6VJM-Z6THKpBzO9A/s1600/Raytheon+Celebrates+Earth+Day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXTivlYPac42yVRjpRMVU30HnQfGdtfoZ4UMkzCuRwmZSks6t9z9a5ReJ4RXMOB0AJPZiAUw8D4YKE-AkHQwXqgd1InTcG8OI8r-NOJWKibZRmKZLm6SRKIkhuUxU6VJM-Z6THKpBzO9A/s640/Raytheon+Celebrates+Earth+Day.jpg" height="297" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
But for a truly astounding example of such greenwashing
(which I still find surreal more than a year after I first saw it), watch the
following 2011 video from KVOA television, the Tucson NBC affiliate:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.kvoa.com/news/raytheon-innovates-new-ways-of-going-green/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.kvoa.com/news/raytheon-innovates-new-ways-of-going-green/</span></a></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
(The above link provides access to both the video and a
slightly-inaccurate transcript).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqIdt9JiMJN0-PNAPxn9CpbJ1sdVZMMGOee7_ITzA8WvL1znBkY-LCscERV4RI97ScxelfNgQoGxbCNfH6EPseDoi9-OGfY6dBkpvpRDD3PGSaV5blcqMCgDgrrFaTtZBlLkJPpDlhFo/s1600/Raytheon+Recycling+Machine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqIdt9JiMJN0-PNAPxn9CpbJ1sdVZMMGOee7_ITzA8WvL1znBkY-LCscERV4RI97ScxelfNgQoGxbCNfH6EPseDoi9-OGfY6dBkpvpRDD3PGSaV5blcqMCgDgrrFaTtZBlLkJPpDlhFo/s640/Raytheon+Recycling+Machine.jpg" height="471" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p></o:p> </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="color: red;">Above is one frame from the web version of that KVOA “news”
segment, </span><br />
<span style="color: red;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Raytheon innovates
new ways of going green”</i>, aired October 13, 2011.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Though not usually associated with armaments suppliers,
greenwashing of corporate activity is nothing new, and I presume that the above
local “news” segment was supposed to make viewers feel all warm and fuzzy about
the merchants of death at Raytheon. (How, though, is beyond my comprehension,
unless the viewers are regarded as complete morons by both Raytheon and KVOA —
which may well be the case).</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Depending on one’s point of view, the military-industrial
complex may or may not be a giant sinkhole swallowing desperately-needed
national resources and perverting national priorities, but none of that is even
an issue, all’s right with the world, for they recycle their soft-drink cans
and office supplies! While high-efficiency lighting or solar panels might be of
benefit for logistical reasons within a combat zone, can anyone in their right
mind believe that recycling — or even the grandest of environmental initiatives
— by a defense contractor stateside makes a laudable difference, in the context
of the overall waste of national resources by the military and its suppliers?
“Inane” doesn’t even begin to describe this gushing television segment. The
presentation by KVOA of this greenwashing tripe as newsworthy, with no
reference to broader concerns and not even a trace of irony, must rate as one
of the clearest indicators I’ve ever seen of the journalistic bankruptcy of
local television “news” reporting.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
One needn’t be a pacifist to recognize that the American
military-industrial complex now plays a pathological role in the course of
contemporary human events. And in fact I am not a pacifist; I understand that
in our present world, some military capability is necessary. But the true
problems of our nation receive, at best, token attention, while unnecessary and
futile wars drag on year after year, taking an incalculable toll. All but the
blind can see America's basic military readiness harmed, soldiers demoralized,
or worse, made physical or psychological casualties of our insane interminable
wars. All but those suffering from terminal American exceptionalism or denial
should be able to understand the immorality of foreign civilians injured and
killed — and the new enemies thereby created. Technology will not provide a
magic solution; our high-tech semi-robotic instruments of war may reduce U.S.
casualties, but they cannot mask the destruction and hatred created on the
receiving end of our actions. And used or unused, the costs of our war
machines, and indeed, of our entire military, are bankrupting the nation, and
have a massive “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost">opportunity cost</a>” of better things not done.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Perhaps the most under-appreciated damage involves what has
been done to our national ideals and the political process. For decades, both
officeholders and candidates have been afraid to take rational positions with
regard to our military spending, our worldwide military presence, and our
military actions. For politicians, mustn’t be seen as weak or hesitant; for the
human cogs of the war machine tasked with keeping the pipeline of cannon fodder
full, mustn’t be seen as in any way reducing the flow. Washington, D.C., or
Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State, the result is the same. Even the
term “Defense Department”, for what used to be called, more honestly, the
“Department of War”, hints at the disconnect between our perceptions/actions
and reality. Nearly every military action, even an unjustified, massive
invasion and occupation of a sovereign foreign country, such as the United
States led in Iraq, has been rebranded as “defense” — and since, in the popular
mind, one can never have enough defense, an unending string of wars is
rationalized. Should our present ones show signs of winding down, well, the
chicken-hawks of American politics, the CEOs of our military manufacturers and
mercenary armies, and the visiting foreign heads of state, all are highly
skilled at an improvisational syncopation that will promote new conflict.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
In this time of impending sequestration and other budgetary
pressures, the “dog-and-pony” shows of the weapons manufacturers and the armed
services have only just begun. They will cycle through multiple themes. Most
will revolve around fears that will reference past attacks on the United States
— but conveniently ignore that many of the weapons systems being purchased at
extravagant cost are of little relevance to defense against any attacks we are
likely to face, and that bountiful weapons combined with an American psychology
of overreach have played a significant role in creating many of our
international problems. Some will pander to concerns about the jobs that will
be lost if we reduce military spending. (Attention/Achtung! My fellow 19th
century American Southerners/20th century Germans, we must continue slavery/the
concentration camps, lest unemployment rise!). The Pentagon and its
contractors, having over the course of decades masterfully distributed military
bases and manufacturing across so many Congressional districts, are now able to
exploit economic-based fears of cutbacks to enlist the support of Congress
against necessary military cuts. Together they will also leverage the complex
blend of patriotism and justified pride at the historical role of the U.S. in
fighting tyranny during WWII, now exploiting such feelings to imply that a
never-ending worldwide projection of U.S. force in the service of supposed
liberation is desirable — never mind that our actions in Vietnam and Iraq and
Afghanistan did not go according to plan, and future ones may not either. Given
the diversity of themes used to influence political opinion in favor of
irrationally high levels of military spending, perhaps it ultimately is not
surprising that they have thrown in a bit of greenwashing too.</div>
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For those with an interest in the ecological opportunity
costs of U.S. militarism, consider this: In <a href="http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/people/faculty/pimm/publications/pimmreprints/169_Pimm_et_al_Science.pdf">an article</a> published in Science magazine in 2001, Stuart Pimm and colleagues
examined the costs of preserving a significant fraction of the world’s
biodiversity. They estimated then that the preservation of twenty-five
biodiversity “hotspots” plus the acquisition of tropical wilderness preserves
could be achieved for a one-time cost of approximately $25 billion for
terrestrial ones, and an additional $2.5 billion for marine reserves. While
species numbers have significant correlations to area (see <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6783/pdf/405220a0.pdf">here</a>,
and <a href="http://www.evolutionary-ecology.com/abstracts/v14/n03/ccar2771.pdf">here</a>),
and therefore preservation would ideally include more land than the Pimm et al.
proposal, implementation of their proposal would be a good starting point
towards the preservation of biodiversity. Assuming that costs have quadrupled
in the intervening years, such preservation could be achieved at a ONE-TIME
current cost of $110 billion. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175545/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Current U.S. “defense” spending, stripped of its creative accounting</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, is
well over six times that figure PER YEAR.</span></span></div>
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Recommended reading on the topic of military spending and
related politics: anything by Andrew Bacevich.</div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
Fred Drumlevitch blogs (irregularly) at
www.FredDrumlevitch.blogspot.com<br />
He can be reached at: FredDrumlevitch12345 (at) gmail.com<br />
<br />
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Text Copyright Fred Drumlevitch </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-77595103419749626172012-03-12T18:41:00.000-07:002012-03-12T18:41:58.671-07:00Afghanistan, Graveyard of U.S. MoralityWith regard to the aftermath of the Sunday massacre of 16 Afghan civilians allegedly done by a supposedly lone U.S. sergeant, what can we expect?<br />
<br />
Perhaps Obama can repeat his 2012 State of the Union spin that our military actions have made the U.S. “more respected around the world”. Lest my sarcasm be considered unwarranted, I will add that he said that on a day in January when a U.S. military court would release with absolutely no prison time the leader of a U.S. Marine squad that in 2005 massacred 24 civilian men, women, and children in Haditha, Iraq — a war crime within the even broader war crime of a war of choice by the U.S. against a country that posed no threat to us.<br />
<br />
Only in the logic of politics and empire can war crimes be converted into delusions of respect.<br />
<br />
Those delusions are not unique to the United States; historically, they have found expression many times, and in many nations. But currently those delusions are most strongly American ones, the inevitable result of a people living in a time warp (to circa 1946) about our role — no, make that “mission”, and “manifest destiny” — in the world.<br />
<br />
It is over ten years since our most recent military operations in Afghanistan started; that involvement began with a genuine justification of going after those who attacked us on 9/11, and after those who provided them with shelter. (I omit here consideration of our previous involvement during the 1980s, which greatly complicates conclusions about responsibility and justification). But even during the assumedly justified beginning of our actions in 2001, our style of warfare was too often imperial, relying on bombing from on high, and largely subcontracting to Afghan groups such as the “Northern Alliance” on the ground. We would for many years thereafter continue to emphasize aerial operations, with the inevitable dissociation from reality and the civilian casualties that would cause. Afghan wedding parties and villagers blasted to bits by American air power, if even investigated by the U.S. and acknowledged as non-combatants, were ultimately classified as regrettable collateral damage; if those deaths were in any way compensated, it was at a payment schedule that valued Afghan life much cheaper than even the most down-and-out American would be. Even after a U.S. transition to emphasize ground operations carried out primarily by U.S. soldiers, that imperial mentality still dominated, as has been amply and repeatedly pointed out by others. It continues with the recent escalation of drone operations. <br />
<br />
Certainly, not every foreign death at the hands of U.S. forces rates as a war crime. Let us stipulate that most are not. But by any reasonable measure, there have been far too many, and an offensive amount of rationalization about them. Worse yet, the U.S. legal response has been grossly inadequate (and quite telling of prevailing U.S. arrogance, both in and out of government). The wheels of U.S. “justice” seldom bring any real justice for the victims of war crimes committed by the U.S. military or U.S. civilian mercenary “contractors”. The standard trajectory for such cases: first, denial and cover-up; then, if strong contradictory evidence becomes public, promises of formal inquiry; finally, errors of investigation and prosecution, and defense testimony from superiors and psychiatrists, which produce acquittals, plea-bargains, minimal sentences, and/or successful appeals.<br />
<br />
Long term, the failure of the U.S. to adequately punish most U.S. perpetrators of war crimes may be even more dangerous than the killings themselves — for in the calm of formal inquiries and occasional court proceedings, this country has, in effect, repeatedly said that U.S. military killing of foreign civilians doesn’t much matter. What have we become?<br />
<br />
Ten years of war in Afghanistan and a completely unnecessary war in Iraq didn’t just kill and wound thousands of U.S. soldiers, bankrupt the United States, pervert our national priorities, and expand beyond any reasonable rationalization the domestic dominance of the U.S. military-industrial-security-governmental complex. They have destroyed the morality of our nation.<br />
<br />
I propose a new rallying cry: <em>the U.S. out of Afghanistan within 90 days</em>. No more rationalizations, no more excuses, from either major U.S. political party or any politician.<br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-68230143567451924352012-01-08T16:15:00.000-08:002012-01-08T16:15:21.929-08:002009 Advice to a President, Advice Ignored<span style="color: lime;">2012 is upon us, and 2009, the year of President Obama's inauguration, seems like only yesterday. Perhaps that time distortion owes a bit of its presence to how little both the Congress and the President have accomplished during the past three years. Mission not accomplished, mission <em>not even attempted.</em> While most Americans didn't expect much from the Republicans (beyond the rescue of their traditional moneyed constituency), we did expect more, much more, with regard to social and economic justice from the Democrats, and, most of all, from a Democratic President who, in a time of economic crisis, had campaigned in a manner that implied that significant populist change would be pursued.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: lime;">By midsummer 2009, it was clearly apparent that either Mr. Obama's political savvy, or his willingness to engage the reactionary forces of this country, or both, were sadly lacking, a far cry from what trusting voters had been led to believe. Such timidity could not possibly result from presidential ignorance of the alternatives. Advice regarding a desirable progressive course of action was plentiful from all corners, including academics, the press, and the public. I myself chimed in, though with no real expectation that the president would read, let alone heed, what I wrote. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: lime;">The blog post below is the exact text of</span> <a href="http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27krugman.html?permid=2#comment2">my comment (comment #2)</a> <span style="color: lime;">posted to Paul Krugman's July 26, 2009 (in-print July 27) column</span> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27krugman.html">"An Incoherent Truth"</a> <span style="color: lime;">at the New York Times. As 2012 begins, it seems appropriate to reprint it as review of what might have been. Faced with a 2012 choice between a Democratic president who has for three years followed a course grossly inadequate to the needs of the nation and most of its people, and Republican challengers dedicated to blending the selfish and the delusional into one poisonous stew, one can now only wish for a genuinely progressive alternative to appear in the form of an unlikely Democratic challenger or third-party candidate. How sad that our hopes of January 2009 should have been reduced to only that.</span><br />
<br />
******************************<br />
July 27, 2009 <br />
<br />
You've recently delivered several decent speeches on healthcare, President Obama, rational and earnest, though more than a bit short on passion and specifics. You choose your words carefully, undoubtedly aware of their power, but you still seem overly worried about offending (let alone confronting) the healthcare industry, your Republican opponents, or "blue dog" Democrats.<br />
<br />
Talk is good, Mr. President, but only up to the point where action is required, and action should occur long prior to the point where important principles get badly compromised. Do you still think that you can bridge the gap between progressives and Republicans? Even if achievable (it isn't), that would truly be a bridge to nowhere, a purgatory of thin mush in which your presidency would sink as if in quicksand.<br />
<br />
It takes more than a teleprompter and a BlackBerry to govern. It takes more than an elusive --- or a meaningless --- consensus. Text softly and carry a big stick. Read about Abraham Lincoln if you choose. But also read about Lyndon Johnson, a generally progressive president (with the exception of his pursuit of the Vietnam war) who was a masterful politician, employing, at various times, promises, threats, flattery, and old-fashioned "horse-trading" in order to advance desired legislation. The American public understands that a few political compromises may be needed, and will tolerate them, provided that the overwhelming benefit accrues to the majority of the people, not to the rich or to corporate interests. We won't be satisfied with half a loaf --- not when we've harvested the grain, milled the wheat, baked and transported the bread. We won't take kindly to charade or co-optation. (Senators and Representatives: Are you absorbing this message? It's directed at you too.)<br />
<br />
As a matter of pragmatism, Mr. President, I would advise you and your allies to stop worrying about the next election --- excessive worry about the future is the enemy of achievement in the present. Accomplish something substantial during your current term, and the future will take care of itself, you'll be re-elected in a landslide. Or piddle around instead, and history will consider you nothing but placeholders in the decline of the American Dream.<br />
<br />
Both a grand vision and political leadership are required, not a finger-in-the-dike strategy. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to significantly move this nation in the direction of freedom, justice, and morality. Freedom includes but is about much more than political freedom; freedom includes freedom from exploitation, freedom from hunger, freedom from homelessness, freedom from ignorance, as well as freedom from inadequate access to medical care. Justice includes not only justice within the legal system, but also economic and environmental justice. Morality isn't about a flash of nudity on television, it's about how the least among us, anywhere in the world, are treated --- and how the world itself is treated.<br />
<br />
A large number of Americans understand the full scope of what is needed. Do you, Mr. President? Do you, Senators and Representatives? Equally important, do you have the political acumen and the courage to unabashedly work to achieve it?<br />
<br />
Fred DrumlevitchUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-29903568203560322662011-12-18T18:13:00.000-08:002011-12-18T18:13:24.424-08:00Training the Next Generation of Enforcers,Training the 99% to "Know Their Place"It has been common for fictional television programs to paint a picture of everyday law enforcement as being encumbered by, and/or wantonly disregarding, many normal civil liberties supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution, its amendments, and case law. Intentional or not, this has the inevitable result of undermining accurate public knowledge of civil liberties and expectations for police behavior. Get a significant portion of the public trained via television dramas to the memes that nearly anything goes (and is justified) in policing, that civil liberties are an impediment to public safety, and, above all, that cops are always the good guys, then in the real world, abuses of power by law enforcement will be much more easily accepted. <br />
<br />
September 11 also convinced many Americans that governmental spying on the American public — without cause or traditional court-issued warrants — was justified, even desirable. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have convinced much of the American populace that drones are a desirable method of surveillance and warfare. The "logical" next step — for those who believe in a logic that ignores the lessons from the history of totalitarianism — is to expand governmental surveillance of the greater American public by means that include drones. That is beginning to happen, as documented in Glenn Greenwald's recent pieces in Salon. (Indeed, it appears that the deployment of drones with offensive weaponry designed to be used against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil is also in the works).<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/12/12/the_growing_menace_of_domestic_drones/singleton/">http://www.salon.com/2011/12/12/the_growing_menace_of_domestic_drones/singleton/</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/12/06/nprs_domestic_drone_commercial/">http://www.salon.com/2011/12/06/nprs_domestic_drone_commercial/</a><br />
<br />
Finally, it has also been established by surveys that a substantial number of Americans — far more than is justified by actual economic mobility — believe that one day, they too will be rich, and it has been suggested that this belief has contributed to the strength of American right-wing politics and opposition to adequately-progressive taxation.<br />
<br />
Ah, but for those wishing to advance an authoritarian, intrusive, and economically-unjust system of social relations, a problem remains. If these various current public memes are to become maximally effective, how can they be instilled at the earliest possible age? As the Jesuits have said with regard to religion, give them control of a child before age seven, and they'll have a Catholic for life. Similarly, in matters related to projection of, and obedience to, governmental authority, early exposure and internalization are highly important. And one of the central methods to achieve that is play.<br />
<br />
I present below a sampling of slick recent advertisements for toys that promote the aforementioned memes. (I ignore traditional militarism and mayhem, as toys devoted to those memes are even more widespread and undoubtedly already familiar to most people; I also omit video games, as most are aimed at children older than the demographic for most of the toys below).<br />
<br />
Happy shopping!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGcAqsVABN8bRAQibBh855bxx-N-VMV05I5En23vIO8F0nwnlUq1bGyEK1zrm0_EMj9gTdBcDAZFT_8sAQXA52XiInwHaNPlrGDvpiAtO3yOw7ZT5RcrNPtY5ixtVdPvCdnhx2GTvtfO4/s1600/Capture+---+Target+-+child%2527s+police+cruiser+-+from+weekly+adv.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGcAqsVABN8bRAQibBh855bxx-N-VMV05I5En23vIO8F0nwnlUq1bGyEK1zrm0_EMj9gTdBcDAZFT_8sAQXA52XiInwHaNPlrGDvpiAtO3yOw7ZT5RcrNPtY5ixtVdPvCdnhx2GTvtfO4/s640/Capture+---+Target+-+child%2527s+police+cruiser+-+from+weekly+adv.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzp1TOqPngXV03H7XvZgaetWpZJ2-gDicPLG0vb_fJCL2-6KSSd2lGg1FmJdU5hnO94kKyUJPf7RV3vLWOTfstz02MJ0Fy97T6wvLEVqvGxC_6S8Yu-dAQ9_Lt125InEsrXm9_Gf-CePw/s1600/Capture+---+Target+-+child%2527s+police+car+-+detail+-+from+weekly+adv.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzp1TOqPngXV03H7XvZgaetWpZJ2-gDicPLG0vb_fJCL2-6KSSd2lGg1FmJdU5hnO94kKyUJPf7RV3vLWOTfstz02MJ0Fy97T6wvLEVqvGxC_6S8Yu-dAQ9_Lt125InEsrXm9_Gf-CePw/s640/Capture+---+Target+-+child%2527s+police+car+-+detail+-+from+weekly+adv.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">*Pepper spray, handcuffs not included</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBCrRYsUIII92JSfsddQuwFM4DPWzWCld19wq9xoZgEiaeJwRw-KDLu1gYn4nL2gnAyfFSbbBAtzBv5P_1QHWLWGUNoGAdN92VdBUfd-z3NnpApv8y6_hQOWj8sKdtRD9LnxckaJrTfU/s1600/Capture+---+Target+-+child%2527s+police+car+-+detail+-+closer+-+closer+-+Copy+-+contr+adj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="638" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYBCrRYsUIII92JSfsddQuwFM4DPWzWCld19wq9xoZgEiaeJwRw-KDLu1gYn4nL2gnAyfFSbbBAtzBv5P_1QHWLWGUNoGAdN92VdBUfd-z3NnpApv8y6_hQOWj8sKdtRD9LnxckaJrTfU/s640/Capture+---+Target+-+child%2527s+police+car+-+detail+-+closer+-+closer+-+Copy+-+contr+adj.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of course, the "Protect & Serve" motto is present. As someone once said: If only it meant protecting and serving the 99 percent, rather than the 1 percent.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVzi1VOmQW9Rzhw_vmC_Iy64Ic6dyLJiI13jVjxhyBvGPWgicvz4_U6PA1T8fLHKI962xbZUTXhPIo4s7MqQW3hqx5vr69bmVDVqFCume1FDD_h-CLT9gp6mEaDgPvhqrg4qy-KqtTrxM/s1600/Capture+---+True+Heroes+Police+Accessory+Playset.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVzi1VOmQW9Rzhw_vmC_Iy64Ic6dyLJiI13jVjxhyBvGPWgicvz4_U6PA1T8fLHKI962xbZUTXhPIo4s7MqQW3hqx5vr69bmVDVqFCume1FDD_h-CLT9gp6mEaDgPvhqrg4qy-KqtTrxM/s640/Capture+---+True+Heroes+Police+Accessory+Playset.JPG" width="614" /></a>Handcuffs ARE included</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">From the Toys R Us description: "... Blow the whistle and flash the badge to tell the baddies to stop, and if they don't, administer some justice with the nightstick before holding them prisoner with the handcuffs. A knife rounds out the kit. ... <strong>True Heroes</strong> police, fire and soldier toys and spy gear let your kids emulate the latest blockbuster action movie as well as the people who make the world safe and just!" </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xO99W9pYk7S4O_StqiipU1NlAVb_5RI5m1UEW5IuFiQHG-Urhw8GJb2xTyG19Y9GIme5dvVvP6f-LB4yZDhWyGbod-VW3fk4l3G55IsHPtyQCaQG08u24BNhAxDzq7NnX9IEUYXBRFw/s1600/Capture+---+review+---+cropped_2+-+contr+adj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xO99W9pYk7S4O_StqiipU1NlAVb_5RI5m1UEW5IuFiQHG-Urhw8GJb2xTyG19Y9GIme5dvVvP6f-LB4yZDhWyGbod-VW3fk4l3G55IsHPtyQCaQG08u24BNhAxDzq7NnX9IEUYXBRFw/s640/Capture+---+review+---+cropped_2+-+contr+adj.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Above comment is by "Mom from NYC"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ADJurPWzhM714c5e9IG3Zw5rlKcmPFIBz6mfQieRr89ltu4B4eMWdbwhyphenhyphenvia2OsEHja5HX_uaHWc49X5f-4q74Ak1tvJDpy6Sbuixds8uzsYdGUGgADS6IJd2a9XrIEkMI1eVOnUAjc/s1600/Capture+---+GI+Joe+K9+officer+---+contr+adj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="558" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ADJurPWzhM714c5e9IG3Zw5rlKcmPFIBz6mfQieRr89ltu4B4eMWdbwhyphenhyphenvia2OsEHja5HX_uaHWc49X5f-4q74Ak1tvJDpy6Sbuixds8uzsYdGUGgADS6IJd2a9XrIEkMI1eVOnUAjc/s640/Capture+---+GI+Joe+K9+officer+---+contr+adj.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">From the Hasbro description: "... Put his pistol or gas grenade in one hand, leaving the other hand free for his K-9 companion’s leash! Order will be restored with your G.I. JOE figure on patrol!"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjExfF5y4fypgPFaU3Fbzl2SuRh6K94w8xHVEKeHedXpitOrQIf2uPyjv7KtyS_M1zdEi4ICyc65CKq8jkl854joDl3wzhO85BnJF3-Jr770Oa5mkaLsELxOoqj-ulca6dtFzIUoc7qFZY/s1600/Capture+---+True+Heroes+Police+Force+Playset+%2528w+belt-fed+automatic+weapon%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjExfF5y4fypgPFaU3Fbzl2SuRh6K94w8xHVEKeHedXpitOrQIf2uPyjv7KtyS_M1zdEi4ICyc65CKq8jkl854joDl3wzhO85BnJF3-Jr770Oa5mkaLsELxOoqj-ulca6dtFzIUoc7qFZY/s640/Capture+---+True+Heroes+Police+Force+Playset+%2528w+belt-fed+automatic+weapon%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Note the belt-fed portable machine gun above, presumably useful when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadou_Diallo_shooting">firing forty-one shots</a> at an innocent man <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/05/nyregion/officers-in-bronx-fire-41-shots-and-an-unarmed-man-is-killed.html?pagewanted=all">via standard departmental-issue semiautomatic sidearms</a> would be too tiring to police trigger fingers. And what is the nature of the complex-looking "attached revolving weapon" on top of the truck? It appears too large to be a riot-control water cannon, and includes what seems to be a telescopic sight, certainly unnecessary for a water cannon. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Hz_RAAYslWkezH5nJgvwe13jS5dSTk2-w7U0kEFi1w_iELmcxh5m0trVXbTiJBJPX8dFmFopkow_KGpyLnFEs45wpn6ERuD6zWfl7MFpmwzMdWox5YJjxMbrf2JwaSPvBo0Yz5MoIVM/s1600/Capture+---+LEGO+City+Prisoner+Transport.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Hz_RAAYslWkezH5nJgvwe13jS5dSTk2-w7U0kEFi1w_iELmcxh5m0trVXbTiJBJPX8dFmFopkow_KGpyLnFEs45wpn6ERuD6zWfl7MFpmwzMdWox5YJjxMbrf2JwaSPvBo0Yz5MoIVM/s640/Capture+---+LEGO+City+Prisoner+Transport.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Et tu, LEGO?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHzG68oiwXEd8euJkg_wUDjjPpyZmL4nNng2VxM_SWToASavLAj8EMPMO-uYyTVDXaqXi9raDpRdh9RY-45550J_OA_0m-VfOkJzeQeOLbZ5ZE9gtcB8bsptgA0JZJro1Yc11Afh5Rcwo/s1600/Capture+---+Playmobil+Police+Copter+%2528with+missile%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHzG68oiwXEd8euJkg_wUDjjPpyZmL4nNng2VxM_SWToASavLAj8EMPMO-uYyTVDXaqXi9raDpRdh9RY-45550J_OA_0m-VfOkJzeQeOLbZ5ZE9gtcB8bsptgA0JZJro1Yc11Afh5Rcwo/s640/Capture+---+Playmobil+Police+Copter+%2528with+missile%2529.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Above: Note the weaponry carried</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSCfk-sUFWfPVDshPIQzTbatHi-jqBny0Zu9s2JnUFK4-gvqhH2z2sXWqwG8ARA_D_X5uxtk2i9YNTQmLPf2ueQb_XlvtP5XeDEX8lHC4jZcBv3G4nggk6lPsJeT1zcFpvI_Fu0yhyaJk/s1600/Capture+---+Target+-+child%2527s+Mercedes-Benz+-+from+weekly+advl.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSCfk-sUFWfPVDshPIQzTbatHi-jqBny0Zu9s2JnUFK4-gvqhH2z2sXWqwG8ARA_D_X5uxtk2i9YNTQmLPf2ueQb_XlvtP5XeDEX8lHC4jZcBv3G4nggk6lPsJeT1zcFpvI_Fu0yhyaJk/s640/Capture+---+Target+-+child%2527s+Mercedes-Benz+-+from+weekly+advl.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">For the young one-percenter-wannabe</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGn7ntr_7hxz6vHT5l-Sl1rSQhWojYmRCnNIzResFU-A0D_1KH8FuoqKyq4vKlILPEzb5D95wlTpHrXDOCmD84TymSZCAAmZoST74Xmk6BWmpUGLwPsdSGAUOTKk2QNVHpNKkutuwWLU/s1600/Capture+---+McDonald%2527s+drive+thru+play+center_3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGn7ntr_7hxz6vHT5l-Sl1rSQhWojYmRCnNIzResFU-A0D_1KH8FuoqKyq4vKlILPEzb5D95wlTpHrXDOCmD84TymSZCAAmZoST74Xmk6BWmpUGLwPsdSGAUOTKk2QNVHpNKkutuwWLU/s640/Capture+---+McDonald%2527s+drive+thru+play+center_3.JPG" width="568" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Should aspirations to become a one-percenter not pan out, there is always the prospect of more plebian employment behind the drive-thru window.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcLl2MK0OKGcPPrfexnWY5e3JS6g-0XkoUgB4TP1APAkhytcvH9VLmjPZ19cKUKW9t4KdkEPDT01USEjC9xok1Q1PVHGxrohgeiwohLnhJoszhRktwR2Y6fMtjvtrhJphQFJv-d0hVBAY/s1600/Capture+---+Air+Hogs+Hawk+Eye+plane+---+w+red+border+---+find+in+stores.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcLl2MK0OKGcPPrfexnWY5e3JS6g-0XkoUgB4TP1APAkhytcvH9VLmjPZ19cKUKW9t4KdkEPDT01USEjC9xok1Q1PVHGxrohgeiwohLnhJoszhRktwR2Y6fMtjvtrhJphQFJv-d0hVBAY/s640/Capture+---+Air+Hogs+Hawk+Eye+plane+---+w+red+border+---+find+in+stores.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie-bbuAAw8miVllGoYO6-NvztVhDhfMMnRAE-9TBc-dtoilA-X1euHYrTsH6obkBCX1auBVWjx8USPAHNHcMQVlUV63uVnfO7bCHlmhiT73isqaC3SQAOB157uU1ld0XgaUlcwUW5rqaw/s1600/Capture+---+Air+Hogs+video+camera+plane_3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="636" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie-bbuAAw8miVllGoYO6-NvztVhDhfMMnRAE-9TBc-dtoilA-X1euHYrTsH6obkBCX1auBVWjx8USPAHNHcMQVlUV63uVnfO7bCHlmhiT73isqaC3SQAOB157uU1ld0XgaUlcwUW5rqaw/s640/Capture+---+Air+Hogs+video+camera+plane_3.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's never too early to start drone operator training, or to help acclimate your neighbors to being spied upon.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">(Photos and descriptions are from manufacturer and retailer websites, and are deemed to constitute fair use, as they are being used to illustrate the slickness of the products and their marketing, the psychological effects that the products may produce in consumers, and the political effects that the products may produce in the nation). </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-11022201190556216152011-10-28T08:57:00.000-07:002011-10-31T00:08:13.316-07:00The NYC Police Taking Pride in their Work --- plus a Message about our Social Security<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Below is a screen snip from the slideshow accompanying a New York Times story on how cities are starting to move against "Occupy" protests.</span></span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7iyyvEJ-E1c6_-826sp7zDQmOvNdHMYAeJZ_hZKJ09wbloc4BmCBxA9SrxesiHUgJcxntYJ_yYTO3MM1CuvXlSg5_qcvtOBm-r5ttnXja3szSMWiTdZOtfVmbD8xWfltV9bJ2jyu3fv0/s1600/Capture+---+NYT+slideshow+photo+of+NY+police+acting+against+demonstrators%252C+plus+Schwab+ad_100__w+border_b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="435" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7iyyvEJ-E1c6_-826sp7zDQmOvNdHMYAeJZ_hZKJ09wbloc4BmCBxA9SrxesiHUgJcxntYJ_yYTO3MM1CuvXlSg5_qcvtOBm-r5ttnXja3szSMWiTdZOtfVmbD8xWfltV9bJ2jyu3fv0/s640/Capture+---+NYT+slideshow+photo+of+NY+police+acting+against+demonstrators%252C+plus+Schwab+ad_100__w+border_b.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/us/oakland-and-other-cities-crack-down-on-occupy-protests.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/us/oakland-and-other-cities-crack-down-on-occupy-protests.html</span></a> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/26/us/20111027_OCCUPY.html?ref=us"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/26/us/20111027_OCCUPY.html?ref=us</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I first took particular note of the photo for two reasons:<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">1) The sight of the two cops obviously straining, really getting into their "work" against an apparently hapless protester. Isn't it reassuring, in a time when so many employees supposedly don’t care about their work, to see two "workers" so serious about doing their job "right"?! (Or should I say "right-wing", instead of "right"?)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">2) The large letters on the jacket of the "white-shirt" officer to the right that identify him as "police". This gets to the point I've raised previously (via comment to a story at the NYT, at the Sardonicky blog, and at RealityChex): I believe that all law enforcement and military should wear a large (at least 10 cm tall) identifying number on their uniform, to permit identification at a distance by witnesses and/or photography, of those in positions of authority who abuse their power. As in most jurisdictions, the New York City police have no problem wearing jackets with large letters that identify them as police — but when it comes to specific identification of a particular officer, that will be extremely small (if at all), and certainly not readable at a distance.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The photographer, Spencer Platt, has done a masterful job of capturing these essentials.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">However, what prompted the screen grab was the incongruity of the juxtaposition of the above police action in the service of the powers-that-be, with the Charles Schwab advertisement about Social Security to the lower right — and the inanity of a New York Times system for placing advertisements with their content. While the Schwab ad refers to retirement planning, and the pairing was undoubtedly generated automatically, it nevertheless says much. It's about how the vast majority of the public — after more than three decades of being woefully short-changed relative to the corporations and the plutocracy — are about to have their social security and other benefits partially taken by a government (supercommittee, Congress, and the executive) seeking austerity on the backs of the people, in unjust response to a financial crisis largely caused by financial trading. It's about how our supposedly-guaranteed right to assemble for protest has been so constrained as to be a sham. It's about how the police as a whole serve the corporations and the plutocracy. And it's about how the powers-that-be — in any government — will always be able to find enforcers willing to physically act against the people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-31463772007906735342011-10-03T20:19:00.000-07:002011-10-04T13:30:58.383-07:00A Federal Budget Built via "Direct-Democracy Earmarks"by Fred Drumlevitch<br />
<a href="http://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.com/">www.FredDrumlevitch.blogspot.com</a><br />
October 3, 2011<br />
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As the U.S. Congress and its deficit-reduction supercommittee prepare to further cut safety-net and social programs, reduce regulatory oversight, ignore crumbling national infrastructure, continue absurdly high military and security spending, and refuse to make even modest additional demands of those who have richly profited from three decades of laissez-faire capitalism, many Americans have concluded that federal budgeting now operates with a philosophy that ranges from callous disregard to utter contempt for the well-being of the nation and most of its people. Philosophy, process, and result are all faulty.<br />
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In any endeavor, when a fundamental paradigm is found to be wrong, the only reasonable course of action is to replace it. I therefore propose a federal budget largely built on a new paradigm of "Direct-Democracy Earmarks" — the people themselves directly selecting the departments and programs to be funded. Every adult citizen would independently allocate an equal share of total federal discretionary spending.<br />
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Note that allocation independently done by each citizen not only produces collective expenditures in accord with aggregate public preferences, it also prevents both the subjugation of minority interests by a tyranny of the majority, and the blocking of majority interests by an obstructionist minority. While the proposed process is revolutionary, it stands entirely consistent with the founding of this nation, which sought to advance a more rational, moral, and democratic philosophy of government — a philosophy repeatedly betrayed during the past three decades. The democratic decentralization of my proposal rates as a notable improvement, for it will end many of the betrayals, absurd compromises, and episodes of gridlock now frequent in American politics, reduce the current bloated influence of big business and wealth, and, most importantly, finally empower the people in setting national priorities.<br />
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The American people already "own" the budget. Unfortunately, our "ownership" extends only to the debt/obligations side of the ledger. It's high time that we also owned the appropriations. We ostensibly elect representatives, but all too often those representatives view wealthy individual and corporate donors as their true constituency, and a significant portion of tax money is expended in ways harmful to the nation and to many of us individually — military adventurism and empire, unwarranted or inadequately-regulated corporate subsidies and bailouts, etc. However, we also see great sins of omission, with major national problems never adequately addressed, so cries of supposed "excessive taxation" falsely frame the central issue. This nation must categorically reject the never-ending, self-serving disinformation from the wealthy and the corporations seeking to avoid contributing their fair share to a country that has enabled them to prosper. Our problem isn't excessive taxation — it's what those taxes are used and not used for. The people of this nation need to reclaim ownership of national spending — and the only process that can be expected to properly accomplish that in our political environment is direct allocation, by all adult citizens, of the discretionary portion of the federal budget.<br />
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Will current politicians voluntarily permit it to happen? Of course not — if they can by any means prevent it. However, the Arab Spring should have taught Americans that today’s impossibility may become tomorrow’s inevitability. Thus, the more relevant questions are: Would such a budgeting structure work? Could it produce an allocation balance more progressive than what we currently have (let alone what we will have after the scheduled evisceration by the supercommittee)? Shouldn't progressives be willing to go forward with what would amount to a true grass-roots people's budget? Shouldn't libertarians and genuine conservatives support such a process as more representative of popular will than is government control? Shouldn't free-marketers of any stripe support it as being as close to their vaunted "wisdom of the market" as government can get? Shouldn't all honest citizens endorse it, as eliminating some of the corrupting influence of campaign contributions on the budget process? <br />
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Personally, I believe that more efficient, better results would come from allocation by a strong progressive government. But not only is our present government not progressive, even its center-right proposals continue to be blocked by right-wing extremists brandishing an ideological grenade with the pin removed. Our present course is a path to failure, and right-wing ideology will take us to a new dark age of corporatist plutocratic oligarchy. Absent strong progressive leadership and responsible conservatives, we need a new solution. I have proposed one.<br />
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I make no claim that my direct-democracy allocation proposal is perfect. Some government departments and programs would undoubtedly attempt to exploit my proposed system — but our current system has long been outrageously exploited, through fear and the widespread geographic sprinkling of contracts, by our "Defense" and "Homeland Security" departments. A mechanism would be needed to insure that accurate information is available to the people, and that departments/programs can make their case for funds to all citizens in an efficient and fair manner that doesn't bias the process towards manipulative mega-departments. Optimum granularity of the allocation menu and the best frequency and timing of the allocation process are yet to be determined. Finally, the direct allocation proposal I have outlined is not a complete solution; it does not itself impose the modest progressive tax increases that most reasonable economists agree are necessary — though it might make such increases more palatable through the promise of direct citizen control. Overall, one can say that complexities are present, but they are manageable, and quite tolerable in light of the benefits to be gained.<br />
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I believe that allocating federal discretionary spending via "Direct-Democracy Earmarks" has the potential to revitalize the nation. I assert that philosophy, process, and result would all be vastly superior to what we have now.<br />
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<i>This post is hereby licensed for further use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.</i><br />
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<div style="color: lime;"><b>Note to readers about a technical problem leaving comments:</b> </div><span style="color: lime;">Reader comments are enabled --- and are valued. However, for unknown reasons, they currently will not register when using Internet Explorer. Please use Firefox, which does seem to work (at least for now), or try again at a later time.</span><i><span style="color: lime;"> </span></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-76277306258554366432011-09-10T18:04:00.000-07:002011-09-10T18:06:12.762-07:00National Security and the American People — "Boiling the Frog"At his 1933 inauguration, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke about fear, a declaration that bears repeating in these times: "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear... is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance".<br />
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FDR was referring to economic problems, and may have slightly overstated his point, but he was mostly correct. Nowadays, his words might well be applied, with equal accuracy, to the issue of terrorism. We've come a long way since September 11, 2001; unfortunately the journey has been very much in the wrong direction. Since 9/11, Americans have made fear into an art form, and dangerously incorporated it into our political, legal, economic, and social systems. We've begged our government to protect us from terrorism risks that are not only quite small by absolute metrics but also completely dwarfed by other dangers. Consider: In the ten years since 9/11, approximately 380,000 Americans have died in motor vehicle accidents, more than 125 times as many as were killed by those airline terrorists. During the past ten years, heart disease has claimed over 6 million American lives, more than 2,000 times as many as were lost on 9/11. Even as I type this, perhaps a fatal obstruction is forming in one of my arteries — or yours. Irrespective of terrorism, our lives are finite, as are our resources. Reason suggests that efforts and expenditures should be at least roughly related to risk and benefit, but that basic principle is grossly violated by most of our terrorism-rationalized security actions (including our current Afghanistan presence). Despite their grandiose aspirations and occasional tragic impacts, terrorists are unlikely to be more than a small pit in the windshield of history for most Americans, and in the grand scheme of things. But as we continue to pour a fortune down the anti-terrorism rat-hole, the opportunity costs mount, and this nation slips further into decline. A deteriorated infrastructure, a priority on military and security spending, the off-shoring of manufacturing (unless the product is missiles or warplanes), a blank check for the financial manipulators, free rein for corporations, indifference to human needs and planetary ecological woes — what an embarrassing legacy this nation seems intent on leaving.<br />
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An even larger indirect danger exists, one entirely of our own making. Establishing a multitude of so-called "security" measures during the past ten years, both Republican and Democratic politicians together with enabling judges and the security-industrial complex have been all too eager to shred more than 200 years of Constitutional safeguards. Seeking absolute safety from terrorism, we are building an infrastructure for tyranny. And make no mistake, tyranny is by far the greater danger, clearly demonstrated by history. The three major totalitarian states of the 20th century are estimated to be collectively responsible for over 100 million deaths, many of them their own citizens. (See Matthew White's detailed compilation of casualties at <a href="http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm">http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm</a> for a sobering perspective on risk).<br />
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In many ways the issue of airline security is emblematic of what is wrong — and perhaps indicative of a broad solution. Beyond the danger from their contribution to the developing surveillance infrastructure and the way they condition us to accept totalitarian-style control, the airline "security" measures that have been imposed are also absurd, for they are neither likely to stop a knowledgeable determined terrorist, nor particularly effective compared to alternate methods, nor warranted by the actual threat level (which, even including 9/11, is statistically less than the risk of choking to death on a piece of food). Between the airlines which already treat their customers like livestock and the security apparatchiki who treat them like criminals, the situation for sentient commercial airline passengers has become intolerable. Yet, like sheep, so many passengers put up with it, applaud it, even bleat for more.<br />
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Several years ago, I decided that I would not fly until the treatment of passengers improved substantially. I haven't flown since. If enough people simultaneously boycotted the airlines for a sufficiently long time — one year of serious boycott should get their attention — we might see the necessary improvement. Some believe that we should tolerate absurdity and abuse; I suggest that the next twelve months be a self-imposed no-fly year for anyone who wishes to retain any self-respect (and actually see "change we can believe in"). Supplement that with a determination not to patronize stores, malls, cities, counties, and states where either rent-a-cops or official law enforcement violate common decency and infringe civil liberties — and inform management, government, and news media in those locations of the reason you are withholding spending. The boycott is a non-violent tactic with a long and largely honorable history, and some notable successes such as during the struggle for desegregation. It is broadly applicable across a wide range of corporate-governmental policies, and it may be the only tactic that corporate America and its governmental lackeys cannot easily dismiss.<br />
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As a closing note, I recommend that current politicians, would-be politicians, and security policy-makers and enforcers, whether they fly or not, all undergo mandatory full body searches and scans — but with particular focus on the cranium, to determine whether they have any common sense, any comprehension of relative risk, any appreciation of opportunity costs and the need for moral uses of capital, any understanding of historical paths to tyranny, and any belief in the value of liberty. What I fear is that they do not.<br />
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Fred DrumlevitchUnknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-28396530636927282962011-09-07T13:59:00.000-07:002011-09-07T13:59:28.112-07:00A "Handicap Principle" for Electoral PoliticsPeriodically, the idea of term limits for political office gains traction. I have some feelings of support for term limits, but I also have some reservations. While there are crooks and incompetents who have been in office for extended periods, there is no shortage of newly-elected ones. Conversely, some long-time office-holders have demonstrated genuine leadership beneficial to the nation. A separate but related issue is that the electorate is frequently given no good choices.<br />
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Here I make a procedural suggestion that differs from strict term limits, and which permits genuinely good leaders to continue to serve while making it progressively harder for bad ones to continue.<br />
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There would be an incrementing threshold for re-election; for Congress, the percentage of the cast votes required for election/reelection would equal 50 plus the number of years served in that office. Thus a Senator seeking re-election after one term, for example, would be required to get 56% of votes cast. A Representative seeking re-election after one term would be required to get 52%. In order to be realistic regarding margins achievable for the legislative branch, we might choose to cap the total required at somewhere between 62% and 68%. As for a President, given the extraordinary power and responsibility of the office, and the nearly four years he/she will have had to demonstrate competence (or lack thereof), the reelection threshold should be at least 60% of votes cast. That is not outlandish; a 60% grade on an exam is barely a "D".<br />
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Under this system, both the challenger and the incumbent might fail to reach their respective thresholds for election or reelection. In such a case, a new election would be held, with all previous general election candidates barred from participating. (Actually, irrespective of the presence of a differential threshold for new candidates and incumbents, all elections should present the option of a "no" vote, which, if chosen with greater frequency than every candidate for that office, should necessitate a new election with fresh candidates). <br />
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My proposal should increase the average level of competence and honesty by three mechanisms: First, the aforementioned bar to continued participation by general election candidates with previously-demonstrated mediocre performance would promote the rise of new and hopefully better choices. Second, the "incumbent handicap" would encourage inadequate current officeholders to retire rather than seek reelection. Third, that handicap would incentivize the party structure and/or primary voters to replace an inadequate incumbent for the next election, to increase the likelihood of a party candidate winning.<br />
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The "handicap principle" appears to apply in biology. Perhaps it's time to apply it to electoral politics.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-21724757233091325282011-08-10T08:04:00.000-07:002011-08-10T08:49:08.595-07:00Orwellian 1984-style memory-hole revisionism at the California Democratic Party?Today, August 10, 2011, I noticed that Vijay Prashad's excellent article in support of a progressive primary challenge to Obama, formerly at <a href="http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org/vijay.html">http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org/vijay.html</a> , is missing (404 error) from the California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus website.<br />
<br />
Luckily, the Vijay Prasad's article is still available at Counterpunch:<br />
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad08022011.html">http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad08022011.html</a><br />
<br />
Similarly, Joe Garafoli's CDP primary challenge reportage, formerly at <a href="http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org/Garofoli.html">http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org/Garofoli.html</a> , is also gone --- <br />
<br />
but is available at: <br />
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=94646#ixzz1U27Sr0vv">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=94646#ixzz1U27Sr0vv</a><br />
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I can only speculate as to the reason why these disappearances from the CDP Progressive Caucus website have occurred, but Orwellian 1984-style memory-hole revisionism, done under pressure from the Democratic powers-that-be at the national and/or state level, is what comes to mind. (It's worth noting that at the bottom of the California Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus webpage is this telling note: "Paid for by the California Democratic Party"). If they have succumbed to pressure, one must wonder about the courage, the commitment to social justice, and ultimately, the worth, of the California Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus, as well as the mainstream party itself. <br />
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Shades of Orwell. Next up, Soviet-style purges? If the Democratic Party, national or state, thinks that making written disaffection disappear will make such feelings disappear, or will prevent organization in support of opposition, they are badly mistaken. Such action by the Democratic Party simply tells us that opposition within their traditional party structure is likely a waste of time --- so we must focus our efforts (and any monetary donations) elsewhere. For me, and I believe many other lifelong Democrats, it only redoubles our commitment to work for true, progressive alternatives that cannot be pressured or co-opted --- and we will work outside of an apparently irrelevant party structure if need be, as seems to be the case.<br />
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Fred DrumlevitchUnknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-86860972884128093032011-08-07T00:08:00.000-07:002011-08-07T00:23:05.771-07:00The Progressive Challenge to ObamaAs many progressives are aware, the California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus recently called for a primary challenge to Obama:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org/f/Resolution_in_Support_of_a_Possible_2012_Democratic_Presidential_Primary_Challenge_07302011.pdf">http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org/f/Resolution_in_Support_of_a_Possible_2012_Democratic_Presidential_Primary_Challenge_07302011.pdf</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org/vijay.html">http://www.progressivecaucuscdp.org/vijay.html</a><br />
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I applaud them. And their action brings to mind President Lyndon Johnson's dramatic March 1968 announcement: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."<br />
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I'd like to hear something similar from Obama, delivered early enough that a progressive candidate has enough time to wage a winning campaign. It is his only honorable option remaining.<br />
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But I don't expect that. Obama either doesn't really understand how badly he screwed up what was, in 2009, a golden opportunity for implementation of a progressive Democratic agenda --- which, it should be noted, would have benefited the poor and middle class of all political stripes --- or else, he does know full well, that failure was in fact intentional, and he needs a second term to finish paying off what he owes the investment banks and corporate sector for their support in 2008, lest their enforcers leave a horse's head in his bed. Or possibly, as I've said before, he still suffers from "battered politician syndrome", and still believes that if he just tries hard enough, he'll be able to get the Republicans to love him. If so, I can only wonder what it would take for him to actually break free of their abuse.<br />
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Regardless of the explanation, my support for him evaporated long ago; as a progressive, it was an exercise in delusional masochism for me to keep wishing that he would demonstrate proper leadership. Back in 2008, "hope" and "change" had a very optimistic, very expansive meaning. Now, after more than two-and-a-half years of absurdly bad presidential leadership, my horizons have become much narrower: I just hope I'll be able to find some spare change under my couch cushions.<br />
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As for Republican politicians, no matter how many religious rallies they attend, or how frequent and intense their profession of faith, morally they are utterly bankrupt.<br />
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The only reasonable course of action left to those who care about this country is to support a progressive primary challenge to Obama, or a third-party general election candidate. That is the only reasonable course of action, but history teaches us that reason is often thwarted, and decency ignored.<br />
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When self-evident truths in matters of basic human rights and social justice are ignored, the course of human events becomes predictable --- though not in the way that government might wish it to be. That was the case for the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and many others. In the national political theater that currently passes for government, the unrelenting assault on the poor and the middle class by the wealthy, the corporations, and their Republican political lackeys, and the mismanagement, cowardice, and complicity shown by Democrats, will most certainly have consequences for the future of both our failing, socially-unjust economy and our manipulated (though ostensibly democratic) political structure. The revolution may or may not be televised, but it will not be controllable.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-30902605934825013092011-07-30T16:55:00.000-07:002011-08-01T20:10:14.341-07:00Government, Capitalism, and the Flow of CapitalWith its Reaganesque trickle-down paradigm, basic capitalism --- raw, primal, Social-Darwinistic --- is like a purely <em>gravity-fed</em> water system. It'll function, but its reliability and volume of flow are at the mercy of changing, uncontrollable external conditions, and its destinations are completely constrained, often not where delivery is most needed.<br />
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Such water distribution systems worked (in a manner of speaking) for the Romans two millennia ago. But no reasonable citizen would choose them for a complex modern society, populous and sprawling, needing to maximize the benefit to be derived from scarce resources, and hopefully also concerned with a modicum of fairness for all of its people. Analogously, such a paradigm makes no sense as distribution method for the modern flow of capital.<br />
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Yet that is the direction to which virtually all Republicans and many Democrats are taking this nation. It must rank as one of the great ironies that capitalism, always arguing for the "best" use of scarce resources, so frequently and so thoroughly mismanages the scarce resource from which it takes its name.<br />
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And capital does seem to be a scarce resource, at least to the average person. Beyond personal finances, lack of money has become the rationale encountered for countless actions, ranging from corporate opposition to wage hikes (including even the minimum wage), through the neglect of infrastructure, to the elimination of some government services and the scaling back of others such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.<br />
<br />
However, an objective observer from another planet might conclude that our problems arise less from inadequate capital than from failure to use it properly.<br />
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Consider the financial "industry". The stock market is basically a combination of numbers racket and circular firing squad, periodically resuscitated by cash transfusions delivered by its minions in Washington and fresh marks in the hinterlands. Except for IPOs, stock buybacks, and hedging of raw material costs and foreign exchange rates, trading is of little benefit to genuinely productive companies, and far exceeds the levels needed to establish a credible secondary market.<br />
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As to the rest of our economy, many of its goods and services --- expensive or cheap, exalted or plebian --- are actually of little true value. They are basically churn that only serves to provide the populace with enough employment and income to purchase its own stash of unnecessary junk, while business takes a portion of each transaction as profit.<br />
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I'm not advocating that we don sackcloth and become wandering ascetics. But I do find it intensely objectionable that we as a nation devote the overwhelming part of our economic energies to the unimportant, and to militarism, while the essential functions of a civilized society are aggressively being demolished. That combination, however, appears to be the inevitable outcome of laissez-faire capitalism coupled with inadequate governmental revenues, faulty leadership, and a fearful and easily-manipulated populace. These mutually reinforce each other, to our great national detriment, and as remedy we need to address each of them not in turn, but simultaneously. They are where our political focus should be, not on the dance-of-the-debt-ceiling, which serves only as distraction to enable the further looting of our nation by the wealthy, the corporations, and the military-industrial complex.<br />
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To return to my opening metaphor: It is clear that right-wing trickle-down is a faulty paradigm for the twenty-first century. Government, when it operates properly, is like a <em>pumped</em> water system, delivering a precious fluid when and where it is needed. When operating properly, government performs vital economic and societal functions which the capitalistic corporate sector cannot do without conflict of interest and/or added cost (if it were even willing to address them at all). To the extent that government does not function properly, we the citizens of the United States need to reclaim it, not cede it to the forces of greed, ignorance, and incompetence.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-54571720538206588222011-07-30T16:35:00.000-07:002011-07-30T16:35:28.502-07:00More WWII AnalogyIn my previous post, I neglected to mention another way in which WWII and its run-up are appropriate metaphors for contemporary politics:<br />
<br />
The German Nazis and Italian fascists got substantial initial support from business interests in general, and industrial and banking interests in particular, who thought that they could control them to the extent necessary for their corporate profit.<br />
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In the U.S., the Republicans and the Tea Party have received substantial support from American business, industrial, and banking interests, who similarly expected to effect control. However, judging from today's New York Times' report of the flow of lobbyists to Congress, it appears that businessmen are now experiencing some degree of fear, as it becomes apparent that, as in twentieth-century Germany and Italy, they have created a Frankenstein monster likely to damage their long-term interests.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-13285660360713098332011-07-27T22:32:00.000-07:002011-07-27T22:32:32.949-07:00World War II is the Appropriate AnalogyWhile the widely-made point that a government shutdown will have significant negative consequences is correct, frankly, I see no other way, unless President Obama wants to be the Neville Chamberlain of the 21rst century and the Democrats in Congress want to be his assistants in a shameful surrender. Obama's two-and-a-half years of concession "strategy" has already greatly empowered the Republicans and Tea Partiers, and they think they're on a roll.<br />
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World War II, not the American Civil War so often cited, is the appropriate analogy for our present situation. In it, the Allies were fighting fascists --- fascists in control of the power of the state, and who were initially supported by a large portion if not the majority of the populations of the Axis nations. One need only look at the newsreel images of the German crowds cheering for Nazism and its initial gains in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, France, and Russia to understand the exhilarating effect on the masses of a seemingly-winning strategy, irrespective of its immorality and long-term inviability. Only when German soldiers met enough resistance in Russia, enough dead and wounded started coming back from the front, and consequences began to drop from the sky, did the average German start to have second thoughts. Should the Allies have not fought WWII because of the collateral damage they would inevitably inflict?<br />
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As an unabashed progressive, I believe that the consequences of a government shutdown, felt by right-wingers advocating massive governmental cuts, are now the only forces capable of stopping these traitors to the American Dream.<br />
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Democrats in government, do not forget that your party was once known as the party of FDR's New Deal. Do not destroy that legacy --- and the party's future prospects --- by agreeing to debt-reduction strategies that no matter how spun, are no more than obscene cuts that will produce massive damage to long-standing social programs and the poor and middle class of this nation.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-87897689237364059732011-07-27T05:38:00.000-07:002011-07-27T05:38:09.456-07:00The Debt Ceiling and Rogue ElephantsWhat should the President do regarding the debt limit?<br />
<br />
While David Barash's New York Times July 27 Op-Ed metaphor comparing the Republican Party to an elephant gone rogue due to musth was relevant, I'm not sure it was that helpful for suggesting a solution, given Obama's past surrenders of most of what his opponents have wanted. <br />
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I don't think Obama has it in him to "stop playing the game", the general solution advocated by Mr. Barash. As a confirmed right-wing pseudo-centrist, Obama has spent the past two-and-a-half years in an intimate relationship with that Republican "rogue elephant" --- and based on his last speech, he's still a "battered spouse" who can't bring himself to truly leave his abuser(s).<br />
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If Obama really were to find his castanets, he'd stop trying to reach a bad-vs-worse agreement with the Republicans. Why? Because the Republicans have fed their base a steady stream of lies regarding the role of government, until those people are now completely out of their minds with hatred towards it --- and the only way to stop the derangement and its consequences is to bring them face-to-face with the world they advocate. In my opinion, the need for that transcends even the detrimental consequences of a reduction in our national credit rating postulated under even a temporary default.<br />
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As first order of business, Obama should announce proportional cuts to federal funds going out to each state --- with the cuts based not on the overall federal receipts compared to obligations, but on that ratio for each state. So Alaska, for instance, which gets much more than it remits, would lose proportionately much more than a state with neutral federal dollar flow. (Perhaps someone can research and post the federal dollar flows for each state? And also correlate that to Republican and Tea Party sentiment?) <br />
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Just as jingoism doesn't stop until enough coffins roll in, the right-wing anti-government craziness won't stop until enough consequences are felt.<br />
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Fred DrumlevitchUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461641054878184352.post-12538561341261709882011-07-25T06:11:00.001-07:002011-07-25T19:07:12.899-07:00U.S. Economic Problems: The President, The Congress, UsAs we try to solve our current economic and budget problems, perhaps the biggest roadblock is the mindset in the political and economic centers of power: they're either trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again (but minus an arm and a leg) --- or they're advocating radical surgery designed to eviscerate him, and plan to feast on the yolk. No competent doctors have treated the patient.<br />
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Let's first make a proper diagnosis.<br />
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The current situation has many causes including a housing bubble, financial vaporware, inadequate regulation, tax cuts, trade imbalances, military spending, consumer spending, and many more, all tied together via complex interactions and feedback loops. <br />
<br />
Consider the graph diagramming the housing bubble. There is an obvious set of links connecting nodes for the banksters, poorly-vetted loans and securitization thereof, and inadequate regulation. But we should also ask ourselves: Why did so many individuals/families --- be they the sub-prime mortgage crowd, or members of the middle class, or the serial flippers --- take part in the irrationally exuberant speculation? (Yes, some such speculation is nearly always implicit in the purchase of a major asset at a price significantly above its historical trendline).<br />
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The answer to that question gets to the heart of our problems. I believe that beyond the perfectly-understandable desire to own their own home, many of these people simply wanted --- no, <em>needed</em> --- a small slice of the pie. They looked around, and saw decades of inequity and decline: massive Wall Street profits from speculation and vapor capitalism; corporate CEOs raking-in obscene pay packages while cutting worker salaries and benefits, or worse, offshoring work and laying them off; the demise of defined-benefit pension plans; the evisceration of unions; repeated warnings about Social Security and Medicare shortfalls; rapidly-rising costs for essentials including healthcare, education, and fuel. Many people knew that they <em>needed</em> to do <em>something</em> in order to grab themselves a small piece of the American Dream, before it disappeared completely. And if speculation mostly worked for Wall Streeters, why shouldn't it work for them too? So that's where many additional connections join our bankster graph, with the additional vulnerabilities and instabilities that, depending on connections and feedback, a large network may suffer. That's how --- to choose just one factor, and just one result --- increased income inequities predisposed us to a banking crash.<br />
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Think of the banking crisis and our many other problems as "blowback" (if I might borrow that term so well used by the late great Chalmers Johnson) --- Karmic blowback onto a <em>system</em> that has spent the past three decades pulling the rug out from under the poor and the middle class. Unfortunately, those same citizens have now been shafted twice, the second time as collateral damage inflicted by that blowback. Most obscenely, we're about to be given the big one a third time, victimized by a political system that will cut benefits to those who need them most, decimate our infrastructure, and refuse to raise taxes on the rich and the corporations.<br />
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Three strikes and we're out, the end of the American Dream. All that's left is a bunch of people on the make --- no, not for a hot Saturday-night date, nor for wealth, just for some measure of basic financial security. Those of us who through prudence and a great deal of luck are not yet impoverished don't know how long that'll last; those doing worse don't know when it'll get better. We're just hanging on, often with both physical and psychological insecurity. Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Many people are barely at his lowest level (if even there). And let's not fool ourselves into thinking that entrepreneurship will solve our problems, as some have suggested. In today's economic climate, new businesses are less likely than ever to address essential needs; startups are frequently based on what can be started with minimal capital and little hired labor, and often provide frivolous services to a shrinking pool of people able and willing to part with money.<br />
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What is to be done? The truth is self-evident. We need an intelligent and moral transformation, the restructuring of our society away from militarism, speculation, inequity, and the mindless consumption of consumer products --- and towards ecologically-sound, infrastructurally-beneficial, humanistically-enriching, morally-defensible goods and services: items such as education, medical treatment, social justice, conservation, clean energy, mass transit, other infrastructure development and repair, the arts, literature, music... .<br />
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Despite the unique opportunity afforded by the financial crisis, that clearly hasn't happened. It hasn't even been attempted. The Republicans, in their obsessive defense of the so-called "free-market" and opposition to taxes, rabidly oppose the prioritization and planning (and yes, tax-funded government investment) that would be necessary to improve our nation. The Democrats have either lacked the courage to confront the Republicans on these issues, or may have made a seriously-flawed calculation that short-term results (i.e. before the next election) are more important than long-term transformative improvements that might take more time to kick in. A darker explanation is that most politicians --- Republicans and Democrats --- simply aren't on our side. Their most-influential patrons don't really want substantive transformation; they want a restoration, not the reformation that is needed.<br />
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This nation is caught in a maelstrom of greed, irrationality, and incompetence. Unless we act properly, in a true progressive manner, we'll keep swirling down, our demise inevitable. In such a current, going with the flow, even with a flotation device, won't deliver safety; it'll just take a bit longer for the end to come. There is no substitute for unabashedly progressive action.<br />
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Fred DrumlevitchUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2