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11/30/03:
Sunday

TYPICAL POLITICIAN



When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood. Look to it yourselves." --New American Bible, Matthew 27:24

11.30.03/10:37
Suicide by Oil Gang

Every once in while you come across a news story about some distraught and desperate individual, maybe holding some hostages, keeping the cops at bay. Eventually the cops kill him. This has become known as "suicide by police". But there are other ways to encourage others to cash you in.

Journalist Greg Palast suggests that Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez seems to relish putting himself in that position. In this Chavez is similar in bravado to George Bush. But when Bush taunts, "Bring 'em on!" he doesn't mean to put himself on the line, he's coaxing his enemies to kill American troops. Chavez, on the other hand, makes himself a target.

Hugo Chavez is hated by the rich of Venezuela and oil conglomerates for his political support of his country's less well off. As Palast says here, what Chevez is doing by sticking his finger in Big Oil's eye"...is an invitation for a bullet. But that's Chavez' style. His assassins don't have to hunt him down; he looks for THEM. His attitude is, "take your best shot."

Palast reports that "This weekend, Chavez is facing a recall petition by the angry rich of Venezuela. He also faces the wrath of an angry rich American president who does not appreciate Chavez' bad attitude toward globalization a la Rumsfeld."

The wrath of the oil gang, which includes Big Heads in the Bush administration and cohorts in Exxon and Mobile, has to do with the Venezuelan's efforts to join his companies oil resources with that of other South American nations to create a Latin Opec.

"If Exxon and Mobil can combine, and Texaco and Phillips, why not PetroBrasil and PdVSA?" Chavez asks, referring to the Brazilian and Venezuelan government operators.

Why not? Because, though free market enterprise is supposed to be built upon competition, really, really big business doesn't like that kind of competition. And they have the clout and international government connections to make the assassination of Chavez a real possibility.

And would our hands be clean in that eventuality? Probably only in the ritual-washing-of-hands sense, a la Pontius Pilate.

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11.30.03/9:02
You can't spend just one side of a coin


NY Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, makes a valid point in this piece today. He suggests that for the left to be effective, liberal strategy must be more than anti-Bush.

Granted, one of the highest priorities of the nation should be to rid ourselves of the self-serving, elite, empty arrogance of these Bush years. But it makes no sense to try to replace that with more negative space, liberal or otherwise. The left needs to put forth forceful counter ideas that go beyond hate.

Friedman, who says in the article that's he a liberal in everything but the war, was in London during the Bush visit recently. He was struck by the absence in the anti-war, anti-Bush rallies of anything that mentioned the culpability of terrorists.

Friedman: "Sorry, but there is something morally obtuse about holding an antiwar rally on a day when your own people have been murdered — and not even mentioning it or those who perpetrated it. Watching this scene, I couldn't help but wonder whether George Bush had made the liberal left crazy. It can't see anything else in the world today, other than the Bush-Blair original sin of launching the Iraq war, without U.N. approval or proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

There's truth there. I hope we can see it.

What the left says has to resonate beyond itself, or we ain't goin' nowhere. This is about more than self-pleasuring. The Bush administration took the position that they could go it alone. We should know better.

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Cliches du juor in Kudzu Country


Old cliches are distilled bits of wisdom that shed light on common, often difficult, experiences. New cliches manufactured by government are exactly the opposite. They shed no light, and God help anyone who thinks they're wise.

Government-created cliches are related to sound-bites. Think of sound-bites as intended cliches. A sound-bite spewer hopes his or her carefully constructed concoction will soon become a cliche by bouncing around the media for a few days and end up lodged in the public's brain as self-evident fact. Talk radio hosts thrive on this kind of information. So does George Bush.

As Matt Labash says in the Weekly Standard, when things are getting tough in the war (or any other) department, "...that's when it's time to find a quiet place, take a deep breath, and let the rationalizing begin. This is most easily done by clinging to the cliché du-jour, as seen on TV."

Labash notes some recent cliches here that have been broadcast among us by Republicans with the intent of clogging our minds with neoconservative Kudzu (see pic left).

For instance, remember when President Bush, in the aftermath of 9/11, implored us to go out on shopping sprees? He said if we didn't do this "the terrorists will have won". We heard this a lot. The real truth behind that cliche is that going out shopping usually means stocking up on imported goods manufactured by low wage, off-shore workers employed by multinational corporations raking in billions in the process. In fact, the president's recommendation that going out and shopping is the best thing the average person can do to deal with disaster proves corporate terrorists have already won.

And how about this one: "the noose is tightening." You know, as in "The noose is tightening around Saddam" (just like the noose has been tightening around bin Laden for the last couple of years. Must be a really big noose. Light years across). But Labash wonders whose neck the noose is really tightening around, Saddam's or ours?

Finally Labash takes a deep look into one of the administration's favorite war cliche's --the "if we don't fight 'em there, we'll be fighting 'em here" cliche.

The truth is we're already fighting 'em here. The terrorists, with their terrible acts, have successfully unleashed John Ashcroft on the constitution. They couldn't have won any more thoroughly than that even with weapons of mass destruction.

The Matt Labash commentary.

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And we thought international Communism was bad...

Who exactly is NAFTA good for? Not the poor, according to writer (Children of Nafta), David Bacon.

The U.S. Department of Labor (a truly ironic moniker during this "death-to-labor!" administration) says that by 2002 "...408,000 workers qualified for extensions of unemployment benefits because their employers had moved their jobs south of the border."

But that's just government doing one of its best-face fudge-jobs. Things are really not that rosy. The Economic Policy Institute, for instance, reports that, "NAFTA eliminated 766,030 actual and potential U.S. jobs between 1994 and 2000 because of the rapid growth in the net U.S. export deficit with Mexico and Canada."

The picture is far worse for Mexicans. During NAFTA's first year Mexico lost over 1,000,000 jobs. So, instead of stemming the flow to the U.S. of Mexican workers (as promised by outgoing Mexican President, Carlos Salinas de Gortari), "...as economic desperation in Mexico has increased, immigration to the United States has become the only hope for survival for millions of Mexicans," according to this article at Pacific News Service.

The job loss is bad, but "The most serious consequence of NAFTA has been its failure to protect the rights of workers," says writer David bacon in the PNS piece.

For a rundown on this particular bit of badness, check out the article. And thank you Global Corporatism and "compassionate" conservatism.

And we thought international communism was corrupt.

For more about labor-loathing neocons check out my commentary of several months ago regarding Cheap-labor Conservatives: A Black Hole in the Dark Side

We'll see more of this in spades unless true liberals manage to regain control of the way the United States works. And unless the rest of us stop blaming foreigners, and other ethnicities and races for our problems. This is exactly what the elite want. Other members of the working class are not your adversaries. So then, who is?

If you're making under a hundred-thousand bucks a year, repeat over and over again: George Bush is not my friend. George Bush is not my friend...

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So Much to Be Thankful for, Still so Much to Grab


Why have pharmaceutical companies given $44 million since 1999 -- 78 percent to Republicans, 22 percent to Democrats? And why have they spent millions more hiring an army of lobbyists that physically outnumbers the 535 members of Congress?

Could it be that of the bill's $400 billion price tag, $139 billion will go to increase drug company profits over eight years -- a 38 percent increase in what is already the world's most profitable industry?

And why have Republicans designed the new energy bill to protect ground water polluters from legal suits?

And how is it that congress has passed a bill that will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil; not provide significant new energy sources; not create many jobs; not improve the grid system so we won't have more blackouts; not promote energy efficiency or conservation; or do anything about global warming? Because, dear citizens, Congress is run by Corporations, not you.

And you, insignificant naif, thought this was a democracy.

There is so much in this bill that spells g-i-v-e-a-w-a-y you'd be hard pressed to miss it ...if you had the time to read it, that is. As it was, Republicans rammed this stuff through by twisting and almost breaking arms in the time it takes to say "Time to break for Thanksgiving."

Read what Molly Ivins says about it here.

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Mission Apparently Not Accomplished Yet

In a quick in-out the president paid a surprise visit to troops in Iraq, staging another campaign photo-op like that of his "Mission Accomplished" carrier landing that signaled an end to the war early last year.

In this picture G.W. shares a Thanksgiving meal with a guy who's actually doing what Bush avoided doing during the Viet Nam conflict. Is he all smiles because 1.) he actually got away with that one 2.) there's a camera nearby, or 3.) his thugs in congress just rammed through a huge, complex bill that favors large drug and insurance

companies and undermines yet another program (Medicare) set up to benefit average Americans?.

But what will the trip to Baghdad mean to Iraqis and the rest of the world? The Washington Post, reporting that "Bush’s entourage was fitted with ballistic vests, and the plane came in with neither running lights nor cabin lights, parking on a dark landing strip" speculates that “The message to the Iraqis is Bush doesn’t think their country is secure.” Which, of course, contradicts the "mission accomplished" ploy of May 2003.

As Sidney Blumenthal, a former adviser to Clinton said, “It underscores the insecurity, and it conveys insularity.”

But "Retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, a commander during the 1991 Persian Gulf War who maintains extensive ties to the Army thinks differently. He "predicted the visit would boost soldiers’ morale. The visit 'brought tears to my eyes,' McCaffrey said. 'This is the kind of thing that will have a major impact on their level of trust with their own commander in chief.' ”

Actually there's a lot George Bush has done that brings tears to the eyes.

The conservative London Times ...called the visit "one of the most audacious publicity coups in White House history." ...but, hey, it's conservative.

Europe's leading business daily, the London-based Financial Times, used the visit to repeat its call for general elections in Iraq, rather than the US government's "top-down strategy built around favored exiles and a timetable synchronized with President Bush's re-election campaign" ...but, hey, it's a business daily.

In Madrid, the center-right daily El Mundo said the visit was "a publicity stunt which will not solve the problem of Iraq." ...but, hey, it's Spanish.

The daily Vanguardia ... noted darkly that "George W Bush does not attend the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, but has dinner in Baghdad with those who dream of coming home alive." ...but, hey, it's published in Barcelona.

In Rome, the daily La Republica described the visit as "a brilliant stage-managed event and a courageous act ...but (also) ...obviously an electoral blitz, a Hollywood-style stunt of the kind we will see again and again throughout the campaign." ...but, hey, it's Italian.

You can't expect accuracy from any of these sources ...they ain't American!

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Another NAFTA view

Generation Gringo

What rich, powerful, conservative, elites know that somehow never trickles down because they own all the trickle machines:


FORTUNE MAGAZINE; Nov. 24, excerpts
(thanks to Chuck Kelly)

...Bolstered by dazzling productivity growth, America will continue to be a manufacturing powerhouse; we'll just need fewer and fewer American factory workers.

Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach believes the migration of millions of service jobs is "a new source of joblessness that could well be the defining macro event of our times."

Politicians from both parties have yet to even acknowledge the staggering bill that must eventually be paid through future tax increases and benefit cuts….

The attraction of the Indian knowledge workers who get those jobs (jobs Americans used to get) is that they're paid 10% to 20% of what Americans would expect for similar work—and in many cases they do it better. That has stoked understandable alarm in the U.S. Together with China's rise in manufacturing, it is bringing protectionists out of the woodwork. It is also causing even those of a less reactionary bent to wonder just what it is that Americans will do for a living now that even knowledge work can easily be sent overseas….

Last fall Paul O'Neill, then Secretary of the Treasury, wanted a simple answer to a thorny question: How prepared was the nation today to pay all its future bills? Two government experts worked for months to calculate the answer. Their findings, which shocked even them, were never published—the Bush administration made sure of that.

...there was a huge hole in the country's finances—a $44 trillion hole.

And all of this from Fortune, a magazine written by and for big business. This is business telling business what's happening to the U.S.A.. How come Republican speeches arn't laced with this stuff? How come we don't hear this from the president if he's so concerned about no-so-well-heeled Americans?

There's more @ kellysite.net

......................................................................................

What this all means is that the predictions of thirty or forty years ago of the benefits that automated productivity would bring to typical Americans --those shorter work weeks and greater leisure time-- have been co-opted by the rich. They've arranged, by means of millions and millions in campaign contributions and systemic deception, to install like-minded people in the institutions that make and execute laws. They've managed, in our face and with our help, to have those benefits percolate upwards to inflate their fortunes, while we're left with reality TV and cheaper shirts, holding the bag.

We've cinched it for them by voting in self-serving crooks for congress and giving them George (Silver Spoon) Bush who, by most accounts never had to sweat for anything and whose policies are more damaging to average Americans than anything any communist ever dreamed up.

The truth is (as with that old pillar of physics, the conservation of energy), the free market costs or, to ape a cliche, "There ain't no free market, baby."

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Centralize! Demonize! Polarize!

For a microcosmic look at what the U.S.A. Patriots act might do macroscosmically, an article in Monday's Balitomore Sun gives us some clues.

"A college campus is highly interconnected in every imaginable way," says writer Morgan MacDonald, "and in that sense differs from the typical small American city. Students are plugged into one central Internet server, student records are compiled in one database, students live in centralized college housing, student groups meet on campus, and so on."

MacDonald points out that monitoring for, " 'subversive' activity or to track a specific e-mail account is made exponentially easier when all the information is centralized and in the control of school administrations. Students on college campuses have far less privacy than the average person. When this problem is compounded by the expansion of government oversight, students' rights are placed in the most precarious of positions."

She goes on, "Under the Patriot Act, student groups can be labeled "terrorist" organizations if they engage in certain types of protest or civil disobedience. In Minnesota, student groups such as Anti-Racist Action and Students Against War were labeled as potential terrorist threats."

Now just imagine if citizens were plugged into one central Internet server, citizen records were compiled in one database, citizens had to live in centralized housing, citizens groups had to meet in mandated areas, and so on.

You want more centralized control, then move to a campus ...or reelect George Bush in 2004 and get the added benefit of focused scrutinization by John Ashcroft.

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Cuba: Island Prison Under Our Thumb

Here's an interesting article paralleling the U.S. / Cuban relationship with our foray into Iraq.

Published on Monday, November 24, 2003 by the International Herald Tribune, and written by Amy Kaplan, "Guantánamo's Limbo is Too Convenient" gives us some historical perspective worth exploring.

Kaplan sums up her article by observing, "Cuba may be as far from Iraq as it is from the battlefields of Afghanistan. The history of Guantánamo, however, offers a dangerous precedent for the future of Iraq. If its new constitution contains provisions for the long-term lease of U.S. bases - as Cuba's did a century ago - there will be more Guantánamos and, of course, little or no independence left Iraq."

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This ain't no dinner party

Republicans to Democrats: Thuggishness and rudeness have no place in political discourse unless we're doing it. So quit your criticism and get patriotic! ...which is pretty much the jist of it.

Questioning this double standard, Paul Krugman asks, "...how important is civility?" He says, " I'm all for good manners, but this isn't a dinner party. The opposing sides in our national debate are far apart on fundamental issues, from fiscal and environmental policies to national security and civil liberties. It's the duty of pundits and politicians to make those differences clear, not to play them down for fear that someone will be offended."

See what else wise Krugman has to say here.

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Institutionalizing Fear

" 'Iraq is a front,' he said. 'Turkey is a front. Anywhere the terrorists think they can strike is a front.' Here a front, there a front, everywhere a terror front."

Endless fronts are what Republican George Bush is talking about and conjuring up, says Maureen Dowd in today's NY Times. Institutionalizing fear with visions of numberless terror fronts with nobody but G.W. ballsy enough to keep them at bay (George Bush, AWOL-ee of Vietnam era). This is a sure recipe for something equally endless: unremitting Republican, neoconservative government, with a military tinge. Endless fronts, endless war, and endless Republican government --a nightmare straight out of hell.

Dowd observes, "James Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode wrote in The Financial Times last week that the Bush crew has snuffed the optimism of F.D.R., Ronald Reagan and Bush père: 'Fear has been used as a basis for curtailing freedom of expression and for questioning legal rights long taken for granted. It has crept into political discourse and been used to discredit patriotic public servants. Ronald Reagan's favorite image, borrowed from an earlier visionary, of America as `a shining city on a hill' has been unnecessarily dimmed by another image: a nation motivated by fear and ready to lash out at any country it defines as the source of a gathering threat.' "

As Friedman points out, "Whether we're talking about our public officials or your family deciding whether to vacation in Istanbul, we all have to learn to live with more insecurity. Because terrorists are in the fear business, and every time we visibly imprison ourselves, they win another small victory and become more emboldened. Indeed, we could learn from the British. The I.R.A. murdered the queen's cousin and almost blew up Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her hotel — yet life in London goes on and the police here still don't carry guns." But we seem willing to throw away two hundred plus years of struggles to maintain political liberty at the drop of restrictive Bush administration initiatives.

In his article, Friedman laments the recent canceling of an appearance of Colin Powell to accept a Marshall medal at the University of London. He asks, "What good is driving bin Laden into a cave if our secretary of state has to live in a bubble? When Mr. Powell can't deliver a speech in London — London — then why travel anywhere?"

"Freedom is the only guardian of freedom," says political theorist Yaron Ezrahi. Military protection is, at best, a temporary means of safeguarding our way of life. If we sacrifice it to fear 10,000 Bradley fighting vehicles won't mean a thing. In Friedman's article Ezrahi went on to say, "Israelis insist that any bus stop blown up by suicide bombers be rebuilt by the next day. Message to suicide bombers: You're dead and we're not afraid. That is the best deterrence."

That's the best deterrence, not subjugation to misguided policies founded on fear.

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Waiting for the other shoe to drop

Ever since the USA Patriots Act was passed I've been wondering, "If 9/11 gave us the Patriots Act, what the hell will the next 9/11, or something even worse bring?" My dark premonitions are answered here by General Tommy Franks: bye, bye constitution.

In an interview he gave to Cigar Aficionado magazine Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries and speculated as to what form of government we might expect.

As reported in NewsMax.com Franks, "...is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government."

The General says. "...the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world ...(may cause) our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.

Since the constitution has already been somewhat unraveled through the works of John Ashcroft and his justice department, this scenario does not sound far-fetched.

Instead of the House and Senate, imagine a conference table of black berets.

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How Do You Like Dem Odds?

If you need a thermometer to check Medicare's temperature, take a look at the stock market. "...drug company stocks have soared since the (new Medicare) bill's details became public," as NY Times columnist Paul Kruugman points out. This is a sure indicator your Republican government's at work yet again to make life tougher for average Americans. Now it's putting something bad in Medicare's water.

The new bill, among other things, Krugman goes on, "..will heavily subsidize private plans competing with traditional Medicare."

The interesting thing Krugman looks at in today's column is that AARP, the so-called advocacy group for seniors, has jumped in with all due speed to get this bill approved before Thanksgiving. And all reports say the bill is long and complex. What's the big rush, most of the bill's provisions don't kick in until 2006?

Here's a clue: What's one of the most lucerative and politically influential industries in the U.S.A.? The one that has many, many federal and state reps on the dole? The one overflowing with enough bucks to build sky-scraping office buildings in major cities? The one that loves to charge large sums for premiums, then fight with you when it's time for them to pay up, and then charge you more for actually using their services? It's the Insurance Industry, stupid!

"Many of AARP's members feel betrayed." says Krugman. "The message boards at the organization's Web site have filled up with outraged posts. A number of those posts say something like this: 'Now you're just an insurance company.' Indeed, that may get to the heart of the matter."

In his article the commentator points out that, "Over the years AARP has become much more than an advocacy and service organization for older Americans. It receives more than $150 million each year in commissions on insurance, mutual funds and prescription drugs sold to its members."

The bill's advocates say it's a good compromise bill. They say nobody got everything they wanted. But Krugman cites Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic who says, "...drug and insurance companies got exactly what they wanted: no efforts to limit prices, generous subsidies and lots of additional business. For example, insurance companies that offer an alternative to Medicare will not only be able to pick and choose their customers, but will also get 30 percent more per client than the government spends on the average Medicare recipient."

What does it mean to "pick and choose customers"? It means insurance companies get the healthy ones and leave the rest --those with the most severe medical problems-- to Medicare. How long do you think Medicare will survive them odds? In an industry that thrives on good odds, your Republican government has delivered the Insurance Industry good odds indeed.

Read all about it.

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