Can you hear me now?!

People working without the protection of fair labor standards and a say in the adoption of those standards is a form of slavery.

From Yahoo® News:
CONGRESS TACKLES LONG-RUN PROBLEM WITH SHORT-RUN SOLUTIONS
By Georgie Anne Geyer
Tuesday, March 28

"One of the best analysts of economics, Robert J. Samuelson, wrote this week in The Washington Post that the big corporations are having America 'import poverty' and lower wages so much that, of course, American workers 'won't take those jobs.' 'What we have now,' he wrote, 'and would with guest workers, is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. ... To be sure, some Americans get cheap housecleaning ... But if more mowed their own lawns or did their own laundry, it wouldn't be a tragedy.' "

A new form of slavery

The creation of a guest worker program is tantamount to creating a form of temporary slavery. Ditto the failure to enforce labor laws relative to employing illegal immigrants.

And to threaten the workers with arrest and not the employers is so absurd it would be unimaginable in another context. (Isn't this the legal swamp of slavery in the south where the slave could be punished for fleeing the brutality of a plantation owner, but the plantation owner wasn't punished for his brutality? What in heaven's name are we becoming? How did we get here?)

And having this discussion going forward in a nation founded on slogans like "No taxation without representation!" is tantamount to societal amnesia. Let's be clear about what we have learned in our trek forward in becoming the United States of America:

Democratic government is how we ameliorate the otherwise harmful or limiting effects of all the other social, economic, and political structural forms under which we live. It is our forum or court of last resort to make those adjustments that become obviously necessary.

A democracy requires everyone's participation ... and in the definition of "everyone" relative to this participation, we define ourselves. If there is a "class" or "group" of people who are contributing to the betterment of a society, but have no say in determining the distribution of that "betterment" other than take what is offered or reject it ... and rejecting what is offered is—again—tantamount to their having no chance of pursuing their life dreams for themselves or their families ... then have we not established a form of slavery?

As Paul Krugman points out in today's column in the NY Times—titled The Road to Dubai,

"Imagine, for a moment, a future in which America becomes like Kuwait or Dubai, a country where a large fraction of the work force consists of illegal immigrants or foreigners on temporary visas — and neither group has the right to vote. Surely this would be a betrayal of our democratic ideals, of government of the people, by the people. Moreover, a political system in which many workers don't count is likely to ignore workers' interests: it's likely to have a weak social safety net and to spend too little on services like health care and education."

Why can't we ...

Why can't we simply use our democracy (republic-based) to sort out the issues that an open market (there is no such thing as a free market) leaves unresolved because the price of goods and services does not pay for all the costs accrued in producing and using those goods and services ... like if we are going to have computers then somehow we have to pay for the education of the people who design and build them. And like how we divide the wealth produced by the mix of our labor, our creativity, and our assets combined with the forward pull of our dreams--selfish and humanitarian ... this incredible, diverse, creative mix of dreamers we call ourselves: The United States of America.

Without secure borders we will piss it all away and become another banana republic.

Immigration amnesty and the value of labor

Granting amnesty (aka guest worker status) to the millions of illegal immigrants without first protecting our borders serves the financial interests of business owners, not the workers. Without secure borders businesses will continue to pay less for labor than they would if illegal immigration were halted.

One big reason weighting the labor cost issue in favor of the business owner—when the owner is able to employ an illegal immigrant—is the obvious reluctance of the illegal immigrant to demand fair labor practices lest he or she be deported.

With the worker unwilling to speak up, the ameliorating effects of a democratic government on the adverse (monopolistic) tendencies of capitalism are negated. Demonstrating in support of illegal immigration is not the same as demonstrating for workers' rights. It is absurdly irrational to argue to allow the standard of living for our workers to be lowered because workers from Mexico will accept a lower standard in our country. How low are we supposed to go? Without secure borders or sanctions on employers of illegal immigrants, workers living standards and fair labor practices will head south ... pun intended.

That is the core issue.

The fact that some workers side with the illegal immigrants who are willing to take jobs for less than what would otherwise be the prevailing wage—or fair labor standards—is not a rational position for labor to take.

Keeping the cost of goods low is the big benefit of slavery. Do we want to drive wages and labor standards down to the point where the quality of life for workers is so degrading that it correlates with slavery?

Once the borders are secure, we can then regulate employment with minimum wages, payment of payroll taxes, and fair labor standards ... protecting the workers and our way of life. Do we really want the globalization of sweat shops and child labor?

No amnesty (aka guest worker program) without secure borders—period!

One other thing, if there is going to be a felony attached to illegal immigration, it should be for the hiring of an illegal immigrant by the business owner. Those who argue that convicting business owners would be too difficult are throwing up a smoke screen to block the cases that would test the efficacy of this solution ... a solution that works quite well in other white color crime areas to put the fear of the long arm of the law in those who might otherwise conspire to circumvent the law.

Q & A with Bush No. 43

During the Q & A following Bush's speech on Iraq last Monday, a woman asked:

"[Author Kevin Phillips] makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?"

(Note: We extracted the quote from huffingtonpost.com.)

Apparently Bush didn't really answer the question and secular commentators are trying to make it a gotcha event, or damned if he does and damned if he doesn't believe in the apocalypse and what it portends regarding the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Well, folks, secular commentators—by and large—are not particularly up-to-date on Fundamentalist Christian nuances for situations like this.

The King James Version of the Bible reads:

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."

Matthew 7:6

(Ref: Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for 'pearls before swine ' " . Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2002. 25 Mar 2006.)

What this means is that the Born Again Christian does not have to—in fact, SHOULD NOT—reveal the wisdom of God to the unbeliever lest it then be used against the Christian. Lead the unbeliever to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, then all the other stuff can be dumped on 'em ... but certainly don't be giving it out to the general public in a Q & A. The Bible has Bush covered on that.

You see, it takes having been raised "in the faith" to understand this stuff. And anybody who has, knows right off the bat that George W. is a True Believer. He gets his brand of wisdom from the pulpit not from any rational thought processes born in the Enlightenment. He is a Child of God, for crissake.

Combine that with the fact that he isn't too swift at connecting the dots ... and here we are.

So far in my reading of American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips ... Phillips has the Bushies nailed.

Now for the rest of you ... you gotta keep up. This is getting interesting. I don't mean with this blog necessarily, but with this "good vs. evil" crap. We have a self-fulfilling prophecy barrelling down upon us ... the end-times Battle of Armageddon ... Wake up! Get a grip! Act like a free citizen. Don't just sit there on the couch munching goodies. Do something. You would be surprised how much power we can generate as free men and women who are not afraid to speak up.

Cheers for the people!

Kevin Phillips: American Theocracy

If you haven't read or are not reading Kevin Phillips new book, American Theocracy (New York: Viking/the Penguin Group, 2006), get it and read it.

It is a book "from America's premier political analyst, an explosive examination of the coalition of forces that threatens the nation in the twenty-first century."

Here, I'll make it easy for you:

American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips from amazon.com


From the Preface:

          "... U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East has two dimensions. In addition to its concerns with oil and terrorism, the White House is courting end-times theologians and electorates for whom the holy lands are already a battleground of Christian destiny. Both pursuits, oil and biblical expectations, require a dissimulation in Washington that undercuts the U.S. tradition of commitment to the role of an informed electorate.
          "The political corollary—fascinating but appalling—is the recent transformation of the Republican presidential coalition. Since the elections of 2000 and especially of 2004, three pillars have become increasingly central: (1) the oil-national security complex, with its pervasive interests; (2) the religious right, with its doctrinal imperatives and massive electorate; and (3) the debt-dealing financial sector, which extends far beyond the old symbolism of Wall Street. In December 2004 The New York Times took up the term "borrower-industrial complex" to identify one profitable engine of exploding consumer debt.
          "That name does not quite work, but we can hardly use a term like the credit-card / mortgage / auto-loan / corporate-debt / federal-borrowing industrial complex. This is a problem still searching for its Election Day Halloween mask. In any event, the rapid ballooning of government, corporate, financial, and personal debt over the last four decades goes a long way to explain why the finance sector, debt's toll collector, has swollen to outweigh the manufacture of real goods. We are in the midst of one of America's most perverse transformations.
          "George W. Bush has promoted these alignments, interest groups, and their underpinning values. His family, over multiple generations, has been tied to a politics that conjoined finance, national security, and oil. In recent decades, operating from the federal executive branch, the Bushes have added close ties to evangelical and fundamentalist power brokers of many persuasions. These origins, biases, and practices were detailed in my last book, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush (2004). The present volume, therefore, revisits mostly the family's influence in helping these trends and guiding these constituencies.
          "Over three decades of Bush presidencies, vice presidencies, and CIA directorships, the Republican party has slowly become the vehicle of all three interests—a fusion of petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex. The three are increasingly allied in commitment to Republican politics, if not in full agreement with one another. On the most important front, I am beginning to think that the southern-dominated, biblically driven Washington GOP represents a rogue coalition, like the southern, proslavery politics that controlled Washington until Lincoln's election in 1860."

- Kevin Phillips
American Theocracy

"It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

"How about socialism?" Anonymous asks.

Communism on the left is out. Monopolism on the right is out. What remains?

Before we answer, we have to think about ourselves as human beings.

For me the essential characteristics of my "humanness" is my capacity to, first, imagine what ought to be and then strive to make it what is. It is in my personal choosing of "oughtness" that I find the core of myself as a moral being. It is in both my willingness to take action and the action I take—or lack thereof—to make that "oughtness" the "isness" of my world, that I reveal my character.

The underlying biological basis of my self, my being—as in the biological basis of human society ... and I do believe in the evolving nature of the universe—leads me to also believe that existence precedes awareness. There is no overarching awareness that calls my existence into being. My existence—my biological existence—creates my awareness. This is a fact made most real to me by my taking female hormones to counter the effect of my male testosterone because of prostate cancer. My becoming a chemical eunuch has been revealing.

With these factors in mind, in what kind of community do I wish to participate?

I want to be in a community where there is reciprocal nurturing of the capacity to both choose and to carry out those choices. This, to me, is "the good life".

Explicit in the nature of such a community are both individual freedom and mutual respect for each other's freedom, as well as the understanding that we share in the struggle to enhance our capacity for engaging in the good life.

We must note that the community striving to achieve the good life requires security. This is true because such a community will produce wealth for its participants at an accelerated rate. We know this to be a fact from our own history. Other communities not yet at our stage of "enlightenment" will contend with us for a variety of reasons, but certainly the age-old drive for power and wealth (positional status on the mating fields) by testosterone driven men is enough to cause conflict from beyond our borders.

It is at this point in the discussion that we can come back to the issues of Capitalism vs. Socialism ... if there really are any ... other than jockeying for power from various vantage points.

But there is a nuts and bolts issue: Are choices made and accrued through the open market where people can choose what to buy or not buy, better than choices made through the ballot box where people can choose how to vote or not vote—or the other way around?

I believe we need a rational, realistic combination of both.

More to follow.

A manifesto ... in the face of irreversible economic disaster

Time to get serious about this economic stuff ... now that our leaders have put us (the good ol' USA) on an irreversible path to disaster.

I mean, does anyone really believe that we will get out of this national financial mess of losing our manufacturing base and becoming a debtor nation without suffering a gigantic upheaval? While our leaders assure us there will be some structures left standing after the earthquake ... like in standing on their sides, standing while leaning precipitously, standing on the second floor as opposed to the foundation ... they have put the pedal to the metal in their drive for imperial status, still pursuing their Manifest Destiny.

How can anyone say globalization is working—or even God's plan like in the Invisible Hand—when babies are starving in the villages on the frontier of the adjusting regional and national and local economies? If the market is so efficient then why does it not account for those costs?

And no, the solution is not communism ... let's get that canard out of the way up front.

The solution is rational realism and public honesty in the face of our problem of pending financial ruin.

First, there is no such thing as a "free" market. On the other hand, the "open" market in a democratic society as a means for sorting out "isness" from our diverse imaginings of "oughtness" has produced a heretofore unimaginable good life for the "lumpenites" of that society.

I intend to explore these concepts in the days ahead ... "open market", "democratic society", "rational realism", "public honesty" ... as the most powerful person-type the world has ever known: the free citizen who exercises his or her inalienable rights.

Port deal was "the straw that broke the camel's back"

There is a lot of huffing and puffing by the globalization intellectuals that the Dubai port management deal didn't affect the security of our nation that much ... because of all the things we should worry about, this was the LAST thing we should worry about ... security wise.

Trouble is, being the last item in a long list has a way of drawing attention to the list ... and that's why saying it was "the straw that broke the camel's back" fits for us normal folk.

Sometimes I shake my head at some of these folks who call themselves our leaders. They just don't seem to get it sometimes. They keep acting like the rest of us are fools, to the point that they are fools. They get so twisted around in trying to convince us that their mistakes make sense without having to admit they made a mistake ... that they finally lose all credibility ... and are tied up in their own knot.

I mean, the ONLY people who still haven't admitted their mistakes in this whole Iraq War (Against Terrorism)/National Security fiasco are the ones who made the mistakes ... and they are still in power ...

Oh yes, they offer caveats on how things get screwed up ... but they never examine the reality of their own incompetence. And that is not a mystery even though it is scarey. If they are incompetent to begin with ... and do not recognize it, how can we expect them to be competent enough to recognize it afterward?

Like I said, now that is scarey.

Blair told 3 years ago, It's "an unbelevable mess!"

Quoting Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor, in the Tuesday March 14, 2006, edition of The Guardian:

"Senior British diplomatic and military staff gave Tony Blair explicit warnings three years ago that the US was disastrously mishandling the occupation of Iraq, according to leaked memos.

"John Sawers, Mr Blair's envoy in Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion, sent a series of confidential memos to Downing Street in May and June 2003 cataloguing US failures. With unusual frankness, he described the US postwar administration, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as 'an unbelievable mess' and said 'Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals' were 'well-meaning but out of their depth'."

Read the whole article: US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told

Not in my name

Suspension of habeas corbus ...

Listen to "Habeas Schmaebeas", Episode 310, 3/10/06, on This American Life from WBEZ Radio in Chicago ... (You'll have to look it up on their website.)

http://www.thislife.org/

Abu Gharib ...
http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/2004Parker/images/AbuGharib.gif

Guantanamo ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_02_06_un_guantanamo.pdf

Not in my name, sir!

Bush, like Job of old, is waiting on God to act

I know what Bush(#43) is thinking.

When I was twelve, I thought the same way. I didn't know any better. Neither does Bush now.

As a child, I firmly, wholeheartedly, without a doubt in my mind, believed that if I stayed the course, did what God wanted me to do—as taught to me from the Protestent Bible by the born-again adults in my life—God would sort everything out for me in the end. Like He did for Job.

I heard the story of Job so many times—in Sunday School, from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, in Wednesday night Bible Study, from evangelists spreading the Word of God and calling on men and women, boys and girls to repent—that it is indelibly engrained in my neurons ... though I no longer believe it.

Bush's logic fits the myth. He believes it—firmly, wholeheartedly, without a doubt in his mind. It is there in the tone of voice, the cut of his jib, the swagger in his walk ... he is God's Chosen.

There are other great myths of the fundamentalist evangelical Christian mindset. One of them is even more troubling than the story of Job when we talk about a leader of the most powerful nation on earth in terms of nuclear weaponry. It is the myth of the coming end times with Jesus returning and the world getting sorted out in the Battle of Armageddon ... which takes place in the Middle East.

Have no doubt, Bush believes this—firmly, wholeheartedly, without a doubt in his mind. It is indelibly engrained in his neurons.

Are you kidding me? A chicken farmer?!

The NY Times in it's lead editorial today (Wednesday, March 8, 2006) titled,

They Came for the Chicken Farmer tells us of the Pakistani chicken farmer rounded up and imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay because his name is almost the same as someone they wanted ... and he's been in our custody since January, 2002, with no recourse to justice. His name is Abdur Sayed Rahman. The person they wanted was a Taliban official named Abdur Zahid Rahman.

What have we been doing? ... the citizens of the United States of America wherein our Declaration of Independence holds sway ... which reads in part:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —"

—IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America

We've been watching the Super Bowl, the Academy awards and ... (quoting SI.com)

In an exclusive excerpt from Game of Shadows -- appearing in this week's SI -- authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams detail the extent to which Barry Bonds used steroids.

our gladiators fall. The circuses are diverting our attention ... and our leaders think only of engorging themselves with wealth and power. Where has this happened before?

And the call to righteousness is once again being heard ... growing louder and louder from the throats of the oppressed.

Esau sells his birthright for porridge in each epoch until the human race repeats the myth of Samson and brings the temple crashing down upon our heads, once and for all.

It need not be thus.

But, alas, as another taught us, "It is easier for the ladden camel to get through the narrow gate, than it is for the wealthy to get into heaven."

Once again, unless "we, the people" act, our civilization—spawned in Christianity and enriched by the Enlightenment—will end.

"It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)

16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."

—Samuel Adams

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All I need to know I learned growing up on a farm ...

In all due respect to Robert Fulghum and his book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten ... (Note: Robert Fulgham's website: http://www.robertfulghum.com/) ... growing up on a small dairy farm north of Duluth, Minnesota, I learned some things about the myths of (1.) the "free" market, (2.) the "positive" effects of globalization, and (3.) "maximizing the benefit" to the collective good by pursuing self-interest.

All of these myths are quite easily debunked with a little reality therapy from living on a small farm with a small number of animals in a community of similar homesteads and families. It helps that we were also the beneficiaries of the Enlightenment and stable government institutions, living in a micro-world where our needs were met out of the rhythm of the cycles of our daily lives.

I will continue to pursue the debunking of these myths here in my blog.

For example, every farmer knows that if you dump manure on someone else's property, the other person had better have asked you to do it ... or they are going to make you clean it up. What's so hard to understand about corporations cleaning up the PCP's they dumped in the Hudson River?

Does "free" and "unfettered" markets mean that the prices of goods and services are free and unfettered from any costs that cannot be "legally" connected to their development, production, and sale? So who pays the costs of New Jersy's air pollution from Ohio and Pennsylvania? Who pays the costs of secondhand cigarette smoke? Who pays the cost of the disruption in lives of tribal villagers who have met their needs out of the rhythm of the cycles of their daily lives for millenia? Who pays these costs?

I will raise other questions regarding these myths as we go along, and have done so in the past. But with Bush(#43) going to India and tossing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty over the side ... my early wisdom included, "Remember now, don't toss the baby out with the bathwater!" ... the whole insane framework of the current globaliztion economic philosophy/mythology must be aggressively called into question ... and so many so-called intellectuals seem loathe to do so ... so it is left to farmboys from Minnesota, like me, to point out the absurdity of the current conventional wisdom in so much of the economic pronouncements eminating from "credentialed" authorities on the subject.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

2006: The Year of the People

As a free citizen—a member of the people—of the United States of America, I hereby declare all years ending in six and having repeating digits in the hundreths and tenths positions to be henceforth designated The Year of the People in honor of our Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Thus, this year—2006—and 2116, 2226, 2336, and so forth are The Year of the People.

The Year of the People will always be a year when we elect a full House of Representatives in Congress, the House of the people.

The Year of the People will be a time when we rededicate ourselves to the committment so eloquently stated by Abraham Lincoln in The Gettysburg Address:

"It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

Why are they lying to us?!

Why are our leaders lying to us? Is it the "You can't handle the truth!" syndrone of Jack Nicholson's character—Col. Nathan R. Jessep—in A Few Good Men?

What IS it?

There is something fundamentally going wrong in a democracy when the leaders don't trust the people with the truth!

I mean, the list is getting pretty long of the outright fabrications and obfuscations by Bushes, Cheneys, Rices, Rumsfelds, Colin Powells, Chertoffs, ... Tom Friedmans ...(and those are only MY pet peevers!)

And what about this deal where the Pentagon is opening a criminal investigation into Pat Tillman's death? See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060305/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/army_tillman_investigation

How bad can it get before we, the people, take our government back by electing new leaders?

Throw the bums out!

Is Tom Friedman a liar?

I received this as an e-mail from David Sirota:


{http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/tom-friedman-becomes-amer_b_16762.html}

Tom Friedman Becomes America's Chief Revisionist Historian

By David Sirota

Last week, I noted how so-called "liberal" pundits like Tom Friedman are desperately trying to distort the Dubai ports scandal so as to perpetuate the free trade orthodoxy they have spent so many years pushing. This week, we see the same dishonest behavior from Friedman when it comes to Iraq.

In a column this week about the war, Friedman concludes by saying:

"A majority of Americans, in a gut way, always understood the value of trying to produce a democratizing government in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world. That is why there has been no big antiwar movement. Americans should, and will, stick with Iraq if they sense that Iraqis are on a pathway to building a decent, stable government. But Americans will not, and should not, baby-sit an Iraqi civil war. The minute they sense that's what's happening, you will see the bottom fall out of U.S. public support for this war." There are so many lies and deliberate distortions in this paragraph it makes one's head spin.

First, Friedman's claim that the public has always supported the war because we "always understood the value" of pushing democracy in the Mideast. This is revisionist history at its worst, whereby Friedman, who loudly pushed the war

{http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10113}

and is now clearly embarrassed about that advocacy, is trying to paint a wholly fabricated picture of what happened in the lead up to the invasion. The war was sold by the Bush administration and pundits like Friedman as necessary to defuse an "imminent threat"

{http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=24970}

of attack by Iraq. To this day, the public knows the "democracy" rationale is a lie. A Zogby poll released last week found that just 24% of Americans believe that "establishing a democracy that can be a model for the Arab World" was the main or a major reason for the war. That's not a majority, even by Friedman's dishonest standards.

Second, Friedman's claim that there is "no big antiwar movement" is just straight up lying. There's no way to couch it in any other term. Millions of people protested the invasion

{http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june03/protests.html}

in towns throughout America and the world, and millions continue to vehemently oppose the neoconservative foreign policy that the Bush administration and Friedman espouse. Friedman doesn't want to acknowledge this reality because he is desperate to portray himself and his extremism as somehow mainstream when it is anything but.

Finally, and perhaps most dishonest of all, is Friedman's claim that if a civil war erupts in Iraq we "will see the bottom fall out of U.S. public support for this war" (emphasis added). What the hell is this guy talking about? What planet is he living on? Has he even bothered to actually look at the facts? I mean, really - we will see the bottom fall out of U.S. public support for this war? Last I checked, nearly every major poll from 2004
{http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/24/poll.iraq/}
until the present
{http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm}
has shown that public support for the Iraq War has evaporated. It seems the majority of people who continue to cheer on the war are ideologues like Friedman, who are scrambling to protect their own reputations and credibility after shamelessly pressing the country into Iraq in the first place. The fact that Friedman is still claiming that the public supports the war shows that he is either very comfortable lying in the pages of the New York Times, wholly divorced from reality - or both.

Now, you might say, so what? So what if a pundit like Tom Friedman is lying? He's just a columnist, right? Wrong. Friedman is not any old pundit - he is an agenda-setter. He is someone the insulated political class in Washington - especially Democrats - bows down to, regardless of how self-serving, inane or dishonest his pronouncements are. You can bet that the political chattering class in Washington read this column of his, and nodded its head in agreement - regardless of the fact that it has no relations to actual facts. When you understand this, you understand how dangerous Friedman and the pundit class really is - and you suddenly realize why the opposition party still has no real position on Iraq, and why our government's policies are so totally misguided and out of step with mainstream public opinion.

---

Some useful links:

Sirotablog

"David Sirota's online magazine of news & commentary."

http://davidsirota.com/

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WorkingForChange

"WorkingForChange is an online journal of progressive news and opinion published by Working Assets. Visit WorkingForChange.com on a daily basis to read the latest dispatches from nationally syndicated reporters and columnists including Molly Ivins, Robert Scheer, and Greg Palast."

http://www.workingforchange.com/

Milton Friedman 'fesses up: No "free" markets!

Milton Friedman, the guru of profoundly influential monetarist and laissez-faire ideas of the past few decades has pulled the plug on free markets ... maybe without realizing it.

From NPQ, the New Perspectives Quarterly:

Free Markets and the End of History

Friedman | ... “Free markets” is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. But that isn’t the fact. The fact is that, most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. There are some good economists like Gary Becker and Bob Lucas who are working on these issues. This reality ensures that the end of history will never come.

Intrepretation: Because transactions using the medium of money ALWAYS affect a third party, there is no such thing as a "free" or "unfettered" market in terms of the customary definition of the economic term. The reason for this is the clear fact that all costs incurred in the production and distribution of goods and services are not paid for out of the monetary selling price of the goods and services ... only the reimbursement of "ownership" costs ... so what is "free" about free markets is their being free of the costs they incur to others than the legally defined owners of the goods and services for sale—sellers and buyers.

Read the whole interview.

Is Dr. Condoleezza Rice a liar?

Is Dr. Condoleezza Rice a liar? You decide.

Hamas strength seen in State Department poll
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Posted on Fri, Mar. 03, 2006

"WASHINGTON - A State Department-commissioned poll taken days before January's Palestinian elections warned U.S. policymakers that the militant Islamic group Hamas was in a position to win.

"Nevertheless, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after the election that they had no advance indication of a major Hamas triumph."

Read the full article

It's that time, folks!

Stand with Congressman Conyers

Demand Censure for Bush-Cheney Misconduct
Investigate Impeachable Offenses

http://www.johnconyers.com

"I have just completed a thorough review of this administration’s misconduct and have produced a 250-page report that provides evidence suggesting further steps to be taken. [A copy of the report may be found at RawStory.com and also at CensureBush.org where additional action items may be found.]"

- John Conyers

"Void of a major backlash on the part of the American people in response to the deliberate falsification and deceit that has transpired regarding Iraq and the now-debunked case for war, the Libby indictment may prove to be little more than an exercise in damage control. Already senior Republican officials, such as Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, are calling the Libby indictment a mere “technicality.” Right-wing pundits refer to the indictment as the “criminalization of politics,” as if lying one’s way into an illegal war of aggression is somehow akin to politics as usual.

If the American people go along with such blatant attempts at obscuring the reality of the criminal conspiracy that has been committed, then it is perhaps time we finally lay to rest this experiment we call American democracy. At the very minimum, Congress should be compelled into action."

- Scott Ritter
www.digitalnpq.org

It's time to get it done. Let's do it.

We are the people in:

"It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln

The Gettysburg Address

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —"

—IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America

Our Constitution gives Congress the power of impeachment. We do not need another Revolution or Civil War to cure what ails our government. We just need to elect a new Congress!

Read my post:

The most radical action I can take

Note: March 4th update.

From Christine Smith's website:

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." —Samuel Adams


"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ah yes, Katrina ...

What did the President know and when did he know it?

Again the question of the moment ... and answered already.

If our boy president was forewarned of the possible (probable?) catastrophic damage from "the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans" before the storm hit, why did he go off on those "political" jaunts instead of taking care of buiness? (Do the timeline, folks!)

Because, dear friends and readers, he really is as dumb as we are beginning to realize.

And he has never had to earn a leadership role so he does not have a clue on the responsibility of leadership.

The leader sets the response level. The bottom-level grunts can't kick the mid-level people—those above them and below the President—into gear. That isn't how it works. The tone and attitude comes from the top.

If the President isn't taking something seriously, why should anyone else stick their neck out and become a General Shinseki? Best be a Colin Powell. (If they are looking for a metaphor for their career in government.)

Maybe even a Condi Rice.

Nobody wants to be a Rumsfeld even if it works for you.

Note: March 4th update.

Caught on Tape

Saturday, March 4, 2006

"This Washington Post editorial cuts through the smokescreen of Bush’s Katrina apologists." - truthdig.com

Read Gore Vidal on Bush at truthdig!

Please read

Gore Vidal's

President Jonah (redux)

on truthdig.com.

"War is not a good metaphor for what is happening" - Francis Fukuyama

Read the full interview of Francis Fukuyama, neoconservative intellectual, by Nathan Gardels, editor-in-chief of NPQ (New Perspectives Quarterly), the journal of social and political thought, on HuffingtonPost.com at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-gardels/fukuyama-iraq-shows-ther_b_16532.html

Excerpted:

Fukuyama: War is not a good metaphor for what is happening. It confuses what is a long political struggle with what is conventionally understood as war - a conflict of high intensity declared, fought and won, or lost, in a defined time frame. This struggle is going to percolate along at a relatively low level of activity with spikes of intensity, but its not going to have a clear ending.

By using the war metaphor we get into all kinds of trouble from the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to wiretapping of our own citizens. People say "we have to suspend civil rights because we are at war." War overstates the intensity of the struggle and the kinds of sacrifices that requires.

Gardels: What policies are effective in this long political struggle against jihadist terrorism?

Fukuyama: In dealing with Islamism and the Middle East we need more of a political strategy and less of a military one. America needs to try to shape the world not by the overt use of military power but by establishing a set of multilateral institutions that then shape long-term incentives for stability, growth and cooperation like, for example, the Bretton Woods institutions created after World War II, or NATO, or the U.S.-Japan security treaty. For 50 years these created an institutional framework for the U.S. and others to shape the world without recourse to military might.

www.truthdig.com

The best news website is www.truthdig.com ... check it out!

This is grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat stuff.

And Molly Ivins' column appears here. I've been following her since I was knee-high to a grasshopper ... or so it seems. Somewhere back in the last century I met her at one of her "lectures" when she visited the University of Washington (U-Dub ... in Seattle) on a book tour.

Here are the Ivins' columns I found on truthdig:

Reports: The GOP Shell Game	With the Bush administration, it’s important to have in mind the old carnival con game: Keep your eye on the shell with the pea under it.	Molly Ivins	02/27/06
Reports: It's the Corporation, Stupid	Regarding the UAE port deal: The people running this country are perfectly willing to outsource American jobs, wages, and health and safety standards for the sake of free trade. Why would it surprise us that national security is ditto?	Molly Ivins	02/22/06
Reports: Abramoff Got Indicted, and All We Got Was This Lousy $20 Gift Ban?	Reform follows scandal as night the day, except in these sorry times, when it appears we may not get a nickel’s worth of reform out of the entire Jack Abramoff saga.	Molly Ivins	02/20/06
Reports: Cheney Shoots a Texas Liberal	Welcome back to the paradoxical Bush/Cheney “responsibility society,” where no one (starting with the administration) takes responsibility.	Molly Ivins	02/13/06
Reports: The Cure for Executive Excess	Can impeachment heal the malady of executive privilege and wiretapping? It has before.	Molly Ivins	02/09/06
Reports: Kicking the Oil Addiction: Bush Lied, Again	Cut imports? Medicare savings? Just kidding! As one White House official confessed, they just fib for your benefit.	Molly Ivins	02/06/06
Reports: Iraq the Disaster, Officially Speaking	I do hope this is responsible criticism that aims for cures, not defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.	Molly Ivins	02/03/06
Reports: Lying About the State of the Union	As our government renames a civil liberties-trampling spying program and suppresses the results of its own studies, Americans are being left in an information vacuum regarding the true state of our union.	Molly Ivins	01/31/06
Reports: Not Backing Hillary	I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Sen. Clinton for president.	Molly Ivins	01/21/06

Letter to selected US Senators and Governor Corzine of New Jersey

Re: Dubya's dubious Dubai deal (Paul Mulshine, The Star-Ledger)

Dear (selected US Senators and Governor Corzine of New Jersey):

I was born a farm boy up around Duluth, Minnesota, ... and I certainly didn't go to an ivy league university ... but I know the difference between a NATO ally like Great Britain and a country like UAE that doesn't even recognize Israel ... and in the post-9/11 world I would think that is a HUGE distinction in terms of vetting our partners in operations critical to our national security. If it isn't then why do we form alliances like NATO?

And I don't think Chinese-based (or owned) companies should be handling port operations either.

The ONLY possible reason for rubber stamping "Dubya's dubious Dubai deal" (courtesy of Paul Mulshine and the Star-Ledger) is the Bush clique's oil money ties with the dictatorships of the Middle East. The Bushies have sold OUR birthright for porridge for THEM. The only way any of this makes sense is when we realize it is all about the Bushies gaining wealth and power within their loyal group. (It isn't a royal group, yet.)

And what all the well-paid pundits for the wealthy and powerful are trying to counter in the public arena (what do we know about the history of "house slaves?") is that this port deal on top of the illegal immigration crises will give traction to the anti-globalization crowd before the globally connected "oil is money" clique has drained the last ounce of value out of our country for the wealthy of the world. The United States, too, can be a banana republic (did somebody say, "reservation?", or was it "plantation?") in which the people who labor and produce the wealth, no longer gain an equitable share of the wealth they produce.

Times, they are a'changing.

Hilding "Gus" Lindquist

From:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/28/dpworld-boycotts-israel/

BREAKING: Dubai Ports World Boycotts Israel

From this morning’s Jerusalem Post:

The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The Jerusalem Post notes that “US law bars firms from complying with such requests or cooperating with attempts by Arab governments to boycott Israel.” Once upon a time, opposing such boycotts was important to the Bush Administration. From the BBC, 5/11/02:

“The US government is strongly opposed to restrictive trade practices or boycotts targeted at Israel,” said Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Kenneth Juster.

“The Commerce Department is closely monitoring efforts that appear to be made to reinvigorate the Arab boycott of Israel and will use all of its resources to vigorously enforce US anti-boycott regulations.”

…The Department of Commerce has issued more than $26m in fines and turned down export licenses to those found violating the law.

The boycott against Israel is an important distinction between P&O, the British company that currently operates 21 U.S. ports, and Dubai Ports World.