Sunday Roundup December 28, 2014 - Closing Time

"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

- A.J. Muste

This is the last post at The Left Bank Café.  For those of you who've stopped by over the years, thank you.

I started this blog in November 2010 - outraged at the distortions of truth and at the right-wing propaganda that led to the Republican victories that year. Since the blog's inception, I've tried to separate fiction from fact in the events of the day and, from time to time, to share my thoughts and passions on non-political topics.

Three hundred posts and four years later, it's now closing time at The Left Bank Café.  

Here are some thoughts, inspirations and sentiments that have informed this blog.

The universe is a wondrous, vast place.  The Earth is home to the only known intelligent life in that universe.  This is an awesome responsibility.  As the Native American proverb has it: "Treat the earth well.  It was not given to you by your parents.  It was loaned to you by your children."

The peoples of the world are our brothers and sisters.  The children of the world are our children.  Let's always remember that.  "I wonder how foreign policies would look if we thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children." - Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

Government has a responsibility to develop just policies and provide for the common good. Given the complexity and scale of today's issues, government plays a vital and necessary role. To say that the richest nation on Earth cannot afford the common good, that it cannot provide for the vulnerable in our society, is a lie.

Racism, militarism, and all forms of oppression must be protested and resisted at every turn. Pacifist and activist A.J. Muste spoke of a "revolutionary pacifism" that confronts the injustice that lays at the heart of wars: "We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life."  A pacifist, Muste was, of course, speaking figuratively.  Without justice, there is no true peace.  We must address, resist, and correct the causes of injustice built into the system.

Violence and force of arms are the easy but soul-damaging means to achieve certain ends. Diplomacy is more difficult but, in the end, produces more lasting and more satisfying results.

The distorted "exceptionalism" that places our nation above international law and in violation of our own democratic principles is a repudiation of our values. Our country, if it chooses, can play an "exceptional" role in making the world a better place. What nation is better equipped to address the poverty, disease, and hunger that plague so many?

The American experiment in democracy is in danger - not from any external threat or from foreign terrorists but from within. Racism, militarism, and a distorted concept of American exceptionalism pose, each in its own way, a threat to America's highest ideals. Political spending, given corporate "personhood" and an unlimited ability to influence elections by the Supreme Court, provides an amplifier for the voices of the powerful while muting the voices of the less advantaged. Special interest groups influence domestic laws as well as foreign policy. Legislation for the common good is blocked by right-wing extremists. Laws protecting the rights of all are dismantled by an ideological judiciary, and the essential right of democracy, the right to vote, has been subverted. Such is the state of affairs and such is the degree of disillusionment that, in our last elections, two out of three voters chose not to exercise their most basic democratic right.

Until money is removed from the political system, until the concept of the Other is banished, and until, in the words of President Kennedy, "the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today", inequality, injustice and war will be with us. That should not stop us from trying or caring or working for peace and justice. We need to take our victories when and where we can.

As the outlook for action at the national level becomes bleak, activism and initiatives at the state and community levels become necessary. Already we are seeing the effect of some of the successful state ballot initiatives from the November 4 elections.  For example, just two days after a successful California ballot initiative reclassified some non-violent offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, people were being released from detention.

Where do we go from here?  There is now a website that contains references and resources for the topics covered in the blog - where to go for further information, if you want to become active in an area, etc. The website also has The Left Bank Café posts indexed by topic, which I hope will be helpful.  I'll periodically update the website as new information becomes available. The address of the website is https://sites.google.com/site/leftbankresources/ .

Peace.

(The most recent update of The Left Bank website was on January 19, 2018.For more recent news, comments, and articles please visit the What in the World? website.) 

A Christmas Wish - Musical Interlude

Happy Christmas!  In the spirit of this season of joy and peace, here are links to some YouTube videos for your enjoyment.

"O Holy Night"

Sung in two languages by Pavarotti and Domingo.

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" (Feed the World)

The original Band Aid version from 1984.

And in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy

Throw your arms around the world at Christmas time

"Prayer of St. Francis"

A most beautiful rendition filmed in Assisi

Make me a channel of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me bring Your love

"Happy Christmas" 

John and Yoko's classic

And so happy Christmas (war is over)

For black and for white (if you want it)

For yellow and red ones (war is over)

Let's stop all the fight (now)

"Ode to Joy"

A flash mob performance of the song from the greatest musical work of all time, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Thy magic power re-unites all that custom has divided 

All men become brothers

Image Credit: 1234christmas.com

Sunday Roundup - December 21, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today we look at Cuba, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Pakistan, nuclear weapons, US-Russia relations, and in brief, the US federal judiciary, the death penalty, Venezuela and Colombia.   

Cuba
President Obama took a major step towards normalizing relations with Cuba on Wednesday.  The shift will see the reopening of a U.S. embassy in Havana and an easing of the decades-long trade embargo of the island.  Obama detailed the changes in a White House address that coincided with a prisoner swap with Cuban authorities. U.S. citizen Alan Gross, a USAID contract worker whom Havana accused of spying, was released in exchange for three Cuban nationals jailed in Florida.  “We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries," Obama said...The policy shift amends existing regulations of the executive branch governing U.S. Cuba policy...These changes will allow an expansion of authorized travel categories by Americans to Cuba, increased caps for legal remittances from the U.S. to Cubans, greater commercial ties to the Cuban private sector and additional allowances between mutual exports and imports and authorizations for additional financial and banking transactions.  The reset in relations also includes a review of the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Pope Francis and Uruguayan President José Mujica each played a role in the recent events which followed after more than a year of back-channel communications.  [Al Jazeera, Dec. 17]  The embargo has been opposed by the vast majority of nations - 188 of 193 nations voted to strike it down at this year's UN General Assembly vote on the embargo.  Latin American nations, which have long been especially critical of the embargo, welcomed the move.
Related

Pope John Paul II with President Fidel Castro in Cuba, 1998
Photo Credit: AP/Jose Goitia

"The US – not Cuba – comes in from the cold: Obama shifted US policy on Havana towards that of the rest of world, saying that decades-long embargo had failed" [Al Jazeera, Dec. 17]
"The spirit is willing: Papal role in Cuba thaw started with John Paul II" [Al Jazeera, Dec. 17]
John Paul II had raised eyebrows in 1996 when he granted a Vatican audience to the former seminarian-turned-revolutionary Fidel Castro. Even more remarkable, back then, was the apparent meeting of minds the two men had at the U.N. World Food conference in Rome that year on the question of hunger — and embargoes.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
With the US warning of a possible veto, Palestinian leaders and negotiators are pressing ahead with a Palestinian statehood resolution.  Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said the draft would be submitted to the Security Council after the Palestinians agreed with France on a merged text...The new text would set a two-year deadline for wrapping up negotiations on a final agreement paving the way to a new Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the shared capital...The Palestinians pushed for action at the United Nations as the European parliament overwhelmingly backed recognition of a Palestinian state..."The draft that will be presented...is the French draft based on Palestinian observations and decisions," Malki told AFP...UN diplomats however cautioned that action may not be imminent. Jordan was due to meet with Britain, France and the United States later before deciding on whether to submit the Palestinian text.  Secretary Kerry is meeting with Israel's Netanyahu, Palestinian negotiators, and European ministers in an attempt to head off a Security Council confrontation.  The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, warned this week that the international community could not simply ignore the Palestinian question.  "The Palestinian question is not going to evaporate," he said.  Mansour warned of more confrontation on the ground and said the Palestinians were ready to take action at the General Assembly and at the International Criminal Court. [AFP/Yahoo News, Dec. 18] 

To hold out hope that the Israeli government will negotiate in good faith on Palestinian statehood without serious international pressure is a cruel hoax.  It's been 21 years since the Oslo 2 Accord, which provided for a two-state solution.  Progress on Oslo has been virtually non-existent since the assassination of Nobel-Peace-Prize-winner Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli right-wing extremist.  Kerry's failed peace talks are just the latest indication of the long-standing Israeli intransigence.  

After 47 years of military occupation, with the Gaza Strip devastated by a blockade and military assaults, with a government defying international law by illegal settlements and collective punishment, with an Israeli President who has built a political career on preventing a two-state solution, it is time for Palestinian statehood to be imposed by the world community.  Palestinians are only asking for what every other people have - a homeland (193 at last count).  As it is, the land sought by Palestinians has been reduced to just 40 percent of that proposed for their state by UN Resolution 181.  

If the world has learned anything after Israel's sabotage of the "Kerry":peace talks and after its brutal assault against Gaza this summer, it's that a two-state solution will never happen as long as the United States enables Israeli oppression by its arms sales and Security Council vetoes.  To continue this policy is morally reprehensible and makes a mockery of the United States's view of itself as a defender of human rights.  

Related
"Hamas taken off EU terror blacklist: Move comes as European parliament adopts resolution supporting principle of Palestinian statehood" [The Guardian, Dec. 17]

Pakistan
Seven heavily-armed Taliban gunmen carried out an attack on a school in Pakistan that left at least 141 people, mostly teenagers and younger children, dead.  Whatever these lunatics were thinking, unmitigated outrage spread quickly across the world  - even other terrorists denounced the attack.  It takes something unusually vile for the world to pay much attention to a terrorist outrage in Pakistan. Since 2007 the annual toll of murders by jihadists has never dropped below 2,000 and in 2012 and 2013 it was not far off 4,000....But the horror of the attack by the Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella organisation of militant groups officially known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), on an army-run school in Peshawar stands out for the scale and nature of its brutality....The army, and previous governments, must take much of the responsibility for the violence the country has suffered in recent years. The growth of the TTP is a direct consequence of neurotic fear of encirclement by India which is widespread in Pakistan’s ruling class and has led to the disastrous policy of exploiting and encouraging jihadist groups...After Nawaz Sharif became prime minister in June 2013 and Raheel Sharif (they are not related) took over as chief of army staff a year ago this disastrous policy began to change. Both men came to the conclusion that jihadist terrorism poses a greater threat to their country than India does....Reining in other terrorist groups that the state has cultivated will ultimately require moves towards a rapprochement with India over Kashmir. For that to happen India’s government will also have to show vision. [The Economist, Dec. 20]
Related
"3 Problems Pakistani Politics has to Resolve after Grisly School Attack" [Informed Comment, Dec. 17]

Nuclear Weapons
James Carroll at TomDispatch plots the long, sad course from Obama's 2009 Prague speech on banishing nuclear weapons ("As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act... So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.") to his role as an enabler of their renewal, Obama’s timing in 2009 was critical. The weapons and delivery systems of the nuclear arsenal were aging fast....massive reductions in the arsenal had to begin before pressures to launch a program for the wholesale replacement of those weapons systems grew too strong to resist...Obama, in other words, was presiding over a golden moment, but an apocalyptic deadline was bearing down. And sure enough, that deadline came crashing through.  Thanks to Pentagon pressure, Russia's ambition to return to world power status, and extremist Republicans taking Congress hostage,  Obama has become the "Ahab of Nuclear Weapons".  In order to get the votes of Senate Republicans to ratify the START treaty, Obama made what turned out to be a devil’s bargain.  He agreed to lay the groundwork for a vast “modernization” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which, in the name of updating an aged system, is already morphing into a full-blown reinvention of the arms cache at an estimated future cost of more than a trillion dollars. Carroll wonders what might happen if the President went directly to the people and passionately made the case today that he made in Prague five years.  Although there is no sign that the president intends to do such a thing any longer,... if a commander-in-chief were to order nuclear reductions into the hundreds, the result might actually be a transformation of the American political conscience. In the process, the global dream of a nuclear-free world could be resuscitated and the commitment of non-nuclear states (including Iran) to refrain from nuclear-weapons development could be rescued. Ending on a pessimistic note, Carroll writes: Because of decisions likely to be taken this year and next, no American president will ever again be able to embrace this purpose as Obama once did. Nuclear weapons will instead become a normalized and permanent part of the twenty-first century American arsenal, and therefore of the arsenals of many other nations. [TomDispatch, Dec. 11]

Russia
On Thursday, President Obama signed a bill that will allow the White House to levy further sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, though the Administration has said it has no immediate plans to introduce them....US entities would be forbidden from investing in gas giant Gazprom, and the company would face additional sanctions if it broke off supplies to key eastern European countries.... Other sanctions would involve Russia’s arms exporter Rosoboronexport. Perhaps most crucially, organizations in [Russia’s] embattled financial sector would be barred from dealing with any US banks...In a related move, the bill authorizes Obama to supply anti-tank weapons, surveillance drones and other sophisticated equipment for Petro Poroshenko's government in Kiev, though White House officials said the President had no immediate plans to allow US weapons to be used to put down the uprising in the east of the country...Two factors appear to have put a brake on the plan. Obama is loathe to impose new measures without backing from Brussels, where there is no unity on the need for future sanctions...and the Russia rouble has collapsed over the past week - partly due to oil prices. [Russia Times, Dec. 18]
Dmitri Trenin at The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace believes that the West and Russia may now be entering a state of permanent crisis.  Conflict resolution is not on the agenda. It is time for permanent crisis management. ...Crisis management must ensure, at minimum, that there is no resumption of hostilities in eastern Ukraine. Should Kiev, with Washington's blessing or its acquiescence, attempt to retake Donetsk and Lugansk, the Kremlin may not confine itself to restoring the status quo...The best one can do now is to engage in practical steps to make life less miserable for the people directly affected. The trilateral Russia-Ukraine-EU agreement on gas supplies to Ukraine finally concluded at the end of October is a useful first step...Ukraine and Europe...should not overreact to the November 2 elections in Donbass. They would be wise to engage with newly elected leaders of the region. Talking with people, including adversaries, and dealing with them does not imply recognition of an entity, but can be useful in managing important practical issues.  Europeans need to find a way to relate to Russians, even if, in Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel's memorable phrase, Putin may "live in another world." If Europe and Germany want to be a serious player..., they have to build a relationship with Russia on a new foundation of realism and pragmatism.  [CEIP, Nov. 4]

In Brief - Links
US Federal Judiciary
"The Senate Just Cemented Obama's Judicial Legacy" [Huffington Post, Dec. 18]
The number of vacancies in the Federal courts is now 41 out of 874 judgeships.  This is down from 86 vacancies in March.

Colombia
"Colombia rebuffs FARC ceasefire offer: Government says peace deal must be reached before it will accept rebels’ demand that truce be verified by other countries" [The Guardian, Dec. 18]

Venezuela
"Venezuela sanctions highlight US hypocrisy on human rights: Obama should follow his example on Cuba and engage with, not punish, Venezuela" [Al Jazeera, Dec. 18]

Death Penalty
In 2014, 35 people were executed, the fewest in 20 years. Death sentences dropped to their lowest level in the modern era of the death penalty, with 72 people sentenced to death, the smallest number in 40 years. Just seven states carried out executions, and three states (Texas, Missouri, and Florida) accounted for 80% of the executions.  [Death Penalty Information Center, Dec. 18]

Two Years Since Newtown

Memorial in Newtown /Credit: AP (appeared on ABC News website)

Two years ago on December 14, 2012, a disturbed 20 year-old shot and killed his mother, then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children and 6 adults before turning the Bushmaster rifle on himself.  This shooting was supposed to be the one that finally changed everything about the availability of guns in the United States and our national epidemic of gun violence.   It has not.  Thanks to a powerful gun lobby and fanatic "gun rights" advocates, very little has changed at the national level.  It is a disgraceful reminder of the power of special interest group money to prevent legislation for the common good from being enacted.

In the two years since Sandy Hook, there have been 21 deadly school shootings in the United States resulting in 37 deaths, including 5 of the shooters.  Mark Follman at Mother Jones analyzes the past two years of these attacks in a December 9 post and adds that "During the same period, there have been dozens of other gun incidents on school grounds that caused injuries, as well as seven additional cases where someone committed suicide with a firearm, but no one else died."

While action has been minimal to non-existent at the national level, there has been some good legislation passed at the state level - most recently, in the state of Washington voters approved a ballot initiative requiring universal background checks in November.  The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence summarizes the progress: "In the past two years, states have seen historic and unprecedented progress in adopting gun laws to help keep communities safe from gun violence. A total of 99 new laws strengthening gun regulations have passed in 37 states nationwide since December 12, 2012, and 10 states have made major overhauls to their gun laws. 2014 was a remarkable year for smart gun laws, with California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order law, Washington State’s successful ballot initiative for universal background checks, and seven states adopting legislation to keep guns out of the hands of domestic violence abusers."  You can check out its 2014 Annual Gun Laws State Scorecard at http://gunlawscorecard.org/.

In addition to the successful ballot initiative in Washington, gun-control advocates saw a few other victories on Election Day. In Colorado, the two state senators who were recalled in 2013 by a gun lobby funded recall vote won back their seats.  As the LA Times reported: "...in a little-noticed footnote to Colorado’s closely watched gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races, the Democrats won back both of those seats, and it wasn’t at all close in either Pueblo or Colorado Springs."  And, in the midst of what was a Republican rout, the Democratic governors of Connecticut and Colorado won re-election in November despite gun lobby efforts to unseat them.  Connecticut and Colorado passed some of the toughest gun legislation in the country after the tragedies at Sandy Hook and Aurora.

In recent news, the gun lobby suffered a defeat Monday when, in what CNN analysts called "a small political miracle", the Senate approved Vivek Murthy as Surgeon General.  The gun lobby and their allies on the right had delayed his appointment for more than a year because he dared to say that gun violence is a public health issue.

Also on Monday, the families of nine people killed at Newtown filed suit against the maker and sellers of the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle.  The suit alleges "wrongful death and negligence" and seeks unspecified monetary damages.  "The complaint says the gun allows shooters to inflict unparalleled civilian carnage.  'In order to continue profiting from the sale of AR-15s, defendants chose to disregard the unreasonable risks the rifle posed outside of specialized, highly regulated institutions like the armed forces and law enforcement," the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint...A 2005 law shields gun manufacturers from most lawsuits over criminal use of their products, but it does include an exception for cases where companies should know a weapon is likely to be used in a way that risks injury to others. A lawyer for the Newtown families, Katie Mesner-Hage, said the lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind against a manufacturer to claim that exception." [AP/Huffington Post, Dec. 15]

The public is way ahead of the politicians on this issue with overwhelming majorities favoring common sense gun regulations.  Referring to the re-election of Governors Malloy (CT) and Hickenlooper (CO), the Americans for Principled Leadership website notes: "The public polls on gun safety reforms have been proven out in these two gubernatorial elections. By lopsided majorities the voting public strongly favored the gun safety legislation put in place after the Aurora movie theatre and Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. It’s only a question of time before other states catch on."

Photo Credit: smartgunlaws.org (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence)

Once the laws are on the books, we can expect attacks from the gun lobby in the courts - usually on the basis of the Second Amendment.  On the district court level, 2014 saw a number of victories for common sense gun laws,  In September. "U.S. District Court Judge John Darrah handed the gun sense movement yet another legal victory by upholding a local ordinance that prohibits military-style assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines (“LCMs”) in the city of Highland Park, Illinois. The decision is the most recent in a growing string of cases unanimously finding that prohibitions on assault weapons and LCMs do not infringe on the Second Amendment...This outcome marks the tenth major court victory for common sense gun laws in 2014. Despite a concerted effort by the gun lobby to challenge a host of reasonable firearm regulations, courts have rejected Second Amendment challenges to laws ranging from universal background checks and firearm registration to safe storage and restrictions on assault weapons and LCMs. The message from the courts is clear: the vast majority of sensible gun laws are fully compatible with the Second Amendment."  [Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Sep. 29]

The positive state and local actions on gun regulation make these communities safer.  But other states have passed laws making guns more readily available and present.  Guns can be transported across state lines as easily as people, and action at a national level is also necessary. Unfortunately, after the midterm elections, action at the national level is now more unlikely than ever.

Then there is the question of the Supreme Court.  What will happen when these lower court cases make their inevitable way to the conservative-majority Supreme Court is anybody's guess.  SCOTUS' infamous District of Columbia vs. Heller 5-4 ruling in 2008 upheld a district court ruling that a Washington D.C. law banning handguns and requiring other firearms to be stored unloaded or locked was unconstitutional.  In so doing, they essentially declared that an individual unconnected to service in a militia had the right to "bear arms" - a first ever and unprecedented interpretation.

But the news at SCOTUS is not all bad.  In the court's last term (2013-4), "despite numerous invitations and opportunities, the justices went out of their way to avoid the right to bear arms.  Signs of this were clear...when the court in a 5–4 ruling upheld a major gun control law, the federal ban on 'straw' purchasing without so much as mentioning the Second Amendment." Justice Kennedy is apparently the swing vote on these issues and neither the conservative or liberal justices appeared willing to bet on which side he would vote if the Second Amendment were brought into the case.  "Kennedy seems increasingly less likely to be a solid vote for expansive Second Amendment rights. Indeed, twice [in the 2013-4] term he voted for expansive readings of gun control laws instead. For the NRA, so used to winning in statehouses around the country, this can't be good news." [Slate, June 19]

Related
Let's Repeal the Second Amendment [March 18, 2014]

Sunday Roundup - December 14, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at the U.S. Senate's torture report, Ebola, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, John Lennon, the Lima Climate Conference, Mars, and in brief, China's economy, Brazil's torture report, and Hong Kong.

U.S. Senate's Torture Report
The Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on torture carried out by the CIA in the years after the 9/11 attacks.  The report concludes that the CIA repeatedly misled the public, Congress and the White House about the agency’s aggressive questioning of detainees — including waterboarding, confinement in small spaces and shackling in stress positions — after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, minimizing the severity of the interrogations and exaggerating the usefulness of the information produced.  [Politico, Dec. 9]  Just about every media outlet has a summary of the key findings or a list of the "most shocking" revelations:  "The Most Gruesome Moments in the CIA ‘Torture Report’ " [Daily Beast], "10 Craziest Things in the Senate Report on Torture" [Rolling Stone], "America’s Shame: What’s in the Senate Torture Report?" [The New Yorker], etc.  The Guardian had this lead in its December 10 post on world reaction to the report's findings:  The UN has led international condemnation of the CIA’s interrogation and detention programme laid bare by the Senate’s intelligence committee. Its special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights has called for the criminal prosecution of Bush-era officials involved.  

This is not what the United States is supposed to be about.  The report is an indictment of what happens when we allow fear to cloud our reasoning.  It's what happens when we allow a distorted sense of exceptionalism to destroy our democratic ideals and to refuse to grant "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."  It looks like, for now at least,  there will be no prosecutions for these crimes. Thanks to Congressional interference, the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison remains open nearly six years after President Obama pledged to close it.  Nearly all of the 136 remaining prisoners are being held without charges.   And extrajudicial killings by US drones continue. Torture may have been stopped when Obama came into office but we have a long way to go.  Let's hope that making the report public will be seen as a beginning, a return to our country's true values.  This may require legislation from a soon-to-be-even-more-dysfunctional Congress since a future President would be able to reverse Obama's executive order.
Related
"From Bush to Obama, Eyes Wide Shut: the same memo Bush used to wall himself off from the details of CIA torture is keeping Obama’s drone war alive." [Foreign Policy, Dec. 12]
Sunday Round-Up - May 19, 2013  "Guest Op-Ed"

Ebola
The number of probable, confirmed and suspected deaths from the Ebola virus stood at 6,388 as of December 7.  The World Health Organization has declared the outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal officially over. The number of reported cases is slightly increasing in Guinea but falling in Liberia, the country reporting the most deaths from the outbreak.  Health officials in Sierra Leone have discovered scores of bodies in a remote diamond-mining area, raising fears that the scale of the Ebola outbreak may have been underreported.  The World Health Organization said they uncovered a "grim scene" in the eastern district of Kono.  A WHO response team had been sent to Kono to investigate a sharp rise in Ebola cases.  [BBC News, Dec. 11]
Related
Time Magazine announced its person of the year award - very rightfully given to the local and international Ebola fighters, the men and women with "the hero's heart" who are fighting the disease at great personal risk.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
With the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks earlier this year and after the widespread devastation and civilian death toll in Gaza during the Israeli attacks this summer, European states are beginning to seriously debate recognition of a Palestinian State.  As Richard Youngs writes in a post for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Considerable momentum has built up behind the idea that giving formal recognition to a Palestinian state is now the only way forward in attempts to reach some form of peace settlement.  The advantages of recognition would be many.  With formal recognition, the Palestinians could have the possibility of taking legal action against Israeli human rights abuses. Support could be given for the Palestinian Authority to join the International Criminal Court as a means of bringing legal cases against Israeli soldiers. Yet, crucially, debates on recognition will not be sufficient and we should not expect that they can address all current challenges.  One key area for Europe to rethink its current policy is that the EU must start to engage with Hamas. The EU appears to be counting on the Palestinian Authority regaining control of Gaza, but Hamas cannot simply be side-lined without risking major instability – that would set back the Palestinian cause even if formal statehood were recognised. Some form of engagement is necessary if the EU is to help the fragile unity government merge the different institutional structures of Gaza and the West Bank into a single political space.  Youngs warns that the EU must also focus on short-term imperatives to prevent another period of violence.  Recognition cannot become a pretext for European governments pulling back from a stronger engagement on the ground in the Occupied Territories.  

John Lennon
Last Monday marked the anniversary of the death of John Lennon.  Hard to believe it's been 34 years since the life of this peaceful, creative genius was snuffed out by a crazed gunman.  I was a young father then and remember well the huge gathering on the campus of Louisiana State University.  Our sons wandered through the friendly crowd while my wife and I listened to the musical tributes and remembered this great man who meant so much to our generation. "Imagine all the people living life in peace."  We could use some political leaders today that have the insight, consciousness and compassion of John Lennon.  We miss you, John.
Related
Hong Kong protesters to rebuild 'Lennon Wall' [Daily Mail, Dec. 12]

Lima Climate Conference 
Negotiators went into overtime and worked through Friday night trying to work out differences among the 195 countries attending the climate change conference in Lima, Peru, for the past two weeks.  As negotiations continued, National Geographic presented 5 takeaways:
1. The big question of whether the agreement will be binding is still unresolved.
2. Vulnerable countries want to be compensated for damage from global warming.
3. Environmental groups want a 100 percent phaseout of fossil fuels by 2050.
4. Many cities will start measuring their emissions.
5. The UN's Green Climate Fund has raised ten billion dollars.  The US commitment to the fund is 3 billion dollars but Republicans in Congress have attached a rider to the recently passed $1.1 trillion budget that would block the government from spending the money.
One of the key areas of contention is the divide between industrialized and developing nations.  The US and other industrialised countries require all countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions.  That would be a departure from the original UN classification of the 1990s – which absolved China, India and other developing countries which are now major carbon polluters – of cutting their emissions. Developing countries are suspicious that the text being developed in Lima is an attempt to rewrite those old guidelines.  [The Guardian, Dec. 12]  Times change and as countries become major carbon polluters, they need to recognize their obligations to join in the fight against global warming.  The recent bilateral agreement between the United States and China should serve as a model for a way forward.  This is the last major climate conference before the critical Paris conference in December, 2015 and the frustration with the draft text is widespread.  The proposals, still under discussion on Saturday, a day after the talks were scheduled to end, were too weak to keep global warming to the agreed limit of two degrees above preindustrial levels, setting the world on course to a climate disaster...“We are on a path to three or four degrees with this outcome,” said Tasneem Essop, international climate strategist for WWF.  She said the final draft text, a five-page document put forward for approval on Saturday, offered little assurance of cutting emissions fast enough and deeply enough to curb warming. [The Guardian, Dec. 13]

Mars

Depiction of a lake partially filling Mars' Gale Crater
Image Credit:NASA/JPL/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS

Was life present on ancient Mars?  NASA’s Curiosity rover has found the strongest signs yet that the surface of Mars, roughly 4 billion years ago, had conditions that would’ve been almost ideal for the genesis of life. NASA says that Curiosity has found evidence to suggest that Gale Crater was once filled with lakes, rivers, and deltas that contained water for tens of millions of years — long enough that some small organisms could have emerged....The next step in the hunt for life on Mars is getting a better grip on the prevalence (or lack thereof) of organic compounds on the surface and in the atmosphere — and then actually digging down into the crust of the Red Planet, to look for actual signs of life, either in the form of fossils or actual living microorganisms.  [Extreme Tech, Dec. 9]
Related

"Could Ancient Mars Have Supported Life? Water Isn't the Only Key" [space.com, Dec. 11]

In Brief/Links

"China's Overhyped Debt Problem" [CEIP, Dec. 3]

"Brazil's President, Herself a Victim, Cries While Addressing Past Regime's Use of Torture" [Slate, Dec. 11]

"Hong Kong Occupy Protests Wind Down as Police Clear Camps" [Slate, Dec. 11]

Other Image Credits
John Lennon Quote is from the InkTank website.
Imagine Peace Tower, Reykjavick, Iceland is from the Imagine Peace website.

Obamacare: On the ropes?

The second open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act began on November 15, but it seems like Obamacare has been under attack forever. Republican lawsuits make their way through the courts, Democratic candidates run from President Obama's signature achievement, and Democratic Senators openly question it.  Here are 10 things to know about the current state of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the threats facing it.

1. As of April 2014 (after the first open enrollment period), approximately 15.2 million previously uninsured had gained health care insurance as a result of the ACA - either through the Marketplace or through the Medicaid and CHIP expansions. Daily Kos notes that a) the uninsured rate dropped more than 30 percent from September 2013 to September 2014; b) healthcare spending in the U.S. grew at a slower rate in 2013 than it had in 53 years; c) an estimated 50,000 lives were saved between 2010 (when ACA was passed) and 2013 because hospitals have been made safer.

2. The original ACA provided for an expansion of state Medicaid systems that would have made health care affordable for an additional 21.3 million Americans by 2022. The Supreme Court made that provision voluntary and, as of October 2014, 23 states had chosen not to expand Medicaid coverage. Nearly 4 million poor uninsured adults fell into the“coverage gap” that resulted from state decisions not to expand Medicaid, meaning their income is above current Medicaid eligibility but below the lower limit for Marketplace premium tax credits.  With Republican victories at the state level in the midterms, this denial of affordable medical care will continue.

3. SCOTUS will hear King vs. Burwell this term. This case, as well as its related brethren (Halbig vs. Burwell, Pruitt vs. Burwell, and Indiana vs. IRS), would deny subsidies to people who obtained their healthcare plan through the Federal exchange rather than through a state exchange. If successful, as many as 13 million people in 37 states could be affected, For many of these, healthcare would once again become unaffordable.

4. King vs. Burwell rests on what Think Progress calls a "glorified typo." If read in isolation, one line of the Affordable Care Act suggests that only “an Exchange established by the State” can offer subsidies to help people pay for health insurance in the exchange. Previous Supreme Court decisions have noted that “a reviewing court should not confine itself to examining a particular statutory provision in isolation” as the “meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context.”

5.  With today's politicized Supreme Court, the outcome of King vs. Burwell will depend on Chief Justice Roberts. Once before, Roberts bucked conservative pressure when he sided with the court's liberals in determining the ACA to be constitutional. Will Roberts' concern for his legacy (or perhaps his conscience) let him do the right thing for the American people or will he cave to this political stunt and ignore previous Supreme Court rulings on the importance of context?

6.  Sen. Charles Schumer blamed the loss of the Senate and the general thumping of Democrats in the midterms on the timing of Obamare.  Perhaps the best response to Schumer came from Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times: "It's a startling admission of political spinelessness. Schumer gets the positive impact of the legislation wrong, he gets the politics of it wrong, and he displays a shocking ignorance of the problems facing the American middle class. The only good thing about his remarks is that they confirm how bad today's Democrats are at messaging."

7. The House GOP filed suit against President Obama on November 21. The lawsuit focuses on two points: (1) the administration's decision to delay the law's mandate that businesses with 50 or more workers provide comprehensive health benefits and (2) the requirement that insurers reduce the out-of-pocket expenses for lower-income customers with the government making "periodic and timely payments" to insurers to cover their costs. This suit is even more blatantly political than King vs. Burwell and stands less of a chance of success.  Still, as the LA Times opines in a November 24 editorial: "...it's worth noting how Republicans have sought to undermine and destabilize the Affordable Care Act by attacking the benefits it provides to Americans on the lowest economic rungs."

8. Retiring Sen. Tom Harkin, co-author of the ACA, now says that Democrats should have passed single payer healthcare when they had the chance in 2009.  By trying to address the concerns of three centrist Senators (Democrats Lincoln and Nelson and Independent Lieberman), the country ended up with a more complicated healthcare system. I agree with Sen. Harkin.  Single payer or public option healthcare would have been a better choice. Compromising did no good. The ACA passed the Senate without a single Republican vote and the complexity of the system has opened it to, as we have seen, unending lawsuits.

9. A GOP Senate can be counted on to try to dismantle the ACA in stages should both King vs. Burwell and the House GOP suit against Obama fail. The idea would be to gather enough Democratic votes to avoid a filibuster, or better, to override a Presidential veto. Based on discussions with health care experts and lobbyists, the New Republic lists these possible Republican actions:

(a) Repeal the individual mandate

(b) Repeal or modify the employer mandate

(c) Eliminate "risk corridors" (government reimbursement to insurers for some losses)

(d) Repeal the 2.3 percent medical device tax. Its primary purpose is to generate revenue to help subsidize healthcare costs for lower income people.

(e) Abolish the Individual Payment Advisory Board. IPAB is a board with the power to ratchet down what Medicare pays for goods and services.

(f) Introduce "copper plans" which would cover less (50%) of an individual's health care expenses than the current plan levels.

10. I'll close with commentary from a source I don't often cite. Forbes magazine, the self-proclaimed "capitalist tool," has some bad news for Obamacare bashers. A McKinsey Center report found that a) competition and choice are increasing among insurance companies; b) the median increase in premiums for 2015 will be 4% (Forbes' comment: "When was the last time we saw insurance premiums experience an annual increase of less than 5 percent? I cannot remember such a time and doubt that you can either."); c) premiums for those being subsidized will vary - with some likely to pay more and others likely to pay considerably less.  The author's closing advice is priceless: "Even if you are committed to bashing the ACA at all costs, do yourself a favor and go check out the policies available to you come November 15th. You are likely to find something to your liking at either a lower price or at a very small increase. Should you find such a policy, buy it and be secure in the knowledge that the next time you trash Obamacare nobody will have to know that you benefited personally from the program."

  

Sunday Roundup - December 7, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Eric Garner's death, US deportations, Israeli politics, Senator Harkin on Obamacare, Ukraine, and in brief, South Sudan and Gaza.

Correction to December 3 post, "The Death of Michael Brown": The original post gave the distance from the shooter, Darren Wilson, to Michael Brown as 148 feet as estimated by an independent source.  148 feet was the distance from Darren Wilson's SUV to the point where Michael Brown had run as estimated by the independent source.

Eric Garner

Midtown New York, Dec. 5, Credit: REUTERS/Adrees Latif

A grand jury once again failed to indict after the death of an unarmed African-American at the hands of a white police officer.  The victim this time was Eric Garner and the place was New York City.  The case of New York Police Department officer David Pantaleo wasn’t supposed to be like Ferguson. There was a video showing how a simple stop for selling untaxed cigarettes turned into a chokehold — a move prohibited by the NYPD. The medical examiner ruled the incident a homicide. Eric Garner repeatedly shouted “I can’t breathe” just before he died.  Yet, as in Ferguson, the Staten Island grand jury voted not to indict Pantaleo for anything, leaving the nation — even legal experts – exasperated, frustrated, and grasping to understand why. [Think Progress, Dec. 3]  The White House announced a civil rights investigation as protesters took to the streets.  The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has announced a federal investigation into “potential civil rights violations” around the death of Eric Garner after a grand jury decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer who placed the unarmed black man in a chokehold.  Thousands of demonstrators disrupted New York City traffic into the early hours of Thursday after the grand jury verdict. Mostly peaceful protests had sprung up on Wednesday evening at locations throughout Manhattan, including Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and near Rockefeller Center, after the panel returned no indictment. [The Guardian, Dec. 4]  Protests in New York have continued into the weekend.  Protests over U.S. police violence against minorities, sparked by grand-jury decisions not to charge officers in two high-profile cases, were peaceful on their third night in New York although 20 arrests took place, authorities said on Saturday.  Protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic on the city's FDR Drive, a major artery that runs along the eastern side of Manhattan....The wave of angry protests began on Wednesday when a New York grand jury declined to bring charges against white officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black 43-year-old father of six. [Reuters, Dec. 6]

Related
‘I can’t breathe’: Why Eric Garner protests are gaining momentum [Reuters, Dec. 5]  “Black Lives Matter” has become, like an earlier generation’s use of the terms “Freedom Now” and “We Shall Overcome,” an anthem for contemporary civil and human rights activism. The struggle for black equality historically and now, offers us all a chance to transform and save American democracy.

US Deportations
The American Civil Liberties Union released a report on Dec. 4 that underscores a troublesome pattern that has received far less attention [than Obama's immigration plan]: Of the 438,421 people deported in 2013, 83 percent received a summary removal, meaning that they were sent to their country of origin by US officials without a hearing. And according to the ACLU's research, many of these removals were illegal: Asylum seekers, unaccompanied kids, and others who may have qualified for relief routinely have been turned away.  There has been a backlog in the immigration court for many years and the deportations are being made using a 1996 law that, in theory, prevents immigration courts from being completely inundated while also providing safeguards...But according to the ACLU's findings, these protocols aren't often followed...No one, the ACLU included, seems to be able to provide a realistic solution to the immigration court backlog; it's undeniable that if all those requesting asylum were given a trial, the system would be further clogged.  [Mother Jones, Dec.4]

Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu's government collapsed after the ouster of two cabinet ministers who opposed the so-called "Jewish state" bill.  Three days after the Peace Now demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s home in Jerusalem, which featured a call for toppling and replacing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the government did in fact collapse. The Knesset is in the process of dissolving itself and its members have already agreed on a date for early elections.  Israelis will go to the polls on March 17, almost two full years before the end of the term of this government. [Americans for Peace Now, Dec. 3]  I'd like to share APN's optimism that the elections will bring to power an Israeli government committed to a two-state solution, but Israeli politics and public opinion continue to move to the right.  A new poll published Sunday in the Haaretz newspaper showed that while Netanyahu’s popularity is currently down, Israelis continue to support him over other prime ministerial candidates. Asked which politician is most suited to be prime minister, 35% answered Netanyahu....The same poll showed shrinking support for Lapid’s [the fired  finance minister's] centrist party and for the centrist-left-wing parties Hatnuah and Labor. The only parties to show gains are the right-wing Jewish Home and Israel Beiteinu Parties. [BuzzFeed, Dec. 3]
The UN overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution urging Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and put its nuclear facilities under UN supervision and criticizing the country for not being part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Israel possesses an estimated 80 nuclear weapons.  The resolution calls on Israel to "accede to that treaty without further delay, not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons," and put its nuclear facilities under the safeguard of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency...Israel, which is believed to have nuclear arms but has never admitted to it, has long been under fire from Arab countries in the region for not putting its alleged stockpile under international supervision.  The resolution, initiated by Egypt, was approved by 161 nations with only five voting against it and 18 abstentions.  [Russia Times, Dec. 3]

Senator Harkin:  We Should Have Passed Single-Payer
The coauthor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act regrets that the filibuster-proof Senate of 2009 did not pass a single payer healthcare system instead.  Sen. Tom Harkin, one of the co-authors of the Affordable Care Act, now thinks Democrats may have been better off not passing it at all and holding out for a better bill.  The Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, laments the complexity of legislation the Senate passed five years ago.  He wonders in hindsight whether the law was made overly complicated to satisfy the political concerns of a few Democratic centrists who have since left Congress....Harkin, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, says in retrospect the Democratic-controlled Senate and House should have enacted a single-payer healthcare system or a public option to give the uninsured access to government-run health plans that compete with private insurance companies.  “We had the votes in ’09. We had a huge majority in the House, we had 60 votes in the Senate,” he said.  He believes Congress should have enacted “single-payer right from the get-go or at least put a public option would have simplified a lot....  We had the votes to do that and we blew it,” he said....Harkin...believes Obama and Democratic leaders could have enacted better policy had they stood up to three centrists who balked at the public option: Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), a Democrat turned independent, Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). [The Hill, Dec. 3]  

Ukraine
In spite of recent fighting near the Donetsk airport, there is hope for the shaky ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.  Ukraine and the pro-Russian rebels said Thursday they had agreed to halt fire on December 9 under the terms of a truce aimed at ending one of Europe's bloodiest conflicts in decades.  The unexpected announcement provides the latest glimmer of hope that fighting across the eastern rustbelt of the ex-Soviet nation was nearing to a close after eight months that saw 4,300 people killed and shattered Moscow's ties with the West....A source in [Ukrainian President] Poroshenko's office said the president's statement meant Ukraine would begin withdrawing heavy weapons from the eastern frontline on December 10 -- as long as the separatists also observed the truce....Several truce deals announced in the course of the war were broken within days by both rebels and Ukrainian soldiers who refused to listen to their political leaders. The head of the neighbouring self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic said a ceasefire that would begin in mid-December was discussed at the [September] Minsk negotiations. [AFP/ via Yahoo News, Dec. 4]

Related
"How can the West solve its Ukraine problem?" [BBC News, Dec. 3] Russia badly overplayed its hand last year ...The European Union is now risking the same thing by trying to bring Ukraine into the West without reference to economic reality or the willingness of European publics to bear the enormous costs involved.  The author lays out the economic and political reality in the Ukraine and the compromises needed by both sides for a lasting peace.

In Brief
South Sudan
The civil war in South Sudan claimed at least 50 000 lives so far [enca.com, Nov. 15]

"South Sudan: the impact of war and the importance of peace"  [The Guardian, Nov. 26] 
While South Sudan peace talks continue in Ethiopia and Tanzania, bitterly divided communities look for solutions closer to home.  The civil war in South Sudan has so far claimed at least 50,000 lives.

Gaza
U.N. begins inquiry into attacks and weapons in Gaza [Reuters, Dec. 3]

Project launched to clear Gaza rubble: UN begins clearing some 2.5 million tons of rubble from Strip, courtesy of $3.2 million donation from Sweden. [YNet/AP, Dec. 3]

Palestinian engineer has developed a replacement for cement to help the Gaza Strip deal with its housing crisis after the Israeli war [World Bulletin, Dec. 5] 
Since the July-August war, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians and 70 Israelis were killed, barely any progress has been made rebuilding the shattered territory, despite donors pledging $5 billion.  Israel tightly monitors the import of construction materials and equipment into Gaza, arguing that otherwise it could be used to rebuild tunnels used by Hamas who control the strip.  Palestinian officials and critics of Israeli policy say that has made it impossible to rebuild, leaving 40,000 of the strip's 1.8 million residents in temporary shelter and thousands more facing winter in barely habitable ruins.