Unless OWS gets seriously involved in dislodging the Republicans from office in 2012 - their majority in the House and their strangle hold on the Senate- none of OWS' complaints or issues will be addressed for the foreseeable future. At least with the Democrats in power, there is an outside chance that some of the most pressing problems facing the country will be ameliorated if not solved.
The Republicans' current opposition to the extensions of the payroll tax reduction and to unemployment benefits (without further cuts to the social safety net rather than taxing the wealthiest Americans) should show everyone in the 99% that they are not on our side at all. The OWS movement says they are non-partisan but a look at the differences between the ideologies of the Republicans and Democrats will show why this should not be so.
George Lakoff summarizes this beautifully today in the Huffington Post in an appeal to OWS to get involved in the 2012 elections. For the Left, "American democracy is about citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly on that care." A strong private sector depends on a strong public sector, on a strong commons. For the Right, "democracy is about citizens only taking care of themselves, about personal and not social responsibility. According to right-wing morality, the successful are by definition the moral; the one percent are taken to be the most moral."
In recent years, the political conversation has been dominated by the heavily financed right wing echo chamber. Now is the time to shift the conversation away from privilege, greed and fear and to a better understanding of what American democracy really should be all about. Now is the time to get involved in the electoral process or forever hold your peace.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Profiles in Courage
In 1955, future President John F. Kennedy's memorable biographical work Profiles in Courage was published. The Pulitzer-prize-winning book related the stories of eight U.S. senators who took difficult and often unpopular stands upholding principles rather than doing the easy thing politically. Here are three persons today who give us hope that courage to stand up for one's principles is still alive in the world. Sorry JFK, not one of them is a U.S. senator.
Hagit Ofran is an Israeli peace activist. In spite of right-wing extremist death threats, she continues to speak out against the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and in favor of a just two-state solution. November 4th marked the sixteenth anniversary of the assassination by a right wing Israeli extremist of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who had signed the Oslo Peace Accords. It was an assassination with an impact on the Middle East peace process as great as the assassination of JFK in 1963 had on the US. Close to the assassination's anniversary this year, Jewish terrorists painted death threats on her home. Not backing down, Ofran delivered the keynote address at the annual rally to remember Rabin and all that he stood for.
Lydia Cacho Ribiero is a Mexican journalist, feminist and human rights activist. Cacho received death threats this summer after exposing a sex-trafficking ring. The November issue of The Atlantic named her as one of the "21 brave thinkers of 2011". For years she has written on the exploitation of women and children. In 1999, she was raped and beaten in the bathroom of a bus station for what she believes was her advocacy for women. In 2006, she took up the cause of the unsolved murders of women in Ciudad Juarez. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her her investigative journalism including awards from Amnesty International and UNESCO.
John Kitzhaber is the governor of Oregon. On Tuesday November 22, he banned the death penalty in his state for the duration of his term. In the only Western democracy with a populace whose majority supports the death penalty, Gov. Kitzhaber took the courageous step of banning it - calling the death penalty system "an expensive and unworkable system that fails to meet the basic standards of justice." An LA Times editorial rightly praised Kitzhaber for "one of the most courageous and conscientious acts we've seen on the national political stage in some time." This is what leaders do - they lead. When the majority are wrong, leaders have the strength to show them the proper path.
Hagit Ofran is an Israeli peace activist. In spite of right-wing extremist death threats, she continues to speak out against the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and in favor of a just two-state solution. November 4th marked the sixteenth anniversary of the assassination by a right wing Israeli extremist of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who had signed the Oslo Peace Accords. It was an assassination with an impact on the Middle East peace process as great as the assassination of JFK in 1963 had on the US. Close to the assassination's anniversary this year, Jewish terrorists painted death threats on her home. Not backing down, Ofran delivered the keynote address at the annual rally to remember Rabin and all that he stood for.
Lydia Cacho Ribiero is a Mexican journalist, feminist and human rights activist. Cacho received death threats this summer after exposing a sex-trafficking ring. The November issue of The Atlantic named her as one of the "21 brave thinkers of 2011". For years she has written on the exploitation of women and children. In 1999, she was raped and beaten in the bathroom of a bus station for what she believes was her advocacy for women. In 2006, she took up the cause of the unsolved murders of women in Ciudad Juarez. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her her investigative journalism including awards from Amnesty International and UNESCO.
John Kitzhaber is the governor of Oregon. On Tuesday November 22, he banned the death penalty in his state for the duration of his term. In the only Western democracy with a populace whose majority supports the death penalty, Gov. Kitzhaber took the courageous step of banning it - calling the death penalty system "an expensive and unworkable system that fails to meet the basic standards of justice." An LA Times editorial rightly praised Kitzhaber for "one of the most courageous and conscientious acts we've seen on the national political stage in some time." This is what leaders do - they lead. When the majority are wrong, leaders have the strength to show them the proper path.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Failure
As probably could have been predicted, the bipartisan deficit reduction committee failed to meet its target. News reports today have them throwing in the sponge early and trying to spin their failure. So now the automatic cuts begin. It's a shame that an automatic tax increase on the wealthy wasn't part of the deal. As noted previously, we cannot balance the budget solely with cuts to social programs. The only consolation in all this is that the unnecessary and over-bloated military budget will be cut automatically also.
The real problem with the economy is not the deficit - it's jobs. Congressional Republicans continue to stymie Obama Administration attempts to enact portions of the American Jobs Act. No surprise there either. The dysfunctional Congress, made ever more so by the Party of No intent on making Obama a one-term Presidnt, has upcoming votes on extensions of unemployment benefits and of the payroll tax cut. $1.00 to your 50 cents says they won't be passed.
In other news today:
The real problem with the economy is not the deficit - it's jobs. Congressional Republicans continue to stymie Obama Administration attempts to enact portions of the American Jobs Act. No surprise there either. The dysfunctional Congress, made ever more so by the Party of No intent on making Obama a one-term Presidnt, has upcoming votes on extensions of unemployment benefits and of the payroll tax cut. $1.00 to your 50 cents says they won't be passed.
In other news today:
- A financial services lobbying firm has proposed a $850,000 campaign to discredit the Occupy Wall Street Movement. (Slate, originally reported on MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes")
- A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that watching Fox News actually made a person less informed about current events than if he or she avoided watching or reading news altogether. Gives more meaning than ever to the watch-dog group News Hounds' motto "We watch FOX News so you don't have to."
- The World Meteorological Association reports that greenhouse gases in 2010 reached their highest level ever (CO2 is now at 389 ppm - 39% higher than pre-industrial age levels). This atmospheric CO2 concentration exceeds some of the worst-case scenarios projected by climate scientists. The really bad news is that the rate of increase is not declining but still trending upward.
- And finally, how about those classy NASCAR fans that booed Michelle Obama and Jill Biden ? The first and second ladies were at Homestead Miami Speedway to "promote the White House’s Joining Forces Program, which encourages Americans to pledge community service hours in honor of the troops serving abroad and send messages of support to military families". Kind of reminiscent of the Republican primary debate boos for a gay soldier and cheers for Texas executions. What a bunch!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Deficit Solution
Today, it's hard to remember that in 2000 the Congressional Budget Office was estimating a surplus of $1.9 trillion for the coming decade. That was before Bush was "elected" by the US Supreme Court - which is to say before the Bush tax cuts and the ill-advised neocon wars added trillions to the deficit and before the karma from the conservative deregulation frenzy initated in the 1980's caught up with us in 2007 and we experienced the greatest financial crisis since the Depression.
It would seem that the right way to attack the budget deficit is to focus on what went wrong since 2000, on what is no longer relevant in a post-Cold War era and on what we need to do to correct these errors.
To start, no solution to the budget deficit will be possible without deep cuts in military spending. Fifty three cents out of every Federal tax dollar goes to pay for past, current and potential future wars. (Softbox Films put together an informative short piece on the breakdown of these expenditures on its YouTube channel.) A few ideas: The action with the most immediate effect on the budget would be the removal of all US troops from Afghanistan. Continued stationing of US forces in Europe at the current levels seems totally unnecessary. Dismantling of the country's nuclear arms is long overdue. And let's not forget about the other "toys" that the Pentagon continues to demand - serious consideration needs to be given to converting weapons factories to peace-time manufacturing. Why the world's only remaining superpower needs a military budget more than six times that of China is beyond comprehension. If we just reduced our military expenditures on a GDP basis to that of China, we could save $345 billion per year!
Secondly, John Boehner and Eric Cantor to the contrary, we cannot "cut" our way out of the deficit. Revenues must be increased. In a nation where 40 percent of the wealth is owned by 1% of the population, fairness and concern for the common good demands, at a minimum, an end to the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans or, even better, a return to the incremental tax rates in place during the administration of conservative icon Ronald Reagan. Corporations are currently sitting on significant amounts of cash - the problem is not with business profitability but with a reduced demand from customers. Fair taxation of corporations is also an important element. A revised tax code that reduces loopholes and provides selective tax credits only when companies create domestic jobs would be a good start in this arena. Revenues from the "rest of us" will increase as soon as jobs are created and more people find work. This cannot be done without additional stimulus spending that would be financed by the increased revenues from the wealthy and corporations.
Finally, sound financial regulations implemented during the Depression kept us from severe recessions for more than a half-century. These controls were gradually eroded, financial system complexity was increased, enforcement became more difficult, and greed and risk became accepted parts of the game. Perhaps the action most responsible for the current Great Recession was the repeal of some of the provisions of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. As the Wikipedia entry on Glass-Steagall succinctly states: "The repeal of provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between investment banking which issued securities and commercial banks which accepted deposits. The deregulation also removed conflict of interest prohibitions between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks. This repeal may have contributed to the severity of the Financial crisis of 2007–2011 by allowing banks to become so large, complex, and intertwined that both they and their regulators failed to see the systemic risk that a failure in one part of one bank could lead to cascading failures across the global financial system."
It's too late to reverse the impact of the Recession on the lives of so many millions. But a little bit of old-fashioned root cause analysis can help us prevent this from happening again. A reinstatement of Glass-Steagall would be an important step in that direction.
It would seem that the right way to attack the budget deficit is to focus on what went wrong since 2000, on what is no longer relevant in a post-Cold War era and on what we need to do to correct these errors.
To start, no solution to the budget deficit will be possible without deep cuts in military spending. Fifty three cents out of every Federal tax dollar goes to pay for past, current and potential future wars. (Softbox Films put together an informative short piece on the breakdown of these expenditures on its YouTube channel.) A few ideas: The action with the most immediate effect on the budget would be the removal of all US troops from Afghanistan. Continued stationing of US forces in Europe at the current levels seems totally unnecessary. Dismantling of the country's nuclear arms is long overdue. And let's not forget about the other "toys" that the Pentagon continues to demand - serious consideration needs to be given to converting weapons factories to peace-time manufacturing. Why the world's only remaining superpower needs a military budget more than six times that of China is beyond comprehension. If we just reduced our military expenditures on a GDP basis to that of China, we could save $345 billion per year!
Secondly, John Boehner and Eric Cantor to the contrary, we cannot "cut" our way out of the deficit. Revenues must be increased. In a nation where 40 percent of the wealth is owned by 1% of the population, fairness and concern for the common good demands, at a minimum, an end to the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans or, even better, a return to the incremental tax rates in place during the administration of conservative icon Ronald Reagan. Corporations are currently sitting on significant amounts of cash - the problem is not with business profitability but with a reduced demand from customers. Fair taxation of corporations is also an important element. A revised tax code that reduces loopholes and provides selective tax credits only when companies create domestic jobs would be a good start in this arena. Revenues from the "rest of us" will increase as soon as jobs are created and more people find work. This cannot be done without additional stimulus spending that would be financed by the increased revenues from the wealthy and corporations.
Finally, sound financial regulations implemented during the Depression kept us from severe recessions for more than a half-century. These controls were gradually eroded, financial system complexity was increased, enforcement became more difficult, and greed and risk became accepted parts of the game. Perhaps the action most responsible for the current Great Recession was the repeal of some of the provisions of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. As the Wikipedia entry on Glass-Steagall succinctly states: "The repeal of provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between investment banking which issued securities and commercial banks which accepted deposits. The deregulation also removed conflict of interest prohibitions between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks. This repeal may have contributed to the severity of the Financial crisis of 2007–2011 by allowing banks to become so large, complex, and intertwined that both they and their regulators failed to see the systemic risk that a failure in one part of one bank could lead to cascading failures across the global financial system."
It's too late to reverse the impact of the Recession on the lives of so many millions. But a little bit of old-fashioned root cause analysis can help us prevent this from happening again. A reinstatement of Glass-Steagall would be an important step in that direction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)