JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
ROTTEN APPLE:
A SYMBOL OF LABOR EXPLOITATION
By Jack Random
In 1984 I bought one of the first Apple Macintosh computers to roll off the line in Cupertino, California. At 132 K ROM (hardly enough to power a toaster by today’s standards), the Mac came loaded with a serviceable writing program (Mac Write) and an ingenious graphics program (Mac Paint) and the age of personal computing was born in earnest.
In those days Apple was a fiercely independent alternative to IBM, the corporate beast that monopolized the computer industry. Apple was a symbol of American ingenuity and innovation. Apple users were loyal to the company and we believed that Apple was loyal to us. We remained loyal even through substandard products because we believe that Apple had a social consciousness.
I don’t know when Apple changed. It doesn’t really matter. But when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union address, trumpeting the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as a job creator, I knew something was rotten to the core. Daniels was right about Apple job creation. The trouble is some 95% of those jobs were created in China under deplorable working conditions.
In America the very same politicians whose policies wreaked havoc on the global economy spend most of their time attempting to exploit the devastation by attacking what remains of the rights of labor. Too often on the so-called liberal establishment falls silent on the right to organize and the right to collective bargaining (an alternative to a general strike).
In Europe the same voices that claim to represent the left are planting their staffs with the anti-labor forces of austerity.
The recent New York Times article exposing Apple’s exploitation of Chinese labor (“How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work” by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, January 21, 2012) reads more like a rationalization if not an outright defense. On international labor rights the Times is as bankrupt as the Greek treasury. An unashamed proponent of Clintonian Free Trade, the Times argued with an unmistakable tone of admiration that Chinese workers at substandard wages (workers at the leading Apple manufacturer, Foxconn Technology, recently received two wage increases from an equivalent of $135 per month to roughly $300 per month) were so motivated that they could be roused to work at a moment’s notice. They frequently work 24 or 36-hour shifts at tedious jobs with little complaint (except for the occasional riot or threatened mass suicide). The story noted that there were plenty more sweatshops making complementary products just down the road.
The Times glossed over the rumored suicide rate and the fact that the company running the largest sweatshop on the planet had to install nets outside its walls to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths.
The Times’ Nicholas Kristof and his fellow compassionate compliciters will tell you that the workers are better off as exploited labor than they otherwise would be. They could be back on the farm tending rice fields at a meager existence or worse; they might be on the streets of protest in open rebellion.
There is little to distinguish the defense of Apple and labor exploitation from the antebellum defense of slavery. The advocates of slavery also argued with characteristic audacity that the slaves were better off than they would have been on their own accord. They had roofs over their heads, clothing, medical care and meals on the table. They were slaves, subject to beatings, inhuman treatment and whatever torture can be imagined, but at least they had food to eat. Their white masters could rape the women at will and the men could do nothing about it but at least their basic needs were fulfilled. If not for a few rabble rousers, malcontents and radical idealists, the slaves would have been happy to live out their lives, generation after generation, in contented servitude.
We recognize now that such arguments are an affront to human decency but in the land of antebellum slave plantations they were tolerated if not embraced.
It is by no means admirable that workers can be roused from sleep at any time of the day or night to work another twelve-hour shift. It is not laudable that workers can be forced to work in unsafe environments with toxic chemicals and hazardous waste. It is not acceptable that children of twelve are subjected to these conditions. When workers riot and threaten mass suicide it is not a sign of relative wellbeing.
I know that Apple is not alone. Foxconn has contracts with Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Motorola, Nokia, Toshiba, Samsung, Amazon, Nintendo and IBM.
Apple has responded predictably to the negative publicity of the Times report and the potent monologue of Mike Daisey now playing at the Public Theater in New York (“The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”). It has hired an “independent” watchdog to monitor and report on labor abuse in China and elsewhere. Unfortunately, that organization receives its funding from the industry.
Apple perceives labor abuse as a public relations problem because Apple does not care about workers in China or anywhere else. Apple cares about the bottom line and Apple is afraid that this wave of negative publicity will forever tarnish its image and affect its profit ratio.
I know the futility of calling for a boycott. We are addicted to our intelligent devices and there are no viable alternatives. We cannot for a moment believe that the sweatshops in Indonesia or anywhere else where the economy thrives on cheap labor are any better than those in China.
I am calling for a different response and one that would have an impact on the bottom line. We do not need the latest gadget. We do not need the immediate upgrade to the latest technological innovation. We can wait.
That is what I am suggesting that every conscientious consumer should do. Delay that next purchase. Delay it as long as possible. Make that purchase only when it is necessary.
If enough people take this approach, Apple and all the others will notice. They will make changes. They may not move their plants back home immediately but in time, who knows?
If they were to move back home, you can bet that those 750,000 Chinese jobs would translate to 500,000 robotic devices and a handful of managers and maintenance crews.
So be it. If they continue to operate as they are, they need to know that the fight for labor rights does not end at our shores.
Jazz.
[This article posted by Counterpunch, February 16, 2012.]
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Monday, December 19, 2011
The Coming Explosion & Omission in Osawatomie
Regarding Omission in Osawatomie (a Jazzman Chronicle reprinted below):
I completely agree with your thesis. There was a great poet by the name of Langston Hughes with whom Barack Obama would be well served to heed in his neglect of the rhetoric he used to obtain the office of the POTUS. In the final stanza of the poem, it reflects the inevitable outcome of the body politic. There will be an uprising at some point; an explosion!
Wakiza L. McQueen
HARLEM by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
or fester like a sore—
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
December 14, 2011
A Line Obama Will Not Cross
Omission in Osawatomie
by JACK RANDOM
Like the sirens to Odysseus, President Obama’s address at Osawatomie, Kansas, was pleasing to the progressive ear but if you allow its seductive tone to capture you, it could well prove fatal to the cause.
We have heard this song before. It takes us back to the soaring oratory that uplifted the masses and propelled a one-term senator to the presidency. Then as now, the president correctly and brilliantly deconstructs the problem: The middle class is under siege, hemorrhaging skilled and unskilled jobs to cheap labor markets overseas, resulting in depressed wages and declining benefits, depleted retirement funds, union busting and unregulated industries.
But, then as now, his solutions fail to approach the heart of the matter. Proclaiming a new world economy based on innovation, he advocates government funding for research and education, science and engineering, progressive taxation, regulation, consumer protection and a commitment to building and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.
These are all worthy ideas that the president strings together with a rising intonation in order to avoid the obvious, central and core solution. Consequently, he builds to a dull crescendo, sounding a sour chord and all too familiar refrain: Technology and innovation will save us.
The president prides himself on his knowledge of history, so much so that he summoned the memory of Theodore Roosevelt in this address. Unfortunately, history does not uphold his case. Technology and innovation have never sustained the middle class. They have created fortunes and whole industries but how it affects the working people depends entirely on where the industries are located and how the workers are paid.
Take a good look at the major innovations of the Free Trade era: The personal computer, the laptop and the smart phone are all made in China and serviced in India. Solar technology created advanced solar collectors and panels, creating a thriving industry in China. Hybrid vehicles may be assembled in America but by-and-large they are constructed in foreign nations where the cost of labor trumps all other concerns. Even our bridges are made in China.
Within the parameters of a global Free Trade economy, there is no innovation that can revive American industry. The idea that innovation and education are going to create jobs for 300 million Americans is a pipe dream, a fantasy and, in this case, an excuse not to address the heart of the matter.
The obvious answer and the one that perpetually evades the president and the majority of his party is Fair Trade. American workers can compete and win on a fair playing field but no one can compete with dirt-cheap labor. The masterminds behind the new global economy have built corporate profits by exploiting the cheapest possible labor overseas and simultaneously undermining labor in our own country.
What is Fair Trade?
It is built on the conviction that all nations that engage our nation in trade should uphold the rights of labor, including the right to organize, and pay their workers living wages.
How would Fair Trade be implemented?
The most direct route would be to reserve preferred trade status to nations that protect the rights of labor, provide basic health and retirement benefits, and pay living wages to their workforce. All other nations would be subject to a tariff proportionate to the cost of compliance.
The message to China, India and all other nations that now benefit from the imbalance of trade would be clear: Pay your workers at home or pay to protect our workers at the border.
Human rights and the critical issue of carbon emissions also come into the equation but if the goal is rebuilding American industry, then the heart of the matter is labor.
Why is Fair Trade off the table?
There was a time when simply raising the cry of “Protectionism” could defeat any such proposal but after decades of job exportation, Americans are losing their fear of words. Protecting our workers in the current environment is a moral imperative.
Accordingly, Fair Trade is alive and well in the United States Congress. Even Republicans in the House and Senate are afraid to go on record in opposition. The Trade Reform Accountability Development and Employment Act proposed by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Representative Michael Michaud of Maine would fundamentally reshape America’s trade policy, bringing labor to the forefront.
Unfortunately, the silence of the White House enables congressional leadership to keep the measure from coming to the floor for a vote. President Obama presses forward on Free Trade deals with Korea, Columbia and Panama, ensuring the exportation of jobs to even more nations.
Even progressive economists are reluctant to address trade policy, preferring to attack trade imbalance through so-called currency manipulation. The idea is if our trading partners increased the value of their currency it would be more expensive to buy their goods and less expensive for them to buy ours. If the revaluation were large enough and sustained, it would certainly have an effect.
The problem with the currency approach is that it allows the tenets of Free Trade to stand. It does not end the anti-labor measures enforced by austerity regimes under the dictates of the International Monetary Fund. That is why even the prototypical corporate candidate, Republican Mitt Romney, feels free to advocate punitive actions against China based on the charge of currency manipulation. It leaves workers out on the lurch and the rights of labor out of the picture. Moreover, all nations manipulate currency. That is the primary function of the Federal Reserve.
Of course, if we were to insist that other nations respect the rights of labor we would have to do a better job of protecting our own workers. We could no longer allow individual states to effectively crush unions with so-called Right to Work laws. We could no longer allow legislative attacks on collective bargaining without paying a price.
It is as if the entire liberal establishment, from the politicians to the intellectuals to the media, signed on to Bill Clinton’s Free Trade mandate back in the eighties and have adhered to that agreement ever since.
It was a deal with the devil, a betrayal of every working man and woman not only in America but throughout the world, and it demands to be revisited now.
In 2008 candidate Barack Obama said, “I voted against CAFTA, never supported NAFTA, and will not support NAFTA–style trade agreements in the future. While NAFTA gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection.”
Where is that candidate now? He disappeared upon taking the oath of office.
In retrospect, it seems amply clear that candidate Obama made a deal with Wall Street, his leading campaign contributors, before he embarked on his road to the White House. Fair Trade was off limits. It was the one territory he could not visit. It was the one line he could not cross.
An original sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act (an affirmation of the right to organize and establish a union by majority vote) had President Obama remembered his labor roots in his address at Osawatomie, had he raised the banner of Fair Trade to initiate his campaign for a second term, then that address might have stood alongside Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism or Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal inaugural address.
As it stands, it is the perfect symbol of his presidency to date: A promise unfulfilled.
If we were to initiate the age of Fair Trade it would fundamentally change the debate and ultimately alter the structure of the global economy. The world would face a choice. The European people would insist that their governments follow our lead. China and India would fight back but they are as dependent on us as we are on them. A bargain would be struck and a transition would be negotiated.
America would win back her industries and the middle class would re-emerge at the heart of the global economy.
It will happen in any case. It is inevitable. To continue on the path we are on will lead only to massive civil unrest and the result will be the same. By initiating Fair Trade now we could avoid much of that inevitable pain and disruption.
If only we had a leader with the courage to break his pact with Wall Street in order to keep his promise to the American people.
[Article posted by Pacific Free Press, CounterPunch and Dissident Voice.]
Jack Random is the author of Jazzman Chronicles (Crow Dog Press) and Ghost Dance Insurrection (Dry Bones Press.)
I completely agree with your thesis. There was a great poet by the name of Langston Hughes with whom Barack Obama would be well served to heed in his neglect of the rhetoric he used to obtain the office of the POTUS. In the final stanza of the poem, it reflects the inevitable outcome of the body politic. There will be an uprising at some point; an explosion!
Wakiza L. McQueen
HARLEM by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
or fester like a sore—
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
December 14, 2011
A Line Obama Will Not Cross
Omission in Osawatomie
by JACK RANDOM
Like the sirens to Odysseus, President Obama’s address at Osawatomie, Kansas, was pleasing to the progressive ear but if you allow its seductive tone to capture you, it could well prove fatal to the cause.
We have heard this song before. It takes us back to the soaring oratory that uplifted the masses and propelled a one-term senator to the presidency. Then as now, the president correctly and brilliantly deconstructs the problem: The middle class is under siege, hemorrhaging skilled and unskilled jobs to cheap labor markets overseas, resulting in depressed wages and declining benefits, depleted retirement funds, union busting and unregulated industries.
But, then as now, his solutions fail to approach the heart of the matter. Proclaiming a new world economy based on innovation, he advocates government funding for research and education, science and engineering, progressive taxation, regulation, consumer protection and a commitment to building and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.
These are all worthy ideas that the president strings together with a rising intonation in order to avoid the obvious, central and core solution. Consequently, he builds to a dull crescendo, sounding a sour chord and all too familiar refrain: Technology and innovation will save us.
The president prides himself on his knowledge of history, so much so that he summoned the memory of Theodore Roosevelt in this address. Unfortunately, history does not uphold his case. Technology and innovation have never sustained the middle class. They have created fortunes and whole industries but how it affects the working people depends entirely on where the industries are located and how the workers are paid.
Take a good look at the major innovations of the Free Trade era: The personal computer, the laptop and the smart phone are all made in China and serviced in India. Solar technology created advanced solar collectors and panels, creating a thriving industry in China. Hybrid vehicles may be assembled in America but by-and-large they are constructed in foreign nations where the cost of labor trumps all other concerns. Even our bridges are made in China.
Within the parameters of a global Free Trade economy, there is no innovation that can revive American industry. The idea that innovation and education are going to create jobs for 300 million Americans is a pipe dream, a fantasy and, in this case, an excuse not to address the heart of the matter.
The obvious answer and the one that perpetually evades the president and the majority of his party is Fair Trade. American workers can compete and win on a fair playing field but no one can compete with dirt-cheap labor. The masterminds behind the new global economy have built corporate profits by exploiting the cheapest possible labor overseas and simultaneously undermining labor in our own country.
What is Fair Trade?
It is built on the conviction that all nations that engage our nation in trade should uphold the rights of labor, including the right to organize, and pay their workers living wages.
How would Fair Trade be implemented?
The most direct route would be to reserve preferred trade status to nations that protect the rights of labor, provide basic health and retirement benefits, and pay living wages to their workforce. All other nations would be subject to a tariff proportionate to the cost of compliance.
The message to China, India and all other nations that now benefit from the imbalance of trade would be clear: Pay your workers at home or pay to protect our workers at the border.
Human rights and the critical issue of carbon emissions also come into the equation but if the goal is rebuilding American industry, then the heart of the matter is labor.
Why is Fair Trade off the table?
There was a time when simply raising the cry of “Protectionism” could defeat any such proposal but after decades of job exportation, Americans are losing their fear of words. Protecting our workers in the current environment is a moral imperative.
Accordingly, Fair Trade is alive and well in the United States Congress. Even Republicans in the House and Senate are afraid to go on record in opposition. The Trade Reform Accountability Development and Employment Act proposed by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Representative Michael Michaud of Maine would fundamentally reshape America’s trade policy, bringing labor to the forefront.
Unfortunately, the silence of the White House enables congressional leadership to keep the measure from coming to the floor for a vote. President Obama presses forward on Free Trade deals with Korea, Columbia and Panama, ensuring the exportation of jobs to even more nations.
Even progressive economists are reluctant to address trade policy, preferring to attack trade imbalance through so-called currency manipulation. The idea is if our trading partners increased the value of their currency it would be more expensive to buy their goods and less expensive for them to buy ours. If the revaluation were large enough and sustained, it would certainly have an effect.
The problem with the currency approach is that it allows the tenets of Free Trade to stand. It does not end the anti-labor measures enforced by austerity regimes under the dictates of the International Monetary Fund. That is why even the prototypical corporate candidate, Republican Mitt Romney, feels free to advocate punitive actions against China based on the charge of currency manipulation. It leaves workers out on the lurch and the rights of labor out of the picture. Moreover, all nations manipulate currency. That is the primary function of the Federal Reserve.
Of course, if we were to insist that other nations respect the rights of labor we would have to do a better job of protecting our own workers. We could no longer allow individual states to effectively crush unions with so-called Right to Work laws. We could no longer allow legislative attacks on collective bargaining without paying a price.
It is as if the entire liberal establishment, from the politicians to the intellectuals to the media, signed on to Bill Clinton’s Free Trade mandate back in the eighties and have adhered to that agreement ever since.
It was a deal with the devil, a betrayal of every working man and woman not only in America but throughout the world, and it demands to be revisited now.
In 2008 candidate Barack Obama said, “I voted against CAFTA, never supported NAFTA, and will not support NAFTA–style trade agreements in the future. While NAFTA gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection.”
Where is that candidate now? He disappeared upon taking the oath of office.
In retrospect, it seems amply clear that candidate Obama made a deal with Wall Street, his leading campaign contributors, before he embarked on his road to the White House. Fair Trade was off limits. It was the one territory he could not visit. It was the one line he could not cross.
An original sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act (an affirmation of the right to organize and establish a union by majority vote) had President Obama remembered his labor roots in his address at Osawatomie, had he raised the banner of Fair Trade to initiate his campaign for a second term, then that address might have stood alongside Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism or Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal inaugural address.
As it stands, it is the perfect symbol of his presidency to date: A promise unfulfilled.
If we were to initiate the age of Fair Trade it would fundamentally change the debate and ultimately alter the structure of the global economy. The world would face a choice. The European people would insist that their governments follow our lead. China and India would fight back but they are as dependent on us as we are on them. A bargain would be struck and a transition would be negotiated.
America would win back her industries and the middle class would re-emerge at the heart of the global economy.
It will happen in any case. It is inevitable. To continue on the path we are on will lead only to massive civil unrest and the result will be the same. By initiating Fair Trade now we could avoid much of that inevitable pain and disruption.
If only we had a leader with the courage to break his pact with Wall Street in order to keep his promise to the American people.
[Article posted by Pacific Free Press, CounterPunch and Dissident Voice.]
Jack Random is the author of Jazzman Chronicles (Crow Dog Press) and Ghost Dance Insurrection (Dry Bones Press.)
Monday, October 31, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Bloomington
[Editor's Note: This exchange happened after the appearance of an article on Counterpunch entitled "The Revolution Started without Me" by Jack Random. It offers a glimpse of what OWS is dealing with on the front lines of the streets of protest.]
Subject: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:22 +0000
Hi Jazzman Jack Random,
I read your excellent article in Counterpunch and showed it to some people at People's Park here in Bloomington, Indiana, where we are occupying it in a spin-off of the Wall Street Occupation.
Someone asked, "is he joining us?" and I said I'd write you to ask.
Are you in this movement?
Cordially,
Dave Stewart
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 9:56 PM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Dave,
Thank you. I'm impressed that the movement has made it to Bloomington and that there's a People's Park there. The short answer to your question is: No, I am not. As you might have gathered, I'm an old timer. (To me, Dave Stewart is a great pitcher formerly of the Oakland A's.) My obligations and circumstance don't allow me to engage and occupy as the movement requires. I'm with you in spirit. I believe a cultural revolution is badly needed and that it is primarily a movement of the young.
I will offer you some points of unsolicited advice that I considered including in the piece but decided against. I would emphasize the fifth point.
ADVICE FOR THE CAUSE:
1. Learn to police yourself. To the extent you are viable, you will be attacked. Those who oppose you will hire thugs to infiltrate, to pose as allies, to win trust only to cause trouble and trigger retaliation and backlash. Do not let the movement be hijacked by traitors.
2. Remain peaceful. Your enemies want you to be disorderly and violent. They want a reason to suppress you with force. Give them no reason. When they move on you, as they surely will, retreat and wait. When they abandon territory you wish to occupy, move back in. When the police attack, film it from a thousand angles and points of view. Let there be no doubt as to the nature and intent of police brutality.
3. Focus on the major cities with an established activist community. Use the universities as centers of organization and communication. Occupy the parks. Remind the nation that Hoovervilles sprung up in parks across the land during the first Great Depression. Feed the people and provide for the homeless.
4. Remain open and tolerant. Don not allow the cause to be taken over by those who would exclude others on the basis of ideology. Be engaged in political discourse but do not become political.
5. Invent your own rules and don't listen to old timers like me.
Peace,
Ray Miller, aka Jack Random
P.S. It's too bad Howard Zinn is no longer with us. That's one old timer I'm certain would be with you and fully engaged. For myself, I'll find my own ways to lend support as we move along.
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:09:38 +0000
Dear Jack,
I watched Dave Stewart pitch (on T.V.).
I am 56. I have a good job and am secure financially, etc.
I have slept 'there' theese past nights, as well as hanging out and enjoy talking to all.....people seem to enjoy talking to me. I listen a lot. I don't give advice about "the olden days" (how could I?). It is heartbreaking to hear their stories about how they've tried to do everyting they've been told and yet it has not worked and now they are in a lot of debt and cannot see a way out of it.
I'll take your points to the next meeting (today).
I am certain you will help others (not only me).
When I woke up today, I thought that this was just like a "Hooverville". We ARE encouraging the homeless to join us (they are doing so), and are feeding them. Actually, so far there has been food for all.
IF that is all that this is (we had this conversation last night)...well, that's something. However, we are all trying to 'communicate'...first with each other and then convey that to others. What is going to be interesting is whether all (meaning the homeless) are going to join in our meetings and whether all are going to join the 'community' (while retaining their individuality). In point # 1 you mention 'traitors' and I am glad you did so... In the movie "Battle of Algiers" it can be seen that one of the first steps is to get everyone to 'clean up their act' (no alcohol drunkenness, no prostitution) and that conversation is going to take place today.
I hope that's not too much information.
Believe me, I do more listening than talking. However, when people ask me about stuff I tell them a little and when they ask "how did you learn about that?" I recommend that they read Counterpunch.
I have always enjoyed your postings and hope to read more in the future.
All the best,
Dave
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:48 AM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
I'm very much impressed. Can I post your words?
I have a notion to share with you: a lot of politicians are expressing sympathy. Ask the local council to lift the curfew on the parks. Ask them to sanction the cause. If you get anywhere, spread the word. It might start something.
My best to you and the cause.
Peace, Random
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:41:35 +0000
Dear Jack,
Sure, you can post my words. Though I 'just' wrote it to you, perhaps someone will enjoy reading it and perhaps (the goal) check out www.counterpunch.org
It is my opinion that this nascent 'movement' has the potential to lose its way or get co-opted by the Democrats.
For example, in the 'outreach meeting' I proposed that not only should 'we' attempt to spread the word to others who have not attended yet, but to outreach WITHIN OURSELVES....meet others we have not met, and while meeting others discuss whatever issues.
To me, the biggest issue is that "we" are protesting events as they stand now. We are NOT bitching about Clinton (NAFTA/Glass-Steagall, to mention only a couple), Bush I or II, we are protesting what is going on NOW.
Therefore, we're not 'hoping for change' in 11/12, nor is the current President helping us (otherwise, we would not be in the situation we are now).
And than, (and it might be prissy), there is the important issue of cleanliness (picking up litter, keeping our bodies clean) and not using the drugs (alcohol, tobacco) which are used to keep us unable to think beyond the present.
These thoughts met with a lot of resistance.
It is my belief that the powers that be are more than willing to allow us to implode, fracture, and then 'admit' that the present power structure is the best.
To ask for a permit is to admit that we are acting under their authority, so I most respectfully will not make that suggestion, but I'll mention it to others.
We have already had a heated discussion about accepting money. Many were vociferous of refusing money IF the Dems offered it to us, but all were willing to accept from local businesses and people. So far, the Dems have been defeated, but daily representatives drop by, as are the Christian kooks wanting to 'pray for us' and last night they set up a hot dog stand, which, of course, is pork and simply awful nutrition.
But I cannot tell those who are hungry not to eat.
Jack, I am totally honored you wrote me back. As I wrote earlier, I have always completely enjoyed your Counterpunch postings.
All the best,
Dave
Bloomington, IN.
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:09 AM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Dave:
It is a delicate balance between inclusion and control. I certainly understand the alcohol ban. It introduces behavioral consequences best avoided. The exclusion of tobacco is a bit trickier. Marijuana introduces a whole new set of issues you may wish to avoid or not.
My suggestion for gaining a waiver on curfew in the parks was intended to either abandon pseudo support or if granted to avoid a conflict with the police. Once again, a delicate balance. You're right not to seek permission.
The issues you're confronting are not easy. The trash issue has become important as it is currently being used in New York and elsewhere as an excuse to clear out the protesters. The money issue is also complex but I support your position.
Time permitting, I appreciate the information and will offer any ideas that may occur to me.
It is a great endeavor you're undertaking. Keep the faith.
Peace, Random
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Jack,
I am so honored you have written me several times, and truly have appreciated your thoughts and suggestions.
You have been very helpful in many ways, and, time permitting, if you happen to have other thoughts I would be happy to hear from you.
I will, as I have in the past, relay your thoughts to others.
Thank you very much for the encouragement!!
And, I look forward to future postings of yours in Counterpunch, whether on this topic or any other.
All the best,
Dave
Subject: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:20:22 +0000
Hi Jazzman Jack Random,
I read your excellent article in Counterpunch and showed it to some people at People's Park here in Bloomington, Indiana, where we are occupying it in a spin-off of the Wall Street Occupation.
Someone asked, "is he joining us?" and I said I'd write you to ask.
Are you in this movement?
Cordially,
Dave Stewart
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 9:56 PM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Dave,
Thank you. I'm impressed that the movement has made it to Bloomington and that there's a People's Park there. The short answer to your question is: No, I am not. As you might have gathered, I'm an old timer. (To me, Dave Stewart is a great pitcher formerly of the Oakland A's.) My obligations and circumstance don't allow me to engage and occupy as the movement requires. I'm with you in spirit. I believe a cultural revolution is badly needed and that it is primarily a movement of the young.
I will offer you some points of unsolicited advice that I considered including in the piece but decided against. I would emphasize the fifth point.
ADVICE FOR THE CAUSE:
1. Learn to police yourself. To the extent you are viable, you will be attacked. Those who oppose you will hire thugs to infiltrate, to pose as allies, to win trust only to cause trouble and trigger retaliation and backlash. Do not let the movement be hijacked by traitors.
2. Remain peaceful. Your enemies want you to be disorderly and violent. They want a reason to suppress you with force. Give them no reason. When they move on you, as they surely will, retreat and wait. When they abandon territory you wish to occupy, move back in. When the police attack, film it from a thousand angles and points of view. Let there be no doubt as to the nature and intent of police brutality.
3. Focus on the major cities with an established activist community. Use the universities as centers of organization and communication. Occupy the parks. Remind the nation that Hoovervilles sprung up in parks across the land during the first Great Depression. Feed the people and provide for the homeless.
4. Remain open and tolerant. Don not allow the cause to be taken over by those who would exclude others on the basis of ideology. Be engaged in political discourse but do not become political.
5. Invent your own rules and don't listen to old timers like me.
Peace,
Ray Miller, aka Jack Random
P.S. It's too bad Howard Zinn is no longer with us. That's one old timer I'm certain would be with you and fully engaged. For myself, I'll find my own ways to lend support as we move along.
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:09:38 +0000
Dear Jack,
I watched Dave Stewart pitch (on T.V.).
I am 56. I have a good job and am secure financially, etc.
I have slept 'there' theese past nights, as well as hanging out and enjoy talking to all.....people seem to enjoy talking to me. I listen a lot. I don't give advice about "the olden days" (how could I?). It is heartbreaking to hear their stories about how they've tried to do everyting they've been told and yet it has not worked and now they are in a lot of debt and cannot see a way out of it.
I'll take your points to the next meeting (today).
I am certain you will help others (not only me).
When I woke up today, I thought that this was just like a "Hooverville". We ARE encouraging the homeless to join us (they are doing so), and are feeding them. Actually, so far there has been food for all.
IF that is all that this is (we had this conversation last night)...well, that's something. However, we are all trying to 'communicate'...first with each other and then convey that to others. What is going to be interesting is whether all (meaning the homeless) are going to join in our meetings and whether all are going to join the 'community' (while retaining their individuality). In point # 1 you mention 'traitors' and I am glad you did so... In the movie "Battle of Algiers" it can be seen that one of the first steps is to get everyone to 'clean up their act' (no alcohol drunkenness, no prostitution) and that conversation is going to take place today.
I hope that's not too much information.
Believe me, I do more listening than talking. However, when people ask me about stuff I tell them a little and when they ask "how did you learn about that?" I recommend that they read Counterpunch.
I have always enjoyed your postings and hope to read more in the future.
All the best,
Dave
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:48 AM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
I'm very much impressed. Can I post your words?
I have a notion to share with you: a lot of politicians are expressing sympathy. Ask the local council to lift the curfew on the parks. Ask them to sanction the cause. If you get anywhere, spread the word. It might start something.
My best to you and the cause.
Peace, Random
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:41:35 +0000
Dear Jack,
Sure, you can post my words. Though I 'just' wrote it to you, perhaps someone will enjoy reading it and perhaps (the goal) check out www.counterpunch.org
It is my opinion that this nascent 'movement' has the potential to lose its way or get co-opted by the Democrats.
For example, in the 'outreach meeting' I proposed that not only should 'we' attempt to spread the word to others who have not attended yet, but to outreach WITHIN OURSELVES....meet others we have not met, and while meeting others discuss whatever issues.
To me, the biggest issue is that "we" are protesting events as they stand now. We are NOT bitching about Clinton (NAFTA/Glass-Steagall, to mention only a couple), Bush I or II, we are protesting what is going on NOW.
Therefore, we're not 'hoping for change' in 11/12, nor is the current President helping us (otherwise, we would not be in the situation we are now).
And than, (and it might be prissy), there is the important issue of cleanliness (picking up litter, keeping our bodies clean) and not using the drugs (alcohol, tobacco) which are used to keep us unable to think beyond the present.
These thoughts met with a lot of resistance.
It is my belief that the powers that be are more than willing to allow us to implode, fracture, and then 'admit' that the present power structure is the best.
To ask for a permit is to admit that we are acting under their authority, so I most respectfully will not make that suggestion, but I'll mention it to others.
We have already had a heated discussion about accepting money. Many were vociferous of refusing money IF the Dems offered it to us, but all were willing to accept from local businesses and people. So far, the Dems have been defeated, but daily representatives drop by, as are the Christian kooks wanting to 'pray for us' and last night they set up a hot dog stand, which, of course, is pork and simply awful nutrition.
But I cannot tell those who are hungry not to eat.
Jack, I am totally honored you wrote me back. As I wrote earlier, I have always completely enjoyed your Counterpunch postings.
All the best,
Dave
Bloomington, IN.
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:09 AM
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Dave:
It is a delicate balance between inclusion and control. I certainly understand the alcohol ban. It introduces behavioral consequences best avoided. The exclusion of tobacco is a bit trickier. Marijuana introduces a whole new set of issues you may wish to avoid or not.
My suggestion for gaining a waiver on curfew in the parks was intended to either abandon pseudo support or if granted to avoid a conflict with the police. Once again, a delicate balance. You're right not to seek permission.
The issues you're confronting are not easy. The trash issue has become important as it is currently being used in New York and elsewhere as an excuse to clear out the protesters. The money issue is also complex but I support your position.
Time permitting, I appreciate the information and will offer any ideas that may occur to me.
It is a great endeavor you're undertaking. Keep the faith.
Peace, Random
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011
Subject: RE: Occupy Wall Street in Counterpunch
Dear Jack,
I am so honored you have written me several times, and truly have appreciated your thoughts and suggestions.
You have been very helpful in many ways, and, time permitting, if you happen to have other thoughts I would be happy to hear from you.
I will, as I have in the past, relay your thoughts to others.
Thank you very much for the encouragement!!
And, I look forward to future postings of yours in Counterpunch, whether on this topic or any other.
All the best,
Dave
Saturday, September 24, 2011
THE REPUBLICAN FIELD: OPPORTUNISTS, PANDERERS AND PRETENDERS
A JAZZMAN CHRONICLE by Jack Random. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
In the two-party system of American politics, citizens are ultimately forced to choose between two candidates selected by their respective parties, though neither may represent their interests or points of view.
This goes out to all those voting members of society who consider themselves Republicans or right-leaning independents who hold sway over the shape of government to come: I know that for a variety of reasons from the economy to his legislative record to the swagger in his step to blatant or latent racism, many of you despise Barack Obama.
You despise him at such a visceral level you cannot imagine pulling the lever that awards him a second term under any circumstances. But as you look at the field of Republican candidates, can you honestly imagine electing any of them president?
The current field of nine candidates can be broken down into three tiers.
Third tier candidates are purely symbolic. Some may have an issue or a philosophy to promote. Some are simply clinging to political relevance and wish to hang on to the public spotlight as long as possible. Some may actually believe they have a chance to catch lightning in a bottle when the whole world outside the family circle knows they do not.
Leading the third tier is the pizza man, Herman Cain, who was invited to the party to serve as the token member of a racial minority. The Grand Old Party was in need of a new face after Michael Steele was pushed out as Chairman of the national committee. Where Steele was entirely too reasonable on any number of issues, Cain adheres to the rightwing policy agenda without exception. Could anyone really imagine the Republican Party nominating an angry black man to face Obama? We like his triple-nine game plan (reminds us of the Beatles’ White Album) but his time is about to expire. Don’t forget the pepperoni!
Newt Gingrich is the old-timer of the third tier candidates. Newt has not had a new idea since the 1980’s but he does have a new book to sell. The idea that Gingrich is an intellectual is pure mythology. He’s a fast talking peddler of used goods who lost his sales base to Wal-Mart in 1994 but never lost his pitch. He’s Willy Loman, the tragic father in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, with a hard-dying dream of Alaska and better days. He’s an old man with a young wife and a lifestyle he can no longer afford.
Newt’s only hope is that someone will take him on as a vice presidential mate due to the paucity of viable options. Slim hope indeed.
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum must be baffled. His party has moved to his Christian fundamentalist, far right positions on every issue from immigration to abortion rights to equal rights for homosexuals yet no one seems to like him. Maybe it’s his support of animal rights or former Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter or maybe it’s that Dan Quayle look in his eyes as if nothing is going on in there beyond a rehearsal of his next line. His function in this campaign is to challenge the frontrunners for any lapses on rightwing policy – notably immigration.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul once again joins the Republican field to become the face of libertarianism. On that level, his is a noble cause. The trouble is: He is too often politically tone deaf and his particular brand of libertarianism is far too compromised. Granted, a pure libertarian would rightly be accused of anarchism. Still, no libertarian should ever wish to impose his morality on others, as Paul would do on abortion and gay marriage, and no libertarian should ever be allowed to fall back on states’ rights as the congressman so often does. In this round of Republican debates, “states’ rights” has become a means of avoiding hard issues and inconsistencies. Mitt Romney should not be allowed to do so with mandated health insurance and Paul should know better. It’s a pandering position and weakens his portrait as a courageous leader.
The congressman deserves credit for making his antiwar, anti-empire policies acceptable to his party. His truth telling on the tenth anniversary of September 11, however admirable, would have sealed his fate had it not already been ordained.
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson made a surprise appearance in the recent Florida debate, staking his claim to the libertarian banner. He supports replacing the current multilevel tax system with a consumption tax, an idea with considerable merit. His presence could push Paul to live up to the libertarian creed.
The question for the third tier candidates is: How long can they last? The money is drying up and hope is fading fast.
To a large extent, the same is true of the two members of the second tier, Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. Both began this campaign with a base of financial and political support. Both find their prospects diminished for distinctly different reasons.
As the only woman in the field, it is impossible to see Bachman as anything but a stand-in for Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin. Bachman was catapulted to fame by an odd exchange with MSNBC host Chris Mathews, in which she advocated an investigation into the un-American attitudes and activities of fellow members of congress. Mathews quickly painted her into a corner. It was as if she had never heard of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the infamous witch-hunt of the 1950’s. Paradoxically, the exchange gave her status and a loyal constituency in the far right. She became a leading fundraiser and when the Tea Party came along she was first on board.
Despite her frequent gaffs, her presidential campaign was gaining traction until Governor Rick Perry entered the contest and promptly stole her thunder. Bachman’s slender thread of hope now is that the Tea Party will tire of their new hero or that the Texas Governor will shoot himself in the foot.
Jon Huntsman entered the race hoping that at some point Republicans might decide they want to win the general election. He was poised as an alternative to fellow Mormon Mitt Romney whom nobody loves and the Tea Party hates. Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty had the same idea but he had no stomach for hardball politics. Huntsman is still standing but with each passing debate it is becoming clear that he has no place in today’s Republican Party. He is not strong enough, angry enough or ideologically pure enough. Unless party dynamics change he will drop out before the primaries begin.
In all probability, the Republican standard bearer for 2012 will be decided between the two top tier candidates: Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.
There are two ways of looking at the Governor of Texas and both have validity. One is that he is George W. Bush only taller. The other is that he is Mitt Romney with a drawl.
Like Romney, Governor Perry has had to reinvent himself. It is hard to imagine that this Texas tough guy, proud of his state’s record of putting hundreds to death during his tenure, and stubborn as a Laredo mule, once was a Dixie Democrat who had no reservations in supporting the candidacy of Albert Gore against his predecessor in the Governor’s Mansion.
Did Perry have a revelation? Did a partisan God come down from the mountain to transform the Democratic state representative who voted for a $5.7 billion dollar tax increase into a staunch anti-tax, anti-government Republican? Or was it pure political opportunism?
The governor pivoted quickly enough from a Social Security Ponzi scheme to Social Security reform. He squirmed and stammered in Florida where his stance is electoral suicide. It was Florida and the Jewish vote he had in mind when he issued his decree on the Palestinian question. With an analysis that would fail to penetrate the skin of a teenaged girl, Perry declared that he favors Israel no matter what the Israelis or the Palestinians do or say. The Neocons have found a home with Perry the Panderer and who knows but that he just might win. Stranger things have happened.
Perry presaged his presidential candidacy with a Christian fundamentalist extravaganza and some media planted stories about the Texas economic miracle. Reporter Rich Wartzman of the LA Times made the Governor’s case with this pointed proposition:
“If you care about putting people back to work when nearly 14 million are unemployed, maybe Texas has something to teach us.”
With the latest census data on poverty in America, the counterpoint is clear:
If you care about putting food on the table and a roof over your head at a time when nearly 50 million Americans are living below the poverty line, maybe New Hampshire has something to teach us. Certainly not Texas.
With an economy bolstered by what Mitt Romney termed four aces (no income tax, anti-labor laws, a Republican legislature and oil), Texas ranked 49th of the fifty states in the number of its citizens living below the poverty line. If you think that’s unfair because it doesn’t account for the number of people living in the state, you’re right. It’s unfair to California. On a per capita basis, Texas ranked 46th, ahead of Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi.
That is what the Texas economic model is all about. Perry brags about the number of jobs he’s created but he never mentions that those jobs were insufficient to lift Texans out of poverty. If you’re a typical Texan, you work at a minimum wage job or worse, you have no health or retirement benefits, and you’re struggling to survive.
Nevertheless, both Perry and Romney have made it clear that they believe Texas is the pride of the nation and they want to bring the Texas model to the rest of us. If you live in Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana or Mississippi, that might be good news. If you live in the other 45 states (other than Texas), it does not bode well.
America’s most famous Mormon since Joseph Smith, Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts for a brief four years. During his tenure, he supported and opposed civil unions for same sex couples, supported and opposed abortion rights, supported and opposed stem cell research, and of course sponsored the most comprehensive government sponsored health care program in the nation. As a presidential aspirant, Romney found new love for the National Rifle Association and signed the anti-tax pledge.
Romney has an explanation for every change of policy but the more the people listen to him the more they realize there is nothing there. He believes whatever the polls tell him to believe. He wants to be president and everything he says and does is owing to that ambition.
As a businessman, Romney was responsible for eliminating more jobs than he ever created. As co-founder of Bain Capital, he specialized in leveraged buyouts, buying companies and enforcing layoffs to boost the bottom line. Romney made a fortune on the misfortune of workers and always gave a liberal tithing to the Church of the Latter Day Saints. He is just what the corporate doctor ordered: His expertise is austerity, by which he means austerity for us and prosperity for the elite.
Now Romney wants to lead the nation. He speaks with great admiration for the Texas economic model of mass poverty, cheap workers, corporate free reign, anti-labor laws and bountiful oil.
He is in fact the last person on the planet that should be president at this time – unless of course that honor goes to Governor Rick Perry.
I am by no means enthralled with the prospect of a second Obama term but given an alternative from this field of opportunists, panderers and pretenders, there is no choice at all.
Is it too late for a third option? Maybe. Maybe not. The electorate is yearning for someone to stand up to China and India. The people would line up from Bakersfield to Bangor, Maine, from Tampa to Tacoma, to support a viable candidate who offered a simple pledge: Bring the jobs back home!
The opportunity for a true labor candidate is so clear and powerful I would not be surprised if we didn’t soon find the slogan plastered on Mitt Romney pamphlets and bumper stickers with a claim of copyright.
Of course, in his hands it would be an outright lie.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
In the two-party system of American politics, citizens are ultimately forced to choose between two candidates selected by their respective parties, though neither may represent their interests or points of view.
This goes out to all those voting members of society who consider themselves Republicans or right-leaning independents who hold sway over the shape of government to come: I know that for a variety of reasons from the economy to his legislative record to the swagger in his step to blatant or latent racism, many of you despise Barack Obama.
You despise him at such a visceral level you cannot imagine pulling the lever that awards him a second term under any circumstances. But as you look at the field of Republican candidates, can you honestly imagine electing any of them president?
The current field of nine candidates can be broken down into three tiers.
Third tier candidates are purely symbolic. Some may have an issue or a philosophy to promote. Some are simply clinging to political relevance and wish to hang on to the public spotlight as long as possible. Some may actually believe they have a chance to catch lightning in a bottle when the whole world outside the family circle knows they do not.
Leading the third tier is the pizza man, Herman Cain, who was invited to the party to serve as the token member of a racial minority. The Grand Old Party was in need of a new face after Michael Steele was pushed out as Chairman of the national committee. Where Steele was entirely too reasonable on any number of issues, Cain adheres to the rightwing policy agenda without exception. Could anyone really imagine the Republican Party nominating an angry black man to face Obama? We like his triple-nine game plan (reminds us of the Beatles’ White Album) but his time is about to expire. Don’t forget the pepperoni!
Newt Gingrich is the old-timer of the third tier candidates. Newt has not had a new idea since the 1980’s but he does have a new book to sell. The idea that Gingrich is an intellectual is pure mythology. He’s a fast talking peddler of used goods who lost his sales base to Wal-Mart in 1994 but never lost his pitch. He’s Willy Loman, the tragic father in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, with a hard-dying dream of Alaska and better days. He’s an old man with a young wife and a lifestyle he can no longer afford.
Newt’s only hope is that someone will take him on as a vice presidential mate due to the paucity of viable options. Slim hope indeed.
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum must be baffled. His party has moved to his Christian fundamentalist, far right positions on every issue from immigration to abortion rights to equal rights for homosexuals yet no one seems to like him. Maybe it’s his support of animal rights or former Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter or maybe it’s that Dan Quayle look in his eyes as if nothing is going on in there beyond a rehearsal of his next line. His function in this campaign is to challenge the frontrunners for any lapses on rightwing policy – notably immigration.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul once again joins the Republican field to become the face of libertarianism. On that level, his is a noble cause. The trouble is: He is too often politically tone deaf and his particular brand of libertarianism is far too compromised. Granted, a pure libertarian would rightly be accused of anarchism. Still, no libertarian should ever wish to impose his morality on others, as Paul would do on abortion and gay marriage, and no libertarian should ever be allowed to fall back on states’ rights as the congressman so often does. In this round of Republican debates, “states’ rights” has become a means of avoiding hard issues and inconsistencies. Mitt Romney should not be allowed to do so with mandated health insurance and Paul should know better. It’s a pandering position and weakens his portrait as a courageous leader.
The congressman deserves credit for making his antiwar, anti-empire policies acceptable to his party. His truth telling on the tenth anniversary of September 11, however admirable, would have sealed his fate had it not already been ordained.
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson made a surprise appearance in the recent Florida debate, staking his claim to the libertarian banner. He supports replacing the current multilevel tax system with a consumption tax, an idea with considerable merit. His presence could push Paul to live up to the libertarian creed.
The question for the third tier candidates is: How long can they last? The money is drying up and hope is fading fast.
To a large extent, the same is true of the two members of the second tier, Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. Both began this campaign with a base of financial and political support. Both find their prospects diminished for distinctly different reasons.
As the only woman in the field, it is impossible to see Bachman as anything but a stand-in for Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin. Bachman was catapulted to fame by an odd exchange with MSNBC host Chris Mathews, in which she advocated an investigation into the un-American attitudes and activities of fellow members of congress. Mathews quickly painted her into a corner. It was as if she had never heard of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the infamous witch-hunt of the 1950’s. Paradoxically, the exchange gave her status and a loyal constituency in the far right. She became a leading fundraiser and when the Tea Party came along she was first on board.
Despite her frequent gaffs, her presidential campaign was gaining traction until Governor Rick Perry entered the contest and promptly stole her thunder. Bachman’s slender thread of hope now is that the Tea Party will tire of their new hero or that the Texas Governor will shoot himself in the foot.
Jon Huntsman entered the race hoping that at some point Republicans might decide they want to win the general election. He was poised as an alternative to fellow Mormon Mitt Romney whom nobody loves and the Tea Party hates. Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty had the same idea but he had no stomach for hardball politics. Huntsman is still standing but with each passing debate it is becoming clear that he has no place in today’s Republican Party. He is not strong enough, angry enough or ideologically pure enough. Unless party dynamics change he will drop out before the primaries begin.
In all probability, the Republican standard bearer for 2012 will be decided between the two top tier candidates: Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.
There are two ways of looking at the Governor of Texas and both have validity. One is that he is George W. Bush only taller. The other is that he is Mitt Romney with a drawl.
Like Romney, Governor Perry has had to reinvent himself. It is hard to imagine that this Texas tough guy, proud of his state’s record of putting hundreds to death during his tenure, and stubborn as a Laredo mule, once was a Dixie Democrat who had no reservations in supporting the candidacy of Albert Gore against his predecessor in the Governor’s Mansion.
Did Perry have a revelation? Did a partisan God come down from the mountain to transform the Democratic state representative who voted for a $5.7 billion dollar tax increase into a staunch anti-tax, anti-government Republican? Or was it pure political opportunism?
The governor pivoted quickly enough from a Social Security Ponzi scheme to Social Security reform. He squirmed and stammered in Florida where his stance is electoral suicide. It was Florida and the Jewish vote he had in mind when he issued his decree on the Palestinian question. With an analysis that would fail to penetrate the skin of a teenaged girl, Perry declared that he favors Israel no matter what the Israelis or the Palestinians do or say. The Neocons have found a home with Perry the Panderer and who knows but that he just might win. Stranger things have happened.
Perry presaged his presidential candidacy with a Christian fundamentalist extravaganza and some media planted stories about the Texas economic miracle. Reporter Rich Wartzman of the LA Times made the Governor’s case with this pointed proposition:
“If you care about putting people back to work when nearly 14 million are unemployed, maybe Texas has something to teach us.”
With the latest census data on poverty in America, the counterpoint is clear:
If you care about putting food on the table and a roof over your head at a time when nearly 50 million Americans are living below the poverty line, maybe New Hampshire has something to teach us. Certainly not Texas.
With an economy bolstered by what Mitt Romney termed four aces (no income tax, anti-labor laws, a Republican legislature and oil), Texas ranked 49th of the fifty states in the number of its citizens living below the poverty line. If you think that’s unfair because it doesn’t account for the number of people living in the state, you’re right. It’s unfair to California. On a per capita basis, Texas ranked 46th, ahead of Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi.
That is what the Texas economic model is all about. Perry brags about the number of jobs he’s created but he never mentions that those jobs were insufficient to lift Texans out of poverty. If you’re a typical Texan, you work at a minimum wage job or worse, you have no health or retirement benefits, and you’re struggling to survive.
Nevertheless, both Perry and Romney have made it clear that they believe Texas is the pride of the nation and they want to bring the Texas model to the rest of us. If you live in Alabama, New Mexico, Louisiana or Mississippi, that might be good news. If you live in the other 45 states (other than Texas), it does not bode well.
America’s most famous Mormon since Joseph Smith, Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts for a brief four years. During his tenure, he supported and opposed civil unions for same sex couples, supported and opposed abortion rights, supported and opposed stem cell research, and of course sponsored the most comprehensive government sponsored health care program in the nation. As a presidential aspirant, Romney found new love for the National Rifle Association and signed the anti-tax pledge.
Romney has an explanation for every change of policy but the more the people listen to him the more they realize there is nothing there. He believes whatever the polls tell him to believe. He wants to be president and everything he says and does is owing to that ambition.
As a businessman, Romney was responsible for eliminating more jobs than he ever created. As co-founder of Bain Capital, he specialized in leveraged buyouts, buying companies and enforcing layoffs to boost the bottom line. Romney made a fortune on the misfortune of workers and always gave a liberal tithing to the Church of the Latter Day Saints. He is just what the corporate doctor ordered: His expertise is austerity, by which he means austerity for us and prosperity for the elite.
Now Romney wants to lead the nation. He speaks with great admiration for the Texas economic model of mass poverty, cheap workers, corporate free reign, anti-labor laws and bountiful oil.
He is in fact the last person on the planet that should be president at this time – unless of course that honor goes to Governor Rick Perry.
I am by no means enthralled with the prospect of a second Obama term but given an alternative from this field of opportunists, panderers and pretenders, there is no choice at all.
Is it too late for a third option? Maybe. Maybe not. The electorate is yearning for someone to stand up to China and India. The people would line up from Bakersfield to Bangor, Maine, from Tampa to Tacoma, to support a viable candidate who offered a simple pledge: Bring the jobs back home!
The opportunity for a true labor candidate is so clear and powerful I would not be surprised if we didn’t soon find the slogan plastered on Mitt Romney pamphlets and bumper stickers with a claim of copyright.
Of course, in his hands it would be an outright lie.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, GLOBAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
DEBT CEILING MADNESS
From PUBLIC CITIZEN, Robert Weissman, President.
Washington is in the grip of a fever. It’s hard to find a word other than lunacy to describe what’s going on. We are veering toward potential economic catastrophe. And Congress is hung up on a debate that shouldn’t be occurring. It is debating an imaginary problem that conjures scary future scenarios but ignores dire existing circumstances. The consensus proffered solution to the imaginary problem would damage our country and further weaken our economy.
Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads, but they are disagreeing primarily about how much harm they want to impose. That’s a very consequential disagreement, but it ignores the fact that we don’t need to impose any harm at all.
Let’s correct some of the upside-down components of the current debate.
1. There should not be a debate over increasing the nation’s debt ceiling.
Prior approval of increases — more than 100 — have been routine, and this time should be no different. Raising the debt ceiling merely authorizes the U.S. government to make good on spending previously authorized by Congress.
It is true that Republicans in Congress signaled some time ago that they would not easily agree to another increase in the debt ceiling. That’s why Democrats should have passed an increase in the last Congress, a move they declined to make because of fear of electoral consequences. At very least, the administration should have insisted on increasing the debt ceiling as a condition of agreeing to the December 2010 deal to extend the Bush tax cuts.
2. The government should be running larger, not smaller, deficits.
The country has not recovered from the Great Recession. One in six people who would like a full-time job are unable to find one. We don’t have to worry about hard times coming sometime in the future — we are living in hard times right now!
To fuel a stalled economy and put people back to work, the U.S. government should be spending more money. This is basic Keynesian economics. It shouldn’t be controversial. State governments are starved for cash, and laying off thousands of teachers, librarians, fire fighters and police. If the federal government gave the states block grants, they could keep people employed, and keep delivering needed services. Our country, and our economy, would be stronger.
Much of the country is suffering through a summer of staggering heat waves. This should be an urgent reminder of the need to take radical action to mitigate catastrophic climate change. Especially with so many people out of work, the government should be spending money to employ people to retrofit buildings around the country and to invest in R&D on solar and wind energy.
And, of course, there is no shortage of other pressing needs to which people can be put to work. By contrast, cutting spending right now will worsen our very severe economic crisis, and push more people out of work.
3. Our economic problems are present, not future.
It is both bewildering and unconscionable that pontificating politicians and pundits express so much concern for imagined future economic problems while ignoring the real and present suffering that pervades the country. There is also some very fuzzy math that takes over the discussion. If it continues to grow economically, and if it makes wise investments, the country is going to be significantly richer in the years and decades ahead. We’re not going to be poorer, irrespective of the size of the national debt.
4. It’s actually not very hard to find a few trillion dollars.
To say that the debt ceiling debate shouldn’t be taking place, and that we should be running larger deficits, is not to say there aren’t appropriate areas of the budget to cut, and appropriate revenue streams to tap.
On the spending side, among many other things, we could:
• Save more than a trillion dollars over 10 years by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Cut more than $500 billion from the Department of Defense budget by replacing private contractors and eliminating weapons systems the Pentagon says it does not need. Hundreds of billions of more in savings are available through modest cuts at DoD. The United States would still have, by far, the world’s largest military. A very modest proposal from the Congressional Progressive Caucus totals $2.3 trillion in savings over 10 years through ending the wars and cutting the Defense budget.
• Save more than $150 billion in pharmaceutical costs just by negotiating better prices with Big Pharma. More aggressive moves to fix the broken pharmaceutical development system could offer savings far larger, with the government obtaining a significant portion of well over a trillion dollars in savings on pharmaceutical expenditures over 10 years.
On the revenue side, among many other things, we could:
• Tax Wall Street speculation and raise between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
• End offshore tax haven abuses, and raise a trillion dollars over the next decade.
• Close corporate tax loopholes. By way of illustration, getting rid of just two large breaks, deferral of overseas revenue and accelerated depreciation, would raise about $700 billion. The Treasury Department lists $365 billion in corporate tax breaks being gifted annually — that’s $3.65 trillion over the 10-year period talked about in these debt debates! Thanks to all the loopholes and escapes, corporations are benefiting from record low tax rates — 21% on average (this is what they are actually paying, not the nominal rate). For a handful, the tax system is a source of revenue. Citizens for Tax Justice looked at 12 major companies that together made $171 billion in profits from 2008-2010 and found that the dozen companies together paid negative $2.5 billion in taxes, thanks to $62 billion in tax subsidies.
• Tax capital gains as ordinary income, and raise $1 trillion.
Many of these and other sensible budget ideas are included in the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s People’s Budget. A key thing to keep in mind about all these savings and increased revenue is that they should be ploughed back into public investments and public priorities. We need more net spending, not less. Over time, we need to reduce the deficit, but much of that will occur automatically, as the country moves back to fuller employment and more robust growth.
We do not need to touch, nor should we touch, Medicare or Medicaid. Nor should we tamper with Social Security, which is financed separately from the rest of the federal budget and has nothing to do with the debt. It’s impossible at this point to know how the debt ceiling debate is going to play out. It’s also highly uncertain what happens if the U.S. government defaults — catastrophe may follow, or it may not.
What is certain is that irrationality is ruling the day.
It’s past time to leave behind this orchestrated and false crisis. Our country faces a legion of real and serious problems. It’s time we got to work taking them on.
See also: "Suicide Watch: Debt Ceiling Showdown" by Jack Random. Posted on Counterpunch 7/29/11.
Washington is in the grip of a fever. It’s hard to find a word other than lunacy to describe what’s going on. We are veering toward potential economic catastrophe. And Congress is hung up on a debate that shouldn’t be occurring. It is debating an imaginary problem that conjures scary future scenarios but ignores dire existing circumstances. The consensus proffered solution to the imaginary problem would damage our country and further weaken our economy.
Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads, but they are disagreeing primarily about how much harm they want to impose. That’s a very consequential disagreement, but it ignores the fact that we don’t need to impose any harm at all.
Let’s correct some of the upside-down components of the current debate.
1. There should not be a debate over increasing the nation’s debt ceiling.
Prior approval of increases — more than 100 — have been routine, and this time should be no different. Raising the debt ceiling merely authorizes the U.S. government to make good on spending previously authorized by Congress.
It is true that Republicans in Congress signaled some time ago that they would not easily agree to another increase in the debt ceiling. That’s why Democrats should have passed an increase in the last Congress, a move they declined to make because of fear of electoral consequences. At very least, the administration should have insisted on increasing the debt ceiling as a condition of agreeing to the December 2010 deal to extend the Bush tax cuts.
2. The government should be running larger, not smaller, deficits.
The country has not recovered from the Great Recession. One in six people who would like a full-time job are unable to find one. We don’t have to worry about hard times coming sometime in the future — we are living in hard times right now!
To fuel a stalled economy and put people back to work, the U.S. government should be spending more money. This is basic Keynesian economics. It shouldn’t be controversial. State governments are starved for cash, and laying off thousands of teachers, librarians, fire fighters and police. If the federal government gave the states block grants, they could keep people employed, and keep delivering needed services. Our country, and our economy, would be stronger.
Much of the country is suffering through a summer of staggering heat waves. This should be an urgent reminder of the need to take radical action to mitigate catastrophic climate change. Especially with so many people out of work, the government should be spending money to employ people to retrofit buildings around the country and to invest in R&D on solar and wind energy.
And, of course, there is no shortage of other pressing needs to which people can be put to work. By contrast, cutting spending right now will worsen our very severe economic crisis, and push more people out of work.
3. Our economic problems are present, not future.
It is both bewildering and unconscionable that pontificating politicians and pundits express so much concern for imagined future economic problems while ignoring the real and present suffering that pervades the country. There is also some very fuzzy math that takes over the discussion. If it continues to grow economically, and if it makes wise investments, the country is going to be significantly richer in the years and decades ahead. We’re not going to be poorer, irrespective of the size of the national debt.
4. It’s actually not very hard to find a few trillion dollars.
To say that the debt ceiling debate shouldn’t be taking place, and that we should be running larger deficits, is not to say there aren’t appropriate areas of the budget to cut, and appropriate revenue streams to tap.
On the spending side, among many other things, we could:
• Save more than a trillion dollars over 10 years by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Cut more than $500 billion from the Department of Defense budget by replacing private contractors and eliminating weapons systems the Pentagon says it does not need. Hundreds of billions of more in savings are available through modest cuts at DoD. The United States would still have, by far, the world’s largest military. A very modest proposal from the Congressional Progressive Caucus totals $2.3 trillion in savings over 10 years through ending the wars and cutting the Defense budget.
• Save more than $150 billion in pharmaceutical costs just by negotiating better prices with Big Pharma. More aggressive moves to fix the broken pharmaceutical development system could offer savings far larger, with the government obtaining a significant portion of well over a trillion dollars in savings on pharmaceutical expenditures over 10 years.
On the revenue side, among many other things, we could:
• Tax Wall Street speculation and raise between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
• End offshore tax haven abuses, and raise a trillion dollars over the next decade.
• Close corporate tax loopholes. By way of illustration, getting rid of just two large breaks, deferral of overseas revenue and accelerated depreciation, would raise about $700 billion. The Treasury Department lists $365 billion in corporate tax breaks being gifted annually — that’s $3.65 trillion over the 10-year period talked about in these debt debates! Thanks to all the loopholes and escapes, corporations are benefiting from record low tax rates — 21% on average (this is what they are actually paying, not the nominal rate). For a handful, the tax system is a source of revenue. Citizens for Tax Justice looked at 12 major companies that together made $171 billion in profits from 2008-2010 and found that the dozen companies together paid negative $2.5 billion in taxes, thanks to $62 billion in tax subsidies.
• Tax capital gains as ordinary income, and raise $1 trillion.
Many of these and other sensible budget ideas are included in the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s People’s Budget. A key thing to keep in mind about all these savings and increased revenue is that they should be ploughed back into public investments and public priorities. We need more net spending, not less. Over time, we need to reduce the deficit, but much of that will occur automatically, as the country moves back to fuller employment and more robust growth.
We do not need to touch, nor should we touch, Medicare or Medicaid. Nor should we tamper with Social Security, which is financed separately from the rest of the federal budget and has nothing to do with the debt. It’s impossible at this point to know how the debt ceiling debate is going to play out. It’s also highly uncertain what happens if the U.S. government defaults — catastrophe may follow, or it may not.
What is certain is that irrationality is ruling the day.
It’s past time to leave behind this orchestrated and false crisis. Our country faces a legion of real and serious problems. It’s time we got to work taking them on.
See also: "Suicide Watch: Debt Ceiling Showdown" by Jack Random. Posted on Counterpunch 7/29/11.
Friday, July 01, 2011
THE BRIDGE TO AUSTERITY (Made in China)
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
In 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a section of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, weakening the structure to such an extent that rebuilding the 1936 monument to engineering was inevitable. When completed in 2013 the bridge, like virtually everything stocked in Wal-Mart, Target or any other mass merchandise chain, will bear on its underside the insignia: Made in China.
If ever there was a clear example of what is wrong with the American economy this is it. The state of California claims it will save $400 million on an estimated $7.2 billion project for its betrayal of American industry. The state does not say how much of that $400 million could have been saved by applying for federal funding which would have required the structure to employ American manufacturers.
Let it be clear: This has little to nothing to do with Free Trade. China can overcome the cost of transporting a bridge 6,500 miles not only because it employs cheap labor but also because the Chinese manufacturing industry is government owned and subsidized. If our government were to subsidize manufacturing it would be decried as a violation of the principles of Free Trade. Indeed, it would.
The fact is: Free Trade does not exist. International corporations and their proxies in government employ the principles of Free Trade selectively to justify labor exploitation and to maximize profits.
In the fantasy world of Free Trade all parties operate on an equal playing field according to the laws of supply and demand. In the real world everything a government does or fails to do creates imbalance. If government provides universal health care as they do in Europe it creates imbalance. If government provides incentives to drill for oil or produce ethanol it creates imbalance. If government guarantees a minimum standard of living wages and decent working conditions it creates imbalance. If government owns an industry and guarantees its success the imbalance is obvious. If it sanctions indentured servitude and neglects slave labor the imbalance is equally obvious.
The fact is: In a civilized world that recognizes the fundamental rights of labor, exploitation of labor is itself a subsidy and all nations that embrace those rights have a responsibility to punish nations that do not. They can do so by enforcing trade sanctions or by subsidizing their own industries.
In a perfect world, all merchants would enjoy equal opportunity while bearing equal responsibility. In the beginning there was equity. But then greed took hold and one merchant decided he could buy out the competition. Monopoly trumped free enterprise and the system became imbalanced and dysfunctional. Employers were empowered to require workers to work longer hours at lower wages under increasingly difficult conditions. Sweatshops and child labor became common. Retirement and medical assistance were nonexistent. If a worker was hurt on the job he became unemployed.
As the abuses mounted it became mandatory for a democratic government to act. Child labor was banned, working standards were mandated, and minimum wage was instituted. Monopolies were broken apart to restore competitive balance and workers gained the right to organize. Unions became the counterbalance to the power of big business.
The system flourished. For the first time in history, working people joined in the prosperity of the nation, laying the foundation for a middle class. Working people were empowered to buy goods and services beyond the necessities of life. Each generation looked forward to a better standard of living for the next. Businesses prospered on middle class consumption.
Social Security and Medicare answered a basic need while relieving employers of the burden.
The system worked not because businesses, industries and corporations were allowed to do as they pleased but because unions and government struck an equitable balance.
Now we have lost the balance because one party decided to serve their corporate masters exclusively and the only viable alternative decided it was easier to go along than to fight for the working people. When the economy went global it provided an opportunity to reset the table and labor was not invited. We no longer hear the term Monopoly but now we have corporations that are considered too big to fail. We have politicians who would prefer to see the economy collapse and working people suffer if it will give them a competitive advantage in the next election. We have governments at the state level declaring war on unions even though organized labor is but a whisper of the roar it once was. We have bipartisan agreement that the national debt is our dominant priority though real unemployment exceeds ten percent and those jobs that are available no longer offer a living wage.
We are badly out of balance and our government is as dysfunctional as our economic system. We are sustaining wars on multiple fronts while we are being told there is no choice but to welcome an age of austerity.
In the case of the Bay Bridge, the deal with China was struck in 2006 when the economy was relatively strong. The federal government was willing to make up at least some of the difference by subsidizing the project but the state of California under the leadership of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger placed no value on American jobs and American workers. Schwarzenegger and his co-conspirators in government ran the state like a corporation and corporations have no values, no sense of justice, and no principles of fair play.
As a result, when the new Bay Bridge is opened for business it will represent far more than a triumph of engineering; it will symbolize the systematic degradation of our economy. It will stand as a monument to the corporate world of greed and profiteering. It will be a magnificent memorial to the once-prospering middle class.
It will be a bridge to the age of austerity. In other nations it has begun in earnest and the people have taken to the streets in protest by the tens and hundreds of thousands. In other nations they have come to the realization that they were sold a bill of goods. They have watched the moneychangers run their economies into the ground while they escaped with all the loot. The ordinary working people are angry, fed up, and they are not going to take it lying down. What is happening now in Greece and Spain is a preview of what will happen in America if the austerity hysterics have their way.
When will we begin to wake up? When will we realize that we are all in this together? When California turns its back on workers in the steel mills of Michigan, we all lose. When union busting becomes a government mandate, working itself from state to state, every worker in America loses.
When our elected officials throw up their hands and claim they can do nothing about the exportation of our jobs to cheap labor markets because the capitalist bible of Free Trade economics forbids it, we must ask ourselves: Whom do they really represent?
We are at a crossroad. What we do now may well determine the kind of world future generations will inherit. Will it be a world in which only the wealthy can pursue higher education? Will it be a world that sacrifices the elderly and infirm so the elite can enjoy ever-lower tax rates? Will it be a world in which fathers and mothers must work two jobs just to pay down the debt?
Yes, we are at a crossroad and the only real power we have left is the vote. If we choose to squander it on politicians who preach austerity and raise the flag of Free Trade, then our cause is lost and our future is bleak.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
By Jack Random
In 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a section of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, weakening the structure to such an extent that rebuilding the 1936 monument to engineering was inevitable. When completed in 2013 the bridge, like virtually everything stocked in Wal-Mart, Target or any other mass merchandise chain, will bear on its underside the insignia: Made in China.
If ever there was a clear example of what is wrong with the American economy this is it. The state of California claims it will save $400 million on an estimated $7.2 billion project for its betrayal of American industry. The state does not say how much of that $400 million could have been saved by applying for federal funding which would have required the structure to employ American manufacturers.
Let it be clear: This has little to nothing to do with Free Trade. China can overcome the cost of transporting a bridge 6,500 miles not only because it employs cheap labor but also because the Chinese manufacturing industry is government owned and subsidized. If our government were to subsidize manufacturing it would be decried as a violation of the principles of Free Trade. Indeed, it would.
The fact is: Free Trade does not exist. International corporations and their proxies in government employ the principles of Free Trade selectively to justify labor exploitation and to maximize profits.
In the fantasy world of Free Trade all parties operate on an equal playing field according to the laws of supply and demand. In the real world everything a government does or fails to do creates imbalance. If government provides universal health care as they do in Europe it creates imbalance. If government provides incentives to drill for oil or produce ethanol it creates imbalance. If government guarantees a minimum standard of living wages and decent working conditions it creates imbalance. If government owns an industry and guarantees its success the imbalance is obvious. If it sanctions indentured servitude and neglects slave labor the imbalance is equally obvious.
The fact is: In a civilized world that recognizes the fundamental rights of labor, exploitation of labor is itself a subsidy and all nations that embrace those rights have a responsibility to punish nations that do not. They can do so by enforcing trade sanctions or by subsidizing their own industries.
In a perfect world, all merchants would enjoy equal opportunity while bearing equal responsibility. In the beginning there was equity. But then greed took hold and one merchant decided he could buy out the competition. Monopoly trumped free enterprise and the system became imbalanced and dysfunctional. Employers were empowered to require workers to work longer hours at lower wages under increasingly difficult conditions. Sweatshops and child labor became common. Retirement and medical assistance were nonexistent. If a worker was hurt on the job he became unemployed.
As the abuses mounted it became mandatory for a democratic government to act. Child labor was banned, working standards were mandated, and minimum wage was instituted. Monopolies were broken apart to restore competitive balance and workers gained the right to organize. Unions became the counterbalance to the power of big business.
The system flourished. For the first time in history, working people joined in the prosperity of the nation, laying the foundation for a middle class. Working people were empowered to buy goods and services beyond the necessities of life. Each generation looked forward to a better standard of living for the next. Businesses prospered on middle class consumption.
Social Security and Medicare answered a basic need while relieving employers of the burden.
The system worked not because businesses, industries and corporations were allowed to do as they pleased but because unions and government struck an equitable balance.
Now we have lost the balance because one party decided to serve their corporate masters exclusively and the only viable alternative decided it was easier to go along than to fight for the working people. When the economy went global it provided an opportunity to reset the table and labor was not invited. We no longer hear the term Monopoly but now we have corporations that are considered too big to fail. We have politicians who would prefer to see the economy collapse and working people suffer if it will give them a competitive advantage in the next election. We have governments at the state level declaring war on unions even though organized labor is but a whisper of the roar it once was. We have bipartisan agreement that the national debt is our dominant priority though real unemployment exceeds ten percent and those jobs that are available no longer offer a living wage.
We are badly out of balance and our government is as dysfunctional as our economic system. We are sustaining wars on multiple fronts while we are being told there is no choice but to welcome an age of austerity.
In the case of the Bay Bridge, the deal with China was struck in 2006 when the economy was relatively strong. The federal government was willing to make up at least some of the difference by subsidizing the project but the state of California under the leadership of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger placed no value on American jobs and American workers. Schwarzenegger and his co-conspirators in government ran the state like a corporation and corporations have no values, no sense of justice, and no principles of fair play.
As a result, when the new Bay Bridge is opened for business it will represent far more than a triumph of engineering; it will symbolize the systematic degradation of our economy. It will stand as a monument to the corporate world of greed and profiteering. It will be a magnificent memorial to the once-prospering middle class.
It will be a bridge to the age of austerity. In other nations it has begun in earnest and the people have taken to the streets in protest by the tens and hundreds of thousands. In other nations they have come to the realization that they were sold a bill of goods. They have watched the moneychangers run their economies into the ground while they escaped with all the loot. The ordinary working people are angry, fed up, and they are not going to take it lying down. What is happening now in Greece and Spain is a preview of what will happen in America if the austerity hysterics have their way.
When will we begin to wake up? When will we realize that we are all in this together? When California turns its back on workers in the steel mills of Michigan, we all lose. When union busting becomes a government mandate, working itself from state to state, every worker in America loses.
When our elected officials throw up their hands and claim they can do nothing about the exportation of our jobs to cheap labor markets because the capitalist bible of Free Trade economics forbids it, we must ask ourselves: Whom do they really represent?
We are at a crossroad. What we do now may well determine the kind of world future generations will inherit. Will it be a world in which only the wealthy can pursue higher education? Will it be a world that sacrifices the elderly and infirm so the elite can enjoy ever-lower tax rates? Will it be a world in which fathers and mothers must work two jobs just to pay down the debt?
Yes, we are at a crossroad and the only real power we have left is the vote. If we choose to squander it on politicians who preach austerity and raise the flag of Free Trade, then our cause is lost and our future is bleak.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Monday, June 06, 2011
SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL: The Mideast Democracy Movement
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
Since our emergence as a world power we as a nation have all too often been willing to partner with dictators and tyrants to further our financial or strategic interests. We have formed alliances with some of the worst characters in modern history, from Pinochet to the Shah of Iran, from Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden. Sleep with the devil and it’s bound to leave a mark on the progeny.
With the emergence of a youth inspired movement toward democracy in the Middle East, we have an opportunity to right our course and begin to make amends.
There is nothing easy about the way forward for while the urge to help in the cause of democracy is powerful it is often not clear whom we should be supporting. It is the cause that must move us and not the players. We are in a bind not only in the Middle East but throughout the world because we chose expedience over principle. We need not and should not repeat that pattern of shortsighted policy.
It is entirely possible if not probable that some of the freedom fighters in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere are allies of our enemies. That is to a large extent our own legacy and our penance is to support democracy regardless.
The Bush administration infamously failed the test in Palestine when the White House pushed for elections only to disavow them when the results did not meet with our expectations. Like nearly everything the Bush team touched, it was a blunder for which we are still paying.
President Obama, for all the criticism heaped upon him from the left and the right, has attempted to strike a balance. He will not forget the Palestinian people any more than he will neglect the Israelis. His initiative has made abundantly clear what we ought to have already known: There will be no peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as long as Benjamin Netanyahu is Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu may gather applause in a Republican congress but the Israeli people must recognize his failure to lead. It falls to the people now to replace him. That is the price of democracy and we must honor it. We can only hope to hold the aggressive elements of both parties in check until a new leader is chosen.
What the events of the Middle East are teaching us is that it is always bad policy to support dictators and oppressors. While such policies may disguise themselves under shrouds of sophistication they are shortsighted and naïve.
The desire of the people for self-determination cannot ultimately be denied. To stand in opposition is to be on the wrong side of history.
Get on board or be left behind.
This is not the time for hand wringing and cautionary tales. If we are to retain any self-respect in this rapidly evolving world, we must lend a hand. If we cannot join the people on the streets of protest, we can at least applaud them from where we sit. We can call out attempts to subvert the cause or disrupt the march to democracy. We can spread the word and keep the story alive. We can push our governments to do the right thing by supporting the people.
If in fact the events in the Middle East can be traced to the words and organization of a handful of activists on the worldwide web, then the dream is alive and all things on heaven and earth are possible. Little wonder the world’s established hierarchy of power is trembling at the prospects. Nothing frightens the elite more than democracy in action, democracy taken literally, democracy spreading like a blazing fire, democracy from the ground up.
This is not what they intended when they summoned the cry of democracy to justify their wars for oil. Democracy was only a word then, just a pleasant thought for the peasants to ponder, just a dream, a passing fancy and nothing at all to worry about.
As the cry now moves from Tunis to Tripoli, from Cairo to Manama, from Sana’a to Amman and from Damascus to Jerusalem, the ruling class has something very tangible to worry about. The gate is open and the march is on.
Write it up as yet another example of the law of unintended consequences. Greed and opportunity led the corporate dynasties to push the economic system beyond its capacity for profit. A global collapse could only be averted with a massive infusion of capital from the pockets of the working people. The resultant depreciation of currency contributed to a worldwide food crisis. When families can no longer afford to put food on the table, people take to the streets and frustration grows into movements and real systemic change is not only possible but mandatory.
Say what you will, doubt them at your own peril, these young dissidents of oppressed nations have already achieved more than the Paris youth rebellion of 1968, the Summer of Love 1969 and the largest antiwar protest in history on the eve of the Iraq War. They have affected real change. They have accomplished what we can only dream.
More than anything else, these events should serve as a reminder of the power and inevitability of democracy. Born of the individual and collective drive to control one’s own destiny, democracy is like the wind: You may find it discomforting, you may find it disturbing but you cannot deny it. You can only seek shelter from the storm.
All these rightwing Neocons who could not resist their knee-jerk support of all wars in the initial stages of this movement have since backtracked for fear that we cannot control the outcomes. Newsflash: If your support of democracy is contingent on outcome (for example, the 2000 election), then you do not support democracy at all.
Anyone who studies history knows that we as a nation have rarely supported democracies in their march to independence. At best we have been indifferent. At worst we have actively supported the despots who stood in the way.
We may never know exactly what was intended in Iraq but what we bought at an extraordinary price was a lasting antagonism, an unpaid debt and a bloody dagger of revenge. What we will leave in Afghanistan, if indeed we are ever able to extract ourselves from that nightmare, is a compounding of that debt.
It will require a great deal of time and effort to pay down that debt but we can begin now by ushering in a new era of unwavering support for freedom, democracy and human rights.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
By Jack Random
Since our emergence as a world power we as a nation have all too often been willing to partner with dictators and tyrants to further our financial or strategic interests. We have formed alliances with some of the worst characters in modern history, from Pinochet to the Shah of Iran, from Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden. Sleep with the devil and it’s bound to leave a mark on the progeny.
With the emergence of a youth inspired movement toward democracy in the Middle East, we have an opportunity to right our course and begin to make amends.
There is nothing easy about the way forward for while the urge to help in the cause of democracy is powerful it is often not clear whom we should be supporting. It is the cause that must move us and not the players. We are in a bind not only in the Middle East but throughout the world because we chose expedience over principle. We need not and should not repeat that pattern of shortsighted policy.
It is entirely possible if not probable that some of the freedom fighters in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere are allies of our enemies. That is to a large extent our own legacy and our penance is to support democracy regardless.
The Bush administration infamously failed the test in Palestine when the White House pushed for elections only to disavow them when the results did not meet with our expectations. Like nearly everything the Bush team touched, it was a blunder for which we are still paying.
President Obama, for all the criticism heaped upon him from the left and the right, has attempted to strike a balance. He will not forget the Palestinian people any more than he will neglect the Israelis. His initiative has made abundantly clear what we ought to have already known: There will be no peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as long as Benjamin Netanyahu is Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu may gather applause in a Republican congress but the Israeli people must recognize his failure to lead. It falls to the people now to replace him. That is the price of democracy and we must honor it. We can only hope to hold the aggressive elements of both parties in check until a new leader is chosen.
What the events of the Middle East are teaching us is that it is always bad policy to support dictators and oppressors. While such policies may disguise themselves under shrouds of sophistication they are shortsighted and naïve.
The desire of the people for self-determination cannot ultimately be denied. To stand in opposition is to be on the wrong side of history.
Get on board or be left behind.
This is not the time for hand wringing and cautionary tales. If we are to retain any self-respect in this rapidly evolving world, we must lend a hand. If we cannot join the people on the streets of protest, we can at least applaud them from where we sit. We can call out attempts to subvert the cause or disrupt the march to democracy. We can spread the word and keep the story alive. We can push our governments to do the right thing by supporting the people.
If in fact the events in the Middle East can be traced to the words and organization of a handful of activists on the worldwide web, then the dream is alive and all things on heaven and earth are possible. Little wonder the world’s established hierarchy of power is trembling at the prospects. Nothing frightens the elite more than democracy in action, democracy taken literally, democracy spreading like a blazing fire, democracy from the ground up.
This is not what they intended when they summoned the cry of democracy to justify their wars for oil. Democracy was only a word then, just a pleasant thought for the peasants to ponder, just a dream, a passing fancy and nothing at all to worry about.
As the cry now moves from Tunis to Tripoli, from Cairo to Manama, from Sana’a to Amman and from Damascus to Jerusalem, the ruling class has something very tangible to worry about. The gate is open and the march is on.
Write it up as yet another example of the law of unintended consequences. Greed and opportunity led the corporate dynasties to push the economic system beyond its capacity for profit. A global collapse could only be averted with a massive infusion of capital from the pockets of the working people. The resultant depreciation of currency contributed to a worldwide food crisis. When families can no longer afford to put food on the table, people take to the streets and frustration grows into movements and real systemic change is not only possible but mandatory.
Say what you will, doubt them at your own peril, these young dissidents of oppressed nations have already achieved more than the Paris youth rebellion of 1968, the Summer of Love 1969 and the largest antiwar protest in history on the eve of the Iraq War. They have affected real change. They have accomplished what we can only dream.
More than anything else, these events should serve as a reminder of the power and inevitability of democracy. Born of the individual and collective drive to control one’s own destiny, democracy is like the wind: You may find it discomforting, you may find it disturbing but you cannot deny it. You can only seek shelter from the storm.
All these rightwing Neocons who could not resist their knee-jerk support of all wars in the initial stages of this movement have since backtracked for fear that we cannot control the outcomes. Newsflash: If your support of democracy is contingent on outcome (for example, the 2000 election), then you do not support democracy at all.
Anyone who studies history knows that we as a nation have rarely supported democracies in their march to independence. At best we have been indifferent. At worst we have actively supported the despots who stood in the way.
We may never know exactly what was intended in Iraq but what we bought at an extraordinary price was a lasting antagonism, an unpaid debt and a bloody dagger of revenge. What we will leave in Afghanistan, if indeed we are ever able to extract ourselves from that nightmare, is a compounding of that debt.
It will require a great deal of time and effort to pay down that debt but we can begin now by ushering in a new era of unwavering support for freedom, democracy and human rights.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
TAKING BACK YOUR PARTY
A PLEA FOR MODERATION BY BILL PEACH
[Editor's Note: This writer hails from Nashville, Tennessee.]
In 2004, Christie Todd Whitman, published a book titled It’s My Party Too. She had been governor of New Jersey and head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Christie, a member of a distinguished and wealthy eastern Republican family, resigned her position in the Bush administration because “fundamentalist ideologues substituted right-wing doctrine for science.” She believed the Republican Party had been taken over by “social fundamentalists.”
I cannot speak for Republicans, but I feel their pain. I campaigned for George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy during racial strife and opposition to war. I understand the frustration of a divided political party. Ideas that I did not see as radical or revolutionary were not ideas embraced by moderate Democrat and independent voters. I have since been more main stream in the elections of moderates and pragmatists -- Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
A few weeks ago, the Williamson County Republican Party invited and hosted Geert Wilders for a meet and greet at party headquarters prior to his rally at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville. He came under the aegis of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, a group with a radical image not compatible with local Republican politics. I don’t know if the local party leaders consulted the membership, but the event brought national exposure and evoked some concern and disaffection among moderate Republicans.
Those of us who embrace the principles of Democratic politics have finally found a unity within our own party. Once labeled as liberal or progressive, which none of us found offensive, we have again become the party of the political center. The most evident rebirth of democracy came in support of the students, parents, and teachers of public education. It emerged dramatically in New York, in one Congressional district, in an unprecedented upset, possibly because of a single issue. The once moderate Republican has been alienated by the movement that shattered the party.
My concerns have been primarily with the Tennessee Legislature. I spent 24 years on two school boards. We have always opposed random pieces of legislation that were simple errors in judgment, not in the best interests of classroom instruction or student performance. This session seems to have been a calculated attack on public education.
We would like to believe that the five or six Republican members of the House and Senate who drafted and introduced recent legislation were isolated anomalies from a move to privatize or abolish public education. The movement is not unique to Tennessee, and extends beyond the misinterpretation of American history.
None of us, Republican or Democrat, want to cry wolf, or be prophets of doom, or purveyors of conspiracy theories. This shift of political power is not a threat to the Democratic Party; it could be the return ticket to majority status. Politically we should strategically welcome it. However, it does not bode well for the integrity or future of the Republican Party, nor does it enhance the well-being of American politics.
Whatever this phenomenon is, it did not happen overnight. We can’t blame it on President Bush or President Obama, or the deficit, or the debt, or three wars. The movement has not addressed economic ills, or jobs, or Main Street, or small business. We will address those eventually, but for now we are forced to endure the folly of distraction, and partisan allegiance to corporate and social ideology.
We have created a monster. I think President Eisenhower may have been the visionary who saw this coming. His experience in Europe had taught him that the rise of extreme movements was not unique to time or place. Authoritarianism could take root anywhere, even in America. This movement has roots in the McCarthy era in a mood of extreme nationalism and fear, intensified by ostentatious religious zealotry.
There are many names that were early players in the abduction of the Republican Party and the Christian faith. R. J. Rushdoony and Robert Welch of the John Birch Society were forerunners of the Religious Right and the sequential images of Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie, Irving and William Kristol, Tim LaHaye, and Pat Robertson. The establishment of “the private schools for the white students” or “seg academies” as we called them, followed Brown v. Board of Education, almost sixty years ago.
But even now, I sense a “distrust of democracy.” There is organized opposition to public education, women’s rights, small business, religious freedom, health care, and voting rights. There is revisionist denial of slavery, a renewal of primitive fundamentalist ideology, and a misguided plea for “God’s government” defined by standards of extremism and intolerance of the fifties, and a cultural vengeance in a penal code derived from the laws of Leviticus.
I watch an “intrusive government” invade the heart, the mind and the body. I hear words of hatred and religious intolerance from voices that bring ignominy to our tradition of faith. I see efforts to reverse the march of freedom in the work place. I am still optimistic that both parties, Republican and Democratic, will speak in opposition to extremism. It may take two or more election cycles, but I think the moderates will return and take back their party, and conservative sanity will find some viability slightly right of center, and restore a two-party system about which we will feel no need for apology.
Bill Peach
615-306-1731
billpeach@att.net
Politics, Preaching & Philosophy
http://billpeach.wordpress.com/
[Editor's Note: This writer hails from Nashville, Tennessee.]
In 2004, Christie Todd Whitman, published a book titled It’s My Party Too. She had been governor of New Jersey and head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Christie, a member of a distinguished and wealthy eastern Republican family, resigned her position in the Bush administration because “fundamentalist ideologues substituted right-wing doctrine for science.” She believed the Republican Party had been taken over by “social fundamentalists.”
I cannot speak for Republicans, but I feel their pain. I campaigned for George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy during racial strife and opposition to war. I understand the frustration of a divided political party. Ideas that I did not see as radical or revolutionary were not ideas embraced by moderate Democrat and independent voters. I have since been more main stream in the elections of moderates and pragmatists -- Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
A few weeks ago, the Williamson County Republican Party invited and hosted Geert Wilders for a meet and greet at party headquarters prior to his rally at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville. He came under the aegis of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, a group with a radical image not compatible with local Republican politics. I don’t know if the local party leaders consulted the membership, but the event brought national exposure and evoked some concern and disaffection among moderate Republicans.
Those of us who embrace the principles of Democratic politics have finally found a unity within our own party. Once labeled as liberal or progressive, which none of us found offensive, we have again become the party of the political center. The most evident rebirth of democracy came in support of the students, parents, and teachers of public education. It emerged dramatically in New York, in one Congressional district, in an unprecedented upset, possibly because of a single issue. The once moderate Republican has been alienated by the movement that shattered the party.
My concerns have been primarily with the Tennessee Legislature. I spent 24 years on two school boards. We have always opposed random pieces of legislation that were simple errors in judgment, not in the best interests of classroom instruction or student performance. This session seems to have been a calculated attack on public education.
We would like to believe that the five or six Republican members of the House and Senate who drafted and introduced recent legislation were isolated anomalies from a move to privatize or abolish public education. The movement is not unique to Tennessee, and extends beyond the misinterpretation of American history.
None of us, Republican or Democrat, want to cry wolf, or be prophets of doom, or purveyors of conspiracy theories. This shift of political power is not a threat to the Democratic Party; it could be the return ticket to majority status. Politically we should strategically welcome it. However, it does not bode well for the integrity or future of the Republican Party, nor does it enhance the well-being of American politics.
Whatever this phenomenon is, it did not happen overnight. We can’t blame it on President Bush or President Obama, or the deficit, or the debt, or three wars. The movement has not addressed economic ills, or jobs, or Main Street, or small business. We will address those eventually, but for now we are forced to endure the folly of distraction, and partisan allegiance to corporate and social ideology.
We have created a monster. I think President Eisenhower may have been the visionary who saw this coming. His experience in Europe had taught him that the rise of extreme movements was not unique to time or place. Authoritarianism could take root anywhere, even in America. This movement has roots in the McCarthy era in a mood of extreme nationalism and fear, intensified by ostentatious religious zealotry.
There are many names that were early players in the abduction of the Republican Party and the Christian faith. R. J. Rushdoony and Robert Welch of the John Birch Society were forerunners of the Religious Right and the sequential images of Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie, Irving and William Kristol, Tim LaHaye, and Pat Robertson. The establishment of “the private schools for the white students” or “seg academies” as we called them, followed Brown v. Board of Education, almost sixty years ago.
But even now, I sense a “distrust of democracy.” There is organized opposition to public education, women’s rights, small business, religious freedom, health care, and voting rights. There is revisionist denial of slavery, a renewal of primitive fundamentalist ideology, and a misguided plea for “God’s government” defined by standards of extremism and intolerance of the fifties, and a cultural vengeance in a penal code derived from the laws of Leviticus.
I watch an “intrusive government” invade the heart, the mind and the body. I hear words of hatred and religious intolerance from voices that bring ignominy to our tradition of faith. I see efforts to reverse the march of freedom in the work place. I am still optimistic that both parties, Republican and Democratic, will speak in opposition to extremism. It may take two or more election cycles, but I think the moderates will return and take back their party, and conservative sanity will find some viability slightly right of center, and restore a two-party system about which we will feel no need for apology.
Bill Peach
615-306-1731
billpeach@att.net
Politics, Preaching & Philosophy
http://billpeach.wordpress.com/
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Take Your War Away From Me
by Chris Mansel
here's to the aged and to the ill
who can't afford their medical bills
to the protester being beaten
voicing his opinion up a great big hill
to the Iranian child who has no idea
where america begins and Iraq ends
if I were an immigrant in a Haitian land
I'd be surviving however I could stand
on the Ivory Coast where oil does flow
I'd be wondering when the money will show
Darfur, Darfur wait for the rallying cry
how pathetic is it when its fashionable
when people die
air strikes always level the wrong ground
you can hear them like a screaming sound
we talk about the promises the government made
helicopters used to bring aid, now raids
stack rubble to the sky it won't hold a window
the dead of the world are more than just shadows
chorus:
take my land but don't take my life
don't burn my house in the middle of the night
please take your war away from me
please take your war away from me
Chris Mansel
here's to the aged and to the ill
who can't afford their medical bills
to the protester being beaten
voicing his opinion up a great big hill
to the Iranian child who has no idea
where america begins and Iraq ends
if I were an immigrant in a Haitian land
I'd be surviving however I could stand
on the Ivory Coast where oil does flow
I'd be wondering when the money will show
Darfur, Darfur wait for the rallying cry
how pathetic is it when its fashionable
when people die
air strikes always level the wrong ground
you can hear them like a screaming sound
we talk about the promises the government made
helicopters used to bring aid, now raids
stack rubble to the sky it won't hold a window
the dead of the world are more than just shadows
chorus:
take my land but don't take my life
don't burn my house in the middle of the night
please take your war away from me
please take your war away from me
Chris Mansel
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Jake's Word: Shut it Down!
[Editor's Note: This is Jake Berry's response to the latest Jazzman Chronicle: Shut it Down! The Irrational Rage of Willful Ignorance - reprinted below.]
One of your best screeds ever. Right on target. You sound like you've been living in the South all your life.
That is what all of this hogwash passing for politics is - old school Southern politics. It basically comes down to a simple equation: If you have a problem it is someone else's fault. The solution is to destroy this fantasy chimera even if it kills you and your children and their children in the process. Someone else is always to blame.
Freedom means liberty and responsibility. Everyone wants freedom. Freedom to get rich or die trying. Freedom to curse your neighbor one minute and pray for him the next. Freedom to do whatever you damn well please and blame someone else for the damage you do.
I agree with you. Let it crash and burn. It seems to be the only way we'll ever recover from subservience to the golden calf of Wall Street and the loud and proud stupidity of those who are so desperate to vote against their own best interests.
Too bad. While it may be true that all empires eventually crumble, the U.S. doesn't have to shut down just yet. But if that is what the people want, then give them what they want. They'll find someone to blame.
Rave on brother. We listen and learn.
Jake
A JAZZMAN CHRONICLE. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
SHUT IT DOWN!
THE IRRATIONAL RAGE OF WILLFUL IGNORANCE
By Jack Random
“Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you? Go ahead, make my day.”
Harry Callahan, Sudden Impact (1983)
Late Friday night the word came down that congress made a deal with the White House to avert a government shutdown. Too bad. If history teaches us anything it is that the American electorate does not believe in close calls.
In the last hour of the Bush administration, when congress was compelled to hand over billions to Wall Street in order to avoid a global economic meltdown, you would have thought we learned a lesson. We did not. We watched as the government reinstated the same catastrophic policies that placed us at the brink of catastrophic implosion.
We learned nothing. We continue to vent our rage at anyone but the criminal party. We continue to vote for pandering politicians who claim that government is the problem. We continue to support policies that favor the corporate elite.
I am reminded of the man who shot himself in the foot to cure a bunion. Seeing the damage the doctor said: Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t have a headache.
At some point we have to come to terms with the fact that we are a republic, a representative democracy, and therefore we are ultimately responsible for the actions of our elected officials. We enable them. We instruct them to get right back on that runaway train and point it straight over the cliff.
Feeling lucky, punk? Go ahead, make my day!
We all lived through the Bush years yet we are still listening to the same foreign policy geniuses that blundered their way into two losing wars in the Middle East. (If you thought we won in Iraq, check back in five years: Iran won the war and we were the biggest losers outside of the Iraqis.)
We all watched the free trade, free enterprise, free market economic purists drive us to the precipice of a great depression yet here we are doubling down on the same policies that created the crisis.
Like a compulsive gambler who’s been days too long at the tables, we’ve decided gambling is not the problem. It’s all a matter of timing. This time it will all work out. We’ll draw the lucky ace of spades and break the bank running.
Why shouldn’t it work out? Last time around it worked just fine for the CEO’s and the wealthy shareholders. They got to keep our money while we got our homes foreclosed, our jobs shipped out, our unions busted, our rights nullified and our wages cut to the bone.
Voices on the left who are not afraid of summoning phrases like social good and income inequality must be growing tired to death reminding people who work for a living that the parties in power do not represent our interests, the Tea Party least of all. They must grow tired defending the ineffectual Democrats over the offensive Republicans on the ever-diminishing grounds of least harm.
It’s like turning to the Don’s accountant to resolve the problems of the Don.
I know I’ve grown tired, damned tired, and I feel I’m down to two choices: Vent or walk away.
So go ahead, fellow voters, make my day: Shut it down! Let’s get a good look at life without the government. Let’s go back to square one. Let’s get back to the days of America’s greatness! Let’s have an industrial age without industry! Let’s work for lower pay! Let there be no safety standards, no inspectors, no regulation or oversight. If people die, so be it. It’s the cost of doing business. We have too many people anyway. Let a few thousand or million perish at the hands of the industrial machine. There will be more for the rest of us!
Why half measures? Let’s give all the money and all the resources to the elite. They’re better educated and nicer looking. They know how to behave themselves at dinner parties. Let them have it all and let the rest of us live in accordance with their wishes. What’s good for Wall Street is good for Pennsylvania Avenue!
Let them dig for oil in the national parks. Let them burn coal until the skies block the sun! Let them mark the way to the next mass extinction. Let them fight wars for oil and water and uranium with the blood of our working sons and daughters!
Go ahead, decimate social security, scrap Medicare and bring back a time where child labor is not only possible but necessary! Bring back squalor and recklessness in the workplace! Bring back segregated schools and reserve higher learning for the wealthiest elite.
Go ahead, let them have it all but don’t you dare say you did it for your children. You sold the children out along with the rest of us so at least have the courage to say so: You did it because you didn’t want to pay your fair share.
At least have the foresight to know your children and grandchildren will curse you for your selfish folly.
Go ahead, shut it down, let it crash and burn! But then, when it’s all done and the destruction has moved across the land like waves of a tsunami, have the decency to stand aside and let those who saw it coming and sounded a warning in vain, build a new world from the ashes of a fallen empire.
Let that be your final legacy.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
One of your best screeds ever. Right on target. You sound like you've been living in the South all your life.
That is what all of this hogwash passing for politics is - old school Southern politics. It basically comes down to a simple equation: If you have a problem it is someone else's fault. The solution is to destroy this fantasy chimera even if it kills you and your children and their children in the process. Someone else is always to blame.
Freedom means liberty and responsibility. Everyone wants freedom. Freedom to get rich or die trying. Freedom to curse your neighbor one minute and pray for him the next. Freedom to do whatever you damn well please and blame someone else for the damage you do.
I agree with you. Let it crash and burn. It seems to be the only way we'll ever recover from subservience to the golden calf of Wall Street and the loud and proud stupidity of those who are so desperate to vote against their own best interests.
Too bad. While it may be true that all empires eventually crumble, the U.S. doesn't have to shut down just yet. But if that is what the people want, then give them what they want. They'll find someone to blame.
Rave on brother. We listen and learn.
Jake
A JAZZMAN CHRONICLE. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
SHUT IT DOWN!
THE IRRATIONAL RAGE OF WILLFUL IGNORANCE
By Jack Random
“Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you? Go ahead, make my day.”
Harry Callahan, Sudden Impact (1983)
Late Friday night the word came down that congress made a deal with the White House to avert a government shutdown. Too bad. If history teaches us anything it is that the American electorate does not believe in close calls.
In the last hour of the Bush administration, when congress was compelled to hand over billions to Wall Street in order to avoid a global economic meltdown, you would have thought we learned a lesson. We did not. We watched as the government reinstated the same catastrophic policies that placed us at the brink of catastrophic implosion.
We learned nothing. We continue to vent our rage at anyone but the criminal party. We continue to vote for pandering politicians who claim that government is the problem. We continue to support policies that favor the corporate elite.
I am reminded of the man who shot himself in the foot to cure a bunion. Seeing the damage the doctor said: Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t have a headache.
At some point we have to come to terms with the fact that we are a republic, a representative democracy, and therefore we are ultimately responsible for the actions of our elected officials. We enable them. We instruct them to get right back on that runaway train and point it straight over the cliff.
Feeling lucky, punk? Go ahead, make my day!
We all lived through the Bush years yet we are still listening to the same foreign policy geniuses that blundered their way into two losing wars in the Middle East. (If you thought we won in Iraq, check back in five years: Iran won the war and we were the biggest losers outside of the Iraqis.)
We all watched the free trade, free enterprise, free market economic purists drive us to the precipice of a great depression yet here we are doubling down on the same policies that created the crisis.
Like a compulsive gambler who’s been days too long at the tables, we’ve decided gambling is not the problem. It’s all a matter of timing. This time it will all work out. We’ll draw the lucky ace of spades and break the bank running.
Why shouldn’t it work out? Last time around it worked just fine for the CEO’s and the wealthy shareholders. They got to keep our money while we got our homes foreclosed, our jobs shipped out, our unions busted, our rights nullified and our wages cut to the bone.
Voices on the left who are not afraid of summoning phrases like social good and income inequality must be growing tired to death reminding people who work for a living that the parties in power do not represent our interests, the Tea Party least of all. They must grow tired defending the ineffectual Democrats over the offensive Republicans on the ever-diminishing grounds of least harm.
It’s like turning to the Don’s accountant to resolve the problems of the Don.
I know I’ve grown tired, damned tired, and I feel I’m down to two choices: Vent or walk away.
So go ahead, fellow voters, make my day: Shut it down! Let’s get a good look at life without the government. Let’s go back to square one. Let’s get back to the days of America’s greatness! Let’s have an industrial age without industry! Let’s work for lower pay! Let there be no safety standards, no inspectors, no regulation or oversight. If people die, so be it. It’s the cost of doing business. We have too many people anyway. Let a few thousand or million perish at the hands of the industrial machine. There will be more for the rest of us!
Why half measures? Let’s give all the money and all the resources to the elite. They’re better educated and nicer looking. They know how to behave themselves at dinner parties. Let them have it all and let the rest of us live in accordance with their wishes. What’s good for Wall Street is good for Pennsylvania Avenue!
Let them dig for oil in the national parks. Let them burn coal until the skies block the sun! Let them mark the way to the next mass extinction. Let them fight wars for oil and water and uranium with the blood of our working sons and daughters!
Go ahead, decimate social security, scrap Medicare and bring back a time where child labor is not only possible but necessary! Bring back squalor and recklessness in the workplace! Bring back segregated schools and reserve higher learning for the wealthiest elite.
Go ahead, let them have it all but don’t you dare say you did it for your children. You sold the children out along with the rest of us so at least have the courage to say so: You did it because you didn’t want to pay your fair share.
At least have the foresight to know your children and grandchildren will curse you for your selfish folly.
Go ahead, shut it down, let it crash and burn! But then, when it’s all done and the destruction has moved across the land like waves of a tsunami, have the decency to stand aside and let those who saw it coming and sounded a warning in vain, build a new world from the ashes of a fallen empire.
Let that be your final legacy.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
REMEMBERING BASEBALL & BRYAN STOW
(Please send out to as many people as you can)
To All Sports Fans,
We should all be thinking a lot about Bryan Stow, the Giants fan who is in a coma right now after being attacked after a game. This Monday night, the Giants and Dodgers will begin a second series, this time in San Francisco. But this issue has nothing to do with the Giants or the Dodgers. It’s about what it means to be a fan.
We all come out to watch the game of baseball to support our teams, to have a great time at the ballpark, and to remember and pay homage to the childhood wonder that we all felt growing up watching our heroes play. For me, being a fan is about knowing that I see the game exactly how my dad taught me to… even a little bit clearer (just like he always knew that I would). It’s about looking up with my little brothers and telling him that the Giants finally won it all! (And knowing he’s celebrating wherever he is.)
But to those fans who see yourselves as something like rival gang/club members protecting the honor of your teams, with violence if necessary, please know that you are missing the point, and you are truly disgracing your heroes. Giants fans out there talking about REVENGE for Bryan Stow, you are just as misled and in need of a look in the mirror as those FEW Dodgers fans who committed this crime in the first place, whether you act on it or not. And I hope a few of you are offended by me saying that because you absolutely need to think about the feelings and thoughts that resulted in that man being forced to fight for his life his life right now.
I mean I Haaaaaaaaaaate the Dodgers. Lol. But I why in the world should that extend to their fans??? Somewhere there is a Dodger fan with the EXACT same story as mine. A Dodger fan raises his hands just as high as a Giants fan when his team is doing well, and for the same reasons. The same goes for fans of the Yankees and Red Sox. We all just want to someday turn to our children, holding a ballpark hotdog, and watch with a smile as they experience the game for the first time.
So Monday night, regardless of the score at the end of the game, if you should come across a rival fan, look him in the eyes and tip your cap, (you can even refuse to smile if you like. lol), and give a fellow Sports Fan the respect that you both deserve.
John Miller
To All Sports Fans,
We should all be thinking a lot about Bryan Stow, the Giants fan who is in a coma right now after being attacked after a game. This Monday night, the Giants and Dodgers will begin a second series, this time in San Francisco. But this issue has nothing to do with the Giants or the Dodgers. It’s about what it means to be a fan.
We all come out to watch the game of baseball to support our teams, to have a great time at the ballpark, and to remember and pay homage to the childhood wonder that we all felt growing up watching our heroes play. For me, being a fan is about knowing that I see the game exactly how my dad taught me to… even a little bit clearer (just like he always knew that I would). It’s about looking up with my little brothers and telling him that the Giants finally won it all! (And knowing he’s celebrating wherever he is.)
But to those fans who see yourselves as something like rival gang/club members protecting the honor of your teams, with violence if necessary, please know that you are missing the point, and you are truly disgracing your heroes. Giants fans out there talking about REVENGE for Bryan Stow, you are just as misled and in need of a look in the mirror as those FEW Dodgers fans who committed this crime in the first place, whether you act on it or not. And I hope a few of you are offended by me saying that because you absolutely need to think about the feelings and thoughts that resulted in that man being forced to fight for his life his life right now.
I mean I Haaaaaaaaaaate the Dodgers. Lol. But I why in the world should that extend to their fans??? Somewhere there is a Dodger fan with the EXACT same story as mine. A Dodger fan raises his hands just as high as a Giants fan when his team is doing well, and for the same reasons. The same goes for fans of the Yankees and Red Sox. We all just want to someday turn to our children, holding a ballpark hotdog, and watch with a smile as they experience the game for the first time.
So Monday night, regardless of the score at the end of the game, if you should come across a rival fan, look him in the eyes and tip your cap, (you can even refuse to smile if you like. lol), and give a fellow Sports Fan the respect that you both deserve.
John Miller
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
THE OBAMA DOCTRINE: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
A JAZZMAN CHRONICLE By Jack Random. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
“It is time to become what American principles and values insist that we must become. It is time to be what our leaders have always claimed that we were: a beacon of justice, human rights and democracy. It is time to fulfill the promise of our forefathers. Our destiny cannot and must not be to dominate the world but rather to improve the lot of human kind.”
The Jazzman Chronicles, Volume One, Principles of Foreign Policy.
I believe in democracy. I believe in the right of the people to self-determination. I believe in civil liberties and fundamental human rights. I believe that unjustified war is the ultimate violation of human rights and, therefore, the use of arms to settle conflicts must be a last option.
I am not a pacifist. I believe there are circumstances that justify war. For a war to be truly justified, these circumstances cannot be defined ad hoc. They cannot be adopted impromptu to fit the circumstance of a crisis. They must be defined as a matter of policy and principle.
Clearly, a war is justified if a nation or its allies is attacked by another nation. By this essential and fundamental standard, no major military action since World War II has been justified. The Korean War was avoidable. The Vietnam War was a crime against civilization. The Iraq Wars were strategic. The Afghan-Pakistan War was unwise and unnecessary. The people who misled us into that war belittled those who called for a police action but that is exactly what our response should have been. A nation does not respond to a terrorist attack with the blunt instrument of war unless it wants to elevate the terrorist group to the status of sovereignty.
Politicos and politicians of all stripes can say that Afghanistan is now Obama’s war but that rings hollow. Libya is in fact the only military action instigated by the Obama administration. Thus far it remains uncertain and vague as a statement of policy. The administration may have its own reasons for this obscuration of purpose but if we want to determine fairly and objectively whether this war meets the standard of a justified action we must apply principles and policies already established.
Toward that end I have consulted my own prior writings for the principles that apply to the current action in Libya.
Principle: The United States will not engage in interventions that support non-democratic governments or governments that violate the inalienable rights of its citizens.
While it would seem that this principle would argue against Muammar Gaddafi it does not argue for intervention. Gaddafi is a despot and his government is tyrannical but we know very little about the opposition and what kind of government they would in fact bring. Moreover, we have neither the right nor the capacity to depose every despot in the world. Therefore the justification for this war must originate elsewhere.
Principle: Our nation will take appropriate action to prevent, inhibit or halt genocide.
This was the rationale Bill Clinton used for intervention in Kosovo where we were told genocide was under way. While there is evidence that massacres occurred on both sides of that conflict, the definition of genocide likely relies more on massive dislocation than on an attempt to exterminate the Muslim population. There is strong evidence that the US led NATO intervention may have enabled a reverse genocide (see “The Truth About Bosnia and Kosovo” by David Icke). By any objective account, the case for intervention in Kosovo is far more complex and less compelling than we have been led to believe.
Leaving an analysis of Kosovo aside, is there compelling evidence that genocide was about to occur in Libya? After the bombing began Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quick to claim that a massacre was prevented in Benghazi. Maybe so. Maybe not. Any number of scenarios could have played out. A genuine truce might have been negotiated in lieu of a NATO attack or stiff sanctions. The western world could have seized the accounts of all mercenaries engaged in Libya unless they withdrew immediately. The opposition could have laid down their arms.
What we do know is that the Libyan opposition is political. It is not representative of any ethnic divide. Therefore, neither the extent of violence nor the nature of the conflict allows any consideration of genocide in Libya. This is not a cause for war.
Principle: We will not act as the police force of the world.
This principle argues strongly against unilateral intervention. President Obama was right to seek international agreement and the consent of the United Nations Security Council. Unlike his predecessor he did not defy the United Nations and he did not build a coalition by bribery and coercion. As long as we remain within the mandate of the Security Council resolution we have the sanction of international law. The instant we go beyond that mandate we lose moral and legal grounding.
When the president states that his standard for success in Libya is the removal of Gaddafi from power, he signals that he is prepared to go beyond the mandate. He promises that we will not take the lead in this operation and we will not commit troops to yet another ground war in the region. This is the very definition of a mixed message. Reminiscent of the promises made by the Clinton administration in Kosovo (promises that were not kept), we have run headlong into a zone of duplicity where we can neither move forward nor backward. If in fact the bombing campaign is insufficient to remove the dictator from power, we will have placed ourselves in a dilemma: Escalate our involvement or admit that we have failed and placed the civilians we were charged to protect at even greater risk than before.
This is precisely why policies of intervention should not be left to impromptu actions. We cannot afford to be entangled in yet another civil war while our nation is facing a prolonged economic crisis, while our own people are suffering and while the other more pressing needs of the world and the nation are neglected.
We have neither the right nor the resources to act as the police force of the world.
Principle: We will practice a policy of restraint in civil wars and civil conflicts.
A careful consideration of this principle would have prevented our disastrous entanglements in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It would have precluded us from a protracted engagement in Kosovo with at best mixed results.
How does it apply in Libya? Is this a civil war or is it an unpopular dictator imposing his will through mercenary forces and arms supplied by many of the same powers now aligned against him?
I have said so before and I will say so again: There is no place in a civilized world for mercenary armies. The first lesson of this conflict like so many others is that we can no longer permit mercenary armies and weapons traders to act with no more restraint than the free market allows. Mercenaries should be banned outright. Weapons traders should operate under strict international guidelines. No civilized nation should be supplying arms to dictators, tyrants and kings who operate independent of the will of their people.
What do we expect to happen when the people rise up against despotic leaders, as they inevitably will?
It is not yet clear whether the conflict in Libya can best be defined as a civil war or a popular uprising. If it is a civil war or becomes one, our best policy is restraint. If it is a popular uprising, our justification for war remains uncertain.
I can only conclude that either the principles guiding the Obama administration are substantially different than my own or this was an emotion-charged response to a crisis situation. Like the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears to lack foresight. Like the ill-fated Supreme Court decision in 2000 that installed Bush in the White House, the administration may wish to discount precedent value but it cannot be done.
Are we prepared to act in kind when similar circumstances arise in other countries? How do we justify failure to act in Yemen, Bahrain, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else a popular uprising is suppressed by a non-democratic government?
Discounting the expansion of the Afghan War into Pakistan, the bombing of Libya was the first military intervention instigated by the Obama administration. What does it say about the Obama Doctrine of foreign policy?
It seems clear that the president is far less restrained in committing the force of arms than I can condone. The hope now is that events in Libya do not veer out of control as they have in Afghanistan and as they did in Iraq. The hope now is that the president will be able to keep his promise of a limited intervention.
Murphy’s Law holds that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. That is precisely why we should never engage in actions on the scale of war without a clear objective and an equally clear path to its fulfillment.
We are asking for trouble in Libya. We are asking for trouble with a policy that cannot be sustained elsewhere in the world. We are taking a gamble in an arena where the risks are far too great.
I genuinely hope the opposition seizes control in Libya and under the pressure of an international coalition fulfills the promise of a democratic government. If it does not and events spin out of control, entangling us in yet another quagmire of indefinite length, then this decision may well prove catastrophic.
For now we can only ask the president to remember his promise. The people do not want another war in a faraway land. We cannot afford it and we do not wish to sacrifice any more lives to foreign misadventures.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
“It is time to become what American principles and values insist that we must become. It is time to be what our leaders have always claimed that we were: a beacon of justice, human rights and democracy. It is time to fulfill the promise of our forefathers. Our destiny cannot and must not be to dominate the world but rather to improve the lot of human kind.”
The Jazzman Chronicles, Volume One, Principles of Foreign Policy.
I believe in democracy. I believe in the right of the people to self-determination. I believe in civil liberties and fundamental human rights. I believe that unjustified war is the ultimate violation of human rights and, therefore, the use of arms to settle conflicts must be a last option.
I am not a pacifist. I believe there are circumstances that justify war. For a war to be truly justified, these circumstances cannot be defined ad hoc. They cannot be adopted impromptu to fit the circumstance of a crisis. They must be defined as a matter of policy and principle.
Clearly, a war is justified if a nation or its allies is attacked by another nation. By this essential and fundamental standard, no major military action since World War II has been justified. The Korean War was avoidable. The Vietnam War was a crime against civilization. The Iraq Wars were strategic. The Afghan-Pakistan War was unwise and unnecessary. The people who misled us into that war belittled those who called for a police action but that is exactly what our response should have been. A nation does not respond to a terrorist attack with the blunt instrument of war unless it wants to elevate the terrorist group to the status of sovereignty.
Politicos and politicians of all stripes can say that Afghanistan is now Obama’s war but that rings hollow. Libya is in fact the only military action instigated by the Obama administration. Thus far it remains uncertain and vague as a statement of policy. The administration may have its own reasons for this obscuration of purpose but if we want to determine fairly and objectively whether this war meets the standard of a justified action we must apply principles and policies already established.
Toward that end I have consulted my own prior writings for the principles that apply to the current action in Libya.
Principle: The United States will not engage in interventions that support non-democratic governments or governments that violate the inalienable rights of its citizens.
While it would seem that this principle would argue against Muammar Gaddafi it does not argue for intervention. Gaddafi is a despot and his government is tyrannical but we know very little about the opposition and what kind of government they would in fact bring. Moreover, we have neither the right nor the capacity to depose every despot in the world. Therefore the justification for this war must originate elsewhere.
Principle: Our nation will take appropriate action to prevent, inhibit or halt genocide.
This was the rationale Bill Clinton used for intervention in Kosovo where we were told genocide was under way. While there is evidence that massacres occurred on both sides of that conflict, the definition of genocide likely relies more on massive dislocation than on an attempt to exterminate the Muslim population. There is strong evidence that the US led NATO intervention may have enabled a reverse genocide (see “The Truth About Bosnia and Kosovo” by David Icke). By any objective account, the case for intervention in Kosovo is far more complex and less compelling than we have been led to believe.
Leaving an analysis of Kosovo aside, is there compelling evidence that genocide was about to occur in Libya? After the bombing began Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quick to claim that a massacre was prevented in Benghazi. Maybe so. Maybe not. Any number of scenarios could have played out. A genuine truce might have been negotiated in lieu of a NATO attack or stiff sanctions. The western world could have seized the accounts of all mercenaries engaged in Libya unless they withdrew immediately. The opposition could have laid down their arms.
What we do know is that the Libyan opposition is political. It is not representative of any ethnic divide. Therefore, neither the extent of violence nor the nature of the conflict allows any consideration of genocide in Libya. This is not a cause for war.
Principle: We will not act as the police force of the world.
This principle argues strongly against unilateral intervention. President Obama was right to seek international agreement and the consent of the United Nations Security Council. Unlike his predecessor he did not defy the United Nations and he did not build a coalition by bribery and coercion. As long as we remain within the mandate of the Security Council resolution we have the sanction of international law. The instant we go beyond that mandate we lose moral and legal grounding.
When the president states that his standard for success in Libya is the removal of Gaddafi from power, he signals that he is prepared to go beyond the mandate. He promises that we will not take the lead in this operation and we will not commit troops to yet another ground war in the region. This is the very definition of a mixed message. Reminiscent of the promises made by the Clinton administration in Kosovo (promises that were not kept), we have run headlong into a zone of duplicity where we can neither move forward nor backward. If in fact the bombing campaign is insufficient to remove the dictator from power, we will have placed ourselves in a dilemma: Escalate our involvement or admit that we have failed and placed the civilians we were charged to protect at even greater risk than before.
This is precisely why policies of intervention should not be left to impromptu actions. We cannot afford to be entangled in yet another civil war while our nation is facing a prolonged economic crisis, while our own people are suffering and while the other more pressing needs of the world and the nation are neglected.
We have neither the right nor the resources to act as the police force of the world.
Principle: We will practice a policy of restraint in civil wars and civil conflicts.
A careful consideration of this principle would have prevented our disastrous entanglements in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It would have precluded us from a protracted engagement in Kosovo with at best mixed results.
How does it apply in Libya? Is this a civil war or is it an unpopular dictator imposing his will through mercenary forces and arms supplied by many of the same powers now aligned against him?
I have said so before and I will say so again: There is no place in a civilized world for mercenary armies. The first lesson of this conflict like so many others is that we can no longer permit mercenary armies and weapons traders to act with no more restraint than the free market allows. Mercenaries should be banned outright. Weapons traders should operate under strict international guidelines. No civilized nation should be supplying arms to dictators, tyrants and kings who operate independent of the will of their people.
What do we expect to happen when the people rise up against despotic leaders, as they inevitably will?
It is not yet clear whether the conflict in Libya can best be defined as a civil war or a popular uprising. If it is a civil war or becomes one, our best policy is restraint. If it is a popular uprising, our justification for war remains uncertain.
I can only conclude that either the principles guiding the Obama administration are substantially different than my own or this was an emotion-charged response to a crisis situation. Like the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears to lack foresight. Like the ill-fated Supreme Court decision in 2000 that installed Bush in the White House, the administration may wish to discount precedent value but it cannot be done.
Are we prepared to act in kind when similar circumstances arise in other countries? How do we justify failure to act in Yemen, Bahrain, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else a popular uprising is suppressed by a non-democratic government?
Discounting the expansion of the Afghan War into Pakistan, the bombing of Libya was the first military intervention instigated by the Obama administration. What does it say about the Obama Doctrine of foreign policy?
It seems clear that the president is far less restrained in committing the force of arms than I can condone. The hope now is that events in Libya do not veer out of control as they have in Afghanistan and as they did in Iraq. The hope now is that the president will be able to keep his promise of a limited intervention.
Murphy’s Law holds that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. That is precisely why we should never engage in actions on the scale of war without a clear objective and an equally clear path to its fulfillment.
We are asking for trouble in Libya. We are asking for trouble with a policy that cannot be sustained elsewhere in the world. We are taking a gamble in an arena where the risks are far too great.
I genuinely hope the opposition seizes control in Libya and under the pressure of an international coalition fulfills the promise of a democratic government. If it does not and events spin out of control, entangling us in yet another quagmire of indefinite length, then this decision may well prove catastrophic.
For now we can only ask the president to remember his promise. The people do not want another war in a faraway land. We cannot afford it and we do not wish to sacrifice any more lives to foreign misadventures.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Remembering Joe: Grief and Recovery
Subject: Two months ago
Date: Mar 24, 2011 7:47 AM
It is almost incomprehensible to me that Joe has been dead two months now. Up here in Santa Fe, alone in this empty house, I have had to confront my grief in ways I never did in the hustle and bustle of Albuquerque. Yesterday was the first day I got through without crying. Three tears while on the phone with my sister offering to send me the photos of Joe’s last birthday party, when I’m strong enough. I’m not strong enough yet but she’ll save them for me.
I do look forward to the Border Book Festival on April 8 and my plane flight out of the country on the 27th. Everything is new now, the van remodeled for one, new dishes, new cups, I just can’t look at the old stuff. I even bought new underwear. Most of the time I have spent up here crying and shopping.
I was invited into a women’s writers group in Santa Fe, we meet on Mondays. I sob as I read. Joe’s friend Mona came down from Taos, she has lost a son at 23, she and I both sobbed at the table at Whole Foods as we tried to eat our lunch. I cry when I get up, cry when I go to bed and try to fill the hours productively in between.
But I’m not asking for pity. Grief is simply work that must be done. I have had so much support from all of you. The pace will really pick up in April. I’ll go back to Las Cruces for April, got a place to stay. My van will be painted while I’m gone, so I am ecstatic about that. After three years of restoration this will be the final thing to do. When I get back from Mexico I see myself driving around the Southwest hitting all the open mics and selling Joe’s book out of the back of my van, just like so many others I have known.
I’ll get there, I will be happy again, I know it, Joe would want it for me. I believe I have dwelt too long on remembering him there at the last. I made some more chapbooks of poetry taken from the book and working on a project always makes me feel better. I get so much satisfaction from my artistic endeavors. I went to a bead shop and restrung my pearls. It’s a long necklace, then I added a giant cross to the pearls and now I look like a nun with a pearl rosary. All these images comfort me. I’ll get there.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Editor's Note: Beatlick Joe Speer's book Backpack Trekker: A 60's Flashback is available at Amazon.com.
Date: Mar 24, 2011 7:47 AM
It is almost incomprehensible to me that Joe has been dead two months now. Up here in Santa Fe, alone in this empty house, I have had to confront my grief in ways I never did in the hustle and bustle of Albuquerque. Yesterday was the first day I got through without crying. Three tears while on the phone with my sister offering to send me the photos of Joe’s last birthday party, when I’m strong enough. I’m not strong enough yet but she’ll save them for me.
I do look forward to the Border Book Festival on April 8 and my plane flight out of the country on the 27th. Everything is new now, the van remodeled for one, new dishes, new cups, I just can’t look at the old stuff. I even bought new underwear. Most of the time I have spent up here crying and shopping.
I was invited into a women’s writers group in Santa Fe, we meet on Mondays. I sob as I read. Joe’s friend Mona came down from Taos, she has lost a son at 23, she and I both sobbed at the table at Whole Foods as we tried to eat our lunch. I cry when I get up, cry when I go to bed and try to fill the hours productively in between.
But I’m not asking for pity. Grief is simply work that must be done. I have had so much support from all of you. The pace will really pick up in April. I’ll go back to Las Cruces for April, got a place to stay. My van will be painted while I’m gone, so I am ecstatic about that. After three years of restoration this will be the final thing to do. When I get back from Mexico I see myself driving around the Southwest hitting all the open mics and selling Joe’s book out of the back of my van, just like so many others I have known.
I’ll get there, I will be happy again, I know it, Joe would want it for me. I believe I have dwelt too long on remembering him there at the last. I made some more chapbooks of poetry taken from the book and working on a project always makes me feel better. I get so much satisfaction from my artistic endeavors. I went to a bead shop and restrung my pearls. It’s a long necklace, then I added a giant cross to the pearls and now I look like a nun with a pearl rosary. All these images comfort me. I’ll get there.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Editor's Note: Beatlick Joe Speer's book Backpack Trekker: A 60's Flashback is available at Amazon.com.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Buy American: Check the Can
By Joan Stellrecht
Did y’all see that Diane Sawyer has a special report coming up this week. They removed ALL items from a typical, middle class family's home that were not made in the USA . There was hardly anything left besides the kitchen sink. Literally. During the special they are going to show truckloads of items - USA made - being brought in to replace everything and will be talking about how to find these items and the difference in price etc..
It was interesting that Diane said that if every American spent just $64 more than normal on USA made items this year, it would create something like 200,000 new jobs!
I WAS BUYING FOOD THE OTHER DAY AT WALMART and ON THE LABEL OF SOME PRODUCTS IT SAID 'FROM CHINA’
FOR EXAMPLE THE "OUR FAMILY" BRAND OF THE MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN 'FROM CHINA '
I WAS SHOCKED SO FOR A FEW MORE CENTS I BOUGHT THE LIBERTY GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE SINCE IT'S FROM CALIF.
Are we Americans as dumb as we appear --- or --- is it that we just do not think while the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior and even toxic products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets?
70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended.
Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges? DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA!!
Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says 'Made in China ' or 'PRC' (and that now includes Hong Kong ), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.
Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example. The point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.
THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that's a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor...fast!!
Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on March. 4th and continue it until April 4th. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they might have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and lawlessness were worth it.
Remember, March 4th to April 4th
START NOW.
Send this to everybody you know. Let's show them that we are Americans and NOBODY can take us for granted.
If we can't live without cheap Chinese goods for one month out of our lives, WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET!
Pass it on, America.
Did y’all see that Diane Sawyer has a special report coming up this week. They removed ALL items from a typical, middle class family's home that were not made in the USA . There was hardly anything left besides the kitchen sink. Literally. During the special they are going to show truckloads of items - USA made - being brought in to replace everything and will be talking about how to find these items and the difference in price etc..
It was interesting that Diane said that if every American spent just $64 more than normal on USA made items this year, it would create something like 200,000 new jobs!
I WAS BUYING FOOD THE OTHER DAY AT WALMART and ON THE LABEL OF SOME PRODUCTS IT SAID 'FROM CHINA’
FOR EXAMPLE THE "OUR FAMILY" BRAND OF THE MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN 'FROM CHINA '
I WAS SHOCKED SO FOR A FEW MORE CENTS I BOUGHT THE LIBERTY GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE SINCE IT'S FROM CALIF.
Are we Americans as dumb as we appear --- or --- is it that we just do not think while the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior and even toxic products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets?
70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended.
Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges? DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA!!
Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says 'Made in China ' or 'PRC' (and that now includes Hong Kong ), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.
Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example. The point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.
THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that's a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor...fast!!
Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on March. 4th and continue it until April 4th. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they might have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and lawlessness were worth it.
Remember, March 4th to April 4th
START NOW.
Send this to everybody you know. Let's show them that we are Americans and NOBODY can take us for granted.
If we can't live without cheap Chinese goods for one month out of our lives, WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET!
Pass it on, America.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
THE JACK RANDOM PROBLEM
I am Jack Random.
I published my first short story under the name of Jack Random in 1997. I have since published several stories, a novel and hundreds if not thousands of commentaries or works of fiction under the name of Jack Random on the worldwide web. I believe I have some measure of ownership of that name and feel responsible for the words associated with it.
Much to my amazement I have learned that there are characters by the name of Jack Random in at least two works of fiction, including the Deathstalker series by British SciFi writer Simon Green and the obscure 1918 movie Somebody’s Widow. There are to my knowledge, however, no writers by the name of Jack Random predating my work in 1997.
In recent years I have become aware of a proliferation of individuals operating under the name of Jack Random. Most of them I can abide but some I would like to distance myself from, the most recent being a Facebook edition of Mr. Random. There is also a Yahoo Jack Random and a MySpace Jack Random.
On this occasion I would like to point out that they are not me and I am not associated with their words or music or thoughts in any way.
I am the jazzman Jack Random, author of Dark Underground, Ghost Dance Insurrection, The Killing Spirit, Hard Times, and the Jazzman Chronicles as well as many other works of fiction.
I am a progressive independent and believe strongly in tolerance. If any writer or personality expresses thoughts contrary to that philosophy they are not me. Anyone who rants from the right is not worthy of the name.
Jazz.
I published my first short story under the name of Jack Random in 1997. I have since published several stories, a novel and hundreds if not thousands of commentaries or works of fiction under the name of Jack Random on the worldwide web. I believe I have some measure of ownership of that name and feel responsible for the words associated with it.
Much to my amazement I have learned that there are characters by the name of Jack Random in at least two works of fiction, including the Deathstalker series by British SciFi writer Simon Green and the obscure 1918 movie Somebody’s Widow. There are to my knowledge, however, no writers by the name of Jack Random predating my work in 1997.
In recent years I have become aware of a proliferation of individuals operating under the name of Jack Random. Most of them I can abide but some I would like to distance myself from, the most recent being a Facebook edition of Mr. Random. There is also a Yahoo Jack Random and a MySpace Jack Random.
On this occasion I would like to point out that they are not me and I am not associated with their words or music or thoughts in any way.
I am the jazzman Jack Random, author of Dark Underground, Ghost Dance Insurrection, The Killing Spirit, Hard Times, and the Jazzman Chronicles as well as many other works of fiction.
I am a progressive independent and believe strongly in tolerance. If any writer or personality expresses thoughts contrary to that philosophy they are not me. Anyone who rants from the right is not worthy of the name.
Jazz.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
BEATLICK JOE: The Last Goodbye.
When you come of a certain age as I have, death becomes a part of life. No longer an abstraction, a mystery of time and space, but a reality of everyday life. We grow numb to death as a means of survival.
But every so often death moves too close. It taps our shoulder and inhabits our conscious lives. The death of a child, whose innocence offends our sense of justice, or a promising youth who never reached fulfillment, or the death of a brethren spirit, someone who exemplified the kind of person we always admired and strove to be.
Beatlick Joe Speer has waved his last goodbye on this journey through life on the planet earth. He has gone to a place where only memories and spiritual messaging can reach him. He was an artist in the purest sense, a master carpenter in the medium of words, a fellow traveler in search of wisdom and inspiration and possessing more than his share of both. Along with his longtime wife and partner, Beatlick Pamela Hirst, he cultivated art and artists, provided a forum for voices longing to be heard, and transformed the world he encountered into a more interesting and better place.
It was my pleasure to share the stage in a recorded production of perhaps my most inspired and least understood work: Dark Underground. I can still hear his Ornette Coleman riffs, rising, falling, punctuated pauses and elongated phonemes, hammering a beat only he could feel. Not only words, which he possessed in abundance, but a master of sound as well.
No one will ever take the place of Beatlick Joe Speer. He leaves behind friends, family, a legacy of prose and poetry, and his masterwork: Backpack Trekker: A Sixties Flashback. It is a work that stakes a place in history, literature, sociology and psychology. It is an exploration of the soul of an artist and stands alone as a chronicle of both the sixties and human evolution. It is a work that will live forever.
“Books are like angels that move between the living and the dead.” Joe Speer.
Adios, my friend, you will be missed.
See you on the next run.
Jazz.
But every so often death moves too close. It taps our shoulder and inhabits our conscious lives. The death of a child, whose innocence offends our sense of justice, or a promising youth who never reached fulfillment, or the death of a brethren spirit, someone who exemplified the kind of person we always admired and strove to be.
Beatlick Joe Speer has waved his last goodbye on this journey through life on the planet earth. He has gone to a place where only memories and spiritual messaging can reach him. He was an artist in the purest sense, a master carpenter in the medium of words, a fellow traveler in search of wisdom and inspiration and possessing more than his share of both. Along with his longtime wife and partner, Beatlick Pamela Hirst, he cultivated art and artists, provided a forum for voices longing to be heard, and transformed the world he encountered into a more interesting and better place.
It was my pleasure to share the stage in a recorded production of perhaps my most inspired and least understood work: Dark Underground. I can still hear his Ornette Coleman riffs, rising, falling, punctuated pauses and elongated phonemes, hammering a beat only he could feel. Not only words, which he possessed in abundance, but a master of sound as well.
No one will ever take the place of Beatlick Joe Speer. He leaves behind friends, family, a legacy of prose and poetry, and his masterwork: Backpack Trekker: A Sixties Flashback. It is a work that stakes a place in history, literature, sociology and psychology. It is an exploration of the soul of an artist and stands alone as a chronicle of both the sixties and human evolution. It is a work that will live forever.
“Books are like angels that move between the living and the dead.” Joe Speer.
Adios, my friend, you will be missed.
See you on the next run.
Jazz.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Beatlicks: Fighting off Death
I fought off death last night
Actually night before last. I suppose this was an hallucination. I have been working on editing Joe's book proof, setting up his new facebook page and reediting the website with the latest newsletter. I was working on the website all day and night and was shocked to see it was almost three o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. As I lay in bed, very sad and crying, I looked up in the dark at the ceiling. There was a faint glimmer of light. I began to see spinning and whirling entities fill the top of the room. Everything was rotating, smoky like giant white moths. These little whirls began to come towards me and Joe. I had no doubt that this was death, horrible furries, swirling around and trying to suck up Joe's soul. Evil horrible things. I stared at them and they flew close to my face taunting me, but I just kept my eyes wide open challenging them and leaned over Joe as he lay in the bed so they couldn't get at him. This went on for quite a few minutes. Finally they began to come together up in the ceiling and reshape into something more like clouds. It seemed I had been able to repel them but they were not leaving by any means.
I thought to myself this is working but I don't know how long I can keep my eyes wide open like this for the whole night. And then I realized they would never tolerate the light. So I merely got out of bed and turned on the light. Problem solved. But I tell you with ever fiber of my heart I believe I fought off death last night as it came to take Joe.
The next day new medication to help his nausea worked and he was able to eat just a little bit but at least something. He has been literally starving to death for two weeks. So I can get some food in him, he has rallied enough to sit in on the editing sessions and I do believe he will make it to The Source on Thursday here in Albuquerque for a little tribute celebration in his honor. It's at 1111 Carlisle SE here in Albuquerque.
This is the only good thing that has happened in such a long time. Joe won't have long for this world, but at least I hope he will live to hold the final edition of his book. The editing is going on fast and furious, six of us at a time sitting around the table editing the proofs.
Love and peace
Beatlick Pamela
Actually night before last. I suppose this was an hallucination. I have been working on editing Joe's book proof, setting up his new facebook page and reediting the website with the latest newsletter. I was working on the website all day and night and was shocked to see it was almost three o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. As I lay in bed, very sad and crying, I looked up in the dark at the ceiling. There was a faint glimmer of light. I began to see spinning and whirling entities fill the top of the room. Everything was rotating, smoky like giant white moths. These little whirls began to come towards me and Joe. I had no doubt that this was death, horrible furries, swirling around and trying to suck up Joe's soul. Evil horrible things. I stared at them and they flew close to my face taunting me, but I just kept my eyes wide open challenging them and leaned over Joe as he lay in the bed so they couldn't get at him. This went on for quite a few minutes. Finally they began to come together up in the ceiling and reshape into something more like clouds. It seemed I had been able to repel them but they were not leaving by any means.
I thought to myself this is working but I don't know how long I can keep my eyes wide open like this for the whole night. And then I realized they would never tolerate the light. So I merely got out of bed and turned on the light. Problem solved. But I tell you with ever fiber of my heart I believe I fought off death last night as it came to take Joe.
The next day new medication to help his nausea worked and he was able to eat just a little bit but at least something. He has been literally starving to death for two weeks. So I can get some food in him, he has rallied enough to sit in on the editing sessions and I do believe he will make it to The Source on Thursday here in Albuquerque for a little tribute celebration in his honor. It's at 1111 Carlisle SE here in Albuquerque.
This is the only good thing that has happened in such a long time. Joe won't have long for this world, but at least I hope he will live to hold the final edition of his book. The editing is going on fast and furious, six of us at a time sitting around the table editing the proofs.
Love and peace
Beatlick Pamela
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