Friday, December 23, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
This Is It
I'm sending this one in. It's still 731 words, but so was the one in today's paper (more or less).
Is there a 'social contract' in America?
We live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world, size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes both die. Nature.
As Homo sapiens evolved, society emerged. Life would be better with some rules. The rise of agriculture led to a need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop, then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. Protecting the food supply was a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. Skip ahead to the 17th Century. People had been living in societies for centuries. Still, society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by the mighty, with a tripartite government legislating the will of the people into law and then enforcing the law. Enter the ‘social contract.’ We agree to give up any idea of absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Yet 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons'; a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street; followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For decades America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by smart investing. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because along with progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we again began to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates came down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to erode. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. With lower tax rates on capital gains capital would become more liquid, flowing around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
Thirty years later, prosperity for everyone has not followed. Instead we have income inequality as high as ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. Congress is in thrall to very well heeled special interests.
NO! we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all except hoard it. No! we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No! we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No! we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Is that really the way it’s going to be? Might makes right? No social contract? Why? Why do the wants of the few trump the needs of the many? It’s time for a new New Deal!
Is there a 'social contract' in America?
We live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world, size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes both die. Nature.
As Homo sapiens evolved, society emerged. Life would be better with some rules. The rise of agriculture led to a need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop, then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. Protecting the food supply was a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. Skip ahead to the 17th Century. People had been living in societies for centuries. Still, society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by the mighty, with a tripartite government legislating the will of the people into law and then enforcing the law. Enter the ‘social contract.’ We agree to give up any idea of absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Yet 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons'; a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street; followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For decades America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by smart investing. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because along with progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we again began to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates came down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to erode. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. With lower tax rates on capital gains capital would become more liquid, flowing around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
Thirty years later, prosperity for everyone has not followed. Instead we have income inequality as high as ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. Congress is in thrall to very well heeled special interests.
NO! we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all except hoard it. No! we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No! we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No! we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Is that really the way it’s going to be? Might makes right? No social contract? Why? Why do the wants of the few trump the needs of the many? It’s time for a new New Deal!
The Latest
Down to 734. Probably just read this one. ;
Is there a 'social contract' in America?
We live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world, size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes both die. Nature.
As Homo sapiens evolved, society emerged. Life would be better with some rules. The rise of agriculture led to a need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop, then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. Protecting the food supply was a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. Skip ahead to the 17th Century. People had been living in societies for centuries. Still, society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by the mighty, with a tripartite government legislating the will of the people into law and then enforcing the law. Enter the ‘social contract.’ We agree to give up any idea of absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Yet 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons'; a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street; followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For decades America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by smart investing. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because along with progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we again began to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates began to come down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to erode. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. As tax rates on capital gains came down capital would become more liquid, flowing around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
Thirty years later, prosperity for everyone has not followed. Instead we have income inequality as high as ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. Congress is in thrall to very well heeled special interests.
NO! we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all except hoard it. No! we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No! we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No! we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Is that really the way it’s going to be? Might makes right? No social contract? Why? Why do the wants of the few trump the needs of the many? It’s time for a new New Deal!
Is there a 'social contract' in America?
We live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world, size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes both die. Nature.
As Homo sapiens evolved, society emerged. Life would be better with some rules. The rise of agriculture led to a need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop, then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. Protecting the food supply was a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. Skip ahead to the 17th Century. People had been living in societies for centuries. Still, society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by the mighty, with a tripartite government legislating the will of the people into law and then enforcing the law. Enter the ‘social contract.’ We agree to give up any idea of absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Yet 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons'; a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street; followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For decades America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by smart investing. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because along with progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we again began to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates began to come down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to erode. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. As tax rates on capital gains came down capital would become more liquid, flowing around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
Thirty years later, prosperity for everyone has not followed. Instead we have income inequality as high as ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. Congress is in thrall to very well heeled special interests.
NO! we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all except hoard it. No! we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No! we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No! we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Is that really the way it’s going to be? Might makes right? No social contract? Why? Why do the wants of the few trump the needs of the many? It’s time for a new New Deal!
Shorter Yet
Don't feel compelled to read all of these. ; ) Down to 757.
Is there a 'social contract' in America?
We live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world, size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes both die. Nature.
As Homo sapiens evolved, society emerged. Life could be better if some rules were put into place. The rise of agriculture led to the need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop and then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a sense of society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. The need to protect the food supply is a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. Skip ahead to the 17th Century. People had been living in societies for centuries. Still, society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by the mighty, with a tripartite government legislating the will of the people into law and then enforcing the law. Enter the ‘social contract.’ We agree to give up any idea of absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Yet 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons'; a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street; followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For decades America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by m smart investing. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because along with progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we again began to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates began to come down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to erode. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. As 'impediments' on business were removed capital would be 'free.' As tax rates on capital gains came down capital would become more liquid, flowing around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
Thirty years later, prosperity for everyone has not followed. Instead we have income inequality as high as ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. We have a Congress in thrall to very well heeled special interests.
NO! we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all except hoard it. No! we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No! we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No! we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Is that really the way it’s going to be? Might makes right? No social contract? Why? Why do the wants of the few trump the needs of the many? It’s time for a new New Deal!
Is there a 'social contract' in America?
We live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world, size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes both die. Nature.
As Homo sapiens evolved, society emerged. Life could be better if some rules were put into place. The rise of agriculture led to the need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop and then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a sense of society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. The need to protect the food supply is a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. Skip ahead to the 17th Century. People had been living in societies for centuries. Still, society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by the mighty, with a tripartite government legislating the will of the people into law and then enforcing the law. Enter the ‘social contract.’ We agree to give up any idea of absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Yet 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons'; a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street; followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For decades America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by m smart investing. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because along with progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we again began to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates began to come down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to erode. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. As 'impediments' on business were removed capital would be 'free.' As tax rates on capital gains came down capital would become more liquid, flowing around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
Thirty years later, prosperity for everyone has not followed. Instead we have income inequality as high as ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. We have a Congress in thrall to very well heeled special interests.
NO! we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all except hoard it. No! we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No! we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No! we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Is that really the way it’s going to be? Might makes right? No social contract? Why? Why do the wants of the few trump the needs of the many? It’s time for a new New Deal!
Editing
I'm trying to get this down to 500 words. Harder than I thought. About 325 to go.
Is there a 'social contract' in America?
We live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world, size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes both die. Nature.
As Homo sapiens evolved, society emerged. Life could be better if some rules were put into place. The rise of agriculture led to the need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop and then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a sense of society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. The need to protect the food supply is a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. Skip ahead to the 17th Century. People had been living in societies for centuries. Still, society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by the mighty, with a tripartite government legislating the will of the people into law and then enforcing the law. Enter the ‘social contract.’ We agree to give up any idea of absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Alexander Hamilton foresaw that America would eventually face an old European problem: not enough land to support an ever-growing agrarian society. The solution would be an industrial, capitalist society, which he believed would best serve the needs of a free people. Still with the foundation that all are created equal. So whether a man was a landowner or not he would be an equal partner in this experiment in democracy.
Yet 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons,' a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street, followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal once again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For nearly fifty years America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by making smart investments. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because in addition to progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we again began to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates began to come down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to erode. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. As 'impediments' on business were removed capital would be 'free.' As tax rates on capital gains came down capital would become more liquid, flowing all around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
Thirty years later, prosperity for everyone has not followed. Instead we see income inequality as high as ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. We have a Congress completely in thrall to very well heeled special interests. NO! we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all except hoard it. No! we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No! we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No! we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Is that really the way it’s going to be? Might makes right? No social contract? Why? Why do the wants of the few trump the needs of the many? It’s time for a new New Deal!
Is there a 'social contract' in America?
We live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world, size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes both die. Nature.
As Homo sapiens evolved, society emerged. Life could be better if some rules were put into place. The rise of agriculture led to the need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop and then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a sense of society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. The need to protect the food supply is a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. Skip ahead to the 17th Century. People had been living in societies for centuries. Still, society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by the mighty, with a tripartite government legislating the will of the people into law and then enforcing the law. Enter the ‘social contract.’ We agree to give up any idea of absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Alexander Hamilton foresaw that America would eventually face an old European problem: not enough land to support an ever-growing agrarian society. The solution would be an industrial, capitalist society, which he believed would best serve the needs of a free people. Still with the foundation that all are created equal. So whether a man was a landowner or not he would be an equal partner in this experiment in democracy.
Yet 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons,' a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street, followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal once again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For nearly fifty years America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by making smart investments. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because in addition to progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we again began to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates began to come down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to erode. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. As 'impediments' on business were removed capital would be 'free.' As tax rates on capital gains came down capital would become more liquid, flowing all around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
Thirty years later, prosperity for everyone has not followed. Instead we see income inequality as high as ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. We have a Congress completely in thrall to very well heeled special interests. NO! we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all except hoard it. No! we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No! we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No! we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Is that really the way it’s going to be? Might makes right? No social contract? Why? Why do the wants of the few trump the needs of the many? It’s time for a new New Deal!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
The Social Contract
Is there a 'social contract' in America? If yes, could I see a copy?
In many ways we live in a world of competing interests. Always have, always will. It's the nature of the universe. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. In the animal world size matters. And strength. And desire and craftiness and persistence. If two bears want the same spot they don't call for arbitration, they don't negotiate with each other (not verbally anyway) and they don't call the cops or their lawyers. They fight. One wins, one leaves. Sometimes maybe both die. Nature.
At some point, as homo sapiens evolved, something called society emerged. Life could be better, people realized, if certain rules were put into place. The rise of agriculture led to the need for property rights. Nobody wanted to plant, grow and harvest a crop and then watch helplessly as marauders stormed through and stole the produce of a season of labor and diligence. With rights came the need for laws, with laws the need for enforcement. All of this depended upon cooperation, a sense of society.
Early on 'might' still made 'right,' most of the time. The need to protect the food supply is a beginning but there is more to a social contract than that. So let's fast forward to the 17th Century. By this time people had been living in societies for centuries. But some people perceived that society could be improved upon. Why should a handful of people live in luxury while millions did all the work and barely survived? Locke and Rousseau exposited that all people were born free. In the newly emerging United States of America Jefferson and Madison ran with this idea and with many allies created a new Nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The new Constitution set up a government of, for and by the people, taking us further away from the idea that might makes right. America would be ruled by law, not by a Monarch, with a tripartite government charged with putting the will of the people into law and then enforcing those laws. This is where a social contract comes in. We all agree to give up any idea of having absolute liberty in order to create a workable society.
Alexander Hamilton foresaw that America would eventually come up against an old European problem: not enough land to support a simple, and growing, agrarian society. The solution would be an industrial, capitalist society, which he believed would best serve the needs of a free people. But we would still have as our foundation that all are created equal. So whether a man was a landowner or not he would be an equal partner in this experiment in democracy.
As time went by 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons,' a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street, followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal once again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For nearly fifty years America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by making smart investments. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because in addition to progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we began once again to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates began to come down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to be eroded. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. As 'impediments' on business were removed capital would be 'free.' As tax rates on capital gains came down capital would become more liquid, flowing all around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
It is now thirty years later. Prosperity for everyone has not followed. Rather we are looking at income inequality approaching the highest levels ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. We have a Congress completely in thrall to very well-heeled special interests. (And that 'special interest' is keeping the 80% of the wealth in the hands of the top ten per cent right where it is. And adding to it.) NO!, we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all; all they can do is hoard it. No!, we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No!, we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No!, we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Alexander Hamilton foresaw that America would eventually come up against an old European problem: not enough land to support a simple, and growing, agrarian society. The solution would be an industrial, capitalist society, which he believed would best serve the needs of a free people. But we would still have as our foundation that all are created equal. So whether a man was a landowner or not he would be an equal partner in this experiment in democracy.
As time went by 'might makes right' continually had to be contended with. We saw an age of 'robber barons,' a 'roaring twenties' when might made right on Wall Street, followed by a Great Depression, in response to which a bold President led us into a new era, characterized by a New Deal between the people and their government. This New Deal once again asserted that it's actually right that makes might and right is defined by what is good for the most (not the fewest).
For nearly fifty years America prospered. The rich got richer, but only by being innovative or by making smart investments. Capital flowed to where it could best be utilized. Workers prospered because in addition to progressive taxation labor unions flourished, enabling workers to get a healthy share of the fruits of their labor. Beginning in 1981, however, and the Reagan Revolution, we began once again to see the 'rights' of the few being exalted at the expense of the common good. Tax rates began to come down, especially on high incomes, very especially if the income derived from investments rather than from work. The rights of labor began to be eroded. Wall Street regulations were relaxed. It's OK, we were told. This will benefit everyone. As 'impediments' on business were removed capital would be 'free.' As tax rates on capital gains came down capital would become more liquid, flowing all around the economy at such a high rate that prosperity for everyone would ensue.
It is now thirty years later. Prosperity for everyone has not followed. Rather we are looking at income inequality approaching the highest levels ever seen in a modern industrialized nation. More people now live in or near poverty than at any time in our history. Might makes right is back with a vengeance. We have a Congress completely in thrall to very well-heeled special interests. (And that 'special interest' is keeping the 80% of the wealth in the hands of the top ten per cent right where it is. And adding to it.) NO!, we can't raise taxes on the super rich. Not even the super duper rich. The ones with so much money they don't even know what to do with it all; all they can do is hoard it. No!, we can't revive unions and push membership back up to pre-Reagan levels. No!, we can't strengthen Medicare or Social Security, perhaps by removing the caps on the income that gets taxed to fund it. No!, we can't have single-payer health care, or even a 'public option.' No, no, NO! Might makes right, baby.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Unmaking of the American Consensus
So, what does Perlstein mean by 'the American consensus.'
He never explicitly says but the sense that I get from the book, which also ties in with what I know about 20th century American history, was that after the Great Depression and with the coming of the New Deal there was a new agreement between the government and the people. The new part, of course, was that there would now be a social safety net, including, but not limited to, Social Security.
American electoral politics for about 30 years, then, featured the two parties jockeying over what should and what should not be included. It also featured near total dominance of national electoral politics by the Democrats. From 1932 to 1968 the Democrats won seven out of nine presidential elections (the only two losses being to the most middle of the road Republican in history) and dominated in both the House and the Senate, often with super-majorities.
During this time the Republican 'brain trust' strategized that the only way to win any offices was to offer 'tweaks' to Democratic policies. This was also the period during which the armed forces were desegregated by executive order, the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson with Brown v. Board of Education and the Freedom Rides' and first sit-ins took place.
For reasons having to do with racism and possibly other resentments (but definitely racism) the old 'states rights' b.s. began to be heard again. Some movers and shakers (guys with money) began to sound each other out and plot a 'new course' for the Republican party. These were guys who were not 'professional' Republicans; rather they were businessmen who always voted Republican and wanted to take the party to the right. Little by little they discovered that they were not alone in feeling resentment toward the federal government and the New Deal.
Perlstein begins his book by putting us in the room with some of these early planners, e.g. Clarence Manion, who resented 'big labor' far more than anything else. To win more converts they realized that they needed to exploit white resentment of the (actually very slow) growth of the Civil Rights Movement.
As the story unfolds we see a rather disparate group of actors, each with an agenda that, while different from many of the other actors, coalesced around the idea of 'Conservatism.' Clearly, then as now, Conservatism meant different things to different people, but they all agreed that step one was running more conservative candidates for national office. They saw no value in running candidates who they viewed as Democrats by another name. Barry Goldwater was the man in whom most of these movers saw themselves reflected.
The story is fairly convoluted; Goldwater insisted for three years that he had no interest in running for President. Once he finally came aboard there was much competition as to who would run the campaign. Goldwater was often not consulted or listened to regarding his platform. Several times during the campaign he gave speeches which contradicted earlier pronouncements, especially regarding 'southern issues.'
In the end Goldwater was on the wrong end of one of the most lopsided Presidential elections in U.S. history. Through it all the campaign, and Goldwater, never took a backward, or even a sideways, step. A new ideology had entered American politics (or possibly reentered) and despite the predictions of the pundits of the time (the Republican party would take decades to recover) the way was opened for Nixon to win in '68 (southern strategy) and for the rise of Reagan in 1980. And for the end of the 'American Consensus.' Will we ever get it back?
He never explicitly says but the sense that I get from the book, which also ties in with what I know about 20th century American history, was that after the Great Depression and with the coming of the New Deal there was a new agreement between the government and the people. The new part, of course, was that there would now be a social safety net, including, but not limited to, Social Security.
American electoral politics for about 30 years, then, featured the two parties jockeying over what should and what should not be included. It also featured near total dominance of national electoral politics by the Democrats. From 1932 to 1968 the Democrats won seven out of nine presidential elections (the only two losses being to the most middle of the road Republican in history) and dominated in both the House and the Senate, often with super-majorities.
During this time the Republican 'brain trust' strategized that the only way to win any offices was to offer 'tweaks' to Democratic policies. This was also the period during which the armed forces were desegregated by executive order, the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson with Brown v. Board of Education and the Freedom Rides' and first sit-ins took place.
For reasons having to do with racism and possibly other resentments (but definitely racism) the old 'states rights' b.s. began to be heard again. Some movers and shakers (guys with money) began to sound each other out and plot a 'new course' for the Republican party. These were guys who were not 'professional' Republicans; rather they were businessmen who always voted Republican and wanted to take the party to the right. Little by little they discovered that they were not alone in feeling resentment toward the federal government and the New Deal.
Perlstein begins his book by putting us in the room with some of these early planners, e.g. Clarence Manion, who resented 'big labor' far more than anything else. To win more converts they realized that they needed to exploit white resentment of the (actually very slow) growth of the Civil Rights Movement.
As the story unfolds we see a rather disparate group of actors, each with an agenda that, while different from many of the other actors, coalesced around the idea of 'Conservatism.' Clearly, then as now, Conservatism meant different things to different people, but they all agreed that step one was running more conservative candidates for national office. They saw no value in running candidates who they viewed as Democrats by another name. Barry Goldwater was the man in whom most of these movers saw themselves reflected.
The story is fairly convoluted; Goldwater insisted for three years that he had no interest in running for President. Once he finally came aboard there was much competition as to who would run the campaign. Goldwater was often not consulted or listened to regarding his platform. Several times during the campaign he gave speeches which contradicted earlier pronouncements, especially regarding 'southern issues.'
In the end Goldwater was on the wrong end of one of the most lopsided Presidential elections in U.S. history. Through it all the campaign, and Goldwater, never took a backward, or even a sideways, step. A new ideology had entered American politics (or possibly reentered) and despite the predictions of the pundits of the time (the Republican party would take decades to recover) the way was opened for Nixon to win in '68 (southern strategy) and for the rise of Reagan in 1980. And for the end of the 'American Consensus.' Will we ever get it back?
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Finished It!
After The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus is in the outbox. I will write one more post about it. For tonight I will just say that they (the 'experts' of the time) sure were wrong about what the election meant for 'the cause.'
Also, I will examine what Perlstein meant by his subtitle. But right now I am going to bed. ; )
Also, I will examine what Perlstein meant by his subtitle. But right now I am going to bed. ; )
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Goldwater!
I'm still plugging away on the Goldwater book. I think, finally, I have 'turned the corner' and I can now 'see the light at the end of the tunnel.' (Vietnam is actually playing a very small role in the book.)
The biggest thing I'm noticing right now (I'm past the conventions and into the general election campaign) is how inept the Goldwater campaign was. Part of that we can credit to Goldwater who insisted that he would not compromise his principles to pander to a wider base. But we can also blame his staff for greatly overestimating the candidate's potential. They mistook rabid enthusiasm from the hard core base for wide-spread appeal. There was also a strong distrust of 'political insiders' so the campaign was run by novices.
Add to all of that Goldwater's apparent tone-deafness to his audiences and to the shifting perceptions of the various issues. He consistently displayed impeccably poor timing with his campaign speeches. For example railing against the Evil of the TVA and announcing his plan to 'privatize' it. In eastern Tennessee. Went over like a lead balloon. Which illustrates the inherent problem with 'conservative' politics: people love it in theory (some people) but when it comes down to it they want their Social Security, Medicare, etc.
I'll give a final report in about a week. I hope. I'm ready for something new. ; )
The biggest thing I'm noticing right now (I'm past the conventions and into the general election campaign) is how inept the Goldwater campaign was. Part of that we can credit to Goldwater who insisted that he would not compromise his principles to pander to a wider base. But we can also blame his staff for greatly overestimating the candidate's potential. They mistook rabid enthusiasm from the hard core base for wide-spread appeal. There was also a strong distrust of 'political insiders' so the campaign was run by novices.
Add to all of that Goldwater's apparent tone-deafness to his audiences and to the shifting perceptions of the various issues. He consistently displayed impeccably poor timing with his campaign speeches. For example railing against the Evil of the TVA and announcing his plan to 'privatize' it. In eastern Tennessee. Went over like a lead balloon. Which illustrates the inherent problem with 'conservative' politics: people love it in theory (some people) but when it comes down to it they want their Social Security, Medicare, etc.
I'll give a final report in about a week. I hope. I'm ready for something new. ; )
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
New Letter
I sent another letter to the editor, just now. Jonah Goldberg's column got me started. I really only picked on his opening and I explain it in my letter so I'm not posting a link to Goldberg's piece. Here's my letter:
I believe that's 204 words, which is 'pushing it,' so I don't get into how I would pay for all this public sector hiring. I expect I'll get called Socialist! by some online commenters (pretty much the worst insult they can think of, too, should I be insulted?). I think socialism might begin to gain traction in the U.S. before too much longer, too, but that's not the way I would go. Not first, anyway.
No, I think we could have a much healthier economy with a thriving middle class and a robust public sector just by readjusting the tax burden. Close some loopholes (if we could ever get our bought and paid for Congress to do it) and make the rate more progressive again. Once the middle class is thriving revenues go up from them; the rich always do well and have been skating without paying enough for too long. They'll fight any increase but let's fight them back and beat them! Do it I say!
I agree with Jonah Goldberg (gasp!); a Master's Degree in puppetry is a hard thing to make a living from. This is part of his point that 'the left' doesn't 'get it.' I wish he had gone on to say what they should 'get.' That everything will be fine if everyone figures out his own solution? 25 million unemployed? That's 25 million individual problems with individual solutions.
How about a collective action approach instead? Where could we use more people? The legal system? Is there not a huge backlog of cases? How about social services? How about education? Do we really have enough teachers or are we just unwilling to pay more? How about police? Is there 'ever a cop around when you need one'? Do they even monitor traffic anymore?
But yes, everything I mention is a public sector job. And there's no money, right? We're broke! How did that happen, anyway? We weren't always 'broke.' Didn't that happen over the last thirty years while we've been stubbornly pursuing a policy of putting the self over the community? Which has led to us being 'broke,' collectively, while a handful of individuals and corporate 'people' have grown wealthy almost beyond measure.
Think about it.
How about a collective action approach instead? Where could we use more people? The legal system? Is there not a huge backlog of cases? How about social services? How about education? Do we really have enough teachers or are we just unwilling to pay more? How about police? Is there 'ever a cop around when you need one'? Do they even monitor traffic anymore?
But yes, everything I mention is a public sector job. And there's no money, right? We're broke! How did that happen, anyway? We weren't always 'broke.' Didn't that happen over the last thirty years while we've been stubbornly pursuing a policy of putting the self over the community? Which has led to us being 'broke,' collectively, while a handful of individuals and corporate 'people' have grown wealthy almost beyond measure.
Think about it.
I believe that's 204 words, which is 'pushing it,' so I don't get into how I would pay for all this public sector hiring. I expect I'll get called Socialist! by some online commenters (pretty much the worst insult they can think of, too, should I be insulted?). I think socialism might begin to gain traction in the U.S. before too much longer, too, but that's not the way I would go. Not first, anyway.
No, I think we could have a much healthier economy with a thriving middle class and a robust public sector just by readjusting the tax burden. Close some loopholes (if we could ever get our bought and paid for Congress to do it) and make the rate more progressive again. Once the middle class is thriving revenues go up from them; the rich always do well and have been skating without paying enough for too long. They'll fight any increase but let's fight them back and beat them! Do it I say!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Joe the Marine?
Can you read what he's holding up?
I am a former Marine.
I work two jobs.
I don’t have health insurance.
I worked 60-70 hours a week for 8 years to pay my way through college.
I haven’t had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years.
But I don’t blame Wall Street.
Suck it up you whiners.
I am the 53%.
God bless the USA!
Joe the Marine? Or more like Joe the Plumber?
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Before The Storm
I'm reading Rick Perlstein's Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, slowly. I'm just past half way. The JFK assassination is about the midpoint.
What strikes me so far is the way in which Perlstein uses Goldwater as a center piece of his narrative but doesn't focus on him. The action is driven by others. Clarence Manion is the first character to be introduced. Clif White is another major player. He introduces us to William F. Buckley, Jr., Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller, the last two as 'antagonists.'
The thesis of the book is that a 'Conservative' movement grew out of various resentments toward the 'New Deal' and the 'rights of Labor' and began to coalesce around Barry Goldwater, partly for aesthetic reasons. Much as Ronald Reagan would later, Goldwater seemed to embody the thoughts and feelings of many thousands of Americans. Part of this was because many people projected their own feelings onto Goldwater, who did speak often of a new, Conservative approach to American government. (New in one sense, anyway.)
We'll see what happens next. There's talk of a run for President, in '64. ; )
What strikes me so far is the way in which Perlstein uses Goldwater as a center piece of his narrative but doesn't focus on him. The action is driven by others. Clarence Manion is the first character to be introduced. Clif White is another major player. He introduces us to William F. Buckley, Jr., Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller, the last two as 'antagonists.'
The thesis of the book is that a 'Conservative' movement grew out of various resentments toward the 'New Deal' and the 'rights of Labor' and began to coalesce around Barry Goldwater, partly for aesthetic reasons. Much as Ronald Reagan would later, Goldwater seemed to embody the thoughts and feelings of many thousands of Americans. Part of this was because many people projected their own feelings onto Goldwater, who did speak often of a new, Conservative approach to American government. (New in one sense, anyway.)
We'll see what happens next. There's talk of a run for President, in '64. ; )
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Occupy Wall Street
Steve Chapman writes for the Chicago Tribune. His column is syndicated and carried in many 'local' papers. The Wisconsin State Journal carries his column on Sundays. He tends toward the conservative point of view but he isn't bound by ideology and his pieces are always worthy of my time. ; )
This week, however, I felt the need to rebut. You can likely find his piece on the interwebs. Occupy Wall Street Has Got It Wrong is the title that I see. here's what I had to say:
I like reading Steve Chapman's column on Sundays and I hope the WSJ continues to carry it. He misses the mark a bit, though, this time around. It IS difficult to say exactly what the Occupy movement is all about; many different issues are mentioned via signs and interviews. But there IS a common thread, and he mentions it in his conclusion. "When the economy crashes, it's those with the least ... who suffer the most." What he ignores is that "the economy" didn't just mysteriously "crash." The reckless, greedy actions of a few, aided and abetted by a money-corrupted Congress, CAUSED it. And to date not only has no one been punished but the worst offenders have been rewarded with taxpayer-funded bailouts used primarily for "bonuses" and gobbling up smaller banks. The issue, then, is not that the rich have so much wealth but that they have excessive political influence. A government that represents the interests of the few at the expense of the many is NOT a democracy. THAT'S worth protesting and I'm glad somebody is.
They usually print my letters, now that I've ceased sending them almost daily. We'll see. Probably about Wednesday is my prediction.
This week, however, I felt the need to rebut. You can likely find his piece on the interwebs. Occupy Wall Street Has Got It Wrong is the title that I see. here's what I had to say:
I like reading Steve Chapman's column on Sundays and I hope the WSJ continues to carry it. He misses the mark a bit, though, this time around. It IS difficult to say exactly what the Occupy movement is all about; many different issues are mentioned via signs and interviews. But there IS a common thread, and he mentions it in his conclusion. "When the economy crashes, it's those with the least ... who suffer the most." What he ignores is that "the economy" didn't just mysteriously "crash." The reckless, greedy actions of a few, aided and abetted by a money-corrupted Congress, CAUSED it. And to date not only has no one been punished but the worst offenders have been rewarded with taxpayer-funded bailouts used primarily for "bonuses" and gobbling up smaller banks. The issue, then, is not that the rich have so much wealth but that they have excessive political influence. A government that represents the interests of the few at the expense of the many is NOT a democracy. THAT'S worth protesting and I'm glad somebody is.
They usually print my letters, now that I've ceased sending them almost daily. We'll see. Probably about Wednesday is my prediction.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
From My "Junior" Year
This was my contribution to a group 'sustainability project' in my Botany 100 class, Spring '10. We were trying to address the needs of feeding the population of the world, in the foreseeable future. Mine involves slowing population growth.
Can human population growth be checked? Sure. Several possibilities come to mind, but government mandated one-child policies wouldn’t be popular and genocide, wiping out a whole continent or a large part of one, … well, lets not go there.
Clearly we need to come up with a plan that involves voluntary compliance. Let’s look at the graph. Here we see world population trending ever upwards. Looking closer we see some of these lines flattening out and three trending up, especially these two. Really especially, this one. Africa.
"I delivered all these children because I didn't know there was another way," said Adongo, who started on a free quarterly contraceptive injection last year. Surrounded by her weary-faced brood, her 21-month-old boy clutching at her faded blue dress, she added glumly: "I fear we are already too many in this family." (Ya think?)
“On a continent where fewer than one in five married women use modern contraception, an explosion of unplanned pregnancies is threatening to bury Adongo's family and a generation of Africans under a mountain of poverty.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/12/13/80331/bush-birth-control-policies-helped.html
We have to be careful, now, not to blame everything on Africa, but really, we can only do so much with our population. It’s actually trending the right way.
“"Fifty-one million unintended pregnancies in developing countries occur every year to women not using contraception," the World Bank said in a statement released on the eve of World Population Day.Although birth rates have fallen in the past 30 years, in 35 countries -- 31 in sub-Saharan Africa and East Timor, Afghanistan, Djibouti, and Yemen -- birth rates are more than five children per mother.
A global approach, encompassing not only contraception but also better access to education, is needed to bring down the fertility rate in countries where it is still too high and puts the lives of women at risk, said Sadia Chowdhury, senior reproductive and child health specialist at the World Bank.
"Girls' and women's education is just as important in reducing birth rates as supplying contraception," said Chowdhury, who is also a pediatrician.
"Women's education provides life-saving knowledge, builds job skills that allow her to join the workforce and marry later in life, gives her the power to say how many children she wants and when.
"And these are enduring qualities she will hand down to her daughters as well," said Chowdhury, co-author of a World Bank report on contraception and unintended pregnancies in Africa, eastern Europe and central Asia.
Countries with a high birth rate also tend to have high maternal mortality, infant mortality and poverty, and poor education, health care, and nutrition, Chowdhury said.
"It all adds up. When you see one thing not happening, you see other development aspects not happening," she said.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hboHlfuYX7-7E5wPRixdHRut8YjA
So, policy-makers in developing countries can be appealed to on the grounds that family planning best serves their people. Not just that they are over-populating the world.
| As a general rule, when women become literate and educational attainment rates rise, birth rates fall. That isn't just a vague policy statement that's hard to grasp. That's a real predictor of actual behavior – across the board. The higher an education a woman has, the fewer the children the woman will have. That's because typically a woman getting an education will put off getting married and having children until she's finished with her education. Educated women learn about contraception and family planning, so they have fewer unwanted pregnancies. Even further still, education broadens their perspectives about what the world has to offer them besides being a wife and mother.** Which is why there are a number of cultures around the world consciously preventing their daughters from being educated. It isn't because they believe girls are incapable of learning. It's the reverse: they fear what the girls could accomplish if they were educated. They're losing out. Not only are they missing the contributions those women could have made, actually, educated women also learn about how to better care for the children they already have. They spend more time, not less, with their kids. They stimulate and engage the children in ways that would never even occur to those without an education. So … they're better moms. http://www.pobronson.com/factbook/pages/225.html |  |
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Under President George W. Bush, the United States withdrew from its decades-long role as a global leader in supporting family planning, driven by a conservative ideology that favored abstinence and shied away from providing contraceptive devices in developing countries, even to married women.
Bush's mammoth global anti-AIDS initiative, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, poured billions of dollars into Africa but prohibited groups from spending any of it on family planning services or counseling programs, whose budgets flat-lined.
The restrictions flew in the face of research by international aid agencies, the U.N. World Health Organization and the U.S. government's own experts, all of whom touted contraception as a crucial method of preventing births of babies being infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The Bush program is widely hailed as a success, having supplied lifesaving anti-retroviral drugs to more than 2 million HIV patients worldwide.
However, researchers, Africa experts and veteran U.S. health officials now think that PEPFAR also contributed to Africa's epidemic population growth by undermining efforts to help women in some of the world's poorest countries exercise greater control over their fertility.
"It was a huge missed opportunity to integrate HIV/AIDS and reproductive health in ways that made sense," said Jotham Musinguzi, a Ugandan physician who heads the Africa office of Partners in Population and Development, an intergovernmental group that promotes sexual health in developing countries.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/12/13/80331/bush-birth-control-policies-helped.html
So, can you and I make a difference, on a global scale? Yes we can. We do it by holding our elected officials accountable for implementing sensible policies regarding aid to developing countries, including modern contraception as a means of effective family planning, as well as combating AIDS.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
I Understand, Now
I had a high school physics course; actually two semester-long ones. I didn't get much out of it/them. That was in the 1970s. In the 1990s I bought Stephen Hawkings' A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. I started it, couldn't finish. Only read about 15 pages. It was a combination of too 'dry' and a bit over my head. I hadn't been exposed to any of the concepts in any but the most superficial way and it was easy to just toss it aside.
Last night I picked it up again. (I found it on top of a stack in a box in my storage locker and brought it upstairs, earlier in the week.) I opened to the table of contents. Chapter 4: The Uncertainty Principle. I remembered we had talked about that in my Physics 107 class, Fall semester, 2008. And that I didn't really get it, then, or remember anything about it now, other than the name Heisenberg goes with it. (I guess you could say I was uncertain.)
So I flipped to page 53 and started reading. OMG! I understand it now! And I only read three pages! WTF? Not only that, it shed new light on something else that had mystified me when I heard it referred to, at least three times over the years, that being the idea that the observer has an effect on the observed.
Obviously that idea makes sense if we think about humans behaving in a certain way if they feel 'unobserved' and a different way if they know they ARE being observed. But sub-atomic particles? How could they know they were being observed? They can't possibly, right? So what gives?
I see the rest of the chapter includes the 'two-slit experiment.' I have never understood that, either, and I hear that it isn't actually explainable, yet. But I think I'll read Hawkings' explanation. Do you think, maybe ... ?
Last night I picked it up again. (I found it on top of a stack in a box in my storage locker and brought it upstairs, earlier in the week.) I opened to the table of contents. Chapter 4: The Uncertainty Principle. I remembered we had talked about that in my Physics 107 class, Fall semester, 2008. And that I didn't really get it, then, or remember anything about it now, other than the name Heisenberg goes with it. (I guess you could say I was uncertain.)
So I flipped to page 53 and started reading. OMG! I understand it now! And I only read three pages! WTF? Not only that, it shed new light on something else that had mystified me when I heard it referred to, at least three times over the years, that being the idea that the observer has an effect on the observed.
Obviously that idea makes sense if we think about humans behaving in a certain way if they feel 'unobserved' and a different way if they know they ARE being observed. But sub-atomic particles? How could they know they were being observed? They can't possibly, right? So what gives?
I see the rest of the chapter includes the 'two-slit experiment.' I have never understood that, either, and I hear that it isn't actually explainable, yet. But I think I'll read Hawkings' explanation. Do you think, maybe ... ?
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Occupado
So, what about this "Occupy" movement? Good, bad, silly, crazy, harmless, criminal? Who are the occupiers? Who are their leaders?
Usually when I start out with questions I attempt to answer them in the rest of the post. Not today. Those are all "good" questions but as nearly as I can tell none of them has a definite answer. In any case, I have no definitive answers. Maybe you can tell me.
Which doesn't mean I have nothing to say. So, what follows is what I would do if I was pulling their strings, starting ... now.
First off, any and all violence is forbidden. Self-defense, OK, but self-defense is not violence. And, there will be no need to defend yourselves from the police because starting NOW, all laws will be obeyed. If your group is told that it's time to move along then MOVE ALONG. Pick anther spot, go on home for a couple days, whatever. But clear the area.
I saw a bit of an interview with a young woman tonight, from Oakland. The question I remember being asked of her was, "So, what should the cops have done?" Her answer: "I think using (tactics such as rubber bullets and tear gas, I forget the details) was hugely inappropriate."
Well thanks, honey, for nothing, though. The question WAS, what should the police have DONE? Not, please give us your opinion of the appropriateness of what they did. Bit of a difference, don't you know.
I understand that sometimes pushing the police to respond with, arguably, excessive force is a tactic. In MY opinion (as the new boss) it is a tactic that ill-suits our purpose. Hamas uses that tactic, to get Israel to respond with massive force. Are we Hamas? No! Are our objectives similar to those of Hamas? No! This is an assymetric warfare tactic and we are NOT AT WAR! We are angry but, as some of us are fond of saying, or attaching to our bumpers, War Is Not The Answer! Let's keep that in mind.
(When she was asked if what the police alleged was true, that they had thrown, I believe, rocks and bricks at the officers as they moved in she said yes, but since the police were wearing riot gear that wasn't so bad and the police response was out of proportion.)
So people, listen up! We are NOT going to be forcing confrontation. That is NOT what this is about. We aren't the Civil Rights Movement. We're pissed about the way big money interests have stolen our democracy from us and turned capitalism into corporatism, borderline fascism. And there is a way to redress that.
We needed to raise awareness. We have done so. Reliable polls show that America is aware of us and largely on our side. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE THAT! And the more we look like a lawless bunch of radicals the more we lose whatever hard-won respect we DO have. So ...
... we move on to the next phase. Coordinated political activity. It's the only way any progress has ever been achieved in America, and that's something to be proud of because America has achieved some great, progressive goals (yes, we're skipping the Civil War, here). The Democratic Party will hereby be put on notice. WE are your base. THIS is what we insist upon. ECONOMIC JUSTICE. We don't give a FUCK if Glenn Beck wants to call us Socialists, because who the fuck is GlennBeck, anyway? Ditto for Rush Limbaugh. Let him howl. It's what he does. Democratic Party, you WILL represent us or we WILL desert you. We can do it. We WILL do it. We will start a third party. We are strong. We will not win in 2012 but we WILL NOT GO AWAY. We will only grow STRONGER!
This is our message. Everyone go home, unless you have a permit for your occupation, as needed. We can mobilize again. But for now I call for POLITICAL action. It's the only way we can win. If we stick together we WILL WIN! WE ARE THE 99%!
Usually when I start out with questions I attempt to answer them in the rest of the post. Not today. Those are all "good" questions but as nearly as I can tell none of them has a definite answer. In any case, I have no definitive answers. Maybe you can tell me.
Which doesn't mean I have nothing to say. So, what follows is what I would do if I was pulling their strings, starting ... now.
First off, any and all violence is forbidden. Self-defense, OK, but self-defense is not violence. And, there will be no need to defend yourselves from the police because starting NOW, all laws will be obeyed. If your group is told that it's time to move along then MOVE ALONG. Pick anther spot, go on home for a couple days, whatever. But clear the area.
I saw a bit of an interview with a young woman tonight, from Oakland. The question I remember being asked of her was, "So, what should the cops have done?" Her answer: "I think using (tactics such as rubber bullets and tear gas, I forget the details) was hugely inappropriate."
Well thanks, honey, for nothing, though. The question WAS, what should the police have DONE? Not, please give us your opinion of the appropriateness of what they did. Bit of a difference, don't you know.
I understand that sometimes pushing the police to respond with, arguably, excessive force is a tactic. In MY opinion (as the new boss) it is a tactic that ill-suits our purpose. Hamas uses that tactic, to get Israel to respond with massive force. Are we Hamas? No! Are our objectives similar to those of Hamas? No! This is an assymetric warfare tactic and we are NOT AT WAR! We are angry but, as some of us are fond of saying, or attaching to our bumpers, War Is Not The Answer! Let's keep that in mind.
(When she was asked if what the police alleged was true, that they had thrown, I believe, rocks and bricks at the officers as they moved in she said yes, but since the police were wearing riot gear that wasn't so bad and the police response was out of proportion.)
So people, listen up! We are NOT going to be forcing confrontation. That is NOT what this is about. We aren't the Civil Rights Movement. We're pissed about the way big money interests have stolen our democracy from us and turned capitalism into corporatism, borderline fascism. And there is a way to redress that.
We needed to raise awareness. We have done so. Reliable polls show that America is aware of us and largely on our side. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE THAT! And the more we look like a lawless bunch of radicals the more we lose whatever hard-won respect we DO have. So ...
... we move on to the next phase. Coordinated political activity. It's the only way any progress has ever been achieved in America, and that's something to be proud of because America has achieved some great, progressive goals (yes, we're skipping the Civil War, here). The Democratic Party will hereby be put on notice. WE are your base. THIS is what we insist upon. ECONOMIC JUSTICE. We don't give a FUCK if Glenn Beck wants to call us Socialists, because who the fuck is GlennBeck, anyway? Ditto for Rush Limbaugh. Let him howl. It's what he does. Democratic Party, you WILL represent us or we WILL desert you. We can do it. We WILL do it. We will start a third party. We are strong. We will not win in 2012 but we WILL NOT GO AWAY. We will only grow STRONGER!
This is our message. Everyone go home, unless you have a permit for your occupation, as needed. We can mobilize again. But for now I call for POLITICAL action. It's the only way we can win. If we stick together we WILL WIN! WE ARE THE 99%!
Friday, October 14, 2011
Reload
This may shock and amaze you but I'm pulling the plug on the Kennedy assassination book. 1,500 pages of excruciating detail just doesn't fit the schedule right now. I have another book from the library that I've already started (God: A Brief History) and Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, a precursor to Nixonland, came in today's mail.
But I can tell you this, just the same: Oswald did it! If you want further convincing, find the book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, by Vincent Bugliosi, read the introduction, and see if you aren't satisfied. If not, keep reading.
Later.
But I can tell you this, just the same: Oswald did it! If you want further convincing, find the book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, by Vincent Bugliosi, read the introduction, and see if you aren't satisfied. If not, keep reading.
Later.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
JFK
As I was nearing the finish of Nixonland I remembered that Vincent Bugliosi had written about the Kennedy assassination a couple years back. Not sure but maybe something in Nixonland triggered it; anyway I had always meant to read that one so I went and found it in one of the libraries on campus.
Reading the 36 page preface and the early part of the text I realized that in addition to examining the Kennedy assassination in excruciating detail and blowing up every conspiracy myth you've ever heard of, Bugliosi is writing on the same theme as Perlstein was: the polarization of America. Perlstein traced it to Nixon, Bugliosi goes back to that fateful day in 1963.
From the preface:
At approximately 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963, while President John F. Kennedy, the most powerful man in the free world, rode in his presidential limousine slowly past the Texas School Book Depository Building and down Elm Street in Dallas, Texas, three shots rang out ... lay mortally wounded on his wife Jaqueline's lap. The assassin had succeeded in brutally cutting down, at the age of forty-six, the thirty-fifth president of these United States, a man whose wit, charm and intelligence had captivated a world audience. The assassin's bullets had also extinguished a flame of hope for millions of Americans who saw in the youthful president at least the promise of excellence in national life.
As the years have shown, Kennedy's assassination immediately transformed him into a mythical, larger-than-life figure whose hold on the nation's imagination resonates to this very day. "The image of Kennedy is not based on what he accomplished, but on his promise, the hope he held out," said historian Stephen Ambrose in 1993. Years earlier, New York Times columnist James Reston wrote similarly that "what was killed in Dallas was not only the President but the promise. The heart of the Kennedy legend is what might have been. All this is apparent in the faces of the people who come daily to his grave on the Arlington Hill." In 1993, Ambrose added, "There's a very strong sense that if he had not died, we would not have suffered the 30 years of nightmare that followed--the race riots, the white backlash, assassinations, Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra." While this is, of course, speculative, what is not is JFK's legacy of rekindling the notion that public service is a noble calling. If it is any barometer of the sense of hope and promise that Kennedy inspired in the American people, the ever-decreasing trust by Americans in their government down through the years started with the Kennedy assassination and the subsequent erroneously perceived notion--fostered by conspiracy theorists--that the government concealed the full truth about the assassination from them. Trust in our leaders in Washington to do what is right for the people plummeted from 76 percent around the time of the assassination to a low of 19 percent three decades later. "There's such a gulf in history between the day before and the day after Kennedy's assassination," says historian Howard Jones of the University of Alabama. "It's as if we passed through a hundred years in a day."
The book is 1,500 pages long; I don't know if I'll read every word. So far I'm liking it.
More to come ...
Reading the 36 page preface and the early part of the text I realized that in addition to examining the Kennedy assassination in excruciating detail and blowing up every conspiracy myth you've ever heard of, Bugliosi is writing on the same theme as Perlstein was: the polarization of America. Perlstein traced it to Nixon, Bugliosi goes back to that fateful day in 1963.
From the preface:
At approximately 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963, while President John F. Kennedy, the most powerful man in the free world, rode in his presidential limousine slowly past the Texas School Book Depository Building and down Elm Street in Dallas, Texas, three shots rang out ... lay mortally wounded on his wife Jaqueline's lap. The assassin had succeeded in brutally cutting down, at the age of forty-six, the thirty-fifth president of these United States, a man whose wit, charm and intelligence had captivated a world audience. The assassin's bullets had also extinguished a flame of hope for millions of Americans who saw in the youthful president at least the promise of excellence in national life.
As the years have shown, Kennedy's assassination immediately transformed him into a mythical, larger-than-life figure whose hold on the nation's imagination resonates to this very day. "The image of Kennedy is not based on what he accomplished, but on his promise, the hope he held out," said historian Stephen Ambrose in 1993. Years earlier, New York Times columnist James Reston wrote similarly that "what was killed in Dallas was not only the President but the promise. The heart of the Kennedy legend is what might have been. All this is apparent in the faces of the people who come daily to his grave on the Arlington Hill." In 1993, Ambrose added, "There's a very strong sense that if he had not died, we would not have suffered the 30 years of nightmare that followed--the race riots, the white backlash, assassinations, Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra." While this is, of course, speculative, what is not is JFK's legacy of rekindling the notion that public service is a noble calling. If it is any barometer of the sense of hope and promise that Kennedy inspired in the American people, the ever-decreasing trust by Americans in their government down through the years started with the Kennedy assassination and the subsequent erroneously perceived notion--fostered by conspiracy theorists--that the government concealed the full truth about the assassination from them. Trust in our leaders in Washington to do what is right for the people plummeted from 76 percent around the time of the assassination to a low of 19 percent three decades later. "There's such a gulf in history between the day before and the day after Kennedy's assassination," says historian Howard Jones of the University of Alabama. "It's as if we passed through a hundred years in a day."
The book is 1,500 pages long; I don't know if I'll read every word. So far I'm liking it.
More to come ...
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Finished
I finished Nixonland, a couple hours ago. Good read; I recommend it. The author, Rick Perlstein, set out to ascertain how we had come to be such a divided country, in which the two political sides not only disagreed with each other but saw each other as mortal enemies.
Earlier I posted the first paragraph of the book's preface. Here it is again:
Earlier I posted the first paragraph of the book's preface. Here it is again:
In 1964, the Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson won practically the biggest landslide in American history, with 61.05 percent of the popular vote and 486 of 538 electoral college votes. In 1972, the Republican presidential candidate won a strikingly similar landslide--60.67 percent and 520 electoral college votes. In the eight years in between, the battle lines that define our culture and politics were forged in blood and fire. This is a book about how that happened, and why.
The "why" he traces to the period between that 1964 election and the subsequent one in 1968. Ronald Reagan is mentioned prominently, he won the Governor's race in California in 1966, but the book focuses on Richard Milhous Nixon (hence the title). Nixon's the one, Perlstein tells us, who identified the developing trend, rising out of the Civil Rights Movement and the ant-war protests, that middle America, whom Nixon would eventually refer to as The Silent Majority, did not like the direction in which the country was heading. There was a perception, Nixon felt, that the "liberals" and "elites" were leading in a direction that that Silent Majority weren't willing to follow. What they needed was someone to give voice to the resentments they were feeling.
Nixon was himself full of resentments: at the snobs who kept him out of the Universities he wanted to attend, at the big shots who wouldn't hire him to one of the top-tier Wall Street law firms, at the Kennedys, at the media, at the fat cat political donors who made him abase himself on national TV (the famous Checkers Speech). So he would show them all!
The second half of the 1960s was an easy time to find divides in America; Nixon exploited them expertly. And people like Abby Hoffman and Huey Newton stepped willingly up to personify everything Nixon told America it had to be afraid of. Bobby Seale exhorted African-Americans to buy "a gun a week," Jerry Rubin offered that it was the duty of the young to kill their parents. Peaceful protests gave way to violent confrontations, the Democratic Party was almost torn asunder; all of it played right into Dick Nixon's hands.
Nixon won in '68 but had to work with a Democratic-controlled Congress. Consequently a lot of progressive legislation passed over Nixon's signature and it can be argued that our 37th President did more for the environment than any predecessor or successor. He also signed into law the 26th amendment, granting 18 year olds the right to vote (though he privately feared that they would use it to defeat him).
Vietnam bedeviled him as it had LBJ before him. Nixon had actually used Vietnam as a club against Johnson, promising that his new policies would bring peace. Upon election, however, his new policies were to double down on the bombing while scaling back on ground forces in an act of political legerdemain. Not everyone was fooled by Nixon's "Vietnamization" policy and the war protests reached new heights, culminating in the Kent State Massacre. Nixon had done his work well and he actually gained in popularity as a result of Kent State. America had become an Us vs. Them nation.
Nixon's obsessions eventually led to his demise. Perlstein takes us through the whole menu of dirty tricks and presidential politicking that led to Nixon's crushing victory over McGovern and subsequent resignation in disgrace as the whole sordid story gradually was revealed. We read of Nixon's inability to enjoy his victory in '72, even on election night as it became evident that he was winning a historic landslide. He lamented not winning that 50th state (Massachusetts). He was miserable over not "coattailing" Republicans into majorities in Congress (in fact they lost two Senate seats.) And as always he was certain that the media were out to get him. In a way he was right.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
One Last
I have to share this part, yet. It's related to last night's post. Quoting, again:
The actress's trip marked the emergence of a new narrative about Vietnam: that people like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon weren't responsible for the disaster, but people like Fonda, stabbing America's soldiers and South Vietnamese allies in the back, were. It was the most convenient possible development for Richard Nixon--who was, exactly then, planning to stab America's soldiers and South Vietnamese allies in the back.
The ostensible aim of the war was to preserve an anticommunist government in Saigon absent the United States propping it up. Nixon had privately been maintaining since 1966 that this was impossible, and that the only question was the garb in which America would eventually cloak its withdrawal. Sometimes he imagined a politically satisfactory denouement might come of a knockout blow--as in his scuttled plans for Operation Duck Hook in 1969, or Operation Linebacker that spring. Other times he counted on his "madman" theory, with its threat of nuclear annihilation. Either way the point was to scare the enemy to sufficient concessions at the bargaining table that it would look as if the enemy had capitulated. Secret and intentional bombing of North Vietnamese dams and earthworks, if it was happening--and the president's "madman" signal on July 27 that if he wanted to decimate North Vietnamese agriculture he could do it in a week--was consistent with this logic. Massive bombing, enough to keep the Communists from overrunning Saigon until after his reelection, was the only way to preserve what he had started calling, stealing a phrase from the Democratic platform of 1952, "peace with honor."
But what he was working on now was neither honorable nor peace. His main concern was political timing. As the president put it to Kissinger on August 3rd, as the battered and bruised McGovern cast about desperately for a new running mate, "I look at the tide of history out there, South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway. I'm just being perfectly candid." The problem, he went on, was the presidential election: "It's terribly important this year."
Kissinger put two and two together. He and Nixon had been reading each other's mind for some time now. Kissinger noted, "If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it's the result of South Vietnamese incompetence." They could come up with peace agreement language--could "sell it in such a way," some transcribed Kissinger's words; others rendered it, just as pregnantly, "sell out in such a way"--that convinced South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu that America would stick with him until the end and get it agreed to in time for November. After which they could regrettably let "South Vietnam" evaporate and move on to other foreign policy problems.
For now they had to keep up military pressure, mining harbors, intimating wholesale dike-bombing, whatever it took to hold back the deluge during what diplomatic historians would later call a "decent interval": to "find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which--after a year, Mr. President--Vietnam will be a backwater." Then they could announce peace with honor. Only they would know they'd just stabbed South Vietnam in the back. "If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74 no one will give a damn."
But they couldn't settle it before October. They needed the war to keep going through the election. That way they could blame the continuation of war on the Democrats: their line could be, Haldeman wrote in a memo, that the sustained fighting proved the Communists were "absolutely at the end of their rope," their only chance of victory "to stagger through to November hoping that President Nixon will lose and they can get a good deal from the next administration."
Back in February, Nixon had said antiwar Democrats "might give the enemy an incentive to prolong the war until after the election." Actually, that was what he was doing, just as he had in 1968. Twenty years later, a superannuated Richard Nixon met with a group of young reporters just before the 1992 New Hampshire primary and copped to it. He explained that the incumbent Republican president would have been able to guarantee his reelection, but that it was too late: he ended the Iraq war when he should have kept it going at least until the election. "We had a lot of success with that in 1972," he told the assembled scribes.
But it was George S. McGovern's campaign that was "Mafia-like." Time magazine had said so.
The actress's trip marked the emergence of a new narrative about Vietnam: that people like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon weren't responsible for the disaster, but people like Fonda, stabbing America's soldiers and South Vietnamese allies in the back, were. It was the most convenient possible development for Richard Nixon--who was, exactly then, planning to stab America's soldiers and South Vietnamese allies in the back.
The ostensible aim of the war was to preserve an anticommunist government in Saigon absent the United States propping it up. Nixon had privately been maintaining since 1966 that this was impossible, and that the only question was the garb in which America would eventually cloak its withdrawal. Sometimes he imagined a politically satisfactory denouement might come of a knockout blow--as in his scuttled plans for Operation Duck Hook in 1969, or Operation Linebacker that spring. Other times he counted on his "madman" theory, with its threat of nuclear annihilation. Either way the point was to scare the enemy to sufficient concessions at the bargaining table that it would look as if the enemy had capitulated. Secret and intentional bombing of North Vietnamese dams and earthworks, if it was happening--and the president's "madman" signal on July 27 that if he wanted to decimate North Vietnamese agriculture he could do it in a week--was consistent with this logic. Massive bombing, enough to keep the Communists from overrunning Saigon until after his reelection, was the only way to preserve what he had started calling, stealing a phrase from the Democratic platform of 1952, "peace with honor."
But what he was working on now was neither honorable nor peace. His main concern was political timing. As the president put it to Kissinger on August 3rd, as the battered and bruised McGovern cast about desperately for a new running mate, "I look at the tide of history out there, South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway. I'm just being perfectly candid." The problem, he went on, was the presidential election: "It's terribly important this year."
Kissinger put two and two together. He and Nixon had been reading each other's mind for some time now. Kissinger noted, "If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it's the result of South Vietnamese incompetence." They could come up with peace agreement language--could "sell it in such a way," some transcribed Kissinger's words; others rendered it, just as pregnantly, "sell out in such a way"--that convinced South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu that America would stick with him until the end and get it agreed to in time for November. After which they could regrettably let "South Vietnam" evaporate and move on to other foreign policy problems.
For now they had to keep up military pressure, mining harbors, intimating wholesale dike-bombing, whatever it took to hold back the deluge during what diplomatic historians would later call a "decent interval": to "find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which--after a year, Mr. President--Vietnam will be a backwater." Then they could announce peace with honor. Only they would know they'd just stabbed South Vietnam in the back. "If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74 no one will give a damn."
But they couldn't settle it before October. They needed the war to keep going through the election. That way they could blame the continuation of war on the Democrats: their line could be, Haldeman wrote in a memo, that the sustained fighting proved the Communists were "absolutely at the end of their rope," their only chance of victory "to stagger through to November hoping that President Nixon will lose and they can get a good deal from the next administration."
Back in February, Nixon had said antiwar Democrats "might give the enemy an incentive to prolong the war until after the election." Actually, that was what he was doing, just as he had in 1968. Twenty years later, a superannuated Richard Nixon met with a group of young reporters just before the 1992 New Hampshire primary and copped to it. He explained that the incumbent Republican president would have been able to guarantee his reelection, but that it was too late: he ended the Iraq war when he should have kept it going at least until the election. "We had a lot of success with that in 1972," he told the assembled scribes.
But it was George S. McGovern's campaign that was "Mafia-like." Time magazine had said so.
From Nixonland Tonight
In 1972 Jane Fonda traveled to North Vietnam to see the POWs and to determine if the Air Force was in fact bombing dikes in an attempt to flood the rice crop and starve the population (Nixon's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding). Quoting now,
Fonda arrived in Hanoi alone, a woman armed with only cameras, hobbling on a fractured foot. The day before, Jean Thorval of Agence France-Presse had been standing on one of the earthen dikes when bombs struck another nearby. It seemed, he reported in Le Monde, "the attack was aimed at a whole system of dikes." Fonda gave a speech over Radio Hanoi, hoping it would reach the pilots, describing, in case they didn't know, how the antipersonnel bombs beneath their wings functioned:
"They cannot destroy bridges or factories. They cannot pierce steel or cement. Their only target is unprotected human flesh." They "now contain rough-edged plastic pellets, and your bosses, whose minds think in terms of statistics, not human lives, are proud of this new perfection. The plastic pellets don't show up on X-rays and cannot be removed. The hospitals here are filled with babies and women and old people who will live for the rest of their lives in agony with these pellets embedded in them. . . . Tonight, when you are alone, ask yourselves: what are you doing? Accept no ready answers fed to you by rote from basic training on up, but as men, as human beings. Can you justify what you are doing?"
This while Nixon claimed to be "winding down" the war.
Fonda arrived in Hanoi alone, a woman armed with only cameras, hobbling on a fractured foot. The day before, Jean Thorval of Agence France-Presse had been standing on one of the earthen dikes when bombs struck another nearby. It seemed, he reported in Le Monde, "the attack was aimed at a whole system of dikes." Fonda gave a speech over Radio Hanoi, hoping it would reach the pilots, describing, in case they didn't know, how the antipersonnel bombs beneath their wings functioned:
"They cannot destroy bridges or factories. They cannot pierce steel or cement. Their only target is unprotected human flesh." They "now contain rough-edged plastic pellets, and your bosses, whose minds think in terms of statistics, not human lives, are proud of this new perfection. The plastic pellets don't show up on X-rays and cannot be removed. The hospitals here are filled with babies and women and old people who will live for the rest of their lives in agony with these pellets embedded in them. . . . Tonight, when you are alone, ask yourselves: what are you doing? Accept no ready answers fed to you by rote from basic training on up, but as men, as human beings. Can you justify what you are doing?"
This while Nixon claimed to be "winding down" the war.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
More From Nixonland
As Perlstein is describing the 1972 Democratic National Convention, in Miami:
The new politics reformers had fantasized a pure politics, a politics of unyielding principle--an antipolitics. But in the real world politics without equivocation or compromse is impossible. Thus an unintended consequence for the would-be antipolitician. Announcing one's inflexibility sabotages him in advance. Every time he makes a political decision, he looks like a sellout. The reformers fantasized an open politics, in which all points of view had time to be heard. That meant that the Tuesday session adjourned eleven hours after it began, at 6:15 a.m.--a fortunate thing, cool-headed democratic strategists decided, terrified over what this all looked like on TV.
Sound familiar?
The new politics reformers had fantasized a pure politics, a politics of unyielding principle--an antipolitics. But in the real world politics without equivocation or compromse is impossible. Thus an unintended consequence for the would-be antipolitician. Announcing one's inflexibility sabotages him in advance. Every time he makes a political decision, he looks like a sellout. The reformers fantasized an open politics, in which all points of view had time to be heard. That meant that the Tuesday session adjourned eleven hours after it began, at 6:15 a.m.--a fortunate thing, cool-headed democratic strategists decided, terrified over what this all looked like on TV.
Sound familiar?
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Nixon's The One
Well I'm not going to be finished by tomorrow (as per my prediction), I just finished page 538. 210 to go. In this concluding page to Book III Nixon has just seen the 1970 elections go against him.
He began seeing 1972 in apocalyptic terms: if he lost the presidency, America might end. Any imaginable Democratic nominee was "irresponsible domestically" and "extremely dangerous internationally." He had come to understand something profound in his two years as president, in all those lonely afternoons brooding alone in his hideaway office in the Executive office Building--the kind of profundity too deep to share with the mere public: "America has only two more years as the number one power." America had either to "make the best deals we can between now and 1975 or increase our conventional strength. No Democrat can sell this to the country."
Indeed, to keep from losing another election, he was willing to consider just about anything. This time around he would leave nothing, nothing, nothing to chance.
I can't wait to find out what happens. ; )
He began seeing 1972 in apocalyptic terms: if he lost the presidency, America might end. Any imaginable Democratic nominee was "irresponsible domestically" and "extremely dangerous internationally." He had come to understand something profound in his two years as president, in all those lonely afternoons brooding alone in his hideaway office in the Executive office Building--the kind of profundity too deep to share with the mere public: "America has only two more years as the number one power." America had either to "make the best deals we can between now and 1975 or increase our conventional strength. No Democrat can sell this to the country."
So it was that the Old and New Nixon, serpent and sage, collided in a single astonishing insight: in order to responsibly steward the American people through the coming crisis, he first had to bluff America into believing in its own invincibility.
I can't wait to find out what happens. ; )
Monday, September 12, 2011
Nixonland
I'm reading Rick Perlstein's Nixonland. It's the front-runner for book-of-the-year on my book list. Here's the first paragraph of the preface:
You can expect an after-action report in about another week.
In 1964, the Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson won practically the biggest landslide in American history, with 61.05 percent of the popular vote and 486 of 538 electoral college votes. In 1972, the Republican presidential candidate won a strikingly similar landslide--60.67 percent and 520 electoral college votes. In the eight years in between, the battle lines that define our culture and politics were forged in blood and fire. This is a book about how that happened, and why.
You can expect an after-action report in about another week.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Ten Years After
So what are the lessons to be learned from 9/11? And did we learn them? Did some of us? Did all of us learn some of them? Did different people take away different things? Certainly yes to that last one.
The first lesson I take away is, leadership makes a difference. What if we had had different leadership during that time? I really don't know enough about Al Gore to speculate on how his administration might have responded, so I will suggest JFK. Imagine how JFK would have handled it. The man who kept his head during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when everyone around him was urging him to escalate, at the very height of cold war tension.
JFK was the man who launched the Green Berets. I suggest a very measured response would have followed. I don't believe there would have been a war in Afghanistan, much less Iraq. I believe he would have accepted the offer of OBL to be handed over to a third party for an internationally observed trial. Show the world that America really does believe in law and order.
Instead, of course, we showed the world that we can be angry and vengeful. We're going to war! And you're either with us or you're against us! And you don't want to be against us! The sad part is virtually everybody was with us, and would have stayed with us if we would have been less bellicose.
Also, I think we did learn that not everybody views us as wonderful old America. Everybody's best friend. Envy of the world. I think that was news to way too many people. It can be very hard to view oneself from another perspective and I will grant you that the perspective of Al Qaeda is not one I would have thought of. But still, was/is some examination of our role in the world called for? Yes! We need to stop assuming that we know it all, already. Let's try to find out what the rest of the world thinks and actually consider that they might have a point. Again, not Al Qaeda. They have no validity. But let's ask ourselves why anybody would even listen to them. Why do they get any support at all? Sometimes if you want to win friends and influence people you have to work at it, and not just assume that everyone will love you because you love yourself so much.
Finally, I think the biggest lesson to learn, and we've been told before and we'll be told again, is that life goes on. The world didn't stop turning that day. Whatever happens we have to deal with it. And a big, fat temper tantrum is always a poor way of dealing with anything. Look what it got us.
The first lesson I take away is, leadership makes a difference. What if we had had different leadership during that time? I really don't know enough about Al Gore to speculate on how his administration might have responded, so I will suggest JFK. Imagine how JFK would have handled it. The man who kept his head during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when everyone around him was urging him to escalate, at the very height of cold war tension.
JFK was the man who launched the Green Berets. I suggest a very measured response would have followed. I don't believe there would have been a war in Afghanistan, much less Iraq. I believe he would have accepted the offer of OBL to be handed over to a third party for an internationally observed trial. Show the world that America really does believe in law and order.
Instead, of course, we showed the world that we can be angry and vengeful. We're going to war! And you're either with us or you're against us! And you don't want to be against us! The sad part is virtually everybody was with us, and would have stayed with us if we would have been less bellicose.
Also, I think we did learn that not everybody views us as wonderful old America. Everybody's best friend. Envy of the world. I think that was news to way too many people. It can be very hard to view oneself from another perspective and I will grant you that the perspective of Al Qaeda is not one I would have thought of. But still, was/is some examination of our role in the world called for? Yes! We need to stop assuming that we know it all, already. Let's try to find out what the rest of the world thinks and actually consider that they might have a point. Again, not Al Qaeda. They have no validity. But let's ask ourselves why anybody would even listen to them. Why do they get any support at all? Sometimes if you want to win friends and influence people you have to work at it, and not just assume that everyone will love you because you love yourself so much.
Finally, I think the biggest lesson to learn, and we've been told before and we'll be told again, is that life goes on. The world didn't stop turning that day. Whatever happens we have to deal with it. And a big, fat temper tantrum is always a poor way of dealing with anything. Look what it got us.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Obama Speech
OK, I watched the whole thing. Didn't know if I would or not. I liked what I heard. I certainly wasn't expecting much, I was actually expecting more caving toward the whole Republican agenda. Now this was the guy I voted for. What I need to see next is some fire. Insist on this! All of it! Daily! If they delay, protest and obfuscate and drag this out into the general election campaign, of course, you bludgeon their moron tea party candidate to death with that.
It's time to start being a partisan, Mr. President, on behalf of the American people. Make it so!
It's time to start being a partisan, Mr. President, on behalf of the American people. Make it so!
Friday, September 2, 2011
Here's The Other One
Confused by what I'm doing here? I told a facebook friend I would post these on my blog, so he could see them.
University of Wisconsin, Madison Autumn 2009
Bascom Hall, room 55 T/R 4-5.15 p.m.
Radical political theory.
Instructor: Jimmy Casas Klausen Consultation: T 1.45-3.45 p.m.
Office: North Hall 409 E-mail:
Political Science 513
Overview. There are many strands of radical political theory in the Euroatlantic West. This course engages only two of them—namely, Marxism and anarchism—and we will pay particular attention to the fraught relationship between the two at the levels of both political theory and political praxis. Specifically, we will explore Marxist and anarchist arguments about the status and centrality of the state, the relation between national and international struggle, the “nature” of the human, party organization and the role of vanguard parties, the techniques and pitfalls of centralizing or decentralizing power, and the character of revolution. We end the course by examining a handful of post-1968 thinkers who seem critically to synthesize (heavily reconstructed?) Marxian and anarchist perspectives.
Course format. The course will be conducted as a seminar. We will cover between one hundred twenty-five and one hundred fifty pages per week and puzzle over, interpret, and analyze the texts’ arguments and themes in the context of rigorous, critical discussion together. Please note that I will lecture only briefly and occasionally.
Requirements. All requirements, except for the assigned readings (our basic framework), are negotiable and to be determined collectively. This will constitute our attempt at autonomous, decentered self-governance. Freedom as a practice, however, is not reducible simply to “negative freedom,” that is, freedom from requirements or impediments. Rather, freedom is an active and open-ended process that necessitates limits, techniques of self-mastery, and reciprocal challenge (between self as subject and self as object, as well as intersubjectively among peers). Hence, as the facilitator of your instruction, I do want to suggest that we consider seriously the value of consistent attendance and participation for the ultimate quality of our discussions; I ask also that we entertain the important role writing can assume in the refinement of our understanding of difficult arguments and concepts.
Texts.
· Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own (Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521450164).
· Michael Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy (Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521369732).
· Robert C. Tucker, editor, Marx-Engels Reader, second ed. (Norton, ISBN 978-0393090406).
· Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (International Publishers, ISBN 071780397X).
· Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction (Vintage, ISBN 978-0679724698).
· Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (Verso, ISBN 978-1859841693).
In addition to these texts, which are available for purchase at the Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative (426 W. Gilman), you will be asked to consult a handful of writings online. The URLs for online documents appear after the assignments.
Copies of these books are also available at College Library Reserves.
Reading schedule.
3 September 2009.
Introduction.
8 September 2009.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What Is Property?, Chapter III, §§1-2; Chapter V.
http://marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/property/index.htm
Marx-Engels Reader, 3-6, 9-11, 26-52.
10 September 2009.
Marx-Engels Reader, 53-109.
15 September 2009.
Max Stirner, The Ego & Its Own, 1-18, 137-98.
17 September 2009.
Stirner, Ego & Its Own, 198-254.
22 September 2009.
Stirner, Ego & Its Own, 254-324.
24 September 2009.
Marx-Engels Reader, 133-75.
29 September 2009.
Marx-Engels Reader, 176-200, 203-17, 469-500.
1 October 2009.
Marx-Engels Reader, 586-617, 653-64.
6 October 2009.
Marx-Engels Reader, 221-76, 291-93, 294-98, 302-12.
8 October 2009.
Marx-Engels Reader, 312-64.
13 October 2009.
Marx-Engels Reader, 373-88, 397-99, 417-38, 512-19, 522-41.
15 October 2009.
Michael Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy, 1-51.
20 October 2009.
Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy, 103-68.
22 October 2009.
Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy, 168-97.
Marx-Engels Reader, 542-48.
V. I. Lenin, What Is to Be Done?, chapter III.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iii.htm
27 October 2009.
Rosa Luxemburg, Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy (also published as Leninism or Marxism?).
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/index.htm
Luxemburg, “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/ch01.htm
Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, chapters 1-4, 8, 10.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm
Lenin, State and Revolution, chapter 1.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm
29 October 2009.
Lenin, State and Revolution, chapters, 2, 3, 5.
3 November 2009.
Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 5-23, 52-55, 125-75.
5 November 2009.
Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 175-205, 210-23, 228-38.
10 November 2009.
Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 238-43, 245-46, 257-70, 323-43, 347-61, 364-67, 375-77.
12 November 2009.
Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life, chapters 19-22.
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/5
17 November 2009.
Vaneigem, Revolution of Everyday Life, chapters 23-25.
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, chapters 1-3.
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4
19 November 2009.
Debord, Society of the Spectacle, chapters 4-5.
24 November 2009.
Debord, Society of the Spectacle, chapters 6-9.
Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, 1-27.
26 November 2009.
Class will not meet.
1 December 2009.
Debord, Comments on the Society of the Specatcle, 27-89.
3 December 2009.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction, 3-50.
8 December 2009.
Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, 51-114.
10 December 2009.
Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, 114-159.
Foucault, “Truth and Power,” in Power/Knowledge, ed. Colin Gordon, 109-34. [To be distributed.]
15 December 2009.
Hakim Bey, “Black Crown & Black Rose: Anarcho-Monarchism & Anarcho-Mysticism,” “Nietzsche & the Dervishes,” “Resolution for the 1990’s: Boycott Cop Culture,” The Temporary Autonomous Zone (entire).
http://www.hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html
Bey, “Permanent Autonomous Zone,” “The NoGoZone,” “The Periodic Autonomous Zone,” “Primitives and Extropians.”
http://www.hermetic.com/bey/index.html
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