The President’s Climate Change Strategy ~ A Good Plan or a Bad Joke

The President finally gets it – the American people are not buying industry’s pseudoscience anymore.  But he apparently hasn’t figured out yet that the longer we put off efforts to reverse the growing trend, the more it will eventually cost.

Just in time for the celebration of Earth Day in the Northern Hemisphere this year, President Bush, without actually saying so, has finally admitted to being wrong about something, i.e., climate change.  On Wednesday of this week, according to an Associated Press news story, he acknowledged the need to head off “serious” climate change — as if what has already occurred isn’t yet serious (rapidly melting sea and land ice in high latitudes and altitudes, and shifting weather patterns to include more and more severe tropical storms).

Until now, this president, along with most Republican lawmakers, has done everything in his power to cooperate with the petro- chemical, forestry, energy and other lobbies’ efforts to distort legitimate science studying climate change so as to stave off the inevitable — economic impact.  Here’s a worthwhile article on this, The Junk Science of George Bush, published by The Nation magazine, if you have the time and interest to read it.

Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, the President set a specific target date for U.S. climate pollution reductions.  He also said that he is ready to commit to a binding international agree- ment on long-term greenhouse gas reductions, but only if other countries such as China do the same.

“There is a wrong way and a right way to approach reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Bush said, making clear that he opposes a Senate measure that would impose mandatory limits on greenhouse gases beginning in five years, followed by annual reductions.  “Bad legislation would impose tremendous costs on our economy and American families,” the President said, “without accomplishing the important climate change goals we share.”  

So, the President finally gets it – the American people are not buying industry’s pseudoscience anymore.  But he apparently hasn’t figured out yet that the longer we put off efforts to reverse the growing trend, the more it will eventually cost.

For the real scoop on climate change, visit RealClimate.org, a web site containing testimony and other scientific articles published by real climatologists (those who are not working under contract with industry or profit-oriented special interest groups).

In his address, the President said he envisions a “comprehensive blend of market incentives and regulations” that would encourage clean and efficient energy technologies. And he singled out the electric utility industry, saying power plants need to stabilize carbon dioxide pollution within 15 years and reduce them after that.  But his plan came under fire immediately from environ- mentalists and from congressional Democrats who favor manda- tory emission cuts, which is a position supported by all three presidential contenders. 

The nightmare is almost over!

Please feel free to comment, pro or con, on this posting.

 

The Pursuit of More Economic Freedom ~ What It Has Cost Us

Most Americans would agree that economic freedom is a good thing.  But, I wonder, can too much of a good thing be a bad thing?

Before speculating on why our economy is in the pits lately, I feel a need to respond to an accusation made in a recent comment to my Birdfeeder post, i.e., that The World According to Opa is itself a source of viral disinformation.

I have been assured by more empathetic readers that my blog is not a source of viral disinformation. They say, and I choose to believe, that it is just the opposite; it is an open blog inviting input and dialogue from all quarters.  It is dedicated to those of us who enjoy safe opportunities to express ourselves on controversial issues of the day.  While I would hope to one day win over the minds of those who disagree with me (that is after all the purpose of debate), this is not the essential reason for the blog’s existence.  Furthermore, I leave open the possibility of being won over to others’ interpretation of the facts from time to time.  I encourage all my readers to comment publically and I respond to all comments, even the hateful ones (although these I choose to answer offline).  The blog might be considered to be “infotainment” by some, but only if they choose to receive (or ignore) the ideas presented unidirectionally.  It’s their choice.

To prove my point, in response to a recent comment to the Birdfeeder post, I concede… sort-of.  There are other countries that are rated as having more economic freedom than the United States.  According to assessments made by “conservative” think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, there are a few nations that rank higher on the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index than the United States does, but only a few, not “a number,” implying several as one of my readers has claimed.  Hong Kong has consistently ranked most economically free over the years.  But (and I guess it matters what parameters are measured and how), the United States isn’t far behind.  The more “liberal” camp of think tanks, like the Pew Charitable Trusts, concern themselves with issues like social justice, collective welfare, human rights, and the environment — more so than “individual” rights and “economic” freedom, but I respect what the conservative think camp does too.  Most Americans would agree that economic freedom is a good thing.  But, I wonder, can too much of a good thing be a bad thing?

According to a Cato Institute report that’s four years old now, at the end of the Clinton administration, the United States was tied for third place with New Zealand, Switzerland, and Great Britain for having economic freedom. The factors considered in Cato’s EFW are:  the degree to which property rights are safe guarded (I can’t imagine that Hong Kong, being a province of China, gets a high score on this, but perhaps); the level of contract enforcement; whether or not and to what degree free trade is allowed; the maintenance of low marginal tax rates, and; the degree to which the nation’s money holds its value against foreign currencies. Hong Kong, according to this report, had a score of 8.7 on a scale of 10, whereas Singapore had an 8.6. The third place countries all had an 8.2.  Today, however, the United States is ranked fifth according to a recent Heritage Foundation report, even with more free trade and lower marginal tax rates.  We may have slipped owing to less government oversight of business transactions, especially in the financial sector, to enforce contract agreements and because we’ve allowed the dollar to loose much of it’s value… just a guess.  So, if anything, the point my reader raised only serves to illustrate how we’ve lost ground economically under the two Bush/Cheney administrations and a Congress that was dominated most of this time by Republicans.

Wait a minute!  Wait a minute!  According to the CIA Factbook, Hong Kong is a Special Administrative District of China, not a country (a soverign nation-state).  And when you look at Singapore on a map, it becomes obvious that it is city-state not a nation-state.  These two economically bustling, populated places in Asia should not be directly compared with nation-states, which have more complicated and dynamic political landscapes. Take away these two, the U.S. then was really tied for first place with two other “real” countries four years ago, and now still ranks third despite the devaluation of the dollar to pay for our military adventurism of recent years.  So I take my concession back.

This teacher of economics suspects, based on various studies done as far back as 2001 that I have read (and Alan Greenspan’s book since) on the likely (now historical) long-term effects of Bush’s tax cuts, even with the lower marginal tax rates involved, that output (GDP) would be (and now obviously has been) constrained because of them.  Expansion has slowed and we are now actually experiencing a recession because spending was not reduced by the Government commensurate with reduced revenues after the tax cuts were enacted.  Also, government spending in the public sector, as a percentage of total spending, has declined with billions leaking from our economy into the hands of Afghan and Pakistani warlords and to reconstruction efforts in Iraq.  Leakage from our economy has also resulted from our growing trade deficit thanks to more free trade.  We have expanded the money supply to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with the sale of government securities primarily to China and Japan, which is largely the reason for the declining value of the dollar; world demand for the dollar is down because we have flooded the market.

Another reason we are in recession today, I firmly believe, is because more and more middle class American jobs have been lost through off-shoring, another consequence of free trade.  More and more Americans are earning less and less and, therefore, have less to spend.  Finally, we are in recession today because the ultra wealthy, for whom Bush’s tax cuts overwhelmingly favored, have saved much of their increased disposable income.  Rather than plowing it back into the economy through consumption or investment to stimulate the economy, they have bought treasury bonds with their savings or stashed it away in off-shore accounts and other such tax havens.  The rich know best how to do this.

Yes, I must conclude that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

On yet another of my readers points in his most recent comment, no, I do not agree that we are “all” free thinkers.  I know many who won’t even consider much less listen to others’ opinions and some, fundamental Christians among them, who reject scientific theory (facts) because they cling to already-held dogma.  These people cannot be considered free thinkers.

President Bush, in my humble opinion, is a good example of someone who is not a free thinker.  He once said, as reported in Susan Jacoby’s book, The Age of American Unreason, that he never reads newspapers as that would expose him to public opinion.  This revalation, according to Jacoby’s account, was reported to a Fox news correspondent during an interview with the President back in 2003.  Now I admit that this is secondary information, but it rings true with my opinion of the man.

Please feel free to post a comment, pro or con.  Everyone’s opinion matters.

May God Bless America… Once Again

  We, I believe, can change things for the better in America.  We can start by putting aside our bigotry and prejudices and having open, honest dialogue about what is wrong in America.  And, Heaven help us — we’ve certainly got plenty to talk about.

Perhaps you missed the live coverage yesterday, March 18^th 2008, of Barack Obama’s speech on social and economic divisions in America — his “race” speech.  I didn’t.  I was home on Spring Break from teaching, so I was able to watch it in its entirety.  I expected to be impressed, and I was.  It was brilliant!  But then, Obama is well-known for his oratory.  I, however, was more impressed with his message than his delivery.

The divisions Obama talked about were not limited to just to race and ethnicity, but these were at the core of his message in, what political commentators all day and again this morning are calling the most important speech of his political career.  Given the media fervor his former pastor’s recent fiery sermon damning America ignited, Obama reportedly had no choice but to confront questions concerning what he truly believes.  But he said in an interview to ABC’s Terry Moran after his speech that he has anticipated having to make this speech for a long time.  In doing so now, it remains to be seen whether he has won any converts, but he almost certainly has reassured his large and growing base of supporters — intel- lectuals, young voters and, yes of course, African Americans.  But whether you’re for him or against him, had you heard the speech and you’re honest with yourself, you would have to give him high points for political courage.

The Senator began his speech by reviewing recent events that had led him to make the speech at this time. “On one end of the spectrum,” he said, “we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wild and wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; and that rightly offends whites and blacks alike.”

He continued by attempting to distance himself from his former pastor’s anti-Semitism and anger, saying: “Remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.”  With these words and others, saying that only in America could someone with his background arrive at this time and place as a candidate for President, I think Obama did clarify what he believes about America.

He admitted hearing some “controversial” remarks while sitting in the pews of Trinity United Church of Christ saying, “Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely.”  But Obama did not disown his friend and former pastor, liking him to family saying, “Reverend Wright, as imperfect as he may be, has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conver- sations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.  “I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.”

The senator then went on to say what we should be talking about instead of “snippets” of Reverend Wright’s sermons.  He said we need to be talking about the “racial stalemate” we’ve been stuck in for years.  He said, “”Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.”

He attempted to help us all understand why Wright and many African Americans are so angry, saying, “For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor have the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings. And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition.”

But he acknowledged and recognized reasons that whites are angry too.  “A similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.  When they hear an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighbor- hoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. Like the anger within the black community, these resent- ments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition.”

Then he explained why he believes he is uniquely suited to bring about the reconciliation this country so badly needs. “I am the son of a black man from Kenya,” he said, “and a white woman from Kansas. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. It is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.”

He said that America can change… together, we can change it.  “The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society,” he said. “It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress had been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black (APPLAUSE) Latino and Asian, rich, poor, young, old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

Addressing the African American and White communities separately, he spoke to what we can do to help fix the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.  “For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means also taking full responsibility for own lives.  In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimi- nation, while less overt than in the past – that these things are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds.”

The Senator then spoke to us all, especially the media, saying, “We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies. We can do that.  But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, ‘Not this time.’…This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.”

Truly, the Democratic primary race has devolved into one being decided by sexism and racism.  As I compare what Senator Clinton and Senator Obama stand for and advocate, I don’t see all that much difference between them.  However, in a recent Newsweek magazine article titled, “The Deep Blue Divide,” I read where after the recent primary here in Texas, 91 percent of Clinton supporters said that they would be dissatisfied with Obama as the nominee and 87 percent of Obama supporters said they would be dissatis- fied with Clinton.  Nationally, according to the Newsweek article, one-fourth of Clinton supporters say they would rather vote for John McCain than Barack Obama.  So, the old adage must be correct: Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.

If you’ve read this far, you must care as much as I do about the future of this great country of ours.  We, I believe, can change things for the better.  We can start, as Senator Obama did yesterday, by putting aside our bigotry and prejudices and having open, honest dialogue about what is wrong in America.  Then we can elect a leader who understands both sides of the racial divide, believes that we can recover from it, and possesses the qualities of leadership we so badly need these days.  May God bless America… once again.

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Political Spam ~ Lessons I Have Learned Responding to It

Although I stand corrected and apologetic for my recent violation of Internet protocol, I remain unrepentant about standing up for truth and honesty in political discourse.

By now, I would have thought that people were used to it, political spam that is.  On any given day, I get at least two or three uninvited political messages from people I know and some from people I don’t know.  It’s an election year, don’t you know?  And all the candidates have discovered the newest, most cost-effective way to campaign:  the Internet, websites, blogs, YouTube videos, and email — much of it being political spam (messages of a political nature that we would not otherwise choose to receive).  But I read ‘em all, everything that gets past my ISP’s spam filter.  Yeah, I admit it, I’ve become a political junkie.

Many people hate political spamming even more than junk snail-mail or telemarketing, and some may even question the legality of it.  But communication over the Internet (including e-mail) is a form of speech that is protected by the First Amendment. Political speech has the highest value among protected forms of speech, and therefore receives the greatest protection.  According to a Duke University law brief, “Debate on the qualifications of candi- dates is at the core of our electoral process and of the First Amendment freedoms, not at the edges. The role that elected officials play in our society makes it all the more imperative that they be allowed freely to express themselves on matters of current public importance. . . . We have never allowed the govern- ment to prohibit candidates from communicating relevant information to voters during an election.” I think it’s safe to presume this First-Amendment protection extends to candidates’ campaign staff and to ardent supporters as well.

I have responded to some political spam.  Most of what I’ve received, however, I’ve just deleted after reading, unless of course the originator flat-out lied about something or misrepresented the facts so badly that it was obvious.  To these, I’ve always tried to respond after doing some on-line research to confirm my suspicions.  I’ve considered it my patriotic duty to do so.  And, if the sender has provided a distro (a list of addressees), I have in the past sent my responses to them as well.  My rationale has been that these people deserve to have the facts set straight.  But, y’know what?  Many seem to be quite comfortable with lies, so long as they serve to buttress their frame of reference… support their already-held beliefs and convictions. 

I recently made the mistake of including people I thought would appreciate reading what I had to say on the Cc-line of my response to a political spam message, like-thinking friends, co-workers, and family members.  I thus generated my own distro.  Some of these people responded favorably, thanking me for the research I had done, thus clearing up for them a swiftboat-style myth about congressional Democrats conspiring to increase taxes on retire- ment fund distributions.  One of my Cc addressees, however, a family member who doesn’t share my political views, became incensed that I had included him in the distribution, and I can’t say that I blame him.  Another recipient uncharacteristically responded to all with a phrase demeaning people who might believe the original author’s claim.

The original message had been sent to me personally and indi- vidually by a family friend, asking me what I thought about it.  She appreciated my research efforts, but was not at all happy with having been identified to others as the source of the message to which I was responding.  Sigh…

From now on, when someone sends me a political message, if there is no distro, I will endeavor never to add one of my own.  Neither will I send messages with distros others can see without checking first with all of the addressees.  As many of you know, when I send electronic invitations to my community of readers announcing a new posting or story, I do so using the “Blind” carbon copy (Bcc) address line.  I know this to be much better etiquette than using the Cc-line.  Further, I always invite recipients to opt-out of future invitations.

Although I stand corrected and apologetic for my recent violation of Internet protocol, I remain unrepentant about standing up for truth and honesty in political discourse.  Responding only to the originators of false and misleading political messages on the Internet would do nothing to correct the problem; these people already know their messages are based on exaggerations and lies.  They are so committed to the “righteousness” of their persuasions that they feel justified doing whatever they have to do to ensure their party’s or candidate’s success.  Accordingly, they are not at all likely to publish retractions.

For more information on appropriate use of the “Information Highway” and for suggestions on ways to reduce or avoid all forms of Internet spam, visit “Promote Responsible Net Commerce: Fight Spam!”

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Our Nation ~ A Bundle of Branches

While I usually distain from mixing religion and politics, as hundreds of thousands of Texas voters prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, be assured, friends, that our only judge is also our advocate.

On the eve of Democratic primary and caucuses here in Texas, events that could well determine who the Democratic Party’s nominee will be in this year’s national election for President, we have two contenders.  One is a white female and one is an African American male. This is historic in and of itself. It is even more

significant because one of them will most likely be our next President.  I say this  given the state of our nation’s economy following eight years of wasteful deficit spending, tax policies favoring the wealthiest of Americans over the middle class, rising health care, education and energy costs, a worsening trade deficit resulting from globalization and our growing demand for foreign oil, and the precipitous decline in the dollar’s exchange rate against other world currencies. In addition, after more than six years of our military response to 9/11, we are still pouring billions of dollars per month into Iraq and Afghanistan, dollars added to our national debt http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/02/EDHEV8GPC.DTL, which is nearly twice what it was when Mr. Bush was first elected in 2001.

The American people are clearly ready for change, and the defacto Republican candidate, John McCain, advocating a continuance of Mr. Bush’s policies, both in terms of tax cuts and our presence in Iraq, does not for me represent meaningful change.

Following early-voting, post election polls in both Texas and Ohio, and listening to the experts talk on ABC, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC new programs, it seems as though it’s all over but the shouting for the Clinton campaign.  Most political pundits are saying that it’s time for the Democratic Party to rally around Senator Obama and for Senator Clinton and her husband, President Clinton, to stop giving Senator McCain ammunition for the general election battle this fall.  They’re saying that, without resounding routs in both Texas and Ohio, she cannot win the necessary number of delegates for nomination, with or without the Florida and Michigan delegates.  These are delegates that the Democratic Party previously agreed not to count following these states’ violations of early-primary rules.  Even so, I’m not counting Clinton out, not just yet.

Since John Edwards threw-in the towel following Super Tuesday, it has been a close race between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, that is until Mr. Obama won eleven straight states leading up to Tuesday’s primaries here in Texas, in Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont.  Voters have had a hard time distinguishing significant differences between the two on policy.  Battle lines, therefore, have been drawn on experience vs. speech-making, change vs. business-as-usual, how to achieve universal health care, and whether or not to dialogue with leaders of rogue states without pre-conditions first being met.  In short, it’s been a “beauty contest,” and this is what bothers me most about the early-voting polling results here in Texas.  White men are disproportionately not voting for Senator Obama and blacks are disproportionately not voting for Senator Clinton.  Younger, better-educated voters prefer Senator Obama, while seasoned, worker-class voters prefer Senator Clinton.  Hispanics, not trusting other minorities, are proving to be a base for Senator Clinton.  So, even within the same political parties, we remain splintered and exploited politically along ethnic, religious, and social-economic lines.  The most diverse nation on earth, we truly are a “bundle of branches,” a bundle that is only loosely bound by a collective self-interest.  It’s the American way.  We know that, if we want to prosper, the nation as a whole must prosper.  We have learned our lesson well, thanks to Mr. Bush: opportunity for the masses does not “trickle down” from the excess of a wealthy few.

While I usually distain from mixing religion and politics, as hundreds of thousands of Texas voters prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, be assured, friends, that our only judge is also our advocate.  Accordingly, I’d like to offer up the following; it was the prayer of confession for Communion Sunday at our church today:

Let us open our lives for renewal. We have sinned and go on sinning, which saps our energy, dilutes our love, distracts us from worthwhile growth, and disturbs the harmony of our homes and our communities.  Forgive us, Father, and help us to begin anew.  Your favor is a mystery which we bear uneasily.  Your favor bids so broad a justice, and holds us so firmly to the compassion you require from us, that we feel only half glad to be called your people!  We are bound as branches of a body.  By a wiser choosing than our own, we find ourselves concerned with your justice, with the causes of health, peace and harmony.  Grant us usefulness as branches for Christ’s sake and our own.  Amen

Democrats, Independents and disenchanted Republicans, I’ll not suggest how you should vote on Tuesday.  But I do hope you’ll vote your conscience and not your prejudice .

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Gun Violence ~ Why It’s Not a Political Issue This Time Around, Not Yet Anyway

Until we are able to close the many social/economic gaps in our country that spawn violent crime, I truly do think that limiting the proliferation and access to hand guns by convicted felons and mental patients should be put back on the legislative agenda.  I would feel much safer knowing that there are not more hand guns in this country than people who might use them. 

 

A good friend of mine attended a TFN (Texas Freedom Network) conference recently.  He brought back a publication on organizing effective “grass-roots” movements and decided to solicit some ideas.  I answered his email about it suggesting that, in light of the campus killings of twenty at Northern Illinois State University last week, the Kirkwood, Missouri City Council killing of five the week before, and the Virginia Tech campus massacre of thirty-three last April, perhaps it’s time for America to revisit the issue of gun control.

Truly, here in the Dallas area it seems like there is at least one senseless shooting tragedy in the news every day… kids robbing convenience stores and killing proprietors who resist, others blindly shooting through curtained windows of homes hitting innocent women and children.  Hardly ever do we hear about citizens legitimately defending themselves, their families or property with guns; notwithstanding, many Americans feel that they need guns for self-protection.  The number of states with some version of a Concealed Carry law, either “shall issue” or “not restricted” has grown from nine in 1986 to thirty-nine today.  All the remaining states are currently considering concealed carry laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry.  Clearly, America’s response to increasing gun violence has been to arm itself.

Another recipient of my friend’s email responded to my “reply-to-all” answer by saying, “I suspect from the tone of this e-mail that you would favor a more restrictive government policy toward gun ownership. If this is true, are you sure that there is a cause and effect relationship between gun ownership and violent crime? How is it that our good friends, the Swiss, who have firearms (military firearms with ample supplies of ammunition) in virtually every home in the land, who carry firearms openly in the streets and on public transportation without public alarm, who participate in shooting sports like we play golf, have virtually no gun crime, allow their children to walk or ride public transportation to school unescorted, and can walk the streets of their cities day or night without fear of harm? Are guns really the root of our violent crime problem or could it be something else?”

This lady concluded her response by suggesting that we will likely hear nothing about gun-control debated in this election year because it is such a divisive political issue.  I wrote back saying, “I’m not so sure that you are right about our not hearing anything from the candidates about gun control prior to the November elections.  The Supreme Court has agreed to relook the question of whether the Second Amendment is still relevant to ‘individual’ ownership of guns.  They are doing so in response to an appeal associated with Washington D.C.’s legal attempts to limit gun crime in that city.  The Court is scheduled to hear arguments in March.  A decision is expected by June.  Results in this case either way are, I think, likely to make gun control an issue for debate by Presidential and Congressional candidates this year whether they want the debate or not http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/washington/20cnd-scotus.html.”

I went on to say, “Compared to Americans, the Swiss are a very different people.  They’re different in many ways.  They’re better educated for one thing, and they have no recent history of war. They have a higher per capita GDP than other larger European countries, Japan, or even the U.S.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Economy. The distribution of wealth in Switzerland is much more equitable than here in the U.S., and the crime rate is much, much lower http://dev.prenhall.com/divisions/hss/worldreference/CH/crime.html.   Although they speak many different languages, they have never had a “civil rights” issue with large segments of their society being treated as inferior citizens, and they control their borders.  Their unemployment rate is currently less than one fourth of ours too http://www.daube.ch/opinions/akld12.html.

Unlike here in the U.S., the Swiss still employ militia as a large part of their self defense forces.  This explains for me why personal firearms are so prevalent there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Switzerland. We used to rely on militias for national defense too, which was the original basis/justification for the Second Amendment.  Since we no longer rely on militias, those of us on my side of the gun argument wonder how our counterparts rationalize that it still applies.

Rather than comparing us to the Swiss as an argument against gun control, why not consider our closer neighbors for a comparison, the Canadians, as an argument for gun control?  We’ve a lot more in common with them — historically, socially, economically.  Murders committed with firearms per capita have been more than eight times higher in recent years here in the U.S. than in Canada.  Murder by other means (without guns) has been almost twice as high http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/Cda-US.htm.  This, in my mind, clearly establishes a correlation between guns and violent crime.”

So, until we are able to close the many social/economic gaps in our country that spawn violent crime, I truly do think that limiting the proliferation guns and access to them by convicted felons and mental patients should be put back on the legislative agenda.  I would personally feel much safer knowing that there are not more hand guns in this country than people who might use them http://www.gunsandcrime.org/numbers.html.

Once the Second Amendment question is resolved this summer by the Supreme Court, states and local governments may be free to decide appropriate ownership and use restrictions.  Then enforce- ment becomes a nightmare, right?  So, instead of local, unenforce- able laws, perhaps the following would work to reduce the number of hand guns and, therefore, the violence perpetrated with them:  levying a heavy federally-mandated sales tax on new, legal purchases coupled with annual property/ownership/use taxes; putting some real teeth into a national registry database and allowing sellers to be sued for not properly employing it, and; instituting a buy-back program for weapons such as our Australian friends have done.  The last measure in this list could be paid for with revenue received from new hand-gun manufacturing taxes and an excise tax on imported hand guns.

Shot guns and hunting rifles?  These have legitimate uses by sportsmen and women.  But what to do about assault guns (fully automatic rifles and machine pistols), that’s a whole ‘nuther matter.  These, I believe, as well as all armor piercing ammunition, must be outlawed for private ownership at the Federal level.

Suggesting these things won’t make my gun-loving friends happy with me, I know.  But then, I’m not running for public office.

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The Faith Factor in 2008 ~ Religion and Politics in America

Let’s be honest, folks, even though 94% of us profess to believe in God, fewer than half of us darken the door of any church more than twice a year.  And, although most of us have one or more Bibles in our homes, only about 3% of us regularly read from them.

Favoring Barack Obama to be the Democratic Party’s nominee this election year, some of my less-than-liberal friends have asked me recently why I’m not concerned about his past connection to Islam or his current membership at Trinity United Church of Christ.  According to some reports, the former pastor of this church, the Reverend Jeramiah Wright, preached themes popular among many African Americans, themes that seem to be inconsistent with the candidate’s own message of tolerance, reconciliation and spiritual inclusion. 

 

Well, yeah…  this bothers me, not because Reverend Wright’s sermons were tailored to his congregations’ needs and desires for social change in America.  It bothers me because detractors of Obama’s candidacy have chosen to make differences of worship style and historical/social perspectives a political issue.  In my opinion, this is American politics at its worst.

“Efforts to portray Sen. Barack Obama’s Chicago church as racist and anti-American are absurd, mean-spirited and politically motivated,” said the Rev. John Thomas, head of the United Church of Christ http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=14765.

Sadly, the United States is a divided nation, more so today than ever.  We are divided ethically, politically, racially, economically and religiously.  But there was a time, and I’m old enough to remember it, when political candidates didn’t have to defend their faith persuasions.  In fact, if a political candidate wasn’t partic- ularly devout and active in whatever faith they claimed, or didn’t claim, voters wouldn’t even know.  Nobody knew or even asked; it simply wasn’t “politic” to do so.  Then, in 1960, John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, was chosen by his party to be their candidate for President.  Americans became concerned that, if elected, he might be more guided by Papal decrees than by the will of the people or even the Constitution.  But in an address to the nation by way of a speech delivered to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, he answered the peoples’ concerns when in part he said, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” You may read his entire speech at http://www.beliefnet.com/story/40/story_4080_1.html.

According to National Public Radio http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7260620, the Los Angeles Times reported the following poll back in June of 2006:  The percentage of 1,321 respondents who said they could NOT vote for the following presidential candidates because of religion were…

• A Mormon candidate — 37%
• A Jewish candidate — 15%
• A Muslim candidate — 54%
• An evangelical Christian candidate — 21%
• A Catholic candidate — 10%

A later polling of the same question conducted by Fox News concluded that 24% of Americans would not vote for a member of the Christian Coalition, that 50% would not vote for an atheist, and that 53% would not vote for a Scientologist.  Personally, my own faith notwithstanding, I would have more trouble supporting a candidate who professes to believe literally in the creation story found in the book of Genesis, or that Intelligent Design should be taught as a science in public schools than I would supporting a candidate who recognizes that prejudice and bigotry are still alive and well in America.

Who knows or even cares that John Quincy Adams was a Unitarian (more a society than a religion), that Harry S. Truman was a Southern Baptist, or that Dwight David Eisenhower, once a Jehovah’s Witness, was baptized, confirmed, and became a communicant in the Presbyterian Church in a single ceremony on February 1, 1953, just weeks after his first inauguration as president.  But most interesting to me, a member of the United Methodist Church, is that our current Commander In Chief also calls himself a Methodist http://www.adherents.com/adh_presidents.html.

In a remarkable display of candor before he was inaugurated for his first term, the United Methodist News Service detailed Mr. Bush’s political differences with the denomination, pointing out that Mr. Bush’s political views have often been compared to those of a rival denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.  “Having a United Methodist in office does not mean the president’s policies will reflect those of the church,” said the statement from the United Methodist News Service.  “Methodists officially oppose capital punishment and handgun ownership; Mr. Bush supports both.” And the list of disagreements goes on: abortion rights, gays in the military, school vouchers, even Social Security policy. 

“United Methodists are extremely diverse, and there would be some who would take a great deal of pride [in Mr. Bush’s presidency], and some who would be concerned about some of his stands,” said Bishop Susan W. Hassinger, the church’s top official in New England.  http://www.adherents.com/people/pb/George_W_Bush.html

Then, of course, there are troubling questions involving the Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, and Fred Thompson campaigns too.  Of all the candidates, only Hillary Clinton and John McCain seem to be benefiting from the faith factor this year; heaven help us.  For those of you who really care about what the candidates say they believe or how effectively they are using God to levitate their campaigns, there’s an interesting website called the God-o-Meter that you might want to check out http://blog.beliefnet.com/godometer/. 

Let’s be honest, folks, even though 94% of us profess to believe in God, fewer than half of us darken the door of any church more than twice a year.  And, although most of us have one or more Bibles in our homes, only about 3% of us regularly read from them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States.  So don’t you think we are making more out of the faith factor in this election year than we should?

I look forward to receiving your comments on this.  If you are anything like me, you’ll be glad when, after whoever gets elected, we can get back to being concerned about fixing what’s wrong with this country.  My prayer is that we might come back together so we can get it done.

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What We Know vs. What We Think

In psychology, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.  It’s a trap into which we are all vulnerable to fall.  Because our beliefs comfort us in our uncertainties, we tend to avoid information and interpretations that contradict our beliefs.

I suspect that I encountered confirmation bias in another person recently while discussing the current line-up of political candidates.  I was talking with a conservative teacher friend of mine.  Yes, folks, I do have some conservative friends, those who are still open to discussing things without getting red-in-the-face mad and calling me names.

My friend must have felt challenged by my assertion that a Democrat would most likely occupy the White House after next year’s elections, this owing to current economic conditions in our country.  History tells us that Americans always vote for the other party’s candidate when the economy is on the ropes.  Mind you, I didn’t say that I thought the Bush-Cheney tax cuts and run-away spending by a Congress dominated until recently by Republicans was entirely to blame, but I’m pretty sure this is what he thought I was implying.  In defense of the tax cuts, my friend made a claim that I had not heard before.  He said that a recession prevailed during the last three quarters of Bill Clinton’s second term. 

As a teacher of economics, I had not heard this claim before, a belief that I now understand to be widely-held by conservatives.  It challenged me, a “glass-is-half-empty” type of more liberal thinker, so I decided to check it out for myself.  I researched economic data for that period, which is available at the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) website.  What I found was interesting –to me anyway.  While it is true, based on the data I found, that the U.S. economy shrank in three non-consecutive quarters in the early 2000s (the third quarter of 2000, the first quarter of 2001, and the third quarter of 2001), this did not constitute a recession –the official definition of recession being “a fall of a country’s real GDP in two or more successive quarters.”   A minor technicality that the declining quarters were not consecutive?  Perhaps.

My friend was right though; the economy was on shaky ground back then with relatively high unemployment following the burst of the dot-com bubble.  The unemployment was structural, caused by a series of layoffs by companies shifting manufacturing jobs overseas.  Spending was down because many took early retire- ment or adjusted their household budgets from what they had brought home from high-paying, assembly line jobs to what they could make with temporary, part time jobs in the services sector.  All of which validates the point that I was making in the first place.  And that is:  voters go for candidates representing the “other” party whenever the economy is in a slump.  But was this economic downturn Clinton’s fault for having increased taxes on the most wealthy of Americans in 1993 to generate budget surpluses in order to reduce the national debt?  No, I don’t think so.  The stock market had just become over expanded owing to investor enthusiasm for anything with a dot-com in its name.  Impounding the surpluses and buying back treasuries with the surplus generated by higher taxes and lower spending was the right thing to do, in my opinion, to keep inflation under control during those years of rapid economic growth.

Future historians will no doubt recall these shaky economic conditions in the final year of Bush-Cheney administration, conditions caused largely by the second-tier mortgage finance problem, which begat a decline in home values, which begat a decline in the entire housing sector (a huge part of the total economy), which begat a major fall in consumer confidence.  Also factoring into this mess is the dollar’s decline against foreign currencies resulting in large part from the Fed’s expansion of the money supply to cover deficit spending.  And don’t forget the inflation that everyone anticipates owing to the recent increase in the price per barrel of oil.  Why the high price for oil?  Oil prices are pegged to the U.S. dollar world-wide, which is now worth about forty percent less than before 911.  Also, world-wide demand for oil has rapidly increased in recent years as millions of people in China and India step up to their turns behind the wheel of automobiles.

With the national debt now more than $10 Trillion dollars (it was only $5.7 Trillion when Bush was first elected), this neophyte economist believes that we’re in for a long hard pull to dig our- selves out of the hole that we are now in.  If we are already in a recession and don’t know it yet, no matter what this or the next administration attempts to do (whether fiscal or monetary), other matters will be made worse.  If the Fed expands the money supply any more, the dollar will lose more value even quicker and foreign investors will look elsewhere for places to invest.  China has already announced that she is looking toward European countries for safer places to invest.  Oil, ever increasing in price as demand grows and OPEC refuses to produce more, will cost us dispro- portionately more than it costs other countries. With respect to the fiscal policy alternative government has with which to boost the economy, if more is spent ala FDR’s new deal, the national debt could soon rival the 120 percent of the GDP we had during WWII.

Yep, I really am a “glass-is-half-empty” kind of guy.  So I hope that I’m all wet in my assessment of where we are after eight years of reduced national income, this owing to tax cuts that favored households with a lower marginal propensity to consume (MPC), and unconstrained national spending on congressional district pork and a war that could go on forever.

But all this is just what I think; it’s not what I know.  So, please correct me, whoever you are, wherever you think my thinking is wrong.  I hope to never become so closed-minded in my beliefs that I’m not open to fully hearing opposing arguments.

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America ~ Love Her or Leave Her

 Maybe the best way to live out the American dream these days is to sell our homes while they’re still worth something, convert our dollars to eros while they still have some value, learn German, and move to Bavaria.

In the wake of much political debate and talk show commentary over the them-versus-us issue of the war in Iraq, patriotism is a word that’s been bantered about quite a bit lately.  We all know what the word means, don’t we… or do we?

My dictionary says that patriotism is a noun meaning love for or devotion to one’s country.  The idea is simple enough, but it’s pretty darn slippery when you actually try to grab hold of it.  What I mean is this:  for Americans to be seen as being uniformly patriotic we must all love and be devoted to our country in the same way and to the same degree.  If we’re not, some of us will think that others are less patriotic… or “un” patriotic.  Take, for example, Barrack Obama’s recent choice not to comply with the conventional practice of wearing a U.S. flag lapel pin to display his patriotism.  Or better yet, John McCain’s opposition to the current adminis- tration’s refusal to abide by the Geneva Convention in the War on Terror.  Both men have had their patriotism called into question for these things.

Because I love my country but hate so much what the current administration has done to it, I too have had my patriotism impugned.  It’s not right to speak out against the country’s leadership in times of national emergencies, don’t you know.  If you’re not in support of the President’s “vision for victory,” you’re not supporting the troops, don’t you know.  Ah… Bull-Squashy!

For me, demonstrating love for and devotion to one’s country means doing things and sometimes sacrificing things so that all can be better-off, not just the top two percent.  It means strengthening not weakening Constitutional protections for individual rights and liberties that were won and defended by generations of Americans that have come and gone before us, generations that left us a legacy of truth and justice.  It means honoring and perpetuating that legacy.  It means giving one’s fair share, and more when one can.  It means standing firm against and opposing autocratic rule.

Now, I’m not about to start burning flags in protest, but I am now able to understand why some might want to do so.  I am now able too to understand why some of my students don’t want to stand in class in the morning and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in unison with a voice heard over the loudspeaker.  They, like far too many Americans these days, have become jaded by all the claims and contradictions made by our elected representatives.  Promises!  Promises!  And the rich keep on getting richer at the expense of the poor.  My students see it every day; they know how hard their parents are working, many of them two or more jobs each, just to keep their kids’ noses above water.  Forget about getting ahead.  They see how expensive it has become to get a college education and what happens when someone gets really, really sick in a family that’s not covered by health insurance.

Never has the gap between the super rich, the just plain rich, and the ninety-percent-plus rest of us been greater.  No wonder we are pulling ourselves apart, polarized by mass-media political appeal to wedge issues like abortion and gun control. What was it that Patrick Henry said? “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

I guess what it comes right down to is that I may not be as patriotic as I think I am.  If being a patriot means that I must also be a loyalist, then all these chest-beating, holier-than-thou Republicans in Texas are right about me.  Or maybe I’m more patriotic than I think, a little guy sitting at my computer on weekends trying to communicate to all the other little guys out there about how in a democracy it doesn’t make “Common Sense” for the reins of government to be put on the auction block every couple of years so that a different set of rich and powerful might have all the say for awhile.  I don’t know.  I just don’t know.  But I do know that I’m sick and tired of all the excuses government makes for not making any progress on the immigration issue, on the subsidizing of economic activities that don’t need help, on fixing the problems that they themselves have created with education, Social Security and Medicare.  I’m sick and tired of the gutting and ham-stringing of agencies that had been legally instituted over time to protect us and our environment against the excesses and abuses of industry, the pharmaceutical industries, the insurance industries, the energy and petro-chemical industries, the banking and commercial credit industries.  Most of all, I’m sick and tired of government spending our economy into bankruptcy for wars it started over false presumptions and lies.

I guess Oscar Wilde knew what he was talking about when he said, “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”

One of my good friends recently said, “Maybe the best way to live out the American dream these days is to learn German and move to Bavaria.”  I laughed when he said this, remembering back to the 60’s when the phrase, “America – Love Her or Leave Her,” became a popular response to protesters of the Vietnam War.  But, No, I thought, No, I’m not yet ready to leave her, not so long as there is hope.  Canada is looking better to me all the time, but America’s still a pretty good place to live, I think, and I have to believe that it’s possible to make her a better place.  But that’s not about to happen if we let our arrogance and pride stay in the way.  When we do this we lose the ability to make good decisions and we end up doing stupid things like preemptively invading other countries on lame excuses because they have something that we want.  Gee, wasn’t that why we went to war the first time in the Persian Gulf, to deny Iraq the spoils from doing the same thing?

So, for those of us who are still trying to make up our minds about which candidate to get behind in an election year that’s already been well under way for months, maybe it’s okay for us to rethink our traditional veneration of patriotism, if only just a little bit? Maybe we should consider what it really means before we start criticizing one another for the lack of it.

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Government vs. Politics and Economics as a Pawn in the Perpetual Game

  Reading recently that approval rates for President Bush and the democratically controlled Congress are both at all-time lows, I am somewhat pleased to note that the voting public seems to be catching-on. 

Government is indeed BIG business, which is why I think we suffer as a nation from persistent budget deficits, why government panders to business and fails to protect consumers, why special interest groups proliferate, and why bureaucracies continue notwithstanding presidential promises to cut them.

As I’ve written here before, I often remind my students that one cannot separate economics from government.  I say this despite the fact that many more-learned, working economists would say otherwise.  They like to characterize themselves as being merely advisors to business and government decision-makers.  In this way, they are able to keep their skirts clean and dodge responsi- bility when economic policies go awry.  But advocates of Public Choice economic theory are not fooled.  These economists say that politicians, regardless of party affiliation, use and sometimes distort economic theory to gain advantage over their opponents. 

Before I go on, let’s define some terms.  Government, according to Webster, is a system of rule or power over society’s affairs, where- as politics is the science or “tactics” of government.  So, govern- ment is the what while politics is the how, and nothing, save for perhaps the threat of invasion or terrorist attacks, grabs voters’ attention more than the economy. 

The Public Choice school of economic theory was first advanced by James M. Buchanan, 1986 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics.  While most economists say that they view politics as a barrier to sound economic policy, Buchanan and other Public Choice econo- mists say that politics can only be fully understood by employing economic tools of analysis.  They know, as most Americans are finally beginning to suspect, that economic policy is often used not so much for the collective good of society as it is for a means to gain political support.  Take the Bush/Cheney tax cuts for example.

The first of these tax cuts was the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) of 2001.  The second was the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA) of 2003.  The names imply lofty social goals:  to reduce Americans’ tax burdens while, at the same time, spur economic growth and create jobs.  However, the combined effect of these acts bears scant resemblance to their names.  They have done little else but to skim wealth from the masses and move it to those who are already rich, households that are less likely to spend the additional discretionary income on consumption.  The graph below illustrates this redistribution, which, according to The Economic Policy Institute, has been recently estimated by William Gale and Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institution.

The impact of the Bush tax cuts is clearly seen to be uneven across the income scale.  In fact, the results are even more uneven within the top quintile (the fifth bar from the left), seen broken down in the two right-most bars between the top one percent and the rest of wealthiest one-fifth of Americans.  As you can see, the gains of the top one percent are well above the rest of us.

When the Bush Administration claims that it has improved the progressivity of taxes, it points to the percentage changes in shares of income taxes paid as evidence.  But, as the chart shows, reaping large percentage cuts in taxes for those who pay little to begin with does little to boost the after-tax income of those at the bottom of the scale.  In other words, what matters most is not the change in what you pay in taxes, but the change in what you have left after you pay.  In reality, the distribution of the after-tax gains was stacked heavily in favor of the highest-income taxpayers.  And these people don’t spend everything they make like you and I do, they don’t need to.  They sock it away in off-shore accounts and other investments like U.S. treasuries and municiple bonds so as to make more off the taxes paid by the masses in tax-free interest.

Growth in consumer spending, according to the expenditures approach to calculating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has experienced a slowing trend during the Bush/Cheney years, as has gross investment spending by business.  The trade deficit has been accelerating, but this has been largely offset by increased govern- ment spending owing to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — spending over there rather than over here, which has been financed largely with borrowed money (see the numbers for yourself at the government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis).  So, the administration’s economists haven’t had to lie when they have said that the economy has been expanding.  They have exag- gerated greatly though whenever they have said that this expan- sion has been healthy and that the economy is strong… for an economy that expands on borrowed money is like a house being built on a foundation of sand.  When the tide comes in, the house will fall.

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chief, has been a life-long Republican.  Nevertheless, he was appointed to successive four-year terms by four different presidents including Bill Clinton.  He long argued that persistent budget deficits pose a danger to the economy over the long run.  “Mr Bush,” he wrote in his recent book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New Land, “was never willing to contain spending or veto bills that drove the country into deeper and deeper deficits, as Congress abandoned rules that required that the cost of tax cuts be offset by savings elsewhere.”  I don’t wonder that the man resigned mid-way through his last term.

“My biggest frustration remained the president’s unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending,” Greenspan wrote. “Not exercising the veto power became a hallmark of the Bush presidency. . . . To my mind, Bush’s collaborate-don’t-confront approach was a major mistake.”

Though Mr. Greenspan does not admit in his book that he made a mistake, he does express remorse about how Republicans in Congress jumped on his endorsement of the 2001 tax cuts to push through unconditional cuts without any safeguards against surprises. He recounts how Mr. Rubin and Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, begged him to hold off on an endorse- ment because of how it would be perceived.

“It turned out that Conrad and Rubin were right,” he acknowl- edges, and says in his book that Republican leaders in Congress made a grievous error in spending whatever it took to ensure a permanent Republican majority.  He also says that the Republicans deserved to lose control of Congress in the last mid-term elections as a consequence of their lack of fiscal restraint.

While the rich get richer and the poor wait their turn by way of supply-side economists’ “trickle-down” effect, America grows more and more ready for real change.  Despite all this, the administration’s economists at OMB, the BEA and the BLS (Office of Management and Budget) have found ways in the past to manipulate favorable reports and forecasts, which have consis- tently been overly optimistic.  So, at the end of the day, what have the Bush/Cheney tax cuts accomplished?  Well… they got ‘em elected – twice.  Which serves only to prove what Mr. Wasden, my sixth grade teacher, said was true, “Americans vote their own pocketbooks,” and give scant consideration for the consequences to the country as a whole.

I am convinced that, so long as the voting public remains econom- ically ignorant, trusting in politicians and brokerage firm talking heads for information and advice about the economy of the nation, economics will forever be a pawn in the perpetual game of politics.

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Don’t Let Them Get Away With It!

“So-called ‘global warming’ is just a secret ploy by wacko tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21st-century industries, and make our cities safe and more livable. Don’t let them get away with it!”

Chip Giller, founder of Grist.org

I’ve been meeting with some like-thinking friends at a local coffee house Saturday mornings for the last several weeks.  The group is open to discuss most any subject, but the war in Iraq, energy, socioeconomics, and the environment seem to be everyone’s top four concerns lately.  Sure, we talk about politics too, sometimes, but not so much.  With no viable Independent running this time around, most of us will vote for whomever our party of choice nominates anyway.  Further, assuming that voting in key states won’t be rigged next year, we’re guessing that our next President will either be the first woman or first African-American to occupy the Oval Office.  Sorry Rudi.  So, with world petroleum prices quickly approaching $100 a barrel, we talked mostly last time about what we can do as a community and as individuals to survive the next round of escalating fuel prices.  Hey, this is a  big problem — at all levels, from the personal to the international!  Watch the MSNBC video about French turning by the thousands to rented bicycles to get around Paris.

After unleaded regular hits $4.00 a gallon this summer and, assuming that there’s no new major supply of petroleum forth- coming anytime soon, I’m giving two-to-one odds that it will, I figure that it’s going to start costing me close to $20.00 a day to commute to and from my job.  Now, while I’m not sure that we can believe anything Washington tells us anymore, you may see the government’s “official” projection of supplies and prices by clicking HERE.

Pondering this problem last Saturday, I noticed the quote at the top of this post on the coffee cup one of our group’s other men had brought with him.  It gave me a chuckle.  Funny, isn’t it, how so many things that are humorous aren’t really funny at all?  Asking where he got it, I discovered Grist.org — where environmentally-friendly people gather on-line.  Check it out if you have some time.  There’s a link on the homepage to candidate interviews and fact sheets on how all who are vying for their party’s nomination this year rate on energy and environmental issues.  There are some real eye-openers at Grist.org for the open-minded.   Hmmm…

If I downsize to a more fuel-efficient car now I’ll lose thousands on my trade-in.  Geeez, what a Bummer!  Anybody out there in the market for a good, low-mileage 2005 Magnum?  Hmmm — maybe I can find others with whom to carpool.  Wow!  What a great idea.  Too bad there aren’t HOV lanes planned for I35 improvements south of Dallas at the US67 spur.

Hmmm… I wonder if there are any aftermarket entrepreneurs out there thinking about offering E85 conversions for gas-guzzelers like mine that loose their trade-in value in the future used car market.  We really do need to get out ahead of reactionary responses to economic circumstances that can be so easily anticipated.  Students, are you hearing me?

I invite your comments, supportive or un.

What It’s Going to Take to Win in Iraq

To win in Iraq, depending on your definition of winning, I believe that the Iraqi people must first be convinced that a western-style democracy is superior to an Islamic-republic.

Are more troops — another surge — the solution to this quagmire that has gone on in Iraq now longer than any other war in the history of our nation?  Some may think me unpatriotic for saying so, but I think not.

As a retired, career Army officer and an avid reader of military history, I have come to believe that the Allies won a lasting peace in Western Europe following World War II because the German and Italian people, long before our defeat of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s armies, recognized that fascism was an inferior form of government.  We won the war with Japan for the same reason; the Japanese people, by the end of the war, were fed-up with military imperialism and were ready for something better.  They were open to embracing democracy.  Likewise, the people of South Korea, after years of domination by the Japanese, were open to all that democracy promised. 

By contrast, we lost the war in Vietnam because the people there believed that communism offered more than did the “democracy” they had come to know under the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem.  To the Vietnamise, Americans were foreigners, occupiers of their country not unlike the French colonists had been before us.  Many Iraqis feel this same way about our presence in their country.  We may have liberated them from Saddam Hussein — thank you very much — but now we are occupiers.  Therefore, to win the war in Iraq, depending on your definition of winning, I believe that the Iraqi people must first be convinced that a western-style democracy such as ours is superior to an Islamic-republic.  And be not confused.  There is nothing whatsoever democratic about Islamic-republics.  Since I do not believe that that this is ever likely to happen, I agree with with those who think it’s long past time to stop sacrificing our youth and spending future generations of Americans’ money over there.

I’m sorry Mr. President, but you’re wrong, as usual.  Wars are not won on the offensive — battles and campaigns are.  Wars are won only after the reasons for them being fought are resolved.  Like World War I, the War to End All Wars, it didn’t really end in Europe 1918 like the history books say.  The aftermath just fomented more war; the years between 1918 and 1939 were just a lull in the killing.  The aftermath of the first and second rounds of this war sowed the seeds of what we are dealing with now in Southwest Asia.  So, unless we are willing to annihilate all in the Islamic world who oppose us on religious and moral grounds, and that won’t leave very many, we’d best be saving back something for a defensive round.  We’d best be about the business too of rebuilding the “Coalition of the Willing” that your policies and bullheadedness have undone.

According to a small sampling of American opinion on the war in Iraq done by CNN a year ago this very week, only one in five believed back then that the United States was actually winning.  Sixty percent of those polled said that they thought no one was winning.  Notwithstanding, most of number polled agreed with President Bush that we had no choice but to “stay the course.”  Today, according to a more substantial poll recently conducted by CBS News, fifty-nine percent say that they want to end the war — to bring the troops home.  A full two-thirds say that if we must stay in Iraq, they do not support doing so financed by deficit spending.  So, opinion on the war has completely reversed itself over the past year.  Despite this fact, Republican candidates vying to be the next President of the United States are all saying that we can win the war and that we cannot afford to, as Senator McCain has put it, “choose to lose.”  Therefore, if the war continues to be the number one concern in the minds of voters leading up to the elections in November next year, it looks to me like we’re about to have our first female Commander-In-Chief.

Senator McCain, the most outspoken advocate for the war among Republican candidates, now a full 13 percentage points behind the leader, Rudi Giuliani, was asked on the Jim Lehrer show last night how he defined winning the war in Iraq.  But, as I read a transcript of his dialogue with the show’s host this afternoon, I don’t find where he ever really answered the question.  So, if Senator McCain cannot define it, can we? 

Could winning simply be a matter of stabilizing the situation there long enough for the “democratically” elected government of Iraq to make some kind of political progress toward sharing the nation’s oil wealth equitably among its diverse ethnic groups and guaran- teeing us future access to it?  Does winning have to mean the eradication of all fundamentalist Muslims there, AKA “terrorists?”  Is winning in Iraq a matter of our somehow training and enabling an Iraqi self-defense force so that they might deny Iran from claiming a huge share of the country after we have left and cutting us off from the oil there?  Is winning all these things, or is it simply a matter of our staying in Iraq forever?  Hmmm….

Vice President, Dick Cheney, as Secretary of Defense during the Persian Gulf War from early  August 1990 until the end of February 1992, waxed very eloquently after that war on reasons why the United States chose not to pursue the Iraqi military driven out of Kuwait all the way back to Baghdad so as to depose Saddam Hussein then.  Click on the “play” button twice, once to load the video, once to play.

 

After watching this video, I was left wondering what convinced Mr. Cheney that regime change in Iraq in 2001/2002 was such a good idea when it was such a bad idea ten years beforehand.  Even after the revelations of “cooked up” intelligence on WMD in Iraq and Collin Powell’s resignation as Secretary of State, I do not believe that President Bush, all by himself, could have hatched such a hair brained idea.  Read about Thomas P.M. Barnett’s book, “The Pentagon’s New Map.”  Further, with all of his influence, I do not believe that Mr. Cheney could not have dissuaded the President from such a foolhardy course of action?  Hmmm… have you checked the price of Halliburton stock lately?

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Why I Am Against School Vouchers

 If school vouchers become the norm across our land, our most at-risk students will be even more at risk as limited public funds are drained off and redirected to unregulated, non-standardized factories of learning. 

As a public school teacher in what I consider to be an excellent school district in the state of Texas, I suppose that one could say I have a biased view on the school voucher issue.  But I’ve had a first-hand opportunity to compare education in both private and public sectors.  While in the process of becoming certified to teach, I taught in two different private schools in this state.  Yes, it’s true, there are public schools in Texas to which I would not send a son or daughter, one of them is right here in the city where my wife and I presently live.  And, yes, it’s true, some private schools are superior to most public schools.  But these schools are very expensive and their focus is almost always “formation” first, education second.  This inequity, to my mind, is an intolerable situation, one that badly needs fixing in our state.  But I’m convinced that vouchers are not the way to go about it. 

Despite the arguments I hear about privatization ultimately infusing competition into the equation, thus stimulating innovation and motivation to produce superior educational services, and despite the claims of success for the limited programs that have been implemented in various communities, it takes little imagin- ation for me to see where a state-wide voucher program would lead.  Let’s be clear.  Economic theory and social goals are seldom on the same sides of the balance sheet. 

Most teachers and parents are opposed to private school tuition vouchers.  We know that public funds for vouchers will compete with dollars needed for general improvements in America’s public schools.  The National Education Association (NEA) and its affiliates in every state agree.  Collectively, those who know education best all oppose alternatives that divert attention, energy, and resources from efforts to reduce class sizes, enhance teachers’ performance, and provide every student in this country with books, computers, and safe, orderly schools.  So, why are we even debating this issue?  Why do politicians, conservatives mostly, ignore the experts on education?  In a nutshell, it’s because they represent people who don’t want to pay the price that a quality education for every child in America would cost.

What follows are my arguments against school voucher programs:

First, America was founded on a concept of equity for its citizens, all of its citizens — equal justice under the law and equal oppor- tunity.  Although the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution makes it clear that education is primarily a function of states’ govern- ments, time after time, the Supreme Court of the land has ruled in favor of educational equity.  The Constitution of Texas includes these words, “A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”  This clearly establishes the priority for public rather than private education.  Therefore, student achievement in all social-economic groups ought to be the driving force behind any education reform initiative.

Americans want fair, consistent standards for students.  But where voucher programs are in place (Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Florida), a two-tiered system prevails that holds students in public schools to a different standard than those in private schools.

Second, what education in America really needs is help for the students, teachers, and schools that are struggling, not those who are doing well, those whose families would most benefit from implementation of voucher programs.  The failure rate on TAKS tests in Texas clearly shows that children born to families in lower socio-economic circumstances are those who are at greatest risk and are, therefore, those who are in greatest need of assistance.  For this reason, voucher programs are a terrible idea for solving America’s educational problems.  True equity means that every child should be able to attend a good school.  But voucher programs are not designed to help low-income children.

Milton Friedman himself, the founder of the voucher idea, dismissed the notion that vouchers can help low-income families.  He said, and I quote, “It is essential that no conditions be attached to the acceptance of vouchers that interfere with the freedom of private enterprises to experiment.”  Accordingly, I believe that a voucher system in Texas or any other state would only encourage economic, racial, ethnic, and religious stratification in our society.

Third, I believe in the separation of church and state.  Vouchers would violate this principle because most private schools are parochial/religious schools, about eighty-five percent of them actually.  So a state-wide voucher system would be a means for our more fundamental/Conservative citizens to circumvent Constitutional prohibitions against subsidizing religious practices and instruction.

Each year, according to the NEA, about $65 million dollars is spent by foundations and individuals to promote school voucher programs.  In election years, voucher advocates spend even more on ballot measures and in support of pro-voucher candidates.  In the words of political strategist, Grover Norquist, “We win just by debating school choice, because the alternative is to discuss the need to spend more money…”

Despite the efforts of school voucher proponents to make the debate about improving opportunities for low-income students and “school choice,” vouchers, in my opinion, remain an elitist strategy.  From Milton Friedman’s first proposals, through the tuition tax credit proposals of Ronald Reagan, through the voucher proposals on ballots in California, Colorado, Utah and elsewhere, privatization strategies are not about expanding opportunities for low-income children or about improving education in general.  Do not be fooled — they are about resisting meaningful, badly needed improve- ments, costly though they may be, to fix public education.

If school vouchers become the norm across our land, our most at-risk students will be even more at risk as limited public funds are drained off and redirected to unregulated, non-standardized factories of learning.  These factories will turn out a few well-trained, socially and economically elite young men and women who have been programmed not to think, but to behave and vote the way they are told.  The rest of our kids, sadly, will have been left behind despite the president’s “No Child Left Behind” law.  Democracy, already weakened in this country by corporate culture, private interests, and voter apathy, will become oligarchy.

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Continued Deficit Spending — Why We Should Care

 At more than 9 trillion dollars today and counting, your share of the national debt, whether you are working, retired, still in school, or still in diapers, now comes to about $29,000.  Just to pay the interest on this debt takes something like 9 cents out of every tax dollar.  As the debt rises, so does the interest payment. Think of it as making the minimum monthly installment on Uncle Sam’s VISA or MasterCard. 

“Whose fault is this anyway,” you may well ask?  “How’d we get into this mess?  It’s very tempting to blame the government.  But it’s really not their fault.  They obviously don’t know what they’re doing.  Why, they can’t even agree on how big a problem it really is.  So, it’s our fault really because we listen to politicians and believe what their “store-bought” economists claim.  The White House maintains that even if major tax cuts set to expire in 2010 are not left in place, rising tax revenues from a growing economy will produce a surplus of about $150 billion by that year.  The Congressional Budget Office, in the other hand, says that if the tax cuts stay in place until then, the projected surplus vanishes and becomes a $100 billion deficit.

As I teach my students, it is impossible to separate politics from economics.  From the above, you can easily understand why this is true.  Every administration since George Washington’s has “tinkered” with our economy, implementing various, different social and economic programs, albeit, with the best of intentions.  As an example, Thomas Jefferson nearly destroyed the U.S. economy with his Embargo Act of 1807 baring trade with European nations in an attempt to avoid War with France and Great Britain.  In more modern times, Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented the New Deal, which was deficit spending intended to “jump start” our failed economy during the Great Depression.  But, historians tell us that what really got us out of the Depression was not the New Deal, it was the Second World War.

In 1981, compared to the nation’s annual income, the gross national debt reached its lowest point since before Roosevelt’s New Deal.  Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Carter all made progress toward eliminating the debt following WWII by keeping government spending less than income from taxes and other sources.  Had the trend under these presidents continued to the present day, the debt would now be history.  Consider the graph below courtesy of ZFacts.com.  However, President Ronald Reagan implemented unprecedented peacetime deficit spending during his administration which some say brought the Soviet Union to the bargaining table on strategic arms and eventually brought down the Berlin Wall and an end to the Cold War.  This, one might argue, was a good thing.  But it was also a very costly thing. 

This is not partisan politics speaking, it’s history combined with “positive” economics which illustrates the relationship between social and economic politics.  From right off the White House web site in 2001 (since removed for some reason) we read (past tense):  “The traditional pattern of running large deficits only in times of war or economic downturns was broken during much of the 1980s. In 1982 [Reagan’s first budget year], partly in response to a recession, large tax cuts were enacted as fiscal policy. However, these were accompanied by substantial increases in defense spending.  Although reductions were made to nondefense spending, they were not sufficient to offset the impact on the deficit.  As a result, deficits averaging $206 billion were incurred between 1983 and 1992.  These unprecedented peacetime deficits increased debt held by the public from $789 billion in 1981 to $3.0 trillion (48.1% of GDP) in 1992.” [emphasis added]

 

Now, since 2001 and the beginning of the Bush-Cheney tax cuts (begun during peacetime with deficit nondefense spending targeted for reduction but defense spending increased and continuing at higher levels since September 11, 2001 and our declaration of War on Terror), we are at a crunch point.  Our economy is still expanding, yes, but at an increasingly slower and slower pace.  In fact, we may already be on the verge of a recession (see my earlier posting, Will the Real State of Our Nation’s Economy Please Stand Up?)  Therefore, all the progress that was made toward paying off the National Debt by every president since Harry S. Truman up to the Regan and Bush administrations will be for naught.  If our government doesn’t stop spending more than it takes in, it is highly doubtful in my opinion that even our next generation or the generation after that will be able to get it under control.

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A Scapegoat for Mr. Bush’s War

Keith Olbermann did it again July 19th when he reported on MSNBC about the Bush-Cheney administration’s condemnation of Senator Hillary Clinton’s question concerning DOD planning for a future troop withdrawal.  You may see a replay of this broadcast segment by clicking twice on the play button below, once to load, the second time to play.

I had not seen this until this morning while surfing the net on war issues, although I do remember Barack Obama praising Senator Clinton for just asking the question.  Senator Clinton, as a candi- date in the next election for President of the United States, did not ask the question publically, but in a private letter to the Depart- ment of Defense as a functioning member of Congress in its Consti- tutional role of oversight in the budgetary process.  Notwith- standing, the Bush-Cheney administration responded publically, giving a copy of Senator Clinton’s letter to the Associated Press, thus, making it a political issue.  So, if anyone was providing succor to our enemies in Iraq, it certainly was not Senator Clinton.

Further comment by myself on Mr. Olbermann’s political com- mentary is totally unnecessary.  However, I do invite yours.

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