|
Dying for Change
Where the hell I have been the last couple of weeks? Ah, thanks for asking.
Well,
my wife, Susan, and I have been right up to our chins in elder-care
issues. My father is 90, my mother is 87 and Sue's mom is 99 heading
straight for the century mark.
We're not complaining, mind you. We are so lucky that, at our stage of
life, (we're no spring chickens either,) that we still have three out
of four of them still with us.
But it's also been a real eye-opener.
We can't complain. Thanks to the fact that both parents were successful
and thrifty during their productive years, they have the money
necessary for good supplemental health coverage and can pay out of
pocket for in-home care. But even so, the intersection of old age and
the American health care system has been enough to drive the most
loving and loyal offspring straight into anti-depressant-land. To put
it mildly, the American health care system is simply not
geezer-friendly.
With
all we've been through with our parents over the last couple of years,
from broken hips, to abdominal surgeries to mobility issues to trying
to find qualified and trustworthy home-care workers, I have no clue how
families that do not have our resources cope. Even at our modest, but
comfortable level of financial security, the whole thing has been
emotionally and physically exhausting. For those without adequate
health coverage, and just making ends meet or less, old age can only be
a terrifying glimpse into the bowels of hell itself.
Now,
I, at a mere 64 years of age, have a ways to go before I get
unceremoniously tossed into the ranks of Metamucil-For-Lunch-Bunch. But
we're heading in that direction at what seems and increasing rate of
speed. But Sue and I are merely 2 of the 80-million Baby Boomers
trucking down that road. And America is simply not ready for what's
about to slap it upside the head.
We Baby Boomers are, regrettably yet proudly, the most spoiled and
demanding generation to ever cast a shadow on this planet. We grew up
during a time of post-war super-abundance. We have become accustomed to
near-instant results. And that goes triple for when we're ailing. If we
wear out a part we expect a doctor to fix it no later than 3 p.m the
next day. If they can't, we start taking names.
So,
can you even begin to imagine what it will be like when 80- or 90-year
old Boomers begin hobbling into emergency rooms across the nation,
demanding someone fix their crumbling basketball-abused knees, tennis
elbows and golf-wrists? Then there are the usual parts that wear out
naturally; eyeballs, vertebrae, prostates and the ever critical sewage
disposal sub-systems.
Aside from that there will also be mushrooming mobility issues. Boomers
are used to freedom of travel, freedom of movement. Twenty years from
now there'll be 80 million (grouchy) codgers jockeying for room on our
sidewalks and grocery store isles in their red and blue electric
scooter-chairs -- the bumper-car generation from hell.
Dark humor aside, America and Baby Boomers are on a collision course.
America's elder care infrastructure sucks. The only thing that has
prevented a bloody geriatric revolt so far is that our parent's went
through the Great Depression and fought and won a world war.
Consequently their expectations still reflect the "Life is hard. Don't
whine. Just-suck-it-up," grit that not only got them through all that,
but in the process contributed to creating the richest most powerful
nation on earth. But, in the process they also raised a generation that
has come to consider abundance and quick results a birthright. And, as
we Boomers age, we will also consider dignified end-of-life care a
right as well. (Call it a death-right.)
I
only mention all this because it's on my mind these days. As I watch
our parents struggle to maintain the independence and dignity that has
been the hallmark of their lives, I know one thing for sure: something
has to change, and soon.
Because, what good is a nation that can spend trillions on weapons to
"keep us free," if being free means that at the end of our lives we
have less rights and less dignity than a terminally ill family pet.
We won't stand for it.
Call
us selfish. Call us spoiled. We have surely been both. But we are also
the generation that marched and fought in the streets to put an end to
segregation. We are the same generation that marched in and fought in
the streets to put an end to an illegal and immoral war in Vietnam.
So, spoiled and selfish, yes -- but also imbued with deep and
enduring sense of right and wrong, justice and human dignity. And no
where is justice and human dignity more deserved than after a long life
of work and family and community. As the Obama administration and
Congress struggle with fixing the American health care system, elder
care and end of life care needs special attention.
Otherwise,
who knows, we Boomers might have to hit the streets again. And, I don't
know about you, but the idea of tens of thousands of aging former
hippies and radicals marching, polyester pants bulging with adult
diapers, dragging IV rigs and oxygen bottles chanting, "Hell no, we won't go," is more than I can bear.
Intervention
What's the right thing to do when a long-time friend becomes more trouble than you can tolerate?
What
do you do when that friend returns your friendship only so long as you
support everything he does, even the things you've repeatedly asked him
not to do?
And,
what's the right thing to do with a friend, like the one described,
whose behavior and your support of it, poisons your relations with
scores of other friends and potential friends?
This
is the very question President Barack Obama is struggling with this
month. And, if he gets it right, he will be the first post-war
president ever to do so.
That friend, by the way, if you have not already guessed, is Israel.
Repeatedly
we, and almost every other country on earth, have asked, even pleaded,
with Israel to stop building settlements on Palestinian land and to
stop expanding those already built.
And just as repeatedly one Israeli government after another have thumbed their nose at those pleadings.
Now,
don't get me wrong. I've always supported Israel and Israel's right to
exist, and still do. What I have never supported though is Israel right
to use 5000-year old biblical title reports to expand beyond its 1967
borders in order to lay claim to real estate that does not belong to
them.
Yet this naked thievery continues apace. Yes, I said thievery – a
strong word indeed, and one that is certain to outrage my Jewish and
Israeli friends. But, just as Americans had to accept the hard truth
that "enhance interrogation techniques" really meant toture, I
can no longer pretend that what Isreal calls "settlements" are anything
but thievery.
Believe
me, I understand all the arguments Israelis use to justify the
unjustifiable; the holocaust, never again, hostile neighbors,
terrorism, etc. But the strategic situation has changed remarkably
since Israel's formative years. Israel is a nuclear-armed nation with
the strongest and most efficient military in the region – as it has
demonstrated to its hostile neighbor's chagrin more than once.
Should
Israel's survival ever be really threatened she could wipe that threat
away – once and for all – with the push of a button. Even
Israel's most ardent foes have no illusions about that. Should they
ever genuinely threaten Israel's existence, there'd be a
holocaust, and this time it would not be the Jews on the
receiving end.
As
the years have passed it's become harder and harder to accept Israel's
stated justifications for it's expansionist policies as anything other
than cynical obfuscations. By expanding West Bank settlements and
creating new ones Israel has been, piece by piece, preemptively
dismembering any would-be Palestinian state.
And,
by expanding these settlements Israel is also hoping they can push into
the next century a loudly ticking demographic time bomb. Palestinian
birth rates far outstrip the much slower Jewish population growth. Even
within Israel's original borders, Israeli Arab voters will, at some
point down the road, outnumber Jewish voters. What then?
Disenfranchise any citizen with Israel who is not Jewish? Deport all
non Jews? Create an system of apartheid for only true democracy in the
Middle East?
None
of those solutions are realistic or acceptable in modern times. So, by
expanding settlements and establishing new ones, Israel hopes Jewish
immigration from Eastern Europe and elsewhere can at least for the a
while, hold off the day when Israeli Arabs become Israel's new voting
majority.
Look,
here's the bottom line. In the weeks ahead President Obama needs to
make it perfectly clear that America's friendship with Israel is about
to be rebalanced. We will still support Israel, but no longer on
long-standing,“Israel, right or wrong,” status quo. Like America,
Israel faces very real dangers from very real foes. And both nations
will continue facing those dangers for the foreseeable future. But that
fact is not a greenlight to break the law or commit human rights
offenses under cover of national security. We just got done learning
that hard lesson here in America and nows the time to communicate it to
our friends in the Middle East, including Isreal.
Now it's time to lay down the law for the other hooligan in this never-ending pissing match. Israel needs to:
- Stop all settlement construction and expansion. Dead stop. Not another nail, not another brick.
- Except for the large settlements right on or within stones throw of the West Bank/Israel border, Israel must begin
dismantling of all settlements deeper within West Bank territories.
Sure that's going to mean uprooting tens of thousands of Jewish
“settlers,” but the wages of sin are rarely pleasant.
- As
for those settlements straddling that border, they can stay in Israeli
hands, but only if Israel provides Palestinians an acre for acre swap
for those lands. These in-kind lands must be adjacent to Palestinian
lands on the West Bank border or Gaza.
- Israel must begin serious
negotiations with Palestinians on the final status of the historically
blood soaked “holy city” of Jerusalem. That final status must include a
genuine possibility of Arab control of a portion of the
traditionally Arab sector of Jerusalem.
Now
none of this will be either easy or painless for Israel. In fact it
could spark an armed rebellion from Israel rabid right wingers who, all
the holocaust rhetoric aside, simply hate Arabs, all Arabs. Israel's
right wingers are that regions equivalent of our southern crackers
during the civil rights years of the 1960s, or Afrikaners during
apartheid in South Africa. They can't be changed, only controlled and
contained and, when they act out, imprisoned. (The exact same
goes for members of Hamas and Hezbollah. Ignorant, racist, crackers,
one and all.)
To
make matters even more complicated Israel's new leader, Benjamin
Netanyahu, can best be described as Dick Cheney in yamaka. His power is
derived through creating and maintaining fear – fear of Arabs, fear of
terrorism. Now no one in their right mind would suggest that Israel is
not Target One for every Middle Eastern terrorist, the USA being Target
Two.
But
neither the US or Israel face anything even close to an strategic
threat from terrorism. Neither country is going to be defeated,
occupied and taken over by al Qaida, et al. It just ain't gonna happen
– ever. But like Dick Cheney, Netanyahu would have Israelis and the
rest of the world believe that that's precisely the threat his nation
faces. It worked for Cheney – if not for his nation. Because, when
belligerency is peddled as the only alternative to death and
destruction, belligerency becomes, not just policy, but policy married
to patriotism. The last remaining element needed to create a full-blown
disaster is an ambitious demagogue. (H. L. Mencken defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.")
Anyway,
by now it should be clear to any sane person that, when it comes to
Palestinians and Israelis there's never been a shortage of either
demagogues or idiots to follow them. It's long past time for the rest
of the world to draw red lines in the sand.
But
this time it's gotta be TWO lines, not just one. There' has to be one
clear line for Hamas and their ilk, and, for the first time, another
clear line for Israel.
Because
when a friend becomes self-destructive and more trouble than he's
worth, there's really only two choices; desert your friend, or organize
an intervention. Real friends intervene.
P.S.
Okay, now you can email me and accuse me of being an anti-semite.
(Which of course, I am not. I'm just fed up, right up to here, with
both sides. I'm not anti-anything except anti-prick. So, an aside
to both sides: Stop being such giant, swaggering, unrepentant
pricks.)
Capitalism's Greatest Hits
As Americans we've have had it drilled into our heads that there are only three kinds of economic models:
Capitalism: Which
we've been been Pavlovianly conditioned to accept as “the best, most
productive and most democratic economic system ever devised. (The
current meltdown we are assured is the simply that exception that
proves this rule.)
Communism: Which has repeatedly proven itself the least inefficient and least productive economic system ever devised by man,
Socialism: Which fans of unfettered capitalism assure us is simply communism in a dress.
I only bring
this up because today the Republican National Committee, meeting in a
spider hole somewhere where they will, in the next few days, demand
that the Democratic Party rename itself the, Democrat-Socialist Party.
Well, most
of Europe is run by “Social Democrats;” and they seem to doing okay. I
mean, no one is doing great these days, but at least Europeans don't
have to worry about being unemployed AND uninsured.
But if the
RNC wants to make it's case against the Democrats socialist tendencies,
they first have to make a better case for their unfettered capitalist
tendencies. Is pure capitalism really all that efficient? And if so, at
what human costs are these “efficiencies” attained?
Fortunately
history provides report card on American capitalism. And, if it were,
say a bus, that broke down every 20 miles or so and left its passengers
to hoof it into town, I suspect we'd of replaced this thing with
something more efficient a long time ago. Here's that report card:
October 12, 1837
- The Panic of 1837 (sparked by over-extended credit/defaults.) The
House sanctioned the use of Treasury notes for a bailout, provided that
they didn't exceed $10 million; Congress's efforts to stabilize the
nation's currency failed to lift the depression which lasted seven
years.
August 24, 1857 –
Panic spared by the failure of New York branch of the Ohio Life
Insurance and Trust Company which had loaned $5 million to railroad
builders, had been swindled out of millions by the manager of its New
York branch and was unable to pay extensive debt to Eastern bankers.
September 24, 1869 -
"Black Friday" crash of gold prices as Grant administration foiled
attempts by financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk try to corner the gold
market. Several brokerage firms went bankrupt; national economy
was severely disrupted for months.
September 18, 1873
– The Panic of 1873 began with collapse of Jay Cooke and Co., one of
the country's most reputable brokerage houses of it's time, known as
the "financier of the Civil War.” The Panic of 1873 exposed
over-speculation which continued to wreak havoc on the nation's economy
for months. The New York Stock Exchange closed for ten days to wait out
the worst of the crisis. The secretary of the Treasury pumped $26
million of new currency into the economy, swelled the amount of paper
money in circulation to $382 million. Panic did not subside, economy
continued its slump through the end of the decade.
May 5, 1893
– Panic was once again sparked due to reckless speculation and
over-leveraging. Panic swept the New York Stock Exchange and the stock
market crashed; by year's end the country was in a severe depression.
November 9, 1903
- Panic of 1903 (known as the "Rich Man's Panic") reached its low; Dow
dropped to 42.15; stocks of industrial companies fell to single-digit
prices; fiscal crisis dragged on for the rest of the year, took severe
toll on banks, many steel and iron producers.
October 1, 1907
- The nation plunged into the Panic of 1907 which lasted for a year –
sparked by a run on Knickerbocker Trust in New York, which lacked
resources to pay out to the demanding public, ultimately toppled the
economy; President Roosevelt enlisted the aid of his one-time enemy,
financier J.P. Morgan, who capitalized on his considerable reputation
to borrow $1 million in gold from European countries. Outside U. S.
Subtreasury building at Wall and Broad St. in October 1907
October 24, 1929
- "Black Thursday:' stock prices plummeted, a record 12,894,650
shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange Followed by "Black
Tuesday" the markets tanked. Thousands of investors were wiped out as
America's Great Depression began; 1932 - stocks were worth only about
20 percent of their value in the summer of 1929; 1933, nearly half of
America's banks had failed, and unemployment was approaching 15 million
people, or 30 percent of the workforce.
1985-89 - The Savings and Loan collapse... $167 billion in federal bailouts required.
October 19, 1987 -
The stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged
508 points, or 22.6 percent in value - its biggest-ever percentage
drop; inflation and rising interest rates, the announcement of a
surprisingly steep trade deficit and news of an American attack against
Iran were both blamed for Wall Street's woes.
1998 –
The Long-Term Capital Management failure. The Fed had to
intervene to avoid sparking a worldwide panic over the condition of
giant hedge fund companies like LTCM.
2000 – The Dot.com bubble crash
2007 – The housing bubble crash
2008 – The “Toxic Assets, Market Crash
Anyway, that's what the history books say. I don't cook it, I just serve it.
One final thing. If you want a taste of just how bizarre the RNC's demand the DNC change it's name really is, just watch this short video.
Serious Lapse of Judgement
Indeed
Here's a bit of change we didn't bargain for:
DOJ: Torture Memos Just “Serious Lapses of Judgement”
New
York Times — An internal Justice Department inquiry has concluded that
Bush administration lawyers committed serious lapses of judgment in
writing secret memorandums authorizing brutal interrogations but that
they should not be prosecuted, according to government officials
briefed on its findings. (Full Story)
If this DOJ
judgement stands, civics and political science textbook publishers will
only have until Fall to correct their texts to reflect this new measure
of bad behavior. Among the events currently treated by history books as
crimes and crimes against humanity requiring a serious downgrade to
simply “serious lapses of judgement include such events as:
Of course,
it's a lot easier to change the judgement of history than to apologize
to the dead but, if the DOJ's newly minted criminal behavior yardstick
for those in charge sticks, we've got some apologizing to do to.
Because we executed or sent to prison a whole lot of folks after WW II for ordering actions the DOJ's would now apparently consider just “serious lapses of judgement.”
For example:
“After
Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the
International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the
Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and
government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with
torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof
upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we
would now call waterboarding.”... As a result of such accounts, a
number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of
torture that clearly violated the laws of war.” (More)
And, hey, if Richard Nixon's actions, now known as, “Watergate,” weren't “serious lapses of judgement,” I don't know what is. So we need to set that injustice right as well.
Gawd, I
don't know if the DOJ realized what a Pandoras Box of past injustices
they opened with this new standard. The list of the people we've
wronged over the years is almost endless; poor Bill Clinton and Monica,
Scooter Libby, OJ Simpson, Blogo, Charles Manson, John Edwards'
cancer-free mistress, Halliburton/KBR's serial taxpayer
screwings, Charlie Keating, Bernie Madoff -- each guilty only of
"serious lapses of judgement" yet we treated them like common
criminals. Shame on us.
And of course there's the MOTHER OF ALL SERIOUS LAPSES OF JUDGEMENT --
ordering the 9-11 terrorist attacks. ( We can only breathe a collective
sigh of relief that poor, besieged Osama bin Laden survived long enough
to benefit from DOJs new thinking on such matters)
Finally,
just as it took a staunch anti-communist conservative, Richard Nixon,
to soften America's views of Red China, it took a liberal Attorney
General, Eric Holder, to soften America's views of crimes against
humanity. (I mean, imagine if a Republican AG tried this! We'd all be
up in arms about it.)
Anyway, I
feel a great weight lifted from my shoulders. Because, even though I've
never personally committed anything even close to the kinds of
"lapses of judgement," listed above, who knows? Shit happens.
Whose
"Day of Reckoning?"
Here's a question to ponder this morning. It's one I've been pondering for some weeks now:
Is
it worth your time and effort trying to engage in rational discussions
with the increasingly nutty and frantic mouth-breathers on the
political right? Or are were they all genetically wired at birth to
become hybrids of Grandpa Simpson and Mr. Burns?
The only
reason I mention this is that last night, as is my ritual, I settled in
with the Wall Street Journal for my daily recon-mission into
conservative “Neverland,” – a blame-free zone where the words, “Wow, we were sure wrong about that!”are never uttered.
I was doing
fine, until I reached Neverland's dark heart, the WSJ Editorial Page –
a vortex of swirling nonsense where cocksure neo-cons
rhetorically goose step in a tight clockwise circle – much like that
roiling red spot of hot gas on Venus that roils madly but never seems
to move or change.
In
yesterdays editorial the editors were wringing their hands over all
things Obama, in particular his budget and related economic rescue
spending. Here's how they ended that piece:
"Mr.
Obama is more popular than is policies, and sooner or later the twain
shall meet. For now, we are living in another era of unchecked liberal
government. The reckoning will come when Americans discover how much it
costs.”
That's when
I spit my evening brandy out of my nose. I mean, really?! The sheer
chutzpah of it staggers the mind of anyone not on heavy doses of
anti-psychotic drugs.
Where does a sane person, one with a functioning memory, even begin?
First, these
are the same people over at the WS Journal who supported the
hyper-conservative GW Bush administration. You know, the guys who left
us a world economy in near-depression, two unwon wars, and ice caps
melting faster than Joe Lieberman and Arlen Specter can change their
spots.
So, if as
the WSJ editors warn Mr. Obama faces an inevitable day of “reckoning”
over his spending, shouldn't they first “reckon” with the trillions of
dollars in debt their friends in the Bush administration left taxpayers
holding? Shouldn't they first ask, “how much did Bush's policies cost
us?”
Well, let's
see. If they can't or won't do it, we can. After all we have all the
receipts, and we're still getting bills for stuff we didn't even know
about until now. But we can make a start:
The
first thing the WSJ's friends did when they got in office eight years
ago was to eat through the nation's entire supply of seed corn, stored
for them by those damn liberals, the Clinton administration. When Poppa
Bush handed Bill Clinton the keys to the White House he also handed him
a $290 billion deficit.
Eight
years later, when Bill Clinton handed the keys to Sonny Bush he hande
him a $231 billion budget surplus -- the greatest surplus in U.S.
History.
Not only did those damn Clinton liberals manage a budget surplus but
were at the same time able to pay down the national debt by a
staggering 2.4 trillion.
Within
two years the budget surpluses were gone, and the national debt was on
it's way back up as the Bushies began borrowing again to make ends
meet. By the time they left office they'd add another $5 trillion to
the national debt.
Then,
once the seed corn was gone, the Bushies started to borrow and spend
and cut taxes too boot since, to quote Dick Cheney, “deficits don't
matter.” Suddenly now, the WSJ editors and their dwindling army
of dittoheads are all atwitter over “Obama's mounting deficits.”
Then there's
the cost of Bush-era deregulation. Those expenses all came due just as
George W. Bush was hightailing it out of Dodge last January – just in
the nick of time. The full cost of failing (or just plain refusing) to
police corporate America, especially the financial services sector, has
already cost us trillions of dollars, and the full cost may not be
known for a decade. because all those chickens haven't come home to
roost yet. But they're on their way.
Not to pile
on but, then there's the cost of all the environmental degradation that
occurred on their watch. Instead of addressing the mounting evidence
they took a page from Big Tobacco's playbook, first using phony
science to deny global warming was even happening. Then, once it
became impossible to deny it any longer, they changed their argument to
“Sure, but there's no proof than human activities have anything to do
with global warming.” It was an argument designed to preclude even
trying to do anything about global warming, and it worked.
(Unfortunately we can't sue them like we did Big Tobacco.)
Then there's
the war in Iraq. That little mistake cost us $12 billion a month for
more than five of Bush's eight years in office – in all nearly a
trillion bucks down a sandy rat hole, and counting.
In
Afghanistan they spent a small fortune unseating the Taliban and trying
to kill or capture the actual people who planned the 9-11 attacks. On
the very verge of success though the Bushies lost interest,
turning their attention to Iraq before they achieved those goals in
Afghanistan. In the end all the billions of dollars, (and hundreds
of US soldier's lives) spent in Afghanistan achieved nothing. All
they did was allow the Taliban and al Qaida to infect neighboring
Pakistan, regroup and re-engage in Afghanistan, where they now control
most of the country once again. Hundreds of billions of dollars down
the drain there too, and also, still counting.
All that
money the Bush administration spent, wasted, misappropriated, and, in
the end, what did we get for those trillions? Well, we got
partial ownership of Iraq, full ownership of Afghanistan, and a growing
ownership share in nuclear-armed, Taliban/al Qaida infested Pakistan.
Such a deal. Yet during all that no one at the
WSJ predicted Bush would “face a day of reckoning when Americans found
out how much it all cost.”
Obama's
spending is also at historic highs. But there's “spending” and there's
“spending.” Governments, just as households, face two kinds of spending
decisions: discretionary spending and capital-investment spending.
Discretionary spending satisfies the “I may not need it but I want it”
reflex. Capital spending is money invested in things that promise to
generate a return over time. Home improvements, are good example of
household capital spending as they increase the value of a family's
main asset, their home. That big screen TV, on the other hand, is
discretionary spending.
The Bushies did very little capital investing and a whole lot of discretionary spending. For example:
Obama
is investing in education, because it's going to be educated,
uneducated or mis-educated, children who will shape America's future.
And right now our schools are turning out an demonstrably
inferior product.
Obama is
investing in emerging technologies that hold the promise that someday
will free us from the nut-hold of those smarmy phony Saudi “Princes.”
And, will begin the process of cleaning up the environment, before the
environment decides to do the job herself – by getting rid of us.
Obama is
restructuring the tax code, so that those who actually go to work, and
actually provide services or real producing stuff real people really
need, get to keep more of what they make.
That's the
opposite of what the Bush administration did when they funneled tax
breaks to those who already were doing just fine, thank you very much,
while producing little more than paper, much of which has turned out to
be so worthless you can't even pay anyone to take off our hands.
I won't
belabor the point. But for the WSJ editors to posit that voters will
soon be aghast at the cost of Obama's policies, couldn't go unnoticed.
Because they sure didn't notice the ruinousness policies of the Bush
administration when they could have, and when they should have.
And finally,
of all people on earth who should know the difference between out of
control discretionary spending, and wise capital spending, it should be
the guys and gals running the newspaper a friend of mine refers to as
“capitalism's racing form.”
But of
course, the do know the difference. But they are to mainstream American
politics what the Taliban are to mainstream Islam: not just wrong, but crazy-wrong.
Who You Callin' a Minority?
If
there's one characteristic that best describes a conservative is that
they not only live in the past, but are willing to fight for the right
to live in the past, even when it's not in their own long term
interest.
I only mention this today because of this:
A Turning Point for Voting Rights Law
The
Supreme Court hears oral arguments today on the constitutionality of a
central provision of the Voting Rights Act, considered one of the most
effective civil rights laws passed by Congress.... Conservative legal
activists who mean to liberate the mostly Southern states that bear the
biggest burden under the Voting Rights Act...The Supreme Court will
hear arguments this morning in one of its biggest cases of the year, a
suit that seeks to declare unconstitutional a key provision of the
voting act. It is considered the most severe federal intrusion on state
autonomy, but none of the states subject to it has joined the fight. (Full)
The
conservative-leaning Court has slowly chipped away at this landmark
legislation, under constant prodding from white conservative groups and
organizations. Which leads me to issue this warning:
Memo to White Conservatives: Better be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
The Voting Right Act
was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson back in 1965 to assure
minority American citizens had the same voter protections as whites.
There was at the time a well-documented history of minorities -- most
non-whites – being kept from the polls through a variety of legal,
illegal and down right brutal schemes and tactics. Gerrymandering was
one of the legal ways to marginalizing non-white voters. But there were
other ways, dozens, hundreds of ways, because, the racist mind is never
at rest when it comes to race.
Finally it
proved necessary that Congress step in and enact a set of nationwide
legal standards that assure d that every American who wanted to vote,
could do so.
Which is why
today, nearly 45-years later, we have a black President in the White
House and men and women of all shades serving in elected office across
the nation.
Now, let's
get to why white conservatives are not only wrong (again) in their
campaign to gut the Voting Rights Act, but are fixing to shoot
themselves in the foot. Here's their "Oh s--t moment:"
Whites To Minority in U.S.
WASHINGTON,
Feb 11 (Reuters) - Non-Hispanic whites will become a minority in the
United States by 2050, with immigrants and their children driving 82
percent of U.S. population growth in coming years, a new study said on
Monday. Non-Hispanic whites would account for 47 percent of the total
in 2050, it concluded. By that time, one in every five Americans will
be a foreign-born immigrant, compared to one in eight in 2005.
While the
white population, with its lower fertility rate, ages, the Latino
population, the nation's largest minority, will triple in size. Latinos
will be responsible for 60 percent of the population growth until 2050.
They will account for 29 percent of the population, or 128 million in
2050, up from 14 percent now, the study said. "The number of whites
will increase, but only by 4 percent," said D'Vera Cohn, one of the
report's authors.
Get it?
Within the lifetimes of younger conservatives whites, they will no
longer be making the rules, but rather blacks, Hispanics and Asians.
They will be the new majority. They will be deciding how voting
districts are carved up. They will be making the rules for who can and
cannot vote, choosing where polling stations will be setup and what
languages ballots will display.
In short, the shoe will be on other feet --- white feet.
Whites will be the new American minority group. From that day forward,
when someone refers to minority voters, they will be referring white voters.
You don't
need to be a descendant of Nostradamus to predict what will happen when
that day arrives. White voting groups, many the very conservative
groups currently attacking the Voting Rights Act, will be the ones
screaming “descrimination," and claiming their voting rights are being
violated. White voters will file their voter registration applications
with black or brown elected registrars of voters. At polling stations
whites will be asked for identification by poll workers of color. And,
since former minorities will by then be the majority, most polling
stations will be located in their neighborhoods.
All of which
will stoke white conservative's racial already too robust xenophobia
and racial paranoia. Race-based conspiracy theories will consume
conservative talk radio and the Internet as the color of Congress goes
from white, to beige to brown as voters of color do what white voters
had been doing for 250 years.
Now, that's going to happen. The only quesiton conservatives should be asking themselves right now
while they still have a majority say in such matters, is whether this
demographically inivitable racial shift in politics will proceed
legally or illegally. Will politicians of color win honest races,
in honestly drawn congressional districts, without any hint of voters
suppression? Or will they play the same kind of racial gerrymandering
and voter suppression games whites played with such vigor and skill
before the Voting Rights Act made them illegal?
And, once
whites are the minority, will white candidates have a fair crack at
electoral office. They could, and they should. But there's only one
thing guarantees they will -- a
national law protecting minority voting rights.. the very law they are
currently trying to get the Supreme Court to strike down as you read
these words.
So, my conservative friends, the writing is only wall. (In fact it's right there on the White House mailbox, if you just look. “Mr. & Mrs. Obama.”)
Which is why
we should all care what our conservative-leaning Supremes do with the
latest, and most severe, challenge to the Voting Rights Act. Will the
Court protect those rights for every minority voter, including whites?
Or will they gut the Voting Rights Act, leaving the white minority in
the near future at the whim of their new, racially mixed, majority?
But I'm not
optimistic. After all, white American conservatives have shown they are
more than willing to point a gun to their heads when they don't get
their way and threaten, “One wrong move and the Sheriff gets it.”
What's in Name?
Only Everything.
Hey, did ya hear the latest idea from Republicans to revive their moribund party. Here it is:
Demand that the Democratic National Committee – AKA, the Democratic Party – change its name to – are you ready for this?
The Democrat-Socialist Party.
Republicans Ask Democratic Party to Change its Name
Republican
National Committee member James Bopp Jr. says President Obama wants "to
restructure American society along socialist ideals." He and others in
the RNC have drafted a resolution to rename the Democratic Party the
"Democrat Socialist Party."
The proposed resolution ... calls upon the Democrats to be truthful and
honest with the American people by renaming themselves the Democrat
Socialist Party," said Bopp. He compared the branding to Reagan calling
the Soviet Union an "evil empire." (Full)
After I stopped laughing I thought to myself, “Hey, wait, those guys may be on onto something.”
Stop and
think about it for a second. First, there's no question that most
Democrats believe the primary job of government is to provide for the
welfare of those they govern. Democrats want to provide all kinds of
public services; medical care, education, unions for workers.
So I say let's do it. Let's change the name of the DNC to the Democrat-Socialist Party. But
only if the RNC changes it's name as well. To what? Well, since it's
the socialistic impulses of Democrats that apparently requires this
"blackbox warning" right within their name, then the same must be true
for Republicans.
Therefore, Democrats will agree to this “truth in party branding” if the RNC changes its name to:
The Republic-Fascist Party.
Now listen,
I'm not trying to be a smart-ass here. Each party has it's leanings.
Neither is all one thing or the other, but they each lean in a given
direction. The Democratic Party is not really a bunch of pure
socialists, nor is is the Republican party filled with fascists. I'm
just following the lead of the RNC folks who thought this idea up. It's
"tendencies" we're operating on here, right?
So, we know
that fascism, in its purest form is a government that favors militarism
over diplomacy, corporate rights over individual rights, will resort to
inhumane measures (also known as "torture) when dealing with real or
perceived enemies of the state, and fascists also like to give their
countries nicknames like, "the Fatherland," "Motherland," or
"Homeland."
Bingo.
So, fellas
over at the RNC, I'm on board with your proposal for truth in party
re-branding. So let's do it, and get this done before the 2010 mid-term
elections. Because, I agree entirely with you that, when voters go to
the polls, they have a right to know exactly what are the underlying
tendencies that motivate each of the two party candidates on the
ballot.
And what could be more clear and unambiguous than boiling the decision down to a choice between a socialist and a fascist?
Finally, a GOP idea I can get behind.
Too Big To WHAT?
It was an expensive lesson... at least $2 trillion so far, and the meter continues to click off additional billions every day.
The lesson, of course, was not to allow financial institutions to grow
like tumors until they depart the mortal realm and become “too big to fail.”
Or maybe more precisely, the lesson we should have
learned is that to go ahead and let them grow as much as they want, as
fast as they want. Let them take all the risks they want with money
provided them by gullible and/or greedy investors. Then, when they get
in trouble -- as they always do -- let the bastards fail. Doing
so would deprive these losers of their final and most valuable tool of
extortion.
I don't
mention this in order to launch into another diatribe about the
inequities of Washington's Wall Street/bank bailout. Rather I was
musing over my morning (mourning) coffee about the similarities between
the damage done by institutions consider “too big to fail,” and the
constitutional/moral damage America faces now that we've apparently
adopted another "too big" class -- those in this country who are “too big to jail.”
“...Mr.
Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, made a pretty unequivocal
statement that these lawyers should not be targeted...."Those who
devised policy, he believes that they were -- should not be prosecuted
either," Emanuel told ABC's George Stephanopolous.” (Full)
So, it's come to this; to quote from the very lips of Richard Nixon, “If the President does it, it's not illegal.”
My, my, my.
But wait, there's more.
Among the
crimes the previous administration is accused of committing is one that
strikes at the very heart of our legal system – politicizing the
Department of Justice. The White House told Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales who should be hired, who should be fired, who should be
prosecuted and who should be left alone.
Those
comments by the new White House Chief of Staff, coming as they did even
though the stench of Bush administration corruption lingers at DOJ,
shocks and saddens those of us who thought last November, we'd voted
for “change we could finally believe in.”
Apparently not. Because, here
again, was the White House speaking for the Department of Justice. No,
they will not prosecute former Bush administration officials for
authorizing torture, Emanuel said. Implicit in that unequivocal
pronouncement was that they won't even investigate those alleged
mega-crimes. This, not out of the mouth of our top cop, the new Attorney General, but from
the White House -- again.
As a former professor of constitutional law, President Obama should
know that the White House is NOT supposed to meddle in DOJ's decisions
over who, what, where or how to investigate alleged crimes. Period.
"You
have to firewall politics out of the Department of Justice. Because
once it gets in, people question every decision you make," the former
U.S. Attorney from Arkansas, Bud Cummins, told the Los Angeles Times in
March.”
I know
Barack graduated from Harvard, but there's also a pretty good law
school over at Yale, as well. Apparently Yale's teachings on executive
branch obligations under the constitution were a bit more precise:
“...there
is something about the modern presidency that overwhelms the rule of
law. That something is the White House staff, hundreds of bright and
ambitious loyalists constantly struggling on the president’s behalf.
This ongoing struggle has sometimes generated an “us against them”
mentality that supported the repeated assaults on legality over the
past generation...Eric Holder.. must take effective action to restore
the professionalism of his badly demoralized department. He must
insulate the department’s Office of Legal Counsel from political
pressures..” (Restoring the Rule of Law to the White House ---- Bruce Ackerman. Yale Law School, Class of 1967)
But
nevertheless, we are where we are. And here's where we are: The concept
of “too big to fail,” rather than of fixing the system, is simply
feeding and keeping alive the very tumor-like institutions that landed
us in fiscal intensive care to begin with. And that in turn simply sets
the stage for another future round of taxpayer-funded chemo. (It's feels like being mugged then finding out the mugger bailed himself out jail on your credit card.)
But I guess
we can live that. I mean, it might kill our 401ks but it won't kill us.
Much more dangerous though than "too big to fail," is the creation of a
class of individuals in America considered virtually
untouchable, more equal than others, and therefore effectively “too big to jail.”
At least
Nixon left one positive legacy. His rock-hard conservative credentials
allowed him to open the door to Communist China. And history has
recorded that deed.
Will history
now record that it took a liberal Democrat, President Barack Obama, to
close the door on 200 plush years of equal justice for all?
That ball's in your court, Barack.
P.S.
Oh, and Eric Holder – here's a proposition for you to
meditate upon as well; will you go down in history as another Alberto Gonzales?
If so, at least you'll have the peace of mind knowing you too have
transcended the mortal realm rendering yourself too big to jail.
|
English Majors: Watch where
you step
|
|
