Amid the current national discussion over health care and healthcare reform, Robbinsense will endeavor to unravel some of the actual issues in play.
The two primary issues at stake are 1) the health of our population, and 2) the cost of providing healthcare. The primary obstacle to real “health care” is a system conducted within the realm of “private enterprise”….that is, it’s driven by profit motive. There’s very little profit in health. Profit comes from illness. Hence, to maximize profit the system ultimately must be designed to promote illness. Unfortunately, our political system is perfectly aligned with that objective, as we will see.
Pundits and talking heads on the right tirelessly decry the “socialization of medicine” and use the catch-phrase: “Do you want a government bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor?” to rally their passionate troops. Their unspoken answer is: “No, we want an insurance company bureaucrat to do this instead.” Let's take a look, and you decide which you would prefer:
Our healthcare system is a dance between the healthcare industry and the insurance industry. The HCI, which includes the pharmaceutical industry, is profit driven; it makes money off of illness, not wellness. The insurance industry maximizes profit by excluding ill people from its roles, regardless of whether they have been paying premiums. Only government stands between that industry and this objective. Hence, ultimately, we find the government bureaucrat---plus an attorney---standing between us and our doctor whenever the insurance bureaucrat is also there. If we want to cut bureaucracy, the logical figure to cut is the insurance guy. But try to tell that to a right-winger.
The greatest obstacle to real health care is our political system. Republicans are predictable as mosquitoes in the spring: they back industrial interests. They have masters’ degrees in smoke, lies and distortion, PhD’s in the use of fear and semantics---at convincing the middle class that they have their interests at heart. They use catch-terms (“socialization”---I don’t know why this is bad, but they make it sound bad) and compelling advertising: Harry and Louise.
Democrats, as usual, are confused and disorganized because they know they are “supposed to” represent our interests, but actually they are in the pockets of industry also. The healthcare industry, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry are all enormous contributors to our political system. These three industries want no change because they’re making huge profits. And they don’t care about our health.
Only two countries in the world allow “direct-to-consumer advertising” of pharmaceuticals. The drug companies claim high prices are necessary to fund research; yet, they spend twice as much on disgusting ads that foul our TV screens as they do on research. The “sick” part of it is that doctors are “on the take” in prescribing these drugs, while they know that the placebo effect has the best chance to cure their patient regardless of what they do. So while the drug companies bamboozle us with their ads, we request the advertised drugs, doctors comply with prescriptions, the patient is “cured” by placebo effect, and everybody’s happy. But this leads to skyrocketing healthcare costs, and it results in people taking more and more drugs, which ultimately makes them sicker, not well! This re-stokes the cycle.
So what about solutions? The first real answer is for doctors to stop prescribing pills and start making their customers responsible for their health. A typical, ill American is suffering from a bad life-style---poor diet and lack of exercise. If his doctor prescribes life-style alteration, the patient will go to another doctor. A typical doctor dealing with a middle-aged, over-weight, perhaps pre-diabetic patient with high blood pressure and arteriosclerosis will prescribe a drug regimen that is essentially a pharmaceutical cocktail. This targets the patient’s symptoms, but will not cure him. The drugs lead to lethargy, perhaps depression, muscle depletion, and a host of additional problems.
This, my friends, is where good government steps in. But our system is not only designed to keep us sick, it’s designed to make us sick. A typical middle-class or lower-class family consumes multiple meals per week at fast-food restaurants. Why? Because the kids want this food, and because it may be the only thing the parents can afford. The prices at these eateries are so low that people cannot prepare decent meals for their family at comparable cost. But the low check-out price conceals the actual cost. The food, as Morgan Spurlock showed us in his 2004 movie, Super Size Me, has little or no nutritional value. In fact, it makes people sick. The “social” cost of this diet is ill health. A staggering percentage of our population is overweight and headed toward diabetes, if not already there. The expense of that will continue to spiral upwards.
The low prices of the fast food industry are by government prerogative. Our government subsidizes beef; it subsidizes potatoes, and significantly, it subsidizes corn. Most of what we buy at a fast food restaurant comes from corn, including the beef, soda, even the packaging! Ranchers feed corn to their cattle because it makes the herd sick!! (This is sick!) Cattle are grass-feeders. They can’t digest corn, hence it makes them ill. Their body chemistry changes; they eat more, exercise less (if that’s possible), put on fat, increase weight. The farmer fattens up his herd; making the cow sick makes it worth more at market. He uses antibiotics to contain the illness, introducing these dangerous chemicals to the food-chain. Ultimately we consume the antibiotics by eating the meat, leading to more serious illness from drug-resistant bacteria. A single beef patty at McDonald’s will contain meat from a thousand animals! If any one of those cows has a serious pathogen, guess what! This is all carried out under government aegis. The government is getting paid off through contributions from the ranchers, farmers and fast food industry--- as well as the insurance, healthcare industry and drug manufacturers.
Again, the answer is not “less government”, but good government. First, government should stop subsidizing the cycle that has such profound ill-effects for our health and budget. Next it should reverse the process by taxing these products and subsidizing the foodstuffs that promote health. The cost of delivering quality food to our markets is somewhat fixed, while the cost of manufacturing junk, that’s “fun to eat”, is extremely small. Even with low prices, these manufacturers make huge profits. But these profits are essentially extracted from the public weal in the social cost of poor health. Considering this social cost, responsible government should do whatever it takes to make nutritional food less expensive than junk food, and that includes candy, chips, soda and Twinkies in the supermarket as well as fast food restaurants. That would promote better health and save billions. The drive to accomplish this in the face of huge political forces can only come from us, through pressure on our representatives and/or through direct pressure on market forces.
Today a “healthy”, 60 year-old “independent contractor” pays upward of $1000 per month for health insurance, with $1000 deductible. If he actually gets sick, the insurer will do all it can to deny coverage, frequently leading to the additional expense and stress of legal redress. If the person tries to “shop for coverage”, changing carriers will open the door to intense scrutiny of medical records to uncover “pre-existing conditions” that will further deny coverage. This system is obscene. We need to get the right wing to stand down, and stand up---for us!
The plans now being advanced take a piece-meal approach to solving our problems. The government is advocating a “modified” plan for health insurance, where it will offer insurance to compete with the private system already in place. This would be a system comparable to Medicare, but available to those not covered by that system. Presumably, the government plan will put downward pressure on insurance costs and people will be drawn to it.
As usual, this approach picks away at the symptoms without addressing the real problem. We need a single-payer system like in Britain or Japan, and to focus on the real healthcare problems that we’ve spoken about here. Healthcare should be a public utility instead of “for profit” enterprise. But even aside from the Republicans, enormous political forces are amassed to resist these changes, and at best we will move slowly with a piecemeal compromise. If the government plan is well-received, we may be able to move toward real reform.
Good luck. Try to get involved.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Politics of Drugs: International Aspects
by Jackson Dave
The fleeing killers, identified by authorities as members of the Mexican gang known as the Zetas, left behind a cargo truck packed with 700 pounds of cocaine. More stunning was the cache found in a brick warehouse: 11 M-60 machine guns, eight Claymore mines, a Chinese-made antitank rocket, more than 500 grenades, commando uniforms, bulletproof vests and thousands of rounds of ammunition."They were preparing for war," said the adjunct director of the National Civilian Police, Rember Larios.
Mexico’s drug wars are pushing gangs into Guatemala, where law enforcement is weak and corruption is even more hospitable. More than 6000 people were killed in Guatemala alone in 2008, most of whom were linked to the drug trade. Guatemalan police forces openly admit their 20,000 man force cannot stand up to the gangs, armed with 40 mm. grenades and .50 caliber, armor-piercing rifles. Ultimately, the success of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s war on the drug cartels only moves them on to weaker neighbors. Many analysts say drug gangs, unchecked, could turn Guatemala into a full-fledged narco-state.
Despite efforts to clean up police forces, the criminal-justice system in Guatemala is rife with corruption and deeply mistrusted. Banking oversight is lax; and persistent poverty means a ready supply of potential helpers for the cash-rich drug gangs. While they wait for assistance, Guatemalan officials brace for more violence from Mexican traffickers.
Tension is obvious at the Guatemala City prison where Perez and the other suspected Zeta gunmen are held. Helmeted soldiers and Special Forces police in black berets guard the crumbling road leading to the main gate. Troops hide in the bushes on the steep hillside above it. Armored military vehicles, with .50-caliber machine guns front and back, make constant passes. A mobile anti-aircraft gun is stationed outside the entrance in the event of Mexican gangsters arriving by air.
And just what is this all about? These people are supplying our demand for drugs! We drive this madness, mayhem, killing. We are responsible for this!
And in Mexico itself? 10,000 people have been killed in the effort to rein in the drug cartels. In May twenty-seven elected officials were arrested in the state of Michoacan, under investigation for ties to trafficking. A drug cartel known as La Familia, controls virtually all politics. La Familia has undermined the electoral system and day-to-day governance, pushing an agenda that goes beyond the usual money-only interests of drug cartels.
Cartels, whether by intimidation, purchase or order, can dictate who the candidates are, as well as political agenda. Dozens of local and state-wide politicians have been abducted or tortured and killed in the last couple of years. No political party has been spared the determination and wrath of this organization.
In the meantime, this cartel is extending its roots beyond Michoacan to neighboring Mexican states. Beyond its reach in Mexico, La Familia has set up drug-running operations in U.S. cities, including Los Angeles. Many fear that Mexico could be sliding into widespread civil strife with incalculable consequences for the U.S., particularly the Southwest. It's an old story in other parts of Latin America, and for that reason, three of the region's former heads of state -- including onetime Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo -- recently issued a report urging the U.S. to consider legalizing at least marijuana.
In response to political pressure from gun activists, the U. S. cannot even muster the political courage to stem the annual flow of 60,000 guns to Mexico, including assault rifles, semiautomatic pistols and .50-caliber rifles, illegal in Mexico, which go to drug traffickers from an estimated 6,000 American gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. We legalize AK47s, but outlaw pot! Is this madness? We cry over Mexican people crossing into our country---people whom eager employers are ready to hire, while in return for the drugs that we demand, we send back weapons and $23 Billion per year, fueling corruption, mayhem, civil war.
The principle agencies that should be dealing with this flow of weapons are the ATF and “Homeland Security’s” Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. But auditors have said those agencies had not effectively coordinated their efforts, in part because they "lack clear roles and responsibilities and had been operating under an outdated inter-agency agreement". Politics! Rubbish. This shows the level of concern by our government and by us toward this tragedy. It also reflects the level of influence that the National Rifle Association has over our government.
For a country as proud of its cultural autonomy as Mexico has been, one of the bitter ironies is the way in which the pseudo-romantic culture of drug trafficking has captured so much of the nation's popular imagination. In the cities of Mexico's northern and western states, traffickers and wannabe narcos mimic the dress and tattoos of Los Angeles' street gangs. One of Mexico's most ubiquitous popular music genres is the narco-corrido, ballads built on traditional norteño dance music but with lyrics that romanticize the drug trade.
This story---this scenario could well have been presented from the perspective of a number of countries in South America. It may have been presented from the opium-dominated economy of Afghanistan, or any country in the “Golden Triangle” of Southeast Asia. All over the world we see violence, strife and civil war, destroyed economies and mayhem in the countries that fill our demand for drugs. We demand their drugs; then our government tells them (and us) that they are responsible for our drug problems. We pressure them to wage war on their own people to stop supplying our demand. At the same time we send in arms and billions of $ to fuel the armies that we're supposedly trying to stop. You and I are completely deluded if we think this problem can be solved at the source. It can only be solved here! Our government is not going to change its policy (in the absence of bold and enlightened leadership) because politically it's too risky.
And as always, our government’s hypocrisy is epic. The substance causing the most wide-spread health problems in the world, by far, is tobacco. But this is our largest agricultural export. In the 1980s China began a government-sponsored program (similar to our government-mandated program) to discourage smoking. They began by restricting the tobacco companies’ advertising. The Reagan state department brought enough diplomatic pressure to coerce them to drop the campaign. Welcome, again, to “American Exceptionalism”. It’s perfectly OK for us to export dangerous narcotics, but we give our government permission to destroy other countries to stop them from exporting drugs in return. You and I stand back, or we claim apathetic ignorance.
But what goes around comes around. According to a Justice Department report, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have established a presence in 230 U. S. cities, from Anchorage to Phoenix to Sheboyga, Wis. Killings are beginning to escalate. In the last 14 months we’ve seen more than 500 drug-related kidnappings in Phoenix alone. Roving Mexican gangsters called bajadores (take-down crews) are responsible for most of these crimes. They are notorious for cruelty, often smashing fingers and pistol-whipping victims, sometimes to death, to send the message to others. It’s common now that the victims are as deeply involved in the trade as the bajadores; but it’s only a small step before bank presidents begin to need body guards.
This mess can be cleaned up in one swoop: legalize drugs. Drugs are plentiful and cheap. If we import drugs as we import televisions or peaches, the supply routes go above ground, prices and profits tumble, drug gangs and cartels crumble. Or do we continue to wallow in “American Exceptionalism”, believing that our domestic policies trump the welfare of the rest of the world?
You might say that "your son's grip on sanity is so fragile that the small act of legalizing drugs might increase the chances by 21% of him going over the top". This may be true. But whose fault is that? Is it the fault of Mexico or Guatemala? Or is it the fault of our own culture's sickness? How many lives, other mothers' sons in far-away lands, do we have the moral authority to destroy with our raging demand for drugs and insane policies?
End the madness. Please write to your representatives.
Jackson Dave is a Robbinsense staff writer
The fleeing killers, identified by authorities as members of the Mexican gang known as the Zetas, left behind a cargo truck packed with 700 pounds of cocaine. More stunning was the cache found in a brick warehouse: 11 M-60 machine guns, eight Claymore mines, a Chinese-made antitank rocket, more than 500 grenades, commando uniforms, bulletproof vests and thousands of rounds of ammunition."They were preparing for war," said the adjunct director of the National Civilian Police, Rember Larios.
Mexico’s drug wars are pushing gangs into Guatemala, where law enforcement is weak and corruption is even more hospitable. More than 6000 people were killed in Guatemala alone in 2008, most of whom were linked to the drug trade. Guatemalan police forces openly admit their 20,000 man force cannot stand up to the gangs, armed with 40 mm. grenades and .50 caliber, armor-piercing rifles. Ultimately, the success of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s war on the drug cartels only moves them on to weaker neighbors. Many analysts say drug gangs, unchecked, could turn Guatemala into a full-fledged narco-state.
Despite efforts to clean up police forces, the criminal-justice system in Guatemala is rife with corruption and deeply mistrusted. Banking oversight is lax; and persistent poverty means a ready supply of potential helpers for the cash-rich drug gangs. While they wait for assistance, Guatemalan officials brace for more violence from Mexican traffickers.
Tension is obvious at the Guatemala City prison where Perez and the other suspected Zeta gunmen are held. Helmeted soldiers and Special Forces police in black berets guard the crumbling road leading to the main gate. Troops hide in the bushes on the steep hillside above it. Armored military vehicles, with .50-caliber machine guns front and back, make constant passes. A mobile anti-aircraft gun is stationed outside the entrance in the event of Mexican gangsters arriving by air.
And just what is this all about? These people are supplying our demand for drugs! We drive this madness, mayhem, killing. We are responsible for this!
And in Mexico itself? 10,000 people have been killed in the effort to rein in the drug cartels. In May twenty-seven elected officials were arrested in the state of Michoacan, under investigation for ties to trafficking. A drug cartel known as La Familia, controls virtually all politics. La Familia has undermined the electoral system and day-to-day governance, pushing an agenda that goes beyond the usual money-only interests of drug cartels.
Cartels, whether by intimidation, purchase or order, can dictate who the candidates are, as well as political agenda. Dozens of local and state-wide politicians have been abducted or tortured and killed in the last couple of years. No political party has been spared the determination and wrath of this organization.
In the meantime, this cartel is extending its roots beyond Michoacan to neighboring Mexican states. Beyond its reach in Mexico, La Familia has set up drug-running operations in U.S. cities, including Los Angeles. Many fear that Mexico could be sliding into widespread civil strife with incalculable consequences for the U.S., particularly the Southwest. It's an old story in other parts of Latin America, and for that reason, three of the region's former heads of state -- including onetime Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo -- recently issued a report urging the U.S. to consider legalizing at least marijuana.
In response to political pressure from gun activists, the U. S. cannot even muster the political courage to stem the annual flow of 60,000 guns to Mexico, including assault rifles, semiautomatic pistols and .50-caliber rifles, illegal in Mexico, which go to drug traffickers from an estimated 6,000 American gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. We legalize AK47s, but outlaw pot! Is this madness? We cry over Mexican people crossing into our country---people whom eager employers are ready to hire, while in return for the drugs that we demand, we send back weapons and $23 Billion per year, fueling corruption, mayhem, civil war.
The principle agencies that should be dealing with this flow of weapons are the ATF and “Homeland Security’s” Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. But auditors have said those agencies had not effectively coordinated their efforts, in part because they "lack clear roles and responsibilities and had been operating under an outdated inter-agency agreement". Politics! Rubbish. This shows the level of concern by our government and by us toward this tragedy. It also reflects the level of influence that the National Rifle Association has over our government.
For a country as proud of its cultural autonomy as Mexico has been, one of the bitter ironies is the way in which the pseudo-romantic culture of drug trafficking has captured so much of the nation's popular imagination. In the cities of Mexico's northern and western states, traffickers and wannabe narcos mimic the dress and tattoos of Los Angeles' street gangs. One of Mexico's most ubiquitous popular music genres is the narco-corrido, ballads built on traditional norteño dance music but with lyrics that romanticize the drug trade.
This story---this scenario could well have been presented from the perspective of a number of countries in South America. It may have been presented from the opium-dominated economy of Afghanistan, or any country in the “Golden Triangle” of Southeast Asia. All over the world we see violence, strife and civil war, destroyed economies and mayhem in the countries that fill our demand for drugs. We demand their drugs; then our government tells them (and us) that they are responsible for our drug problems. We pressure them to wage war on their own people to stop supplying our demand. At the same time we send in arms and billions of $ to fuel the armies that we're supposedly trying to stop. You and I are completely deluded if we think this problem can be solved at the source. It can only be solved here! Our government is not going to change its policy (in the absence of bold and enlightened leadership) because politically it's too risky.
And as always, our government’s hypocrisy is epic. The substance causing the most wide-spread health problems in the world, by far, is tobacco. But this is our largest agricultural export. In the 1980s China began a government-sponsored program (similar to our government-mandated program) to discourage smoking. They began by restricting the tobacco companies’ advertising. The Reagan state department brought enough diplomatic pressure to coerce them to drop the campaign. Welcome, again, to “American Exceptionalism”. It’s perfectly OK for us to export dangerous narcotics, but we give our government permission to destroy other countries to stop them from exporting drugs in return. You and I stand back, or we claim apathetic ignorance.
But what goes around comes around. According to a Justice Department report, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have established a presence in 230 U. S. cities, from Anchorage to Phoenix to Sheboyga, Wis. Killings are beginning to escalate. In the last 14 months we’ve seen more than 500 drug-related kidnappings in Phoenix alone. Roving Mexican gangsters called bajadores (take-down crews) are responsible for most of these crimes. They are notorious for cruelty, often smashing fingers and pistol-whipping victims, sometimes to death, to send the message to others. It’s common now that the victims are as deeply involved in the trade as the bajadores; but it’s only a small step before bank presidents begin to need body guards.
This mess can be cleaned up in one swoop: legalize drugs. Drugs are plentiful and cheap. If we import drugs as we import televisions or peaches, the supply routes go above ground, prices and profits tumble, drug gangs and cartels crumble. Or do we continue to wallow in “American Exceptionalism”, believing that our domestic policies trump the welfare of the rest of the world?
You might say that "your son's grip on sanity is so fragile that the small act of legalizing drugs might increase the chances by 21% of him going over the top". This may be true. But whose fault is that? Is it the fault of Mexico or Guatemala? Or is it the fault of our own culture's sickness? How many lives, other mothers' sons in far-away lands, do we have the moral authority to destroy with our raging demand for drugs and insane policies?
End the madness. Please write to your representatives.
Jackson Dave is a Robbinsense staff writer
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
GOD: abridged
In April we began a discussion on religion. Going on,
God has been with man since he was able to conceive the concept. Early man used God to explain a bewildering world. The development of science opened the door for man to accept the notion that there may be no god. This has led to the controversy over whether God invented man or man invented God.
Opinions over the nature of God are extremely varied, but people tend to congregate around certain bodies of belief, forming “religion”. There’s great contagion in “group-think” and many have used it through history to control large groups of people.
Ironically, though we focus on inter-faith conflict, the prominence and violence associated with intra-faith conflict is greater. Generally, a religion must have cohesion within itself before it can gain the momentum necessary to wage war on other faiths. In the case of Christianity, the 325 (CE) conference at Nicaea is credited with resolving the abstract notion that Jesus was a god, while the bible of the time dictated worship of only one god. This conference was also successful at abating much of the bloodshed between Christian sects over such matters.
Early religions were polytheistic in nature. Judaism became the first (of the major religions) to accept the concept of one universal God. Christianity, then Islam followed in the mono-theistic tradition. We consider, perhaps naively, that the polytheistic religions are “primitive”.
Many are repulsed by the notion that humans evolved from apes. The noble creature, man, could only have been created in a stroke by the hand of God. The Christian contention that “man is created in God’s own image” is a display of considerable arrogance. The idea that God wishes to be "worshiped", or even acknowledged (we call this "faith"), ascribes human frailty to the nature of God. The notion that man might “know” God, or understand his (its) “thoughts” is fantastic.
One salient reason for this is language. The study of primitive cultures or any culture that is very different from our own is hindered by a language gap. People’s thinking is a function of their language, and broad cultural distinctions lead to words and concepts that cannot be translated. This leads to communication impasse. A primary axiom of anthropology is that language precedes intelligence. We're unable to think thoughts that we cannot verbalize. (To pursue this subject see a discussion by Raphael Gamaroff. Russian developmental psychologist, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, describes language as “thought’s crowning glory.” “Intelligence” would necessarily follow.) Animals without language operate on instinct. “Notions” that may come to us are sensed as feelings or emotions; only wild speculation turns feelings into a body of "knowledge".
In that vein, when considering that communication gaps exist even between members of our own species, it’s difficult to fathom that we might be able to “understand” God---whatever that is. Our language doesn’t contain the words to describe God, much less what [he] thinks. I suggest that the gap in cognitive function between man and God is probably greater than that between man and insect.
As for “Intelligent Design”, discussed in Robbinsense April, it’s noteworthy that [perhaps all] proponents of this belief seem to be Christians. We don’t hear of Buddhists or atheists subscribing to this “science”. The contention that we must accept either evolution or religious belief is naïve. Aside from the possibility that God chose evolution to create [his] beings, there are many other possibilities that we haven’t, or cannot consider.
Those who say that the Bible is the source of their belief, and certainty, are hiding behind a smoke screen. Beyond being self-contradictory, the Bible is largely written in abstraction and parables, leaving virtually anything to be interpreted from its contents. It was not until modern times that some began interpreting the Bible literally. Evangelistic Christians claim that the obvious metaphors, such as a man surviving ingestion by a whale, are allegorical, then contend that the rest is factual history. (Even if Jonah weren’t crushed by jaws or gullet, he would quickly asphyxiate in stomach gasses.) An observer without predilection toward Christianity, would conclude that the book is advertising material for the religion---a sort of “infomercial”. We might see the Bible as similar to the advocacy of a Bush administration program, presented fully-spun to lead the reader to accept the author’s premise.
As a side-note, maybe some helpful reader could inform us all how the family tree of man extended beyond Adam and Eve. They didn’t seem to have any daughters.
Some believe that God talks to them---personally. Others believe it’s an impersonal force. Some believe that it’s an absurdity. Some believe it’s what makes us strive toward our best selves.
As for my assessment: God may be a patronly, bearded dude, on a celestial throne, with a fair-skined, blue-eyed Palestinian sitting next to him, over-looking minions and judging all (I’ll give it 0.1%) The heavenly bodies (stars and planets) throughout the universe may be gods (0.5%). God may be a vast, ethereal soup, the “cosmic deity” (25%). This “spiritual force” might even be somewhat within the grasp of a person with highly sophisticated spiritual gifts (such as Jesus). Other prominent religions may contain the reality of God (1%). Or it’s possible that we all “create” our own destiny (as we create our own living reality), and that our personal belief establishes our reality in death through eternity (This is my own theory, 2%). (In the movie After Life, by Hirokazu Kore-eda, the dead arrive at a way-station where counselors instruct them to choose their favorite memory from life, which they will then re-live in an eternal loop.) It's possible that the universe as we know it (including us) is God---that the "big bang" was the emergence of God into physical form (3%). It’s possible that there’s no god (30%). This leaves 38.4% for “other”.
I hope you will share your “probability profiles” in comments.
Considering that the nature of God is beyond our comprehension, does it really matter what exactly that nature is? We're left with our own beliefs. Beyond a drive to manipulate others, who would be so naïve, or arrogant, as to dictate what others should believe? It's indefensible that in free society government might dictate religious sanctions.
Obviously for some the existence and nature of God is relevant, while for others, it is not. We will look into that next month:
Why do people of similar education and intellect come to significantly different conclusions about issues like religion and politics?
--and--
Why do intelligent people resist the obvious gifts and the joy that Jesus Christ can bring to their lives? --or-- Why do some intelligent people gorge themselves on fantasy and superstition?
God has been with man since he was able to conceive the concept. Early man used God to explain a bewildering world. The development of science opened the door for man to accept the notion that there may be no god. This has led to the controversy over whether God invented man or man invented God.
Opinions over the nature of God are extremely varied, but people tend to congregate around certain bodies of belief, forming “religion”. There’s great contagion in “group-think” and many have used it through history to control large groups of people.
Ironically, though we focus on inter-faith conflict, the prominence and violence associated with intra-faith conflict is greater. Generally, a religion must have cohesion within itself before it can gain the momentum necessary to wage war on other faiths. In the case of Christianity, the 325 (CE) conference at Nicaea is credited with resolving the abstract notion that Jesus was a god, while the bible of the time dictated worship of only one god. This conference was also successful at abating much of the bloodshed between Christian sects over such matters.
Early religions were polytheistic in nature. Judaism became the first (of the major religions) to accept the concept of one universal God. Christianity, then Islam followed in the mono-theistic tradition. We consider, perhaps naively, that the polytheistic religions are “primitive”.
Many are repulsed by the notion that humans evolved from apes. The noble creature, man, could only have been created in a stroke by the hand of God. The Christian contention that “man is created in God’s own image” is a display of considerable arrogance. The idea that God wishes to be "worshiped", or even acknowledged (we call this "faith"), ascribes human frailty to the nature of God. The notion that man might “know” God, or understand his (its) “thoughts” is fantastic.
One salient reason for this is language. The study of primitive cultures or any culture that is very different from our own is hindered by a language gap. People’s thinking is a function of their language, and broad cultural distinctions lead to words and concepts that cannot be translated. This leads to communication impasse. A primary axiom of anthropology is that language precedes intelligence. We're unable to think thoughts that we cannot verbalize. (To pursue this subject see a discussion by Raphael Gamaroff. Russian developmental psychologist, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, describes language as “thought’s crowning glory.” “Intelligence” would necessarily follow.) Animals without language operate on instinct. “Notions” that may come to us are sensed as feelings or emotions; only wild speculation turns feelings into a body of "knowledge".
In that vein, when considering that communication gaps exist even between members of our own species, it’s difficult to fathom that we might be able to “understand” God---whatever that is. Our language doesn’t contain the words to describe God, much less what [he] thinks. I suggest that the gap in cognitive function between man and God is probably greater than that between man and insect.
As for “Intelligent Design”, discussed in Robbinsense April, it’s noteworthy that [perhaps all] proponents of this belief seem to be Christians. We don’t hear of Buddhists or atheists subscribing to this “science”. The contention that we must accept either evolution or religious belief is naïve. Aside from the possibility that God chose evolution to create [his] beings, there are many other possibilities that we haven’t, or cannot consider.
Those who say that the Bible is the source of their belief, and certainty, are hiding behind a smoke screen. Beyond being self-contradictory, the Bible is largely written in abstraction and parables, leaving virtually anything to be interpreted from its contents. It was not until modern times that some began interpreting the Bible literally. Evangelistic Christians claim that the obvious metaphors, such as a man surviving ingestion by a whale, are allegorical, then contend that the rest is factual history. (Even if Jonah weren’t crushed by jaws or gullet, he would quickly asphyxiate in stomach gasses.) An observer without predilection toward Christianity, would conclude that the book is advertising material for the religion---a sort of “infomercial”. We might see the Bible as similar to the advocacy of a Bush administration program, presented fully-spun to lead the reader to accept the author’s premise.
As a side-note, maybe some helpful reader could inform us all how the family tree of man extended beyond Adam and Eve. They didn’t seem to have any daughters.
Some believe that God talks to them---personally. Others believe it’s an impersonal force. Some believe that it’s an absurdity. Some believe it’s what makes us strive toward our best selves.
As for my assessment: God may be a patronly, bearded dude, on a celestial throne, with a fair-skined, blue-eyed Palestinian sitting next to him, over-looking minions and judging all (I’ll give it 0.1%) The heavenly bodies (stars and planets) throughout the universe may be gods (0.5%). God may be a vast, ethereal soup, the “cosmic deity” (25%). This “spiritual force” might even be somewhat within the grasp of a person with highly sophisticated spiritual gifts (such as Jesus). Other prominent religions may contain the reality of God (1%). Or it’s possible that we all “create” our own destiny (as we create our own living reality), and that our personal belief establishes our reality in death through eternity (This is my own theory, 2%). (In the movie After Life, by Hirokazu Kore-eda, the dead arrive at a way-station where counselors instruct them to choose their favorite memory from life, which they will then re-live in an eternal loop.) It's possible that the universe as we know it (including us) is God---that the "big bang" was the emergence of God into physical form (3%). It’s possible that there’s no god (30%). This leaves 38.4% for “other”.
I hope you will share your “probability profiles” in comments.
Considering that the nature of God is beyond our comprehension, does it really matter what exactly that nature is? We're left with our own beliefs. Beyond a drive to manipulate others, who would be so naïve, or arrogant, as to dictate what others should believe? It's indefensible that in free society government might dictate religious sanctions.
Obviously for some the existence and nature of God is relevant, while for others, it is not. We will look into that next month:
Why do people of similar education and intellect come to significantly different conclusions about issues like religion and politics?
--and--
Why do intelligent people resist the obvious gifts and the joy that Jesus Christ can bring to their lives? --or-- Why do some intelligent people gorge themselves on fantasy and superstition?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
100-Day Assessment and the Myth of American Exceptionalism
Gentle readers, allow me first to apologize for the length
of this article. The consideration of a president’s performance is a
complicated matter. We must consider not only what he has
accomplished/attempted, but the reality of what can really be expected of
him---with the cooperation, or not, of Congress and the reality of what WE
expect and will tolerate. I have lumped together these two subjects because “American
Exceptionalism” is intertwined in constraint of what can be done.
It’s easy to direct anger and frustration at our previous government when so much of its machinations were so repugnant to many of us. I’m afraid this is misdirected anger. For starters, we were not blind-sided by the Bush administration. Regardless of his campaign promises in the 2000 election and regardless of the dubious election that put him in office, by 2004 we had ample information and ample familiarity, including the evidence of Abu-Ghraib atrocities in April of that year, to have swept this man into the gutter. How many among us actually believed that the government was not behind this? The contention that the 2004 election was tainted is irrelevant; Bush should have been repudiated by a 90% margin! The reality that half of us voted for him in the face of all that we had seen is the issue that needs to be considered.
We are responsible for the misdeeds of our government. We have learned over and over that we cannot trust our government---we know they lie to us. We cannot trust our government to act on behalf of our own country, much less with integrity toward other countries. Any citizen who is not aware of this after Vietnam, alone, is clearly not engaged.
Mr. Bush was an under-achieving, under-educated man who rose to political heights, not because of his intelligence or ability to do anything well, but because of his name and his election machinery. He made no claim to be well-read or well-informed. He openly promoted religious dogma and advanced the notion of “American Exceptionalism.” He flaunted his lack of sophistication by speaking in “good-ol'-boy” vernacular, and represented the Republican Party’s repudiation of intellect. This approach to politics is totally laughable, except it works! It got him elected. Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber and Rush Limbaugh represent the intellectual wing of the Republican Party!
This has become our national character. Mr. Bush is US! His government was a perfect reflection of who we are: under-educated, under-achieving, apathetic slackers, who are more interested in the NFL than the welfare of their country. Our recent prosperity has come from the naive benefaction of foreign lenders. We worry more about taxes than educating our children. We blame hard-working immigrants for our problems; we care more about Paris Hilton than Paris, France. We don’t pay our own bills; why should we care if the government doesn’t pay its bills. We vote for a man based on whether we “like” him, rather than what kind of a president he promises to be.
It’s in the shadow of OUR perfidy to our country that we must consider the performance of Mr. Obama. In 2006 we swept Republicans from office in outrage over Bush’s policies. What did the Democrats do to undermine his programs? NOTHING! If Bush were a Democrat, he would have been impeached---successfully---by the Republicans. But the Democratic Congress is implicated in all that transpired in the last eight years. All but a few supported the wars.
The resolution to support Mr. Bush’s war plans was based on three conditions: 1) proof of weapons of mass destruction, 2) proof of collaboration with al Qaeda and 3) proof of the connection between Iraq and the events of 9/11. None of these conditions was met; the government issued flimsy lies on behalf of all three and repeated them over and over, based on the accurate assumption that we would be stupid enough to believe them. The government’s claim of connection between al Qaeda and Iraq consisted of a confession, subsequently retracted, by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, induced under torture after rendition and finally murder in Libya. For MWDs, we had “yellow cake”, aluminum tubes, Valerie Plame and “Curveball”; there was no evidence to connect 9/11, only claims. We were caught up in the drums of war because of 9/11, swept by passion into a reckless, irresponsible catastrophe. Aside from a few lonely voices, Congress, with no more sense than we, failed to rein in the president because it recognized that we were on board with the contagion of war fever. We swallowed the president's lies and backed his policies largely because we're cursed by the greatest military force the world has ever seen. Our reckless presidents use this might with our blessing because we think we can get away with it.
The so-called liberal press promoted the president’s plans by daily trumpeting his false claims, glorifying our presumed danger and determination to allay the peril. "From August 2002 until the war was launched in March of 2003 there were about 140 front page pieces in THE WASHINGTON POST making the administration's case for war," says Howard Kurtz, the Post's media critic. "But there was only a handful of stories that ran on the front page that made the opposite case. Or, if not making the opposite case, raised questions." A “balanced” press would have pointed out in each story advancing government proposals that there was no conclusive evidence to support the claims. If the press were actually "liberal", front page articles would have appeared daily pointing out that the government had no case for war. The powerful scions who own the media have a stake in war. It's good for commerce.
Congress was briefed about “enhanced interrogation” as early as 2002; this was seemingly endorsed by press and journalists from both sides of the aisle. All of these people were also afraid to oppose this hideous policy. (See Jacob Weisberg's article from NEWSWEEK.) There is some contention now that our congressmen were not informed, but it largely comes down to “he said, she said”. There was ample information that our government was not behaving properly or legally. Beyond doing nothing, in 2006, in full view of the American public, congress passed the Military Commissions Act. Rejecting core American values, this act effectively undermines the Constitution, giving the president powers to be judge and jury over any individual whom he cares to claim is a “threat to the state." This was utter congressional capitulation, absolving government officials (including implicated members of congress themselves) of responsibility and prosecution from violation of the War Crimes Act. The president signed this abomination, which might have been titled: The George W. Bush Absolution Act, into law.
Unfortunately, we can't expect Congress to act on behalf of our laws in face of public opprobrium, much less a feckless president. Congress has no interest in assuming its constitutional duties as a one-third partner in running our government. Their sole interest lies in getting re-elected. In the early seventies, it was public outrage---outright rebellion and Congressional plug-pulling that impelled Mr. Nixon to evacuate his armies from Vietnam. Where are these young people, these people who care, now?
There was a time when we expected our government to have integrity and be responsible. Well within the memory of many, our leaders worried about at least appearing to do the right thing. This changed in the eighties. In 1979 President Carter pointed out the impending danger of oil imports and the strain of imbalanced trade accounts. In response to the clarion call of a looming threat to our nation, among the three presidential candidates in 1980, Carter promised to tackle this problem directly, John Anderson (a Republican running against the Reagan ticket) promised a “starter” fifty cent-per-gallon gasoline tax. Ronald Reagan promised “Morning in America:” no problems, no sacrifice, no tax, no trade problem, infinite oil---just elect him. That’s the message we wanted to hear; and the Republican Party has been running on that platform ever since.
We talk about patriotism and wear a flag on our lapel, but the vast majority of our citizens have no more interest in the welfare or integrity of their country than of their own household budgets. The integrity of our political system requires that the government follows its own laws. It is our responsibility to hold our representatives accountable to this standard. Instead, we accept, and we allow our government to operate from the dangerous premise of American Exceptionalism.
The roots of the term are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, who noted in the 19th Century, that the United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy. The term itself did not emerge until after World War II when it was embraced by neoconservative pundits in what was described in the International Herald Tribune as "an ugly twist of late". Since that war we have been congratulating ourselves for “saving the world” and proceeding with the notion that “the world owes us.” We hear this from our government, we hear this from our parents; we hear it from the media. We are so accustomed to the notion that somehow our nation doesn’t have to operate by the same rules as other countries, that we're inured to it.
A couple of examples:
In the 1996 presidential campaign, President Clinton received contributions from sources connected with the Chinese government. This incident was made into a scandal because it’s in violation of our laws proscribing foreign powers from meddling in our politics. Clinton said, “Obviously it would be a very serious matter for the United States if any country were to attempt to funnel funds to one of our parties for any reason whatever.”
Fueled by the Republican campaign committee, Americans were outraged over this matter. Yet our government has made an art-form of meddling in the affairs of foreign countries and their political process for over eighty years. The list of specifics is epic. We manipulate the economies of foreign countries. We engage in all forms of shenanigans to disrupt their political process. We prop up dictators, foment political unrest, directly overthrow popular governments and occasionally execute heads of state, all under the rationale that it is in our national interest. WE, the people, accept the notion that this is OK for our government---because our national interest somehow trumps that of the rest of the world.(!)
And the (so-called liberal) press backs this fully. In recent years the press has trumpeted the government’s outrage over Iranian backed insurgency in Iraq…as though Iran has no right to impact the political course of their next door neighbor, thwarting our efforts. We did the same in regard to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. (How would we respond if Turkey invaded Mexico to overthrow their government?) Yet we obviously have every right to invade a country on the other side of the world, one that posed no threat to us? Our citizenry, you and I, are passive to this outrageous hypocrisy because we have bought into “American Exceptionalism!”
So in regard to the pursuance by the Justice Department of retribution from Bush administration officials over torture, the tangled web of responsibility that surrounds that administration would ultimately never be penetrated. Who, after all, is responsible?
For those who think, "The United States of America does not commit torture", it's time to face reality. Our government has a long relationship with torture. Aside from clear torture conducted during the Civil War, more recently we need only look to the Vietnam War. The United States sponsored, trained, and funded Operation Phoenix, which approved torture by our allies, the South Vietnamese government. By the CIA's own account, over 20,000 suspected insurgents were killed or tortured to death with our approval. We're now re-visiting how we trained torturers and allowed death squads to operate in Central America. During World War II we rounded up 120,000 Japanese Americans and put them in concentration camps. And now we think that there's torture going on by our allies in Iraq. Presumably, it's a matter of proximity to the evil. If you're doing it directly, is it different than if you're encouraging somebody else to do it (extraordinary rendition)?
So what is different now? The difference is that this has been made legal...this was officially sanctioned. This was ordered by the President. The Department of Justice made memos saying you can do this. The principals, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, sat in meetings and talked about interrogations that were plainly illegal, according to our laws, and according to treaties we have signed. All of it is now laid out before the public. If you look at Fox News or a discussion of this on the conservative side you find a strong assertion that: "Not only should this stuff have been done, but we should keep doing it."
So when administration lawyers were giving the go-ahead, when congress had knowledge of these measures and gave at least tacit approval, when the American public knew what was going on and allowed it to resume for years, who is responsible?
I personally am responsible. I learned of this, as did we all, in 2004. I was outraged, but did not fire off letters to my representatives over one more particular, disgusting episode in our government’s behavior. It was so obviously unacceptable that a letter was unnecessary. I failed to organize or participate in expressions of public dissent. We are all responsible for the actions of the Bush government. It's likely that culpability by top members of the Bush administration could never be proved in a court of law. I believe Mr. Obama is wise to stay clear of this matter.
And to what extent do we allow our government to prosecute anyone that the president chooses to call “enemy of the state”? How long before our president includes political enemies in such a broad category? And who, after all, are the terrorists anyway? If someone planted a bomb in the Pacific View Shopping Mall, killing 359 shoppers and clerks, we would call that person a “terrorist”. What if a bomb destroys a shopping mall in Baghdad, or a suburban housing tract in Kabul---a bomb that happened to be lodged in the warhead of a Cruise missile, fired from a U. S. Navy ship, and ordered by our president? Do we have the right to decide this is OK---because our lying government claims it’s in support of our national security? Only if one accepts the notion of “American Exceptionalism” can this not also be recognized as "state-sponsored terrorism".
And who is to say that such bombing makes you and me safer, even if there may have been two "terrorists" among the 320 dead? How many of the thousands of survivors of this massacre, will be compelled to take up arms and vengeance against us in any form of army that presents itself. Terrorists, no. These are freedom fighters. Any real "war on terrorism" must begin at home.
I’m sorry, friends; bombing foreign countries is not OK. Yet 90% of our ovine population supports this outrage. The “Republican Noise Machine”, led by Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh, is on a propaganda blitz to convince us that any effort to undermine the policies leading to the mess they have put us in will be responsible for future and inevitable attacks. What's behind the unprecedented maneuvering of our former administration? This is much more than "legacy".
If Cheney and the noisy, right-wing rabble can coerce the new administration to continue the policies of the previous administration for even a month, it validates the Bush government and puts prosecution out of reach. On the other hand, if Mr. Obama is successful in defusing or even reducing the threat of international terrorism, this represents the greatest threat to these craven demagogues.
Additionally, engaging this rabble (Rush, Fox News, Hannity, etc) in fear-mongering over terrorism lends credence to the notion that policies of the new administration will have been responsible for future incidents of terrorism. In fact, the likelihood of such incidents is very high. The only likely solutions to this problem are either to perpetuate the Bush “Homeland Security” program, leading to a fortified police state, or stop doing the things that cause people to want to kill us. Cheney's solution is obviously the former; but we would have elected John McCain if that was where we wanted to go. Cheney is still trying to win the last election---after defeat. (Hey, Republicans did that in California in 2003 after losing the election to Grey Davis.)
To proceed with the second alternative, the American people must abandon the concept of “American Exceptionalism” and demand that our government conduct foreign affairs with integrity. We must come to realize how oppressive our foreign policy is. Please read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, by John Perkins for a primer on the subject. It's relatively short and quite engaging. We need to make the connection between these policies and terror! We need to care enough about our country and our world to do this.
As for what Mr. Obama should do, he has already stated that government officials complicit in torture will not be prosecuted. This ambiguous move side-steps the criminality of the policy, lending to it tacit approval. We believe Mr. Obama should pardon complicit government officials, as Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon. This would make open acknowledgement of the criminality involved. Acceptance of a pardon is acknowledgement of having committed the crime. Next, the government should make (quiet) diplomatic overtures to the world court, opening the door for prosecution of war criminals.
Meanwhile, it’s cathartic that our nation should pay penance for the mess that our arrogance has created. We need this agony, obviously having forgotten the Vietnam War in a short generation. Mr. Bush had every intention of marching through Iraq, Iran and on, as Alexander, spreading his "vision of democracy,” Had he really found "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, would we have actually permitted this? With the right-wing rabble pushing it, I suspect so.
Real change must come from us. We must first realize that “American Exceptionalism” is a myth. We must come to realize that the impact of meddling in internal affairs of other nations---our foreign policy---is pejorative, not only to the world, but to us. We are not advocating detachment, rather a foreign policy that leads to a world that is better for the nations to which we give real aid, not the kind of aid that leads to enrichment of American companies and economic as well as military dominion. Likewise, we must come to realize that our immense military budget and strength is a liability, every bit as much as it’s an asset. We have seen up close what this power can do in the hands of a man like President Bush. Only the wisest among us is capable of using it responsibly.
We have shown enough wisdom to elect a person who appears to be capable of changing our direction. This is a good, first step. But the bottom line here is that unfortunately, President Bush was a reflection of us. If we want significant change to our institutions, then WE have to change. It’s unreasonable to think that by electing a different kind of president, we can change our institutions, in four short years, much less a few months. This process may take a generation. Just last week Mr. Obama signaled to the Israelis that we will no longer endorse the illegal establishment of settlements in occupied lands. On so many fronts Mr. Obama is on track that Robbinsense endorses his efforts; we give him a B+ for his 100-day grade.
It’s easy to direct anger and frustration at our previous government when so much of its machinations were so repugnant to many of us. I’m afraid this is misdirected anger. For starters, we were not blind-sided by the Bush administration. Regardless of his campaign promises in the 2000 election and regardless of the dubious election that put him in office, by 2004 we had ample information and ample familiarity, including the evidence of Abu-Ghraib atrocities in April of that year, to have swept this man into the gutter. How many among us actually believed that the government was not behind this? The contention that the 2004 election was tainted is irrelevant; Bush should have been repudiated by a 90% margin! The reality that half of us voted for him in the face of all that we had seen is the issue that needs to be considered.
We are responsible for the misdeeds of our government. We have learned over and over that we cannot trust our government---we know they lie to us. We cannot trust our government to act on behalf of our own country, much less with integrity toward other countries. Any citizen who is not aware of this after Vietnam, alone, is clearly not engaged.
Mr. Bush was an under-achieving, under-educated man who rose to political heights, not because of his intelligence or ability to do anything well, but because of his name and his election machinery. He made no claim to be well-read or well-informed. He openly promoted religious dogma and advanced the notion of “American Exceptionalism.” He flaunted his lack of sophistication by speaking in “good-ol'-boy” vernacular, and represented the Republican Party’s repudiation of intellect. This approach to politics is totally laughable, except it works! It got him elected. Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber and Rush Limbaugh represent the intellectual wing of the Republican Party!
This has become our national character. Mr. Bush is US! His government was a perfect reflection of who we are: under-educated, under-achieving, apathetic slackers, who are more interested in the NFL than the welfare of their country. Our recent prosperity has come from the naive benefaction of foreign lenders. We worry more about taxes than educating our children. We blame hard-working immigrants for our problems; we care more about Paris Hilton than Paris, France. We don’t pay our own bills; why should we care if the government doesn’t pay its bills. We vote for a man based on whether we “like” him, rather than what kind of a president he promises to be.
It’s in the shadow of OUR perfidy to our country that we must consider the performance of Mr. Obama. In 2006 we swept Republicans from office in outrage over Bush’s policies. What did the Democrats do to undermine his programs? NOTHING! If Bush were a Democrat, he would have been impeached---successfully---by the Republicans. But the Democratic Congress is implicated in all that transpired in the last eight years. All but a few supported the wars.
The resolution to support Mr. Bush’s war plans was based on three conditions: 1) proof of weapons of mass destruction, 2) proof of collaboration with al Qaeda and 3) proof of the connection between Iraq and the events of 9/11. None of these conditions was met; the government issued flimsy lies on behalf of all three and repeated them over and over, based on the accurate assumption that we would be stupid enough to believe them. The government’s claim of connection between al Qaeda and Iraq consisted of a confession, subsequently retracted, by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, induced under torture after rendition and finally murder in Libya. For MWDs, we had “yellow cake”, aluminum tubes, Valerie Plame and “Curveball”; there was no evidence to connect 9/11, only claims. We were caught up in the drums of war because of 9/11, swept by passion into a reckless, irresponsible catastrophe. Aside from a few lonely voices, Congress, with no more sense than we, failed to rein in the president because it recognized that we were on board with the contagion of war fever. We swallowed the president's lies and backed his policies largely because we're cursed by the greatest military force the world has ever seen. Our reckless presidents use this might with our blessing because we think we can get away with it.
The so-called liberal press promoted the president’s plans by daily trumpeting his false claims, glorifying our presumed danger and determination to allay the peril. "From August 2002 until the war was launched in March of 2003 there were about 140 front page pieces in THE WASHINGTON POST making the administration's case for war," says Howard Kurtz, the Post's media critic. "But there was only a handful of stories that ran on the front page that made the opposite case. Or, if not making the opposite case, raised questions." A “balanced” press would have pointed out in each story advancing government proposals that there was no conclusive evidence to support the claims. If the press were actually "liberal", front page articles would have appeared daily pointing out that the government had no case for war. The powerful scions who own the media have a stake in war. It's good for commerce.
Congress was briefed about “enhanced interrogation” as early as 2002; this was seemingly endorsed by press and journalists from both sides of the aisle. All of these people were also afraid to oppose this hideous policy. (See Jacob Weisberg's article from NEWSWEEK.) There is some contention now that our congressmen were not informed, but it largely comes down to “he said, she said”. There was ample information that our government was not behaving properly or legally. Beyond doing nothing, in 2006, in full view of the American public, congress passed the Military Commissions Act. Rejecting core American values, this act effectively undermines the Constitution, giving the president powers to be judge and jury over any individual whom he cares to claim is a “threat to the state." This was utter congressional capitulation, absolving government officials (including implicated members of congress themselves) of responsibility and prosecution from violation of the War Crimes Act. The president signed this abomination, which might have been titled: The George W. Bush Absolution Act, into law.
Unfortunately, we can't expect Congress to act on behalf of our laws in face of public opprobrium, much less a feckless president. Congress has no interest in assuming its constitutional duties as a one-third partner in running our government. Their sole interest lies in getting re-elected. In the early seventies, it was public outrage---outright rebellion and Congressional plug-pulling that impelled Mr. Nixon to evacuate his armies from Vietnam. Where are these young people, these people who care, now?
There was a time when we expected our government to have integrity and be responsible. Well within the memory of many, our leaders worried about at least appearing to do the right thing. This changed in the eighties. In 1979 President Carter pointed out the impending danger of oil imports and the strain of imbalanced trade accounts. In response to the clarion call of a looming threat to our nation, among the three presidential candidates in 1980, Carter promised to tackle this problem directly, John Anderson (a Republican running against the Reagan ticket) promised a “starter” fifty cent-per-gallon gasoline tax. Ronald Reagan promised “Morning in America:” no problems, no sacrifice, no tax, no trade problem, infinite oil---just elect him. That’s the message we wanted to hear; and the Republican Party has been running on that platform ever since.
We talk about patriotism and wear a flag on our lapel, but the vast majority of our citizens have no more interest in the welfare or integrity of their country than of their own household budgets. The integrity of our political system requires that the government follows its own laws. It is our responsibility to hold our representatives accountable to this standard. Instead, we accept, and we allow our government to operate from the dangerous premise of American Exceptionalism.
The roots of the term are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, who noted in the 19th Century, that the United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy. The term itself did not emerge until after World War II when it was embraced by neoconservative pundits in what was described in the International Herald Tribune as "an ugly twist of late". Since that war we have been congratulating ourselves for “saving the world” and proceeding with the notion that “the world owes us.” We hear this from our government, we hear this from our parents; we hear it from the media. We are so accustomed to the notion that somehow our nation doesn’t have to operate by the same rules as other countries, that we're inured to it.
A couple of examples:
In the 1996 presidential campaign, President Clinton received contributions from sources connected with the Chinese government. This incident was made into a scandal because it’s in violation of our laws proscribing foreign powers from meddling in our politics. Clinton said, “Obviously it would be a very serious matter for the United States if any country were to attempt to funnel funds to one of our parties for any reason whatever.”
Fueled by the Republican campaign committee, Americans were outraged over this matter. Yet our government has made an art-form of meddling in the affairs of foreign countries and their political process for over eighty years. The list of specifics is epic. We manipulate the economies of foreign countries. We engage in all forms of shenanigans to disrupt their political process. We prop up dictators, foment political unrest, directly overthrow popular governments and occasionally execute heads of state, all under the rationale that it is in our national interest. WE, the people, accept the notion that this is OK for our government---because our national interest somehow trumps that of the rest of the world.(!)
And the (so-called liberal) press backs this fully. In recent years the press has trumpeted the government’s outrage over Iranian backed insurgency in Iraq…as though Iran has no right to impact the political course of their next door neighbor, thwarting our efforts. We did the same in regard to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. (How would we respond if Turkey invaded Mexico to overthrow their government?) Yet we obviously have every right to invade a country on the other side of the world, one that posed no threat to us? Our citizenry, you and I, are passive to this outrageous hypocrisy because we have bought into “American Exceptionalism!”
So in regard to the pursuance by the Justice Department of retribution from Bush administration officials over torture, the tangled web of responsibility that surrounds that administration would ultimately never be penetrated. Who, after all, is responsible?
For those who think, "The United States of America does not commit torture", it's time to face reality. Our government has a long relationship with torture. Aside from clear torture conducted during the Civil War, more recently we need only look to the Vietnam War. The United States sponsored, trained, and funded Operation Phoenix, which approved torture by our allies, the South Vietnamese government. By the CIA's own account, over 20,000 suspected insurgents were killed or tortured to death with our approval. We're now re-visiting how we trained torturers and allowed death squads to operate in Central America. During World War II we rounded up 120,000 Japanese Americans and put them in concentration camps. And now we think that there's torture going on by our allies in Iraq. Presumably, it's a matter of proximity to the evil. If you're doing it directly, is it different than if you're encouraging somebody else to do it (extraordinary rendition)?
So what is different now? The difference is that this has been made legal...this was officially sanctioned. This was ordered by the President. The Department of Justice made memos saying you can do this. The principals, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, sat in meetings and talked about interrogations that were plainly illegal, according to our laws, and according to treaties we have signed. All of it is now laid out before the public. If you look at Fox News or a discussion of this on the conservative side you find a strong assertion that: "Not only should this stuff have been done, but we should keep doing it."
So when administration lawyers were giving the go-ahead, when congress had knowledge of these measures and gave at least tacit approval, when the American public knew what was going on and allowed it to resume for years, who is responsible?
I personally am responsible. I learned of this, as did we all, in 2004. I was outraged, but did not fire off letters to my representatives over one more particular, disgusting episode in our government’s behavior. It was so obviously unacceptable that a letter was unnecessary. I failed to organize or participate in expressions of public dissent. We are all responsible for the actions of the Bush government. It's likely that culpability by top members of the Bush administration could never be proved in a court of law. I believe Mr. Obama is wise to stay clear of this matter.
And to what extent do we allow our government to prosecute anyone that the president chooses to call “enemy of the state”? How long before our president includes political enemies in such a broad category? And who, after all, are the terrorists anyway? If someone planted a bomb in the Pacific View Shopping Mall, killing 359 shoppers and clerks, we would call that person a “terrorist”. What if a bomb destroys a shopping mall in Baghdad, or a suburban housing tract in Kabul---a bomb that happened to be lodged in the warhead of a Cruise missile, fired from a U. S. Navy ship, and ordered by our president? Do we have the right to decide this is OK---because our lying government claims it’s in support of our national security? Only if one accepts the notion of “American Exceptionalism” can this not also be recognized as "state-sponsored terrorism".
And who is to say that such bombing makes you and me safer, even if there may have been two "terrorists" among the 320 dead? How many of the thousands of survivors of this massacre, will be compelled to take up arms and vengeance against us in any form of army that presents itself. Terrorists, no. These are freedom fighters. Any real "war on terrorism" must begin at home.
I’m sorry, friends; bombing foreign countries is not OK. Yet 90% of our ovine population supports this outrage. The “Republican Noise Machine”, led by Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh, is on a propaganda blitz to convince us that any effort to undermine the policies leading to the mess they have put us in will be responsible for future and inevitable attacks. What's behind the unprecedented maneuvering of our former administration? This is much more than "legacy".
If Cheney and the noisy, right-wing rabble can coerce the new administration to continue the policies of the previous administration for even a month, it validates the Bush government and puts prosecution out of reach. On the other hand, if Mr. Obama is successful in defusing or even reducing the threat of international terrorism, this represents the greatest threat to these craven demagogues.
Additionally, engaging this rabble (Rush, Fox News, Hannity, etc) in fear-mongering over terrorism lends credence to the notion that policies of the new administration will have been responsible for future incidents of terrorism. In fact, the likelihood of such incidents is very high. The only likely solutions to this problem are either to perpetuate the Bush “Homeland Security” program, leading to a fortified police state, or stop doing the things that cause people to want to kill us. Cheney's solution is obviously the former; but we would have elected John McCain if that was where we wanted to go. Cheney is still trying to win the last election---after defeat. (Hey, Republicans did that in California in 2003 after losing the election to Grey Davis.)
To proceed with the second alternative, the American people must abandon the concept of “American Exceptionalism” and demand that our government conduct foreign affairs with integrity. We must come to realize how oppressive our foreign policy is. Please read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, by John Perkins for a primer on the subject. It's relatively short and quite engaging. We need to make the connection between these policies and terror! We need to care enough about our country and our world to do this.
As for what Mr. Obama should do, he has already stated that government officials complicit in torture will not be prosecuted. This ambiguous move side-steps the criminality of the policy, lending to it tacit approval. We believe Mr. Obama should pardon complicit government officials, as Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon. This would make open acknowledgement of the criminality involved. Acceptance of a pardon is acknowledgement of having committed the crime. Next, the government should make (quiet) diplomatic overtures to the world court, opening the door for prosecution of war criminals.
Meanwhile, it’s cathartic that our nation should pay penance for the mess that our arrogance has created. We need this agony, obviously having forgotten the Vietnam War in a short generation. Mr. Bush had every intention of marching through Iraq, Iran and on, as Alexander, spreading his "vision of democracy,” Had he really found "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, would we have actually permitted this? With the right-wing rabble pushing it, I suspect so.
Real change must come from us. We must first realize that “American Exceptionalism” is a myth. We must come to realize that the impact of meddling in internal affairs of other nations---our foreign policy---is pejorative, not only to the world, but to us. We are not advocating detachment, rather a foreign policy that leads to a world that is better for the nations to which we give real aid, not the kind of aid that leads to enrichment of American companies and economic as well as military dominion. Likewise, we must come to realize that our immense military budget and strength is a liability, every bit as much as it’s an asset. We have seen up close what this power can do in the hands of a man like President Bush. Only the wisest among us is capable of using it responsibly.
We have shown enough wisdom to elect a person who appears to be capable of changing our direction. This is a good, first step. But the bottom line here is that unfortunately, President Bush was a reflection of us. If we want significant change to our institutions, then WE have to change. It’s unreasonable to think that by electing a different kind of president, we can change our institutions, in four short years, much less a few months. This process may take a generation. Just last week Mr. Obama signaled to the Israelis that we will no longer endorse the illegal establishment of settlements in occupied lands. On so many fronts Mr. Obama is on track that Robbinsense endorses his efforts; we give him a B+ for his 100-day grade.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Star Trek Movie Review
After weeks of rave reviews for the latest Trek movie (even an endorsement from the president!), with moderate skepticism we ventured out last night to find precisely what we expected: the standard, trite formula: action, violence and special effects. Oh sure, they re-invented (used) our beloved characters as a vehicle to pull in a large gate; but aside from these wafer-thin imposters, there was no Star Trek in the production.
Instead, we got a pop-culture caricature of an arrogant, self-serving, authority-defying youth with zero leadership potential who brings the staid, adult leadership of Star Fleet Command to its knees in adulation over imaginary heroism.
We got another message to our youth that arrogance, disrespect for others, and wanton violence have no consequences. Oh, so we don’t need to fear a beating that would probably require months of reconstructive surgery, plastic surgery, dental reconstruction, leading perhaps to permanent mental disability, since our hero walked away from a bar fight that he initiated with a few bruises and felt fine a couple of days later.
J. J. Abrams has hijacked and sullied the Star Trek franchise by twisting Gene Roddenberry’s vision of exploring the best that we have to offer and delivering the worst. I was duped into visiting this travesty. Can the legacy of my beloved Star Trek survive this assault?
Television is filled with “reality” programs that are as contrived as any of these action thrillers that attack our senses. It must be another comment on our culture that in order to find a movie depicting real life we must go to Pixar and watch a cartoon.
Oh yes, Checkov was not in the original crew of the Enterprise.
Instead, we got a pop-culture caricature of an arrogant, self-serving, authority-defying youth with zero leadership potential who brings the staid, adult leadership of Star Fleet Command to its knees in adulation over imaginary heroism.
We got another message to our youth that arrogance, disrespect for others, and wanton violence have no consequences. Oh, so we don’t need to fear a beating that would probably require months of reconstructive surgery, plastic surgery, dental reconstruction, leading perhaps to permanent mental disability, since our hero walked away from a bar fight that he initiated with a few bruises and felt fine a couple of days later.
J. J. Abrams has hijacked and sullied the Star Trek franchise by twisting Gene Roddenberry’s vision of exploring the best that we have to offer and delivering the worst. I was duped into visiting this travesty. Can the legacy of my beloved Star Trek survive this assault?
Television is filled with “reality” programs that are as contrived as any of these action thrillers that attack our senses. It must be another comment on our culture that in order to find a movie depicting real life we must go to Pixar and watch a cartoon.
Oh yes, Checkov was not in the original crew of the Enterprise.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
The Politics of Drugs
by Jackson Dave
In April, Robbinsense addressed the state budget, focusing primarily on amending the state constitution. Though there is now some discussion on that possibility, this would take years, if we had the political will to undertake it. We touched, then, on legalizing drugs as a solution.
Legalization of opiates, cocaine and marijuana, which comprise the vast majority of illegal drugs, would remove the “trafficking” element from the economy that supports gangs, removing the money which drives the industry. Many (including Kevin A. Sabet) believe that legalization, even of marijuana, should be avoided simply because it provides additional avenues for the social ills of drug use, with attendant health care costs and workplace problems. But at what cost, I beg you, do we infringe upon our own freedom when the price of admittedly ineffective restrictions appears to exceed the value we place on liberty?
The actual extent to which drug use would increase is, after all, moot, and there are many elements to the discussion that should be addressed. In the first place, we are not advocating legalizing drugs for teenagers or amphetamines under any circumstances. We advocate that opiates, cannabis and cocaine be available legally, essentially as alternatives to alcohol and tobacco. Availability of cocaine at an affordable price would likely displace much of the market for amphetamines, which are probably the most dangerous of all the "recreational" drugs.
All of these drugs are readily available, legal or not. In The United States, the “social” cost of loss of productivity in the workplace from alcohol is estimated at $148 billion annually. This doesn’t include the cost of medical problems, traffic injuries, psycho-trauma to children of alcoholics or domestic violence that arise from alcohol abuse. While the social costs of alcohol and tobacco dwarf those of the other drugs, we’ve seen that the social cost of prohibition is far greater. Consider the general lawlessness and expansion of organized crime networks produced by the Volstead Act (Prohibition).
Regarding marijuana, in 1988, The Drug Enforcement Administration's own Judge Francis L. Young, after two years of hearings, deemed marijuana “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. In strict medical terms, it is far safer than many foods we commonly consume.” Young went on, “…nor is it physically addictive, unlike your daily burst at Starbucks, as anyone who has suffered from a caffeine withdrawal headache can attest.” Beyond that, there are many therapeutic cases made for this drug.
Much of the allure of drugs, especially to young people, comes from their illegality. For an analogy we can look at the diamond market. Diamonds are perhaps the most plentiful of the precious stones. Their great supply should make them inexpensive; but DeBeers controls world supply---by coercion or force---and limits that supply to keep prices up. Illegality of narcotics restricts that trade as well, leading to high prices generated by underground distribution networks. While the allure of diamonds is enhanced by their presumed scarcity, the same applies to illegal drugs. Economists recognize "negative elasticity of demand" for certain products---that is, as the price of a commodity increases, the demand increases. This is in direct opposition to a normal demand profile; it applies to diamonds, as well as, perhaps, drugs.
Legalization would remove the “criminal” aspect of the distribution networks, leaving us with only the social problems. It’s a stretch to speculate that this would be greater than the total cost that we face now, especially considering the law enforcement aspects. Legalization would result in normal suppliers with low prices and the prospect of substantial tax revenue, as with alcohol and tobacco.
Why do we handle these different classes of drugs differently? The sad answer is politics and special interests. We have been conditioned to accept this policy, much as for decades we were conditioned to believe that Communism was a mortal threat to our society. We’ll look more closely at the “logic” behind this policy later.
We have a lengthy and confusing legal history with Cannabis as well as opiates. A brief history will ensue---in italics for those wishing to skip it.
In Jamestown Colony, Virginia, 1619, all farms were required to grow Indian Hempseed. Farmers who failed to comply were jailed. We've been led to believe that George Washington was a tobacco farmer, but hemp was the primary crop at Mt. Vernon, and secondary crop at the Jefferson’s estate.
In 1909 opium smoking was outlawed, while the 1914 Harrison Act regulated opiates.
In 1919, Congress overrode President Wilson’s veto (one of the few intelligent things he did) to pass the Volstead Act, outlawing alcohol .
The 1933 repeal of Prohibition did little to end the madness that it created. Organized crime had a small impact on this nation prior to prohibition. Prohibition gave mobs the foothold from which to establish a vast industry supplying alcohol. Repeal of the Volstead Act simply transferred this industry to the supply of anything else that might be prohibited, including drugs.
States began as early as 1910 to outlaw cannabis. Utah’s prohibition of marijuana was said to have resulted from wide-spread use by Mexican inhabitants. But the truth is that its use was becoming common among Mormons, who were bringing it back from travels. The church's reaction to this contributed to the state's marijuana law.
Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to target the Mexican-American population. When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator's comment: "When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff, he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies." In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy."
Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: "Marijuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice."
In 1930, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was added to the Treasury Department and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana. Anslinger was an ambitious man, and recognized the Bureau as a career opportunity---a new government agency giving him the opportunity to both define a problem and deliver the solution. He realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn't generate enough “business” to fit his ambition, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.
Anslinger used themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from the "Gore Files" wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and... Negroes.
There was wide-spread contention and discussion over Anslinger’s claims by the AMA as well as others. But he became essentially the first Drug Czar, though the term didn't exist until William Bennett's position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy. There are parallels between Anslinger and many of our current administrators. He had carte blanche to demonize drugs and drug users. He had resources and a large public podium to promote his personal agenda, with attendant ears of law makers. He was a racist. He lied constantly, often when unnecessary, and realized the extent to which he could persuade with lies, particularly if he could pressure the media into squelching or downplaying any opposition views. Anslinger had 37 years to solidify his propaganda and stifle opposition.
With the repeal of prohibition, the huge bureaucracy of law enforcement agencies were left without a mission. So in 1937, Marijuana was taxed and demonized, leading to criminalization on a national scale to give the large apparatus a mission.
In 1938, Mayor LaGuardia of New York appointed a committee to study marijuana's affects. The committee found that it did not act as a "gateway drug". It also found no scientific reason for its criminalization. In 1972 the Shafer Commission, appointed by President Nixon, similarly concluded that cannabis should be re-leaglized. '72 was an election year; Nixon, under the political cloud of continuing war and the break-in at the Watergate office complex not only failed to act upon the recommendations, he didn't even read the report.
Moving forward forty years, President Obama has cracked the door of legalization, stating that he favors “decriminalization” of marijuana, and “rethinking” the whole war on drugs. Savings to the US by replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year, finds a June 2005 report by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University. Jon Gettman's report on the consequences of outlawing marijuana show similar statistics: interdiction costs at $10.7 Billion, lost revenue at $31 Billion.
These reports have been endorsed by more than 530 distinguished economists, who signed an open letter to President Bush and other public officials calling for "an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition," adding, "We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods." Chief among the endorsing economists are three Nobel Laureates in economics: Dr. Milton Friedman of the Hoover Institute, Dr. George Akerlof of the University of California at Berkeley, and Dr. Vernon Smith of George Mason University.
Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.” This is only the beginning of the benefits from legalization. Beyond that, decriminalizing drugs would relieve enormous law enforcement capacity for the persecution and prosecution of serious criminals, both blue and white collar. We could empty out our prisons, as only a small percentage the prison population is now considered violent. The courts would be freed up from the never-ending stream of drug-related infractions. Justice statistics for 2007 showed that nearly 60% of the state prisoners serving time for a drug offense had no history of violence and 80% of arrests were for possession, not sales.
In April, Robbinsense addressed the state budget, focusing primarily on amending the state constitution. Though there is now some discussion on that possibility, this would take years, if we had the political will to undertake it. We touched, then, on legalizing drugs as a solution.
Legalization of opiates, cocaine and marijuana, which comprise the vast majority of illegal drugs, would remove the “trafficking” element from the economy that supports gangs, removing the money which drives the industry. Many (including Kevin A. Sabet) believe that legalization, even of marijuana, should be avoided simply because it provides additional avenues for the social ills of drug use, with attendant health care costs and workplace problems. But at what cost, I beg you, do we infringe upon our own freedom when the price of admittedly ineffective restrictions appears to exceed the value we place on liberty?
The actual extent to which drug use would increase is, after all, moot, and there are many elements to the discussion that should be addressed. In the first place, we are not advocating legalizing drugs for teenagers or amphetamines under any circumstances. We advocate that opiates, cannabis and cocaine be available legally, essentially as alternatives to alcohol and tobacco. Availability of cocaine at an affordable price would likely displace much of the market for amphetamines, which are probably the most dangerous of all the "recreational" drugs.
All of these drugs are readily available, legal or not. In The United States, the “social” cost of loss of productivity in the workplace from alcohol is estimated at $148 billion annually. This doesn’t include the cost of medical problems, traffic injuries, psycho-trauma to children of alcoholics or domestic violence that arise from alcohol abuse. While the social costs of alcohol and tobacco dwarf those of the other drugs, we’ve seen that the social cost of prohibition is far greater. Consider the general lawlessness and expansion of organized crime networks produced by the Volstead Act (Prohibition).
Regarding marijuana, in 1988, The Drug Enforcement Administration's own Judge Francis L. Young, after two years of hearings, deemed marijuana “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. In strict medical terms, it is far safer than many foods we commonly consume.” Young went on, “…nor is it physically addictive, unlike your daily burst at Starbucks, as anyone who has suffered from a caffeine withdrawal headache can attest.” Beyond that, there are many therapeutic cases made for this drug.
Much of the allure of drugs, especially to young people, comes from their illegality. For an analogy we can look at the diamond market. Diamonds are perhaps the most plentiful of the precious stones. Their great supply should make them inexpensive; but DeBeers controls world supply---by coercion or force---and limits that supply to keep prices up. Illegality of narcotics restricts that trade as well, leading to high prices generated by underground distribution networks. While the allure of diamonds is enhanced by their presumed scarcity, the same applies to illegal drugs. Economists recognize "negative elasticity of demand" for certain products---that is, as the price of a commodity increases, the demand increases. This is in direct opposition to a normal demand profile; it applies to diamonds, as well as, perhaps, drugs.
Legalization would remove the “criminal” aspect of the distribution networks, leaving us with only the social problems. It’s a stretch to speculate that this would be greater than the total cost that we face now, especially considering the law enforcement aspects. Legalization would result in normal suppliers with low prices and the prospect of substantial tax revenue, as with alcohol and tobacco.
Why do we handle these different classes of drugs differently? The sad answer is politics and special interests. We have been conditioned to accept this policy, much as for decades we were conditioned to believe that Communism was a mortal threat to our society. We’ll look more closely at the “logic” behind this policy later.
We have a lengthy and confusing legal history with Cannabis as well as opiates. A brief history will ensue---in italics for those wishing to skip it.
In Jamestown Colony, Virginia, 1619, all farms were required to grow Indian Hempseed. Farmers who failed to comply were jailed. We've been led to believe that George Washington was a tobacco farmer, but hemp was the primary crop at Mt. Vernon, and secondary crop at the Jefferson’s estate.
In 1909 opium smoking was outlawed, while the 1914 Harrison Act regulated opiates.
In 1919, Congress overrode President Wilson’s veto (one of the few intelligent things he did) to pass the Volstead Act, outlawing alcohol .
The 1933 repeal of Prohibition did little to end the madness that it created. Organized crime had a small impact on this nation prior to prohibition. Prohibition gave mobs the foothold from which to establish a vast industry supplying alcohol. Repeal of the Volstead Act simply transferred this industry to the supply of anything else that might be prohibited, including drugs.
States began as early as 1910 to outlaw cannabis. Utah’s prohibition of marijuana was said to have resulted from wide-spread use by Mexican inhabitants. But the truth is that its use was becoming common among Mormons, who were bringing it back from travels. The church's reaction to this contributed to the state's marijuana law.
Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to target the Mexican-American population. When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator's comment: "When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff, he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies." In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy."
Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: "Marijuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice."
In 1930, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was added to the Treasury Department and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana. Anslinger was an ambitious man, and recognized the Bureau as a career opportunity---a new government agency giving him the opportunity to both define a problem and deliver the solution. He realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn't generate enough “business” to fit his ambition, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.
Anslinger used themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from the "Gore Files" wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and... Negroes.
There was wide-spread contention and discussion over Anslinger’s claims by the AMA as well as others. But he became essentially the first Drug Czar, though the term didn't exist until William Bennett's position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy. There are parallels between Anslinger and many of our current administrators. He had carte blanche to demonize drugs and drug users. He had resources and a large public podium to promote his personal agenda, with attendant ears of law makers. He was a racist. He lied constantly, often when unnecessary, and realized the extent to which he could persuade with lies, particularly if he could pressure the media into squelching or downplaying any opposition views. Anslinger had 37 years to solidify his propaganda and stifle opposition.
With the repeal of prohibition, the huge bureaucracy of law enforcement agencies were left without a mission. So in 1937, Marijuana was taxed and demonized, leading to criminalization on a national scale to give the large apparatus a mission.
In 1938, Mayor LaGuardia of New York appointed a committee to study marijuana's affects. The committee found that it did not act as a "gateway drug". It also found no scientific reason for its criminalization. In 1972 the Shafer Commission, appointed by President Nixon, similarly concluded that cannabis should be re-leaglized. '72 was an election year; Nixon, under the political cloud of continuing war and the break-in at the Watergate office complex not only failed to act upon the recommendations, he didn't even read the report.
Moving forward forty years, President Obama has cracked the door of legalization, stating that he favors “decriminalization” of marijuana, and “rethinking” the whole war on drugs. Savings to the US by replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year, finds a June 2005 report by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University. Jon Gettman's report on the consequences of outlawing marijuana show similar statistics: interdiction costs at $10.7 Billion, lost revenue at $31 Billion.
These reports have been endorsed by more than 530 distinguished economists, who signed an open letter to President Bush and other public officials calling for "an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition," adding, "We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods." Chief among the endorsing economists are three Nobel Laureates in economics: Dr. Milton Friedman of the Hoover Institute, Dr. George Akerlof of the University of California at Berkeley, and Dr. Vernon Smith of George Mason University.
Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.” This is only the beginning of the benefits from legalization. Beyond that, decriminalizing drugs would relieve enormous law enforcement capacity for the persecution and prosecution of serious criminals, both blue and white collar. We could empty out our prisons, as only a small percentage the prison population is now considered violent. The courts would be freed up from the never-ending stream of drug-related infractions. Justice statistics for 2007 showed that nearly 60% of the state prisoners serving time for a drug offense had no history of violence and 80% of arrests were for possession, not sales.
Brian O'Dea, author of High: Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler, with an acute perspective from both sides of the controversy says, "A cascade of bad outcomes follows a policy of prohibition. The worst may be the dangerous, bloody criminal activity it promotes." "...now guns are a large part of the picture. The illegal drug trade is the currency that funds and inspires a vast, violent and well-armed gangster class." "Take away the currency of illegal drugs and you take away the guns, the violence and corruption."
Lastly with revenues from increased taxes and scale-backs in law enforcement, we could balance budgets, offer free drug treatment programs, better schools and health programs for children, if not all of us.
Let’s look more closely at the roots of our drug policy:
As we moved through the industrial age and into the 20th Century, America was the manufacturing powerhouse of the world. By the end of WWII, the United States had close to half of the manufacturing base of the entire world. We financed the Marshal Plan, extending aid and resources to many of the countries destroyed by the war.
With the emergence of the “global market”, our manufacturing base has withered away, leaving large pockets of unemployment. Through labor cost disparity, a great network of international transportation and government indifference to budget and trade imbalance, the third world has stripped our economy of manufacturing jobs.
We now see economic chaos as well as wide-spread unemployment. Where a generation ago, we might see an unemployment rate of 3 to 5 percent, now 7 to 8 percent is considered normal, and that only counts those “looking for work”. As one might expect, the lower classes have borne the brunt of these job losses. We currently have a population of approximately 15 million people who face chronic unemployment; they have been effectively phased out of our economy. With poor education in their neighborhoods, only the most gifted and motivated are able to escape.
The stark truth that America doesn’t want to face is that there is no profit in bringing the marginal classes on line; they have effectively been declared “surplus”, casualties of the modern age. In the absence of a normal economy of goods, services and jobs in these ghettos, we offer the drug economy. A child growing up on the streets discovers that this underground economy provides his only chance for a decent life. The street culture of drugs is fueled by the “war on drugs”, with which we distract ourselves and perpetuate the lie that we care. The drug war represents “bread and circuses” offered up by the modern age to distract the masses from their misery.
If we ended the “war on drugs” the inner city economy would have to be replaced by something. The “establishment” resists this change with enormous financial and political energy. Much of the enormous savings presented by putting a stop to the interdiction, prosecution and imprisonment of these people would have to be invested in services for this population: rehabilitation, education, job training. Law enforcement agencies, as well as the “corrections” industry vigorously opposes this policy, not because it’s bad policy, but because it would put so many of them out of work. (See an interview with David Simon for more material on this aspect of the “war of drugs”.) “The drug war is a war on the underclass. That's all it is. It has no other meaning.”
Any politician attempting to change this dynamic faces tremendous political risk. Undermining “the war on drugs” will produce a chorus of outrage claiming that drug-use will increase. This concern is not directed toward inner city culture, of course, rather at drug use in the suburbs.
According to Brian O'Dea, "It is time we stopped treating drug addiciton, a medical condition, with law enforcement. It's time to repatriate the vast quantities of money that are being hidden, removed from the country and going untaxed, and it's time we keep those same vast sums from funding violent crime. It's time to end modern prohibition. It didn't work for alcohol; it isn't working for drugs."
If this argument for ending our war on drugs is not compelling enough, it pales next to the international aspects of the madness. Next month we’ll look at that.
Jackson Dave is a Robbinsense staff writer
Friday, May 8, 2009
100 Day Assessment
In accordance with our policy of handling the tough issues, and to recognize the 100 day mark on the Obama presidency Robbinsense will address our present economic situation and assess the new administration.
As for the economy, the present economic and financial situation is very complicated; the world’s best economic minds are in discord over how to handle it. Republicans hypocritically oppose anything that the Obama government proposes, after supporting similar measures for years when advanced by the Republican administrations. Republicans are motivated by fear or dread that Obama might be successful; if they support him, they have no base, whereas by opposing him they can claim to have been right if the policies fail.
Being a fiscal conservative, myself, it has been difficult to get on board with massive government spending programs; but who are we to claim that what occurred in the 30s isn’t around the corner? Is there safe haven for our savings with all crashing around us; or what will hyper-inflation do to our economy after spending our way to prosperity, devaluating the debt and the currency?
I believe the government must step in and take charge. We’ve seen that the financial industry is motivated by greed and willing to enrich their top management through fraudulent means. Who will clean up the mess if government simply allows these banks to collapse, leaving the financial soup to congeal in the muck? How do we handle our massive foreign debt if government steps aside?
On the other hand, The Prompt Correction Action Law mandates that FDIC-insured banks go into receivership when they become insolvent. In violation of this law, the Obama Administration has continued the Bush policy of giving money to our largest banks to keep them afloat---without substantive changes in their operation and leadership. This is old-time politics, catering to powerful, industrial mucky-mucks.
I believe three things are necessary: one is to find out exactly who and what was responsible for the mistakes made by these banks; two is to take measures to ensure that the mistakes won’t be repeated; three is to present transparency in the industry.
Shortly after she was named to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1996, Brooksley E. Born was invited to lunch by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Born, a very good regulator, had been trying to do the right thing to regulate one of the exotic derivatives (credit default swaps). While Greenspan couldn’t stop Born’s crusade, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and Phil Gramm worked together to block this particular regulation. They also pushed a law through congress to prevent regulation. It's this type of derivative that is most involved in the AIG scandal. AIG alone cost as much as the entire Savings and Loan debacle of the 80s. (Rubin and Summers were treasury secretaries for Bill Clinton, while Gramm was John McCain’s principal economic advisor.)
It’s not that we couldn’t see this coming! In 2004 the FBI issued a warning of “an epidemic of mortgage fraud”. The Bush administration, meanwhile, had moved 500 agents from white collar crime investigation to “Homeland Security”. The agents were never reposted, and the fraud continued unabated. These are precisely the kind of things that need to be brought to light and corrected, this time forever.
Competent or not, the men who ran these companies into the ground have a vested interest in preventing the truth from emerging. How can we get to the bottom of this mess if we allow the failed executives who ran their ships aground to remain at the helm? And who could claim that they’re competent in regard to anything except fraud when they took part in the greatest Ponzi scheme in history? (see Financial Disservices in this blog, February ’09.) We believe these men belong in jail.
We need executives in these failed companies who will get to the bottom of what’s happened. Initial resources poured into the industry were swallowed up, disappeared into the black hole of their toxic asset portfolios, as well as into bonuses for these scoundrels. Ledgers and balance sheets need to be exposed, scrutinized and straightened out. It’s only after the toxic assets are purged and proper accounting is restored that the public (and the world) will be able to again trust our financial system.
So on this 100th day of the Obama Administration, how do we rate the new president? Since most of the media pundits have gone on record, Robbinsense will follow suit.
The President is definitely a breath of fresh air. It feels good to have a man with dignity, who can speak English running our country. There is a long list of executive orders and new legislation that have been pushed through congress to steer us back on track. For an abbreviated list: ending torture, impending closure of The Guantanamo Bay Prison, “morning after” pill okayed for distribution to all over 16, stem cell research given fast track approval, $15Billion boost to veteran’s health programs (the largest increase in history), environmental measures reversed, opening up diplomacy with Iran, Cuba, Venezuela. I could go on with an impressive list of small accomplishments, but our editorial staff deems them to be small potatoes.
We feel the president’s patient efforts at “bi-partisanship” are noble, but we take exception to the appearance that the Obama Administration is “playing politics” with the Republicans, trying to appease them into co-operating. This is the same old-time politicking that has led us to this brink. The GOP is in disarray and politically irrelevant at this time. Their agenda is driven by interests of the Republican Party, rather than the interests of our country.
1) As discussed above, we are dissatisfied with the political maneuvering going on in efforts to get the economy on track. Keeping the old brokers in power is playing the old political game. These rascals have NO interest in changing anything. They are only interested in keeping themselves in power and in clover.
2) On his 100th day the president answered a question in his press conference about torture. He said it was wrong to use torture because we could have gotten the information by other means. What!!?? No, it is wrong to use torture because 1) It violates national and international law, 2) it violates explicit terms of treaties to which we are signatory, 3) it is an affront to anyone’s morality, and 4) it violates the essence of what this country stands for. Torture is criminal activity. The president's answer was designed to disarm Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, while in reality, those two titanic jerks are comfortably in the process of destroying the Republican Party. Let them rant!
Soft-pedaling the torture issue to avoid pissing off Republicans is not the way to restore the shattered integrity of our country---especially when most of the developed world is hungry for a piece of our hide after we’ve sent world economies as well as personal savings and retirements into the black hole of our economic melt-down.
The world has seen countless people come to enormous power who should never have arrived at the throne. Many have been good, intelligent men, like Alexander (Greece), who once in power became obsessed by the opportunity to expand their power. We’ve also seen capable, yet totally improbable leaders with little or no ambition (such as Claudius and Truman) arise from circumstances that impel them to power.
We’ve seen evil, mad men, such as Hitler and Caligula who end up in the seat of great power because of a combination of intense ambition and bizarre circumstances. We’ve seen rulers with little desire and no leadership capabilities, such as Millard Fillmore and Warren G. Harding, come to power by accident. Andrew Johnson and Woodrow Wilson were petty, mean and incapable leaders. Franklin Roosevelt was thrust back into office for his fourth term, a dying man, by the power elite behind him who intended to use Truman for their political agenda.
It might appear that we’re too sophisticated to continue making great mistakes such as these, but our political system and voter naiveté make misrule inevitable. George W. Bush, like Tiberius, was a man of little ambition who was thrust into power by his station in life and strong political force behind. In Tiberius’ case, it was his mother, while for Bush it was Carl Rove and the Republican establishment, indifferent to his lack of intellectual qualifications. Once in power, both men morphed into despots, driven to excess on whatever level was available.
There was no reason to believe that once in power, Bush wouldn’t be a boring technocrat, adhering to the will of the forces behind him. He appeared to be bland and harmless, but he used a tragedy (9/11) to thrust himself to the world stage as emperor, using lies and deceit in an effort to re-shape the world, obsessed by possible immortality (legacy), impelled by the limitless military might of this country and scornful of the strictures of our Constitution. By his own admission, Iraq was only the first conquest in the region that we would attack and consume.
It is a virtual certainty that we will have more incompetent, corrupt, "ambitious" leaders running this country. We face an opportunity, right now, to put a lid on such abuse. We can tell the world that we are a better country than this. We can tell our posterity and every future president who swears to uphold The Constitution that they can’t get away with what Mr. Bush did. Mr. Obama has that opportunity; and if he doesn’t have the political stomach for it, he should not stand in the path of any political force that chooses to do the work. The integrity of our country, along with Robbinsense, call out for national atonement.
3) In that regard, Robbinsense supported Mr. Obama on the assumption that on his 100th day our military mission in Iraq would have ended---that withdrawal would have commenced. Instead, we have vague promises that withdrawal will commence sometime next year! The killing goes on, with our soldiers on the delivery and on the receiving end. With the $100 Billion annual budget for that war, we could begin earnest war reparations. The Iraqi government is never going to “get their act together” as long as we are there shepherding them around, handing out largess like it’s Easter candy. A previous Republican president brought us out of Viet Nam with our tails between our legs 35 years ago; who but rabid, right-wingers second-guesses that decision?
4) We are increasing our military commitment in Afghanistan. This is madness in our opinion. We need to extricate ourselves from that mess in any way possible. We cannot kill all the terrorists---the more we kill, the more we spawn! We need to minimize our military presence in the region; this may be the only way to deflect terrorism and to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
5) We now have a new front opened up in the war. President Obama has embraced an escalation in the raids over western Pakistan that were approved by Mr. Bush. In the first months of his administration we have carried out at least 16 Predator attacks, killing at least 161 people. Compared to 36 total attacks in 2008, this is a marked escalation in a disgusting policy that is not even publicly acknowledged. This is the equivalent of Nixon expanding the Viet Nam war into Laos and Cambodia. It’s anybody’s guess how few of these people were actual terrorists, and how many more terrorists will be spawned by this war of the drones. The government claims to have killed16 al Qaeda leaders and 700 civilians. Who are the terrorists here, anyway? Beyond the killing, [our] terrorist attacks anger the people, placing enormous pressure on the Pakistani government, which supposedly we support!!! Go figure. Those people just want us out of their country and out of their lives so they can go back to fighting each other.
6) On political appointments, how can we have so many glitches? It’s nice that he has admitted errors, but why so many? Why can’t he get proper advice on such small items as appropriate gifts for foreign dignitaries?
We recognize that there are political exigencies that require consideration. With each of these matters there is a price to pay for confronting the right wing. We also recall that in 1977, upon taking office, Jimmy Carter canceled every (of approximately 83) water project on the federal docket. Since water projects are the “mother’s milk” of political largess, this pissed off practically every legislator in the congress, including those of his own party. Carter also pushed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act through congress, another high-minded measure which put our exports at disadvantage (since bribery is routine and legal in other countries). Carter lost legislative leverage in the face of such bold gestures, and though 82 of the water projects eventually resumed, this was a significant contributing factor in what is considered to be an ineffective presidency.
In the mid nineties President Clinton, in his move to the political center, seemed to be adopting the Republican agenda. Among other things, he balanced the budget and initiated welfare reform. He also pushed an anti-crime agenda that would make any Republican proud, expanding the scope of the war on drugs and imposing mandatory sentencing guidelines. The fallout from these measures was a dramatic increase in the rate of incarceration on the federal level. With a prison population of 2 million, we have achieved the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Where the percentage of violent offenders in the prison system was 30 to 35%, it is now 7 to 8%. Prisons are over-flowing with with non-violent offenders; zealous law enforcement officials interdict drug offenders because they are a safe and easy mark, while the number of arrests advances their individual careers. This leaves violent offenders free on the streets and releases thousands more to make room for drug offenders. (We will discuss this matter in more depth next month.)
So did these measures bring political capital to the Clinton Administration from the right? Absolutely not! For stealing their agenda they hated Clinton all the more, becoming more obstreperous, more obstructionist. They hammered the man over ethics issues and their cultural agenda.
It’s easy to be high-minded when looking in from the outside. We recognize that political expediency may be necessary, and we applaud him for doing what’s necessary to get things done, but we elected Mr. Obama to straighten out our political and economic mess, which means changing the way Washington operates. (Change: remember that word from the election?) We will be increasingly vexed by continued capitulation and slow progress on these enormously important matters.
So to assess the president’s performance through 100 days: If John McCain had won the election and had performed equally, I would be ecstatic over his (unexpected) performance and grant him a B. But for Mr. Obama, though he looks very “presidential” and has done many commendable things, in the face of high expectations, on the big ticket items we find his performance lacking. We give Mr. Obama a C, with a plus for political considerations.
As of May 13, we discover that Mr. Obama has reversed his position on releasing pertinent material implicating wide-spread complicity in torture by American forces. This is illegal, hypocritical, and an outrage. This administration is looking more and more like our previous one. We are down-grading our assessment of Mr. Obama's performance to C minus, with no political considerations; and we're watching a bit more closely for further downgrades.
As for the economy, the present economic and financial situation is very complicated; the world’s best economic minds are in discord over how to handle it. Republicans hypocritically oppose anything that the Obama government proposes, after supporting similar measures for years when advanced by the Republican administrations. Republicans are motivated by fear or dread that Obama might be successful; if they support him, they have no base, whereas by opposing him they can claim to have been right if the policies fail.
Being a fiscal conservative, myself, it has been difficult to get on board with massive government spending programs; but who are we to claim that what occurred in the 30s isn’t around the corner? Is there safe haven for our savings with all crashing around us; or what will hyper-inflation do to our economy after spending our way to prosperity, devaluating the debt and the currency?
I believe the government must step in and take charge. We’ve seen that the financial industry is motivated by greed and willing to enrich their top management through fraudulent means. Who will clean up the mess if government simply allows these banks to collapse, leaving the financial soup to congeal in the muck? How do we handle our massive foreign debt if government steps aside?
On the other hand, The Prompt Correction Action Law mandates that FDIC-insured banks go into receivership when they become insolvent. In violation of this law, the Obama Administration has continued the Bush policy of giving money to our largest banks to keep them afloat---without substantive changes in their operation and leadership. This is old-time politics, catering to powerful, industrial mucky-mucks.
I believe three things are necessary: one is to find out exactly who and what was responsible for the mistakes made by these banks; two is to take measures to ensure that the mistakes won’t be repeated; three is to present transparency in the industry.
Shortly after she was named to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1996, Brooksley E. Born was invited to lunch by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Born, a very good regulator, had been trying to do the right thing to regulate one of the exotic derivatives (credit default swaps). While Greenspan couldn’t stop Born’s crusade, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and Phil Gramm worked together to block this particular regulation. They also pushed a law through congress to prevent regulation. It's this type of derivative that is most involved in the AIG scandal. AIG alone cost as much as the entire Savings and Loan debacle of the 80s. (Rubin and Summers were treasury secretaries for Bill Clinton, while Gramm was John McCain’s principal economic advisor.)
It’s not that we couldn’t see this coming! In 2004 the FBI issued a warning of “an epidemic of mortgage fraud”. The Bush administration, meanwhile, had moved 500 agents from white collar crime investigation to “Homeland Security”. The agents were never reposted, and the fraud continued unabated. These are precisely the kind of things that need to be brought to light and corrected, this time forever.
Competent or not, the men who ran these companies into the ground have a vested interest in preventing the truth from emerging. How can we get to the bottom of this mess if we allow the failed executives who ran their ships aground to remain at the helm? And who could claim that they’re competent in regard to anything except fraud when they took part in the greatest Ponzi scheme in history? (see Financial Disservices in this blog, February ’09.) We believe these men belong in jail.
We need executives in these failed companies who will get to the bottom of what’s happened. Initial resources poured into the industry were swallowed up, disappeared into the black hole of their toxic asset portfolios, as well as into bonuses for these scoundrels. Ledgers and balance sheets need to be exposed, scrutinized and straightened out. It’s only after the toxic assets are purged and proper accounting is restored that the public (and the world) will be able to again trust our financial system.
So on this 100th day of the Obama Administration, how do we rate the new president? Since most of the media pundits have gone on record, Robbinsense will follow suit.
The President is definitely a breath of fresh air. It feels good to have a man with dignity, who can speak English running our country. There is a long list of executive orders and new legislation that have been pushed through congress to steer us back on track. For an abbreviated list: ending torture, impending closure of The Guantanamo Bay Prison, “morning after” pill okayed for distribution to all over 16, stem cell research given fast track approval, $15Billion boost to veteran’s health programs (the largest increase in history), environmental measures reversed, opening up diplomacy with Iran, Cuba, Venezuela. I could go on with an impressive list of small accomplishments, but our editorial staff deems them to be small potatoes.
We feel the president’s patient efforts at “bi-partisanship” are noble, but we take exception to the appearance that the Obama Administration is “playing politics” with the Republicans, trying to appease them into co-operating. This is the same old-time politicking that has led us to this brink. The GOP is in disarray and politically irrelevant at this time. Their agenda is driven by interests of the Republican Party, rather than the interests of our country.
1) As discussed above, we are dissatisfied with the political maneuvering going on in efforts to get the economy on track. Keeping the old brokers in power is playing the old political game. These rascals have NO interest in changing anything. They are only interested in keeping themselves in power and in clover.
2) On his 100th day the president answered a question in his press conference about torture. He said it was wrong to use torture because we could have gotten the information by other means. What!!?? No, it is wrong to use torture because 1) It violates national and international law, 2) it violates explicit terms of treaties to which we are signatory, 3) it is an affront to anyone’s morality, and 4) it violates the essence of what this country stands for. Torture is criminal activity. The president's answer was designed to disarm Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, while in reality, those two titanic jerks are comfortably in the process of destroying the Republican Party. Let them rant!
Soft-pedaling the torture issue to avoid pissing off Republicans is not the way to restore the shattered integrity of our country---especially when most of the developed world is hungry for a piece of our hide after we’ve sent world economies as well as personal savings and retirements into the black hole of our economic melt-down.
The world has seen countless people come to enormous power who should never have arrived at the throne. Many have been good, intelligent men, like Alexander (Greece), who once in power became obsessed by the opportunity to expand their power. We’ve also seen capable, yet totally improbable leaders with little or no ambition (such as Claudius and Truman) arise from circumstances that impel them to power.
We’ve seen evil, mad men, such as Hitler and Caligula who end up in the seat of great power because of a combination of intense ambition and bizarre circumstances. We’ve seen rulers with little desire and no leadership capabilities, such as Millard Fillmore and Warren G. Harding, come to power by accident. Andrew Johnson and Woodrow Wilson were petty, mean and incapable leaders. Franklin Roosevelt was thrust back into office for his fourth term, a dying man, by the power elite behind him who intended to use Truman for their political agenda.
It might appear that we’re too sophisticated to continue making great mistakes such as these, but our political system and voter naiveté make misrule inevitable. George W. Bush, like Tiberius, was a man of little ambition who was thrust into power by his station in life and strong political force behind. In Tiberius’ case, it was his mother, while for Bush it was Carl Rove and the Republican establishment, indifferent to his lack of intellectual qualifications. Once in power, both men morphed into despots, driven to excess on whatever level was available.
There was no reason to believe that once in power, Bush wouldn’t be a boring technocrat, adhering to the will of the forces behind him. He appeared to be bland and harmless, but he used a tragedy (9/11) to thrust himself to the world stage as emperor, using lies and deceit in an effort to re-shape the world, obsessed by possible immortality (legacy), impelled by the limitless military might of this country and scornful of the strictures of our Constitution. By his own admission, Iraq was only the first conquest in the region that we would attack and consume.
It is a virtual certainty that we will have more incompetent, corrupt, "ambitious" leaders running this country. We face an opportunity, right now, to put a lid on such abuse. We can tell the world that we are a better country than this. We can tell our posterity and every future president who swears to uphold The Constitution that they can’t get away with what Mr. Bush did. Mr. Obama has that opportunity; and if he doesn’t have the political stomach for it, he should not stand in the path of any political force that chooses to do the work. The integrity of our country, along with Robbinsense, call out for national atonement.
3) In that regard, Robbinsense supported Mr. Obama on the assumption that on his 100th day our military mission in Iraq would have ended---that withdrawal would have commenced. Instead, we have vague promises that withdrawal will commence sometime next year! The killing goes on, with our soldiers on the delivery and on the receiving end. With the $100 Billion annual budget for that war, we could begin earnest war reparations. The Iraqi government is never going to “get their act together” as long as we are there shepherding them around, handing out largess like it’s Easter candy. A previous Republican president brought us out of Viet Nam with our tails between our legs 35 years ago; who but rabid, right-wingers second-guesses that decision?
4) We are increasing our military commitment in Afghanistan. This is madness in our opinion. We need to extricate ourselves from that mess in any way possible. We cannot kill all the terrorists---the more we kill, the more we spawn! We need to minimize our military presence in the region; this may be the only way to deflect terrorism and to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
5) We now have a new front opened up in the war. President Obama has embraced an escalation in the raids over western Pakistan that were approved by Mr. Bush. In the first months of his administration we have carried out at least 16 Predator attacks, killing at least 161 people. Compared to 36 total attacks in 2008, this is a marked escalation in a disgusting policy that is not even publicly acknowledged. This is the equivalent of Nixon expanding the Viet Nam war into Laos and Cambodia. It’s anybody’s guess how few of these people were actual terrorists, and how many more terrorists will be spawned by this war of the drones. The government claims to have killed16 al Qaeda leaders and 700 civilians. Who are the terrorists here, anyway? Beyond the killing, [our] terrorist attacks anger the people, placing enormous pressure on the Pakistani government, which supposedly we support!!! Go figure. Those people just want us out of their country and out of their lives so they can go back to fighting each other.
6) On political appointments, how can we have so many glitches? It’s nice that he has admitted errors, but why so many? Why can’t he get proper advice on such small items as appropriate gifts for foreign dignitaries?
We recognize that there are political exigencies that require consideration. With each of these matters there is a price to pay for confronting the right wing. We also recall that in 1977, upon taking office, Jimmy Carter canceled every (of approximately 83) water project on the federal docket. Since water projects are the “mother’s milk” of political largess, this pissed off practically every legislator in the congress, including those of his own party. Carter also pushed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act through congress, another high-minded measure which put our exports at disadvantage (since bribery is routine and legal in other countries). Carter lost legislative leverage in the face of such bold gestures, and though 82 of the water projects eventually resumed, this was a significant contributing factor in what is considered to be an ineffective presidency.
In the mid nineties President Clinton, in his move to the political center, seemed to be adopting the Republican agenda. Among other things, he balanced the budget and initiated welfare reform. He also pushed an anti-crime agenda that would make any Republican proud, expanding the scope of the war on drugs and imposing mandatory sentencing guidelines. The fallout from these measures was a dramatic increase in the rate of incarceration on the federal level. With a prison population of 2 million, we have achieved the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Where the percentage of violent offenders in the prison system was 30 to 35%, it is now 7 to 8%. Prisons are over-flowing with with non-violent offenders; zealous law enforcement officials interdict drug offenders because they are a safe and easy mark, while the number of arrests advances their individual careers. This leaves violent offenders free on the streets and releases thousands more to make room for drug offenders. (We will discuss this matter in more depth next month.)
So did these measures bring political capital to the Clinton Administration from the right? Absolutely not! For stealing their agenda they hated Clinton all the more, becoming more obstreperous, more obstructionist. They hammered the man over ethics issues and their cultural agenda.
It’s easy to be high-minded when looking in from the outside. We recognize that political expediency may be necessary, and we applaud him for doing what’s necessary to get things done, but we elected Mr. Obama to straighten out our political and economic mess, which means changing the way Washington operates. (Change: remember that word from the election?) We will be increasingly vexed by continued capitulation and slow progress on these enormously important matters.
So to assess the president’s performance through 100 days: If John McCain had won the election and had performed equally, I would be ecstatic over his (unexpected) performance and grant him a B. But for Mr. Obama, though he looks very “presidential” and has done many commendable things, in the face of high expectations, on the big ticket items we find his performance lacking. We give Mr. Obama a C, with a plus for political considerations.
As of May 13, we discover that Mr. Obama has reversed his position on releasing pertinent material implicating wide-spread complicity in torture by American forces. This is illegal, hypocritical, and an outrage. This administration is looking more and more like our previous one. We are down-grading our assessment of Mr. Obama's performance to C minus, with no political considerations; and we're watching a bit more closely for further downgrades.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Evolution, Science or Fiction?
Creation Science. Intelligent Design. Hokum? Science? Religion?
Watching the 1960 classic, Inherit the Wind, we cheer while Spencer Tracey attacks William Jennings Bryan, portraying him as backward and silly. Even though the actual trial occurred a mere 35 years earlier, somehow it had to be ancient history. Could people really have been that parochial in modern times? Well,
In 2005, the Scopes trial was replayed in Dover Pennsylvania. The Dover school board mandated that a 4-paragraph dissertation describing “Intelligent Design” as an alternative to evolution be presented in science classrooms. A number of teachers protested. Eleven parents filed suit against the school board through the ACLU for violation of their children’s civil rights. Click here for a transcript of the trial.
Actually, Scopes lost the 1925 case. But in 1987, in Edwards vs. Aguillard, the U. S. Supreme Court struck down “Scopes” and ruled that “Creationism” could not be taught in public schools. The Dover school board argued that Intelligent Design (I/D) is not “Creationism”, but a scientific field of study.
The case was heard by Judge John E. Jones, a Republican and George W. Bush appointee, and came down to the pivotal question: Is “Intelligent Design” science or religion? In a six-week trial the Thomas More Law Center (“The Sword and Shield for People of Faith”) defended the school board, with The Discovery Institute, the Seattle firm that coined the phrase ("Intelligent Design"), weighing in with “intellectual” support.
In the face of resistance from teachers, students and ultimately the board itself, the two members of the board who sponsored this measure secured a “text book” called Of Pandas and People for students who wished to pursue the claim. Fifty copies of the book had been “donated” by a benefactor, but were actually procured by the two board sponsors, who lied under oath to cover their involvement.
After 21 days of testimony Judge Jones found I/D’s case for science insubstantial and ruled against the school board. (Actual) intelligence prevailed in a small, Pennsylvania town in pursuit of a decent education for children in the face of a large population of religious dogmatists.
Robbinsence has condensed the argument for our readers’ consideration.
What is Science?
Science is the systematic study of natural phenomena.
The “scientific method” is to extrapolate a hypothesis to explain natural phenomena, leaving the theory to be disproved by the scientific community. It is important here to emphasize that the procedure is to disprove the theory---not to prove it. (It’s assumed that there is enough empirical evidence to advance the material as a theory, but “proof” is beyond the purview of science.) In order to qualify as “science”, a hypothesis must stand up to an effort to disprove it, and there must be a scientific manner by which to test it.
Christians who promote various theories of biology that fail to conform to evolutionary paradigms claim that their theory (under whatever name might be in fashion) is true. While it’s conceivable that their vision is in fact reality, this is not science. I/D advocates devote considerable energy to disproving evolution, leaving NO discernable body of research to explore their own theory, much less to try to disprove it. No one has yet arrived at a systematic or "scientific" manner to test or disprove God.
The “theory” of evolution, as proposed by Charles Darwin, in his treatise: On the Origin of Species, has survived 150 years of scrutiny. The entire science of “genetics”, which was beyond Darwin’s imagination, serves only to validate his far-reaching insight.
While Christians emphasize the “theory” aspect of the controversy, evolution is accepted by the scientific community as fact. There are a number of theories as to the driving mechanism behind evolution, including “natural selection” and “punctuated equilibrium”, but evolution is an accepted “scientific fact”. Note here the distinction between “fact” and “truth”. Science does not deal in “truth” or “reality”. It does not contend that The Big Bang theory, for example, is reality. But while reality is beyond the scope of science, it is the essence of religion. Christianity, applying its own system of “logic”, asserts that its description of nature is “the truth”, with The Bible is its body of “research”. This is not science.
While science deals with exploration of the unknown, religion is an exercise in basking in the “known” (the presumed). The two fields are virtual opposites. Exploring the unknown, requires an open mind and is sabbotaged by pre-conception. But by their own admission, I/D has no body of research, no actual “scientific methodology” at work in their pursuit of the truth. In fact, there’s no effort within the movement to expand knowledge about anything. “Inside” memos generated by the Discovery Institute and presented in the trial revealed that by their own admission, I/D “methodology” consists of “a bag of powerful intuitions” and “a handful of notions such as ‘irreducible complexity’”.
The argument over science or religion is a discussion on apples or oranges. They are too different to compare.
The closing chapter of the Dover trial has Judge Jones and his family put on 24-hour armed protection because of numerous death threats from good, sanctimonious Christians who didn’t like his verdict. The fact that these hateful, violent people have descended from the teachings of Jesus would be ample evidence of evolution in itself.
Next month: Who, or what, is God?
Watching the 1960 classic, Inherit the Wind, we cheer while Spencer Tracey attacks William Jennings Bryan, portraying him as backward and silly. Even though the actual trial occurred a mere 35 years earlier, somehow it had to be ancient history. Could people really have been that parochial in modern times? Well,
In 2005, the Scopes trial was replayed in Dover Pennsylvania. The Dover school board mandated that a 4-paragraph dissertation describing “Intelligent Design” as an alternative to evolution be presented in science classrooms. A number of teachers protested. Eleven parents filed suit against the school board through the ACLU for violation of their children’s civil rights. Click here for a transcript of the trial.
Actually, Scopes lost the 1925 case. But in 1987, in Edwards vs. Aguillard, the U. S. Supreme Court struck down “Scopes” and ruled that “Creationism” could not be taught in public schools. The Dover school board argued that Intelligent Design (I/D) is not “Creationism”, but a scientific field of study.
The case was heard by Judge John E. Jones, a Republican and George W. Bush appointee, and came down to the pivotal question: Is “Intelligent Design” science or religion? In a six-week trial the Thomas More Law Center (“The Sword and Shield for People of Faith”) defended the school board, with The Discovery Institute, the Seattle firm that coined the phrase ("Intelligent Design"), weighing in with “intellectual” support.
In the face of resistance from teachers, students and ultimately the board itself, the two members of the board who sponsored this measure secured a “text book” called Of Pandas and People for students who wished to pursue the claim. Fifty copies of the book had been “donated” by a benefactor, but were actually procured by the two board sponsors, who lied under oath to cover their involvement.
After 21 days of testimony Judge Jones found I/D’s case for science insubstantial and ruled against the school board. (Actual) intelligence prevailed in a small, Pennsylvania town in pursuit of a decent education for children in the face of a large population of religious dogmatists.
Robbinsence has condensed the argument for our readers’ consideration.
What is Science?
Science is the systematic study of natural phenomena.
The “scientific method” is to extrapolate a hypothesis to explain natural phenomena, leaving the theory to be disproved by the scientific community. It is important here to emphasize that the procedure is to disprove the theory---not to prove it. (It’s assumed that there is enough empirical evidence to advance the material as a theory, but “proof” is beyond the purview of science.) In order to qualify as “science”, a hypothesis must stand up to an effort to disprove it, and there must be a scientific manner by which to test it.
Christians who promote various theories of biology that fail to conform to evolutionary paradigms claim that their theory (under whatever name might be in fashion) is true. While it’s conceivable that their vision is in fact reality, this is not science. I/D advocates devote considerable energy to disproving evolution, leaving NO discernable body of research to explore their own theory, much less to try to disprove it. No one has yet arrived at a systematic or "scientific" manner to test or disprove God.
The “theory” of evolution, as proposed by Charles Darwin, in his treatise: On the Origin of Species, has survived 150 years of scrutiny. The entire science of “genetics”, which was beyond Darwin’s imagination, serves only to validate his far-reaching insight.
While Christians emphasize the “theory” aspect of the controversy, evolution is accepted by the scientific community as fact. There are a number of theories as to the driving mechanism behind evolution, including “natural selection” and “punctuated equilibrium”, but evolution is an accepted “scientific fact”. Note here the distinction between “fact” and “truth”. Science does not deal in “truth” or “reality”. It does not contend that The Big Bang theory, for example, is reality. But while reality is beyond the scope of science, it is the essence of religion. Christianity, applying its own system of “logic”, asserts that its description of nature is “the truth”, with The Bible is its body of “research”. This is not science.
While science deals with exploration of the unknown, religion is an exercise in basking in the “known” (the presumed). The two fields are virtual opposites. Exploring the unknown, requires an open mind and is sabbotaged by pre-conception. But by their own admission, I/D has no body of research, no actual “scientific methodology” at work in their pursuit of the truth. In fact, there’s no effort within the movement to expand knowledge about anything. “Inside” memos generated by the Discovery Institute and presented in the trial revealed that by their own admission, I/D “methodology” consists of “a bag of powerful intuitions” and “a handful of notions such as ‘irreducible complexity’”.
The argument over science or religion is a discussion on apples or oranges. They are too different to compare.
The closing chapter of the Dover trial has Judge Jones and his family put on 24-hour armed protection because of numerous death threats from good, sanctimonious Christians who didn’t like his verdict. The fact that these hateful, violent people have descended from the teachings of Jesus would be ample evidence of evolution in itself.
Next month: Who, or what, is God?
Monday, April 6, 2009
The Fightin' 81st
The Fightin’ 81st
by Randoid
I was a nineteen-year old airman stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Keesler was a training base for new recruits, and I was attending a technical school to become a microwave radio technician. There were thousands of new airmen on the base and most were like me, attending a technical school of one sort or another. The base was cut in two by an airstrip. The main base was located east of the airstrip and represented about 80% of the base acreage. The main base housed all the technical schools. The remaining part of the base was a triangular-shaped area to the west which was known as the Triangle. The Triangle was devoted to student housing and consisted of 12 or more large complexes or squadrons. Each squadron complex contained administrative offices, a chow hall, and a barracks for approximately 700-1,000 students. I was assigned to the 3381st Student Squadron, which just happened to be the squadron closest to the airstrip.
My job, as a student, was to attend my designated technical school 6 hours a day from 6 AM to noon, 5 days a week. However, with the Vietnam War in full bloom the wartime demand for qualified technicians was high. In order to fill that technical manpower gap, the powers-that-be wanted to speed up the graduation process so that we could make our contribution to the war effort as soon as possible. To that end, they came up two solutions. First, the students will attend classes in three shifts. A shift, will attend class from 6 AM to noon, B shift from noon to 6 PM, and C shift from 6 PM to midnight. Second, all students will now attend class 6 days a week. I was assigned to C shift. So now my job, as student, was to attend my designated technical school 6 hours a day from 6 PM to midnight, 6 days a week.
Most of the students in the 3381st were on the A shift and the B shift so the chow hall in my squadron was designated as an A and B shift chow hall. C shift students couldn’t eat there. I had to attend a C shift chow hall in another squadron about 500-600 yards down the road.
Every school day, which also happened to be most days, began at 5 PM as C shift students lined up for an inspection by our Squadron Commander and our Red Rope. The Red Rope, who was a student just like the rest of us, was sort of like a “prison trustee” in that he was responsible for our overall welfare when the Squadron Commander and First Sergeant were not around. In keeping with military tradition, he also had complete authority over us. Our Red Rope was named Richardson and he was a pretty good guy.
With the inspection completed, it was time to march to school. The 3381st had the “honor” of leading all the other Triangle squadrons across the flight line, past the reviewing stand, and on to our main base schools. Along the way, our squadron would sing marching songs and, in doing so, try to drown out the other squadrons who were trying to do the same thing.
After six hours of learning about electronics, it was midnight and school was finished for the day. Although it was midnight, it had also been at least eight hours since our last meal and most of us were too hungry to be tired. Now it was time to march back across the flight line, past our barracks, and onto a C shift chow hall.
A long time ago back in the afternoon, we were the first squadron to march across the flight line in going to school. But now, at midnight, the order is reversed and we are the last squadron to march back across the flight line. This resulted in the 3381st being the last squadron to be fed, which was bad enough, but wait! It gets worse! Occasionally, the chow hall would run out of food, or to be more exact, the designated meal. For example, every other squadron would dine on roast beef and mashed potatoes but that would be long gone by the time the 3381st showed up at a quarter to one in the morning. The cooks, being basically unimaginative and pissed off to be working that late, would boil potatoes and canned hot dogs for us. To make matters worse we usually had to wait for that.
Well, what started off as an occasional chow hall problem soon became a frequent chow hall problem. We were eating boiled canned hot dogs 2 to 3 days a week. I remember that the hot dogs were a grayish color! Gray! Complaints to the chow hall supervisor and our Squadron Commander fell on deaf ears.
Each day around 10 AM all C shift students would gather for PT or physical training led by our Red Rope. One day, after another canned hot dog dinner, the PT session became a forum for complaints about the food. The complaints grew louder and louder and finally Richardson, in exasperation, asked, “What the hell can I do? We’ve talked to our commander and the chow hall supervisor and it doesn’t seem to matter.” The crowd fell silent for a moment but that was just long enough for one unidentified voice to say, “Let’s go down there this afternoon and wreck that fucking chow hall.”
The C shift students let out a huge cheer of approval as they looked to their Red Rope for guidance. Richardson, the right man for the right time shouted, “Let’s do it!” Now, drunk with power, he whipped the mob into a frenzy. “Assemble at 3 PM for the afternoon meal,” he screamed, “and we’ll go down there and wreck that fucking chow hall!”
3 PM rolled around and we marched down to the chow hall. We entered the building in single file to collect our trays, plates, and silverware on our way to the steam tables. It’s tough for a couple of hundred guys to keep a secret for 5 hours and you could see it in the cook’s faces. They knew something was up and eyed us warily as we shuffled through the serving line. I was with my good friends Greg Bonzer and Chuck Corne, and there were about 20 guys in front of us in the line. Much to our surprise the guys moved through the serving line without incident. There was plenty of tension in the air but so far no one had started anything. Corne picked up a plate, stared at it for a second or two, and then hurled it to the tile floor where it shattered into smithereens. Thanks to Corne the game was now on. Bonzer and I smashed our plates too!
Then we got new plates and headed through the serving line. The cooks, dumbfounded at this display, didn’t know what to do so they did the only thing they knew how to do – they gave us our food. Guys continued to pass through the serving line as the stunned cooks served up more and more food. Meanwhile, the sound of breaking plates could be heard in the background. Soon a full-fledged food fight was on, except everyone was throwing their food at walls, under tables, on top of tables, all over the chairs, etc. In only a few minutes the chow hall was in shambles. Our mission completed, we marched back to our squadron to get ready for school.
With another open rank inspection completed we took our usual position leading the other squadrons across the flight line. We began to march but were soon surrounded by several trucks full of Air Police. They diverted us from the flight line to a nearby grassy area. Our squadron commander was there to greet us and he wasn’t happy. There were several other officers there as well, presumably on hand to get in on the ass-chewing that were about to receive. Our immediate punishment was that there would be no school for us this night. What, this is punishment!? We had to return to our barracks where we were under house arrest! Wow, I thought! I’m under arrest!
The next day we found what else they had in store for us. Richardson, of course, lost his rope. He was about to graduate so I don’t think he gave a damn. As for the rest of us, we were under house arrest for the next 10 days. We could leave the barracks only to attend school and to go to the chow hall, but only under the watchful eye of the police. Once at the chow hall we had to revert to basic training rules where we stood at attention, even through the serving line, and were forbidden to talk. News of our uprising soon spread and as were marched to and from the chow hall under guard, students from neighboring squadrons waved and cheered us from their windows.
With our arrest period was over, we lost our police guard and were now free to speak and move about in the Triangle. We soon discovered that our food rebellion turned us into instant celebrities. Someone in the group came up with this song which we sang lustily on our way to school, and more importantly, to the chow hall.
“Everywhere we go-oh,
People want to know-oh,
Who-o we are,
So-o we tell them,
We are the 81st,
The chow hall bustin’ 81st,
We go to school to read our books,
And all we do is fight with cooks.”
Randoid is a Robbinsense staff writier and a Carpinteria Taler
by Randoid
I was a nineteen-year old airman stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Keesler was a training base for new recruits, and I was attending a technical school to become a microwave radio technician. There were thousands of new airmen on the base and most were like me, attending a technical school of one sort or another. The base was cut in two by an airstrip. The main base was located east of the airstrip and represented about 80% of the base acreage. The main base housed all the technical schools. The remaining part of the base was a triangular-shaped area to the west which was known as the Triangle. The Triangle was devoted to student housing and consisted of 12 or more large complexes or squadrons. Each squadron complex contained administrative offices, a chow hall, and a barracks for approximately 700-1,000 students. I was assigned to the 3381st Student Squadron, which just happened to be the squadron closest to the airstrip.
My job, as a student, was to attend my designated technical school 6 hours a day from 6 AM to noon, 5 days a week. However, with the Vietnam War in full bloom the wartime demand for qualified technicians was high. In order to fill that technical manpower gap, the powers-that-be wanted to speed up the graduation process so that we could make our contribution to the war effort as soon as possible. To that end, they came up two solutions. First, the students will attend classes in three shifts. A shift, will attend class from 6 AM to noon, B shift from noon to 6 PM, and C shift from 6 PM to midnight. Second, all students will now attend class 6 days a week. I was assigned to C shift. So now my job, as student, was to attend my designated technical school 6 hours a day from 6 PM to midnight, 6 days a week.
Most of the students in the 3381st were on the A shift and the B shift so the chow hall in my squadron was designated as an A and B shift chow hall. C shift students couldn’t eat there. I had to attend a C shift chow hall in another squadron about 500-600 yards down the road.
Every school day, which also happened to be most days, began at 5 PM as C shift students lined up for an inspection by our Squadron Commander and our Red Rope. The Red Rope, who was a student just like the rest of us, was sort of like a “prison trustee” in that he was responsible for our overall welfare when the Squadron Commander and First Sergeant were not around. In keeping with military tradition, he also had complete authority over us. Our Red Rope was named Richardson and he was a pretty good guy.
With the inspection completed, it was time to march to school. The 3381st had the “honor” of leading all the other Triangle squadrons across the flight line, past the reviewing stand, and on to our main base schools. Along the way, our squadron would sing marching songs and, in doing so, try to drown out the other squadrons who were trying to do the same thing.
After six hours of learning about electronics, it was midnight and school was finished for the day. Although it was midnight, it had also been at least eight hours since our last meal and most of us were too hungry to be tired. Now it was time to march back across the flight line, past our barracks, and onto a C shift chow hall.
A long time ago back in the afternoon, we were the first squadron to march across the flight line in going to school. But now, at midnight, the order is reversed and we are the last squadron to march back across the flight line. This resulted in the 3381st being the last squadron to be fed, which was bad enough, but wait! It gets worse! Occasionally, the chow hall would run out of food, or to be more exact, the designated meal. For example, every other squadron would dine on roast beef and mashed potatoes but that would be long gone by the time the 3381st showed up at a quarter to one in the morning. The cooks, being basically unimaginative and pissed off to be working that late, would boil potatoes and canned hot dogs for us. To make matters worse we usually had to wait for that.
Well, what started off as an occasional chow hall problem soon became a frequent chow hall problem. We were eating boiled canned hot dogs 2 to 3 days a week. I remember that the hot dogs were a grayish color! Gray! Complaints to the chow hall supervisor and our Squadron Commander fell on deaf ears.
Each day around 10 AM all C shift students would gather for PT or physical training led by our Red Rope. One day, after another canned hot dog dinner, the PT session became a forum for complaints about the food. The complaints grew louder and louder and finally Richardson, in exasperation, asked, “What the hell can I do? We’ve talked to our commander and the chow hall supervisor and it doesn’t seem to matter.” The crowd fell silent for a moment but that was just long enough for one unidentified voice to say, “Let’s go down there this afternoon and wreck that fucking chow hall.”
The C shift students let out a huge cheer of approval as they looked to their Red Rope for guidance. Richardson, the right man for the right time shouted, “Let’s do it!” Now, drunk with power, he whipped the mob into a frenzy. “Assemble at 3 PM for the afternoon meal,” he screamed, “and we’ll go down there and wreck that fucking chow hall!”
3 PM rolled around and we marched down to the chow hall. We entered the building in single file to collect our trays, plates, and silverware on our way to the steam tables. It’s tough for a couple of hundred guys to keep a secret for 5 hours and you could see it in the cook’s faces. They knew something was up and eyed us warily as we shuffled through the serving line. I was with my good friends Greg Bonzer and Chuck Corne, and there were about 20 guys in front of us in the line. Much to our surprise the guys moved through the serving line without incident. There was plenty of tension in the air but so far no one had started anything. Corne picked up a plate, stared at it for a second or two, and then hurled it to the tile floor where it shattered into smithereens. Thanks to Corne the game was now on. Bonzer and I smashed our plates too!
Then we got new plates and headed through the serving line. The cooks, dumbfounded at this display, didn’t know what to do so they did the only thing they knew how to do – they gave us our food. Guys continued to pass through the serving line as the stunned cooks served up more and more food. Meanwhile, the sound of breaking plates could be heard in the background. Soon a full-fledged food fight was on, except everyone was throwing their food at walls, under tables, on top of tables, all over the chairs, etc. In only a few minutes the chow hall was in shambles. Our mission completed, we marched back to our squadron to get ready for school.
With another open rank inspection completed we took our usual position leading the other squadrons across the flight line. We began to march but were soon surrounded by several trucks full of Air Police. They diverted us from the flight line to a nearby grassy area. Our squadron commander was there to greet us and he wasn’t happy. There were several other officers there as well, presumably on hand to get in on the ass-chewing that were about to receive. Our immediate punishment was that there would be no school for us this night. What, this is punishment!? We had to return to our barracks where we were under house arrest! Wow, I thought! I’m under arrest!
The next day we found what else they had in store for us. Richardson, of course, lost his rope. He was about to graduate so I don’t think he gave a damn. As for the rest of us, we were under house arrest for the next 10 days. We could leave the barracks only to attend school and to go to the chow hall, but only under the watchful eye of the police. Once at the chow hall we had to revert to basic training rules where we stood at attention, even through the serving line, and were forbidden to talk. News of our uprising soon spread and as were marched to and from the chow hall under guard, students from neighboring squadrons waved and cheered us from their windows.
With our arrest period was over, we lost our police guard and were now free to speak and move about in the Triangle. We soon discovered that our food rebellion turned us into instant celebrities. Someone in the group came up with this song which we sang lustily on our way to school, and more importantly, to the chow hall.
“Everywhere we go-oh,
People want to know-oh,
Who-o we are,
So-o we tell them,
We are the 81st,
The chow hall bustin’ 81st,
We go to school to read our books,
And all we do is fight with cooks.”
Randoid is a Robbinsense staff writier and a Carpinteria Taler
Saturday, April 4, 2009
On the State Budget
I’m not an anti-government dogmatist, but I can see that government is the problem in our state budget crisis. The budget impasse, which may or may not have been temporarily resolved, could be relieved quickly. Any combination of a few of the following matters might solve the problem.
1) Abolish the state senate. Our legislature is a relic left over from 18th century British Parliament. The British legislature, comprised by the House of Commons and House of Lords, was designed to give voice to the interests of "commoners", while still providing and preserving the prerogatives of aristocracy. The so-called “tyranny of the majority” was a pressing concern carried over from the British system among the (essentially American) aristocracy that drew up our government between 1787 and 1789 We might argue over the necessity of this duality in our national legislature, but I doubt you will find many to contend that it’s necessary in California government. While the makeup of the U.S. Senate (comprised of two senators per state) is different from that of the house (population based), there is no such distinction in the state legislature. Both houses are population-based. While they have different districts, both cover the entire population.
We have two separate houses, each with its own mini-fiefdoms, both trying to accomplish the same tasks, both covering the same population---both playing off each other---both “protecting” their own turf---both with their own sets of staff---both with their own bureaucracy---and neither performing diddly-squat! In case you haven’t noticed, the lion’s share of real law making in this state is thrown back to us through initiative and proposition. This is largely because the legislature shuns serious law-making, which is a potential threat to re-election. Re-election is their primary concern. The bi-cameral legislature significantly magnifies the gridlock and in the process costs billions to support its bloated bureaucracy.
I regret to say that Robbinsense staffers have been unable to untangle the mass of state budget and finance in order to report the cost of the legislature. Hours spent on the internet proved fruitless. I tried to contact the State Comptroller, but he failed to respond to my inquiry. We can be certain that the annual savings would be in the billions.
The major, and pressing, question about this measure is, “How do we do it?” We can’t expect the legislature to put themselves out of work, when their primary imperative is to keep themselves in place! It must be done through constitutional amendment. Co-incidentally, our governor in the last couple of months has been advocating just that!
With nearly 500 amendments, our constitution is the 2nd largest in the nation. (The US Constitution has only 27 amendments.) Our first constitutional convention occurred in 1849. Forty-eight delegates hammered out a sensible document in six weeks. The second convened in 1878. This convention planted the seed of our problems by disempowering the legislature. This vastly increased the size of the constitution while presenting the legislature with excuses for not doing their job. In 1911, the mischief which began forty years earlier was codified by inaugurating the initiative, recall and referendum.
After 100 years, it’s time to get serious. The Gubernator’s agenda is notably light-weight, comprised of small measures like tying the Lieutenant Governor to the governor (rather than having a separate election). But anything that will get the show moving will be worthwhile. Now, we need a movement and a deep-pocketed angel. Anyone?
2) Legalize drugs, including marijuana, opiates, cocaine (but not methamphetamines, please.) This would save the state billions in law enforcement, empty out prisons, bring in billions in tax revenue, lower the cost of drugs, put an end to the drug wars raging in Mexico and end the reign of terror that we impose on countries all over the world by hypocritically demanding drugs on one hand, while pressuring them to stop supplying our demand on the other. If the U. S. Government doesn’t like this move, let them enforce their laws through the FBI and Federal court system. The amount of money saved by this measure is vast, and could easily solve the budget problem alone; but there are large political interests in preserving the status quo. We have an enormous law enforcement industry, for example, which is largely dependent upon existing drug laws.
3) Repeal the politically motivated “3 strikes” law ending the senseless, judicial and correctional burdens that it places upon our criminal justice system.
4) Scuttle Term Limits. This is bad legislation to begin with, as it places greater restrictions on our ability to govern ourselves than it imposes upon the legislators. It keeps the legislature occupied by inexperienced representatives.
5) Return approval of state budget to a simple majority. This prevents a small group from being able to stymie sensible budget measures and reforms.
Politics is the one significant issue that stands between a balanced budget and our current mess. We tolerate this mess; and with our system of government, we deserve it. Engage!
Note: We asked Jackson Dave to weigh in on this issue, and his piece will appear next month. Jack sees this issue through a simpler lens.
1) Abolish the state senate. Our legislature is a relic left over from 18th century British Parliament. The British legislature, comprised by the House of Commons and House of Lords, was designed to give voice to the interests of "commoners", while still providing and preserving the prerogatives of aristocracy. The so-called “tyranny of the majority” was a pressing concern carried over from the British system among the (essentially American) aristocracy that drew up our government between 1787 and 1789 We might argue over the necessity of this duality in our national legislature, but I doubt you will find many to contend that it’s necessary in California government. While the makeup of the U.S. Senate (comprised of two senators per state) is different from that of the house (population based), there is no such distinction in the state legislature. Both houses are population-based. While they have different districts, both cover the entire population.
We have two separate houses, each with its own mini-fiefdoms, both trying to accomplish the same tasks, both covering the same population---both playing off each other---both “protecting” their own turf---both with their own sets of staff---both with their own bureaucracy---and neither performing diddly-squat! In case you haven’t noticed, the lion’s share of real law making in this state is thrown back to us through initiative and proposition. This is largely because the legislature shuns serious law-making, which is a potential threat to re-election. Re-election is their primary concern. The bi-cameral legislature significantly magnifies the gridlock and in the process costs billions to support its bloated bureaucracy.
I regret to say that Robbinsense staffers have been unable to untangle the mass of state budget and finance in order to report the cost of the legislature. Hours spent on the internet proved fruitless. I tried to contact the State Comptroller, but he failed to respond to my inquiry. We can be certain that the annual savings would be in the billions.
The major, and pressing, question about this measure is, “How do we do it?” We can’t expect the legislature to put themselves out of work, when their primary imperative is to keep themselves in place! It must be done through constitutional amendment. Co-incidentally, our governor in the last couple of months has been advocating just that!
With nearly 500 amendments, our constitution is the 2nd largest in the nation. (The US Constitution has only 27 amendments.) Our first constitutional convention occurred in 1849. Forty-eight delegates hammered out a sensible document in six weeks. The second convened in 1878. This convention planted the seed of our problems by disempowering the legislature. This vastly increased the size of the constitution while presenting the legislature with excuses for not doing their job. In 1911, the mischief which began forty years earlier was codified by inaugurating the initiative, recall and referendum.
After 100 years, it’s time to get serious. The Gubernator’s agenda is notably light-weight, comprised of small measures like tying the Lieutenant Governor to the governor (rather than having a separate election). But anything that will get the show moving will be worthwhile. Now, we need a movement and a deep-pocketed angel. Anyone?
2) Legalize drugs, including marijuana, opiates, cocaine (but not methamphetamines, please.) This would save the state billions in law enforcement, empty out prisons, bring in billions in tax revenue, lower the cost of drugs, put an end to the drug wars raging in Mexico and end the reign of terror that we impose on countries all over the world by hypocritically demanding drugs on one hand, while pressuring them to stop supplying our demand on the other. If the U. S. Government doesn’t like this move, let them enforce their laws through the FBI and Federal court system. The amount of money saved by this measure is vast, and could easily solve the budget problem alone; but there are large political interests in preserving the status quo. We have an enormous law enforcement industry, for example, which is largely dependent upon existing drug laws.
3) Repeal the politically motivated “3 strikes” law ending the senseless, judicial and correctional burdens that it places upon our criminal justice system.
4) Scuttle Term Limits. This is bad legislation to begin with, as it places greater restrictions on our ability to govern ourselves than it imposes upon the legislators. It keeps the legislature occupied by inexperienced representatives.
5) Return approval of state budget to a simple majority. This prevents a small group from being able to stymie sensible budget measures and reforms.
Politics is the one significant issue that stands between a balanced budget and our current mess. We tolerate this mess; and with our system of government, we deserve it. Engage!
Note: We asked Jackson Dave to weigh in on this issue, and his piece will appear next month. Jack sees this issue through a simpler lens.
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