The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act just passed by Congress is deeply troubling for several reasons. Secret negotiations were conducted between Philip Morris (Altria Group) and members of Congress. Altria supports the bill--well should we be surprised? Apparently the Altria Group will maintain its monopoly position with established products because the legislation precludes certain kinds of competition and new products. The only change of any notice is the requirement to print health warnings with a larger typeface. The important fact to keep in mind is the roll the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) will be playing!
For the first time in its existence, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) will oversee the manufacture of and provide its stamp of approval upon a product that annually kills 400,000 people in the United States and millions around the world. George Orwell's 1984 (1949), is upon us in yet another alarming and dismaying manifestation!
The secret negotiations between Philip Morris (renamed now as the Altria Group, for similar reasons perhaps that Blackwater International now calls itself Xe, and why the military coup dictatorship changed Burma to Myanmar) and Congress lead, not surprisingly, Philip Morris to become the only tobacco industry corporation that supported the legislation. Interestingly, the bill will maintain monopoly status for Philip Morris by precluding competition against its established and even new products.
The only change of any positive substance, as limited a health factor as it might be, is the requirement to print package warning notices with a larger typeface. And we know how the industry fought and largely won the debate over warning labels many years ago. It took years and ugly compromises now for what should have been required long ago!
To have the FDA essentially issuing what is a stamp of approval on all tobacco products is Kafkaesque and Orwellian! The Act is a reminder that the tobacco industry, as a major champagne contributor to members of Congress, has the right to slowly and painfully kill vast numbers of people around the world as well as in the United States--with FDA compliance and cooperation.
I had hoped that nicotine would be classified as a Grade One narcotic, as is Cannabis and Coca. Coca leaves are a traditional stimulant for Andean peoples (chewing and retaining the masticated leaves in the cheeks of the mouth). In the U.S. both are strictly outlawed with severe punishments for even recreational use and possession. Neither marijuana nor cocaine are innately deadly and do not represent health risks.
If the war on drugs was a genuine conflict and not a lifestyle attack or governance by crime (Jonathan Simon), nicotine (tobacco products) would be Public Enemy Number One! If medical marijuna requires a doctor's prescription, the same should hold true for tobacco use. In reality, only tobacco requires one.
In 1964, I applauded the Surgeon General for his report on the health risks of tobacco use, principally cigarette smoking. Even by the 1960s many celebrity Americans had already perished from lung cancer as brought on by smoking cigarettes: Edward R. Murrow at age 57 and Humphrey Bogart at age 58 had died in the 1950s. Countless ordinary people have succumbed from the consequences of their tobacco habits since the 1964 Report. But today, we have the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act! The legislation is by intention a perpetuation of a macabre serialization of mass murder.
The consequences of tobacco use are insidious and when finally realized are usually terminal illnesses. If quantified, tobacco-related illness and death qualified even in 1964 as a pandemic! But, the charade continues.
The Act intends, supposedly, to protect children from acquiring a cigarette habit, which would be honorable if true; nonetheless, it is silent on the fate of adults. What happens to children when they become adults? Are we content in sacrificing the older generation with nicotine addiction?
The bill was negotiated between Tobacco-Free Kids and a well-prepared, agenda-driven, highly-paid Philip Morris team. Negotiators from Tobacco-Free Kids were ill-prepared do-gooders and amateur debaters with the best intentions, but no match for industry heavy-weights seeking a knockout. And the Altria Group got it in the first round, I am sure.
On Democracy Now, 2 July 2009, broadcast, Dr. Joel Nitzkin, Chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force of the American Association of Public Health Physicians, states up-front that the Act was written by Philip Morris and provides "the appearance of effective regulation, but not the substance." To back this up, Dr. Nitzkin claims that the Act's restrictions of marketing tobacco products are already governed by the master settlement agreement or already covered by U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
The tobacco and health care legislation reveal, if anyone still has doubts, who Congress actually represents! If Philip Morris and the health care lobbyists are enlisted to write legislation that will enhance profits and safeguard their very strange existence, then corporations rule America, and Clause 3 in Article I, Section 8 (the Commerce Clause) of the Constitution might as well be abolished. (The clause helps to balance state and national power spheres over commerce.)
When President Obama signed the Tobacco Control Act, he stated that the legislation would limit the power of tobacco lobbyists on Capitol Hill and curb the ability of tobacco corporations to market nicotine-containing products to juveniles. He said that the Act would "protect the next generation of Americans from growing up with a deadly habit that so many of our generation have lived with." (Sadly, he did not have the courage to add the phrase, ...and died by....) Obama thereby alludes to his own cigarette smoking habit which suggests, given his previously stated difficulties in stopping, he is himself addicted. He referred to his teenage use, but is not straightforward about his current situation.
If the President is a nicotine addict, he should come clean with the American people; and there was no better time to do this than at the signing. In detailing his efforts, he could help many people in shaking their addictions. Obama's thinness, skin texture with a particular yellow tinge seem not unlike those of other cigarette users. I am not quite certain about his underlying vocal roughness. You can often deduce tobacco use by voice texture. The detection is difficult to discern because Obama's speaking style is so heavily affected (and reminiscent of charades). However, it seems that the President will do nothing to upset Philip Morris, Lorillard and RPJ; to ensure that never happens, he hypes the legislation.
Philip Morris demanded that menthol not (italics are appropriately added) be eliminated, a banned additive. Menthol-containing cigarettes constitutes 28% of Philip Morris total sales. Dr. Nitzkin states that menthol is both a flavoring and a local anesthetic. Its inclusion makes cigarette smoking more comfortable; it reduces the "harsh feel and taste of the smoke." Without its addition many people would not be able to tolerate the discomfort, the pain, caused by high smoke temperatures and other irritants. (I am reminded of preparation drugs used to condition the condemned for lethal injection executions. In effect, cigarette manufacturers use a sedative drug to bring addiction to another drug that will most likely kill its users!) Philip
Morris has a new version of Marlboro soon to be released. The new formulation has a stronger tobacco taste and more menthol. The Philip Morris objection takes on meaning.
A race issue is involved with menthol as an additive to cigarettes. About 80% of African-American smokers use menthol cigarettes; and they are popular among other smokers as well. There is the appearance that the menthol exception targets the African-American population.
The sorted business of tobacco merchandising will get uglier with FDA cover. Allowing menthol exclusion from regulation would lead to countless addictions among young people. Fortunately, the exclusion is not yet settled law. Under strong objections from the African-American community, Congressman Waxman (D-Calif.) has included a requirement that the FDA's science advisory committee rules on menthol. But, according to Dr. Nitzin, the committee is mandated by the Tobacco Control Act to ban only substances which increase the risk of cancer, other serious disease or increase the addictiveness of the tobacco product. In other words, in a strict interpretation, the law does not allow the science advisory committee to ban ingredients that encourage cigarette smoking. This is an engineered Catch 22 in which Waxman protected tobacco industry profits. The Congressman, once somewhat reliable as former chair of the House Oversight Committee, has lost any regulatory zeal he may have had in his new chairmanship of the powerful House Finance Committee. Waxman has dropped the ball on tobacco regulation for whatever reasons. In the proposed menthol waiver, we feel the invisible hand of Philip Morris.
The segment on Democracy Now is titled, Up in Smoke: How the Tobacco Industry Shaped the new Smoking Bill. Dr. Joel Nitzkin states unequivocally that the bill only "provides the appearance of federal regulation of tobacco products while assuring the Philip Morris corporation the ability to continue to market their current and currently proposed cigarette products with little interference from federal authorities, protection against future liability and protection from competition from other tobacco companies and from smokeless tobacco products." With all this, there is no confusion as to who wins.
With the alleged tobacco control legislation and the battle over health care form, corporate rule is absolute, and its war room is located on Capital Hill. That corporations are "persons" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, has to be revisited. Equally important, Congressional election campaigns must be financed solely by a public program.
Supreme Court decisions need to be reversed, among them are Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), and First National Bank v. Bellotti (1978). The former lead to the "persons" stipulation, and the latter, extended First Amendment protection to corporate political speech. These rulings ignore the fact that corporations exist only on paper and by State charters.
What we need is a "three-strikes" penalty for rogue corporations. National product boycotts should become routine acts of disobedience. With nicotine addiction, product boycotts are unlikely by those held captive. And the tobacco industry under FDA auspices will merchandise very deadly products, largely unregulated for another generation or more!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Sonia Sotomayor and the Supreme Court
As a Supreme Court associate justice, Sotomayor will vote more often than not to the right of David Suter's record. Many decisions for the foreseeable future will be six to three, rather than the five to four to which we had become accustomed when Souter was on the Court.
President Obama's nomination of Second Circuit Appellate Court (NY region)Judge Sonia Sotomayor represents a lost opportunity to tilt the Supreme Court back just a bit from its extreme radical, activist (political) orientation, one that resembles a right-ended, bottomed-out teetertoter. Five right-wing justices,( Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas), The Gang of Five, are political extremists intent on undoing established law passed over the last seventy-five years--the New Deal and Warren court decisions and others derived from them. To make the Court a positive institution, it must have progressive, activist jurists (that value individual and defendant rights) to offset the hugely disproportionally radical representation of the existing Court.
The appointment of Sotomayor tells me something about President Obama, the smoke and mirrors magician. Obama wants a mainstream candidate, ideally a judge, who will pass ethnic and gender considerations, but not challenge the court's status quo, someone who would influence decisions as Brandeis and Brennan did. The nomination suggests what has rapidly become "vintage Obama"--appearance (or image) over substance (change). After seventeen years sitting on various court benches, Sotomayor's decisions seem as ordinary as Jell-O.
After law school Sotomayor was a prosecutor, then a corporate lawyer. She apparently decided not to clerk. Her court decisions relate mostly to business law, but when related to defendant and individual rights her early experiences seem to hold sway. Obama, for all his chanting about change (which can go in various directions and is not always for the good), obviously feels comfortable with Sotomayor's curriculum vitae. He chose someone who would be easily confirmed, in at least a partial bipartisan vote in a very conservative (and unrepresentational) Senate. As a consequence, Obama limits himself by the low expectations bipartisanship dictates. He suffers from failure of nerve. He refuses to act on what he knows is true and proper. When he does act, it's as "Bush Lite". After only six months as President, the power brokers have him in their collective pocket; or, is it a straitjacket?
Ethnic and gender issues aside, with the sizeable pool of progressive constitutional scholars and social justice law pradctitioners, Barak Obama could have done better! Of course, to nominate a William Moses Kunstler-or Lawerance Tribe-like figure, male or female, of whatever ethnicity or race would have required courage and a true belief in constructive change.
Belatedly, David Souther won my respect for what I perceived as an abhorrence of and loathing for what the Supreme Court became under Rehnquist and Roberts. I was not necessarily supportive of some decisions. His roll became that of a moderate in dissent to a radical majority. What I like most about Souter is that he makes an art of writing his decisions. And he is a genuine scholar. Perhaps earning a degree (magna cum laude, Harvard 1961) in Philosophy (also studying jurisprudence as a Rhodes scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford) is a better preparation for a future justice than serving as a prosecutor and corporate lawyer?If this is correct, in this measure, Souter's absence will be sorely missed.
The Warren Court was extant when Souter graduated Harvard Law School in 1966. His undergraduate senior thesis was on the legal philosophy of associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1902-32). Ironically, had it not been an era of Republican Party dominance (and skulduggery), in this case Souter was the surreptitious nomination to replace associate justice William J. Brennan, Jr. (1956-90), we never would have heard his name or been treated to his presence. As I recall, Souter was selected because he had no significant record as a sitting judge. He was something of an enigma who eventually revealed himself as a centrist. (President Reagan's 1987 nomination of Robert Bork failed in part on Bork's judicial record and writings. His judiciary committee hearing performance also worked against him. As a consequence no post-Bork Supreme Court nominee speaks his or her beliefs before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.)
Interestingly, William J. Brennan, Jr. (1956-90) was nominated by President Eisenhower and became, according to the President, his biggest nomination mistake. Brennan is one of the historic giants of the High Court. Judge Sotomayor understandably is not in either Brennan's or Souter's league; and she will hardly be noticed after her first term, when she could slip into the background, but remembered at times as the first Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court. (If Portugal is within the Hispanic world, associate justice Benjamin Cardozo(1932-38), born into a community of persecuted Spanish and Portuguese Jews that had been established in New Amsterdam in 1654, would qualify as the first Hispanic.) Judge Sotomayor was painted by Senate Republicans as a potential High Court activist in an extraordinary streach of imagination and another shocking display of partisan politics.
One fact about Sotomayor is that in seventeen years she has never exhibited such a tendancy. What amazes the objective onlooker of the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts is the unashamed activism of its right wing zealots, joining the above named Chief Justices are associate justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito. No other evidence of activism, although there is much, is required than Bush v. Gore (Dec. 2000). With an unabashed display of partisan activism and innovative decision making, the Republican Supreme Court majority handed Geo. W. Bush the presidency. Five radical Justices called upon fanciful readings of the Constitution (so much for original intent and stare decisis.)To select a conservative Republican to resolve a very close vote in the Florida State presidential election might have been expected under martial law. The then Gang of Five issued in less than 24 hours an emergency injuction halting a vote recount ordered by the Florida State Supreme Court. Three days later on 12 December 2000, the same five Justices ruled that no further recounting could take place. The four disenters in Bush v. Gore (Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg) had it right: the U.S. Supreme Court had no business involving itself, meddling with, the Florida presidential vote dispute. Bush v. Gore puts to rest any argument by Republicans against activists judges. It also puts an end to the claim that the Supreme Court functions with collegiality and is not a political power broker. Yet, conservatives deplore alleged activism or fear its latency in moderate conservatives such as Sonia Sotomayor. It's the pot calling the kettle black.
Judge Sotomayor has been labaled "harsh" and "a bully" by some Republican Senators in an attempt to undermine her nomination--to tarnish her image and question her temperament. The attacks strike me as misogynistic and suggest bigoted attitudes. I doubt if the Supreme Court has ever had a Justice who acts as rudely and arrogantly at oral arguments as does Scalia.
Judge Sotomayor has been ruthlessly attacked by Senator Jefferson Sessions (R Alabama) as too empathetic, which allegedly could lead her down the path to a "liberal, activist, results-oriented...world, where laws lose their fixed meaning..." Of special note, Sessions lost a nomination bid to be a Supreme Court justice in the Reagan era. And now he's harassing a Democratic nomineee to the same court. Who could take him seriously? If Senator Lindsey Graham (R South Carolina), also on the Judiciary Committee with Sessions, can vote for Sotomayor's confirmation, what is the problem with Sessions? Is Sotomayor's offhanded "wise Latina" comment of any real concern?
Sessions' record of what could be called intemperate statements that the NAACP and the National Council of Churches were "un-American" and "Communist-inspired" doomed his Supreme Court nomination as a non-starter.(Garbus 2002). Now Democratic Senator Spector, also on the Judiciary, states that Sotomayor was merely expressing "ethnic pride", and there was nothing wrong about that.
The nomination of Judge Sotomayor is a slight of hand, an artful dodge by a cautious President who seeks consensus, even if it diminishes his prerogatives. Selecting someone with Puerto Rican roots might be more ameanable to a color-conscious white majority than someone with Mexican roots. Of the two groups, I believe that a Latino or Latina deserves primary consideration for a Supreme Court nomination at this time. I base this on population percentage and what the U.S. has done to oppress Mexican immigrants and render Mexico a virtual failed state. Consider: the war waged against Mexico (1845-47) and the loss of much of its territory and future political autonomy; the concurrent invasion of Mexica City (and that some U.S. leaders wanted to take possession of the entire country); the Monroe Doctrine and economic domination, including NAFTA. Let us not forget the Bracerro program that was in effect for decades and that U.S. drug policy has lead to murderous Mexican drug cartels. By 2050, Mexican-Americans will be the majority population! President Obama, if he was seeking a symbolic nomination, missed the most obvious choice. I am not unmindful of the Spanish-American War and its consequencwes for Puerto Rico, which also became a U.S. colonial possession,with, however, U.S.citizenship for its (non-voting)population. The explotation of Puerto Rican labor in New York City and elsewhere in continental United States is unconscionable.
ADDENDUM:
President Obama's nonmination of Judge Sotomayor brings into question his earlier selection of his Chicago recreational basketball buddy, Arne Duncan for Secretary of Education over that of a highly qualified and respected academician, Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommon Professor of Education at Stanford University, and among other rolls, is the co-director of School Redesign Network and author of The Right To Learn. In comparison, Duncan's nomination represents a serveral steps backward movement for public education.
According to Alfie Kohn, author Schools Our Children Deserve, Duncan could have been enthusiastically picked by Geo. W. Bush, who we sadly remember selected Rod Paige (of the "Houston Miracle" test score scam) as his Secretary of Education! Obama's choice is applauded by the right-wing, but condemed by Progresives. Also, parents are not pleased with the militarization of public education with Duncan as CEO of Chicago schools. He advocates private companies managing public schools. Duncan is a strong supporter of charter schools, as is Obama. For more information about Arne Duncan, see Kohn's piece in the 29 December 2008, issue of The Nation.
Obama's selection of Kathleen Sebelius (former Kansas govenor) as Secretary of Health and Human Services was another example of his centrist orientations. My impression of Barak Obama is that he keeps his positions on most domestic issues close to his chest. It is very difficult for reporters to pin him down, to get him to state unequivocally his beliefs and intensions; however, his nominations are quite revealing. Look no further than his nominations for key economic positions in his administration.
President Obama's nomination of Second Circuit Appellate Court (NY region)Judge Sonia Sotomayor represents a lost opportunity to tilt the Supreme Court back just a bit from its extreme radical, activist (political) orientation, one that resembles a right-ended, bottomed-out teetertoter. Five right-wing justices,( Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas), The Gang of Five, are political extremists intent on undoing established law passed over the last seventy-five years--the New Deal and Warren court decisions and others derived from them. To make the Court a positive institution, it must have progressive, activist jurists (that value individual and defendant rights) to offset the hugely disproportionally radical representation of the existing Court.
The appointment of Sotomayor tells me something about President Obama, the smoke and mirrors magician. Obama wants a mainstream candidate, ideally a judge, who will pass ethnic and gender considerations, but not challenge the court's status quo, someone who would influence decisions as Brandeis and Brennan did. The nomination suggests what has rapidly become "vintage Obama"--appearance (or image) over substance (change). After seventeen years sitting on various court benches, Sotomayor's decisions seem as ordinary as Jell-O.
After law school Sotomayor was a prosecutor, then a corporate lawyer. She apparently decided not to clerk. Her court decisions relate mostly to business law, but when related to defendant and individual rights her early experiences seem to hold sway. Obama, for all his chanting about change (which can go in various directions and is not always for the good), obviously feels comfortable with Sotomayor's curriculum vitae. He chose someone who would be easily confirmed, in at least a partial bipartisan vote in a very conservative (and unrepresentational) Senate. As a consequence, Obama limits himself by the low expectations bipartisanship dictates. He suffers from failure of nerve. He refuses to act on what he knows is true and proper. When he does act, it's as "Bush Lite". After only six months as President, the power brokers have him in their collective pocket; or, is it a straitjacket?
Ethnic and gender issues aside, with the sizeable pool of progressive constitutional scholars and social justice law pradctitioners, Barak Obama could have done better! Of course, to nominate a William Moses Kunstler-or Lawerance Tribe-like figure, male or female, of whatever ethnicity or race would have required courage and a true belief in constructive change.
Belatedly, David Souther won my respect for what I perceived as an abhorrence of and loathing for what the Supreme Court became under Rehnquist and Roberts. I was not necessarily supportive of some decisions. His roll became that of a moderate in dissent to a radical majority. What I like most about Souter is that he makes an art of writing his decisions. And he is a genuine scholar. Perhaps earning a degree (magna cum laude, Harvard 1961) in Philosophy (also studying jurisprudence as a Rhodes scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford) is a better preparation for a future justice than serving as a prosecutor and corporate lawyer?If this is correct, in this measure, Souter's absence will be sorely missed.
The Warren Court was extant when Souter graduated Harvard Law School in 1966. His undergraduate senior thesis was on the legal philosophy of associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1902-32). Ironically, had it not been an era of Republican Party dominance (and skulduggery), in this case Souter was the surreptitious nomination to replace associate justice William J. Brennan, Jr. (1956-90), we never would have heard his name or been treated to his presence. As I recall, Souter was selected because he had no significant record as a sitting judge. He was something of an enigma who eventually revealed himself as a centrist. (President Reagan's 1987 nomination of Robert Bork failed in part on Bork's judicial record and writings. His judiciary committee hearing performance also worked against him. As a consequence no post-Bork Supreme Court nominee speaks his or her beliefs before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.)
Interestingly, William J. Brennan, Jr. (1956-90) was nominated by President Eisenhower and became, according to the President, his biggest nomination mistake. Brennan is one of the historic giants of the High Court. Judge Sotomayor understandably is not in either Brennan's or Souter's league; and she will hardly be noticed after her first term, when she could slip into the background, but remembered at times as the first Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court. (If Portugal is within the Hispanic world, associate justice Benjamin Cardozo(1932-38), born into a community of persecuted Spanish and Portuguese Jews that had been established in New Amsterdam in 1654, would qualify as the first Hispanic.) Judge Sotomayor was painted by Senate Republicans as a potential High Court activist in an extraordinary streach of imagination and another shocking display of partisan politics.
One fact about Sotomayor is that in seventeen years she has never exhibited such a tendancy. What amazes the objective onlooker of the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts is the unashamed activism of its right wing zealots, joining the above named Chief Justices are associate justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito. No other evidence of activism, although there is much, is required than Bush v. Gore (Dec. 2000). With an unabashed display of partisan activism and innovative decision making, the Republican Supreme Court majority handed Geo. W. Bush the presidency. Five radical Justices called upon fanciful readings of the Constitution (so much for original intent and stare decisis.)To select a conservative Republican to resolve a very close vote in the Florida State presidential election might have been expected under martial law. The then Gang of Five issued in less than 24 hours an emergency injuction halting a vote recount ordered by the Florida State Supreme Court. Three days later on 12 December 2000, the same five Justices ruled that no further recounting could take place. The four disenters in Bush v. Gore (Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg) had it right: the U.S. Supreme Court had no business involving itself, meddling with, the Florida presidential vote dispute. Bush v. Gore puts to rest any argument by Republicans against activists judges. It also puts an end to the claim that the Supreme Court functions with collegiality and is not a political power broker. Yet, conservatives deplore alleged activism or fear its latency in moderate conservatives such as Sonia Sotomayor. It's the pot calling the kettle black.
Judge Sotomayor has been labaled "harsh" and "a bully" by some Republican Senators in an attempt to undermine her nomination--to tarnish her image and question her temperament. The attacks strike me as misogynistic and suggest bigoted attitudes. I doubt if the Supreme Court has ever had a Justice who acts as rudely and arrogantly at oral arguments as does Scalia.
Judge Sotomayor has been ruthlessly attacked by Senator Jefferson Sessions (R Alabama) as too empathetic, which allegedly could lead her down the path to a "liberal, activist, results-oriented...world, where laws lose their fixed meaning..." Of special note, Sessions lost a nomination bid to be a Supreme Court justice in the Reagan era. And now he's harassing a Democratic nomineee to the same court. Who could take him seriously? If Senator Lindsey Graham (R South Carolina), also on the Judiciary Committee with Sessions, can vote for Sotomayor's confirmation, what is the problem with Sessions? Is Sotomayor's offhanded "wise Latina" comment of any real concern?
Sessions' record of what could be called intemperate statements that the NAACP and the National Council of Churches were "un-American" and "Communist-inspired" doomed his Supreme Court nomination as a non-starter.(Garbus 2002). Now Democratic Senator Spector, also on the Judiciary, states that Sotomayor was merely expressing "ethnic pride", and there was nothing wrong about that.
The nomination of Judge Sotomayor is a slight of hand, an artful dodge by a cautious President who seeks consensus, even if it diminishes his prerogatives. Selecting someone with Puerto Rican roots might be more ameanable to a color-conscious white majority than someone with Mexican roots. Of the two groups, I believe that a Latino or Latina deserves primary consideration for a Supreme Court nomination at this time. I base this on population percentage and what the U.S. has done to oppress Mexican immigrants and render Mexico a virtual failed state. Consider: the war waged against Mexico (1845-47) and the loss of much of its territory and future political autonomy; the concurrent invasion of Mexica City (and that some U.S. leaders wanted to take possession of the entire country); the Monroe Doctrine and economic domination, including NAFTA. Let us not forget the Bracerro program that was in effect for decades and that U.S. drug policy has lead to murderous Mexican drug cartels. By 2050, Mexican-Americans will be the majority population! President Obama, if he was seeking a symbolic nomination, missed the most obvious choice. I am not unmindful of the Spanish-American War and its consequencwes for Puerto Rico, which also became a U.S. colonial possession,with, however, U.S.citizenship for its (non-voting)population. The explotation of Puerto Rican labor in New York City and elsewhere in continental United States is unconscionable.
ADDENDUM:
President Obama's nonmination of Judge Sotomayor brings into question his earlier selection of his Chicago recreational basketball buddy, Arne Duncan for Secretary of Education over that of a highly qualified and respected academician, Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommon Professor of Education at Stanford University, and among other rolls, is the co-director of School Redesign Network and author of The Right To Learn. In comparison, Duncan's nomination represents a serveral steps backward movement for public education.
According to Alfie Kohn, author Schools Our Children Deserve, Duncan could have been enthusiastically picked by Geo. W. Bush, who we sadly remember selected Rod Paige (of the "Houston Miracle" test score scam) as his Secretary of Education! Obama's choice is applauded by the right-wing, but condemed by Progresives. Also, parents are not pleased with the militarization of public education with Duncan as CEO of Chicago schools. He advocates private companies managing public schools. Duncan is a strong supporter of charter schools, as is Obama. For more information about Arne Duncan, see Kohn's piece in the 29 December 2008, issue of The Nation.
Obama's selection of Kathleen Sebelius (former Kansas govenor) as Secretary of Health and Human Services was another example of his centrist orientations. My impression of Barak Obama is that he keeps his positions on most domestic issues close to his chest. It is very difficult for reporters to pin him down, to get him to state unequivocally his beliefs and intensions; however, his nominations are quite revealing. Look no further than his nominations for key economic positions in his administration.
Democratizing Healthcare
President Obama's sifting positions on healthcare overhaul defines the nature of the man and will constitute his domestic legacy. When an Illinois legislator in 2003, Obama advocated single-payer healthcare. The sincerety and authority of that claim is now in question. Recently he stated that single-payer was the best system. But, that is now qualified, "only if the U.S. was starting from scratch". Since a system already exists, it is better to use what works and repair what doesn't in the existing system; therefore, single-payer will not be considered. The reasoning has no basis in reality or logic. The artful dodger, in sonorous tones, is seemingly convinced as to the correctness of his reevaluation.
In an act of pure showmenship Obama declared that every side of the healthcare reform debate had been invited to attend a recent White House conferrence when he had deliberately excluded single-payer experts! Under heavy pressure, he finally allowed a single-payer advocate to attend.
Everyone has heard House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi's infamous proclamation early on that single-payer was "off the table". With or without Obama and Pelosi, I would like to believe the U.S. will establish a single-payer healthcare system. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation without such a program! Yet, it seems as a so-called reform process dominated by the health industry continues, the only way to get single-payer is by a consumer coup de main!
A majority of Americans want single-payer, dispite the misinformation and disinformation that dominate media and townhall discussions. The Republican opposition to single-payer will become more nasty as time passes. Obama's consessions to the opposition signal the sharks that a feast is close at hand. That Obama seeks to include the very politicians and industry heads and lobbyists, his bipartisan approach, that will do all in their collective power to defeat anything that would change the healthcare status quo, is extremely naive--or, does it represent his true desires? This along with the Wall Street bailout are indications that in the Obama administration, the Congressional Republican minority, is in control of government! But, that seems to satisfy Obama.
The President's hedging and his lessening expectations for a government funded option will likely destroy his political base in 2012, and could affect 2010 mid-term Congressional elections. As the only industrialized nation (and the wealthiest at that) without a government managed healthcare program (and I have to keep coming back to that fact), the brutality and pitylessness inherent in a for-profit medical system verges on the criminal; and it is man's inhumanity to man at its most venomus and insiduous level. It is capitalism exposed.
The opposition against single-payer is ideological. Republicans and conservative Democrats (Blue Dogs and their kind) object to government programs that would make life more comfortable and satisfying for the vast majority of Americans, to any thing that furthers the common good. The wealthy minority can afford to go it alone! They don't need single-payer, and they certainly do not want to help finance it through public means.
Here we are, the richest per-capita nation on the planet and 49 million, and steadily increasing, of its approximately 300 million population have no healthcare coverage. And the stories are legion about for-profit healthcare insurance companies denying treatment and other misdeeds! When Canada instituted universal single-payer in 1968, Medicare and Medicade programs for the aged and the poor were Lydon Johnson's compromise or consession to the healthcare industry and the AMA, and signed into being the same year. Only President Johnson made any progress in what is now a hundred-year ordeal in trying to get even universal coverage. Of course, the way to get full coverage and to reduce costs is the single-payer system! Nothing has happened to that end in forty-plus years!
The connection between employment and for-profit healthcare insurance coverage was an expedient happenstance that took shape during the full-employment period of World War II. It was a godsend to the health insurance industry which provides no added value, only higher costs. When people lose employment, they also lose medical insurance! Others lose coverage when they retire. Contract and part-time workers are usually on their own.
One of the sadest circumstances with the New Deal was FDR's abandonment of universal healthcare legislation. Francis Perkins had to yield to AMA's ultimatum. If FDR wanted Social Security and other New Deal programs, plans for universal healthcare had to be withdrawn!
In the so-called progressive era (was it rally significantly progressive?) Theodor Roosevelt in 1912, first propossed universal healthcare for Americans. President Truman (for all his other failings) took up the issue. However, throughout many decades the AMA and the healthcare- industrial complex, including the pharmaceutical and hospital equipment segments, have prevailed.
Today, most physicians are not AMA members. (Fees are quite high.) But, most physicians support a Medicare- for-all program, which is a single-payer system. In a strange reversal, the AMA supports the Obama healthcare overhaul, although no one seems to know what it includes or excludes. While healthcare insurance corporation CEO's make tens of millions in annual remunerations or emoluments, thousands of uninsured people die annually for lack of coverage. (An estimated 44,000 deaths.)
The obscenity of executive compensations aside, the fact that a supposed democratic nation ignors a basic human right, that of guaranteed and essentially free healthcare, is a contradiction that should embarrass every American. U.S. presidents speak of spreading democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, but deny universal healthcare at home. This is prima facie evidence that the U.S. is itself in need of assistance in establishing a truly democratic nation. With corporate rule in the U.S., democracy is ellusive at best.
The U.S. Senate is central to healthcare reform; for no matter what the House passes, even the public option, it will be watered down or eliminated in the House-Senate conference committee. A handful of very rich Senators will determine the healthcare fate of 300 million less previleged Americans! A significant number of Senators have financial investments in the healthcare indudustry and some receive considerable amounts of campaign contributions from the healthcare, pharmaceutical and hospital equipment corporations--the healthcare-industrial complex--a combine more powerful than the military-industrial complex! Conflict of interest issues are obvious. You need only examine Senator Christopher Dodd's business favors received to fully understand the venal nature of Congressional politics. Senator Max Baucus is pointguard for private health insurance corporations. Senator Schumer is another major recipient of campaign contributions from the health industry.
One of the movers and shakers for single-payer is Michale Moore. But he, his documentary film"Sicko", like single-payer itself, is never given respectful mention on mass media. The film is the industry's worst nightmare, a documentary on the common sense realities of single-payer universal healthcare.
President Obama and congressional democrats are rushing forward with phantom legislation coming out of various committies. Nothing is explained. There are only vague generalities and promises. The rush is intended to preempt debate. For if single-payer were included in a genuine debate, it would win, hands down and going away! The status quo Machiavellians are scared. Single-payer is inherently logical and clearly the solution to a failed and corrupt system that values profit over healthcare! Any person who thinks single-payer is bad for America, viewing "Sicko" is a required assignment. Have some facial tissues at the ready during the showing.
The healthcare industry has been gearing up for the current and inevitable confrontation since the day after it crushed reform efforts early in the Clinton administration! (After the debacle, the Clinton's never mentioned the matter again.) However, the situation is different this time around, if for no other reason than that Congress will be held responsible if a universal, single-payer system is not enacted! A lot of heads in Congress could roll. (And at the same time, the frustration with the Wall Street bailout is deeping among voters. A year has passed and Congress has done nothing to control the unbridled greed of financial institutions.)
Medical care based on and controlled by the need to secure maximum profits for insurance corporations will not provide democratic healthcare. Fee-for-service medical care is a shame upon the nation. President Obama is trying to distract public attention from single-payer by including a public option. He was forced to make this concession by the momentum generated by single-payer advocacy. But, Barak Obama's inconsistences, the absurd complications associated with his compromises on healthcare and the inherent truth and simplicity of a government managed healthcare system, will expose his unwillingness to level with the American people. His credibility as a national leader will be tarnished and his political career could be brought to an early end. One thing I have learned about Obama is not to assume that he means what he says! Barak Obama is a concessionist who leans heavily toward serving corporate needs and not upsetting Republicans in Congress. On healthcare (and financial regulations) Obama will not act without industry approval. Campaign contributions hang in the balance; but, so does his reputation among the electorate who want real change in the way healthcare is managed and financed.
The president continually puts forward "choice"; in his plan people could select physicians and hospitals. The implication or flat out assertion is that a government operated system would not provide choice. However, people are quite satisfied with Medicare because for one thing, it provides choice of doctors and hospitals. And this is not necessarily the case with HMOs and the health insurance corporations. Details in Obama's public option seem to be either unformulated or left intensionally vague. What are his proposals and goals? All I hear is a generalized notion, a slogan-sounding refrain of reform, much like this campaign chant of "change". But, we were never told what kind of change.
Various proposals are floated about in a deliberate effort to obfuscate healthcare reform and, especially, the public option. Single-payer was put to rest even before it could be debated. The electorate was told categorically, in the rare times it was even mentioned, that single-payer was a plan that would usher in "socialism", that it would lead somehow to government oppressions. I even heard the word "communism" in regards to the public option. Police, firefighters and military institutions are excluded from such broad categorizations.
Fiscal and social conservatives are out in full force attacking the public option on claims that it will increase the U.S. budget deficit, while quietly fearing that such a plan would provide much needed medical services to a class of people they would rather ignore. They want to shrink government and drastically reduce public services. Interestingly, when discussing costs of a government managed healthcare program, no mention is made about the U.S. military juggernaught and its affects on the national deficit (and quality of life).The elected war in Iraq will eventually cost three trillion dollars! And the eight-year war in Afghanistan, as Obama is set to intensify action there(to include Parkistan as well) will make budgetary matters much worse! And as I write, people in high places are talking about possible air strikes, by Israel, against Iran. Several Latin and South American nations may be under consideration as threats to American security. Money is somehow always available for military excursions of one kind or another. But, meeting the healthcare needs of the nation can not be afforded.
Howard Dean, MD, six-term govenor of Vermont and a 2004 presidential candidate has miraculously provided the nation with a solution to its healthcare catastrophy and, at a most propitious moment for President Obama. His Prescription For Real Healthcare Reform could have been written by Obama himself. Dean was former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Knowing his political curriculum vitae is important in critiquing his proposals.
The book will not be available at my budget-straped public library for some months to come. However, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, devoted an entire program to interviewing Dr. Dean. He was promoting his book and basically Obama's reform, although the President is not entirely forthcoming on the details of an administration plan. Dean is admittedly a conservative and does not consider single-payer as a viable alternative. He claims to be neutral; but, as a Barak Obama faithful and an administration healthcare reform frontman, neutrality is a stretch. The timing of publication is not a coincedence. And although his reasonings will probably create no converts from his Democracy Now tour de force performance. His presentation sounded like a doctor in counseltation; it was as well-polished and sincere as any Obama speech.
Dean said, "I don't position myself against single-payer; but, I position myself for giving the American people choice." He went on to claim that a conservative country wants change--but change that is not "uncomfortable". As I view change, it is by definition unsettling in that it unseats the status quo. Dean seems to be speaking in an oxymoronic manner. The only people who will experience discomfort in a change to single-payer healthcare are those that profit from a sadistic and immoral Capitalistic health insurance system.
Dean was quite disingenuous in suggesting that single-payer "...was a plan that an academic would write in the Ivory Tower...." This tactic is a crudity reminiscent of the radical right! However, he speaks about the European single-payer created out of necessity during WWII, and that Europeans, including Winston Churchill loved it! And in an outrageous distortion he said that the employment-based U.S. (that also began in WWII)is "...something we like..." He goes on to say that Americans don't like the healthcare system as conducted. Yet, somehow, "...they like the kind of healthcare they get if they have insurance". This is pure Obamaesque nonsence and Orwellian double-speak.
Dean claims that Obama's plan is "politically practical". Well, Obama is a pragmatist, and what is politically practical today may not be tomorrow. With thousands of health industry lobbyists decending upon Congress and the White House, Dean is assisting the Obama administration in an attempt to regain control of the reform process that had slipped away through concessions not in any way reciprocated. Dean's book obviously carries the Obama imprimatur and probably the health insurance industry's stamp of approval.
As for Congress, a sizeable majority clearly represents health industry interests and banking the very generous corporate campaign contributions.
In an act of pure showmenship Obama declared that every side of the healthcare reform debate had been invited to attend a recent White House conferrence when he had deliberately excluded single-payer experts! Under heavy pressure, he finally allowed a single-payer advocate to attend.
Everyone has heard House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi's infamous proclamation early on that single-payer was "off the table". With or without Obama and Pelosi, I would like to believe the U.S. will establish a single-payer healthcare system. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation without such a program! Yet, it seems as a so-called reform process dominated by the health industry continues, the only way to get single-payer is by a consumer coup de main!
A majority of Americans want single-payer, dispite the misinformation and disinformation that dominate media and townhall discussions. The Republican opposition to single-payer will become more nasty as time passes. Obama's consessions to the opposition signal the sharks that a feast is close at hand. That Obama seeks to include the very politicians and industry heads and lobbyists, his bipartisan approach, that will do all in their collective power to defeat anything that would change the healthcare status quo, is extremely naive--or, does it represent his true desires? This along with the Wall Street bailout are indications that in the Obama administration, the Congressional Republican minority, is in control of government! But, that seems to satisfy Obama.
The President's hedging and his lessening expectations for a government funded option will likely destroy his political base in 2012, and could affect 2010 mid-term Congressional elections. As the only industrialized nation (and the wealthiest at that) without a government managed healthcare program (and I have to keep coming back to that fact), the brutality and pitylessness inherent in a for-profit medical system verges on the criminal; and it is man's inhumanity to man at its most venomus and insiduous level. It is capitalism exposed.
The opposition against single-payer is ideological. Republicans and conservative Democrats (Blue Dogs and their kind) object to government programs that would make life more comfortable and satisfying for the vast majority of Americans, to any thing that furthers the common good. The wealthy minority can afford to go it alone! They don't need single-payer, and they certainly do not want to help finance it through public means.
Here we are, the richest per-capita nation on the planet and 49 million, and steadily increasing, of its approximately 300 million population have no healthcare coverage. And the stories are legion about for-profit healthcare insurance companies denying treatment and other misdeeds! When Canada instituted universal single-payer in 1968, Medicare and Medicade programs for the aged and the poor were Lydon Johnson's compromise or consession to the healthcare industry and the AMA, and signed into being the same year. Only President Johnson made any progress in what is now a hundred-year ordeal in trying to get even universal coverage. Of course, the way to get full coverage and to reduce costs is the single-payer system! Nothing has happened to that end in forty-plus years!
The connection between employment and for-profit healthcare insurance coverage was an expedient happenstance that took shape during the full-employment period of World War II. It was a godsend to the health insurance industry which provides no added value, only higher costs. When people lose employment, they also lose medical insurance! Others lose coverage when they retire. Contract and part-time workers are usually on their own.
One of the sadest circumstances with the New Deal was FDR's abandonment of universal healthcare legislation. Francis Perkins had to yield to AMA's ultimatum. If FDR wanted Social Security and other New Deal programs, plans for universal healthcare had to be withdrawn!
In the so-called progressive era (was it rally significantly progressive?) Theodor Roosevelt in 1912, first propossed universal healthcare for Americans. President Truman (for all his other failings) took up the issue. However, throughout many decades the AMA and the healthcare- industrial complex, including the pharmaceutical and hospital equipment segments, have prevailed.
Today, most physicians are not AMA members. (Fees are quite high.) But, most physicians support a Medicare- for-all program, which is a single-payer system. In a strange reversal, the AMA supports the Obama healthcare overhaul, although no one seems to know what it includes or excludes. While healthcare insurance corporation CEO's make tens of millions in annual remunerations or emoluments, thousands of uninsured people die annually for lack of coverage. (An estimated 44,000 deaths.)
The obscenity of executive compensations aside, the fact that a supposed democratic nation ignors a basic human right, that of guaranteed and essentially free healthcare, is a contradiction that should embarrass every American. U.S. presidents speak of spreading democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, but deny universal healthcare at home. This is prima facie evidence that the U.S. is itself in need of assistance in establishing a truly democratic nation. With corporate rule in the U.S., democracy is ellusive at best.
The U.S. Senate is central to healthcare reform; for no matter what the House passes, even the public option, it will be watered down or eliminated in the House-Senate conference committee. A handful of very rich Senators will determine the healthcare fate of 300 million less previleged Americans! A significant number of Senators have financial investments in the healthcare indudustry and some receive considerable amounts of campaign contributions from the healthcare, pharmaceutical and hospital equipment corporations--the healthcare-industrial complex--a combine more powerful than the military-industrial complex! Conflict of interest issues are obvious. You need only examine Senator Christopher Dodd's business favors received to fully understand the venal nature of Congressional politics. Senator Max Baucus is pointguard for private health insurance corporations. Senator Schumer is another major recipient of campaign contributions from the health industry.
One of the movers and shakers for single-payer is Michale Moore. But he, his documentary film"Sicko", like single-payer itself, is never given respectful mention on mass media. The film is the industry's worst nightmare, a documentary on the common sense realities of single-payer universal healthcare.
President Obama and congressional democrats are rushing forward with phantom legislation coming out of various committies. Nothing is explained. There are only vague generalities and promises. The rush is intended to preempt debate. For if single-payer were included in a genuine debate, it would win, hands down and going away! The status quo Machiavellians are scared. Single-payer is inherently logical and clearly the solution to a failed and corrupt system that values profit over healthcare! Any person who thinks single-payer is bad for America, viewing "Sicko" is a required assignment. Have some facial tissues at the ready during the showing.
The healthcare industry has been gearing up for the current and inevitable confrontation since the day after it crushed reform efforts early in the Clinton administration! (After the debacle, the Clinton's never mentioned the matter again.) However, the situation is different this time around, if for no other reason than that Congress will be held responsible if a universal, single-payer system is not enacted! A lot of heads in Congress could roll. (And at the same time, the frustration with the Wall Street bailout is deeping among voters. A year has passed and Congress has done nothing to control the unbridled greed of financial institutions.)
Medical care based on and controlled by the need to secure maximum profits for insurance corporations will not provide democratic healthcare. Fee-for-service medical care is a shame upon the nation. President Obama is trying to distract public attention from single-payer by including a public option. He was forced to make this concession by the momentum generated by single-payer advocacy. But, Barak Obama's inconsistences, the absurd complications associated with his compromises on healthcare and the inherent truth and simplicity of a government managed healthcare system, will expose his unwillingness to level with the American people. His credibility as a national leader will be tarnished and his political career could be brought to an early end. One thing I have learned about Obama is not to assume that he means what he says! Barak Obama is a concessionist who leans heavily toward serving corporate needs and not upsetting Republicans in Congress. On healthcare (and financial regulations) Obama will not act without industry approval. Campaign contributions hang in the balance; but, so does his reputation among the electorate who want real change in the way healthcare is managed and financed.
The president continually puts forward "choice"; in his plan people could select physicians and hospitals. The implication or flat out assertion is that a government operated system would not provide choice. However, people are quite satisfied with Medicare because for one thing, it provides choice of doctors and hospitals. And this is not necessarily the case with HMOs and the health insurance corporations. Details in Obama's public option seem to be either unformulated or left intensionally vague. What are his proposals and goals? All I hear is a generalized notion, a slogan-sounding refrain of reform, much like this campaign chant of "change". But, we were never told what kind of change.
Various proposals are floated about in a deliberate effort to obfuscate healthcare reform and, especially, the public option. Single-payer was put to rest even before it could be debated. The electorate was told categorically, in the rare times it was even mentioned, that single-payer was a plan that would usher in "socialism", that it would lead somehow to government oppressions. I even heard the word "communism" in regards to the public option. Police, firefighters and military institutions are excluded from such broad categorizations.
Fiscal and social conservatives are out in full force attacking the public option on claims that it will increase the U.S. budget deficit, while quietly fearing that such a plan would provide much needed medical services to a class of people they would rather ignore. They want to shrink government and drastically reduce public services. Interestingly, when discussing costs of a government managed healthcare program, no mention is made about the U.S. military juggernaught and its affects on the national deficit (and quality of life).The elected war in Iraq will eventually cost three trillion dollars! And the eight-year war in Afghanistan, as Obama is set to intensify action there(to include Parkistan as well) will make budgetary matters much worse! And as I write, people in high places are talking about possible air strikes, by Israel, against Iran. Several Latin and South American nations may be under consideration as threats to American security. Money is somehow always available for military excursions of one kind or another. But, meeting the healthcare needs of the nation can not be afforded.
Howard Dean, MD, six-term govenor of Vermont and a 2004 presidential candidate has miraculously provided the nation with a solution to its healthcare catastrophy and, at a most propitious moment for President Obama. His Prescription For Real Healthcare Reform could have been written by Obama himself. Dean was former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Knowing his political curriculum vitae is important in critiquing his proposals.
The book will not be available at my budget-straped public library for some months to come. However, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, devoted an entire program to interviewing Dr. Dean. He was promoting his book and basically Obama's reform, although the President is not entirely forthcoming on the details of an administration plan. Dean is admittedly a conservative and does not consider single-payer as a viable alternative. He claims to be neutral; but, as a Barak Obama faithful and an administration healthcare reform frontman, neutrality is a stretch. The timing of publication is not a coincedence. And although his reasonings will probably create no converts from his Democracy Now tour de force performance. His presentation sounded like a doctor in counseltation; it was as well-polished and sincere as any Obama speech.
Dean said, "I don't position myself against single-payer; but, I position myself for giving the American people choice." He went on to claim that a conservative country wants change--but change that is not "uncomfortable". As I view change, it is by definition unsettling in that it unseats the status quo. Dean seems to be speaking in an oxymoronic manner. The only people who will experience discomfort in a change to single-payer healthcare are those that profit from a sadistic and immoral Capitalistic health insurance system.
Dean was quite disingenuous in suggesting that single-payer "...was a plan that an academic would write in the Ivory Tower...." This tactic is a crudity reminiscent of the radical right! However, he speaks about the European single-payer created out of necessity during WWII, and that Europeans, including Winston Churchill loved it! And in an outrageous distortion he said that the employment-based U.S. (that also began in WWII)is "...something we like..." He goes on to say that Americans don't like the healthcare system as conducted. Yet, somehow, "...they like the kind of healthcare they get if they have insurance". This is pure Obamaesque nonsence and Orwellian double-speak.
Dean claims that Obama's plan is "politically practical". Well, Obama is a pragmatist, and what is politically practical today may not be tomorrow. With thousands of health industry lobbyists decending upon Congress and the White House, Dean is assisting the Obama administration in an attempt to regain control of the reform process that had slipped away through concessions not in any way reciprocated. Dean's book obviously carries the Obama imprimatur and probably the health insurance industry's stamp of approval.
As for Congress, a sizeable majority clearly represents health industry interests and banking the very generous corporate campaign contributions.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Catching Up On The Current Political Situation
For reasons of school break and then a very demanding three-week course on developing skills needed for taking online classes, I had to put blogging essays on hold. Also, this is the time of year I have to attend to watering large gardens on a regular and rotating schedule. Summer session is over at the end of July. Then I will be unable to post again until the Fall semester begins the last week in August. With that said, I have to turn out some essays rather quickly.
The essay at hand follows no linear chronology, a kind of stream of consciousness.
The Republican putsch in the New York State Legislature recently, when two Democrats (with preexisting liabilities) switched parties to give Republicans majority control, exposes both the fragility of a two-party political system , and Barack Obama's naivete in structuring his administration on bipartisanship with what appears to be a rogue outfit determined to dismantle government and Obama's administration along the way!
President Obama has retained some Republicans from the Bush administration and appointed, not always successfully, other Republicans for Cabinet and other important posts. The putsch should be a wake up call for the novice politician. Republicans have made it quite clear that they envision a failed Obama presidency.
The Blue-Dog Democrats in the House of Representatives might as well be Republican moles. They can splinter the Democratic majority on important bills. In this regard, bills passed by narrow margins are easily watered down in House-Senate conference negotiations.
At last, Al Frankin has been judged winner in the Minnesota senatorial race, after eight months of Senator Coleman's maneuverings. Theoretically, Frankin now gives Democrats in the Senate a 60-count filibuster-proof majority. But, if the Senate is not conservative enough, it has its own breed of mongrel, with Joe Lieberman leading the pack. Arlin Specter was probably the inspiration behind the New York State putsch. His action makes a mockery of the one-party system with two branches.
Obama's centrist stand on most issues, except those related to the military and Israel, will preclude any hope for a real change in his administration. He has issued six signing statements in less than six months in office. At this rate he might surpass Geo. W. Bush, who currently holds the record. There will be no change with an indecisive and flipfloping (to the Right) Obama. His alliance with corporate elites on so-called health care reform, when as an Illinois legislator in 2002, he advocated the Single-Payer system, tells me all I need to know about Obama's values.
Barak Obama was an amazingly successful single-slogan presidential candidate: "Yes we can!" Sadly, the pitch is hollow and meaningless. Much of what he promised, and really only in very broad generalities, has been qualified, reversed or simply dropped. His waffling on healthcare reform is the pattern. "Don't ask, don't tell" is another example of promises left vacant. Closing Guantanimo prison keeps getting pushed back. And the exit date from Iraq is anybody's guess.
Speaking of Iraq, Obama is silent on the issue of tens of thousands of private contractors and what is actually being accomplished with the billions of US dollars provided them. With four huge US airbases and the world's largest embassy under construction or recently completed, it appears that US troops and western contractors will be in Iraq for a long time to come.
My most recent pondering deals with whether Obama is simply following Geo. W. Bush's policies or acting out the SOP of empire? It's probably the latter, because Boy George was doing the same, if more vehemently. That is, whomever sits as president, regardless of prior positions and campaign promises, there will be a seamless continuation in conservative and moderate administrations, certainly with regard to military and corporate rule--pax americana and the inviolable Free Market.
Every elected president from JFK, probably from FDR, if Eisenhower's Suez involvement is considered, has had his war! Obama keeps the occupation of Iraq, renews and intensifies the Afghanistan occupation and expands it into Pakistan. He seems to entertain an aerial war against Iran and is moving US troops into Columbia military bases in response to ALBA or the Bolivarian movement throughout Latin America.
The Honduran coup has tacit US backing; and Secretary of State Clinton and Obama have been duplicitous in their attempts to prolong the right wing take over until elections. The similarities with the Haitian coup orchestrated by the US, leave nothing to doubt. And let us not forget the failed Venezuela coup attempted by the US! The US embassy in Bolivia has intervined on behalf of the separist groups (the landed gentry who have controled regions with the greatest natural resources) that oppose the indigenous, democractic Morales administration. The ALBA challenge to the Washington Consensus, the IMF and a rogue Free Market domination will succeed!
The ascendancy of China will bring with it a new global order. Africa will come into its own, with considerable assistance from China!. All the signs of empire overextension and fatigue are there to see. The US is decaying from within. And when the US dollar ceases as reserve currency, the empire will collapse!
The Wall Street debacle is so deeply conspiratorial as to require its own essay, and that would be a daunting undertaking! Let it be said for now that President Clinton was a principal figure in paving the way for deregulation by supporting and signing The Commodity Futures Modernization Act and The Financial Services Mondernization Act. The legislation was pushed through Congress by Phil Gramm, the republican head of the Senate Finance committee, who then left the Senate to become an officer of a foreign financial institution that American taxpayers are currently bailing out! Nice work, Phil! Nevertheless, the Wall Street bailouts, to Obama's satisfaction, are bipartisan--democrates and republicans working hand-in-hand, pickpocketing the American taxpayer. To a large extent the bailout scheme is a Goldman Sachs coup. Former and revolving Federal Reserve and US Treasury top brass and Obama's White House staff have held executive positions at Goldman Sachs: Henry Paulson, Larry Summers, Michael Gaithner, Edward Bernikey etc. Obama appointed known suspects in the Wall Street scandals to oversee national financial interests! More later, if I can stomach it all?
The colonial American landed gentry wanted the abundant natural resources and territory for themselves; but, they needed commoners to fight the war against the Britich overlords. As inducement the gentry promised an egalitarian alternative to the British class system and called it "democracy"--with many and considerable loopholes or exceptions. Some exceptions were the Electral College, slavery and the disenfranchisement of women.
The so-called American Revolution was really a coup, a mutiny or more to the point, a land-grab and tax revolt. The ruling British monarchy was preoccupied with other matters and far away. The blessed French were certainly willing to lend a helping hand in challenging the British presence in North America. The indigenous population was prepared to side with the French, who held them in respect. It's my understanding that no revolution ever came to the Colonies. Also, democracy has not yet appeared or will it for the foreseeable future! The current make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court will see to that!
The Supreme Court, historically, is an embarrassment with its long procession of flawed jurists and their misguided pronouncements. It is a political institution with all its concomitant crudities! Even the Warren Court had its machinations and expediencies. Brown 1 and 2 compromised by failing to designate an integration timetable. It's clear as I write that public schools are as segregated now as before Brown!
The vast majority of the 111 Supreme Court justices were reciprocal arrangements and not necessarily based on legal expertise or even a notion of what constitutes democractic and civil rights and liberties. What did Howard Taft know about constitutional rights? The Clarence Thomas nomination and confermation is possibly the most egregious example that comes to mind; but, the Samuel Alito nomination and convermation is a close second! Scalia, Roberts and Kennedy prove my point. Sandra Day O'Connor were active in Arizona politics and rewarded accordingly. The Harvard football great, Wizard White, was a close friend of fellow alumnus, JFK. I considered his legal opinions Neanderthal-like, but he certainly could run with a football!
The point is that political nominations are often suspect when considering the common good. Alito is perhaps the most radical justice to ever sit on the Court, although Scalia is not far behind--or, is it the other way around. Scalia, who slipped through confirmation as a consequence of the Bork debacle in the Reagan era, is apart from Alito only in tenure. Scalia has had a much longer time to prove his extreme orthodoxcy.
In reading court decissions delivered over many decades, the notion that comes immediately to mind is that justices can be just as ill-tempered and misguided as any nutcake on a corner soapbox! One needs only to read Scalia's and Thomas' decissions on the Troy Anthony Davis appeal! Scalia's understanding of the Constitution and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment is detrimental to human and civil rights of every American. An argrument could be made that his dissent in the Davis case is grounds for impeachment. Similar cases could be brought against Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kennedy on a number of their dicissions!. This Gang of Five is intent upon reversing setted law and shredding the Bill of Rights.
In a major miscalculation, which raises questions about judgement and morality, and one that will forever mark his foreign policy legacy. Obama has placed his imprimatur on the escalation of the U.S. war on Afghanistan and expanding it even further by including military operrations in Paqkistan--Obama's Af-Pak war! (Shortly later, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize--as the Commander-in-Chief of history's greatest military empire!) Where George W. Bush abandoned Afghanistan (to the Taliban) in favor of invading and occuping Iraq, Barak Obama is lessening the war in Iraq and increasing troop levels in Afghanistan! Some commentators have begun to label the eight-year Afghanistan quagmire as "Obama's Vietnam".
England, pressured by the U.S., has now intervined in Afghanistan affairs on four occasions: 1839, 1879, 1919 and since 2001. There first three were utter disasters; and the fourth is fated for more of the same. The Soviet Union also suffered a tragid defeat in Afghanistan (thanks to U.S. support of Taliban resistance and CIA trained and equipped insurgents), which contributed to its political and economic collapse. There is every indication that the U.S. will eventually claim victory and exit the country, probably during a civil war among ethnic factions, similar to what happened in Iraq between Shia and Sunni. The other possibility is that the failed U.S. occupation will linger on for decades.
National Public Radio and mass media in general have been preparing the nation for military action against Iran, for reasons of its intent to produce weapons of mass distruction. All invasions are now justifiable under this banner of WMDs! If India and Israel can produce stockpiles of nuclear weapons with U.S. blesssings, then why the concern over Iran's desire to further its nuclear capabilities? With truth to tell, Iran, whether the U.S. likes it or not, has become a major player in the Middle East rather serendipitously as a consequence of U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, support of and assistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and I might add,support of India over Pakistan on the Indian occupation of Kashmir!
The Washington Consensus maintains that the military-imperial status quo in the Middle East is contingent on neutralizing Iran through UN sanctions and US/Israeli aerial warfare.
The Afghanistan occupation is escalating, 57,000 U.S. troops now, another 21, 000 about to be added. As long as the U.S. military (and also NATO troops and troops from nations pressured by the U.S.) is operating in Afghanistan, the worse the worse matters will become in Pakistan! Obama's Afghanistan war is expanding to include Pakistan--his Af-Pak war. And, it can be assumed that a regional conflict is not far behind, especially with intensifying U.S. aggression against Iran. When the situation in Palestine is added to the Middle East turmoil, with virtually carte blanche support of Israeli occupations and various other oppressions, peace in the area has been reduced to meaningless rhetoric.
The U.S. presence in Iraq will continue for decades--until Iraqi oil reserves become depleted. Obama's withdrawal of U.S. troops campaign promises have become semantic exercises in deception and the slight of hand repositioning of troops. Obama makes a distinction between occupation troops and combat troops. And what about the thousands of contractors? The military invasion of Iraq was obviously an act of war and the occupation is the continuation of that war. Therefore, the entire Iraqi state is a combat zone and there are no real distinctions among occupying forces, including those engaged in making corporate profits! The so-called insurgents, the Iraqi resistance, are the terrorists in the U.S. scheme, and this is why the conflict will not end until all foreign troops leave!
Recently, I heard Barak Obama referred to as "Bush Lite", a kinder-gentler-speaking Geo. W. Bush, but with very similar political strategies and ambitions. After hearing Obama's grand speeches and press conferrence rhetoric, I conclude he learned from Boy George's gross inadequacies in delivering speeches. His tone and volume suggest he knows of what he speaks and that he apparently believes what he says. However great in presentation, much of what he pronounces is not convincing to those who listen carefully. His deceptions and evasions are becoming recognizable by their very repetition.
Robert McNamara is dead! The man with the greased hair and rimless glasses, the very image of the perfect corporate technocrat wrote a book to assuage his guilt and reformulate his legacy. He was one of many U.S. officials overseeing the Vietnam War that got away with crimes against humanity. When he was promoting his memoir in the 1990s, I wondered why he wrote it? Who was he trying to convince? As I recall his tour statements and his speeches at the time, there seemed to be no sorrow or regret. He could have been speaking to his board of directors. I did not read his book. I had no reason to learn revisionist history.
The essay at hand follows no linear chronology, a kind of stream of consciousness.
The Republican putsch in the New York State Legislature recently, when two Democrats (with preexisting liabilities) switched parties to give Republicans majority control, exposes both the fragility of a two-party political system , and Barack Obama's naivete in structuring his administration on bipartisanship with what appears to be a rogue outfit determined to dismantle government and Obama's administration along the way!
President Obama has retained some Republicans from the Bush administration and appointed, not always successfully, other Republicans for Cabinet and other important posts. The putsch should be a wake up call for the novice politician. Republicans have made it quite clear that they envision a failed Obama presidency.
The Blue-Dog Democrats in the House of Representatives might as well be Republican moles. They can splinter the Democratic majority on important bills. In this regard, bills passed by narrow margins are easily watered down in House-Senate conference negotiations.
At last, Al Frankin has been judged winner in the Minnesota senatorial race, after eight months of Senator Coleman's maneuverings. Theoretically, Frankin now gives Democrats in the Senate a 60-count filibuster-proof majority. But, if the Senate is not conservative enough, it has its own breed of mongrel, with Joe Lieberman leading the pack. Arlin Specter was probably the inspiration behind the New York State putsch. His action makes a mockery of the one-party system with two branches.
Obama's centrist stand on most issues, except those related to the military and Israel, will preclude any hope for a real change in his administration. He has issued six signing statements in less than six months in office. At this rate he might surpass Geo. W. Bush, who currently holds the record. There will be no change with an indecisive and flipfloping (to the Right) Obama. His alliance with corporate elites on so-called health care reform, when as an Illinois legislator in 2002, he advocated the Single-Payer system, tells me all I need to know about Obama's values.
Barak Obama was an amazingly successful single-slogan presidential candidate: "Yes we can!" Sadly, the pitch is hollow and meaningless. Much of what he promised, and really only in very broad generalities, has been qualified, reversed or simply dropped. His waffling on healthcare reform is the pattern. "Don't ask, don't tell" is another example of promises left vacant. Closing Guantanimo prison keeps getting pushed back. And the exit date from Iraq is anybody's guess.
Speaking of Iraq, Obama is silent on the issue of tens of thousands of private contractors and what is actually being accomplished with the billions of US dollars provided them. With four huge US airbases and the world's largest embassy under construction or recently completed, it appears that US troops and western contractors will be in Iraq for a long time to come.
My most recent pondering deals with whether Obama is simply following Geo. W. Bush's policies or acting out the SOP of empire? It's probably the latter, because Boy George was doing the same, if more vehemently. That is, whomever sits as president, regardless of prior positions and campaign promises, there will be a seamless continuation in conservative and moderate administrations, certainly with regard to military and corporate rule--pax americana and the inviolable Free Market.
Every elected president from JFK, probably from FDR, if Eisenhower's Suez involvement is considered, has had his war! Obama keeps the occupation of Iraq, renews and intensifies the Afghanistan occupation and expands it into Pakistan. He seems to entertain an aerial war against Iran and is moving US troops into Columbia military bases in response to ALBA or the Bolivarian movement throughout Latin America.
The Honduran coup has tacit US backing; and Secretary of State Clinton and Obama have been duplicitous in their attempts to prolong the right wing take over until elections. The similarities with the Haitian coup orchestrated by the US, leave nothing to doubt. And let us not forget the failed Venezuela coup attempted by the US! The US embassy in Bolivia has intervined on behalf of the separist groups (the landed gentry who have controled regions with the greatest natural resources) that oppose the indigenous, democractic Morales administration. The ALBA challenge to the Washington Consensus, the IMF and a rogue Free Market domination will succeed!
The ascendancy of China will bring with it a new global order. Africa will come into its own, with considerable assistance from China!. All the signs of empire overextension and fatigue are there to see. The US is decaying from within. And when the US dollar ceases as reserve currency, the empire will collapse!
The Wall Street debacle is so deeply conspiratorial as to require its own essay, and that would be a daunting undertaking! Let it be said for now that President Clinton was a principal figure in paving the way for deregulation by supporting and signing The Commodity Futures Modernization Act and The Financial Services Mondernization Act. The legislation was pushed through Congress by Phil Gramm, the republican head of the Senate Finance committee, who then left the Senate to become an officer of a foreign financial institution that American taxpayers are currently bailing out! Nice work, Phil! Nevertheless, the Wall Street bailouts, to Obama's satisfaction, are bipartisan--democrates and republicans working hand-in-hand, pickpocketing the American taxpayer. To a large extent the bailout scheme is a Goldman Sachs coup. Former and revolving Federal Reserve and US Treasury top brass and Obama's White House staff have held executive positions at Goldman Sachs: Henry Paulson, Larry Summers, Michael Gaithner, Edward Bernikey etc. Obama appointed known suspects in the Wall Street scandals to oversee national financial interests! More later, if I can stomach it all?
The colonial American landed gentry wanted the abundant natural resources and territory for themselves; but, they needed commoners to fight the war against the Britich overlords. As inducement the gentry promised an egalitarian alternative to the British class system and called it "democracy"--with many and considerable loopholes or exceptions. Some exceptions were the Electral College, slavery and the disenfranchisement of women.
The so-called American Revolution was really a coup, a mutiny or more to the point, a land-grab and tax revolt. The ruling British monarchy was preoccupied with other matters and far away. The blessed French were certainly willing to lend a helping hand in challenging the British presence in North America. The indigenous population was prepared to side with the French, who held them in respect. It's my understanding that no revolution ever came to the Colonies. Also, democracy has not yet appeared or will it for the foreseeable future! The current make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court will see to that!
The Supreme Court, historically, is an embarrassment with its long procession of flawed jurists and their misguided pronouncements. It is a political institution with all its concomitant crudities! Even the Warren Court had its machinations and expediencies. Brown 1 and 2 compromised by failing to designate an integration timetable. It's clear as I write that public schools are as segregated now as before Brown!
The vast majority of the 111 Supreme Court justices were reciprocal arrangements and not necessarily based on legal expertise or even a notion of what constitutes democractic and civil rights and liberties. What did Howard Taft know about constitutional rights? The Clarence Thomas nomination and confermation is possibly the most egregious example that comes to mind; but, the Samuel Alito nomination and convermation is a close second! Scalia, Roberts and Kennedy prove my point. Sandra Day O'Connor were active in Arizona politics and rewarded accordingly. The Harvard football great, Wizard White, was a close friend of fellow alumnus, JFK. I considered his legal opinions Neanderthal-like, but he certainly could run with a football!
The point is that political nominations are often suspect when considering the common good. Alito is perhaps the most radical justice to ever sit on the Court, although Scalia is not far behind--or, is it the other way around. Scalia, who slipped through confirmation as a consequence of the Bork debacle in the Reagan era, is apart from Alito only in tenure. Scalia has had a much longer time to prove his extreme orthodoxcy.
In reading court decissions delivered over many decades, the notion that comes immediately to mind is that justices can be just as ill-tempered and misguided as any nutcake on a corner soapbox! One needs only to read Scalia's and Thomas' decissions on the Troy Anthony Davis appeal! Scalia's understanding of the Constitution and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment is detrimental to human and civil rights of every American. An argrument could be made that his dissent in the Davis case is grounds for impeachment. Similar cases could be brought against Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kennedy on a number of their dicissions!. This Gang of Five is intent upon reversing setted law and shredding the Bill of Rights.
In a major miscalculation, which raises questions about judgement and morality, and one that will forever mark his foreign policy legacy. Obama has placed his imprimatur on the escalation of the U.S. war on Afghanistan and expanding it even further by including military operrations in Paqkistan--Obama's Af-Pak war! (Shortly later, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize--as the Commander-in-Chief of history's greatest military empire!) Where George W. Bush abandoned Afghanistan (to the Taliban) in favor of invading and occuping Iraq, Barak Obama is lessening the war in Iraq and increasing troop levels in Afghanistan! Some commentators have begun to label the eight-year Afghanistan quagmire as "Obama's Vietnam".
England, pressured by the U.S., has now intervined in Afghanistan affairs on four occasions: 1839, 1879, 1919 and since 2001. There first three were utter disasters; and the fourth is fated for more of the same. The Soviet Union also suffered a tragid defeat in Afghanistan (thanks to U.S. support of Taliban resistance and CIA trained and equipped insurgents), which contributed to its political and economic collapse. There is every indication that the U.S. will eventually claim victory and exit the country, probably during a civil war among ethnic factions, similar to what happened in Iraq between Shia and Sunni. The other possibility is that the failed U.S. occupation will linger on for decades.
National Public Radio and mass media in general have been preparing the nation for military action against Iran, for reasons of its intent to produce weapons of mass distruction. All invasions are now justifiable under this banner of WMDs! If India and Israel can produce stockpiles of nuclear weapons with U.S. blesssings, then why the concern over Iran's desire to further its nuclear capabilities? With truth to tell, Iran, whether the U.S. likes it or not, has become a major player in the Middle East rather serendipitously as a consequence of U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, support of and assistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and I might add,support of India over Pakistan on the Indian occupation of Kashmir!
The Washington Consensus maintains that the military-imperial status quo in the Middle East is contingent on neutralizing Iran through UN sanctions and US/Israeli aerial warfare.
The Afghanistan occupation is escalating, 57,000 U.S. troops now, another 21, 000 about to be added. As long as the U.S. military (and also NATO troops and troops from nations pressured by the U.S.) is operating in Afghanistan, the worse the worse matters will become in Pakistan! Obama's Afghanistan war is expanding to include Pakistan--his Af-Pak war. And, it can be assumed that a regional conflict is not far behind, especially with intensifying U.S. aggression against Iran. When the situation in Palestine is added to the Middle East turmoil, with virtually carte blanche support of Israeli occupations and various other oppressions, peace in the area has been reduced to meaningless rhetoric.
The U.S. presence in Iraq will continue for decades--until Iraqi oil reserves become depleted. Obama's withdrawal of U.S. troops campaign promises have become semantic exercises in deception and the slight of hand repositioning of troops. Obama makes a distinction between occupation troops and combat troops. And what about the thousands of contractors? The military invasion of Iraq was obviously an act of war and the occupation is the continuation of that war. Therefore, the entire Iraqi state is a combat zone and there are no real distinctions among occupying forces, including those engaged in making corporate profits! The so-called insurgents, the Iraqi resistance, are the terrorists in the U.S. scheme, and this is why the conflict will not end until all foreign troops leave!
Recently, I heard Barak Obama referred to as "Bush Lite", a kinder-gentler-speaking Geo. W. Bush, but with very similar political strategies and ambitions. After hearing Obama's grand speeches and press conferrence rhetoric, I conclude he learned from Boy George's gross inadequacies in delivering speeches. His tone and volume suggest he knows of what he speaks and that he apparently believes what he says. However great in presentation, much of what he pronounces is not convincing to those who listen carefully. His deceptions and evasions are becoming recognizable by their very repetition.
Robert McNamara is dead! The man with the greased hair and rimless glasses, the very image of the perfect corporate technocrat wrote a book to assuage his guilt and reformulate his legacy. He was one of many U.S. officials overseeing the Vietnam War that got away with crimes against humanity. When he was promoting his memoir in the 1990s, I wondered why he wrote it? Who was he trying to convince? As I recall his tour statements and his speeches at the time, there seemed to be no sorrow or regret. He could have been speaking to his board of directors. I did not read his book. I had no reason to learn revisionist history.
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