The Progressive Dilemma and the Green Party

I think it’s probably past time I delve into the ultimate progressive dilemma: keep voting for Democrats that sell out our interests in order to beat the greatest threat this country has ever seen (the GOP), or, start voting for a party that actually stands for solutions to the multi-pronged crises our nation and world faces?

There is no easy answer to this question. The fact is our corrupt two party system is RUN by those two parties, and therefore, it’s nearly impossible for a third party to compete. By the least, we would need Green Party access to the debates, proportional representation (as they have in much of Europe) AND ranked choice voting (so you could vote for Green party first, Democratic Party second…and friggin Charles Manson third before a Republican) for there to be even an inkling of a chance to build this party and challenge the current disgraced duopoly.

Many of you know that I, of all people, know this topic VERY WELL….as I was the Communications Director for the enormously successful grassroots, web based “Greens for Kerry” campaign back in 2004. Here’s what’s left of our site (some pages don’t work, most do).

The case made then, applies now…with the caveat that the Democratic Party has only proven itself more inept and pathetic since we ran that campaign (myself and two Green Party members began it)…and, the current Green Party likely candidate for President, Jill Stein, is exceptional…and built her reputation fighting for public financing of elections, single payer health care, and environmental health/toxics issues. Now, I still believe, though less passionately than in the past, that in swing states, it’s worth voting for Obama over any of the three headed demon fascists: Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum.

With that said, I’ve come to the conclusion since 2004 that presidential elections, now that corporations run our country and world, are FAR LESS important than they once were, and that, in fact, it will take a massive SOCIAL MOVEMENT to truly change things, not a candidate, nor a party.

With that said, there are plenty of reasons, and differences, that making voting both worthwhile, and necessary. I won’t go into the LONG laundry list of differences between Obama and say Romney…but the Supreme Court alone (think citizens united) makes the point.

However, and this is a big one…we have also learned that when it comes to truly challenging the Matrix, on core issue after core issue, be it the banks, the military industrial complex, to climate change to income inequality to civil liberties (and the list goes on), Obama, and the vast majority of the Democratic Party (excluding people like Kucinich, Lee, Sanders (Independent), Brown, Woolsey, Donna Edwards, etc.), are not just unable, but unwilling.

This failure, systemic really, of our two party system, is in contrast to EVERYTHING the Green Party represents. And, for this reason, because California is not a swing state, and because Obama will win it by 10-20 points, I will be voting for Jill Stein.

I would also point out, that Marcy Winograd, the Democrat who I gave a speech for (and here’s part 2 of that speech) that you can watch on youtube two years ago as she sought to unseat corporate, war monger Democrat Jane Harman, has recently switched to the Green Party. But, she’s done so in a very pragmatic way, in that she still advocates support for PROGRESSIVE Democrats and for Greens to focus on winning SMALLER races first, where they have a chance…and build reputations, name recognition, and party membership…while voting strategically.

This is in fact, what Greens for Kerry advocated all along too: Register Green, Vote Kerry, Defeat Bush. I will say, we have gotten to a time that the corporate wing of the Democratic Party is so corrupt, and so in the pocket of the Matrix, that even while they are moderately better than the GOP, they only serve as an ILLUSION of choice, and an ILLUSION of an opportunity to truly change this paradigm. And, when ANY issue of real consequence comes up, they will join the GOP to defeat it (even if its only a minority of the party).

Thus, it has come to the point that it simply is not worth supporting this illusion any longer…and if that means voting Green in more elections, then so be it. Now yes, it is true, the way our two party system is set up, the Green party is not a viable power…and that’s why I say that we must not view elections as the end all…it’s simply a strategic choice, in that moment, based on many factors we each must weigh, in terms of facts, pragmatism and conscience. Then, we focus on building social movements, be it Occupy or others…and FORCE democrats to represent us…or vote them out…run more  progressive candidates…fund alternative media…protest…organize…and the list goes on.

This is all VERY nuanced I realize…but that is the world we now live in. 

With that, let me point you to a few passages from an article by Marcy Winograd that explains what she calls “building a blue green coalition” that I recently published on the California Progress Report:

Building a Blue-Green Coalition in California

Unfortunately, too many corporate Democrats, beholden to big-money donors or to a jobs sector dependent on militarism, vote for perpetual war and the surveillance state, replete with secret wiretaps, black hole prisons, and targeted assassinations. Far too many who are fearful or bought by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee vote for legislation that relegates Palestinians to second-class citizenship and threatens to take our country to the brink of an unthinkable war on Iran.  

President Obama, despite his eloquence and initial popularity, has continued, and in some cases, expanded Republican Party policies under George Bush by escalating drone attacks on Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia; hiring deregulators from predatory banks to craft economic policy; repeatedly putting Social Security cuts on the table; lifting a 20-year moratorium on new nuclear power plants; signing NDAA legislation that eviscerates due process; increasing U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) raids and arrests of undocumented workers.

As the US empire crashes on the shores of rapacious greed, as power shifts from the federal to the local level, the Green Party can play a crucial role in creating and promoting local economies, worker or consumer-owned cooperatives, model municipal policy and participatory democracy. The time is ripe for municipal federalism with its emphasis on cities sharing expertise, policies, and strategies for community building in a sustainable world. I want to be part of that movement to create a post-empire future that rejects perpetual war, addictive consumerism and vulture capitalism to embrace a life-affirming vision of sustainability with measurable goals for energy, water and food independence.

SNIP

In Richmond, California, the working class city’s Green Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, representing more than 100,000 residents, took on Chevron, resulting in a 115-million dollar pollution settlement, enacted a waiver on residential solar power fee installation; and spearheaded one of the nation’s toughest anti-foreclosure ordinances that exacts a $1,000 a day fine on banks who fail to maintain foreclosed property. McLaughlin was one of several Green Mayors to publicly oppose the dirty tar sands project, signing on to a letter to President Obama urging him to reject, as he recently announced, the XL pipeline that would carry the dirtiest crude from Canada across the United States to the Gulf of Mexico.

In the city of Fairfax in Marin County, Green Mayor Pam Hartwell-Herrero and a majority Green city council has banned intrusive Smart Meters, and authored successful ballot initiatives to ban plastic bags and the cultivation of genetically modified organisms. Fairfax is the third California city to have a Green majority on its town council, joining Sebastopol in Sonoma County from 2000 to 2008 and Arcata in Humboldt County, which had the world's first Green majority on any legislative body between 1996 and 1998 and then again from 2000 to 2002.  

While water board races are not often high-profile races, water board seats may be the front line defense against corporate privatization of our increasingly-scarce water supply. Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, President of the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, understands this. The youngest Green elected to local office, Soppoci-Belknap is working to stop the sale of the county’s watershed to keep water in the public domain.

In Los Angeles, LA Community College District (LACCD) trustee Nancy Pearlman, elected first as a Green before becoming a Democrat (something that happens too often to avoid Democratic Party rival candidates), advocated for tough sustainability standards which resulted  in the LACCD becoming the first community college district in the nation to adopt a LEED environmental building certification standards. Under Pearlman’s Green leadership, all nine LA community colleges developed green jobs training programs. 

SNIP

Greens are also spearheading efforts to pass city ordinances embracing a Sustainability Bill of Rights, which would set measurable goals for energy independence, local food production, and clean air, land, and water. While Pittsburgh became the first city in the nation to pass a law protecting the rights of nature against corporate exploitation, Santa Monica could be next in line, thanks to the work of a coalition called Santa Monica Neighbors Unite! led by urban gardener Cris Gutierrez and Green Party urban forest advocate Linda Piera-Avila. Greens in the city of Santa Monica, which previously elected one of the first Green mayors - Michael Feinstein, a co-founder of the Green Party in the U.S. - are in the forefront of this effort to pass a Sustainability Bill of Rights ordinance that would recognize “the fundament rights of natural communities and ecosystems to exist, thrive, and evolve” - and set a goal of 100% local water use by 2020.

Throughout the US, Greens and allies are at the fulcrum of the occupy movement, defending homeowners facing foreclosure, practicing participatory democracy in the street, and successfully altering the national discourse from deficits and taxes to wealth inequality and privilege. In Oakland, Green Samsarah Morgan helped start the Children’s Village at Occupy Oakland, where children can play and protest peacefully. 

Former LA County Council Co-Chair of the Green Party Rachel Brunkhe mobilizes marches on Bank of America in San Pedro, home to the largest port in the country; former Green assembly candidate Peter Thottam organizes thousands at Occupy the Rose Parade, where Wells Fargo, one of the most notorious banks for robo-siging illegal foreclosures, was one of the parade’s chief sponsors; Al Shantz, Green Vice President of Napa Valley College’s Student Senate, launches Occupy rallies downtown and on the Napa Valley College campus; Harrison Wills, a Green President of the Santa Monica College Associated Student Body tells an Occupy crowd at his campus, “There's socialism for corporations and capitalism for the rest of us." 

Rather than running candidates for every state and federal office, Greens can invest their energy in campaigning for local non-partisan offices, in electing Greens to neighborhood councils  and city councils; union leadership positions, pension and credit union boards, associated student bodies – and to movement-building and media messaging that injects and accentuates a Green anti-consumerist pro-sustainability vision into the economic discourse.

Read more here.

Similarly, I’d point you to this comprehensive interview of Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President (will be anyway). Of course, as all Green candidates, she knows that her votes will come from Democrats, and thus, she tends to blur the differences between the parties more than what I think is completely accurate…but this is politics…and she still makes very, very good points, and her policy proposals are IN-ARGUABLY right on.

I do also realize that none of these policies could ever get through Congress…hell, NOTHING GOOD CAN….the GOP is a fascist block that exists to stifle all advancements for people in order to protect corporate and religious power. So, I realize we can’t actually implement this stuff…but how do we ever achieve anything if someone doesn’t start demanding it first? See what you think...

Jill Stein For President?

Here’s that interview and a couple choice clips from Stein:

Jill Stein: I've been fighting as a third party candidate for ten years. I stepped up to the plate for this election, basically. I stepped up to the plate because it is a perfect storm for really organizing a political alternative, a politics of integrity that our lives depend on - and more and more people are seeing that. Specifically, it was the debt ceiling debacle last spring when President Obama put Social Security and Medicare on the table: it really felt like, "How could we not put an opposition voice up against this? This is outrageous!"

Between the Keystone XL Pipeline debacle, the ozone regulation roll-back; expanding war - multiple wars, drones and drone surrogate wars -  our "pull out of Iraq"; only to establish a new base in Kuwait, that we now have a new front in the war for oil in Central Africa; and the tripling of the troop presence in Afghanistan, it just felt like "How can we not have a voice of opposition here? This is nuts!"

SNIP

JS: I have always been involved in issue-based politics, not party politics - I was never really originally drawn to party politics. I'm trained as a medical doctor - that's my field: I've been practicing long enough to see how extremely broken our health care system is, how broken our health is, the link between that and the environment. I had become very active in the world of health care advocacy, advocating for single payer, but also in the world of environmental politics, and advocating for being a community provider of health. That's really the way to do it. If you really want people to remain healthy, you can't just throw pills at people once they become sick, which I feel like I was doing as a medical doctor, so I began working on more upstream thinking.

I began thinking, "If only our elected officials knew that there were all of these cost-saving solutions ..." So, I went into advocacy of this sort for about five years before I really knew what it was all about, and it was really a treadmill moving backward and that if you really want to fix any political problems, you also have to fix the political system. I was reaching the end of that rope after we passed campaign finance reform in Massachusetts, thinking when I was working on that issue, "Oh, it's the money that stops us from shutting down our incinerators ..."

SNIP

JS: This is another reason why we're running the campaign now - because if you follow the science there we don't have four years to wait. I mean, we don't; we really have to start tackling this now. It's really important for the climate and it's time that people put their politics where their values and science argue they ought to be. I think Obama supporters are really having a rude awakening right now.

The Green New Deal is an emergency jobs creation plan that really addresses the crisis in our economy, in unemployment, and likewise, in the climate. And truth be told, it has enormous potential to address health issues, as well. It's a win-win on all those fronts and is modeled after the New Deal that helped us get out of the Great Depression, and would help us through direct and indirect means, ways to create scores of new jobs and really attack this problem with all of the inspiration and force that it deserves, not just a little two million job creation hit that comes and goes, but to really tackle the crisis head on. In doing so, it would do away with the recession and put people back to work, jumpstarting the economy as a green economy, instead of going back and going back to the same old economy that isn't going to work. It goes green and also relocalizes, and it jumpstarts, in particular, small businesses and co-operatives. And in so doing, it puts a stop to escalating climate change.

The US, as you know, is the largest per capita contributor to climate change and the direction the US pushes goes a long way toward determining what the rest of the world does, and from that perspective, dramatically downscaling carbon emissions goes a long way toward determining the global carbon budget and helps move global policy that way. Typically, the jobs it would create are in the green area of the economy. We're talking about green manufacturing, sustainable local agriculture, public transportation and clean renewable energy that has the added benefit of making wars for oil obsolete. This would be felt immediately, as the millions of dollars spent on the military-industrial-complex on an annual basis would be put into creating these jobs.

The numbers we've worked out - we look at various models for doing this, and we looked at a report by an economist named Phillip Harvey out of Rutgers Law School, and according to his model, the cost of creating these jobs - the costs of creating these jobs would be less than what was spent in the Obama stimulus package, which essentially created two million jobs, which were good and probably blunted a worse catastrophe and did add some jobs in the area of the green economy, but ultimately wasn't of sufficient magnitude to really fix the problem. So, this will do a whole lot more. The cost for the stimulus package worked out to be about $220,000 per job created, because the mechanisms were indirect and relied a lot on tax incentives, which don't always get used to create jobs. This, instead, would be money used directly to create jobs and would be more like $20,000 per job created.

SNIP

JS: Our strategy has a lot to do with alternative media and selectively engaging with groups who have been screwed over by both parties. They don't need much convincing. Students, for one, they're there. We launched our campaign at Western Illinois University. Students are on the receiving end, and when you're talking about an issue of generational injustice, because everything we're discussing will end up falling into the hands of the youth and young people - unfairness in jobs, a climate catastrophe - and we have to ask ourselves what kind of world we're making for them, how we're going to clean up this mess we've left for them. I mean, students and young people are really on the receiving end. What civilization devours its young? 

Because that's what we're doing. The profiteers are going after the young as a population to exploit. That's why the loans are so high; that's why young people have been put at the bottom of the priority list. They are victims of profiteering. We are all about fighting that. We think green jobs will help with this fight; we will forgive student debt. They must be engaged because they bring creativity and fresh life into our economy, and we need them badly. We will provide tuition-free higher education, since it's comparable to a high school education in the 20th century - you need a higher education degree in the 21st century economy and it should be provided as a basic right.

I also support legalization of marijuana, ending war, and other bread-and-butter concerns for young people. This is a constituency that is just itching for a platform of this sort. After that, the Occupy movement is a key constituency. UC-Davis, for example, the night before I came there, said they disavow the Democratic and Republican Party, so that's a great opportunity. The antiwar movement, the civil liberties movement - in fact, I've met Republicans and Ron Paul supporters who have told me, who have said that when Ron Paul doesn't make it in the Republican Party they're supporting us in our campaign because we are the only voice in the race for our assaulted civil liberties. This has been completely different than my experiences with campaigns. This one seems to have a life of its own. Running in other campaigns as a Green, outreach is a big part of the job. This one has been different.

Read more here.

I realize there will be Greens that read what I write here today that will consider it blasphemy…that I’m not pure enough. Just as there will be Democrats that will start blathering about Nader causing Gore’s defeat in 2000 (which is a truly myopic viewpoint) and that I am selling out the party and helping Republicans. All of this, of course, is Matrix nonsense.

What I am trying to do is take a step back and view our predicament in as honest, objective, and moral view as possible…from someone who works on the inside and outside. I can tell you, I SEE the differences, real differences, between the parties in law after law I work on. To say differently is to be either ignorant or intellectually dishonest. But, I also see, firsthand, how corrupted the Democratic Party has also become, and how unable and unwilling it is any longer (for a host of reasons) to take on the Matrix and the crises we face…which is only exacerbated by a Republican Party that is the greatest threat to the world we’ve seen since WW2.

So, before you go register Green and vote against all Democrats, or, say vote Green in Ohio this Presidential election (remember, as many as two supreme court justices could be appointed next term), here’s something I wrote in 2004 for Greens for Kerry (and just substitute Obama for Kerry and Santorum/Romney for Bush...but...remember...I will be voting Green in CA this year...and if you're in a swing state, perhaps "vote pairing" will be offered again...or try it with someone you know from a non-swing state):

Only Progressive Unity Can Defeat Bush (or now Romney/Santorum) - My Op-Ed from 2004 (this just a clip of it)

Like so many progressives, we are wholly unsatisfied with our current, money-driven, corporate dominated political system and the limited options that a two party democracy provides. But, given our current political reality, we believe it is our civic duty to help unseat George W. Bush, the mandatory first step if a larger progressive movement is to ever take shape. After November 2nd, and Kerry is elected, we must continue on with phase two of the long-term goal that most progressive share: building a political movement in America from the grassroots up. In less than four years this administration has weakened milestone environmental protection laws like the Clean Air Act (400 environmental rollback attempts); eliminated key labor rights fought and won by those before us; dismantled what once were considered unassailable constitutional rights; appointed extremist judges to our country's federal courts; and established a new military doctrine of pre-emptive nuclear war. 

As progressives we recognize that John Kerry (OR NOW OBAMA) is not an ideal choice. However, to deny the significant differences between the two candidates on issues ranging from environmental protection, nuclear proliferation, women's rights, the Supreme Court, and labor rights, is intellectually dishonest. 

We ask that when you enter that voting booth you consider the worker making minimum wage who won't be receiving a $1.85 an hour raise ($3,848 more a year, Kerry proposes $7.00 minimum wage) if Bush is re-elected; remember the single mother who's childcare services will be cut; remember the women who's reproductive rights will be jeopardized; remember the effect that Bush's policies will have on the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Then tell yourself it doesn't matter how you vote.

This election is not an academic exercise - lives are at stake. But don't just take our word for it: Noam Chomsky recently remarked, "Anyone who says 'I don't care if Bush gets elected' is basically telling poor and working people in the country, 'I don't care if your lives are destroyed.'" He also quite rightly stated, "... Then there is another choice: electing Bush or seeking to prevent his election." 

Winona LaDuke, Nader's running mate in 2000, stated just his week, "I love this land, and I know that we need to make drastic changes in Washington if we are going to protect our land and our communities... I'm voting my conscience on Nov. 2; I'm voting for John Kerry."

In fact, 75 members of the Nader 2000 Citizens Committee recently signed a letter calling on swing state voters to support Kerry, which included such progressive legends as Jim Hightower, Studs Terkel, Cornel West and Howard Zinn. Are these individuals, who have dedicated their lives to strengthening our democracy and speaking truth to power all just sellouts? Or do they recognize something larger, something that we believe all of us feel on the deepest of levels Ð that our democracy, freedom, future, and past are under assault, and it is our job to put an end to it. 

If you still aren't convinced, please consider using a key tool GFK and other progressive organizations are promoting this election year to both help defeat Bush and support third party candidates like Ralph Nader and David Cobb called "vote pairing" (www.votepair.org). Vote pairing allows would-be Nader or Green Party voters in swing states to swap their votes with Kerry supporters in non-swing states. This allows you to vote your conscience, vote out Bush, and begin to turn our country around.

The world community, and the millions of Americans whose lives will be hurt by four more years of this administration are pleading that we help put an end to this imperial regime. We need to heed their call. Voting for John Kerry in swing states is our only realistic response."

Conclusion

But let me also be clear…we have seen first hand how far the Democratic Party is from taking on the powers that be…Obama’s first term has shown us this in truly gruesome detail. So, let us move on to increased social activism, more third party strategic voting, increased efforts to institute public financing of elections, fund alternative media, pass ranked choice voting, and get to the streets.

TODAY'S TOPICS: President's Moving Right, 1 in 2 Poor, Iran War Lies, Hypocrisy, Wealth Disparity

Shocker1: A new Study PROVES Dem Presidents have been moving Right for decades and GOP President have been moving RADICALLY right (even as people move left in key areas).

I only bring this up because I have been making this case for YEARS in the face of overwhelming Matrix propaganda saying the opposite. So, I want you all to know that I was right…and you were too if you watched, year after year, the progressive message and policies get sold down the river by so called “liberals”…as you were being told they were "liberals" or even socialists.

Now, political scientists Keith Poole and Christopher Hare at the University of Georgia have found that Barack Obama is the most conservative Democratic President of the modern era. As I have argued here, ad nauseum. 

The duo found that Democratic Presidents have gotten moderately more conservative over the past several decades, while Republican Presidents have gotten radically more conservative. As a result, the ideology of the nation’s Presidents has inexorably moved to the right:

Because presidential estimates are based on a limited number of “presidential support” votes – roll calls on which the president clearly indicates his support or opposition to a particular (often contentious) measure, presidential ideal points are somewhat biased towards the ideological extremes (however, this effect is roughly constant for all presidents, so it is unlikely than any particular estimate would be affected more than others).

Again, this goes to the point I've been making for SO LONG here...that Republicans have moved so FAR to the right while Democrats have been moving towards them to try to meet in the middle (but meeting radicals in the middle means MOVING RIGHT). Indeed, President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II, while President George W. Bush was the most conservative president in the post-war era.

President Obama sits at around 0.3 on the liberal scale, while President George W. Bush sits at around 0.7. And on a number of issues, Mitt Romney’s public positions taken in the campaign are actually far more conservative than Bush – in particular immigration and federal spending – so if Romney were to win in November, it’s possible that this trend will continue.

Now, as I have argued, this is NOT because the country’s people have moved right…that would imply that we are being actually represented accurately by our pay to play political system. Let’s remember, as David Dayen points out, “The country supports increased financial regulation, progressive taxation, a public option for health care, and a host of other more liberal issues.” (and I could go on for pages if I had time of more examples)

But, one thing we are finding out now as a result of Citizens United and Super Pacs…only 22 PEOPLE/DONORS account for half of ALL MONEY BEING SPENT now through these pacs on our presidential election. Democracy? Ha!!!! This is becoming a literal parody of ourselves…a skit literally laughing in our faces at the fascist, plutocracy we’ve become…insane. And of course, figures such as these drive home why Presidents are becoming more conservative (even before Citizens United)

Paying A Fair Share Act

On the bright side, Obama’s call (from the state of the union) for a minimum tax on millionaires has been proposed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse….it follows the whole “the Buffett rule” concept by setting a second alternative minimum tax for millionaires, essentially, at 30%.

As David Dayen notes, “So after taxpayers with over $1 million in income, including capital gains and dividends, work out their taxes, they would have to pay an effective tax rate of either 30% or the result of their taxes with deductions, whatever is higher. The bill would “preserve the incentive for charitable giving,” so presumably charitable donations would be made exempt from this rule, which could perhaps spur lots of charitable giving rather than handing over more money to the government.Whitehouse’s next step, according to aides, is to refer the bill to the Joint Committee on Taxation for a score on how much revenue this would raise. A preliminary score from Citizens for Tax Justice showed that the Buffett rule would raise $50 billion annually – so well over half a trillion in the 10-year budget window – and hit only 0.08% of all taxpayers. So this is a bill not for the 1%, but the 0.08%. For context, letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the top 2% generates about $800 trillion over ten years. So this rule change would actually add at least $500 billion on top of that, because the CTJ analysis assumes current law. 

This is not a small number; in fact, you’re talking about tax changes that would bring in $1.3 trillion, minimum, in the budget window. CTJ also assumed that the tax would phase in between $1 million and $2 million to avoid a “cliff” between $999,999 and $1,000,000 on the effective tax rate. So a less gradual phase-in would take in more money. First of all, 30% is not 35%. Second, there is simply no economic analysis that shows a correlation between capital gains tax rates, or the difference between investment and ordinary income, and economic growth. It doesn’t really exist. I agree that the US has had a preferential rate on capital gains for a long time, but that’s a feature of the United States, not an argument for the superior nature of that preferential rate.

I think you know from this blog how TOTALLY out of whack our tax code has become...and how long I’ve been advocating for things like this…by now you probably know my spiel by heart...the richest 400 Americans in the country in 2008 paid an average effective tax rate of 18.2%....and they have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. Just six children of the Walmart empire have more wealth than the bottom 30% of ALL AMERICANS yet pay almost nothing on that inheritance.

In this case, if a 30 percent minimum had been in effect that year, these taxpayers would have paid, on average, more than $171,000 additional per taxpayer. Citizens for Tax Justice calculations indicate that a Buffett rule at 30 percent would now raise about $50 billion a year in new revenue.

The White House seems to understand this reality and, to its credit, is asking for more tax changes than a new 30 percent Buffett rule. For starters, the Obama administration wants to let the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts expire for taxpayers making over $250,000 a year.

That move would raise the top tax rate on capital gains income — the category that includes most of the income that Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney collect every year — from 15 to 20 percent and the tax rate on dividends from 15 to 39.6 percent, the same top tax rate the expiration of the Bush tax cuts would fix on ordinary income from wages and salaries. The Obama administration also wants to reduce the tax deductions and credits high-income taxpayers can claim.

These are good arguments to be making come election time…and yes, they won’t pass…but we need to force the issue in hopes of electing people that come out for these changes and kick out those that don’t. That’s how real change happens…in addition to taking to the streets and demanding it.

Some Successes of Obama Health Plan

You know my problems with the plan…but, for what it’s worth, some good news on Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act: in its first year, the Affordable Care Act saved 3.6 million Americans with Medicare $2.1 billion on their prescription drugs, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday.  The act saved 319,429 Californians $171,983,735, or an average of $538, the government said in a statement.

The savings were for the number of Medicare recipients who hit the "donut hole," the gap in coverage on prescription drugs between what Medicare pays and what must be paid out of pocket by Medicare recipients.A part of the Affordable Care Act initiative is working to close the gap completely in 2020. The average person with Medicare will save nearly $4,200 by 2021 because of the new law, according to a HHS statement.

The Elephant in the Room: 1 in 2 Now Poor

This is yet another argument I’ve been making for A LONG TIME…and that being that REAL POVERTY, and the real number of those poor, if measured accurately and fairly, was probably more like 50% of Americans…and now look at this…a new study proving EXACTLY my argument (again, we can thank Occupy Wall Street for these streams of new studies proving this stuff): “Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

"Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too 'rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty. Mayors in 29 cities say more than 1 in 4 people needing emergency food assistance did not receive it. Many middle-class Americans are dropping below the low-income threshold — roughly $45,000 for a family of four — because of pay cuts, a forced reduction of work hours or a spouse losing a job. Housing and child-care costs are consuming up to half of a family's income. About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That's up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure.

The new measure of poverty takes into account medical, commuting and other living costs. Doing that helped push the number of people below 200 percent of the poverty level up from 104 million, or 1 in 3 Americans, that was officially reported in September. Again, these are factors I've been pleading to have included in such studies forever now.

And the findings are as expected: Following the recession that began in late 2007, the share of working families who are low income has risen for three straight years to 31.2 percent, or 10.2 million. That proportion is the highest in at least a decade, up from 27 percent in 2002, according to a new analysis by the Working Poor Families Project and the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group based in Washington.

Among low-income families, about one-third were considered poor while the remainder — 6.9 million — earned income just above the poverty line. Many states phase out eligibility for food stamps, Medicaid, tax credit and other government aid programs for low-income Americans as they approach 200 percent of the poverty level. The majority of low-income families — 62 percent — spent more than one-third of their earnings on housing, surpassing a common guideline for what is considered affordable. By some census surveys, child-care costs consume close to another one-fifth.

Widening Disparity…and Shrinking paychecks

Here’s more from Sam Pizzigati of the Campaign for America’s Future: Paychecks for low-income families are shrinking. The inflation-adjusted average earnings for the bottom 20 percent of families have fallen from $16,788 in 1979 to just under $15,000, and earnings for the next 20 percent have remained flat at $37,000. In contrast, higher-income brackets had significant wage growth since 1979, with earnings for the top 5 percent of families climbing 64 percent to more than $313,000.

If anything, America’s safety nets have been too small and shot through with holes. That’s why the number and percentage of Americans in poverty has increased dramatically over the past three years. According to a study by Northeastern University, a third of families with young children are now in poverty.

This is the real scandal. For example, only 40 percent of the unemployed qualify for unemployment benefits because they weren’t working full time or long enough on a single job before they were canned. The unemployment system doesn’t take account of the fact that a large portion of the workforce typically works part time on several jobs, and moves from job to job.

Iran War Lies, Damn Lies, and War?

At first, when I heard that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Israeli leaders Jan. 20 that the United States would not participate in a war against Iran begun by Israel I got hopeful. Then I saw this caveat: only if it was "without prior agreement from Washington", according to accounts from well-placed senior military officers. So, as long as we agree, then its fine...wonderful.

And, frighteningly, since this headline, the propaganda, the lies, and the drum beats for war have intensified…with the Pentagon, the President, pundits, politicians, all making the INACCURATE claims that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb and is a threat to the world.

Again…NO EVIDENCE exists if you look closely they’re developing a bomb…they are enriching uranium to use for energy which COULD someday provide the ability to build one…as all countries can with such energy…which is there RIGHT to develop under international law (i.e. nuclear ENERGY).

But let’s also remember, Iran has not invaded another country in 250 years. They have NO BOMB…but, America has 10,000 and have used them on civilians twice. Israel, thanks to us, as about 200 nuclear bombs…but doesn’t even have to admit they have them, or abide by ANY international treaties – as DOES IRAN.

In addition, it is America and Israel that are ILLEGALLY threatening to bomb Iran, regularly. It is America and Israel that DON’T abide by the international weapons treaties we’re demanding Iran does. It is America that has surrounded Iran, bombed and destroyed their neighbors (Afghanistan, Iraq)…for their resources…and Iran has a lot of oil. It is America that armed Saddam and helped him MURDER one million Iranians.

It is America that overthrew Democratically elected governments in Iran…leading to their radicalization. It is America that is now instituting sanctions on Iran that are impoverishing its people – as we did to Iraq for a decade killing a MILLION children.

And, its Israel that continues to commit atrocities against the Palestinian people…and Lebanon…while taking their land and imprisoning them in an apartheid system.

YET, YET…here we’re being told, day in day out, all over the news that it is the US and Israel that should fear Iran…and it is us…that should “LEAVE ALL OPTIONS ON THE TABLE “ (code for mass murdering their people if they even consider ONE BOMB…which, you would think they SHOULD WANT as a deterrent against America and Israel invasions).

Let me reiterate, I am NO FAN OF IRAN, or their government…but let’s keep some semblance of objectivity and sense of history here. And, let’s consider for a moment what kinds of policies actually ENCOURAGE them to get a bomb, and those that don’t (i.e. Israel and America to abide by similar treaties, to stop threatening Iran and its neighbors, to stop arming Iran’s enemies, etc. etc. ). And, let’s consider what an unmitigated disaster in so many ways yet ANOTHER ILLEGAL war in the Middle East would bring…and Iran is no Iraq when it comes to its ability to control oil supplies and FIGHT BACK.

TODAY'S TOPICS: MLK, State of the Union, The Obama Record, Gingrich/Romney, Iran War?

 

Intro...and Martin Luther King

I’m so behind on this blog that I’m going to strip out videos and articles, and just hit a few hot topics, like the State of the Union, some campaign analysis (which I don’t like to do as much as I used to…because so much of it is a pointless game), and, of course, the drums beating for a war in Iran…and ALL the lies and propaganda being used – by both parties (though GOP worse) – to brainwash us into accepting yet another illegal invasion.

But, since I missed Martin Luther King Day on this blog, I want to intersperse this post with some of his quotes…because they truly provide an anchor of truth in the sea disinformation and moral ambiguity that make up our current Matrix. 

Here are a couple passages that sound as if he’s at an Occupy Wall Street Protest – which he would be if alive today (this is the legacy we DO NOT here or see in the media and all the artificial celebrations of his life)...let's remember this clarity as we delve into all the "unclear" coming:

“There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society.”

“We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, Who owns the oil? You begin to ask the question, Who owns the iron ore? You begin to ask the question, Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water? These are questions that must be asked.”

“I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness…This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.”

“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization…The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”
 
Now that we have our moral compasses set towards truth, let's contrast these words, and his fight for social justice, with the just released global rankings of countries based on their records on those VERY social justice issues…because we need and we must, start confronting the BIG LIE we are told about our “exceptionalism”…and about our absolute failure to realize his dreams and aspirations (in fact we’ve been going backwards since 1980 in many respects).

"We're Number 27"

The rankings come from a foundation in Germany that analyzed the social justice records of all 31 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ranking each nation in such categories as health care, income inequality, pre-school education, and child poverty. 

Iceland ranked No. 1…America…No. 27, fifth from the bottom (we lost to Poland and Slovakia even).  “We’re number 27” “We’re number 27”!!! C’mon, say it with me!!!

The overall performance by the United States — which never stops boasting about the American Dream and our color blind society — outranks only Greece, Chile, Mexico, and Turkey. And three of those countries performed better than ours in the education of pre-schoolers, and Greece did better than the United States on the prevention of poverty.

Again, as we are neck deep in our campaign season circus, I want to hone in on reality, versus the Matrix’s version of reality. It is where these "realities" clash that we can discover the greatest truths... and will be FAR MORE informative than any growth in GDP or rise in the stock market.

Now, here’s another one of MLK’s almost deleted quotes from history, but a VERY VERY telling one (both in content, and in understanding WHY it’s never mentioned):

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” 

Even if Obama’s plan  is fully implemented (as I have said, it was Dole, Romney, Gingrich and Nixon’s plan…he just co-opted it, forcing them to call their own plans socialist), the reality remains: a private, for profit health care system can NEVER provide adequate, universal, or humane service. 

And, if you believe like I do, and King did, that health care is a basic human right, and need, not a privilege for those that can afford it, how do you reconcile the fact that health care premiums in California have gone up 153% - five times the rate of inflation – in just the past few years? I’m going to refrain from going down my long lists of factoids today, as it will take just too long…but by now, you should know some of the figures (like 45,000 people dying every year, 15 times the number in 9/11, because they can’t afford health care).

But, again, let’s go to the study by the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) from last year on the health care systems in its member countries, including the U.S., plus six others, for a total of 40. What's important, particularly in light of the fact that we are the ONLY major democracy in the world that doesn't provide universal health coverage through a non profit system, is that we compare ours to theirs, right?

Here you go then: The OECD found that the United States spends two-and-a-half times more on health care per person than the OECD average - twice as much as France, which many experts contend has one of the best health care systems on the planet.

Here are some reasons why: Hospital spending is 60 percent higher than the average of five other relatively expensive countries (Switzerland, Canada, Germany, France and Japan); spending on pharmaceuticals and medical goods is much higher here than any of the other countries; and administrative costs are more than two-and-a-half times the average of the others.

But we rank 29th in the number of hospital beds per person and 29th in the average length of a stay in the hospital. And we have high rates of avoidable hospital admissions for people with asthma, lung disease, diabetes, hypertension and other common illnesses.

When it comes to access to physicians, we're also near the bottom of the pack. We rank 26th in the number of physicians, especially primary care or family doctors, per 1,000 people. In terms of life expectancy, we rank 28th, just behind Chile. The average age of death in the U.S. is 78.2, well below the average of 79.5 years in the other OCED countries.

The OECD study backs up the results of a report released by the Commonwealth Fund last October, which showed that the U.S. is actually losing ground to other countries in assuring that its citizens have equal access to affordable, efficient care. We now rank last out of 16 when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by timely and effective medical care. 

A big reason for the dismal results is the fact that more and more Americans are falling into the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured. As of last year, according to the Commonwealth Fund, 81 million adults in the U.S. -- 44 percent of all adults under age 65 -- were either uninsured or underinsured at some point during the year, up from 61 million as recently as 2003.

I bring this up because we're going to hear, ad nauseum this campaign season, about how superior America and the free market is the answer to all ills (even as it is the cause of most). Clearly, we are failing the people of this country in such a profound way if MLK was alive today he'd be risking his life to confront THESE injustices. On the positive side, I do see an awakening is underway, and that's why I want to highlight some of King's words and contrast them to present day realities...because his moral clarity is what's necessary, now more than ever...and its this clarity that is fundamental to the awakening that is taking place...because its all about JUSTICE.

The GOP and their corporate paymasters of course have flipped reality on its head as the primary narrative of the last 30 years has been “empathy is bad”, “compassion is a sign of weakness”, “social justice is code for evil communism”, “we spend too much on those greedy poor people”, “we need to cut spending”…and "regulations are burdening the free market."

Quite an ingenious way to rationalize selfishness, no? Actually get people to believe that by cutting investments in schools they will get better. By deregulating big oil the environment will get cleaner. By deregulating Wall Street everyone does better and the economy will "grow". By cutting taxes for the rich the deficit will go down. It's delusional, sociopathic, and patently absurd...but rest assured, millions upon millions of Americans have bought into these lies (though a minority), as has the entire GOP in Congress (or at least they know this is the only way they can hope to convince the masses to keep voting against their own interests)...and, of course, the media gives these delusions equal time without the required resistance.

Ironically, and tragically, the moral values we need to recover are those that have been demonized, and the values of selfishness, competition, and greed...are the ones we have embraced and enshrined...and led us to the brink of becoming an almost Banana Republic with a psuedo fascist, neo feudal flavor.

Once again, MLK provides some light for us to follow: “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” As for the moral urgency of OUR action and participation in this “bending”, I also look to King: “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

This is probably as good a time as any to get a little in to Obama’s State of the Union, because, on one hand, it was STRATEGICALLY almost pitch perfect. And, it did show a “populist shift”, combined with a little “fight” I haven’t seen from him in the past, which of course, at least to a small degree, can be attributed to the Occupy Wall Street movement and the growing numbers of Americans catching on to our plutocratic corporatocracy.  

State of the Union and the Campaign

So yes, it was a great speech in many way, and yes, he did, FINALLY (how long have I been advocating him doing this here??!!!), start taking on the GOP, talking about income inequality, tax fairness, and of course, Wall Street accountability and their crimes. I won’t get into too many specifics, but clearly some of his ideas on tax policy were very good (though won’t pass…still…since nothing can pass that’s why he may as well fight for what’s right...). I am also cautiously hopeful for the Wall Street investigative he asked to be led by the great NY AG…but, there are reasons to hold back from popping champagne just yet...(will get to this in future posts).

Suffice it to say, it was a pretty decidedly populist speech that, by the least, painted the fascist knuckle draggers of the GOP in a host of awkward positions and corners. This is all good news of course…because even if its ONLY talk, and I suspect he means a lot of it too, it still demonstrates just how radically, and positively, DIFFERENT the narrative is now (wealth disparity, economic justice), compared to the past year or more, (austerity, cutting medicare, Medicaid, social security, etc.). This is HUGE....at least we're talking about reality...and things that are real...instead of the fantasy world we were in for too long.

Of course, on the other hand, I do get that feeling of “fool me once, shame on you, fool me 10,000 times, shame on me”. Let's remember, this is how he sounded in 2008...and its not by accident its election time again. And, there were a few points in the speech that were particularly problematic.

First, why, why in the WORLD would he again offer up Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to the GOP??? Now, perhaps you can say he’s doing this because he knows they STILL won’t bite and give him, in return, the tax increases on corporations and the rich (like he's asking them in return for cuts). So, by doing this, he looks like he’s trying to reach out, and they won’t reciprocate. 

But, this kind of Machiavellian negotiating tactics fail to see the much bigger picture: A democratic President, for the first time in history, is arguing that those programs should be cut and are too costly. This of course is untrue, and plays into the GOP’s narrative…and, as we all know, their decades long goal has always been to destroy and privatize those programs. And to that end, this kind of rhetoric, and offers to "make a deal with them", help the GOP reach their ultimate goal sooner rather than later.

Second, I was gravely disappointed when he took that gratuitous swipe at universal single-payer health care, saying, “I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.” That’s like when Clinton said “the era of big government is over”…which is, again, trying to sound more like Republicans…and thus hurts Democratic core principles in a number of fundamental ways. 

Plus, the quote makes no sense in this context. How in the world does that quote back up his bragging about passing a totally private health care reform package that forces people to buy expensive, faulty products from a corrupt industry? And, he called it “universal coverage”!!! Ha!!! In fact, the quote says the opposite because health care is PRECISELY the kind of service that IS better left to the public sector, not private.

And let's also be clear: Even if the President's plan is fully implemented (and the Supreme Court may not let that happen), 30 million still won’t have coverage…and we’ll still be paying HUGE amounts for that coverage because he intentionally gambled away the public option, derided single payer, sold out negotiating drug cots by the government (or reimportation from Canada and Mexico), and I could go on down the list of the reforms that he horse traded to big pharma and the health insurance industry in hopes they’d stay quiet.

Remember too, when he was running for President the first time, he said, “If I were starting from scratch,” I’d be for single-payer universal health care." Now he disparages it to score cheap political points. I say this because its this kind of disingenuous that undercuts his words in my eyes.

Also, though predictably, he was belligerent on Iran (though nothing compared to the GOP), saying he would take “no options off the table,” which is easily decipherable code for saying he’d threaten to blow Iran off the map if it got one nuclear weapon, even though the United States has thousands of nukes and Israel has hundreds. (will get to this later).

With that said, I’ll be very interested to watch how his trade enforcement unit and wall street investigation unit pan out…I’m not sold, but hey, in theory, they are good, necessary ideas. Of course, undercutting his tough talk on Wall Street and outsourcing is the fact that he’s simultaneously trying to cut a HORRENDOUS deal with Wall Street on what they owe homeowners in trouble (the negotiations going on with AG’s across the country…ours in California said NO which is great)…and, he keeps surrounding himself with Goldman Sachs insiders and people like GE’s former CEO (biggest outsource in the world practically) on his jobs committee! Why is Geithner still there? Why Immelt? 

But I don’t want to turn this into a downer…it WAS his best speech in a longtime, it does make me even more sure he will win re-election, it does show he’s listening to what people are demanding…and yes, he made some POWERFUL arguments for investing in our future, raising taxes on the rich (got real specific on the Buffett rule, a minimum effective tax rate of 30% for millionaires, and the alternative minimum tax for corporations), and much more.

Obama v. Romney Gingrich (assuming they’re fused together like some kind of demon spawn)

If we’re going to get into this very confined (by the Matrix) what’s Obama’s real record, versus Bush’s…or versus what the GOP clown car of candidates are claiming, I want everybody to be clear: there is no comparison.

When Obama took over the worst situation since FDR, with an even more radical, obstructionist GOP dedicated to stopping him, the fact is, he's STILL created FAR MORE jobs than Bush ever did, contributed far less to the debt than Reagan, Bush or Bush Jr. did. He rescued the auto industry (which his opponents opposed)…which could have saved a million or so jobs in itself (though unions had to take a big cut…wonder why Wall Street didn’t when we bailed them out?), passed a stimulus that created/saved over 3 million more jobs...and jobs that were building and fixing things by the way. 

On that note, here’s a few factoids just to be clear on the differences…even though none of these numbers come CLOSE to addressing the real threats like poverty, inequality, wages, unemployment, etc.. What's important to know is that ALL THE JOB losses since he's been president are from the PUBLIC SECTOR (directly contradicting the GOP lie about big government)...and that has come largely from the states...something the stimulus helped prevent, but wasn't big enough. Clearly, we need to stop the hemorrhaging of public sector jobs...

Here's more:

2…the number of years of consecutive employment growth in manufacturing, after not one single year of growth between 1997 and 2010. 

8.5 percent…the unemployment rate, the lowest since February 2009 just after President Obama took office.

22…the number of consecutive months of private sector job growth - 12,000…the number of public sector jobs lost in December of 2011 alone.

212,000…the number of private sector jobs created in December of 2011 alone - 280,000…the number of public sector jobs lost in 2011.

673,000…the number of private sector jobs lost during the entirety of the eight-year Bush presidency.

1,080,000…the number of net jobs created during the entirety of the eight-year Bush presidency

VERSUS

1,600,000…the net number of jobs created during 2011, after accounting for job losses in the public sector - 1,900,000…the number of private sector jobs created during 2011.

Let’s also consider, for a second, some other direct results of electing Barak Obama, rather than another member of the GOP crime family. Ask yourself any of the following hypotheticals and you get an answer…

• If you or your family member received health care after being denied care by private insurance companies for a ‘pre-existing condition’?
• Are you or your kids one of the 2.5 million young adults who can now receive their parent's health care due to the Affordable Care Act?
• Can you or a friend now serve proudly as a gay or lesbian service member?
• Or do you know someone home from Iraq in time for the holidays? (though he tried to stay there)
• Do you or your children get to go to college more easily because Pell Grants were significantly expanded?
• Are you a Medicare recipient in the 'donut hole' who has saved 50% on prescription drugs?

Now let’s consider JUST the tax plans of Romey Gingrich (that’s my name for if the two of these disgraces were ever combined to make a fascist super hero):

Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) crunched the numbers on several of the candidates’ tax plans and found that on average they would give the wealthiest 1 Percent a tax cut up to 270 times larger than what the middle class would receive under their plans. Here’s the rundown.

• Newt Gingrich would give the wealthiest 1 Percent an average tax cut of $391,330, or more than 190 times larger than what a middle income American would receive under his plan.
• Mitt Romney would give the wealthiest 1 Percent an average tax cut of $126,450, or more than 100 times larger than what a middle income American would receive under his plan. What’s more, a CAP Action Fund analysis of Tax Policy Center data found that Romney’s plan would actually raise taxes on half of middle class families with children.

I’m going to save all kinds of back and forth kind of data demonstrating Obama’s record compared to Bush’s (an admittedly REALLY LOW bar)…and compared to the attacks being made by Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dumb (Romney and Gingrich).

But, and this is a big but, no matter how much better Obama is than these scum bags…it just can’t change the fact that he surrounded himself with people that helped cause the crisis…that he gambled away (proof of this now), from the outset (and it was premeditated), things like the public option, breaking up the banks, ending the Bush tax cuts, and on and on and on. But, perhaps most shocking in his failure as a President is in the area of civil liberties and executive power. 

As Conor Friedersdorf is a staff writer at The Atlantic lays out...and ask yourself as you read these “How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following? What if Newt Gingrich inherits that power?"

(1) Codify indefinite detention into law; (2) draw up a secret kill list of people, including American citizens, to assassinate without due process; (3) proceed with warrantless spying on American citizens; (4) prosecute Bush-era whistleblowers for violating state secrets; (5) reinterpret the War Powers Resolution such that entering a war of choice without a Congressional declaration is permissible; (6) enter and prosecute such a war; (7) institutionalize naked scanners and intrusive full body pat-downs in major American airports; (8) oversee a planned expansion of TSA so that its agents are already beginning to patrol American highways, train stations, and bus depots; (9) wage an undeclared drone war on numerous Muslim countries that delegates to the CIA the final call about some strikes that put civilians in jeopardy; (10) invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits brought by civil-liberties organizations on dubious technicalities rather than litigating them on the merits; (11) preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; (12) attempt to negotiate an extension of American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 (an effort that thankfully failed); (13) reauthorize the Patriot Act; (13) and select an economic team mostly made up of former and future financial executives from Wall Street firms that played major roles in the financial crisis.

All I’m saying is nothing is black and white anymore. No speech changes what I know to be fact. However, nor am I so blind with disappointment to not understand how much better he is than the GOP. Similarly, and this is probably most importantly, we must remember that change WON’T COME from any party or leader, but from the people…working to change policies, peoples minds, our own lives, and fight to elect REAL representatives not beholden to corporate money (i.e. they should pledge to refuse it...as my friend Norman Solomon has in his run for Congress)…among a million other things.

So while I don’t quite prescribe to Chris Hedges (who I love) opinion that voting is pointless and there is NO difference between the parties (see my op-ed on our scorecard for more evidence this isn’t true)…I agree with him on everything else. And what we agree on is far more important whether I will vote for Obama or a third party.

Instead, I just look as voting as the beginning of my responsibilities, not the end...and I'm very realistic about what it means now, unlike years in the past. IN California, maybe that means I vote Green or for Rocky Anderson (Justice Party)…maybe Obama if I see him really fight for some of the stuff he outlined on Tuesday. But, if I lived in Ohio or Florida, I would still, absolutely vote for the President...but again...I believe this is LESS important than building mass social movements now.

In the end, it’s about a system, a Matrix, that has been so corrupted, and it is that system that must change…which I will get to more in future posts (public financing STILL being the most important single reform we could have).

Iran Concerns…and the Drum Beats of War

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Or this from Martin Luther King Jr. 

“Any man’s death diminishes me because I’m involved in mankind…Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

Yet here we are, AGAIN. In light of the escalating drum beats for war on Iran, the INCREDIBLY erroneous reporting by our media (Iraq war anyone?) and the outright threats and lies coming from our government, both Congress and the Administration (don’t even get me started on the GOP clown car of candidates), and Israel of course, I find I must, yet again, set the record STRAIGHT on this issue.

First, as this may be very difficult for some to hear, it is the US and Israel that continues to perpetrate acts of terrorism around the globe, and towards Iran. It’s not just our drone strikes, but it’s also obvious that Israel, with our help, is murdering in cold blood, Iranian scientists (who have families and have done NOTHING TO ANYONE)…nevermind the slaughter and imprisonment of the Palestinian people.

But let’s take a step back (and keep in mind, this is in no way an endorsement of the Iranian government or their system of government…just a detailing of facts), and consider the objective truth: America maintains OVER 10,000 nuclear weapons (and have used them twice…the only country that EVER has). Israel maintains some 200 ready nuclear weapons (that we have supplied them with and they don’t even have to admit they have!) and has refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty (the same one we often ERRONEOUSLY criticize Iran for breaking), thereby avoiding the IAEA inspectors.

The inspection teams of the IAEA that monitor compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran belongs, have entered Iran numerous times and, while remaining suspicious, have not been able to find that country on the direct road to the Bomb. Let me say that again: there is NO evidence Iran is developing a SINGLE bomb.

When pressed (and that’s a critical point…only if pressed will we come clean), just a few weeks ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta himself said while Iran was developing a capability for making nuclear weapons someday, was not yet building a bomb…this is important Orwellian wordplay to understand. Anyone could be said to be developing the “capability” to develop a bomb…far different than “developing a bomb”. This, in fact, is their legal right…to enrich uranium for the purpose of energy.

It is also illustrative to know that it was America that funded and orchestrated the overthrown of Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953…(installing the dictatorial Shah who ruled tyrannically for the next 27 years). Remember, all of that, and today’s efforts to take them out yet again is about controlling the world’s resources, making money for our big corporations, particularly oil, keeping people afraid, and rationalizing our giant military industrial complex (and unquestioning and undying support for Israel)…among others. 

It was America that bankrolled the 1980 invasion of invaded Iran by Saddam Hussein, resulting in a million Iranian casualties…a country who hasn’t invaded ANYONE for 250 years.

Why are we being told to fear them then - a country with a national GDP smaller than Massachusetts? Iran is a nation WITHOUT a nuclear weapon, without having invaded anyone in nearly 3 centuries, and is COMPLETELY surrounded by powerful adversaries, including the American military on three of its borders.

It was George W. Bush who first labeled Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, one of the three "axis of evil," and then immediately bombed and destroyed their neighbor Iraq. Iran KNOWS that probably the ONLY thing that has kept us from taking out North Korea is because they DO HAVE nuclear weapons.  

 And also…why WOULDN’T Iran want a nuclear bomb when they are surrounded on every side by countries threatening to destroy them? So why, in the face of American and Israel thumbing its nose at nuclear non-proliferation treaties, be singled out as the threat? Why can’t they (though there’s all kinds of better ways to keeping them from getting one…which is obviously preferable) have one, if all of us do, including India, North Korea, or Pakistan? 

And, does anyone think that Iran, if they got a nuclear weapon would strike first? They’d be BLOWN OFF THE MAP by us and Israel. As I said, to what extent they MAY want ONE someday is so we won’t invade them, as we have nearly every other country in their region.

And what of Israel’s continued murder and occupation of Palestinians and their land? What of their failure to do ANYTHING for peace? When have they EVER taken legitimate steps, supported by the entire world (even the US supposedly) to adopt the 2002 Saudi Arabia peace proposal, reiterated since, that would open full diplomatic relations with some two dozen Arab and Islamic countries in return for an Israeli pullback to the 1967 borders and recognition of a Palestinian state?

As Glenn Greenwald noted, the facts about our own nations deliberate efforts to prevent reconciliation with Iran tells the story, and helps explain why these escalating drum beats for war was inevitable, orchestrated, and DESIRED, “Recently, Iran has experienced mysterious cyber sabotage, drone violations of its air space, the slaying of its nuclear scientists and the blowing up of its military sites, including a major missile installation. Israeli and American officials are not trying too hard to conceal this low level warfare.

Israel military historian--strategist Martin van Creveld said in 2004, that Iranians "would be crazy not to build nuclear weapons considering the security threats they face." Three years later he stated that "the world must now learn to live with a nuclear Iran the way we learned to live with a nuclear Soviet Union and a nuclear China....We Israelis have what it takes to deter an Iranian attack. We are in no danger at all of having an Iranian nuclear weapon dropped on us...thanks to the Iranian threat, we are getting weapons from the U.S. and Germany."

SNIP 

The war-mongers against Iran have often distorted Iranian statements to suit their purpose and kept in the shadows several friendly Iranian initiatives offered to the George W. Bush Administration.

Flynt L. Leverett, now with Brookings and before a State Department and CIA official, listed three initiatives that were rejected. Right after the Sept. 11 attacks, Iran offered to help Washington overthrow the Taliban. The U.S. declined the offer. Second, in the spring of 2003, top Iranian officials sent the White House a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve questions regarding its weapons programs, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel. This proposal was rebuffed and ignored.

Third, in October 2003, European officials secured an agreement from Iran to suspend Iranian uranium enrichment and to pursue talks that Mr. Leverett said "might lead to an economic, nuclear and strategic deal." The Bush administration "refused to join the European initiative, ensuring that the talks failed," he added.”

Yet here we are, with a Democratic President, putting sanctions on Iran (as we did to Iraq…leading to the DEATH of nearly a million CHILDREN), threatening a western boycott of Iran's oil exports (crucial to its faltering sanctions-ridden economy), and continuing to MISREPRESENT Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

Let’s be clear…invading Iran would be an unmitigated disaster, probably dwarfing that of the illegal invasion – based on lies – of Iraq. Should the flow of oil be blocked out of the Straights of Hormuz we will see the price of our gasoline, including heating bill and other related products, skyrocket. 

And if we invade…let us all PRAY that Russia and China do not come to their defense. Let us PRAY that Israel does not enter the fray – or perhaps more likely, START THE WAR THEMSELVES. We are, in many ways, playing with GLOBAL fire that could start a third world war…based, yet again, on LIES.

Once again, I turn it over to Glenn Greenwald: The drums of war should not move our country into a propagandized media frenzy that preceded and helped cause the Iraq invasion with all the socio-cide in that country and all the costly blowbacks against U.S. national interests? It is past time for the American citizenry to wake up and declare: Iran will not be an Iraq Redux!

I urge everyone to pay close attention to the kinds of Orwellian framing of Iran and the “need” (remember Obama got a standing ovation when he said “all options are on the table”) to protect ourselves (HA!!!)…by politicians and their war stenographers in the media…we must be prepared in a BIG WAY to take to the streets again, as we did way back during the Iraq invasion…we MUST BREAK FREE from the American War Machine Matrix that demands we must ALWAYS be invading someone. It’s all a big lie…a giant waste of money, life, and our very souls…and a desecration of the planet itself

Greater minds than mine have said it better…so please, don’t believe the hype:

I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism.
- Martin Luther King

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children..."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.
- Mahatma Gandhi

We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others.
- Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

War is a way of shattering to pieces...materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and...too intelligent.
- George Orwell