Category: Politics

A One-Term President?: The Choice

The American people now oppose the war, and it is folly to keep up a war without support back home. We will hear predictions of dire consequences if we don’t carry out a commitment, and don’t yield to demands of the military to expand forces. We heard that for years about Vietnam. But when we did withdraw, the consequences were not as fatal as those we incurred during the years that saw the deaths of over 50,000 of our soldiers and many more Vietnamese. Some leader has to break the spell before costs mount further while our wars are passed from president to president. Among other things, this will give our military a needed chance to repair the wear and tear on men and equipment that the overstretched regular services and the National Guard have suffered, and to make them ready for other challenges.

It is unlikely that we will soon have another president with the moral and rhetorical force to talk us out of a foolish commitment that cannot be sustained without shame and defeat. If it costs him his presidency, what other achievement can match it?

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he would rather be a one-term president than give up on his goals. Here is a goal no other president we can imagine would have a possibility of reaching. Presidents who just kick the can down the road are easy to come by. Lost lives and limbs are not.

Garry Wills | NY Review of Books

Letting Terrorism Win

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system. They didn’t allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice. Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country’s 2004 train bombings. The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London. Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali. India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents. In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

It’s only America’s Right that is too scared of the Terrorists — or which exploits the fears of their followers — to insist that no regular trials can be held and that “the safety and security of the American people” mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials. As usual, it’s the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of “strength” and “courage” to hide what they really are. Then again, this is the same political movement whose “leaders” — people like John Cornyn and Pat Roberts — cowardly insisted that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive: the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded. Given that, it’s hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world. It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate — it’s too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists — is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.

Glenn Greenwald | Salon

Afghanistan’s Sham Army

The American military has been largely privatized, although Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has still recommended a 40,000-troop increase. The Army’s basic functions have been outsourced to no-bid contractors. What was once done by the military with concern for tactical and strategic advancement is done by war profiteers concerned solely about profit. The aims of the military and the contractors are in conflict. A scaling down of the war or a withdrawal is viewed by these corporations as bad for business. But expansion of the war, as many veterans will attest, is only making the situation more precarious.

“American and Afghan soldiers are putting their lives at risk, Afghan civilians are dying, and yet there’s this underlying system in place that gains more from keeping all of them in harm’s way rather than taking them out of it,” the officer complained. “If we bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, we may profit morally, we might make gains for humanity, but moral profits and human gains do not contribute to the bottom line. Peace and profit are ultimately contradictory forces at work in Afghanistan.”

Chris Hedges | TruthDig.com

Domination Rules

Thanksgiving dinner, year 2000, all the grown-up talk was about the election and the unfolding travesty of the Florida recount. Around our all-progressive table the consensus was that Gore had won despite gross violations of election law, but that the Republicans were waging a better recount battle.

I surprised myself remarking that it was probably better if Bush won, because if his side lost they would get really angry, then hostile, then violent.

From election night forward, the Bush gang made my case: the mob of political operatives that terrorized the vote counters; the rolling of the pathetic Joe Lieberman on military votes; and, especially, the contrasting styles of pitbull James Baker versus pussycat Warren Christopher.

Add a right-leaning Supreme Court and Al Gore never had a chance.

Gore’s main mistake, which the nation made with him, was believing in an American democracy where having the law on one’s side matters and where voting decides elections.

In fact, America is a nation where having the power to force one’s will on others generally trumps the law and where money, not voting, decides elections. Continue reading Domination Rules

Obama’s Viet Nam

Why We Fight
There is that oil pipeline from the Caspian that no one wants to talk about. Strategic control of energy is certainly a major factor in Central Asia. Then, too, there is the fear that a defeat for NATO in its first “out of area” war might fatally damage the alliance.
But when all is said and done, there also seems to be is a certain studied derangement about the whole matter, a derangement that was on display July 12 when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament that the war was showing “signs of success.”
British forces had just suffered 15 deaths in a little more than a week, eight of them in a 24-hour period. It has now lost more soldiers that it did in Iraq. This is Britain’s fourth war in Afghanistan.
The Karzai government has stolen the election. The war has spilled over to help destabilize and impoverish nuclear-armed Pakistan. The American and European public is increasingly opposed to the war. July was the deadliest month ever for the United States, and the Obama administration is looking at a $9 trillion deficit.
What are these people thinking?

There is that oil pipeline from the Caspian that no one wants to talk about. Strategic control of energy is certainly a major factor in Central Asia. Then, too, there is the fear that a defeat for NATO in its first “out of area” war might fatally damage the alliance.

But when all is said and done, there also seems to be is a certain studied derangement about the whole matter, a derangement that was on display July 12 when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament that the war was showing “signs of success.”

British forces had just suffered 15 deaths in a little more than a week, eight of them in a 24-hour period. It has now lost more soldiers that it did in Iraq. This is Britain’s fourth war in Afghanistan.

The Karzai government has stolen the election. The war has spilled over to help destabilize and impoverish nuclear-armed Pakistan. The American and European public is increasingly opposed to the war. July was the deadliest month ever for the United States, and the Obama administration is looking at a $9 trillion deficit.

What are these people thinking?

Conn Hallinan | Foreign Policy In Focus

Because They Can No Longer Say “nigger, nigger, nigger….”

Obama’s big healthcare speech — and the hooligan response from the GOP — should have made clear to everyone in America, except perhaps Obama himself, that there will be no bi-partisan anything between the President and this republican party.

Catcalls from a joint session of the Congress is just the newest low for a group that somehow manages to out-shame itself daily. This batshit lunacy followed “indoctrinating students” which followed death panels which followed birtherism and on and on.

We waste time and energy trying to reason our way through any of it. These people made up their minds years before Obama was elected: “no nigger is going to tell me how to run my life. And I’m armed to the teeth and angry as hell if you wanta try.”

It was not that long ago that their parents and grand-parents turned nigger-lynchings into social affairs, with photographs to record the happy events.

As a nation we’ve come a long, long way. But a segment of our population — the GOP’s base — is rooted in that time, and will never accept a black man as President.

Hence their endless attempts to delegitimize him.

My fear is that they will ultimately get their lynching. They already got us to accept that they can show up to his events armed — something that never would have been allowed for any other President.

At some point, the President and democrats have to cut the bi-partisan appeals and make clear that we are moving on to a better nation — one that honors diversity and that manages actual universal healthcare —  and that the angry reactionaries of the right will not be coddled, listened to, respected, invited in, excused, or re-elected.

Michael Sky

Last Call for Obama

Tomorrow is Obama’s big healthcare speech. This is his last chance to significantly alter the downward spiral of American culture.

We are dying a slow death of poison-by-status-quo. The way America has been doing things — financially, militarily, medically, and environmentally — is not only not working, in each area our actions are so unsustainable that continuing on the same path can only lead to massive chaos and human suffering.

In each of these areas, Obama came with a sense that he definitely got it and was prepared to usher in monumental change. Financially and militarily he has been, at best, a continuation of Bush. Bankers are still getting richer while the rest of us get poorer, and we’re still dropping bombs on Iraqi and Afghani civilians in pursuit of policies that benefit no one but military contractors.

Environmentally, he has been better than Bush, barely. But mostly he’s still defending status quo industries like coal and automobiles when, again, what the planet needs is monumental change.

Healthcare “reform” has been the hardest to watch. When we discount the people’s voice right from the outset — strong majorities of patients and doctors favor a single payer system — it’s a clear sign that the status quo is ruling the day.

The unsustainable status quo in American healthcare is insurance and pharmaceutical industry profits, including shareholder dividends. That is the main reason American healthcare costs too much. It is unconscionable to have a great nation brought to ruin, and for its people to needlessly suffer, so that a small overfed elite can make money.

That’s what Obama needs to say. When they scream “Socialism” he has to say “Yes, when it comes to healthcare, that is the best way.” He has to unequivocally remove the profit motive from American medicine.

If he fails, then the status quo rules, and a once great nation continues its downward spiral.

Michael Sky | Thinking Peace

Healthcare Reform, Not

“It will basically be a government law that says you have to buy their defective product,” says Dr. David Himmelstein, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a founder of Physicians for a National Health Plan. “Next the government will tell us a Pinto in every garage, a lead-coated toy to every child and melamine-laced puppy chow for every dog.”

“Health insurance is not a race to the top; it is a race to the bottom,” he told me from Cambridge, Mass. “The way you make money is by abusing people. And if a public-option plan is not ready and willing to abuse patients it is stuck with the expensive patients. The premiums will go up until it is noncompetitive. The conditions that have now been set for the plans include a hobbled public option. Under the best-case scenario there will be tens of millions [who] will remain uninsured at the outset, and the number will climb as more and more people are priced out of the insurance market.”

Chris Hedges | CommonDreams.org

Nearly every other advanced country has a largely nonprofit national health system that guarantees universal care. Even countries with private insurers, like Switzerland and the Netherlands, require uniform prices and benefits and limit profits. Not only are expenditures much lower in other advanced countries, but health outcomes are generally better. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, they offer on average more basic services, not fewer — more doctor visits and longer hospital stays, and they have more doctors and nurses and hospital beds. But they don’t do nearly as many tests and procedures, because there is little financial incentive to do so.

Marcia Angell, M. D. | HuffPost

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really “foreign” to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we’re Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we’re Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we’re Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we’re Burundi or Burma: In the world’s poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can’t pay stay sick or die.

T.R. Reid | CommonDreams


No Shame in Being the Sorry Party

If in your eyes America can do no wrong, you should really look into Lasik surgery. Theres the rational, mature assessment of our country: that its a great nation — especially if you like fried foods — but it also has its faults. And then theres the Republican view: that its perfect and pure in every way and its always right all the time, just like Leviticus and Ronald Reagan.

If the founders were alive today, Republicans would be giving them shit because the Preamble to the Constitution says, “In order to form a more perfect union? Hello, its already perfect! Why are you suggesting American apologetics, Ben Franklin?”

One of the things that makes Republicans furious about our current president is their idea that Obama is always apologizing for Americas biggest mistakes. Unlike President Bush. Who was one of Americas biggest mistakes.

In his first week as president, Obama did an interview with Arab TV in which he said, “We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect.” Thought crime! And then he went to Cairo and violated one of those absolute eternal rules the Right Wing is always making up out of thin air: “The president must never apologize on foreign soil. Lest our allies begin to doubt that were assholes. ”

But what did Obama actually say to make Karl Roves head explode and the popcorn fly out? Cover your childrens ears: When he was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he said he did, the same way “the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism.” Yes, our so-called president actually said people in other countries might like their countries better. I was so shocked I nearly dropped the Bible I was using to help me masturbate into my gun.

Bill Maher | Huffington Post