DisPolemic

Testing the Costs of Wealth

2012-01-24T12:51:00.003-05:00

In discussions last week after a State House press conference, I proposed the hypothesis that, in consideration of the deleterious effects of wealth inequality, if the most wealthy Vermonters were to leave the state because taxes were made higher, we who remain would actually be better off.

I would like to know how this might be tested.

I can of course imagine a number of variables, including taxes which depend upon "residence". Of course, when the deleterious effects of wealth disparity are taken into account, I don't see why anyone choosing to live in Vermont part of the year but locate out of state, to avoid taxes, ought to be treated with any special consideration.

Taxation is only one way to reduce wealth disparity. Taxes can be used to encourage companies and corporations to share more wealth with employees, to invest more in environmental remediation, to convert to worker ownership, and to convert to non-profit organization. Any of these alternate uses of wealth help to distribute wealth and in the course of lowering disparity increases the value of the incomes at the bottom of the scale. My favorite idea: make the tax rate contingent on some socially relevant criteria, such as the ratio of highest and lowest incomes, the ratio of profit to total of wages, or the ratio of profit to capitalization. Lower corporate taxes could be realized by spending profits on wages, environmental remediation and other social goods.

The key to prosperity under the regimen of low wealth disparity is that the quality of life is not dependent on actual income, but on the feelings of security and community we can sustain. As the top earners are less distant from the bottom earners, the quality of life goes up less because of increased incomes, and more because our interests in public education, safety, health, governance, and the solutions to these problems, all converge, because we tend to converge on shared solutions, and because the tendency toward a greater sense of a shared fate leads to greater shared well-being.

This vision of prosperity of course deviates from that which has driven public policy for the last three decades. On the political right, "prosperity" is marked by "wealth creation", which, conveniently for the proponents of this definition, opportunely falls into the hands of the already wealthy. The alternate definition of prosperity is marked by attention to the well being of every member of society, of the health of the environment, and of the Earth. Wealth is a tool, not a goal. It isn't the size of the pie that matters, it is how fairly, with how much care, the wealth is made to work for everyone.

What's Next for the 99%?

2011-12-29T13:23:00.008-05:00

The Occupy movement in Vermont has felt widespread support from the community. But it has not been adept in including those supporters in its process. How can folks who identify with the Occupy Wall Street movement be part of the movement? Surely not by attending a General Assembly! There would never be enough room for everyone!

Folks active in the movement and folks who are not, I think, have this common interest: To find a meaningful way for every Vermonter who is sympathetic to the concerns of the Occupy movement to participate and propel the change we want to see. From down here on the ground, "How can we extend our sense of empowerment to the full diversity of the 99%?".

There are deep questions about what those concerns actually are, and what the values are that drive those concerns, but answers to the question might be simpler than expected, and more interesting, for supporters of the movement.

Many of the values and methods of the Occupy movement come out of Anarchist thought. Like the Trojan horse and liberal democracy, it carries within it the seeds of its own destruction, and the seeds of profound creativity. These seeds invite anyone to participate, to define a purpose and a goal, and pursue it. In an interesting coincidence, it distills to the state motto of Vermont: Freedom and Unity, That our personal freedom is protected by our unity, that our unity is lost if we exercise our freedom to the detriment of those around us. It is a profound paradox, and the ignition point of potentially profound creativity.

Which means that the answer to the question "What are the goals of the Occupy movement?" is probably held within you. YOU know exactly what those goals are, because you help to define them and express them. When you act on them, you participate in creating the world we all want to live in.

But doesn't the Occupy movement have goals? Aspirations? Isn't there an organization setting policy? If I am not signed up and paying dues, how do I (or does anyone) know I am part of the movement? How do I know I will be accepted as contributing, and how do I gain some control over what other people are doing? If there is no authority, no hierarchy, no precise definition of the ideals of the movement, "How do I find the boundaries of what is possible?". Who will hold me accountable for my actions?

As I understand it, yes, there are goals and aspirations, and no there are not. Chief among them is liberation from hierarchy, so no one else decides for you what they are. So no, there are no goals and aspirations which are dictated to you. The values goals and aspirations are determined culturally, by conference, collaboration, and relationship. The dues you pay to join this movement are the efforts you make to discover your power, and to connect with other people who are discovering their power. They are the efforts you make to create relationships with other Occupiers in which you are a leader among leaders. The dues you pay are contained within the effort you make to work out your actions as an equal member of a community, in which your team is equal to every other team, in which our clusters of teams (working groups, trust groups) are equal to that of every other across the nation and the world.

Americans are generally not accustomed to non-hierarchic cultures, where privilege is eschewed. The culture of Occupy intends to change that. Occupy your heart. Occupy your humanity. Occupy your authority. Occupy your right to be. Occupy your being. Occupy with us.

To me, the Occupy movement is fundamentally about building a culture and building community based on that culture. Privilege withers where people insist on relationships of equality. Community is the chief strategy for combating the ills of privilege, and it relies on mutual accountability. We are accountable to each other because we are all equal in our authority. This is the root of our freedom and our unity. We can do what we want to, but expect others to sometimes disagree, and tell us as much. Since there are no police, no priests and no judges, we can keep doing what we want to, with whatever support we might or might not get from the rest of the community. It is commitment to prosperous coexistence which holds us together. It is the understanding that "I must make the world safe for you so that you will want to make it safe for me.", which compels mutual accountability and doing the right thing.

As a person accustomed to the hierarchy of American society, emerging into equality has been a profound experience. By itself, I don't think this vision is sufficient for managing the affairs of the world, nor even of a small state like Vermont, but the vision isn't complete. And the vision is a culture, an evolving organic cluster of possibilities, not a rigid set of rules which preordains the solutions. We all get to participate in creating the world we want to see, and we do have some great challenges to meet!

Once you know that you identify with the Occupy movement, all that anyone needs to do to participate, then, is form a group - two typical forms are working groups and affinity (or trust) groups* - develop a plan, and take action. This openness might seem utterly cavernous. There are numerous ways to get grounded.

The first is the most natural in a new, uncontrolled environment: To ask "Why am I here?". Your sense of connection to the Occupy movement is your reason for participating. Another good question is "What do I want for myself and the world that connects me to the Occupy movement?". And, "How can I put force behind the change that I and the Occupy movement advocates?". Answering these questions leads you to specific actions that you might want to take.

If you are already active, in an anti-war group, in domestic violence education, in promoting community solidarity, in feeding people, if you are doing these things to empower people, to build a culture of mutual care, you are already involved. Now, just say to people, "This is my Occupation!".

Other ways include reading the blogs, "friending" or "liking" the Facebook pages, picking up some of the new books about the Occupy movement, surfing the internet for news and discussion, and generally engaging in self education. One place to start is our web page, occupyburlington.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page. Probably the best way is to connect with people who are active in the movement. The General Assembly is a logical starting point for meeting folks, but not necessarily the most friendly. They are business meetings and do not conduce to conversation. A new person would attend to find out what the current business is, and to be there at the end to meet other people. Another way is to join an existing working group.

Beyond these actions, I would have to ask you, "What do we who are active in the movement need to do to connect with you and assist your organizing?". What are the natural channels of communication where you would expect to see us and you do not? How can we help you in ways that we are not? What needs doing that we are not doing, so you can connect? Answers to these questions can be entered as a comment to this blog. Later, with demand, communication will open and we will become more adept at connecting with you, and the full diversity of the 99%. There will be channels. We need to work on them. (There is no organization and no one is full time!)

In recent conversation, some of us have come to see movement development not as recruitment, but as communication and empowerment. Our job is not to tell you or anyone what is right or how to get there, our job is to establish those lines of communication, to empower people to act in accord with conscience, and fuse these diverse interests into a unified effort. Our goal, I think, is to connect us to each other, to build the community that becomes the world we want to see.

This is what the Occupy movement is about for me. The other issues, such as the decay of democracy, profligate consumerism, pathological corporate greed, are expressions of the way our society has failed to achieve our goals. Along side of the destruction of a corrupt, bankrupt system, we have a vision of a new world which is really the only world that is sustainable. Any thing you can do to help us get there is part of the plan, and a great way for you to participate.

(* Foot note: A "working group" is a committee. It is defined as being open to anyone, and as operating by consensus. An "affinity group" - aka "trust group" - is a small cluster of people who work and train together, and because membership is by agreement of the members, bond and develop trust that is not possible in a working group. Other groups using other definitions are also possible, at the discretion of the participants. The key is that the participants decide how to implement their values, with an expectation of mutual accountability.)

P.S. Anyone with the patience to join a still incubating working group, and interested in building the communication channels for the 99%, might look up the google group for Community Development , a working group whose mission is "Visioning our future and our success, as a community and a movement, in the full diversity of the 99%", for the entire state of Vermont.

Democracy or Oligarchy?

2011-10-20T11:31:00.001-04:00

The radical right promotes privilege over democracy. They use democracy to leverage more privilege, then use added control over the system to further undermine democratic institutions. Most people who support the radical right are in the 99%, and with the disassembly of democracy they too will be driven toward economic insecurity.

Our movement must be vigilent to include all of the 99% when we interact with opponents. They fear the loss of privilege, of the entitlements of American wealth, but they build their hopes on sand - the oligarchs will impoverish all of us to guarantee their own position.

So we must gently remind our opponents, for most of us the choice is democracy or shared poverty. Democracy isn't easy, it includes no-privilege, but it does allow shared prosperity, as a result of cooperation.

The literature of the right says "the inevitable effect of democracy is that the masses will vote to take the wealth of those who have worked to earn it." [paraphrase] They know what the choice is and so must we: Democracy or Oligarchy. Which do you choose?

Reality has a liberal Bias

2011-08-30T21:39:00.001-04:00

At Think Progress dot Com, Joe Romm cited a commentary by Paul Krugman in the NY Times,republicans-against-science . They can speak for themselves on these topics, but I found these comments (at Joe Romm's blog) especially spot on.

cervantes says:
August 29, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Indeed. This mad rush back to the 12th Century should no longer be treated as just another political position. Conservatives like to complain that most scientists – and for that matter, most academics – are liberal, which they take as evidence of bias in the university. Nope. The university hires people who study and think. It’s reality that has a liberal bias, and it’s not just evil and terrifying, it’s just flat stupid that people who systematically deny reality get to be a political party, get respectful treatment from the corporate media, and get to hold powerful political offices. They should be laughed out of public life.
Reply
Tim says:
August 29, 2011 at 6:44 pm
By the criteria that define "liberal" now in the minds of "conservatives", the claim that academics are liberals is becoming truer by the day. As for scientific community, academic or otherwise, a 2009 Pew study found that only 6% of U.S. scientists now identify themselves as Republicans. 50 years ago, there was no such extreme rejection of the Republican party. As one editorialist I remember reading concluded, "it's not the scientists who have changed, it's the Republicans."

I have been arguing that "Yes the media is liberal. Honest Journalism is inherently a liberal activity". Krugmnan and Romm's commenters merely document the retreat of the conservatives from any pretense of authentic truth telling.

Tax the Rich Because That's Where the Money is.

2011-08-24T18:14:00.000-04:00

What happens when the guiding principle of an economy is to promote wealth?

The claim is that the opportunity to accumulate wealth motivates people to engage in economic activity. Putting aside whether people need a chance to get rich to be motivated (is that your motivation?), how is wealth accumulated? On the street it is called "The Profit Motive", and indeed, the explicit goal of business is to maximize profits.

What happens when the guiding principle of an economy is to maximize profits?

The value of the work done by wage earners and salary workers is split between the workers and the profits. And as worker productivity climbs, the value of the work done is split between fewer and fewer workers, and profits. But the split favors profits, not wages, and then competition for remaining jobs goes up, putting even more downward pressure on wages. It is the inherent tendency of for-profit business to eliminate workers, and reduce the amount of money paid to remaining workers, hence the money returned to the economy is doubly reduced, and demand for goods and services doubly depressed. As profits increase, the ostensible stimulative effect of a business having more money is canceled by the real effect of regular folks having less.

Putting aside the charge that the owners have "stolen" their profits from the workers, to whom does the ownership class expect to sell their goods and services if the wages they pay aren't proportional to the worker's productivity? That we are in the midst of a depression results directly from the simple contradiction that arises from this uni-polar ideology: All profits, all the time, no social investment, no sharing, no greater community well-being to worry about. And as a result, the economy grinds to a stop.

This would seem counter-intuitive to anyone who believes that the drive for profits drives the economy, but the drive for profits, the need to produce wealth from wealth, is the problem. It is the drive for excess profits which causes people and corporations to cut corners with worker safety, wages, social capital, the environment, etc. It is the drive for profits which sucks the productivity of the workers out of the economy and puts it into the bank accounts of people who already have more than they need and aren't inclined to spend it. The dirty little secret of capitalism is that if corporations were forced to spend their money - or lose it to taxes - the stimulative effect on the economy would be huge. But they are sworn to return their profits to investors. Who just take their money and look for new ways to accumulate more wealth -- but where are the new investment opportunities coming from when most people don't have enough to live on and can't afford what that new business might be selling?

Small "s" socialism, the idea that government protects the well being of the entire community of citizens, with high taxes for the wealthy and corporations, is a natural counterbalance to the drive for profits.

But similar results are possible otherwise. Corporations could be required to adhere to a triple bottom line - which includes social responsibility. Hence higher wages would be paid, people would have money to spend to meet their needs, and the economy would be more stable. We - the society with its various intellectual resources - could develop metrics to determine the real value of labor, and force corporations to pay the real value. One very helpful change would be to strengthen the social safety net, so that people in retirement are not fixated on high returns on their investments. We could have a progressive income tax for corporations, wherein the greater the profits, for the amount of capitalization, the higher the rate of taxation would need to be paid.

For example, one of the problems we have right now is that the really big corporations have big piles of cash they're not spending. They took the discretionary portion of their worker's productivity for profit, so the money is not circulating, and put it in the bank, or maybe paid dividends. But under the right kind of pressure they could be hiring people, repairing environmental damage, improving working conditions, and the economy would be stimulated by the improved incomes of ordinary people.

Let's not confuse the need to have a sustainable livelihood, and the "right" to accumulate surplus wealth. If we were to think in terms of ensuring that people have the means to make a sustainable livelihood, a healthy life and a comfortable retirement, and made (excess) wealth accumulation a suspect activity, economic activity would support healthy communities and people, and really ambitious people just wouldn't have quite as much as before.

And let's not forget that when the government collects taxes and spends money, they are hiring people, buying goods and services, and generally stimulating the economy. How is this not productive economic activity? Let's answer that from two viewpoints: For those who are rich and heavily taxed, THEY have less money, but does the economy? For those who benefit from those jobs, incomes are spent to acquire those things people need, the definition of prosperity. For the economy, the labor produced can be very cost effective, since it might mean education, health care, improvements to roads and infrastructure, protection of the environment, maintenance of parks, etc. These are all things that no one person would benefit from enough to pay for alone, but do benefit everyone enough to share in the cost of. It is a shibboleth that the government does not create jobs. The government, like any business, is a locus of productivity activity. The questions are "how do they get the money?", and "Is it meaningful work?".

Government gets its money by taxing us, and through a miscellany of fees. When we pay taxes, we are paying ahead for things we have decided - via democratic process - that we want. In business, we some times do this, such as in a CSA, a club fee, or a subscription, but usually we pay after the goods or services are produced. Here then the question is one of accountability. Most pay-after business is reserved for private enterprise. Accountability is at the cash out. Government is where we, the community and citizenry, lodge the pay-before economic activity, because is it accountable via democratic process. Do the politicians and the bureaucrats deliver the goods? Do they provide real services that are needed by people generally? We must be ever vigilant. (And when they contract to for-profit businesses, how do we hold them accountable?) But building schools and health clinics, hiring teachers and doctors, giving care to the elderly, are all very meaningful to general well being. And consider the improvement to the quality of life when parks are maintained and adolescents have good after-school programs for social, physical and intellectual enrichment! Consider the value of protected forests and clean water!

The problem is not that the government cannot produce any thing worthwhile. The problem is that some people want to maximize profit, by keeping wages low, taxes low, regulations few, by avoiding protections to the environment. They do not see government as the institutional expression of the community, where shared goods are paid for at large. They see the government as a competitor for economic activity and profit making. I say "Too bad!". I see our government as the place we - the people - go to do things we need to do together, and to guarantee general well being. Profit-making is inherently dependent on cutting corners that results in costs to other people. We all want a sustainable income, and profit making is inherently unsustainable because it cuts into the sustainability of the jobs which hinge on it.

The other dirty little secret of capitalism is that if profits are taxed and spent by government, MORE economic activity is produced than by business, if, as is now the case, there is so much money languishing in bank accounts. And when they tell you that new regulations just suppress the economy, they are snickering all the way to the bank. Let's look at Australia, which is in an upheaval because of the carbon-tax that has been implemented. Opponents charge it will reduce economic activity. But the money paid in taxes is going to be spent. If the government spends it to correct for the distortions it created by taxing carbon, the result will be huge new economic activity to build low carbon-emitting, sustainable infrastructure. The only parties that will be hurt are directly dependent on carbon, but soon enough even they could shift out of carbon and be part of the sustainable economy. No substantive harm in the long run. Only harm to profits.

The complaint is heard that the 50% of the country with more than the median income pay 78% of the taxes. But they also control 98% of the wealth. Shouldn't they be paying 98% of the taxes?

The most wealthy people, and corporations, assert they have made their wealth and deserve to keep it. I say, the economy produced their wealth and they happened to be in the right place with the right investment when the money came gushing out of the spigot. Who gets the wealth in good times is who must give it up in hard times. What is difficult to understand about that?

"Who Ya Gonna Believe?"

2011-08-18T15:29:00.014-04:00

Consider please the commentary posted by John McLaughry on VtDigger, as found in the link in the title of this essay.

Let me not, then, dwell too much at length over the hyperbole, distortion, selective use of evidence, and demagoguery, in which Mr. McLaughry so passionately engages.

Let me just call to mind the pole to which he is drawn: He believes in the privileges of power and scoffs at the idea of a community in which we - everyone - are mutually accountable. That society might be a community of equals escapes him, and that poverty for many might attend prosperity for a few, is irrelevant. That taxation might be a legitimate way to maintain well-being, and even a healthy economy, across all income grades, is simply unthinkable to him. The only ideal, as for so many Libertarians, is individual "freedom", which to me looks like "red-in-tooth-and-claw", "I'll-do-what-I-damn-well-please-no-matter-how-it-affects-anyone-else" misanthropy.

But here is the worst part: HIS IDEOLOGY, as Libertarians are known to say, IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH DEMOCRACY. At the kindest, he elevates junk logic and demagoguery (Mr.McLaughry, please notice I am attacking your words and not you) to the status of commentary in the name of free speech. At the worst, he reflects (his rhetoric is consistent with) the views of people who would like to overthrow the United States Constitution and replace it with a Christian theocracy.

If the flaw of this intention is not obvious, the briefest clue I can offer is the one I can ask:

       In whose world are we all free to live: that one which
       values everyone and in which everyone has a voice, or that
       one in which only a selection of fortunate elites benefits
       from the Earth's bounty?

The objection of the extreme (and present) right is that wealth is taken for general good. Oh the horror! Once earned, again multiplied, under the efforts of the individual, it is unjust, it is wrong, they say, for the government to take that wealth to meet the needs of the community. Mindful that the government is where the people conduct their business, the radical right calls it oppression by democracy, the theft of wealth by people who did not earn it, through the autocracy of the mob. As rhetoric, these claims might seem sensible, but in any realistic sense they are laughable. If the conditions of democracy and mutual accountability, in which wealth is taken to support government services, are too constraining, would a state of chaos, such as Somalia today or Europe over its centuries of warfare be better?

The complaint of the left is that the right takes no responsibility for the general good. How, except by violence to people and the planet, is privilege to be maintained? At issue is whether our societies will provide opportunity to all of its members, through equal access to education, health care, housing and healthy food, or only to those endowed by prior good fortune to have the money to buy opportunity.

And of you I would ask: From what plate do you eat? Do you live in a silo of wealth making you immune to the slings and arrows of the modern world? Or are you dependent upon the good will of family, friends, strangers, and that institution upon which we depend to effect the common good, our government, for your safety and prosperity?

This is a values war. If you haven't heard a liberal say this recently, probably that is because the tradition of liberal democracy was thought sacrosanct, a foundation so precious we didn't think it needed defending. Yet it is. To witness the policy goals of the Far Right, it bears saying: We do not tug across a pit of mud from which all will emerge to pull another day. We pull across an abyss from which the loser will emerge, if not a corpse, then badly damaged. Sounds crazy, but those are the stakes. Push back time (for the benefit of my metaphor, "pull back time") is now. What are your values?

Not every Republican will want this battle. And it really is not a battle of right against left. It's a battle of absolutism against the messiness of the pragmatic middle. I would hope that practical, community rooted Republicans will be as scared as I am of the Corporatist-libertarian anti-democratic agenda. If you want to save democracy in America, Now is the time to say so, and to push back against the radical right agenda to destroy government.

To see a prominent intellectual connect the dots, go to Democracy Now! and watch the War and Peace news program for August 17, 2011, and the profile of Michelle Bachman in particular.

Bigger Government by the people who fear big government

2011-08-01T12:20:00.002-04:00

Why is Congress considering a bill to force IP companies to preserve user data? Is Congress sure we need a data base with the name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, of every internet user? Surely real criminals can be tracked without making every innocent American into a criminal-in-waiting? Let us remember that law enforcement exists to protect citizens, not to criminalize them, and that government exists to serve the people, not to be protected from the people.

Bills like HR 1981 putrefy the American ideals of democracy. If there is a real problem to be solved, let's find a better way.

Wealth Is Not Free

2011-07-18T16:54:00.002-04:00

Let's talk about wealth and taxes.

Survival is a personal thing.

Survival is a community thing.

Survival is a planetary thing.

Greed is when a person endangers the systems by which other people, the community, and the planet survives, in pursuit of more than they actually need.

(When a person endangers systems in pursuit of exactly what they need, in the absence of a less destructive way, it is called desperation.)

Personal survival may seem the most natural pursuit of any person. But do we need to choose between personal and community survival? I think we are asked to think so, by persons who have what they need and don't care to share. They reckon it helps them to keep theirs if everyone else believes that personal resource security is the only form of security.

Or, as the political right tells us, "Government isn't the solution. Government is the problem." (Try interchanging "community" and "government".) They want us to believe that using the government to solve broad, shared problems is a danger to personal solutions.

Which is true if a pipe that leads to your bank account is under the spigot of wealth. If you have managed to exclude all of the people who usually just wait at the edge of the fountain pool, you certainly would not want to be told you must also wait for the pool to fill and to take your share with everyone else. You would want the police to protect your right to take more than your share, and you would promote the idea that survival is strictly a personal problem. "I got mine. You can have yours if you can get yours." Convenient for you.

Bad for everyone else. In a hunter-gatherer society, this behavior would be severely constrained. Personal survival does depend on community survival, and greedy behavior can endanger the entire group. That selfish behavior would be unsustainable in the group, and would be stopped. (See Colin Turnbull, The Forest People) In fact, such selfish behavior still is unsustainable. But now the scale of survival is planetary and epochal. Big lag time on accountability today.

And it is not true that personal security is an individual problem, if you are willing to wait for your share at the edge of the pool. Then you do need the authority of community, of elders, of the community council, or your government, to protect you, and to force that big-wealth-bully to conform to community norms. You need full mutual accountability. You need fairness, sharing, and cooperation, at the pool of wealth.

So yes, each of us must seek personal survival, even prosperity, and we can survive, even prosper, within the limits of what the community and the planet can sustain. And no, we do not need to choose between personal and community survival. We can have both, we must seek both, and we must seek harmony of both. As we have always, in ways that define our humanity, over tens and hundreds of millennia, balanced these interests. And certainly we cannot choose between personal and planetary survival.

But we must re-imagine what "prosperity" looks like. We must combat the fallacy of individual resource-based security (money, property, and investments are ephemeral) which militates against community-based security. We must remind ourselves of the prosperity and security we derive from relatives, friends, community, and from the state whose officials we elect and hold accountable, and that these relationships require healthy and sustainable systems. We must work to protect and enhance these systems. We must be willing to let some of our wealth be taken by the community for community goals, such as grouting the fountain of wealth. We must seek sustainable ways to get what we need, ways which are not stained by the impoverishment of others. What is not sustainable on a systems level is not prosperity. Nor is it survival. It is an illusion of prosperity. It is poisoned water.

So no, this is not about the end of ambition. Ambitious people seek solutions. Not greedy ambitious people seek solutions which are of benefit to everyone and the planet. We need creative, ambitious, community-minded people to do their things. Let us design appropriate rewards for our innovators. How about a sustainable planetary eco-system, healthy communities, good schools and medical care, the highest esteem of neighbors, and healthy children? Does any one need more?

And no, this would not be the end of prosperous living. This would be the end of unsustainable excess. This would be the beginning of sustainable abundance for all persons, of healthy habitats for all life, and of a planet glowing green and blue with healthy living systems.

Help debunk the lies. We do not need to choose between personal and community prosperity. We do need to say that the systems of community, of democratic self-governance, and of planetary health, are the best pathways to personal prosperity. People of great wealth do not have an automatic privilege to keep their wealth. Harm comes to people, communities and the planet, when that wealth is not put to work through projects the community values.

There is plenty of wealth out there to pay off the national debt, especially since much of it was gotten from lower taxes during a time of war, when those who wanted that war were not asked to pay for it. Let them pay for it. And then tax them until they begin to feel a real need for the security of healthy communities and a healthy planet.

Tailings

2011-06-07T06:57:00.000-04:00

Since my last post, I have had op-eds published in VtDigger, have testified at hearings of the Vermont Senate Health and Welfare committee, and have communicated with folks at the Equality Trust, a non-profit founded by the authors of The Spirit Level, Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. My ambition is to present the material found in this text and to promote the ideas it contains.

Also between then and now, I encountered a web site called PayUpNow, which features the gross underpayment of taxes by large corporations. I have posted it here for the value it might give you.

Anyway, I came to the blog this morning to learn how to email my posts, as I might post more often if an email gets me there. I am anticipating an increased need to post.

Pandering To Wealth

2011-04-06T11:14:00.000-04:00

I was disappointed when Governor Shumlin declared his opposition to any new taxes for the wealthiest Vermonters, but when I heard John Campbell second that opinion I was outraged. Has the Vermont Democratic party been infected by the illness afflicting the rest of America, “Protect the Wealthy”? Why are we protecting the right of people to get progressively more wealthy while the country, the states and localities suffer from big budget holes? While the national scene seems beyond redemption, and other states cannot be protected from here, I thought that at least Vermont, little, go-it-alone Vermont, would do the right thing. Especially astonishing for me was Shumlin's assertion that “we need these folks to stay around. They'll leave if we tax them too much.”

I'll self-censor my expletives. Who is twisting their arms? Who is making the right policy for Vermont too painful for the Governor and the President Pro-Tempore of the Senate to advocate for a more balanced tax policy? Why are our progressive leaders allowing themselves to be bullied? Am I wrong? Is this a function of thoughtful, independent concern for Vermont? I am not just upset with them as politicians, I am worried for Vermont that we are seeing the rhetoric of the far-right affecting our policy making.

I would like to say to who ever it is that has been talking to Shumlin and Campbell, “You know, if you like your money so much that you don't want to help the state out of its hole, the state doesn't need you.” My house representative Jason Lorbor claimed that more wealthy people are moving into Vermont than are moving out. Vermont has its quality of life, which is so attractive to out-of-staters, and the willingness of everybody to trust and help each other is at the core of this life. To cave in to the pressure of people who don't want to be taxed is to undermine the sense of community which is so essential to that Vermont quality of life. According to a caller to Tuesday's Vermont Edition on VPR, there are at least 60 Vermont millionaires who want to be taxed more so that the state will not need to cut essential services. Who care, apparently, about their fellow Vermonters and want to help out. These are the people that help make Vermont the great place it is.

I smell political arm-twisting. When we consider the willingness of many to pay more, and the income windfall that resulted from the extension of the Federal tax breaks, whatever is the logic of protecting these wealthiest Vermonters, it produces a very unattractive stench. Has anyone uncovered an explanation for this pandering?

I don't begrudge any one the right to earn more than most other people, but I worry about the ever widening gap between the most privileged and the most unlucky, destitute, and vulnerable among us. We have no reason to worry about wealthy people. We need to worry about the wealth-less. There is no benefit to the poor and middle class in “growing the pie” of wealth, if the slices don't get any larger, in fact get smaller, for the humblest of us.

Republican Party Obfuscates

2011-03-22T15:15:00.000-04:00

THERE IS STILL TIME TO VOICE YOUR CONCERNS REGARDING THE SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE BILL SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM

H.202, the House health care bill will be debated in the House on Wednesday, March 23rd and Thursday, March 24th. In addition Senate Health and Welfare Committee will be holding public hearings on S.57 – the Senate version of the health care bill. These hearings will be held on Thursday, March 24, 2011 in Room 11 at the state house for Vermont business community, employers and employees; Thursday, March 31, 2011 in the House chamber for the Vermont consumer community; and Thursday, April 7, 2011 in Room 11 for the Vermont provider community.

Do not let these opportunities go by. Now is the time to voice your concerns and to ask those questions which seem to have no answers. Email or call your Representative(s) now as H.202 is being debated in the House. You can also testify in person at the Senate hearings noted above or submit written testimony to the Senate Committee by emailing Agatha Kessler at akessler@leg.state.vt.us. The Senate bill can be found here.

Most Vermonters will agree that the current system has serious problems primarily because of its escalating costs and lack of built-in cost containment. In addition Vermont has 47,000 uninsured, half of whom are eligible for Medicaid, leaving approximately 24,000 Vermonters without insurance. In response the Administration and majority legislature are pursuing a completely new approach to health care. However, the question needs to be asked: Aren’t there better ways to deal with rising costs and the uninsured without completely changing the current system, driving insurers out of the state, and imposing government control over our health care? Aren’t there other approaches to be considered? For example, why not open the market up to the insurance industry across state lines to lower the cost of premiums, get serious about tort reform, continue to tweak Catamount to help the uninsured and continue to follow the Blueprint for Health to improve outcomes for everyone rather than turn the whole system upside down when we don’t even know where we are going?

As you may know, the House and Senate health care bill does primarily three things:

It lays the groundwork for development of an Exchange. The Exchange is intended to serve as a marketplace where Vermonters can compare and purchase health insurance. The federal health care reform law gives states broad authority regarding the operation of exchanges, including how many there are within each state, the breadth of the population included in the exchange, and the requirements placed on insurers who provide coverage to exchange enrollees. This definitely sounds good and as conceived by the federal health care reform law does have potential – except that the Administration believes they can use the Exchange as a platform to get to single payer/universal health care and are trying to only let one insurer into the Exchange – even though federal law requires more than one insurer in the Exchange. The Exchange would become operational in 2014 and the Administration is proposing that the Green Mountain Health Reform Board would develop a plan for the legislature by 2012 to supply the details of the Exchange design.

The Administration is proposing Vermont include in the Exchange employer groups with fewer than 100 employees (expanding the current small group market from up to 50 to up to 100 employees). They also propose that state and municipal employees (including teacher unions) become part of the Exchange, and that Vermont integrate Medicaid, Medicare and workers’ compensation medical payment coverage into the Exchange. A number of waivers will be needed to accomplish this.

It establishes the Green Mountain Health Reform Board. This 5-person Board would be analogous to the Public Service Board and would be appointed by the Governor. The Board will control the entire $5 billion health care system. Members would be responsible for all aspects of development of the Exchange and the design of the single payer system. They will develop cost containment strategies, including payment reform, design the benefit package under the single payer/universal health care system and set the budget and the global payments to providers. This Board would also be given the authority to review and approve health insurer premium rate increases. The cost of this Board is estimated to be approximately $1.3M/year.

As proposed, the Legislature is completely cut out of any governance process and has no means of overriding the Board’s decisions. Immediate concern has been expressed by legislators of both political parties and by Vermont’s health care providers because all decisions would flow through this group. The power of this group is beyond anything Vermont has seen because it is essentially in command of 20 percent of the state’s economy. The tough decisions will be made by the Board, not our elected leaders, and in so doing, the public is largely removed from the debate as well.

It puts in place the superstructure for the single payer/universal health care system but with no details. The Administration will ask for permission from the federal government to transform the Exchange into a publicly financed Exchange, which would be the single payer system. At that point, current premium payments by individuals and employers would be eliminated unless an employer chooses to continue providing health insurance coverage. All Vermonters would receive coverage by virtue of their residency for a package of health care benefits, coverage would not be linked to employment and most Vermonters would pay into a system for financing this coverage. This would be the single payer/universal health care system. The Administration has yet to propose the financing mechanism for the single payer/universal health care system, and will not do so until 2013 through the Green Mountain Health Reform Board.

All employers will be “asked” to join in the single payer/universal health care system as the state is not permitted to mandate participation; however, all Vermont employers will be subject to the payroll tax, assuming that is the financing mechanism chosen. If an employer chooses to keep its own insurance covered, that employer would be paying twice (once through the payroll tax for single payer/universal health care and then for its own insurance plan). Finally, the Administration has stated that employers would be free to provide supplemental coverage to their employees, financed completely by the employer/employee, on top of the payroll tax.

Using the payroll tax as the way of financing the system raises significant equity issues. Those who do not have a taxable wage would pay nothing as well as those at the lower end of the income scale. Those Vermonters remaining would shoulder the burden, in return for what most people would consider to be drastically reduced benefits.

As you can see there are many unanswered questions. For instance, how will this reform be financed and why is the financing proposal being delayed 2 years? The net effect will be to destroy the current system and begin to replace it before we know what the new system will cost. This will result in a de facto single payer/universal health care system. By its very nature, the proposal eliminates the “safety net” of a private insurance market; will there be a Plan B in case things do not turn out as expected? Will it be sustainable over time?

What will happen if Vermonters get care outside Vermont – will it be covered and what will Vermonters have to pay for it? How will border issues be addressed, i.e., if a New Hampshire employers have employees who live in Vermont, and vice versa? What will this plan do to the business environment in Vermont? Will it encourage or discourage new businesses?

Finally, what about state employees? Will they be required to be covered under the single payer/universal health care plan? Their right to bargain for health care benefits is in statute (3 VSA 904 and 3 VSA 631). If the state requires that they be covered under the single payer, the state would have to repeal these statutes, taking away their bargaining rights. The loss of bargaining rights would also apply to educators and municipalities. Being able to bargain for “wrap-around” or supplemental insurance will do nothing to contain costs and will raise questions of single-payer/universal health care equity. See the AP story on this here. According to the current version of H.202, the state will select an insurer to offer one plan with two levels of out-of-pocket expense. On January 1, 2014 those will be the only choices available to individuals and small businesses to obtain health insurance coverage in Vermont.

The fundamental problem is: there are currently no answers to basic and important questions. Vermonters are being asked to go along with a plan without any answers and are being asked to just trust that “they” will release the details later. Can we do this with our health care system that is $5 billion and 20% of the state gross product? Why is the plan being pushed through so quickly? Why at the last minute does H.202 now refer to single payer as “universal health care”?

Reach out to your State Representative(s) and Senator(s) now and require them to slow down the process. All that needs to be done right now is to allow the Exchange to go forward in accordance with Federal law. The Administration and the Legislature can then pursue alternatives that will begin to address cost containment, establish performance measures and assist the uninsured without expending $1.3M/year in support of the 5 member Green Mountain Health Reform Board. It will take time to develop the right system for Vermont and we should move ahead deliberatively and thoughtfully, engaging the public and having answers to questions at the ready to ensure public understanding and commitment rather than pushing through a bill that does not provide answers to basic and important questions. Your concerns are being heard. H.202 as passed out of the House Health and Welfare Committee now requires a fiscal analysis from the Legislature’s Joint fiscal Office by April 21st. So keep asking those questions and sharing your concerns.

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Stephen Marshall March 22, 2011 at 3:00 pm

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

You’re not up-to-date on the bill. The house committee has issued a working draft to create a nominations board, with two year terms for 11 members, essentially just to identify qualified persons for the Green Mountain Care board.

I can understand doubt about the benefits package, since it hasn’t been created so far, but you have no right to assert they will be “drastically reduced”. You just don’t know. And two things: The people planning this thing will be covered by it, too, so its not going to be shabby, and those who want additional coverage will have the entire insurance market to get it from.

The arguments you have used to slow things down are edge issues. A complete and detailed plan would be terrific, but as yet we have not found any crystal ball to figure out the best plan. The fact is that these details will be resolved by thoughtful people from all political parties and there is no reason to worry about the pace. The fact is that the costs of health care are accelerating so fast we cannot afford to wait a year before implementing a plan to change the system. And besides the fact that the current system is a market failure, and there are thousands of people who need health care and are not now getting it, once the destructive properties of the profit motive are removed from the health care and health care financing systems, the terrific efficiencies gained will make Vermont a great place to do business.

Insurance is the Wrong Model for Health Care

2011-03-18T07:55:00.002-04:00

As the citizens and legislators of Vermont consider a plan to displace private insurers from the essential care component of the health care delivery, I wonder why they wouldn't be relieved to get out. After all, the purpose of insurance is to protect the customer from an event that is possible but not inevitable, is not likely, and is terribly inconvenient, giving the customer reason to avoid the event. To me, this does not describe essential health and medical services.

For us, the people of Vermont, the services of doctors, hospitals, physical therapists, mental health therapists, midwives, chiropractors and so on, are routine, necessary, and, if not desirable, amount to the desirable response to another, actually unwanted, "event". In fact, the growth in deductibles tells us that the insurance companies don't want this responsibility either, and are doing exactly what the insurance model predicts they would do: they are offering more and more plans with larger and yet larger deductibles. Here are some numbers:

Between 2003 and 2009, premiums in employer-based plans, depending on the plan type, increased in Vermont in a range from 32% to 54%. And as a percentage of median incomes, these premiums went from 15% to 17.4% for singles, and from 14.4% to 19.4% for families. That's a painful lot of money that is cutting a lot of people and businesses out of the market. But meanwhile, deductibles for employed singles increased two and a half times (+148%), and doubled (+112%) for families with employer based insurance (Commonwealth Fund, 2010). But the deductible is the cost zone where essential care occurs, and these plans are only helpful in the event of - I am repeating myself - the unlikely and undesirable. I think the insurance companies do not want to be in the essential care business.

Simply put, the insurance model is the wrong way to pay for health care. If I buy a shirt, the retailer is happy when I take my shirt with me, and is happier yet when I wear it out and want more shirts. In the insurance business, what I buy, the seller hopes I will never use. And as the chances of my unlikely event occurring increases, the insurance salesman wants less and less to sell me any thing. His (her) best customer is the one who needs that product least, or not at all!

The problem for Vermont is that even though the insurance market does not want to, and cannot, provide what the people of Vermont want and need (universal, reliable, affordable, accessible health care), they also don't want to get out of the way so that we, the people of Vermont can provide it for ourselves. Could the insurance industry please answer this question? Why are you resisting a public system to pay for essential health care? In 2003, 58% of insured Vermonters had a deductible. In 2009, 71% had a deductible. Do you really WANT this job?

Most Vermonters think it's about the money. But how much is the essential services sector really worth to you? Is your profit in the essential care sector really worth more than universally accessible, quality health care is to Vermonters?

The Fate We Choose

2011-03-13T22:30:00.008-04:00

I asked my pharmacist, “Have you been following the debate over single payer?”
“No.” he said, “I don't think it's going to happen.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“The insurance companies won't let it happen. There is too much money involved.”

If we were not on a national and international stage, we might only be asking “What is the best way to deliver health care?” But the debate here in Vermont – our debate over single payer health care delivery – is much larger than how to best deliver health care. It's even larger than the the question “What is the relationship between the citizen and the government?” This debate is about the question “What do we want our lives to be like?” What is the reason for life? Why are we here? Why are we engaged in the democratic experiment? And “What fate shall we choose?” Is it our goal for everyone to have a reason to live and a quality of life that justifies living, or is it our goal for some few to live richly, while the vast majority of people live from pay check to pay check, at risk of eviction for any episode of ill health, eating second rate food? As the income gap widens, as the federal budget shrinks and college becomes less accessible, parks are over-run by commerce, as police and fire departments are halved or eliminated, as class sizes grow and arts and music disappear for our children, as the middle class disassembles, as the uber-rich cut environmental law exceptions for themselves, allowing them to pollute with eternal impunity, the fate of the poverty class awaits the middle class.

We are in a fight for our lives, our nation, and humanity. Confronted nationally by a declining quality of life, by increasing insecurity, the dogma being shouted is to preserve the right of a few to get rich. Too many of us believe this dogma. Confronted by downward mobility, we are told to blame the government for “spending too much”, for excessive social welfare, for too high entitlements. We are promised that if we reduce taxes, reduce even the bulwark of the middle class, Social Security, even while the rich get richer and the regular people become poor and then poorer, our wealth will come. They will invest with their hyper-exuberant tax savings, they say, the economic pie will get bigger, they say, and those jobs will restore prosperity, they say. Really? Do you really believe the uber-rich will not just keep the profits for themselves? Confronted by the end of the middle class, we desperately hope these promises will reverse the slide of our fortunes. But these promises are the cause of that slide.

How is it that keeping more tax money enables the uber-rich and corporations to invest, when their bank accounts are fuller than ever and corporations are hoarding money? While the US spends more on its military than all other countries combined, how is it the same political-right that demands lower taxes also takes the military budget off the chopping block? How is it that just when the political right has finished its spending spree, and the priorities of an economy in recovery under their political opposition take hold, then they call for austerity? How is it that just when the Treasury must begin to repay America's debt to the Social Security Trust Fund, just when the people of the nation need their collective safety net most of all, then they call for cuts in Social Security benefits, lest taxes must be raised. Whose money are they saving?

The extreme political right is not just unwilling to pay for their own priorities, they want to destroy the social safety net. They will do anything to advantage their own accumulation of wealth, even destroy the democratic experiment we are living. Read the libertarian literature. They want to end taxes. But without taxes, only oligarchs have money, and an end to taxes is an end to democracy. They say “Freedom is incompatible with democracy”, because democracy promotes tyranny of the majority. They show no temperance, no self-restraint, no regard for the commonweal. They are prepared to destroy our system government. And with their control of the right-wing media machine, they are succeeding.

And they will go to any end to prevent us from instituting a single payer health care system, because our success will endanger their project to make America safe for Oligarchy.

If we allow our political and economic policy to be guided by the anti-government pseudo-populism, only one political principle applies: The ends justify the means. Do any harm needed to hold and keep wealth and power. Scream, lie, distort, manipulate, steal, kill, take, hoard, what ever is needed, get it. Truth be damned, science be damned, justice be damned, the fate of the Earth be damned, the fate of other people and our democratic experiment be damned! Just get power. And blame the government for everything that goes wrong.

They would have us forget the power we have, demonize our institutions of collective action, and accept the slight of hand by which their wealth accumulates in ever deeper piles, while our nation, the first nation founded by the people, for the people, is stolen from us. They conveniently overlook that the government is us. They want us to forget that from we the governed comes all of the power. That the government is the institution through which we effect our common goals. They plan on us being hypnotized by the drumbeat of “get yours, you are alone”, and that we will lose the ability to fight back, make this our nation, make this a nation that is just, make this a nation in which lives can be lived with hope.

The choice we have is between living like the Japanese or Norwegians, whose lives are quite good, or like the Pakistanis, the Libyans, or even the Somalis, whose countries follow the writ of Libertarian-Capitalist self-interest. In countries with high social equity, like Japan and Norway, in the vision of our founders, and in our country until the Libertarian attack, two principles are (or were) joined in the means (by which ends are accomplished): the rights of personal voice, prosperity, and well-being, and the responsibility of a shared fate. In a just society, advocates for different ideas of how to create that nation seek a shared solution that aims for the most good for the most people. And it is in the resolution of different principles and visions that meaningful solutions are found. In an unjust society, only one principle applies. That one principle which destroys opponents. The principle of power. That one principle which we must summarily reject.

We have decided that “Health Care is a Human Right” because our conscience tells us we must, because whither the law, prevailing opinion or the demands of national security, we know that the better life it produces for individuals produces a better life for everyone, even those who can afford all the health care they could want, and that makes it the Right thing to do. Access to health care, education, healthy food, sound housing, are absolute human goods. We decide to call them “Rights” because we need to, we must, push back against the belief that “to get wealthy is a right, and for you to be impoverished is not my problem”. To get wealthy is not a right. And to be impoverished is not necessary. (Read extensive research by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level, Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Bloomsbury Press, 2009)

We must fight now for health care as a human right with everything we have. When the advertising rolls out telling us about the great plans the insurance companies have to improve health care, when they charge that taxes will increase, when we are attacked with the label “Socialist”, when they talk about their passion for the health of patients and what a great job they do, we must answer their distortions and lies with truth, we must forcefully tell how they fail to deliver health care, and we must remind everyone: all they want is our money – they do not care about us. They haven't delivered, they can't deliver, and they won't deliver, the health care we need, because affordable health care for all, because health care as a human right, for profit, just isn't possible. It's a social project that only we, the people, through our government, can undertake.

Which fate do you choose?

Korean Foresight

2011-01-12T09:38:00.002-05:00

I wonder whether the United States government, with the United Nations, has made any plans in the event of a humanitarian disaster on the Korean peninsula.

While the danger of real military conflict has declined in recent weeks, the regime in the north is surely unsustainable, and it would seem that any collapse scenario would present the international community with the same scale of disaster - especially since it could already, now, qualify as a disaster zone. Sooner or later, the international community will need to take responsibility for the essential needs of the North Koreans, and making plans for that eventuality would seem, to me, prudent.

Such planning might also facilitate the collapse of that horrific regime, as it might give confidence to the Chinese that they would not be subject to a massive and uncontrolled surge of refugees, and therefor would allow them to withdraw support for the North Koreans.

An internationally agreed plan, construction of infrastructure in China and South Korea, and massing of resources, would surely reduce the ultimate suffering of the North Korean people, and greatly accelerate their eventual integration into the international community.

WIKILEAKS is a necessary counter balance to excessive government secrecy.

2010-12-16T10:55:00.006-05:00

It is a citizen duty to counter the oppressive potential of powerful states with appropriate CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

Powerful people in powerful states are jealous of their prerogatives. Most of the angst over the leaks is about maintaining control. For the people, who must cope with abuses of power, any weapon that aims to frustrate the abuse and minimize harm to private citizens is justified and necessary, the sensitivities of powerful people not withstanding.

Wiki-leaks is a product of too many secrets, secrets without merit as such. Were the documents being disclosed riddled with information endangering sources and relationships, because the rest were already in the public domain, very few people would support Wikileaks. But that is a Wikileaks in a different universe. In this, it provides an important public service of challenging power.

If we the people could not get information that is deemed secret, we could never be sure that in-power sources of information have told the truth. Leaks per se are needed to help us calibrate the truthfulness of our government, and Wikileaks in particular has shown us just how much unnecessary secrecy there has been.

In the United States, this is not a right-left issue. People with roots in the left and the right worry about over-bearing government. This is a concern around which Libertarians and Progressives might easily find consensus.

THIS SORT OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IS NECESSARY FOR DEMOCRACY AND A WORLD SAFE FROM THE ABUSE OF POWER BY GREAT STATES.

Will the accused leaker Manning be martyred for this cause?

The Great Void: Democratic Political Theater.

2010-11-04T10:43:00.002-04:00

Mr. President:

I wish to give testimony on the changes in our political culture, and what I, as an avid supporter of you, and your vision and agenda, need from you.

The Bush years were painful for me, as they were for many Americans, because of the arrogant violations of the Constitution, United States law, international law, and human rights, and the crass gaming of emotions and media for political, not shared, gain.

Your vision, of reason, debate, compromise and transparency, shone like a beacon in this darkness, beckoning to all thoughtful, compassionate, reasonable people, to rally behind someone who would try to restore our national dignity and our hope for a peaceful, prosperous, shared future.

I believe that your efforts have largely followed that promise, although I am uncertain or disagree with you about some things you have allowed to happen (indefinite detention stands out). I don’t know that you were able to discipline your majority into serious willingness to compromise with your opposition, and I can’t tell whether the failure to compromise started with your team or the other team. I do suspect that the other team would not ever “compromise” unless they simply got their way. So I cannot tell whether you have made a complete effort, but unmistakably, the opposition has stonewalled, obfuscated, subterfuged, demonized, misrepresented and lied, about the intents and the effects of your policies. They have even condemned what they have previously agreed with, to soot your eye.

I have taken the developments in rhetoric and posturing very seriously, because even taken as political gaming, they result in real policy and cultural attitudes. I have been very pained by the explanations given for the economy, and the spin given your initiatives, by the opposition. But I have been most pained by the failure of the Democratic Party to produce effective counter spin and alternative explanations. I think you have tried to focus on the work of being President, which is what I would want for you. But your absence from the public theater of rhetorical sword-play has left me, us, your base, without the tools of combat, without the words and images to confront, to cancel, to invert, the words and images given us by the opposition, on behalf of you, and our shared vision.

I know that political theater is not in your heart. You are a serious man who wants to get good things done for the American people. But it is in the theater of the media, where perception and deception control, in the arena of the media, where vicious, irrational, emotional, combat, is normal, in not merely a leisurely market place of ideas, that the terms of contest are defined and the outcome is decided. You are controlled by this thing that you loathe. But that seriousness of purpose and principle, which animates you, as quick injures that seriousness of purpose, if because of it you fail to perform that most essential task in modern American politics – creating the words, images, and mythology with which your advocates can do rhetorical battle.

Mr. President, Mr. Obama, Please, we need you.

The vision of America as defined by the right is unsustainable. It drives global climate change, ecological collapse, and the kind of economic insecurity which puts people to rioting and to waging war. We need you, not just to do rhetorical battle, but to take the offense and with brilliant use of media to make visceral to the American people why the increasing disparity in wealth is dangerous, how climate change will change the world whether we are ready or not, why population and consumption must be limited if our civilizations are to survive. I need you, as my surrogate, because I do not have the leadership skills or the brilliance of purpose with which you are endowed, to ask this question: Is it better for individuals to get rich, while the world around them is tortured by insecurity, or for the leaders of the world to promote security for all, even if the right to get rich is curtailed?

Americans have forgotten how much they are dependent on each other. Surely the ambitions of individuals produces benefits for all. It must not be punished. But with equal certainty, not all of the wealth produced under the efforts of individuals belongs to them. Do they stand self-made like silos on the ancient soils of human beginnings, as though unaffected by history, by the labors of parents and previous generations, by the willingness of those alive today to participate in their endeavors? What principle decides how much wealth belongs to the individual, and how much belongs to the community? How does the community acquire its share of that wealth? Governments, the institutional expression of the community, to be democratic and responsive to their citizens, must be pay-as-you-go. Our governments cannot engage in profit making enterprise -- that is a privilege of the individual! How are governments, to benefit the community, supposed to divert some of the wealth produced privately into services needed by all? How can the institutional expression of the community realize the resources needed by that community, that share that rightfully does belong to the community, but by taxing for them? Ultimately, the great need of the people is to be secure, not to get rich, and their right to be secure must be protected, even over the supposed right to get rich. That some people want to get rich is not automatically bad for the rest, if the energy of their ambition benefits the community. But if people want to take and keep and share none, they are using the infrastructure of community and what the community has paid for without giving back. The “right” to get rich is not unlimited. It must be balanced by the imperative to channel some wealth into the commonweal.

The primal motive of life – to survive, optimally to reproduce – is at the center of this question. Here, in our time, the question bears down on us with awesome weight because we face both personal and shared survival, even while the interests and right action of each are frequently not coincident. The drive for personal wealth accumulation, even while communities decay, manifests this fact. But while life may go on without a given individual, no individual can go on with out the services of the Earth’s ecologies. And these, verily, fundamentally, are not guaranteed, and are at risk. So this is our choice: To hope for survival through the agency of insecure personal wealth, or to invest in shared, common survival. I do not doubt which is the better gamble, but Americans are daily more persuaded otherwise.

This blindness renders me to despair. Please, Mr. Obama, because you can, mobilize your party, push for the think tanks and media mobilization, get in the fight, counter the counter factual, go head to head with the myth makers, put the brilliant and creative people that overflow your doorstep to work, making the political and media theater that we need, now, to save our futures from the wretchedness to which we are now subscribed.

Surely to use media theater is dangerous for integrity. But even fire-fighters set fires. We need you to join the fray.

Answer to PrinterFillingStation, A "Christian" Website

2010-10-17T12:39:00.002-04:00

.
Principles of the PrinterFillingStation :

I'm listening to "Speaking of Faith", now called "Being", on public radio. They are talking about civility. This letter is my civil response to your web site.

I have found that refilling my ink cartridges is the only way I can keep my printers in ink. My previous provider went out of business. So I encounter your website and at first it looks to be exactly the kind of service I need.

Except wait, these people are using their Christianity as part of their marketing. Not? As a non-Christian, I never ask what the religion of a web site owner is, and I accept people for who they are, if they don't push their views into my face. But that is what you are doing when you announce your religious views. So I won't be buying from you. So your announcement of religiosity doesn't serve to evangelize me, or many others who feel as I do. It appeals to those who already believe, and achieves nothing more than to solidify the boundaries between "Christian" and "Non-Christian", and perhaps attract customer's who favor "Christian" businesses.

My admiration for Christian beliefs goes to those Christians who quietly go about doing what they see as God's work. To push God's words while ignoring God's injunction to treat all with respect and gentleness looks most like blatant, and hypocritical, self-promotion. Your conspicuous display of religiosity, corresponds to the apparent desire of the evangelical and fundamentalist communities to "take over America", which I greatly fear. You, as evangelicals, by conspicuously displaying your religious views, invoke that ambition, and arouse in me existential fear. (Because the tyranny that devolves from evangelism when evangelicals get power (to judge from the bigotry directly at Muslims) is an existential threat to American democracy and freedom, and to my own atheism.)

Go on doing what you do. I will disappear over the horizon, and appreciate all the more that I live in and prosper in a diverse community where many religions, and non-religions, coexist with respect and humility.

Of course if it is your intent to alienate non-Christians, you have succeeded, for which you deserve applause. In translation from my sentiments to your language, may God gentle your hearts enough to see and accept the differences between us. I am otherwise afraid of you.

I write this as a gesture of humanity, to inform you of how your website reads to some people outside of your circle of awareness. I hope it has helped.

2010-10-08T20:09:00.003-04:00

Sustainability. A word with as many meanings as there are problems to solve. To ask, “can this be done more sustainably?” barely stirs the imagination. But to ask “Can this be done completely sustainably?” begs the questions “How sustainable do you mean?”, and “What does ‘sustainable’ mean?”, “What does ‘sustainable’ look like?”, “How do we know when we are there?”, and “Is there a ‘there’ to get to?”. The argument is cogently made that with technology, culture, opportunities, and the relationships between nations and peoples, changing so quickly and so dramatically in our times, sustainability does not have a steady state. Sustainability must examined on-the-fly, almost opportunistically, because resources available today can’t be counted on for tomorrow. But without a steady state, can anything be marked as ‘sustainable’?

Whatever sustainability is or looks like, Carrying Capacity is its metric. How many people, with present cultural attitudes, resources, and economic constructs, can this human and natural habitat support? For how long can it support the number of people already living there? What changes in cultural, economic and resource use practices, will stretch out the time this community has, reduce resource consumption to replacement rate, and provide a living for the people who are already there?

It may be that carrying capacity cannot be calculated. It may be that the factors are too many and the interactions too complex to specify a number. If this is true, the endeavor delivers its value in asking the question. If we cannot speak of a number, we can speak of the variables, and describe the system in terms like the hydrologic cycle, or the flows of energy from the sun through the living community. We can identify specific economic practices in a community which promote stable long term development and its long term health, and those which make the community prone to instability, endanger the formation of an economic ecosystem, and make people insecure. We can identify cultural attitudes which are problematic, and those which support community survival in the long term. We can identify the resources which are in danger of exhaustion and how to reduce consumption rates to replacement rates. By introducing the concept of “carrying capacity” as a legitimate factor in decision making about economic development, we can introduce the ecologists language of resilience and redundancy, and bring to bear the eco-economists concerns about natural capital and the values of conservation. By introducing the concept of “carrying capacity” into decision making about economic development, we place economy and humanity’s survival unequivocally WITHIN the realm of nature and ecology. Carrying Capacity, as the metric of a vision, discards the paradigm of perpetual growth, and concretizes a vision of the human-landscape relationship which truly speaks to the seventh generation.

Perhaps most fundamentally and significantly, when we ask “How many people can this economic-cultural-resource landscape support?” We recast economy from the traditional man-over-nature paradigm, into a humanity-within-nature paradigm. Instead of proposing to watch a distant horizon where faith in an unknown future is based on perpetual growth and led by the consumption of goods by ever more people, and instead of suffering the cycles and destructions of unanticipated and unintended effects, the study of carrying capacity proposes to examine a given community for its potential as an ecologically robust, persistent, and sustainable place for people to live, in a just balance with each other and nature. The study of carrying capacity shifts our focus from the opportunist economics of today to an equilibrist economics of a long history for humanity on Earth.

Carrying Capacity is a neglected problem. Not a single course at UVM this semester has it in its title. Economists from the extreme right to the extreme left get away with talking about perpetual growth by ignoring the question of carrying capacity. People are misled to believe that the future can be “better” (ever more prosperous materially) because no one reminds them that as there are more and more of us, available resources must be spread more and more thinly and cost more and more while wages are forced down. People are not told that the global economy – and therefore the interconnected local economy – will become ever more vulnerable to natural disasters and disruption as population strains harder against the limits of carrying capacity, and that the loss of privilege by uninformed people will arouse enough anger in them to start a revolution. Americans do not realize that the loss of privilege is an inevitable consequence of sharing the planet with ever more people, and that the anger that drives them to violence is one of nature’s safety valves. Fragile systems are brought down by war and economic destruction, robust systems made fragile, and war lords and dictators take over in times of chaos, and the economies under these regimes are notoriously unproductive. Many people, when they have revolted against the loss of privilege, will lose the privilege of life, and the most of the rest will lose the privilege of regular meals. This is the inevitable consequence of ignoring the issue of carrying capacity and doing nothing to adjust to it.

By ignoring the limits of carrying capacity, fewer and fewer people have access to the natural world and the cleansing power of wilderness. And for more and more people the only ecology of significance will be the human ecology of the city block, where in the guise of homo sapiens, there are browsers, predators, degraders, and carrion-consumers, there is an upper canopy, a mid-canopy and a forest floor, each with it’s own cohort of healthy and strong survivors, and weak and decrepit, running the gauntlet of natural selection.

Here, on the city block, the human community has already been forced off of the land. It is stacked six, ten or forty layers deep, penetrating the sky, and penetrating the ground with people in tubes, densely packed people, moving “efficiently” from place to place, as if having so many people shoulder to shoulder, leg to pole, eye to ceiling, would increase the richness of the human experience on this Earth. Already, the people are packed in and satiated with the surrogate love of celebrity, the danger of criminal violence, with vicarious human love through the things they buy, by the hyperized reality of TV, with the sexualized street, by the drugs they consume to feel good or feel not at all, and the perpetual drama of anonymous human-to-human contact. Or not, for the homeless, the untouchables, who wander about in the detritus of loneliness, and trying live from the dregs of the excesses of the rest. Here, already, in the city, the carrying capacity of the land has been multiplied and manifolded by extending the regions of its dependence across vast expanses of country.

The city packs in its multitudes by concentrating food production in the hinterlands, efficiently distributed inwardly by networks of trucks and trains and planes These networks distribute our food, and the things we use, the waste we create, and the power we advantage for our comfort and survival. Oh yes, the city definitely uses less power, and probably fewer resources, per person, than for the people who live in the rural parts, but are these people who are connected and resolute in their humanity? Are these people who could cook their food if a black-out wrapped the city in darkness? Are these people who could grow their own food if the cost of fuel for the trucks and trains grew too high? Are these people who feel safe to walk barefoot? Are these people wrapped in the abundance and generosity of green pastures, running brooks and black night skies? Here, in the city, people do not grow into calm adulthood in the steady and predictable habitats of the country side. They grow into the kinetic adulthood of someone whose whole existence is defined by the human built environment and human built social ecologies. Here in the city carrying capacity hinges on the frail certainties that food produced hundreds and thousands of miles away will be healthy, that it can and will get to every different person, that jobs can be held for long enough to pay off a mortgage, paid every month for a period of 30 years. Yes, we need to speak of the carrying capacity of the city, because it draws on resources and produces waste, and depends for its stability on human culture and reliable economic institutions. But the human community that lives there has no awareness of its dependence on the 100 and 1000 mile distant forest biota to clean its piped-in water, knows nothing of its dependence on illegal farm labor, accounts not all for the destiny of its waste.

Here, on the city block, there is no nature to fall back on in dire times. The block that is paved from curb to curb, joined to the buildings facing the street by concrete, that may face a park with a few tufts of gnarly grass, plenty of packed dirt, and a cracked-blacktop basket ball court, the city block walled in by brick faced buildings laced with fire escapes, the city block served food from the occasional vegetable market and quick food store, the block, inundated with liquor stores and porno shops, where the revered jobs are dealing drugs or pimping, where taking money for sex is one of few career choices, barely meets the needs of its inhabitants. Every thing here is human built, squeezing out every last efficiency from the human-nature interface, making it highly efficient, of particularly high carrying capacity, and of particular danger to the mental and physical health of its residents. Like rats in a cage, the city has very little of the nature that gives life its context and people access to opportunities. The city is that ecosystem that we use to pack in more and more people, exchanging freedom and resiliency for efficiency. To live here, for those who lack education and employment, is to live in the trash heap of the economy, where the poor and disenfranchised, the unvalued, can be packed in and ignored, can suffer their humiliations without recourse to justice. For the underclass, the city is where the vaunted “efficiencies” take on the darkness of oppression.

Oddly, for the survivors, there is more freedom here than for the wealthy who are equally bound by the efficiencies of urban life. Those who live without privilege can critique and ironize the social and economic arrangements of the city without fear of disrupting any critical self-deceptions. By contrast, the wealthy must maintain a level of decorous self-deception that they are in control of their lives and that it is a good life. Even they must face the ugliness of grey and brown and black city landscapes, the smells of urine in doorways and the subways, the perpetual appeal of beggars, and lonely, anonymous nights. For those with money in the city, it can be a fun place to live, because consequent to its efficiencies, great concert halls and sports stadia, exciting arts scenes, unsurpassed educational opportunities, and wonderful places to eat, to share with friends, can be supported. But all of this depends on systems built by humans, subject to the quality of their own security and willingness to do an honest days work. Unlike nature, which persists as long as the sun shines and rain occasionally falls, the ecology of the city only persists as long as people cooperate to make it work. When human energy flags, then also the ecology and the actual carrying capacity declines.

Of those who have, few can stomach the knowledge that their life style, and the economic and social bonds which they have been built up over lifetimes of work, are endangered, by global warming, the end of the oil bubble, and pressing resource competition. Few can acknowledge that the pressures from increasing populations, declining wages, and increasing costs of power and goods, will inevitably erode, perhaps destroy, that assumed quality of life. There are many Americans today, so accustomed to the perquisites of the age of cheap carbon, who will not adopt low energy light bulbs, who will insist on driving large, high fuel consuming vehicles, who say “We are a high carbon society, and we ain’t gonna change.” If that’s how they want to enter the next phase of human history, who’s to challenge them? But it is a dangerous posture to take, since oil and even coal are finite in quantity, and with mushrooming human populations, there is no chance that plants will significantly replace them.

Change is already happening. Some communities, and many citizens, notably here in Vermont, know they and we need to kick the carbon addiction. But in the vast swaths of America where the idea of global warming and the importance of an ecologically healthy planet is denied, where the declines in incomes and the standard of living are being met with denial, where the idea that their lifestyle is the problem, is denied, that denial is the problem. They keep a faith in a prosperous future that could never materialize, because it is a future from the past, from a past when oil was cheap and America was still a resource frontier. Either in degrees or in some cataclysmic moment of revelation, the impossibility of this dream will be scorched into the minds of Americans as they realize that their hunger is not transitory, their poverty not caused by indolence, that crime wells up from within their own thoughts. Already Americans form “militias”, with real and deadly weaponry, to counter the “oppression” of government, and actually make violence an option!

The changes in America are not purely a function of carrying capacity violation. The economic collapse of 2008 was partly driven by the unsustainable pursuit of profit. But though greed is not strictly a response to the challenge of fitting more and more people into a finite physical and economic space, the keyword is “unsustainable”. In the study of carrying capacity, we examine sustainability. The question “What is our carrying capacity?” cannot be answered without a critique of such monumentally unsustainable practices as caused this crash. Carrying capacity cannot explain everything, any more than the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere explains all weather, but operating in the background, the thinning distribution of resources is felt in myriad ways, including the downward mobility of people who never before doubted their place in the middle economic bracket. In prior times, militias have served to counter the prevalence of political or economic oppression, even though far less populous, but we cannot say that they were not responding to their felt constraints, the limits set by the carrying capacities of their economic, social, cultural and resource regimes. And today we can certainly say that people whose forebears went to the frontier for freedom and opportunity are talking about literal gunfire and rebellion to hold onto their privilege.

Carrying capacity is neglected in popular economics and the culture broadly, precisely because it is not an academic question, to be played with in the ivory tower. It isn’t Drosophila genomics, art at the MET, or a video game. The problem of carrying capacity, taken personally, places the individual human being directly in the inquisitor’s chair: “Can the planet afford you?”. Nothing could be more scary, and no one, of any great authority, has had the courage to pose the question to the body politic or body cultural. But taken as a metric, objective, non-judgmental, candid, the question of carrying capacity holds up a gentle light to human behavior which allows thoughtful people to make changes and to push for new practices, to revision the purpose of a human life and of human community, and thereby to change history.

Ecological Economics, as posed by significant thinkers of the last and present century, provides the theoretical foundation of the carrying capacity of human communities. What makes carrying capacity stand as an important subject is its potential to consolidate this important body of work around a single and tangible, if hypothetical, number. It contains within it precisely those concepts of ecological economics which makes this an essential discipline, but additionally carrying capacity research demands a quantification that is scientifically neutral, and yet profound in its implications. Carrying capacity cannot be studied without a careful examination of landscape, biota, minerals, water, climate, the human-built environment, the politics at site, and the cultural attitudes toward the resource base, the major dimensions of a long and desirable human future. Hence, the study of carrying capacity, as a distinct and purposeful endeavor, brings to bear the most important questions facing the survival of life on Earth.

War in Afghanistan and Islamophobia

2010-09-30T12:07:00.002-04:00

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Went to a meeting at the University of Vermont sponsored by the Socialists of America UVM Chapter, last night, 9/29/2010. It was to have a speaker on "Islamophobia", who had to reschedule. Instead we saw her (name: ? ) by YouTube.

She made the expected arguments, such as the non-uniqueness of Islam in terms of violence. Then she went on to show that None of the stated reasons for the U.S. to wage war in Afghanistan hold up to academic scrutiny. This includes the imperative to "destroy" Al Quida, which has since 9/11 been eviscerated, according to her. This seems like a plausible argument to me since I have always believed we accorded them too much significance in the first place, and that they should simply have been treated as international criminals anyway.

So why are we in Afghanistan? For the obvious imperialistic/economic reasons: Control of a territory in the heart of Asia, and resources within its boundaries.

Given the difference between the perceived interests of the ordinary constituent and the understood interests of the people who can influence or alter the wealth and prosperity of an entire country - ours - I can see why there might be publicly stated reasons and then different real reasons for waging a war. But this doesn't excuse the lack of transparency, and the failure to esteem the opinions of the American people. Would the American people have supported a war if they had been told it was needed because the territory and resources were ripe for expropriation? If George Bush and now Barrack Obama had simply stated the truth in simple terms, would we have allowed so many Americans to be killed, handicapped, and mentally broken? Whether the answer is "yes" or "no", Could a president make a huge mistake by letting the people have opinions on the real reasons, and make policy based on the expressed interests of the American people?

Splitting expressed reasons away from actual reasons implies a split constituency, the part you need for votes, and the part you need to be an effective leader. Given these categories can overlap and have gradations, essentially these are the inner circle and the outer circle, which themselves can be sliced into a range of particular interests, such as business, military, diplomacy, social services, finances, and so forth. So true transparency might be complicated. And leave very few excuses for the intellectually honest person, for the consequences of any given policy.

Honesty about our reasons for going into Afghanistan might, in this sense, have exposed the truth about the state of well being of our economy, and the existential concerns (the worries about the lack of jobs and job loss, loss of homes, unfairness in the credit markets, the collapse of "the American Dream") of ordinary Americans. It might also have prevented the buildup of steam that is now being released by the Tea-Party movement.

But that kind of honesty cannot be afforded by any politician. People with access and responsibilities, like business people, the State Department, the military, will not allow their interests to be ignored, even if the people would not support those interests. It is a dangerous struggle for life and prosperity.

The presenter of the YouTube content, Ali Jafair, has a facebook page, and described himself as an American born Iranian-descent student at CCV. Look him up to find more information about Islamophobia, Iran, and other issues.

Besides the issues we discussed, I was told that some students were planning to form a "J-Street" group, which is a group opposed to Isreali policy toward the Palestinians. I am waiting to hear more.

DisContents

2010-08-30T18:13:00.005-04:00

As the controversy over the Muslim community center rose to pelt the Democrats with turds of demagoguery, Democrats have again failed to answer the Republicans with effective rhetoric. The error of the demagogues is to conflate Islam with terror, and the error of the Democrats is to concede the point.

Opponents to the community center have described its location as "insensitive" to those whose loved ones were killed there on September 11, 2003. I see the apologists on the left as cowards who are afraid to name bigotry for what it is.

It is only by bigotry that all followers of Islam are thrown together with the extremists who carry a tattered flag of Islam. Was Timothy McVeigh an American terrorist? Do all Americans thus deserve to be cast in the mold of terrorist? We have White-Supremacists who claim inspiration from Christianity, but do Americans or mainstream Christians identify with them just because they claim to assert Christian values? If you do, are you not a terrorist? If you are, how are you better than an Islamic terrorist? Terrorism for any cause is venal. If you separate yourself from Christian terrorists, why clump together the peaceful community minded Muslims with the terrorists?

Even if a few terrorists might slip under the radar, is perfect security worth the cost of freedom, the object of our jealousy? To take the word of those building the community center and welcome them, while minding and listening to the lessons they teach, must be far better than assuming the worst, inspiring hatred and distrust, and excluding them from the privileges of being American. Only bigots would so prejudge these followers of Islam that their effort to build a meeting place for inter-religious studies would become an affront to those who died on 9/11.

I believe in the Democratic vision of a nation in which all persons can pursue prosperity, happiness and community without fear of denigration for being in a minority, and I believe in the ability of the right wing to churn up emotions for their cause. This leaves me angry with the Democrats for being impotent slaves to conformity and making nice-nice, and angry with the right wing for hypocritically espousing the freedom to pursue wealth, and protection of the Constitution, while attacking others who would exercise their American rights.

The error of the Democrats, allowing demagogues to conflate Islam with terror, is particularly true for our President, whose soaring rhetoric and leadership seems short in the moment of political need, but also of our Vermont politicians, who, taken together, have failed to challenge the idea that Muslim = Terrorist. Yes, there is a freedom of religion issue, and a question of the freedom to pursue happiness, but the emotional charge driving this hatred is that Islam promotes violence, and that those who practice it must provide a haven for those who would incite terror. If I had the ears of Mr. Leahy, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Welch, and the remainder of the Vermont Democratic Party, I would plea and demand that they condemn this assertion, the bigotry behind it, and the hatred it spawns, as the force that is most destructive to the American dream and the prosperity of our nation.

Hatred and the desire to terrorize others, it must be remembered, is made when hope is taken away and fear prevails over dreams. Then everyone not self is enemy, and the nation becomes a battle field, as those who fear terror extend terror over others.

In my view, the phenomena of Rush Limbaugh, now taken up by Glenn Beck, is a disease of the American mind in which demagogues exploit fear to destroy hope, and use that raw fear to maintain centrality in the public discourse, and finally to steer cultural changes to their inchoate purposes. The American left, and the Democratic party, if they are to recapture the hope and faith of the American dream and the Obama campaign, must counter that fear with an all-out assault on fear, reminding Americans that their prosperity is not guaranteed to them, that in times of change and adversity, the advantage goes to those who can adapt.

This is my definition of the progressive vision: Change will happen and we must be prepared to respond creatively and adaptively to it, as a community and as individuals. My definition of the conservative vision is: Do everything possible and necessary to prevent change. When it comes, resist it. And when wealth and power do slip away, do anything you must to keep what you have, even commit terror.

My key lesson in life and survival has been: own what you are. Cut through the noise and state the truth. Since the truth is usually not offensive, this engenders trust and respect. But when you speak truth that is offensive, those hearing you must trust your voice, because you have always been honest.

Now to resist the demagogues of fear, we must climb to the heights of our integrity, say what is true and condemn hatred as it happens.

Please.

who's reading anyhow?

2010-08-14T22:12:00.004-04:00

Haven't been to write, working and reading and applying to graduate school. Perhaps depressed, disconsolate, perhaps mending fences. Certainly the political campaign and subsequent legislative campaigns sucked up energy I didn't have replacements of. Wish I much that intelligence and compassion had swayed America, but not, and I was never part of the polylog, so why write and write and write?
Here today to contribute not argument or polemic, but only a simple rant, The Reason Why.

Stephen Marshall 2010

Wall Street Editors Cavalier with Western Legal Legacy

2010-05-19T20:28:00.002-04:00

In “Tinkering With Miranda”, the Editors of the Wall Street Journal invoke an argument that had been resolved over centuries of civil and intellectual struggle in law, philosophy and theology, and only reopened when the Bush Administration found existing legal limits, attached to enemy soldiers and criminals, inconvenient in the fight against terrorists. To avoid using a category of combatant not recognized as necessary by the remainder of the international community, Attorney General Holder would seek exceptions to the Miranda rule. To avoid this less dramatic “Tinkering With Miranda”, the Editors (as did Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney) would have us revise fundamental precepts of western law and jurisprudence. But the goal of enhanced security powers is within reach without doing this, and offers the better part of wisdom to remain within a legal structure which has been evolving for many centuries, especially considering the scant gains afforded by the new category.

In reaction to the terrorist bombings of the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001, The Bush administration saw a need for intelligence gathering that it felt could not be accomplished under existing domestic or international law. In response, the Bush administration argued a radical revision of international law, an explicitly non-military, non-criminal category, known as the international terrorist. This evil-doer, it was said, with the weapons of mass destruction in hand, did not deserve the protections provided to either military combatants or criminals. Furthermore, in the words of the Editors, their “threat to public safety is much more diffuse and dire than in a typical criminal case,” and “Getting useful intelligence to prevent future attacks may require days, even weeks or months, of interrogation” thus making existing procedures and protections too cumbersome to effect public safety, in their view. Terrorists deserve torture, simply put, existing international law doesn’t allow it, and the need for America’s domestic security is too great to forgo any necessary treatment of prisoners. They would need their own extra-legal category.

But this constitutes a momentous assault on centuries of legal tradition. In the centuries-long struggle to separate the just from the unjust use of violence, states have been constrained, and individuals, alleged criminals, and actual criminals have been assigned human and civil rights. Some of these protect basic human dignity – not to be punished cruelly, not to be starved, nor to be denied access to medical care. Others of these are civil rights – meant to protect those who might actually be innocent – the right of Habeas Corpus, the right to counsel and self-defense, and the presumption of innocence, forcing the state to show cause for incarceration, to name just a few.

Attorney General Holder’s approach is to seek means within the pre-Bush era status of international law, in this case a security exception to the Miranda rights, which would allow law enforcement personnel to interrogate for security information with fewer Miranda limitations.

The Editors decry this approach, so far favored by the Supreme Court, as a plausible way to acquire intelligence from terrorists-as-criminals, as inadequate to protect the public safety. They fear “that the Supreme Court would [not] allow Miranda to be stretched in this fashion.”

In effect, the Editors are arguing that because we cannot be sure that the Supreme Court would support an exception to the Miranda requirements, we should alter the framework of international law, as it has evolved over the last many centuries, by creating a new category, the non-state-terrorist-soldier, requiring civil society, political scientists, politicians and philosophers to begin all over again to define the rights of the accused and the limits of the state for this new category. By then, a future “Bush” would certainly find existing categories limiting, and find cause to invent yet another.

Conservative Vermont commentator Jim Goff, addressing a different issue, charged that liberals “presume that their wisdom exceeds the collective wisdom of all preceding generations.” If this objection suggests a principle of conservative thought, this new category of non-state-criminal-non-state-combatant is radical, not conservative, and a violent breach of the principles on which our country was founded.

The Editors, and those who advocate for this third category and the military tribunal system set up to adjudicate it, seem to care not at all that the purpose of this category is to strip away the evolved rights and responsibilities that have protected individuals from state-excess, that flow to traditional categories of “criminal” or “soldier”, and necessarily , therefore, sweeps up many innocent people, holding them, often for years, torturing them, for information they do not have, and convicting them, of crimes they did not commit. The Editors seem to forget that it was to stop these abuses of the state that civil wars and revolutions, including our own, have been fought over the many centuries of European and New World history. The Editors and advocates of this third category seem to forget that when innocent persons are swept up systematically, and abused, as they have been since 9-11, the system that produces those arrests and abuses is itself unjust, in the same way that corrupt and authoritarian states are unjust, and that the “public safety” we are protecting becomes a cynical parody of itself. Much simpler, and more direct, would be to honor the recognized categories of state and criminal use of force, with an evolved approach to Miranda.

To make of terrorists that they are criminals does not dignify them, as the Editors claim. To me, the label “non-state-combatant” shifts them slightly up the scale to state actor, someone who might be defending bona fide interests of sovereignty. To call them criminals is to duly denigrate their choices and actions, and for those who are justly convicted, appropriately commits them to the long term impotence of penal inmate.

The irony of the Bush policy, that has done so much violence to our legal culture, is that everything it wanted to accomplish could have been accomplished without its extra-legal activities. We don’t need warrantless wiretaps, domestic security letters, or an intermediate “terrorist” category. We need a vigilant, competent, professional police and military, backing up a compassionate and just society whose institutions honor and promote human and civil liberties, and try to help impoverished people escape hopelessness. Now there’s a strategy to defeat terrorism.

Stephen Marshall

Mothers Aggrieved At Loss Of Fetuses

2010-02-05T14:23:00.002-05:00

Addressed to Legislators, the Free Press Editor, others:

The February 4, 2010 issue of the Burlington Vermont Free Press documented renewed concern about whether the death of a fetus, due to negligence or worse, ought to have a legal consequence. This is obviously a highly charged and divisive debate and deserves a Solomonic solution.

To have a crime requires that someone has been hurt. The Pro-Life/Anti-Abortion camp would make the fetuses the hurt party, while the Pro-Choice camp worries that calling a fetus a party to a crime would make it a person and protected under other laws, such as those against murder. But as demonstrated by the reported automobile accidents, clearly there is a grievance to be addressed, in the deaths of these fetuses.

We might instead regard the mother as the aggrieved party. This seems logical, since she is the conscious actor most affected by the loss. Further, since the right to abortion gives her determinative power over the fetus(es), they are hers to have or lose. Making the mother the hurt party would expose the perpetrator to consequences, and provide the mother with a means of redress.

I have written with a feeling of urgency because I can see the harm that can come from this debate, especially to choice advocates who, absent any crime to prosecute, are cast as callous to the emotional consequences to the mother. I believe that the death of a fetus ought to be a crime against the mother, who holds sole and immutable responsibility for the life of the unborn up to the moment of birth.

"Leave your fields for the poor to glean"

2010-01-07T13:10:00.004-05:00

Discussions of economics I hear on On Point, Market Place, and public radio generally, circle round and round and never hit on the fundamental issue: Carrying Capacity, and the question: Which is more important, The right of some to get richer, or the right of the many to do more than survive?

Although creativity and human energy may be infinite, and wealth can be accumulated ad-perpetuum, the Earth is not, and possesses only so much capacity to generate the material goods (water, housing, food) that people need. As the number of us goes up, the share available declines. So the inherent limitations of a finite planet sets long-term limits that no amount of economic jerry-mandering can alter.

Meanwhile, as we give priority to the right to get rich, the automatic drive of employers to limit labor costs and the vaunted productivity increases which have been seen during the computer revolution funnels more wealth to the already wealthy, while the number of jobs declines (“jobless recovery”), the incomes of available jobs decline in their value, and making a decent living becomes ever more difficult or impossible. Even survival is often impossible, when the right to accumulate wealth is more important than the right to a decent living.

Then, as the wealth and privilege of the few accumulates, they look for further investments to hold the value, so they buy rights to those things the rest of us need - land, water, energy, commodities. As more is held, and more is demanded to carry accumulated wealth, the share available for consumption declines, and the corporations which control the resources, in the name of those investors, demand ever more exhorbitant profits, squeezing those who just want to make a living. So wealth, and the problem of how to store it, causes short-term false-scarcities.

These false scarcities and the priority placed on the right to get rich* combine in a toxic brew, causing hatred, alienation and violence, as witnessed in the ever deepening crises over terrorism, and the anger of many Americans toward the banking system since the collapse of 2008. People who are poor, starving and feeling under assault are necessarily attracted to ideologies which vow to destroy that political and economic order, or are inclined to raid neighboring tribes. Americans who feel their lifestyle at risk, today, are turning to “tea parties” or violent anarchist groups such as white supremisists.

People who hold wealth are equally terrified by the disorder brewing in the world economy, as their survival, in a manner familiar to them, is at risk.

We are all victims of the priority given to "the right to get rich" because it breeds chaos. When wealth is distributed more evenly, such that the people who have the least, have enough, and such that people with wealth are seen as sharing it out of concern for the well being of others, not only are the disenfranchised then invested in the current order, but the current order itself becomes more stable, survival is more predictable, and people are satisfied with less, thus easing the burden on Earth's resources.

This is the population-resource paradox discussed by demographers: as people get what they need and feel more secure in their living, they do not increase the number of children they have. Tragically, it is only poor people in insecure, unpredictable economies who really want many children. (Ecologists are familiar with this as the “r” strategy.) Hence, it is economic development, spurred by wealth shared by those who possess it, which holds the most promise to limit war and terror as carrying capacity bears down on us. It is when we give priority to the right to a decent living that we are all – even rich people – most safe, secure, and have the best chances for happiness.

*The “right to get rich” as we practice it is often attributed to Adam Smith's imperative to create wealth, but this imperative according to Adam Smith is located in a moral system which levels the distribution of wealth. The “right to get rich” as practiced today is the form of capitalist enterprise that Adam Smith despised and saught to limit. Wealth is created when the goods and services that people need are produced and distributed, so when profits are accumulated and hoarded, some people are richer, but the society is no more wealthy.

No Public Option, Then No Individual Mandate.

2009-09-29T21:30:00.009-04:00

Apparently, the insurance industry is about to get it all: we will be required to buy insurance, and have no option except to buy it from the private, for-profit sector. Without there being a public option to buy, we will be forced to buy a product from people we don't trust, and whose purpose (making a profit) leads them to continually increase the cost while minimizing the services, at the same time they will get tens of millions of new customers. They must be salivating.

Is it the role of a democratic government to create a market, and then compel people to use that market? If the government is going to require its citizens to purchase health care insurance, then does it not seem to have an obligation to provide a policy that every citizen can afford? Under the individual mandate, and without the public insurance option, the government would be compelling its citizens to support the profit making enterprises of some citizens at the expense of others. What is the difference between being compelled to send money to the insurance companies, and being compelled to pay taxes? Only that taxes are set by persons elected by the people being taxed, while insurance companies are not democratic, do not see service to their customers as their reason to exist, and are free to raise the price as high as the market will bear - which will certainly be high if we are compelled to buy from it. I do not begrudge anyone the right to seek profit if the customer can refuse to buy, but to write it into law that citizens must provide profit to any other citizen, or even a non-citizen investor! - violates the essence of the democratic experiment - that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. By creating this mandate without the public insurance plan, Americans would be not equally protected by the law, because the law would be favoring some over others.

Before we lose this chance to get a non-profit, public sector health services payment system, we must link these two aspects. To get the individual mandate, there must be public insurance policy. We must tell those who oppose it, we will not accept the individual mandate without a public policy option. The insurance companies know they cannot meet the other mandates of the bills under consideration, without the increased number of customers. So we must tell them and their proxies in Congress: we will not create the market if they do not agree to a public insurance option. This will curdle their enthusiasm, because without the individual mandate, the insurance companies will not have 30 million new customers, and they will not have the surplus revenues needed to meet the new requirements. We must show them they cannot have the new revenues without also having the non-profit competitor.

This combination - the mandate to buy insurance without a public option to buy - cannot be allowed. It would be an assault on the principle of equality in the law, and a reward for an industry that has done a terrible job of meeting our needs. If we cannot have the public insurance option, let the other reforms go through without the mandate to purchase insurance. Then the need of the public option will be kicking down the door at the insurance companies.

Redefining Recovery: Wealth creation is not the problem, Poverty creation is.

2009-09-24T09:17:00.005-04:00

Whether we would save Wall Street, Main Street, the industrial mile, the platinum mile, trailer parks, soccer parks, green belts or Park place, seems now to be a fight over wealth not yet generated, a scratching, cutting, blood-letting fight for survival. The competition for a share is like a dog fight, with teeth bared, flashing and slashing, and the choice is made for no reason better than “meaner is more deserving”. Those who have want to keep, those that have none want to get, and the argument serves no purpose greater than personal survival. In the language of economics, the justification is made in terms of jobs, protecting wealth, keeping the systems of the economy working. But does any one really know what this re-distributed wealth is supposed to accomplish, and whether it will do any good? I will offer my vision.

A friend said to me, “We need a new kind of fuel for our cars.”. I laughed out loud. “We NEED” I said, “clean water, shelter and food. We WANT cars and fuel for them.” Don't let me confuse you, I am not proposing to send everyone to the farm. But let us be clear about priorities. The driving force of any economy is the appetite for food, shelter, safety, health care, and clean water, the needs that get people to work and produce. If the economy fails to produce these things, people will be insecure and will not participate. If the economy does not produce these things, the people will find other ways to meet these needs, by stealth, theft or violence, if need be. If the people cannot meet these needs, they will suffer, rebel, get sick, self-medicate, or die. If the people who do the work cannot get their needs met, they cannot work, and the economy cannot flourish. The first priority of any economy must be to meet these essential needs.

If you are Hugo Chavez, you do this with oil wealth, by buying what your people need from other more productive economies. Not a sustainable solution.

If you are wise, you do this by planning investment into infrastructure that helps ordinary people to survive. For example, since clean water is a public good, you use some of the productivity of the economy to build treatment facilities. Since affordable housing is a public good, you configure property laws and taxes to favor ownership of an only home, to reduce pressure on property values. Since poverty is the failure to get needs met, you use some of the productivity of the economy to provide jobs to people who cannot otherwise find work, and you put them to doing things we need to do anyway, such as maintaining parks. The work contributes to the community, the worker has the stability of an income, the worker has pride in him or her self, and the local economy benefits from the money spent by this employed person whose previous income may have come partly from public dollars anyway.

As a mechanism for meeting the human hierarchy of needs, our economy has been upside down. By favoring wealth accumulation with low taxes, wealth has gone to those already possessing it, and has allowed those with the fewest resources with no means to acquire any. Those who have, in our system, have gotten more and more, while those with the least just keep losing, suffering more and more. The problem, as I see it, is not that anyone is wealthy, but that any one might have so little of what they need that they cannot pull themselves up out of poverty. The problem, as I see it, is not that anyone has more than they need, it is that anyone has less than they need.

Although many people distrust the government, and dislike that anyone would be dependent upon it, and most people prefer the dignity of being paid for their personal productivity, the market by itself follows wealth, minimizing employment, often leaving well educated and responsible people without work or access to a minimum income. Furthermore, the market place follows wealth for private gain, making it unable, because of conflicts of interest and the absence of profit, to provide a whole class of services which are essential to the community, and even to the functioning of the market place.

“The government”, on the other hand, is the institutional realization of “community”, where the general and common goods have their voice and can bind on the productivity of the community, for their support. “The government”, we could say, is the only “business” in which everyone is a subscriber, and in which everyone has one vote. The Government is the only “business” whose “product” is paid for by those who can afford to pay, and received by all who need. The Government is the only “business” whose “product” is safety, clean water, roads, health care, community planning, education, and the power to set the rules of behavior and the power to force other businesses and people to follow those rules. The government is the one “business” to which people who are powerless can go for help and consideration, because other businesses – private interests - are uninterested. The government is the seat of the public interest which creates the environment for business and the market place to flourish in safety and with confidence in the supply of money, people and materials. The government is the seat of the public interest, with responsibility to everyone, with the responsibility to ensure that the basic structures of self-care are deployed. The government is where the appropriate private interest in wealth creation can be counterbalanced by a vision of common well-being. “The government” is the one source of sufficient power and authority to counterbalance greed and crime.

While the market provides opportunities to get wealthy, the government, as the sole guarantor of the public good, is the sole agent which can ensure that people have opportunities just to survive. This standard is very different from our custom, but provides ample room for driven motivated people to rise above the minimum. As a poor citizen, I do not expect any one to make my life comfortable beyond the provision of essential services, and for these I expect to work. But I need them to be there, at a price I can afford, and the opportunity to work for them.

Creation Stories of the Middle East , A Reaction

2009-09-14T10:59:00.005-04:00

Ewa Wasilewska,

Have just finished reading your Creation Stories of the Middle East, and found it enlightening in many ways. Within your discipline, I am sure many are aware of the insights you provide, but for me it has exposed and detailed many key features in the evolution of how we, today, relate to each other, nature and the cosmos.

I am especially interested in the evolution of mind away from the flexible polytheism of pre-civilized peoples toward the more rigid and intolerant mono-theism of today. By contextualizing this process, you also relativize the duality of good and evil, showing it to be a natural outcome of the natural selection of ideas, and not absolute as so many religionists would have us believe. I am left to wonder whether urban life is not itself the explanation for the evolution of more rigid social and belief systems.

I also appreciate that you relate this evolution to ecological (resource) problems. I am interested in the carrying capacity of the planet for Homo sapiens, so it is interesting to see that the earliest civilizations recognized this problem, and that later mythologists (simultaneously to their invention of the single god and of good and evil?), chose to unmake this self-constraining vision and make a vision which promotes conflict, conquering and warfare as a solution to resource problems. If the alienation of physical from divine realities characterizes religion, then no wonder there are people who are as fervently anti-religion as others are fervently religious.

So I will need to read Creation Stories again to fully understand your explanation for the emergence of "religion". You seem to identify the term with institutions which propose a duality of physical reality and divine reality, where the divine reality cannot be understood without a transcendent and perhaps irrational faith. Because of this duality, you seem to be saying, the relationship between people and the divine ceased to be personal, daily, immediate, and more-or-less non-judgmental, and grew the relationship of power-over, of hierarchy, control, and, ultimately, suggested an irresponsible and narcissistic explanation for human life.

Hence, colonialism, corruption, resource wars, greed on Wall Street, consumerism and the cult of consumption, can - might be - explained in terms of a denatured humanity. Examples of human cruelty throughout time and across the globe challenge the idea of an innocent time ("the noble savage"), but then, the more poly-theistic characteristics of flexibility, cooperation, and mutual respect, have proven effective social and economic strategies, earlier in human history, for promoting survival, and to suppress them would result in the world we have, a world in which survival of life is not assured.

The intellectual and emotional substrate of polytheism remains in us and remains active, as does the mono-theistic drive for control. If the tendencies of, even sweeping assertions of the power of, these two minds, is revealed on the stage of world and U.S. politics at this very moment, we are given reasons for both hope and despair, that humanity can survive its impending ecological crisis.

Thank you for an introduction to the topic of the creation of the world as we know it.

Why White People Are Afraid, By Robert Jensen,

2009-08-20T00:13:00.003-04:00

On AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org/story/36892/?page=entire
Posted June 7, 2006.

I hope Robert will forgive me posting his essay. I find it compelling and I certainly am not making money here!

What do white people have to be afraid of in a world structured on white privilege? Their own fears.

It may seem self-indulgent to talk about the fears of white people in a white-supremacist society. After all, what do white people really have to be afraid of in a world structured on white privilege? It may be self-indulgent, but it's critical to understand because these fears are part of what keeps many white people from confronting ourselves and the system.

The first, and perhaps most crucial, fear is that of facing the fact that some of what we white people have is unearned. It's a truism that we don't really make it on our own; we all have plenty of help to achieve whatever we achieve. That means that some of what we have is the product of the work of others, distributed unevenly across society, over which we may have little or no control individually. No matter how hard we work or how smart we are, we all know -- when we are honest with ourselves -- that we did not get where we are by merit alone. And many white people are afraid of that fact.

A second fear is crasser: White people's fear of losing what we have -- literally the fear of losing things we own if at some point the economic, political, and social systems in which we live become more just and equitable. That fear is not completely irrational; if white privilege -- along with the other kinds of privilege many of us have living in the middle class and above in an imperialist country that dominates much of the rest of the world -- were to evaporate, the distribution of resources in the United States and in the world would change, and that would be a good thing. We would have less. That redistribution of wealth would be fairer and more just. But in a world in which people have become used to affluence and material comfort, that possibility can be scary.

A third fear involves a slightly different scenario -- a world in which non-white people might someday gain the kind of power over whites that whites have long monopolized. One hears this constantly in the conversation about immigration, the lingering fear that somehow "they" (meaning not just Mexican-Americans and Latinos more generally, but any non-white immigrants) are going to keep moving to this country and at some point become the majority demographically.

Even though whites likely can maintain a disproportionate share of wealth, those numbers will eventually translate into political, economic, and cultural power. And then what? Many whites fear that the result won't be a system that is more just, but a system in which white people become the minority and could be treated as whites have long treated non-whites. This is perhaps the deepest fear that lives in the heart of whiteness. It is not really a fear of non-white people. It's a fear of the depravity that lives in our own hearts: Are non-white people capable of doing to us the barbaric things we have done to them?

A final fear has probably always haunted white people but has become more powerful since the society has formally rejected overt racism: The fear of being seen, and seen-through, by non-white people. Virtually every white person I know, including white people fighting for racial justice and including myself, carries some level of racism in our minds and hearts and bodies. In our heads, we can pretend to eliminate it, but most of us know it is there. And because we are all supposed to be appropriately anti-racist, we carry that lingering racism with a new kind of fear: What if non-white people look at us and can see it? What if they can see through us? What if they can look past our anti-racist vocabulary and sense that we still don't really know how to treat them as equals? What if they know about us what we don't dare know about ourselves? What if they can see what we can't even voice?

I work in a large university with a stated commitment to racial justice. All of my faculty colleagues, even the most reactionary, have a stated commitment to racial justice. And yet the fear is palpable.

It is a fear I have struggled with, and I remember the first time I ever articulated that fear in public. I was on a panel with several other professors at the University of Texas discussing race and politics in the O.J. Simpson case. Next to me was an African American professor. I was talking about media; he was talking about the culture's treatment of the sexuality of black men. As we talked, I paid attention to what was happening in me as I sat next to him. I felt uneasy. I had no reason to be uncomfortable around him, but I wasn't completely comfortable. During the question-and-answer period -- I don't remember what question sparked my comment -- I turned to him and said something like, "It's important to talk about what really goes on between black and white people in this country. For instance, why am I feeling afraid of you? I know I have no reason to be afraid, but I am. Why is that?"

My reaction wasn't a crude physical fear, not some remnant of being taught that black men are dangerous (though I have had such reactions to black men on the street in certain circumstances). Instead, I think it was that fear of being seen through by non-white people, especially when we are talking about race. In that particular moment, for a white academic on an O.J. panel, my fear was of being exposed as a fraud or some kind of closet racist.

Even if I thought I knew what I was talking about and was being appropriately anti-racist in my analysis, I was afraid that some lingering trace of racism would show through, and that my black colleague would identify it for all in the room to see. After I publicly recognized the fear, I think I started to let go of some of it. Like anything, it's a struggle. I can see ways in which I have made progress. I can see that in many situations I speak more freely and honestly as I let go of the fear. I make mistakes, but as I become less terrified of making mistakes I find that I can trust my instincts more and be more open to critique when my instincts are wrong.

Missive to My Bank

2009-07-15T09:25:00.005-04:00

As I consider what words will express my feeling, I get an image of a rampart, built of huge slippery, leg-busting boulders, and coils of tangled wires, rising high over my head. You, the culture of the corporation, and the humanity of the people who work there, are behind that rampart. From your side, it is a smooth building face, with entrances and exits, people coming and going. It keeps everyone "safe", but that safety is isolation. I, the customer, the user, approach the technology, the ramparts, hoping to interact with a person, and discover not a channel to a person or a relationship, but a thing, that demands that I struggle through this knee-cap busting, ensnaring landscape, before I can interact with a person. To meet my human needs, I find myself embroiled in a flawed and complicated technology. This is not good for you, for me, or for the sustainability of the institution. I begin to think about how to find a place to put my money which allows me to interact with real people.

Your system, with ticket numbers, and a phone tree, is apparently designed to use your time efficiently. But my time? Like the baby food flavored to appeal to the mother, how would you know what the problems are and that for me to use the system grinds away at my time? The frequent users, those who learn and adapt, obviously will not report problems, and those too intimidated by the system will just walk away, so you, the corporation, will seldom hear that there are any problems. But how much does technology interfere with communication, where you would hope it would facilitate relationships with your customers?

Phone trees are dangerous to users when the tree does not have an escape value. Get way out on a limb where you don't want to be, and if there is no "go back a level" or "return to root menu", the only choice is to fall out of the tree - hang up - and climb back up to the desired level. Then there is the directory. The system may offer logical alternatives, but I quickly found myself in a menu option I did not want, and then the call was terminated. Which frustration do I want to deal with today? the phone tree or the email?

The ticket system used is different from email anywhere else on the web. Bulletin boards everywhere support cascading threads to keep a conversation on track. But not here. Here, I am expected to realize that I need to copy and paste a criptic "ticket number". Then, if I have made an inquiry, I need to return here to look up my "inbox" everyday, just to see WHETHER someone has responded yet. I feel like you think I have nothing better to do than sit on a bench feeding pidgeons, waiting for someone to visit with me. Moreover, you do not ask for a regular email address, a phone number, or an account number. If you know all this, you didn't use the information when I didn't answer your secret message being posted inside the ramparts, and if you don't know it, How are you supposed to upgrade the conversation to personal?

So I could just call your gateway phone number, and hope to talk to the person who wrote to me. Oh, I remember, I tried that. There was a name, so I made the "directory" selection, but then I failed the techno-competency test and got dropped out of the phone system. OK, call again and select "real person". So, will I be talking with the person who wrote to me? Will I know the ticket number of my in-house-proprietary-secret-email? Will I need to explain, to someone different, from the beginning, what the problem is, each time I call? So which frustration do I want to deal with today? the technology that isolates me from real people, or the human-resource system that turns real human beings into generic computer monkeys? Am I ready, yet, to prefer the inadequacy of the technology that drove me to write in the first place, over the inadequacies of the technology for communication? Insert just one more slippery spot on that boulder I have to climb, and I'll give up. You won't have to deal with me. You won't know I went away. You won't have any idea that despite your emotional readiness to talk to customers and be helpful, the corporation through its technology has passively succeeded to reduce the number of customers that make it to the top of the rampart, and therefore, who demand attention.

Now two months have passed since I last posted a query, and now I am back to re-post the same query, and discover I have been answered and un-answered! I didn't check my secret Inbox, I didn't know I was supposed to (is this what I signed up for?)! Oh, this system runs so smoothly, don't you think? I'm ready for lunch. How about you?

The Market Has Failed!

2009-07-09T12:02:00.003-04:00

It is with great frustration that I listen to the health care debate, and that the Democrats allow the Republicans to control the terms of the debate without salient, charged rebuttal.

In particular, there is the accusation that any government plan would ration health care. This may be a legitimate concern for people who can afford to buy anything they want, already, if they are afraid that they might be prevented from paying for their extra services. Which seems absurd. But Health care is being rationed now, for the middle and lower class, in at least two ways. First, many people have no care at all, or the care they get is at emergency rooms, which does not provide a full spectrum of care. Second, even those who have health care insurance do not have the security of knowing that their care is guaranteed. Each plan, to start with, is limited in the procedures it will allow, and then, insurance companies may refuse to pay for catastrophic care, for opaque, unpredictable reasons. The patch work of health care provision now available to Americans amounts to being the most rationed system in the industrial world. A public system which does not exclude anyone (Universality), which provides a reasonable and standardized package of services(Completeness), and does not refuse payments capriciously (security), would be less rationed than the current system.

There is also the charge that a government sponsored option would cost the taxpayers, and drain customers away from the existing system. But taxpayers are consumers and consumers of health care services - even those who do not need many - are already paying heavily for services. Why is our system the most expensive in the industrial world, with the lowest quality output? When Republicans charge that the system would cost too much, Democrats must answer, loudly, that the system costs too much NOW, and that when the cost to the private sector is added to the cost to the public sector, the overall cost of health care may be slightly more, and possibly even less, but ALL Americans will have health insurance! This will result in a dramatic improvement in the health of the American workforce and therefore the efficiency of the economy. And the competition provided by the public program will drive costs down. (Of course if you want efficiency, you need a single-payer system.)

This, for many Republicans, is a cause for complaint. They say, "Competition by the government is unfair". I say "The market has had a chance to prove it can provide services efficiently. It cannot. It is extremely expensive [is not EFFICIENT], it is extremely discriminatory of both persons and services [is neither UNIVERSAL to persons, nor offering a COMPLETE range of services], and it routinely denies care to those whom it does insure by refusing payment for particular services, or by un-enrolling them entirely, [enrollees have no SECURITY that payment will be made or that they will remain insured], nor does the market provide reasonably-priced insurance THROUGHOUT LIFE. That the market cannot guarantee Efficient, Universal, Complete and Secure health Care services Throughout Life, is dangerous for both citizens and the nation. The Market has failed. The time has come for market advocates to get out of the way and to let the people, through their public institutions, create a system of their own.

The system currently under consideration is not the most efficient possible, nor will it provide Efficient, Universal, Complete and Secure Care Throughout Life [EUCS-CTL]. Trying to get to an EUCS-CTL system via this plan is like trying to get fire wood by splitting knots. It will be painful and difficult, and compromises to meet Republicans half way will result in a system that is everything the Republicans are worried it will be: Expensive and Cumbersome. In effect, a perfect whipping horse. But we have a chance if we meet their arguments with effective salient rhetoric of our own:
1) Health care is being rationed now and a public plan would be would be less rationed than the current system.
2) When the cost of health care to both private and public sectors are added, the new system will not burden the economy more than the current system, and ALL Americans will have health insurance!
3) The Market has failed. The time has come to let the people stand up their own health care system.

THE MARKET HAS FAILED! LET IT BE SHOUTED FROM ROOFTOPS! THE MARKET HAS FAILED!

I am sure that Democrats generally understand these issues, but I have not heard the vigorous rebuttals to Republican arguments that success in this debate follows. We truly need to answer them. THE MARKET HAS FAILED! COUNT THE WAYS! WE NEED A HEALTH CARE SYSTEM FOR PEOPLE, NOT PROFITS!

Open letter to our leaders: Fight Indefinite Detention.

2009-07-01T12:52:00.006-04:00

Every person being held under police powers is either guilty of a crime, or innocent. The Constitution does not contemplate an intermediate state in which due process might be ignored. Every person being held under military powers must have a sovereign state to which he/she answers for participation in a bounded war, or else turned over to police authorities for charge and trial for a crime. International law does not contemplate an intermediate condition, for which the normal procedures of law are suspended.

Indefinite detention contemplates such intermediate conditions.

Under the U.S, Constitution, Indefinite detention violates the fundamental protections against violence by the state against its people. Even used against foreign nationals, Indefinite Detention opens a loop-hole in the law through which crimes against actual citizens might be perpetrated.

Under international law, Indefinite Detention violates the primary notion of sovereign responsibility, that a person is either fighting for a state, or violating the law of a state. It would extend to state-less persons, militants and terrorists the credence of statehood without the accountability of a known sovereignty.

These splitting-the-differences to create Indefinite Detention is dangerous for the rule of law, dangerous for the stability of international law, dangerous for the human rights of others who have committed no crimes, and contrary to the ideal of democracy.

While some persons being held may be dangerous, or know too much about our security systems, their disposition cannot be held in suspension for indefinite periods. Each case must be resolved according to one of the existing categories. The difficulty of doing so is a burden of the state which the state undertakes to protect the freedoms and prosperity of the people of whom it is made.

Mr. Obama, Mr. Representative, and Mr. Senator, please do not capitulate to the Bush/Cheney agenda, whose violations of Americans values and the constitution were so flagrant and despicable. Do not create a third category under the law, of someone who is exempt from the protections of the law. This only invites lawlessness and the collapse of the dream of opportunity and prosperity offered by the rule of law. To create a third category under the law would create a change we cannot believe in.

I urge you to reject any policy or proposal that would deprive individuals of access to a legal process, indefinitely imprisoning them without charge, the chance of a trial, or the protections of the Geneva Convention.

The issues surrounding the closing of Guantánamo are difficult and incredibly complex, but we cannot afford to habituate ourselves to laws that we know would violate our Constitution, or international law. I respectfully ask that you do what is in your power to fight indefinite detention -- It, more than any evil combatant in a criminal conspiracy to terrorize the world, is the true danger to our country, our values, and our Constitution.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Open Letter to Vermont Public Radio's President, Robin Turnau

2009-07-01T01:05:00.004-04:00

I told myself that "VPR is my radio station." I would listen. Determined, unhappily, I would listen.

During the hour of the Conversation, I wanted to call. But I wanted to call about being cut off, about being limited to a brief comment with no follow up, and I could not imagine getting my whole point out before - what? - being cut off. If I cannot express myself because the idea is multilayered and too complex to compress into a single short paragraph, if I cannot make my point, because no one asks "Did that answer your concern?", if I cannot make my point because I never get a chance to answer the uncomprehending or evasive response of the radio guest, how am I ever to call the station president in the hour of conversation given to listeners, and make plain the problems with VPR call-in policies? These policies prevent callers from engaging guests in true discussion, in true conversation. And today these policies prevented a listener from challenging these policies. The policies, designed to maximize listener input, today prevented me from raising my objections to these policies. Today I felt shut out of the conversation, and today I felt disenfranchised. VPR has stopped being my radio station. I have stopped believing in VPR, I have stopped trusting that VPR belongs to its listeners.

This year, other listeners complained on related issues. In the past, I wrote to point out the problem -- that the call-in policies insulate the guest from being compelled to give a good, real, meaningful answer; that VPR hosts often do not comprehend the question being asked, or fails to insist on a meaningful answer, and the call-in policies prevent the listener-caller from clarifying the question, or correcting the host; that listeners often have excellent, sharp questions that other listeners want to hear the answer to, but the call-in policies prevent the listener-caller from saying "No, that didn't answer the question"; that the call-in policies really prevent any real conversation from happening on VPR - and when I wrote, I proposed alternate ways to handle the problem. But in the 12 or 15 years of these policies and my discontent, no one at VPR has ever answered my concerns, and these policies have not improved.

In the past, I have called and asked for a chance to ask a follow up question, and without any courtesy, was simply locked out of the conversation. Recently, I called with two points to make about the health care debate, and I was literally cut off, razor like between two words, when I was ready to make my second point. The call-in policies used by VPR may maximize the number of listeners who get on the radio, but for the other 999,992 listeners who do not call in, these policies make for radio that is less interesting, less informative, less challenging, less insightful. Since I have written before, since I have suggested alternate ways to handle these problems, and since I have seen no improvement in VPR's quality, I am frustrated, and I despair that VPR will ever address my concerns.

But VPR IS my radio station, is the only radio that brings NPR and BBC and WBUR to Vermont, reliably, anywhere in the state (prettymuch). I can't get this stuff without holing up with my computer! I need VPR and I need VPR to make meaningful improvements to its call-in policies. I need VPR to reduce the padding which insulates it from the messy concourse between listeners and radio station. Please. I need you to at least suspend these policies during the thrice-annual conversation with listeners, so that a listener can call and make his case to the entire listenership.

Israel Has the Power to Make Peace

2009-06-25T07:38:00.005-04:00

Since the Palestinians were evicted from their lands, they have resisted Israeli occupation for the same reason that anyone would. While we condemn violence in any form, the absolute control of the land by Israel has left the Palestinians without any means of recalling to the world their plight, except that terrorism dropped on Jewish communities by their few and imprecise rockets. If even these rockets stopped, would Israel give up Palestinian land? What pressure would Israel feel to yield anything at all? This terror is all that is left to a disenfranchised, disempowered, oppressed people, to express the desperation they feel.

While we condemn terrorism in any form, we cannot expect the Palestinians to do utterly nothing in the face of Israeli terror. Considering the magnitude of terror and devastation brought upon Palestinian communities by rockets, tanks, soldiers, water theft, land theft, crop theft, and the lost dignity of a productive economic life, in response, and considering the vastly greater power of the Israeli state, whatever criminal liability falls on the Palestinians, falls on Israel 100 times more. Considering the trajectory of Israeli actions, we must wonder whether Israel thinks it needs a "final solution".

The Palestinian resistance is not a threat to the existence of Israel. With or without Palestinian ascent, Israel will continue to exist. But while Israel holds Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist as a precondition for peace, Palestinians are and Palestine is torn apart, bombed, robbed, and killed, in magnitudes vastly huger than anything done to Israel by Palestinian terrorists. This insistence on recognition is a childish shibboleth. Or more to the point, it is an excuse to avoid making peace. Given the relative powerlessness of the Palestinians, and the power of the Israeli state, peace can only come when Israel acknowledges the right of the Palestinians to peace in their own home state.

To make a just peace with the Palestinians, Isreal must stop using the Palestinian lands to relieve its own population pressures. Isreal must stop settlement activity of every kind, must give back what was taken to put up the fences, remove all settlements, let the people have the land that remains to them, and let them live. When the terror wrought by the Israeli state ends, when people are allowed to live in peace and to develop their economy, the will to violence and terror will fade. Peace will come when Israel acknowledges the Palestinian right to live.

Common Arguments in Health Care Financing

2009-06-17T07:47:00.003-04:00

When we say that the cost of health care in the United States is the highest in the world for the least over all benefit, we are including both private and public funding. **When we debate the cost of universal health care, WE MUST ALWAYS USE THE SUM OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC FUNDING, to place the emphasis on the savings that result from that system.** Then, increased public funding is offset by decreased private funding, and TAX PAYERS SEE THEY ARE GETTING A BARGAIN.

Opponents of a public system have said for years that a government operated system could not be cost effective, because the private sector is inherently more efficient. But now that the numbers are being added up, and public financing is seen to be more efficient, they are charging "unfair competition". So which way do they want to spin their argument?

The private sector long ago proved itself inefficient at providing good health care to the American public, and there is no sound economic reason to protect private profiteering in health care. So many efficiencies would result from a single payer system that building it would be like cleaning out an old barn that's been filled with junk and old hay, and setting up a proper work shop or office.

All of the savings that would result would be a terrific stimulus to the economy, and all of the people put out of jobs at the insurance companies would find plenty of new opportunities, as businesses would prosper, without the burden of health care insurance, and with workers arriving to work healthy.

In our present system, profit competes with health. While the wealthiest Americans get excellent care, other Americans have no care or inadequate care, because insurance companies place profits ahead of health. HEALTH MUST WIN OVER PROFITS.

Conservatives like to dichotomize the public and the government, making the government an evil. But for us, the government IS us, the government is our means of organizing a universal system, it is how we build that system that will take care of us. We must assert our right to use government, the institutional incarnation of community, to serve our interests, to serve the interests of the people of the United States.

Pax Equilibria Qua Non

2009-05-14T08:26:00.010-04:00

Humanity - brilliant, destructive, generous, powerful, compassionate, obsessive, selfish - has within its reach the power to make any future it wants. Humanity, through ambitious or wise individuals, arrogant or foresightful states, criminal enterprise or democratic process, can direct its own evolution. Humanity, following the imperatives of its own wild mind, thoughtless to consequences beyond immediate wealth and survival, could easily destroy itself and life, or condemn us to miserable lives. Humanity, following deliberate, considered, educated, generous purposes, could easily design for itself a future with room for every living thing, for every person and people, to live entire lives without wars, famine or mass extinction. Any future is possible, even a future in which we choose the direction of our own evolution. But what future?

I have visited futures in my imagination as terrible and more as any in history or the present. So to imagine a future not flooded by terror nor a humanity diseased by nano-machines nor captured and enslaved by reproducing, evolving and sentient machines, So to imagine the world in which I would want to live, that is safe to children and life, not plagued by warfare, starvation, and ecocidal destruction, I have sought that vision, that explanation of the role of humanity in nature, that rationale and philosophy, which could unite humanity, could rationalize a clearly desirable, welcoming future. I have hoped that with such clear guiding principles, we - the whole of humanity - could agree on a future we would choose together, and go there instead of going to the hells of my imagination. But as living beings, we are survivors: scrappy, independent, idiosyncratic, and ever seeking the advantage in the opportunity someone else declined. If we could agree on a future for our evolution which did not compromise any one's interests, we might choose it, but any conscious choices to manipulate our evolution would necessarily compromise an opportunity someone else would like to pursue. So a future guided by a mindful love of life will not follow from an agreed set of principles and a consensus among us. It may follow from thousands or millions of tortuous, violent struggles over a millennium, but not because of choices we today make. At this point in our evolution, enough of us are violent, do seek the thrill and satisfaction of killing and dominating, and remain driven by a conceited over-valuation of our own reproductive success, to obviate any such consensus. In short, in a tragedy of the commons, we will willingly over tax the Earth with our own children, and kill others to make room for them. We are not ready to implement a concensus, even if we could find one. To see the need for such a consensus, and be unable to implement one, is the current state of our evolution.

I have resisted this conclusion my entire life. That no such guiding philosophy or set of principles, for a pan-humanity consensus, is possible. From questions about my own values and family life, onto questions about educational practice, social policy, and goals appropriate to the sustainability movement, I have plumbed an ever deeper well of inquiry, seeking and never finding a solid bottom on which to rest the querulous bucket of my fathom, from which to draw a clear, irresistible and necessary philosophy. Questions muddy every answer, every question prompts another. I have wanted, needed, a vision on which to rest my well being, and it comes in the form that there is nothing on which to rest.

Following what lines of inquiry I thought were the richest, having the most potential, being most significant to the fate of humanity (and my own stature in it), I have discovered humanity in the midst of a radical evolution... Not on a long gradual incline toward some sort of an epochal sustainability infused with a pax equilibria, but in an accelerating evolution toward evolutionary and ecological revolution, possibly an eco-spheric collapse, probably rapidly evolving into a new species of Homo, bounded not by mountains or the temptations of specialized food supplies, but by the choices we make, of where to go to school, to work, to live, and with whom to associate, prior to choosing mates. We are in this discovery not a culmination or even a plateau in the emergence of intelligence, but a primitive transient form, pointing to a vast new ecology of a multi-layered humanity. If there is kindness, gentleness, generosity, justice, caring, sustainability and ecological equilibrium in our antecedents, it is natural selection which will deliver it. And may well. But it does not matter what we do, and the future does not care what we think of it. We are of it, not masters over it, driven by forces beyond our perception and beyond our management toward ends we cannot predict. Hence, we have no rules to obey, no truths to honor, in service to any cause greater than the satisfaction of the inner roiling torment of sentient survivors. All is choice, and turns on our own minded wills, because the laws that matter cannot be violated, and the laws that can be violated do not matter.

The final authority is natural selection. Haven't I said this before? It's my invocation, my article of faith, the thought and idea that bridges my living aware life across the darkness of our cruelty, intelligent destructiveness, and the thoughts of futures too scary to dwell upon. All of human history, past and yet to come, is governed by the compelling dictates of natural selection. For better or ill, it is natural selection which cultivates our aesthetics, our morality and our emotional drives, and it is natural selection which will govern those aesthetics, as we evolve with technology and the consequences of our effects upon the eco-sphere. Whatever I may feel about the choices and futures I imagine, the people who will control and decide what is "good" or "not good", are those who will then be alive, being who we have become and as they are, as the products of a natural selection interacting with the same conceit of human beings (that they are wise enough to reverse roles with natural selection, to master nature), which came to us through natural selection, as a tool in our survival kit. Not only do I have no power to affect our futures, not only do we have no power to effect any choices we might make, I and we have no authority to speak to it. As I cannot give what is not mine, the future and evolution of humanity are not within my domain of judgment. They are not mine, or ours, to assess or to judge. What a relief!

Telecoms Unveil New Technology Exploiting Intelligent Design

2009-03-12T20:49:00.008-04:00

Expecting huge response,Telecoms Offer New TechnologyTo Promote User Satisfaction.
New York, N.Y. - A consortium of telecom providers today announced a new service they are calling “Intelligent Call Loss”. Intended to lower stress and induce generally higher levels of happiness in its customers, this service is designed to promote phone calling, and thus increase profits. Although the technology was expensive to develop, this service will be offered for free.

The spokesperson for the industry stated that a key player in the development refused to participate if users were to be charged, and then proceeded to decline royalties. Under these conditions, the industry spokesperson asserted, it was in their interest to provide the service for free.

The technology, apparently, pre-screens all phone calls for the effect they will have on the recipient. Those calls which are deemed to induce stress are terminated, or in the parlance of the technology, “lost”.

“I'd like to see their algorithm” said one industry observer. “I can't imagine how they make those predictions”.

Another observer, looking startled, asked whether missed phone calls wouldn't often induce more stress later, to which the spokesperson replied, “This is a very powerful program. It utilizes key proprietary services that ensure that the long term effect of lost calls will be positive..”

On the subject of privacy, the spokesperson asserted that the service would be provided “when requested”, but that the industry was confident that the service would sell itself, and that customers would willingly allow the privacy intrusion to gain the benefit of the service.

The technology, according to the press release distributed at the time of the press conference, is based on new artificial intelligence algorithms and proprietary hardware that tap into “intelligent design”. “On the theory that the evolution of the universe and of life has followed intelligent interventions”, scientists were quoted in the literature as saying, “we reasoned that traces of these interventions ought to be discernible in the fundamental fabric of the physical world. Tracing what we believed to be the end product of these intelligent interventions, the human soul, back through brain structure, chemistry, and physics, we found inequalities in the physics equations more or less where we expected them to be. We were thrilled, of course, but not surprised. We had faith they'd be there.”

Utilizing new work in evolutionary software and artificial intelligence, researchers were able to use these “trace inequalities”, as they are called, to engineer algorithms that would pipe knowledge of future outcomes directly into a data base.

“From there, it was simple. All we had to do was compare the future outcomes with the real-time phone calls.” the press release stated.

The idea of data being piped from the future to the present struck many present as fantastical and un-credible. “We realize this will be difficult to believe, but the technology has been thoroughly tested. It works.”, the spokesperson stated.

A key event in the research was construction of a computer whose information processing is affected by one of the physics inequalities. “The output”, a scientist is quoted as saying, “isn't at first comprehensible. This is why we needed an intelligent designer to intervene. Luckily he did. It was just a message typed onto the screen of the inequality computer, but it was very soon obvious that he knew what he was talking about. It was like talking to an engineer somewhere, seeing some code show up on your screen, and suddenly knowing you have met the answer.”.

Asked who the key player was, and how they were key, the spokesperson blushed and answered, “Umm, we're not sure. However I can tell you that we communicated through the computers that were built using trace inequalities, and that we could not offer this service with out this key player's intervention and cooperation.”

In private conversations later, the scientist reported that there was a brief on-screen negotiation over rights of use, further assistance and other key improvements to the system. This scientist also declined to name this key player.

When asked whether the use of “intelligent design” might be a direct reference to God, the spokesperson stated that the engineers who built the system could not rule out this interpretation, but that they had no way to prove it, either. "Other interpretations do not satisfy" the spokesperson agreed.

In later developments, Lawyers for consumers groups and business groups separately announced they would probably challenge the right of the phone company to “lose” phone calls, to which the consortium spokesperson answered that intelligent design of the system would prevent any lawsuits from prevailing. “Someone wants this to work, and when we raised that objection – invasion of privacy and all that – he said 'Don't worry. Success has been designed in.' After all, those people have to use phones, don't they?"

Asked for their response to these developments, several federal security officials expressed bemused doubt and anxiety. "This could prove advantageous, if we can use it to predict national disasters or terrorist strikes, but it could also prove problematic if terrorists got their hands on it." said one, on conditions of anonymity.

In Congress, several members reacted with outrage. "How can they think of doing this without the approval of the FCC?" steamed one. It was later reported that he was taken to the hospital for a brain aneurysm. Another, who vowed to pen a bill preventing such a service from coming into operation was later heard demanding from her staff a pen that would write.

To Live Not Alone.

2009-02-23T10:29:00.002-05:00

I don't want to live alone, not knowing my neighbors, in that self-imposed degradation of community we call “the american dream”.

I have lived that way, suspended above abyssal dark by stretched straining ropes I alone maintain repair rethread rewind if I can, breaking because I cannot.

I have fallen that way, evicted to car, to tarp, to hidden places, to
patches of wood, to rentless backyards within friendly bounds.

I have parachuted that way, letting go “the dream” to find arms and encouragement, friends and fresh starts.

Gravity itself has upended me that way, rooting me in a richness of souls, reaching
me toward the sky, growing me in the nutrients and water and light of the web of us.

I want to live not alone, to know my neighbors, soiled and growing the root works of long days and years to come.

I want friends around me, not at the end of a phone line or ten miles away, but there, to sup with coffee in the morning and plan a day, to carouse with books and the news by night fall, to sweat with in the sun over picked dirt boulder, chain-sawn firewood logs, long line fences, and to cry over in the end.

I am a human being and when else in human history until now did we live without the many souled super-self to cradle and nest old lives and new lives that make lives entire?

I want that crowd around in that middle bond between couple and stranger, given capable hands and loving hearts to share the undercourse of life.

I want not to blot the limitless sky of the newest America, interlaced with wires and satellites to any point any place any person on our planet, but to place our dreams in the solid soil of souls redeemed to living in place!

Here I go, not for me against you, but for me for you for all pulling toward all living
amicably, healthily.

I will I declare only once live, and in this once give and get as much as I make the exchange alive!

I alive, hands open, mind open, heart open, look to you.

When the Market Collapses

2009-02-13T12:38:00.003-05:00

I strain under the objections to spending. I ask, which would be better for the economy:

1a: Federal Government incurs debt,
1b: gives money to people (spends money on tax refunds),
1c: people spend money on private needs (stimulus #1),
1d: no common needs met (stimulus #1 undermined),

2a: Federal Government incurs debt,
2b: pays people to work (spends money for productive work),
2c: People spend money on private needs (stimulus #1),
2d: Common needs are met through work they do (Stimulus #2).

Is there something I am missing? I am not hearing it in the public debate. Government spending packs twice the stimulus value, or more, of just giving tax breaks. What is so horrible about improving the public infrastructure? (I have heard Obama suggest this point.)

I just bought a van - for two months of my income, $1500 - from someone who wasn't using it. It will make a huge difference in terms of what I can accomplish, And my neighbor now has money to spend.

How much would it hurt me just to borrow the money and GIVE it to my neighbor? I would be NUTS!

Do I not do us both more good by getting this vehicle or his services in exchange for my money? Then I have improved my situation AND he has money to spend.

Please tell me, when will Progressives and Democrats finally bring this huge rhetorical lever to bear on the debate? Why are we not speaking this obvious and huge distinction?

The United States Government does not need debt. The People of the United States DO need to rebuild things we SHARE, AND WE ALL BENEFIT FROM, - like roads, schools, Broadband, Green energy infrastructure, US parks, etc. To meet economically beneficial common needs, debt is acceptable.

Suppose, as was told to me yesterday, that the entire stimulus package was sent directly to tax payers (That disenfranchises me) and everyone got $50,000. They would all, of course, spend the money to meet personal needs. How would the Government recover any of this to pay for common needs? By TAXES of course!

So either, without taxes, the universal infrastructure continues to decline, or, with taxes, all that money that was sent to taxpayers under government debt, has to be returned to the government. What is the stimulus value of this?

The stimulative value of tax rebates or refunds is unitary: People have money to meet their needs, which is then lost because these same tax payers must repay those loans. Even if the economy expands under the tax-relief-only, how does the government recover funds to pay off the loans? By skimming off the extra value produced by the economy! This is self-defeating.

The stimulative value of work has two parts 1: the general value to the economy of the product of the work, and 2: the income that enables people to meet their needs. Then, when government spending adds the double whammy of the huge productivity of all the labor it bought, PLUS the money it injected into the economy, the economy will improve dramatically enough to pay off the loans without depressing the economy.

The relative value of the work may vary, but the most useful way for the US Government to spend money is by buying labor. As demonstrated by the New Deal Works, the benefits can be felt a century later. Public spending is one way we become a nation with a vigorous economy.

Fever

2009-01-04T08:01:00.007-05:00

It was pain he wanted to feel. Or Passion. Epiphany. Dire thirst for carnal bliss, brilliant compassion, or commensurate rage! Willing, wanting, Hammer bruises, Public pubics, Seen stripped, Being naked, Vulnerable, True, by Sun fire light, or by ice cuts under dark skies. To be clay formed unformed reformed never quite formed, dried out and re-wetted. To begin again, to tire of mindless mindfulness, to redact the absurd and listen for bird song, spring leaves growing, voices in the wet escapees from snow and ice. Spirit bounced above voices of ridicule, skating over ignorant chatter and accusations. Free! From the need to be free. Who gave him this chance? He wants the fever, prayed it would build, and, under the last strain, to break, to spill, capturing tears, and legion beginnings.

Strained he, with the ordinary anxieties, of food packed between teeth, of a motor that won't start, of a drop of pain in every step, of humiliated success and exalted failure, of loving and loathing and telling the difference. Strained he, with redawning memories and convictions, preconceptions and neuronal engravings, dragged across the mind, as if important. Strained he, his longing desire to raze and rout the ordinary, the anxieties and the hope for hope. Strained he, to build the fever, hoping it would breach the well built inhibitions, break the bonds of restive doubt, wash out the dirt of debt and loneliness. Straining he wants, not to please, but to play, his life.

A child it was who looked into the sky and saw vast space and stars dispersed in un-patterns, burning privately in full view, owing to the dust and gas of which every other body has been made, its own existence.

An old man it will be, denuded of pitch and rumble, of tearing across life, by small frictions and cuts, by the bruises of lost dreams, slowing him to a walk, a crawl, a collapse. At long last the fever is broke, no more to strain: what ends a life? The heart stop? Hair ceasing to grow? The final kiss? The orgasm after which none is? The gentle setting of eye lids down over blank eyes? The last thought? The final gossamer memory of desire? He leaves, not knowing, not feeling, not giving, not receiving, any more, the rites of passage. He passes, not to, only from.

While they leave, pondering “Where did he go?”. Feeling sadness, anger, loss, wonder, still, in their lives, giving, receiving, from and to. “He is gone,” they will say “What will we do?” And asking, they do. They love, loath, make babies, pick fruit, compete for standing, make art, write books, observe history, list and die, too.

And were they together, after life, watching, perhaps over time they would not recognize their kind in the descents of them, and then the Earth would die, too, and their attentive disembodied selves would have no more an anchor. To what would they attach? Remnant heat and gas and dust? Those untold billions of other disembodied selves? In some roiling boil of cosmic glowing super-nature?

But then, really, simply, they just are not. Their home only ever breathed them. They came, in, went, out, birthed blinked history unnoticed in the vastness of time.

Seeking hoping driving planning working making love, leaving it all behind – what did he want? What had he wanted? He didn't know. HE DIDN'T KNOW. He had spent his life asking, because HE DIDN'T KNOW.

Creating Wealth, or Stealing It?

2008-12-22T12:08:00.005-05:00

Today's first hour of "On Point" (from WBUR, Boston) discussed the value of the services provided to the economy by the people who sold the mortgage securities which led to the current economic collapse. The people who invented these securities were not alone or isolated. In the environment provided to them, they followed the scent of money to a jackpot. Greed, craven indifference to consequences, and ideological dogmatism opposed to regulation, all played roles in the eventual debacle. But, in search of a new system to prevent another such dire economic failure, these are not traits that can be regulated. What general principles can be extracted from this experience to guide us in creating a new environment, in which the scent of money cannot be followed down a trail to fraud?

Free market people talk about the market being "self-correcting", but people behave individualistically. It may be that "the market" has a self-interest (the maximum benefit for the maximum number) in stability and sustainability, but individuals will do what they can get away with to capture what wealth they can. Free market theorists, like Mr. Greenspan, have failed to note the distinction between the interests and behavior of "the market" (an aggregate behavior conducted in an economic commons) and that of individuals (whose opportunistic advantage may be both fleeting and intoxicating), and were reportedly "stunned" when a deregulated market did not penalize brokers and bankers who were gorging at the trough of cash coming from investors. They were blindsided by the obvious.

The rule, for example, is that when you go to the market, you pay for your pork roast. Generally, a customer would go home with it and prepare to cook it. If then she discovered it was sub-standard, she would return it to the seller, who will make her whole for the sake of his reputation and his business, and because the law says he must. The law, of course, says he is entitled to be paid for the roast, and the customer is entitled to healthy food. Without such laws, the arrangement that brought the pork roast to the neighborhood grocer would collapse.

In the case of the mortgage security meltdown, if the seller notices that you never look at your roast, and discovers you are taking these roasts and selling them by the truck load to people that never look at them, the seller might think he can sell you rotten meat, a sack of potatoes, anything he can get his hands on, and in fact for awhile, he, you, and lots of other people will make plenty of money transferring worthless product to someone who seems not to care, or is trusting you. But sooner or later those trucks will begin to stink, and people will open the truck doors and discover how much rotten crap is really in there. Somehow, someone had slipped the bonds of accountability in this transaction for long enough to defraud many people out of much money.

If any law was being broken, no one noticed, nor did anyone have a reason to notice. Everyone was getting rich. But even if no law said this could not be done, some people were deprived of the benefit of their money, while others got the benefit of that money for a fraudulent product. The limits, the incentives, of the market aligned to perpetuate a fraud. "The market" did not correct itself. "Why," we might ask, "without strict definition of allowable behavior, would we expect individual self-interest to align with the interests of the commons? Why would 'the market' self correct?"

If we know we must regulate, how and when do we do so, and what do we want to achieve?

As the last caller said, "If a guy like Bill Gates can make billions creating a whole new industry, fine," but what have the securities wizards of Wall Street given us? On a continuum, businesses range from those that create wealth, to those that concentrate and extract wealth, perhaps even steal it, without adding any value to the community at large. We can ask "Does this business increase the overall wealth and quality of life of its community, or does it impoverish its community?"

Explicitly criminal enterprises either extract wealth (extortion, "protection") or thrive by selling a product (drugs) with short term "benefits" to its clients who, however, damage the community by engaging in overtly damaging extraction - theft, mugging, extortion. Ponzi schemes are illegal, because they cannot fulfill their promises. Some other sometimes not legal enterprises (Casinos) are devoted to wealth accumulation at the expense of their customers, but are sometimes legal because the customer is (theoretically) aware of the dangers. Some Wall street enterprises (mortgage securities) extracted wealth from investors, but their product or the act of creating it was not illegal because we had not awoken to their inner contradictions. "Network marketing" looks a lot like a Ponzi scheme, and has in the past been tightly regulated, even though they do in fact sell products. Pay-day lenders are being carefully scrutinized because of the uncertain balance of values. Banks, because they handle money, have in the past been tightly regulated, because the use of that money can add or subtract value from the community of which it is a part. Other service businesses, like lawyers and plumbers, require a license, to guarantee the quality of the work, but are free to charge what they want to, and spend their money anyway they want to. Other businesses sell or make products, and the public interest resides in the healthfulness of those products, and the effects of its production on the natural environment and the workers who produce them, but they are free to sell goods, hire people, borrow, build, buy, invest or liquidate, because we understand the business to be about creating new wealth, about producing goods or services that are in demand in the community and beneficial to the health of the community. The values of the community align with the values of the individual.

In all of these examples, the great schism is between activity which improves the quality of life and activity which damages the quality of life. The salient question when looking at any economic activity is first "Is this a method of creating new wealth? Or a method of concentrating other people's wealth?" And second "Does this activity contribute to the general prosperity, or reduce it?" While related, they are not the same question.

The failure of the market and of the government was to foresee that the Wall Street securities brokers would strike out on both counts, in fact fail to even ask the questions. Any business devoted to concentrating wealth without providing an obvious public benefit deserves to be regulated *per se*, and any time a new product or enterprise is to be introduced, we have a right to ask how that product or enterprise fares on those questions. Certainly, NO NEW SECURITY PRODUCT should ever be legal at all until after it has been scrutinized by dispassionate, non-ideological regulators.

Since no one is reading I can write anything

2008-12-15T16:16:00.003-05:00

On the 10th I got to the room for the organizing meeting thinking of all the details I had neglected to ensure any kind of turn out. The UU church in Burlington is a busy place and they have a "night watchman" to tend the doors and lights as people come and go and he wanted to attend the meeting after seeing its title. So I gladly let him guide the conversation and in the end he encouraged me to continue pushing for a discussion about executive-branch accountability. I guess I needed a break from the subject because I have barely thought about the meeting since then and only tonight have I found any interest in writing about it.

I have been discussing with myself and others what this experience means to me personally and how I might do things differently in the future.

As soon as I left the meeting I began to think about dodging the organizing part and just writing a book. This would be a more effective use of my time' since I would be using it to do research and documentation of the subject, and would as my first published work, if it were published, end my anonymity. I also started thinking about saturation bombing snippets of the article changes out to every body who might be interested. I might do this yet, but it's not easy to do and I am unsure that it would be worthwhile. It would be a success if anyone started to notice my work.

I want to be part of the conversations where the really bright people are, where the people who make decisions are. This desire is based entirely on a desire to make a difference in the world, to see changes made that would actually work. But something is missing between here and there, between imagination and realization. Considering how far I've come, I'm sure I will work this out, too.

This blog is organized in two ways: The default and imperative chronological form, by the date of the first time any title was used, and by topic. The topic organization fulfills my mission better.

Update December 1, 2008

2008-12-01T21:49:00.005-05:00

Have issued a press release, which will mail tomorrow, to a selection of Vermont newspapers, radio stations and TV stations.

Please notice the Blog Contents section. I have arranged the entries in my preferred order of reading.

I don't know where this is going, but I am following through with the intention of my inspiration.

Bearing this cause Heavily.

2008-11-29T23:50:00.007-05:00

To move an amendment to the U.S. Constitution through all of its rigors occupies the nation's mind for many years. Even to raise the question and put it down as undesired could turn over the nation's mind with questions, debates and conflicts, drawing on energy that is much needed elsewhere. Beyond this, if the effort, small in its original chances of success, bears the fruit of a changed Constitution, it will change the nation, change its character, in subtle and eternal ways, not predestined to be better. To propose to alter the Constitution – to be serious and to work for its doing – is to shoulder a responsibility of unspeakable magnitude. Contemplation of this responsibility is profoundly humbling for me. An honest man, a man who respects the labors and investments of every other human being, someone who would not ask for attention without good cause, someone who does not repay that attention with some great performance, must tell why this is a cause worthy of the nation's attention, why the question itself deserves attention.

I have been moved in my anger and dismay at the criminal arrogance of the Bush-Cheney team, in such a way that no other presidency has – not Nixon, not Ford, not Carter, not Reagan, not Bush I, not Clinton – and the mood of many Americans is like mine – what things have upset other Americans about this Administration are essentially those that have upset me. I am not alone in my feelings. But is this, a constitutional amendment, the best answer to these feelings?

If I, like so many others, have disagreed with most Bush-Cheney policy, I have also, like others, protested the policies of other presidents, but even then did not find grievous flaws in the Constitution because of these differences. Law was generally followed in those previous administrations of the country, administrators upheld democratic traditions, and the Constitution was not spun to a vertiginous heights of absurdity. Where Bush-Cheney policy might have been comparable as policy to that of other administrations, I would not have begrudged them the right to make policy, and certainly would not advocate for a Constitutional amendment to tilt against our differences. Disagreement over policy is, of course, normal and necessary.

But this administration, in pursuit of its policies and its legacy, has deviated further -- into the realm of unaccountable, into the realms of anti-democratic and illegal behavior, such as bending science, or just overruling science, excuse making to justify actions, violating law and being unashamed and unrepentant about doing so, using incompetence, ignorance and cronyism to effect its goals, lying and stonewalling, demonizing its foes and dividing the country into hostile camps -- than any other I have witnessed, than any I ever imagined would take office. The flaw of this administration, which separates it from others, was not the foreign policy and domestic policy it promoted, but the secret meetings, the willful refusal to give testimony, the super-abundance of “top-secret” documents, the destruction of records, the willful failure to preserve email communication, and the current effort to install political appointees as permanent civil servants. More than simply legitimate policy actions, these were – are – crimes against democracy, crimes against our right to know and hold our Executive accountable for its actions. That unique characteristic of the Bush-Cheney administration which bespeaks a Constitutional flaw has been its ability and intent to undermine accountability, its effective escape from the system of checks and balances with which our government was conceived and has remained stable for over 200 years. It has simply declared itself immune, and has, in just so few words, simply sealed itself off from Congressional oversight. But is a Constitutional amendment the proper way to address these issues?

Just on the account of my own scholarship, I am not sure it does. And if I do not represent a mood and a will felt across the nation, then this paltry plea will mean nothing. But in my mind and my heart, this question rings true. “If they can ignore even the Constitution, which prohibits unwarranted search and seizure, if they can deny habeas corpus even to an American Citizen, what more can they do, what more have they done?” If in me alone these events are vile abrogations of the Presidents pledge of office, then mine is a vision to be discarded. But even if I I am not alone, who am I to ask the nation to pay the price of this debate and the passage of a twenty-eighth Amendment? .

I bear this cause heavily. I cannot be sure this is the best course for the nation. But if not this, then what? Does the Congress have the power or the right or the will to do any better? What measures can the Congress or the People take, when a President can use the power of that office to vault over laws, the Constitution, international treaties and even the weight of public opinion? A headstrong Executive can do anything it wants to when the Constitution fails to provide a check to the abusive use of its power. This is what I believe we need. A check on abuses. Can this really be done in any way other than an Amendment?

Build a Movement.

2008-11-18T22:27:00.009-05:00

I believe the time has come to correct some major deficiencies in our Constitution, to address the abuses heaped upon it by the Bush Administration.

The damage done by the Bush administration, accomplished through deceit, demagoguery, and shear incompetence, has me so angry that I'm ready to stand up and face the nation to call for a Constitutional Amendment. Of course, my voice alone will not move a nation. And I don't expect to alone impress anyone who could make this happen. But I suppose, I believe, that many people feel as I do - that the Imperial presidency has cost us and our nation too much in too many ways - and that many people will support a movement to bring new accountability to the Executive Branch of Government. So that's my plan: to build enthusiasm from us, the American populace, to make the ground swell, until it is seen that we the people are serious and numerous, and want an amendment. As of this moment, I'm working alone (with encouragement), but if the need for this is as deep as I believe it to be, once sparked, this vision will ignite and fuel itself, and a movement will be launched. If I have read our mood wrongly, or my solution seems wrong to others, the movement won't light, but here is my call - please check this out and send the link to this blog to other folks. My only goal for now is to find others who want to hold future administrations accountable for such high crimes as Bush-Cheney have committed, and for them to find others who want this also, and if this is the solution we select, to seek the critical mass of support for a Constitutional Amendment.

I have drafted a version of what might be Amendment 28 because I needed to articulate a vision, my vision, of how to address the Constitutional issues. So now that I have articulated my solutions, and I believe in them, I present this draft as a starting point, ground from which to push the conversation. Does this address the issues in the best possible way? I welcome the day it is out of my hands. For now we can talk about the best way to address the mind boggling arrogance of the Bush administration, and its many violations of the Constitution. And we can build support for some sort of change so that in the future, an Executive that is out-of-bounds can be checked.

If you think this idea has found its time, please tell others you think so, and tell them about this blog. If you want to do more, please organize a meeting to talk about building a movement. And write to me about your meeting. Put comments on the blog.

Thanks, Stephen Alrich Marshall
mystical.atheist@gmail.com
"dispolemic.blogspot.com"

Ignite the Tinder Charter Meeting

2008-11-17T14:48:00.008-05:00

Bush Cheney Postmortem
and Discussion
Of Whether to Start A Movement To Amend the Constitution

Dec. 10, 2008
7:00
UU Church, Burlington
Pearl Street across from Church Street Market Place – enter by side door.

Topical Agenda:

- Bush Presidency postmortem – Remembering anti-democratic and illegal acts
- Holding the Presidency Accountable – Naming Constitutional violations
- Amend the U.S. Constitution - Proposal on the table by Stephen Alrich Marshall

From the Preamble: “...The people being the source of all authority and the final arbiter of the good of the nation...”
Section 1: The right of the people to sue for access to records.
Section 2: Modification of language in various clauses
Section 3: Privilege of Confidence: Powers and Procedures for the Congress to hold the Executive Accountable.

Action Agenda: What Next?

- Brainstorming needs
- Who does what
- Plan new meeting.

Please Read the US Constitution to be an informed Leader.

Also extremely helpful, the Federalist Papers, and the Anti-Federalist Papers.

Facts, Principles and Intents

2008-11-13T17:41:00.012-05:00

If you were as outraged, as I was, by the blatant and egregious violations of the Constitution, of law, and of the spirit of an open, democratic, free society, that were perpetrated by the administration of George Bush, I think you will agree that the time has come to answer the question "How can we prevent these crimes?"

IMPEACHMENT.
Throughout the last term of Congress, when the Democrats had narrow margins of majority, the Democratic Leadership declined to impeach, not for disbelieving that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were impeachable, but because they believed the disruption to the country and the distraction from the business of Governing would be too great and too harmful. Despite my profound dismay with the harms to our country being perpetrated by our government, I could see wisdom in this choice. Following the destruction of Richard Nixon and accelerating with the defeat of Robert Bork, partisan competition had become a vengeful pursuit of the destruction of political foes, as we witnessed when Bill Clinton faced impeachment for offenses not previously deemed impeachable. The Democratic Leadership of the final Congress of the Bush-Cheney administration made a decision that would damp-down the politics of personal destruction, which, in spite of the evil violations of the democratic spirit inflicted upon us, would serve the greater good better, in the long run, than any stay on or accounting of the Bush-Cheney deeds, given Bush-Cheney would soon be leaving office.

PROSECUTION
Similarly, despite a widespread anger at the Bush-Cheney violations in the grass roots, there appears to be no appetite, in the Congress, to bring Charges against them after succession, apparently because of the political turmoil that would result, and because the nation's energy is needed to deal with current economic and international problems. “Damn 'em, chase 'em out of town, and forget 'em!” seems to be the sentiment. To say it another way, now that the storm is over, “Pick yourself up, brush off, and get to work. Our labor is needed more in repairing the economy than in securing justice.” Senator Leahy has been heard to say that there is no chance of a post succession prosecution. Predictions have been made that Bush will issue pardons to obviate prosecutions.

DIAGNOSTIC
As a means of accountability, Impeachment is too blunt of an instrument. Because the constitution fails to define the sorts of crimes that would justify impeachment, short of a political consensus that a high crime has indeed been committed, impeachment is, by default, a political instrument, prone to being wielded not for justice, but for opportunistic acts of political destruction. Furthermore, because the only outcome, after impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate, is to remove the president from office, the stakes are as high as they get in American political life. As a means of accountability, impeachment threatens to occupy the mind of the nation for months on end, to draw down the energy of the legislative body and the administration of the government of the American people, and to alter the course of history by failing to do something else. So our more prudent political leaders are loathe to pursue it, and impeachment is not a viable means of holding the executive to account for sub-critical crimes.

The president and the executive generally cannot be prosecuted for crimes unique to those offices, they must be impeached. And sub-executive officers can be prosecuted for ordinary crimes if the President is willing to authorize the Attorney General to pursue such a case, but as a means of accountability it fails because the President won't press charges on an officer acting on behalf of the President. And the President is free to pardon officers of the executive, and often does, so they usually cannot be prosecuted when the Presidential term is over and an opposition president has been installed.

So what remains for the Congress to do? Law already exists prohibiting the president from doing many of the things Bush-Cheney have done, and they have done them anyway. Short of a crime which compels even the members of the President's own party to rebel, impeachment is not a threat. Congress can do little more than demand attendance at hearings, to convey its displeasure at the actions of the executive.

PROPOSED
The Bush-Cheney administration has exposed the liberty of the executive to do whatever it wants to, even violate law, ignore summonses and subpoenas of Congress, and indeed, harm the commonweal, without being obliged to account for such violations or failures of judgment. In effect, the executive has not been properly checked, by either the legislative or the judicial branches of government, as our principle of “checks-and-balances” would dictate. Given the goal of the Constitution to provide inter-branch checks on excesses and abuses, new constitutional mechanisms to balance against opportunistic abuses of the executive powers might be needed.

Whatever this mechanism is, because the presidency contains within it the role of commander in chief, and because we depend on the president to act confidently and creatively in all matters of national interest, constraints on this office and the executive must limit abuses, but not leadership, must resist abuses by hostile partisans, but not needful use, and must ensure that such punishments as it may eventually mete out are abundantly necessary. Since the occupant of this office necessarily operates in a political environment, in which a check on the executive powers could be abused to harass or endanger the effectiveness of an administration, even when operating within the bounds of the law, said mechanism should itself be checked in various ways, such as being limited in scope in the first place, at times demanding concurrence of both chambers and using greater than majority votes, to proceed, and giving the judiciary powers to intervene. Finally, with due respect to all flawed but caring persons, bad laws are sometimes passed, good laws are made bad by changing circumstances, and, in any case, a good person may feel compelled to violate the law in the interest of the well being of the people, or of upholding democracy.

Before we place limits on the powers of the President, we must answer the great fear that, after a bombing, a hijacking or an attack, or in the time of a cold war or a hot war, the president might be prevented by law from acting swiftly and confidently to meet the challenge. This fear is perhaps felt more by those who worry about defense and protection of national interests, and less by those that worry about civil liberties or justice, but that fear is real and justified, as the president is our commander in chief, and the person upon whom our collective safety rests. Against this fear is the danger that the powers of the President might be used to intrude upon private citizens who are acting lawfully, against their rights of free speech or economic well being. But we are not forced to act at one extreme of concern or the other. Both of these interests can – and must – be protected.

The first great answer to the fear of over-limiting a president is that because, in a sudden crisis, a president who acts illegally, to protect the people, the nation or the nation's interests, will still gain sympathy from the people of the nation. They will hold him/her harmless, because the president has done the right thing, even if it is illegal. However this protection does not work for abuses, excesses and corruptions. And we prefer to have law that does not need to be broken in defense of the nation.

The first great answer to the fear of over-powering the President resides in the daily, detailed, scrutiny of the office and the entire executive branch, by the media, by Congress, and by other investigators. What the President, the executive, and the government do is of continuing and particular interest to the people, and if the people know what is happening in the government, the President will be held to account for it. The people knowing what the executive is doing, much more than the threat of legal actions or impeachment, will chasten anyone who is considering an illegal act.

Ultimately, we must avoid placing limits on the President, if we can, so we must make everything that the executive does subject to scrutiny. What is not subject to scrutiny must be controlled by someone other than the Executive itself. Such a check on the executive would not punish the executive or its delegees for any crime, except the crime of shielding its actions from public scrutiny. Merely, not revealing to the public what it needs to know to judge the rightness of the actions taken by the executive. The mechanism envisioned, in fact, produces only one crime, that of failing to tell the truth in matters under executive control. If in fact the executive is conducting the people's business in reasonable conformance with the law, does not lie about its actions, and does not hide those acts it is required to disclose, the executive cannot be harmed.

The mechanism envisioned here proposes a new fundamental right of the people, separately and collectively, to review anything that their government knows or does, and to meter this right through their representatives in Congress. This metering would be further buffered through the use of independent bodies of experts, whose role is like that of a grand jury, and whose judgment is further metered through new rounds of Congressional decisions at yet higher standards of compelling need. If the executive is not telling the people the truth, is hiding the truth, and grievous harm is in evidence, then the Congress has at its disposal a means to remove the corrupt elements without resorting to impeachment. This power, then, is itself checked by a role for the judiciary.

The fundamental right of the people to know was perhaps not obvious to our founders, perhaps because to them the executive had been a King, a sovereign, and it would be sufficient to hold the executive as wholly and finally responsible, that only the outputs of the executive's actions would be truly of interest to the people. But in our times, this right might seem more obvious, when transparency might be the only check on an executive intent on investigating innocent people without a warrant, intent on protecting corrupt policy making, intent on protecting favored clients who might have violated law. Certainly, we would ask, if the government draws its legitimate powers from the people, from its mandate to conduct the business of the people, then whenever would the government need to do anything it should hide from the people? If the government conducts all of its business within the law, what could it have to hide? Short of those concerns which the Congress and the executive might agree are best held in confidence, is not the business of the executive the business of the people, and a-priori their natural business and interest? In light of our experience with an executive whose pronounced secrecy has hidden so much corrupt and illegal behavior, a proposal to raise transparency to the height of fundamental right seems entirely justified. The constitution, we may note, requires the Congress to produce a record of its deliberations, and the courts do so automatically. Why should not the executive be expected to make public its deliberations and witnesses?

By providing a right of the people to discover the inner workings of their government, and by delegating that right up to the Congress to enforce, a meaningful check on Executive abuses is erected. By placing the power to investigate and bring charges in an autonomous panel which can be fired by the courts, a meaningful obstacle to partisan harassment is erected. By providing to Congress the power to sue delegees of the executive for failure to answer the people's right to know, the Congress has a meaningful check on executive secrecy, and by granting to the Supreme Court the responsibility to rule on charges of concealment, a meaningful check on partisan harassment is erected. By providing that a conviction under a Congressional charge of concealment will result in dismissal from office, the Executive is placed on notice that if it directs its personnel to engage in corrupt criminal behavior, and to hide it from public scrutiny, those persons can readily be removed from office, and persons who would work in the executive are placed on notice that if they fail to serve the people in good faith, either by committing a crime or by lying about it, the confidence of the executive cannot protect them. Powers of the Congress and the Courts can be exercised to remove them from office. At the same time, by making the laws which govern this process active only in electoral terms of office following the term of their enactment, the Congress would be extremely reluctant to customize the law just to make trouble for the current administration. They would be mindful of the need not to hobble the next President, whom they might favor. A “right to know” would not hobble any executive whose performance is consonant with the well being of the people, and the law. Indeed a more accountable executive is likely to be an invigorated executive, freshened by participation and public input.

The Worst Crimes

2008-11-10T14:29:00.028-05:00

Premise of a Proposal to Amend the Constitution.

Stephen Alrich Marshall, November 2008

Incest, rape, torture, genocide and ecocide are not the worst crimes. The worst crimes happen when incest, rape, torture, genocide and ecocide are invisible, when the criminal reaps the rewards of that crime — whatever such cruelty can yield — without accountability and punishment. The worst crimes combine in their execution with secrecy.

There are of course occasions for secrecy with which we would all sympathize. Among these are personal time, relationship time, business dealings to gain a competitive advantage, bank account numbers and passwords, and the code which unlocks the launch button at strategic command. Secrecy, in these cases, allows people to form emotional identifications, can contribute to the community prosperity and diversity, diminishes crime, and promotes our safety. There are many occasions when secrecy promotes well being, because people and nations are frequently malevolent, and might use a vulnerability to destroy the other, who would do better to shield it from view.

But secrecy, whether intentional or fortuitous, can also protect a criminal from the consequences of a criminal act. As such, the criminal planning a crime, something legally dubious, or merely unpopular, and seeking to escape consequences, seeks a way to screen his act from scrutiny. Of course, if an ordinary, legal, acceptable screen, that which is least likely to arouse suspicion, is available, the astute perpetrator will try to erect these screens, and do so with a plausible demeanor of innocence. If we are not expecting a deceit, if we are determined that trust is justified, the valid necessity of privacy can be easily hijacked to provide a screen to cover a crime.

So what are we to think when someone is extremely secretive? Does this person merely feel an unusual need for privacy, an exaggerated mistrust of others with which we might otherwise normally sympathize? Or do they have nefarious purposes, and have in mind to use the usual deference we show to each other to execute a crime? If no one ever emerges from behind his screen of privacy with a bloody face, with screams or mental anguish, if this someone is never caught in deceit, theft or violence, is there a problem? Is it anyone else's business? Typically we would avoid such sensitive questions, even if we have them, because with this much information, any one of us could be held up for scrutiny, and to protect our own privacy, we just don't ask.

But what if it is our business? What if damaged people are emerging from behind the screen, what if any one of us could be taken behind the screen and damaged? What if, after a long series of otherwise un-momentous inconsistencies and logical fallacies, we discover the cupboard is bare, the water is spoiled and the firewood is piled up around a blood splattered car? Then we might wonder, and demand to know, "Is this privacy or secrecy?” and “What exactly are you doing?” We have suddenly learned to not trust this person, and to have no faith in his intentions.

And what if it is the business of governing, and we are the governed? What if someone demands concealment of the inner workings of his administration, and then starts a war we didn't need to enter for shifting reasons that were never true? What if someone spies on citizens and covers it with secrecy? What if someone breaks law after law, claiming he has the authority, but no, he can't say why the law has to be broken, and we cannot even sue for relief because everyone who could testify is forbidden to speak of it? What are we to think when it is our government that requires secrecy? We hope the reasons are good, we hope that laws will not be broken, we hope that the secrecy will be used only to protect our own vulnerabilities, we hope that this secrecy will not be used to mislead us, deny justice, or drain the public purse. We hope and, in the Bush administration, we were profoundly disappointed.What are we to think when the purpose of the secrecy seems to be to avoid accountability?

If in the opening days of the Obama presidency we look back at the Bush administration and ask “Why were you so secretive?”, and “What exactly were you doing?”, and despite the “bloody faces”, we can get no account, no prosecution and no justice, then we might want, in any case, to insist on new law, to check these abuses in future administrations.

The core issue is democracy. Democracy is in the first place, a social construct whose essential purpose is to make power serve the greater good, to make those who wield power answerable for the well being of those who invest trust in them, to bring the powerful into the service of the people from whom that power flows. When accountability fails, democracy is at risk.

In the instance of the Bush administration, minor ambiguities in the US Constitution were used, without effective pushback, to justify or hide illegal behavior. And when behavior was plainly illegal, plainly violated the Constitution, the public had no recourse, had no effective legal remedies, that would force the administration to remain within the law, short of a bruising and impractical impeachment. The Bush administration casually kited over accountability, simply ignoring the law, making clever explanations, or by spinning ambiguities in the Constitution to favor his purposes.

As a consequence, we as Americans suffered humiliation and violations of our civil rights, have seen people murdered and humiliated in our name for reasons we would never confess to, have seen our collective wealth consumed to fulfill arrogant ambitions, have watched as our national pride as a democratic and principled society was trashed, because, except by that cumbersome and difficult process of impeachment, we have no way to demand an accounting. As a nation that esteems “the rule of law”, we had no law, with an effect short of firing our President and Vice President, to protect us against an executive who would violate the law

If you were as outraged, as I was, by the blatant and egregious violations of the Constitution and law, that were perpetrated by the administration of George Bush, I think you will agree that the time has come to answer the question, "How can we prevent these crimes?"

We are guided by empirical facts and overarching principles, from which I derive for your consideration a proposal to amend our Constitution.

To view the actual Constitution, go to www.usconstitution.net,or visit others of the resources listed in the margins of this blog.

Proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

2008-11-10T14:06:00.019-05:00

AmendmentXXVIII:
Executive Accountability

The decisions of Government being in service to thewell being of the people, and the people being the source of allauthority and the final arbiter of the good of the nation, theExecutive and its deliberations shall be the property of the people,subject to their selective review and subject to a controlled reviewby the Congress, as the Congress shall in law provide.

Lawenacted under this provision shall be in force only after the dulyelected successor of the President then in power has taken office.

Such powers as flow to the Congress from this Amendment whichnecessitate enacted legislation to be properly expressed shall besuppressed until and unless such legislation is enacted.

Section 1.
Right of the People toSue

When other forms of petition fail to evince from the executivetimely and effective results, The People may sue the Executive toreveal knowledge, process, testimony, sources, deliberations anddecisions to a competent and secure body outside of the Executive,which the executive must do in a brevity of time sufficient to avoidegregious harm to the petitioner. Further,

i. The Congressshall by law identify those matters which may or shall be kept frompublic disclosure. All other information held by Government shall bedeemed to be of the public record, and without shield from fulldisclosure.

ii. The Congress shall, by law, designate suchpersons or entity as it will, to hold in trust such information asmight be provided in a People's suit against the executive, who orwhich shall answer the public need, consistent with Congressionalguidance. Once commissioned and set upon their duties, said Trustshall serve, withstanding all changes of law or executive order,until its duties are complete, except if the Supreme court determinesit or they are incompetent or insufficiently neutral, or the taskassigned by Congress has been mooted. Said Trust shall possess theright to acquire without challenge from the Executive unmodifieddocuments, if warranted by the citizen suit. Law written to effectthis clause shall be effective immediately upon the grant of the law.

iii. Only that law which was in effect during the previousterm of the Presidency shall apply, for purposes of any specificsuit;

iv. The executive shall not be shielded from damagesfor egregious obfuscation.

v. Imperatives of this articleshall not be construed to oblige disclosure to public awareness thatinformation whose publication might adversely affect the publicwelfare, or damage private rights. Such information shall be providedto Congress or its designee with due care and concern for thesecurity of such information, as provided in law.

vi. TheSupreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction in citizen suits, andsole jurisdiction in supervision of the citizen suit Trust.

Section 2.
Modifications of existing language

Article I Section 3 shall be modified to read:

TheVice President of the United States shall, as member of theexecutive and accountable to the people as such, be Presidentof the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equallydivided.

Article I Section 7 shall have appended toit:

Once signed by the President, The Presidentshall enforce the entire law as sent to him/her by Congress, and ifs/he signs the bill with objections, expressly intending to abrogateportions of the bill, the bill will be as vetoed and returned toCongress.

Article I Section 9 shall be modified toread:

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall notbe suspended in any state or territory owned or controlled bythe United States, for any person held by the United States or anyally, surrogate or assignee, unless and only for aslong as, when in cases of Rebellion or Invasion orWarfare in the surrounds of the place of detention, thepublic safety may require it. Further, except in the time ittakes to remove detainees from these same circumstances, any personheld by any unit of the government of the United States, or any ally,surrogate or assignee, in accord with the Writ of Habeas Corpus,shall be given a binding declaration of whether she/he is held undercriminal law, or the law of war, and all protections thus affordedunder consequent law shall be provided.

Article IISection 2 shall be modified to read:

The President shallbe Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, andof the Militia of the several states, when called into the actualservice of the United States, which command shall not exemptthe President or delegees from due observance and enforcement of thelaw, constitutional, judicial, legislative or that between nations;he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principalOfficer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subjectrelating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall havePower to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the UnitedStates, except in Cases of Impeachment of an Executive or of anexecutive delegee, or to prevent prosecution of anexecutive, of an executive delegee, or any of these after theexecutive leaves office, for illegal activity favoring the executiveand damaging to the interests of the people.

ArticleII Section 3 shall be modified to read:

He shall from timeto time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union,and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as the Presidentshall judge necessary and expedient, and shall provide toCongress at that same time any data, records and documents of anydeliberations and testimony as the President shall have used toarrive at said assessment of the State of the Union, including thosethat the President may deem sensitive or secret; [Etcetera].

Article II Section 4 shall be modified to read:

ThePresident, Vice President and all civil Officers of the UnitedStates, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, andConviction of, Treason, Bribery, violating provisions of theConstitution, violating international law to which the United Statesare signatory, violating law the Congress may have designated bytwo-thirds vote during any previous presidential elective term ofoffice, or other such high Crimes and Misdemeanors..

Article II shall have appended to it a Section 5:

EXECUTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY TO INTERNATIONAL LAW

If, whether through his own acts, the acts of theUnited States, or the conduct of other nations, the Executive shallbe accused of violating the laws of war, of crimes against humanity,or of other grievous crimes that might be embodied in the law ofnations, and a prosecutor shall appear before the Supreme Court ofthe United States to demand extradition of said executive, a GrandJury composed of citizens of the United States and territories shallbe empowered to examine the evidence, and to recommend a course ofaction for the United States. This Grand Jury has within its purviewtwo questions:

i. Whether the executive might be guilty of said alleged crimes, and then
ii. Whether the well being of the Nation shall be better served by extradition, impeachment or defense of said Executive, or by inaction.

Said Grand Jury shall be drawn from members of theJudiciary, in number a majority, the Congress, in number half theremaining, and from the public, the remaining fraction. Members ofthis body shall be adjudged for their impartiality, and approved bythree-fifths of the Senate.

A recommendation ofextradition shall be allowed by a majority vote of the Senate, andapproved only after such allowance by a majority of justices of theSupreme Court.

A recommendation to defend theExecutive against extradition shall be approved by a majority of theSenate. If said defense fails in any international venue, the GrandJury shall be reconvened to reconsider its previous recommendations,except that defense shall not be an option.

Ifthese domestic proceedings shall extend beyond the term of office ofthe accused, said accused shall be afforded all of the procedures,protections, resources and culpabilities as were afforded during thatterm.

Article III shall have appended a Section 4:

The supreme Court shall receive any requests forextradition, of the Executive or any other Officer of the Government,to international courts, and shall provide the final domestic courtof appeal against their extradition.

Section 3.
Privilege of Confidence

The confidence of the people that in keeping state secrets, theexecutive is serving the interests of the people, shall be securedthrough oversight by the Congress.

Subsection I.Definition, Powers and Obligations:

A. ANY rights andpowers of the executive as may be construed to exempt the executivefrom testimony before Congress or from disclosure of any knowledge,records or testimony of any communication, consultation or counsel,anywhere within the executive or between the executive and any otherparty, shall
i. be referred to inclusively as "the privilegeof confidence", and
ii. not withstand the right of Congressto acquire such, for any reason whatsoever, except as providedherein.

B. Subpoena of the President shall require a threequarters vote of the subpoenaing Chamber of Congress, and majorityascent of the other, acting within one week. Subpoena of theVice-President shall require a three fifths vote of the subpoenaingChamber of Congress, and majority ascent of the other, acting withinone week. Subpoena of any other executive delegee shall be asprovided in law.

C. If the Executive comes to be inpossession of information it deems to be deserving of the privilegeof confidence, and the Congress has not yet exempted it fromobligatory public disclosure, The Supreme Court may restrain itsrelease for periods not greater than one year each.

D.Conformance of the Executive with the requirement to make all of itsrecords public, as implied herein, shall be as directed by Law.

Subsection II. Enforcement:

If theexecutive shall claim the privilege of confidence, either chamber ofCongress may appoint by simple majority one or several politicallydisinterested investigators, who shall be subject to approval by asimple majority of the alternate chamber, to summon and depose anyexecutive delegees or surrogates, and examine any documents of theexecutive branch, without redaction, exclusion or exception, todetermine whether the privilege of confidence has been justlyasserted. Once appointed, said investigators shall serve at thediscretion of the Supreme Court, and grounds for dismissal shall beincompetence or immoderate partisanship. Conclusions of saidinvestigators shall not be subject to appeal, but stand as chargesmade by a prosecutor.

Part A. If the investigatorsconclude that the privilege of confidence has been invoked for goodcause, or without good cause and without harmful effect, all suppliedrecords and testimony shall be returned to the executive and a reportmade to the Congress as to the nature of said cause and its effect;

Part B. If the investigators conclude that theprivilege of confidence has been asserted without good cause, suchthat performance of the duties of Governing were harmed, or such thata delegee has been shielded from accountability to public scrutiny,but that no crime warranting prosecution had been committed, theInvestigator shall report as such to Congress, and provide a summaryreport, describing what harms or ethical violations the investigatorswould allege, citing salient records and testimony. This report, ifapproved by the empowering body, may be made public.

PartC. If the investigators conclude that the privilege of confidencehas been asserted without good cause to the effect that the executiveor its delegees have obstructed Congressional awareness of violationsof the law, or have concealed from Congress intentional efforts todamage the performance of Government, the investigators shall reportto Congress evidence of such violations, and recommend a course ofaction. In addition to impeachment as already provided herein, theCongress shall have the right to order prosecution of any delegee ofthe executive, for violating the confidence of the people. TheSupreme Court shall have primary jurisdiction, and the sole questionunder a Congressional order shall be whether the executive delegeeacted to conceal from Congress:

i. evidence of possiblycriminal behavior.

ii. evidence of actions meant to damagethe provision of governmental services.

Subsection III.Remedies following prosecution for Concealment

Iffound to be innocent, the prosecution shall report to Congress howits prosecution erred, and said delegee may remain in office, subjectto the discretion of the President.

If convicted, delegees ofthe executive shall immediately be removed from office, prior to anyappeals. Delegee may not appeal a conviction of concealment whileCriminal charges are pending.

If criminal charges are pressedand the delegee is found innocent on all charges, Delegee may appeal,and if prevailing in this appeal, may return to prior executiveduties, subject to the discretion of the President.

Neitherinnocence nor conviction on charges of concealment shall immunize thedelegee from prosecution for any other crime in any other venue.
“dispolemic.blogspot.com”

Repudiation of Polemics

2008-11-10T14:03:00.004-05:00

Stephen Alrich Marshall
Fri, 07 Nov 2008

Entitlement, to the prerogatives of power, and the spoils thereof, was (and may still be) the flaw of the Republican mind. Feeling the right to dictate moral coda and to concentrate wealth in fewer hands, there was and must be a righteous "us", and a flawed, perhaps evil, "them". Having already split the world into friends and enemies, they could speak softly to their friends the truth, and they could lie and distort facts and ideas to anyone else, as needed, to acquire the power to which they were, after all, "entitled". And which they needed to effect their agenda. Like Eco-terrorists who get into a construction site and destroy the equipment, only to find the owners fetching the police on them, they so successfully implemented their vision to destroy government that now the owners of that government have evicted them from power, they have in fact repudiated that vision.

Who tells us we do not need government? How, without laws, and without placing the police power in the hands of some accountable agency, do we guarantee that greed, sadism and deceit shall not operate in human affairs? How, without an institution that is accountable to and guided by the people, can we fairly, democratically, set the minimum standards of good citizenship, and enforce them? How, without an incarnation of the community, its institutional memory, and its sole possession of the police power, are we to negotiate the terms of life in society, except by violence and fear? There are yet places in the world without government, and these are dangerous places that armies avoid.

The Democrats, the Independents, and the apatheticists failed also, having no vision and no story to counter the narcissism of the Right. Democrats and Activists also failed when they lashed out at Republicans, in spiteful words. Hate radio has been baiting us for years and we needed to vent, but hate only feeds hate, so let us hope we cool off and apologize. Democrats, feeling repudiated by Ronald Reagan's call for personal responsibility, and cowed by the ridicule heaped on the epithet "liberal", have failed to reclaim the vision of an effective government, as a necessary fulfillment of the vision to "... form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...", not in denial of personal responsibility, but as a complement to it. The Democrats, like the Republicans, failed to see the validity and necessity of the vision of their ideological opponents.

The deeper philosophical error was and is to believe that one political and economic philosophy can guide a nation and its policies. The Republican dogma of personal responsibility, keeping the government out of personal business, and minimized cost of operation, is valid only if seen in contrast with and balanced against a progressive philosophy that reminds us that we cannot live alone, without sharing our streets, homes, businesses, banks and fates, that we have common interests, that the well being of individuals is an inherent interest of the community, and that the government is where communities make their decisions. Likewise, the Progressive dogma that government can be a force for good is only valid when countered by the conservative abhorrence of dependence. The core truth, forgotten by polemicists, is that all views are needed to find the pragmatic middle, and that no one view is sufficient for a complete vision.

We need a new vision of contest in American Politics, in which the opponent is a representative of a different way of seeing the world and our common business, whom we can question and probe for deeper understanding, and which we ourselves need, to get the policy and the philosophy right.