Breaking News Events

[Cin]

Speaking of the war on drugs here are just a few of the things that are ludicrously devastating about it.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/1...#ixzz2bfC6ITUx

Seventy-six million Americans suffer from chronic, daily pain, and at least nine million have daily pain that is severe enough to interfere significantly with their jobs and relationships. As baby boomers continue to age, the proportion of the population suffering from pain will only increase. Already, undertreated pain is estimated to cost the country $61 billion a year in lost productivity, according to the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Even among patients who are dying, half are not given adequate pain relief. Yet virtually all the news about opioid pain medication is focused on drug abuse and addiction and how to reduce prescribing of the only drugs that show effectiveness for the worst pain. Research finds that the vast majority of people who misuse opioids have never even been in pain treatment, and more than 97% of pain patients without prior drug problems do not develop addictions if treated with prescription painkillers. Nonetheless, because of the war on drugs, pain patients are treated with skepticism and pain doctors live in fear of being prosecuted for "overprescribing." The end result is that addicts still get their opioids without much trouble, while genuine patients often can't find treatment. Those who do must typically be tracked in a database and must schedule frequent, expensive doctor visits for surveillance like urine testing. Further, those whose pain is best treated with marijuana still face arrest in many states, even those that have legalized it for medical purposes.

In recent years, prescription drug overdose has overtaken homicide on the list of leading causes of preventable death in the U.S. Overdose now comes in second only to car accidents, having killed more than 35,000 people in 2007. The problem has been blamed on increased prescribing of pain medications. However, most of the deaths involve people who were not prescribed these drugs; the deaths have largely occurred in the context of drug abuse, with victims mixing painkillers (mainly obtained without a legitimate prescription) with alcohol or illegal drugs. There is a safe, nontoxic drug called naloxone that can instantly reverse opioid overdose and prevent most of these deaths. But the drug war interferes with saving overdose victims in two ways: first, because witnesses to overdose fear prosecution, they often don't call for help until it's too late. Second, because the drug war supports the belief that making naloxone available over-the-counter or with opioid prescriptions would encourage drug use, the antidote is available only through harm reduction programs like needle exchanges or in some state programs aimed at drug users.

There are many dedicated professionals who treat people with addiction compassionately, but the American addiction treatment system on the whole remains highly dysfunctional: • Research has long shown that treatment that employs confrontation and humiliation increases drug use rather than fighting addiction, but the majority of rehab programs still include these elements. • Tough-love boot camps, wilderness programs and emotional growth or therapeutic boarding schools — programs aimed mainly at teens who take drugs — remain unregulated at the federal level and continue to use harsh, counterproductive tactics. • Ninety percent of addiction counselors focus on getting people to attend 12-step programs for addiction, even though they are not the only way to recover and don't work for many people. • Methadone and buprenorphine maintenance are the most effective treatments for opioid addiction, yet methadone treatment is exiled from mainstream health care and ghettoized in clinics; as for buprenorphine, any one doctor is not allowed to treat more than 100 patients with the drug. What do these facts have to do with the drug war? If addiction were seen as a disease like any other — not as a problem for the criminal justice system — addiction treatment would have been integrated into ordinary medicine long ago, and the extreme disrespect that many patients still endure would not have been tolerated. Much more treatment could be funded, of course, if the states and federal government combined weren't spending $50 billion annually on law enforcement and prisons.

Although many assume that the popularity of more potent stimulants like crack and crystal meth was a cause of drug war crackdowns, some research suggests that it is actually a result of the war on drugs. When law enforcement targets the drug supply, the most powerful and highly concentrated forms of substances become more attractive to sellers and users, since smaller quantities are generally easier to hide. A similar effect was seen during Prohibition in the U.S., with stronger liquors like moonshine displacing weaker drinks like beer. More potent drugs increase the risk for overdose and often addiction.

In Mexico alone, nearly 35,000 people have been killed in violence related to the drug trade since the Mexican government decided to go to war, literally, with traffickers. Just in 2010, there were 15,273 drug-related murders. Many of those killed were innocent bystanders. While people tend to think that drug use itself leads to violent behavior, studies show that the vast majority of drug-related violence is connected to drug-trade disputes, not drug highs. Ironically, alcohol is the drug that is pharmacologically most likely to increase violence, but we haven't seen much violence related to the alcohol trade since the end of Prohibition.

When President Nixon declared war on drugs on June 17, 1971, about 110 people per 100,000 in the population were incarcerated. Today, we have 2.3 million prisoners: 743 people per 100,000 in the population. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners. As Senator Jim Webb once put it, "Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different — and vastly counterproductive." This rise has been driven by the war on drugs: more than half of all federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses, while about 25% of jail inmates and 21% of state prisoners are drug offenders. The U.S. incarcerates more people for drug offenses today than it did for all offenses combined before the drug war. "It's far beyond anything any other country has done and beyond any other civilization in the history of mankind," says Dr. Josiah Rich, a professor of medicine at Brown University, who wrote a recent editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine on the incarceration epidemic. Incarceration is harmful to mental and physical health — increasing risk for virtually all diseases and disorders — and does not treat addiction.

The most egregious health effects of the drug war have hit black Americans. The rate of incarceration for drug crimes is 10 times higher in blacks than in whites, even though drug use and dealing rates are the same or even higher for whites. More African Americans today are under criminal justice supervision — in prison, on parole or probation — than were enslaved 10 years before the Civil War, according to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. And more than 10% of black men between the ages of 20 and 35 are in prison, which keeps them from their families and children. Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University (full disclosure: he and I are currently writing a book together), notes that the real rise in incarceration occurred under President Reagan and later presidents, not Nixon. "The damage was done after 1986," he says. "And even Reagan wasn't incarcerating as many as Bush and Clinton did." Update [1 p.m.]: The impact of the prison explosion has been devastating. President Jimmy Carter writes today in an impassioned op-ed in the New York Times, calling for an end to the global drug war:
In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts. I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."

The war on drugs has since done more to harm the black family and, consequently, the entire American family than ... any other drug.

[Cin]

More on the war on drugs.

The war on drugs has failed. By making drugs illegal, this country has:
1) Put half a million people in prison : $10 Billion a year
2) Spent billions annually for expanded law enforcement
3) Fomented violence and death (in gang turf wars, overdoses from uncontrolled drug potency & shared needles/AIDS)
4) Eroded civil rights (property can be confiscated from you BEFORE you are found guilty; search and wiretap authority has expanded.)
5) Enriched criminal organizations.

The street price of a single ounce of pure cocaine is several thousands of dollars, yet the cost to produce the drug is less than $20. The difference is the amount we are willing to pay to criminals for the privilege of keeping the drug illegal. Not only that, but such a high markup is strong incentive for people to enter into the sales and trafficking of these drugs. The stiff penalties we assess against drug dealers only makes the price higher and the criminals more desperate to escape capture, more determined to protect their market from encroachment. If drugs were legalized, the price would drop by to a tiny fraction of their current street values and the incentive to push drugs would vanish.

Recall that during prohibition, bootleggers and police used to shoot it out over black market 'shine. Illegal speakeasies did a booming trade, the profits of which went to organized crime. With the end of prohibition, alcohol has been taxed and provides a revenue stream to the State. Would drug use go up? Maybe. But it might well go down, since there would be no profit in getting new users to try drugs.

Protecting drug users against themselves costs the rest of us too much: in dollars, in safety and in freedom.

read the rest of the excerpt:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297c/...dox/htele.html


Logic of War

The War on Drugs has been going on for so long that most people can no longer imagine a world without it. And the rhetoric of war has been effective: there is an unspoken—and unquestioned—assumption that the alternative to fighting this war is defeat.
The unexamined logic goes something like this. Right now,
· we're fighting as hard as we can
· we're spending billions and billions of dollars
· we're locking up drug users as fast as we can build prisons
and still we have drugs, and drug dealers, and drug users. Obviously, if we stop fighting, the country will be overrun with drugs
· everyone will be addicted
· the Mafia will take over the government
· there will be pushers on every street corner
· the United States will turn into one big crack house

Force of Nature

Such is the logic of war.
Of course, it's not really a war: that's just a metaphor. But metaphors have power. They express implicit assumptions. They frame discussion, and constrain possibilities.
Here's a different metaphor. Drugs are a force of nature, like the tide. The tide comes in; the tide goes out. You can't stop the tide, and if you're smart, you don't try. If you're smart,
· you build bridges to span the water
· you build boats that float on the water
· you teach your children to swim, so that they don't drown if they fall in the water

And if someone declares war on the tide, you don't question their judgement; you question their sanity. If drugs are a force of nature, then we need to call off the war and start building bridges.

http://world.std.com/~swmcd/steven/rants/future.html

[Cin]

I guess this isn't a breaking news event, but it's a news story online today so I guess that qualifies. I found the article so interesting I'm posting it in it's entirety. Well maybe interesting isn't quite the word


8 Signs the Rich Have WAY Too Much Money
Our country is increasingly being turned into a plaything for the ultra-rich.

The statistics about wealth inequality in this country are both astonishing and alarming. But statistics can’t tell the entire story if they’re presented in isolation. Our country is increasingly being turned into a plaything for the ultra-rich.

Here are seven signs that the ultra-wealthy Americans have way too much money.

1. Jeff Bezos bought the second most influential newspaper in the country—and it barely dented his net worth.

Two things always get a lot of coverage from reporters in this country—what billionaires do with their money, and anything that affects reporters. When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, we got both.

There’s been a lot of speculation about what the Amazon founder might do with his new personal acquisition. Here’s an aspect of the story that’s gotten much less attention: The Post’s $250 million sale price is roughly 1/100th of Bezos’ reported net worth, which is said to be in excess of $22 billion.

That’s a lot of net worth for one individual. Granted, Bezos is much smarter than most of his peers. He’s got skills and he’s worked hard. Why shouldn’t he be rich? It’s the American way, after all. But does he need to be that rich? He didn’t get all that money on merit alone. Bezos has accumulated his massive fortune in part because tax policy has coddled him and his fellow billionaires, while most of the country is mired an ongoing financial struggle.

2. They literally don’t know what to do with their money.

A new study shows that the wealthy are holding on to far more of their money than before: 37 percent of their income goes unspent, a figure which is three times as large as it was in 2007. What’s more, they have more cash on hand, and 60 percent say they don’t plan to spend or invest it.

In other words, they’re getting more of out national income than ever before—and they’re hanging on to it, which means it isn’t creating jobs or economic growth.

3. Corporate profits and wealthy income.

Corporate profits are capturing more of the nation’s income than they have for more than half a century. They stood at 14.2 percent as of the third quarter of 2012, which is higher than they’ve been since 1950, and their after-tax performance has stayed just as robust since then.

At the same time, the portion of our national income which goes to employees is the lowest it’s been in nearly half a century. (More here.)

Wall Street greed and criminality caused the crisis of 2008, but government efforts since then have concentrated on rescuing banks, and on boosting stock market performance and other forms of profitability for corporations. And it shows: Corporate earnings have risen by more than 20 percent each year on average since then, while disposable income has only risen by a meager 1.4 percent on average.

And even that isn’t equitably distributed. A recent study showed that the top 1 percent of earners has capture 121 percent of income gains since 2008, while the rest of the country fell behind. The top 10 percent’s share of income is the highest it’s been since 1917—and maybe longer. This imbalance isn’t an act of God or a force of nature. It’s the result of a series of bad policy decisions, about workplace rights, taxation, and where we expend our government’s resources.

4. Internet billionaire Sean Parker had a multimillion-dollar “Lord of the Rings”-style wedding, and trashed a beautiful public glade to do it.

Sean Parker is the Internet tycoon who was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, probably to his everlasting regret. He was recently married, and wedding party caused quite a stir after it was written up on the Atlantic’s website as “the perfect parable for Internet excess.”

The Atlantic piece came after the California Coastal Commission wrote a scathing report claiming that Parker trashed an ecologically sensitive campground with a multi-million-dollar fantasy bash. The report said that bulldozers flattened part of the area, fake ruins were built, and other irreversible damage was done to the area, including a space that was set aside for public use.

Parker makes some decent points in his rebuttal, reminding people of his charitable good works and claiming that great care was taken to preserve the site. But what’s not in dispute is that Parker spent $4.5 million on the party and paid $2.5 million in fines as the result of the party’s environmental impact. (“We made some mistakes,” Parker acknowledges.)

It’s also not in dispute the party’s design was intended to “evoke” the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, that Parker sang a song from The Little Mermaid to his bride—“Look at this trove, treasures untold / How many wonders can one cavern hold?”—which is actually kind of sweet, when you think about it, or that Sting stood up to sing one of his songs a capella. The costume designer for Lord of the Rings designed outfits for all 354 guests at the party.

What Sean Parker doesn’t seem to understand is that, at its heart, this wasn’t about trashing Sean Parker. People were reacting about the unreal – and often deeply insensitive – world in which Sean Parker lives.

As Andrew Leonard wrote in an excellent piece, this “extravagant wedding was a slap in the face to anyone struggling to make ends meet in the United States. It was the perfect snapshot of 1 percent entitlement, as is the shock and anger that anyone would dare criticize it.”

Sean, best wishes to you and your bride on the occasion of your wedding. But you need to understand that other people fall in love, too, and have kids, and do all the things you do—but lots of them are struggling just to survive. They’re going to be a little touchy about something like this. So seriously, man: Have a little empathy—and a lot of gratitude.

5. Just 400 families have more money than 60 percent of the entire country.

Sean Parker and his friends might do well to ponder the inequality which allows them to live so well while so many suffer. They could start by considering this:

A mere 400 households have more net worth among them than is held by more than 60 percent of all US households. That comes to more than 60 million households, who among them possess less than these few families.

Americans are accustomed to feeling horrified at South American countries or medieval principalities in which a few powerful families rule over a struggling population. Guess what? In today’s USA, ancient feudalism lives again.

6. Billionaires frequently aren’t ‘the best and the brightest.’

Billionaires love to believe our society is a meritocracy, where the most talented become the most wealthy and successful. Of course, they would say that.

There’s no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg or the guys who created YouTube are smart and energetic. But do their accomplishments really deserve billions in compensation? Consider:

Zuckerberg didn’t foresee what Facebook would become. If he had, it wouldn’t be called “Facebook,” which is what they called the printed books Ivy League colleges used to print up with students’ pictures so they could get to know one another. Facebook.com was going to do that digitally—a cute idea, but not an especially profound one.

The users were the ones who turned it into a more flexible type of "social media." It’s true that Zuckerberg & Co. were aggressive in capitalizing on that, but they weren’t visionaries.

The same is true of YouTube. While its three founders don’t entirely agree about its origin, the most plausible story is that it’s called “YouTube” because they thought people would make videos of themselves and upload them – a lame idea which pretty much nobody wanted to do. Instead they figured out how to grab other media and put them up. (Another founder says it was supposed to be a video dating service.) The billions followed shortly thereafter.

You can list on one hand the Internet billionaires who have truly combined both vision and execution: Google. Amazon. eBay … we’re not even out of fingers yet.

There’s “You didn’t build that,” and now we can add “You didn’t think of that.” And even the brightest billionaire’s success includes a lot of lucky accidents. (And we haven’t even begun to talk about the heirs and heiresses yet.) So why do they have all that money?

We’re not saying they can’t be rich. But how much money do a few people need—or deserve?

7. Lucky or not, they’ve got a lot of control over our government.

“Of the people, by the people, and for the people”? That’s still true—for a few very rich people. The Sunlight Foundation offers these staggering statistics:

A mere 31,385 people – less than 0.01 percent of the nation’s population – contributed 28 percent of the country’s total political contributions. Nobody was elected to the House or Senate without their money.

As the Sunlight Foundation also notes, this elite group contributed at least $1.62 billion to political campaigns in 2012. (They probably also contributed the lion’s share of the $350 million in “dark money” which was spent that year.) Their median donation of $26,584 is larger than the average household income in this country.

84 percent of Congress took in more from the 0.01 percent than they did from all other donors combined.

They’re also spending like crazy at the state level. State candidates collected nearly $2.8 billion in 2012. It’s money well-spent, and not just for the influence it gives donors at the state level. This spending has also allowed them to gerrymander Congressional districts.

Gerrymandering has turned the House of Representatives into such an unrepresentative body that Republicans now control it despite a 1.4 million loss to Democrats in the popular vote. It’s like they say: You get what you pay for.

8. They control the media, too, which means they control what we see and hear as 'news.'

The sale of the Washington Post barely scratches the surface of our media problem. There’s a reason why revolutionaries from 1919 onward have always gone for the radio stations (and later, the television stations) first. They understand that the media hold enormous power.

Thirty years ago, 50 companies controlled 90 percent of all the media in this country. Today it’s six companies.

Those six companies include GE, owner of serial corporate criminal GE Capital, and Newscorp, owned by the scandal-plagued Rupert Murdoch. (The others are Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, and CBS)

Americans rightfully despise totalitarian nations’ “state-controlled media.” But what happens when the same few people hold undue influence over the state and the media?

The ultra-rich don’t even understand why people resent them or think they’re detached from real-world problems.

The ultra-rich have used the wealth and political influence to promote policies which allow them to capture an ever-increasing share of our national income. That’s an unjust but self-perpetuating spiral that endangers our democracy, our financial security, even the free exchange of news and information.

And yet, one of their defining characteristics is their deep and abiding rage at the rest of the country. They resent the resentment of others. This fury was exemplified by Mitt Romney’s bitter but heartfelt “47 percent” rant, an outburst that echoed others from the group we’ve called “the radical rich.”

Even a relatively benign billionaire like Sean Parker isn’t immune to this affliction, as his angry rebuttals to the wedding criticism attest. Parker wrote of his wedding, "Our guests reached a beautiful gate in a clearing, just prior to entering the forest. Through that threshold, they left the ordinary world behind and entered an extraordinary world imagined as a kind of collaborative art project between me and my wife-to-be, Alexandra.”

That’s pretty much the problem in a nutshell: Billionaires increasingly control our world. But they don’t live here. They dwell in a Hobbit-like fantasy, far from our worries and fears, where our nation is becoming “a collaborative art project,” a media-made myth, a post-middle-class theme park – call it “AmericaLand” – complete with a make-believe middle class and an animatronic democracy.

But the rest of us are suffering the effects of growing wealth inequality: joblessness, soaring poverty rates, lack of access to education or municipal services. The ultra-wealthy may have passed through “a beautiful gate in clearing,” but the rest of us stand on the “threshold” of an increasingly grim world.

Forgive us for not willingly joining in the make-believe, but we have a nation to rebuild.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/8-si...2C1&paging=off

[UofMfan]

Google: Gmail Users Can't Legitimately Expect Privacy

[Cin]

Shocking Numbers of Sex Trafficking Victims Come Out of Foster Care
LA Congresswoman Karen Bass is leading push for supportive services for teen age victims, instead of pushing them into the criminal justice system, where they can be twice victimized.

Every year, federal and state governments pour millions of dollars into combating sex trafficking through local and federal law enforcement agencies. But the emerging link between the child welfare system and child sex trafficking in the United States underscores the need for a new tactic, one that addresses the social origins of child sex trafficking.

At the end of July, the FBI's Innocence Lost initiative, the wing of the agency tasked with addressing domestic child sex trafficking, conducted its annual three-day Operation Cross Country. During these 72 hours, federal agents across the country “recover” juvenile victims from sexual exploitation and arrest their exploiters. This year, the agency boasts that it saved 105 children and arrested 152 pimps. According to U.S. law, anyone under 18 and involved in the sex trade is considered sexually trafficked.

However, what happens to those who are "rescued” is unclear. Whether the children are placed in juvenile justice proceedings or the Department of Social Services, the story of the rescue mission as the FBI tells it ends when the handcuffs go on—often both on the exploited young person as well as his or her exploiter.

Julianne Sohn, spokesperson for the San Francisco division of the FBI, explained to AlterNet that the agency couldn’t account for what happens to the youth after they are “recovered” because local law enforcement agencies have varying policies on how to handle teens.

“It's shocking to believe that you could be trafficked and for the rest of your life you have a prostitution record," DeBoise said. "It is shocking.”
These FBI sweeps also result in the netting of adult sex workers. The data for Operation Cross Country in the Bay Area reveals that while its ostensible focus is to rescue child victims, the program results in a markedly higher arrest rate for adult sex workers: for the 12 children rescued, 65 sex workers were arrested in the Bay Area alone. During Operation Cross Country in 2008, the FBI recovered 47 juveniles while arresting 518 prostitutes.

Prioritizing criminal justice proceedings to combat child sex-trafficking has resulted in a paucity of services devoted to helping children most vulnerable to sexual exploitation: those in foster care. Depending on the city, 50 to 80 percent of child victims are or have been involved in this part of the child welfare system. The correlation has led many advocates to argue that funding needs to be redirected away from law enforcement and toward social services that are designed to work with traumatized children.

Paraphrasing from article …juvenile justice (system) is not appropriate to serve sexually exploited children. It’s frustrating that those kids are going to the criminal justice system and came from the foster care system…

Southern California Congresswoman Karen Bass has proposed legislation to the House of Representatives that she hopes will address the cyclical relationship between foster care and child sexual exploitation.

Complete article here: http://www.alternet.org/civil-libert...are?paging=off

[Cin]

Chomsky: The U.S. Behaves Nothing Like a Democracy, But You'll Never Hear About It in Our 'Free Press'
In a powerful speech, Chomsky lays out how the majority of US policies are practically opposite of what wide swathes of the public wants.


Excerpt from speech:
In the United States, one of the main topics of academic political science is the study of attitudes and policy and their correlation. The study of attitudes is reasonably easy in the United States: heavily-polled society, pretty serious and accurate polls, and policy you can see, and you can compare them. And the results are interesting. In the work that's essentially the gold standard in the field, it's concluded that for roughly 70% of the population - the lower 70% on the wealth/income scale - they have no influence on policy whatsoever. They're effectively disenfranchised. As you move up the wealth/income ladder, you get a little bit more influence on policy. When you get to the top, which is maybe a tenth of one percent, people essentially get what they want, i.e. they determine the policy. So the proper term for that is not democracy; it's plutocracy.

Inquiries of this kind turn out to be dangerous stuff because they can tell people too much about the nature of the society in which they live. So fortunately, Congress has banned funding for them, so we won't have to worry about them in the future.


The following is a transcript of a recent speech delivered Noam Chomsky in Bonn, Germany, at DW Global Media Forum, Bonn, Germany.

http://www.alternet.org/visions/chom...our-free-press

[Tangle]

Germany gives 'third gender' option on birth certificates
16 hrs ago
Good news for new parents in Germany: You can paint the new baby's room pink, blue or a totally neutral beige. As of Nov. 1, Germany becomes the first European country to let parents assign their baby a "third gender" on its birth certificate if the infant's sex cannot be clearly identified. A court decision led to the change, finding that if a person "deeply feels" they belong to a certain gender, they should be able to choose how to identify themselves. The law is intended to help intersexuals, also known as hermaphrodites, who are people born with both male and female physical attributes.

[Cin]

Poverty Prison: Columbia SC Demands Homeless People Go Away or Go To Jail, Police Not So Sure


In what critics say is the most comprehensive anti-homeless measure ever passed, Columbia SC's City Council has unanimously approved an "Emergency Homeless Response" plan under which patrolling police will remove unsightly homeless people from downtown under the aegis of the city's "quality of life" laws - complete with a hotline so business owners can report the presence of any aforementioned unsightly etc - and take them to a shelter on the outskirts of town where more patrolling police will ensure they don't up and wander back downtown. If they refuse to be taken, they will be arrested and taken to jail. If they try to leave the shelter, they will be returned to pseudo-jail. To justify this grotesque criminalizing of homelessness, business leaders explained in lengthy impact statements that the presence of homeless people in the city center made it "virtually impossible to create a sustainable business model," which you'd think would be enough to throw all those people into jail or at least pseudo-jail. Still, there are problems. The shelter only has 240 beds, and there are over 1,500 homeless people. The shelter would only operate in winter. Both homeless advocates and the ACLU are considering bringing lawsuits. Courts are increasingly ruling against similar measures against the homeless. And even Columbia's acting police chief is balking by inexplicably and admirably noting that “homelessness is not a crime."

“I think there are some misconceptions out there that police are going to go out there and scoop up the homeless...I’ve got to have the legal right (to question or arrest anyone.) We can’t just take people to somewhere they don’t want to go. I can’t do that. I won’t do that."

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/08/22

[afemmenatalie]

Linda Ronstadt Has Parkinson's Disease
Posted by Dan Gibson on Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 3:52 PM

Details are apparently forthcoming as part of an extended interview set to run next week, but the unfortunate news for the day is that AARP.com announced that Tucson legend Linda Ronstadt has Parkinson's disease, which has robbed her of the ability to sing and needs assistance to walk:

Legendary singer Linda Ronstadt, 67, told AARP today that she “can’t sing a note” because she suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Diagnosed eight months ago, Ronstadt began to show symptoms as long as eight years ago. But she ascribed her inability to sing to a tick bite (“my health has never recovered since then”), and believed the shaking in her hands resulted from shoulder surgery.

In a wide-ranging interview with AARP’s music writer Alanna Nash to be published on aarp.org next week, Ronstadt revealed how she discovered that “there was something wrong” with her voice.

“I couldn’t sing,” she told Nash, “and I couldn’t figure out why. I knew it was mechanical. I knew it had to do with the muscles, but I thought it might have also had something to do with the tick disease that I had. And it didn’t occur to me to go to a neurologist. I think I’ve had it for seven or eight years already, because of the symptoms that I’ve had. Then I had a shoulder operation, so I thought that’s why my hands were trembling.

“Parkinson’s is very hard to diagnose, so when I finally went to a neurologist and he said, ‘Oh, you have Parkinson’s disease,’ I was completely shocked. I wouldn’t have suspected that in a million, billion years.

“No one can sing with Parkinson’s disease,” Ronstadt said. “No matter how hard you try.”

Ronstadt walks with the aid of poles when on uneven ground, and uses a wheelchair when she travels.

[Cin]

How Billionaire 'Philanthropy' Is Fueling Inequality and Helping To Destroy the Country
Much of philanthropy today has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1 percent.

A closer look at how the world’s wealthiest are choosing to give away their money provides clues. While pretending to fix inequality, contemporary philanthropy’s actual role has been to strengthen the arrangements that make gross inequality possible in the first place. It has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1%, the carrot to win people over to their ideology complementing the stick of political spending to coerce them into the same.

The Koch brothers

David and Charles Koch, together worth $35 billion, have perfected this philanthropic misanthropy perhaps better than anyone else. Their Kansas-based Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the country after Cargill, with annual revenues estimated to surpass $100 billion. Together they control thousands of miles of oil pipelines from Alaska to Texas; fertilizers, minerals and biofuels; Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups and Lycra.

A research team at American University found that from 2007 to 2011, Koch foundations gave $41.2 million to 89 nonprofits and sponsored an annual libertarian conference. The report details how Koch Industries’ $53.9 million federal and state lobbying budget routinely goes hand-in-glove with Koch-affiliated nonprofits’ “public advocacy” for reasons having little to do with the public and everything to do with the brothers’ sprawling business interests. Koch lobbyists advocate for bills like the Energy Tax Prevention Act — which sought to roll back the Supreme Court ruling allowing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases — that are then supported in congressional testimony by “experts” from Koch-funded nonprofits.

http://http://www.alternet.org/econo...thropy-trouble

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

How Billionaire 'Philanthropy' Is Fueling Inequality and Helping To Destroy the Country

Much of philanthropy today has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1 percent.

A closer look at how the world’s wealthiest are choosing to give away their money provides clues. While pretending to fix inequality, contemporary philanthropy’s actual role has been to strengthen the arrangements that make gross inequality possible in the first place. It has become a weapon in the class warfare of the 1%, the carrot to win people over to their ideology complementing the stick of political spending to coerce them into the same.

The Koch brothers

David and Charles Koch, together worth $35 billion, have perfected this philanthropic misanthropy perhaps better than anyone else. Their Kansas-based Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the country after Cargill, with annual revenues estimated to surpass $100 billion. Together they control thousands of miles of oil pipelines from Alaska to Texas; fertilizers, minerals and biofuels; Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups and Lycra.

A research team at American University found that from 2007 to 2011, Koch foundations gave $41.2 million to 89 nonprofits and sponsored an annual libertarian conference. The report details how Koch Industries’ $53.9 million federal and state lobbying budget routinely goes hand-in-glove with Koch-affiliated nonprofits’ “public advocacy” for reasons having little to do with the public and everything to do with the brothers’ sprawling business interests. Koch lobbyists advocate for bills like the Energy Tax Prevention Act — which sought to roll back the Supreme Court ruling allowing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases — that are then supported in congressional testimony by “experts” from Koch-funded nonprofits.

http://http://www.alternet.org/econo...thropy-trouble

Thanks for this post, Miss Tick. And, once again, it is articles like the one above which illustrate the timeless concept of Hegemony (by Antonio Gramsci):

"...the rule of one class over another is not dependent on economic or physical power alone but on persuading the ruled to accept a system of beliefs belonging to the ruling class (James Joll, UK, 1977).

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

Thanks for this post, Miss Tick. And, once again, it is articles like the one above which illustrate the timeless concept of Hegemony (by Antonio Gramsci):

"...the rule of one class over another is not dependent on economic or physical power alone but on persuading the ruled to accept a system of beliefs belonging to the ruling class (James Joll, UK, 1977).

I love that quote.

[Kobi]

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — As a lobbyist in New York's statehouse, Stephen Acquario is doing pretty well. He pulls down $204,000 a year, more than the governor makes, gets a Ford Explorer as his company car and is afforded another special perk:

Even though he's not a government employee, he is entitled to a full state pension.

He's among hundreds of lobbyists in at least 20 states who get public pensions because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards, an Associated Press review found. Legislatures granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits.

But several states have started to question whether these organizations should qualify for such benefits, since they are private entities in most respects: They face no public oversight of their activities, can pay their top executives private-sector salaries and sometimes lobby for positions in conflict with taxpayers. New Jersey and Illinois are among the states considering legislation that would end their inclusion.

"It's a question of, 'Why are we providing government pensions to these private organizations?'" said Illinois Democratic Rep. Elaine Nekritz.

Acquario, executive director and general counsel of the New York State Association of Counties, argues that his group gives local government a voice in the statehouse, and the perk of a state pension makes it easier to hire people with government expertise.

"We want the people that work in local governments to continue to be part of the solution," he said. "We represent the same taxpayers."

The debate is more about principle than big money, since the staffs of such organizations are relatively small and make barely a ripple in huge state retirement systems. The eight New York associations, for example, have fewer than 120 total employees out of 633,100 current workers in the state's $158.7 billion pension system.

Still, the issue raises a public policy question as many states and taxpayers struggle to fund their pension obligations required by law.

"There is liability for taxpayers," said Keith Brainard, research director of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. "Providing a pension benefit involves some amount of risk for the state and when you provide access to employees of entities that are not in control of the state."

Unlike state government, for example, these groups aren't bound by salary restrictions — significant salary increases would result in increasing pension benefits.

New York Conference of Mayors Executive Director Peter Baynes, who makes $196,000 a year and gets a 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee, argues that his and other associations have been at the fore of pushing to reduce taxpayers' costs, including reducing the costs of the pension system they share.

New York lawmakers recently acted to reduce benefits for future government hires and are proposing 401(k) savings programs for employees instead of traditional pensions.

But such cuts won't affect Baynes. Under the New York Constitution and that of most states, the benefits of those already in the pension system are protected from future cuts.

"It's clear that there's a big problem with hypocrisy when these lobbyists have been pushing austerity and benefit cuts for other government workers while they themselves enjoy solid state pensions," said Michael Kink of the progressive group Strong Economy for All Coalition. "'Do as I say, not as I do' seems to be their approach on retirement cuts."

"Workers who have faced cuts in pay and pensioners have a right to be angry — as do voters," Kink said.

In many states, lobbying groups for states and counties take positions that could conflict with taxpayer interests, such as advocating to weaken caps on property tax increases and boosting state school aid.

But associations of cities, counties and school boards argue that a plausible case can be made for allowing them to get state pensions. These quasi-government organizations operate mostly or solely on dues from their members — local governments or school boards typically — which are paid out of taxpayer-funded budgets. They argue they pool their resources to give a voice to government entities that serve taxpayers.

"It's a technical truism that lobbying groups are not supposed to be in the system," said Richard Brodsky, a former New York assemblyman. "But what they are doing is carrying out missions assigned to them by public officials in the public interest as they understand it."

Which groups get the pension benefit vary widely across the nation.

In Colorado, the list includes the Colorado High School Activities Associations, which runs state sports tournaments. Alabama gives it to the state affiliate of the National Education Association teachers' union. Washington state includes the Washington Apple Commission, which operates like a trade group. North Carolina's state Athletic Coaches Association is included, as is Tennessee's private Industry Council.

New York lawmakers decided years ago to bar any more lobbying and nonprofit groups in the pension system, grandfathering in eight groups.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who supports legislation to cut future hires from such groups out of his state's pension, issued an executive order this month creating a Pension Fraud and Abuse Unit. Among its mandates is to look at "claims of improper participation in the retirement systems."

http://news.yahoo.com/private-lobbyi...140450550.html
--------

[Greyson]

Originally Posted by Kobi

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — As a lobbyist in New York's statehouse, Stephen Acquario is doing pretty well. He pulls down $204,000 a year, more than the governor makes, gets a Ford Explorer as his company car and is afforded another special perk:

Even though he's not a government employee, he is entitled to a full state pension.

He's among hundreds of lobbyists in at least 20 states who get public pensions because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards, an Associated Press review found. Legislatures granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits.

But several states have started to question whether these organizations should qualify for such benefits, since they are private entities in most respects: They face no public oversight of their activities, can pay their top executives private-sector salaries and sometimes lobby for positions in conflict with taxpayers. New Jersey and Illinois are among the states considering legislation that would end their inclusion.

http://news.yahoo.com/private-lobbyi...140450550.html
--------

Wow! I did not know this was going on. I don't think this is the case in California. I don't think private sector employees should get public employees benefits and retirement. (BTW, if you are following the current Public Employment Retirement Benefits discussion, I am sure you have realized by now that the highest monthly retirement checks are mostly in local governments, cities, counties. Public Safety, police and fire receive above the amount of "miscellaneous employees.")

Even if this practice of providing public employee benefits to lobbyist is terminated, many will still receive the public employee benefits. Why? Many of the lobbyist have served as elected and appointed public officials previously before becoming lobbyist.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Kobi

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — As a lobbyist in New York's statehouse, Stephen Acquario is doing pretty well. He pulls down $204,000 a year, more than the governor makes, gets a Ford Explorer as his company car and is afforded another special perk:

Even though he's not a government employee, he is entitled to a full state pension.

He's among hundreds of lobbyists in at least 20 states who get public pensions because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards, an Associated Press review found. Legislatures granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits.

But several states have started to question whether these organizations should qualify for such benefits, since they are private entities in most respects: They face no public oversight of their activities, can pay their top executives private-sector salaries and sometimes lobby for positions in conflict with taxpayers. New Jersey and Illinois are among the states considering legislation that would end their inclusion.

"It's a question of, 'Why are we providing government pensions to these private organizations?'" said Illinois Democratic Rep. Elaine Nekritz.

Acquario, executive director and general counsel of the New York State Association of Counties, argues that his group gives local government a voice in the statehouse, and the perk of a state pension makes it easier to hire people with government expertise.

"We want the people that work in local governments to continue to be part of the solution," he said. "We represent the same taxpayers."

The debate is more about principle than big money, since the staffs of such organizations are relatively small and make barely a ripple in huge state retirement systems. The eight New York associations, for example, have fewer than 120 total employees out of 633,100 current workers in the state's $158.7 billion pension system.

Still, the issue raises a public policy question as many states and taxpayers struggle to fund their pension obligations required by law.

"There is liability for taxpayers," said Keith Brainard, research director of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. "Providing a pension benefit involves some amount of risk for the state and when you provide access to employees of entities that are not in control of the state."

Unlike state government, for example, these groups aren't bound by salary restrictions — significant salary increases would result in increasing pension benefits.

New York Conference of Mayors Executive Director Peter Baynes, who makes $196,000 a year and gets a 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee, argues that his and other associations have been at the fore of pushing to reduce taxpayers' costs, including reducing the costs of the pension system they share.

New York lawmakers recently acted to reduce benefits for future government hires and are proposing 401(k) savings programs for employees instead of traditional pensions.

But such cuts won't affect Baynes. Under the New York Constitution and that of most states, the benefits of those already in the pension system are protected from future cuts.

"It's clear that there's a big problem with hypocrisy when these lobbyists have been pushing austerity and benefit cuts for other government workers while they themselves enjoy solid state pensions," said Michael Kink of the progressive group Strong Economy for All Coalition. "'Do as I say, not as I do' seems to be their approach on retirement cuts."

"Workers who have faced cuts in pay and pensioners have a right to be angry — as do voters," Kink said.

In many states, lobbying groups for states and counties take positions that could conflict with taxpayer interests, such as advocating to weaken caps on property tax increases and boosting state school aid.

But associations of cities, counties and school boards argue that a plausible case can be made for allowing them to get state pensions. These quasi-government organizations operate mostly or solely on dues from their members — local governments or school boards typically — which are paid out of taxpayer-funded budgets. They argue they pool their resources to give a voice to government entities that serve taxpayers.

"It's a technical truism that lobbying groups are not supposed to be in the system," said Richard Brodsky, a former New York assemblyman. "But what they are doing is carrying out missions assigned to them by public officials in the public interest as they understand it."

Which groups get the pension benefit vary widely across the nation.

In Colorado, the list includes the Colorado High School Activities Associations, which runs state sports tournaments. Alabama gives it to the state affiliate of the National Education Association teachers' union. Washington state includes the Washington Apple Commission, which operates like a trade group. North Carolina's state Athletic Coaches Association is included, as is Tennessee's private Industry Council.

New York lawmakers decided years ago to bar any more lobbying and nonprofit groups in the pension system, grandfathering in eight groups.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who supports legislation to cut future hires from such groups out of his state's pension, issued an executive order this month creating a Pension Fraud and Abuse Unit. Among its mandates is to look at "claims of improper participation in the retirement systems."

http://news.yahoo.com/private-lobbyi...140450550.html
--------

I read about this issue for the first time a couple of years ago. I am glad they are starting to look at this.

[Cin]

Our Banks Own Airports, Control Power Plants and Much More -- How Can We Stop Them from Controlling the Lifelines of the Economy?
Aren’t there rules against that? And where are the banks getting the money?

Giant bank holding companies now own airports, toll roads, and ports; control power plants; and store and hoard vast quantities of commodities of all sorts. They are systematically buying up or gaining control of the essential lifelines of the economy. How have they pulled this off, and where have they gotten the money?

In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke dated June 27, 2013, US Representative Alan Grayson and three co-signers expressed concern about the expansion of large banks into what have traditionally been non-financial commercial spheres. Specifically:

[W]e are concerned about how large banks have recently expanded their businesses into such fields as electric power production, oil refining and distribution, owning and operating of public assets such as ports and airports, and even uranium mining.

After listing some disturbing examples, they observed:

According to legal scholar Saule Omarova, over the past five years, there has been a “quiet transformation of U.S. financial holding companies.” These financial services companies have become global merchants that seek to extract rent from any commercial or financial business activity within their reach. They have used legal authority in Graham-Leach-Bliley to subvert the “foundational principle of separation of banking from commerce”. . . .

It seems like there is a significant macro-economic risk in having a massive entity like, say JP Morgan, both issuing credit cards and mortgages, managing municipal bond offerings, selling gasoline and electric power, running large oil tankers, trading derivatives, and owning and operating airports, in multiple countries.

A “macro” risk indeed – not just to our economy but to our democracy and our individual and national sovereignty. Giant banks are buying up our country’s infrastructure – the power and supply chains that are vital to the economy. Aren’t there rules against that? And where are the banks getting the money?

Entire article here:http://www.alternet.org/economy/bank...ts-max-profits

[Cin]

Plutocrats' New Pitch: Let Us Rob You Now So You Can Plan Ahead for Poverty
Pete Peterson & Co. kindly want to take your Social Security away to prevent you from imagining a dignified future.


Somehow, I’ve wound up on the mailing list for a group of oligarchs campaigning to swindle Americans out of their hard-earned retirement insurance. Hedge fund billionaire Pete Peterson, the budget buffoons Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, and the rest of their merry band of hustlers over at the hilariously named Committee for a Responsible Budget have asked me to consider their latest proposal.

So I thought I’d oblige them, what the heck.

Judging from the shrill headline in their mailing [full text here], these men (and a token woman or two) wish to sell me on the idea of “Social Security Reform and the Cost of Delay.”

The cost of delay? Boys, I hear you on that. Any delay in ripping me off must be very costly — for you.

Social Security, the most prudently managed and economically sound retirement program the country has ever seen, and with the very lowest costs, is preventing you from piling up even more money in your bank accounts. Trust me, I really do understand how you feel: Financiers desperately wish to get their mitts on American retirements so they can charge all sorts of outrageous fees. And you hate the prospect of having to pay higher taxes in the future if you don’t “fix” Social Security.

I know how diligently you've tried to privatize America's best-loved program in order to get this show going. You must be bone tired! And I also fully get that as rich people interested far more in the size of your bank accounts than anything so trifling as, say, the strength and health of your country, you hate paying taxes of any kind. You deeply resent such citizen responsibilities, and so you want to cut Social Security as quickly as possible (calling your cutting “reform,” you clever marketing devils!) because doing so will lessen your already minuscule tax burden. Your aim is to hurt America’s retirement program to the point where you can bring up your privatization hustle again. Does that about sum it up?

The thing is, though, cutting Social Security does not make any economic sense for the other 99 percent of the country. The program is in very good shape, hard-working Americans have paid into it, and if (and that’s a big if) any adjustments need to be made a decade or two down the road, we can talk about it then. For now, the only real justification for cutting seems to be the prospect of fattening your bank accounts. Sorry, not sold. I know that's one less yacht for you but I think you can live with it.

Your fear-mongering pitch to me is filled with all sorts of extraordinary economic predictions, which are all the more amazing as none of you had so much as the ghost of an idea that the financial crisis was coming. But never mind, you in your infinite wisdom know that based on your calculations, if you don’t rob me by cutting Social Security now, I will lose benefits in the future. You may not realize I actually read economic projections written by legitimate economists, who inform me that your predictions are worth about as much as those of a carnival fortune-teller. Probably less.

In their paper, “Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession,” Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson, both of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, write:

“Current discussions of Social Security [fall] into two groups: One rails on about how ‘runaway entitlements’ are leading to a deficit explosion; while the other advises patronizingly that Social Security can be saved in the long run by timely changes, typically involving a mix of taxes and benefit cuts, including, notably, yet another rise in the age of eligibility for the program. Neither point of view is persuasive.”

The authors explain how the “deficit explosion” story can be immediately dismissed, but you’re probably aware that that particular line isn’t really working anymore, since more Americans have figured out that 1) Social Security has nearly nothing to do with the deficit; and 2) the deficit is rapidly shrinking. Bummer for you!

So you’ve turned to the old lie about Social Security solvency. Unfortunately for you, economists who have looked closely at the issue do not buy it. Ferguson and Johnson write:

"It is true that Social Security tax receipts declined during the Great Recession, so that for the first time since 1983, the program’s outlays exceeded revenues by a small amount. But this in no way threatens the program’s basic solvency. In 1983, Congress enacted into law recommendations of the Greenspan Commission to raise Social Security taxes to cover the retirement bulge coming from baby boomers. Since then, the program has piled up enormous surpluses. These have been invested in government bonds, thus helping to finance the rest of the government.

As the baby boomers mature, the surplus funds will be drawn down. The 2010 Report of the Trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund projects that the Trust Fund and interest earnings from it will suffice to cover all benefit payments until 2037. Even then, the Fund will not be empty – the Trustees Report projects that the Trust Fund would still cover 75% of all benefits due.” [The latest report from 2012 says more or less the same thing].

So listen up, fellas, if we do need to make a little tweak down the road, let’s make a deal. Since taxpayers like me funded the bank bailouts, how about raising the cap on earnings subject to the Social Security tax, which is currently just a little over $100,000? Wait, what’s that you say? You don’t like that because it means that you would pay your share and I would not get screwed. Well, that's not very sporting of you, is it? Seems like the 1 percent has done pretty well over the last few decades.

Overall, though, I must say I am impressed by the consistency of your crystal-ball reading, because your predictions always point miraculously to the same conclusion: “We’ve got to take your money now, because the future is going to be very bad!”

I appreciate your concern. Mugging me now allows me to better plan ahead for a bleak and ill-funded future. Thanks to your consideration, I could go ahead and start purchasing cat food now and perhaps develop a taste for it. But I think I’d rather just hold on to my Social Security if it’s all the same to you. I kind of think that robbing me of a dignified retirement (which, frankly, looks pretty paltry compared to the rest of the civilized world) is not going to do much for the health of the economy or the cohesion of society.

I have this funny feeling that young people forced to take time away from their jobs to care for poverty-stricken parents and more strain on disability rosters (which you are always complaining about, remember?!?) and less money in the pockets of elderly consumers to pay for healthcare and food doesn’t really sound like a good idea.

Let’s be real, boys. You already got away with murder with your swindles leading up to the Great Recession, and you’ve sucked a lot more money out of the pockets of regular folks in the years since then, spreading your embarrassingly discredited austerity messages (how funny was that Stephen Colbert bit on your favorite debunked economists, Reinhart and Rogoff!). You've triumphed in getting teachers laid off and pensions stripped and whatnot. You have been very successful, and you can raise a glass of bubbly to the financial coup you’ve pulled off. There’s not really much more left to rob, in case you haven’t noticed.

But there are limits. A look at history might suggest to you that pillaging too many people of too much for too long may actually result in said people deciding they have had enough of you. Occupy was a hint.

Yet despite the fact that survey after survey reveals Americans do not want to see cuts to Social Security, and in the face of studies by political scientists who prove that such policy views as yours only reflect the designs of the wealthy, you are undeterred. Time, you warn me, is running out if I don’t start playing your tune and ask policy makers to enact these “changes” you insist upon to make you richer.

Here’s a warning from me: With profits for the wealthy at Gilded Age levels, the population looks to be waking up. Time may be running out for you.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/pete...ity?paging=off

[Cin]

In the spirit of solidarity with the Nationwide Low-Wage Worker Strike scheduled for tomorrow here's an interesting article.

http://www.alternet.org/labor/other-...rs-get-poverty

The Other NRA: How the Insidiously Powerful Restaurant Lobby Makes Sure Fast-Food Workers Get Poverty Wages and Have to Work While Sick

Fast-food workers feed their families on a pittance while the big corporations resist fair pay and sick leave.

[Cin]

Soon enough, given our imminent attack on Syria, there will be increased demands for us to Support Our Troops. A particularly meaningless mantra if ever there was one. Well, not meaningless exactly, Inigo Montoya's line from Princess Bride comes to mind, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." But really I should say it does not mean what those in power want you to think it means.

Pretty much the government, the corporate sector and the very rich who control it all, never support the troops. They support the war. But the importance of the troops vanishes as soon as they are no longer engaged in fighting their corporate wars.

Here are excerpts from an interesting article and a link to said article in its entirety in preparation for the upcoming increase in our exposure to the support the troops meme.


Mindless and Extravagant "Support Our Troops" Display Doesn't Help Soldiers, But Does a Lot for Those Who Profit From War

It's time to examine the "support our troops" rhetoric and understand it does little for those whose lives are at risk.


http://www.alternet.org/culture/mind...who?paging=off


In recent years I’ve grown fatigued of appeals on behalf of the troops, which intensify in proportion to the belligerence or potential unpopularity of the imperial adventure du jour.

In addition to donating change to the troops, we are repeatedly impelled to “support our troops” or to “thank our troops.” God constantly blesses them. Politicians exalt them. We are warned, “If you can’t stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.” One wonders if our troops are the ass-kicking force of P.R. lore or an agglomeration of oversensitive duds and beggars.

Such troop worship is trite and tiresome, but that’s not its primary danger. A nation that continuously publicizes appeals to “support our troops” is explicitly asking its citizens not to think. It is the ideal slogan for suppressing the practice of democracy, presented to us in the guise of democratic preservation.

I returned to the car, wondering if it will ever be possible to escape the inveterate branding of war as a civic asset in the United States.

The troops are now everywhere. They occupy bases and war zones throughout the Arab world and Central Asia and have permanent presence in dozens of countries. They also occupy every tract of discursive territory in the United States. The troops are our omnipresent, if amorphous, symbols of moral and intellectual austerity.

No televised sporting event escapes celebration of the troops. Networks treat viewers to stars and stripes covering entire football fields, complementing the small-but-always-visible flags the studio hosts sport on their lapels. The national anthem is often accompanied by fighter jets and cannon blasts. Displays of hypermasculine prowess frame the reciprocal virtues of courage and devotion embedded in American war mythology.

Corporate entities are the worst offenders. On flights, troops are offered early boarding and then treated to rounds of applause during the otherwise forgettable safety announcements. Anheuser-Busch recently won the Secretary of Defense Public Service Award and in 2011 “Budweiser paid tribute to America’s heroes with a patriotic float in the Rose Parade®.” The Army’s website has a page dedicated to “Army Friendly Companies”; it is filled with an all-star lineup of the Forbes 500 as well as dozens of regional businesses.

I do not begrudge the troops for availing themselves of any benefits companies choose to offer, nor do I begrudge the companies for offering those benefits. Of greater interest is what the phenomenon of corporate charity for the troops tells us about commercial conduct in an era of compulsory patriotism.

It tells us, first of all, that corporations care far less about the individuals who happen to have served in the military than they do about “the troops” as an exploitable consumer category. Unthinking patriotism, exemplified by support of the troops (however insincere or self-serving), is an asset to the modern business model, not simply for good P.R., but also for the profit it generates.

Multinational corporations have a profound interest in cheerleading for war and in the deification of those sent to execute it. For many of these corporations, the U.S. military is essentially a private army dispatched around the world as needed to protect their investments and to open new markets. Their customers may “support our troops” based on sincere feelings of sympathy or camaraderie, but for the elite the task of an ideal citizenry isn’t to analyze or to investigate, but to consume. In order for the citizenry to consume an abundance of products most people don’t actually need, it is necessary to interject the spoils of international larceny into the marketplace.

Support the troops” is the most overused platitude in the United States, but still the most effective for anybody who seeks interpersonal or economic ingratiation. The platitude abounds with significance but lacks the burdens of substance and specificity. It says something apparently apolitical while patrolling for heresy to an inelastic logic. Its only concrete function is to situate users into normative spaces.

Clichés aren’t usually meant to be analyzed, but this one illuminates imperialism so succinctly that to think seriously about it is to necessarily assess jingoism, foreign policy, and national identity. The sheer vacuity and inexplicability of the phrase, despite its ubiquity, indicates just how incoherent patriotism is these days.

Who, for instance, are “the troops”? Do they include those safely on bases in Hawaii and Germany? Those guarding and torturing prisoners at Bagram and Guantánamo? The ones who murder people by remote control? The legions of mercenaries in Iraq? The ones I’ve seen many times in the Arab world acting like an Adam Sandler character? “The troops” traverse vast sociological, geographical, economic and ideological categories. It does neither military personnel nor their fans any good to romanticize them as a singular organism.

And what, exactly, constitutes “support”? Is it financial giving? Affixing a declarative sticker to a car bumper? Posting banalities to Facebook? Clapping when the flight attendant requests applause?

Ultimately, the support we’re meant to proffer is ideological. The terms we use to define the troops — freedom-fighters, heroic, courageous — are synecdoche for the romance of American warfare: altruistic, defensive, noble, reluctant, ethical. To support the troops is to accept a particular idea of the American role in the world. It also forces us to pretend that it is a country legitimately interested in equality for all its citizens. Too much evidence to the contrary makes it impossible to accept such an assumption.

In reality, the troops are not actually recipients of any meaningful support. That honor is reserved for the government and its elite constituencies. “Support our troops” entails a tacit injunction that we also support whatever politicians in any given moment deem the national interest. If we understand that “the national interest” is but a metonym for the aspirations of the ruling class, then supporting the troops becomes a counterintuitive, even harmful, gesture.

The government’s many appeals to support the troops represent an outsourcing of its responsibility (as with healthcare, education and incarceration). Numerous veterans have returned home to inadequate medical coverage, psychological afflictions, unemployment and increased risk of cancer. The free market and corporate magnanimity are supposed to address these matters, but neither has ever been a viable substitute for the dynamic practices of communal policymaking. A different sort of combat ensues: class warfare, without the consciousness.

As in most areas of the American polity, we pay taxes that favor the private sector, which then refuses to contribute to any sustainable vision of the public good. The only serious welfare programs in the United States benefit the most powerful among us. Individual troops, who are made to preserve and perpetuate this system, rarely enjoy the spoils. The bonanza is reserved for those who exploit the profitability of warfare through the acquisition of foreign resources and the manufacture of weapons.

Supporting the troops is a cheerful surrogate for enabling the friendly dictators, secret operations, torture practices and spying programs that sustain this terrible economy.

[Cin]

Obama vs. History
by Imara Jones

On the very site of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the nation’s first black president told America yesterday that African-Americans and other people of color carry a substantial portion of the blame for the persistence of economic inequality. Sadly, his speech employed the very stereotypes that were used to legitimate racial discrimination and economic injustice 50 years ago. But like those caricatures of historically marginalized people, the president’s analysis of where America veered off course in its long walk toward freedom is simply ahistorical and factually inaccurate.

Twenty minutes into his commemorative address, President Obama shockingly declared that the fight for freedom had “lost its way” because historically marginalized Americans had instigated “self-defeating riots” in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. He added that if progressives and communities of color were “honest” they’d be compelled to admit that their “call for equality of opportunity” had devolved into “a mere desire for government support.” Obama wrapped up his examination of this period of American history by saying that blacks and Latinos had often acted “as if we had no agency in our liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child.”

What makes the president’s remarks so troubling is that it’s impossible to fix problems that are mislabeled and misdiagnosed. Consequently, the president’s erroneous assessment of the continuation of racial and economic inequity may provide insight as to why his administration has not pushed coherent policies to end the racial aspects of economic unfairness. From his talk, Obama indicates that he sees them as character flaws rather than structural ones.

In a sign of begrudging progress however, yesterday’s address was one of the rare occasions—if not the first time—that President Obama has used the words “black” and “unemployment” together in the same sentence.

He also acknowledged, though somewhat tepidly, that the racial wealth gap had expanded. Yet this is a vast understatement. The wealth gap between whites and blacks, as well as whites and Latinos, is the highest on record. And there’s no clear Obama proposal to begin to close it. Nor is there a clear proposal for homeownership in communities of color, which has also plummeted to new historic lows.

The organizers of the original March on Washington, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, didn’t share the president’s reticence in identifying the systemic unfairness that allowed racial and economic injustice to thrive. That’s why the 1963 march called for fundamental structural changes to America’s economic system, such as a program to find work for everyone without a job, equal access to decent housing, and a minimum wage that in today’s dollars would be the equivalent of $15 an hour.

And that’s why after the march, Rustin took the lead in developing a blueprint for economic equity in the country. That plan, called The Freedom Budget, would form the basis for President Lyndon Johnson’s War Against Poverty and Great Society programs, now-familiar initiatives that advanced economic opportunities in communities of color in particular. These include the dramatic expansion in educational access through Head Start, help for struggling school districts, and financial support to college students; guaranteed health care for the nation’s poor and working poor through Medicaid; food security through food stamps; and an increased minimum wage.

But the War Against Poverty inspired by Rustin’s work never fully got off the ground and it remains unfinished. That’s because funds earmarked for economic justice here at home were eventually diverted to wage war abroad. Though Obama believes that the programs of the 1960s were halted by the bitterness and self-defeating actions of people of color, the Vietnam conflict is what actually drove a stake through the heart of these efforts.

Sergeant Shriver, who led President Johnson’s anti-poverty effort, told PBS’ American Experience, “The War Against Poverty was killed by the war in Vietnam—first of all, because of the lack of money.” King in 1967 echoed the same point more dramatically, “We spend approximately $500,000 to kill every enemy soldier in Vietnam, while we spend only $53 per person in the so-called ‘War Against Poverty.’”

Moreover, the electoral backlash by many whites against these programs did not help.

In 1968, Richard Nixon swept to office on a wave of Southern discontent centered on the belief that things had gone too far. Though President Nixon cranked up certain initiatives that would help curb racial and economic injustice, such as affirmative action, the electoral blueprint he laid out set the stage for the next 25 years.

In fact, Ronald Reagan rode white resentment to capture the White House in 1980. Speaking in the exact same Mississippi town where four civil rights workers were murdered in 1964, he launched his campaign by promising to “reorder these priorities” and restore “states’ rights.” Once in office, President Reagan worked diligently to fulfill his promise.

Reagan rolled back domestic spending and funneled the money into tax cuts that disproportionately benefitted wealthy whites at the expense of everyone else. It was during Reagan’s presidency that the racial wealth gap took off. More recently, President George W. Bush expanded Reagan’s tax cuts and put them on steroids. The Bush tax cuts and the two unfunded wars began in his presidency piled up debt—a debt that conservatives are using right now to justify underinvesting in black and brown communities.

So in the five decades since the original gathering on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, war and economic policies, fueled by political backlash, have made America’s march towards jobs and freedom more arduous. But instead of telling this truth, President Obama treated his audience to an assessment that declared violence and laziness in communities of color as the actual cause of inequity. The evidence points clearly in a different direction.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/...s_history.html