by David Burn | Feb 20, 2006 | Politics
“The dispossessed of this nation—the poor, both white and Negro-live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against the injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the last 40-plus years we’ve had a War on Poverty, a War on Drugs and countless wars on smaller nations. But we have precious little to show for it. Maybe someday we can get past all this war stupidity and actually address the real issues before this nation.
From The Observer:
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population – the highest percentage in the developed world. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two.
Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck – a medical bill or factory closure – away from disaster. The minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush’s trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.
While 45.8 million Americans lack any health insurance, the top 20 per cent of earners take over half the national income. At the same time the bottom 20 per cent took home just 3.4 per cent.
Almost a quarter of all black Americans live below the poverty line; 22 per cent of Hispanics fall below it. But for whites the figure is just 8.6 per cent.
Dealing with poverty is not a viable political issue in America. It jars with a cultural sense that the poor bring things upon themselves and that every American is born with the same chances in life.
by David Burn | Feb 12, 2006 | Politics
Dru Clements writing on the Beaufort Gazette blog:
A recent letter stated that the “liberal media” hates Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The secretary’s strongest, most scathing critics come from a long list of military top brass that reads likes a “Who’s Who” of individuals who are neither liberal nor Republican bashers but are people who wore a uniform and fought in wars.
Some of these people served in presidential administrations, such as retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser to President George H.W. Bush; retired Gen. William E. Odom, former head of the National Security Agency during the Reagan Administration; James Webb, decorated Vietnam veteran and Reagan administration secretary of the Navy; and retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former commander of the U.S. Central Command and special envoy to the Middle East under the current president until he resigned in disgust.
When people with these kinds of credentials speak out against the conduct of the war, they are raising critical questions that go directly and unequivocally to the competency of President Bush, his advisers and in particular Secretary Rumsfeld (most of whom avoided military service).
I do not know Mr. Clements, but I do know Beaufort, SC is home to two Marine Corps bases. With Parris Island in your back yard, “soft on defense” is not exactly a popular position.
Veterans on the Hill like Rep. Murtha (PA Dem), Senators John Kerry (MA Dem) and Chuck Hagel (NE Rep) have all been vocal in their opposition to the President’s “handling” of the war in Iraq. I hope more Republicans speak out. This is bigger than party affiliation. We’ve deployed a small city of Americans to Iraq and we plan to be a “stabilizing force” in the region for 50 years, or until the oil runs out.
Every American has the right to say, “I reject war.” Or the mishandling of war, whatever their position is. My position is we need to move rapidly to energy independence which means a massive shift to renewable energy from sun, wind and water. There’s a ton to do and money to be made. For this cause, I believe we can all just get along.
by David Burn | Jan 27, 2006 | Politics
Gold old Texas gal, Molly Ivins, has got some news for the fools on Capitol Hill.
I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to relearn it. It’s about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.
If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, “Look, the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.” Bobby Kennedy — rough, tough Bobby Kennedy — didn’t do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines, who liked to quote poetry.
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy’s sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do “whatever it takes” to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. Who are you afraid of?
You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine that you have no idea what people are thinking. I’m telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven’t got enough sense to own the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.
by David Burn | Jan 18, 2006 | Politics
Globe and Mail: Argentina’s defiant “no mas” to the International Monetary Fund does more than confirm its painful return from financial ruin.
Its repayment yesterday of its debts to the Washington-based lender marks a symbolic rejection of everything the fund represents — the United States, market reforms, privatization, free trade, foreign investment and globalization.
The leftward shift is occurring, to varying degrees, throughout the region. Right in the United States’ backyard, nations are rejecting the region’s once-dominant economic and political influence. The vacuum is increasingly being filled by the likes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose anti-American rhetoric has become the region’s rallying cry.
Bolivia’s new socialist leader, President Evo Morales, for example, has threatened (and since stepped back from those threats) to cancel foreign-held oil and gas contracts and nationalize the industry.
This year could mark a further populist shift to the left in several more countries. Elections are slated for nearly two dozen countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. Among them: Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru.
Mexico, Brazil and Chile are still tentatively holding out against the leftward tilt, says Mauro Guillen, a business professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. But nearly everywhere else, political leaders are growing skeptical of free trade, foreign investment and free-market pricing.
by David Burn | Jan 17, 2006 | Politics, The Environment
I found this bumper sticker in a store on Lexington Avenue in Asheville on Sunday. I like the attitude it brings and the question it begs. Hemp is not pot. It’s a plant that can revolutionize farming in America, as well as the textile and energy industries. There’s nothing to fear here. It’s a plant that has been in cultivation for the past 8000 years, yet it is outlawed in this nation today. We need to change that.
After purchasing this sticker, I crossed Lexington Ave. and entered Terra Diva, where I was lucky to find a great pair of hemp pants in my size (a miracle in its own right). The pants are from Of The Earth–headquartered in Bend, Oregon–which strives to be the premier resource for fine natural fiber apparel in the world.
by David Burn | Jan 11, 2006 | Digital culture, Literature, Politics
Lyricist, internet freedom fighter and former cattle rancher, John Perry Barlow, hadn’t written a blog post in nine months. As of a few days ago, he’s back. Here’s some of what he has to say:
I began numerous BarlowSpams and blog entries only to have them slam, half-written, into the next improbability, where, beached with awe upon the present, I no longer felt like reporting yesterday’s apocalypse. (Perhaps one day I will bundle up some of these half-vignettes and post them here.)
Certainly, pioneering the electronic frontier is no longer the riveting mission it once was. While there remains much to be done, and the liberty of our descendents still hangs in the balance, that world has become too complex for me to think I can change it, as I once could, with the help of a few smart friends. Now I leave it more to the professionals at EFF. They’re smarter than I am and a lot more diligent with the details. Of course, I will go on toiling in the vaporous vineyards of Cyberspace, but without the same grand sense of personal urgency. Like any old mountain man, I’ve become just another settler, filling in the margins and grumbling about the government.
Previous passages through these interstitial storms felt like my own lonely struggle. Now, everywhere I look, I see others in the same condition. Fundamental life confusion – generally endured invisibly with a toxic sense of private embarrassment – is pandemic. Your personal mileage may differ, but my guess is that you are presently more riven with doubts and questions than you’ve letting on.
Most of the people I know who are still conscious enough to back away from their televisions are in a kind of life-shock. Metanoia, anomie, paralysis, catatonia, existential dread – whatever you want to call it, it’s wide-spread. Everywhere I look, I see people white-eyed and still as though caught in the Headlights of God.
Serious stuff. And then he turns to politics, which for Barlow brings to mind William Butler Yeats’ famous poem, “The Second Coming,” written in 1919.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
It’s hard not to equate the end of the first stanza with today’s religious right, which is what Barlow does, and in that analysis he has many sympathizers, myself included. He does manage to conjure up some hope for the future, as well as some appreciation of the present, in his new post. Perhaps, the best do not lack all conviction, rather they lack convinction all the time
by David Burn | Jan 8, 2006 | Politics
My buddy, DK, has penned an eloquent treatise against capital punishment for the Salt Lake Tribune. Here’s an excerpt:
Proponents of capital punishment often argue that, on the basis of retribution, punishment and offense ought to be connected. In the case of murder, death is appropriate.
This principle, in legalese, is Lex Talionis, and dates back to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, restated in the Old Testament as “If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”
Aristotle and Aquinas used it as the basis for their commentaries on punishment. Dante based much of his depiction of the suffering of sinners in hell on the premise that divine penalty is determined by the sin committed. So, in the Inferno, gluttons are masticated, instigators of civil strife are dismembered, and so forth.
But, in order to be logically consistent, defenders of Lex Talionis must argue that rapists ought to be raped and torturers ought to be tortured. Can you imagine anything more ludicrous and reprehensible than the Department of Corrections hiring officers to rape rapists and drub wife-beaters? Lex Talionis is indefensible.
I’ve always thought the banishment concept practiced by Native Americans was a good answer. Maybe we could send our most vile to a distant island where they fend for themselves, or perish.
by David Burn | Dec 19, 2005 | Media, Politics
Mike Wallace spoke to The Boston Globe earlier this month. Here’s some of what he said:
Q. President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance?
A. What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn’t have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?
[via Kottke]
by David Burn | Dec 7, 2005 | Politics
John Gorenfeld writing for AlterNet explains how the Rev. Sun Myung Moon wants to build a 51-mile underwater highway that will connect Alaska to Russia. But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is the President’s brother, Neil, apparently supports the project.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the South Korean giant of the religious right who owns the Washington Times, is on a 100-city speaking tour to promote his $200 billion “Peace King Tunnel” dream. As this self-described Messiah envisions it, the tunnel would be both a monument to his magnificence, and a totem to his prophecy of a unified Planet Earth. In this vision, the United Nations would be reinvented as an instrument of God’s plan, and democracy and sexual freedom would crumble in the face of this faith-based glory.
Moon’s lobbying campaign is “ambitious and diffuse,” and the sheer range of guests revealed just how many Pacific Rim political leaders the Times owner has won over, including Filipino and Taiwanese politicians. And the head of the Arizona GOP attended a recent stop in San Francisco. But perhaps the most surprising VIP to tag along is Neil Bush, George H.W. Bush’s youngest and most wayward son, who made both the Philippines and Taiwan legs of the journey, according to reports in newspapers from those countries and statements from Moon’s Family Federation.
Neil isn’t the only Bush to attend Moon events. In 1996, his father, President George H.W. Bush, traveled to Buenos Aires with the Reverend in one of several such fundraising expeditions. “The 41st president, who told Argentine president Carlos Menem that he had joined Moon in Buenos Aires for the money, had actually known the Korean reasonably well for decades,” writes former top GOP strategist Kevin Phillips in his book American Dynasty. “Their relationship went back to the overlap between Bush’s one-year tenure as CIA director (1976) and the arrival in Washington of Moon, whose Unification Church was widely reported to be a front group for the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency.”
by David Burn | Nov 23, 2005 | Politics
TNYT: The Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera urged Britain and the United States on Tuesday to investigate a British newspaper report that Prime Minister Tony Blair had dissuaded President Bush from bombing the station’s headquarters in the Persian Gulf.
Mr. Bush was said to have referred to the idea of bombing Al Jazeera’s studios in Qatar, a close Western ally, according to a document quoted Tuesday in The Daily Mirror. The tabloid said it was quoting from a leaked government memo said to contain a transcript of a conversation by Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair at the White House on April 16, 2004.
The Bush administration has frequently depicted Al Jazeera’s broadcasts as showing anti-American bias.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, told The Associated Press via an e-mail message, “We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response.”
