Robots at war: will humans stay in the loop?

.....

Dan De Luce
August 16, 2009 - AFP

.....

Going off to war has always meant risking your life, but a wave of robotic weaponry may be changing that centuries-old truth.

The "pilots" who fly US armed drones over Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan sit with a joystick thousands of miles (kilometers) away, able to pull the trigger without being exposed to danger.

Other robots under development could soon ferry supplies on dangerous routes and fire at enemy tanks.

The explosion in unmanned vehicles offers the seductive possibility of a country waging war without having to put its own soldiers or civilians in the line of fire.

But analysts say the technology raises a host of ethical and legal questions, while political and military leaders have yet to fully grasp its implications.

"What's the effect on our politics? To be able to carry out operations with less human cost makes great sense. It is a great thing, you save lives," said Peter Singer, author of "Wired for War."

"On the other hand, it may make you more cavalier about the use of force," he told AFP.

Commanders see unmanned vehicles as crucial to gaining the edge in combat and saving soldiers' lives, freeing up troops from what the military calls "dull, dirty and dangerous" tasks.

Cruise missiles and air strikes have already made war a more remote event for the American public.

Now, robots could offer the tantalizing scenario of "pain-free" military action, said Lawrence Korb, a former US assistant secretary of defense.

"That raises the whole larger question -- does it make it too easy to go to war, not just here or anyplace else?" he said.

Robotic technology is taking armies into uncharted territory where tens of thousands of sophisticated robots could eventually be deployed, including unmanned vehicles possibly designed to automatically open fire.

US officials insist a human will always be "in the loop" when it comes to pulling the trigger, but analysts warn that supervising robotic systems could become complicated as the technology progresses.

Military research is already moving toward more autonomous robots that will require less and less guidance.

The trend is illustrated by the US Air Force's plans to have a single human operator eventually supervise three drones at once instead of one aircraft.

Even if humans can still veto the use of force, the reality of numerous robots in combat producing a stream of information and requiring split-second decisions could prove daunting.

Future robotic weapons "will be too fast, too small, too numerous and will create an environment too complex for humans to direct," retired Army colonel Thomas Adams is quoted as saying in "Wired for War."

Innovations with robots "are rapidly taking us to a place where we may not want to go, but probably are unable to avoid," he said.

Experience has shown humans are sometimes reluctant to override computerized weapons, placing more faith in the machine than their own judgment, according to Singer.

He cited the tragic downing of an Iranian airliner in 1988 over the Persian Gulf, when US Navy officers deferred to Aegis missile defense computers, which identified the plane as "an assumed enemy." The officers' radar and radio information had indicated it was a civilian plane.

The military is still trying to figure out how an armed robot on the ground should be designed and operated to conform to the law of armed conflict, said Ellen Purdy, the Pentagon's enterprise director of joint ground robotics.

"Nobody has answered that question yet," Purdy said. "There's a threshold where just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

As dozens of countries join the robotic arms race, human rights groups are beginning to take notice of its implications for warfare.

Although in theory drones provide more precise targeting that can minimize civilian casualties, rights activists are concerned about weapons that could shoot without a human issuing the order.

If an entirely autonomous machine committed a war crime, experts say it remains unclear how the atrocity could be prosecuted under international laws drafted decades before the advent of robots.

"Who's responsible?" asked Marc Garlasco, a military adviser at Human Rights Watch.

"Is it the developer of the weapons system? Is it the developer of the software? Is it the company that made the weapon? Is it the military decision-maker who decided to use that weapon?" he continued.

"No one has really dealt with that because luckily, we're not there yet."

What if they gave a war and nobody knew why?

.....

Obama Still Trying to Define Victory in Afghanistan

Ted Rall
Aug 13, 2009 - Uexpress

.....

What if they gave a war and nobody knew why?

When the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan in October 2001, America's war aims were clear: capture or kill Osama bin Laden, overthrow the Taliban government, deny Al Qaeda training camps and a safe haven.

Of course, two out of three of these goals were based on lies; both bin Laden and most of Al Qaeda's camps and personnel were in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. There was also a fourth unmentioned war aim, a lie of omission: lay an oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. Still, the Bush Administration deserves credit for articulating clear goals--metrics, in bureaucratese--against which success or failure could be measured.

President Obama has rebranded Bush's Afghan War as his own. Afghanistan, Obama said during the campaign, was the war America should be fighting. And so we are. Obama has dispatched tens of thousands of additional troops to the "graveyard of empires," many redeployed from Iraq.

But, unlike Bush, he still hasn't told us why we're in Afghanistan.

When he took office, Obama's stated war aims were muddled: propping up U.S. puppet Hamid Karzai, training local Afghan police, and reducing opium cultivation. The first two led to no clearly-enunciated end; how long would they take? If we really cared about number three, we might as well have put the Taliban--who'd had some success in getting rid of opium--back in charge.

Obama reads the polls, which reflect increased skepticism about his Afghan war. So, in May, Obama attempted a reset. "We have a clear and focused goal," he assured a White House audience: "to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."

In other words, back to Bush.

Here again, let's give Bush credit. He never floated war aims in a country--namely Pakistan--which we weren't actually fighting in.

Sure, the CIA is firing missiles from remote-control drone planes at every Pakistani wedding party in sight. But Al Qaeda will never be defeated with air power alone. As things stand, Pakistan remains a heavily-funded U.S. client state--not an enemy with which we are at war. There are no U.S. ground troops in Pakistan. Until that changes, Obama's aim in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) remains prima facie unachievable.

Ten and a half time zones away from Washington, American soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan. Afghan resistance forces are fighting and dying too, protecting their homeland. And Afghan civilians are dying in the crossfire. But, eight years into this misbegotten war, "the Obama Administration is [still] struggling to come up with a long-promised plan to measure whether the war is being won," reports The New York Times.

Proposals for such measurements range from the insipid to the absurd. The "number of operations in which Afghan soldiers are in the lead," for example, will be tabulated and reported to a typically credulous media. Whether said sorties are effective won't matter. Also being considered is "an opinion poll to determine Afghan public perception of official corruption at national, provincial and district levels." Never mind that most Afghans live in areas controlled by violent local warlords, who may not be big fans of free speech among their subjects.

When you can't tell whether you're winning or losing, you're losing.

Lay Off Layoffs

.....

"At Will" Employment Laws Unproductive, Barbaric

Ted Rall
Aug 6, 2009 -

.....

You've seen how TV covers the immediate aftermath of a disaster. A tornado or earthquake or whatever has just ripped through a community. Rubble and bodies lie scattered. Asked to comment, stunned survivors weep and confirm the obvious--they've lost everything.

Then the reporter's wrap-up: "Now, the rebuilding begins. Back to you, Bob."

The impulse to clean up and move on after taking a hit is universal. But the underlying assumption--that everything will eventually be OK again--is uniquely American. Taking office four months into the economic collapse, President Obama played to our belief that gumption cures everything, saying in his inaugural address: "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

They don't roll that way in Yugoslavia, where Serbs still seethe over a battle fought in 1389. Nor in the Middle East, where displaced Palestinians hold on to deeds and house keys for homes they lost 60 years ago. People nurse resentments. They long for revenge.

Here in the United States, the overall unemployment rate is over 20 percent and rising. Corporations collected trillions of dollars in government bailouts, while ordinary workers got nothing. Millions of people are losing their homes to foreclosure, yet the president has yet to lift a finger to help them. Meanwhile, companies like Goldman Sachs are paying their officers obscene bonuses. How come there's no social unrest? Where's the outrage?

As the little girl in the "Addams Family" movie said: "Wait." In the meantime, Americans' tolerance for getting fired and becoming homeless owes everything to that trope: "Now, the rebuilding begins."

Lost your job? Hit Monster.com and cut-and-paste your résumé until your index finger turns sore. Lost your house to foreclosure? Your brother-in-law's couch will see you through. And those CEOs who profited from your misery? Admit it--you're jealous. You'd do the same if you were in their position.

But there's a rub. A big rub. After a layoff, the rebuilding doesn't begin.

"On average, most workers do not recover their old annual earnings" after being laid off, Till von Wachter, a Columbia University economist, tells The New York Times.

Wachter studied the income histories of workers who lost their jobs a quarter-century ago, during the Reagan recession of 1981-1985. The results were startling. "Even 15 to 20 years later, most on average had not returned to their old wage levels," he found.

The former layoff victims now earn 15 to 20 percent less than comparable workers who had not gotten canned. "One of the main reasons for the [lower pay], according to economists, is that workers who endure a layoff are more likely to be laid off again," reports the Times.

"What tends to happen is the worker has to start over with a new employer, sometimes in a new industry," explains UC Davis economics professor Ann Huff Stevens. "You're at the bottom of the totem pole again."

Many of the people Wachter studied "had been forced to drastically change their lifestyles to cope with lower incomes. Several have struggled with long bouts of unemployment. Some were laid off several times. Many have been forced to lean heavily on spouses' incomes."

Layoff victims followed the rules. But it didn't do any good. During the 1980s and 1990s the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the middle class withered away. Now, among industrialized nations, only Russia has a smaller middle class and higher poverty rate than the United States.

Maybe the rest of the world has it right. If Americans began holding grudges against the corporate chiefs and politicians who exploit their labor and rip them off, they wouldn't have to silently absorb losing their jobs so some rich executive can give himself another raise.

There is a better way: ban layoffs.

In France, on the other hand, almost every worker receives a written employment contract. Almost all French employment contracts are for an indefinite term. You can keep your job as long as you---not your boss--feel like it.

Firing an employee in France is hard. "Dismissals are subject to stringent, and often bureaucratic, procedural statutory constraints," says the Parisian law firm Triplet & Associés. "Redundancies, or layoffs on economic grounds, are subject to separate and complex procedural and substantive constraints particularly in the case of multiple dismissals...It is extremely easy and at virtually no cost for an employee to start litigation against his (ex) employer before separate Labor Courts...It is rare that the plaintiff be other than an employee and just as rare that claims be dismissed with no award whatsoever being made against the employer."

French workers don't have to dig out of nearly as many layoffs. When they do, they're entitled to generous severance packages.

Don't these pro-worker protections allow slackers to keep their jobs? Don't they hurt the economy? Nope. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, hourly productivity is higher in France than in the United States.

It's time to eliminate the barbaric wage slavery of "at will" employment. Only then can the rebuilding--of the American middle class--truly begin.

"Now Make Me Do It"

.....

Ralph Nader
August 8, 2009 - CommonDreams.org

.....

Companies that specialize in stock market forecasting and trading—such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase—pay very high salaries to their employee-vendors. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo just released data showing that these and other large banks are giving each of their 5000 trader-forecasters bonuses of at least one million dollars.

In return, these fat cats are very frequently wrong in their recommendations and decidedly unprofessional in their fiduciary relationships with the clueless, trusting clients who rely on them. Win or lose, they get their fees.

These firms and brokers are making money largely from other people's money—pensions, savings and investments. Overall many produce little more than gambling tips. When these moneyboys try to justify their doings as providing liquidity, hedging against risk, assembling capital for productive investment, listeners are permitted to robustly laugh. This is especially so now during Wall Street's massive, self-inflicted financial collapse. The economy, and taxpayers, are paying for this reckless speculation.

Meanwhile, outside this paper economy, people are producing for the real economy—manufacturing, repairing and maintaining products and structures, offering needed services for consumers. These people are far lower on the income ladder. Unlike their speculating counterparts, if the workers in the real economy stayed home, the economy would stop cold.

I was rummaging recently through some old publications and randomly came across the March 24, 2008 issue of Barron's, a leading financial weekly. Its contributors and interviewees are supposed to be among the savviest around. Here are some samples of their perspicacity.

The cover story asserts that "the financial sector's strongest players probably don't have further to sink, even with the ongoing pressure of negative news. Stocks of the industry's strongest players could climb by 10% to 20% over the next year as panic recedes, earnings improve and price-to-earnings multiples expand."

The author, Jacqueline Doherty, got specific. She cited Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Bank of America, Washington Mutual, among others, for the predicted upswing. At the time (March 24, 2008), Merrill stock was selling for $46.85. Before the year's end, the stock was worthless and Merrill was swallowed by Bank of America. Washington Mutual, the nation's largest savings bank, saw its stock, selling at $11.70, go to zero as it was absorbed by JPMorgan Chase in September 2008. Citigroup was selling at $22.50 per share. Now, it has climbed just above $3 per share, and Citigroup narrowly avoided bankruptcy due to a huge federal bailout.

Leafing through Barron's pages of that week of March 24, 2008, I read a prediction by James Finucane—who is described as a "talented strategist—that the Dow would reach 20,000 within a year. A year later in late March 2009, the Dow was below 8000. Even James Glassman, who loudly predicted in 1999 that the Dow would go to 36,000 by 2005, has been mercifully quiet.

Unlike sloppy plumbers and carpenters who pay a price for their mistakes, Wall Street forecasters seem to be paid very well despite being chronically wrong.

A few Barron's pages later, columnist Eric J. Savitz was writing that worries about NVIDIA were overblown. The computer chip company stock having peaked in October 2007 at just under $40 a share, was selling for $18.52 when Mr. Savitz was touting its prospects. On August 4, 2009, NVIDIA closed at $13.37 per share.

And so it goes week after week in the financial world of pundits. Do you know of any other profession that can be so wrong so often and be rewarded so well again and again? On their behalf, they say that they cannot guarantee against risk and that they rely on cues from the watchdogs.

The first defense is unrebuttable because it shifts all risk away from the purportedly knowledgeable minds and onto market imponderables. Then why be so cocksure of what you urge investors to buy?

Second, they know that the watchdogs are paid to look the other way and let avarice and deception prevail. These "watchdogs" include the boards of directors, the large law firms, the major accounting firms, and the ratings companies like Moody's and Standard and Poor's.

Looking the other way also pays for most state and federal legislators and the regulators. The former solicit campaign contributions and the latter are looking forward to cushy positions in the industries they failed to regulate as government servants.

The forecasters' excuse is that the watchdogs weren't barking to alert them. Come on! These forecasters weren't born yesterday.

Barron's veteran columnist Alan Abelson is a sharp pen hedger who calls his weekly commentary "Up and Down Wall Street". Abelson is a wry, irreverent free-thinker on the conservative side, but he sometimes offers useful insights. Maybe he can break his remaining taboo and apply his mordant, satirical style to review a year of Barron's recommendations and see whether short sellers made more money than investors did who bought on the suspect advice.

It could be that the fog at Barron's is lifting; it just recently offered a year's subscription for $52, a sharp discount from its $260 yearly newsstand cost of $5 per copy. Now that's a realistic price worth paying at least if you like comedic doses of illusion and the fullest stock tables on paper west of the Pecos.

.....

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.

US Economic Myths Bite the Dust

.....

Mark Weisbrot
August 14, 2009 - The Guardian/UK

.....

The Great Recession is allowing some widely held beliefs about the US economy – which were the source of much evangelism over the last few decades – to run up against a reality check. This is to be expected, since the United States has been the epicentre of the storm of policy blunders that caused the world recession.
This month my CEPR colleagues John Schmitt and Nathan Lane showed that the United States is not the nation of small businesses that it is regularly dressed up to be for electoral campaign speeches and editorials. If we look at what percentage of our overall labour force is self-employed, or what percentage of manufacturing workers or high-tech workers are employed in small businesses – well, the US ranks at or near the bottom among high-income countries.

As economist Paul Krugman noted after reading the study: "One more American myth bites the dust." Indeed it has. And as both the authors of the paper and Krugman note, there is a plausible explanation for the US's low score in the small business contest: our lack of national health insurance. There are enough risks associated with choosing to start a business over being an employee, but the Europeans don't have to worry that they will go bankrupt for lack of health insurance.

A number of other alleged advantages of America's "economic dynamism" are also mythical. Most people think that there is more economic mobility in America than in Europe. Guess again. We're also near the bottom of rich countries in this category, for example as measured by the percentage of low-income households that escape from this status each year.

The idea that the US is more "internationally competitive" has been without economic foundation for decades, as measured by the most obvious indicator: our trade deficit, which peaked at 6% of GDP in 2006. (It has fallen sharply from its peak during this recession but will rebound strongly when the economy recovers).

And of course the idea that our less regulated, more "market-friendly" financial system was more innovative and efficient – widely held by our leading experts and policy-makers such as Alan Greenspan, until recently – collapsed along with our $8tn housing bubble.

On the other hand, most Americans pay a high price for the institutional arrangements that bring us these mythical successes. We have the dubious honour of being the only "no-vacation nation", ie no legally required paid time off and of course some weeks fewer actual days off per year than our European counterparts enjoy. We have a broken healthcare system that costs about twice as much per capita as that of our peer nations and delivers worse outcomes, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality. We are near the top in terms of inequality among high-income countries and at the bottom for parental leave policies and paid sick days. The list is a long one.

Yet it was just two years ago that Nicholas Sarkozy successfully won the presidency of France by arguing that the French could not afford their welfare state and had to adopt a series of reforms that would make the French economy more "dynamic" like that of the US. These included tax cuts for the rich and labour law changes that would make it easier for employers to fire people.

Many French are now sorry they voted for this guy and very glad that they have more protection than most Americans have from the ravages of the recession. Of course they could also use a larger economic stimulus, but the fact that they don't have one is due to the neoliberal policies of their own government and those of the European Union, especially the European Central Bank.

There is another area where the comparison between the American and European model has serious implications for the future of the planet: climate change. "Old Europe" uses about half as much energy per capita as the US does. A big part of this difference is because Europeans, in recent decades, have taken much more of their productivity gains in the form of increased leisure time, rather than working the same (or longer) hours in order to consume more.

We estimated that the US would consume about 20% less energy if it had the work hours of the EU-15. This would have a significant impact on world carbon emissions. Furthermore, when the world economy recovers, there are a number of middle-income countries that will approach high-income status in the not-too-distant future (South Korea and Taiwan are already there). Whether they choose the American or the European model will have an even bigger impact on global climate change.

The major media in both Europe and the United States have played an important role, for decades, in helping politicians capitalise on economic mythology to push policy in economic and socially destructive directions on both sides of the Atlantic. It remains to be seen how much the Great Recession will influence the thinking and reporting of these influential institutions.

.....

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC

My 1933 Nightmare

.....

David Michael Green
August 11, 2009 - CommonDreams.org

.....

The events of recent decades have been ominous.

The events of recent weeks more so.

It's not so much, I guess, the visage of obese, over-fifty, white men angrily wrecking even the tattered remnants of the democratic process in this country that is most disturbing. We've seen that before.

I think it's the willful ignorance translated into incoherent, and in fact ironically self-defeating, rage that I find most discouraging. Can we really live in a country populated by so many fools, people who can so readily, proudly and belligerently be made into tools of their own destruction? Can the greatest political, economic, cultural and military power on the world's stage possibly be so incredibly backward at its core?

Consider this passage: "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

These words were written by a person who might well now be vice-president of the United States, had the economic crash of our time come a few months later. And who, had that in fact transpired, and had one old man named McCain sometime later then met his actuarially not-improbable death, could have become the American president and leader of the free world.

So, okay, maybe that horror scenario is not so novel. After all, Nixon was in the White House for six years. And what was George W. Bush, really, other than Sarah Palin in trousers?

But what seems to me new about this moment is the political road rage, the thuggishness of masses of Americans who not only are venting about insane nonsense, not only are undermining their own interests acting as marionettes of laughing corporate predators, and not only are taking down democracy around themselves in order to do so, but are in fact also destroying the entire Enlightenment project of rationality-based management of public affairs as well. The single most frightening characteristic of this movement, to my mind, is that fact that no amount of evidence or logic could persuade these folks to abandon the lies they've attached themselves to, like a pit bull clamped to the leg of some poor SOB's pants.

What does it take to get someone to the point that they believe that the US Congress is passing a healthcare reform bill that will allow the government to exterminate seniors? What does it take for them to impute that motive to a president from the feeble Democratic Party? And, at that, one of the most Milquetoastian creatures to hit Washington since Hubert Humphrey ran for president acting like he was a guy named Hubert Humphrey? From Minnesota, no less.

What do you have to do to humans to get them so stupefied that they believe Obama's Hawaiian birth was some sort of conspiracy, replete with fake 1961 newspaper announcements? What sort of powerful drugs does one have to be on to make the argument that this rather considerably conservative president is a socialist? And then to call him a fascist in your next breath, blissfully unaware that the chasm separating the two ideologies not only makes them wholly different, but, indeed, oppositional. (You know, like in World War II. Maybe they've even heard of that.)

In fact, this is not a matter of stupidity, though there's loads of that to go around. But I bet that when it comes to finding arcane deductions to insert into their tax forms, these folks are actually quite clever. I bet a lot of them could reel off sports statistics or bible verses that would put your head in a fog. No, it's not stupidity. Something else is going on here.

It's certainly not a matter of factuality, either. It's astonishing to imagine that anyone might perceive the hopelessly flimsy Obama administration – even if it wasn't directly following the folks who brought you the Dick Cheney vision of executive power – as some sort of dictatorial Bonapartist project. Are we even talking about the same human being here? Do they really mean the Obama who keeps trying to be bipartisan while Republicans trash him viciously at every juncture (including even members of Congress questioning the legitimacy of his American birth)? Do they really mean the guy who continually defers to Congress to shape the major legislative initiatives he claims to be in favor of? Are talking about the dude who lets a handful of Blue Dog Democrats roll him at every turn? This, even after eight years of Bush, we're supposed to believe is some sort of totalitarian imperial president hell-bent on bringing fascism to America???

No, this isn't about lack of intellect or the remotest correspondence to reality. It seems pretty clear to me that this is almost entirely about fear. This is the empire crashing, and the former master class within it crashing as well. Both are falling to ordinariness and worse. They always were ordinary, of course, and always tools for exploitation by economic predators, but at least back in the day it wasn't such a struggle to be middle class. And, most importantly, they could always feel good by telling each other that at least they were better than the hated bitches, darkies and fags. Oh, and Arabs. Beating them up, literally and figuratively, was (and remains) a good way to remind yourself of that superiority.

But now even that small bit of compensation is gone. Your country can't win a war against a bunch of third world ragheads. Your boss is cutting your salary again. The womenfolk have their own source of income now, and no longer have to put up with your blundering sexual advances to keep a roof over their heads. Perverts are marrying each other left and right. And now – WTF? – there's some Harvard-educated spade in the White House, along with, even worse, his uppity-looking Harvard-educated all-superior-like even spadier woman.

Of course, this has been going on since the 1970s, as America's post-war hegemony began to erode internationally, and within the country white males were being challenged for their domestic dominance as well. These "Reagan Democrats" – i.e., consummately selfish pricks who were happy to take government largesse when it was helping to bring them into the middle class, but then immediately pulled the ladder up behind themselves afterwards, demanding tax cuts – began to lash out politically, responding to any line of crap that would harmonize with their embarrassing victimization trope by promising a feel-good response offering the muscular bludgeoning of women and dark people, both at home and abroad. In reality, of course, they were voting for a political movement that was talking tough-guy nationalism and scapegoating gays and other out-groups, but purely as a mask for further savaging the prosperity of these very idiot voters supporting their own
undoing. In exchange for some cheap rhetoric and the occasional third-world war, they lost their unions, they lost their good jobs to cheap overseas (and, of course, violently non-organized) labor, they lost government benefits like inexpensive higher education, and they lost a society where the gap between the middle class and economic elites wasn't on the order of a standard-issue banana republic.

So what's different today? I think there are big differences – at least of degree – on six fronts.

First, there is a marriage of convenience today between the economic oligarchy and regressive politicians which makes the era of Dwight Eisenhower look like Sweden by comparison. I would say the single most fundamental fact of American politics in our time is that economic elites have walked away from the long-standing grand bargain of the 1930s through the 1970s. They are, simply put, no longer satisfied to be ridiculously wealthy, and now demand to be obscenely so. Instead of looking at the middle class as a source of national pride, it is for them an irritant to see even that small pittance of money in other people's hands. And, thus, they are trying (and succeeding) at reversing the basic deal that brought so much prosperity to so many American families in the mid-twentieth century, seeking a return to the good old days of Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge. Today's Republican Party has become simply an instrument of that process – all the rest is
window-dressing for marketing purposes. Perhaps the best exemplar of this imperative was the (so far) unsuccessful play at privatizing Social Security. Wall Street looks at that sitting mountain range of money – within view, but just beyond reach – in sheer ball-busting frustration. It is one of the few government activities (as opposed to healthcare, military hardware, prisons, etc. etc.) that the overclass hasn't yet been able to profitize. Why should seniors have that money, they growl over brandy and cigars, when billionaires could instead? In short, the whole purpose of the political right has shifted dramatically in the past three decades. Now, it's entirely about the money.

Second, the level of deceit has grown exponentially. Americans are now being told lies of astonishing proportions, as both the 'birther' and 'deather' movements of recent weeks make plain. Before those it was Obama the socialist, Obama the fascist, Obama the sell-out apologist for America, Obama the secret Muslim, Obama the underminer of national security, Obama the pal of terrorists, and so on, and so on. It's to the point now that I feel sorry for satirists (including me). What can you possibly make up to top these amazing idiocies? Obama the Martian imposter of a homo sapien? Obama the JFK assassin? Obama the twentieth 9/11 hijacker? (Who secretly parachuted out at the last moment, and was picked up in the Hudson by a nuclear-powered speedboat driven by Saddam, and then transferred onto a black helicopter that landed minutes later on the roof of the UN!)

Third, the sophistication of presentation has grown dramatically. The right has really learned how to market its nonsense in a barrage that only enhances credibility from repetition. You get it on the radio, on TV, from politicians, at church, on your computer and cell phone, in your mailbox and at the school board meeting. This is a full-court press by clever people who know how to market soap flakes and the human kind as well. There are many examples of this, but one of the most clever has been the defining of wholly corporate center-right political figures like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama as extreme leftists, and the defining of the mainstream media as hopelessly biased toward liberalism. Perhaps as much as any other factors, these moves have employed framing and intimidation to effectively eliminate any real progressive ideas from the national political discourse. Bravo, boys. If it all wasn't so sickeningly pernicious, I'd have to give them a
standing ovation for cleverness and, sadly, success.

Fourth, the level of credulity is breathtaking. In the past, you could understand why a few crackers in 'Bama, third-grade education and all, could be seduced into blamin' the niggrahs for their lousy low-rent lives and joining up with the KKK. But look at the audiences today for Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest of the scary monsters all over television and radio. These are giant crowds of tens of millions, especially collectively counted, and I don't think these people are watching and listening just to laugh at the bozos on the air.

Speaking of whom, what in the world are these freaks doing on the air? What in the world happened to this country such that, fifth, all this massive deceit has gone mainstream in the media and the Republi-con Party? It's astonishing today, from the perspective of prior decades, what comes out of the mouths even of leadership figures in one of America's two major political parties, and what goes unchallenged as conventional wisdom. There have always been regressive predators about in American politics, to be sure. But in years past they would have been identified as such and marginalized accordingly. Today, they are more likely to become president or Speaker of the House, and a slavishly obedient media dares not correct even the most obscene lies having the most dangerous consequences (can you say "Iraq"?).

Finally, unlike prior decades, the progressive counter-narrative has all but vanished from the mainstream. The Democratic Party is nothing more than the sorta not-Republican Party, and stands for nothing other than a quieter and more slowly-unfolding version of the GOP's crimes. Nobody ever votes Democratic anymore. They vote against the Republicans when they rise to their very most noxious worst behavior. We have a president who is supposed to be a radical leftist, and says almost nothing to combat the fascist tide of thuggery now threatening the country. Instead, he continues to seek approval from Republicans who never give it to him, game him at every turn, and repay his conciliatory efforts by asking for investigations into his birth certificate. Senator Chris Dodd responded to last week's Reichstag-burning events with this helpful bromide: "It's a challenge, no question about it, and you've got to get out there and make the case. This is not the
time for the faint-hearted." After which he continued to lead the very faintest-of-heart in their deafening silence. Even supposedly liberal activist groups don't demand very much anymore, other than the protection of the status quo. For example, there is pretty much no serious player in or out of government right now talking about a single-payer system at this once-per-century occasion of momentous potential change in the American healthcare system.

The upshot of all this is a predatory-when-not-defunct political system going so far off the rails that it is now migrating from insanity to violent insanity. Just ask your (former?) local abortion provider. Just ask your congressional representative, if you can penetrate the police escort now necessary to keep these people from becoming the victims of mob rule.

This should not be taken lightly. There is huge anger out there, being stoked incessantly by those who profit from it, in one way or another. Most frightening of all, it is, as far as I can see, completely impervious to rational discourse. Suppose you could put a mountain of indisputable evidence in front of the eyes of those who believe Obama is seeking to murder seniors. Does anyone think any of these folks could actually be persuaded to abandon that shockingly absurd fallacy?

And this is, at the end of the day, the scariest aspect of all concerning the current political moment. America now possesses a massive cohort of people who have simply transcended rational discourse – the sine qua non of democracy, and the real deity worshiped by Enlightenment figures like those who founded the country. Two-and-a-half centuries later, and we're moving rapidly backwards, toward the seventeenth century, and away from democracy, rule of law and the marketplace of ideas, debated and thoughtfully considered.

Everybody talks about fascism nowadays, not least those on the right who remarkably manage to call Barack Obama a fascist in the same breath as they label him a socialist. The term has been beaten into near meaninglessness from ubiquitousness of application. (Could this be another extremely clever semantics ploy of the right-wing marketing machine, taking the term out of use now that it is legitimately applicable, by over- and ab-using it? Damn, these guys are good.)

Still, I've seen the video clips from the congressional constituent meetings last week. I saw the ones from the Sarah Palin rallies in 2008. I remember the 2000 Brooks Brothers riot, one of the most despicable acts in American history, which resulted – because of one of the most cowardly acts in American history – in shutting down vote-counting in Miami. I saw at least two purple-hearted American war heros turned into national security threats by a team of cowards who avoided war when it was their turn. None of the rabble on the right could make the Grand Canyon size leap to see that for what it plainly was. Today I see the incoherent rage, the senseless foaming at the mouth that not only doesn't fit reality, but in fact runs completely contrary to it. I see the current attempts to intimidate the government and to shut down the discussion of issues.

And I have to ask, do those people not resemble Brown Shirts more than anything else one can bring to mind?

And is our current political moment not beginning to stink of Berlin, 1933?

.....

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.

TOON

What Does Financial Capital Owe Society?

.....

Corporate social responsibility is a worthy goal, but it's no substitute for regulation, subsidy, and government sponsorship of social institutions.

Barry Zigas
August 14, 2009

.....

The idea that private enterprise should be harnessed to the creation of social capital is an old claim given new resonance by the financial crisis. After beggaring millions of people and threatening the global economy with ruin, banks and other credit providers surely have an obligation both to run their businesses soundly and to meet a higher standard of social responsibility. While some argue this could hobble, distract, or damage corporate focus on the bottom line, let's be clear. It was not an excess of attention to social needs that caused the near total collapse of the world's financial system but almost every other kind of excess.

Milton Friedman defined the classic position against corporate social responsibility in an oft-quoted 1970 New York Times Magazine article, where he stated flatly that a corporate executive's responsibility is "to conduct the business in accordance with [shareholders'] desires, which generally will be to make as much as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society." Friedman continued that "there are no values, no 'social' responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals."

Companies, in other words, should stick to their business. Any diversion erodes shareholder value, diminishes focus on what capitalists do well, and arbitrarily bends private investment to pursue public goals, often without accountability for either the choice of goals or the efficacy of their pursuit.

But corporations are creatures of public legislation and regulation. They enjoy limited liability, certification by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which helps them float stock, and a variety of other public investments that help them do business. Banks, as specialized institutions, have an even more extensive other layer of public benefits in ordinary times, as well as emergency aid in a crisis. These include access to credit from the central banking system, examination and certification of soundness, and deposit insurance. And in the current crisis, government has also used trillions of dollars of public funds to prop up banks' shaky balance sheets and guarantee the institutions' debt, while the Federal Reserve has opened its spigots to provide liquidity as necessary.

***

The contention that a corporation owes society something in return requires closer analysis. Some of the benefits that society expects are relatively cost-free or are spread so uniformly across business sectors that they do not impose noticeable costs. But in other cases, pursuing social goals may turn out to be less profitable or to take a measurable bite out of the company's total return.

Many of business' reciprocal obligations to society are fairly basic. As beneficiaries of government's basic civil-society functions, like national defense, corporations are expected to pay taxes and follow norms of good behavior. They may not commit fraud. We do not allow them to deny employment, credit, or other benefits on the basis of race, gender, national origin, age, or sexual orientation. Labor's right to organize and negotiate in its own interests generally is well established, though often breached in practice. Market forces alone cannot be left to assure safety in automobiles or in the air. More narrowly, the Community Reinvestment Act requires banks that take deposits out of communities to give something back, in the form of credit to low- and moderate-income as well as affluent borrowers.

Corporations didn't always accept that these citizenship responsibilities were theirs. Some still chafe at them. But they largely are accepted, at least in broad principle. Some, although not all, of these benefits impose costs on corporations. But they are the necessary cost of doing business in a civil society.

President Barack Obama has made clear that his administration will rely heavily both on broad business regulation and on exhortation to seek an increased level of social investment and responsibility from private interests. This is a healthy restoration of the principle of mutual dependency that was waylaid in a form of "extraordinary rendition" under the George W. Bush reign after decades of buildup dating back to the Reagan era.

For more than two decades, many have placed hopes in a movement for corporate social responsibility, or socially responsible investment, from which some of President Obama's optimism springs. The idea is that norms of good behavior can be cultivated among entrepreneurs and rewarded by consumers who will favor such enterprises. Many corporations pride themselves in pursuing a "triple bottom line" of benchmarks on good treatment of workers and stewardship of the environment, as well as conventional profit criteria.

There has been a proliferation of self-consciously green companies as well as mutual funds that market their services on the premise that investments in firms that have a social commitment can produce just as high financial returns as an ordinary portfolio. Recently, energy companies like Chevron and BP have launched extensive "green" advertising campaigns whose message seems to be aimed at convincing consumers that these are something other than energy companies that depend on fossil fuels for their profits. The hope is that these norms are contagious and that more and more corporate executives will appreciate that they can do well by doing good. But as Clive Crook observed in a 2005 Economist article, "Getting the most out of capitalism requires public intervention of various kinds, and a lot of it: taxes, public spending, regulation in many different areas of business activity. ... To improve capitalism, you first need to understand it."

The problem with these efforts -- sometimes sincere, sometimes just a more nimble form of marketing -- is that they often are overwhelmed by larger trends driven by the conventional bottom line. The largest banks have recently shuttered their community-development subsidiaries. Their investments in affordable housing, accessible mortgages, and community-based financial intermediaries are all shrinking along with their market capitalization. In the same two decades that corporate social responsibility has become trendy, large corporations have more aggressively busted unions, shifted to outsourcing, and cut health and pension benefits. It turns out that what we do to constrain and contour corporate behavior as citizens -- via government action -- is more potent than what we can achieve as investors or consumers.

As Brookings Institution senior fellow and New York University economist William Easterly notes, "Moral exhortation has a very limited effect on most people's behavior, much as we would wish it otherwise." So, relying on corporate good citizenship is not enough. Necessary complements are subsidy, regulation, and direct government involvement or sponsorship of enterprises with public purposes.

Sponsorship. Government has long offered specific public benefits to induce private enterprises to achieve social goals. This form of sponsorship trades social capital the government has in abundance -- land or its own credit, for instance -- to induce private capital to create broader social value, such as railroads, and credit and liquidity in various markets. This strategy can be a powerful lever in creating social investment, particularly if the government negotiates hard in return for its favors.

Sponsorship has deep roots in the financial and credit sectors. Government bank charters have long played a critical role in helping to promote capital formation as well as savings by individuals and institutions. Guarantees of deposits, mortgages, and other financial instruments extended the government's sponsorship in return for providing consumers and society with specific benefits, such as long-term mortgages with fixed rates.

Regulation. Sometimes, the most effective route to a social goal is regulation. Automobile companies, for instance, were required to comply with the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for gas mileage long before President Obama became "auto executive of the year" through auto company bailouts. The Community Reinvestment Act changed norms in the banking industry because it used government's power to grant or withhold benefits sought by banks. There is a long history of government regulation, both to compensate for market failures and to prevent anti-social corporate behaviors.

Subsidy. But when government is seeking to bring private investment into specific new areas, particularly those where costs are uncertain or where returns for the capital invested will be lower, sponsorship and subsidies are more appropriate. In a sponsorship model like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government attracts private investment to specific activities in return for certain privileges and benefits. Part of this bargain was a requirement that the companies invest in mortgages serving lower-income people and communities, even if these provided a lower return than other mortgages.

And as the fate of Fannie and Freddie demonstrates, constant vigilance is required in public-private partnerships lest the profit motive corrupt or endanger the public purpose. Real capital was put at risk through this partnership. While shareholders profited for many years through their growth and profitability, the companies' recent losses, driven by bad management decisions and weak oversight by their regulator as the mortgage market morphed into a carnival of crazed risk-taking, have wiped out nearly all common and preferred share value. But as their nominal owner today, the government is using them both to actively funnel subsidies in the form of cash and forbearance to beleaguered owners whose mortgages they hold. Freddie Mac in a recent SEC filing estimated the cost of these indulgences to be as high as $30 billion. Because of their hybrid heritage, both institutions have been far more active and responsive to the mortgage default crisis than any
of the fully private investor trusts or Wall Street banks that created them to peddle the vast bulk of toxic mortgages.

The model has its critics. National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers might have been channeling Friedman when he recently wrote disapprovingly about creative capitalism and the roles of Fannie and Freddie: "Inherent in the multiple objectives urged for creative capitalists is a loss of accountability with respect to performance."

With friends like this in high office, it is even more important for progressives to focus hard on just how sponsorship, subsidy, and regulation can be applied in new, as well as old, contexts as the financial crisis abates, and where each tool is most appropriate.

***

As powerful as they are, sponsorship and regulation alone will not provide economically sustainable interventions to reduce poverty. Private capital, for instance, will not underwrite money- losing housing investments, nor should it. Government must provide the subsidies that make low-cost housing possible.

These subsidies can be provided either directly, through budget expenditures, or indirectly, through tax credits and other subsidies to attract capital to certain investments.

Subsidies provided through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and the New Markets Tax Credit, for instance, have the virtue of certainty, predictability, and low bureaucratic overhead. They only work if private capital agrees that the investments meet a market test of economic sustainability.

But many subsidy needs cannot be met through tax incentives, and many economists oppose them as a noxious perversion of the tax system. Tax subsidies are also wasteful, in that a large proportion of the subsidy "leaks" in the form of allowing well-to-do investors to reduce their taxes as a way of getting to serve social goals. Direct subsidies are the alternative, as when Congress gave the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) new authority and cash in 2009 to invest more than $2 billion to insure completion of affordable housing projects jeopardized by the financial crisis. Such cash investments sometimes are a more efficient way to subsidize specific activities, and often are needed to reach very low-income groups because tax incentives cannot be made lucrative enough to do so.

Community development financial institutions (CDFIs), a hybrid form of social capital, have benefited from a combination of direct social investments from private banks and subsidies from government. The Treasury Department's CDFI fund provides seed and matching capital grants and loans to qualified CDFIs. In past years, banks also made investments at preferential terms in CDFIs, in part because such investments were favorably regarded in reviewing compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act, and in part because CDFIs' seed investments in predevelopment expenses for housing, health care, and education facilities often led to opportunities for sponsoring banks to make market-rate loans and investments in the final products.

Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Section 8 housing rental subsidies, Community Development Block Grants, investments in CDFIs, and other explicit subsidy interventions acknowledge that government has a singular role in providing capital to achieve certain results that the private sector cannot provide. The partnership model seeks to maximize private investment in such endeavors but recognizes that subsidies must be provided in order to do so.

As a consequence of the financial crisis, the federal government now holds stakes worth $199 billion in more than 500 banks, has guaranteed trillions more, and functionally owns Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and American International Group. The old financial regulatory system and its assumptions have been swamped by decades of weakening federal capital markets regulation. As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testified in March 2009, "To address this will require comprehensive reform. Not modest repairs at the margin but new rules of the game."

These new rules will definitely include a more comprehensive acceptance of the federal government's ultimate role in managing moral hazard and systemic risk. We need a more comprehensive and aggressive agenda for using the levers of citizenship, sponsorship, and partnership, as well as explicit regulation and subsidy, to assure that the financial system that emerges from this wreckage benefits not only shareholders and management but taxpayers who are ultimately at risk and the society in which they live.

.....

Barry Zigas is director of housing policy at Consumer Federation of America, in Washington, D.C.

Air America's Ad Blacklisters Throwing Money At Right Wing Talk

.....

Megan Carpentier
August 14, 2009 - AirAmerica.com

.....

Three years ago, a group of corporate advertisers informed ABC that they didn't want their commercials run during Air America programming. Media Matters reports that those companies will run ads during conservative shows.

In 2009, General Electric, Farmer's Insurance and Office Depot have financially supported Glenn Beck's racism and threats against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the radio; Bayer, Chattem Pharmaceuticals and Wyeth have given Lou Dobbs money to continue his radio-based support for the Birther conspiracy theorists and his portrayal of the current Administration as alternately Socialist, Fascist and Communist; and Home Depot, JC Penney's and Office Depot are helping provide Rush Limbaugh promote his racist, divisive commentary on a daily basis.

That doesn't even include the companies that advertise during Glenn Beck's or Lou Dobbs' television shows, which additionally includes the likes of Bayer, Wal-Mart and Nestlé.

While advertising is supposedly just a way to convince consumers to purchase products, these corporations' histories of political contributions and advocacy--in addition to their stated preferences to have their products associated with Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh rather than Rachel Maddow or Ron Reagan--reflects less a clear-eyed view of consumer preferences than it does support for conservatives and conservative causes.

Take General Electric, a supporter of both Glenn Beck's radio and television programming. In the 2006 election cycle, when they first blacklisted Air America's programming, their PAC's political contributions were two-thirds in favor of Republicans. In 2008, after the takeover of the House by Democrats and while Barack Obama's win was clearly telegraphed, GE continued to favor Republicans with contributions disproportionate to their power in Washington, giving them 48 percent of the PAC's donations. Only now that GE has nowhere else to turn, their donations for the 2010 election cycle are going two-thirds of the time to Democrats. To the victors go the spoils, I guess--as long as they can spend at least an equal amount of money supporting media programming intended to derail the agenda.

Zurich Insurance, the parent company of Farmers (another tried-and-true Beck sponsor), works much the same way. In 2006, 71 percent of their PAC's donations went to Republican candidates; 53 percent went to Republicans in 2008; and, apparently disheartened by the last election, they haven't yet given a dime for 2010. Office Depot--which supports both Beck's and Limbuagh's radio programs--doesn't apparently have a PAC, but their CEO Steve Odland gave the maximum contribution to Mitt Romney last year.

While most corporate PACs, including Wal-Mart, Bayer and Wyeth, have eased off on their contributions to Republican candidates since the Democratic resurgence 2006, Limbaugh supporters Home Depot and JC Penney have not. In 2006, their PACs gave 71 and 85 percent of their contributions, respectively, to Republicans, despite Democratic control of both Houses of Congress and the White House, their PACs have, to date, given 51 and 100 percent of their contributions of Republicans for the 2010 election cycle.

While undoubtedly those companies are still happy to take money from liberal consumers, they don't want to be associated with political programming if it skews liberal--and they're more than happy to take that money from the pockets of liberals and use it to support Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh's contributions to the American political discourse. 

Zen Moment for Friday

In numbers that Paul Krugman has called "truly amazing," a recently updated paper by a Berkeley economist finds that income equality in the U.S. is at an all-time high, surpassing even the inequities of the Depression. Professor Emmanuel Saez found that, during the feed-the-rich Bush years of 2002-2007, the top 1 percent of Americans enjoyed two thirds of the income growth. See graph below:

- Common Dreams

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/even-more-gilded/

On the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock

.....

Paul Krassner
August 14, 2009

.....

Four decades ago, along with 499,999 others on a countercultural pilgrimage, I was headed for the Woodstock Festival of Music & Love. I was wearing my yellow leather fringe jacket for the first time. In one of the pockets there was a nice little stash of LSD. If you happen to be brand-name conscious, then you'll want to know that it was Owsley White Lightning.

The CIA originally envisioned using LSD as a means of control, but, without anybody's permission, millions of young people had already become explorers of their own inner space. Acid was serving as a vehicle for deprogramming themselves from a civilization of sadomasochistic priorities. A mass awakening was in process. There was an evolutionary jump in consciousness.

The underground press was flourishing, and when LSD was declared illegal on October 10, 1966, the psychedelic San Francisco Oracle became politicized while the radical Berkeley Barb began to treat the drug subculture as fellow outlaws. Acid was even influencing the stock market. Timothy Leary let me listen in on a phone call from a Wall Street broker who thanked Leary for turning him onto acid because it gave him the courage to sell short.

As I wandered around the Woodstock Festival, I was overwhelmed by the realization that this tribal event was in actuality what the Yippies had originally fantasized about for the 1968 counter-convention in Chicago. No longer did so many of these celebrants have to feel like the only Martians on their block. Now, extended families were developing into an alternative society right before our dilated pupils. I had never before felt such a powerful sense of community.

The soundtrack was live, and the Hog Farm commune provided meals, servicing the largest Bed & Breakfast place in history. Actually, they had been hired to provide security. But to Hog Farm leader Hugh Romney, security meant cream pies and seltzer bottles. He planned to wear a Smokey Bear costume to warn people about putting out fires. This was not merely a three-day outdoor concert. This was a Martian convention. Or, as Abbie Hoffman called it, Woodstock Nation.

The political contingent was encamped in a huge red-and-white-striped tent christened Movement City. In the afternoon, a mimeograph machine was churning out flyers proclaiming that the outdoor concerts should be free. At night, several festival-goers were busy unscrewing the metal-wire fencing that had been put up during the day. Yippie Roz Payne was among them. She helped take down the "No Trespassing" sign and changed it into a sign that read "Peoples Bulletin Board."

Abbie, Roz and I took a stroll down Merchants Way, which led to the stage that was still being constructed. They took down the "Merchants Way" sign and put in its place a sign that read "Ho Chi Minh Trail." Lights had not yet been strung up along the path, and as it got darker, we kept walking and stumbling until we got lost in the woods. After a couple of hours, we saw a light through the trees, realized that we were right back where we started, and we laughed ourselves silly.

Abbie would get serious later on, though, ebbed on by his sense of justice and fueled by the tab of White Lightning that we had each ingested. While The Who were performing, he went up on stage with the intention of informing the audience that John Sinclair, manager of the MC5 and leader of the White Panther Party, was serving ten years in prison for the possession of two joints; that this was really the politics behind the music.

Before Abbie could get his message across, Pete Townshend transformed his guitar into a tennis racket and smashed him on the head with a swift backhand. Townshend had assumed that Abbie was just another crazed fan. When The Who played at Fillmore East the previous week, a plainclothes cop rushed on stage and tried to grab the mike. He intended to warn the audience that there was a fire next door and the theater had to be cleared, but he was able to do so only after Townshend kneed him in the balls.

Now he shouted at Abbie, "Get the fuck off my stage!" To the audience: "The next person that walks across the stage is gonna get killed." The audience laughed. "You can laugh, but I mean it!"

I inadvertently ended up with a political mission of my own at Woodstock. For a while, I was hanging around the Press Tent, which later turned into the Hospital For Bad Trips. A reporter from the New York Daily News asked me, "How do you spell braless?" I replied, "Without a hyphen." He pointed out two men with cameras who were from the Criminal Intelligence Division of the Army.

And a freelance writer who knew someone with a source in the White House told me how the Nixon administration had assigned the Rand Corporation think tank to develop a game plan for suspending the 1972 election in case of disruption. I decided to mention this at every meeting I attended, every interview I did, every campus I spoke at and every radio show that I was a guest on.

In 1970, the story was officially denied by Attorney General John Mitchell. He warned that whoever started that rumor ought to be "punished." I wrote to him and confessed, but he never answered my letter. Actually, investigative journalist Ron Rosenbaum was able to trace the "rumor" back and discovered that I was the fifth level down from the original White House source. I believed it to be true, and even rented a tiny one-room apartment I could escape to when martial law was declared. It had a fireplace so that if the power went off I could cook brown rice.

My favorite moment at the festival was Jimi Hendrix's startling rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner." His guitar wailing of our national anthem brought me to tears. It was a wordless version of what I interpreted to mean, "It's not that we hate America, it's that we feel the American dream has been betrayed, and we will live our alternative." My least favorite moment was when I discovered that my new yellow leather fringe jacket had been stolen from the Movement City tent.

The '60s were coming to an end, and the quality of co-option would not be strained. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" became a slogan for the Bank of America, and also for Total breakfast cereal. Tampax advertised its tampon as "Something over 30 you can trust."

Hippies became freaks. Negroes became blacks. Girls became women. Richard Alpert became Baba Ram Dass. Hugh Romney became Wavy Gravy, and his wife became Jahanarah. Yippie organizer Keith Lampe became Ponderosa Pine, and his girlfriend became Olive Tree. My sister Marge became Thais. San Francisco Oracle editor Allen Cohen became Siddartha and moved to a commune where everybody called him Sid. They thought his name was Sid Arthur.

But the seeds that were planted then continue to blossom now. And the spirit of Woodstock continues to be celebrated at such events as the Rainbow Gathering, Burning Man, Earthdance, the Oregon County Fair, the Starwood Neo-Pagan Festival, Pete Seeger's Clearwater Festival, the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, and yes, the electronic magic montage of musicians and singers around the globe performing "Stand By Me" on YouTube.

.....

Paul Krassner publishes the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster at paulkrassner.com and he's beginning a column at sf.carnalnation.com on the 3rd Wednesday of each month.

If US health Care's So Good, Why Do Other People Live Longer?

Total Health Expenditures Per Capita, U.S. and Selected Countries, 2003

.....

Carrie Peyton Dahlberg
August 13, 2009 - McClatchy Newspapers

.....

Ask around for the healthiest country in the world, and the United States won't come close to topping the list.

People live longer in just about every industrialized nation, from Canada to our north, throughout much of Europe, and around the Pacific in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

New mothers and their babies also face a rockier start here, with U.S. infant and maternal death rates double some of our industrialized peers.

As debate swirls in Washington and at town halls nationwide over health care reform, there is also a more fundamental question — what about health?

Could policymakers change our medical system in ways that would make America a healthier country?

Insuring everyone should help — but less than people might think, according to doctors and public health experts who've studied the issue. Putting more resources into primary care should also make a dent, they say.

Neither one, though, is likely to send America to the top ranks of its global peers.

"If you want to see dramatic changes in health, you're not going to get there even by doubling the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system," said Dr. Richard Kravitz, a University of California, Davis, professor of medicine whose research interests include quality of care.

"When you need it, you really need it … but in general, the benefits of medical care to populations are a little bit overrated," he said.

When taken all together, the other factors that play a bigger role include education, income, toxins in the environment, crime, violence, family structure, stress, obesity, nutritious food and exercise.

Across large populations, he said, numerous studies suggest that medical care contributes only modestly to overall health, perhaps somewhere between 10 percent and 25 percent.

Health care for all would provide a "very large" improvement for some deprived populations, Kravitz said, but "a surtax on high fructose corn syrup would probably be more effective … than anything we could do for the health care system, just because of obesity."

Researchers who have delved into the effects of medical care on the health of large groups overall have made some surprising and sometimes conflicting discoveries.

An experiment in the 1980s that extended different levels of insurance to otherwise uninsured people found that more coverage fostered more use of the medical system but not necessarily healthier people, said Dr. Peter Muennig, a professor of health policy and management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

A 2006 study that compared white people in England with whites in the United States, in an effort to keep different ethnicities from complicating the findings, reached conclusions Muennig found startling. Even the richest white Americans, who are pretty much universally insured, had more diabetes, more high blood pressure, more heart disease and more cancer than the richest white Britons. On most measures they were a little less healthy than middle income Britons.

This points to a vast range of things health care cannot do, from providing mass transit that makes it likelier people will walk more, to providing the kind of education that correlates strongly with better health.

"Education is the fundamental ingredient for what you need to survive in any ecological niche," Muennig said. People with less education are likely to have jobs that are lower paying, higher stress and possibly more dangerous. They're likelier to live in unsafe housing and eat cheap, calorie-dense food. They're less likely to be offered job-related health insurance. Except for the insurance, he said, health care reforms cannot fix that.

Those who examine health across many nations puzzle over other oddities.

In international health care measures, America's ranking improves when life expectancy is measured for people age 65 and older. While still not at the top of the health heap, Americans who make it to age 65 have remaining life expectancies closer to 65-year-olds in other developed countries, and men stack up a little better than women against their peers worldwide.

That might mean that American medicine treats older people more effectively. Or it could mean that Medicare, universal coverage available at age 65, may be keeping older people healthier. Or it could be something called the "survivor effect," suggesting those who have lived past earlier perils are more robust.

While the factors that optimize health are complex, doctors say there are things federal policymakers could do to make America a little healthier.

Among them are strengthening primary care, finding ways to encourage better diet and exercise, and effectively reforming how health care is financed, said Dr. James G. Kahn, a professor of health policy and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

People do better in nations that encourage them to have a regular primary care provider, Kahn said, perhaps partly because regular, front-line care helps bolster healthy habits.

"Even in the United States, in locations with a higher concentration of primary care providers, people have somewhat better outcomes and also lower costs," he said.

Rewarding and encouraging primary care might also offset an American tendency to do too much, driven by a system that pays for each procedure performed by a doctor, hospital or testing lab, Kahn added.

"We do too many surgeries," he said. "Rates of cardiac surgery are lower in Canada, yet they have better outcomes."

There is hope, too, for "accountable care" groups that would move away from fee for service payments but be held accountable for keeping all their patients as healthy as possible, said Stephen Shortell, dean of the school of public health at UC Berkeley.

Shortell is also pleased that the health legislation being discussed in Washington includes billions for disease prevention and health promotion.

"You can't ignore the health care system, but the big payoff is in lifestyle factors and disease prevention," he said. "A dollar spent on those activities saves $5 in health care costs."

Afghanistan: Mission Essential, Translators Expendable

.....

Pratap Chatterjee
August 13, 2009 - Inter Press Service

.....

Basir "Steve" Ahmed was returning from a bomb-clearing mission in Khogyani district in northeastern Afghanistan when a suicide bomber blew up an explosive-filled vehicle nearby. The blast flipped the military armoured truck Ahmed was riding in three or four times, and filled it with smoke. The Afghan translator had been accompanying the 927th Engineer Company near the Pakistan border on that October day in 2008 that would forever change his life.

"I saw the gunner come out and I followed him. The U.S. Army soldiers helped pull me out, but I got burns," says Ahmed, who had worked as a contract translator with U.S. troops for almost four years. "The last thing I remember was the 'dub-dub-dub' of a Chinook helicopter." A medical evacuation team took the injured men to a U.S. Army hospital at Bagram Base.

Three days later Ahmed regained consciousness, but was suffering from shrapnel wounds in his scalp and severe burns covering his right hand and leg.

A little more than three months after his accident, Ahmed was fired by his employer, Mission Essential Personnel (MEP) of Columbus, Ohio - the largest supplier of translators to the U.S. military in Afghanistan. In a statement released to this reporter, the company said that Ahmed's "military point of contact (POC) informed MEP that Basir was frequently late and did not show up on several occasions. A few days later, Basir's POC called MEP's manager and told her that they were not able to use him and requested a new linguist."

Ahmed says he missed only one day of work and arrived late twice.

Today, he lives in hiding in nearby Jalalabad for fear that his family will be targeted because he had worked with the U.S. military. The 29-year-old has no job and had to wait nine months for disability compensation to pay for medical treatment for the burns that still prevent him from lifting his hand to his mouth to feed himself.

Ahmed is one of dozens of local Afghans who have been abandoned or poorly treated by a complex web of U.S. contractors, their insurance companies, and their military counterparts despite years of service risking life and limb to help the U.S. military in the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

"I Trust Him With My Life"

On a table inside a safe house in Kabul, Basir Ahmed placed dozens of photos, certificates of appreciation, and letters of recommendation from the U.S. military units he had worked with between 2005 and 2009. Some pictures showed him in Nuristan wearing T-shirts and wraparound sunglasses and sitting next to the sandbags and concrete barriers. In others, he stood in camouflage gear in the depths of winter next to a snowman.

For example, Sergeant David R. Head and First Lieutenant Candace N. Mathis of the Provincial Reconstruction Team at Task Force Spartan at the Kamdesh base wrote on Dec. 22, 2006 that: "his performance was superb and very professional. He works well as a linguist, and is always punctual."

On May 11, 2008, Ahmed received a certificate of appreciation from Lieutenant Colonel Anthony O. Wright of the 70th Engineer Battalion (Kodiaks) for his help as an interpreter during the road-clearing programme from 2006 to 2008.

It was just five months later, on a similar patrol with the 927th Engineer Company, that Ahmed was injured. At the Bagram Base, the military doctors did some skin grafts, but after about 11 days, sent him to an Afghan military hospital in Kabul. For two to three months he could not sleep properly - scaring his family when he woke up yelling.

Then Gabby Nelson - the MEP site manager - summoned Ahmed back to Jalalabad, where she had the military doctors look at him again. For about 15 days, they treated the burns. He had to report to the gate of the base at 7 a.m. in the middle of winter for Nelson to drive him to the hospital one kilometre away - too far to walk with his injuries. She was often an hour late, he said, a painful and cold delay, but when he asked her to be more punctual, she said she would stop picking him up. He stopped going to the hospital.

Two weeks later Ahmed says Nelson asked him to report for a 12-hour shift starting at 6 a.m. despite the doctors' recommendation for a month's rest. After working for the full month, he received 578 dollars, significantly less than the 845 dollars that he normally earned.

Then as luck would have it, he says, he missed work once and was late twice, because of delays on the road to the base, where the Afghan and U.S. forces often tied up traffic with their manoeuvres, he explained. Nelson told him to turn in his badge. He tried to appeal to the military, but they said they couldn’t help him - so he left the base on Jan. 24, 2009.

Soldiers who had previously worked with Ahmed, confirmed the certificates of appreciation and recommendations about his punctuality and the quality of his work. "He did his job diligently and willingly. He served with us during the most uncomfortable times, but never complained," said one soldier, who asked to remain anonymous.

Official Response

Ahmed's employer - Ohio-based Mission Essential Personnel - was awarded a five-year contract in September 2007 by the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). The contract, to provide 1,691 translators in Afghanistan, is worth up to $414 million.

MEP spokesman Sean Rushton says that the company did the best it could to help Ahmed with his medical needs. "A desire to improve treatment of linguists is what began our company," said the spokesman.

Rushton and MEP's senior management said that they were pained to hear that Basir was upset at being "let go."

"Anyone reading an account of a translator who was simply let go by a company after being wounded would of course be outraged at the company, but that not only isn't true in this instance, exactly the opposite is the case," the company said in a statement released to the media.

"We have financial records showing seven disability and salary payments between his injury and the final settlement. It has been said Basir [Ahmed] received insufficient medical care, yet MEP employees not only ensured his medical coverage, they regularly took him to his treatment and got him into a U.S. military hospital," the company stated.

"It has been suggested Basir waited endlessly for his disability settlement, yet the funds arrived within six weeks of his rehabilitation's conclusion. It has been suggested MEP forced Basir to return to work when he was still recuperating, yet MEP had no financial incentive to do so and in fact, at Basir's request, MEP got him onto accommodated duty, free of physical hardship. It has been suggested MEP cut Basir loose after he was dismissed by his military supervisor, yet MEP was and is anxious to help Basir, including by considering him for a new job."

Reached by phone for his response to MEP's statement, Ahmed says that he did get disability payments such as a check for $10,000 sent to him in early July 2009 - nine months after he was injured. Yet he still feels that his employer and the military abandoned him.

But he has not been completely forgotten. About two months after leaving his job, he started receiving death threats. "Believe me, my family is too scared. One day I saw a night letter from the Taliban. They put it in our door: 'You three brothers work for the U.S. Army. Quit your job. Otherwise we are going to kill your whole family,'" he says.

Like many of his colleagues, Ahmed had kept his employment a secret from his neighbours, he believes that the injuries provided a clue about the true nature of his occupation to Taliban sympathizers in the community.

Boycott Whole Foods

.....

Russell Mokhiber
August 13, 2009 - CommonDreams.org

.....

John Mackey is a right wing libertarian.

He's a union buster.

He believes that corporations should not be criminally prosecuted for their crimes.

He has just launched a campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system.

And he's the CEO of Whole Foods.

Primo hangout of liberal Democratic yuppies.

"We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health," Mackey wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. "We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society."

Yes it will, John Mackey.

Yes it will.

I do take that responsibility very seriously.

I try to eat well.

And exercise regularly.

I also take my responsibility as a citizen seriously.

After all, Mr. Mackey, we are all responsible for our own civic lives and our own civic health.

We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom and make wise civic and consumer choices that will protect our nation's health.

Doing so will enrich our civic lives and help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

That's why, today, Single Payer Action is calling on all American citizens to boycott Whole Foods.

Why?

Because Mackey has launched a public campaign to defeat single payer national health insurance.

This despite the bottom line reality that single payer is the only way to both control health care costs and cover everyone.

As Dr. Marcia Angell says in today's New York Times, "if you keep health care in the hands of for-profit companies, you can increase coverage by putting more money into the system, or control costs by decreasing coverage. But you cannot do both unless you change the basic structure of the system."

Mackey leads his Wall Street Journal diatribe against national health insurance with a quote from one of his heroines – Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

And the problem with Mackey's campaign is that it results in the deaths of 60 Americans every day due to lack of health insurance.

Mackey is responsible for these deaths as much as anyone.

And we are responsible for putting money into his Whole Food bank account so that he can continue his campaign without resistance.

I know that this boycott of Whole Foods will upset many liberal Democrats.

Where will they buy their organic wines?

And cheeses?

And tofu?

There are options.

Your local health food co-op.

Farmers' markets.

Community supported agriculture.

Other corporate chains like Trader Joe's.

So, please, join the Single Payer Action Boycott of Whole Foods.

Don't cross the picket lines.

Don't spend another penny at Whole Foods until John Mackey and his right wing friends are defeated.

And single payer is enacted.

Onward to single payer.

.....

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter.

Something worth forwarding

Dear Friend, This is probably one of the longest emails I've ever sent, but it could be the most important. Across the country we are seeing vigorous debate about health insurance reform. Unfortunately, some of the old tactics we know so well are back — even the viral emails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions. As President Obama said at the town hall in New Hampshire, "where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed." So let's start a chain email of our own. At the end of my email, you'll find a lot of information about health insurance reform, distilled into 8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage, 8 common myths about reform and 8 reasons we need health insurance reform now. Right now, someone you know probably has a question about reform that could be answered by what's below. So what are you waiting for? Forward this email. Thanks, David David Axelrod Senior Adviser to the President P.S. We launched www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck this week to knock down the rumors and lies that are floating around the internet. You can find the information below, and much more, there. For example, we've just added a video of Nancy-Ann DeParle from our Health Reform Office tackling a viral email head on. Check it out: 8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage Ends Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history. Ends Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays: Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses. Ends Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care: Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics. Ends Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill: Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill. Ends Gender Discrimination: Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender. Ends Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage: Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive. Extends Coverage for Young Adults: Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26. Guarantees Insurance Renewal: Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won't be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick. Learn more and get details: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/health-insurance-consumer-protections/ 8 common myths about health insurance reform Reform will stop "rationing" - not increase it: It's a myth that reform will mean a "government takeover" of health care or lead to "rationing." To the contrary, reform will forbid many forms of rationing that are currently being used by insurance companies. We can't afford reform: It's the status quo we can't afford. It's a myth that reform will bust the budget. To the contrary, the President has identified ways to pay for the vast majority of the up-front costs by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse within existing government health programs; ending big subsidies to insurance companies; and increasing efficiency with such steps as coordinating care and streamlining paperwork. In the long term, reform can help bring down costs that will otherwise lead to a fiscal crisis. Reform would encourage "euthanasia": It does not. It's a malicious myth that reform would encourage or even require euthanasia for seniors. For seniors who want to consult with their family and physicians about end-of life decisions, reform will help to cover these voluntary, private consultations for those who want help with these personal and difficult family decisions. Vets' health care is safe and sound: It's a myth that health insurance reform will affect veterans' access to the care they get now. To the contrary, the President's budget significantly expands coverage under the VA, extending care to 500,000 more veterans who were previously excluded. The VA Healthcare system will continue to be available for all eligible veterans. Reform will benefit small business - not burden it: It's a myth that health insurance reform will hurt small businesses. To the contrary, reform will ease the burdens on small businesses, provide tax credits to help them pay for employee coverage and help level the playing field with big firms who pay much less to cover their employees on average. Your Medicare is safe, and stronger with reform: It's myth that Health Insurance Reform would be financed by cutting Medicare benefits. To the contrary, reform will improve the long-term financial health of Medicare, ensure better coordination, eliminate waste and unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies, and help to close the Medicare "doughnut" hole to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors. You can keep your own insurance: It's myth that reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors. To the contrary, reform will expand your choices, not eliminate them. No, government will not do anything with your bank account: It is an absurd myth that government will be in charge of your bank accounts.  Health insurance reform will simplify administration, making it easier and more convenient for you to pay bills in a method that you choose.  Just like paying a phone bill or a utility bill, you can pay by traditional check, or by a direct electronic payment. And forms will be standardized so they will be easier to understand. The choice is up to you – and the same rules of privacy will apply as they do for all other electronic payments that people make. Learn more and get details: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck/faq 8 Reasons We Need Health Insurance Reform Now Coverage Denied to Millions: A recent national survey estimated that 12.6 million non-elderly adults – 36 percent of those who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company in the individual insurance market – were in fact discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years or dropped from coverage when they became seriously ill. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/denied_coverage/index.html Less Care for More Costs: With each passing year, Americans are paying more for health care coverage. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have nearly doubled since 2000, a rate three times faster than wages. In 2008, the average premium for a family plan purchased through an employer was $12,680, nearly the annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage job.  Americans pay more than ever for health insurance, but get less coverage. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/hiddencosts/index.html Roadblocks to Care for Women: Women's reproductive health requires more regular contact with health care providers, including yearly pap smears, mammograms, and obstetric care. Women are also more likely to report fair or poor health than men (9.5% versus 9.0%). While rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure are similar to men, women are twice as likely to suffer from headaches and are more likely to experience joint, back or neck pain. These chronic conditions often require regular and frequent treatment and follow-up care. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/women/index.html Hard Times in the Heartland: Throughout rural America, there are nearly 50 million people who face challenges in accessing health care. The past several decades have consistently shown higher rates of poverty, mortality, uninsurance, and limited access to a primary health care provider in rural areas. With the recent economic downturn, there is potential for an increase in many of the health disparities and access concerns that are already elevated in rural communities. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/hardtimes Small Businesses Struggle to Provide Health Coverage: Nearly one-third of the uninsured – 13 million people – are employees of firms with less than 100 workers. From 2000 to 2007, the proportion of non-elderly Americans covered by employer-based health insurance fell from 66% to 61%. Much of this decline stems from small business. The percentage of small businesses offering coverage dropped from 68% to 59%, while large firms held stable at 99%. About a third of such workers in firms with fewer than 50 employees obtain insurance through a spouse. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/helpbottomline The Tragedies are Personal: Half of all personal bankruptcies are at least partly the result of medical expenses. The typical elderly couple may have to save nearly $300,000 to pay for health costs not covered by Medicare alone. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/inaction Diminishing Access to Care: From 2000 to 2007, the proportion of non-elderly Americans covered by employer-based health insurance fell from 66% to 61%. An estimated 87 million people - one in every three Americans under the age of 65 - were uninsured at some point in 2007 and 2008. More than 80% of the uninsured are in working families. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/inaction/diminishing/index.html The Trends are Troubling: Without reform, health care costs will continue to skyrocket unabated, putting unbearable strain on families, businesses, and state and federal government budgets. Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance - projections suggest that this number will rise to about 72 million in 2040 in the absence of reform. Learn more: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/assets/documents/CEA_Health_Care_Report.pdf This email was sent to jcbonefish@prodigy.net Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111