11.11.11

On today, Veterans day 2011, 10 years into the Global War on Terrorism -


My fellow veterans: I salute you. Thank you for your service to our great country. I'm proud to have served and I know you are too. 

(stolen shamelessly from Monique Hayden Gary with whom I served not once, but twice, on two continents)


I saw a chart the other day that something like 0.45% of the American population has served/are serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars / occupations. This is down from something like 15% for WWII and 4% for Vietnam.

This is why the government and society can pay lip service to admiring our citizens in uniform, yet in actuality do nothing to support them. (Note the funding and state of the VA, burying remains of fallen servicemen in a garbage dump at Dover AFB etc.)

As a decision maker in the political or economic systems, you might know someone who knows someone in the service, but the odds that you or an immediate family member have or are serving are miniscule. And that's what's wrong with the military-industrial complex we've built - there are no longer personal consequences for the decision makers for employing our sword, or trying oil or resheath it.


So on Veterans Day 2011 remember, respect, support.  And please think about the system we've created that encourages us to put our brave citizen soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors in harm's way, and support them after they've served or given their all.

In God We Trust

A response to Congress  reaffirming this week as the national motto the phrase "In God We Trust" and encouraging its pronouncement on public buildings and continued printing on the coin of the realm. 


See the LA Times for an article on this matter.


Who's god?  Or gods for that sake?  Yaweh?  Allah?  "God"?  Ganesh is a favorite of mine - let's make Ganesh our god we trust in to provide, direct and favor us above all other nations on earth.  


For 175 years (give or take until 1956 that is during the hysteria of the Cold War and under the influence of such great American leaders as McCarthy) we realized that religion is divisive and plays no place in a modern, post - theocratic government.  This is why the Pilgrims and many colonists came to this nation in the first place - to get away from state religions.  This is what the Enlightenment was all about, and arguably why European nations have ruled the world for over 400 hears.  Let me hear the words - "Separation of Church and State".


While living a just, moral and contributory life is an integral part to being a human being and a member of society, there's no place for Congress, or your city council for that matter, to legislate morality.  Legislate actions, behaviors.  Outcomes.  But morality?  Please.


Your religion is your business.  No one else's.  And plays no role in the development and management of a well run secular society.


Now if you'd like to like in a Theocracy, where religion is major part of the governing of a people, then I'd suggest you move to Iran or Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan.  Just watch out for those who might take issue with your god, or your interpretation of what he, she or it is telling you to do.  

Why don't they just get a job?

This is a typical comment from most my conservative friends - and they do somewhat have a point.

Most everyone I've known more than 20 years have made their way in life through hard work, many by serving in the military as I did.  They worked McJobs, they were baristas.  So their point of view is that, if they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made something of themselves, why can't all these OWSers?


Good question, but sort of missed the point in my estimation.  The world is full of individuals who've been successful despite the obstacles thrown in front of them.  Many haven't succeeded. Why should we knowingly create an economic and political system that favors the few to the detriment of the many?  I think this is the issue on the table here, not why can't a group of protestors get employed.  It's about the systemic destruction of opportunity for anyone but the already privileged, and whether that's the world We the People want to make ours, or if there is truly a better one out there.

When Citibank begins marketing financial products to the "Plutonomy" (clever taking a concept, changing the suffix and making it a trade-markable item) you know we're in trouble.  They don't even care about keeping the topic quite anymore.  (See this article on Plutonomy to get started on the details: Times Colonist)

What's really amazing to me is how the upper middle class (lets say the top 20%) have bought into this line of argument.  Coming from a world of relative privilege compared to the bottom 80%, yet a stone to the sun compared to the 1%, they've adopted the liturgy of the wealthy in some misguided belief that they too will get there.  They've been to the best schools (their parents' money can buy), networked into powerful business relationships, and are set to make their $250,000 or so a year, and somehow this has convinced them that they've succeeded on their own merits.  In reality, they've neither succeeded (A hedge fund manager can make $250,000 a day guys), nor competed on their own merits (they were favored from birth.)

If this group (which I'll agree I too belong to in comparison to the bottom 60% - I'd say I've moved from somewhere around the 60th percentile where my parents were to somewhere in the 3rd to 5th percentile today) can't see the disparity we've created in opportunity, and the wasted potential this represents for all of us Americans, then we're in trouble.  For as the Terror taught la France, so too shall OWS teach America - when the vast teeming masses that make up the bulk of this country see no future, no potential, no ability to improve their lives for themselves or their children, then things can and will get ugly.

Proposed Talking Points for OccupyWallStreet

After dropping by the Occupy Seattle non-camp ground yesterday I realized that the time has really come to begin coalescing this movement around a few basic efforts that more than the fringe can identify with.  I mean really, there might have been 100 people there, and they were all younger than 30, full of tats and dreds.  Not a middle class person amongst them.  The movement clearly needs a more inclusive theme other than nuke the banks or kill the capitalists.


This made me start thinking about what the theme might be, and today I had a great cab ride from my Client to SEATAC here in the People's republic of NorthWestia that really helped clarify my thoughts for what the talking points for the OWS movement should be.  I owe a debt of gratitude to my cabbie, an elderly gent from East Africa who spoke little English, but actively commented and drove home the points that I've been trying to clarify in my head for months now.


The conservative media has dehumanized and vilified them; most central in their message is that this is a rag tag group of discontents who have no platform to promote.  They acquaint OWS with the masked anarchists who have shown up at so many other anti-establishment protests.  And somehow they miss the point.


OWS today is an exciting example of Democracy in action.  It's gritty, unorganized.  A group of people with an enormous set of issues looking for a common direction that they can mobilize both themselves as well as a sizable chunk of the US around to make what they hope is real change.


Central to their complaints, I'll say central to OUR complaints are two themes that, if addressed would enable a democratic process to emerge in this great nation to address all the others.  I propose these as starting points to productively resolve our issues.  I think they'll both take Constitutional Amendments, but  with the power of social media and the internet certainly we can get sufficient energy around these to get them passed:


ISSUE ONE: CORRUPTION


Our current governmental system is corrupt and no longer can claim to legitimately represent us.  Our representatives are bought and paid for by wealthy individuals and corporations who, through campaign contributions buy access and action.  It's pure pay for play driven by greed, and the need to compete in dollars with other candidates.  At what point did we agree to let a dollar represent one's worth in society?  


PROPOSAL


Contributions to elected officials or candidates for public offices shall be limited to no more than one day's average wages for the bottom 20% of Americans.  It shall be a felony to give more than this amount to any elected official or candidate.  It shall be a felony to receive more than this.


PACS and other aggregators of funding shall be illegal and disbanded.  It shall be a felony to establish one, a felony to contribute to one.


ISSUE TWO:  PERSONHOOD


Last I checked our Constitution read "We the People of the United States" not "We the Businesses of the United States."  Corporations are not people, no matter what tortured legal thinking you apply to the issue.  


PROPOSAL


Corporations do not have the legal rights of persons.  Therefore they shall not be permitted to contribute or give money to any elected official or candidate for office.  A corporation found to be doing so shall have its license to do business in the jurisdiction the offense occurred REVOKED.  (If found giving money to a state official or candidate they shall be forbidden to do business in that state, if found giving money to a US Governmental official or candidate they shall have their right to do business in the US REVOKED.




By doing these two things we can take the money and power out of politics, and reintroduce a democratic process in our great nation.  We once more can have real elected representatives, not the charade of options presented by the two equally corrupt parties today.  Once we've done this we can address all the other issues the way a democracy is supposed to - by open dialog and debate.  It will be messy.  It will be contentious.  But at least it will happen, rather than being shoveled under the carpet the way it is today.

Rethinking Occupy Wall Street

So the interesting thing about Occupy Wall Street is that the protestors seem to be asking the government, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America thanks to the fiction of corporate personhood and the treasonous practice of campaign contributions, to increase regulation of the very corporations which own it. 


And then we're surprised that the police, the enforcement arm of this corrupt (and therefore I'd say illegitimate) government violate the civil rights of the protestors? This is the same government that, ignoring both our own and international laws, has been using extraordinary rendition to do away with foreign "terrorists". The same government that has executed US citizens without trial. And you're surprised?

No - it's time for a major shift in how we think about what legitimate representation is, what the role of government is in our society, and how we the people (the 99%) agree or not agree to engage in discourse or interaction with a corrupt and illegitimate government. I'd suggest a re-read of Voltaire and other Enlightenment philosophers about what a legitimate government looks like. Or even easier, re-read our own Declaration of Independence:


US Declaration of Independence

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."

Dissent is Patriotic.

If you aren't pissed off then you haven't been paying attention

Once again I agree with Ron Paul - well sort of ...

Ron Paul is dead on in this piece on the need to define the sanctity of life in America, not the first time that I've agreed with him, much to my chagrin.   However, I'd guess where I'd part ways with him is on how we do this, and the implications for our domestic, economic and social policies.  I see no role for government telling a woman what to do here; having said that, I'm generally anti-abortion except in early stage pregnancies (say first trimester) and where the life of the mother is at stake.  I hear a lot of talk about incest, rape or other situations, but I think these can easily fit within that first trimester.


Ron Paul on Life

On a broader topic, that of life and the sanctity of it in general, and the need to have an agreement in place for our society to lay a moral compass for our actions - absolutely.  Having said that I'd move to two places - war and poverty.

On war - what is different between a late term abortion and sending one of our citizens to some hell hole and having them either kill or be killed?  Usually it's economics or some misguided principle of nationalism that we haven't fully though through.   I'd say it's incredibly hypocritical to be virulently anti-abortion and pro war simultaneously.

On poverty - if life is sacred, should we be focused on creating an environment where those alive can live a fulfilling, meaningful life without the pains of hunger, homelessness and sickness?  Shouldn't our public policies be maximizing the happiness of the maximum number of people we can?  How can we, the greatest nation and people ever to have existed, live with ourselves with 16% of the nation in extreme poverty, >25% of our children going hungry at night, and the degree of homelessness we have today?  I'm staggered by the evident hypocrisy of those who would try to impose their will on women through so called "pro-life" policies and dogma, yet allow this condition to perpetuate and grow worse.

Thoughts on the Brink

Here we are, 4 days from what could prove to be a complete global financial meltdown, and I've been pondering how we got here.


Not the fact that the buffoons in Congress can't come to an agreement - I've long since given up hope of our American political system acting in a responsible and sane manner.  It's too caught up in the media hyped blame circle pandering to their narrowly defined bases and corporate sponsors to think that they would be able to reach a reasoned agreement on anything of substance.  No, rather how did we get to the point that we have a $14 Trillion debt, earmarked or priority spending levels where they are, and have no maneuvering room.  It's worth pondering.


I, like many people out there, have a point of view on this.  However my view doesn't fit nicely into minute thirty sound bites on CNN or Fox News, and that it requires you to think about cause and effect over decades. It starts with Nixon and the supposed collapse of the Republican party after his near impeachment.  This was followed by the development of Conservative and Neo-Con think tanks in response to  the real prospect of Business losing their control of Washington, and the development of long term plans (in the 70s) to reinstitute a facade of democracy in this nation covering the absolute dominance of legal and judicial processes by business interests.  What's interesting about this is that while these Think Tanks have always resisted revealing where their funding comes from, they never been shy about communicating their focus and intents.  It's been there for you and me to see for 40 years now.


In the '80s Reagan modeled with the Soviets what I believe the Republicans have succeeded in doing to the Americans in the '00s and today.  He simply outspent them and forced them into a corner where they had no alternative but to give up and sue for peace.  This lead to arguably the greatest single freedom event in history as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, and the Soviet economy was revealed to be the Potemkin village it really was.


25 years later the Republicans, with Bush as their front man, armed with a military mandate derived from 9/11 and an economy on the skids from the dot bomb, managed to accomplish two major things that have driven us to our current dilemma. 


First, playing upon our fears in the clouds of the crumbled towers, they launched both a massive expansion of the military (with its spending) plus they mired us in two wars that continue to this day.  Our current military spending is over $1 Trillion a year (Counting appropriations and black ops budgets) - approaching 25% of the Federal Budget, and greater than the military budgets of all other nations on earth combined, and on top of that we've incurred at latest estimates a $4 to $5 Trillion debt to run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  


Second, this stroke of budgetary and resource allocation brilliance was coupled with another - a reinstitution of Supply Side economics, that utterly failed policy that, guess who, Reagan brought forth in the '80s.  After 25 years everyone seemed to have forgotten that, by cutting the taxes on the wealthy in the 80s, we accomplished nothing, other than to prolong and deepen the recession we were in.  As a result, right as we were expanding expenditures, we cut revenues, betting on the come that this would result in an expansion in GDP as the wealthy, in their infinite wisdom, invested in business opportunities that created jobs in the US economy.  (We'll come back to that one in a minute)


Fortunately for Bush, the artificial inflation of the economy driven by the soon to be emerging Mortgage crises covered in the short run (2002 - 2008) any issues supply side economics might have created.  For those of us who have forgotten (it was after all three years ago - several dogs years in our ADHD media cycle and two Congresses ago), a relaxing of governmental regulation and financial standards allowed mortgage brokers to underwrite mortgages to people that would never be able to repay.  After this stroke of regulatory brilliance, the financial institutions were then allowed to commoditize these mortgages into homogenized debt offerings that assumed that, while any individual mortgage might fail, certainly the entire portfolio wouldn't.  I could try to explain this, but I don't have 100 pages and a month to do it, and it has been done really well already - look at Matt Taibbi's excellent and entertaining book Griftopia-Machines-Vampire-Breaking-America.  Also Dilbert explains it in a much shorter version:

This perfect storm of regulatory ineptitude coupled with greed and avarice led to the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, and, guess what, required investing over a Trillion dollars more in propping up a lethargic and struggling economy.  We now have something like 16% un- and under employment (U-6 I believe).


So coming back to supply chain economics - that mantra of the neo-conservatives and savior of the rich. As I said above, the premise is that, by cutting taxes on the rich, they will have more money to invest in the US economy, creating jobs and ultimately lifting everyone out of economic trouble.  Unfortunately the global financial economy has significantly shifted in the past 30 years under the US lead World Bank and IMF and their financial policies (See Joseph Stiglitz' Globalization and Its Discontents if this interests you at all - worth a read by the Nobel Prize winning economist).  Today, rather than investing in the US, increasingly Global companies have realized they have greater returns and diversify risk by growing brands and operations outside the US.  As a result tax breaks and corporate incentives increasingly have little, if any effect on our economy, serving to grow corporate earnings with little if any employment impact in the US.  Couple that with lower cost labor alternatives overseas driving an outsourcing trend for the past 20 years and one has to wonder why there are any good jobs left in the US at this point.


Putting all this together all its clear that the neo-Cons and Republicans have lead us to the brink, painting us into a corner from which there really is no exit.  They

• deliberately overspent in the 00s, raising the debt to the $14 Trillion mark
• through regulatory "reform" have created an economy that can't make jobs
• created non discretionary buckets of expenditures that leave no room to maneuver, and
• are now citing "philosophical" reasons that they can't even begin to discuss revenue enhancements to address the issues they've created in the first place

Gotta love it eh?

As an aside, while I've been lambasting the Republicans here, the Democrats are every bit as culpable through their ineffectual meanderings and inability to find a platform to promote.  While the Republicans have successfully implemented their strategies and tactics to get us to a point where corporate take over of the US legislative process is at hand, the Democrats have been clowns on a stage they weren't even aware of.  I honestly don't know which party to despise more, so I'll despise them equally for different reasons.

So now, with the US on the brink of default, which would challenge 60 years of global financial market management where the US debt is considered to be risk free, can we find a compromise to our problems?  No. because it's against everyone's principles.  

The Republican's approach to negotiation is akin to Bruce Willis' negotiation in the 5th element.  Remember the scene?  Ugly aliens have taken over the luxury cruiser and demand to negotiate.  Bruce asks if he can take over negotiations and proceeds to shoot the ugly aliens.  

The Democrat's approach to negotiation, as led by our enormous disappointment of a president Mr Obama, is to roll over at the first request for something and offer more than was asked.

In short, we're up S*&^%s creek without a paddle, and Tuesday the 2nd is just around the Corner.

So I hope you've pulled your money out of the market and invested in gold and firearms.  I wish I had at this point.

Good luck!