I’m sick of Wall Street/Main Street. Never was a big fan of metonymy. The New Democratic Party in Canada has been using kitchen tables/boardroom tables instead. Much nicer.

Also, as the vote-down of the bailout has shown, the House of Representatives has some democratic accountability. The Senate, where the bailout vote was in the bag, does not. We should be calling them the House of Commons and House of Lords, respectively.

And the President? Please, our system has long accorded the President monarch-approximating levels of deference. We should be calling Bush the Queen instead.

Posted under Culture, Politics

I saw an ad for the november 1st rally on facebook:

Six Virginia State Police Chaplains were just forced to resign by the Kaine Administration because they prayed publicly “in Jesus name.” In response, 86 Virginia Pastors have taken a pledge to mobilize their people to vote, and now we’re standing up for Jesus with these chaplains.

That caught my eye, so I decided to dig a bit deeper.  Turns out no one was forced to resign.  They chose to.  (Washington Times):

At least six of the Virginia State Police’s 17 chaplains have resigned following a request they offer only “nondenominational” prayers during department-sanctioned public events and ceremonies, police said Wednesday.

The request was made by state police Superintendent Col. W. Steven Flaherty earlier this month and has been decried by Virginia House Republicans as a violation of the First Amendment and an attack on Christianity. One Republican delegate said chaplains were told they could not invoke the name of Jesus, but a state police spokeswoman denied the assertion.

To “require those troopers to disregard their own faith while serving violates their First Amendment rights and prevents them from serving effectively as chaplains,” said House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, Salem Republican. “These men had little choice but to resign.”

To better understand the dispute we ought to take a look at one of the men behind it:

However, Delegate Charles W. “Bill” Carrico Sr., a former state trooper, said he has spoken with some of the chaplains, who said the colonel’s request was not put in writing and was treated as an order.

The chaplains were told that “they cannot reference the name of Jesus Christ,” said Mr. Carrico, Grayson Republican. “That’s against their beliefs and against the dictates of their conscience.”

Bill Carrico is the owner of In Jesus Name I Pray.org (registered on the 22nd to his state email address: DelCCarrico@house.state.va.us).  He serves in the Virginia House.  He recently attempted to run for the US House, and held off an aggressive challenge (and a close vote) from a Democratic challenger.  He also put forth a bill (which passed the state house and failed in the state senate) to allow religious prayer on public property:

Amends the current religious freedom provisions of the Virginia Constitution to “secure further the people’s right to acknowledge God”; to permit prayer and the recognition of “religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property, including public schools”; and to prohibit the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions, including public school divisions, from composing school prayers or requiring individuals to “join in prayer or other religious activity.”

The second half being a cover.  His real concern is in pushing Christianity further into the political mainstream.  Bill Carrico believes this is a Christian Nation (emphasis mine):

Patrick Henry once said “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was not founded by religionist, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason people of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom to worship here.”

Bill has an unsurprisingly poor understanding of the consitution:

Other religions have the right to worship here, however just because they are offended by what we were founded upon doesn’t give them the right to take away our constitutional freedoms.

The separation of church and state is no where in the constitution and was a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist suggesting that the state should never be allowed to run the church.

The first ammendment to the constitution clearly reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

Arguing this is a Christian nation runs directly counter to the spirit and letter of the first ammendment.

The dispute on its surface is an argument over whether public officials can offer demoninational prayer in an official context.  Underneath is a strategy by Dominionist politicians to paint America as a Christian nation, which serves as a political foundation for easing more theocratic laws into the books.

(One wonders how would the same chaplains react if it had been a Hindu prayer in an official context?)

Posted under News, People, Politics, Religion

Reject Subsidization of the Rich
The bailout plan, both Treasury Secretary Paulson’s original draft and the version Congress tried to pass yesterday, is a massive blank check to the wealthiest, privileged and non-productive members of our society.  It is corporate welfare at an unprecedented scale, effectively rewarding years of financial gambling and a housing bubble. Handing hundreds of billions of dollars to the same folks who have weakened our economy would be something bordering insanity, for the following reasons (and others).

Key problems with the bailout are:

• Despite rumors to the contrary, the revised bailout bill (which failed yesterday) does not put restrictions on CEO pay. And even if it did, restricting the salaries of a handful of executives in a handful of firms is not going to make this bill more accountable nor going to prevent any of this from happening again. (How much of a punishment is it to pay someone $400,000 a year?).
• Oversight of the bailout is unclear at best, and effectively absent at worst.
• Henry Paulson, the same man who insists that our economy is on the edge of collapse, whose plan included giving him unprecedented, non-reviewable power to distribute $700,000,000,000 with full immunity, was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs just a few years ago – one of the same institutions that he’s proposing giving billions of dollars to. Even if he has the best of intentions, despite having the very definition of a conflict of interests, he’s the same guy that said in early August that “We have the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business lifetime,” How is this not a case of the crazy people running the asylum?
• The drumbeat of disaster and economic ruin if we do not immediately give a third of the U.S. annual budget to banks is eerily reminiscent of the passage of the PATRIOT Act and the vote on the war on Iraq.
• There’s no guarantee that the huge bailout will actually fix the problem!
• In the past week, we’ve seen false reporting from NPR to the New York Times to columnists like David Brooks. It is not possible to make a rational, appropriate decision in such a short period of time in such a misleading and frenetic environment.
• There’s much more to comment on (keeping this short in the interest of getting this post published).

Where do the Democrats stand on this?
Obama, unbelievably, has privately urged the Democrats to not support bankruptcy reform. This is the most fundamental component of any economic stability package, would affect the folks trying to pay their mortgages, and according to Dennis Kucinich, the Democrat Presidential candidate is opposed to it. Given that Obama’s top contributor is Goldman Sachs, with JP Morgan, Citigroup, UBS, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley in his top 16, we should not be surprised.

Some folks are bringing some perspective and courage to the debate. Marcy Kaptur (D, Ohio) gave this revealing and measured response before she cast her “No” vote. Sheila Jackson also delivered some words of wisdom on the floor of the House: “America has been diagnosed, but we need a second opinion”. And recall it was mostly Republicans which stopped the bailout from being passed. What we’re witnessing is the tug of war on politicians between the people who fund them and the people who vote for them.

What to Do!
1.) Call Your Congressperson!
This is a list of how every House Representative voted for the bailout – how did yours vote? Call your House Representative (find them here) and tell them not to pass the bailout – tell them the current bailout bill is unacceptable, and anything that they pass to address the situation must include comprehensive and wide-ranging relief for those who are paying off home mortgages.
2.) Join organizations like CODEPINK and United for a Fair Economy in calling for alternatives to the bailout, like a Bailout for Main Street.
3.) Read more, get informed, know what’s going on. The greatest problem we have right now is a dearth of information and understanding. This is not a topic that’s going to go away soon, so we better know what we’re all getting (or are being put!) into.

UPDATE: Paul Krugman offered a framework to understand the current financial breakdown on Wall Street:

1. The bursting of the housing bubble has led to a surge in defaults and foreclosures, which in turn has led to a plunge in the prices of mortgage-backed securities — assets whose value ultimately comes from mortgage payments.

2. These financial losses have left many financial institutions with too little capital — too few assets compared with their debt. This problem is especially severe because everyone took on so much debt during the bubble years.

3. Because financial institutions have too little capital relative to their debt, they haven’t been able or willing to provide the credit the economy needs.

4. Financial institutions have been trying to pay down their debt by selling assets, including those mortgage-backed securities, but this drives asset prices down and makes their financial position even worse. This vicious circle is what some call the “paradox of deleveraging.”

Posted under Economy, Politics

In a big surprise this afternoon, the Wall Street bail-out package that has been the subject of such scrutiny since originally introduced by the Bush administration (re: Secretary of the Treasury Paulson), has been shot down by the House of Representatives, in a narrow vote of 206-227 (Note: different reports have the vote at “207-226, 205-228“).  This has caused a shakeup within the ranks of the Republican party, and caused headlines like “U.S. stocks plunge as global credit crisis spreads” to start showing up on the news wire.

Now, the leadership who brought this bill are likely going to urge people that all is not lost – another bill can be reconsidered, and even this particular bill can be re-voted on.  But that’s not going to come for at least a couple of days, and we don’t know whether legislators are going to (1) succumb to their voters and further distance themselves away from a bailout or (2) come together after having made a poignant political point.

As just reported on CBS news (a special televised report), the bottom fell out when House Republicans, supposedly upset at being kept out of high-level negotiations (mostly done by the Senate) largely voted against the bill, with 67%  of those Republicans casting ballots opposed.  House Democrats, on the other hand, were recorded as voting only 40% opposed, with 60% of Democrat members of the House voting in favor of the plan.

Was this a political opportunity for House Republicans, in a very bad election environment for them, to strike a blow against Bush and the Democrats to distinguish themselves as being “for the average citizen”?  The financial crisis on Wall Street certainly presents an opportunity to take the populist road and, incidentally, the right thing in refusing to issue a blank check to Wall Street.  The question is: will Democrats follow suit and listen to their constituents, leading to a bail-out that nationalizes the banks or protects homeowners, or is this just a temporary ploy on party of the electorally-starved Republican party?

UPDATE (2:49pm EST): As news of the defeat of the bailout plan spreads, the stock market has begun to plummet, with the Dow falling 600 points in course of 30 minutes (including falling an additional 200 points when I began updating this post).  Stories such as “Stocks Tumble as Bailout Plan Fails in House” are beginning to crop up on major news outlets, and many more are likely to come. The question is: How low will it go?

Posted under Discussion Question, Economy, People, Politics

Last week, Louisiana state representative John LaBruzzo suggested that economic disparity and crisis might be lessened by the sterilization of the poor who, he must believe, are a burden on the U.S. economic system and should be scapegoated for a crisis of corporations.

LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government. He said he is gathering statistics now.

Though it’s reported that the program LaBruzzo is considering might include vasectomies for men “to avoid charges of gender discrimination,” his primary target is women, to whom he would offer $1,000 to undergo tubal ligation. However:

It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.

So it’s not fewer children he wants on behalf of North Americans, it’s less children born to poor women, primarily women of color. Bad economic policy is not an apt cover for this sort of discrimination.

Now, my point is not only to point fingers at this one guy. Taken from a response written by the Women’s Health and Justice Initiative and the New Orlean’s Women’s Health Clinic and posted at Elle, Phd, LaBruzzo’s plan is but one example of the injustices that spring from the overlapping ideologies and culturally integrated practices of: eugenics, reproductive violence, sterilization abuse, devaluation of poor women’s sexuality and motherhood (and fatherhood, I would add), and other classic -ism’s.

Even if sterilization is voluntary, POVERTY IS NOT! Poverty, economic insecurity, and lack of sustainable livelihood can cause a woman to consider this aggressive sterilization incentive a viable option.

LaBruzzo talks about poverty as though it were an infectious disease—a though poor people will eventually make everyone poor—rather than a condition people are condemned to by Louisiana’s lack of investment in education, employment, affordable housing, and quality health care programs, services, and resources…

We are basically witnessing a two front war against poor and working class black communities right now. On one hand, we have the Bush administration fighting to push an economic corporate welfare bailout plan to save Wall Street, and on the other, we have an elected official blaming the bodies and reproductive decisions of poor black women for the social conditions caused by corporate greed.

Read the whole thing.

Story via Womanist Musings.

Also, more on blaming people of color for the economic meltdown of late at Feministe.

Posted under Economy, Politics

Last Wednesday was my birthday. My roommate got me a bright yellow t-shirt with “VOTE FOR JESUS” in bright red “VOTE FOR PEDRO”-style lettering.

On Thursday. I wore it with pride. I was confronted by John, a white supremacist friend of mine. He told me he was offended by the shirt, because it mocked the majority Christian culture.

I told him, it’s not mockery. I genuinely support writing in Jesus for President as an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.

As people who know me know, I never support Democrats or Republicans for the presidency, though I will often support Democrats for other positions. I am generally a Nader supporter.

This is not some form of anti-pragmatic political purism, as some have accused. Nader is not the candidate whose views I am most aligned with. If my support for a candidate had no pragmatic component, I would support Cynthia McKinney (of the Green Party) or Brian Moore (of the Socialist Party). In Canada, where I actually vote in elections, I vote for the New Democratic Party – the social democratic party that has traditionally been a third party, but is now poised to overtake the Liberal Party as one of the two frontrunning parties (the Liberals having abandoned liberal politics).

My support for Nader is based on the fact that his platform is much more popular than those of Obama, McCain, McKinney or Moore, and is progressive.

Friday night’s debate, which against my usual practice I watched, was a perfect illustration of just how indistinguishable Obama and McCain are, when viewed against a broader background. The candidates agreed on virtually everything.

Both of them thought the surge was a wild success, apparently based on the fact that there has been a lull in the level of violence since it started. As anyone with even limited analytic ability knows, this is poor reasoning. Those who are knowledgeable and thoughtful about the situation, like Juan Cole, are skeptical that the surge caused the lull in violence. Cole suggests in his debate debrief that the reduced levels of violence in Baghdad is the result of the successful cleansing of the cities of its Sunni residents, who have been either massacred or driven out of the city. In other words, it’s not the American surge but the Shia surge that’s responsible for the reduction in violence.

Both McCain and Obama appear to favor increasing the military budget.

Both candidates apparently buy into the lies that the right-wing Zionists concocted, and the Western media has repeated ad nauseam, about Ahmadinejad threatening to wipe Israel off the map. McCain repeated it several times, and Obama never disputed it.

Among the few differences of substance that the candidates emphasized concerned leaving Iraq. They tried to make it look like an big difference: McCain wants to stay in until victory, Obama wants a timetable for withdrawal. But if you look at Obama’s plan as he has consistently articulated it, he’s talking about redeployment rather than withdrawal. He basically favors pulling troops from Iraq and putting them in Afghanistan instead. Neither candidate favors doing what the law requires: ending the occupation of Iraq.

If I had to characterize the foreign policy differences between the two, I would do it this way: McCain prefers to focus on Iraq, while Obama prefers broader aggression including Afghanistan and possibly including Iran and Pakistan. It comes down not to any difference of principle, but to the tactical or strategic question of where the main battle against al-Qaeda is located. (After the debate, I don’t know what “tactics” or “strategy” mean anymore. Strategery, anyone?)

Both apparently support possibly bombing Pakistan, although McCain thinks it’s wrong to talk about it. I guess he thinks it’s better to sing about it.

Both support missile defense. Both support offshore drilling and nuclear power plants.

What are the real differences? Style. As Noam Chomsky says, the people marketing political campaigns are the same guys that market toothpaste. McCain was on the message that Obama isn’t ready to lead. Obama was trying to tie McCain to the Bush catastrophe.

Nader is highly distinguishable from BaJohn McBama/Jorack O’Cain. He favors a lawful foreign policy, including withdrawal from Iraq and refraining from acts of aggression against other countries. He’s against nuclear energy. For an overview on Nader on the issues, and a contrast with the Republicrats, see here: http://www.votenader.org/issues/

Posted under News, Politics

Lawmakers reached agreement on the 700 billion bailout.  Republicans held out for an the all impotent detail of insurance:

At the insistence of House Republicans, who threatened to sidetrack negotiations at midweek, the insurance provision was added as an alternative to having the government buy distressed securities. House Republicans say it will require less taxpayer spending for the bailout.

But the Treasury Department has said the insurance provision would not pump enough money into the financial sector to make credit sufficiently available. The department would decide how to structure the insurance provisions, said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., one of the negotiators.

The bailout bears the echoes of Iraq in its buildup.  Its being rushed through, with a Sunday vote by the House, and a Monday vote by the Senate.  700 Billion is a lot of debt to saddle us all with.  Especially with concern about the long term impact.  But what about the short term impact? (Angry Bear via Time Blog, Emphasis Mine):

[T]he problem is the price, in this case the premium. If it is vastly less than the probability of default, the House Republicans have found a way to throw money at bankers and financial arsonists instead of just bankers. If it is actuarily fair, it will force liquidity constrained firms to unload the securities — they could wait and hope for no default, but they can’t pay actuarily fair premiums. When you are insolvent, risk, variance, double or nothing is your only hope of survival. Thus aside from the contribution to financial arson (which I guess will be huge) the plan would also force distressed banks etc to unload mortgage backed securities at fire-sale prices. Now I don’t think the current problem is mainly due to systemic margin calls due to mark to market and capital requirements, but making that problem vastly worse would hasten the collapse of the US financial system even without financial arson.

Awesome.

Posted under Economy, Politics

Hi all,

My first substantive post will be on Monday. In the meantime, here’s an unsubstantive post. Think of it as me testing the system while getting an exciting announcement out of the way.

The National Lawyers Guild has recently announced that Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, will be one of the keynote speakers at its convention. The Convention will be in Detroit at the Marriott (at the Renaissance Center), Oct. 15-19. The other keynote will be Grace Lee Boggs.

I plan to be at the Convention. I don’t know if any law types are reading this – if so, you too should come to the Convention and have a drink with me.

Posted under News, People, Politics

A note to my co-bloggers: I wasn’t at all sure how to categorize this post. Please let me know if anybody thinks it would be more appropriate somewhere else. An “Ethics” category perhaps? And I added the tag under the assumption that there will be a series, which it would be useful to connect — I have no qualms about deleting it if others feel it’s unnecessary or undesirable.

It occurred to me that it might be fun to post a discussion question or several as jumping off points for conversations, especially in these first few weeks. And the “question of the day” is a neat tradition at some other blogs, so why not here as well, especially since we’d like this to be a discussion-oriented space (I think)? I’m sure I’ll think of at least a few (assuming this one is successful), and co-bloggers — do post your own if the spirit moves you.

So, readers and fellow Revolutionary Act bloggers, I invite you to answer this question, provided you find it sufficiently interesting:

What one value or quality is important to you above all others? That is, if you had to reduce your value system to one fundamental principle from which all others flow, what world it be? Or, to come at it from another angle, if you had to rank virtues and qualities, which one would you deem most essential, most worthy of praise?

I think the question is an interesting one for a group of progressives, because I’m quite sure we can all work our way to the same (or similar) positions and priorities from many different starting points.

As I was thinking about this, I found myself weighing the competing values of justice and compassion, as I frequently do. I think striking a balance between those two may be one of the essential question of my life. It is clear to me that horrible damage can be done when one over-emphasizes justice, losing sight of compassion — yet I am no Gandhi, no Christ. Justice is profoundly important to me. Like most of us, I am sometimes deficient in mercy. (I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.)

The balance I have struck between the two today (the best I’ve found so far, I think) is responsibility. Responsibility is the quality that is important to me above all others — the importance of our immense obligations as human beings and as adults. The root of most of my outrage is my sense that people have failed to meet their critical responsibilities. This is what infuriates me about global warming and pollution, about corruption, about war, about rape and abuse, and so many other things. I believe in the marrow of my bones that each of us has a tremendously important obligation to protect those weaker than ourselves, to use resources wisely and allot them fairly, and to save a life if ever we are in a position to do so — and if we do not meet these responsibilities, we have, in a profound sense, failed as adults, as human beings.

I recognize that it’s more complex than just “responsibility,” because I do have a very specific sense of what our responsibilities are. Ultimately, though, I think that’s the best way to sum it up: that we have duties and must meet them, that we must be accountable if we fail to do so. Justice and compassion both, for me, are derivatives of that: compassion is amongst our responsibilities, and justice a result of meeting them.

(As an aside, my value system has clearly been influenced immeasurably by my Jewish upbringing. The weight of the importance of our sacred obligations is a physical pressure on my back and in my gut.)

This way of looking at things is, of course, very subjective and specific to me. So what do you folks think? Is it mercy, is it fairness, is it something else entirely?

Posted under Discussion Question, Politics

Much has been said in this presidential election cycle about the concept of “experience” – during the Democrat primaries, Clinton had it and Obama supposedly did not.  That stigma has followed Obama into the general election, with McCain (at 72 years old and in Washington for 25 years) and pundits claiming that he has greater “experience”.  Ironically, the Arizona senator has taken up/stolen “Change” as the mantra for his campaign, while contradictorily at the same time emphasizing his long tenure in Washington.

Those contradictions aside, what is really meant by “experience”?  It appears that many believe that wisdom and competence accrues simply by virtue of sticking around the capitol for a long time.  But there are other connotations the term has taken on, particularly with the emergence of Sarah Palin onto the political scene (I’ll leave the quibbling over whether governorship in Alaska rates as being in the political scene).  Democrats, even many leftists, are now decrying Palin’s lack of “experience” as a fatal flaw of her candidacy.  But I think the attribution is disingenuous, and that “experience” is being used in place of “ideology” and “race” (in the case of Obama).

The Contradictions of Sarah Palin

In Palin’s case, critics are actually being unfair in accusing her of inexperience.  Her background is still incomplete, but we know the following: She comes from what appears to be a working class family (her mother a secretary and father a school teacher) and attended public school.  She worked as a reporter while raising a family.  She became involved in politics at a local level, eventually becoming the mayor.  Within 20 years of graduating from college, she won office as the governor of Alaska.

Palin did these things – as a woman – in a remote part of the country.  Although possessing white privilege, as well as privileges based on her religion and sexual orientation, it is remarkable in this country that a woman raising a family ascended through civic ranks in such a fashion.    She was not born into the ownership class of the United States; not born into wealth, nor a prestigious family, and didn’t benefit from powerful connections gained from attending elite schools.  We can (and damn well better) challenge her ideology, but we should not challenge her lack of time spent in Washington as something that makes her less than qualified.

“Experience” Means Nothing

“Experience”, as interpreted literally in the political dialogue, is virtually irrelevant.  Frankly, we shouldn’t care if a candidate has been a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations or Foreign Affairs when it comes to international policy.   We shouldn’t care if someone has been elected 20 times to their seat in the House.  Winning elections and sitting on committees to not inherenly impart wisdom or even comprehension.  John McCain still doesn’t know the difference between Sunni and Shi’a, and he’s been in the Senate for 21 years.

We shouldn’t reject Palin because she doesn’t have experience.  We should reject her, however, because she is a terribly ignorant candidate, unfamiliar with even the most basic institutions of U.S. government.   We should reject Palin because she is a tokenistic attempt to garner female support based on identity politics.  We should reject Palin because she was chosen because of her radical right-wing ideology and lack of respect for the rights of others.  We should reject Palin because she is a hypocrite who would likely increase the failures of the Bush administration. And the list goes on.

And if we had any other choice, we should reject Obama – not because he lacks experience – but because he is an unprincipled corporate candidate who says what is needed to be elected.  We should reject Obama – if we had a better option – because he is not an anti-war candidate, but in fact a long-time supporter of the Afghanistan and Iraq occupations and because he actively pledges to escalate war.  If we weren’t forced to choose between him and a Republican slate that would reverse judicial gains won by generations, we should reject Obama as violating his Constitutional oath by refusing to challenge the illegalities of the Bush administration.  And the list goes on.

Who We Need

We don’t need experience in a president.  We need a sane, rational, compassionate person with a willingness to respect national and international law.  We might be better off choosing a citizen, at random, who isn’t financed by lobbyists, Wall Street, pharmaceuticals, oil companies, and who isn’t surrounded by advisors who come from centers of power and wealth in the country.  In this sense, “experience” has also come to mean, among other definitions, being approved by sectors of the ownership class in the country.  The nominees from both parties are far too corrupt, far too owned, to view the world in a common sense fashion.  Would it really be a worse system to pick 10 citizens at random, put them on the national stage, let them speak their minds, and let the country choose the best of them?

Posted under Politics