The New Food Revolution

[Author's preface - Incredibly enough, in just the past few days since I submitted the piece below for publication in the May issue of the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Voice, an entirely new food related disease outbreak, the swine flu, has emerged from nowhere and spread across the globe. While the origin of this virulent new pathogen is still unclear, the pork industry is vehemently denying any connection to the horrific conditions at its pig CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Opeartions) , even though other swine flu viruses have started at such facilities - with the current outbreak starting in a Mexican town just a few miles down the road from a huge, partly U.S.-owned pig farm. Are you ready for a new food revolution...?]

During my youth, I never thought much about food  – like where it came from, or what was in it. I visited the occasional farmer’s stand or pick-your-own strawberry farm with my mom and brother, but for the most part our food came from the supermarket, and the question of its safety or healthfulness wasn’t even an issue.

How times have changed. Just a few months ago peanut products made by the Peanut Corporation of America – which supplied food companies, hospitals, nursing homes and cafeterias – were discovered to have salmonella.  Nine people died, leading to one of the largest food product recalls in U.S. history. A U.S. pistachio recall followed only a few weeks later. In 2006, most the U.S. spinach crop had to be destroyed due to an e.coli contamination that killed three Americans. Overall, disease outbreaks from food have risen from about 100 a year in the early 1990s to some 350 now.

Bad as this is, the problem of food disease outbreaks pales in comparison to the dangers posed by our actual national food policies. Determined by Congress, with the friendly help of lobbyists from Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Cargill and other agribusiness corporations, these policies are not only destroying our national health, they are at the same time systematically destroying our planet .

For starters, most of our food is currently grown far, far away – an average of 1500 miles away, from field to plate, a disaster from the global warming or peak oil perspective. That one pound plastic box of organic lettuce contains maybe 100 calories of food energy, yet requires roughly  4500 calories of fossil fuel to grow, process, package, and ship from the other side of the country, under constant refrigeration.

It gets worse. Take corn, which ends up in an astounding array of food products. Our federal government spends billions of dollars each year subsidizing the industrial production of corn, a process that both burns and depletes the soil with the heavy use of petrochemicals, and creates huge dead zones in bays and oceans due to the chemical runoff. (The seasonal dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is now as large as the state of New Jersey, due largely to the runoff from the corn belt states).

A good chunk of the subsidized corn is converted into non-food items such as corn ethanol  – a fuel which is both a lobbyist’s dream and any sane person’s nightmare, as it takes almost as much fossil fuel to produce as you get ethanol out of it. Not to mention the fact that it increases hunger worldwide.

And the industrial corn that does end up in food often goes into patently unhealthy high sugar and high fat food products (the ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup being the poster child), or it’s used to artificially fatten cows at cruelly inhumane, toxic cesspools known as CAFOs, or concentrated animal feeding operations. The resulting beef is not only tremendously fatty, it’s filled with antibiotics because the cows, having evolved to eat grass, not corn, are constantly sick and on drugs themselves.

Not surprisingly, in the U.S. human population coronary and heart disease are rampant, the incidence of “adult onset” diabetes is skyrocketing among children, and obesity is a national epidemic. It is predicted that the youngest generation of Americans will, for the first time in our history,  lead shorter lives than their parents.

Clearly, our national food policy is failing us, and badly.

What can one do? Lobbying Congress for change is a necessity, and many good groups organize such efforts. But this is also one area where we don’t have to wait for government  – we can (and should) take matters into our own hands, as large and increasing numbers are.

One big change many people are making is to buy local, and to buy actual, fresh “whole” food, not processed “food products.”

There has been an explosion over the past several years in farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture farms (CSAs).  Buying local food is by far the best way to guarantee its healthfulness, and that it’s doing the least possible harm to the environment. (This also means eating mostly what’s in season; just because a corporation wants to sell you produce from the other side of the planet doesn’t mean you should buy it.)  Local food is also the freshest, most nutritious food you can buy, and it keeps money in the local economy.  We are blessed with great farmers markets and CSAs in our area, and everyone should patronize them.

Another important change is to reduce or eliminate meat in your diet. Yes, I love meat – my wife and I are in the “reduce” category right now – but we cannot ignore the destruction that industrialized meat production is wreaking on the planet (it’s one of the top producers of greenhouse gas emissions) or on our national health.  And if you do eat meat, once again, look for locally raised.

Perhaps the biggest – and most revolutionary – change you can make is to start growing some of your own food. Michelle Obama is one of millions of Americans now doing just that – food gardening grew by 10% in 2008 according to the National Gardeners Association, with a whopping 20% increase predicted for this year.

There are plenty of people who can help you (check out Takoma Park’s own Purple Mountain Organics, or the Master Gardeners’ “Grow It, Eat it” program), and our temperate climate allows for an especially long and productive growing season. It’s economical as all get out, and there is no healthier, tastier, more satisfying and more environmentally sound food than that you have grown yourself – guaranteed. Too many trees in your yard? Grow in a container on the porch, join or help form a community garden, or find a neighbor with a sunny plot to share at www.sharingbackyards.com.

Of course, replacing our current dysfunctional food system with a largely locally based one will take lots of work, but it can be done – at another time of great crisis Americans managed to grow almost half their own produce in millions of World War II Victory Gardens. Getting back to that won’t be easy, but such an effort will bring the immense benefits of local self-reliance, community-building, good exercise and reliably safe, healthful and delicious food.

And ultimately, in the face of global warming and a demonstrably unhealthy, unsafe and even toxic corporate-controlled food supply, is there a better option?

Note: Members of the local food gardening community are starting a “Montgomery Victory Gardens” project, and we’re looking for individuals who participated in victory gardens in the past. If that’s you, please contact me at gordonclark@starpower.net, or at 301-801-3406. Thanks!

So Now Torture is Okay?

“I believe strongly in transparency and accountability…
the United States is a nation of laws.”
- President Barack Obama, April 16, 2009

I know that many of the people who voted for me for Congress in 2008 also voted for Barack Obama.  I understood and still understand the reasoning. And I have been only too happy to give President Obama credit for his good acts, such as when he ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison in the first week of his Presidency.

Unfortunately, there has been far too much on the other side of the ledger in the weeks that followed. We found out soon after the order to close Guantanamo that the Obama Administration is working diligently to deny any legal rights to prisoners in other U.S. prisons abroad, such as Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.  Attorney General Eric Holder has echoed the national security and state secrets arguments used by the Bush Administration in trying to squelch lawsuits and investigations into illegal surveillance and the rendition of terrorist suspects to other countries.

And last week, President Obama took another deeply disturbing step.

In response to an ACLU lawsuit, the President released four previously classified “legal” memos written for the Bush Administration to justify torture, and he did so over the strenuous objections of current and past CIA directors.  Excellent transparency. So far so good.

But then… President Obama made clear he would launch no investigation, and that no one who participated in these grossly illegal and immoral activities would be prosecuted by his Administration. Indeed, he went on to say that his Administration would actively defend any suspected torturers subjected to lawsuits.

In other words, transparency with no accountability whatsoever.

The memos themselves are sickening – they are detailed instructions on how to commit torture. Stripping people naked, slamming them into walls, depriving them of sleep (for up to 11 days), the now infamous “waterboarding” (which was used on one captive 183 times – in a single month).  They describe activity that cannot possibly be justified by any memo.

And yet President Obama defended those guilty of violating U.S. and international laws against torture by saying they were relying “in good faith” upon legal advice received from their superiors. In other words, they were just following orders.

As more than a few commentators have pointed out in the days that followed, “just following orders” was the defense used by war criminals after WWII to justify Nazi atrocities, including torture.  And it was a rationale destroyed at the Nuremburg trials that followed – or so we had hoped.

In making his pronouncement to shut the door on inquiries and prosecution (which his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was quick to add would include those who wrote and approved the memos as well, although now it’s being suggested it will be up to Attorney General Holder to make that decision), President Obama violated the very essence of his campaign promises (if such a thing even matters anymore), which were to bring transparency and accountability back to government.

Even more importantly, President Obama – a  Constitutional lawyer, no less – also violated his oath of office to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution (does that matter?), since the Constitution makes it pretty clear, in Article II, Section 3, that the President has an absolute obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” He does not have the discretion to let lawbreakers go uninvestigated and unprosecuted just because it might be politically expedient to do so.

And perhaps most importantly of all, he is encouraging the very behavior he claims to oppose. For what is the lesson when one commits high crimes in government, the evidence is produced, and yet no consequences follow?  To quote the great Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, from his opinion in Olmstead v. United States:

“Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen…. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”

All of this is terrible enough. But for those of us who appreciate having a President who can actually string words, sentences and thoughts together when speaking, it’s also worth noting that President Obama is now using his considerable rhetorical gifts against us – including many of those who voted for him – and the policies many of us hoped we would gain.

For what does it mean to claim we are “a nation of laws,” at the same time he refuses to go after those who commit some of the worst crimes imaginable?  How can he claim to “believe strongly” in accountability, yet refuse to apply it when it matters most?

And check out the words with which Mr. Obama ended his statement:

“This is a time for reflection, not retribution. . . . nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.”

So in Obama-speak, at least on the issue of torture, justice for crimes committed equals “retribution.”

Investigating and prosecuting horrific crimes for which there is ample evidence is now a waste of time and energy, nothing more than “laying blame for the past.”

And those of us who still insist on equal justice under the law, no matter what station in life (or government) the lawbreaker may hold, we are now “the forces that divide us,” and we must be “resist[ed].”

Pardon me for having to ask the question, but apart from the fact that it was more artfully done, what exactly is the difference between what President Obama just said, and the Bush Administration lackeys who attacked critics of their policies as unpatriotic (or worse)?

Thanks a lot, President Obama. And pardon me again if I choose to disagree with you on what constitutes our core values. I trust I’m not the only American who believes equal justice for all is about as core as it gets if our “nation of laws” is to mean anything.

It may not end here, though. A lot of people are pretty damned upset, as we should all be, and even some members of Congress are saying that investigations must be held. A lot will depend on how much pressure they now feel.

I encourage you to go to the links below, and sign the petitions urging Congress to investigate torture in the Bush Administration, and to impeach Jay Bybee, the federal judge who was one of the main authors of the torture memos. And please forward this email to your friends so they can sign them as well. Signing online petitions may be the least any of us can do to defend our nation of laws, but it’s a start – and it’s more than the President is willing to do. So far, anyway.

To sign the ACLU open letter to Attorney General Holder calling for a special prosecutor and full investigation, click here.

To sign the Democrats.Com (“The Aggressive Progressives”) petition to Congress calling for a full investigation and other critical actions, click here.

To sign the Progressive Democrats of America petition to Congress calling for the impeachment of Judge Bybee, click here.

The Greatest Generation Speaks (Part II)

(The following is an update of a post from this past December; it will appear in the April issue of the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Voice.)

It was only a matter of time before the imminent failure of one or more U.S. auto makers pushed AIG and the financial crisis off the front pages, at least temporarily.

And now that it’s here, and we have to listen to talk of “restructuring” and “automobiles of the future” for the next month or so, I urge you to keep in mind just one historical fact:

At the beginning of World War II, the entire U.S. auto industry, then the largest industrial manufacturing center in the world, completely converted from making passenger cars to military vehicles, including tanks and airplanes, in less than one year. One year.

They went from producing 4 million cars in 1941 to virtually none in 1942-1944, as they pumped out  a quarter million aircraft, along with tens of thousands of tanks and additional military vehicles.

Think of that whenever you get into and out of your car. One year.

This small miracle is emblematic of the group we call “the greatest generation.”  It exemplifies their discipline, willpower and ability to work collectively against great odds to win a titanic struggle. The sort of grit and American can-do personified by Rosie the Riveter.

It turns out, oddly enough, that Rosie was a lot more willing than the auto company executives, who had to be threatened and coerced by Franklin Roosevelt to make the shift.  Which is one lesson the greatest generation has for us in our own time of titanic struggle: don’t leave it up to the “captains of industry” to chart the path.

The more important lesson, though, is the sweeping, transformative nature of the changes they wrought – and the extraordinarily short time in which they were accomplished. The greatest generation didn’t deal in half-measures.

A comparison to the present day is not a particularly favorable one. Short timelines notwithstanding, the Obama Administration is still leaving it up to the auto companies themselves to determine the “restructuring,” with even greater layoffs and decreased health care for workers a given. And the President’s goal of putting two million hybrid and electric cars on the road by 2015 represents a mere 2.2% of the roughly 90 million cars that could be sold between now and then (at 2008 sales rates) – and less than 1% of the 250 million vehicles currently registered in the U.S.

One year?  More like one century.

If the twin crises of global warming and job loss are to be met, the greatest generation’s approach would be far different. The President should simply tell the auto industry that it has one year to convert to the production of plug-in hybrids, electric cars and vehicles for mass transit, such as buses, light rail cars, etc. (They’re made of the same stuff as cars, and it’s what we want to encourage, right?)  Oh hell, give ‘em two years – but that’s it.  They’ll get all the support they need from Washington, including appropriate subsidies for consumer purchase and a desperately needed revitalization of our national and metropolitan rail systems. But just two years.

And if the industry execs don’t like the idea, they should be shown the door as summarily as G. Richard Wagoner of General Motors was, and replaced with business leaders who do.

Are we capable of such truly great, transformative changes anymore?  Because that is exactly what is required to meet many of the challenges we face. Simply spending prodigious amounts of money (borrowed money, lest we forget) is not a substitute for the systemic changes we need.

Take the health care crisis. President Obama is trying to cobble together more than $600 billion as a “down payment” on universal care, while leaving the system in the hands of private insurance companies that  limit or deny coverage to increase their profits.  The greatest generation would simply scrap the current dysfunctional system and switch to a privately delivered, publicly financed “single payer” system – one used successfully in other nations and which would be a huge boon to businesses struggling with health care costs (like the auto industry).  But it’s not “on the table” for discussion. Why not?

How about the collapsing financial system? Congress and the new President are continuing to dump literally trillions of (our) dollars into failing banks, with little or no evidence it’s working, or any idea what we’re getting for it.  Why not, the greatest generation might ask, simply march in to insolvent banks,  kick out corrupt bankers, clean up the books and then reopen under new management? (And if the companies are “too big to fail,” but not too big to destroy our economy, then they should be broken up. The President should channel the other Roosevelt, trust-busting Teddy, on this one.)

Of course it’s not just up to our political leaders. We need to make great personal changes ourselves. Americans in the 1940’s sacrificed all manner of material goods to win the war.  They learned whatever job needed to be done. They grew more than 40% of their own produce needs in 20 million Victory Gardens.

We all need to be part of the change. Because now is the time not simply for big or bold action, but for truly great action, something to make our grandparents proud.

Are we up to the challenge?

A Progressive Response to MoveOn

(The following post was co-written by my friend and colleague Tim Willard of the MD Green Party.)

News that the Obama Administration will enlist its massive campaign “army” of grassroots activists to push his budget through Congress, along with the current public outrage over the AIG bonuses, have raised the stakes in this already high stakes battle, and reactions to President Obama’s program are hitting the extremes. Republicans raise the specter of socialism while Democrats expect a new FDR, rescuing us from all the problems that have festered for the last thirty years.

While few in the public are buying the reactionary hysteria of Republicans, though, too many progressive organizations are uncritically accepting the hype surrounding President Obama’s plans – a recent MoveOn email message, “10 things you should know about Obama’s plan (but probably don’t),” is a typical example.

We give President Obama credit for the scope of his proposals, and acknowledge that many of his policies are dramatically better than President Bush’s. At the same time, his policies are often less ambitious than the rhetoric would suggest, and fall short of what is needed. At other times, his solutions to problems are constrained by corporate interests that will render them ineffective. And while truly prodigious amounts of money are being spent in the effort - money that must be repaid by us and our children, let us not forget – what is often required is not more money, but deeper systemic changes.

Simply being better than Bush is not a sufficient standard to meet the immense challenges we face today. If we are to solve these problems, we need to face them critically. Unlike the Rush Limbaughs of the world, we want President Obama to succeed. But mere cheerleading will not be enough; an honest look at the Obama proposals – and an appropriate response – is required.

Below is a progressive response to the aforementioned MoveOn email message of March 1st, one which we hope will stimulate a more serious discussion.

“10 things you should know about Obama’s plan (but probably don’t)”

1) Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.

Response – President Obama said during the campaign that health care is a basic right, and yet he plans to leave our national system in the hands of private corporations that limit or deny coverage in order to maximize their profits. More money for health care is good, but it doesn’t address this fundamental problem. It’s also far from clear where all of the $634 billion to be set aside will come from, and at least some of it will come by cutting good programs, such as squeezing $37 billion from home health agencies. Physicians for a National Health Care Program estimate that a single payer health care system would save $350 billion a year on redundant paperwork alone, and it would be a huge boost to businesses struggling with health care costs - but such a system is “not on the table” for discussion.

2) Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won’t go up one dime.

Response – This is appropriate given that tax policies heavily favor the wealthy, but it’s difficult to see how we can spend trillions of dollars on programs and initiatives, however desperately needed, without ultimately placing the burden on those same 95%. It will take innovative new ideas to bring the budget back into balance. One of the most urgently needed taxes is on the rampant trade of exotic financial instruments, such as derivatives, that precipitated our current financial collapse. Given that worldwide trade in derivatives approaches a staggering $500 trillion, with much of it centered in the U.S., a tax of less than 1% would generate hundreds of billions of dollars – enough money to pay for President Obama’s plans… or fund the Wall St. bailout that is now being picked up by taxpayers .

3) Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.

Response – Unfortunately President Obama continues to support the myth of “clean coal” as one of those energy technologies to be funded, along with nuclear power. And the stimulus package allocates approximately three times as much for highways as it does for mass transit. Building a green energy economy must be the centerpiece of a new economy.

Even worse, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress seem to have already made up their mind to implement a “cap-and-trade” program to reduce carbon emissions, as opposed to a much more aggressive carbon tax. A cap and trade plan, which failed in Europe, creates a market for carbon pollution – with the potential for all the lobbying, speculation and corruption plaguing our financial markets. Current cap-and-trade programs have resulted in windfalls for the very companies that are the heaviest polluters. Cap-and-trade is not science-based, it is market-based, and if it delays implementation of much stronger reductions, this one decision could overwhelm all attempts to confront the climate crisis of global warming.

4) Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.

Response – President Obama declared combat operations in Iraq will end in August of 2010, yet some 30,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq – they will simply be “renamed” or “remissioned.” Pentagon officials concede these “new” missions of support, intelligence and anti-terrorist operations could well involve combat – they are, after all, combat troops, however renamed. President Obama says these troops will be withdrawn by December 31, 2011, a timeline that is twice as long as his promised withdrawal plan of 16 months – and which could easily change over the next three years.

At the same time President Obama withdraws troops from Iraq, he is sending them to Afghanistan – 17,000 so far, with more deployments likely. And President Obama is also asking for an increase in the already astronomical military budget, even larger than the one suggested for 2009 by President Bush.

5) Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.

Response – Income inequality has been growing in the U.S. for the past 30 years. While letting the Bush tax cuts expire is a step in the right direction, much more fundamental changes will be needed to actually reverse growing income inequality, including a re-evaluation of trade policy which has encouraged manufacturers to move overseas to exploit cheap labor and led to a “race to the bottom” for US workers.

6) Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies.

Response – True, but the Obama Administration is also continuing the Bush policy of opening our coastlines to oil and gas drilling, as well as promoting the development of oil shale in Western states, an environmentally dangerous process that consumes huge amounts of water in an already drought-stricken west.

7) Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.

Response – The total cost of tuition and fees for everyone currently enrolled in public colleges and universities is approximately $25 billion a year – what the Pentagon spends in about two weeks. If higher education is truly a priority, why not make college education free?

Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.

Response – President Obama’s long-term budget can halve the deficit by 2013 only because he and Congress are dramatically increasing the deficit in 2009 with the stimulus package and increases in budget spending. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office determined that the budget deficit could be nearly halved simply by winding down the war in Iraq and allowing some of Bush’s tax cuts to expire. Also, the ability to deliver on this so-called “halving” is based on revenue, spending cuts and tax increases yet to be approved, or in some cases even determined, as well as some very optimistic projections for economic growth in the out years.

9) Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.

Response – And yet, the Obama Administration continues to pour billions of dollars into failing financial institutions, in spite of the fact that no one can say where the first $350 billion in bailout money went to, or what it did. They are also refusing, so far, to reinstitute fundamental regulations – such as the Glass-Steagall Act, which until its repeal in 1999 had for more than 60 years kept the activities of local commercial banks (where your money resides) and Wall St. investment firms safely separated.

10) Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama’s budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America’s priorities are, what they cost, and how we’re going to pay for them.

Response – Well, sort of. While the Obama budget is more honest than Bush’s, and includes spending (such as the Iraq war) that Bush and Congress kept off-budget, it still relies on “a few well-worn budget tricks,” according to the February 26th Washington Post article “In President’s Budget Plan, Broad Agenda and a Few Gaps.” For instance, about half of the $2 trillion in “savings” President Obama has identified are actually tax increases. Additional savings are counted against unrealistic scenarios, such as money “saved” by not continuing Iraq war spending at $170 billion a year indefinitely. And hundreds of billions of dollars would theoretically come from the cap-and-trade program, which might face significant revisions before being enacted and is, as noted above, terrible policy to begin with.

Postscript - MoveOn and others are now asking for our money so they can fight the battle of this budget against the lobbyists and special interests swooping in to dismantle it. Here’s a better idea – how about if the Obama Administration and Congress enact full public campaign funding for all federal elections? It would cost an infinitesimal fraction of what their current budget plans do, yet would dramatically reduce the power of lobbyists overnight, since politicians would no longer depend on the contributions from the lobbyists’ corporate bosses and networks to bankroll a campaign. Why isn’t MoveOn fighting for that bold policy?

#     #     #

Thanks also to Kevin Zeese, David Gaines and Maria Allwine for their comments and contributions to this piece!

Jon Stewart Does It Again

There is a reason that The Daily Show is the most watched news program for 18-35 year olds (as well as those of us a tad beyond that demographic!), and it was on full display again Thursday night, as Jon Stewart conducted a scathing, almost full-show length interview with CNBC’s premiere financial analyst, Jim Cramer.

Expressing the outrage and insight that is rarely if ever seen among the “serious” broadcast journalists and news anchors (what does it tell you that a guy running a comedy show is the most trusted newsman in America?), Stewart methodically and emphatically took apart his guest, CNBC, and the whole array of financial analysts who so completely missed the current meltdown – in large part because they were helping to create it by encouraging everyone to buy buy buy!

It was an extreme pleasure to watch, and if you haven’t already you definitely should - just click here. (The interview is in three parts in the center column, or you can watch the entire episode – which is, again, mostly the Cramer interview – with the “Full Episode” button in the right column.)

At the risk of angering the comedy gods, I want to suggest that there were two important elements largely missing from Stewart’s otherwise beautiful tirade.

One, which he did at least mention, is the American populace’s willingness to go along with the whole charade. At the end of his wonderful book about the world of rare wine forgeries, The Billionaire’s Vinegar, author Benjamin Wallace points out that, in all successful cons, the marks and the grifter are essentially collaborators. One sells the illusion that others are desperate to buy.  And so desperate are most Americans to get rich, apparently, that many of us will simply look the other way when reaping outrageously, completely unrealistically high earnings in the stock market or other investments. As Stewart noted, we seem to have forgotten that value comes from actual work, not simply trading money  (or other forms of paper) back and forth.

The second is the role of our government.  And it’s hard not to conclude that our political leaders are, like the supposedly objective financial analysts, actually co-conspirators in the massive financial fraud that has been perpetrated against us.

I’m not just talking about the corporation-loving Republicans, either.  The long road of financial deregulation that has led us to our current crisis arguably started under a Democratic Congress in the 1980’s. Some of the most serious deregulation, such as the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act, happened under President Clinton’s watch, and with his approval. (For more than 60 years the Glass-Steagall act had maintained a firewall between commercial banks, where your money resides, and Wall St. investment firms.)  Interestingly enough, neither President Obama nor the Democratic Congress have talked yet about reinstating it, even as they continue to dump billions of dollars into failing banks.

Does anyone remember Enron?  If you watch the film Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (and I strongly recommend it), you will find out that some of the very same financial institutions involved in the current shenanigans (Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch) knowingly aided and assisted in Enron’s fraud.  And do you know what the SEC regulators did about it? Gave them a financial slap on the wrist.  And forced the banks to promise  – I don’t know whether to laugh or cry over this one – that they would reform their behavior so it wouldn’t happen again. Encroyable.

The reason for the light to non-existent punishment?  The government regulators were concerned the banks were “too big,” and that significant punishment might cause unpleasant repercussions in the financial world.  Sound familiar?

For any order to be returned to the financial world – and to prevent this all from happening again a few more years down the road – the regulations need to be reinstated.  And criminal CEOs need to be prosecuted and jailed. But it is hard to imagine this happening in any serious way while members of Congress, Democrat and Republican alike, continue to take millions of dollars in contributions from the financial industry. (As did the Obama campaign.) And that – the idea that our representatives in government can safeguard our interests while simultaneously taking money hand over fist from the very folks they are supposed to be watching – may be the greatest self-delusion of all.

Until Jon Stewart gets to that one, though, watch and enjoy as he takes down the world of financial analysts. Click here to watch.

Is the War on Terror Over?

The new President made big news when on his second day in office he signed an executive order to close our legal black hole in the Caribbean, Guantanamo Bay Prison, as well as nullifying all Bush Administration legal orders and opinions on interrogation.

Obama’s move was huge, both domestically and internationally, and rightly so.  Some nettlesome problems remain, including the fact that some people who had been falsely imprisoned in Guantanamo for seven years might have to wait another year to get out, but these orders struck at the symbolic heart of Bush’s boundless war on terror.

So much so that the very next day the Washington Post ran a front page, above-the-fold analysis entitled “Bush’s ‘War’ on Terror Comes to a Sudden End.”

And then, the very next day after that, the Post announced on the same front page (albeit below-the-fold) “2 U.S. Airstrikes Offer a Concrete Sign of Obama’s Policy.”

The irony of these back-to-back headlines was not noted in the article.

The strikes in Pakistan were carried out by unmanned Predator drones, over the past year or so the preferred new method of attacking suspected terrorist bases in the rugged terrain of Afghan/Pakistan border. The Post reported without further explanation that the 20 people killed were “suspected” terrorists, or at least they were at a “suspected terrorist hideout.” As was the case during the Bush Administration, simply being a suspect, or just near someone who is, makes you fair game for a missile strike.

So – is Bush’s “war on terror” really over? The news following the airstrike hasn’t been encouraging.

On January 28th, a lead article in the New York Times entitled “Aides Say Obama’s Afghan Aims Elevate War Over Development” explained how the U.S. is going to focus on “the fight against insurgents” while leaving economic development and nation-building primarily to our European allies. This, from the President who during his inauguration instructed adversaries that “Your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you can destroy.”

On January 31st, hundreds of Afghanis demonstrated in Kabul after the latest U.S. military raid, which the protestors claimed killed two innocent civilians. (The raids, deaths, and protests have been repeated in the five weeks since then.)

On February 2nd, Eric Holder was confirmed as U.S. Attorney General, where he will play a key role in determining legal guidelines for interrogation practices and future claims of executive power.

On February 9th, Holder’s Justice Department invoked the “state secrets” privilege in a court in San Francisco; it did so to oppose reinstatement of a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees who claimed a Boeing Co. unit flew them to other countries where they were tortured – so called “extraordinary renditions.”  The “state secrets” argument was identical to that presented to the court by the Bush Administration in the same case.

And just a few days earlier, in his Congressional confirmation hearing, new CIA Director Leon Panetta left the door on torture more than a little open. While stating (the obvious) that water boarding is torture and an Obama Administration would not violate anti-torture statues, he also noted that if approved interrogation techniques were “not sufficient” in certain cases, he would seek “additional authority.” He further said the C.I.A.’s extraordinary rendition program might continue in some form, but that he would depend on diplomatic assurances of good treatment – the same ineffective (and ridiculous) safeguard used by the Bush Administration.

In a somewhat more soberly titled February 18th story in the New York Times, “Obama’s War on Terror May Resemble Bush’s in Some Areas,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero wondered if Obama might end up continuing “some of the most problematic policies of the Bush presidency.”

Of course the people of Afghanistan don’t need to wonder, as amid the current bombings and raids President Obama ordered an additional 17,000 troops to their country. In the words of Global Fund for Women President Kavita Ramdas, “Afghanistan needs troops–but it needs troops of doctors, troops of teachers, troops of Peace Corps volunteers, and troops of farmers to go and replant the fruit orchards.”

But Afghanistan will get more military troops, even though civilian deaths from U.S. military actions in Afghanistan (many of them nighttime raids) have increased significantly in the past two years. This has led to numerous protests and the plummeting popularity of President Harmid Karzai, while no doubt increasing the popularity of the Taliban for some. A recent poll determined that about 1/3 of Afghans think it is okay to attack U.S. troops – a percentage that has been rising. Talk about losing the battle for hearts and minds.

There is also little question the attacks on Pakistan will continue, and possibly even increase. The head of the Obama campaign’s Defense Policy Task Force, Peter Singer, appeared on The Daily Show recently to hawk his new book, “Wired for War.” Although his book supposedly discusses the “moral” issues involved, few ethical qualms were evident as Mr. Singer crowed  enthusiastically about the “historic revolution” of high-tech warfare, noting that current Predator drones “are like Model T Fords compared to what’s coming.” (He also mentioned his interview with “a 19 year old drone pilot.”  That’s right, these unmanned killing machines dispatching “suspected” terrorists from afar are operated by teenagers.)

But what, finally, about President Obama’s recently announced timetable of withdrawal from Iraq, with an end to all combat operations in August of 2010?

This so-called “end to the war,” which a media and public long-tired of Iraq are hailing as a done deal, includes the “renaming” or “remissioning” of up to 50,000 troops that will be stationed in Iraq after that date, even though military officials concede that these new missions of support, intelligence and anti-terrorism operations  – virtually identical to what President Bush outlined as long ago as 2007 (and thanks to Jon Stewart again for producing the video tape!) – could well involve combat.  They are, after all, combat troops – even if the administration has “renamed” them.

President Obama says those remaining troops will be withdrawn by December 31, 2011, a timeline which would be more than twice as long as his promised withdrawal plan of 16 months, and which could easily change over the next three years, as many military officials predict it will. In addition, he has said nothing about the U.S. military bases in Iraq, nor the 100,000+ U.S. contractors left behind.

And in case you haven’t read or heard it in the mainstream press, President Obama’s budget also calls for an increase in our already astronomical military budget – an even larger increase for 2009 than the one suggested by President Bush. And he plans to increase the size of the armed forces by 90,000 troops.

What does it all add up to? A month and a half may not be a long time to make a judgment, but waiting another year to see what happens is not an option either.  And if ending Bush’s “war on terror” is high on the list of major changes we’d all like to see, well, after a promising early start the Obama Administration now seems to be veering back decidedly in the wrong direction.

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With thanks to Code Pink for their always helpful alerts –

It’s the Planet, Stupid

President Obama has his hands full, to say the least.

And with so many crises needing attention, it’s hard to believe any one issue could rise above the rest to provide a central guiding principle for this administration, but one does.

In the vernacular of the 1992 Clinton campaign (and with apologies to our obviously very intelligent President), it’s the planet, stupid. It’s global warming.

It’s easy to understand why many argue the economy must come first, but it’s been humankind’s long-running illusion that the environment is somehow separate from and subordinate to our economy, when in fact the exact opposite is true. Global warming may not feel like the most pressing issue in the middle of an economic crisis, but it’s the one threat that can and will destroy our planet – taking our economy, and most of human civilization, with it.

And the process is frighteningly well underway – witness the devastation currently being wrought by record heat waves and droughts in Argentina and Australia. James Hansen, NASA’s chief climate scientist who has been sounding the alarm on global warming, and who recently sent a personal plea to the Obamas, puts the timeline rather bluntly: we have four years to save the planet.

Does President Obama truly get this? While there have been huzzahs from the advocacy community for his recent actions on the issue, the early record is more mixed than that.

Certainly the $800 billion+ stimulus package contains many good things – many of them energy and climate related. And it’s evidence that Obama understands that conservation and renewable energy create jobs. (In fact, they’re the best way to help the economy.)

But in trying to do a little bit of everything, the plan is missing any driving policy focus, and as a result some of the particulars are less than they might appear. Doubling our renewable energy capacity, for instance, sounds less impressive when you realize we currently get only a microscopic 2-3% of our energy from wind and solar power. Compare this to the transformative strategic vision of Al Gore’s proposed goal of 100% of our electricity from renewables within 10 years.

And of the purportedly “massive” spending in the package devoted to transportation, in the House version approximately $30 billion will go to roads, highways and bridges – but only $10 billion to mass transit. What’s the principle here?

According to Rep. James Oberstar, chair of the House Transportation panel, the mass transit funding was cut to make room for tax cuts. (Haven’t we been down that road before?) And just to keep things in perspective, $10 billion is how much the Pentagon burns through in less than one week.

In other policy decisions, it’s encouraging to see the new EPA put a hold on a coal-fired power plant in South Dakota, but will we see the moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants (and quick phase-out of existing ones) deemed an absolute necessity by the science on global warming? The Obama administration did announce, with considerably less fanfare than it’s closure of Guantanamo, that they will continue Bush’s plan to open our coastlines to oil and gas drilling, as well as promoting the development of oil shale in western states. Again, what’s the principle here? (Also note that producing oil from shale requires immense amounts of water, and that western states are straining to meet current water needs as it is.)

Looking to the immediate future, will President Obama move to end our insane policies of subsidizing corn (think corn ethanol and high fructose corn syrup) and cheap, fatty industrialized meat – policies that are destroying our national health even as they contribute massively to global warming?

And what about a carbon tax on producers with the proceeds going directly to consumers, also known as “cap-and-dividend?” This is arguably the Holy Grail of global warming policy – the boldest and most effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Yet Democrats in Congress, including Rep. Chris Van Hollen, are pushing a cap-and-trade plan that would inevitably be a boon to special interests, lobbyists and speculators – and which has notably failed to reduce carbon emissions when tried in other countries. Such “market-based” responses to the ecological crisis of global warming are also bound to fail because they repeat our fundamental economy-over-ecology confusion. Simply put, nature doesn’t participate in the market, and disappearing polar ice caps don’t give a damn how much a utility will pay for a ton of “traded” carbon emissions.

In his December 29th appeal to the first couple, James Hansen noted “There is a profound disconnect between actions that policy circles are considering and what science demands for preservation of the planet.” (He was referring, among other things, to cap and trade policies.) Will President Obama, having freed science from the shackles of the Bush Administration, proceed to ignore its urgent pleas on the single most important issue facing our planet?

Like everyone other than the Rush Limbaughs of the world, I want Obama to succeed – our lives depend on it. But this will only happen if he follows a clear-eyed and decisive guiding principle from the very beginning. And that principle cannot be political pragmatism, or economy-first, everything-else-second.

What’s the principle? It’s the planet, stupid.

Missing the Point on Daschle

Once again the pundits, members of Congress and the mainstream media are getting it all wrong. And in the process giving us a profoundly constricted view of what “change” can and should be in our political system.

Not that I’m shedding any tears over the withdrawal of former Senator Tom Daschle as Obama’s choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services. It’s obnoxious, to say the least, that another very wealthy American is not paying his taxes – and then being nominated for a high government position to boot. But the major ethical crisis here is not non-payment of taxes. It’s the idea that this is the person chosen to reform our health care system.

Just to review, tens of millions of Americans have inadequate insurance, tens of millions have no health insurance at all, and thousands more are added to the roles of the uninsured every week as they lose their jobs.  And the system is controlled by private insurance companies that have a financial incentive to deny coverage so they can boost their own profits, and that maintain their control by regularly contributing millions of dollars to members of Congress while flooding their offices with lobbyists.

So how is it possible that the person “best-equipped” to reform such a system is a) a longtime member of Congress, b) a consummate Washington insider, and c) a multimillionaire, who just happens to have made a chunk of his money by d) giving paid speeches for the health insurance industry?

Just as with top picks in the Defense Department and Treasury (see post below), it seems that the choices to fix our biggest problems are too often the very individuals who helped create them in the first place.  And yet according to official Washington, the only issue is whether or not they paid all their taxes.

Now that’s an ethical crisis.

Meet the New Boss?

Mark Patterson, until last year a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs, has just been named Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s Chief of Staff.

It pains me to point out that this is now the second time in a week that President Obama has violated his own ethics rule against hiring lobbyists, and indeed has placed them in the highest levels of his administration. (The first was William Lynn, the former Raytheon lobbyist who was named to the #2 position in the Defense Department.)

The appointment came with the usual rationale about how knowledgeable Patterson is and how much he’s served his country. And in an attempt to ward off questions about hiring a Wall St. lobbyist to help run the Treasury, it was simultaneously announced that Patterson will be prohibited for the next two years from participating in any decisions related to Goldman Sachs and the specific issues on which he lobbied.

Puh-leeeze!

Given that Goldman Sachs is one of the giants of Wall St., such a promise is patently absurd. As journalist Ed Brayton points out, “There is virtually nothing the treasury could do outside of ordering lunch that would not have an impact on [Goldman Sachs'] profits.”

Aside from the nettlesome problem of our new president violating his own ethics pledge twice in his first ten days, there is the serious question of exactly what kind of expertise Mr. Patterson will bring to the Treasury Department, since he was lobbying for exactly the deregulation and bizarre financial instruments that led to our current crisis.

Of course, this puts Mr. Patterson in good company. Because his boss, Treasury Secretary Geithner, is also intimately associated with Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretaries (under Clinton) who both pushed financial deregulation. Rubin (who was named by Ethisphere magazine as one of the “10 most unethical people in business”) was a 26 year vet at Goldman Sachs before Treasury, and after it went back to Goldman Sachs and also Citi-group. Summers is now the head of the White National Economic Council.

And while we have all heard about Mr. Geithner’s small problem paying taxes, the much bigger issue is that the New York Fed, which he ran before being tapped by Obama, hosted the meetings to structure the infamous Wall St. bailout of last fall. (Remember – the one that already sucked up $350 billion, and no one can say exactly where the money went?) As is perhaps needless to say, Goldman Sachs and its principles made out very well during deregulation, and now they’re profiting handsomely from the bailout, thank you very much.

Financial experts have taken a big hit in this financial meltdown – even former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was forced to admit to Congress last fall that the crisis caused him to “discover a flaw in the model that…” (in his mind, anyway) “defines how the world works.” But it shouldn’t take an expert to realize that hiring people who caused the crisis may not be the best way to solve it.

Is it too much to hope they’ve learned something from their mistakes?

(With a tip of the hat to Laura Flanders for her story on Patterson’s appointment.)

Thanking Jon Stewart

I’ve had a lot of reasons to thank Jon Stewart and The Daily Show for the past several years, and if you have felt the same, you might want to join me in taking this easy opportunity to do it.

http://www.thankyoujonstewart.com/

The reason for this specific thank you campaign, organized by Jewish Voices for Peace, is that Jon Stewart is one of the only voices in the media willing to challenge the astoundingly one-sided non-debate about the causes of and solutions for the current Israeli war in Gaza. (The video clip of his show is viewable on the website above.)

Since my commentary last week on the Israeli war in Gaza:

The International Committee of the Red Cross accused the Israeli military of blocking medical attention and aid to severely wounded civilians, including women and children.

Human Rights Watch charged Israel with using white phosphorous (think naplam) against civilians.

The United Nations compound was shelled.

A coalition of nine mainstream Israeli human rights groups called for an immediate cease-fire, immediate relief to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and investigation of war crimes committed by their government and military in Gaza during the past three weeks.

More than 1100 Palestians have now been killed and 5,000 physically wounded, approximately half of them women and children.

Let no one for a second misconstrue anything above as representing support, in any way shape or form, for Hamas’ continued launching of rockets into civilian areas of Israel. I believe, as the Talmud says, “Whoever destroys a single life, destroys the entire world.”

What I can say though – what we must absolutely affirm if we are to survive as a species on this planet – is that no one is ever justified in committing a war crime to stop a war crime. Or, as in this case, committing an exponentially larger war crime, or collection of war crimes, to stop a war crime. And using modern military weapons in a civilian population center, with all the obvious and predictable death and destruction meted out to noncombatants, is by definition a war crime. (As is the embargo Israel has maintained against the Gaza Strip for the past two years – a form of collective punishment – which Nobel Peace Prize Winner Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has characterized as “worse than apartheid.”)

In addition to being both immoral and illegal, such military action is absolutely contrary to Israel’s security interests, as outlined by Israeli peace activist and journalist Uri Avery in his commentary “Israel is Losing this War.”

In a nutshell, picture any of the tens (or more likely) hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who have been forced to flee, or were trapped, or who were grievously wounded, or had family members killed, or watched their homes or neighborhoods destroyed as a result of this war. Are these physically and emotionally scarred people likely to become the “partners for peace” Israel claims to want? Or are they more likely to turn into implacable enemies of Israel? And what about the 100 million Arabs in the Middle East, and 1 billion Muslims around the world, who have watched this horror unfold on their TV screens over the past month?

Violence begets violence. Always has, always will.

Of course none of this gave the U.S. Congress so much as a moment’s pause before passing, by close to unanimous vote in each chamber, resolutions giving complete support to anything and everything Israel has done in Gaza. With no mention of Palestinian civilians. And receiving the editorial backing of pretty much the entire mainstream U.S. media.

Which is where our friend Jon Stewart becomes so important. It’s richly ironic that U.S. officials continue to see themselves as “honest brokers” in the Middle East conflict when they are not even able to publicly acknowledge there are two sides in this conflict. Well, at least there’s one person in the media who’s willing to do it, and that’s Jon Stewart. Feel free to give him your thanks.

http://www.thankyoujonstewart.com/

As of this writing Israel has just declared a temporary cease-fire (in time for Barack Obama’s inauguration), and it appears they and Hamas are closing in on a truce. (Even as the fighting has increased over the past few days. As the Washington Post noted dryly, “In past wars, Israel has intensified its military campaign in the final days and hours before a cease-fire in order to achieve favorable truce terms.”)

Since there is little reason to believe this truce will be any longer-lasting than the previous ones, and none that it will do anything to resolve the underlying conflict, I would also recommend the following two groups as reliable sources of information and action for the future. (Including information and action for the massive aid and reconstruction that is now required in Gaza.)

Jewish Voices for Peace

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee