This is a pretty darn interesting article on the U.S. Army's newest tactics in Afghanistan. It's important to remember that those guys are still over there.
In another sign that he's out of touch with both the electorate and the laws he swore to defend, the President stated that he will veto any attempt to cut-back any part of the Patriot Act. But then, he wants to make the whole thing permanent.
I found this article on another blogger's site, but I honestly don't know which one it was now. If you do know, please let me know, and I'll give proper credit where it's due.
The interesting thing is the discussion of how other countries see the United States' growing offshoring of high-paying jobs. This quote is very illuminating, "A senior Chinese official drew silence at a dinner last week when he asked Americans at the conference how their country planned to finance its economy when both blue-collar manufacturing and white-collar service jobs were leaving the country." This is in addition to the article's claim that the PRC's economy will eclipse that of the U.S. by 2041.
The PRC having a growing and dynamic economy is a good thing for everyone, especially the Chinese, unless it comes at the expense of our own. In that case, we need to take measures to ensure the vitality of our economy, while at the same time finding ways to promote economic growth around the world. This is particularly true if you accept the post-WWII rhetoric (as most Americans do) that free markets make free people.
The question of how we are going to maintain our economy while sending both industrial and office (or knowledge) jobs to other countries. Can we continue to reinvent the national economy quickly enough to replace the jobs lost? Consider this: people have lately been replacing their old $45,000 per year jobs with $35,000 per year jobs. This means less money goes into our economy. This is bad enough, but what about professionals who lose their $60-80,000 per year jobs and can't replace them at all. What impact does that have?
In addition to sending the textiles jobs from the Carolinas overseas, jobs making furniture, cars, aircraft, electronic components, and steel, we are now sending office and professional jobs to less expensive locales. Call centers, software engineering, biotech, architectural, engineering, and IT Help Desk positions are bein reloacted out of the country. In some industries the moves are made to avoid "high" U.S. corporate income taxes by sending manufacturing out of the country. In others the impetus is the lower wages offered in the developing world. The most prominent example is still in IT. A software engineer in the United States makes an average salary of around $60,000. A similarly educated and experienced software engineer in Bangalore, India makes $6-8,000 per year. The cost savings are obvious.
What is not so obvious is the real impact to the companies gathering in these short term cost savings. If enough jobs are lost in the U.S., only to be replaced with low-end service and retail positions, who exactly are these companies going to sell their products to?
This issue affects all industries equally. If Americans suffer permanent loss in income, who will buy cars, houses, clothes, computers, televisions, cell phones, gaming consoles, or vacations? Who will go to movies, buy CDs, visit restaurants, or attend college? If we continue to allow significant proportions of our decent paying, middle-class jobs to be shipped to other nations, the very companies that are now using offshoring to boost their profits will find they have destroyed their primary market.
So how do we keep this from happening? The first step is to close the accounting and tax loopholes that make it so profitable to move manufacturing offshore. This removes a major incentive for many companies to go outside the United States to make products that will be consumed here.
The second is to ensure that the FTAA agreement dies a quiet death, and that NAFTA is repealed. Strangely enough H. Ross Perot was almost prescient when he warned that the sucking sound we heard was American jobs leaving the country.
A third is to institute reasonable tariffs on imports. By reasonable, I mean no higher than the traditional 15% duty. This kind of tariff will generate revenue and adda slight amount of protectionism that further reduces American businesses incentives to go offshore.
A final step is to make sure that the income American companies earn from people located in the United States is always taxed, regardless of the location the good or service is produced in. Again, this will generate revenue and create further disincentives to go offshore.
All of these steps require beating cheap-labor conservatives at the ballot box and mobilizing American workers. Neither task will be easy, but both are possible and necessary.
This month two initiatives of the Bush family have been reported in various news sources. The first seems to be buried in the "alternative" press, while the other seems to be confined to Florida media organizations. Both are somewhat troubling.
The first initiative has been labelled by critics "Faith-based Parks". This program has allowed plaques with scripture to be placed in the nation's national parks, particularly at the Grand Canyon, and has also introduced texts in the Park bookshop that claim that the Canyon was created just a few thousand years ago along the creationist line of thinking. At the same time Park Rangers have not been allowed to discuss creationism as not being backed by scientific evidence.
This part of the "Faith-Based Parks" program is bad enough, worse is the Park Services exclusion of anti-war, pro-choice, and civil rights demonstrations at the Lincoln memorial from a documentary video at the request of conservative groups, who argued that to keep those events in the video implies that Abraham Lincoln supported those causes. At the same time, religious conservatives have lobbied to get their causes included into the Park Service's video.
The second issue, sponsored by Jeb Bush's administration in Florida is a new "Faith-based" prison, where inmates are rewarded for participating in Bible Study and turning their lives over to God.
The problem with these governmentally funded and/or promoted plans is that they fly in the face of the First Amendment, which according to the copy that came with my Franklin Covey inserts reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
What this part of the First Amendment means at the Federal level is pretty clear. The national government can not do anything that promotes a specific religion. First Amendment issues for the states are, however, open to debate. What this means is that George W. Bush's policy of providing federal funding for, or allowing, specific religious messages on Federal property is illegal. So would kowtowing to the demands of religious groups to change federal publications for religious reasons.
As for the Florida prison program, its legality hinges on whether the state receives Federal funding for the operation of the prison, and upon Florida's state Constitution. In either case, the ability for Americans to believe as they choose is under assault by both programs.
One way to look at it is this: would most Christians, conservative or otherwise, be happy going to a national park (are incarcerated in a prison) that has religious explanations for how the park was created along Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, or Greco-Roman lines? Would this be a violation of their religious freedom? if the answer is yes, then the faith-based governmental programs is clearly a violation of the Constitution.
A good article about Walmart's potential use of "guest" laborers and effects on other grocery workers, which points out how anti-trust legislation and labor unions helped create and maintain the middle class.
A federal judge declared the a portion of the USA PATRIOT ACT un-Constitutional. Hopefully the rest will follow.
Here's an interesting essay that debates the question of when/whether it can be legitimate to compare modern politicians and events to Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s. I'm not sure I agree with the author's conclusions or not, but it is an interesting read.
In an age where we can't even verify that we are getting accurate vote tallies from voting machines that require voters to stand in front of them, the Pentagon wants to use an Internet based voting system to allow some Americans outside the U.S. to vote from any PC in the world.
This is about the most asinine, stupid, and dangerous thing I have ever heard. Think about it. What better way to change votes than to hijack the packets as they go across the Internet. An even easier option would be to launch a DDOS attack against the vote counting servers to simply keep those folks from voting at all. They aren't talking about using VPN technology, biometrics, or smart cards to verify voter identity.
The whole system rests on the validation efforts of CIBER, an organization that also verifies the software used by voting machines deployed around the United States. Primaries for the mid-term elections and the gubernatorial recall in California showed the frailty of these systems, including problems in Florida, in which all of the votes in a Democratic primary were counted as being cast for a Republican candidate. It is obvious that CIBER needs to iron out the problems in their software validation schemes.
Until we can get electronic voting via physical machines, E-voting should not even be attempted. what we really need is a method for quickly and securely delivering the physical absentee ballots cast by Americans overseas. In this way their franchise would be protected, as would the integrity of the voting process. One method would be for overseas voters to deliver their ballots to the various consulates and embassies around the world, where they could be immediately delivered via diplomatic pouch to collection agencies in the United States, or even to the United States Postal Service for delivery to the states.
In another nail in the coffin of the Saddam-al Qaeda myth, a recently released document (captured along with Saddam himself) warns Iraqi guerrillas to steer clear of Islamist mujaheddin-style fighters from other countries. It seems that he wanted to keep Iraq free of the religious persecutions Afghans and Iranians have suffered under.
If the former dictator was in bed with Ossama's group, I don't think he'd be warning Iraqi partisans away from working with them.
As part of the continuing Bush Administration assault on civil liberties, particularly the Fourth Amendment, Carnivore has been resurrected. Expect to see it in Congress soon.
I'm still not sure why the FBI needs access to every piece of traffic on the internet, particularly the personal emails of the average citizen. I'm sure the Founders would not be impressed by the argument that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. That's why the Fourth Amendment exists.
For the doubters out there, the first Congress with representation of all the colonies was gathered in secret to discuss the colonial response to the Stamp Tax in 1758. No detailed minutes were kept, because the delegates were afraid of discovery by General Gage's forces, which could have led to their execution. Their fear was based on the ability of British forces to search and seize what they wanted, which was considered an extreme form of tyranny by both British subjects and the colonists...and by modern Americans.
When I was working on my first M.A. (in Mass Comm, unfinished), and rooming with Sam, I still believed in the the conservative bogeyman of the "Liberal Media". I really had no choice in the matter: I was a former military dependent, former ROTC cadet, and had voted for George H. W. Bush. My upbringing dicated that I believe the doctrine.
For years after, I moved into the belief that the major media were basically moderate, although I heartily believed that journalists, editors, publishers, etc... harbored their own distinct biases despite their claims to be "objective".
That started to change in about 1998 as I watched the gathering conservative attacks on President Clinton over morals and ethics issues, which the media dutifully reported while studiously ignoring the mis-deeds of Republicans (Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's extramarital affair, for one).
Lately I have become increasingly convinced that major media providers are not only conservative in nature, but are kept carefully in the President's hip-pocket. Want confirmation? Check today's Daily Outrage on The Nation's web site.
The issue? Comcast Cable, Fox, CNN, and CBS refused last year to run any advertising critical of a potential war in Iraq during the State of the Union or Super Bowl, and this year are refusing to run advertising critical of the President during the same time periods. The White House, of course, is free to buy all the time they want.
This is why we desperately need campaign reform. All of the major networks last night ran the President's opening salvo in his re-election campaign gratis because it was disguised as the State of the Union address, the only rebuttal was the pathetic attempts by Daschle and Pelosi, who were in empty rooms for their rebuttals. The President's programs are reported every night on the news, although the failures and alternatives are not.
This is why we used to have a Federal requirement that the broadcast new media provide equal time and access to the various candidates for office. It ensured that the people would have a chance to hear both sides of the issues. However, an industry-friendly FCC removed that rule in the 1980s, with predictable results.
If the major media truly were "liberal" this would be an equally important issue for conservatives, who also deserve to be heard. However, a "liberal" media would be pushing the alternatives to the current administration all the time, would not allow us to think that because unemployment claims are down that people are finding jobs, or that things are going at all well in Iraq. With a "liberal" media we would have had issue ads last night, for the Super Bowl, and last year at the same time.
So much for the "liberal media"
Ok, so that's a paraphrase of what former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neil said about President Bush. The real quote was more along the lines of "the President is like a blind man in a room full of deaf people." To me, this says that the President is completely unable to communicate with those around him, and they are unable to communicate with him. Needless to say, this is hardly a good scenario for the American people.
Secretary O'Neil had several other things to say about the governing methodology of the current administration, particularly as applied to the conflict in Iraq. The most important items here are that planning for an invasion of Iraq began just ten days after President Bush's inauguration, and that there was never any evidence of a current Iraqi arsenal of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons presented to the Cabinet. These revelations provide lots of ammunition for the President's detractors (like me) and conspiracy theorists alike.
And it isn't just Secretary O'Neil making the accusations. Colin Powell admitted last week that there was no hard evidence that Iraq had ties with al-Qaeda despite his claims to the UN that there were. To be fair, Powell still insists that the possibility of an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection were good enough that it had to be taken seriously.
More critical of the President and his advisers are the Carnegie Institue for Peace and the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute. Carnegie's report claims that the President and his staff systematically misled the American people about both Weapons of Mass Destruction and Iraq's links to terrorist organizations. Carnegie's findings are that all of Iraq's WMDs had been destroyed by 1991. The full report can be found here.
Carnegie's allegations have been corraborated by the Washington Post, which reported that since the eary 1990s Iraqs weapons development program existed solely on paper. Chemical weapons that exist only as paper reports, ideas, and diagrams are not exactly an immediate threat to the United States -- or anyone else.
After reports of Secretary O'Neil's comments surfaced, President Bush finally admitted that his goal was to remove Saddam Hussein from power from the very beginning, and that planning to do so through military means began almost immediately upon his election. The events of Sept. 11th, 2001 merely gave him the tool to bring his plans to fruition.
All of this raises serious questions about the man who leads this country and his advisors. They blocked the democratic process in Florida to get into office, they lied about when planning for the Iraq campaign began, they lied about Iraq's weapons programs, and they lied about Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda. In order to pursue the President's personal goals in Iraq, they have dismantled our efforts to pacify and rebuild Afghanistan. They have given Saudi Arabia a pass, rather than demanding that the Kingdom end its support for al-Qaeda. They have systematically and deliberately taken measures to remove our protections as American citizens.
It is time to take a close look at the President and his policies and determine whether he is fit for office. American blood and treasure have been spent on the Administration's schemes. It is time to find out why.
It's interesting that conservatives can internalize their arguments and still stay sane. Conservative commentators have been frothing at the mouth because a campaign ad contest on MoveOn.org had an entry that compared President Bush to Adolf Hitler..even after the entry was rejected, removed, and MoveOn.org offered sindere apologies. The ADL rightly denounced the ads, as well.
However, Monday of this week (January 5th), the New York Post ran this commentary that calls Howard Dean and his supporters (and all liberals) Brownshirt Nazis. Despite protestests from progressives, there had been no apology from the Post of the author of the screed. There has also been a deafening silence from the ADL and the conservatives that were calling the contest entries anti-semitic.
So what's the deal?
The deal is that in the Republican mindset is that any opinions other than theirs are immediately wrong-headed or treasonous. When conservatives are criticized for their statements, they claim that they are being denied their Freedom of Speech, but woe to any progressive that dare speak his mind.
Want an example? How about Georgia Democrat Max Cleeland, a decorated Vietnam veteran who lost both of his legs and an arm in Southeast Asia. Because he disagreed with the Presidents war in the desert, Republican campaign advertisements claimed that he was in league with Saddam Hussein and Ossama bin Laden. No attacks on free speech, mud-slinging, or character assasination there.
How about Ann Coulture's allegation that all liberals are inherently traitors? Or Rush Limbaugh's labelling of all feminists as "femi-nazis"?
Buzzflash.com has many other pertinent examples, but the point is this: calling political opponents fascists is ok fo Republicans, but not for Democrats, even in the eyes of the supposedly liberal media.
It's a new year and we continue to have increasing threats to American Democracy, not from external enemies, but from internal ones. Unfortunatley, it is the President of the United States who is leading the assault on our civil rights.
Attacks on the democratic process are coming in many forms, but the most obvious is the use of "Free Speech" or "Protest" zones designed to keep protesters away from the President and other figures and to keep the press away from protesters. Those who refuse to move to the zones are often arrested and charged, although some insightful jurists have rejected the government's claim that holding a protest sign while standing in a crowd of the President's supporters is disturbing the peace.
Other attacks on freedom are more subtle, such as this case, in which the government is attempting to keep to even keep the charges filed against a man detained after Sept. 11, 2001 secret. This one is an obvious violation of the Constitutional requirement that the accused be allowed to face their accuser. I'm left wondering how you can mount a defense if the charges are secret...
Finally, the President quietly signed new legislation that gives the FBI the power to obtain documents from "financial" institutions about anyone. This power is not subject to any review from judges and requires no demonstration of probably cause. It is entirely at the whim of individual agents. So much for the 4th Amendment stricture that all Americans be "secure in their persons, papers, and property."
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has compiled a longer and more comprehensive list of threats.
With these threats to the Republic, we don't need foreign enemies. We're destroying ourselves just fine.
The FBI wants police to be on the look out for people who have almanacs covering the United States when they are questioned for a variety of offenses, including routine traffic stops. The theory is that almanacs are sources of information about infrastructure, populations, and industries around the country and could be used to plan terrorist attacks.
I suppose the feds have a point. After all, almanacs contain loads of useful information about which states and cities house different industries and where tourism centers are. You know tough to find things like where Walt Disney World is, and where gypsum is mined, or who the important political leaders of the day are. Stuff that is easier to find on a website than it is to carry around the hefty tome that is the modern Almanac.
The FBI alert requested local police be on the watch for people with almanacs is downright silly, and could lead to a lot of abuse. An example: a student (lets call him Biff) is pulled over for speeding and the police officer spies an almanac in the back seat. The officer, having received the FBI warning, begins questioning Biff about his possession of the almanac, and Biff cops an attitude about it (or even doesn't have an explanation that the officer deems acceptable). Biff gets dragged off to jail for "questioning" based solely on his possession of the almanac. Biff has committed a minor moving violation, but now needs to spend money on an attorney to prove he had a legitimate reason to have an almanac in his car.
Sound like its a stretch? Don't bet on it. This could easily be an excuse for official harrassment of people considered troublemakers.
And its also a waste of time.
The Anti-Defamation League and conservative commentators have been making a big deal about the Dean campaign contest ad on MoveOn.org that compares the President to Adolf Hitler, and they are right to do so. Even if Progressives believe that Mr. Bush's policies resemble those of the Nazi regime, stooping to such name calling is both crass and counter-productive. It's certainly beyond the pale of American political debate.
However, there is bit of two-facedness operating here, and I'm joining other bloggers to point this out. I wish I could take the credit for it, but Atrios and others beat me to the punch.
At issue is not the appropriateness of the ad on MoveOn's sit, it should be denounced for what it is: a shrill attempt to get people riled up. The issue is that the ADL and conservative comments give Republicans a pass when they attack lefties (or moderates like Howard Dean) for being Nazis, brownshirts, or "jackbooted thugs". If these people want to get in a tizzy about references to Hitler in modern political ads, they should be addressign both parties excesses.
Until then, their statements are just so much hot air.