Why am I not surprised

that the medical insurance that's provided by employers--a staple of the fake "insurance reform" passed by Congress last spring--is costing employees more and is providing less coverage. It's all a fraud, this Obama-Care package; it plays directly into the hands of those who have no interest in cost-containment. The insurance companies simply increase their premiums to employers, and the employers simply pass those increases on to employees, as well as increasing the percentage of premiums they require employees to pay. This isn't universal health care: It's government funding of insurance companies, pure and simple.

A new beginning?

I'm looking into the possibility of starting a new political party named, inoffensively, The Progressive Party. I realize it wouldn't be the first party so named, but Teddy Roosevelt's central theme--populist reaction to corporate dominance of American politics and economics--ain't a bad idea, given the current state of affairs in the US.

And the idea of rolling back the multi-national corporate (and political) war on the working classes by means of international trade unions to challenge the power of international corporations ain't bad either.

I even have a slogan--a catchy one: "Workers of the world, unite!"

Telling it like it is

This piece by Christopher Cooper (his "bio" appears at the bottom) is brutally frank about Obama's position in history, and cleverly composed. I wish I'd written it.

Obama analyzed

I'm no Obama-lover, not any more. He, and his party, have disappointed me too often, and too seriously, for me ever to relent (or is it repent?) from my disgust at their governance. I will, however, refer readers of this blog to this month-old Frank Rich review of Jonathan Alter's book about Obama (Promise) because Rich (and, if I cared to read the book, Alter) do capture what's wrong with Obama's presidency and why, in my view, it's doomed to consist of but a single term of office.

The flaws they see in Obama--read the review--are, it seems to me, too ingrained in the man to be fundamentally changed. Obama's a creature of his culture--as varied as "his culture" at first blush appears--which holds to a view of America as historically blessed, fated to succeed by history and chance. He is too young, too immature in perspective, to see that America is no such thing. It's just another national gathering of folks who, like all such gatherings in history, are stupid, selfish and mean--doomed to be replaced by a later such gathering. He's too grounded in process--in political minutia and manipulation--to reach for the only chance he (or we) have to survive the present slide into the "dustbin of history." He is, after all, just another smart fellow, another fine politician. And that, my friends, just ain't gonna cut it anymore.

Finally---

Some good news.

Humane imprisonment, American style

Sensitive to the fasting rules of Ramadan, and with butterscotch flavoring no less.

Coming soon...

A grain bubble.

Letter to editor

Here's a letter to the editor of the News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published on August 18, 2010.

To the editor:

I read recently that Republicans are planning to make a campaign issue out of President Obama’s statements about the “ground zero mosque,” that is, that under the First Amendment to the Constitution Muslims have the same right to free exercise of religion as do persons of other religions, and that this includes the right to establish a place of worship wherever it is legally permissible to do so, as is the “ground zero” site. In effect, these Republicans wish to amend the first amendment, to make it applicable only to non-Muslim religions.

Many of these same Republicans have suggested repeal of the fourteenth amendment’s guarantee of U.S. citizenship to natural-born Americans, out of fear of a wave of illegal immigrants bearing “anchor babies.”

So, are we to understand that these Republicans—so-called “conservatives”—have now become radicals, demanding substantive change to two of the fundamental tenets of our founding documents? If so, I trust they’ll be honest enough to acknowledge their new-found status as revolutionaries—indeed, to shout it from the rooftops—as they attack their opponents in upcoming elections.

To which I say—quoting one of their recent leaders—“Bring it on.”

I know how revolutionaries feel

When I read about things like this--the enormous waste, the ugly face of our empire, the trashing of our economy to fund militarism--I want to hurl something at somebody. Not just protest or write letters or vote, but do something that might change things. And--this fuels my rage more--I know I won't change anything, nor will we objectors through any peaceful means. And that, my friends, creates insurrection.

This video answers two questions

1. Why I'm no longer practicing law.

2. Why I'm not married.

http://www.responsibilityproject.com/films/lawyers/?src=B237&dfaid=1#fbid=BJsSoCe56kd

Why not indeed?

At the bottom of this essay about job-creation in the US, a distinguished college professor asks a simple question.

So, after all is said and done

this is what the US presence in Iraq will look like. Not much different from the outposts that Rome or Britain, or many other countries maintained during their empires.

Liars!

Not just Obama, this time, but (gasp!) Hillary Clinton too. Withdraw from Iraq? Don't be silly.

Ouch!

This unabashed critique of the American psyche concludes with an indictment--as scathing as I've read--of Obama's role in the decay of our sense of morality. He's gotten better at being evil, making it sound high-flown, intellectually sound and, indeed, comfortable.

Out of the woods and into the fray

I've emerged, for a day or so, from camping in the forest. The Oregon Cascades are amazing and, believe it or not, I actually caught a nice rainbow trout on the Santian River, on a dry fly, no less. The fish was a fifteen incher--I measured it--and I had it for dinner last night broiling it over an open fire. Next step in my evolution: Grizzly Adams.

Meanwhile, with momentary access to the internet this morning in Prineville, Oregon, I couldn't resist sending the SB News-Press a letter, which follows. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published in the News-Press on July 19, 2010.


To the editor:

As a progressive, I’m running out of “dis-”adjectives to convey my feelings about Obama. Initially, I was disturbed by his retention of Gates at Defense and his appointments of Summers and Geithner to financial positions. These choices signaled merely a continuation of policies that caused us massive military engagement and economic loss. Thereafter, I became distressed by Obama’s decisions on civil liberties: his maintenance of Bush’s policies of governmental secrecy and restriction of our civil liberties in the name of “fighting terror.”

My distress became disappointment when Obama refused to consider single-payer health care and made backroom deals with Big Pharma, allowing them huge profits in the health care package—a package that is actually a federally-funded windfall for insurance companies. My disappointment turned to disillusionment when Obama sent 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, elevating it to a full-scale military operation. My disillusionment became dismay when his economic plans failed to deal with crushing unemployment of American workers, and avoided confronting fundamental reasons for our financial catastrophe: “Too big to fail” banks and Wall Street’s systemic gambling with security derivatives. Indeed, by now, I’ve come to agree with Anthony Romero, executive director of ACLU, who recently declared his disgust with Obama’s policies.

But I’m not ready to disengage, to sit home on election day 2012. I believe, instead, that we progressives should disassociate from Obama and launch a campaign—as improbable a campaign as was Obama’s in 2008—to elect a true populist/progressive to dispossess him of the White House.

Online again

I've been offline for the last week, up in the redwoods. Today, after six nights of camping out, I needed a long hot shower, etc., to spice up. (So I was told by a clerk at a gas station/market down the road apiece.) And so here I am online at a motel in Garberville, heart of Humboldt County's "alternative economy." I went to a gathering of the faithful last evening--a folk music fest for the fourth held in a nearby town--and I must say I surely fit right in, appearance-wise. I turned down the repeated offers of "herb," of course, because I simply didn't want to clog my lungs with smoke. But we are indeed a scruffy- looking lot, we hippies, especially when gathered in large numbers.

A travel note: The groves of "un-old-growth" redwood trees extend all the way from a few miles north of Santa Cruz up to the Oregon border. Only a few stands of old-growth remain, of course, but I must admit I thought there weren't that many places where they still grew in any form.

Anyway, apropos the normal content of this blog, know this: Nothing has changed in my absence. The stories--Kagan, unemployment, oil spill, AfghanIraq, to name a few--remain unchanged, as if they didn't see my absence as a chance to amend their direction. Indeed, if anything, they've all headed further south since I've been out of the loop. So, it doesn't matter if I pay attention or make posts to this blog or write letters to the editor railing against this policy or that. Of course I knew that was the case, but it's pleasant to have confirmation.

And so--back into the woods.

Hiatus

I'm taking off for a trip northward from SB--destinations/duration unknown--and will likely be away from the Internet for a spell. OTOH I might find spots to hookup and create some posts on this site. To me, these days, the best rule is there are no rules.

Chew on this.

Is the mind just "a computer made of meat"?

WTF?

Would someone please explain to me the social/economic--indeed, any--value of trading futures contracts on movies' profits? Isn't such trading simply another opportunity for naked gambling by monied folks, allowing brokers another "product" upon which to generate commissions?

A letter to the editor

Here's a letter to the editor of the SB News-Press that I emailed this evening. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: It was published on Sunday, June 20, 2010.

I have hope for America. Admittedly, negative superlatives dominate our news: the nation’s largest wealth disparity; warmest oceans, smallest glaciers; biggest deficit; highest arms spending; most massive oil spill. One might fairly despair over the incessant reports of disastrous conditions that are the “worst,” “biggest,” “most.”

But I have hope, and it springs from this fact: We Americans are aging—and we are multitudes.

Why hope? Because age renders people wiser. Elders—Eisenhower in his farewell address, Greenspan in Congressional testimony, McNamara in late writings, to cite three famous examples—often achieve in maturity a reflective candor about the true state of things. Eisenhower about the “military-industrial complex,” Greenspan about unregulated markets, McNamara about Vietnam.

We older folks also consume less. We no longer value cars, clothes and computers, but sunsets, sanity and siestas. We don’t count our dollars, but our blessings. We don’t charge things, we care for, and share, things. It’s not the acquisition of possessions but their disposition that rewards us.

Finally, we tire more readily. We grow weary of the drama of interminable rhetoric of war—whether against terror, against drugs, against each other—having learned that each war simply begets more war, and usually a new industry and a new bureaucracy; and that each war fails, leaving an increasingly exhausted and embittered nation.

So my hope is simply this: that we mature Americans, soon a majority, will take hold of our country and guide it with the wisdom, community and serenity that comes with age.