Letter to the editor

Here's the text of a letter I wrote this evening to the SB NewsPress. I'll update this post when/if it's published.

Update: The letter was published in the SB NewsPress on April 29, 2010.

To the editor:

I’m an unabashed liberal who believes that Lois Capps, during the years since she succeeded her husband Walter as our Congressional representative, has served the Central Coast well. She has a strong record on the environment, healthcare, civil liberties—indeed, on many important questions. But of late, on the most critical issue we face—the security of our nation and its place in the world—she has revealed herself to be merely a Democratic Party hack. I’m talking about the war—now Obama’s war—in Afghanistan.

The House of Representatives holds the “power of the purse,” and will shortly be faced, again, with deciding whether to increase funding the war, this time with an additional 33 billion dollars. (The House bill will likely—in a cynical move—include a fund for Haitian relief, in order to wrap it in legitimacy, but that provision can be separated out.) The question is: How will Lois Capps vote? Will she have the guts to say: “No! My conscience, and my constituents, demand that this killing in Afghanistan cease. Our soldiers—and Afghanis and Pakistanis—are dying for no purpose and to no effect except to harden terrorists’ resolve to attack America.” Or will she vote—as she has heretofore—to continue funding this wretched, wicked war because the Democratic Leadership (Obama, Pelosi, Reid—the usual suspects) demand that she comply with the Party Line.

I’m not asking much of Lois Capps. I’m simply asking her to ask herself, “How would Walter vote?”

Whaddya think?

Is the US Air Force just launching this thing for a lark? I must say, if I were Russia--or any other nation--I'd be, as they say, up in arms.

How to raise taxes without much political or economic pain?

A good suggestion, for starters: limit the now-unlimited deduction for home-mortgage interest payments. If you've bought a million-dollar home, financing the purchase with a $750,000 30-year mortgage, you now may deduct the entire interest component of your monthly payment, which could be as much as 4/5 of the payment in the first years of the mortgage. That interest amount is currently deductible, creating a huge drop in income-tax liability for those who inhabit giant, expensive homes.

Why not limit the home-mortgage interest deduction to a fixed sum, say, the amount of interest on a loan equalling a percentage of the median value of homes in various locales? This would leave the deduction intact for those who live in modest homes, but wouldn't allow the wealthy to benefit from their expensive, much leveraged homes at the expense of those who live more modestly.

Tell me, if you can, why that's not fair.

In case you're wondering

why I haven't been posting to this blog lately it's because I've got nothing to say. Actually, I've got a lot to say, but I'm too weary with disgust to say it. I'm close to giving up on this entity we call the United States of America, merely waiting for the next shoe to fall to prove our governance and our media and our citizenry doesn't deserve my further attention. Indeed, so many shoes have fallen lately that my voice would have been drowned out anyway.

What's in a name?

When it comes to Faulkner, not much.

Why do they hate us?

Because we're ruining their birthday parties by digging bullets out of the bodies of pregnant women, that's why.

Seen at Tea Party rallies

Teabonics.

A solution to expensive Internet hookup and slow downloading

Move to South Korea. Ironic, isn't it, that a leading factor in the US's slow speed is our relative absence of competition? It appears that corporations in the US cheer for raw capitalism except when they don't.

A fucking nightmare

Those of us who are old enough to recall LBJ's repeated assurances about progress in the Vietnam war must be--I know I am--wretching over Obama's plans for Afghanistan. After a "success" in the tiny enclave of Marjah, we're now going to assault a major city, Kandahar. My God, Barack, are you that big an idiot? Are you crazy? Or, worst of all, are you just another American Imperial President?

Well, whadaya know!

Somebody realizes there's a war on in Afghanistan.

Some of my best friends...

but I gotta tell ya, the present administration in Israel is going to drag the US and other western nations into a war with Islam. They're not just violating international law by taking possession of land that they occupied after previous battles, they're doing so in front of us, in front of all decent attempts to reconcile Israeli interests in the area with that of those who've lived there for centuries.

The stock market's reaction to the "health care" bill

The Monday after passage in the House: This has got to tell you something about the terms of --the financial effect of--the legislation, right?

Chris Hedges hedges no bets

So, gang, when/where do we build our commune? And who's in charge of the Molotov cocktails?

I am speechless

Well, not quite. This article evokes a single word: Bravo!

Conservatives and liberals--Together!

Here, as well as AntiWar.com blog (which I regularly cite) is presented articulate and hopeful means of taking back America's war-prone foreign policy. Note that both sources are conservative, because Obama's adoption of militaristic means has lately emasculated the Left's power to demand peace. Is there hope that these two different ideologies can merge and become a force for peace?

Terrorizing ourselves

is the title of a new book that analyzes the US reaction to the 9-11 attacks, reviewed perceptively here.

The long haul

This link, and this, sent to me by my buddy Kyle, author of Metaphor, inter alia, tell me that we're not likely to stop spending billions (and concomitant lives) in Afghanistan very soon. And, no doubt, these expenditures likely are dwarfed by our involvement in Iraq, regardless of Obama's pledge to remove all of our "combat troops" from Iraq in a while.

We're "nation building" these two distant nations while our own crumbles. But there is one saving grace, which can be said of our massive military presence throughout the world: At least it's a job program, and it's directed specifically toward folks who need the money.

Should I be freaking out?

I mean, Merlin Olsen--age 69, which is my age--dies of cancer. Can I be far behind? Okay, Jack Nicklaus and Paul McCartney, who're also my age, are still alive and "kicking," so maybe I should shut up. But Merlin Olsen, the bigger-than-life good guy from Little House on the Prairie? Ouch.

A new dimension of warfare

Now our drones are killing people in Pakistan (on which country we've never declared war--indeed, it's supposedly our ally) who are in the process of rescuing fellow Pakistanis from the rubble of buildings destroyed by a previous drone. This post--this blog--isn't going to change anything, and I wonder if by writing this I'm simply dispelling (or is it diffusing or defusing?) the rage I feel at our military and its commander-in-chief. This madness must stop, but I feel powerless to do anything but gripe, particularly since our congressperson, Lois Capps, yesterday voted against Dennis Kucinich's House resolution calling for quick withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan.

Letter to the editor

The following is a letter I wrote to the editor of the SB News-Press. I'll update this post if/when it's published. (My first version omitted Iraq and Afghanistan as national crises, which I added by an amended letter to the editor. I surely hope they publish the amended version, because the omission of those two items by me in the original draft shows how deftly those issues have dropped from the public's--and my--consciousness, from crises to mere blips on the national psyche.)

Update: The letter (somewhat revised by the News-Press) was published on March 17, 2010.

Because the News-Press limits the length of these letters, I’ll try to squeeze my list of current global and national crises into 250 words.

Global crises: Atmospheric and oceanic warming. Declining oil reserves. Destruction of rain forests. Increasing species extinction. Diminishing saltwater fisheries. Decaying coral reefs. Shrinking natural habitats. Melting glaciers and icecaps. Increasing freshwater shortages. Growing wealth inequality. Spreading international terrorism and militarism. Ongoing nuclear proliferation. Worldwide overpopulation. Rising religious and immigrant intolerance. Continuing scourge of AIDS/malaria/poverty. Unabated political corruption.

National crises: Meltdown of financial sector. Rising unemployment and declining wages. Increasing homelessness. Continuing media consolidation. Impoverished local governments. Skyrocketing federal deficits and borrowing. Growing corporate influence over elections. Declining value of dollar. Continued outsourcing of manufacturing/technical jobs. Spreading child and adult obesity. Shrinking middle class. Widening income disparity. Restriction of civil liberties and growth of government secrecy. Congressional gridlock. Diminished charitable giving. Decline of retirement savings and real estate values. Ballooning home foreclosures. Increasing privatization of the military. North Korea. Iran. Iraq. Afghanistan. Crumbling infrastructure. Increasing costs of living, credit and health care.

Well, I did it. However, I’ve listed only conditions that have appeared lately in the media, and only those that strike me as critical. There are likely scores more, depending on the knowledge and viewpoint of the observer.

My point is this: All these crises have arisen on our watch, while we American Boomers enjoyed the most sustained period of prosperity the world has ever known. Anybody besides me feel guilty?