The debate over public education in general is one that has gotten little attention recently.
I have very dear friends who are fundamentalist Christians, who are disgusted that we don't teach Biblical history and morality in our public schools. They believe that the world is 5700 years old, and that "macro" evolution, (or Darwinism as many groups have taken to calling it), should not be taught. These people are loud critics of, and I would say enemies of, the notion of public education - unless it is taught their way.
This movement has been working its way through our culture for several years now, painting a generally dim view of the public education systems in our country. I can tell you that in our family, back in the 80's, we went through a brief period where we put our kids in a private Christian school with an outstanding academic reputation. After just a couple of years, it became plain that the quality of instruction that they were receiving was very plainly less than that they had received in the public system. We switched back.
I tell that story so that you know my bias from experience. From that experience, I have come to understand that generally, private schools pay their teachers less than public schools. It should come as no surprise, then, that the public schools have better teachers.
So why private schools? I see it as broken into 3 main groups:
1. The folks with more money than sense who just can't stand the thought of their child with the common folk.
2. Folks who live in areas with poor public schools, and with the means to send them to private schools, which in their case means an improvement in both quality of education and safety for their child.
3. Folks with strong idealogical (religious) convictions who don't want their children to learn the mainstream knowledge taught in public schools.
Of these 3 groups, the first one will never go away. There will always be an "elite" class, who will not want to mingle with the common folk. Nothing wrong with that.
The second group of folks use private schools as an escape from poor public schools. Fixing the public schools in their area would fix this problem, and eliminate the need for private education. Better models for distribution of funding for public education is at the heart of that discussion.
The third group is the one that I want to focus on.
Should education be a "right" of citizens? If so, to what level? 8th grade? High School? College?
If the answer to that question is no, then we should focus our discussion on the direction our culture takes as we define ever widening "classes" of people. As ignorance increases among the masses, and the resulting "want" that lower employment will likely bring increases, what will be the result?
If the answer is yes, that some level of education is a "right", then we are left with public funding for education. Let’s start with where we are now.
So far, we have taken an approach that says that local public school districts should exist, and with varying degrees of oversight from the state, these school boards should decide what gets taught and how to teach it.
Of course, the national government has some very high-level authority, in that they want to assure that the rights of citizens are not compromised. This is why the national authority has asserted that it is not constitutional for “creationism”, for example, to be taught in school, as it violates the constitutional prohibition of establishing religion. (The thought being that by teaching the Creation Myth of just one religion, you are essentially “establishing” this as the accepted religion.)
The movement among the public school opponents asserts both explicitly and implicitly that they don’t like this. They assert that the founding fathers were Christian, and that what they really meant to do was establish a Christian country. (While it is true that most of the fathers were Christian to varying degrees, this new movement ignores that fact that NOTWITHSTANDING their Christianity, they explicitly forbade the establishment of religion. In other words, the fact that they were Christian actually makes a stronger case for their intent to keep religion out of government.)
The solution of the public school opponents is clear. Change education so that it is private rather than public, then you don’t have to deal with that pesky constitution. This fits very nicely with an anti-tax agenda, which doesn’t like the fact that the public has to pay for any of this stuff anyway.
And this is exactly what has happened. Those with an anti-public-school agenda that is driven by a religious ideology are aligned with those with an anti-tax ideology. They have been successful in redefining to varying degrees the way that school funding money is distributed, resulting in the increase in “vouchers” which essentially take public funding and funnel it to private schools. (The idea being that the public should fund the education of a student, but that the student and the student’s family should be allowed to learn whatever they want.)
So we only got to this point by saying that we did believe that it was a right of citizens to receive an education, which means public funding. I think that this means that we agree that we have a “moral obligation” to offer education to all citizens.
Should there be any limits on what the public funds in terms of education? What if the local Islamic Mullah wanted to set up a local school that taught Islamic Fundamentalism and Extremism? What if a local Christian group wanted to set up a local school that taught Christian Fundamentalism and Extremism?
If it is not “anything goes”, then who sets limits? The US constitution? Other national authority? State authority? Local school districts as it is now?
What constitutional principles should apply to publicly funded education?
And here is the real reason why I put this post together. Beyond the agreement on a moral obligation to educate citizens, are there other moral obligations that we have in educating ourselves? Are there common morals that we can teach that don’t take steps down the road of establishment of religion in our country? Can these be taught outside the context of a specific religion? How about teaching morals that are common among many religions?
My own bias is that I have a problem with public funds being used to finance private schools. I do believe that we have an “education obligation”, but am undecided on how far that obligation reaches. I do believe that we have a common moral compass in our culture, and that reinforcing that compass can be achieved outside of the context of a specific religion, and that school curriculum should do this. How…
Monday, August 22, 2005
Friday, August 19, 2005
Ms. Sheehan and Mr. Bush
Over the past couple of years, war has been waged in the name of you and me over in a country that in recent history was cobbled together and called Iraq. During those couple of years, the best estimates that I have seen are that over 100,000 people have lost their lives. Most of those people have lost their lives at the hands of you and I, through the hands of our government. Most of those people are civilians – women and children in large part.
This translates to 100,000+ grieving mothers around the world. The vast majority of these mothers grieve over the loss of a child who wanted nothing to do with war, who played no role at all in the ideological battle that seems to be raging over how people choose to hire and fire forms of government.
A very small percentage of those grieving mothers lost sons and daughters who were part of our armed forces. To be more specific, under 2000 of those grieving mothers are Americans grieving the loss of their soldier-child.
And of those, only one has captured the attention of the American media and public. Cindy Sheehan sits by the roadside in Texas, and expresses her grief and her rage in a very public fashion. What is it, she wants to know, that her son died for in Iraq? She wants this answer to come from the man who sent her son there, George W. Bush. Mr. Bush, for his part, says that he understands that pain of Ms. Sheehan, but must get on with his life. And right now, his life consists of his annual 5 week vacation in Crawford, which comes after his last vacation in April…
And the right-wing media, for their part, have taken to attacking this woman, using the unfortunately now familiar right-wing tactic of mucking personal information about their “target” out and shifting the focus away from the issue and on to some voyeuristic personal item in the “target’s” life.
Whether we were or weren’t misled into this war is not the issue.
Whether we did or did not “cook” the intelligence to support our pre-existing desire to invade Iraq is not the issue.
Whether we have listened to our military planners and planned for and executed a wise war is not the issue.
Whether we will or won’t ever face the music and begin paying the financial cost of this war is not the issue.
How on earth we will defend ourselves in the face of an attack with our military stretched as it is today is not the issue.
Cindy Sheehan’s personal life, personal troubles, and human frailties are not the issue.
The issue is an emotional one first, and an intellectual one second.
As a nation, we have been asked to pay nothing for this war, so we feel no emotional pain. Rather than institute a draft – which we should have done as soon as we began gearing up for this war in 2003 – we have misused the Guard and Reserves. Rather than asking the American people to sacrifice financially to pay the huge cost of this war – certainly significant taxes are required to wage war – we continue to sweep the costs under the rug, keeping them off of the budget, conveniently hidden from today’s voters.
But for mothers who have paid the ultimate price, who have lost their son or their daughter in this war, there is no rug under which the cost can be swept. They bear the emotional pain of a nation on their shoulders, and they want to know who is willing to bear it with them. They want to know that we all will still believe in this was if we see it through the lens of their loss.
And will we? The President of the United States – the one who ordered her son into the war that killed him – is apparently not willing to put those glasses on. He is too busy with fund raisers for his Party, and bike riding, and napping. He says he “grieves”, and I believe that he does in his own way. But Cindy is asking him to grieve beyond the intellectual. She is asking him to descend with her into the depth of her emotional grief and rage. To see the cost of the war through a grieving mother’s eyes, and then to tell her again what the war is about, and that he believes in it, and believes the cost is worth it.
With children of draft age, am I willing to descend into that hell of grief with Cindy? I am not sure – tears are in my eyes just considering it. The selfish me is only glad that my children of draft age do not believe in this war, so unless a draft is instituted, I will not be asked to risk that price.
The patriotic me is sick to my stomach that this president is not willing to take this woman into his home and his heart, and to grieve with her. The patriotic me is sick to my stomach at the right-wing media machine who is out to destroy yet another patriot – to eliminate for political purpose one of the few in this country who have actually sacrificed, who have actually paid for this war.
This translates to 100,000+ grieving mothers around the world. The vast majority of these mothers grieve over the loss of a child who wanted nothing to do with war, who played no role at all in the ideological battle that seems to be raging over how people choose to hire and fire forms of government.
A very small percentage of those grieving mothers lost sons and daughters who were part of our armed forces. To be more specific, under 2000 of those grieving mothers are Americans grieving the loss of their soldier-child.
And of those, only one has captured the attention of the American media and public. Cindy Sheehan sits by the roadside in Texas, and expresses her grief and her rage in a very public fashion. What is it, she wants to know, that her son died for in Iraq? She wants this answer to come from the man who sent her son there, George W. Bush. Mr. Bush, for his part, says that he understands that pain of Ms. Sheehan, but must get on with his life. And right now, his life consists of his annual 5 week vacation in Crawford, which comes after his last vacation in April…
And the right-wing media, for their part, have taken to attacking this woman, using the unfortunately now familiar right-wing tactic of mucking personal information about their “target” out and shifting the focus away from the issue and on to some voyeuristic personal item in the “target’s” life.
Whether we were or weren’t misled into this war is not the issue.
Whether we did or did not “cook” the intelligence to support our pre-existing desire to invade Iraq is not the issue.
Whether we have listened to our military planners and planned for and executed a wise war is not the issue.
Whether we will or won’t ever face the music and begin paying the financial cost of this war is not the issue.
How on earth we will defend ourselves in the face of an attack with our military stretched as it is today is not the issue.
Cindy Sheehan’s personal life, personal troubles, and human frailties are not the issue.
The issue is an emotional one first, and an intellectual one second.
As a nation, we have been asked to pay nothing for this war, so we feel no emotional pain. Rather than institute a draft – which we should have done as soon as we began gearing up for this war in 2003 – we have misused the Guard and Reserves. Rather than asking the American people to sacrifice financially to pay the huge cost of this war – certainly significant taxes are required to wage war – we continue to sweep the costs under the rug, keeping them off of the budget, conveniently hidden from today’s voters.
But for mothers who have paid the ultimate price, who have lost their son or their daughter in this war, there is no rug under which the cost can be swept. They bear the emotional pain of a nation on their shoulders, and they want to know who is willing to bear it with them. They want to know that we all will still believe in this was if we see it through the lens of their loss.
And will we? The President of the United States – the one who ordered her son into the war that killed him – is apparently not willing to put those glasses on. He is too busy with fund raisers for his Party, and bike riding, and napping. He says he “grieves”, and I believe that he does in his own way. But Cindy is asking him to grieve beyond the intellectual. She is asking him to descend with her into the depth of her emotional grief and rage. To see the cost of the war through a grieving mother’s eyes, and then to tell her again what the war is about, and that he believes in it, and believes the cost is worth it.
With children of draft age, am I willing to descend into that hell of grief with Cindy? I am not sure – tears are in my eyes just considering it. The selfish me is only glad that my children of draft age do not believe in this war, so unless a draft is instituted, I will not be asked to risk that price.
The patriotic me is sick to my stomach that this president is not willing to take this woman into his home and his heart, and to grieve with her. The patriotic me is sick to my stomach at the right-wing media machine who is out to destroy yet another patriot – to eliminate for political purpose one of the few in this country who have actually sacrificed, who have actually paid for this war.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
How Bad Is The Bush Problem?
How big is the “Bush Problem”?
As follow-up to my last post about lying presidents, I wanted to elaborate on where we need to go.
Here we sit, in 2005. We should all agree that presidents have lied throughout history. Some have lied for good things, some have lied for not-so-good things. When Bush senior lied about taxes, he did the right thing by going back on his pledge, and being fiscally conservative. When Reagan lied about things like Iran-Contra, he was probably both wrong and criminal, and we should be ashamed of him. When Clinton lied about when his zipper was up and when it was down, we should frankly be ashamed of a media that covered such a personal (if shameful) act, and do our best to judge the man on what he did for the country rather than what he did to shame his marriage. And when Bush junior continues to lie about things of such great importance as why our children are dying in Iraq, and what our real objectives in being there are, we should be shocked and ashamed. He continues to lie by failing to pay for the war – hiding the financial cost by keeping if off of the budget and refusing to ask us to pay for it, and continues to lie by failing to ask us to make the sacrifices that are a NECESSARY part of waging war, (things like a draft in order to maintain a sufficient army).
These lies he commits in order to avoid a dip in his support by the American public, and in order to maintain public support for the war. This is some of the worst sort of lying! He knows that if the American people were asked to sacrifice and pay for the war – the same way that every president in our history has done UNTIL Bush – that people would quickly begin to question why it was that we went there, and what is it that we hope to accomplish by staying. And when we ask these questions, he knows that we aren’t going to like the answers.
So he continues to lie by hiding the cost of the war, and misusing Guard and Reserve troops in order to hide the need for an army to fight a war – an army that would come from the ranks of your children and mine.
I’m no lawyer – I don’t know if these terrible lies are “criminal” or not – whether they measure up to “high crimes and misdemeanors” as defined in the constitution. If we compare his lies and omissions to the bar that we put in place by impeaching the last president because he lied about who he slept with, then impeachment for this guy would not go nearly far enough.
What I do know as an American Citizen with strong moral convictions is that what he has done and is doing is immoral, unethical, and shameful.
Without a doubt, we should fire him and anyone who has supported him. We should not fire him because he lied – they all lie. We should fire him because he is running our country into the ground!
But what would impeachment do? Do we want Cheney in the chair? I would expect him to be worse by a long shot.
No, the thing to do is to shake this mess up next year. We need to cut this bunch of liars off at the knees by removing their supporters in congress at the next election. We need to send a message to the Republican party that we are not willing to put up with liars and thieves running for office. If this means that we end up giving control of congress back to the Dems for a while until the Republican party gets the message, so be it. They can’t do a worse job than this bunch is doing.
Most of all, those of us who are truly conservative should demand that one party or the other begin running candidates that will actually run this country in a conservative manner – balancing the budget, being honest with us, maintaining a better future for our children than we have had, and keeping us out of the business of trying to run the rest of the world!
As follow-up to my last post about lying presidents, I wanted to elaborate on where we need to go.
Here we sit, in 2005. We should all agree that presidents have lied throughout history. Some have lied for good things, some have lied for not-so-good things. When Bush senior lied about taxes, he did the right thing by going back on his pledge, and being fiscally conservative. When Reagan lied about things like Iran-Contra, he was probably both wrong and criminal, and we should be ashamed of him. When Clinton lied about when his zipper was up and when it was down, we should frankly be ashamed of a media that covered such a personal (if shameful) act, and do our best to judge the man on what he did for the country rather than what he did to shame his marriage. And when Bush junior continues to lie about things of such great importance as why our children are dying in Iraq, and what our real objectives in being there are, we should be shocked and ashamed. He continues to lie by failing to pay for the war – hiding the financial cost by keeping if off of the budget and refusing to ask us to pay for it, and continues to lie by failing to ask us to make the sacrifices that are a NECESSARY part of waging war, (things like a draft in order to maintain a sufficient army).
These lies he commits in order to avoid a dip in his support by the American public, and in order to maintain public support for the war. This is some of the worst sort of lying! He knows that if the American people were asked to sacrifice and pay for the war – the same way that every president in our history has done UNTIL Bush – that people would quickly begin to question why it was that we went there, and what is it that we hope to accomplish by staying. And when we ask these questions, he knows that we aren’t going to like the answers.
So he continues to lie by hiding the cost of the war, and misusing Guard and Reserve troops in order to hide the need for an army to fight a war – an army that would come from the ranks of your children and mine.
I’m no lawyer – I don’t know if these terrible lies are “criminal” or not – whether they measure up to “high crimes and misdemeanors” as defined in the constitution. If we compare his lies and omissions to the bar that we put in place by impeaching the last president because he lied about who he slept with, then impeachment for this guy would not go nearly far enough.
What I do know as an American Citizen with strong moral convictions is that what he has done and is doing is immoral, unethical, and shameful.
Without a doubt, we should fire him and anyone who has supported him. We should not fire him because he lied – they all lie. We should fire him because he is running our country into the ground!
But what would impeachment do? Do we want Cheney in the chair? I would expect him to be worse by a long shot.
No, the thing to do is to shake this mess up next year. We need to cut this bunch of liars off at the knees by removing their supporters in congress at the next election. We need to send a message to the Republican party that we are not willing to put up with liars and thieves running for office. If this means that we end up giving control of congress back to the Dems for a while until the Republican party gets the message, so be it. They can’t do a worse job than this bunch is doing.
Most of all, those of us who are truly conservative should demand that one party or the other begin running candidates that will actually run this country in a conservative manner – balancing the budget, being honest with us, maintaining a better future for our children than we have had, and keeping us out of the business of trying to run the rest of the world!
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Who Lied, When, About What?
Who Lied?
I have been considering lately this whole “He Lied!” thing that has going on with Bush. Those on the left have been crying about the lies of George W Bush for a couple of years now, (there is even a fairly decent book about the subject out there), and those on the right have been trying to dismiss these claims as rubbish fabricated by disgruntled former staffers or just political posturing.
Until recently, I thought I had a good grasp of this game. In my mind, the whole “He Lied” game seemed to me to be payback from the left toward the right for the big deal that they made about Bill Clinton lying. I could identify with this very easily.
You see, while I am a Republican according to my voter registration, I could never see what it was that Real Conservatives didn’t like about Bill Clinton. Sure, you expect the Republican Party to not like him, because he is a Democrat, but as for real people like you and me, who happen to be conservative politically, Bill Clinton did a pretty decent job. He managed the finances of the country in a fiscally conservative fashion – coming close to balancing the budget which 12 years of previous Republican administration had failed to even come close to. While he did get us involved in some forms of “nation building” and “nation rescuing” activities, he also managed to work closely with the international community to assure that we weren’t committed alone in countries for the long-term. Sure there were some things that I disagreed with, but overall, he really administered the country in a pretty conservative fashion. He had a problem with his zipper, and while I did not approve of this, I found the media coverage of this problem more disgusting than the problem itself. His private intimate life is between him, his wife, and his personal ethical and spiritual framework – it is not the business of the public. Those on the right were able to convince the media and many in America that it was our business, and they cried disgust at the fact that he would cheat on his wife and then lie about it. I mean, really, most people who cheat on their spouse will then lie about it – what do you expect? And why do I care?
At the time, I had many arguments with those who called themselves conservative, but who don’t seem to understand the difference between conservative values and principles on the one hand, and partisan republicanism on the other hand. They bought into this media-hype hook, line, and sinker. Each time I would have the arguments with people, they would come back to the single fact that he lied about his personal sex life as the thing that made them disgusted. It didn’t seem to bother them that we had spent $50 million investigating the man, and this is all we could come up with – the waste of our tax dollars didn’t bother them. They were convinced by the media that what they really wanted was a “righteous” man in the office. I pointed out to them that the last time we had a relatively “righteous” man in the office was prior to Reagan – when Jimmy Carter held the office. They didn’t want to talk about that. The lies and crimes of the Reagan administration didn’t seem to bother them – ancient history. (Remember Iran-Contra, the convictions, the pardons? Remember the S&L debacle and the quiet “sweeping under the rug”? Remember the October Surprise evidence?) It boiled down to the fact that Clinton had lied – it didn’t matter to them whether the lie was relevant or important – he lied! They wanted to raise the bar they thought – get someone in the office who would always tell the truth!
Well, OK, I thought. That’s a pretty tall order. They all lie – they are politicians – it’s what politicians do – they lie.
So, Bush was elected, and while I didn’t vote for him because I was concerned about his ties to organizations such as Project for the New American Century, his ties to Big Oil and Big Business, and the general impression that I had that he was somewhat of a buffoon, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt – maybe he would do a good job. I think that many people felt as I did – give the guy a chance.
So here we sit, 5 years later, and those on the left say he lied. Of course he lied – it is what these people do! The question is, what did he lie about? Was it important stuff? If you don’t see the lies that the man has told, then you are either completely ignorant of the facts as a result of ignoring the evidence available but generally ignored by the media, or you are deluded by the powerful right-wing media, led by Fox “news”. Of course he lied – about many things. The one that is most important is the series of lies that he has woven to take us to war and keep us in war, and the collateral lies that he has used to try and maintain support for the war. Here is a quick “off-the-cuff” list of the big ones, as seen through the eyes of a true conservative:
He convinced us that we needed to take the drastic action of going to war against a sovereign nation without the support of most of the developed world because there was an immanent threat of Iraq attacking us with WMD – specifically nukes. He lied by “fixing” and bending the intelligence on Iraq so that it would say what he wanted it to say. He lied by saying later that the intelligence was bad, when in fact the evidence today suggests that the intelligence was the same as it had been in the past, but he ignored it or fixed it to meet his wishes and expectations.
He lied when he told us that he listened to his top military brass to plan and execute the war, when in fact he fired or moved aside the brass who told him that he needed more troops than he had. They were right, and he was wrong. He continues to lie when he says that he listened to them.
He lied when he said that war was his last resort. There is a mountain of strong evidence that he and his staff began planning for a war within days of 9/11, if not before, and that he did everything that he could to assure that war would be the ultimate outcome.
He lied when he called those who were making these accusations liars – starting with Joe Wilson, and moving through respected folks like Richard Clark. Worse among the actions around these lies were the disgusting attacks that he made on the wives of some of these people.
He lied on the deck of the aircraft carrier when he declared “Mission Accomplished”, when he was being advised that the struggle was only beginning.
He lied when he said that if anyone in his administration was involved with leaking the name of a CIA operative would be fired, and now that it is clear that people very high up in his administration did reveal the name of a covert CIA operative, he is lowering the bar to try and protect them. This is treason of the worst sort – people who do this should be treated as traitors, not rewarded with continued employment!
We could make long lists, but these are simply some of the major ones about issues that do matter. These are all factual, objective, history – they are not a matter of “perspective” as one of my closest Republican friends has tried to assert.
So why do those on the right continue to try and deny that Bush lies? Simply because they made such a big deal about “telling the truth” back in 2000, and they want to like “their guy” Bush, so they have no choice but to deny.
This was the picture of the world that I saw, and that I believed. It is, I believe, true. But it leaves something important out. That is, the “he lied” game goes back to 1992, when the Dems assailed Bush senior for the fact that “he lied” when he said “read my lips – no new taxes”. Of course, the R’s were wounded by the fact that this had been such an effective tactic against them, and one could see the Lewinski game as continuation of something that the Dems started.
And of course, they are correct. So what?
More later…
I have been considering lately this whole “He Lied!” thing that has going on with Bush. Those on the left have been crying about the lies of George W Bush for a couple of years now, (there is even a fairly decent book about the subject out there), and those on the right have been trying to dismiss these claims as rubbish fabricated by disgruntled former staffers or just political posturing.
Until recently, I thought I had a good grasp of this game. In my mind, the whole “He Lied” game seemed to me to be payback from the left toward the right for the big deal that they made about Bill Clinton lying. I could identify with this very easily.
You see, while I am a Republican according to my voter registration, I could never see what it was that Real Conservatives didn’t like about Bill Clinton. Sure, you expect the Republican Party to not like him, because he is a Democrat, but as for real people like you and me, who happen to be conservative politically, Bill Clinton did a pretty decent job. He managed the finances of the country in a fiscally conservative fashion – coming close to balancing the budget which 12 years of previous Republican administration had failed to even come close to. While he did get us involved in some forms of “nation building” and “nation rescuing” activities, he also managed to work closely with the international community to assure that we weren’t committed alone in countries for the long-term. Sure there were some things that I disagreed with, but overall, he really administered the country in a pretty conservative fashion. He had a problem with his zipper, and while I did not approve of this, I found the media coverage of this problem more disgusting than the problem itself. His private intimate life is between him, his wife, and his personal ethical and spiritual framework – it is not the business of the public. Those on the right were able to convince the media and many in America that it was our business, and they cried disgust at the fact that he would cheat on his wife and then lie about it. I mean, really, most people who cheat on their spouse will then lie about it – what do you expect? And why do I care?
At the time, I had many arguments with those who called themselves conservative, but who don’t seem to understand the difference between conservative values and principles on the one hand, and partisan republicanism on the other hand. They bought into this media-hype hook, line, and sinker. Each time I would have the arguments with people, they would come back to the single fact that he lied about his personal sex life as the thing that made them disgusted. It didn’t seem to bother them that we had spent $50 million investigating the man, and this is all we could come up with – the waste of our tax dollars didn’t bother them. They were convinced by the media that what they really wanted was a “righteous” man in the office. I pointed out to them that the last time we had a relatively “righteous” man in the office was prior to Reagan – when Jimmy Carter held the office. They didn’t want to talk about that. The lies and crimes of the Reagan administration didn’t seem to bother them – ancient history. (Remember Iran-Contra, the convictions, the pardons? Remember the S&L debacle and the quiet “sweeping under the rug”? Remember the October Surprise evidence?) It boiled down to the fact that Clinton had lied – it didn’t matter to them whether the lie was relevant or important – he lied! They wanted to raise the bar they thought – get someone in the office who would always tell the truth!
Well, OK, I thought. That’s a pretty tall order. They all lie – they are politicians – it’s what politicians do – they lie.
So, Bush was elected, and while I didn’t vote for him because I was concerned about his ties to organizations such as Project for the New American Century, his ties to Big Oil and Big Business, and the general impression that I had that he was somewhat of a buffoon, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt – maybe he would do a good job. I think that many people felt as I did – give the guy a chance.
So here we sit, 5 years later, and those on the left say he lied. Of course he lied – it is what these people do! The question is, what did he lie about? Was it important stuff? If you don’t see the lies that the man has told, then you are either completely ignorant of the facts as a result of ignoring the evidence available but generally ignored by the media, or you are deluded by the powerful right-wing media, led by Fox “news”. Of course he lied – about many things. The one that is most important is the series of lies that he has woven to take us to war and keep us in war, and the collateral lies that he has used to try and maintain support for the war. Here is a quick “off-the-cuff” list of the big ones, as seen through the eyes of a true conservative:
He convinced us that we needed to take the drastic action of going to war against a sovereign nation without the support of most of the developed world because there was an immanent threat of Iraq attacking us with WMD – specifically nukes. He lied by “fixing” and bending the intelligence on Iraq so that it would say what he wanted it to say. He lied by saying later that the intelligence was bad, when in fact the evidence today suggests that the intelligence was the same as it had been in the past, but he ignored it or fixed it to meet his wishes and expectations.
He lied when he told us that he listened to his top military brass to plan and execute the war, when in fact he fired or moved aside the brass who told him that he needed more troops than he had. They were right, and he was wrong. He continues to lie when he says that he listened to them.
He lied when he said that war was his last resort. There is a mountain of strong evidence that he and his staff began planning for a war within days of 9/11, if not before, and that he did everything that he could to assure that war would be the ultimate outcome.
He lied when he called those who were making these accusations liars – starting with Joe Wilson, and moving through respected folks like Richard Clark. Worse among the actions around these lies were the disgusting attacks that he made on the wives of some of these people.
He lied on the deck of the aircraft carrier when he declared “Mission Accomplished”, when he was being advised that the struggle was only beginning.
He lied when he said that if anyone in his administration was involved with leaking the name of a CIA operative would be fired, and now that it is clear that people very high up in his administration did reveal the name of a covert CIA operative, he is lowering the bar to try and protect them. This is treason of the worst sort – people who do this should be treated as traitors, not rewarded with continued employment!
We could make long lists, but these are simply some of the major ones about issues that do matter. These are all factual, objective, history – they are not a matter of “perspective” as one of my closest Republican friends has tried to assert.
So why do those on the right continue to try and deny that Bush lies? Simply because they made such a big deal about “telling the truth” back in 2000, and they want to like “their guy” Bush, so they have no choice but to deny.
This was the picture of the world that I saw, and that I believed. It is, I believe, true. But it leaves something important out. That is, the “he lied” game goes back to 1992, when the Dems assailed Bush senior for the fact that “he lied” when he said “read my lips – no new taxes”. Of course, the R’s were wounded by the fact that this had been such an effective tactic against them, and one could see the Lewinski game as continuation of something that the Dems started.
And of course, they are correct. So what?
More later…
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
TABOR
A friend recently asked for comments on the Colorado "Taxpayer Bill Of Rights", or TABOR amendment. This was passed by voters a few years back, and has been seen by many as a major contributor to a fiscal crisis in Colorado today.
In general, what TABOR does is limit revenue as much as anything else as I understand it, preventing the state from collecting and keeping taxes in flush years, then requiring the state to live within means during lean years. In business, if you have an off year, you hope to make up for it next year with profits to offset the losses, and conversely you invest during flush times in ways that allow you to ride out the lean years that you might run into. You don't sent refunds to your customers during the up years - telling them, "no thanks, we really don't need the money this year." We all do that in our personal budgets too. As I understand it, TABOR really prevents the state from doing this.
The bigger issue to me is how our collective (government) finances are managed. It seems that prior to Reagan, (at least during my adult lifetime), voters elected officials with the expectation that they would manage the affairs and finances of the government responsibly, assuring future solvency for future generations as the foundation, and then we can all argue and bicker over the ways that we spend the money that we put into the pot. Then, starting with Reagan, the focus seemed to shift away from solvency for the future, and we seemed to convince ourselves that if we just shut off the revenue stream, (spelled taxes), that the spending side of the equation would take care of itself. In fact, I remember arguments from Reagan supporting talking heads at the time that said that nearly verbatim.
To me, this seemed nonsense at the time, and I am sorry to say that every evidence points to my being right for a change on this one. The analogy to me is that my wife (or husband, as the case might be), has a spending problem, and keeps running up credit card bills and spending over our means. So, to solve the problem, I go to my boss at work and ask him to cut my salary, so that my wife will quit spending so much… It is not only doomed to failure, it is doomed to throw us into bankruptcy, and I believe that this is exactly what these economic policies of the past 25 years have done to this country – brought us to the brink of bankruptcy.
And by the way, did cutting the revenue stream have any impact on spending? None whatsoever. Reagan, along with both Democratic and Republican congresses, went on a spending binge that is second only to the one that the current Republican administration and Congress are on.
Of course, the American people are complacent in this crime, as we have continued to vote into office people who will promise to cut our taxes – kind of like the employer who continues to hire the folks who promise to ask for less pay. In the end, we are getting what we pay for – irresponsibility. Look at the first Bush, whose broken “read my lips” promise certainly helped him lose the election. While I was no fan of Bush senior, he clearly saw a fiscal crisis, and choose to act with responsibility and courage to enact revenue to solve the fiscal crisis. I applauded him for his courage, but the Dems crucified him over his broken pledge. Why did he feel compelled to utter those fateful “read my lips” words? He was coached that this is what would get him elected – and his coaches were right. Shame on us…
The real issue is spending, not revenue. Any path that addresses only the revenue stream in a negative way is doomed to failure. So long as we are a nation, we should be having constant battles over our spending priorities and where the money goes – this is part of Democracy In Action. The politicians have found a cowards way out by selling us on the notion that revenue fixes, (like TABOR), are what we should be thinking about. What we SHOULD REALLY be thinking about is how the politicians are spending our money. This should be the primary issue in every single election.
But when was the last time that you saw any spending issue debated among candidates? They want to tell you about how much they are cutting your taxes, though the truth is that they are simply deferring your current taxes – with interest – to your children. Who among us even knows how our government budgets are broken down? When we pay a dollar of tax to the federal government, how is it divided up, and does this division reflect what we believe our values to be as a nation? And how about our state government budget?
I would love to see the debate on these issues shift there – maybe I’ll do a little research and put another post up here with some of that information on a historical basis…
In general, what TABOR does is limit revenue as much as anything else as I understand it, preventing the state from collecting and keeping taxes in flush years, then requiring the state to live within means during lean years. In business, if you have an off year, you hope to make up for it next year with profits to offset the losses, and conversely you invest during flush times in ways that allow you to ride out the lean years that you might run into. You don't sent refunds to your customers during the up years - telling them, "no thanks, we really don't need the money this year." We all do that in our personal budgets too. As I understand it, TABOR really prevents the state from doing this.
The bigger issue to me is how our collective (government) finances are managed. It seems that prior to Reagan, (at least during my adult lifetime), voters elected officials with the expectation that they would manage the affairs and finances of the government responsibly, assuring future solvency for future generations as the foundation, and then we can all argue and bicker over the ways that we spend the money that we put into the pot. Then, starting with Reagan, the focus seemed to shift away from solvency for the future, and we seemed to convince ourselves that if we just shut off the revenue stream, (spelled taxes), that the spending side of the equation would take care of itself. In fact, I remember arguments from Reagan supporting talking heads at the time that said that nearly verbatim.
To me, this seemed nonsense at the time, and I am sorry to say that every evidence points to my being right for a change on this one. The analogy to me is that my wife (or husband, as the case might be), has a spending problem, and keeps running up credit card bills and spending over our means. So, to solve the problem, I go to my boss at work and ask him to cut my salary, so that my wife will quit spending so much… It is not only doomed to failure, it is doomed to throw us into bankruptcy, and I believe that this is exactly what these economic policies of the past 25 years have done to this country – brought us to the brink of bankruptcy.
And by the way, did cutting the revenue stream have any impact on spending? None whatsoever. Reagan, along with both Democratic and Republican congresses, went on a spending binge that is second only to the one that the current Republican administration and Congress are on.
Of course, the American people are complacent in this crime, as we have continued to vote into office people who will promise to cut our taxes – kind of like the employer who continues to hire the folks who promise to ask for less pay. In the end, we are getting what we pay for – irresponsibility. Look at the first Bush, whose broken “read my lips” promise certainly helped him lose the election. While I was no fan of Bush senior, he clearly saw a fiscal crisis, and choose to act with responsibility and courage to enact revenue to solve the fiscal crisis. I applauded him for his courage, but the Dems crucified him over his broken pledge. Why did he feel compelled to utter those fateful “read my lips” words? He was coached that this is what would get him elected – and his coaches were right. Shame on us…
The real issue is spending, not revenue. Any path that addresses only the revenue stream in a negative way is doomed to failure. So long as we are a nation, we should be having constant battles over our spending priorities and where the money goes – this is part of Democracy In Action. The politicians have found a cowards way out by selling us on the notion that revenue fixes, (like TABOR), are what we should be thinking about. What we SHOULD REALLY be thinking about is how the politicians are spending our money. This should be the primary issue in every single election.
But when was the last time that you saw any spending issue debated among candidates? They want to tell you about how much they are cutting your taxes, though the truth is that they are simply deferring your current taxes – with interest – to your children. Who among us even knows how our government budgets are broken down? When we pay a dollar of tax to the federal government, how is it divided up, and does this division reflect what we believe our values to be as a nation? And how about our state government budget?
I would love to see the debate on these issues shift there – maybe I’ll do a little research and put another post up here with some of that information on a historical basis…
Monday, July 11, 2005
Free Trade? Free Aid?
RE: an email that I received from a friend that references a Charles Krauthammer editorial from 6/24.
While I generally find Mr. Krauthammer to fall into the category of a political hack, and this article doesn't dissapoint me in that respect, I think that the issue that he puts on the table with his clearly one-sided view is one that I would like to understand better.
First, as to the Dems being bankrupt of ideas, I don't know that they can claim that title with any more validity than can the R's. Both parties seem pretty beholding to the interests and masters that they serve, and the ideas that both push seem pretty clearly to come from those masters.
As for the obstructionist cry, this is nothing new - whenever one party controls everything - as the Dems have occasionally in the past as well - one of the few tools that the minority party has is to pull any trick they can out of their hat in order to try and slow the tide of idealistic landslide that is going against them. Again, neither party seems worse than the other at this historically.
The real good issue to me here is CAFTA, and free trade in general. Ignoring CK's partisan ranting, there seem to be those on both sides of the aisle who support it, as well as those on both sides who reject it. Generally though, it does seem that while NAFTA under Clinton had pretty broad support from both sides, CAFTA under Bush appears to get the majority of its support from the R side of the aisle.
I have been trying to understand more about free trade and foreign aid in recent months, and am not sure that I am any less confused now... While on the one hand, most people generally support the notion of free trade, the truth is that we have in our country a standard of living that is higher than the standard of living in the rest of the world. If we clear the boards completely, and implement trade that is truly free across all borders, then it is only a matter of time until we have a universal standard of living in the world - that is that all workers will receive essentially the same wage for the work that they do. I know that this is an oversimplification, but generally, it seems to me that this is what free trade means - that we buy from the cheapest (most efficient) producer regardless of where they live, meaning that at the end of the day, all workers in the world compete with one another to produce a product most efficiently.
I suppose that this is a very "Christian" notion - the idea of equality for all - but are we really willing to pursue this as a nation? This means that we are going to give up a lot, and I really haven't seen any evidence that Americans today are willing to sacrifice much, and certainly no evidence that American leaders have the courage to ask for sacrifice.
So on the one hand we have the very egalitarian notion of equality that true free trade seems to represent, but what about the other hand? How could anyone oppose this? What I think I understand is that opposition to many things labeled as "free trade" proposals are opposed on the basis that what they are really doing is moving production jobs from our country and economy into the economy of other nations, and that in those nations the goods are produced in ways that are often (though not always I would suppose) less than humane by our standards in this country.
Regarding the first objection, (moving jobs away from out country), I think that this is something that is clearly happening in our country, and I think that there is good and bad in this. The good is that we are, in fact, providing jobs to people in other countries who need these jobs, (for those who are interested in the human and "fair" side of the issue - usually known as liberals), and we are finding a way to deliver these goods to consumers in this country who are interested in the financial side of the equation - producing more for less - generally known as capitalists). This is good. The other good side is that when you provide jobs to people overseas, you are creating more consumers. (While this seems to be logical, the question is whether or not these new consumers will purchase anything that is produced in this country - will it benefit anyone but shareholders of the corporation who exported the jobs and the goods?) The down side of the equation is that there are, in fact, those in the country who are losing jobs as a result. In the end, I tend to feel personally that this balance between the two sides of the equation is a difficult one to resolve into a clear "right or wrong" answer. I believe that the world as a whole is better off with more open trade, but I have to realize as well that it is not a panacaea.
Regarding the second objection - that human rights are often abused - I think that I feel more committed to one side of the argument than the other. At its base, capitalism is a predatory economic system. It is based on "survival of the fittest". Unfettered, it leads to a distribution of wealth equation that moves more and more of the wealth within an economy into the hands of fewer and fewer people. One of the beauties of this great country is that along with a capitalistic economic system, we have a Bill of Rights that recognizes the role of government in protecting Human Rights from the inevitable abuses of government itself as well as from the inevitable abuses of entities such as corporations (though certainly not JUST corporations). The job of the corporation is to move as much wealth as it can into the hands of the shareholders - pretty simple really. If unfettered, it is unlikely that many corporations will be influenced to act in the interest in society or human rights - except when those interests coincide with their interest of moving wealth into the hands of shareholders. In our country, the government, (especially under the progressive influence of leaders within the 20th century), has used its power to fetter the ability of the corporation to act in its own interest when the interest of individuals or society is harmed as a result. Some say that this power has been used too much. This may be, though I suspect that most Americans would side with the individual before they would side with the corporation. Some also say that the laws (or fetters) that have been enacted have been abused by some, for example via unreasonable lawsuits. This seems clearly to be the case. These cases are widely discussed, and become part of folklore, (remember the McDonald's coffee that went for $12 million?), and they often seem quite unfair. The "other hand" to this argument is that these silly judgements cause corporations to be extremely vigilant with regard to protecting workers and customers. Again the balance - where would most Americans want the scale to lean?
The bottom line is that workers in this country are pretty darn well protected. In addition to making generally good wages (by world standards), workers here do not have to worry about inhumane working conditions, (unless they don't speak English and/or are illegal aliens, in which case they are certainly less well-protected in most cases). When we export capitalism in a generally unfettered fashion, as with free trade proposals that do not guarantee human rights and dignity, then we will certainly get human rights abuses - just as we would (and did) in this country without the progressive legislation of the 20th century. Is this something that we want to support? I think that most Americans are not quite that selfish. I trust that most Americans would rather spend more rather than support human rights abuses. Though we are certainly not saints. If we have leadership that does not recognize both sides of the equation here, and is not willing to assure "fairness" in free-trade agreements that guarantee that corporations must use standards of human rights and dignity in the overseas production of goods, and "hides" this side of the equation from us, I think that we are often too lazy to look for ourselves to see the true "costs" of decisions that we make.
Regarding NAFTA, I hear both sides of that equation. I hear that it was a bad agreement, and has resulted in the loss of many American jobs. People who make this argument seem to back it up with pretty good statistics. I hear that it was a good argument, and has resulted in better prices for American consumers, and additional markets overseas. These people seem to back back up their argument with strong statistics as well. Could both be true? Maybe we did lose jobs here, create more jobs and consumers overseas, and generate a good result for shareholders of those corporations?
It is unclear to me. I would love to hear the opinions of others who have given this thought.
An interesting thing that I learned recently involves the notion of free trade as it is tied up in the notion of foreign aid and foreign policy. We have been taught to give with an open hand and a sheltered eye. Not a blind eye, being a bad steward, but an eye that ignores whether or not the recipent will give back to us in some way. But in the real world, that is not how foreign aid works. Most of the foreign aid that we "give" is tied very tightly with our policy objectives - giving to people who do what we want them to do. The cold-hearted side of me says this is OK in many respects, and the warm-hearted side of me tends to pretend I don't understand. However, there is a more insidous side of the equation at work that I have just come to understand recently. That is the idea of "tied aid". Specifically, most of the aid that the US provides to other countries has the stipulation that the money must be spent to buy products from US companies. On the surface, this seems reasonable - it would be nice if we received some benefit back from the dollars, thought this is hardly a "sheltered eye". The last time the government released statistics regarding how widespread this practice is was in 1996 under Clinton, when about 72% of the dollars that we gave in aid was tied to the requirement to spend the money with American companies. Bush won't release these numbers, but most estimates have the number much higher today than it was 10 years ago.
So what's wrong with this practice? Three things as I see it.
First, the value of the aid is greatly reduced, as the products and services could usually be purchased from local companies or companies in other countries for less than it could from American companies. Remember the notion of free trade? If we are really for free trade, why would we tether our aid to the requirement to purchase from the highest priced provider (in most cases)? So I question just how much "free trade" really has to do with the free trade arguments.
Second, fewer people benefit from the aid. If a sub-saharan African country requires drinking water, and a Kenyan company can provide the water for $1 a barrel, but our aid to that country is tied to the requirement that they spend it with an American company, and the American company charges $10 a barrel, then 9 out of 10 people are left thirsty.
Third, in the example above, the American company has no incentive to be efficient - they know that the money must be spent with them. This makes this form of foreign aid nothing less than corporate welfare. While I might support "welfare" and "aid" to those truly in need, I have a problem with my government calling something "humanitarian aid" on the one hand, while violating free trade principles, human rights by aiding fewer people, and essentially handing corporations donations cloaked in this half-truth.
These things are all tied together as I see it. Both R's and Dems have been struggling with these issues for quite some time. Both free trade and aid to the needy are issues that I think people of all stripes support, and they are tied together in ways that defy simplistic descriptions.
So, I can't figure out whether CAFTA is something that I support or not...
I do know that I am angry about the way that we tie our humanitarian support to American companies.
While I generally find Mr. Krauthammer to fall into the category of a political hack, and this article doesn't dissapoint me in that respect, I think that the issue that he puts on the table with his clearly one-sided view is one that I would like to understand better.
First, as to the Dems being bankrupt of ideas, I don't know that they can claim that title with any more validity than can the R's. Both parties seem pretty beholding to the interests and masters that they serve, and the ideas that both push seem pretty clearly to come from those masters.
As for the obstructionist cry, this is nothing new - whenever one party controls everything - as the Dems have occasionally in the past as well - one of the few tools that the minority party has is to pull any trick they can out of their hat in order to try and slow the tide of idealistic landslide that is going against them. Again, neither party seems worse than the other at this historically.
The real good issue to me here is CAFTA, and free trade in general. Ignoring CK's partisan ranting, there seem to be those on both sides of the aisle who support it, as well as those on both sides who reject it. Generally though, it does seem that while NAFTA under Clinton had pretty broad support from both sides, CAFTA under Bush appears to get the majority of its support from the R side of the aisle.
I have been trying to understand more about free trade and foreign aid in recent months, and am not sure that I am any less confused now... While on the one hand, most people generally support the notion of free trade, the truth is that we have in our country a standard of living that is higher than the standard of living in the rest of the world. If we clear the boards completely, and implement trade that is truly free across all borders, then it is only a matter of time until we have a universal standard of living in the world - that is that all workers will receive essentially the same wage for the work that they do. I know that this is an oversimplification, but generally, it seems to me that this is what free trade means - that we buy from the cheapest (most efficient) producer regardless of where they live, meaning that at the end of the day, all workers in the world compete with one another to produce a product most efficiently.
I suppose that this is a very "Christian" notion - the idea of equality for all - but are we really willing to pursue this as a nation? This means that we are going to give up a lot, and I really haven't seen any evidence that Americans today are willing to sacrifice much, and certainly no evidence that American leaders have the courage to ask for sacrifice.
So on the one hand we have the very egalitarian notion of equality that true free trade seems to represent, but what about the other hand? How could anyone oppose this? What I think I understand is that opposition to many things labeled as "free trade" proposals are opposed on the basis that what they are really doing is moving production jobs from our country and economy into the economy of other nations, and that in those nations the goods are produced in ways that are often (though not always I would suppose) less than humane by our standards in this country.
Regarding the first objection, (moving jobs away from out country), I think that this is something that is clearly happening in our country, and I think that there is good and bad in this. The good is that we are, in fact, providing jobs to people in other countries who need these jobs, (for those who are interested in the human and "fair" side of the issue - usually known as liberals), and we are finding a way to deliver these goods to consumers in this country who are interested in the financial side of the equation - producing more for less - generally known as capitalists). This is good. The other good side is that when you provide jobs to people overseas, you are creating more consumers. (While this seems to be logical, the question is whether or not these new consumers will purchase anything that is produced in this country - will it benefit anyone but shareholders of the corporation who exported the jobs and the goods?) The down side of the equation is that there are, in fact, those in the country who are losing jobs as a result. In the end, I tend to feel personally that this balance between the two sides of the equation is a difficult one to resolve into a clear "right or wrong" answer. I believe that the world as a whole is better off with more open trade, but I have to realize as well that it is not a panacaea.
Regarding the second objection - that human rights are often abused - I think that I feel more committed to one side of the argument than the other. At its base, capitalism is a predatory economic system. It is based on "survival of the fittest". Unfettered, it leads to a distribution of wealth equation that moves more and more of the wealth within an economy into the hands of fewer and fewer people. One of the beauties of this great country is that along with a capitalistic economic system, we have a Bill of Rights that recognizes the role of government in protecting Human Rights from the inevitable abuses of government itself as well as from the inevitable abuses of entities such as corporations (though certainly not JUST corporations). The job of the corporation is to move as much wealth as it can into the hands of the shareholders - pretty simple really. If unfettered, it is unlikely that many corporations will be influenced to act in the interest in society or human rights - except when those interests coincide with their interest of moving wealth into the hands of shareholders. In our country, the government, (especially under the progressive influence of leaders within the 20th century), has used its power to fetter the ability of the corporation to act in its own interest when the interest of individuals or society is harmed as a result. Some say that this power has been used too much. This may be, though I suspect that most Americans would side with the individual before they would side with the corporation. Some also say that the laws (or fetters) that have been enacted have been abused by some, for example via unreasonable lawsuits. This seems clearly to be the case. These cases are widely discussed, and become part of folklore, (remember the McDonald's coffee that went for $12 million?), and they often seem quite unfair. The "other hand" to this argument is that these silly judgements cause corporations to be extremely vigilant with regard to protecting workers and customers. Again the balance - where would most Americans want the scale to lean?
The bottom line is that workers in this country are pretty darn well protected. In addition to making generally good wages (by world standards), workers here do not have to worry about inhumane working conditions, (unless they don't speak English and/or are illegal aliens, in which case they are certainly less well-protected in most cases). When we export capitalism in a generally unfettered fashion, as with free trade proposals that do not guarantee human rights and dignity, then we will certainly get human rights abuses - just as we would (and did) in this country without the progressive legislation of the 20th century. Is this something that we want to support? I think that most Americans are not quite that selfish. I trust that most Americans would rather spend more rather than support human rights abuses. Though we are certainly not saints. If we have leadership that does not recognize both sides of the equation here, and is not willing to assure "fairness" in free-trade agreements that guarantee that corporations must use standards of human rights and dignity in the overseas production of goods, and "hides" this side of the equation from us, I think that we are often too lazy to look for ourselves to see the true "costs" of decisions that we make.
Regarding NAFTA, I hear both sides of that equation. I hear that it was a bad agreement, and has resulted in the loss of many American jobs. People who make this argument seem to back it up with pretty good statistics. I hear that it was a good argument, and has resulted in better prices for American consumers, and additional markets overseas. These people seem to back back up their argument with strong statistics as well. Could both be true? Maybe we did lose jobs here, create more jobs and consumers overseas, and generate a good result for shareholders of those corporations?
It is unclear to me. I would love to hear the opinions of others who have given this thought.
An interesting thing that I learned recently involves the notion of free trade as it is tied up in the notion of foreign aid and foreign policy. We have been taught to give with an open hand and a sheltered eye. Not a blind eye, being a bad steward, but an eye that ignores whether or not the recipent will give back to us in some way. But in the real world, that is not how foreign aid works. Most of the foreign aid that we "give" is tied very tightly with our policy objectives - giving to people who do what we want them to do. The cold-hearted side of me says this is OK in many respects, and the warm-hearted side of me tends to pretend I don't understand. However, there is a more insidous side of the equation at work that I have just come to understand recently. That is the idea of "tied aid". Specifically, most of the aid that the US provides to other countries has the stipulation that the money must be spent to buy products from US companies. On the surface, this seems reasonable - it would be nice if we received some benefit back from the dollars, thought this is hardly a "sheltered eye". The last time the government released statistics regarding how widespread this practice is was in 1996 under Clinton, when about 72% of the dollars that we gave in aid was tied to the requirement to spend the money with American companies. Bush won't release these numbers, but most estimates have the number much higher today than it was 10 years ago.
So what's wrong with this practice? Three things as I see it.
First, the value of the aid is greatly reduced, as the products and services could usually be purchased from local companies or companies in other countries for less than it could from American companies. Remember the notion of free trade? If we are really for free trade, why would we tether our aid to the requirement to purchase from the highest priced provider (in most cases)? So I question just how much "free trade" really has to do with the free trade arguments.
Second, fewer people benefit from the aid. If a sub-saharan African country requires drinking water, and a Kenyan company can provide the water for $1 a barrel, but our aid to that country is tied to the requirement that they spend it with an American company, and the American company charges $10 a barrel, then 9 out of 10 people are left thirsty.
Third, in the example above, the American company has no incentive to be efficient - they know that the money must be spent with them. This makes this form of foreign aid nothing less than corporate welfare. While I might support "welfare" and "aid" to those truly in need, I have a problem with my government calling something "humanitarian aid" on the one hand, while violating free trade principles, human rights by aiding fewer people, and essentially handing corporations donations cloaked in this half-truth.
These things are all tied together as I see it. Both R's and Dems have been struggling with these issues for quite some time. Both free trade and aid to the needy are issues that I think people of all stripes support, and they are tied together in ways that defy simplistic descriptions.
So, I can't figure out whether CAFTA is something that I support or not...
I do know that I am angry about the way that we tie our humanitarian support to American companies.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Government Debt - The Real Issue
I am a "true" fiscal conservative. This is very easy to define - I believe that we should not spend money that we don't have, (or incur debt), and that when we do, we should do so carefully and deliberately, with a plan to eliminate this debt at the earliest possible opportunity. I believe in this conservative philosophy not only for my own life, but also for the life of our great Republic. The issue, it seems to me, is not how much we spend in our lives or in our country, for actual dollars spent are relative to income, (at least one would hope). No, the fiscal issue can be viewed as twofold:
- Am I responsible enough to assure that my spending is within my income stream, and if it is not, am I accountable enough to either reduce my spending or find a way of increasing my income?
- Have I looked at the proportion of my total spending that goes to different spending categories, and do I believe that these proportions are reasonable?
This form of true conservatism is not in style today. It is not in style in the personal lives of most Americans, and it is certainly not in style with the politicians that we have been electing over the past couple of decades.
Consumer debt continues to skyrocket, personal bankrupcies continue a long-term trend upwards, and foreclosures continue to increase. While there has certainly been a long-term trend of increasing personal earnings, (otherwise known as inflation), there has been a disproportional increase in personal debt in relation to these earnings. Bottom line - the average American continues to spend more money than we take in. Of course, these are personal decisions that every American must make, and every American must be willing to live with the consequences of these decisions.
And what sort of example does our government provide for us? Is the government willing to live with the consequences of the decisions that it has been making over the past 25 - 35 years? Throw partisanship away for a moment my friend, and think about what has been happening. Democrats in control of Congress continued to institute expensive Progressive government programs through the 70's. While citizens like you and I seemed to like the nature of these programs because they reflected our generous nature and desire to help those who needed help, the programs became increasingly expensive. Republicans started off by decrying excessive spending for these programs, and came to power in the early 80's with the mantra of fiscal responsibility, starting off by cutting taxes in order to starve these bloated programs. But the programs (for the most part) didn't go away. In fact, federal spending continued to increase under the new Republican leadership, often at a faster pace (when viewed in real adjusted dollars) than it had under the Democrats. But politicians had discovered something important with this new "revolution". They discovered that so long as they used the phrase "cut taxes", they could get elected, and if they used the phrase "increase taxes", they didn't get elected. It no longer mattered whether or not you actually balanced the budget or acted responsibly with the financial health of the nation - all that mattered was that you used the correct magic phrase. They discovered something else as well - they discovered that they could steal from the savings account that had been set up to provide for grandma and disables cousin John, and nobody noticed! They could use this money that they took from these trust funds (like Social Security) and make it look like there was less deficit than there really was!
And as criminal as this behavior might sound, people continued to elect them regardless of how irresponsible they were with our financial health! While it may have been Republicans who came in with Ronald Reagan who discovered this wonderful little trick, Democrats were quick to join in the fun. Democrats learned very quickly that bringing up budget deficits meant that you had to address either spending or income. If you addressed spending, this meant that you had to propose cutting programs that people liked - usually either corporate or individual welfare - and that was a difficult way to get elected. If you addressed income, this meant that you were immediately labeled with the dreaded "tax increase" label, dooming your political career. So rather than do the responsible thing, they did what politicians always do, they did the easy thing - they joined the Republicans in the greatest fiscal debauchery in the history of our nation.
At this point, I can clearly hear the wails of two camps of friends. First, my Republican friends are outraged that I can say something bad about the Grand Old Party - especially something linking Ronald Reagan to such nasty behaviour. Second, my Democratic friends are wailing that if only we had stuck with the fiscal policies of Bill Clinton - who balanced the budget - then we be OK.
Friends, please put away your partisanship, and think! Think as Americans - not as Republicans or Democrats - before we lose this great nation. Ronald Reagan was a great leader and did some good things - but he also did some nasty things that we should be ashamed of. Iran-Contra comes to mind, as does the fiscal nightmare that was created under his leadership. He was certainly not solely responsible for the nightmare, but he was the steward when it happened. Bill Clinton DID NOT balance the budget, despite the Democratic rhetoric to the contrary. The budget only appeared to be in balance, because politicians include in the operating budget the money that they steal every year from trust funds like Social Security. He certainly came closer to balancing the budget than any other recent president, but it was not in balance. The budget was so close to balance primarily as a result of a very robust economy, and again, while he can take some credit since he was the steward at the time, he should not be given complete credit. And he certainly has his warts and blemishes too - or at least that is what Monica said...
More to come on the specifics of how to fix this mess, and how much debt we really have, and what it means to us all...
Monday, July 04, 2005
Total Control - Now the Courts
It is July 4, and as I sit and type, the fireworks displays are in full bloom. Most of them are illegal, of course, but then again so was the first one - a couple hundred years ago - I suppose. We are a nation of rebels, or at least have been up to this point. I wonder what will happen to our collective "persona" if we ever drift close to - or heaven forbid into - totalitarianism.
The word has a bad ring to it, I know, but I have been thinking about it this weekend, as my teenage daughter works on a summer English project that has her looking in the paper for an article that in some way connects to the George Orwell's "1984". It has become a project within a project for her to try and find a day when the paper doesn't contain an article that has relevance to "1984".
The most recent articles have centered, of course, around the Supreme Court. Ignoring all of the hype and high drama, I think that we all know what is going to be happening in the coming weeks regarding the Supreme Court nomination that President Bush has in front of him. Nothing that he has done thus far in his presidency would lead me to believe that he will take advantage of this opportunity to unite the nation in any way, but rather to divide it further. He will surely nominate someone who will be loyal to the extreme idiology of the fundamentalist right wing in this country, and the Dems will certainly object - with the threat of filabuster - followed by Senator Frist employing the ominous "nuclear option", and changing the rules of the Senate regarding Judicial nominations.
At the end of the day, we will have ended up securing the Supreme Court fairly firmly into the hands of the extreme fundementalists who have taken control of the Republican party. These extremists will then hold either complete control or primary influence over all 3 branches of our national government, and we will have nuetered any ability of a minority party to hold sway over the proceedings or deliberations of the Senate.
Another big step toward totalitarianism, one step closer to 1984.
Will we wake up in time? Will we be able to add some balance in the next election?
The word has a bad ring to it, I know, but I have been thinking about it this weekend, as my teenage daughter works on a summer English project that has her looking in the paper for an article that in some way connects to the George Orwell's "1984". It has become a project within a project for her to try and find a day when the paper doesn't contain an article that has relevance to "1984".
The most recent articles have centered, of course, around the Supreme Court. Ignoring all of the hype and high drama, I think that we all know what is going to be happening in the coming weeks regarding the Supreme Court nomination that President Bush has in front of him. Nothing that he has done thus far in his presidency would lead me to believe that he will take advantage of this opportunity to unite the nation in any way, but rather to divide it further. He will surely nominate someone who will be loyal to the extreme idiology of the fundamentalist right wing in this country, and the Dems will certainly object - with the threat of filabuster - followed by Senator Frist employing the ominous "nuclear option", and changing the rules of the Senate regarding Judicial nominations.
At the end of the day, we will have ended up securing the Supreme Court fairly firmly into the hands of the extreme fundementalists who have taken control of the Republican party. These extremists will then hold either complete control or primary influence over all 3 branches of our national government, and we will have nuetered any ability of a minority party to hold sway over the proceedings or deliberations of the Senate.
Another big step toward totalitarianism, one step closer to 1984.
Will we wake up in time? Will we be able to add some balance in the next election?
Thursday, June 23, 2005
China continues to buy us
I'm no economist, but the insidious movement of control of our economy from within our borders across the Pacific to China seems like the threat to our future that we need to be concerned about. Yet, it is rarely discussed by our political leaders. Why is that I wonder? Common sense makes me think that most of them must be profiting from the movement in one way or another.
I read headlines today (and scanned the article briefly) in the NYT about an unsolicited offer from a large state owned Chinese country to buy Unicol (I think it was Unicol). The article went on to detail many such deals just in recent weeks.
We have already made the corporate decision to ship most of our jobs to China, continuing to create greater class divisions in our country, (thank you very much Wal Mart), and it now seems that ownership of the companies will creep across the ocean. This one I don't understand. Shipping jobs made sense to me because this allows the corporation to make a higher margin, (damn the effect on the American economy), but how does shifting ownership make sense?
China is a communist country, and they are eating our lunch. So much for the old "war on communism". Does this indicate that communism competes effectively with capitalism in an open market? Or does it mean that if capitalism is left unfettered, (which seems to be the direction that we continue to move), it is vulnerable to destruction from within as a result of the virus called greed?
I read headlines today (and scanned the article briefly) in the NYT about an unsolicited offer from a large state owned Chinese country to buy Unicol (I think it was Unicol). The article went on to detail many such deals just in recent weeks.
We have already made the corporate decision to ship most of our jobs to China, continuing to create greater class divisions in our country, (thank you very much Wal Mart), and it now seems that ownership of the companies will creep across the ocean. This one I don't understand. Shipping jobs made sense to me because this allows the corporation to make a higher margin, (damn the effect on the American economy), but how does shifting ownership make sense?
China is a communist country, and they are eating our lunch. So much for the old "war on communism". Does this indicate that communism competes effectively with capitalism in an open market? Or does it mean that if capitalism is left unfettered, (which seems to be the direction that we continue to move), it is vulnerable to destruction from within as a result of the virus called greed?
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