Ted Auch

There is alot of talk right now about Tea Party Revolution and Socialism via the Obama administration. However, the thing that these people that are not seeing is that most of what is happening is being inflicted on them via both parties in concert with the banks, health care industry, and the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). I used to be very skeptical of the socialist ideologues and remain skeptical of those that invest all their emotional and intellectual capital in one school of thought or religion for that matter. Such philosophies remove the individual’s personal responsibility. They also allow themselves to be easily manipulated through advertising. The fact is that when you look at two long-term sets of data – income disparity and the MIC – you see the true problem AND to those that blame Obama as a fascist or whatever I say a trend does not 9 months or 1 adminstration make. This guy is clearly overwhelmed but based on the data I will present he is facing an inertia whose depth and scope is quite daunting.

As you can see from the figure to the right when plotting the returns on 10 of the largest military industrial contractors it is clear that they are rapidly overtaking this country’s production sector.

What we are seeing is that those firms with a long-term presence on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) have done quite well for themselves from the 94,171% increase in share price of General Dynamics since it’s initial offering in January of 1977. The MIC giants Boeing and United Technologies have since their share prices increase by 21,788 and 18,633%, respectively. Interestingly two new players in the MIC industry KBR a spin-off of Dick Cheney’s Halliburton and DynCorp a leading competitor of Blackwater (now called Xe Services LLC) have declined by 105 and 119% since their arrival on the DJIA in 2006. In summary the MIB has on averaged gained 15,448% relative to the 823% increase on the DJIA.

So, while the economy suffers and jobs are lost at the rate of 250-750,000 per month in the last 2.5 years the MIB is operating at a profit ratio of 15:1 relative to the DJIA. This type of ratio would usually raise red flags, but since these companies are True Patriots their profligacy is viewed as an inevitable result of the War on Terror and the Spread of Democracy. I wonder if these companies are also Too Big To Fail?

The other contention is that Obama is a looking to redistribute wealth at the expense of most Americans. Hand in hand with this argument is the idea that all citizens have access to the American Dream. Well if you look at data from the Census Bureau you will see that redistribution is absolutely happening but it is occurring in the opposite direction. Two correlated trends are quite evident from the data:

1. Every year the Upper 5% of this country increases it’s average income by $2,049, while the income of the lower 2 Quartiles increases by $93-164. This seems unfair yet the common concern amongst those that are benefiting the least is accruing enough wealth to realign themselves with those that benefit the most form the Efficient Capitalist Market. However, those that benefit the most are doing their darndest to insure that they and only they benefit from this increasing disparity.

They are doing this by promoting war in the hopes of keeping this country divided and invoking patriotism as a means to encourage those with nothing to fight for those with everything.

2. The data also demonstrates that the share of this country’s income allocated to the Top 5 Percent has risen from 43% in 1965 to 50% in 2008. If this trend continues this sector of society will account for 60% of this country’s wealth by 2050.

The amazingly phony nature of the tribute to Ted Kennedy in the media and New England writ large. If you or I had been in his position we would be in jail for Chappaquiddick. I wonder how Mary Jo Kopechne’s family feels about the ‘Lion of the Senate? I can only guess their opinion of the man is diametrically opposed to that presented by the talking heads on network television and unfortunately my beloved NPR.

Also his family’s opposition to Cape Wind is indicative of the phony liberalism of the New England I love so much? We proselytize on our Green Soap Box, but as soon as we are asked to do more than talk and actually do we hide behind our NIMBY bullshit! Kennedy and his kind are the neoliberals Naomi Klein so effectively and efficiently exposed.

Quite simply it is the nasty and bullying nature of the Democrat establishment in New York. The party bosses are doing all they can to line the path for Kirsten Gillibrand the default junior Democratic senator form NY who took the spot vacated by Hillary Clinton on January 19th, 2009 (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/nyregion/31nyc.html?ref=todayspaper).

It seems as though we are throwing coals in the fire that doesn’t want to confuse folks with the facts but rather distract them with bluster, pandering rhetoric, fiction, and more often than not outright fiction.

This is an amazing example of how we in this country have come to view political power as a game and not a responsibility. I have nothing against Ms. Gillibrand other than her apparent Blue Dog predilections. She is I assume loyal to her constituents in upstate New York. However, the likes of Chuck Schumer are determined to hold her hand in 2010. Do we really want someone representing us (ie New York in this case) that can’t fend for themselves in a primary battle? We have a similar predicament here in Vermont where Patrick Leahy are 6-term (soon to be 7) has essentially been unopposed throughout his tenure, with the exception being the yeomen effort of Fred Tuttle (http://www.newenglandfilm.com/news/archives/98october/fredtuttle.htm; http://www.vtonly.com/loresep8.htm).

These are just 2 examples of the inability of the Democratic Party to set aside it’s collective ego and acknowledge it’s broader identity. Until they do this folks like myself and skeptics writ large will align with folks like Ralph Nader, Bernie Sanders, and Russ Feingold. You can say voting for the former is a wasted vote….and I could just as easily invoke the same when noting the supposed neoliberal capitulation to the Democrats.

I for one do not? Does that make me an advocate of Big Brother type big government advocate? Nope. I don’t want government to be looking in our bedrooms or bookshelves or email or tapping our phones. Rather I want them to do with our precious tax dollars what they should be doing…..fixing stuff, supporting those in need, and fueling innovation. You may ask what does it mean to starve the beast? (bartlett_starve-the-beast)

Well “starving the beast” is a term originally coined in a WSJ article by Paul Blustein (http://www.wordspy.com/words/starvethebeast.asp) and adamantly preached by the neoconservative wunderkind. This theory reduces taxes on the upper 2% via reduced capital gains, estate, and income taxes, primarily by allowing the elite to declare income as capital gains, which reduces taxable income from 34-38% to 15%. A classic example of this is Warren Buffet noting his personal assistant coughs up a greater percentage of her annual income in taxes than he does, because most of his income is declared as capital gains.

The starve the beast argument foments outright hatred of government by conflating taxes with socialism and the near and dear gun rights of this nations many cowboys. Of course this plays to the underlying fears of an already petrified nation. The last thing this country needs is another thing to be afraid of as we now have climate change, Iran, the Taliban, North Korea, China, Russia, lawyers, unemployment, diabetes, etc. Yet, given all this neocons feel the best remedy is adding to rather than ameliorating these fears. What a bunch of great folks? They must be true patriots.

However, I ask of those interested in an anorexic beast: Do you drive a car or better yet do you like smooth drivable roads? You do? Of course you do we all enjoy our asphalt alleys winding their way through urban centers and rural outposts alike. Well there is a price associated with that privilege and it is a privilege when compared to developed and undeveloped nations alike. Congress has been forced to bailout the fund that pays for the various interstate transportation projects this country takes on every year. Don’t worry its just $7 billion which pales in comparison to things like defense spending (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/us/31brfs-TRANSPORTATI_BRF.html?ref=todayspaper).

Starving the beast is a convenient and short-term method of consolidating wealth, is completely counter intuitive, and a theory that we should hope is entering the twilight of its relevance.

Very simply as it relates to mushroom clouds, ticking time bomb scenarios, the war on terror, what is and is not torture, the definition of the word implement (Seriously check this one out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1GT-BZvhrw), semantics associated with legal definitions of cruel and unusual punishment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B5BNeWNShs), enhanced interrogation techniques, actionable information, blah blah blah blah we could shut up for at least 5minutes hopefully forever Fatso and Slickster very easily.

All we have to do is acknowledge that Nancy Pelosi and former Florida Senator and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chair (2001-2003) Bob Graham were informed on some level of enhanced interrogation techniques being used and that waterboarding while not being used at least came up in conversation. In acknowledging this we would bring them forward along with their respective counterparts at the time Porter Goss and Richard Shelby. This aquiescing to the Bush administration was clearly a bipartisan effort as is evidence in the words of Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy when asked by Jonathan Mahler about his arrival in DC as a “Watergate Baby”

“There was a sense inside the Senate among both Republicans and Democrats that the government had gotten off course and that we had a responsibility to find out what happened” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/magazine/09power-t.html?sq=John%20Warner%20Leahy%20Specter&st=cse&scp=4&pagewanted=all)

We have reached a similar crossroads here in the US resulting from the irresponsible, cruel, and myopic Bush administration policies. Yet, they could not have accomplished what they did without the approval, tacit or otherwise, of the Democrats. We must reverse course immediately or we will be going at it alone on all fronts in the future. The only way to guarantee credibility and more importantly shut-up the neocons and idealogues on the way right is if we treat all that knew about the clandestine operations of the CIA, special ops, and to a lesser degree the FBI equally. I mean give me a break Ms. Pelosi sent a staff member to these meetings with the folks at the CIA? A STAFF MEMBER!? Seems like whether or not we are torturing captives is something she should want to hear with her own ears.

Ms. Pelosi and Senator Graham were privy to the same information as Mr. Goss and Mr. Shelby. If it smelled, looked, and felt like torture it probably was torture. Yet, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Graham fearing being portrayed as soft betrayed their senses and in my opinion, while not as guilty as Cheney et al, deserve to be reprimanded. This is not the common view of many in the MIC including almost everyone at MSNBC and The Times, but it is the only way an inquiry into torture will be seen as credible, both on the right and the left. No one is above reproach in the real world and no one should be above reproach in DC. That includes Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Graham. Their rhetoric carries no weight unless they acknowledge their own responsibility. Democrats try to come across as “Of The People By The People”, but a similar brush to that used for Republicans could be used to paint their portraits. There is a way to change that but it will involve a very harsh and large mirror!

Let me get this straight if an energy source is finite and came into being over a geologic scale it is fair to pay less as we deplete it but if it is ubiquitous and markedly easier to access we should pay more? That doesn’t make sense to me I mean don’t we have to pay an order of magnitude more for a Ferrari then we do a Tato Nano? Furthermore don’t we pay equally disparate fees for handcrafted furniture, jewelry, or pastries then we do stuff at Ikea or a Hostess Cupcake? Now that makes sense but the initial example makes absolutely none and needs to be dealt with here in the US ASAP. What makes us so special that we were at the height of the oil bubble paying $3.37 and folks in Britain, Italy, and France between $8.06 and $8.33 a gallon?

Are we owed this discount and if so why? Everyone knows by now that we consume ~ 25% of the world’s energy. Additionally, each of us is responsible for 15.1-23.6 tons of CO2 per year ranging from a low of 7.2 in the nation’s capital to 123 Tons of CO2 per year in Wyoming, with nearly 20% of this coming from transportation related needs.

It is true that China and India are emitting a lot with rough respective totals of 7,150 and 1,210 Tons of CO2 annually.

However the latter on a per capita basis pale in comparison with 5.5 and 1.1 tons per capita CO2 annually.

All these trends roughly, although not as well as you might think, with prosperity as is evidence in the graph to the right.

You may say you’re just a self-hating American and I would respond only when I/we deserve it and only when we arrogantly disavow logic and certain norms accepted the world over, because for some systemic and at this point cancerous reason we feel entitled.

Did you know that those statistics I mentioned earlier include a 12% gas tax for us and >55% for the Euros?

They get it and the reason they get it is that they have been forced to work with their neighbors, both locally and within the union to offset their many years of insensitive and short-sighted practices. Again some will retort that the US will do the same in good time and I would note that Churchill’s notion that Americans always do the right thing once we tried everything else is not an option at this point.
Any politician worth his or her backbone would have left the price of fuel where it was last summer or maybe even kept raising it! Yeah I know political suicide and boy would I feel really bad for any politician who really told the American people what they really needed to hear. Wait one such politician did his name was Jimmy Carter and the moment was his now famous and probably in his mind infamous “Malaise Speech”. The former president sounded much like a parent would when trying to curb the mindset of a spoiled child. Only in Mr. Carter’s case the dog was too old, had no interest in new tricks, and would bite the hand of anyone who said otherwise. This is an example of a prescient politician who paid the ultimate price for his honesty. Aren’t we always looking for honest politicians? The answer is no we just portend that is what we want when really we desire someone who looks just as good on his ranch as he does on an aircraft carrier, at a barbecue, or on a basketball court. We want a Big Brother who will demand that our needs as a nation are met, whether that comes at the expense of other nations, plants, animals, or fish so long as the price of gas plummets the masses will be pacified. The challenge of reversing this inertia has been gleefully passed from our erstwhile “leader” to Barack Obama, who in my opinion is the smartest man ever to hold this office and truly understands the concerns of this country irrespective of tax bracket. However, the jury is still out as to whether he will have the conviction and long-term vision to shower us with the tough love we as a nation so rightfully deserve. My confidence in this occurring is in the words of Gen. David Patreus “fragile and reversible”. This cynicism could easily be transformed into elation if President Obama conveyed to the American people that the only tool they have to stabilize oil prices is driving less and that they need to come to the realization that the laws of supply and demand and matter conservation dictate that anytime demand exceeds supply the consumer pays the ultimate price, whether we like it or not. This is not so much a matter of national security as it is a question of what if anything we want to leave for future generations. Rome is burning folks and all we’re worried about is how much the arsonist is paying to commit the crime.

A couple of weeks ago the debate around a hate crimes bill was brought before the House and was approved by a vote of 249 to 175. The bill is designed to give those that are victims of such crimes new federal protections and is largely due to the courageous and resolute work of the family of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, who was brutally tortured and left for dead in 1998. His story was recently revived by the “Laramie Project”, which forced the community to, in the words of Reggie Fluty a Laramie policeman as reported by Patrick Healy in The Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/theater/17laramie.html?scp=1&sq=Patrick%20Healy%20Reggie%20Fluty&st=cse) “…just, as a community, get slugged before you wake up and grow up…I don’t think we’re all grown up, but I think people are trying.” Getting back to the bill in congress it defines hate crimes as though motivated by race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. Seems harmless enough right? However, Representative Virginia Foxx, a Republican of North Carolina, stated on the floor of the House that Mr. Shepard’s death was “a hoax” and did so while the Shephard family was in attendance.

I have to wonder why so angry Ms. Foxx? What is it about this bill you that seems so anathema to you and your right-wing colleagues? It says on your website that you are a lay leader in your church and I am wondering if such animosity towards those that don’t look like you, believe what you believe, and sleep with the people you have slept with was cultivated at your church. You voted against money for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Voting Rights Act in 2006. Why? What is your problem and by association the right-wing’s problem with people that aren’t you in the strictest sense? Okay I think I get it you don’t like those that fall into the categories mentioned above and that is well within your rights as an American citizen. However, what I can’t understand is why you think that an individual has the right to inflict harm on someone because the victim is different? Is it that you think the aforementioned are virulent strains of H1N1 that will spread to your district(s) or possibly your grandchildren? Come on you know better right? Right? Do you think that if you promote the ability of all to vote in this country it will lessen your chances of reelection? Maybe it will but maybe it won’t if you simply reach out to those on the other side of the track/aisle and let them know that philosophical differences are no reason for the clear hatred that came to the surface in your speech.

You and your colleagues need to understand that the chickens will come home to roost eventually and someone in your district or town or even closer will be subjected to the horrible crimes Mr. Shephard undeservedly was on the receiving end of and at that moment Ms. Foxx I hope you don’t invoke the word hoax when consoling the families who on that sad day will not be some far-off liberals but rather your constituents. We aren’t asking you to like or even approve of these people we are simply asking you to consider whether physical or philosophical differences are worthy of torture or worse yet death? Please answer no as it is only a matter of time before such crimes, if ignored, reach the 5th district of N.C., because I am sure you haven’t weeded out all minorities although it seems from your words you may try if given the chance. On the surface Ms. Foxx how different do you really think Laramie, WY and say Boone or Mount Airy, N.C. really are from each other and the rest of the country? I am sure the folks in Laramie thought the same prior to October 12th, 1998. Stop spending so much of your energy on hating and a little more on understanding your neighbors. I think your grandkids and the 5th District of N.C. will eventually thank you for such a transformation.

I was going to use the title “How the Left Was Won” but since the guy on the way out made it known recently that invoking it was one of his only mistakes I thought it would be an appropriate title for a discussion of the neoconservative’s greatest achievements. In the last eight years, and with absolutely no resistance from the former Arkansas governor or congressional Democrats (sans Russ Feingold and Paul Wellstone), Karl Rove et al. have managed to drastically shift perceptions of the American psyche’s Gaussian distribution. In some warped yet brilliant way establish the Bush administration as a the gold standard with respect to toughness, compassion, patriotism, principle, and faith. Mind you the last word is supposed to be separate from policy, toughness is not exactly something that imbues you to multilateral talks, and compassion doesn’t fit with the hate speech oozing out of many evangelical and Pentecostal churches across the land.

I submit that this sea change is evidenced in the sigh of relief Patrick Leahy and the entire judiciary committee let out when Eric Holder agreed that waterboarding is torture and rendition is not an exercise that should be used to usurp US and international law. Is this some sort of admirable quality that Mr. Holder exhibited? Or is it something we should expect of our public officials? Well according to the Democrats it is the latter and this is just another case of Pelosi, Reid, and Co. lowering the moral bar so as to not stir the pot too much for fear of coming across as soft on terror or unpatriotic. I am sure Mr. Holder is a fine man and legal scholar, but his acknowledgement doesn’t strike me as the least bit liberal or conservative, rather it strikes me humane and pragmatic.

Speaking of pragmatism, neocons have managed to shape the energy discussion with the phrase “clean coal” now fashionable and our national security as the top priority for weaning ourselves off of Middle East oil. First let me say that our dependence on Middle East oil is overblown with a preponderance coming from Canada and 9% (1.2 million barrels per day) of that coming from the awfully dirty, inefficient, and ecologically shortsighted oil or tar sands of Alberta (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/business/energy-environment/18oilsands.html?ref=todayspaper; http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/05/scenes-tar-wars). Ian Austin in The Times recently noted that there are estimated to be 1.7 trillion barrels in these sands of the Canadian boreal region and production geared to ramp up to 3.5 MBPD when (i.e. not if!) we reestablish old driving patterns. Yeah and then what? Will we finally stop making excuses for why Cape Wind is a bad idea or the 300,000 Megawatts of wind-power off the Atlantic Coast is a pipe dream (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/magazine/14wind-t.html?scp=1&sq=wind%20delaware&st=cse). Ask James Hansen or Judy Bond of Coal River Mountain Watch or the folks of Harriman, TN or Inez, KY if there is such a thing as clean coal? Well I’ll save you the trouble Judy just sent me an email in response to this issue

“Even if you could get rose petals to come out of the smokestacks, coal is filthy and will never be clean as long as mountains and communities are blasted and streams and communities are poisoned…The entire cycle of coal must be examined. We in Appalachia are blasted by over 3 1/2 million pounds of explosives daily and are similar to a “banana republic”. The coal industry is allowed to simply kill us slowly with toxic waste.”

The government and regulatory agencies are ignoring the destruction of the “cradle to grave” toxic coal cycle and what that cycle is doing to vulnerable children. I think this public relation campaign to clean up coal is much like the “safe cigarette” campaign by similar con artists other public relations companies have used.

As for energy and our national security the options to diversify our energy portfolio are many, “shovel ready”, and geared to employ tons of folks in many of the same places where unemployment is highest (See Flint, MI or Akron, OH) (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/us/18flint.html?scp=3&sq=Flint%20employment&st=cse). This will take someone that is not as concerned with the next election as he/her is with the welfare of the next generation of Americans. We need to stop feeding the beast. Our national security would be best served if Obama and his crew turned to hectoring speeches imploring Americans to stop consuming so much and while he has started down this path further action will require greater haste and agility. Take some accountability America! Stop blaming Afghanistan and South American farmers for your respective heroin and cocaine addictions. Don’t take any solace in knowing that China has surpassed us relative to CO2 emissions its only because there are so many people we still dwarf everyone on a per capita basis w/ China at about 5.5 versus the US >19 tons of CO2 per person annually. This is also not a time for self-hatred but rather reinvention. Let’s be stewards not pillagers of this precious planet’s resources.

Here it is in plain English we have the right to water, food, health care, a decent job, and housing, but we don’t have the right to bottled water from Fiji, year round access to any and all produce, plastic surgery, million dollar bonuses, or McMansions. See the common thread! Responsibility and forethought need to be rewarded not excess and short-term, overly risky, and highly leveraged financial behavior.

Hey you don’t approve of homosexuality, Islam, or abortion? I promise none of them are contagious! Okay fine but do we need laws banning them? Really we do? These are issues a wealthy, highly educated, and arguably[?] atheist at worst and agnostic at best right has framed as divisive instruments. We are being played against each other for the good of a privileged few. According to Fred Magdoff the richest 400 or 1.3% of Americans have a collective net worth of $1.6 trillion which is more than that of the bottom 150 million people. Oh I know they probably worked harder. More likely they were lucky recipients of what Warren Buffett calls ‘The Ovarian Lottery”. Why are we letting this infinitesimal sector of society get between the other 98.7% of us? Because they have convinced us that if we’re good, say our prayers, listen to them, continue to serve our country rather than question its motives, and eat the crusts of our PB & J we can be just like them. Better yet we have been convinced that we want to be like them. Why because money is the great elixir?

I believe Americans know better and will realize that regardless of skin color, sexuality, or religious affiliation the greater good is served when disparities shrink, when we see the residents of New Orleans as members of our extended community and the destruction of Gulf Coast wetlands—to make way for oceanfront living, oil and gas infrastructure—as a crime against humanity and nature. There will come a day when we cease letting consolidation of power and wealth be the norm and turn to nonviolent revolution against such crimes. We will march on DC and our state capitols when our elected officials stop listening to us and demand constant accountability and less backroom deals and redacted transcripts.

The final example of neocon success is their redefinition of the word “elite.” Somewhere between Lee Atwater and now they have managed to transform the word from shorthand for belonging to country clubs, taking weekends in the Hamptons, and three cars to a label for those who engage in iterative discourse on variety of subjects, attend graduate school, spend weekends hiking/biking/or kayaking, and a bike as the primary source of transportation. They have achieved this change by the same legerdemain that values short-term financial gain over foresight and the pursuit of knowledge. They have managed to eliminate nuance from debate and encouraged screaming at rather than talking with in most mass media. We have been told that everything from responding to terror to bailing out AIG and CITI requires swift, decisive, and overwhelming force. Is there honestly no time for thought or research into precedent? Must we act now. Where has this pattern gotten us? We are temporarily alleviating the stress on an overstressed and ill-equipped political and financial system. Yet when it comes to things like health care, education, closing Guantanamo, David Addington et al, and climate change…Well those are complicated issues they’ll take time and maybe more time if need be. Look health care is a human right, Guantanamo is a crime against humanity and is a net source of terrorists/jihadist, because by all accounts men that weren’t terrorist when they arrived in Cuba or Baghram are when they leave, Addington is as much a war criminal as Chuckie Taylor, and climate change is something that if not dealt with now will take more time and money later to deal with and oh yeah it won’t be pretty!

Contrary to Sarah Palin and Karl Rove’s assertions, the media is not made up of liberal folks. If they suffer anything it is fools. The Media Industrial Establishment (MIE) has become about the personality and the physical rather than intellectual picture being streamed out for all to see. They don’t ask enough questions of Rahm Emanuel, Pelosi, or Reid as they never asked the hard question of Dana Perino, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld. What was it about Rummy that was so scary anyway? So what do we do about this quagmire? Well you can start by demanding from all media outlets including Fox, NPR, MSNBC, and Air America that they stop pandering to our base phobias and report just the facts. That’s it no more or less! How about acknowledging the existence of Helen Thomas in the White House press corp for once? That to me along with the praise for Browny and Chertoff in the aftermath of Katrina is one of the arrogant displays of disrespect of the Bush administration. Also demand that they ask tough, substantive, and probing questions of our public officials–it is their job to do this. Ask why Barry R. McCafferey is still considered an objective source for military insight? Ask why we are already seeing kid gloves with Mr. Obama’s cocoon of Clintonites when he is supposed to be an agent of change? Rick Warren? Why must MSNBC and FOX feel constantly inclined to editorialize when that has historically not been nor should it be their charge? If they all spent a little more time asking questions and a little less trying to frame the debate we would all be better off. Oh yeah does the Obama administration really want to compare their appointees to the Bush gang? Is that the new gold standard? God and Allah help us all if it is!

Liberalism is not some evil monster to be feared nor is true conservatism. What is to be feared are those forces whose purpose it is to highlight our differences, obfuscate responsibility and accountability, disenfranchise for the hell of it, and flippantly engage in aggressive, short-sighted, and offensive activities. Finally, overcoming that fear would be well served if we actually gave more than lip service to 3rd, 4th, and 5th party candidates, which would require addressing campaign finance reform (eg How bout giving each candidate $2m and saying go get em tiger!). Watch how fast both parties start attacking that concept and note that the faster and more visceral their reaction the better you can feel about it. Mission accomplished!

During the recent uproar over whether President Obama would pursue legal action against the Bush administration’s actions in and around Guantanamo, Baghram, and the Pentagon it seems like once again we are getting off topic and many are trying to obfuscate the issue. According to a quote from former Bush White House lawyer B.A. Anderson Obama’s “extreme supporters” smell blood and will do anything for a taste of it and this includes the CIA. I for one have no desire to go after the CIA regarding this matter, although their conduct (Yes you Mr. Gates and Negroponte!) in central and south America is worth opening the curtain, and I definitely don’t want anyone to be unjustly hung out to dry. What I do want, what I would hope this president would want, and what this country would want if presented with all of the facts is to prosecute those that congregated in the White House’s Office of Legal Council (OLC) for eight years and I am speaking specifically of David Addington, John Yoo, Monica Goodling, and Alberto Gonzalez…Oh yeah throw Douglas Fife in there for good measure why don’t you! These are the criminals whose greatest concern at this point shouldn’t be Eric Holder but rather a trip to The Hague. While I don’t espouse the belief that the uniformed men and women at these prisons are devoid of responsibility, quite the opposite they will have to live with what they have done for the rest of their lives, I believe that they aren’t the solitary bad apples Rumsfield and his crew painted them to be. This was recently confirmed by a report from Senators Levin and McCain of Michigan and Arizona, respectively. They were doing what was asked of them and aren’t military types inculcated from very early on with the notion that what comes from up high is not to be questioned? David Addington is a man whose contempt for oversight and the rule of law transcends that of many third world dictators and his partner in crime Mr. Yoo has a command of double-speak that if it weren’t used for nefarious purposes would be humorous. The latter actually had the gall to ask congressman Keith Ellis of Minnesota how he defined the word implement when being questioned about these very issues last fall. Meanwhile Mr. Addington spent his time before the same panel making the case for why Dick Cheney’s office is not part of the executive branch but rather an appendix of congress and thus completely removed from any laws applying to said branch, namely those having to do with paper and electronic communications. How do we so flippantly use the 1994 law that allows for prosecution of torture by American citizens in other countries against former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor’s son but not our own government officials? I’ll tell you how a Democratically controlled house and senate that like Mr. Obama want to look forward, build bridges, and establish alliances geared at solving this countries problems. Hey who can argue with that? I know I can’t. However, you do this when it comes to healthcare, social security, banking reform, and campaign finance not torture or illegal wiretapping, both of which threaten the sanctity of the social pact we supposedly have with our elected officials. I don’t like that being associated with warhawks and ideologues like the men and woman mentioned earlier. Do we then say when these techniques are used against our military “Hey that ain’t fair!” How could we in good conscience? Alliances and consensus is great, but if the Democrats don’t stand up to these atrocities committed by the Bush administration there will be many left to wonder what is the difference between them and their colleagues across the aisle?
At this moment it seems appropriate to steal a phrase made famous during “The Surge” by General Patreus and Ambassador Crocker regarding conditions in Iraq. When asked by the senate and house both men said the situation was/is “Fragile and reversible”, which I would contend speaks of the American public’s sentiments regarding their government. Yes Mr. Obama your speeches were captivating, your rhetoric sprinkled with populism, and your intellect something we probably haven’t seen in the White House in oh I don’t know maybe forever. Yet, please don’t mistake bliss for naivete and please don’t mistake our obsession with the economic downturn with a singular obsession as many of us are keeping an eye on the guys leaving town cause they can’t be trusted and their actions probably created more animosity and potential terrorists then they prevented. Look everyone in the intelligence community either on or off the record pretty much agrees that Rumsfeld giving the go-ahead at Abu Ghraib was the proverbial “toothpaste out of the tube”, with such tacit or overt approval the last thing these contentious prison environments needed. We can move forward in due time sir, but for now you need to let us know and let the entire world know that moving on includes addressing the evils perpetrated not by the CIA, although they are by no means saints, but by the OLC, which includes ending this senseless use of redactions, and an explicit definition for “Unlawful alien enemy combatants”, because I know a lot of folks who depending on the time of day or day of week would fit that description. No one wants to see anyone put in the electric chair or escorted to the gallows, but rather these individuals must be made to face the consequences for inhumane, deceitful, short-term, and cowardly acts that only alienate us from friend and foe alike.

There is a bipartisan notion perpetuated by industry and many politicians – specifically those so utterly disconnected from their home states/districts true needs – that natural resource exploitation and large agricultural infrastructure is the key to job creation. Just a little hint before moving further if you hear this rhetoric spewing from a politician’s mouth inquire as to their primary donors. Anyway this is one of the biggest if not the biggest lies being sold the American public today and the data buttresses my argument quite robustly. Here it is in black and white when production increases whether it be in the coalmines of West Virginia or cornfields of Iowa what happens is a massive shift towards mechanization, with larger and larger combines or draglines, or Komatsu front-loaders.

The latter able to move tons of earth or overburden allowing relatively uninhibited access to the coal seam, which by the way are increasingly smaller and smaller requiring less laborious methods or more dangerous exploration of deeper seams. This is evidenced in the exponential growth in surface mining throughout the US a method that requires markedly less labor then its underground alternative. Thus, if you look at the debate in simple output:input ratio terms, with # employed as the input, you will see an inverse relationship developing quite rapidly in recent times, which is to say that large multi-nationals like Massey Energy were extracting 5,087,150.3 short tons per thousand works in 1985 and managed to nearly triple this ratio (~290.2%) to 14,762,463.5 short tons per thousand works. Keep in mind the fact that total coal extraction in the US has only increased by 129.6% since 1985.

How you ask would one go about counteracting this 160% profit disparity? Well you can start by purchasing larger and large equipment, vast swaths of land, breaking the systemic will of the UMW of America, and insuring that crimes against labor like the recent tragedies in Utah and West Virginia go virtually unpunished. If you own the hearts and minds of people like the governor of West Virginia, Senators Byrd and Rockefeller and McConnell, and the supreme courts of many coal producing states you don’t need carrots and frankly you don’t really have much need for sticks either.
If you buy that the above ratio is a valid measure of workplace efficiency and by association a primary driver behind the decline in jobs related to natural resource exploitation and agricultural production then let’s apply it to the farm sector specifically corn to see if it still holds up. The answer is as you could probably guess by my tone is that it does indeed and is slightly more robust in this instance. It turns out that if you look at data associated with corn production in the US at five year intervals since 1910 you will see that that the total number of farms and workers are currently 66.1 and 78.2% of what they were at the turn of the century, while production and output:input have increased by 347.6 and 1,595.4%, respectively.

This suggests that one of two things is occurring, either we are getting better at how we manage our agricultural lands vis à vis chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc and crop-rotation or our current farmers are on steroids, which I am not ruling out but would hope is not the case.
This is a marked increase in “efficiency” by any standard begging the question: Why not get more from less? The answer is of course that there is no surficially viable reason, but more to the point portending that more coal mining brings more jobs when you know the exact opposite to be true is quite the bait and switch wouldn’t you say?
It is true that neither underground nor surface mining is great but it is underground mining, while extremely dangerous and liable to create vast stability problems down the road, that has traditionally been the engine employing much of Appalachia. This method imbued a greater sense of community and unification that was/is anathema to the coal companies and their strike breakers so vividly depicted in “Harlan County KY”. Much of the debate around “clean coal”, which if you ask anyone from Appalachia is a complete whitewashing, centers around jobs as does the research and production of biofuels and it is true that if done right these industries do create jobs. The fact is that since 1949 when much of the high grade anthracite-type coal was still available surface-mining accounted for 25.3% of all mined coal in the US whereas today it accounts for nearly 70% or 794,263,579 short tons. Furthermore, anthracite coal extraction has declined from 8.9 to 0.14% of all coal extracted in the US during the same period, with a parallel decline in jobs from a high 1,737,000 miners in 1985 to 776,000 in 2007.
So, what we have are two lies being pushed down the throats of Appalachia and America writ large: 1) exploitation of our mountains and arable lands is a perpetual large-scale benefit to the job market and 2) that clean coal and biofuels will benefit the environment, Appalachia, and industry. According to Judy Bond of Coal River Mountain Watch “Even if you could get rose petals to come out of the smokestacks, coal is filthy and will never be clean as long as mountains and communities are blasted and streams and communities are poisoned…The entire cycle of coal must be examined. We in Appalachia are blasted by over 3 1/2 million pounds of explosives daily and are similar to a “banana republic”. The coal industry is allowed to simply kill us slowly with toxic waste.” So, in plain English folks the only ones benefitting are John D. Rockefeller, WV Supreme Court Justice Brent D. Benjamin, and the pious head of Massey Energy Corporation Don L. Blankenship.