By MARC McDONALD
``Jesus looked up and saw some rich people tossing their gifts into the offering box. He also saw a poor widow putting in two pennies. And he said, `I tell you that this poor woman has put in more than all the others. Everyone else gave what they didn't need. But she is very poor and gave everything she had.'''
---The Bible, Luke 21, verses 1-4, Contemporary English Version
The answer to the question posed by this story's headline is: of course Gates' philanthropy is a PR stunt. If it wasn't, he'd just give the money away anonymously, instead of jetting around the world with his media entourage.
Unlike the fawning mainstream media, I'm not impressed by Gates' decision to give billions to charity.
For years now, Gates has been on a mission to try to polish his image. It's been a huge success, with glowing accounts of his generosity appearing in media outlets worldwide, including a Time magazine "Person of the Year" cover story last year. That's the kind of positive PR that you simply can't buy---of course, unless you're Gates.
This kind of "feel-good" warm and fuzzy adulation certainly can't hurt the image of Microsoft, which many of us with memories longer than the past five years recall as an extraordinarily greedy, ruthless and cut-throat corporation (which is really saying something in Bush's America). And all this positive PR certainly can't hurt during a time when Microsoft's business practices are facing scrutiny by EU antitrust regulators.
But it's important to remember Gates isn't going to sell all his assets and give the money to the poor (which incidentally, is the course of action that Jesus said is the only way a rich person can enter heaven----see Mark 10:21). Gates, who is worth around $50 billion, is giving away billions to charity---but he will still have enormous amounts of money in the bank until the day he dies. More money, in fact, than he could possibly ever spend, even if he made lavish spending a full-time occupation.
I'm sorry, but I really don't see how Gates is "sacrificing" anything. He still gets to lead a life of unbelievable lavish comfort. He still gets to have everything in the world he ever wanted. He still gets to be able to buy, on a whim, anything on earth that he chooses. The money he gives away is the equivalent of you or I dropping a quarter in the charity jar at the local convenience store.
But with this philanthropy/PR stunt, he gets to do all of the above AND have the world's media bowing at his feet, proclaiming him to be a person of good works on a par with Mother Teresa. Basically, Gates gets the gratitude of the whole world for giving away money that he couldn't possibly have ever gotten around to spending in the first place.
It may impress a lot of people, but it wouldn't have impressed Jesus. As the verse quoted at the top of this article shows, Jesus wasn't impressed by the total amount people gave to charity as much as the sacrifice they had to go through to give to charity.
I have a friend who gives to charity all of the time. He probably gives away $5,000 a year. It doesn't sound like much until you consider that he only earns $15,000 a year, doing back-breaking manual labor. To me, that's a real sacrifice, not what Gates is doing: giving away money that he'd never get around to spending anyway.
What's more, across America, and worldwide, there are tens of millions of people who routinely give to charity, both in money and time. Unlike Gates, they have to make a real sacrifice to give to charity. They have to carefully sort through their finances to find enough to donate, in order to have enough money left over to pay for the electric bill and groceries. And, unlike Gates, many of these people choose to donate anonymously. None of their donations and sacrifices will ever be honored by a Time magazine cover story. None of them will bask in the glow of having the entire world bow down to them and tell them how wonderful and generous they are.
On this issue, I agree wholeheartedly with Jesus: the widow who gave her last two pennies is far more worthy of praise than the likes of Gates.
If Gates really wants to impress me, what he needs to do is release his tax returns for the past 20 years. No, I'm not implying that he's cheating on his taxes. But I do think it'd make fascinating reading for working-class Americans to see all the various generous tax loopholes that only rich people get to enjoy in this country.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Bush Marks 60th Birthday, A Milestone He Denied 2,538 Soldiers In Iraq
By MARC McDONALD
George W. Bush today celebrates his 60th birthday. For the past few weeks, he's been yucking it up with friends and family and cracking jokes about his "personal crisis" of turning 60.
I can think of 2,538 people who would have wished they'd faced that "crisis" in life: the 2,538 U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq because of Bush's lies.
Most of the U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq were killed in their early 20s. Although Bush fancies himself as a "war president," he himself was never anywhere near a battlefield when he was of military age. Indeed, when his country was at war in Vietnam, Bush was actively going out of his way to avoid combat service. In the end, Bush couldn't even be bothered to finish out the last two years of his term in the National Guard.
Bush's cowardice during the Vietnam War, of course, didn't keep him from loudly proclaiming his support of that war after the fact. It also didn't keep him from smearing the distinguished war record of John Kerry in the 2004 election.
Bush lied about Kerry. But Bush's greatest lies are the lies he told America in 2002 when he was furiously trying to rally the nation into accepting his war on Iraq.
We progressives are often smeared by the GOP as people who supposedly "don't support" America's troops. But in fact, we do support the troops. We just don't support putting them in harm's way for a pack of lies.
By contrast, Bush had no such qualms. And today, as he celebrates his 60th birthday, we should remember the 2,538 soldiers who died young in Iraq. They are the men and women who died unnecessarily in Iraq for Bush's lies.
George W. Bush today celebrates his 60th birthday. For the past few weeks, he's been yucking it up with friends and family and cracking jokes about his "personal crisis" of turning 60.
I can think of 2,538 people who would have wished they'd faced that "crisis" in life: the 2,538 U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq because of Bush's lies.
Most of the U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq were killed in their early 20s. Although Bush fancies himself as a "war president," he himself was never anywhere near a battlefield when he was of military age. Indeed, when his country was at war in Vietnam, Bush was actively going out of his way to avoid combat service. In the end, Bush couldn't even be bothered to finish out the last two years of his term in the National Guard.
Bush's cowardice during the Vietnam War, of course, didn't keep him from loudly proclaiming his support of that war after the fact. It also didn't keep him from smearing the distinguished war record of John Kerry in the 2004 election.
Bush lied about Kerry. But Bush's greatest lies are the lies he told America in 2002 when he was furiously trying to rally the nation into accepting his war on Iraq.
We progressives are often smeared by the GOP as people who supposedly "don't support" America's troops. But in fact, we do support the troops. We just don't support putting them in harm's way for a pack of lies.
By contrast, Bush had no such qualms. And today, as he celebrates his 60th birthday, we should remember the 2,538 soldiers who died young in Iraq. They are the men and women who died unnecessarily in Iraq for Bush's lies.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Right Wing's Theft Of Elections Nothing New In Mexico
By MARC McDONALD
Mexico's leftist presidential candidate Andres Obrador has rejected preliminary electoral results that indicated a slim lead for his right-wing opponent and called for a vote-by-vote recount to find what he said are millions of missing votes.
As it turns out, Mexico's progressives have every reason to be suspicious that the vote will be stolen by the right wing.
After all, in 1988, the leftist presidential candidate was deprived of victory under suspicious circumstances. On July 6, 1988, voting results had leftist candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas leading on election night. But the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) government halted the vote count, claiming that the computer it was using to count votes "shut down on itself" (se cayo el sistema).
When the computer system was restored, conservative PRI candidate Carlos Salinas was declared the official winner. Fraud was widely suspected. To this day, the expression, se cayo el sistema is a sarcastic euphemism for electoral fraud in Mexico.
Meanwhile, exit polls showed that Obrador triumphed in Sunday's election over Felipe Calderon, who was backed by the Bush administration. In fact, Obrador had led in opinion polls for most of the last three years.
But it's clear that the powers that be will crown Calderon as the "winner" of the election. So much for the will of the Mexican people.
As investigative reporter Greg Palast pointed out:
The FBI "obtained Mexico's voter files under a secret "counter-terrorism" contract with the database company ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Georgia.
The FBI's contractor states that following the arrest of ChoicePoint agents by the Mexican government, the company returned or destroyed its files. The firm claims not to have known that collecting this information violated Mexican law. Such files can be useful in challenging a voter's right to cast a ballot or in preventing that vote from counting."
Does the name ChoicePoint ring a bell? It should, with anyone familiar with Palast's work. In 2000, his investigative team came across a list of 94,000 "felons" that Katherine Harris had ordered removed from Florida's voter rolls before the election. As Palast noted:
"Virtually every voter purged was innocent of any crime except, in most cases, Voting While Black. Who came up with this electoral hit list that gave Bush the White House? ChoicePoint, Inc. And worse, they KNEW the racially-tainted list of felons was bogus. And when we caught them, they lied about it."
Mexico's leftist presidential candidate Andres Obrador has rejected preliminary electoral results that indicated a slim lead for his right-wing opponent and called for a vote-by-vote recount to find what he said are millions of missing votes.
As it turns out, Mexico's progressives have every reason to be suspicious that the vote will be stolen by the right wing.
After all, in 1988, the leftist presidential candidate was deprived of victory under suspicious circumstances. On July 6, 1988, voting results had leftist candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas leading on election night. But the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) government halted the vote count, claiming that the computer it was using to count votes "shut down on itself" (se cayo el sistema).
When the computer system was restored, conservative PRI candidate Carlos Salinas was declared the official winner. Fraud was widely suspected. To this day, the expression, se cayo el sistema is a sarcastic euphemism for electoral fraud in Mexico.
Meanwhile, exit polls showed that Obrador triumphed in Sunday's election over Felipe Calderon, who was backed by the Bush administration. In fact, Obrador had led in opinion polls for most of the last three years.
But it's clear that the powers that be will crown Calderon as the "winner" of the election. So much for the will of the Mexican people.
As investigative reporter Greg Palast pointed out:
The FBI "obtained Mexico's voter files under a secret "counter-terrorism" contract with the database company ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Georgia.
The FBI's contractor states that following the arrest of ChoicePoint agents by the Mexican government, the company returned or destroyed its files. The firm claims not to have known that collecting this information violated Mexican law. Such files can be useful in challenging a voter's right to cast a ballot or in preventing that vote from counting."
Does the name ChoicePoint ring a bell? It should, with anyone familiar with Palast's work. In 2000, his investigative team came across a list of 94,000 "felons" that Katherine Harris had ordered removed from Florida's voter rolls before the election. As Palast noted:
"Virtually every voter purged was innocent of any crime except, in most cases, Voting While Black. Who came up with this electoral hit list that gave Bush the White House? ChoicePoint, Inc. And worse, they KNEW the racially-tainted list of felons was bogus. And when we caught them, they lied about it."
Saturday, July 01, 2006
A BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com Factoid: CEO Salaries
.
During its last fiscal year, Toyota paid its top 26 executives a combined $8.27 million. Their pay was little changed, even though the company posted record profits for the fourth year in a row.
General Motors cut CEO Rick Wagoner's 2005 salary by 46 percent. Even after the cut, it stood at $5.48 million. And, oh, they didn't get around to paying him the usual bonus, since GM lost $10.6 billion during this period.
This is your brain. And this is your brain on laissez faire. Any questions, class?
Source: Bloomberg News
MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS
During its last fiscal year, Toyota paid its top 26 executives a combined $8.27 million. Their pay was little changed, even though the company posted record profits for the fourth year in a row.
General Motors cut CEO Rick Wagoner's 2005 salary by 46 percent. Even after the cut, it stood at $5.48 million. And, oh, they didn't get around to paying him the usual bonus, since GM lost $10.6 billion during this period.
This is your brain. And this is your brain on laissez faire. Any questions, class?
Source: Bloomberg News
MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
The New York Times' Real Betrayal of America Wasn't SWIFT Transactions Story
BY MARC MCDONALD
The Republicans are out in force this week, accusing The New York Times of treason over its recent SWIFT transactions story. Never mind that this story is nothing new, or that the GOP house organ, The Wall Street Journal, reported the same story. It doesn't matter. Hatred of the supposedly "liberal" Times always plays well with the knuckle-dragging, Rush-listening GOP base.
I believe that if The New York Times ever betrayed the American people, it actually occurred back in 2002, during the buildup to the Iraq War. That was when the Bush White House was furiously trying to convince the nation that Iraq posed a threat to Americans and had WMDs.
Instead of doing what a truly free and independent media should do (taking a hard look at Bush's claims to see if they were true), the Times did the worst possible thing. It pretended to investigate Bush's claims and then ultimately gave its blessing to Bush's case for war. The only problem, of course, is that the Times was actually using the same unreliable and false sources that the Bush team was relying on.
Indeed, the likes of the now-discredited Ahmed Chalabi enjoyed warm and cozy ties with the NeoCons behind the Project for the New American Century, including Paul Wolfowitz. Instead of embracing the unreliable Chalabi as a primary source for its stories, the Times should have done what any high school journalist is taught on the first day of class: doublecheck all your sources.
If The New York Times had been properly doing its job, then Bush's case for war would have been exposed for the pack of lies that it was. Maybe, just maybe, the U.S. could have been spared the horrific, ongoing nightmare that the war has become.
The Republicans are out in force this week, accusing The New York Times of treason over its recent SWIFT transactions story. Never mind that this story is nothing new, or that the GOP house organ, The Wall Street Journal, reported the same story. It doesn't matter. Hatred of the supposedly "liberal" Times always plays well with the knuckle-dragging, Rush-listening GOP base.
I believe that if The New York Times ever betrayed the American people, it actually occurred back in 2002, during the buildup to the Iraq War. That was when the Bush White House was furiously trying to convince the nation that Iraq posed a threat to Americans and had WMDs.
Instead of doing what a truly free and independent media should do (taking a hard look at Bush's claims to see if they were true), the Times did the worst possible thing. It pretended to investigate Bush's claims and then ultimately gave its blessing to Bush's case for war. The only problem, of course, is that the Times was actually using the same unreliable and false sources that the Bush team was relying on.
Indeed, the likes of the now-discredited Ahmed Chalabi enjoyed warm and cozy ties with the NeoCons behind the Project for the New American Century, including Paul Wolfowitz. Instead of embracing the unreliable Chalabi as a primary source for its stories, the Times should have done what any high school journalist is taught on the first day of class: doublecheck all your sources.
If The New York Times had been properly doing its job, then Bush's case for war would have been exposed for the pack of lies that it was. Maybe, just maybe, the U.S. could have been spared the horrific, ongoing nightmare that the war has become.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Democrats Shouldn't Underestimate GOP's Propaganda Blitz on WMDs
By MARC McDONALD
Most Democrats greeted Republican Sen. Rick Santorum's absurd and implausible WMD claims with laughter last week.
The last time I heard such loud laughter from the Democrats was back when Bush's election people initially raised John Kerry's distinguished record in Vietnam as a campaign issue.
At the time, Democrats were stunned that the Bush people would dare raise Kerry's military record as a campaign issue when their own candidate had run away from serving in combat in Vietnam. This initial stunned reaction soon gave way to laughter, with Democrats firmly convinced that Karl Rove's tactic would never possibly work.
Unfortunately, the GOP enjoyed the last laugh in 2004. While any clear-thinking, rational adult knows that Kerry served with distinction, the GOP did find success in raising doubts in the minds of some voters about Kerry's record. And as a result, what should have been a slam-dunk plus in Kerry's favor was diminished somewhat by Election Day.
I fear that Democrats who are laughing at the GOP's recent silly WMD claims may find that the Republicans could get the last laugh this time around, as well.
Anyone who doubts that the GOP can succeed in convincing large numbers of Americans that Iraq did indeed possess WMDs is simply underestimating the awesome power of today's GOP Fox News/talk radio/right-wing propaganda machine.
The truth, of course, is that Bush's case for war was based on a pack of lies. No WMDs were ever found in Iraq. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has cost the U.S. more than 2,500 troop deaths and hundreds of billions in dollars, as well as countless Iraqi deaths. The entire enterprise now stands as perhaps the most colossal fiasco in the history of the United States.
With the November elections growing closer, GOP campaign strategists clearly have their work cut out for themselves. If indeed they can succeed in convincing at least some of the voters that the Iraq war was justified and that WMDs were indeed found there, this could well salvage the GOP's hopes in November.
Can the GOP pull it off? I think it's entirely possible. One thing I will give the GOP strategists credit for is that they excel at taking a simple message ("Kerry is a flip-flopper") and ramming it home through endless repetition. It's not the most subtle election campaign trick, but it's highly successful in its brute force simplicity.
This time, the GOP once again has a simple message: "Iraq did have WMDs!" It's a message that we can expect to hear repeated countless times between now and Election Day.
It doesn't matter that the "weapons of mass destruction" in this case are nothing more than useless, degraded, 20-year-old junk. That's not the point. All Rove and his minions have to do is plant the message in the minds of voters that the Iraq war was worthwhile, after all. By ramming home the message that "Iraq had WMDs" a million times between now and Election Day, the GOP could very well tip a number of closes races their way.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether the GOP's claims of WMDs in Iraq are, in fact, absurd. After all, so was their claim that Kerry wasn't really a war hero. The fact is, Democrats underestimate the relentless power of the Republican propaganda machine at their peril.
Most Democrats greeted Republican Sen. Rick Santorum's absurd and implausible WMD claims with laughter last week.
The last time I heard such loud laughter from the Democrats was back when Bush's election people initially raised John Kerry's distinguished record in Vietnam as a campaign issue.
At the time, Democrats were stunned that the Bush people would dare raise Kerry's military record as a campaign issue when their own candidate had run away from serving in combat in Vietnam. This initial stunned reaction soon gave way to laughter, with Democrats firmly convinced that Karl Rove's tactic would never possibly work.
Unfortunately, the GOP enjoyed the last laugh in 2004. While any clear-thinking, rational adult knows that Kerry served with distinction, the GOP did find success in raising doubts in the minds of some voters about Kerry's record. And as a result, what should have been a slam-dunk plus in Kerry's favor was diminished somewhat by Election Day.
I fear that Democrats who are laughing at the GOP's recent silly WMD claims may find that the Republicans could get the last laugh this time around, as well.
Anyone who doubts that the GOP can succeed in convincing large numbers of Americans that Iraq did indeed possess WMDs is simply underestimating the awesome power of today's GOP Fox News/talk radio/right-wing propaganda machine.
The truth, of course, is that Bush's case for war was based on a pack of lies. No WMDs were ever found in Iraq. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has cost the U.S. more than 2,500 troop deaths and hundreds of billions in dollars, as well as countless Iraqi deaths. The entire enterprise now stands as perhaps the most colossal fiasco in the history of the United States.
With the November elections growing closer, GOP campaign strategists clearly have their work cut out for themselves. If indeed they can succeed in convincing at least some of the voters that the Iraq war was justified and that WMDs were indeed found there, this could well salvage the GOP's hopes in November.
Can the GOP pull it off? I think it's entirely possible. One thing I will give the GOP strategists credit for is that they excel at taking a simple message ("Kerry is a flip-flopper") and ramming it home through endless repetition. It's not the most subtle election campaign trick, but it's highly successful in its brute force simplicity.
This time, the GOP once again has a simple message: "Iraq did have WMDs!" It's a message that we can expect to hear repeated countless times between now and Election Day.
It doesn't matter that the "weapons of mass destruction" in this case are nothing more than useless, degraded, 20-year-old junk. That's not the point. All Rove and his minions have to do is plant the message in the minds of voters that the Iraq war was worthwhile, after all. By ramming home the message that "Iraq had WMDs" a million times between now and Election Day, the GOP could very well tip a number of closes races their way.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether the GOP's claims of WMDs in Iraq are, in fact, absurd. After all, so was their claim that Kerry wasn't really a war hero. The fact is, Democrats underestimate the relentless power of the Republican propaganda machine at their peril.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
What Is Progressives' Game Plan If GOP Steals November Election?
By MARC McDONALD
Consider this scenario:
It's Nov. 8, 2006, the day after the midterm elections, and the Republicans are jubilant. Although pre-election polls showed that Americans were deeply dissatisfied with the performance of the GOP-led Congress, the Republicans have somehow managed to retain control of both the House and the Senate in a stunning setback for the Democrats. The GOP even managed to pick up a few seats.
Meanwhile, a few commentators pointed out troubling problems with the election. Just as in 2004, the exit polls turned out to be wildly inaccurate. GOP candidates in a number of races triumphed, despite lagging in both pre-election polls and in exit polls.
Many progressives and independents across the country have a sinking feeling that, once again, the vote has been rigged and/or stolen. A furious discussion about the prospect of a stolen election erupts on blogs and progressive sites across the Web. However, the story is ignored by the mainstream media, except for a couple of minor articles here and there that simply dismiss such talk as "conspiracy nut" speculation.
Could the above scenario happen?
Yes, it could. In fact, anyone who doubts this is naive.
Consider: there is a growing body of solid evidence that indicates that the GOP stole the elections in 2000 and 2004 while the mainstream media looked the other way. I find it incredible that any clear-thinking, rational adult could believe otherwise after reading Mark Crispin Miller's brilliant book, Fooled Again or Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" article in Rolling Stone.
And as far as the upcoming November election goes, not only is it clear that the election will be stolen, investigative journalist Greg Palast has already documented how the election theft will occur.
I think it's clear that we progressives should not only assume the GOP will steal the November election, we should already be making plans to counter this theft.
How?
The progressive blog-o-sphere will no doubt engage in a lively discussion and analysis of the election theft. But the mainstream media can be counted on to once again snooze through this story. And without the MSM, it's almost certain that nothing will be done to address the election theft by the Powers That Be.
I'm sure there will be a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth by progressives. And, no doubt, there will be protests and demonstrations here and there across the country. But I suspect these demonstrations will be as ignored and as ineffective as were the gigantic, record-setting demonstrations that preceded the Iraq War.
What to do, then? I have a suggestion. Concerned Americans should indeed take to the streets when the GOP steals the November election. But we ought to protest in the immediate vicinity of nation's newspapers and other mainstream media outlets. Protests that happen right outside the door of the likes of The New York Times and CNN will be awfully hard for the MSM to ignore.
Such a series of protests would serve two purposes. One, it'd be such an in-your-face action that America's corporate media will have a difficult time ignoring it. The second purpose would be to send a very clear message to America's MSM that we're not going to allow them to snooze through yet another stolen election.
It is indeed a bleak and depressing prospect to think that the November elections will almost certainly be stolen once again. But I'd like to emphasize that I'm not suggesting that anyone not bother to vote in November. Not by any means. I still urge everyone to get out and vote.
As Palast has written:
How many times am I asked, "Why vote if they're going to steal the election?" That's the point: Make them STEAL it. Make them know they can't win UNLESS they steal it.
Consider this scenario:
It's Nov. 8, 2006, the day after the midterm elections, and the Republicans are jubilant. Although pre-election polls showed that Americans were deeply dissatisfied with the performance of the GOP-led Congress, the Republicans have somehow managed to retain control of both the House and the Senate in a stunning setback for the Democrats. The GOP even managed to pick up a few seats.
Meanwhile, a few commentators pointed out troubling problems with the election. Just as in 2004, the exit polls turned out to be wildly inaccurate. GOP candidates in a number of races triumphed, despite lagging in both pre-election polls and in exit polls.
Many progressives and independents across the country have a sinking feeling that, once again, the vote has been rigged and/or stolen. A furious discussion about the prospect of a stolen election erupts on blogs and progressive sites across the Web. However, the story is ignored by the mainstream media, except for a couple of minor articles here and there that simply dismiss such talk as "conspiracy nut" speculation.
Could the above scenario happen?
Yes, it could. In fact, anyone who doubts this is naive.
Consider: there is a growing body of solid evidence that indicates that the GOP stole the elections in 2000 and 2004 while the mainstream media looked the other way. I find it incredible that any clear-thinking, rational adult could believe otherwise after reading Mark Crispin Miller's brilliant book, Fooled Again or Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" article in Rolling Stone.
And as far as the upcoming November election goes, not only is it clear that the election will be stolen, investigative journalist Greg Palast has already documented how the election theft will occur.
I think it's clear that we progressives should not only assume the GOP will steal the November election, we should already be making plans to counter this theft.
How?
The progressive blog-o-sphere will no doubt engage in a lively discussion and analysis of the election theft. But the mainstream media can be counted on to once again snooze through this story. And without the MSM, it's almost certain that nothing will be done to address the election theft by the Powers That Be.
I'm sure there will be a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth by progressives. And, no doubt, there will be protests and demonstrations here and there across the country. But I suspect these demonstrations will be as ignored and as ineffective as were the gigantic, record-setting demonstrations that preceded the Iraq War.
What to do, then? I have a suggestion. Concerned Americans should indeed take to the streets when the GOP steals the November election. But we ought to protest in the immediate vicinity of nation's newspapers and other mainstream media outlets. Protests that happen right outside the door of the likes of The New York Times and CNN will be awfully hard for the MSM to ignore.
Such a series of protests would serve two purposes. One, it'd be such an in-your-face action that America's corporate media will have a difficult time ignoring it. The second purpose would be to send a very clear message to America's MSM that we're not going to allow them to snooze through yet another stolen election.
It is indeed a bleak and depressing prospect to think that the November elections will almost certainly be stolen once again. But I'd like to emphasize that I'm not suggesting that anyone not bother to vote in November. Not by any means. I still urge everyone to get out and vote.
As Palast has written:
How many times am I asked, "Why vote if they're going to steal the election?" That's the point: Make them STEAL it. Make them know they can't win UNLESS they steal it.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Congress Gives Itself Another Pay Hike While Refusing To Increase Minimum Wage
By MARC McDONALD
For the past 10 years, Congress has stubbornly refused to raise the minimum wage, which is $5.15/hour. During this same period, Congress has voted to give itself one fat pay raise after another. This week, the GOP-led Congress awarded itself another generous raise----this time for $3,300 (which brings lawmakers' annual salaries to $168,500/year).
With the U.S. government facing a record budget deficit of over $8 trillion, it's disturbing that Congress is so generous with our tax dollars in giving itself raises. Surely, members of Congress aren't deluding themselves into believing that the American public approves of their job performance. In fact, polls show that the public has a dismal opinion of the way Congress is performing its job these days.
The most recent congressional pay hike comes on top of numerous other hefty pay hikes Congress has awarded itself in recent years. For example, in 2003, Congress voted to give itself a pay hike of $4,700. In 2002, the pay hike was $4,900. In 2001, it was $3,800. In 2000, it was $4,600. And on and on.
By refusing to increase the nation's Scrooge-like minimum wage, Congress is in effect annually cutting the wages of the millions of workers who struggle to get by on $5.15 an hour. Raising the minimum wage to $7.00 an hour would benefit 7.4 million workers directly, and another 8.2 million workers indirectly, according to a report on Almanac of Policy Issues.
Minimum wage isn't the only area in which Congress has been Scrooge-like. For example, the House has voted to cut health care and benefit programs for our nation's veterans by $85 billion. Clearly, members of Congress believe Americans need to tighten their belts---our lawmakers just don't want to share in the sacrifice themselves.
In real terms, America's current minimum wage is worth less than ever. Think Progress has pointed out that if the minimum wage today was worth what it was worth in 1968 (its peak value), it would be $8.88 an hour.
Nor are only minimum wage earners taking it on the chin in today's economy. In 2005, real wages for all the nation's civilian workers declined 2.3 percent, the largest such loss since 1981.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) recently introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which would increase the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over two years. To add your voice to a petition supporting this effort, go here.
For the past 10 years, Congress has stubbornly refused to raise the minimum wage, which is $5.15/hour. During this same period, Congress has voted to give itself one fat pay raise after another. This week, the GOP-led Congress awarded itself another generous raise----this time for $3,300 (which brings lawmakers' annual salaries to $168,500/year).
With the U.S. government facing a record budget deficit of over $8 trillion, it's disturbing that Congress is so generous with our tax dollars in giving itself raises. Surely, members of Congress aren't deluding themselves into believing that the American public approves of their job performance. In fact, polls show that the public has a dismal opinion of the way Congress is performing its job these days.
The most recent congressional pay hike comes on top of numerous other hefty pay hikes Congress has awarded itself in recent years. For example, in 2003, Congress voted to give itself a pay hike of $4,700. In 2002, the pay hike was $4,900. In 2001, it was $3,800. In 2000, it was $4,600. And on and on.
By refusing to increase the nation's Scrooge-like minimum wage, Congress is in effect annually cutting the wages of the millions of workers who struggle to get by on $5.15 an hour. Raising the minimum wage to $7.00 an hour would benefit 7.4 million workers directly, and another 8.2 million workers indirectly, according to a report on Almanac of Policy Issues.
Minimum wage isn't the only area in which Congress has been Scrooge-like. For example, the House has voted to cut health care and benefit programs for our nation's veterans by $85 billion. Clearly, members of Congress believe Americans need to tighten their belts---our lawmakers just don't want to share in the sacrifice themselves.
In real terms, America's current minimum wage is worth less than ever. Think Progress has pointed out that if the minimum wage today was worth what it was worth in 1968 (its peak value), it would be $8.88 an hour.
Nor are only minimum wage earners taking it on the chin in today's economy. In 2005, real wages for all the nation's civilian workers declined 2.3 percent, the largest such loss since 1981.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) recently introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which would increase the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over two years. To add your voice to a petition supporting this effort, go here.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
What The Left Can Learn From Ann Coulter
By MARC McDONALD
I'd never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but, in a way, Ann Coulter is brilliant and I think the Left in this country could learn a thing or two from her.
Bear in mind, I'm not praising Coulter's nutcase, Neo-Nazi, right-wing ramblings that she spews forth periodically in her books and articles. I'm talking about her technique. I think the Left has a lot to learn from the technique employed by Coulter (as well as the rest of the Fox News/Limbaugh/O'Reilly/Talk Radio GOP propaganda machine).
Let me explain:
In doing the publicity rounds to promote her latest piece-of-filth missive, Coulter generated a lot of (predictable and tiresome) publicity over a few choice excerpts from her book that attacked some of the widows of 9/11 victims.
"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis," Coulter wrote. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."
The furor over Coulter's comments about the 9/11 widows focused exclusively on the nasty attacks like the preceding passage. What you didn't hear in the media debate was much discussion of Coulter's main complaint about the 9/11 widows: namely that they were "using their grief in order to make a political point while preventing anyone from responding."
Among other targets, Coulter took aim at Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in the Iraq War. Coulter claimed that when Sheehan speaks out, no one is allowed to challenge or respond to her.
This is the central point in Coulter's argument: if you lost a loved one on 9/11 or in the War in Iraq, you're allowed to say whatever you want and no one on the Right can respond.
There's only one problem. As usual, Coulter is full of crap. If indeed, no one is allowed to respond to Cindy Sheehan, then it would seem like there's a few folks on the Right who didn't get Coulter's memo.
Sheehan, was in fact "responded to" by the Right. Was she ever. She was the recipient of a massive, ugly tidal wave of Right Wing hatred, venom, insults and death threats.
In fact, I'd bet money that most Americans are not even aware of Sheehan's message, or what she's had to say about Bush and the Iraq War. By contrast, 99 percent of what has flooded the nation's airwaves about Sheehan hasn't been her own message, but rather the Right's extraordinary attacks on her.
Despite what Coulter says, the Right has always felt free to respond to, and attack, anyone who dared to question Bush, the government's response to 9/11, or the Iraq War.
However, by claiming that the Right is somehow prevented from responding to Bush's critics, Coulter has engaged in a brilliant piece of political strategy that I think the Left ought to study and learn from.
To sum up Coulter's technique: Siege Mentality.
You see, the Right has a bit of a problem right now. It controls all branches of government: the White House, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court. It controls the corporate mainstream media. It controls a majority of federal judgeships and most of the governorships in the U.S.
This raises a challenge for the GOP: how to motivate and rally the troops when you already have all the levers of power?
This is where siege mentality comes in. If you want to rally the troops, pretend that you're actually struggling and that you desperately need all the support you can get. Exaggerate the power of your opponent. Pretend that your hands are tied. Act as though the Left is dominant and has unbridled power---even to the point where liberals can prevent you from responding to those who would "lie" about President Bush.
I think today's Republican Party is, in a word, evil. It's the most evil major political party that has emerged in a First World nation since World War II. The GOP not only poses a major threat to working-class Americans, it is also a major threat to the rest of the world.
But there's an old saying "In order to defeat your enemy, you must know him." If the Left is ever going to regain power from the GOP, we must understand their bare-knuckled strategies and take the gloves off ourselves. I don't see that happening with today's Dems.
A lot of the Democrats I see are already smug about winning in November. Apparently, they believe that, just because Bush's approval ratings are in the toilet and the nation has gone to hell in a handbasket, that this alone means it's the Dems turn to run Congress.
But the Dems have seriously underestimated the GOP, time and time again. Despite the fact that they control all the levers of power, it's the GOP that has all the rage, anger and passion these days and it's the GOP that is working furiously to rally the troops, using techniques like Coulter's siege mentality. I get the feeling that, come November, once again the Democrats will wonder what hit them.
I'd never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but, in a way, Ann Coulter is brilliant and I think the Left in this country could learn a thing or two from her.
Bear in mind, I'm not praising Coulter's nutcase, Neo-Nazi, right-wing ramblings that she spews forth periodically in her books and articles. I'm talking about her technique. I think the Left has a lot to learn from the technique employed by Coulter (as well as the rest of the Fox News/Limbaugh/O'Reilly/Talk Radio GOP propaganda machine).
Let me explain:
In doing the publicity rounds to promote her latest piece-of-filth missive, Coulter generated a lot of (predictable and tiresome) publicity over a few choice excerpts from her book that attacked some of the widows of 9/11 victims.
"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis," Coulter wrote. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."
The furor over Coulter's comments about the 9/11 widows focused exclusively on the nasty attacks like the preceding passage. What you didn't hear in the media debate was much discussion of Coulter's main complaint about the 9/11 widows: namely that they were "using their grief in order to make a political point while preventing anyone from responding."
Among other targets, Coulter took aim at Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in the Iraq War. Coulter claimed that when Sheehan speaks out, no one is allowed to challenge or respond to her.
This is the central point in Coulter's argument: if you lost a loved one on 9/11 or in the War in Iraq, you're allowed to say whatever you want and no one on the Right can respond.
There's only one problem. As usual, Coulter is full of crap. If indeed, no one is allowed to respond to Cindy Sheehan, then it would seem like there's a few folks on the Right who didn't get Coulter's memo.
Sheehan, was in fact "responded to" by the Right. Was she ever. She was the recipient of a massive, ugly tidal wave of Right Wing hatred, venom, insults and death threats.
In fact, I'd bet money that most Americans are not even aware of Sheehan's message, or what she's had to say about Bush and the Iraq War. By contrast, 99 percent of what has flooded the nation's airwaves about Sheehan hasn't been her own message, but rather the Right's extraordinary attacks on her.
Despite what Coulter says, the Right has always felt free to respond to, and attack, anyone who dared to question Bush, the government's response to 9/11, or the Iraq War.
However, by claiming that the Right is somehow prevented from responding to Bush's critics, Coulter has engaged in a brilliant piece of political strategy that I think the Left ought to study and learn from.
To sum up Coulter's technique: Siege Mentality.
You see, the Right has a bit of a problem right now. It controls all branches of government: the White House, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court. It controls the corporate mainstream media. It controls a majority of federal judgeships and most of the governorships in the U.S.
This raises a challenge for the GOP: how to motivate and rally the troops when you already have all the levers of power?
This is where siege mentality comes in. If you want to rally the troops, pretend that you're actually struggling and that you desperately need all the support you can get. Exaggerate the power of your opponent. Pretend that your hands are tied. Act as though the Left is dominant and has unbridled power---even to the point where liberals can prevent you from responding to those who would "lie" about President Bush.
I think today's Republican Party is, in a word, evil. It's the most evil major political party that has emerged in a First World nation since World War II. The GOP not only poses a major threat to working-class Americans, it is also a major threat to the rest of the world.
But there's an old saying "In order to defeat your enemy, you must know him." If the Left is ever going to regain power from the GOP, we must understand their bare-knuckled strategies and take the gloves off ourselves. I don't see that happening with today's Dems.
A lot of the Democrats I see are already smug about winning in November. Apparently, they believe that, just because Bush's approval ratings are in the toilet and the nation has gone to hell in a handbasket, that this alone means it's the Dems turn to run Congress.
But the Dems have seriously underestimated the GOP, time and time again. Despite the fact that they control all the levers of power, it's the GOP that has all the rage, anger and passion these days and it's the GOP that is working furiously to rally the troops, using techniques like Coulter's siege mentality. I get the feeling that, come November, once again the Democrats will wonder what hit them.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Right-Wing Supreme Court's Latest Outrage: Handcuffing Whistleblowers
By MANIFESTO JOE
The stacking of the U.S. Supreme Court with a 5-4 right-wing majority has already been having a chilling effect on free speech and civil liberties in general. The latest outrage was in the case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, which, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and the four dissenting justices, was in effect a ruling that First Amendment protections do not apply to public employees who report government misconduct.
Now, not only free speech but also clean, open government is in peril, because our high court has, by design, lurched so sharply to the hard-core, authoritarian right.
The case stemmed from an attempt by Richard Ceballos, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County, to expose police misconduct. He wrote a memo to his supervisors, the ACLU says, reporting that he believed that a deputy sheriff had falsified an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant.
The prosecution went ahead with the case, and Ceballos told the defense counsel of his findings. He was subpoenaed to testify at a hearing to dismiss the case, but the judge denied the motion, and Ceballos was taken off the prosecution team.
He was later denied a promotion, then demoted and transferred to another branch.
Writing for the court's majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, "We hold that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline."
The New York Times reported that in the dissents, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "The notion that there is a categorical difference between speaking as a citizen and speaking in the course of one's employment is quite wrong." He said, as the Times reported, that the ruling could have a "perverse" effect of giving public employees the incentive to speak publicly, as citizens, before taking matters up with supervisors.
The more likely effect will be that, because public employees will fear reprisals and firings, they won't report abuses. There will be great increases in official misconduct and governmental crime, undisclosed threats to public health, and more and more sinister government secrecy.
As Justice David Souter wrote in a separate dissent, this kind of speech "lies at the heart" of the kind of expression, in the public interest, that the First Amendment was intended to protect.
Once more, in the guise of the right's increasingly transparent pseudo-constructionism, the high court has moved the U.S. a big step closer to the kind of banana republic regime our "conservative" movement seems to lust for.
My wife has experienced the kind of harassment and discrimination that whistleblowers are subjected to. She survived such a climate for years. After nearly a decade in a public-sector job, she opted for early retirement, probably just a step or two ahead of being wrongfully fired by a supervisor. I suspect that the only reason she got out just in time was officials' fear of a lawsuit.
Now, any such restraint on the actions of vindictive supervisors has been stripped away. It will be open season on whistleblowers. And, chalk up another win for those who, while giving lots of lip service to "freedom," are doing all they can to hasten its demise.
Expect Roe v. Wade to be coming into the crosshairs very soon.
MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS.
The stacking of the U.S. Supreme Court with a 5-4 right-wing majority has already been having a chilling effect on free speech and civil liberties in general. The latest outrage was in the case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, which, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and the four dissenting justices, was in effect a ruling that First Amendment protections do not apply to public employees who report government misconduct.
Now, not only free speech but also clean, open government is in peril, because our high court has, by design, lurched so sharply to the hard-core, authoritarian right.
The case stemmed from an attempt by Richard Ceballos, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County, to expose police misconduct. He wrote a memo to his supervisors, the ACLU says, reporting that he believed that a deputy sheriff had falsified an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant.
The prosecution went ahead with the case, and Ceballos told the defense counsel of his findings. He was subpoenaed to testify at a hearing to dismiss the case, but the judge denied the motion, and Ceballos was taken off the prosecution team.
He was later denied a promotion, then demoted and transferred to another branch.
Writing for the court's majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, "We hold that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline."
The New York Times reported that in the dissents, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "The notion that there is a categorical difference between speaking as a citizen and speaking in the course of one's employment is quite wrong." He said, as the Times reported, that the ruling could have a "perverse" effect of giving public employees the incentive to speak publicly, as citizens, before taking matters up with supervisors.
The more likely effect will be that, because public employees will fear reprisals and firings, they won't report abuses. There will be great increases in official misconduct and governmental crime, undisclosed threats to public health, and more and more sinister government secrecy.
As Justice David Souter wrote in a separate dissent, this kind of speech "lies at the heart" of the kind of expression, in the public interest, that the First Amendment was intended to protect.
Once more, in the guise of the right's increasingly transparent pseudo-constructionism, the high court has moved the U.S. a big step closer to the kind of banana republic regime our "conservative" movement seems to lust for.
My wife has experienced the kind of harassment and discrimination that whistleblowers are subjected to. She survived such a climate for years. After nearly a decade in a public-sector job, she opted for early retirement, probably just a step or two ahead of being wrongfully fired by a supervisor. I suspect that the only reason she got out just in time was officials' fear of a lawsuit.
Now, any such restraint on the actions of vindictive supervisors has been stripped away. It will be open season on whistleblowers. And, chalk up another win for those who, while giving lots of lip service to "freedom," are doing all they can to hasten its demise.
Expect Roe v. Wade to be coming into the crosshairs very soon.
MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS.
Friday, June 09, 2006
U.S. Guilty Of The Same Crimes As al-Zarqawi
By MARC McDONALD
It seems like all the talking heads in Pundit Land are overjoyed at the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Even a lot of liberal Web sites are gleeful. I have to admit, I was a bit baffled by the Daily Kos post that happily celebrated al-Zarqawi's death. For a moment there, I thought I'd mistakenly clicked into ShootALiberal.com or some other right-wing nutcase site.
Curiously, the one person you'd expect to be more grateful than anyone for al-Zarqawi's death, Michael Berg, father of slain hostage Nick Berg, emphasized Thursday that he wasn't happy at all and called it a "tragedy." Instead of expressing bloodthirsty glee, Michael was a rare voice of reason on a day when America's pampered, overpaid talking heads were expressing happiness.
"Zarqawi felt my son's breath on his hand as held the knife against his throat. Zarqawi had to look in his eyes when he did it," Berg said in an Associated Press interview. "George Bush sits there glassy-eyed in his office with pieces of paper and condemns people to death. That to me is a real terrorist."
Let's assume that al-Zarqawi was indeed an evil bastard who tortured people and blew up civilians. Does the U.S.--or Bush--have a moral leg to stand on in criticizing him?
I don't think we do. The fact is: our leaders are guilty of the same crimes that we accused al-Zarqawi of----and on a much grander scale. The only difference is that, instead of being inspired by religious fanaticism, our leaders are motivated by plain, old grubby money (in the form of Iraq's oil).
Al-Zarqawi was accused of being behind a wave of terror, including such acts as torture, the slaughtering of civilians and the beheading of hostages.
Hmmmm. Torture. The killing of civilians. Assassinations.
Does that ring a bell? Actually, that is something the U.S. was doing long before Bush's illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq.
You want torture? How about Abu Ghraib prison?
How about the killing of civilians? Try Haditha. And if you want to open the discussion up beyond Iraq, the U.S. has killed many civilians worldwide over the years (millions in Vietnam alone).
Assassinations? The U.S. is guilty of too many to list here. However, I will mention that ironically, the CIA once contracted none other than Saddam Hussein himself to attempt an assassination of Iraq's prime minister in 1959.
How about U.S. bombings that have killed tens of thousands of men, women and children in Iraq? The carnage from U.S. bombs dwarfs al-Zarqawi's death toll many times over.
Granted, we haven't beheaded any hostages. But we have done crimes that even al-Zarqawi never did (such as using horrifying chemical weapons that melt human flesh on the people of Fallujah).
And we've probably also done a million other things that our lazy, incompetent media has never bothered to report.
Bottom line: the U.S. has committed the very same crimes that it accused al-Zarqawi of. Instead of celebrating his death, we need to take a good, hard look at ourselves and consider whether we've sunk to the same depth of evil as our enemies.
Frankly, the likes of bloodthirsty, hate-spewers like Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck scare me every bit as much as al-Zarqawi and bin Laden. The only difference is that the latter are willing to die for their beliefs, while Coulter and Beck cynically exploit Bush's "war on terror" with their hate-filled jingoistic tirades, so that they can fund their millionaire's lifestyles of luxury and comfort.
It seems like all the talking heads in Pundit Land are overjoyed at the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Even a lot of liberal Web sites are gleeful. I have to admit, I was a bit baffled by the Daily Kos post that happily celebrated al-Zarqawi's death. For a moment there, I thought I'd mistakenly clicked into ShootALiberal.com or some other right-wing nutcase site.
Curiously, the one person you'd expect to be more grateful than anyone for al-Zarqawi's death, Michael Berg, father of slain hostage Nick Berg, emphasized Thursday that he wasn't happy at all and called it a "tragedy." Instead of expressing bloodthirsty glee, Michael was a rare voice of reason on a day when America's pampered, overpaid talking heads were expressing happiness.
"Zarqawi felt my son's breath on his hand as held the knife against his throat. Zarqawi had to look in his eyes when he did it," Berg said in an Associated Press interview. "George Bush sits there glassy-eyed in his office with pieces of paper and condemns people to death. That to me is a real terrorist."
Let's assume that al-Zarqawi was indeed an evil bastard who tortured people and blew up civilians. Does the U.S.--or Bush--have a moral leg to stand on in criticizing him?
I don't think we do. The fact is: our leaders are guilty of the same crimes that we accused al-Zarqawi of----and on a much grander scale. The only difference is that, instead of being inspired by religious fanaticism, our leaders are motivated by plain, old grubby money (in the form of Iraq's oil).
Al-Zarqawi was accused of being behind a wave of terror, including such acts as torture, the slaughtering of civilians and the beheading of hostages.
Hmmmm. Torture. The killing of civilians. Assassinations.
Does that ring a bell? Actually, that is something the U.S. was doing long before Bush's illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq.
You want torture? How about Abu Ghraib prison?
How about the killing of civilians? Try Haditha. And if you want to open the discussion up beyond Iraq, the U.S. has killed many civilians worldwide over the years (millions in Vietnam alone).
Assassinations? The U.S. is guilty of too many to list here. However, I will mention that ironically, the CIA once contracted none other than Saddam Hussein himself to attempt an assassination of Iraq's prime minister in 1959.
How about U.S. bombings that have killed tens of thousands of men, women and children in Iraq? The carnage from U.S. bombs dwarfs al-Zarqawi's death toll many times over.
Granted, we haven't beheaded any hostages. But we have done crimes that even al-Zarqawi never did (such as using horrifying chemical weapons that melt human flesh on the people of Fallujah).
And we've probably also done a million other things that our lazy, incompetent media has never bothered to report.
Bottom line: the U.S. has committed the very same crimes that it accused al-Zarqawi of. Instead of celebrating his death, we need to take a good, hard look at ourselves and consider whether we've sunk to the same depth of evil as our enemies.
Frankly, the likes of bloodthirsty, hate-spewers like Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck scare me every bit as much as al-Zarqawi and bin Laden. The only difference is that the latter are willing to die for their beliefs, while Coulter and Beck cynically exploit Bush's "war on terror" with their hate-filled jingoistic tirades, so that they can fund their millionaire's lifestyles of luxury and comfort.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
10 Issues Bush Ignores While Pushing Amendment Banning Gay Marriage
By MARC McDONALD
While George W. Bush is spending his time pushing for a "marriage protection" constitutional amendment (which an ABC News poll this week showed that a majority of Americans oppose) here are some issues that he could be addressing instead:
1. America is going broke. Our nation's total fiscal obligation, in current dollars, now totals at least $44.2 trillion. (That's trillion, with a "T"). America's snowballing government deficit is unprecedented in world history and is so massive that it costs the U.S. over $300 billion a year just to service the debt interest.
2. Osama bin Laden roams free, and continues to rally supporters with video dispatches, nearly five years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on The World Trade Center.
3. Global warming is a ticking time bomb. The vast majority of scientists say we have only 10 years to "avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced."
4. The U.S. dollar is in jeopardy. That's the view of an increasing number of economic commentators, including the second-richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, who warns the the U.S. is at risk of becoming a "sharecropper’s society." If the dollar melts down, America's reign as a superpower will end.
5. Forecasters predict another harsh hurricane season. And despite what Bush says, the U.S. is ill-prepared.
6. The U.S. is not adequately protected from another terrorist attack. That's the view of the former Sept. 11 Commission, which in a report in December, charged the Bush White House with failing to protect the country against another terrorist attack.
7."One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed." That's not a quote from Howard Dean. It's from William F. Buckley Jr., the dean of conservative American authors, writing in National Review, the bible of American conservative thought.
8. Terrorist attacks worldwide are at an all-time high. Despite Bush's claims that "we're winning" the war on terror, the U.S. State Department reported in April that the number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005 to 11,111, with strikes in Iraq accounting for 30 percent of the total. The attacks killed more than 14,600 noncombatants, including 56 Americans.
9. The most recent U.S. Census data shows that 45.8 million Americans (about 15% of the total population) had no health insurance coverage in 2004, a rise of 850,000 from the previous year. Overall U.S. health care performance is ranked 37th by the World Health Organization, far below the average of developed nations.
10. A May CBS news poll showed that Americans say "the most important problems" facing the country are: the war in Iraq (28 percent), economy/jobs (15 percent), immigration (12 percent), gas/heating oil crisis (6 percent), terrorism (5 percent), health care (4 percent), defense/military (3 percent) and Bush himself (3 percent).
While George W. Bush is spending his time pushing for a "marriage protection" constitutional amendment (which an ABC News poll this week showed that a majority of Americans oppose) here are some issues that he could be addressing instead:
1. America is going broke. Our nation's total fiscal obligation, in current dollars, now totals at least $44.2 trillion. (That's trillion, with a "T"). America's snowballing government deficit is unprecedented in world history and is so massive that it costs the U.S. over $300 billion a year just to service the debt interest.
2. Osama bin Laden roams free, and continues to rally supporters with video dispatches, nearly five years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on The World Trade Center.
3. Global warming is a ticking time bomb. The vast majority of scientists say we have only 10 years to "avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced."
4. The U.S. dollar is in jeopardy. That's the view of an increasing number of economic commentators, including the second-richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, who warns the the U.S. is at risk of becoming a "sharecropper’s society." If the dollar melts down, America's reign as a superpower will end.
5. Forecasters predict another harsh hurricane season. And despite what Bush says, the U.S. is ill-prepared.
6. The U.S. is not adequately protected from another terrorist attack. That's the view of the former Sept. 11 Commission, which in a report in December, charged the Bush White House with failing to protect the country against another terrorist attack.
7."One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed." That's not a quote from Howard Dean. It's from William F. Buckley Jr., the dean of conservative American authors, writing in National Review, the bible of American conservative thought.
8. Terrorist attacks worldwide are at an all-time high. Despite Bush's claims that "we're winning" the war on terror, the U.S. State Department reported in April that the number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005 to 11,111, with strikes in Iraq accounting for 30 percent of the total. The attacks killed more than 14,600 noncombatants, including 56 Americans.
9. The most recent U.S. Census data shows that 45.8 million Americans (about 15% of the total population) had no health insurance coverage in 2004, a rise of 850,000 from the previous year. Overall U.S. health care performance is ranked 37th by the World Health Organization, far below the average of developed nations.
10. A May CBS news poll showed that Americans say "the most important problems" facing the country are: the war in Iraq (28 percent), economy/jobs (15 percent), immigration (12 percent), gas/heating oil crisis (6 percent), terrorism (5 percent), health care (4 percent), defense/military (3 percent) and Bush himself (3 percent).
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