The fear fundamentalists
It’s 3 a.m. and your child is sleeping. A detainee groans at Guantanamo. On the campaign trail, the Clinton PR team is guzzling coffee, dreaming up new ways to milk votes out of fear.
Why, I wondered, is she going after these votes in the primary? Surely she doesn’t imagine that the fear fundamentalists are part of her constituency: the ones who think a wall across our Southern border, and a macho preener in the White House, will make them safe. Then I thought, oh, maybe it’s that Republican crossover thing. Rush Limbaugh loans the dittohead vote to Hillary so the GOP doesn’t have to run against Obama in the fall, and she eases their journey across the party divide with a little shameless fear-mongering so they feel temporarily at home.
Why, I wondered, is she going after these votes in the primary? Surely she doesn’t imagine that the fear fundamentalists are part of her constituency: the ones who think a wall across our Southern border, and a macho preener in the White House, will make them safe. Then I thought, oh, maybe it’s that Republican crossover thing. Rush Limbaugh loans the dittohead vote to Hillary so the GOP doesn’t have to run against Obama in the fall, and she eases their journey across the party divide with a little shameless fear-mongering so they feel temporarily at home.
Warfare and healthcare
It's kind of logical. In a pathological way.
A country that devotes a vast array of resources to killing capabilities will steadily undermine its potential for healing. For social justice. For healthcare as a human right.
Martin Luther King Jr. described the horrific trendline four decades ago: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
If a society keeps approaching spiritual death, it’s apt to arrive. Here’s an indicator: Nearly one in six Americans has no health insurance, and tens of millions of others are badly under-insured. Here’s another: The United States, the world’s preeminent warfare state, now spends about $2 billion per day on military pursuits.
Gaining healthcare for all will require overcoming the priorities of the warfare state. That’s the genuine logic behind the new "Healthcare NOT Warfare" campaign. http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2008-03-05-12-05-43-news.php
A country that devotes a vast array of resources to killing capabilities will steadily undermine its potential for healing. For social justice. For healthcare as a human right.
Martin Luther King Jr. described the horrific trendline four decades ago: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
If a society keeps approaching spiritual death, it’s apt to arrive. Here’s an indicator: Nearly one in six Americans has no health insurance, and tens of millions of others are badly under-insured. Here’s another: The United States, the world’s preeminent warfare state, now spends about $2 billion per day on military pursuits.
Gaining healthcare for all will require overcoming the priorities of the warfare state. That’s the genuine logic behind the new "Healthcare NOT Warfare" campaign. http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2008-03-05-12-05-43-news.php
National Lawyers Guild calls on Congress to override Bush veto of Intelligence Authorization bill
NEW YORK - The National Lawyers Guild calls on Congress to override George W. Bush’s veto—in direct contravention of the advice of military commanders—of the Intelligence Authorization Bill that contained a provision limiting the Central Intelligence Agency’s ability to engage in the torture technique known as waterboarding. The practice is currently prohibited by both military and law enforcement agencies. The bill would have limited U.S. interrogators to techniques permitted in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation. Senator John McCain voted against the bill, reversing his previous position on torture.
Torture is illegal under domestic and international law. The U.S. Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment, and the United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which makes it part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. That convention prohibits torture even in wartime. Torture is also unlawful under the U.S. Torture Statute (18 USC 2340) and the U.S. War Crimes Act (18 USC 2441).
Torture is illegal under domestic and international law. The U.S. Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment, and the United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which makes it part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. That convention prohibits torture even in wartime. Torture is also unlawful under the U.S. Torture Statute (18 USC 2340) and the U.S. War Crimes Act (18 USC 2441).
Did Republicans give Hillary her victory in Ohio?
Hilary Clinton's larger-than-expected victory in Ohio may have been won with votes from Republicans, and from independents who usually vote Republican.
Much has been made of comments by Rush Limbaugh and other far-right commentators asking that Republicans cast their ballots for her in open primary states like Ohio and Texas. Part of the strategy seems centered on slowing down Barack Obama, who analysts argue will be harder for John McCain to beat this fall. Others, like Ann Coulter, have gone so far as to say they actually PREFER Clinton to McCain. Such voters would certainly also prefer the former first lady to Obama.
Whatever the case, there is concrete evidence in Ohio that Republican cross-over voters did, in fact, play a significant role in delivering the Buckeye primary votes to the Senator from New York.
Much has been made of comments by Rush Limbaugh and other far-right commentators asking that Republicans cast their ballots for her in open primary states like Ohio and Texas. Part of the strategy seems centered on slowing down Barack Obama, who analysts argue will be harder for John McCain to beat this fall. Others, like Ann Coulter, have gone so far as to say they actually PREFER Clinton to McCain. Such voters would certainly also prefer the former first lady to Obama.
Whatever the case, there is concrete evidence in Ohio that Republican cross-over voters did, in fact, play a significant role in delivering the Buckeye primary votes to the Senator from New York.
Did Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
Hilary Clinton's larger-than-expected victory in Ohio may have been won with votes from Republicans, and from independents who usually vote Republican.
Much has been made of Rush Limbaugh’s other far-right commentators’ pleas to Republicans to cast their ballots for her in open primary states like Ohio and Texas. Part of the strategy is to slow down Barack Obama, who analysts argue will be harder for John McCain to beat this fall. Others, like Ann Coulter, have gone so far as to say they actually PREFER Clinton to McCain. Such voters would certainly also prefer the former first lady to Obama.
Whatever the case, there is concrete evidence in Ohio that Republican cross-over voters did, in fact, play a significant role in delivering the Buckeye primary votes to the Senator from New York.
Hilary Clinton's larger-than-expected victory in Ohio may have been won with votes from Republicans, and from independents who usually vote Republican.
Much has been made of Rush Limbaugh’s other far-right commentators’ pleas to Republicans to cast their ballots for her in open primary states like Ohio and Texas. Part of the strategy is to slow down Barack Obama, who analysts argue will be harder for John McCain to beat this fall. Others, like Ann Coulter, have gone so far as to say they actually PREFER Clinton to McCain. Such voters would certainly also prefer the former first lady to Obama.
Whatever the case, there is concrete evidence in Ohio that Republican cross-over voters did, in fact, play a significant role in delivering the Buckeye primary votes to the Senator from New York.
Senator Feingold's peace effort
Senator Russ Feingold (D., Wisc.) is preparing to give the Republicans in the Senate two more opportunities this week to grandstand and filibuster in favor of the occupation of Iraq. They will, of course, do so; and they will, of course, win.
Feingold cannot possibly have any doubt of that as he introduces his bills. As far as I know, he's not even trying to get the House to pass the same things, since they're guaranteed not to pass the Senate.
One of Feingold's bills proposes a delayed partial beginning of a withdrawal from an occupation that the vast majority of Americans (not to mention Iraqis) want completely ended. The other asks Bush to produce a report on his strategy for accomplishing the mythic mission that he uses to justify that same occupation. Both bills are written in Bush-Cheney vocabulary, promoting the very ideas they are intended to oh-so-weakly oppose.
Feingold cannot possibly have any doubt of that as he introduces his bills. As far as I know, he's not even trying to get the House to pass the same things, since they're guaranteed not to pass the Senate.
One of Feingold's bills proposes a delayed partial beginning of a withdrawal from an occupation that the vast majority of Americans (not to mention Iraqis) want completely ended. The other asks Bush to produce a report on his strategy for accomplishing the mythic mission that he uses to justify that same occupation. Both bills are written in Bush-Cheney vocabulary, promoting the very ideas they are intended to oh-so-weakly oppose.
Losing the future
A certain reverence is required just to approach the book’s title: “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” by noted economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes. I can see why they understated it.
The pulse of outrage beats behind the cold calculations in this concise volume, newly published by Norton. We’re not just “losing” this tragic, arrogantly unplanned war in the conventional sense of failing to subdue our enemies — we’re committing slow socioeconomic suicide with its open-ended pursuit, losing, as we plunge recklessly into debt over it, our options, our ability to choose. We’re losing the future.
“Because of the war, the national deficit is $2 trillion higher,” Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, told me. “At 5 percent interest, that’s $100 billion a year, year after year after year — forever!”
Such numbers are beyond the scope of the human imagination. To begin putting the war into financial perspective, Stiglitz suggested that we need a new unit of account: “Think of what things would cost in terms of hours, days, weeks of fighting.”
The pulse of outrage beats behind the cold calculations in this concise volume, newly published by Norton. We’re not just “losing” this tragic, arrogantly unplanned war in the conventional sense of failing to subdue our enemies — we’re committing slow socioeconomic suicide with its open-ended pursuit, losing, as we plunge recklessly into debt over it, our options, our ability to choose. We’re losing the future.
“Because of the war, the national deficit is $2 trillion higher,” Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, told me. “At 5 percent interest, that’s $100 billion a year, year after year after year — forever!”
Such numbers are beyond the scope of the human imagination. To begin putting the war into financial perspective, Stiglitz suggested that we need a new unit of account: “Think of what things would cost in terms of hours, days, weeks of fighting.”
The war election
Maybe it sounded good when politicians, pundits and online fundraisers talked about American deaths as though they were the deaths that mattered most.
Maybe it sounded good to taunt the Bush administration as a bunch of screw-ups who didn’t know how to run a proper occupation.
And maybe it sounded good to condemn Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush for ignoring predictions that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to effectively occupy Iraq after an invasion.
But when a war based on lies is opposed because too many Americans are dying, the implication is that it can be made right by reducing the American death toll.
When a war that flagrantly violated international law is opposed because it was badly managed, the implication is that better management could make for an acceptable war.
Maybe it sounded good to taunt the Bush administration as a bunch of screw-ups who didn’t know how to run a proper occupation.
And maybe it sounded good to condemn Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush for ignoring predictions that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to effectively occupy Iraq after an invasion.
But when a war based on lies is opposed because too many Americans are dying, the implication is that it can be made right by reducing the American death toll.
When a war that flagrantly violated international law is opposed because it was badly managed, the implication is that better management could make for an acceptable war.