tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3431852859603493972024-02-19T00:48:15.214-08:00philosophealagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-16610533525124898982013-05-17T11:02:00.002-07:002013-05-17T11:02:14.943-07:00GOP response to global warming is irresponsible
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Danville Advocate-Messenger May 15, 2013</strong></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b>On May 9 <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory recorded carbon
dioxide </span>(CO<sub>2</sub>) levels of 400 <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">parts-per-million</span> (ppm). Scientific American reports<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that w<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">hen measurements started in 1958, “the daily average could be as low as 315
ppm, already up from a pre-industrial average of around 280 ppm.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Scientists believe that Earth hasn’t
had these levels since the Pliocene era 3-5 million years ago. At that time
temperatures were </span>5.4-7.2 °F warmer than now, and sea levels were 16 to
131 feet higher than today.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
A major cause of global warming is
consumption of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). When burned, these
fuels emit carbon dioxide, which makes up 84% of so-called greenhouse gases.
These trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, raising its temperature.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Increasing heat waves, droughts,
severe storms, forest and grass fires, flooding of river basins and coastal
areas, declining crop production, rising sea levels that threaten coastal
cities and infrastructure: all this and more is looming for the U.S. and much
of the planet as a result of rising global temperatures. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 2009 the
National Academies of Science of the 13 wealthiest nations proclaimed in a
joint statement that “climate change is happening even faster than previously
estimated,” and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the need for urgent
action to address climate change is now indisputable.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our
national security officials get it. <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The Department of Defense’s environmental science division (SERDP) warns
that “sea level could increase by roughly up to 1 meter by 2100 and by 2 meters
if Greenland ice sheet melt accelerates.” (The ice sheet melted at a record
rate in the summer of 2012.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It should be obvious that we need a
national commitment to sharply reduce our use of fossil fuels and rapidly
develop technology for renewable non-polluting energy such as solar, wind and
geothermal power. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The Obama administration has taken
some modest steps to reduce carbon pollution. For instance, it released new fuel
economy standards last summer, requiring automakers to raise the average fuel
efficiency of new cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. GOP presidential
nominee Mitt Romney promptly vowed to overturn this standard if elected. During
the primaries, every GOP presidential candidate except Jon Huntsman dismissed
the dangers of climate change.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Congressional Republicans respond to scientists’ warnings with skepticism
or outright denial, and are totally opposed to doing anything about global<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>warming. A good example of this intransigence
is Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma). He’s the senior Republican on the Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works (which he chaired from 2003 to 2007).
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">His book </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Greatest Hoax:
How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future appeared in February
2012. </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Some hoax! All those
national academies of science taken in by it!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As reported by the New York Times
(6/22/10), in 2010 Stanford researchers compiled a list of scientists who had
published at least twenty papers on climate. They found that 97-98% of the top
200 scientists (ranked by frequency of publication) agree that global warming
is accelerating, and that human activity is the principal cause.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Inhofe has two sources for his certainty about the “hoax”: God and Mammon. In
a radio interview with Voice of Christian Youth America (3/8/12), he explained
that his book is biblically inspired: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">“The Genesis 8:22
that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed
time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night,’ my point
is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human
beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">In addition to
divine support, Mammon chipped in with about $1.5 million from oil and gas industries
in 1989-2012<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(OpenSecrets.org). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The recently appointed chairman of
the House Science Committee is Lamar Smith (R-Texas). He refers to concerned
climate scientists as “global warming alarmists.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><br /> </span>A group of very wealthy conservatives
have bought some intellectual support for climate-change denial. As The
Guardian (2/15/13) reports, “Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund,” secretive
conservative bundlers, have for a decade “channelled nearly $120m to contrarian
thinktanks and activists” that give the appearance of scientific respectability
to deniers in Congress.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The National Journal (5/9/13) tells
a striking story about Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at
MIT, and a major authority on climate change. Turned off by what he saw as the
Left’s blind ideology,</span><span lang="EN"> </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">he registered as a Republican at age 18. In
January of 2012 the Christian Coalition of America flew him to Charleston,
South Carolina, to meet with the GOP presidential candidates.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Coalition was concerned that the
effects of global warning would hurt the next generation, especially the
world’s poor. Disturbed by the unconcern of the candidates, Emanuel changed his
party registration from Republican to independent. As he explained: “The idea
that you could look a huge amount of evidence straight in the face and, for
purely ideological reasons, deny it, is anathema to me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 10pt 0in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-60636411261409884402012-12-13T07:29:00.003-08:002012-12-13T07:29:38.837-08:00Redistribution is part of governing<h4>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Danville Advocate Messenger 12/11/12</span></h4>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFt6GIMCvR7OAYEsxxMkfU3yj-HTVri7-cIn1bsvzemen1ldTQ5yo9VZXw8s_qDJpjiWXLVGCmYTyLhmNobK59UR20wc6a3c0y1VJOTeaFt07NN86HZvTSmxhwZkc0VusCBTIrn2HuNE/s1600/5256735900_89e7cbe355_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFt6GIMCvR7OAYEsxxMkfU3yj-HTVri7-cIn1bsvzemen1ldTQ5yo9VZXw8s_qDJpjiWXLVGCmYTyLhmNobK59UR20wc6a3c0y1VJOTeaFt07NN86HZvTSmxhwZkc0VusCBTIrn2HuNE/s1600/5256735900_89e7cbe355_n.jpg" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> When a video surfaced last September showing Mitt
Romney dismissing 47% of voters as irresponsible freeloaders, his panicked
staffers scrambled to find something they could hit back with. They found an
audio clip from 1998 in which Obama said that “I actually believe in some
redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a
shot."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
seems that Obama has avoided using the toxic word “redistribution” in public
since then. But the right-wing media howled over this 14-year old clip like
hounds closing on their prey.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Romney
rushed out to tell Fox News: "I know some believe the government should
take from some to give to the others. I think the president makes it clear in the
tape that was released today that that's what he believes. I think that's an
entirely foreign concept."</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><br /> </span>The
GOP propaganda machine is very effective at dirtying the words it uses to
describe its opponents. Think of what it has done to words like “government”
and “public.” It wants us to hear “redistribution” as an alien Euro-Kenyan ‘socialist’
word that can hurt anyone by association.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
reality, redistribution of wealth and income is an inescapable, essential
function of government (yes, even under Republicans). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It happens in many ways.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
instance, all the production processes that jointly create our gross domestic
product (GDP) utilize expensive public goods and services on a massive scale. These
goods and services include education, transportation systems, domestic and
international security, the legal system (including courts), publicly funded
research, communication networks, and numerous agencies that promote public
health, monitor the safety of consumer products and protect our environment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
bill for these goods and services comes mostly in the form of taxes and fees.
So we, as citizens with a democratic government, must decide how to divide up
that bill. Should everyone pay, in the same amount or at the same rate
regardless of what benefits they derive, or unequally according to some
criterion, or should we rely more on user fees (as with toll roads)? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Private income is
what’s left after paying the public bill. So whatever payment scheme our
country adopts, it will amount to a government distribution of income, and
cumulatively, of wealth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time we
change this scheme by lowering, raising or imposing new taxes and fees, we
redistribute income and wealth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The continuing battle
over tax rates is mostly about alternative redistributions of income once the
Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year. President Obama wants the
wealthiest of Americans (the “2%”) to pay a bigger share of the bill for public
goods and services. One important means of achieving this would be letting the
(2001-03) Bush tax cuts expire for the top 2%. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Bush tax cuts were
a massive upward redistribution of income that continues to this day. As the
Economic Policy Institute </span><a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/tenth_anniversary_of_the_bush-era_tax_cuts/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: blue;">points
out</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">,
“[In 2010] </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">the top 0.1% of
earners (i.e., making over $3 million) received an average tax cut of roughly
$520,000, more than 450 times larger than the share received by an average
middle-income family.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">A major ingredient of the Bush cuts was a drop in the tax rate for
long-term capital gains and dividends from 20% to 15%. (Long-term capital gains
are the profits from selling stock or other assets held longer than one year.
Capital gains and dividends are often called “investment” or “unearned” income,
in contrast to income “earned” by actually working.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Capital gains are a major source of income for rich Americans. As the
Washington Post’s Steven Mufson and Jia Lynn Yang explain:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Over the past 20 years, more than 80 percent
of the capital gains income realized in the United States has gone to 5 percent
of the people; about half of all the capital gains have gone to the wealthiest
0.1 percent” (</span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/capital-gains-tax-rates-benefiting-wealthy-are-protected-by-both-parties/2011/09/06/gIQAdJmSLK_print.html"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: blue;">9/11/11</span></span></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Tax Policy Center </span><a href="http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=3181&topic2ID=60&topic3ID=62&DocTypeID=1"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: blue;">predicts</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
that in 2013 the 534,000 taxpayers with annual income over $1 million will
receive an average of $782,000 in investment income. They will pay 15% tax on
this income, 20% less than they would have paid if they had worked for this
money. Our tax system’s preferential treatment of the investor class is a
striking example of upward redistribution.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The highest marginal income
tax rate was 91% during the Eisenhower years, 70% under Nixon, 50% under
Reagan, 39.6% under Clinton, and is 35% since Bush. The capital gains rate was
39.9% under Carter, 28% under Reagan, 20% under Clinton, and is 15% since Bush.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So the Bush tax cuts
continued a 50-year trend of wealthy Americans paying less and less of the bill
for public goods and services. President Obama proposes to raise the current
top income tax rate from 35% to 39.6% and the capital gains tax from 15% to
20%, while taxing dividends just like ordinary income.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">This would be a
modest step in reversing 50 years of upward redistribution of income and wealth.</span></div>
alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-61955100339692083572012-09-20T12:22:00.000-07:002012-09-20T12:22:18.692-07:00The party of Lincoln plays the race card<h4>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Danville Advocate-Messenger, Sept. 20, 2012</span></h4>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Something
very shabby happened at an Aug. 21 Tea Party rally on the steps of Kentucky’s
Capitol. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">state Sen. Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">told the crowd
that Obama should be sent back to Chicago or Hawaii, “wherever he wants to go.”
Someone shouted out that the president should be sent to Kenya. Thayer replied,
“I'm not going to say that, but I appreciate your sentiments.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">What were the “sentiments” that Thayer so “appreciated”? Did Thayer like
the way that “Kenya” reminded the crowd that Obama is black, and also suggested
he was an African foreigner, not of European descent like real Americans? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Was Thayer happy to have someone else use a word he didn’t dare use
himself, one that evoked for this crowd all the racist images that have shown
up on Tea Party placards and in viral emails circulating among the GOP “base”? Was
he inviting his base to savor the message conveyed by depictions of Obama in
white-face or as a witch doctor? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Thayer’s remark was an example of a
favorite Republican campaign tactic: the racial “dog whistle.” Literal dog
whistles have a high-frequency sound that dogs can hear but not humans. The GOP
dog whistles consist of code words or phrases like “Kenya,” “inner-city,” “states’
rights” and “welfare.” These have both an everyday meaning and an additional
one that registers with the racist minority that is an important section of the
party’s base.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Kenya” reminds people of the
“birther” controversy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Birthers say that
Obama is not a legitimate president because he is not a natural-born American. Adam
J. Berinsky, a Professor of Political Science at MIT, </span><a href="http://today.yougov.com/news/2012/07/11/birthers-are-still-back/"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: blue;">reports</span></span></a><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> that as of July, 2012 only 31% of self-identified
Republicans believe Obama was born in the U.S. The rest (69%) either believe he
was not born in this country (33%) or are unsure (36%). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On July 27, 2009 </span>Dr. Chiyome
Fukino, <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">director of Hawaii’s Health
Department certified that she had “seen the original vital records. . . </span>verifying
Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai'i and is a natural-born American citizen.”
Then came assurances from Hawaii’s Republican governor Linda Lingle, and the
White House release of an official copy of the Obama’s birth certificate in
April of 2011. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Yet, according to Professor
Berinsky, the percentage of Republicans doubting or denying Obama’s birth in
the U.S. is essentially unchanged. Nothing will convince them, for the simple
reason that they cannot accept the idea that a Black man really is our
President.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Three days after Sen. Thayer’s performance in Frankfort, Mitt Romney spoke
at a rally in Commerce, Michigan. He used the occasion to blow a big birther
dog whistle at the crowd: “</span>No one has ever asked to see my birth
certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Donald Trump is a very prominent birther. Yet Romney happily shared the
stage with him in Las Vegas, to receive his endorsement. He even invited him to
speak at the Republican national convention—a treat denied to us when the first
day of the convention was cancelled because of hurricane Isaac.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">When asked by reporters about his willingness to be associated with an
outspoken birther, Romney replied: “I don't agree with all the people who
support me and my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in.
But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of
a lot of good people." “Good people”? Trump is living proof that you can
be very successful in business without wisdom, decency or class.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>According to a Pew Research </span><a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/new-poll-shows-conservative-republicans-increasingly-believe-obama-is-muslim/"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: blue;">poll</span></span></a><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> released in July of 2012, 34% of self-described
conservative Republicans and 19% of moderate Republicans believe Obama is
Muslim. Sticking this tag onto the President taps into the epidemic of
Islamophobia in this country. Obama becomes the perfect Other—a Black Kenyan
Muslim, an object of hate and fear for a rabid GOP base. They can feel free to
pile on him other tags such as communist, socialist, or Nazi, stripped of any
meaning except Evil Alien.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The base’s racist hatred even descends
to animal imagery, as you can see if you google “obama monkey images.” Consider
this</span><span lang="EN"> </span>‘<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-29/Montana-judge-racist-email/53307060/1"><span style="color: blue;">joke’</span></a>
emailed by Montana's U.S. District Chief Judge, George W. Bush nominee Richard
Cebull on Feb. 12:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 10pt;">
"A little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm
black and you're white?' His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack! From
what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!' "</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Of course
it’s not the case that every Republican or Tea Party adherent is a racist. However,
the disease afflicting the current GOP is that it can’t risk a clear, ringing
condemnation of these views because it needs the votes of those who hold them. What
we get instead is winking and dog whistles.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-26706524170438124562012-08-16T12:29:00.000-07:002012-08-16T12:29:48.288-07:00Unclear language and dishonest rhetoric cloud the tax-cut debate
<br />
<h4 class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Danville Advocate-Messenger August 16, 2012 </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
"I'm not proposing anything radical here," President
Obama said on July 9. "I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a
year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill
Clinton." Mitt Romney thinks otherwise: <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">“This will be another kick in the gut to the
middle class in America.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And so the
fight is on again, just as in 2010. That was the year the Bush tax cuts of 2001
and 2003 were, by law, set to expire. Obama and the Democrats wanted to keep
the Bush tax rates for most taxpayers while raising them only for couples with
incomes over $250,000 and individuals over $200,000. Republicans wanted the tax
cuts to be permanent even for the wealthiest. The two sides compromised by
extending the cuts for everyone only until the end of 2012, kicking the can
down the road to where we are now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>News media
often talk about Obama’s proposal as raising taxes on the upper 2%. But this
number is an inaccurate shorthand for “the wealthy.” According to an
interactive map in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html"><span style="color: blue;">New
York Times</span></a> (1/14/12), $250,000 puts a couple in the top 3% nationally, but
only in the top 5% in the New York City area.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>From my
informal survey I’ve learned that many people shared my difficulty in understanding
the tax debate. So here’s what I’ve been able to learn since then. I hope it’s
helpful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The debate about income taxes
concerns the MARGINAL rate on TAXABLE income. Taxable income is gross income
minus deductions and exemptions. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
For instance, if a couple with two
dependent children files a joint return and takes the standard deduction and four
personal exemptions, the first $27,100 of their income is tax free. Income above
that amount is taxable and is divided into segments or “brackets” with
increasing tax rates for higher brackets. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Here are the brackets for 2012
(resulting from the Bush tax cuts):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>10%
on taxable income from $0 to $17,400, plus<br />
•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>15% on taxable income over
$17,400 to $70,700, plus<br />
•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>25% on taxable income over
$70,700 to $142,700, plus<br />
•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>28% on taxable income over
$142,700 to $217,450, plus<br />
•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>33% on taxable income over
$217,450 to $388,350, plus<br />
•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>35% on taxable income over
$388,350</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So, for example, if your taxable income reaches $17,400,
that gets you into the second bracket where you pay 15 cents on every further
dollar you earn until your taxable income reaches $70,700. After that, you pay
25 cents, but only on every dollar beyond $70,700.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Unless
Congress does something, the brackets for 2013 will revert to those of the
Clinton era: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the lowest rate will be 15%;
the 25% rate will rise to 28%; the 28% rate to 31%; the 33% rate to 36%; and
the 35% rate to 39.6%.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The President and the GOP are
battling over how to treat couples with incomes over $250,000 and individuals
over $200,000. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obama misrepresents his
own proposal when he says that these filers “should go back to the income tax
rates we were paying under Bill Clinton.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Instead of the Clinton rates, what Obama’s
actually proposing for these filers is that only the two top brackets revert to
Clinton-era levels: the 33% rate will become 36%; and the 35% rate will become
39.6%, but ONLY FOR INCOME ABOVE THE $250,000/200,000 threshold. So even the wealthy
would continue to benefit from the Bush tax cuts .</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
For example, if the married couple described
above earns $251,000 in 2012, only $1000 of their income would be subject to a
higher rate (36% instead of 33%). Their tax bill would increase by just $30. Actually,
this couple would likely itemize deductions, letting them deduct much more than
$27,100, and their tax bill would not go up at all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
According to <a href="http://www.ctj.org/pdf/obamavsgoptax2012.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">Citizens for Tax Justice</span></a>
(CTJ), in 2013 “couples with adjusted gross income (AGI) between $250,000 and
$300,000 would retain 98% of their Bush income tax cuts, on average, under
Obama’s proposal.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The CTJ report explains that couples
earning $400,00 to $500,000 would, on average, keep 2/3 of their Bush tax cut
($7,029 out of $10,653). These poor souls are part of the 1% nationally. Of
course, if you’re a Wall Street CEO or hedge fund manager pulling in $10-20 million,
Obama’s plan will take away nearly all the average $700,000 tax cut Bush gave
you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So here’s a question for Mitt Romney: where in
all these numbers do we find the “<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">kick in the gut to the middle class in America”?
Perhaps he was thinking of the average income of his social circle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
reported in the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us/politics/romney-like-plan-would-tax-lower-income-households.html"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="color: blue;">New York Times</span></span></a><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, the Tax
Policy Center has analyzed Romney’s own tax plan. They conclude that “middle-
and lower-income households. . . earning less than about $200,000 annually” would
have to pay more in taxes to make up for the tax revenue lost to Romney’s
proposed tax cuts for the wealthy.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-19230039780120710922012-07-06T13:55:00.000-07:002012-07-06T13:57:45.119-07:00Capitalism is an irrational political system<em>Danville Advocate-Messenger</em>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Yes, it’s irrational. And it’s what the GOP says it wants
for our country, to save us from becoming “like Europe.” It’s also what the
post-New Deal Democratic Party stands for, only a little less.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let’s start
with two recent events that highlight the damage American capitalism has done
to American political institutions. I’m talking about the appearances of Jamie
Dimon before the Senate Banking Committee on June 13 and the House Financial
Services Committee on June 19.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Dimon is chairman and CEO of
JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., with assets over $2 trillion. He
is a familiar figure on TV, with his elegantly coiffed white hair and serene
demeanor. He is widely and lavishly praised (even by President Obama) for his
financial wisdom.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Dimon had been summoned to explain his
bank’s recent loss of $2-3 billion dollars in risky trades at its London
branch. (Current estimates of the loss range from $6-9 billion.) People worried
that JPMorgan Chase was once again engaged in the same reckless gambling that
caused the global financial crisis of 2008. The FBI, the FED and the SEC are also
investigating.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
All these investigations should
remind us that the weak Dodd-Frank reform law of 2010 has left JPMorgan Chase
and other Wall Street giants too big to fail (TBTF). The financial world knows
that the U.S. government will bail them out if they go broke just as it did in
2008.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Their TBTF status raises their
credit rating and lowers their borrowing costs. In the case of JPMorgan Chase,
this amounts to a $14 billion government subsidy according to an article in Bloomberg.com
(“<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-18/dear-mr-dimon-is-your-bank-getting-corporate-welfare-.html"><span style="color: blue;">Dear
Mr. Dimon, Is Your Bank Getting Corporate Welfare?</span></a>”).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Republican senators on the Banking
Committee received Dimon with a fawning frenzy. For instance, Sen. Bob Corker
(R-Tenn.) asked Dimon “What would you do to make our system safer?” And Sen.
Mike Crapo (R-Ida.) asked “What should the function of regulators be?” Sen. Jim
DeMint (R-South Carolina) solicited Dimon’s “ideas on what you think we need to
do.” It was like a delegation of hens imploring the fox for his recipe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
JPMorgan Chase, described by
President Obama as “one of the best managed banks,” is a habitual criminal. Try
googling “<a href="https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS381US381&q=JPMorgan+Chase+crimes"><span style="color: blue;">JPMorgan
Chase crimes</span></a>.” I stopped counting after finding a total of $6 billion in
settlements for various kinds of bid-rigging, bribery and fraud. In a decent,
law-abiding country that values accountability, Dimon’s corrupt firm would have
been shut down.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The Senate committee was roundly
criticized for its obsequious behavior. Perhaps as a result, when Dimon went
before before the House Financial Services Committee six days later, several
members of both parties asked critical questions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
However, as The Nation’s George
Zornick <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/168491/jamie-dimon-finally-takes-heat-hill"><span style="color: blue;">reported</span></a>,
committee chairman Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama) was watching his back. Bachus,
“who has received more money from JPMorgan Chase than any other donor except
one over his career … consistently interrupted even members of his own party when
they went too hard on Dimon.” In a newspaper interview in 2010 after he was
appointed committee chair, Bachus <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/133379-bachus-tells-local-paper-that-washington-should-qserveq-banks"><span style="color: blue;">said</span></a>:
"my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the
banks."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Lying within Bachus’s 6<sup>th</sup>
district are parts of Jefferson County that include the suburbs of his native
Birmingham. In 1997 JPMorgan Chase sold Jefferson County a financing package
for a $300 million sewer project. The package included derivatives that went
bad, leaving the county with $3 billion in debt. This led the county in 2010 to
declare the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
According to <a href="http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-04/bny-mellon-sues-bankrupt-jefferson-county-over-sewer-revenue"><span style="color: blue;">Bloomberg</span></a>,
“In 2009, JPMorgan agreed to a $722 million settlement with the Securities and
Exchange Commission over payments its bankers allegedly made to people tied to [Jefferson]
county politicians to win [the financing contract].” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
This sordid crime against his home
town did not deflect Rep. Bachus from his mission to “serve” Jamie Dimon’s
bank.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
There’s nothing very special about
this “Mr. Dimon goes to Washington” story. It’s business as usual in the moral
swamp that is the government of the United States. And it’s the logical,
predictable outcome of a capitalist political system.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In a
capitalist political system, the primary role of a national government is to
protect and facilitate a national market in which firms operate with a minimum
of government intervention. Competition and economies of scale result in huge
corporations as dominant social institutions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Money is power—it commands not only
goods and services in private markets, but also the services of those who
govern. Only those who control large corporations can provide the money
politicians need to campaign for national office in the world’s largest
economy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
So, in a capitalist political
system, the primary role of government is to nurture a private market that will
in turn subordinate government to the profits of the wealthy minority who control
large corporations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Why would any society want to do
this? Ask our two political parties. <o:p></o:p></div>alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-27121085978756799822012-06-04T13:01:00.001-07:002012-06-04T13:07:44.795-07:00Do American workers have Stockholm Syndrome? Danville Advocate-Messenger<br />
<br />
There’s a real possibility that Mitt
Romney will be elected President by the votes of slightly more than 50% of
American workers. He will have won their votes despite promising to reduce
funding for their social safety net (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps) while
enacting tax cuts that would increase the incomes of very wealthy Americans
such as himself.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Why ever would workers support him?
They face high unemployment and job insecurity. So they might just need help
from the programs Romney would shrink.<o:p></o:p></div>
Romney and the GOP would answer:
the rich, are “job creators.” You ordinary people tend to use up your income on
essentials such as food, shelter and education. Only the wealthy have enough
money left over to invest in the businesses that give you jobs. The more income
they get, the more jobs they create. Raising their taxes is like starving the
goose that lays the golden eggs.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
This answer flies in the face of
well-known facts. It also makes no sense. That so many people believe it is a
symptom of societal Stockholm Syndrome.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
There is simply no correlation
between the unemployment rate and higher or lower marginal tax rates for the
wealthy. [Your marginal tax rate is the rate you pay on the taxable income that
falls into the highest bracket you reach: 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, or 35%.] </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
In fact, as Michael Linden of the
Center for American Progress points out, “if you ranked each year since 1950 by
overall job growth, the top five years would all boast [top] marginal tax rates
at 70 percent or higher. The top 10 years would share marginal tax rates at 50
percent or higher. The two worst years, on the other hand, were 2008 and 2009,
when the top marginal tax rate was 35 percent.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Moreover, it just makes no sense to
think that throwing more money at the investor class in the form of tax cuts
will induce them to create jobs. Corporations today are awash in profits, as JPMorgan’s
Tom Lee explains: "It's a record level of cash: $3.60 trillion, $670
billion dollars higher than 2007 when the market was at its prior peak.” But
they’re not hiring.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Why? Because people don’t have the
money to buy the products and services new employees would create. They’re
still reeling from home value losses, unemployment, under-employment and job
insecurity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
When investors won’t invest because
consumers can’t buy, the government has to do the buying in order to revive the
economy. It can restore consumer purchasing power by extending unemployment
benefits, subsidizing education, health care and food purchases, and spending
on our (rapidly decaying) infrastructure. As billionaire venture capitalist
Nick Hanauer said recently:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In a capitalist economy, the true job
creators are consumers, the middle class. And taxing the rich to make
investments that grow the middle class, is the single smartest thing we can do
for the middle class, the poor and the rich.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
How do Mitt Romney and the GOP get
away with making such foolish and dangerous proposals? Why aren’t they greeted
with the scorn they deserve?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
American workers are behaving like
the employees held hostage in a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. During
their six days of captivity, the employees emotionally identified with their
captors and even defended them afterward. This kind of traumatic bonding is
common enough to have been given a name: the Stockholm Syndrome.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
People are afflicted with this
syndrome under the following conditions: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perceived threat to survival and the belief
that one's captor is willing to act on that threat <br />
2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The captive's perception of small
kindnesses from the captor <br />
3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isolation from perspectives other
than those of the captor <br />
4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perceived inability to escape<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The severe recession caused by
the financial collapse of 2008 has left most workers feeling like their
financial survival and their sense of identity is at risk. There is stubbornly
high unemployment and under-employment. Those who lose their jobs and are
“lucky” enough to find similar work often settle for much lower wages.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They are like captives: forced into a fearful situation by
those with power over their workplaces—not just the owners, but also the
financiers, those who control the capital and credit their workplaces need.
Workers now live with the constant threat of termination. They must be grateful
for the kindness of owners who keep them on in these bad times, and should give
them what they want.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Workers’ perspective on what has happened and what must be
done is shaped by politicians who depend on wealthy investors to finance their
campaigns. It is also framed by media giants controlled by the same wealthy
investors. Workers are taught there is no escape from the present system.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a similar situation in the 1930s President Roosevelt told
workers they “have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Unfortunately, Barack
Obama is no FDR.</span><o:p></o:p></div>alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-92101918117847238452012-04-17T17:47:00.000-07:002012-04-17T17:47:29.751-07:00Obama v Romney: a choice or an echo?<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">Danville Advocate-Messenger April 17, 2012</span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b>In announcing his campaign for the presidency in January of 1964, Barry Goldwater famously promised that “I will offer a choice, not an echo.” His was to be a campaign in which principles would create a stark difference between him and LBJ.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Will that be the case between President Obama and the GOP’s nominee, Mitt Romney? Their campaign rhetoric makes it seem so.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Romney would balance the budget and pay for a sharp increase in military spending and tax cuts for the wealthy by making deep cuts in funding for social programs. Obama would get the revenue to preserve the social safety net by increasing taxes for the wealthy and modestly reducing the rate of growth in military spending.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute pointed out in a <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/recalculating-romneys-four-percent-gimmick/">March 6 blog</a>, “Over the next ten years, Romney’s annual spending (in constant dollars) for the Pentagon would average 64 percent higher than annual post-Cold War budgets (1990-2012), and 42 percent more than the average during the Reagan era (1981-1989).” Obama’s plan would cost $5.7 trillion between 2013 and 2022, whereas Romney would spend a $2.58 trillion more, for a total of $8.3 trillion.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These numbers make it seem that we’re presented with a stark choice here. However, both alternatives are based on an extravagant and outdated conception of America’s role in the international community. The choice is between bad and crazy.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Both Romney and Obama are committed to the U.S. military being a global police force. In a speech delivered to The Citadel last October, Romney insisted that the 21st century “must be an American Century” in which “America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When he announced on Jan. 5 that the military budget will increase at a slower rate, Obama added <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“</b>the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">” </b>in order to preserve “American global leadership.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But the Pentagon still has<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> the planet divided up into military areas of command</span>, and oversees an empire of more than 700 active bases in foreign countries. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Our global presence is more likely to provoke than to prevent terrorist attacks. So why do we maintain this empire at an annual cost of $250 billion (according to Chalmers Johnson, an expert on this subject)?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Obama’s military budget is level with the maximum reached under George W. Bush, and higher than the peaks reached during the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars. According to Lawrence J. Korb, in an <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/07/historical_defense_budget.html">essay</a> (7/6/11) he co-authored for the Center for American Progress, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“The Obama administration and Congress could cut $150 billion from the budget and still be at Reagan levels. President Obama would need to reduce the budget by about 40 percent, or close to $300 billion, to reach the budget levels established by Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Clinton.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We now spend more on our military than we did during the Cold War when Americans believed that a superpower—the Soviet Union—posed an existential threat to the U.S. Those days are over. Yet the U.S. share of global military spending is 43%, while the Chinese share is 7.3% and Russia’s is 3.5%.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The bloat in our military spending is not just numbers. It’s also as a huge opportunity cost. Every dollar spent on the military is a dollar unavailable for investing in education, health care, transportation and infrastructure.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In addition to a soaring military budget, Romney wants tax cuts that would overwhelmingly favor the wealthy. In March the Tax Policy Center published updated summary tables of the effects of Romney’s and Obama’s tax proposals on taxpayers at different income levels. The difference is stark.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For instance, in 2015 Romney would give an average tax cut of $150,000 to the top 1% (whose income averaged $1,500,000 in 2011), and $726,000 to the upper tenth (the .01%) of this blessed cohort. Obama would raise the taxes of the 1% by $105,000 and the .01% by $550,000.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">These people don’t need Romney’s help. According to Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the one-percenters captured 93% of the total income gains in 2010, the first year of recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-09. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">As the Congressional Budget Office reported last October, the share of national income going to the 1% increased by 275% from 1979-2007. The bottom 80% “saw their shares decline by 2 to 3 percentage points.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">How will Romney pay for a balanced budget while expanding the military-industrial complex and coddling the very wealthy? According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, he would have to cut nondefense<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a> programs (incl. social security, Medicare and Medicaid) 25% in 2016 and 38% in 2022. Over ten years, these cuts would amount to $10 trillion.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Bill Moyers put it very well when he suggested that ‘GOP’ stands for “Guardians of Privilege.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-87181114362541448332012-03-05T14:01:00.000-08:002012-03-05T14:01:28.269-08:00U.S. should step back from Iranian precipice<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">Danville Advocate-Messenger<br />
March 5, 2012 </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span> The Obama administration is painting itself into a dangerous corner in response to Iran’s nuclear program. Under pressure from the very powerful Israeli lobby and from GOP presidential candidates, Obama proclaimed in his State of the Union address: "Let there be no doubt, America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He did not say what would count as “preventing,” but it seems to include getting Tehran to agree to a major and verifiable reduction in its nuclear program. Iran rejects this demand, insisting that it is enriching uranium solely for electrical power, which is permissible under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are conflicting assessments about Iran’s intentions. According to the New York Times, “Even as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said in a new report Friday [2/24] that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment program, American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Iran may have decided instead to enhance its prestige and influence by letting the world know that it has the capacity to produce an atomic bomb in a short time span. It may not want the trouble and huge expense of actually building a stockpile of nuclear weapons. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Obama is saying that the U.S. will “prevent” Iran from developing a nuclear weapon one way (sanctions) or another (military force). The latest sanction under consideration would deny Iran access to <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), </span>the financial messaging service for most international money transfers.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This would make it difficult for international buyers to pay for Iranian oil, thereby sharply reducing Iran’s revenues. Although that would be a blow to the Iranian economy, it also threatens to reduce the supply of oil to the world market, further driving up fuel prices and stalling economic recovery in the U.S. and elsewhere.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The President knows that the military alternative to sanctions could have disastrous consequences. A U.S. attack would take place at the same time as Iran’s neighbor and ally Syria is slipping into a civil war that threatens to destabilize the Middle East.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israel is threatening to launch its own attack on Iran, and is saying that it will not warn the U.S. in advance (AP 2/27). If that happens, the U.S. will very likely be drawn into the conflict to protect Israel. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Even the most powerful American or Israeli bombs would be only partially effective against Iran’s widely scattered nuclear facilities, some of which are deep underground or inside mountains. Air strikes would likely result in an even stronger effort by Iran to develop atomic weapons. Its people would put aside their deep political divisions to unite against the “Great Satan.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The U.S. would be unwilling and unable to invade and occupy Iran. Therefore, the Iranian regime would survive American or Israeli bombing raids and be able to retaliate both in its own region and abroad. There could be a major interruption of the world’s oil supply if the Persian Gulf becomes a war zone.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As the International Crisis Group says in a Feb. 23 report, “<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">There is no evidence that Iran’s leadership has succumbed or will succumb to economic hardship.”</span> So Obama’s ultimatum to Iran—that Iran should yield under pressure of his economic sanctions or he will use force—may back him into a disastrous military conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His ultimatum is as much a threat to American national security as it is to Iran’s. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To better understand Iran’s resistance to American pressure, we need to reflect on the last 60 years of our relationship to Iran. In 1953 the CIA partnered with British intelligence to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, to stop him from nationalizing the holdings of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, known today as BP).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The coup enabled Shah Reza Pahlavi to rule Iran for 26 years as a brutal police state. The Shah’s security service, the SAVAK, tortured and murdered thousands of Iranians. It also worked closely with the CIA.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Islamist revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979 was inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini and driven by hatred not only of the Shah but also of the U.S. for its oppressive manipulation of Iranian politics. The current hostility of the Tehran government is blowback for American abuses of power.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even as the U.S. government is threatening Iran for enriching uranium, it accepts Israel’s arsenal of a hundred or more<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a> nuclear warheads which it can deliver by intercontinental ballistic missile, aircraft or submarine. It would be suicidal of Iran to build and then use a nuclear weapon against Israel.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We must hope that President Obama has the wisdom and toughness to resist the efforts of the Israeli government and its allies in Congress to draw us into another military and foreign policy disaster in the Middle East.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-26786443080552570032012-02-16T17:06:00.000-08:002012-02-16T17:06:52.882-08:00Mitt Romney is the one percent's Captain AmericaDanville Advocate-Messenger <br />
February 16, 2012<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">On stage at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Feb. 2, Mitt Romney and his wife looked humble as they basked in the endorsement of The Donald, orange-haired birther and billionaire capitalist sage. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">Trump sounded as if he were presenting the new Mr. and Mrs. America: “This is a great couple. Look at this couple.” If the Romneys had brought along their four totally handsome sons, Trump might have put in a plug for eugenics.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">The scene was an ironic reminder of the financial elite’s success in taming the town-hall invaders, founding-father impersonators, tax haters, raucous Obamaphobes and flag-waving birthers that had coalesced as the Tea Party. Here was Trump, once the Tea Party’s presidential favorite, now blessing the establishment candidate.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">During the primary season, the Tea Party became infatuated with a succession of unelectables—Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain. Happily for the GOP, all three quickly sank under the weight of their manifest incompetence.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">That created an opening for another Tea Party darling: the disgraced former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, with his venomous mouth and great debating skill. This corrupt Washington insider won over South Carolina conservatives by presenting himself as anti-elitist. In a state that still sports the Confederate flag in front of its Capitol, Gingrich scored points by calling Obama a “food stamp President” as well as scolding blacks for lacking a work ethic.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">However, Newt’s victory frightened GOP elders. Bob Dole warned that Gingrich would doom the party’s chances in November. Romney’s super-PAC was able to raise enough money to overwhelm Newt in the Florida primary.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">Rick Santorum’s Feb. 7 victories in the low-turnout, non-binding caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado and in Missouri’s straw poll, and his resulting surge in opinion polls, are unlikely to stop Romney. Santorum, Gingrich and Ron Paul will continue to divide (and thereby weaken) the anti-Romney conservatives. Romney’s much greater financial and organizational resources will likely prevail in the big primaries to come, as they did in Florida.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">After his decisive win in the Nevada caucuses, Romney tweeted triumphantly: “Our message of restoring America’s greatness continues to resonate through the west & across the country.” What is his vision of our greatness?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">And what is his message to the millions enduring the psychological and financial stress of unemployment? To the 48% of Americans who are either poor (49.1 million) or low-income (the 97.3 million who scrape by on less than 200% of poverty-level income).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a recent CNN interview, he admitted that he has nothing to say to many of these people: “I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">Can we believe his promise to care for the safety net? As Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone points out, Romney has already told us how he would “fix” Medicaid: “Romney has endorsed Rep. Paul Ryan's proposal to "block-grant" the federal contribution to Medicaid – and turn the program over to the states.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">As an April 5 report of the Congressional Budget Office explains, under the Ryan plan “federal spending for Medicaid would be 35 percent lower in 2022 and 49 percent lower in 2030.” Romney told Sean Hannity in an Oct. 24 radio interview that he would cut even more from Medicaid, by reducing the annual growth cap of the block grants from 3% (in Ryan’s plan) to 1 or 2%. As any governor could tell him, this would be a disaster for millions of families.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">In the same CNN interview, Romney added “I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine.” Instead, he says he worries about “middle income Americans, they're the folks that are really struggling right now, and they need someone that can help get this economy going for them."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">In fact, his tax proposals suggest the exact opposite. According to Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center, “Mitt Romney’s tax plan would cut taxes for millions of households but bestow most of its benefits on those with the highest incomes. At the same time, it would significantly cut corporate taxes and add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">In the year 2015, Romney’s tax plan would raise taxes by an average of $157 for the bottom 20% of taxpayers, and $82 for the second quintile. The third (middle) quintile (“the folks that are really struggling”) would receive a whopping $138 tax cut! (Tax Policy Center, “The Romney Plan”)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">And what about the “very rich” that Romney says he’s “not concerned about”? The tax cut for those with incomes over $1 million would average $145,568. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.25in;">In short, Romney’s vision of a restored America comes straight from George W. Bush’s coloring book: prosperity trickling down on the rest of us from super-wealthy “job creators” such as himself. <o:p></o:p></div>alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-68869096256104966442011-09-08T12:42:00.000-07:002011-09-08T12:42:37.745-07:00Does America still respect labor?<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Advocate-Messenger, September 8, 2011</span></b></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As another Labor Day came and went, I found myself wondering whether</span> <span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">this important national holiday has lost some of its original meaning. The U.S. Department of Labor explains on its website, that Labor Day is “a creation of the labor movement . . . and a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet today the “labor movement” is struggling for its life. Since 1945, union membership has declined from a historic high of 35% of workers to only11.9% in 2010. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The Republican Party has been very effective in its decades-long campaign against the labor movement. For instance, in 1947 a Republican congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act over the veto of President Truman. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> One of its most important provisions allowed states to pass so-called right-to-work laws that prohibit union shops. (Union shops are workplaces in which, by collective agreement, all employees must be either union members or pay their fair share of the union’s costs in representing them.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> There are twenty-two right-to-work states, predominantly in the South and upper Midwest. Right-to-work laws invite new hires to be free riders, benefitting from union contracts without paying dues. And of course they weaken unions by depriving them of funds.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Another major provision of the Taft-Hartley Act allows management to mount a vigorous campaign against a union’s effort to organize its workers. Interpretations of this provision by the National Labor Relations Board and the courts have given a green light for management to make union organizing of a workplace very difficult and hazardous.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Most companies facing a union organizing effort hire union-busting “consulting” firms to give them tactical and legal advice. On its website, one of these firms (Labor Relations Institute, Inc.) boasts of “more than 25 years of experience in thousands of elections—and a management win rate of over 90 percent.”</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The UN’s Declaration of Human Rights says that “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.” In 2000 Human Rights Watch issued a very critical report on the precarious state of this right in the United States.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> It found that “Firing a worker for organizing is illegal but commonplace in the United States.” The fired worker faces years of hearings and appeals in order to get reinstatement.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The report noted that in the weeks before a vote on unionizing, management forces employees to attend group meetings in which the union is described in the worst possible terms. It also forces workers to attend threat-filled, one-on-one meetings with their supervisors.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Thanks to such tactics under the coaching of professional union-busters, the union participation rate for private-sector workers is down to 6.9%. The overall rate of union membership is higher (11.9%) only because 36.2% of public-sector workers are unionized.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Federal law does not give public-sector workers the right to unionize. However, beginning in 1959 most states granted their workers this right. </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Unions have been more successful in the public than in the private sector because state and local officials sit across the bargaining table from their fellow citizens. So these officials haven’t adopted the intensely adversarial role of private-sector corporations concerned only with profits.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Until recently, that is. Fresh from electoral victories in the 2010 elections, Republican governors and state legislators began a nation-wide campaign against public-sector unions. As the L.A. Times reported on April 2, “Nearly half of the states are considering legislation to limit public employees' collective bargaining rights.” </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The growing weakness of the labor movement has resulted in three decades of stagnant wages for workers, even as worker productivity has steadily risen. The added wealth American workers created in the last thirty years has been gone mostly to rich CEOs and shareholders.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1980 and 2008 the richest 10% of Americans got 98% of all income growth, while the bottom 90% shared the 2% remainder. The GOP and its mouthpiece, Fox News, want Americans to ignore these facts. They say it is unions who are selfish and greedy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> In fact, unions have played a large role in creating a workers’ middle class by pushing for Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, health insurance and retirement plans. Without union power, this middle class is headed toward destruction.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> In a healthy capitalist democracy, there needs to be a countervailing power to prevent the capture of government by entrenched wealth. As Thomas Donahue, a prominent official of the AFL-CIO, succinctly put it: "The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor."</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> In 1954 President Eisenhower said: “Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.” What would he think of his party today?<o:p></o:p></span>alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-35265458923768401932011-08-09T14:26:00.000-07:002011-08-10T08:24:23.649-07:00A budget engineered for a dysfunctional national family<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Danville Advocate-Messenger</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Last week’s debt ceiling agreement was a striking victory for Republicans, although they almost threw it away under pressure from the Tea Party fringe. They got nearly $3 trillion in spending cuts with no tax increase. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">How did they extract this from a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in the Senate? They did it by cloaking an act of extortion with the language of fiscal responsibility and family budgets.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their message went something like this: the American people are like a self-indulgent family. Through their government they are spending more money than they actually have. The only responsible, adult thing to do is cut their spending. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even President Obama has used this simple-minded argument, and the mainstream media repeat it constantly. It makes people afraid that scary things will happen to the national family unless they mend their ways.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This message of fear builds on the stress and anxiety most Americans have about their own household budgets. Average household incomes are stagnant. Over 10 million households owe more on their home than it's worth. Jobs and income are insecure, even as health care and educational expenses rise.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Republicans got Americans to transfer this anxiety to the national budget. Then they presented themselves to a frightened public as rescuers: tea-partiers, “young guns” and Ayn Rand devotees became a patriotic posse galloping in to save us from government fiscal abuse.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This clever rhetorical trick allowed Republicans to get away with political terrorism. They took the American people hostage by threatening to inflict a great harm (sovereign default) on our society unless they got what they wanted.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">By agreeing to the debt deal, Obama and the Democrats have rewarded the GOP hostage takers. The GOP will come back for more.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Republicans took the nation hostage in order to save the wealthiest Americans from paying a cent more in taxes. This is the most important and morally indecent feature of the debt deal.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For a second time Obama has broken his campaign promise to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of taxpayers. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ending them would raise $826 billion in ten years. That would be a big help in reducing the deficit.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The simplest way to reduce federal deficits is for the economy to grow, thereby increasing the amount of tax revenue. As economists across the political spectrum have warned, major cuts in federal spending will further weaken the economy, thereby shrinking government revenue and worsening the deficit.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2010 issued a report examining various options for achieving economic and job growth. Its conclusions were similar to those of Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics: you get the most economic growth per dollar from spending on extending unemployment insurance, fiscal relief for state governments and infrastructure spending. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Cutting taxes for the wealthy is the least effective option. It’s not hard to see why. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Consumer spending accounts for 70% of economic activity in the U.S. As the CBO report explains, wealthy families are more likely to save than to spend the money they get from tax cuts. Programs to relieve poverty and unemployment or to help states pay the salaries of teachers and construction workers immediately increase consumer demand.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Republican threat to send the United States into default unless they got huge spending cuts was in effect an attempt to harm the nation in one way or another. The GOP forced us to choose between harming our country by going into default and harming it by reducing consumer demand in an already fragile economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Let’s go back to the comparison between a family budget and the national budget. It’s a sad truth that the average American household is less able to buy into the “American dream.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But the nation as a whole (the national family) is quite rich. The national income is the GDP (Gross Domestic Product—the dollar value of the sum of goods and services produced by our economy). The U.S. has one of the highest GDPs or incomes per capita in the world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But our national income is very unequally distributed, to a degree that is common in third world countries. In the economic expansion of 2002-2006 under Bush, the top 1% captured almost three quarters of national income growth. During that same period, the Bush tax cuts fattened their after-tax income.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our national household has quite enough income to pay for social security, universal health care and other valuable social programs. The problem is that a minority in the national family are hogging so much of the household income that the rest of the family is suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>alagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-3388064994929843682011-07-10T07:43:00.000-07:002011-07-10T07:52:32.590-07:00The brain behind Republican strategyDanville Advocate-Messenger <br />
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When I listen to the bickering in Congress over raising the debt ceiling, I’m tempted to succumb to “misology.” In Plato’s dialogue <i>Phaedo</i>, Socrates warned us not to “become misologues … There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.”<br />
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The GOP has stubbornly committed to policies that are proven failures over three decades. As conservative columnist David Brooks said recently, Republicans “have no economic theory worthy of the name.”<br />
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What tempts me to misology is the continuing failure of reasonable discourse, of established facts and logic, to influence most politicians and voters.<br />
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Republicans threaten to make our country default on its financial obligations and precipitate an economic crisis. They are, as Brooks put it, “willing to stain their nation’s honor” rather than accept the slightest tax increase on wealthy Americans.<br />
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Democrats lack the courage to forcefully denounce the GOP agenda. Their complaints seem like passionless invocations of values they and their president are willing to abandon, as long as the surrender is gradual.<br />
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American voters seem caught up in the irrationality of the moment, resigned to letting politicians damage their nation’s future. There is a great paradox here, one that reflects a dangerous aspect of human nature.<br />
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The recent history of our species is full of reasonable discourse that has led to great scientific and technological prowess.<br />
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But it is also a history of massive violence and cruelty, global warfare and genocide.<br />
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Human moral and political progress lags far behind that of science and technology.<br />
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Why can’t reasonable discourse prevail there too? After all, we’re the only rational animals, right? Some nonhuman animals can use very rudimentary tools, and some can communicate in ways that resemble language. Yet there is such a chasm between them and us! Consider our art, our cityscapes and gleaming technological civilization.<br />
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Five million years ago, there was an ancestral species common to us and apes.<br />
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But the hairier and smaller-brained hominid species linking us to this ancestor are extinct. So we see ourselves at a great remove from apes, as if we were spirits shoe-horned into animal bodies.<br />
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But our minds really are embodied in mammalian brains. That’s why the faces of kittens and puppies as well as human infants arouse nurturing feelings in us.<br />
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As the early mammalian brain evolved in a human direction, nature didn’t discard behaviors and strategies that helped our ancestral species survive. Instead, it refined them by giving the brain further capacities, such as language and thought.<br />
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The older mammalian strategies and behaviors are still there, wired into the tissues that make up what brain science calls the limbic system — a part of our brain heavily involved in emotional experience and behavior.<br />
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That’s why we so often talk about what we do in dead metaphors for fighting/fleeing, eating/drinking and sex.<br />
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Why else do we “eat up” everything a con artist says, “run away” from problems, “hunger and thirst” for justice, “give birth” to ideas, “kick butt” in debates and “taste” the victory?<br />
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These metaphors are “dead” in the sense that we’re no longer conscious of how their meaning is being extended. We don’t advert to the fact that victory doesn’t literally have a flavor and debates are not won by kicking.<br />
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The metaphors may be dead, but the link between our higher-level, distinctively human behaviors and the more primitive drives programmed into our limbic systems is alive and strong. This link can be good or bad depending on how it affects our activity.<br />
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Our society would be better off if we all pursued justice like starving people wanting food. But we shouldn’t try to win a debate in a way that resembles kicking an opponent.<br />
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You can “win” a debate by outshouting or intimidating your adversary, or by deceiving the audience. But if these tactics become the norm, society will be deprived of important truths and necessary information. The primitive desire to fight and win can lead to degraded, irrational public discourse.<br />
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This primitive desire was on display when Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mc-Connell freely admitted last October that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”<br />
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Our primitive fight/flight response leads what psychologists call the “backfire effect.” When people are confronted with information from a reliable source that contradicts a cherished belief, that belief often gets stronger.<br />
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We react to the contradictory information as if it were a threat that we must flee or fight, all the while clinging protectively to our belief. For instance, Republicans repeatedly claim that spending cuts are our only hope for creating jobs and economic growth.<br />
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(Warning: what follows may be distressing.) The Congressional Budget Office and Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, have demonstrated that direct spending by the federal government is much more effective for economic and job growth than tax cuts. (Google: stimulus bang for the buck zandi cbo.) <br />
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Brian Cooney is emeritus professor of philosophy at Centre College.<br />
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Brian Cooney <br />
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Contributing Columnistalagauchehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00729907121262402656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343185285960349397.post-72504995269546324842011-06-04T09:30:00.000-07:002011-06-04T09:57:44.792-07:00Danville Advocate-Messenger<br />
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The mythology of individualism<br />
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In her “Textbook of Americanism,” GOP saint Ayn Rand wrote: “The basic principle of the United States of America is Individualism.” At a 2005 celebration honoring Rand, Republican young gun Paul Ryan declared every battle fought by Republicans “usually comes down to one conflict — individualism versus collectivism.”<br />
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Randian conservatives are OK with private collectives — even corporations powered by the activities of hundreds of thousands of employees and revenues larger than many nations. What they fear and loathe is the political collective, a people or community pursuing a common good through government action.<br />
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As the influential libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick put it, “There is no social entity with a good … There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives.” In other words, society is nothing but a multitude of individuals for whom there is no public good, only private goods sought by different individuals and groups.<br />
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Nozick would add, in a free society, no individual or group should use the power of government to force others to contribute to their private goals, such as food or medicine. Doing so amounts to enslavement. As Rand Paul said, if you want to legislate universal health care, “you believe in slavery.”<br />
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The only acceptable role for government is to protect individuals’ property and liberty from aggressors.<br />
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Individualists want a political system built around self-made, self-reliant and value-creating agents whose connections to other humans are purely voluntary or contractual. That’s why they see the free market as society itself, as the natural environment for human nature.<br />
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Of course, the very idea of a market society is hard to reconcile with the individualist picture of humans. Our constant transactions with one another show our dependence on goods and services provided by others.<br />
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Individualists would respond that these transactions are voluntary in a free-market society.<br />
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Each of us can choose with whom to deal and which things we do for ourselves rather than rely on others.<br />
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We make ourselves who we are, and we create values by these choices. When we get what we want through market transactions, we draw on our own resources to offer something that another person needs in return.<br />
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Behold the individualist’s new Adam — a gift to the world from our exceptional culture. This muscular ego is the creature of what Herbert Hoover called “the American system of rugged individualism.”<br />
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There is something very appealing about this picture. All of us want our children to become self-reliant and value-creating individuals, and a healthy society needs to nurture these traits in all its citizens.<br />
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However, this picture is deeply flawed because what it leaves out is just as important as what it includes. No one is self-made. A society makes individuals just as much as individuals make a society.<br />
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Nothing is closer to the very core of individuals than their thought processes. Yet it is language that makes thought possible by supplying the mind with ideas and rules for combining them. There is no private language — it’s community property.<br />
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A few individuals manage to put words or ideas together in very original ways, like Shakespeare or Einstein.<br />
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Yet, even they would have been impossible without their societies’ language and education, and without institutions (such as the theater and science) that they did not create.<br />
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Every individual’s life is an intersection of pre-scripted roles (e.g. being parents, spouses or professionals) that we did not invent, and without which our behavior would be unintelligible to others or to ourselves. Like actors on a stage, we play these roles more or less well.<br />
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All our labor, however skilled, is a social product, a joint production of the labors of countless others, such as teachers, farmers and city employees. They build and maintain the environment or infrastructure without which our own work would be impossible.<br />
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The self-made individual touted by Randian individualists is a fiction, a distortion. People who believe in this fiction suffer from what we can call Trumpism. Donald Trump is the perfect symbol of the craziness of individualism. His brief candidacy collapsed as he was laughed off the political stage.<br />
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Because of his ridiculous selfimportance and exaggerated sense of power, people quickly saw him as a clown.<br />
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Trumpism makes Americans tolerant of extreme inequality in wealth and income. The top 5 percent owned 62 percent of the nation’s wealth in 2007. Trump-ists would say that these numbers reflect the immensely greater individual contributions of the very rich.<br />
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Finally, it’s simply false to say that there are only private goods, and the only legitimate function of government is to protect them.<br />
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The society that makes our individual lives possible has many important and essentially public goods.<br />
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These include infrastructure, education, a clean environment, social insurance, and basic scientific research of the sort that created the Internet and will launch nanotechnology. These public goods empower and liberate our individual lives. <br />
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Brian Cooney is emeritus professor of philosophy at Centre College.<br />
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Brian Cooney <br />
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Contributing Columnist <br />
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