Bailout Succeeds

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Here we go again - Dems cave to Bush and he gets what he wants after yet another administration SNAFU. Do they really believe the Bush - Paulsen team, with its great track record and prescience on the economy, the war, the environment, etc. on this? I remain skeptical as do many economists, as to how effective this policy of a government buyout of corporate toxic debt is really going to be. First results don't seem to promising. Per Barry Ritholtz

Wow, that's a nearly 450 point swing.Very surprising to see the bailout pass, and get signed into law, and then see the market fade.
Once again, I have to say -- I hate to read too much into intra-day action, as its mostly noise, but this is not a positive development .

The corporatists have been saved from themselves, but who saves the rest of the country from them?

They’ve Tanked the Economy, Trashed the Environment,
Wasted the Military, and Lied Us Into War.
Yippee, Elect Another Republican

Veep Debate

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I don't forgive Biden for letting Palin get away with that "white flag of surrender bit". He should have taken that and jammed it down her throat. (not meant to be sexist - they should do the same with McCain). Why not say "this is beneath the dignity of a person who wants to be vice president. Are you saying that that anyone who opposes your policies is a traitor? Are you saying those Iraqi Veterans against the War are waving that flag? The Iraqis want us out, the American public wants us out and you and McCain want us in - your saying those who disagree with this policy of spending even more lives and dollars on a war that was based on disinformation to the American public and the world from the first, and for which even the Iraqi government wants a deadline on the presence of American troops, is in favor of surrender? I consider that to be an insult to to the American people and American principles."
But then again - Democrats.

They’ve Tanked the Economy, Trashed the Environment,
Wasted the Military, and Lied Us Into War.
Yippee, Elect Another Republican

Temporary Success on the Senate Telecom Bill and Retroactive Immunity

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Sen. Harry Reid pulled the Senate Telecom Bill yesterday, after the opposition put up by Senator Chris Dodd and a few others (Sens. Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, John Kerry, Ron Wyden, Tom Harkin, Benjamin Cardin and Robert Menendez). Dodd had placed a hold on the bill to prevent it from being brought up because of its provisions for giving telecom companies complete retroactive immunity for having broken the law by illegally providing the administration with client information without court warrant or legislative authorization (see Glenn Greenwald for excellent reporting on the issue). Dodd also threatened to filibuster attempts to pass this version of the bill. He did this as a response to activity from netroots and grassroots opponents of the bill. Reid had the bill brought up nevertheless, ignoring the hold placed by his fellow veteran Democratic Senator, despite having continuously respecting the holds placed on bills by Republicans and administration supporters.

At this point, Reid’s pullback of the bill is a victory of sorts for those who have opposed the excessive surveillance and retroactive immunity provisions of the bill. However, it is only a temporary victory and the issue will come up again in January. And it seems clear that the Repubs and the Dem leadership will very likely be working on ways to overcome Dodd’s opposition and threatened filibuster. Be prepared – they will.

One suggestion I would make would be for those who are against this provision of retroactive immunity for illegal actions, who are registered to vote as Democrats, and who get mailers from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee asking for contributions - send them back a note saying that you will be making contributions, but they will instead be going to Russ Feingold’s Progressive Patriot Fund. AND THEN DO IT. If enough people were to do that, who knows, it just might once again cause some Senators to take notice of a bit of dissatisfaction at the grassroots level.

A Tale of Two Elections

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Over the weekend two elections occurred in far flung regions of the world. In oil rich Venezuela, which the Bush administration has derided as "a menace to democracy in Latin America" under the regime of Hugo Chavez, and in which the administration has been seen as having played a role in the attempt to overthrow by way of a military coup the elected government, the election concerned a series of constitutional amendments which would, among other things, have eliminated term limits for the President, and provided the office with additional administrative powers. Opponents criticized this as a grab for power and insisted that it would make Chavez a President for life. This would seem to be a bit far fetched since there are no term limits for most parliamentary chief executives, and even in the U.S. there were no term limits for the President until the 22nd Amendment which was adopted in 1951. After the election, the "undemocratic" Chavez accepted the outcome by all accounts in a conciliatory manner when it turned out that the changes he sought were being defeated by a margin of approximately one an a half percent.

In Russia, where Vladimir Putin rules, a man who’s soul George Bush claimed to have seen into, and presumably found good, and with whom the president has been said to have formed a close personal relationship, the elections were found to be fraudulent by a number of observers from within and outside the country.

"European states expressed alarm over the outcome of Sunday's parliamentary poll after rights watchdogs said the campaign had been marred by biased media coverage and abuse of government resources in favor of Putin's United Russia.
But analysts said many European states now acknowledged that Moscow, whose cooperation the West wants over disputes from Iran to Kosovo, was increasingly impervious to outside criticism.
Sharper reaction came from German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, seen as less close to Putin than that of her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder.
"Measured by our standards, it was neither a free, fair nor democratic election," said spokesman Thomas Steg. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Russia to probe abuses."

Bush has often spoken of his policies as being supportive of democracy for all people, regardless of culture and background. This weekend’s elections, clearly, if somewhat ironically outline the quality and the integrity of both his judgement, and his commitment to democratic process.

The Electoral Aftermath - Second Shoe Falling?

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The defeat of the Repubs was pretty massive and might reflect the birth of a truly national Democratic party, and potentially the onset of a new realignment (that would be right on schedule if 1968 is considered the beginning of repub ascendancy). A really national Democratic party would actually be a somewhat new phenomenon, as even at its height during the 1930s to 1970s the party generally was an uneasy alliance of Northern Democrats and Dixiecrats. This coalition did not provide a strong foundation for progressive policy, and its most successful policy accomplishments took place either after the 1934, 36 or 1964, 66 elections, following national crises and landslide triumphs. More often, there was a marriage of convenience when it came to organizing the Congress, but on policy most Southern Democrats generally allied with fellow conservatives of the Repub party.

Nixon’s Southern strategy (borrowed from Goldwater) led to the shifting of the Solid South from Dem to Repub, to the point where the Dixiecrats became Dixie-cans, and from Thurmond to Lott, Sessions to Miller ad nauseum, they became Repubs in name as well as in policy. Yet the Repubs maintained and even extended their conservative bases in Western and rural regions, and in suburbia. The Party’s shift from Lincoln to Dixie-can, epitomized by Gingrich, Delay, Lott, Frist, etc, and its success across the country all worked because it picked up the South without giving much ground elsewhere. The Dems often successfully contributed to this effort with circular shooting parties, and failure to get beyond identification as a coalition of various self-interested population sectors without an overall all-embracing theme that could galvanize a broad movement across the country. Maps of the 2000 and 2004 presidential election outcomes, by state, thus, largely coincide with maps of states that allowed/prohibited slavery, but with partisanship reversed (blue states were those where slavery was prohibited of course). Key exceptions to this pattern were Indiana and Ohio. In addition, The New England/Middle Atlantic states retained a fair number of Republican districts where "moderate" repubs still reigned from Civil War days despite the shift of the party’s center of gravity southward.

The pattern in 2006 suggests that the second part of the shifting of parties may now be kicking in. New England Republicans largely wiped out in the House, Indiana and Ohio possibly in partisan transition (despite Lugar), and a number of Middle Atlantic rural, hereditary repub districts gone Dem. In addition, while the Dem victors from Red states (Tester in Montana, Webb in Va.) may not support "liberal" "social" issues (gun-control, same sex marriage) they do seem genuinely on board for a more equitable economic policy approach, and in resistance to the internal and external abuse of power that has become the repub raison d’etre. Thus, the foundation for a more national and potentially cohesive party grounded in the traditional "North" (and now including rural areas there), but focused on greater equity in economic policy and a more civil approach to internal and international politics, may emerge - if the party’s tendency to dissemble can be overcome and common ground among constituents emphasized. That of course is a pretty big if, but given the potential for abuse of power that the repubs have shown, their increasingly authoritarian and demoguogic tendencies in the context of an increasingly cabled and databanked society, the incentives for common sense and collaborative action are certainly augmented.

One other thing, despite the relatively large scale of the Dem triumph, given the utter corruption, incompetence, vindictiveness and clandestine authoritarianism characteristic of the regime, the victory isn’t really all that impressive. What will happen when progressives don’t have the Foleys, Neys, Delays Abramoffs ad nauseum, consistently breaking front page news - bam-bam-bam, while at the same time war deaths surge and intelligence reports show that the reasons for war were not only non-existent but that the war is counterproductive in terms of fighting terrorism, and the military papers all call for the Secretary of Defense's resignation the week before the election. Something to start considering now. Investigations may (and should) be held - this administration has talked about the concept of accountability more than probably any other (though they clearly meant accountability to apply only to those outside their tent) and there's much that deserves to be exposed. This would be good not only for the country, inasmuch as the country values truth and honesty, but also for the Dems as a party if investigations are done with a sense of fair play and openness. The Dems will probably come up with modestly appropriate policies re healthcare and insurance, Iraq, taxes, and not much will probably get done due to the divided state of government. But whether the second shoe remains fallen and a realignment occurs may depend on the success of progressives in establishing and maintaining some emotional and communicative connections with people who ultimately will never read those policy documents (though they might benefit from their implementation), and who will be getting much of their information from news conglomerates and TV ads.

2006 Elections

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The robot calls tactic was precisely the sort of last minute surprise that I think might have been expected from the decadent remains of the party of Abe Lincoln. Remains to be seen how effective it will be, but clearly it comes straight from the RNCC, and displays clearly the ethic of the party in power. In a sense, its the extenuation of machine politics, which have so often pervaded this country at the local level, to National status.

My feeling for the past several years, and one which I find pretty unsettling, is that increasingly this political era is coming to combine both the worse of the pre Civil War era, with its its incompetent hacks in political leadership, Southern control of Congress through demogoguery on behalf of privilege, all completely supported by a reactionary supreme court; and the post Civil War guilded age that enshrined the robber barons and sold out the freedmen , once again supported by a reactionary court. Unfortunately for the country, the ante-bellum politics proved utterly incapable of dealing in any kind of legitimate moral/political way with the overiding issues of the day -e.g., slavery, and the attempts to cover this up would only disintegrate into war. The post Civil War era for years after then demogogued politics into a cultural affair, largely a political replay of the civil war, in a way that enabled the political system to ignore more substantive issues and reforms that it might otherwise have had to deal with.

It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow, but I suppose it may give a clue as to how successfully machine politics have now been transported to the national level. On the other hand, however, I've always felt that the 1968 elections, with the election of Nixon, were the beginning of a new political realignment, which ushered in a conservative era that has ultimately developed into the political reaction that we've seen in recent years. By that standard we're about due for a new realignment, they have generally tended to occur every 35 to 40 years. The two types of realignment which have historically been seen to have occurred have been the reenforcing realignment, in which the party in power gains a stronger hold on power on the basis of its manipulation of political symbology in a way that creates a new supporting coalition (the machine succeeds as in 1896), or else the reforming realignment which tosses out the reactionary party and attempts mild reforms (the New Deal). We may get a glimpse of which way the country goes over the next couple of days, but even if the Repub reaction is ultimately defeated, the legacy it leaves, in terms of more terrorism, incompetence, deficits, etc., is one that will probably not easily be erased even under the best of conditions. And it certainly seems open to question whether the Dems, if successful, are even capable of providing much in the way of a real change of course, with their tendency towards opportunism and dissembly.

Everyone Feel Safe and Secure With Bush at the Helm?


What a perfect example of Bushco's cultural and national security savvy - 38 tons of super explosives left unguarded while the oil depots are kept well protected in a war touted as one of liberation and "self-defense" - this all pretty much reads like the work of an author with a great and truly ironic imagination. Every war has unintended consequences - the hunch I shared with many other opponents of this war before it started was that we were unnecessarily opening up a Pandora's box that would lead to greater risks to our security than then existed. Arms inspectors and the IAEA were on site at the time and planning to stay, and the arms problem was under surveillance in a manner that was, as is now clearly apparent, more effective than what was to follow.

The "Al Qa Qaa" affair, however, goes well beyond what I had conceived of as possible even for this administration. OK, it really shouldn't have required an advanced rocket science degree to realize that invading Iraq would be a recruiting bonanza for terrorists across the Middle East, and put us in an untenable position as Western occupiers of an Arab land where religious, cultural and economic dissimilarities would grate and very likely ignite. Anyone who has looked at historical cases of terrorism would have some idea that even in cases where outsiders have gone in for "good" and supposedly "humanitarian" reasons, the situation often backfires. In Northern Ireland, for example, the British troops were originally sent to protect Catholics from the Pro British Unionists, but it didn't take long before they became targets for the IRA. And in the French attempts to preserve their imperial aspirations in Algeria, the elimination of terror was never accomplished despite the elimination of the leaders of the underground. New leaders emerged like mushrooms in response to their occupation.

Still, I have to admit I never expected the degree of arrogance and recklessness that led our government, in the face of warnings of the IAEA that dangerous dual use explosive detonators were under seal at Al QaQaa, to simply ignore the warnings, disregard the information, and in fact, to prevent the UN people from continuing their task of keeping track of Iraqi weapons. And then, just leave these materials unguarded? Bush never ceases to surprise. Or to pass blame. The attempt to spin criticism of a policy that led to losing track of materials used by terrorists and pass it all off as some sort of an attack on the armed forces is simple demagoguery. The buck stops where the policy was made, not with the guys who were following their orders.

Unfortunately, this is a level of arrogance that could come back to haunt. Have American service people have been killed or wounded with the help of these explosives? Will they be used in future terrorist attacks? These are questions we as Americans should ask, and deserve to have answered.

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Fortunate Son and the Swift Boaters

In honor of the Swift Boaties, check out Kautilyon
and his link to the J. H. Hatfield book "Fortunate Son" available from Amazon. This book was successfully taken off the shelves during the last Presidential campaign.

Hatfield alleged, among other things, that Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972 but got off because of his Daddy. The info allegedly came by way of K. Rove. Whether or not the charges are true, they were dismissed by the mainstream press in much the same way the charges of Bush's going AWOL have been dismissed, e.g., they were treated in a quite different manner from the charges made by the Swift Boaties.
Kautilyon also links to an introduction to the book by Greg Palast and a pretty comprehensive set of criticisms of Hatfield by Media Matters.

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Of Swift Boaties, Politics and Veracity

Bush and his brain are now mouthing that 527 organizations are the real issue when it comes to the Swift Boaties' ads. However, I'd suggest it's important not to buy into that - the more important issue is the veracity of the claims made by the various 527 organizations. Unfortunately Kerry played right into the GOP game by condemning the Moveon response to the Swift boatie ads (despite the fact that ads by moveon and their ilk are a good part of the reason he's still in the race). If he's thinking he's going to be above all this crap, my hunch is we're going to be treated to a rerun of the Dukakis - Horton campaign, with similar results.

I'd like to see him use this to take the offensive already - say outright: (a) these are provable lies (I assume he can cogently explain why); (b) they are completely typical of Bush/GOP campaigns (give examples), and; (c) they exemplify the sort of degradation that is harmful to American self-government and which deserve to be rejected in a society that supports democratic, as opposed to demagogic, values. At some point he might also casually inquire if any Alabama NG people from our current commander in chief's unit have yet been found who can recall the prez being present at all during his period of service there.

(Actually, the Kerry campaign has made a start toward (b) with the new ads featuring tapes of McCain admonishing Bush about his smears during the 2000 primary. But this could undoubtedly be strengthened by bringing in other Bush family examples, Willie Horton for example, and maybe even Lee Atwater's deathbed renunciation of such tactics. And it would probably benefit from being tied to points (a) and (c)).

Its unfortunate that Viet Nam is now the becoming the center of the 2004 campaign, and even more unfortunate that Kerry will probably try to find some way to wimp out of the attacks on his record rather than take the offensive. His truest patriotism was,imho, shown in his cogent opposition to a war that ran against the true interests and principles of this country, and that was ultimately shown to be based on a consistent policy of duplicity and deception.

Nevertheless, in the wake of all the confusion engendered by the new found memories and ads of the the Swift Boaties, I would like to propose that, for the benefit of truth and the information of the American public, a 527 organization be formed which will be dedicated solely to a detailed and honest comparison of the military histories and records of George Bush and John Kerry.

And may the best man win.

UPDATE: Kerry withdrew his ads in response to a request by McCain. What a joke!

Convention Time Campaign Fun

Read  "Weakness Invites Terror, Cheney Tells Democrats." Then enjoy the Chickenhawk Database  at its New Location: 

"Chickenhawk  n.  A person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; particularly when that enthusiasm is undimmed by personal experience with war; most emphatically when that lack of experience came in spite of ample opportunity in that person’s youth."

Also check out the AWOL project for a rather less fun, but fairly extensive and,  shall we say, "fair and balanced" look at Bush's service .

“Go Fuck Yourself, Cheney” Campaign

Given events of the last week, I thought people might be up for a “Go Fuck Yourself, Cheney” campaign (day, week) - sending faxes, emails, letters or calls to our esteemed veep with exactly that message. I envisioned something like the campaign Moveon had against the war with everyone calling (or faxing or emailing) on a particular day or week. I don’t have experience in setting this sort of thing up, but I know some progressive organizations like democrats.com, moveon, and true majority, have or had web/fax systems for sending and keeping track of such faxes. However, they might be a bit squeamish about get into a pissing contest with a skunk, about the “f” word. So I checked petition-online, thinking this could be done as an e-petition sent to Cheney saying something to the order of
“We the undersigned citizens strongly urge you to Go Fuck Yourself, Cheney, both as penance and as a service to our country”.

Unfortunately (though, understandably) they don’t permit “foul” language in their petitions, and it seems like it would lack the punch to just change fuck to “f...” If anyone has any interest, info or thoughts as to pulling this off, send 'em on.

Whats Different about This Recovery?


The Economic Policy Institute shows the real problem with the so called recovery the U.S. is experiencing.
When do workers get their share? points out that in comparison with the last 8 recoveries,


Corporate profits have risen 62.2% since the peak, compared to average growth of 13.9% at the same point in the last eight recoveries that have lasted as long as the current one. This is the fastest rate of profit growth in a recovery since World War II.


But


Growth in total wage and salary income, the primary source of take-home pay for workers, has actually been negative for private-sector workers: -0.6%, versus the 7.2% gain that is the average increase in private wage and salary income at this point in a recovery.

In terms of real wages and income there is no there there.

Enron and on and on


Now on tape!! Utility: Enron Gouged Customers for $1.1B.


"Enron Corp. manipulated the energy market practically every day during the 2000-01 power crunch and gouged Western customers for at least $1.1 billion, according to audiotapes and documents released Monday."

Wonder if Ken Lay will be W's biggest campaign contributor again this year. He's the only big honcho on the Enron crew who doesn't seem to be in trouble with the law. Funny, when the economy's good and the company's making money hand over foot, exorbitant CEO salaries are justified by how critical the skills and knowledge of these wonder workers are to their company's success. When the whole thing turns out to be scam, it's
How could I know, I'm just the CEO.

Race to the Bottom


I haven’t posted much over the past few weeks. One reason is that we increased the size of our garden, and spring planting occupied most our spare time. This year we are growing tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, corn, eggplant, peppers, grapes and herbs in addition to the lettuce and chard from winter, and our fruit trees. Another reason, however, is that sometimes words just can not do justice, one must stand in awe at the capacity for cruelty and (self-) deception which can often characterize human behavior.

Much of the recent news from the Middle-East has filled that bill, and has taken the concept of a “race to the bottom” to a new and more gruesome dimension. Many environmentalists are concerned that increasing economic globalization will lead to a “race to the bottom” in environmental standards because states that maintain high standards suffer competitive disadavantage as a consequence. In fact, conservative trade advocates like the Bushes, Cheney, and even ol’ Dan Quayle, have often supported lowering environmental standards precisely on this these grounds. They argue that environmental protection policies put America at an economic disadvantage, and thus they seemingly bolster the environmentalists’ contention that increasing global trade can lead to an environmental race to the bottom.

The Falloujah mutilations and the subsequent razing of the town, the depraved prison antics and the beheading, suggest a different kind of race to the bottom. They exemplify the Pandora’s box and morbid chains of events all too often unleashed when reckless and unnecessary resort to violence and force of arms occur. And it is ever more obvious that the Iraqi War, as opponents charged from the beginning, was not thrust upon us by any state or global necessity nor as a consequence of any serious threat to security, but represents instead an ill-conceived diversion from the so-called “War on Terrorism.” Today’s report “Al Quaeda Ranks Swelling Worldwide”
notes that according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies “Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al-Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks.”

Whether the principle driving force for the invasion was oil, personal petulance or ideological commitment, it was neither initiated nor followed through with the moral and logistical thought and scruples one would hopefully expect in a situation where untold thousands of human beings are put in harms way. The moral limitations of leaders on both sides in this war, the Baathists and jihadists as well as the Bushists are surely evident, with one side reveling in terror, and the other side engaged in sublimation and repression of its own heinous acts - until that path is no longer feasible because of an honest whistleblower and loose pictures and videos. As former Vice-President Gore noted "reservists photographed abusing prisoners 'were clearly forced to wade into a moral cesspool designed by the Bush White House," which, he said, had abandoned the Geneva Conventions."

This may, however, ignore some of the systemic aspects of what occurred, since investigations have shown that the many of the practices engaged in at abu Ghraib prison "echoed" those in some American prisons. In fact, one of the Abu Ghraib defendants, Spc. Charles Graner, "is a former guard at a maximum-security prison in Pennsylvania that has a history of prisoner abuse. Although accused, he was never found guilty. And Lane McCotter, a senior contractor brought in to reopen Abu Ghraib and train guards, was forced to resign as the head of corrections in Utah: A mentally ill inmate died there after being strapped naked to a restraining chair for more than 16 hours."

Nonetheless, this affair, in addition to the WMD and the many deceptions, does seem to point to the breathtaking absence of statespersonship. As one engaged in the study of international relations and political science, I am often surprised at how seldom the concepts of the statesperson and statespersonship make their way into the disciplinary jargon. It is not surprising, therefore, that so little of that quality is apparent among current world leaders. Bush and Blair clearly, if somewhat dishonestly, want to appear as strong leaders. Yet they seem incapable of distinguishing, on the one hand, between egoistic manipulation and leadership, and on the other, between leadership and statesmanship (of which neither has shown even the slightest hint) in the whole sordid affair. They clearly view leadership as getting others to do what they want, whether by persuasion, force or deception. But good leadership, as discussed by well know theorist Irving Janik, involves more - it involves open minded consideration of all possible alternatives, and a rational evaluation of the most appropriate course to take in the face of the existent situation. Most important it involves transcending the intellectual and moral “groupthink” that constrains consideration of alternative plans and ideas.

In fact, all things being equal, the world may well be better off without Sadaam as the Bushists contend. Unfortunately however, all things are not equal - the thousands of dead and maimed Americans and Iraqis may represent a bigger casualty count than Sadaam was responsible for in the previous several years. And to much of the world, Bush's militarism and arrogance presents just as much a threat and problem as did Hussein. George Montbiot
presents well the dilemma posed by the world's potential need to get rid of pathological leaders (such as Hussein), and the appropriation of the task by self-rightous, self-appointed, wannabe empire builders(e.g., Bush) as a means to further their own ambitions. His suggestion is a clear set of rules and procedures which establish a path to international legitimacy in any such case. It is clear that UN can not at present meet such a task.

There is another need, however. In our era of increasing globalization and planetary vulnerability to war and environmental destruction, it is statespersonship, not simply leadership that is truly needed. Leadership is certainly a necessary but insufficient component - statespersonship involves not only skill and knowledge, but the use of “wisdom” in the choice and pursuit of policies and interests. In this case the absence of genuine leadership is evidenced by the fact that skill and knowledge were devalued in favor of enforced groupthink, as is shown by the jettisoning of military and civilian personnel who pointed to the potential problems likely to arise after military action. The decision for a policy of war appears incredibly unwise since, as the IISS study points out, it has been detrimental to the security of the world and our nation. And as the lies, deceptions and brutalities continue to unfold, my guess is that our reputation and our security (both national and global), will also become more and more shaky. And subsequently, we may have a way to go before we see the end of this race to the bottom.

WTO Decides in Favor of Brazil on US Cotton Subsidies

OK, this is on the arcane side - a WTO panel decided yesterday that U.S. cotton subsidies are trade distorting, and therefore subject to countervailing tariffs. Many progressives, as well as a fair cross-section of non-progressive others, rap the WTO for its detrimental effects for U.S. workers and producers. And in general I agree, Lord knows I’m no fan of the WTO. I almost want to be knocking the trade organization for its ruling against the U.S. just like Kucinich is doing (anyone heard from Kerry and Bush on this).

Nevertheless, this seems like one of the times when the WTO may actually have gotten it right, at least from the political (as opposed to the legal) perspective. Its hard to say anything about the legal aspects of the decision because, true to its tendency toward opaqueness, the decision and its reasoning were not actually released to the public by the organization - the only reason we know about the outcome is because Brazil broke with its confidentiality commitment. From my perspective, however, U.S. (and EU) agricultural subsidies typify the built-in inequities of the current "liberal" trade “system.”

Some good backgrounding on the new decision can be found at the trade observatory. Quite briefly, U.S. cotton subsidies go to a very few large multi-national corporations. These subidies contribute to the impoverishment of developing world cotton farmers by: decreasing cotton prices; increasing third world imports from the U.S.; and reducing exports to the U.S. At the same time they do little to help American family farmers. The subsidies in essence lead to a sort of “dumping” of agricultural products, not unlike the dumping to which we Americans are sensitive in industrial and manufacturing products . Ultimately, goods are sold for less than their cost of production. It was in fact, the U.S. and EU agriculture subsidies that were at the heart of the failure of the last WTO ministerial at Cancun last year.

Now I’m all for fair trade, but too often what we see in this trade system is a privileging of the interests of multi-national corporations. This is exemplified by the agricultural sector, where large scale agri-industry, benefiting from financial and unaccounted social and environmental subsidization, is displacing family farmers who are bonded to the market and told that if they don’t make it, well its because they’re inefficient.

The privileging of multi-national corporations in manufacturing or agriculture (or services for that matter), does not necessarily benefit working people in the U.S., nor does it benefit those in less developed countries.While classical economics predicts that liberalized trade leads to the generation of greater wealth (given certain assumptions that aren't always met), some studies have shown that this wealth does not necessarily trickle down. Robert Scott at the Economic Policy Institute, for example, shows that he number of jobs in the U.S. is very likely lower because of our trade deficit than it otherwise would be. And the U.N. estimates that poor countries lose about $2 billion per day because of unjust trade rules—14 times the amount they receive in aid. (UNCTAD, Conference on Least Developed Countries 2001). In 59 countries, average income is lower today than 20 years ago, while in only 33 is it higher. (United Nations Human Development Report, 1999).

If the cotton subsidy decision reduces the odds faced by smaller farmers, then I’ll say hurrah. Of course, the WTO being what it is, we won’t know their reasoning for several months. Ultimately however, where process and discourse are characterized by lack of transparency, inclusiveness, and equality, as often is the case in the international trade regime, the result is an “uneven” and ultimately unfair sort of globalization - one in which power is vested primarily in small groups of unrepresentative actors who can dominate over the less privileged. The two potential resolutions to this problem are either greater openness in trade fora to the participation and perspectives of less powerful parties and non-commercial sectors, or else, increasing the power and capacities of organizations which counterbalance corporate oriented institutions, particularly those created for the purpose of protecting labor and the environment. A broader more inclusive "globalization" would increase the likelihood that any benefits created through trade would be distributed more equitably, and in a manner less conducive to environmental degradation. It is a goal on which labor, environmentalists, and developing countries should be able to find some common ground.

Earth Day Happenings

This is becoming more of an occasional blog due to time constraints, but in honor of Earth Day I couldn't resist posting these tidbits.

The National Council of Churches is sending a scathing letter to President Bush to coincide with Earth Day, accusing his administration of chipping away at the Clean Air Act. It took out a full-page ad in The New York Times, scheduled to run in Thursday's editions, calling on Bush to leave the Clean Air Act's new source review rules in place. Their spokesperson noted:

"In December a federal appeals court temporarily blocked the new rules from taking effect, agreeing with more than a dozen states and cities that contended the changes could cause irreparable harm to their environments and public health.

"The people we talk to, both inside and outside the administration, say ... that these changes will in fact weaken, not strengthen the Clean Air Act," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, a United Methodist minister and the church council's general secretary."

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The Sierra Club released a new book - "Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress," - timed to coincide with Earth Day. It slammed President George W. Bush for pursuing "the worst environmental policy" in almost a century, and called it a "sad day" for the United States.

"Bush ... is the first president since Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 to close out his term with the country worse off ecologically than it was when he arrived in office". ... in three and a half years, (he) has stripped from protected status 135 million acres, the size of Texas and Oklahoma," according to SC leader Carl Pope, who also lists in the book top administration officials with strong links to the private sector, including the oil industry.

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Kerry criticizes Bush on environment

"Kerry's campaign said the president's air quality proposals will send 21 tons more pollution into the atmosphere, contribute to up to 100,000 premature deaths from respiratory troubles and induce millions of asthma attacks. It also reports "... one in 12 women of childbearing age has enough mercury in her system to pose a potential threat to fetal health." and that
"Bush also has opposed efforts to ban the gasoline additive MTBE, a petroleum-based product that critics argued has fouled water supplies in 28 states. The campaign critique argues that Bush has supported protections that would prohibit the petroleum industry from being forced to clean up such pollution. As a result, the report says, taxpayers will foot the bill for the cleanup that could approach $30 billion.
Former Energy Secretary Browner noted that "one of the Bush administration's worst environmental decisions was to allow older, dirtier power plants to largely avoid converting to cleaner technology. She said up to 30,000 premature deaths a year are blamed on pollution from power plants."
Kerry argues that pitting economic interests against environmental protections is a "false choice," and that millions of jobs can be created through development of alternative energy sources.

A Bush spokesperson responded that "Kerry was continuing his own 'campaign of pessimism with this latest round of false attacks.'"

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The Bush administration was meanwhile reported to be celebrating Earth Day by inviting oil-industry officials to the Environmental Protection Agency "to discuss a plan to relax pollution standards for gasoline. The plan would allow higher sulfur content gasoline to be sold during the summer months. According to Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Trust "because sulfur is a prime contributor to both urban smog and soot, it could also result in an increase in health problems." He suggested that there will be a large price to pay for a plan that would only temporarily "trim oil prices by as much as a nickel a gallon" – and not necessarily in all markets.

The Price of Gas (Literally and Figuratively)

The price of gasoline in our neck of the woods has been over 2 bucks a gallon for weeks now, $2.16 for ordinary unleaded today. This probably does not bode any better for our nation’s economy than for our pocketbooks. The fact that OPEC is cutting down production makes it likely that these prices will not be going down soon, and the so-called “recovery” (anemic as it has been) of our fossil fuel based economy, has another hurdle to overcome. And if our national security and well-being were not reason enough to spur action towards conservation and renewable energy, the rapidly melting glaciers of the arctic raise again the specter of global warming as a planetary consideration.

Well, yesterday I caught the last twenty or so minutes of Bush’s press conference, the first one that I’ve watched, and I can’t say that he (or the press) were very impressive. The only real question I heard asked was why he had wanted to testify together with Cheney before the 9/11 commission, rather than on his own. He danced all around that without coming anywhere near answering it. And he had no real trouble dancing around the other softball questions in a way that seemed to turn any substance into some ethereal, meaningless gas that appropriated democratic and religious imagery in a manner to which they seemed ill-suited.

And then today, in a meeting with Israeli P.M. Sharon, Bush essentially gave in to Sharon’s wish to keep Israeli settlements in the West Bank, contrary to long standing American policy, and international law. My hunch that this direction will not be a good one for either the U.S. or Israel (not to mention the rest of the world). In terms of the War on Terrorism, I'd have to bet that this increases the number of recruits for Al Quaeda, Hamas, and their ilk. It effectively ends the farce that was called the “Roadmap to Peace.” And, at a time when we're up to our a**es in Iraq trying to keep the situation from exploding (and where their oil, like their celebratory reception of the coalition, did not materialize in the way our gifted planners figured), this is likely to be an additional burden to bear for those who are out in the front lines facing an increasingly hostile and disgruntled populace.
Entirely the wrong kind of gas.

Yeap, gas is sure getting expensive

Economic Notes


The idea that only by giving tax breaks to the richest can we grow the economy is not only wrong (check out graphs at daily brew), but also disingenious.
From Dollars and Sense :

"Since the recession began 33 months ago, 2.4 million U.S. jobs have disappeared. Following every other post-World War II recession, jobs had fully recovered to their pre-recession levels within 31 months of the start of the recession. Worse yet, as a recent study by economists at the New York Federal Reserve Bank shows, a far larger share of recent layoffs have been permanent, rather than the temporary cyclical layoffs dominant in most previous recessions."

"Public investment, which has fallen to about one-half its levels during the 1960s and 1970s relative to the size of the economy, must be restored to maintain the nation’s economic competitiveness. That means increased public investments in education, job training, and child care as well as in basic infrastructure, the environment, energy, and research and development. Many of these programs, especially spending on the environment and natural resources and on job training and employment services, have suffered deep cuts since 2000."

"In the end," as economist Anwar Shaikh points out, "government expenditures need to provide not only demand stimulus but also social stimulus." Otherwise, while GDP growth may be momentarily high(er), the well of sustained expansion and broad-based economic gains will stay dry."

Rice at the 9/11 Commission

Condi Rice finally testified before the commission under oath. This came after months of administration opposition to such testimony under the guise of constitutional separation of powers and executive privilege. (The opposition ended after the political costs of this stance began increasing). Her testimony raised as many questions as it answered. For example, the title of the August 6th presidential daily briefing (PDB), an intelligence report which raised the issue of hijackings and the use of explosive devices in the U.S. by al Quaeda (and which remains partially classified by the Bush administration) was finally released yesterday.
The report was entitled "BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK INSIDE THE U.S."

One has to ask: Why was this classified information? Was this really done for national security purposes? If so, which? Or was it rather classified for political purposes? Was it simply one more example of what appears to be an ongoing attempt to classify and keep out of the public domain in any way possible, any information that might shed a less than shining light on the administration, strictly for the purposes of partisan benefit?

Rice also focused on the "structural" failures implicit in the 9/11 tragedy, and disclaimed (on behalf of the administration) any responsibility. When she was asked at various times why no action was taken after the Aug. 6 PDB, she repeatedly emphasized the "structural" failures - the lack of coordinatition between our foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement agencies, a separation which stems from a legal and cultural concerns about the potential for abuse of civil rights. However, nothing, absolutely nothing, prevented the National Security Chief from alerting and calling together a meeting of the "principals," something in the order of what counter terrorism expert Richard Clarke had suggested, to bring about the sort of intensive focus to this threat that took place under Clinton in 1999 , and to which many attribute the breakup of the millenium terrorist plans that year.

Instead, what happened at this time, after this warning, was that Bush went on a month long vacation in Texas. Rice according to her testimony seems like passivity personified - she did not push any action because she didn't get any specifics as to time, place and plans (what was her job again - was she totally lacking any curiousity as to what might be behind such warnings). Subsequently, she continued her speeches and efforts on behalf of what the administration considered as its primary security concerns, the missile defence system and Iraq.

It's undoubtedly true that there was no silver bullet on this. And Rice may be correct that more focus on previous warnings would not have guaranteed deterrence of the 9/11 tragedy. It might, however, have lowered the probability its success. No one can guarantee that measures which might have been taken to highten the alert of the FBI would not have been useful.

It is at this point where the question of accountability must be raised. While there is clearly some need for "structural changes," in times of immediate threat it is not necessarily wise to focus on other things while awaiting such changes, as the administration did. And it is even more clear that there were ample means for spreading an alert had the available information been taken with greater seriousness and focus, and had meetings of principals been conducted. Now, however, the administration is asking the American people to pay the costs in traditonal rights (as evidenced by its support of the so called Patriot Act), for the negligence which it has worked so hard to conceal. Seems like the wrong folks are getting held accountable.

BTW: Part of the deal the admin made for Condi to appear under oath was that bush himself would not have to testify alone - he'll go in without being under oath, and with veep Cheney at his side. Are they worried about something he might say? This deal has been subject to some humor by cartoonists (see Toles and Luckovich.)

Harold Meyerson suggested that:
The only unequivocally good policy option before the American people is to dump the president who got us into this mess, who had no trouble sending our young people to Iraq but who cannot steel himself to face the Sept. 11 commission alone.

Meanwhile W is again back at the ranch.

Inglewood Defeats Wal-Mart


Chalk up a major defeat for Wal-Mart in the largely minority L.A. suburb of Inglewood. The Wal-Marteers, after having some qualms about going through the city's standard planning procedures, decided to try a referendum on a 73 page long proposal that would have exempted them from, among other things, the environmental impact statement required of all major developments. They then spent over a million dollars in an all out effort to pass it. Folks in Inglewood, nevertheless, knocked the proposal down easily with over 60% of the voters in opposition.