More consequences of climate change

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=11-P13-00029&segmentID=3

We know about rising sea levels, drought, and heat waves (going on as we speak). Ocean acidification and species extinction are also big problems too. But how about global warming's effects on human conflicts?

One example is opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. We keep trying to persuade Afghans to stop growing the smack that helps fund Taliban activities and sickens Westerners. We even offer them cash incentives to switch to less lucrative but legal crops like grains. But Afghanistan is currently experiencing its worst prolonged drought in recorded history. Poppies are way more drought resistant than the crops we and the Karzai regime are pushing for. Poor farmers just want to survive. The US is saying no to their livelihood, and the Taliban are saying yes. Even if they don't believe in Sharia and don't wish for America's destruction, what side do you think they're going to support? So climate change is directly impeding our national security strategy. Some may think that buying foreign oil funds terrorism. They may be right, but burning oil of any origin is also making it harder for us to fight terrorism.

Another example closer to home is Mexican immigration. Rising sea temp and El Nino in the 1990s created a massive, toxic algae bloom that wiped out highly productive fisheries in Michoacan and elsewhere. This put a lot of poor, young people out of work and hungry, so of course many migrated north for survival, despite the dangers of crossing into America and the hard life that awaited. Some were probably desperate and more amenable to participate in drug trafficking and violence. So climate change also exacerbated an economic and security crisis for us and the Mexicans.

Unfortunately climate change will hit the people living near the equator the hardest, who also generally happen to be the poorest humans on Earth, partly due to the repercussions of colonialism and Western exploitation. But you don't see a big effort in rich nations to help them cope, especially during the global recession. This is doubly insulting because our pollution and our direct or indirect destruction of their precious forests are the major contributions to the human side of climate change. Instead, rich nations seem to be taking the approach depicted in the disaster film "2012". High walls and lifeboats for those who can afford it, and the rest are left to face nature's fury on their own. Immigration policies and border security are getting tougher in most G8 nations (that happen to be in more northern, temperate zones). Of course there are other reasons for this besides climate change effects, but clearly no one is getting more welcoming. Plenty will die from climate change in the G8 as well (some as we speak), but proportionally much less. If we made certain political decisions, the suffering and death could be greatly reduced, but Washington can't even agree to extend its own credit line, so the prospects of worldwide cooperation don't look great.

More on living with more extreme weather due to climate change: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/25/138601271/weather-warnings-for-a-climate-changed-planet

The economic inefficiencies of our energy policies

A friend recommended "Environmental Economics and Policy" by Tietenberg and it's pretty interesting for those who are eco and econ novices. There's a big chapter on energy policy and how various government actions and corporate incentives reduce the "economic efficiency" of energy (or the total net benefits to society). In other words, we're not getting the most out of our energy use, and our poor decisions are making our energy problems worse. Dynamic efficiency takes the future into account, so it is the best allocation of resources that will maximize the net benefits to both present and future peoples. This is important because so often short-term thinking creates problems (Wall Street quarterly reporting, the House's 2-year election cycle, etc.). Many incentives exist to "rob from the future" in order to increase profit or look better today, and if only future peoples could invent a time machine to advocate for their interests now.

Environmental economics helps to inform policy decisions to increase "fairness" and "sustainability". Fair, sustainable decisions should not leave future generations worse off than we, in terms of aggregate natural and man-made capital available. Carbon trading operates on this principle. Although company X is polluting in the present and thereby hurting the future, it can become more sustainable by offsetting its damage with conservation/research outlays that benefit the future. So the general strategy is to find policies that satisfy sustainability criteria, and of those choices implement the ones with the highest dynamic efficiency. Of course the strictest sustainability criterion mandates that we should preserve the natural world exactly as it is for the future, so that our consumption is limited by the replenishment rate of the resource (forest, fishery, etc.). But that is a hard sell these days, and of course impossible for non-renewable resources like minerals and fossil fuels. Peak oil is probably behind us and the discovery/creation of new deposits is greatly outpaced by our consumption rate. If we can't leave our progeny the same abundance of fossil fuels as we enjoy now, at least our energy use should create profits that can become capital set aside to compensate the future. Alaska basically does this and pays its residents yearly dividends from its "permanent fund" (but really all of it should be off limits).

Republicans and some Democrats pre-BP spill were advocating "drill baby drill" to solve our energy problems. But from a fairness standpoint you can see that makes no sense (we're just leaving less oil for the future). And since domestic oil generally has higher costs of production (labor, regulatory compliance, insurance), we're retaining less profit, even if we were nice enough to set it aside for the future. Plus there's not much left to tap. "Easy oil" has already been exploited in the US, so untapped deposits entail a lot of risk and cost. Deep-water drilling blowouts, arctic pipeline leaks, and water pollution from natural gas fracking are not just hypothetical dangers, but we've witnessed them with horror. Even though the environmental costs of production aren't really included in the retail price of energy, exploration in hard-to-access locations is already super expensive. It's only cost-justified when the demand for oil pushes the market price above $70/barrel like it is today.

The booming tar sands industry in northern Canada and elsewhere is a consequence of this. If you're not familiar: building-size earth movers (that consume a lot of fuel as you can imagine) dig up tons and tons of dirt, transport it to giant boilers that heat up the sludge and separate the usable fuel from the sand. And all this takes place at the top of the world, so there are a lot of costs associated with moving equipment and people up there, keeping them warm and sane, and pumping the fuel back to civilization. Beyond the environmental damage and infrastructure concerns, it also costs about 3 gallons of cleaner natural gas to make 1 gallon of dirty oil from tar sands. Even a child could see that something is amiss with that paradigm. But just because the market says this transaction makes sense doesn't mean we should accept it at face value.

Speaking of natural gas, it's not a panacea either. Since methane is gaseous at normal temperatures, high-pressure transportation and storage is challenging. In order to be cost-effective, it has to be super-cooled to -259 F for international tanker transport. Although we've been lucky so far, LNG facilities are an attractive terrorism target, as an LNG fire is much hotter and harder to contain than an oil fire. Also, methane is much more potent than CO2 for greenhouse effect.

But shouldn't we drill more at home to reduce our dependence on imports? Only if it will make us better off, and it usually doesn't. It's just easier to buy foreign oil - that's why we still do it despite the risks. Yes our money goes to people who may not like us very much, but it's hard to quantify how much actual damage that is causing. What about Middle East terrorism? We are implicitly paying a "security premium" for foreign oil. Some of that is our taxes to fund the US Navy that is mostly in charge of keeping the sea lanes safe for tankers and other vessels. Other monies are allocated to maintain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve: a billion barrels of oil stored in caves in the South in case of embargoes or other supply disruptions. And of course there are the oil wars and support to oil dictatorships. The security premium is good in that it lowers consumption and makes domestic supply more attractive, but the bitter truth is the premium is more efficient than trying to be energy independent (that would require a major US economic downsizing). So we have to live with OPEC and volatile imports, but how can we reduce our pain? Conservation always helps, but it won't fix the problem because of the oil we still need to use, much of it will be foreign. In addition, the government can impose tariffs equal to the security premium. The revenues collected could fund alternative energy research and pollution control. But tariffs piss people off (people we depend on), so DC would prefer to subsidize domestic suppliers (but that won't make oil any cheaper to consumers).

Price controls are a touchy issue too. We know that the middle and lower classes are getting squeezed by higher energy prices, and we don't want people to lose their jobs because they can't commute or die because they can't afford to keep the heater/AC on. It isn't humane if some people are priced out of access to energy. Of course OPEC and other local monopolies reduce supply in order to capture more "economic rent" or resource royalties. But when the gov't holds commodity prices below their market price, it causes consumption to increase, which exacerbates climate change, hurts the future more than it helps the present, and makes it harder for alternative energy to gain market share. If price controls are in place long-term, consumption will be so high that all the cheap gas will be used up until the extraction costs of harder sources equal the price cap. Then producers have no incentive to sell gas. And even though prices are forced lower, during shortages there's no guarantee that poorer people will get access to fuel. Subsidies make a lot more economic sense. Let prices rise to the market rate, but compensate the poor so that they can afford it.

Price controls also create perverse incentives for suppliers. Politicians may cap prices to look good in an election year, but if producers know the cap will expire next year, they may cut back supply to make more money in the future. So we'd have over-consumption plus supply shortage. This happened with natural gas in the US in the 1970s. For some reason, the gov't put price caps on interstate gas purchases but not intrastate. So suppliers preferred to sell locally, which totally screwed people in gas-poor states.

And then there's the whole issue of energy deregulation. Traditionally, utilities were regulated monopolies where gov't would set price, but suppliers were obligated to service all customers in an exclusive area. But in 1992, Congress decided to let suppliers sell electricity on open markets, and lower prices to compete for customers. Well, that was the plan at least. If price leadership is key, firms have incentive to cut safety corners and use the dirtiest inputs to provide the cheapest watts. Dysfunctional California joined the party in 1995 since the state was paying power rates about 50% higher than US average. But a perfect storm ensued to cripple the state. Drought reduced hydroelectric productivity and many fossil fuel plants were due for scheduled maintenance shutdowns. This boosted wholesale costs, but suppliers couldn't pass them onto consumers due to a price cap that was law. So rolling blackouts ensued, and some firms like Enron affiliates (famously) exploited the chaos. They deliberately withheld power in various markets to take advantage of short-term supply inelasticity, which raised prices and allowed them to reap monopoly profits. So the poorly and hastily designed "free market" turned monopolistic anyway. PGE even had to declare bankruptcy in 2001, the voters blamed Gov. Davis, and replaced him with the Terminator.

Even China knows that coal is literally a dead-end, but how about nuclear? If the energy market functioned properly, nuclear power would never exist. Besides the yearly tax breaks, gov'ts had to offer huge assistance to promote plant construction, because if suppliers had to absorb the real costs of nuclear accident risk and waste disposal, there would be no takers. We passed the Price-Anderson Act in 1957 to cap liability damages at $560M for a nuclear disaster (and the taxpayer would cover 90% of that, though not sure if those are 1957 or 2011 dollars). It was supposed to expire in a decade (by that time nuclear plants were supposed to figure out safety so that accident risk was a nonfactor), but it hasn't. The gov't share has fortunately shrunk, and now private insurance covers the difference.

Like other insurance, plants pay premiums into a big accident fund, but in this case the sick pay as much as the healthy. Plants with great safety records and top-of-the-line equipment don't get rate discounts, so there's no incentive to provide sufficient safety. But no one wants another Chernobyl, right? Well economically speaking, it makes no difference for nuclear firms. Due to gov't and insurance risk underwriting, they are no worse off if they wet the bed. And I'm not sure how much responsibility companies bear for waste disposal (my guess is not much, otherwise they wouldn't be in business). How scary is that? Sure I believe they still have a conscience and don't want to take the PR hit from an accident, but it concerns me that negligence can't really be punished financially. As we've already discussed, the NRC that oversees nuclear facilities is underfunded and bullied by Congress to back off the plant operators. A fair alternative would be to tax the nuclear firms to compensate those affected by nuclear power issues. France already forces plants to sell cheaper power to those living nearby, and the same should be done for those living near waste disposal sites, in order to make up for lost property values and potential risks. Then future residents can decide whether those incentives make it worthwhile to live there. But after Fukushima, I think nuclear won't be experiencing growth for at least a generation.

To close, energy use is a double-edged sword. Low or high prices are both good and bad for the environment. Low market prices increase consumption (and pollution), but will cause us to deplete our resources faster and transition to sustainable renewable energy. But this will exacerbate scarcity conflicts, force us into riskier exploration before the tech is ready, and probably make the energy transition more traumatic. High market prices will reduce consumption and conserve more resources for future peoples (who can hopefully extract the remaining energy more safely and efficiently), but most of the profits will go to OPEC and other suppliers. High prices will also make alternative fuels more attractive and stimulate research. And of course if energy prices truly reflected social and environmental costs of use ($100-200B/year in the US according to the author), they would be much more expensive ($10/gallon for gas). I am not sure which scenario I am rooting for, but higher prices seem probable. Any way it goes, fossil fuels will dwindle until the remaining supplies are as expensive to extract as renewable alternatives (hopefully by then hydrogen and clean electricity will be viable for vehicles). But if we plan intelligently, we'll be ready that day for a smooth transition instead of furiously struggling to cope.

DSK released

http://news.yahoo.com/strauss-kahn-free-house-arrest-charges-stand-154714378.html


I can't believe these idiot prosecutors who just accept accuser testimony without due diligence. Like Duke Lacrosse or Kobe, they are so hungry to win a big celebrity conviction (and move out of the shitty DA office to politics or a corporate job) that they're not doing their jobs. Confirmation bias - just like the "sources" we used to justify the Iraq War. Or in the case of Ted Stevens, maybe they had a case but they muck up the evidence and procedure so badly that they blow it. Maybe the accuser is telling the truth despite questions about her personal issues, but if the DA doesn't have enough of a case to convince a jury or push for a plea bargain, why destroy someone's career and possibly your own?

I find it interesting that the French public pretty much never waivered in its support for DSK through all this, while in the US accused pretty much equals guilty in the media. By some accounts, socialist DSK was doing a good job at the IMF with the European debt crisis, and was slated to replace the unpopular conservative Sarkozy in the next French election. He may still have a chance, but this fiasco cost him his job and maybe future office. To me it seems similar to the Eliot Spitzer mess, a brash leftist politician taken down by dubious scandal. Sure both men are womanizers and have some personal failings. But other forces might have been at work to bring about their public downfalls.

http://www.client9themovie.com/
 
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/opinion/05nocera.html?src=me&ref=general
 
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I think the NYT author has some good points and I know my DSK email was more on the knee-jerk side. I do respect the DA for coming clean with doubts about the accuser early, rather than dragging on. I assume the NYC DA must be one of the best in the country, so they probably weigh their decisions heavily, especially concerning suspects of high profile. But I don't think America's history with Roman Polanski is relevant to the DSK case. Maybe if DSK was a criminal and was able to flee, it would be very hard to bring him to justice. But Americans like Kissinger and maybe some of the Bushies have been accused of war crimes by other nations, and we haven't allowed them to be extradited either. We should expect nations to protect their own, but that shouldn't make us rush our justice system decisions. I believe that even if DSK fled, if the US presented a compelling case to France, some arrangement for trial could be reached. Rape is still illegal in France, unlike their gray area concerning sex with minors. And sorry to be vulgar, but bruises and semen on clothes can occur in casual, consensual sex as well.


I don't agree with the author's comments about classism and such in the 2 countries. The poor in France generally have better access to social services than those in America. Of course both nations struggle with immigrant and Muslim issues, and US Muslims are flourishing in comparison (but the demographics of Muslim immigrants in America are vastly different than those in France - education, economic circumstances, etc.). Despite America's reputation, social mobility is higher in France and other EU nations(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8162616.stm), and the US has plenty of problems with wealth inequality and class as we know (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/index.html). Although the justice system often favors the rich over the poor (or corporations over normal people, as we've seen in the Roberts Court), I fear that cases like DSK's (if decided in favor of the accuser) may encourage other lower-income, desperate people to entrap or fraud rich people in their vices, in order to get a settlement. Maybe they deserve it, but it opens up another can of worms for justice.

Charter school fraud in Philly

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137444337/what-happens-when-charter-schools-fail

Maybe some social services aren't designed for market competition and entrepreneurship, especially when they're funded by taxpayers with little public oversight, and run by former business sharks with minimal educational experience. I think charter schools can be a good innovation in certain circumstances, and of course there are plenty of problems with stagnant public schools, educational bureaucracies, and teacher unions.

But look at their logic: public schools are underperforming, so let's establish charter schools to pressure them to shape up, and act as a teaching lab to develop better methods. But charters are risky "nonprofit" ventures that are trying to win grants and other funding, so why would they share their successful practices with rivals? Like a new entrant into an industry, they are fighting like hell to survive and eventually dethrone the top dog. They are not there to make friends. And the more successful a charter is, the more funding it gets (which means nearby public schools are getting less, and per-pupil K-12 funding in the US is already criminally low), so that only increases the likelihood that the public schools will underperform. And if word gets out that the charter is good, parents of talented students may pluck them out of the public system in favor of the charters, creating a selection bias that further brain drains public schools. So it's pretty much a zero-sum game; there is no way charters can make publics better. But that's probably the point, and it's not a level playing field. Charter teachers are non-union (they are paid a bit more but forced to work longer hours, so their per-hour compensation is actually worse) and not fettered with as many rules, so that's almost like Bar-roid Bonds vs. me in the Home Run Derby. Plus it creates a rift and culture clash among educators - already one of the least respected professions in the US. Education needs to be collaborative, open, and trusting to be successful, and charters are an impediment to that (some may say unions are too, and they have a point).

Like we've seen in other parts of gov't, when free-market conservatives want to do away with some public program, they demonize and de-fund it. They say the program is a failure, and they create the negative conditions to fulfill that prophecy, instead of taking measures to prevent it. Maybe all this is part of the larger movement to destroy employee unions wherever they exist. Some charters have changed lives and put underserved students on a much better life path, but overall charters are about on par with publics and in some cases lagging behind. Just imagine how much better the public schools could have done with the additional resources wasted on sub-par or corrupt charters. As we all know in business and in research, most attempts end in failure. So it's not like every charter is destined to be a gem, especially when it's run by corrupt people.

In the greater Philly area, 19 of 74 charter schools are under federal investigation for improprieties. And that percentage may be fairly uniform across the nation (CA, OH, and TX have also launched recent investigations). Charters are designed to be free of regulation (but from our experiences with Wall Street and energy, we know how that goes), and there are 7 full-time employees tasked with monitoring ALL of the Philly charters (soon to be 4 due to city budget cuts, of course). Most of the problems are abuse of funds, COI, and nepotism. Like corporations, CEOs hire friendly boards who rubber-stamp ludicrous pay raises (as much as $1M for some execs) and hirings of unqualified buddies. One CEO set up his school in buildings he owned, making the charter pay inflated rent directly to him. Another director also owned the school's vending machines. His team would buy discount junk food and soda and hike up the prices to the students. Well, maybe the corruption isn't actually hurting anyone? In another school, looting by the leaders caused the special ed program to be underfunded. When parents complained to the trustees, they basically told them to piss off. 

Profits are getting in the way of education. I hope people will wake up and recognize the risk of charters as being just another pro-business scheme to undermine the public sector and embezzle precious scarce resources. Maybe charters can work and make education better, but if so, then we shouldn't compromise that potential by tolerating bad charters and improper conduct.

Obama's prospects in 2012

1 - I'm much less sanguine about BO's reelection prospects.  In March 2009 he had a choice of how to pursue recovery, and he explicitly decided to side with the banks.  The bet he made was that he could help them out, keep them happy, and that rest of the economy would right itself in time for the 2012 election.  He could eat his cake and have it too.  So rather than making real structural reform of finance, he decided to continue to bail them out both with money and with regulatory "forbearance" (which is to say, not enforcing the law).  He and his advisers talked up the "recovery," the Fed helped reinflate asset prices, and he basically played a big game of "extend and pretend," trying to keep things roughly stable until they would eventually heal on their own.

And over the last 6 months he's doubled-down on that bet, letting the GOP define the economic discussion as being about the deficit.  He's pivoted away from focusing on job growth and instead is focused on deficit reduction and austerity.

It's not at all clear this bet will pay off.  The recession has been substantially longer than he or his advisers anticipated, and it's looking far more fragile.  There's been some small economic growth, but unemployment is still up (and the decreases that have come are because people are leaving the workforce, not because jobs are being added faster than population growth) and the numbers from April and May are looking pretty bad.  There are big risks on the horizon: the Euro crisis, the risk of another Arab uprising blowing up oil prices again, banks' various frauds finally getting a little bit of investigation.  And if you think deficit reduction and fiscal austerity will help this, take a look at how that's working for Lithuania, the UK, Greece, Ireland ... yeah.

If the economy is still in the toilet, if unemployment is over 9-10%, Americans may well blame it on BO.

2 - On uprisings.

There actually has been a fair bit of pushback in this country.  The Tea Party is ... well, yeah.  But it's a big populist movement, grown angry at the rule of elites and oligarchs, and pushing back against that.  Their specific suggestions are pretty strange, as is often the case with populist movements, and their energy has largely been co-opted by the existing oligarchic power structure on the right.  But it's still a clear case of the people at the bottom getting together to push for ... something.

I think it's worthwhile to think about why there isn't a similar movement on the left.  Honestly, I think it's because BO took that energy and hope and desire for change, rode it to DC, and then promptly sold out to the existing power structure.  And he's done an incredible job of selling the left on this notion that he's been trying hard, but been stymied at every turn.  The guy is clearly very smart and knows that he has the ability to motivate popular support for issues that are important to him by appealing directly to the people.  If he wanted to push through a real liberal agenda, he would have.  He hasn't, and it's because he doesn't actually want to.  He wants to sound like he's trying while he plays the "extend and pretend" game for the existing power structure.  And by doing that he's effectively emasculated any attempt at real change from the left.

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Thanks J and very interesting thoughts: "[Obama] wants to sound like he's trying [to enact change] while he plays the 'extend and pretend' game for the existing power structure." It makes me want to cry when I think about BO's record and how true that seems.

Yeah I guess if Scott Brown and Michelle Bachman got elected mostly out of voter backlash for the Dems, anything can happen to BO in 2012. But at least the birther question and other BS have mostly been put to rest, so I doubt Obama will get swift-boated by a non-issue. As you said, it will boil down to unemployment and GDP growth. I agree with your recounting of economic events under BO, but for Americans who are upset at our lack of progress, there's only so much a president can do. BO can't force the banks to lend and firms to hire, even as they're rolling in cash waiting for good opportunities. A president can't control what crazy stuff happened in the European financial world, nor events like the Arab Spring and tsunami (both of which seriously affected global markets and business confidence). And a president definitely can't force Congress to enact real financial reforms or whatnot. The merits of his various corporate rescues is another big discussion, but at least BO got some stimulus passed in his first year before Congress seized up.

But I agree that the facts suggest BO consciously avoided taking liberal causes "to the streets" and rally popular support. This was supposed to be a turning point for America! Some groups have analyzed BO's voting record during his time in the Senate, and ranked him as part of the top 10 most liberal senators. But that is probably a deceptive/simplistic conclusion, and many commentators would feel that BO is more centrist than Hillary. The US left deceived itself if it thought that BO would be their liberal activist. But there are some important non-partisan and economy-critical issues like infrastructure spending, education, and trade that he didn't spend much time on, or just continued the Bush rhetoric. Health care ate up a lot of his attention, and now it's the deficit. I think BO is plagued by too much pollster advice and a desire for bipartisan accord. Many little birds are chirping in his ears, some high-level people have resigned from his admin., and maybe he's drowning in conflicting views (that's just a fact of modern politics). He wants to please people and he wants people to like him, but he should have known from Day 1 that he had a target on his back. Ironically, he just hasn't shown that much leadership and audacity.

The buck stops with him and I can understand if voters partially blame him for a weak or illusory recovery. But what the heck would McCain/Palin have done that would have been any better for the people? His economic team was pretty much Bushies, right? I just don't know if BO has "ruined" the nation so badly (as the GOP claim) to warrant a regime change. I don't think the GOP candidates have described any policies that would show real improvements over BO's (but of course there is a ton of campaign left). While I am fairly disappointed in BO's record, I don't see a better alternative. But angry centrist voters struggling to make ends meet may feel differently.

Re: the Tea Party, I have to disagree that it is a grassroots effort. As we've emailed about in the past, it is mostly funded and organized by big business Libertarians (and fueled by big business right wing media "outrage"). Sure the local events and rallies are populist, but it's definitely not Tunisia. Heck let's be honest, most revolts since the Colonial Era were not truly populist, but led by educated elites who saw an opportunity to topple the group in power. They just offered the poor masses enough rhetoric and promises for them to follow. Sadly, the European fascists may have been the most populist uprisings in recent history.

I also hate to say this, but I think the Tea Party is more about racism than people want to admit. If Biden or Hillary were in charge, I don't think we'd see this level of angry mobilization. Maybe with Hillary, since she is a female and her name carries a lot of baggage from '90s politics. Some people find it easy to blame all of America's problems on a Kenyan socialist and his evil conspiracy network. Seeing a proud, successful black couple on TV all the time, getting the glitz and glory, can make some people's blood boil.

And you brought up a very perplexing point - where is the liberal Tea Party equivalent? They weren't even visible during the worst of the Bush years. There was the anti-war crowd, the gay movement, the greens, etc., but there wasn't a cohesive, enthusiastic movement to "take back America" and restore our values/prestige from a bad leader. Maybe the liberal message/narrative is too fragmented and complex compared to the Tea Party's. Well, the left doesn't have the benefits of strong media channels, huge funding, and outspoken personalities (it seems like ultra-left politicians and commentators are dismissed as quacks, yet Beck and Palin are somehow god's truth?).

I guess the swelling liberal energy was all harnessed by the BO campaign as you said, but disappointment after disappointment since 2008 has caused it to dissipate. I think church and small business groups are major pillars of the Tea Party, and the liberals don't have anything equivalent. They have women, gays, students, urban poor, and minorities, who happen to be the least powerful in our society. They had the labor movement, but it's been so maligned in the mainstream press, and clearly you can see it's part of the right wing agenda to exterminate it. The left can't really criticize the churches and business groups (even though there's plenty to talk about), because that would be seen as un-American heresy. This is a big problem for the future of the Dems, which is probably why they are covertly turning to big business to support them instead. The days of the FDR or LBJ Dem Party are long gone.

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there is a leftist movement in this country.  it just doesn't have the corporate backing like the tea party.  what about the people who rallied for the release or at least trial for bradley manning?  how about the people that were beaten and arrested at that rally?

what about the rally i went to yesterday called for by lynn woolsey calling for the end of these 5 wars? couple of hundred there.

what about the people who've marched on wall street, regularly? 

How about the arresting of Chris Hedges and several Iraqi vets a couple of weeks ago for chaining themselves to the white house fence?

What about wisconsin and all the other state houses that had huge rallies when their governors starting placing blame for the bad economy on unions?

They just don't get media attention.  but there are plenty on the left outraged at both BO and republicans.

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Thanks for reminding us, L. Yes I agree about the deliberate lack of media attention and I know people are protesting in many places. But let's be honest, the protests are restricted to about 10 states (and mostly CA/NY). If the GOP didn't declare war on unions, all of those Midwest people would have stayed home. But their survival was on the line, so they rose up. If we lived in KS or AK, we wouldn't find a trace of liberal activity.

The Tea Party is in every single US state, and even has de facto reps in Congress. Sure the left has Bernie Sanders (and used to have Kucinich), but the TP has the spotlight now (because there is more energy in their movement, and it aligns with corporate media interests). The traditional GOP is scared of the TP, and they will factor into who wins the nomination. Centrist Dems barely pay attention to the left. And on the liberal front, the anti-war folks don't talk to or support the gays, and the greens don't have much in common with the immigration reformers. We don't have a cohesive, unified, organized network. There's plenty of money with the Sierra Club, Amnesty Int'l, MoveOn, Soros, etc. but they're not joining forces because their agendas don't overlap (at least not in present form). Dems have never been good at team play. Sure the TP benefits from corporate support and almost has a franchised structure (and yes, I know the TP is also very diverse and fragmented), but they generally share a common (if unrealistic) goal: reduce gov't and make America more like Reagan's vision. They don't have much of a clue how to get there (lawfully) and how to fix our current problems, but they're united in their distaste for Washington and desire to clean house. We can't really say that for the left since BO took office. 

It's tough because a lot of the left's argument is empirical and not rhetorical. Climate change, social programs, civil rights, and such are complex issues involving data and statistics that can't be summed up on a bumper sticker. All the TP needs to do is draw a Hitler mustache on Obama or coin some phrase like "death panels", and people get the gist of it. The TP is checkers and the left is chess, but checkers is more fun for the everyday guy. Some people say that leftist snobs who dismiss the TP do so at their own peril, but right now I'm comfortable saying that they're not at the level of Bill Buckley. Seriously, they're more like the European fascists without the racial agenda (which is both a compliment to their populism/propaganda and a caution for what they may become). But regardless the TP is a "party", while the liberals haven't come together yet.

Obama's transparency award and Libya lawsuit

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/14/rescind-barack-obama-obama-transparency-award

The "transparency award" in question was described as "aspirational", similar to the rationale for awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize early in his presidency when he had done nothing yet to further the cause of peace. Participants admitted they used the private meeting in March to try and lobby Obama to do more to earn their award. If the president doesn't change course as a result of the lobbying and "award", there are some who would shrug and say, "no harm, no foul". - letter authors

In March, Obama won an open government/transparency award from 5 gov't watchdog groups. But soon after, a coalition of other watchdogs and whistleblowers wrote an open letter in The Guardian to rescind the award, since secrecy and suppression have actually increased during the Obama admin. This is noteworthy when you consider his predecessor. I know he is no longer Candidate Obama, and as president he must be a company man and defend agencies like the NSA and FBI. But we put him in office to change things, not bolster the status quo.

The "example" his administration is making of Wikileaker Bradley Manning (who hasn't been convicted in court BTW) is atrocious. That man (a US citizen with rights) probably broke the law, but at present he is basically zero threat to US national security, yet he has been kept in solitary lock-down 23/24 hours a day for months. There are also accusations that he was tortured. This punishment is disproportionate and probably unconstitutional. How can we criticize Syria and Myanmar about their abuses? Yes leaks can hurt national interests, but secrets can too. There has to be a balance, and without leakers and whistleblowers, we might still think that Nixon wasn't a crook, companies price commodities fairly, and cigarettes are non-addictive. 

Here is a partial list of their criticisms:
• President Obama has not decreased, but has dramatically increased governmental secrecy. According to a new report to the president by the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) – the federal agency that provides oversight of the government's security classification system – the cost of classification for 2010 has reached over $10.17bn. That's a 15% jump from the previous year, and the first time ever that secrecy costs have surpassed $10bn.
• There were 544,360 requests for information last year under the Freedom of Information Act to the 35 biggest federal agencies – 41,000 requests more than the year before. Yet the bureaucracy responded to 12,400 fewer requests than the prior year, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
• Obama has invoked baseless and unconstitutional executive secrecy to quash legal inquiries into secret illegalities more often than any predecessor. The list of this president's invocations of the "state secrets privilege" has already resulted in shutting down lawsuits involving the National Security Agency's illegal wiretapping – Jewel v NSA and Shubert v Obama; extraordinary rendition and assassination – Anwar al-Awlaki; and illegal torture – Binyam Mohamed.
• Ignoring his campaign promise to protect government whistleblowers, Obama's presidency has amassed the worst record in US history for persecuting, prosecuting and jailing government whistleblowers and truth-tellers. President Obama's behaviour has been in stark contrast to his campaign promises, which included live-streaming meetings online and rewarding whistleblowers.
• The Obama justice department's prosecution of former NSA official Thomas Drake, who, up till 9 June, faced 35 years in prison for having blown the whistle on the NSA's costly and unlawful warrantless monitoring of American citizens, typifies the abusive practices made possible through expansive secrecy agreements and threats of prosecution.
• President Obama has set a powerful and chilling example for potential whistleblowers through the abuse and torture of Bradley Manning, whose guilt he has also publicly stated prior to any trial by his, Obama's, military subordinates.
• Under President Obama, the FBI has launched a series of raids and issued grand jury subpoenas targeting nearly two dozen antiwar activists. Over 2,600 arrests of protesters in the US have been made while Obama has been president, further encroaching on the exercise of first amendment rights.
• President Obama has initiated a secret assassination programme, has publicly announced that he has given himself the power to include Americans on the list of people to be assassinated, and has attempted to assassinate at least one, Anwar al-Awlaki.
• President Obama has maintained the power to secretly kidnap, imprison, rendition, or torture, and he has formalised the power to lawlessly imprison in an executive order. This also means the power to secretly imprison. There are some 1,700 prisoners outside the rule of law in Bagram alone.
• President Obama promised to reveal White House visitors' logs. He didn't. In response to outrage over his refusal to reveal the names of health insurance CEOs he had met with and cut deals with on the health insurance reform bill, he announced that he would release the names going forward, but not those in the past. And going forward, he would withhold names he chose to withhold. White House staff then began regularly meeting lobbyists just off White House grounds in order to avoid the visitors' logs.
• President Obama has sent representatives to aggressively pressure Spain, England and Germany to shut down investigations that could have exposed the crimes of the Bush era, just as he has instructed the US justice department to avoid such matters.
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Also, what do you think about the lawsuit brought on by Kucinich, Boehner, and others questioning the legality of Obama's military action in Libya vis-a-vis the War Powers Act? I know I wrote you earlier advocating intervention in Libya, but since then I believe I was wrong. Well, I definitely think the way Obama and NATO are handling it is wrong. If we made a surgical hit on Qaddafi and his most loyal associates when the rebels were on the outskirts of Tripoli early in the conflict, maybe it could have avoided these months of war and stalemate (there probably would still be later conflict in Libya to fill the power vacuum, but at least the UN could get shoes on the ground by then to try to maintain order and political fair play).

But as we learned in Iraq, we just can't take out a dictator without a PLAN for what happens next. And of course we have no friggin' plan for Libya. The excuse of avoiding a humanitarian disaster with intervention also doesn't hold water, because worse abuses took place in Darfur, and are taking place presently in Syria, and we do nothing. Qaddafi is bad but he's not Nero. Plus who the heck will run the country after him? We don't have a puppet government waiting in the wings, and we have no history or relations with the rebels (who are quite heterogeneous BTW). From our dealings with Pakistan and Israel, we should know that even open alliances can be very tricky and damaging to our interests. So maybe the Libertarians and pacifists (and those with common sense intelligence) are onto something when they advocate for no foreign interventions unless our vital interests are directly at stake. The sooner the US realizes the limits of its power and influence, the stronger and safer the country will be.

Despite the Congressional lawsuit, they can't really do anything to stop the Libya operation because Obama said he won't be asking them for any more money than was already allocated, so they have no future leverage. They of course could draft legislation to force the president to halt the mission, but Obama would just veto it, and I doubt Dem senators would turn against him with an election year coming up.

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So can we give the Laker's the NBA championship halfway through next season?  Ya know, to encourage them to actually win it.

Reading that list of offenses by Obama is embarassing.  But a non-theoretical question for you, would you expect Bachmann to be better?  In retrospect would we have preferred McCain/Palin?  As hard and fast as the government is screwing us there is no hero to step in.  What are the options?  Mass support for protests just does exist in this country partly for reasons recently discussed.  A meaningful number of people think Obama is too liberal and that Romney is too.  

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Haha the Lakers don't need that incentive, they just need to have their wives and GFs get along, but that's another story! Heck they have enough talent anyway, give the pre-championship to the Clippers to motivate them!

As you said, the aspirational award is an interesting concept. Too bad it doesn't apply to peons like me. I'd love for my boss to give me an aspirational bonus/promotion, and if I didn't live up to it, "no harm no foul".

Of course I think some more hard-line politicians would be much worse than Obama re: transparency, but that's why I voted for him. He was supposed to be more civil, dignified, and humane, but his record hasn't shown much. While I think it's highly unlikely Obama would lose in 2012 (and if he does, we'll have many more problems than this undeserved transparency award), a new GOP administration is not likely to be more people-friendly on this issue. I would pack my bags if I was a Muslim or Arab, considering the offensive language used at the recent debate and on the campaign trail. Didn't some politician say we should nuke Mecca in retaliation for another Islamist attack on the US?

Yep: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162795,00.html 

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and, a meaningful number survive on social security, lost their homes to fraudulent banking practices and have had healthcare costs skyrocket to the point of being unattainable.  i think they're waking up to the fact that the democrats and republicans are going to screw them, no matter what.  it;s coke or pepsi.  pepsi's a little sweeter, but both will make your ass fat and rot your teeth.  it's bullshit and it's bad for you.  look how many people are showing up and protesting and getting arrested.  there are tons.  it's just not on your tv nor is it reported on npr.   People have to stop this branding thing of 'socialism is bad' and start to wake up that social-ism just means that your priority in govt. is society, therefore you support society's basic needs.  then, you have to vote for people based on their actions, not on their words(obama).  but, i'm not totally convinced that even if we did vote in kucinich for president he wouldn't be crippled by media attacks like carter.  revolution is the only way out.  it's breaking out all over.  

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The unfortunate part is you need to be at the light-myself-on-fire stage for meaningful action to take place.  People are willing to take too much and survive on too little.  What i don't understand is how badly things can go once you get into the high office.  Would T do the same thing as Obama?  Maybe i'm not cynical enough to believe that most in congress/high offices went into it for the wrong reason.  I want to believe that most went to change things for the better but our current outcome doesn't follow.

Maybe the random selection method for government offices?  2 year rotation only requirement is minimum education?

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Heh T holding high office? I would send the Lakers and Patriots to Gitmo, legalize all drugs but meth (only ugly trailer trash use it), move the US capital to Vegas, and institute a national salary cap of $1M (since I'm not greedy). Then I'd use that extra tax revenue to fix all the broken shit we email about. But it wouldn't really matter what I want since it would be impossible to work with Congress on anything meaningful.

Actually the Tunisians (part of the smelly Arab masses that Westerners look down on) have a leg up on us. That street vendor who got screwed over by the gov't and self-immolated triggered a successful revolution. The American Quaker who lit himself on fire to protest Vietnam didn't stop the war, much less overthrow Nixon. And you or I doing the same today won't make Washington wake up. Our lives don't mean squat to them. A million lives don't either. And when that is the case - we need new gov't as L said.

J and I were talking about this recently - No Drama Obama decided that getting re-elected was more important than keeping his campaign promises. He basically is letting Wall Street (and those loyal to it in Congress) have free reign, deferring to the Pentagon and CIA to "protect America" as they see fit, and not confronting the many parties damaging America from within (and I'm not referring to the Muslims or Hollywood Elite). That way none of his campaign donors are pissed off, and maybe in his second term he grows a pair. Or maybe that's the problem - he was all "hopey and changey" on the campaign trail, but in private he made promises to all his funders that he would be this kind of president, and "a Lannister always pays his debts".

Maybe you noticed that I'm fairly schizophrenic on my evaluations of Obama since 2008, depending on how bad the GOP is in comparison. Today obviously I'm being a hard-ass. But it's tough - expectations were unprecedented for him, world events have got in the way of a lot of his initiatives, the US right wing has basically made it their Crusade for him to fail, and "herding cats" in Washington is as tricky as it sounds (even the liberal ones, who all expect Obama to put their causes #1). And let's remember that he was pretty much a political baby upon taking office. Bottom line, these are just excuses. He deliberately let opportunities for change pass him by, or he didn't try hard enough to stand up for the people and for what is right. Sadly, his boldest move was to give the green light to violate Pakistani sovereignty and take out Geronimo. I don't think other major political figures would have done much better in his shoes, but I have to believe there are some caring, decent Americans out there who could. Those people wouldn't be allowed anywhere near elected office though.

But like M said, somehow America will go on because deep down we can take a lot of shit. We may complain about it, but we'll soldier on, even if we're broke. What choice do we have - move to Afghanistan? And things aren't quite Greek-bad in order to get a critical mass to rise up. We'll have Coke or Pepsi in Washington for probably the rest of our lives, and that's just the way it is. But hopefully if a real leader for the people emerges, I'm ready to follow him/her and give my life to rid us of this plutocracy. I just hope what follows is something better.

Oh forgot to mention (humor me just a sec), another thing barring us from rising up is losing whatever little we have. Unless you're Buddhist, you probably feel that you have one shot at life. Loved ones, job, what meager assets you have - if you decide to fight the system you could lose it all. It's a serious deterrent, as is the hope that things are bound to get better if we just wait it out. Inaction is the easiest action. That's why I really have to admire the freedom fighters and activists from Iran to Burma, who have made the choice to lay it all on the line for what they believe, and many have paid dearly. We are cowards and slaves in comparison.  

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There is something to be said to giving 100% (like many of these protesters who are literally dying to make their country better) but it is also important to note the absolute value of what you have to lose.  Most people have a job that pays, a tv to watch, food to eat, etc.  If i was deciding between protest and starvation what do i really have to lose.  Like you said T, people don't want to lose what little we have.  And i'm not sure we'll ever have little enough (by comparison to the rest of the world) for a large enough percentage of people to be willing to risk it for change.  Unfortunately i'm like most people in that i'm an armchair critic.  Maybe that is actually more that what most people put into the political process but it isn't enough and I know that and i don't have the time/will/determination/fill in the blank to change that as of now. 

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Yeah I feel you on these points. As you said, much of our population won't be so desperate as to revolt, and those at the bottom are too marginalized to fight. Just as civil rights have evolved since the Middle Ages, so has tyranny. The feudal and slavery systems mostly failed around the world (except places like Saudi and N Korea), so rulers have found that they can still keep people down in a "free society". It's very good crowd control (whether deliberate or not): pacify the people with just enough prosperity and other priorities so they forget about their rights and dignity. Order in China pretty much hinges on this too.

It's tough to convince people to fight a system that they are invested in, or feel dependent on. Most of us probably have retirement accounts. Those are run by Wall Street. Probably we would like to see the "too big to fail" banks broken up like Standard Oil, but what if the cost was our savings? More Americans work for corporations now than ever before (probably out of necessity and economic conditions, not that we like them any more). At work I am sure you have met zealots who think the firm can do no wrong, and they might secretly be OK with corporate misbehavior if their stock options appreciate. Even if we're not greedy company men, our reliance on their salary and hope for career progression may affect our loyalties. We like our creature comforts and we can't all be like Siddhartha or Guevarra. Online media supposedly helped some Mideast revolutions, but when used differently it can be an urban pacification tool. People can literally never face another human being, yet hold a job and order whatever items they need online. If we're all isolated (and distracted with media/entertainment), we can't organize. And to a certain extent, major religions tell us to just take our lumps and don't rock the boat, and we'll be rewarded in the afterlife. These and other factors make us unlikely to upset the status quo.

Maybe we don't have to be all or nothing though - courage to change what we can, tolerance to accept what we can't, and wisdom to know the difference. A big gift to the world is to raise kids with good values who might be able to serve society more than we were able. Heh but when faced with that challenge, maybe I'd rather be a guerrilla. A MLK or Gandhi is born every so often, so we have trust and nurture the next generation (which hopefully also prevents the next Hitler or Pol Pot from developing). But "waiting on the world to change" probably isn't good enough, so I guess incremental protests or choices made in your own life about issues you care about can achieve some good (and hopefully won't have unintended negative consequences). Maybe with the butterfly effect and such, a passing good deed snowballs into something bigger. I could do a lot better, but I try to donate/volunteer, avoid frivolous consumption, do right by people, and scale back my energy/meat intake. Unfortunately, I think all that doesn't even offset all the harm I do each day. If I had any surplus money, I wouldn't invest in companies that I don't approve of (which is pretty much all of them LOL). I'm open to new suggestions though, so M or others please feel free to share. But as you said, changing ourselves is the easy part - how the hell do we change politics?

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Now, I'm with you!  a lottery system for people who had an adequate grade in mandatory civics classes in high school.  that would first entail we teach civics in high school again.

My guess is T wouldn't change but would think that he was being pragmatic by privatizing prisons.  It's rationalization.  Either that, or someone in the media would get a 'tip' on T's porn collection and ending his career with a tearful remorseful press conference. ;)

To be honest, I'm not sure we as a society would care if someone set themselves on fire in protest. We'd call them crazy.

I heard it described once as a frog in a cool pot of water on a stove.  The frog just sits while being cooked in the boiling water b/c it happens so slowly.

People are protesting(i'm going to an antiwar rally today), people are getting arrested, marches are happening on wall street regularly.  But, it doesn't exist in our worlds which glow from living rooms every night, therefore they don't happen.  Hugo Chavez has a downright antagonistic media.  It's run by the monied elite.  But, he also has 70% support b/c he really is a populist and supports evening the playing field.  Can that happen here?  I just don't know.....Does poverty have to reach the level of poverty of third world nations before we do something?  

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Heh I'm already having Weiner (the mother of all fitting names) draft
my apology speech. "I let you all down, and I ask that you pray for my
rehabilitation, and healing for my family who suffered from my
misdeeds."

Besides improving civics edu (that US kids scored horribly in a recent
assessment), families/teachers/leaders need to do a much better job
showing youth how we are all interconnected and interdependent. The
selfish older gens are a lost cause, but maybe there's hope for kids.
If we realize the consequences and externalities of our actions, then
maybe we'll make more socially responsible decisions. Do I really need
that luxury car, knowing that money could feed a village for a year?
The world is not just our playground and our personal desires aren't
the only consideration. Once people get a grip on their egotism and
tribalism, socialism is the logical next step. It's not an us-vs-them,
win-lose situation; we're all in this together so we better cooperate,
or we won't survive. I'm struggling with this every day though.

Economic inequality, race, and politics

Don't mean to totally hijack this email thread, but I just read an interesting journal article that goes along with some of the discussion that you've raised re: inequality in the US and how problematic it is.

Basically, the thesis is that, all things being equal, political coalitions for redistribution form when the middle class has a lot in common with the poor. In the US this isn't the case because of race - that racial politics that turn the middle class against the (largely) minority poor. It explains a lot about why Republicans are able to capture much of the lower middle class white vote (despite many economic policies by Republicans being against their self-interest) by fanning the flames of racial resentment between that income group and truly poor (mostly) minorities.

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Regarding the paper (of which I understood about 2%, but thank goodness for the glossary!), it will be interesting to see what happens to the 2 major parties in 2012. I guess skew is very extreme now in America, so despite that, if the GOP regain control of DC, that may validate the racial component of his theory, or suggest that the poor-middle class gap is much larger now vs. the Great Society days (when the Dems dominated gov't)? Of course more factors besides race and economics may decide an election (the candidates), so I would still put my money on BO to prevail since the GOP field is so pathetic. Though with all the gerrymandering and economic frustration out there, it will be unlikely that the GOP will lose the House.

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http://cew.georgetown.edu/219725.html

Speaking of inequalities, here are some salary tables taken from recent census data. It shows that pretty much across the board, on average you're going to make less money than a comparable white male (assuming you're not a white male). Over a 30-year career, these differences can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It's kind of sad that the highest-paying fields are ones that are male-dominated (business, engineering), and the lowest-paying are female-heavy (education, psychology, social work). But even within those fields, women and minorities make less. And this is 2011.

Looking back, I should have studied petroleum engineering and sold out with BP! Of course when I was in college, oil was $15/barrel.

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Yeah one of the interesting things about the Great Society debate was that poor were often depicted as "noble poor" - i.e. poor white people that were down on their luck and needed a hand up. Contrast that with Ronald Reagan's attack on welfare, in which poor people on welfare were depicted as blacks that were "strapping young bucks buying t-bone steaks." These are of course generalities, but there is a strong correlation in the US between decreasing support for social welfare programs and the racialization of the poor. It's even come to the point where West Virginia, one of the biggest bastions of white poverty, is in danger of turning Republican and electing senators that promise to vote against poverty support programs that are a major lifeline to the people of the state.

There's a lot of psychological research that suggests that humans generally tend to sympathize and empathize most with people that most look like us. T and J, I'm not sure if you remember or not, but on one of the first days at C, at lunch one day we self-organized, with all of the whites sitting at one table and all of the Asians sitting at another. I think you're seeing some of the same effect in Europe in France, etc. where support for social welfare programs decreases as immigrants are seen increasingly as primary beneficiaries. Fortunately, I think this tendency of in-group identification based on skin color can at least party be overcome - young people generally seem to be very much less concerned with racial politics than their parents' generation (and the generation before that - the "greatest generation" that managed to be perhaps be one of the most actively racist of all generations in the US).

As for BO's election chances, economics and race play an important role, although according to papers I've read, there is significant variance depending on the specific candidates in the race. The fact that the best candidates the Republicans have now is Mitt Romney (who will basically have to cede the one issue that Obama really pissed people off - health care) means that, while not a walk in the park, I definitely agree that it raises his chances.

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Yes as you said, there are many more poor whites than poor minorities in America, but the percentage in poverty is higher in most minority communities. As the labor union-Dem Party relationship continues to weaken (or at least become less of a priority for Dem campaign financing and organizing), I think we will see less support from the center-left for labor and poverty issues - especially during the current fad of austerity and entitlements debates. This is unfortunate because the Dems may see themselves lose more and more of the poor white centrist and independent vote. But then again, even if they were able to mind control the Republicans in Congress and enact some redistributive economic policies, the right wing spinsters would declare it socialist fascism (if that even makes sense), so the direct beneficiaries of the legislation may actually rail against it as you said.

The racialization of the presidency is interesting too. Attached is a figure from Wikipedia showing how the states voting split changed from 2004 to 2008. The image caption is at the end of this email. As you said, WV is one of the biggest centers of white poverty, yet during the Great Recession they actually voted slightly more conservative instead of with Obama. States where blacks are a large % of the population had mixed results: LA went more GOP like WV, while GA and SC moved heavily to the left, but still went to McCain. I think race had a lot to do with that. Obama got more blacks to the voting booths in those states, but also awoke the white suburbs and trailer parks against him. Of course not all blacks and not all racists vote, but some of the data doesn't really make sense without race.

Speaking of the election, I heard that loser Santorum threw his hat in the ring today. He had some battle cry along the lines of, "Obama took office with so much hope and trust from the American people. But he ruined the economy, grew the size of gov't, and took away our freedom." He didn't even mention health care specifically, but if the GOP is going to run that general message (even if the facts don't corroborate), I guess we'll see how John Q. Voter responds. I just hope that the GOP field torches itself during the primaries "out-conservatizing" each other (and hopefully with many revelations of gay sexting and love children), and then Obama can just finish off the survivor. He'd only need like a $10 campaign war chest, and could tell the big funders and corporate interests to piss off. But of course I'm dreaming. Obama has let us down a lot since 2008, but we really have no choice but to give him a chance to redeem himself considering the alternatives. Even an internal challenge from Hillary would be ridiculous, since she is even more of a sellout. 

From the US census:

38% of Mississippi's population that was black in 2009. Although New York had the largest number of blacks of any state, Mississippi had the largest share of blacks in its total population. Blacks also made up more than a quarter of the population in Louisiana (33 percent), Georgia (31 percent), Maryland (31 percent), South Carolina (29 percent) and Alabama (27 percent). They comprised 55 percent of the population in the District of Columbia.

Wiki:

Swing by state. States are listed by (increasing) percentage of Democratic votes, showing how the share of the vote changed between 2004 and 2008. Only five states trended more Republican: Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.

Crazy stuff that went down at Area 51

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/136356848/area-51-uncensored-was-it-ufos-or-the-ussr

An LA Times journalist recently published a history of Area 51, the US government's secret nuclear and air force facility in Nevada. She starts her Fresh Air interview describing all the bone-headed nuclear experiments we did after the end of WWII. As we already know, our gov't detonated hundreds of nuclear weapons above ground (and so did other nations), spreading radiation all over (and in some cases deliberately exposing soldiers to the danger to observe the effects), until leaders finally woke up and agreed to various versions of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (that W Bush in all his wisdom pulled the US out of, but Obama is trying to restore despite GOP Congressional resistance). Pretty much all US nuclear testing was executed or planned by personnel at Area 51.

Just to "see what happens", the US gov't detonated nukes in the upper atmosphere above the South Pacific to see how the ozone layer would respond. There was also another defensive objective to see if a nuclear explosion up there (and ensuing EMP) would disrupt the guidance systems of incoming Soviet ICBMs (it didn't). The NYT got wind of this and threatened to expose the gov't, but the Truman administration somehow convinced them to keep quite for "national security" until the 1980s. But still it's unclear whether the test actually damaged the ozone layer and put people at risk. Scientists on the project were aware of this risk at the time, but reassured the team that the atmospheric turbulence following the detonation would "fill" any hole created by the blast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_altitude_nuclear_explosion#List_of_high-altitude_nuclear_explosions

Even worse for human health, the US gov't had almost around-the-clock nuclear-armed bombers in the air over the North Atlantic as quick responders in the event of a Soviet attack. But as we know, planes crash sometimes. On at least 2 occasions, nuclear bombers crashed in Europe and dropped their payloads. In one accident over Spain, there was a midair refueling gaffe and the plane ejected its warheads while crashing, but their parachutes failed and the bombs spread plutonium all over. A US hazmat team was sent in to clean it up, but they weren't told what they were cleaning, so they had zero radiation protection. I'm sure they're all dead by now. In Greenland, a B-52 crashed on the ice after another refueling goof, and the ensuring fire melted a hole. The plane debris and its 4 nuclear warheads sunk into the ocean, and it's still unclear whether they have all been recovered. That accident was where the term "broken arrow" was coined. How this relates to Area 51 is that the gov't decided to test what would happen if such a plane crash took place on the US mainland. They deliberately exploded a plutonium dirty bomb in the desert to simulate a crash, and tried to figure out ways to clean it up. It was a total disaster, and the site was still being worked on into the 1980s (making Fukushima look like spilled milk). Plutonium's half-life is many thousands of years by the way, and it's pretty much the most toxic inhaled substance known to man. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash

And now for the creme-de-la-creme, the UFO question. We know of stories of a UFO crashing in Roswell, NM in the 1950s, and the gov't trying to cover it up by moving all the evidence to deep inside Area 51. The author interviewed an anonymous source, a veteran of the US Atomic Energy Agency/Manhattan Project who was an insider at Area 51. When "War of the Worlds" aired on the radio in the 1930s, the US went into a panic with many believing it was a real alien invasion. Hitler and Stalin (and Washington) took note of this, and found it to be a legit security concern. Creating the illusion of an alien invasion could cause enough chaos and distraction among US armed forces and the public to make a foreign attack easier. The USSR and Western powers snatched up many of the mad Nazi scientists at the end of WWII. It's possible that Stalin took over some of the work of the Horten brothers who created a "flying wing" craft for Germany. While not a flying saucer, it was some sort of triangular craft that definitely didn't resemble a typical airplane. Some thought the Hortens achieved the ability for the craft to hover. And then there was Auschwitz's Dr. Mengele, who conducted all sorts of unethical human experimentation. Supposedly Stalin cut a deal with him as well, to create genetically or surgically altered people who resembled the child-like, big-headed alien creatures of sci-fi. So the "UFO crash" at Roswell could have been a test run of this Soviet project in order to create American panic over an imaginary alien invasion. Apparently the craft pilots (who looked like aliens) were captured alive, and then interrogated by the US about all this.

Yeah, right, you're probably thinking. Why wouldn't Truman just expose all this to the media to show how depraved and desperate the USSR was? Maybe he was partly worried that the Soviet goal would be achieved, that no one would believe this hoax was actually man-made, and fear an alien attack. Or as the author's source said, we kept it quiet because we wanted to replicate the Soviet project (either to shove it back in Moscow's face, or at least learn the science of how they did it). So supposedly the US tried to alter people to look like aliens as well, which was the last obscene straw to make the author's secret source want to spill the beans. And the US gov't has kept all this and Area 51 quiet so as to not expose the evidence of our horrible experimentation and other crimes to the public.

Well, considering all the wacky research during the Cold War, and all the disturbingly creative strategies the 2 superpowers devised to destroy each other, I guess this isn't so far fetched. But you would think that the author would try to corroborate her source's story. Why hasn't anyone in Russia come forward? Thousands of Americans must have worked on these horrific projects as well. And if the Soviets created a flying saucer, why wouldn't they use that technology in more traditional ways to gain an advantage over us? I suppose it's possible that they just had a stealthy spy plane transport the saucer high over US airspace, and then drop it off with a parachute. But if the Soviets' goal was to trigger an alien panic, why not drop dozens of saucers and "aliens" over populated US metro areas, so the US gov't could never squelch it? Lastly, it's not a new thing that the US has engaged in criminal human experimentation (LSD, Tuskegee, etc.). What's the big deal about keeping this one so secret? I guess we may never know, but it sure is an interesting take on an old story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_brothers
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/experiment.htm

Obama's Mideast speech

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/05/19/136460086/president-obamas-middle-east-speech-live-blog

This speech is a joke. I guess his recent Osama triumph has clouded his sense of reality. Like his predecessors, Obama didn't once apologize for or even acknowledge the West's role in creating or maintaining the unjust, corrupt regimes that the people of the Middle East revolted against this spring. It's not all our fault, but we played a role, which was more often than not contrary to our supposed ideals and his "vision for the region." Just because colonialism formally ended decades ago doesn't absolve us of our recent meddling (which has claimed many more lives than 9/11, and the region is only marginally less corrupt and repressive - or some would argue worse).

Furthermore, what about America's responsibility for violence and human rights abuses during the War on Terror? People are not stupid. Ordinary, peaceful Muslims wouldn't passively or actively support killers like Osama and Al Qaeda unless the alternative (us and our brutal buddies like Israel, House of Saud, Mubarak, etc.) was just as bad. He makes it sound like the US has been the best friend to the Mideast peoples since day one. I guess now that our foolish fantasy of hegemony in the region is fading and we realize we can't sustain our obscene military presence there, we're trying to play nice in the hopes that the new popular governments won't be fiercely anti-Western? We missed the boat to offer true support to the democratic movements in most (if not all) of the countries in question, and now we're trying to rewrite the narrative like usual. It might work for John Q. ignorant American who only cares about gas being less than $4/gallon, but it won't work for the starving, beaten Muslims who are sick and tired of the BS.

More on Bin Laden

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/mind-soul/spirituality/story/2011/05/Is-it-OK-to-cheer-Osama-bin-Ladens-death/46759110/1

Here's a take on the religious considerations regarding celebrating OBL's assassination. Even if we are atheists, it just makes more sense to try to cooperate and coexist peacefully, rather than piss off others by taking more than we're due, acting superior, and fighting real or perceived threats all the time. There is more than one way to confront a threat. But nationalism is the worst religion of them all. It's got all the brainwashing, exceptionalism, and bigotry, without any of the redeeming compassion and morals. I guess that's why modern regimes needed to sprinkle in a little "democracy" and "rights" here and there, so the peasants believe they are fighting for something noble. It's quite telling that during WWI, both the Brits and Germans were telling their people that they were fighting to save civilization from evil.

The way the OBL hit turned out is interesting, because both sides will spin it like crazy for their propaganda. Initially there were reports that OBL was armed and used his wife as a human shield before he was shot. So of course he's the dastardly coward to the end. Fairly tale closure, good guys win, and score one for the home team. But new reports say that is false, and that he wasn't armed (not sure how the wife died, if she even died?). So the Jihadi side will say that OBL died like a martyr at the hands of the infidel Zionist killers. He may become so mythologized that he will be a better recruiting figure dead than alive. So what have we accomplished? A common concern during the War on Terror is to avoid creating more new terrorists than we neutralize. Clearly this isn't about one man anymore. America created Osama to be this catch-all bogeyman comprising of all our fears and insecurities. The Islamists see him as a freedom fighter defying tyranny. Now it will be interesting to see what new person or entity assumes that role for each side.

A radio host was interviewing a college-aged girl, and they were discussing how that generation is sometimes labeled "the 9/11 generation", I guess because it was the most significant event of their lifetimes and they grew up with the nation at war. The young lady said that she was glad to witness the death of the "man who stole their childhoods". Talk about melodramatic. Yes 9/11 was understandably traumatic on us all, but unless a kid was directly affected by a death or job loss due to 9/11, I think that generation was still able to grow up with plenty of comfort, security, and opportunity in America (if you're not poor or colored). What about the "stolen childhoods" of all the Iraqi children that our weapons maimed or who became orphans due to our war? Have some perspective. It's not all about how we've suffered, and an American life is not inherently more valuable to humanity. Maybe if we thought more humbly and globally, people wouldn't hate us so much.

Bin Laden's death

Vengeance is not justice, but it is often a shallow substitute.

Not to be a killjoy (but be honest, you were expecting this), but I would have preferred America to have a more tempered response to the Bin Laden news. All the flag-waving, gloating, and "God bless America" celebration, while somewhat justified in a long war with few significant victories for the US, won't really help us secure a better future. Especially the religious terminology from Palin and others only serves to complicate reconciliation (and regardless of what the zealots say, most terrorists or extremists can still be bargained with under the right circumstances - see the Sunni Awakening and "nice" Qaddafi). When it's a religious war, it's winner-take-all, which has been the wet dream of psychopathic warmongers for centuries. Both sides think god is on their side, and will help them smite their enemy, yet claim that they worship a prophet of peace? Huckabee said "Welcome to hell, Bin Laden." I thought it was "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," and "Love your enemies"? And that man used to be a Baptist minister.

That's why I wish during his speech last night, Obama would have called on Americans to practice restraint, use this occasion to reflect and remember the victims of war (on all sides), and think about what each of us can do to promote peace and security in our neighborhoods and abroad. I wish he would have refrained from the "G.B.A." cliche. Otherwise it's quite grotesque to see the richest nation with the most powerful (and expensive) military jubilantly celebrating one man's death, especially a man weakened by disease who poses very little direct threat to us, and who was hiding out in broad daylight while we were combing vast swaths of rugged terrain for him for years (and killing many of the wrong people during our hunting efforts). Sadly, it reminds me of the Munchkins celebrating Dorothy's house falling on the Wicked Witch, when the Witch's meaner sister was still out there. As one KQED commentator said this morning, "It's not a football game."

The identities of SEAL Team 6 and the intel personnel responsible for the actual attack may never be known (unless they blow their cover, appear on Oprah, and write tell-all books), so they are happy just to accomplish their mission, and don't need the praise of politicians looking for a sound bite as we head towards election season. I am sure it was the biggest rush of their lives to conduct this historic raid, but of course they were doing it out of love for country. I bet the 9/11 hijackers felt similar pride for their special mission. I'm not saying that our troops are on the same level as terrorists, but it's so funny how everything in the world seems to have its mirror, while politicians and ideologues only see black and white. Well one thing is for sure, this mission will definitely be re-created in the next installment of XBox Call of Duty.

So where do we go from here? There are a lot of unanswered questions. The "original" Al Qaeda, Af-Pak-based and led by Bin Laden, was mostly irrelevant since 2003, and bigger concerns exist from other terror networks like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (supposedly the people behind the underpants and Time Square bombers), radicalism among Muslim youth in Europe, and of course Iranian nuclear research. Then there's all the political upheaval in many Arab nations, and how those events play out could really reshape the security landscape for us. Also, why was O.B.L. permitted to live in a heavily guarded compound in a nice military suburb in our ally Pakistan? It's pretty clear that this wasn't a joint operation with the Pakistanis, because their military-intel establishment is so full of leaks that someone would have surely tipped off Bin Laden. Osama's people built that custom compound with high walls and barbed wire, had couriers coming in and out every day, and even burnt their trash, and no one hunting Bin Laden noticed until this spring?

Also, why the hasty burial-at-sea? While I doubt that even our gov't would dare to falsify Osama's death, the swift handling raises some eyebrows and opens the door for conspiracy theories. Why not return the remains to the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia? The KQED guest said that the US may want to avoid having Osama's corpse on display somewhere for veneration and inspiration, so they took this course of action. Lastly, why didn't we try harder to capture Osama? He was supposedly killed by a "double-tap" to the side of the head. Does that mean it was an up-close execution? Isn't Osama more useful to us alive? Even if he won't give up intel (even under torture), some questioning could probably be useful - and isn't he supposed to stand trial for the embassy bombings and 9/11? Or are we worried about what he might say on the stand? Not to incite conspiracy again, but it is peculiar. I know that no captive is worth losing soldiers over, so if the SEALs didn't feel they could capture O.B.L. safely, better to shoot to kill?

It's pretty clear that justice has NOT been done over 9/11, even with Osama dead. Congress is still dragging its feet over compensation for sickened first responders. The wars we launched in response to 9/11 created a bunch of new injustices and problems. The root causes of terrorism that partly inspired Osama are still mostly intact: Crusader-like US military presence in the Middle East, Western support of corrupt oil regimes and Israeli aggression, vast wealth and human rights inequalities, abuse of Muslim immigrants, and other issues that can be seen as insults to Islam. I know Muslims have done plenty of horrible things to each other and us since 9/11 too, so clearly the case is not closed. Finally, let's remember that all the terrible damage done to the US and our interests on 9/11 pales in comparison to the amazing losses we incurred during the recent financial crisis. That "attack" was perpetrated by Western greedy bankers, ignorant investors/borrowers, corrupt politicians, and lax regulators. That wasn't Al Qaeda at all, it was us. So who is the bigger enemy that we should fear and fight?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110502/ts_nm/us_binladen_compound
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bin_laden_the_raid
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/the-secret-team-that-killed-bin-laden;_ylt=AtJwovoSU36wQK1iPsoahRxH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTNsMXZucW9jBGFzc2V0A3libG9nX2V4Y2x1c2l2ZS8yMDExMDUwMi90aGUtc2VjcmV0LXRlYW0tdGhhdC1raWxsZWQtYmluLWxhZGVuBGNwb3MDMgRwb3MDMgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA3RoZXNlY3JldHRlYQ--
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bin_laden;_ylt=Ai99lNU7AeFlZp8jNWRL9hJH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTJmNmMybWFyBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwNTAyL3VzX2Jpbl9sYWRlbgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzEEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNhcHNvdXJjZXNkbmE-
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201105020900