INCOME TAX INJUSTICE

MoveOn.Org commissioned this cartoon to call attention to one of the worst tax injustices of all time … the infamous Hedge Fund Loophole. It allows a highly privileged group of Wall Street traders to earn over $1 Billion a year, yet pay as little as 15% on the their federal income tax. What does the country get back in return for this extra generous tax break?

The answer is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Hedge fund traders do not create jobs, build factories, extend credit to growing businesses, fund new energy development, or confer any economic benefit to the country whatsoever. They do, however, fight like hell to keep their tax privileges intact.

Consider this: If you are a hedge fund trader earning in excess of $1 billion a year, the difference between a capital gains tax of 15% versus the top ordinary income tax rate of 35% amounts to $200 million a year. With that kind of money at stake, it is easy to buy off an army of politicians … and still have tons of cash left in your pocket. Killing the tax break would add $14.75 billion over five years and $24 billion over 10 years to the federal treasury … and help lift the burden of spending deficits and taxes from the middle class.

Petition your Congressional representatives and demand an end to this tax injustice.

The Oil Disaster -- a Good Site to Visit

The following site (frequented by engineers) has a live video feed of the oil flowing into the Gulf, and an animation of the Top-Kill procedure currently taking place: http://www.theoildrum.com/.  If this works, at least the well will be killed off and the flow halted.  I've been watching the live feed and it looks like the mud is flowing -- here's hoping that's a good sign.

AMERICAN JACKBOOTS ON THE MARCH

It seems our vaunted American news media has turned into the three monkeys that hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil. A British news source is covering this story, but not the MSM within these United States of Amerika?

How To Kick The Oil Habit

The conventional wisdom that we must depend on fossil fuels until we “transition to a new energy future” is a favorite of our political and media betters; problem is, they’ve been saying it for the past 30 years while doing absolutely nothing to further said “transition.” Now we face one crisis after another, after another.


Thanks a lot, assholes.

Never mind. I’ve said all along that this piece of conventional wisdom is false, a lie we’ve been told to make us feel better about our lack of action. Don’t worry, be happy. But sorry, peeps. Time to grow up. Time to call bullshit where we see it and demand some action, some leadership and some honesty.

Here’s a great place to start:

The last time lawmakers truly freaked out about the problem of our oil dependence--when gas prices topped $4 a gallon in the summer of 2008--the Senate Energy Committee called in Skip Laitner, director of economic analysis at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

The committee asked Laitner what efficiency--the famously unglamorous energy strategy--could do to relieve gas prices. He gave them an astonishing figure: It could save 46 billion barrels of oil. If the U.S. made an all-out investment in energy efficiency-cutting energy waste out of vehicles, buildings, the electrical grid, and elsewhere in the economy--Laitner believes it could save the energy equivalent of 46 billion barrels by 2030.

Domestic offshore drilling produced 537 million barrels a year over the last nine years, according to the Minerals Management Service. A full-bore efficiency plan would save the equivalent of 85 years of offshore drilling.

Let me repeat what I’ve said before: the oil companies are cutting back on refinery production, even shutting some refineries down permanently, in an effort to keep gas prices high. So I don’t believe conservation will lower gas prices significantly. But that’s not my concern. My concern is ecology, safety, and other areas of the economy that depend on our coastal areas. And it looks like conservation will give us that so-called “breathing room” we’ve been told we need offshore drilling to provide to fuel our transition to renewables.

Most of Laitner's “10 solutions” look fairly painless and easy to implement, but they require will, leadership, and commitment. We need to decide that we really do want to transition to renewables, not just use the words to justify our wasteful ways while we steep ourselves in denial.

There are tons more ideas from folks like Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, whose commentary Freeing America From Its Addiction To oil provides tons more pro-business, capitalistic solutions. But, as he notes, we need “real carrots, not just sticks painted orange.”

We can do this. It’s not hard. We have the motivation. We have the tecnology. We simply need to demand it of our leadership.

Alabama: Push It!

Mash-ups are not the end of culture, but the final form.

The politics portrayed here are not exclusive to Alabama, but my state is a bellwether for such politics nationally. Indeed, the south generally serves as a great indicator of the national direction. That is because southern Alabama is the epicenter of all wingnuttery -- as you can see by our TV ads.

Tim James has pandered his way to national attention. Young Boozer (real name!) has drawn national mention. So has Dale Peterson, a candidate for Agriculture Commissioner (really!). These ads are aggressive shouts for attention; they are desperate moves (no one in Alabama had ever heard of Dale Peterson).

The time had come for a mash-up -- a complete deconstruction of the right-wing Alabama advertisement:



Alabama's politics can be twisted; ironically, Dale Peterson is the most progressive candidate in the race in the ways that really count for the post. That said, I think Alabama is going to surprise the country this year -- and contribute to a sense of disappointment among the right.

For if the election were held today, the man at the beginning of that video -- Artur Davis -- would probably be elected Governor. The heart of Dixie...might just be turning blue again.

Fundamentals of the Social Contract: Why Rand Paul Is Wrong

According to aspiring legislator, Rand Paul, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went too far in prohibiting racial discrimination by private businesses. All the while asserting that he would have voted yes for the Civil Rights Act, Rand nonetheless believes that private businesses should be allowed to refuse goods or services to black people, at least that's what he told Rachel Maddow in an interview. His words have thrown the GOP into something of a frenzy as they try to distance themselves from his remarks and yet reap the benefits of his popularity with the tea party contingency.

I have a very personal reaction to Paul's observations. I grew up in the era of Jim Crow when segregation was the norm. White Only and No Colored Allowed signs were as common as traffic signs. All businesses were legally allowed to discriminate, to deny goods and/or services based on the color of the consumer's skin. I don't have any desire to return to the good ole days. I also don't hold with the thinking that given time to evolve, Jim Crow would have died a natural death. Jim Crow wasn't born. The system of racial discrimination known as Jim Crow was artificially and intentionally created as a response to the post civil war efforts of black people to claim their rightful place in the social, economic, and political hierarchy of this country. There was nothing natural about it. It couldn't die; it had to be executed. I have no doubt that without government action legal segregation would still be a part of the fabric of this nation.

Rand Paul's position is seriously flawed; however, based on the comments littering the Internet on this topic, there are a lot of folks out there who have succumbed to the same flawed thinking. Much of it stems from worship of the cult of individuality. A characteristic of this cult is a belief that my individual rights supercede all other rights. Of course this is totally irrational. If my rights are more important than your rights, then aren't your rights more important than mine? What about Mary Sue next door, where do her rights fit in this hierarchy? Although said much more eloquently by such diverse thinkers as Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Hobbes, it's this tension regarding individual rights balanced against the needs of the whole that necessitates the formation of governments. (My listing of only western philosophers is not intended to suggest that only white males have wrestled with these issues. It's just that as a product of a limited American public education, I am most familiar with the works of Eurocentric writers, which is an entirely separate topic to be addressed someday.)

Society is the whole, individuals are the parts. Societies were formed by the individuals to create a system in which the individuals could agree to live governed by rules to protect the common good. Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Jefferson and many others have defined this concept as it relates to the purposes of goverment. Those who do not wish to agree to the social contract are free to live outside of it but cannot then also benefit from it. (i.e. you don't have to own a business) This is the basic flaw of Rand Paul's argument that a private business has the right to engage in discrimination. Businesses are by definition public enterprises. Its goods and services are sold to the public and as such the business is part of our system of commerce. The regulation of commerce is constitutionally assigned to Congress. If the businessman wishes to engage in discrimination, he may do so but not via his public enterprise. It's up to him to figure out how to run a profitable business enterprise without engaging in public commerce, if he wishes to engage in discrimination as to whom may partake of his goods and/or servces.

The most extreme example of those who place individual liberties tantamount to the society as a whole are those who commit crimes. The thief believes that his/her needs are superior to the needs of all others thereby justifying their right to take what they need. Indeed, if we follow the argument of the superiority of individual rights to its logical conclusion, then those who commit criminal acts are merely choosing to place their individual needs above the needs of the whole. Under this logic, our prisons are populated by true libertarians.

However, in a society, we all agree to subvert our individual liberties to the benefit of the function of the whole. To not do so results in anarchy and a society in which no one has any security. Whatever property that I may have secured would constantly be at risk of being taken by someone who had the strength to do so in a world governed by the supreme right of the individual. Instead, we have laws, enforcers, and systems of punishment to maintain order so that property rights, mine and yours, are not subject to the arbitrary will of might makes right. Which brings me to the final element of the social contract, governments are not instituted to protect the rights of the strong but rather to ensure that even the weak have protections. Otherwise, in the words of Hobbes,we would be in a constant state of war, and man would be a solitary being living an existence that is nasty, brutish and short.

P.S. A good friend, Mark Olmsted, writes for the Huffington Post. In his most recent piece, People and Property: What Rand Really Wants, he presents an astute assessment of Rand Paul's disturbing views which suggest that civil rights should be optional. Check it out.

Baffling Bedfellows

by Nance

At dinner the other night, my son asked me why I continue to study the history and evolution of Christianity, among other religions, since he's pretty sure I took a position on Christian beliefs many years ago. Do I study Christianity in order to validate my position?  To argue better with those who don't agree with me?

I explained that I started this study in high school, and continue it to this day, because Christianity has so powerfully influenced our culture. I've long since given up trying to convert or convince anyone to my way of thinking.  I was raised in Protestant churches and chose a women's college that allowed me to make an historical-critical study of the Christian Bible and of other religions.  I stay fascinated because Christianity plays such a huge role in the conflicts of our time, and because scholars continue to present new perspectives and deeper understandings.  I want to understand what philosophies drive American actions and inform America's short history. If I seek to understand, rather than to be understood, then I have to seriously ask, "What the hell are those people thinking?!"

As luck would have it, I found Mike Lux's article, Why Are So Many Christians Conservative?, on AlterNet. Lux does a really good job of explaining, with Biblical references, why the philosophy Jesus taught as revealed in the gospels is at odds with the stated philosophy of Conservatives.  To give a taste:

Conservatives believe that the rich and powerful got that way because they deserve to be, that society owes its prosperity to the prosperous, and that government's job when they have to make choices is to side with those businesspeople who are doing well, because all good things trickle down from them. Progressives, on the other hand, believe it is the poor and those who are ill-treated who need the most help from their government, and that prosperity comes from all of us -- the worker as well as the employer, the consumer as well as the seller, the struggling entrepreneur trying to make it as well as the wealthy who already have.

And,

The Jesus of the New Testament spent his public career preaching about the nature of God and our relationship to God, but also about how we should deal with each other. He repeatedly blessed mercy, gentleness, peacemaking, community, and taking care of each other. He lifted up the poor and oppressed, and spoke poorly of the wealthy and powerful. If anyone in modern society talked like he did, you can bet your bottom dollar that conservatives would condemn that person as a class warrior, a socialist.

The article is too long to have tattooed on my arm, although I briefly considered trying.  You'll have to read it for yourself and get back to me.

When you've done with that, perhaps you can help me understand another mongrel miscreation that keeps me awake at night:  The Feminist Conservative.

Addendum:  I should add that my own leanings are toward a mix of Reform Evangelical Druidism and Free Range Addlism.

Let there be -- bacteria

Said the J. Craig Venter Institute research team - and there was life.

While the human race, or at least Homo Americanus is preoccupied with destroying itself with it's pet mythologies and peremptory political philosophies and general stupidity, a few of us have been at work actually creating something that constitutes a giant leap for mankind. It's always a very few, isn't it?

A team of American scientists have succeeded in animating a cell with a synthetic genome made out of raw chemicals. The implications of this huge accomplishment are beyond anyone's ability to foresee and I'm not talking only about the ability to design or reproduce life from scratch or even to bring extinct species back from extinction: I'm talking about dispelling another myth, explaining another mystery without relying on further myths and mysteries ad infinitum.

Remember the scene from Blade Runner where the genetic engineer looks at a snake scale to find an identification number encoded in the artificial snake? Perhaps the team who put together a synthetic "replicant" bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides remembered when they encoded the names of the 46 scientists in the project along with the project's e-mail address into its genome.

Beyond being another blow to the "I don't understand how it works so God must have done it" fallacy, the creation of living, reproducing things from bottles of Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine and Guanine will require us to re-examine the nature of life itself and just when it "begins."

I wonder if looking back at today's newspapers 200 years from now we won't wonder why it didn't make the headlines, but perhaps the reason is the same reason we're in so much trouble right now: 300 million self-absorbed, short sighted, ignorant life forms trapped in solipsistic bubbles ( or tea bags) unable to see much beyond the membrane.

The will of the WASP

Rand Paul is not Ron Paul and I'm not flattering him by saying it. There is a difference between principle and bull-headed intransigence and Paul the younger seems as unclear about that as he is not quite up to the task of successfully debating Rachel Maddow about his distaste for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Asked whether he thought a restaurant had the right to refuse service to black customers, Paul commenced a rather evasive dance around the subject by trying to describe regulation as ownership.

"What about freedom of speech?" asked the less than candid Candidate. "Well what it gets into then is if you decide that restaurants are publicly owned and not privately owned, then do you say that you should have the right to bring your gun into a restaurant even though the owner of the restaurant says 'well no, we don't want to have guns in here' the bar says 'we don't want to have guns in here because people might drink and start fighting and shoot each-other?'" Paul replied. "Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant? These are important philosophical debates but not a very practical discussion."

Unfortunately, more than just being grammatically confused, he's wrong. He's equivocating and the debate is, of course, entirely about practical matters. Can we agree, for instance, that being black in a restaurant is fundamentally different than carrying a gun in a bar and if so, his analogy is defective and a fallacy of distraction? Certainly a speed limit is not Government ownership of my car, health regulations imposed on food producers aren't the equivalent of owning the family farm nor is forcing Woolworth to stop creating two Americas with their policies isn't Marxism.

Is the government of and by the people allowed,as the founding documents imply, to promote liberty for all, to promote peace and domestic tranquility by imposing limitations on individual behavior? Is he arguing for a government so impotent it must inevitably fall into feudalism and exploitation? Those are the questions he begs and the questions he avoids. Sorry Doctor, I think the balance between individual liberty and being a free country is a practical and necessary discussion.

Is it practical to have a society so far beyond the control of its members that justice becomes only a matter of the will of the strongest and the richest and most well connected -- the will of the WASP? No, unlimited individual license does not allow for a society at all, much less a free one.

Still it's all about the practical as opposed to the relentlessly repeated and self referential principle and we've all heard of or can easily come up with examples where freedom cannot be unlimited for many reasons; where behavior that needs to be restrained cannot be restrained by anyone other than Government. Is it preferable to allow my neighbors to forbid Baptists to live on my block and ignore my freedom or is it better to protect the minority against the majority, which is a common definition of democracy as distinguished from mob rule. No, if this is but a "philosophical" discussion it's because he doesn't want to address the inevitable questions Libertarians invite when they refuse to discuss its inherent limitations.

The traditional 'best government is least government' trope reduces to absurdity all by itself as quickly as does his argument that any restraints or obligations put on behavior or business practices constitute ownership and are an unnecessary stain on the pure and absolute freedom we've somehow decided is our birthright. Certainly although he assures us that he would never patronize a business that discriminates, he realizes that his sentiments are not universal. He realizes that he's giving license to anyone to debase any group he likes and to diminish their lives, their liberty and their pursuit of happiness. He realizes that such a nation as he dreams of would be fractured, Balkanized, a loose, weak, unstable confederation of hostile groups no more pleasant than a baboon troupe and with each of us at his neighbor's throat. He must realize that he's appealing to bigots, racists and sociopaths of no conscience -- and all in the name of principle and freedom.

So why is he debating as though the balance between too much and not enough wasn't worth discussing? As though that wasn't the real question? Perhaps its because he's pandering to an audience somewhat less rational than Ron Paul's: to an audience whipped into irrational fury by the basic requirements of civilization; too hungry for revenge against a maturing world and too angry and self centered to give a damn what he can do for his country.

Rachel, Rand Paul, and Libertarianism: “What That Woman Been Doin’ to Me”

Some readers may have seen Rachel Maddow’s interview last night with Kentucky’s Senate primary winner Dr. Rand Paul on her MSNBC show.  From what I’ve heard, Paul regrets his decision to appear on the show and considers himself not too well treated by Rachel.  So let’s cue Waylon Jennings and the Marshall Tucker Band’s soulful lyrics, “Can’t you see, oh can’t you see, what that woman, lawd, she been doin’ to me?” and consider this a bit.

The source of the dissatisfaction, apparently, was the following: that intellectual pitbull on the pantsleg of opportunity Rachel just wouldn’t give up easily in her quest to get the good doctor to admit that one's philosophy may have consequences in the real world.  In my own admittedly anecdotal experience, libertarians really, really hate it when you try to get them to admit that.  It’s so unfair of you!  They believe the free market (a myth) is the answer to all problems social, political, and economic.  They're hopelessly wrong, naive and ahistorical in their understanding, but just you try suggesting that to them.  I gather that the adoring dittoheads and teabaggery who flock to the well-spoken, eminently presentable and curly-locked Dr. Paul don’t pester him with annoying questions about his utter failure to historicize the concepts that authorize his philosophy and/or that pertain to it by way of extension and impact.  Concepts like, oh, I don’t know – private property, capitalism, American federal and state regulatory practice, and stuff like that.  I’m just sayin’….  I don't think Rachel was in any way suggesting that Rand Paul is personally a racist -- there's no reason at all to think that about him as an individual.  The question was and is, rather, the real consequences of his beliefs and the reflection those beliefs cast backwards on our collective history as Americans.

Well, anyway, if you’re a meanie like “that woman” Rachel, what you’ll get instead of a cogent answer is exactly the response I heard coming from Rand Paul, which I'll meanie-paraphrase and draw out as follows: “I'm sorry I even talked to that person!  I won't be doing that again anytime soon!  Why is she bothering me with all this hypothetical talk about civil rights and human misery?  It doesn't concern my abstraction-laced philosophy, which I know to be absolutely and always right in all things.”  Abstractionists and ideologues always cling to their notions with great fanaticism because they sense, however dimly, that abandoning those notions would leave the abandoner in the middle of the street just waiting to be run down by what Allen Ginsberg called “the Drunken Taxicabs of Absolute Reality.”  And this is an especially intense problem for libertarians, you see, because they pretty much consider the stop light that might halt any such careening Taxicab an infringement of their (and our) sacred personal liberty to do anything they (and we) want at any time.  Okay, I admit that I sort of feel that way about stop lights, too, when they last more than about a minute. It's a weakness of mine, I know....

But I say to the Rand Pauls of the political spectrum, nothing human is perfect, Horatio -- including your and my “philosophy,” however different they may be.  There’s much more to cover regarding the details of Rand Paul’s view of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but I’ll leave that to others’ commentary if they’d care to jump in.