Electronic Pen

NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

As more and more WikiLeaks cables get released, the Brazilian-US diplomatic relationship has become increasingly illuminated. Though somewhat wary of each other, Washington and Brasilia sometimes saw eye to eye on matters of geopolitical importance. Take for example, both countries' handling of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Under the helm of Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, Brazil cultivated a strategic alliance with Venezuela, and publicly the two nations embraced South America's "pink tide" to the left. Yet, WikiLeaks documents reveal that Brazil may have shared Washington's concern over Chávez's rising geopolitical importance, particularly in the Caribbean theater.

During the Bush years, American diplomats kept a close bead on Venezuela's growing partnerships in areas far afield. In Jamaica, for example, US officials conducted a "sustained effort to dissuade" the authorities from supporting Chávez's bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Concerned over Venezuela's rising star in the region, the Americans met with the Jamaican political opposition. Writing to her superiors in Washington, US ambassador in Kingston Brenda Johnson expressed "concerns over the influence of Venezuelan money and energy supplies in Jamaica in the years ahead."

Monitoring Chávez in Jamaica

During a local cricket match, Bruce Golding of Jamaica's opposition Labour Party approached the ambassador to request a meeting. Asking that the US hold the information in "strict confidence," Golding revealed that his party's concern over Chávez had "heightened in recent weeks." Confidentially, he continued, a "senior person in the government," had passed him, "sensitive inside information," and, "a number of persons within the government," were, "frightened over the secrecy," concerning Jamaica's official dealings with Chávez.

Spinning a rather cloak and dagger narrative, Golding explained how senior officials from the ruling People's National Party (PNP) had recently flown to Caracas. Once in the Venezuelan capital, he claimed, they had been given one or two large packages and thereafter returned to Kingston. The opposition politician alleged that overall the Venezuelans had doled out $4-5 million to the PNP in Caracas in order to finance the electoral campaign of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller. The very next week, the government magically claimed that it had managed to repay $475,000 to a Dutch-based oil trading firm called Trafigura.

Earlier, the company had made the "contribution" to the PNP, but when the matter came to public attention, the news spiraled into a full blown campaign finance scandal. Speaking to the US ambassador, Golding thought it was "logical" that part of the cash that Venezuela gave to the Jamaicans had been later used to pay back Trafigura. Going further, Golding claimed that just before the Trafigura "contribution," the PNP had experienced financial problems and even found it difficult to maintain its own facilities. Recently, however, there had been a "dramatic turnaround," and the party no longer found it necessary to solicit contributions from the private sector.

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ROBERT KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The woo-woo nuttiness of it all defies the imagination, beginning with the idea of a course in "Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare" at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Nuclear ethics?

Does that mean no nuclear weapons should ever be used to promote sexual harassment?
Well actually, it turns out that the point of the mandatory course, which was recently canceled by the Air Force after officers of numerous faiths complained to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation about it and Truthout published an exposé in July, was to give officers in the first week of missile-launch training a Bible-verse-studded indoctrination in faux-Just War Theory (cynically known in the ranks as the "Jesus Loves Nukes" training).

"Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war."

This verse, Revelation 19:11, has nothing to do with Just War Theory, Christian or otherwise. It sounds more like the theology of Armageddon, or the ethics of end times - scary enough on the social fringe, but my God, here was the US Air Force, guardian of the country's nuclear arsenal, pushing it as a basic part of missile-launch training.

There were plenty of other religiously pushy declarations in this mandatory course, such as these words from Wernher von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist who teamed up with the US military after the war to develop its space and missile programs, regarding his surrender to the Americans in 1945:

"We knew that we had created a new means of warfare and the question as to what nation . . .we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else," von Braun is quoted as saying. "We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured."

This is too strange to be irony. The Nazi rocket wizard sought moral reassurance in Christian exceptionalism, and his words then became part of America's official ethics of nuclear war: We're with Jesus on that white horse, and if/when we launch Armageddon, we're only doing the work of the Lord. To my mind, there are few people on the planet scarier than self-proclaimed "Christian soldiers," at least those who feed from the evangelical trough and belong to the US military, because their agenda transcends rationality. In righteousness they judge and make war.

But my sense of shock and awe over this nuclear ethics course isn't simply about evangelicals in the military and their zeal to proselytize. It's about the official sanctioning of a nuclear morality that allows their use - that transforms America and its military machine into an instrument of the will of God.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Predictably, they whine that this
Is just "class warfare"
When the plan only costs them
Upper class carfare.

It's time to contact your congressman
With letters, emails and faxes
(Unless you're opposed to the very rich
Paying their fair share of taxes.)

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NOTE FROM BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Frankly, we loved this alleged bumper sticker that has been making its way around the Internet so much, BuzzFlash at Truthout just couldn't resist passing it along.

The author is unknown to BuzzFlash at Truthout, but let us know if you are out there.

A BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT NEWS ALERT

WASHINGTON,DC (September 14, 2011) - Today Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and 40 members of the House Democratic Caucus introduced the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act, H.R. 2914 - a cost-effective plan to put over 2 million people to work for two years.

The time has come for Congress to focus like a laser on the most pressing crisis facing our country - the jobs crisis. With extended unemployment benefits scheduled to expire at the end of this year, 13.9 million people remain out of work. The average worker who is unemployed has been searching for a job for more than nine months and recent reports reveal that private sector employers largely refuse to hire those currently jobless. An additional 8.4 million are working part time because they cannot find a full-time job. In June 2007, 63 percent of adults were employed, now the percentage is 58.2 percent. Despite reports of a Congress immobilized and unable to address the jobs crisis- Congress can and must do something today.

"It begins with this simple idea:  If we want to create jobs, then create jobs. The best way to grow the economy and reduce the deficit is to put Americans to work.  Every dollar in H.R. 2914 must be attached to an actual job," said Rep. Schakowsky. "The worst deficit this country faces, isn't the budget deficit.  It's the jobs deficit.  We need to get our people and our economy moving again."

If enacted, the legislation would create 2.2 million jobs that will meet critical needs to improve and strengthen communities:

• The School Improvement Corps would create 400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs by funding positions created by public school districts to do needed school rehabilitation improvements.
• The Park Improvement Corps would create 100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service's Public Lands Corps Act.  Young people would work on conservation projects on public lands include restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, and historic resources.
• The Student Jobs Corps would creates 250,000 more part-time, work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program.
• The Neighborhood Heroes Corps would hire 300,000 teachers, 40,000 new police officers, and 12,000 firefighters.
• The Health Corps would hire at least 40,000 health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas.
• The Child Care Corps would create 100,000 jobs in early childhood care and education through additional funding for Early Head Start.
• The Community Corps would hire 750,000 individuals to do needed work in our communities, including housing rehab, weatherization, recycling, and rural conservation.

The legislation gives the unemployed priority for jobs, particularly those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits (the "99ers"), and veterans. The bill allocates a fair distribution of funding and jobs among states, with targeting based on high unemployment and need. The bill also ensures that jobs do not undercut the rights of other workers, lower wages, displace current workers or take business from small/local businesses.

The $227 billion cost of the bill ($113.5 billion over each of two years) can be fully paid for through separate legislation such as Rep. Schakowsky's Fairness in Taxation Act, which creates higher tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires, and eliminating subsidies for Big Oil and tax loop holes for corporations that send American jobs overseas.

The full, detailed summary of H.R. 2914 can be found at http://schakowsky.house.gov/jobs/

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This wasn't just a lost decade economically for the middle class, working class and the poor; it has pretty much been a lost 30 years, according to a September 13 New York Times article.

Contrary to Republican talking point myths, the income of the working American has generally stagnated for at least 20 years, even though the productivity of US workers has generally increased.

As The New York Times reports:

Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.

And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1996.

Minorities have been hardest hit by the growing income disparity and lack of livable-wage jobs. But even "the median, full-time male worker has made no progress on average" - and that's, based on inflationary adjustment, since 1973.

Not surprisingly, according to the Times, "the past decade was also marked by a growing gap between the very top and very bottom of the income ladder."

Pretty soon, there may be no more ladder to climb economically.

Maybe that is why Sen. Bernie Sanders recently held a hearing: "Is Poverty a Death Sentence?"

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RICHARD A. STITT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), one of the most inveterate Obama-haters, recently threatened to quit his position on the 12-member congressional "supercommittee," because he opposes any cuts to the military budget.

Kyl and the other five Republicans on the panel have also taken the Grover Norquist pledge to never, ever raise taxes, for anything. It is sounding better, and better, for the impotent, self-immolating 12-person panel of politicians to guarantee failure before it even starts.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Why shouldn't Congressional representatives and senators receive retirement benefits at the same age of eligibility for Social Security?

That's a good question, particularly since the Congressional pensions are lavish in comparison to Social Security.

Sen. Sherrod Brown criticized this inequity earlier this year:

Currently, Members of Congress can begin collecting pensions as early as age 50, while working Americans cannot collect full Social Security benefits until age 66. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), retirement with an immediate, full pension is available to Members of Congress covered under FERS at age 62 or older with at least five years of federal service; at age 50 or older with at least 20 years of service; and at any age to Members with at least 25 years of service. For Members covered by CSRS, retirement with an immediate, full pension is available to Members age 60 or older with 10 years of service in Congress, or age 62 with five years of civilian federal service, including service in Congress.

Brown strongly opposes raising the retirement age for Social Security due to the high number of Ohioans who are engaged in physically demanding work - on a shop floor, production line, or farmland. Brown has long been active in efforts to protect Social Security from privatization, and has worked to ensure that seniors can continue to afford necessities like prescription drugs despite the lack of cost-of-living-adjustments (COLA) that Social Security recipients have faced for the past two years.

This week, Brown introduced legislation to ensure that any increase in Social Security retirement age is matched by the same age of eligibility being applied to the generous taxpayer-funded pension plans for those serving in Congress.

Given that the White House has been sending out trial balloons for weeks that President Obama inexplicably supports raising the eligibility age for Social Security to 68, it is of some comfort that at least one member of Congress is holding our elected officials accountable for "walking in our shoes."

Yet, if Brown's bill is unlikely to pass, he considers legislation that would make deficit reduction begin on Capitol Hill - through reducing Congressional salaries by 10 percent - even a longer shot.

"I think some might [take the cut]," Brown said. "But I would guess probably a bill like that won't pass."

That is because as far as most of DC is concerned, including the White House, what's good for the goose (cuts in pensions, salaries, and health care for the working class) is not good for the gander (the elected elites who enact those cuts on everyone but themselves and the wealthy.)

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"Casting [Gibson] as a director or perhaps as the star of Judah Maccabee is like casting [Bernie] Madoff to be the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a white supremacist as trying to portray Martin Luther King Jr.," says Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of Los Angeles's Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance.

Earlier this year, Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster appeared hand in hand on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. They were attending the premiere of The Beaver, a film directed by Foster, starring both her and Gibson. In the movie Gibson plays a depressed toy manufacturer who, after failing to commit suicide, winds up communicating through a hand puppet. This was supposed to be his return to Hollywood stardom after having spent a few years fending off questions about his sexist, anti-gay, racist and anti-Semitic rants. The Beaver was a box office dud; it cost $21 million to make and it reeled in far less than that, both domestically and internationally.

To get his sinking Mojo back, Gibson is going to have to do better.

But first, he must clear up a few of the messes he's created for himself; most immediately with his ex-girlfriend, and most notably, with the Jewish community.

Apparently, money has allowed Gibson to buy his way out of his ex-girlfriend mess. In late August, Gibson agreed to pay Oksana Grigorieva, $750,000. In addition, according to the Associated Press, he will, "continue to provide housing and financial support for their young daughter to resolve a bitter legal fight that followed sexist, racist rants attributed to the actor."

Gibson's Jewish problem, however, is going to take a lot more than money to fix.

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A BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT NEWS ALERT

The following is a news release from the office of Sen. Bernie Sanders:

Washington - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at a Senate hearing he chaired today cited dramatic evidence linking poverty and shorter life spans. A new census report, meanwhile, said more Americans than ever before lived in poverty last year.

Sanders citied evidence that living in poverty greatly reduces access to health care and shortens life spans. "This is the first time in our history that children born in certain parts of the United States can expect to live shorter lives than their parents' generation," according to a report released at the hearing.

A separate Census Bureau report also released today said that more than 46 million Americans, about one in six, lived below the poverty line in 2010. The census report also said that that about 49.9 million Americans lacked health insurance, a number that soared by 13.3 million since 2000.
"Poverty in America today is a death sentence for tens and tens of thousands of our people which is why the high childhood poverty rate in our country is such an outrage," Sanders said in an opening statement at the hearing.

The United States has both the highest overall poverty rate and the highest childhood poverty rate of any major industrialized country on earth, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While 21.6 percent of American children live in poverty, the rate is 3.7 percent in Denmark, 5.3 percent in Finland, 6.7 percent in Iceland, 8.3 percent in Germany, 9.3 percent in France. "I suppose we can take some comfort in that our numbers are not quite as bad as Turkey (23.5 percent); Chile (24 percent); and Mexico (25.8 percent)," Sanders said.

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MARC PERKEL FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The president and Congress have said that in order to cut the deficit "everything" has to be on the table. Does "everything" include the pensions that members of Congress get? It seems to me that if anyone should get their pensions cut it should be Congress. They are the ones who passed the unbalanced budgets that created the debt in the first place. They want us to put Social Security on the table. The way I see it, if Congress doesn't cut their pensions then not everything is really on the table.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"No games, no politics, no delays."
Barack's ground rules are deft ---
The GOP will say, "C'mon! Without
Those things, we've got nothing left."

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-calls-congress-act-jobs-bill-152431593.html

Body

It is a disturbing feature of our society that truth has devolved into a rare commodity, especially when election time rolls around. Somehow it has become common practice to allow lies and innuendoes to permeate political debate, as if they had the same legitimacy as actual facts.

In the aftermath of debates and conferences there may be some retro-fitting of statements, but at the time of their utterance they pass muster among pundits and partisans who maintain an air of polite deference to fellow participants. Thus, truth is often sacrificed in the heat of the moment to keep things moving, and to allow the ridiculous to cavort among the more learned and deserving thought merchants. But, it isn't only the innocent idiots who find their way to media stardom, and who, despite the ridicule they encounter at times from their betters, maintain a certain presence. It is the menace inherent in their writings and speeches that defines them as something other than free-speech practitioners. Theirs is a special brand of hate and partisanship that seeks only to expand their fifteen minutes of fame and roil the waters of honest debate.

On the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks we were reminded of bravery about which our country can only stand in awe for what was accomplished in our name. There are many stories that touch us, but none more than the leadership of Todd Beamer on United Airlines Flight 93 whose words "Let's roll" led the assault on the high-jackers in the cockpit and brought the plane down short of its mission to attack Washington DC. In light of his singular leadership and communications from others who lost their lives on that day, there is something particularly repellent about Ann Coulter's observations as she wrote about them in her column.

The natural inclination of those who experience great loss is to pursue the causes to their logical conclusions. But, Ann concluded that the grief-stricken widowed pilots' wives were "enjoying" their widowhood tremendously, an observation prompted no doubt by Coulter's own publicity-seeking persona, and a culture that says you can say anything about anyone and chalk it up to the constitutional guarantee of free speech. At the time I assumed we wouldn't be hearing from Coulter any more because the American people would reject her poisonous prose, but she's still around appearing at conservative causes, writing books and spreading her noxious reflections across the land - a sad commentary on the depths to which we have sunk as a nation.

This condition permeates all phases of our body politic and infects the minds of the public. One has only to consider the speeches of Sarah Palin, among others, who consistently misstates and deliberately muddies the waters of honest debate. Health care restructuring becomes socialized medicine and financial reform threatens to bring down the entire free-market infrastructure, no matter what damage has been done to our well- being in the name of these twisted versions of events. Somewhere along the line truth is lost and we fall prey to someone's personal vision of power.

Discussions of everything from national security to health care are so steeped in political rhetoric that there is little room for rational discussion. In perfect Orwellian cadence, for instance, Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, advanced the notion that in order to establish peace the US must undertake "a proliferation of power." His description of what we need to do to bring our armed forces up to snuff includes a wide-ranging assortment of weapons systems that may or may not be relevant to the kinds of conflicts in which we are currently engaged. Once again, truth falls victim to the perceptions of a "dug-in" partisan who may have called the shots a touch too long.

It may be a tall order to keep after the truth, but it is a necessary exercise whenever the opportunity presents itself. We should be getting after media ‘analysts' who allow guests to torment facts into unrecognizable shapes. This is not the time to be so damn polite. Truth is at times rude and intrusive.

 

BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT NEWS ALERT

Earlier this year, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) denounced the idea of raising the retirement age for social security eligibility in this news release:

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Following yesterday's release of a budget proposal that would dismantle Medicare and leave the door open for raising the retirement age on Social Security to age 69 or higher, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) held a news conference call today to outline new legislation he is introducing that would require Members of Congress to "walk in the same shoes" as working Americans.

Brown's bill, the Shared Retirement Sacrifice Act of 2011, would amend the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) and Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) to directly tie the Social Security retirement age to current and future Members of Congress' access to their federal retirement benefits. On the call, Brown released a county-by-county estimate showing the number of Ohio senior citizens that receive Social Security benefits.

"Raising the Social Security retirement age might sound fair to politicians who come to work every day in a suit and tie, but it's a nonstarter for working Ohioans who stand on their feet all day long in a restaurant or on a factory floor," Brown said. "Social Security is under attack by those who falsely think it adds to the federal deficit. These same politicians want to give extra tax cuts to the wealthiest two percent of Americans and tax breaks for big corporations and Big Oil while dismantling Medicare. It's time for Washington politicians to make the same sacrifices that they're proposing for millions of Americans."

"That's why I'm introducing legislation that would require Members of Congress to 'walk in the same shoes' as working Americans by tying their pension and retirement benefits to the Social Security retirement age. If these politicians want to ask Americans to continue working into their late 60s and early 70s before receiving critical retirement benefits, there's no reason why they shouldn't have to make the same sacrifices as well," Brown continued.

Currently, Members of Congress can begin collecting pensions as early as age 50, while working Americans cannot collect full Social Security benefits until age 66. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), retirement with an immediate, full pension is available to Members of Congress covered under FERS at age 62 or older with at least five years of federal service; at age 50 or older with at least 20 years of service; and at any age to Members with at least 25 years of service. For Members covered by CSRS, retirement with an immediate, full pension is available to Members age 60 or older with 10 years of service in Congress, or age 62 with five years of civilian federal service, including service in Congress.

Brown strongly opposes raising the retirement age for Social Security due to the high number of Ohioans who are engaged in physically demanding work-on a shop floor, production line, or farmland. Brown has long been active in efforts to protect Social Security from privatization, and has worked to ensure that seniors can continue to afford necessities like prescription drugs despite the lack of cost-of-living-adjustments (COLA) that Social Security recipients have faced for the past two years.

Brown, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has introduced legislation that would require a supermajority (two-thirds) vote in Congress to make any significant changes to Social Security. Brown also strongly pushed for legislation to give a one-time, $250 check to Social Security recipients to help offset the rising cost of prescription drugs and other necessities.

As of 2009, the median retiree Social Security benefit is $14,000. Social Security lifts more than half a million Ohio seniors out of poverty.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The latest Republican plan to steal a presidential election may just work.

In Pennsylvania, according to Mother Jones, a plan is brewing to allocate the state's electoral votes by Congressional districts. Since Pennsylvania is gerrymandered to favor the election of Republican Congressional representatives, Obama could win the popular vote there, but lose the state in the Electoral College.

Given that the Pennsylvania legislature and the governorship are all controlled by the GOP, this is a law that has good odds of being passed.

With the precedent of Republican-controlled states using pretty much model templates of legislation to put barriers in the way of Democratic voting groups, it is extremely possible that the Pennsylvania electoral delegate plan will be proposed and enacted in other states where the GOP is in charge.

The Democrats have little recourse. "Nor is there anything obviously illegal or unconstitutional about the GOP plan," Mother Jones notes. "'The Constitution is pretty silent on how the electors are chosen in each state,' says Karl Manheim, a law professor at Loyola University in Los Angeles."

After the stolen election of 2000, which led to a lost decade of national decline for America, it is painful to think that a Democrat may win the popular vote but lose the presidency due to political chicanery with the electoral vote allocation.

But this robbery of democracy might just very well occur in plain sight.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

If Mister Bush wanted to seem “calm in a crisis”
Why did he abandon all discretion
With those children and just show them his best
Deer-in-the-headlights expression?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43946847

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Ron Paul knows something about uninsured men dying without health insurance. Kent Snyder, who was Paul's 2008 presidential campaign manager, died on June 26 of that year without any medical coverage. His hospital bills had accumulated to $400,000 at the time of his passing.

The Washington Post noted in an obituary for Snyder, 49:

Mr. Snyder had been associated with Paul, a Texas Republican with Libertarian leanings, for more than 20 years. He worked as a top aide for Paul in 1988, when the congressman sought the presidency on the Libertarian ticket.

In 2007, Mr. Snyder helped persuade Paul to launch a bid for the Republican nomination and served as chairman of his campaign. Paul raised millions of dollars from online contributors, leading all Republican contenders early in the race. He failed to attract many voters, however, and ended his candidacy in June.

So, an aide who was pivotal to the political fortunes and fundraising for Paul wasn't even given health insurance - in his hour of need - by the libertarian Congressman.

By now, almost all BuzzFlash at Truthout readers know or saw how the bloodlust of the Tea Party roared with approval when Paul said that people without health insurance are taking their own risks, and that is the way it should be.

A Pensito Review article from 2008 noted, "Snyder's death and his lack of health insurance has triggered a behind-the-scenes debate among Paul supporters and libertarian activists over whether or not the Paul campaign should have provided health insurance to its staff."

Actually, Paul was a touch more compassionate then his gladiator fight audience. He said that the churches should provide health care to the uninsured, that "our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it."

That's not how it played itself out with your longtime fundraiser and campaign manager, Kent Snyder, Dr. Paul.

He didn't even get the health coverage he needed from you, nor did you pick up his $400,000 medical care bill after he died.

 

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PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Go Berserk, Young Man

And young woman, of course. You're being cheated by a free-market system that is out of control.

Consider that a single individual (John Paulson) made enough money last year to pay the salaries of 100,000 teachers.

100,000 jobs. All those potential salaries ($50,000 each) diverted to a man who started making his billions by betting against the U.S. mortgage market.

And he's not alone. In 2009 25 hedge fund managers averaged a billion dollars in earnings. Hedge fund manager James Dinan, who made 'only' $350 million in 2009, advised other hedgers to "stay in the middle of the field" to avoid angering the public.

The hedge fund managers are not alone, either. Based on Tax Foundation figures, the richest 1% has TRIPLED its share of America's income over the past 30 years. Much of the gain came from tax cuts and minimally taxed financial instruments. If their income had increased only at the pace of American productivity (80%), they would be taking about a TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR LESS out of our economy.

If middle-class incomes had increased at the pace of American productivity, the median household income would now be nearly $92,000, not $50,000.

So if you hear the 'redistribution' argument, keep in mind that the redistribution has already taken place, from the middle and lower classes to the rich.

Meanwhile, profits for the 500 largest corporations rose 81% last year, prompting Fortune Magazine to say "we've rarely seen such a stark gulf between the fortunes of the 500 and those of ordinary Americans."

There used to be a safeguard against these extremes, in the form of progressive taxes. But a 30-year assault on the alleged evils of government has largely taken this away. Many of the billion-dollar paychecks are overloaded with capital gains earnings, taxed at a minimal 15% rate.

Young men and women, you should be very angry. Millions of you have college degrees and/or marketable skills, but you're either unemployed or underemployed because profit-rich corporations have stopped investing in America. They're still investing, but not in America. Pharmaceutical companies move production to China and India because of less stringent inspection standards. Energy companies use subsidies for solar energy research and development to move production facilities to Asia. Everyday products are no longer made in the United States. The examples go on and on.

But these increasingly profitable companies are paying less taxes. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, 12 of our largest corporations actually received tax refunds! The drop in tax revenue is forcing cuts in education, social programs, and national infrastructure. Think of the implications. Do we want programs for music and the arts eliminated from schools, so that only children of the wealthy can participate in them? Do we want our national parks sold to billionaires?

It has been argued that corporations are just following the rules of capitalism, that their only obligation is making profits for their stockholders. But corporations and very rich individuals benefit most from national security, government-funded research, infrastructure, and property laws. Defending the country benefits the rich more, because they have more to defend. Taxpayer-funded research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the Internet), the National Institute of Health (pharmaceuticals), and the National Science Foundation (the Digital Library Initiative) has laid a half-century foundation for their idea-building. The interstates and airports and FAA and TSA benefit people who have the money to travel.

In his book "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell says this about the richest and most successful Americans: "Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up."

The wealthiest individuals and corporations depended on all of America to make their fortunes. Now they're saying they did it on their own, and they don't need government or the American public any more.

That is why the rest of us, especially young people bearing the brunt of the snub, should be mad.

In 1865 newspaper editor Horace Greeley said to those struggling to find success in life: "The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country." It's no longer that simple for our young people. The country's all grown up, and it's mostly owned by corporations.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Why is our energy policy fossilized with policies that are bankrupting us, polluting toxins into the air and water and serving as the catalyst to launch wars to control oil reserves?

That is because there is no separation between our government's federal energy policy and the "industry's" energy policy. They are virtually one and the same. That means that the profits of the oil companies, the coal barons and other fossil fuel businesses are basically in charge of driving a strategic policy that is economically ruining us and preventing the development of alternative energy sources.

China, on the other hand, has little distinction between primarily state-owned energy companies and the government's policies on the matter (although there is an expansion of "private" energy companies). Therefore, it is driven by a mandate to develop the most effective, most modern sources of fuel. In fact, it created the China Energy Conservation Investment Corporation, which is devoted to funding more efficient energy.

That is the major reason it is light years ahead of the US in nurturing the solar, hydropower and wind power industries, among others. Yes, China heavily subsidizes its alternative fuel initiatives, but shouldn't the US government be doing the same? Why isn't the entire south of the United States powered in large part by solar and wind energy? Why isn't geothermal technology at an advance development state in the US?

This is the crux of the matter: the more the US develops alternative energy sources, the more the oil companies and their fossil fuel cohorts are likely to decrease profits. The less the US plays a role in developing alternative energy and keeping the US hooked on fossil fuel, the greater the bloated profits of the current antiquated providers rise as scarcity increases.

That is literally the bottom line.

In China, since the government heavily dominates the energy industry - for all practical purposes - decreasing the cost of fuel and creating new sources that, in the long term, will be more durable and less expensive is good strategic policy. Relying on fossil fuel will hamper China's economic growth, as is currently happening in the US. For China, long-term dependence on fossil fuels will result in a strain on economic growth, not a profit.

So, the people who killed the electric car several times (now having its tenth or 11th "rebirth"), who have impeded solar energy, who scrapped mass transportation in Los Angeles, who are supporting a toxic Keystone XL pipeline through the US to export oil overseas and who have done everything possible to keep us junkies hooked on fossil fuels, these people continue to prevent the US government from advancing nontoxic and less expensive (in the long term, sun and wind power will never be exhausted) energy.

China is proof that alternative fuel development is best for a nation looking to the future, not looking to pad the multibillion-dollar profits of a fossil fuel industry.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

An otherwise extraordinary art exhibit at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, is marred by leaving out some salient, but disquieting historical facts, namely: Prior to World War II, Gertrude Stein allegedly advocated for Adolf Hitler to receive the Nobel Peace Prize; and, she survived the Nazi occupation of France and the Vichy puppet government thanks to at least one well-known French anti-Semite with close ties to the Vichy and Nazi regimes. Some details are still not clear, but the evidence of de facto tacit "collaboration" is.

For days now, I've been haunted by Gertrude Stein. Except for an occasional glance at her book The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, I confess to never fully reading her work. I did see Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris and enjoyed (as always) Kathy Bates' portrayal of her. And, I have known - as does most any Oakland resident -- that Stein is famously quoted as having remarked, "The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there isn't any there there"; a comment that for years has been open to various interpretations.

My Stein saga started innocently enough: My wife and I met up with two friends on Saturday afternoon outside the San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), and headed in to see The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde. This was the last weekend the exhibit would be up, and the place was packed. It was so crowded that I blithely remarked that it seemed like we were at The Louvre during tourist season. (In an early August Press Release, SFMoMA indicated that it expected as many as 350,000 visitors by the end of the run.)

The exhibit was fascinating. I'll let Stephen West of Bloomberg.com who described it as, "The curatorial triumph of the summer," handle the details:

"Writer and Bay Area native Gertrude Stein and her brothers, Leo and Michael, had remarkable taste and timing. They moved to Paris in the early 1900s and soon began collecting the newest wave of modern art, Matisse and Picasso, as well as the more established Cezanne, Renoir, Bonnard and others.

"Their apartments became de facto museums of modernism and salons for the artistic elite of Paris. Gertrude was Picasso's champion. Leo, Michael and his wife, Sarah, favored Matisse. (And others: Michael and Sarah later commissioned Le Corbusier to design a modernist house for them.)

"The sprawling show brings together much of the now scattered Stein collection. It features iconic works like Picasso's monumental 1905-06 portrait of Gertrude, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and Matisse's 1905 'Woman With a Hat,' now part of the San Francisco museum's collection.

"Along with about 40 Picassos, 60 Matisses and works by more than a dozen other artists, the exhibition offers scores of photographs of the Steins, Gertrude's partner Alice B. Toklas, their apartments and their arty circle, encapsulating a remarkable period."

In each room, accompanying the paintings were drawings, film clips, correspondence, and photos (some from floor-to-ceiling) from the Stein family.  There was an informative introductory description of the period, the changes that were taking place in the art world during that time, and the family's connection and influence on it all.

One of the first rooms at the SFMoMA exhibit featured photographs of the then Bay Area-based Stein family from the turn of the twentieth century, before Gertrude and her brother Leo took off for Paris. The Stein family was part of a thriving Jewish community in Northern California, and clearly proud of their Jewish identity.

The exhibit, according to an SFMoMA press release posted toward the end, was structured "roughly chronologically by when they were originally acquired by the family, highlighting major themes and benchmarks of both art history and the Steins' parallel journey." There was a discussion of the years leading up to and including World War II. Buried in that particular narrative was a statement that Stein had spent the war years in Southern France.

As I left the museum, I turned toward my friend and asked him if he had noticed that sentence. He had. It was, after all quite remarkable.

It was an unexceptional detail that told us nothing, yet ironically, told us a great deal, because Jews in Vichy "controlled" southern France were rounded up for concentration camps at the direction of the Nazis.

We both wondered how Stein and her lover/longtime companion, Alice Toklas -- lesbians and Jews -- had managed to survive during the German occupation (puppet Vichy government), which saw the deportation and murder of thousands of French Jews in concentration camps.

Later that evening I began looking into that question. Googling "Gertrude Stein" "Nazis" I found thousands of hits. The first site I went to was called "Adolph The Great. Com," which claims that it "is not an anti-Semitic [sic] site but a collection of facts intended to bring about understanding and tolerance," which is code for an anti-Semitic site. The site's content includes those titled "Adolf the Humanitarian," "Adolf the Artist," "Adolf fights cancer," "Adolf's Jewish Support," and "Adolf and the Nobel Peace Prize." That was the one that caught me off guard as it featured a picture of Gertrude Stein.

According to adolfthegreat.com, "The renowned Jewish author, Gertrude Stein, led the campaign to get Adolf Hitler nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1938: 'I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany. By driving out the Jews and the democratic and Left element, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace...'"

I couldn't believe what I had just read. It must be the product of a fevered mind distorting some off-hand comment that Stein might or might not have made. In any case, why trust a Nazi-revisionist website? (In fact, the quotation is from a New York Times interview with Stein in 1934, but there is no credible evidence that she actually lobbied the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Advocates of Stein also contend that she was being "sarcastic," but her statement fits with her political viewpoints of the time: that Hitler was an authoritarian leader who could keep the Bolsheviks at bay and that many communists in Germany were Jews -- and Stein was no friend of communists.

I continued my search.

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