Electronic Pen

The right-wing conservatives are betting against America's future.

That's not a speculative observation; it's reality.

When a core part of your political ideology is the denial of science - and science has been at the center of technological and economic advancements that made the US into an innovative and financial power - then you are advocating that the nation move backward.

For those who thought that the Scopes trial settled the issue of evolution, it has been a period of frustrating historical backlash. Those who would cling to the stagnation of creationism are embarked upon a ferocious campaign to cloak the world again in darkness.

As other nations race ahead of America in alternative fuels, scientific research, transportation alternatives and medical advances, the forces of scientific denial in the US are on the march back to the pre-Enlightenment.

A web site devoted to science and its future impact observes:

With a few notable exceptions, most of the contenders for the seat of Republican presidential candidate are outspoken critics of science. They and their supporters refuse to acknowledge the reality of climate change, want science teachers to tell students that human life was created by a spiritual force from beyond space, and suggest that the best way to get out of our debt hole is to cut government funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, which allocate money to cancer research and childhood autism treatments.

But based on recent demographics, these Republicans are out of touch with what Americans on both sides of the political spectrum want, which is more jobs in science, health care, engineering, and technology. Far from appealing to the average American, the Republican anti-science stance may alienate the party further from the mainstream.

Faith can be an inspiring force or it can lead to an infatuation with profound ignorance.

For Martin Luther King, belief meant "We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

For many of the Bible thumpers on the right, faith just means turning the lights out on progress.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Two freshmen conservative GOP Congressman believe that what Congress needs is more funeral directors.

No, this is not an Onion headline; it's from remarks made by a couple of guys who want to strangle the federal government. Maybe then they could make a profit burying it. They were addressing, last March, the National Funeral Directors Association's Advocacy Summit.

Yesterday, BuzzFlash at Truthout highlighted a video clip of Illinois Republican Congressman Randy Hultgren being unable to answer how the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy could be working if they have resulted in a million jobs being lost over the years that they have been in place.

Hultgren has other things on his mind, such as how more funeral home directors in the Capitol could help America. Along with his fellow frosh, "mortician's kid" Florida Rep. Steve Southerland, Hultgren believes, "We need more funeral directors in Congress."

"If you want to understand a community, then go talk to the funeral director because he understands that community," Hultgren said in the "Memorial Business Journal." "Growing up in a funeral home is a wonderful training ground for serving in Congress - understanding that people are making sacrifices to run businesses to serve the people in your community."

Southerland declared - and we are not making this up: "Everything I learned on how to run for Congress I learned in the lobby of Southerland Family Funeral Homes." He rallied the March gathering of mortuary directors: "What we need in all levels of government - local, state and federal - is you funeral directors to broaden your horizon and your understanding of what you have."

Hultgren and Southerland may not understand the harmful impact of excessive tax cuts for the wealthy on our economy, but they surely will know how to put the federal government six feet under.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

He's been dubbed the "stealth media mogul," labeled"America's greediest executive,"by Fortune magazine, and was added to "The 12 Most Powerful Christians in Hollywood"list on Beliefnet. He has also been described as "secretive" and "reclusive," given that he reportedly hasn't spoken on the record to the press since 1974. Nevertheless, he is identified as an active supporter of Christian and conservative causes.

He may not be directly tied to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), but he appears to be single-handedly accomplishing at least one of the goals of NAR's "Seven Mountains Mandate": taking control of the "mountain" of entertainment.

He's Phillip Anschutz, one of the wealthiest men in America that most Americans have never heard of, and he clearly desires it that way.

A devout Christian, Anschutz, a Denver, Colorado-based billionaire who has made a chunk of his fortune in railroads, telecommunications, and the oil and gas businesses, has, through his Anschutz Entertainment Group, taken the entertainment industry by storm.

Anschutz owns the Regal Entertainment theater chain; movie making enterprises such as Walden Media, which co-produced The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,"(that grossed more than 1 billion in ticket and DVD sales); arenas, such as Los Angeles's Staples Center; a number of sports teams, including one-third of the LA Lakers basketball team, and stakes in the LA Kings hockey team and the LA Galaxy soccer team; and, Anschutz Entertainment Group's (AEG) concerts division promotes tours for pop stars like Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Jon Bon Jovi.

Anschutz also owns, The Examiner chain of conservative newspapers, and last year, Anschutz added The Weekly Standard (bought for a reported $1 million from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation), an influential conservative magazine, to his ever-expanding quiver.

Anschutzing Los Angeles

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

One of the traditional America values that used to be revered as a sign of our national character was common sense.

But no longer. Most of the right-wing slogans and sound bites are based on promoting economic policy that has proven not to work. This is the opposite of common sense: it's doing what repeatedly hasn't shown results and insisting that it will magically be effective the next time around.

GOP Congressman Randy Hultgren of Illinois was confronted with common sense about the Bush tax cuts at a summer recess town hall meeting. Indeed, a constituent asked Hultgren why - if the Bush tax cuts helped create jobs, as the GOP argues - the unemployment rate has gone up around 3 percentage points since they were enacted? Hultgren was flummoxed.

He couldn't answer the question and fumbled his way into talking about "the stimulus" instead of the ineffectiveness of excessive tax cuts for the wealthy. Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks featured a video of the encounter and remarked that Hultgren was "stone cold busted." Uygur noted that we've lost a million jobs over the last ten years.

The constituent also pointed out that the nonwealthy end up paying more in additional government taxes (to cover the interest on the debt, but one could add that additional flat, local and state taxes are borne by the middle and working class), while the rich just get richer.

You can add to that the common sense and prima facie reality that if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were repealed, it would go a long way toward reducing the national deficit with which the GOP and the Tea Party are so obsessed.

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JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The August 23rd earthquake that rocked D.C. all the way up to Martha's Vineyard where the President is vacationing should be an alarming wake up call to President Obama on how easily a crude oil pipeline can rupture under the sudden magnitude of an earthquake.

It's bad enough that this President gave the thumbs up to the Arctic offshore oil drilling.  "The Arctic's Beaufort Sea is plagued with high seas, shrieking winds, darkness, sea ice, and minimal visibility. Yet, the Obama administration State Department just approved aggressive offshore drilling in these harsh waters-before doing a full environmental review, and without requiring reliable safety equipment or an approved oil spill response plan." (EarthJustice.com)

The President still has a chance to be on the right side of history by saying NO to Arctic drilling and NO to the Keystone pipeline project which threatens to poison our fragile ecology, agricultural land and fresh water aqueducts.  The pipeline is from the oil sands of Alberta and would run from Canada through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. In addition, the consumption of this oil would be the same as setting off a "carbon bomb into the atmosphere," as environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben put it, by intensifying global warming beyond the tipping point.

As for creating jobs-that certainly is an appealing selling point, but as the Gulf residents who lost their livelihoods in the fishing, real estate and tourism industries worth billions of dollars a year before they were swept away by the black tides of BP's oil will tell you, it's not worth the risk of employing 5 to 10,000 workers temporarily for Canadian oil that in the end will not make our gas prices cheaper because it will be sold on the international market.  Sen. Bernie Sanders is right: we can produce a lot more jobs with the creation of green energy technology.  In fact, solar and wind companies are beginning to boom and they're doing it without the Federal government.  You can't stop progress.

Lastly, the public has learned too many times that there's no way to prevent oil spills. The August 23rd earthquake is an urgent red warning to the President from Mother Nature that ruptured pipes from earthquakes and floods are happening with far more frequency and violent velocity under climate change conditions than ever before.  The rising floods that left thousands of people homeless is the reason Exxon-Mobile's pipeline ruptured into Montana's Yellowstone River.  By approving these dirty energy projects, Obama will be  making climate change conditions worse knowing full well that  there is no efficient way to prevent or to clean oil spills, especially in the Arctic's turbulent and icy dark seas.  Did this President learn anything about the message of climate change when he stood in front of the tornado damaged homes in the mid-west?

Will President Obama have the good conscience or moral fortitude to do the right thing?  We're waiting to see.

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ROBERT CREAMER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

What do yesterday's east coast earthquake, our infrastructure and antiquated Federal accounting systems have to do with jobs? A lot, it turns out.

The earthquake yesterday was the largest east coast trembler in 67 years. But earthquakes of moderate intensity are not rare. The U.S. Geological Survey counted an average of 1,300 earthquakes each year that range in magnitude from 5 to 5.9 on the Richter Scale. Yesterday's was on the high end, at 5.8. Earthquakes - even in areas like the East Coast that is the middle of a tectonic plate - happen regularly and should not come as a surprise.

The same is true of floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and huge snow storms. Natural disasters don't happen every day or every year, but they are definitely going to happen. And when they do they test our infrastructure.

If, as a society, when we let our infrastructure deteriorate - or cut corners to build things on the cheap - it often turns out that the cost of our neglect is much greater than if we had taken a more responsible, prudent course and built roads, and high rises, and levies and nuclear plants that are designed to survive the natural disasters that are all but certain to happen some day.

Just six years ago during Hurricane Katrina, the United States almost lost the entire city of New Orleans because we had skimped on investment in the levies that would have protected it from flooding.

The Japanese have faced an economic and human calamity because the nuclear plants at Fukushima were not built to survive a massive earthquake and tsunami.

When natural disasters like these strike, it's too late to invest the relatively modest amounts of money necessary to prevent catastrophic failures in our infrastructure that end up costing society many, many times more than it would have cost to prevent them. And that's just the disasters - not ordinary wear and tear - or investment in basic needs for our growing population.

We've seen the warning signs everywhere.

A major bridge in the middle of Minneapolis collapses without warning, killing 13 people and causing massive economic disruption.

Ancient water lines in the nation's capital rupture.

This spring the 80-year-old levy system along the Mississippi was so overstressed by rains that the river had to be temporarily shut to commercial traffic, costing the economy millions of dollars.

Because of failure to invest in public transportation and road improvements highways are becoming more and more congested, costing more millions in lost productivity.

The Chinese have plans to complete a 10,000-mile high speed rail system in the next decade, yet American plans for high speed rail are sidetracked by Republicans in Congress.

China is spending nine percent of its GDP on new infrastructure-compared to only three percent in the U.S., although we have far greater resources.

Yet the Republican Congress - and much of America's political elite - has become so mesmerized by the "deficit debate" that it is on the verge of making the foolish decision to "save money" today by failing to invest in our infrastructure for tomorrow.

Much of this deficit talk is cloaked in the language of "responsibility" and fiscal discipline. We are told that we cannot borrow money that will have to be repaid by our children. But shortchanging investment in our nation's infrastructure is not doing any favors for the next generation. In fact it is "cover" -- to allow the wealthiest people in America to gorge themselves on more and more of our nation's wealth and income - without contributing their fair share in taxes to support our common needs and our common future.

Republican House leaders have proposed cutting investment in transportation infrastructure by two thirds. The Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimates that this proposal would cost America another 500,000 jobs.

People who claim that is "fiscally responsible" are engaging in the worst kind of Orwellian "Double Speak." Proposals like these involve the ultimate in irresponsibility to the next generation. Proposals like these involve the ultimate in irresponsibility to the next generation - allowing the millionaires to consume today and neglecting the entire society's infrastructure that is needed to compete for the future.

It is the height of irresponsibility to leave our kids a public infrastructure that is collapsing and dangerous - all because the richest among us want to continue to gorge themselves in multi-million dollar bonuses, huge executive salaries, and private jets to fly them off to opulent parties, or to and from their many homes.

Former Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania has proposed that the earthquake be the occasion for America to retrofit all of its nuclear power plants to bring them up to the standards necessary to withstand serious seismic events. That would generate hundreds of thousands of new construction jobs.

The same could be said of massive numbers of additional infrastructure projects from school repair to park improvements, to sewer and water projects, to levy upgrades, to public transportation projects and high speed rail.

In the past, America built big things - from the Interstate Highway system to the great dams. We can do it again.

One of the reasons why we fail to make these critical investments is the archaic accounting system of the Federal Government.

If you are a business and make an investment in plant and equipment, you don't count the outlay as an expenditure. When you build a plant, the money is not gone; after all, you have a new plant that is an asset with which you can create future revenue. So the new plant is recognized on the books as an asset and it is expensed over its useful life (or for tax purposes according to IRS depreciation rules).

But when the Federal Government invests in a highway or a levy - that have decades of useful life -- it immediately counts these outlays as an expense. It is accounted for the same way you would a salary or reimbursement for a meal. The Federal Government has no capital budget - no way to account for assets that offset its investments.

That has two important implications.

First, even when the Federal Government makes investments that will massively improve the economic circumstances of future generations, these investments increase the "deficit" the same way current expenditures do. So even if the Federal Government had billions of dollars of new productive assets to show for its investments - new buildings or schools or levies - no one would know it. Those assets simply wouldn't count against the calculation of the "deficit." That creates a political disincentive to invest in the future.

Second, the lack of a capital budget does not provide us a way to measure the level of investment made by the Federal Government as compared with its level of consumption. That is a huge problem, since the relationship of investment to consumption is a critical element in creating long-term economic growth.

In economics there is a qualitative difference between the two. Consumption involves spending on goods and services we consume - use up - to satisfy our needs. Investment involves spending on assets - on tools - on plant and equipment or skills -- that will allow us to create more goods and services in the future.

Highways, public transportation, airports, water systems, sewer lines, levies and power plants, windmills, the Internet (which was originally created by the Federal Government), the GPS system -- all are assets that allow us to create goods and services in the future - to create future wealth. The same is true of less tangible assets like education. Education is not consumption. It is investment in "human capital" that is the most important foundation of future economic growth.

We are being irresponsible to our kids if we do not invest in these things.

Finally, investing in infrastructure today is exactly what is needed to jumpstart our economy and put people back to work. By refusing to do so, we are wasting the talent and energy of 14 million Americans who could be doing productive work.

My wife, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, has proposed legislation that would create 2.3 million new jobs over each of the next two years, doing critical things that need to be done. Much of that work involves improving infrastructure - especially our schools and parks.

Her bill would cost $237 billion over two years - which could be paid for entirely by increasing the tax rates of millionaires and billionaires to levels slightly lower than they were early in the Reagan Administration. The bill would reduce the unemployment rate by 1.3%. It would be guaranteed to produce 2.3 million jobs because the money is metered out to states, local governments and other agencies only when it is tied to a job.

The proposed Infrastructure Bank is another approach that would substantially increase investment in infrastructure - and generate millions of jobs over time - by leveraging private investment with Federal infrastructure dollars.

Yesterday's earthquake should be nature's wake-up call to Washington. It's as if Mother Nature reached out and shook Washington and said, "Pay attention - wake up from your near-hypnotic fixation on short-term ‘deficit reduction.' Stop short-changing critical investments in your economy."

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer.

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Many people in this country struggle to find a way to deal with an inherently inequitable set of circumstances that plays havoc with their ability to prosper and provide for their children's future. Poverty defies commonly accepted definitions of what this means depending on what may be included as income and how a family member answers questions about whether or not they experienced hunger recently.

It may be, as Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation explained recently on Washington Journal, that there are too many government agencies tasked with providing aid programs for the disadvantaged. And it may be the American public has been misled about the extent to which various populations in our country suffer the ravages of a poverty-stricken life. He points out that with all the assistance poor families receive their income remains constant. In other words, despite food stamps, medical aid, and housing supplements none of this is factored into what Rector considers a more accurate reading of the incomes at issue. If a poor family applies for benefits and receives them, according to his analysis, they should immediately leapfrog into a higher income level. This seems to be the kind of logic that would render an antibiotic in the treatment of a disease as incidental to the curative process and perhaps overly indulgent into the bargain.

It's important, as Rector and so many conservatives agree, not to encourage a mindset that prefers our country's freebies to an honest day's work. It's not, he says that he begrudges low-income families whatever good things they are able to attain. It's just that we are on an unsustainable pace in terms of government handouts. Oddly Rector doesn't make too much of the fact that we're in the midst of a recession that saps the life out of a labor force that has seen its wages diminish and a growing income disparity between it and the elite personnel who are making it big time at banks and corporations. Of course Bank of America plans to cut thousands of employees in the near future in response to lower profit margins, though probably not for top executives one assumes. But if there is room at the top, there's precious little at the bottom.

Rector insists that, while there are pockets of real poverty, families in this country who earn below what is commonly called 'the poverty line' fare better than most middle and upper-class workers in Europe, have adequate housing and rarely if ever experience hunger. Take a look and you'll find, he says, that so-called poor families are likely to have X-Box systems, cable TV, plasma TVs and computers. They are not among the homeless, the hungry, or the unemployed. Who knew? Never mind that minorities in the country are unemployed in higher percentages than others and that making those "tough choices" we hear so much about may involve deciding whether a child has new shoes for school, a healthy diet or health insurance as opposed to emergency-room care. George Bush used to say that no-one is deprived of health care in this country because they are able to access Emergency Rooms. How many lower-income children have adequate health plans even with all the welfare programs in force?

It is worth remembering that many outlays for food stamps make their way quickly back into the economy, that the poor are forced to spend much of what they receive in benefits and that one would have hoped we had passed the era of Reagan's "welfare queens." Rector didn't use that term, but it seemed to be hovering somewhere in the background. Questions remain about the accessibility of shops and reasonably-priced amenities in poorer communities.

But lest we forget Rector tells us most members of the poverty class also have cars, the better to go shopping for those plasma TVs and X-Box systems no doubt. We are a lot better off it would seem than we were given to believe.

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF TRUTHOUT AT BUZZFLASH

Unless there are a lot of miraculous, virgin births in Texas, Rick Perry's taxpayer-funded emphasis on abstinence education is a bust.

According to an Associated Press (AP) article, "Teen pregnancy rates declined in the US, while more teens in Texas are getting pregnant.... Texas is in the top ten states for having the most pregnant teens, rising seven percent to more than 44,000."

In a recent previous commentary on BuzzFlash at Truthout, we wrote that "Perry adamantly defended the [abstinence education] program. This is not only a Victorian outlook, it contradicts the right-wing notion that every government program should be judged by its effectiveness."

The AP report quoted the manager of the West Texas Planned Parenthood Clinic about the pregnant teens who she sees:

"They're not educated in the pregnancy itself and in the options that they have about birth control or they don't know anything about STDs," [the manager] said. "They're just uneducated about it. The school district is abstinence only."

Enforced ignorance doesn't reduce teen pregnancy; it just makes it more likely. Moreover, abstinence-only education is a cruelty visited upon young women who don't want to become mothers so early in their lives.

Rick Perry's harmful political stakeout to attract religious right voters is an abuse of teenagers. There's nothing miraculous about the teenage pregnancy rate in Texas. It's born of selfish ambition, pure and simple.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It was a little more than a month ago that the Norwegian Islamophobic Christian fundamentalist Anders Behring Breivik, wreaked havoc in Norway, killing 77 and injuring many more. After the initial flurry of reportage, analysis, commentary and punditry, for all intents and purposes Breivik has disappeared into the ether that is the American mainstream media. Maybe it is thus because it happened in far off Norway, maybe it is because our attention span is disastrously truncated, maybe it is because - like in so many of these cases -- he has been too easily dismissed as a madman acting alone. Perhaps, too, the connective tissue between Breivik and Islamophobes in the U.S. is too hot to handle.

These days, we've pivoted on to other things: the debt-ceiling fiasco; the daily vicissitudes of the stock market; anguish over thirty-one more U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan and the increasing carnage in Iraq; Rupert Murdoch's serial scandals; Rick Perry's prayer-fest followed by his celebrated tossing of his hat into the Republican presidential ring; the Michelle Bachmann Newsweek cover.

As Keith Olbermann exclaims on his nightly "Countdown" program at the end of the zany videos segment; "Time Marches On."

Interrupting the 'March of Time'

In a engrossing essay in the August issue of Esquire titled "The Bomb That Didn't Go Off" (http://www.esquire.com/features/homegrown-terrorism-us-0811), Charles P. Pierce interrupts the march of time, hopefully for more than a short rest-bit as he revisits the site of a bomb that didn't explode. Pierce takes a close look at the events of January 17, in Spokane, Washington, and places them within the borders of the question: Why has a series of right-wing-initiated violent actions in the U.S., including bombings, plans for bombings, and assassinations, have not gotten the attention they deserve?

To recap: On January 17, a bomb was discovered on a "bench in the corner of a downtown parking lot at the intersection of Washington Street and Main Avenue," a spot that was on the route of the hundreds of marchers expected to take part in the annual Martin Luther King Day celebration.

The bomb was discovered by "three maintenance workers [who] were sprucing up the perimeter of the parking lot at Washington and Main, shining up the route of the march." Police came, the area was cordoned off and evacuated, the bomb, that was discovered to be an IED, was robotically disarmed, the march was re-routed; no bomb went off, no one was hurt. Eventually, Kevin Harpham was arrested and accused of planting the bomb.

And, as the Reverend Percy Happy Watkins, who has delivered a reenactment of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech in Spokane for twenty-five years or so, pointed out: "We just forgot about it, that's what we always do."

Pierce writes: "That the events of January 17 largely have faded from the news has nothing to do with luck at all. That is all human agency - how a fragmented country gathers the pieces of an event like this and tries to construct from them, not necessarily the truth of what happened, but a story that the country can live with, one more fragment among dozens of others that the country has remembered to forget."

As we move deeper into an age of misinformation, disinformation, and superfluous information, maintaining our collective memory will more and more depend on honest information brokers; storytellers, journalists, investigative reporters who pursue a story with a passion and hunger for truth.

Circling back to Anders Behring Breivik

Thanks to some heady research and reporting by Jason Boog of GalleyCat ("The First Word on the Book Publishing Industry") and others, we have learned that in his 1,500 page manifesto titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence Breivik, the Norwegian Christian fundamentalist accused of killing 77 people in a car bombing and the subsequent murder spree at a youth camp, had "outlined plans for attacking writers, journalists and literature professors."

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Running now would be an awful idea
Like Gaddafi thinking it'd be neat
This week for him in Tripoli to have
A friendly little meet-and-greet.

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ERICA PAYNE FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

When Warren Buffet called on Washington to get "serious about shared sacrifice," he invoked the central premise of the American experiment, that each citizen has an obligation to look beyond one's own self-interest, to recognize the benefits that one has reaped from membership in these United States, and to understand that one is required, as a beneficiary, to give back.  Throughout history, Great American Presidents have both sacrificed personally for the good of the country and inspired others to do the same.

President Obama is not this kind of president.

Be it his 'temporary' extension of the Bush tax cuts; his embarrassing mismanagement of the debt ceiling debate, or his lackluster-at-best 'support' of Wall Street reform; President Obama has demonstrated an almost studied preference for not asking what we can do for our country.  Whether it is due to inexperience, bad advice, or lack of principle is irrelevant.  The president's inability to stir country-over-self patriotism - at a moment when it is needed most - has reached a point where it threatens the economy and the well-being of millions of Americans.

Unfortunately, such arguments, however true, have not stirred the president's advisors to change their losing strategy.  The advice of his strategists has been so bad, that the president risks not just losing; but actually being a loser.  Americans don't re-elect losers.  Ever.

What is obvious to everyone - except the president's closest advisors - is that the only way to NOT LOSE is to WIN.

But how on earth - in this morass of political dysfunction, with almost no real power and even less political capital - can the president win?  Game Theory can point the way.

Between now and November 23rd (when the super committee presents its deficit reduction plan to Congress), President Obama will be playing a variant of the Prisoner's Dilemma, a game popular among Game Theorists.  The Prisoner's Dilemma is a theoretical puzzle that reveals why two people might not cooperate even if cooperation is in their best interest.  Sound familiar?

In 1984, a game theorist by the name of Robert Axelrod conducted a Prisoner's Dilemma tournament as an experiment to study the problem.  He invited academics from all over the world to submit strategies in the form of computer programs which would play against each other.  There were over 70 entries, some of them very complex, but the result was a big surprise: one of the very simplest strategies, a program called "Tit for Tat", won hands down.  The tit for tat strategy is just that:  compromise on the first round, and on each subsequent round, play the same card that your opponent played on the previous round.

In the President's Dilemma, the President and the congressional Republicans each have two cards - one card says "compromise"; the other says "hardball".  In each round, both players play one of their two cards face down on the table. The referee (perhaps best symbolized here by our global economic competitors) then turns them over.   If both players play the compromise card, they split the pool evenly (for discussion's sake let's say 100 marbles).  If both players play hardball, the referee takes half the marbles and the players split the other half.  But if one player plays hardball while his opponent plays compromise, the hardball player takes all the marbles.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It's come down to this: we have become the United States of food stamps.

Food stamps are important to those in need. Studies have also shown that food stamps generate economic activity: because for every dollar spent, there are some estimates that two dollars to three dollars goes back into the economy. That's not hard to believe when you see the ripple effect on grocery stores, truckers who transport food, and farmers, among others who benefit from food stamp purchases.

But what is troubling is that food stamp usage is at an all-time high in America because of the weakened economy and because of the stagnation and lowering of wages. There have been a few articles lately that wages are sinking so low for many jobs in the US that our manual labor force is headed toward third-world compensation levels.

This spiraling down of a living wage into a non-living wage has caused many people who work to need and qualify for food stamps. This is where government subsidies of corporations like Wal-Mart come in. Food stamps allow low-wage workers to literally survive, providing an indirect subsidy to low-wage employers.

According to one expert, food stamps are:

"increasingly work support," said Ed Bolen, an analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

And that's only likely to get worse: So far in the recovery, jobs growth has been concentrated in lower-wage occupations, with minimal growth in middle-income wages as many higher-paid blue collar jobs have disappeared.

And 6 percent of the 72.9 million Americans paid by the hour received wages at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour in 2010. That's up from 4.9 percent in 2009, and 3 percent in 2002, according to government data.

Bolen said just based on income, minimum wage single parents are almost always eligible for food stamps.

As a result, food stamp utilization, according to Reuters, has reached a record level: "Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population. That's an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and a deep recession led to mass job losses."

A tragic irony of the new American economy is that you can be employed and still not earn enough to put food on the table for your family.

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DEE EVANS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Buzzflash at Truthout has run several blog entries critical of President Obama for not standing strong for progressive values.  Most recently regular BuzzFlash blog writer Bill Berkowitz weighed in about his "breaking up" with Obama. As a counterpoint, Dee Evans, who appears on the BuzzFlash blog, offered a counterpoint defense of the President.

With whom do you agree?

Regarding those Obama supporters who have now taken the World Wide Web by storm complaining about what President Obama isn't doing, hasn't done or isn't going to do...I have some food for thought.

If you go back and listen to some of Obama's early speeches before his election, he said in nearly every speech that "change is not going to be easy" and that "it's not going to happen overnight" but I think many of us were way too busy listening to the sound of our own clapping to hear any of that.

Obama came into office with a wrecked economy, high unemployment and debt and 2 wars and 2 1/2 years in people are already trying to call him a failure.  Bush came into office in peacetime with a budget surplus and we gave him 8 whole years to earn that label.  What's wrong with that picture?

Do I wish Obama would be more confrontational from time to time, sure but that is not who we elected.  Democrats had a choice between a hawk (Hillary) and a dove (Obama) in 2008 and they chose the dove.  Now you want the dove to act like a hawk and you're mad at HIM that it's not in his nature.  That's like asking a cat to bark like a dog and then getting mad at the cat when he meows!  What drives me crazy is that people on the Left act like Obama has somehow changed in the last 2 years.  This is who he is and who he has always been.  THIS is who we voted for and now we want to act like we got blindsided!

Remember during the 2008 campaign (both primary and general election) when people kept saying that Obama should fight back more, be more "in your face" and get mad.  He never did...and he WON, because that's what we said we wanted.  After 8 years of George W. Bush, we said we wanted calm and compromise...and that's what we got.  Remember how much we parroted the label, "No Drama Obama"?  Obama's never been about conflict, he's always been about compromise and those who act now like they've been betrayed were only 'hearing' what he said but were not 'listening' to what he said...there IS a difference.

And to all those African-Americans who have now taken to the streets to decry what they allege is Obama's lacking in the Black community, I still say we are the most unrelenting and unfair when it comes to our own.  Bill Clinton (who cut welfare and food stamps) was proudly dubbed by many African-Americans (including 2 of Obama's biggest critics, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West) as the nation's "first Black President" but Obama (who is our REAL first Black President) is not Black enough!  Really?

As far as I can tell, Obama has not strayed much from what he said he would do in 2008.  Yes he has done more compromising than he (or us) probably thought he would but it is what it is...he is not a king.  But Obama's premise has stayed pretty much the same.  People want to shout about Afghanistan, but he always said he would increase troops in Afghanistan.  People want to shout about single-payer healthcare, but Obama never said he would enact single-payer health care.  People want to shout about DOMA, but Obama has always been honest about his mixed feelings about gay marriage.  People want to shout about the extension of the Bush tax cuts, but fail to remember that out of that deal came the repeal of DADT.  People want to shout about him not doing anything for Black America, but I guess increasing funding for HBCU's(http://www.blackenterprise.com/2010/03/01/obama-signs-order-boosting-hbcu-funding/), expanding SBA programs for minority-owned businesses and increasing Pell Grants for low-income families means nothing.

We talk about how Republicans always seem to succeed where Democrats fail, well one way they do that is by sticking together through thick and thin.  Republicans stuck by Bush during his term no matter what, but Democrats always seem to be looking for the nearest bus to throw our representatives under.

I asked myself recently, what have I done since President Obama's been in office to help make his Presidency a success and to help move forward his agenda and my answer did not make me proud.  Have I attended any town hall meetings to voice my political concerns?  Have I placed any calls or written to my representatives in Congress to voice my support (or objection) for any legislation?  Have I made any donations (no matter how small) to Obama or the DNC since January 20, 2009?  Have I volunteered in any of my local campaign offices or elections to help send lawmakers to Washington who could help the President?

I think far too many of us were overly obsessed with the thought of making history with the first Black President and thus our vision of happiness and success was very narrow.  Once we helped get Obama into office, we thought "Mission Accomplished!", moved on and never looked back.  I think the thought that this man might actually have to legislate and govern (and God forbid...compromise) never even entered our minds.  I know that I could have done a whole lot more in the past 2 years in advocacy for the President's policies and I think many of us who voted for him could probably say the same thing.

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A BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT NEWS ALERT

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

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today said federal regulators should stop thumbing their noses at a year-old law and enforce limits on excessive speculation in oil markets.

He cited secret data collected by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which showed that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other banks and hedge funds dominated oil markets in 2008 when prices rose sharply and topped $140 a barrel. The records - first made public by Sanders - shed light on the role of speculators at a time when oil prices soared and the pump price for gasoline spiked to around $4 a gallon.

In a letter to the commission chairman, Sanders urged Gary Gensler to convene an emergency meeting to crack down on speculators and provide needed relief for motorists and for people who live in cold-weather states, like Vermont, who face sharply higher prices this winter for oil to heat their homes.

"While making this confidential information public may have upset Wall Street oil speculators, the American people have a right to know exactly what caused gasoline prices to skyrocket to more than $4 a gallon back in the summer of 2008," Sanders said. "Further, there is little doubt that the same speculators who caused gasoline and heating oil prices to unnecessarily spike in 2008 are playing the same games again in 2011.  This is simply unacceptable and must not be allowed to continue."

The average price for a gallon of gasoline is now $3.57, still 87-cents more than gas cost two years ago when oil supplies were lower and demand for gasoline was higher.  Sanders also noted that the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that the price of heating oil in the northeast will be about 33 percent higher than last winter.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 

Rick Perry believes that he has earned respect for being a man so brazen that he didn't even blink when confronted with the apparent fact that he executed an innocent man. Indeed, he grew even more defiant as exculpatory evidence grew.

And, then, Perry made sure that the details of his eagerness to kill the "convicted" - but apparently innocent - man, were covered up by dissolving an investigation into the state killing of Cameron Todd Willingham.

Only a man with "guts," who carries a laser-sighted handgun with deadly, hollow-point bullets - even when he jogs with his security detail - could take pride in dismissing the Texas State murder of a man who wasn't likely guilty. As one person in a focus group on Perry, commissioned by a GOP gubernatorial primary opponent, crowed with admiration: "It takes balls to execute an innocent man."

A New Yorker article revealed that the investigating commission, before Perry dissolved it, found that the primary evidence against Willingham, "seemed to deny 'rational reasoning' and was more 'characteristic of mystics or psychics.'"

Justin Elliott of Salon believes that Perry's unapologetic execution of Willingham may have actually helped Perry beat Kay Bailey Hutchison when she challenged him in 2010:

Perry went on to cruise to a 20-point victory in the primary and an easy win in the general election.

[It] leaves one wondering, did the controversy actually help him in the GOP primary? If Perry jumps into the presidential contest, don't expect his primary rivals to bring up this old case ...

Some wags have joked that Perry is George W. Bush without a brain. Perhaps, Perry's pride in signing the death warrant for Willingham shows that he is also George W. Bush - who set a record for assembly-line executions in Texas - without a heart.

That's kind of like being Genghis Khan without the compassion.

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PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Most wealthy Americans will recoil at the suggestion that they should pay higher taxes, likely responding with the tired mantra that the top earners already pay most of the income tax. But, two points can be made in response to this: (1) Federal income tax is only a small part of the burden on the middle class. Based on data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the total of all state and local taxes, social security taxes, and excise taxes (gasoline, alcohol, tobacco) consumes 21% of the annual incomes of the poorest half of America. For the richest 1% of Americans, the same taxes consume 7% of their incomes. (2) The richest people pay most of the federal income taxes because they've made almost all of their new income over the past 30 years. Based on Tax Foundation figures, the richest 1% has tripled its share of America's income since 1980, after taxes.

But, there are better reasons why the rich should pay higher taxes.

The very rich 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.

Here's another good reason for the rich to pay more taxes: With the drop in tax revenue, funding for the preservation of American culture is disappearing. Do we want our national treasures deprived of maintenance because of budget cuts, as is currently happening in Italy? Do we want our national parks sold to billionaires? Do we want programs for music and the arts eliminated from schools, so that only children of the wealthy can
participate in them?

The 1912 book, "Promised Land," by Mary Antin revealed the wonder of a Russian immigrant coming to the U.S.: "In America, then, everything was free...light was free...music was free."

Not that capitalist markets don't have their place. But, the current view of democracy has gone to the other extreme. An extreme that allows individualism and personal gain to trump societal responsibility. The growing inequality makes community support and safeguards unnecessary for the privileged elite.

Finally, back to the tax statistics. Why should financial earnings (i.e., capital gains) be taxed less than wage earnings from actual work? The richest 10% of Americans owns over 80% of stocks, the gains from which are taxed (long-term) at a 15% rate, while most wage earners pay more than that on their income.

Furthermore, over the past 15 years millionaires have seen their income tax rates drop from 30% to 22%. During approximately the same time period, American economic growth declined from an annual 3.2 percent rate to 1.7 percent. Lower taxes for the rich do not lead to productivity.

Will the rich stop investing or move to another country if their taxes are increased? Not likely. They have it too good here. As Warren Buffett recently stated, "I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone - not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 - shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain."

Mr. Buffett is admitting what everyone else is beginning to realize. The rich take much more than they pay for.

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NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

From the Monroe Doctrine, which was aimed at curbing the encroachments of European powers in the nineteenth century, to Cold War foreign policy designed to forestall the geopolitical machinations of the Soviet Union in the twentieth century, Washington has stopped at nothing in its bid to maintain power and prestige within its own regional "back yard" of Latin America. But, with all of those rivalries now a relic of the past, the US is moving on to the next threat to its own hegemony: Iran. That, at least, is the impression I got from reading diplomatic cables that were recently released by the whistle-blowing outfit, WikiLeaks.

For Washington, a great concern was that Iran might gain a strategic foothold in South America, recruiting key allies such as Brazil. Much to the chagrin of the Americans, Brazil under former president Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva sought to carve out a more independent foreign policy, which embraced the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. By extending cooperation to Iran, Lula aimed to increase trade and boost collaboration on biotechnology and agriculture. In a surprising development, Lula even urged the west to drop its threat of punishment against Iran for it's pursuit of a nuclear program, a move which proved very reassuring to the politically isolated Ahmadinejad.

Throughout the Bush and Obama administrations, US officials in Brasilia sought to glean more information about this budding relationship, sound out disaffected politicians, and express displeasure about growing diplomatic ties between Tehran and Brasilia when need be. Key in this effort was US ambassador in Brasilia, Clifford Sobel, who pressured the Brazilian Ministry of Energy to cut its burgeoning ties to Iran. Speaking to government officials, Sobel expressed deep concern over the Brazilian state energy company Petrobras because it was considering plans to invest in the Iranian oil and gas sector, located in the Caspian Sea.

The Petrobras Imbroglio

WikiLeaks correspondence reveals Brazilian diplomats were walking a very fine tightrope, striking out on the one hand toward rogue nations like Iran, but on the other hand very keen on placating the Bush administration and staying within Washington's good graces. Responding to Sobel, the Brazilians argued that if they did not invest in Iran, then the Chinese would certainly beat them to it when when it came time to develop deep water exploration and production. However, the Brazilians also, "acknowledged the seriousness of the issue [Brazilian-Iranian energy ties] to the international community and, although they did not say Petrobras would halt its... activities in Iran, they did make it clear that they understand the sensitivity of the political moment."

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Late-night hosts will have a field day with this
Which will result in both laughter and cheers
But Jay Leno privately must admire a guy who
Wouldn't give up his job for forty-two years.

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110822/ts_nm/us_libya

NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

On the U.S. left, there are certain sacred cows that one should never take on directly.  For years, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has been, for the most part, sacrosanct and immune from criticism.  The underlying reasons for this kid glove treatment are hardly mysterious or difficult to surmise, particularly in light of Chávez's hostility to George Bush, the great bane of progressive folk.  Such sympathy would only increase over time, heading into high gear after the U.S.-supported coup of 2002 which was directed against Chávez.

When the coup rapidly unraveled and ended in fiasco, with right wing forces crumbling in disarray, the Venezuelan leader was returned to power in triumph.  Later, in 2006, Chávez was greeted warmly by the New York left after he lambasted Bush in a confrontational speech delivered on the floor of the United Nations.  Speaking from the same lectern that Bush had occupied just a day before, Chávez quipped "The devil came here yesterday, right here. It smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of."

When leftists want to know what to think about foreign affairs, many of them consult the views of celebrated academic Noam Chomsky.  For some time, the leftist MIT professor has provided sympathetic commentary on Venezuela, and in 2009 Chomsky even met personally with Chávez in Caracas.  It came as a slight surprise, therefore, when the professor of linguistics recently criticized Chávez for the latter's handling of a case related to María Lourdes Afiuni, a judge who was arrested in December 2009 by the president's secret intelligence police.  The Venezuelan president had ordered Afiuni's arrest after the latter freed a businessman incarcerated on charges of circumventing the country's currency controls.

In her defense, Afiuni claimed that the businessman's pretrial detention had exceeded Venezuela's legal limits, and that she was merely following United Nations protocol on such matters.  Chávez, however, was hardly convinced and proclaimed on national TV no less that the judge would have been subjected to a firing squad in a previous era.  Following her arrest, Afiuni was locked up in a women's prison where she was subjected to cruel and demeaning treatment.  Indeed, other inmates threatened to kill her and even sought to force her into sex.  Earlier this year, Afiuni was moved to house arrest after she underwent an abdominal hysterectomy at a local cancer hospital.

With much fanfare, the New York Times reported on the falling out between Chávez and his former supporter, noting that "Mr. Chomsky's willingness to press for Judge Afiuni's release shows how the president's aggressive policies toward the judiciary have stirred unease among some who are generally sympathetic to Mr. Chávez's socialist-inspired political movement."  In a telephone interview, Chomsky told the Times that he was requesting clemency for Afiuni on humanitarian grounds, and claimed that the judge had been treated very badly.  Though Afiuni's living conditions had improved somewhat, Chomsky noted, the charges against the judge were thin.  Therefore, Chomsky argued, the government should release Afiuni.

Chávez and Chomsky: A Warm History of Rapport

The recent spat between Chávez and Chomsky may put an end to a historically warm rapport.  Indeed, the Guardian of London recently wrote that "Hugo Chávez has long considered Noam Chomsky one of his best friends in the west. He has basked in the renowned scholar's praise for Venezuela's socialist revolution and echoed his denunciations of US imperialism."  In his speeches, Chávez frequently quotes Chomsky and the MIT professor has provided the Venezuelan leader with a degree of intellectual and political legitimacy.  Chávez has said that he is careful to "always" have not just one copy of Chomsky's books on hand but many.

The relationship dates back to 2006, when, during his celebrated speech at the United Nations, Chávez held up Chomsky's book entitled Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, and suggested that Americans read the work instead of "watching Superman and Batman" movies.  Speaking to the crowd, Chávez urged the audience "very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it."  Going even further, Chávez said the MIT professor's work was an "excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century."  Chávez added, "I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house."

Chomsky's book immediately rocketed to No. 1 on Amazon's best-seller list.  Speaking to the New York Times, a Borders Bookstore manager remarked "it doesn't normally happen that you get someone of the stature of Mr. Chávez holding up a book at a speech at the U.N." Book sales notwithstanding, Chomsky told the New York Times that he wouldn't describe himself as flattered.  For good measure, the academic added that he wouldn't choose to employ Chávez's harsh UN rhetoric.

On the other hand, Chomsky added, Chávez's anger with Bush was understandable.  "The Bush administration backed a coup to overthrow his government," the professor declared. "Suppose Venezuela supported a military coup that overthrew the government of the United States? Would we think it was a joke?"  The linguist added, "I have been quite interested in his [Chávez's] policies.  Personally, I think many of them are quite constructive."

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The creationist crowd does have some proof that Darwin wasn't right about every individual in a species. They are living proof: after all, they haven't evolved.

The other day, a very young boy in New Hampshire got the better of Rick Perry with a question about evolution: Perry responded, "That's a theory that is out there - and it's got some gaps in it."

Perry then went on to assert to the boy: "In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution. I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."

Except the US Supreme Court has ruled that it is a violation of the Constitution to teach creationism in schools.

Let's take another example that disproves evolution in the likes of Governor Perry. Texas has the third-highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. When queried by an interviewer about why the governor supports taxpayer funding of abstinence education in the Lone Star State when it doesn't work, Perry adamantly defended the program. This is not only a Victorian outlook, it contradicts the right-wing notion that every government program should be judged by its effectiveness.

And then there's Michele Bachmann, who just this week stated that Americans are concerned about the "rise of the Soviet Union." Maybe she was confused because it is the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Wall being erected. As with most embodiments of creationism, Bachmann's frame of reference moves backward in time, not forward.

BuzzFlash at Truthout noted earlier this year, "a fundamentalist Christian may feel reassured that - at the Creation Museum in Kentucky - a dinosaur wears a saddle to show that all life began simultaneously with a divine spark."

Maybe the Creation Museum should replace the dinosaur with a wax replica of Rick Perry and put a saddle on his back.

Evolution, on its path to the future, just passes some people by.

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