Faustian Bargain : Congress and Health Care

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer


Cutting the health care deal:
Bargaining behind closed doors

By Dr. Stephen R. Keister / The Rag Blog / January 11, 2010

“The country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.” — Will Rogers

Congress has returned to Washington and is set to resolve the differences in the House of Representatives’ tentative health care legislation and the Senate’s “Health Insurance Enrichment Act” in a series of secret meetings.

The idea of secret gatherings, in an elected democratic form of government, becomes not only disturbing but frightening, especially in view of the fact that MSNBC on two occasions has reported that President Obama, who has made a Faustian bargain with the health insurance cartels and PhARMA, has urged the secret conclave to adopt the essence of the Senate legislation which was written by a retired member of the health insurance company, WellPoint.

One can find such undemocratic shenanigans distasteful, and indeed terrifying, but the mainstream media, with its selective reporting, has not told the whole story. It now appears that another crises is looming. We who are retired and recipients of Medicare have watched the whole thing with a certain detachment considering the fact that we receive the benefits of an excellent system of socialized medicine under the Medicare Act. We are happy; we are provided for. Or are we?

On December 31, Bloomberg News reported the Mayo Clinic, at one of its Arizona primary care clinics, has stopped treating Medicare patients saying that the government pays too little. More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo Clinic in Glendale.

The Mayo organization had 3,700 staff physicians and scientists and treated 526,000 patients in 2008. It lost $840 million last year on Medicare. Nationwide, doctors made about 20% less for treating Medicare patients than they did for caring for privately insured patients in 2007. Congress last week postponed for two months a 21.5% cut in Medicare reimbursements for doctors.

A story published in the Boston Globe presents an even more disturbing picture. The independent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported that 29% of Medicare beneficiaries — more than one in four — have trouble finding a primary care doctor willing to treat them. A survey by the Texas Medical Association found that only 38% of the state’s primary care physicians were accepting new Medicare patients.

But if you think that that sounds grim, wait until Congress enacts the President’s health care overhaul. A central element of the House and Senate versions of ObamaCare is that Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and doctors — already so low that many providers lose money each time they treat a Medicare patient — will be forced lower still.

As we have pointed out in previous articles on The Rag Blog, it is essential to INCREASE Medicare payments to primary care physicians, i.e. general practitioners, internists and internal medicine specialties, or the entire health care system will collapse, even without “ObamaCare” as embodied in the farcical Senate bill. Each year Medicare loses billions of dollars to fraud and abuse. The program’s long-term deficit is a staggering $38 trillion, yet its reimbursement of physicians is so meager that more and more cannot afford to treat Medicare patients.

Congress must provide more inspectors to look into Medicare fraud. When I look at the burgeoning number of medical supply companies and watch their ads on TV for such things as motorized scooters, I wonder: Where is the oversight? When I see nursing homes, now called “rehabilitation facilities,” being built with the appearance of imperial palaces I wonder: Is this necessary?

And we must initiate immediate and forceful action to do away with payments to the insurance companies through the “Medicare Advantage Plans,” as well as the multi-billion dollar pay-outs of Medicare funds to the health insurance cartel and PhARMA to administer the Medicare Part D plan — from which they are making an outstanding profit without taxpayer subsidies.

We should also take a realistic look at the billions of dollars spent on “end of life care,” which frequently amounts to torturing the dying in an intensive care unit by inserting tubes, airways, and needles into their frail bodies rather than allowing them to die with dignity and in comfort in their own homes, in their own beds, supported by compassionate Hospice Care.

The depletion of the Medicare trust fund is mostly the legacy of those in the Bush Administration, continuing into the Obama administration — the work of the neoliberals

Neoliberal economics is the antithesis of liberal or progressive political theory. These are the followers of Milton Friedman who introduced his economic concepts through The Chicago School, into Chile under Pinochet, and subsequently into Argentina — causing their financial collapse in 1999-2002.

The Bush administration had a go at this when they tried unsuccessfully to privatize Social Security. This approach is based on

  1. Deregulation
  2. Privatization
  3. Doing away with government-sponsored social programs like social security, health care, education, and child welfare
  4. Encouraging free trade (shipping our jobs overseas)

These folks are still about, helping to write counterproductive health care legislation and studiously avoiding correcting the hemorrhaging of the Medicare Trust Fund.

One begins to wonder exactly who is in charge in Washington, and to whom our elected representatives are answerable. In the Senate we do have a few folks of good will, like Maria Cantwell, Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, and Byron Dorgan. In the House of Representatives the 81-member Progressive Caucus functions under the leadership of such folks as Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson, Peter DeFazio, James McGovern, and other trustworthy colleagues. Our health care future depends on the honor and the tenacity of these few people.

The President has now sided with the Senate approach to paying for health care — taxing the working man’s health insurance. Why not increase taxes on the very wealthy as provided for in the House bill? Why are our elected representatives afraid to ask those whose incomes are in the top one percent to pay their fair share. And not just when it comes to health care; why are they procrastinating about renewing the inheritance tax and undoing the Bush tax cuts? To provide decent health care for all, and to provide the peace of mind that comes with knowing that such care is available, we will need additional taxation; however, let us make it fair and equitable.

At the present time the Senate bill, a completely inadequate bill, takes $500 billion of taxpayer money and hands it over to the private insurance industry, according to Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for A National Health Program in an interview with Amy Goodman on “Democracy Now!” The Senate bill was written by Elizabeth Fowler who is a former vice president of WellPoint, the nation’s largest health insurance company. And this is the legislation that President Obama is arm-twisting the people’s representatives to adopt!

Dr. Woolhander also points out that the deal the President made with the drug companies required the industry to give up very little. They said that for Medicare recipients who are in the “doughnut hole,” they would make lower priced (brand name) drugs available. That is a very small share of the population. For others, who may be unable to afford expensive drugs, we got nothing from the pharmaceutical industry. It should be noted, once again, that the Senate voted down a bill sponsored by Senator Dorgan to allow the importation of lower priced drugs from Canada or Europe.

Ms. Goodman pointed out that the Massachusetts plan is being considered as a model for national legislation — which includes a mandate to buy private health insurance, with a fine of up to $1,068 for failing to do so. Yet much of the Massachusetts plan has been wildly expensive (in view of the fact that it is run by private health insurance companies).

According to the state’s report to the bond holders, it has cost $1.3 billion this year. The state has opted to pay for that by stealing money from safety net clinics and hospitals, so that safety net providers that care for the mentally ill and people with substance abuse, and provide primary care, have received decreased funding. Massachusetts now has the highest health care costs in the history of the world.

Bob Herbert pointed out in The New York Times that middle class families in 2008 actually earned less, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999. One out of eight Americans, and one out of four children, are on food stamps. There has been no net job creation between December 1999 and now.

The President and his economic advisers gratuitously provide the big banks with taxpayer funds, but only give lip service to the unemployed and underemployed. We find money for endless futile wars that accomplish little as far as national security is concerned and drive our nation deeper and deeper into debt. We can afford to subsidize the defense industries but can find little or no funding for decent health care, while our health care system ranks 37th worldwide according to the WHO.

One final thought, not related to health care, but pertinent to those of us who are still angry about the administration’s subservience to the big banks, and their immoral payment of bonuses with taxpayer money. Arianna Huffington, on The Huffington Post, suggested that we, the citizens, show our displeasure with the banking industry by transferring our savings to community banks, thus stimulating the local economies. The response has been remarkable.

The nation faces a critical week with the secret negotiations progress. We have reached, I fear, a point where all we can do is hope that some honorable elected representatives will stand up for the people of this nation, using such parliamentary maneuvers that are available, and stop the present rush to destruction that appears to be playing out in Washington.

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David McReynolds : Gaza ‘Footnotes’ and Israel’s Legacy

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer

“The people were afraid. There was no shouting there. No screaming.” Families look for their relatives after a massacre in the Gaza Strip in 1956. Illustration from Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco.

Times’ review of graphic novel suggests
shifting attitude towards Isreal

By David McReynolds / The Rag Blog / January 11, 2010

Sometimes the most important news comes between the lines. The New York Times Book Review of December 27, 2009, carried a remarkable full page piece on page 13. “They Planted Hatred in Our Hearts” was the banner heading of a book review by Patrick Cockburn, of Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza: A Graphic Novel, an illustrated history, 418 pages.

This is not a story about recent events in Gaza, not the “Cast Lead” offensive which so shocked the world. No, it is a book about two mass killings of Palestinians, by the Israeli military in 1956 — so long ago they have been forgotten.

Briefly — because I want to discuss the importance of the “fact” of the review, not the content of Sacco’s book — in 1956, when Israel launched its attack on Egypt, there were 275 Palestinians killed in the town of Khan Younis and 111 in Rafah, a town a few miles away. This was in the course of a November 12 military operation by Israel. The killings were mass murders of non-combatants. The story Sacco tells has been well-documented by Palestinian and Israeli eyewittnesses, and by UN accounts.

What makes the review important is less the account itself — every war has such actions. Both the Palestinians and Israelis have engaged in targeting noncombatants. The U.S. certainly did so in Indochina, the Soviets did it in Afghanistan. It is by now so routine that one asks why Joe Sacco took the trouble of turning back in time, to 1956, and documenting these particular events.

It was because Sacco felt these mass murders laid the basis for the violence of the second Palestinian intifada.

What I found important is the fact this book review was placed so prominently in The New York Times Book Review, or that it appeared there at all. Twenty years ago such a book would not have been reviewed in any major New York publication or, if reviewed, would have been “balanced,” suggesting perhaps the massacres had not taken place, or were provoked. But that Cockburn’s review is carried, that these ancient massacres are brought back to life, and perhaps most important, the fact the review included a quote from the Israeli chief of staff, Moishe Dayan, that is remarkable.

Six months before the Israeli offensive against Egypt, Dayan made a famous speech at the funeral of an Israeli commander who had been killed on the Gaza border. Dayan wondered aloud what explained the Palestinians’ “terrible hatred of us” and then gave this answer to his own question:

For eight years now they have watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their lands and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our homes.

The killings of 50 years ago were never punished. The Israeli army inquiry into the events at Rafah and Khan Younis can no longer be found in the Israeli military archives.

Those of us who have, over the years, grown more critical of Israel, leading, in my case, to a call for a total end of all economic and military aid to Israeli, have been dismissed as anti-Semitic, or as “obsessed” with Israel, when there are so many other horror stories elsewhere on the planet. (And there are — any issue of the New York Times reminds us of terrible violence and crimes across the globe).

But as time has passed and the hopes of the young Zionist movement have been dashed by reality, more voices are being raised, many of them within the American Jewish community itself. There is an active group of Jews within Israel which I might call the “saving remnant,” which has broken the silence, has sought out the Palestinians, has made alliances, demonstrated, been arrested.

So today we have the unthinkable — American and Israeli Jews united against the actions of the Israeli State. And the most important newspaper in the U.S. carrying a painful account of mass murders of noncombatants by the Israeli Army more than 50 years ago. This is a case where it is less the fact the book was written, but where and how it was reviewed, which should give pause to the uncritical supporters of Israel. The days of the unquestioned U.S. alliance with Israel are ending.

[David McReynolds is a former chair of the War Resisters International, was the Socialist Party candidate for President in 1980 and 2000. He is retired and lives on the Lower East Side of New York with two cats. He can be reached at dmcreynolds@nyc.rr.com.]

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Got Fascism? : Obama Advisor Promotes ‘Cognitive Infiltration’

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer

Presidential advisor and long-time Obama buddy Cass Sunstein.

Your government appointees at work:
Cass Sunstein seeks ‘cognitive’ provocateurs

By Marc Estrin / The Rag Blog / January 11, 2010

Cass Sunstein is President Obama’s Harvard Law School friend, and recently appointed Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

In a recent scholarly article, he and coauthor Adrian Vermeule take up the question of “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures.” (J. Political Philosophy, 7 [2009], pp. 202-227). This is a man with the president’s ear. This is a man who would process information and regulate things. What does he here propose?

[W]e suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity. (Page 219.)

Read this paragraph again. Unpack it. Work your way through the language and the intent. Imagine the application. What do we learn?

  • It is “extremists” who “supply” “conspiracy theories.”
  • Their “hard core” must be “broken up” with distinctive tactics. What tactics?
  • “Infiltration” (“cognitive”) of groups with questions about official explanations or obfuscations or lies. Who is to infiltrate?
  • “Government agents or their allies,” virtually (i.e. on-line) or in “real-space” (as at meetings), and “either openly or anonymously,” though “infiltration” would imply the latter. What will these agents do?
  • Undermine “crippled epistemology” — one’s theory and technique of knowledge. How will they do this?
  • By “planting doubts” which will “circulate.” Will these doubts be beneficial?
  • Certainly. Because they will introduce “cognitive diversity.”

Put into English, what Sunstein is proposing is government infiltration of groups opposing prevailing policy. Palestinian Liberation? 9/11 Truth? Anti-nuclear power? Stop the wars? End the Fed? Support Nader? Eat the Rich?

It’s easy to destroy groups with “cognitive diversity.” You just take up meeting time with arguments to the point where people don’t come back. You make protest signs which alienate 90% of colleagues. You demand revolutionary violence from pacifist groups.

We expect such tactics from undercover cops, or FBI. There the agents are called “provocateurs” — even if only “cognitive.” One learns to smell or deal with them in a group, or recognize trolling online. But even suspicion or partial exposure can “sow uncertainty and distrust within conspiratorial groups [now conflated with conspiracy theory discussion groups] and among their members,” and “raise the costs of organization and communication” — which Sunstein applauds as “desirable.” “[N]ew recruits will be suspect and participants in the group’s virtual networks will doubt each other’s bona fides.” (p.225).

And are we now expected to applaud such tactics frankly proposed in a scholarly journal by a high-level presidential advisor?

The full text of a slightly earlier version of Sunstein’s article is available for download here.

Marc Estrin. The author gets in the last word.

[Marc Estrin is a writer and activist, living in Burlington, Vermont. His novels, Insect Dreams, The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, The Education of Arnold Hitler, Golem Song, and The Lamentations of Julius Marantz have won critical acclaim. His memoir, Rehearsing With Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater (with Ron Simon, photographer) won a 2004 theater book of the year award. He is currently working on a novel about the dead Tchaikovsky.]

UPDATE: See Rag Blog Scoop about ‘Cognitive Infiltration’ Stirs up Internet Storm by Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / January 16, 2009

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Steve Russell : On Being ‘Outed’ as an American Indian

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer


Tribal secrets:
Carrying the freight of being an Indian

Being outed as an American Indian changed my professional life, starting with an overnight 20 point drop in my IQ.

By Steve Russell / The Rag Blog / January 11, 2010

Steve Russell will be Thorne Dreyer’s guest on Rag Radio, Tuesday, January 12, 2-3 p.m. on KOOP 91.7 FM in Austin. They will discuss crime and punishment, the status of American Indians, the War in Afghanistan, and other issues facing progressives in 2010 America — as well as Steve’s experiences as a Sixties activist, a trial judge, an educator, and as a Cherokee Indian. For those outside the listening area, go here to stream the show.

What does it matter to be American Indian? I get that a lot from friends and faux friends.

Actually, when I got “outed” the reaction of my friends hurt more than the reaction of my enemies. I was an elected official, and all elected officials who do anything have enemies. Since I was an elected official to change the world rather than to have a job, I did quite a bit. So I had quite a few enemies.

I was outed when the Austin newspaper carried a story about some lobbying I had done for the Texas Indian Bar Association. Judges lobby all the time, although we seldom call it what it is. The ethical rubric is “efforts to improve the administration of justice.”

I had in the past lobbied for a probation option in petty misdemeanor theft cases, for the power to confiscate a car in subsequent offense DWI cases, against parental notification of abortions, and for any number of legislative efforts sponsored by the Texas Council on Family Violence.

In this case, I had been noticed lobbying for legislation to put dead Indians back in the ground when they get dug up, just like we do with dead white people. I fought that fight for 12 years, six legislative sessions, without success, in spite of the consistent support of then-Senator Gonzalo Barrientos.

It was a losing battle. Now, as then, there are more dead Indians on Texas campuses as “scientific data” than there are live Indians as students.

While the battle was lost, the effort did me no political harm. After all, the rap put on Indians who demand the respect other human beings take for granted is that we are anti-intellectuals. We have been explicitly called “book burners” because Indian bones, don’t you know, can be read by physical anthropologists to tell us about the human past. This is only the case with Indian bones because white people came to the Americas so recently. The fact that white people will not stand for having their dead disturbed is… coincidence.

Whatever the merits, most of our statewide officeholders are living proof that anti-intellectualism is not a political liability in Texas. Still, being outed as an American Indian changed my professional life, starting with an overnight 20 point drop in my IQ. Lawyers were suddenly explaining things to me in court you would not have to explain to a first year law student.

A truly bizarre incident stemming from that news story involved an elderly gentleman who tracked me down at the courthouse to object to the fact I held public office — because “Indians don’t pay taxes.” While I was finally able to convince him that this Indian has paid taxes since joining the military at age 17, he was still of the opinion that the only reason I did so was that I was too damn dumb to claim my “exemption.”

I had never hidden my tribal ties but never advertised them either. My wives and girlfriends knew, and I’m pretty sure most of the people who worked with me on The Rag knew because I was always interested in coverage of Indian issues.

After my outing, even people I had known for years reevaluated my intellect. My enemies decided that I had dredged up a fake past to play the affirmative action card. This in spite of the facts that I was born in raised in Oklahoma and that I never said a word about my ethnicity to any of the schools I attended except to request a graduation notice sent to the tribal newspaper.

The reason I never brought it up is that, while I support affirmative action as policy, I would not touch it with a 10 foot pole in my own life. I did not want the stigma, but it turns out I could not escape the stigma anyway.

In both of my academic appointments during my second career, I was admonished about publishing “Indian stuff.” It was really clear that I was wanted because I was a judge, not because I was Indian.

Now I’m retired in Sun City, Texas, and all that is behind me, right? Not exactly. In the gym I need to visit every day for my health, I find a goddam cigar store Indian. The first time I saw it, I got an immediate knot in my stomach, and it’s not gotten much better since. I wanted to retire but I’m going to have to make a stink.

I can play all the stuff I am in for like a jukebox: no offense is intended, it’s just an historical artifact (in a gym?), and, anyway, I’m part Indian (which part? Obviously, not the heart). I haven’t been here a month yet and I keep stalling the opening salvos in a battle that would not happen even for a black man. Can you imagine if it were a lawn jockey?

What does it matter to be an American Indian? It does not matter at all if you are willing to hide your ethnicity, something not difficult in the Southwest. But if you are outed or you out yourself, I’ve learned that it’s not easy to carry the freight of the least successful ethnicity in politics, in education, and in life expectancy, which I guess is another way of saying that few of us live to retire and therefore I should not be shocked to find little regard for our existence in a retirement community.

You can’t retire from being who you are.

[Steve Russell, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is a Texas trial court judge by assignment. He recently retired as an associate professor of criminal justice at Indiana University. His writing has been published widely; he is a columnist for Indian Country Today and a contributor to The Rag Blog. Steve was an activist in Austin in the Sixties and Seventies, and wrote for Austin’s underground paper, The Rag. He lives in Sun City, Texas, near Austin.]

Also see:

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Scientists : Dolphins are ‘Non-Human Persons’

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer

Bottlenose dolphin Delphin and her baby Dolly at a zoo in Duisburg, western Germany. Photo by AP.

Behavior studies:
Dolphins are second smartest animal

‘The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions.’ — Lori Marino, zoologist

By Jonathan Leake / January 10, 2010

Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons.”

Studies into dolphin behavior have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.

The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.

“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size,” said Lori Marino, a zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has used magnetic resonance imaging scans to map the brains of dolphin species and compare them with those of primates.

“The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions,” she added.

Dolphins have long been recognized as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children. Recently, however, a series of behavioral studies has suggested that dolphins, especially species such as the bottlenose, could be the brighter of the two. The studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future.

It has also become clear that they are “cultural” animals, meaning that new types of behaviour can quickly be picked up by one dolphin from another.

In one study, Diana Reiss, professor of psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York, showed that bottlenose dolphins could recognize themselves in a mirror and use it to inspect various parts of their bodies, an ability that had been thought limited to humans and great apes.

In another, she found that captive animals also had the ability to learn a rudimentary symbol-based language.

Other research has shown dolphins can solve difficult problems, while those living in the wild co-operate in ways that imply complex social structures and a high level of emotional sophistication.

In one recent case, a dolphin rescued from the wild was taught to tail-walk while recuperating for three weeks in a dolphinarium in Australia.

After she was released, scientists were astonished to see the trick spreading among wild dolphins who had learned it from the former captive.

There are many similar examples, such as the way dolphins living off Western Australia learnt to hold sponges over their snouts to protect themselves when searching for spiny fish on the ocean floor.

Such observations, along with others showing, for example, how dolphins could co-operate with military precision to round up shoals of fish to eat, have prompted questions about the brain structures that must underlie them.

Size is only one factor. Researchers have found that brain size varies hugely from around 7oz for smaller cetacean species such as the Ganges River dolphin to more than 19lb for sperm whales, whose brains are the largest on the planet. Human brains, by contrast, range from 2lb-4lb, while a chimp’s brain is about 12oz.

When it comes to intelligence, however, brain size is less important than its size relative to the body.

What Marino and her colleagues found was that the cerebral cortex and neocortex of bottlenose dolphins were so large that “the anatomical ratios that assess cognitive capacity place it second only to the human brain”. They also found that the brain cortex of dolphins such as the bottlenose had the same convoluted folds that are strongly linked with human intelligence.

Such folds increase the volume of the cortex and the ability of brain cells to interconnect with each other. “Despite evolving along a different neuroanatomical trajectory to humans, cetacean brains have several features that are correlated with complex intelligence,” Marino said.

Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them.

Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, who has written a series of academic studies suggesting dolphins should have rights, will speak at the same conference.

“The scientific research . . . suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” he said.

[This article was first published in The Sunday Times of London, on January 3, 2110. Additional reporting by Helen Brooks.]

Source / Times Online

Thanks to Jim Baldauf / The Rag Blog

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Republican Attack Machine : Controlling the Spin

Posted on January 10, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer


Republican assault on the truth:
A winning strategy for an off-year election

The Democrats appear to be clueless in the face of a relentless propaganda campaign that relies upon what were once psychological tools to be used against enemy populations.

By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / January 10, 2010

Last weekend, the GOP attacked President Barack Obama as a poor leader in the war on terror. They have no information to support their claims, but the attack is well-planned, magnified by the media, and was almost unchallenged by the Democrats. So successful were the Republicans at ginning up outrage against President Obama that he had to go on television to bear full responsibility for the failure.

Initially, the Obama administration handled the Christmas bombing attempt above Detroit in a clueless manner, and this invited the concerted Republican attack.

This situation bears all the earmarks of the spin wars the Democrats lost hands down over health care and the economy.

Avuncular Former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean led off saying Obama’s plate was too full and that he was distracted with things like health care when he should have been “focused” upon improving the operations of the Transportation Safety Administration. Kean is the same fellow who deftly presided over the 911 Commission coverup.

Kean’s comment on Obama being distracted from his anti-terrorism duties became the leading sound bite for the rest of the news cycle. But what proof is there that Obama has not been “focused” and spending time on terrorism? Absolutely none! If fact, Obama was attacking Al Qaeda bases in Kuwait a month before the Christmas plane bombing attempt occurred.

Then Senator Jim DeMint attacked the president for not doing enough about terrorism. This is the same man who voted against increasing funding for TSA and Homeland Security. He also put a hold on the nomination of Erroll Southers’s nomination to head TSA. Hence, De Mint is responsible for making TSA leaderless at this critical time. He blocked Southers because he wants a pledge that the TSA workers will not be allowed to join a union. One interviewer gently reminded the South Carolina extremist about his funding vote.

Democrats have said little about the “hold” and have not mentioned all the other holds on Obama’s judicial nominees. No one mentioned that the Republicans had seven years to fine tune the air safety mechanism, and Republican writer Katherine Parker moved to head off that line of reasoning by writing that it is all Obama’s problem and fault now.

A third line of attack was led by Dick Cheney, who is actually growing in popularity. Somehow he thinks that rhetoric wins battles with terrorism. Because Obama will not use the term “war on terrorism,” Cheney says Obama was soft on terrorism. The implication was that if Cheney were still VP he would have sniffed out the Detroit jockey shorts bomb plot just as he pulled together the dots on 9/11.

A few commentators actually showed clips in which Obama used the term ”war.” The issue, of course, is that the Islamic world equates “war on terrorism” with “war on Islam.” Every time the term was used, the terrorists got more recruits. Cheney and his ilk do not care about this; they have an arguing point and they are determined to defend the Bush legacy and defame Obama even if it is by helping Al Qaeda recruit more killers and suicide bombers.

Then, a few days later, Senator Jon Kyl said he feared for the nation’s safety while Janet Napolitano was Secretary of Homeland Security. John McCain stood at his side to add gravity to this pronuncimento. Somehow her misstatement after the event proved she was an inept administrator. Say it enough times and it makes perfect sense to the average bloke.

That evening CNN’s resident grouch Jack Cafferty invited viewers to answer whether she should be fired, and he received a flood of emotional rants, most of them were ad hominem in nature.

The Republicans are absolutely shameless, but also very effective. From January 20, 2009, on they focused on the 2010 off-year elections — an occasion when few vote. Their endless charges have heated up their base and converted many independents. In a few weeks, they convinced many that the Obama Administration was responsible for the near success of the Christmas underwear bombing at Newark. Obama had to shoulder all the blame himself.

There was a great deal of evidence that George W. Bush had plenty of warning about 9/11, but he was never required to bear any blame. There is a lesson here.

Most of us would agree that Republican policies under George W. Bush were neither successful nor good for ordinary folks. Yet, over the last12 months, the Gallup organization has found that the nation has moved to the right with a consistent 40% conservative, 36% moderate, and 21% liberal. Somehow, realities have not sunk in. Perception management has triumphed. Is it any wonder that, despite having a fairly good policy year, Obama’s “strongly approve” rating dropped from 43% to 26%

In 1981, Ronald Wilson Reagan began the practice of using psychological warfare techniques on or against the American people. At the time, this was called “public diplomacy.” Make no mistake about it, this amounts to pouring poison into the stream of democratic discourse.

He spent over $100 million doing this. Psychological warfare techniques were manipulations of information that targeted the populations of other countries. Typically, they were distortions of information to play upon people’s superstitions, ignorance, and fears. But Reagan directed these powerful tools against the American people to sell his illegal secret war in Central America. George W. Bush used the same tools and spent even more public money doing this.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels mastered the art of the Big Lie. Repeat it often enough and people will believe it. Since those dark days, cognitive science has made massive strides. The tools the Republicans now deploy make Goebbel’s artifices look like playthings; and today’s strategists match or exceed in skills those of the Nazi propagandist.

A key understanding is that most brain functions are dominated by emotions, not by logical reasoning. The trick is to reprogram people’s memories with what you want them to recall, doing it in a way that will engage their emotions. Once this is accomplished, they will believe what you want them to believe.

The GOP has learned this lesson as well as much about shaping collective mindsets. From the advertising world, they have come to excel at message control, with most of their people reading off the same page at the same time. They have so outdistanced the Democrats that cognitive scientists sometimes refer to their “cognitive Madisonianism.” The reference here is not to the great James Madison, who would deplore what they are doing to disrupt the marketplace of ideas and democracy itself. The reference is to the purveyors of illusions on Madison Avenue.

George Lakoff has written about how the Democrats must learn some of their lessons for the good of the Republic. Some think adopting these techniques damages our political process. But we are getting down to a choice between two evils. The lesser evil is a situation in which both parties use these unfair and dastardly tools. The greater evil is that one party ignores them while the party most attached to privilege, the corporate world, militarism, and right-wing populism excels in their use.

In addition to mastering cognitive science, the GOP strategists seem to understand more about political science than the Democrats. Many of us mistakenly think that independents are folks in the middle who carefully study and weigh issues. There are a few independents who are like that. But the vast majority of them are all over the spectrum, frequently changing postures.

They do not like politics, refuse to study issues, and are very impatient. These folks usually see things in simple terms and adhere to the conventional wisdom. Some studies show that they are a little more inclined to stereotypical thinking about Blacks than most Americans. It is likely that some of them sense at some level that the middle class is not likely to recover lost ground and need a target at which to vent their anger.

Realizing that, the GOP was easily able to quickly convince a majority of independents that Obama was responsible for our economic woes and that his health care plans were socialistic. Remember, thsee “independents” have short memories and are not at all analytical. Moreover, the independents will not blame the Republicans for obstructionism. They do not follow politics enough to recognize this.

It even appears that they have rewired their own memories and reversed long held convictions. Most in 2003 would never believe that the GOP would become the party that favors torture and denying enemies essential due process. When the first reports of torture broke in 2004, conservatives insisted that those who brought the news were lying liberals who hated America. In time, the vast majority of Republicans came to embrace torture. They are now enraged that KSM and the Christmas bomber will be sent to federal courts.

Their propaganda machine has been so effective that it has essentially wiped out decades of Republican commitment to civil liberties and human rights. Yes, a few like John McCain, have managed to straddle these questions, but the party has essentially abandoned a noble heritage.

The Democrats appear to be clueless in the face of a relentless propaganda campaign that relies upon what were once psychological tools to be used against enemy populations. If the Democrats think that, without a lot of help, the voters will see through the artful GOP propaganda campaigns, they are in for a rude awakening. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Chris Dodd have already headed toward the exit, and one southern Blue Dog has rushed to complete his transformation into a Republican.

Some very good scholars — two at Yale — have been worrying about what would happen if the present slow recovery evaporates, with unemployment getting worse and the prospects for the middle class looking even worse. Their fear is that there could be a lurch to the far left and even incidents of violence.

From what we know about the capabilities of Republican strategists; the opposite would occur. Indeed the masses could stampede into some kind of Tea Baggers’ Valhala, with a mild exclusionist movement that would result in the removal of many liberals from teaching, journalistic, and ecclesiastical positions and a rush toward prudent silence among Hollywood types and other entertainers. Look for more creationist literature in the book stalls at National Parks.

[Sherman DeBrosse is a retired history teacher. Sherm spent seven years writing an analytical chronicle of what the Republicans have been up to since the 1970s. The New Republican Coalition : Its Rise and Impact, The Seventies to Present (Publish America) can be acquired by calling 301-695-1707. On line, go here.]

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Mexico : Anarchists Celebrate Mexican Revolution With Real Fireworks

Posted on January 10, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution in Mexico City. (Some went a little further in their observance: See story below.) Photo from La Jornada.

A real blast:
Bombs, resistance mark 100th
anniversary of Mexican Revolution

By John Ross / The Rag Blog / January 10, 2010

MEXICO CITY — Every hundred years on the tenth year of the century, Mexico seems to explode in social upheaval. In 1810, the war of liberation from the Spanish Crown unleashed a genocidal decade-long conflict. In 1910, the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Diaz triggered a fratricidal bloodbath. In recent months, dire expectations that 2010 would signal similar violence have been running high in this distant neighbor country, mired as it is in a grinding depression where 80% of Mexico’s 107,000,000 citizens subsist in and around the poverty line.

It is now the tenth of January 2010 and no new revolution has broken out — yet.

Nonetheless, the New Year was welcomed in here with a blast of revolutionary fireworks: bank bombings in Mexico City, surrounding Mexico state, and San Luis Potosi in the distant north, blew out a dozen ATM machines. Walls were scorched and windows shattered by firebombs at three auto showrooms in the greater metropolitan area and the government palace in the Mexico City delegation (borough) of Milpa Alta (an explosive device failed to ignite in Ixtapalapa, the capital’s most conflictive demarcation).

Incendiary attacks also struck a Telmex branch office, the Mexican phone monopoly owned by Carlos Slim, the richest tycoon in Latin America. A slaughterhouse and a police car were also firebombed. In Tijuana on the northern border, an anarchist group claimed to have machine-gunned three municipal police vehicles and a private security patrol car to welcome in 2010 in addition to “expropriations” at seven OXXO convenience stores during one of which a police officer (“placa”) was killed.

“It was either him or us,” lamented a communiqué from the purported perpetrators who signed off as “another anonymous anarchist action” in a document posted January 2 on “Conspiracy of Fire,” a direct action electronic clearing house.

The spate of bombings by anarchist cells was similar to a string of 15 such incidents in Mexico City and Guadalajara timed to coincide with Mexican Independence Day last September. A student activist at the National Autonomous University was jailed briefly by federal police for several of the fiery assaults in September and released.

Among the groupings that claimed responsibility for the actions that took place between December 31 and January 2 were the Propaganda Of The Deed Brigade which posted a declaration of war on the Conspiracy of Fire page that read in part,

With this document, we declare a war that will not end until all business people, the Bourgeois, militaries, governments, and all kinds of totalitarian power are exterminated.

What has happened today is just a small demonstration that we have lost our fear and our hatred of the system has grown. They can no longer kill or jail us with impunity. We are not afraid. Un Ojo por Un Ojo! (‘An Eye for an Eye’).”

The document and two other communiqués taking responsibility for the bombings made explicit reference to the exorbitant cost of government celebrations of both the centennial of the revolution and the bi-centennial of independence and noted that “although we do not believe in absolute dates, 2010 will be a year of struggle and a platform of preparation for what is to come…” — the 1910 uprising led by Francisco Madero was only the opening gong of a series of revolutions that finally fizzled out in 1919 with the assassination of the revolutionary martyr Emiliano Zapata.

Among the heroes lauded in the communiqués were historical anarchist leaders Praxides G. Guerrero and Ricardo Flores Magon, the Great Zapata, the Centaur of the North Francisco Villa, and Lucio Cabanas, the 1970s guerrillero leader of the Party of the Poor. Conspicuously absent from the list was Subcomandante Marcos who 16 years ago this January 1st gave voice to the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas in the very first hour of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Other participants in the New Year’s Eve Molotov cocktail party were the Simon Radowisky Brigade, named for a little-known Ukrainian-Argentinean anarchist who died in Mexico in 1956 while at work in a toy factory he was trying to organize, and the “May 25th 1910 Committee of Adjudication” which takes its name from the date that Praxides G. Guerrero fell in Janos, Chihuahua, the first anarchist to give up his life in the Mexican Revolution — the anarchist-led insurrection in Chihuahua preceded Madero’s revolution by six months.

Meanwhile, in Chiapas where mass psychosis that the Zapatistas would rise again January 1 has reigned for months, the Mayan rebels’ caracoles, or public centers, were shut down tight for the first time in 15 anniversary markings of that historic rebellion.

But the Zapatista Army of Liberation is hardly the only armed indigenous force for which rebellion in 2010 is an option. The Conspiracy of Fire page features an analysis of revolutionary prospects attributed to the TAGIN or National Indigenous Guerilla Triple Alliance that predicts “the calendar of conflict will spread throughout the country in the next 12 months,” claiming that 70 armed organizations have joined forces for concerted action in 2010. The article is illustrated by photos of armed guerilleros taken at a press conference held in Guerrero last summer by “Comandante Ramiro” (Omar Solis) of the ERPI (“Revolutionary Army of The Insurgent People”) — several months later, Ramiro’s body was recovered from a clandestine grave in the high sierra of that conflictive state.

While boasts of renewed revolution fly, President Felipe Calderon, now halfway through his calamitous six years in office, sought to put a happy face on the disasters his administration of Mexico has inflicted upon the country. Speaking from sunny Acapulco where the beaches were buckling under the weight of buxom bikini-clad tourists while the rest of the country shivered in the glacial cold, Calderon urged his compatriots to celebrate “this Year of the Patria (Fatherland) with happiness, working together in each home. This year we will write pages of glory and live the flame of our values that make us proud to be Mexicans (sic).”

In what could only have been an effusion of irony, the beaming president wished his bankrupt constituents a “Prosperous New Year.” Many observers (this writer was not alone) wondered what country Calderon thought he was addressing.

The COPAMEX, Mexico’s most influential business federation, was significantly more guarded in greeting the New Year, warning Mexicans to avoid violence in celebrating the duel centennials.

Despite veiled threats from the business sector, Mexico’s working class is in an uproar. A New Year’s Day zafarancho (riot) outside a power generating substation in Mexico state between displaced members of the Mexican Electricity Workers Union (SME) trying to prevent scabs from taking their jobs, and heavily armed federal police, left a dozen injured and the nearby pyramids of Teotihuacan, the City of the Gods, wreathed in tear gas fumes.

The confrontation marked the first violence in what has been largely a peaceful resistance movement ever since Calderon shut down the Luz y Fuerza power company last October putting 42,000 workers on the street, and suggests that an increasingly frustrated rank and file is prepared to raise the ante. On January 5 and again on the 6th, bands of SME workers stormed through the old quarter of Mexico City after the explosions of electrical transformers in the neighborhood brought out detachments of federal police.

Sabotage is rumored.

It is not mere coincidence that both the confrontation at Teotihuacan and many of the anarchist bombazos took place in Mexico state, which is governed by Enrique Pena Nieto, the presidential front-runner in 2012. Pena Nieto is a luminary of the resurgent Party of the Institutionalized Revolution (PRI) that ruled Mexico for seven decades until it was displaced from power in 2000 by Calderon’s rightist PAN party. The PRI won a landslide majority in the lower house of congress in 2009 mid-term elections and is expected to sweep all 12 governors’ races up for grabs in 2010.

In a remarkable reprise of the social unrest that detonated after runaway inflation excited hungry masses to rise up against the Diaz dictatorship 100 years ago, an abrupt jump in gasoline and diesel prices that kicked in on the final day of 2009 has set off a chain reaction of protests in Mexico City and the provinces.

On the first workday of 2010, 2000 truck drivers shut down key national highways for seven hours to protest the hikes — in Puebla, the drivers were joined by 500 electricistas from nearby Necaxa, the so-called “cradle” of Luz y Fuerza and the SME. The success of the blockade in Puebla, Hidalgo, and Veracruz states has inspired truckers’ association director Edmundo Morales to call for a national strike. Participation of the SME at the barricades may well be a precursor of increased worker solidarity in the coming year.

In Tepic, Nayarit, bus drivers protested the increase in fuel prices by parking their vehicles, paralyzing that provincial capital. Massive protests in Mexico City by independent unions and farmers’ organizations are expected later in the month.

The price surge viscerally wounds a popular economy that was grievously lacerated in 2009. The Calderon government’s annual daily minimum salary increase is less than 5% for 2010 and fails to match 6% inflation. The 2.60 peso a day “raise” does not even buy a ride on the Mexico City Metro that ferries millions of workers to their jobs each day.

On New Year’s morning, the leftist Mexico City government of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard raised the heavily subsidized Metro ticket price from two to three pesos a ride. The back of the ticket now reminds riders that the real cost is nine pesos.

A survey of public markets reported by the left daily La Jornada calculates a 30% rise in the basic food basket in the first week of 2010, largely due to fuel and electricity rate increases — tortillas, the essential nourishment for 26,000,000 Mexicans living in extreme poverty, leaped 10% a kilo throughout central Mexico.

Much like Obamaland, where the President crows about recovery in a jobless economy, Calderon pledged in a nationally-televised New Year’s message that 2010 will be a “year of recuperation” for Mexico although his predictions of 3% growth seems delusionally rosy — in 2009, the Gross National Product contracted 7% and growth was negative.

Unemployment, as measured by the government’s obfuscated system, is at a 15 year high of 6.8% — in the real world 6.8% translates to 40% of the work force not working, according to social economist Julio Boltvinik. 100,000 jobs are reportedly being lost each month (nearly 50,000 went down the tubes in October when Calderon fired the Luz y Fuerza workers.) But there is light at the end of the tunnel: according to the Wall Street Journal, a half million Mexican workers have found employment in the illicit drug industry.

The much-respected Economist Intelligence Unit’s yearly ratings of political instability take into account the socio-political dynamic in 165 countries. In 2010, Mexico places in the upper third of nations at risk of violent political upheaval. Whether this is an indicator of resurgent revolution here in 2010 is a story…

To Be Continued

[During the next three months, John Ross will travel the U.S. from sea to stinking sea with his new cult classic El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City which the New York Post (!) recently recommended as a “gritty, pulsating” read. For suggested venues (particularly in the Chicago and St. Louis areas) write johnross@igc.org.]

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Posted on January 10, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer

Richard Lee

FUCK A DUCK
ANYTHING FOR A BUCK

By Richard Lee / The Rag Blog / January 10, 2010

BOCAS DEL TORO, Panama — I’m watching the financial channel here in Panama, in Spanish, in the middle of the night. On this particular night the financial pundits and talking heads are taking turns for some reason reminiscing about the March 2008 Bear Stearns bailout with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

At first Bear Stearns looked like it was alright, but they were engaged in a common business scam, borrowing money using accounts receivable as collateral. Most businesses do this and as long as there is sufficient cash flow to pay the vig, or interest due, they get away with it.

Accounts receivable has two faces, or two meanings, in one sense it is a number in the company books that shows what the company is owed. Then there is the real accounts receivable, money owed to the company that they will actually receive some time in the future. The former, the one in the books, is usually much larger than the latter.

Sometimes the company gets found out. And the people who are lending them money demand that they use the real accounts receivable numbers. This happened to Bear Stearns. It happened long ago to Billy Sol Estes. Most of you don’t remember him, but you do remember Enron. Their accounts receivables were from companies that didn’t exist except on paper.

When Bear Stearns tried to roll over their short term paper, based on home loans that they claimed were receivable, it came to light that the loans weren’t receivable at all and the collateral on the loans (the homes themselves) weren’t worth what they said they were. The lenders refused to lend them more operating capital. And they began to go down the tubes.

J.P. Morgan offered to bail them out. Morgan offered them two bucks a share for the company. Morgan would then be the proud new owner of Bear Stearns accounts receivable, which wouldn’t really be receivable. This would leave Morgan holding the bag, an empty bag, making them vulnerable in the near future.

Something had to be done, the big corporations in the lending business were setting themselves up like a row of dominos, and the first one was starting to tip over. Two dollars a share was probably generous. Bear Stearns was unable to continue to operate so in reality they were worth zip, squat, nada, they were bankrupt.

Uncle Sugar offered to jump in and take J.P. Morgan’s back; in effect pony up the money, two dollars a share, to cover Morgan’s bid for a worthless company. Whoa, wait a minute said Morgan, if the Fed was going to pass out free taxpayers’ money, then why not get while the getting was good. Next morning Morgan announced that they had made a mistake, seems the worthless company, Bear Stearns, was really worth ten dollars a share. The Fed went for it and promptly put up five times the original bailout money.

Well it was late and my mind was wandering, first it sounded like, “keep watching the show, there is no one behind the curtain.” Then it wandered to “fuck a duck, anything for a buck.” And I remembered the poster and how it all came down and all alone in my Panama hotel, stretched out nude on the bed, I began to laugh, and the more I remembered about it the more I laughed. I’ve got a big shit-eating grin right now because I can’t wait to tell you this story.

Come on back with me now. This is Boston, it’s 1970. I’m living on Erie Street that runs out of Central Square in Cambridge. Sometimes I sell underground papers, and do some high level panhandling around Harvard Square, and sometimes around Boston City Hall, to pay the rent and keep food in my stomach, plus something to roll in the quiet moments.

But my real occupation is plotting the demise of U.S. imperialism. This was a very real struggle in those days and it seemed like it had possibilities. Like every great struggle it had many fronts. One of the fronts in that moment was the Troika Free Poster Factory. I was there at the beginning; actually I was a part of the beginning.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston had a school. It was a small school, a few students who showed artistic promise attended, most if not all on scholarships provided by the Museum. A group of these fledgling artists, the politically aware and therefore anti-war ones, formed a small collective within the MFA School to do something about the horrible Nixonian blood fest in Vietnam.

Their politics motivated them to harness the means at hand and when they saw an opportunity, they acted. The school provided the tools for the artists to do their thing; paint and canvas, sculpting clay, knives, chisels, air brushes, silk screens, a copy camera and a dark room. Probably a lot more that I don’t know about or don’t remember.

I knew about the copy camera. I also knew that in the evenings there was usually no one around and a door that wasn’t locked. I had more or less of an ID factory going over on Beacon Hill, just down the alley from Suffolk Law School, behind the State House.

Also in this alley was the State Print Shop whose trash I regularly sorted through to garner State paper that I could use to bolster ID sets needed by deserters, anti-war fugitives, and people who needed to get out of the country. I found blank licenses for all sorts of trades, blank ID’s, official letterheads and envelopes, and sometimes rubber stamps or embossing discs in the print shop trash.

One of the important pieces of ID in those days was a Draft Card. Every male citizen between the ages of 18 and 50 had to carry around a draft card; it was the only ID that was required by federal law. I couldn’t just “find” these, although I suppose a regular visit to the trash behind some draft board offices might yield one. Since this was a common piece of ID, I needed lots of them. Some friends in Texas had a printing press and were willing to run some off, but they needed a negative with which to make a plate.

I borrowed a nice clean draft card from a young man who had made the mistake of registering for the draft, and in the evening set out for the MFA School to use the copy camera. As usual the door was unlocked and no one was around when I slipped in and made my way to the camera and dark room.

I spent a while trying to get the right 100% size, and to locate the film and get it loaded correctly on the vacuum back of the camera, and to get the exposure and developing right. I’d done some film developing but most of this I was trying to accomplish by trial and error. While I was still puzzling my way through, the door opened and two students came in. It’s a small student body, everyone knows everyone, and they didn’t know me.

For a few seconds we stood looking at each other: they were wondering who I was, I was wondering if I should bolt out onto Huntington Avenue and escape to a friend’s pad over on Hemingway Street. The newcomers were a guy and a woman; they didn’t look dangerous. I decided to hold my ground. I needed that negative.

The woman spoke first. “What are you doing?” She didn’t sound angry or suspicious, more like inquisitive.

“I’m trying to get this camera to work.”

They stepped closer. “What are you trying to do?”

“I need to make a negative of this at a hundred percent, but it’s not working out too well.”

“Maybe I can help,” she said, coming closer, peering at the settings on the camera. The guy came over too; he was looking down at the draft card. It took a moment, but pretty quickly it all became clear to him, he tugged at her sleeve and nodded toward the draft card. Then she was looking at it too and then at me, back again to the card.

All three of us stood looking at the card; they were trying to make up their minds, and I gave them the time, maintaining the silence. They looked at each other. They looked at the card. Silently they came to an agreement about what to do. I waited, eyeing the door, ready to move.

She reached up, saying, “You’ve got to crank this up ‘til the two arrows meet.” The guy nodded his assent, about the arrows and about the card, and about what I was doing. I stopped looking at the door. We had a conspiracy going. She moved the card and adjusted the focus, we killed the lights and he cut a piece of film, we took the shot, they introduced me to the “bump” light, the guy took the film into the dark room.

With the light back on she introduced herself. She was Pamela, Pam. He was Matt. She never asked what I was going to do with the negative, she didn’t need to. We talked about the school and about Boston and about the war. We each knew that this was a fortunate meeting of destiny. Matt joined us while we waited for the film to dry.

They went to demonstrations and had done some artwork for some anti-war leaflets; they wanted to do more. They helped me opaque out the typed in information on the negative. We went over to the Greek coffee shop and talked ‘til late. We made plans to get together in a couple of days. It didn’t yet have a name, but the idea was pregnant; soon there would be a birth. We would call it the Troika Free Poster Factory.

The next time we got together, they brought three other MFA School students and I brought a friend who had an idea. He wanted to make a poster, it was somewhere in his head, it was his vision of the government. He wanted to depict them as sycophant weirdos in a way that he saw them. It was coming up to election time, but there was no hope that anything would change, kind of like now.

We tossed his idea around, and in doing so, Troika was born. We had a name and set to work on our symbol. In this case it was a flag or banner that we would silk screen, everyone contributing a part, a color, a design, according to their feeling for it.

We also defined how we would operate. We wouldn’t take people’s ideas and do the work for them, but would work together with them, teach our skills, use our means, and allow people the opportunity to express themselves. Posters would be produced by their authors, no names would be allowed and no organizations would be noted. Simply a person’s artistic idea produced as a poster, anonymously, and with a view that would be anarchist and anti-war.

The first poster began to take shape that night; the artwork would be in the form of a photo depicting my friend’s view. When I moved into the Erie Street place, I found a metal box full of fishing lures, or plugs. There were three or four dozen of them, wooden or plastic plugs, three or four inches long, painted in various colors and each with eyes on one end looking like some underwater bug, all had fish hooks in various places.

With the help of some modeling clay, we stood the plugs on end, in even rows and files, with all their eyes looking in the same direction. We took a picture with black and white film and printed it at the MFA darkroom. The posters for the most part were formatted to fit 17 by 22-inch poster boards. The copy camera blew our photo up to fill the top two-thirds of the space. Below, we art-typed the words “The government has been elected.”

From that we fabricated a silk screen, putting on the emulsion, burning and developing the image. We printed a couple of dozen copies, and my friend hung them around town, where they drew puzzled looks but left a strong impression. By the time we finished that one, we had a half dozen more posters in the works. I don’t remember them all, but I do remember that they were all poignant and expressed, in an artistic way, the feelings of many anti-war people.

This brings us, in a long, round-about way, to the poster I was thinking about that caused me to start laughing while watching the financial news, in Spanish, naked on my hotel room bed, one night in Panama.

This poster was the inspiration of my friend Carl. We got hold of one of many renditions of “Leda and the Swan.” Leda, in Greek mythology, was impregnated by the “god” Zeus while he was disguised as a swan. We made this poster a little bigger, probably 22 by 35 inches, and silk screened it on white 20-pound paper, coated on one side. In the center of this poster were Leda and the Swan getting it on, done in black ink. Above Leda and Swan in red ink it said, “FUCK A DUCK” and below the graphic it said, “ANYTHING FOR A BUCK.” That in itself has a certain amount of humor in it. But there is more to it.

We printed a couple of dozen copies. At night, armed with a half dozen cans of condensed milk, we left Central Square and, skulking up Mass Ave toward Harvard Square, began “hanging” them on storefront windows. There is nothing like condensed milk to attach paper to glass, it puts Elmer’s Glue to shame. It’s damn near permanent.

By the time we got to the little coffee shop (gone now) in Harvard Square, we were down to our last poster. After a couple of cups of coffee and cigarettes, we stepped out to look for a good location. We were directly across from Coolidge Bank. This was the bank that had the contract to issue welfare checks to the poor in the Boston area; they were unfriendly and arrogant to the people who came there to cash their meager stipends. What better spot?

I stood chickie (lookout) while Carl church-keyed open a can of milk and splashed it on the window of Coolidge Bank, then, working together, we put the poster up and rubbed it in real good. We walked back toward Erie Street, admiring our work along the way, and called it a night.

The next morning I panhandled my way from Central Square to Harvard Square looking for breakfast and cigarette money and maybe a start on a small bag of weed. Along the way I saw all the FUCK A DUCK posters we had distributed on the windows of shops and stores.

At Harvard Square I noticed a small crowd in front of Coolidge Bank. There were about five cops fondling their night sticks, a couple of dudes in suits and half a dozen gawkers all gathered in concentric semi circles around the window with our poster. In the center, one of the guys in suits was directing the other suit, who was trying to remove the poster by picking at the corner with his fingernails, making little headway.

The picker was picking, the manager suit was directing, the cops were tsk-tsking, and the gawkers were giggling. I sauntered up to stand at the back of the gawk circle.

Finally the picker had picked enough to grab the corner with his fingers, and, giving a tug, he pulled off the bottom six or so inches that had the words, ANYTHING FOR A BUCK. Now everyone became a gawker. They all stared for about ten seconds. Then the manager suit said to the picker suit, “Let’s go, we got the important part.” With that the cops headed back to sit on their fat asses in their respective squad cars, the suits went into Coolidge Bank, and the giggling gawkers stayed for one last look at the Swan doing Leda under the words, FUCK A DUCK.

Down in Panama, I laughed a little harder, picturing the suits at J.P. Morgan grabbing the check from Uncle Sam’s fingers and saying, “Let’s go. We got the important part!”

FUCK A DUCK, ANYTHING FOR A BUCK!!

Type rest of the post here

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Rewind and Restart : How the Dems (Could Have) Made ‘Health Care’ Happen

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer


(A New Years fantasy)

Once more from the top:
An alternative scenario for health care reform

By Zoltan Zigedy / The Rag Blog / January 10, 2010

In February of 2009, with his poll numbers and public expectations exceptionally high, President Obama announces that he supports the House health care reform bill with the most co-sponsors: HR 676, the universal, single payer plan. He notes that this has always been his answer to fixing the broken, for-profit system that now fails patient needs and burdens our economy.

Immediately, the health care industry and big Pharma go into full attack mode, condemning the bill as “socialism.” Obama meets with Democratic House leadership and emphasizes that “the American people need this bill and we will give it to them. This victory will pave the way for an overwhelming victory in the 2010 elections!”

House conservative Democrats join Republicans in attacking the House bill, citing industry generated polls and conservative pundits in arguing that the “American people do not want a government plan, but one that leaves health care in the hands of the private market.” The health care industry and its friends rush multi-million dollar attack ads into play, much as they did during the Clinton administration.

In the early spring, Obama holds a town hall meeting, nationally televised, in which he brings together, from around the country, hundreds of people who have been victimized by lack of insurance, poor insurance, coverage denials, and obscene health care costs. In a major address, Obama cites the tens of thousands who die every year from a lack of insurance coverage. He declares this as criminally tragic as the September 11 attacks. Also, he emphatically states that placing petty concerns above delivering adequate health care to all is unpatriotic.

That same week, House leader Nancy Pelosi publicly announces that HR 676 must be passed and she will hold Democrats’ feet to the fire with all the resources available to the Democratic Party, including election funding, committee seats, and primary challenges. CNN reports live on a conference of pollsters, health care providers, doctors, nurses, and economists who discuss the bill thoroughly, followed by a full endorsement. National media coverage is extensive. The Sunday morning gasbags devote their shows to the bill, grilling opponents in light of the Administration offensive.

As the Senate takes up a health care bill, progressive Democrats call for a rally in support of the bill to take place in DC in the summer. They pressure the House leadership to endorse the rally. The AFL-CIO, NOW, MoveOn, and all other liberal groups endorse the rally.

While seemingly endless debate goes on in the Senate, hundreds of thousands pour into DC to hear a wide range of speakers, musicians, and Congressional leaders in support of the Senate counterpart bill introduced by Senator Sanders. The crowd stirs with the spreading rumor that the President may well appear. Near the end, the crowd roars as President Obama briefly appears, thanking the demonstrators.

The Democratic Senate leadership, stiffened by the unprecedented rally, announces that they will bring the bill quickly to the floor. Senator Reid — the Senate Democratic leader — announces that this bill is as significant as any legislation since the Voting Rights Act. He wants his place in history to be identified with this vote. Administration staffer Rahm Emanuel reportedly caucused with Senate Democrats and says: “I don’t give a s*** about Lieberman. And Ben, you better get your ass on board or there will be hell to pay. You can’t even imagine the hell we’ll bring down on you. I want this f***in’ bill passed with ALL the D’s supporting it.” Emanuel denies this report.

The Republicans and a few Democrats howl in indignation. Fox news vilifies the House and Senate Democrats with wild charges of socialism and fascism. Harry Reid speaks in the Senate, holding a copy of the Constitution: “Maybe you folks in the Republican Party should read this. Americanism has never been to side with the bullies, and the insurance industry, their rich executives, big Pharma, and their consultants and lobbyists are bullies, forcing their profits ahead of the needs of the American people.” The media is shocked by his bold leadership.

Desperate Republican leaders announce a filibuster with the intent of forestalling a majority vote. The President goes on television with a sober, reasoned plea to have the bill passed. When asked by the press about the threatened filibuster, Obama replies with a wry smile: “Bring it on!”

As the Republican filibuster continues into the fall with Republican Senators droning on and on to an empty Senate chamber, public anger grows and grows. Late night comedians devote most of their shows to parodies of Senators quoting Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Constant picket lines of doctors, nurses, and victims of the broken U.S. health care system surround Senate office buildings. Media commentators question this tactic, blaming the Republicans for bringing legislation to a halt. Polls show Republican favorable ratings at an all time low.

Senator Reid is quoted as chiding a Republican colleague: “Don’t stop now. Keep it up until the interim elections!” Senator Reid denies saying this.

Late in November, Republican leaders huddle, recognizing that continuing to filibuster will destroy any chances of survival after the November 2010 elections. They quickly agree to call it off.

In early December, the Senate passes its version of Medicare for all by a vote of 51 to 25, with many Republicans nervously abstaining.

President Obama goes on national television, thanking all of those who worked so tirelessly and intensely to achieve an efficient, universal, and comprehensive health care plan that will rival any system in the world. He assures the American people that all the failings of the current system, referring to World Health Organization’s parameters, will be reversed and the U.S. will become a widely admired leader in delivering the best health care to its people. He promises to sign a final bill before Christmas, stating that he hopes that the new legislative act will serve as a long overdue but welcome gift to us all. “Happy holidays!” he concludes.


Of course this is a fantasy. We do not have the health care bill that we could have had. In fact, almost nothing in this fantasy is true. The President didn’t get behind the House bill with the most co-sponsors, the Democratic leadership didn’t fight hard for real change, there were no tough back room threats, the media didn’t give serious advocates a megaphone, there was no attempt by political leaders to engage and rally the base, political leaders did not show courage, and Democrats did not call the Republican bluff.

I ask my liberal friends and soft-left comrades that they try, in the New Year, to understand why things went so awry. I ask that they turn away from the comforting notion that we live with an economic and political system that can deliver democracy, justice, and equality by our simple participation in the permitted rituals. I ask that, in the New Year, they desist from finding scapegoats for this disaster that should shame us all: whether it be Obama’s betrayal, Blue Dog treachery, or that rotten renegade, Lieberman. It’s the system. Seriously, it’s the system…

[For more from Zoltan Zigedy, visit ZZ’s blog.]

Thanks to Jeffrey Segal / The Rag Blog

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Rewind and Restart : How the Dems (Could Have) Made ‘Health Care’ Happen

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer


(A New Years fantasy)

Once more from the top:
An alternative scenario for health care reform

By Zoltan Zigedy / The Rag Blog / January 10, 2010

In February of 2009, with his poll numbers and public expectations exceptionally high, President Obama announces that he supports the House health care reform bill with the most co-sponsors: HR 676, the universal, single payer plan. He notes that this has always been his answer to fixing the broken, for-profit system that now fails patient needs and burdens our economy.

Immediately, the health care industry and big Pharma go into full attack mode, condemning the bill as “socialism.” Obama meets with Democratic House leadership and emphasizes that “the American people need this bill and we will give it to them. This victory will pave the way for an overwhelming victory in the 2010 elections!”

House conservative Democrats join Republicans in attacking the House bill, citing industry generated polls and conservative pundits in arguing that the “American people do not want a government plan, but one that leaves health care in the hands of the private market.” The health care industry and its friends rush multi-million dollar attack ads into play, much as they did during the Clinton administration.

In the early spring, Obama holds a town hall meeting, nationally televised, in which he brings together, from around the country, hundreds of people who have been victimized by lack of insurance, poor insurance, coverage denials, and obscene health care costs. In a major address, Obama cites the tens of thousands who die every year from a lack of insurance coverage. He declares this as criminally tragic as the September 11 attacks. Also, he emphatically states that placing petty concerns above delivering adequate health care to all is unpatriotic.

That same week, House leader Nancy Pelosi publicly announces that HR 676 must be passed and she will hold Democrats’ feet to the fire with all the resources available to the Democratic Party, including election funding, committee seats, and primary challenges. CNN reports live on a conference of pollsters, health care providers, doctors, nurses, and economists who discuss the bill thoroughly, followed by a full endorsement. National media coverage is extensive. The Sunday morning gasbags devote their shows to the bill, grilling opponents in light of the Administration offensive.

As the Senate takes up a health care bill, progressive Democrats call for a rally in support of the bill to take place in DC in the summer. They pressure the House leadership to endorse the rally. The AFL-CIO, NOW, MoveOn, and all other liberal groups endorse the rally.

While seemingly endless debate goes on in the Senate, hundreds of thousands pour into DC to hear a wide range of speakers, musicians, and Congressional leaders in support of the Senate counterpart bill introduced by Senator Sanders. The crowd stirs with the spreading rumor that the President may well appear. Near the end, the crowd roars as President Obama briefly appears, thanking the demonstrators.

The Democratic Senate leadership, stiffened by the unprecedented rally, announces that they will bring the bill quickly to the floor. Senator Reid — the Senate Democratic leader — announces that this bill is as significant as any legislation since the Voting Rights Act. He wants his place in history to be identified with this vote. Administration staffer Rahm Emanuel reportedly caucused with Senate Democrats and says: “I don’t give a s*** about Lieberman. And Ben, you better get your ass on board or there will be hell to pay. You can’t even imagine the hell we’ll bring down on you. I want this f***in’ bill passed with ALL the D’s supporting it.” Emanuel denies this report.

The Republicans and a few Democrats howl in indignation. Fox news vilifies the House and Senate Democrats with wild charges of socialism and fascism. Harry Reid speaks in the Senate, holding a copy of the Constitution: “Maybe you folks in the Republican Party should read this. Americanism has never been to side with the bullies, and the insurance industry, their rich executives, big Pharma, and their consultants and lobbyists are bullies, forcing their profits ahead of the needs of the American people.” The media is shocked by his bold leadership.

Desperate Republican leaders announce a filibuster with the intent of forestalling a majority vote. The President goes on television with a sober, reasoned plea to have the bill passed. When asked by the press about the threatened filibuster, Obama replies with a wry smile: “Bring it on!”

As the Republican filibuster continues into the fall with Republican Senators droning on and on to an empty Senate chamber, public anger grows and grows. Late night comedians devote most of their shows to parodies of Senators quoting Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Constant picket lines of doctors, nurses, and victims of the broken U.S. health care system surround Senate office buildings. Media commentators question this tactic, blaming the Republicans for bringing legislation to a halt. Polls show Republican favorable ratings at an all time low.

Senator Reid is quoted as chiding a Republican colleague: “Don’t stop now. Keep it up until the interim elections!” Senator Reid denies saying this.

Late in November, Republican leaders huddle, recognizing that continuing to filibuster will destroy any chances of survival after the November 2010 elections. They quickly agree to call it off.

In early December, the Senate passes its version of Medicare for all by a vote of 51 to 25, with many Republicans nervously abstaining.

President Obama goes on national television, thanking all of those who worked so tirelessly and intensely to achieve an efficient, universal, and comprehensive health care plan that will rival any system in the world. He assures the American people that all the failings of the current system, referring to World Health Organization’s parameters, will be reversed and the U.S. will become a widely admired leader in delivering the best health care to its people. He promises to sign a final bill before Christmas, stating that he hopes that the new legislative act will serve as a long overdue but welcome gift to us all. “Happy holidays!” he concludes.


Of course this is a fantasy. We do not have the health care bill that we could have had. In fact, almost nothing in this fantasy is true. The President didn’t get behind the House bill with the most co-sponsors, the Democratic leadership didn’t fight hard for real change, there were no tough back room threats, the media didn’t give serious advocates a megaphone, there was no attempt by political leaders to engage and rally the base, political leaders did not show courage, and Democrats did not call the Republican bluff.

I ask my liberal friends and soft-left comrades that they try, in the New Year, to understand why things went so awry. I ask that they turn away from the comforting notion that we live with an economic and political system that can deliver democracy, justice, and equality by our simple participation in the permitted rituals. I ask that, in the New Year, they desist from finding scapegoats for this disaster that should shame us all: whether it be Obama’s betrayal, Blue Dog treachery, or that rotten renegade, Lieberman. It’s the system. Seriously, it’s the system…

[For more from Zoltan Zigedy, visit ZZ’s blog.]

Thanks to Jeffrey Segal / The Rag Blog

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Marc Estrin : The Execution of an Elephant

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer

Topsy the elephant:
Executed by Thomas Alva Edison

By Marc Estrin / The Rag Blog / January 9, 2010

[Noted author and activist Marc Estrin will be contributing to The Rag Blog on a regular basis.]

Wait! Do not activate that video — unless you have a stomach immune to moral indigestion. Let me tell you the story first, and then you decide if you want to click the mouse that clicks the video that clicks off the elephant.

This week marked the anniversary of the electrocution of Topsy the Elephant at Coney Island on January 4, 1903. Not the accidental electrocution, but the intentional one, by one of our American heros, Thomas Alva Edison. And for purposes no higher than winning a commercial battle with his nemesis, George Westinghouse.

I reported this incident in a chapter of my novel The Lamentations of Julius Marantz. Julius, our sweetheart, has taken the D train from Manhattan out to his homeland, Coney Island, to submit to a well-earned and inevitable suicide. But since it is a long ride, I thought my readers would like something to entertain themselves along the way. So I included a chapter called “A Study of History,” which treats five FUQs — Frequently Unasked Questions — concerning the playland and its visitors. Here are the last two:

4. And What about Edison? Did he come too?

At last, a native American. Yes, yes he came, eight years before Freud he came — accompanied by Westinghouse and Faraday, and Adam Smith, and Death. They came to electrocute an elephant. Forty-four years before Julius was born, they came to electrocute an elephant named Topsy.

Elephants — the highest form of animal, symbols of strength and astuteness, emblems of wisdom, of eternity, of moderation and pity, removers of obstacles, charismatic beasts suggesting the power of Buddha: miraculous aspiration, analysis, intention, and effort. Their trunks are capable of both uprooting trees and picking the smallest of leaves, thus suggesting that humans develop their powers in both the gross and spiritual worlds.

Massive and gray, they resemble dark clouds of refreshing rain. Indra’s mighty elephant digs with its tusks, and reaches its trunk deep into the earth, sucking up water, and spraying it into clouds which bring forth rain. Elephants thus link the heaven above with the chthonic below, and symbolize the mist that separates formed worlds from the unformed.

Their tusks, both digging tools and weapons, linking the beast again to things supra- and sub-terranean. Elephants were named for their tusks, from elefas, the Greek for ivory. Achilles sword, in Pope’s Homer, had a handle “with steel and polished elephant adorned.”

They are loyal and affectionate, the elephants. Older calves help younger siblings, adults their sick or wounded comrades. They demonstrate ideals. It is said that mothers of great masters will dream of them at birth.

Most easily trained of all the beasts, they rarely forget. And when their great patience is exhausted, they have a remarkable memory for wrongs done them, and many stories are told of elephant revenge.

Mice do not scare them.

Topsy the elephant.

Topsy was 30, and weighed three tons. She began as a worker, hauling the beams and blocks that became the Island. When the parks were built, she turned entertainer, doing tricks, in pink tutu, for gawking faces. Towards the end, she became quite blind, having worn her eyes out looking at America — and seeing nothing.

But she did see the drunken trainer who put his cigarette out against her tongue and laughed. She picked him up, threw him against the wall, then smashed his head quite easily underfoot. And thus she became “a rogue,” a “man-killer,” and her sentence was death.

Topsy was given a bale of carrots laced with cyanide, and scarfed them down without effect. Another helping, please? The park owners saw a chance to be tough on crime, and also make a profit. For every scratch, an itch: they announced that the murderous rogue elephant would be publicly hanged. “No, no!” cried the ASPCA. Too cruel and inhuman.

“No, no!” cried Thomas Alva Edison. Hadn’t New York State just replaced the gallows with a new, humane, electric chair? “I’ll come and help.”

There was more to this than met the eye.

In Topsy-time the Wizard of Menlo Park was engaged in his own death-struggle with George Westinghouse for control of America’s electrical infrastructure. His DC system, he claimed, was safe, while Westinghouse’s was deadly. To prove it, he’d been publicly electrocuting cats and dogs for years. It was he who had convinced the state to use Westinghouse’s AC for their electric chair. So much, and no more, had he accomplished: an electrocuted criminal was widely referred to as “being Westinghoused.”

So what an irresistible photo-op here! How better to demonstrate the danger of his enemy’s system, than to roast a full-grown elephant? Dr. Edison brought a team of technicians, and a film crew. On July 4th, 1903, before a cheering, patriotic crowd of thousands, Topsy was led to a special platform, the cameras rolled, and the switch to Coney’s powerful electrical plant was thrown. Topsy’s short-lived hell-on-earth lasted only 10 seconds. At six thousand volts. She convulsed, her hide began to smoke, and she collapsed. Applause. “It’s a take.” The great man showed the film to audiences across the nation to win his point, if not his contracts, and to help forge the created non-conscience of his race.

Whither reeleth our sweetheart?
He sang to himself, in cadence count
E non voglio più servir,
No, no, no, no, no,
E non voglio più servir, hitting on vir a low Eb — abysmal depth, and the base tone of creation.
Non serviam.

George Orwell had warned him some time ago: “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of civilized men.”

Whither hobbles he, wandering among these ghosts?

To the towering parachute jump which — six years before he was born — was transferred from the “Lifesavers’ Exhibit” at the New York World’s Fair, the site right next to the Centaurs. He liked the parachute jump. It reminded him of his father. “It packs more thrills than any wings-in-sky interlude since Icarus,” the old guides used to say. It reminded him that it takes longer to rise than to fall. Its rising and falling came to an end in ’68, on a nearly vacant lot, in a moribund park on Coney Island. And now, there, in front of him, it rusted.

For Hegel, the Enlightenment meant a struggle between reason and what he called “the night of the world,” that chaotic mix of hatred and irrationality which can destroy humanity and what it builds, but which is paradoxically the source of its enormous energy.

For Hegel, human history revolves around the attempt to negate the negativity of “the night of the world,” and turn it to productive thought and action. He would have liked to have said, “Where there is id there shall be ego.”

Final question: Which tense do you want to live in?

“I want to live in the imperative of the future passive participle,” our sweetheart said, “in the ‘what ought to be.'”

They hanged “Murderous Mary.”

The execution of Mary

While googling for a photo of Topsy I came across an even more disturbing graphic of another elephant execution — that of “Murderous Mary” 11 years later, for similar motives of profit. Mary, killed her keeper in a mood known only to an elephant, but apparently quickly passing. The crowd began chanting “Kill the elephant!” and a local blacksmith pumped two dozen rounds into her with little effect. Fear spread (or was spread), as it easily does, into the business community, and nearby towns threatened to ban the show if Mary was in it.

I’m sure Mary’s owner was conflicted over his decision, but it’s likely that the loss of his investment in Mary would be less than a potentially ruinous blacklisting, and he decided, like Edison, to kill Mary in public. Not soft on elephant-terrorists he.

Mary was sent by rail to Erwin, Tennessee, where 2,500 people paid to see her hanged like the murderer she was. Wikipedia’s taciturn obit goes like this: “The elephant was hanged by the neck from a railcar-mounted industrial crane. The first attempt resulted in a snapped chain, causing Mary to fall and break her hip as dozens of children fled in terror. The severely wounded elephant died during a second attempt and was buried beside the tracks.”

[Marc Estrin is a writer and activist, living in Burlington, Vermont. His novels, Insect Dreams, The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, The Education of Arnold Hitler, Golem Song, and The Lamentations of Julius Marantz have won critical acclaim. Insect Dreams was recently published in German by Parthas Verlag, Berlin. His memoir, Rehearsing With Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater (with Ron Simon, photographer) won a 2004 theater book of the year award. Two novels, The Annotated Nose, and Skulk appeared in November 2008, and The Good Doctor Guillotin in September 2009. He is currently working on a novel about the dead Tchaikovsky.]

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Immigration Reform : It’s Time for Political Courage

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Thorne Dreyer

Cartoon by Daryl Cagle / MSNBC.com

Democrats must show some courage:
Immigration laws need real reform

Closing the border and deporting undocumented workers would actually hurt our economy. Over a 10 year period it would mean the loss of $2.6 trillion in GDP.

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / January 9, 2010

Now that the Democrats are nearly through passing a very disappointing health care bill (I won’t call it reform because it contains very little real reform), what is next on their agenda? Most people believe it will be immigration reform. I hope so, because our immigration laws need some real reform since the current laws are just not working for the benefit of anyone, except maybe the racist fearmongers.

In the hope that the Democratic majority might actually find some political courage, let’s examine what the best kind of reform would be. Actually, there are three options. Put all our efforts toward closing the borders and deporting undocumented workers, put in some kind of temporary worker program, or provide undocumented workers with a path toward citizenship and institute a more flexible immigration policy. Let’s see just what each of these options would do for the United States.

The Republicans and their racist teabagging base are definitely in camp #1. They want to close down the borders and deport undocumented workers and they don’t care what it costs. This is born of fear and racism. They see our southern border as an entry point for terrorists, even though there is absolutely no evidence that terrorists have ever used this crossing point.

There are several easier ways to get into the U.S., including the airports and seaports. These would simply require some paperwork (false or otherwise). Then there is the Canadian border. It is longer and much less guarded, and does not have a life-threatening desert to cross.

But there is not just the fear, but also a racist factor that motivates the “close the border” crowd. There are currently 11.9 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Of those, 56% are from Mexico, 22% from other Latin American countries, 13% are Asian and about 3% are Canadian or European. I’ll bet if the figures were switched and 78% were Canadian or European and 3% were Hispanic, there wouldn’t be a huge cry to close our borders.

The truth is that closing the border and deporting undocumented workers would actually hurt our economy. Over a 10 year period it would mean the loss of $2.6 trillion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It would seriously damage American business and cause untold pain to many immigrant families. In addition, it would cause the deaths of many immigrants trying to enter the country by forcing them into more dangerous crossing places and ways. Between 1994 and 2008, 5,607 people have died trying to enter the United States.

But perhaps the best reason to not choose the “close the border and deport” method is that it simply does not work. Since 1992, the number of Border Patrol agents has jumped by 390% — from 3,555 (1992) to 17,415 (2009). At the same time, the number of undocumented immigrants has grown from 3.5 million in 1990 to 11.9 million in 2008. Sounds like we’ve been wasting our money to me. The cost of each immigrant captured has also gone up — from $272 for each apprehension in 1992 to a staggering $3,102 for each one in 2008.

Recently the number of undocumented workers coming into the country has slowed, but it has nothing to do with increased border security (which has already been shown to not work). No, it is due to the drying up of jobs in the United States. But that’s a tough solution to undocumented immigration since it also hurts American citizens and businesses as well.

Setting up a temporary worker program would only be marginally better than the unworkable “close the border and deport” program. It would mean a gain to GDP of about $792 billion over a ten year period. However, it would not solve the problem of the 11.9 million undocumented workers currently in this country, so it would just be a band-aid solution.

By far the best solution is to provide a path to citizenship for those already here and institute a more flexible immigration policy. According to both the Center for American Progress and the American Immigration Council, this would mean a boost to GDP of at least $1.5 trillion over a 10 year period. And that boost would help all Americans, not just immigrants.

The undocumented workers would no longer be in an “underground” economy and would be covered by labor laws. Their wages would increase and drive up wages for everyone. It would also open up other avenues, such as education, so they could improve themselves, and by doing so, improve our country.

America has always been a country that thrived on immigration. Those willing to leave everything behind and go to a new country are not the timid and meek, but the brave and resourceful who are willing to work hard for an opportunity to succeed. Those are the kind of people needed to help America succeed. They should be accepted and encouraged to succeed and added to what is currently a shrinking tax base.

I expect the Democrats will probably not have the courage to take this path though. They will probably try to provide some kind of path to citizenship, but then screw it up by trying for bipartisanship by wasting a lot more money trying to close the borders. Then after they have a mess of a bill (like with health care), the Republicans will abandon them. After all, they are the party of NO.

Then the Democrats will try to convince us that the hybrid mess they’ve come up with is real immigration reform. It won’t be, any more than the current mess they’re pushing is real health care reform.

I would like to think they have the political courage to do immigration reform the right way, but I’ve been watching them for the last year. We’ll be lucky to wind up with a modest improvement.

[Rag Blog contributor Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger.]

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