Just A Piece of Paper

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (June 10, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

Edward Snowden, a twenty-nine-year-old geek, has lit a firestorm across the country, and, potentially, around the world with his revelations on the NSA and its contractor's massive spying operation on Americans.  Members of the Senate and the White House have admitted the operation, but assure us that it's for own good because terrorism.  Right.

From Jon Healey's column in the Los Angeles Times:

Reaction has been predictably mixed and extreme, with Fox News analyst Ralph Peters calling for Snowden to be executed and previous national security whistle-blowers, Ellsberg included, practically calling for a statue to be erected in his honor. Some cyber civil libertarians argue that the revelations should cause heads to roll within the administration because they appear to have lied to Congress about the surveillance; the Electronic Frontier Federation wants Congress to appoint a blue-ribbon panel to "conduct a full, public investigation into the domestic surveillance of Americans by the intelligence communities ... [and] make changes in the law to stop the spying and ensure that it does not happen again."

One interesting question, though, is whether Snowden is entitled to protection as a whistle-blower. The administration argues that its data-gathering efforts on phone networks and online have all fallen within the bounds of the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In fact, the hoovering of data from phone companies has been done under the auspices of regular orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. If that's true -- and granted, that's a sizable "if" -- Snowden has disclosed things that the government has been doing legally.   [Emphasis added]

So, does that make everything OK?  Hardly.   Conor Friedersdorf points out the flaws inherent in such a rationale in a marvelous article in The Atlantic (and you should read the whole article).

What we know is that the people in charge will possess the capacity to be tyrants -- to use power oppressively and unjustly -- to a degree that Americans in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, or 2000 could've scarcely imagined. To an increasing degree, we're counting on having angels in office and making ourselves vulnerable to devils. Bush and Obama have built infrastructure any devil would lust after.  [Emphasis added]

I don't know that I consider Bush and Obama angelic in their zeal for collecting clouds of data on us, but at this point it appears they, at least, believe they have the authority to do so.  So does that leave us with no recourse at all?

I'm not sure, but I have some ideas on how to hammer home our disgust.  I recommend a variation of the kingbirding tactic.   They want data?  Then let's give it to them, tons and tons of it.

I suggest you call your congresscritters, all three of them, especially if Verizon is your carrier.  Then I would follow it up with an email to each.  Complain politely about the wiping out of our 4th Amendment rights and urge them to repeal the Patriot Acts.

I suggest you visit political blogs like Hullabaloo and Eschaton several times each hour.  Leave comments voicing your displeasure with our own government spying on us, especially by using an outside contractor.

I suggest you respond to each and every poll you come across on line, like the one which appears in the Times article mentioned above.  If you can, visit it multiple times and vote each time.

And I suggest you sign every petition opposing this gross violation of our rights like the one up at the White House site for citizen petitions.  Especially that one.

Look, what are they going to do to us for our acts of civil disobedience?  Take away all of our birthdays?  I don't think so.

I know I feel better for having done all of these things, and I think you just might as well.

Shame on US

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 4/30/13 by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

Doyle McManus visited the issue of the prisoners still being held at Guantanamo Bay, many of whom are being force-fed because of their hunger strike.  He raises a couple of important issues, but I think he left one crucial part of the equation out.

The president campaigned in 2008 on a pledge to close the camp; once in office, he signed an order to move the prisoners to the United States within a year.

Since then, however, in the face of congressional opposition and political obstacles, he has backed away.

Only now, with a hunger strike among some 100 of the camp's 166 detainees entering its fourth month, does the president seem to have reengaged.

Obama, of course, blames Congress for making it impossible for him to close Guantanamo. But as with most ugly messes in Washington, there's plenty of blame to go around. ...

Part of the problem, at least initially, was that the detainees' home countries didn't all want them back. But a State Department negotiator, Daniel Fried, went to work on that problem and solved most of it. Yemen has agreed to take its 56 of the 86 cleared detainees; Afghanistan has asked for 17 detainees back; even Britain has requested the release of a Saudi citizen whose wife and children are Londoners.

The Obama administration created another part of the problem itself. In 2010, after Al Qaeda put a Nigerian terrorist with a bomb in his underwear aboard a flight to Detroit, the administration suspended all detainee transfers to Yemen, where the plot had been hatched. Since then, Yemen has become more stable and the United States has worked with its government to build a rehabilitation facility for returning detainees, but officials say it isn't ready yet.

Congress weighed in too. Alarmed by reports that some released detainees had rejoined Al Qaeda or the Taliban, members of Congress demanded a formal assurance from the secretary of Defense that no future parolee would return to the battlefield. ...

None of those steps alone will result in the closure of Guantanamo. Obama has endorsed indefinite detention for terrorist suspects, at least as long as the war with Al Qaeda persists. Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, the head of Southern Command, says he's already thinking about upgrading medical facilities to take care of the detainees as they age.

But reducing Guantanamo's population would solve a big chunk of what has become an apparently insoluble problem. Resuming the transfers, especially for those who have already been offered a ticket out, would offer remaining detainees at least a shred of hope.

Obama and his aides say they are looking at all those remedies now. It's a shame it took a hunger strike to remind the president of his own convictions.   [Emphasis added]

All of this mess is complicated by the fact that some of the original detainees should never have been detained in the first place.  They were picked up because someone having a totally unrelated argument with them "sold" them to the Americans.  They weren't terrorists then, but I have no doubt that many of them harbor a deep hatred for the US today, so the point is, sadly, moot.

Others were picked up who were training for terrorism, but not against the US.  The Uighers, for example, wanted to fight the Chinese.  Unfortunately, the Chinese were financing our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so even though there were Americans willing to take the Uighers, that was not about to happen.

Even with these complications, however, McManus is right:  a president who supports indefinite detention without any traditional due process for suspects who might be terrorists coupled with a Republican determination to deny any kind of victory to Obama makes the closure of Gitmo nigh on to impossible.

The one element McManus did overlook is our role in this heartbreaking scenario.  We have to share in the infamy as long as we just sit back and shrug our shoulders, claiming impotence in the face of two mighty adversaries.  We should be screaming long and hard at our representatives, all of them.  We should be kingbirding them to the point that the media has to report our actions.  Otherwise, we share in the shame.

My, What A Surprise!

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (March 18, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

Well, we've seen how the RNC report I posted on yesterday has been received by the Tea Party/CPAC faction of the Republican Party.  The basest base is clearly not going to roll over and die. Instead, it will indeed hold the knives against the throats of moderate Republicans. 

From the Los Angeles Times:

The austere House budget drafted by Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) that has come to define the Republican Party was approved Thursday on a strict party-line vote, as the GOP argues that a balanced budget should now be Washington’s top goal.

The blueprint is merely a proposal, without the force of law, but its overhaul of the Medicare program and steep reductions to other social safety net spending serves as the GOP’s opening salvo in renewed budget negotiations with President Obama. It was approved, 221 to 207, with no Democrats and 10 GOP defectors, largely conservatives or congressman in swing districts.

Republicans are anxious to reopen the debate over government spending with the White House even though some attribute the party’s setbacks in the November election to the plan from Ryan, the party’s former vice presidential nominee. ...

The centerpiece of the GOP plan would turn Medicare into a voucher-like program for the next generation of seniors, those younger than 55. When they become eligible, at age 65, those seniors will be offered a voucher that can be applied either to the purchase of private health insurance or toward the cost of Medicare, though the voucher may not cover all the costs of the policy chosen.

The Ryan budget also cuts Medicaid, the health program for the poor and seniors in nursing homes, as well as food stamps, welfare programs and student loans, while largely preserving money for defense accounts.   [Emphasis added]

Thankfully, the Ryan plan (version 2.2) is merely a proposal, but it does signal what the GOP in this Congress considers fair game for negotiation: the elders, the poor, the vulnerable.

People like me.

It's time for some "kingbirding."

Please Drop Dead

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 8/24/12 by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Click on image to enlarge and then kindly return.)

When I read the news about the "fiscal cliff" and rumors of a "grand bargain" to avoid it, I get nervous. It does indeed appear that the White House and the Democrats are only too happy to deal away Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. The latest has to do with raising the eligibility age for Medicare to 67.  The excuses are always the same: people live longer now, thereby using up the money more quickly; as the Baby Boomer generation hits 65, many more people than anticipated will be getting the benefit, thereby using up the money more quickly; healthcare costs are rising and Medicare will soon be eating up more and more of the budget. All of that is bovine excrement being spread to hide the fact that our owners want the programs ended and all of us dependent on private insurers who will charge accordingly.

The Los Angeles Times published an editorial which, I assume, attempted to be "balanced" by listing all of these arguments as if they had merit. However, to be fair, the editorial did get around to addressing the real issues behind the rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid and suggesting more rational approaches to solving the problems.

Many of the steps lawmakers are considering treat Medicare's growing costs as an isolated phenomenon. In fact, they're symptoms of larger problems in the healthcare system. The United States spends far more per capita on healthcare than any other country, including Western European nations with much older populations. The extra spending yields better results in some areas, worse in others.

One factor in the elevated costs is advancing medical technology, or rather the fact that new and more expensive technologies are continually introduced with no consideration of whether they're more effective than what's already available. Another factor is the way healthcare is organized, delivered and paid for. Historically, there has been little coordination among the various doctors, specialists and hospitals who see a given patient. The payment system is even more Balkanized, creating a confusing matrix of prices and reimbursement rates that seem to have no relation to the value of the service performed.

More fundamentally, the system rewards providers for treating the ill and injured, not for keeping the public hale and hearty. Its financial incentives encourage providers to deliver as much treatment as possible. And there's little or no connection between what providers are paid and how effective their care is. As a result, the industry has an incentive to deliver an increasing number of treatments of greater complexity — to build more capacity, then find a way to fill it.

Bingo!

For those who would scream that this approach is just another form of health care rationing, I would point out that private insurers have been rationing health care, or at least the portion they are willing to pay for, for a long time.  And that rationing has often been capricious and malicious, requiring multiple appeals and threats from state insurance commissioners for those claimants with the time and money to protest. The kind of rationing to which the editorial refers are open and transparent and make sense. They also will save billions over the years.

Digby suggests that the rumor to raise the eligibility age for Medicare may be just a trial balloon being floated by the White House to see if it will fly. If Digby is right, and she usually is, then we really need to continue to phone, email, fax, write our representatives and the White House to let them know that the balloon is made of lead and not worthy of consideration.

I urge you to do some kingbirding and continue to bug Washington until it gets the message.

You Break It, You Own It

Oops!

Their bad.

The GOP has just discovered that maybe they screwed up big time, and this time they just might have to pay for it (maybe).  As David Horsey points out in both his cartoon and his column, Republicans were too clever by half and the President and (perhaps) the Senate might be willing to call them on it.

At its heart, the current impasse over a budget deal comes down to the GOP’s unwillingness to let George W. Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans expire. Obama insists this has to happen and House Speaker Boehner says it will not. The obvious weakness in the Republican position is that the Democrats know they will get what they want – more revenue from the wealthy – either because the Republicans capitulate and make it part of a budget package before Jan. 1 or because that date arrives with no agreement and the tax cuts disappear automatically. This makes them strongly inclined to play hardball. The chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee, Washington state's Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, has made it clear she is willing to brave the fiscal cliff rather than do a deal with Republicans that, as she has said, “throws middle-class families under the bus” while, once again, rewarding the rich folks who have done so exceedingly well in recent decades.

Republicans have to know protecting the upper-income tax cuts is a lost cause, yet they are loath to deal them away. That would amount to raising taxes, something most Republicans have pledged never to do. Perversely, this gives them an incentive to postpone a deal until after the start of the year. They can claim they did not cave to Obama, while Grover Norquist will not be able to hold them accountable for the tax hike. ...

When Republicans created the fiscal cliff as a means to force a grand bargain on the budget, they must have assumed Democrats would go soft in a game of chicken. Instead, it appears Obama, Murray and the Democrats have looked over the fiscal cliff and are not all that frightened by what they see. Politically speaking, the scariest thing at the bottom of that cliff is the trap Republicans have set for themselves.  [Emphasis added]

Of  course, this doesn't mean that some kind of deal won't emerge before the end of the session.  While the tax cuts for the wealthy might go, cuts to "entitlements" might be be forged and traditional middle class deductions (mortgage interest payments) might be given up.  Democrats will still have room to screw up, and if they have the room, this crop will fill it.

That's why I think it's important that we annoy the hell out of our current reps with phone calls, faxes, signed petitions and whatever else progressive groups are floating.  And that kind of pressure needs to be doubled for the next Congress as well.

As I said back in June, it's time to do a whole lot of kingbirding:

Nature notes: Watched a tiny eastern kingbird assail a bald eagle who must have done some nest robbing. Irate little bird actually surfed the back of the eagle furiously pecking his head for about 1000 feet. Saw similar outrage directed at a raven. Tough day for nesting kingbirds.

I consider that an excellent metaphor for the very least we can do, so much so that I've created a new label, "Kingbirding." I suggest that as often as we can we peck mercilessly at the heads of the rapacious thieves stealing from our nest for as long as we can. If nothing else, it will annoy them, causing them to spend their oh-so-precious-time trying to shake us off. Faxes, letters, emails, telephone calls, vigils, letters to the editors: they may be just momentary distractions, but at least we are doing something.

And we'd better.

Kingbirding

(Photograph by Steve Creek and published at his wonderful blog, which is filled with great photography and worth a visit or a hundred.)

The big day has finally arrived.  I've decided to spend most of the day away from the internet and the newspapers and the radio.  This evening I'll check in to see just what things look like, but I don't intend to stay up all night following all the details closely.  At least at this point.  I just hope that the outcomes are decided by Wednesday morning, although I have a hunch not all of the races will be.

I don't anticipate any major changes, even if President Obama is re-elected.  The Democrats will probably hold the Senate (with one or two new progressives), and the Republicans will probably hold the House (again, with a few new progressives).  The 113th Congress will be pretty much like the 112th, which means little will get done.

Unless.

Unless we do a little kingbirding on our elected officials' backsides.

For those not familiar with kingbirding, it's a term I coined back in June.  Let me reprise a few of the salient sections from that post.

"Nature notes: Watched a tiny eastern kingbird assail a bald eagle who must have done some nest robbing. Irate little bird actually surfed the back of the eagle furiously pecking his head for about 1000 feet. Saw similar outrage directed at a raven. Tough day for nesting kingbirds."

I consider that an excellent metaphor for the very least we can do, so much so that I've created a new label, "Kingbirding." I suggest that as often as we can, we peck mercilessly at the heads of the rapacious thieves stealing from our nest for as long as we can. If nothing else, it will annoy them, causing them to spend their oh-so-precious-time trying to shake us off. Faxes, letters, emails, telephone calls, vigils, letters to the editors: they may be just momentary distractions, but at least we are doing something.

 And that's what I intend to do for the next two years.  I'd really love some company on the journey.  If you need persuasion, maybe Marge Piercy's poem will do the trick.

Kingbirding

(Photograph by Steve Creek and published at his wonderful blog, which is filled with great photography and worth a visit or a hundred.)

Last week I posted on the terrific example the Eastern Kingbird in noblejoanie's neighborhood provided us.

Nature notes: Watched a tiny eastern kingbird assail a bald eagle who must have done some nest robbing. Irate little bird actually surfed the back of the eagle furiously pecking his head for about 1000 feet. Saw similar outrage directed at a raven. Tough day for nesting kingbirds.

Yes, a tough day, but my response to their action was the obvious one:

I consider that an excellent metaphor for the very least we can do, so much so that I've created a new label, "Kingbirding." I suggest that as often as we can we peck mercilessly at the heads of the rapacious thieves stealing from our nest for as long as we can. If nothing else, it will annoy them, causing them to spend their oh-so-precious-time trying to shake us off.

And then this weekend I got the perfect example of what I meant. After 21 years of house detention, Aung San Suu Kyi finally got to deliver her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize awarded for her work to restore democracy to Burma. The full text of this great woman's speech can be found here. I encourage you to sit down with it when you some time. I think it is illuminating. In the meantime, I am going to provide some excerpts and gloss from the Los Angeles Times which got posted shortly after her speech was given.

“When I joined the democracy movement in Burma, it never occurred to me that I might ever be the recipient of any prize or honor. The prize we were working for was a free, secure and just society where our people might be able to realize their full potential,” Suu Kyi said. “When the Nobel committee chose to honor me, the road I had chosen of my own free will became a less lonely path to follow.”...

She recalled learning that she had won the 1991 Nobel Prize by hearing news of it on the radio in Burma, also known as Myanmar. With her movements restricted by the country’s ruling military junta, she was unable to receive the award in person; her now-late husband accepted it on her behalf. But the recognition helped ease her isolation.

“It had made me real once again. It had drawn me back into the wider human community, and what is more important, the Nobel Prize had drawn the attention of the world to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma,” Suu Kyi said. “We were not going to be forgotten.” ...

Her belated speech Saturday was made possible because of the Burmese government’s recent political liberalization, which has earned praise from around the world.

“There have been changes in a positive direction,” Suu Kyi said. “Steps towards democratization have been taken. If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future, but because I do not want to encourage blind faith.”

Rather, all sectors of Burmese society must actively participate in and support the reform process, she said. And in the only part of her address to be interrupted with applause, she called for the release of other political prisoners in her country.

“I am standing here because I was once a prisoner of conscience. As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the oft-repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many,” she said. “Those who have not yet been freed, those who have not yet been given access to the benefits of justice in my country number much more than one. Please remember them and do whatever is possible to effect their earliest, unconditional release.” [Emphasis added]

In other words, Aung San Suu Kyi isn't done kingbirding, but at least she is now free to invite her compatriots and the rest of the world to join her. Like Archbishop Tutu in South Africa while Nelson Mandela was silenced by imprisonment, like Rosa Parks who just refused one day to move to the back of the bus, Ms. Suu Kyi calls us to reclaim our rights, our due. They won't just be handed over, and we will have to struggle, but in the end I believe we will prevail.

And in the interim, we have an opportunity to drive those rapacious eagles crazy by our head-pecking.

Epic Fail

(Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

OK, I'm back. My burn-out lifted with a few extra hours of sleep and this cartoon and column by David Horsey.

If life were a movie, the president of the United States (probably played by Will Smith) would be leaping into action to save humankind from the calamity that a new scientific report says is about to befall the Earth.

A paper prepared by 22 international scientists and just published in the journal Nature warns that overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change have pushed the world toward a tipping point beyond which lie irreversible, frightening alterations in the biosphere that supports life on this lonely planet.

Of course, since this is not a movie and is, instead, just another surreal election year, the scientists’ alarming analysis will go unheeded. If the report is addressed at all by Republicans, it will be dismissed as another attempt by fiendish environmentalists to destroy the American economy by reining in polluting industries. If Democrats take note, they will tout their green jobs program as a panacea and quickly move on to a different, less disturbing, subject. [Emphasis added]

Yes. And yes.

Part of the problem is that Americans are by and large an impatient people. We insist on immediacy: immediate "solutions" to immediate problems and instant gratification. Deficit getting out of hand? Cut social welfare programs and taxes on the wealthy who purportedly provide jobs. What do you mean I can't have cheap gas to operate my beautiful new guzzler? Give tax breaks to the oil companies to provide more gasoline and roll back regulations on drilling operations. A national debate on environmental issues pre-empting "Dancing With The Stars"? Screw that. A long term investment to restore natural habitats and forests? What? That would have an impact on the next quarter's profit. You must be mad.

A larger part of the problem is a failure of leadership at all levels of government, which Horsey notes quite clearly. For every Bernie Sanders there's a Dianne Feinstein and a Max Baucus in the Democratic party, some 35 other Dems who keep checking their campaign funds, Joe Lieberman of the Joe Lieberman Party, and 47 Republicans. The numbers are even worse in the House, where other than the few members of the Progressive Caucus we are represented by two parties owned by the corporatocracy.

And the one institution which could bridge the gap has abdicated its responsibility. The mainstream press may have published articles about the report contained in Nature, but most, if not all, "balanced" the argument with the truthy responses of those who do not want their immediate interests impaired, the rest of us and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren be damned (as they surely will be). The only exceptions have been the cartoonists such as David Horsey. And that's one of the many reasons why I've taken to posting editorial/political cartoons as often as I can.

So, where does that leave us?

Well, in a conversation yesterday morning at Eschaton, noblejoanie posted this:

Nature notes: Watched a tiny eastern kingbird assail a bald eagle who must have done some nest robbing. Irate little bird actually surfed the back of the eagle furiously pecking his head for about 1000 feet. Saw similar outrage directed at a raven. Tough day for nesting kingbirds.

I consider that an excellent metaphor for the very least we can do, so much so that I've created a new label, "Kingbirding." I suggest that as often as we can we peck mercilessly at the heads of the rapacious thieves stealing from our nest for as long as we can. If nothing else, it will annoy them, causing them to spend their oh-so-precious-time trying to shake us off. Faxes, letters, emails, telephone calls, vigils, letters to the editors: they may be just momentary distractions, but at least we are doing something.

And we are bound by honor to at least try.