On Torture

This is one of the more important posts I'll write in a while, and so I'm going to try to be as clear as I know how to be...


Recently, a significant number of previously classified CIA documents detailing our treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere were released.

They described systematic torture - I say torture, because water-boarding is defined as torture by U.N. documents, documents which we signed and agreed with.

Past that, since when is beating someone, nearly killing them by drowning, denying them food for days, keeping them awake to the point the enter an hysterical state NOT torture, NOT objectionable, not ugly, not beneath the standards we demand of ourselves?

These are not 'enhanced interrogation techniques', they were and they are, nothing less than what we've objected to when conducted by friend and adversary alike over the past 50 years. In short, they are precisely the kinds of 'techniques' we define as in use by thugs, by police-states, by criminals.

The response from Dick Cheney and other members of the rabid-right has been, "But look, it worked, we got good data."

As if that matters one iota. As if killing 100 people is okay as long as we can say there was 'some benefit'.

But that's not the main point - the main point is this, they didn't 'enhance' one-damned thing. Torture works, that was never in doubt, it works to get data, but it mostly (according to numerous experts including our own CIA interrogators) it mostly gets you BAD information. It mostly gets you MUCH LESS than you'd get otherwise - and much less reliable information than that which is given voluntarily, or gleaned from misstatements, over time. We were in no rush, but even if we were, the odds were and are, that any such information gained would be essentially valueless as it was more likely (as not) to be a lie, to be flawed, to be in a word - ironically 'unenhanced.'

The bottom line is, we actually got less, not more.

And then there's this, we, as a result of compromising our ethics also:

• Gave our enemies more ammunition to recruit with
• Embittered the families and friends of those we mistreated
• Shattered our reputation throughout the world

For what? For nearly valueless information that almost certainly could have been gotten without torture.

No, this is about our own arrogance, our own sense of needing to 'show them who's tough' by beating prisoners, by drowning them leading to the deaths of probably 10-15 captives due to heart failure (as reported) - we decided that despite the advice of our best experts, we (meaning the likes of Cheney within the Pentagon and the CIA - with Cheney's approval and Gonzalez's legal hijinx) WE were going to show them that the wimpy Democrats weren't in charge.

What they (and we ) didn't get is that no one was a wimp, it's just smart people don't due stupid, ineffective things, and ethical people don't achieve their goals by unethical means. Civilized nations abandoned torture not only for ethical reasons but for smart ones too, and it's time, high time, to take those who are too stupid to govern within the law, and hold them accountable to it, in the same way they said they were going to do with the prisoners they held. In short, it's time the courts meeted out justice long overdue, but not for the prisoners, but the captors.

Ask me no questions

So, Norm Coleman stopped by the StarTribune to 'set the story straight' as it were.

Of course, this is the same paper that Coleman has repeatedly accused of bias, so it seems rather curious he'd even make the effort, but.. who knows, maybe he actually understands that the StarTribune operates as a reasonable media entity. Maybe he knows the claims of bias come mostly from nut-jobs who simply don't like any media outlet that doesn't mouth and subscribe to their extreme view, but I digress.

At the meeting, Coleman accosted one member of the editorial board when that board member disagreed with Coleman's statement during that meeting that two reporters from the Strib had 'inserted themselves into the campaign' by asking a question at a campaign stop. The question was asked four days prior to the election when the story broke about Coleman's benefactor Nasser Kamenini. Kamemini allegedly funnelled $75,000 to Coleman through a subsidiary company Kamenini owns and which 'employs' Coleman's wife Laurie. Now Laurie is a model, and has no absolutely NO background in the industry she supposedly supplied 'consulting' services for, nor would the company (or Norm) identify what work Laurie does for the company - and that was one of the questions asked during the campaign stop, namely, "What does Laurie do for them?" Now the current investigation around that payment is about one ranking officer of the parent company suing another for payments made without services rendered (by Laurie). Norm is right that no direct allegation of wrong-doing by Coleman (or his wife) is on record, but that's more to do with no current person willing to discuss the work by Laurie Colaman (it seems) than Coleman actually being investigated and/or cleared by anyone at all.

Regardless, the point is, Coleman claimed these reporters, by having the audacity to ask him a question at a campaign stop about a pretty hot topic, had inserted themselves into the campaign because 'they had to know trackers were there, or they were dumber than.. (a saying left unfinished by Coleman.' He then said, there are ALWAYS trackers following both candidates (that would be trackers from the opponents campaign- in this case from Franken's campaign), as such, they had to know their question would be captured by the trackers, and thus, they'd 'inserted themselves' into the campaign.

Here's the thing, if we use that standard, then, as cameras are always rolling, it means ANY questioner is 'inserting themselves into the campaign', and if we are to be sensitive to poor Norm's sensibilities, it means this too, no question can ever be asked in person, face to face, ever again, by any reporter on any subject of a politician.

That's one helluva nice deal, don't have to worry ever again about live questions you don't like, because asking them constitutes irresponsible journalism.

What a load of bullcrap. First, journalists ask questions, they often ask tough ones, and sometimes they ask them JUST for the on-camera response, if you don't like the heat, don't be a politician Norm. Second, by Coleman's standards, no more questions should ever be asked face to face, but apparently instead only questions in writing are permissible, or I suppose recorded questions of some form, to which an answer would only ever be supplied if the politician wanted to. No more answering tough questions, no more looking foolish when you don't have a ready reply, no more embarrassment, no worries.

I suppose that's how Norm would like to conduct his business, but it's surely not right, it's surely nothing less than a sleazy little attempt to rebuke the Strib in an wholly improper way and suggested approach, and one more thing, it surely would represent an attempt to intimidate the press into inaction - i.e. abridge freedom of the press, Norm.

But, I suppose, for Norm, better to not have to be asked an uncomfortable question, than potentially have to lie about $75,000 his wife almost certainly did nothing to earn.

Sometimes you'd rather be wrong

In 2000, I worked at USBank. In 2000, USBank Investments put up a booth in our building to try to sell life insurance to us, its 'internal customers.'

I was sufficiently enough of a historian that I knew about the problems of the Great Depression, and the barriers which were put up following the collapse in 1929, to know that there were good reasons for those barriers. Some of those barriers survived many years, and one of the key reasons for their survival was that good, smart people both remembered the Great Depression and the fact that exposing a bank to risk generated by life insurance or other investment products, was essentially creating the risk that a bank might try to cover high-risk investment costs out of its traditional loan/deposit relationship business practices.

So, I replied to the nice, attractive young woman who asked - "No, I don't support actions which allow Banks to act like investment companies." The woman was rather shocked, she plainly didn't understand what I was referring to, nor the reason for my objection. When I explained that it created the potential for a bank to expose traditional deposits to risks on its other 'balance sheet'/side of the house, she was rather dumbfounded.

The 45-50ish woman who was standing there supervising stepped in and explained, "He is referring to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which among other things kept Banks from being insurance companies. No worry sir, the repeal (done in 1999) doesn't allow for the cross-over of balance sheet activities."

I replied, "For now, and only as far as you know about. Clearly any company may not disclose charges assigned to the parent, or vice versa." That was the end of the conversation.

Now it's 2009. Cearly there WERE exposures between the banks and thier investment firms, such barriers were only on paper. Yet, we hear that many of the problems of the banking industry stemmed from regulation, such as the Community Redevelopment Act - or other bogus claims of issues stemming from Barney Frank's permissive attitudes about derivatives in the mid-2000's.

Yet we don't hear about what I commented on recently to some right-wingers, namely that Senator Phil Gramms of Texas was the spearhead of repealling Glass-Steagall, and that he also lead the charge to make it so that derivatives didn't have to be audited/weren't under the purview of the SEC or any other oversight agency for that matter. In fact, Phil Grams earned the nick-name 'Senator Gram-stander' during his time in the Senate (and by the way, this guy was going to be McCain's chief economic advisor - http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/09/15/100-year-crash-mccain-advisor-spurred-62-trillion-derivatives/). The link enclosed descirbes how Grams also helped to deregulate Credit Default Swaps.

In truth, Grams wasn't alone, Democrats, including Bill Clinton, signed-off on this nonsense, and they deserve some blame, but it was Alan Greenspan, and the 'dergulatory zealots' that hailed from Ronald Reagan's presidency which pushed this nonsense to it's zenith. It was not CRA, it was not regulation, but the absence of it, which allowed for derivatives and CDS' to swamp the markets with bad debt.

When I hear my conservative friends complaining and blaming everything BUT the truth, I think back to the day I objected, and to the day that I told Mitch Berg and others that in fact Grams was the culprit more so than any other person in Washington, Grams the poster child of the deregulation movement, the poster child of the 'for sale sign' in Washington as well, who deserved scorn and contempt. In fact that it was Grams and his type of people who argued that today would never come. When I think back to those warning and pronouncements, I will tell you that I sincerely wish to have been wrong.

Today there is an extensive article in the Star Tribune written by Patrick Delaney, a Securities Partner (attorney) at an investment servicing law firm here in Minnesota. It's an outstanding article, and pulls no punches in blaming Grams and Clinton, but also deregulation. It identifies the missteps we've taken, including removal of sound limits put in place the last time we allowed banks to become investment companies. I recommend it to anyone who believes even for a moment that CRA or the poor or whatever else, caused our current problems. It's a primer for beginning to realize that big business runs Washington, not the people, and runs it regardless of which party is in charge. Our time to change this paradigm is only now, it took 70 years to undo good changes which came out of the Great Depression, and only really happened when the greatest generation died, perhaps if we strike while the iron is hot now, we can forestall again for 70 years the repeat of what we are experiencing today as a result of the power of money corrupting folks like Phil Grams - and leading astray the sycophants of the rich who think that if they merely allow the pernicious in society more power, that they'll somehow become powerful too.

It is time the right-wing in this country woke up and smelled the coffee (or stink) of their own financial myopia, and recognized that greed and stupidity win out over good sense when people see a fortune to be made. Regulation is our way of preventing catastrophe, and from keeping not the GOOD people from doing ill, but the 5% who WILL do ill, from wrecking the train.

Treason? Really??

In 2003, anyone who criticized George Bush's policies, especially, but not limited to, the invasion of Iraq was called a traitor.

Any Democrat who spoke out against that idiocy was called a hundred ugly things, weak on terror, weak on defense, anti-American, etc..

Even as recently as last fall, Republican Representative Michelle Bachmann called for Congressional investigations into "Anti-American sentiments/feelings."

Now, Rush Limbaugh, the defacto leader of the remaining Republican extremists, says, 'Well if it was okay for the Democrats to object to Bush, why isn't OK for me to object to Obama trying to turn the country away from free enterprise..."?

Because Rush, you didn't say it was OK then, you called them traitors and worse. You accused them of seeking to provide 'therapy' to terrorists as a response to bombings. So that either makes you the world's biggest traitor (in your words), or, as always, the world's biggest hypocrite. In the time of the greatest economic crisis since 1929, your reaction is not to offer to temper the potential proposals of Obama, but instead to hope he, and with him, the country fails, so that your brand of extremism (and your voice with it) can be resurgent.

Instead of suggesting something other than ONLY tax cuts, instead of trivializing the problems of pay and profit inequities, the destruction of US productive capacity, the offshoring effects, you continue with your hyperbole about how 'taxing job creators kills jobs' and worse that 'Obama wants to destroy what's best about America.' I for one won't fall into your rhetorical trap - because arguing your nonsense is exactly what you want.

Instead, I'll point out what a colossal hypocrite you are. YOU called Democrats traitors, YOU referred to them as anti-American, YOU called torture 'fraternity pranks', YOU demeaned Michael J Fox for over-medicating himself (which he did to try to be sure his symptoms DIDN'T appear) and accused him of purposefully UNDER medicating to exaggerate his problem. You've been the chief architect of hate in this country for nearly 30 years - purchased by the rich to defend them against populism, not the other way around. NOW you seek to ensure that the work at the edges of the economy - because that's all the Government can do - you seek to block thw work the President and the responsible people, the adults, want to do to try to stave off collapse. You want to ensure that fails, mostly for your own political purpose, and because you can't possibly stomach - with your $1B fortune made off of spewing hate - the idea that maybe the rich SHOULD take a little bit less, so that the rest of us can have a little bit more. So you preach your hate, your desire to see us fail, in time of great crisis, you lie and say that the left wants to destroy the rich, destroy the country.

Dissent is still legal, and I'll defend to the death your right to spew. But make no mistake, you are nothing NOTHING more than a mewling hypocrite. And the great and funny part is, Obama has made your hate-speech the center of the debate - he has made you the icon of your party, and while you're not really a traitor, you certainly have become a tool. Such is the plight of bullies when confronted by their superiors.

A Cycle of Time

My father-in-law is dying.

He has cancer, the type really isn't important, but if you want to know, it's of his kidneys. Last year, he had one removed, and they hoped maybe it hadn't spread.

It had.

Dying of cancer is an ugly, brutal, merciless process. It is full of highs and lows, of despair, not just for the ill, but often for those who care for them as they feel helpless, and selfish, at feeling they wish much of it could simply be easier, or even end.

Last August we drove down to see him and my Mother-in-Law, his remaining kidney was blocked and failing. They inserted a shunt, and his kidney recovered, but the doctor came in and told them, "Four months, maybe six, we'll try him on chemotherapy, but it's purely for extending his life, it can't cure it." He was, of course, right. We didn't tell my children at that time much more than, "None of us live forever nor do we much know what will lead to our deaths. For Grandpa, we now know what will lead to his death, but as to how long? Not long, but who can say?"

My children, of course, said their prayers, especially my daughter, most every day, asking God to make him better. It reminded me of when I was about my daughter's age, and both my mother's parents were dying of cancer - I too said my prayers, every day, for these two wonderful, kind people to somehow get better.. unfortunately, it was not to be so. They died four days apart, it was very hard on my mom. I realize now, as an adult, just how hard. And so the cycle of time repeats itself.

How do you watch a man, like my father-in-law, the typical, stoic Midwesterner who treated you more kindly than your own father, how do you watch him turn grey, and age years for every month - you want to hold him, to tell him it's not fair, that you're sorry, that you wish you could help somehow?

How do I tell my wife that if I could, I'd gladly take all the pain on myself, just to try to save her from what I've seen coming? And yet, that it's hard to be around (again), that you fear the same for your own parents, or for that matter for yourself? Tomorrow, we leave to go home, and while I'm normally impatient about leaving, how could I possibly rush her away from him, for perhaps the last time?

How do I tell my mother-in-law that despite the coming loneliness, she won't be alone - how do I say that and feel the words aren't hollow, she's losing the man she's loved for 53 years..

How do I tell my children that death comes for him, relentlessly, and no prayers will make it be otherwise - and not just an abstract death, but a real, palpable, harrowing death that turns this kind old man who gave them rides on the lawn mower, and in his old restored pickups - into a frail echo?

But most of all, how do I tell this man that he is a good man, who has lead the best life he could, that his can let go? Life has dealt him a poor hand - cancer is the worst kind of death I can imagine. I want to tell him that I know that the pain and the anguish at not doing all those things he promised himself he'd get to someday, that all of that is OK - and that this cycle of life and death this time is his, just as it will be mine - and that he may go when he feels it is right. I will be there, for him, his wife, his grandchildren, and most especially his daughter, and that you loved him, will remember him and appreciate who he was. Sometimes, often, being a good person has very little to do with fame - and everything to do with simply being warm and caring.

When and if you have the chance, before it is too late, before they are so deep in a morphine-induced stupor, I offer you might want to say these things to those you love - you sometimes don't get the time otherwise.

Election Law

It is ironic.

The right wing political movement espouses a non-intrusive central government, recommending that we allow most things to be decided locally - in short that local knowledge is often best.

It is ironic because during argument before the US Supreme court in 2000 (Bush v. Gore) - the argument the Democrats felt the Republicans had to make was that somehow not uniformly counting ballots between states or even counties was harmful to Bush more than Gore - an argument that of course wouldn't be successful. So, instead they argued that citizen X in county X, was disenfranchised because his/her vote wasn't counted, while, under the same rules, citizen Y in county Y - was counted.

The CONSERVATIVE Supreme Court 'bought' this argument - and Big Brother never had a bigger day.

The SCOTUS knew what it had wrought, and in it's ruling included that the Bush v. Gore decision was ONLY applicable to that ruling. However now, here in Minnesota, that ruling is being used to justify doing something which ought to offend the right to its core - it is being used to say that the decisions of local election officials (TWICE) were wrong, even when in some cases that second review only determined a ballot to be ineligible because of the objection of one side or the other (between Coleman and Franken) - as reported during the current Coleman election contest trial by local election judges. Further, the Coleman side has contended that the judges not only got it wrong twice, including those ballots the where campaigns were allowed to overrule the officials and discard votes - but that the count and recount review of ballots got it so manifestly wrong that they simply cannot be trusted.

Let's deal with the first part - in Bush v. Gore, the fundamental problem I have with the decision is this. Republicans across the south (and Dixiecrats too), have created unequal voting processes - they have for decades put shoddy, unreliable machines in too few numbers in poor precincts. In Florida, they attempted to sidestep rules in order to include military absentee ballots which were undated, but didn't want undated other ballots included (neither should have been in my opinion). What's worse though is that Katherine Harris, with Jeb Bush's tacit approval, threw 14,000 voters off the roles (illegally or so it is reported by a separate investigation AND by the company who did the work - they advised Harris such conduct was probably illegal - following the 2000 election that investigated concluded exactly thus - it was not legal or proper for Harris to have done this) What Harris did was dump 14,0000 (approx) mostly poor and mostly black voters - because their names were 'kinda' similar to that of felons - again despite being warned about the very very high likelihood that many thousands of voters would be disenfranchised. In short, they setup a highly unequal system - argue that local decisions matter - and then used the fact that human judgement - on ANY rule set - will vary, to argue that an unequal system is unconstitutional. After 2000, however, they then (in the FL legislature) opposed meaningful reforms which would have leveled the playing field in Florida to ensure adequate and even capability machines were provided across the state in proportion to the voting population of the counties.

The biggest offense (to me) is the essential suggestion that local officials could not rule uniformly 'enough' to be trusted. This process has been the norm and case throughout this country's LONG history of free and fair elections. It's the height of hypocrisy that the right - which champions local wisdom normally, will say perfect uniformity is required whenever it's convenient or serves their purposes. If they had suggested that the SAME local official in a county or recount process decided the exact same looking ballots differently, I'd have to agree the process was flawed, but that's not the case. What happened in Florida was that one person's judgement of what a 'hanging or dimpled' chad meant - vis a vis the rule of 'clear voter intent' was different that some other judges. That, in and of itself, is NOT wrong, not at all. You cannot possibly legislate enough, create enough rules, to create perfect and uniform decisions when those decisions are made by human beings with discerning minds. The allowance of those officials to judge locally was tossed out by Justices and politicians who otherwise argued vehemently FOR local authority, the wisdom of the common man, and especially for UN UNIFORM voting practices.

In Minnesota now, Bush v. Gore - and its ludicrous 'equal protection' stance are being used to try to effectively toss out the local decisions, including, and this may be the best part, offering up in court ballots that local officials may have accepted but the contestant - COLEMAN - had tossed out by his recount team. Meaning, we're trying to determine fairness based upon ballots NOT wrongly rejected by local officials, but instead by highly partisan operatives - so, just like in Bush v. Gore, the court made one standard for the recount, which apparently now is figuring out lead to problems. Rather than understanding and agreeing EACH county (where the recount was conducted) doubtless acted differently, but still uniformly within its own process - thus neither candidate was likely affected disparately, instead the court is saying "because it was imperfect, we have to decide how broadly we'll recount AGAIN." Of course remember that NO candidate is likely to be more affected than the other to any meaningful extent, as the standard - as long as it's applied evenly within the county or recount center, will remove roughly equal numbers of votes, unless one side wants to try to argue that their side is more 'dumb' than the other about how to vote - I will laugh out loud if someone makes that point. Instead, what's argued is that if the vote would have been accepted in Sherbourne County - by a subjective opinion of an Election Judge, but is rejected by a subjective decision by a different judge in Ramsey, well, then that decision, in one way or another, is flawed. Apparently, in order to be fair, there must be PERFECT AGREEMENT between judges (hundreds of them) making subjective decisions on objectively even acceptance rules - the kinds of decisions which are made hundreds of thousands of times across the country. Put it another way, if the Court agrees, this will require perfect uniformity in any manual decision process (or so it would seem) on EVERY national election - or at least on any that are close. If not, go to court, and have the government intervene for you to require perfect uniformity. Big Brother, thy name is neo-con group think.

Of course, this is nonsense to require - for if you do, if you buy this equal protection poppycock invented by an irresponsible and HIGHLY partisan SCOTUS in 2000 - doing exactly what they said you should NOT do in their first decision re: Bush v. Gore(meaning engage in retractive rules making) - you basically say NO FURTHER LOCAL COUNT WILL EVER BE VALID, EVER. Each time any counting of absentee or other human involved counting occurs, the loser will be perfectly within their rights to challenge based on equal protection. In fact, all past elections which were close enough to allow manually counted votes to matter - ARE ALREADY IN QUESTION - we will, should we go down this road, indict to a small degree, the election process in this country which outside of the Jim Crow/Tammany Hall eras, has been a model of electoral fairness. And we will do it without ever fixing the flaws in mechanical voting processes of disparate services and access. In short, we'll fix what isn't broken, demean our faith in people, and leave unfixed that which should be fixed. Welcome to the duplicity of 'local governance' as mouthed by the ultra-right.

I have never

been prouder of my country or of my fellow countrymen than I am today.

I stand here, humbled by the greatness of our democratic experiment, humbled by the wisdom of its founders, and grateful for the fortune of my birth into it.

I stand here with tears in my eyes, watching a wonderful, articulate, brilliant man take the oath of Office of the President of the United States.

I know some find this faith, this exultant joy, to be mysterious. They feel our faith is both unfounded, and grounded in a lack of fact or wisdom.

I counter that it is they who profoundly underestimate the pride, patriotism, and resolve of those who backed Barack Obama. In truth, our joy stems from the fact that for eight years we were excluded, for eight years our wisdom was discarded, our intellect ignored, our opinion dismissed and even more often demeaned. They do not understand the pent-up frustrations at watching the compassion of a nation go squandered, moved upward, and shipped off. They do not understand the pent-up frustrations of watching our national reputation and integrity get traded away for an ephemeral peace more true in words than in fact.

So today, our frustration is released, our hopes renewed, our faith endures and we feel has been rewarded that what we know to be great about America, its decency, its common purpose and willingness to meet a common need, has been restored again, refreshed again. We are more wise than our critics ever understood, and as facts bore out, that this nation does best when we do not set out dividing lines, looking to the welfare of a few, but rather when we stand up for the rights of all. Today the inauguration of Barack Obama is less about the man, than the restoration of decency and honesty and most of all common ground among us. I invite his critics to grasp and accept we are not naive', but instead fair minded and impatient for this country to carve out the path again it started down 222 years ago.

To sleep, perchance to rewrite history

I'm no one's bard (not news) - I'm also no one's poet.

I say these things because in humility do we find the honesty and compassion so often lacking in the behavior of those whom we would otherwise despise. I say that because it is the lack of self-awareness, lack of humility, lack of grace which so often I (and I believe others) find so off-putting from those who can easily criticize, but rarely acknowledge their own failures. Instead, excuses are offered, instead the failures of their detractors are offered as justifications for their own conduct and their own failures.

This week (yesterday to be precise) George Bush gave (yet another) farewell speech. In it, he described how history may judge him better than we do so today. He described how he simply listened to his convictions, and kept us 'safe' from terrorism, how he was the unhandsome hero, who bore the price and lashes of his detractors willingly while staving off calamity. He admitted to a few 'mistakes' but generally didn't name them, nor did he claim ownership of what might have lead to them - meaning he didn't acknowledge any fact of behavior or weakness, merely that 'something' went wrong.

Such is the pattern of those like this man (Bush), this masquerade of a Presidency. I found this conference to be disquieting at best, nauseating at worst.

This President violated law after law, not openly in the pride of the cross-bearer, but clandestinely. He positioned political operators to sully and demean his detractors, not welcome their barbs and slings with due confidence and humility. He engaged in a war not of necessity, but instead contrived to force upon us a war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives needlessly, to erect a hoped-for democracy that may well fail in the end. He did not write an epitaph of Wilsonian vision, but a legacy of debt, deceit, and contempt.

His supporters liken him to Lincoln, but in truth, he and his supporters were and are as far from Lincoln as they are from Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Carter, Ghandi, and Yitzhak Rabin. Lincoln accepted the reality that both the North and South created and abided slavery, and that both were due blame. He (Lincoln) counseled compassion, grace, forgiveness and cooperation in rebuilding the south, rather than retribution, tough talk, and scornful contempt for the south as so many of GWB's supporters bespeak of Muslims and Arabs. He was the antithesis of the neocon movement, humble, accepting of his own shortcomings, forgiving, and always seeking a better, more decent way. President Bush presided over 8 years of extraordinary divisiveness where contempt for one's political opposition grew to a fever pitch, where the opponent was demonized in a revival of McCarthy-esque commentary about "America Haters" and asinine calls for investigations of "Anti-American sentiments."

So, as President Bush says farewell, I bid him on his way. I hope his life is peaceful, but I also hope someday, someone will help him understand the folly of his contemptuous attitude, help him to understand that unwavering conviction to principles that 'anything goes' to accomplish financial tyranny, or American corporate imperialism, including the constant and wilful deception of the American people, was hardly heroic, and certainly anything but Lincoln-esque.

As Shakespeare puts it - (the true bard)

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make

I hope this President grasps someday in his life or his eternal slumber that his challenge was not to trade liberty and long-term stability for 'security', but rather the ensure liberty by setting a shining example - that is the lesson Lincoln lived - and he did not.

A crying shame

Today the StarTribune announced it is filing for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11.

While there are many detractors, most of them neo-cons who don't appreciate any story covered from any angle that isn't their own chosen spin, and while there are reasons to criticize any paper which is so politically correct it won't even print the name of the Cleveland baseball team (The Indians) - the fact is that papers and the press services supporting them, represent truly the final bastion of in-depth coverage. The simple tactile pleasure of sitting down with a paper and a cup of coffee is unmistakable and undeniable. The ability to retain the paper, or an article, and post its wisdom, its headline, to capture that moment in time, is unique.

Papers are dying in the United States - in part due to competition with on-line resources, certainly due to competition with television news, but more in part due to the shortening attention span of the public regarding news in general. They've also suffered somewhat of an 'identity crisis' due to the relentless, ultra-biased criticism of the monied right, and tried (vainly) to reinvent themselves as 'centrist' something those who will never see anything other than the ultra-right as centrist. I believe they moved away from their target market - toward a dumbed down - USAToday version of themselves, and so lost both their niche, and their identity.

While they may be white elephants - I believe that in the end, when all of the locals are gone, we will miss them terribly. We will think that it is a crying shame that they have passed, like the telegraph, into the ether of history.

God Bless

Today, the StarTribune, our local daily paper, had an outstanding editorial reminding us of Charles Dickens' wonderful advice to live fully, laugh often, and love deeply.

Contrasting that was a piece by Declan McCullagh on CBS News online (CBSNews.com), advising us to save rather than spend. While I understand Mr. McCullagh's warning to us all that failing to look out for our future, and succumbing to hedonism is a sure path to ruin - I think he misses the mark about what we are striving for during Christmas.

The goal is not to buy merchandise, or ingratiate the corporate barons, the goal is to give to the world, to reflect Christ's love not just to the to the people around us, but to ALL of us - unreservedly, unabashedly, and most of all Joyfully. In fact, it may be that Christ's greatest gift was helping us to learn and know that the gift WE receive from giving, the warmth, the friendship, and the affirmation of the better part of ourselves, exceeds beyond measure the value of any material thing we could possibly receive.

As well, the goal is to make the world just a little bit less cold, a bit less inhospitable to those who otherwise suffer its cruelest blows during the coldest months. We are to welcome into our hearts their needs, and love them as we would ask to be loved, to love them as neighbors - as Christ loves us.

And so, rather than asking God to bless America - a silly song, and an exclusionary notion if ever there was one, I instead choose to quote Tiny Tim.

(May) God Bless us, Everyone!

You don't say?!?

Congratulations to "60 Minutes" for finally putting voice to what most of us realized years ago.

Our Airport security measures are theatre.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/18/60minutes/main4675524.shtml?tag=topStory;topStoryHeadline

The natural conclusion, by the way, is that Al Qaeda certainly COULD have attacked us, but didn't. The natural question is, why not? (and no, I don't mean to imply collusion between Bush and the Saudis)

The Convergance of Law and Justice

One of the recent accomplishments of Man has been the definition of basic human rights by the United Nations.

Among those rights, by the way, was the right to information - to give you an idea of the depth of thought they, the UN Council on Human Rights, went to.

This list of rights followed a basic tenet of philosophy, namely, that certain rights are of a 'higher order' than other rights. For example, the right to life is a higher liberty than say, the right to free access to information. While they UN Council did not in any way 'score' rights, they did tend to enumerate rights in an order of importance.

Why this matters is that ethical theory has evolved to the point where certain acts are seen as good, and proper, but also which can be subordinated or even violated if some higher order good is to be preserved.

An example would be, while honesty is certainly a good and decent thing, if you would cause the loss of life by honesty, then dishonesty is permitted, according to current ethical theory. The examples, such as when is deadly force permitted, all now tend to extend from this idea of 'higher order' ethical theory.

This does NOT argue for ends justifies the means approach, as Benthemite philosophy does. It would not allow for the killing of 20 to save 200 - as the taking of life is still the taking of life, the numbers saved are of no value if the only net result is the saving of other life. Conversely, if 200 will die regardless, but by taking 200, 2000 would live, then clearly, not acting and allowing 2000 to die, when the fate of 200 is already sealed, would be murder by ommission.

Why does this matter?

It matters because we have learned that our actions in World War II, bombing Tokyo, Nuremburg, or Dresden undert the auspices of 'total war' as defined by William T. Sherman, or denying the enemy the ability to fight, or even as we said then, that you can't significantly distinguish women and even civilians from the warmaking ability of a nation, in fact was unethical. It was NOT necessary to firebomb any of those cities. Nor was there really any ability to justify that our bombing was reasonably part of making war upon a nation which had attacked us, so it could not be justified under self-defense.

I met an Isreali, who, in an attempt to justify their war in Lebanon in 2005, reminded me of the 'genocide' (as he called it) which the US inflicted upon Japan in the bombing of Tokyo. He assumed I did not know of it. While I did, I also did not defend it, and countered that comparing oneself to Satan hardly makes one a saint. Our actions were, in historical hindsight, something for which our Air Force leaders would have been tried (successfully) for war crimes had we lost the war. However, to the victor goes the right to write the history books, and so our actions were not seen with the ignominy they might have justly earned had the outcome been different.

Why do I bring this up?

Osama Bin Laden quoted our justification for the attack upon the World Trade Center with nearly EXACTLY the language we used to attack Germany and Japan during World War II. In Bin Laden's mind and the viewpoint of his followers, he was making war upon our ability to wage war, no differently than we did upon Japan. He could, in his eyes, no more easily distinguish between civilians and the military support mechanism they worked within than we could in Dresen or Tokyo. When we justify our righteous anger at Bin Laden for attacking civilians, we seem unaware of our own history which gave him license (in his mind) to do so.

Our words, our actions, were used against us.

Except...in the case of our bomber pilots, our war leaders, we were less than mature in our philosophical understanding of higher order good, the limits which warfare MUST be fought under, the constraints of civilization upon a nation unless it desires those same horrors visited upon it by future history. While I don't excuse Hap Arnold or Gen. Harris for their actions, there were NO militarily viable targets in Dresden or Nuremburg - I can at least say that I believe FDR and Churchill were not aware of the reasonable likelihood our actions would someday be used to justify attacks upon us.

However, Bin Laden MUST know this. He is well educated, he is very bright. Yet, he seems unconcerned that his actions nearly gaurantee his main goal, a self-governing Saudi Arabia, free from foreign influence, and also his secondary goal, a Muslim Middle-East driving the Isralis into submission if not into the sea, are virtually assured to never be sustainable.

Saudi Arabia is surrounded by more powerful neighbors, only the US military safeguards its corrupt aristocracy against change. The world looks upon SA as a morally stunted, backward and repressive state, mostly uncaring should anyone desire to change its borders - except for oil. That oil will keep the ravenous wolves at the door - keep the US and its allies in place helping the aristocracy stave off change, until oil is no longer there, or no longer needed. Then, the wolves defending the government will be traded for wolves which will change the government.

The brazen conduct of Al Qaeda, and generally of terrorists, in not acknowledging the growth in wisdom around the need for observance of basic human ethics - has already abandon concern for the plight of terrorists, and mostly, for the plight of the Palestinians. The only concerns which are sometimes fostered actually are sympanthy generated by repressive conduct by the Israelis, the underdogs have become the bullies sometimes - and so the world has a SMALL bit of sympathy for the Palestinians. YET, the world will not soon allow the destruction of, or oppression of, the nation of Israel or the Jews who reside there.

Indeed, OBL's failure to understand the world has moved past his form of warfare, is his own undoing. As he is smart, and educated, the only conclusion which can be made is that he depraved, if not insane. He is no longer rational. Clearly he learned to not trust the US during his days as a Mujahadeen - but he's turned that distrust into blind lust for racial/religious purity. Such purity, like the concept of bombing civilians as militarily justifiable, is a notion long past its time.

The question which remains is this, when will this country, this United States, become aware of that which we can recognize Bin Laden has failed to recognize. When will we as a people begin to undertand that human life has a value which is equal, no matter the birth location, ethnic background, economic class or circumstance, as life just outside our front door? We ask the world to stand by us, as we have the right to do, to stop terrorism, yet we STILL (at least until the election of Obama) seem convinced US lives are somehow 'more sacred', and since they are, the impact to the world of our conduct is less of a concern than loss of US life/lives.

Clearly, ethical conduct has evolved to the point we understand that life is life, that tolerating inhuman, cruel conduct in the name of defense is flawed, even evil. Clearly law has evolved to the point that such conduct will/should result in criminal punishment of such acts. Clearly we can see this - clearly law and good are moving together. Clearly justice, not just law, has become a paramount HUMAN concern. The competition between good- that which harms least, and evil, that which harms most, is a race we cannot afford to lose. Clearly we must learn from history, and never again embrace the ideas which laugh at Abu Ghraib, or the deaths of 'a necessary' number of civilians in colateral damage.

Clearly, as a nation, it is time to move ahead and away from the false idol of war, for war is at best terrible, and at worst, the evil which will destroy us. Clearly not doing so is no less than insane.

The Heart of Darkness (part 2 of 3?)..

I'm still contemplating how to end this, but since I said I'd write this, here's the next installment...


The Heart of Darkness (continued)


During 2001, and more emphatically again in 2003 and 2004, some forward looking economists started warning of a default crisis, and debt/liquidity ‘problem’ at Fannie and Freddie. The President took some note, but only in that he, and his fellow corporatists, wanted to free GSE’s from needing to purchase FHA loans on the secondary market by requirement. They didn’t seek to regulate the conduct of banks originating loans, and they certainly paid no heed to the obvious warning signs of flat wages and skyrocketing healthcare costs (or the less obvious but more ominous signs of rampant HELOC business among high credit worthy customers on existing properties, coupled with raids made by those same customers on IRA’s and 401k’s).

Those signs pointed strongly to the weakened state of the US middle-class. They pointed out that, contrary to current popular conservative talking points, “Joe 6 pack” wasn’t out buying over his ‘means’ or living beyond his income, but rather, his costs had exceeded his income. What he once could afford, had become unaffordable due to climbing gasoline, food, energy, education, and daycare expenses. He took out a home equity loan or line of credit (HEIL/HELOC), not to really to go to Bermuda, but just to afford a car when his old one finally crapped out, or to pay for his mom’s hip surgery, or to pay for his daughter’s in-state, land-grant university tuition. Very often, when he took out that loan, he did so with an ARM, assuming that rates would stay low (or maybe praying), and hoping, perhaps against his own better judgment, that a raise was ‘just around the corner’, or ‘better days were ahead’ as he/she was so often promised by the ‘rising tide’ crowd. The tax cuts of Bush were cold comfort (at $1500/year for the average family of 4) against an average increase in JUST energy costs of $3000/year, especially when the ‘cut’ was really just a loan taken out against his kids share of the public debt.

Finally, the country had been cutting discretionary government spending virtually without abating for 30 years, except in the area of schools – where it swung wildly between large cuts, and occasional large increases. Bridges, highways, power-grids, sewers, service buildings all were on subsistence level budgets, meaning the potholes got fixed, but the underlying roads very often never got improved, and too often got replaced much less frequently than needed. Road structures didn’t keep up with population growth, congestion magnified, and all the while tax base, the real ability of the middle-class to pay for the government they needed, eroded. Those at the top, while paying roughly double the percentage of taxes they did in 1981, paid HALF as a percentage of income of what they paid in 1981. The only reason their portion of taxes doubled, is that their incomes grew four-fold, while taxes were cut in half.

The consequence was the perfect confluence of less real ability to sustain government, less interest in oversight as ‘neo-conservative’ scorn overtook policy-making in regulatory bodies, and lower expectations of participation and support by those with the only remaining ability to support the system that had lavished wealth upon them.

AWESOME!!

Today is a bright, shining moment in our history. It is, to borrow a idea, the dawning of our second youth, or perhaps, the start of a new maturation. We have once again shown that a people where slavery divided us bitterly, cost us lives and honor, can rise above our past to a better future.

I congratulate Barack Obama - his decision to run in 50 states was, along with Howard Dean's, brilliant. I congratulate the American people who, through $10 and $20 contributions leveled a playing field long set against them, but mostly I congratulate our nation on showing compassion for all is truly an American trait.

Finally, I congratulate and applaud John McCain, his acceptance speech was nothing short of breath-taking - we saw the man I've come to admire - we saw the man as he should be remembered.

Predictions

I read Scott Elliott (aka the Blogging Ceasar) - pretty religiously. He's a conservative, but honest - no, really. I would have guessed, two months ago, that Barack Obama would win in a squeeker, because the nation was in an economic trough - at best. Further, Obama frankly conveys more confidence than McCain, who comes across surley, angry, and without much forethought.

I also told my father about 6 months ago that I thought Obama had a slim chance of a landslide, if the nation felt energized by his candidacy for the kind of shift away from economic feudalism that he talks about, but I suspect strongly doesn't mean.

Unlike some on the right, when things shifted away from Obama briefly after the Republican Convention, I did not think they were likely to stay that way, and I surely (unlike one M. Berg) did not think the outcome was going to be either a McCain victory narrowly, a McCain landslide, or maybe an Obama narrow victory. That kind of pathetic 'cover all bases' prediction is absurd. I felt it was still most likely that Obama would win close.

I am happy to admit mistakes, and Scott Elliott has suggested I am likely in error.

These were Scott's words yesterday:

"Eight days from Election Day, here is this blogger's conclusion: Barack Obama will win this election in a landslide. He will capture at least 350 electoral votes and win the popular vote by 7% or more. McCain may benefit from some measure of the Bradley Effect, but that advantage will be overwhelmed by African-American turnout, Palin-induced defections by moderates, and under-funded, unenthusiastic GOP get-out-the-vote efforts. This week's update shows Obama with a 375-163 electoral vote edge. The actual result may be a tad closer, but I'd be less surprised if his victory surpassed even that landslide tally. "

Obviously, while I respect McCain - other than his rather snotty campaign and penchant for using simpleton rhetoric - I still believe Obama will stand in the way LESS than McCain from fundamental restructuring of our nation's objectives which are necessary to right the ship - and so I hope Scott is correct.

That said, I'm still on the sidelines about the outcome. I think Obama will win, but I don't put much past the likes of Rove, and his numerous clones on the state level around the nation. I also am loathe to see one party rule all. While the neo-cons seemed all fat and happy with that idea when it was THEIR party in charge, I think the nation runs best when there is a check on excessive anything - including governmental plans to correct all ills.

We'll know in 7 days...

The Emperor has no make-up

You know what the difference is between a Hockey Mom and George Bush?

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Lipstick

If the right ever wonders why Sarah Palin was a lousy choice, and will be an equally lousy candidate for President, it's because she's a carbon copy of George Bush. They say she's their new hero, and they also say they've learned their lesson with Bush. Clearly though, if she's their new champion, they've learned nothing at all, which pretty much makes them Pitbulls, or Hockey Moms, I never could tell them apart.

Stevens found guilty

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/27/politics/main4548608.shtml?tag=topStory;topStoryHeadline

Today, Ted Stevens, R-AK, a 40 year veteran of the US Senate, was convicted on charges of lying about inappropriate gifts. Perhaps others to the left of the extreme right will celebrate, I will not. It is a sad testimony to the corrupting power of power and money. It is a dark spot on our collective Democracy's integrity. It is certainly NOT the case that Democrats are immune - my only comment on that score is this, when you believe in unbridled power, in 'getting the government out of the way', and that 'government IS the problem', it certainly speaks to a mentality that suggests using power is good, getting paid for it is better, and rules against either are a nuisance. That said, it's an attitude that transcends party.

Antonyms

What is the opposite of communism? Meaning, what is the opposite of perfectly even pay and distribution of wealth?

If Marx's axiom "From each acording to ability, to each according to need", is the philosophical heart of pure communisim, then what is the other extreme?

If the other extreme perhaps is the hyper/over concentration of wealth and goods in the hands of one person (or a very limited few), what do we call that? Is that a good thing?

The line of the right today is that any discussion of taxing the rich is communism/socialism, my reply is, what is the opposite, what is it that you desire? No control? Meaning, in effect, no restraint on the ability of the powerful to control things further, to concentrate wealth further, to acquire further, far beyond the level which we'd consider ethical, fair, or just.

If communism is the left end of that scale, what is the right end? Fascism? That's not really applicable, perhaps it's feudalism?

So, in contrast to communism, the right would promote feudalism, the excessive concentration of wealth into the hands of only a very very small few.

Why is pursuing something in the middle, wrong? When did abandoning a concern for what will benefit the most, without unfairly stripping those with the best ideas of ANY ability to be fairly compensated, when did that become wrong?

The obvious answer is, it didn't, but we've forgotten it and instead use increadibly base and foolish arguments like taxing the rich in measure to their benefit, as socialism. No one said they'd be stripped of all assets, no one. When it was enacted in the 30's, 40's and 50's (meaning higher tax rates), no one called it communism then. It wasn't, and we understood it. It was recognizing those with the most, have the most ability to pay, and vapid questions from air-head reporters to Joe Biden don't suddenly make progressive taxation anything akin to communism - but even if it did, is feudalism somehow better? Has it worked any better?

Clearly not, but given we don't understand that each extreme is a problem, we don't understand that the opposite of perfectly even distribution both exists, and is wrong, well clearly we don't even know what the definitions of simple words are anymore just as we don't grasp basic economic theory any more.

Heart of Darkness (part 1)

Some bloggers, and for that matter, just any writers, say things well with few words. Many say only a little bit about big subjects. The following will be broken up into 2 or 3 parts as I craft it.. I apologize in advance to those who may find it too long.

The Heart of Darkness

The 1979 film “Apocalypse Now” was based upon a book written by Joseph Conrad about a rogue Colonel (Walter Kurtz) who, upon seeing the futility of the Vietnam War, uses his relations and knowledge of the Hmong tribesmen to carve out a fiefdom in remote Laos. The book certainly takes liberties, but still is a poignant reflection of the gross ineptitude of the military leadership and growing apathy of the soldiers and even that same leadership about the endless war. This book was titled “The Heart of Darkness.”

As some may know, I work in financial services. I spent 10 years or so working for a major US Bank, as a technology project manager. In this role, I was peripherally exposed to the products and motivations of various lines of business within a large corporate bank. Thus, I know little compared to the experts, but perhaps more than those who do not work in banking.

I moved then into a two year (plus) stint as a consultant at a large brokerage firm in the Twin Cities where I implemented a brokerage to bank sweep product. It was on this project where I learned what things like “Mark to Market”, “net asset value”, “FINRA” etc... meant. I was again, not an expert, but increasingly became more fluent in the vagaries and driving interests of brokered deposits and ‘cash products.’ I am grateful to those people who put up with my patently ignorant questions and educated the rough boy from IT about why ‘spread revenue’ meant more than the actual rate of compensation.

The past several months I have worked for a Washington D.C. based banking services firm. I have come to know several very smart, well connected people in the cash management of brokerage products world. They include a former head of the OCC, a vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, and another of the FDIC, a senior OTS regulator, and several others. They have been very kind and patient with the ‘farm boy from Iowa’, and have helped to bring me from neophyte, to merely naïve’.
It is with this understanding I am going to attempt to express my feelings about the financial disaster looming for the United States. I don’t pretend to know all, anyone, other than maybe someone like Warren Buffett or Henry Paulsen, who would do so is at best a deluded fool.

The path we have willingly walked down for the past 30 years or so is one where we have accepted as fact that unions had vastly overreached, where the stock market was the best measure of the health of the economy, where one change in valuation of inflation, unemployment, or debt, which masked the comparative and relative underperformance of the economy was entirely acceptable. We had a nation where productivity climbed 50%, but wages adjusted for hours worked and evaluated based upon the advancing age of the American workforce, fell 12%, including benefits like healthcare coverage by employers.

We saw a vast shift in the division of the profits of the fruits of labor, going from 75% (or so) going to labor in a recovery, to around 39%. We saw dramatic motivation for those with large capabilities to accumulate power and wealth, pass tax cuts which incented them to do ever more to capture and hold on to larger shares of profits. We saw CEO’s convince first their peers, then shareholders, then the people that profitability was king, and compensation tied to short term spikes in cash flow were both warranted and wise. We saw a world look with confusion and then growing angst as we became ever more focused on short-term gain at the expense of long-term sustainability.

And so, in 2001, we passed further tax cuts, following on the heels of further bank deregulation, whereby those with vast fortunes had more cash, but had little reason to invest in jobs in the US. The promised ‘rising tide’ never arrived. It was less costly and more profitable to instead invest in building factories in China or India or Indonesia. No thought was given to the loss of jobs, and thereby purchasing power, as the technology jobs fled overseas. The assumption by each company was that such losses, on a macro scale, would never impact them. There would still and always be the ability to purchase at a high price, the goods produced offshore so cheaply. The impact of overseas labor on wages was a good thing, not bad, in their eyes, as it lowered production costs, and increased the pattern of putting more money in their (ownership’s) pockets at a higher and higher rate. The ‘golden goose’ of the US economy, the middle-class, was assumed immune to the twin pressures of offshore labor creating stagnant wages, and ever higher healthcare, daycare, food, and energy costs.

The funds accumulated at the high end needed a home – a home outside China, and so as good investments became saturated with capital. As more stable areas for investment became saturated, and demands for ever higher returns became the rule of the day, less stable products, with both high return potential and high risk, were seen as acceptable. Partly this was because there was a vast ‘secondary market’ where such risk could be quickly offloaded, and partly this was because real estate was seen as likely to continue to increase in value, making any default risk mitigated by the appreciation of the real estate under lien. No one much heeded warnings that a decade of low interest rates during rapid increases in wages in the 1990’s, was a potential recipe for an inflated real estate market. Few worried about the impact of requiring the GSE’s of Fannie and Freddie to purchase FHA loans that had been initiated by risk lenders. Fewer still questioned Alan Greenspan, or the market's use of confusing vehicles like securities derivatives and credit default swaps.

(To be continued...Part 2 is in the works)

When all you have is aspirin

There is an old adage, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

For Republicans, during the last 28 or so years, the only prescription for improving the economic fortunes of the nation has been smaller government, including the meme' that lower taxes stimulate growth, reinvigorate a sagging economy, or are the right action to take when the economy is moving along well as the government no longer needs the receipts (as shown by the surpluses created during boom times).

In short, for every situation, tax cuts are the remedy. They are the aspirin to every problem. They are the ONLY solution worth discussion, every time, all the time.

Today, the solution Bob Dole recommends to John McCain, for McCain to solve his financial crisis "crisis", by extolling.. you guessed it - MORE Tax cuts. We'll deficit spend our way out of debt apparently. The other thing McCain should do, according to Dole, is to suggest that Obama will (fear factor) 'oohhh scarrry' - raise taxes.

Now Obama, for his vapid part, is promising tax cuts too.. as if that's the prescription for this mess. A $500/year cut or even $5000/year cut, won't solve the problems, as those are ALSO lost services, but the real point is, a tax cut is NOT the issue, problem, solution, resolution, or even germane to the problem we face. The problem we face is having too much money at the top, chasing too few real investments BECAUSE those what gots the money don't want to spend it to create jobs, pay better, build infrastructure or improve the economy on-shore. That's got little if anything at all to do with tax cuts, except in that those who have benefited by this skewed system over the past quarter-century, have, as a percentage of their income, paid less and less and less (in taxes, in salary to workers, in infrastructural investment) - leaving workers further behind, the infrastructure crumbling, and the nation in debt up to its hairline.

Tax cuts are no more a cure-all than is a federal program for every ill. Done at the wrong time they destroy the credit base of the economy AT BEST, and at worse, put the nation on the road to ruin if done poorly - meaning if done by offsetting lost revenue with merely printing paper. They are a zero-sum-game in most respects, until they squelch out investment, which NEVER happened in any of our lifetimes. During the 50's, corporate and personal income taxes were FAR higher on those making the most (and on corporations), yet we boomed. There were clearly other factors (like lack of competing industry in some nations), but people STILL invested - because make 30% of 1,000,000 is still far better than making 0% of 10,000,000.

But the real point is, they AREN'T the cure all for THIS problem. Getting investors to invest in jobs on shore, protecting the American workforce force from what is essentially slave labor in Africa, or near slave labor wages in China, and having an adequate tax base to pay for public health care, public schools, and public infrastructure upon which to conduct trade, That's the start of a real change. Boogey-man theory about tax increases aside, it's time to recognize we don't have either a nail to hit, or a headache to treat. We have a need for an arc-welder, and we need to cure both corporate myopia and the cancer of unbridled greed.