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Swords into Plowshares: The Greening of Ron Paul

14 Feb

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. — Isaiah 2:4

In his farewell address, delivered on January 17, 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about what he termed “the military-industrial complex.”

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

Yet what worried Eisenhower in 1960 is nothing to the behemoth that sprawls across the globe fifty years later and is condemning America to an unending and fiercely wasteful “war on terror.” That military industrial complex is more terrible than any group or nation the Federal Government has designated as an enemy. Indeed, we cannot help but wonder, with Ron Paul, whether or not “our current policies provide incentive for more to take up arms against us.”

Yet however much we admire Paul’s “bring the troops home” stance on defense, we can’t help be wary of his disregard for the environment, as expressed, for example, in his energy policies.

Why not take the money we save from defense/war and put it into restoring the environment and rebuilding our infrastructure? Why not train the troops in the arts, crafts, and trades of sustainable agriculture and green design, construction, and manufacture? Why not turn spears into pruning hooks?

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America’s billionaire-run democracy – 2012 Elections – Salon.com

14 Feb

The article begins, and delivers on the promis of this beginning:

Watching what’s happening to our democracy is like watching the cruise ship Costa Concordia founder and sink slowly into the sea off the coast of Italy, as the passengers, shorn of life vests, scramble for safety as best they can, while the captain trips and falls conveniently into a waiting life boat.

We are drowning here, with gaping holes torn into the hull of the ship of state from charges detonated by the owners and manipulators of capital. Their wealth has become a demonic force in politics. Nothing can stop them. Not the law, which has been written to accommodate them. Not scrutiny — they have no shame. Not a decent respect for the welfare of others — the people without means, their safety net shredded, left helpless before events beyond their control.

It’s all about who gets to be puppet master:

When all is said and done, this race for the White House may cost more than two billion dollars. What’s getting trampled into dust are the voices of people who aren’t rich, not to mention what’s left of our democracy. As Democratic pollster Peter Hart told The New Yorker magazine’s Jane Mayer, “It’s become a situation where the contest is how much you can destroy the system, rather than how much you can make it work. It makes no difference if you have a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ after your name. There’s no sense that this is about democracy, and after the election you have to work together, and knit the country together.”

These gargantuan Super PAC contributions are not an end in themselves. They are the means to gain control of government – and the nation state — for a reason.

via America’s billionaire-run democracy – 2012 Elections – Salon.com.

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Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It – NYTimes.com

12 Feb

There is little poverty here in Chisago County, northeast of Minneapolis, where cheap housing for commuters is gradually replacing farmland. But Mr. Gulbranson and many other residents who describe themselves as self-sufficient members of the American middle class and as opponents of government largess are drawing more deeply on that government with each passing year.

Dozens of benefits programs provided an average of $6,583 for each man, woman and child in the county in 2009, a 69 percent increase from 2000 after adjusting for inflation. In Chisago, and across the nation, the government now provides almost $1 in benefits for every $4 in other income.

Older people get most of the benefits, primarily through Social Security and Medicare, but aid for the rest of the population has increased about as quickly through programs for the disabled, the unemployed, veterans and children.

Something more to think about, dependence on the government seems correlated with support for Republicans: Continue reading →

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The architecture meltdown – Art in Crisis – Salon.com

5 Feb

But overall, the state of architecture reflects the larger story of the creative class in the 21stcentury: Security and artistic freedom exist only for those who are independently wealthy. There are heavy casualties at small independent companies from which corporations are somewhat shielded. The middle levels get hollowed out. Barriers to entry tighten. And there’s a lingering sense that even when the recession lifts, these industrywide problems will not abate. Record corporate profits, after all, have not led to a significant increase in design work or construction. They’re issues, of course, that increasingly face the broader middle class in the developed world as well.

We need  to create a society where creativity is available to all.

via The architecture meltdown – Art in Crisis – Salon.com.

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At 102%, His Tax Rate Takes the Cake – Common Sense – NYTimes.com

4 Feb

The rich themselves are some of the most distressed. “None of the dialogue about taxes has anything to do with fairness,” Mr. Ross lamented. “Certain rich people are paying way more than their fair share and other rich people are paying a lot less. I’d like to see a conversation take place along nonideological lines where everyone is asked to pay their fair share, where everyone makes some payment, even if it’s one dollar. Everyone I know is so disgusted. People aren’t stupid. They know what’s going on. At the end of the day, the system is broken.”

via At 102%, His Tax Rate Takes the Cake – Common Sense – NYTimes.com.

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Black Church Activism on Education and Incarceration – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com

3 Feb

Second, black churches need to resist the wave of attacks against public workers. These groups, traditionally those who have needed the protections of unions, also form the bedrock of the black middle class. If black churches do not wake up to the practical threat of the political discourse that vilifies those who work for all of us, we may witness the shrinking of the middle class even as the poorest among us become increasingly mired in poverty with nowhere to go other than to prison.

via Black Church Activism on Education and Incarceration – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

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The protectionism boogeyman | Prestowitz

3 Feb

A second, more fundamental question, is why anyone thinks that free trade and globalization are always win-win. In the first place, free trade and globalization are not the same thing. Globalization involves capital flows, direct foreign investment, and technology transfers that are not usually involved in plain old trade transactions. Economic theory holds that free trade is win-win, but only under certain restrictive assumptions such as that all markets are perfectly competitive, that exchange rates are fixed, that there is full utilization of resources, that there are no economies of scale, and that there are no cross border flows of capital, technology, or labor. Obviously, those assumptions hold only in very few instances in modern trade.

Turning to globalization, there is even less of a theoretical basis for arguing that it is always a win-win proposition, and that argument is usually made without making a full accounting of the costs of globalization such as those affecting the environment, dislocation of workers, capital investment losses, and skills learning. The truth is that globalization may or may not be a win-win proposition depending on a wide variety of circumstances.

via The protectionism boogeyman | Prestowitz.

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Global Business Elite Go Marxist at Davos! | The Nation

3 Feb

But many attendees lost their cool over Barack Obama’s State of the Union promise to introduce a minimum 30 percent income tax on millionaires. American CEOs who had followed the speech on their iPads during the three-hour drive from the airport vented their spleen during a session on the world business outlook. “They say they want to create employment, then they attack the employment creators,” complained Duncan Niederauer, CEO of the electronic stock exchange Euronext, who took home $5 million last year. “It’s wealth creation that matters, not income distribution,” chimed in Alcoa CEO Klaus Kleinfeld, whose last compensation package topped $11 million. Only John Chambers of Cisco (who took home $38 million last year) seemed to sense that the old Davos clichés of trickle-down might not work anymore. He chided Kleinfeld’s arrogance, saying, “It’s an embarrassment that US business has not found a way to combine its success with a growing middle class.”

via Global Business Elite Go Marxist at Davos! | The Nation.

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Turning the ‘Buffett Rule’ Into Law – NYTimes.com

1 Feb

The Congressional Research Service estimates that the Buffett Rule, requiring millionaires to pay at least the same rate as most middle-income taxpayers, would affect about a quarter of all millionaires, or 94,500 taxpayers. Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal policy group, says the bill’s 30 percent rate would bring in about $50 billion a year.

via Turning the ‘Buffett Rule’ Into Law – NYTimes.com.

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Occupy the Super Bowl: Now More Than Just a Slogan. | The Nation

1 Feb

The Republican-led state legislature aims to pass a law this week that would make Indiana a “right-to-work” state. … In the reality-based community, “right-to-work” means smashing the state’s unions and making it harder for nonunion workplaces to get basic job protections. This has drawn peals of protest throughout the state, with the Occupy and labor movement front and center from small towns to Governor Mitch Daniels’s door at the State House. Daniels and friends timed this legislation with the Super Bowl. Whether that was simple arrogance or ill-timed idiocy, they made a reckless move. Now protests will be a part of the Super Bowl scenery in Indy.

The Super Bowl is perennially the Woodstock for the 1 percent: a Romneyesque cavalcade of private planes, private parties and private security. Combine that with this proposed legislation, and the people of Indiana will not let this orgy of excess go unoccupied. Just as the parties start a week in advance, so have the protests. More than 150 people…marched through last Saturday’s Super Bowl street fair in downtown Indianapolis with signs that read, “Occupy the Super Bowl,” “Fight the Lie” and “Workers United Will Prevail.” Occupy the Super Bowl has also become a T-shirt, posted for the world to see on the NBC Sports Blog.

via Occupy the Super Bowl: Now More Than Just a Slogan. | The Nation.

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