Political Waves by Judith Gayle

This whole incredibly dangerous ‘austerity’ business the political class thinks is so wonderful got a big fat black eye in Europe this weekend — Greece and France said “enough” with their votes, putting the euro in the crosshairs and Germany’s leadership on alert.

Jon Stewart pointed out, tonight, the irony that 70 years after the war was won by the allies, Germany is in charge of Europe. That won’t make any headlines but now that France has elected a Socialist president, look out for another round of Freedom Fries!

It’s all very dicey — but a break from this pernicious, contracted notion of belt-tightening and public-punishing austerity is very welcome. Especially now that everybody is talking about Simpson-Bowles like it was the Holy Grail and that needs to be squelched. Write Nancy Pelosi and tell her the progressives expect her to keep the faith, not cave in!

There’s time to handle debt AFTER we grow ourselves an economy, and there’s time to refresh the safety net on the OTHER side of cynical political panic. Good ideas and analysis below from two of my favorites: Reich and Krugman.

A little progress after a Beltane Supermoon … and not just over the pond; look what’s up in Wisconsin!

Jude

‘Austerity’ Becomes A Dirty Word In Europe
SARAH DiLORENZO, Huffpo
05/07/12

Those Revolting Europeans
The French are revolting. The Greeks, too. And it’s about time.
PAUL KRUGMAN, NYT
May 6, 2012

Both countries held elections Sunday that were in effect referendums on the current European economic strategy, and in both countries voters turned two thumbs down. It’s far from clear how soon the votes will lead to changes in actual policy, but time is clearly running out for the strategy of recovery through austerity — and that’s a good thing.

Needless to say, that’s not what you heard from the usual suspects in the run-up to the elections. It was actually kind of funny to see the apostles of orthodoxy trying to portray the cautious, mild-mannered François Hollande as a figure of menace. He is “rather dangerous,” declared The Economist, which observed that he “genuinely believes in the need to create a fairer society.” Quelle horreur!

What is true is that Mr. Hollande’s victory means the end of “Merkozy,” the Franco-German axis that has enforced the austerity regime of the past two years. This would be a “dangerous” development if that strategy were working, or even had a reasonable chance of working. But it isn’t and doesn’t; it’s time to move on. Europe’s voters, it turns out, are wiser than the Continent’s best and brightest.
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This is a post on the Supreme Court, Arizona’s divisive immigration law and the politics of the election — but before we begin, the first of May is right around the corner and some of us will be participating in May Day activities. Those of us who think the Left has always been a wishy-washy, capitulating group of dreamers — unwilling to face realities or do the hard, often dangerous work liberty demands — need to read some history, confirming that NOTHING involving the early years of the labor movement was for sissies — go here:

May Day’s Radical History: What Occupy is Fighting for This May 1st

Not quite a General Strike, and as yet a small movement, May first in the OWS this year is a day of resistance — here are some ideas. And me, I suggest we think outside the box. Maybe this is the day to jump on the blogs you usually read, spread some encouragement and scatter some seeds for Shift!

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On to the days business: what is extraordinary about America has been her ability to accept into her vast melting pot the talent, skill and strength of a diverse population and create it as one people with a unique view of the world. In the last years, our post-9/11 xenophobia has created a thin-lipped, mean-spirited immigration policy along with new state laws that echo old Jim Crow laws and renewed dialogues about racism. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Obama mentioned that he never put much stock in the “post-racial presidency” stuff — and ain’t THAT the damned truth!

I see Lou Dobbs is back on FOX and I’m sure his viewing-faithful welcomed him with open arms. Since he left CNN, Arizona has turned into a Neo-Confederate bastion and produced the worst legal repression of an ethnic group since Jim Crow policies were de rigueur in the South. As Bobby Reich points out, below, the Pubs may pay a steep price for that in this coming election.

Early feedback from oral arguments against the Arizona discrimination laws in the High Court was not encouraging for the Obama administration or for the Left. The Federalist judges seemed quite hostile to any attempt to defend Arizona citizens from harassment, approving overt racial profiling — in a largely Latino state — as long as it weeds out illegals. No decision yet, but the DOJ does not appear hopeful. On the other hand, the pony in the horseshit is that nothing unifies people like repression and loss of liberty.

Meanwhile — if you ask me — brassy, repugnant Gov. Jan Brewer IS the bride of Satan. I can’t even look at pictures of her without curling a lip. Pffffft!

The reads, below.

Jude

Justice Scalia, Your Racism Is Showing
Jessica Pieklo, Care2
April 25, 2012

It’s impossible to have a debate about federalism and the relationship between the federal government and the states without, to some degree, harkening back to the ultimate issue of federalism in this country’s history, slavery. Yet that is exactly what proponents of Arizona’s controversial anti-immigrant law managed to pull off during oral argument before the Supreme Court, and by every indication the conservative wing of the court was more than happy to enable that historical whitewash.

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli had not yet even started his argument when Chief Justice Roberts made it clear what the court would not be discussing. The court would not be discussing racial profiling, despite the fact that racial profiling is at the center of the political dispute surrounding the bill and that racial profiling and the impact of the federalism arguments go hand in hand.

“I just want to make clear what this law is not about,” Roberts said. “No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it?” At this point Verrilli had an opening to explain to the court that yes, your honors, the issue of race and racial profiling, while not immediately briefed before the court, informs the very heart of the Arizona bill and therefore the very spirit of this argument before the Court. I won’t armchair quarterback here except to say that Verrilli appeared to make the same mistake here as in the health care arguments, and that is assuming that most of the justices exist in a world of law and not of Fox News politics.
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I’m sure you’ve heard that little bit of advice that shows up as an e-mail signature these days, to treat people gently because you don’t know what burdens they carry. That’s better advice than we know.

We seldom look at the back-stories of the events that fill our headlines until we’re trying to put them in historical context. We’d be better citizens … and people … if we did. We’d connect dots back to cause, which is where we might offer some pre-emptive assistance in pressure-cooker situations that can only turn worse — if not explode — if we turn away.

Here are three articles that I consider essential to understanding our nation, our world and our selves today.

First, read the truth about the Iraq war we leave in our wake. It’s as bad as we thought, as combustible and as disheartening. We ignore news of the continuing coordinated bombings and murders in Iraq, the government so shaky as to be useless in combating the assaults. Iraq should have been this generations Vietnam — and a bitch slap to the administration that caused it — but without a draft, we had a choice to turn our backs on sacrifice … and we did. Nobody is giving odds on Iraq’s ability to self-govern and Iran is gaining ground. Read about the price paid by a whistleblower to bring that information into view.

Next, One L. Goh, the Korean man who went on a killing spree in California a few weeks ago, endured what can be thought of as a typical American story of loss and disenchantment, and failure of the system. In Goh, we can see the Achilles Heel of the Asian-ego … a sense of responsibility, pride and respect for the elders … played out against the increasingly cold, harsh American value of profit and loss. This is a pitiful tale and, I fear, a cautionary one.

Last, the price we pay for the class war — the one Romney sez Obama is making up to divide the nation — is breaking our hearts. And a bit of information in this story may not surprise you but it might make you weep: Staff Sgt. Roger Bales, the Army sniper accused last month of killing 17 Afghan civilians, may not have acted alone. Will we ever know the details?

Here’s the story of three men (and more) that came to a point of decision — they did what they felt they needed to do. Two snapped due to the enormous pressures upon them; one squealed, obeying the dictates of his conscience. All three felt they had no choice.

This is a scenario that is swirling around all of us 24/7 and it’s time to look around us to see who needs help, kindness, directions to a mental health center or a financial counselor. It’s time to address the kinds of pressures put on all of us by our country, our society and our growing inability to deal with all that seems broken.

It’s time to deal with injustice, fraud and greed. It’s killing us.

It’s time to find our heart.

Jude

I Had to Tell the Truth About Iraq–Even Though it Cost Me My Career
Given what we left behind in Iraq, it remains beyond anyone, even the nasty men who started the war in 2003, to claim victory or accomplishment or achievement there.
Peter Van Buren, TomDispatch via AlterNet
April 8, 2012

People ask the question in various ways, sometimes hesitantly, often via a long digression, but my answer is always the same: no regrets.

In some 24 years of government service, I experienced my share of dissonance when it came to what was said in public and what the government did behind the public’s back. In most cases, the gap was filled with scared little men and women, and what was left unsaid just hid the mistakes and flaws of those anonymous functionaries.

What I saw while serving the State Department at a forward operating base in Iraq was, however, different. There, the space between what we were doing (the eye-watering waste and mismanagement), and what we were saying (the endless claims of success and progress), was filled with numb soldiers and devastated Iraqis, not scaredy-cat bureaucrats.

That was too much for even a well-seasoned cubicle warrior like me to ignore and so I wrote a book about it, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the War for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. I was on the spot to see it all happen, leading two Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in rural Iraq while taking part up close and personal in what the U.S. government was doing to, not for, Iraqis. Originally, I imagined that my book’s subtitle would be “Lessons for Afghanistan,” since I was hoping the same mistakes would not be endlessly repeated there. Sometimes being right doesn’t solve a damn thing.

By the time I arrived in Iraq in 2009, I hardly expected to be welcomed as a liberator or greeted — as the officials who launched the invasion of that country expected back in 2003 — with a parade and flowers. But I never imagined Iraq for quite the American disaster it was either. Nor did I expect to be welcomed back by my employer, the State Department, as a hero in return for my book of loony stories and poignant moments that summed up how the United States wasted more than $44 billion in the reconstruction/deconstruction of Iraq. But I never imagined that State would retaliate against me.

In return for my book, a truthful account of my year in Iraq, my security clearance was taken away, I was sent home to sit on my hands for months, then temporarily allowed to return only as a disenfranchised teleworker and, as I write this, am drifting through the final steps toward termination.
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When the Supreme Court meddled in the 2000 election, taking charge of what should have been a regular — if stressful — process of electoral recount, were you surprised? I was. At that point, I thought the court had more judicial good sense than to cross the line into political activism … I was wrong. But then, we had just turned the corner into a new century. I had high expectations for a bright future and easy slide into ground-breaking modernity.

Pffffft!

Hadn’t fully anticipated the effort it would take to pull our feet out of the bucket of sludge we were standing in, I guess. But after a dozen years of dealing with the slime, and as the 2012 energy floods the planet, I … we … have high expectations for a course correction.

This week, having lived with the results of the Citizens United ruling and watched the Robert’s court sail through case after case favoring corporations, we find ourselves suffering a long moment of suspense while the court decides on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Because those who serve on the High Court have become increasingly partisan and idiosyncratic, there is no way to predict this judgment — although if I had to guess, I’d suspect they’ll let the ACA stand rather than make such a terrible mess of things. A negative outcome would [too quickly] turn our very slow-moving Ship of State on its axis and create political and social confusion at a pivotal time in the election season that would make waves we can’t even anticipate. The backwash might even swamp the very political movement our Federalist Supremes want to promote.

Still, there’s no way of knowing how this will turn out and we anticipate this to be a year of shocks and surprises. To get this moment on the record, then, I’m posting the best reads [and links] from this last week on the prospects of the judicial process: Robert Scheer rants for us and the New York Times editorial board demands common sense, while EJ Dionne and Bob Reich hint at what might be possible if the Supremes act rashly and rule as the political ideologues they are. I’m also including a list of links for those ambitious enough to want to dig through the bowels of this issue, heavy on the legalese.

First though, a read from today — essentially “after the fact” of the three-day riot-fest of speculation and intrigue — that sums up the cost the Court is now … FINALLY … paying for its perceived bias, posted as illustration to a hypothesis I explored in my PlanetWaves blog piece this weekend.

With cranky computer and Merc retro issues … all of which try my patience and impede my progress in posting … I’m determined to get this out on the last day of the month. We shall see if I’m successful, much as we’ll eventually see if the High Court chooses precedent over activism, justice over power.

We must intend the Highest and Best outcome, no matter the ruling.

Keep the faith,

Jude

Obamacare Is On Trial. So Is the Supreme Court.
Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic
March 29, 2012

Before this week, the well-being of tens of millions of Americans was at stake in the lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act.

Now something else is at stake, too: The legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

Nobody knows how the justices will rule. And nobody can know, not even the justices themselves. On Friday morning, perhaps by the time you read this, they will meet privately to take their first vote. More often than not, this first vote determines the final verdict. But there are exceptions and Anthony Kennedy, on whose decision the outcome presumably depends, has a reputation for long deliberation and changes of heart—particularly in major cases like this one.

That’s good. With the result apparently in doubt—smart money still says the chances of the full law surviving are about 50-50—Kennedy should think long and hard about how he wants the Court to rule. So should Chief Justice John Roberts, who appeared more skeptical of the government’s case during oral arguments but nevertheless indicated that he, like Kennedy, understood the government’s premise—that health care was a special market, perhaps requiring special intervention.

If that concern is not enough to sway the chief justice, than perhaps his frequently professed concern for the court’s respectability will.
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For those fearing a right-wing coup in November, the continued chaos in the race for Pub nominee should sooth. The Barack and Hillary Show went well into the summer but it wasn’t because of ideological splits in the party. There are really three radical schisms at one another’s throats, here, and not one of them is a traditional … some call them “adult” … conservative.

Mitt was always a dufus and the longer they let him talk, the more apparent that becomes to all. Ditto on Santorum, who handily lost Puerto Rico by getting in their face about their language. As talking head of the American Taliban Party, he’s picking up lots of votes but not delegates — and the possibility of a brokered convention … read that wide-open free-for-all … looms. Improbably, we can thank that old funkmeister, Michael Steele, for that; read about it here.

Here in the Pea Patch, fist-fights broke out between Ron Paul-ite’s and the rest of the Right on caucus day, and some facilities were shut down so we’re not sure who has what yet. It just gets more bizarre by the day.

Meanwhile, there continues to be fallout from the Rush Limbaugh stumble and — absolutely astounding, when you think on it a moment — he’s still floundering to get sponsors. His radio show is full of dead air and public service announcements. Meanwhile, the Huckabee people are soliciting his old advertisers, anxious to pick them up for an “uncontroversial” brand of hate radio; Jesus approved, donchaknow. Huck wants to be heir to all that money and influence. The Huckster has solidified his following on FOX and is headed now for talk radio, which brings me to the quote of the day from Helen Philpot, the 80-something political observer on the Helen and Margaret blog … she’s just a hoot:

“Show me a Republican who makes less than a million a year and I’ll show you a moron who watches Fox News.”

I know there are a lot of people who say, oh don’t tell me anything about Rush, he’s such an ass and so negative – but this is worth noting, dearhearts! I never thought I’d see this day. So here’s news about Rush and a couple of excellent don’t-miss reads — and even if Limbaugh rights himself like some kind of obese Weeble he’ll never be the same. He was untouchable for years, even the mighty couldn’t penetrate that armor. Now he’s been touched — POKED, even — by the disdain and anger of millions of women who BUY things and VOTE, scaring away the money boyz, over 200 of them running like rabbits!

Just frikken brilliant!!!

Jude

Rush saw his shadow today. Six more weeks of stupidity…
Helen Philpot @ MargaretandHelen blog
03/05/12

Margaret, evidently you and I are sluts, and so are the majority of women who live in this country. Well good for us. I have always said that well-behaved women rarely make history. I have also said that Rush Limbaugh is a big fat pig. Pigs and sluts. Sadly, that’s what this has all boiled down to.

In 2008, the Democratic Party had a tough decision to make. Would we give America its first female President or would we give American its first African-American President? Would we turn the corner on sexism in this country or racism? Would we finally rise above hate and bigotry and make a statement that we truly are the land of the free? Either way, we would profoundly change the world for the better. And that we did. At the same time, over in the Republican camp, that party was trying to decide if you could see Russia from Sarah Palin’s kitchen window.

This year the Republicans have another tough decision to make as well. Will they decide that Mormonism is a cult or will they decide that women who use birth control are sluts? It’s a tough call. But either way we will profoundly change the definition of just how stupid is stupid. God Bless America.
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