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My colleague from Stanford’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, Professor Rob Reich, is a smart political theorist. He even makes tax incentives interesting. For a long time Rob has been asking whether the “blunt tool” of tax exemption is right for all charitable giving.
On a recent panel discussion with Rob I realized that the post Citizens Unitedhttp://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/ years may well give us the opportunity to revisit that structure. Rob said something akin to “After Citizens United was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this January, we expected to see huge corporate dollars flow into politics. What we’re seeing is nonprofits playing the big funding role.”
I hadn’t seen it that way. To me, it’s corporate money that just happens to be flowing through nonprofits. The nonprofits are, in effect, laundering the corporate money. Yes, that’s strong language. Intentionally. Now that the law of the land allows corporations unlimited spending on campaigns, why else would they bother to move the money through nonprofits unless they want to mask their involvement? The lack of transparency around these organizations provides the donors with unfettered funding opportunities while letting them hide their identities (except when four intrepid reporters spend countless hours digging through document trails). When these nonprofits then spend 50% or more of their money on issue and political ads, it’s hard to see them as anything but shills for that money. To me, that’s money laundering.
When you think of money laundering, trust and integrity are not what comes to mind. Yet trust and integrity are the calling cards of nonprofits. This is just one reason everyone in the social sector needs to be thinking about what it means if 501c4s and 501c6s start gaining a reputation as fronts for company money. That’s not a reputation your local food bank or youth organization wants to have to live down, and talking tax code subtleties with the general public is not going to be an effective way to deal with this issue.
I’m working on a more nuanced, thoughtful, and less deliberately inflammatory sets of posts on the impact of Citizens United. But, now that I’ve got your attention, please go think about the impact of these dollars on nonprofits, on the sector, and on politics. There are a lot of strategies to consider – including changing the way broadcasters charge for political ads since so much of the “money in politics” just winds up at TV and radio stations anyway. And there are other things to do as well, campaign finance reform, DISCLOSE Act, shareholder proxy voting, new disclosure rules – stay tuned, I’m going to get at all that.
As this is a partial thought (a Random Philanthropy Observation) I had posted it on my Tumblr blog but had some trouble with that technology so moved this post over here. Please bear with me.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

In a town where a cop can’t accept a free cup of coffee, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has been eating and drinking for free for the past eight years at the Harvard Club.
Kelly hasn’t paid for his meals or drinks at the exclusive midtown spot on West 44th Street since 2002 when he returned as commissioner.
Nor have his guests.
Kelly also doesn’t pay his club’s dues, which come to about $1,500 a year.
Instead, the non-profit New York City Police Foundation has been picking up Kelly’s tab, says a well-placed source.
Despite this arrangement, which mirrors the kind of freebies that have landed other police commissioners in difficulty, Kelly has snubbed the hand that feeds him. He has refused the requests of foundation board members to name the guests whose food and drink they have been covering.
“There is no disclosure about whom he has taken out,” according to the source.
“There was grumbling by the board at first but they have gone along. They will not take him on. He is now in control of the foundation.”
As Police Foundation Chairman Valerie Salembier, a senior vice president of the Hearst Corporation, has been known to say of Kelly, “I can’t say no to him.”
Neither she nor executive director Greg Roberts returned calls to this reporter.
Kelly’s spokesman Paul Browne did not respond to an email asking about Kelly’s Harvard Club arrangement.
At Kelly’s urging, the foundation has also issued credit cards to the department’s precinct commanders. The stated reason: to ensure they would not be beholden to others either for meals and to reimburse them for out-of-pocket emergency supplies.
In contrast to Kelly, the commanders are limited to $100 a month and have to report their expenditures and how the money was spent to the department.
The foundation was begun in the wake of the 70′s-era Knapp Commission scandal to help the police commissioner cope with the department’s longstanding corruption by funding projects privately to bypass the city’s cumbersome approval process.
In its 39-year existence, Kelly is believed to be the only police commissioner to ask the foundation to pay his dues and expenses at a private club.
His expenditures, said the source, are not identified in foundation filings but are lumped together with “incidental” expenditures.
The Harvard Club, with the notable exception of former Governor Eliot Spitzer, is open to anyone with a Harvard degree.
Kelly earned an MPA, a Masters Degree in Public Administration, from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government while a member of the NYPD.
At the Harvard Club, Kelly can eat in its main dining room for breakfast, lunch or dinner; in its Grill Room, which serves lunch Monday through Friday; or in the Balcony, which, according to the club website “offers a dramatic view of the Main Dining Room” and serves “lighter fare, such as sandwiches, soup and a salad bar” and where a “discrete display of business papers is also permitted.”
Kelly can drink in the club’s Charles River Room, which offers a full-service bar from 4 to 11 p.m. or at the Main Bar, which is decorated with Harvard memorabilia and which, according to the club website, offers “classic cocktails, complimentary snacks and good cheer.”
Kelly’s Harvard freebies appear to contradict department policy, at least as it applies to other police officers, who since the Knapp Commission have been prohibited from accepting even a free hot dog.
The Patrol Guide’s section 203-16 reads: “It is the policy of the Department that members of the service may not accept any reward, gratuity, gift or other compensation for any service performed as a result of or in conjunction with their duties as public servants. … Members of the service also shall not solicit any gift, gratuity, loan, present, fee or reward for personal gain.”
City employees are also prohibited from accepting gifts of $50 or more from a person or a company doing business with the city.
Top police officials, however, have found themselves in trouble for accepting gifts, even when the giver does no city business.
One of the corruption charges that sent former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik to prison for four years, was his failure to report or pay income tax on the free use of an apartment, owned by a person with no known business dealings with the city.
Former First Deputy John Timoney, while chief of the Miami police department, accepted a free leased car from a dealer who did no business with the city. Although Timoney subsequently purchased the car at full price, he was criticized over the incident for the rest of his term.
Former Commissioner Howard Safir ran into trouble with the city’s Conflict of Interest Board for a freebie trip he took to the 1999 Oscars that was paid for by Revlon Corporation CEO George Fellows. Safir and his wife flew free on the company jet and Fellows paid for their stay at a four-star hotel.
Although Revlon did virtually no business with the city, a report from the corporation counsel recommended that Safir reimburse Fellows $7100 for the junket to avoid an appearance of impropriety.
Then there was former NYPD Deputy Commissioner Ed Norris, who while serving as Baltimore’s police commissioner was indicted on charges of stealing thousands of dollars from a secret police department fund. Norris used the money for affairs with women, trips to New York, meals at upscale restaurants and luxury hotels. He served six months in prison.
Kelly, however, is held to a different standard than other police officials.
In part, this is because the city’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has provided the perks.
Bloomberg has piloted Kelly to Kelly’s Florida home on Bloomberg’s jet.
Bloomberg also provided Kelly with front row Yankee seats in Bloomberg’s box during last year’s World Series. (A state ethics panel reprimanded Governor Paterson for accepting free tickets to the same World Series.)
At last Tuesday night’s Yankee playoff game against Texas, Kelly was seen sitting in the first row.
At the same time, police sources say that a contingent of Internal Affairs detectives were in place at the stadium to prevent cops from attending the game for free.
Police sources say Kelly was a member of the Harvard Club while serving as First Deputy Commissioner in the 1990s and allowed his boss, then Commissioner Lee Brown, to use his account there, then grumbled that Brown was late in reimbursing him.
“When he returned as police commissioner in 2002, he requested an American Express card from the police foundation but was turned down,” said another source. “The foundation then agreed to his request that it pay his Harvard Club dues and expenses.”
“I am sure his refusal to disclose comes from the same rationale that he justifies to hide his public schedule,” said the source familiar with the arrangement at the Harvard Club. “And it would be wrong for the same reasons. There is no reason he shouldn’t disclose who he takes to lunch or dinner. What message does it send to the troops?
“But there is no accountability regarding the appropriateness of his guests, and the board of the police foundation is afraid to take him on.”
Said a former top police official: “His not disclosing who he took to lunch or dinner may be harmless but it gives the appearance of Kelly’s placing himself above all rules and regulations, making him the sole arbiter or what is correct for himself.
“At the minimum, he should hold himself to the same standards as his commanders.
“Did he [Kelly] go the Harvard Club for Christmas or New Years? Did he take his wife and children? He bristles at any kind of oversight. He gets away with it because no one at City Hall has the courage to stand up to him, including the mayor. Especially the mayor.”
SEVEN SHOTS: An NYPD Raid on a Terrorist Cell and Its Aftermath by Jennifer C. Hunt portrays the best and the worst of the NYPD.
On July 31, 1997, a six-man Emergency Service team raided a Brooklyn apartment, whose inhabitants were just hours away from entering the Atlantic Avenue subway station and detonating bombs during the morning rush hour.
When two officers entered the bedroom, the suspects lunged for one of them, then moved towards a black bag that the officers believed contained the bombs. The officers fired their weapons, critically wounded the would-be bombers. Two bomb squad technicians then dismantled what turned out to be a live bomb.
It was the NYPD at its finest.
But that is just the beginning of the story told by Hunt, a sociologist and police expert, who was granted extraordinary access to the participants in telling her story.
If the raid showed the NYPD at its best, the aftermath, as Hunt chronicles, showed the NYPD at its worst.
Fearing for their safety and that of their families, the officers balked at attending a news conference with Police Commissioner Safir.
Safir took that as a personal insult and retaliated by denying them promotions and by trying to keep them from being honored at the White House.
Meanwhile, writes Hunt, jealous members of the officers’ units blocked their promotions and targeted them for harassment. Men who should have been praised as heroes instead had their careers sabotaged by forces within the department itself.
The country paid an even bigger price. Intent on downgrading the officers’ accomplishments, Safir and then mayor Rudy Giuliani downplayed the incident and failed to adequately alert the public to its significance as a terrorism threat.
Hunt’s fast-paced narrative leaves us with many questions. Perhaps the most important is this: had Safir and Giuliani reacted differently, might we have been better prepared for 9/11?

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

When Richard Wagner, a brash young composer of then little distinction, attended one of the first performances of Hector Berlioz’s Romo et Juliette symphony in the Paris of 1839, he was knocked off his feet. It may have been in the work’s love scene that he learned tonality could be a sometimes thing, to be stretched almost beyond recognition. It is highly unusual, for instance, to introduce a theme in A Major by setting up its harmony in C# Minor, but then again genius never likes to play by the rules, especially when it sets out to express the searching, irresolvable pangs of love.
Wagner would remember the encounter when he composed his own Tristan und Isolde twenty years later. The arching sixth leap and stepwise fallback leading to the Tristan chord comes directly from Berlioz’s opening phrase of yearning in the Romeo Alone sequence of his symphony. When you remember that Wagner borrowed his famous chord from Franz Liszt, you have, in the span of a few measures in Tristan, the conjunction of the three greatest musical proponents of progressive Romanticism in the nineteenth-century.
Although the Los Angeles Philharmonic has never been known as a “French” orchestra, as was Charles Munch’s Boston Symphony of the middle of the last century, or Charles Dutoit’s Montreal Symphony in more recent decades, the orchestra has always been athletic, quick to learn and perform well in many styles. Under Esa-Pekka Salonen’s leadership, it gained considerable skills in executing sharply gauged, pointillistic effects, so important in Gallic orchestral works.
Reports on last week’s performance of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalla-Symphonie under Gustavo Dudamel confirm the orchestra’s superb execution of the twentieth-century French masterpiece. We should not be surprised, then, that it also excelled last Friday under the experienced hands of the Swiss-born Charles Dutoit in Romo et Juliette. A quintessential conductor of French works, Dutoit had championed Berlioz at Montreal and recorded Romo, a “dramatic symphony with solos and choruses” a quarter century ago to excellent reviews.
I was as impressed with this performance as I was disappointed 13 years ago in a similar one by the LAPO under the direction of Valery Gergiev. The otherwise fine Russian conductor had a willful, rough way with Berlioz on that occasion, a fatal approach; Romo positively resists being manhandled. For all of its grand moments, the work is more characterized by a nuanced emotional climate, with subtly balanced colorations, ethereal effects, and quicksilver rhythms that must be finely gauged.
(To be fair and balanced, Gergiev excelled last Saturday afternoon with Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, which I caught in a live national broadcast from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.)
Romo is a curious work, with operatic or cantata-like elements that can make it difficult to conceptualize and expensive to produce. It only briefly outlines the Shakespeare play’s main scenes in vocal and choral statements prior to launching into purely orchestral reflections on its emotional highlights, and closing with a sermon and reconciliation scene between Friar Laurence and the warring Montagues and Capulets that he never engineered in the original Shakespeare.
Some puzzle as to why the work is called a symphony at all. The LA Phil’s program booklet does not help matters when it organizes Romo’s sprawling episodes into three parts (as it did also in the program of the 1997 performance under Gergiev). Berlioz himself arranged the work in five parts, which Upbeat Live pre-concert lecturer Daniel Kessner correctly identified, to the confusion of the assembled who saw a three-part description in their programs.
Understood as the composer intended, and clearly outlined in his score, Romo is a cyclic five-part work, containing a prologue and and a four-movement symphony, as detailed below:
I. Prologue (outlining and commenting on the story)
II. Andante, Allegro (Romeo alone, the Ball at the Capulets)
III. Slow Allegretto (the Love Scene)
IV. Scherzo, Andante, Allegro (Queen Mab, Juliet’s Funeral, Tomb Scene)
V. Choral Finale (Families quarrel; Friar Laurence reconciles)
Once we grasp the work’s master plan, rather than complain of Berlioz violating symphonic structure as many have in the two centuries since its premiere, we stand amazed that he has so respected the received symphonic tradition.
Laying aside for the moment its Prologue, Romo’s standard symphonic treatment begins with Part II above: a slow introduction with a fast main section looking back to Haydn’s London symphony; a second movement taking a cue from Beethoven’s Ninth; a third a fast-slow-fast scherzo patterned on Mendelssohn (and where Berlioz out-scherzos him for sheer gossamer grace); and a last movement counterpart in Beethoven’s Ninth, even to the shared baritone role preparing the way for the choral apotheosis.
Berlioz’s only deviation from the standard four-movement symphonic form is the introductory vocal Prologue that precedes it. Some find this part expendable. I disagree.
Few in early nineteenth-century Paris knew the Shakespeare plays, and the prologue served the practical purpose of introducing the story of Romeo and Juliet. Even with our own full acquaintance in modern times, it is helpful, as Berlioz wrote, to have themes introduced in embryonic states so that their instrumental appearances later can be understood in context. Additionally, by giving us a foretaste of his vocal and choral forces, the composer prepares our ears for their occasional employment in the middle sections and extensive use in the finale.
Most importantly, the prologue completes the work’s cyclical aspect. Understood in this context, the third part’s Love Scene sits at the epicenter of a five-part work. It should not be forgotten that Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was also in five parts, unified in a proto-cyclical way by the use of his ide-fixe, its movements even having a similar placement to the five of Romo et Juliette.
Parenthetically, Berlioz’s cyclical inspiration may have come via Beethoven’s forward-looking song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved) which was to influence many works in the Romantic era, especially those of Schumann, a huge admirer of Berlioz.
Lastly, something extraordinary takes place in the prologue. In the vocalizations of his contralto solo and chorus, Berlioz confesses his credo on Art and Love. The open declaration is all the more touching coming from the vulnerable composer, a religious skeptic who endured much of his life and its cruel whims with an ironically detached melancholy.
Mezzo-soprano Lauren McNeese was the warm-toned conveyer of these sentiments, making a convincing case for the Prologue’s value. Tenor Jean-Paul Fouchcourt effectively delivered the Queen Mab vocal scherzetto’s tricky rhythms at lightening speed. In the last scene, New Zealand bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu’s imploring sermon of Friar Laurence was as dark and resonant as the ocean’s reverberations in a sea cave.
The Master Chorale as a whole, and its division into several parts, showed itself to good effect as well: the Capulet men singing farewells after the ball, the combined forces intoning the funeral chant at Juliet’s funeral, the warring clans in an agitated fugato at the tomb of the two lovers, and finally the combined oaths of reconciliation between the families.
But the evening was even more Dutoit’s and the orchestra’s to relish. From the very first viola and cello agitations signaling the rivalries of the two families, Dutoit’s tempi, dynamics, and balances where spot on. His allegro fugato intro was deliberately enough paced to clarify textures, making the follow-on trombone entrance to impose the Prince’s discipline on the crowd perfectly clear and commanding.
It continued upward from there.
A few highlights of many from the orchestra: the cellos and horns together intoning the love theme; the English horn’s version of the same against a downward stepping counter-melody, like vines dipping low from the balcony; the flute and English horn in octaves for a segment of the Queen Mab scherzo with the clarinet and triangle sporting later in the same movement; the infinite colorations of Juliet’s funeral music mixing with the choir; the awakening clarinet of Juliet with the violas, cellos, and basses of Romeo in the vault scene, (in the David Garrett version of the play used by Berlioz).
The list could be extended indefinitely.
Like the prologue, the last movement’s resolution can seem long-winded when not put across convincingly. On this occasion, it was the catharsis needed to bring us back to reality from such intensity. And its sentiment of reconciliation between intractable camps is a lesson particularly useful in these times, with our nation painfully divided along political lines and world tragically divided along religious ones.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Is Barack Obama a politician whose actions should be judged soberly, or a figure from a feel-good fairytale to be revered from afar?
For two years now, most of the good and honorable people who desperately wanted him to beat John McCain – as I did – have watched his actions through a distorting haze of hoping for the best. So when Obama set us all up for another global crash by refusing to reregulate the banks or stop even their riskiest practices, we looked away. When Obama set us all up for more terror attacks by trebling the troops in Afghanistan and launching a vicious air war on Pakistan that is swelling the ranks of jihadis, we didn’t want to hear it. When Obama set us all up for environmental disaster by refusing to put the brakes on his country’s unprecedented and unmatched emissions of climate-destabilizing gases, we switched over to watch will.i.am’s YouTube rejig of the President’s “yes, we can” speech. And when a week from now he is beaten at the mid-term elections – after having so little to show the American people – by a group of even more irrational Republicans, we will weep for him.
As Rober D. Hodge writes in his excellent new book ‘The Mendacity of Hope’, “Obama is judged not as a man but as a fable, a tale of moral uplift that redeems the sins of America’s shameful past.” Our longing for him to be Martin Luther King reborn has meant good people have not pushed and pressured and opposed him, even as he endangered us.
But if you choose to see this as another fairytale – of how one man who seemed like a Good Prince turned out to be a Traitor – you will miss the point, and the real need for change. This is not primary a question of individual failings, but of the endemic corruption at the core of American politics. The facts are not hidden. If you want to run for national office in the US, you have to raise huge sums of money from corporations and very rich people to pay for the adverts and the mailings that get you on the ballot and into office. These corporations will only give you money if you persuade them that you will serve their interests once you are in power. If you say instead that you want to prevent anything destructive they are doing to ordinary people, or tax and regulate them, you will get no money, and can’t run.
As the Wisconsin politician Ed Garvey puts it: “Even candidates who get into politics with the best of intentions start thinking they can’t get re-elected without money. Senators get so reliant on the money that they reflect it; they stop thinking for themselves, stop thinking like the people who elected them. They just worry about getting the money.”
Barack Obama knows this. In 2006, he said that taking money from the rich is “the original sin of anyone who’s ever run for office” in the US, and it ensures that “Washington is only open to those with the most cash.” There’s a term for this: legalized bribery. It is so naked that corporations routinely give to both sides in an election: Goldman Sachs, to name just one, gave to both Obama and McCain to ensure whoever became President was indebted to them.
In the Land of the Fee, Obama was brought to power by the “donations” – actually investments – of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, IBM, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, and others. So it is unsurprising that his Presidency has largely served their interests, which are very different from our interests. His first act after the election was to appoint an economics team headed by the people who caused the crash: the Clinton-era deregulators and the former heads of Goldman. They proceeded to ensure that any reregulation to prevent another crash was gutted, while the bankers’ bonuses continued to flow. In his official report to Congress, Treasury Department Inspector General Neil Barofsky warned this year: “It is hard to see how any of the fundamental problems in the system have been addressed to date… We are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car.”
The corporations are getting massive returns on their investment in Obama. Two-thirds of them pay no federal tax on their income. Wal-Mart, for example, has received a billion dollars of subsidy from ordinary tax-payers. These corporations get to veto any law that would eat into their short-term profits, like a freeze on kicking Americans out of their homes while the banks’ dodgy and probably illegal boom-time mortgages contracts are clarified, or a transition away from climate-destabilising oil and coal. And they rake in a fortune from the reality that 44 percent of the entire federal budget is spent on a largely unnecessary war machine – a figure that is growing rapidly on Obama’s watch.
The fact that corporations have this power over what the US government can do means Obama – or any other President – is unable to approach a problem by asking: how do I fix this? Instead he has to ask: how can we get corporations to consent to a small cosmetic gesture that will, for a while, appease public anxiety and anger about this problem?
The healthcare “reform” trumpeted as Obama’s greatest achievement illustrates how this works. The biggest problem with US healthcare is that squatting between a doctor and his patient are the bloated insurance companies whose job is to turn down any claim from a sick person they possibly can, in order to maximize their profits. Some 45,000 Americans die every year as a result. Obama had within his grasp a way of taming these corporations and saving the lives of all these people. It was called the public option: a government-run healthcare insurance programme that would guarantee affordable care to all American citizens. It was supported by 61 percent of Americans. But it would cut into corporate profits – so Obama’s outgoing chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, said its defenders were “fucking retards,” and the administration killed it.
Instead, Obama pursued the polar opposite approach. He guaranteed the healthcare companies that he would never use the bargaining power of the government to force their prices down. His “reform” has been simply to force millions more Americans to buy from the insurance companies – without any mechanism for making that care more affordable. There were a few brilliant tweaks, like making it illegal for the corporations to refuse insurance to people with “pre-existing conditions” – but their share-prices jumped after the package was announced for a reason: Obama overwhelmingly served their interests, not the patients’. At the end of this, millions will be still left uncovered, and others financially broken, so a tiny number of corporations can profit. If Obama can’t stand up to corporations in a situation where Americans are demonstrably being killed in huge numbers and a majority is behind him, isn’t his subservience almost complete?
All this corruption means Obama has very few achievements to show the American people. He is left presenting pitiful corporate-fattening tweaks as the best he could do. They aren’t nothing – but they aren’t much. His inadequate stimulus was slightly bigger than McCain’s would have been, so unemployment is about 2 percent lower. He has restored federal funding for stem cell research, and for abortions abroad. He hasn’t bombed Iran. These make a real difference: they’re reason enough to vote Democratic over Republican. But we have to be honest: the continuities with Bush are far more pronounced than the differences.
There are Democrats who refuse to be corporate shills – and they deserve to be defended with every ounce of your energy. If you’re an American and you have time over the next week, phone bank or donate to Representative Alan Grayson, or Senator Russ Feingold, to name two of the best who do it the hard way, run their campaigns by collecting small donations, and actually defend the American people. But they are, alas, a minority in the Democratic Party.
Contrary to the glib stereotype, Americans aren’t stupid, and they can see what is happening: a recent CNN poll found 60 percent of Americans said Obama “has paid more attention to the problems faced by banks and other financial institutions than to the problems faced by middle class Americans.” They’re right. It’s not that they want him to be “more liberal” or “more conservative”: few think in these terms. No. They are asking – is my job more secure? Is my home more secure? Is my healthcare more affordable? And the answer is no, not really. They know the people who caused the crash are fatter than ever, while the people who had nothing to do with it take the pain, and Obama is left calling this farce progress. In the absence of a liberal populism that would have actually fixed these problems, all the oxygen goes to the fake populism of the Tea Party. US politics has ended up as a battle between the mostly corrupt and the entirely corrupt.
I’m sure Obama believes he is doing the best he can in a corrupt system – but it’s not true. There is another way. Imagine if, when he came to office, he had articulated the real solutions – and, when he was blocked, named the corrupt corporations and the corrupt Senators stopping him getting healthcare for sick children or preventing another crash. Explain that it is time to drive the money-lenders out of the temple of American democracy. Tell the American people they will always be screwed over until they end this corruption and pay for the democratic process themselves, and propose serious measures to achieve it. Call for a mass movement to back him, just as Franklin Roosevelt did – and succeeded. At least then there would be a possibility of real progress. Would the outcome conceivably have been worse than this – being beaten by the foaming Tea Party Republicans with almost nothing to show for it?
At moments, there have been flickers of what this alternative Obama Presidency would have looked like. His huge government bailout of the auto industry kept millions of people in work, was hugely popular – and is already making a profit for the government. In the final days of this election campaign, he is railing against the massive corporate donations to the Republicans – a hypocrisy, for sure, but a popular one, pointing to a better path he might have chosen, and still could, if enough sane Americans shake themselves awake and pressure him hard.
Yes, on the night Obama won, I too felt that great global ripple of hope, and shed a little tear – but the people weeping today are those having their homes repossessed in the Rust Belt and their homes blown to pieces in the SWAT Valley as a direct result of Obama’s decisions. They are the ones who deserve our empathy now, not the most powerful man in the world, who has chosen to settle into and defend a profoundly corrupt system, rather than challenge and change it. It’s long past time to put away your Obama t-shirt that and take out your protest banner.
Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here or here. You can email him at j.hari [at] independent.co.uk
You can follow Johann’s updates on this issue, and others, at www.twitter.com/johannhari101
To watch Johann on the Dylan Rattigan Show, click here.
To read Johann’s latest article for Slate, about one of the great taboos of our time, click here.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Every now and then, we experience something that seems weird, but then yields an insight into something going wrong with modern society. Recently, travel took me again through Heathrow Airport’s new Terminal 5 in London. That $1b+ mammoth building took more than a year longer to construct than the five years planned; it was way over budget and when it finally opened was effectively not functional for almost a year. One might have assumed, even to the point of stipulation, that British architects and engineers have had enough relevant experience with airports in recent decades to have built a really great, workable building.
Instead, travelers have been treated to a monstrously large space — so large that it is full of signs telling passengers that they are 15 minutes to an hour from where they have to be. If that were not bad enough, it turns out that the signage is so complicated that the airline employees whose job is to direct passengers to their flights do not even know where many places are or how to explain how to get there. For example, it is almost impossible to get anywhere without going up in order to go down, or down to go up. Perhaps there is hidden in that massive maze of confusion some rational idea/theory of what they were trying to accomplish. It might be amusing and helpful to know more what that idea was. It is well concealed, if it exists. The only thing that comes to mind is the explanation during WWII that the British navy was designed by geniuses to be operated (sorry) by idiots, without which a rapidly enlarged navy would have been sunk in one way or another all too quickly. But, Terminal 5 really appears (sorry again) to have been designed by idiots to be used only by geniuses — and everyone else is either frustrated, angry or misses their flight or connection.
So what does the Terminal 5 metaphor tell us about the modern world?
Deference to experts, simply because they obviously know more than you do, is a risky business. They need common sense oversight by civilians, just as do the military.
Big is risky because if it does not work it is very hard to fix and it stands out like a sore thumb. Smaller often lends itself to being fixable.
Massive budgets and expenditures often go to the head of people with the power to spend such large sums and they often tend to get out of control and lose sight of their mission and true goals, not to mention the public interest.
When a complicated process like moving people around, between and among gates, planes and ground transportation is made more complicated by such an immense critical mass encapsulated in such an opaque scheme, it is almost sure to break down. Again, smaller is usually not only simpler but more workable and elegant.
Interaction between people focused on getting somewhere with minimum stress, maximum comfort and simple efficiency and a vast maze, (which most people visit only occasionally, and therefore never master) leads to serious frustration, anger and worse. Hello!
Massing of large numbers of people in very large spaces requires extra long lead times for planning and development, during which time the very conditions to be dealt with often continue in a dynamic process of change. The result is that the whole can become somewhat obsolescent before it is finished. Nimbleness is lost forever.
Planning tends to be focused on “the last war” the best/worst example being the Maginot Line. While there are stunning examples of success in planning for the future — like atomic power generation — too many public works like Terminal 5 fail badly.
Resistance to genuine innovation and change is inevitable. Terminal 5 does things basically in much the same way as they had been done for decades, except they have been made bigger, flashier and amazingly more complicated.
There are ways to organize self-reinforcing accountability and thinking in large, long term/lead time projects but too often the political process out of which such public/private projects emerge resists those methods because they might involve changes which the political managers fear, hence ultimately they risk criticism for almost any outcome.
Lastly: modesty and reasonableness frequently give way to hubris and ambition to make a statement like “this is the biggest, newest, most expensive” undertaking ever. That is dangerous thinking that needs to be avoided.
So what do the 10 foregoing “commandments” teach us? With every massive undertaking, society needs a countervailing balancing mechanism that is smart enough to understand, independent enough to withstand pressure, restrained enough not to impede for its own sake and shrewd enough to steer the actual managers to smart decisions without standing in the way of progress.
One model for such balance is the role of Ombudsmen in journalism. Perhaps the time is ripe for Public Stewards to be created on a case by case basis to provide oversight over big public undertakings?

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

What if the very place Lindsay Lohan’s career is headed is the same place that holds the clues to why it collapsed? Consider this. The DNA that makes up the genetic material in us is only 10% human and 90% bacterial. Hard to imagine that we are only 10% human (unless you watch the current political debates). What is this ecosystem doing living with us? These microorganixms eat the same foods we eat and depend on their human host for survival. We also depend on them to produce substances we need to survive. Is it plausible to speculate that this ecosystem is capable of modulating the behavior of the host to get more food (as in obesity where the microbiome is altered), or even affecting how we behave in other situations? These are questions many scientists are now exploring as they study the microbiome in the intestine, known to the non-scientist as poop.
Addiciton originates in brain chemistry, is determined by genetics, and triggered by stress. The very brain chemistry that provokes the bad feelings that result in addictive disorders also might originate in the colon, where our microbiome and mammalian tissues come in contact. Could it be that the microbiome is producing neurotransmitters that affect behavior in the human host? We have no idea: however, this speculation suggests that what lands in the toilet may hold the clues about these brain-gut interactions.
Neurotransmitters are the proteins that regulate communication between cells, influencing not only our behavior but also moving our muscles. We all have imbalances in these proteins, and those imbalances create the good and bad feelings that drive our everyday behaviors. When a big dose of stress is mixed into the soup, those imbalances become severe and our feelings ramp up, which drives us to an overwheming “wanting” (craving) to feel better (a natural survival mechanism). The choices we make in our attempt to rebalance these transmitters can spell the difference betwen health or a catastrophic road to addiction. If we “self-medicate” with exercise and good lifestyle items on our menu, we will survive these inevitable changes with integrity. If, due to certain geneitc and environmental predispositions, we choose addictive substances to neurtralize these bad feelings, the results can be dramatically and dangerously different.
In Ms. Lohan’s case, an admitted bipolar, her Dopamine levels are genetically imbalanced resulting in her having more of this neurotransmitter than others. The interaction of too much Dopamine attaching to too many receptors creates the hyperactive and manic behaviors we see in those suffering from ADHD and bipolar disorders. Her drive to abuse stimulants is therefore identical to the child with ADHD, who actually needs stimulant medications to “calm down” and foucs in order to have the control to interact productively with whatever life throws at them. Stimulant medications (like Ritalin) compete with Dopamine nuerotransmitters on their receptors in the brain and block their action, which disables the system. Hyperactive or manic behaviors are now replaced by calm, focus , and control. Since cocaine (her alleged drug of choice) looks and acts like Dopamine at the receptor, it is a natural (and unfortunately too convenient) choice for someone with this imbalance to get immediate relief from the bad feelings created by the excess Dopamine levels in her brain. The cocaine however, unlike the prescription medications, proves destructive because it is very short acting, ultimately creates an even greater imbalance in Dopamine levels, has dangerous additives, and must be repetively consumed in order to attempt re-establishing homeostasis in her brain chemistry. These shifts in Dopamine levels created by frequent dosing of the cocaine drives behavior and function into the toilet.
So as scientists sift through Lindsay’s poop, looking for those clues to her brain-gut connection and how it relates to her imbalanced brain chemistry, they may come across more than elevated Dopamine levels … they may actually stumble across her career!

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Coming on the heels of the recently-unveiled MacArthur Genius Awards and Nobel Prize Award winners, the World of Children Awards has just announced its 2010 World of Children Award recipients – six remarkable individuals whose extraordinary work on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable children is an inspiring reminder of the vast power that one individual has to change the lives of many:
Adi Roche, who founded Chernobyl Children International (CCI) in Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia to serve the forgotten children of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the thousands of children in the Chernobyl regions who continue to be born with disabilities and congenital deformities like Chernobyl Heart. Through CCI, more than 20,000 children have received intensive medical care and the chance for a healthy life.
Leonor Portela, who founded Misioneros Del Camino to care for the orphaned, abandoned, and malnourished children of Guatemala. In the last 24 years, Leonor has rescued children from the streets and from garbage dumps, saved the “throw away children” brought to her by the Guatemalan police and provided tens of thousands of orphans with housing, education and medical care.
Jourdan Urbach, a violin virtuoso who discovered when he was performing in hospitals at seven years old that music could stimulate the brain and spark healing in children with neurological problems. At age nine he founded Children Helping Children and began headlining with symphony orchestras to perform benefit Concerts for a Cure at major concert halls across the country to raise money for children needing neurosurgical and neurological care and has since raised millions for neurological research and pediatric hospital programs.
Danielle Gram, who at age 16 founded Kids for Peace, a nonprofit organization that provides opportunities for children of all ages and backgrounds to learn about other cultures and be service-oriented leaders, peace builders and environmental activists in their communities. Kids for Peace has grown to more than 75 chapters worldwide – positively impacting children’s lives throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia – and empowering even the most disadvantaged children to cultivate peace for themselves, their families and their communities.
Dan Marino and Claire Merino, who have made extraordinary efforts to improve children’s health through the Dan Marino Foundation, which supports medical research, treatment, and outreach programs for autistic children and children with developmental disabilities. Since its founding in 1992, the Foundation has raised over22 million dollars to provide programs and services that have benefited hundreds of thousands of children and their families.
For over a dozen years, the World of Children Awards has honored remarkable changemakers for children like these and provided funding and recognition to leverage and amplify their efforts to improve children’s lives.
As an Ambassador for the World of Children Awards, I’m especially proud to congratulate them and deeply humbled by their efforts and dedication to devote their time and talent to benefit children in need.
I look forward to meeting them in person when they are honored at the World of Children Awards ceremony in New York City and I encourage those who can’t meet them personally to learn more about them at www.worldofchildren.org and consider how you might support their efforts or let their examples inspire you to affect change.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

If anyone had any questions about Mark Kirk’s commitment to multi-national corporations in China, they can safely put them aside.
After holding his infamous Beijing fund raiser, Mark Kirk has taken his love for exporting American jobs even further by officially opening a “Mark Kirk For US Senate” campaign office at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago.
Take a look.
What’s great about Mark Kirk and the Republican Party’s ultimate and final merger with multi-national corporations, is that they are finally able to do it out in the open. It must feel good to embrace the end of American Democracy and the official beginning of the Corporatocracy where everyone can see it.

Follow Matthew Filipowicz on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/mattfilipowicz

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

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Iran's cash to Kabul worries US
The US has voiced concern about Iran's “negative influence” on Afghanistan, after Afghan President Hamid Karzai admitted receiving cash from Tehran.
White House spokesman Bill Burton urged Iran to play a more positive role.
Mr Karzai has denied any wrongdoing, saying the cash was part of a “transparent” process to help to run the president's office.
He was responding to a report that Iran had been passing bags stuffed full of cash to his aides.
Mr Burton told reporters that the American people and the global community had “every reason” to be concerned about Iran trying to have a “negative influence” on Afghanistan.
Cash is king in Afghanistan and so, in many respects, the news that Iran handed over hard currency is unsurprising.
But his admission will do little to reassure some of his foreign supporters who have been concerned at corruption within his government, and Tehran's growing influence in the country.
And his lack of precision didn't help matters – “once or twice in a year, Iran has given five hundred, or six hundred, or seven hundred thousand euros,” he said, leaving some to ask – where did the money go, and did all of it make its way into the finance ministry's coffers?
Despite receiving billions of dollars in aid, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
“[Iranian officials] have a responsibility just like all their neighbours to try to have a positive influence on the formation of a government there, and to ensure that Afghanistan is not a country where terrorists can find safe harbour, or where attacks can be planned on their soil.”
The White House spokesman added that Barack Obama's administration had seen the reports about Iran's payments, but declined to give any further details.
His comments come just hours after Mr Karzai admitted that his chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, had received cash.
“The government of Iran has been assisting us with five or six or seven hundred thousand euros once or twice every year, that is an official aid,” he said.
He said he had discussed the issue with former US President George W Bush.
“This is nothing hidden. We are grateful for the Iranian help in this regard. The United States is doing the same thing, they're providing cash to some of our offices.”
The story came to light in a which claimed that a large bag of euro notes had been passed to Mr Daudzai at the end of an official visit to Iran by Mr Karzai.
The report quoted officials as saying a stream of payments totalling millions of dollars had been used to secure their loyalty of Afghan politicians, tribal elders and even Taliban commanders.

Authorities are searching for three inmates, including a convicted murderer, who escaped from a jail in the US state of Missouri by crawling under a fence.
The trio escaped from the Daviess/DeKalb County jail in Pattonsburg on Sunday night wearing orange prison jumpsuits with no shoes.
The fire department is going door-to-door warning residents of the incident.
The town's only school, which serves 170 students, remains locked down.
“I don't normally lock my doors, but I am now. I'm sure everybody is,” city clerk Karen Shepherd told Associated Press news agency.
The escaped inmates include 57-year-old Carlos Sarmiento, who was awaiting sentencing for first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of his roommate, Lance Davis.

Source:BBC

Police investigating the 2001 murder of Chandra Levy were wrong to focus their inquiry on a congressman she was having an affair with, prosecutors have said.
Prosecutor Amanda Haines made the admission at the start of the trial of Ingmar Guandique, who is accused of killing the 24-year old intern.
During the inquiry, the media focused on Levy's links with Californian Democrat Gary Condit. He was exonerated in the murder but forced from office.
Mr Guandique denies the murder.
Ms Haines told the jury on Monday: “Law enforcement really let Miss Levy and her family down.
“They veered in the wrong direction because of the media and sensationalism.”
Ms Haines said prosecutors had no eyewitnesses or physical evidence tying Mr Guandique to Levy's murder.
But she said Mr Guandique told prison cell mates he had carried out the killing, and she said the details of the case matched patterns from other attacks against women in which Mr Guandique had been convicted.
Mr Guandique, from El Salvador, was serving a 10-year prison sentence for those attacks when he was charged for Levy's murder.
The intern's body was found in Rock Creek Park in Washington DC more than a year after she disappeared.
Mr Condit initially denied having an affair with Levy, saying they were just friends. But the scandal helped to end his political career.
Mr Guandique's lawyer Maria Hawilo said on Monday her client had been made a scapegoat, claiming that his DNA did not match samples found on Levy's clothing.

Source:BBC

The US says it did not “turn a blind eye” to torture in Iraq, in response to allegations raised in files published by whistleblower website Wikileaks.
Gen George Casey, who was in charge of US forces in Iraq from 2004 to 2007, said all soldiers were instructed to report any allegations of abuse.
Wikileaks released thousands of war logs which suggested US forces had ignored torture by Iraqi forces.
But US officials have insisted that the documents revealed nothing new.

Joy Garnett,”Lost,” 2010, oil on canvas, 60″ x 70″
Joy Garnett, “O.P.P.,” 2010, oil on canvas, 60″ x 70″
Joy Garnett,”Sploosh, 2010, oil on canvas, 54″ x 60″
“Boom & Bust,” Joy Garnett at Winkleman Gallery, installation view.
The other day I stopped by Winkleman Gallery to see Joy Garnett’s new paintings, and then hurried up to the Cort Theater where I had tickets to “Time Stands Still,” a uniformly well-acted play featuring Laura Linney as a photojournalist, home from a stint in Iraq where she had been badly injured in a roadside bombing. The two shows made for an excellent double feature.
The play, by Donald Margulies, explores how artists’ lives are affected by the passage of time. Sarah (Linney) and her journalist boyfriend Jamie (Brian d’Arcy James) have spent their twenties and thirties covering wars and other humanitarian disasters overseas. As the play begins, they have just returned to their gritty Williamsburg loft where Sarah, recovering from her injuries, chafes to get back to the action. Meanwhile, shell-shocked Jamie yearns for marriage and a comfortable life – maybe even a couple of kids – along the lines followed by their friends Richard (Eric Bogosian) and his very young fiance (Christina Ricci).
Margulies, understanding the tradeoffs facing most serious artists, explores the dynamic that occurs when one partner is ready to put the action and ambition aside and the other is not. Living behind the camera and courting the risks of human folly have given Sarah a noble excuse to disengage. Looking through the lens has also afforded her the extraordinary sensation that time stands still. For Jamie, it has marched on. He comes to believe that they have spent decades of their lives under the illusion that their moments in hell perform an indispensable social role, leaving precious little time to do other less grandiose but more joyful, comforting things.
Joy Garnett’s forceful new paintings capture the evanescent bursts of violence recorded by photojournalists (like fictional Sarah) around the world while also acknowledging the comfort of distance that softens the apprehension of a far-off war by an artist in her studio – and which Sarah disdains. Seeking to transform her secondary experience of the depicted events into something more authentic, Garnett culls photographs of military explosions from online sources, reconstituting the harrowing, split-second images using traditional oil paint and canvas. Painting fast and loose, she renounces exactitude to embrace clunky, restless brushwork that fuses painterly glee with exasperated rage, setting the explosions adrift from both their geographical and their political contexts.
Reinventing the news images as luscious paintings rich in art historical referents, Garnett’s work, which she calls “apocalyptic sublime,” might come off as glib and exploitative to some. But from Margulies’ perspective, even if she’s safe in the studio, enshrining the world’s daily tragedies is worthy enough, and an acceptable existential compromise. A painter can’t make real time stand still the way a great news photographer can. But Garnett’s paintings force viewers to contemplate how ugly and destructive its procession can be, and proclaim that physical remove is no excuse for ignoring that reality.
“Joy Garnett: Boom & Bust,” Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY. Through November 13, 2010.
“Time Stands Still,” written by Donald Margulies, directed by Daniel Sullivan. The Cort Theater, New York, NY. Through January 23, 2011.
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Related article:
NYTimes photographer Joao Silva severely injured by a mine in Kabul
Image above right: Laura Linney and Brian d’Arcy James in “Time Stands Still.” Courtesy Joan Marcus at New York
This piece was originally posted at Two Coats of Paint.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Scotland's leading Roman Catholic is backing calls for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Cardinal Keith O'Brien said “global accusations of wrongful conviction” must be dealt with.
Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 atrocity in which 270 people died, was released from prison last year on compassionate grounds.
The cardinal will add his name to an online petition calling for an inquiry.
The petition will be presented to the Scottish Parliament.
Dr Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the bombing, will also sign the petition.
In a statement, Cardinal O'Brien, the archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, described the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie as an “act of unbelievable horror and gratuitous barbarity”.
However, he said that from the moment Megrahi, a Libyan citizen, was convicted there had been “voices have been raised in protest”.
The cardinal said he was “increasingly concerned about the reputation of the Scottish justice system”.
He said that if accusations of wrongful conviction were left unheeded “they will weaken the administration of justice in Scotland by casting doubts on its probity and ability”.
The cardinal added: “Either a conviction will be upheld and the process vindicated or it will be struck down, demonstrating to the world that Scotland has the wisdom and compassion needed to rectify its mistakes.
“In either event I will willingly accept the outcome.”
Megrahi dropped his appeal against his conviction shortly before being freed from a Scottish prison in August 2009, on the grounds that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and had three months to live.

Source:BBC

I wish I could say that Sharron Angle’s “You look Asian to me,” comment was not too familiar to many of us Latino and Black professionals, but I’d be lying.
Take this comment from a certain exec I got a bit ago, ushering me into his office for our first meeting as I started my TV career: “You don’t seem Hispanic to me…” Without a pause, and before my Dominican-derriere hit the chair, I put on my best Charo accent, “Do I es’eem Es-panic do ju’ now?” (When in doubt, temper and educate with humor.) Sadly, his answer, wrapped in a chortle was, “Oh! Yeah, now you do!”
Many of us who went to college and plowed ahead despite of and in defiance of lingering ideas of where our brown or black selves should be have encountered this idea of We-Categorize-You-With-Elevated-Race-Status. How many of us heard growing up, “You seem white to me.”? This was a regular throw-away comment lobbed my way several times in my Jesuit undergrad, as if saying that because I seemed ‘white’ (read: better), as opposed to recognizing that I am just one part of a large Hispanic diaspora, I should feel better–that I should have been ashamed of where my family came from and honored to be welcomed into the ‘club’.
Not so much.
It’s not a compliment, people. We don’t want to be anything we are not. We want to be recognized for what and who we really are–even respected for it. (Really, even a bit of r-e-s-p-e-c-t? Un poco? Ay Dios.)
Why so much hard work? Why not instead realize that educated, well-spoken people of all and many colors are really just one part of their whole group? Nope. Rather, we are excused away as anomalies, freaks of our kind. Scratch our skin and underneath we must be a ‘better’ race? The culprit is that nasty and naughty self-sabotager called cognitive dissonance. Unable to comprehend that educated, well-raised people of a group you may hold in lower opinion exist, it’s easier to just turn them a different ‘color’. My eyes say that you are one of those people but my (addled) brain says that can’t be, so presto-chango, abracadabra–you are something else (something that doesn’t rattle my wrong-headed convictions so much).
Newsflash: As proven by years of demographic research, differences within groups are greater than differences between groups. If you can’t comprehend that we are part of a whole, and not rare deviations that you must excuse with qualifiers, then you just don’t know enough of us. Get out more. It’s good for you. And most importantly, it’s American.

Follow Carmen Wong Ulrich on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Whenever the term “Redistribution of Wealth” is used these days, it’s usually at a Tea Party rally decrying some form of “Socialism” where the rich are fleeced to support the poor. The truth is, there has been a massive redistribution of wealth in the opposite direction that hasn’t been seen since the time preceding the Great Depression of the 20th century. The great sucking sound of wealth moving upward has heralded one of the most unequal financial imbalances in our nations history. Though it ramped up under Reagan, the foundation for this was dug deep during the Bush years and has wreaked havoc on our entire economy. Our social services are overburdened and underfunded, though they wouldn’t be so if the middle class were doing well enough not to need the help. That is one of the ironies of the current fiscal situation: if there was a greater economic balance between rich and poor, people on all points of the spectrum would be much better off and we wouldn’t need to spend so much on social services such as welfare, food stamps and unemployment checks.
So when people talk about Obama and redistribution of wealth as some Socialist plot (like Michele Bachmann slamming the BP escrow fund as a “redistribution of wealth fund”) Democrats should jump at the chance to talk about how the true redistribution of wealth has been upwards rather than outwards. They can discuss how creating some balance between Wall Street and Main Street is a good thing for our entire economy (even for capitalists and other business-friendly people) aside from a handful of billionaires who have grown used to their rising wealth redistribution. Socialism is not the opposite of Capitalism, nor is bankrupting the middle class to enrich the top 1% the true meaning of Democracy. In fact, Democracy is the process by which a Republic finds its soul. There is room for capitalism and a pro-growth business environment amidst a fair economic playing field. People are consumers and if they are doing well, they will consume more. Business will be up accordingly and that should be a good thing. Tax revenues will increase dramatically and some semblance of balance will be restored. But if you were to listen to the Tea Party Republicans, any attempt to halt this massive imbalance of wealth from flowing towards the top falls under some Communazi agenda to give the poor (read: immigrants) all your hard earned tax dollars. Wrong and misleading as it is, many from the Right have taken this thread and spun gold from it.
At any time in history when we’ve had such income disparity, the economy and society itself virtually unraveled. We haven’t seen an imbalance such as this since 1928 and well, you know what happened then. And we know what is happening now, though there are many who choose not to heed the lessons of history, as if the results will somehow be different. When you look back, it was really during the Reagan era that we started to drastically offset the balance of income. Robert Reich recently noted that in the 1970s, the top 1 percent received 8 to 9 percent of total income, but thereafter income concentrated so rapidly that by 2007 the top received 23.5 percent of the total. Here’s another gem from Reich:
During almost three decades spanning 1951 to 1980, when America’s top marginal tax rate was between 70 and 92 percent, the nation’s average annual growth was 3.7 percent. But between 1983 and start of the Great Recession, when the top rate was far lower — ranging between 35 and 39 percent — the economy grew an average of just 3 percent per year. Supply-siders are fond of claiming that Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cuts caused the 1980s economic boom. In fact, that boom followed Reagan’s 1982 tax increase. The 1990s boom likewise was not the result of a tax cut; it came in the wake of Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase.
Recently, Bernie Sanders wrote a great piece that listed some cold, hard facts about the past decade. Here are a few that illuminate the situation:
- During the Bush years alone, from 2000-2008, median family income dropped by nearly $2,200 and millions lost their health insurance.
- The 400 richest families in America, who saw their wealth increase by some $400 billion during the Bush years, have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth. Four hundred families! During the last 15 years, while these enormously rich people became much richer their effective tax rates were slashed almost in half. While the highest paid 400 Americans had an average income of $345 million in 2007, as a result of Bush tax policy they now pay an effective tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest on record.
- Last year, the top 25 hedge fund managers made a combined $25 billion but because of tax policy their lobbyists helped write, they pay a lower effective tax rate than many teachers, nurses, and police officers. Warren Buffett, one of the richest people on earth, has often commented that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary.
- As a result of tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and elsewhere, the wealthy and large corporations are evading some $100 billion a year in U.S. taxes.
- In 2009, Exxon Mobil, the most profitable corporation in history made $19 billion in profits and not only paid no federal income tax — they actually received a $156 million refund from the government. In 2005, one out of every four large corporations in the United States paid no federal income taxes while earning $1.1 trillion in revenue.
So we have massive unemployment, depleted savings accounts, people literally so broke they don’t know how to survive and yet, it doesn’t have to be this way. Think for a moment of the history of America over the past hundred years and try to recall a time when the middle class and working class were doing well, at least as well as can be expected at the lower half of our economic universe. Was it after the New Deal? After World War II? During Clinton’s tenure in the 90′s? While we can discuss the peaks of economic balance, we can also identify the worst disparities in economic strata: the Great Depression and the Bush years and their respective aftermaths. It would be difficult to find a positive trend during any Republican administration in recent times but the period under George W. Bush surely qualifies as one of the worst ever. The Republicans only success has been convincing Tea Partiers and Grizzly Mama’s that everything we are suffering through is Obama’s fault. The unfortunate thing is many of them will actually be voting for the same people who helped create this disaster. A recent study has even shown how income equality makes the poor more conservative, a fact that can’t be lost on the Republicans who have worked as hard as they can making the lower 99% as poor as possible.
Find me a President that has done a better job than Bush on creating monumental debt out of a positive economy and budget surplus. Not paying for two massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, two major foreign wars and a Medicare Prescription Drug bill has left us in a hole so deep it threatens the global economy and our social fabric. President Obama has no easy choices to get us out of this hole, and unfortunately, no help from the other side of the aisle. The same Republicans who helped Bush pass all these budgetary nightmares have been blocking every single one of Obama’s efforts to try and solve the problem they caused. They shriek that we can’t spend our way out of this, not acknowledging it was GWB and the GOP that maxed out the national credit card. It will take a rebalancing of fiscal policy and taxation to right the good ship America so everyone can stay above water, even on the lowest decks. To those living on the top decks and enjoying the view (along with all those unpaid-for Bush tax cuts) don’t forget that the highest berths on the Titanic couldn’t save the lives of John Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim, two of the then-richest Americans. When the good ship sinks, we all go down together.
PS- Be sure to check out these articles on the subject:
TImothy Noah’s excellent series “The Great Divergence” on Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2266025/entry/2266026/
Mitchell Bard’s great piece on income redistribution: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard/krugmans-takedown-of-ryan_b_674845.html
Robert Reich’s “Notes from a Class Worrier”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/notes-from-a-class-worrie_b_676140.html
New Figures Detail Depth Of Unemployment Misery, Lower Earnings For All But Super Wealthy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/income_inequality_statistics_tax_code__n_773392.html

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Come Election Day, Golden State residents will decide the fate of AB 32, California’s landmark climate and energy legislation. Prop. 23, backed by the politically vociferous Koch brothers, and Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro, would indefinitely suspend implementation of the law, which aims to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution and establish the state as a worldwide leader in green technology. But not if Tom Steyer has his way.
By all appearances, Steyer, co-chairman of the campaign against Prop. 23 and founder of Farallon Capital Management, is an unassuming, fist-pounding man of conviction who deftly defies the stereotype of ruthless financier. He has poured millions of his own money into the battle, the results of which are likely to have consequences far beyond California given the absence of a clean-energy law at the national level.
I sat down with Steyer in his San Francisco offices on a recent Wednesday morning to debate the issues and hear his closing argument.
Your co-chairman for the campaign against Prop 23 is George Shultz, Secretary of State under President Reagan. This seems an unlikely alliance at a time when Democrats and Republicans can’t seem to agree on anything. How did it come about?
George is a very smart guy and obviously a committed Republican. But he has a history of thinking that some issues are so important that they’re not bipartisan — they’re nonpartisan. Both he and I agreed that this is an issue that is so important for California — and for the United States — that to be fighting it on partisan grounds is unacceptably selfish. Our coalition is a broad one. I’m hoping that it can be an example of how we can actually get things done at a time when extreme partisanship seems to have crippled us.
Let’s turn to the economic debate. Proponents of Prop 23 say AB 32 is a job killer and suspending it until unemployment is reduced to less than 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters is merely common sense. Your response?
First, they’re being deceptive. They’re saying that, “Oh, we just want to put in on hold for a little while.” And really what they want to do is kill it because we’re not going to get down to 5.5 percent unemployment for four consecutive quarters for a while. We’re at 12.5 percent and we’ve only gotten to 5.5 percent three times in the last 30 years.
Second, the fastest growing job creator in this state is green energy. We are getting 60 percent of the nation’s venture capital in green tech. That’s up from 34 percent before AB 32 was passed. In most businesses, you end up with real concentrations of people and expertise and companies in one place. That’s how information technology and aerospace worked. We’re in a position to do that so this can be a huge driver and actually be the thing that pulls us out of this recession.
But although clean-energy jobs are growing 10 times faster than the statewide average, they still represent only a small percentage of total jobs in California.
Yes. But we’re at the front end of a huge revolution and we can build huge companies out of this.
Except that we’re in a historic recession, which is technically over, but in reality for many people it’s not.
Look. At 12.5 percent unemployment, if you aren’t sympathetic to the people of this state who are struggling, then you’re not paying attention. This is a huge deal.
So are clean-energy jobs really going to bring down the unemployment rate in the near term?
It’s going to be gradual and build for a long time. But yes, I think it will in the near term. For example, [before the interview started] we were talking about CODA [electric cars]. If that company succeeds and they have battery plants or car assembly plants in California, that will be jobs. So yes, if we create companies that have new technologies, we will have jobs. If you look at the Internet boom and bust of the late ’90s and early ’00s, what are the big companies that were built? Yahoo, eBay, Google… Where are they?
They’re some of the biggest employers in California.
Right. They’re all here. Where are the big Internet companies on the East Coast? There are none. That’s what we do. We create new industries and big companies come out of it and they hire thousands of people. We’re talking about redoing the grid. That’s not some engineer or computer scientist sitting there. That’s part of it, but you’re also talking about construction and manufacturing jobs. It’s not going to solve our problem over night. But long term don’t we have to back the fastest growing, potentially biggest industries? Yeah.
California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has voiced her opposition to Prop 23, which you lauded on The Huffington Post, but proposes a one-year moratorium on AB 32. Some might say this is a reasonable middle ground.
But I would not be one of them. Opposing Prop 23 is a statement that we need to have this new green energy economy for health, economic, and national security reasons. Opposing AB 32, which is what Prop 23 does, is saying, “We don’t need this green energy economy. The world is doing well on its own.” Which is not true. If you want to get rid of AB 32, you should be supporting Prop 23. What she’s saying is contradictory.
The Yes on 23 website says “The failure of Prop 23 will cost your family almost $4,000 a year in increased costs and taxes.” I don’t know where they are getting their number from, but…
… then again, neither do they. The studies they cite are incomplete, they’ve been disavowed by most people, and they never defend them because they’re indefensible. Instead, they just quote the results. So if I said to you, “You’re seven feet tall.” And you say, “I’m standing against the wall and I’m five eleven.” I just keep going, “You’re seven feet tall.” You just keep making the assertion without anything to back it up.
So even if that’s an exaggerated number, you don’t see costs increasing for individuals?
People’s energy costs are going to go down because we’re going to figure out ways so that you don’t use so much of it. When Home Depot runs national ads during football games about how you save energy and money, it’s over. Everyone knows we should do this. And whoever thinks government is not a part of this is a truth denier. When a society makes a huge change, the government has to put it in a framework so it works, so you have the proper incentives, so everybody does it together.
With no national legislation, is California making itself vulnerable by trying to go it alone?
California has led in every big environmental, intellectual and governmental initiative for the last 40 years. We are the people who thought up the idea of clean air and water, and said, “No, you can hit those miles per gallon targets if we set them.” Every time, industry said, “It’s impossible. We’ll leave. Why should we have clean air and water? You are going to put us out of business.” That’s ridiculous. And every other state lagged and waited to see what we did. We need to look forward and deal with our challenges in an intelligent way and have a good, bright future. That’s what we’ve always done.
Given Republicans appear poised for significant gains in both the House and Senate next week, do you see a path to national climate and energy legislation in the foreseeable future?
We send a billion dollars a day to the Middle East for fossil fuels. Can that possibly be in our national interests? There are strong reasons why some of the most conservative parts of the country should be in favor of what we’re trying to do. And I’ve tried to make the pitch to communities of faith that if you really believe in God and believe we’re stewards of the Earth, then you have to do this. And I think those people are sincere. And when I’ve talked to military people they’ve been incredibly supportive on this topic.
Should President Obama have pushed climate and energy legislation ahead of healthcare?
Well, I guess we’ll never know, will we. Obviously this is something I feel really passionate about. He had to make a decision and he decided to do whatever it was he did.
According to a recent piece in the New York Times, “Chinese solar panel makers now supply about 40 percent of the California market…” Is the state at risk of losing green jobs to China?
Absolutely. This revolution is happening worldwide. There was a story about an American with American technology who has created a way to mine dumps, basically — taking all the plastic and reusing it. And it’s very efficient and it’s happening in China and in Europe.
And it’s not happening here because we don’t have the regulatory framework.
Yeah, and it’s like, we can do that. And if you want, I’ll lend you a .45 and you can shoot yourself in the foot, too. The money and the expertise are going to come here. We’re going to get the infrastructure here. We’re going to get all these positive benefits just the way we have in Silicon Valley. Or not. That money is fungible. It spends just as well in Shanghai as Palo Alto.
What’s the last thing you want undecideds to bear in mind as they head to the polls next week?
We need to build the green-tech revolution for our health and our economy, and we can’t allow pollution to go unchecked. The people who are proposing Prop 23 are the polluters. We actually have out-of-state corporations trying to write their own environmental regulations, put them on the ballot and get it passed. You can’t be for that.
Quick Poll
Do you think Prop. 23 should pass?
No, it’s a step backwards
Yes, it will save California jobs
Share your vote on Facebook so your friends can take this poll

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Dick Cheney’s famous statement “deficits don’t matter” is generally associated with the Bush administration’s philosophy on taxation. A strong case can be made, however, that this view of budget policy also influenced that administration’s spending policies. Between 2000 and 2008 federal outlays grew at an average rate of nearly 7 percent a year for the eight years of that administration–a little more than twice the rate of growth in the previous eight years. If you take inflation into account, the rate of real dollar growth in government spending was more than five times faster in the Bush Administration than during the previous eight years.
I would argue, further, that this “deficits don’t matter” mindset not only guided policy on how much should be spent but also seems to have influence policy with respect to how carefully federal money should be spent. Long standing checks and balances needed to insure proper expenditures were largely disregarded by the Bush administration. The justifications sent to Congress explaining why money was needed and what it would be used for became less and less specific–and quite often less accurate. The annual budget process in which choices are made by weighing all priorities at a single point in time was basically abandoned. Mammoth annual supplemental appropriations funded anything left out of the original budget. In essence there was no budget.
Nothing epitomizes the fiscal recklessness of this period as much as what happened in the area of federal contracting. While overall spending grew by 66 percent over the eight-year period, contract spending grew by 163 percent, from a little over $200 billion to well over $500 billion. Much of the growth in contract spending was for contracts that were not fully competed. Worse still, there is ample evidence that non-competitive contracts were increasingly directed to favored businesses whose political connections were better than their ability to meet the government’s need for goods and services.
One example was a 2002 contract given to a startup company owned by a man who had worked at the Pentagon a decade earlier. Mitchell Wade. Wade reported directly to Duane Andrews, an Assistant Secretary of Defense who had come to the Department from Capitol Hill as a staffer for then Rep. Richard Cheney (R-WY), moving with Cheney when he became Secretary of Defense. Remarkably, in 2002 Wade’s company, MZM, Inc., won a $140,000 White House contract to provide furniture and computers to the office of Vice President which by that time was occupied by Cheney. This was despite the fact that MZM had never before sold either furniture or computers to anyone, and despite the fact that the company had never previously sold to the federal government.
The company got four more White House contracts, but made its real money with a series of personnel service contracts with two small Defense Department agencies newly created by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in ongoing collaboration with the Vice President’s office. Within 3 years the company expanded from no revenues and no employees to the Washington Post’s list of the top 100 government contractors. The business was so lucrative that Wade decided it worth the risk and expense to offer more than a million dollars in bribes to then Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) simply to increase funding levels for the agencies that were providing him with contracts.
A company known as Custer Battles was another startup that began winning huge government contracts during the same period. One of the company’s cofounders, Michael Battles, had just completed an unsuccessful campaign as a Republican candidate for Congress in Rhode Island. According to a 2007 article in Vanity Fair, he and his business partner, Scott Custer, were given permission by the White House to enter Iraq shortly after coalition troops seized control of Baghdad.
The Los Angeles Times described the company as “newly formed…with no experience in the security industry” which nonetheless, “landed one of the first contracts issued in Iraq in the spring of 2003,,, The no-bid contract was worth $16 million.” The contract was to secure civilian aviation at the Baghdad Airport which was at the time and continued to be non existent. And according to Vanity Fair:
Then there’s the Coalition Provisional Authority’s director of airport security, who wrote in a memo obtained by 60 Minutes: “Custer Battles has shown themselves to be unresponsive, uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war profiteers. Other than that they are swell fellows.”
Another contract awarded Custer Battles involved support for the massive currency exchange. A spreadsheet accidentally left after a meeting between company officials and the Coalition Provisional Authority showed that the currency-exchange operation had cost the company $3,738,592, but CPA was billed $9,801,550, a markup of 162 percent.
Eventually the company was banned from contracting by the Air Force and hauled into federal court when whistle blowers presented information indicating massive overbilling through the use of grossly inflated purchases from shell subcontractors wholly owned by Custer Battles.
My colleague at the Center for American Progress, Pratap Chatterjee, documents numerous other contracting abuses during that period in his book, Halliburton’s Army, How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War.
But with the exception of the currency-exchange contract in which Custer Battles accidentally left a spreadsheet behind for government auditors to examine, we have very little information as to exactly how rich the profits were for these any of these contractors. Clearly the margins were high, but how much more were the contractors charging the government than they themselves paid for the products they were providing? We can only guess.
Last spring, however, I stumbled across a document that provided some real insight into the profitability of yet another government contractor, Emergent BioSolutions Inc. The results were stunning and are the subject of a recent report I wrote for the Center for American Progress, entitled Getting Rich on Uncle Sucker, Should the Federal Government Strengthen Efforts to Fight Profiteering.
The reason the information was available was because of an unusual confluence of circumstances. First, unlike either of the previous two examples the contractor was a publicly held company that had under federal law to issue an annual report stating its revenues and cost of operations. Second, the company sold only one product. Thirdly, it had only one customer, the federal government.
In brief, the company provides the government with a vaccine known as BioThrax to combat anthrax. The annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that last year’s revenues from product sales totaled $217 million. The company’s cost of product sales were $46 million. The report further indicates that the company has been enjoying these kinds of profits for a long time. Further research indicated that over the period of the last decade they have collected more than $1.3 billion in federal payments at a cost of less than $0.3 billion.
Despite claims made by the company in response to our inquiries that they merited such extraordinary margins because of the degree of risk they took in becoming a provider of this product, the record indicates that they took almost no risk at all. The vaccine itself was actually developed by the U.S. Army. The facilities in which it is manufactured were built by the State of Michigan and purchased by the contractor with a down payment of $2.25 million–despite the fact that the facility had accounts receivable of $4.5 million. The cost of renovating the facility and bringing it and the processes for vaccine production up to U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards were almost entirely paid for by the U.S. Army.
It is remarkable how many people, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), claim to be sincerely interested in reducing the federal budget deficit but have seemingly have no interest in taking on these kinds of abuse in contracting–abuses that grew dramatically when their party controlled the Congress and the White House.
Scott Lilly is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

One of us is an immigrant, who was born in Honduras, moved to the U.S. at the age of 2, received her citizenship in 2008, and voted for the first time in a U.S. election the same year. And, one of us is the first person in his family to be born in the United States, and now over half of his family members are U.S. citizens. Although like in most “anchor baby” cases, being born in the U.S. played no role in family members becoming citizens.
This November 2nd we will both head to the polls to take advantage of our right to cast a vote.
Immigrants of various religious, ethnic, and racial backgrounds have a long proud history in the United States. Yet, anti-immigrant rhetoric in this country is escalating, and being translated into anti-Latino sentiment. As a result, proposals and policies that are based on racial profiling are being promoted and implemented, which is an assault on all people of color in this country.
The vocal minority who champion anti-immigrant positions will continue to spread hate. Their hate, however, will not change the fact that we are voting this November 2nd in the midterm elections, and so will millions of other Latinos, African Americans, Asian Pacific Islander Americans, Middle Eastern Americans — native born and naturalized citizens of color. In fact all the hate we have been enduring of late is emboldening our communities’ get out the vote efforts.
The Hip Hop Caucus’ national campaign, Respect My Vote! is educating young people of color and mobilizing them to the polls for the midterm elections.
Young people are not waiting for change. They are pushing to make change happen. Over the past two years young people have been the most outspoken for real immigration reforms like the DREAM Act, as well as comprehensive federal reform. Moreover, young people have been the most active in pushing back against racial profiling laws like SB 1070 in Arizona. Young people are at the forefront of these movements today.
As a co-host on BET’s 106 & Park, and the President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, respectively, our jobs are fun, but at the same time we take our business seriously. This is real. Respect My Vote! is a serious and powerful message, because we see young people fighting for change every day and we want them to succeed, and we want our country to succeed.
To remind us why we must vote, people often invoke the memory of the courageous leaders who lost their lives fighting for our voting rights. We should always remember the struggle for voting equality in this country, but in all reality, we also have our own current-day reasons to get out and vote.
To name a few reasons: Racial profiling initiatives are being adopted by local law enforcement in different parts of the country. The unemployment rate for African Americans last month was 16.1 percent and for Latinos it was 12.4%, compared to 9.6% for the nation as a whole. Over 65,000 undocumented students graduate from High Schools in the U.S. every year and are financially blocked from pursing college because of outdated immigration and education laws. The national High School graduation rate for African American males is at 47 percent. Recent indiscriminate immigration raids have traumatized thousands of families, and violated basic civil and human rights of immigrants, including legal permanent residents. These are just a few examples.
Young people have the power and the will to stop this madness. Young voter turnout has increased in every midterm and presidential election since 2000. In 2008 more young people voted than in any other election in U.S. history.
If we keep the movement growing by voting in higher and higher numbers, and being more and more vocal and active on the issues that matter most to us, like immigration, health care, jobs, education, and the environment, politicians have no choice but to respect our votes.
So pledge to vote today, and join us on November 2nd, 2010 at the polls. Respect our vote, we respect yours!
Rosci Diaz is Co-Host of 106 & Park, BET’s flagship show. She is heavily involved in the community and creator of Rocstar Foundation which donates money to public schools in her native New Orleans to help rebuild public schools. Follow her on Twitter @Rocsidiaz.
Rev Yearwood is the President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus Education Fund. He is a minister, community activist, and organizer, and one of the most influential people in Hip Hop political life. For more information on the Hip Hop Caucus visit HipHopCaucus.org and follow him on Twitter @RevYearwood.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Doctor: So how are you feeling today?
Sergeant Barks: Well, you know, I’ve been better. It’s just always the same thing — I am so painfully aware of my own inadequacy all the time, it’s as much as I can do not to just spend the whole day on the couch. And then if I just give in and do that, I can’t even enjoy it, because I know I’m being a bad dog.
Doctor: What about yourself do you feel is inadequate?
Sergeant Barks: Where should I start? I’m still living on welfare, and the whole thing has apparently so robbed me of any shred of dignity I may have once had that lately I find myself actually begging for table scraps. I’ve tried to stop, but it’s like I have no control over it. I mean, if I could just find a job, I think that would be a start, but no, I’m a kept canine. I exist on sufferance.
Doctor: Some people would call having someone who cares about you and is willing and happy to provide for you a healthy relationship.
Sergeant Barks: Maybe it would be different if I had chosen to stay home with the kids, but I never had the option — it was this or the needle. I have literally no marketable skills. Did you know I didn’t even earn my ranking? I didn’t even make it through boot camp. I think Jimmy calls me this with the best of intentions, but hearing “Sergeant” every day is just such a bitter reminder of past failures. You know, some days I wish it had been the needle…
Doctor: Don’t you think you might be being a little too hard on yourself? Plenty of other dogs are in the same position as you are.
Sergeant Barks: And you’re telling me they’re completely fulfilled by a life of tummy rubs and tail-wagging? When you think about it, that’s even sadder.
Doctor: I think something else must be bothering you. You seem more agitated than usual.
Sergeant Barks: There was this one thing — I don’t know, I’m sure I’m overreacting, but last time I was at the dog park, I saw a few guys I’ve known for sevens and sevens of years, and none of them — not a single one — even bothered to sniff my butt when I got there.
Doctor: Couldn’t that be a sign of how fully they trust you? Of how deep your bonds have become?
Sergeant Barks: Maybe. I don’t know. I sniffed their butts — it’s a courtesy, you know? Why not this time? It got me so down I haven’t even had the emotional energy to drag myself over the carpet with my front feet. I mean, no one’s interested in it, so why bother?
Doctor: Our time today is almost up, Sergeant Barks. Let me ask you — have you been keeping that dream journal I asked you to start last session?
Sergeant Barks: Yeah, but I’ve just been having the same dream I told you about.
Doctor: Where you’re chasing the cars?
Sergeant Barks: Exactly. And without fail, they either go too fast for me, and my legs just won’t move, like there’s a full-body muzzle on me that I didn’t know about, or I’m just about to reach the bumper, I’m mid-leap, and then I wake up. Even in my dreams I can’t get anything right — how pathetic is that?
Doctor: Dreams are about your unconscious mind, Sergeant Barks. It’s not pathetic — it’s your brain trying to send a message to you. For next week, I want you to continue with the journal, but don’t just write down the dreams, write down what they remind you of — your impressions and associations.
Sergeant Barks: Sure, sure. That might actually be kind of fun, you know? Like I’m taking control. Yeah, I think I like that idea! It’s an invigorating thought. I haven’t been this excited about something in weeks…
Doctor: [wriggling awkwardly, looking at the region around Sergeant Barks's tail] Sergeant… I think you’ve become a little overexcited again. Do you need a walk before Jimmy comes by, or…
Sergeant Barks: Oh Jesus CHRIST. You must be kidding me. I’m sorry — I can lick it up, or maybe just sniff it — would that help?
Doctor: No, no, that’s not necessary. Don’t apologize. I’ll just see you next week.
Sergeant Barks: [Howls]

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It was Albert Einstein who said of anger that it “dwells only in the bosom of fools.” Or as Benjamin Franklin stated: “Anger is never without reason, but seldom with a good one.”
The sage analysis of two great men, who lived in different centuries facing different challenges, observe one of the constants of the human condition: anger is the great motivator that often leads to further frustration.
Yet, anger seems to be the unifying issue motivating the electorate in the upcoming midterm election.
Earlier this year, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, at a town-hall meeting was asked why the Department of Justice had a policy not to prosecute any African-American for any crime if the victim was white. That Sherman assured the crowd that no such policy existed meant little to the rancorous crowd.
Why is the electorate so angry?
A recently released Langer Research Poll indicates that 85 percent identified as “angry” about the economy. But is the current anger constructive in this year’s elections?
This has manifested into an anti-incumbent, but largely anti-Democrat, mood. Nothing wrong with change, politics is cyclical.
It was not long ago, in the aftermath of Bush v. Gore and the Iraq invasion and occupation, that some on the left were driven by their anger.
But this year’s election has a different feel. It is driven by an anger that also serves as its primary ideology. The anger to throw the bums out has not embraced a coherent alternative for change or offered, in my opinion, quality candidates.
It is anger that allows candidates aligned with the tea party movement to hold positions that would otherwise be dismissed as outside the mainstream such as rolling back portions of the 14th Amendment or uprooting the nation’s social safety net.
The anger associated with these positions insulates whomever holds them from examining the potential consequences.
How many times have we heard repealing the recently passed health care legislation is priority one should this angry horde become the majority in Congress? According to the latest Kaiser Foundation poll, that is a position shared by only 28 percent of the country.
Though I understand the rhetoric of deficit reduction, I’m leery of many who are touting it. The deficit argument has been a political tool of the minority to offer that the majority is financially irresponsible.
It is fashionable to say of the deficit: “I don’t want this debt on the backs of my children and grandchildren;” but what does that really mean?
Why are there more Americans, at least overtly, angrier about the health care legislation than the two wars that this country has undertaken? Two wars that also have the distinction of not having a line item dedicated in the federal budget that will eventually be paid by future generations.
As candidates address the disaffection with all that is wrong with America, little attention is given to not only the two wars, but also the Defense Department’s $663 billion budget, which might be a good place to start when it comes to uncovering waste, fraud, and abuse.
Instead these crusaders who have vowed to take America back have taken aim at the poor. They titillate the electorate’s anger impulses by promoting a version of Ronald Reagan’s infamous welfare queen. This is the mythical character that lives in opulence at the taxpayer’s expense.
People who see the poor as key to deficit reduction are either ignorant of the facts or disingenuous.
I suspect the current anger is due in part to the misinformation that passes as news. Policy differences based on a common set of facts is secondary to conjecture and fear-mongering, resulting in the conclusions being drawn before the debate begins.
There is not much appreciation for institutional memory. When, why, and how we arrived at the current dilemma are not useful tools in the politics of anger.
Regardless of how effective anger may be in the short-term, in the long-term the result is invariably the same: disappointment, enhanced frustration and, ultimately, apathy.
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or visit his Web site byronspeaks.com.

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This is the tale of two Iraqi women who grew up in the same household but were separated and unaware of each other’s whereabouts for 20 years. They finally met through the charitable work of one and the poverty of the other.
The first woman is me, Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO of Women for Women International; a group that serves women survivors of wars and helps them rebuild their lives. Radya Jerad is the second woman. She grew up with me both as my family’s housemaid as well as my childhood friend. 20 years after our separation, Radya is a widow, a mother of 6, and an internally displaced person who joined the Women for Women International program in Karbala, Iraq. Through the program, we learned of each other’s existence again and finally united. CNN captured that moment on video.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Some summers ago when I was in Lhasa, I noticed that the sun rose surprisingly late and daylight diffused quite a long while into the evening. This was because Beijing dictates that every one of its subjects from the outer reaches of East Turkestan and Inner Mongolia to the whole of the Tibetan plateau run on Beijing time. Even though Lhasa is as far away from Beijing as San Francisco is from Washington DC, the Tibetans in Lhasa must rise and sleep in harmonious lockstep with the Party chiefs at Zhongnanhai.
Not content with temporal conformity, Chinese leaders in Qinghai Province have now targeted linguistic autonomy. The Qinghai Provincial Government has issued orders that, by 2015, all lessons and textbooks in Tibetan schools should be in Chinese language instead of Tibetan. This will mean that Tibetan children growing up in the region (the historical Amdo region of Tibet famed for producing scholars and intellectuals) will be taught in Chinese instead of Tibetan. Tibetan students will have to learn history, science, social studies etc. in a second language instead of their native language. In fact, in most other parts of the Tibetan plateau, Chinese language instruction has already replaced Tibetan. This latest attempt to promote Chinese language at the expense of Tibetan has sparked the largest and most significant Tibetan protests since the seismic protests of 2008.
On Tuesday, October 19, over a thousand students from six different schools in Rebkong (called Tongren in Chinese) marched in non-violent demonstration against the planned language change carrying a banner that read: “Equality of Peoples, Freedom of Language.” Over the following days, the protests spread to Chabcha and other areas of Qinghai, as well as to Minzu Daxue, the Minorities University in Beijing where four hundred students participated. Their banner read, “Preserve Nationality Language and Expand National Education.”
These wide-ranging student protests come at the heels of a highly significant letter signed by at least 133 teachers from different schools and submitted to the Qinghai Provincial Government on October 15th. The letter was obtained and published by the popular Tibetan blog Khabdha. In the letter, submitted in both Tibetan and Chinese, the teachers wrote,
The letter goes on to say, “If both the spoken and written language of a people die, then it is as if the entire population of that people has died and the people have been decimated.” The teachers referred to the 4th Article in the PRC Constitution: “All ethnic groups have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages and to preserve or reform their own folkways and customs.” They were careful to note that their appeal is in lawful alignment with the Chinese Constitution as well as the PRC’s Law on Regional National Autonomy.
Policy makers from the Qinghai Provincial Government, as well as Beijing, should take a note from Newton and notice: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. They should also carefully note the deep-seated concern about language and culture apparent in these courageous appeals by the teachers and students. And then they should consider, at length, the fact dictated by common sense, and upheld by education experts: Children learn better in their mother tongue.
The medium of academic scholarship is language, as the medium of music is sound. Forcing students who grow up speaking Tibetan to study the concepts of science, social science and mathematics in a second language is to disadvantage them from the start: a handicap that will place certain stumbling blocks in their educational development.
Unlike the 2008 protests, which were attributed to social and economic causes as well as political ones, these protests and appeals are clearly in reaction to the education policies of the local Qinghai Government. If Chinese leaders want to give any impression to the Tibetans, and to their own growing number of politically-conscious middle class citizenry, that they care about the wishes of the Tibetan people, they should for once listen to the voice of the Tibetan people, and yes the voice of conscience, and at least allow the Tibetans this small zone of linguistic autonomy.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Continuing my travels through Asia for the launch of our October 2010 Regional Economic Outlook: Asia and Pacific, I am writing to you today from Singapore. In my last post, I focused on the near-term outlook and challenges for Asia. Today, I turn to the key medium-term challenge–the need to rebalance economies in the region away from heavy reliance on exports by strengthening domestic sources of growth. This is against a backdrop of the need to rebalance global growth that was emphasized over the weekend by the ministers of the Group of Twenty industrialized and emerging market countries.
Heavy reliance, arguably over-reliance, on exports is a common challenge across Asia. Yet, the policies to address it will differ among the countries in the region. Much of the public discussion focuses on ways to increase consumption, and this is something the IMF has written about extensively in the past. But the role of investment in rebalancing growth is equally important and something that should not be overlooked.
Current gaps in investment
Across the region, investment could play a bigger role in driving growth in three respects.
Overall investment appears low in some parts, but not all, of Asia. This tends to be more of an issue for the leading economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Elsewhere in the region, such as the newly industrialized economies (Hong Kong SAR, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan Province of China) and Japan, aggregate investment is in line with comparable countries outside the region. But, the composition of investment is skewed toward exporters and capital-intensive firms, which crowds out domestically-oriented and labor-intensive enterprises.
In addition, rapid growth across the region has stretched existing infrastructure close to the point where it severely constrains activity.
Boosting investment
What are the main reasons for this situation, and what can be done about it? Two important factors seem to be at play.
First, investment in many regional economies has been subdued over the past decade or so. This reflects lower returns, greater uncertainty and mixed perceptions about the ease of doing business particularly since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. However, financial constraints also played a role. In particular, small and medium enterprises, as well as firms operating in the services sector, appear to have limited access to financing, including in Japan and Korea. In these cases, modernizing the ways banks extend credit (including more risk-based financing) or make it easier to restructure the finances of small and medium enterprises, can help reduce the impediments to investing in the services sector.
The second important factor concerns shortfalls in infrastructure, which also suppress private investment spending. This is most pronounced in the ASEAN region and low-income economies. With most infrastructure in the region provided by governments, greater private participation through public-private partnerships may help address critical bottlenecks while also reducing pressures on public coffers.
Policy actions under way
The good news is that several countries are already taking steps in the right direction.
Japan and Korea are improving the financial infrastructure for smaller and more service-oriented firms through reforms in collateral laws and creating a market for distressed corporate assets.
Indonesia and Malaysia have taken steps to improve the business environment by easing restrictions on foreign investment in the services sector and creating ‘one-stop shops’ for investors to reduce administrative delays.
And many countries, including low-income ones, are making greater use of public-private partnerships to promote critical investment in infrastructure.
Clearly, it will take time and steadfast implementation of reforms to boost investment and, in turn, rebalance Asia’s growth. But the strength with which shock waves from the financial crisis hit markets across Asia–from India to Japan–also remind us that Asia’s economies will be the primary beneficiaries of strengthening their domestic engines of growth. The time has come to invest in a rebalancing of growth in Asia.
From iMFdirect blog

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