Critical thinking on Memorial Day

I think we can all agree that thanking military personnel is warranted, Memorial Day or not. But what we don't do enough is analyze what they (and their families) are asked to do. Civilians are asked to do next to nothing to support our wars in Iraq (4,404 American soldiers dead, approx.) and Afghanistan (1,076 dead) -- well, we feel the economic toll, and future generations will have to actually pay for them. But our all-volunteer military is asked to do more than their fair share. As of yesterday, we've spent $1 trillion in Iraq/Afghanistan. Are we putting them in harm's way for good reason?

If you're persuaded more by economic factors, Derrick Crowe flags some poignant statistics.

According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s (CEPR) Dean Baker:

"In standard economic models, defense spending is a direct drain on the economy, reducing efficiency, slowing growth and costing jobs. …[S]tandard economic models…project that the increase in defense spending since 2000 will cost the economy close to two million jobs in the long run."

Baker’s point in his article was that groups that scream about potential "job loss" from government "interference" never put that "loss" in any context. Government spending does stimulate economic activity during a downturn. The question is, how stimulative is one type of spending versus another? So let’s make sure we’re playing fair and put this in some perspective in terms of job creation.

It turns out that, excluding tax cuts for consumption, war spending is the least stimulative type of government spending.

An October 2007 study by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) found that per $1 billion invested in the following fields, you create wildly different numbers of jobs:

Defense: 8,555 jobs
Construction for home weatherization/infrastructure: 12,804 jobs
Health care: 12,883 jobs
Education: 17,687 jobs
Mass transit: 19,795 jobs

So if you take $1 billion in taxpayer dollars and spend it on war versus on building energy efficient homes and other infrastructure, the opportunity cost for that spending is 4,249 potential jobs. Spending it on war versus mass transit costs you 11,240 potential jobs.

This is getting unreasonable, to say the least.

If that isn't enough, this Washington Post headline says a lot about the tenuous alliances we've made that aren't built to last, but to serve as a foreign policy Band-Aid: In Afghan region, U.S. spreads the cash to fight the Taliban. I'm not so naive as to believe this is the first time civilians in a war-torn country have been bought out, but then let's never kid ourselves that Democracy is on the march. Like it is for many of us, in Afghanistan, it's about who's got their economic interests in mind.

There are many factors pushing the war machine forward. Those forces can seem overwhelming. But the onus to end war is ultimately ours. We have to decide how we engage our country's often militaristic view of the world. Where is the drone leading us? What does indefinite detention of prisoners mean for our future? How are we actively inflaming the Muslim world in the name of security? What does national security mean in the 21st century?

The only way we can survive, and thrive, as a people is to think. What are our priorities? What would you do with $1 trillion?

Democratic Party: Still hacks

My favorite letter to the editor in the June issue of Harper's contains an apt description of the seemingly hapless (we wish) Democratic Party as what it really is: a keeper of establishment power and the status quo of America's plutocracy.

Kevin Baker uses unnecessarily baroque interpretations of the motives of “liberal” political actors. In my experience, based on attending three Democratic Party meetings a week for more than ten years, the role of the Democratic Party in American politics is to offer token resistance to the corporations and the rich and then to roll over. The sports analogy is not to beanbag or Little League but rather to TV wrasslin’ or the 1919 World Series. The people at the top of the Democratic Party are furthering their class interests by weakly making the case for liberal reform and then throwing the game.

This paradigm of American politics was best articulated by Harper’s Magazine’s own Walter Karp in Indispensable Enemies. Karp divided the political world into two kinds of people: “hacks” (self-interested careerists) and morally driven “reformers.” The hacks of both parties collude to keep the reformers out.

In the Sixties and earlier eras, the reformers forced concessions from the hacks. These reforms were then taken back under such hacks as Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and, sorry to say, Obama. Obama ran as a reformer, of course, but has governed as a hack. If he were a real reformer, we would have single-payer health care.

Bo Richardson
Bellingham, Wash.

That letter was in response to Kevin Baker's The vanishing of the liberal: How the left learned to be helpless. The essay becomes a history lesson on the ground liberals have ceded since the New Deal by not defending the government's role in the country's affairs. It is an indictment on the lack of party leadership in advancing core Democratic principles. At least stated principles.

My favorite passage of Baker's essay is aimed square at the Technocrat-in-chief Obama and his party of corporatist lackies.

Obama is an adroit politician and, like the last adroit Democratic president, he may be able to secure another term in the White House. Perhaps he will even be able to keep a Democratic majority in Congress, though this now seems unlikelier by the day. But to treat this as a triumph of activism is to say that a prisoner retains free will because he is able to stay in his cell. Obama, the congressional Democrats, and most of our politicians at every level now maneuver within political confines defined by financial and military interests they cannot conceive of challenging. Perversely, our ruling elite today is one of unparalleled diversity, and includes unprecedented numbers of women, minorities, and individuals who have worked their way up to power on brains and determination alone, usually without having inherited connections or wealth. It is a meritocracy much like the one long envisioned by many liberal reformers—and it has decided to capitulate, reap its considerable rewards, and draw the ladder up after it.

Who will challenge this shining fortress upon a hill? The right-wing pseudo-Populists who have devoured the Republican Party may win some victories in the short run. But the Tea Party and its fellow travelers have already become a jointly owned subsidiary of News Corp. and the likes of Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks lobby. (To understand just how fraudulent the movement is, one need only look at the $549-a-seat price tag for tickets to its first convention, and the $100,000 speaker’s fee paid to Sarah Palin. So much for box socials and sing-alongs.) Right-wing Populism is anyway inherently contradictory, a demand that the state recede to a size that will leave its citizens utterly defenseless against the gigantic forces at loose in the world today. No one is going to abolish the Federal Reserve, or the income tax, or Social Security and Medicare; if they did, small businesses and working people would be trampled beneath the corporate entities bent on their exploitation. The counter-Populism of the right is the prisoner’s last, despairing option, to move from learned helplessness to suicide.

Coming to power when he did, with the political skills and the majorities he possesses, Barack Obama squandered an almost unprecedented opportunity. But it is increasingly clear that he never intended to challenge the power structure he had so skillfully penetrated. With the recent Supreme Court ruling that corporations are, once more, people, American democracy has snapped shut again—the great, forced opening of the past 130 years has ended. There is no longer any meaningful reformist impulse left in our politics. The idea of modern American liberalism has vanished among our elite, and simply voting for one man or supporting one of the two major parties will not restore it. The work will have to be done from the ground up, and it will have to be done by us.

The ruling class has failed us time and time again. And to quote a famous politician's now-empty campaign slogan, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." Yes Mr. Obama, ironically, we are.

Gitmo task force review: What we can learn (or what we already know)

The Obama administration has finally graced us with the Guantanamo Review Task Force report, a comprehensive review of all detainees held at the facility. Those reviews examined detainees' "capture information, interview reports, record searches by the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency, and Guantanamo Bay files on behavior, disciplinary infractions and mental health."

So what can be gleaned from this review? Most of this stuff isn't a surprise, but let's go over it for fun. Yes, sick, sick fun. I'll use Peter Finn's article in Saturday's Washington Post.

1. The basics: A lot of these prisoners are low-level foot soldiers and/or were captured under dubious circumstances, most likely to fill a quota or settle a score. Plus, the Obama administration didn't release this report four months ago when it was ready because it was the ethical thing to do ... er, because of politics.

The final report by the Guantanamo Review Task Force recommends that 126 of the detainees be transferred either to their homes or to a third country; that 36 be prosecuted in either federal court or a military commission; and that 48 be held indefinitely under the laws of war. A group of 30 Yemenis was approved for release if security conditions in their home country improve.

The report was completed in January but sent to select committees on Capitol Hill just this week. The administration sat on the report in the wake of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day because there was little public or congressional appetite for further discussion of its plan to close the military detention center.

2. Congress is full cowards playing politics with Gitmo as well.

It remains unclear whether the administration can gain enough support on Capitol Hill to move forward with its plan to buy a state prison in Illinois to replace Guantanamo, where 181 detainees remain. Key House and Senate committees introduced language this month into defense bills that would bar funding for any such facility in the United States.

3. We still don't know what the hell is going on. In fact, we're making all this up as we go.

Before the review, there was no single repository of information for each detainee. The task force determined that there "were more than a thousand pieces of potentially relevant physical evidence (including electronic media) seized during raids in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks that had not yet been systematically catalogued."

4. Peter Finn, like most mainstream media journalists, continues to frame objections to indefinite detention without trial as something disconcerting for only "human rights activists." Those kooky kids. "Key parts of Obama's constituency"? I think it should be a concern for all of us, but I guess that isn't Finn's fault. He only copies what the review says, gets some anonymous officials to quip and adds in these lazy constructs of what Gitmo means to this country and the rest of the world.

The decision to hold 48 detainees without trial remains the most controversial part of the review process for key parts of Obama's constituency, including human rights activists. The task force said prosecution was not feasible for some detainees because the focus at the time of their capture was the "gathering of intelligence," not evidence. But these detainees still posed "a high level of threat."

5. This one goes in the "No kidding?" file. You've mean we've radicalized these scores of low-level or completely innocent Muslims we've kept imprisoned for years?

The report says those recommended for indefinite detention had significant roles in al-Qaeda or the Taliban and advanced training or expertise. It notes that "some detainees designated for detention have, while at Guantanamo, expressly stated or otherwise exhibited an intent to reengage in extremist activity upon release."

6. And, predictably, the administration postures on Gitmo and transparency and the rule of law ad nauseam. "Hey, as long as we stand up to House Republicans, we look pretty good." That's a low bar.

In a letter this month, seven Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee asked James L. Jones, the president's national security adviser, to recommend to Obama "an immediate prohibition on the transfer of any detainee out of Guantanamo Bay, and a halt to any action related to the closure of the facility."

Jones replied to the letter this week, saying that "Guantanamo has compromised our standing in the world, undermined our core values, and diminished our moral authority." He said that the Pentagon spends $150 million a year for detention operations at Guantanamo and that costs at a possible facility in Thomson, Ill., would be $70 million to $80 million.

I'm sure there's more to dissect, but it's not worth it to go on.

R.I.P. Dennis Hopper: A symbol of a generation

The New York Times said in a profile of Hopper last month:

DENNIS HOPPER — actor, filmmaker, photographer, art collector, world-class burnout, first-rate survivor — never blew it. Unlike the villains and freaks he has played over the decades — the psycho with the mommy complex in “Blue Velvet,” the mad bomber with the grudge in “Speed” — he has made it through the good, the bad and some spectacularly terrible times. He rode out the golden age of Hollywood by roaring into a new movie era with “Easy Rider.” He hung out with James Dean, played Elizabeth Taylor’s son, acted for Quentin Tarantino. He has been rich and infamous, lost and found, the next big thing, the last man standing.

Dennis Hopper, the ultimate misfit, has died of cancer at age 74. Is there anyone that stayed in the public eye longer that embodies the best spirit and the worst excesses of the second half of the 20th century more than Hopper? From James Dean to 'Easy Rider' to his reclusive, written-off days to the drug problems to the constant redemption and reinvention, he seemed to set the tempo for a generation of Americans he wasn't even a part of, the Baby Boomers.

Or maybe, since he was born in 1936, he is the perfect symbol of the Lost Generation of Americans, too young for service in WWII, too old to be a Boomer, the generation that looked to James Dean's 'Rebel Without a Cause' as a rallying cry for the youth of post-war America. Outside the showers of glory history bestows on "The Greatest Generation," and preceding the ultimately insufferable Boomers' sense of entitlement and ego (yes, I'm being general), the Lost Generation had to move the country along in between very opposite towers of attitude and self-righteousness. They fought the rigidity of post-war suburban groupthink and Cold War paranoia. They laid the template for '60s-era rebellion that invariably turned commercial and commodified. It's like they fell in between the cracks of American history's golden boys, but did just as much as either The Greatest Generation or The Boomers ever did, if not more, to advance our culture and make sense of an era -- beginning in 1945 and ending whenever you'd like -- America may never emulate.

Where is the Dennis Hopper of today? Who is it? Who embodies America in 2010?

Time Life's Nazi-propaganda lampoon: Advertising at its most exploitive, fearmongering best

I don't know if dark Nazi humor was their intention, but the creators of the ad for Time Life's "The Nazi's [sic]: A Warning from History" were either trying to lampoon and/or vamp Third Reich-style propaganda or they know the animalistic perversions of Americans (WWII buffs or not) all too well.

I caught the ad on Current TV (Al Gore's station, ironically). The beginning is a bit disturbing, but so blatant, it's hard not to laugh. I'm not trying to diminish the atrocities of the Nazis, but this is quite the tone. As images of smiling Germans, set to the soft voices of singing children, appear on the screen, the baritone voiceover booms:

They laughed, sang, played ...

Then in an instant, that voice goes demonic, and gunshots ring out.

... they murdered millions! It was history's most horrible nightmare. This is what evil looks like up close.

The voiceover now bellows as some relatively graphic footage of hangings, firing squads and syncopated saluting Germans plays. It claims to be the first documentary set "from inside the Reich." They apparently unearthed "unnerving" German archive footage. $59.95! Call now and get $10 off! Call this minute, no shipping and handling! (Zoom footage to feature the whites of the Germans' eyes) "Watch as everyday people turn into killers overnight!" The BBC says, "It's bursting with new facts."

"If you believe we can learn from the past, this is one collection you must own!" fires the voiceover. I wonder what the aim is there. I hope we have learned from that era, but are they alluding to a present danger? I may be looking into this too much, but who is the target audience? Older Americans, I'd say. History buffs, yes, but this inflammatory style of ad strikes at a paranoid and delusional mindset that very much exists. Far too many people toss around the Hitler label, and I think this ad isn't afraid to ride that conspiratorial fear.

They're out there. This is no surprise.

I can't embed, but here's the link for the ad. (Anytime I can plug SHOPTV: Canada, I do so.)

There's even a German spoof of a Time Life documentary on Nazi leaders. I wish I could read German.


Time Life Hitler - MyVideo

The day your love will shine, we'll try to have a good time.

The latest Black Moth Super Rainbow album sounds like a robot coming to terms with having human emotions. It's pretty great. But it was after making that assessment (the music sounding like a computer that's realizing both assurance and weariness) that I read this in the liner notes the promo CD came with.

The music agreeably dwells in contradiction; the songs contained herein have a feel both earnestly nostalgic, and hauntingly futuristic. Should the robots working in our factories, vacuuming our floors, and operating our gaming consoles choose to rise up and revolt, Eating Us could, perhaps, be used to serve as the first indication that our beloved machines had begun to understand the subtle complexities of human emotion.

Now that's creepy. I'd say I'm in complete agreement.

I know they're from Pittsburgh, a dying relic of the post-WWII American industrial machine (though I understand "'Burgh's back"). Think of what the decaying heft of the Rust Belt says about capabilities and limitations of humans. These people have dealt with this reality for far longer than the rest of the country. That's exactly the sentiment that Devo speaks to, being from the rubber town of Akron, Ohio. Devo's commentary on the human race was more devolutionary focused, as in humans were to blame for their declining standards. It wasn't the machine's fault. (That said, they did delve into the technological domination of our culture.) For these bands and this region, the future came and left them with struggle and humiliation, not hope and promise.



Does it ever blow your mind that one day soon, machines will rule our lives while allowing humans to assert they are the ones in control? Has that already happened?

The brilliance (and sadness) of The Office

I just caught The Office's "Scranton Rap" from a few seasons ago on TV. Classic. While this rap is The Office at its best, the episode (in which employees, including Jim, of Dunder-Mifflin's Stamford branch come to work in Scranton) exhibits the repressed-memory sadness of the ever desperate Michael Scott. As buffoonish as he is, there's a deep, clinical case smoldering.

The Office - Lazy Scranton | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

The view from Venice, Fla.

365: The beach in Venice, Fla. Beautiful weather there over the weekend. The pier in the distance was connected to Sharkey's, the beachside megabar of Venice.

At the game

365: Boston vs. Baltimore. Pediatric Brain Tumor Awareness: Today's blatantly obvious 'good cause.'