R.P. Barr

Romney's Job Creators

Last week, Sears announced the closing of 120 Sears and K-Mart stores.  (Sears owns K-Mart.)  As part of the NPR report on this news, a retail expert pointed out that when Wal-Mart and Target had invested in renovating their stores, improving the lighting and layout, etc. The hedge fund that owns Sears had used their extra cash to buy up Sears stock in the expectation that a shortage of stock would drive up the price for benefit of those who owned it.  The dingy, dated stores that were left to languish did not attract shoppers.  Sales dropped off until the bean counters decided the best way to show a profit was to cut stores and personnel.

Business owners like that are the “job creators” that Romney and the Republicans want to protect from regulations and taxes.  I mention Romney because he recently proclaimed that he did not want the United States to be like Europe.  Of course, not like the Europe of today.  The direction he’s heading will make the U.S. more like the the Europe of the 15^th Century, with a handful of superrich nobles riding on the backs of the rest of the population.  That’s freedom to Mitt Romney.

Lawrence Lessig wrote Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It, in which he points out that the country is not run by the top 1%, but by the .05% who finance political campaigns.  The question is how the rest of us can take the country back.  The campaign contributers find that putting money in political coffers is a very economical way to get the favorable treatment that keeps them rich.  For Congressional office holders for whom elections have become so expensive that they spend half their time fund raising, the opportunities for extortion that expiring subsidies and regulations create are irresistable.  The lawmakers are not going to change the system.  They’ve legalized corruption.

Don’t look to the Tea Partiers who are more concerned with redefining Christianity as the faith that turns its back on its neighbors and squeezes camels through needle eyes.  The Occupy Wall Streeters have got to get out of their tents, stop complaining and stand for something.  Conservatives love to march in time with each other.  For them, unity is more important than truth—or thought.  Liberals can’t agree on which way to walk in a revolving door.

What to do?  George Bernard Shaw said, “The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.”  It may come to that.  If we keep going in the same direction, and can’t get focused on  political solutions, bad things are bound to happen.

Happy New Year!

 

Quote: Warren Buffett

These excerpts are from In the Loop with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television.   Liu was in Sun Valley to interview Warren Buffett.

 Betty Liu: Is it misguided in many ways to look to the White House to try to help create jobs.  I mean,                 Obama’s got this jobs council—you know he keeps creating these councils to create jobs—is it                 misguided in that way?

 
 Warren Buffett:  People get their expectations too high.  I mean, if you                 look at these 15 recessions  we’ve had since we became a country.                  During half that period, at least nobody knew what monetary policy                 or fiscal policy was.  I mean,we cured ourselves and the system                 cures itself.   And, I would say that’s the biggest single factor.                  Government can do things to make it worse and they did in the                 Great Depression.  And, government can help some.

 Betty Liu:  Is the president making it worse?

Warren Buffett:  No, no, no.  We know the things to do that can help, but they                 are not, in my view, the prime determinant.  There are things to                 work through.  If you have too many houses, what can government                 do?

         …Government gets blamed too much and it may get too         much credit when things do improve.  Government’s a factor, but by far the biggest factor is correction of the business cycle over time is what would call the natural regenerative powers of capitalism.  Capitalism works.

[Later in the interview]

Warren Buffett:  It takes some cooperation from Congress, but [Obama] has ideas about what America can and should be                 that are in sync with mine.  Some of it is social justice and some of it is distribution of wealth, and that sort of thing.

Betty Liu:  Like what?  What are the lot of issues?”

 Warren Buffett:  Like I think, for example, that we’ve had a period in the last 15 years whee the 400  top tax payers in                 the United States—we have to go back 15 years—they had an average income  of about 45 million.  Now, they                 have an average income of 350 million, in the most recent figures, whereas their tax rates went down from                 27% down to 16%.  That’s not my idea of America.  I mean I want everybody to get rich, but I think that the                 rich have a responsibility to pay higher tax rates.

 Betty Liu:  So that when you hear him say targeting the millionaires and the billionaires, you’re saying  “Go get ‘em.”

 Warren Buffett:  Yeah.  

 Betty Liu:  Yeah?

 Warren Buffett:  Yeah, I am.

 Betty Liu:  But, don’t get me--

 Warren Buffett:  No, I look around at my friends here who are paying lower tax  rates than the                 people who are serving us the food—

 Betty Liu:  Do they agree with you?  When you’re here at Sun Valley talking to them, do they agree with  you?

 Warren Buffett:  I think some do, yeah.  And, many don’t.

 Betty Liu:  And are they still talking to you?

Warren Buffett:  Oh, yeah, they talk to me.  They figure I’m harmless and eighty.  This guy will only be  around a few                 more years.  

[So, if you are not a billionaire and plan to be around for more than just a few years, it is time to decide what kind of America you want to live in.  In the next 15 years do you want to see the income of the 400 top taxpayers rise by another 777% and their tax rates drop by another 40% while your numbers remains the same or worse?  The rich have already made their choice.  What are you going to do?]   

 

New Years' Revolutions

For previous New Years I have tried my hand at predictions.  These turned out to be my lamest pieces of writing.  So, this year, I will simply say what I am looking forward to following.

 Primarily, I want to see how the Tea Party meets reality.  The new Republican-majority Congress is pretty much limited to two choices. 

 They can try to do what they promised.  But, unless the Democrats really want to self-destruct, their Senate majority will prevent any repeal of Health Care or anything else done in the last two years.  That will mean that the Republican House will spend its precious 20 months before the 2012 elections making noise and obstructing progress.  Possibly even shutting down the government.  That won’t look good. 

 Or, they can put off their agenda and try to accomplish something that they can take back to the voters.  But, that will alienate their base.

 The thing to remember is that the American people (a grossly overused phrase) are pragmatic.  That is why elections see-saw between parties.  There are a few head-in-the-sand ideologues who don’t care if the world goes to hell as long they don’t have to compromise.  But, most just want the people they elect to act like grown-ups and do their jobs.  Tea Party petulance and road blocking is not going to work.

 Depending on what the conservative House does, I wonder if this is the year that folks become aware of the real class war and begin to fight back.  That should not be either a liberal or a conservative cause.

 In 2006, Warren Buffet said, “There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class that's making war and we're winning.”  The rest of us are arguing over gay marriage and ignoring our losses.

 Look at the economic “recovery.”  The big corporations are awash in cash.  The banks and brokerages are handing out seven-figure bonuses to their executives.  And, the new Congress is threatening to choke off funding to the agencies that regulate job safety, customer safety, investment safety, and protect air/water/food from contamination.  Who will that benefit?

 Jobs are being created.  But, most of them are being created overseas.  Even when there is hiring here at home, how many unemployed people have you heard of who wound up in new jobs that paid as much or more than they were earning before?  So, even working people not reflected in the unemployment statistics are less able to spend what they did before.  Less spending means a slower economy.  Not that the multi-national corporations care, they’re making money in China.

Well, it’s the government’s fault.  We need to cut back.  Lay off governement workers.  Okay, let’s throw—hmmm, say—10,000 government workers onto the streets.  We’ve saved money, right? Except that now we have increased the unemployment roles by 10,000.  How many new jobs have we created?  How long before these layoffs result in new private sector hiring?

Suppose, on the other hand, that we kept these workers on the payroll and gave them each a paycheck this week.  What do you think they would do with it?  Is it possible that spending their salaries would help the economy?  The 10,000 would not default on their credit cards, or apply for unemployment and welfare, or go to the hospital because they don’t have insurance to pay their doctors, or lose their homes to foreclosure.

The governor of New Jersey recently announced a number of austerity measures that would impact state employees.  He said that the state was in trouble and that state workers should share the pain.  Sounds fair enough.  He did not say that taxes should be increased on the wealthiest New Jersey citizens—the ones who can best afford a hit.  No, because the rich not only don’t have to share the pain, they don’t have to be annoyed by those who do.

 You’ve probably heard that raising the taxes on the rich would not solve all of our problems. That may be true.  (I personally favor 50% tax on those earing $1 million or more and no deductions allowed—except charitable). But, giving the rich a break does not create jobs.  Look around.  Government spending does.  Let’s give it a try.  And, then spread the pain around.

 

Manipulating tragedy for 5 minutes of fame

 Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.  - Albert Einstein

I’m sure that you’ve heard about the Florida pastor who is planning to burn copies of the Koran on September 11.  What does he hope to accomplish?

A nice little prayer and some discussion of the transitory nature of life might be appropriate.  Maybe a special collection for a memorial.  Let the congregation hold hands for a moment of silence.  That would be nice.  Book burning isn’t.

The pastor, whose name does not rate mentioning here, has said that it is time to stand up to Islam.

He obviously hasn’t done the math.  Of the billion and a half Muslims in the world, fewer than one percent are engaged in violence against the non-Muslim world.  But, this beanbag wants to offend all of them.

Muslims are very strong on symbolism.  They will not see this book burning as the act of a nobody clergyman and an insignificant gaggle of followers.  They will see it as a direct attack on their religion by the United States.  They have no experience with our Constitution, and firmly believe that President Obama could stop this outrage if he wanted.

Even if Islam were united and bent on our destruction, what is accomplished by burning their holiest of books.  Is that going to stop the next terrorist act?  Is al-Qaeda going to recoil and cry, “Oh, no!  If we attack them now they might burn more books!”

If I were to go to Florida and burn a stack of Bibles, I would be attract some unkind language, and a handful of spokesmen would call for my arrest, but in the end it would all blow over and a year from now no one would be talking about it.  The Middle East is not like the United States.  After this bonfire, the grandchildren of children not yet born will still be offended and someone will use this utterly stupid and pointless act as an excuse to blow something up.

Muslims are not communists, they will not see their faith as false and convert.  They will not be intimidated a little fire any more than we were by collapse of the twin towers.  Indeed, Muslim radicals look for any slight to react against.

Our best strategy is to win over as many people as we can, to make friends with as many as will let us.  We must also remember that as long as we are rich and powerful, we will be blamed for the evils of the world by every demogogue that comes down the pike.  Shout “death to America” and you get a crowd; shout “we want democratic reform” and go to prison.   That is reality in most Muslim countries.  Winning hearts and minds is slow and tedious, but it works.  Desecrating holy books only makes a bad situation worse.

Besides, it’s stupid--and not very Christian.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Sir Thomas More

As channeled by Robert Bolt in A Man for all Seasons, the argument over what to do with the 9/11 conspirators should have been settled in the 1530’s.  In the play, More discussed the issue with his future son-in-law.

 William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? 


William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

 We already know that there were prisoners in Guantanamo who had not committed any acts against the U.S.  These hapless individuals were simply accused and turned in to U.S. forces to settle personal scores.  So, I wonder why those who don’t believe the government can mount a successful prosecution are so sure that the government is trying the right people in the first place.  It all has got to come out in court to have credibility, here and abroad.

Quote: The Ideal Religious Fanatic

Speaking of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams—the subject of her recent book, The Wordy Shipmates--on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, author Sarah Vowell said:

 "He’s the sort of ideal religious fanatic.  He believed that everyone who disagreed with him over his puritan views were going to burn eternally in Hell.  And, he thought that was punishment enough, and so, on earth, we could all live together….I thought if there were more religious fanatics like that nowadays, there might be fewer car bombs.”

Cartoons and buffoons

By now you’ve probably heard of, or seen, the New York Post cartoon of the dead chimpanzee and the policemen who say that now someone else will have to write the stimulus legislation. The Rev. Al Sharpton has led the charge that the chimpanzee represents Barak Obama and the cartoon is racially offensive. 

I find the cartoon to be tasteless, but not racist. The chimp is clearly a chimp. And, only a fool would think that Barak Obama wrote the stimulus package. He has people who do that, anonymous colorless people. 

In my life, I have been called an ape, a babboon, a monkey and a number of other creatures. Abraham Lincoln was also called an ape. In one of the few areas where I can compare myself with the 16th president, we both have taken our insults in stride. Personally, I have been insulted by more ethnic groups than I care to count—it comes with enforcing laws and regulations. My philosophy was always that the speaker can call me whatever he (or she) likes as long as he keeps his hands to himself. 

Personally, I prefer insults to compliments. When someone calls me a dirty name, I know that whatever lies or misconceptions are behind the insult, this person doesn’t like me. I know where I stand, and that is reassuring. When someone smiles and tells me something sweet, I don’t know the underlying motives. It makes me uncomfortable. 

As far as race goes, there are so many legitimate grievances out there—many of them as hard as the edge between life and death. Why dilute strong arguments over vital matters with trivial, questionable grandstanding? 

I can’t tell people not to feel offended. Feelings are beyond control. But, actions are not. We can choose our battles, and a person is no larger than the fights he chooses. 

There is something else. None of us, regardless of lineage, can achieve anything without the complicity or tolerance of others. Lincoln the ape, described the strategy, “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.” Constant bluster and bashing are not the tools of success. 

Cartoonists should take care to avoid inadvertant offence, and social activists should avoid arguments that trivialize their causes.

War-go-round

A few months ago, I learned that an artist had been so moved by the stories of Vietnam veterans throwing their medals over the White House fence in protest of the war in which they had participated that he created a tile representation of one of these vets and was sending these tiles to like minded veterans.  The purpose, as I understood it was not merely to make and distribute his art, but to create a community and achieve an understanding of these veterans.  Well, as a veteran myself and former veterans counselor, I was touched by what he was trying to do and wrote a blog entry about it. [“Medals” June 15, 2008]

This past week, Alex Irvine, the artist, send me a tile.  I am honored and appreciative.  [Take a look at http://alexirvineceramics.blogspot.com/]

When I was in basic training, back in the hot summer of 1968, I remember the company being seated in a Fort Jackson classroom.  A drill sergeant stepped in front of us and announced that he was going to surprise us.  “You all want to go to Vietnam.”  There were no shouts or applause.  Vietnam was the last place we wanted to find ourselves.  He continued, “Think about it.  Deep down, you all want to test yourselves, to see how you will react.  You want to know what it is like.”

He hit on a major reason why young men go to war. 

Another is that war is simple.  Consider this passage from John Steinbecks’ The Grapes of Wrath:

            And now the squatting men stood up angrily.

            Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the In­dians and drive them away.  And Pa was bom here, and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money.  An' we was bom here.  There in the door—our children born here.  And Pa had to borrow money. The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised.

            We know that—all that. [said the men who drove the bulldozers] It's not us, it's the bank. A bank isn't like a man. Or an owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn't like a man either. That's the monster. 

Sure, cried the tenant men, but it's our land.  We measured it and broke it up.  We were bom on it, and we got killed on it, died on it.  Even if it's no good, its still ours.  That's what makes it ours—being bom on it, working it, dying on it.  That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.                     

            We're sorry.  It’s not us. It’ s the monster.  The bank isn't like a man.

            Yes, but the bank is only made of men.

            No, you're wrong there—quite wrong there.  The bank is something else than men.  It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it.  The bank is something more than men, I tell you.  It’s the monster.  Men made it, but they can't control it.

 

War gives a man someone to shoot.  It may not fix any of the ills of the world, but it solves the immediate problem of survival. 

I tried to be a pacifist back in my pre-draft youth.  I could not understand killing somebody half a world away whose only interest in killing me was because I was in his country uninvited.  After much soul searching, I failed the test for pacifism.  I don’t believe in killing strangers, and that’s not enough.  If someone tries to do violence in my presence, that makes it personal and its enough of an introduction for me do whatever harm it takes to stop him.  I just don’t believe in seeking out these opportunities.

Even in the days when my profession was pursuing bad guys, there was risk, but deadly force situations did not come up.  Life is more complex.

I remember being an MP at an anti-war demonstration when a Vietnam vet, still in the service, looked out at the hundreds of demonstrators and moaned that “We killed women and children in Vietnam, why can’t we do it here?  Just shoot ‘em down.”  The tear in his voice told me that he didn’t want to kill anyone, but coming home had made his life much more complicated.

This past week, figures were released that show the number of suicides by active duty troops is at another record high. 

Coincidentally, I just saw a documentary on the disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.  Soviet soldiers, miners and firemen were sent to bury the radioactive mass.  They had no protective suits and some 20,000 are estimated to have died.  But they saved millions.

The last time that American servicemen and women defended the United States was in 1945.  If we had let North Korea overrun the south, would it have threatened anyone here?  What about Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo…?  I am not passing judgements on any of the post-WWII conflicts, but they were extentions of U.S. foreign policy, not defence of our freedom or our lives.  Yet, the toll on the fighter is no less.  They battle fear and fatigue, bear the agony of their comrades falling, the helplessness of being separated from family crises, while the rest of us watch the Superbowl and complain about the economy.

Once upon a time, a handful of Vietnam vets returned the medals they earned in combat.  Their gesture may not have changed anything, but at least they tried.

Quote: White on War

 

Young men who had gone out even in the first joy of marriage, to be killed on dirty battle-fields like Bedegraine for other men’s beliefs: but who had gone out voluntarily: but who had gone because they thought it was right: but who had gone although they hated it.  They had been ignorant young men perhaps, and the things which they had died for had been useless.  But their ignorance had been innocent.  They had done something horribly difficult in their ignorant innocence, which was not for themselves.

                              --T. H. White, The Book of Merlin

Quoting Lara Logan

When you hear the title “Chief Foreign Correspondent of CBS News” what image comes to mind?  A grizzled old man like Eric Severeid who looks like he’s been everywhere and seen it all, or a hot young blonde who could have stepped off the set of a daytime soap opera? 

  A couple evenings ago, Lara Logan, who is Chief Foreign Correspondent of CBS News, paid a visit to Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show.  Stewart regularly has serious guests sit across from him as he tries to find the fun in their subjects.  Most try to join in the merriment, and the few who miss the humor endure the interview in good graces.  Logan started off like that, light and friendly in her South African accent.

 But, her comments carried an edge of painful history.  Like many combat veterans, the 37 year-old Logan has seen what you have not, been where you have not, and understands what you never will.  However, where many vets simply lapse into silence, Logan’s job is to communicate.  The tension built up during their conversation and at last she shut Stewart down.  She did not do this with any pointed barbs, but by overflowing with the passion of her experience.

             Stewart responded to one anecdote by noting “fifty-one people were killed in Iraq today,” and wondering at how big a news event that would have been had it occurred in the U.S.  He asked, “Have we lost our humanity with this entire situation?”  I don’t think he was prepared for her answer.

        “Yeah, we have.”  

She elaborated, “You know, I was asked once, ‘Do you feel responsible for the American public having a bad view, a negative view of the war in Iraq?’ And, I looked at the reporter and I said, ‘Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier.  What does that look like?  Who in America knows what that looks like?  Because I know what that looks like.  And, I feel responsible for the fact that no-one else does.'  You know, that’s what I feel responsible for:  that no-one really understands.  And, the soldiers do feel forgotten.  They do.  No doubt.  From Afghanistan to Iraq they absolutely feel [forgotten].

            “We may be tired of hearing about this five years later.  They still have to go out and do the same job.  I was in Sadr City when it was just going absolutely hell—“  She shook her head.  “Sadr City was like Armageddon, and soldiers who had been in-country nine months had never seen combat like that.  Just thrown into it, you know.  You’re talking about convoys ambushed with five—six armor-piercing bombs, rocket propelled grenades, everything.  Nine—ten—fifteen hour battles.”

            Stewart, in a subdued and serious tone, tried to re-insert himself into his show.  “That’s something that we might just get a brief glimpse of on the news, or just a mention—and that kind of thing.”

            Logan wasn’t ready to give up yet.  “And more soldiers died in Afghanistan last month than in Iraq.  Who’s paying attention to that?  33,000—the highest troop level since the war began—seven years after we defeated the Taliban.”  Then, she ran out of steam and like the professional she is, shook hands with her host.

             You can watch the whole thing on www.thedailyshow.com.  It is as close to the attitude of a real combat veteran as you are likely to see—unless you talk to a real combat vet.  She has set herself apart from the rest of us, because we can’t possibly understand what it was like, yet she keeps trying to get through.

             It’s like lovers who think that they are the only ones to have every loved so deeply, or minorities who believe that no-one else can apprciate the suffering of discrimination.  Or, pretty much any other  extreme event, when you realize that those who weren’t there aren’t even speaking the same language as you.  The inability to communicate, and trying to contain emotions that are too volatile to hold in is a large part of what sets off Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

             I am not trying to diagnose Lara Logan.  I’m not a doctor and I don’t diagnose anyone, but I’ve seen enough people with the condition to recognize a warning sign.  Watch the interview and then watch it again.  This is what war does to someone who covers it.  Try to imagine what it does to those who fight it.