Watching the celebration in Tahrir Square moves me to tears. The Egyptian people have managed the peaceful overthrow of a tyrant who ruled them for 30 years. This staggers me. Imagine the possibilities.
And it suddenly occurs to me why Israel lives in mortal dread of democratic change in Egypt. It is not because the Egyptian people will suddenly turn on Israel. It is because an Egypt peacefully liberated by its own people will be a clarion call for Palestinians.
There is also this: the possibility of a democratic state in Egypt side-by-side with a Jewish theocratic state in Israel. That is the mortal threat to Israel--that its dispossession of the Palestinian people will become much clearer to Americans.
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Friday, February 11, 2011
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
War As Profit Opportunity
Why we need a military draft, why we won't get one
On Monday, Fresh Air host Terry Gross introduced an interview (on-line here) about civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan by quoting a severely injured contractor who said, "It's almost like we are an invisible, discardable army."
This particular contractor got both legs blown off by a roadside bomb and subsequently discovered that he was not entitled to any sort of federal compensation for his loss or for his health care. He had to fight his private insurance company to get a shot at prosthetic legs. I didn't hear all of the interview with reporter T. Christian Miller, so I don't know if the conversation pursued the deeper point that while the US maintains both an all-volunteer army and a private mercenary army, war becomes a profit opportunity that is largely shielded from effective political opposition.
Here we are, involved in two of the longest wars in American history, at a cost to the federal government of over one trillion dollars and climbing, with minimal effective public and Congressional opposition to those wars. The Vietnam War, in its many phases--military advisers and trainers, CIA mercenary armies, the mobilization of a fighting force over 600,000 strong, and secret bombings and incursions in Cambodia and Laos--was longer and killed far more American soldiers than have been killed to date in Iraq and Afghanistan (more information here and here). The Vietnam War also killed more civilians than the current wars have killed so far, but the difference is not worth applauding.
But here's the thing: the Vietnam War was pursued by two presidents in the face of relentlessly increasing public opposition. Though that opposition did not end the war in a timely way, say, 1969 or '70, rather than 1975, active resistance and public disapproval forced both Presidents Johnson and Nixon to conduct portions of the war in secrecy and otherwise compromise war aims. Arguably, public and Congressional opposition is also forcing compromise on President Obama, but it seems more likely that weapons manufacturers and military contractors are currently forcing political compromises that will prolong those wars.
Indeed, the influence of the military-industrial complex might right now be at an all-time high, at least in proportion to the influence of the public and anti-war organizations. In each of the six complete election cycles since 1998, the contributions of corporations in the war business have climbed 10 to 20 percent, with the exception of the 2008 cycle when the increase was
more than 20 percent (go here to explore the ugly truth, note that the 2010 cycle promises to break all previous records). In a 1997 article, "Guns r' Us" in In These Times, a magazine I worked at for two years, writer Martha Honey recounts the many ways that weapons manufacturers seek to increase markets for their products. Ten+ years later, the situation is worse.
Of course, anti-war opposition has limited some of the options of those who would rather pursue the current wars more vigorously. But the practices of maintaining an all-volunteer army, and employing contractors to reduce the direct cost of war, have obvious roots in the lessons that political, military and corporate chiefs learned from the civil unrest and mass opposition that they confronted during the Vietnam War.
First, make sure that large numbers of people do not serve in the front-lines in a manner that is obviously against their will. This lesson was initially applied with the end of active conscription in December 1972. To ensure an adequate supply of volunteers, regular pay for members of the armed forces was increased significantly in 1971. By itself, the pay increase would not have been sufficient, but by the mid-'70s, the economy began to stagnate and the real value of workers pay began to drop; to drop far enough, in fact, that many women not in the workforce at the time, began to work in order to maintain household income. Thus began a cascade of economic changes (including relative reductions in unemployment compensation, financial aid for higher education, cuts in welfare payments and childcare) that has often made enlistment in the all-volunteer army an economically coerced decision. This state of affairs has made it much more difficult for many working people to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the use of private companies providing personnel for security and other non-military services (like transport, food prep and garbage services) has helped to reduce war visibility and exported some of the costs of the war onto the shoulders of those least able to afford it and powerless to do much about it. These are the individuals who work under contract with the Blackwaters and Brown & Roots who pull down tens of millions of dollars annually from the Pentagon. These individuals, like the man quoted at the beginning of Fresh Air, are among those coerced by economic conditions at home to serve in harm's way abroad. And they do so, largely at their own risk.
I started at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1965. The spring before I got to Ann Arbor, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the first teach-in against the war. At the time, there was still very little public opposition to the war, and little need for the military to resort to an active draft to maintain the then relatively low force levels in Vietnam. But Ann Arbor and the U of M were a center of anti-war fever and it didn't take very long for me to succumb to the virus. In point of fact, focused as I was on what could be learned outside of class, I quickly lost interest in maintaining my student status. I opposed the war and, soon after, began active opposition to the draft.
Even then it was obvious that some companies would profit from the war. President Eisenhower, soon to leave office, had given a speech in 1961 warning the country of the existence of a "military industrial complex" with interests separate from a broader national interest. And, as the Vietnam War heated up and middle-class students enrolled at colleges and universities escaped service, it also became obvious that the brunt of war fighting and dying was falling largely on minorities and the white working class. In that context, maintaining a student deferment became a moral conundrum that troubled many young men who had such deferments, and troubled many working people who saw family members fighting and dying in Vietnam while others went to college.
The obvious solution to those who would prefer to fight wars less encumbered by controversy would be to reduce the flash points, and nothing flashes quite like being forced to leave home to fight and die. That is why there will be no draft. And the absence of a draft is also one of the reasons why obvious elements of economic justice, like a reasonable minimum wage, an adequate supply of affordable housing, and universal health care are not a part of this democracy.
On Monday, Fresh Air host Terry Gross introduced an interview (on-line here) about civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan by quoting a severely injured contractor who said, "It's almost like we are an invisible, discardable army."
This particular contractor got both legs blown off by a roadside bomb and subsequently discovered that he was not entitled to any sort of federal compensation for his loss or for his health care. He had to fight his private insurance company to get a shot at prosthetic legs. I didn't hear all of the interview with reporter T. Christian Miller, so I don't know if the conversation pursued the deeper point that while the US maintains both an all-volunteer army and a private mercenary army, war becomes a profit opportunity that is largely shielded from effective political opposition.
Here we are, involved in two of the longest wars in American history, at a cost to the federal government of over one trillion dollars and climbing, with minimal effective public and Congressional opposition to those wars. The Vietnam War, in its many phases--military advisers and trainers, CIA mercenary armies, the mobilization of a fighting force over 600,000 strong, and secret bombings and incursions in Cambodia and Laos--was longer and killed far more American soldiers than have been killed to date in Iraq and Afghanistan (more information here and here). The Vietnam War also killed more civilians than the current wars have killed so far, but the difference is not worth applauding.
But here's the thing: the Vietnam War was pursued by two presidents in the face of relentlessly increasing public opposition. Though that opposition did not end the war in a timely way, say, 1969 or '70, rather than 1975, active resistance and public disapproval forced both Presidents Johnson and Nixon to conduct portions of the war in secrecy and otherwise compromise war aims. Arguably, public and Congressional opposition is also forcing compromise on President Obama, but it seems more likely that weapons manufacturers and military contractors are currently forcing political compromises that will prolong those wars.
Indeed, the influence of the military-industrial complex might right now be at an all-time high, at least in proportion to the influence of the public and anti-war organizations. In each of the six complete election cycles since 1998, the contributions of corporations in the war business have climbed 10 to 20 percent, with the exception of the 2008 cycle when the increase was
more than 20 percent (go here to explore the ugly truth, note that the 2010 cycle promises to break all previous records). In a 1997 article, "Guns r' Us" in In These Times, a magazine I worked at for two years, writer Martha Honey recounts the many ways that weapons manufacturers seek to increase markets for their products. Ten+ years later, the situation is worse.
Of course, anti-war opposition has limited some of the options of those who would rather pursue the current wars more vigorously. But the practices of maintaining an all-volunteer army, and employing contractors to reduce the direct cost of war, have obvious roots in the lessons that political, military and corporate chiefs learned from the civil unrest and mass opposition that they confronted during the Vietnam War.
First, make sure that large numbers of people do not serve in the front-lines in a manner that is obviously against their will. This lesson was initially applied with the end of active conscription in December 1972. To ensure an adequate supply of volunteers, regular pay for members of the armed forces was increased significantly in 1971. By itself, the pay increase would not have been sufficient, but by the mid-'70s, the economy began to stagnate and the real value of workers pay began to drop; to drop far enough, in fact, that many women not in the workforce at the time, began to work in order to maintain household income. Thus began a cascade of economic changes (including relative reductions in unemployment compensation, financial aid for higher education, cuts in welfare payments and childcare) that has often made enlistment in the all-volunteer army an economically coerced decision. This state of affairs has made it much more difficult for many working people to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the use of private companies providing personnel for security and other non-military services (like transport, food prep and garbage services) has helped to reduce war visibility and exported some of the costs of the war onto the shoulders of those least able to afford it and powerless to do much about it. These are the individuals who work under contract with the Blackwaters and Brown & Roots who pull down tens of millions of dollars annually from the Pentagon. These individuals, like the man quoted at the beginning of Fresh Air, are among those coerced by economic conditions at home to serve in harm's way abroad. And they do so, largely at their own risk.
I started at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1965. The spring before I got to Ann Arbor, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the first teach-in against the war. At the time, there was still very little public opposition to the war, and little need for the military to resort to an active draft to maintain the then relatively low force levels in Vietnam. But Ann Arbor and the U of M were a center of anti-war fever and it didn't take very long for me to succumb to the virus. In point of fact, focused as I was on what could be learned outside of class, I quickly lost interest in maintaining my student status. I opposed the war and, soon after, began active opposition to the draft.
Even then it was obvious that some companies would profit from the war. President Eisenhower, soon to leave office, had given a speech in 1961 warning the country of the existence of a "military industrial complex" with interests separate from a broader national interest. And, as the Vietnam War heated up and middle-class students enrolled at colleges and universities escaped service, it also became obvious that the brunt of war fighting and dying was falling largely on minorities and the white working class. In that context, maintaining a student deferment became a moral conundrum that troubled many young men who had such deferments, and troubled many working people who saw family members fighting and dying in Vietnam while others went to college.
The obvious solution to those who would prefer to fight wars less encumbered by controversy would be to reduce the flash points, and nothing flashes quite like being forced to leave home to fight and die. That is why there will be no draft. And the absence of a draft is also one of the reasons why obvious elements of economic justice, like a reasonable minimum wage, an adequate supply of affordable housing, and universal health care are not a part of this democracy.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Bad Health Care Bill Is Better Than None
The hard road to a more perfect democracy
The health care bill that hopefully will pass in the Senate on Christmas Eve isn't final. The finalized legislation will be negotiated between House and Senate conferees early next year. But it seems safe at this point to make a few observations about what the Health Care Reform struggle 2009-2010 will do or has done.
• It has helped clarify just how dysfunctional Congress is (see Ruth Marcus' "The next decade from hell?" Washington Post, Dec. 23 here or Richard Cohen's "An imperfect ray of hope," Washington Post, Dec. 22 here).
• It exposed some members of the Senate, like Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) or Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) as particularly repellant (see Michael Gerson's "For sale: One senator (D-Neb.). No principles, low price." Washington Post, Dec. 23 here or Eugene Robinson's "Health-care hardball," Washington Post,Dec. 18 here).
• It created opportunity for Republican members of the Senate to raise the bar for hypocrisy. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority leader and his caucus did everything they could to keep health care reform in any form from passing, including forcing Democrats to get 92 year-old Sen. Byrd (D-W Va.) to haul himself and his wheelchair to the Senate for roll call votes three times in the last week. They relentlessly criticized every compromise Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brokered in an effort to get something passed. Hearing Sen. Lindsay Graham (D-SC) on NPR denounce the admittedly repugnant deal with Ben Nelson, as though Graham was a disappointed advocate for a better bill, seemed somewhat like we had all fallen down a large rabbit hole. Other Republicans seemed to be wishing for fate in the form of, say, a sudden illness that would prevent Democrats from rounding up 60 votes. It boggles the mind that Republicans have seemingly decided their obstructionist behavior and petty cruelties improve their chances of success in the 2010 mid-term elections.
• It will result in a bill that will dismay virtually every Democratic voter (see Harold Meyerson's "For unions, a messy bargain," Washington Post, Dec. 23, here), but it is a start; that fact will prove to be more important than many disappointed advocates are likely to believe (see Eugene Robinson's "Carpe health reform," Washington Post, Dec. 22, here or Henry J. Aaron's "Health-reform legislation would accomplish more than critics admit," Washington Post, Dec. 18, here).
• It confirmed that there is a senator for the rest of us. Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont worked diligently to make a bad bill as promising as possible (see Katrina Vanden Heuvel's post on The Nation's website, Dec. 22, here).
It seems to be a general perception that if the US electorate were as sophisticated as the Western European demos, we would have a democracy that provided national healthcare, assumed international leadership on global warming and invaded fewer foreign countries, but that's probably not a helpful comparison. We should measure our democracy by the effort we put in to improving it, by the quality of our encounters with political opponents, and by the accumulated progress we make. As Eugene Robinson pointed out in "Carpe health reform," the US may continue for some time to come to use wealth and work as a means to ration health care, but with President Obama's signing of the health care reform bill early next year, we will, for the first time, "enshrine the principle that all Americans deserve access to medical care regardless of their ability to pay." We should celebrate that achievement while we are also working on the peace dividend, affordable housing, quality public education. and clean air and water.
The health care bill that hopefully will pass in the Senate on Christmas Eve isn't final. The finalized legislation will be negotiated between House and Senate conferees early next year. But it seems safe at this point to make a few observations about what the Health Care Reform struggle 2009-2010 will do or has done.
• It has helped clarify just how dysfunctional Congress is (see Ruth Marcus' "The next decade from hell?" Washington Post, Dec. 23 here or Richard Cohen's "An imperfect ray of hope," Washington Post, Dec. 22 here).
• It exposed some members of the Senate, like Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) or Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) as particularly repellant (see Michael Gerson's "For sale: One senator (D-Neb.). No principles, low price." Washington Post, Dec. 23 here or Eugene Robinson's "Health-care hardball," Washington Post,Dec. 18 here).
• It created opportunity for Republican members of the Senate to raise the bar for hypocrisy. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority leader and his caucus did everything they could to keep health care reform in any form from passing, including forcing Democrats to get 92 year-old Sen. Byrd (D-W Va.) to haul himself and his wheelchair to the Senate for roll call votes three times in the last week. They relentlessly criticized every compromise Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brokered in an effort to get something passed. Hearing Sen. Lindsay Graham (D-SC) on NPR denounce the admittedly repugnant deal with Ben Nelson, as though Graham was a disappointed advocate for a better bill, seemed somewhat like we had all fallen down a large rabbit hole. Other Republicans seemed to be wishing for fate in the form of, say, a sudden illness that would prevent Democrats from rounding up 60 votes. It boggles the mind that Republicans have seemingly decided their obstructionist behavior and petty cruelties improve their chances of success in the 2010 mid-term elections.
• It will result in a bill that will dismay virtually every Democratic voter (see Harold Meyerson's "For unions, a messy bargain," Washington Post, Dec. 23, here), but it is a start; that fact will prove to be more important than many disappointed advocates are likely to believe (see Eugene Robinson's "Carpe health reform," Washington Post, Dec. 22, here or Henry J. Aaron's "Health-reform legislation would accomplish more than critics admit," Washington Post, Dec. 18, here).
• It confirmed that there is a senator for the rest of us. Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont worked diligently to make a bad bill as promising as possible (see Katrina Vanden Heuvel's post on The Nation's website, Dec. 22, here).
It seems to be a general perception that if the US electorate were as sophisticated as the Western European demos, we would have a democracy that provided national healthcare, assumed international leadership on global warming and invaded fewer foreign countries, but that's probably not a helpful comparison. We should measure our democracy by the effort we put in to improving it, by the quality of our encounters with political opponents, and by the accumulated progress we make. As Eugene Robinson pointed out in "Carpe health reform," the US may continue for some time to come to use wealth and work as a means to ration health care, but with President Obama's signing of the health care reform bill early next year, we will, for the first time, "enshrine the principle that all Americans deserve access to medical care regardless of their ability to pay." We should celebrate that achievement while we are also working on the peace dividend, affordable housing, quality public education. and clean air and water.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
La Quatorze Juillet Comes for Health Care
Power never concedes without a fight
Bastille Day is the French national holiday commemorating the 1789 storming of the Bastille, an armory and prison belonging to the King of France. The French Revolution, which began as a primarily bourgeois struggle against the power of the monarchy and the Catholic church, had barely begun at the time. But severe and widespread famine throughout France, as well as extreme autocracy and indifference to the suffering of ordinary working people, and finally the armed intervention of foreign powers, would move the revolution through a remarkable variety of stages. The by turns democratic, repressive, bloody, chaotic, creative and empowering developments during 10 years of revolution has made the French Revolution a metaphor for the use of all comers, a conservative cautionary tale, a story of heroic resistance to the mob, a nightmare of counter-revolution and a dream of liberty.
History is always subject to debate and challenge. In the end, we are all revisionists and ideologues; the best of us likely are those who are able to speak about the personal biases that bring them to prefer one version over another. The Wikipedia entry about the French Revolution here is a great opportunity to contemplate the many ways that a little knowledge might be a dangerous thing.
In the meantime, Bastille Day has also functioned as a personal mnemonic, helping me to remember my first official day at the University of Michigan. I took the train to Ann Arbor (back when Amtrak was a nightmare of the future) on July 14, 1965, heading for three days residence at East Quad and orientation for incoming freshmen. The debacle that was my educational career at UM needs acknowledging (and perhaps detailing at some later time), but that memory today led me (by a somewhat tortuous route) to this question: What contemporary Bastille most needs taking (and liberating)?
I asked my new friend, M, a related sort of question the other day. We must first of all move on health care, she responded. Had we been using the Bastille Day metaphor at the time, I'm quite sure she would have said that we need to liberate the health care system and make it ours. But how?
M believes that we can't do a thorough job of reforming health care or accomplishing other substantial progressive change without an accompanying change in the consciousness of privileged elites who must, she says, come to recognize that great wealth and excessive materialism are not a right and are an obstacle to a more just society.
Though M and I see eye-to-eye on many things, it was collective action--street heat--that opened the doors of the Bastille and reinforced Louis XVI's understanding that he must make compromise with the revolutionary impulse that would eventually doom the ancien regime. The reasons why Louis later lost his head need exploring, too, but the lesson of Bastille Day and (a myriad of other moments of dramatic political change) is, as Frederick Douglass put it:
Though Douglass here is talking tyrants, the point works even in a democracy, which in every instance still calls for a struggle with entrenched power. How, then, do we go about winning a struggle for substantial reform of the health care system against the entrenched power of insurance companies, corporate health care providers and those who are most highly rewarded for their work in the current system?
We begin by taking, as my friend Perry Hall says, "the language and the argument away from the reactionaries." A favorite argument of the congressional defenders (and others) of the current system is that government intervention in health care would end the rights of patients to choose their own doctors and to agree with their doctors on the medical care that would be appropriate for them. This argument comes from the same members of Congress who have passed laws to keep women and their doctors from arriving at conclusions of their own about abortion and, even, birth control. It boggles the mind that they might actually believe their own rhetoric, but that is not what matters.
We hear also and repeatedly about the staggering new costs that health care reform will impose. This argument comes from those who are quite happy with the staggering costs the status quo imposes and, as Dean Baker discusses in The Global Warming Lie Detector, do nothing about the staggering costs that war and weapons systems impose on taxpayers.
If the "limits of tyrants," and, by implication the possibilities for progressive change, are defined by the action of the people, then it follows that the people must trust their own understanding that our current health care system is too flawed, too expensive, too inefficient and too inaccessible to be maintained. Having trusted in the process by which we each arrived at such conclusions, we ought to be ignoring the propaganda deployed against us, and making our voices heard.
There must be a thousand ways for ordinary people to affect the direction of health care reform, but here's a few:
Go here for a list of "10+ things you can do." Number one on this list, unfortunately, is participate in a march on May 30, but even without that one, there are lots of possibilities here.
Send congress a copy of your medical bill. This site will help you do it.
Go to this site for a list of national health care campaigns and state connections you can make to focus your activism locally.
The important point, ultimately, is that the ancien regime will not fall without the action of ordinary people. There is a real opportunity here to make democracy work a little bit better. Even young, healthy people get old and get sick. Real health care reform will pay universal benefits.
Bastille Day is the French national holiday commemorating the 1789 storming of the Bastille, an armory and prison belonging to the King of France. The French Revolution, which began as a primarily bourgeois struggle against the power of the monarchy and the Catholic church, had barely begun at the time. But severe and widespread famine throughout France, as well as extreme autocracy and indifference to the suffering of ordinary working people, and finally the armed intervention of foreign powers, would move the revolution through a remarkable variety of stages. The by turns democratic, repressive, bloody, chaotic, creative and empowering developments during 10 years of revolution has made the French Revolution a metaphor for the use of all comers, a conservative cautionary tale, a story of heroic resistance to the mob, a nightmare of counter-revolution and a dream of liberty.
History is always subject to debate and challenge. In the end, we are all revisionists and ideologues; the best of us likely are those who are able to speak about the personal biases that bring them to prefer one version over another. The Wikipedia entry about the French Revolution here is a great opportunity to contemplate the many ways that a little knowledge might be a dangerous thing.
In the meantime, Bastille Day has also functioned as a personal mnemonic, helping me to remember my first official day at the University of Michigan. I took the train to Ann Arbor (back when Amtrak was a nightmare of the future) on July 14, 1965, heading for three days residence at East Quad and orientation for incoming freshmen. The debacle that was my educational career at UM needs acknowledging (and perhaps detailing at some later time), but that memory today led me (by a somewhat tortuous route) to this question: What contemporary Bastille most needs taking (and liberating)?
I asked my new friend, M, a related sort of question the other day. We must first of all move on health care, she responded. Had we been using the Bastille Day metaphor at the time, I'm quite sure she would have said that we need to liberate the health care system and make it ours. But how?
M believes that we can't do a thorough job of reforming health care or accomplishing other substantial progressive change without an accompanying change in the consciousness of privileged elites who must, she says, come to recognize that great wealth and excessive materialism are not a right and are an obstacle to a more just society.
Though M and I see eye-to-eye on many things, it was collective action--street heat--that opened the doors of the Bastille and reinforced Louis XVI's understanding that he must make compromise with the revolutionary impulse that would eventually doom the ancien regime. The reasons why Louis later lost his head need exploring, too, but the lesson of Bastille Day and (a myriad of other moments of dramatic political change) is, as Frederick Douglass put it:
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Though Douglass here is talking tyrants, the point works even in a democracy, which in every instance still calls for a struggle with entrenched power. How, then, do we go about winning a struggle for substantial reform of the health care system against the entrenched power of insurance companies, corporate health care providers and those who are most highly rewarded for their work in the current system?
We begin by taking, as my friend Perry Hall says, "the language and the argument away from the reactionaries." A favorite argument of the congressional defenders (and others) of the current system is that government intervention in health care would end the rights of patients to choose their own doctors and to agree with their doctors on the medical care that would be appropriate for them. This argument comes from the same members of Congress who have passed laws to keep women and their doctors from arriving at conclusions of their own about abortion and, even, birth control. It boggles the mind that they might actually believe their own rhetoric, but that is not what matters.
We hear also and repeatedly about the staggering new costs that health care reform will impose. This argument comes from those who are quite happy with the staggering costs the status quo imposes and, as Dean Baker discusses in The Global Warming Lie Detector, do nothing about the staggering costs that war and weapons systems impose on taxpayers.
If the "limits of tyrants," and, by implication the possibilities for progressive change, are defined by the action of the people, then it follows that the people must trust their own understanding that our current health care system is too flawed, too expensive, too inefficient and too inaccessible to be maintained. Having trusted in the process by which we each arrived at such conclusions, we ought to be ignoring the propaganda deployed against us, and making our voices heard.
There must be a thousand ways for ordinary people to affect the direction of health care reform, but here's a few:
Go here for a list of "10+ things you can do." Number one on this list, unfortunately, is participate in a march on May 30, but even without that one, there are lots of possibilities here.
Send congress a copy of your medical bill. This site will help you do it.
Go to this site for a list of national health care campaigns and state connections you can make to focus your activism locally.
The important point, ultimately, is that the ancien regime will not fall without the action of ordinary people. There is a real opportunity here to make democracy work a little bit better. Even young, healthy people get old and get sick. Real health care reform will pay universal benefits.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Kill, Kill, Kill, the F-22
A New/Old Way to Solve Budget Problems
The Washington Post's Jeff Smith has done a great job outlining the problems with the F-22, the pricey and delicate super plane developed to fight the Soviet Union, and finally put into production long after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (see Premier U.S. Fighter Jet Has Major Shortcomings). In useful detail, Smith recounts the technical failures and production difficulties that have bloated the price of the jet well beyond original cost estimates. He also provides a little insight from several whistleblowers who once worked at various stages of the program with defense contractors and the Pentagon. It is hard to see how the average reader (and taxpayer) could read the story and conclude that we gotta have more F-22s at an average cost of $350 million per plane.
The Air Force is currently the proud owner of some 185 of these flying lemons, which require about $50,000 of maintenance and repair for every actual hour in the air. Of course, all high-tech contrivances are also Rube Goldberg-machines. The F-15, an older fighter still capable of licking any other military jet on the planet, costs a cringe-worthy $31,000 in maintenance per flight hour. But in 2005 a spanking new F-15 cost about a quarter of the price for an F-22 (according to a Marine Corps analysis, which can be found on the web here). In the four years since, the cost of a new F-22 has continued to soar.
I'm no aviation expert (though I'd be perfectly willing to play one on TV), but if 185 F-22s were to fly 45 hours per year for five years (2005-2009, inclusive), maintenance alone would cost about $2.1 billion. It would cost about $1 billion less to run F-15s on the same schedule. Buying F-15s in the first place, instead of F-22s (at 2005 prices), would have saved about $19 billion more.
Of course, on the theory that we have always had more military equipment than any one country ought to have, buying nothing new and maintaining and repairing nothing new would have saved upwards of $25 billion. For a few pennies more we could bailout California (think of all the newsprint that would save).
To that figure add the $100 billion that would be saved if the Feds were to cancel the Boeing super-tanker (see Kill, Kill, Kill the Boeing ...) and we're marching towards the savings we need to launch the public plan part of any reasonable health care compromise. All of this brings us face-to-face with the question: Why don't we cut these military weapons systems and other programs like them?
Smith's article in the Post suggests one obvious answer:
The problem of military contractors, their political contributions and the political pressure that their employees can bring to bear is the single biggest obstacle to a rational economy in the U.S. According to a webpage maintained by globalsecurity.org, "more than 1,150 firms in 46 states and Puerto Rico, along with firms in seven international countries make up the F-22/F119 subcontractor team."
Obviously, profit greatly concentrates the minds, hearts and political activities of select groups. And there are perverse rationales that make such dynamics appear to be the very definition of democracy (Republican free-market mantras, for example). But we who hope for economic justice, universal health care, quality public education and other quaint notions are the carriers of the democratic gene. Unfortunately, the gene is seeming a little recessive nowadays, and needs serious mutating.
The Washington Post's Jeff Smith has done a great job outlining the problems with the F-22, the pricey and delicate super plane developed to fight the Soviet Union, and finally put into production long after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (see Premier U.S. Fighter Jet Has Major Shortcomings). In useful detail, Smith recounts the technical failures and production difficulties that have bloated the price of the jet well beyond original cost estimates. He also provides a little insight from several whistleblowers who once worked at various stages of the program with defense contractors and the Pentagon. It is hard to see how the average reader (and taxpayer) could read the story and conclude that we gotta have more F-22s at an average cost of $350 million per plane.
The Air Force is currently the proud owner of some 185 of these flying lemons, which require about $50,000 of maintenance and repair for every actual hour in the air. Of course, all high-tech contrivances are also Rube Goldberg-machines. The F-15, an older fighter still capable of licking any other military jet on the planet, costs a cringe-worthy $31,000 in maintenance per flight hour. But in 2005 a spanking new F-15 cost about a quarter of the price for an F-22 (according to a Marine Corps analysis, which can be found on the web here). In the four years since, the cost of a new F-22 has continued to soar.
I'm no aviation expert (though I'd be perfectly willing to play one on TV), but if 185 F-22s were to fly 45 hours per year for five years (2005-2009, inclusive), maintenance alone would cost about $2.1 billion. It would cost about $1 billion less to run F-15s on the same schedule. Buying F-15s in the first place, instead of F-22s (at 2005 prices), would have saved about $19 billion more.
Of course, on the theory that we have always had more military equipment than any one country ought to have, buying nothing new and maintaining and repairing nothing new would have saved upwards of $25 billion. For a few pennies more we could bailout California (think of all the newsprint that would save).
To that figure add the $100 billion that would be saved if the Feds were to cancel the Boeing super-tanker (see Kill, Kill, Kill the Boeing ...) and we're marching towards the savings we need to launch the public plan part of any reasonable health care compromise. All of this brings us face-to-face with the question: Why don't we cut these military weapons systems and other programs like them?
Smith's article in the Post suggests one obvious answer:
Lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 subcontracts to vendors in more than 40 states, and Sprey -- now a prominent critic of the plane -- said that by the time skeptics "could point out the failed tests, the combat flaws, and the exploding costs, most congressmen were already defending their subcontractors' " revenues.
The problem of military contractors, their political contributions and the political pressure that their employees can bring to bear is the single biggest obstacle to a rational economy in the U.S. According to a webpage maintained by globalsecurity.org, "more than 1,150 firms in 46 states and Puerto Rico, along with firms in seven international countries make up the F-22/F119 subcontractor team."
Obviously, profit greatly concentrates the minds, hearts and political activities of select groups. And there are perverse rationales that make such dynamics appear to be the very definition of democracy (Republican free-market mantras, for example). But we who hope for economic justice, universal health care, quality public education and other quaint notions are the carriers of the democratic gene. Unfortunately, the gene is seeming a little recessive nowadays, and needs serious mutating.
Monday, April 20, 2009
A Bad Idea: Generals Making Social Policy
The Army A Democracy Deserves
According to Abe Lincoln,"war is too important to leave to the generals." But the larger truth is that there's just about nothing in a democracy that can be safely entrusted to generals. Or admirals, for that matter. For a recent example, check out Gays and the Military: A Bad Fit, a column that ran on April 15 in the Washington Post.
By law "homosexuals are not eligible for military service" wrote Generals James Lindsay, Buck Shuler, Joseph Went and Admiral Jerome Johnson. Section 654 of U.S. Code Title 10 says so. Further, they claim, if gays were allowed to legally and openly serve in the military, tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of valuable veterans would decide not to reenlist. "Losses of even a few thousand sergeants, petty officers and mid-grade officers, when we are trying to expand the Army and Marine Corps, could be crippling."
It gets worse, the generals wrote. Legislation legalizing the service of openly gay men and women "would impose on commanders a radical policy that mandates 'nondiscrimination' against 'homosexuality' or bisexuality, whether the orientation is real or perceived." The generals are also worried about "consuming valuable time" in training classes and litigation related to legalizing gay service in the military. And finally, "team cohesion and concentration on mission would suffer if our troops had to live in close quarters with others who could be sexually attracted to them."
The generals think they know that their boys have never previously "lived in close quarters with others who could be sexually attracted to them," because, I suppose, they also think that gay men are hyper-sexual people who are always up, or out, when the pants come off and the lights go out.
Perhaps when the generals put quotes around 'nondiscrimination' and 'homosexuality' they are trying to be true to some source. But who thinks such words need to be distinguished from real words, as though they depict some fanciful state?
Actually, guys, nondiscrimination is a primary and historic goal of American democracy. You need to get with the program. And homosexuality is a point on the continuum of sexuality. We all fall on that line somewhere and everyone on that line has to figure out how to manage their sexuality. Arguably, heterosexuals fail that challenge far more often than homosexuals do.
And, really, if we had left it up to your predecessor generals and admirals, we'd probably still have a racially segregated military. And women in the military might still be limited to changing bandages and emptying bedpans.
The military in a democracy ought to look like the democracy, itself. Otherwise, it becomes something more like a cult, dedicated and competent and serving a purpose, perhaps, but failing the democracy it claims to serve. It may be that in a true democracy, generals should be seen, but not heard.
According to Abe Lincoln,"war is too important to leave to the generals." But the larger truth is that there's just about nothing in a democracy that can be safely entrusted to generals. Or admirals, for that matter. For a recent example, check out Gays and the Military: A Bad Fit, a column that ran on April 15 in the Washington Post.
By law "homosexuals are not eligible for military service" wrote Generals James Lindsay, Buck Shuler, Joseph Went and Admiral Jerome Johnson. Section 654 of U.S. Code Title 10 says so. Further, they claim, if gays were allowed to legally and openly serve in the military, tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of valuable veterans would decide not to reenlist. "Losses of even a few thousand sergeants, petty officers and mid-grade officers, when we are trying to expand the Army and Marine Corps, could be crippling."
It gets worse, the generals wrote. Legislation legalizing the service of openly gay men and women "would impose on commanders a radical policy that mandates 'nondiscrimination' against 'homosexuality' or bisexuality, whether the orientation is real or perceived." The generals are also worried about "consuming valuable time" in training classes and litigation related to legalizing gay service in the military. And finally, "team cohesion and concentration on mission would suffer if our troops had to live in close quarters with others who could be sexually attracted to them."
The generals think they know that their boys have never previously "lived in close quarters with others who could be sexually attracted to them," because, I suppose, they also think that gay men are hyper-sexual people who are always up, or out, when the pants come off and the lights go out.
Perhaps when the generals put quotes around 'nondiscrimination' and 'homosexuality' they are trying to be true to some source. But who thinks such words need to be distinguished from real words, as though they depict some fanciful state?
Actually, guys, nondiscrimination is a primary and historic goal of American democracy. You need to get with the program. And homosexuality is a point on the continuum of sexuality. We all fall on that line somewhere and everyone on that line has to figure out how to manage their sexuality. Arguably, heterosexuals fail that challenge far more often than homosexuals do.
And, really, if we had left it up to your predecessor generals and admirals, we'd probably still have a racially segregated military. And women in the military might still be limited to changing bandages and emptying bedpans.
The military in a democracy ought to look like the democracy, itself. Otherwise, it becomes something more like a cult, dedicated and competent and serving a purpose, perhaps, but failing the democracy it claims to serve. It may be that in a true democracy, generals should be seen, but not heard.
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