Category: politics

art

From the "Art Imitating Life Imitating Art" Department

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This news is a few months old but just as funny now as it was then. A few hours after television producers set up a replica of Occupy Wall Street for the filming of a new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the real Occupy Wall Street announced plans to occupy the fake one.
As Mother Jones put it, “It’s straight out of a Don DeLillo novel.” I frankly just love the speed in which this happened – further proof the “art-life-art” cycle is moving faster than ever.

humor

The Sh*t |Insert Type of Person Here| Say Meme

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Memes are an interesting little phenomenon – I love how quickly they can take off, like how a video one day can have zero views and the next day have over a million views.
The most recent meme to catch on like wild fire is the “Shit |INSERT TYPE OF PERSON HERE| Say” meme.
It started with “Shit Girls Say,” which was followed by “Shit Black Girls Say” which was followed by “Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls,” which was then followed by all sorts of derivatives, including the great “Shit New Yorkers Say – “You have to go to Brooklyn, it’s the law!” though I love the Pat shout outs as well – and the not so great “Shit Long Islanders Say.”
Not one type of person has been spared this meme’s wrath. Not Rednecks. Not Hippies. Not gays. Not lesbians. You name it. No one. And this all happened in the span of a few weeks. Amazing.
One organization that is jumping on the meme bandwagon is Americans Elect, which Media Bistro basically said made this meme jump the shark. Check out their Sh*t Politicians Say video below:

politics

Closing Out The War Tab

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Last week the war in Iraq, a long hard slog, something that I’ve commented a lot about over the past decade, finally ended (at least officially). This war has cost us more than we will ever know, but the easiest and hopefully-not-but-who-knows-it-very-well-might-happen way of tabulating the cost is saying that it’s all down hill from here. One should know that Afghanistan is where empires go to die. First the British, then the Soviet Union. Now us? Hmmm….
One thing that is certain through the fog of war is that we took our eye off the Tora Bora ball to concentrate on Mesopotamia and while we took the hanging gardens, and the barbarian dictator of a gardener who looked after them, we didn’t exit nearly as fast as we thought we would going into the event and it didn’t turn out the way that the rose colored projections said it would.
So, in that vein, let’s bring up once again my main topic, the one that I’ve commented on in the past which is the costs associated with the war. Now that its “over,” forces more experienced and much more well researched than me, namely the Center for American Progress’ Matt Duss and Peter Juul, have added up the costs of the second Iraq War lead by the second Commander in Chief named George Bush, and by costs I mean the human, financial, and strategic costs. The results are not pretty:
Human costs

  • Total deaths: Between 110,663 and 119,380
  • Coalition deaths: 4,803
  • U.S. deaths: 4,484
  • U.S. wounded: 32,200
  • U.S. deaths as a percentage of coalition deaths: 93.37 percent
  • Iraqi Security Force, or ISF, deaths: At least 10,125
  • Total coalition and ISF deaths: At least 14,926
  • Iraqi civilian deaths: Between 103,674 and 113,265
  • Non-Iraqi contractor deaths: At least 463
  • Internally displaced persons: 1.24 million
  • Refugees: More than 1.6 million

Financial costs

  • Cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom: $806 billion
  • Projected total cost of veterans’ health care and disability: $422 billion to $717 billion

More detailed costs:
Veterans

  • Total U.S. service members who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan: More than 2 million
  • Total Iraq/Afghanistan veterans eligible for VA health care: 1,250,663
  • Total Iraq/Afghanistan veterans who have used VA health care since FY 2002: 625,384 (50 percent of eligible veterans)
  • Total Iraq/Afghanistan veterans with PTSD: At least 168,854 (27 percent of those veterans who have used VA health care; does not include Vet Center or non-VA health care data)
  • Suicide rate of Iraq/Afghanistan veterans using VA health care in FY 2008: 38 suicides per 100,000 veterans – PLEASE NOTE: National suicide rate, 2007: 11.26 per 100,000 Americans

Iraq reconstruction (as of September 30, 2011)

  • Total funding: $182.27 billion
  • Iraqi government funds (including Coalition Provisional Authority spending): $107.41 billion
  • International funds: $13.03 billion
  • U.S. funds (2003-2011): $61.83 billion
  • Total U.S. unexpended obligations: $1.66 billion

Strategic costs
The foregoing costs could conceivably be justified if the Iraq intervention had improved the United States’ strategic position in the Middle East. But this is clearly not the case. The Iraq war has strengthened anti-U.S. elements and made the position of the United States and its allies more precarious.

  • Empowered Iran in Iraq and region.
  • Created terrorist training ground.
  • Loss of international standing.
  • Diverted resources and attention from Afghanistan.
  • Stifled democracy reform.
  • Fueled sectarianism in region.


I wish this was better news but transparency is important. I read today that “When everything is changing, be consistent. When everyone is confused, be transparent. And when the world seems bleak, be good.” When thinking through the “What did we get our of this war?” question, everyone is definitely confused.
All info was obtained for the Center for American Progress

politics

It's Better to Have Never Watched

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One of my favorite “glass half full” statements is from Alfred, Lord Tennyson who wrote, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” It can be considered trite but it is almost always true, at least when it comes to love.
It seems that the reverse is true though when one is talking about about current events and Fox News. Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind center is reporting that people who depend on Fox News are even less informed than those who don’t watch any news programming at all.
Yes, you read that correctly. You are better off learning about the news from overheard conversations in elevators and on the street than by watching channel 640 on your Verizon supplied cable box. To me, this information is more of a “duh – this simply confirms something I already knew!” moment as opposed to a “wow – I had no clue!” moment. That being said, I’ll be very happy to point this study out as a rebuttal to anyone who uses Fox News as source material during a future debate.
Please note that this is a separate study from the one that the University of Maryland ran last year that found that a s found that Fox News viewers were more likely to believe false information about politics.
In closing, Fox’s tag line is “Fair and Balanced” never ceases to make me think of the line from 1984 that says, “We’ve always been at war with Eurasia.” ‘Nuff said.
Via Jessie

politics

99 versus 1

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I was surprised to get an email from MoveOn.org at around 2:30 AM yesterday which read,

According to multiple reports, police are raiding Occupy Wall Street right now. Occupiers have asked anyone who can go down there and offer support to do so. Please do if you’re able.

It seems that the best home grown NYC tourist attraction since The Naked Cowboy set up shop in Times Square is gone, at least for now. While the protesters are regrouping and figuring out where they go from here (already there was talk that the movement would move to college campuses, because they are friendlier to protest and due to weather reasons), I am sure however that this isn’t the end of the 99 Percent Movement or the fight for an economy that works for everyone.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka summed it up pretty well:

But the 99% is undaunted. Occupy Wall Street’s message already has created a new day. This movement has created a seismic shift in our national debate—from austerity and cuts to jobs, inequality and our broken economic system.

Here are some stats for your Turkey Day table when you wind up arguing with your Tea Party loving family member about the validity of the movement:

Considering it’s the state motto of New York, as Stan Lee would say, excelsior!
Stats via Think Progress

politics

Election Day is Next Tues and No One Cares

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Election Day is next Tuesday, November 8th. In my home state, the great state of NJ, voters will decide who represents them in the Legislature. All 120 seats are up for grabs, however as Alfred Doblin in the Bergen Record so aptly put, “Well, not really.”
He continues to by stating,

“At best two, maybe three legislative districts are considered competitive. That means either most incumbents will be reelected or the party faithful who were socially promoted up the food chain in a safe district will become legislators”

and the sad part is, he is absolutely correct. Regarding the men and women who make our laws and govern us, we are given very little choice in this country, a country that prides itself on giving its citizens 31 flavors of ice cream. I mean, there are 8 different varieties of Wheat Thins for god’s sake! An organization called Americans Elect is trying to alter this dynamic for the 2012 Presidential Election, but that is a topic for another post. Let’s instead go back to the two (potentially good, probably bad) choices that we do have.
We’ve spent $120 billion (that’s billion with a ‘b’) fighting to give people in Afghanistan the right to vote – we are trying to bring democracy to them and that is what you do in a democracy, you elect your leaders – but only 1/4 of our population actually votes, and that is in a good year. If you divide that number equally between the two parties that dominate politics (Democrats and Republicans) then you see how its possible that someone who only 1/8 of the population wants to be elected winds up in charge of your life. It’s possible that people do not vote because they think they are just deciding between a giant douchebag and a turd sandwich. It’s possible that they do not have time and/or it is not convenient. These are topics for another post as well. Again, let’s instead go back to the two (potentially good, probably bad).
I vote, year in and year out, and I usually vote for a Democrat because the Democratic Party’s platform is the one that is the most aligned with my worldview. I’ve never missed an election since I turned 18 and never plan to either. I care, and believe that the only wasted vote is the vote you do not make. I’ve complained about this issue before on this blog and five years later, nothing has changed.
Doblin concludes his op-ed with the following:

State legislatures are the test kitchens for new public policy, some of it down-right anti-American — that is, if you believe civil liberties aren’t decided by the popular vote. Some of the people elected this November to go to Trenton will be the people going to Washington in future years. If they are inarticulate, if they lack creativity, and most important, are incapable of looking at both the needs of their district and the needs of the state now, they will not change in two, four or six years.
New Jersey needs its best leaders in Washington and it needs to mold them in Trenton. If mediocrity is the gold standard, democracy is what is devalued. State elections should matter. They don’t.
And you wonder how these things begin.

To that I say, “hear hear!” Unfortunately, most of the population will not…

politics

Adrift

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Let’s start at the end and work backwards. In Thomas Friedman’s latest op-ed, he says this about the issues facing Israel today:

I have great sympathy for Israel’s strategic dilemma and no illusions about its enemies. But Israel today is giving its friends — and President Obama’s one of them — nothing to defend it with. Israel can fight with everyone or it can choose not to surrender but to blunt these trends with a peace overture that fair-minded people would recognize as serious, and thereby reduce its isolation.

With a UN vote on Palestinian nationhood looming, with Egypt angry and Turkey even angrier, Friedman’s op-ed is a good take on how Israel is screwed right now, because of circumstances it currently faces and the leaders present to face them. The rest of the op-ed

politics

Over The Edge

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Yesterday’s New Jersey Transit train derailment at Penn Station, coupled with the Tea Party and Media manufactured debt crisis, finally has sent me over “the edge.” Of what edge do I speak you ask? The edge of the societal cliff where on one side you have secrecy, where you are keeping your head down and out of trouble, and the other where you are exposed, where you’ve stuck your neck out and where it might get cut off.
While I have always tried to have a say in both the way the world around me affects me and the issues that I care about and believe in, I have not taken as active of stance as I could have. I freely admit this and there are many reasons as to why this has happened but but mostly they have been driven by fear.
I have feared how what I say or do could be used against me in the future – the old law of unintended consequences as nothing is now unknown – technology chronicles all.
I have feared how what I say or do could negatively affect my current or future employment opportunities – what would have been unknown would instead be easily findable for those who want to put in the effort.
I have feared how hackers who disapprove of what I say or do could negatively affect the way I live (see the harassment that Anonymous have conducted against Wykcoff resident Parry Aftab, a well-known lawyer and television commentator who is considered an expert in Internet security who runs WiredSafety.org, for example) and the way that family lives.
Lastly, and understandably ranking highest on the paranoia scale, I have feared how various government alphabet agencies, such as the FBI, CIA and NSA, could use this information that I voluntarily give to develop a profile, case file and to track me. In the post 9/11 world we live in, people can disappear down a rabbit hole very quickly and I have been loathe to provide any information that could lead to me falling down one of these holes.
All of this fear negates the positives that could be gained and frankly considering I’m already worried about the grilling my children are going to give me about “what type of a world have I left for them?” I believe now is the time to act.
So, I vowed yesterday to stop living in fear and to move from simply being a critic and a point and click activist (i.e. donating money and/or signing petitions based on emails I’ve received) to more of an active activist.
My friend Brian, someone with which I email frequently about the political issues that we as individuals as well as a nation face, said a few weeks back that,

We do need to organize, become active and make our voices heard. Part of the problem is us. We are silent writing back and forth without making any change. We must become more active.

He now knows how much I took to heart his words. I took them as a call to action and acted. My first act was a simple one: I wrote my own letter, and not a form letter that some special interest group had prepared for me where all I needed to do is “virtually” sign my name to it, about the transit issues that New Jerseyites faced yesterday when a train derailment knocked out one of the two train tunnels that run under the Hudson River, and sent it to Governor Christie. The letter is posted below:

Dear Governor Christie,
Today there was yet another train derailment that occurred in New York’s Penn Station. Since I moved to New Jersey’s Bergen County last year, train derailments at Penn have been happening frequently – basically once a month.
These derailments negatively affect my family as both my wife and I commute into New York City in order to earn our living – we are consistently late to work and/or missing important meetings due to these transit issues.
This is not just our issue; this is an issue that affects the entire state of New Jersey. My family’s income, which is taxed by the State of New Jersey and which New Jersey relies on to fund its many different obligations, is generated in New York City. As these consistent commuting issues are affecting my career and my wife’s career, they are therefore by proxy affecting New Jersey’s tax revenue.
Reliable on-time access to New York City is vital to New Jersey’s bottom line and I therefore strongly suggest that you revisit and restart the ARC Tunnel project which you cancelled. Additional tunnels into and out of Penn Station will alleviate future derailment issues.
Here are two news articles which are related to today’s issues:
1. NJ Transit Derailment Snarls Train Service
2. Evening Delays Expected After Penn Station Train Snarls Morning Rush
Thank you very much for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Jeff Lipson

I plan to write Governor Christie every single time there is a train issue in the future that the cancelled ARC project would have (eventually when it was completed in 2014) resolved.
However, this is just the start of things for me. I also plan to work on codifying a manifesto which might eventually lead to a platform for a new political party. Maybe I’ll even run for a major political office one day using the process that Americans Elect is starting or even better and probably more effective, I’ll effectively form a think tank like Grover Norquist. His “no tax” pledge is the driving force in pushing the Republican Party toward an ever-more rigid position of opposing any tax increase, of any kind, at any time which has completely altered the way the business of politics is conducted. Considering I want to do the same, which is to “completely alter the way the business of politics is conducted,” he is as good of a role model as any. I’ve put this little nugget at the end of the post as a reward for reading all the way through. Raise your hand and post a comment if you want to be intimately along for the ride.
I’ll close with a Teddy Roosevelt quote which another friend of mine (who is involved with politics but from the “inside” as a Democratic party) has as his email signature:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
~ Teddy Roosevelt from his “Citizenship in a Republic” speech at the Sorbonne, Paris from April 23, 1910

politics

Change I Cannot Believe

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Obama’s campaign slogan of “Change You Can Believe In” has become “Change I Cannot Believe.” The conclusion of the debt ceiling debate is an utter debacle and the way it has gone down has utterly shocked me – while Democrats control the Presidency and the Senate somehow, they could not use any of this power and basically just rolled over and played dead (or bent over and got screwed like an inmate to be more crass) to the Republican extremists in the House of Representatives.
As Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone wrote,

The general consensus is that for the second time in three years, a gang of financial terrorists has successfully extorted the congress and the White House, threatening to blow up the planet if they didn’t get what they wanted.

What a deal! It will provide more millions for millionaires, more billions for billionaires and more pain for the majority of this country’s citizens. The deal will hurt our “recovery” (which now features at a fake 9% or “real” 16% unemployment rate) where the only thing that has really recovered are the bank accounts of high net worth individuals. I feel like our country’s reputation as a “stable and safe investment option” to the rest of the world has truly jumped the shark and everyone will start to look for a new reserve currency. If you were a foreign national or government, would you trust the US now? I thought so…
What could Obama have done differently? He didn’t need to force a bad deal, period. As Joe Nocera in the NYT points out,

My own view is that Obama should have played the 14th Amendment card, using its language about “the validity of the public debt” to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. Yes, he would have infuriated the Republicans, but so what? They already view him as the Antichrist. Legal scholars believe that Congress would not have been able to sue to overturn his decision. Inexplicably, he chose instead a course of action that maximized the leverage of the Republican extremists.

It is sad that the Tea Party and the hedge fund managers out there do not realize how badly they are undermining America’s power in the world in the name of the almighty dollar. In a generation we’ll be England. Lovely.

politics

Is the GOP the PLO?

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David Brooks to me just (thankfully) called the GOP the PLO. Please read the passage below and/or the full op-ed piece and you’ll immediately see the parallels between Arafat walking away from the deal that Clinton put together between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat in 2000 (where basically Arafat got 99% of what he wanted and he still said ‘no’) and the deal that the Republicans are walking away from right now – bold my emphasis:

“If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred billion dollars of revenue increases.
A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.
The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.
This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.”
Click here for the full op-ed

The whole ‘debt ceiling’ issue is a red herring. The current and future Republicans will stop at nothing to ensure that the ultra rich get richer. Rome is burning and they want to dance in the flames.