What Economy Do We Want to Recover?

The Economic recovery that the whole world awaits, begs a question that we should, in this time of travail, try to answer wisely for our future. The question is whether we want to recover the economy we had or build a new economy that is better for all of us.

It is widely assumed that the current recession began with the housing crisis about the time that the holders of sub-prime began to realize that, in fact, they did not qualify for a loan. This was about the time their mortgage payments began to go up and up and up because of the increasing interest.

They did not qualify for a loan because our economy cannot build a home for a price that many of us can pay. In poor communities like the one I work in, there is a huge differential between the number of homeowners and the number of renters, because the renters cannot afford to buy a home at the market price. The only new home builders in the poor communities are non-profits who receive government funds to build "affordable" housing for lower and middle income buyters. Typically the non-profit builders will spend about $125,000- 135,000 to build a home that they sell for $100,000.00. But, these government subsidies are limited so that while the purchase of this house at $100,000 requires a loan, there is not enough subsidy out there to help the mortgage industry. HUD provides subsidized rental housing for millions in the nation. All of which is to say that we had an economy that excluded about 30% or more of all people from buying homes either because they did not make enough income to qualify to buy a home with a enough space for their family or, to put it another way, we could not figure out a way to build a home for a price that these buyers could afford. The truth is both: we have an economy that pays about 30% of the population a salary that is too low for them to afford to buy and maintain a home and we cannot build homes for a price that they can pay. Is that the economy that we want to recover?

if you asked me, I would say NO! We do not need to recover this economy. That is the economy that led to the current recession. We need an economy where more people make enough money to buy a home and where homes can be built for a price that working men and women can afford. What the current economy tried to do was to qualify more people to buy homes without increasing wages ( a typical Republican solution to problems). in fact, the problem of reduced consumption does not have to do with the prices of what can be bought but with the lack of disposable income with which to pay.

We need a new economy in which providing a livable wages is a primary goal. This will only help the economy because it is a true economic stimulus, not a temporary one, not a paper created one. Workers spend money if they have it. They buy cars and homes and all other kinds of things that business needs to sell. We do not need to redistribute the wealth by government programs, but by creating an economy that pays higher wages to more people instead of creating higher profits for fewer people.

Until we find a way to increase wages, especially at the lower end, we are doomed to a boom and bust economy. The Europeans got it right on this one, not us.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Recent decisions by President Barrack Obama and continuing revelations about former President Dick Cheney strengthen the argument that we need a US Truth Commission to cleanse the national soul and pave the way for freedom to be restored.

"The truth shall set you free" is not an injunction that is tied to any "religious" insight into life, but a maxim whose legitimacy is established by simple logic, the most basic moral values for the good life and the need for periodic or continual cleansing of sins/mistakes that inhibit future possibilities for right actions that promote human freedom and the protection of human rights.

President Obama's backtracking on the decision to release photos of detainees requested by the ACLU under the Freedom Of Information Act, the similar backtracking on the terrorism tribunals at Guantanamo and the revelation of Dick Cheney's direct involvement in ordering torture not for national security concerns but to support his own policy decisions provides the latest evidence that a comprehensive Truth Commission to determine possible US involvement in human rights violations is necessary because the official and unofficial centers of power will not allow it to happen according to law or by means of their own policital will.

This is not a matter of whether or not the truth will come out. Frank Rich, in a recent New York Times editorial, notes that Obama's decision, supposedly to protect US troops from increasing anti-American sentiment across the globe, is a "fools errand" becuase the photos will eventually come out. So, Rich argues, it is better for the President and the nation to get on the side of truth and transparency from the beginning. The same is true about a Truth Commission. It is not that the Truth Commission will have to uncover the truth; the truth will be uncovered. The Truth Commission would serve to put our people, our nation, our country on the side of truth and human rights instead of on the side of the Cheney crowd who denies the importance of human rights and covers up all the dirtly tricks to violate them. President Obama is not one who, as far as we know, could be subject to the investigations of the Truth Commission, but he makes himself complicit in the cover up with these recent decisions. Cheney, on the other hand, plays both sides to his advantage, asking for release of memos when he thinks they will support him, but having a perfect record as Vice-President in denying all request for information that could unveil the truth.

The trouble with the Cheney record and the Obama decisions is that while politicians are protected and the troops are seemingly supported, the country is damaged and we, the people, are denied knowledge of what is being done in our name around the world. And, since National Security is always cited as the reason for violations of human rights, the Truth Commission could help us redefine this term in a way that actually protects our security instead of protecting those who violate it. The agreement of the world on the international treaties for Human Rights is based upon a sound assumption: there is nothing more important for national or human security than respect for human rights. Every known national leader who violated human rights from Idi Aman to Pol Pot argued that national security trumped human rights. In the end it was never National Security that motivated these leaders, but personal power and hiding the truth.

If the United States stands for freedom, the place to begin to earn that reputation is to honor the age-old wisdom that "the truth shall set you free." The fear that a Truth Commmision would damage our reputation is exactly the kind of logic that leads to slavery. If we fear the truth, then slavery is our destiny.

Cheney Didn't, Doesn't and Won't Get It

According to TV commentators on CNN, former Vice-President Cheney criticized the decision of the Obama administration to release the memos on torture arguing, ironically, that more should be released on this same subject; specifically, the memos that show how much information was acquired through the torture methods.

At the same time, Presdient Obama was explaining to CIA personell his reasons for releasing the memos and banning torture as a method of gaining intellingence.

Cheney did not get it. Cheney believes, evidently. that a nation can act immorally if it gets what it wants from this immorral action. Such immorality has no negative cost.

President Obama, on the other hand, did not make the argument to discontinue torture based on intelligence gathering criteria, although such an arguement could have been made. Rather, he made the arguement from the Scriptures: "What does it profit a man (nation) if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul." Obama said that respect for the law and human rights is foundational to what America should be and that to lose this part of our soul puts the whole nation at risk.

This is the first time in a long time that a President has actually honored the age old Judeo-Christian values on morality, despite the fact that they all have said that they are profoundly religious. Just to be clear about it, the reason to be in sinc with Judeo-Christian valus on this issue is not to demonstrate some kind of faithfulness to ancient values of the faiths, but rather, because history has proven the prophetic version of truth to be reliable: that a nation or a society that violates what it knows are basic moral principles is a nation that is doomed to failure, and, no matter what the strength of their armies or, we might say, the effectiveness of their intelligence in producing informaiton, will eventually suffer because of this immorality.

In addition to the absolute hypocrisy of wanting more disclosure, considering Cheney's unfaltering defense of secrecy during his time in the White House, the arguement that knowing how much information we might get from prisoners by using torture might persuade us to join the ranks of the most brutal and immoral nations on the earth for the sake of gaining this information is an arguement that will, so to speak, send our nationa straight to hell. On the other hand, a person who does not mind lying to the nation and the world about the reasons to go to war, has already demonstrated that they have the requisite lack of morality necessary for destroying the soul of the nation, not to mention sending us all into economic tailspin and national bankruptcy.

WHAT?

The decision of the US not to attend the Durban Conference on Racism seems strangely at odds with the Obama Administration's new openness to the world and, at the same time, will only increase the impression of the world that Israel drives our foreign policy, not ourselves. The African Amercian community will certainly have a hard time understanding this decision.

Of course, we have not seen the language of the document to be submitted to the conference for approval. The Obama Administration says that the one to be submitted is improved from the original. The explanation given by the administration does not seem to justify such a stark departure from the rather persistent and, up until now, consistent stance of openness to all conversation, meetings, encounters, dialogues. We can talk with Iran, but we cannot go to a UN sponsored conference on Racism.

In fact, it does beg the question. Is our foreign policy driven by Israel and not by ourselves?

Hard CAll, Wrong Call

To prosecute or not to prosecute, that is the question when it comes to now well documented violations of the law primarily by those at the highest levels who signed off on various forms of torture to be used by the CIA. It is a hard call because there is hardly any precedent and it might seem to some that it is just plain political revenge by a Democratic administration against a previous Republican one. President Obama decided to release the incriminating records, but decided not to prosecute any of the possible offenders. Hard call, true, but the wrong call. A soldier just got life in prison for killing Iraquis because it is against the law. What makes the CIA different? Wouldn't the CIA's reputation go up with all of us if it even collaborated in strategic legal actions against the intellectual authors of policy that violate nationa and international law. Wouldn't that be a "new day" that current CIA director Panetta talks about even as he promises that the CIA will defend any agent against which legal actions are brought for involvement in torture.

"Impunity" is a very bad word for a society that claims to be a society committed to the rule of law. Panetta says the lesson is learned, but I don't think you could find a legitimate psychologist or social analyst anywhere who thinks that releasing papers documenting crimes while promising not to bring any of the criminals to justice is any kind of lesson other than that "impunity" continues for the intelligence community. The "torture" in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places during this last fit of rage we call the "War on Terror" is not the worst of violations of law, national and international, or of basic morality that the CIA has committed during its years of existence. President Obama just missed a historic opportunity for cleansing what is one of the dirtiest agencies of government whose gross violations of human rights in Latin America, for instance, justified on national security grounds, have done nothing for improving national security but have managed to give our nation a bad reputation around the globe.

Navy Adm. Dennis Blair gets it even more wrong when he intimates that any lebal action against Bush administration officials or CIA operatives would be a disrespect for the military primarily because the war in Iraq was unpopular. Excuse me, but whatever happened to the "we are defending the freedom of America" schtick. Is that freedom not predicated on respect for law? What should be more unpopular than the war is letting criminals go free.

Sorry, President Obama, for whom I voted, but you are making the mistake of so many presidents, Democrats and Republicans, in protecting the military and intelligence community from the most basic of all elements that could produce responsible behaviour - the law. It might have been a hard call, but it was a wrong call...and worse, it was a bad call.

US UNDER OBAMA BEGINS TO GROW UP

Was President Obama "successful" or not in his trip to the G20 meeting in London. This is a typical American question. "Successful" is what we want and it is always interpreted in the sense of whether we got the world to do as we want them to do. Good for us and the world, Obama was not successful in this sense. What Obama did was to help the US grow up, mature, begin to understand the world the way it is. Along the way, he got about as much as anyone could get from the Europeans and others by taking the mature approach to relationships in which the other is actually respected.

There is a good reason that Europeans do not agree to more stimulus. They do not need it the way we need it because they have not starved their states the way we have and the basic needs of citizens are met, to a larger degree than those of Americans are, by state programs of support for education and health care. The Europeans may not be as dynamic, economically speaking, but they are more mature in their approach to spending and taxes; their wealth is greater and more shared among the classes than in the US. China's situation is entirely different from the US and European problems. They do not lack for cosummers or demand internally. What the Chinese face is the drop in world wide demand for their goods...so it is exactly in their interest for the US to stimulate while they do not need to as their internal markets still outstrip their ability to produce goods for domestic use. Where they make money is in the trade with others. In fact, it was the Anglo (US/British) banking system and approach to economy that has led the world into the current depression and the rest of the world is absolutely committed to not paying for what we created.

The same is true on Afghanistan. The Europeans have a different view of the world that does not divide it into we and them in some kind of eternal battle between good and evil, so they can measure the threat versus the cost of containing it in a very different way than we have. The Europeans know that Afghanistan is a black hole, and, more importantly, that military action has a very limited role to play in any attempts to build a representative and effective state. And, they have decided that preventive measure at home is the way to address the terrorist threat combined with strategic alliances and intelligence work in the Muslim nations. it is a more relaxed approach to the terrorist threat that has a more realistic estimate of the threat that terrorism poses to the Western world.

We should be thankful that President Obama is beginning to understand, for us, that the world is made up of a variety of legitimate interests and approaches to solving problems from which we could learn a great deal, just as othes might learn some things from us. Stimulus is the way we have to go because we have starved the state and regulation is more important to European states whose economic stability is more secure than ours and thus, needs, for banks and financial institutions to act in a way that maximizes steady growth, not huge and temporary profit.

So, just to be American and measure success, we can say that Obama probably got almost 100% of what was possible to get from a world that has different needs and share a different level of responsibility for the current crisis in economy and war. Plus, he helped America begin to grow up, mature as a part of the global family, something that we and the world sorely need to happen.

Newt Gingrich Reemerges, Thank God

Newt Gingrich is reemerging as a conservative leader. We should Thank God for this. It will be an ongoing reminder of why we should reject traditional conservative politics of unregulated capitalism and unquestioning support for military action. This is exactly how we got here, but Republicans in the Congress understand that they cannot get reelected by standing by the conservative platform as Gingrich proposes. This muddles the public debate on issues related to core values, so Gingrich, with his threat to participate in promoting a third party of "real" conservative values should be welcomed as a clarifying factor in the political landscape. Of course, this will serve to split the conservative vote and this is also good. It's just good all around and even better if Gingirich can spark a new party. Then maybe the Christian right can form another party in protest of the Republican lack of backbone in promoting the "Christian social agenda" and not wanting to associate itself with Gingrich's party due to his unsavory record on the family issues. This would be another blessing on America and would clearly identify those who do not have a clue as to who Jesus is. I do have one question that continues to bother me as a result of observing the Gingrich phenomena. I am just wondering how you can make a successful career of being publicly wrong, mean and immoral. Evidently it is a niche worthy of appearing on all the media outlets as an expert, but I am not sure if it is as expert in being wrong, mean or immoral or all three. Can somebody enlighten me?