BEWARE THE MORPHING MITT!!

I was watching a news report on TV, last night (September 26, 2012) when a Romney TV add appeared during the commercial break.  Old familiar Mitt Romney looked so different.  The lighting was warm and glowing, like that in a technicolor romantic movie.  Mitt's face was slightly out of focus--like a close up of Greta Garbo in "Camille" or "Ninotchka".   His eyes looked as soft and moist as those of my old Lab " Sandy".  As he spoke he tilted his head to the side and mouthed his words, gently and soothingly, like a mother pleading with her children to come in from the cold for some warm milk and cookies.   He continued speaking. "There are millions of people out there hurting, during these hard times. I want to help them. I care." I shook my head and checked the settings on the TV.   They were OK.

  

Was this the Mitt Romney we have gotten to know so well over the awful, boring last year, with all those debates among the less than "prime time" Republican field?  Is he not the rich-guy candidate who proposed a $10,000 dollar bet with Rick Perry in front of the Nation?   Is he not the hard-nosed "businessman", "vulture"-capitalist, who picked up companies in trouble, boosted up their debt, fired employees to cut expenses, off-shored their employee contracts, cut outlays, then with better-looking books, raised money with bank loans so as to retrieve his investor's raiding capital and take a big chunk of cash, then let the company and its remaining employees sink or swim, as he went on to raid another target?  

The man on the screen was  transformed, yet he looked the same.  The sturdy well tanned handsome face, the dark eyes, the flashing smile, were all there.   Even that little touch of gray at his temples which he never darkens up with black so as to underscore to voters his maturity and experience. 

But the  gray matter in my frontal lobe, kept resisting messages my occipital lobe was receiving from my eyes.  I shook my head again, just like lovable old Sandy used to flap his ears violently when a fly entered one of his soft, brown, floppy auricles.  But the image didn't disappear.  Mitt continued on speaking as if he loved everyone, even those 47 percent "takers" he called out in Boca Raton in May.

Was this new "I care" candidate, the same Mitt Romney who wanted to let GM go down the tubes?  Who picked frighteningly radical conservative Paul Ryan (co-author of "legitimate rape" legislation with wing-nut Representative Todd Akin, and modern-day advocate and spokesperson for radical libertarian conservative Ayn Rand) as his running mate?   The same guy who claimed that 47% of Americans were moochers, on the government dole and were not responsible for themselves?  Or as Robert Reich tabulated so well in: "Repackaging Mitt", HUFFINGTON POST(9-26-12), and who therein reminds us that Mitt is the candidate who "cares" so much that he is against "extending unemployment  benefits. Or providing food stamps or housing benefits for families that have fallen into poverty. Or medical benefits."    

I blinked my eyes.  Yeah, wait, isn't this the very person who wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and as Robert Reich points out, wants to "save" Medicare by turning it into a voucher system, then hand that voucher system over to the "cash-starved states". That is a plan to destroy Medicare not save it. Just imagine what would happen to health care in the hands of the elected officials in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Arizona.  Wasn't this the Mitt who just a few days ago on "Meet the Press", when challenged on what he would do about health care for the fifty million without coverage, responded that "the US does have universal health care!"  He reminded the questioner--with a straight face that indicated how far away from the real world he was--that in the US anyone who gets sick enough ("to be collected from their 'apartment' with an ambulance") can be taken to  the emergency room of "any" hospital and get treatment.  Yes, the professional ER staff will stop the bleeding and patch over your open wounds, but then with no prospect of being paid, they will quickly send you on your way, perhaps if you are lucky, with a small packet of aspirin to stop the pain.  But they can not and will not treat the cause of your condition.  That's not the new caring Mitt I was seeing on my TV screen today!  

In a wink of the eye, right before you, Mitt was transforming himself yet again, like an amoeba changing its shape to fit through a tiny confluence of air bubbles on a microscope slide, he was morphing over again into a new and different Mitt. He is truly amorphous.  As I watched the old Mitt's hard image was fading away, as his etch-a-sketch was being vigorously shaken by someone off screen, perhaps, a Sheldon Adelson or Dan Senor, or some other neocon advisor. 

Beware the Morphing Mitt!

Get the (changing) picture?

rjk   

SEPTEMBER 10 MUSLIMS ATTACK EMBASSY---SEPTEMBER 16--US DRONES KILL 8 AFGHAN WOMEN

On September 11, 2012,  a Muslim mob enraged by an anti Moslem film attacked the US embassy in Benghazi, and burnt it to the ground.  In the confusion, four of our of our embassy staff  were killed, some by gunfire, others by smoke inhalation, as was our well liked ambassador Christopher Stephens who died in a Benghazi hospital after being rescued by Libyan citizen passers-by.  A day later, a US drone struck and killed a group of Afghan women and girls, foraging for wood on a hillside in rural Afghanistan early in the morning. Eight women and children were killed.  

How are these two events related?  Was this a US retaliation ?  I think not, though, I can not know what went through the mind of the drone ”pilot” sitting in a hangar someplace in Arizona who squeezed off the trigger on those innocent women and children, who were simply gathering wood in the forest for their breakfast meal.  But that aside, the US killing of innocent Muslim women and children, at the very time the world was erupting in anti-American demonstrations was either the result of simple stupidity, monumental hubris, and/or phenomenal disdain for Muslims and what they might think of us.

Let us assume that in the Pentagon, and the Halls of Congress they simply don't care  what  two billion Muslims who make up the second largest religious affiliation in the world--think of us.  Religious insults and purposeful humiliation to Muslims have emanated from the West, before. But after the introduction of hundreds of thousands of western troops into the Middle East these events have increased.  The often-reported Koran burnings, use of the Koran as a target, Koran toilet-flushings,  Korans found in US military trash heaps, US troops urinating on dead muslims, and most recently, demeaning depictions of the Prophet Mohammad in a US-produced film and French cartoons featuring a naked Mohammed  have had their effect.  A trailer of the offending US film was edited and translated into Arabic and placed on the internet.  It was an instant, phenomenal "success", garnering millions of "hits" a day.  Demonstrations by enraged Muslims against US targets began in Egypt and spread across the Arab world to Yemen and finally to Libya.  There on the night of September 10-11 a mob attacked the US Embassy. Libyan Ambassador, J. Christopher Stephens was somehow separated from his staff and later found and rescued near death in a locked ”secure room” within the fire-bombed ruins of the embassy. He died of asphyxiation and smoke inhalation at a Benghazi hospital, later that night.  The attending physician stated that they had worked on him for nine hours in an attempt to resuscitate him but failed. 

After the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, the nation’s media went off on a feeding frenzy focused on ”Muslim rage”.  This morning (September 17, 2012  eponymous  Joe of  "Early Morning Joe" the right wing host of  the MSNBC morning show,  went into a tirade after discussions of another ”green on blue” attack in Afghanistan which killed several US troops.  On air, Joe Scarborough attempting to relate two unrelated events, stated ”they hate us” and ignorantly blamed Muslim rage on "their religion”.    

In the print media, Newsweek, apparently desperate to increase its magazine sales, printed an issue with a close up picture of seemingly screaming Arab men in headscarfs, (were  the editors attempting to generate the stereotypical ”rag head” image?) their flashing teeth and dark swarthy faces prominently displayed to scare the ”bejeebers” out of Middle America. The irony of this is that the incendiary picture itself, may act as encouragement for the irredeemably violent in our own society, a nation no stranger to violence and anti-moslem sentiment. Such imagery have the potential  to generate further violence, perhaps attacks on US Muslims and presumed Muslims, or other dark-skinned members of our society---and to the burning of more mosques.  In this manner, our corporatist controlled press and media continue to play their role as facilitators for the worst sentiments and ideas in our society--with pitifully few exceptions. 

Our press corps and leaders in Washington would like to present these incidents as those of a poorly socialized, backward people affiliated with a violent religion. They would prefer that we do not reflect on our own behavior and that of our government.  They wonder why  some insignificant film clip, a Koran being torn in two by a bearded yahoo in Florida, or a French cartoon depicting a naked Muhammad can send these "unreasoning" folks into paroxysms of violence.   That's what they would like to have you think. 

You don't have to be a Muslim or an Arab, just a sentient human being to understand that the causes are more complex. Muslims are angry, and some understandably do hate us. Placed in historic context, their feelings can be seen as "reasonable" and "likely to occur" after a decade and more of economic sanctions, war, devastation and social disruption visited on them by the US and its allies in retaliation for the 9-11 attack.  

Why do they hate us?

1- We unconditionally support--in knee jerk fashion--the State of Israel, a small, nuclear-armed, highly militarized, expansionist state which sits on illegally occupied  Muslim lands and refuses to relinquish them.  Its behavior, its brutal occupation, its humiliating treatment of the Palestinians it governs in the occupied territories are a  powerful irritant in the region and generate  resentment against the US, which facilitates it behavior, though grants in aid, money, and international support in the UN.  We signed the Camp David Accords but preferred to forget them.  Our support and silent collusion with the Israelis, though we pay lip service to "peace negotiations", is well known and much resented. 

2- We have for many decades used the region as our fiefdom...controlling oil resources, removing unpalatable leaders on our whim, installing others which grew into intolerable despots whom we continued to support as long as they took orders from Washington.  

3- For the last decade we have been killing Muslims, hundreds of thousands of them, in Iraq in an illegal war claimed to be over (what was revealed to be non-existing) weapons of mass destruction. While our questionable war against the Taliban in Afghanistan killed  additional thousands of civilians (some as recently as September 16, when the eight women and girls were killed by a US drone missile). Other US drone and cruise missile attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Sudan have killed and maimed hundred more innocents in recent years.    These estimates of deaths do not include the indirect deaths we are responsible for as when as in Iraq and Afghanistan we degrade a nation’s infrastructure, its electrical grid, its power sources, its sewers and water treatment plants, close its hospitals and retire its police forces, and disrupt its farms and food production facilities.  Such degradation leads to hunger, impoverishment, infirmity, sickness, early death and infant mortality.  These actions  certainly do not make us popular in those places. The dead and injured have grieving husbands, children and other relatives that can not forget what they see as examples of US brutality. I dare say that given the number of Muslims killed and maimed by US actions over the last ten years, there must be many millions of Muslims who have a relative, friend, or acquaintance who has been killed or maimed by US actions either directly or indirectly.  That is not a pleasant reality and certainly helps to explain our lack of popularity---and Muslim rage.

Thus it is clear, we are not popular in a wide swath of the world where two billion Muslims live where perhaps we have been less than the best of neighbors.  When some seeming innocuous, (to us) scrap of a demeaning cartoon, or a snippet of film which demeans and mocks the Prophet Mohammed is released in the west, Muslims respond, in what seems to us, inexplicable violence. But viewed in context, (a context that our press and media will not or can not provide--based on who owns their newspaper or TV station), their motivations becomes clear.  Some of our leaders (and the neocons) would like us to believe that Muslim rage is caused by THEIR religion.  But is it perhaps more to do with OUR behavior, OUR foreign policy and the actions of OUR leaders? 

Get the picture?

rjk

MUSLIMS KILL US AMBASSADOR, US RETALIATES KILLS 8 AFGHAN WOMEN

SEPT 10: MUSLIM MOBS KILL US AMBASSADOR IN BENGHAZI.     SEPT 16: US DRONES KILL EIGHT WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN AFGHANISTAN!  

”Thus it is clear, we are not popular in a swath of the world where two billion Muslims live.  When a seeming innocuous, (to us) scrap of a cartoon, or a snippet of film which demeans the Prophet Mohammed is released in the west, Muslims respond in, what seems to us, inexplicable violence. But viewed in historic context, a context that our press and media will not or can not provide, their motivations becomes clear.  Some of our leaders (and the neocons) would like us to believe that  Muslim rage is caused by THEIR religion.  But is it perhaps MORE the result of OUR behavior, OUR foreign policy and the actions of OUR leaders?” rjk

The above headline reflects some recent facts, but was the drone attack a US retaliation? I think not but, I can not speak for what was going through the mind of the so-called drone ”pilot” sitting in a hangar someplace in Arizona who squeezed off the trigger on those innocent women and children who were simply gathering wood in the forest for their breakfast meal. Who knows what his or her motivations were.  But killing Muslim women and children, as the world erupts in anti-American demonstrations sure does show a disdain for the Muslims and what they might think of us.

But the headline does underscore the fact that there is more to the story of Muslim rage than the religious insults which have been emanating from the West, now for a long time. The often-reported Koran burnings, use of the Koran as a rifle target, Koran toilet-flushings, Korans found in US trash heaps, and most recently, demeaning depictions of the Prophet Mohammad in a US produced film and French cartoons-designed to have an incendiary effect on the Muslim population--and have.

For this author, the religious insults are but the final straw which breaks the camel’s back---not the cause of the phenomenon.   But our American press corps, with a few exceptions, is unwilling and unable to tell these stories like they actually are, and prefers to cast the problem in terms of  the religion of the two billion in this world who profess Islam as their faith. 

So now for a short review that you can not get elsewhere:

After the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, the nation’s media have gone over the wall about ”Muslim rage”. This morning (September 17, 2012  eponymous  Joe of  "Early Morning Joe" the right wing-nut of  the MSNBC, AM talking heads went into a tirade after discussions of another ”green on blue” attack in Afghanistan which killed several US troops.  On air, Joe Scarborough stated ”they hate us” and ignorantly blamed Muslim rage on their ”religion”.    

In the print media, Newsweek, apparently desperate to increase its magazine sales, posted on its front page under the heading:”Muslim Rage” in bold black letters, the frightening picture of seemingly screaming Arab men in headscarfs, (apparently the editors were attempting to generate a stereotypical ”rag heads” image) their flashing teeth and dark swarthy faces prominently displayed to scare the ”bejeebers” out of Middle America. The incendiary picture alone, may act as encouragement for the irredeemably violent in our own society, no stranger to anger and anti-moslem sentiment. Perhaps it will generate further attacks on Muslims and presumed Muslims or any dark-skinned members of our society---and to the burning of more mosques.  In this manner our corporatist controlled press and media continue to play their role as facilitators for the worst sentiments and ideas in our society--with pitifully few exceptions.

Muslim rage exists, but does it have anything to do its Islam? Probably it does not have more input than the tiny spark that ignites a fire.  

You don't have to be a Muslim or an Arab, just a sentient human being to understand why Muslims are angry, and some understandably do hate us. Placed in historic context their feelings are well justified.  That anger is the fuel that a spark can ignite. 

Poke a stick into an animal's cage--even a normally docile one, and if you do it often enough, the poor critter is very likely to snap at you first chance it gets .

Sometime earlier this year a US film, made in Hollywood by unknown producers was released and marketed with the express purpose and intention of demeaning Islam. Snippets of it translated into Arabic were then placed on the Internet. It was an instant ”success” getting millions of hits all around the Muslim world. 

The results, perhaps timed to coincide with the 9-11 observances here in the US, had their desired effects.   Demonstrations against US targets began in Egypt and spread across the Arab world to Yemen and Libya where on the night of September 10-11 a mob attacked the US Embassy. Libyan Ambassador J Christopher Stephens was somehow separated from his staff and later found near death in a locked ”secure room” within the ruins of the embassy. He died of asphyxiation and smoke inhalation at a Benghazi hospital, latter that night, being taken there by Libyans who didn't know who he was. 

But why do they hate us?

Let’s go back a few years in US-Muslim history.  But let us just skim over ancient history like the fact that we were responsible for the overthrow of the democratically-elected prime minister, Mossadegh and WE imposed the despot Mohammad Pahalavi on Iran (he was more malleable and more likely to take USorders) who coined himself the ”Shah of Iran”; and WE were responsible for the imposition of Saddam Hussein on Iraq (yes, he was ”our boy” once.); and WE also helped to establish ”our boy” Mubarak in Egypt who took our money and our orders as well. These men ran their nations for OUR best interests (well for a while). In time some of them had to go, or we got rid of them or we're overthrown by their own people.  Our past behavior wasn't what you might describe as neighborly or nice.

For the last decade we have been killing Muslims, hundreds of thousands of them, in Iraq; hundreds in Pakistan, and in Yemen, in Somalia, and in 

Afghanistan over the last decade we have killed and maimed thousands of Afghans.  Here I am counting only where our misdirected or purposely aimed drone strikes have killed innocent civilians like those women and young girls who were killed on September 16.  This is not counting the indirect deaths we are responsible for as when as in Iraq and Afghanistan we degrade a nation’s infrastructure, its electrical grid, its power sources, its sewers and water treatment plants and its hospitals and police forces, its food production facilities.  Such degradation leads to hunger, impoverishment, infirmity, sickness, death and infant mortality.   These actions and events certainly do not make us popular in those places. The dead and injured have grieving husbands, children and other relatives that can not forget what they see examples of our brutality. I dare say that given the number of Muslims killed and maimed by US actions over the last ten years, there must be many millions of Muslims who have a relative or friend or acquaintance who has been killed or maimed by US actions either directly or indirectly.  That is not pleasant reality and certainly helps to explain our lack of popularity.

Finally, for domestic politics and often not our nation’s well-being or best interests we unconditionally support (too often in knee jerk fashion) the State of Israel. We supply it with arms, information and billions of dollars in aid each year. This small, nuclear armed and powerful expansionist nation, with our help and collusion, continues to illegally occupy Muslim lands. It has a policy of active and surreptitious expansion into Palestinian, occupied and vacant land, farms, and olive groves. In the occupied territories it controls and limits scarce water resources, unfairly limiting it the native Palestinians. It brutally humiliates and suppresses the native population. Israel’s domestic policies, seen by others as being supported by the US (who after all continues to supply hardware and money whatever they do to the Palestinians) and it's brutal military attacks (which are supported by military hardware we supply) such as on the Gaza flotilla, and the ”Cast Lead” incursion into the enclosed enclave of Gaza in which a thousand unarmed civilians were killed by the Israeli ”Defense” Force, do not help our image. The world remembers well how President Bush (a good friend of Israel) sat by and watched doing nothing to stop the massacre of innocents. Such behavior is seared into Muslim minds. They do not help OUR image. 

Thus it is clear, we are not popular in a swath of the world where two billion Muslims live.  When some seeming innocuous, (to us) scrap of a demeaning cartoon, or a snippet of film which demeans the Prophet Mohammed is released in the west, Muslims respond in, what seems to us, inexplicable violence. But viewed in context, a context that our press and media will not or can not provide, their motivations becomes clear. Some of our leaders and the neocons would like us to believe that their rage is caused by THEIR religion.  But is it perhaps simply the result of OUR behavior, OUR foreign policy and the actions of OUR leaders? 

Get the picture?

rjk

WHO ARE THE 47%----ME AND YOU

WHO ARE THE 47%?

In a secretly taped talk, presented by the Republican hopeful, Mitt Romney, to a $50G per plate dinner of well-heeled Republicans in a Boca Raton mansion in Florida in May of this year, the candidate, speaking ”off the cuff”, smeared nearly one-half of the American population who do not make enough money to "pay income taxes". These are the people modern Republicans, who glibly divide their black-and-white-world into ”makers” and ”takers”, apparently think of as "moochers".  They are not members of the ”productive class”.  They are not wealthy, therefore, in Romney’s elitist world they are of lesser ”worth” than the so called ”job creators" (but please remember these wealthy "job creators” create jobs overseas in China, India and Taiwan. They are those entrepreneurs who in-our-days routinely shift American jobs overseas--denying meaningful work to our middle class, whom they then denigrate for being lazy. The job shift increases  their profits but depauperates their nation.  Then they  hide these profits in Switzerland or the Caymans so that they do not have to pay taxes on their wealth.)

I've heard this notion regarding the ”makers and takers” over and over again. It begins with some well-dressed guy with gold cuff links, whining that "half the population do not pay taxes". Their self-serving syllogism proceeds thus: ”I belong to the half that does pay taxes. Therefore, I am the productive element of the system.  But the government wants to penalize me--’a job creator’ by taking money from me and redistributing it to the non-productive."

Other statements often heard revolve around the tax base.  They want to "broaden the tax base". In other words they want to reduce taxes on the upper income earners (now taxed at the lowest levels in our recent history) and increase taxes on the lower quintiles of income earners. (But  see below, on whom they would raise taxes.)

Their idea seems rational,at first glance. But let's look it more closely. It turns out that the so-called ”job creators” have experienced happy decades of increasing accumulation of wealth. Their net worth, and incomes have surged during the period of the junior Bush administration- a time when top income tax rates were slashed, giving the super wealthy a windfall.  The policy also had the (intentional) effect of starving the government of needed funds. (Bush’s unstated intention all along) funds that would have been devoted to needed infrastructure, education, health and development.  (It's worth mentioning here that during the Eisenhower Administration the top nominal rate was 91%.  We had rich folks then too.  The Romney's, and their ilk did well then too...but so did the little guy.)

As a result wealth and income inequality in the US is presently the highest since the late 1920s. So where’s the trickle down? Where are the jobs?  The oligarchs and corporatists have sent them overseas.

Then let's look into the question of who these people are that make up the ”other” half. Those that do not pay income taxes (of course do not forget, almost all of these people pay payroll taxes, social security, FDIC, and state and local sales taxes.)

According the Washington Post’s Wonkblog.com, posted on or about September 17,2012,  entitled: "Who does not pay taxes in eight charts”. The 46.4% of the population who do not pay federal income taxes is composed of the following categories:  

Unemployed.  About 8% are comprised of the unemployed, students, disabled veterans (such as Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans) and the very poor who are working, but earn less than about $9,500 annually. 

Elderly. Another category is the very elderly. These who have no significant incomes comprise about 10%. Think of your grandmother or great aunty.  

Retired. Finally there are the retired. This group, composed of about 22% have worked all their lives, paid all their payroll taxes too, and are now living precariously on their small pensions, annuities, and/or social security.  They do not earn enough to pay income taxes. This total  accounts for about 40% of the class of Americans denigrated by Romney.  

Wealthy. The last 7% are those who do not file, or are the wealthy who hide their incomes in the Cayman Islands, or Switzerland, and are the real moochers. 

Thus aside from the real moochers that Romney was unaware of, these are the Americans that Romney has castigated and smeared as less than desirable sycophants who, according to him are ”victims” begging the government for "food, housing and all manner of other stuff.”

So when you hear someone with wealth whine about the fact that half the population doesn't pay taxes....keep these people in mind: think of yourself as a student; think of that frail grandma of yours who lives alone; your brother who lost his job and has been unemployed for too many months now to remember; and that uncle who fought in Vietnam and lost a leg; that distant relative with Down’s syndrome; the quiet retired couple who live next door like field mice in the small bungalow; and a hundred fifty million other unfortunate Americans just like them. They are not any less American for their position on the age curve, or for having past their most productive years, or for sacrifices made for their country in war, or their misfortune. 

What would our nation be like, and how would we look ourselves in the mirror each day if we--as Romney and his social Darwinist, reactionary elitists would have us do---dump these people on the ash heap and leave them there to rot? 

If these 47% can not pay their way, those in the 53%, particularly those with plenty to spare should be taxed fairly to,(yes) REDISTRIBUTE their excess wealth to the needy. For it is in fact this privileged class who are the real moochers, the takers, who use our nation and its infrastructure, its militarily well-protected platform, its laws and its capitalist sponsoring  benefits as a spawning ground for their enterprises and then try to claim, that ”I built that--all on my own!" and you-all had nothing to do with it. So now that I am a success I am going to put all my assets in the Caymans and pay as little taxes as I can.

It seems that today we are living through a time that Karl Marx predicted in the 19th century. Marx theorized that the end result of unbridled capitalism, the capitalism of Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand and Willard Romney the capitalism ”red in tooth and claw”, would be the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few. Those few then would not only control the production of manufactured goods, fuel and food, they would also control ideas.  (Perhaps this is the simple reason why so many of the poor, and poorly-educated and ill-informed continue to vote against their own best financial and other interests and support those who have no remote intention to improve their lot or well being.) In modern America the ideas in the ”marketplace of ideas” is too much in control of the oligarchs, corporatists, and the ”one percenters” who outright purchase the likes of Murdock and Rush Limbaugh to make their case in print and on the airways of this topsy-turfy world. 

Get the picture?

rjk







Sent with Writer.

ADNAN LATIF: DEATH AND TORTURE IN GUANTANAMO

Adnan Latif died in his cell in Guantanamo the other day, on September 10, 2012, having spent the last third of his young life behind concertina and razor wire. He was only 32 years old. Latif, a Yemeni youth of 21 was caught up in a sweep by Pakistani troops eager to win favor with their American allies in the aftermath of 9-11. No evidence of his ties to any terrorist group was ever produced and he was never brought to trial. He was one of the first prisoners to be sent to Guantanamo in 2002 and there under harsh conditions, torture and isolation he just slowly wasted away mentally and physically with no hope of an end to his illegal incarceration .

In medieval England, and in France, the king could lock up any accused wrong-doer, and throw away the key. But royals (as well as modern presidents) were very soon discovered to be subject to ulterior motives beyond those of simply maintaining justice and safety of their realms. Sometimes, perhaps too often, this regal tool to maintain calm and safe streets and byways was drastically misused. Powerful leaders might imprison an innocent, perhaps a political enemy, or a rival claimant to power, or even use it to satisfy a personal enmity against someone, and simply lock him or her up and toss away the key---solving their problem by letting the poor unfortunate die of disease or old age in prison. There are several good French and English novels built around this sad theme. It's difficult to think that we here in the USA have somehow devolved back into Medieval practices....but we have.

Our history tells us that nearly 800 years ago a group of English aristocrats drew up the Magna Carta of 1215 to prevent unpopular, unwise King John from using unlawful and endless detention as a means to maintain his power---the kind we are using in Guantanamo. That great document, the Magna Carta, established that a citizen has the right to liberty and justice before the law. It required any prisoner to be brought before a judge to be tried. Subsequently, the great writ of habeus corpus codified the injunction against unlawful imprisonment implicit in the Magna Carta and henceforth prevented this practice by the English kings in England--and in time other nations around the world too.

Here in America, during our British colonial period, we inherited the hard-won legal imperatives of the Magna Carta and habeus corpus. But somehow these great writs have been submerged or forgotten today. Since 9-11 our great nation, rightly proud of our legal heritage, boastful to the point of embarrassment at times, has besmirched that great inheritance with our establishment of a modern medieval-style prison and torture center on the Island of Cuba, where we lock up people indefinitely without a trial, as old King John did. These individuals are not there awaiting trial. There are no trials. Our Founding Fathers, would be ashamed.

Shame on you President George Bush (who probably did not know of Magna Carta) for establishing this monstrosity;and you too President Barak Obama (who knew very well of these writs, but succumbed to your worst political motives) for maintaining it.

Adnan Latif was incarcerated on the watch of George Bush and died under that of Barak Obama. They are both responsible for denying him his ancient and well established rights of freedom and justice. When will justice be done and we plow this awful place, which while it stands denies us all our rights to claim we are a great nation of laws, back into the ground?

Get the picture?

rjk

THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER 1986, NOW A NUCLEAR FIRE-STORM THREAT

In April 1986, now more than a quarter century ago, an explosion and fire rocked the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union, in what is now the Ukraine. The explosion released a huge plume of smoke, dust and particles laced with dangerous long-lived radionucleides such as strontium and cesium which spread over parts of central Europe. In the following days it drifted west over Poland, Germany, and even as far west as the UK. Close to the plant, more than 330,000 people had to be evacuated from severely contaminated areas. Though the results are still being tabulated, it is widely estimated that there were over 4000 deaths directly attributable to the event. The effects in other areas less severely affected are more subtle and have been showing up over time. (The well-understood effect of how radionucleides can slowly bioaccumulate in odd places and unexpected plants and animals was manifested in the dangerously radioactive wild hogs in Germany's Schwartzwald, as one example.)

Scientific evidences now indicate that the accident is or will be responsible for 25,000 to 60,000 excess cancer deaths (though some groups like Greenpeace put this number at more than 200,000). The total cost in dollars to the nation of Belarus, center of the disaster, is estimated by some economists to be more than 250 billion US dollars for a thirty year period.

The zone of exclusion, an area which is so radioactive that no inhabitants can return to it for the next 20,000 years(!) extends about 20 miles in all directions from the center--the ruin of the nuclear power plant. This zone covers an area of 1257 square miles. It is scattered with abandoned villages, towns and cities. Its farms and homes lay in isolated ruin. In the more than quarter century since 1986, this area including more than one milllion acres of rich agricultural land, and an equal area of original forest, all heavily contaminated by fall-out from the plant explosion with cesium and strontium radionucleides, have reverted to nature--though a nature which is laced with lethal radioactivity. In this region, radioactive forests have continued to grow unaltered and much of the former rich farm land has also reverted to forest. These mostly pine forests in the excluison zone are untended and unharvested. Larger trees blow down in storms and brush and undergrowth accumulate to form fire hazards in dry weather.

Now in the late summer of 2012, the region of central Europe, possibly as a result of global warming and climatic trends, have experienced more frequent droughts and are subject to frequent summer and late fall thunder storms and lightning strikes---and lightning-generated forest fires. The excessive accumulation of brush, dead-falls and persistent drought makes forest fires more likely. If small fires are not contained and extingusihed promptly, they could engulf the entire exclusion zone in an all-consuming forest fire---a massive conflgration. But this would not be an ordinary big fire, with its relatively innocuous gases, and particulates. The particles rising on the hot air of this conflagration would be radioactive---a radioactive fire storm! Russian scientists estimate the huge cloud of particulates and gases from such a fire storm would be equivalent to that produced by the detonation of a nuclear bomb in the heart of central Europe! We are not passsed the threats and problems of Chernobyl!

Which brings up the question of the actual costs of nuclear power.

In the last quarter century, we have witnessed the frightening obverse of the nuclear power coin. The side nuclear power proponents always want to hide from us. The always present and all too likely consequences of human error and chance---nuclear disaster, distruction, radioactive contamination, long-term exclusion zones, and cancer deaths. After Chernobyl in 1986 we became wary and unsure of nuclear power saftey, but last year's disaster of Fukushima in Japan --- still smoldering since its March 11, 2011 earthquake-inundation-and-meltdown, followed now by the threat of a nuclear-forest fire in Chernobyl has (or should) convince the critical thinkers among us that a cost-to-benefit-ratio analysis of nuclear power falls much too heavily on costs and long-term negative effects. Recall that the Fukusima tragedy resulted in the rupturing of the containment vessels and releases of massive amounts of radioactivity into the air, and when the plant operators were forced to use sea water in a vain attempt to cool the melting reactors --releases of radionuclides into the Pacific ocean. Today, with Fukushima still a smouldering radioactive ruin sitting in a 12 km exclusion zone, and Chernobyl, its threat renewed as a result of its potential for a radioactive fire storm, the world is threatened by sources of nuclear contamination which can effect us all.

Is it not time now to revisit the actual costs of nuclear power? In retrospect what was presented to us as a safe, nay even desirable alternative to fossil-fuel power generation was the nuclear alternative....but today it is clear in view of Fukushima and the continuing saga of Chernobyl that those cost benefit analyses were flawed. It is time to make plans, as Germany has ,and now most recently, (Setember 2012) France, under Socialist Prime Minister Hollande has too, of retiring it's nuclear generators and moving toward cheaper and safer alternatives.

Get the picture?

rjk

CLONING A MAMMOTH--GET THE CELLS FIRST!

DISPATCH FROM FRANCE

Liberation. fr, September 12, 2012

"LIVING CELLS OF A MAMMOTH, DISCOVERED IN RUSSIA"

"Russian scientists have affirmed that they have discovered in Sibiera, with colleagues from South Korea, cells of the mammoth with their nuclei apparently alive, which could, perhaps, permit the cloning of these pachyderms which have been lost form the surface of the earth for thousands of years.

Semen Grigoriev, head of the expedition, has stated that the group had discovered about twenty samples of mamouth tissue, of which some have preserved their nucleus, apparently still alive.About a score of explorers, of which seven are Russians from the Federal University of Iakoutie and four South Korean experts from the SOOAM Foundation for Biotechnology, have searched all the month of August for material suitable for cloning on the Iana River about 2,000 km north of Iakoutsk Eastern Siberia.

The local inhabitants search for the tusks of the mammoths which they utilize for artisanal projects or for resale. (They no doubt helped locate possible dig sites. rjk).

"On the 27th of August, after having excavated a number of bones of stags and rhinos, we, were almost ready to abandon or search when: at the depth of 300 feet we found a number of pieces of fatty substance, jelly-like in the permafrost, with hair and bones of the mammoth which contained marrow, and which were covered with muscular tissue, (the bone marrow) usable for cloning, according to the South Korean experts," recounted Dr. Grigoiev. "Thanks to a special solution, which tints the DNA , we have been able to observe, under the electron microscope immediately, that the nuclei of certain cells of the marrow were blue, thus living" he has added.The South Korean Hwang Woo Suk, a pioneer in cloning animals who participated in the expedition, "has been very satisfied (with the materials)" stated Dr. Grigoriev.

"If the results are confirmed in the laboratory in Seoul, these nuclei of somatic cells which contain the complete genome of the species could permit us to proceed to cloning a mammoth, as previously agreed to with SOOAM", has explained Sergueï Fedorov, of the Museum of Mammoths in Iakoutsk.

The accord signed in March between SOOAM and the Federal University of Russia envisions joint research with a view to creating a mammoth, lost from the surface of the earth for the last 10,000 years.

Hwang Woo-Suk is a specialist in cloning. He has announced having realized two "world firsts". He has had two worlds firsts in 2004 and 2005, affirming having extracted (souche) body cells from human embryos for cloning. However, some other geneticists have rapidly countered that the researcher was accused of questionable or falsified results and may have obtained these cells accidentally by parthenogenesis rather than by cloning. Dr Hwang never-the-less remains the author known as the first scientist to clone a dog, known as "Snuppy" in 2005.

The samples of mammoth tissues recovered in the Siberian permafrost, "will be expedited to SOOAM in October, in which time we will have received the permission for its release from Russia", has added Mr. Federov.

The first step of cloning , the most difficult, will be to restore the cells in isolation in well preserved tissues, having genes in a good state of preservation. Following that they must transfer the nuclei of the mammoth cells into the enucleated ovuoles of an elephant, with the result of producing embryos having the DNA of a mammoth, who which will be emplaced in the uterus of a Asian elephant.The scientists admit that their chances of success are weak, but think that the cloning is possible.About a dozen species of animals have been, to date successfully cloned, of which some apes, a mouse (1997), a pig (2000), and a coyote in 2011."

Quoted from:Liberation.fr

September 12, 2012.

Translation from the French by rjk

THE DANGER OF LIVING IN THE "PERPETUAL UTTERANCE OF SELF-APPLAUSE"

The popular song of the WW I era, "How will you keep 'em down on the farm (after they've seen Paree)?" (by Lewis, Young and Donaldson, 1918) underscored the troubling question about the perceptions of returning doughboys and how they might change once they were exposed to the wider more sophisticated world in Europe. Perhaps Lewis and Young who wrote the lyrics were aware of our isolation, and insularism, and saw it as a potential problem as far back as the outbreak of WWI, nearly a hundred years ago. Today, that problem has not ameliorated much, even with all our scintillating technology, i-pads, i-pods and i-phones, pulsing internet, a decade of deploying hundreds of thousands of troops to the Middle East,(and still little change in interest in the languages and cultures there) and our frequent TV watching and movie-going. We continue as a big, isolated nation, ignorant and unconcerned about what is really going on beyond our shores. Much of this is a result of our history, our great physical size and our pride, but neither can we deny our poor educational outcomes, and embarrassing lack of interest in foreign languages and intolerance of other cultures. This ignorance prevents our citizenry from establishing a meaningful "national yardstick" with which they could compare our nation with others. Most of our national leaders would discourage such kind of thinking. They would rather keep the vast majority of us ignorant.

Too often, I hear people, like a relative of mine---(name withheld to avoid embarrassment)---who shuns foreign excursions--his reason: "We are the greatest nation in the world. What do I gotta see, in France?"

The problem with America may be that too many of us "ain't seen Paree", rather than too few.

Which brings to mind an interesting piece entitled: "America's season of hollow boastfulness", by Edward Luce, which appeared in the Financial Times, (September 9, 2009). The author examines the tendency of our politicians (and unquestioning journalist corps) to be over-expansive or jingoistically boastful about America during this 2012 campaign.Politicians in the throes of a campaign seem to be obliged, according to Luce, to favor swagger, boast, and national-aggrandizement as a means of attempting to increase their popular vote---though they almost always avoid discussion of our real and pressing problems. According to him, this unpleasant trend is especially apparent during this 2012 campaign. Luce states: "Tucked into Mitt Romney’s recent acceptance speech was a line that captured the hubristic side to America’s 2012 campaign. Praising Neil Armstrong, Mr Romney said the astronaut personified the American character: “That unique blend of optimism, humility and the utter confidence that when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American......He added the obligatory line – also common among Democrats – that the US is 'the greatest nation in the history of the world'".

Luce reminds us that "from the nation’s birth, America’s leaders have detected the hand of providence in its journey. But since the attacks of September 11, 2001, oratorical jingoism has become blunter and more widespread. Alexis de Tocqueveille said that Americans lived in “the perpetual utterance of self-applause. To one degree or another most nations now share that impulse. But America has entered a new season of hollow boastfulness."

Luce digs for examples of historic American braggadocio from as far back as President Lincoln, who, used the line ( “last best hope of earth"), Franklin Roosevelt (“nothing to fear but fear itself”), Ronald Reagan (“shining city on a hill”), and even Michelle Obama (“the greatest nation on earth”).

Luce claims that our modern election campaigns indulge in hollow boasts and "in national denial". He states, "Whether you call it a one-way conversation or a dialogue of the deaf, campaign 2012 is steeped in denial."The US has real problems and deficiencies but who will face them or begin to seek a solution if our leaders saturate us with, "hollow boastfulness" or engage in "perpetual utterances of self-applause"? Who will listen to those that suggest change if there is no belief that change is necessary.

But on the other hand, we don't have to seek too far to establish facts that will help clear the miasma created by the blow hard politicians, crowing over American greatness and exceptionalism and ignoring our problems which beg for solution.

In a study of modern economic theories I discovered that the model for the economic policy favored by Republican politicians and rightward leaning economists (the Austrian or Chicago School) is known as the the "American Model" and is different from that which is favored by German, French and other economists. How does it work? It doesn't work so good, in fact. It is the model used here in the last several decades and which ended us in the trash heap of the Great Recession. The American model is reported to "promote low wages and high inequality." Wait! That is not good. Nothing to boast about there.

But there is more. Economic studies show that the USA, due in large part to its Republican-style neoliberal polices; has low wages and high wage and wealth inequality. In the US, only 40% of our workers are adequately employed, ( and these data predate the current great recession) the other two thirds are either working for very low wages (30%) or are underemployed. That's nothing to be proud of.Several studies show that deliberate neoliberal polices (supported most vociferously by the GOP) encourage "anti-unionism", and "profiteering in the health industry". I can not write a glowing report to my London relatives about that. In comparison to other modern democracies , the US has "substantial levels of social exclusion" ( meaning not all social groups have access to the same level of education, opportunities of employment, housing and health care). We have higher levels of income inequality than most European nations ( differences in wealth and wages between the rich and poor are greater than other equally wealthy nations and that results in a restricted smaller middle class). Furthermore, regarding poverty--We have high rates of it on absolute terms (not relative to our population size). In education, we have poor and unequal educational outcomes (our kids go through our school, but find themselves un-prepared for employment or higher education). In health care we pay a lot more than other nations, but have poor health outcomes (we spend more on health care but are sicker longer and don't live as long as other equally advanced nations). As regards crime, we are king in that category! We have high rates of crime and staggering rates of incarceration (we jail more people than any other nation in the world). It's easy to dumped into a cell here in the US, but climbing up on the ladder of success is more difficult for us. We have lower levels of economic mobility (its harder for a plumber's kid here in the US to move up into an executive position in a corporation than in any other country in western Europe). So, I can't boast about any of that stuff to my French friends!

Studies of policies in vogue here (i.e. GOP style neoliberalism) with its vaunted "labor-market flexibility" (the term refers to a company's policies regarding hiring and firing employees, and the modern trend toward part-time or "flex jobs) show that such polices do not improve labor-market outcomes. In other words "It ain't good for business in the long run." These circumstances in the US give us no valid reason to swagger.

We got problems! And we got to stop this phony bragging. It only digs the hole deeper. In the end, objective analysis reveals, we are not so good at a lot of things, but it is very worrying to think that we might not be smart enough to know it.

Now that would be a problem!

Get the picture?

rjk

REVEALED: BUSH IGNORES MULTIPLE CIA WARNINGS FOR 9-11; REJECTS CIA INFO ON WMD, CREATES HIS OWN EVIDENCE TO GO TO WAR

In today's (September 10, 2012) NY Times, Kurt Eichenwald, drops a bomb on the ongoing attempts of George Bush, and Dick Cheney's to cleanse their records surrounding the 9-11-01 tragedy. Eichenwald, with his op-ed contribution: The Deafness Before the Storm , points out that President George Bush was very probably culpable for either ignoring a long string of urgent CIA warnings or simple not in charge of his office.

After the tragedy, Bush pushed the blame onto the CIA, charging that they did not provide him with sufficient-lead time or enough information. But Eichenwald's story bursts that bubble. New evidence reveals that the investigative and intelligence services were "banging the drums" from the early Spring of '01 indicating " we have an attack coming". But Bush did nothing. The infamous "last daily briefing book" issued on August 6, 2001, in which the title:" Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" (could anything be more specific?) actually indicated an imminent attack. Bush and administration officials dismissed the briefing as "only an assessment of al Qaida's history and not a warning of an impending attack". It seems hard to swallow, but then our press also believed the nonsense they were offered on Iraq's WMD. Eichenwald gives them a pass on that and concludes that the Bush assessment may have had some validity---but if one only read the August 6th briefing--the last briefing. But when put in context with earlier briefing books the story is very different. The problem that Bush's team released only that last one--August 6, and no earlier ones made such an assessment impossible--until now.

Eichenwald's research indicates there were previous briefings that made the case for a more serious assessment of that last briefing book. Meaning that, looking at that last briefing book in context with the others give an entirely different perspective to how a reasonably alert, responsible, and concerned President would interpret these data. Bush was out "cutting brush in Texas," when he should have been paying attention to the nation's external threats. These revelations leads one to the conclusion that there was indeed some level of culpability in the Bush Administration and with Bush himself who ignored the advice of his own CIA concerning the threat of an impending attack. That attack killed three thousand civilians.

What is sad and ironic is that Bush ignored continued, valid and ultimately imminent CIA evidence presented to him prior to the 9-11 tragedy, when he should have paid attention to them. But later in his administration, in the period preceding the Iraq War, Bush and Cheney, again ignored their CIA advisers regarding the lack of evidence for WMD in Iraq and instead cherry-picked among information the CIA had rejected as invalid (some were statements from an informant known to the CIA as "Curveball") and data gathered by Cheney's accomplices in the Vice Presidential staff (convicted felon Scooter Libby among them). They even worked up information which other nation's had rejected as invalid. Bush and Cheney (with a complicitous Tony Blair) used this phoney data to gin up an invasion and a war that was tragic, costly, unwise and unwarranted. There were no WMD!

Thus the new information underscores the fact that Bush junior ignored valid threats which caused the deaths of more than three thousand American civilians on 9-11 then, manufactured reasons out of whole cloth for an invasion and war which caused the deaths of more than five thousand of our troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. This new reputation of Bush perhaps has us harken back to 37-41 BC and Roman Emperor Caligula who ranked as the worst Emperor of that former world empire. This new information will certainly make it difficult for the revisers of history (Ari Fleischer and Jeb Bush among them) who are actively attempting to wipe the slate clean for the culpable Bush and evil Cheny's reputations. Eichenwald's block buster article and his new book (500 days) will now make that objective very much more difficult.

In fact, the commendable efforts of the former Anglican Archbishop of South Africa Desmond TuTu to bring both George Bush and Tony Blair to trial at the Hague for their crimes against humanity in regard to their collusion during the events leading up to the Iraq War may be strengthened by these new revelations.

Get the picture?


rjk

THE DANGER OF PERPETUAL SELF APPLAUSE

The popular song of the WW I era, "How will you keep 'em down on the farm (after they've seen Paree)?" (by Lewis, Young and Donaldson, 1918) underscored the troubling question about the perceptions of returning doughboys and how they might change once they were exposed to the wider more sophisticated world in Europe. Perhaps Lewis and Young who wrote the lyrics were aware of our isolation, and insularism, and saw it as a potential problem as far back as the outbreak of WWI, nearly a hundred years ago. Today, that problem has not ameliorated much, even with all our scintillating technology, i-pads, i-pods and i-phones, pulsing internet, a decade of deploying hundreds of thousands of troops to the Middle East,(and still little change in interest in the languages and cultures there) and our frequent TV watching and movie-going. We continue as a big, isolated nation, ignorant and unconcerned about what is really going on beyond our shores. Much of this is a result of our history, our great physical size and our pride, but who can deny our poor educational outcomes, and embarrassing lack of interest in foreign languages and intolerance of other cultures. This ignorance prevents our citizenry from establishing a meaningful "national yardstick" with which they could compare our nation with others. Most of our national leaders would discourage such kind of thinking. They would rather keep the vast majority of us ignorant.

Too often, I hear people, like a relative of mine---(name withheld to avoid embarrassment)---who shuns foreign excursions--because, "We are the greatest nation in the world. What do I gotta see, in France?"

The problem with America may be that too many of us "ain't seen Paree!", rather than too few.

Which brings to mind an interesting piece entitled: "America's season of hollow boastfulness", by Edward Luce, in the Financial Times, (September 9, 2009) in which the author examines the tendency of our politicians (and unquestioning journalist corps) to be over-expansive and boastful about America during this 2012 campaign.

Politicians in the throes of a campaign seem to be obliged, according to Luce, to use favor swagger, boast, and national-aggrandizement as a means of attempting to boost their popular vote. Though they almost always avoid discussion of our real and pressing problems. According to him, this unpleasant trend is especially apparent during this 2012 campaign. Luce states: "Tucked into Mitt Romney’s recent acceptance speech was a line that captured the hubristic side to America’s 2012 campaign. Praising Neil Armstrong, Mr Romney said the astronaut personified the American character: “That unique blend of optimism, humility and the utter confidence that when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American......He added the obligatory line – also common among Democrats – that the US is 'the greatest nation in the history of the world'".

Luce reminds us that "from the nation’s birth, America’s leaders have detected the hand of providence in its journey. But since the attacks of September 11, 2001, oratorical jingoism has become blunter and more widespread. Alexis de Tocqueveille said that Americans lived in “the perpetual utterance of self-applause. To one degree or another most nations now share that impulse. But America has entered a new season of hollow boastfulness." Luce digs for examples of historic American braggadocio from as far back as President Lincoln, who, used the line ( “last best hope of earth"), Franklin Roosevelt (“nothing to fear but fear itself”), Ronald Reagan (“shining city on a hill”), and even Michelle Obama (“the greatest nation on earth”).

Luce claims that our modern election campaigns indulge in hollow boasts and "in national denial". He states, "Whether you call it a one-way conversation or a dialogue of the deaf, campaign 2012 is steeped in denial."

The US has real problems and deficiencies but who will face them or begin to seek a solution if our leaders saturate us with, "hollow boastfulness" or engage in "perpetual utterances of self-applause"? Who will listen to those that suggest change if there is no belief that change is necessary.

But on the other hand, we don't have to seek too far to establish baseline data that will help clear the miasma created by the blow hard politicians, crowing over American greatness and exceptionalism and ignoring our problems which beg for solution.

In a study of modern economic theories I discovered that the model for the economic policy favored by Republican politicians and rightward leaning economists (the Austrian or Chicago School) is known as the the "American Model" and is different from that which is favored by German, French and other economists. How does it work? It doesn't work so good, in fact. It is the model used here in the last several decades and which ended us in the trash heap of the Great Recession. The American model is reported to "promote low wages and high inequality." Wait! That is not good. Nothing to boast about there. But there is more.

Economic studies show that the USA, due in large part to its Republican-style neoliberal polices; has low wages and high wage and wealth inequality. In the US, only 40% of our workers are adequately employed, ( and these data predate the current great recession) the other two thirds are either working for very low wages (30%) or are underemployed. That's nothing to be proud of.

Several studies show that deliberate neoliberal polices (supported most vociferously by the GOP) encourage "anti-unionism", and "profiteering in the health industry". I can not write a glowing report to my London relatives about that.

In comparison to other modern democracies , the US has "substantial levels of social exclusion" ( meaning not all social groups have access to the same level of education, opportunities of employment, housing and health care). We have higher levels of income inequality than most European nations ( differences in wealth and wages between the rich and poor are greater than other equally wealthy nations and that results in a restricted smaller middle class). Furthermore, regarding poverty--We have high rates of it on absolute terms (not relative to our population size). In education, we have poor and unequal educational outcomes (our kids go through our school, but find themselves un-prepared for employment or higher education). In health care we pay a lot but have poor health outcomes (we spend more on health care but are sicker longer and don't live as long as other equally advanced nations). As regards crime, we are king in that category! We have high rates of crime and staggering rates of incarceration (we jail more people than any other nation in the world). But climbing up on the ladder of success is more difficult for us. We have lower levels of economic mobility (its harder for a plumber's kid here in the US to move up into an executive position in a corporation than in any other country in western Europe). I can't boast about any of that stuff to my French friends!

Studies of policies in vogue here (i.e. GOP style neoliberalism) with its vaunted "labor-market flexibility" (the term refers to a company's policies regarding hiring and firing employees, and the modern trend toward part-time or "flex jobs) show that such polices do not improve labor-market outcomes. In other words "It ain't good for business in the long run." These also give us no valid reason to swagger.

We got problems! And we got to stop this phony bragging. It only digs the hole deeper. Objective analysis reveals, not only are we not so good at a lot of things, but it is worrying to think that we might not be smart enough to know it. Now that would be a problem

Get the picture?

rjk