America's National Shame

Last night in New York, a Grand Jury failed to indict the police officer who strangled and killed Eric Garner. Protests rightfully abound. Less than two weeks ago another Grand Jury, this one in Missouri, failed to indict a police offer who shot and killed an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown. Less than two years ago George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin and was acquitted. 

Forget the specifics of each case which range from the literally outrageous to the somewhat plausible. What all three of them have in common is that the perpetrator looks like me and the victim is black. It's not that black people don't kill other black people, or for that matter that white people don't kill other white people or that Chinese people don't kill Chinese people, or that….you get it. Murder first and foremost is a crime of familiarity and intimacy. Most murderers know their victims. The way to prevent murder is to strengthen communities, the condition of which often display stark descrepancies along racial and policy fault lines. 

But that partially misses the point and partially exacerbates it. Why do these type of murders like these only happen when the victim is black and the perpetrator white, why are they carried out by agents of the state whose existence is premised on protecting the community, and why the perpetrator is never punished? 

Setting aside our feelings about the individual officers involved and their underlying motivations the answer is all too obvious, embarrassing, and terrifying. Things happen this way because we allow them too happen this way. We have codified racism in a way that turns the worst stereotypes into self-fulfilling prophecies. The stark and naked injustice is ugly and horrifying. 

Imagine if you will, two young white men walking down the street through a middle class suburban neighborhood and being asked to move onto the sidewalk by a black cop. Assume without assigning fault that the conflict somehow escalated into one in which non-lethal force was used, and the teen suffered some minor injury. What would happen to that cop for causing minor harm to a young white man? Fired, forced to resign, public apologies, a law suit if not a criminal trial? Would there be outrage in a white community if a black cop treated a white student that way? All of those are possible, if not probable, outcomes. 

The "system" is rigged in such a way that the above scenario is implausible. It seems unlikely that a black cop would find himself yelling at kids in an all-white neighborhood even if they, and not he, had initiated an altercation. It's certainly unlikely that he would use any manner of force, but especially lethal force, and you could bet the farm that if he did use lethal force there would be AT LEAST a trial. Already the hashtag #CrimingWhileWhite is trending filled with stories - probably true and false - of white people getting away with things. The tragedies we see are inevitable by design. 

It's not just the legal system that is the problem, although that's certainly a huge issue. From the time they're born, African-American children are more likely to be impoverished and to be denied a route out of that poverty. Imagine all the circumstances that led to Michael Brown even being told to get out of the street and for it to have spiraled out of control. Schools are generally horrible, opportunities are infrequent, financial resources are often inadequate, good food options are scarce. Instead we give poor minority communities a lifeline on subsistence in the form of welfare and other "handouts,"that are morally justifiable because they keep people alive, but do little to improve their circumstances in the face of these systemic inadequacies. 

The racism in the system only becomes visible to most people when it boils to a conflicts and simmers on the surface. Managed in the way it is, our entire socio-political system can be gerrymandered into our prejudicial whims, segregation can be made easy through hard and soft regulation, resources can diverted for the benefit of some people at the expense of others, white police can "protect" black communities by making residents feel unsafe. The odds can be stacked for white people like me and against black people like Eric, Trayvon, and Michael from day one. 

It is all to easy to see why things play out the way they do. That's how we designed it. Did it have to be Eric Garner? Did it have to be Michael Brown? Of course not, but it was going to be some black male and some white officer at some point, not because the black guy was necessarily a bloodthirsty thug or the white cop was a racist punk, but because the inequities in the system - that are glaring when investigated, but largely invisible when ignored - make it impossible for some encounters not to end in conflict. When they do, we see it. We see Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner (along with many others who sadly, remain invisible). And we are rightfully outraged. It is shameful that black men can be murdered without repercussion or regard. 

But it is more shameful that we will allow it to continue to happen by failing to prosecute, failing to provide, failing to care at all about low-income and minority communities and populations. Until the structural inequities are addressed, they will continue to operate as they were designed to do, and sadly more people will die. 

The Knowledge Pit

I very much believe that perception is reality. If I go around believing someone is out to get me, no matter how mistaken I am, everything that person does will seem like an attack. The list of how perceptions manifest as realities in everyday life is exhaustive. Politics, of course, is a stark example. In fact, as we have seen with President Obama, politics can be an extrapolation of the particular manifestation I mentioned above.

What happens though, when perceptions are not reality? After all, our opinions and biases color our lenses, but they don't change hard data. Suppose you think that human activity doesn't contribute to climate change, and that therefore there is no need for us to change our habits and energy sources because the earth is just in one of its "cycles," and inevitably that will change and all will be well. It's interesting to accept that aspect of historical science, that the earth is old and has undergone periodic and extended periods of hot/cold extremes, but not to accept the current metrics of science used to warn us of the microwave we're building for ourselves. What are the consequences when those perceptions and realities don't align? Will that knowledge gap doom us? How do we address our problems if we don't even know what they are or understand them?

In February of this year the results of 2012 survey by the National Science Foundation were released. According to the data 26% of Americans thought the sun orbited the Earth. Digest that for a moment. Just over 1/4 of Americans think the sun revolves around the Earth. Somewhere the ghost of Copernicus is pinching himself to see if he's still dead in 2014 or has awoken six centuries ago. If our perceptions are not rooted in fact, the realities they become will turn out very poorly. Like doctors of yore we will be treating patients with leeches, an appealing thought, I know.

Climate change is a glaring example of the knowledge pit, and has serious implications, but according to a recent study "Perils of Perception" it isn't the only thing we get wrong. If you'd like, try taking the 9-question, multiple-choice quiz yourself…I scored 6/9. When you answer a question, right or wrong, it tells you what the average guess was for your country. In America, the average guess for unemployment rate was 32% and for teen pregnancy rate of 24%!! In reality those %s are around 6% (currently) and 3% respectively. If you think we're screwed now, imagine how godawful things would be if 30% of us were out of work and 1/4 of the nation's teenage girls were reproducing! Societal collapse is nigh!

The disconcerting fear is that our lack of knowledge will harden our resolve to see things our way, to make our perceptions into realities, and that therefore our serious issues will be addressed based on prescriptions for the wrong ailments. It's one thing to think the president is Kenyan, Muslim socialist. It's another thing entirely to think the earth is 6000 years old or that people walked alongside dinosaurs. How those manifest politically is important if we are to solve our world's problems.

I find two important and inextricably linked takeaways in all this. First of all, the knowledge pit separating perceptions and realities is a disaster for our society regardless of your political stripes. Take the 32% unemployment figure. Too far in one direction and you think we should torpedo the budget with welfare payments; too far in the other and you probably don't think we should spend that much money on anything.

Which brings me to my second takeaway: whatever the argument, whatever the issue, there is no way we are resolving it unless we bridge the knowledge pit between perception and reality. The world and our ability to understand it have changed. To think that the unemployment rate is 32% is a tragic bit of misinformation that may alter policy. It is important that our civic discourse and media provide us with accurate, unbiased information about what is happening in the world. But thinking that the sun orbits the Earth is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the laws of nature work. That bodes poorly for the future of the individual and all of us.

If America truly wants to be a nation committed to a nation governed by its people, our society must ensure that we, the people, are up to the task of governing. The knowledge pit that can separate our perception from the realities of the world around us is a dangerous trap. If we delude ourselves into addressing imagined or exacerbated problems there is a good chance the real ones will catch up to us.

Happy Veterans Day!

I truly believe that there are many different ways to serve you country, but most of them do not involve putting your life in danger. For all the men and women whose service and sacrifice enshrines my rights, and whose willingness to be a force for good around the world help protects others, thank you for all that you do. This day is for you.

Resuscitation

Last week the Republican Party came back from the dead, which of course shouldn't surprise anyone, since that is what happens as the political pendulum swings every so many years.

I figured that it seemed appropriate for me to resuscitate my blog as the voters of America resuscitated the Republican Party. So after a 7-8 month layoff, here I am.

When I first decided to revive the blog, I thought I might begin by ranting and/or lamenting the fact that Republicans were able to turn obstinacy into gain. But lamenting that does me no good, and as bad as I have found the Republicans to be recently, the strategy of cynicism is not theirs alone, nor is it new to politics. Don't hate the player, hate the game - I hope for more on that topic later.

For now, then, that leaves me with two topics post election-day: what I think the message was; and what I hope Republicans will now do with their majority.

I'll start with the former. The message, I suppose was clear: Obama sucks. It's far past time to defend the president, and whatever the opposition was - and it was both dumb and unfaltering - the president himself wasn't exactly stellar. Far be for me to talk about his legacy at such a premature time, but no doubt voters in 2014 were unimpressed with the president.

But the narrative of whether voters opted FOR Republicans or AGAINST Obama is worth exploring a bit more, particularly because Republicans campaigned not on their plans to govern but almost exclusively, and very explicitly AGAINST Obama. Behind the Republican surge, there were quite a few more forward-looking referendums, and in that, I see a huge sign of progress.

The real wins for America's future last Tuesday were, I think, the minimum wage increases in Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Alaska. As far as I am concerned, a living wage should be a right. It is easily more important to our nation's future than, for example, the right to bear arms, and I was encouraged to see voters simultaneously enact policies themselves via referendum while opting for candidates who still publicly voice support for the debunked and disastrous notion of supply-sided economics.

I don't buy the common political excuse that the messaging just hasn't caught up to the policy. Truthfully, as far as the politics behind it are concerned, the party supporting these ideas is meaningless, and what is far more important than either political party pushing this policy is the fact that the minimum wage votes were referendums. I can only hope this means that the same flawed economic policy that preceded Obama's presidency won't also follow it.

So the election results themselves were more fortuitous - I believe - than the names of the politicians-to-be would have led me to assume.

Just as importantly, what can Republicans do with their new Congressional majorities if they actually dedicate themselves to governing and turn away from the mindless and detrimental zombie-tactics that have defined the party for the last six years?

The five major Republican pushes articulated here are worth considering. I'd like to explore each, one at a time and as a package.

1. Energy - the only concrete issue mentioned here is the Keystone Pipeline which unsurprising. I don't know if Republicans have ideas for energy other than approving the Keystone Pipeline. It'd be great to see them get some momentum around addressing global warming, particularly through an idea like cap-and-trade, which was born in a conservative think tank, but that will necessitate taking on the anti-intellectual base of the party in a way that legislators may be afraid to do. Still, I have and still do support the Keystone Pipeline - if done in an environmentally friendly manner and as a bridge to cleaner and more sustainable energy. While this, I believe, will have nothing like the desired economic effects Republicans predict, it will spur job creation. If coupled with investment in clean energy, this has the potential to be a win, if only a small one.

2. Budget and Spending - my hopes here are low to say the least. I'm all on board with cutting spending and making government more efficient, but I have yet to see a plan that I think achieves those goals. Past budgets have purported to cut spending, but lacked the math to back up that claim. A budget would be nice, but I fear the one Republicans will likely create will lead us to spend more on bombs and less on books. I await with very tepid optimism the first blueprint.

3. Taxes - this deals with an overhaul of the entire tax code rather than simply lowering taxes on the super-rich under the guise of promoting growth. While that would probably be a cornerstone of any Republican plan to overhaul the tax code, it wouldn't be a bad component if the rest of the outline looked good. Simply lowering taxes on the wealthy is an economic plan in need of serious re-evaluation, but the tax code is currently so byzantine and archaic that a full overhaul should be a top priority for everyone. If it is possible to lower rates and close loopholes in a (relatively) revenue neutral manner while simplifying things for everyone, this would really be a huge win and eliminate efficiency in both the public and private sectors.

4. Healthcare - and here we go…still waiting for the predicted disaster of Obamacare to actually develop. Who knows what Republicans will do now that they've spent years calling the law Armageddon without seeing any real signs of the apocalypse materialize? The Affordable Care Act can certainly be improved, and given that Obama's legacy rests upon it, no doubt he'd be a willing partner in trying to strengthen the law, but are Republicans actually interested in strengthening it, or will they double down on the looming-in-perpetuity disaster? Like the budget, this is a realm in which Republicans have long been short on ideas (unless they've been hiding them). I'm curious to see if they actually try to improve healthcare outcomes and contain cost or if they pursue their redacted history in which America died in 2009 because of Obamacare.

5. Trade - I almost feel as thought this was a "throw in" because it should be such a no brainer to agree on free trade deals that I feel as though there is no better reason than "politics" for why more of these agreements haven't already passed. If Obama and Republicans can't come to terms on trade deals then democracy may truly be broken.

On the whole, there are a lot of areas not just for compromise, but for Republican ideas and ideals to propel America forward. Still, the onus for implementing those ideas now fall on a group of people who have spent six years being too immature to try and make them happen for our collective benefit, and instead somehow convinced the nation that their pouting was a reason to let them lead. If Republicans can overhaul the tax code and create budgets based off a sensible new set of laws, then we will all benefit. I'd call that a big IF, however, and I'm far from convinced it can or will happen.

Nevertheless, I'm going to spend at least the next two years, and probably longer, living in a nation lead by a Republican Congress, so I probably ought to hope for the best and use my voice to encourage Republicans to pursue their good ideas that can help us all.

The resuscitation of conservatism brings the revival of this blog. Here's to a good two years for both.

Hiatus

It's been nearly three weeks since I last wrote, and plenty has happened. Russia is making Mitt Romney look like a foreign policy genius as Ukraine teeters on the verge of collapse; Syria is still crumbling; the House voted to pass a clean debt ceiling hike; immigration reform died; and somehow or another in a recent poll, independents are favoring Republican candidates in the midterm elections. Maybe I'm just unfamiliar with those candidates, but if they're anything like the current crop, this just means independents have gone crazy.

As much as there is to talk about, I don't intend to use today's post to go into detail on any of these topics. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that I will continue to blog at all. I'm also not convinced I will stop blogging, but the more I read and study politics, the more I realize how fundamentally broken our system is, and how my contribution to fixing it through this blog is minimal if not non-existant.

In a previous post, I laid out my views on being what I called a "leftward leaning libertarian." Since writing that post last August, I have spent much time mulling over the ideas within and trying to determine ways to be more proactive.

To that end, the blogging hiatus will continue as I pursue ways to flesh out some of my ideas and come up with solutions rather than retroactively contributing to the noise. There are enough people doing that already.

When the time comes I will reactivate this blog either to resume it or to encourage anyone who still checks it to check out what I hope will be more fruitful endeavors. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Let's make America better for today and stronger for tomorrow.

What's next for Obamacare?

This shouldn't be a real question. In fact, maybe it isn't a real question. In an ideal world - one in which facts and data ruled the day rather than punditry, misinformation, and outright lies - Obamacare would be given a chance to work. Data would be collected, and the program would be judged on whether or not it actually expanded coverage to uninsured Americans and held down costs. For quite some time I've been saying that the jury is still out on Obamacare while simultaneously deploring Republican attempts to derail the program before it ever had a chance to work based on nothing other than...well lies.

To date there hasn't been even a shred of evidence that anything Republicans have said about Obamacare is true, and even if there were, their lack of any other ideas for fixing our broken healthcare system is hard to hide. They've been able to shield themselves behind the wall of attacking Obamacare for years, but behind that facade is an absolute vacuum of proactive thinking.

From death panels to job killer, we've heard wave after wave of attacks from Republicans with no data or even reliable anecdotes to back them up. Until, perhaps, now.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office reported that due to Obamacare, the size of the workforce could decrease by as many as two million full time positions. Obviously this is an alarming headline, but delving deeper into the report, we find that that projection is not based on the stunting of private sector hiring, but on the assumption that as more people gain insurance coverage from outside the workplace many of them will choose to work less. So while the end result is a net loss of jobs and hours, the reason isn't because employers are choosing not to grow companies because they can't afford it, but because people may choose not to work because they don't need insurance provided by their employer.

I see both pros and cons here. A net reduction in jobs - though as the report details, it isn't the jobs that will be lost so much as it is the hours totaling a net loss of two million jobs - could have an impact on growth. Whether we look at the loss as one of fewer hours or one of fewer jobs, we are still looking at fewer rather than more, and generally that means less productivity. So it is possible that by reducing the number of workers and/or the number of working hours, Obamacare could indeed have a negative effect on economic growth.

Of course having said that, we need to ask ourselves what the purpose of economic growth is. After all, the economy is not a living, breathing entity that needs to grow. The whole purpose of a steadily growing economy is to provide a higher quality of life for those lucky enough to participate in such an economy. In that case, this report might not be such a bad thing. If people choose to work less because they feel more secure then we've actually made progress. The conservative counter point to this would be that we don't want people becoming lazy and relying only on subsidies rather than on their own income to purchase insurance, and this is certainly something we should monitor and be mindful of moving forward, but that's not happening yet. And of course, libertarian Republicans should (but probably don't) love the idea of freeing up workers to make their own decisions about how often they need to work to support themselves. After all, isn't that the point of libertarianism; freeing up people to make decisions and take control of their own lives? Giving workers that freedoms seems like a good thing. That's what the American dream is, right? The ability to move from job to job and improve your quality of life? Finally, there is an argument to be made that by reducing the labor force, wages will actually go up as there will be fewer people competing for jobs. Given the unsustainable and growing income gap between the rich and poor in this country and our dwindling middle class, this can only be a good thing.

The question now becomes, which of these things will happen? Will a reduction in working hours totaling nearly 2 million jobs stunt economic growth enough to dampen the quality of life for all of us, or will workers now earn higher wages as a result of decreased competition and more flexibility and upward mobility. I don't know for sure, but I posit that no one else does either. All we have is projections, and even the most recent one is no death knell for Obamacare - though the Republican spin machine will no doubt spend millions trying to make it one.

For the time being, the best approach is to see what happens. When trends start to develop we'll have a more clear sense of whether this is ultimately good or bad, and until then we'll be subjected to the same talking points from both sides that we've been hearing for the last few years. What's next for Obamacare should ultimately be decided once we've seen if Obamacare will be a boon to the American people or a hindrance, but alas, it is very possible that it's fate will be determined well before then, in fact, it's possible that Obamacare's fate has already been decided because of all the negative attack, misconceptions, and lies spread about the program.

I'm curious to see moving forward if Obamacare becomes the job killer Republicans have long predicted - though without evidence - or if it will ultimately benefit the American people. Either way, the CBO report adds a new layer of complexity to the argument, and should elicit a serious and thoughtful conversation from people on both sides of the debate...like that will happen.

Being Israel's Friend

American politicians love to talk about how their support (or America's support) for Israel is "ironclad." If I were an Israeli, this would trouble me somewhat since ironclads were a product of Civil War era engagements. I would feel better if America's support for Israel were titanium-alloy plated or something of the sort. Alas, as an American who supports Israel, I don't see that America's actions are titanium-plated, iron-clad, or even cloth-covered. What I see when I observe America's relationship with Israel is a big brother who lets a little brother run amok doing things that are ultimately detrimental to that little brother's well-being, while simultaneously failing to stick up for that little brother when he does actually need help.

What do I mean by this? For starters, being someone's ally (or someone's friend for that matter), doesn't mean letting them do anything they want to their own detriment. As a friend, it is my job to tell a friend when he or she is engaging in destructive behavior. America seems incapable of telling Israel that the ongoing expansion of settlements in the West Bank is isolating Israel from the global community. Sanctions and boycotts are already coming in from Europe, and as the population of occupied Palestine grows, Israel will be forced into making the decision between existing as a Jewish state or existing as a democracy. Many in the global community already view Israel as an apartheid state, and while many in the US may scoff at that notion, Israel is undeniably moving in the direction in which a Jewish minority exercises control over a Palestinian majority in what is already viewed by the global community (including the United States) as occupied territory, NOT part of Israel.

While the US tacitly condones Israel's expansion of settlements - while paying lip service to the idea of a two state solution, but doing next to nothing to pressure Israel into stopping it's self-destructive encroachment of Palestinian territory - the US has failed to intervene in Syria, a major arms conduit through which missiles flow from Iran to Hezbollah before often being lobbed into Israeli cities.

I've been making the case for humanitarian intervention in some form in Syria for months now, long before chemical weapons were used. But there is a more realpolitik reason to intervene, and that reason is our alliance with Israel. The end of Assad could well mean a decreased flow of weapons from Iran into Lebanon, destabilizing and hopefully delegitimizing Hezbollah. This is a good outcome for Israel, and that nation has already launched strikes in Syria to ensure that weapons are not misplaced or worse.  Helping end the Ba'ath party's rule over Syria not only ends a slaughter and hopefully paves the way for a more stable Democracy next door, but it will eliminate the arms pipeline from Iran to Hezbollah whose fighters, by the way, are fighting and dying next to Assad's forces in order to preserve his regime.

But rather thank taking touch and necessary action - telling Israel what it needs to hear and more proactively ending the bloodshed in Syria - the US allows Israel to pursue its own destruction internally while doing nothing to ward off external threats. If this is what "ironclad" support for Israel looks like, then it's pretty safe to say that the US does not have the best interests of Israel in mind.

I do stand by Israel. I believe in that Israel. I believe in America's alliance with Israel, but that doesn't mean that we should stand idly by while a group of right-wing religious extremists lead Israel country the path of losing its Jewish identity, nor does it mean that we should avoid engagement when Israel could truly use our help. Right now we are failing to meet either of those benchmarks for true friendship, and I would argue that Israel will be worse off as a result. If we are really Israel's friend, we will push them to do what they need to do and give them support when it is needed.

When Politics Impede Progress

The title for this post is so generic it could apply to almost any policy issue at almost any time. When politics impede progress could probably be the subtitle for a book on the history of American government. Despite being able to accomplish some great things (we'll omit the boatload of mistakes they've made), our politicians of operate within an unnecessarily complex world of opaque backroom deals in which the progress of our nation is often of secondary important to the political well-being of an individual or his/her party.

Right now, the issue being held captive by politics as usual is desperately needed immigration reform. Though conservatives have begun moving in the right direction (meaning to the center) on the issue, many are loathe to take real action on the issue prior to the midterm elections because it may fracture the party when they have a chance to win seats.

There are so many outrageous things to say about this I don't even know where to begin. For starters, it's hard to imagine the Republican party presenting itself as a unified group on anything. Republicans in the House and Senate are very different breeds, and no amount of sanity is going to coax tea party candidates from their ensconced positions in districts that have been gerrymandered so safely that blue might as well be illegal.

Secondly, shouldn't doing what's in the best interest of the country be the voters' standard for electing or re-electing candidates? We desperately need immigration reform. Longtime allies of the Republican party in business are pushing for it hard. This isn't a red vs. blue issue. This is a national priority. The only real point of contention is the idea of "amnesty" (which as I've pointed out before, only far-right Republicans could turn into a bad word...), and there are ways to get around this. Even recently some Republicans have said they support a path to residency for illegal immigrants, just not citizenship. That seems like a perfectly acceptable place from which to start negotiations on overhauling the whole system. It frustrates me in the extreme that our politicians won't even look for common ground in their efforts (or lack thereof) to pass meaningful legislation, and that the bar for what constitutes acceptable behavior from a politician has been set so low that his or her first priority is self-preservation rather than the needs and well-being of the nation.

The nature of self-government is that we elect people who we believe represent us and our interests. This system, democracy, according to someone far wiser than I is "the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." Winston Churchill clearly understood that politics can impede progress as easily if not more easily than they spur progress. That means our system will only work well when we spend time thinking critically about the well-being of our nation and then holding our elected officials accountable for improving our situation rather than sitting on a "to do" list until they've been able to capitalize on any particular political situation.

The government does not exist to drive change, but to take the necessary steps to rectify situations that adversely affect the livelihood of the nation. It's been no secret that immigration has need fixing for quite some time, and yet our politicians have failed to act for nearly a decade if not longer. This is costing the nation money, and is creating a "shadow class" of residents who have few or no rights and who create more far problems through the uncertainty of their situation than they do through their presence or actions. It's far past time we fixed this issue, and it's far past time that we the people hold our politicians accountable for the work they've done to improve America, not the work they haven't done to benefit either the Democratic or the Republican cause.

More Rights, More Life

Abortion is a contentious issue in America. The terms used by each side convey their beliefs in the fundamental right espoused by their positions: pro-life and pro-choice. 

Each side makes a valid argument. On the one hand, at some point (I cannot and will not speculate on when that point is), an abortion does violate a baby's right to live. On the other hand, banning abortions is absolutely a violation of a woman's (and therefore a being that we can agree is living no matter how advanced her pregnancy) right to determine what she does with her body. 

At this risk of tiptoeing around this issue, I think it is important to acknowledge the seriousness of both positions, while finding a way to protect the rights of women and the unborn. The ultimate goal here should be to limit abortions while enshrining the right of a woman to have control over her body. Therefore the attempt to ban abortion outright I find unacceptable as it limits the right of a woman to control her body, but as the term implies, pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion, and I do believe that we can cut down on abortions without infringing upon women's rights. 

The way in which we limit abortions is not to strip women of their ability to have the procedure and implement regulations which would govern a woman's ability to control her own body. Rather, we need to discourage abortions by championing practices and education that would make the procedure more rare. The irony of the pro-life movement's focus on abolishing Planned Parenthood is that planned parenthoods are far less likely to result in abortions than unplanned parenthoods. Rather than compelling Americans to stay celibate (a truly lost cause), we can and should be educating people on the merits of safe sex, giving them access to contraceptives and other forms of birth control, and encouraging stable home and family lives in order to increase stable, two-parent households in which children receive the support and attention they need and deserve. 

In short, while I agree with the pro-life's goal of limiting abortion (not necessarily ending it, as there are instances - rape and incest among them - when I think abortion is acceptable), I disagree almost entirely with their tactics and ideas. Legislating abortion out of existence will only force the practice underground where it will become more dangerous without being any less common. If you think a "war on abortion" will be successful, I would encourage you to explore the undeniable and glaring failure of the "war on drugs." 

Giving women the freedom to make decisions on their bodies and health while simultaneously encouraging choices, education, and opportunities that will make abortion less likely are the keys to marginalizing that practice. Denying people their rights and freedoms is not the way to effect change, and it will not be successful - even if, in the unlikely event, it is deemed Constitutional. The pro-life movement needs a new strategy and a new plan to achieve their goals, and it would seem to me that there is substantial common ground for pro-life and pro-choice advocates to advance a goal of limiting abortions through empowerment rather than outlawing them entirely. I believe that if we give people more rights and opportunities, they are more likely to make choices that  benefit themselves and subsequently all of us. In this particular instance I believe more rights and therefore more life is the approach we need to take. 

Sanctions in the Senate

Earlier this week, in the wake of announcements that Iran would hold up its end of the nuclear bargain and temporarily freeze most of its nuclear activity, the Senate was strongly considering passage of even tougher sanctions on Iran. Such sanctions would in all likelihood undermine the deal agreed upon by the US and Iran late last year, and make a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear question even more difficult.

One might wonder why, after all the furor about avoiding "war" in a country that is in it's fourth year of an increasingly bloody civil war - Syria - we would take steps to undermine a diplomatic solution that would help us decrease the likelihood of war with Iran. The onus is on politicians who support tougher sanctions to explain how that course, rather than diplomacy, will lead to Iran giving up it's nuclear program.

War, of course, should be avoided at all costs, and perhaps there some credence to the line of thinking that if we just make things so miserable in Iran that the regime will crumble and the nuclear program will fall apart. But of course, a regime is falling apart in Syria right now and it's not pretty. A regime collapsed in Egypt and it's ugly there too. Same goes for Libya. Perhaps we think that we can make life so miserable in Iran that the regime will fold completely before it collapses, but the Ayatollah can probably convince a significant number of Iranians that life there sucks because of American pressure, not any wrongdoing on his part. What happens then? War? An increase in terrorism? Something else ugly?

Conversely, if we give diplomacy a shot, there is a chance that it will work. Sure, Iran could fail to hold up its end of the bargain, but we haven't take the military option off that table, and it's not as though our intelligence agencies are going to stop paying attention to the situation. What if the Iranian leadership is serious about giving up the nuclear program for sanction relief? Wasn't that the point of sanctions? Shouldn't we try that approach? If we enforced economic sanctions on Iran in order to force them to abandon their aspirations for nuclear weapons, and they are now offering to abandon those aspirations, doesn't it make sense to work with them rather than enforcing more sanctions?

Many say that the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and that he can't be trusted, but for how long will this remain true of Iranian leadership? Certainly not indefinitely. Allies and enemies shift after all. We won our independence from that nation that is now our staunches ally on the planet, and about 250,000 Americans died fighting our now allies Japan and Germany during WWII, a war in which we were allied with the Soviet Union, that nation with which we anticipated nuclear war for decades. It wasn't that long ago that President Reagan was selling weapons to the Iranian regime we find so untrustworthy. Perhaps Iran isn't trustworthy yet, but we won't know until we give them a chance to prove they can be trusted. The deal that is currently in place is a great opportunity to test Iran's commitment to integrity since America and our allies are making no major concessions. If Iran tries something sneaky, we'll know, and not move forward with the deal.

The sanctions in the Senate - if passed - are a setback for diplomacy, and therefore, a step closer to war. While I still advocate for intervention in Syria, that situation is very different, and we should be in no hurry to be drawn into conflict with Iran. Diplomacy must be given a chance. I think if we take that route we will be better off in the short-term and the long-term. Proving that we can work with Iran - if indeed that is is what happens - will do more to bring them into the global community, and therefore more to lessen the chances of future conflict. This is the move that is in our best interests, and while I think the President deserves criticism for his inaction in Egypt and Syria, this deal with Iran is absolutely the right move.

Death by Austerity

More than five years after the great recession, our economy is inching its way towards health. Each month a few more jobs are added, the stock market has rebounded nicely, the economy is growing.

It is therefore somewhat hard to believe that what progress we have made is but a fraction of the progress we should have made. In five and half years we have staggered towards an economic recovery despite many self-inflicted wounds.

I'm talking, of course, about the economically backwards idea of imposing austerity when times are hard. This is most clearly visible in the sequester, but even the failure to pick up public spending at a time when the government could have borrowed money essentially for free and revamped infrastructure was a serious mishap. We should have recovered quicker, but instead we chose the hard way (actually this isn't entirely true, a handful of right wing fringe lunatics running on a platform of lies in districts that are safely gerrymandered chose this for all of us, largely against our will).

But as bad as our problems have been, Europe's have been worse. Why? Because while sensible politicians in America - those who took Econ 101 in college - fought austerity, Europe embraced it.

What does Europe have to show for austerity? Not much worth talking about. The only country that has escaped the doldrums in Europe is Germany, which had been implementing smart economic practices well before the recession. The dose of austerity Germany tried to enforce on its neighbors after the recession - some harsh German medicine - has been a largely unmitigated disaster. Whereas America has been recovering, the lights are still off in Europe.

Yet this hasn't stopped austerity's champions - a dwindling and increasingly quiet bunch - from trying to find a success story, anything to validate views and policies which have been staggering failures almost everywhere, and hence we get Ireland, the supposed success story of austerity.

Now I have been laughing off austerity and the Irish recovery for quite some time, but since I haven't been there and I'm not Irish perhaps you can dismiss this as a misunderstanding on my part. But what better lens through which to view Ireland's woeful recovery than that of an Irishman. They are, after all, a talented bunch of writers, and journalist Fintan O'Toole (what a wonderfully Irish name) has given us quite a glimpse at how austerity has failed Ireland.  I'll let you read O'Toole's piece for yourself rather than summarizing, but the data he gives should surprise no one. O'Toole neatly points out that while you can't spend yourself out of debt - the idea of austerity being that public spending crowds out the private sector and thus inhibits growth - you can spend your way to an economic recovery and therefore more tax revenue without higher tax rates. In Ireland, not only has austerity failed to produce economic growth and jobs for the Irish, but it has actually led to a sharp increase in debt. No growth, no jobs, and higher debt. Two out of three ain't bad, but zero out of three is actually pretty horrible.

And yet this is as close as the proponents of austerity can get to claiming success. This is the where the disastrous policy of austerity has led Ireland, and this is where the US would have ended up had we followed the Tea Party's lead and slashed spending wantonly without any regard for the effects - which is more or less what the sequester was. Death by austerity is real, and we almost took that path. I hope Americans will consider this the next time those who espoused this view put forth economic proposals. The poor Irish suffered for us this time around. Let's make sure we don't give ourselves a dose of their own bad medicine moving forward. There is a time for austerity, but that time is when the economy is healthy and booming, not when it flounders.

The War on Poverty

Last week was the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's declaration of the War on Poverty. Naturally, people of all political stripes had something to say about the occasion, with Republicans inexplicably trying to claim that their platform was aimed at ending poverty, while those leaning more to the left just as inexplicably claimed that the war on poverty has been some sort of a success.

I would counter both of these claims. For starters, the idea that the Republican party cares for the 47% is so out of touch with the policies they have championed for decades that it's almost not worth addressing. It does seem as though there are a few Republicans - primarily in the Senate - who have an idea of how flawed the system is, but the "rising tide lifts all boats" mantra has been emasculated by facts and data, and besides, we now know that in such a system the tide wanes as much as it waxes, and when that economic tide wanes it seems to hurt only the poor. Look no further than our most recent recession in which bankers got bailed out and are now profiting handsomely while unemployment remains stagnantly high. Republican policies got us here, so to claim to be the anti-poverty party would be a complete 180 from the group that gave us the economic failure that is Reaganomics.

How about the more liberal contention that the war on poverty has been a success, or at least somewhat successful. Both Nick Kristof and Paul Krugman made that claim last week and backed it up with some stats that suggest neither of them have spent a significant amount of time in a truly poor area, which - at least in Kristof's case - certainly is NOT true. Nevertheless, the contention that the war on poverty has been a success smacks of ivory tower liberalism. Anyone who believes we are winning the war on poverty clearly hasn't spent much of their time actually attacking the problem.

This is actually the perfect segue into what we should be doing to end the war on poverty, or rather, to end poverty. Despite Paul Krugman's frequent contentions that education is not the answer, I believe that investing in education is the only way to eradicate poverty and create a better society.

In order to make this claim, I will start by examining the problem that inequality poses for our society as well as the importance and limitations of safety net programs.

First, why bother to address poverty and inequality? We are taught that America is a meritocracy, and that our economic system produces winners and losers. The losers should have worked as hard as the winners. This profoundly naive view rests on the idea that America is a nation of equal opportunity, which in fact it is not, nor has it ever been. If in fact, America were a land of equal opportunity, and dire poverty was reserved only for those who were in fact lazy or had severe disabilities, we wouldn't have this conversation. But even Republicans acknowledge this is a fallacy, “Raising the minimum wage may poll well, but having a job that pays $10 an hour is not the American dream,” said Florida Republican Marco Rubio.

So we recognize that there are lots of hard working people who are stuck in poverty. Why do we care? Well, I'd like to think we have a collective sense of empathy, but even if we don't our entire economic and political system are built on the idea that this is a society for everyone. When a substantial portion of the population recognizes that the system is not working for them, it's hard to imagine they will partake in its preservation. Eradicating poverty (or at least substantially diminishing it) is not just a moral cause, it's important for the continued existence of our way of economic and political way of life.

Given that we have done a poor job of limiting poverty to date, we have come up with a variety of measures to help blunt its impact. We call these programs anti-poverty programs, and they are the ones cited as having been successful by Krugman and Kristof. No doubt these programs have mitigated poverty; it's undeniably true that without these programs the situation would be worse, but I don't think of Food Stamps and Welfare benefits as poverty-preventers, I see them as poverty-sustainers. Yes, they give our neediest citizens a lifeline to survival, but if $10 an hour isn't the American dream, I'd hardly think our vision for success would be government handouts. Safety net programs too often do nothing to end poverty, but a whole lot to prolong it by giving needy people just enough to eke out an existence. They are more of a way to assuage our collective conscious than they are a means of eliminating poverty.

Having said that I by no means accept the conservative narrative that poor Americans, the 47%, are a group of money-grubbing Cadillac Queens who only become a little bit more addicted to the sweetness of government subsidies with the arrival of each welfare check. That gross caricature isn't even a stereotype rooted in reality - it's a demonization of people that holds almost no validity. Inevitably there will be lazy people who decide not to work, but we only take offense to those people when they're poor. The jobless who live off their significant other's salary or their trust funds don't draw our collective ire. Laziness is only problematic when it costs us public dollars.

Of course, while we want to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that poor and lazy are synonymous, it is certainly true that we aren't putting our money to good use retroactively keeping people at subsistence levels. So while the Republican war on food stamps and unemployment benefits is rooted in a stereotypical fallacy, the idea that we should curtail these programs is the right way of thinking. However we must do this in a manner that doesn't harm the people who rely on these forms of support.

What does that leave us with? Education, of course. Despite Krugman's oft-repeated opinion that a good education isn't worth what it used to be (he might be right about part of this given the staggeringly out of reach cost of a higher education), the route out of poverty in an ever-evolving economy in which new fields are constantly opening up while old fields disappear is through education. Only by imbuing children with the skills and abilities to critically analyze information and pursue answers will we empower them to chase their dreams, support themselves, and not count on a public handout.

This isn't a groundbreaking idea. In fact, it's the foundation upon which American success of the 20th century was built. The world is different now than it was in the aftermath of World War II, but in the decades since America showed the world the value of a good public education many countries have emulated us and capitalized on that blueprint. South Korea - just one example of many - went from an impoverished and war-torn rural nation to a global economic force by investing in education.

The war on poverty can be won, but in order to do so, America will need to take a page from our old playbook and reinvest ourselves in the idea that education should be a national priority deserving of our resources. Doing so won't only help us create a more equitable society, it will prevent the collapse of the one in which we currently live. If America hopes to persist, education must become our national priority, a victory over poverty will be a nice byproduct of the better society we will build with such an investment.

Mucking up Egypt

Democracy in Egypt is dying before it was ever really born. The Arab Spring, which took off in Cairo, may be stifled there as well. While the world remains preoccupied with the gratuitous violence in Syria and the specter of a nuclear Iran, the Arab world's most populous country has gone through turmoil and upheaval that threatens to snuff the flame of democracy.

America's foreign policy hasn't helped at all. We seem to have completely forgotten that Egypt exists, and for all of the woe, angst, and failure of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, we never even tried to capitalize on fostering democracy in a nation that gave it a shot without the presence of US soldiers. Of course, who needs US troops to protect democracy when there are Egyptian troops to squelch it. When the Egyptian revolution took off, I initially praised the army for remaining largely out of the fray and helping to support the fledgling democracy that emerged after Hosni Mubarak was toppled.

Of course those days are long gone. Mr. Mubarak's legitimately elected successor, Mohammed Morsi, was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and that apparently didn't sit well with that military which deposed Mr. Morsi in a coup last year, ending any semblance of legitimate self-representative government, and ushering in a military regime that has (again) outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood.

It seemed that Mr. Moris was inept, and certainly the election of a member of the Muslim Brotherhood didn't sit well with some foreign governments, but Egypt held an election without outside pressure or interference, and the man was elected. Our silence during and after his coup is tacit endorsement of the tactics of the military and the illegitimate government they have created. The US showed through our silence that we support democracy elsewhere only when that democracy serves what we believe to be in our best interest.

This isn't only hypocritical, it's wrong. What percentage of Americans are disappointed or worse after any given election? How many of our countrymen would have loved a President Romney? Do we revolt when our candidate loses? Of course not. After all, we recognize that democracy is messy and doesn't always yield the outcomes we desire, but we believe in the system, and we make a grand show of pushing for democracy elsewhere.

But we don't put our money where our mouth is, and Egypt is the most recent and glaring example of how America's misplaced sense of self-interest is actually working against us. We allied ourselves with Hosni Mubarak for the same reasons we ally ourselves with the Saudi Regime. They provide stability and a counterweight to terrorism. This is in our best interest, right? It would seem so until we realize that all of the 9/11 attackers came from Saudi Arabia and Egypt (not Iran, not Syria, not Afghanistan, not the Palestinian territories). We ask ourselves how this could have happened, and we realize that our hypocrisy is actually working against us, not for us. What message does it send to the world when President Obama, on the heels of his first inauguration, travels to Cairo and delivers a wonderful speech about reversing our relationship with the Arab Muslim world and fostering a sense of unity and togetherness, only to then see him sit by silently while the very democratic process he feigned to support was undermined by tanks and bombs? If that is leadership, I think we can do better.

I have repeatedly made the case for intervention in Syria because it is in America's best interest to promote human rights and democracy everywhere, even when we aren't enamored with the leaders that others choose for themselves. Believing in democracy means we accept that the person we support doesn't always win. That's what happened in Egypt, but rather than working with Mr. Morsi or denouncing the military coup, we watched idly as democracy took one on the chin. I wonder what that does to our reputation as a world leader and what kind of leverage it gives us to stop the much bloodier uprising in Syria.

President Obama's foreign policy certainly has not been a disaster. He can count some serious achievements among his endeavors abroad, but his handling of the Arab Spring has gotten progressively worse, and the region is teetering on the verge of an all out collapse. Perhaps this was unavoidable, perhaps this still is unavoidable, but it is going to require some difficult decisions and a legitimate support for human rights and democracy that seems largely absent from the Obama foreign policy playbook.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and the Obama administration is fiddling while the Middle East collapses. In Egypt we had a real chance to show the world that democracy does not need to come at the barrel of an American rifle, it can be brought about by the will of the people (ironic much?). But we mucked up Egypt, just as we are mucking up Syria, just as we have mucked up the aftermath of deft maneuvering in Libya. This isn't new of course, since WWII American foreign policy has been largely a misguided affair in which successive presidents get sucked into the idea that we have to go to war against ideas: communism in Vietnam and terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we aren't waging wars against ideas, we are undermining democracy in South America and the Middle East, and with the exception of President Clinton's courageous foray into the Balkans, we've done almost nothing to stop the suffering of people in Africa, Asia, and South America when they are being slaughtered in horrific numbers. Somehow or another, we've managed to do this for decades without ever asking ourselves how it really connects to our national defense or self-interests. Perhaps we haven't asked that question because we know the answer would undermine most of our post-war(II) foreign policy.

The situation in Egypt is just the latest example of Obama's foreign policy failures, and Obama is just the latest US president to blunder his way through foreign policy guided by some inexplicable sense of American interest that supposedly justifies most of our actions, but has in fact left us weaker than we would be otherwise.

America foreign policy is in need of a serious reboot. I suggest the president start by formally condemning the coup against a democratically elected president. It might be too late to stop Egypt's descent into chaos, but if we are going to turn around decades worth of bad decisions we have to start somewhere.

New Year's Resolutions

New year, now what? Four days into 2014, I'd like to take a moment to politely ask the men and women of Congress make 2014 a year of legislation and policy. I'd hope that Congress's new year's resolution would be to do something, anything really.

What could they do, and what should they do? Well, lots of things, but since I doubt Congress will come up with its own "to do" list in 2014, I'm going to make one for them. Below are my new year's resolutions for Congress.

1. Immigration reform. This really shouldn't be that hard since a bipartisan bill has already been passed by the Senate and is just waiting around to be debated by the House, which last year had more useful things to do like symbolically repeal Obamacare 40 times.  However, 2014 started auspiciously for immigration reform as an unlikely ally endorsed change. Perhaps John Boehner's new year's resolution was not to be the Tea Party's lapdog.

2. An energy policy. This should come from the president, but Congress can spur him to act as well. The president should begin by approving the Keystone Pipeline and establishing regulations for safe fracking so that we can exploit the bounty of natural gas upon which we are floating. Simultaneously we should be upping our standards for efficiency and cleanliness and encouraging research into more sustainable alternatives. In addition to exploring sustainable alternative energy sources, we need to develop technologies to harness them, such as high-capacity batteries, and technologies that can make the dirty energy sources we use cleaner.

3. I was mildly encouraged by the budget that was passed last month, not because it was at all substantive, but because it existed. The political implications were more important than the budget itself,  and I remain optimistic that it can be used as a springboard to reasonable and cooperative governance. A more thoughtful budget that encourages spending on infrastructure and education while making necessary adjustments to entitlement spending and cutting out inefficient military spending would be a great start.

This is ambitious, and I doubt the federal government - including the president - will commit to my new year's resolutions. But I think this is achievable, and I think that immigration reform and a budget could become realities. I don't want to get too excited, but a new year means new resolutions. Let's hope our government resolves to govern.