A Troubled Republic On This July 4th

As we celebrate this July 4^th, the state of our republic is troubled. Two core principles of American democracy are under attack … the role of government and the democratic process. And the attack is cynically being waged under the banner of protecting our system and our rights from the power of government.

As we all know, the Declaration of Independence’s most famous line is, “All men are created equal,” and that they have “unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Less commonly known are the words that follow … “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” In other words, the role of government is to act in a way so as to secure the rights of the people to equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Both of these thoughts were truly revolutionary in a world where governments were in the hands of and benefited solely those with power and wealth. This new view of the role of government and the equality of all people was the cornerstone of the American republic, despite the fact that it would take almost a century for African-Americans to become legally equal and another 50 years for women.

Over the course of the last century, after suffrage was made universal and all citizens were finally deemed to have the rights embodied in the Declaration, the role of government in securing those unalienable rights for all evolved of necessity to helping the less fortunate through a variety of government programs.  Prominent among them have been universal education, Social Security, labor laws, government welfare, and Medicare/Medicaid.

Without these programs, government recognized that the legal equality of all people was meaningless. People needed to be given real equal opportunity to pursue their rights. Both Republicans and Democrats agreed on this basic principle, but would of course regularly disagree on the particulars of government programs to secure that equality.

With regards to the process of our democracy since universal suffrage, it can best be summarized by the dictum, “One man, one vote.” This means that every citizen of voting age should be able to vote and that each person’s vote should count the same.

Viewed in this light, the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United makes a farce of our democratic process by caring only for form, not substance. If those with wealth and power have the ability through television advertising to in effect control an election because of the disproportionate influence of such advertising, then those with wealth and power have achieved their aims through the back door.  Who votes is of little consequence if the real power lies elsewhere.

Only if candidates are on an equal or relatively equal financial footing can there be the fair contest of ideas that is essential to our democracy and to the efficacy of freedom of speech.

The health of our economy and the business community is of vital importance to the health of our country and the welfare of its citizens. But we have long since passed the day when one would say, “What’s good for General Motors, is good for the country.” The same criticism holds true for the radical pro-business, anti-government policies of the Koch brothers, the Tea Party, and their Republican allies. Our democracy depends on a balance between private rights, the public good, and government.

We are as Lincoln said, a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Let us not pervert that heritage by making our system a government “of big business, by big business, and for big business.” Let us learn from the past, not return to it.

Savings Lives Doesn’t Count If There’s No Profit!

Another example of the failure of American-style capitalism appeared recently in a New York Times report.  There is a generic drug, transexamic acid, which was shown in a large multi-country trial in 2010 to save the lives of hemorrhaging trauma patients by slowing their bleeding.

The British and American armies began using the drug immediately with great success, saving lives of badly injured soldiers.  It is used in British hospitals and is carried in British ambulances.

The drug could save an estimated 4,000 lives in the United States each year  … victims of car crashes, stabbings, and shootings. Yet American hospitals have been “slow” to begin using it.

Why? The drug is cheap.  So cheap that there is little profit in it for its manufacturer, and so it has not marketed the drug, hasn’t pushed it. And if a pharmaceutical company doesn’t push a drug, it doesn’t get used.

Finally, however, hospitals in several cities are now “debating” its use. But in most others, it is not being considered.

This is a scandal and yet another indictment of American-style capitalism. There’s nothing wrong with making a profit. But profit should never be a factor when it comes to providing health care.

If everyone in the health care field … from drug manufacturers to hospitals to doctors groups … were by law required to be not-for-profit organizations, we would not have many of the types of problems that we have with health care in the United States. 

To those who will say that taking away the profit incentive would negatively impact innovation, I say, “nonsense.” Three reasons. First, the people inventing drugs or delivering services do so because they are motivated and have professional pride. Second, drug companies would continue to innovate because new products and increased sales leads to greater security for its labor force. Third, it might actually increase innovation because a drug would not be deep-sixed because it wasn’t going to be sufficiently profitable.

Taking the profit motive out of American health care would more than likely greatly improve the entire system and the quality of care Americans receive, which contrary to the posturing of some politicians is consistently shown in international studies to rank rather low compared to the other industrialized countries.

Energy Policy Ignores the Elephant in the Room: Saving Us from Global Warming and Peak Oil

In current thinking, the issues presented by global warming concern using less fossil fuel and replacing that energy source with alternative”clean” energy.  We are all familiar with the options that are on the table: solar power, wind power, ethanol, and nuclear power. Oh and I suppose for accuracy one should add clean coal. There is also modest incremental talk of conservation.

However, there are problems with all of these “solutions.”  Clean coal, which requires the deep burial of carbon dioxide, will never be politically or economically viable.  For one, the energy companies want to be left off the hook legally if the gas should happen to escape its underground habitat and kill people.  Then there’s the problem of removing mountaintops and the resulting environmental degradation to access the coal.

Nuclear power, at least nuclear fission, has the inescapable and unsolvable problem of what to do with the nuclear waste product that will remain radioactive for thousands of years.  Nuclear fusion, which would be safer and produce less radioactive waste is still experimental; a test reactor is under construction in France.

The remaining “green” options are generally agreed not to have the capacity to provide anywhere close to our massive energy needs.  And even the green options, including electric cars, would need massive amounts of energy … generated by fossil fuels, of course … to be financially viable. Corn ethanol, which has only thrown world corn markets into a frenzy resulting in increased food costs for the poor, has been proven to be worthless as an energy saver.

If one is objective, one therefore has to say that all the talk about substantially reducing our carbon footprint through the use of alternative energy sources just is not very realistic, given our current  and future dependence on energy, which will just get worse as the world population grows and more of it experiences modern development.

And as one thinks about this issue, it is important to remember that there is another energy-related catastrophic event waiting to happen out there … it’s not just global warming. At some point in the future … whether it’s starting to happen already as some argue or will happen in 20 or 50 or 100 years … we will reach “peak oil.” The availability of oil then will be drastically reduced and the price of what oil is available will skyrocket to unimaginable heights.

So if one is trying to plan for the future, the inescapable question that must be addressed is how can modern man live, with a reasonable level of creature comfort (one must be practical), using only a fraction of the energy that is being used today. Only if that question can be realistically answered is there any hope for mankind’s future. If that question is not answered, sooner rather than later our economies will collapse, our standard of living will evaporate … the world will become a very ugly place, not all that different from the futuristic world depicted in “Mad Max.”  We will have destroyed ourselves, not by nuclear weapons, but through our insatiable greed.

I certainly do not have the answer.  What’s scary though, is that I am not aware of any great minds or think tanks that have addressed this issue and come up with various models for how we could live using only a fraction of the energy being used today. No one seems to be thinking or talking about this. This goes way beyond what could be achieved through conservation, energy-efficient appliances, green buildings, and the like. This would most likely require a massive change in the way we currently live.

To my mind, government and industry must join forces in a project even larger than the fabled Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. The future of our children, and certainly our children’s children, will depend on whether and how this issue is addressed.

Rush Limbaugh, Have You No Shame, No Sense of Decency?

After many years of ruining peoples lives as part of his anti-Communist witch hunt, Senator Joseph McCarthy finally went too far in 1954 when he gratuitously exposed a young lawyer with a great future as having for a short time in the past been a member of what McCarthy termed a “Communist front organization” as a way of getting at, embarrassing, Joseph Welch, the lawyer for the Army, which was being attacked by McCarthy.

The response by Welch is famous.  After saying that, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness,” he said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Today, Rush Limbaugh sunk to a far more unfathomable low.  He was commenting on a young woman who had testified before Congress supporting the provision of the Health Care Reform Act that requires health insurance, with the usual limited religious exemptions, to provide free access to contraception.

Although I think it bizarre, I have no problem with him being against that provision, as is the Catholic Church and many evangelical leaders. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. It’s the American way.

But Rush Limbaugh did not just speak out against this provision.  Instead, he lashed out in the most vile, misogynistic, cruel, and reckless manner at the young woman who testified.  Here is what he said:

First he called her a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Then added, “So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives ... We want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

To which I, and I hope all of America will say, “Sir, have you no sense of decency at long last?  Have you left no sense of decency?”

I urge all the companies who sponsor his program to withdraw their support, thereby making a statement that such reckless vilification is not acceptable. It is against everything that America stands for.

You Say You Believe in the Bible?

I think that if someone believes in the Bible as God’s word and thus infallible, then you need to treat everything in the Bible in the same manner, following all of His instructions.  You can’t pick and choose which rules you want to follow and which ones you deem outmoded or not appropriate for the times because that would make it your Bible, not God’s.

The Catholic Church, Evangelicals, and others on the Right use the Bible to argue that homosexuality is a sin, indeed an “abomination,” and thus should be outlawed and not given any support or recognition by society or government.  While the lesson of many of the passages often cited by opponents (for example, Sodom and Gomorrah) have nothing to do with homosexuality (in the case of S&G, it is about violence and inhospitality), there are without question two passages that directly speak to the issue of male to male sex (although the Bible puts it more quaintly, the point is clear). 

In Leviticus 18:22, male to male sex is termed an “abomination.” Leviticus 20:13 goes further and says that those engaging in male to male sex “shall surely be put to death.”  Pretty strong words, no doubt.

But let’s put these sections in context.  The Bible terms more than 60 things an abomination.  Included are:  lying (Proverbs 12:22), eating food that isn’t kosher (Leviticus 11), a proud look (Proverbs 6:16), the proud of heart (Proverbs 16;5), adultery (Ezekiel 18:6-13), lying with a menstruating woman (Ezekiel 18:6-13), and what is highly esteemed among men (Luke 16:15).  With the exception of adultery, no one on the Right would argue that these acts be outlawed or termed a serious sin (with the exception of the Jewish ultra-orthodox … they are consistent).

But, someone on the Right may say, these other acts don’t carry with them a death penalty; we may not believe such sanctions are appropriate in this modern age, but surely that signifies the seriousness of the sin and sets it apart.  Sorry, but that doesn’t work either. 

The Bible says that anyone who curses his father or mother should be put to death (Leviticus 20:9) and that a man and woman who commit adultery should be put to death (Leviticus 20:10.)  In Exodus 35:2, it says that anyone who works on the Sabbath shall be put to death.  Again, with the exception noted above, I doubt that there are many people, regardless how far Right, who would say that people who curse their parents or work on the Sabbath are guilty of a serious sin that should have legal consequences.

So unless those who foam at the mouth about homosexuality being an abomination are willing to have all the other abominations and death-sanctioned acts treated in the same way … ostracized from society, criminalized, and with no support or protection from government … then I say that they should take their Bibles and their picket signs (“God Hates Fags”) and go home and do some serious spiritual meditation on what they believe.

Republicans Say the Common Man Be Damned

In their desire to stop Mitt Romney from getting the Republican nomination, several of his opposing candidates have over the past week highlighted his role in Bain Capital, a private equity firm. They said Romney took over companies not to heal them and make them prosper but to gut them, fire employees, and eventually close them while making a tidy profit for Bain.  The term coined was, “vulture capitalist.”

This was too much for the capitalist backers of the Party, even for some strong conservatives that generally have little use for Romney.  Gingrich and Perry were admonished for their attacks on capitalism.

The headline that the Democrats should make sure is emblazoned in the minds of all voters from this episode should be, “REPUBLICANS SAY THE COMMON MAN BE DAMNED.”

If nothing else the Republicans are being consistent.  Whether it’s their position on companies like Bain Capital or the fraudulent activities of the big banks that precipitated the current economic crisis, or their opposition to any meaningful regulation of the financial industry to protect the consumer and the economy as well as virtually all environmental regulation, the Republicans have only one interest … protecting the interests of their big business donors.  Let them do what they want to fatten their wallets. If the average man suffers, tough.

Next to the positive message of where the Democrats want to lead this country and how that will help the average citizen, branding the Republicans is of critical importance if they hope to be victorious in 2012.  All voters, and especially middle-income voters, need to be very clear on where the two parties stand on issus affecting their welfare.

The Curse of the Job Killers

Once upon a time, there was a group of people, Congressmen and business owners, who didn’t want government to be regulating business. They wanted companies, no matter whether mining, oil exploration, or financial, to be able to do whatever they wanted to do.

But they had a problem because years ago when business had that freedom, they abused it and paid no heed to the negative impact of their actions on the welfare of the general public or their workers. As a result laws and regulations were passed over the years that protected the general public and workers … things like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health act.

Then an economic crisis came upon the land. Unemployment was high and people were worried about their jobs. “Aha!” thought this business-friendly group, if we say that laws and regulations that impact business are job killers, the public will support our effort to do away with these rules, even though they are there for their protection.

And so they started calling all regulation, especially environmental regulation, job killers. And the people were afraid and said that they were against government regulation.

Unfortunately, this is not a fairy tale. This is actually happening. And what’s most amazing, no one … not anyone in Congress or any editorial writer … has to my knowledge called this Republican scam for the lie that it is.

Government regulations, as a general rule, are not job killers. They certainly often reduce corporate profits, but they are not job killers.  And that’s because all these companies will continue in business, regulations or no. No existing or contemplated regulation is so onerous that it would encourage a business to fold up shop.

Now if a mining company wants to remove a mountaintop to get at coal and is told, “no,” by the government, or if hydro-fracking would be prohibited, those would indeed be job killers in the sense that new jobs would not be created. But the public’s health cannot be held hostage to the need to create jobs. When something so endangers the public health, is so egregious, that it’s not a matter of regulating a business  but actually prohibiting it, then that is the duty of government. It is the only protection we have.

All this hue and cry by the Republicans and by business interests is solely a matter of enabling businesses to maximize their profits. It has, with the narrow exceptions noted, nothing to do with jobs. Democrats must destroy this myth or we will all suffer the consequences.