Republican lawmakers aim to cut back or even abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, even though it pays for itself When Richard Nixon founded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by executive order, politicians of all stripes agreed the US needed reforms, even if it cost a small amount of economic growth. Yet, after four decades of the EPA’s helping to improve our land, air and water quality, ask whether we need federal regulation and the answer depends on whom you question. Ask ordinary people in the US and, according to a 2011 Pew survey (pdf) , 71% respond, across the political spectrum, that they agree with the statement,”This country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment.” Ask most Republican politicians, some Democrats and the polluting industries that provide them substantial funding, and you’ll get a very different answer. And this divergence may be ramping up in the wake of the Citizens United supreme court decision , which equated free speech and political contributions. Republicans returning to Congress after the Labor Day recess have a legislative shopping list running gamut from rolling back “job-killing” regulation to outright abolition of the agency . Republican presidential candidates would similarly strip the EPA of its authority or shut it down . As far as abolishing the EPA goes, Mark Schapiro, author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power , tells me, “It’s an economic catastrophe to remove incentives and oversight.” Jonathan H Adler, director of the centre for business law and regulation at Case Western Reserve University, has received an award from the conservative Federalist Society for Law and Policy Studies – and yet he writes of the GOP efforts , “opposing the Environmental Protection Agency, by itself, is not a serious environmental policy.” Meanwhile, Democrats co-sponsoring legislation to curtail the EPA include Senators Jay Rockerfeller (West Virginia), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Claire McCaskill (Missouri) Kent Conrad (North Dakota), Tim Johnson (South Dakota), Ben Nelson (Nebraska) and Jim Webb (Virginia); as well as Congressmen Mark Critz (Pennsylvania), Gene Green (Texas) and Nick Rahall (West Virginia). And, on 2 September, President Obama, as is his wont, sought to assure critics of his reasonableness by arguing that the EPA unnecessarily burdens US industry. The president said that, while his commitment to public health and the environment is “unwavering” , he has ordered the EPA to withdraw its draft ozone national ambient air quality standards in order to “underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover”. Ground-level ozone is the primary constituent of smog , which leads to lung and heart disease. In June, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson testified before a Senate environment and public works committee (EPW) hearing on the clean air act and public health. In July, she responded in a letter (pdf) to EPW member Tom Carper (Democrat, Delaware) that she had opted to review the 2008 ozone standards, rather than keep them in place until the next mandated review in 2013. The Bush administration standards, which the outgoing president had weakened at the last minute in 2008 and are under court challenge . In Jackson’s estimation, those standards are “not legally defensible given the scientific evidence”. Juliet Eilperin, who reports on on science, policy and politics for the Washington Post, called Obama’s statement a “win for business” . And, according to Eilperin, the forestalled ozone regulation may be joined by delayed “limits on mercury and air toxins, greenhouse gases from power plants, and a range of emissions from industrial boilers, oil refineries, cement plants and other sources”. The annual budget request for the EPA for 2011 was $10.02bn (pdf) . Compare this, to the $11.4bn requested by the department of defence for just one family of fighter planes, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 (pdf) . The paradox of curtailing the EPA is that the benefits of its regulations outweigh its costs (pdf) due to reductions in disease and premature death. Of course, in the US, manufacturing firms do not have to pay the costs associated with the pollution . Schapiro, who is also senior correspondent at the Centre for Investigative Reporting , tells me that the fact that environmental regulation is stricter in the European Union than in the US may derive from the US’s lack of universal healthcare: “The economic argument becomes more potent where government … will have to absorb healthcare costs.” Another difference, according to Schapiro, is that the European system fosters prevention (risk avoidance), the US-system favours litigation to obtain compensatory damages. I’d observe that companies are willing to gamble with our health and safety: tobacco, the Ford Pinto, Love Canal and the BP oil spill all come to mind. In the past, the EPA has countered critics of federal regulation, saying – in Jackson’s words – that “[s]mart environmental protection can actually drive innovation.” Schapiro agrees: “The dialogue between ‘jobs’ and ‘regulation’ is endless and repetitive, and in almost every instance, the claims by industry that new, more protective regulations would result in job losses and harm competitiveness have turned out to be dramatically overstated.” Take, for instance, how the US is falling behind Europe in green technology – in the field of solar energy. As Paula Mints writes : “The US was the leader in solar manufacturing until the mid 1990s when Japan took over, offering government support to its manufacturing and its market. Once the FiT incentive gathered steam in Europe, its manufacturers enjoyed one year as the number one manufacturing region. Meanwhile, China’s government invested – and heavily – in its crystalline manufacturing sector and export market, and in 2009 Chinese manufacturers began aggressively pricing product for share (a common practice, by the way). And now China’s manufacturers control the market.” Beyond the economic argument, do we really want to go back to the days before the EPA? Nixon’s first EPA administrator, William Ruckelshaus, describes that time in the Wall Street Journal : “We humans with our big cars and our big factories and our big cities were discharging terrible stuff into the air and water, and it had to be stopped or we would soon make our nest uninhabitable. The public was growing increasingly outraged. Every night on colour television, we saw yellow sludge flowing into blue rivers; every day, as we drove to work, we saw black smudges against the barely visible blue sky. We knew that our indiscriminate use of pesticides and toxic substances was threatening wildlife and public health. “But we didn’t do much about it. Until 1970, most regulation of industry was done by the states, which competed so strongly for plants and jobs that regulating companies to protect public health was beyond them. “Environmentally, it was a race to the bottom.” Which is where our lawmakers will take us again, if we let them. Regulators United States Richard Nixon Pollution US Congress Republicans Beth Wellington guardian.co.uk
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Free-market thinktanks may hide their funders’ identities, but they reveal influence-peddling is rife in British politics Nadine Dorries won’t answer it. Lord Lawson won’t answer it. Michael Gove won’t answer it. But it’s a simple question, and if they don’t know it’s because they don’t want to. Where does the money come from? All are connected to groups whose purpose is to change the direction of public life. None will reveal who funds them. When she attempted to restrict abortion counselling , Nadine Dorries MP was supported by a group called Right to Know . When other MPs asked her who funds it, she claimed she didn’t know. Lord Lawson is chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which casts doubt on climate science. It demands “openness and transparency” from scientists. Yet he refuses to say who pays , on the grounds that the donors “do not wish to be publicly engaged in controversy”. Michael Gove was chairman of Policy Exchange , an influential conservative thinktank. When I asked who funded Policy Exchange when he ran it, his office told me “he doesn’t have that information and he won’t be able to help you”. We know that to understand politics and the peddling of influence we must follow the money. So it’s remarkable that the question of who funds the thinktanks has so seldom been asked. There are dozens of groups in the UK which call themselves free-market or conservative thinktanks, but they have a remarkably consistent agenda. They tend to oppose the laws which protect us from banks and corporations; to demand the privatisation of state assets; to argue that the rich should pay less tax; and to pour scorn on global warming. What the thinktanks call free-market economics looks more like a programme for corporate power. Some of them have a turnover of several million pounds a year, but in most cases that’s about all we know. In the US, groups claiming to be free-market thinktanks have been exposed as sophisticated corporate lobbying outfits, acting in concert to promote the views of the people who fund them. In previous columns , I’ve shown how such groups, funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, built and directed the Tea Party movement. The Kochs and the oil company Exxon have also funded a swarm of thinktanks which, by coincidence, all spontaneously decided that manmade climate change is a myth. A study in the journal Environmental Politics found that such groups, funded by economic elites and working through the media, have been “central to the reversal of US support for environmental protection, both domestically and internationally”. Jeff Judson, who has worked for 26 years as a corporate lobbyist in the US, has explained why thinktanks are more effective than other public relations agencies. They are, he says, “the source of many of the ideas and facts that appear in countless editorials, news articles, and syndicated columns”. They have “considerable influence and close personal relationships with elected officials”. They “support and encourage one another, echo and amplify their messages, and can pull together … coalitions on the most important public policy issues.” Crucially, they are “virtually immune to retribution … the identity of donors to thinktanks is protected from involuntary disclosure.” The harder you stare at them, the more they look like lobby groups working for big business without disclosing their interests. Yet the media treats them as independent sources of expertise. The BBC is particularly culpable. Even when the corporate funding of its contributors has been exposed, it still allows them to masquerade as unbiased commentators. For the sake of democracy, we should know who funds the organisations that call themselves thinktanks. To this end I contacted 15 groups. Eleven of them could be described as free-market or conservative; four as progressive. I asked them all a simple question: “Could you give me the names of your major donors and the amount they contributed in the last financial year?” I gave their answers a score out of five for transparency and accountability. Three of the groups I contacted – Right to Know , the International Policy Network , and Nurses for Reform – did not answer my calls or emails. Six others refused to give me any useful information. They are the Institute of Economic Affairs , Policy Exchange, the Adam Smith Institute , the TaxPayers’ Alliance , the Global Warming Policy Foundation and the Christian Medical Fellowship . They produced similar excuses, mostly concerning the need to protect the privacy of their donors. My view is that if you pay for influence, you should be accountable for it. Nul points . Civitas scored 1. Its website names a small number of the donors to its schools, but it would not reveal the amount they had given or the identity of anyone else. The only rightwing thinktank that did well was Reform , which sent me a list of its biggest corporate donors: Lloyds (£50k), Novo Nordisk (£48k), Sky (£42k), General Electric (£41k) and Danone (£40k). Reform lists its other corporate sponsors in its annual review, and earns 4 points. If they can do it, why can’t the others? The progressives were more accountable. Among them, Demos did least well. It sent me a list of its sponsors, but refused to reveal how much they gave. It scores 2.5. The Institute for Public Policy Research listed its donors and, after some stumbling, was able to identify the biggest of them: the European Union (a grant of €800,000) and the Esme Fairburn Foundation (£86k). It scores 3.5. The New Economics Foundation sent me a list of all its donors and the amount each gave over the past year, earning 4 points. The biggest funders are the Network for Social Change (£173k), the Department of Health (£124k) and the Aim Foundation (£100k). Compass had already published a full list in its annual report. The biggest source is the Communication Workers’ Union, which gave it £78k in 2009. Compass gets 5 out of 5. The picture we see, with the striking exception of Reform, is of secrecy among the rightwing groups, creating a powerful impression that they have something to hide. Shockingly, this absence of accountability – and the influence-peddling it doubtless obscures – does not affect their charitable status. The funding of these groups should not be a matter of voluntary disclosure. As someone remarked in February 2010 , “secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics … it’s time we shone the light of transparency on lobbying in our country and forced our politics to come clean about who is buying power and influence.” Who was this leftwing firebrand? One David Cameron. I charge that the groups which call themselves free-market thinktanks are nothing of the kind. They are public relations agencies, secretly lobbying for the corporations and multimillionaires who finance them. If they wish to refute this claim, they should disclose their funding. Until then, whenever you hear the term free-market thinktank, think of a tank, crushing democracy, driven by big business. • A fully referenced version of this article can be found on George Monbiot’s website Thinktanks David Cameron Conservatives United States George Monbiot guardian.co.uk
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New guidelines asks supermarkets and food shops to use packaging carrying only ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ dates The “sell-by” date on food packaging is to be removed in a bid to cut the £12bn worth of food needlessly binned every year. Packaging should only carry “use by” or “best before” dates, according to new government guidance, while “sell by” and “display until” labels currently used by supermarkets will be removed to deter shoppers from throwing away good food. “Use by” labels should only be used if food could be unsafe to eat after that date, while “best before” dates should show the product is no longer at its best but is still safe to consume, the advice states. Foods likely to require a “use by” date include soft cheese, smoked fish and ready meals, while biscuits, jams, pickles, crisps and tinned foods will only need a “best before” label. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs produced the guidance in consultation with the food industry, consumer groups, regulators, and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap). According to Wrap, 5.3m tonnes of still-edible food is thrown away each year, costing the average family £680 a year – or more than £50 a month. Research shows confusing food labelling is a significant factor. Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary, said: “We want to end the food labelling confusion and make it clear once and for all when food is good and safe to eat.” Liz Redmond, head of hygiene and microbiology at the Food Standards Agency (FSA), said: “This new guidance will give greater clarity to the food industry on which date mark should be used on their products while maintaining consumer protection.” Food Waste Food & drink Food & drink industry Supermarkets Retail industry David Batty guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Turkey’s stance on Israel will reverberate in Washington | Mohammed Ayoob
September 14, 2011 No Comment
The Middle East will never be the same. America must recognise Turkey’s emergence as the region’s pre-eminent power Turkey’s expulsion of the Israeli ambassador , the downgrading of its diplomatic relations with Israel, and the Erdogan government’s increasingly firm position on the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara signify more than a temporary hiccup in Turkish-Israeli relations. It is a clear signal that Ankara is fed up with Israel’s foot-dragging on the apology and compensation that Turkey has demanded as a precondition for the normalisation of Turkish-Israeli relations. The UN’s Palmer Commission report , which justified the Israeli blockade of Gaza but accused Israel of using “excessive force” against the flotilla, has been rejected by Turkey. Ankara now plans to take the case against the blockade to the international court of justice (ICJ). Meanwhile, Monday’s visit to Egypt by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, can be interpreted as an indication both of his support for the emerging democratic process in Egypt (where public anger at Israel runs high) and his solidarity with Cairo over the killing of five Egyptian security personnel by the Israelis in Sinai . His announcement that he intends to visit Gaza is further indication that Turkey is ratcheting up its support for the Palestinian cause, especially in the run-up to the UN vote on Palestinian statehood. What Erdogan does in Egypt will be keenly watched throughout the region. The Turkish mood was summed up by the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu , who stated: “The time has come for Israel to pay a price for its illegal action. The price, first of all, is being deprived of Turkey’s friendship.” While Davutoglu has indicated that an Israeli apology for the flotilla attack and compensation for the dead and wounded could restore normal diplomatic ties, Erdogan has made clear that Israel must end its naval blockade of Gaza for this to happen. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has declared emphatically that Israel will not tender an apology. While his stance may be dictated by coalition politics, it has created a diplomatic impasse. The Obama administration – worried about the ramifications of a major rift between Israel and Turkey for US strategic interests but afraid of taking on the Netanyahu government for domestic reasons – has not put any pressure on Israel. It thus risks alienating Turkey, a crucial Nato member. This diplomatic episode has important implications for the future of the Middle East. First, it demonstrates that Israeli dominance of the eastern Mediterranean will no longer go unchallenged. Erdogan has made clear that the Turkish navy will play a more active role in the area, and Turkish sources have indicated that it may even escort flotillas carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. Any future attempt by Israel to prevent aid from reaching Gaza could spark a military confrontation. Second, it demonstrates that Israel’s defiance of international law, especially regarding its treatment of the occupied territories, will face increasing challenges in international forums. A referral to the ICJ will bring to the fore Israel’s violation of provisions of the fourth Geneva convention that prohibit the demographic transformation of occupied lands, as well as its responsibility regarding the welfare of the occupied population. The issue of West Bank settlements will again become a topic of heated debate. Such debate will emphasise that the Obama formula of “land swaps”, in which Israel would keep major Jewish settlements even if a two-state solution were reached, contravenes international law. This, combined with Palestinian efforts to have the state of Palestine recognised by the UN , will add to an already volatile situation in the region. Third, the Turkish stance, coming in the wake of democratic uprisings in the region, will further align Turkey with mainstream Arab opinion on Palestine and Israeli occupation. This will boost Turkish standing in the Arab world and put increasing pressure upon Arab governments to take a more active role on Palestine. Countries in democratic transition are already under domestic pressure to take a harder line with Israel, and there is talk of Egypt and Jordan withdrawing their ambassadors, following Turkey’s example. Fourth, it is clear that the current Turkish position would have not been possible without the consolidation of Turkish democracy. Not only must foreign policy now respond more directly to pressure from the electorate, but the elected government can finally pursue its policies without fear of military intervention. The recent resignation of four leading generals and their replacement by officers acceptable to the civilian government is testimony to this fact. Military top brass, who have close relations with Israeli counterparts, have long been Turkey’s primary pro-Israel constituency. Given the historic importance of the military to Turkish politics, a hard line against Israel would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. Finally, this episode signifies the coming of age of Turkey as a strategic power connecting the Middle East with Europe; it is Ankara’s declaration of independence in terms of its foreign policy. The Middle East will never be the same again. This calls for a major revamp of America’s policy. A just and speedy solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is essential if the US is to preserve its strategic interests in the Middle East. Washington must reassess its unconditional support for Israel and adopt a visibly even-handed policy, including a softening of its position on the Palestine resolution in the UN general assembly. Above all, the US must not underrate Turkey’s strategic importance as the emerging pre-eminent power in the region, and as the bridge between the west and the Muslim world. • Comments on this article will be switched on at 9am British summer time Turkey Israel Middle East Palestinian territories Gaza flotilla Gaza Arab and Middle East unrest Egypt United Nations United States US foreign policy Mohammed Ayoob guardian.co.uk
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Since the Bush administration mired the US in two ruinous wars, Republicans have been divided on defence and security A man sitting in a cave in a remote corner of the world easily predicted the general thrust of the conservative-led response to a major terror attack on America. Once one knows the general thrust, it becomes easy to develop a plan to respond to the response. Muhammad Ali called it “the rope-a-dope”: just when they think they have you where they want you, you have them where you want them. Our enemy has been engaging us for ten years in Afghanistan and eight years in Iraq, with thousands of our soldiers and Afghan and Iraqi civilians dead, and billions of dollars spent. Their most important goal has been to bring terrorism into the lives of average citizens at home in order to affect the political process by creating internal turmoil. Mission accomplished. Since 9/11, conservatives have laboured to build the image that Republicans are strong on security and, conversely, that Democrats are weak. But the facts show that conservatives have been ineffective and inconsistent on national security policy – and now, their myth is crumbling. During the Bush years, neoconservatives labelled detractors of the wars as unpatriotic and weak, and accused them of forgetting 9/11. A Republican refrain was “fight them over there, not here.” The enemy would rather have it that way, too, because it is much easier to fight us on their home turf, in places such as Tora Bora or Sadr City, than for al-Qaida to continually plan terror attacks that take years to put in place and are often discovered at their genesis. Because of the difficulty in tracking and identifying our foes, much of our effort to engage the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan has consisted of pushing our troops into enemy territory and baiting them into attacking. It has taken us this long to understand that this fight involves much more than just “taking the fight to the enemy”; it means building local institutions, government, infrastructure, economies, trust and public support. It has just as much to do with international development as it does with military action. Conservative thinking regarding the Middle East and the Arab Spring has been a model of inconsistency. Some called the events a ” Muslim Brotherhood nightmare ” or blamed the Obama administration ‘s approach for not holding it together (despite homegrown movements and previous decades of inconsistent US policy). Some have called for swifter decisive action, with others against taking any action , even calling it ” unconstitutional “. Conservative positions on Afghanistan range from supporting withdrawal, to “staying the course”; and on Pakistan , they vary from continued support for the government, to taking diplomatic or even military action against it. Over the last three years, the US has caught or killed more al-Qaida members and launched more targeted drone attacks against terrorists than in the previous eight years. Muammar Gaddafi has been in America’s sights since Ronald Reagan was president and Osama bin Laden was the most wanted man in the world since 9/11. Both were taken down under a Democratic administration – without spending a trillion dollars, sending in thousands of ground troops, or taking a decade to accomplish the task. And these outcomes were achieved with international support and legitimacy. As campaigning for 2012 ramps up, Republican candidates are divided, with some having been accused of turning into isolationists after supporting withdrawal from Afghanistan and arguing against the successful intervention in Libya . They still claim to be national security champions, despite many championing defence cuts before accepting even small targeted tax increases. Conservatives were willing to support “regime change”, boots on the ground in massive numbers in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and their associated costs, with much less legitimacy and international support. Yet they opposed the intervention in Libya despite support from the UN, Nato and the Arab League – and without the need and cost of ground troops. It would seem that the conservative view of when and how military force should be applied is based simply on who occupies the White House. The proof is in the facts. Ineffective and inconsistent policies, and choosing politics over security, have led to the crumbling of the myth of conservative strength on defence and national security – a myth Republicans had worked so hard to build. US national security US military US foreign policy al-Qaida Afghanistan Iraq United States US politics Republicans Democrats Libya Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest United Nations Global terrorism September 11 2001 Chris Miller guardian.co.uk
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He complained of being a piñata last time. This time, Perry was the punchbag – and it was Michele Bachmann landing the blows Mitt Romney’s dogged professionalism has mostly been a problem for him in the political world. The same smooth, practised charm – unleavened with not-obviously-practised sense of humour – that reassures investors can strike voters as forced and fake. But give him this: he is an avid student of his own mistakes, and every debate thus far has seen him stretch his emotional range a little. In his tussles with Rick Perry Monday evening (and there were several), he may have even gotten the needle to something like “testy!” His awkwardness with humour and unsubtle way with metaphor still give the impression of someone trying too hard. He tends to pile on figures of speech like an insecure college student: it’s a pay phone world versus smart phone world! Quarters! Being dealt aces! Someone in the Romney campaign was, apparently, an English lit major. But such enthusiasm is probably preferable to the stance so often taken by political candidates in search of a personality: approval-grubbing like a high school principal trying to be cool. Speaking of which, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman continued his campaign for the hipster vote with a reference to Kurt Cobain that might as well have been spoken in that Mandarin he’s so fluent in for all the sense and impact it made. See, Romney’s campaign pamphlet-cum-book was called “No Apologies”, and Cobain wrote a song called “All Apologies”, and Romney is a fecund Mormon and Cobain was a nihilistic heroin addict who committed suicide, so … erm? But at least we know what to gift Huntsman on iTunes! For all his improvements, though, this was not a Romney crowd. CNN decided to co-sponsor the debate with one of the few quasi-legitimate organisations that can claim to represent the “Tea Party” – Sal Russo’s the Tea Party Express . Romney’s relationship to the Tea Party is uncomfortable at best; in the last debate, he dodged a question about being a member of the group – or even agreeing with them: “I don’t think you carry cards in the Tea Party.” He chuckled at his own joke, but no one else did. The avid conservatism of the Tea Party, and the crowd, made for a debate much friendlier to the race’s less likely contenders: Ron Paul – in a too-large suit that only emphasised how lost he can seem when confronted with issues of actual governance – got warm responses for his talk about getting the government out of, well, everything. Rick Santorum was positively graceful in asserting his right to be on the stage. And Michele Bachmann, founder of Congress’s “Tea Party Caucus”, was especially in her element. She attacked Perry with gusto – and actual information – over his approval of mandatory HPV vaccination: the connection between Perry and the drug company that manufactures the vaccine sometimes gets lost in the hand-wringing over “forced injections to 12-year-old girls”, but it didn’t tonight. Perry’s response to Bachmann’s needling showed his weakness as a candidate: he was defensive and repeated himself. He seems to want to focus on being the frontrunner yet not have to do the work to get there. Romney can try to tag Perry as a professional politician, but it’s Mitt that seems to have the polish and finesse (if also a feeling of rote memorisation) that comes with having done a national campaign before. Perry can’t quite get the smirk off his face when he’s not actually speaking. He seems to alternate between rogueish charm and cocky impetuousness. And then there are his policies, which seem to be undergoing a similar vacillation. He can’t decide whether he wants to hang Ben Bernanke or diplomatically show him the door, compare social security to a con game or talk soberly about reforming it. The good news for Perry, if not for us, is that he’s going to get a lot more practice in performing the part of a candidate: there are 11 more of these debates to go before we ever get to New Hampshire and an actual vote cast. Republicans US elections 2012 US politics Rick Perry Mitt Romney Ron Paul Michele Bachmann Newt Gingrich Jon Huntsman Tea Party movement CNN US television United States Ana Marie Cox guardian.co.uk
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Perry may have lost no sleep over Texas’s 234 executions during his tenure, but the death penalty panders to crude bloodlust When Rick Perry threw his hat into the ring for the Republican presidential nomination, it set off such a collective cringe among liberal Texans that it likely scored on the Richter scale. Being a native Texan with basic respect for modern civilisation means living in a constant state of low-grade humiliation, as the state’s size provides an interrupted stream of news stories highlighting the cranks and Bible-thumpers who win state and local offices – but a presidential campaign means exponentially expanding the amount of national and international attention paid to the streak of mean-spirited ignorance that rules Texas politics. With Rick Perry, this means a whole lot more coverage of the fact that Texas is the “killingest” state in the entire union, having executed more than four times as many prisoners as the next contender in this gruesome contest. Of course, we of the non-barbaric sort do hope that all this attention paid to Rick Perry’s willingness to execute anyone on death row – no matter how obviously screwed over by an imperfect and often unjust judicial system – could somehow provoke enough national shame that we actually do away with the death penalty. Which we really need to do, not because we have any great love for vicious murderers, but because the death penalty is a known destroyer of a fair and sober-minded justice system. Once you have the right to kill people, the voters start expecting semi-regular bloodshed as proof that you’re doing your job, creating incentives for prosecutors and politicians to cut corners to get those voter-pleasing cadaver numbers up. Each new generation of prosecutors and politicians feels pressure to “best” their predecessor in the number of executions carried out, lest they face accusations of being soft on crime. Which explains why they soon find themselves where Rick Perry stands, having executed 234 people , many of whom had highly corrupt trials and at least one of whom is most likely innocent. For those who haven’t read the tale of Cameron Todd Willingham, I implore you to read the New Yorker article recounting the case of a man executed for killing his three children based on shoddy evidence and prosecutorial willingness to introduce Willingham’s love of Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin as evidence in order to stoke the prejudices of a Bible Belt jury that was high on fundamentalist tall tales about the Satanic influence of rock music. When presented with an opportunity to spare Willingham’s life, Perry declined, and in 2004, Willingham was executed by lethal injection. His case has come to symbolise the circus atmosphere around capital murder cases, and the way that the eagerness to see someone pay the ultimate price for the loss of innocent human life causes law enforcement and politicians to make a mockery out of the idea of justice. Since Rick Perry, by his own admission, has never lost sleep over the execution of a likely innocent man, you can bet justice doesn’t stand a chance when it comes to cases where the fact of homicide is indisputable. The public’s desire to get blood for blood – especially if they can view the accused as an outsider – turns concerns about due process to dust for anyone whose job depends on a high conviction rate. Subsequently, death penalty cases where the prosecution won a clean conviction without relying on shoddy evidence or a jury’s unfair prejudices are the rare gems in a sea of corruption. The case of Duane Buck , scheduled to be executed this week, demonstrates how the death penalty is more about hustling prisoners to the execution chamber to score points with the public than it is securing just and safe outcomes. Even hyper-conservative Senator John Cornyn, once Texas’s attorney general, wanted Buck’s case reviewed, due to a prosecutorial witness’s claim that Buck was more likely to be violent in the future because he’s black. That someone’s race was overtly invoked as a reason to kill him during trial should be indicator enough that the death penalty has meaning for the public beyond alleviating concerns about violent crime. But evidence of racism invoked during the trial probably won’t bother Perry: if he had a conscience about signing off on overtly unfair executions, it probably stopped bothering him somewhere much earlier in his run of 234 executions as Texas governor. The death penalty is wrong not because murderers deserve better, but because the death penalty appeals to the worst instincts of humanity. We see innocent people die, and our lizard brains want to believe that it won’t be right until someone pays for blood with blood. That desire starts to overrule all other priorities. Our desire for a fair trial system and our desire to treat people equally despite racial differences are the first to go. But given enough time, we’re even willing to send a man to the death chambers for what appears to have been an accident. Three small children are dead, and we want someone to pay, no matter the innocence of the someone we select. Perry’s willingness to execute a man who was almost certainly innocent comes uncomfortably close to regressing to the days of human sacrifice. Sacrificing an innocent man won’t prevent other houses from accidentally catching fire and killing the innocent people inside, but it’s clear that Perry will not hesitate to pander to voters who cling to hopes that periodic blood-letting will somehow save us all. Capital punishment Rick Perry Texas United States Amanda Marcotte guardian.co.uk
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The heart of our political malaise is that the middle class, so long a powerhouse of US prosperity, is being crushed as never before No one can accuse the candidates on stage at Monday’s Republican debate of not discussing a broad range of topics. They talked about big issues like social security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, energy independence, repealing healthcare reform and the need for job creation. And they talked about small issues for political point-scoring: like HPV vaccines for girls. But missing from the debate – and, in fact, much current discussion of America’s politics – is the single biggest issue facing the country: the destruction of the American middle class. For stories on how America is bifurcating into haves and have-nots, with precious little in between, you have to dive behind the headlines of the latest Washington political bun-fight and find the devil in the details. Take a story that appeared in the Wall Street Journal Monday . The tale is nominally one about marketing strategy and it looks at how giant firm Procter & Gamble sells its household goods to its customers. But the picture that emerges is terrifying. P&G, it transpires, is cutting back on marketing to the disappearing middle classes, instead selling more and more to either high-income or low-income customers and abandoning the middle. Other big firms, like Heinz, are following suit. The piece reveals there is even a word for this strategy, helpfully coined by Citibank: the Consumer Hourglass Theory – because it denotes a society that bulges at the top and bottom and is squeezed in the middle. The story contains some scary figures, such as the fact that the net worth of the middle fifth of American households has plunged by 26% in the last two years. Or that the income of the median American family, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than in 1998. Or look at a story in the New York Times Tuesday . It starkly shows how the plight of the American working person has worsened. Solid jobs that once provided a secure grasp on middle class aims (a house, college for the kids, a retirement) have changed to become low-wage ones. It looks at the situation of some Detroit auto-workers, pointing out that new hires can find themselves working opposite long-term colleagues who do similar jobs yet earn twice as much. The system is called a “two tier” wage structure. Perhaps that system can be justified as an emergency measure to keep Detroit’s auto-industry alive and help it survive the current tough times. But, like the Consumer Hourglass Theory, it actually looks far more like the permanent shape of things to come. American society is bifurcating, squeezing the middle class out of existence. The ranks of the poor and low-income earners are growing and the rich are doing just fine – and no one is talking about it, much less doing anything about it. The black-and-white facts of the case should stun Americans on both sides of the political divide. At the start of this week, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders published a report on poverty called “Is Poverty a Death Sentence?” It showed that in 313 counties in America, life expectancy for women has actually declined over the last 20 years. It showed six million more people have fallen into poverty since 2004. Indeed, this week the US Census Bureau has released a survey showing that one in six Americans now live in poverty: the highest number ever reported by the organisation. It also showed that real median household incomes dropped 2.3% in 2010 from the year before, reflecting the decline of the middle class. At the same time, the richest 20% of the US population now controls 84% of the wealth. In fact, so staggeringly unbalanced has America become that the richest 400 American families have the same net worth as the bottom 50% of the nation. I do not care if you are a Tea Party activist or a Socialist party USA organiser, you should be able to agree on one thing, at least: this is unsustainable. Something has to give. But no one in the current political system looks they have an answer. Poverty US politics Republicans United States US economy US economic growth and recession Automotive industry Paul Harris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Declaring war on the military contractors’ invasion of Washington | Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe
September 14, 2011 No Comment
As the budget super-committee convenes, the war industry has begun a huge lobbying effort to protect its taxpayer-paid profits The new deficit commission held its first substantive meeting on 13 September, and the military contractors were out in force to protect their profits. They’ll be working to cash in on hundreds millions of dollars in campaign donations and lobbying spending, and they will deploy their favourite (and bogus) “jobs” spin. But members of the committee should not be fooled. The war industry is interested in one thing: continuing profits at our expense. Tuesday morning, a campaign called ” Second to None “, backed by the largest names in the military contracting industry, staged a “march to the Hill”. These contractors are armed with fresh talking points and backed by 843 lobbyists (many of whom are former staffers of deficit committee members), along with deep campaign donation histories with members of Congress. Every bit of this influence will be used to prevail upon the committee not to call for cuts to military spending in its final report to Congress. The persuasion effort aimed at committee members will be largely an inside game, so we have launched a counter campaign, War Costs , launched with a full-page ad Monday in a Capitol Hill insider publication to call for cuts to the war budget. But since the contractors’ game beyond the back rooms will be waged using predictable talking points, committee members should know that the central thrust of the contractors’ case for continued huge war budgets is false. War spending costs us jobs compared to other ways of spending the money. For every billion dollars we spend on war, instead of education, renewable energy technology or even simple tax cuts for consumption, we lose between 3,200 and 11,700 jobs, at least. War spending is terrible at job creation, period. Now, keep that several-thousand-jobs cost per $1bn in mind when you look at the following list. It’s the amount in revenues that each of the top five military contractors made in 2010, strictly through doing business with the US government, according to their annual reports: Lockheed Martin: $38.4bn (84% of total 2010 revenues) Northrop Grummon: $32.1bn (92% of total 2010 revenues) Boeing: $27.7bn (43% of total 2010 revenues) General Dynamics: $23.3bn (72% of 2010 revenues) Raytheon: $22.3bn (88% of total 2010 revenues) Every one of these corporations was cited for misconduct in 2010 (misconduct varying from contract fraud to environmental or labour violations ). The committee members should remember that when these guys come calling to Capitol Hill, especially since one of the instances of misconduct for which Lockheed Martin was cited last year was a violation of the False Claims Act in an attempt to grab more US taxpayer dollars . The company paid $2m to settle the justice department suit. Between 2007 and the present, these corporations donated $1.4m to the 12 committee members’ campaigns and PACs alone, according to information compiled from OpenSecrets.org , and they have spent $210m in the last 18 months on lobbying . You can bet they’ll spend more, much more, to keep the billions flowing from our hands into their pockets. What happens in the deficit committee over the next several weeks will be a test of whether our representatives can make decisions in the name of the common good, or whether our government really is up for sale. US military US Congress Public finance United States US politics US taxation Robert Greenwald Derrick Crowe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Injury added to insult as Democrats lose New York seat | Ana Marie Cox
September 14, 2011 No Comment
Ceding Anthony Weiner’s former seat to Republican Bob Turner is a humiliation. But voters right now are angry at everyone Americans’ prudishness almost never looks good (or quite sincere) in retrospect. In the case of the special election in New York’s 9th district , which straddles of Brooklyn and Queens, to replace congressional sexter Anthony Weiner, the Democratic party is probably pining for a chance to re-examine its decision to boot the randy representative: Republican Bob Turner becomes the first Republican elected to Congress from that district since 1920 . Conservative pundits claim that the defeat of the Democratic nominee, David Weprin , signals the depth of voters’ disappointment in the Obama administration. That may be true, but it’s not exactly bad news – or at least, it’s not as though it’s much of a surprise. Voters in special elections tend to vote according to whatever emotions are running high at the moment; with Obama’s approval rating in the district running at 31%, it’s no wonder that constituents would strike a symbolic vote against the administration by rejecting the candidate that represents the status quo. It’s just a good thing for the GOP that they didn’t already control that seat – a referendum on the job they’re doing would probably reflect their 15% approval rating. (These numbers reflect Americans’ negative and “negativer” feelings about the President and Congress nationwide.) The loss is embarrassing to the Democratic party, there’s no doubt – it might even be more embarrassing than a member’s inability to mind his member. Certainly, the Democratic congressional campaign committee’s belated, desperate dumping of almost half a million dollars into the race suggests as much. But the election that actually counts – at least, counts on a national level (intensely though poor Weprin may feel this loss) – is 14 long months away. Time enough for the economy to recover – or not – if only barely enough time for Turner to enjoy his victory before redistricting likely disappears the seat entirely (also in 2012). Then again! Turner may get a chance to vote against Obama’s jobs bill, an action that itself could be much more meaningful, or at least symbolic, when it comes to 2012. Republicans are counting on the economy to continue to drag Obama down; how far will they go to ensure that he and it remain as downcast as they are now? Will they vote against measures that have a chance of making Americans’ lives better? Will they water down those measures and hope for the worst? Will they vamp madly until it’s too late and hope to play Obama off the stage? Turner, in his life before politics, was a producer of “The Jerry Springer Show”, a three-ring circus of transvestites who had their uncles’ baby and chair-throwing adulterous housewives. In all seriousness (I guess?), episodes included guests opining on such topics as “I’m Happy I Cut Off my Legs” and “I’m a Breeder for the [Klu Klux] Klan”. Democrats who thought ousting Weiner would conform to Americans’ desire for propriety clearly don’t watch enough TV. New York US politics Republicans Democrats Anthony Weiner United States US Congress Obama administration Ana Marie Cox guardian.co.uk
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