Brewer's Tavern |
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No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself. The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern. I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Dogs and ChildrenI never owned a dog before. Lived in too many apartments, and could see no reason to pay a $300 pet deposit so that I could have another responsibility thrown upon me. Then a few years ago I bought a house with a fenced yard, and my son got married. His wife arrived and immediately announced that she wanted a dog. So? We got a White West Highland Terrier, and an orange domestic cat to keep him company while we were all at work. The cat has destroyed every window blind in the house. The dog has adapted to us quite nicely - what can I say? Then my daughter-in-law [softy that she is] found a starving dog near her work and when no one else volunteered, brought her home to us. OK. Sweet little animal, and now that she has filled out more, she is both social and quite trainable. Apparently she is a sheltie and something mix, still quite slender after a year. I have found that it is quite relaxing and enjoyable for me to let them out into the back yard and watch them play. They are, of course, pack animals and are concerned about each other member of the pack. Humans are also pack animals, and recognize the dog pack behavior. The dogs greet each of us as we come home, and each dog will occasionally come into the room and simply check up on whoever is there, then, if nothing fun is happening, leave and look for something more interesting. That was the behavior I was taught in the Army. Always keep track of your buddies, and watch out for them. The first thing to do after being attacked is to check with those around you - all them - and determine how and where they are. It is embodied in the Army philosophy that no one is left behind. The Army calls it "unit cohesion". I call it "Pack behavior." Watch small children with their families in a restaurant or the grocery store. The small child will be watching children just a little bit older than they are to determine what they are doing and as soon as possible, will copy that behavior. They will be absolutely delighted to somehow be included in what the adults are doing. Again - pack behavior. It is hard-wired into dogs and children. It is the first method we have of learning. We copy the behavior of those a little older than we are, and look for the approval of the leaders of the pack. Which brings me to my point. How do you teach a child to read? Have him or her read to his dog. The dog is a pack member, and it is emotionally rewarding for a small pack animal to relate to another member of the pack. Teacher's Pet Project Nothing To Bark At I'd have been more comfortable rearing children if I had had dogs first. At their best, they are a lot alike. | Greenspan Opposes Tax CutsGreenspan stated to Congress: (CBS) Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has again stated his opposition to President Bush's tax cut package if those reductions aren't offset by other steps to avert huge deficits. Read the full article. Question: Does Bush really want to pass the tax cuts, or is he after an election issue that will get his trogolyte voters to come out to vote for him? | What Free Media?Paul Krugman reports the following story: Did the news media feel that it was unpatriotic to question the administration's credibility? Some strange things certainly happened. For example, in September Bush cited an International Atomic Energy Agency report that he said showed that Saddam was only months from having nuclear weapons. "I don't know what more evidence we need," he said. In fact, the report said no such thing -- and for a few hours the lead story on MSNBC's Web site bore the headline "White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq." Then the story vanished -- not just from the top of the page, but from the site. When Hitler attacked Poland, he had a number of prisoners dressed in Polish uniforms killed on the Polish-German border, and claimed that he was responding to a Polish attack. There is NO difference in the propaganda effort used by bush to justify the attack on Iraq. None. | The Bush Administration is taking Lessons from Red China on how to deal with Civil LibertiesFor a list of threats to Civil Liberties, look at this article in the Village Voice Even Grover Norquist is getting together with the ACLU to monitor and eliminate the threats to our American Civil Rights. Conservatives Rise for the Bill of Rights!. Any Bill entitled "the Patriot Act" should automatically be voted against - it is so entitled so that one who votes against it is subject to 15 and 30 second TV soundbites questioning his patriotism. Similarly, any Bill passed during wartime should be sunsetted. Senator Orrin Hatch has introduced legislation to remove the sunset provision of the Patriot Act. How long until this administration brings tanks in to control demonstrations such as that at Tienamin Square? | No WMD's in Iraq??The Christian science Monitor reports that the top Iraqi prisoners deny Iraq had WMDs. The report provides its own skepticism, but what if it is true? High-ranking Iraqi prisoners are uniformly denying Saddam Hussein's government had any weapons of mass destruction before the war, US officials familiar with their interrogations said Tuesday. The officials said they believe many of the prisoners are lying to protect themselves. Still, the denials are hampering US forces' search for evidence of alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in Iraq, as the prisoners are not providing locations or other details interrogators are seeking. By denying Iraq had weapons, the prisoners may be trying to distance themselves from Hussein's rule, one official said. American officials stand by their belief that Iraq possessed prohibited weapons and the means to make more, although none have turned up since the war started on March 19. Officials now say the weapons are either well hidden or were destroyed in the run-up to the war. There is no firm evidence they were moved to other countries, they say. Hussein's government denied having any unconventional weapons until the end, saying it had destroyed them years before. Former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is among the Iraqis in custody who says his government had no prohibited weapons, officials said. So is Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, Hussein's alleged point man on chemical and biological agents. | Tuesday, April 29, 2003
U.S. Iraq Policy for DummiesMore rather insightful analysis of the Bush administrations' Iraqi policy. Here is a sample: "The Pentagon strategists, you see, never really thought through the post-Iraq phase of the war. For one thing, they just assumed they'd find the dread WMDs, thus legitimizing their invasion; egg on the face time. They're also now forced to recognize that they might have won the battle -- and broke the spine of Saddam's cruel regime -- but they may well lose the war, both inside Iraq and in the Arab region in general. Q. "How can they lose the war? There is no military rival that can stand up to them, either inside Iraq or outside. A. "What U.S. officials are learning, to their surprise and horror, is that you can have the strongest military in the world and still not be able to control the population, especially when that population thinks you're on their sacred homeland for nefarious purposes. And the U.S., clueless as usual, continues to permit things that are anathema to the population. Such as: permitting missionaries into the country to attempt to Christianize the Muslim citizenry; Bush has approved Franklin Graham (Billy's son) and his missionaries being let loose in Iraq. Graham on several occasions has denounced Islam as a "very evil and wicked religion," making Muslims just a tad suspicious of the man." Read the whole article: U.S. Iraq Policy for Dummies from Scoop out of New Zealand. I don't think that this is a prediction of disaster for the administration. It is, instead, a description of some of the problems they face and how the current situation was reached. If you follow only the US media this information either isn't there or is presented in such glowing tones that even the problems appear as successes. Do I think that all we are getting from US TV and the rest of the US media is propaganda and cheerleading? Yeah. Don't you? | Where is the Right Wing Going?An interesting article in The Nation gives a description of where the Bush administration and the right wing is trying to take the nation - back to the McKinley administration and the year 1900. Read it. Then look at The Project for the New American Century Between them, they will give an idea of the strategy of the American Right. Then, if you haven't, read "Blinded By the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative" by David Brock. It describes the tactics being used to accomplish the strategy. Then look at this: Table 1. Urban and Rural Population: 1900 to 1990 1900 1900 1900 total total total urban rural percent percent population population population urban rural UNITED STATES 76,212,168 30,214,832 45,997,336 39.6% 60.4% And compare it to this. Source: US Census Bureau Released: Oct. 1995 1990 1990 1990 total total total urban rural percent percent population population population urban rural UNITED STATES 248,709,873 187,053,487 61,656,386 75.2% 24.8% Who in their right mind would believe that an urban population can operate on the same rules as a rural one? This also ignores the changes in health care since 1900. Especially the cost of health care. Remember, teachers couldn't afford healthcare in 1922, so they created Blue Cross. And why did we invade Iraq? Same as why we invaded the Philippines. Conquer and uplift the misguided natives. Right? Let's see. In 1900 the British, French, Belguim, German, Russian, Japanese, US and Dutch empires controlled 84% of the world's surface. WW I and its sequel, WW II destroyed that. Do the conservatives really think all that will return? There is currently no significant colonial holding in Africa or South America. Hong Kong has been returned to China. India, Pakistan, French Indochina, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and all the middle east except Iraq and Afghanistan are now independent. China, India and Pakistan or nuclear nations. The world isn't going back. If the US tries, it will become the largest failed industrial nation since Argentina. | Sunday, April 27, 2003
What Happened to Intraspecies Loyalty?We have a 30 pound dog, a brownish sheltie mix (Foxy), a 22 pound West Highland Terrier (Mac) and a 5 pound gray domestic cat (Mitzi) of no uncertain aggressive disposition. The Sheltie and the cat were playing, with each trading attacks on the other. In fact, the cat even got her claw caught in Foxy's collar for a few moments. Then Mac walked in and saw the tumult. So he attacked Foxy also. There they were, the cat and the Westie both attacking Foxy at once. I guess it was fair. Between them, Mitzi and Mac weigh almost as much as Foxy. But whatever happened to intraspecies loyalty? | The New Republic on the Tax Cuts and Economic Stimulus.Why does Bush keep talking about the tax cuts as economic stimulus? They aren't. Here is the New Republic on the subject. A CUT ABOVE: One of the most interesting things about the debate over this latest Bush tax cut is that the administration basically admits that a large portion of the package--the repeal of the tax on dividend income--is neither here nor there when it comes to reviving the economy. For example, in his interview with The Wall Street Journal, published yesterday, Treasury Secretary John Snow suggested he'd be willing to settle for a 50 percent reduction of the dividends tax this year, provided the other 50 percent gets phased in over the next decade. It hardly needs pointing out, of course, that a tax cut that's supposedly crucial to reviving the economy today probably isn't going to help much if it's not phased in until 2013. Of course, apologists for the administration's tax-cutting predilections--namely, the Journal editorial page--are quick to point out that investors are forward-looking creatures, meaning that something like a promised 10-year phase-in of the dividend tax-cut could boost stock prices by 10-15 percent today. For the sake of argument, let's ignore the fact that the 10-15 percent figure is wildly optimistic, since so few companies actually pay dividends, and since the proposed dividend tax cut wouldn't provide much incentive for them to start (since the tax cut accrues to investors rather than corporations). Even then, by the Journal's own admission, the "forward-looking" argument doesn't get you much, since forward-looking people have a nasty habit of worrying that some mean-spirited Democrat will come along and spoil the party before the tax cuts are fully phased in. Indeed, today's anti-Snow/pro-tax cut Journal editorial tries to make both sides of this argument, reasoning, in effect, that forward-looking people worry about future tax cuts getting revoked, except when they don't. On the one hand, the Journal insists, the administration has to accelerate its marginal income tax rate reductions as quickly as possible, because all those people worried that the tax cuts might eventually get repealed aren't spending their future tax cuts today. But in the very next paragraph the Journal argues that phasing in the dividend tax cut over several years would pack a big economic punch today, since forward-looking investors know that even a Democrat wouldn't dare fink on a dividend tax repeal. Well, which is it? (To be fair, the Journal does half-heartedly try to square this circle, suggesting that it'd be much harder for a Democrat to reinstate a fully repealed tax cut than some marginal rate cuts. That may or may not be true. But if the dividend tax is scheduled to be repealed over, say, a ten-year period, then any Democrat who got elected in the fall of 2004 would have plenty of time to act before the dividend tax actually was repealed.) The New Republic | If we invaded Iraq over WMDs, why aren't we looking for nukes yet?This recent Washington Post Article really bothers me. So the Republican Philistines at Defense didn't consider the Baghdad Museum important enough to divert US troops from their primary mission to prevent looting. I don't like it, but I can understand it. But we were supposed to be going after Iraq over weapons of mass destruction - like nukes. Now the Washington Post reports that we haven't done anything to protect the Iraqi nuclear facilities, either. Before the war began last month, the vast Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center held 3,896 pounds of partially enriched uranium, more than 94 tons of natural uranium and smaller quantities of cesium, cobalt and strontium, according to reports compiled through the 1990s by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Immensely valuable on the international black market, the uranium was in a form suitable for further enrichment to "weapons grade," the core of a nuclear device. The other substances, products of medical and industrial waste, emit intense radiation. They have been sought, officials said, by terrorists seeking to build a so-called dirty bomb, which uses conventional explosives to scatter dangerous radioactive particles. Defense officials acknowledge that the U.S. government has no idea whether any of Tuwaitha's potentially deadly contents have been stolen, because it has not dispatched investigators to appraise the site. What it does know, according to officials at the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command, is that the sprawling campus, 11 miles south of Baghdad, lay unguarded for days and that looters made their way inside. This I don't to understand! The underlining is mine. The rest is direct quote. | More Media Mergers.Just what we need. Both the Spanish TV networks are already run by wealthy conservative Republicans, but now they want to merge. What 'liberal' media? Salon.com Technology | And Now, For North Korea.The talks in Bejing with North Korea have ended most unsatisfactorialy. The Asia Times has a description today. Here are some excerpts: The North Koreans stated "...that they were in fact in possession of atomic bombs, were ready to test and even sell them, and had already reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods to extract weapons-grade plutonium (enough for six to eight nukes). " Colin Powell told reporters " The North Koreans should not leave the meetings in Beijing, now that they have come to a conclusion ... with the slightest impression that the United States and its partners will be intimidated by bellicose statements or by threats." He added that the US was looking for ways to "eliminate" the threat posed by any North Korean nuclear weapons program and had "not taken any options off the table" - diplomatese for not ruling out military action. From the Chinese we get: "A Friday People's Daily commentary titled "The DPRK is not Iraq" [which] read: "With the conclusion of the Iraq war, people have begun to worry that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) would become the US's next target of 'preemptive strike'. But if the United States launched [a] 'preemptive' military attack on [the] DPRK, it would not have the moral support from the international community, and militarily it [would] take great risks." Obviously, a commentary like that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if China didn't believe that the possibility of military confrontation was quite acute." North Korea is a really strange country. It is the last of the "half-nations" to have resulted from WW II, and the last hard-line Communist nation in the world. The reference to Communism, however, is based on the source of the nation. The actual ideology practiced there a Korean concept called "Juche" which can be translated roughly as "self-reliance". One element that is taught is that civilization originated in Korea and spread from there to the rest of the world. There is a good recent book called "The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History" by Don Oberdorfer which describes the last 50 years of history since the Korean War rather well, but doesn't seem to me to explain what is going on. It is a one-man dictatorship run until July 7, 1994 by Kim Il Sung, and since by his son, Kim Jong Il. Each has maintained his power in part by a cult of personality (another element of the Juche) in which Kim Il Sung was known as the "Great Leader" (a term otherwise used only for Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung) and Kim Jong Il is known as "Dear Leader". Travel too and from North Korea is extremely limited with a 2002 net migration rate of 0 per 1000 population CIA World Factbook, 2002, so that it is known as the Hermit Kingdom. Its economy was maintained by trade financed by the USSR until the collapse of the USSR, and most of its oil comes from China. Since the collapse of the USSR the economy of North Korea has not been able to feed its own population adequately. It is dependent on international aid for food for its population of 22,000,000 people, yet maintains a 1,000,000 army, a strong missile technology, and has successfully imported nuclear technology, probably from Pakistan. Even if the North Koreans don't actually have nukes, this does not seem to be a situation that can be dealt with militarily. At the same time, diplomacy isn't a strong point of the Bush administration. Yet there is no third alternative. | Friday, April 25, 2003
Why did we invade Iraq? Tell me again?I have had some real questions about why we were going into Iraq in the first place. It was obvious to almost everyone that we were going to go in since last Fall. I am not sure exactly when Bush made up his mind to do it, but I doubt it was after August 2002. The real problem for me has been - why? The shifting stories from the administration were a dead giveaway. First it was because of 9/11 and Saddam's terrorist connections. That died rather quickly. Saddam had no known connection to 9/11 and every possible terrorist connection that was floated disappeared quickly. Then came the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Saddam had them, and is/was insane. Can he be trusted not to give them to terrorists? The very best discussion of that view was Colin Powell's presentation to the UN. He seems to be the most trustworthy member of the Bush administration, and he seemed to have the goods on the Iraqis. But if he really had a solid case, then the administration would have followed up with a full court press, and they didn't. I kept waiting for the followup, and there was .... nothing. Then the UN (Blix, wasn't it?) announced that the documents showing that Iraq had been buying nuclear material in Africa were faked. The press, living on government handouts as usual, confirmed this. Now, five weeks after the start of the war and two weeks after its end, there are no WMD's found, and the administration is beginning to say that they may not find any. So now, no WMDs. Why did we invade Iraq? Sure Saddam was evil. He was absolute slime. But so was Idi Amin in Uganda. Mugabe in Zimbabwe isn't very nice, either. Castro is presently proving what a really rotten dictator he is. Kim Jung Il of North Korea isn't a nice person. We didn't stop the Killing Fields in Cambodia run by Pol Pat (The North Vietnamese did, as I recall. I was delighted that they did it.) Milosevic and his ethnic cleansing and anti-ethnic propaganda in the remains of Yugoslavia was extremely bad, but that wasn't enough for us to go after him. We Went after Milosevic because of the danger to NATO Europe resulting from the refugees and the spill-over violence of his ethnic cleansing. The US was involved as the leading member of NATO. There was no equivalent reason for going after Saddam. Yet there had to be a reason. Bush called up the Reserves and sent about 300,000 troops into Kuwait, then Iraq. If none of the reasons offered were enough, then what was the real reason? A couple of weeks ago Josh Marshall published an article that seemed to answer that question in Washington Monthly. But I thought that Colin Powell had answered the questions, too, and then nothing confirmed his excellent presentation. ABC News has confirmed most of what Josh Marshall wrote. The administration has come clean. Here it is. ABC News. At last. A reasonable reason for the Bush administration to send 300,000 troops into Iraq and get about 50 of them killed. They are coming clean. They didn't really lie to us. They just didn't tell us the Truth. Some administration officials "privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war — a global show of American power and democracy." You will note that Rumsfield is now explaining that we might not find weapons of mass destruction - but listen to the really horrible stories of how the Iraqis were treated by the Iraqi Security Services. OK. I'm retired military. I clearly recall a Regular Army Officer aviator friend of mine stating that Viet Nam was a really rotten little war, but it was the only one we had. When you are career, you have a somewhat different view of war. I'm too old, but I'd love to be in Iraq right now. But at the same time, we were lied to, and not for any reason other than to get the current administration reelected in 2004. Since I AM retired, I am not subject to Article 88 of the UCMJ. I can tell you this. This pResident is incompetent. He hasn't a clue about America, Economics, or the use of the military. The military itself is better than it has ever been, and they have bailed him out of his idiocy - so far. Unfortunately, military solutions are short term solutions. The real question is going to be whether the middle east becomes our enemy in general, or whether the middle east begins to break loose from the past and starts to actually consider a reasonable solution to the Israel/Palestine problem and begins to change to a set of societies less likely to create terrorists. I am hoping for the second, but I really don't think that the education level of the average Neocon is up to the challenge. They are going to have to treat the leaders of the middle eastern nations as educated, civilized people with long and powerful traditions rather than as ignorant savages who simply fail to recognize that the world had a tectonic change in 1789 when the US Constitution was approved. Read both articles. And if you don't normally, read Josh Marshall's Blog. If there is a better Blog out there, I haven't found it. | Thursday, April 24, 2003
Excellent editorial today in the Washington Post about the lessons taught by Gulf War II. My favorite is: "At the end of the day, war must be won on the ground. Those few airmen or sailors who view this assertion as an insult rather than the professional challenge it represents do their services no benefit. As Operation Iraqi Freedom reconfirmed, recognizing the need to win on the ground in no way devalues the contribution of every arm and service to victory." Of course, the Iraqis had no air force this time. As a result, the three week war was possible. What would happen if we faced an opponent who could contest us for air supremacy? Read the Editorial here. About the author - "Richard Hart Sinnreich writes regularly for the Lawton (Okla.) Sunday Constitution. Lawton Oklahoma is the town next to fort Sill, Ok, the home of the US Army Artillery School. If he isn't ex-military himself he has access to some of the best minds in the Army. | This is a pretty neat website if you are interested in US macroeconomics. Bureau of Labor Statistics Keep in mind that the numbers indicated a preliminary are subject to change as the BLS gets additional data. | Tuesday, April 22, 2003
American Airlines is going to have to have a new union vote on whether the unions will accept salary and pension cutbacks and extensive layoffs to keep AA out of bankruptcy. All three major unions (Pilots, Mechanics, and Flight Attendants) had approved the rather drastic cutbacks, which included reductions in their pensions. Then they learned that the top 45 Executives had previously made arrangements to protect their multimillion dollar pensions and to get bonuses of double their salaries if they stayed through about 2005. This information was kept hidden until after the unions voted to accept the cutbacks. See this Dallas Morning News article. I have seen people write that this is not as bad as what the management of Enron, Global Crossing, or Worldcom did, but this is another example of very much the same attitude. Management in the US has zero respect for the labor that earns the money that supports their income. People who don't think that workers need unions to protect them from mangement should look carefully at the recent history of management malfeasance. I have heard conservatives complain about unions that abuse their members and are in bed withorganized crime, but that is a problem that was last common in the 1950's. The management abuse of workers has been growing for the last twenty or more years, and is getting much worse. It is time to start rebuilding unions in the country. We all need them to keep management honest. Obviously the managers won't do it on their own. | More from Newt Gingtich. Didn't he die or something? Gingrich said he plans to call for major overhaul of the State Department, including hearings on Capitol Hill and an examination of the department by a task force of retired foreign service officers. He said he wanted to contrast the success of a transformed Defense Department with the "failure of State," which he described as "six months of diplomatic failure followed by one month of military success now to be returned to diplomatic failure to exploit the victory fully."
State-Defense Rivalry Intensifying Somehow I suspect the problems in Turkey and the UN are more a case of people overseas who distrust Bush's pronouncements reather than the activities of the State Department. From what I have been able to tell, people seem to trust Colin Powell. The problem is his boss. | Now I have my own blog. Next I hope to have readers.
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