Thanks to everyone who worked to end DADT

I'd like to thank my friends and family for their efforts in ending the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. It means a lot for me, as I had honestly given up hope of it happening any time soon.

It's too easy to be cynical, but as I watched the past two years go by, and watched the hugest congressional majority in recent memory evaporate, I thought for sure there would be no progress on queer issues. And although I told myself I was content with Obama just naming Supreme Court justices, I was enraged by the contradiction of his "fierce advocate" image shown by his administration's aggressive defense of DOMA, his utter inaction on ENDA and DOMA, and the snail's pace of DADT repeal (coupled with continued vigorous legal defense of the law). I had come to the conclusion that the Democrats had decided that gay votes, gay money, and gay wedge issues were simply too valuable to them to give up, and that they would hold us hostage for another six years or until the courts finally grew a pair. I just couldn't take the disappointment anymore, so I really stopped investing any hope.

Sure, I went through the motions with emails to elected officials (pointless, since I vote in Georgia), but I really couldn't bring myself to care a great deal. I was resigned to it. But this is where my family and friends really stepped in and pushed this through. I'm very thankful and grateful for friends and family who care enough about me to take on issues that affect me - without my having to ask. It really means a lot.

It was a little over two years ago when a former friend's opposition to same-sex marriage made me snap and made me raise my expectations of what friends and family will do to help with the issues of queer people. I'm thrilled to say that not only did they take action, they did it without my asking.

Granted, these issues affect us all — when some of us aren't free, all of us aren't free — but when the folks on the comfortable side of the privilege line do more than I do on issues that affect me, it really is touching. Thank you.

Accountability moment: not one more gay cent until we see some results

When politicians make promises, they should be held to them. Especially when they promise hope, a new kind of politics, that they want to take contributions from actual people and be accountable to them. Well, we heard lots of promises, but we've not seen any action. Until we start seeing the change we paid for, President Obama and the Democratic party can forget about getting any more of my money:

I pledge not to donate to the Democratic National Committee, Organizing for America, or the Obama campaign until Congress passes, and the president signs, legislation enacting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

And yes, I'm serious about this. You'd better believe corporate donors are getting their money's worth right now, as they belly up to the trough for "healthcare reform". If they don't get what they paid for, they're not going to give again – and guess what, neither am I.

Both DOMA and DADT were passed during the previous Democratic administration. The just-finished Bush administration produced plenty of sturm und drang about teh gays, but never actually did legislative harm to us. The Obama administration had better start righting some wrongs, and President Obama had better start doing something to fulfill his pledge to be a "fierce advocate" for our community. With sixty filibuster-breaking votes in the senate and a strong majority in the house, the Democratic party has an opportunity to actually pass the agenda they trumpet when they come around begging for cash. With the midterm elections coming the time to act is now; otherwise it becomes increasingly obvious that the Democratic party is determined to block action on these issues in order to keep the gay money coming.

Either put up or find another sucker. If you feel the same way, join me in the pledge.

Georgia: dump Saxby Chambliss on December 2

Saxby Chambliss, chickenhawk extraordinaire, is in a runoff to keep his Senate seat in Georgia. Despite McCain carrying Georgia 52%-47%, Chambliss was unable to ride his white coattails to victory. People were pissed at him for voting for the Wall Street Giveaway, and they punished him just enough to force him into runoff against Jim Martin.

I'm voting for Jim Martin. He's the most progressive candidate Georgia has produced in a white, heterosexual male body since Jimmy Carter. His legislative record is solid, he's smart and hard working. I've voted for him many times over the years, and I'm happy to do so again.


But most importantly, Jim Martin is not Saxby Chambliss. In 2002 Chambliss won his Senate seat by sliming his opponent Max Cleland (a veteran who lost his limbs in Vietnam) as a terrorist sympathizer. He ran hand-in-hand with Governor Sonny Perdue whose platform of a "Confederate Flag for Georgia" helped propel them both to victory. It was shameful, and I'm still ashamed. It would be redundant to call out his record on voting for the Iraq war, voting for torture, voting for spying on US citizens, voting for retroactive immunity for the telecom companies who spied on Americans, and so on.

Georgia's Secretary of State has no information about the runoff election on her department's website or its Election 2008 website, so she obviously doesn't want people to vote – after all, turnout would be bad for the GOP. It's a shameful state of affairs, but if we "other folks" vote again, we can send Chambliss packing with the man he said he was "goin' to Washington DC to work for", George W. Bush. This time we can elect Jim Martin who will work for the citizens of the State of Georgia.

Vote December 2.

Obama's election: hope for an exiled gay American

Living in Canada over the past four years it's been hard to admit I'm an American. Before the 2004 election people used to commiserate, saying "what a terrible government you Americans have to deal with." After 2004, the mood got ugly: we really did elect Bush that second time. The negative opinion of the US government was transferred onto its citizens. Since 2004 whenever I have admitted to being American I've watched welcoming smiles melt into frowns, and often had to listen to a tirade about Bush and the US government. I've had to agree with them, too.

After all, I had to leave the US in order to live with my husband, and you'd better believe I've resented it bitterly. With laws that treat me as something between an abomination and a criminal, a Supreme Court prepared to permanently relegate me to second-class citizenship, and a president that seemed intent on breaking every international law, violating every civil liberty and every standard of decent conduct, I could find little to defend about the US, and even less reason to want to.

I certainly hoped Obama would win. I contributed to his campaign, I made phone calls. But I never let myself really believe, because it would just hurt too much if he lost. The Supreme Court holds the key to deciding whether I'll be a second-class citizen in the US until the day I die, and if more Scalitos had been appointed it would have dashed my hopes for two generations. I held my breath.

Today Barack Obama pulled it off, and decisively, breaking the last barrier for African-Americans (which John McCain spoke of so eloquently and movingly in his concession speech). Obama even mentioned gay people as actual Americans in his acceptance speech. Today I have hope, and I can say I'm an American without embarrassment and without (excessive) anger and resentment. I see that the dream is alive in the United States, and I see reason to believe that one day I might be able to live there again, maybe even as an equal.

A lot more has to change for this to happen. Today, people in Arizona, California, and Florida voted to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in Arizona and Florida. The vote is very close in California, but one thing is certain: voters hold farm animals in higher esteem than their fellow citizens. We have a long way to go, but when I look at how far we've come in forty-five years, I have hope.

Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama and to the people of the United States on turning this historic page. Congratulations to African-Americans who can say that they are now full participants in the society and democracy of the United States. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who worked, donated, and voted to make this happen. Someday it will make a difference for me, too.

Help stop constitutionalized bigotry in California

California's Proposition 8 is intended to end same-sex marriage in California, which the California Supreme Court ruled constitutional in June. The California Assembly had previously passed a law to allow same-sex marriage, but Governor Schwarzenegger (it hurts to type that) vetoed it, saying that it was up to the supreme court to decide. Well, they did, and although Arnie said he'd campaign against Prop 8, he's done dick-all about it. I guess he's too busy to call a press conference.

Anyhow, the Mormons are pouring enormous sums of cash into the campaign for Prop 8, and although many high-profile celebs are donating to the fight to stop it, it isn't enough. I've given, and I'd like to ask you to give as well. Everybody deserves the right to marry the person they love, and shouldn't have to emigrate to do so, as I did. Equality can be maintained, but only at a cost. Please give now.

Bailout failout and the fallout

I had been anticipating the passage of the bailout by writing an[other] impassioned screed, a call to arms to punish representatives who voted away our future for a few extra points on the Dow. I have become so used to Congress bowing to corporatist rule that I never expected that it could be voted down, but it was. So let's take a moment to celebrate: for the moment, you've escaped an additional personal debt load of $2,300 that would have gone right into the balance sheets of companies that have well and truly wrecked our economy.

Now that the bill is dead (for the moment) a lot more details are coming out: it turns out that the "assurances" and "compromises" on the bill were window dressing. The full $700B would have committed immediately, the executive compensation measures were meaningless, and the oversight provisions were toothless. Basically, the bill got a lot longer last week, but it never got any better.

Very rich and well placed media figureheads, investors, and politicians are tut-tutting this sad state of affairs, saying "people just don't understand the magnitude of this issue." Oh, but darlings, we do understand. We understand far too well what happens when we spend far more than we take in for far too long, we understand bad investments and cutting our losses, and we're maybe starting to understand when we're being manipulated. And maybe, just maybe, we're starting to resist.

I wrote my congressmen every single day last week. I wrote them again today, and I'm going to keep up the pressure. My house representative, Hank Johnson (D-GA-7^th) voted against the bill so I sent him a nice campaign contribution as a thank-you note. If your representative voted for the bailout, you can ask for a change in the next vote, as there almost certainly will be one.

No bailout is big enough to solve the credit crunch

Portraying the credit crunch as a strange anomaly that can be cured by writing a trillion-dollar cheque is extremely naïve and unrealistic.

The United States and its citizens are carrying an unprecedented and unsustainable debt load. Thanks to the neocon regime of the past twenty-eight years (yes, you too, Mr. "3^rd Way") which hobbled the government, and the klepto-corporatist administration still in office (and up for a third term) which raided the wealth of the nation to hand over to oil and military contractors (and now financial firms), the United States is so far overextended that the entire world is collectively cutting it off from further credit.

Just as banks are suddenly thinking, "hey waitasecond, maybe we shouldn't hand out credit cards like party favours", and "maybe we should check to see whether the collateral on a loan actually exists", investors and central banks of other nations are suddenly thinking, "hmmm, the United States has a seemingly infinite trade deficit and doesn't seem to produce anything of value but porn", "I wonder what, if anything, backs T-bills these days", and finally "It doesn't seem that the US military is going to be pushing anybody else around anytime soon."

The bailout is supposed to remove toxic mortgages from the balance sheets of large financial firms, and that is supposed to magically cause the credit to flow again. Wrong. What happened with the subprime loan mess is that it eventually woke everybody up to the fact that the US is at the end of its empire, and extending it credit no longer makes any sense. The US and its citizens can't afford any more debt, and they aren't going to be allowed any more. The party's over, the keg is all tapped out, and this hangover is going to be long and difficult, with vomiting, nausea, and no more drinks for a long, long time.

There's not enough money in the collective assets of the United States at this point to buy a hair-of-the-dog large enough to make a difference. The US has declining human capital in every measurable way, it has a tarnished reputation, and the valuable raw natural resources now lie chiefly in other countries. This bailout is just a parting shot, a payoff to the powers who bought and paid for this administration, and a fond final farewell snatch from the taxpayers who made the whole show possible.

A thoughtful letter on the bailout from Rep. David Obey (D-WI-7th)

I wrote a note to Representative David Obey of the 7th district in Wisconsin. He wrote this very thoughtful and honest reply, which seemed refreshingly free of bullshit. Obviously he's going to vote for the bill, but he avoids the condescension, evasion, misdirection, and outright prevarication of shitheels like Isakson. Hopefully after Obama takes office in January we will see reversal of that indefensible bankruptcy bill and finally see some more meaningful reform. What the hell, maybe we'll get another New Deal. It's about time.

---

September 27, 2008

Dear Mr. LeDuc:

Thank you for contacting me about the President’s request for a massive $700 billion bailout of the financial markets.

As you might expect, I have heard from many, many people who are unhappy, fearful, and frustrated by what has been going on, and the vast majority are staunchly opposed to the President’s proposal for what is, in effect, a blank check. I am, too, and let me make it perfectly clear that I have no intention of giving this, or any other President, a blank check to do with as he wishes. We've seen that before when the President demanded that Congress give him a blank check for Iraq - with disastrous consequences.

We are currently paying a huge price for the fact that for over 20 years we’ve had massive deregulation of the financial sector of our economy and, at the same time, economic policies that have favored the top dogs at the expense of everybody else.

If you take all of the income growth that has occurred in this country in the last eight years and see who got it, over 95 percent of all of the income growth in the country went to the wealthiest 10 percent of families. That means 90 percent of American families – 9 out of 10 – were left to struggle to get a piece of just 4.7 percent of the total income growth that’s occurred in the last eight years.

As a result, people who, in real terms, have had their income frozen for nearly a decade have tried to keep their heads above water by borrowing. In fact, over the last eight years, mortgage debt alone has gone up by $7 trillion, almost seven times as much as the national debt that we hear so much about.

And with the umpire off the field because of the relentless drive for less regulation by the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and on occasion the Clinton Administration as well, many on Wall Street who were looking for a way to make a bigger buck than ever have made the problem worse.

I fought that pressure time and time again.

For example, I was one of 57 members in the House who opposed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which was enacted during the FDR Administration. Glass-Steagall was enacted to keep investment banking and community banking separate, because they didn't want the high-flying, risk-taking actions of investment bankers to infect the community banking system. It stood us in good stead for generations. During debate on the House Floor during the vote to repeal Glass-Steagall, I said that the bill was:

"consumer fraud masquerading as financial reform. There is nothing wrong with modernizing financial institutions. It is nice to see that my colleagues are going to try to set up one-stop shopping services for financial services. But returning 1999 to 1929 is not reform in my book.”

At this point, we don’t know what will be negotiated with the White House, but we do know that they have the Congress over a barrel because if we don't do something credit markets are likely to freeze up. It doesn't just mean that Wall Street is going to be crippled; the people who will be left holding the bag are American families. The impact on Wall Street will have trickle down consequences for every family in America, and if Main Street business can't get credit, there could be thousands of businesses that go under and we could have the worst economic mess since the Great Depression. So something has to be done.

As Franklin Roosevelt said in his inaugural address in 1932 when he was facing a similar collapse of the financial sector of the economy, "we need action and now." We must provide that action at the same time we make every effort to build in assurances that protect American taxpayers.

Middle income families have missed out on the production of wealth in recent years and taxpayers have been ripped off with giveaways to the wealthy and well-connected, paid for by ballooning the deficit and passing the costs onto future generations.

We’re looking for a number of changes to the Administration’s proposal to protect the taxpayer’s interest.

First, we are trying to ensure that the taxpayer will get the benefit of any recovery in the value of the assets the government would buy from financial institutions.

Second, we are trying to find a mechanism by which Wall Street can pay a significant share of the tab so taxpayers don't get stuck with the whole load.

Third, there needs to be an independent review board looking over the shoulder of the Fed as it makes financial decisions to blow the whistle if problems develop.

Fourth, there certainly should be limitations on compensation to the executives of the companies receiving federal aid and no golden parachutes.

Fifth, there needs to be a reinvigoration of oversight by regulatory agencies to prevent this from happening again.

And that’s just scratching the surface. There are a number of other things that need to be done, too.

I also hope we’ll see a change in the bankruptcy law passed, over my objection, by the last Congress, which did not take into account that some people are unable to make their mortgage payments or credit card payments simply because they’d either lost their jobs or had a health problem. Certainly we ought to be able to provide some sort of relief for people in that kind of situation, so that people on Main Street are getting the same sort of considerations as the big shots on Wall Street.

You should also know that, as I write this letter, Congress is considering legislation that I authored to try to help people on Main Street who are suffering because of this crisis. We're trying to make greater investments in the country's infrastructure by beefing up our sewer and water construction and highway and airport construction in order to create a good number of well paying private sector jobs. We also want to extend unemployment insurance to help address the fact that 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs this year. And we are also trying to provide some budget support for states so they do not wind up knocking poor children off health care rolls.

Please be assured that, as we move forward to confront this challenge, the needs of taxpayers, homeowners, and working Americans and their families will be uppermost in my mind.

Thank you again for taking the time to get in touch.

Sincerely,
David Obey
Your Congressman

Johnny Isakson lies about the bailout

I just got this email reply today, 25 September 2008, from Johnny Isakson, senior senator from Georgia. The coward hasn't put it on his website, so here it is.

---

Dear Mr. LeDuc Thank you for your letter regarding the economy, the financial markets and the proposal from the Treasury Secretary to the Congress. We are in difficult financial times, and I am committed to protecting the savings and jobs of the people of Georgia by making sound decisions on both immediate actions as well as long-term actions. First, our economic stress is rooted in the decline of the housing market. The cause of the decline was the funding of marginal credit mortgages (subprime) through the creation of mortgage-backed securities that were sold around the world. As the default and foreclosure rate on these mortgages increased, the value of the securities declined. As the values declined, the balance sheet of the financial institutions that bought them deteriorated. The market for these securities declined and ultimately evaporated, thus causing a liquidity problem for the financial institutions and a credit crisis for American consumers and small businesses. In the immediate term, we must address the credit and liquidity crisis. In the long term, we must put in place the oversight and safeguards to ensure the transparency and accountability necessary to prevent this from happening again. The Treasury has proposed using up to $700 billion dollars to purchase, at a discount, these mortgage-backed securities. This would provide liquidity to the financial institutions and improve their balance sheets. The important question is this: "Is the taxpayer of Georgia protected?" If the Treasury properly discounts the securities to, say, 50 or 60 cents on the dollar, and holds the securities to maturity there should be little or no cost to the Treasury. More importantly, investors will return to the market and will compete with the Treasury to by these discounted securities and the market will be reestablished. I am working to ensure the safeguards necessary for maximum security for the taxpayer. In the long term, we must bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street. While I am not a big government regulator, if the investment bankers on Wall Street were held to the same standards of transparency and accountability as our national banking system, this would not have happened. The security rating agencies such as Moody's and Standard and Poor also share some of the blame for the way they rated the subprime mortgage-backed securities, and they should be held accountable. I will work hard for the right reform of Wall Street. The term bailout has been used a lot in this debate. Not a dollar of the $700 billion will go to the brokers who created the securities. Instead, they will go to the investors who bought them, and then only after they take a significant discount or loss. Properly executed, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve believe this proposal will restore liquidity to the credit markets and return confidence in the financial system. I will continue to work for the best interest of our economy and the safety of the savings of the citizens of Georgia. Thank you again for contacting me. Please visit my webpage at http://isakson.senate.gov/ for more information on the issues important to you and to sign up for my e-newsletter by choosing Newsletter Subscription from the topic list. Sincerely, Johnny Isakson United States Senator For future correspondence with my office, please visit my web site at http://isakson.senate.gov/contact.cfm. You can also sign up for the eNewsletter by choosing Newsletter Subscription from the topic list.

---

My reply:

I am in receipt of your condescending and misleading letter concerning the Wall Street bailout.

Don't try to confuse the issue with me, sonny. Tax money going into a private balance sheet is a bailout. Businesses making threats that if they don't get blood money they'll take down the economy is called a shakedown. If you vote for this bill, you'll be making a choice which side you're on: corporations instead of citizens. And there will be consequences.

Count on it.

Now don't make a liar of me. Let's make these bastards pay.

Not one god-damned red cent for Wall Street

I'm just as deep in the stock market as anyone else is these days. After all, government policy has been urging employers to gut pension plans (remember guaranteed retirement benefits?) in favour of investment plans (with only a set contribution, but no guaranteed returns). So most of my retirement savings is tied up in the stock market, which is a risky gamble. I could lose it, but I wanted the big payoffs that stocks might provide, so I took a chance.

That's how the free market is supposed to work, right? Isn't that what Nobel-prize winner Milton Friedman said? Isn't that the ideology which has been ascendant in the US for the past twenty-eight years? If the banking industry isn't working miracles with all of those fantastic new financial instruments they've cooked up, and are in fact just building an elaborate confection that is collapsing on itself, why should we prop it up? It sounds like a huge proportion of the finance industry is doing things of no real economic value. They need a huge handout (plenty of which they'll pass back as "campaign contributions"), and if we give it they'll demand another huge handout in a year after they waste this one.

So fine, let my portfolio lose seventy-five percent of its value. Even ninety-five percent – we'll work it out. I'd rather spend a trillion dollars helping people in need than wasting it on more empty suits. Recessions are necessary: endlessly trying to apply the juice to extend a boom just makes the crash that much harder, and that's what we're seeing now. So let it go, and then we'll work out a more relevant (and possibly even less corrupt) financial system.

Bush said today the sky is falling so we've got to unlock the US Treasury with no questions asked and no accountability. He's the same guy that wanted to gut Social Security and put it all in the stock market! (Wow, too bad we didn't get to experience all of that great growth, huh?) First, we had to surrender all of our civil liberties because the terrorists were going to kill us all with box cutters. Second, we had to invade another country because they were going to nuke our balls. Now we're supposed to give an enormous birthday present to Wall Street because they blew our money on bear whores and cocaine. The man has no credibility. Fool me thrice: go fuck yourself.

Giving a huge payoff to this gang of crooks won't do a damned bit of good; it just encourages them to do it again. Write your senators and representative and tell them no. Maybe some regulation is in order. Maybe the banks need to be nationalized. Maybe mortgages need to be refinanced en masse. Maybe some depositors are going to lose their money (me included). So be it: when there is hell to pay, I'll pay it, but I won't pay one god-damned red cent in protection money.

Senator Herb Kohl on HR 6304 (The "I Spy" act)

Herb Kohl, Senator from AT&T

Back when the Democrats were preparing to sell our rights, our privacy, and the very rule of law to the telecom lobby while capitulating in the most pathetic way possible to the Bush administration, I wrote a letter to Wisconsin Democratic senator Herb Kohl. I urged him most specifically not to vote for H.R. 6304, a bill that made a mockery of the rule of law by giving felonious telecom companies a free pass for having helped the federal government to spy on US citizens in a way directly prohibited by federal statute.

Of course, he took his marching orders from the Democratic "leadership" (who take their marching orders from AT&T) and voted for the bill. In his letter he never addresses telecom immunity, which was the key issue I wrote to him about. Instead, he lies about the bill and its provisions, parroting the line set down by his masters. And of course, he never mentions that he personally voted to sustain telecom immunity.

Finally, I find it particularly offensive that he says he's taking time to "address my concerns" when he's not addressing them, he's ignoring and dismissing them. No, Senator Kohl, "everyone" doesn't agree.

HERB KOHL		COMMITTEES:
WISCONSIN
		APPROPRIATIONS
WASHINGTON OFFICE:
330 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING		JUDICIARY
WASHINGTON, DC 20510
(202) 224-5653		SPECIAL COMMITTEE
http://kohl.senate.gov	United States Senate	ON AGING
	WASHINGTON, DC 20510-4903
	July 24, 2008

Mr. Chuck Leduc
[address redacted]

Dear Mr. Leduc:

     Thank you for taking the time to contact me. I value the input I get from people back home in Wisconsin, and I would like to take this opportunity to address your concerns.

     In December 2005, the revelation that the President authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor telephone calls and e-mails of United States citizens without obtaining a warrant or court order raises important legal and policy questions. I strongly believe that the President, Congress, and the courts all share a common goal: to protect the American people. If terrorists are operating in this country, or people in this country are communicating with terrorists, everyone can agree that we must give our government the tools it needs to protect the American people, including the power to listen to their phone calls. Security, the Rule of law, and the protection of civil liberties, however, are not mutually exclusive concepts; we can have all three.

     In August 2007, Congress passed, and the President signed, the Protect America Act (PAA). I opposed this bill because it authorized broad electronic surveillance of Americans' communications, and provided for little oversight by Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The PAA was ultimately enacted as a temporary fix. The ability to conduct surveillance pursuant to the PAA was set to expire in early August.

     It was critically important for Congress to authorize necessary surveillance authorities, this time with appropriate civil liberties protections. To that end, on June 19, 2008, Representative Silvestre Reyes introduced the FISA Amendments Act of2008 (H.R. 6304). This measure authorizes the Intelligence Community to conduct electronic surveillance of individuals located outside of the United States, but also provides Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court greater authorities to conduct oversight of this surveillance and protect the privacy of innocent Americans. In addition, the bill authorizes a thorough investigation of the President's Terrorist Surveillance Program and clarifies that no surveillance can be conducted outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I voted for H.R. 6304 because I believe it strikes an appropriate balance between national security and protecting civil liberties. It was signed into law on July 10, 2008.

[page 2]

     Thank you again for contacting me on this important issue.

                         Sincerely,
                         (signed)
                         Herb Kohl
                         United States Senator
HK:mxh

... and finally, my response to his letter:

Dear Senator Kohl,

I am rather disappointed in your response to my letter about telecom immunity and spying. In my letter I specifically urged you to uphold the rule of law by holding telcos accountable for their lawbreaking. I obviously think your vote went contrary to the best interests of the people of the state you represent, but that is not why I am writing back.

The reason I am writing back is because you did not address telecom immunity, my primary concern, in your letter. That is political cowardice: if you are going to put the interests of corporations above those of your constituents, you might as well own up to it. You could even have made up some implausible justification (you seem to be pretty good at that), but to pretend it didn't happen is just plain insulting. Just how stupid do you think we are?

Sincerely,
Charles LeDuc

Vancouver PD vs NYPD for Critical Mass: protection vs assault

Critical Mass in Vancouver is a very mellow affair. Although there are sometimes incidents, it is predominantly peaceful and generally treated with equanimity. Not so in New York City, where a police officer assaulted a cyclist on Friday:

via Dynamic Critical Mass Vancouver

Contrast this with Vancouver, where Critical Mass is escorted by two police motorcycles who pace the rear of the pack, keeping cars from crowding the cyclists. The police even block traffic to allow the riders to congregate briefly on the bridges:

Obviously a single officer does not represent the entire NYPD, nor indeed his region or country, but the contrast is as striking as the assault. These attitudes and actions do not exist in a vacuum: they reflect the direction and values of the leadership and the society at large. The relationship between Critical Mass and the police is fairly representative of impressionistic differences between the East and West coasts of North America, and of the North and South divide between Canada and the US: senseless repression and harassment vs tolerance. I consider myself rather fortunate at times to live in the North and the West.

Mission Accomplished

Well, it took a couple of years, but today "Iraq throws open door to foreign oil firms". What's good for General Motors is good for the country. It's why we fight.

Never let it be said that the Iraq war hasn't accomplished anything: amazing profits are an accomplishment. They're a huge accomplishment.

Sold out

Although it is my sincere hope that things in the United States will change after the fall election, recent news is not encouraging. Although the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives had as recently as March displayed the unprecedented existence of a spine while upholding the rule of law and the 4th amendment rights of Americans, on Friday 20 June they gave AT&T and other lawbreaking telecommunication companies a free pass for helping the executive branch to spy illegally on US citizens. They also opened the floodgates to domestic spying on a new and breathtaking level. They sold us out to the telecom lobby: Nancy Pelosi got $13k (good to know our worth); Barack Obama "opposes" telecom immunity (but won't do anything to stop it); wholesale spying, that he thinks is just dandy and we can trust him to use it responsibly once he's elected.

Although it would be hard to surpass the evil of Cheney/Bush over the past eight years, the amount of power being concentrated in the executive branch is frighteningly corrupting, and it continues to expand. Mother Teresa would be tempted by that amount of power. I don't trust anyone to wield absolute power responsibly, and I'm not supposed to have to: that's why the US has a constitution, at least in theory. I guess that's really just a quaint historical document now, and we'll be at the mercy of whoever gets elected. That's not the way it's supposed to work, folks.

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams [1772].

Nobody does it better

When it comes to being a successful post-imperialist power, the United Kingdom is the out-and-out winner. Despite centuries of malfeasance, The United Kingdom has rebranded itself as a charming, cuddly nation of quaint historical quirkiness – bumbling bobbies and rambunctious royals, pushing prams and riding double-decker buses, carrying brollies and wearing funny hats, powered by tea and crumpets, bangers and mash, and the occasional haggis. James Bond has provided the most compelling model of masculinity for two generations. Brittania rules the cultural waves, providing an aspirational brand the likes of which the world's middle classes can't get enough.

The US ought to study these techniques. The days are quickly passing in which the US can exercise its droit de seigneur on the territories, people, and resources of the world and brush aside its ill will through well-placed slaps and tickles. The United States needs to learn to capitalize on the emotional weight of its chief cultural exports: the hamburger, the Internet, film, software and music, and car culture – and it must not allow anything to cheapen them.

It would be a good start to avoid spouting hypocritical insults at emerging superpowers, keep the welcome mat out, and make friends with the neighbours. Once it has stopped making enemies, the charm offensive can begin, and the US could one day attract the world's attention in a good way.

Economics and untested assumptions

Plenty of crow is being eaten over hyperbolic statements made about the real estate market. Unfortunately, that crow is being served up to the taxpayers of the US, and people who own US dollars – the companies who stole the money are keeping it. But that is all water under the bridge, of course, because it was all just a big misunderstanding, right? They didn't mean to commit endless fraud. They were just doing their jobs.

Yes, the conventional wisdom of 2005 sounds screwy when we look at it in retrospect. But what other whoppers are we swallowing for no good reason? Compare and contrast these two statements:

“An invaluable book . . . Today’s real estate markets are booming and Lereah makes a convincing case for why the real estate expansion will continue into the next decade. This book should prove to be a truly practical guide for any household looking to create wealth in real estate.” —DEWEY DAANE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Review for Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust - And How You Can Profit from It: How to Build Wealth in Today's Expanding Real Estate Market, by David Lereah (Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors), published 2006-02-21

"Suddenly those US government treasury bonds, still near the historic lows of one and two percent, are beautifully attractive because they are safe: they will never blow up like sub-prime CDOs did."

This American Life #355: The Giant Pool of Money, 2008-05-09 (mp3)

Just as nobody could conceive of the US housing market imploding like a cheap lightbulb, nobody can conceive of the US treasury doing the same. After all, it has never crashed, the US has never become insolvent, and therefore it cannot happen.

Except it can.

Foreign investors had simply not appeared, the demand for Uncle Sam's offering--so often a sure-fire thing--had fallen flat. Unlike anytime previously, the world's treasury buyers had suddenly decided to keep their hands in their pockets, invest their oil dollars elsewhere; some in the new-kid-on-the-block euro treasuries, others in their own local currencies.

The great US treasury bond sale: but nobody showed up The Middle East December 2004, by Milan Vesely

All it takes is a crisis of confidence. It doesn't even really require that the US screw up its fiscal situation so badly that the current accounts deficit gets permanently out of whack and stays that way for a generation (oh, never mind, it already has). All it takes is for the Chinese treasury to decide that it no longer wants to finance hip replacements or another US military adventure, and the whole thing could come apart like a piñata.

So, when somebody says with great certitude that an investment is completely safe, hold on to your wallet. That goes double for any government, and twice over again for corporate or state-sponsored media.

America: join the crowd

I've been spending some time thinking about the decline of the American Empire, and putting it in the context of recent world events. Bear with me for a brief economic history of the past forty years, a little more in-depth review of the past seven, and a sobering prognosis.

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Peak oil in the United States happened before 1970, and it has been a long ride downhill. The United States' domination of the world in the 20^th century was based on oil, and when it started depending on oil imports, things started to go wrong.

The 1973 Arab oil embargo underlined this problem. Our prescient president Jimmy Carter put on a sweater and set sheep to graze on the White House lawn, but he was ineffective in his quest to convince the American people that energy independence was critical: they were in denial as global oil production per capita reached its peak in 1979, and they elected Ronald Reagan.

Reagan made people feel better, and they soon forgot about the whole energy mess – for a generation. Cars got huge, and then even huger, and oil remained relatively cheap. But the demographic shift worldwide set up massive structural problems that couldn't be ignored, at least not by the ruling class. They understood that trouble was coming quickly, and groups such as the Project for the New American Century set up plans to counter these shifts.

After the media and the Supremes pushed their man into power in 2001, the neocons were in their springtime. Dick Cheney's energy task force made tactical plans, as the Bush administration had already decided to invade Iraq.

I'm not going to get into the entire September 11th thing. If you choose to open that door and reconsider what you saw that day and try to match it up with what you've been told since, I guarantee you won't like it. Whatever its cause, that convenient crisis was used as the launching point for a campaign fulfill a clear agenda: the United States sought to seize control of middle eastern oil.

Afghanistan was just the preamble. The Plan, as outlined by Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.): seven more countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran. You will note that those countries bracket the largest proven oil reserves in the world. The notable oil producing country that isn't mentioned in the list (Saudi Arabia, a nominal US ally whose shaky kleptocracy has close ties to the US élite) would end up pretty much surrounded. If your goal is to establish military domination over a region, this looks like a very good plan.

The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has had many conflicting justifications and pretexts, among them Osama Bin Laden (who is in Pakistan, and who isn't important anymore); the status of women (which was only a priority for a hot second) and finally, the scary Taliban (unless and until the US can make a deal with them – then all is forgiven. Again.) But really, Afghanistan is now simply a convenient location for military bases (strategically placed around a certain strategic asset) next to two problematic countries.

Discussing the justifications floated for the invasion of Iraq would take more time than I want to devote to it, but between the weapons of mass destruction, Al-Qaeda links, spreading freedom, massacres, rape rooms, spreading democracy, and other altruistic and high-sounding bullshit, none of them tend to last more than six months. The longest lasting reason so far has been obstinate tenacity. That is unrealistic as a basis for foreign policy. At the very least Iraq continues to present plenty of convenient opportunities to rattle the sabre at Iran.

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All war is economic, both in motive and in execution. The US imperial machine is out of gas: the US dollar is tremendously depressed, and by many accounts teetering on the verge of collapse. The US economy is sputtering. The political élite which started this adventure is discredited and unable to convince anyone to carry it further. A resurgent Russia now stands prepared to defend its interests in its neighboring sphere, buoyed by the rocketing price of petroleum. It turns out that the USSR didn't collapse because of Reagan's force of personality: it collapsed because Saudi Arabia flooded the market with cheap oil. That no longer holds true: we are now in or around worldwide peak oil. Refineries are at capacity, but no new refineries are planned – ever again.

This is really, really bad news for the United States. The Terror War for Oil was conceived as the last chance to sustain American hegemony, supplying the energy to hold the country over until new technologies become available (or at least until the Baby Boomers die). But it failed, and now the US is broke, mired in an anthill, and beset by competition from countries with younger, larger, and better educated populations, with larger supplies of oil, more effective governments, and more dynamic economies.

Which is not to say that the United States is a bad place, or that it will be worse than other places. On the contrary, it will probably do reasonably well once it extricates itself from some current difficulties. But it will never rule the roost again, and Americans are going to have to learn to shed the myth of American exceptionalism. The tank is empty, and the US will have to learn to wait in line at the gas station just like everybody else.

Teach kids to question authority

I just finished reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother: a very dangerous book to pick up in the late evening. It is a young adult book about teenage hackers who bring down police-state security regime enforced by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security following a terrorist attack and restore the Bill of Rights.

Fiction, unfortunately. This is fine reading for young people: exciting, subversive, relevant, and extremely motivating with real-world ideas about things they can do to change the world they live in.

I'm one of Cory Doctorow's 1,000 true fans. The man shames me; he's written the most patriotic book I've read in years – a veritable pæan to the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. constitution – and he's Canadian. It wasn't easy for me to leave my country of birth, and it is all too tempting to turn my back on it; this book reminds me that the United States once stood for principles worth fighting for, and with work, it could someday again.

The book is available for sale as a dead tree and as a DRM-free audiobook, as well as a freely downloadable CC-licensed text|html|PDF file – and if you downloaded it, liked it, and want him to get paid for it, donate a copy to a library or school.

A world unwelcome

Tom Ridge told the NY Times “The welcome mat has a little dust on it right now. We have to spruce it up a bit.”

Well, that's an understatement. People I meet go to great lengths to avoid traveling through what was once known as the Sweet Land of Liberty; it has now become a rogue state of the worst reputation. It seems like everybody has a story about being mistreated at the border or the visa office, and people will pay hundreds extra to avoid connecting flights there.

... and the chocolate ration has been increased
to four grams per month!

Aside from having flushed its hospitality industry, The US no longer attracts the brightest and best students and workers; they're now looking at Europe, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Heck, they're flocking to Dubai. You know you're in trouble when you can't compete for labour with a country whose working conditions have been described as "less than human". Richard Florida, who coined the term "creative class", documents this in The Flight of the Creative Class.

For a real-world example, direct your gaze to the building across the street from my office: Microsoft just opened a
global development facility in Richmond, BC. Three hours by car from their headquarters in Redmond, it is designed to allow Microsoft to recruit the best and brightest to work for them and live in an industrialized nation with a functioning civil society. They plan to employ 800 people there. Those would otherwise be jobs in Redmond if the US didn't have its priorities seriously out of order.