Category Archives: Civil Rights

What’s Wrong With The US? Connect The Dots.

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It’s probably self-evident, but our government is no longer of the people, by the people and for the people. A more accurate description would be of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations.

But how did we get here? How have a few powerful multinationals and one percent of the population usurped power from the vast majority of the people? In order to fully understand this, all you need to do is connect the dots.

  • We have allowed a few large corporations to create virtual monopolies, often with the help of government subsidies. These corporations buy out, squeeze out and drive out small businesses.
  • The CEOs of these corporations sit on each others’ Boards and approve each others’ compensations.
  • A portion of CEO compensation is based on the companies’ productivity and share price. That means the CEOs strive to cut costs (employee benefits and salaries) while increasing the price of products and services.
  • Once corporations achieve maximum productivity and profit with US employees, they are encouraged to offshore jobs in order to further reduce labor costs and employee benefits.
  • As corporations expand around the world, it becomes easier to stash profits offshore in order to reduce their tax burden and further increase profits.
  • These increased profits and compensation allow corporations to “invest” millions in the political campaigns of those who will support corporate interests.
  • The campaign contributions by corporations and corporate leaders leads to a massive increase in the cost of running for office, driving away those who might represent ordinary working people.
  • Corporate-financed Political Action Groups and associations, such as the US Chamber of Commerce spend additional millions to support corporate-friendly candidates.
  • Once the corporate-friendly candidates are sworn into office, they pass legislation that benefits their contributors.
  • Corporations and industries finance large lobbying efforts to further impact legislation resulting in large government contracts and subsidies.
  • Eventually, the corporate-friendly politicians nominate and approve judicial appointments that make the courts more friendly to corporate interests (see Citizens United v FEC, Buckley v Valeo and Bowman v Monsanto).
  • Politicians, with help from the courts (see Shelby County v Holder), undermine the voting rights of minorities and others who oppose them. At the same time, they wage war against the poor by cutting education, unemployment benefits and food stamps. They allow corporations to steal their savings, even their homes without repercussions.

We can take back our government, but it won’t be easy. It starts with election finance reform that takes the massive amounts of money out of political campaigns. It ends with politicians who, in the interests of ordinary people, are willing to break up “too big to fail” corporations as President Theodore Roosevelt once did.

Grand Old Party Of Hate.

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After last year’s failure to elect a president, you would think that the GOP would stop trying to be the stupid, anti-minority, anti-woman, anti-poor party.

You’d be wrong.

Confirming that the Tea Party Parasites are firmly in control of the GOP, red states across the country are refusing to expand Medicaid making it difficult for the working poor to get access to healthcare. Many states are also using bullying tactics and tricks to pass legislation that not only takes away a woman’s right to choose. The same legislation is forcing women to pay for ultrasounds they neither want nor need; to eliminate women’s health clinics; to limit women’s access to contraceptives.

Already this year, Speaker John Boehner has stated that he will not bring forward the Senate’s immigration reform bill. GOP legislators are, once again, trying to suppress the voting rights of minorities. And GOP legislators and congressmen are still trying to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry.

What all of these issues have in common is that they are attempts to deny rights to individuals.

Instead of following their oft-stated goal of limited government, GOP leaders are trying to use the government to discriminate against large segments of our population. And they’ll continue their politics of discrimination and hate until voters make them pay. Not just for a single election year, but for three or four election cycles. Long enough to force a permanent change in the party.

A Divided Nation.

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I began this blog several years ago with a post “Why We’re Divided.” The point was that our political divide is not merely the result of differing ideologies. It’s the result of differing “facts.”

Never has that been more clearly demonstrated than by two competing advertising campaigns running on this Independence Day. In my state’s largest newspaper, there is an ad bearing the headline “In God We Trust.” Paid for by a company that is owned by a religious zealot, the ad uses a variety of quotes from our Founding Fathers to support the claim that our nation was founded on Christianity.

A few pages later, there is an ad bearing the headline “Celebrate Our Godless Constitution.” Paid for by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, it, too, uses a variety of quotes from our Founding Fathers to support the claim that our nation was built on the principle of separation of Church and State.

This is a classic example of proof-texting – selectively choosing quotes that support a particular point of view. This technique is often used by the religious to justify actions or beliefs. Religious leaders use verses from the Bible to justify war, to rationalize genocide, to discriminate against gays and others, to ignore – indeed blame – the poor for struggling as the result of policies they didn’t create, etc.

No matter how ugly your point of view, you can find a verse in the Bible, the Torah or the Qur’an to justify an action or inaction.

The same is true when it comes to quotes by our Founding Fathers. As Michael Austin writes in his book That’s Not What They Meant! Reclaiming the Founding Fathers from America’s Right Wing, the Founders were so diverse, you can find a quote from one of them to support almost any point of view. Among the Founders were Protestants, Catholics, Quakers, Jews, Deists, Agnostics and Atheists. There were idealists and slave owners. There were farmers, plantation owners, printers, attorneys, inventors, ship owners and many others.

There were Founders in favor of a strong central government and those who believed the power should reside exclusively with the states.

So which ad is correct? Both of them. And neither of them.

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, who authored our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, strongly believed in separation of Church and State. The majority at the Constitutional Convention agreed. However, many of the Founders spoke of “divine providence” and the “principles of Christianity.”

More important, the ads demonstrate the growing divide between Americans; between the Federalists and those who believe in states’ rights; between the devoutly religious and the agnostics; between science and religion; between those who trust government and those who despise it; between the wealthy and the poor; between red and blue; between black, brown, red and white; between the educated and the uneducated; and between those who believe the US is the greatest nation on Earth and those who recognize its faults and intend to change them.

I think it no exaggeration to write that our nation is at a crossroads, more divided than at any time since the Civil War. Independence Day is the perfect time to consider the consequences of such a divide. Committing to compromise and finding common ground are imperative to the future of our nation.

The New Jim Crow.

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When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law in 1965, everyone thought that would be the end of Jim Crow laws that mandated segregation throughout the South and prevented African-Americans from exercising their right to vote.

Everyone was wrong!

Within days of the Supreme Court striking down the portion of the law that forced many southern states to seek pre-clearance from the Department of Justice before changing their voting laws, the Republican-dominated legislatures in Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia have introduced laws designed to restrict minority voting. South Carolina and Mississippi are also considering changes designed to marginalize minorities.

Thanks to the conservatives on the Supreme Court, minorities in these states no longer have the protection of the Department of Justice. Their only recourse is to file lawsuits. By the time these lawsuits wend their way through the court system, the damage will have already been done.

In other words, the Supreme Court and the GOP have set the Way Back Machine to 1964!

This is at the heart of the new GOP strategy. Following the Romney defeat last November, Republican strategists realized that the party was unlikely to win if Democrats continued to dominate the growing minority vote. Then the more conservative wing of the GOP stepped forward with an alternative strategy. Instead of pandering to minorities, they intend to institutionalize racism by focusing almost exclusively on white voters – particularly those struggling in the new GOP economy.

After reviewing the demographics of the 2012 presidential vote, GOP strategists discovered that there was a sizable portion of white people who didn’t vote. So the new strategy is to maximize the white vote while suppressing the votes of minorities.

If you’re white, uneducated, religious and poor, the GOP wants you.

Too Cute By Far.

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I don’t know if Edward Snowden is a hero or a traitor; an honorable whistleblower or a self-serving snitch. Those distinctions will be up to history, the public and the courts to decide. But I do know that, if his revelations ultimately show as he claims, that US spying is out of control, he is going about his mission the wrong way.

The initial revelations were really nothing surprising. But they did get the attention of the entire nation and initiated a useful discussion of how much surveillance is necessary to protect us from terrorists. In that regard, Snowden did us all a great favor.

The fact that he obtained his information through lies and deception, however, raises as many questions about his character and his methods as it does about the NSA. And the fact that he is on the run, seeking asylum from some of our nation’s adversaries, raises questions about his motives.

Snowden’s most recent claims are as unsubstantiated as they are sensational. Moreover, they have caused great embarrassment to the US and strained relationships with our allies.

All of this leads me to believe that, if Snowden’s motives were honorable, he would have approached his task in a much different way. Before going public with his revelations, he could have approached Congressmen or Senators to see if he could find a receptive ear. There are many, like Senator Ron Wyden, who would have helped him accomplish his goals in a more effective and legal, but less sensational, way. If that approach wasn’t to Snowden’s liking, he could have had the courage to stay in the US, divulge his information to the press, and continue his quest through the courts, if necessary.

If he found either of those paths too daunting, he could have protected himself by providing all of his information to his accomplice, Glenn Greenwald, as insurance that it would eventually be made public. If his goal is, indeed, to protect the American public, the American people would have his back and prevent any extraordinary consequences. He would have been viewed as the hero he apparently thinks himself to be.

But Snowden chose a more cowardly, sensational path.

As a result, he finds himself trapped in a Russian airport and denied asylum by other nations. If he returns to the US, he will be arrested and spend a lengthy time in jail while awaiting trial. If he travels to most other countries in the world, he will likely face extradition. And any nation that will grant him asylum is likely to be one in which he won’t want to live.

I, for one, will not feel sorry for him. He had other, and better, options.

The Dismal State Of Our Union.

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Upon listening to the last day of Neal Conan’s Talk of the Nation on NPR, I was surprised by Ted Koppel’s response when asked about the future. Turns out, Koppel shares many of the same concerns as I do. For what it’s worth, here is a compilation of my own views of the current state of our union and its future.

Civil Rights – How depressing that people are still struggling for civil rights nearly 150 years after the end of slavery! The Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act was a huge setback, unleashing red states to suppress minority votes.

Abortion – Although abortion was made legal in 1973, women are still fighting to wrest control of their own bodies from the old men who control our political system. Amazingly, women are now forced to fight for access to contraception!

Environment – Most Americans say they’re concerned about our environment. They just don’t act like it. Most refuse to sacrifice anything on behalf of our planet’s future.

Hunger – In the richest nation on Earth, 50 million people are unsure of where they’ll get their next meal. That includes 17 million American children!

Energy – Nearly 40 years after President Carter had solar panels installed on the White House, we’re still addicted to fossil fuels. We spill more oil than most other countries use.

Healthcare  – The dirty secret is that we have no healthcare system. We spend more than twice as much as other advanced nations, yet achieve worse outcomes. And we spend more on pharmaceuticals than the rest of the world combined.

Wall Street – Greed has turned large banks into high stakes casinos. Their gambling habit not only cost individuals and pension plans trillions…many families lost their homes. Yet any attempt to regulate these banks has been undermined by millions in lobbying efforts.

Income Disparity – The US ranks among the world’s worst nations for income inequality. 400 Americans control more wealth than half of our population, and the gap is growing. Yet Republicans believe that 47 percent are sponging off the rest!

Jobs – Simply put, we don’t have enough of them. And far too few of them pay enough to support a family. Corporate leaders and politicians, on the other hand, each make enough to support dozens of families.

Privatization – We’ve privatized prisons, prison healthcare, schools, our military, even our intelligence efforts. Although all of these efforts have proven to cost more than publicly run institutions, Republicans are pushing for even more privatization.

Pensions – We lost tens of thousands of employee pensions over the past 40 years, replaced by IRAs and 401Ks which were originally intended to supplement defined benefit pension plans. The money once used for employee benefits now lines the pockets of CEOs, executives and investors.

Politics – Our politics have continued to move to the right, even though our population hasn’t. When Republicans are in control, they unabashedly cram through partisan legislation. When Democrats are in control, they tentatively nibble around the margins instead of doing what they were elected to do. Both parties rely on large corporations to finance their political campaigns.

Tea Party – This is a relatively small group that has had a large impact. Based on lies and meanness, it seems its goal is to take us back to the 16th Century.

Surveillance – Following 9/11, we traded privacy for increased security. The NSA tracks records of our phone calls, search engine terms and emails. Banks and credit card companies track our purchases. And surveillance cameras are everywhere.

Guns – While the NRA works to increase the availability of guns, even for criminals and the mentally ill, manufacturers make guns ever more lethal.

Education – Thanks to conservatives, public education is underfunded and teachers are woefully underpaid. Enough said.

Science – Many now claim that evolution is merely a theory. But so is gravity! Of course, these people also deny man’s affect on climate change. (See education.)

Religious Intolerance – Islam is not the only religion with extremists. The intolerance of all religions seems to be growing.

Anger and Pettiness – Within 20 years of the end of the Fairness Doctrine, 91 percent of talk radio was conservative…mean, angry, venomous Rush Limbaugh-style conservative… and it’s getting worse. (See Tea Party)

War – There’s no denying it. The US absolutely LOVES war. We glorify soldiers and their war machines with military-style ceremonies and flyovers at nearly every large event. And we spend hundreds of billions on “defense” to build bigger, badder war toys.

Iraq – Iraq cost us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. The result of our sacrifices is that we have turned Iraq into a vassal state of radical Iran.

Afghanistan – Despite setting a deadline for withdrawal, there is no clear outcome for this war. We may leave the country no better off than it was when we arrived.

Syria – Yet another opportunity to dive into a war with no real reason or plan. But it is a war and some of our politicians don’t want to be left out.

War on Drugs – This “war” may have ruined more lives than the drugs themselves. It disproportionately affects minorities, filling our prisons to overflowing. Indeed, we have a larger prison population than any other nation.

Militarization of Police – As our soldiers return from war, they’re increasingly hired by police departments. As a result, police become ever more militarized…with assault weapons and assault vehicles…and further removed from ordinary citizens.

Journalism – In the 1980’s, TV networks began measuring the success of their news organizations by ratings which instantly sensationalized the news and created the “sound bite.”  Worse, most news groups have lost their independence as they were gobbled up by conglomerates.

With all this, it’s difficult to be optimistic about the future, but the pendulum may soon swing the other way. I hope so.

The States’ Rights Court.

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Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled on three highly controversial cases, it seems that the decisions all have one thing in common – a desire to protect states’ rights. Even though the justices behind the majority opinions changed from one case to another, the Court showed a willingness to defer, when possible, to the states.

In the case of the VRA (Voting Rights Act), it seems that the majority believes that the VRA is an intrusion on the affected states. In voiding the criteria for pre-clearance of changes in voting laws in states that have a history of discriminating against minorities, the Court challenged Congress to create new criteria that reflect today’s political environment.

Disregarding the fact that the VRA has been a target of John Roberts since 1980, the majority opinion seems to be a win for those who believe in states’ rights. Unfortunately, on the issue of voting rights, many of our states have demonstrated that they can’t be trusted to protect the voting rights of minorities. In states like Alabama and Texas, the ink on the Court’s opinion wasn’t dry before Republican legislators introduced new efforts to suppress minority votes. Indeed, the Republican Party has been trying to suppress minority votes across the country.

If the Court was serious about protecting voting rights, it would have subjected all states to pre-clearance of changes in voting laws. It most certainly wouldn’t have passed responsibility along to our dysfunctional Congress.

In the cases of Prop 8 and DOMA, a different majority of the Court ruled. But the outcome was much the same.

On Prop 8, the Court ruled that, since the State of California chose not to defend the constitutionality of its own law in court, surrogates could not. On DOMA, the majority ruled that the legality of gay marriage is up to individual states, and it ruled that the federal government cannot deny benefits to gay couples who have been legally married.

As you can see, both of these rulings also seem to support states’ rights.

If the Roberts Court is so committed to protecting states’ rights over the federal government, a position most famously attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the justices would be wise to remember what Jefferson wrote in defense of separation of Church and State: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

The same reasoning would be well applied to all civil rights. To paraphrase: The right of other citizens to vote, or to marry whom they choose, does me no injury. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

The South Will Rise Again!

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The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to shoot down sections of the Voting Rights Act may be one giant step backward in our nation’s centuries-long fight for equality and civil rights. It also represents an unprecedented power grab by the Court.

The Voting Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson to prevent widespread voter suppression throughout the South. The law required offending states to obtain pre-clearance by the DOJ (Department of Justice) for changes in voting laws, including any attempts at redistricting aimed at marginalizing the minority vote. For years, this mandate has not only helped African-Americans and Latinos vote, it has helped them get the representation they deserve.

Yet, despite the law, states have never stopped trying to block minority votes.

For example, just last year, the DOJ prevented Houston, Texas from reducing voting centers from 84 to just 12. The plan was to eliminate voting centers in predominately African-American areas of the city. And last year, Teapublican-controlled legislatures throughout the country imposed strict new voter ID laws aimed at reducing minority voter turnout for President Obama. They also drastically reduced polling hours in some states, forcing minorities to stand in line up to 6 hours in order to vote.

All of this has been done under the guise of “vote integrity” to prevent felons and undocumented immigrants from voting, despite the fact there is absolutely no evidence of such illegal voting.

In gutting the Voting Rights Act, which was renewed by Congress in 2006 with near unanimous support, the Court has, in essence, overruled Congress. And, by stating that it is now up to Congress to come up with a new and more equitable way to enforce voting rights, it has given Congress a task the Teapublican-controlled House and the filibuster-prone Senate are clearly not capable of handling.

As a result, racists in Congress and in legislatures throughout the nation, particularly in the Old South and in Arizona, will feel free to run amok again. If you doubt this, all you have to do is to look at the way Teapublicans have pushed through Voter ID laws and anti-abortion laws with an array of bullying tactics and parliamentary tricks.

It’s Difficult To Disprove A Negative.

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Whenever someone accuses the government of a scandal, it’s almost impossible to disprove it. That’s because the accusation makes headlines. The truth doesn’t.

Nobody understands this principle better than Teapublicans.

When Bill Clinton was elected to the White House, he was forced to disprove a constant wave of scandals created by the GOP. Now it’s President Obama’s turn. That’s why we’ve seen a flurry of scandalous accusations about Fast & Furious, drones, Benghazi, the IRS, and NSA.

The headlines have been damning – based on outrageous claims by Rep. Darrell Issa, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Speaker John Boehner, Sen. Mitch McConnell and others. The truth has been less interesting.

For example, Issa made claims that Fast & Furious was a large scale gun-running operation overseen by Attorney General Eric Holder. The reality is that it was a small localized operation by a unit of the ATFE frustrated by Arizona’s lax gun laws and the inability to prosecute straw buyers.

Issa and others made the sensational claim that the president and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ignored the danger to diplomats in Libya then covered up their failures. The reality is that Ambassador Stevens twice rejected increased security and the talking points released by Susan Rice were crafted by the CIA and mid-level State Dept. officials.

Teapublicans claim that IRS scrutiny of Tea Party organizations seeking nonprofit status was orchestrated by the White House and President Obama. The truth is, the IRS director was a Bush appointee and, according to testimony by an IRS supervisor in charge (who is, incidentally, a self-described conservative Republican), the scrutiny of Tea Party groups was not ordered by the administration and was not politically motivated.

Teapublicans and many Democrats claim that NSA collection of data demonstrates that President Obama is an authoritarian fascist operating in defiance of the 4th amendment of the Constitution. The truth is, the NSA program began immediately following 9/11 and the Obama administration reigned it in, eliminating warrantless wiretaps and clearing the collection of data through the FISA court and Congress. Interestingly, the people of Europe were aware of our program long before Snowden’s revelations and the overwhelming majority approve of it.

All of this proves that, now that our press is driven by ratings and sensationalism rather than a desire to inform, unscrupulous politicians can take advantage of it. And no politicians are more unscrupulous than today’s Republican Party.

Scandalrama!

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As the Teapublican House, led by witch-hunter-in-chief, Darrell Issa, looks under every rug and in every nook and cranny for dirt on Fast & Furious, Benghazi, Tea Party applications for non-profit status, the NSA, and anything else that can be used as a hammer against the Obama administration, the real work of Congress languishes.

The House still has not resolved the federal budget and the debt ceiling. It has not yet brought sanity to the nonsensical sequester cuts. It has not proposed a single bill to create jobs and lower unemployment. It has not proposed a bill to rebuild and modernize our infrastructure. It has not yet passed a bill to reduce or eliminate the waiting time for veterans’ benefits. It has not yet passed an immigration bill.

The House has not considered tax reform to eliminate loopholes that would prevent multinational corporations to stash cash in offshore tax havens. It has not passed a bill to end the senseless gun violence. It has not passed a bill to close loopholes in background checks or to control the straw buyers who provide guns to gangs and drug cartels. It hasn’t even proposed a solution for climate change caused by increasing CO2 emissions.

Teapublican congressional representatives have largely ignored all substantive issues. Instead, they have focused on trumped-up “scandals,” the repeal of “Obamacare” and a myriad of restrictive social issues all revolving around women’s vaginas. As always, they seem fascinated by the “evils” of sexual orientation and the rights of the unborn.

Meanwhile, they ignore the rights and the needs of the already living.