California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Dependence and Homelessness

by John Lawrence, July 20, 2019

It seems to me that there are those who can fend for themselves in life and those, for whatever reasons, that can't. There are the obvious people who can't fend for themselves and are dependent on their families, society, charity or the kindness of strangers. The obvious ones are babies who are totally dependent on their mothers. Then there are old people who are too decrepit mentally or physically or both who need someone(s) to care for them. Adults can usually fend for themselves. But there are exceptions. Take my sister, for example. She suffered severe brain damage at birth and her mental capacity throughout life was never greater than a one and a half year old's. She never learned to talk; she walked unsteadily for only a few years. She fell a lot and had seizures. She was life long dependent on my parents who were saints to have loved and cared for her for a life time.

Many parents with a child like Jeanne would have placed her in an institution like the Kennedys did with Rosemary, sister of John F, Robert and Ted Kennedy, who was mentally disabled. But Jeanne loved her parents so much. They were the only thing she really had in life. They did send her to a "school" for a year when she was a young teenager. This "school" was supposed to teach her something, but I don't know what. Within a year she almost died there, and the school called my parents and told them to come get her. She recovered. I think she would have died of a broken heart because my parents were all that she had and all that she loved in life. She was probably abused at that school because she was physically normal and pretty, and she couldn't tell anyone if she had been abused because she couldn't communicate verbally.

So there are people who have disabilities of one sort or another either mental or physical who deserve to be cared for throughout life not just at the beginning and the end stages. Should society take care of these people if their families can't? In other words should taxpayers? Otherwise, if it were not for saints like my parents, what would happen to them. Jeanne had all the normal emotions. She could laugh; she could cry. She could give and receive love.

Which brings me to the subject of homelessness. There are some people who, for whatever reason, just cannot fend for themselves in life. Or maybe they could fend for themselves under certain conditions and with certain support. That is if they had some kind of support from society. But so many of these people who in former days were cared for by their families today are just forced out on the streets. Hitler would have disposed of all these people in the gas chamber. He was in the process of doing just that in addition to disposing of a lot of perfectly functioning and good people because of their ethnicity. Today's America treats them with Nixon's famous phrase - "benign neglect."

In 21st century America dogs and cats are treated better than homeless people. Only people and corporations with paid lobbyists get any respect from government. The government exists only to support a trillion dollar military-industrial complex and major corporations that can lobby Congress. Taxpayers in general don't want their tax money to go to support people who can't fend for themselves, but they are only all too willing to let their tax money be spent on a dominating military system.

It should be a human right to have a roof over your head or at least to be treated humanely in a society that spends billions of dollars further enriching billionaires. Their money isn't earned by dint of their own hard work. It's earned by dint of lobbying Congress for favorable tax laws and favorable environmental legislation - that is for environmental degradation. The US has not even accepted the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights. It does not support the weakest among us. It supports the strongest among us. Homelessness is not the real problem. Most homeless people need a social worker more than they need a "home." They need support from a heartless society that leaves them to vanquish on the streets with benign neglect. But don't ask the taxpayers for that.

The Homegrown Crisis California Refuses to Own

by Robert Scheer, from truthdig, July 5, 2019

Anyone who has spent even a short period of time in California’s cities will immediately notice the homelessness crisis that has grown to stunning proportions in recent years. The “explanation” that’s often thrown around is that people who become homeless travel to the Golden State, where, presumably, the mild weather blunts some of the difficulties of living without a roof over one’s head. But this, like most justifications for inhumane problems, is just that: a justification to make Californians feel slightly less terrible every time they come across a person in need on the streets of some of the wealthiest, most progressive cities in the world.

As Tommy Newman, a lawyer and a senior director at the nonprofit United Way, points out in the latest installment of the “Scheer Intelligence” podcast, a quarter of the nation’s homeless live in California, earning it the shameful moniker of “Homeless Capital of America.”

That’s not the only staggering number related to the issue. “About 70% of the people who are living outside [in Los Angeles County] last lived indoors in L.A. County, and of that subset, 50% lived here for more than a decade indoors,” Newman tells Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer on the podcast. The numbers, which clearly debunk the common rationalization about homelessness, should lead us all to the crucial conclusion Newman has drawn from the statistics.

“This is a homegrown challenge,” he says. “Some people will come here, but if your whole life falls apart and you’re in Iowa, you’re not going to say, ‘All right, well, I’ve lost everything, and now I’m going to California’—you’re stuck.”

Jerry Brown, the state’s four-term governor, considered the crisis so dire that, as Newman points out, he thought that climate change would be solved sooner than homelessness. Newman, however, isn’t willing to give up on the pressing issue, and thanks to his work and that of his colleagues, big changes in both policy and popular opinion have already begun to materialize. Two Los Angeles ballot measures—Proposition HHH and Measure H—aimed at creating affordable housing for thousands—passed in the miraculous span of four months. The efforts to pass these measures were documented in the 2018 film “The Advocates,” in which Newman appears, and which is available for viewing on streaming services. While the progress springing from these policies will take time, Newman warns, it will take place.

One of the main difficulties faced by United Way and others who advocate for helping homeless people is how Californians feel about housing, especially one specific group that is stuck on a suburban Nimbyism and rejects zoning for more affordable multifamily housing.

“It’s white people who are primarily the challenge on this housing question,” Newman tells Scheer. “White people support more multifamily housing, more apartments—whether they’re affordable or not, more apartments—to the tune of about 40%. And people who are not white support apartments to the tune of about 60%. So it is white people who own homes who are the cause of the homelessness crisis, and will need to be a part of the solution in some way, unless we can build a larger coalition around them and create that pressure.”

Scheer, who has lived in California most of his adult life, sees the question of how we approach homelessness amid blatant affluence as one that gets to the core of our humanity.

“The fact of the matter is, we’re kind of in this Dickens world of London,” Scheer says. “We have extreme wealth in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and points in between. And yet we have the most abject misery.

“I do want to encourage people to realize that we are actually talking about a notion of what is civilization,” he adds. “I think that you can’t be a city of the future, which is what L.A. advertises as, [unless you are] welcoming to people who all look different ways, come from different backgrounds, have different skill sets, different employment opportunities.”

Listen to the full discussion between Scheer and Newman about the political, social and economic factors contributing to the Golden State’s most shameful failures to date. You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player and find past episodes of “Scheer Intelligence” here.

—Introduction by Natasha Hakimi Zapata

---

Robert Scheer, editor in chief of Truthdig, has built a reputation for strong social and political writing over his 30 years as a journalist. His columns appear in newspapers across the country, and his in-depth interviews have made headlines. He conducted the famous Playboy magazine interview in which Jimmy Carter confessed to the lust in his heart and he went on to do many interviews for the Los Angeles Times with Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and many other prominent political and cultural figures.

Between 1964 and 1969 he was Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. From 1976 to 1993 he served as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, writing on diverse topics such as the Soviet Union, arms control, national politics and the military. In 1993 he launched a nationally syndicated column based at the Los Angeles Times, where he was named a contributing editor. That column ran weekly for the next 12 years and is now based at Truthdig.

Scheer was raised in the Bronx, where he attended public schools and graduated from City College of New York. He studied as a Maxwell Fellow at Syracuse University and was a fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, where he did graduate work in economics. Scheer is a contributing editor for The Nation as well as a Nation Fellow. He has also been a Poynter Fellow at Yale, and was a fellow in arms control at Stanford.

Scheer received the 2010 Distinguished Work in New Media Award from the Society of Professional Journalists' Greater Los Angeles Chapter, and in 2011 Ithaca College awarded him the Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media.

'Blatant Effort to Intimidate and Retaliate': Pompeo Imposes Visa Ban on ICC Staff Probing US War Crimes

Published on Friday, March 15, 2019 by Common Dreams

"It reeks of the very totalitarian practices that are characteristic of the worst human rights abusers."

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

 

40 Comments

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced new visa restrictions in a press briefing on Friday. (Photo: U.S. State Department)

Human rights defenders expressed outrage on Friday after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed that the Trump administration is revoking or denying visas for any International Criminal Court (ICC) personnel who try to investigate or prosecute U.S. officials or key allies for potential war crimes.

"This is an unprecedented attempt to skirt international accountability for well-documented war crimes that haunt our clients to this day."
—Jamil Dakwar, ACLU

The move, Pompeo confirmed to reporters Friday morning, is a direct response to ongoing efforts by the ICC to probe allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity tied to the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan.

Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, was among those who spoke out against the decision. The ACLU currently represents Khaled El Masri, Suleiman Salim, and Mohamed Ben Soud, who were all detained and tortured in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2008.

"This is an unprecedented attempt to skirt international accountability for well-documented war crimes that haunt our clients to this day," Dakwar said. "It reeks of the very totalitarian practices that are characteristic of the worst human rights abusers, and is a blatant effort to intimidate and retaliate against judges, prosecutors, and advocates seeking justice for victims of serious human rights abuses."

Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, called it "an outrageous effort to bully the court and deter scrutiny of U.S. conduct." He encouraged ICC member countries to "publicly make clear that they will remain undaunted in their support for the ICC and will not tolerate U.S. obstruction."

Daniel Balson, advocacy director at Amnesty International USA, noted that this is just "the latest attack on international justice and international institutions by an administration hellbent on rolling back human rights protections."

Visa bans, as Balson pointed out, are "powerful tools typically reserved for the most serious of human rights abusers."

But rather than targeting global criminals, the Trump administration has set its sights on the ICC—an impartial judicial body that aims to promote accountability under international law by probing and prosecuting crimes of aggression, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

"Throwing roadblocks in front of the ICC's investigation undermines justice not only for abuses committed in Afghanistan, but also for the millions of victims and survivors throughout the world who have experienced the most serious crimes under international law."
—Daniel Balson, Amnesty International USA

 

The move is "is highly indicative of [the administration's] culture of disregard for rights abuses," said Balson. "Throwing roadblocks in front of the ICC's investigation undermines justice not only for abuses committed in Afghanistan, but also for the millions of victims and survivors throughout the world who have experienced the most serious crimes under international law."

Pompeo's announcement came after John Bolton, President Donald Trump's national security adviser and a longtime critic of the ICC, threatened to impose sanctions on court officials in September if they continued to pursue an investigation of potential crimes by U.S. civilians or military personnel in Afghanistan.

Echoing Bolton's broader denunciations of the ICC last year, Pompeo on Friday highlighted that the United States—under both Democratic and Republican presidents—has refused to join the court for more than two decades "because of its broad, unaccountable prosecutorial powers and the threat it poses to American national sovereignty."

Warning that "the court could eventually pursue politically motivated prosecutions of Americans," the secretary of state told reporters that the Trump administration is "determined to protect the American and allied military and civilian personnel from living in fear of unjust prosecution for actions taken to defend our great nation."

"These visa restrictions may also be used to deter ICC efforts to pursue allied personnel, including Israelis, without allies' consent," Pompeo added. "Implementation of this policy has already begun."

Watch Pompeo's full remarks to the media on Friday:

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Off the Top of My Head

A Preferential Option for the Poor?

by John Lawrence, December 27, 2018

Some time ago the Catholic church came out with a pronouncement that there should be a preferential option for the poor. I took that to mean that in policy decisions the poor were to be given preference to the rich. However, the world has not worked out that way. Today we have a preferential option for the rich. The rich and powerful are glorified all over the world from Russian oligarchs to Trump style billionaires. The poor are represented by the phrase "let the devil take the hindermost." In other words to hell with those who fall behind in the glorious race to see who can accumulate the most wealth.

It's clear to anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the New Testament of the Bible that Jesus represented the poor and suffering and excoriated the rich. But who knew when the rich and powerful give lip service to Christianity but ignore totally Jesus' teachings. We see a growing number of people living on the streets because they can't afford to rent an apartment. Jesus would have been upset by that. Would he have assaulted the Halls of Congress as a lobbyist for the poor. Would he have called them hypocrites. He probably would have been ushered out by security.

Jesus the Peacemaker, the Prince of Peace, would have been astounded by the trillion dollar military budget, by how many rich mouths are feeding at the military-industrial complex trough. He would have been astounded by the total ignorance both of his own teachings and of scientific data that show the earth to be in jeopardy from global warming. When the worst effects of global warming become manifested, people would probably be imploring him for a miracle. Fantastical thinking as opposed to rational thinking is what the human race always turns to. I'm surprised that they're not waiting for another Messiah to lead them out of the wilderness and deliver them from global warming. But many don't even believe in global warming. Each catastrophe that happens because of it is simply taken as an Act of God, something that has never been seen before, a thousand year event that is becoming increasingly common.

Let's hope that the human race can come to its senses, stop spending money on war and the weapons of war, start converting to renewable energy and start putting the legitimate needs of people first with a preferential option for the poor and homeless and the needs and concerns of the wealthy last. Let's have a Green New Deal.

"These Are Prisons for Babies": Forcibly Separated From Parents, Youngest Kids Sent to So-Called "Tender Age" Detention

Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2018 by Common Dreams

Those who have visited the facilites describe "play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis." 

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

 

5 Comments

The Associated Press reports that young migrant children forcibly separated from their parents are being sent to facilities that critics described as "prisons for babies." (Photo: @NIJC/Twitter)

Under the Trump administration's cruel and widely condemned family separation policy, immigrant babies and young children torn from their parents at the Southern border have been sent to a trio "tender age" shelters that, according to lawyers and medical professionals who have visited the South Texas facilities, feature "play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis."

"They've created a jail for babies," tweeted ThinkProgress editor and founder Judd Legum, in response to the "absolutely soul-crushing" Associated Press report. "Creating prisons for babies and toddlers is not just another screwed up policy. These are crimes against humanity."

These are prisons for babies.

Prisons. For babies. https://t.co/417dScJZLi

— Women's March (@womensmarch) June 20, 2018

As of Tuesday, at least 2,342 children had been separated from their families since May 5. Images of children in cages and audio of young migrants crying for their parents have fueled international outrage and demands that the administration immediately halt the policy, which critics say amounts to a serious abuse of human rights, and even torture.

With the number of children detained in U.S. custody expected to continue rising as long as the policy remains in place, the AP reports that the government plans to convert a fourth facility in Houston, despite protests from local leaders. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says the fourth facility is a warehouse that was used to house people after Hurricane Harvey, and could hold up to 240 children.

Turner has met with the contractor for the fourth shelter, Austin-based Southwest Key Programs—which is reportedly slated to make some $458 million off of operating child detention centers—to ask the nonprofit to reconsider the plans. At a press conference on Tuesday, Turner said he told the contractor: "I do not want to be an enabler in this process. I do not want the city to particiapte in this process."

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner voiced opposition to a plan to house migrant children separated from their families at the border in a private facility in his city, saying he doesn't want to be an "enabler" of the Trump administration practice https://t.co/xoN842gUSM pic.twitter.com/nv9vhIHuJS

— CNN (@CNN) June 20, 2018

"The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it," Kay Bellor of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which organizes foster care and other services to migrant children, told the AP. "Toddlers are being detained."

Toddlers are being detained. Toddlers.

This is why we filed a class action. This is why we won’t stop fighting until families are reunited.#FamiliesBelongTogetherhttps://t.co/hHTpmBB7jB

— ACLU (@ACLU) June 20, 2018

The three existing facilities for young migrants are located in Combes, Raymondville, and Brownsville, and, according to the report, "have been rapidly repurposed to serve needs of children including some under 5."

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who recently attempted to visit a facility in Texas, called out Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen—who has been sharply ridiculed for lying about then defending the family separation policy, and even left a Mexican restaurant where she was dining Tuesday evening after being confronted by members of the Democratic Socialists of America's Metro D.C chapter.

Taking babies from their moms and putting them in mass shelters is horrific. @SecNielsen: Look in a mirror. Is this how you want to be remembered?https://t.co/i5YVxkJ4E8

— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) June 20, 2018

While the Trump administration continues to claim the policy is necessary to deter immigrants from coming to the United States and that the shelters are specially equipped to meet the needs of children—despite news reports to the contrary—as South Texas pediatrician Marsha Griffin, who has visited many facilities, concluded, "The shelters aren't the problem, it's taking kids from their parents that's the problem."

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow broke down on air Tuesday night while trying to read the breaking AP report to her viewers. Maddow addressed the moment in a series of tweets following the broadcast.

This is the clip of Rachel Maddow in tears when she found out about the report of "tender age" shelters for babies and young children separated from their parents.pic.twitter.com/ELMj1ylrwT

— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) June 20, 2018

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Off the Top of My Head

US Leaves UN Human Rights Council

by John Lawrence, June 20, 2018

The US is becoming the world's pariah. After leaving the Paris climate accords, the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans Pacific Partnership, now they're leaving the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) after the UNHRC criticized the US for separating parentrs and children at the border and Israel's shooting of unarmed protesters. Trump's go it alone strategy and make America Great Again (at the expense of everyone else) is isolating the US and turning it from a world leader into a banana republic. Slapping tariffs on everyone and starting a trade war is only going to redound to the malefit (the opposite of benefit) of American businesses and consumers. Trump is literally shooting the US in the foot. Countries that used to look up to us are now looking down upon us.

What message does this latest brouhaha send to the rest of the world, CNN fondly askes:

The United States has quit the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), saying the body is a "cesspool of political bias."

US ambassador Nikki Haley announced the move Tuesday, which followed criticism by the UNHRC of Israel's shooting of unarmed protesters and the separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

While US officials have tried to frame the move as pro-human rights, Washington's withdrawal is likely to renew criticism that the Trump administration places less value on human rights than its predecessors, as exemplified by Trump's dealings with alleged human rights abusers like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, and the recent outcry over the treatment of immigrants along its southern border.

The UNHRC is only the latest international body or agreement that the Trump administration has withdrawn from, including the Paris climate accords, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

 

Both Haley and Trump have previously sparred with the wider UN over criticism of the US and Israel, with Haley claiming the international community pays outsized attention to Washington's actions while ignoring the "reprehensible human rights records of several members of its own Human Rights Council."

That comment was in response to UN criticism of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, which Haley said was the "sovereign" right of the US to pursue.

In a statement, US Vice President Mike Pence said that in exiting the UN body Washington "took a stand against some of the world's worst human rights violators," claiming the council had made "a mockery" of its original mission in its criticism of the US and Israel.

However, both the Trump White House and previous US administrations have been open to dealing economically and otherwise with human rights abusers such as Saudi Arabia, China and Egypt.

 

Founded in March 2006, the UNHRC is responsible for "strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them." It acts as something of a UN equivalent to international human rights groups, monitoring and investigating situations in countries and drawing international attention to them. So what is the definition of human rights? They are based on the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights, which lays out the basic rights, both political and economic, that every human being on the planet should be entitled to.

 

The US never adhered to the economic rights laid out in the Universal Declaration. According to the US, there are no economic rights, only political rights. As far as political rights are concerned, the US has allied itself with some of the worst violators in history including Saudi Arabia. And as far as human rights are concerned, the Declaration needs to be amended to cover the rights of civilians who have been harmed by war and the rights of refugees. So far the US has been given a free pass for all the damage caused to civilians by its interminable wars in the Middle East including its support for Saudi Arabia in the current travesty happening in Yemen. These wars have created the European refugee crisis, and , while they have caused Europe much grief and hardship, the US has gotten off Scot free. At the same time the US has created its own refugee crisis on its southern border which has noting to do with the one in the Middle East and Europe.

 

Off the Top of My Head

The US Shouldn't Be Such a Hypocrite About Human Rights

by John Lawrence, June 18, 2018

The US is always taking a holier-than-thou attitude about human rights with respect to other nations. The concept of human rights evidently does not include freedom from being killed or injured in war or having your real estate destroyed if you are a non-combatant. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in Iraq and other Middle East countries because of the illegal war that President George W Bush got us into there. Did those Iraqis that were killed or injured or that lost loved ones have their human rights violated? Evidently not, according to the narrow US definition. But the US doesn't hesitate to criticize other nations if they kill their own citizens. For instance, Assad in Syria is said to be despicable because he bombed his own citizens. Didn't President Lincoln kill his own citizens in the American Civil War. Of course he did - in massive numbers. It was a war of attrition.

Now the US is involved in a massive humanitarian crisis in Yemen in which children are being starved and contracting cholera in huge numbers. Don't tell me this is not a human rights violation of the highest magnitude. We are supplying the weapons to the Saudis who are killing and starving civilians, men, women and children, without mercy. Don't they have human rights? It makes the fact of separating children from their parents at the border a minor crime against humanity in comparison.

So maybe Putin had a few journalists killed. Of course there is no proof, but even assuming he's culpable, what's a few journalists compared to hundreds of thousands of civilians including wedding parties killed by the US? Is it the fact that they are not US citizens but the journalists were Russian citizens that makes the difference? I don't think so. A death is a death. An injury is an injury. The same applies to Kim Jong Un. If killing his brother makes him a pariah, is the killing of hundreds of thousands by the US in the Middle East OK because it was done as an act of war? Because they were collateral damage? A life is a life. A death is a death. Not too many world leaders do not have blood on their hands.

The US has been involved in the overthrow of legitimate governments and bloody coups all over the world like in Iran in 1953 when the US ousted Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and installed the brutal Shah. The democratically elected Allende in Chile was ousted by Pinochet in 1973 aided and abetted by the CIA which was complicit in Pinochet's "human rights violations." There are many more similar situations in world history so the US should not take a holier-than-thou attitude and lecture other countries about human rights violations. Human rights, as Shakespeare's Hamlet said, are honored more in the breach than in the observance.

Like Nixon said "If the President does it, it is not a crime." I guess if the US does it, it is not a crime either or a human rights violation even when greater numbers of victims are involved.

What the World Needs Now? - More Cooperation or More Competition?

by John Lawrence

When I was a graduate student at UCSD in the midst of the anti-war movement, protesting the war in Vietnam, I went to the library and pondered what would make the world a better place, what could I do to contribute something that might make war less likely and peace time activity more likely. I concluded that more cooperation was needed. More ways to resolve conflicts big and small. For example, democratic voting systems resolve conflicts in such a way that solutions are found that are acceptable to all parties for the most part. I took it for granted that institutions that provided for more cooperation and less competition were more desirable. I thought that this was what the Enlightenment was all about. My heroes were the Enlightenment superstars: Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Rousseau, Diderot, Voltaire, John Locke.

As I sat there and went through the stacks, I discovered another field and another set of superstars. Social choice has a long history going back to the French Enlightenment philosophers, the Marquis de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda, and even further back than that. One of the 19th century superstars in this field was none other than the Rev. C. L. Dodgson otherwise known as Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. These guys came up with voting systems which are essential to democracy and are essential to the whole notion of cooperation and conflict resolution. The most recent work in this field was by Kenneth Arrow who published a book Social Choice and Individual Values in the 1950s which attempted to generalize conflict resolution in society in both the political and economic spheres. Arrow concluded that this was impossible and came up with his famous Impossibility Theorem which was a generalization using sophisticated mathematics of the paradox of voting that was known to Condorcet hundreds of years ago. Therefore, Arrow concluded democracy was impossible and any economic system other than capitalism was impossible too. Hmmm, I thought, this is obviously a cop-out because some political and economic systems are more desirable than others and Arrow has done nothing except to throw cold water on any framework that could consider these. I took it as my self-assigned task to prove that Arrow was wrong, that social choice is possible. My work can be found on the website Social Choice and Beyond.

My latest work is "Politonomics: A Meta-Theory Encompassing Political and Economic Decision Making." This is from the Abstract:

In “Social Choice and Individual Values,” Kenneth Arrow said , “In a capitalist democracy there are essentially two methods by which social choices can be made: voting, typically used to make ‘political’ decisions, and the market mechanism, typically used to make ‘economic’ decisions.” This paper resolves that dichotomy by developing a meta-theory from which can be derived methods for both political and economic decision making. This theory overcomes Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem in which he postulates that social choice is impossible and compensates for strategic voting, an undesirable aspect of decision making according to Gibbard and Satterthwaite. Thus the politonomics meta-theory spawns both political and economic systems which are indeed possible and which cannot be gamed. In a typical voting system the outcome of an election among several candidates results in one realized outcome – the winner of the election - which applies to all voters. In a typical economic system, a consumer may choose among a variety of possible baskets of consumer items and work programs with the result that multiple realized outcomes are possible with a unique or quasi-unique outcome for each worker/consumer. As the number of possible realized outcomes of a political-economic decision making process increases, the process becomes more economic and less political in nature and vice versa. We show that as the number of possible realized outcomes increases, voter/consumer/worker satisfaction or utility increases both individually and collectively.

I never considered, as I sat there pondering, that there would be people who would argue that what the world needed was not more cooperation but more competition, but, as I sit here today, I realize that the whole conservative right wing is in favor of just that. They want not more cooperation in either the political or economic realm but more competition believing that only winners should prevail and human progress is only possible when you give free reign to those among us who are the most talented, intelligent and ambitious. They believe that competition will result in the strongest among us winning just as Nietzsche believed that a good war hallows every cause. Their ethic is that the naturally gifted elite should prevail, and they are not concerned about what happens to the rest of us or of who is trampled in the process. This is also the philosophy of Ayn Rand as espoused in her novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

The debate today about increasing inequality in the world has to do with the prevalent conservative belief that only the strong should survive and be promoted and that freedom should preclude equality as a value. The rich should get more tax breaks because they are the true instigators of human progress and should be catered to at every turn. Perhaps a few crumbs will trickle down to the rest of us. This kind of thinking is counter to the Enlightenment and is fast returning us to a neo-Dark Age. No more is human progress to be measured in reduction of poverty and extension of basic services like health care to everyone. It is to be measured in terms of the great advances to human civilization like iPads, iPods and iPhones. People who are capable of coming up with these advances should be cut every break and none of the billions of dollars they make should be transferred by government to the least of these among us like the homeless, the poverty-stricken and the destitute because, well, they are the least among us, not the best among us who should be given every break.

Nevertheless, I remain in the camp of those who think that more cooperation in the political and economic spheres will do more for human progress than more competititon. I also have spent about 40 years in my spare time trying to prove that Arrow was wrong, that social choice is not impossible and that democracy in both the political and economic spheres is not only possible but desirable. This has a lot to do with voting systems, democratic institutions and constitutions but also with cooperative economic systems in which freedom is seen not as the freedom to make money at other people's expense (the losers in the competitive struggle) but the freedom to work as much or as little as one chooses and in accordance with one's preferences as much as possible. Freedom from work is for many people just as desirable a goal as the freedom to make billions of dollars, and wealthy people who don't have to work would be the first to tell you that. Economic democracy in my view is more desirable than cutthroat capitalism, and can be practiced not only at the national level, but at the enterprise level in the form of co-ops like the Mondragon Corporation.

Marx's famous definition of the "good society" was "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." This of course was perverted in defining communism as a society where all the wealth created by those who had a lot of talent and ability as well as a strong work ethic combined with those who had not so much in those categories would be thrown into a pot and then divided up in equal portions and handed out by the government. Such need not be the case in achieving the "good society." The "needs" part is pretty basic and could probably be accomplished with abouit 10% of the wealth that exists in the world today. Most people can provide for their own needs - no transfer necessary. There are some who cannot and to transfer a small part of the wealth of the wealthy to provide for their basic needs seems to me to be no more than humane. That still leaves the vast amount of wealth in the hands of the wealthy. In other words if you total up how much it would cost to provide for all the basic needs of everyone in the world and tote up how much wealth there exists in the world, it would take a fraction of all that wealth to provide the basic needs for everyone who cannot provide for their basic needs themselves who turn out to be mainly children, seniors and handicapped (whether physically or mentally) people.

A recent documentary by German TV station Deutsche Welle pointed out that half the world's production of food is wasted because super markets only want perfect vegetables and ones with slight blemishes are thrown out even though they are perfectly edible. Shelves need to be fully stocked with bread right up till closing hours even though any bread left over at the end of day will be thrown out as "day old." All the food that is thrown out by advanced nations is enough to feed all the world's hungry three times over although no governments or other institutions, much less the supermarkets themselves, seem to be interested in organizing that effort. This is what I mean by the fact that the basic needs of all the world's people could be satisfied without subtracting much if anything from the world's wealthy although a lot of them would admit they do not need incomes of millions of dollars a day like the Fortune 400 billionaires have.

Another documentary noted that Finnish school children have the highest test scores in the world despite the fact that they have one of the world's shortest school days with 15 minutes intermissions between classes during which time they are encouraged to go outdoors and play. All grades have large amounts of music, art and self-defined projects. They don't teach to the test. They are concerned with the development of each student as an overall human being not just as some super competitive cog in a nationally competitive machine. The Chinese on the other hand have the opposite approach demanding that children learn by rote methods and extra hours in school and at study. The Finnish schools are all public and everyone is accepted into every class. There are no advanced classes or tracking of students into lesser classes if they are not among the elite intellectually. Everyone is thrown in together; yet they have the best outcomes of any country in the world on standardized international tests. Egalitariansim seems to gain the best results.

An egalitarian ethic in which the concern is for the development of the whole human being rather than a promotion of just those who have superior abilities in accordance with a competitive ethic seems to me to be the most humanitarian way to treat both children and adults. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights already provides for most of the "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" ethic. It calls for free health care which most advanced socierties, with the exception of the United States, already provide. It calls for free education and other public institutions and covers most basic human needs including food and shelter.

Here are Articles 25 and 26:

Article 25.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
• (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.

• (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
• (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
• (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

All the basic needs of everyone on the planet could be provided for without subtracting much of the wealth of the rich since most people can provide for at least their basic needs without any transfer of wealth whatsover being necessary. Interestingly, the US among other nations does provide food security for the poor through its food stamps program. And of course seniors are provided for through Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, programs which conservative free marketers are anxious to change or eliminate.

I am with the Enlightenment thinkers especially the English utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill who thought about the happiness of society as a whole and concluded that everyone counted, not only the ones with exceptional talent, ability and other admirable qualities. A society should be judged by how it treats "the least of these my brethren" which is the core and essence of Jesus' teachings but, sad to say, not the core and essence of Christianity as it exists in the world today. Perhaps we should start thinking about an alternative constitution for the US which has the world's oldest constitution (236 years old!) while being the world's youngest advanced nation. Other societies including most European societies while being older than the US have newer constitutions. As far-sighted as the Founding Fathers were, a new and updated constitution incorporating not only political but also economic rights along the lines of the UN Declaration of Human Rights would do much to right the wrongs and shortcomings of present day America and the world.

Congratulations, Egypt! A People's Revolution Done Right: Next Step - Prevent it From Being Hijacked

by John Lawrence

 
The people's revolution in Egypt may be a turning point in world zeitgeist. For 30 years neocon values have prevailed. On November 23, 2006 I blogged in a post entitled "Neocon Rats Leaving the Sinking Ship":

"The whole neocon idea of spreading democracy in the middle east by attacking and invading a country in order to change it from a dictatorship to a democracy is a ridiculous proposition on the face of it, but that's what the neocons were selling. And the preposterous notion that this was a moral undertaking - it was morally a good thing to do - to bring death and destruction to a nation in order to spread democracy is as repugnant as the notion that Hitler was morally correct to invade weaker countries because the Germans were the most advanced civilization composed of the stongest and best people. The American supermensch, according to the neocons, would advance the Iraqi undermensch to democracy and freedom. Depite the cost in death and destruction, they would thank us some day. They would throw flowers at the advancing troops much as the Austrians threw flowers at the German army during the Anscluss."

This pretty well sums up American policy under George W Bush and the neocons. Their notion of forcing democracy on a country by invading it played out in Iraq and Afghanistan. The IMF and the World Bank were US surrogates which forced policies of privatization, deregulation and shredding of the social safety net down the throats of any country not stong enough to resist. The neocon US saw as its duty the forcing of what they considered to be American values down the throats of the rest of the world. The result in many cases was the creation of an elite class of wealthy oligarchs and increased poverty among the majority of the people with a corrupt and repressive dictator favorable to American intersts at the top. The intersection of political and economic power was complete. Such was the case in Egypt.

For those that say that this protest came out of nowhere, let me set the matter straight. There have been protests as recently as last June. They just never got the mass publicity. In an article, Privatization and Corruption in Egypt, we find the following:

Last June there were protests against privatization in Egypt. The protests were so severe that the government actually decided to effectively end the program. Since the 1990's a key economic priority in Egypt was the privatization of state owned industries and a transition from a centrally controlled economy to a more free market oriented economy that would be part of the global capitalist system. The justification for such a move was the inefficiency of the state controlled command economy. However, the more pressing concern was to open up the country to foreign investment and also enrich crony supporters of the government through privatization of state owned assets at fire sale prices. Many in the public long believed that privatization of state companies involved corruption involving insider dealings and opposed it for this reason but also there was oppoosition from some old guard officials who thought that privatization would be destabilizing. When the state owned companies, this ownership could be used to help control dissent. Wages could be raised and people could be employed even when in purely capitalist market terms they were not needed. In fact they provided a social safety net of sorts. The privatization has already gone about as far as it could go. Remaining state companies often are technologically outdated and overstaffed with poorly trained workers. No capitalist investors are interested in buying them except perhaps at very low prices. In June of 2010 thousands of workers protested outside parliament complaining about lost jobs, wages, and social protections. Fearing even more political unrest the government decided to drop further privatization for now. The government has even bought back several companies from investors. The demand from the international business community has been for further "reform"to cut Egyptians expectations. Egyptians expect their government to do things for them not just for business! Experts claim that the fundamental mistake of the government was in failing to reduce public expectations. Under the command economy and state ownership people expected the state to be the primary provider. People supported the government because the government gave everyone jobs. The experts complain that there are still about six million state civil service employees. Of course the reform would be to privatize most of these services, make them centers for private profit and investment and hire only if this made money for investors. The new view of this is expressed by an official. Anonymous of course and to the New York Times! ‘You educate me, give me a degree, you give me a job, when I die you bury me - and I do nothing.' " Of course they did do something; they kept the system going inefficient or not. The problem is that it is not part of the system of global capitalism and it does not provide much for private profit or investors. Political scientist Amr El-Shobaki said that privatization was a way that friends of the rich and powerful could grow more rich and powerful. The privatization process had begun under Anwar Sadat but it begin in earnest in 1991. The goal was to privatize 314 companies. All the bargains are gone to investors, dissolved or merged with other state companies. 150 are still left. Shobaki said:"There is always a cost for reform, but the problem here is that people now have the impression that those who always pay the cost of every reform are the simple people, while businessmen are never held accountable for corruption and while privatization of companies takes place in secret, without the knowledge or participation of the people," Perhaps people's impressions are correct. Faced with opposition to privatization the government took another tack. Open the door to foreign investment and let state industries wither. In the Egyptian context, economists say it is a victory that this work force has shrunk, to about 300,000 from about 1.3 million in 1978. Right, it is a victory that jobs are lost. THe government that scored that victory is now in danger of falling. One of the reasons is the high unemployment. The government has adopted other "reforms" to reduce expectations of the Egyptian working class and whip them into shape. The government adopted a law that allowed state-owned companies to deal with employees in the same way as private-sector companies. In 2009 it began to carry out a new law allowing the private firms to build infrastructure, including sewage plants and hospitals, another unpopular move intended to whittle away the state-dominated system. A study of Egyptian attitudes show a quite different view of privatization and the role of government than in the U.S. Consider this: ""The majority of citizens believe that the best system would strengthen the role of the state and the public sector; only 20% of citizens considered privatization to be beneficial to Egypt’s economy. ""

There you have it, friends, in a nutshell! Privatization, a core neocon value, led to large scale unemployment and it was this that was the primary factor behind Egypt's revolution. You had large numbers of young college educated people with no job prospects. You had fantastic wealth among a tiny elite while the rest lived in poverty. This revolution was about corruption in this sense, but it was all perfectly legal. Mubarak himself had siphoned off $70 billion dollars from the system which required foreign investors to enter into partnerships with Egyptians owning 51%. The best state owned companies had been privatized and snapped up by foreign investors. The remaining state owned companies were virtually worthless. No investor wanted to buy them. In the name of efficiency workers had been laid off.

The New York Times confirmed that what was happening was the sell-off of state owned enterprises to private investors with the consequence of laid off employees and high unemployment:

Privatization began in earnest in 1991, when Egypt agreed to work with international lenders on an economic restructuring plan to help it repair a failing economy. This represented an effort to accelerate changes started in the 1970s by President Anwar el-Sadat, who began the process of dismantling the state-controlled economy fashioned by President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and early ’60s. The 1991 effort started off easily enough when the state readily found buyers for assets like its beer and cement industries. But over time, the state said it was left with difficult-to-sell assets, outdated factories producing cars, instruments for textile manufacturing and other things that are either obsolete or unwanted. At the same time public pressure became intense as workers complained that their rights were being auctioned off. The goal was originally to sell off 314 companies. There are still 150 left: the rest have been sold to investors, gone public on the stock market, dissolved or merged with other state industries. “There is always a cost for reform, but the problem here is that people now have the impression that those who always pay the cost of every reform are the simple people, while businessmen are never held accountable for corruption and while privatization of companies takes place in secret, without the knowledge or participation of the people,” Mr. Shobaki said. Faced with so many obstacles, the government took another approach, trying to open the door to foreign investment while quietly allowing state industries to wither. In the Egyptian context, economists say it is a victory that this work force has shrunk, to about 300,000 from about 1.3 million in 1978. The government also adopted a law that allowed state-owned companies to deal with employees in the same way as private-sector companies. This year it began to carry out a new law allowing the private firms to build infrastructure, including sewage plants and hospitals, another unpopular move intended to whittle away the state-dominated system.

So fundamentally the revolution was about jobs. It was about economic democracy as opposed to economic aristocracy. It was a rejection of crony capitalism in which state owned assets are sold off to a group of politically powerful and connected insiders. It was about a repudiation of neocon values. The reason that the American right wing is so upset is that they are afraid that the Muslim Brotherhood will take over. They are upset over the word "Brotherhood." Any new economic system put in place by the Egyptian people that has anything to do with "Brotherhood" is antithetical to American economic values, the values of capitalism. Why it might mean redistribution of wealth not from the poor to the wealthy which they favor but in the other direction from wealthy to poor which they don't. When George W Bush and the neocons talked about "democracy," democracy was just a euphemism for American style capitalism - a top down elite of wealthy investors and a majority underclass living in poverty with a repressive dictator at the top who maintained stability so American interests in the region would not be transgressed. The American right wing has gotten so comfortable with sham democracy that it has a problem with anything approaching authentic democracy.

But the Egyptian people are interested in real democracy not sham democracy, and that real democracy very definitely has an economic component as did the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights which states: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control." The Egyptian revolution is a repudiation of neocon values, a repudiation of privatization, deregulation, austerity and shredding of the social safety net. It is more than a call for free elections and a new parliament. It is a call for economic as well as political justice. Let's hope that the Egyptian people's revolution is not hijacked.

It's impossible to know what went on behind closed doors, but the final results show that the military sided with the people and against the oligarchy. If Bush were President, the results might have turned out differently. The military might have been persuaded to turn on the people thus preserving American interests in the region. The victory of the Egyptian people does not mean a repudiation of American interests, just a rejection of neocon values. Neocon values are only American values when Republicans are in control. The fact that we have a President Obama and Democrats are in power in the White House means that American values have shifted. Now American values can support and work hand in hand with a true democracy in Egypt. This might be the paradigm shift which truly delivers power and economic justice to the people and away from the interests of globalized transnational corporations and the international wealthy class of elite investors. Let's hope so.

Rethinking the Global Economy: The Case for Sharing

Published on Friday, November 26, 2010 by Share the World's Resources (STWR)

by Rajesh Makwana and Adam Parsons

As the 21st Century unfolds, humanity is faced with a stark reality. Following the world stock market crash in 2008, people everywhere are questioning the unbridled greed, selfishness and competition that has driven the dominant economic model for decades. The old obsession with protecting national interests, the drive to maximise profits at all costs, and the materialistic pursuit of economic growth has failed to benefit the world's poor and led to catastrophic consequences for planet earth.

The incidence of hunger is more widespread than ever before in human history, surpassing 1 billion people in 2009 despite the record harvests of food being reaped in recent years. At least 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty, a number equivalent to more than four times the population of the United States. One out of every five people does not have access to clean drinking water. More than a billion people lack access to basic health care services, while over a billion people - the majority of them women - lack a basic education. Every week, more than 115,000 people move into a slum somewhere in Africa, Asia or Latin America. Every day, around 50,000 people die needlessly as a result of being denied the essentials of life.

In the face of these immense challenges, international aid has proven largely ineffective, inadequate, and incapable of enabling governments to secure the basic needs of all citizens. Developed countries were cutting back on foreign aid commitments even before the economic downturn, while the agreed aid target of 0.7 percent of rich countries' GDP has never been met since it was first conceived 40 years ago. The Millennium Development Goals of merely halving the incidence of hunger and extreme poverty, even if reached by 2015, will still leave hundreds of millions of people in a state of undernourishment and deprivation. When several trillion dollars was rapidly summoned to bail out failed banks in late 2008, it became impossible to understand why the governments of rich nations could not afford a fraction of this sum to ‘bail out' the world's poor.

The enduring gap between rich and poor, both within and between countries, is a crisis that lies at the heart of our political and economic problems. For decades, 20 percent of the world population have controlled 80 percent of the economy and resources. By 2008, more than half of the world's assets were owned by the richest 2 percent of adults, while the bottom half of the world adult population owned only 1 percent of wealth. The vast discrepancies in living standards between the Global North and South, which provides no basis for a stable and secure future, can only be redressed through a more equitable distribution of resources at the international level. This will require more inclusive structures of global governance and a new economic framework that goes far beyond existing development efforts to reduce poverty, decrease poor country debt and provide overseas aid.

In both the richest and poorest nations, commercialisation has infiltrated every aspect of life and compromised spiritual, ethical and moral values. The globalised consumer culture holds no higher aspiration than the accumulation of material wealth, even though studies have shown that rising income fails to significantly increase an individual's well-being once a minimum standard of living is secured. The organisation of society as a competitive struggle for social position through wealth and acquisition has led to rampant individualism and the consequences of crime, disaffection and the disintegration of family and community ties. Yet governments continue to measure success in terms of economic growth, pursuing ever-greater levels of GDP - regardless of the harmful social consequences of a consumption-driven economy.

Although the crises we face are interlinked and multidimensional, the G20 and other rich nations offer no vision of change towards a more sustainable world. The old formula, based on deregulation, privatisation, and the liberalisation of trade and finance, was unmasked by the economic crisis and shown to be incapable of promoting lasting human development. Multilateral institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have failed the world's poor, and the myth that economic growth will eventually benefit all has long been shattered. As we also know, endless growth is unsustainable on a planet with finite resources. This impasse is further compounded by ecological degradation and climate change - the side-effects of economic ‘progress' that disproportionately affect the poorest people who are least to blame for causing these multiple crises.

Humanity's ability to effectively address these interrelated crises requires governments to accept certain fundamental understandings that are instrumental to securing our common future. Firstly, that humankind is part of an extended family that shares the same basic needs and rights, and this must be adequately reflected in the structures and institutions of global governance. And secondly, that many basic assumptions about human nature that inform the thrust of economic decision making - particularly in industrialied nations - are long outdated and fundamentally flawed. The creation of an inclusive economic framework that reflects our global interdependence requires policymakers to move beyond the belief that human beings are competitive and individualistic, and to instead accept humanity's innate propensity to cooperate and share. This more holistic understanding of our relationship to each other and the planet transcends nations and cultures, and builds on ethics and values common to faith groups around the world. It also reflects the strong sense of solidarity and internationalism which lies at the heart of the global justice movement.

International Unity

The first true political expression of our global unity was embodied in the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. Since then, international laws have been devised to help govern relationships between nations and uphold human rights. Cross-border issues such as climate change, global poverty and conflict are uniting world public opinion and compelling governments to cooperate and plan for our collective future. The globalisation of knowledge and cultures, and the ease with which we can communicate and travel around the world, has further served to unite diverse people in distant countries.

But the fact of our global unity is still not sufficiently expressed in our political and economic structures. The international community has yet to ensure that basic human needs, such as access to staple food, clean water and primary healthcare, are universally secured. This cannot be achieved until nations cooperate more effectively, share their natural and economic resources, and ensure that global governance mechanisms reflect and directly support our common needs and rights. At present, the main institutions that govern the global economy are failing to work on behalf of humanity as a whole. In particular, the major bodies that uphold the Bretton Woods mandate (the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation) are all widely criticised for being undemocratic and furthering the interests of large corporations and rich countries.

A more inclusive international framework urgently needs to be established through the United Nations (UN) and its agencies. Although in need of being significantly strengthened and renewed, the UN is the only multilateral governmental agency with the necessary experience and resources to coordinate the process of restructuring the world economy. The UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been adopted by all member states and embody some of the highest ideals expressed by humanity. If the UN is rendered more democratic and entrusted with more authority, it would be in a position to foster the growing sense of community between nations and harmonise global economic relationships.

Jesse Jackson Channels Progressive Robert LaFollette; Calls for Economic Justice, More Jobs

Published on Sunday, September 12, 2010 by The Nation

Bring the Troops Home, Bust the Banksters, Democratize the Economy

by John Nichols

 BARABOO, WISCONSIN -- Decrying the excesses of big banks and Wall Street speculators, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told thousands of cheering progressives at a county fairgrounds in rural Wisconsin Saturday that: “There is a contest for the soul of America.

Cheered on by the crowd that had gathered for Fighting Bob Fest, the annual progressive chautauqua on the Sauk County Fairgrounds in this central Wisconsin community, the civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate declared that America would have to choose between being of a country where a tiny elite controls the vast majority of wealth or one where the great mass of Americans have a chance to survive and thrive.

“We cannot subsidize bankers and leave people homeless on the streets of America,” Jackson said. “It’s time for a change!”

“We will fight back!” chanted the crowd, which packed the grandstand and field for one of the largest Bob Fest gatherings in the nine-year history of the event.

For Democratic strategists who worry about an "enthusiasm gap" in this year's mid-term election season, Jackson offered the antedote. His adamant address had thousands of people -- many of them from rural and smalltown Wisconsin -- on their feet and cheering. And this year's Fighting Bob Fest drew more than twice as many people as a highly publicized and expensively promoted "Tea Party" event -- which featured television personalies, "Joe the Plumber" and Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Janesville -- held the same day in Racine, Wisconsin.

The enthusiastic response for Jackson’s populist speech offered a reminder that there is no enthusiasm gap. There's a message gap.

When the message is muscular, the enthusiasm is there.

Jackson wasn't the only one drawing cheers on a day that heard rousing speeches from  former Texas Secretary of Agriculture Jim Hightower, Congressman David Obey, Congresswomen Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett and other prominent speakers from Wisconsin and across the nation.

A Saturday that began with overcast skies and scattered rain showers ended with bright sunshine and a rollicking, old-school rallying of the progressive faithful in the tradition of Robert M. La Follette, the Wisconsin governor, senator and 1924 presidential candidate for whom the festival is named.

Jackson, who was honored with a lifetime achievement award by festival organizers, hailed the progressive movement led by La Follette, which campaigned for economic and social justice at home while opposing empire building abroad.

Sounding anti-war themes that were very much in the La Follette tradition, Jackson called for bringing U.S. troops home and reallocating resources from fighting wars abroad to fighting unemployment at home.

“We want for America what we provide for Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Jackson. “We want jobs for Chicago… jobs for Milwaukee… jobs for Sauk County.”

Sounding economic justice themes that repeatedly brought the crowd to its feet, Jackson warned that: “We’ve globalized capital without globalizing human rights, without globalizing workers’ rights, women’s rights, children’s rights. Let’s democratize our economy!

© 2010 The Nation

John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. A co-founder of the media reform organization Free Press, Nichols is is co-author with Robert W. McChesney of The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again and Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy. Nichols is also author of Dick: The Man Who is President and The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism.

US Non-Signatory to UN Declaration of Human Rights

Published on Friday, April 23, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

Housing Is a Human Right

by Saul Landau

Our nation is running a $1.4 trillion-dollar budget deficit this year. So why is Congress on track to approve more than $1 trillion for "defense" spending, while cutting back services that most countries think of as human rights? Even in the wake of Obama's landmark health-care legislation, our priorities are out of sync with what the public needs.

Consider this: About 3.5 million Americans--including 1.35 million children--are homeless for significant periods of time over the course of a year, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Under U.S. law, American citizens don’t have rights to shelter, food, medical care, or a decent old age. Yet these are human rights, and they’re etched into the United Nations’ Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Albania, Tunisia, Finland, and dozens of other countries have signed on to this document, which of course has gone unratified by the U.S. Senate.

What part of “in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights and freedom” do our lawmakers reject?

Homelessness isn't the only indicator that underscores our mistaken priorities. Experts have estimated that at least 20,000 Americans die each year because they lack health insurance and can't get needed care. And a recent study found that 37 million people in this country sought emergency food assistance from food banks in the Feeding America network last year. That's roughly one in eight Americans.

Meanwhile, our country positions itself as the world’s leading human rights advocate, ignoring many aspects of what the rest of the world considers to be human rights.

For example, the State Department recently published a report that found Cuba to be violating legal and political rights. The report made no reference to Cuba’s success in housing and feeding its people, or providing them with health care.

The skewed policy of focusing on deficiencies in Cuba while ignoring our own glaring lack of substantive rights has characterized every administration for 30 years. Arizona, like many states suffering from reduced revenues, recently slashed its Children’s Health Insurance Program. About 47,000 kids--all poor, of course--now have no medical coverage.

Self-righteous human rights attacks on other countries don’t help mask glaring needs at home, particularly food and shelter for millions.

Distributed by Minuteman Media

Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. IPS is a community of public scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. www.ips-dc.org