Feeling Cindy Sheehan’s and American Women’s Pain

By Paul S. Peete

All Rights Reserved

After spending the last couple years protesting the war in Iraq, becoming recognized as the face of the anti-war movement, Cindy Sheehan is coming home to California to pick up the pieces of her life and heal her obviously injured soul. In her letter outlining her decision, she states that America is a war machine controlling what we think and points out that we care more about who wins American Idol than the lives that will be lost in Iraq. When she first spoke out about Casey’s death and sought an opportunity to speak with President Bush about the purpose for her son having made the ultimate sacrifice, it was easy for the right wing ideologues to brand her as a grieving mother out of her mind. Bush was able to disregard her due to his then high approval ratings and the country not yet aware of the extent of the lies and bungling he and his neocon cronies had constructed in taking us into the conflict. After all, a woman bleeding over the loss of her son had no right to question the Decider in Chief.

Women are relegated to the second tier of American value by the ultra right. Two decisions of the Bush appointees on the Supreme Court are perfect indicators of the chauvinistic tendencies of these conservatives. The late term abortion decision, where the court chose to erode the rights of women to abort even if her life is endangered, is a precursor to an eventual rollback of Roe versus Wade. The usual moral platitudes were carted out to support the decision. Today’s decision by the right leaning jurists restricts the rights of employees to sue over pay disparities, a practice businesses use to underpay women and minorities. In an unusual move, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg read her dissenting opinion to the court countering both decisions, and implores Congress to act to correct these egregious affronts to women’s rights. With the narrow Democratic Majority in Congress, it is unlikely that anything will come of it.

If the women of America do not realize that by buying into the Republican mantra of family values and the fake righteousness of the Right, they’ve given into the very culprits who really desire to keep them barefoot and pregnant. The term is trite; but the intent is genuine. Come Election Day in 08, the choice is yours.

The Laugh Bank

By Paul S. Peete

All Rights Reserved

An eTrade commercial currently running on television shows bank customers being robbed by the bank personnel. The manger yells for them to get on the floor as the tellers go around collecting the customers’ money like the bank heists we see in movies. At its conclusion, the manager thanks the victims, inviting them back next week for the same treatment. The commercial is a humorous take on the way banks gouge customers with those endless, niggling fees while they use your money to make their money.

The concept of a bank robbing its customers reminds me of another scenario I have seen. This one has to do with the wealthy and powerful interests who control the American economy. Every so often, economists release data on the distribution of wealth in this country and for as long as I can recall, wealth has continued to concentrate in the hands of a decreasing percentage of the wealthiest in our country. Since Bush 43 became President in 2001’ as a result of the tax cuts, legislative breaks granted top investors, transfer of jobs offshore, and union busting tactics of employers, we’ve witnessed an acceleration of income disparity as the middle class shrinks markedly and the bottom tier jobs favor an immigrant population willing to work harder for less money than their American counterparts. The old adage of the rich getting richer has never been truer!

The Bush years have seen the likes of Enron make its employees hard earned retirement funds evaporate as the top management played fast and loose with the company’s funds, Haliburton receive no bid contracts worth a billion dollars and reward the government by moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai to avoid paying taxes. There are endless examples of corporate greed, wealth avoiding taxation through tax dodges only they can take advantage of, and at the same time wages for the working class stagnate and jobs disappear.

The truly wealthy behave like those bankers in another eTrade commercial hitting golf balls at an average citizen trying to get a loan. There are exceptions, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett come to mind as philanthropic power brokers, but most simply laugh at the rest of us who suffer from oil companies gouging us at the pump, medical corporations killing us with medications they profit from while those we elect to protect us turn a blind eye to their actions. We let politicians divide us over issues like abortion, immigration, stem cell research, and the war in Iraq voting away our freedom. The next election is nearing and my hope is that voters keep in their minds eye those fat cats laughing at our plight. Maybe for once we will do the right thing. Get rid of the likes of Boener whose crocodile tears over 9-11 conceal his true intentions. Keep the coffers open for the war while opposing minimum wage increases, medical insurance for the needy, and restoration of our rights lost in the Patriot Act and secret wiretapping that Bush and his patsies snuck through on us. After all, another adage goes ” he who laughs last, laughs best!”

No Timelines or Benchmarks on Our Future

By Paul S. Peete

All rights reserved

The inevitable passage of the Military Funding through September 30^th will take place without the stipulations the Democrats wanted to impose, thanks to the intransigent Republicans in the House and Senate. While Democrats argue over the speed and type of withdrawal, redeployment, or re-tasking of the troops, Republicans stand with Bush in refusing to recognize the inevitability of the results of placing our troops in the midst of a civil war.

Alqaeda is definitely weaving a tapestry of sectarian separatism designed to embroil tensions and place our troops in the crosshairs of all the factions, and recruiting disaffected Muslims from Arab states throughout the region. Iran and Syria are all too willing to assist in the arming, training, and transmigration of jihadists to kill Americans to dislodge them from the region. Presidential candidates of the two parties echo the stand of their cohorts in Congress with the exception of Republican House member Ron Paul, whose Libertarian leanings make him dovish, and Senator John McCain, who so stridently supports the President that his only complaint is that we aren’t deploying enough forces to win.

The whole affair has exposed the Democrats weakness in first granting Bush the right to wage the war in the wake of 9/11, though their arguments about having been misled by Powell and Tenet and Cheney and Bush are valid, and secondly of being unwilling to vote for a complete de-funding of the conflict for fear of looking weak in the face of adversity. Buckling to Bush’s demand of a “clean” funding bill, they now look like they are incapable of affecting the political landscape in any meaningful way. Even the Republican tactic of recommit, wherein they force bills back to committees on technicalities, has exposed the fact that the Democrats could have exerted power even when they were in the minority.

In the meantime the American public is experiencing the highest gas prices in history, the greatest disparity between haves and have nots, and the sense that the desire to see us clear of this Civil War squandering blood and treasure means nothing to those in power. Tax Cuts and an all volunteer service absolve the wealthy from paying any cost of this war, while China reaps trillions of dollars in interest and trade imbalance revenue, mortgaging our future to a former sworn enemy. Our infrastructure is eroding, Homeland Security is a joke named FEMA, and our former allies in Europe see us as fools.

Is there any question as to why the American electorate has a sense of futility about the value of voting? Though the 08 Presidential race has the appearance of historical significance with the viability of a minority and a female candidate, my sense is that regardless of the election’s outcome, the eight years under Bush has so devastated the Economy, International stature, judicial system, and divisiveness of Red and Blue state tactics, it will take decades to recover.

The Election and the Zero cost Zero loss War

By Paul S. Peete

All rights Reserved

The debate continues as to what we must do about the situation in Iraq; do we redeploy, withdraw, Surge, attack or talk to Iran. The Middle East is in such a state of flux and tinderbox volatile, that the world’s oil spigot is in jeopardy of disruption from a number of causes. Our traditional allies in the area are putting distance between them and us: Saudi Arabia recently calling our presence in Iraq an illegal occupation, while Israel looks to us for action on Iran’s nuclear threat and wonders if our overextended effort in Iraq will leave us so militarily emasculated that we will be unable to mount a response to Ahmadenizhad’s nuclear fueled, regional power grab.

The Soviet’s sense our weakness and the increasing importance of their oil reserves, are seizing every opportunity to challenge and oppose our efforts at reigning in rogue states. China continues to exert its influence on global issues to its advantage holding our dependence on their cheap manufacturing capability and trade imbalances over our head like a sword of Damocles; making inroads into South America and Africa to establish itself as a global economic power. Nations once aligned with us throughout Europe, Asia, and even our own hemisphere are seeing the Bush policies as failures and detrimental to their interests.

This is the backdrop to the 2008 Presidential elections as candidates Republican and Democrat grapple to separate themselves from the pack and find a message that resonates with the electorate. Republicans, with the exception of Ron Paul , in their typical bravado fashion, are committed to a military solution in Iraq; and Democrats, some hoping to tap into the national fatigue with the endless carnage and soaring costs associated with the war are all committed to disengagement. The parallels to our loss in Viet Nam are unavoidable, and though Bush vehemently rejects any conceptual linkage to our plight, there is increasing evidence of a similar ending scenario; as a Democratically controlled Congress is being forced to face the ultimate sole solution of de-funding the war with each veto of less Draconian legislative attempts at disengagement.

The Republican mantra of lowering taxes rings particularly hollow in light of the Bush tax cuts having absolved the nation’s wealthiest of bearing any of the cost of the war, while reaping record profits from the increased energy costs and their investments in the military industrial complex. The all volunteer military has put the burden of fighting the war solely on the shoulders of those poor and middle class Americans who see the military as a way of gaining an economic foothold on the craggy perch of this skewed economy. It is no wonder that as the conflict enters its fifth year, the bribes the military must pay to encourage reenlistment of its officers and soldiers has skyrocketed. The Treasury continues to print money to paper over the shortfall while the Chinese hold the strings to our mounting debt burden racking up trillions of dollars interest alone servicing this debt. Even the Democratic pledges to raise taxes on the wealthiest in the country while providing relief to the poor and middle class falls far short of addressing the underlying issue of a disproportionate burden of the cost of this war.

The poor and middle class, even soldiers who have been wounded, are subjected to substandard medical care, crumbling infrastructure, and inadequate disaster emergency preparedness while we are constantly reminded of the inevitability of another 9-11 type attack. When will the candidates be forced to address the real issues of this election cycle?

Is a draft in our future? Will the wealthiest Americans ever be required to foot some of the expenses of blood and treasure incurred in the protection of their petroleum? Are we going to continue to allow the concentration of the nations wealth to increasingly flow to the wealthiest, while the jobs and livelihoods of ordinary Americans are pushed offshore? Can the divide and conquer tactics of blaming immigrants for the erosion of the middle class continue while Big Business depends on that labor to increase profitability and tamp down the wages of the working class? Can America commit to a “man on the moon mission like” determination to develop alternative energy sources and wean us off the unreliable Middle East oil? Will the electorate finally see beyond the immediacy of their daily needs to focus on the larger issues of national survival, or will they continue to let distractions like stem cell research, abortion, gay marriage, and immigrant’s presence obscure the real internal threats?