Nuclear Weapons Traffic Observations

Most Thursdays I stand with a group of fellow activists to hold a large banner declaring "Abolish Nuclear Weapons" over Interstate 5 in Olympia. We take turns holding the banner but I spend 30 minutes or more watching southbound traffic pass under the Eastside Street overpass.  Traffic is steady-- about 6,000 vehicles during our time on station.  While my primary purpose is to remind my fellow Americans that nuclear weapons are so dangerous that they should be completely abolished, I watch vehicles, cargo and people that pass beneath.  My view is always fleeting.  Traffic is moving at 60 mph; whatever I see goes by fast.

Larger vehicles catch my attention simply because they stand out.  Tractor-trailers are most notable but are mostly rolling boxes so any interest comes from company logos (most are pretty pedestrian) and tractor accoutrements.  When they sound their horns in response to our banner they are very notable.  Flatbed and open trailers show off a wide variety of cargo, from brand shiny new (and often oversized load) heavy equipment to scrap metal, air gas products, building supplies and specialty items. 

RVs of any size are always notable because I am drawn to the allure of vehicle supported recreation after years of carrying everything on my back.  I can't help but notice the larger RVs--the single unit Class A motor homes and 5th wheel trailers--but the smaller units appeal to me more.  Some are tricked out with colorful designs but most display makers logos and a name like "Explorer" or "Discovery" or something else similar.

It's also kind of fun to look at whatever gear people are hauling.  I see kayaks, canoes, bicycles and car-top carriers.  Occasionally I'll see a flatbed hauling an antique vehicle.  One time I saw a civilian trucker hauling a military fighting vehicle.  Another time an Army convoy passed through; one of the drivers waved to us.

We've been bannering for over two years now, watching traffic and virtually every Thursday I've been on that overpass I've seen prison buses heading south. They are pretty distinct--all white except for the black bars covering the passenger windows and black lettering and numbers on the roof.  Most days I see two prison buses.  One is from the GEO Corporation, a private company the runs the big ICE detention center in Tacoma.  The other is marked DOC, which is the Washington Department of Corrections.  I can't tell if the buses are full or empty but they are regular and a visual reminder of the American prison-industrial complex that leads the world in prisoners per capita population.

I have some history that makes prison buses especially noticeable.  I spent a week touring Arizona prisons as part of a team conducting performance audits of the Arizona Department of Corrections.  As diligent auditors we went out to the prisons to observe operations and interview staff.  The Department arranged transportation to prisons in Tucson, Douglas and Fort Grant.  We spent a week travelling in one of the department's buses, a converted school bus with bars on the windows and a wire cage separating us from the driver and forward part of the bus.  We weren't locked in and were free to move about the bus as we travelled but even so, seeing the landscape through those bars was a sobering experience.  I always remember that experience when I see those white buses rolling down I-5 and wonder about the passengers who are definitely locked in.

Best Answer Yet to Oregon Occupiers

“They just need to get the hell out of here.”

      --Jarvis Kennedy, a member of the Burns Paiute tribal council

Martin Luther King, 1929-1968

The speech every American should hear on MLK day.  Decades later, his words still ring true.



Text available here.

Violence Against Women and Rented Mules

This quote stuck out like a sore thumb in the original story so it's no surprise that the disavowals and requisite apology came quickly.  That Virginians are quick to disown violence against women is comforting.  I am disappointed, however, that no one spoke against beating rented mules.  Or any animal for that matter.

Our fellow creatures on this planet deserve the same respect as homo sapiens. 

That Happened Fast

As of today gay and lesbian couples can legally marry in every state that I have ever called home:  Arizona, New Mexico (however briefly) , Virginia, and Washington.  Of the four, only my current home state, Washington, enacted same sex marriage on its own without a court order.  We even defeated a referendum to repeal the legislation. 

update:  The Navajo Nation, where I lived for five of my Arizona years, does not recognize same-sex marriage.  As a bilaga'ana I can't really call my years there home but they remain a part of me still.

Who Could Have Guessed

...that war has consequences?

Linda Bilimes andJoseph Stiglitz included the lost opportunity for wounded veterans in their 2008 "Three Trillion Dollar War" estimate.  A year earlier, Ilona Meagher cogently described the traumatic effects of war on soldiers in Moving a Nation to Care.  Both works drew on an existing body of knowledge so the answer to my question is "many folks."  

None of this mattered to the neo-con "deciders" who took this country to war in 2003.

 Fuckers all.

What Wrong Side of History Means

Newly-inaugurated Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has declined to defend the state's ban on same-sex marriage,  comparing it to Virginia's less-than-stellar civil rights record--decades of Jim Crow, massive resistance to school desegregation and laws against interracial marriage--what Herring calls the "wrong side of history". 

To which Delegate Robert Marshall replies that Herring "has the audacity to make racial allusions that somehow being for man-and-woman marriage makes you some segregationist, which is totally gratuitous on his part and insulting.”

No, Delegate Marshall,  being for man-and-woman marriage does not make you some segregationist.  What makes you a segregationist is your willingness to exclude others from that opportunity.

Best Message Ever

I recall Leslie Gore's "You Don't Own" me as a powerful song but at 16 didn't quite know why.  It just sounded different somehow from the mainstream pop that was AM radio in 1964.  Leslie Gore's voice stood out prominently among male-dominated popular music.  She was among the first female vocalists I admired.

Which is why Lena Dunham's PSA is so much fun to watch.  




I hope it works.

Relative Accountability

Juan Cole on Desmond Tutu's call to prosecute George W. Bush and Tony Blair for invading Iraq:

I have long advocated that the criminal actions of Bush, of his vice president Richard Bruce Cheney, and of other high officials, be investigated. Bill Clinton was impeached for a fib about fellatio, but taking the US into an illegal war was treated with impunity.

Apparently financial manipulation and war crimes get a pass.

Perspective

Whenever I am anxious about my personal finances, I need only remind myself that I am among the richest people in the world.

The BBC confirms that today with a feature on global wages. You can plot your monthly wage on a chart of national averages. My very good American salary is nearly off the scale. Even a half-decent American wage tops most national averages.

The chart actually understates the difference since it omits the poorest nations. That means I am better off than even more people whose economic activity is either not measurable or not worth measuring.

I haven't won on any of the big bucks lottery tickets I've purchased over the years but I certainly won the economic history lottery by being born a mid-20th century white American.

Everyone should be so lucky.

Good fortune is best shared.

Weekend Words

This past weekend I came across a couple of articles that spoke pretty directly to my two major concerns, economic justice and American militarism.

A Facebook link took me to an article by Arundhati Roy discussing, among other things, the increasing reliance on private for profit enterprises for social goods and services on which all people rely:

The whole privatisation of health and education, of natural resources and essential infrastructure – all of this is so twisted and so antithetical to anything that would place the interests of human beings or the environment at the center of what ought to be a government concern – should stop. The amassing of unfettered wealth of individuals and corporations should stop. The inheritance of rich people's wealth by their children should stop. The expropriators should have their wealth expropriated and redistributed.

A listserve took me to Lt. Col. Daniel Davis' summary of his recent tour of duty in America's never-ending wars:

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

Both articles are worth reading in full.

Some Justice

Turns out that a high profile attorney and front page story in the Washington Post DOES work. About a month ago, I commented on a story about the widow of a Marine suicide victim unable to claim life insurance benefits because her ex-Marine husband failed to pay a couple of month's premiums because his PTSD caused him to miss paying his life insurance.

On Thursday the Post reports that the VA has decided to honor the policy after all.

Now if I could just pull off the same trick for all my veteran clients whose claims and appeals are languishing somewhere in the VA bureaucracy.

Occupy in Olympia

Beginning Friday and running through Monday, Olympia is hosting the Occupy Solidarity Forum, a gathering of members from the various Occupy sites from around the country. As nation-wide gatherings go, it's a smallish affair--maybe 200, including many locals--but the size does not preclude enthusiasm or vibrant exchange of ideas.

The size does not preclude diversity. At various functions I've met Occupiers from Phoenix, Tucson, Modesto and Missoula. One person came from the original Occupy Wall Street in New York. The couple from Phoenix drove up, giving workshops in San Francisco and Portland along the way. Two others came out from Washington, DC. Occupiers from Oakland gave one of Saturday's workshops. The Corporate State may have evicted the occupiers but the idea is very much alive.

I'm not deeply involved in the Occupy movement but I support its many goals and the idea of citizen activism to reclaim our lives, our planet and our future from corporate oligarchy. Perhaps its greatest lesson is that there are more of us than there are of the privileged 1%. The second great lesson is that the economic system that serves so many so poorly operates with our consent. Occupy is hardly the first recognize that strength and leverage--I heard S. Brian Wilson say the same at the Veterans For Peace conference in August--but Occupy is real step toward withdrawing that consent.

David Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy, spoke last night and laid out a thoughtful, well-informed reasoned analysis of modern economic dysfunction and offered equally thoughtful, reasoned solutions for creating a human-centric economy. Earlier in the day, Foster Gamble hosted a screening of his documentary "Thrive" which covers much the same ground. The documentary is a bit out there in places but much of it rings true and is certainly more credible than the propagandistic pap served up by the media, http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcorporate interests and their government lackeys.

All this tells me that people are beginning to think, ask questions and act. I can see it in the Move Our Money campaign and the call to revoke the corporate charter of socially irresponsible corporations such as Massey Energy. Korten noted that we have one advantage that all previous movements have lacked: the ability to communicate and exchange information directly. Occupy and many other movements have used this tool effectively.

On this particular morning, I feel hopeful that we can defeat the Empire and create a sustainable, just and fair society. I look forward to an American Spring in 2012.

I would be remiss if I did not salute and thank the organizers of the Occupy Solidarity Forum. They put on two full days of workshops, speakers and entertainment at multiple locations throughout downtown Olympia. They fed many of the participants and helped many find low cost accommodations, including the more than 50 or so who camped at the State Labor Council Building. They are proof that the spirit of Occupy lives.

Martin Luther King, 1929-1968

The speech every American should hear on MLK day. Four decades later, his words still ring true.



Text available here.

(via Chuck Palazzo)

The Problem is What is Legal

Read today's Washington Post article on the US Securities and Exchange Commission and you will understand why people in this country are taking to the streets. Quite simply, large financial institutions and the individuals who run them can commit the economic equivalent of mass murder and not only get away with their crime but actually profit! They can pretty much squelch and undermine any attempt to rein in the laws that allow their crimes because they practically own both Congress and the SEC.

All this is just one of the perversions of public policy rife in America today. We are also plagued with a debilitating militarism that bleeds the civilian economy and an economy that prizes short-term profit over long-term sustainable enterprise. So why the fuck not to take to the streets. When you got nothin', you got nothing to lose.

Whether or not street demonstrations and occupations are a "good idea" or the best "tactic" is irrelevant. What is relevant is energy and anger, the power to make voices heard. And these days, those voices are beginning to be heard in all of their incoherence, conflict and cross-purpose. I'm still a romantic hopeful (or the other way around?) so I want to believe that some real alternatives to corporate-military-capitalism will emerge from this cauldron of ideas and ideals. Maybe the occupations are a spark that will mobilize the many who have been severely harmed by the economic crimes of the speculators and robber barons of the the last decade.

local note

Occupy Olympia held its first meetings yesterday. In true democratic tradition, the meetings were called in different places at different times. The larger of the two, at Sylvester Park downtown drew about 20-30 people after the smaller Capitol Campus group joined in. The crowd was all ages, more young than old. I saw a few friends, met new people and we talked about why we were there. Most of the discussion was general, no one seemed certain about what was supposed to happen. Many made signs and short statements. All knew that a General Assembly meeting was set for 6:00. It being a Friday and nearing vigil time Maggie and I left around 4:30.

A much larger crowd, well over 100, was in the park when we returned after 6:00. The format was much the same, with people taking turns speaking with a bullhorn that was not very loud even when the person actually spoke properly into the mike. As earlier, all ages were there but definitely skewed young. The talk was mostly strategy and timing--to occupy or not, civil-disobedience, where and how to organize any of the above. The group quickly made its first consensus decision--to move under one of the large trees and out of the light rain that had begun to fall. A few committees--food, media, outreach, cop-watch, maybe others--self-selected and met separately from the larger group. Two more Geneal Assemblies are scheduled in the coming week and a mass gathering next Saturday.

Sobering

Today's Washington Post has an article about how the US came to have a $14 trillion debt a mere 10 years after balancing the budget with surpluses projected as far as the eye can see. The major culprits: the CheneyBush tax cuts and wars fought with borrowed money. Combine that information with Jacob Weisburg's observation that this nation is in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression with absolutely no economic leverage and any sensible observer can only fear for this nation's future.

If that is not bad enough, I just spent three days at the Veterans For Peace Convention where it was absolutely clear to me that very little of the just and sustainable society that I have worked to achieve over the past four decades has come to pass or is likely to occur during my lifetime. Perhaps the most telling moment was seeing a photograph of an anti-war protester carrying a sign that read, "I can't believe that after 40 years I am still protesting this shit". All this is a very sobering reminder that I am clearly part in the minority and had best prepare myself to remain in that minority.

So that's the reality as I enter my "golden years" which are more likely to be pyrite years. About the only thing I think I know for certain is that I can either keep fighting or despair. I've lived too long for the latter so I guess I'll just have to keep fighting no matter how unlikely I am to see the society I've always envisioned.

My consolation is that I will be able to say I did not give up. Maybe it will come to something.

Leave It to the Pros

Whenever I write about progressive taxation and social justice, I always feel totally tongue-tied. That's why I very much appreciate O'Halloran's post at Bad Attitudes for reminding me of a far more articulate advocate of economic opportunity and equality: Thomas Jefferson.

From a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to James Madison in 1785:

...The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation....

Certainly Not an American Solution

...to the extraordinarily high cost of health care for seniors.

The principle that we should all as citizens contribute our wealth, where it exists, to our care is fair, equitable and socially ethical.
[...]
Those who have benefited most from the conditions which have been to their advantage, whose means have been most generously enhanced should quite properly be expected to contribute proportionately.

As far as I'm concerned, the idea readily applies to just about any aspect of the social contract. Think about who actually makes our middle-class so comfortable

After all, the services which we have enjoyed in our pre-geriatric years have been provided by the least well rewarded. Our refuse has been collected, streets cleaned, potholes mended, milk and post delivered, bedpans emptied, housework undertaken, meals served, a plethora of services which have brought comfort, convenience and carelessness to our lives, all have been undertaken by the lowest paid, and for many of these, such work has caused greater damage to their biological systems than is the case with those whom they serve.

As long as I'm quoting British sources, the Rolling Stones also recognized who's on the bottom. From Beggars Banquet:

Lets drink to the hard working people
Lets drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Lets drink to the salt of the earth

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth

And when I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and
Black and white
They don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange

Raise your glass to the hard working people
Lets drink to the uncounted heads
Lets think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

And when I look in the faceless crowd
A swirling mass of grays and
Black and white
They don't look real to me
Or don't they look so strange

Lets drink to the hard working people
Lets think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Lets drink to the salt of the earth

Lets drink to the hard working people
Lets drink to the salt of the earth
Lets drink to the two thousand million
Lets think of the humble of birth

Other Priorities

The US is standing down on womens' rights in Afghanistan. The plight of Afghan women is beyond desperate--30 years of war, denied access to education and medical care severe restrictions on personal choice, subservient to men in all spheres of life. I can't think of a hell on earth that would be less horrible. So improving womens' in Afghanistan has always been the one redeeming feature of US occupation. Even at that, the effort redeemed very little of America's war in Afghanistan but womens' rights were always there as some small salve for the national conscience.

No more.

"Gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities," said the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy deliberations. "There's no way we can be successful if we maintain every special interest and pet project. All those pet rocks in our rucksack were taking us down."

[...]

"Nobody wants to abandon the women of Afghanistan, but most Americans don't want to keep fighting there for years and years," the official said. "The grim reality is that, despite all of the talk about promoting women's rights, things are going to have to give."

Aside from thinking of womens' rights as pet rocks, I agree with the official. Changing the fundamental laws and customs that govern relationships between men and women in Afghanistan is not a realistic objective for American military policy in Afghanistan. Womens' rights should remain an important objective for our diplomatic and cultural policies but not military and National (in)Security policy. But even at that remove, America may still be "radioactive", unlikely to even have the opportunity to the trust and credibility needed to effect real change. Any American efforts to strengthen womens' rights in Afghanistan will best be pursued through other nations and NGO's.

Now if American political and military leaders would only be so realistic...

Antonin Scalia to Replace Justice Stevens

With the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia becomes Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. As Senior Associate, Scalia will assign writing assignments for opinions where the Chief Justice is in the minority. Justice Stevens was legendary for his effective use of that position since he succeeded Harry Blackmun in the early 90's.

Scalia's ascendance to the position probably won't have much effect since he is rarely out of agreement with the Chief Justice John Roberts. Nonetheless, John Paul Stevens' retirement is a loss to the progressive and truly conservative values that he so effectively championed. No newly appointed justice can fill that gap.