Moving Susquehanna Valley Forward

Corporatists Making Deals that Hurt America

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I suspect many are not aware of what the TPP is, but it is something that can have a profound effect on all of us. It is the Trans Pacific Partnership. It is a trade deal has been negotiated by the Obama Administration with eleven other Pacific Rim countries. It has been called by some “NAFTA on steroids.” Ross Perot talked about the “great sucking sound” of jobs leaving our country with NAFTA. Will it increase to a roar with the TPP?
The TPP was a negotiation in which corporations had the dominate input. It was negotiated in secret and the only concern of corporate negotiators is always only corporate profits, not the best interest of the American people. A major reason most Americans are unaware of this deal is that our media is controlled by corporate giants who don’t really want us to know. We should consider whether past trade deals like NAFTA and the WTO (World Trade Organization) have improved the lot of the average citizen. What may be good for the corporate CEO may not be good for their employees.  Has the lot of the American people improved with past deals? The answer to that is a simple NO! For the corporations and the wealthy they have been just grand. Good paying jobs have left the country and have been replaced with low wage jobs.
Past agreements have been supported by both major political parties. Both are parties of business and love corporate donation dollars. In the past trade deals both parties have supported the corporations and not the people.  You would think there would be a great deal of conservative opposition to this and past trade deals because under these negotiations we have given foreign corporations the ability to make our country liable for our own laws.
We often hear from conservatives when it comes to the United Nations, but past trade deals have made our laws open to actions by foreign governments and corporations. Under past agreements, our laws can be challenged if a corporation believes its future profits are threatened by one of our laws. As one who is concerned about the environment, a law which protects our health and environment can be challenged by foreign corporations.  Secret trade courts make rulings on these challenges.
We no longer have the right to know from what country the fish in our supermarkets came. We now are being sued by a Canadian corporation, because of the President’s decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline, for $15 billion dollars of our tax dollars. Whether or not you agree with the President’s decision, you should be offended that a private, foreign corporation can dictate what our country can do. These are just two examples. Don’t you believe that we should have the right to know from where our food comes? Don’t you think we should have the right to determine what may enter our country? Evidently people like Representative Marino don’t think so.
It seems apparent that any true conservative would oppose such a deal. The problem is that many of our politicians who claim to be conservatives are really corporatists. Representative Marino has already voted for fast track. This means that when the TPP comes before Congress there can be no debate or amendments. His constituents can be sure he will support its passage. If you don’t think that American workers should have to compete with low wage workers from countries like Vietnam, please let him know. Let him know that no corporation or government should have the ability to challenge our laws. Progressives and conservatives should be united against the TPP.
One interesting aspect of the right’s support of this deal is that they have reflexively opposed any of President Obama’s proposals. Even when it was originally one of their ideas. But this is too important for their corporate masters for them to oppose. They are demonstrating that without question they are not conservatives. The major opposition to the TPP is coming from more progressive members of Congress. On this issue, some in Congress appear to be more principled.  Those who consider themselves progressives should finally understand that on economic issues, President Obama is very much a corporatist.

Don’t Turn Back on Progress

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Marriage carries with it many rights, privileges, duties, obligations and responsibilities.

It is an institution that should be open to all who want to enter into this relationship.

While there are many who want to claim it as a religious act, it is also a secular and legal institution.

A given marriage may be a religious and legal act or strictly a legal proceeding, but it never is a strictly religious proceeding.

All marriages require a governmental license. Many laws are brought to bear with every marriage. The state has a strong interest in all marriages. The church shares some of those interests with those who chose to be married in a religious ceremony.

While one is free to practice their religion in this country, that freedom doesn’t give one the right to impose their religious beliefs on others.

Yet this is exactly what people like Mike Huckabee would like to do. He is opposed to gay marriage. It is his religious belief based upon his reading of the Bible. He demands others to act within what his religious beliefs dictate. The preachers and the churches in the South read the Bible to support slavery at one time and later to support segregation. While we as a society have progressed past these two evils, recent events demonstrate that we have not progressed far enough. No church is being required to perform a gay marriage, but no church should stand in the way of those who wish to have the same rights that others have.

I happen to be a heterosexual. I did not make that choice. Whether it was hereditary, biological development, or my social circumstance that determined this for me, I simple don’t know.

Why one becomes a homosexual or a lesbian is beyond my knowledge, but they are who they are and should have all the same legal rights and protections that I have.

A gay marriage in no way interferes with my rights. Why would I want to stand between two people who love each other? As one who will start my eighth decade before the end of this year, I have seen tremendous progress on this issue. I certainly hope it continues.

Our country has made great social progress in its nearly 240 years. If Mike Huckabee and his like-thinkers would have controlled our past, women could own no property or vote, many married women couldn’t work outside the home, only male property owners could vote, people could own other people, workers would have no rights, and there would be no Social Security or Medicare.

Let us not let the reactionary right turn the hands back on the clock of progress that we have made and will continue to make.

 

 

Symbol of past mistakes, not a cherished heritage

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On the subject of the Confederate battle flag, someone recently told me it’s just a piece of cloth. By that reasoning, the Magna Carta was just a piece of parchment. It is not the cloth that matters, but what that flag represents. To most people today, it represents the Confederacy and what the Confederacy stood for was racial superiority.

Despite what the apologists for the South like to say, the Civil War was about racial superiority, slavery, slavery’s extension into new areas of the country, and the economic interests of the powerful in the South. The economic value of the slaves for their owners was the single biggest economic interest in the country. The economic system of the South was based on slavery. These economic interests were also felt in the North. The poor of the South knew they at least had a class of people lower than themselves and therefore had a stake in the peculiar institution. Slavery was the boil on the United States from its founding and that boil at some point had to be lanced. The Civil War was not fought over the issue of state’s rights, an issue which we still argue about and have so since the adoption of the Constitution.

Some argue that the battle flag represents a part of their cultural history. I agree, but is slavery, segregation, and racism something that should be honored? There are many things in our individual past and past of our country of which we should not be proud. I certainly take no pride in the fact that our forebears committed genocide against native populations. I do not want to celebrate courage in the service of a wrong. I do not question the courage of many Southern soldiers, but they were traitors to the United States and fought to defend a positive evil.

Since the Civil War ended, the stars and bars have come to represent much more than a battle flag. The Civil War did not end the belief in racial superiority. While the Constitution was amended to eliminate slavery, the Southern states moved to a system of segregation which again demonstrated this strongly held belief. There are still many of our fellow citizens who still believe in racial superiority and practice this belief in whatever ways they can.

Our history has been written by a series of immigration waves which have been met with racial and cultural resistance. Job ads that read Irish, Catholics, Italians, Jews, Poles, and many others need not apply were once common. We have made significant progress as a nation, but still have a long way to go. The question of immigration today is tainted with the ethnic bigotry of the past.

The Confederate battle flag represents a symbol of racism for many. While “political correctness” has come under attack lately, to me it simply represents thoughtful good taste. While we can argue that political correctness may at times go too far, it should never go out of style. In this time of instant communication, we should as always think first before hitting the send button or opening our mouths. We should be considerate of others. Taking down the stars and bars represents our consideration of the feelings of those whose family histories are full of suffering because of the institutions which that flag represents. There are still millions of people living today who suffered from racial segregation.

Let us take the stars and bars down and put it where it belongs. It should be in a museum where people can learn about the mistakes our country has made. Let us not buy into the mythology of how wonderful the past was in the South. Let us not honor the generals who took an oath as an officer in the United States Army who then fought against the United States. Let us not honor a symbol of human evil and hate.

 

The Descending Arc of America

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Not too long ago I read in the Daily Item about Congressional testimony which stated that we should expect a continued elevation in the threat of terrorism. The report was not surprising considering daily news reports and some of the tactics we use in the “War or Terrorism.” We must remember that one’s viewpoint may determine what is considered to be terrorism.

President George W. Bush asked the question “why do they hate us?” His answer was way off point. They don’t hate us because of our freedom and democracy. Maybe they hate us because we have supported ruthless dictators in their countries. Maybe they hate us because we have covertly worked to overthrow democratically elected leaders in their country. Maybe they hate us because of our aide to corporations that exploit their people and resources. Maybe they hate us because we invade their countries causing massive destruction, dislocation of millions of people, total social breakdown, and the deaths of many thousands of people. Guantanamo, Abu grab, and black site prisons are just some of those things that give incentive for people to hate us.

How can we hope to end terrorism when our bombs rain down killing innocent people? Our drones now target people whom we suspect of being terrorists. Where is the justice in that? Being a suspect makes you guilty. Even if we have real terrorists as our target we too often kill innocent people. How many terrorists do we create with the terrorism created by our drones? Are the people in areas of Pakistan justified in viewing us as terrorists? Our actions have not lead to a decrease in world-wide terrorism. It is a simple fact that many of our actions have had the directly opposite effect.

I understand that dealing with terrorism is not an easy matter, but we must be able to “look down the road” for unintended consequences. Look what the invasion of Iraq has brought us. Our arming of the Muhajaden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan led in a straight line to the tragedy of 9/11. By whatever name they operate be it ISIS, Boko Haram, or Al-Qaeda they must be condemned and defeated. They are armed with fanatical belief systems.  Some are simply psychopaths.

We should do all we can to defeat them, but our unfocused response to Al-Qaeda has turned what was a relatively isolated problem into a much larger problem. We have been unmindful of the “blow back” of our actions.  The arms manufacturers in this country couldn’t be happier with the widened war on terrorism. There seems to be too many of our so called leaders who want to use force as the first option. I agree there are times when it may be necessary, but it should be used with restraint and full realization of the consequences.

I want the citizens of this country to be safe, but I also yearn for our country to live up to the ideals we espouse. I don’t want my country to be a military empire. We now have over 700 military facilities around the world. We may think of ourselves as the world’s peace keeper, but others look at us as the world’s bully. It seems that in my nearly seventy years there has hardly been a time when we weren’t using our military forces somewhere. Sometimes our power has been used with good reason and intent, but too often it has been used to promote our might and even to promote the interests of corporations. We seem to think that the resources of the world belong to us. Nothing should stand in the way of our consumption of the world’s resources for our own comfort. We think that cheap gas is our God given right.

We can no longer afford to financially support a world-wide military presence. It is bankrupting us. Congress keeps increasing the military budget beyond even what the services request. We are spending billions of dollars for weapon systems that are designed for the wars of the past. We keep purchasing hardware that the military doesn’t need. We purchase equipment that is so sophisticated that it fails to function. Are we doomed to that same fate that other great economic and military nations incurred? Are we now on a descending arc?

The Fate of an Empire

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I recently read in the Daily Item about Congressional testimony which stated that we should expect a continued elevation in the threat of terrorism. The report was not surprising considering daily news reports and some of the tactics we use in the “War on Terrorism.” We must remember that one’s viewpoint may determine what is considered to be terrorism.

President George W. Bush asked the question “why do they hate us?” His answer was way off point. They don’t hate us because of our freedom and democracy. Maybe they hate us because we have supported ruthless dictators in their countries. Maybe they hate us because we have covertly worked to overthrow democratically elected leaders in their country. Maybe they hate us because of our aide to corporations that exploit their people and resources. Maybe they hate us because we invade their countries causing massive destruction, dislocation of millions of people, total social breakdown, and the deaths of many thousands of people. Guantanamo, Abu grab, and black site prisons are just some of those things that give incentive for people to hate us.

How can we hope to end terrorism when our bombs rain down killing innocent people? Our drones now target people whom we suspect of being terrorists. Where is the justice in that? Being a suspect makes you guilty. Even if we have real terrorists as our target we too often kill innocent people. How many terrorists do we create with the terrorism created by our drones? Are the people in areas of Pakistan justified in viewing us as terrorists? Our actions have not lead to a decrease in world-wide terrorism. It is a simple fact that many of our actions have had the directly opposite effect.

I understand that dealing with terrorism is not an easy matter, but we must be able to “look down the road” for unintended consequences. Look what the invasion of Iraq has brought us. Our arming of the Muhajaden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan led in a straight line to the tragedy of 9/11. By whatever name they operate be it ISIS, Boko Haram, or Al-Qaeda they must be condemned and defeated. They are armed with fanatical belief systems. Some are simply psychopaths.

We should do all we can to defeat them, but our unfocused response to Al-Qaeda has turned what was a relatively isolated problem into a much larger problem. We have been unmindful of the “blow back” of our actions. The arms manufacturers in this country couldn’t be happier with the widened war on terrorism. There seems to be too many of our so called leaders who want to use force as the first option. I agree there are times when it may be necessary, but it should be used with restraint and full realization of the consequences.

I want the citizens of this country to be safe, but I also yearn for our country to live up to the ideals we espouse. I don’t want my country to be a military empire. We now have over 700 military facilities around the world. We may think of ourselves as the world’s peace keeper, but others look at us as the world’s bully. It seems that in my nearly seventy years there has hardly been a time when we weren’t using our military forces somewhere.

Sometimes our power has been used with good reason and intent, but too often it has been used to promote our might and even to promote the interests of corporations. We seem to think that the resources of the world belong to us. Nothing should stand in the way of our consumption of the world’s resources for our own comfort. We think that cheap gas is our God given right.

We can no longer afford to financially support a world-wide military presence. It is bankrupting us. Congress keeps increasing the military budget beyond even what the services request. We are spending billions of dollars for weapon systems that are designed for the wars of the past. We keep purchasing hardware that the military doesn’t need. We purchase equipment that is so sophisticated that it fails to function.

Are we doomed to that same fate that other great economic and military nations incurred? Are we now on a descending arc?