SHADES OF LBJ
I wouldn't have thought it, five years ago. A year ago, with all my reservations and oppositions and distrust and disgust, I woyldn't have thought it possible. Barack Hussein Obama as Lyndon Baines Johnson? BHO wearing LBJ's shoes?
Things are more "sophisticated" now--and we mostly ignore that the US has been at war and at war--at multiple wars--for the last twenty-five years.. But now, the US no longer burns people alive with good ole Dow napalm--and we don't get obscene pictures of such heroics. Now we murder people by drone, with remote control--and I don't know which great American philanthropic company makes the drones.
Of course, LBJ also got the great 1964 US Civil Rights act made into law. And he gave us--momentarily--the Great Society. Obama came nowhere close to doing anything good in his first term; he could have been a Bush III. But he started out ther second term sounding like a decent man. The recent disclosures about our drone-murders undoes all that.
Like the Bushes before him, or like Henry Kissinger and Robert McNamara, Barak Obama is--by any honest and honorable person's standards--another war criminal.
For the past however many years, I don't like to go back to the US: to go home. Until recently, I was simply afraid of domestic violence. While I was there I didn't go out at night. My flat was on the second floor--but I still stayed away from the windows after dark. Now I don't want to go home because I am so disgusted with and ashamed of the U. S. government.
The U.S. is a rogue state. Because it has 11,000 nuclear bombs--and a record of having used them--no nation will challenge it. Because it attacks anybody it suspects of disagreeing with it, nobody wants to accuse it of any wrong-doing, of evil uses of force.
One might argue that we just need to give the US time: that it is far beyond bankruptcy, financially as well as morally, and soon it will simply collapse. But common sense tells us that before it goes under, the US may just use those 11,000 nuclear weapons to destroy the world. Any nation as stupid, vicious, violent, and utterly immoral as the US can't be trusted.
Someone said, in the early 1950s, that the nuclear age would be the age of horrible mass murder. With the US as the nuclear power, it might be just that: and more. It might be the end of the world.
Ron Paul recently quoted a biblical verse: "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword." There isn't anybody else in Washington who would say that. In God-bless-America, that verse is heresy.
I wish I had voted last November. I would have voted for Ron Paul.
maandag 11 februari 2013
Miscellany
1. The current pope, Benedict XVI, is retiring. That means, of course, a new election. And among those voting will be two disgraced cardinals from the United States, Cardinal Law, former archbishop of Boston, and Cardinal Mahoney, former archbishop of Los Angeles.
Law fled the United States to escape being arrested for his role in the cover-up of the Boston archdiocesian sex-abuse scandals. Benedict XVI's holy predecessor gave Law a cushy job in Rome, as archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major. He was completely on his own; his only superior was the pope himself. Now Law has resigned as archpriest of St. Mary Major. But he is still a cardinal--and will get to vote on who the next pope will be.
Mahoney has retired as the archbishop of Los Angeles, , but until last month still had unnamed "duties"--and a residence and an office. He has been relieved of his "duties" but is still a cardinal. He presided over the cover-up of clerical sex-abuse in his diocese--"all for the honor and glory of God." He too will get to vote on who the next leader of the Roman Catholic church will be.
Of course, Americans are accustomed to senior officials hiding from the law. From Nixon to Kissinger to Rumsfeld to Bush II: they are--or were--all stay-at-homes. They can't travel abroad, because they could be arrested for crimes against humanity. None of them are wanted for raping little boys, or covering up such crimes. Their crimes were--if possible--even more serious.
2. In the aftermath of Saturday's shootings on Bourbon Street in New Orleans--four people shot, one in critical condition--the Mardi Gras partying quickly returned to normal. As one sensible and sensitive young woman was quoted as saying, "I'm not going to let something like that upset my partying."
Americans must be the most sensitive and sensible people in the history of the world.
3. Which brings me to drones.
If Obama justifies the use of drones to hunt down and murder people suspected of either crimes against America or intentions of committing crimes against America, then surely "preventive defence" is something the rest of us can practice too.
And if we accidentally kill somebody else? Maybe even lots of people? And what if we targeted the wrong people to start with?
4. What gives the United States the right to inforce its version of "justice" all over the world?
The United States has been doing that since August of 1945, when it bombed Hiroshima--and then, two days later, bombed Nagasaki just to prove that they could do it.
Since 1948, the United States has been at war somewhere in the world constantly. Korea, Lebanon, Cuba, Vietnam--and Cambodia and Laos. Gerald Ford sent gun-boats into North Korea. Jimmy Carter tried to start World War III by invading Iran--to save 52 CIA operatives in Teheran; fortunately, American technology failed, and the invaders were grounded in the desert.
Then Lebanon again, Grenada, Iraq. And Reagan bombed Libya--remember? Nicaragua. We even managed to bomb Mexico City. Somalia. That railway bridge Bill Clinton bombed in Bosnia, just as a passenger train was crossing it.
Iraq again, then Afghanistan. And Pakistan.
5. And the nation is bankrupt. Financially, morally, humanly. But don't be critical. The United States is the greatest place on earth. God made it such. America has never apologised for the genocidal massacre of Native Americans, or the brutal confiscation of their land. And slavery? Nineteen years after the end of World War II, seventeen years after the end of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, the United States finally outlawed racial segregation. And even that didn't stop racism!
6. On a happier note: Wendell Berry's 2012 National Endowment for the Humanities lecture, "It All Turns on Affection," is in print, from Counterpoint. Donald Hall's beautiful 2012 "Christmas at Eagle Pond Farm" is available again. Winesburg, Ohio is still as beautiful as it was fifty years ago, when I first read it. Emily Dickinson is still so wonderfully good. Faulkner and Ernest Gaines. The Book of Nightmares. Jane Kenyon's poems.
Law fled the United States to escape being arrested for his role in the cover-up of the Boston archdiocesian sex-abuse scandals. Benedict XVI's holy predecessor gave Law a cushy job in Rome, as archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major. He was completely on his own; his only superior was the pope himself. Now Law has resigned as archpriest of St. Mary Major. But he is still a cardinal--and will get to vote on who the next pope will be.
Mahoney has retired as the archbishop of Los Angeles, , but until last month still had unnamed "duties"--and a residence and an office. He has been relieved of his "duties" but is still a cardinal. He presided over the cover-up of clerical sex-abuse in his diocese--"all for the honor and glory of God." He too will get to vote on who the next leader of the Roman Catholic church will be.
Of course, Americans are accustomed to senior officials hiding from the law. From Nixon to Kissinger to Rumsfeld to Bush II: they are--or were--all stay-at-homes. They can't travel abroad, because they could be arrested for crimes against humanity. None of them are wanted for raping little boys, or covering up such crimes. Their crimes were--if possible--even more serious.
2. In the aftermath of Saturday's shootings on Bourbon Street in New Orleans--four people shot, one in critical condition--the Mardi Gras partying quickly returned to normal. As one sensible and sensitive young woman was quoted as saying, "I'm not going to let something like that upset my partying."
Americans must be the most sensitive and sensible people in the history of the world.
3. Which brings me to drones.
If Obama justifies the use of drones to hunt down and murder people suspected of either crimes against America or intentions of committing crimes against America, then surely "preventive defence" is something the rest of us can practice too.
And if we accidentally kill somebody else? Maybe even lots of people? And what if we targeted the wrong people to start with?
4. What gives the United States the right to inforce its version of "justice" all over the world?
The United States has been doing that since August of 1945, when it bombed Hiroshima--and then, two days later, bombed Nagasaki just to prove that they could do it.
Since 1948, the United States has been at war somewhere in the world constantly. Korea, Lebanon, Cuba, Vietnam--and Cambodia and Laos. Gerald Ford sent gun-boats into North Korea. Jimmy Carter tried to start World War III by invading Iran--to save 52 CIA operatives in Teheran; fortunately, American technology failed, and the invaders were grounded in the desert.
Then Lebanon again, Grenada, Iraq. And Reagan bombed Libya--remember? Nicaragua. We even managed to bomb Mexico City. Somalia. That railway bridge Bill Clinton bombed in Bosnia, just as a passenger train was crossing it.
Iraq again, then Afghanistan. And Pakistan.
5. And the nation is bankrupt. Financially, morally, humanly. But don't be critical. The United States is the greatest place on earth. God made it such. America has never apologised for the genocidal massacre of Native Americans, or the brutal confiscation of their land. And slavery? Nineteen years after the end of World War II, seventeen years after the end of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, the United States finally outlawed racial segregation. And even that didn't stop racism!
6. On a happier note: Wendell Berry's 2012 National Endowment for the Humanities lecture, "It All Turns on Affection," is in print, from Counterpoint. Donald Hall's beautiful 2012 "Christmas at Eagle Pond Farm" is available again. Winesburg, Ohio is still as beautiful as it was fifty years ago, when I first read it. Emily Dickinson is still so wonderfully good. Faulkner and Ernest Gaines. The Book of Nightmares. Jane Kenyon's poems.
maandag 4 februari 2013
Taxing Pollution
Auto licenses are a tax, levied to pay (in part) for building and maintaining our streets and highways. I suppose that various states--and various countries--have formulae for assessing this tax. But none--to my knowledge--taxes what most should be taxed.
Taxes for transportation of freight and produce, and mass transportation for people are not what I am thinking about. I am thinking (at the moment) solely about private automobiles.
Why not develop a formula for taxing private automobiles that would be based on the length, weight, horsepower, and fuel consumption of each vehicle. Such a formula would tax pollution. And it would tax the wealthy or pretend-wealthy who drive obscenely big cars. If the tax were high enough, maybe the prestige-seeking pretend-wealthy would quit buying obscene cars. Presumably, the wealthy would not be bothered--unless we made the tax so high that even they would be threatened.
Why not tax luxury vehicles--from limousines to sports cars--at a special "arrogance rate," high enough to make even the rich folks think (if that is possible).
If we succeeded at this, we might even get the sense and the courage to start taxing wealth directly--at perhaps 90% on gross income of more than one million dollars or euros or pounds a year, and a 90% annual tax on all accumulated wealth in excess of ten million dollars or euros or pounds.
Of course, we would have to prohibit these tax revenues from being spent on the military, or on salary raises and additional perquisites for members of governments, or the building of new government buildings, or the creation of new government bureaucracies.
Why not? The only reason I can think of for not enacting such laws is greed.
Greed is the opposite of freedom, love, community, commonwealth, care, charity, civilisation, society, decency, and peace.
So shouldn't we all oppose greed, individually and collectively--as a society?
Taxes for transportation of freight and produce, and mass transportation for people are not what I am thinking about. I am thinking (at the moment) solely about private automobiles.
Why not develop a formula for taxing private automobiles that would be based on the length, weight, horsepower, and fuel consumption of each vehicle. Such a formula would tax pollution. And it would tax the wealthy or pretend-wealthy who drive obscenely big cars. If the tax were high enough, maybe the prestige-seeking pretend-wealthy would quit buying obscene cars. Presumably, the wealthy would not be bothered--unless we made the tax so high that even they would be threatened.
Why not tax luxury vehicles--from limousines to sports cars--at a special "arrogance rate," high enough to make even the rich folks think (if that is possible).
If we succeeded at this, we might even get the sense and the courage to start taxing wealth directly--at perhaps 90% on gross income of more than one million dollars or euros or pounds a year, and a 90% annual tax on all accumulated wealth in excess of ten million dollars or euros or pounds.
Of course, we would have to prohibit these tax revenues from being spent on the military, or on salary raises and additional perquisites for members of governments, or the building of new government buildings, or the creation of new government bureaucracies.
Why not? The only reason I can think of for not enacting such laws is greed.
Greed is the opposite of freedom, love, community, commonwealth, care, charity, civilisation, society, decency, and peace.
So shouldn't we all oppose greed, individually and collectively--as a society?
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