At a time of great political division in our country President Obama has found a remarkable way to unite Americans of all political persuasions — conservatives, progressives and moderates.  With a loud and clear voice the overwhelming majority of the American people, across the political spectrum, are saying NO to another war in the Middle East — Syria’s bloody and complicated civil war.

           There are two major reasons why the people in this country are adamantly opposed to the U.S.’s military intervention in Syria.  

            First, of course, is the much discussed “war weariness.”  The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for 12 years, and the war in Iraq dragged on for nearly nine years.  The cost of these wars has been horrendous: more than 6,700 American deaths; hundreds of thousands suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder; and a financial cost of between $4 trillion to $6 trillion by the time the last war veteran receives needed care.  Further, as a result of the ineptitude and dishonesty of foreign policy decisions made in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the American people worry deeply about the unintended consequences of another military venture.  

           But there’s another reason why Americans are reluctant to get involved in a third Middle East war in 12 years.  And that relates to the fact that Congress today has a 14 percent favorability rating and millions of Americans have absolutely no confidence that the U.S. House or Senate is even remotely concerned about their needs or views.  

           Here’s the truth.  The middle class in this country is collapsing. The number of Americans living in poverty is nearly the highest on record and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider.  And very few people in Washington give a damn.  

          Year after year the American people have begged the Congress and the President to move aggressively to protect the middle class from total collapse.  And, so far, their leaders have failed to act.  Today, the American people are demanding action to create jobs for their kids and retirement security for their parents.  

They are deeply worried about the state of the economy, and they have every reason to worry.  Here’s what’s going on:

– Real unemployment Counting those who have given up looking for work and those who are working part-time when they need a full time job, the real unemployment rate is 13.7 percent, not 7.3 percent.

– Average wages Non-supervisory workers have seen their wages go down by eight cents an hour since the beginning of the so-called recovery and are now a paltry $8.77 an hour.

– Income and wealth inequality  From 2009-2012, the richest 1 percent of Americans captured 95 percent of all new income, while the typical middle class family has seen their income go down by more than $2,100.  The Walton family, the owners of Wal-Mart, are worth more than $100 billion and own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans.

– College unaffordability  Over the past 30 years, the cost of a college education has gone up by more than 250 percent.  The average American graduating from college this year is drowning in debt of more than $35,000.  Even worse, hundreds of thousands of high school graduates are unable to go to college each and every year not because they are unqualified, but because they can’t afford it.

– Childhood poverty.  We live in the richest country in the world, yet one out of five children in the U.S. is stuck in poverty.  And the reality is that children living in poverty in America today are more likely to stay in poverty when they grow up than in any other advanced country on earth.    

The lesson to be learned from the widespread opposition to the war is that the American people standing together can make a difference.  Building on that momentum, now is the time to demand that Congress create millions of decent-paying jobs repairing our crumbling roads, bridges, dams, culverts, schools and housing.  

We need to end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels that are threatening the planet and move toward energy efficiency and renewable energy.  We must increase the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour and lift millions of Americans out of poverty.  We must fundamentally rewrite our trade policy so that American products, not American jobs, are our No. 1 export.  We must stand up to the greed on Wall Street by breaking up too-big-to-fail banks that have done so much damage to the economy.  And, we must make college affordable so that every qualified American can get the education they need to reclaim the American dream.

None of this will be easy.  But the American people have proven that if they speak out, if they flood Capitol Hill with phone calls and emails, they can stop a war.  Now is the time to use that same energy and passion to save the middle class.

So, we had a bit of a kerfuffle at Middlebury College yesterday. Campus Democrats and Republicans placed 2,977 flags on the grounds in front of Mead Memorial Chapel, to commemorate the victims of 9/11/2001.

And then five people came along and ripped them all out,claiming that the flags were on a sacred Abenaki burial site.

Mmmkay, if you say so. But riddle me this, Abenaki sympathizers: This memorial is an annual event at Middlebury. It’s been done for “nearly ten years,” according to the campus newspaper.

Did it just now become a sacred burial site?

Has there ever been any communication between the Abenaki and the College about the site, its significance, and appropriate uses thereof? Or did this just sort of happen?

But let’s, just for a moment, leave all that aside. Let’s accept the flag-rippers’ assertion. Just for a moment.

Is this the right way to respond?

I’m sorry, but no. This is the kind of mindlessly, thoughtlessly provocative action that gives peaceful protest a bad name.

Now, if you want to have a dialogue about the sacredness of this site, if you want to bring in archaeologists and tribal officials and make your case, try to work out an agreement with the College, I’d be all for that. I’d hope that the College would listen and respond appropriately. If the site is that important to Abenaki history and culture, I think it’d be good to memorialize that in some visible way. And maybe next year, the flags can be placed somewhere else on campus.

But please: come forward, present your evidence, make your case. Don’t vandalize a heartfelt commemoration.  

(Yeah, your little Dem in the White House has a Nobel Peace Prize, right?  George Bush didn’t get one.  You Dems should figure out how Obama can blame Bush for Syria.  And Drone Murder (and other atrocities) in Afghanistan.  And Sequestration.  And the NSA spying.  And…ah shit.  Obama’s a Dem.  He vigiled for Trayvon Martin.  Not for Shelly Frey, cause she was obviously not worth his attention.  Crock of…Dem Hypocrisy.  Start another war, but that’s okay, because it’s A DEM WAR.

So, here is what Obama is really saying to us.  Underneath all that Jello Pudding.)

OBAMA’S ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON SYRIA–THE TRANSLATION

“A dangerous new precedent has been set.  My fellow Americans, we cannot ignore what has happened, or it will happen again.  Many times, in the past decades since WWII, America has ignored the precedents of leaders and peoples of other nations killing their own people, either in civil war or through political purges.  But now, in Syria, we see how our past policies of neglecting the real issue here have come back to haunt us.  In Syria, we are seeing now the use of nasty high tech chemical weapons of mass destruction by Syrians to kill other Syrians.  My fellow Americans, we can no longer stand for any more of these precedents.  To these leaders and countries we must say ENOUGH!

“We must say to the world what we should have said in 1964 after the Gulf of Tonkin incident.  That it is the sole province of the United States of America to kill other peoples in other nations.  Those Syrians Assad gassed?  It is not Assad’s right to kill those people.  The United States of America could have killed them.  America’s righteous might would have been happy to have killed them.  And without all this fuss.  I say this to you now speaking honestly as an American, A Democrat AND a Republican, your first Black President, and a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, as was Martin Luther King, may I remind you.  We, as Americans, can be proud of the fact that we now have an opportunity here to set the rest of the world straight as to America’s relations with it.

“That is why, my fellow Americans, I must bomb the living shit out of Syria, regardless of implied threats from Russia and China.  To teach the lesson that when a nation wants to massacre its own people, that nation should come to us first and say: ‘Hey, the fuck you gonna kill these people for us?  That’s what you do, right?  Has the U.S.A gone pussy?’

“No, I say.  The U.S.A. has not gone pussy.  I, Barack Obama, will uphold, and expand, the legacies of our great past leaders, such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush.  I am ready now to send drones, Air Force and Navy carrier planes, cruise missiles, and, if necessary, Nukes to any nation that asks for our assistance in killing its own people.  The United States of America must be, and always shall be, the world’s leader in the killing of peoples everywhere.  No matter their race, religious creed, or whether they like it or not.

(Applause)

“I say now to Russia and China: ‘Let America do its job.  Let the United States be the nation to assume the burden, and the honor, of being Planet Earth’s Designated Killer.’

(Louder Applause)

“And, to show our good faith and sincerity to Russia and China, I will ask Congress to extend my Executive Powers into a new official federal program enabling me, here at home, to see to it that the Trayvon Martins and the Darius Simmonses will be killed not by individual Americans, but by the federal government.  This new program will also cover the kinds of killings of Americans we have seen in Newtown, Connecticut, at the Boston Marathon, and as many future killings of as many Americans, for whatever causes and circumstances, that can come under, what I will call, my New Executive Powers Federal Government Emergency Killing of Americans Program.  That’s NEPFGEKAP.  Sounds sort of Russian, doesn’t it?  Well, this will show Putin I didn’t really mean ill when I called him a jackass.  I meant it as a compliment.  I am a great admirer of the Russian people.  I have learned much from reading about Stalin.  Therefore, under NEPFGEKAP, Americans found guilty of killing other Americans in violation of this new program will, of course, have to be killed.

(muted applause)

“We must show the world that killing people should be the job of a nation which is a high tech professional in that field.  That killing people is what makes America great.  What makes Americans exceptional.  What makes all Americans united to meet the challenge of any other nation or peoples who would attempt, through war, terrorism, or jackassery, to undermine the manifest destiny of the United States of America.

(Loud Applause)

“So I ask you, my fellow American killers, to lobby your Congresspeople and write letters to the editors and blog with this message: ‘Hey.  The fuck you won’t let Bama bomb?  Let Bama do his job, man.  You pussies.’

“Together, all of us Americans, can participate in killing and being killed the way killing was meant to be.  For those other people’s sake.  For our own sakes.  For our children’s sakes.  For a future where killing is no longer a mindless tragedy, but the vehicle that will lead us to equality and justice.  To order and enlightenment.  And to WORLD PEACE.

(Standing Applause)

“Yes, I have a dream, and I see a world where even the most impoverished and oppressed of the world can finally hold high their heads and say to the United States: ‘Kill me.  Please.  Kill me now.  And kill our children.  And all our pets.’

“And we, the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, will answer: ‘The fuck you didn’t ask us sooner?  Here. And here’s one for the Gipper.’

(Standing Applause and Hoots and Whistles)

“My fellow Americans, I will go forward now, with you behind me, holding high my head and my Nobel Prize, and fulfill the mission you have entrusted me with by electing me, not once, but twice, your President.  Free to do the work you have given me.  Free to be the leader of all of you, Democrats, Republicans, and those of you who may not live to see the day come when all Americans, Black, White and Hispanic, well-to-do or mentally infirm, will be free from worry and fear about who is killing whom.  Free to to go to the mountaintop and watch the morning glory of mushroom clouds–American Mushroom Clouds–rise over the horizons of the world, and know that the United States of America made that happen.  Yes, free.  Free at last.  Free at last.  Great God Almighty bless the United States of America!  And God Bless You All Too.  And God Bless Me.  And bless the dead, for which we all stand.  Thank you.”

(Standing Ovation Applause, Hoots, Cheers, Whistles, Screams, Fireworks, Gunshots…and then…commercials.)

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

(Now, come on with the ‘Obama is better than Bush or whatever bullshit’  Thank you)  

The oft-quoted Rifleman’s Creed has a nugget of real-world wisdom in its juvenile crudeness. Using the term “rifle,” or alternately “weapon,” is a way to place a firearm firmly in the context of “tool,” and avoids the enormous rhetorical baggage that the word “gun” has to endure. I’d go so far as to say that lumping the term in with genitalia (as the creed does) is probably a good fit, if based only on the emotional response that discussing either in public will get you.

Because the fact is, the topic of “gun rights” vs “gun control” generates so much polarizing irrationality, it might as well be removed from the public arena for the next generation until people can learn to speak to each other on the topic, rather than at each other. Seriously. Nothing’s going to happen, and – for now, at least – that may well be a good thing, as it seems likely that anything that could happen would be trouble.

I am generally leery of gun control laws for a variety of reasons; practically speaking, there’s no unifying problem that merits a one-size-fits-all-policy. Governor Shumlin’s excuse in avoiding the topic that the only meaningful way to approach the issue would be from the federal level is, from this standpoint, 100% bass-ackwards. What might be called for in New York City, is certainly not called for in my childhood town of Paint Lick, Kentucky.

But I’m leery for other reasons as well. First, there is a cultural reality, here. Guns are an ingrained part of the culture of much of the country; they are prized, collected, built, displayed, named, and are passed down as totems of family and regional heritage. Whether or not any one of us embrace this cultural component is irrelevent; it is real, and merits a degree of respect and, yes, even deference. It is a passive cultural component after all, not an “active” one that dictates how we treat each other, and that may conflict with basic human rights.

The “right to bear” is recognized as a right by a clear majority, because that majority grew up with the expectation of that right. It is, yes, a “manifestation” of the “right to self-defense” (which few would argue against), but also straddles the “right to private property.”

Which brings us right up to crazed-irrationality side one. Let’s look at that “right to private property.” Is it an absolute right? Is it ever infringed upon?

Don’t like that one? Let’s get closer to home, then: how about the right to free speech? There is no more fundamental human right than that, and I don’t think any would argue that it has remained absolute or sacrosanct. Many of us would debate whether or not the restrictions that have been enacted are reasonable, or even moral. Some in recent years seem draconian – but none of us would argue against, for example, the classic “yelling fire in a crowded theater” restriction.

The keywords here are “argue,” and “debate.” We are capable of that with questions of public policy, and those things we regard as our rights. Sure, we get heated, but we can have those exchanges. We can discuss whether a little security here is worth a little infringement there – or, maybe more frequently, how to manage policy when one person’s fundamental right of free speech would seem to inhibit another person’s fundamental right of free speech. It is the fact that we CAN have these debates that defines us as a civilization, rather than a bunch of warring clans.

But the most vocal on the gun-rights side seem persistently incapable of engaging in such debates. By refusing to engage in a policy discussion about when, where, and under what circumstances this fundamental right of self-defense can be managed, they elevate it to (dare I say it) some sort of unique, “special” right. The only right that can’t be discussed. Even more sacred than the right to free speech.

And the key word there, in case you missed it, is sacred. As in, an article of faith. Like they have in churches.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m generally against mixing church and state.

Okay, now – take that in. Breathe deep. Feels good, don’t it, GMD-ers? Enjoy it, because here is where I pull the band-aid off and put crazed-irrationality side two under the microscope. And yes, I may well mix more metaphors before I’m done.

To see why the gun control side is just as wacky and impenetrable, I need point no further than Burlington, and the June 3 meeting of Burlington’s Charter Change Committee, chronicled by kestrel. Buried within the meeting minutes is a thesis statement that, while rarely (well, not that rarely) spoken aloud by advocates, so plainly informs their advocacy (emphasis added):

[Vince] Brennan asked about the gun manufacturing business, Century Arms, in Franklin County and the jobs it provides. [Marie] Adams said it’s a moral question, and do we really need that type of business?  Shouldn’t we try to develop other industries in that area?

There it is, unchallenged, and plain: the problem with guns is that they are immoral.. They are an evil. Inherently. Not a tool. Not a manufactured mechanism of metal. An evil.

With that one statement, the lines of debate are drawn between good and evil, right and wrong, darkness and light.

And against evil, there must be no quarter given. Nor can you attempt to “understand” evil, because in doing so, you validate it – and become tainted by it.

Kind of a debate killer right there, don’t you think?

If you think this was an unfortunate turn of phrase indicative of nothing, you’re kidding yourself. As one example, consider the ill-conceived eye-roller of an anthology series “Gun,” which followed the passage of a single firearm through many lives – chronicling it’s destrictive wake as if it were the demon in the Denzel Washington clunker Fallen, diabolically and murderously hopping from body to body.

I, for one, have a difficult time granting a spiritual component to a tool as a precondition of debate.

Or to return to the comparison of a discussion on the right to free speech, I am a lot more open to having a debate with someone else on the necessity of limitations placed on the “right to free speech” within public policy if I feel they agree that there is a right to free speech, than I am debating with someone who refuses to recognize such a right even exists. Ugh.

So you see my problem with diving in, here. It’s not that I’m feeling cynical or unwilling to discuss the topic. There are people of good will on the two sides. There are people with good information on the two sides. There are people who passionately want to do what’s right on the two sides.

And, of course, there are more than two sides.

It’s just that – for now and for the forseeable future – the arena of debate looks like a mosh pit full-to-bursting with hot and cold running reactionaries.

(There – told you I’d do that again).

With everybody entering the arena of debate as a reactionary, the only changes in policy that could emerge from that arena are likely to be, well… reactionary changes. Coming from the hippocratic approach of “first do no harm,” maybe it’s best, then, that nothing happen at all for now.

Okay; given how fond we all are here on GMD of gun diaries, I think it’s time to change the record and give everyone a new reason to rhumba.

Few people missed the news that Iowa is now permitting the legally blind to carry guns in public places.

According to the PR director for the National Federation of the Blind:

“Presumably, they’re going to have enough sense not to use a weapon in a situation where they would endanger other people, just like we would expect other people to have that common sense.”

The right of the blind to be treated no differently from sighted citizens is protected, they say, under the  Americans with Disabilities Act.  Who can argue with that?

Other states, Nebraska and South Carolina specifically, require “proof of vision” in order to purchase a gun.  Are they doing so in violation of the Act?

How about it? Have we finally painted ourselves into a constitutional box from which there is no exit?

But before you have fun with that, I have another little gun story that may have missed your attention but certainly makes the mind reel.

I refer to a page 7A story in the Monday Freeps, barely two inches of type, about a gentleman in Pine Bluff, Arkansas who engaged in a stand-off with a SWAT team after threatening two people with a gun.  

After the police evacuated the endangered couple, they announced their presence to Monroe Isadore, who was barricaded in a bedroom and immediately shot through the door.  The police returned fire, killing Isadore, who was 107 years old!!

I guess, when you’ve had enough bad service from your caregivers, you’ve really had enough; and it’s time to make a spectacular departure.

(I like this idea.  Wish it were so. Our “inner child” always faintly hopes that the grown-ups really ARE in charge… – promoted by Sue Prent)

I saw a headline on Huffington Post, “Russia Offers a Way Out” and it got me thinking.  Obama was just in Russia at the G20.  Did he work out a plan with Putin to play Good Cop / Bad Cop on Syria?

It goes like this: Obama threatens to attack, and Putin says, “Hey, Assad, we get along, we know each other, right? Well, USA is hellbent on bombing you, and we’ve all seen the mess that makes, amirite?  Tell you what, if you let the UN in and give up all your stockpiles of WMDs, maybe, just maybe, I can convince Obama to ease off.  Whaddya say, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal?”

All Obama has to do is stand there looking like Harpo Marx when he gets tough…  Eyes crossed, growling, drooling like a barely constrained madman…

(Do sign the petition; but, in any case, here is a direct link to the story on CNN.

I do remember when the story of these women’s kidnapping and exploitation came to light, but this guy adds another dimension of modern day horror.  You’ve really got to wonder what the people of Osaka are thinking electing this creep Mayor. – promoted by Sue Prent)

I hope this works.  Not good at doing links.  The Mayor of Osaka has committed an outrage on the level of a German denying Hitler and The Holocaust.  Please sign this petition, if the link works.

Here’s the link:  http://act.watchdog.net/petiti…

When liberals whine about Hiroshima/Nagasaki (including me), all I have to do now is say out loud:  “COMFORT WOMEN/NANKING!”

Read The Rape Of Nanking by Iris Chang, 1997.

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

We have already engaged in some lively debate over the question of Syria, led by two excellent diaries by Jack McCullough, here and here; but the topic is by no means exhausted.  

Jack and I obviously feel strongly that bombing Syria would be a colossal mistake, but it was clear from the conversation that some are not so certain.

It is a difficult moment for the public conscience; especially so for those of us who hoped that the Obama administration would lead us away from entanglements in the Middle East.

I thought a visit to the most recent remarks made by our DC delegates, who have more-or-less sat gingerly astride the barbed-wire fence, was in order.

First, Sen. Leahy, who appears to be struggling with his usual role in support of the President’s agenda:

Next, Sen. Sanders, who is clearly not leaning the President’s way:

And finally, Peter Welch, who keeps it simple but echos the same fundamental question:

Will our intervention just make a bad situation worse?

That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question.  

While there’s still time to weigh-in, let our representatives hear it loud and clear:

War is not the answer.

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

An interesting article in my email from VT Biz Magazine, reprinting an article from VT Digger.  It seems that Entergy doesn’t pay property tax, and only pays taxes on the power it generates.  So if it isn’t generating power…

…the state will take a budget hit of $11.5 million to $12.5 million a year.

So Jeb Spaulding, Janet Ancel and Tim Ashe are putting their minds to what can be done about it.

However the first part of that sentence gets it very wrong:

In addition to the loss of more than 600 jobs and the many economic benefits the plant brings to the Windham County region…

Those 600 jobs aren’t going to end the minute VY stops generating power. As I like to say, we’ve known that this plant was going to close for the last 40 years, it’s not like this is a big surprise.

I would have thought that Andrew Stein would know that and not sound like a shill for Entergy.

Commenting on the “Old Gold” diary below, Witchcat raised the interesting possibility of taxing large-scale employers who routinely underpay their employees, for the burden they place on public assistance.  It is an intriguing idea that deserves stand-alone consideration.

With the largest Walmart in Vermont poised to open roughly one month from now in St. Albans; and the demand for public assistance in Vermont recently falling under criticism; it seems like an opportune moment  to re-consider funding of our “social safety net.”

While there are certainly many examples of malingerers gaming the system, the number of individuals genuinely in need shows no sign of declining; and it is on this need that we should be focussing.

The governor has proposed his own “rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul” solution to the deficiencies.  Witchcat may have hit upon a supremely just alternative.

The Job Gap Study, concluded in 1998 for the Peace and Justice Center by current State Auditor, Doug Hoffer, delved into the impact of systemically low-wage employment  on Vermont’s limited financial resources.  

I was reminded of the Job Gap Study by Auditor Hoffer, who kindly provided me with a link to some tables developed back in 2005 to illustrate the proportionate effect of different  large-scale employers on the public purse.  

What jumps out from the tables is the unmistakable evidence that, with just four stores in the state at the time, proportionately,  Walmart employees grossly outnumbered those of any other employer when it came to requiring public assistance just to get by.

The study went beyond evaluating Vermont’s economic well-being based simply on the percentage of individuals who are employed, introducing the idea that we need to track how many of the employed are actually earning a “living wage.”

It was a fairly novel approach at the time, which proved prescient as the fortunes of the “employed” continued to decline throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century and beyond.

The entire country is beginning to understand that no matter how low unemployment goes, we cannot hope to rebuild a middle class on poverty wages.

Companies like Walmart, whose business model is heavily dependent on deliberately underpaying workers, are subsidized by the rest of us through tax-supported social services that must make-up for the shortfall between what the company pays and the amount it takes to simply make ends meet in the current economy.

There is ample evidence of this effect, but consumers and lawmakers have so far failed to connect the dots in order to hold those companies accountable.

Attempts to collect data to illustrate the impact have, in the case of Walmart (and other large scale retailers who take their cue from the granddaddy of them all) been frustrated by the company’s refusal to share information.

The real volume of Walmart’s drain on public assistance programs may therefore be assumed to be severely under reported in attempts at statistical representations of this burden.  

Nevertheless, as in the case of the 2005 report, it has occasionally been possible to capture a representative picture through employment information volunteered by social services applicants.  

The overwhelming take away from all of this is that, setting aside for a moment the question of social services provided to the unemployed and disabled communities,  a huge opportunity to close the funding gap exists in simply demanding that large-scale employers either pay wages sufficient to lift their entire staff off of the public roles or offset the cost of that state burden through a targeted tax such as Witchcat has proposed.

You want to stimulate the economy?  Pay these folks a living wage.  They’ll get off of public assistance; and, unlike the 1%, whose wealth the governor would prefer to protect, they will actually spend that living wage in order to, you know… live?  

And a whole bunch of other indicators suggest that the social stability provided by earning a living wage will relieve a lot of the other hidden costs borne by the state when too many people are crushingly poor.

Let us put on our thinking caps, Governor; Ladies and Gentlemen of the Legislature.  

Wouldn’t this be a more strategic place to look for revenue than in the earned income tax credit of the poor?