Maine Owl

See the Maine Owl calendar for this date

Here is another entry in my calendar series. I haven't really been keeping up with writing a piece for 3/4ths of the entries. I guess it'll end up more like 1/4th. Oh well, it is a very busy semester.

Anyway, the item for today concerns events in Finland during the time of WWI. These had rather strong repercussions for my own forebears. From late January to May of 1918, Finland was beset by a bloody conflict born of worker dislocations after 19th century industrialization, the tumult of the Russian revolutionary period of 1917-18, and of course the general insanity of World War I. In addition to the above link (my favorite of the pieces I read today), also go HERE for more, and to the Wikipedia entry HERE.

My father grew up on the Iron Range of northeastern Minnesota. Already by 1918, my grandparents had experienced a devastating bankruptcy I believe related to the 1916 Mesabi iron miners strike. (More on this will be published in June on the 93rd anniversary of the strike.) This was a great blow to my father as a seven-year-old child. My grandfather went from being a very-well-off merchant to a struggling municipal employee. My dad as a result had a sort of scrappy approach to making a living that I seem to have inherited.

While he was alive, he never spoke much about the splits that occurred in the Finnish community and within our own family during these times. (My grandparents as merchants were quite conservative, as I understand it.) Except once.

In November 1990, just after Paul Wellstone had first been elected senator from Minnesota, I asked my dad to talk on tape about how the Finns might view Wellstone. He explained about the "Reds" and the "Whites"--the terms used for the belligerent sides in the 1918 civil war. This clip is only 45 seconds and he does not even mention the conflict at all, rather suggesting that the politics of those old days had been patched up so that the progeny of the Reds (losers in 1918), the Communist Party of Finland, were legitimate in politics after the mid forties. Mostly I like this because he uses the Finnish names for the "Reds" and the "Whites." Play the clip below:

Remarkable man remembered in WERU broadcast


Jim Harney's photos from Iraq often have been used at anti-war demonstrations to illustrate who pays the worst costs of the war

Area peace activists were saddened last month on the December 26 passing of Jim Harney. For WERU Weekend Voices on January 3, Amy Browne assembled the best of Jim's recent talks and interviews into a one-hour program. I do not want any of us to forget this program, so I'm reminding everyone to listen. You go HERE to play or download the program, or go ahead and play it right here:


WERU Weekend Voices 1-3-2009

[Jim] Harney was former Catholic priest, and one of the Milwaukee 14, a group of priests and faith-based peace activists who broke into draft boards and burned about 10,000 Selective Service records with homemade napalm in a protest against the Vietnam War in 1968. They read from the gospel while the records burned. He spent more than a year in jail for his part in that protest.

In recent years many of us knew Jim Harney through the faces and voices of others that he shared through his photographs and stories. The photographs of people he met in Iraq have adorned pins and posters, putting a real face on war. Jim traveled extensively in Latin America, interviewing and photographing people whose stories might not otherwise be told— the poor, survivors of systemic economic violence, those struggling for change. He accompanied them on their journeys– running with his friends in El Salvador as US bombs rained down on them, sleeping in the mud in the corn fields, crossing the desert with the undocumented.

After learning he had terminal cancer, Harney planned a walk from Boston to Washington DC last summer, to call attention to the plight of the undocumented. He was able to make it as far as Rhode Island.

In December 2008, Jim Harney was given the Sacco & Vanzetti Social Justice Award from Community Church of Boston— an award that over it’s more than 30 year history has also been presented to Howard Zinn, Scott and Helen Nearing, Cesar Chavez and Rachel Corie.

See Jim's writing and more of his remarkable photos at www.posibilidad.org.

Cold nights


Ice crystals form on trees and shrubs at sub-zero temperatures

We've been seeing this beautiful ice crystal formation during the wee hours. By six or seven a.m., the temperature has been -30 C to -35 C several time in the last ten days. By mid-morning, the crystals rapidly disappear.

Photo essay on unsold cars around the world

Basic Marxism suggests that capitalism goes into crisis when workers cannot buy back all of the goods they produce. Huge lots filling up with hundreds of thousands of unsalable new vehicles illustrates this with a vengeance. The fruits of a few decades of restricting the ability of workers to realize the full wages for the products they produce now are coming home to roost.

The inability of the economy to move the goods it produces also suggests that the Republican "stimulus" approach of providing "as much as $3,200 per family each year by reducing the lowest income tax rates" is silly. Cutting taxes on income people do not have will not help them much. We need a truly massive employment program that creates living-wage positions for every able-bodied worker. That's the only way this crisis will abate.

Patrick Cockburn:

Israeli society was always introverted but these days it reminds me more than ever of the Unionists in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s or the Lebanese Christians in the 1970s. Like Israel, both were communities with a highly developed siege mentality which led them always to see themselves as victims even when they were killing other people. There were no regrets or even knowledge of what they inflicted on others and therefore any retaliation by the other side appeared as unprovoked aggression inspired by unreasoning hate.

This mentality seizes U.S. politics and media as well.

I wrote a letter to Representative Michaud about the Gaza atrocities. His reply is below. Everybody should know that I very much like and support Mike Michaud. I will probably see him and speak with him personally at several events during the course of the year.

The one thing I'll ask him about his response is the incongruity. If this is a war with actual sides and the loss of life is unacceptable, why is it that what Israel does falls within its "right to defend its citizens" while it "minimizes" civilian casualties while Hamas simply is "targeting civilians"? Seems like what Israel did represents a whole lot of failure to "minimize." Will Mike demand from Israel an accounting for this?

Here's the letter:

Dear Mike,

I just want to register my strong disagreement with your January 9 vote to support "H. Res. 34 to recognize Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, to reaffirm the United States' strong support for Israel, and to support the Israeli-Palestinian peace process."

The text of the resolution contains many one-sidedly pro-Israel statements. Your approach should be much more even-handed.

What I wish you would do is re-evaluate your support for arming Israel in light of the Crimes Against Humanity it committed in Gaza. Just today on Democracy Now!, for example, we heard a direct account from a Palestinian US College Grad who lost "two Brothers in Israeli shooting" while the "father watched son bleed to death after Israeli troops blocked ambulances."

This story is so horrific in it's cruelty that I can hardly contain my sorrow and anger while writing about it. You should be able to recognize the war crime in denial of medical care for non-combatants.

That is just one example. The list of war crimes committed by Israel during its "self-defense" is voluminous: use of U.S.-made weapons to level civilian neighborhoods, dropping of phosphorus bombs into hospitals and U.N. aid depots, and on and on. The numbers of dead are staggering.

Will you please re-evaluate your support for limitless provision of Israel with weapons and unflinching approval of its horrific attack in light of these crimes? The process of stopping diplomatically the threats faced by Israelis and Palestinians alike can begin with a mere word of disapproval from the United States.

Thank you.
Eric

Mike's reply:

Where's the beef?

So, there was a White House press briefing yesterday. Where is the White House transcript? Maybe someone there can post in the spiffy new blog just where this information is going to be. The Bush Administration was better about this, getting everything the president said in public up almost instantly.

I wanted to post something about the question Helen Thomas asked about worldwide "outrages" not specifically addressed by the orders President Obama has issued on torture and the closure of the Guantanamo gulag. Sorry, whitehouse.gov is not yet "transparent" on this matter.

Harkavy at The Village Voice calls the situation "deeply troubling and downright scary." More HERE.

Survivors say medical attention was denied for hours or days

Does the similarity in these stories "refute" Israeli denial?

Israel accused of executing parents in front of children in Gaza
Israel has refuted allegations of war atrocities in Gaza after Palestinian children described how their parents had been "executed" by Israeli troops.
By Murray Wardrop - Last Updated: 9:50PM GMT 21 Jan 2009

One nine-year-old boy said his father had been shot dead in front of him despite surrendering to Israeli soldiers with his hands in the air.

Another youngster described witnessing the deaths of his mother, three brothers and uncle after the house they were in was shelled.

He said his mother and one of his siblings had been killed instantly, while the others bled to death over a period of days.

Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Blocked Ambulances
Democracy Now! - January 22, 2009

AMY GOODMAN: Amer, Ibrahim—tell us what was happening with him through the day, your eighteen-year-old brother, who your father was with. Where was he shot?

AMER SHURRAB: He was shot in his leg just under the knee. And while he was getting out of the car, upon the orders of the soldiers, he got shot, and he screamed, “I have been injured!” And he tried to call the ambulance, but the soldiers ordered him to drop the phone, or they would shoot him.

But they would allow my father to use a cell phone. My father tried to call the emergency number several times. And Ibrahim would tell him, every five minutes, “I’m hurt. I’m injured. I’m in pain. Call an ambulance.” And he was bleeding all the time. And after sunset, he started shivering and trembling, telling my dad he was cold.

And after my dad found out that Kassab was dead, Ibrahim asked my dad, “Were you pleased with him, Daddy?” And he said, “Yes, I’m pleased with him.” And then Ibrahim, around 9:00, Ibrahim told my dad he was still shivering from cold, and he told my dad, “I’m so cold.” So my dad told him, “OK, stand up, and I will help you to get in the car. Maybe it will be warmer there.”

So, as they stood up, the soldier said, “Don’t move, or we will shoot you.”

What followed was horrific in its cruelty. The injured man was forced to remain with his father in the car, bleeding without medical care until he died twenty hours later.

Why is it so hard for American politicians to stand up against this kind of inhuman behavior? There hardly has been a peep from the U.S. Congress, President Obama, or the U.S. media. I just have to think that if Israel did not feel it had such impunity conferred to it from its American benefactors, these crimes could not happen.

Israel throughout its pummeling of Gaza claimed it was not targeting civilians, in fact caring for them.

False.

I think what obviously is true instead is THIS:

Israel wanted a humanitarian crisis
Targeting civilians was a deliberate part of this bid to humiliate Hamas and the Palestinians, and pulverise Gaza into chaos
Ben White (Guardian - UK - Tuesday 20 January 2009)

The scale of Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip, and the almost daily reports of war crimes over the last three weeks, has drawn criticism from even longstanding friends and sympathisers. Despite the Israeli government's long-planned and comprehensive PR campaign, hundreds of dead children is a hard sell. As a former Israeli government press adviser put it, in a wonderful bit of unintentional irony, "When you have a Palestinian kid facing an Israeli tank, how do you explain that the tank is actually David and the kid is Goliath?" ...

... Estimates for the proportion of civilian deaths among the 1,360 Palestinians killed range from more than half to two-thirds. Politicians, diplomats and journalists are by and large shying away from the obvious, namely that Israel has been deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians and the very infrastructure of normal life, in order to – in the best colonial style – teach the natives a lesson.

It's probably too much to ask the U.S. Congress, President Obama, or the U.S. media to consider these obvious facts about the slaughter we just saw.

Gerald has the text HERE

As a peace activist, some of this did not thrill me at first. It sounded almost too much like Bush: "We will not apologize for our way of life," and, "You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

How many more innocents will we slaughter in order to stop "slaughtering innocents"?

But the jingoism is "tempered" in some very good ways, "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

And this was a terrific dig against the Bush record: "We will restore science to its rightful place."

But my favorite line: "Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

As someone who is pretty skeptical of Obama (and will continue to be), I say this is hopeful.

And also, I do second Gerald's suggestion to take a look at the incredible new whitehouse.gov.

Ms. Owl and I cheered our little hearts out


Thanks to C-SPAN and Peace de Resistance

It is a new day.

Huge snowstorm Sunday & Monday


60 fluffy centimeters

Vistas of snow-covered trees are everywhere. It's really quite beautiful.

There is pressure on Obama from deep in the financial sanctum immediately to send in more bales of public cash for use as toilet paper by those who desperately seek a taxpayer backstop for their schemes gone awry.

Enough is enough. What we were told last fall is it's not a bailout, but a "rescue." None of them seem to care about causing, eventually, the public to need a rescue. That is where this eventually will end up unless the bleeding can be stopped. And that won't be pretty.

Krugman is correct:

A better approach would be to do what the government did with zombie savings and loans at the end of the 1980s: it seized the defunct banks, cleaning out the shareholders. Then it transferred their bad assets to a special institution, the Resolution Trust Corporation; paid off enough of the banks’ debts to make them solvent; and sold the fixed-up banks to new owners.

We must now insist that the greater public good is more important than keeping Big Bank shareholders whole.

In Fela's world, it meant sorrow, tears, and blood

It's getting colder



Frost on the door lock

Today the morning greeted the Maine Owl offices with temperatures of -23F/-31C. After the door was opened, this interesting frost appeared on the inside portion of the door lock.

Krugman: "Why, then, shouldn’t we have an official inquiry into abuses during the Bush years?"

As soon as President-elect Obama uttered to George Stephanopoulos last Sunday, "I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards," I knew that the entire ugly criminal mess of the Bush Administration never properly will be investigated, let alone see the prosecution of its perpetrators. Krugman, it's already over.

Of course Krugman gets to the very most salient point of the entire Bush criminality:

And then there was the biggest scandal of all: Does anyone seriously doubt that the Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into invading Iraq?

Sure, it's obvious. President Bush and his co-conspirators engaged in the "Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances." That my friends, is called a Crime Against Peace.

The evidence is damning, just hit the "Iraq" category at this blog and hundreds of others to find truckloads of such evidence.

But International Law is hollow on this point. From the first day since the 1950 Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal were adopted by the U.N., the U.S. never has been for one moment restrained when it has taken a decision to engage in Aggression. There never has been an authority strong enough to bring a meaningful case. The World Court, for example, was mocked by the Reagan government when it ruled against the Aggression the U.S. committed in mining Nicaragua's harbors during the 1980s.

I can't say for sure that all of the Bush insults to humanity will be swept under the rug. I just think they will be. Obama officials, like A.G. Eric Holder, will have their hands full and seriously will be disinclined to fight the Republican backlash and howls of "partisanship." This point is attacked by Krugman. Unfortunately I fear the result of leaving the past unpunished will be open doors to more official crime. When those happen, how will the "future" Obama speaks of look to us?

Potential war crimes: Hospitals bombed, 1000 dead, white phosphorus chemical incendiary agent used

These are real reports from on the ground in Gaza: see HERE and HERE.

DR. MOUSSA EL-HADDAD (Democracy Now! 1-15-09): I could see cluster bombs being fired this morning, and the phosphorus bombs now are used freely on the civilians.

CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS (Democracy Now! 1-15-09): Well, this morning, there were three rounds of white phosphorus which landed in our compound in Gaza. That set ablaze the main warehouse and the big workshop we have there for vehicles. At the time, there were 700, also, people displaced from the fighting. There were full fuel tankers there. The Israeli army have been given all the coordinates of all our facilities, including this one. They also knew that there were fuel tankers laden with fuel in the compound, and they would have known that there were hundreds of people who had taken refuge.

JENNY LINNEL (KPFA Flashpoints 1-15-09): [In a neighborhood of Rafa] We've had air missile strikes every single day, .... Many homes were destroyed ... literally thousands of homes were flattened. ... [Near Han Yunes] There was an attack with some very unusual weaponry, the white phosphor. ... Can you imagine this civilian neighborhood being attacked, not just with missiles, but with white phosphor missiles that burn anything that comes in contact. ...

DR. MOUSSA EL-HADDAD (Democracy Now! 1-15-09): But let me just add a comment to what Mr. Ehud Olmert said, that he apologized, that it was a mistake. If that was one mistake—and I tell you right now on the air—that they have committed hundreds of mistakes during the last three weeks. You know, what about all these apartment buildings that only civilians occupy? Children and families are trapped in elevators and under the stairs. Children and women bleeding in the streets, and the Israeli Army tanks are not allowing Red Cross or humanitarian aid to go and help them. The ambulances are not allowed to go in. They bleed for hours. And we can hear them on the radio asking for help and somebody to come and help them and take them. Dead bodies are in the streets down in our area in the southwest of Gaza. It’s—I’ll tell you, this is a disaster on humans. This is a human disaster in the twenty-first century. And everybody is looking.

Don't look for these reports on the Nightly News or expect most Congress people to be aware of them. Mike Michaud, Chellie Pingree--Is this what you meant by "Israel's right to defend itself" when you voted for H. Res. 34?

I thought this was apt from Atrios:

Bailouts might be justifiable if common stockholders were wiped out and the gov't had voting shares. Otherwise, just a big bonfire of cash!

I've been watching CNBC this morning and the financial mood has turned glum. This is the seventh straight losing day on Wall Street with shares in Citi and Bank of America leading the way down.

Citigroup, of course, as recently as December was injected with tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. Last year Bank of America rode in on a white horse for the belly-up Countrywide Financial, but now after receiving $25 billion in taxpayer TARP funds, it has "struggled to digest its January 1 buyout of former Wall Street brokerage giant Merrill Lynch & Co."

This will get worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better. Welcome to Washington, President Obama.

Our Hero on the Bush legacy


Helen Thomas (Maine Owl photo)

History Cannot Save Him
by Helen Thomas

WASHINGTON -- As he leaves office, President Bush is passing on to his successor two wars and a growing economic debacle. What a way to go!

Because of Bush's policies, the U.S. also is complicit in the Israeli attack on the Palestinians on the Gaza Strip by providing a "made-in-America" high-tech arsenal for the assault and blocking a ceasefire for nearly two weeks, a move intended to help the Israelis consolidate their hold. ...

Original continues HERE. See also, Helen Thomas on "An Unconscionable Legacy", Democracy Now!, HERE.

Both Maine U.S. House members, Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree, vote yea on one-sided, pro-Israel H. Res. 34

On Friday January 9, the U.S. House of Representatives "agreed to suspend the rules" and passed the following measure:

H. Res. 34 to recognize Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, to reaffirm the United States' strong support for Israel, and to support the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The vote of 390 yeas to 5 nays with 22 voting ``present,'' Roll No. 10, included both Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud in the yeas.

Read the full text of H. Res. 34 by going HERE and retrieving H95 for 2009.

The U.S. Senate then passed the Resolution on a voice vote.

Is it really so clear as it is to the U.S. Congress and our representatives that what Israel is doing fully is justified by proper notions of self-defense?

Not in my opinion. H. Res. 34 is loaded with misconceptions bound into nakedly pro-Israel talking points. I have included below a commentary about today's quite excellent Democracy Now! among other things. A version of this commentary is cross-posted at Turn Maine Blue.

This letter was published in The Times of London on January 11, 2009. It is reproduced here and its sentiments are endorsed by Maine Owl. h/t Informed Comment

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime

ISRAEL has sought to justify its military attacks on Gaza by stating that it amounts to an act of “self-defence” as recognised by Article 51, United Nations Charter. We categorically reject this contention.

The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence. Under international law self-defence is an act of last resort and is subject to the customary rules of proportionality and necessity.

The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire.

For 18 months Israel had imposed an unlawful blockade on the coastal strip that brought Gazan society to the brink of collapse. In the three years after Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. And yet in 2005-8, according to the UN, the Israeli army killed about 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Throughout this time the Gaza Strip remained occupied territory under international law because Israel maintained effective control over it.

Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence, not least because its assault on Gaza was unnecessary. Israel could have agreed to renew the truce with Hamas. Instead it killed 225 Palestinians on the first day of its attack. As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. In addition, the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes.

We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes. Israel has a right to take reasonable and proportionate means to protect its civilian population from such attacks. However, the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.

[see below for signatories]

A new season of the Fox torture romp, 24, premieres this evening

Via Atrios and Matthew Yglasias comes this observation:

under the leadership of a terrible president, our elites have become vociferous advocates of the goodness and rightness of war crimes and human rights violations

One of the references cited discussed Brit Hume's "41 & 43" interview on Fox News Sunday today.

Colonel W. Patrick Lang: torture a la Jack Bauer had been a good thing for the US government to employ because it had enabled the winkling out of information from "known killers," and at another point in his discourse "known criminals."

The problem is the president neatly has corrupted the foundations of human rights--namely the right to a fair trial and to be protected from the whims of a vindictive executive.

For his part, Vice President Richard B. Cheney graced The Beard's final Late Edition with this wisdom:

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: The fact of the matter is that we were able to persuade them to cooperate, to give us the intelligence we needed, and to give us the base of understanding about al Qaeda, about personnel and operations and financing and geography and so forth that was essential in terms of defending our country against further attacks. Now you don't go in and pull out somebody's toenails in order to get them to talk. This is not torture. We don't do torture.

WOLF BLITZER: John McCain says it's torture.

CHENEY: Well, John is wrong. He and I have a fundamental disagreement on this point. But what the agency did was they sought formal guidance from the senior leadership of the administration, as well as the Justice Department in terms of what was appropriate and what wasn't. And they got that guidance. And they followed that guidance, as far as I know. I have no reason to believe anybody out at the agency violated any tenet of the obligations and responsibilities we have in terms of statutes or our treaty obligations. I think it was done very professionally. I think it was done very few times, when it was necessary. I think it produced good results. I think there are Americans alive today because we used that technique on those three individuals.

BLITZER: And if necessary, would you authorize it again?

CHENEY: Well, I'm not in the chain of command, but if necessary, I would certainly recommend it again.

BLITZER: Waterboarding?

CHENEY: Yes.

I suppose Cheney has to state that the waterboarding he openly admits to supporting (note the careful ass-covering statement about his not being in the "chain of command," probably technically true) is not torture. If it is, those with their hands on it are wide open to war crimes charges. My opinion is the vice president richly deserves a space in the dock for a war crimes trial where this defense of his actions should receive at least as much consideration as Hussein and Milošević received in theirs.

Furthermore, we can attack Cheny, Bush, and other torture advocates on their own terms. The story of Ibn al Sheikh al Libi is instructive. Torture leads to bad information, bad decisions, unnecessary war, and catastrophic loss of life. In the case of al Libi, he was sent to Egypt where "they buried him alive and beat him mercilessly until he confessed that Iraq and Al Qaeda were linked." The bad information was then used countless times by Cheney and others to dupe the public into war.

One note on The Beard-- I give him credit for pressing Cheney on bad intelligence, in particular that provided by "Curveball."

Violations of the sort practiced by this administration and now shamelessly rationalized in its waning days are ingrained in our entertainment, namely shows like 24 and NCIS. I can't stand NCIS any more, even though it is a very well-made show. But I will tune into 24. It's like gaping at a highway wreck.

It's cold out there


Truck: how many times do I have to brush him?

Highly recommended listening

Thanks to a tip from the excellent website The Oil Drum, about a week-and-a-half ago I heard THIS program from KZYX&Z in Mendocino County, California, "Reality Report: Natural Gas Cliff and Credit Situation."

Basically, Nate Hagens suggests we should not get too comfortable with low oil prices. Also, natural gas is in a lot more trouble than Boone Pickens would have us believe.

There are additional good links and comments at The Oil Drum HERE.

Dramatic action by government required

Twenty-eight years ago, an incoming president said,

PRESIDENT RONALD W. REAGAN (1st Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981): The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now, as we've had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

I would mark the turning point that began the current crisis to that moment, the day President Reagan took office. The Reagan years were marked by unbridled fraud and criminality. The realm of regulated capitalism within which the economy had operated for about five decades was whittled down under the Reagan "government is the problem" mantra. Within a couple of years Reagan would sign de-regulatory legislation that foreshadowed the mess we have today:

Old friend

The gray-bearded wild man of the mountains has a nice blog, at downeast.com.

They could learn from Flashpoints

Update to previous item: On the day (two days ago) when Israel blew up a UN school and killed dozens of innocent people, I suppose NPR deserves a bit of credit for running this 4-1/2-minute interview with one of their own stringers:

Gaza Resident Describes Situation

Mr. AHMED ABU HAMDA (Palestinian News Producer): The people now - because now they have been under attack for a long time, they're out of food, out of supplies. Plus, I saw, for the last two, three days - and I am myself one of them - a lot of people evacuating from their houses, going other relative's houses, especially the people who are living on the hot spots or hot lines where there are clashes and so on. So, everyone is really panicking from that and trying to stay in a safe place. ...

Mr. HAMDA: I'll tell you something, my dear. Now in my flat, I'm not safe, OK? If I go out, I'm not safe. I will choose the less threat. For example, I had to go to the Shifa Hospital while I knew it might be risky. But why I went there? I am a Palestinian citizen who live in Gaza Strip. In such a crisis, I need money to bring food for my family. I have to risk my life to provide this food for my wife, for my family. This is how we are living here.

NPR anchor Melissa Block mainly was interested in poking and prodding about the Israeli propaganda line, "Hamas uses the population within Gaza basically as human shields" and "You did not see Hamas militants. How do you know when a young man is or is not a Hamas militant?"

Here's what I think. The Palestinians elected Hamas in a free and fair election three years ago. Yes, I suppose they are the Palestinian equivalent of the War Party. They were elected for reasons not unlike those for which electorates both in Israel and in the United States choose our own War Parties (basically all Parties in both countries). That is, we're bathed in false notions that violence will be some sort of solution to our problems.

Listening to NPR (especially the hourly news updates), what we hear mostly is a picture of some sort of symmetric war where evil Hamas fighters are surgically targeted by Israeli heroes. When a report leaks through like the one above, the NPR hosts have to make damn sure the piece does not stray too far from the normal drumbeat.

Would it be so hard for them to devote a significant percentage of their coverage speaking with besieged people actually on the ground in the Gaza shooting gallery? No. KPFA's Flashpoints does it every day. The last couple shows reveal truly grisly crimes (phosphorus attacks) and reporters like Sameh Habeeb noticeably more shaken and fearful for his family. Mr. Habeeb received ten seconds on CBS a couple of days ago. He gets ten to twelve minutes per day on Flashpoints.

Predictably, awful.

See also, HERE.

The low point may have been Sunday when George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week allowed without challenge Israeli President Shimon Peres to make outrageous statements suggesting all is fine for Gaza's population:

PERES: ... there is no shortage of basic needs in Gaza. We take care that medical equipment and food and fuel will arrive to Gaza, even today.

Cracks in this storyline appeared Monday when Katie Couric's show took a remarkable departure in an excellent report from Gaza on the CBS Evening News by correspondent Richard Roth:


"There aren't enough ambulances to carry the casualties, who arrive in cars - and taxis, too. The beds are all busy at Al-Shifa Hospital; the courtyard's a crowded waiting room; the morgue is full"; "They have no spare parts, they have no monitors. They have not enough blood pressure machines, they don't have enough trolleys. They lack everything. And on top of this you have this huge disaster."

Check out some of the other very good CBS reporting in other stories as well. In particular, "U.S. Shoots Down U.N. Call For Ceasefire,"

The Security Council was scolded by U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto, a former Nicaraguan Sandinista, who called the lack of action by the Security Council an illustration of the Security Council's disfunctionality. He called the failure of action a "monstrosity."

"There are some members of the Security Council that are trying to protect their own political interests," d'Escoto said. "This is a real shame … people are dying."

Finally, MSNBC Countdown carried a strong interview with National Security Council analyst Hillary Mann Leverett highly critical of President-elect Obama for remaining silent on the siege. Leverett raised alarming doubts about the orientation and the team coming with State designee Hillary Rodham Clinton in terms not unlike those used in this blog.

Leverett: There's considerable fear [in Arab states] about the advisers she's going to bring with her--people like Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, Ken Pollack. People that I would call neoconservative fellow travelers. People who brought the failed peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians at the end of the Clinton term in 2000, people who cheered and championed the invasion of Iraq under this administration. There's a lot of fear and consternation that the advisers Hillary Clinton is going to bring with her are going to make us long for the Bush days.

Olbermann: Hmmm, goodness. ...

I respect Leverett and her husband, Flynt Leverett, as realist figures at various times in the NSC and State Department for strong stands opposed to use of force in Iran, favoring instead diplomatic engagement. Good job, Ms. Leverett. It takes quite a lot to knock Olbermann back on his heels like that.

HERE.

This is by Jeremy R. Hammond at The Palestine Chronicle.

Lie #1: Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians. ...

Lie #2: Hamas violated the cease-fire. The Israeli bombardment is a response to Palestinian rocket fire and is designed to end such rocket attacks. ...

Lie #3: Hamas is using human shields, a war crime. ...

Lie #4: Arab nations have not condemned Israel’s actions because they understand Israel’s justification for its assault. ...

Lie #5: Israel is not responsible for civilian deaths because it warned the Palestinians of Gaza to flee areas that might be targeted. ...

There is a succinct explanation about why these are lies following each point. That last one (#5) is quite interesting as it seems easily to convince credulous Americans of benign Israeli intention. Even moderator Matthew Miller of the "balanced" Left, Right, and Center radio talk show from KCRW in California was taken in (Jan. 2 edition).

Hammond points out that "the people of Gaza have nowhere to flee to. They are trapped within the Gaza Strip. It is by Israeli design that they cannot escape across the border. It is by Israeli design that they have no food, water, or fuel by which to survive."

Excommunicated January 3, 1521

Growing up Lutheran cannot help but instill some pride in your church because it was founded on the teachings of the intellectual leader of the Protestant Reformation. Luther represents freedom and intellectual inspiration to discover new knowledge and new ways of seeing the world. I graduated from a Lutheran college that instilled these values in an academic sense. I'm grateful to have had that experience.

Luther was a German monk, a scholar and an ordained priest. By 1520 he had a achieved a high academic position. He saw corruption in the Church and had the guts to say so. This caused him problems, to say the least. But apart from some months in hiding after the Diet of Worms (April 1521) brought down a harsh edict from the Holy Roman Emperor, he never lost his position at Wittenburg. Others, however, were not so fortunate as in some parts of Europe during the 1520s, following the teachings of Luther could result in burning at the stake.

Luther's 95 Theses drew sharp theological lines against the Roman Church and amply illustrated its corruption. I won't get into them here, except to say they made the point that the blessings of God are not for sale. The Church at the time was extremely corrupt in its dealings, often extracting onerous taxes from poor peasants which it converted into lavishly appointed facilities. Some of the mega-churches we see today that really are big business empires ought to have that kind of light shined on them.

Luther actually was a conservative and had no desire for rebellion against feudal oppression that marked his time. He was as opposed to Anabaptist radicals as he was to the Roman hierarchy.

I began an intensive one-month course on Luther in college exactly thirty years ago this week. It hardly seems possible... Well, to get a flavor of Luther, one of the best texts is On the Freedom of a Christian (1520). This is one that really stirred 'em up.

After an introductory letter challenging Pope Leo X on the "monstrous evils of this age with which I have now for three years been waging war," Luther fairly quickly lays out his case that "justification" (roughly, redemption in the eyes of God) is not a matter for human authorities to adjudicate, then a conceited occupation of Church authorities--often for a price.

And, to cast everything aside, even speculation, meditations, and whatever things can be performed by the exertions of the soul itself, are of no profit. One thing, and one alone, is necessary for life, justification, and Christian liberty; and that is the most holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ, as He says, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me shall not die eternally" (John xi. 25), and also, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John viii. 36), and, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. iv. 4).

Nowadays as a lapsed Lutheran I take it much further--My faith is that whatever God there may be is not at all interested in the process of human justification or redemption. The way the universe works is both your human life and soul simply are erased when you die. There is no division of "soul" and "flesh." It is what you leave behind for others that matters. Even though Luther himself probably would consider me to be a heretic, on that last account, Luther was a giant.

Ice on the Penobscot River


Falling over the Veazie Dam

After a couple of days of brutal cold and wind, things remained frigid but much less windy today. Here chunks of ice were dropping over the dam and making big splashes below.

U.S. Secretary of State doesn't want a ceasefire she (Israel) doesn't like


Would just saying "stop the killing" make her head explode?

Here is what U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today in Washington:

Secretary Rice: We are working towards a ceasefire that would not allow a re-establishment of the status quo ante where Hamas can continue to launch rockets out of Gaza. It is obvious that that ceasefire should take place as soon as possible, but we need a cease-fire that is durable and sustainable.

In other words, the attack won't stop and civilians will continue to be slaughtered until Israel gets what it wants from the bombardment.

Of course coy rejection of ceasefire prior to Israeli attack objectives being met is not new for Secretary Rice. She made similar statements regarding the serious Israeli bombing of Gaza last winter, and of course we must not forget her "birth pangs" remarks during Israeli's summer 2006 bombardment of Lebanon.

Maine Owl 2009 Calendar series

This is the beginning of a series of posts on items listed in the Maine Owl 2009 Calendar. Some of these will be more ambitious than others. Often I will point to Wikipedia articles and give only brief personal reflections. Other times I will include much more about why the event listed for the date is meaningful to me. I will try to post on at least 3/4 of the events listed.

Labor struggles and worker safety are represented for quite a few of the dates on the Calendar. On this date in 2006, a tragic underground coal mine explosion in Sago, West Virginia caused the deaths of 12 men by asphyxiation during their long entrapment with toxic gases (one survived the ordeal). A thirteenth man died in the initial explosion.

These miners might have been spared by proper safety equipment and procedures. A New York Times editorial on January 5, 2006 explained,

The mine, with more than 270 safety citations in the last two years, is the latest example of how workers' risks are balanced against company profits in an industry with pervasive political clout and patronage inroads in government regulatory agencies. Many of the Sago citations were serious enough to potentially set off accidental explosions and shaft collapses, and more than a dozen involved violations that mine operators knew about but failed to correct, according to government records.

This is an example of Republican Katrina-esque governance at it's worst. Lives are sacrificed because corporate bosses can make more money if no one effectively regulates what they do.

There is a blog by/about the sole survivor, Randy McCloy, updated only into April 2006. But this post with a news item containing Mr. McCloy's story told in his own words really struck me.

After the blast, the miners returned to their shuttle car in hopes of escaping along the track, but had to abandon their efforts because of bad air. They then retreated, hung a curtain to keep out the poisonous gases, and tried to signal their location by beating on the mine bolts and plates.

"We found a sledgehammer, and for a long time, we took turns pounding away," McCloy wrote. "We had to take off the rescuers in order to hammer as hard as we could. This effort caused us to breathe much harder. We never heard a responsive blast or shot from the surface."

Martin "Junior" Toler, 51, and Tom Anderson, 39, made another, last-ditch attempt to find a way out but were quickly turned back by heavy smoke and fumes, McCloy said.

"We were worried and afraid, but we began to accept our fate," he wrote. "Junior Toler led us all in the Sinners Prayer."

McCloy said the air behind the curtain grew worse, and he lay as low as possible and tried to take shallow breaths, but became lightheaded.

"Some drifted off into what appeared to be a deep sleep, and one person sitting near me collapsed and fell off his bucket, not moving. It was clear that there was nothing I could do to help him," McCloy wrote. "The last person I remember speaking to was Jackie Weaver, who reassured me that if it was our time to go, then God's will would be fulfilled."

Our country owes a lot to miners. I had many relatives who worked iron mines in northern Minnesota. It's rough, dangerous work. We owe it to all mine workers to insist on the highest safety standards. We still have a long way to go.