Obama’s No Means Yes

For the first time, a US President says that changes in drug policy are worth discussing.  This is a major shift and indicates that we may begin to move to a more open, effective, peaceful and healthy drug policy.  Well, one can hope.

Of the President said no, no, no and even went so far to say that legalization could make corruption worse ( Most of the corruption comes from the tension between US-led interdiction and local distribution). But the beginning of the conversation is the beginning of separating drugs from violence.  It won’t solve all the problems. Alcohol still comes with plenty of downsides but people no longer get kidnapped or executed in the production / distribution process.

 

 

Does Biden’s No Mean Yes?

Biden's no means yes Vice President Biden flatly denied that the United States would ever support the legalization of drugs as a method of addressing the organized, violent drug traffickers who continue to prey on our country.  We may not like it but we are not beating them.  We aren’t even slow them down and we won’t beat them with jails and police.

The leaders of many South American countries are opening calling for a legalization as the best way to address the obscene money and violence in the illegal drug trade.  The conservative nature of the US politics will make this common sense approach a hard sell, as Biden’s flat refusal makes clear.

But the Vice President at least acknowledged the subject of legalization, which is a step forward.  He also used only a thin and rather laughable arguement in support of the continuing the drug war.  He said that legalization would take a large regulation effort.  Yet considering how large and expensive our current introdiction, policing, trying and incarceration of drug traffickers, his agrument seems almost pursposelly insignificant.

Was it a signal that the US Govenrment is more open to legalization than it appears?  Let’s hope so.

US Military Leaders More Reasonable that US Politicians – as usual

Military Leaders Ask Obama to NOT attack IranA group of retired military leaders took out a full page ad in Monday’s Washington Post to ask President Obama not to attack Iran unless they attack us first.  As usual, the people who actually have to fight our wars are more reasonable about why and when to start a war.

Considering that a military attack on Iran will likely motivate rather than stop their nuclear program, let’s listen to the wise council of our military leaders.

Anti-Crook, not Anti-Capitalism

bull fall downThe outpouring of grief over the death of Steve Jobs shows that most of us, including much of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, are not against capitalism.  We are against the corrupt individuals and institutions that use capitalism to steal from us.

Jobs could not have been more of a capitalist, super rich with no interest in philanthropy. But, as Frank Rich quotes in this weeks New York Magazine, “Regis McKenna, a Silicon Valley marketing executive who worked with him early on—was his ability “to strip away the excess layers of business, design, and innovation until only the simple, elegant reality remained.” Continue reading →

Diane Ravitch Debunks Testing in Schools

One the Bush Technocrats that smothered our kid’s brains in standardized testing now says the focus on testing is a mistake. The present vindication does not make up for the shame and sadness over how we have turned away from who we are – creative, form-breaking individuals – to emulate the test performance of the stifled, row-sitting cultures.

The tests are supposed to indicate which teachers and schools are not performing well. Of course, they can also indicate where students need to improve but now we routinely use them as a basic for student advancement. As a result even good schools spend far too much precious time drilling out kids to pass some stupid test that won’t help them be people thinkers or people.

Use them to test the schools but DON’T use them for admission to the next level of school.

Efforts to Cut Education Funding, Expand Standardized Testing Assailed

Real Media Bias Part 5

Last week the nation witnessed a clear instance of media bias. When we all thought a Muslim religious extremist committed the heinous murders in Norway, the US media called it terrorism and the perpetrators terrorists.  As soon as it was determined that crimes were committed by a right wing Christian, the label terrorist dropped away.  He was described as a lone lunatic with no connections to other anti-immigration groups or Christian extremists.  According to our media, only Muslims are terrorists, white westerners who commit the same crimes are not.

This is a strong and clear bias against Muslims and blindness to the hate fostered in our own culture.

Glenn Greenwald: Norway Attacks Expose U.S. Media’s Double Standard on “Terrorism”

How To Tell The Tea Party is Fake

The movement just wants to elect one party over another when both are equally to blame. Voting for one over the other is a diversion that will not fix anything. Here are a couple ways to see through Tea Party falsehoods:

1. They blame Obama for our problems when we have been following the same economic approach since 1980. After 12 years of un-admitted recession, President Regan ushered in a new approach using, tax cuts, deregulation and massive federal spending to turn things around. This new CUT & SPEND economy favored financial sectors, creating the age of paper entrepreneurs and the bailouts needed to sustain them.

Remember these bailouts: Penn Central, Lockheed, Chrysler, Braniff, LTV, Storage Tech, Texaco, White Motors, the HUD scandal, the Savings and Loans scandal? How many times does the taxpayer have to pay for Republican and Democratic duplicity in these thefts?

No President since Regan has significantly altered the freedom of these adventure capitalist. And no one, not even the Tea Party, is talking about doing it now. Cut & Spent got us into this mess, yet remains our only economic idea.

We should be angry and want to do something serious about it. But blaming Obama for the bailouts that Bush started to save a faith-based financial system created thirty years ago is sure sign that the Tea Party either doesn’t understand what is going on or doesn’t want it to change.

2. They favor one party of the other. No one has any idea how to fix the system. Both Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible for creating and maintaining this thirty year dream of unregulated financial markets. Voting one party in over other will do NOTHING to address our situation. Replacing one bailout artist with another will NOT help the country. This is perhaps the most pernicious falsehood of this party; they parade as status quo as change.

3. They have no ideas and offer no ideas on how to fix the system. They very actively support some candidates over others (always R over D) but have no concrete actions or principals on how to fix the an investment system with abstracted ownership, a focus on short terms returns and dependence of ever more complex mathematic formulations. Until we have a something to replace cut & spent, some way to de-emphasize the importance of financial markets in our lives, we will remain beholden to financial slight-of-hand artists. And the Tea Party will remain a false front for the money men.

So go to your local Tea Party meeting and ask them what policies think will fix our system? And don’t take “vote Republican” as a sufficient answer.

Resolution To Avoid US – Iran Navy Accident

us-iran-navyDuring the Cold War the US and Russia had an “Incidents At Sea Agreement” to avoid accidentally stumbling into a war.  The US and Iran Navies patrol the Persian Gulf with not such protection. We have already had a few close calls.

There is no reason to take this risk.  If we could work with the Soviets on these issues, we can work with Iran.  If fact, instituting a similar agreement would be a first step towards improving relations between our countries.

Our forces must have a direct method of communication should an accident occur, a for a naval war in the Gulf could disrupt the flow of oil, weakening an already weak world economy.

Just Foreign Policy is and TSN! encourage you to write your Congressmen and ask them to support John Conyers’ (D-MI) and Geoff Davis’ (R-KY) Resolution 94.

Here is a site to help make it easy.

The US Right and The Iranian Right

hot_airBig talk happened this week. The US said that they see Iran as an important player in Afghanistan.  Iran said it would take part in the regional conference on Afghanistan and the US pledged to bring more troops to Afghanistan to root our terrorists camps.

The slow dance of Iranian and the US negotiations is underway.  Of course, it has a long way to go with many potential stumbling blocks.  One of which is the amount of ugly noise we will have to stomach from both the American and Iranian right.  At home, the right say talking to Iran is naive and will never work. In Iran, the right crows about trust and demands measurable progress.

Both criticisms are based in valid points of view.  The only guarantee the US can expect is that Iran will act in its own interests. But it is almost impossible to figure how how they see their interests. The outcome of any conversation is far from set.

On the Iranian side, the US has a long history of working against Iran. Both countries are right to demand clear metrics of progress, as this is best way  to build trust in any wary partnership.

The problem is that neither the US right or the Iranian right offer these criticisms to be constructive. They see problems but don’t offer any solutions.  They say we can’t work together but don’t offer ideas for how we can move forward in Afghanistan or improve US – Iranian relations.

All ideas should be considered but loud mouth criticism from the easy chair offer nothing but a bit more noise.

The  tragedy is that these defeatist tomes contain important points but readers have to wade through miles of bile to extract them.  The US needs a vigorous internal opposition and we need to understand the full spectrum of obstacles in Iran.

But right now, we just get anger and hopelessness. Hopefully, both rights can figure out how work towards thier countries future.

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