July 2015 Archives

Dear America,

The alacrity with which conservatives...Republicans...leap to the task of undermining the political endeavors of the liberal...Democratic...establishment never ceases to provoke me.  The President held a press conference yesterday to address the hyperbolic criticisms of the new Iran nuclear restraint plan.  It was necessitated by the raucous crowing of the opposition intended to undermine the administration's efforts with comments about the political conduct of Iran in the middle east, Iranian lack of trust worthiness, the fact that the treaty limits Iran for a finite period of time, the claim that Iran will obfuscate the monitoring process so as to pursue their goals somewhere underground and anything else one might contrive to assert.  The cast of Republican bombasts was the usual, with John Boehner leading the pack, but the Republican presidential aspirants also felt compelled to jump on the band wagon, presuming that it will become a juggernaut.  Jeb Bush was fairly restrained in condemning the pact while the group on the whole exercised their usual tactics of diversion by focusing on the fact that the treaty doesn't free four Americans being held in Iran on espionage related charges, nor does it deal with Iranian political interventions in countries of the region like Syria and Yemen that are in revolutionary chaos at the moment.  And of course, Israel's prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu bellowed about Iranian intentions toward Israel being an existential threat and the treaty facilitating their efforts while Saudi Arabia agreed with the criticism, albeit for different reasons.  Saudi Arabia is a Sunni nation while Iran is Shiite, and thus they are theological adversaries as well as political enemies, and the Saudi's profess to have the same concerns that Iran has.  Naturally, none of the critics of the agreement mentioned an alternative, nor did they reference the fact that we never tried to force Israel into such a pact while they were developing their own nuclear weapons--at least the consensus is that they did so even though Israel refuses to admit or deny it--and we make no effort to compel them to sign the international nuclear non-proliferation pact, which they have always refused to do along with India and Pakistan, whom we also ignore on this account.  It's alright for our allies to develop nuclear weapons, but our political adversaries reap nothing but our opprobrium and sanctions from trying to defend themselves by doing so.  Granted, I don't trust the Iranians to do refrain from doing anything, but the inspection regimen seems to be rigorous in this case, and it's better than nothing, which is the overarching point President Obama made: if you've got a better plan, let's hear it.

But amidst all of the ballyhoo was the puling of Lindsey Graham, a presidential hopeful himself, who claims that he would have done a much better job if he were president.  His rationale was that he wouldn't have allowed Iran to have anything that could ultimately be directed away from peaceful nuclear development, that is the centrifuges that they are being permitted to keep for ostensibly peaceful purposes, and he would also have rolled their conduct in the middle east into this agreement, even though it was intended to do just one thing because that was manageable rather than attempting to do everything, which is not.  And Graham's premise was based on his profession that if Iran didn't do what we told it to do, he would order military action and the Iranians would lose.  It was as if Graham had been out to lunch for the past decade and a half.  His rationale was the very same rationale that allowed George W. Bush to thrust this country into two wars, one in Afghanistan and one next door to Iran in Iraq, both of which we ostensibly won, but neither of which "victories" has redounded to our benefit or to that of anyone in the western world for that matter.  In fact, the reason we are mired in a battle against the rag-tag Islamic State in the Levant is that the Shiite administration that we installed in Iraq continued to persecute the Sunni's there just as the Sunni's had persecuted them, which is what has eventuated in Afghanistan as well.  People like Graham insist on ignoring the fact that the strife in the middle east is more than 1300 years old in that it devolves from the Assassination of Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, who was designated to be the leader of the faith when Mohammed died.  To this day no one knows who did it, but it continues to be the crux of the matter from Lebanon to Yemen.  The notion that we can force resolution of this blood feud because we see it as irrational is absurd, which is the character of Lindsey Graham's candidacy for any office in my opinion.  But in the final analysis, Graham is almost irrelevant as his candidacy is nothing but a pipe dream anyway.  The real issue is this.

If Iran develops a nuclear weapon it won't change anything.  A nuclear attack would certainly precipitate a nuclear response from any number of nations, no matter who launches it, but especially if Iran does.  Israel, nearly next door, would certainly respond in kind if Iran attacked it with nuclear bombs, and the United States would level Iran within twenty minutes of Israel didn't.  Not even a reactionary brigand like the Ayatollah who controls Iran to a large extent would be that foolish.  But I would say to Lindsey Graham, Jeb Bush, John Boehner and all of the rest of them, if we absolutely must keep Iran from having what Israel already does, and if we aren't interested in addressing the real problem between Israel and the rest of Islam, that is the usurpation of the West Bank through illegal settlement, what's the plan.  I mean, the rational plan.  I mean, as one with Jewish ancestry I am staunchly in favor of preserving the Jewish state, but those settlements are the thorn in that side of the world, and what are they even for.  What do they accomplish.  How about forcing a treaty on Israel regarding the settlements as a step toward world peace.  How about that, Lindsey?

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

The Greek fiscal crisis--the country's debt and deficit--is a function of two competing interests demanding to be satisfied.  The loudest voice is that of the financial establishment in Europe, which has already lent Greece over $200 billion, the loan being necessitated by the Greek government's misstatement of its indebtedness over the course of a decade or so until the financial crisis that started in 2008 eventuated.  Austerity measures were demanded of the Greeks and they complied as best they could, but the Greek economy shrank dramatically, and Greek unemployment is now at 25%, causing enormous hardship in the country, which in turn has resulted in exacerbation of the national debt and deficit problems.  In consequence, Greece can not meet its repayment obligations relative to the funds lent by the European and world financial institutions and they are demanding further fiscal restraints.  On the other side are the Greek people and the populist government that won control of the government in the most recent elections, whose mandate to ease austerity measures was reified by a victory in a referendum held last Sunday.  The Greek people do not want the Greek government to cut any deeper into Greek muscle and bone in order to satisfy the demands of nations that, for the most part, have far fewer problems than they do.  And in the debate between Greece and the international establishment, the focus has come to be on Greece's pension, or social security system.  Everyone concedes that Greece should crack down on corruption and that government fiscal policy needs to be reformed so as to reduce reliance on borrowing to finance the government's programs, but the question is, does that mean raising more government revenue or cutting benefits, as is being proposed for the Greek social security system.  Does this all sound familiar?

In this country, as well as across the world, the battle between capital and labor rages, and it is not different in Europe from what it is here, except that we have a true federal system in which all of the states stand together under a single political  banner whereas in Europe, that political amalgamation does not exist.  Thus, when a fiscal crisis develops in one of the member countries of the European Union, it's every country for itself, in this case a European coalition led by Germany and France primarily against Greece.  It's as if Mississippi developed a debt problem and the rest of the American states--as individual entities, not as the United States--demanded a painful resolution.  There is no apparent sense of common destiny in Europe, even though the Euro-zone was intended to create one.  And now, the Greek people have gotten into the act by empowering a government that they insist pursues their interests as people, not as a national institution, and the main focus has become the social security, or pension system, which obviously affects nearly every Greek personally.  In fairness, it must be acknowledged that the Greek retirement age--61--was lower than everyone else's, but it has been raised to 63, albeit Germany's was raised to 67 in recent years.  Still, the issue of how the Greek government wants to address the funding of its generous retirement system isn't as clear cut as the European creditors would have everyone believe.  The Greeks have proposed to increase income taxes on business, but the creditors insist that the Greek business climate militates against that.  Instead, the Euro-zone wants Greece to increase the burden on its people by diminishing pension benefits.  It's the classic supply-side versus Keynesian economics debate with the Greek people taking the latter position and institutional Europe the former.  It's Bernie Sanders versus Ronald Reagan.  It's liberals versus conservatives and capital versus labor.  The real issue in Greece is, when the economy slows, do you help the wealthy produce more at lower cost by reducing the working person's share of the pie, or do you enhance labor's share with the intention of increasing demand, and thus spurring more production and job growth.

I am not aware of a political position being taken in this country by our political establishment, but the Greek crisis is essentially a debate like the one that we are having here, and our conversation will only intensify between now and the 2016 election.  It seems to me that we are approaching a breaking point in the alliance between those with money and those who work that we refer to as capitalism.  The starting point for economics as a system of organization and distribution of wealth is arguably the feudal period, when wealth was a function of birthright and labor was everyone who lacked a connection to those with inherited political power: monarchs and noblemen.  After evolving through the gilded age and the abuses of labor that changed our ethos and laws in the first third of the twentieth century, we have had a brief period of enlightenment from which we are now emerging in a retreat to the past and the inequities that spawned misery and penury for the masses and vast, ever-increasing wealth for a select few, many of whom have nothing but hereditament in one form or another to commend them. 

I see the Greek debt crisis as the paradigm that the world will follow in decades to come.  We will increasingly question other right of those who control the wealth of the world, and of this nation in particular, to control those whose labor produces it in consequence, their common weal.  We should be watching Greece, and we should be demanding that our politicians tell us where they stand.  Because as goes Greece, so will go this nation eventually, not as a function of debt, but as a function of enlightenment and equitability.

Your friend,

Mike