AMERICA IS DIVIDED INTO TWO CAMPS: THOSE WHO SEEK A KINDER, GENTLER SOCIETY AND THOSE WHO DECIDEDLY DO NOT

The ruling last week by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding nearly all of the Affordable Care Act shocked conservatives and liberals alike. After a decade of odious 5-4 decisions, the majority got one right, thanks to a decisive switch by Chief Justice John Roberts from the predictable majority to the liberal minority. Never mind that the remaining four far-right Republicans voted to overturn the entire Act - it was the Chief Justice who saved the day.

As a consequence of this decision, millions of Americans without access to medical care now have it. No Americans will be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions, under-26 years-of-age Americans can remain on their parents health plans, no lifetime caps on coverage will be imposed by insurers and insurance companies must spend 85 cents out of every dollar paying for actual care, not administrative costs. Americans are now much less likely to lose their homes or suffer bankruptcies because of unmanageable medical bills. These are just a few of the ways the Court's action will, as Paul Krugman put it, enable citizens to benefit from a kinder and more decent society.

While what Republicans derisively call Obamacare is a big improvement on the status quo, America still needs universal health care or, if you like, Medicare for all. Despite the name (Affordable Care Act), medical care is anything but affordable - the annual cost amounts to 20% of GDP, or $8000 per person, the highest in the world and a key contributor to our massive deficit. In addition, at least 26 million people remain uninsured, despite the new law and all it entails. Worst of all, the health insurance companies remain in control. In fact, the individual mandate that Republicans hated so much is a jackpot of riches for health insurance companies - they will make additional billions from the millions of new clients the law sends their way.

All this suggests that there is in America what Michael Moore calls a great divide. In a Huffington Post column published the day after the Supreme Court decision affirming the law, he describes it as follows:

It's not blue state vs. red state, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican. The split we have in America can be boiled down in its simplest form to this: On one side are the people who believe Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs 6,000 years ago - and then there's everyone else. On that first side are the people who've been fed a diet of fear and lies and hate. And who is feeding them? The 1%. the richest people in the country, the ones who aren't done with us yet because they still don't have enough wealth, have done their best to dumb down the population through destroying our educational system and using media to provide them with a vastly distorted sense of reality. The rich's only obstacle is that they only hold 1% of the votes in the country. So they have to try to get a slim majority of Americans to vote their way. And fear, plus keeping them stupid, usually works. 

If the easily fooled, manipulated and dumbed down Americans hell-bent on voting against their own interests elect Mitt Romney and a Republican Congress, we will all lose the benefits of the Affordable Health Care Act because Romney and the rest of the Republicans will eliminate the law they loath. There will be no chance of expanding Medicare for all. And there will be more appointees to the Supreme Court the likes of Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The 1% agenda is not about a kinder and more decent society, at least not for most Americans, including the rabble who obtain their take on reality from the likes of Catholic bishops, fundamentalist preachers, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and Rick Perry.

So, where does all this leave us? What can you do if you agree with this  analysis? How about considering two basic strategies, at least for starters: 

1. Do what you can to promote the chances of re-electing the president - and as many Democrats as possible. I urge this position not because I'm fond of Democrats - I'll support Democrats only because I'm so appalled, sickened, horrified and gobsmacked by the evil ways of Republicans. 

2. Look after yourself - reduce your chances of requiring medical care by fine-tuning your current REAL wellness lifestyle. The absence of a decent health or medical system will still be a national disaster, but the impact on you personally will be less if you don't have to use it that much. It's hard to believe that half of America is supportive of the poisonous agenda of the Republican Party; it's even harder to believe, though true, that one in three American adults is obese - 78 million fat Americans.

Kurt Vonnegut was a self-described total pessimist. Maybe he was on to something, though an optimistic outlook has almost always been highlighted as a key element in a healthy profile. But, considering the horror that would follow from a takeover by the Republican half of the American divide, it may be that pessimism deserves a second look.

How pessimistic was Vonnegut? In a remarkable commencement address to the 1970 graduates of Bennington College in Vermont, he described his major achievement in three years of teaching at the University of Iowa:   

As nearly as I am able to determine, not one of my ex-students has seen fit to reproduce. 

Now that's pessimism - and it might be something I'll include in future recommendations if Romney is elected president.

But Vonnegut was not a total pessimist, despite his claim to such an outlook. His sense of humor, however dark, was too well developed for that. While he spent most of that Bennington commencement speech urging the young grads to enjoy themselves and lose the idea of saving the world, at the end he said they might want to give saving the world a try, later in life. I love the sendoff conclusion of the address, as profound today as it was 42 years ago:

When it really is time for you to save the world, when you have some power and know your way around, when people can't mock you for looking so young, I suggest that you work for a socialist form of government. Free Enterprise is much too hard on the old and the sick and the shy and the poor and the stupid, and on people nobody likes. They just can't cut the mustard under Free Enterprise. They lack that certain something that Nelson Rockefeller, for instance, so abundantly has. 

So let's divide up the wealth more fairly than we have divided it up so far. Let's make sure that everybody has enough to eat, and a decent place to live, and medical help when he needs it. Let's stop spending money on weapons, which don't work anyway, thank God, and spend money on each other. It isn't moonbeams to talk of modest plenty for all. They have it in Sweden. We can have it here. Dwight David Eisenhower once pointed out that Sweden, with its many Utopian programs, had a high rate of alcoholism and suicide and youthful unrest. Even so, I would like to see America try socialism. If we start drinking heavily and killing ourselves, and if our children start acting crazy, we can go back to good old Free Enterprise again.

It's Time to "Whig" It

Following the initial Federal Period and then until less than ten years before the first Civil War there were two major political parties in the United States: the Democratic Party and the Whig Party.  While it was a national party, the base of the Democratic Party lay in the slave states of the South and its policies generally reflected the interests of the Slave Power.  As the matter of the further expansion of slavery into the Western Territories became more acute, a major split began to develop in the opposition party, the Whigs.  Northern Whigs were generally opposed, not to slavery so much but to its further Westward expansion.  The Southern Whigs tended to favor, or at least tolerate, both the institution and its expansion.  And so, as the two wings gradually drifted apart in the early 1850s, a new party was formed, the Republican Party.  As a national force the Whig Party disappeared quickly.  Its "Free Soil" Northern elements formed the base of the new party, while its pro-slavery (at one level or another) elements moved over to the Democrats. 

The nascent Republican Party presented as an amalgam of interests.  Central was the prevention the further expansion of the institution of slavery westward, for a variety of reasons.  Some northern Democrats also joined it for they too were concerned with preventing the westward expansion of slavery.  Anti-slavery elements of the nativist American Party, which ran the former Whig President Millard Fillmore for President in 1856, after Fillmore's disastrous defeat also gravitated to the Republicans.  Related to nativism was the Temperance Movement, originally aimed at the Germans (beer) and the Irish (whiskey).  Some of them were drawn to the Republicans because of their position on the principle of slavery. 

The abolitionists actually came to the Republican Party fairly late because abolition of slavery in the states in which it existed, ensconced as it was in the Constitution, was not part of the Republican platform and did not become so until well into the first Civil War.  In fact in the late 1850s it was the radical abolitionists, led by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, who were advocating secession - of at least the New England states, if not more.  But seeing the conflict over the issue coming to a head in the election of 1860, many abolitionists fell in with the Republicans too.   Lincoln in fact was able to win election in that year, in a four-way race, with just 40% of the popular vote, only because of the disparate coalition which was united around one theme: opposition to the dominance of national policy on the matter of the westward expansion of slavery by the Slave Power. 

And so, what do we face now?  The dominance of national policy, not just on one issue but all of the major ones, by the modern equivalent of the Slave Power, which is the Corporate Power.  The Slave Power was dominated by a tiny oligarchy of very wealthy men, the slave owners.   Among other things, they wanted to continue the westward expansion of slavery both to increase their profits and to increase their political dominance of the national government and national policy.  The Corporate Power is similarly a (relatively) tiny oligarchy of very wealthy men (and now, women) who want to maintain the domination of national policy that they have put together over the past 35 years, under Republican and Democratic presidents alike, in order to maintain and expand both their profits and their wealth. 

The major elements of that policy are well-known: the continuation and where possible the expansion of American imperialism around the world; the major exportation of American capital, seeking higher profits abroad; the furtherance of the dependence of the US economy on highly profitable fossil fuels, with the concomitant necessity of the maintenance of foreign military bases to, among other things, protect the oil supply and its routes of transport to the US; the ever-shrinking rates of taxation, primarily benefitting the ruling oligarchy; the continuing attack on the US labor movement; supporting the ever-increasing attacks on personal liberty in such matters as the religious belief as to when life begins and the civil rights of homosexuals so as to make sure that the Religious Right stays firmly with their party; and so on and so forth. 

The response to this agenda on the part of the Democratic Party has been increasingly limp. It was clear from the beginning of the campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2008 that Barack Obama was part of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council's own coalition (see my column of late 2007, http://tpjmagazine.us/jonas172).  However, his rhetoric during the campaign did fool some of us for a time before the election into thinking that once in office he would behave differently (and I include myself in that group).  Obviously he hasn't.  It is true that the Democratic Leadership Council itself has recently met its demise, but that doesn't mean that its policies have lost their total sway over this administration.  As one wag put it, the DLC doesn't need to live on independently anymore; it has just moved into the White House. 

And so, using the excuse of the losses in the 2010 election, which his total lack of leadership and forthright opposition to GOP policies certainly contributed to, Pres. Obama has continued to attempt to reach "compromise" with the GOP.  That the Congressional leadership of the latter doesn't seem to be interested in much else than assuring his loss in the upcoming Presidential election (Senate Minority Leader, but controller of the Senate through the use of the filibuster, Mitch McConnell) and the repeal of his signature piece of legislation, the "health care reform" act. Even though Obama is finally seeming to get the point, it may well be that his response will too little and too late, especially given how tied he is to many of the same Corporate interests that the Republicans are.  Nevertheless, reaching the consciousness of an increasing number of rank-and-file US citizens is what GOP/DLC/Obama policy is leading us toward. 

That future includes: the continuing export of US capital and with it US jobs (Obama appoints the biggest job exporter of all-time, former GE CEO Jeff Immelt, as his "jobs czar"); the destruction of the only three income redistribution programs left, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; the further concentration of both wealth and income in the hands of a smaller and smaller segment of the population; continuing war for the benefit of the military-industrial complex and US imperialism with its drain not only on the US treasury but also the ability of the US to positively influence the actions of other countries; the perpetuation, indeed the acceleration, of global warming and climate change and the ongoing mass extinctions that accompany it; the increasingly likely full destruction of the trade union movement in the US (see what has happened in Wisconsin with the assault on the public employee unions, with virtually no involvement by either the present or the DNC in recall attempt); the ever-burgeoning Federal deficit and national debt because of the abandonment of rational tax policy, that leads to the further dominance of Federal spending by the military and debt service; the maintenance of a Permanent Army of the Unemployed, created so neatly by the recent excesses of Finance Capitalism and the resulting "Great Recession;" and so on and so forth. 

Desperately needed now, if Constitutional Democracy, as defined by the Preamble to that great document (see my Commentary of almost a year ago, "The Preamblers" http://blog.buzzflash.com/jonas/185) and the Bill of Rights, is to be maintained, indeed restored in the United States, and if a Second Civil War is to be prevented, is a new party.  I am not talking here about a traditional US "third party" which could make a lot of us feel good but which would go nowhere politically.  What we need is for the Democratic Party to split.  We need the formation of the Progressive Democratic Party.  Its platform would be fairly obvious and I need not detail it here.  But what I will deal with here, briefly, is what it would need in order to be effective. 

A Progressive Democratic Party with a chance of winning elections, and in 2012 in a three-way battle the possibility of even winning the Presidency, needs three things.  It needs a significant cadre of elected officials at the Federal, state and local levels to split from Obama and the Corporate Power Democrats and join it, people like John Conyers, Al Franken, Sherrod Brown, and Peter Shumlin (the new, pro-single payer, Governor of Vermont).  It needs very significant amount of money from National Interest Capitalists (http://blog.buzzflash.com/jonas/214) like George Soros and his new group.  It needs strong support from at least part of what's left of the US trade union movement (which would obviously not include that sector of it that is trying to make nice with the US Chamber of Commerce); and it needs dynamic leadership and potential Presidential candidates, like Alan Grayson (yes, Abraham Lincoln was also a one-term Congressman defeated for re-election, in his case because he had opposed the Mexican War) and Dennis Kucinich.

A tall order?  Yes indeed.  But the Republican Party is driving the nation to bankruptcy, both fiscally and in terms of policy.  They are also beginning to sanction the use of deadly force to settle political differences: a committee of the Republican-controlled legislature of South Dakota actually voted out a bill which would make murder of abortion providers legal (The Progress Report, Feb. 15, 2011).  It didn’t become law, but hey, you never know.  Non-closeted gays in public office, for example?  (Going after closeted gays in public office would significantly reduce the numbers of the GOP’s public office holders, so one could not have that done across the board.)  Providers of contraceptives? And with the targeting of progressives for "dirty tricks" by three private security companies, possibly in the employ of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (The Progress Report, Feb. 14, 2011, the Chamber denies it), following up on the proposed South Dakota law, do unofficial death squads taking off from where the dirty tricksters finished up come next?  See Rep. Giffords.  Then there was the obscure liberal Tides Foundation in San Francisco that was singled out by Glen Beck and was on the hit list of a man who was fortunately pulled over for minor a traffic violation (and then engaged in a gun battle with police) before he could get there (http://www.marinatimes.com/aug10/news_presidiotides.html). Think that I'm hallucinating about a Second Civil War?  Think again. The other side is increasingly turning to thoughts of violence to achieve its political aims.  We desperately need a new national party in order to deal with all of these issues.  So let’s “Whig it” for the new Progressive Democratic Party, now!

An earlier version of this column was published on BuzzFlash at Truthout on Wed, 02/16/2011

A GREEK TRAGEDY: ACT III, SCENE I…..etc

This time, some would have us believe, it will be different. The result of the re-run election on the 17 June, means, we are told, that Greece and Europe have been saved from the catastrophe that surely would have followed if the Left alliance, Syriza, had won an overall majority. ‘Greece’, the pundits claim with a sigh of relief, ‘has voted to implement the “memorandum” and stay in the eurozone.’ Really?

If we look carefully at the results of the two elections, held in May and June, the picture that emerges hardly justifies the conclusion that, in the words of the Guardian’s headline on June 18, ‘Greece gives Europe a chance.’ In the May election the parties committed to implementing the EU imposed austerity programme, the conservative New Democracy and social democratic Pasok, took between them 32% of the popular vote, which translated into 149 seats in the 300 seat Greek parliament. The clearly anti-austerity parties of the left, Syriza and the KKE (communists) took between them 25.26% of the popular vote, giving them 78 seats. But then, of the other smaller parties, DIMAR (Democratic Left) and the neo-Nazi XA (New Dawn) were opposed to the austerity measures. Together they won 40 seats (19 to DIMAR and 21 to XA), 13.08% of the popular vote. Thus, in May, 38.34% of the Greek electorate cast their votes unmistakably against the bail-out and the austerity measures.  If one includes the right-wing nationalist Anel (Independent Greeks) party, also generally anti-bailout, which took 10.60% of the vote, 48.94% of the electorate voted for parties opposed to the austerity programme. But this does not accurately reflect the nature and scale of the seething anger and despair in Greek society. There is no doubt that large numbers who voted in May for Pasok, and even for New Democracy, did so in the hope that these parties would attempt to obtain less onerous terms from the EU leaders and ease the burden of austerity.

The most remarkable development in the contemporary Greek tragedy has been the rise of Syriza, the coalition of the radical left, as the main challenger to New Democracy and Pasok. After the failure of the two leading pro-bail-out parties to form a government following the May election, a united front of conservative, liberal and right-wing social-democratic forces in Europe and beyond concentrated their fire on Syriza. If the Greeks were to be so foolish as to elect a government led by radical leftists hell-bent on rejecting the austerity measures to which both Pasok and the coalition had signed up, the country would be cut adrift from the eurozone; life-support would be cut off and within weeks Greece would collapse into bankruptcy and penury. No effort was spared in a blatant attempt to influence the outcome of the June election. What was the result?

To an extent, the scare tactics worked. The distribution of votes between the parties shifted markedly. New Democracy with 29.66% of the vote gained 129 seats. This was a 10.81% increase in their share of the vote, giving them 11 more seats than in May. But Pasok’s vote fell from 13.18% to 12.28% with a loss of 8 seats (41 to 33). The nationalist Anel vote dropped 3% to 7.51%, with a loss of 13 seats (33 to 20) and the communist KKE suffered a serious reversal, reducing its representation from 26 to 12 seats. The Democratic Left and the neo-Nazis roughly maintained the level of their support in May. But Syriza dramatically increased its support, taking 26.89% of the vote as opposed to 16.78% in May, with an increased representation from 52 to 71 seats. Those uninformed about the peculiarities of the Greek electoral system may wonder how it is that a party (ND) with 29.66% of the vote wins 129 parliamentary seats, while the runner up, Syriza, with 26.9%  gains only 71 seats. Purely on the basis of fairness of distribution, ND should have 79 seats. But the electoral arrangements specify that the party that has the highest percentage of the popular vote is awarded an extra 50 seats. This privilege is supposed to ensure stable government. It is unlikely to do so this time.

Antonis Samaras, the leader of New Democracy, has formed a coalition government relying on support from Pasok, Anel and DIMAR. It will be inherently unstable and unlikely to survive for very long. Samaras and Venizelos (leader of Pasok) are both pledged to implement the severe austerity measures attached to the latest tranche of the bail-out. At best they may be able to wrest a few concessions from their paymasters, probably amounting to little more than extra time to implement the draconian cuts still to come. Their coalition ‘partners’ are unlikely to remain quiescent as the inevitable strikes and street demonstrations gather pace during the summer. Venizelos, who as a minister in the Pasok government liked to cultivate the image of a leftist, is vulnerable to pressure from what remains of his Pasok base. Leaving aside the neo-Nazis whose main activity is likely to be an escalation of violence against immigrants, leftists and trade unionists, the other left factions represented in parliament, the KKE and DIMAR may well see their ext5ra-parliamentary base eroded by desertions to Syriza.

It has been suggested that this result is very pleasing to Syriza leader, Alexis Tsipras. He has refused an invitation to join the government and has declared that he will lead a determined opposition against the austerity ‘memorandum’. Almost certainly the next act of the Greek drama will be determined by events outside parliament. The die is now cast; the ‘troika’ of the European Commission, the European Central bank and the IMF will expect the Samaras government to honour its pledge. And that means turning the screws still harder on the long-suffering Greek people. Sooner or later – and it’s likely to be sooner – this unstable coalition is likely to break down in recrimination and acrimony. First to break ranks is could be DIMAR. This is a leftist grouping that is unlikely to stomach for long the ignominy of association with parties seen by most working class people as agents of their oppressors. Should the government suffer parliamentary serious reverses while trying to face down the rising tide of popular opposition, its defeat seems inevitable. There could be new elections before the end of the year. The beneficiary will be Syriza.

Syriza is a new phenomenon on the left in Europe. It is an alliance of groups from different sections of the old left, generally dissatisfied with the sectarianism and dogmatism of the unreconstructed communists and other Marxist organizations, but also determined to break with the bureaucracy and reformism of social-democracy, represented primarily by Pasok. It is rather similar to the new formations on the left that have arisen in Latin America, such as Evo Morales’s movement in Bolivia or the Bolivarian revolutionary movement in Venezuela. Should Tsipras find himself, as the leader of a mass movement outside parliament, in a position to form a government, this could be a situation without precedent in modern European history. A radical socialist movement, committed to breaking decisively with the disastrous austerity policy that has been an unmitigated disaster for the majority of the Greek people, would have to decide whether to compromise with political representatives of the Greek ruling class and betray its mass base, or to maintain its commitment to principle and face the inevitable onslaught from the ruling class and the European political elites. In this greatest capitalist crisis since the 1930s we could also be approaching, for the first time in nearly 100 years in Europe, a truly revolutionary moment.

The crisis enveloping Greece, which has resulted in levels of poverty and misery not seen since the Second World War, is not confined to Greece. The contagion is spreading to Spain and Italy. Yields on Spanish government bonds have gone over 7%. No-one has any idea how the limited coffers of the European Financial Stability Facility or its successor, the European Stability Mechanism, will be able to bail out Spain and Italy.  No longer is it possible to dismiss as deluded Cassandras those who have talked of the crisis of capitalism. The crisis is upon us and it is not going to go away. And it is global. From Washington to China, governments are looking apprehensively at Europe, fearful of what will happen if the eurozone breaks up and the currency collapses. And Greece is in the eye of the storm. It is impossible to know exactly how the drama there will play out. But it is certain to be long and painful for the Greek people. 

There is always the danger that Syriza may succumb to internal feuding. Unfortunately that has been a characteristic of the left for a long time and the internal disputes have not always been about matters of burning principle. The danger of this happening is probably as great as the danger of unprincipled compromise with political forces on the right. Political office can have a subtle tendency to corrupt even those who start with their principles intact. But commitment to stay within the eurozone should not be regarded as a political principle by a party of the left. Syriza, in the weeks and months ahead, should be re-thinking its policy on the euro, even if only because, should it come to power, it may have no choice in the matter. There are grounds for being optimistic. This is a movement with real passion, energy and courage. It is a young movement with a young leadership. It could well sound the clarion call for a new departure in Europe. 

Until Taxpayer-Funded Vouchers for Religious Schools Are Ruled Unconstitutional, State-Wide Freethinker Organizations Should Consider Voucher Funds to Establish and Run Atheist Schools for Science and Reason

INTRODUCTION

Universal public education is one of this country’s most successful taxpayer investments. A literate, educated citizenry provides a foundation element of a democracy. For over a century, public education has provided children with quality educations. In addition, public schools have constituted a melting pot of sort exposing young minds to diverse cultures and beliefs. In such schools, students have learned about the world in lessons largely uncontaminated by indoctrination in religious superstitions.

Given the Constitutional separation of church and state, taxpayer funds for education have never been distributed to sectarian schools. That is, until the Bush Administration. Now, under President Obama, these programs have accelerated, particular at the state level with federal (taxpayer) funding. It’s a national disgrace; if voters took the Constitution seriously, it would be stopped at the ballot box as well as in the courtrooms at every level of government.

School choice vouchers consist of federal dollars for private schools. The schools receiving these public monies are overwhelmingly religious schools that energetically promote their dogmas with relentless proselytizing. 

PROBLEMS

Voucher funds to private (religious) schools hasten the decline of public schools. Less funds for public education basically eliminates the prospects for much needed, systemic quality improvements of public school personnel, physical plants and programming.

Unlike public schools, which are accountable to citizen school boards and other public supervision, religious-affiliated schools have little accountability to taxpayers. The school leadership in religious schools answers only to private boards. There is thus little or no accountability for the spending of taxpayer dollars.

Subsidies for religions are always intermixed with voucher funds for education. In one state, Georgia, the subsidy for religion is almost beyond the pale. The state’s so-called “tax credit scholarship” program allows families a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to a religious school. The donations are channeled to a “scholarship fund” in allowable amounts up to $2,500. Guess who gets the “scholarships?” Exactly - the parents who fund them. It’s a tax credit for religious education. This means, of course, that all Georgia taxpayers support religious indoctrination, wherever they want to or not. (See “Romney's divisive play for vouchers,” A Times Editorial - Tampa Bay Times, June 11, 2012.)

EXTENT OF VOUCHERS

Elsewhere in the country, Catholic schools are benefiting disproportionately from vouchers. These programs are in use in 10 states and Washington, D.C. There are voucher variations, from tax credit schemes such as Georgia’s to dollar grants for religious schools. Such funding has, in some locations, “saved” such institutions, particularly Catholic schools. Without this federal funding, many would have gone out of business. C’est dommage - what a lost opportunity for a modest advance of rationality.

The State of Indiana provides a case in point. Here the dramatic decline of Catholic schools was reversed by state funding. Since 2000, U.S. Catholic school enrollment had plummeted by 23%, and 1,900 schools closed, driven by demographic changes and fallout from priest sexual-abuse scandals. Now, for the first time in decades thanks to vouchers, Catholic education is showing signs of life. In a recent analysis of this trend, a Catholic education official was quoted as follows: "God has been good to us."  (See: Stephanie Banchero, “Vouchers Breathe New Life Into Shrinking Catholic Schools,” Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2012.)

In fact, God did not have to do anything. Even if you assume there is a God, and that he, she or it intervenes in support of school funding in Indiana (not to mention extra points, jump shorts and the like), the job in Indiana was done by religious politicians. They are the ones who pushed through the voucher programs. Lest anyone think the religionists are promoting Catholic schools for educational advantages, the Wall Street Journal report put that canard to rest. Mark Gray, an official at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, put it thusly: “Growing parochial schools could also help the U.S. Catholic Church boost the percentage of Catholics who attend church.” The goal is to get more faithful back into the pews. Catholic schools are less focused on knowledge about this world, more about inculcating dogma they believe will lead to a happy place in the next.

At one publicly-funded Catholic school in Chicago, classrooms are adorned with religious symbols that integrate religion, patriotism and academics. For example, at St. Stans in Chicago, “a statue of the Virgin Mary gripping an American flag stands sentry in the corner of each classroom.” An outsider might wonder, “What exactly does that represent?” The mind boggles at the bizarre possibilities. Classrooms are decorated with religious symbology, including crucifixes, Ten Commandments and red heart-shaped "Jesus Loves Me" signs.

All students, Catholic or not, are subjected to a daily class of supernatural folklore about miracles, sacraments, Catholic morality (e.g., abstinence is the way and contraceptives are tools of Satan) and a whitewashed overview of the history of the Catholic Church (never mind those Crusades, Inquisitions or sex scandals). While only 87% of voucher students in the Chicago schools are Catholic (nationally, the percentage on non-Catholics is 17%), everyone must attend these 45-minute classes in addition to required Sunday Masses.

AN ATHEIST ALTERNATIVE

Atheist charters schools focused on science and reason would promote a secular understanding of the natural world. They would teach humanist values, promote environmental awareness and a global perspective. The curriculum would include the traditional skills of reading, writing, math, social studies and so on. However, learning would be made enjoyable, foods would be nutritious and there would be ample time for games, singing, arts and crafts and exercise. No time whatsoever would be wasted on superstition classes, mindless rituals and empty devotionals.

Unlike religious schools, the format of atheist charter schools would favor open discussions with questions taking precedence over absolutist answers supported by nothing more than alleged revelations and ancient myths. Children would learn the nature of secular humanism and the challenges of freethinking in a religious world. In atheist schools devoted to science and reason, children would be encouraged to ponder and talk about existential matters such as life and death, gods, religions and atheism, as well as nature, science and the cosmos.

While the simplest strategy during this time of forced taxpayer funding of Christian schools might seem to be legal challenges to vouchers and support for public education reforms, these worthy goals will take years of effort. Unless the drift of this country toward theocracy is arrested, public schools may never recover. In any event, a two-pronged approach is not out of the question: secularists can seek vouchers for their own atheist schools (open to all) of science and reason while seeking to have school vouchers ruled unconstitutional and promoting public school reforms.

EDUCATIONAL IDEALS

Let’s put forward, through such organizations as the Freedom from Religion Foundation, The Secular Coalition, The Center for Inquiry and other such groups a dramatic alternative to religious education. Perhaps atheist schools founded on science and reason would follow the path suggested by the great freethinker Joseph Lewis: 

"Atheism rises above creeds and puts humanity upon one plane.

There can be no 'chosen people' in the atheist philosophy.

There are no bended knees in atheism;

No supplications, no prayers;

No sacrificial redemptions;

No 'divine' revelations;

No washing in the blood of the lamb;

No crusades, no massacres, no holy wars;

No heaven, no hell, no purgatory;

No silly rewards and no vindictive punishments;

No christs, and no saviors;

No devils, no ghosts and no gods."

Source: Joseph Lewis, "Atheist Rises Above Creeds," part of an address on atheism delivered at a symposium at Community Church, New York City, April 20, 1930. Atheism and Other Addresses by Joseph Lewis (1941)

Now that would be a voucher option I would support. If freethinkers got together and created such an option, it might be the end of voucher programs around the country: Christian politicians would no more tolerate taxpayer-funded “in science and reason we trust” godless schools than they would schools for jihadists, devil worshippers or socialists.

Be well, look on the bright side and fight back.  

DAMNED IF HE WINS, DAMNED WORSE IF HE DOESN’T

Obama’s campaign is being run by political lunatics. Their whacky philosophy, if not corrected, will ultimately lead to defeat or a near- loss which would spell the forfeiture of both houses of Congress – since a weak incumbent carries no coat-tails. Moreover, the Senate is on the edge, even in the case of a big win. Obama must win by 7 or 8 points to hold the Senate 51-49.

A nation in total gridlock and shutdown will materialize if he barely squeaks by. On the other hand, a race to plutocracy will ensue if Republicans take all. Congrats, we’re back to Square One. The lesser of two evils is on our plate again.

My view is – Obama, the candidate, is an excellent product, but his salesmen and handlers aren’t. Who advised Obama to stay out of Wisconsin? Who told him to distance himself from labor? Who suggested Obama announce support for gay marriage – risking the loss of swing states in the Bible Belt? (Workers and the Middle Class are the heart and soul of the President’s support. Without them, there would be no Democratic Party. Are Dem political leaders nuts?)

They may excuse themselves from potential loss by singling out CITIZENS UNITED and billionaires’ billions. But the fact that Obama’s base is the largest political party in the world gives them no cover.

The manner in which the campaign is being poorly managed is putting progressives between a rock and a hard place. The bottom line – we MUST get on board but we sure as hell don’t feel like it; and Obama’s political advisers are to blame.

David Axelrod and David Plouffe’s campaign philosophy is heresy for several reasons.

(1) DETACHMENT FROM THE BASE. Distancing the President from his political base in an effort to win independents does nothing but drive them away while at the same time suppressing the party faithful. Swing voters tend to vote with the party more energized. So, they are not impressed when the President appeases the right while breaking rock-solid promises to supporters now disappointed and disillusioned. Only when the base is revitalized (from either party) do so-called “independents” gravitate to the more passionate (thus the term “swing-voter”). In other words, there must be movement and life to attract non-affiliates.  A party discouraged is a party defeated.

(2) MESSAGE CONTROL. How many surrogates must go off the reservation before campaign heads roll? First it was Biden, then Booker, then Ford, then Rendell, then Patrick, then Bill. Who’s next? They’re making Obama look the fool.

Karl Rove definitely wouldn’t run such an undisciplined campaign.

Bain Capital certainly is an issue since Mitt Romney made it one – claiming he knows how to conduct business since he ran one for 25 years –cannibalizing manufacturing and shipping what was left overseas.

He ended up with $250 million while workers got pink slips, lost their pensions plus savings, and whole industries relocated outside the US which were the lucky few survivors that weren’t closed down altogether. The government had to step in with taxpayer money to supplement lost pensions. In this way, Romney got rich off the taxpayers.

The question remains – Who’s controlling the message? Is there no one coaching surrogates?

3. MAJORING ON MINORS. Tangents seem to always block Democrats’ path to victory. Although the issue of same-sex marriage may be a valid, ethical one, the timing couldn’t be worse. That’s what is mystifying about the President’s advisors. Obama’s re-election depends on states like Iowa, Virginia, North Carolina, and Ohio – swing states predominantly evangelical.

The math doesn’t add up. Advocating same-sex marriage to a national audience does nothing but inflame religious right passions in crucial states that will determine the election in the fall. White evangelicals already see Democrats as evil allies of Satan. Now fuel has been tossed on the fire.

Other side issues are aired to the campaign’s detriment – while the economy, jobs and infrastructure should be at the heart.

The colossal disappointment in Wisconsin sent shockwaves across the country, especially in union households. They now see Obama as weak on labor, too intimidated by big money to take a stand for working folk.

His speeches, of course, are masterpieces. But without substance, his words ring hollow. Surely Obama recognized the necessity of his presence in Wisconsin. He made campaign stops in every state surrounding Badger country; so why not there? I suspect he accepted poor advice. What else could it be? After all, Scott Walker’s confrontation with labor began January 2011, but Barack Obama didn’t make an appearance to counterattack Walker’s war during that whole period.

Union folk are pissed. They may not vocalize it on rooftops due to the campaign season, but they feel betrayed nevertheless. Obama’s base has been defecated upon by the party elite that forgot how their bread is buttered.

Labor and progressives will vote for Obama, but not with the enthusiasm held in 2008. And without that enthusiasm, independents won’t be as inclined to vote Democratic – no matter how inferior the Republican slate may be.

If Romney gets in, the Supreme Court will be stacked forever to the right, at least for a generation. The country will return to the George W. Bush policies that got us into this mess, and Democrats will retreat into obscurity.

Tax cuts for the wealthy will be made permanent. Voter suppression laws will be a national obsession. Health care, gay rights, unemployment, Social Security, Medicare, and most social safety-nets will be undermined or repealed. Austerity will be for the poor only while the 1% enrich themselves further off the redistribution of wealth – Robin Hood in reverse. The nation will go into a full-blown depression while Republicans trick us into more unnecessary, venturous wars costing trillions. Their hypocritical concern for national debt will evaporate faster than morning mist at summer’s sun.

So, it’s another DAMNED election – DAMNED if Obama wins, more DAMNED if he doesn’t. At least, that’s the way progressives see it. They will vote for Obama, not out of zeal, but of need. God help us if he doesn’t. 

Asia’s Mad Arms Race

Asia is currently in the middle of an unprecedented arms race that is not only sharpening tensions in the region, but competing with efforts by Asian countries to address poverty and growing economic disparity. The gap between rich and poor—calculated by the Gini coefficient that measures inequality—has increased from 39 percent to 46 percent in China, India, and Indonesia. While affluent households continue to garner larger and larger portions of the economic pie, “Children born to poor families can be 10 times more likely to die in infancy” than those from wealthy families, according to Changyong Rhee, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank.

This inequality trend is particularly acute in India, where life expectancy is low, infant mortality high, education spotty, and illiteracy widespread, in spite of that country’s status as the third largest economy in Asia, behind China and Japan. According to an independent charity, the Naandi Foundation, some 42 percent of India’s children are malnourished. Bangladesh, a far poorer country, does considerably better in all these areas.

And yet last year India was the world’s leading arms purchaser, including a deal that will spend $20 billion dollars on high performance French fighter planes. India is also developing a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying  multiple nuclear warheads, and buying submarines and surface craft. Its military budget is set to rise 17 percent this year to $42 billion.

“It is ridiculous. We are getting into a useless arms race at the expense of fulfilling the needs of poor people,” Praful Bidwai of the Coalition of Nuclear Disarmament and Peace told the New York Times.

China, too, is in the middle of an arms boom that includes beefing up its navy, constructing a new generation of stealth aircraft, and developing a ballistic missile that is potentially capable of neutralizing U.S. carriers near its coast. Beijing’s arms budget has grown at a rate of some 12 percent a year and, at $106.41 billion, is now the second largest on the planet. The U.S. budget—not counting the various wars Washington is embroiled in—runs a little over $800 billion, although some have estimated that it is over $1 trillion.

While China has made enormous strides in overcoming poverty, there are some 250 million Chinese officially still considered poor, and the country’s formerly red-hot economy is cooling. “Data on April spending and output put another nail into hopes that China’s economy is bottoming out,” Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics told the Financial Times.

The same is true for most of Asia. For instance, India’s annual economic growth rate has fallen from 9 percent to 6.1 percent over the past two and a half years.

Tensions between China and other nations in the region have set off a local arms race. Taiwan is buying four U.S.-made Perry-class guided missile frigates, and Japan has shifted much of its military from its northern islands to face southward toward China.

The Philippines are spending almost $1 billion on new aircraft and radar, and recently held joint war games with the U.S.  South Korea has just successfully tested a long-range cruise missile. Washington is reviving ties with Indonesia’s brutal military because the island nation controls the strategic seaways through which pass most of the region’s trade and energy supplies.

Australia is also re-orientating its defense to face China, and Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith has urged “that India play the role it could and should as an emerging great power in the security and stability of the region.”

But that “role” is by no means clear, and some have read Smith’s statement as an attempt to rope New Delhi into a united front against Beijing. The recent test of India’s Agni V nuclear-capable ballistic missile is largely seen as directed at China.

India and China fought a brief but nasty border war in 1962, and India claims China is currently occupying some 15,000 square miles in Indian territory. The Chinese, in turn, claim almost 40,000 square miles of the Indian state of Arunachai Pradesh. While Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says that “overall our relations [with China] are quite good,” he also admits “the border problem is a long-standing problem.”

India and China also had a short dust up last year when a Chinese warship demanded that the Indian amphibious assault vessel Airavat identify itself shortly after the ship left the port of Hanoi, Vietnam. Nothing came of the incident but Indian President Pratibha Patil has since stressed the need for “maritime security,” and “the protection of our coasts, our ‘sea lines of communications’ and the offshore development areas.”

China’s forceful stance in the South China Sea has stirred up tensions with Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, and Malaysia as well. A standoff this past April between a Philippine war ship and several Chinese surveillance ships at Scarborough Shoal is still on a low simmer.

China’s more assertive posture in the region stems largely from the 1995-96 Taiwan Straits crisis that saw two U.S. carriers humiliate Beijing in its home waters. There was little serious danger of war during the crisis—China does not have the capability to invade Taiwan—but the Clinton Administration took the opportunity to demonstrate U.S. naval power. China’s naval build-up dates from that incident.

The recent “pivot” by Obama administration toward Asia, including a military buildup on Wake and Guam and the deployment of 2,500 Marines in Australia, has heightened tensions in the region, and Beijing’s heavy-handedness in the South China Sea has given Washington an opening to insert itself into the dispute.

China is prickly about its home waters—one can hardly blame it, given the history of the past 100 years—but there is no evidence that it is expansionist. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said in February “No country, including China, has claimed sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.” Nor does Beijing seem eager to use military force. Beijing has drawn some lessons from its disastrous 1979 invasion of Vietnam.

On the other hand, Beijing is seriously concerned about who controls the region’s seas, in part because some 80 percent of China’s energy supplies pass through maritime choke points controlled by the U.S. and its allies.

The tensions in Asia are real, if not as sharp or deep as they have been portrayed in the U.S. media. China and India do, indeed, have border “problems,” but China also describes New Delhi as “not competitors but partners,” and has even offered an alliance to keep “foreign powers”—read the U.S. and NATO—from meddling in the region.

The real question is, can Asia embark on an arms race without increasing the growing gulf between rich and poor and the resulting political instability that is likely to follow in its wake? “Widening inequality threatens the sustainability of Asian growth,” says Asian Development Bank economist Rhee. “A divided and unequal nation cannot prosper.”

More than half a century ago former General and President Dwight Eisenhower noted that “Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired signifies…a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed…this is not a way of life at all…it is humanity hanging from an iron cross.”

Americans have ignored Eisenhower’s warning. Asian nations would do well to pay attention.