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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (736998)	9/4/2013 12:16:25 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578900

Shadow of a Doubt Maureen Dowd WASHINGTON — It’s a bewildering time here. Nancy Pelosi is the hawk urging military action. Britain refuses to be our poodle. The French are being less supercilious and more supportive militarily. Republicans are squeamish about launching an attack. Top generals are going pacifist. The president who got elected on his antiwar stance is now trying to buck up a skittish Congress and country about why a military strike is a moral necessity. Donald Rumsfeld doesn’t want to go to war with the Army Chuck Hagel has. John Bolton is the dove who doesn’t think we should take sides, or that it matters “what the intelligence shows.” Once more, we’re vociferously debating whether to slap down a murderous dictator who has gassed his own people, and whether we have the legit intel to prove he used W.M.D. Many around the president are making the case that if he doesn’t stand firm on his line in the sand, having gotten so far out on a limb, he’ll look weak and America will lose face and embolden its foes. The secretary of state is arguing if the dictator had nothing to hide, why was he so reluctant to let in U.N. inspectors? In many ways, Syria is an eerie replay of Iraq, but with many of the players scrambled and on opposite sides. Just about the only completely consistent person is John McCain, who’s always spoiling for a fight. Once more, we see the magnitude of the tragedy of Iraq because the decision on Syria is so colored by the fact that an American president and vice president took us to war in the Middle East on false pretenses and juiced up intelligence, dragging the country into an emotionally and financially exhausting decade of war and an identity crisis about our role in the world. W. was so black and white, as he mischaracterized and miscalculated, that he ended up driving America into a gray haze, where we’re unsure if our old role as John Wayne taking on the global bad guys is even right. We now actually have a president who understands the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. But our previous gigantic misreadings of the Middle East, and the treacherous job of fathoming which sides to support in the Arab uprisings — are the rebels in these countries the good guys or Al Qaeda sympathizers? — have left us literally gun shy. It should not be so hard to reach a consensus on trying to prevent Bashar al-Assad from killing tens of thousands and making refugees of millions more, with chemical weapons and traditional ones. But the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday dramatically showed how our misjudgment on Iraq infects our judgment on Syria. A panel of top Obama officials who don’t even agree themselves about what to do in Syria did their best to stick to White House talking points, arguing against what Secretary of State John Kerry called “armchair isolationism,” as they were grilled by skeptical, and sometimes hostile, senators. Kerry and Hagel both voted as senators for the authorization to invade Iraq and then came to regret it; Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last spring that he was uncertain if the U.S. “could identify the right people” to give arms to in the Syrian opposition. But there was the trio trying to help the president make his case that American credibility is too big to fail. “After the fiasco of Iraq and over a decade of war, how can this administration make a guarantee that our military actions will be limited?” asked Senator Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico. Indeed, Kerry showed how slippery the slope is when he answered a question by Chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey who opposed the Iraq invasion but supports a Syrian smackdown. When Menendez asked Kerry if the administration would accept “a prohibition for having American boots on the ground” as part of a resolution authorizing force in Syria, Kerry replied: “It would be preferable not” to “have boots on the ground.” Then came the “but.” “But in the event Syria imploded, for instance,” Kerry said, “or in the event there was a threat of a chemical weapons cache falling into the hands of Al Nusra or someone else, and it was clearly in the interest of our allies and all of us — the British, the French and others — to prevent those weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of the worst elements, I don’t want to take off the table an option that might or might not be available to a president of the United States to secure our country.” Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee chided Kerry: “I didn’t find that a very appropriate response regarding boots on the ground.” Realizing he had been undiplomatic, the top diplomat retreated from his scary hypothetical immediately, saying, “Let’s shut that door now as tight as we can.” It’s up to President Obama to show Americans that he knows what he’s doing, unlike his predecessor. nytimes.com

To: i-node who wrote (736998)	9/4/2013 12:22:19 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1578900

A Reminder About What's Really at Stake By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog 03 September 13 ongress will reconvene shortly. That means more battles over taxes and spending, regulations and safety nets, and how to get the economy out of first gear. Which means more gridlock and continual showdowns over budget resolutions and the debt ceiling. But before the hostilities start again and we all get lost in puerile politics and petty tactics, it's useful to consider what's really at stake for our economy and democracy. For much of the past century, the basic bargain at the heart of America was that employers paid their workers enough to buy what American employers were selling. Government's role was to encourage and enforce this bargain. We thereby created a virtuous cycle of higher living standards, more jobs, and better wages. And a democracy that worked reasonably well. But the bargain has been broken. And until it's remade, the economy can't mend and our democracy won't be responsive to the majority. First, a bit of history. Back in 1914, Henry Ford announced he was paying workers on his Model T assembly line $5 a day - three times what the typical factory employee earned at the time. The Wall Street Journal termed his action "an economic crime."But Ford knew it was a cunning business move. The higher wage turned Ford's auto workers into customers who could afford to buy Model T's. In two years Ford's profits more than doubled. Yet in the years leading up to the Great Crash of 1929, employers forgot Henry Ford's example. The wages of most American workers stagnated even as the economy surged. Gains went mainly into corporate profits and into the pockets of the very rich. American families maintained their standard of living by going deeper into debt, and the rich gambled with their gigantic winnings. In 1929 the debt bubble popped. Sound familiar? It should. The same thing happened in the years leading up to the crash of 2008. The lesson should be obvious. When the economy becomes too lopsided - disproportionately benefiting corporate owners and top executives rather than average workers - it tips over. It's still lopsided. We're emerging from the depths of the worst downturn since the Great Depression but nothing fundamentally has changed. Corporate profits are up largely because payrolls are down. Even Ford Motor Company is now paying its new hires half what it paid new employees a few years ago. Employee pay is now down to the smallest share of the economy since the government began collecting wage and salary data sixty years ago; and corporate profits, the largest share. This is a losing game for corporations over the long term. Without enough American consumers, their profitable days are numbered. Europeans are in no mood to buy. India and China are slowing dramatically. Developing nations are in trouble. Republicans claim rich people and big corporations are job creators, so their taxes must not be raised. This is baloney. In order to create jobs, businesses need customers. But the rich spend only a small fraction of what they earn. They park most of it wherever around the world they can get the highest return. The real job creators are the vast middle class - whose spending drives the economy and creates jobs. But as the middle class's share of total income continues to drop, it can't spend as much as before. Nor can most Americans borrow as they did before the crash of 2008 - borrowing that temporarily masked their declining purchasing power. As a result, businesses are still reluctant to hire and pay decent wages. Which is why the recovery continues to be so anemic. As wealth and income rise to the top, moreover, so does political power. Corporations and the rich are able to entrench themselves by keeping low tax rates and special tax breaks (such as the "carried interest" loophole that still allows private equity and hedge fund managers to treat their incomes as capital gains), and ensuring a steady flow of corporate welfare to their businesses (special breaks for oil and gas, big agriculture, big insurance, Big Pharma, and, of course, Wall Street). All of this continues to squeeze public budgets, corrupt government, and undermine our democracy. The issue is not and has never been the size of our government; it's who the government is for. Government has become less responsive to the needs of most citizens and more responsive to the demands of the monied interests. The Republican response is to further reduce taxes on the rich, defund programs for the poor, fight unions, allow the median wage to continue to drop, and oppose any limits on campaign contributions or spending. It does not take a great deal of brainpower to understand this strategy will lead to an even more lopsided economy, more entrenched wealth, and a more corrupt democracy. So as Congress reconvenes and the battles resume, be clear about what's at stake. The only way back to a buoyant economy is through a productive system whose gains are more widely shared. The only way back to a responsive democracy is through a political system whose monied interests are more effectively constrained. We must remake the basic bargain at the heart of America. Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, " Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.