A Conundrum?

Why is it that at one and the same time our society has had the largest religious revival in over two hundred years and has at the same time the most bellicose, corrupt and ideologically rigid government in its history? It is generally assumed that religion and morality are intimately connected such that, for example, any group given the task of investigating social morality almost always includes a member of the clergy. I suggest this congruity is not coincidental.

The extent of religious enthusiasm is not only greater than the Great Awakening of the 1730’s it is, especially considering the vastly extended range of human knowledge and awareness of other societies, more deliberately ant-intellectual as evidenced by creationism and its efforts to suborn science with politics amply illustrate. It is, like its 18^th century predecessor essentially a fundamentalist movement. As such it:

· is suing the University of California to require that institution to give credit for its courses. The new 25 million dollar Creation Museum in Kentucky recently opened to overflowing crowds.

· is more bellicose in its willingness to unleash the world’s largest military establishment on the citizens of small nations. One of its favorite hymns, Onward Christian Soldiers, expresses the latent militarism in Christianity. It has not shied form the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians and their children.

· has, through its political leaders, for the first time in American history, formally espoused and practiced heinous forms of torture.

· has instigated and tolerated the destruction of our fundamental liberties and rights.

· has engendered the largest per capita prison population of any developed country in the world, largely due to its paranoia about and punishment response to drug use. One wonders per Karl Marx, if religion sees competition from drugs.

· has used millions of taxpayer funds to enrich itself.

· has corrupted the language that our society depends upon for communication with the intent to delude our citizens. Notice how they have conflated the common meaning of the word theory with the rigorous use of that term in science.

· would demolish abortion and birth control in spite of a human population growth that now threatens human survival, not to mention a decent quality of life.

In short they care nothing for mankind, except to dominate it. Note the Christian Dominionism movement, that volatile mix of religion and politics, which can so easily end in Fascism.

To the above charges, and there are many more, some may say that I am myself conflating fundamentalism with other kinds of religion. My reply is that when an institution puts reason first, rather than faith, belief or spiritualism, I shall cease calling it a religion. Faith has no inherent test for relevance and hence can be attached to anything – and that is where the trouble begins.

One of the fundamental reasons religion can have such deleterious consequences is that it deals in certainties when regarding the natural world and absolutes when dealing with morality. Because the natural world is highly variable and less than adequately known, reality defeats religion’s certainty repeatedly, often with disastrous results as exemplified by the refusal to treat AIDS as a disease rather than God’s punishment of evil doers. Similarly, because humans are very complex entities dealing with a complex reality and other complex humans, the rigidity that religion’s absolutes introduce into human value systems not infrequently leads to catastrophic results. People are currently being slaughtered by the thousands because of the inability of Islam’s various factions to accept each other’s humanity, not to mention G. W. Bush’s declared guidance from his god and the slaughter that has entailed.

Thus it is that when mankind feels most certain of its moral bearings it commits its most horrendous crimes. When will we demand of religion that, like science, it realize its own limitations and allow mankind to approach the natural world and each other with the same tentative, evidence searching, posture?

Bob Newhard

Impending American fascism

While I have written on this subject before, the recent purchase of the Wall Street Journal by Rupert Murdoch and his intention to establish a new business TV channel in October 2007 lend additional urgency to this issue.

A brief review of the salient facts about the Bush presidency:

Project for a New American Century written by Dick Cheney et alia in 1992 outlines the purpose and road to American empire.

Bush rushes to declare a war in response to a terrorist attack. Terrorism cannot be fought as a war because there is no defined enemy or geographic area of encounter between the supposed forces. The point in declaring a war was to institutionalize this amorphous and endless conflict so that it could be made a military undertaking and so that an indefinite state of emergency could be created. Such a state, as George Orwell so aptly described is necessary to the continuous control of a society by the few “protectors.”

Bush demands and gets the USA Patriot Act giving the presidency many earmarks of fascism, including the ability to declare protest an act of terrorism. John Ashcroft declared that protest against the President in time of “war” is tantamount to treason.

Loss of habeus corpus.

Appointment of a Right Wing Supreme Court majority.

The use of “signings” to countermand legislation he does not like, without the transparency that a veto would provide.

I see Murdoch’s acquisition of the Wall Street Journal and his imminent creation of a business TV channel as the latest steps in the corporate takeover of the United Sates and the institution of fascism. If one applies what Murdoch has done to the news, i.e. turn it into blatant propaganda, to what he will do with the Wall Street Journal and especially his business channel, this nation will be subjected to a continuous barrage of propaganda extolling the virtues of corporate capitalism and denouncing liberals, progressives and anybody arguing for social responsibility in our government and economy. They have already demonized the word liberal such that democrats like Hillary Clinton refuse to be identified as such. Remember Murdoch has held a fund raiser for Hillary. When resistance to this process becomes significant, which will probably occur, if not sooner, when the United States experiences the imminent depression, then the full impact of the USA Patriot Act will become evident. The intimate relationship between corporations and fascism was made explicit in Mussolini’s description of fascism as a corporate state. The potential for fascism in the United States is further shown by a relatively little known attempt to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration by force in the 1930’s by major bankers, financiers and industrialists concerned that he was taking the country to socialism. (A prominent view is that he actually saved the country for capitalism. My view is that he probably saved it from fascism.) Much of this effort was centered in the American Liberty League to which many of these men belonged and which had close connections to the American Legion. See the following web site on the League and the plot http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/all-both.html.

In general the plot was to raise a private army of 500,000 men from the disgruntled veterans of World War I and take over the government by force. They made the mistake of choosing Marine General Smedly Butler to raise this army. Butler is the most decorated Marine General ever. He was popular with the troops because he openly identified with them in preference to the Washington brass. He was believed to be pro-corporation because he fought battles for corporate benefit in China, the Philippines and South and Central America. What they were unaware of was that Butler despised the corporations that generated the wars that killed his men. After his retirement he wrote War is a Racket, a book describing the corporate interests for whose benefit U. S. troops fought. Butler went along with the plot until he was able to identify those involved. He then informed Congress, which held hearings on the matter and condemned the plot, but suppressed the evidence they had gathered. There is still speculation as to why this evidence was suppressed. I have been unable to ascertain whether any of these financial bigwigs ever went to jail.

To sum up: The Bush administration by fiat of an imperial presidency and a Far Right Republican congress has taken this country far down the road toward complete corporate dominance of our society, it has implemented the legal mechanisms for suppressing dissent, it controls the major media, has established surveillance of the citizenry, has, with terrorism, established an interminable enemy and has implemented ingredient after ingredient of the corporate state. This country has seen the corporate elite attempt to stage a fascist coup before. At the beginning of his book When Corporations Rule the World David Korten has a quotation from George Soros as follows; “Perhaps the greatest threat to freedom and democracy in the world today comes from the formation of unholy alliances between government and business. This is not a new phenomenon. it used to be called fascism….The outward appearances of the democratic process are observed, but the powers of the state are diverted to the benefit of private interests.”

I do not see progressives addressing this imminent threat of fascism at all. While we get all excited about health care, education, etc., which are important, they and our civil liberties and rights are in grave jeopardy from incipient fascism. Are we afraid to call corporate control of our country by its proper name? Are we unable to see or unwilling to articulate how corporations have taken over this country and are in the process of doing so to the planet? Are we willing to see all human values reduced to monetary values? There was a time when progressives clearly and forcefully pointed out the threat to democracy that the corporations posed. The Progressive Party ran on an anti-corporate platform. William Cullen Bryant, their presidential candidate, portrayed corporations as crucifying the people on a cross of gold. The muckrakers were not afraid to lay out the greed of John D. Rockefeller. Upton Sinclair took the meat packing industry to task in The Jungle and Sinclair Lewis portrayed the insidious influence of the local Chamber of Commerce in his novel Babbit. Even the Republican President Theodore Roosevelt was outraged by corporate greed. To someone of my age it appears that the American populace and its culture have been seduced by the corporate media into believing that owning and enjoying more and more things is a civic virtue. Progressives need to get a grip before it is too late. To do that takes courage and the longer we wait the more courage it will take.

Additional reading on fascism in America, past and present may be found in:

It Can't Happen Here
by Sinclair Lewis, copyright 1935

This novel can be read today as prescient in its depiction of the rise of fascism from business interests.

Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America
by Bertram Gross, copyright 1980

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
by Chris Hedges, copyright 2006

Bob Newhard

Impeachment: Politics, the Constitution and Personal Integrity

Today, according to Barbara Cummings, Representative Conyers said, "So I'm supposed to risk my reputation for Cindy and this CIA guy?" (reference to Ray McGovern). Those of you who receive Jeeni Criscenzo’s e-mails will recognize this statement by John Conyers as coming from her latest dispatch on the meeting of impeachment supporters with Conyers and his directive to arrest them.

When I read this I asked myself, What is it with politicians that they are so given to causing human suffering and death to “preserve” their reputations? An outstanding example is Lyndon Johnson who continued the Vietnam War because he did not want to be the first U. S. president to lose a war. How many people died and were maimed for life by such an overwrought ego will never be known precisely, but it would be at least in the hundreds of thousands. While it would be next to impossible to create a war crime out of such an action because of the vagaries of proving a state of mind, this kind of behavior should be made a matter of public opprobrium as an epitome of self indulgence.

We know the dimensions of Johnson’s preference for his reputation. What are those of Conyers? Conyers is apparently prepared to reduce the continuing damage to our Constitution and liberties and the continuing carnage of Iraq to his “reputation;” Conyers is Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, the body that is responsible for bringing impeachment charges. He was a member of the same committee when it impeached Richard Nixon. In those days the Committee chair was Peter Rodino who was known for his courage and outrage at the unconstitutional behavior of Nixon. Rodino died in 2005. Acting New Jersey Governor Richard Codey said at the time. ''Congressman Rodino spent his whole life fighting for people's rights, This man, throughout his long and storied career, had the occasion to take part in many of the highs and lows of our country's immediate history. He was unafraid to take on the tough battles for citizens of our country." It is appropriate to ask John Conyers why he is afraid to take on the tough battle his predecessor did not shy from. Conyers may say that he does not have the support of the House speaker to do this. He could be removed as the Committee chair by Nancy Pelosi. While I doubt that this would happen, if it did Conyers would at least have given the issue the importance it deserves. Peter Rodino was concerned with the precedents that Nixon’s behavior could set for presidential power and the effect on the constitutionally required balance of powers. Conyers should take this obligation to preserve the Constitution equally seriously. The precedent is there for Conyers and his oath of office requires that he proceed. It is not Conyers nor Pelosi’s right to say this Constitutional issue is off the table. The Constitution provides impeachment as the way to remove a deleterious president from office. But despite the outrage at Conyer’s putting his “reputation” above his Constitutional responsibility, there is another side to this story.

The impeachment of Richard Nixon revealed a problem that the writers of the Constitution may not have foreseen. Carl Levin, the Speaker of the House during Nixon’s impeachment, was very concerned that the impeachment not reflect partisan interests lest the Constitutional issues involved be tainted by partisanship. His fist step toward achieving this goal was to refer the impeachment to the House Judiciary Committee rather than establishing an impeachment panel. The Judiciary Committee members had been appointed a year before impeachment arose, it had a considerable number of members from both parties and hence there could be no accusation that the Committee was hand picked. To further remove the Committee and its proceedings from partisan politics he publicly stated he had no interest in becoming president, which as Speaker, he would become because there was no Vice President. Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned pleading no contest to charges of tax evasion and money laundering. Third, he expedited the appointment of Gerald Ford to become Vice President so that the impeachment process could begin without the taint of partisan politics. This was high-minded responsible behavior at a time of national crisis. Do we have such leaders now? Not after the travesty of Newt Gingrich’s attempt to use the impeachment process for partisan ends or after the Republicans reduced national politics to black and white and began behaving like a bunch of attack dogs.

However, to continue. The Founders apparently did not see the potential for conflict between the order of presidential succession and the impeachment process. By beginning that process in the House they made the individual third in line to become president the one to undertake the impeachment of the president. That left the vice president as the only defense against self-interested abuse of the impeachment process.

Transferring this information to our current situation, Nancy Pelosi is faced with somewhat the same situation that her predecessor Carl Levin was faced with. Currently there is considerable pressure to impeach both President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Should both these people be successfully impeached Pelosi would, by Constitutional mandate, become president It is possible that her declaration that impeachment is off the table was made out of her concern to keep the process from falling afoul of political motivation. If so, what she and Conyers have to weigh are the consequences of 18 more months of Bush megalomania and leaving unchallenged his actions as precedent for any future president to use or to exercise the impeachment process that the Constitution provides thereby validating the Constitution and assuring a continuance of the balance of powers, which is its foundation.

As a final note I would observe that those Progressives arguing that the attack on Conyers is racially motivated should read Barbara Jordan’s magnificent statement of the purpose of impeachment. Jordan was a member of the same Nixon impeachment committee as Conyers. Her statement along with the focus on preserving the Constitution exhibited by Levin and Rodino exemplified the best in American statesmanship. Jordan’s statement may be found at the web site American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barbarajordanjudiciarystatement.htm.

Robert Newhard

The Dimensions of the Problem

I have been reading Paul Theroux’s Dark Star. As you may know, Theroux is, among other things, a travel writer with a social, political and economic interest. Dark Star is his account of his East Africa trip from Cairo to Cape Town by land. Theroux had been a Peace Corps volunteer in the Rift Valley area of Africa in the 1960’s. He was a teacher at both the university level and in public schools. He is appalled at the degradation he sees over the intervening forty years. He has no schedule and takes whatever land transportation is available from where he happens to be. As a result he rides on top of cattle trucks as others do and is shot at by a band of “shifta“ (armed bands of marauders.); he rides in grossly over loaded “chicken” buses; he lives in intimate contact with much of that world, with the filth, vermin, stifling heat and masses of humanity. All this against a backdrop of the most beautiful and geologically impressive natural world one could hope for. In consequence Theroux, who speaks Swahili, the Lingua Franca of East Africa; converses with a wide variety of East Africans, including the highly educated but unemployed young people, the poor living in the massive slums of the large cities, prostitutes, medical missionaries, ministers of state and academics, trying to determine the reason for the massive economic and social dissolution he sees about him.

I commend the book to anyone who is awed by the dimensions of what must be done if we are ever to have a world in which democracy and a fair share of the world’s resources are realized. In my judgment, Africa is a continent unlike any other in that tribalism, as a method of social organization, has remained dominant far longer than on the other continents. There is the lack of a cohesive long-established culture as there is in China or India. When faced with globalization, well founded and extensive shared cultures are in a much better position to “digest” globalization by culturally accommodating it. Tribal societies, having little shared culture, are easily overwhelmed by globalization as it pits tribe against tribe, applies solutions totally inappropriate to the problem as does the World Bank and the IMF and stresses these societies beyond their ability to cohere. As a result social relationships deteriorate into the jungles of defeat, malaise and bare survival in the slums of Nairobi, where Theroux witnesses a mob stoning a presumed thief to death as people laugh at the man’s plight. Significantly, Nairobi is the city in which the last World Social Forum was held. This is the kind of thing we need to contemplate at great length and depth as we struggle for a just world.

Bob Newhard

Two kinds of decadence

Why, at a time when people say and the media reports that people are voting their values do we have the most corrupt, aggressive and destructive government in our history? The answer, I believe, lies in a cultural area so heavily glossed by prejudice that it escapes notice.

It is frequently alleged by Christian fundamentalists, the people who have made values a political issue, that contemporary American society is decadent and hence devoid of all moral values. It is difficult not to agree that the charge of decadence is well taken, When amusement so pervasively infiltrates every aspect of our lives, even the news programs; when every effort of Madison Avenue is used to divert attention from underlying realities; when ‘reality shows’ are staged; when, as recently charged, You Tube, MySpace, etc. are turning teenagers into a mass of narcissistic bubbleheads; when despite impending oil shortages this country produces the largest vehicles in its history; when, but one could go on and on. To this the religious right opposes their religion and its values, often called ‘family’ values to gloss their origin and claim extended ‘value’ territory. But does the apposition exist? I will argue that it does not. Fundamentalist religion is as much a part of decadence as the above mentioned cultural characteristics. Decadence is not merely a focus on material things. That has always been the case in American culture. We call it getting ahead.

Jacques Barzun in his book From Dawn to Decadence, 500 Years of Western Cultural Life gives the following definition of decadence. "When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent.” I think this reveals a little deeper understanding of decadence than is normally the case. This is a culture that has lost its intellectual curiosity and its attachment to reality. It indicates a society devoid of purpose and thought. This is in contrast to the America of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries when, despite gross inequalities, racism, and women as second class citizens, there was a belief in progress and in the science that obviously made it possible. A decadent society is at great risk, because among other things, it is into this morass that fundamentalism introduces its message of certainty and values of black and white. In contrast to the element of doubt involved in all science and in dealing with reality, fundamentalism offers certainty justified by faith, which is to say certainty supported by nothing more than a belief in certainty. There is no search for understanding or confidence in science as an instrument for investigating reality. Indeed, there is a dispensing with the motion of reality itself in favor of a satisfying myth. This ossifies a culture as it did in the Dark Ages. Decadence and fundamentalism are just two sides of the same coin of giving up. Neville Shute identified this human response to futility in his novel On the Beach. In the novel World War III has taken place and as a result of the nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States has generated an enormous nuclear cloud that is encircling the globe as it is carried by the jet stream. As it progresses eastward communications from the areas in its path begin to go silent. The Australia/New Zealand area will be the last to be destroyed. The final scene in this progress of futility is a gathering of two groups of people on the beach. One group is holding a massive party the other is warning of the immanence of God’s wrath. Both, in terms of reality are futile. The only difference is that one is honest.

This search for certainty at any cost is why values replace knowledge as a societal determinant. Values do not require evidence. They are articulated in terms of absolutes. This is why a society that pursues values at any cost generates absolutist government. Such a society must turn to oppression and violence to impose its values on a world in constant flux. What they wind up with is a society just as decadent as the one they fled, but now dominated by an arbitrary and dictatorial government. A case in point is the banal art of the Nazi regime. This vacuity of a decadent society is one of the major causes of this America’s disastrous adventure into imperialism in the Mideast and the increasing domestic totalitarianism. This adventure was not forced upon us. I submit we accepted it in the profound absence of any other pressing or motivating societal purpose. At root we had nothing else of importance to do. The fundamentalist antidote to decadence is simply another form of decadence compounded by dictatorial rigidity and the human suffering that flows from it.

Bob Newhard

A Progressive Perspective

As proposed in my next to last column I want to investigate the nature of a possible progressive perspective. I hesitate to use the term ideology because it can imply dogmatism and a placing of thought before facts. Let us begin by considering what I think is wrong with the major isms.

It appears to me that the fundamental problem facing any would be concept of a society is how to relate the individual to society so that the individual can realize her/his potential and the society is seen as essential to that end. This means that the human being qua individual must be the continuing focus of whatever efforts the society makes to improve itself. The test for any policy or program is whether the individual is promoted in her/his development. Society should be seen as a vehicle for human self development.

Capitalism, socialism and its dictatorial variant communism have at least one thing in common; they are economic theories and assume all social and other human activities, capacities, etc, are derived from economic activity. The bottom line for these isms is that human products, not humans themselves, are the source of value. This to me is the fundamental flaw that any progressive ideology must address.

As a progressive alternative I propose that we return to the Enlightenment and specifically Thomas Jefferson for whom the human individual is the source of all value. For Jefferson economics ought to be a function of politics; that is the economic structure should support the individual’s independence, which he sees as the economic foundation of democracy and the proper goal of politics. For this reason he proposed a nation of small farmers whose farms made them economically and hence politically independent. This was in contrast to Alexander Hamilton who favored the industrial development of an America in which factory owners, etc. controlled the lives of others, The problem is that, unfortunately, we have the economic structure that Hamilton favored and have lost much of the individual independence that Jefferson sought. The progressive’s problem is how to reform society so that its economic activity is a function of its human values. As noted above, Jefferson hoped to achieve this as a natural consequence of the economic structure he proposed. We may not have such a relatively easy out, but, if I am correct, Jefferson’s view can give us the human platform upon which to build a progressive ideology.

That platform, by placing the individual’s realization of her/his potential as the central goal of society should first identify what practices are destructive of it and what practices are supportive of it. The platform should then begin developing policies to deter the former and promote the latter.

As an example, as Jefferson believed that a democratic society should provide each citizen the opportunity to realize her/his potential, so he also understood and feared the adverse impact that accumulated hereditary wealth would have on other citizens’ access to opportunity. In my judgment progressives need, therefore, to develop polices inhibiting the hereditary accumulation of wealth. In this particular case Kevin Phillips’ book Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich is very useful. I suggest as part of a progressive platform that all wealth accumulated in a lifetime be returned to society to be used in assuring equal access to opportunity by the succeeding generation. It is, of course, argued that people should be able to use their wealth as they please, including passing it on to their children. However, it is here, as in other places, necessary to consider the consequences for other humans in this exercise of freedom. If we believe that the limit of individual freedom is the freedom to dominate others and if accumulated wealth allows an individual to do this, then it is more necessary to a democratic society that accumulated wealth be made available to provide equal opportunity for those of the next generation, Thus the recycling of wealth is beneficial for democracy and for its ultimate concern, the individual. This is but one example of developing a progressive policy from a foundational approach based on the individual’s potential self realization through society. The important thing is to create a conceptual foundation for progressivism that will support its values in a cohesive manner.

Among the more relevant presentations I have found of this notion of progressivism is a speech given in 1940 as the University of California’s Charter Day address by James Conant, the famous President of Harvard University, titled Education for a Classless Society. By “classless” Conant means equal opportunity to realize their potential and he does mean equal, not the glossed over, grotesque, parody that term currently denotes. This document can be found at http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/95sep/ets/edcla.htm. Another source worth pondering is Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, published in 1879. It presented a once very influential economic theory that is concerned to eliminate the great disparity in wealth that capitalism produces without resorting to an all powerful state. Indeed, Henry George was closely associated with the progressives of his day. The Henry George Foundation is carrying on George’s economic analysis program. As they say “The Henry George Foundation has the aim of putting people at the heart of economics.” The Foundation’s web site can be found at http://www.henrygeorgefoundation.org/.

I hope that the foregoing has given some indication why Progressivism needs to toughly think out its intellectually responsible posture in the world of ideas. It is not enough to seek social change without having thoroughly thought out what society would look like if those changes all obtained. As capitalism and communism have indicated, the unintended social consequence can be calamitous.

Bob Newhard

The Depth of Legislative Indifference

I apologize for not writing the column I said I would on a proposed ideology for progressive, but the unconscionable behavior of congressional Democrats in giving Bush the money to continue this war indefinitely is too outrageous to pass without comment.

When Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee whimpers "We don't want to send the message to the troops that Congress does not support them. We're going to support those troops.", I want to ask where is his similar concern for this country’s Constitution and the duty it imposes on him to assert and protect the fundamental role of the Congress in determining whether this country will engage in war. They all took that oath, but we never hear them talk about it. When the founders placed it in the Constitution they did not say implementing it would be easy nor that tough decisions would not have to be made to insure its protection. Where was the resistance that this issue demanded? Where was the filibuster to bring focus, attention and life to this issue that the voters overwhelming demanded in the 2006 election? These people are facilitating the establishment of a dictatorship in this country. Is it possible that the Beltway Democrats are inconceivably timid and have turned their backs on their predecessor’s courage in fighting against the Vietnam aggression and the Great Depression? Do we have a party of wimps or do they march to a different drummer?

As Ann Wright has observed in an article in Truthout, the Democrats have joined in making the Iraqi puppet government the patsy requiring them to finalize their Constitution, which requires that they privatize their oil reserves thus making them available to the major oil companies for whom this war was initiated in the first place. No other Middle East country has done so and the Iraqi’s are obviously loath to give up control of their only significant source of national wealth. If they do not accept the constitution they will not receive the billions promised to rebuild the country we destroyed. Once again it is the corporations and their greed that are the root cause of the deaths of thousands, the diversion of billions of dollars from social needs to war making and generating their most profitable years ever. All this was done with the complicity of the Democratic Parry leadership. No wonder Cindy Sheehan has given up in disgust and fear of the fascist government that awaits this country. I have attached below the article by Ann Wright and a message I sent to selected senators and representatives. We must, I believe, be deeply impressed by the danger we are in if Bush has another 18 months in office and we need to impress our concern vigorously upon those who have the capacity to remedy this situation before it is too late.

Bob Newhard

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What Congress Really Approved: Benchmark No. 1: Privatizing Iraq's Oil for US Companies
By Ann Wright
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Saturday 26 May 2007

On Thursday, May 24, the US Congress voted to continue the war in Iraq. The members called it "supporting the troops." I call it stealing Iraq's oil - the second largest reserves in the world. The "benchmark," or goal, the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is privatization of Iraq's oil. Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.

This threat could not be clearer. If the Iraqi Parliament refuses to pass the privatization legislation, Congress will withhold US reconstruction funds that were promised to the Iraqis to rebuild what the United States has destroyed there. The privatization law, written by American oil company consultants hired by the Bush administration, would leave control with the Iraq National Oil Company for only 17 of the 80 known oil fields. The remainder (two-thirds) of known oil fields, and all yet undiscovered ones, would be up for grabs by the private oil companies of the world (but guess how many would go to United States firms - given to them by the compliant Iraqi government.)

No other nation in the Middle East has privatized its oil. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iran give only limited usage contracts to international oil companies for one or two years. The $12 billion dollar "Support the Troops" legislation passed by Congress requires Iraq, in order to get reconstruction funds from the United States, to privatize its oil resources and put them up for long term (20- to 30-year) contracts.

What does this "Support the Troops" legislation mean for the United States military? Supporting our troops has nothing to do with this bill, other than keeping them there for another 30 years to protect US oil interests. It means that every military service member will need Arabic language training. It means that every soldier and Marine would spend most of his or her career in Iraq. It means that the fourteen permanent bases will get new Taco Bells and Burger Kings! Why? Because the US military will be protecting the US corporate oilfields leased to US companies by the compliant Iraqi government. Our troops will be the guardians of US corporate interests in Iraq for the life of the contracts - for the next thirty years.

With the Bush administration's "Support the Troops" bill and its benchmarks, primarily Benchmark No. 1, we finally have the reason for the US invasion of Iraq: to get easily accessible, cheap, high-grade Iraq oil for US corporations.

Now the choice is for US military personnel and their families to decide whether they want their loved ones to be physically and emotionally injured to protect not our national security, but the financial security of the biggest corporate barons left in our country - the oil companies.

It's a choice for only our military families, because most non-military Americans do not really care whether our volunteer military spends its time protecting corporate oil to fuel our one-person cars. Of course, when a tornado, hurricane, flood or other natural disaster hits in our hometown, we want our National Guard unit back. But on a normal day, who remembers the 180,000 US military or the 150,000 US private contractors in Iraq?

Since the "Surge" began in January, over 500 Americans and 15,000 Iraqis have been killed. By the time September 2007 rolls around for the administration's review of the "surge" plan, another 400 Americans will be dead, as well as another 12,000 Iraqis.

How much more can our military and their families take?

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Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army and US Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She served 16 years in the US diplomatic corps in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Micronesia and Mongolia. She resigned from the US Department of State in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.

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You have by your oath a Constitutional duty to protect this country and its Constitution from executive abuse. You have repeatedly refused to execute this solemn obligation. The latest such abuse was the provision of funds to continue this war unhampered by your constitutionally authorized ability to deny funds. Such a plea as Carl Levin’s that we must protect our troops, erroneous though it is, is no reason to abandon the Constitution. Where was the filibuster to raise this issue to its proper level? When you took that oath nobody said carrying it out would be easy.

We have on our hands a president who gives every indication that he seeks dictatorial powers and that he and his cohorts intend to destroy our democracy from the inside. Constitutionally only you can stop him. Now comes the NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51, which by fiat of directive gives Bush dictatorial power under all sorts of circumstances. In the first place no such powers should be permitted any president without the scrutiny and consent of Congress, including the consequences for our democracy. In the second place the last person in the country to have this power is George W. Bush. The arrogation of power by use of presidential directives and “signings” gives more than ample evidence that this person cannot be trusted with such power. You have until June 8, 2007 to nullify this executive order. DO SO IMMEDIATELY LEST YOU DELIVER THIS NATION IRREVOCABLY INTO THE HANDS OF A DICTATORSHIP.

Robert Newhard

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Murrieta, CA 92562