Evans Politics

For OpEdNews: David Swanson – Writer

During a televised football game on Sunday, an announcer welcomed the members of the U.S. military viewing the game in 177 nations around the world. When the news came on, the topic was the same one it’s been for weeks, speculation as to whether and how much a single individual will escalate war by sending tens of thousands of additional troops to nation number 177, Afghanistan.

Somehow it remains eternally controversial to mention the imperial presidency. Yet the positions on Afghanistan in the United States are limited to “The President should escalate the war,” “The President should not escalate the war,” and “The President should do whatever he wants.” Some people have other things to say on the topic, but almost nobody refuses to hold one of those three positions.

One of the few holdouts is a document rather than a person, a document known as the U.S. Constitution. The funny thing is that the people who wrote this document over two centuries ago very intentionally and explicitly created a legislature with the power and duty to decide when and where to fight wars, to raise the funding to pay for them, and to oversee the military. The executive was to execute the will of the Congress, including in his duty as commander in chief of the military.

The wisdom here was not just in giving the power to decide on wars, and the extent of those wars, to a different branch of government than the commander in chief, while nonetheless giving him (or her) civilian command of the military. The wisdom extended to giving the legislature the power to decide virtually everything else, what laws to make in any area and, in every area, what money to raise or spend.

Representatives were to represent relatively small numbers of people. Their constituents, it was expected, might be able to persuade them to act on behalf of majority opinion. The idea of the entire nation lobbying the executive is almost laughably more challenging, even without considering the problems with lobbying an executive to make decisions only Congress is constitutionally able to make, not to mention decisions on whether to engage in massive crimes forbidden by treaties to which our nation is a party.

But Congress is in such bad shape that many people have had many years to learn that their permanent-incumbent representative is virtually immune to public influence. Meanwhile, the president is new, and his vague advertising campaign has left him open to wishful misinterpretation. Plus, he’s a member of the good team.

If President George W. Bush had called something serving 2 to 5 percent of Americans a “public option,” MoveOn.org would have attacked him for deceiving the country. When Obama does that, all the activist groups celebrate his public service. When Bush continued and escalated wars, the more principled peace groups told the House of Representatives to deny him the money. After 11 months, we are just beginning to drag a few of the better peace groups partially away from their lobbying of the new emperor, in order to work on denying the money.

I recently read an excellent book called “The Vanishing of a Species?” which Peter Gretener wrote, for the most part, 30 years ago, but which his family just published posthumously. This book looks at the fate of our species in as wise a way as anyone has in the generation since it was written. It examines, among other things, the question of whether humans are aggressive due to nature or nurture, and whether this aggressiveness must expand with the greater density of humans caused by population growth. But Gretener never considers the possibility of a government misrepresenting its people, of people outgrowing aggressiveness but their government nonetheless attacking others.

Gretener believes that human wisdom has not kept pace with human technology, thus creating the possibility of economic and environmental collapse. I believe, on the contrary, that human wisdom has declined rather than holding steady. We’ve lost the ability to live sustainably or peacefully. And we’ve lost the understanding of how governments can be structured to check our inevitable abuses.

David Swanson is the author of the new book “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union” by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book.

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Out of Afghanistan and Iraq Now

“Porfirio Lobo, a right-wing businessman and rancher, has been declared the president-elect of Honduras in a vote held after months of tensions following the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya in a military-led coup.

“Roberto Micheletti took over as interim president in June, claiming that Zelaya was trying to change the constitution to allow him to stay in power. The coup saw thousands of supporters on both sides take to the streets – while the two men tried to negotiate a peaceful outcome.

“Neither Zelaya nor Micheletti stood in Sunday’s presidential vote, which pitted Lobo against Elvin Santos, Zelaya’s former vice-president.

(Lobo’s supporters claim a large turnout, while Zelaya’s supporters claim there was mass boycotting of the election. The European Union and the Organization of American States refused to monitor the polls, probably out of protest, but there were around 300 observers. Evans Politics feels it is wrong of the U.S. to recognize Lobo’s government, since the elections may be considered illegal by some legal considerations. Zelaya was never allowed to finish out his constitutionally mandated term of office, while the U.S. stood by with pitifully minor sanctions against the right wing group that usurped power and deposed Zelaya. ~ Paul Evans)

“The decision by the US to support the vote’s result has infuriated Zelaya’s supporters, who say that Washington has backtracked on its previous statements condemning the coup.

“From Tegucigalpa, Lucia Newman reports.”

CBS News video – Nov. 30, 2009 – 1:19

The best time to plant a tree was always 20 years ago. The second best time is always today. ~ old Chinese saying

Destiny is not a matter of chance, It’s a matter of choice;  It’s not a thing to be waited for, It’s a thing to be achieved. ~ William Jennings Bryan

When you know what you want, and you want it badly enough, you’ll find a way to get it. ~ Jim Rohn

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. ~ Albert Einstein

The only limits are, as always, those of vision. ~ James Broughton

“Someone once asked me why do you always insist on taking the hard road? and I replied  why do you assume I see two roads?” ~ unknown

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours. ~ Richard Bach

“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.” ~ unknown

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. ~ William Feather

A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm. ~ Charles Schwab

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. ~ Joshua J. Marine

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. ~ Thomas Jefferson

He is the most unfortunate who’s today is not better than yesterday. ~Muhammad (PBUH)

“Success can never be controlled, but performance always can.” ~John F. Murray

“If you are not big enough to lose, you are not big enough to win.” ~Walter Reuther

“Never stand begging for what you have the power to earn.” ~ unknown, may sound a little like Republican propoganda, but there you have it….

There are two ways of meeting difficulties:  you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them. ~Phyllis Bottome

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” ~ unknown

“Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” ~ unknown

You always pass failure on the way to success. ~Mickey Rooney

Whenever I hear, ‘It can’t be done,’  I know I’m close to success ~ Michael Flatley

Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value. ~ Jim Rohn

“God gives every bird it’s food, but does not always drop it into the nest.” ~ unknown, but I’d read his book!

Kites rise highest against the wind not with it ~ Sir Winston Churchill

“To make yourself exceptional is the biggest achievement of your life.” ~ unknown

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have: three meals a day for their bodies, – education and culture for their minds – and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein.

On political activisim: If you think you’re too small to be effective, you’ve never been in the dark with a mosquito.” — source unknown.

Given to us by GreenSooner over at DailyKos: “Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House.” – Bob Herbert

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Paul Krugman:

You might think, then, that doing something about the employment situation would be a top policy priority. But now that total financial collapse has been averted, all the urgency seems to have vanished from policy discussion, replaced by a strange passivity. There’s a pervasive sense in Washington that nothing more can or should be done, that we should just wait for the economic recovery to trickle down to workers.

This is wrong and unacceptable.

Ross Douthat:

But the study shouldn’t make liberals too cocky. The authors find that growing up in a recession can encourage conservative instincts as well. Downturns make young voters distrustful of unfettered capitalism, yes. But they also make them less confident in the federal government.

So far, it’s also making people distrust Republicans. But the biggest hit is going to be on incumbents.

WaPo:

In a new Washington Post poll, Palin beats other GOP leaders on two questions: who best represents the party’s core values, and who Republicans would vote for if the presidential nomination battle were held today. But she has particular appeal to the loyal followers of Limbaugh and Beck, two of the most popular conservative talk show hosts in the country.

As if there’s any doubt…

WaPo:

Opposition to President Obama and his policy initiatives is strong, but Republicans are split on GOP’s direction, leaders.

The argument: “Go right. No, go more right.” Only Republicans can save Democrats from being Democrats.

Robert J. Samuelson: Leave the Fed alone. And while you’re at it, get the government out of regulation. Nothing’s changed, now go away.

NEJM:

Six months have passed. Flu season is now here. After repeated delays, H1N1 vaccine finally arrived in our clinic earlier this month to the uniform relief of the medical staff. But my formerly desperate patients were now leery. “It’s not tested,” they said. “Everyone knows there are problems with the vaccine.” “I’m not putting that in my body.”

I was unprepared for this response, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. For weeks now, in the schoolyard of my children’s elementary school, other parents had been sidling up to me, seemingly in need of validation. “You’re not giving your kids that swine flu shot, are you?” they’d say, their tone nervous, if a bit derisive.

How to explain this dramatic shift in 6 short months? It certainly isn’t related to logic or facts, since few new medical data became available during this period. It seems to reflect a sort of psychological contagion of myth and suspicion.

Just as there are patterns of infection, there seem to be patterns of emotional reaction (“emotional epidemiology”) associated with new illnesses. When 2009 H1N1 influenza was first detected, it fit a classic pattern that Priscilla Wald recently outlined in her book Contagious [1]: It was novel and mysterious; it emerged from a teeming third-world city, and it was now making its insidious — and seemingly unstoppable — way toward the “civilized” world.

COMMENT by Paul Evans: DemFromCt, as a succesful trauma surgeon as well as something of an epidemiologist with his FluWiki sites, seems unable to understand the public’s fears about the flu vaccine. To simply deny that problems exist with these vaccines seems wrong to me, but as someone trained in science, I do understand his point of view. There just are concerns that won’t go away, such as the very controversial link between the mercury containing Thimerisol, a component of some of the vaccines, which has been linked to autism… See Swine Flu Jab Linked to Killer Nerve Disease: Leaked Letter Reveals Concern of Neurologists over 25 Deaths in America, Mail Online (U.K.), August 15, 2009, by Jo McFarland: 500 cases of “a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine” detected. Letter sent to 600 neurologists.

Balanced against these concerns with the vaccine is the simple fact that in an “average” year, the common flu kills some 35,500 Americans, and the “swine flu” or H1N1 flu is a new variety that is mutating around the world – and so could turn into something much worse. Take your shots.

*****

DemFromCT is a longtime member of the Daily Kos community with interests ranging from polling to Iraq to bird flu, and has graciously agreed to allow us here at Evans Politics to republish his articles on an ongoing basis. He is a founding editor of Flu Wiki (www.fluwikie.com) and its sister site, the Flu Wiki Forum (www.newfluwiki2.com). Since its inception in June 2005, Flu Wiki has grown into an international clearinghouse of pandemic influenza information and links.

You can view his diaries (blogroll) at Daily Kos, here. DemFromCT is a featured writer at Daily Kos, and you can read more about him here.