Category Archives: Political Rants

Political Rants

Radioactive.

It’s a little hard to boil down everything that has taken place this week into a single blog entry, so I won’t even try. As has become my habit, I will take brief swings at a couple of topics and let the chips fall where they may.

Japan Agonistes. Something like a triplet of biblical plagues have settled upon Japan, and all three share a grim history with that unfortunate nation. They are no strangers to severe earthquakes and tsunamis, the latter of which, by no accident, is known around the globe by its Japanese name. Nuclear disaster is, of course, something we first introduced them to at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It bears reminding that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was built on a design mapped out by General Electric – one long thought to be vulnerable to this kind of disaster. What possessed otherwise smart people to build such a plant on the coast of Japan is beyond me, particularly given Japan’s unique experience with the depredations of nuclear radiation.

Clearly no reactor is designed to withstand 9.0 earthquakes and colossal, history-making tsunamis – this one least of all, which at last look appeared from above like an ashtray at the end of an all-night poker game. One can only guess at what the long-term effects of this disaster will be. As one commentator recently put it, we all (those here since 1986, at least) have a piece of Chernobyl in us. Likely we will soon have some Fukushima Daiichi alongside it. (The knowledge that structurally similar plants are operating all over the U.S. is particularly sobering, as well.)

Cavalry Coming? The U.N. Security Council has approved 10-0 (with 5 abstentions) a resolution on Libya authorizing a no-fly zone and other measures as deemed necessary. Gaddafi has called a cease-fire in the wake of this decision, though reports from the country demonstrate that this is a hollow charade. I can’t say that I am overjoyed with the thought of the United States stumbling into this conflict. We seldom make things better; more often, much worse. (We also fuck it up when we do nothing – see Bahrain.) It’s hard, though, to listen to the voices of those people in Benghazi and not want to help. I just wonder how much help dropping bombs will prove to be. We would be “taking out” air defense installations. What are these? In essence, they are people – Libyan people with families, clan relations, etc.

Killing is never a simple matter.  The best thing we in the West might have done for these people is not to have sold their crackpot leader weapons in the first place.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Rollback.

Some short takes. Pretty seriously under the gun these days (figuratively, though, not literally as many just now). Just make mention of a few serious setbacks this week.

Wisconsinitis. Got to hand it to the GOP – they are good at the old sucker punch. Gov. Scott Walker and his political allies were determined to curtail union organizing rights, and they succeeded via political maneuvers that their Democratic opponents would never dare attempt on the state or national level. Always the way, it seems: Republicans are willing to push to the wall, no matter how unpopular the position. Democrats tend only to push their own base to the wall. The situation is, if anything, worse in Michigan, where not only are union rights being curtailed but the republicans have passed legislation that enables them to dismiss local elected officials under certain vague “crisis” circumstances and replace them with hired hacks, perhaps corporate subcontractors. Pretty ugly stuff.

Of course, as we know, elections have consequences. If you give a drunk a gun, don’t be surprised when s/he shoots you in the ass. (Lesson leftover from the Bush administration.) But the warning goes both ways. If you shoot someone in the ass, don’t be surprised if s/he kicks yours a little later on.

Libya redux. The opposition to Qadaffi’s government is seriously outgunned, largely thanks to the Western governments now threatening to send the strong man and his crew to The Hague. And yet, with respect to the no fly zone, I’ve found myself agreeing with Defense Secretary Gates in that it is not simply a matter of putting a few flights in the sky above Tripoli. Such a policy would entail a full on assault against Libya – no other way to accomplish it. When they put the zones in place in Iraq in 1991 (after many thousands were killed), it was following an attack that destroyed Iraq’s capacity to fight back. If we were to proceed today, it would involve killing many Libyans, attacking a sovereign African state, and all that those things entail. Seriously…. aren’t there other ways to help?

Afghanistan. Word has it that we’ve started pounding Afghanistan in a more serious way, since the counterinsurgency tactic is proving itself an unmitigated failure. Where is this headed, after ten years? Back to bombarding villages into oblivion? We are manufacturing future enemies – that’s all we’re accomplishing. In the words of the late Molly Ivins: Get. Out. Now.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Them-ism.

I’ve never been a union member for more than maybe eighteen months as a part-timer, back when I was a 1/8-time adjunct at S.U.N.Y. Empire State College and belonged to the A.A.U.P. (I paid dues to the Teamsters for about two weeks when I had a stock room job at a Caldor in Albany back in 1982 – the kind of job that lasts two weeks when you’re me.) Likewise, my dad spent the vast majority of his working life – perhaps all of it – unaffiliated, unorganized, call it what you will. But though he was no fan of Hoffa, Meany, and the other union bosses of his day, he understood the power of labor organizing and was always supportive of it – not out of loyalty to an organization, of course, but from a deep identification with the experience of working people, as he worked hard pretty much the whole 40 years I knew him.

I have to say that my sentiments run along the same lines, though I’ve never worked as hard as my father did. Still… I understand what it is like, what many of the hidden costs of labor are, and that informs my perspective as well as that of many, many Americans. A vast majority of Americans, in fact, if recent polling is to be believed – Wisconsin Governor (and former pop star) Scott Walker and his peers in Indiana, Ohio, and elsewhere appear to have been working on the assumption that most people who do not belong to a union see no value in organized labor and have no knowledge of its history in this country. Evidently, they are mistaken. Polling has long shown that most American workers would, if given the opportunity, join a union. While they understand the necessity of making concessions from time to time, they do not agree that one should concede one’s basic rights. The right to collective bargaining was hard won, fought for. It will not be relinquished casually.

Of course, it’s no surprise that organized labor is under attack five minutes after the latest crop of Tea Party-fueled Republicans have taken office. For some reason, most people think the GOP is going to be reasonable if we just allow them to take power. The fact is, every successive time they win an election, they get more aggressively destructive than the time before. Walker and others were trying to cram this anti-union legislation through before anyone noticed. They are trying to drive a wedge between “us” (non-union workers, or at least those who don’t belong to public employee unions) and “them” (union workers), for the benefit of their well-heeled patrons… like the real David Koch (not the admirable ersatz one from the Buffalo Beast who called Walker a couple of weeks ago). Typical divide and conquer strategy – the top 2% who made out like bandits over the past 10 years in particular are taking time out from collecting their tax breaks to help set the rest of us at each other’s throats, fighting over the scraps that remain.

Remember, friends. If there’s a “them” here, it’s not organized labor. It is, rather, that thin layer of folks who own everything and wish to part with none of it.

luv u,

jp