Ten Things We Need to Do.
Take a deep breath, take a step back, and look at the condition our country is in and the direction it's headed. Let's look it in terms of basic government responsibilities and philosophies and try to think not purely in terms of what's wrong but of a few things we need to do to correct what's wrong.
The disasters on the Gulf Coast were not only a failure of our ability to respond to such incidents, but were a failure of our country's major infrastructure. We KNEW that the levees and floodwalls of the lower Mississippi presented risks, but we kept putting off repairs and improvements because they would be costly.
Similarly, we see traffic worsening every day, and roads and bridges, even as they are becoming less and less adequate when in perfect shape, falling into an increasing state of disrepair. And even then, we postpone the repairs and improvements because they would be costly.
Our air travel system is in shambles as our traffic control system is becoming more and more inadequate to the level of traffic it is expected to control, and our airlines are falling into bankruptcy and cutting maintenance and services to the point where flying is no longer a desirable, or perhaps even a safe, way to travel. The fleet of airliners in use is aging, and yet the alternatives available to European and Japanese travelers, high speed rail, is unavailable in America because, once again, the infrastructure has not received the maintenance and improvement necessary to make it viable for passenger use.
And yet, with all these material needs, we are fighting a ruinously costly war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and permitting, even encouraging, the exportation of American wealth, and the ability to generate that wealth, overseas. This is in the face of record high deficits caused directly by a dogmatic, ideologically-driven push to cut taxes to benefit the segment of society that already had been reaping the lion's share of the benefits of our market economy. This was at the expense of public works, public employment, and public services, the very things that we now suffer so greatly from their inadequacy in our day-to-day lives.
We see our bank accounts drained every time we fill our vehicles with fuel, taking our limited resources away from the other goods and services we were accustomed to purchasing and thus rippling through our entire economy. We are only starting to see the effects of this, as the gasoline price run-up is such a recent phenomenon that only the second or third credit card bills for the gasoline we've purchased since the beginning of this are just now starting to come due. The effect on our economy, as demonstrated by stock indices, is masked by the profits of the oil companies themselves, which are components of those indices. This concealment of our woes may become much more apparent as Christmas orders from stores to suppliers fall increasingly short of projections, and retail sales and tourism revenue fall even shorter than that. Remember, Black Monday did not occur in 1929 until October 29, still three weeks away (and "Just-In-Time Ordering," the way things are usually done today and why they NEVER have that part you need in stock anymore, might push an equivalent date out into mid-November or even early December now).
So much is wrong now that it is understandable not to know where to begin. We are inundated with such stress that it becomes very tempting just to throw up our hands in confusion. But I am a student of history and I have an admitted bias that holds that "there's nothing new under the sun." From this thought I have come to believe there IS a solution, or more properly a broad set of solutions, that flows from an abandoned political philosophy that once upon a time served us extraordinarily well when the problems we faced were worse and even more comprehensive than they are now -- the New Deal.
We need to abandon this notion that we must, first and foremost, carefully scrutinize the cost of everything without regard to its worth. We have to stop doing everything on the cheap and start doing it right instead. We have to look at what we need and meet those needs even if it means taxes, and even if some inefficiency might be involved. Hell, we're already the lowest taxed western industrialized nation, so we have a good bit of headroom there.
We need to return to the New Deal. Now, the New Deal was an overarching political philosophy, and to advocate a return to it is not to be confused with the advocacy of any specific program or policy, but just to name a few such specifics:
1. We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and devote our attention to the actual DEFENSE of America, American interests, and the security of American assets and people, rather than committing offenses against the peaceful aspirations of civilization as the Bush regime seems so compelled to do. The problem of terrorism is far better addressed through our system of justice and through a less obviously self-aggrandizing and pigheadedly assertive diplomacy. Our diplomatic efforts must be perceived as, and must actually consist of, actions in defense of people and justice rather than as backers and instigators of despotic regimes that merely serve our short-term commercial interests and convenience. This will eventually direct terrorist sentiment away from America and point it instead against foreign oppressors where it belongs. In this way we will once more stand on the "high ground" where we can exercise true leadership befitting our heritage and the power of our ideals without having to resort to military force to unjustly impose our will on others.
2. We are in SERIOUS need of MASSIVE public works and technological subsidies in the area of flood and other disaster control, roads, public transportation, and energy consumption. We are the richest nation in the world and we should not be facing such an imperative need to cut corners everywhere just to keep taxes down. These things not only improve our day-to-day lives, but they create jobs and stimulate the economy directly. Some infrastructure suggestions:
a. Obviously, levees and other flood control methods in the Mississippi Delta and in other vulnerable areas must be improved to the point where they can withstand 20% greater stress than can be expected from ANY potential storm. Sure it costs a little more, but what would it have been worth to have built such a system in New Orleans already?
b. We need to implement an effort similar to that which built our Interstate Highway System to construct a comprehensive system of intercity TGV railbeds that will interconnect with urban rail mass transportation. This will permit limiting air travel to only the longest routes, making rail more time- and fuel-efficient for anything under maybe 1,200 miles. It will also remove some of the traffic stress from our roads.
c. In urban areas there is a serious limit to how much expansion to road capacity is possible despite the increasing traffic problems. We can, however, build up where we can't build out -- we need to devote funds to engineering and building double-decks for a lot of major commuter routes (I-395 in the Washington area springs immediately to mind, but every major city has routes with similar problems). Tolls and gimmicks like HOV/HOT lanes are just stalling tactics that only provide short-term palliatives and that also have an unpalatable taste of elitism about them -- and that are nearly as expensive over the long term as double-decks.
d. A government-funded, Apollo-type technological push to develop viable and inexpensive high capacity electrical energy storage for vehicular use. Personally I think the notion of replaceable, rechargeable, automated-snap-in battery packs for cars would fill the bill (details on request).
3. We need to restore proper regulation of commerce and industry. We need to face the fact that deregulation, so glorified by rightwing dogma, has failed so consistently in so many areas that it must be considered invalid as a theory. The banks, the S&Ls, the airlines, securities trading, government procurement... These are all areas where government regulation was systematically dismantled and the evils that such regulation was initially implemented to prevent have resumed to flourish with a disastrous vengeance. The resulting corruption has spread throughout society and infected almost every area of commerce and industry, and most prominently to the world of politics where the corrupt influences are now feeding, indeed gorging themselves, on themselves.
The government is supposed to GOVERN, to restrain the more extreme impulses of a free market from careening into a dangerous state. We have got to remember what the word "govern" means, as we seem in the past 25 years or so to have forgotten.
4. We need national health care. The costs of our ridiculous "free market" in health care have now become such a burden on our economy that those industries that still provide health insurance for their employees are no longer competitive with foreign firms that do not need to offer such benefits, or those domestic firms that just leave their employees to fend for themselves. This is ridiculous -- in the entire civilized, industrialized world, everywhere BUT the United States health care is considered a right. It's such a shame that we, who so arrogantly pride ourselves on our guaranteed individual rights, need to be prodded into acknowledging such a basic right by petty commercial concerns, but "any port in a storm," so to speak.
5. We need, perhaps paramount above all other governmental needs, to return to a genuinely progressive system of income and wealth taxation, and a more comprehensive definition of "income" to include those methods used by wealthy tax dodgers and robber barons to conceal their riches from assessment, and to crack down hard on those who persist in such chicanery. We need to make whatever efforts we must to shut down those entities, such as foreign bank secrecy, that help the rich to cheat (and, it must be pointed out, help terrorists to hide the sources of their funding and help oppressive dictators drain the wealth of the nations over which they exercise their tyranny). Even the Swiss must be brought into line, by whatever means we might exercise.
6. We need to look closely at a return to some measure of industrial and commercial protectionism. It is clear that the internationalization of business and industry have benefited those at the top of the economic ladder at the great expense of those in the middle and at the bottom. There is a very real possibility that our abandonment of domestic market protection will eventually result, as its ultimate effect, in the reduction of the American standard of living down to the levels endured by peasants in the third world against which American workers are expected to compete on price.
7. We need to devote HUGE resources to fully public education. Do I really need to explain this? We should provide free, public education through at LEAST a bachelors degree for every American citizen whose abilities and inclinations permit him or her to go that far in school. And we need to pay teachers enough that it will become a desirable profession attracting the best students, and so we can train, hire and retain whole armies of good ones throughout America. This cannot be left to states and localities whose resources are, with only a few exceptions, inadequate to the task, and it therefore should be made a NATIONAL imperative.
Education is one area where "throwing money at the problem" often results in an effective solution. But it is an area of such great national importance, so essential to our future well-being, that some level of waste can be tolerated in the name of the greater good.
8. We need to look closely at our system of justice to try to moderate our punitive laws that harm more people's lives than they help. Of particular interest here are our drug laws, that saddle many of our youth, particularly among our racial and ethnic minorities, with crippling criminal records that consign them to lives of crime, poverty and hopelessness and that follow them throughout their entire lives. The harshly punitive and intrusive drug laws were implemented as self-serving political ploys during periods of mass insanity in America, but to reform these unjust laws always faces excited appeals by rabid self-interested politicians to the fears and bigotry of ignorant and thoughtless voters. Such reform will require genuinely strong leadership, but any effort in this regard will face tricks and treachery by its opponents, as was faced by Jimmy Carter's attempt when his "Drug Czar," Dr. Peter Bourne, had his plans of decriminalization derailed by a clever, well-planned sting operation targeting his medical practice.
Anatole France said, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, or steal bread." This, of course, leads to the poor, as a result of their resulting criminal records, remaining forever poor and subject to such legal strictures. Perhaps as an initial step, one early and easy area of reform might be in the area of criminal records and the way they are retained and disseminated. Perhaps, in the name of social justice and class mobility, there are some crimes that might more appropriately be forgiven and forgotten rather than so cruelly to tag the perpetrator as a criminal for life.
9. Those who hold offices of trust that choose to betray that trust and who instead become perpetrators of corruption must be dealt with very harshly as a warning to others to resist the temptations of power. This is essential to the maintenance of a free society. Where petty, victimless crimes might be let off more easily, these powerful crooks must be made to fear the hand of justice to the point at which they wisely choose to behave responsibly. Needless to say, I want Tom DeLay (and many other luminaries of the political right who are similarly situated) to die in jail. Furthermore, we need to repeal that law that was passed early after Republicans seized control in 2001 that makes Americans immune from judgment in the International Criminal Court. Our soldiers are not at risk -- that was just a ruse -- but only those who ordered their criminal behavior. I would like nothing better than to see George W. Bush handed over for judgment for his crimes, again as a warning to those who might wish to follow in his despotic, warmongering footsteps.
10. The influence of corporate and private wealth on our body politic must be minimized. Genuine campaign finance reform, which would include the complete elimination of political contributions and the recognition of such contributions as the bribery they are, are a must if our democracy is to return to a government of, by and for The People. Complete and exclusive public financing of campaigns is the only method that might achieve this. While the details of such a program would need to be fairly complex to protect the public's right to hear the messages of viable candidates while protecting the public from charlatans and piggies who merely want to suckle at the public teat during election season, I am confident that an equitable system could be worked out that adequately protects the public interest to an extent far, FAR greater than what we've got now.
So that's ten things we need to do. I'm quite certain there are others, but at least nobody can accuse me of only complaining about the problems without offering some possible solutions.
Woody Smith
The disasters on the Gulf Coast were not only a failure of our ability to respond to such incidents, but were a failure of our country's major infrastructure. We KNEW that the levees and floodwalls of the lower Mississippi presented risks, but we kept putting off repairs and improvements because they would be costly.
Similarly, we see traffic worsening every day, and roads and bridges, even as they are becoming less and less adequate when in perfect shape, falling into an increasing state of disrepair. And even then, we postpone the repairs and improvements because they would be costly.
Our air travel system is in shambles as our traffic control system is becoming more and more inadequate to the level of traffic it is expected to control, and our airlines are falling into bankruptcy and cutting maintenance and services to the point where flying is no longer a desirable, or perhaps even a safe, way to travel. The fleet of airliners in use is aging, and yet the alternatives available to European and Japanese travelers, high speed rail, is unavailable in America because, once again, the infrastructure has not received the maintenance and improvement necessary to make it viable for passenger use.
And yet, with all these material needs, we are fighting a ruinously costly war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and permitting, even encouraging, the exportation of American wealth, and the ability to generate that wealth, overseas. This is in the face of record high deficits caused directly by a dogmatic, ideologically-driven push to cut taxes to benefit the segment of society that already had been reaping the lion's share of the benefits of our market economy. This was at the expense of public works, public employment, and public services, the very things that we now suffer so greatly from their inadequacy in our day-to-day lives.
We see our bank accounts drained every time we fill our vehicles with fuel, taking our limited resources away from the other goods and services we were accustomed to purchasing and thus rippling through our entire economy. We are only starting to see the effects of this, as the gasoline price run-up is such a recent phenomenon that only the second or third credit card bills for the gasoline we've purchased since the beginning of this are just now starting to come due. The effect on our economy, as demonstrated by stock indices, is masked by the profits of the oil companies themselves, which are components of those indices. This concealment of our woes may become much more apparent as Christmas orders from stores to suppliers fall increasingly short of projections, and retail sales and tourism revenue fall even shorter than that. Remember, Black Monday did not occur in 1929 until October 29, still three weeks away (and "Just-In-Time Ordering," the way things are usually done today and why they NEVER have that part you need in stock anymore, might push an equivalent date out into mid-November or even early December now).
So much is wrong now that it is understandable not to know where to begin. We are inundated with such stress that it becomes very tempting just to throw up our hands in confusion. But I am a student of history and I have an admitted bias that holds that "there's nothing new under the sun." From this thought I have come to believe there IS a solution, or more properly a broad set of solutions, that flows from an abandoned political philosophy that once upon a time served us extraordinarily well when the problems we faced were worse and even more comprehensive than they are now -- the New Deal.
We need to abandon this notion that we must, first and foremost, carefully scrutinize the cost of everything without regard to its worth. We have to stop doing everything on the cheap and start doing it right instead. We have to look at what we need and meet those needs even if it means taxes, and even if some inefficiency might be involved. Hell, we're already the lowest taxed western industrialized nation, so we have a good bit of headroom there.
We need to return to the New Deal. Now, the New Deal was an overarching political philosophy, and to advocate a return to it is not to be confused with the advocacy of any specific program or policy, but just to name a few such specifics:
1. We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and devote our attention to the actual DEFENSE of America, American interests, and the security of American assets and people, rather than committing offenses against the peaceful aspirations of civilization as the Bush regime seems so compelled to do. The problem of terrorism is far better addressed through our system of justice and through a less obviously self-aggrandizing and pigheadedly assertive diplomacy. Our diplomatic efforts must be perceived as, and must actually consist of, actions in defense of people and justice rather than as backers and instigators of despotic regimes that merely serve our short-term commercial interests and convenience. This will eventually direct terrorist sentiment away from America and point it instead against foreign oppressors where it belongs. In this way we will once more stand on the "high ground" where we can exercise true leadership befitting our heritage and the power of our ideals without having to resort to military force to unjustly impose our will on others.
2. We are in SERIOUS need of MASSIVE public works and technological subsidies in the area of flood and other disaster control, roads, public transportation, and energy consumption. We are the richest nation in the world and we should not be facing such an imperative need to cut corners everywhere just to keep taxes down. These things not only improve our day-to-day lives, but they create jobs and stimulate the economy directly. Some infrastructure suggestions:
a. Obviously, levees and other flood control methods in the Mississippi Delta and in other vulnerable areas must be improved to the point where they can withstand 20% greater stress than can be expected from ANY potential storm. Sure it costs a little more, but what would it have been worth to have built such a system in New Orleans already?
b. We need to implement an effort similar to that which built our Interstate Highway System to construct a comprehensive system of intercity TGV railbeds that will interconnect with urban rail mass transportation. This will permit limiting air travel to only the longest routes, making rail more time- and fuel-efficient for anything under maybe 1,200 miles. It will also remove some of the traffic stress from our roads.
c. In urban areas there is a serious limit to how much expansion to road capacity is possible despite the increasing traffic problems. We can, however, build up where we can't build out -- we need to devote funds to engineering and building double-decks for a lot of major commuter routes (I-395 in the Washington area springs immediately to mind, but every major city has routes with similar problems). Tolls and gimmicks like HOV/HOT lanes are just stalling tactics that only provide short-term palliatives and that also have an unpalatable taste of elitism about them -- and that are nearly as expensive over the long term as double-decks.
d. A government-funded, Apollo-type technological push to develop viable and inexpensive high capacity electrical energy storage for vehicular use. Personally I think the notion of replaceable, rechargeable, automated-snap-in battery packs for cars would fill the bill (details on request).
3. We need to restore proper regulation of commerce and industry. We need to face the fact that deregulation, so glorified by rightwing dogma, has failed so consistently in so many areas that it must be considered invalid as a theory. The banks, the S&Ls, the airlines, securities trading, government procurement... These are all areas where government regulation was systematically dismantled and the evils that such regulation was initially implemented to prevent have resumed to flourish with a disastrous vengeance. The resulting corruption has spread throughout society and infected almost every area of commerce and industry, and most prominently to the world of politics where the corrupt influences are now feeding, indeed gorging themselves, on themselves.
The government is supposed to GOVERN, to restrain the more extreme impulses of a free market from careening into a dangerous state. We have got to remember what the word "govern" means, as we seem in the past 25 years or so to have forgotten.
4. We need national health care. The costs of our ridiculous "free market" in health care have now become such a burden on our economy that those industries that still provide health insurance for their employees are no longer competitive with foreign firms that do not need to offer such benefits, or those domestic firms that just leave their employees to fend for themselves. This is ridiculous -- in the entire civilized, industrialized world, everywhere BUT the United States health care is considered a right. It's such a shame that we, who so arrogantly pride ourselves on our guaranteed individual rights, need to be prodded into acknowledging such a basic right by petty commercial concerns, but "any port in a storm," so to speak.
5. We need, perhaps paramount above all other governmental needs, to return to a genuinely progressive system of income and wealth taxation, and a more comprehensive definition of "income" to include those methods used by wealthy tax dodgers and robber barons to conceal their riches from assessment, and to crack down hard on those who persist in such chicanery. We need to make whatever efforts we must to shut down those entities, such as foreign bank secrecy, that help the rich to cheat (and, it must be pointed out, help terrorists to hide the sources of their funding and help oppressive dictators drain the wealth of the nations over which they exercise their tyranny). Even the Swiss must be brought into line, by whatever means we might exercise.
6. We need to look closely at a return to some measure of industrial and commercial protectionism. It is clear that the internationalization of business and industry have benefited those at the top of the economic ladder at the great expense of those in the middle and at the bottom. There is a very real possibility that our abandonment of domestic market protection will eventually result, as its ultimate effect, in the reduction of the American standard of living down to the levels endured by peasants in the third world against which American workers are expected to compete on price.
7. We need to devote HUGE resources to fully public education. Do I really need to explain this? We should provide free, public education through at LEAST a bachelors degree for every American citizen whose abilities and inclinations permit him or her to go that far in school. And we need to pay teachers enough that it will become a desirable profession attracting the best students, and so we can train, hire and retain whole armies of good ones throughout America. This cannot be left to states and localities whose resources are, with only a few exceptions, inadequate to the task, and it therefore should be made a NATIONAL imperative.
Education is one area where "throwing money at the problem" often results in an effective solution. But it is an area of such great national importance, so essential to our future well-being, that some level of waste can be tolerated in the name of the greater good.
8. We need to look closely at our system of justice to try to moderate our punitive laws that harm more people's lives than they help. Of particular interest here are our drug laws, that saddle many of our youth, particularly among our racial and ethnic minorities, with crippling criminal records that consign them to lives of crime, poverty and hopelessness and that follow them throughout their entire lives. The harshly punitive and intrusive drug laws were implemented as self-serving political ploys during periods of mass insanity in America, but to reform these unjust laws always faces excited appeals by rabid self-interested politicians to the fears and bigotry of ignorant and thoughtless voters. Such reform will require genuinely strong leadership, but any effort in this regard will face tricks and treachery by its opponents, as was faced by Jimmy Carter's attempt when his "Drug Czar," Dr. Peter Bourne, had his plans of decriminalization derailed by a clever, well-planned sting operation targeting his medical practice.
Anatole France said, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, or steal bread." This, of course, leads to the poor, as a result of their resulting criminal records, remaining forever poor and subject to such legal strictures. Perhaps as an initial step, one early and easy area of reform might be in the area of criminal records and the way they are retained and disseminated. Perhaps, in the name of social justice and class mobility, there are some crimes that might more appropriately be forgiven and forgotten rather than so cruelly to tag the perpetrator as a criminal for life.
9. Those who hold offices of trust that choose to betray that trust and who instead become perpetrators of corruption must be dealt with very harshly as a warning to others to resist the temptations of power. This is essential to the maintenance of a free society. Where petty, victimless crimes might be let off more easily, these powerful crooks must be made to fear the hand of justice to the point at which they wisely choose to behave responsibly. Needless to say, I want Tom DeLay (and many other luminaries of the political right who are similarly situated) to die in jail. Furthermore, we need to repeal that law that was passed early after Republicans seized control in 2001 that makes Americans immune from judgment in the International Criminal Court. Our soldiers are not at risk -- that was just a ruse -- but only those who ordered their criminal behavior. I would like nothing better than to see George W. Bush handed over for judgment for his crimes, again as a warning to those who might wish to follow in his despotic, warmongering footsteps.
10. The influence of corporate and private wealth on our body politic must be minimized. Genuine campaign finance reform, which would include the complete elimination of political contributions and the recognition of such contributions as the bribery they are, are a must if our democracy is to return to a government of, by and for The People. Complete and exclusive public financing of campaigns is the only method that might achieve this. While the details of such a program would need to be fairly complex to protect the public's right to hear the messages of viable candidates while protecting the public from charlatans and piggies who merely want to suckle at the public teat during election season, I am confident that an equitable system could be worked out that adequately protects the public interest to an extent far, FAR greater than what we've got now.
So that's ten things we need to do. I'm quite certain there are others, but at least nobody can accuse me of only complaining about the problems without offering some possible solutions.
Woody Smith
posted by Lee at 8:08 AM
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