Supreme Court rules that gun rights apply locally

Who says the Supreme Court is filled with right-wing ideologues? They've just issued a ruling which trumps states' rights in favor of federal authority. I love this because it means we'll be able to count on the court -- when states start to fight the federal government over the national healthcare system -- to side with the federal government.

After all, we're talking a court that wants our government's policies to be vetted against a strict reading of the founding documents and what could be more basic and more founding than the Declaration of Independance, which claims as our inalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And what is more necessary to sustain "life" than healthcare for all? QED.

I'm so relieved!!

G20 pledges to slash debt in 3 years

Yes, folks, believe it or not, according to a just-filed ABC (that's Australian Broadcasting Corporation)story, the G20 (that's the people who actually work for the people who actually run the world) has resolved for the G20 nations to cut their budget deficits in half in 3 years. The report also says that "The leaders want to tackle deficits without stunting growth, while also clamping down on risky bank behaviour without choking off lending."

Yeah, and I want to make a billion dollars without leaving my home or getting up before noon each day. (Guess I should have been an investment banker.)

In one of those lovely coincidences that makes reading the news such fun, I also just read that the CIA has signed a $100 million contract with Xe Services to provide security services in Afghanistan. As you may recall, Xe Services is the new name for Blackwater, the mercenaries -- er paramiliary professionals -- who, no doubt among other things, were involved in a firefight in Iraq that ended up with 17 dead civilians. But, what the heck, that's collateral damage: if you can't stand the heat, get out of the war zone. I guess that changing their name worked - we the taxpayer have hired them again.

Meanwhile, back at the G20 -- and at plenty of other meetings leading up to the G20 pronouncement on deficits -- the main theme has been on how profligate governments have been in providing their citizens luxury services like healthcare, retirement pensions, and so on, big social "giveaways," which, if governments weren't saddled with providing, would free up that much more money to feed the endless-war machine and to provide much-deserved taxcuts for the rich.

The worst oil spill in US history

I keep seeing the Gulf oil spill referred to in those terms. But, since the oceans are all interconnected and, since the clean-up effort itself is causing additional pollution -- both in the water and in the air -- which itself is likely to spread far and wide, shouldn't we be calling it the worst oil spill in the history of the world?

Or are we afraid that, if we acknowledge the broader effects of the disaster, we might get sued by Mexico, Europe, and God-knows who else when our oil washes up on their shores, when our plume of smoke from burning off the oil reaches their air space?

N. Korea - the convenient bad guy

I am not defending what appears to have been another pointless and destructive action by N. Korea, but, as usual, the discussions in the popular press, and the pronouncements by politicians underscore the hypocrisy with which American foreign policy is riddled. Thus, it is worth pointing out a few things:

First, there is the treatment of the sinking of the So. Korean warship by a No. Korean torpedo as though it were some sort of crime against humanity. I'm not minimizing the deaths of the sailors on board the So. Korean ship, but it was a military vessel, not a cruise-ship. It's crew were military men and therefore had an understanding of the possibility of military engagement. Contrast this with the death we the USA regularly rain down upon Afghanistan using unmanned aircraft (so we don't have to look at the people we're killing). How many civilians have we killed thus far in our attempt to bring "peace and freedom" to Afghanistan? Not to mention the virtual destruction of Iraq?

Second, the Korean War is technically not even over, thus any hostile act between the belligerants comes under the rubric of that war. And, of course, the So. Korean ship was right at the disputed boundary between the territorial waters of the two countries.

It is also worth noting that there are additional strategic factors in the US' predictably sanctimonious response to the event. First, we'd like to continue to keep a base on Okinawa, despite the fact that WW II has been over for 65 years, despite the fact that the base has been the source of several ugly crimes committed by US military personnel against the local population and despite the fact that the Japanese consider the base to be an affront to Japanese sovereignty. Coincidentally, the Korean affair comes at a time when the USA is re-negotiating the terms of the Okinawa base agreement and Sec. of State Clinton has lost no time reminding the Japanese of our alliance and the importance for their security of having us remain in the area in light of the Korean affair.

Not unrelated to this is our generally waning influence and the general ascendancy of Chinese influence, both in Asia and in the world. We don't like it in general and we don't like it in Asia, which, after all, belongs to us (just as the Middle East does). Thus, every event in Asia requires our intervention, just to remind everyone of who is still in charge.

The Devil is in the GOP

So the healthcare bill has finally passed, after a year of wrangling, public lies by the GOP and their fellow travelers, and every effort - parliamentary or otherwise -- to derail it. Any feelings of victory at its passage will be short-lived, because the Rethuglicans and their minions have already declared their intention to challenge it any way they can and to use it in the midterm congressional elections as something with which to beat the Democrats up.

Funny how trying to do something to help ordinary Americans would engender anger and hatred against the Democrats. (Not that I love the Democrats, but that's another story.) Funny how the healthcare bill is considered a budget buster, while the two wars Bush started -- and which continue to this day -- are apparently not viewed as having made any contribution to our deficits, despite the $1 Trillion+ we have spent on them so far. Not to mention his budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy.

Odd that gun ownership is viewed as some sort of sacred right, but access to affordable healthcare is not.

Odd that abortion is an abomination, but allowing -- nay, encouraging -- people to bring up children in poverty and ignorance and with little access to healthcare is a good thing.

Odd that spending massive amounts of money to kill people in the Middle East is "good for America," but improvements to the healthcare system here at home constitutes the worst thing that has ever happened to America, as some Rethuglicans have pronounced it.

Odd that private control of healthcare decision-making and costs by big insurance is a priori a good thing, but public control by government is a bad thing. What would be the rationale for this view? Is there information to back up the superiority of the private sector over the public sector in managing anything? No, but there is a simple perception, reinforced by the right, that big business is your friend and government is your enemy. It is based on nothing defensible, but is a widely-held notion, nonetheless.

This belief flies in the face of the fact that Medicaid, for instance, has lower administrative costs than private insurance. It also runs counter to the underlying facts of our current financial crisis, which are the result of conniving by the financial sector to defraud the American people. (Is government to blame? Yes, but only to the extent that its regulators were convinced by the same connivers that regulation was unnecessary or actually bad.) And what about the poor performance of GM and Chrysler? What does that say about the competence of big biz?

I could go on, but why bother? The atmosphere for intelligent argument in this country is so ruined -- so poisoned by lies and manipulation -- that no amount of reasonableness can penetrate the cloud of inanity.

More US Hypocrisy on Israel

In a March 9 AP story on MSNBC entitled "Biden Slams Jerusalem Housing Plan", one might have expected to read that Biden was criticizing the Israelis for their obstinate expansionism and for the racist content of their Jerusalem housing quotas, which seem designed to ensure that Israelis outnumber Arabs in the city.

One would be wrong; the whole flap was actually over some Israeli functionary's announcement of further housing development, not over the actual fact of that development. The VP was angry because (a) the announcement, coming as it did during his visit to Israel, was a personal embarrassment for him and (b) because it threatens to derail his efforts at salesmanship of the never-ending peace process circus.

If there's one thing we know about the new world order it is that it's the triumph of form over substance. Biden is trying with his visit to undo the perception that our president doesn't think much of Netanyahu nor of Israeli expansionism and to assure the Israelis that they are our friends and allies no matter what vile things they get up to.

After all, some 50% of the Jews in the world live in the USA and, of those that voted for Obama, many did so only because of a large propaganda ploy during the campaign to convince them that he would continue America's role as a "friend to Israel." Thus, we are told we must hold our noses and let Israel do whatever it wants. And, what our politicians don't need is for the Israelis to do something blatant during a state visit by our VP, thus revealing, once again, the actual substance of Israel's commitment to peace, which is nil.

Yes, we ARE due for a revolution

Thank you Sarah Palin for saying what many of us have been thinking for some time: the good ole USA needs a revolution (or "another" revolution, if you believe the war of independance qualifies as a revolution). Unfortunately for SP, she would not be likely to come out on top of such an upheaval -- at least not if I were in charge.

It's easy to throw around words like "revolution," especially when you are someone who doesn't have much respect for either deep thought or the meaning of words, but I suspect that, if SP were to really contemplate what a revolution might entail -- especially if I were running it -- she might be less sanguine in calling for one.

No, in my revolution, she, along with a great deal of her fellow travellers in the anti-worker-but-pro-big-biz, anti-deficit-but-pro-taxcuts-for-the-rich, anti-civil-liberties-but-pro-big-war, anti-science-but-pro-big-religion, anti-intellectual-but-pro-demagogue part of the population would be signed up for a mandatory visit to a citizenship retraining camp, AKA the guillotine.

In an ideal world, I'd like to remain on cordial terms with them all and share the country with them. In an ideal world, I could utter the usual platitudes about how all voices should be heard in a democracy. Unfortunately, in this world, where 1% of the population control 50% of the wealth -- and, along with it, the Congress and the media, to mention just two -- we have a situation that more closely resembles pre-revolutionary France than pre-revolutionary America, and which, therefore, more properly calls for the remedy employed by the former.