Rantle

By Eric Anschutz, November 14, 2007

We are the World: Because I went to college in Boston, and then lived there for some years, and because we have a son who, with his family, lives there now, Sidsel and I took a big interest in the recent World Series baseball games. The American League team was the Boston Red Sox, and the National League Team was the Denver Rockies. Bringing these two teams together seemed to represent the continental reach of America: east/west, blue/red, coast/mountain. But, more than that, while watching the games, we reflected on the diverse origins of the players. It is this very diversity that gives unique strength and fiber to our nation. Consider just a few of the names. From Boston, we had Manny Ramirez, Diasuke Matsuzaka, Jonathan Papelbon, and Kenneth Youklis. Denver gave us Troy Tulewitzky, Kazuo Matsui, Yorbit Torrealba and Jimmy Affeldt. To me, the ethnic reach represented by names like these has a special beauty. These men, or their forbears, are from every corner of the world, yet each is quintessentially American, as is the game of baseball. Somehow, it made us feel proud of our country.

Cost of War: The final cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is now projected to be $2.4 trillion. This new estimate, by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, factors in costs previously not counted, such as long term care for wounded soldiers, interest on the debt incurred by borrowing to pay for the war, and support for forces remaining in the Mid-East region for another ten years.

The tragedy of this mess is not only that it was all so unnecessary, but that the war has been so completely counterproductive. Instead of buying security with these vast sums, we have bought insecurity. Instead of buying respect and support for our policies, we have bought fear and contempt. Instead of stability, we have bought unease and tension. Instead of democracy, we have nurtured rule by Sharia (Islamic) Law. And instead of buying education, health care, infrastructure, alternative sources of energy, and international good will, we have needlessly lost so many lives, and mired ourselves in massive debt, much of will be passed on to our children and grandchildren and beyond.

Iran: Rudi Giuliani advocates bombing Iran sooner rather than later, and he dismisses the notion that military action against Iran constitutes a “war.” Instead, he thinks of it in terms of “precise strikes.” Mitt Romney beats his own set of war drums: “we have a number of options, from blockade to bombardment of some kind.” Giuliani and Romney and others (including, albeit perhaps to a lesser degree, many of the Democrats) who advocate or merely contemplate military action against Iran are living in the fantasyland of “surgical strikes,” where we could bomb with impunity and with no consequence. Do they really believe that Iran, after being bombed, losing the lives of at least those Iranians who work at their nuclear facilities, losing their costly investment in what they claim is peaceful nuclear technology, would merely shrug off the insult of our attack? This country of 70 million people will be united as never before by any attack, surgical or otherwise. They will surely retaliate. Meanwhile, as we move ever closer to attack, we continue to reject negotiations, refusing to test the possibility that Iran might accept limits on its nuclear technology in return for diplomatic recognition, a non-aggression pact, and favorable trade arrangements (including their oil and gas). Oh –I forgot – we don’t negotiate with our enemies. Reminder to all the hawks: we are already in two wars, both, failing; isn’t that enough?

Darth Vader: Vice President Cheney, whose approval ratings are now down to 18%, said, with a rare attempt at humor, that “Darth Vader is one of the nicer things I’ve been called recently.” When I read reports of this kind I wonder if those who find themselves so widely distrusted ever look into the mirror and wonder whether they might be wrong. Policies and actions imposed on the country by Bush and Cheney have failed again and again. I know that these two men continue to have the illusion of progress, and believe that history will prove them and their policies to have been right. But I can’t help but wonder whether they are ever troubled by the fact that some 80% of the American electorate disagrees – and whether they ever ask themselves if the 80% might be seeing something that they fail to see or to understand? I do want our leaders to be self-confident, and to lead rather than be guided at every turn by polls. But when our leader’s actions are so widely and so continuously opposed, there comes a time, it seems to me, when they should begin to more actively listen to guidance from outside their immediate circle of discredited advisors.

By Eric Anschutz, November 7, 2007

One of civilization’s most vexing questions is why nations resort to violence against each other. Every culture condemns murder, yet killing in the name of the State (and now in the name of God) is not only permitted but has traditionally been glorified.

Exhortations to maintain peace are an almost inevitable part of public and ceremonial events. Political candidates and public of¬ficials promise peace on every possible occasion, but war and mayhem continue, always justified as necessary to achieve noble goals: democracy, security, stability, regime change, nation building. War is necessary, we are told, if we are to achieve lasting peace!

An important inquiry into the causes of war comes from psychologist Ralph White’s Nobody Wanted War. White describes certain factors that, by distorting one group’s view of another when there is confrontation or con¬flict, can lead to a justification of violence:

• Diabolical enemy-image; the enemy is bad and must be destroyed. The enemy is perceived as externally aggressive and internally suppressive. His institutions and ideology are a cancer that must at any cost be stopped from spreading; he must be preempted before he attacks us.
• Moral self-image; our way is good and honorable and must be preserved. Our enemies are not trustworthy; they are preparing for aggression. Both parties are convinced that God is on their side.
• Virile self-image. The essential thing is to seem con¬sistent, strong and firm. Our enemies understand only strength. The possibility of our use of force must always remain “on the table.”
• Selective inattention – the tendency to focus attention only on information that reinforces the black-white images described above. White or gray elements on the enemy side are glossed over; there is interest only in the black.
• Absence of empathy; little or no effort is made to understand how the situation looks from the adversary’s point of view, and to seek negotiation in lieu of confrontation and war.
• Military overconfidence. Those who enter wars do so with full confidence that they can win – overlooking possible difficulties.

In searching for ways to eliminate wars, one instinctively turns to religious principles. All contemporary religions teach love and brotherhood, and tolerance for the actions of others is at least implicit in religious philosophy. Yet here we confront a supreme irony, to wit, much contemporary violence is rooted in religious differences. Thus, religion not only fails to provide direction in a search for alter¬natives to war, but we find religious fundamentalism often serving as a stimulus to terrorism, and to war.

Perception, or more accurately misperception plays a central role in the causes of war. What to one side is an alliance in support of freedom is to the other military encircle¬ment. What to one side is liberation is to the other aggression. What to one side is firm resolution of internal disputes is to the other suppression of human rights. And so it goes in all confrontations. Every army is defending; no nation or subnational group considers itself aggressive.

When leaders beat the drums of war, flags seem suddenly to wave more proudly. The language of war stirs the national pulse. President Bush delivered a classic call to arms with his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002: “States like these (North Korea, Iran and Iraq), and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”

The media lined up in support of the President’s war rhetoric; most Americans were proud of a President who stood tall against those who would oppose us: “Bring them on” was his mantra. Those disposed to caution and negotiation were dismissed as wrongheaded wimps, soft on terrorism, or, worse yet, unpatriotic. And the nation plunged headlong into now widely regretted and wholly counterproductive war. Even now, as we are mired in Iraq, our leaders are once again beating the war drums to prepare us for an even wider war, possibly to include Iran – and Syria – and Hezbollah and Hamas – and perhaps even Turkey. When will we learn?

What might be done to avoid the calamity of future counterproductive wars of choice? I would advocate two steps. First, we could consider legislation that would prohibit military action in the absence of a Congressional Declaration of War – with caveats for emergencies and surprise attacks. And, second, we should remind ourselves at every turn of the words of two former Presidents, both Republicans: President Eisenhower said, in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” And, it was President Theodore Roosevelt who once said that “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” In stark contrast, President Bush (43) has said, “You’re either for us or against us.” Roosevelt’s pronouncement encouraged debate and open examination. Bush’s killed it.

by Eric Anschutz, October 31, 2007

Warren Buffet, multibillionaire investor (and philanthropist extraordinaire), objecting to President Bush’s lopsided tax policies, has noted that his income, which comes entirely from dividends and capital gains, is taxed at a lower rate than is the income (from salary) of clerks in his office. Yet, Republican candidates for the 2008 presidential elections fall all over themselves in their “debates” pledging ever-greater reductions of income tax rates, never commenting on our enormous national debt. Their argument runs like this: lower tax rates will cause people to work harder because they retain a larger share of earnings; and, skewing tax cuts to favor those with high incomes will encourage investment. For both these reasons, they assert, the economy will be stimulated, thereby producing more jobs, national income will rise, and the resulting increase in tax revenues will lower the deficit. “The rising tide will lift all boats!” Wealth at the top, they say, will “trickle down” through investments, thereby creating new businesses and more jobs!

Sounds good, but it is fantasy, not fact. Though economists warn of a coming recession, there is a sense today that the economy is strong. The stock market, though jittery, is at an all time high, and unemployment is low. But the sad fact is that our economy is kept afloat on a sea of borrowed money. Through the sale of US Treasury Bonds, we are borrowing from abroad, much of it from China and Japan. They lend the money, happily, so that we can buy Chinese products from Wal-Mart and Costco, and Japanese cars from Toyota, Nissan and Honda. Like a family that foolishly spends more than it earns, the aura of seeming “prosperity,” when based on borrowing, is never sustainable.

The Bush tax policies have favored the wealthy, widening the gap between rich and poor, and taken us from President Clinton’s strong and growing surplus to a massive and growing deficit. When Clinton took office in 1992, the annual deficit inherited from Bush 41 was $404 billion. When Clinton left office in 2000, he bequeathed to Bush 43 an annual budget surplus of $79 billion, and our accumulated national debt was about $5.5 trillion. The misguided tax policies of Bush 43 have raised our annual deficit to $250 billion, and our accumulated debt to its current all-time high of $9 trillion (some $700 billion of that comes from the war in Iraq).

Now, here is the part of the Republican economic stimulus fantasy that the Republican tax-reduction enthusiasts never talk about: this debt is a sword of Damocles hanging over our economy. Should foreign holders of trillions of dollars worth of US bonds ever decide to cash them in, our economy would plummet. Because their economies depend on sales to US markets, China and Japan are unlikely to demand payment in the near term – but their massive and growing holdings of US treasure give them considerable leverage in trade and diplomatic negotiations.

The fact that we need to pay interest every year on our massive national debt is another, and perhaps more immediate problem. Here are the numbers. As I have reported, our national debt is currently $9 trillion, which amounts to $30,000 for every one of us. The interest we pay on that debt comes to $456 billion yearly, or $38 billion, every month, which comes to $53 million every hour of every day of the year. That amounts to $4.23 every day for every American man, woman and child. On average, for a family of four, that comes to about $17 every day, including weekends and holidays, owed to China and Japan and others who hold US Treasury Bonds.

Republicans tell us that the government takes money out of our pockets and puts it into the hands of Washington (or local or state) bureaucrats. True enough, but that ignores the reality that by keeping taxes lower than any other first tier country, we are forced to defer or ignore national needs. Bridges and highways and parks and water supplies and levees and electrical grids and sewers don’t get built. Education and health care and police are under-funded. Research into, and deployment of, alternative energy sources remains undone. Our inner cities and major airports and urban transportation systems remain dismal and inefficient, completely outclassed by those in Northern Europe, where tax rates are generally twice US levels (and where people don’t mind paying them).

Economists tell us: “There is no free lunch.” Right. If we want to live in a beautiful, safe, healthy clean place we need to pay for it. We need to remember that monies spent on public projects such as infrastructure and education are not expenses; they are investments that, properly executed, pay for themselves many times over. The trick is to invest wisely, not to refrain from investing. The best way to stimulate the economy, and to return money to taxpayers, is through federal spending to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and to educate its citizens.