July 30, 2008. War crimes during the war in the Balkans and more recently in the Sudan have been in the news lately, and both sets include murder of innocents because of their ethnic or religious background. My recollection of war crimes includes very few instances that do not cover such atrocities. To hate someone for his ethnic, religious, or political background is an atrocity; acting on that hatred is clearly a crime.
So now we are prosecuting the prisoners of war housed at Guantanamo for war crimes. The first defendant's crime was doing non-atrocious things for Osama bin Laden--things like driving his car and delivering supplies. But Osama is a bad guy, so helping him in any way is a war crime. Using that logic, you could prosecute and ultimately execute the clerk at the corner market for selling Osama a newspaper. The linkage is sparse, to say the least.
We as a nation have given up our claim on the moral high ground. We may have been justified in taking war to the Taliban in Afghanistan, but the war in Iraq has no such justification. We invaded because our Congress was stupid enough to believe the bundle of convenient lies that George W. Bush and his band of thieves were able to cobble together. Bush had enough sycophants in the Congress that the authorization to use force would have passed without them, but most of the Democrats who were in Congress at the time fell right into line, and they have to take their share of the blame.
The concept of the war crime is difficult to explain because there are no laws against which war crimes are charged. It is after the fact, after the war is over, that the victors decide how to punish the leaders of their defeated foe for the implicit crime of waging war. We wanted to punish the Nazi leadership for the atrocities that they inflicted on the people of Europe, so we convicted them of largely undefined "crimes against humanity." We can't define crimes against humanity, but we know them when we see them. There is no doubt that Hitler's top leaders deserved to die for their crimes, but I'm not completely satisfied with the grounds we scrounged up to justify their execution.
The point I'm trying to make is that war crimes are perpetrated by the leaders of the defeated country, not the footsoldiers. We house footsoldiers away from the battle while the war continues, but they aren't tried as criminals. Some countries treat their prisoners with contempt, but we have always tried to keep them out of the war as comfortably as possible.
Until now, that is. Today, all of the captured combatants from the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are housed in putrid conditions with plans to try them as war criminals. If we should find ourselves in another war someday, the way we have treated our prisoners in this one will have a terrible effect on the conditions our captured soldiers must endure. I know we're just treating them the way North Vietnam treated our captured airmen, but a past deplorable circumstance is no excuse for escalating it later. We ought to be bigger than that.
July 29, 2008. I noted a few days ago that the price of crude oil has dropped by more than $25 per barrel over the last two weeks, over which time the local price of regular gasoline actually went up by three cents a gallon. Today, the AAA poll of service stations nationwide indicated a reduction in the national average price of regular gasoline by more than 25 cents during the last two weeks, to slightly less than $3 per gallon. Today, the local price of regular gasoline gave up its three-cent premium over the price on July 14.
I don't have confirmed knowledge of the local distribution arrangements, but I have heard in the past that all of the gasoline on the local market (except maybe for that sold by Costco and Walmart) is distributed by one jobber. One commercial entity deciding how much motor fuel will cost everywhere in the area. The only competition is among local retailers, and none of them has more than a nickel or so per gallon to play with. Somebody is taking us for an expensive ride, and it isn't the poor soul behind the cash register at the Sun Mart.
The opacity of local motor fuel prices accentuates the need to establish regulatory control over this mode of energy distribution. I don't believe that the federal government would be the best manager of motor fuel prices, but the current top-to-bottom monopoly must be very nearly the worst.
July 28, 2008. The temptation is strong to base your vote on a single issue--a litmus test, if you will. If you feel strongly about something, it's easy to hitch your hopes to the candidate who says what you want to hear. If that's the way you vote, that's your prerogative. But you should be aware of the issues that will tag along with your golden boy after he takes office.
People who lean to the left may favor the Democratic candidate because he is likely to appoint Supreme Court justices over the next four to eight years that can be a counterbalance to the extreme conservative views that have gradually taken control over the last couple of decades. If you vote for Senator Obama because he is likely to appoint an anti-Alito, remember that liberal views do not qualify a prospective jurist.
People who lean to the right may favor the Republican candidate because he opposes the rights of gays to marry. Such a choice has an obvious downside, as we have seen since the 2004 election. A charismatic bonehead with a savvy (and possibly crooked) political advisor can draw enough votes with hate that we sacrifice the lives of thousands of our young men and women to keep the price of crude oil high.
So I'm thinking about some issues on which my candidate might fall on the wrong side. I have more hope for our future under Senator Obama than I have had for a presidential candidate in my entire life, but I see a few dark clouds. The most worrisome of those clouds has to do with nuclear power, which is the most immediately available of our remedies to high oil prices and global warming. Senator McCain is on the right side of this issue.
I have great respect for Senator McCain's years of dedicated service to his country, both as a naval aviator and as a member of Congress. He has no need to prove himself loyal to the country I love, but there are other issues that might fall on the other side of the balance. One of these issues is forty years as a Washington insider, a level of experience which may stand in the way of the dramatic change of direction our country needs.
If you plan to vote for McCain because the Democrats didn't nominate Hillary or to vote for Obama because the Republicans didn't nominate Huckabee, you would be doing the country and even yourself a favor if you were to think about how you cast your vote in a much broader sense. I have been as guilty as anyone of casting my vote against one candidate instead of for another, but that level of cynicism is not healthy for the country.
So all that really matters to me as a litmus test is that we not empower any anarchist, monarchist, extremist, or dullard as the next leader of our country. All the other issues are important, of course, but none is so important that it eclipses all the others.
July 25, 2008. I heard a sound byte yesterday in which Republican candidate John McCain praised George W. Bush for bringing the price of crude oil down over the last two weeks. I couldn't believe my ears. Does McCain believe the American public to be so stupid that they will give Bush credit for a $20 per barrel reduction in the price of crude oil after his illegal war raised it by $100 a barrel?
Well, McCain may be justified. We were stupid enough to let George W. Bush and his band of thieves steal two presidential elections on the strength of hatred. And we were stupid enough to believe that a change in Congressional leadership would make a difference. And we just might be stupid enough to put yet another Republican in the White House because he comes up with the right names to call the Democratic nominee.
We have lived on stupidity and hate for long enough. I believe I deserve better. If our government is so disconnected from the population that leadership can only prevail through a combination of hate and stupidity, we should think about making some changes.
We might change the complexion of our government through a series of Constitutional amendments. We might consider some or all of the following:
A few years ago, right after the Republican steamroller took control of our government, I thought John McCain would be the single voice of reason among the shrill cries of the partisans. He did show promise up until the time that he started campaigning for President. But when he realized that Obama's calls for change--or even Clinton's--were much more powerful than his own, he had to appeal to the "core values" of his party--and that means hate. Now that McCain has gravitated to endless war in the Middle East and putting the desires of the wealthy ahead of the rights of the individual, he has just turned into just another right-winger.
I could just cry.
July 23, 2008. Over the last week and a half, the spot market price of crude oil has dropped by more than $20. During that same period of time, the best the local market has been able to do is hold the price increase below five cents per gallon. Something smells fishy here.
When the price of crude oil escalates, the retail price of motor fuel follows it quickly upward. The standard excuse is that the retail market has to cover the cost of replacing crude oil inventory as the less expensive product on hand is depleted. When the price of crude oil goes down, however, the price of replacement oil isn't nearly as important as the dollars that went out for the gasoline we pumped today.
So which is it, Big Oil? Does the retail price reflect the cost of the crude oil from which the motor fuel was extracted, or does it depend on the cost of replacing it? The answer is pretty clear: whichever is higher. While we would be seeing the impact of an increase in the cost of crude within just a few days, we won't see the impact of a cost reduction until September, when today's speculative oil will be delivered. And we won't see any reduction at all if the price goes back up again before then.
So what's the answer? Is it more tax cuts for the wealthy, or is it more drilling? It is neither, in my estimation. The only reason for either of those "solutions" is more money in the hands of the very wealthy, which translates into being able to buy more of our leaders. We have had nearly eight years of a "good" politician (meaning when he gets bought he stays bought) in control, and that's more than enough for me.
July 16, 2008. Our major party candidates aren't addressing the problem of our nation's energy needs. McCain wants offshore drilling and more nuclear power plants, both of which could be helpful eventually, but neither of them will be enough to make a difference for at least ten years. We need more choices, choices we can implement immediately and see results soon enough to stop energy profiteers from destroying the world economy.
The war in which we find ourselves today is not military conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war is being waged in the world's economy, and it pits the consumers of the world against the small number of multinational corporations that hold a de facto monopoly on the world's energy supply. For our economy to survive this war, we're going to have to take drastic measures.
Big Oil blames speculators for the balloon in crude oil prices without giving us the slightest clue as to who those speculators might be. Actually, the identity doesn't matter as much as the actions. And the response to those actions that will hurt the speculators (or manipulators) most will be something that turns their windfall profit into a substantial loss. I have a suggestion.
The first drastic measure will be to declare combustible fuel a regulated utility. Put the economic bullies into the same controlled environment that kept us safe from electric monopolies until the Reagan administration set the wheels of deregulation in motion and planted the seeds of Enron. Regulate every aspect of fuel supply from the port to the pump. Control the price at the pump to allow a reasonable rate of return on investment. Investment, I hasten to point out, is not a consumable commodity. Crude oil is not an investment; it is a commodity. While the national economy owes utilities a reasonable rate of return on investment, we don't owe them any return on commodities at all.
When the American thirst for crude oil is isolated from the international market, international demand will dwindle by nearly half, and that means that the price will, of necessity, come down. If there is a speculative bubble, it will burst when demand drops below supply. If the price of crude oil doesn't drop in response to a 50% drop in global demand, then it will be time to investigate the oil companies for potentially illegal market manipulation.
With lower regulated prices at the pump, the oil companies will divert oil elsewhere in the world where they can continue to achieve large profits. Big Oil will immediately try to export American oil to those same unregulated markets to keep their profits high. That brings up the second drastic measure. We need to nationalize all of the crude oil beneath our territory and charge the oil companies by the barrel for that which they extract. Thinking with tongue in cheek, we might determine the wellhead price from the speculative price. That way, profits might drop from more than $100 per barrel to only a few dollars
There are other ways to isolate American demand from the international market, but creating a regulated utility for petroleum-based fuels would have the most permanent effect. We could accomplish the same international end by closing our borders to transfer of petroleum-based fuels, but that action would do nothing to discourage a new class of domestic gougers.
We will be forcing ourselves to live within our energy means while making sure that our energy supply isn't being stolen in favor of profits on the Chinese market. We'll be doing the rest of the world a favor, too, by exposing the bad players who have illegally exploited global uncertainty caused by war in the Middle East as the criminals that they are.
July 11, 2008. I listened to an interview with former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on NPR this morning, and I was surprised to hear such naivete in the words of so successful an executive. She could have been speaking in George W. Bush's mealy-mouthed drawl when she said that small business is the driver of our economy, and repealing the Bush tax cuts would hurt small business, thereby eliminating jobs and hurting the economy.
(Replace "small business" with "investment" or "drilling in ANWR" in that last sentence and you'll get Bush's complete economic program du jour.)
To borrow a term from Penn & Teller, Bullshit. I know from personal experience that small business' tax load is a contributor to the bottom line, but it's not the primary influence. The primary influence is revenue. If a business sells more of its product, the increased revenue will support creation of more jobs regardless of the tax load. If, on the other hand, the volume of sales (and therefore revenue) is flat, reducing the tax load does nothing more than increase profit. Which, incidentally, is also the net result of increased demand.
In other words, reducing the tax load carried by small business does nothing to create jobs. Reducing the tax load on the general public, however, puts more money into the pockets of customers with lower incomes, and they will be able to spend more. More demand, not lower taxes, creates jobs. Money flows upward through the economy much more readily than it trickles down. A dollar inserted at the bottom of the economic ladder may be worth 99 cents when it reaches the top rung because people who handle it at the lower levels put every penny back into circulation. A dollar inserted at the top may never reach the bottom rung at all.
Preserving tax cuts in the highest tax brackets does nothing for small business. Even if the owner of a small business files his business tax return as part of his personal tax return, he isn't likely to make the megabucks that the tax cuts favor. Small businesses just don't generate that much revenue. If you want to help small business, structure the business tax brackets to favor them. It won't create more jobs, but it might keep some of them going.
What really ought to happen is reinstatement of the higher individual income tax brackets and a reduction in the tax break for capital gains. Remember, Dick Cheney enjoyed a tax cut of nearly $2 million during the first year of the Bush tax cuts. How much did your taxes go down? And how much did your cost of living go up? Don't buy the adminstration's malarkey. Give it the duck test instead. If it looks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
July 8, 2008. Both of the major party candidates are morphing into the waffle which once represented Bill Clinton in Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip. McCain has waffled seriously from his tried-and-true maverick stance on Republican party issues, while Obama has waffled his stance on the war in Iraq to the point that he might as well be Hillary. Both men may be courting the votes of their party's mainstream, but neither of them is heading in the right direction.
The general population has grown weary of the corrupt Bush administration, and McCain won't be doing himself any favors to align himself more closely with their failed policies. He may get the votes of the warmongers and the God Nazis, but he'll estrange more votes in the center than he will gain.
The general population also selected Obama over Clinton because his stance on the war in Iraq was so different from hers. By waffling back toward the endless war position, Obama may be seeking the support of Hillary's backers, but he isn't doing a very good job of hanging on to the loyalty of the people who voted for him originally.
The longer this waffling goes on, the more alike the two candidates become. If we don't really have a choice, why bother voting? The immortal George Carlin repeatedly claimed to ignore election day, choosing instead to "stay home and jerk off." At least he would get something out of it, he said.
I don't honestly believe that Carlin would choose not to participate in a national election, but he did have a point. If I don't have a legitimate reason for choosing Tweedledee over Tweedledum (or vice versa), why should I agonize over the decision? In 1976, I could see no functional difference between Ford and Carter, so I voted for Eugene McCarthy instead.
Take heed, Senators McCain and Obama. Some of the voters are actually listening.
July 2, 2008. John McCain was quoted as having declined comment on the upcoming election while abroad (in Colombia) yesterday, stating that partisanship ends at the border. Maybe that isn't such a big deal to most people, but it shows me just how far above his Republican colleagues McCain really does stand. I still can't bring myself to vote for a man who is even remotely affiliated with the partisan machine that has brought the country to its knees over the last eight years, but I'm not quite as horrified at the thought of putting yet another Republican in the White House.
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Copyright © 2008 Jack Chandler.
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