Syrian conflict has created a refugee crisis

The civil war in Syria has expectedly fostered a humanitarian crisis for noncombatants.  The UN Refugee Agency revealed that 170,000 Syrians have been registered in adjacent Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.  The crisis has restricted civilian access to food and medical care.  The latter is particularly alarming given the contaminated water supply in Damascus which has caused an outbreak of diarrhea.  The sudden influx of displaced Syrians has overwhelmed state authorities and relief groups trying to organize a response.

The number of registered refugees in Turkey is approaching 60,000 and close to 40,000 in Lebanon.  The chief obstacle for providing proper medical care is funding.  Indeed, Lebanon’s Higher Relief Committee, the country’s principal aid organization, suspended medical and nutritional assistance due to lack of funding.

Algerian diplomat and Nobel laureate Lakhdar Brahimi has been appointed by the United Nations to replace former UN secretary general Kofi Annan as the international mediator on Syria.  Hilary Clinton has expressed full support for the decision and the attempt to secure peace in Syria.  Cash assistance would be infinitely more useful.

The problem of unnecessary humans

This article originally appeared in Dissident Voice on 8/6/2012.

Dealing with superfluous populations has been a vexation shared by all industrial capitalist societies for generations.  In other words, the problem for modern rulers and leaders is what to do with societal segments that contribute little to wealth creation by production or consumption.  Columbia Professor Emeritus of Sociology Herbert Gans referred to the modern U.S. constituents of these segments as “surplus workers” that eventually become superfluous via indefinite unemployment (1).  The “surplus pool” increases in size with the failure by job creators to do what they claim to do.  The concept, however, generalizes to any society or state in which the exploitation of land and/or resources is being obstructed by the presence of unnecessary humans.

Throughout history, ruling classes employed a variety of strategies to shrink the surplus pool.  In 1788 the British Empire began exporting some of its surplus to Australia in order to establish a new penal colony.  The endeavor was delayed by the presence of the indigenous society that needed to be dealt with: one surplus displacing another.  Similarly, they and other European empires exported feudal leftovers to the Americas and subsequently established colonies after exterminating the native civilizations we learn about in elementary school.

Other alleviating mechanisms include war enlistment, extreme poverty resulting in death, or illness resulting in death.  All three effectively reduce the burden of superfluous populations.  Moral traits and altruistic inclinations, however, get in the way sometimes and history does reveal welfare implementations for the indigent, orphaned, and widowed that were often inspired by Abrahamic doctrines.

Enlightenment-era renegotiations of the social contract and the upsurge of global wealth during the rise of industrial capitalism gradually reinforced the notions of not only expecting but demanding the fulfillment of welfare commitments by state governments particularly in Europe.  The United States, however, was never as anchored to social obligations as mainland Europe given its comparatively blank sociopolitical history.  This contributed to the country’s delayed abolishment of slavery and recognition of worker organization.

The chattel-based planter economy of the early Union along with concurrent industrialization in its northern territories created difficult conditions for poor white farmers.  To avoid drowning in economic hardship, the only option was to take part in the drive toward western expansion that was eventually encapsulated in the philosophy of Manifest Destiny.  In order for the blossoming nation to move forward with continental ownership, the truly unnecessary Native Americans had to undergo displacement or simple erasure.

20^th century dynamics labor-capital dynamics limited the ways in which the United States could deal with its superfluous elements.  The Great Depression highlighted the inability to exterminate, export, resettle, or enslave the unemployed.  It was during subsequent administrations over several decades that the formalized welfare provisions were enacted which are readily recalled as the New Deal, Social Security, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicare, and Medicaid.  And of course, consecutive military engagements were able to partially absorb displacement shocks.

These welfare distributions became increasingly important as neoliberalism and financial enterprises began to dominate U.S. policy beginning with the collapse of the Bretton-Woods system in 1973 which allowed multinational corporations to benefit from an unprecedented degree of capital mobility (2).  Naturally, domestic labor being restricted by land boundaries and sociocultural beacons was thus unable to sync with overseas investment by U.S. firms.  This ultimately contributed to increasing unemployment, downward pressure on wages, poverty, and further dependence on welfare programs.  Indeed, Nobel laureate and economist at Columbia University Joseph Stiglitz warned that unaddressed inequality in America, already the worst among industrialized societies, is fostering a resemblance to two-tiered societies of the Third World (3).

Peter Edelman at Georgetown University Law Center has revealed a great deal about current poverty in the U.S. (4) (5).  His research demonstrated that as of 2010, 103 million Americans had incomes below twice the poverty line i.e. below $36,000 per year for a family of three.  20 million Americans live in deep poverty which includes incomes below half the poverty line i.e. below $9000 per year for a family of three.  These are people that depend on healthcare assistance such as Medicaid, nutritional assistance like food stamps, and tax credits.  Research done by the Heritage Foundation estimated that federal welfare spending approached $700 billion in 2010 alone (6).

The growing surplus pool has been a constant irritation to policymakers and business planners seeking to tap into the welfare cashflow.  The vast portion of that money that is not filtered through private institutions (e.g. public funded private health coverage) is largely wasted on unnecessary humans.  The most prominent effort to correct this blunder is the endeavor to privatize Social Security which happens to be a quite functional, efficient, and well-funded system as Nobel laureate Stiglitz confirmed (7).  However, the current implementation sustains beneficiaries without generating very much profit.  Allowing them to simply pass would free up potential sources of capital.  Another possibility would be for them to take out loans which perhaps can be repaid by their children.

These latter two options, however, would be difficult to implement given their friction with values of sympathy and compassion that reside in the ethos of the general public.  That is to say, the moral foundation that sustains welfare spending the U.S. threatens the viability of such measures.  In the face of this type of opposition, legislators and executives have resorted to the employment of subversive rhetoric appealing to irrational elements of the human psyche in order to justify institutional oppression of superfluous segments.  This includes the exploitation of latent nativism, racism, jingoist nationalism, and religious adherence to the obscure and, in fact, unknowable motives of the “founding fathers.”

The clearest example is undoubtedly the United States penchant for incarceration that disproportionately targets racial minorities as Michelle Alexander’s recent book The New Jim Crow explains in great detail (8) (9).  The War on Drugs that was escalated by President Nixon in the 1970s was continued by Presidents Reagan and Clinton with some pretty ugly consequences.  The strategy was to impose over-the-top punishments for minor drug offenses overwhelmingly committed by the poor while at the same time demonizing blacks as welfare queens and gangsters.  The effect is the underhanded shift of superfluous elements into prison camps where they can perform something comparable to slave labor and simultaneously evade poverty statistics (10).  And of course, for efficiency purposes, a portion of the public spending on incarceration is handed to correctional corporations that profit from America’s toughness on crime (11).

The state-initiated demonization of population segments not in accord with neoliberal reforms is not unique to the United States.  The Indian government has repeatedly labeled a vast sector of its own population as terrorists in order to justify the use of paramilitary forces to destroy associated rural societies that obstruct economic initiatives.  The reactionary group, known as the Maoists, has employed violent tactics in an effort to oppose the corporate and government infiltration of the farmers’ lands (12).  For these people, there is no New World or Manifest Destiny to absorb them.  The only options aside from succumbing to state violence are to pick up and move into urban slums to find work or to simply commit suicide.  Incidentally, the latter option has become a full-blown crisis with a quarter-million farmer suicides since 1995 (13).

However, overt violence like that in India would be intolerable in the United States.  Still, there are other tactics aside from incarceration that severely undermine surplus citizens struggling to keep up with the new global economy.  Take, for example, the Affordable Care Act which is President Obama’s flagship legislation.  Its purpose is to deal with the current healthcare crisis that has left over 50 million without health insurance: 17% of the population.  Furthermore, recent estimates link 26,000+ deaths of working-age adults annually to lack of medical insurance (14).  To be honest, Obamacare is quite far from solving the actual problem and in my opinion is, in fact, a step in the wrong direction.  The fact remains, however, that it would expand the insurance umbrella over millions previously uninsured.  Though that insurance may still bankrupt them, it would at least allow them to see a doctor when they’re sick.

The opposition to the health reform has been expectedly silly.  Conservatives claim that it’s too expensive a burden for a debt-ridden economy.  The latest CBO projections, however, show that Obamacare is likely to reduce the federal deficit by $109 billion over ten years: a modest amount, but a reduction nonetheless (15).  Falseness makes a weak argument, so Governor Rick Perry of Texas resorted to evangelical constitutionalism when declaring combat on the new law recently by rejecting federal funding to expand Medicaid.  He patriotically refused to “socialize” medicine in the great state of Texas out of respect for the kind of freedom envisioned by the Founding Fathers (16).  Unfortunately, Texas happens to be the state with the most egregious coverage gap in the country: 25% uninsured while home to some of nation’s best hospitals.  Governor Perry’s refusal to address the problem reflects outright contempt for his state’s unnecessary humans.

So at this juncture we ought to ask ourselves, how far has civilization come in the treatment of underclass constituents?  Governor Perry is a small example, but his outlook readily generalizes.  He can’t exterminate or export them, but ignoring them seems to work.  Though the implications for democracy are frightening, sometimes it’s difficult not to laugh at the irony present in religious devotion to founding principles.  To be sure, the poor and/or unemployed are, in a commercial sense, valueless.  They effect no labor and they can’t afford to buy any products.  The only thing that makes these people necessary is their capacity to cast votes, but only in a functioning democracy.  Do we have one?  If we could deposit our superfluous population in prison, in war, or underground, would we have one then?

Notes.

1)      http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/opinion/the-age-of-the-superfluous-worker.html

2)      http://www.attacmallorca.es/web/uploads/Kotz1.pdf

3)      http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/american-dream-myth-joseph-stiglitz-price-inequality-124338674.html

4)      http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/23/so_rich_so_poor_peter_edelman

5)      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-edelman/america-has-class-problem_b_1676928.html

6)      http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/04/22/americas-ever-expanding-welfare-empire/

7)      http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-25-2012/exclusive—joseph-stiglitz-extended-interview-pt–1

8)      http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/10/toxic_persons.html

9)      http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25376

10)   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/books/michelle-alexanders-new-jim-crow-raises-drug-law-debates.html?pagewanted=all

11)   http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/26/328486/us-private-prison-population-lobbying/?mobile=nc

12)   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8355156.stm

13)   http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/article3595351.ece

14)   http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSBRE85J15720120620

15)   http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57479021-503544/cbo-health-care-repeal-would-cost-$109-billion/

16)   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/09/rick-perry-obamacare_n_1658934.html

In Defense of Best Coast

This article originally appeared in OpEd News on 6/11/2012.

When Crazy For You was released by the indie-pop duo, Best Coast, in the summer of 2010, the response was overwhelmingly positive.  The blogosphere instantly fell in love with the lo-fi beach melodies that evoked Phil Spector’s work with the 1960s vocal acts such as The Crystals and The Ronettes.  Indie mandarins adored the fuzzy guitars, the humid reverbs, and the sun-soaked ennui of lead singer Bethany Cosentino’s amateur reflections.  The record is a perfect soundtrack to the kind of lazy summer most people stop having around the age of 18 when financial and materialistic concerns become more prominent in their lives.

What distinguished Best Coast from dream-surf contemporaries such as The Drums, Beach Fossils, Wavves, and Tame Impala was the potent nostalgia of youth carried in Cosentino’s soaring vocal melodies and lovelorn obsessions.  She, herself, commented in an interview that “nothing makes [me] happier” than “playing to two rows of 16-year-old girls that are all singing every single lyric to her song” (1).   And in that capacity, the debut LP received high praise from major reviewers including  The Los Angeles Times  (3.5/4) , Pitchfork  (8.4/10 BNM), and Robert Christgau, the dean himself, who gave it an A- (2) (3) (4).

Because the band was categorized with outfits like The Drums and Wavves, her ostensibly bratty, shallow, and simple lyrics were well-received and added to the band’s appeal because they resonated so well with the surf-pop and youthful nostalgia narratives.  However, that kind of appreciation is predictably unsustainable.  Like a comic-book superhero movie,  Crazy For You  was basically deemed a thoroughly enjoyable seasonal release, albeit perfectly forgettable and unsuited for deeper literary or acoustical investigation.

It was within this context that Best Coast’s follow up,  The Only Place , was received in mid-May.  For this go-around, the band hired producer Jon Brion to advance their sound to the next level.  He is known for his production work with Kanye West and his graceful soundtrack work on  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .  This effort found the band dropping the damp, lo-fi sound for a cleaner and more polished sound that puts more focus on tempo, instrumental precision, and Cosentino’s absolutely stunning vocal talent.  Indeed, the production upgrade allows the listener to fully acknowledge her song contributions that were somewhat stifled in  Crazy For You .

The reaction has been expectedly lackluster.  With a 2/5 score in the Guardian, the reviewer laments that the lyrics “about being bored and lazy become cloudingly familiar,” and that the record “needs more sunshine” (5).  Similarly, a 6.2/10 review by Pitchfork opined that the departure of the original summer haziness emphasized the “weakest quality” of Best Coast: the lyrics (6).

Unfortunately, the duo was pretty much doomed from the release of the first LP.  They suffered from a grave miscategorization of which the band itself was likely unaware. Though Cosentino’s simplistic declaratives and yearning melodies were understood as enhancements of the overall beachy lo-fi vibe, they were not correctly recognized as the principally redeeming aspects of the band’s work.  The first record was great not because it was a solid addition to the surf and dream pop catalog of Wild Nothings and The Drums, but because Cosentino achieved something extraordinarily intelligent and creative.  While evoking the sound of 1960′s era girl groups and rock bands, she simultaneously explored themes of postmodern feminism, rebellion, and adolescence that did not exist for the Shangri-Las.

The bipolar narrator in “Crazy For You” is a free and independent girl reflecting on her own irrationality and possible insanity, which is not an exaggeration.  The other verses on the record are the ramblings of an intoxicated, erratic, jealous, and bored ex-girlfriend.  However, even though she had 16-year-old girls in the front row of her shows that might relate to this identity, there’s no doubt that present, too, were males of all flavors.  There was something deeper that was more compelling than just fantasizing about boyfriends.

A little bit of contemplation makes clear that the band’s original record was more than just the soundtrack to a lazy summer.  Given the overarching themes of Cosentino’s musings and repetitions, her lyrics were far from ordinary and even farther from being the weakest quality of the album.  It is a rare postmodern exploration of ennui and the liberated mind.  Most notably, the conflict is internal to Cosentino: she’s singing to herself.  And her bipolar erraticism is not unlike Dostoyevsky’s Nastassya Filippovna from  The Idiot.   Her self-destructive nature is prominent on the first record while the compassionate and pitiful elements are explored on the follow-up.  It is only within this proper context that the follow up record can be regarded as the worthy piece of work which it represents.

The Only Place , lyrically, is the meditation of a maturing young adult.  Though it was attacked for cheaply celebrating a return to the band’s Californian roots and rehashing familiar topics of laziness and heartbrokenness, a closer listen reveals an existential sorrow that was not present on  Crazy For You .  Gone is the carefree ennui, and newly present are themes of taking responsibility and real appreciation for the familiar concept of home.  The original sun-drenched intoxication has been replaced with the quiet clarity and regret of a post-hangover reckoning.  It is not the Thom Yorke’s despair; rather, it is closer to Nicholas Cage’s character’s struggle to reconcile real life with his obsessive compulsive disorder in the 2002 film, Matchstick Men.  Indeed, some of the lyrics sound like the sober musings of the Alcoholics Anonymous variety: “I used to wake up in the morning and reach for that bottle and glass, but I don’t do that anymore…kicked my habits out the front door.”

And yes, in some ways, it is a drug-recovery record.  And in this sense her burnt out sentiments recall Iggy Pop’s Berlin-era wok.  But Cosentino succeeds by employing her incredibly emotive voice and raw honesty: “My mom was right, I don’t wanna die, I wanna live my life.”  As she repeats this refrain in a distinctive Best Coast manner, it is difficult not to be overwhelmed by sympathy and solemnity upon first listen.  It certainly was for me, so I’d suggest trying it for yourself.  It is doubly gut-wrenching when juxtaposed with the childish frivolity of some of her past lyrics: “I just want to tell you, that I’ve always missed you.  I just want to tell you, that I’ve always loved you.”  Though we may remain skeptical at her newfound seriousness, she sings confidently: “Cause you seem to think you know everything, but you don’t know why I cry.”  The complex reconciliation of two opposed personalities is food for thought.

The reality of her journey into adulthood is encapsulated in perhaps the albums strongest verse: “What a year this day has been, what a day this year has been.”  Regardless, even if the revamped lyrical context is not sufficiently convincing, the record is still redeemed by its fantastic pop-sensibilities and vocal melodies.   The delicate and gentle guitar arpeggios of “How They Want Me To Be” recall some of the finer moments of the underrated  Wincing The Night Away  by The Shins.  And the refreshing gentleness extends to pretty much every track.

As a standalone record, it most certainly holds its own.  I suspect that the negative reviews were likely the result of incorrectly evaluating the merits of the first record, for which everyone was hoping a mere extension.  Careful and sympathetic consideration, however, demonstrates that the two can be and ought to be viewed as companion pieces that color in the existential drama of the Best Coast’s young adult.  Best Coast is not a zeitgeist or an acoustic innovation, but they have certainly crafted a poignant narrative that nourishes the imagination which contemporary acts such as Frankie Rose and Real Estate do not even attempt.  It is sorrowful in a way that makes part of me wish I never heard it.

Notes.

(1)      http://vimeo.com/18442034

(2)      http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/28/entertainment/la-et-0728-albumreviews-20100728

(3)      http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14472-crazy-for-you/

(4)      http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/expert-witness-blogpost.aspx?_p=b6f8921f-c6b6-405b-88d0-58a7c06c1000&post=b99c44b2-adbc-4ee9-9ca8-38ec70666aef&ref=bfv

(5)      http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/17/best-coast-only-place-review

(6)      http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16609-the-only-place/

David Brooks on American Capitalism

This article originally appeared in CounterPunch on 5/24/2012.

A recent op-ed by NY Times columnist, David Brooks, asserts that “Forty years ago, corporate America was bloated, sluggish, and losing ground to competitors in Japan and beyond.”  However, the rise of private equity firms and “bare-knuckled corporate executives” contributed to structural changes from which “American businesses emerged leaner, quicker, and more efficient” even though the “process was brutal and involved streamlining and layoffs” (1).

That last part is crucial and it’s likely that the corporate apologist and bobo-expert regrets including it.  The latter term was a reference to his book Bobos in Paradise in which he argues that the modern American yuppie-elite is an amalgamation of the bohemian rebel of the 60s and the wealth-seeking corporate climber of the 80s.  If you read the book, you’ll find that the “bobo” is the primary beneficiary of the vitalized American business that he celebrates.  And he’s quite right that American business emerged leaner and more efficient.

Businesses exist to make profits for the investors and shareholders that own the business.  It’s this incentive that free market fanatics tout as central to the doctrine’s celebrated efficiency.  These businesses operate on the efforts of rented wage labor of both blue and white collars.  However, even though it’s true that American business has experienced booming profits since the 1970s, what Brooks fails to mention is that these benefits have been sharply concentrated at the top alone.

It’s barely news that wealth and income distribution in recent decades has been dramatically lopsided with the top 1% taking in 10% of the nation’s income since 1979 and holding on to about 30% of the nation’s wealth (2) (3).  Being in the top 1% is no easy task, either.  The average salary is $1 million per year (4).  If you care to look closely enough, you’ll find that these figures come right out of the Congressional Budget Office.

Furthermore, the “leaner, quicker, and more efficient” American business indirectly reflects the decline in American manufacturing industry and the rise of multinational institutions that sell no product but continuously engage in complex financial manipulations and specialized transactions.  This process of financialization was set off by the United States’ decision to unilaterally disengage from the Bretton Woods monetary system that it and Britain championed after World War II.  The dollar was no longer accountable to gold convertibility and thus began policies associated with “neoliberalism” (5).

The general trend was that American businesses found it much cheaper to open the door to foreign imports of goods and products from both unskilled and skilled labor.  This crippled the American manufacturing industry by debasing workers in textiles, steel, automobiles, and consumer electronics.  So, even though computers were invented on the college campus using American taxpayer funding throughout the 1950s and 1960s, it became possible to cheaply assemble them abroad in the Third World by foreign workers and subsequently import them (6).

Obviously the effects followed a class-specific distribution.  Manufacturing was where you could find a decent job without a college degree.  The working class mix included poor native-born whites, African-Americans, and southern and eastern European immigrants.  They were dealt with accordingly.  Black life was recriminalized under what Michelle Alexander termed “The New Jim Crow” (7).  With more blacks currently imprisoned than were ever enslaved, black communities can’t even pretend to reap the benefits of Brooks’ celebrations (8) (9).  Those who were able to hold on to their jobs saw their real wages more or less stagnate and working hours increase.  The skilled workers that lost their manufacturing jobs were forced into the menial service economy in competition with Latin American immigrants (10).  This competition was only exacerbated by the devastating effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement that was designed specifically to enrich big business at the expensive the American worker (11).  The growing dispossessed formed the basis of today’s Tea Party Movement (12).

Those that could not find employment at all watched lifelines slip away for themselves and their families with the decline of the United States welfare system under Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton (13).  20 million Americans currently live in extreme poverty with incomes below half of the poverty line.  For 6 million Americans, the only source of income is food stamps (14).  What’s rarely mentioned is that with conservative reforms of programs such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and what used to be Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the core issue remains single mothers and impoverished children.  Jason DeParle described the recession-era trend of food stamp users skyrocketing while welfare cash payouts remained on the decline in a recent NY times article.  He noted that the 90s economic boom, no doubt the kind that Brooks had it mind, was accompanied aggressively by the drive to “end welfare as we know it” (15).  However, according to Brooks, “Many voters have come to regard their desires as entitlements” and “they become incensed when their leaders are not responsive to their needs.”  He asserts that “like any set of human begins, they command their politicians to give them benefits without asking them to pay” (16).  I suppose you have to hand it to him for finding it so easy to categorize a “set of human beings.”

“Successful” middle class citizens including myself sometimes found their way through institutions of higher learning which were often touted as the means to personal enlightenment and economic prosperity.  College was central to the American dream.  However, one peak behind the curtain reveals that tuition only imposes a new set of chains in the form of debt burden as the New York Times recently described (17).  The trillion dollar debt bubble in the United States drives the population further into the pockets of the 1%.  The rest, I suppose, rent themselves to the military.

So Mr. Brooks was certainly right.  Without question, the neoliberal agenda has dramatically invigorated American businesses from “sluggish” to “leaner, quicker, and more efficient.”  It accomplished this by adopting a simple strategy that came right out of the UChicago economics department: protect domestic business interests but open the labor force to market pressures.  This entailed subsidizing American exports using tax payer funding, but simultaneously pulling the rug right out from underneath the very same taxpayer.  The highly respected American economist Richard Wolff summed it up perfectly (18):

“Since the 1970s, most US workers postponed facing up to what capitalism had come to mean for them.  They sent more family members to do more hours of paid labour, and they borrowed huge amounts.  By exhausting themselves, stressing family life to the breaking point in many households, and by taking on unsustainable levels of debt, the US working class delayed the end of American exceptionalism – until the global crisis hit in 2007.  By then, their buying power could no longer grow: rising unemployment kept wages flat, no more hours of work, nor more borrowing, were possible.  Reckoning time had arrived.  A US capitalism built on expanding mass consumption lost its foundation.”

Notes.

(1)    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/opinion/brooks-how-change-happens.html?ref=davidbrooks

(2)    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/simple-look-income-inequality

(3)    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/inequality-is-most-extreme-in-wealth-not-income/

(4)    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

(5)    http://business.pages.tcnj.edu/files/2011/07/VanArnum.Thesis.pdf

(6)    http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/01/china-challenge-baily

(7)    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-alexander/the-new-jim-crow_b_454469.html

(8)    http://pbstandards.org/news/article/221?newstype=1

(9)    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/inimai-chettiar/prison-system-jim-crow_b_1297413.html

(10)http://economyincrisis.org/content/service-economy-taking-over-us

(11)http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-r-shaffer/immigration-is-a-nafta-pr_b_642484.html

(12)http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/10/07/the-tea-party-movement-is-a-middle-class-revolt

(13)http://www.nber.org/papers/w5774.pdf?new_window=1

(14)http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/23/so_rich_so_poor_peter_edelman#transcript

(15)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/us/welfare-limits-left-poor-adrift-as-recession-hit.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

(16)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/opinion/the-age-of-innocence.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

(17)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/student-loans-weighing-down-a-generation-with-heavy-debt.html?ref=tuition&gwh=A192E2C120C487DF2288577E2C662C39

(18)http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/17/economics-globalrecession

Suppression of journalists in Honduras undermines democracy

OpEd News.

Journalism plays a special role in modern society.  Though in itself a neutral institution, the content of disseminated information plays a substantial role in shaping public consciousness.  Information facilitates cohesion among members of a population through common awareness.  Furthermore, and most important, it helps define the relationship between government and citizen.  Depending on the power structure of a society, the right information can subdue a population, but the wrong information has the power to animate, galvanize, and organize people.  This is why some journalists are dangerous.

It’s why journalists in Honduras are terrorized to this day.  BBC reported on May 8 that Erick Martinez, a noted LGBT activist, journalist, and dissident, was recently found strangled and dead.  Another journalist, Alfredo Villatoro, was kidnapped on May 9 and has yet to be found.  Let’s examine the conditions that may have contributed to the growing chaos in Honduras.

Since the rise of the Lobo administration in Honduras, “the country has been descending deeper into a human rights and security abyss” according to labor historian and expert on Latin American, Dana Frank of UC Santa Cruz (1).  Pepe Lobo took power after a military coup removed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009 much to the disapproval of the rest of Latin America (2).  Despite Zelaya’s illegitimate ousting, the Obama administration welcomed Lobo warmly.  Hugo Llorens, then-ambassador to Honduras, called it a “great celebration of democracy.”  Let’s evaluate.

Zelaya’s presidency was characterized by progressive educational reforms, increased minimum wage, and poverty reduction in a country where 70% of the population is poor and 90% of the wealth is controlled by a handful of aristocratic families (3).  Obviously, he needed to go.  The Lobo regime, on the other hand, has been marked by increased violence, repression, corruption, and human rights abuses.   It now boasts the highest murder rate in the world and a particular distaste for agents of media scrutiny.

Still, two years after the “celebration of democracy,” Obama reaffirmed his validation of the new Honduras:  “Two years ago, we saw a coup in Honduras that threatened to move this country away from democracy, and in part because of pressure from the international community, but also because of the strong commitment to democracy and leadership by President Lobo, what we’ve been seeing is a restoration of democratic practices and a commitment to reconciliation that gives us hope” (4).

Just how strong is this democracy?  Inter Press Service reported in January that Lobo’s approval rating had hit an all time low.  Father Ismael Moreno, a Jesuit priest and director of Radio Progreso, called it an “overwhelming failure” (5).  Indeed, a dysfunctional democracy is a likely result of widespread fear in the midst of political violence.

Lobo responded to the worsening human rights situation by pledging his government’s commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights while addressing the U.N. General Assembly in September 2011 (6).  It’s worth noting that article 19 of the Declaration states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression…and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media.”  Unfortunately, you are not exactly free to report information while under the constant intimidation and fear of being murdered which are exactly the conditions facing journalists in Honduras today.

Research from the Committee to Protect Journalists revealed that 15 journalists have been murdered since the coup with 3 of them confirmed to have been work-related.  Furthermore, the research documents cases of harassment, assault, and torture of other journalists as well as state-sponsored oppression of media outlets and facilities (7).

Amnesty International recently released an urgent action notice regarding several human rights activists and journalists receiving death threats and sexual intimidation.  One activist and reporter, Dina Meza, received text messages stating, “We’ll burn your pussy with lime until you scream and the whole squad will enjoy it…You’ll end up dead like people in the Aguan there’s nothing better than fucking some bitches” (8).  Similarly, a radio program host, Gilda Silvestrucci, received a phone call in which she was told, “We already know you have three children…just now you were in the street with your son…and the eldest is at home…and we’re going to kill you” (9).

Now perhaps these are garden-variety scare tactics, but they are still very real and very frightening.  Furthermore, the subjection of human rights reporters to these tactics severely undermines hopes for functioning democracy in a country plagued by violence, repression, and corruption.  At the center of it all is Miguel Facusse Barjum, a wealthy agro-industrialist member of the oligarchic elite.  He was recently added to the list of Predators of Freedom of Information which is compiled by Reporters Without Borders.  What makes him special was his support for the 2009 coup that overthrew Manuel Zelaya and his subsequent role in the crackdown on campesino landownership through violent means (10).  Furthermore, the private army employed by Facusse has been supported by U.S. Drug Dar funding.

What makes him extra special was a WikiLeaks revelation of the State Department’s prior knowledge that Facusse has been an importer of cocaine (11).  A major one, no doubt, given the newly vitalized narcotrafficking channels in Honduras since the 2009 coup.  As such, it’s no surprise that Colombia’s then president Alvaro Uribe welcomed the new regime shortly thereafter.

In a letter addressed to President Lobo, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon, called for attention to the issue of violence against journalists: “Amid a politically charged atmosphere of violence and lawlessness, your government’s inability to guarantee the safety of journalists or successfully investigate crimes against the press is hindering the coverage of sensitive issues while putting democracy at risk” (12).  The fragility of democracy in Honduras is highlighted by Washington’s attempt to make it a satellite state for its drug war.  The business elites that run the country are under no pressure to enact population-level reforms.  Moreover, they’re backed by the imperial power that seeks to dominate the hemisphere.  As the local media are prevented from disseminating critical information that represents the interests of the population, prospects for democratic self-determination are profoundly hindered.  And it’s no reason to celebrate.

(1)    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/in-honduras-a-mess-helped-by-the-us.html?_r=1&ref=honduras

(2)    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8663136.stm

(3)    http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2009/09/coup-regime-honduras-father

(4)    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/05/remarks-president-obama-and-president-lobo-honduras-bilateral-meeting

(5)    http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106589

(6)    http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/22/honduras-lobo-renews-commitment-to-human-rights/

(7)    http://www.cpj.org/2012/02/attacks-on-the-press-in-2011-honduras.php

(8)    http://www.amnesty.org/fr/library/asset/AMR37/006/2012/fr/281cef2b-37a6-4046-b49a-364d1c97dc2c/amr370062012en.html

(9)    http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR37/002/2012/en/fe8222d7-6521-4034-b572-b82fe6ec0725/amr370022012en.pdf

(10)http://en.rsf.org/honduras-miguel-facusse-barjum-02-05-2012,42452.html

(11)http://www.thenation.com/article/164120/wikileaks-honduras-us-linked-brutal-businessman

(12)http://cpj.org/2011/12/honduras-should-investigate-cases-of-killed-journa.php

The real joke: oppression through marginalization

This article originally appeared in CounterPunch on 5/4/2012.

It’s not easy to get the President of the United States to provide meaningful answers to questions regarding issues of serious concern to the population.  During a Q&A session with Obama put together by YouTube in January, a woman pressed him about her husband’s extended unemployment to which he responded: “send me your husband’s resume” (1) (2).  Dodging questions is pretty standard especially when the truth is not going to make you very popular.  The jobs issue is central to Obama’s presidency so it’s likely that he could have provided a meaningful albeit depressing answer.  Unfortunately, the show has to go on and it did so by ignoring the most popular questions which—remarkably enough—did not have to do with his wedding anniversary or the midnight snacking habits that were discussed, but rather with the War on Drugs (3) (4).

Given his role as the President, one would hope that his public appearances and remarks would serve useful purposes such as providing substantive and honest information regarding policy positions and government activity.  His responses during the YouTube Q&A were not totally egregious, but the superficial behavior at these Correspondents’ Dinners is just depressing.  Performing skits and telling jokes was the top priority last year while Operation Neptune Spear was being carried out.  Again, the show had to go on.  The subjects tackled during this year’s Dinner included eating dogs, Young Jeezy, and casual homophobia.  The funniest bit, however, was the greasy comment on what he declared to be a great American tradition: “a free press that isn’t afraid to ask questions, to examine and to criticize” (5).

Whether or not those questions get answered, the free press he was referring to is far from traditional.  For one thing the spectrum of representative interest is sharply polarized.  For example, there are blogs and there are media conglomerates much like there are local coffee shops and there are Starbuckses.  Even though both provide similar commodities, the two sides operate in different ways because they exist for different reasons.  So even though neither ThinkProgress nor The Wall Street Journal is under any coercion, the latter is still owned by the multibillion dollar News Corporation which exists to make profits for investors.   This has two major implications for an outlet like WSJ.  Firstly, as a corporate subordinate, its terminal function is to contribute to wealth consolidation.  It may not accomplish this explicitly (e.g. “playing politics”), but it would not have been absorbed if it did not contribute to Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line (6).  Secondly, its massive financial backing inexorably enables it be ultra-prominent and consequently ultra-powerful.  Its elite status will obviously influence its content by filtering out writers with non- or anti-elite sentiments.  These principles generalize to other dominant media such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

So just whose views are the big three free press outlets representing?   An April report published by FAIR looked into which perspectives were being represented on their op-ed pages during September and October 2011 when the Occupy movement was in full swing: the movement which is now recognized to have dramatically shifted political discourse in the U.S. as recent articles in the Post and in Rolling Stone make clear (7) (8).  The report revealed that elites from academia, think tanks, big business, and government institutions made up 84%, 84%, and 73% of the guest column bylines in the Times, the Journal, and the Post respectively.  Those proportions aren’t surprising because they’re pretty much taken for granted: you wouldn’t expect anyone else’s opinion to be important enough to be featured.  The study also found that op-ed writers were overwhelmingly white males: 80-90%.  Furthermore, the Occupy movement was barely discussed in the opinion pages of all three papers.  Again, given the structure of American society, it’s not that surprising.  However, the connection you’re not supposed to make is the obvious one that contradicts principles of a “free press” (9).

To make this connection, we can start by acknowledging some major domestic concerns which, unsurprisingly, include job creation, Social Security, education, and Medicare (10).  The problem is that elites from academia, think tanks, big business, and government are the least burdened by these concerns.  The fact remains that there are people that depend on Social Security for survival (11).

Another hot issue involves reproductive rights and the War on Women (12).  Male op-ed writers comprised 80%, 84%, and 87% of the NYT, the Post, and the Journal respectively.  When the topics include obstetrical sonograms, contraception, abortion, and equal pay/benefits for women, the integrity of the discussion is going to suffer when male perspectives dominate.

The same logic applies to race issues.  Latinos make up 16% of the U.S. population, but their voice was confined to less than half a percent of the op-ed bylines which might not bode well for discussions on immigrant rights or border control.  Blacks were under-represented too which has frightening implications.  Michelle Alexander’s newly popular book The New Jim Crow discusses the scandalous incarceration rate in the United States (highest in the world) that disproportionately targets the black population and supplements a growing “undercaste” (14).  She traces it back to the Nixon and Reagan administrations’ schemes to exploit white working class racism and fear to gain political power.  It’s a national horror that just so happens to not really involve white elites from academia, business, think tanks, and government or their friends or their families.

The race issue is particularly egregious.  Blacks are incarcerated at a rate that is comparatively appalling and often for petty drug crimes such as marijuana possession.  In prison, they’re basically free (slave) labor.  When they get out they are disenfranchised, barred from juries, and struggle to find employment and therefore healthcare.  The fiscal consequences of the War on Drugs or the ethics of incarceration versus treatment are topics that are usually discussed in the papers (15) (16).  Lucid commentary on the grave human damage does come out, but infrequently (17) which is remarkable because the issue is so deeply offensive to principles of compassion and liberty that it ought to be making headlines.

Incidentally the major assertions made by Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow are not groundbreaking or radical.  The trajectory of the War on Drugs and its disproportionate affect on the black population had already been figured out by the mid-90s but mainstream discourse was just not ready for that kind of information (18) (19).  Alexander’s study, which is deeply researched and excellently delivered, just came out at the right time.  (Actually it took two years for it to get popular).  This reveals a great deal about the nature of our press.

Well if the press’ function is to inform the public mind so as to facilitate democratic participation and influence political discourse, what can we expect to hear from elected and appointed officials?  Gil Kerlikowske, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy gave a talk a few days ago on drug policy reform at the Center for American Progress (20).  I work in the same building and I happened to walk by him on the way in: I wouldn’t have known about it otherwise.  Even with prodding by the Center’s president Neera Tanden to address incarceration, Kerlikowske managed to avoid talking about drug war casualties by focusing strictly on drug abuse treatment.  In this capacity, he labeled the Affordable Care Act “revolutionary” for its requiring insurers to treat drug addiction like any other disease.  There was barely any mention of the incarceration disaster and absolutely no mention of the effects on the black population.

His lauding of the AFA, however, is interesting.  Obama’s health plan and his drug control strategy are similar in their ostensibly liberal motivations.  Furthermore, these superficialities are reinforced by the White House and the press.  Obamacare expands coverage which helps the poor and sick so therefore it must be populist, liberal, and benign and so on (21) (22).  Similarly, the drug control strategy will treat addiction and help ex-convicts find housing and not relapse so therefore it’s humane and progressive (23).

Unfortunately, the sinister and anemic properties of either are rarely addressed.  Obamacare’s expanded coverage is a blessing to the very entities that are responsible for the health crisis: it funnels billions to private insurers and pharmaceutical companies (24).  Similarly, targeting addiction is not an answer to the incarceration problem nor does it confront the damage to black communities (25).

But for the White House to highlight the hidden problems would irritate investors that influence campaigns through lobbying.  Private correction corporations such as CCA and GEO profit off of taxpayer funded incarceration.  Studies have shown private prison population grew in the last decade as their lobbying dollars increased (26).  A Boston Phoenix article reads: “Despite clear racial, economic, and cultural disparities, cries from constituents fell on deaf ears while law-enforcement lobbyists successfully cajoled and frightened congressional leaders” (27).  Operating through outfits like ALEC, they push for legislation that harshen sentencing for crimes (28).

Health insurance and pharmaceutical companies similarly influence the Affordable Care Act and thus the rhetoric available to Obama.  (29) (30).

Given that vast sectors of the American population hang in the balance in all of these issues, you might assume that the “great American free press” that isn’t afraid to question or criticize would actually ask questions or speak critically in regards to these discrepancies.  But the lives and careers of politicians, business executives, and elite journalists are so intertwined and symbiotic that the public has to be marginalized.  The reason is simple, their interests are opposed.  Furthermore, the public mind is clouded by superficial dichotomies such as Democrats vs. Republicans, pro-life vs. pro-choice, drug treatment vs. overpolicing, etc.  For an elite journalist, these topics are perfectly valid on intellectual and professional levels.  For a politician, they serve invaluable rhetorical purposes.  Forgotten, suppressed, and marginalized, however, are the issues pertinent to the millions that personally have to worry about food, rent, healthcare, education, transportation, debt, and retirement.  That’s the real skit.  That’s the funniest joke.

(1)    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeTj5qMGTAI

(2)    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/44/post/obama-offers-to-find-woman-a-job-during-google-chat/2012/01/31/gIQAckhbeQ_blog.html

(3)    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/obamas-pot-question-will-_n_1242008.html

(4)    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/retired-lapd-brass-challenges-obama-on-drug-policy/252187/

(5)    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfG8Btb0l3g

(6)    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/14/rupert-murdoch-wall-street-journal

(7)    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/occupy-the-regulatory-system/2012/04/27/gIQAjo21lT_blog.html

(8)    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ready-for-the-fight-rolling-stone-interview-with-barack-obama-20120425

(9)    http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4513

(10)http://www.people-press.org/2012/01/23/public-priorities-deficit-rising-terrorism-slipping/

(11)http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3260

(12)http://www.salon.com/2012/04/30/war_on_women_isnt_over/singleton/

(13)http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/trayvon-martin-death-has-echoes/2012/04/02/gIQAVievqS_blog.html

(14)http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-alexander/the-new-jim-crow_b_454469.html

(15)http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303425504577353754196169014.html

(16)http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303592404577364313277369518.html

(17)http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/12/young-black-and-male-in-america/spend-money-on-schools-instead-of-the-war-on-drugs

(18)http://www.commondreams.org/views/041200-104.htm

(19)http://www.mendeley.com/research/race-criminalization-black-americans-punishment-industry/

(20)http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2012/05/drugs.html

(21)http://www.thenation.com/article/167256/how-affordable-care-act-saves-lives

(22) http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/03/21/affordable-care-act-saving-lives

(23)http://www.huffingtonpost.com/r-gil-kerlikowske/white-house-drug-policy_b_1432966.html

(24)http://pnhp.org/news/2010/march/pro-single-payer-doctors-health-bill-leaves-23-million-uninsured

(25)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/nyregion/reducing-crime-squandering-good-will.html

(26)http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/26/328486/us-private-prison-population-lobbying/

(27)http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/73092-Freedom-watch-Jailhouse-bloc/?page=3#TOPCONTENT

(28)http://diversityinc.com/investigative-series/who-profits-from-the-prison-boom/

(29)http://floridaindependent.com/10163/how-the-american-legislative-exchange-council-turned-health-care-repeal-into-a-national-wave

(30)http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2009/12/05/72376/bcbs-alec-health/

Healthcare considerations of the American decline

This article originally appeared in CounterPunch on 4/17/2012.

“A heart that’s full up like a landfill.  A job that slowly kills you.  Bruises that won’t heal.  You look so tired, unhappy.  Bring down the government, they don’t speak for us.  I’ll take a quiet life, a handshake of carbon monoxide.”

The existential sorrow in Thom Yorke’s voice has never sounded as poignant as it does today in “No Surprises”, a track of lonely capitulation on Radiohead’s monolithic OK Computer.  The song evokes images of helplessness and retreat in the face of globalization and corporate capitalism.  The accompanying music video features Yorke’s head in a bubble helmet that slowly fills up with water (1).  The symbolism in both the lyrics and the video has become increasingly relevant since the record’s release fifteen years ago.

Some call it America in Decline and it’s a theme that has been explored extensively over the recent years, months, and weeks (2) (3) (4).  The idea is obviously met with skepticism.  In order to understand it, we have to put it in perspective and define a context.  What exactly is America and what’s in decline?

It remains the richest country in the history of modern civilization.  It controls the most powerful and comparatively advanced military machine ever assembled: a likely result of spending more than the rest of the world combined (5).  The two characteristics are intimately related.

Indeed, the idea that the accumulation of wealth inculcates suspicion and the need to defend it has even been discussed by 6^th century philosopher Boethius in The Consolation of Philosophy: “the wealth which was thought to make a man independent rather puts him in need of further protection” (6).  In fact, the need for institutional protection of private property is one of the most heavily explored topics of classical liberalist thought and framed much of the debate during the United States’ formative period.  We like to think that the nation was founded on principles of total equality and personal liberty.  But the chief concern among the framers was how to create a system where landowners can remain landowners without having to worry about greedy peasants.

The concept rapidly generalizes to capital accumulation today.  Wealthy and privileged members of society want the government to perform its intended function which is to protect their assets.  What would have previously been labeled agrarian reform is basically equivalent to progressive taxation.  However, any rational politician will cater to privileged interests especially when legislative positions are virtually bought in the current system.   The collection of votes is now regarding as a secondary consequence of properly financing an electoral campaign.

Social reforms that benefit the overwhelming majority of the population—where political power is least concentrated—are marginal issues that require populist demonstration in order to enter the political arena.  The civil rights movement, the feminist movement, and the AIDS movement are just a few examples.  That these were issues that could not be influenced by voting highlights a particularly sinister illusion of franchise.  We vote for politicians that seem relatable given their stance on satellite issues.  Presidential candidates will resort to tactics such as showing up on MTV discussing underwear in order to the exploit youth culture.  In other venues he’ll discuss how to be tougher on crime or how to withdraw from some foreign conflict in some vague number of years.

But where’s the candidate that speaks to immediately relevant issues such as access to health care or proper retirement benefits?  The former example is pretty striking, actually.  Government sponsored medical coverage has been a prominent domestic concern for almost 40 years (7) (8).  Even a recent 2009 NY Times/CBS News poll suggested that 72% of the population were in favor of a government administered health insurance program that would compete with current private plans (9).

Furthermore, there’s no longer any doubt that a public option would drastically reduce health costs and thus relieving some of the burden on consumers.  A 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that health care administration costs account for 31% of health expenditures in the U.S. which comes out to almost $300 billion.  Canada’s administration costs, on the other hand, makes up 16.7% of their total health expenditures (10).  The high costs of U.S. health administration are a direct result of having to navigate the extreme complex channels of billing and reimbursement through private insurers.  As one would expect, the system’s complexities are tailored to minimize payouts to consumers and simultaneously maximize profits.

The U.S. has very little to show for its insanely expensive health arrangement.  Its per capita costs are twice those of other advanced OECD nations (11).  However, it ranks pretty low in health outcomes such as infant mortality and and life expectancy (12).

And the burden on the general population is, indeed, quite severe.   Two landmark 2009 studies by Harvard physicians David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler were able to show that the extraordinary costs of healthcare and insurance impose crushing financial burdens and leave many who cannot afford insurance to die.  They found that 62.1% of bankruptcies filed in the United States in 2007 had medical causes.  This value is sharply contrasted with an estimated 8% in 1981 and 46.2% in 2001.  80% of the 2007 figure had health insurance and most were well-educated and middle-class (13).  Furthermore, the researchers were able to link the lack of health insurance to 45,000 working-age deaths per year in the U.S. and conclude that the uninsured are 40% more likely to die than those with private insurance (14).  This figure, too, is in sharp contrast with a 1993 estimate of 25% (15).  The spectrum of health outcomes parallels socioeconomic status as one would expect, but the worsening trends and sheer quantity of deaths are so morally alarming that they cannot be ignored.

The outlook is even more depressing when we examine a recent U.S. Census Bureau report which revealed a striking racial distribution of uninsurance.  21% of blacks and 31% of Hispanics in the U.S. are uninsured compared to 11.7% of whites (16).  This, too, is not that surprising.  The proportions are probably similar for those who drive Range Rovers, but we have to remain cognizant of the fundamental difference between the two commodities.

The consequences of private administration of healthcare are fairly predictable.  A corporation’s chief concern will always be self-sustenance and growth.  Consumer benefit is only a priority when it contributes to the two main goals.  The touted virtue of free market efficiency is based on the symbiotic relationship between consumer benefit and corporate profit.  Unfortunately, it’s not really a free market.  The government is continually prohibited from acting as a significant competitor even though most of the population agrees that it should be.  Because of the fundamental difference between health and Range Rovers as commodities, consumers do not have the option of simply boycotting the product or choosing a competitor and thereby placing downward pressure on costs.  Saying no to healthcare is simply anti-human.

Furthermore, patent-protected pharmaceuticals will sell at premiums with markups sometimes up to a thousand percent.  It’s often argued that patent protection and value markup are required in order to fund research and development.  However, we cannot ignore the costs of advertising, marketing, lobbying, and profit margins.   The economist Dean Baker has done significant work in exposing the inefficiencies and deceitful practices of the pharmaceutical industry that ultimately harshen the financial burden on the general public (17).  He has argued for several years that publicly funded research for the development and distribution of patent-free drugs would be far more advantageous than the current system that spends an estimated $300 billion per year on prescription drugs.

The prospects for change are pretty bleak given the virtual disenfranchisement of the general population which brings us back to American decline.  Media-propagated illusions are partially responsible.  The current debate surrounding Obamacare is a ripe example.  Government-sponsored insurance is not even on the agenda and the public is led to believe that the Affordable Care Act and its guaranteed coverage is the solution we have long waited for.  This illusion is based on the false dichotomy between Democrats and Republicans.  It’s a bad joke, really.  Obamacare is modeled on the Massachusetts health plan the origins of which trace back to the Heritage Foundation (18) (19).  It was implemented by then-Governor Mitt Romney.  I’ll spare the irony.

The bottom line is that the individual mandate would require everyone to buy in to private insurance risk pools to decrease medical premiums.  It will funnel hundreds of billions of dollars to private insurers and Big Pharma and further inflate their political clout.  Even if it passes, an estimated 23 million of the current 50 million Americans will remain uninsured (20).  Alternatives such as a single-payer system or at least a public option are completely missing from the debate even though majority of the population is in favor of them.  Of course, with these alternatives, private insurance companies would stand to lose.  Corporate executives would lose money and perhaps workers would be laid off, but that overall human suffering would be less is an obvious conclusion of alternatives that are marginalized by the media and our politicians.

Thus, the current trend can be visualized as a hollowing out of the American identity.  The military and financial prowess of the United States makes it an undeniable juggernaut in the global theater, but it has very little advantage for most of the population.  Unemployment and healthcare are the two most pressing concerns for most Americans, but there’s very little that can be done via the electoral system due to its deeply financial nature.  Those that do climb the socioeconomic ladder are driven into virtual fiefdom via debt burdens that are owed in part to the absurd costs of tuition for higher education (21).  Crushing debt burdens discourage social activism and inculcate profit-seeking values.  Those that cannot afford to climb the ladder or choose not to will have to confront the depressing avenues of uninsurance and poverty which only exacerbates the vicious cycle of decline.

1)      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5CVsCnxyXg&ob=av3e

2)      http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/82581

3)      http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/american_decline_debated_contested_obvious_20120410/

4)      http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175502/

5)      http://armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/fy09_dod_request_global/

6)      http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14328/14328-h/14328-h.htm

7)      http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/7871.pdf

8)      http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3633

9)      http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health/policy/21poll.html

10)   http://www.pnhp.org/publications/nejmadmin.pdf

11)   http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Publications/Issue-Briefs/2011/Jul/US-Health-System-in-Perspective.aspx

12)   http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0910064

13)   http://www.pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy_study/Bankruptcy-2009.pdf

14)   http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2008.157685

15)   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8336376

16)   http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2011/CPSHealthIns2011/ib.shtml

17)   http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/31/healthcare-pharmaceuticals-industry

18)   http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/04/the-significance-of-massachusetts-health-reform

19)   http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/07/the-massachusetts-health-plan-lessons-for-the-states

20)   http://pnhp.org/news/2010/march/pro-single-payer-doctors-health-bill-leaves-23-million-uninsured

21)   http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/2011/09/28/college-tuition-growth-rate-is-biggest-bubble-of-them-all

Affordable care act: an allegorical perspective

This article originally appeared in Common Dreams on 3/29/2012.

Let’s imagine ourselves as belonging to a remote valley population that survives on water supplied by groundwater reserves.  As a society we have collectively decided to send the best and brightest to use their ingenuity to find the reserves and dig efficient wells that can sustain the population.  They consider it a proud public service.  As a result of population growth and technological advancement, more wells are dug farther and farther from the valley.  The society subsequently grants a charter to a group of businessmen to incorporate and manufacture electric cars to transport people to and from the wells.  Again, this is considered to be for the good of the population: people need access to water.  These businessmen are allowed to behave according to classical market principles whereby profits incentivize efficiency.  Higher efficiency means better access water which is essential for survival.

As time passes, the population continues to grow and technology continues to advance.  It becomes increasingly clear that the most efficient way to facilitate water access to the population is to a construct a high speed train that the entire population can use.  Since it’s a train, it would eliminate the need for each person to purchase an electric car.  When you need water, all you would need to do is hop on the Aquatrak.  People would rather concern themselves with creative endeavors and personal relationships than how they’re going to afford an electric car.  Water is essential to human life, so implementing the Aquatrak is pretty obvious, right?

Wrong, because we forgot about the owners of Megawatt Motors.  We let them incorporate and accumulate profit which became an addiction.  They became wealthy enough to bribe our leaders and chief decision-makers.  They couldn’t let Aquatrak develop or they would lose all their business.  It doesn’t matter if all of their employees stand to benefit greatly from the better access to water.  The profit distribution at the top would inexorably decline.

Eventually people get unruly and uncooperative as their collective sympathy kicks in upon witnessing the poor go without electric cars and the thirsty go without water.  To check the unrest, Megawatt Motors allows for the construction of Aquatrak.  They refuse to fund it, but they demand that only the poor and the old can use it.  This, too, starts to unsettle the savage population so they stipulate that you can get on the train if you’re about to die from thirst, but those wonderful people we sent to dig the wells are going to have to pay for it which makes them jaded and cynical.  Everyone else needs to buy a car if they want water.

Some discover that you don’t need to buy a car.  If they really need water, they figure they’ll just walk the distance to the closest groundwater well.  If, along the way, they realize that they were too brash and can’t make it the whole way, they have three options: 1) die 2) rent a car or 3) board the emergency train.  Each option is a problem.  Our society doesn’t like dying which leaves the latter two.  Option 2 is bad because Megawatt Motors needs to cover its costs.  So when less people buy their cars, they increase the unit price which is only rational.  Increasing the unit price is bad for everyone else because they have no choice but to pay the extra cost: they need the car because they need water.  Option 3 is bad because, again, those bright groundwater seekers have to pay for it.  But they’re jaded and cynical now so they bill at a higher rate for their labor.

So now both electric cars AND water are ridiculously expensive which burdens the society.  The motor of public unrest begins to turn again.  People are angry that access to water has become so expensive.  It did not used to be this expensive.  They can no longer focus on their passions because they are always worried about water.  Disdain forms between those who can afford electric cars and those who cannot afford electric cars.  The entire population becomes bitter and suspicious.  They don’t understand why they are paying for an Aquatrak that they’re not allowed to use.  They become angry at those using the Aquatrak.  Blinded by consumerism, xenophobia, and nationalism, they cannot understand what is happening.

Megawatt Motors eventually sees a grand opportunity.  They see this opportunity because they are clever which they have to be in order to feed their addiction.  They allow a single idea to penetrate the hazy confusion and reveal its head above the cloud.  Society begins to entertain the idea of forcing its constituents to buy electric cars.  It seems like a great idea because the cost of water and water labor will decrease.  It appears to be an answer to the big problem, a solution in the midst of turbulence.

If everyone buys an electric car, everyone gets water and both become cheaper.   To many, it’s a no-brainer.  But the rest can’t let go of their suspicion and bitterness.  They detest the idea of being forced to buy an electric car. They feel that it is unfair, oppressive, and hostile to their liberty.  Megawatt Motors waits silently as the two sides argue bitterly against each other.  The legal obligation to purchase an electric car would be great for business and profits would soar.  That’s why they let the idea grow, develop, and reach public consciousness.

In the chaos, the general population forgets about the power of Aquatrak, the simplest solution of all.  One train versus an electric car for each person.  The train is NOT fueled by the addiction to profit, but rather by the need for water.  Everyone is allowed on the train, so no one is suspicious of each other.  Everyone takes the train, so our innocent water collectors can go back to digging new wells instead of running tabs.  Collective sympathy is restored.  We remember that water isn’t a commodity, but an element of societal survival.

Aquatrak represents a single-payer universal healthcare system that cuts out the insurance middlemen represented by Megawatt Motors.  During Tuesday’s Supreme Court session, attorney Paul Clement argued with Justice Kagan about the difference between electric cars and health insurance as market entities: “My unwillingness to buy an electric car is forcing up the price of an electric car…If only more people demanded an electric car, there would be economies of scale, and the price would go down” (1).  Clement argued that that sort of inaction does not indicate active engagement in commerce and likewise with failure to buy health insurance.  Kagan disagreed with the analogy and argued that healthcare is by nature different in that even if you do not buy health insurance, you are still entitled to healthcare.  It would be like refusing to buy an electric car, but reaping the benefits of automated travel.

This forced intimacy between two “markets” is the absurdity that we all overlook.  to buy or not to buy health insurance is NOT the question.  It doesn’t have to be.  Congress does not have to impose commerce.  Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.  There’s no reason to force the people to do business with Megawatt Motors when Aquatrak can be financed via taxes.

These Supreme Court proceedings cloud the importance of health not as a commodity but as elemental to human civilization.  Every human depends on it and, as such, it unites us in solidarity.  We care about each other’s access to it.  How can we stay silent as Americans when we’re the only modern industrialized nation where loss of employment means loss of health, loss of life?  Why is corporate profit so intimately connected with popular sustenance?   If healthcare distribution by wealth weren’t so viscerally immoral, why did we find it necessary to forbid emergency rooms to turn people away?  Is that really the limit to our moral imagination?

We can’t see the 47 million uninsured, but we know they are there.  How is this okay?  Mandated coverage under Obamacare will not come near closing that deficit, but we’ve allowed the debate to be framed in such a way that there is no other option.  Not only does it not go far enough, it’s going in the wrong direction.  Channeling billions right back to private MCOs and pharmaceutical giants is not a band-aid on a papercut.  It’s cauterizing a stab wound to the neck.  It might stop the bleeding, but it will become infected.

(1)    http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/11-398-Tuesday.pdf

Media bias: Trayvon Martin and Ramarley Graham

This article originally appeared in OpEd News on 3/21/2012.

The headline of a recent USA Today article reads, “In wake of Trayvon Martin’s death, America is soul-searching” (1).  And so it should be.  He was a 17-year-old African-American walking back from a convenience store when he was gunned down by an overzealous and self-appointed neighborhood watch activist, George Zimmerman.  The media has so far demanded that the public acknowledges that Martin was walking back to “a gated community” in Florida with Skittles in his pocket (2) (3) (4) (5) (6).  The incident which occurred on February 26, just weeks after his 17^th birthday, has sparked international outrage against racism and injustice.  The boy was most likely racially profiled (“Fucking coons ”) and murdered by a much larger, much older, and better equipped member of the community who, outrageously, has yet to be charged with a crime (7).

As a media sensation, the story has forced us to examine racial tensions and prejudices in post-Barack America as well as America’s amorous relationship with firearms.  It’s a tragedy that reflects some of the uglier aspects of our culture.  Benjamin Crump, the family’s attorney, praised the media’s role in revealing the facts surrounding the injustice: “Thank God for the media, because I’m not sure we ever would have gotten the truth out” (8).  Indeed, the media revealed another illustrative aspect of this incident in an LA Times headline that read “George Zimmerman dreamed of being a cop” (4).

The connection between Zimmerman and law enforcement is a remarkable one when we examine another murder of a young African-American male right around the same time as Martin’s death.  On February 2, Ramarley Graham, 18-years-old, was shot to death while unarmed in his grandmother’s Bronx apartment in the vicinity of his younger brother, 6-years-old (9).  If you search his name on Google, you’ll find that his murder was virtually neglected when compared to Martin’s murder.  Trayvon Martin has hour-by-hour coverage and a Wikipedia article.  Ramarley Graham’s has a handful of mentions by Huffington Post and NY times (10).

Why the disparity?  Graham was killed by an NYPD police officer in the narcotics enforcement division.  NYPD police commissioner Ray Kelly expressed his opinion at a subsequent press conference: “At this juncture we see an unarmed person being shot.  That always concerns us” (9).  You might be thinking, or perhaps hoping, that the facts reveal Graham to be somehow “less innocent” than young Martin with the Skittles in his pocket.  Well, of the little bits of information that have been reported, most point to the fact that the police were acting on the suspicion that Graham “might have been armed” (11) (12).  On this suspicion, they followed Graham as he walked into his grandmother’s apartment.  There’s even a video that shows that Graham, indeed, walked into the apartment (13).  The police, specifically Officer Richard Haste, eventually sprinted to the door, kicked it down, and shot the boy in the chest.  Apparently, Haste “believed he was in mortal danger” (14).

What were the officers doing in the first place?  They’re instructed to make arrests upon witnessing a drug deal.  Instead, they witnessed Graham emerge from a bodega with two friends.  Apparently, “something about how he moved his hands near his waist led the officers to suspect he was armed” (11).  He probably had that criminal sort of gait, presumably.  Indeed, the surveillance video confirms hooded sweatshirt and baggy pants.  Well that was it for Ramarley Graham.  The NYPD was vindicated when they found a bag of marijuana in the toilet bowl next to the body.

Both deaths are deeply tragic and grievous.  And neither takes away from the significance of the other.  Each case reflects deep-seated forms of racist oppression against blacks in the U.S.  Yet one has clearly become more sensational than the other.  To find out why, we have to examine deeper differences that have yet to be addressed.

In Trayvon Martin’s case, the mode of racism is horizontal in nature.  Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watchman, acted on violent inclinations filtered through misguided and dangerous stereotypes.  But both were more or less members of the same socioeconomic locale.  Contrastingly, in Ramarley Graham’s case, the injustice was vertical in nature.  Officer Haste, serving in the War on Drugs—incidentally associated with what’s called the New Jim Crow—was attempting to make a low-level marijuana arrest.  Haste may or may not have been a parallel incarnation of Zimmerman, who “dreamed of being a cop.”  His gun, however, was issued to him by the city of New York.  Furthermore, his neighborhood watch was not self-appointed; rather, it was authoritatively commanded.

The top-down institutional nature of the Graham tragedy makes it indirectly a class issue.  Graham was targeted by the police because he was black and in the Bronx, hallmarks of the insurgent in the War on Drugs.  However, class incongruities do not fit the narrative of the mainstream corporate-owned media.  You’re not supposed to think about institutional oppression.  Bitterness and suspicion needs to be aimed around you, not above you.  It’s your neighbor that’s bankrupting the country, stealing your job, and murdering children.  Because of him/her, your gated community is no longer safe.

The juxtaposition of these two tragedies demonstrates how effectively the media can selectively channel righteous indignation in a way that serves elite interest.  The murders of Graham and Martin are equally monstrous, but there’s no question that a state-sponsored homicide is far uglier and more deeply unsettling than one committed by some local fanatic.

1)      http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-20/trayvon-martin-teen-shot-stereotypes/53677634/1

2)      http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/20/trayvon-martin-death-story-so-far?newsfeed=true

3)      http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/03/why_george_zimmerman_trayvon_martin_s_killer_hasn_t_been_prosecuted_.html

4)      http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin-20120320,0,1508238.story

5)      http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/under-suspicion-the-killing-of-trayvon-martin/2011/03/04/gIQAz4F4KS_blog.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

6)      http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-20/news/os-trayvon-martin-girlfriend-speaks-details-20120320_1_shooting-death-gated-attorneys

7)      http://abcnews.go.com/US/neighborhood-watch-killing-911-tape-reveals-racial-slur/story?id=15966309#.T2lWVXxSRnQ

8)      http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2012/03/trayvon-martin-thank-god-for-the-media.html

9)      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/ramarley-graham-new-york-police-_n_1266715.html

10)   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/nyregion/unarmed-teenager-fatally-shot-by-officer-chasing-him.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=%22Ramarley%20Graham%22&st=cse

11)   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/nyregion/police-unit-faces-scrutiny-after-ramarley-grahams-death-in-the-bronx.html?pagewanted=all

12)   http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/the-killing-of-ramarley-graham/253322/

13)   http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8537038

14)   http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/fatally-shot-bronx-teen-believed-life-line-colleague-article-1.1032896

Healthcare failure: the occupied Palestinian territories

This article originally appeared in CounterPunch on 3/15/2012.

Healthcare is a unique issue in international politics and discussions of modern civilization.  As an institutional entity, it has both a substantial and direct implication regarding the very existence of human populations.  That’s in contrast to markers such as employment, GDP, or literacy that have effects that are slightly harder to trace out.  Indeed, the authors 2010 World Health Report recognized that “promoting and protecting health is essential to human welfare and sustained economic and social development” and that people “rate health one of their highest priorities” (1).  As a majorly accepted sentiment, it becomes morally difficult to justify institutional healthcare inequalities if we choose to believe in principles of democracy and Rawlsian equality of opportunity.

If, as a nation, we impose economic sanctions on another country as a method of foreign policy, it’s okay for that nation’s economy to suffer because it puts pressure on the government and state leaders to capitulate.  What you’re not allowed to talk about are the direct outcomes on the population because the point is to get the boogey man—Saddam or Osama—but not to cause a humanitarian crisis characterized by the starvation of children in, say, Afghanistan (2).  Unfortunately, severe economic decline and mass suffering are inexorably linked as is clearly demonstrated by the Palestinian condition.

Starting in 2009, one of the world’s leading medical journals, The Lancet, began publishing a series of studies and commentaries concerned with the socioeconomic condition in the occupied territories.  The chief editor of the journal, Richard Horton, recognized that “since 2000, the occupied Palestinian territory has experienced increased human insecurity, with the erosion and reversal of many health gains made in earlier years” and that “these setbacks, together with the latest Israeli air and ground attacks on Gaza, have plunged the region into a humanitarian crisis” (3).  Indeed, a February 2012 poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion reported that 54.7% of Palestinians are concerned about their subsistence of themselves and their family.  Furthermore, when asked about their main present concern, 39.6% said it was employment and 22.4% said it was security (4).

The reason for their bleak outlook is pretty straightforward, let’s just look at the facts.  The aftermath of the Second Intifada and the blockade of the Gaza Strip left the population of 1.7 million in a devastated state.  In 2008, 37% of the active workforce in Gaza was unemployed and 74% of the population lived below the poverty line of $3.15 per person per day.  Unemployment in the West Bank was 19% and 40% lived under the poverty line.  Though physical, institutional, and trade restrictions imposed on the Occupied Territories since the Oslo accords had been deteriorating the internal Palestinian economy, foreign aid allowed for continued development (32% of GDP according to the World Bank) (5).  However, the situation collapsed upon the popular election of Hamas: “Diplomatic ties and international donor funding were cut, and Israel withheld Palestinian tax revenues, which together form about 75% of the budget of the Palestinian National Authority.”  (6).

Health outcomes also deteriorated sharply as a result of economic penalties and restrictions.  Electricity and cooking gas to Gaza was heavily diminished which subsequently “disrupted the operation of water and sewage pumps throughout the Gaza Strip.”  In addition to continual shortages of medicines and medical supplies, a WHO report found that “medical devices are often broken, missing spare parts, or out of date” (7).  Amnesty International’s 2011 Report revealed that the infant mortality rate in the occupied territories is 23/18 (m/f) per 1000 in contrast to 6/5 in Israel.  Furthermore the life expectancy in the territories is 72.9 years as opposed to 80.3 years in Israel (8).  Proper access to healthcare has also been severely impaired by the stringent restriction on travel outside of the occupied territories.  Reports by Physicians for Human Rights revealed an increase in the medical referrals outside of Gaza coupled with a decreased in travel permissions allowed for these cases by Israeli officials (9).  The population inexorably suffers.

The fundamental barrier Palestinians face in attaining healthcare is ubiquitous: inability to afford high costs.  There is no realistic way of implementing a system of pooled risk to decrease up-front costs and the distribution of healthcare resources (including personnel) among the sick is extremely inefficient.  Because of the stipulations of the Israeli occupation, the “Palestinian National Authority is expected to perform as the government of a state while lacking control over its borders, basic resources, and many of the social determinants of health” and “vague institutional arrangements have hindered the establishment of a proper governance system” (10).

Modern medicine is built upon basic principles of inter- and intra- state trade.  This is in sharp contrast to an advanced profession such as law where an expertly trained professional can provide legal counsel just about anywhere and to anyone.  In addition to the physician’s knowledgebase and skill set, he/she requires material goods and resources such as medicines and biomedical equipment.  The internal economy of Palestine is deeply impoverished and exchange with external parties is severely hindered by check points, roadblocks, and blockades.  There are no economic and logistical frameworks to get patients what they need.

The bottom line is that the population suffers due to external forces beyond their control (and desire as revealed by the polls).  A crippled economy left the people without jobs or an infrastructure for societal development: they’re stuck.  In the ghetto that is Gaza Strip: “social solidarity and resilience have nurtured the Palestinian health response to occupation.”  However, in light of continued political and economic degeneration, “the social fabric of Palestinian society is eroding (11).”  Ordinary Palestinians are completely disenfranchised.  Even if they were to engage in popular demonstration which has been used globally to achieve egalitarian health objectives (12), the Palestinian Authority does not have the capacity to react significantly in any way.  If the only parties that enter the discourse are Fatah, Hamas, Israel, and the United States, then health outcomes will decline.  Poor healthcare has become an effective means of nonviolently undermining a population.  Sadly enough, the same strategy was employed in Apartheid South Africa.

(1)    http://www.who.int/whr/2010/en/index.html

(2)    http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq/sanctions.html

(3)    http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60100-8/fulltext

(4)    http://www.pcpo.ps/polls.htm

(5)    http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWESTBANKGAZA/Resources/AHLCReportSept.08final.pdf

(6)    http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60107-0/abstract

(7)    http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/m/abstract/Js16445e/

(8)    http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/israel-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-2011

(9)    http://www.phr.org.il/default.asp?PageID=111&ItemID=558

(10)http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60111-2/abstract

(11)http://www.thelancet.com/series/health-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territory

(12)http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2011.02817.x/abstract