Feb 08, 2010
...to our 535 esteemed legislators:

Today, the Association for Computing Machinery (the world’s largest group of computer professionals) announced the winners of the 2010 ACM International Collegiate Programming Competition.^1,2 And guess what? The only non-Russian, non-Chinese school in the top ten was the University of Warsaw (Poland, not Indiana). That’s right. Not only did we not finish in the money, we didn’t even finish with honor.

If you cannot see that these results are the canary in the coal mine, auguring disaster for the future of American innovation and competitiveness, then you are even more clueless than you have led us to believe over the past year. While states are busily disordering their legislative framework in a headlong rush for $4.35 billion in federal support, the pittance for which they are competing^3,4; while a lone representative (enabled by the Speaker) threatens to destroy the most successful program of technological innovation in history in order to keep her re-election campaign chest stocked with corporate lucre^5,6; our nation has gone from an overwhelmingly dominant position in computer science only a few years ago to tying for 14th place with the likes of the Belarusian State University and the Universidade Federale de Pernambuco.

While you Lilliputian Neros fiddle, Rome burns. If we can’t compete with Russia or China in computers, we can’t compete in biomedicine, weaponry, space applications, finance, manufacturing, entertainment, or any of the other industries which, today, are absolutely dependent on computing know-how. And if our programming and computing skills are not up to those of our two giant totalitarian antagonists, then our national security and our hope for spreading democracy across the globe are in dire peril as well.

This is the pass to which you have brought us, and we have no one to thank but ourselves for not taking you all by the collar and heaving you out that magnificent panelled doorway into a snowdrift.
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¹ Chinese and Russian Universities Claim Nine of Top Ten Spots..., accessed, as were all items footnoted in this entry, Feb 8, 2010.
² Results World Finals 2010.
³ Race to the Top funding faces obstacles, by James Rufus Koren and Canan Tasci, from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Feb 7, 2010.
⁴ Pressing for changes to charter school laws, by Nicole Fuller, from the Baltimore Sun, Feb 7, 2010.
⁵ SBIR Insider Newsletter, by Rick Shindell, Jan 11, 2010.
⁶ Full Disclosure: I work for a company that contributes its expertise to the SBIR program.
tags: Computers | Education | Governance

Feb 07, 2010

* NEW * The Creed of Objectivity Killed the News

by Chris Hedges, whom we all should be reading. “The symbiotic relationship between the press and the power elite worked for nearly a century. It worked as long as our power elite, no matter how ruthless or insensitive, was competent. But once our power elite became incompetent and morally bankrupt, the press, along with the power elite, lost its final vestige of credibility.” From Truthdig.com. Accessed , 2010.

Feb 06, 2010
She is about 6 in the picture here. She was 12 when she died, probably of a combination of a skin disease, torture, and poverty. She was earning $8 a month—minus the employment agency’s commission—working 12 hours a day cleaning floors, cars, and toilets for a fatcat lawyer, to help her family pay off its debts. Her employer claimed that her 17 injuries “caused by blunt means” were the result of a fall down stairs. The case is pending.

This is how we live today, and if the world can’t manage a massive attitude adjustment, things are going to get worse and worse. Pakistan may “seethe”¹ all it wants at the death of Shazia Masih, but Pakistan killed that little girl as surely as if her execution had been inscribed in its nation’s statutes.

All over the world, nations are abusing and exploiting and terrorizing their own. The U.S. not only does it at home, but exports their terror to the entire globe. A small global contingent of fabulously wealthy individuals have co-opted their body politic, and are destroying the golden goose in a headlong dash for more and ever more lucre.

That this world was made for all; that each life is precious and must be nurtured and given every opportunity to make its unique contribution to the future; that poverty, want, and ignorance are eradicable; that vast inequities in income breed violence on a scale the world can no longer afford to contemplate; these are attitudes which the world must adopt or we are doomed.

How far we are from adopting these attitudes is starkly clear in the Times story, the horror of which is repeated millions of times over across the world every day.
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¹ Bruised Maid Dies at 12, and Pakistan Seethes, by Sabrina Tavernise, from the New York Times, Feb 5, 2010, accessed Feb 6, 2010.
tags: Poverty | Governance | Labor

Jan 30, 2010
The headline in my local paper this morning: “Enfield: No Money for Nonprofits.”

The New Hampshire community of 4850 people has decided, “for philosophical reasons,” to drop nine social service agencies from its annual budget, saving approximately $50,000 from town expenditures of around $5,780,000¹ (less than one percent). Services provided by the agencies include, in part, mass transit, mental and physical health assistance, senior citizen programs, support for victims of domestic abuse, and poverty alleviation. By anyone’s estimation, the nine agencies provide the town of Enfield with far more than $50,000 worth of important social services.

Stories such as these, as well as too many we are reading in the national press, show the extent to which the social contract is fraying. In hard times, panic trumps intelligence, and the middle class in America has been undergoing harder and harder times since the beginning of the Reagan Revolution. Somehow, in our panic, the myth that government is evil and needs to be curtailed has taken hold of the popular imagination. But government is as old as the day the first two families moved into the same cave and found they needed to forge a social contract in order to preserve internal peace and fend off external aggression.

To be sure, that government is best which governs least. However, government is the glue that binds us together and delivers, as effectively, efficiently, and economically as possible, those services which are necessary to preserve internal peace and fend off external aggression. Among those efficent services are public insurance programs which, upon superficial examination, seem to take from all to benefit the few—public education, for instance. Upon closer examination and better understanding, however, we find these programs benefit all of us some of the time, some of us all of the time, and, indeed, some benefit all of us all of the time in that they relieve us of burdens which, were they to fall upon us individually, would be disastrous.

Those social service agencies in Enfield are examples of these public insurance programs. For a relative pittance, we can, for instance, assure the services of a visiting nurse, for ourselves or a loved one, should such visits become necessary. Should they become necessary without investing that pittance, provision of such services could easily be insupportable. To argue that the public as a whole should not support these services because everyone does not use them is to miss the point entirely—of insurance, of government, of the social contract we adhere to for purposes of living together in society.

It is with profound sorrow that we here at All Together Now witness our nation’s social contract disintegrating, when we know that the time has never been more ripe for listening to our better instincts and, together, forging a new nation dedicated to the health, happiness, and well being of all its people.
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¹ Enfield, NH, from NH.gov, accessed Jan 30, 2010.

tags: Governance | ATN

Jan 28, 2010

A Radical Treasure

by Bob Herbert. The best eulogy I have found for Howard Zinn. From the New York Times, Jan 29, 2010. Accessed Jan 30, 2010.

Democracy in America is a Useful Fiction

by Chris Hedges. The war is over, and we lost. From Truthdig.com, Jan 24, 2010. Accessed Jan 27, 2010.

After the Massachusetts Massacre

by Frank Rich. Another excellent take on where we go after Massachusetts. From the New York Times, Jan 23, 2010. Accessed Jan 26, 2010.

Highlighted Reader Comments on the Supreme Court Corporate Campaign Funding Story

Some memorable comments from the people. From the New York Times, Jan 21, 2010. Accessed Jan 24, 2010.

Swept off our feet

by Brian McGrory. Another brilliant post-mortem on Massachusetts. From Boston.com, Jan 20, 2010. Accessed Jan 21, 2010.

Obama Finally Gets His Victory for Bipartisanship

by Drew Weston. One man’s cogent post-mortem on the Massachusetts Senate election. From The Huffington Post, Jan 20, 2010. Accessed Jan 20, 2010.

Greg Mortenson Interviewed by Bill Moyers

if you haven’t read the books or know the man, this is a great introduction. From Bill Moyers Journal, Jan 15, 2010. Accessed Jan 17, 2010.

Wall Street Will Be Back for More

By Chris Hedges. And more and more and more. From Truthdig.com, Jan 10, 2010. Accessed Jan 16, 2010.

A Farm for The Future

Is there a farm in your future? From Natural World via Google Videos, undated. Accessed Jan 16, 2010.

Reducing America’s Economic Polarization Will Lead to Political Comity

By Robert Creamer. Not to mention leading to a measure of social justice we have almost entirely abandoned since the Reagan Revolution. From the Huffington Post, Jan 4, 2010. Accessed Jan 4, 2010.

“Food Rules”: A Completely Different Way to Fix the Health Care Crisis

By Michael Pollan. If we are going to finally get going on fixing the health care crisis, let’s start at the start—fixing the dreadful way we eat! From the Huffington Post, Jan 4, 2010. Accessed Jan 4, 2010.

Beware the Progressive Democrat

By Helen Redmond. As the final health care vote approaches, eloquent voices for progressive change, such as Redmond’s and Hamsher’s below, are raised in a howl of protest.From . Accessed , 2010.

Criticising the President on Health Care is “Naderite” and “Hurts the Progressive Agenda”

By Jane Hamsher. Big Tent, indeed. From Firedoglake, Dec 28, 2009. Accessed Jan 1, 2010.

A Most Meaningful Gift Idea

By Nicholas Kristof. Get involved! If you can’t give your time or your voice to change which must come in 2010, give a few of your dollars. Nicholas Kristof provides links to several successful nonprofits who are improving the lot of the poor around the world. From the New York Times, Dec 23, 2009. Accessed Jan 1, 2010.

Democracy Now: 2009 in Review

You may have to find your way to the Jan 1, 2010, show. Accessed Jan 1, 2010.

2009: The Things I Want to Forget (Part II)

By Arianna Huffington. We must not forget. From the Huffington Post, Dec 31, 2009. Accessed Jan 1, 2010.

2009: The Things I Want to Forget

By Arianna Huffington. From the Huffington Post, Dec 28, 2009. Accessed Jan 1, 2010.

Jan 02, 2010
Vermont is at it again.

Hard on the heels of becoming the first state to enact a statute allowing homosexual unions, we are now mounting a credible campaign to bring single-payer, government-administered health care to all our citizens. Bills have been introduced in both houses of the legislature (H.100 in the House¹ and S.88 in the Senate²). With coordination from the Vermont Workers’ Center (VWC)³, the grassroots are gathering to demand passage of the bill (the House and Senate versions are essentially the same, unlike the games-playing variations between versions in D.C.).

Should Vermont pull off this cheeky maneuver, and the feds pass a health care proposal requiring every citizen to purchase, either directly or through their employer, health care coverage from private insurers in perpetuity, we can anticipate a Constitutional crisis of dramatic proportions. The graybeards of the Supreme Court will find their strict constructionist, states-rights positions sorely tried as they are called upon to prop up the corporate hegemony which Vermont’s action will have threatened.

The feds, of course, will believe themselves to have any number of prerogatives available to them for purposes of slapping down the upstarts; however, I would not sell Vermonters short in their readiness to dig in their heels. We have not sacrified disproportionately high numbers of our men and women to our nation’s conflicts because we’re pussies^4,5. And the last time the nation fumbled the Vermont ball, in 1777, we declared our independence for 14 years⁶. Those who forget history may be condemned to see it repeated.

On January 6, VWC and supporters of the legislation will meet at noon at the Statehouse in Montpelier to present thousands of postcards in support of single-payer health care to legislators on the opening day of the new session. There is still time to sign these postcards online⁷. Then, on January 12, from 6-8pm, hearings on H.100 and S.88 will begin.

Should the legislation pass, the two houses have veto-proof majorities which have already overridden two vetoes (unprecedented!) by our lame-duck Republican governor. Can you say “hat trick“?

What fun! Happy New Year.
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¹ H.100: An Act Relating to Health Care Financing and Unviersal Access to Health Care in Vermont
² S.88: An Act Relating to Health Care Financing and Universal Access to Health Care in Vermont
³ Vermont Workers’ Center
⁴ Effects of the World Wars on Vermont
⁵ CARSEY STUDY: War Death Rate Higher Among Soldiers from Rural Areas
⁶ Vermont (Wikipedia)
⁷ Healthcare Is A Human Right Postcard
tags: Health | Governance

Dec 25, 2009
America, wake up!

It is way past time to put your invective away, disown the cynical manipulators who stir you up to such passionate intensity, and focus on the facts: Your economic situation hasn't improved in 40 years; you've got a miserable standard of health care which no European or Canadian would tolerate for five minutes and for which you pay through the nose; your kids are fat and stupid from playing video games and eating nothing but sugar, salt, and fat all day; their schools are little better than prisons; one in six of you is under- or unemployed; the debt you have so massively and eagerly incurred has made billionaires out of a handful of the most evil bastards you could ever hope to imagine; and your world is melting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West.

Obama has delivered nothing but a measly stimulus package and a handful of cash for clunkers, while strapping your children and grandchildren with over $13 trillion in debt and Wall Street guarantees. It has become impossible to imagine a life for them free of endless domestic and international conflict, a 19th century standard of living, and an environment that will produce pandemics and mass starvation.

You are being played for a sucker by the likes of Glenn Beck and Barack Obama both. Go back to the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. Remember what this country is about. It is about opportunity and freedom, it is about the individual, it is about all the people, not the tiny few who have bought off the government, enslaving the people and robbing us of both opportunity and freedom.

And once you come to your senses, don’t get mad, get even. It’s easy: Elect representatives who represent us, not them.
tags: New Political Party | Governance | ATN

Dec 24, 2009
It would have taken but one brave senator to scuttle a health care “reform” bill that, as Howard Dean and others have concluded, will do more harm than good. Besides delivering us all for perpetuity into the kindly hands of the health insurance industry—or face a fine for trying to opt out—it will still, apparently, leave at least 17 million Americans uninsured. It purports to close two loopholes—pre-existing conditions and dropped coverage—that insurance companies have heretofore enjoyed in denying coverage. We shall see to what extent those loopholes really are closed.

One brave senator might have sent—may still send—a resounding message through the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., that the people will not be held hostage to the corporatocracy. I thought that that senator may have been from my own state of Vermont; however, Bernie Sanders voted for the Senate bill along with the other 58 democrats and one other “independent”—Joe Lieberman. He explains himself in a great interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show¹, where he claims that the provision of a $10 billion program to institute community health centers partly persuaded him to support the bill. We all know what a drop in the bucket $10 billion is, and I was disappointed to hear him grasp on to this straw as a reason to keep from withholding his support.

The most telling comment in the interview comes about halfway through (4:30), when Sanders states outright a truth that should have us all in the streets howling for blood: “Big money interests control the United States Congress.” Others have said the same thing recently. And if that is not a sufficiently sad and infuriating fact to bring the American people to their feet in an outpouring of activism and protest, then what is?

In his just-published novel, Ralph Nader has concluded that a popular social movement is now impossible to mount and that “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” His utopian novel has the likes of Warren Buffet and George Soros joining forces to wrest our nation from runaway capitalism and restore it to the people. After Nader’s dismal showing in a third run for president in 2008, it is not surprising to see one of America’s true heroes reaching for a desperate solution. Fiction is fiction, however, and a far likelier scenario for the future may be a cheery comment Kurt Vonnegut made a few years before his death: “Things are going to get worse and worse, and they’re never going to get better again.”
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¹ Sanders’ Honest Assessment of the Health Reform Bill—MSNBC’s Morning Joe
² Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!
tags: Governance | Health

Dec 02, 2009

Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

By Siobhan Gorman, et al. Iranian-backed militants have been hacking into our deadly drones’ video feeds with a $25 piece of software for the last year. Our favorite quotation: “U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights.” So what’s the fuss? From The Wall Street Journal, Dec 17, 2009. Accessed Dec 17, 2009.

Our Murderers in the Sky

By Scott Ritter. “...the Afghan problem has never been a military problem....” From Truthdig.com, Dec 10, 2009. Accessed Dec 11, 2009.

Building a case for the survival of the kindest

What?! Could Ayn Rand have been wrong? Is altruism a survival mechanism after all? (We feel vindicated.) From R&D Magazine, Dec 9, 2009. Accessed Dec 10, 2009.

Liberals Are Useless

By Chris Hedges. Can you see yourself in this portrait? From Truthdig.com, Dec 7, 2009. Accessed Dec 9, 2009.

Addicted to Nonsense

By Chris Hedges. Are we all become Eloi, grist for the Morlocks? From Truthdig,com, Nov 30, 2009. Accessed Dec 5, 2009.

The Afghanistan Parenthesis

By David Bromwich. From the Huffington Post, Dec 2, 2009. Accessed Dec 2, 2009.

Dec 01, 2009
We have no rights but those we declare for ourselves. We have no right to food, clothing, or shelter, the necessities for sustaining life. People go hungry every day, are dressed in rags, and sleep every night on the cold hard streets. Even here in the promised land.

We have no right to health care, as the thousands who die needlessly every year will attest, or would if they could.

We have no right even to work, as nearly one in five of our working-age population will tell you.

The one right we have declared for ourselves is the right to an education, and we have made provision for underwriting the delivery of that right through the public coffers. All adults pay, that all children may learn.

If we can do that, why can we not, in the richest country in the history of the world, declare for all our citizens the right to the basic necessities of life, including the right to health care and the right to work, and make provision for underwriting the delivery of those rights through the public coffers? Of course, we could, were we not so busy pouring our wealth into mindless, endless, meaningless wars, and were the fat cats of the military-political-industrial-academic complex not so in command of a world they are fast destroying to fill their bulging pockets even fuller.

Well, the times they are a’changin’ and do not for a moment think they are not. Voices everywhere are raised in indignation and in anger. Thus far, our collective response has been inchoate. But it will not be for long. Regrettably, we seem to need a leader, a flint upon which to strike the spark of action. Soon, someone will step out of the shadows and assume that role. They will speak to the need for justice and for equity, and the decent American people will rise together and take their country back from the thieves and their toadies.

The American Idea is the hope of the world, and that Idea—subdued now under an avalanche of greed and governmental corruption—must prevail, or the world is lost.

tags: New Political Party | Politics | Economics

Nov 10, 2009
If you have not read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, then waste no time, click on this link, and buy it now, or run out to your local library for a copy.

Read but a small portion of it and you will understand why our elected representatives could pass a health care “reform” bill last weekend that 1) requires every man, woman, and child in our country to purchase coverage from a corporate health insurance provider for the rest of our lives; 2) does not allow states to craft their own public, single-payer option; 3) protects patents for many of the most important drugs of the future from ever expiring and allowing the manufacture and sale of less expensive generics; and 4) denies coverage for vital and legal medical procedures to the population which needs them most.

We can only hope that the Senate introduces sufficient additional horrors into this bill to assure its failure. In other words, the best health care reform we can hope for now is no health care reform. Because this is not reform. This is Disaster Capitalism at its worst, a huge windfall for the corporatocracy, paid for by the poor and the middle class, yet again.

Klein’s book lays out the pattern and policy of torture—physical, social, and economic—pursued by the corporatocracy, and abetted by their minions in the government, since the end of World War II. The goal: to enrich the few at the expense of the many. And it has been working like a charm, in case you hadn’t noticed. Her book, thoroughly supported with references, is an eye opener of extraordinary proportions. No one who reads it will ever feel the same about our country. And having turned its last page and set it down, you will be forced with a choice: hope or despair.

I still believe there is hope. However, it must manifest itself soon in real action by the American people to reclaim our national ideals. If we aren’t up to the task, more than this nation will suffer the consequences. Our species will self-destruct, and those surviving will not miss us.
tags: Health | Business | Governance