Africa: Development Aid: Zambian economist blasts long-term practices that don't develop countries to meet their own needs

"Aiding and Abetting," by ASH Smith in a web exclusive interview with Dambisa Moya, Zambian economist (Jul 2k9 Prospect, UK)

According to Dambisa Moyo, the policy of foreign aid to Africa constitutes “the single worst decision of modern developmental politics.” Since the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions in the 1940s, approximately $1 trillion has been thrown at the problem of African development, during which time the continent as a whole has failed to progress. In the last 30 years, the worst economies have actually shrunk, and even as the torrent of aid reached its high-water mark the poverty rate was increasing six-fold.

Moyo, a former World Bank consultant and Goldman Sachs employee, made her argument in “Dead Aid” (Allen Lane), published earlier this year to considerable attention ( Prospect's review is here). Far from bolstering African economies, she claimed, aid money has made matters worse. It has stunted economic growth, encouraged graft, and removed entrepreneurial incentives at both state and personal levels. And, almost from the outset, the servicing of old debts has demanded the acquisition of newer, bigger ones.

Moyo’s solution was stark. In five years, all aid to Africa must stop. In its place, African nations will need to implement new economic policies including micro-loans, improved remittances and formalised domestic savings schemes, as well as, internationally, improving foreign direct investment, borrowing responsibly and securing more equitable trading arrangements with the west.

-- EconoMix

Jewish State: Religious Minorities: Circassians, Druse community demonstrate of bias of Israel in favour of Jews in town financing

Druse, Circassians protest in Jerusalem
by JPost.com staff (Jun21,2k9) JPost.com

Riot police blocked Druse demonstrators protesting in front of the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem. Their demo was driven by anger against the lack of infrastructure investments in their villages and demanding equal budgets [as those received by Jewish townships] from the state.

The demonstrators were protesting what they called discrimination against them in the allocations of funds for local authorities in their towns and villages.

They called on the government to cancel the local authorities' outstanding debts, to create income sources and to increase government funds to the Druse and Circassian villages.

I don't know whether I've heard of Circassians before, but they're apparently [still?] in existence in Israel.

The Druze in Israel are related to their co-religionists in Lebanon, lately led by Walid Jumblatt, now perhaps by some son of his, as the community tends toward dynastic leaderships.

-- Politicarp

Politics: Health USA: Obscure notions of "co-ops" stirred, Green split spits at Dems & Reps said to favor the Big Interests, not us

I certainly hope for the mobilization of reformational Christians in the USA to support a big step forward in national healthcare. But, it's fine to require pay-in requirements for those who can pay, as far as I'm concerned. I don't mind that Obama has backed down from a "Canadian" plan -- a plan still booted about South of the Border, a plan which isn't Canadian at all. In Canada, healthcare is financed by both provinces and by federal govt contributions to the provincial health ministries. Other ways to pump selectively further Federal money into, say, the Ontario Healthcare system coud include receiving otherwise unmarked funds from a Federal scientific and research grant by the Pure Science desk or whatever it's called and of which existing ministry of govt, I don't know. Apparently, Obama has givenup on that plan -- and, for now, has artfully dodged a "progress" (Shakespeare) that could have generated quite dubious results for Americans.

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a critique by interspersion of refWrite's responding intertexuality,
in deconstructive stancing toward the written, reconstructive interpretation too;
semiotically-enriched / -clarifying
while sometimes -ambiguating, what often becomes indeed a semiotically-semantically interactive intertextament of meanings scattered against a great skyscape of meaning-levels
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Obama has shifted and will continue to shift on what he's exactly talking about, as in part he searches his way along, listening to the instant and 24hr, 48hr, 72hr feedback he gets from his staff, media, and emails from the public (which he can't possibly take time to read). It's certainly fine for the government to require medical doctors to give a day every week of free healthcare working among the poor, providing this care in the maximally debureaucratized environments suitable to local healthcare delivery to the poor. There are many strategies possible for bringing every American into the Big Tent of civil society's healthcare and of personal responsibility to the general health of society. Including of course one's own healthcare to one's own body (nearly 69, I'm somewhat neglectful) and one's own responsiblity to those around you to keep the common areas clean and healthy (in addition to which I bitch at them when they leave work for me, 7 males all; but she at whom I don't yell, no need whatsoever; further we have one instance of psychosis). This is the sociology -- societal experience! reflected upon with sociological referencing -- out of which my own thinking emerges guided by my Christian worldview. This doesn't mean a plan is good simply because it taxes everybody or charges "user fees" in the Emergency Room.

It's futile to be arguing whether the Canadian system is better or worse than the USA's. First, the Canadian system is good (it involves two levels of govt support by taxation, with much further supplemental support to the pensioners, and to the poor). Second, at the same time, the system has it's sometimes serious disaster of a failure, a flawed delivery system that results in a human personal tragedy. But to hear the fatuous Glenn Beck potvaliantly sneer at the system and smear using innuendo wide and reckless, to dishonestly disparage the daily accomplishments of the Canadian healthcare system because one person went unattended for 36-hours and died in the Emergency Room somewhere, doesn't mean the inferiority of the Canadian system. Beck's approach is not a one of a Christian concerned for healthcare for all; what's more, we need something other than what the capitalist medical system in the USA has to offer Americans, especially poor Americans.

In the USA, the kind of case that Beck selected to represent Canada's healthcare, in a USA context where so many of our poor have no medical insurance, some people in great need never even get to a hospital or clinic to die on a bench there. And Beck is being treacherous in regard to this needless misrepresentation based on a huge generalization. Beck is the latest starlet to do offthewall flackery on FoxNews.com. I don't like, either, much of the other "news"-casting on TV; but generally I can stand the other channels far less than Fox, which like most everything has its br+t spots too. But on Fox News, Beck is not one of those br+t spots. On the plus side, generally, the women, br+t and mentally sharp, are far more interesting on Fox News than on the other news channels, .

My search on the web for good critical sources regarding federal debate on healthcare, took me to what is one of the two Green Parties in the USA:

WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders said today that measures to end the recession must focus on the financial needs of middle- and lower-income Americans, and accused Democrats and Republicans in Congress and President Obama of favoring big banks, financial institutions, and insurance firms.

"The very banks, Wall Street firms, and insurance companies that are responsible for the economic crisis are calling the shots for economic recovery. They're using their power over Congress and the White House to make sure that taxpayers' money and workers' retirement benefits rescue CEOs and major shareholders [false insofar as it is incomplete: the labor unions have been and are presently being h+ly benefitted by the White House. Now, I'm thinking of the UAW and the leverage that the union now has over GM thru its rescued and privileged Pension Funds, while the union CEOs are not treated equally with the GM brass, as far as clipping usurious incomes are concerned]. They're blocking badly needed regulation and the deeper reforms in our economic system that are necessary to dig us out of the hole. [Again, this Green outfit is so tendentious that its statements end up being false overall, whatever GPUSA's intentions.] Unfortunately, President Obama and Democrats and Republicans in Congress are cooperating with them [the corporate greedmeisters, to use my own metaphor for the potvaliant way GPUSA broadbrushes all corporate leaders] so that the power these corporations hold over America remains undiminished," said Laura Wells, former candidate for California State Controller (TV interview: http://www.gp.org/flash/LauraWells/lw.html). [The foregoing is also false in portraying any "cooperation" with corporations as (necessarily) a cooperation with the sole villain in the recent economic crisis. Maybe Obama has outsmarted the very same bosses with whom the h+ hallucinating Wells woud conceive her own special Obama, the two, he on top and the coporate leadership only seeming to be beneath him (in the dirty-mindeds' way of reading), in a single identity for her purposes here.

In actuality, we simply don't and can't know many things, yet; speculations about the logical necessity of a certain scenario (given the fragmentary facts we do know sort of, thru dubious mass communications, including books); and maybe we will never know (double negative and all). Ms. Wells is just making tooth-and-claw politically-negative statements; because, apparently, the Greens (either split A or split B) have little to nothing to say on precisely how to structure healthcare to cover everybody in our medically-divided society's health institutions; we must accept pluralization of groups, besides any allegedly "religiously-neutral" public governmental institutions; the Green Meanies coud instead discriminate among corporations -- at least insofar as some of these business leaders may get behind Obama's or a similar initiative when a decent plan comes up; and that re-orientation of corporations already is at least beginning to happen, according to my reading between the lines of Jonathan Cohn's "The Operator," a piece on Karen Ignagni an entrepreneur of a certain kind of entrepreneurial structure, a kind of trade association of small-business insurers ("small" relatively speaking). "Why is the most powerful health care lobbyist playing nice?" But returning to our analysis of the text of the Greens:]

The Green outfit says "Ms. Wells intends to run for the position again 'until we -- the people of this state -- win.' [Please, suddenly she and her party are "we"-- the people of California -- " , whereas in actuality the people of California includes everyone in Calfornia, where many of those very people that Ms Wells verbaly tries to lasso for inclusion in her herd of slippery definitions, many of those momentarily entertained precisely don't believe in the constant straining of Greens to sound better and more connected and just laden with real solutions than the non-people out there who don't yet see the error of their ways -- suddenly, in the logic behind this rhetoric, readers can surmise how Green party "ecologism" turns out to be class-warfare rhetoric (in which I presently note distinct echoes of Trotskyism) after all -- whereas the field of contemplation here just doesn't allow anyone that level of surety. And the last remark also applies to r+twingers, like Beck.] We need to follow the money, understand it, and correct it."[Cant buttered in cliché. And what about your money, Ms Wells, and what about your own mirage-generating ideology?]

"The measure of the health of the economy is the stability of the nation's households. The current economic 'remedies' offered by Republicans, Democrats, and the Obama Administration are designed to ensure the well-being of corporations at the expense of our households," [false: this is just self-serving political claptrap] said Jill Bussiere, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.

Congress and the White House have refused to take real action against skyrocketing interest rates, especially on credit cards, by restoring laws against usury and imposing interest rate caps. Greens called the Democrats' "Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights" a small step in the right direction [better said perhaps: a little ray of honest acknowledgement of the credit crunch, as it affects those other than rich] but severely inadequate, [ Agreed!] with no limits on future credit card interest rates.

"The economic meltdown is the result of deregulated lending [again, not true enuff, as the demand by the banks to set up, instead, their own outside-of-kind financial firms [philosophers read: anti-normative banks, anti-normative non-bank financial houses] -- financiers and brokerages of the more predatory kind -- and then exalt these half-assed banks with the cancerous h+risk core internally, exalt them as the true centers of said "banks," where internally the banking function comes to serve the brokering function -- this whole anti-regulatory slide all constituting a severely anti-sphere-sovereignty/universality distortion of the internal structural principle of both kinds of business companies in each of its variant positivizations, involving also a complex of concepts which is resoundingly combinatory into a key ins+t into the structural part of the problem of the faux lending] -- predatory mortgage lending, outrageous credit card interest and fees, and other practices that have put working Americans into endless debt and bankrupted small businesses," [false: the Greens' conceptualization unfairly again targets only the corporations -- they're the devils, the demons, and the dark murky sea -- but what of the simultaneous govt and Congressional committee chairmen and ranking minority members's unconscionable pressure put on lendors to grant mortgages to those never able to pay for them, again, as a result of actions and policies of key congressional Democrats, of Fannie Mae leadership and structures, and likewise Freddie Mae, etc] said Jody Grage, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States (split A or B, I just don't know). "But Democrats and Republicans alike have refused to consider modest steps like an 18% interest rate cap, out of loyalty to major corporate campaign contributors and lobbies." [Go for it, gals. You're ascription of motives is a bit severe, but otherwise I'm backing you on this one -- except your overload of blame-placing put on corporations -- whereas, it seems to me that the ladies are themselves totally dependent on the corporations, regulated sufficiently or not, dependent upon corporations for their daily lives, a large part of their own ways of life.]

"The most important step in ending the economic crisis must be reversal of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton revolution, which deregulated the financial industry. [This is such an unnuanced and monothematic historiographic analysis, a unexceptionally traditional marxist scholarly-framework implied,so unnuanced yet with such bold political horizons, and with a political time-frame that ends up being that of the statement's author in her reckless abandonment of any effort to carefully persuade a wide variety of readers; instead, the rhetoric proferred is all about targetting, demonizing, while lacking positive proposals on the actual point at hand.] All that rhetoric about 'shrinking big government' really meant repealing protections for working people, especially laws against usury. Since 1980, bipartisan legislation favoring giant corporate lenders have paved the way for the current disaster. It's time to restore and expand the Glass-Steagal Act, overturn recent bankruptcy bills that put millions of Americans in hock to credit card companies and other financial corporations, and place restrictive caps on corporate lenders and creditors," said Ms. Grage. [At last, some good ideas buried in here in all the mindless leftwing rhetoric. But, sorry, I don't have time to pause and analyse the this particular set of accusations and proposals; a task which in itself woud be wellworth doing. Later sometime, maybe. So, please read the Greens' recommended back-up:]

More information: "The Trouble With Democrats" by William Greider, The Nation, June 22, 2009 (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/greider).>

While the recent massive taxpayer-funded bailouts [stop! most of the tax-base people now paying for the mass bailouts, payment which has been and yet will be extracted from corporate elites and their staffs and, far more broadly of course, extracted from anyone who pays graduated income tax more than do the poor [my usage here of "the poor" includes those who pay nothing in income taxes and who live marginally, perhaps utterly homeless, but not necessarily so -- so much for romantically conceived "working people," as many of these working people at the top of corporate hierarchies actually work longer hours and much harder than do the ladies making featured statements for the Greens' press release] for Wall Street firms and major banks have imposed minimal conditions, the Obama Administration forced General Motors into bankruptcy and now demands that the retirement health benefits of workers be used to pay off GM's debt.

"By demanding that GM workers' retirement money be sent to creditor banks, Steven Rattner, President Obama's 'Car Czar,' is breaking the law. That money belongs to the workers, not to GM or the banks. This is outright theft, [tedious!] for the benefit of powerful banks," said Jody Grage. [This last one I'll have to look into, and I can't judge at this point the alleged action by the Car Czar, who looked a bit shabby to me from the outset.]

The 1974 Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) protects benefits that workers have already paid for, prohibiting their use to pay off an employer's debt. More information: "Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM" by Greg Palast, June 1, 2009 (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vlatibertaciana/message/3894). [That source looks interesting, but does it support the argument of the self-quoting ladies above?]

A Harvard Medical School and Ohio University study reported in the American Journal of Medicine (http://www.pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy_study) reveals that medical bills are behind 60% of bankruptcies in the US.

"Insurance companies are chiefly responsible for the breakdown of US health care and skyrocketing medical costs, and for contributing to the greater economic crisis by sending Americans into bankruptcy. [Far too much single-cause thinking, not nearly enuff multi-factorality (therefore requiring a h+er level of proof by far, if possible)]The only solution [This concept of an "only solution" is part of the problem.] is to remove for-profit insurance from the health care system [That political move doesn't sound too br+t, removing institutions that create not just wealth, but technical equipment and medical services, shoudn't be "removed" by the ladies before they even know what the unintended consequences may be, by way of a considerate multi-factoral analysis] and converting to a Single-Payer/Medicare For All national health care plan, which would protect everyone from financial ruin because of illness or injury," [The male PhD here upon whom the ladies' press s release depends, is quite off his rocker: first, in the American context, a person who has no income and no medical insurance, is hardly one of those who go into bankruptcy for any reason; people who go into bankruptcy often restructure their lives and bounce back into conditions of a decent or again superior income; altho some don't.

In any case, bankruptcy is not the issue or the test here; the report is obviously talking about people at one or another of the levels of corporate existence; whereas in Canada, Her Majesty's govt have had to open some room for entrepreneurial contributions to medicine and technical equipment, despite having a healthcare system close to what the Greens pretend they want; that doesn't make Canada's complex system or something similar, transferable to the USA.] said Ron Forthofer, PhD, Green candidate for Congress in 2000 and for governor of Colorado in 2002 and retired professor of biostatistics, the University of Texas School of Public Health (see http://www.healthcareforallcolorado.org).

The other Green Party (The Greens -- Green Party USA) doesn't have much to offer concerning the topic at hand, but it does have another go at the the class-warfare ideology the American Greens like to spout, jettisoning the rhetoric of ecologism.]

Today in America the best paid one-fifth of the population receives about one half of all national income, while the bottom one-fifth receives less than 4 per cent. The distribution of wealth in America is even more unfair. Here, the top one-half per cent of all property owners control over 25% of all wealth; while the top 5% sit on nearly 70% of wealth and property. [So?] What chance does the average person [who's "the average person"?] have for exercising his or her democratic rights under these conditions! [Lots! However, winning an election is another matter. The Greens don't have a chance of being elected, except in the next round in Pennsylvania for the Senate, I say with wry irony, where the GOP is picking up the bill for the run of the state's Greens, apparently, as well as it's own GOP campaign expenses. The triangulating strategy is only too obvioius.]

It may be fine to point out certain factual differences, but the question is import: why? Why shoud this quoted set of statistical observations [stripped of quotation's far-reaching web of innuendo] be particularly salient for a political party -- except of course to further fire the engines of employment, self-employment, industry, and within that entire orbit, certainly also small business. Healthcare should not be tied to wealth, nor wealth taken from some to finance the healthcare of those who can pay for it themselves. Some can't so pay, and they should be financed with equitable financing from specified long-term revenues (altho the necessary conditions to make this possible, may not now exist). The healthcare system shoud not be used to "redistribute wealth."

Ralph Nader ran for prez as nominee of the Association of State Green Parties (Split A), because it's less radical than are The Greens--The Green Party USA (GPUSA) which latter carries a plank in its platform to "[a]bolish the disproportional, aristocratic U.S. Senate," which a few people have cited as solid-gold evidence that the Greens (hence Nader) are insane. "I'm not for the abolition of the Senate," Nader told The Washington Post last summer. "There's so many bad things going through Congress I want two opportunities to stop them." Nader's Association of State Green Parties, whose statement we have been chiefly quoting, has a platform that makes no mention of abolishing the Senate. It intends to keep the Senate right where it is."

Following upon all this, I must add that reformational philosophy professor, Dr Evan Runner used to intrigue us with his elevated slogan, "Neither r+t nor left." Owlbirdbet Nu Spel untraditional English spelling based on the English sound system, NuSpel orthography that you've been encountering interspersed in my critical remarks [sometimes longish-parenthetical interspersions into the text under examination and at hand]. If there were ever a situation where Runner's advice comes urgently, this is one of them.

Where to turn on the subject of Healthcare Plans?

Try Jonathan Cohn, "The Operator" (The New Republic (July1,2k9)--about Why the most powerful lobbyist is playing nice. He investigates the connection between the insurance companies, the economic crisis, and healthcare plans. You can learn things here, as you can in an earlier dispatch of his, "The Single Biggest Issue That Could Undermine Reform," ( TNR , Jan4,2k9). Cohn is leftwing, nevertheless he makes a real effort to be explanatory.

Finally, there's Jacob S. Hacker, "" TNR's "The Treatment" (Jun14,2k9). In this article, I finally found a text on the topic of healthcare USA which took a h+ly critical approach to the principle of required participation in the federal overall health program which is emerging. He does not advocate compulsion or coercion. Apparently,in his view, you do not have to pay-in. Good.

Here comes the juicy part:

The idea of public plan choice was part of all the leading Democratic candidates’ health plans, Senator Max Baucus’ November 2008 White Paper, and the vision of reform articulated earlier this year by key congressional Democrats. All with little attention outside health policy circles--until conservatives, health insurers, and some provider groups decided the public plan was public enemy number one. And so, the misinformation campaign began: A public plan available alongside private plans only for Americans without workplace insurance was suddenly described as a “government takeover” of medicine, the “,” and (that old standby) “socialized medicine.” Republicans drew their lines in the sand, and Democrats started their favorite parlor game: compromising among themselves even before the real debate begins.

I want nothing to do with such greedy conservatives. But, in Canada, conservatives have nothing to do with obstructing healthcare for all -- tho for them and all other parties, it's quite a struggle of govts to keep up with the longterm hemorraging costs to the system of public financial support. Canada's remedy has been in part to allow some independent health centers, particularly specialized healthcare clinics, and independent physicians. A doctor can opt out of the current system and charge a load if he thinks he/she personally commands a market due to proven expertise, "a proven track record," even implying h+ professionalism (altho shadiness in billing is not unheard of).

Most of Dr Hacker's umbrage is reserved for Sen Kent Conrad, Chair of the Senate Budget Committee.

Allow consumers, states, and anybody else so inclined to create cooperatives that would purchase health care for their members. Conrad has not offered much in the way of specifics on what the cooperatives would look like or how they would be chartered. Most important, he has offered no reason to think that the cooperatives he envisions could do any of the crucial things that a competing public plan must do.

The foregoing statement is dubious; I apply the hermeneutics of suspicion somewhat because of the statement's presumptions and assumptions.

At the same time, I think this whole line of thawt is nevertheless something of a breakthru-opening for any organization or leader who has reformational concerns at heart, and wants to lead us and cobelligerents into proposing a sphere-sovereignty alternative that adds pluralization to Conrad's recipe of factors that shoud be embraced in structuring healthcare insurance coops, one that would cover coops (what kind? there are many kinds ... this concern also matters), stockholder-run health corporations whose shares are offered on the stock markets, entrepreneurs who own a healthcare business or service and want to swim in the industry's open waters.

That means, the coop alternative for healthcare consumers is at least under discussion. More than that, reformationals have communal history, experience, in self-organization with a goal for Christian expression in every sphere of life. Of course, there woud probably have to be two coops in order to cover all coop-Christians who want to join and be represented at official bodies relevant to this sphere of life, work, and health -- a representation for Christians who cannot in good conscience join fellow Christians and fellow-travelers of any faith (or none) who want the Christian-principled insurance-group (Welcome!, I say) in a pro-abortion medical-insurance group, so pluralization will mean an healthcare insurance consumer-group for Christians who approve abortions, and a distinct one for those who don't. I'm with the latter, and I don't want any of my money going to the abortion industry or it's doctors or it's clients. I shoud have that choice, as shoud you. As should any medical doctor or nurse. But that doesn't mean any, including those who want abortion practices included in their coop's negotiations, shoud be denied healthcare except in abortion-related matters.

Hacker aims at "a competing public plan." He says:

An easy way to think of the public plan’s functions is the three “B”s: We need a national public plan that is available on similar terms in all parts of the nation as a backup. This plan has to have the ability to improve the quality and efficiency of care to act as a benchmark for private insurance. And it has to be able to challenge provider consolidation that has driven up prices to serve as a cost-control backstop.

The principle of sphere sovereignty and pluralism of healthcare consumers' coops (non-profit, generally), stock-owned healthcare enterprises (for-profit, generally), and enterpreneur-initiated and owned healthcare companies (for-profit, generally). Regulations should exist for all three--and these regulations shoud not be onerous for the coops or single-owner entrepreneurs. The govt shoud not try to wreck the healthcare coops that would emerge; it should not try to force their pluralism of medical philosophies and contribution schemes into narrowly conceived secularist-only bureaucratically-prepackaged alternatives.

Hacker insists:

Cooperatives might be able to provide some backup in some parts of the nation, but they are not going to have the ability to be a cost-control backstop, ['not' a benchmark for private plans, because they are not going to have the reach or authority to implement innovative delivery and payment reforms. And so Conrad’s idea appears to be yet another compromised compromise that cuts the heart out the idea of public plan choice on the alter [sic: the correct spelling is "altar"] of political expediency.

Suddenly, a shift of tone:

That’s not to say that encouraging cooperatives would be bad policy. In fact, Conrad has resurrected an old health care idea that taps into Americans’ strong belief in direct community control (what the political scientist James Morone has called “the democratic wish”). Cooperatives of various sorts have been discussed and sometimes created to provide health care in the past. ...

After the Great Depression, the Farm Security Administration encouraged the development of health cooperatives--which at one point had about 600,000 members, mostly in rural areas. But the cooperatives crumbled in the face of physician resistance (including boycotts), the lack of financial wherewithal of the cooperatives themselves, and the eventual withdrawal of government support. [If the govt was supporting the faith-based-&-community initiatives of those olden times, then why did the coops "lack financial wherewithal?" The historical narrative being reconstructed by Hacker seems very selective in regard to the plethora of facts available and presumably yet discoverable.

The term Hacker wants is "purchasing coops."

And that’s the story of purchasing cooperatives writ large. They have been hard to establish or extend, and when they have been established, they’ve been under constant siege from doctors and insurers and eventually largely operated as private insurance plans or weak purchasing arrangements. It is hard to see how any sort of decentralized cooperative model could do what a public plan can do.

But Hacker's "hard to see" statement may be only his own blindspot, or the failure of an imagination stuck on an ideology, or a misjudgment about presentday American social ferment, which is quite unlike all the others when no Christians in this country seemed to understood with any depth the principle of sphere-sovereignty and pluralization of representation in all public and many communal spheres of life.

Then he adds:

But what if the cooperatives were national?

To this I woud immediately add: the idea of a Christian national healthcare coop shoud appeal to Christians who no longer want the American Medical Association and its ilk, to represent them in health matters, as the AMA is a creature of some doctor's greed, unfortunately and overcomplicatedly intertwined in AMA's culture and ethos of excellence, along with health insurers' manipulations.

Conrad has suggested that

a national cooperative could be created on behalf of consumers. This would be a distinct improvement over the decentralized approach [binomial bullshit!, I say to Mr Conrad -- it's not a question of centralization or decentralization], especially if Congress established the cooperative [again, this is just socialist centralism, it's extra baggage that the medical system (coops, investor-owned, and singly-owned small enterprises] can't afford to overlook in their ruminations, instead of falling back upon unitary social thawt, the plan has to distinguish -- rather than trying to avoid at all costs -- the difference between other functions in the medical system, and free associations of coop healthcare seekers (among whom woud be those preferring, say, a Catholic hospital and doctors affiliated to it (perhaps whether they be Catholics or not, otherwise), who together, in their formal grouping in a free association, coud thereby acquire the power to participate as a Christian medical-consumer representation in the ongoing discussions and thereby be represented in the govt and healthcare businesses' deliberations and consultative processes. Of course, there woud be a reporting process required of all representational healthcare coops] and provided federal startup funds [there could be a distinct federal Medical Bank that woud consult with and finance all the legal free-association healthcare coops and thus their members, perhaps in part on a per member basis, all the coops that met basic regulations, all such coops to be represented in group representations and in the medical-coop sub-industry's consultations with the Medical Bank].

Health law expert Timothy Jost has argued that the only viable cooperative strategy would involve “a federal charter to license and regulate a national non-profit coop, with coop governance prescribed by Congress.” Ugh! Please keep Congress out of the health business! They are incompetent for the purpose of healthcare cooperation, of providing healthcare or deciding who and how people may freely group to participate and get the freedom of association in medical representation that obtains elsewhere, in accord with their own medical philosophy and religious values. There shoud be no dominance of secularist, abortionist, or purely bureaucratic arrangements, as the AMA and the Congress seem to have arranged so far.

The Christian Medical Society shoud be free and independent of the AMA, and shoud be ready to take responsiblity for all its patients' care, also by supporting healthcare coops, according to new legislative guidelines when they are provided by govt after enactment of the new legislation; but not at an unjustifiable expense to medical-care consumers, as prevails at present.

To spice up the discussion, I woud suggest that the Christian Medical Society shoud not be free and independent of the Christian Labor Association-USA, in existence in America since 1934. Doctors, dentists, nurses, receptionists, all professional healthcare workers of Christian faith should be members thru a future CM&DS affiliation with the Christian Labor Association.

Hacker goes on to make dogmatic policy comments, that woud be shredded by a further close reading.

-- Politicarp

Powell to GOP: I'm in the party to stay if the party will moderate, become more inclusive, rein in GOP extremist conservatives

AP via USAToday (Updated May24,2k9):

Powell to GOP: Moderates need a voice, too (AP)

The conservative vs. moderate split threatening to rupture the Republican Party played out across the airwaves Sunday, with Colin Powell and Tom Ridge denouncing shrill and judgmental voices they say are steering the GOP too far right. Karl Rove challenged Powell to lay out his vision and "back it up" by helping elect Republicans.

At stake is the GOP's status as a major party, Powell and Ridge suggested.

"I believe we should build on the base because the nation needs two parties, two parties debating each other. But what we have to do is debate and define who we are and what we are and not just listen to dictates that come down from the right wing of the party," said Powell, the nation's top military officer under President George H.W. Bush and later secretary of state for President George W. Bush.

Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh have openly mocked Powell as a Republican in name only, citing his endorsement of Democrat Barack Obama over Republican John McCain in last year's presidential race.

Powell reaffirmed that he is a solid Republican and said the GOP must be more inclusive or risk giving Democrats and independents the chance to scoop up disaffected moderate Republicans.

Politics: Israel: Prime Minister mentions 'statehood' for Palestinians, won't obstruct settlements

Analysis: Netanyahu is steering a course that pleases neither side
by Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem The Guardian UK, (Jun15,2k9)

Binyamin Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel barely three months ago and already finds himself in an unexpectedly difficult position, torn between mounting US pressure for a Middle East peace deal and the loyalties of his rightwing coalition allies, many of whom oppose a Palestinian state. His key policy speech last night was an effort to navigate the difficult course between the two.

Netanyahu's message was mixed. On the one hand, he finally mentioned the prospect of a Palestinian state, although he said that could come only under strict conditions. On the other hand, he refused to meet US demands for a halt to settlement activity and insisted Palestinians must accept Israel as a Jewish state if a deal was to be achieved.

Peres praises Netanyahu's speech, calling it "brave and real"
by Staff, JPost.com (Jun15,2k9)

President Shimon Peres on Monday hailed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech, calling the foreign policy address "brave and real."

According to Israel Radio, Peres lauded Netanyahu for endorsing the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and for calling on the Palestinians to begin negotiations immediately without preconditions.

The president said that it is clear that Netanyahu's words helped to strengthen Israel's international status.

BBC "Palestinians dismiss Israel plan" (Jun15,2k9) by Tim Franks from Jerusalem:

Palestinians have rejected the Israeli prime minister's conditions for a two-state solution, saying he has "paralysed" the peace process.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a major policy speech, accepted the creation of a Palestinian state but only if it was demilitarised.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman said [Netanyahu's] comments challenged Palestinian, Arab and US positions.

But the US said Mr Netanyahu's stance was an "important step forward".

In a landmark speech, weeks after US President Barack Obama urged him to agree to a two-state plan, Mr Netanyahu said the Palestinians must accept Israel as a Jewish state.

He said a Palestinian state must have no army, no control of its air space and no way of smuggling in weapons.

His speech provoked anger among Palestinian officials.

--------------------

"The peace process has been moving at the speed of a tortoise. Tonight, Netanyahu has flipped it over on its back" -- Saeb Erekat, Palestinian negotiator

--Politicarp

Politics Iran: Elections: Iran, European Parliament, Pakistan UPDATES

UPDATES:

Ahmadi-Nejad declared landslide winner in Iran.

["CNN 'An eyewitness' from Tehran, Iran:] Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday gave his support to the outcome of the country's contested presidential election, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. But protests continue Sunday for a second day in Tehran over the results of the presidential election.

Khamenei praised the large voter turnout at Friday's election, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with more than 62 percent of the vote, and said the result showed Iranians value "resistance against oppressors," the agency reported.

But clashes between police, supporters of the president and protesters opposing Ahmadinejad, dominated the capital Sunday.

Supporters of Mir Hossein Moussavi, an opposition candidate many analysts believed could unseat Ahmadinejad, allege the vote was rigged.

Another opposition candidate said he has asked Iran's Guardian Council -- a body of top clerics and judges that supervises elections -- to investigate.

Former parliament speaker Mehdi Karrubi, who finished in third place with a single-digit percentage of the vote in the official results, asked supporters "to find solutions through legal and civic institutions," according to his political movement's newspaper.

Hundreds of regular and riot police were on the streets as civil unrest continued for the second straight day.

Latest Update: CNN "Hatred, chaos and savage beatings in Tehran"

European Parliament vote:

[Bruno Waterfield in Brussels:] Traditional Social Democrats and Socialists did badly across the European Union as centre-right governments in Germany, France, Italy and Poland weathered the storm to consolidate votes.

The 43 per cent turnout rate was the lowest on record since European elections began in 1979, a development that has raised concern over political credibility at a time when EU powers are poised to increase with the Lisbon Treaty.

Margot Wallstrom, the European Commission Vice-President, said: "It does affect the legitimacy of the EU."

As well as picking up two seats in Britain, anti-immigrant, extremist and previously fringe parties stepped into the political vacuum with significant gains in the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Greece and Romania. Telegraph [London UK]

Pakistan's backlash against the Taliban:

[Pamela Constable in Lahore Pakistan:] Last month, the army launched a major offensive against Taliban forces in the region around the northwest Swat Valley, sending more than 2 million refugees fleeing to other districts for safety. Until now, however, it has been reluctant to penetrate more dangerous tribal districts in pursuit of Baitullah Mehsud and other Taliban leaders, who seek to forcibly impose a draconian version of Islam on the nation. ... [¶s' order is rearranged by rW]

Pakistani officials announced Sunday night that security forces will launch a military operation against Mehsud, a feared Taliban leader who has asserted responsibility for numerous suicide bombings across the country and who is believed to have ordered the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in late 2007.

The announcement by officials in North-West Frontier Province came after a week of deadly attacks attributed to the Pakistani Taliban, including the bombing Tuesday of a five-star hotel that killed 11 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the assassination Friday of a moderate Sunni Muslim cleric in another suicide bombing here in the capital of Punjab province. Washington Post, "Pakistan to pursue Taliban leader" (Jun14,2k9)

-- Politicarp

Diplomacy: Pakistan: US diplomat sees 'backlash' in Pakistan, against the Taliban, but 2 million refugees

"US envoy sees Pakistan backlash" (BBC, Jun11,2k9)

Richard Holbrooke visiting a camp for displaced people
The envoy said that problems facing displaced people were 'overwhelming'

US envoy Richard Holbrooke has said that the public mood in Pakistan is swinging against the militants towards the government.

Mr Holbrooke, who recently returned to the US from Pakistan, told reporters about the "growing consensus" of the need to face down insurgents.

But he also said that Pakistan was in the throes of a major refugee crisis.

More than two million people have been displaced because of the army's offensive in Pakistan's Swat valley.

Mr Holbrooke, who toured refugee camps in the north-west of the country, called the situation there a "major, major crisis" and said people should be allowed return home as soon as possible.

He added that the camps should not be allowed to become permanent.

But he insisted that the army's offensive had the support of the Pakistani public.

Mr Holbrooke said that "outrages perpetrated by the Taliban" such as Tuesday's bombing of the Pearl Hotel in Peshawar which killed at least 18 people, were resulting in a dramatic change in attitudes.

Letter to India

The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington said that US officials and politicians have long expressed the concern that the fight against extremism in the region does not have whole-hearted support of Pakistan's government and people.

However Mr Holbrooke said his conversations with senior Pakistani military officers had assured him of their clear strategy in the battle against the militants.

In recent days the Pakistani army has been targeting militants on a variety of fronts in the north-west of the country. Apart from the ongoing offensive in the Swat valley, the army has been bombarding positions in the semi-tribal areas around North Waziristan.

Separately, Mr Holbrooke said that the US Undersecretary of State William Burns had handed India a letter from President Barack Obama.

"This administration believes that what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan is of vital interest to our national security, and .. that India is a country that we must keep in closest consultation with," he said.

He declined to divulge the contents of the letter.

A hopeful glimmer in the news from a Hot Spot that has displaced some 2 million refugees.

-- Politicarp

Politics: Iran: Ahmadi-Nejad fites for survival in power, attracts crowds of poor

I gave another slant to what I found in the headline of the excellent report by Martin Fletcher from Tehran, "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fites for survival as late surge gives rival hope" (Times of London,Jun11,2k9).

Mr [Mir Hossein--] Mousavi has visibly gained momentum in recent days and his exuberant supporters have flooded on to the streets of Tehran in huge numbers. The usual restrictions on dissent have been largely swept aside as the regime has loosened — or lost — its grip ahead of the election.

The election has also exposed the deep divide within Iranian society. Mr Mousavi’s candidacy has galvanised the urban middle-classes, and he also has the support of Mohammed Khatami, the popular reformist President from 1997 to 2005, and Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani, who was defeated by Mr Ahmadinejad in the presidential election of 2005.

Mr Ahmadinejad enjoys strong support among the rural poor and religiously devout, and is thought to have the backing of the Supreme Leader as well as the Revolutionary Guards and the volunteer Basij militia.

Needless to say, refWrite and most of the Western news industries are hoping for the election of Mr Mousavi. But his election can lead to no happy life for him in office. His worst enemy will be the Revolutionary Guards, whom he will have to feel forced to restrain, I would imagine, but who -- the aforementioned Guards -- will be the main strength of the opposition, no matter what the Ayatollah says.

But, likewise, the Guards are a factor of both empowerment and restraint for the ambitions and manias of Ahmadi-Nejad (aka Ahmadinejad), by far the majority of officers of the Revolutionary Guards do not belong to the Shi'ite messianic stream of Islam in Iran. Again, I would imagine.

-- Politicarp

Economics: Canadian / American commerce: Cdn mayors fite 'Buy American' in US stimulus package, protectionism questioned

Canadian mayors pass anti-'Buy American' resolution CBC News (Jun6,2k9)

In response to the 'Buy American' provisions of the U.S. stimulus package, Canada's mayors narrowly passed a resolution Saturday that could potentially block U.S. companies from bidding on city contracts.

The resolution was passed at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Whistler, B.C., by a vote of 189-175.

The resolution says the federation should support cities that adopt policies that allow them to buy only from companies whose home countries do not impose trade restrictions against Canadian goods.

"Today, Canada's cities and communities joined the federal and provincial governments in a common front to try and stop American protectionism," Jean Perrault, FCM president and mayor of Sherbrooke, Que., said in a statement.

"We stand united in the belief that fair trade and an even playing field are in the best interest of our country, our communities and our citizens."

The resolution wouldn't take effect for four months, giving the Canadian government time to lobby the Obama administration.

"This U.S. protectionist policy is hurting Canadian firms, costing Canadian jobs and damaging Canadian efforts to grow our economy in the midst of a worldwide recession," Perrault said.

Some mayors argued the resolution could make it hard for cities to get the best deal on contracts.

But Susan Fennell, the mayor of Brampton, Ont., stressed the resolution is not protectionism, but a message that Canadian municipalities are concerned across the country.

"It's Canadians saying on behalf of Canadians that the fair and free trade that's been in existence for so many years is the way to remain," she said.

Some Canadian companies have complained they are already being affected by the "Buy American" provision, which gives priority to U.S. iron, steel and other manufactured goods for use in public works and building projects funded with recovery money.

The resolution was initiated by the Ontario community of Halton Hills, where two local companies have lost contracts they previously had in the US.

Americans need more jobs desperately, so the USA government has had to prioritize that consideration all the way from the top down to the bottom line. "Buy American" is a slogan that fits the priority and implies that workers will be off Unemployment Insurance and employed again, or for the first time, some of them. The logic is that buying-American will also deny sales to imported goods and services. But Canadians in business and labour want to be able to compete in America on" a level playing field," level to Americans in business and labor--in the USA!

Of course, Canadians offer an untaxed import/export border to Americans who care to exploit it, the result of buying and selling (and shipping) across the US/Canadian border. The price of the Canadian mayors (and the utopic Canadian business fantasy of makin' a killin' off over-the-border trade, the price is: more Canadians get employment and incomes to make the exports and ship them to the USA for Americans to buy, while fewer and fewer American are employed and therefore cannot afford to buy Canadian.

This is but one point to be made, among the many possible that may be suggested both by people who are "pro-Mayors," or people who are critical of them.

In both the USA and Canada, how would we react to an American govt ad on TV that said basically, "Buy American, Hire Americans and Legal Immigrants."

-- EconoMix

Politics: Latin America: Peru's rainforest Aboriginals take on professional Army soldiers, a more mix-blooded stratum

Perhaps not a revolution, yet a powerful mass blow to the regime of Peru's current prez, Alan Garcia. The President himself is no pure-bred Conquistador, and so (to the glance of these casual eyes), he offers us a perceivably different "look" from the tribal people/s who are coming from the rainforest to "clash," as the media say. It's the "divisions between [the generally l+ter-skinned] elites in Lima and the rural poor [generally darker, decidedly more aboriginal, threatening] to derail the government's push to further open Peru to foreign investors.

Indigenous protesters and Peru's army refused to back down and a truce looked distant Saturday, after two battles in the Amazon jungle killed some 50 people in the worst crisis of President Alan Garcia's term.

Protesters said 30 of their own died and the government said 22 members of the security forces perished in two days of clashes over Garcia's drive to bring foreign companies to the rain forest to open mines and drill for oil.

Under the Garcia presidency (which, if I recall correctly, commanded the votes of many of the urban and rural poor to enable him to become incumbent in his office), Peru has headed in a different direction from other recent regime-change presidencies in Latin America. I'm thinking of Evo Morales ...

Mr. Garcia claims he will cut poverty faster than a new wave of leftist presidents [elsewhere] that he often trades barbs with: Bolivia's Evo Morales and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. But he has yet to win support from the poor.

Indigenous groups oppose laws passed last year as Mr. Garcia moved to bring Peru's regulatory framework into compliance with a free-trade agreement with the United States.

Tribes said Mr. Garcia's allies acted in bad faith when they blocked a motion in [Peru's] Congress Thursday to open debate on a law they want overturned. Violence erupted the next day.

Peru already cooperates to some degree, with the USA international anti-cocaine program -- cocaine being a real cash crop if the poor are permitted to cultivate, harvest, and sell it. So, without the most economically-viable but legally-unviable coke production, where do the Peruvian poor go to obtain an income?

They flock to the mines and oil-drill rigs for whatever work they can get.

The poor who find work and a tiny income in the new rainforest industry envisioned by President Garcia, these newly-arrived poor coming from elsewhere to mine and drill, now compete with the Aboriginals for the very habitat to which the pristine rainforest way of life has long been adapted, become indigenous as a cultural form, a societal shape with its own contours.

Garcia may have, must have weighed his options carefully, in regard to the Peruvian national economy. That he decided to bring in big-bucks investors and professional mining and drilling companies (with some spill over of jobs to the native population from the still-surrounding forest) but the revenues from the presence of the foreign companies' would perhaps at least pay for more serious services to the poor. The still-somewhat tribal persons native to the rainforsst are f+ting against the near-total destruction of their way of life, what remains of it.

--Politicarp

Global Politics: Obama Address to Muslims: How did he do in his effort to make friends with Muslim-majority countries?

My first coverage of the response to Obama's Cairo Address relies entirely on the official worldnews outlet of the US State Department, I believe: Voice of America. Here it is:

Obama Seeks 'New Beginning' for US, Muslims

The president gave a major speech in Egypt to the Islamic world, then headed for Europe. On Friday he visited the former Nazi death camp at Buchenwald in Germany. As reported by Voice of America (VOA) (05 June 2009)

President Obama is calling for new efforts toward progress in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. He says "each side is going to have to make some difficult compromises." But he pointed to his recent talks with leaders on both sides. And he noted that George Mitchell, his special diplomat for the Middle East, is going back next week.

BARACK OBAMA: "I think given what we have done so far, we have at least created the space, the atmosphere in which talks can restart."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Obama and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel visited Buchenwald, the former Nazi death camp near Weimar, Germany.

President Obama spoke Friday in Germany, part of a European visit to remember the Allied invasion on D-Day, June sixth, nineteen forty-four. He met with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden. Later they visited the remains of the Nazi death camp at Buchenwald. The president's great uncle was part of American forces who liberated the camp. The murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust led to the creation of Israel.

Friday's visit came a day after President Obama gave a speech in Egypt directed to the world's more than one billion Muslims. At Cairo University he called for a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. He said they should work together to stop extremism and support peace.

He spoke of being a Christian whose father came from a Kenyan family with generations of Muslims. He also noted that as a boy he spent several years in the country with the world's largest Muslim population, Indonesia.

BARACK OBAMA: "That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't."

President Obama discussed several areas of tensions, especially the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

BARACK OBAMA: "If we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth."

He called America's bond with Israel "unbreakable" and said the tragic history that led to a Jewish homeland cannot be denied. But he went on to say "it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland."

He said the Palestinians must reject violence, but he also demanded a stop to Israeli settlement activity. He said again that the only solution is two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security. In his words, "That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest and the world's interest."

Many Muslims who commented on the speech said they were generally pleased. But they said that of course the true test would not be in words, but actions.

The president used words from the Koran several times throughout his speech. He also called for religious understanding and spoke of the importance of equality for women. The speech contained no major policy changes. But it did signal what many Muslims saw as a newly sympathetic voice from an American president.

Thia VOA piece was written by Brianna Blake (VOA). For more about the speech, go to voaspecialenglish.com. -- Steve Ember.

--Politicarp

Further VOA Reports:

World Reaction Mixed on Obama's Cairo Speech by Elizabeth Lee
(Washington Jun5,2k9
Palestinians, Israelis Have Mixed Reactions to Obama Speech by Luis Ramirez (Jerusalem Ju4,2k9)

Africa: Neo-Colonial Aid: Andrew Mwenda of Uganda articulates a view that is quite politically incorrect in North America

I found this TED video on African economics and cultures. It was published by the Solidarity Locals of the Christian Labour Association of Canada in its blog Solidarnotes * (Feb24,2k9). CLAC now counts 50,000 members (served by 200 CLAC employees). Most of those are Locals (local unions) in various industries, locals composed entirely of worker-members, whose pay is determined by CLAC professional negotiations with the somewhat-variably-professional employers/firms involved. A few Locals are Solidarity Locals whose members aren't under a CLAC contract but want to support the principles and expansion of CLAC suitable to its founding purpose.

* What this blog is about: Solidarnotes blog examines work, labour relations and economic issues through a lens of freedom, solidarity and dignity: various aspects of the deep and rich Christian social tradition founded by Christians struggling to come to terms with how to act, as Christians, in the challenging, fruitful and at times very unjust world of the modern workplace.

In any case, this TED video, just below, was of such interest and quite technologically-advanced, enuff to tempt a blogger/editor to want to play with, that refWrite too decided to pass the vid along to our page-visitors who m+t not otherwise get another occasion to view it.
February 24, 2009

Says Mwenda: “Wealth is a function of income, and income comes from you finding a profitable trading opportunity, or a well-paying job.”

Says Solidarnotes: Andrew Mwenda of Uganda summarizes the need for a new perspective on African (and world) poverty quite well with this statement. I would add that a healthy and cooperative trade union movement is an important part of the latter part of that equation, as well as being a key thread in the stable social fabric needed for a country to generate prosperity. Stay tuned for more on that relationship, but for now, enjoy the video.

Politics: UK: Brit govt wobbly as cabinet ministers resign, the most recent calls on prime minister Gordon Brown to resign

The Guardian carried news 9 hours ago that a major wobble has shaken the United Kingdom's Labour Party government. A minister had resigned just before the recent elections, and now after the elections another minister has resigned, going out with a great shout.

James Purnell quits cabinet and
calls on Gordon Brown to stand aside now

• Minister tells PM to quit and give Labour 'fighting chance'
• Purnell's move sparks furious reaction from Number 10
• Rebels say 75 MPs support email calling for new leader

Yesterday [Background]:
Wheels coming off ... Gordon Brown is flailing as cabinet ministers quit Economist.com

More Recent [Update]:
UK's PM Brown struggles to hold on in deepening revolt
Reuters

--Politicarp

War: Military USA: Former commander in Iraq calls for truth commission, retired after Abu Ghraib scandal

Former U.S. commander in Iraq calls for truth commission
(CNN.com, Jun2,2k9)

(CNN) -- The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq who retired over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal is calling for a truth commission to investigate Bush-era policies behind the abuse and controversial interrogations of detainees. Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez commanded U.S. forces in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal.

"The mechanisms that are responsible for establishing accountability have lost their credibility within the country, and there's a lack of trust in them," retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said in an interview on CNN's "Newsroom" Tuesday. "A truth commission, I believe, is the only way for us to regain that."

The Iraq war, he said, was plagued by "institutional and individual failures" -- both in the execution of the conflict and the interrogation tactics, and in the policies from Washington that were implemented in the field.

Sanchez, in charge of combat operations from 2003 into 2004, has been a harsh critic of the war in Iraq, calling it in 2007 a "nightmare with no end in sight." His leadership has been criticized because the mistreatment of prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison happened during his command.

Pictures of detainees caused outrage around the world when they were leaked to the news media in May 2004 -- photos showing naked prisoners stacked on top of each other, or being threatened by dogs, or hooded and wired up as if for electrocution. Critics say such tactics amount to torture.

Two officers -- Army Col. Janis Karpinski, then a brigadier general and commander of Abu Ghraib, and Col. Thomas Pappas, the commander of the military intelligence unit assigned to Abu Ghraib -- were punished over the aggressive interrogations. Seven low-ranking guards and two military intelligence soldiers -- described by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as "bad apples" -- were disciplined.

Karpinski in April told CNN she was ordered by Sanchez not to discuss the photographs or the subsequent investigation with anybody.

A federal investigation cleared four other senior officers in 2005, including Sanchez. But the scandal was hard to shake off, and he retired the following year after more than three decades of Army service.

"You know, I can't get away from this," Sanchez told CNN Tuesday. "The fact is that I am associated, and will always be associated, with Abu Ghraib. ... It doesn't bother me. I think it's something I've learned to live with. But I also live with the fact, as I've stated before, that I've never compromised my integrity or my honor in the course of this ordeal."

Recently released Bush administration Justice Department memos condone the use of such tactics as keeping a detainee naked and in some cases in a diaper, and putting detainees on a liquid diet. One memo said aggressive techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and slapping did not violate laws against torture absent the intent to cause severe pain.

A Senate Armed Forces Committee report released in April, when the memos surfaced, found that senior Bush administration officials authorized aggressive interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists, despite concerns expressed by military psychologists and attorneys.

The report points to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's approval of such techniques -- including stress positions, removal of clothing, use of phobias (such as fear of dogs), and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli -- in December 2002 for detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His OK prompted interrogators in Afghanistan and Iraq to adopt the aggressive techniques.

"We had different departments that faltered in developing the guidance for executing those policies," Sanchez said. "And then I think we also had a dereliction of duty at those levels when we were faced with the reality and the facts that abuses were occurring on the ground as early as 2002 and we refused to do anything about it."

He said the lack of oversight and guidance from Washington and top brass left his troops "abandoned on the battlefield."

Last year he published his memoirs titled, "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story," and he has continued to be a vocal critic of the war.

"Until America can really understand what has happened and look at it objectively and truthfully, we will still continue to be mired in the past," Sanchez said. "We've got to learn the lessons and never go this way again."

Economics: Labor USA: GM, a car company run by the government and the union

"GM’s New Owners -- USA and Labor -- Adjust to Roles" by Steven Greenhouse (Jun 1,2k9 NYT)

Labor activists marched in Lansing, Mich., Monday. In the past, the United Automobile Workers has been by turns a hard-charging adversary and a strategic partner of the automakers.

For decades, the United Automobile Workers had a simple strategy for getting what it wanted from the carmakers — it would go on strike. The tactic proved so successful that the mere threat of a walkout often won better wages, benefits and job security.

Now, with General Motors and Chrysler in bankruptcy and the union a major shareholder in both through its retiree health fund, life has become a lot more complicated for the United Auto Workers.

The union, which was born of labor strife, has pledged not to go on strike against the two companies before 2015, as part of the rescue plan hammered out by the Obama administration. Whether this brokered peace helps end the antagonistic relationship between union and management could determine the future not only of GM and Chrysler, but also of the UAW itself.

With the union’s health fund set to own 17.5 percent of GM’s shares and 55 percent of Chrysler’s, the UAW will both represent workers and be an owner, a novel dual role.

The entire article is worth your attention, but in his news report Steve Greenhouse is also largely bloviating a selection of facts, while missing entirely a structural analysis of GM and UAW during this period of restructuration.

First, let me say that I a have strong respect for the history of the union in the auto industry. However, UAW was from the outset, religiously and philosophically, a unitary autoworkers union, maintained as unitary in part by ideologizing solidarity in a majoritarian way, the slogan "solidarity" became a hammer to ensure a single union that could have no other goal than "getting what it wanted from the carmakers." It must be said in the union's favor, as far as I know, the secret ballot has always been respected by the UAW, while many unions today are trying to end secret ballots.

Unitary, faux solidarity. Repression of freedom of association, denying a multi-union system, in which several unions may be elected proportionately to provide representation and negotiate the new contract, provide a proportion of the union stewards on the shop floor. Instead, as each contract came to its termination date, the UAW would prepare itself for an annual contract-renewal strike. To get what it wanted this institutional enemy of freedom of association forced all would-be workers into its dues-paying ranks and then " — it would go on strike. The tactic proved so successful that the mere threat of a walkout often won better wages, benefits and job security.
The UAW has been part of the problem with the Big Three original members of the USA auto industry. Management has also been part of the problem. As to but one facet of management's culpability, the year-after-year cave-in to union demands for "getting what it wanted from the carmakers" was only a facet of the car-makers' managerial mismanagement.

I think the Christian Labor Association in the USA since 1934, and certified by the National Labor Relations Board, should be put on the ballot of a special restructuring of workforce/workplace representation by proportionality, each worker able to choose that union on the ballot which best appeals to his convictions, worldview, or maybe just curiosity. The point being that worker -- women and men, all races, religions, etc -- chooses which professional labor organization wil represent him or her. Along with the UAW, the CLA should be on the ballot competing for votes, and proposing an integral choice.

Reformational philosophy does not prescribe, but it very strongly supports in principle an endeavor like CLA-USA. American labor needs an inner reformation, even if it must be told so by some outside voices in the culture. Reformationals in the USA should realize what time it is in the country, in the American culture in regard to over-all labor relations. The reformational movement in the USA sometimes seems stagnant -- one could be overly bold to say, all it is now is philosophers, reverends, scholars, and electromagnetic digitators (bloggers and webs+ters). There is no visible support from American reformationals for the Christian Labor Association. Whereas in the Netherlands the CNV has an affiliate for artists, CNV-Kunstenbond

FLASH! : Organization of American States: Cuba can come back into membership ... no conditions ... but democratizing 'mechanisms'

35 minutes ago, AP via USAToday: "Sources: OAS votes to readmit Cuba."

It's history-making, even if the "mechanisms" toward democratization are presently ignored in Cuba, perhaps for a long meanwhile. The vote to readmit the island-state "without conditions," at the same time apparently "does set mechanisms for Cuba's return — including its agreement to comply with OAS conventions on human rights and other issues."

For the Castro Brothers regime of Cuban Communism and suppression of free labor would necessarily mean releasing the independent non-communist labor union/s in Cuba to function publicly and normally -- not as in China (which is more like Cuba and North Korea), but as in Europe where multi-union systems prevail in most countries -- with secret ballot voting for certification as a represented workforce within a firm. Cuba's present unitary labor organization of the country is parallel to the politically-unitary political representation of the Communist Party as the sole source of government. Admitting Cuba to the OAS lowers the standard for democracy within OAS, which Castro the Hero and his brother-heir have derided unconscionably.

On the other hand, USA and Canada do not have plural representation of competing unions within a given workforce or firm. The USA and Canada are among the few countries that suppress worldview plurality within a workforce; we are unitary in our rationale for monopoly unionism, which Obama is enshrining in his establishment of Government Motors the United Auto Workers forever.

-- Politicarp

Politics: China: China shuts down memory of Tiananmen Square massacre

Update:
Times of London UK, "China cracks down on mourners on Tiananmen massacre anniversary" (Jun4,China)


'Crackdown' here seems to mean 'detained' more than anything approaching clubbings or shootings. I've read no report of either.

Dan Martin reports for Agence France Presse, "China t+tens information controls for Tiananmen anniversary"

BEIJING (AFP) — China on Wednesday kept a tight lid on content related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, blacking out foreign TV reports about the 20th anniversary of the incident and expanding curbs on websites.

News reports about the bloody June 3-4 crackdown that ended seven weeks of pro-democracy protests at the square were abruptly cut off with screens periodically going black on the BBC and CNN in China, as they have all week.

China's censors also appeared to be blocking sites such as Microsoft's new search engine Bing, social networking service Twitter, photo-hosting website Flickr and others.

The dates mentioned hark back 20 years to June 1989. "...most Chinese young people are completely unaware of this event."

-- Politicarp

Global Diplomacy: Saudi Arabia: Obama receives Order of Merit from King Abdullah, tomorrow Prez goes to Cairo

Paula Wolfson reporting for Voice of America (VOA) today tells of his leisurely visit with an approving monarch who put an apparently gold chain around Obama's neck as part of the Order of Merit recognition bestowed on him by the Saudi King, Abdullah. Besides a series of intense discussions, the USA Prez is getting a breather for what may be the most important public-speaking event of his term so far. Tomorrow, he will be addressing the world, especially the Arab and Muslim world (the latter extending as far east as Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim population, while Egypt has the largest Arab population).

White House officials say they will talk about prospects to end decades of Arab-Israeli conflict. They will also discuss Iran's nuclear ambitions, as well as the impact rising oil prices are having on the world economy.

In Cairo, at the university, the USA Prez "will try to ease decades of tensions h+tened by decades of tensions between Muslims and the United States, tensions hy+tened by war in Iraq, and a lack of progress in the Middle East peace process.

-- Politicarp

Israel: Settlements in Palestine: Netanyahu "defies" Obama -- says Reuters

"Netanyahu defies Obama call for settlement freeze," by Jeffrey Heller and Adam Entous, Reuters (Jun1,2k9).

The title and contents of the Heller/Entous late-breaking-news report needs to be parsed.

I broke apart (by the semiotic digital means of a clickable link to their Reuters article), the link-word itself appearing in blue, thereby making "Netanyahu defies Obama call for settlement freeze" separate sememically into two semantic distinct-units: "Netanyahu defies Obama" (blue, clickable) from "call for settlement freeze" (dull black usually) Netanyahu|Obama. Netanyahu (David) | Obama (Goliath). ISSUE: "natural growth" of the settlements, means slow and steady expansion.

But a trade-off has been proposed by a nameless third-party, whereby the Jewish settlements politically affiliated to Israel may grow, while the state of Israel opens its southern border-crossings to Gaza, to permit construction supplies to enter the Hamas enclave.

-- Politicarp