Israel Declares A Cease-Fire Just In Time For Obama’s Inauguration.

Israel’s breach of the previous cease-fire, when it invaded Gaza and killed 6 Palestinians, was also conveniently timed, in that case to happen on election day in America, November 4th, when people all over the world were preoccupied with more momentous matters.

Why take a chance on Obama pressuring Israel to derail its lust for revenge, just when it’s so strongly approved of by the general population – nearly 90% at one point. Do those Israelis who stand behind the Gaza attack understand that their country has been enforcing a sometimes brutal military occupation of Arab land for 42 years? That large parts of Arab land has been “confiscated”, read stolen, so it could be colonized by Jews? And that the process of settling conquered land is against all international rules and norms?

Are they aware that many of the Palestinians who were ejected 60 years ago from what’s now Israel, who now number in the millions after 3 generations, are refugees living in refugee camps? Do they feel no responsibility for the plight of the descendents of those Arabs who were forcibly driven from their lands; in some cases from properties that were in their families for centuries? Do they have no ethic in their society that stands for justice and fairness on a human level? Or is there one rule for Jews and another for Gentiles, i.e., everyone else?

Do they really believe, when the UN General Assembly votes 189 to 4 against their country (US, Israel and two tiny Pacific countries) that everybody else in the world is wrong?

The offense against Gaza, it can be argued, was undertaken to bolster the chances of the centrist Kadima party to win February 10 elections against right-wing Likud with hard-line Netanyahu as its head. So maybe PM Ehud Olmert of Kadima really had the best interests of the Palestinian people at heart; thinking if he killed and wounded enough innocent terrorists his centrist party would defeat the rightists and eventually make a better deal with the Arabs.

But obviously not a good deal, certainly - based on their actions over the last few years - not one any self-respecting Palestinian could accept. Israel wants the Palestinians to accept a West Bank divided into three cantons, each completely surrounded by Israeli territory: a scenario that would require Palestinians to sometimes go through Israeli road blocks to go from one village to another. Considering how Israel blockaded Gaza because it didn’t approve of their democratically chosen government, how could any Palestinian accept that?

Even as Olmert, to the surprise of many, said recently that Israel will have to leave almost all of the West Bank to make peace, he’s presided over a large-scale expansion of Jewish colonies there. No country is stupid enough to spend billions building gleaming new cities in places it plans to abandon in short order. In other words, from Israel’s side, there’s no possibility of a negotiated peace. Only a powerful push on the part of Obama, who’s until now held his cards close to his chest, so is a largely unknown quantity, can change the dynamic.

However, no amount of political pressure or voice of reason or appeal to fairness will remove the majority of settlers from the West Bank. When you look at the resistance put up by the mere 8000 Jewish settlers who were removed from Gaza, a place that has no historical significance for Jews, you can imagine the gargantuan task of uprooting half a million people: 60% of that number are religious zealots who will resist removal by force. It would take Jews killing Jews to make it happen.

In that context, a one-state solution would be no harder to achieve. It would be equally impossible to imagine happening but, in context, no more difficult to contemplate.

The great irony of Israel’s policy of purposely pauperizing the Palestinians, in the vain and vague hope that they will somehow leave or disappear or willingly accept permanent subjugation, is that it has massively increased the Arab birth rate. While it’s true that Muslims around the world tend to have more children, it’s also axiomatic that the wealthier a population becomes the fewer children they have. Israel’s policies have, in effect, accelerated Palestinian population growth to the point where the two peoples have about the same numbers.

If Jews want to live in the West Bank, that’s fine, a one-state solution provides for that. The only change is that they’d have to purchase the land rather than steal it.

On the Palestinian side, they should be compensated richly for their pain and suffering, enough so that if they really want they can return to their ancestral communities and purchase presences there.

It could be like Belgium or Bosnia where there are individual parliaments for two separate groups of society – in Belgium there are the Dutch speaking Flemish and the French speaking Walloons; in Bosnia there is a Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation - and a single parliament for the country as a whole.

And what’s the problem with treating everyone equally? Is there anywhere else in the world where it’s okay to give special privileges to one group? It happens in many places but can it ever be considered a progressive idea? An idea that belongs in the 21st century?

The time is long past when Jews needed a dedicated homeland for self-protection. Jews live freely and comfortably and safely in many countries in the world, and can do so also in Israel/Palestine if they treat their neighbors honestly and fairly and respectfully.

In fact, the Palestinian people are among the most advanced and modern of all Arabs. In addition, they’ve had free and fair elections and shown themselves to be more democratic than Israel itself, considering the Jewish state has discrimination built into its very fabric.

It’s time for Israelis and blind supporters of Israel to get over their persecution complex. The Holocaust is history, there’s no need to wallow in its grotesqueness. The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) has not been used to defend Israel for a long time, but solely to enforce a brutal occupation and to collectively punish a people who’s only crime is to legitimately seek their freedom and demand their right to live normal lives.

Yes, they have used terrorism, but so have Israelis in the past and so would they today if they were in the Palestinians’ shoes. Tzipi Livni, Israeli Foreign Minister and candidate for Prime Minister in the coming election rails on about Arab terrorism. She should know about the practice, her father played a central role in Jewish terrorism of the 1940’s.

Time for Israel to grow up and join the family of modern civilized nations. That can only happen with a strictly secular government based on justice and equality for all.

David and Goliath

In the early days of Israel’s existence it was David surrounded by the Goliath of 250 million Arabs. I, as well as, I imagine, Jews everywhere took seriously the Arab threat to drive the Jews into the sea. Coming so soon after Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ one would have to stand behind the Jews of Israel, even if one wasn’t a Zionist per se. I was surprised at the prejudice against Jews that still existed in America in the fifties: Don’t they have any sympathy for what we went through?

As a teenager I immersed myself in the horrors of the Holocaust – it wasn’t even called that then. The level of cruelty and sadism displayed by the Nazis was almost too great to grasp. The Germans, being good at most things, definitely perfected the macabre arts. In fact, I’ve often thought they might’ve more successfully prosecuted the war if they hadn’t devoted so much energy to killing Jews. Even right at the end, when Allied forces were advancing on Germany, they emptied out the concentration camps and put the remaining Jews on forced marches that brought death to most of the remnant. They could’ve abandoned the camps and let the Jews be rescued and thus had additional troops to fight the enemy, but instead couldn’t bring themselves to let the last few alone.

One can only imagine what good Israel could’ve done with the billions they’ve spend on their military and colonization programs; how easily they could’ve fully compensated the Palestinians instead of occupying and repressing them.

It’s hard to imagine any nation ever approaching Germany’s monstrous deeds, though others have tried in their own little ways. The Hutus, the Serbs, even America indulged in massacring whole villages, a la Mai Lai. Now it’s Israel’s turn to join the ranks of tainted nations. Nations who will never be forgotten for their lapse from humanity.

In Israel’s case it gained a foothold when it began to colonize conquered land. It continues in its nasty, hard-hearted ways day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year, decade-to-decade. More than 700 Arabs killed in the latest conflict, a significant percentage civilians. Many of the non-civilians were in fact police officers who took the job to feed their families. Israel’s near total blockade of Gaza has destroyed the private economy, the only jobs left are with the Hamas government or NGO’s.

If you keep up with the numbers, you’ll hear that Israel (out of the goodness of its heart) is letting in 80 truckloads of essential goods, but were you also aware that 1.5 million people require a minimum of 400 truckloads per day? One of Hamas’s conditions for agreeing to a cease fire was the opening of the crossings to bring a semblance of normal life to the people of Gaza. It never happened; the blockade was maintained full force.

Israeli Jews would not stand for one minute the treatment they mete to the Palestinians every day. In the West Bank, an area the size of Delaware, America’s second smallest state, there are about 620 checkpoints where Palestinians are routinely made to wait, sometimes for hours, for passage – babies have been born at them, elderly and ill have died for want of passage. Maybe it was only to a nearby town or to a field they own. No matter, Israeli soldiers will not let them through without dosing out a little humiliation first.

Every bit of forceful opposition to occupation is called terrorism. Jews know all about terrorism, they used it famously, productively and ruthlessly to foster and speed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Ah but now the roles are reversed. Now Israel is Goliath avenging the death of four of its own by killing 700 of the enemy. ‘We’ll show them who has the power’ – paraphrasing PM Ehud Olmert. Did the Palestinians sorta not know Israel has one of the world’s largest, best equipped armies? Were they maybe unaware that Israel is not afraid to kill large numbers of civilians, as in Lebanon in 2006?

Hamas made a chilling warning to Israel as it invaded Gaza. They said they have more than 200 suicide bombers, both male and female, ready for martyrdom. Israel has stolen all hope from those young people, they feel they have nothing to live for. There is no normal life for them on the horizon.

If you listen to unfolding events in the conflict, you often hear references to refugee camps. Same when Israel waged its war against Lebanon. Does Israel think those Palestinians it displaced at the birth of its nation in 1948 will just eventually disappear? That it can allow generations to fester in hopelessness without consequences? That it can ignore the needs and rights of those people without staining its national morality and psyche?

The Biblical David won out over Goliath because he had God on his side. There is no God within my conception of a supreme being that would cheer Goliath on or take Israel’s side in this conflict. Whatever fears I might have had for Israel’s safety or survival in its early years were laid to rest in 1973. Since then its belligerent ten-eyes-for-an-eye violence has been totally gratuitous. It has been necessitated not by survival but solely to fend off legitimate opposition to its occupation and theft of Palestinian land.

The worst part is I see no cause whatever for optimism, though there’s always a tiny smidgen of hope that Obama will work some of his magic to force an equitable outcome to this most intractable of situations.

Siege of Gaza

After five months of a cease fire in which Hamas fired no rockets into Israel from Gaza, Israel invaded and killed 6 militants and then proclaimed that they didn’t think that constituted a breach of the cease fire. Since the Palestinian militants didn’t quite agree that their compatriots could be killed without repercussions, they resumed their crude rocket attacks. Crude because they have no way to accurately aim them and only cause damage when they are lucky.

This led to a tightening of the siege of Gaza by Israel; one that began when Hamas won Palestinian elections nearly two years ago. There were two good reasons why Hamas won: 1. Fatah was hopelessly corrupt whereas Hamas was noted for its honesty, efficiency and fairness, 2. Fatah’s attempts to negotiate a fair peace deal with Israel had achieved exactly nothing.

To Israel and the US, its strongest backer diplomatically and financially, democracy is only acceptable when the electorate chooses leaders to their liking, so they began to try to destroy Hamas. The thinking goes that the Palestinians will eventually vote in someone else more pliable to Israel’s demands if Israel makes their life difficult. The fact that repression and humiliation and siege have never succeeded in bending the Arabs to their will has never been a deterrent to Israel’s need to act tough and take revenge.

Now Israel is churning up a bloodbath ostensibly to defeat Hamas once and for all and concurrently turn the people against Hamas for causing all the death and destruction that’s being wreaked upon them. This sounds to me a lot like the war against Lebanon in 2006 where Israel was going to get its two captured soldiers back and Hezbollah was going to be crushed once and for all. The result? Hezbollah was strengthened and 1000 innocent Lebanese civilians were killed along with billions of dollars worth of civilian infrastructure destroyed. Once Israel launched a ground invasion, they began to lose soldiers so fast they turned tail and ran.

Israel is like a broken record; no matter how many times its violent reactions have not worked to bring the Palestinian people to their knees, it’s the only trick they have up their sleeve. A recent poll reported on BBC had 67% of Israelis supporting the attack on Gaza, but only 44% thinking it would do any good. In other words, nearly a quarter of Israelis are in favor of killing Palestinians and destroying infrastructure for no good reason: blood lust seems to be the only motivation. We have to do something, they say, but that never seems to include negotiating a fair peace.

The idea that Palestinian militants will cease their rocket fire into Israel because they see the great destruction wrought by Israel and feel sorry for what they have done is pure delusion and nonsense. The militants, along with every Islamic radical in the world, couldn’t be happier about Israel’s disproportionate reaction. Bin Laden is unquestionably thrilled, since he could ask for no better recruiting tool for his jihad. What more obvious way to display to the world Israel’s cruelty and ruthlessness?

We hear over and over again how Israel has a right to defend itself: very true, but the other side of the same coin is that every people has a right to resist military occupation, and do it by any means necessary. Israelis point to how they left Gaza to the Palestinians, but seem not to be aware that they control every access point on land, sea and air and as a matter of policy have been denying 1.5 million Gazans the essentials of life: food, medicine, fuel. Gazans regularly die from lack of medicine or from lack of fuel to provide electricity to life-necessary medical equipment. They also don’t have fuel to keep sewage treatment and water treatment plants functioning. Forty six percent of Gaza’s children are malnourished, stunting their physical and mental growth. Can you imagine anything much lower on the humanity scale than purposely denying adequate sustenance to innocent children?

Israel has boxed itself into a corner. They can’t bring themselves to make a fair peace deal because they can’t give up the idea of Jewish hegemony over historic Palestine. They adamantly refuse to consider compensation for Palestinian refugees while still demanding reparations for holocaust victims. As a nation they seem to lack a basic sense of fairness.

Israel is doing everything in its power to preclude the possibility of a two-state solution by continuing to expand the Jewish population of lands conquered from the Arabs in 1967; which by all standards is contrary to international law and morality. I happened to be in Israel in 1994 just as the Oslo Accords began to take effect. It was a time of heady optimism. There were then 125,000 Jews living on colonized land.

Digression: The term settlement is really not appropriate for what Israel is building in Palestine. The term congers up the image of a smallish number of people living on a frontier, whereas some West Bank “settlements” are lush, gleaming, modern cities of 30,000 people. It’s important to note that while the majority of Jewish settlers are religious zealots who are there to claim the land for Jews because God said it was theirs thousands of years ago, about 40% are economic migrants; that is, people who moved to the colonies because housing is subsidized by the state to encourage people to migrate there. Subsidized, I might add, by the US taxpayer, since Israel could not afford to be building there if not for the billions of aid given by America.

Between the time the Accords were signed in 1994 and 2000, when Israel made its final offer - one which was so unbalanced and unfair the Palestinians couldn’t possibly accept - the settler population had nearly doubled to 225,000. If the Jewish state actually wanted to make an honest peace deal, that’s the last thing they would’ve done. Now, only eight years on, that population is approaching 500,000. Once again a trampling of the potential for peace. Once again practically precluding a two state solution for Palestine/Israel.

The Arab population of the area is now about equal to the Jewish population, yet Israel cannot bring itself to give only 22% of the land to the Palestinians. Every day the Jewish population of the West Bank increases. The wall that Israel is ostensibly building for self-protection often encroaches on Arab land and is essentially confiscating another 6% of Palestinian territory.

The Jews of the West Bank – ok, a small minority – also delight in making life hell for neighboring Palestinians. B’Tselem, an Israeli peace group, has been trying to document abusive settler actions by handing out video cameras to Palestinians. One of the first videos to appear on Youtube showed three masked Jews clubbing a fifty-year-old Arab woman. Not long back I came across a picture on the net of a six-year-old Palestinian boy from Hebron beaten bloody by Jewish thugs. Only six-years-old yet he must pay the price for living on land coveted by crazed fundamentalist Jews. Hebron is the one place in the West Bank where Jews live among Arabs. There about 600 Jews, protected by about the same number of Israeli soldiers, live in the middle of 170,000 Arabs.

Not saying the Palestinians don’t do everything in their power to harm Israelis in their midst, but they at least have just cause on their side. To repeat: Every people has the right to oppose military occupation.

What exactly so riles Israel about Hamas that would lead the Jewish state to collectively punish 1.5 million Gazans? For one, they were supposed to renounce violence. Coming from Israel, one of the most violent countries in the world, a macabre joke. The occupied should be non-violent while the occupier invades, imprisons and murders at will? Nevertheless Hamas did propose a long term truce, which Israel rejected out of hand.

They were supposed to accept previous agreements. Every agreement Israel has made with the Palestinians has required it to cease settlement building, so to ask Hamas to accept accords which Israel has regularly broken is disingenuous.

Finally, the most complex problem is the insistence that Hamas recognize Israel’s right to exist. Hamas has stated its goal of destroying the Jewish state, however they are not talking about destroying the Jewish people, only the state. In an interview with a Hamas spokesman I heard on BBC (something I can’t imagine you’d ever hear on American media) he made that point clear by saying they recognized that the Jews of Palestine were there to stay. Just in practical terms, they have to know that removing the Jews would be impossible.

On the point of destroying Israel as it’s currently organized I wholeheartedly agree: There’s no room in the 21st century for a sectarian state where one group is singled out for special privilege and all others are relegated to second class citizenship. That would not be considered acceptable in any other place in the world.

Since Israel has made a two-state solution to the conflict impossible the only alternative is a single, strictly secular state with separate Jewish and Arab components where all citizens are treated equally and all have the right to live everywhere.

That is the pattern that was imposed on Bosnia after the conflict there and the pattern used by Belgium for a long time. Whatever good the state of Israel has done in the past for the Jewish people, it has long past worn out its raison d’etre.

Today it is a black mark on the name of the Jews, a thorn in the side of all Muslims and an embarrassment to all civilized nations.

There is no need for Jews to have a separate state that removes them from the progressive mainstream of humanity. Jews are valued and productive citizens in many countries around the world. With the exception of rare incidents, mostly provoked by the actions of Israel, Jews are safe from harm everywhere they live outside of Israel itself. Prejudice may be alive but only in small isolated and inconsequential pockets; discrimination is a relic of the past.

Israel, through its unbridled arrogance and disregard for simple truths of humanity, has made a fair and equitable two-state solution impossible. A one state solution is now the only alternative.

Not that I think that is any more likely than the goal of two states, but it’s really the only equitable, 21st century way to make a fair deal for everyone and needs to brought into the discussion.

On Being Jewish and the State of Israel

Before I can begin any discussion of Israel/Palestine I need to talk about the bile, vitriol and wild accusations one receives when voicing any criticism of Israel’s actions or policies. There are only about 50 people on this email list who actually read this stuff. Judging by the number of comments received on the recently established blog (almost none) not many more there. Yet last time I discussed the Jewish state I had an Israeli ask me why I hated them, a relative who called me a self-effacing Jew and reminded me of the Holocaust (as if any Jew needs to be reminded of that monstrous time) and a friend who told me not to send anything critical of Israel because they weren’t interested in reading it.

On the first point, I don’t hate Israelis. I’ve met many in my travels and expat life and during my short time in that country who were good-hearted people. Many Israelis are devoting their lives into campaigning for a fair settlement for the Palestinian people – I wish I had the energy, dedication and space in my life to join them. I am, however, disheartened, dismayed, discouraged and almost distraught at times at the inhumane and dastardly actions of the Israeli state, which its people are responsible for voting into power. They have created an apartheid state and I’m not even talking about the West Bank which is under brutal military rule or Gaza which is under siege.

They love to tout their country as a democracy but in reality it’s more like the segregated American South than a modern egalitarian state. Israeli Arabs, which make up about 20% of the population, are exempt from military service – they obviously couldn’t be used to subjugate their own people – which excludes them from many benefits that only accrue to ex-military personnel. Their schools receive far less per pupil than Jewish schools, just like in the old South where schools were separate but never equal. In every facet of social and economic life they are second class citizens.

I don’t hate myself for being a Jew. I’m proud of the important contributions to culture, science and politics we have made over the centuries and inspired by the amazing story of a people dispersed for two millennia who could come together after the tragedy of the holocaust to create a new nation. Israel, moreover, is a beautiful, stylish and ecologically conscientious place. I was impressed by seeing nearly every building there equipped with solar water heaters.

However, a beautiful place does not make an ethical or moral place any more than saying a lot of prayers and not eating pork makes a person a righteous person. I must admit to some ambivalence towards Jewishness; that is, the ceremonial and community part. I have no feeling for observing the holidays. They seem to be relics; inspiring stories from the past without a whole lot of spiritual foundation, mostly Chosen People stuff. But chosen for what? Two millenniums of persecution and objects of loathing?

Part of my problem has to do with having ascribed to the Jesus story for a long time. It’s a story of tolerance, inclusion and mercy as opposed to the superiority, zealotry and fundamentalism of many Jews of his time. They rejected his message – given by the greatest of all Jews – because they were looking for their Messiah to be a temporal ruler who would smite their enemies and make them all kings, whereas he was talking about turning the other cheek and Good Samaritans. The Samaritans were despised by the Jews of their time: The essence of the story is that the lowly Samaritan stopped to help the person in need while the good, observant Jews passed by.

If they were chosen it was to bring the new message to the world, but after Jesus kicked the money changers out of the Temple, the rulers of the Jews, afraid of losing their power and wealth, asked Herod to have him offed. The Jews of Israel are fighting the same battles today. As a secular, egalitarian state Israel could be a beacon to the world. As a sectarian state focused exclusively on Jewish privilege, it represents the worst of humanity. It is a nation so fixated on real estate, on expanding its territorial hold, it’s become a rogue state in contempt of all international humanitarian laws and norms. It has become a pariah state noted for cruelty, oppression and heartlessness.

But let’s be clear: The only place in the world where Jews have any problem relating to their neighbors is in the Middle East. There will always be small pockets of bigotry and occasional tensions in any multicultural society but by and large we get along well and make positive contributions to the larger community everywhere we live outside of Israel. There the same stubborness and fanaticism of the first century is alive and well.

I know I’m ranting but it all seems tied together. I have no problem getting along with anyone, including other Jews, but I have no desire to seek out Jewish groups or ceremonies; to separate myself, in other words, from the melting pot of humanity. I’ll never deny being a Jew but also never shrink from my duty to speak out against injustice not only wherever it occurs, but especially when it is perpetrated by my own people.

When Ariel Sharon, after one of his bloody attacks on the West Bank, said he was doing it to protect Jews everywhere, I practically screamed at my radio, NOT IN MY NAME!!!

I absolutely reject the premise that Israel’s actions are beyond reproach. There is nothing in existence that is beyond being questioned. When Jimmy Carter, one of the fairest, most respected and altruistic people in the entire world is accused of anti-Semitism for speaking truth to Israel’s power, you know he must be right on the mark and that the defenders of Israel at all costs are simply unable to face the truth and honestly answer his charges.

I’m reminded of the time I worked in a Wall Street bank back in 1960 (don’t worry, it was the lowest paid job in the company and I only lasted a year). I started in the filing department - a whole floor of filing cabinets - and was on my feet all day. It was a time when shoes were nearly always uncomfortable; especially on my budget as I earned $48 per week. My feet were killing me so I started walking around in my socks. It didn’t matter that nobody of any importance ever strayed there, this was 1960 in a Wall Street bank, and a clear and obvious transgression. When called to account on the matter I accused the manager of anti-Semitism; which was about as relevant to walking around in socks as answering Jimmy Carter’s criticism with shrill cries of prejudice.

So once again, if you have a problem with the concepts of fairness, of evenhandedness, of equal respect and dignity for all human beings then avoid at all costs any posts with Israel in the name. It’ll just make your blood boil, as mine is now at Israel’s despicable and bloodthirsty actions in Gaza.

Roller Coaster Year

From the heights of exuberant irrationality, to omens of the Great Depression, 2008 was a deal-breaking year. As long as the masses kowtowed to the gods of unfettered capitalism they were assured the majority would benefit. Ok, what the ruling class really meant was the majority representing the upper half of society. But still, many prospered: housing values spiked (against all reason, it should be added) providing the ownership class an easy ATM of lots of ready (unearned) cash; the stock market just kept going up keeping those 401k’s rising handsomely; hedge fund managers paid only 15% income tax on their spectacular megamillion dollar earnings – compared to the 35% rate paid by Average Joe Middle-Class - but that was the price of innovation, the ‘good greed’ that kept the money spigot going and exhibited the greatness of capitalism, American style.

But then a well worn quip comes to mind: If something can’t go on forever, it won’t. Think about the nature of a bubble: the bigger it gets, the thinner its walls and likeliness of bursting; when it does reach its limit it has a quick and exciting end and then disappears with hardly a trace.

It was a year of mind-boggling extremes. Crude oil is now barely more than 25% of its July high of $148. In mitigation, there were two special factors that contributed to that very high price. One was the drop in the value of the dollar of about 25% compared to the world’s other major currencies which would lop about $35 off that high price. Speculation was said to have caused another 30%. Minus those two factors the price would have been about $75 per barrel. Still, the speculation part only happened because demand was pushing up against supply.

In any case it was the world’s second oil price shock with a warning of future hard times implicitly included. The first, in 1973, came with a doubling of the price, long lines at the pump and stations running out in front of your very eyes – I was once the last to get filled up. It can’t be emphasized enough that the larger problem wasn’t the spike in prices, it was availability.

The breathtaking crash in oil prices should not lull one into thinking it’s time to rush down to the auto dealer for that giant dream machine. Even if demand remains low for years, the resource is finite and will be drawn down on a daily and yearly basis. Another spike, therefore, is inevitable.

To date, developed countries world wide have been rushing around frantically grasping at straws trying everything they can think of to revive the old economy; essentially to get people to return to their profligate, devil-may-care, heavily-indebted ways. Fortunately for the people the banks have taken their trillions of handouts and hoarded their cash; what little they have used has been expended doling out handsome salaries and bonuses.

This is good: the mindless consumerist ways of the past should die an ignoble death. Unfortunately, the old patterns won’t die easily. The leadership is hoping against hope that numbskull consumerism won’t be totally finished off; that at most it will only be held in abeyance temporarily until a new crop of buyers can be cajoled and manipulated into running up their 28% interest, credit cards to the max.

Ok, I’m being cynical; most people will recognize that is folly and instead get behind frugality and savings until some important change happens in the world. That being the case the one certainty surrounding the present economic crisis is that demand for goods and services will remain dismal, even abysmal. In that case, the only thing that makes sense is to shorten the work week to share what’s available and embrace the deflation that’s inevitable and necessary (and beneficial in the long run) if people are working and earning less.

What’s required is a total rethink of the purpose of economic life and the value of work. What’s needed is a transformation of the concept of Gross National Product (that we must see rise in perpetuity or we tear our hair out in panic) to an accounting of Gross National Health and Happiness.

To that end I propose a two month national holiday in which only emergency and necessary work takes place, which gives people the time to get together and discuss what they want their world to look like, not to mention lets inventories catch up with purchases. This would be organized on neighborhood and local levels with daily meetings and debates on desired futures. Everyone would be eligible for unemployment benefits for that period. All interest payments and accruing interest would drop to zero for that time and there would be a moratorium on foreclosures and credit defaults.

Time to take stock…

Not that I think any of this will happen, but the world still needs its dreamers.

Meanwhile on another topic: Israel is in massacre mode once again using the same tactics that have failed it time after time: Sweet Revenge, it seems clear, trumps all. Next on the blog: being Jewish and relating to Israel.

The Root Cause

What Should Obama Do? The above question, referring to the economic crisis, was posed to me by a friend who often comments, especially lately, on my commentaries. I would have a very difficult time answering that question because what Obama should do is radically different from what I would do.

Nonetheless, there are several areas in which I am in substantial agreement with the President. (My god, what a great relief it is to write about an American President without feeling compelled to be derisive, derogatory, caustic and spiteful.) For sure, massive investment in infrastructure, especially focusing on electric transportation, is something that cries out for happening regardless, so now’s a perfect time to tackle those needs. Increased unemployment benefits, food stamps, assistance to state and local government are obvious responses to the hardship that is/will be felt across a wide spectrum of society. Renegotiation of mortgage loans under foreclosure is another obvious no-brainer (though equally obviously, there can’t be many brains in Washington or it’d already be happening).

There’s an additional factor that desperately needs action that we might agree on, but for different reasons. That is America’s rotten health care system. While we both would concur on the social and ethical reasons for reform, there is an equally important economic reason, which we wouldn’t agree on; that is, the need for job flexibility and short work weeks.

Obama has totally bought into corporate-oriented conventional wisdom that requires manic pursuit of a return to growth by any means possible – bailouts, borrowing, income tax cuts, lower interest rates. Any straw in the wind is being grasped to try to rescue and reinvigorate that fundamentally destructive and bankrupt world view.

People are cutting back on consumption because they have less to spend based on declining wealth – falling asset values - or loss of employment or because they wisely understand the need to save for trying times ahead. Economic activity is thus declining sharply which is good for the world, bad for the old economy. If unemployment spikes as a result and you believe, as I do, that contraction is a good idea, then the only solution is sharing the available work. Stimulus packages will keep the economy from crumbling but won’t bring full employment.

Besides, people need to work less as a matter of principle – more leisure, more time for social life, less money for consumption. This can not happen as long as America has an employer-based health care system which encourages employers to work their staffs longer hours. Thus, single-payer health care is an absolute prerequisite for the purpose of slowing life down and improving its quality. A single-payer bill was submitted to Congress with 93 co-signers but hasn’t received a single hearing so don’t hold your breath; nobody in power wants to upset the insurance, pharmaceutical and health care industries.

The US is projected to have a trillion dollar budget deficit this year as a result of reduced revenues because of the downturn and the cost of stimulus packages and bailouts. The addition to the national debt as a result should not be taken lightly: these are perilous times to take on massive new debts. We are hearing a lot of talk lately of the renowned economist of the 30’s, John Maynard Keynes. In response to Hoover cutting back on government spending to reflect a downturn in revenues caused by the 1929 economic crash, he suggested that government should do the opposite and increase spending to get the economy moving again. He argued that deficits could be made up later on upon recovery.

The problem with invoking him now is that he advocated building up surpluses during good times to balance the deficits of the bad whereas we are beginning this economic meltdown after a string of massive deficits. It can be argued that those large government deficits, along with obscene levels of personal debt are what had kept the economy from stagnation since the start of the Bush disaster. America was essentially on a compulsive borrowing binge.

Therefore, I’m totally opposed to any form of tax breaks except those relating to the least fortunate members of society. The average doctor earns $265,000 per year, so that nearly half would receive a tax break under Obama’s tax cut plans for those earning less than $250,000. They undoubtedly have everything they truly need in life so whatever they would spend the money on would be bad for the world and should not be produced.

As I’ve ranted and railed about ad nauseum recently, the last thing we need to do is rescue the old economy of profligacy, waste and mindless debt-fueled consumption. To that end, the wealthy and corporations should absolutely be reined in.

While I wouldn’t advocate a return to the 91% personal income tax rate of the fifties and sixties, taxes on the wealthiest should be raised to at least 50 or 60%, not only to raise money but also to curb unnecessary consumption. Corporate tax rates should also return to rates of the past sufficient to restore the fifty-fifty ratio of income taxes once paid by corporations and individuals.

Corporations are creatures of the state and must be tightly supervised. For more than a century they have enjoyed the privileges of personhood with none of the responsibilities. When a person commits a crime they are taken out of circulation, when a corporation does, they are slapped with a small fine and thus encouraged to be on their merry thieving ways.

There are several ways the corporations have of controlling the American agenda. The most important and insidious is advertising; it is the root of corporate evil. It’s worth reiterating the stunning conclusion of a study done on the effects of advertising on pre-school 3 to 5-year-old kids. When served mcdonald’s burgers in plain and company wrappers, 80% said the burger in the corporate-logoed wrapper tasted better. America’s children are being educated for the corporate bottom line before their personal health. For the need for luxuries before the health of the planet. Americans are told it is their duty to buy things they don’t need and often can’t afford, thus building mountains of debt, for the sake of the economy.

I would remove advertising from deductible business expenses, except for a reasonable amount needed by a small local business, maybe $25,000 per year. People don’t need to be encouraged to consume, it’s already a natural response: old things wear out, new innovations come on the market. People will continue to consume without the encouragement of advertising, just not so much of the mindless sort. Let corporations compete based on producing quality instead of slick marketing.

Slowing consumption requires reining in credit. Even as Citigroup is showered with $320 billion in public welfare, it charges nearly 30% interest on credit card debt, for many people making it difficult to ever clear their debt. Thanks to a corporate funded Congress, bankruptcy laws were changed recently to make it harder to erase those debts, even putting credit cards on an equal footing with child support.

Credit has its importance; easy credit is a mistake. People need to be encouraged to save. I got turned off to credit with my first experience. I bought an article - don’t remember what, it was nearly 50 years ago – on a six month payment plan. After 2 months the article broke, but I had to keep paying on it and I thought, this is nuts. In the fifties, you could buy a car with 20% down and two years to pay. If you had to sell before the term was up, you had some equity in the vehicle. Today, with no down and 7 years to pay, you have to take large sums out of your pocket to sell within the first two years: that is crazy.

Tightening credit is a good idea. Let homebuyers bring a 20% down payment with them and let the government subsidize mortgages for the bottom half of society. Anybody with a solid history of work and responsibility should have access to their own home. In recent years they’ve been excluded from home ownership by artificially high prices. Prices which only could’ve risen with the help of ‘innovative’ subprime mortgages.

The Root Cause of the current economic meltdown is too much money in the hands of the wealthy and powerful. They have time on their hands, they are obsessed with making money and often have no scruples. With money to burn they have created an economic bubble, a Ponzi scheme of epic proportions; one that is bringing hardship to people all over the world.

Therefore, excessive wealth must be curbed and all forms of speculation taxed. Even a small stock transaction tax would discourage short term speculation. Let investment be for something more than pursuit of a quick buck; something that embodies lasting value. International currency transactions should be taxed and the proceeds used for development aid to the world’s poor.

Unfortunately, Obama’s picks for his economic team do not leave much room for confidence since they are uniformly on the corporate bailout side. They helped to create the deregulation that is responsible for the current crisis and most likely have no other idea how to fix the system than repeat the mistakes of the past.

Repeating the mistakes of the past will only dig the hole deeper with debt that will have to be paid eventually, and paid with even more pain than it would take to start to work it down now.

I realize my economic prescription involves a severe deflation with serious consequences, but, I would argue, no more serious than the impacts of propping up the old economy. At least, we would come out with a sustainable, well-being oriented lifestyle designed to benefit the majority who’ve been left out in these past decades of conservative trickle-down economic thinking.

Bailout Madness

I’ve been feeling the need to write about something besides the financial bailout – the strangulation of Gaza, the mass fascist coup attempt in Thailand, the carnage in Mumbai – but the bailout money has been flowing so fast and in such fantastical amounts, it’s almost beyond superlatives and comprehension.

I titled one of these commentaries, “Cure Worse Than Disease” way back when we were talking less than a trillion dollars. Now by one reckoning we are up to $4.2 trillion, by another nearly $8 trillion. In addition to the recent well publicized bails of Citigroup to the tune of $320 billion and another $800 billion to a wide array of corporations in need of a handout, there’s the small matter of $2+ trillion in loans made to financial institutions by the Fed whose recipients it is trying to keep secret, else, the thinking goes, precipitate runs that would break them. Bloomberg is suing under the Freedom of Information Act to try to force transparency.

Bailout protagonists, which include just about everybody in government, business and the punditocracy, will explain the money is all about restoring confidence and is in the form of equity and investments so when the economy gets back on track, i.e., people return to their primary role as consumers and head back to the auto dealers in droves to buy the latest model, honcho-sized SUV’s - amongst other hallmarks of the consumption economy - and the government will get its/our money back.

The first point to consider is that the Fed has printed up or borrowed trillions of dollars to help its friends totally on its own, with no oversight from any level of the US government. The second ponderable is when it will all end. What if the job needs another five or ten trillion? And what if, and this is the real corker, people don’t go back to their stupid, heavily-indebted mindless-consumerist ways?

We are assured that the consequences of not acting to stem this massive economic breakdown would be staggering, mind boggling, catastrophic - to that you can add your choice of another ten or so similar words expressing disaster of epic proportions.

However, the magnitude of the resources going into this corporate feeding frenzy at the public coffers is so overwhelming, we are entering a lose-lose situation. If the money does in fact does succeed in keeping the banking sector afloat, it’ll come at a nearly unbearable cost to society.

The third question, which is only being asked by the those of us on the radical fringe: Why do we want to prop up and save a rotten system; one that’s dedicated to consumption in a world being overtaxed by unconscious, unsustainable consumption?

In any case the old ways are finished. It’ll be years before people have the theoretical ability to return to their mania for consumption and by then, if the economy does start to pickup, resource depletion and rising prices will end forever the possibility of that numbskull lifestyle.

This actually is a perfect time for those of us who recognize the world’s desperate need for transformational times, for there truly is a crisis ahead of us that dwarfs the current economic one. We are talking climate change, of course. We have received a one-off reprieve in the form of the economic breakdown: The world desperately needs to reduce all forms of resource consumption to avoid the worst of global warming.

We should be delighting in the drop in consumption and using the vast resources that are now going into beating the dying horse of the old economy and using them instead to build the new. In the act of emptying the resource barrel to try to prop up the old we are precluding the new, a change to a sustainable economy of well-being.

Personally, I don’t take delight in calamity as it causes wrenching difficulties for the bewildered and innocent; nonetheless, I think we can all appreciate its cathartic and catalytic powers. Ok, maybe I do take a little delight, but not because I like to see people suffer, but rather the belief that macro political and social changes seldom happen without the force of great events.

It’s hard to say if we still have the opportunity to properly respond and adapt to this calamity: the door is closing fast.