Ordinarily, I think of myself as a card-carrying liberal. But lately, I'm getting the feeling that Liberal America had a meeting to decide on our current priorities and peace advocates weren't invited. I open my email and it's full of rallying cries about the urgency of taxing the rich. When was it decided that taxing the rich was the marquee demand of Liberal America at this juncture? Were peace advocates invited to this meeting? I see no evidence that we were.
In a different political juncture, I would be happy to march behind the banner of taxing the rich. But at this political juncture, when the war budget is half of federal discretionary spending, and when because of the Budget Control Act and the Supercommittee, we have a historic opportunity to cut the war budget -- a much better prospect, at present, than our prospects for raising tax rates on rich people -- I ain't marching for this dogwhistle anymore.
Suppose there were a massive government program to dump truckloads of dioxin in Lake Michigan. And suppose that -- in addition to the direct effects of poisoning a major source of drinking water -- this program were tremendously expensive in blood and treasure. Suppose that since October 7, 2001, more than five thousand American workers had been killed carrying out the Lake Michigan-poisoning project, with tens of thousands of American workers counted as wounded, and the real toll of wounded American workers many times higher. And suppose that the budgeted cost so far of the massive government program to dump poison in Lake Michigan were over a trillion dollars so far, with the real financial cost to society, when you count things like the future health costs of the poisoned American workers, much higher.
Would the marquee demand of Liberal America be to make Warren Buffett pay his fair share for the Lake Michigan-poisoning program? Or would the marquee demand of Liberal America be to stop dumping poison in Lake Michigan?
If we're going to use the money to kill, imprison, and otherwise oppress people in other countries who have done us no wrong, I would just as soon let Warren Buffett keep his money. Maybe he will donate some of it to a good cause. But even if he uses it to buy caviar, that would be better than continuing the war in Afghanistan, which is, on a routine basis, violating the basic human rights of the Afghan people, in addition to killing and maiming Americans for no good reason.
Item: in the November issue of the Atlantic, Matthieu Aikins makes a compelling case that the Pentagon is violating the Leahy Amendment by arming the forces of Afghan warlord Abdul Raziq, given that Raziq's forces have a history of gross human rights abuses as long as your arm. But this Pentagon activity has proceeded unmolested by the Leahy Law.
Why should we take money from Warren Buffett to pay for this? Shouldn't we just stop it?
Item: in a recent article in Truthout, Gareth Porter demolishes the claim that U.S. "night raids" in Afghanistan - that's when U.S. forces smash into people's homes in the middle of the night, shooting anyone who might appear to resist -- are "precisely targeted," noting that a key target of the night raids is not insurgents, but civilians who might know insurgents, a blatant violation of the laws of war; and that moreover, people are targeted based not on their identity, but based on their phone records. So if somebody calls someone linked by the U.S. to the insurgency from your phone, U.S. forces can smash into your house, kill you and your relatives, and claim success: "Taliban killed."
Why should we take money from Warren Buffett to pay for this? Shouldn't we just stop it?
At this juncture in our history, why should we make common cause with the warmongers against the Tea Party? Wouldn't it be more righteous to make common cause with the Tea Party against the warmongers?
What's particularly striking at this juncture is this: House Democrats appear to be ahead of Liberal America on this issue right now. Seventy Representatives -- mostly Democrats -- have written to the debt-reduction Supercommittee, urging them to end the wars. Why isn't our email full of urgings to support the seventy Representatives in their demand that the Supercommittee end the wars?
On October 7, 2011, we'll have been at war for ten years. There will be protests around the country. Let us first end the wars. Then I will gladly march behind the banner of taxing the rich.
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The author's argument assumes that politics can only allow a reduction in military spending OR an increase in taxes. He assumes that when money gets really tight, without more from taxes, the military budget will be cut. But by how much? Enough, or just enough to keep us sleeping on the sidewalk instead of the gutter? Meanwhile the rich are richer and fewer.
I don't think politics is as simple as the author claims. There should be higher taxes on the rich for more reasons than the author acknowledges, one being to even out the wealth disparities in the country: an inequality that is very damaging to the social fabric. Thus, it's right to push our criminally corrupt government in every way that it needs in order to get it back to functionality.
Millions were ready to sacrifice thier well being; hundreds of thousands ready to sacrifice thier lives.
We have no leadership!
The "night time raids" & “Taliban”, "militants" or "insurgents" killed remind me of the Vietcong/NVA body counts broadcast nightly on network TV to “justify” our war & show we “are winning”; lies then -- lies now! I believe most of these people killed are either innocent of anything, protecting their families, or protecting their nation from an invading force, as most of us would do under similar circumstances.
You are 100% accurate that we must change what we have become & our priorities; from obscene military waste and death (regardless where the money comes from) that enrich a few & empower what President/General Dwight Eisenhower warned us against, the Military Industrial Complex, that has come to pass far more destructive to our nation than even he could have envision. All the justifications and rationale in the world for the so-far decade-long “wars without end” are lies and fabrication, just as sure as the lies and smoke-screen rip-off of the American people by the corporate/banker/wall st thieves.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us"
They are simply tools of the evil people and organizations they despise most. They cry about the evils of insurance companies and drug companies and support a bill which gives $700 billion directly to those same insurance and drug companies.
They complain about the wars and support a President who continues them both.
Complain about the PATRIOT Act while supporting a President who continues it.
Complain about economic and Defense policies of Bush while supporting a President who keeps THE SAME Treasury Secretary, the same Fed Chair and the SAME Secretary of Defense!
Now they complain that the problem is "the rich" -- so lets tax them.......and where, my liberal friends will that money go? It will funnel right into a few greasy hands in Washington DC along with the rest of America's money.
You are right-- stop the wars, stop the spending and stop the nonsense.
If you really want to embrace the ideals of many so called 'liberals' support someone who is anti-war, anti-bailout and anti-corruption and pro-freedom. aka Ron Paul
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"Pro-freedom" is Paulese for white supremacism.
Real liberals do NOT support Obama's center-right policies.
Real liberals despise Paul's homophobia and anti-woman policies.
Real liberals do not find Texas Republicans of any stripe admirable.
Real liberals desire more socialism (not a dirty word!) and less economic libertarianism.
What does Texas have to do with it? You actually judge someone by what state they are from? How is a Texas republican different from another?
Why not judge someone by what they actually stand for?
I assume you and I agree that George Bush was terrible --- well, why was he terrible? The key things which made him bad: Ron Paul opposed him at every turn -- the war, the other war, the bailouts, the Patriot Act. Pres Obama, sadly, did not.
In principle, this article makes a valid point. But we should not end the wars on economic grounds. We should end them on moral grounds. If, however, we need to push the morally right thing to do by arguing budgets, that's fine. Whatever it takes. But the wars are acts of enormous moral and legal transgressions, not entries on a spread sheet.
Same with raising taxes on the rich. It is a fundamental question of fairness, a basic question as to the kind of society we wish to have, the kind of future we want for our country. Egalitarian or oligarchical. The American Dream where all share the bounty or feudalism.
As a progressive liberal, I am proud to talk in terms of values, something which seems absent from the conversation. And the kind of America I personally value does not wage unnecessary and cruel wars and has a fair and constructive distribution of wealth so that everyone enjoys a good life.
Hmm... to make Republicans' only benefactors feel the impact of their stupidity?