jimrigby.org

When we read a newspaper, if we are not very careful, we are taking in much more than the “facts.” Although it is seldom overt, it is the nature of the media beast to cast human struggles into simple melodramas with good and bad characters. When we see a picture of a riot or a battle, the angle of the camera may “embed” us on one side of the conflict or the other. It is hard to sympathize with a group that is pointing its weapons at you. We hardly notice when an “objective” newpaper account uses words like “militants” for the soldiers on the other side and “defense” for the soldiers on ours.

The following brief article looks at a National Public Radio report on the Syrian rebels with an eye to melodrama. Obviously the author has his own biases as well, but he asks several interesting questions. For example, what does it mean to say foreign forces have “liberated” a town, and why do we use the word “regime” for governments we consider  illegitimate?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/01/national-pentagon-radio-npr-watch/

Mattea Kramer of tomdispatch.com has written an article on what she considers some hard truths that probably won’t come out in the Presidential debates. In summary, her points are:

1. Immediate deficit reduction will wipe out any hope of economic recovery.

“When the government cuts spending, it lays off workers and cancels orders for all sorts of goods and services that would generate income for companies in the private sector.”

2.  Taxes are at their lowest point in more than half a century, preventing investment in and the maintenance of America’s most basic resources.

“There is no way the U.S. can maintain a world-class infrastructure — we’re talking levees, highways, bridges, you name it — and a public education system that used to be the envy of the world, plus many other key domestic priorities, on the taxes we’re now paying.”

3.  Neither the status quo nor a voucher system will protect Medicare (or any other kind of health care) in the long run.

“Medicare could be significantly protected by cutting out waste. Our health system is riddled with unnecessary tests and procedures, as well as poorly coordinated care for complex health problems. This country spent $2.6 trillion on health care in 2010, and some estimates suggest that a staggering 30% of that is wasted.”

4.  The U.S. military is outrageously expensive and yet poorly tailored to the actual threats to U.S. national security.

But in a country desperate for infrastructure, education, and other funding, funneling endless resources to the Pentagon actually weakens “national security.”

5.  The U.S. education system is what made this country prosperous in the twentieth century — but no longer.

“Scarcely 2% of the federal budget goes to education, and dwindling public investment means students pay higher tuitions and fall ever deeper into debt.”

To read more, click here:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175599/tomgram%3A_mattea_kramer%2C_a_recipe_for_american_decline_that_no_one_will_be_debating/

It has been so wonderful to serve at a church that sees religion as a call into the struggle for human rights and not out of it. In the last few years we have had Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, ambassadors, U.N. weapons inspectors and international figures all come to teach us about some aspect of the struggle for human rights. This coming Saturday we will have another event in that tradition.

Allan Boesak was a leading figure in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He is also a theologian. This Saturday he will be at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church discussing religion and the struggle for liberation. After his presentation, he will be joined by the heroic State Rep. Senfronia Thompson who has waged a lifelong struggle for civil rights in Texas, and the Rev. Joseph Parker, of David Chapel Missionary Baptist Church. We will discuss the struggle for human liberation particularly as it is affected for better or worse by religion.

The date is Saturday, October 6th from 1:30 to 3:30.

Our address is 14311 Wells Port, and Wells Branch, two blocks west of I-35.

Admission is free.

An Onion spoof claiming that rural Americans preferred Iranian President Ahmadinejad to Barak Obama was lifted from the wire and run as a serious story. The Fars news agency realized its mistake, pulled the story and apologized. The editor in chief said that he believed that US politicians are unpopular in the US and therefore thought the story was credible.

“Although it does not justify our mistake, we do believe that if a free opinion poll is conducted in the US, a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside the US political system to President Barack Obama and American statesmen,” the Fars story quoted the unnamed editor as saying. -Fars Editor in Chief

Maybe so, but an expert would have known the story was fake when it claimed Americans knew the head of state of another country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19778656

Jonathan Weil has written an interesting tongue in cheek article saying that banks need to be treated more like restaurants which have regular inspections with the grades available to the public. It is an interesting point. Banks are evaluated, of course. The rating scale, if I understand the article, is called a “camels” scale (capital adequacy, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity, and sensitivity to market risk). The problem is that the rating is kept secret from the public. This article is simply recommending we stop protecting banks from public scrutiny. Why should we be able to find out that a Thai Restaurant has dirty tables, but not that our bank is making dirty deals?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-27/bankers-must-wash-hands-before-returning-to-work.html

It looks like a sit com. Judge Robert Francis is holding court in  a room filled with people convicted of drug abuse. The judge alternates between profanity laced confrontations and pep talks.  In a nation that now has more of its people in prison than anywhere else in the world, a conservative judge in a conservative state is saying that punishment alone is not solving the problem.

“Remarkably, this revolution was unleashed in “hang ’em high” Texas, which prides itself on its toughness and still holds more executions than other states. But instead of building more prisons and jailing ever more people, Texas is now diverting funds to sophisticated rehabilitation programmes to reduce recidivism. Money has been poured into probation, parole and specialist services for addicts, the mentally ill, women and veterans. And it has worked:  figures show even violent crime dropping at more than twice the national average, while cutting costs and reducing prison populations.” -The Guardian

Adam Gelb of the Pew Center on the States, is quoted in the article below as deeming the new direction as “the triumph of sound science over soundbites.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/30/robert-francis-texas-judge-jails

Reparative therapies for homosexuality are finally going the way of leeches and blood letting. After years of allowing shock therapy, nausia enducing drugs and therapies with no scientific basis to be used on subjects, California has made such practices illegal.

“This bill bans nonscientific ‘therapies’ that have driven young people to depression and suicide, these practices have no basis in science or medicine, and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery” said Gov. Jerry Brown.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/us/california-bans-therapies-to-cure-gay-minors.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&hpw=&adxnnlx=1349087099-ylc1Ep/RQbcG9kC5ozCPSw

Public Citizen is a watch group that attempts to protect the public from all kinds of anti-democratic efforts. One “stealth” group most don’t suspect is the US Chamber of Commerce. People know the Chamber represents business, but they may not realize that it funnels money into elections. The Chamber has purchased 3 million dollars worth of attack ads in California alone against candidates who would make business accountable to the people. The names of the specific companies giving money to specific campaigns, of course, will not be available to the public.

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/09/28-12

“After first describing the attack as a spontaneous demonstration run amok, administration officials now describe it as a terrorist act with possible involvement by Al Qaeda. The changing accounts prompted the spokesman for the nation’s top intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., to issue a statement on Friday acknowledging that American intelligence agencies “revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists.””

When Obama was first elected, I said that lying to the public is a part of his or any president’s job. Some people got upset, but the fact is that a modern President resembles nothing so much as the child in the back seat of a car with a make believe steering wheel. Our foreign policy is driven by the needs of an empire few us us will admit even exists. Our economy is driven by the whims of principalities and powers known as corporations. So a modern president’s major task is identifying currents of popular opinion, running to the head of them, and calling it a parade.

But, to answer the question, Obama should not be hurt much by the public realizing our original narrative of hysterical Muslims protesting a movie was wrong. In fact, I’ll bet that, ten years from now, it will still be the popular memory of what happened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/us/politics/shifting-reports-on-libya-killings-may-cost-obama.html?hpw

If you or I are caught writing hot checks, we may very well do time. Ditto, if we sell a product we know to be defective. But what happens you may ask, if a rich person defrauds a nation of billions of dollars? If you have seen the Power Rangers, you know the answer. They come together into one super person called a corporation and buy their way out of the problem.

The Bank of America has had to pay billions in fines as a result of a long list of shady deals, dishonest presentation of information, unfair foreclosures and other acts that would probably put an individual in prison. If Al Capone had the option of joining his activities into the saftey net of corporate personhood, his businesses might still be alive today.

If the only punishment a “person” faces for theft is a fine, that fine soon becomes a cost of duing business. After some time for the public to forget, he or she can pass on the cost of misdeeds to customers or to the public coffers. As a Power Ranger, he or she would be too big to fail.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/bank-of-america-to-pay-2-43-billion-to-settle-class-action-over-merrill-deal/?hpw