The war is making us poor Act

I'm delighted to share the letter that Representative Alan Grayson just sent to me. The basic idea is that the obsession of U.S. politicians to fight needless wars is making us poor as a nation (in addition to the immorality of what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan). After reviewing the letter, I went to Grayson's website dedicated to cutting the military budget, I became about the 11,000th person to sign his petition, and I'm reprinting Grayson's letter (below). Finally, we see someone who can speak about the military budget with some sanity. I agree with Alan Grayson that we need to stop our absolutely senseless "wars" and, instead, use our money here at home to stabilize our country's noticeable downward economic and social slide. Before you read Grayson's letter, please review (and choke on) two posts about the U.S. military budget numbers here and here.

Dear Erich,

Next week, there is going to be a "debate" in Congress on yet another war funding bill. The bill is supposed to pass without debate, so no one will notice.

What George Orwell wrote about in "1984" has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the "military-industrial complex" has come true. War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.

But we're going to change this. Today, we're introducing a bill called 'The War Is Making You Poor Act'. The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars. We're working to get co-sponsors in Congress, but, we need citizen co-sponsors as well. Become a citizen cosponsor today at TheWarIsMakingYouPoor.com. Act Now.

Next year's budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's enough money to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income. Beyond that, leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit.

And that's what this bill does. It eliminates separate funding for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminates federal income taxes for everyone's first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples). Plus it pays down the national debt. Does that sound good to you? Then please sign our petition in support of this bill, and help us build a movement to end our permanent state of war.

The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There's no draft. Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war.

We put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card. In fact, we don't even put these wars on budget; they are still passed using 'emergency supplemental'. A nine-year 'emergency'.

Let's show Congress the cost of these wars is too much for us. Tell Congress that you like 'The War Is Making You Poor Act'. No, tell Congress you love it. All we are saying is "give peace a chance." We will end these wars.

Together.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

Continue ReadingThe war is making us poor Act

What’s In A Label?

Conservative. Liberal. We act as if we know what these labels mean. Conservatives are traditionalists, fiscally opposed to anything that smacks of gambling, private, often religious, and pedantic on what they consider “appropriate” in either government or personal conduct. Liberals, on the other hand, are often taken for progressive, willing to spend social capital to repair perceived problems, tolerant, agnostic if not atheist, and overly-concerned with a definition of justice that ought to be all-encompassing rather than what they perceive as sinecure for the privileged. Well. Over on Facebook I posted a brief quote (my own) to boil down the actual underlying distinctions. Conservatives are those who don’t like what other people are doing, Liberals are those who don’t like what other people are doing to other people. It was meant to be taken as humorous. But I’m not being entirely flip here. When you look at it, and try to define the common factor in much that passes for conservative posteuring—of any country, any background, anywhere—it always comes down to one group trying to stop another group from Doing Things We Don’t Approve. I heard a news report this morning (on NPR—I unabashedly don’t pay attention to any other news source, I find them all utterly biased) from Pakistan about the university scene there, and one bit caught my attention—at a campus in Punjabi, conservative students who find men and women sitting too close together interfere and move them apart. At a game of Truth or Dare, conservative students pulled participants out and beat them. How does this apply here? Well, here’s a clip from P.Z. Meyers’ Pharyngula to illustrate: Rising Sun School in Maryland has the standard default take-it-for-granted attitude that Christianity is just fine — there’s the usual well-funded and usually teacher-promoted evangelical groups, like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes — and when one student tried to form a club for non-religious students…well, you can guess what happened.

Continue ReadingWhat’s In A Label?

Senate votes 96-0 to audit the Fed

This momentum to audit the Federal Reserve is long-overdue, after months of debate. If our election system involved public financing, the debate would have lasted five minutes. Now it's time to reconcile the House and Senate bills, then let the sun shine in. It's time to shine an especially bright light on the recipients of the the Fed's largess, and this will information must be produced pursuant to the Senate bill. Let's just hope that the audit is meaningful and thorough. Speaking of which, it's time to turn a sharp eye to the roll the Wall Street bond rating companies played in the meltdown. After all, how could it be that so many sub-prime mortgage-backed securities were so highly rated, despite strong evidence to the contrary? We're now seeing good momentum to reform the practices of these bond raters too:

A critical amendment to the Wall Street reform bill being debated in the Senate this week picked up a key Republican backer Tuesday. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), would end the practice of banks choosing which credit rating agency they hire to rate a particular offering. Often, banks will ask raters for a preliminary review, allowing them to pick the rater most likely to look favorably on whatever bundle of products the bank wants to sell to investors.

Continue ReadingSenate votes 96-0 to audit the Fed

How you own the Red Roof Inn and why we need to audit the Federal Reserve

Representative Alan Grayson explains how it is that the American public now owns the Red Roof Inn and why we desperately need to audit the Federal Reserve. These are closely related questions, as Grayson dramatically details. The Federal Reserve Bank needs to be audited because it excels at magically "make money out of nothing," just by making notations on its books. We have no way of knowing how it is that the Federal Reserve assumed liability for other large chains of hotels too. The Fed has also put up half a trillion dollars in mortgage-backed securities. Therefore, we, the People, are "owners" of massive amounts of real estate, which means that the Fed owns our homes when the mortgages go bad. This is "stealth" socialism, says Grayson, because we don't audit the Federal Reserve. Grayson, a progressive, is thus calling on conservatives to join in the call to audit the Fed "before it all comes crashing down on us." Every time the Fed creates money out of thin air, "they're taking that dollar that's in your pocket and they're making it cheaper--worth less."

Continue ReadingHow you own the Red Roof Inn and why we need to audit the Federal Reserve

To the woman who answered the phone at Senator Kit Bond’s office today

Today I saw this post at Huffington, indicating that Kit Bond is not a "yes" for any proposal to audit the Federal Reserve. I believe that the secret workings of the Fed need to be exposed. Where did all of the TARP money go? Who knows? Let's find out. I called the Washington DC Office of U.S. Senator Kit Bond [phone number: (202) 224-5721] to determine Bond's position. A woman answered the phone. "May I help you?" "Yes, I'd like to know Kit Bond's position on the current proposals to audit the Fed. I read in the Huffington Post that he has expressed support to audit the Fed." "Oh, well THAT ought to tell you something. What a ridiculous website . . ." "Hold on . . . That's a huge website with legitimate news. What is Kit Bond's position?" "He's in favor of auditing the Fed." "I don't see his position in writing anywhere. It's not on his website. How do I know that he's in favor of auditing the Fed. It's a huge secret society needs to be examined closely because it controls national monetary policy without any accountability." "I'm with you on that." "I need to know Kit Bond's Position and I'd like to see it in writing." "I will relay that." [end of call] Note: I've shortened the call a bit, but this was the substance of the conversation. My bet? She wrote nothing down at all, and that Bond is against an audit of the Fed. We'll see . . . BTW, you will rarely see such vapid platitudes of policy as you will see on Bond's website. It really makes you wonder whether Bond knows much of anything about the real world. It's also clear that Bond has never seen a war that he's against. Thank goodness he's retiring soon.

Continue ReadingTo the woman who answered the phone at Senator Kit Bond’s office today