Undernews For July 23, 2010

Undernews For July 22, 2010

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WORD

An important question to ask of any proposed educational innovation is simply this: Is it intended to make the factory run more efficiently, or is it designed, as it should be, to get rid of the factory model altogether and replace it with individualized, customized education? - Alvin Toffler

HOW TO END THE TEA PARTY, SCARE OBAMA INTO DECENT POLITICS, AND MAKE AMERICA A BETTER PLACE

Sam Smith

One of the reasons the left doesn’t do better is because it tends to view the right's transgressions as a moral issue rather than as a pragmatic problem as, for example, a baseball coach would do if the Tea Party were the other team.

In fact, calling someone a racist is not a particularly useful political move whereas figuring out why they’re getting to first base all the time, and you’re not, is.

Here, for example, are three ways the right's political strategy varies from the left’s:

- The right keeps it simple. It speaks United States, not bland abstractions devised by some third rate branding coach. There is hardly anyone in the country who doesn’t know the right opposes gay marriage, abortion and illegal immigration. Now try describing three primary goals of liberals or the left and you see the problem. This not only works on the voters, it works with the media, which finds its difficult to deal with more than three concepts at a time.

- The right keeps its eye on issues rather than icons. Liberals just become indentured servants of an Obama or Clinton and let the wars and the Wall Street bailouts go on unimpeded. The GOP doesn’t even have a leading candidate for 2012, but it’s already controlling the issues.

- The right knows how to scare the shit out of liberals and politicians like Obama, whereas the right doesn't even get scared at the thought of destroying the planet.

The right has become so powerful for the same reason that Bernie Madoff was so wealthy: by conning people. But we didn't send people to prison for being fooled by Madoff and we shouldn't send voters to purgatory for being fooled by the GOP. Instead, we need to rethink the whole game, including figuring out how to turn the rightwing's victims into a progressive constituency.

So here are three good places to start changing the left's own politics: speak United States, deal with issues and let the politicians fend for themselves, and start scaring the shit out of the powers that be.

And here's one way it could happen.

The Tea Party, according to recent polling, is supported by about 18% of the American public. On the other hand, there is a potential constituency of 28% of the American public that could have a huge impact on our politics, but doesn't, in no small part because political mythology has it that its components parts can't get on well enough together.

This is a familiar story in American politics: after all southern racism was built in no small part on elite whites convincing less wealthy whites that their real enemies were poor blacks. Similarly today, the media and political establishment tell us that the 28% of the country comprised of blacks and latinos just can't come together enough to make an effective coalition.

Yes, there are conflicts such as immigration. But consider that the whole illegal immigration matter involves only about 5% of the workforce, that the illegal immigrant and black workforces tend to be geographically separated, that no illegal immigrant is known to have outsourced any meaningful number of jobs or slashed public employment, and the mythological aspect of the black-latino conflict over immigration becomes clear. It is mainly useful as a tool to keep the two ethnic groups apart.

Now it's true that a group of black, latino, labor and other progressive groups are planning a joint demonstration in October, as the Washington Post has described:

|||| In an effort to replicate the tea party's success, 170 liberal and civil rights groups are forming a coalition that they hope will match the movement's political energy and influence. They promise to "counter the tea party narrative" and help the progressive movement find its voice again after 18 months of floundering.

The large-scale attempt at liberal unity, dubbed "One Nation," will try to revive themes that energized the progressive grassroots two years ago. In a repurposing of Barack Obama's old campaign slogan, organizers are demanding "all the change" they voted for -- a poke at the White House.

But the liberal groups have long had a kind of sibling rivalry, jostling over competing agendas and seeking to influence some of the same lawmakers. In forming the coalition, the groups struggled to settle on a name. Even now, two of the major players disagree about who came up with the idea of holding a march this fall. . .

The groups involved represent the core of the first-time voters who backed President Obama -- including the National Council of La Raza, NAACP, AFL-CIO, SEIU and the United States Student Association. . .

Their aha moment happened after the health-care overhaul passed this spring. Liberal groups, who focused their collective strength to push the bill against heavy resistance, felt relevant and effective for the first time in a long while. That health-care coalition -- composed of civil rights groups, student activists and labor leaders -- liked the winning feeling. ||||

Unfortunately the initial noise from the effort has very much the traditional sound of much liberal organizing: mushy, middle of the road and tied to winning some seats in Congress rather than really changing the politics of those who win. And the thought of the lousy healthcare bill being considered an aha moment is not reassuring. We've already been through this fantasy once with the supposed black Jesus, Obama. Putting our faith in one more congressional election may just be the Democrat's Last Supper.

But here is what could really change American politics:

- Top black and latino groups come together to find out what they agree on. Anything they disagree about is put in the later file.

- The list, no more than ten issues, should primarily deal with matters that affect not only blacks and latinos but broad segments of white America. The one way that minorities truly do well politically in this country is when they lead the majority. If they do, then their more ethnic concerns benefit as well. That should be the goal in this case.

- The list should be specific with no abstractions.

- The coalition should announce it will not endorse any candidates (that would be up to the member organizations of the group) but will be publishing a score card on all candidates based on these issues.

The consensus issues should be heavily centered on economics such as Social Security, foreclosures, and credit care usury. Ending the war in Afghanistan and single payer would be other examples. In each case, a position stated in no longer than one line or a tweet.

If you have any doubts of the power of these issues, consider the following from a recent Time poll:

86% oppose reducing spending on Social Security

82% oppose reducing spending on Medicare.

55% would reduce spending on the war in Afghanistan

63% would not reduce spending on unemployment compensation

68% would not reduce spending on healthare.

After the black and latino groups have drafted their policy, they could invite others - such as labor and student groups - to join them, but the key point would remain: American politics will never be the same because blacks and latinos have come together and another political myth has been shattered.

TOP STORIES

LEADING CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR THINKS 15 MILLION UNEMPLOYED GENERALLY HAS 'POO..

ONE THIRD OF U.S. COUNTIES FACE WATER SHORTAGE

GREAT THOUGHTS FROM THE JERSEY SHORE

A NEW DIRECTION FOR THE GREEN PARTY

THE HUGE ISSUE ECONOMISTS & ENVIROMENTALISTS ARE STILL DUCKING

DEPARTMENT OF GOOD THINGS: CROWN HEIGHTS MEDIATION CENTER

JOB GROWTH IN U.S. DRIVEN BY STARTUPS

HIJACKING OF BANKSY GRAFFITI STIRS MAJOR LEGAL FIGHT

U.S. SPY SYSTEM OUT OF CONTROL

LEADING CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR THINKS 15 MILLION UNEMPLOYED GENERALLY HAS 'POOR WORK HABITS AND POOR PERSONALITIES'

Ben Stein of the conservative American Spectator, whom the major media have cited three score times in the past month: "The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say 'generally' because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job."

ONE THIRD OF U.S. COUNTIES FACE WATER SHORTAGE

Natural Resources Defense Council - More than 1,100 U.S. counties -- a full one-third of all counties in the lower 48 states -- now face higher risks of water shortages by mid-century as the result of global warming, and more than 400 of these counties will be at extremely high risk for water shortages, based on estimates from a new report by Tetra Tech for the NRDC. The report uses publicly available water use data across the United States and climate projections from a set of models used in recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change work to evaluate withdrawals related to renewable water supply.

The report finds that 14 states face an extreme or high risk to water sustainability, or are likely to see limitations on water availability as demand exceeds supply by 2050. These areas include parts of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. In particular, in the Great Plains and Southwest United States, water sustainability is at extreme risk.

The more than 400 counties identified as being at greatest risk in the report reflects a 14-times increase from previous estimates.

A NEW DIRECTION FOR THE GREEN PARTY

John Rensenbrink, Green Horizon - A quarter century has passed since the founding of the United States Green Party in 1984. Many other third parties have tried and failed during that time, a fact which is itself food for thought. Only the Libertarian Party, begun in 1972, remains as its durable companion national third party. The Green Party, like the Libertarian, perseveres in spite of enormous road blocks and daunting political storms.

It may fairly be agued that few other Green Parties in the world (there are over 90) encounter the same kind or degree of exclusion and suppression. Much of the exclusion and suppression is hidden under a cloud of lies, intimidations, and various structural exclusionary devices in the political system itself - devices that are eagerly reinforced by the privileged and petted Democratic and Republican parties. . .

A key reason for the bashing and exclusion of new parties and new voices is the emergence of the United States government as the dominant military power center of the world. This creates a dynamic in which serious political opposition is made to look unpatriotic, dangerous to security, and very dispensable even by liberally inclined opinion leaders. The governments of most other countries do not have as big a stake or investment in the sweepstakes of foreign policy success and risk of failure. This leaves more room for political opposition and real debate. There is less political risk for influential opinion leaders.

There is another ironic side to this as well. Green Parties in other countries, when they criticize U.S. policy and imperialist operations, can do it in a much more receptive atmosphere - not only popular opinion and leading media outlets, but also the governments of their countries as well. A critical posture gets them a hearing and ready support.

The ruling political class in the United States -- including the leadership echelons of the Democratic and Republican parties -- are full of venom against one another within the class, but they are united around the dominating imperial role of the U.S. government at home and abroad. .

The party needs to shift it's focus. Instead of thinking all levels of government are of equal importance to contest for, the party needs to direct itself frankly, clearly, and energetically to local and state legislative electoral activity and, simultaneously, direct itself to strong grass roots engagement with movements for community resilience and self-government.

All of the high-ticket offices (President, Congress, Governor) are monopolized by the corporate/military/imperial complex. That's not where the real action will be, can be, must be - though the party may elect a Governor here and there, or even a Congress person or even a Senator. . .

In the Green Party future, if the Green Party seizes the historical moment, is the renewal of grass roots democracy and the growth of community-based economics in thousands of communities throughout the country. In this way, the corporate/military/imperial complex will be shorn of popular support, shorn of tax money, and shorn of legitimacy.

The struggle to attain these things is going to be intense. Mammoth corporations won't like it and will try to stop it. They already are busy at it. Politicians of the kept-parties and military leaders will try to deflect it and force it to serve the ends of the imperial system. Government encroachment on the liberties and constitutional rights of citizens will increase even beyond what has been already endured.

The Green Party is well situated to fight this battle. In three ways: non-violent resistance to the imperial system of the United States government; thousands of Green candidates for local offices and state legislatures; and steady and practical support by thousands of Green and green-minded activists for localization of the staples of life and for community self-governance.

In terms of resistance -- the party will put priority efforts to shake loose some space and daylight for alternative voices in the imperial political system via campaigns for publicly financed elections, Instant Run-off Voting, Proportional Representation and the direct election of the president.

In terms of thousands of Green candidates for local offices and state legislatures -- the party has a base in many states and communities that can be further developed and the base can be developed in areas that at present do not yet have that base.

The purpose of this resistance to the imperial power in tandem with electing a flood of Greens to state legislatures is to defend the growth of self-sustaining and self-governing communities; and to fight for policies that contribute to their further growth.

Localization, the third part of the shift, is key. The Green Party future has in it a steadily deepening operative alliance with the great waves of localization and re-localization movements that are now growing across the country and in many parts of the world. Goals of self-governance, the affirmation of personal liberty and constitutional rights, community building, and of a transition to a sustainable society at local and regional levels will become the central focus of Green activism and Green electoral activity. It's a transition to gradually attained self-sufficiency in food, a transition to multiple forms of renewable energy locally and regionally controlled; to a transformed transportation system featuring swift commuter trains, neighborhood walk-abouts, and walk-to-work and bicycle-to-work opportunities, a transition to locally controlled schools, locally and regionally controlled water facilities. .

The Green Party will be part of a great national movement to get our nation to move beyond the limits of republican institutions to a fully democratic society and government. The republic begun by the founders did provide a basis for an evolution to full democracy, but left a lot undone that later generations would have to get done. Unfortunately, the republic was taken over by two immense forces: the rise of mammoth corporations with immense economic and political power and, then in tandem therewith the long descent into the maelstrom of imperial world politics. These two forces have shattered the republic. Now the long journey to democracy must be the road we travel. The Green Party can be a big help in helping the people to travel that road.

The national Green Party will return to its original intent, which is to be a helper to state and local Green parties. It will be hard for the Green Party to stop its longings for presidential prominence, and maybe there will be token or symbolic presidential campaigns, but the primary attention of the Greens will not be there.

As the Green Party enters its next quarter century, the party's energy and focus can and will be on local/regional institutional resurgence. The driving themes will be inclusive grass roots democracy and self-governance, community-based economics, and the defense and nurturing of personal liberty and responsibility.

GREAT THOUGHTS FROM THE JERSEY SHORE

From the Daily Beast

'll be honest, man, right here, this is just the beginning for me. I want it all. I want it all. Right now I'm one of the biggest names in the country and once I, you know, exhaust the options in reality, which could be another year or two maybe, maybe, maybe. If not, you know, then like I said, there's so many people calling for sitcoms, 'Will you have your own sitcom, we want you to do'¬this is nothing crazy¬but 'Can you do Dancing With the Stars?' I couldn't do that last year because I had a contract. And movies¬and Fast and Furious' and meetings with studios." - Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino

I dunno. I'm down for a couple more seasons. But my future goal is to get my own show. That's what I would love to have. Typically the dating shows¬like 'Snooki for Love!" And a lot of my fans are begging for that. Hopefully I can set up that. And trying to get whatever I can out of this¬take advantage of it - Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi

Hey, you know what I always hear people say? 'I'm the situation.' Hey, listen, you think you can do it better? Go ahead and try. And in this business it's hard¬roll up on a Leno, roll up on an Ellen, a Lopez¬and kill them all? It's not easy to party, like party, like, very, very hard, look good 24/7, you know, lead a group of 7 or 8 people and cook for them? - - Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino

ADVANCED ART TECHNIQUES: BOADWEE RECTAL SQUIRT METHOD

Improbable Research - Over the past few centuries, artists have successfully developed a host of imaginative and unusual methods for applying paint to canvas. But few are more colourful than the rectal squirt method developed by Keith Boadwee, Adjunct Professor of Fine Arts at the California College of the Arts, and visiting faculty member at the San Francisco Art Institute. The professor part-fills his rectum with (non toxic) water-based paint using a rubber hot water bottle with an attached plastic tube. Then, by carefully positioning himself near a large blank canvas placed horizontally on the art-studio floor, he is able, at the appropriate moment, to eject and direct a constrained jet of paint. Thereby rapidly creating one-of-a-kind artworks with an appositely chaotic and spontaneous feel. The new technique was fruitfully employed in his 1995 series of works entitled ‘Purple Squirt’.

THE HUGE ISSUE ECONOMISTS & ENVIROMENTALISTS ARE STILL DUCKING

Gary Peters, California Geographer, 2009 - Too many geographers have been seduced, as have many others, by the promise of growth and abundance sketched out for us by modern neoclassical economists. Cohen warned us more than a decade ago that “The human population of the Earth now travels in the zone where a substantial fraction of scholars have estimated upper limits on human population size. . . the possibility must be considered seriously that the number of people on the Earth has reached, or will reach within half a century. . . Here is one measure of the problem: all we have to do to destroy the planet’s climate and biota and leave a ruined world to our children and grandchildren is to keep doing exactly what we are doing today, with no growth in the human population or the world economy.

Just continue to release greenhouse gases at current rates, just continue to impoverish ecosystems and release toxic chemicals at current rates, and the world in the latter part of this century won’t be fit to live in. .

Here is another perspective. If we take 200,000 years ago as the beginning point for Homo sapiens, we can compress it into one 24- hour day to better comprehend how rapidly population growth has changed in recent centuries, compared to earlier times. For about 190,000 years, modern humans were hunters and gatherers; our numbers grew slowly and erratically. On our 24-hour clock, if we take midnight as our start and end points, the Agricultural Revolution did not begin until around 10:48 p.m. (10,000 years ago). Our numbers reached 1 billion around 11:58:43 p.m. Suddenly, in the last 77 seconds of our day, our numbers increased by an unprecedented 5.8 billion. During the twentieth century alone, 43 seconds out of our day, Earth’s human population nearly quadrupled, from 1.6 to 6.1 billion. Though the rate of population growth has slowed since 1970, annual additions are larger now than they were then because the base population has increased by so much. . .

Though we might argue about what sent our slow, unsteady growth in human numbers into a rapid and sustained upward spiral, our discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels¬first coal, then oil, and finally natural gas¬allowed us to increase the productivity of labor on a scale that had never before been imaginable. That, in turn, allowed us to increase food production more rapidly than ever before.

The first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859, around 11:58:55 p.m. In the last 65 seconds of our 24-hour day, humans managed to consume perhaps half of all of the oil that we will ever pump from the ground. .

Currently we add about 80 million people to the planet each year, and we know that population growth exacerbates most environmental problems, including global warming. . .

Continued expansion of food supplies has come at considerable cost both to people and to Earth. As Pollan commented, “Clearly the achievements of industrial agriculture have come at a cost: It can produce a great many more calories per acre, but each of those calories may supply less nutrition than it formerly did. . . A diet based on quantity rather than quality has ushered a new creature onto the world stage: the human being who manages to be both overfed and undernourished, two characteristics seldom found in the same body in the long natural history of our species.” . . .

As Hopfenberg noted, “It is not a far logical leap to determine that, if human population and resource use continues to grow and we continue to kill off our neighbors in the biological community, one of the many species facing extinction will be the human. Thus, the impact of civilized humanity on the rest of the biological community can be seen as lethal to the point of destroying our own ecological support.” . . .

But even among environmentalists, population has been dropped from most discussions because it is controversial; it has been snared in the web of political correctness. As Speth somewhat ironically pointed out, “By any objective standard, U.S. population growth is a legitimate and serious environmental issue. But the subject is hardly on the environmental agenda, and the country has not learned how to discuss the problem even in progressive circles.” Cobb put it this way, “Even if some politicians, policymakers and reporters in wealthy countries can see beyond the daily mirage of plenty to the overpopulation problem, they do not want to touch it.”

Population, consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow until we either face up to the fact that there are limits on our finite Earth or we are confronted by a catastrophe large enough to turn us from our current course. If Chinese, Indian, and other nations in the poorer world had consumption levels that rose to current Western levels, it would be like Earth’s population suddenly increasing to 72 billion, according to Diamond, who then wrote: "Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies¬for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy¬they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people.". . .

WORD

You can't help respecting someone who can spell Tuesday even if he can't spell it right. -- Winnie the Pooh

The spelling of words is subordinate. Morbidness for nice spelling and tenacity for or against one letter or so means dandyism and impotence in literature - Walt Whitman

I don't see any use in spelling a word right, and never did. I mean I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all olur clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. - Mark Twain

I have no respect for a man who doesn't know more than one way to spell a word - Walt Whitman

DEPARTMENT OF GOOD THINGS: CROWN HEIGHTS MEDIATION CENTER

The Crown Heights NY Mediation Center’s storefront location and open-door policy mean residents drop in to seek help, resources, and referrals for a variety of problems. Last year, Mediation Center staff served 1,900 community members who were seeking assistance with issues related to housing, family disputes, community concerns, unemployment, and immigration¬the latter through a monthly on-site immigration clinic run in partnership with the Legal Aid Society. The Center provides customized trainings for schools, community-based organizations, religious groups and others, offering workshops in conflict resolution, mediation, diversity and more. Save Our Streets Crown Heights is a community-based effort to end shootings and killings in Crown Heights. Highly-trained outreach workers – hired for their street credibility, their knowledge of the neighborhood, and the positive changes they have made in their own lives – work evenings and nights to interrupt shootings and prevent violence.

JOB GROWTH IN U.S. DRIVEN BY STARTUPS

When it comes to U.S. job growth, startup companies aren’t everything. They’re the only thing. It’s well understood that existing companies of all sizes constantly create – and destroy – jobs. Conventional wisdom, then, might suppose that annual net job gain is positive at these companies. A study released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, however, shows that this rarely is the case. In fact, net job growth occurs in the U.S. economy only through startup firms.

The new study, The Importance of Startups in Job Creation and Job Destruction, bases its findings on the Business Dynamics Statistics, a U.S. government dataset compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. The BDS series tracks the annual number of new businesses (startups and new locations) from 1977 to 2005, and defines startups as firms younger than one year old.

The study reveals that, both on average and for all but seven years between 1977 and 2005, existing firms are net job destroyers, losing 1 million jobs net combined per year. By contrast, in their first year, new firms add an average of 3 million jobs. Further, the study shows, job growth patterns at both startups and existing firms are pro-cyclical, although existing firms have much more cyclical variance. Most notably, during recessionary years, job creation at startups remains stable, while net job losses at existing firms are highly sensitive to the business cycle.

Because startups that develop organically are almost solely the drivers of job growth, job-creation policies aimed at luring larger, established employers will inevitably fail, said the study’s author, Tim Kane, Kauffman Foundation senior fellow in Research and Policy. Such city and state policies are doomed not only because they are zero-sum, but because they are based in unrealistic employment growth models.

And it’s not just net job creation that startups dominate. While older firms lose more jobs than they create, those gross flows decline as firms age. On average, one-year-old firms create nearly one million jobs, while ten-year-old firms generate 300,000. The notion that firms bulk up as they age is, in the aggregate, not supported by data.

HIJACKING OF BANKSY GRAFFITI STIRS MAJOR LEGAL FIGHT

U.S. SPY SYSTEM OUT OF CONTROL

ACLU - The Washington Post has issued a major new investigative report on what it calls “Top Secret America” ¬ a geographically sprawling network of secret government agencies with a budget of $75 billion. Based on the Post’s reporting, it is no exaggeration to say that our secret intelligence establishment has spun out of control.

The report ¬ the first in a series of three to be published this week ¬ contains amazing new hard reporting that confirms what has long been known to those who pay attention.
The fact is, bureaucracies almost always seek to expand their own power and budgets. Add secrecy powers that protect them from independent public oversight, ineffective oversight by Congress and even from within the executive branch, and mix in ever-expanding budgets, and you’ve got a recipe for an out-of-control security establishment:

The Post reports that 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence at 10,000 locations across the United States.

Two-thirds of the intelligence programs reside in the Department of Defense ¬ a worrisome militarization of our intelligence capabilities, especially at a time when those capabilities are increasingly being turned inward upon the American people.

The $75 billion intelligence budget is 2 ½ times its size before 9/11. The budget of the NSA doubled between 2002 and today.

There is no person or agency with the “authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these activities,” in the words of one official. “There's only one entity in the entire universe that has visibility on all” secret programs, the Obama administration's nominee to be the next director of national intelligence told the Post. “That’s God.” However, since men are not angels, as James Madison wrote, checks and balances on government power are crucial, and that state of affairs is frightening and unacceptable.

Since there is no one overseeing all this, there is also no way of knowing how effective it all is. One top general complained to the Post, for example, that the National Counterterrorism Center “never produced one shred of information that helped me prosecute three wars!”

The Post paints a stark portrait of hundreds of government agencies drowning in data, as government systems vacuum up vast quantities of information about daily activities across the planet in the unlikely hope of discovering useful information. Unsurprisingly, the government cannot possibly make sense of all that data:
- The National Security Agency is intercepting 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other communications per day.

- Analysts publish 50,000 intelligence reports each year.

PUBLIC WANTS END TO CORPORATE INTEREFERENCE IN ELECTIONS

People for the American Way - Results of a poll conducted by Hart Research Associates for People For the American Way revealed that Americans across the political spectrum are intensely concerned about corporate influence in our democracy and disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

In addition, more than three-quarters of voters said that they support a Constitutional Amendment if one is necessary to limit the amount that corporations can spend in elections. A similar majority are inclined to support a candidate who has spoken out in favor of an amendment. The support cuts across party and ideology, with majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents in support of the measure.

The poll reveals:

* 85% of voters say that corporations have too much influence over the political system today while 93% say that average citizens have too little influence.
* 95% agree that “Corporations spend money on politics mainly to buy influence in government and elect people who are favorable to their financial interests.” (74% strongly agree)
* 85% disagree that “Corporations should be able to spend as much as they want to influence the outcome of elections because the Constitution protects freedom of speech.” (63% strongly disagree)
* 93% agree that “There should be clear limits on how much money corporations can spend to influence the outcome of an election.” (74% strongly agree)
* 77% think Congress should support an amendment to limit the amount U.S. corporations can spend to influence elections.
* 74% say that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate for Congress who pledged to support a Constitutional Amendment limiting corporate spending in elections.

ELENA KAGAN: CONSTITUTIONALLY CONTEMPTUOUS & LEGALLY INEXPERIENCED

Note in particular Kagan's argument that lawyers who represent terrorists - i.e someone some administration decides is a terrorist for true or false reasons - can be treated as terrorists themselves. It doesn't get much more unconstitutional than that.

Bruce Fein, Huffington Post - If confirmed by the United States Senate, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan will crown President Obama with "imperial" constitutional powers. Congress and Federal Courts will wither as checks against his presidential usurpations or abuses whenever war or other national security claims are bugled over Iran, North Korea, Yemen, international terrorism, economic adversity, or otherwise. In these matters, Kagan will prove the flip side of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, whose vote and voice have, for decades, arrested executive branch lawlessness or encroachments on the co-equal branches of government. Stevens' vote was decisive in a pair of recent cases invalidating both military commissions for the trial of alleged war crimes and the suspension of the Great Writ of habeas corpus for Guantanamo Bay detainees. . .

Kagan voiced no protest over President Clinton's initiation of wars in Bosnia and Serbia without statutory authorization from Congress. She expressed no public objection to President Clinton's claim of constitutional immunity from Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit. . . .

Kagan endorsed line-item veto power for the President that was held unconstitutional in another opinion authored by Justice Stevens in Clinton v. New York. As Solicitor General, Kagan has defended President Obama's assertion of a "state secrets" privilege to shield government officials guilty of constitutional wrongdoing from damage judgments. In oral argument before the Supreme Court, she has maintained that lawyers who defend organizations accused of complicity in international terrorism can be prosecuted for material assistance. . .

Kagan endorses "presidential power" to imprison American citizens for life as enemy combatants without accusation or trial; and, to employ military commissions denuded of time-honored procedural safeguards to try non-citizens for crimes routinely prosecuted successfully in civilian courts, for example, material assistance to a listed foreign terrorist organization. She has voiced no disagreement with "presidential power" to prohibit current or former White House officials from even appearing before Congress in response to a congressional subpoena; or, to prevent non-dangerous detainees held illegally for years at Guantanamo Bay from entry into the United States.

Most alarming, Kagan has voiced no qualms against President Obama's claim of unilateral authority to kill American citizens abroad if he believes they pose an imminent danger to the national security of the United States anywhere on the planet. . .

Norm Pattis - Elena Kagan leaves me as cold as can of processed salmon. Princeton, Oxford, Harvard, a clerkship on the Supreme Court, associate at a megafirm, law professor, dean of Harvard Law School, Solicitor General of the United States. Oh, and did I forget that she writes a mean law review article?

We need a trial lawyer on the Supreme Court, not a judicial tourist. As near as I can tell, Ms. Kagan has never set foot in a courtroom representing a person in need. All she knows about the courts' capacity to change a life is what she has read. She's a surgeon who can only describe a scalpel. In a nation chock full of lawyers who actually know what the courts do by experience, she is a rank outsider. I'd need to send an associate with her to handle a misdemeanor, just to make sure she didn't give the client's rights away. . .

Kagan once referred to the confirmation process as insipid and meaningless. I suspect appearing on just such a soulless stage has been the ambition of her professional life. Undoubtedly, she'll soon demonstrate the art of evasion in response to questions put to her by the Senate. Saying nothing is the judicial nominee's stock in trade.

Are the pressures in Washington so great that what was once the outsider's promise of hope has now, and so quickly, become little more than a tap-dancing mime? Any president could have appointed Elena Kagan. Her resume drips with prestige, power and privilege. She is a predictable and uninspiring choice.

THE FALSE DEFICIT HYSTERIA

Paul Krugman, Ny Times - Suddenly, creating jobs is out, inflicting pain is in. Condemning deficits and refusing to help a still-struggling economy has become the new fashion everywhere, including the United States, where 52 senators voted against extending aid to the unemployed despite the highest rate of long-term joblessness since the 1930s.

Many economists, myself included, regard this turn to austerity as a huge mistake. It raises memories of 1937, when F.D.R.'s premature attempt to balance the budget helped plunge a recovering economy back into severe recession. And here in Germany, a few scholars see parallels to the policies of Heinrich Bruning, the chancellor from 1930 to 1932, whose devotion to financial orthodoxy ended up sealing the doom of the Weimar Republic.

But despite these warnings, the deficit hawks are prevailing in most places - and nowhere more than here, where the government has pledged 80 billion euros, almost $100 billion, in tax increases and spending cuts even though the economy continues to operate far below capacity.

What's the economic logic behind the government's moves? The answer, as far as I can tell, is that there isn't any. Press German officials to explain why they need to impose austerity on a depressed economy, and you get rationales that don't add up. Point this out, and they come up with different rationales, which also don't add up. Arguing with German deficit hawks feels more than a bit like arguing with U.S. Iraq hawks back in 2002: They know what they want to do, and every time you refute one argument, they just come up with another.

The key point is that while the advocates of austerity pose as hardheaded realists, doing what has to be done, they can't and won't justify their stance with actual numbers - because the numbers do not, in fact, support their position. Nor can they claim that markets are demanding austerity. On the contrary, the German government remains able to borrow at rock-bottom interest rates.

So the real motivations for their obsession with austerity lie somewhere else.

In America, many self-described deficit hawks are hypocrites, pure and simple: They're eager to slash benefits for those in need, but their concerns about red ink vanish when it comes to tax breaks for the wealthy. Thus, Senator Ben Nelson, who sanctimoniously declared that we can't afford $77 billion in aid to the unemployed, was instrumental in passing the first Bush tax cut, which cost a cool $1.3 trillion. .

How bad will it be? Will it really be 1937 all over again? I don't know. What I do know is that economic policy around the world has taken a major wrong turn, and that the odds of a prolonged slump are rising by the day.

THOSE WHO BUY OWN HEALTH INSURANCE HIT WITH MAJOR HIKES

Kaiser Family Foundation - People who buy their own insurance report that their insurers most recently requested premium increases averaging 20 percent, according to a new Kaiser survey examining the experiences and views of people who buy health coverage in the non-group or individual market.

Most say they paid the increase, but 16 percent of all policyholders say they switched plans, either buying a less expensive policy from their current insurer or switching companies altogether. After these so-called “buy downs” are taken into account, people who faced a premium increase ended up paying 13 percent more than before.

Many people report being in plans with high deductibles, including one in four (26 percent) with an annual deductible of $5,000 or more and 6 percent with a deductible of $10,000 or more.
Overall, the average deductible reported for single coverage is $2,498, almost four times the $634 deductible reported on average for employer-sponsored PPO coverage. Those with family coverage whose deductibles must be met on a per-person basis report an average deductible of $2,959, while those with a family deductible (the total spending required across the entire family before coverage kicks in) report an average of $5,149.

More than one in five (22 percent) say over the past year they or a family member covered by their plan did not get needed medical care because of the cost, and a similar share (20 percent) say they skipped filling a prescription due to cost.

Nearly four in ten policyholders (38 percent) report at least one problem getting their insurer to pay a bill.

“With people in the individual market being hit with average increases of 20%, the survey shows that the steep increases we have been reading about over the last several months are not just extreme cases,” Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman said.

ONLY TWO PERCENT OF SCIENTISTS DOUBT MAINSTREAM CLIMATE RESEARCH

Rural Blog - "The vast majority of climate scientists believe that humans are driving global warming, according to a new study," ClimateWire reports, but the study says the small remainder have "received large amounts of media attention and wields significant influence in the societal debate about climate change impacts and policy."

"Between 97 and 98 percent of the world's top climate researchers agree with the major conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- that it is 'very likely' that greenhouse gases produced by human activity have produced 'most' of the 'unequivocal' warming of Earth's average global temperature during the latter half of the 20th Century," Lauren Morello writes for ClimateWire, a service of Environment & Energy News.

The study, published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by a team of scientists led by Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider. They analyzed the publication records of 1,372 climate scientists, divided them into those who agreed or disagreed with the IPCC's major conclusions, then reduced the field to 908 subjects by removing those who had published fewer than 20 climate-change studies.

The skeptics "account for just 2 percent of the top 50 climate researchers, which the study authors determined by looking at how many scientific papers each researcher had published," Morello writes. "Moreover, the study found that a majority of climate skeptics -- 80 percent -- had each published fewer than 20 papers on climate change. Just 10 percent of scientists who agree with the IPCC's conclusions fell into the 20-papers-or-less category."

FURTHERMORE. . .

The Awl - It's the new nightmare job: 'content screener' at one of the outfits hired by MySpace and Yahoo! and Microsoft and the like. Someone's gotta screen out all that homemade porno and true crime and wife-beating. You get paid between $8 and $12 an hour; somehow, you supposedly click by 80,000 images a day, if you work at Telecommunications On Demand. (Um, that's 166 images a minute per employee, by the math, which is impossible, but they do claim that their staff of 50 review 20 million images a week. Maybe it's in big thumbnail batches. But with thumbails big enough so that you can see if any of the pictures are of children being stabbed!) The Internet: destroying lives, one person at a time.

More Democratic wimps in California. . .LA Times: California Democratic Party decides not to endorse marijuana legalization initiative The party decides to adopt a neutral position on Proposition 19. Many favor the measure, but opponents cited one overriding concern: a yes vote could damage statewide candidates in competitive races.

Rasmussen Reports - A new national telephone survey finds that just 23% of voters nationwide believe the federal government today has the consent of the governed. Sixty-two percent (62%) say it does not, and 15% are not sure.

AMERICA 2.0: LOCAL DEMOCRACY AS WELL AS LOCAL LETTUCE

ALL ABOUT FLYING ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN 1939

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