Heckuva job Blackwater

There was a time when, if you screwed up enough, there were consequences. Lets say your woeful incompetence exacerbated the destruction of an American city. There was a time that would have immediately cost you your job. Not in the Bush administration. Under Bush, such utter imbecility is rewarded with a pat on the back.

So what happens if you kill 17 civilians and further damage our reputation, already sullied by Abu Ghraib, water boarding and the preemptive war in Iraq? Blackwater Worldwide is the largest of the security firms who have, combined, as many as 30,000-100,000 mercenary soldiers in Iraq. They have born the brunt of some of the more horrific attacks on US interests, with several of their contractors killed, dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge. They have also been responsible for their own ruthless attacks.

Last year Blackwater was responsible for the shooting of 17 Iraqis. The FBI determined that 14 of the shootings were completely unjustified and Blackwater was accused of attempting to cover up what had happened. It seemed for a moment that their actions might prompt a reexamination of the use of military contractors to provide services typically provided by the military such as security. This weekend we were reminded that we still live under the Bush Regime.

Outrage over the killings prompted the Iraqi government to demand Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and led to a criminal investigation by the FBI a series of internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile Congressional hearings.

But after an intense public and private lobbying campaign, Blackwater appears to be back to business as usual.

The State Department has just renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year. Threats by the Iraqi government to strip Western contractors of their immunity from Iraqi law have gone nowhere. No charges have been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guard in the September shooting, either, and the F.B.I. agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards have committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.

The US has said that Blackwater is one of only three companies in the world that can provide them with the security services they need. There was once a time when the US Military was actually responsible for providing security to US interests. In those days we had the ability to ensure some level of accountability. Now, no matter what our contractors do, we seem to have no choice but to pat them on the back, give them a raise and say, “Heckuva job.”

Keeping an eye on Bernanke

I have to admit, I’m not the most informed guy when it comes to the Federal Reserve. Slogging through that Wikipedia article could take the better part of a Saturday (what with clicking around to find explanations for unfamiliar terms and phrases). For the quick, quick version, we turn to Gary North:

The Federal Reserve System, a private corporation with a President-appointed Board of Governors, is the classic monopoly in action: “for the good of the people,” of course. It controls the money supply, which in turn influences everything else in the economy.

This makes Professor Ben Bernanke of Princeton America’s monopolist numero-uno.

It appears Mr. Bernanke isn’t too popular. This is especially so of Columbia Business School students. Their dean, Glenn Hubbard is the former Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and was on the shortlist for Alan Greenspan’s job. Some of his students decided to take a stab at Mr. Bernanke, producing a satirical video to the tune of “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. Love the Police. Hate — HATE — the song, though I do enjoy it in parody form.

Mr. North points us to two places where we can keep an eye on The Fed: Charts and Policy. In the meantime, I’m gonna go get myself edumacated on the Federal Reserve System.

Flashing some green

Money makes the world go round, and there are few places that is more true than in Washington. Both parties spent millions and millions of dollars launching ad campaigns to sell their product, politicians owned by the big donors who give them those millions.

Political power derives from the checkbook. Supporters look as much to the warchests of their candidates for reassurance as to their changes as they do to crowds, media coverage and polls. When you’ve got millions in the bank, you are able to dominate the news cycle, flood the airwaves with ads and traverse the nation by jet.

Politicians and the major parties are therefore very sensitive to the needs of their big donors. Congressmen rarely propose legislation that would not be welcomed by their donors, unless it would be overwhelmingly popular among their constituents.

The parties are sensitive to the needs of their donors. There is great interest in making sure the spigot remains open. Every now and then major donors will threaten to defund a party or a candidate if they don’t do this thing or that. That’s what Hillary Clinton’s campaign has turned to as it’s last resort. Once again her donors are threatening to cease giving donations to the Democratic Party.

Though there are some, I’m sure, who get quite nervous when they hear such threats, I’m actually not so sure they’re a bad thing. There is, first of all, the hilarity (pun purely accidental) of a candidate so broke she’s had to loan $11 million of her own money to her campaign threatening to pack up her fund raising machine and go home. In fact, it seems Hillary’s donors have already packed up and gone home, evidenced by rumbles that she may be about to make a third loan to her campaign.

The bigger issue is that it really is time to reexamine how we fund our political party. The Republican Party will continue to pull in big donations from the wealthy. We will continue to see their donors regularly give the maximum allowed to the party and it’s candidates. On the Democratic side we are seeing the emergence of a new model.

Howard Dean really got the internet fund raising machine started. His campaign had the idea of tracking the donations given through their website. They showed their progress towards their goals with a chart shaped like a bat on their website. Combined with sensible populist rhetoric, the campaign touched on a new funding source and millions poured in. Dean eventually lost the election (though he did take Vermont) but he made enough of an impression to get put in charge of the party.

Obama has taken the Dean model to a new level. He has combined his vastly superior speaking skills with the internet machine the Dean discovered and has been raising millions and millions. More importantly though, he is raising that money $50 at a time, from average folks like you and me.

If candidates are most responsive to their funding sources, then perhaps we have a real opportunity to actually change politics in America. If we can buy our candidates ourselves, perhaps we can move beyond the entrenched interests of those who have bought Washington. Politicians need to be responsive to the people and for better or for worse, the best tactic to achieve that result seems to be to buy a candidate.

In the long term, elections need to be publicly financed. That won’t happen until we break away from the grip of the donors who currently own the political parties, and therefore the nation. The best way to get there is to show how well we can fund a candidate without the big donors. Together, we can buy back this nation and take a step towards ending our Impatient Sufferance.

Intimations?

Divisions continue to run deep within the Democratic Party, even with Hillary’s impending primary defeat. Recent polls conducted among Indiana and South Carolina Clinton-supporters indicate that a majority would, come election-time, pledge their votes to the Republican candidate, John McCain. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), among national Hillary-backers, 28% indicate that, if Clinton were to lose her primary, they would support Mr. McCain (according to a recent Gallup Poll). These statistics do not bode well for the Democrats’ election-futures. As Nick Kristof remarks:

Suppose that 80 percent of people who voted for Mrs. Clinton in the primaries end up supporting Mr. Obama in November, but that 20 percent stay home or vote Republican. That 20 percent would amount to far more popular votes than Ralph Nader won in 2000.

Kristof does not exaggerate; if 20% (rather than 28%) of Clinton’s primary popular vote was granted to McCain in the general election, it would amount to approximately 3,040,000 votes, more than 100,000 votes more than Nader received in the ’spoiled’ 2000 Bush-Gore runoff.

The recent complaints and threats of Clinton-supporters are rather childish. To me, these actions reveal a large constituency whose involvement in politics is limited to a superficial desire to win, despite the cost to the integrity of the party and the nation. Had these Clinton-supporters truly comprehended what was at stake in the next election and the inherent differences between the competing party platforms (on tax-cuts, government revenue, universal health care, military expenditures, the appointment of Supreme Court justices and abortion rights, etc.), they would never announce their intention to side with a (continued) conservative agenda that has led the country to the brink of economic and social disaster (and offers no new solutions to ameliorate these problems). Perhaps the blame rests squarely with Hillary, and her aggressive, kneecapping-style of politics (and claims of sexism!) which has sent her backers into a must-win, Hill-or-bust frenzy.

With more and more insiders whispering that Hillary should give up her candidacy, it is possible that Senator Clinton will have a drastic change of heart, shut off the attack machine, and encourage her constituency to rally behind Obama in the general election. If not, hopefully sour-grapes voters will realize that McCain is not a Hillary stand-in and that extreme differentiations exist between the party platforms. McCain represents much of what Hillary (at least in her younger, idealistic days) has opposed. If we do not want our country’s future to be anything like the recent past, voters would do well to reassess these real distinctions.

Senator Sanders guzzles the gas tax Cool Aid

It’s no secret that we Impatient Sufferers are generally supportive of Senator Bernie Sanders. He consistently fights for the ideals we hold most dear and rarely panders. Today, however, he has disappointed us.

We have written on the federal gas tax holiday before. We noted that though it sounds like a lovely idea, it really won’t serve to do much good. We have also noted that there is little we can do to increase our supply of gas so prices are likely to continue to rise.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton have both proposed eliminating the federal taxes on gas in order to lower prices. McCain’s plan simply leave a hole in the budget where the funds for road work used to be. Hillary proposes creating a windfall tax on the oil companies to cover the cost difference, a strategy that will certainly result in gas prices rising to match the savings provided by the elimination of the tax.

Senator Sanders has gone one step further. He is actually proposing a holiday for not only the federal gas taxes but the state gas taxes as well. He, like Hillary, proposes funding it by placing windfall taxes on the oil companies. Unfortunately, the same problem will arise from this proposed solution. The taxes will be eliminated and replaced with an additional cost to the oil companies. Those costs will in turn be passed on to consumers. When the tax holiday ends, it’s likely the gas companies will not lower the prices so at the end of the holiday we will see a large cost increase as the tax kicks back in, just in time for the winter heating season.

Though this one issue hardly tarnishes Senator Sanders remarkable record, it is troubling that he would jump so completely onto a short sighted plan. Not only that, but it is particularly sad to see him see McCain’s federal gas tax holiday and raise him a state gas tax holiday. It’s one thing to jump on a bad idea, it’s another to propose making it even worse.