FOOLISH AND FUTILE IRAN SANCTIONS

This is a letter to The Oregonian regarding their
approval of the administration's sanctions against
Iran. (They didn't choose to print my letter.)

To the Editor: Your 10/26/07 editorial on Iran
sanctions makes no sense for two reasons: 1) you
echo uncritically an Economist report that "Iranian
President Ahmadinejad is pushing moderates out
of key leadership posts, reducing the chance that
cooler heads will prevail."

Since the nutty prez works under, and is overseen
by, the Supreme Council made up of top clerics,
does it really matter if his underlings are hard-
liners or not? And if not, what is the point of the
Economist report? Mr. A's function is largely
ceremonial: he controls neither the military nor
foreign policy. And he is neither a dictator nor a
tyrant, as the president of Columbia U. ignorantly
described him to his face.

2) You write: "The West has tried to address its
differences with Iran through diplomatic means,
only to be met with hostility." Sounds just like
Condoleeza Rice, and is just as misleading: By
"the West" do you mean the U. S.? If so, say so.
And that would be false. We, of course, have
steadfastly ignored all of Iran's many moves
to open conversation with us. Even a letter from
their president to ours, was simply ignored. No one
else in the West gets (or deserves) hostility from Iran.

The oft-stated policy of the U. S. is, and always has
been, regime change, pure and simple. That could
get some hostility! Referring to them in the "axis of
evil" doesn't promote understanding either. Nor
does branding a branch of their government a
"terrorist organization." Also, we have always
demanded as a precondition of any negotiations that
Iran permanently halt its uranium enrichment
program. That's likely? Reasonable? It's laughable!

While Iran has been training Iraqi Shia militias for
years, and has close ties of many kinds, including a
military alliance with the new Iraqi government, the
claim we are now making that the government of
Iran is supplying the insurgents in Iraq with arms,
is without proof. There is a great deal of smuggling
of weapons into Iraq across all its borders. (And
American weapons have turned up in Turkey.) But
while criminal activity is rampant, and officials are
often paid off to look the other way, our charge that
the Irani government is doing this remains that only.

Anyway, bottom line, we don't talk to terrorists,
remember? We hunt them down like rats, whomever
and wherever they may be. Is that next? Do we
really want or need to take on the whole Muslim world
of one billion, six hundred million people? Who in this
country wants that? On second thought, maybe
someone does!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

INHERITANCE TAXES' MORAL BASIS

It is understandable that U. S. senators, all
but three or four of whom are millionaires,
wish to shield their heirs (and other rich
folks') from inheritance taxes. By doing so,
they are continuing the process begun in the
Reagan administration of shifting taxes from
the wealthy to the already overburdened
middle class. It goes along with the prevailing
social Darwinism of the day. You can't really
blame them. You don't blame a coyote for
stealing chickens. It's his nature. You blame
whomever leaves the hen house open!

Much of the present confusion about finan-
cial entitlement comes from a popular mis-
understanding of economics. Peter Drucker
(in Post-Capitalist Society), points out that
"There is no such thing as 'profit.' There are
only costs: costs of the past (which the accoun-
tant records) and costs of the uncertain future.
And the minimum financial return from the
operations of the past that is adequate to the
costs of the future is the cost of capital."
People can amass fortunes by holding back for
themselves the future costs on resources,
environment, and human populations arising
from their activities and irresponsibility.

The billions of dollars of taxpayers' money now
required to clean up thousands of toxic waste
dumps are only the tip of the iceberg. And that
doesn't speak to the costs in health and lives
due to those sites and other pollution. There
isn't a city in the U. S. of over 100,000 people
that drinks pure water from public sources.
And there are very few under that size that do.

If we ever clean up our rivers and streams, that
will entail an additional public expenditure of
colossal proportions. Some folks got very rich
dumping their toxic trash into our air, land and
water. Now we all get to pay for it. Is that fair?
And inheritance taxes to help pay a share of
those costs are unfair? Give me a break! (You
have no more right to pollute the air I breathe
than I have to urinate in your drinking water!)

Certainly, not all rich people are polluters,
(though there are few that aren't corporate stock-
holders.) Some adjustment in inheritance taxes
may be legitimate, but their complete elimination
is neither called for, nor fair. It is one thing to
protect family farms and businesses that could
be threatened by taxes. That, clearly, should be
done. It is another thing to shelter huge fortunes
built on government (taxpayer) subsidies and
cost-plus contracts. Every major industry
continues to break environmental and workplace
safety laws. Under this administration, they do it
openly, with impunity.

All of our major industries have been financed
at one time or another in whole or in part, by the
taxpayers. If you want to see how this worked
for the railroads, read The Robber Barons, by
Mathew Josephson. Bill Gates' fortune rests on
the computer industry, whose basic research
and development was paid for by our friendly
government, during and after World War II.
The Department of Defense, at our expense,
also developed (with Al Gore's encouragement,)
the Internet. Gates was smart enough to hitch
a ride on these technologies, and should be re-
warded accordingly. (He also has been found, by
a federal judge, to have been breaking the law,
along the way.) Shouldn't we taxpayers also
benefit for our part in Mr. Gates' good fortune?

The same is true of wealthy farmers in Calif. (and
elsewhere) who depend on government irrigation
developments. Without that water (now needed
more and more by the cities), their land is close to
worthless. Boeing would not have started up in
Seattle without cheap electric power from the
Bonneville Dam built by the federal government
during the great depression, and cheap aluminum
powered by the same BPA.

The government built airports for the airlines, and
interstates for the truckers (and motel chains). The
interstate highway system also gave rise to rapid
growth of the suburbs, housing, the auto industry,
and all the supporting industries. And on and on.

There is no self-made man or woman. The G. I.
Bill educated millions of veterans, lifting many of
them from the working class into the professions.
It led to a knowledge explosion that continues
today, resulting in widely shared economic growth.
Peter Drucker credits the G. I. Bill as the most
important single factor in our econmic expansion
and prosperity following WW II.

The public paid heavily for all of this, and is still
paying. Shouldn't we be reimbursed for some
part of our investment? Let's set a reasonable
cap (say $10 million) on a family's exemption
from inheritance tax, and give the bulk of the
rest back to child care, health care, education,
and the environment. Money is like manure.
It needs to be spread around to do any good.

Unlike manure, money is also power. It buys
laws and lawmakers. Power corrupts. Fewer and
fewer of our young people are bothering to vote,
because they understand this equation. (We are
hoping that may change, this election.) Our
democracy is rapidly becoming a plutocracy,
controlled by and for the monied folks. As has
often been said, there is no more justification
for inherited economic power than there is for
inherited political power. The two are obviously
interchangeable, but we tolerate the one, while
we would be justifiably horrified by the latter!
Go figure.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

FACTS VS. FANTASY: COSMIC WAR

Bob Gates,Sec.of Defense, is a
stickler for facts. He is as
prickly as a hedge-hog: do we
have all the facts, he asks? How
do they stack up? What do they
tell us, exactly? Facts are all-
important for him. Without them,
policy is bootless. Contrary to
them, policy is foolish.

The Decider? Not so much. He is a
fact-bender. He decides what are
facts, and what aren't. "We don't
torture," for instance. He can fly
without facts, or in the face of
them (Sunni-Shia hatred in Iraq.)
He flies by the seat of his pants,
regardless of what instruments say.
He's a true believer. He's on a
mission, like the man from La Mancha,
Don Quixote.

His mission (he has said) is
eradication of evil in the world (and
evil doers, don't forget). It is a
God-given mission, even though God
himself has heretofore seen fit to
allow free-reign to a lot of evil.

And the Decider has decided that it
is in Iraq that it all has to stop!
Not in Darfur. Not our problem. Not
in Tibet. The Chinese are our friends.
Not in Palestine. The Israelis are
God's chosen: they can do what they
want. Iraq is where we'll wear evil
out. No matter what the costs, we'll
pay it. And keep on paying. No matter
what the faint hearted, unbelievers,
claim: we will prevail because by (and
with) God we're right!

It's a cosmic war, you see. Reza Aslan
author of No God But God (of whom I've
spoken previously) explains cosmic war:
"Many religiously inspired terrorists,
confronted with a conflict that cannot
be won in any real or measurable terms,
recast the conflict into cosmic terms,
so that they're not fighting a real
war; they're fighting an imaginary war
that's actually taking place in heaven,
not between nations or armies, but
between angels of good and demons of
evil. That's the kind of conflict the
Jihadists are fighting. And the reason
that we are doing such a poor job of
counteracting the jihadists' mentality
is that we're fighting the exact same
unwinnable conflict. The way you win a
cosmic war is by refusing to fight in
one."

In answer to the question: How then
should we be fighting that reality?
Aslan answers: "We define it as a
criminal investigation of people that
need to be brought to justice. You
can't win a battle against an idea
with guns and bombs, you have to win
it with words." May I interject here
that "the pen is still mightier than
the sword?" "Words become the greatest
tools", adds Aslan: "The rhetoric that
we have been using to define this
conflict, this religiously charged, us
versus them rhetoric, has made victory
a more distant prospect. The way that
we are talking about this conflict, as
though the jihadists have it in their
power to bring down human civilization
as we know it, does nothing more than
validate the jihadists' cause and
provide them with the illusion of power."

And that's a fact. It's a fact that
Bob Gates, with his love of facts,
needs to give more attention. Until
he does, and acts accordingly, we'll
keep spinning our wheels in Iraq.
Lord knows the Dems in Congress and
running in the primaries, either
lack the knowledge or lack the
courage to expose the folly of this
present fiasco,and explain the true
dynamics of it.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

THE COMING WAR WITH IRAN

Seymour Hersh is an investigative reporter par-
excellence. He broke the Mai Lai massacre story
as well as Abu Ghraib. He is famous as well for
his dependable contacts in the Pentagon and the
CIA. His new report in the Oct. 8 New Yorker is
frightening in the extreme. It tells of our rapidly
intensifying preparations for war with Iran. I hope
I can convey the sense of it enough to get you to
read the full story from him.

Here's Seymour: "Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon
spokesman said, 'The President has made it clear
that the United States government remains
committed to a diplomatic solution with respect to
Iran. The State Department is working diligently
along with the international community to address
our wide range of concerns.'"

This, of course, is the same way the government
talked leading up to war with Iraq, and is, as usual,
a pack of lies for the following reasons:

1) You can't seek "diplomatic solutions" when your
oft-repeated goal regarding Iran is regime change,
and the CIA is sponsoring terrorist groups
infiltrating into northern Iran from Kurdistan and
Afghanistan. It doesn't compute!

2)You can't seek diplomatic solutions if you refuse
to negotiate until and unless Iran agrees first to
give up any plans or activity to develop enriched
uranium. The U. S. knows that's not going to
happen, therefore there will be no negotiations. If
we really wanted negotiations, we'd drop that
silly demand!

3) This administration has had six and a half years
not to "seek," but to find diplomatic solutions, and
has steadfastly refused repeated efforts by Iran to
open meaningful dialogue. A letter to Mr. Bush from
the President of Iran was simply ignored. Not even
the courtesy of a "thank you."

So all the "diplomatic solution" talk is just that. It
is window dressing for domestic consumption. No
one else anywhere in the world believes a word of
it: it's just baloney!

Meanwhile, according to Hersh (SH), everyone at
the Pentagon also knows that the Navy is feverishly
planning, full speed ahead, for a major attack on
strategic goals inside Iran. It's up to the Navy this
time, because the Army and Marines are fully
occupied occupying next door. The Navy has at
least three aircraft carriers standing by in the P.
Gulf ready to unload on Iran, plus numerous other
missile carriers as well.

Over at the CIA, "They're moving everybody to
the Iran desk," SH quotes a recently retired CIA
official as saying. It's a repeat of the preparations
for Iraq in 2002. Hersh also quotes Zbigniew
Brzezinski, who said that he had heard discussions
of the White House bombing plans for Iran. Dr.
B. said that Iran would likely react to an American
attack "by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also
Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that would draw
in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for
20 years." Maybe that is George Bush's way of
keeping us in Iraq indefinitely! That's what he
wants.

With the vote of many Democrats, including Hillary
Clinton, favoring a declaration that Iran's Rev.
Guard is a terrorist organization, two things were
accomplished by Sen. Lieberman and other
representatives of Israel: This insured that there
will be no negotiating with Iran, and secondly,
the pres. now has all the authorization he needs
to attack Iran. This is the green light he was
looking for: terrorists are to be attacked in force
wherever and whenever they may be found.
Fasten your seat belts, sports fans!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net