WAGES OF SIN

"Greed is good," we were told. (By the way,
that's a foundational belief for the market
idolatry that has now crashed.) "Greed drives
the world economy," we were told. Well, it
does. It drove it into the ditch because no one
was steering. We left that to Adam Smith's
imaginary "invisible hand." Smith, who pub-
lished The Wealth of Nations in 1776, was a
devout Presbyterian who understood full well
that greed is one of the seven deadly sins, and
breeds others, like fraud and deception.

Smith was not naive. He said of the captains of
industry: "They aren't together ten minutes be-
fore they are conspiring against the public good."
He advocated therefore a structure of laws and
public morality that required complete trans-
parency in business matters. This was part of
British patriotism in his day. A Brit's word was
his bond. Goods were delivered as represented.
And represented honestly and accurately. His
"invisible hand" in which the market efficiently
allocates labor, resources and rewards, assumed
British people dealing honestly with each other
for the public good. And that''s the only way it
works!

Fast forward to Bernie Madoff and his clones.
His Ponzi scheme worked so well for so long be-
cause it operated within a larger one, in a conta-
gious fever of greed and the atmosphere of a big
casino. It was a rudderless ship of fools, and
bound to smash up. Like the Titanic, it was de-
signed to be unsinkable. In that shipwreck, the
captain ordered full speed ahead when warned
of ice bergs in the area. He didn't know that the
builders had used thinner steel plates than called
for to protect the sides, and inferior rivets to
hold them on. That had been done to increase
profits. Greed and deception killed the captain
and his crew and all the male passengers!

Deception has been prominent and highly re-
warded in the current econ. meltdown. Fabulous
profits and bonuses in the $bns. have been col-
lected by purveyors of false security and false
securities. Now someone has to pay. Guess who?
Some of the crooks may go to jail. But most of
the paying will be done by the public that has
been gulled. The market worshippers are trying
to blame the gulled for the mess. They can't
blame the market! It can't err. The wages of
sin are widely dispersed, even when narrowly
earned.

P. S. If you want to learn more about the market
religion, its myths and methods, and what it has
done to government and our economy during
the past 30 years of its dominance, read the new
book by Thomas Frank: The Wrecking Crew.
He also wrote What's the Matter With Kansas?,
which I have recommended elsewhere. Also,
Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman
frequently addresses the errors and foibles of
the free-market crowd, in his op-ed columns in
the NYT. He's awsome! (I've never said that
before, about anyone, not even Obama, who of
course is also.)

TWO JAMES ON OPPRESSION

Our Sunday school class is studying the N. T.
Book of James. He is the one that tells us
"faith without works is dead." He further in-
forms us that living faith cares for widows and
orphans (the needy) and that dead faith says to
the needy "God bless" and "go in peace," but
does nothing to help the needy in their need.
Dead faith stinks, he implies.

James also says some harsh things about rich
people. He says they oppress the poor. In fact,
much of the Book of James is about oppression.
Which has gotten me thinking about it too. In
my last blog I said some harsh things about Re-
publicans. Well, Republicans oppress the poor.
James and I are both talking about the same
group. The GOP is run by the rich and for the
rich. I understand that not all of them are rich.
I also understand that the poor ones have little
to say about the Party or how it's run. Poor Re-
publicans are generally mis-informed, mis-led,
lyed to and confused about what is really hap-
pening in their Party and why. If you wonder
how that happens, listen to Fox News (The R. P.'s
propaganda mill) or Rush L. or read What's the
Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank. The
latter explains how poor people are regularly
conned into supporting the rich and powerful
who are oppressing them.

And there are two kinds of oppression: direct
and indirect. Direct oppression robs people of
equal opportunity, equal pay, equal justice, e-
qual health, equal education, and other oppor-
tunies, benefits and privileges. Discouraged
people often give up and quit trying. In my
last blog I mentioned the Ledbetter Equal Pay
Act that requires that women doing the same
work as men must receive the same pay. It
had been vetoed by Mr. Bush, but was passed
and signed the other day by the new admini-
stration. In the Senate it received 5 Republi-
can votes: the 4 R. women and one man (Sen.
Specter). In the House, it got three votes from
the 178 Republicans! Can you believe that?
Why would anyone oppose equal pay for women?
Because rich people run the Republican Party,
and they don't want to pay anyone any more
than they absolutely have to! By the way, more
children in this country are being raised by sin-
gle parents than by two-parent households.
Most of these S. P.s are women, poor women!

Back to oppression: indirect oppression is sys-
temic. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet don't op-
press anyone directly. And don't intend anyone
harm. They do a lot of good in fact, and wish
everyone well, I'm sure. With agility, luck and
talent they have risen to the top of a corrupt,
oppressive system that oppresses now a ma-
jority of our population. If this isn't clear to you
now after the bailouts, the bonuses, the fore-
closures, the bankruptcies, the plant closings,
the Madoffs and the rest, let me refer you to an
excellent new book by James K. Galbraith: The
Predator State. A distinguished professor of
economics at the University of Texas, Galbraith
spells it all out for you: he talks about a "serious
sort of rot in the system. This I will call preda-
tion (he says): the systematic abuse of public
institutions for private profit or, equivalently,
the systematic undermining of public protections
for the benefit of private clients." We are seeing
how our food and water and meds and environ-
ment are not being protected from contamination,
even tho we are paying $bns in taxes to get such
protection. When you get sick from contaminated
lettuce or spinach or peanut butter or meat or dir-
ty water, you are being oppressed, whether you
know it or not! And by your government, as well
as by the purveyors of the dirty food.

Do you feel oppressed when you sit for two hours
on the freeway, and go one mile? You will if you
need to go potty! And you are, by the politicians
that voted for tax cuts versus highway projects.
It's rich Republicans that cut your taxes and cut
gov't services. They hate any gov't spending that
doesn't go to rich farmers or defense companies,
oil companies, or banks.

For years banks have been borrowing your
bucks at 2% or less from the Federal Reserve,
and lending them back to you at 15 - 30% on
your credit cards. That's oppression (and pre-
dation). And you've been voting for it, if you
voted Repub. James says (the Bible one) it's
the rich who oppress you. You just didn't know
it (or maybe you did) but helped them anyway.
You probably thought they were just robbing
the poor! But as Confucius noted, some 500
years before Christ, when poverty is widespread
and severe, the bold among them (the poor) be-
come robbers. That's happening in Mexico as
we speak. Crime is out of control there. Is Mexi-
co a precursor of what will happen here as un-
employment grows and keeps growing? Crime
is "blow back" against the system and oppresses
all of us, rich and poor. Have a nice day!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

REPUBLICAN SHAME AND CHRIS-
TIAN CONFUSION

I'm indebted to Gail Collins for her NYT co-
lumn today about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair
Pay Act that the Pres. signed into law today.
Lilly, now 70, worked for years as a plant
supervisor at a tire factory. She didn't know
it, until she was ready to retire, but men at
the plant in similar jobs had always received
substantially more pay than she was getting.
She sued, and a jury readily found her the vic-
tim of pay discrimination.

Justice done? Not so fast! The Republican-led
Supreme Court threw the case out on grounds
that Lilly had waited too long to file it. They
ruled that the law required the plaintiff to file
her suit within 180 days of the first time Good-
year paid her less than they paid the men. Ne-
ver mind the fact that she had no way of know-
ing that was going on. And that it was going on
for years. Besides, courts had generally ruled
that the 180-day limit began the last time the
plaintiff received a discriminatory pay check,
not the first.

Now the Senate has finally clarified the law in
favor of the Lilly Ledbetters (but too late to help
her.) The shame is that only five Republicans
voted to make this right! Collins, in her op-
ed, tells of several similar cases where women
have suffered this kind of pay discrimination.

Another Republican shame is Rush Limbaugh.
He's openly sexist, racist, and homophobic.
And a Republican congressman on TV yester-
day called him "a giant" in the party! This is a
guy who has repeatedly hoped aloud that our
new President fails! That's like hoping the cap-
tain of the Titanic will have a heart attack while
trying to deal with a sinking ship. This guy is
not a patriot! He doesn't love this country, or
he couldn't talk such nonsense. Sexism and ra-
cism are deeply un-American. They are also
obviously un-Christian. Christians who support
him or the party he represents so reprehensa-
bly are confused and disoriented, to say the
least. They need to read the Book of James,
and act (vote) accordingly.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

WHEN IGNORANCE ISN'T BLISS!

"The American public believes that we have
already spent far too much money on bailing
out the banks. But the economic fact is that
we have not spent enough." So wrote Fa-
reed Zakaria in the Feb. 2 Newsweek. He
goes on to say that "the American financial
system is effectively broken. . . .we have not
turned the corner. In fact, we can't even see
the corner right now. . . the bailout has not
solved the problem; banks are still buried un-
der mountains of bad assets."

Paul Krugman agrees with Fareed's gloomy
assessment, and worries (in NYT) that the
slide is picking up momentum, and the longer
we dilly-dally before taking decisive action,
the harder it will be to stop. He writes: "we're
in a situation not seen since the 1930s: the in-
terest rates the Fed controls are already ef-
fectively at zero. . . That's why we're talking
about a large-scale fiscal stimulus: it's what's
left in the policy arsenal now that the Fed has
shot its bolt. Anyone who cites old arguments
against fiscal stimulus without mentioning that
either doesn't know much about the subject --
and therefore has no business weighing in on
the debate -- or is deliberately obtuse."

Alan Greenspan likened our economic situation
to a Tsunami building up, and said we haven't
felt its full force yet. Nouriel Roubini, an econ.
professor at NYU is becoming famous for his
early predictions of the current crisis, beginning
four years ago. He has written in the current
Foreign Policy: "The global financial pandemic
that I and others had warned about is now upon
us. But we are still only in the early stages of
this crisis. My predictions for the coming year,
unfortunately, are even more dire: The bubbles,
and there are many, have only begun to burst. . .
the macroeconomic news in the United States
and around the world will be much worse than
most expect. Corporate earnings reports will
shock any equity analysts who are still deluding
themselves that the economic contraction will
be mild and short. . . certainly the U. S. will ex-
perience its worst recession in decades. . . .
lasting about 24 months. . . It could end up be-
ing even longer, a multi year stagnation, like the
one Japan suffered in the 1990s. . . As the U. S.
economy shrinks, the entire global economy will
go into recession. In Europe, Canada, Japan, and
the other advanced economies, it will be severe.

Dean Baker, also writing in the current Foreign
Policy, says: "once the fin. situation begins to re-
turn to normal (which might not be in 2009), in-
vestors will be unhappy with the extremely low
returns available from dollar assets. Their exo-
dus will cause the dollar to resume the fall it be-
gan in 2002, but this time, its decline might be
far more rapid. . . For Americans, the effect of
a sharp decline in the dollar will be considerably
higher import prices and a reduced standard of
living. If the U. S. Federal Reserve becomes
concerned about the inflation resulting from
higher import prices, it might raise interest rates,
which could lead to another severe hit to the
economy. As for 2009, the ongoing collapse of
the housing bubble, the coming collapse of the
commercial real estate bubble, and the ensuing
wave of bad debt will all be major sources of drag
on the U. S. economy -- even if the dollar bust
happens later.

President Obama seems fully aware of the dire
outlook for this economy. He is seeking to in-
still some urgency into the deliberations of
Congress. But many, particularly in the Senate,
do not seem to "get it." They are determined
to go slowly and cautiously at a time that our
economy is on a raft, drifting toward Niagara
Falls! Let's hope they find the oars, or at least
an anchor, before it's too late.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

IRAQ: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?

According to several of the Neo-cons who
urged us to attack Iraq, one of Mr. B.'s major
accomplishments was "winning in Iraq." Bill
Kristol recently made this claim in the NYT.
Gen. Petraeus however, refuses to second
that opinion. He says the situation remains
precarious, and the relative calm fragile. He
has also refused to lower our troop strength
there. And will probably advise our new presi-
dent to do likewise.

The proof offered by the Neos that we have won
is the supposed "stunning success" of the Surge.
But that too is way overblown! The purpose of
the Surge was to secure space for political ac-
commodation. The space was secured, but the
accommodation wasn't. What we have here is
a tactical success and a strategic failure. Which
is precisely what Obama predicted when he
opposed the Surge two years ago! Zero has
been settled on the major issues dividing that
ruined country. We still have 140,000 troops
there. We can't leave without a major unravel-
ing following our exit, as Mr. Obama will soon
be informed by his military chiefs.

Iraq has been through all this before. The Brits
set up a make-shift "democracy" there after
WW I. Then the Brits got out, and all hell broke
loose. That's how they got Saddam. Our re-
tiring ambasador there, Ryan Crocker, has ser-
ved in the M. E. all of his professional life. He
knows the history, the language, the culture,
the people. He says policy makers need to un-
derstand that this is a long game. A lasting
change for the better is not going to happen by
pushing a button: "Not this year, not in five
years, maybe not in ten." The Surge only
proved that our presence there in force is neces-
sary to maintain some semblance of order.
What happens when we leave is anyone's guess.
History suggests it will likely be similar to when
the British left. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?
Don't hold your breath! We went over there
and set a fire, and then refused to send enough
firemen to put it out. After five years of terri-
ble destruction we finally sent enough additional
firemen to contain the blaze (not put it out.) For
that we are now high-fiving and celebrating! Go
figure.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

WHAT ISRAEL WANTS

Quoting Noam Chomsky, I opined in the
last log that we don't want peace in the
Palestine/Israel conflict, and never have.
Now I need to explain why: because Israel
doesn't want peace. And we want what they
want, nothing more and nothing less. From
its beginning we have rubber stamped every-
thing Israel does and wants. Israel in fact
determines our foreign policy! Think about
that!

And what is it Israel wants? I'll refer you to
an Israeli army vet who is now an Oxford pro-
fessor, Avi Shlaim. He writes in the 1/7/09
Guardian:
I write as someone who served loyally in the
Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never
questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel
within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly re-
ject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the
Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the
June 1967 war had very little to do with security
and everything to do with territorial expansion-
ism. The aim was to establish Greater Israel
through permanent political, economic and
military control over the Palestinian territories.
And the result has been one of the most pro-
longed and brutal military occupations of mo-
dern times.

Prof. Shlaim notes that on June 2, 1948, Sir
John Troutbeck wrote to British foreign secre-
tary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were
responsible for the creation of a gangster state
headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of lea-
ders." Shlaim adds that he used to think that
judgment was too harsh, but in view of current
vicious attacks on the people of Gaza, not now.

I hope that all of you who are interested in this
issue will click on www.guardian.co.uk/world.
The title of the article is: "How Israel Brought
Gaza to the Brink of Humanitarian Catastro-
phe." He does not spare Hamas from blame
and responsibility for its share of wrongdoing,
but places the major culpability squarely on
the people in control of overwhelming military
might. He writes further:

It is difficult to see how starving and
freezing the civilians of Gaza could pro-
tect people on the Israeli side of the border.
But even if it did, it would still be immoral,
a form of collective punishment that is
strictly forbidden by international hu-
manitarian law. (Emphasis mine.) The
brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully mat-
ched by the mendacity of its spokesmen.
Eight months before launching the current
war on Gaza, Israel established a National
Information Directorate. The core messa-
ges of this directorate to the media are
that Hamas broke the ceasefire agree-
ments; that Israel's objective is the defence
of its population; and that Israel's forces
are taking the utmost care not to hurt
innocent civilians. Israel's spin doctors
have been remarkably successful in get-
ting this message across. But, in essence,
their propaganda is a pack of lies. . . .Isra-
el's record over the past four decades
makes it difficult to resist the conclusion
that it has become a rogue state with "an
utterly unscrupulous set of leaders." A
rogue state habitually violates interna-
tional law, possesses weapons of mass de-
struction and practises terrorism -- the
use of violence against civilians for politi-
cal purposes. Israel fulfils all of these
three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear
it. Israel's real aim is not peaceful coexis-
tence with its Palestinian neighbors but
military domination.

I think that covers it. What do you think?

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

AIDING A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE

Richard Cohen calls the massacre going on
in Gaza "a conflict Hamas caused." Writing
in the 1/6/09 WaPo, he says it takes "real
stupidity" to blame it on Israel. In fact, it
takes even more stupidity to deny there's
plenty of blame to go around.

For starters, who/what caused Hamas?
Clearly, without Israel's illegal 40+ year
occupation of all remaining Palestinian
land, with heavy, unrelenting oppression of
the people, there would be no Hamas resis-
ting that occupation. Secondly, Israeli in-
telligence helped Hamas form in 1978 as an
Islamist foil against Arafat's secular PLO.
Israel gave funding to Hamas in its early days,
also intelligence. Have any of the many Is-
raeli apologists mentioned that? (Google
"Israel's support for Hamas" if you want the
details.)

Mr. Cohen seeks to minimize Israel's role in
the long struggle for Palestine by stating in-
correctly: "The war between Arabs and Jews
predates the founding of Israel in 1948." In
fact, during the 1,000 year reign of the Otto-
mans, Christians, Muslims and Jews lived to-
gether harmoniously for the most part, in the
Holy Land. The Ottomans let them govern
themselves, as long as there was no quarreling.
And there was very little. (If you are curious
about this, see Peace Be Upon You, The Story
of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence,
by Zachary Karabell. This is a fascinating and
scholarly work of great value. It is lucid and
comprehensive, starting in ancient times and
coming to the present. Karabell is a recent
Ph. D. from Harvard.)

Speaking of religion, all three of the above
named have similar "Just War" teachings.
They all forbid attacking non-combatant civi-
lians, and the taking of innocent life. Also, the
"eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" taught
in the Mosaic Law (and reaffirmed in Islam,
but not in Christianity) set strict limits to re-
taliation. It's purpose was to prevent the esca-
lation of violence. In other words, it requires
proportionality. Last time I looked, there were
12 Israeli dead in the current fracas, and 600+
Palestinians. Is that proportional? Who are
the Barbarians?

A spokesperson for Hamas has written in the
Guardian (1/6/09): " For 18 months my people
in Gaza have been under siege, incarcerated in-
side the world's biggest prison, sealed off from
land, air and sea, caged and starved, denied
even medication for our sick. After the slow
death policy came the bombardment. In this
most densely populated of places, nothing has
been spared Israel's warplanes, from govern-
ment buildings to homes, mosques, hospitals,
schools and markets. More than 540 have
been killed and thousands permanently maimed.
A third are women and children. Whole families
have been massacred, some while they slept."

See what our tax dollars are accomplishing?
The same writer continues: "The logic of those
who demand that we stop our resistance is ab-
surd. They absolve the aggressor and occupier --
armed with the deadliest weapons of death and
destruction -- of responsibility, while blaming
the victim, prisoner and occupied. Our modest,
home-made rockets are our cry of protest to the
world. Israel and its American and European
sponsors want us to be killed in silence. But die
in silence we will not."

He goes on to write: " Gaza enters 2009 just as
it did 2008: under Israeli fire. Between January
and February of last year 140 Gazans died in air
strikes. And just before it embarked on its failed
military assault on Lebanon in July 2006, Israel
rained thousands of shells on Gaza, killing 240.
(I encourage you to read his entire article in to-
days Guardian.) His name is Khalid Mish'ad.

More food for thought: (This from Salon, dtd.
1/4/09, by Glenn Greenwald) "If you see Pales-
tinians as something less than civilized human
beings: as "barbarians" -- just as if you see
Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews
as sub-human rats -- then naturally it follows
that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even
something to cheer.

And again, from Greenwald: "All nationalists
have the power of not seeing resemblances
between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will
defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it
in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions
are held to be good or bad, not on their own
merits, but according to who does them, and
there is almost no kind of outrage --- torture, the
use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations,
imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination,
the bombing of civilians --- which does not change
its moral colour when it is committed by 'our
side' . . . The nationalist not only does not disap-
prove of atrocities committed by his own side, but
he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing
about them."

And a practical point (or two): Hamas serves as a
barrier against al Qaeda going to work in Gaza. If
Hamas is eliminated, what replaces it? And what,
exactly, does Israel hope to expect from this? Peace?
How likely is that? There are six and half million
Jews in Israel (and one and half million Arabs). There
are 1.4 billion Muslims, seeing all this on TV. The
Muslim world is getting increasingly angry about
the 40 year treatment of Palestinians by Israel, with
our help. We've given Israel over $100 billion in
the past 50 years. We are aiding and abetting a
long running criminal enterprise there, and have
repeatedly used our veto at the U. N. to defeat ef-
forts to stop the killing. As Noam Chomsky has long
maintained, we don't want peace in the Middle East.
Never have. We want exactly what we are getting.
We are paying for it. Do you like what your money
is buying? Do you think we will stop paying anytime
soon? I wouldn't count on it!

Let me know what you think!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net