population

Consider this posting 2-days-in-a-row atonement for my previous irregularity in annoying you all with my political beliefs.

I've been thinking a lot about overpopulation.  Clearly, Earth is not meant to hold 8 billion resource consuming humans.  Long-term security demands that we begin slowing our population's explosive growth, but I'm unwilling to impose stringent child limits like those for which China is so famous.  We've seen both ends of government controlling reproductive health- China forcing abortions, and Ceausceau's Romania using secret police as gynecologists to catch any women who were using birth control.  Both are abhorrent, as the Right to Choice is essential to all human beings, but especially society's vulnerable and exploited, i.e. women.  I am not about to support either.

So, we need a non-coercive way to control overpopulation.  I rather think that this is one area where the U.S. can and should take the lead.  We have about 5 percent of the world's population, but consume nearly 40% of its resources.  Frankly, humanity will benefit much more noticeably from a reduction in our birth rate than it would from an equivalent drop anywhere else.  Step one has to be removing the tax incentive for children, at least past the first.  This is going to be painful for everyone, not least because having fewer workers will skew our balance of population towards those who have earned their retirement, and suddenly have fewer people to support them.  I would remind everyone, though, that economic health is kind of contingent upon actually having resources to consume, and responsible conservation has to be the primary imperative.

Removing the basic tax incentives for large families will help, but should be paired with an expansion of reproductive health care, making sure each baby is wanted.  That's the relatively easy part.

Social services are trickier- what of subsidies for child care, or food stamps?  What about health insurance?  I am unwilling to cover some children, but not all, or to tell a struggling mother that her younger children do not deserve support, and yet these and other tax credits do subsidize unstable population growth.  I hope we'll all agree that creating a two-tiered system of "First" and "unwanted" children is every bit as evil as existing class oppressions, and is therefore off the table.  I'd like to throw this open for discussion- Is there a way to discourage having large families that will not hurt the most vulnerable members of society?

Impetus for a Prochoice majority to act

I'm sure you all heard what my dear former congressman Akin got himself into.  In case you haven't had the stomach to investigate the details (which is fully understandable) not only did he claim that women can simply "shut down" unwanted pregnancy without birth control, but he also accused rape victims of faking their assaults in order to expedite abortion care.

There's really so much wrong with this that I don't know where to begin.  This is clearly the viewpoint of perhaps 30-40 percent(20 percent according to gallup, plus a further 37 that say choice should only be permitted in certain circumstances) of the country, with another third at least dispassionate and uninterested.  With this in mind, I find it surprisingly heartening that the reaction has been so overwhelmingly negative.  Even the CNN comments section is overwhelmingly anti-Akin.  Who knows, maybe people still actually stand up for women's rights...

As I've not yet addressed this topic on this circular, I thought to enumerate my thoughts on the matter of abortion.
     As a man, I have significantly greater reproductive freedom than a woman.  Whatever the legal and economic consequences being responsible for an unplanned pregnancy on me, I would be spared the physical burdens.  This inherent inequality justifies giving women the ultimate authority in this matter.  A basic human right is the right to one's own body, and any and all effort to prevent women from exercising this right is simply unqualified evil.  My platform on this issue is  as follows: Abortion on demand, without exception or apology.  Whatever rights a potential human being may have, they cannot compare to those of an actual human being.  Therefore, no matter how uneasy I may be made by late term abortions, or by gender-specific abortions, I do not feel entitled to make such a decision for any woman, provided the decision is in fact her own.  The aforementioned practices disturb me, but that doesn't justify establishing any cutoff after which women lose their human rights for the duration of their pregnancy.  No restrictions on abortion at all.

This can be coupled with expanded sex education, greater access to birth control, and nationalized childcare services, to ameliorate the unequal burden of domestic labor on women in general and working women in particular.  Alternately, paid parental leave.  We are the only country in North America or Europe not to guarantee paid time off for family building, the most visible manifestation of our culture's indifference to domestic life- that which is labeled "feminine".  Sadly, it is often this work, of nurturing, understanding, and caretaking, that imparts senses of social justice in many people who undertake it, including many mothers.  But our society not only belittles the importance of this work, but insults those who do it, either by choice, or because they are expected to.  I wonder if a society could ever be based on values of compassion and understanding rather than killing, hate, and fear.  Surely, such a realm would be truly great.  To me, this is what it means to be a cultural feminist- that merely guaranteeing fairness is not sufficient, rather our social value structure must be reexamined, and, if necessary, amended to make for a greater society.

Whew.  That started as just a pro-choice argument but went much broader.  This is probably why some professors don't like my essays.  To hell with that, I like this, and I feel I've expressed my thoughts adequately.

In Solidarität
Genosse Graham

Supporting Anderson

It's been quite a few weeks.  Missouri had our primary- my reluctant choices for congress and city treasurer won, while my passionate choices for sheriff, state senate, and state house lost.  More importantly, there was yet another massacre in Wisconsin.  I've outlined my thoughts on gun control in the previous post, but I think that the rise of right-wing extremism and overwhelming prejudice make it all the more important to our republic.  Not only is failure to act dangerous to all citizens, but it also puts minorities at greater risk of bodily harm.  We need real gun control, not just enforcement of existing laws, and not government by the Rick Perrys, Phil Gramms and Charleton Hestons.  Our policy is "any gun, anywhere, any time", and over the past two weeks we've seen bloody reminders of how dangerous that is.  Good luck and heartfelt apologies to the victims.

On a lighter note, I've been preparing to take the next step in supporting Justice Party candidate Mayor Ross "Rocky" Anderson for president.  His campaign is conducting a write-in effort in Wisconsin, where I attend school so I will be able to vote for him.  There is, however a snag.  Wisconsin law requires any candidate to have a slate of electors representing each of Wisconsin's 8 districts pledged to him, to go vote in the electoral college in the (in this case unlikely) event he is to win the state.  The campaign has none yet recruited.  I therefore am pleased to announce to you all my candidacy for Presidential Elector of Wisconsin on behalf of Rocky Anderson, and my search for fellow candidates from all of Wisconsin's districts.  I ask all of you to rack your brains to think of friends you have in any part of the Badger state, preferably crazy left-wingers like me, but anyone willing and registered to vote will suffice.  To reiterate, this is not an onerous task- it consists of filling out a form, which I will mail or otherwise provide to the prospective candidates, sent to the board of elections before October 23d.

If you know anyone in the 1st, 3d, 4th-(yay, Congresswoman Moore!), 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th districts who may be interested, please notify me!

In Solidarity
Genosse Graham

gun control is a necessity

Yesterday's tragic shootings were a heartbreaking moment for all of us.  My thoughts are certainly with the victims, and I hope all of yours are as well.

What makes this attack disgraceful as well as tragic is that it was thoroughly preventable.  The gunman purchased his stockpile legally and carried his weapons legally.  Only in America is the right of a madman to arm himself against the big, bad "gummint" more important than the right of the security of the residents of a free state.  Can you imagine this happening... ANYWHERE else (with a functioning government)?  Madmen like this one do not constitute a well-regulated militia, and certainly contribute nothing to the security of a free state.  The ultra-tight background checks proposed by Senator Gillibrand are a good first step, but broader action is needed to keep guns out of criminal hands.

My thoughts are as follows-

rifles and shotguns, and other hunting weapons:  I'm not a hunter, and it doesn't hold terribly much appeal for me.  That said, my stepbrother, John, does hunt, and after living with him for eight years, I really see no great harm in them, however distasteful I find firearms of any type.  Especially considering the volume of shootings conducted with handguns and assault weapons, I don't think we need to deal with these just yet.

Handguns- these are clearly designed for person-person use, and therefore deserve greater scrutiny than hunting weapons.  I think monthly psych evaluation for hand-gun owners would be a good starting point, but I would like to see broader action moving towards their ban.

Assault weapons and military grade hardware- totally outlawed.  The body count here would have been cut in half had the madman not had a 6000 round automatic weapon.  For those nuts who insist that these weapons are for "hunting purposes only", I say that if you need a machine gun to hit something the size of a deer, you have no business holding a firearm of any kind!  In short, anyone who wants one of these obviously anticipates having to kill a great many people, quickly.  We have the Texas state government, and Obama's predator drones for that.  The civilians who want these tend to be right-wing, sovereign citizen-types who pose more of a threat to our security than any foreign agent.

Obviously, criminals will try to acquire guns whatever the laws.  But modern technology has reached the point at which we can have our self-defensive cake and eat it too, with non lethal dart-tasers, pepper spray, and so on.  To all those who think they can beat the 40-1 odds and use a gun to apprehend or kill a criminal with no harm to themselves, I say to get a taser.  As to criminals acquiring guns, no matter if they were bought illegally, at some point those guns were legal, and therefore, standards can be tightened.  As a side note, if the government can spy on all of us by the locations of our cellphones, why not install similar tracking devices in the guns of the nutjobs who won't be happy until they get to lead a lynch mob?

This tragedy should leave us griefstricken, but more than that, it should inspire us to declare: Never Again.  I hope you join me in calling your representatives, the White House switchboard, (at 202-456-1111), your senators, mayors, anyone at all in a position of power, to ask: what are their plans to control gun violence and get guns off the streets of America?  Why should the safety of the citizenry be held hostage to the so-called "right" of a radical fringe to feel secure against the power of the community?

In solidarity
Genosse Graham

Health Care ruling and Jimmy Carter article

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/opinion/americas-shameful-human-rights-record.html?_r=1

The first thing I wanted to do is link to that article- it's President Carter's view on Obama's foreign policy/human rights record, and I think it's exactly what needs to be said.  Wish McGovern had taken a similar tack in his last book, the more elder statesmen that come out and declare that the Democratic Party's rightward shift is shameful and untenable the better.

Well, happy fourth to all.  I think it time to comment on the upholding of the Health Care Reform bill.  Many of you know my sentiments, but I will restate the crux of the matter here: Health Care is too important to be determined by the market.  It is a right, not a commodity, and no so-called reform bill that allows private profit margins to influence health care decisions will have my support.  The Affordable Care act does not meet my standards of even s step in the right direction, as it keeps public health insurance off the table for the vast majority of Americans.  I know the mandate is lenient and difficult to enforce, but the fact remains that the government has once again agreed that the profit of the insurance companies is a legitimate consideration, yea even at the expense of the people's health.  Obliging the government to foot part of the bill for poor people's treatment with the new subsidies is correct in principle, but as the industry remains profit-driven the offered subsidies will either soon prove inadequate, or bankrupt the government as it strives to keep pace with the rocketing cost of insurance, driven by speculation, inefficiency, and above all the drive for profit.

That said, there are a number of useful regulations in the bill, and had the thing been struck down in its entirety, it would have been a loss.  I am personally benefiting from the policy enabling parents' health insurance to cover children until age 26, and once the prohibition of refusing coverage to those with preexisting conditions kicks in, it will be somewhat helpful too.  Furthermore, insurance companies are now barred from charging women more than men for the same health care, so that's a positive too.

Of course, none of this changes the underlying problem: capitalism's disregard for humanity.  My fears now are twofold- that the government will be weakened by the loss of the sums it must now hemorrhage to feed the insurance companies whose profit motive as recently as 2009 was responsible for the deaths of 45000 people a year, according to Reuters, and that having applied the palliative of "Hope and Change", the nation will fail to undertake serious action to address the root of the problem for a long time to come.

To solve this problem, the first step would be to expand Medicare to all those who want it.  This could be paid for by charging reparations from the insurance companies for the damage they have wrought upon us, but I would much prefer a more sustainable solution: namely Socialized medicine.  Health care providers should be employed by the government, funded by taxation, and able to help patients without answering to anyone's bottom line but that of their conscience.  You can't put a price on the priceless, like good health, but we can certainly learn the cost of the status quo as the quality of care keeps deteriorating to better profit the private companies who now as before have the full support of the government.

Nationalize the lot of them.
In Solidatität
Genosse Graham

Hallo, meine Genossen und Genossinnen.  My present dilemma is in deciding between two commendable third party presidential candidates.  I welcome any input you may have.

Stewart Alexander is the nominee of the Peace and Freedom, Green, and Socialist parties, has been a perennial Socialist candidate for LA Mayor, Lt. Governor, and Vice President.  Now he's running as the triple nominee for president.  His background is in community organizing, particularly on environmental issues, he's a veteran who strongly opposes war, and he speaks incredibly well.  If I were judging on oratorical ability, there would be no contest.  My hesitation stems from his total opposition to every fundraising initiative on the California ballot when he ran for lt. gov., and a feeling that he is more an activist than a leader.  That's not a bad thing, but when compared to choice B it seems something of a deficiency.  His website (below this paragraph) is more a biographic than a policy sheet, but it links to the SPA's page which explains it pretty thoroughly.  Economic planning and collective ownership of all corporations, double the minimum wage and index it to inflation, full employment guaranteed, abolition of NAFTA, IMF and World Bank, public ownership of the energy infrastructure, and an employment non-discrimination act.  It's basically a shopping list of everything I want, but I have to measure that against choice 2's history of implementing parts of this, and arguing for much of the same.

http://www.stewartalexandercares.com/
Rocky Anderson, former 2-term mayor of Salt Lake City, leader of the impeach Bush movement and constant opponent of Bush's wars and Obama's expansion of the same.  He is a true environmentalist, calling for not only and end to subsidies for oil companies, but also for coal companies, and an end to fracking while investing in renewable energies, and subsidizing safe, sustainable wind and solar and geothermal energy.  no nuclear, no fracking, no dependence on fossil fuels.  On Rocky's watch, greenhouse gas emissions from SLC were down 31 percent, which won him a reputation as America's "greenest mayor".  On Gay Rights Anderson actually passed a municipal level ENDA while he was Mayor.  For all the importance of marriage rights, in my view the greatest obstacle faced by the LGBT community is the fact that our orientation alone is sufficient reason to fire or evict us in 29 states, and 37 states for the Transgendered.  This bill, the ENDA remedying that travesty was a big promise of the Obama campaign, and no word has been said about it at the federal level since June 2008.   Rocky has always been prochoice, and as a former Mormon, wins great respect from this Atheist.  I'll be interested to see if his new "Justice Party" expands to contest some local races, much like the PSL does.  I really think that in a few districts the right candidates could win the left away from the Democratic Party.  But successes are not on the table atm, so this is really just about picking who I think is the better candidate.

information on the justice party and Rocky Anderson can be found here http://www.voterocky.org/


As you may have guessed, I'm planning on supporting Rocky Anderson, (his record as an elected official who not only says the right things but does the right things is too good to pass up) but I'd really like to hear your thoughts.  Anyone?


I fully support both candidates' platforms, although I certainly prefer Alexander's comprehensive approach to economic issues and employment.  Alexander is also definitely the better speaker.

Welcome to all, even if you are lost

Hello.  I know this isn't anything much, but I thought now as good a time as any to begin making public political statements to the web.  I'm something of a luddite, and without either facebook or twitter, I thought a blog a necessary tool to get some message out.

This is to be primarily a political blog, and I will endeavor to keep things civil and factual, but still fun.  I first became interested in our political system after reading Cormac O'brien's "Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents" (a book best described as Howard Zinn for kids) a gift from my uncle Jay when I was 14.  I was astounded to learn how involved decisive government action had been in achieving the victories of the Civil Rights movement, the beginnings of the environmental cause, and in combating the Great Depression.  Diving deeper into historical matters, I fixated on the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson and the campaign of George McGovern as the high-water marks of government on the behalf of the people.  Caught up in my newfound passion, I began enthusiastically volunteering for then-Senator Obama'a campaign, driven by his early opposition to the war in Iraq.  After a grueling primary process and a massive general election effort (During which I canvassed in spite of pneumonia) I watched my man win, albeit without the votes of my native Missouri.  My stepfather made arrangements for our family to attend the inauguration, and I waited for the capstone achievements of American government to stream forth.

They didn't, and the resulting disappointments were crucial in teaching me how much injustice remains in our world, and what has to happen to address it.

About a year after he entered office, I began to grow critical of the administration's lack of action on Civil Liberties, imperialist wars, Public Health Care, Tax justice, and above all environmental protection.  The final proofs here were the passage of the Affordable Care act which could have been taken from the McCain platform, without a public health care option.  Study of both the patterns of corporate influence in politics and Socialist writings (most notably those of Friedrich Engels and Huey Newton) led me to conclude that the modern Democratic Party, or at least its current leadership, was not as perfect as I had thought.  Watching the days of Democratic control of Congress dwindle, I still saw no action taken on tax justice or environmental protection.  No employee non-discrimination act was even mentioned by anyone in the administration.  More air-strikes on "suspected militants"-read-schoolhouses, were conducted in the first year of Obama's presidency than in all 8 Bush years.  The office of faith-based initiatives continued subsidizing conservative, homophobic, and anti-women churches, and principle was consistently pushed aside in favor of an illusory bipartisanship.  On Obama's watch, the Republican agenda has been advanced nearly as effectively as it was under his predecessor, with disastrous consequences.  Washington is not broken, however- the years of Bush's administration show us that with discipline and ruthlessness, significant changes can be made when the president has even the smallest margin of control in Congress.  Whether the failure of our side to do the same is the fault of Obama, the Democratic Party in general, or both remains to be seen.  The following, however, is clear.

Our nation remains the largest per capita consumer of all the world's resources, and contributor to environmental damage.
Our tax system is increasingly skewed in favor of the wealthiest capitalists.
We have expanded our military reach worldwide, draining our country's reserves or wealth, and              killing thousands of our own soldiers with little to show for it except increased profits for            weapons companies
We have not come close to addressing the legacy of slavery and lingering racism in our society, let alone addressing social biases against other minorities.
We are the only industrialized nation in the world without a reliable system of national health insurance.
The rate of employment continues to be dependent on the market, rather than direct government action.

None of the above have been addressed by this administration.  I invite you to join me in a search for those leaders who will.  I will endeavor to post at least weekly a summary of my political activities, policy proposals, and other relevant thoughts.

Solidarität
Genosse Graham