Censored Whig Letters

Is Cheney betting on Economic Collapse?

By Mike Whitney

07/04/06 “Information Clearing House” — –

Wouldn’t you like to know where Dick Cheney puts his money? Then you’d know whether his “deficits don’t matter” claim is just baloney or not.

Well, as it turns out, Kiplinger Magazine ran an article based on Cheney’s financial disclosure statement and, sure enough, found out that the VP is lying to the American people for the umpteenth time. Deficits do matter and Cheney has invested his money accordingly.

The article is called “Cheney’s betting on bad news” and provides an account of where Cheney has socked away more than $25 million. While the figures may be estimates, the investments are not. According to Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post, Cheney has invested heavily in “a fund that specializes in short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. The third is protected against inflation.”

Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond fund which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar. So, while working class Americans are loosing ground to inflation and rising energy costs, Darth Cheney will be enhancing his wealth in “Old Europe”. As Blackburn sagely notes, “Not all `bad news’ is bad for everybody.”

This should put to rest once and for all the foolish notion that the “Bush Economic Plan” is anything more than a scam aimed at looting the public till. The whole deal is intended to shift the nation’s wealth from one class to another. It’s also clear that Bush-Cheney couldn’t have carried this off without the tacit approval of the thieves at the Federal Reserve who engineered the low-interest rate boondoggle to put the American people to sleep while they picked their pockets.

Reasonable people can dispute that Bush is “intentionally” skewering the dollar with his lavish tax cuts, but how does that explain Cheney’s portfolio?

It doesn’t. And, one thing we can say with metaphysical certainty is that the miserly Cheney would never plunk his money into an investment that wasn’t a sure thing. If Cheney is counting on the dollar tanking and interest rates going up, then, by Gawd, that’s what’ll happen.

The Bush-Cheney team has racked up another $3 trillion in debt in just 6 years. The US national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion dollars while the trade deficit has ballooned to $800 billion nearly 7% of GDP.

This is lunacy. No country, however powerful, can maintain these staggering numbers. The country is in hock up to its neck and has to borrow $2.5 billion per day just to stay above water. Presently, the Fed is expanding the money supply and buying back its own treasuries to hide the hemorrhaging from the public. Its utter madness.

Last month the trade deficit climbed to $70 billion. More importantly, foreign central banks only purchased a meager $47 billion in treasuries to shore up our ravenous appetite for cheap junk from China.

Do the math! They’re not investing in America anymore. They are decreasing their stockpiles of dollars. We’re sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are manning the lifeboats while the public is diverted with gay marriage amendments and “American Celebrity”.

The American manufacturing sector has been hollowed out by cutthroat corporations who’ve abandoned their country to make a fast-buck in China or Mexico. The $3 trillion housing (equity) bubble is quickly loosing air while the anemic dollar continues to sag. All the signs indicate that the economy is slowing at the same time that energy prices continue to rise.

This is the onset of stagflation; the dreaded combo of a slowing economy and inflation.

Did Americans really think they’d be spared the same type of economic colonization that has been applied throughout the developing world under the rubric of “neoliberalism”?

Well, think again. The American economy is barrel-rolling towards earth and there are only enough parachutes for Cheney and the gang.

The country has lost 3 million jobs from outsourcing since Bush took office; more than 200,000 of those are the high-paying, high-tech jobs that are the life’s-blood of every economy.

Consider this from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) June edition of Foreign Affairs, the Bible of globalists and plutocrats:

“Between 2000 and 2003 alone, foreign firms built 60,000manufacturing plants in China. European chemical companies, Japanese carmakers, and US industrial conglomerates are all building factories in China to supply export markets around the world. Similarly, banks, insurance companies, professional-service firms, and IT companies are building R&D and service centers in India to support employees, customers, and production worldwide.”

(”The Globally integrated Enterprise” Samuel Palmisano, Foreign Affairs page 130)

“60,000manufacturing plants” in 3 years?!?

“Banks, insurance companies, professional-service firms, and IT companies”?

No job is safe. American elites and corporate tycoons are loading the boats and heading for foreign shores. The only thing they’re leaving behind is the insurmountable debt that will be shackled to our children into perpetuity and the carefully arranged levers of a modern police-surveillance state.

Welcome to Bush’s 21st Century gulag; third world luxury in a Guantanamo-type setting.

Take another look at Cheney’s investment strategy; it tells the whole ugly story. Interest rates are going up, the middle class is going down, and the poor dollar is headed for the dumpster. The country is not simply teetering on the brink of financial collapse; it is being thrust headfirst by the blackguards in office and their satrapies at Federal Reserve.

The publisher of Robert Parry’s 1993 book, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery, Trick or Treason is an extraordinary account of a remarkable journalistic investigation. It tells the inside story of Parry’s assignment from PBS’s Frontline to examine whether the origins of the Iran-Contra scandal traced back to a nearly treasonous dirty trick by the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980.

Besides investigating the historical mystery of whether Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush conspired with Iran’s Islamic radicals behind President Carter’s back, the book explores the dark side of international power, where results are all that matter.

Written in an engaging narrative style, the book takes the reader into a real-life netherworld of intelligence operatives and ruthless world leaders.

Among the dramatic interviews in Trick or Treason is one with legendary CIA officer Miles Copeland (just before his death), as he describes the workings of what he called “the CIA within the CIA,” the innermost sanctum of American “patriots” who do whatever they deem necessary for the national interest.

Trick or Treason is a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the grim history of modern American politics.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at http://www.neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

The White Preacher Double Standard: How Hagee, Parsley and the Rest Get Away
with Everything

By Cenk Uygur, Huffington Post
Posted on March 19, 2008, Printed on March 20, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.huffingtonpost.com//80253/

Rudy Giuliani’s priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.

Mitt Romney was part of a church that did not view black Americans as equals and actively discriminated against them. He stayed with that church all the way into his early thirties, until they were finally forced to change their policies to come into compliance with civil rights legislation. Romney never disavowed his church back then or now. He said he was proud of the faith of his fathers.

Jerry Falwell said America had 9/11 coming because we tolerated gays, feminists and liberals. It was our fault. Our chickens had come home to roost, if you will. John McCain proudly received his support and even spoke at his university’s commencement.

Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the “Great Whore.” He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union (of course, the Anti-Christ will also be Jewish). He has said all Muslims are trained to kill and will be part of the devil’s army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes is soon). John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee’s endorsement.

Reverend Rod Parsley believes America was founded to destroy Islam. Since this is such an outlandish claim, I have to add for the record, that he is not kidding. Reverend Parsley says Islam is an “anti-Christ religion” brought down from a “demon spirit.” Of course, we are in a war against all Muslims, including presumably Muslim-Americans. Buts since Parsley believes this is a Christian nation and that it should be run as a theocracy, he is not very concerned what Muslim-Americans think.

John McCain says Reverend Rod Parsley is his “spiritual guide.”

What separates all of these outrageous preachers from Barack Obama’s? You guessed it. They’re white and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not. If it’s not racism that’s causing the disparity in media treatment of these preachers, then what is it?

I’m willing to listen to other possible explanations. And I am inclined to believe that the people these preachers go after are more important than the race of the preacher. It’s one thing to go after gays, liberals and Muslims - that seems to be perfectly acceptable in America - it’s another to accuse white folks of not living up to their ideals.

I think there is another factor at play as well. The media is deathly afraid of calling out preachers of any stripe for insane propaganda from the pulpits for fear that they will be labeled as anti-Christian. But criticism of Rev. Wright falls into their comfort zone. It’s easy to blame him for being anti-American because he criticizes American foreign and domestic policy.

If Rev. Wright had preached about discriminating against gay Americans or Muslims, there probably would not have been any outcry at all. That falls into the category of “respect their hateful opinions because they cloak themselves in the church.”

But one thing is indisputable - the enormous disparity in how the media has covered these white preachers as opposed to Rev. Wright. Have you ever even heard of Rod Parsley? As you can see from what I listed above, all of these white preachers have said and done the most outlandish and offensive things you can imagine - and hardly a peep.

If the disparity in coverage isn’t racist, then what is it?

Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the “Great Whore.” He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union (of course, the Anti-Christ will also be Jewish). He has said all Muslims are trained to kill and will be part of the devil’s army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes is soon). John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee’s endorsement.

Reverend Rod Parsley believes America was founded to destroy Islam. Since this is such an outlandish claim, I have to add for the record, that he is not kidding. Reverend Parsley says Islam is an “anti-Christ religion” brought down from a “demon spirit.” Of course, we are in a war against all Muslims, including presumably Muslim-Americans. Buts since Parsley believes this is a Christian nation and that it should be run as a theocracy, he is not very concerned what Muslim-Americans think.

John McCain says Reverend Rod Parsley is his “spiritual guide.”

What separates all of these outrageous preachers from Barack Obama’s? You guessed it. They’re white and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not. If it’s not racism that’s causing the disparity in media treatment of these preachers, then what is it?

I’m willing to listen to other possible explanations. And I am inclined to believe that the people these preachers go after are more important than the race of the preacher. It’s one thing to go after gays, liberals and Muslims - that seems to be perfectly acceptable in America - it’s another to accuse white folks of not living up to their ideals.

I think there is another factor at play as well. The media is deathly afraid of calling out preachers of any stripe for insane propaganda from the pulpits for fear that they will be labeled as anti-Christian. But criticism of Rev. Wright falls into their comfort zone. It’s easy to blame him for being anti-American because he criticizes American foreign and domestic policy.

If Rev. Wright had preached about discriminating against gay Americans or Muslims, there probably would not have been any outcry at all. That falls into the category of “respect their hateful opinions because they cloak themselves in the church.”

But one thing is indisputable - the enormous disparity in how the media has covered these white preachers as opposed to Rev. Wright. Have you ever even heard of Rod Parsley? As you can see from what I listed above, all of these white preachers have said and done the most outlandish and offensive things you can imagine - and hardly a peep.

If the disparity in coverage isn’t racist, then what is it?

Cenk Uygur is co-host of The Young Turks, the first liberal radio show to air nationwide.

National Regrets and Paying for Reagan-Bush Policies

Our current list of national economic difficulties and governmental failures is a direct result of nearly 30 years of failed Republican policies. We are paying the price in many ways for our national love affair with slick, emotionally appealing Republican political rhetoric and candidates. We cannot continue to ignore the harsh reality behind the deceitful words.

We have all experience bad personal relationships or unhappy romances. Long after the romances are over, the rebuilding process remains.

The legacy of distrust, dealing with debts accumulated based on lies, self-doubts for believing the nice sounding lies and living with an awareness that we all are subject to the weakness of emotional reasoning remain long after the relationships have collapsed. There is always the possibility that the burden of dealing with the problems is so great that we go into denial and repeat the same mistakes by buying into slightly repackaged versions. It plays hell on emotional, physical and financial well-being. We all have been there.

It is time for the American public to end our soured love affair with deceitful Reagan-Bush Republicanism and start cleaning up the mess left behind. It will be emotionally upsetting but has to be done. The damage is great. It will require a real change in both our behavior and thinking to undo the damage and avoid repeating the same mistakes. It can be done!

In 2008, we are finally be forced to start paying the price for the falsely named set of economic policies once labeled “economic deregulation” that became the national political creed with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. We shifted the tax burden to those least able to bear the strain by raising taxes on both the poor and the middle class. We cut dramatically the tax burden of the wealthy and even more so for the Super Wealthy. We encouraged paper financial profits over real economic growth. We exported our industrial base weakening our nation because it temporarily profited our economic elite.

We ended usury laws, weakened government regulation of our financial institutions, permitted government “no-bid” contracts to go to political powerful corporations and ignored anti-monopoly traditions. Consumer protections were weakened. Our federal courts were packed with Republican Right-Wing Radicals willing to overlook any kind of corruption by government officials, corporations or Republican politicians as long as the results favored the wealthiest of the wealthy and the politically powerful.

Our dollar is in the toilet because we exported debt in exchange for cheap imported goods. Wal-Mart raked in a fortune by lowering wage rates in community after community, fighting all efforts at unionizing their workers, and undermining our manufacturing base by encouraging American factories to relocate to China. A government truly serving our national interest would have adopted trade and tax policies that would have stopped Wal-Mart from pursuing these policies. However, the Reagan-Bush Republicans did the opposite.

Even during the brief periods of Democratic Presidential rule under Clinton, Republican policies were often still pursued. The NAFTA and WTO deals received White House support although the majority of Congressional Democrats often opposed these falsely-named “free trade” deals. They were passed largely with Congressional Republican votes. Media consolidation resulted as a direct result of some Democrats buying into the Republican “economic deregulation” arguments. Media consolidation reduced competition instead of promoting it. It hurt small business advertisers and media consumers. Both policies have been severe failures for the American nation. They have undermined the health of both the American economy and American Democracy.

The Republican Presidential candidate John McCain promises to deliver more of the same failed policies. Although McCain has an admirable past military record, he currently would be a bad match for the 21st Century needs of the American nation. When it comes to dealing with our developing economic crisises or quickly ending the Iraq War, John McCain has little to offer. For most Americans, a McCain victory will mean a lower standard of living and even less real influence on government policy. McCain is certainly no friend of American workers or consumers. McCain will do nothing to restore America’s industrial base or basic economic health. The “100 Year War Man” has no answers for the real fundamental problems facing our nation today! He is a real threat to our long-term national security.

Both leading Democrats are likely to be a big improvement over McCain. However, we still will need to elect Senators and House members willing to support more populist economic reforms that actually reverse some of the damage done over the past 30 years. We need to elect the right kind of Democrats and to keep pressuring them to restore economically responsible policies. We need to demand more open government, more civil liberties protections and democratically responsive governance.

I urge strongly that voters educate themselves before voting in November. Two excellent books that we all should read by then are Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston and Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang. A daily visit to Buzzflash.com or Mid-Atlantic Labor.com would certainly help you become a more informed voter. Listening to talk radio shows like The Rick Smith Show, Thom Hartmann, Andy Johnson, Ed Shultz, Guy James, Democratic Talk Radio or Air America programs would help with the brain rot resulting from listening to Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and the like.

You can count on the Republicans feeding you, as voters, lots of crazy emotionally charged slogans and arguments. The Corporate media will go after reform minded Democrats like resigned New York Governor Spitzer with zeal and venom while largely ignoring similar or worse behavior by currently serving Republican Senators like Louisiana’s Vitter or Idaho’s Craig. Vitter and Craig are reliable votes supporting the failed Reagan-Bush Republican policies while Spitzer actually prosecuted some of the worst Corporate abusers.

Only by educating yourself about policies can you avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. For your own sake and that of your children, this year break the cycle and vote based on substantive issues like healthcare, trade policies, re-industrializing America, shifting some of the tax burden back to those most able to pay higher taxes, resumption of usury laws, jobs, consumer protection, balancing the budget, ending an unaffordable war and a return to anti-monopoly law enforcement.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

Reprinted Editor’s Page of the Democratic Herald, newsletter of the Cecil County Democratic Club

What it Means to be “Whigged”

On Nov. 8th the Cecil Whig reached an all-time low in journalism ethics by substituting in place of its regular editorial column a message from Maryland State Republican Chairman James Pelura who, among other rantings, urged Democrats and Independents to register Republican before the approaching deadline for changing parties.

This was just the most glaring example of the Whig’s blatant bias. Until the day before the primary election, the Whig barely mentioned the four Democratic candidates competing for the nomination in our Congressional District, while the Republican race was featured weekly, almost always on the front page.

Those of us who write letters to the Whig know such bias from firsthand experience. During their months-long assault on the governor’s special legislative session, two of us on the Dem. Club board who wrote letters of support had our words changed and/or omitted to alter the meaning. They even changed the spelling and grammar, from correct to incorrect (implicit message: as the writer’s English is flawed, so must be his argument). The practice has led to the invention of a new verb – to be “whigged.”

Not that the Whig doesn’t manage to squeeze in a Democratic story now and then. In January they ran as their headline story how an obscure telephone directory had erroneously listed a dial-a-porn phone number for the Governor’s office. (Whether the listing was an innocent mistake or a prank is unknown. The timing seemed suspicious, as the directory was printed about the time of O’Malley’s victory.) Does anyone doubt such a story would not have been headline news during the Ehrlich administration?

In fairness, Whig editor Terry Peddicord is good about publishing our letters, is very publicly accessible, and responds to our complaints in a judicious manner. And I don’t doubt their reporters do their best to submit accurate stories. The problem seems to be one or two others on the Whig staff who zealously exercise their editing pens in-between the reporting and the printing. And now that the primary is over, they’ve finally begun recognizing Mr. Kratovil.

On Feb. 15th, the Whig lamented the defeat of well-regarded moderate Republican Wayne Gilchrest (even though they didn’t endorse him – the Whig has a policy of not endorsing in the primaries). But perhaps the Whig’s heavy-handed tactics regarding all things Democrat encourages those same right-wing extremists who defeated Congressman Gilchrest, permitting a Karl Rove-style campaigner like Harris to emerge victorious. (And wouldn’t it be sweet justice if such excesses return the seat to a Democrat?)

One topic it seems the Whig won’t print, unlike other newspapers, are letters criticizing the paper itself. This unfortunate custom undoubtedly contributes to the Whig’s insularity. Every fair-minded newspaper should consider designating an in-house ombudsman to keep excesses and abuses in check.

The Whig owners may be entitled to a free press, but we citizens are entitled to a fair one. After all - and this reflects the national plague of concentrated media creating a virtual monopoly in every market - it’s the “only game in town.” That fact should increase the Whig’s responsibility for self-regulation and fairness, not give them license to print “all the news that fits” – their agenda, that is.

But let’s not forget our own responsibility in this. The free press as intended by our Founding Fathers was supposed to be the “ever vigilant” watchdog of a government easily tempted towards tyranny. That still applies, but the public needs to be just as vigilant of those we grant the sacred responsibility of informing us. Although we’re the world’s oldest democracy, we’re still a very imperfect one.

News & Notes

 At our February meeting we were pleased to have join us four residents of our immediate neighbor to the south. In attendance were Kent County Commissioner William Pickrum, Democrat Club officers Bill Lindsay and Christina Showalter, and Pastor Gonzalee Matthews of Janes United Methodist Church in Chestertown. Our club now includes members from across the borders on both sides of the county, and it is always a pleasure, and mutually beneficial, to exchange ideas and inspiration with our fellow Maryland Democrats. Cecil County: where East, West, North and South meet in Maryland!

 DO PAY YOUR DUES – THEY’RE DUE! We urge all Democratic elected officials, potential candidates, and other supporters and enthusiasts (ideally, ALL DEMOCRATS) to support the club in any way they are willing. Certainly $12 a year (even less for couples) isn’t much to ask in return for all we do for our county and our party!

 Now that county population has hit 100,000, surely there are some young Democrats out there willing and able to form a Cecil Young Democrats Club, particularly in this year when so many young people are taking responsibility for their future and getting behind our Democratic candidates. Please be on the lookout for such talented and enthusiastic individuals, and encourage them to organize. We will be happy to help them get started!

 Our Club website, cecildemocrats.org, is being expanded to include current and past newsletters, articles of interest, club documents, and more links. Look for the changes this month.

Thanks to…

Club member / UAW officer Alena Bandy for addressing the club’s February pre-primary meeting regarding House Resolution 676, which proposes replacing for-profit health insurance companies with a single-payer system, and about the considerable power of women within the Democratic party.

In Sickness and in Wealth

Club Members Alena Bandy and Steve Crockett have been actively promoting House Resolution (H.R.) 676, the so-called “Expanded Medicare” bill which switches to a single-payer, more efficient method of paying for medical services. It takes the insurer profits out of health care while leaving the provider system itself alone and intact.

Switching to the Medicare “single payer” system would eliminate the complicated and redundant payment plans currently imposed on the system by private for-profit health insurers and save billions of dollars in annual administrative costs. Other advantages include total portability, meaning coverage would not be tied to any one job or location, lifelong coverage, long-term care coverage, and retention of choice regarding health-care providers.

Democratic enthusiast / labor activist / radio host / columnist and club member Steve Crockett (another advocate of H.R. 676) for his excellent websites and articles promoting our party and its causes, including http://www.democratictalkradio.com, http://www.democracyforcecil.com and http://www.censoredwhigletters.com (this one in particular is a wealth of information, much more than the site name suggests). Steve’s relentless activities on behalf of Democrats and unions take him far beyond county borders, whether in person or “on the air.”

Newest board member Betty Ulrich for organizing December’s successful toy drive that benefited Elkton’s Wayfarer’s House, and the club’s upcoming participation in the highly regarded “Christmas in April” project.

CECIL COUNTY DEMOCRAT CLUB OFFICERS

President: Wyatt Wallace 410-642-3028

Vice-President: Joe Janusz 410-287-7455 atshome@zoominternet.net

2d Vice-President: Betty Ulrich 410-398-9376 bette21921@yahoo.com

Treasurer: Mike Burns 410-392-4483 info@cecildemocrats.org

Corresponding Secretary: Ele Crossan 410-398-3089

Recording Secretary: Patricia Folk 410-398-1196 vzeej85v@verizon.net

Sergeant at Arms: Howard Pierce 410-287-6364 hpierce81@netzero.net

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Reprinted from The Democratic Herald, newsletter of the Cecil County Democratic Club

Studies: Iraq costs US $12B per month
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, Ap

The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the “burn” rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Beyond 2008, working with “best-case” and “realistic-moderate” scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion — or more — by 2017.

Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs.

Variations in such estimates stem from the sliding scales of assumptions, scenarios and budget items that are counted. But whatever the estimate, the cost will be huge, the auditors of the Government Accountability Office say.

In a Jan. 30 report to Congress, the GAO observed that the U.S. will be committing “significant” future resources to the wars, “requiring decision makers to consider difficult trade-offs as the nation faces an increasing long-range fiscal challenge.”

These numbers don’t include the war’s cost to the rest of the world. In Iraq itself, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion — with its devastating air bombardments — and the looting and arson that followed, severely damaged electricity and other utilities, the oil industry, countless factories, hospitals, schools and other underpinnings of an economy.

No one has tried to calculate the economic damage done to Iraq, said spokesman Niels Buenemann of the International Monetary Fund, which closely tracks national economies. But millions of Iraqis have been left without jobs, and hundreds of thousands of professionals, managers and other middle-class citizens have fled the country.

In their book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War,” Stiglitz, of Columbia University, and Bilmes, of Harvard, report the two wars will have cost the U.S. budget $845 billion in 2007 dollars by next Sept. 30, end of fiscal year 2008, assuming Congress fully funds Bush administration requests. That counts not just military operations, but embassy costs, reconstruction and other war-related expenses.

That total far surpasses the $670 billion in 2007 dollars the Congressional Research Service says was the U.S. price tag for the 12-year Vietnam War.

Although American military and Iraqi civilian casualties have declined in recent months, the rate of spending has shot up. A fully funded 2008 war budget will be 155 percent higher than 2004’s, the CBO reports.

The reasons are numerous: the “surge” of additional U.S. units into Iraq; rising fuel costs; fattened bonuses to attract re-enlistments; and particularly the need to “reset,” that is, repair or replace worn-out, destroyed or damaged military equipment. Almost $17 billion is appropriated this year for advanced armored vehicles to protect troops against roadside bombs.

Looking ahead, both the CBO and Stiglitz-Bilmes construct two scenarios, one in which U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan drop sharply and early — to 30,000 by late 2009 for the CBO, and to 55,000 by 2012 for Stiglitz-Bilmes — and a second in which the drawdown is more gradual.

Significantly, the two studies view different time frames, the CBO calculating possible costs met in the next 10 years, while Stiglitz and Bilmes also include costs incurred during that period but paid for later, such as equipment replaced in post-2017 budgets.

This factor figures most in the category of veterans’ medical care and disability payments, where the CBO foresees $9 billion to $13 billion in costs by 2017. Stiglitz and Bilmes, meanwhile, project $422 billion to $717 billion in costs over the lifetime of soldiers who by 2017 are wounded or otherwise mentally or physically disabled by the wars.

“The CBO is only looking 10 years out on everything,” Bilmes noted in an interview.

For its part, a CBO critique suggested that Bilmes and Stiglitz might be overstating the expense of treating veterans’ brain injuries, a costly category.

The two economists say their calculations are conservative, because they don’t encompass many “hidden” items in the U.S. budget. Their basic projections also exclude the potentially huge debt-service cost — on which CBO approximately agrees — and the cost to the U.S. economy of global oil prices that have quadrupled since 2003, an increase analysts blame partly on the Iraq upheaval.

Estimating all economic and social costs might push the U.S. war bill up toward $5 trillion by 2017, they say.

Their book already figures in the stay-or-leave debate over Iraq.

When Stiglitz testified on Feb. 28 before the congressional Joint Economic Committee, the ranking Republican, New Jersey’s Rep. Jim Saxton, complained that such projections are too imprecise to help determine relative costs and benefits of the Iraq war.

Saxton said a rapid U.S. pullout could lead to full-scale civil war and Iranian domination of Iraq, “enormous costs” that he said should be weighed in any calculation.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080309/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_war_costs

4th Annual Irish Festival
Saturday March 15th, 2007

Sponsored by Wilmington Turners Society
www.wilmingtonturners.org
701 S. Clayton Street, Wilmington, DE 19805
(302) 658-9011

11:00 AM to 5PM (Family Affair)

• Joanna Mell – Celtic Harpist and Storyteller
• The McAleer School Irish Dancers
• Transportation to & from St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Wilmington (11:45AM)
• Kids Games, Arts & Crafts
• Food and Beverages @ nominal charge

Cost $3 per Person or $10 per family

6PM to 11PM (Adults only)
Dinner 6PM to 7PM

Oliver McElhone, Irish Singer

Ham & Cabbage
Roast Beef
Beer, Wine, Soda
Guinness available @ a nominal charge

$25 per person, $20 for Wilmington Turners Society Member (In advance)

For Tickets call 302 658-9011
Or
Make check payable to
Wilmington Turners Society
C/o Michael Boyer
701 South Clayton Street
Wilmington, DE 19805

Two great book signing & lecture/discussion events in Philadelphia this week

Swim Against The Current
by Jim Hightower

In stores March 10: pre-order your copy today!

3/7/2008
6:00pm - 7:00pm
Free
Headhouse Books
619 S 2nd St
Philadelphia PA 19147
(215) 923 9525
http://www.headhousebooks.com/

Filed Under: Book Signing, Lecture
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The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi
by Les Leopold

Date: March 8, 2008
Time: 10am-2pm
Location: AFSCME District Council 33
3001 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

All attendees will receive a free copy of the book signed by the author!
Lunch will be provided!

Sponsored by USW Local 10-1, USW Local 10-86, USW Local 10-234 and PhilaPOSH.

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In The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi, author and labor expert Les Leopold recounts the life of the late Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union leader. Mazzocchi’s struggle to address the unconscionable toxic exposure of tens of thousands of workers led to passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and included work alongside nuclear whistleblower Karen Silkwood. Mazzocchi was a pioneer whose labor activism ranged from efforts to intergrate environmental concerns into labor organizing in the 1950’s when the term “environment” was nowhere on the political radar; to participation in the formation of the Labor Party in 1996 to give organized workers a bigger voice in the political process.

Author Les Leopold is a member of the United Steelworkers. He co-founded and currently directs The Labor Institute and the Public Health Institute in New York. He is also active in the Blue-Green Alliance.

Whose side are you on?

Jim Hightower looks at the election results and says people are tired of getting the “shaft”

Friday March 7th, 2008

Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the forthcoming book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. He was also twice elected: Texas Agriculture Commissioner.
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Transcript:

MATTHEW PALEVSKY, JOURNALIST: I’m sitting in Texas, where we saw an electoral draw on Tuesday. It looks like Clinton took the popular vote by a couple of percentage points. Obama is likely to take the caucus vote and perhaps pick up a couple more delegates than Clinton. What we saw was a divide labeled by the campaigns as hope versus experience. I’m here with Jim Hightower. He’s the former agriculture commissioner of Texas, radio commentator. What do you think this divide was that we saw in Texas?

JIM HIGHTOWER, AUTHOR, and RADIO COMMENTATOR: Well, people are for change. And we have two tremendous candidates offering really different qualities, but essentially still talking about a new direction for the country. So, you know, Clintons have been known here in Texas, active here in Texas for decades, so she came in with a very big advantage and good organizational structure. And then Obama came from out of nowhere, if you will, because of the excitement that he’s generated around the country, and then people began to turn to him as well. I was at my caucus on Tuesday night. It’s in a Baptist church up on South Congress Avenue, across the street from a bar—that’s very Texas. And it’s a very big church, but we had such a turnout that we couldn’t do it in the church. So we had to go out in the parking lot and divide up. Probably had, well, more than 400 people. And just to give you a contrast, four years ago in the presidential campaign, that precinct had 16 people at its caucus. Obama, as you indicated, represents sort of the future, a progressive vision, even hope. And I’ve heard some pundits try to trash hope. Well, that’s kind of an un-American thing. You know. America’s built on hope. It’s not a real good political strategy to try to stomp on hope. Whereas Clinton has a long record of progressive activism, and so she’s got natural support sitting there as well.

PALEVSKY: And you know the farmers of Texas quite well, I’m sure. How do they feel about this election?

HIGHTOWER: I think they’re mixed, you know, on all sorts of issues. Frankly, there’s no candidate talking about the agricultural issues, about the needs of the family farm, who continue to be squeezed out of business by the monopolies that buy their commodities and then buy the high-input companies that charge them gouging prices. So we need a farm policy that is entirely different than what we have, Democrat or Republican.

PALEVSKY: Did farm subsidies become an issue at all in this election?

HIGHTOWER: No.

PALEVSKY: No?

HIGHTOWER: No. And they shouldn’t, because the farm subsidies are very misplaced. I think we should have a level of farm subsidy, but it ought to be an investment in something that the public actually gets something back from, such as organic and sustainable production.

PALEVSKY: And you’ve even said elections aren’t about left and right, but they’re about the bottom and the top.

HIGHTOWER: Exactly, ’cause left or right is ideology. That’s speculation, really. It actually separates us. But top to bottom, that’s experience. That’s where people actually live. And if you start talking about those fundamental economic issues of who’s getting what out of the growth that we’ve all contributed to over the years, then people who might consider themselves conservative will say, “Yeah, you know, I’m one of those down here on the bottom, and I want to see a change too.” People are mostly concerned about the cost of their utility bills, and the price of gasoline, and the low wages, and whether their kids are going to have an economic future at all that doesn’t involve a hairnet. The American people know that the rich people, they’ve got the goldmine, and we’ve got the shaft over the last not just eight years, over the last thirty years, and people are looking for a change in that policy to bring the economy back to a grassroots level again. The swells are doing swell, but the rest of us are having a hard time making ends meet. And people are mad about that, and they want to know whose side are you on.

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