Bush Gets Something Right—Maybe

The Bush Regime has been a failure. How big a failure depends on who you ask, but there are only a handful of diehards (also known as blowhards, or the blind being led by the blind) who think George W. has been a good president. If you ask me—I suggest you don’t, or we’ll be here all night—I’ll tell you that Bush II has been, by far, the Worst President in History, the Quintessential Bad President, the Inaugural Inductee into the Bad Presidents' Hall of Fame.

But there have been a couple of things in six years that have been handled right. The first was the initial building of the global coalition against terrorism after September 11, 2001, and the coordinated pursuit of Al Qaida. That the goodwill was completely squandered by the lawless invasion of Iraq and the arrogance with which international relations have been conducted since, however, is shameful and negates these tentative, positive steps. It’s as if we as a nation earned a first down on the field of global progress, and then fumbled the ball back to our own goal line.

Today, it sounds like the Bush Regime has the opportunity to move a few steps forward, regaining a tiny bit of lost ground. There is the mess that is the Walter Reed Medical Center. I don’t know that it’s useful to lay blame for the catastrophe that has been discovered there (although allowing it to be overwhelmed is certainly part of a poorly conceived and badly executed war strategy), but I am pleased by Bush’s actions to rectify matters. As I understand it, he’s proceeding on two fronts—one commission to make long term proposals and another to take immediate action. This seems right. The wounded deserve this, and I hope the problems are solved.

And we also hear today that the U.S. will participate in the Iraq security conference this weekend, along with Iran. This is, in my view, the key to cleaning up the Iraq quagmire that the U.S. invasion and occupation has predictably caused, and may also settle tensions with Iran. Iraq needs to talk to its neighbors and the U.S. has to participate. I can envision us still screwing this up by making unreasonable demands on (the shape of the table, perhaps?) but if we get this right, there might be a way forward.

Priorities for the New Congress

Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Nation lists ten existing bills that should be passed by the new Congress (some partially addressed during the “first 100 hours”):

1. Healthcare for All (HR 676)—a single payer healthcare system expanding Medicare to everyone. See HealthCare-Now.
2. Counting Every Vote. (HR 550)—requiring a voter-verified paper trail for all voting systems.
3. Healthy families Act (HR 1902)—requiring most employers to provide one week of paid sick leave for many employees.
4. The Right to Organize (HR 1696)—requiring union recognition after a majority of workers authorize representation.
5. No Permanent Bases in Iraq (House Conference Resolution 197).
6. Stop Outsourcing Torture (HR 952).
7. Access to Higher Education (HR 5150)—“Reverse the Raid on Student Aid Act”—cutting interest rates on college loans.
8. Free and Independent Media (HR 3302)—reducing the number of media outlets one company is permitted to own in a single market.
9. Public Financing of Campaigns (HR 3099).
10. Clean Energy (S 2829)—aimed at reducing US petroleum consumption.

This agenda would be a great start to reversing the damage caused by the Bush administration.

United Nations Plays an Important Role

I've noticed a lot of UN bashing lately, even a whole Virginia blog dedicated to why that particular lunatic hates the UN. But, as usual, the bashers display a fundamental lack of understanding of what the organization is and does. Not even the neocons in the Bush administration want to see the UN go away, even though they have been unbelievably clumsy in dealing with the global body.

It is true that the UN has not always been effective. But how much of this failure is due to the lack of support from the U.S. Without the U.S., the UN stands little chance of performing to its potential, and when the U.S. President, and his ambassador, actually stand in the way, then failure is certain. So I blame the United States for the deficiencies at the United Nations.

But it is also true, in my opinion, that the world would be a lot worse off without the UN. Security and peace-keeping may not be strengths of the organization--although to whom else can we turn?--but the UN does so much more: development, aid to refugees and protection of children, and, perhaps most importantly, providing a forum for diplomacy. In a world that is shrinking, multilateralism is important. The U.S. will never rule the globe, no matter how much George Bush may dream of it. The best we can hope for is that we can live in peaceful coexistence with our earthly neighbors, and the UN is an essential element of that hope.

It is my wish, therefore, that Bush--or, more likely, the next President--will recognize the importance of diplomacy and role of the international organizations such as the UN, and will support, instead of undermining, its mission.

Abolish the Death Penalty

For the most part, the same people who claim that they are “pro-life” also favor the death penalty. But it isn’t the hypocrisy of the death penalty proponents that bothers me (that’s nothing new for the Reactionary Right), it’s the barbarism of it all. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me either, given the blood-lust much of these folks have for Bush’s New Crusades (“the only good Moslem is a dead Moslem”—the logical extension of their reasoning for supporting the war in Iraq).

But to the point. The death penalty is barbaric and should be abolished in the United States. Studies have shown that executions have no deterrent effect. As mere punishment, the effect would be over in an instant (in theory anyway—recent bungled lethal injections have not been so swift, raising “cruel and unusual” worries). The only remaining rationale is revenge, which is clearly what is on the minds of conservatives (which brings us back to hypocrisy, of course, given that these same conservatives claim to be Christians, for whom revenge—administered by mortals, at least—ought to be antithetical). Revenge is not a principle on which a civilized nation should stand. It is beneath us and is unproductive.

Furthermore, mistakes can be made and the death penalty is irreversible (short of resurrection). Human beings—prosecutors, judges and juries—are fallible. Why compound our own errors by killing the innocent?

Abolish the death penalty.

Is the “Fence” the right answer?

I have to agree with those who say that illegal immigration is a problem in this country. I’m not sure the magnitude of the problem is quite what the proponents of the “Fence” would have us believe, nor do I think the “costs” of the problem take into account the “benefits”—both to American businesses and households and also to the visitors themselves and their families who depend on their meager earnings for survival. Hardcore anti-immigration pundits tend to forget that the immigrants come here to work, to earn money to feed their families and themselves, and that the immigrants are human beings. Compassion rarely figures in the discussion.

But I think it should. Furthermore, prohibition rarely works--it only leads to black markets and back alleys. Criminalizing drug abuse hasn’t been effective in reducing the problem. What we’ve done is create fabulously wealthy smugglers and dealers and filled prisons with drug users and minor distributors. We’re on our way to doing the same with immigration. (And I can’t help but think that there is a racial element here as well; if the illegal immigrants were white—-Canadians, say—-would there still be an uproar?)

As with many of our societal problems, the way to deal with this issue is to go back to the source, to treat the cause of the problem and not the symptoms. (This is how we should be dealing with terrorism, drug abuse, abortion, and so many of our current problems, by the way.) Why do immigrants come here illegally? It’s simple: they come from incredibly poor countries with little or no hope for meaningful employment. For the vast majority, they don't want to break U.S. law, they just want to feed their families. They can find work here. They can’t find work at home. If they could find work at home, they would much rather stay there—-where the culture and language are familiar, where their friends and families live, where they aren’t treated like dirt by their wealthy, unwelcoming hosts. It’s pretty simple.

So the solution to the problem is not to build a fence. It’s to build economies. What we ought to be doing is helping Mexico and the other countries of origin improve their economies so that jobs and opportunities are created at home. If the work is available at home, most will choose to stay there rather than coming to the U.S. This is easier said than done, of course, but shouldn’t we at least give it a shot, instead of just accepting the Fence and becoming everything it implies?