The passing scene: January 7, 2015

60 Words and a War Without End: The Untold Story of the Most Dangerous Sentence in U.S. History by Gregory D. Johnson for BuzzFeed.

The Authorization for the Use of Military Force was intended to give President George W. Bush the authority to hunt down the terrorists who plotted the 9/11 attacks.  But President Bush and President Obama after him have used it as justification for any kind of covert or military action anywhere in the world that they deem necessary for national security.  This article tells how AUMF was enacted, and the debate over its meaning.

Nonviolent Conflicts in 2014 You May Have Missed Because They Were Not Violent by Erica Chenoweth for Political Violence @ A Glance.

Violent methods of struggle have more credibility than non-violent methods.  When mass defiance fails, it is seen as a reason to shift to violent struggle.  When violent struggle fails, it is seen as a reason to double down on violence.

FBI says search warrants not needed to use “stingrays” in public places by David Kravets for ars technica.

The FBI has erected fake cell phone towers which it uses to intercept and listen in on cell phone conversations.

Bernie Sanders Brutal Letter on Obama’s Trade Pact Foreshadows 2016 Democratic Clash by Zach Carter for Huffington Post.

Why the Tech Elite Is Getting Behind Universal Basic Income by Nathan Schneider for Vice News.

 

The passing scene: Links & comments 9/30/14

Bernie Sanders: Longterm Democratic strategy is “pathetic”, an interview by Thomas Frank for Salon.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, said the Democratic Party is too beholden to big-money donors to do anything meaningful for working people.  Instead Democrats pin their hopes on social issues, demographic changes and fear of Republican extremism.

Sanders told Thomas Frank that nothing is going to change until there is a political awakening in this country as to the power of big money and the need to overthrow it.

Obama’s Long Battle to Cut Social Security Benefits by Eric Zuesse for Washington’s Blog.

President Obama throughout his term of office has tirelessly campaigned for a budget-balancing bargain in which Social Security and Medicare would be cut.  This is not something Republicans have forced upon him.  It goes well beyond anything they have asked for.

None of this is a secret.  It is all on the public record.  Yet few of Obama’s supporters seem to notice.

Did Indiana Autoworkers Strike a Blow Against Two-Tier Contracts? by David Moberg for In These Times (via Bill Harvey)

Two-tier union contracts, in which newly-hired workers start at a lower pay rate than the incumbents, demonstrate the weakness and lack of solidarity of labor unions and their pessimism about the future.

The United Auto Workers signed a contract with a Lear Corp. auto parts plant in Hammond, Indiana, that supposedly restores the principle of equal pay for equal work.  But the price of the contract is wage reductions for sub-assembly workers.  So did the workers gain or lose?

My e-mail pen pal Bill Harvey, who sent me the link, pointed out that the two-tier benefits structure remains in place.

After Surgery, $117,000 Medical Bill from Doctor He Didn’t Know by Elisabeth Rosenthal for the New York Times.

Hospitals and physicians jack up medical bills by bringing in “out of network” consultants without asking the patient’s permission.  Not every ethical!

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David Malone, a British blogger who posts as Golem XIV, has written a new installment in his series about the strategy of the global over-class.   Here are links to the complete series so far.

The Next Crisis – Part One

The Next Crisis – Part Two – A manifesto for the supremacy of the 1%

The Next Crisis – Part Three – The World Turned Upside Down

These articles a bit long to read on a screen, but they contain good information and insight.

What to do about Social Security

Sometime within the next couple of decades, barring surprises, the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted.  That doesn’t mean there will be no money to pay Social Security benefits.  It means that the accumulated surplus funds earmarked to pay for the Baby Boom generation’s retirement will be exhausted, and payroll taxes won’t be enough to cover full benefits.

One way to deal with this is to raise the cap on payroll taxes, as proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont.  Neither President Obama nor the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress is considering this.  Instead, their method of heading off a future reduction in benefits is a present reduction in benefits, either through raising the retirement age or reducing cost-of-living increases by calculating them with the Chained CPI.

What a real socialist sounds like

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, is the only avowed socialist in the U.S. Senate.  He gave an 8.5-hour speech on Dec. 10 on the agreement between President Obama and the Republican leadership on tax legislation.  Some parts of the speech are on the YouTube videos below.  If you think President Obama is a socialist, listen to what a real socialist sounds like.