A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

We don’t live in a democracy, repeat after me

Posted: 23 Nov 2011

Spot on, argues Roger D. Hodge in Harpers:

The corruption of our institutions manifests itself in a variety of ways, but in none so dramatic as the imbalance of national wealth, which in recent decades has shattered records formerly set in the late 1920s. Although it is often claimed that the gap between rich and poor began decisively to widen in the late 1970s, as if to absolve Ronald Reagan for what his followers no doubt count as his primary accomplishment, the total share of income of the wealthiest 10 percent of American families was well within the postwar norm until 1982, when Reagan’s policies began a massive, decades-long transfer of national wealth to the rich.

Under Bill Clinton, who shamelessly appropriated the Reaganite agenda, the transfer was even more dramatic, as the top 10 percent captured an ever growing share of national income. The trend continued under George W. Bush, and by 2007 the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans (families earning more than $109,630) were taking in 50 percent of the national income. In 1980 the top 1 percent of Americans received 10 percent of the national income; by 2007 the superrich (those with income above $398,900) had increased their share to 23.5 percent. The average increase in real income for the bottom 99 percent of American families between 1973 and 2006 was a mere 8.5 percent, whereas the richest 1 percent saw a 190 percent rise in real income.

Such a distortion of the nation’s balance of wealth did not come about by accident; it was the result of a long series of policy decisions—about industry and trade, taxation and military spending, by flesh-and-blood humans sitting in concrete-and-steel buildings—that were bought and paid for by the less than 1 percent of Americans who participate in our capitalist democracy by contributing at least $200 to political campaigns. Gross inequalities in wealth not only create a perverse feedback loop in which the interests of the wealthy and the centers of power in government recede ever further from those of the general public; such inequality also distorts the political psychology of voters.

Some of the best recent empirical work in political science has shown that most Americans attempt to vote in accordance with their economic interests, rather than by the dictates of ephemeral antagonisms over God, gays, or guns. Unfortunately, economic
improvements for the vast majority of Americans over the past three decades have been so marginal that they are easily overshadowed by cynical manipulations of the political business cycle, the timing of economic expansions with election years, and by the strange fact that lower-income voters are more sensitive, in terms of voting behavior, to income growth among the wealthy than they are to their own economic well-being.

Since the early 1980s, the Democratic Party has largely abandoned its commitment to policies that serve the material interests of most Americans and has joined the Republican Party in a shameless competition for the patronage of large corporations and the superrich. Add to these complexities the proven power of campaign spending to influence election outcomes (Larry Bartels has calculated that each additional dollar spent per voter by a candidate increases the probability of a given undecided voter’s support by almost four percentage points), and it is easy to see that the average American has no hope of safeguarding his interests, whether they pertain to life, liberty, or happiness.

We cast our empty ballots for one party; then, disgusted with the inevitable betrayals, pray for a redeemer from the opposing party to rescue us from politics and history, only to repeat the cycle once again. Meanwhile, most of our citizens are fully absorbed in their personal affairs, oblivious and largely ignorant of the details of politics and governance. We are so very far from the classical republican ideal of ruling and being ruled, of exercising political agency and participating in the life of our commonwealth, that, incapable of pursuing even narrow self-interest effectively, we instead offer ourselves up as impotent, obsequious subjects, the unresisting tools of interests we scarcely comprehend.

State of journalism in Sri Lanka is dire

Posted: 23 Nov 2011

So much for being a democracy at the end of the civil war. This is what ongoing discrimination against free speech looks like.Andrew Buncombe reports for The Independent:

It is not simply dedication to his job that has led newspaper editor MV Kaanamyl-nathan to not leave his office for five-and-a-half years. In the spring of 2006, gunmen stormed into the building and sprayed automatic fire that killed two employees and left bullet holes in the walls and the table in the conference room that remain to this day.

Since then, two police officers have been assigned to permanent duty outside the building and Mr Kaanamylnathan and his wife have left their three-bedroom home in the city and moved into a small space next to the newsroom. “I don’t go out. The only exception is to go and see my doctor, a heart-specialist, once every three months,” Mr Kaanamylnathan said. “For that, I have to make to make special arrangements.

The plight of Mr Kaanamylnathan and his newspaper Uthayan, (Rising Sun in Tamil), where six members of staff have been killed in the past decade and many others attacked, threatened and harassed in incidents that continue today, is a frightening window into the world of journalism in Sri Lanka.

Campaigners say reporters and media employees here are among some of the most vulnerable in the world; at least 14 have been killed in recent years and many more forced into exile. Several others are missing and unaccounted for. Among the most high-profile of cases was that of Lasantha Wickramatunga, editor of the often-critical Sunday Leader, who was murdered in January 2009. Nobody has yet been charged with the killing.

Arab world not fooled by real American agenda; Israel, Israel and Israel

Posted: 23 Nov 2011

The numbers prove it (via IPS):

Despite repeated expressions of support by President Barack Obama for democratic change during the “Arab Spring”, the United States remains widely distrusted in the region, according to a major new survey of public opinion in five Arab countries released here Monday.

Instead, Turkey is viewed as having played the “most constructive” role in the past year’s events and its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, emerged as the most admired leader by far in the region, according to the 2011 edition of the annual “Arab Public Opinion Survey” conducted by Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution.

The survey, which was conducted during the last half of October, was based on detailed interviews of some 3,000 respondents from urban centres in Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It also included Saudi Arabia, the results from which, however, arrived too late to be weighted with the other five countries.

“Turkey is the biggest winner of the Arab Awakening,” said Telhami, who noted that, despite increasing disillusionment with Obama’s performance on Israel-Palestinian issues, the U.S. president himself appears to have gained some ground in Arab public opinion since the summer of 2010 when the last survey was conducted.

Nonetheless, most Arabs, according to the new poll, continue to believe that Washington’s policies in the Middle East are mainly driven by its desire to control oil and protect Israel from its Arab neighbours. Only five percent said they believe the U.S. is driven by the desire to spread human rights or democracy.

Why the Northern Territory intervention is morally devious

Posted: 23 Nov 2011

PNG welcomes Israel into its beating bosom

Posted: 22 Nov 2011

This is how Israel builds its soft power. As civilised peoples increasingly recognise the Jewish state as a racially discriminatory anachronism from a different age, Zionism must cultivate backing from smaller, more desperate nations keen for infrastructure and cash. Hello Papua New Guinea:

The people of Hela and the Israelis will work in partnership to develop a major hydro-electricity project [to cost] PGK300 million [US$136.9 million] using the mighty Hewaii Falls of Tagali river in Tari.

Southern Highlands Governor Anderson Agiru announced this during an awareness visit on Tuesday to Hapono and Mapana villages near the Hewaii Falls in the Hayapuga local level government (LLG) area in Tari District.

To the applause of the huge crowd that had gathered for the occasion, Governor Agiru said he would lead a delegation to Jerusalem in Israel on Christmas Eve this year to sign the agreement between the government and people of Israel and Hela for this major hydro-electricity project. Governor Agiru said the Hewaii Falls hydro plant would be constructed over a period of six years and would provide power just like the Yonki hydro plant in Eastern Highlands Province. Governor Agiru said landowners would also have ‘equity’ in this hydro-electricity project just like the landowners of the hydro carbon industries in the multi-billion kina PNG LNG project like Hides PDL1, Hides 4 PDL 7, Angore, Juha and Komo LNG international airport.

He said the PNG LNG project has a lifespan of 30 years but the Hewaii Falls hydro project would be everlasting and is expected to bring in more benefits and developments to the landowners now and in their future. Governor Agiru who was accompanied by engineers, investors and officials from Israel and PNG’s Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) to the occasion said pre-feasibility study work on the hydro project would start this week including identification of possible construction site before actual design and construction begins.

He said as a project of huge magnitude, it would take time. He has urged his people for patience as they embrace this huge development coming into their area which is also situated a few kilometres away from the Nogoli, Kobalu, Hides PDL 1 and Angore hydro carbon project areas. Governor Agiru urged his people to look after the engineers and experts who would come and develop their hydro-electricity project, adding that with this another major hydro-electricity project in Hela, he has created a “ridge and an everlasting relationship” between his Hela people and people of Israel, the “Biblical Promised Land”.

He said apart from the hydro-project at Hewaii Falls, Israeli food technologists and investors have also signed agreements with the provincial government to develop three major agro-industrial centres (AIC) in the province at Hulia in Tari, Koroba and Tente in Mendi. Governor Agiru said with these AIC and factories, food, cash crops, vegetables, animals, livestock, poultry and all agricultural produce would be produced, processed and packaged for both commercial and domestic consumption. He said AIC would involve the development of barren and waste land in the province into plantations like the huge Hayapuga swamp in Tari and others while there will also be arrangement with landowners to work their own land and grow products and animal husbandry to supply to the AIC as food security project.