The best way to predict the future is to help create it - Edward Kuharski

Pres. Obama, I have just received your Thanksgiving day message to campaign supporters. We worked for your election because we acutely needed a President whose actions matched his words. I am deeply disappointed that we have not found that in you - as yet.

It is unacceptable for you to tolerate continued policy to make and use land mines, nuclear weapons and other WMD, or to continue the crimes of indefinite imprisonment & torture of those accused, but not convicted of, any crime. We need to be able to distinguish our policy from that of North Korea, Myanmar or Iran.

You cannot claim a commitment to Peace, Justice and the end of Earth abuse while proposing to escalate our most egregious, purely voluntary CO2 emissions and deep environmental destruction in a "war" with no distinct adversary and no defined or achievable goal in Afghanistan, Iraq and through our own terror networks spread across the globe.

You cannot limit your leadership in the vitally needed rapid re-engineering of our life support systems, and merely drop in to Copenhagen with a weak and tentative promise on the way to collect your unearned Nobel. An honest response at this point is to decline, based on the fact that since you were nominated you have chosen to stay on the path of War and have been just as willing, for instance, to approve cowardly killings by drone aircraft as your morally malformed predecessor. We are no better than the Germans with their V2's murdering Londoners.

You cannot come to my city and propose a competition to adequately fund only a select handful of public schools and then talk about providing benefits to all. (The school you visited here has a budget of $3 million/year, equal to sending 3 soldiers to Afghanistan.)

You cannot provide welfare to Wall Street and crumbs to Main Street. You cannot leave people like me who are out of work for months to beg for another year or more and claim you are serving the people. You work for me even if they buy off all of you in Washington.

All of these failures of policy are connected and their correction must be of a piece if we are to have any HOPE of leaving a planet that isn't a curse on our children and that they won't rightly curse us for creating. At your Inauguration you said we needed to push you. That is exactly what we will do. You are capable of far better than you have delivered so far. The time for courage and action is now. We are going ahead without you in creating real change and reclaiming power at the local & regional level. Please follow our lead.

Edward Kuharski, ekuharski@aol.com, 608-255-5816

Steve Burns: "Force you to buy insurance" bill passes house

With all the hoopla attending last week's passage in the House of Representatives of the Affordable Healthcare for America Act, surprisingly little attention was given to the issue of the "individual mandate", a provision forcing most of the 50 million uninsured to either purchase insurance (most likely from a for-profit insurance company) or pay a fine. A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that a family of three with an income of $45,000 could be facing anywhere from $2500 to $4300 in annual health insurance premium costs, depending on which version of the bill is finally enacted. The report estimates that health insurance premiums could eat up as much as half of the family's disposable income. Why has this provision attracted so little attention? And what can we do about it?

The individual mandate was the key demand of the insurance industry as the Obama administration and Congressional leaders began work on a health care reform bill, and an army of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions helped to make it a reality. Insurance companies argued that if they were prohibited from denying coverage due to a pre-existing condition (another provision in the health reform bill) then all uninsured Americans should required to purchase insurance, or people would simply wait until they had a serious illness before obtaining insurance. Quickly, a bipartisan consensus formed around the individual mandate, with support from key Senate Republicans and President Obama. At the same time, an employer mandate, requiring medium-sized and large businesses to insure their employees, was dropped from consideration because it was considered too burdensome.

But without a strong public option that could pay doctors and hospitals at Medicare's reimbursement rates, the cost of subsidies to those now being required to buy insurance skyrocketed. Much of the debate about the cost of health care reform has centered around the cost of subsidies to the uninsured to enable them to pay the high rates demanded by for-profit insurers. The average cost of family coverage in the US is now more than $12,000 a year, a number far out of reach of the millions of low-income service workers that make up the bulk of the uninsured. Given the concerns voiced by conservative Senate Democrats about the cost of the bill, it's likely that pressure to reduce these subsidies will mean that the final bill's cost to the uninsured to purchase insurance will tend toward the higher numbers in the Senate bill rather than the lower cost (to individuals) in the House bill.

In order to enforce the individual mandate, all of the bills under consideration include penalties for those who are uninsured and don't purchase insurance. The Senate Finance Committee bill, for example, levies a fine of $750 per adult in the household per year, exempting those families for whom the cost of insurance would exceed 8% of their annual income ($3,600 a year for a family with an income of $45,000 a year.) Because of the less-generous subsidies in the Senate Finance bill, families making between 220% of the Federal Poverty level (or $40,000 a year) and 400% of FPL (or $73,000 a year) can expect to pay more than 8% of their income for insurance and so be exempt from the penalty. Paradoxically, because the subsidies to those making less than 220% of FPL are just generous enough to bring their expected cost below the 8% threshold, these families, the poorest of the working poor, will be exposed to the penalty for non-participation. Thus, under the Senate Finance bill, a family of two adults and one child with an annual income of $36,000 could either pay $2500 in insurance premiums (money they likely don't have) or pay a $1500 fine - and be left without insurance. These families will be worse off than if Congress had done nothing at all to "help" the uninsured.

Recently, the insurance industry has begun to complain that the fines for non-participation are not high enough, and so these fines may very well be increased in the final bill.

Why has the individual mandate attracted so little media and public attention? Compare the results of a Google News search for "health care individual mandate" with a search for "Health care death panels" and you'll find that death panels which are not in any of the bills have garnered vastly more attention than fines for the uninsured which are in every version of the health care bill. This can largely be explained by the bipartisan support that individual mandates enjoy. The corporate media only sees issues through a "Republican vs. Democrat" lens, and so policies that aren't attracting criticism from one of the major parties aren't considered worth reporting on. Add in the fact that the reporters covering the story are not themselves uninsured, and the general tendency of the media to wait until all the details have been settled before informing the public of what has been decided for them, and you have a near blackout of media coverage on an issue that has the potential to cost millions of families thousands of dollars a year.

Taking a step back to look at the big picture, what we have, whatever version of health care "reform" passes, is legislation that guarantees the health insurance industry 50 million new paying customers by criminalizing the millions of Americans who simply cannot afford to buy insurance. It's reasonable to ask who the real beneficiaries of this legislation are - the uninsured, or the insurance industry? In fact, the purpose of this legislation becomes crystal-clear when we examine the predicament that the insurance industry has priced itself into. The costs for health insurance have long risen at rates far above the general rate of inflation, more than doubling over the past decade. As a result, many employers and individuals have been priced out of the insurance market, and the insurance industry now finds itself with a rapidly shrinking customer base. In any other industry, this would be cause for deep cuts in profits and costs, until the cost of the product could be brought into line with what the public was able to pay. But most industries aren't able to call on the coercive power of the Federal government to force people to buy their product. It's as if the prices of automobiles had risen at double-digit rates for years, until most Americans could no longer afford even a subcompact car, and in response, the auto industry proposed an "Affordable Automobiles for America Act" that required all Americans to buy a car. Problem solved!

What can we do about it? We are faced with a powerful corporate interest supported by a broad bipartisan consensus and abetted by a "news" media that either incapable of or uninterested in informing the public. At this point, it's hard to see how "call your Congressman" or even mass civil resistance can derail the plan for the individual mandate. Advocates for reform should be planning now for what happens after "health care reform" passes both houses of Congress and is signed by the President. At some point, millions of Americans will find out that they have a choice between sending four hundred dollars a month to Cigna, or paying $1500 to the federal government in return for no insurance at all. Some will find their need for insurance great enough and the subsidies generous enough that they will purchase insurance, and may even consider themselves lucky to be able to do so. But what of the millions of uninsured who can't afford to buy insurance at exorbitant for-profit rates? Those families and individuals can respond to their plight as individuals, and grumble privately while perhaps blaming themselves for their "failure" to earn enough to participate in the for-profit insurance market, or they could respond collectively, seeing their mass refusal to be milked by the insurance industry as a political act. Which approach the uninsured take will depend on the efforts that advocates of true reform take now to frame the issue and educate the public. Massive non-participation - not for ideological reasons, but due to a simple inability to pay - could form the core tactic of a powerful popular movement for the sort of free, universal care that people in every other industrialized country take for granted. First, large-scale non-participation will increase political pressure on Congress to revisit the issue of subsidies for the uninsured, and to make the subsidies more generous. Next, the massive costs of more generous subsidies will increase the pressure on Congress to create a genuine public option (which is not likely to be in any bill passed this year) in order to control costs. Finally, a government brought to bankruptcy by the staggering costs of premium subsidies even with a public option will be forced to turn to the only system that ever made any sense: single payer. As Winston Churchill once said of Americans, "You can always count on them to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

Jeff Leys: Preparing to non-violently resist Afghanistan strategy

By Jeff Leys
Co-Coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence

This past Wednesday, Admiral Mullen (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) announced that the Pentagon will seek additional war funds for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in 2010. While he did not give a firm dollar amount, the New York Times reported that defense budget analysts are kicking around the number of $50 billion. The Times also reported that Jack Murtha, Chair of the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, indicated on October 30 that he expects the supplemental spending bill for 2010 to be in the range of $40 billion. The final dollar amount won't be known until the White House submits its "emergency" supplemental spending request to Congress, most likely around February 2.

In the immortal words of Coach Vince Lombardi: "What the hell is going on out there?"

We should be so lucky if it were a simple matter of the Green Bay Packers screwing up the power sweep.

Instead, it's a matter of the Obama Administration now leading us down the path of the most expensive year in war funding since President Bush began the so-called "Global War on Terror" (now morphed into the "Overseas Contingency Operations" under President Obama).

You read that correctly. War spending in 2010 will exceed $190 billion if indeed the Pentagon seeks-and Congress approves--$50 billion in "emergency" funding. That's more than the $179 billion spent under President Bush in 2008, the previous high water mark for war spending. War spending in 2010 will also far exceed spending in 2009 (which is about $145 billion).

While Admiral Mullen did not announce a new war strategy for Afghanistan, it is difficult to conceive for what this additional $40 to $50 billion will be used if not used to expand the war in Afghanistan (and to perhaps continue the occupation of Iraq at near current troop levels without the substantive reductions promised earlier this year).

Let's compare the numbers from 2009 to 2010 for three key areas of spending: Personnel costs; Operation and Maintenance costs; and Procurement costs.

Funding levels in 2009 were: Personnel - $19.9 billion; Operation and Maintenance - $80.4 billion; and Procurement - $31.9 billion.

Current funding levels in 2010 are: Personnel - $14.1 billion; Operation and Maintenance - $80.3 billion; and Procurement - $22.2 billion. (With all the talk about building Afghanistan's army and police forces, it is worth noting that spending on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund increases from $5.6 billion in 2009 to $6.6 billion in 2010, so it's not likely that the "emergency" supplemental will include significantly more funds for this category).

Total funding levels in these three main areas are approximately $15.6 billion less in 2010 than in 2009. While Procurement funding declines in 2010 compared to 2009, this decline is most likely the result of returning to a more normative definition of what constitutes "emergency" war spending than the very expansive definition that was implemented under President Bush and that resulted in the explosion of Procurement spending to approximately $45 billion in both 2007 and 2008 (Procurement spending in 2005 was $18 billion and in 2006 it was $22.9 billion before this expansion).

The Congressional Research Service notes in a September 2009 report that the President's budget for 2010 includes both the increase in troop levels in Afghanistan to 69,000 ordered by President Obama earlier this year and the anticipated reduction in U.S. troop levels in Iraq through August 2010.

Which leads one to ask the question:

In announcing that the Pentagon intends to seek additional war funding for 2010, did Admiral Mullen tip the hat that President Obama intends to dramatically increase the level of U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan--edging towards that 40,000 additional troops that General McChrystal seems to be requesting?

Or that the U.S. intends to otherwise dramatically increase the level of combat operations in Afghanistan and into Pakistan, which would carry the potential for significant increased costs in Operations and Maintenance as well as in Procurement funds?

Or that the U.S. intends to maintain troop levels in Iraq near current levels for the remainder of 2010?

Mullen's statement comes within the context of Obama's speech to service members in which he said that the U.S. would not send members of the military into harm's way without adequate resources. It comes within the context of Obama assuming personal responsibility for his decisions as commander-in-chief when he became the first U.S. President in decades to personally participate in the ceremonies at Dover upon the return of U.S. service members who died in war. The sequencing of events seems to be preparing the way for President Obama to issue the order to dramatically increase U.S. troop levels and combat operations in Afghanistan.

Somehow we must reinvigorate the antiwar movement that seems to have largely gone missing over these past several months.

One campaign under way to rise to the challenge is the Peaceable Assembly Campaign.

From January 19 through February 2, the PAC will maintain a two week vigil at the White House and engage in regular acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, starting on the day President Obama enters his second year in office, continuing through his anticipated State of the Union address to Congress, and concluding on the day he is to submit his budget for 2011 to Congress.

Then after February 2, the Peaceable Assembly Campaign will focus its work upon Congress. Similar to the Occupation Project effort of 2007, the PAC will organize lobbying--both legal and extralegal (i.e., civil disobedience)--in the home offices of Representatives and Senators who do not commit themselves publicly to oppose additional funding for the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the occupation
of the Palestinian territories.

You can become involved with the Peaceable Assembly Campaign here.

Now is not the time to equivocate in our opposition to the continuing and expanding wars. The die is being cast by the Obama Administration. It is our choice on how we respond. And rather than being directed at the Administration, perhaps we should direct Coach Lombardi's challenge to ourselves. After all…

What the hell IS going on out here?

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Jeff Leys is Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. He can be reached via email at: jeffleys@vcnv.org.

Peace too 'political' for Vets Day parade

By Bill Christofferson

When is a veteran not a veteran?

When he or she is a Veteran for Peace, according to the committee which runs Milwaukee's Veterans Day parade.

According to the committee's logic, inviting non-veteran politicians to march in the Veterans Day parade is not political, but having the word "peace" in an organization's name is.

Members of Veterans for Peace have again been barred from participation in Milwaukee's Veterans Day Parade, although the parade website says the event is “Honoring all Americans who have served.”

The committee has refused to allow Veterans for Peace members – many of whom are combat veterans with Purple Hearts – from taking part in the observance on Saturday, Nov. 7, saying Veterans for Peace is “a politically motivated group,” and therefore not welcome.

So much for “honoring all Americans who have served.”

Chapter 102 members (I am one) did not ask to participate in the parade to make a political statement, but to take our rightful place in the annual event saluting all who served our country in uniform.

Yet the committee, which finds us “political,” invites non-veteran politicians -- Scott Walker, Gwen Moore, Tom Barrett -- to march in the parade, and welcomes veterans groups which are outspoken in support of military action and war.

The committee’s reply, from Chairman David Drent, said,

“There is no doubt that your organization is a politically motivated group. One visit to the organization’s website makes your views perfectly clear.

“We don’t make judgment on your purpose. End the war or escalate it carries the same weight with the board. A political statement is being made and there is no room in the parade for it.”

“We thank you for your service in our Armed Forces, but our goal has always been to have a day of honor that is 100% politically free.”

The committee’s decision was unanimous, he said.

Is the parade "100% politically free?" Hardly. The Veterans of Foreign Wars is welcome to march in the parade, even though its commander, Thomas Tradewell of Sussex, WI, recently called on President Obama to “heed the assessment and advice of his military leaders” and send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, suggesting that as commander-in-chief Obama’s job is to do what the generals recommend.

Apparently the parade committee doesn’t consider pro-escalation positions or even politicians to be “political." Veterans for Peace is in a class by itself.

In his letter to the committee, Chapter 102’s Mark Foreman wrote:

“We share your pride in having served this nation, whether during time of peace or war. We are a part of the Milwaukee community and of the veteran’s community.

Our major project is a Homeless Veterans Initiative, which has been operating for a year, to find and assess homeless and at-risk veterans and help them get the services they need to reach their highest possible level of independence. It is work we do on a daily basis with the estimated 3,900 to 5,200 veterans who are homeless in Milwaukee every year.

“We do not ask to participate in the parade to make a political statement, but to take our rightful place in the annual event saluting all who served our country in uniform. Veterans cover the political spectrum, as they represent the diversity of this country with a mix of race, gender, religion, economic status, and other characteristics.

“What we all have in common is our service, which is what Veterans Day celebrates. We respect other veterans and other veterans organizations. All we ask is that your committee pay us the same respect.

“We have been told in the past that the very name of our organization, Veterans for Peace, is “political” and therefore cannot be part of the parade.

But we believe all veterans who have experienced war share a desire for peace. As U.S. Senator John McCain, a decorated war veteran, has said, "Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war… "I hate war, and I know how terrible its costs are.” Senator McCain also said, “Veterans hate war more than anyone else.”

“Many Veterans for Peace chapters across the country are welcomed and march in Veterans Day parades in other cities. We hope Milwaukee will reconsider its previous position and welcome Veterans for Peace in its 2009 parade.”

Chapter 102 members will attend the parade to collect donations along the route for our Homeless Veterans Initiative, and distribute flyers explaining that VFP is not welcome in the parade itself.

VFP will continue to press the committee to do the right thing in the future. You can help, by expressing your views to the committee. Write: Veterans Day Parade, Box 684, Milwaukee WI 53201. Call 414- 414-453-8753. Or email: vetsparade@tds.net

Sponsors of the parade listed on the website are: Batteries Plus, Tropic Banana Co., Meyer and Wallis, Budweiser, Radio Station FM 106.1, Paul Conway Shields and Equipment, WISN Radio, and the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center.

Drent, the parade committee chair, is also executive director of the War Memorial Center, which receives $1.5-million a year in support from county taxpayers. So a taxpayerf-supported organization is keeping veterans out of the veterans parade. See anything wrong with that?

I think it's time to take our case to the sponsors and elected county officials, to let them know the self-appointed committee,including a tax-supported sponsor, is excluding military veterans from what should be a community-wide observance honoring those who have served, as the parade website claims.

Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War will sponsor a Veterans Day celebration on the day itself, Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. in the rotunda of Milwaukee City Hall, 200 E. Wells. The public is invited -- even war hawks.

Bill Christofferson: Dont worry, be active! Activists enjoy life more, study says

Why do we do what we do, and keep on keeping on, even when it seems like no one is listening, and our protests appear to be falling on deaf ears, or no ears?

This certainly isn't the last word on the subject, but here's one suggestion: Activism is it's own reward. Whether you succeed in achieving your goals or not, you'll enjoy life more because you tried.

Skeptical? Here's what the Boston Post reports:

Activists are dissatisfied with the drift of the times and outraged at the misdeeds of their ideological enemies.

But they are also, it turns out, enjoying their lives more than the rest of us. At least if recent research is to be believed, political activism, no matter the cause, seems to make people happy - even if they don’t win an election or triumph in a ballot initiative. Psychologists curious about what fuels human happiness have looked at political engagement and political activism, and they’ve found that it provides people with a sense of empowerment, of community, of freedom, and of transcendence. Political activists, in other words, are all happy warriors.

The paper suggests that's true whether you're a liberal or conservative, whether you're screaming at a tea party protest or marching to end the wars.

On its face, that seems dubious. Maybe it's just how it looks on television, but I'd say a lot of tea party types are hyperventilating and raising their blood pressure. But who's to say what makes people enjoy life?

Read the article here.

Steve Burns: Congress passes Iraq withdrawal timeline, nobody notices

Last Wednesday, President Obama signed into law the 2010 Defense Authorization Act, providing $550 billion for the Department of Defense and the national security programs of the Department of Energy and $130 billion to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since there is no disagreement between Republicans and Democrats about the need for the US to spend more on its military than the rest of the world combined, military spending bills like this one generally attract no media attention, and this one would have been completely unremarked-on by the corporate media if not for the inclusion of Federal hate crimes legislation in the bill.

Another provision seems to have gone completely unnoticed, a measure reaffirming the December 2011 date for a complete withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq that is part of the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the Bush administration and ratified by the Iraqi parliament in November 2008. The new provision also requires the Pentagon to report to Congress every three months on progress to withdraw all U.S. troops, withdraw or transfer to Iraqi authorities all military equipment, close down or transfer to Iraqi authorities military bases, and release or transfer to Iraqi authorities all Iraqi detainees before the December 31, 2011 deadline.

Obama himself had no comments on the Iraq withdrawal language contained within the military-spending bill, and a Google News search shows that a Friends Committee on National Legislation press release on the topic was picked up on only by Reuters and the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

Despite the lack of media interest, the provision may be significant as an example of Congressional push-back against efforts within the Defense Department to extend a US military presence in Iraq beyond December 2011. Back in July, for example, while on a surprise visit to Baghdad, Defense Secretary Gates speculated that the Iraqi government may "need" US troops to stay beyond the Dec. 2011 deadline. Gates added: "What happens beyond 2011 is a subject best left to the end of 2010 or 2011 itself," as if the matter had not already been settled by the Iraqi parliament's ratification of an agreement requiring a full US withdrawal by the end of 2011.

But this was not the first example of the US military treating the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement as a set of suggestions, rather than as binding law. The military also attempted to delay a June 30 withdrawal of US forces from Iraqi cities as required by the agreement, and finessed the requirement by redrawing the Baghdad city boundaries to exclude a US base within the city. A required July 30 national referendum on the agreement - with an immediate withdrawal of all US forces if the referendum fails - has been delayed, with the agreement of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, until Iraq's parliamentary elections in January of 2010. And those January elections may themselves be delayed, providing a pretext for military officials to argue for delaying further troop withdrawals.

Congress' insistence on a hard withdrawal deadline and regular reporting by the Pentagon on steps taken towards that goal is a natural follow-up to an earlier Congressional ban on permanent US military bases in Iraq. However much we may disagree with the Dec. 2011 timetable, we should still consider these examples of Congress asserting its authority over military matters as a welcome change from its all-too-common tendency to defer to the Generals.

There has long been a strongly-held belief among a large majority of the Iraqi public that the US plans to stay in Iraq forever, a feeling that US military officials help to fuel when they endlessly speculate about pushing back the deadline for our withdrawal. But, however much the Pentagon may want to treat the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement as a mere scrap of paper, the Iraqi public and parliament take the agreement quite seriously. As Aura Kanegis, Director of Public Policy for the American Friends Service Committee said, "The U.S.-Iraq bilateral agreement is so central to public discourse in Iraq, but too often forgotten in the U.S." And it's an agreement that not only the Pentagon tends to forget: Among the thousands of media outlets failing to take any notice of Congress' reaffirmation of the agreement's Dec. 2011 withdrawal timeline were the indefatigable Antiwar.com and the progressive news sites Common Dreams and Alternet. And, other than Friends Committee on National Legislation, you won't find mention of this nail in the coffin of a permanent US occupation of Iraq on the websites of any national peace organizations. Is the peace movement unwilling to acknowledge progress, however small, towards its goal of a complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq?

Steve Burns is Program Director of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, and can be reached at: outreach@wnpj.org