Note to Congress: Don't release the leftover TARP funds ...

According to press reports, President Bush, on behalf of President-elect Obama, is asking the Congress to release the leftover TARP monies in an effort to try and shore up the economy in a week before he leaves office: ["U.S. Seeks Rest of Bailout Cash"].
The subhead of this WSJ article pretty much says it all - and gives good reason why the funds should not be released: "Call to Deploy Remaining $350 Billion Comes as Citi, Rivals Face Steep Losses."
Well, with all due respect, who cares? Who cares if Citi goes under? They have been ripping the human race off for years with their 19 percent interest credit cards and lobbying to pass a draconian bankruptcy law and other horrific things perpetrated on the American people. So what if they are losing money and their stock careens? The TARP money isn't about propping up Citi's stock or any other stock. It was supposed to be about fixing the mortgage mess, stabilizing the economy, and getting banks to lend money again.
Well guess what? It didn't work out that way, did it? Where is the money to be lent out to folks to start businesses, create jobs, and buy homes now that homes are affordable again? Where did all the money go? It disappeared into the rathole and we're all sinking into it. Billions - yes, billions - went to salaries and bonuses to the same crooks, thieves, and liars who created this mess. 'Well, we had to keep these people happy so they wouldn't leave our companies in a lurch,' they said. Say what? Some of these people should be in jail for what they did, not given billions in salaries and bonuses. The Associated Press made some phone calls a few weeks ago attempting to find out who got the money and how it was lent out and guess what? No one would answer the questions. Where are you Congress? Where is your oversight of our monetary policy? I know there was a holiday and all but give me a break.
We all said this would happen and it did. And now, they want more? No. N-O-No!

Please Congress: Put on the brakes. Don't release the remaining TARP funds. And don't release them after Bush leaves and Obama is inaugurated. Do the right thing: Investigate and audit where the previous $350 billion went and then re-implement the plan to truly stabilize the economy.

Or, instead of releasing the TARP funds, how about we try something completely different?

I've been meaning to write about this since October and totally spaced it until now. Back on Oct. 3, 2008, Thomas Peterffy, the CEO of Interactive Brokers Group, placed a full page ad in the WSJ stating, quite correctly, that the bailout proposal would not directly help homeowners or assist in fixing the foreclosure crisis. Instead, he proposed an alternative which, in hindsight, seemed like a good idea: Direct mortgage assistance to all homeowners.
Peterffy wrote:

"If the Treasury were to pay the first $250 of every American's primary residential mortgage each month for five years, the value of all mortgage-backed securities would rise immediately. The housing market would stabilize and the banking system with it."

Peterffy noted that there were about 40 million outstanding mortgages making the cost of the package about $10 billion per month. He called the expense "reasonable" when considering the fact that the taxpayers were already on the hook for hundreds of billions of mortgages via Freddie, Fannie, AIG, and BearStearns.
In bullet points, he noted that the plan would be easy to implement, progressive, and easy to oversee, since lobbying and pressure groups would be powerless to wreck the plan. In closing, the ad noted that Interactive "does not hold any mortgage-backed securities or credit default swaps," essentially stating that the company would probably not benefit directly from the plan.
This seemed like a pretty good idea at the time and, with the economy in a tailspin and people losing everything, maybe it is time to rethink this idea.
If there is $350 billion in TARP money left, implementing Peterffy's plan would assist in stabilizing things for at least three years [$10 billion x 12: $120 billion x 3 = $360 billion]. Sure, some people who get the subsidy are not having financial problems. But you know what? I bet they pay taxes or have paid taxes and I bet they could use the $3,000 to stabilize their lives. You could also base it on people applying for it like a tax credit. Those people who need it could apply for it and those people who don't, won't.

Look, nothing is perfect in this world. While this might not work, it sure is a heck of a lot better than giving more money to Citi or anyone else who wrecked this economy. This idea would directly benefit the people who need the most help - homeowners who are losing everything. It would also assist those people who are in a position to get a mortgage now.

I think I have found the perfect 6-month stint ...

Now this is a job!: ["Australia offers 'best job in world' on paradise island"].

A sign of hope? Yes, I think so ...

This is so great. I'm so excited that nations around the world are finally starting to realize that building economies inside their own borders is the way to prosperity, security, and long-term economic growth: ["Surge in Protectionism Threatens to Deepen World-Wide Crisis"].
Ignore the illegitimate headline. It's not true. If you invest, build, and hire within your own borders, your wealth stays with your own borders! It really is that simple ... and true.
Despite what everyone is taught in elite business schools, our nation was built on protectionism. Most of the Founding Fathers were protectionist. Abraham Lincoln and most presidents after the Civil War were protectionist. It was Lincoln who helped to create the American steel industry by stating something along the lines that if the country bought steel from England, the nation would have the steel but the money would be gone, but if the steel for the railroad system was built and bought in America, the country would have both the steel and the money.
Tariffs did not extend the Great Depression - that is one of the big lies out there. And, the "free trade" mantra was only forwarded by the cultists in the 1970s. It was not public policy before that time [although, some people were noodling with the idea and there were Founders who were not protectionist].
But what happened here in the United States when the free traders got control of the economy, the media, and the business schools? The middle class got fried, poverty rates soared, crime, social ills, and divorce skyrocketed, and wealth rose to the top, to the point that just a few hundred super rich folks pretty much control everything [and frankly, still do, now that we have given them trillions of our treasure]. It is worse in the nations of the world.
I have spoken and written about this many times, for so many years, it's a bit dizzying. The key to global economic growth and stability is to lift the economies of the world up to our level - not drop us to their level, which is what has been happening. The only way to bring those economies up is for them to create macro economies inside their own borders which will build wealth, worker security, and economic development.
Here's a great quote by President William McKinley, just as an aside:

"Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man."

Beyond Pat Buchanan, when was the last time a Republican talked like that? You know, that was the GOP once.
I have always said, pleaded, begged, if you will, for our national leaders to insist on creating a global economy based on a level economic playing field. Instead of creating free trade slaves throughout the world, to feed our retail economy, let's build their economies up. Let's get them making products for themselves. That investment will reinvest in other things and bring their living standards up.
Well, now, with our economic collapse, this is the time! It's a perfect opportunity to fix everything. There is no American retail economy any more. It's gone. The nation is busted. Broke. At 19 percent interest. We can't afford the cheap Chinese and Mexican imports marked up 2,000 percent. Mark it down to 90 percent off, we still can't buy them. What are we going to do without our cheap shoes? How will we survive if we can't go shopping? How are the other countries going to make ends meet when we can't buy the soccer goods made by children at 5 cents an hour? And this is just the retail sector, never mind the government, which is in hock $12 trillion, at least, with bloated defense budgets, war machines that can kill people a thousand times over, and way too many employees doing nothing but shuffling paper around. It should all fall down or be totally ripped apart and redone from scratch.
Now is the time to start investing in ourselves and now is the time for other countries to start investing in themselves too. Now is the time!
Maybe it's because it is early in the morning and I have had too much coffee or the snow is beautiful outside or I'm happy and healthy or whatever. But at this moment, I have never felt more hopeful about economic things than I have in years. And no, it has nothing to do with Obama and the Democrats. They will probably screw things up just like Clinton did. Mark my words, they will.
I think it is just that you can't really fix things until you get to the bottom and work you way back up again, and it looks like we're getting close to the bottom. The shift to global protectionism is a sign - a good sign - of what is possible, meaningful, and just. It truly is. Don't listen to the naysayers. If we all stick together on this one, focus on what is important, and help each other out, everything will be OK. It will take a while. There will be pain. But in the end, there is reason to be hopeful and optimistic. I can feel it.

Interesting read about book on the music industry

The Village Voice has this piece which is an interesting read: ["How the Music Industry Died: Steve Knopper's Appetite for Self-Destruction"] and this extended version of it: ["More Apocalyptic Discourse with Appetite for Self-Destruction scribe Steve Knopper"].
While I haven't read it in many years, "Hit Men" is one of my favorite books too, especially since I was heavily involved in the music industry, as a musician and fanzine publisher, at the time I read it.
In many ways though, the record industry deserves what it gets, the same way the newspaper industry does. The key though is that many people who work in both industries DON'T deserve the treatment they are receiving ... treatment brought on by the people running both industries into the ground. Oh well.
Another piece here about the death of newspapers: ["All I Wanted for Christmas Was a Newspaper"]. You should have seen the flurry of letters responding to this one!
In another opinion piece from the WSJ, is HGTV to blame for the economic collapse? This guy makes a good case: ["Blame Television for the Bubble"].

Saturday night link dump
Here's a bunch of stuff worth a second look ...
First, one of Seattle's major dailies is going under: ["Seattle P-I for sale, could close"].
The Hollywood Reporter's blog says tonight that layoffs in the media industry amounted to more than 28,000 jobs last year, the highest since more than 43,000 lost their jobs in 2001. That combined number - about 70,000 - is one-third the number of Americans currently working in the automobile industry that was just bailed out ... 70,000 over two years ... never mind the thousands in the other six years. So, again, where is our bailout?
This guy has an idea worth discussing, even though I don't completely agree with everything: ["Bailout for the People: 'The Cook Plan'"].
Another open letter for Barack Obama, this one from Jello Biafra: ["OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA"]. Again, worth the read even if I don't completely agree with everything in the letter.
I'm by no means an advocate of a sugar tax, but this video really made me think about my eating habits:



Here is another video clip about a water-powered car from Japan ["Water Powered Car Roundup"].
In actuality, it's a hydrogen-powered car, since it is the hydrogen in the water that is making the car run. But who's getting fussy about specifics. Just get them here already!
Three hilarious blogs here. First, this one that my co-worker Bryan pointed out to me: ["Hot Chicks with Douchebags"]. And then this one: ["Boobs on Things That Don't Normally Have Boobs"]. And lastly, this one: ["SKANKS in NYC"] ... which brought on this lawsuit: ["EX-VOGUE MODEL SNARED IN UGLY WEB"].
So, the U.S. military is preparing for unrest in the United States after all: ["Doomsday: U.S. report warns of 'strategic shock' leading to massive unrest"].
So, people were murdered after Katrina, just like Cynthia McKinney insinuated: ["Katrina's Hidden Race War"].

An open letter to President-Elect Obama

Ralph Nader
January 9, 2009

Dear President-Elect Obama:

You have been receiving a great deal of advice since November 4, 2008 from people and groups who either want you to advance policies not covered in your campaign or who want you to be more specific about initiatives you emphasized.

There are two suggestions which may not be among your store of recommendations that need to be considered before you take office on January 20, 2009.

First, the public would benefit from a concise recounting of the state of the union and where the Bush Administration has left our country. As is your style, you can render such a bright line of serious problems inside and outside the government in a matter-of-fact manner. Otherwise, a blurring of who was responsible for what can taint your presidency.

Second, you need to make a clean break from the Bush regime’s law of rule to our declared commitment to the rule of law as in the firm adherence to constitutional requirements and statutory and treaty compliance. There is a Bush-Cheney stream of criminal and unconstitutional actions which are on auto-pilot day after day. You have pointed out some of these abominations such as a policy and practice of torture and violations of due process and probable cause. The task before you is to break these daily patterns just as soon as you ascend to the Presidency or be held increasingly responsible for them. This can be significantly accomplished by executive orders, agency or departmental directives, whistle-blower protections, enforcement actions and explicit legislative proposals.

With Americans wishing you well in this most portentous of times, the last thing they want to see is you tarnished by the preceding rogue regime and its ruthless monarchical forays. To avoid this contagion of power over law and its contiguous accountabilities at a time when you are striving for a “clean slate” administration, you must be decisive and eschew any excessive harmony ideology which has seemed to be your nature vis-à-vis those who are powerful but are opposed to your views.

One possible impediment to your making a comprehensive clean break for restoring the rule of law is that you have too easy an act to follow. There are a long list of violated civil liberties that need to be restored (the American Civil Liberties Union has compiled a list of immediate actions for you to take), and resolute commitments must be made so that it is clear the United States, for example, will not engage in, or countenance, torture. Only a few restorations, however, would produce a sense of relief and flurry of accolades -- but they are hardly sufficient.

There are also regulations and interpretations of statutes that scholars believe to have been erroneous as a matter of law. As one guide for your new era of overdue regulation or reregulation—given the corporate wrongdoing these days—you may wish to refer to the Center for Progressive Reform’s report By the Stroke of the Pen.

The Bush lawlessness and state terrorism are like a contagious disease. If you do not remove their sprawling incidence, you will become their carrier. This means you must move fast to eject the mantle of war criminality and repeated unconstitutional outrages committed in the name of the American people here and abroad.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

R.I.P.: PolitickerNH.com

Well, it looks like another one bites the dust: All but two of the political Web sites run by the New York Observer are closing down: ["Politicker closes three sites; shutters network"].
There are two things that are sad about this. First, PolitickerNH.com was a must-read around these parts and second, two of its two employees - Brian Lawson and James Pindell - are out of work. There is no mention on the site itself as to what is going on.
While there will be other sources of news about politics in New Hampshire, it won't be quite the same without the site [the same way it wasn't when the previous site Pindell worked for, PoliticsNH.com, went under].
You can go to Blue Hampshire for opinion or New Hampshire Union Leader for news and opinion, but the great thing about PolitickerNH was the fact that there was always a short stream of information and news on the site. Some folks didn't like it, but I did and I will miss it.

Lynch inaugurated

N.H. Gov. John Lynch was inaugurated yesterday and, thankfully, reiterated his refusal to approve a state income tax or a sales tax: ["Lynch: Time to get tough"].
Thank you Gov. Lynch for continuing to stand by this principle. Thank you, thank you, thank you ...
Despite all the rancor, despite all the "hope" from bloggers who want government to do everything, despite everything going on in the state, country, and world, essential services will be met, as my state Sen. Sylvia Larsen stated in the article. It will be painful. But you know, these are painful times. It is no time to be raising taxes. Frankly, before the economic collapse, it wasn't time to raise taxes either, since many of us were getting hammered back then! Most ordinary folks have been getting hammered since the mid-1970s with very little relief and yet higher and higher expenses [and advanced technology like cell phones and the Internet which all come with monthly fees our parents and grandparents never had].
The answer, as the federal government seems to be doing, is to give people their money back - not raising taxes - and let them decide what to do with it.
The problem with this scenario is that the federal apparatus is essentially just printing money up and our country is in hock $12 trillion at this point: ["SMITH: Washington has been addicted to a toxic fiscal cocktail"].
But what should we do instead of borrowing the money? Well, the federal government should slash the defense budget and implement tariffs on imports at the same time as trying to jump start the economy with a stimulus package.
Historians, not surprisingly, are missing a key part of the argument when talking about how FDR got the country out of the Great Depression and how the nation became prosperous after World War II. Yes, there was a massive amount of government spending after the stock market crash.. Yes, there were make work projects and unions. But the Smoot-Hawley tariffs also assisted in both paying for those massive government outlays AND creating private sector, American jobs. Those tariffs forced American businesses to do business with other American businesses, keeping the money and wealth inside the borders. Those tariffs, approved of two years after and installed three years after the start of the Great Depression, did not create the Great Depression. This is a false talking point issued again and again by the free trade cultists. It's just not true. How can public policy approved of in 1930 and implemented in 1931 cause a Depression that started in 1929?
As Alfred Ickes Jr., a former chairman and commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission, writes:

"The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was said to have caused or exacerbated the Great Depression, but when one looks at the facts and goes into the archives and reads the record, one comes to a quite different interpretation. How could the passage of the tariff in June 1930 somehow have spooked the stock market in October 1929? Furthermore, Smoot-Hawley really wasn't much higher than the previous tariff. Two-thirds of U.S. imports under Smoot-Hawley came in duty-free, and when the tariff was enacted, more items were added to the free list than were taken from the free list and made dutiable. Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom is that it raised the American tariff to a record level. That's not supported by the data."

The facts are that tariffs, along with the government make work projects, brought our country out of the Depression - they didn't create the Depression.
After WWII, the prosperity continued because of tariffs and other government regulation and economic stimulation like the creation of the Interstate highway system, low interest housing loans, and other G.I. Bill benefits. Defense spending was slashed by 90 percent during the first two years after WWII while government funds were redirected to these economic stimulus efforts [Go look it up. It's in the OMB files. It's true]. This led to almost three decades of national prosperity until the 1970s oil embargo - a manufactured event - which started the downward spiral of the middle class.
My point, on this early Friday morning, is that soon-to-be President Obama and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate can't do this piecemeal. Everything needs to be done. It is critical. It is vital. Things need to change on a MASSIVE scale. Federal government outlays need restructuring ... Wall Street needs regulation and transactions should be taxed via the transfer tax proposed before the bailout was issued to pay back the bailout [BTW, why is Madoff out on bail for stealing $50 billion when the guy who robs a pizza slice in California for his third strike is in jail forever?] ... there needs to be critical energy and utility infrastructure investment via a public-private partnership that will create millions of job [BTW, how can a half-inch ice storm knock out power for millions and have that power be off for weeks? Because above the ground power lines on telephone poles are 19th century technology, that's why] ... and American industry and the taxpayers need to be protected via import tariffs in order to ensure and sustain our standard of living. We heading towards an economy that is third world, with the ultra rich protected and bailed out and the rest of us left holding the bag.
The only way to stop this is to implement real change. All of this needs to be done and we need to do it now.

Sarah Palin talks ...

Great video clip here.
I sense that like Mayor Tom Menino, she gets nervous in interviews. I bet that when you are sitting down for coffee with her, she doen't stutter or stammer her way through stuff.
That said, while I'm not too keen on her politics at all, I still like her and it is clear that she got a very bad rap:

It really sucks when your heroes keep dying ...

Ron Asheton, right, is pictured with his brother, Scott, and Iggy Pop, center.

R.I.P.: Ron Asheton ... ["Stooges guitarist generated raw power"]. Tomorrow, on my way into work, I'm going to have to listen to "Loose," "T.V. Eye," and other stuff, really, really loud! I'll be the guy, dressed in black, in the Honda Civic with his fist in the air driving down Route 3 ...

Is this why Flaherty, Yoon think they have a shot at Menino?

The Boston Herald has just broken this huge story: ["Menino's Fornuate son"]. However, it isn't really enough to sink the guy, is it?

Strange lights in the sky over Joisey ...

From CBS News in New Jersey: ["Close Encounters Of The Jersey Kind?"].

Bush-Cheney deserve censure for declaring war against the Constitution

By Bruce Fein and Ralph Nader [this column originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and was later sent out to Web site for republication]

Before Inauguration Day, the 111th Congress should pass a forward-looking resolution censuring President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for executive aggrandizements or abuses that have reduced Congress to vassalage and shredded the rule of law. The resolution should express a congressional intent to prevent repetitions by the President-elect Barack Obama or his successors. The objective is not Bush-Cheney bashing, but to restore a republican form of government in which "We the People" are sovereign, and the president is checked and publicly scrutinized by Congress and the courts. The Bush-Cheney duumvirate won an undeclared war against the Constitution. Most troublesome, they captured the power to initiate war from a spineless Congress. The Founding Fathers were unanimous in denying the president that constitutional authority. They knew that presidents would chronically deceive Congress and concoct excuses for war to control public information, benefit political friends through government contracts, quell dissent, assert emergency powers and enjoy the intoxicating thrill of, "I came, I saw, I conquered."

By wielding the threat of international terrorism, the Bush-Cheney team put the nation on a permanent war footing - the first time in history that war has been undertaken against a tactic. They maintained that the entire post-9/11 world is an active battlefield where United States military force may be used to kill suspected members of al Qaeda irrespective of international boundaries.

They claimed executive privilege and state secrets to conduct secret government - thereby circumventing political and legal accountability. This included directives to former White House officials Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to flout congressional subpoenas for testimony. They detained hundreds of people (including American citizens) as enemy combatants without accusation or trial. They authorized torture (waterboarding and extraordinary rendition), abductions, secret prisons and illegal surveillance of American citizens.

Like its immediate predecessors, the 110th Congress eagerly yielded its authorities - even the power of the purse - to the president. The Iraqi War Resolution, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments, and the declination to hold Rove in contempt of Congress were emblematic.

If left unrebuked, the Bush-Cheney usurpations of power will become part of the constitutional firmament and risk creating a safe harbor for future presidential abuses. Every member of Congress, moreover, is required to take an oath to "support (the) Constitution" pursuant to Article VI. There is no corresponding oath to support the Republican or Democratic parties or to subordinate the Constitution in the name of political harmony. Censure would be no novelty.

The Senate voted to rebuke President Andrew Jackson for constitutional lawlessness in 1834: "Resolved, That the President, in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both."

The censure resolution we contemplate would enumerate the serial Bush-Cheney constitutional violations; and, censure them for complicity in wrecking the Constitution's finely tuned balance of powers. In two previous congressional sessions, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., introduced censure resolutions against the president and vice president for deceiving Congress about the war in Iraq and warrantless spying on American citizens in contravention of FISA.

The resolution should also endorse a remedial legislative agenda that would be binding on all future presidents, including the president-elect. It should include a criminal prohibition on intentional misrepresentations to Congress to obtain authorization for war; or, the president's initiation of war without an express congressional mandate. The president's withholding of information demanded by Congress should likewise be prohibited.

An independent prosecutor should be created to prosecute crimes allegedly perpetrated by high-level executive-branch officials in the course of executing presidential directives or defending presidential prerogatives. FISA should be amended to restore individualized warrants based on probable cause to spy on Americans in order to gather foreign intelligence.

Censure will not, by itself, remedy the Bush-Cheney vandalizing of the Constitution. But if members of Congress neglect even that modest step, our republic and democracy will have been irreparably harmed.

Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, is chairman of the American Freedom Agenda and author of "Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for our Constitution and Democracy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
Ralph Nader is a citizen advocate and author.

Hodes in Congress today ...

Like a cherry on a bad sundae ... Hah!

The end of the Green Party?

Mass. Green Party activist John Walsh thinks so and has a lengthy piece about the situation here: ["The End of the Green Party "]. A good read, especially if you've been tracking alternative parties in the United States.

This is interesting: ["Hyundai taking returns"]. I guess that is one way to combat the downturn in the economy. As well, there is always a market for used cars [or in this case, late model returns]. So, Hyundai is right to experiment with this.

And over at OurConcord.com, I have two local media notes about recent editions of the Concord Monitor and The Bow Times/Goffstown News merger: ["Two local media notes"].

Lastly, in keeping with the theme of newspapers [and lastly because I'm in the middle of doing laundry], there is this story about government funding and bailouts for newspapers: ["Government aid could save U.S. newspapers, spark debate"]. Despite the intentions and interesting concept, I'm leery about this one. I really think the bailouts are a bad idea all around, even if my job could be one of the jobs saved.

Dec. 31, 2008 ...

A letter to President Bush from Ralph Nader:

Dear George W. Bush---

Cong. Barney Frank said recently that Barack Obama’s declaration that “there is only one president at a time” over-estimated the number. He was referring to the economic crisis. But where are you on the Gaza crisis where the civilian population of Gaza, its civil servants and public facilities are being massacred and destroyed respectively by U.S built F-16s and U.S. built helicopter gunships.

The deliberate suspension of your power to stop this terrorizing of 1.5 million people, mostly refugees, blockaded for months by air, sea and land in their tiny slice of land, is in cowardly contrast to the position taken by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. That year he single handedly stopped the British, French and Israeli aircraft attack against Egypt during the Suez Canal dispute.

Fatalities in Gaza are already over 400 and injuries close to 2000 so far as is known. Total Palestinian civilian casualties are 400 times greater then the casualties incurred by Israelis. But why should anyone be surprised at your blanket support for Israel’s attack given what you have done to a far greater number of civilians in Iraq and now in Afghanistan?

Confirmed visual reports show that Israeli warplanes and warships have destroyed or severely damaged police stations, homes, hospitals, pharmacies, mosques, fishing boats, and a range of public facilities providing electricity and other necessities.

Why should this trouble you at all? It violates international law, including the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter. You too have repeatedly violated international law and committed serious constitutional transgressions.

Then there is the matter of the Israeli government blocking imports of critical medicines, equipment such as dialysis machines, fuel, food, water, spare parts and electricity at varying intensities for almost two years. The depleted UN aid mission there has called this illegal blockade a humanitarian crisis especially devastating to children, the aged and the infirm. Chronic malnutrition among children is rising rapidly. UN rations support eighty percent of this impoverished population.

How do these incontrovertible facts affect you? Do you have any empathy or what you have called Christian charity?

What would a vastly shrunken Texas turned in an encircled Gulag do up against the 4th most powerful military in the world? Would these embattled Texans be spending their time chopping wood?

Gideon Levy, the veteran Israeli columnist for Ha’aretz, called the Israeli attack a “brutal and violent operation” far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its south. He added: “The diplomatic efforts were just in the beginning, and I believe we could have got to a new truce without this bloodshed…..to send dozens of jets to bomb a total helpless civilian society with hundreds of bombs—just today, they were burying five sisters. I mean, this is unheard of. This cannot go on like this. And this has nothing to do with self-defense or with retaliation even. It went out of proportion, exactly like two-and-a-half years ago in Lebanon.”

Apparently, thousands of Israelis, including some army reservists, who have demonstrated against this destruction of Gaza agree with Mr. Levy. However, their courageous stands have not reached the mass media in the U.S. whose own reporters cannot even get into Gaza due to Israeli prohibitions on the international press.

Your spokespeople are making much ado about the breaking of the six month truce. Who is the occupier? Who is the most powerful military force? Who controls and blocks the necessities of life? Who has sent raiding missions across the border most often? Who has sent artillery shells and missiles at close range into populated areas? Who has refused the repeated comprehensive peace offerings of the Arab countries issued in 2002 if Israel would agree to return to the 1967 borders and agree to the creation of a small independent Palestinian state possessing just twenty two percent of the original Palestine?

The “wildly inaccurate rockets”, as reporters describe them, coming from Hamas and other groups cannot compare with the modern precision armaments and human damage generated from the Israeli side.

There are no rockets coming from the West Bank into Israel. Yet the Israeli government is still sending raiders into that essentially occupied territory, still further entrenching its colonial outposts, still taking water and land and increasing the checkpoints This is going on despite a most amenable West Bank leader, Mahmoud Abbas, whom you have met with at the White House and praised repeatedly. Is it all vague words and no real initiatives with you and your emissary Condoleezza Rice?

Peace was possible, but you provided no leadership, preferring instead to comply with all wishes and demands by the Israeli government—even resupplying it with the still active cluster bombs in south Lebanon during the invasion of that country in 2006.

The arguments about who started the latest hostilities go on and on with Israel always blaming the Palestinians to justify all kinds of violence and harsh treatment against innocent civilians.

From the Palestinian standpoint, you would do well to remember the origins of this conflict which was the dispossession of their lands. To afford you some empathy, recall the oft-quoted comment by the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, who told the Zionist leader, Nahum Goldmann:

“There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis Hitler Auschwitz but was that their [the Palestinians] fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”
Alfred North Whitehead once said: “Duty arises out of the power to alter the course of events.” By that standard, you have shirked mightily your duty over the past eight years to bring peace to both Palestinians and Israelis and more security to a good part of the world.

The least you can do in your remaining days at the White House is adopt a modest profile in courage, and vigorously demand and secure a ceasefire and a solidly based truce. Then your successor, President-elect Obama can inherit something more than the usual self-censoring Washington puppet show that eschews a proper focus on the national interests of the United States.