I AM A JEW (PART XX - A Two-State Solution?)

As the title shows, this is the 20th part (actually the 21^st, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts, I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

As I indicated in my post "I AM A JEW (PART XIX - I Almost Wish I Hadn’t Started This  Study!)," the two-state solution is rapidly being denigrated and discarded by the Israeli government and its American supporters. While Netanyahu has not yet himself floated this idea, it was prominently advocated by his minister of the economy, Naftali Bennett and if the reader will refer to my post, as set forth above, he will see that what the minister of the economy is advocating is clearly an Apartheid state, with the Palestinians being confined to what can only be considered to be Bantustans. (See also the map shown in that post)

But while Netanyahu has not yet joined in this advocacy, The President of Israel, Ruvi Rivlin, has. In an article appearing in the New Yorker, see here or here. 

David Remnick writes:

Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin, the new President of Israel, is ardently opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. He is instead a proponent of Greater Israel, one Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. He professes to be mystified that anyone should object to the continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank: “It can’t be ‘occupied territory’ if the land is your own.”

He does not, as far as I can find, explain on what basis he claims the land as being that of Israel.

However, as Remnick explains, he, like Netanyahu, owes his philosophic bearings to Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky, who early on “recognized the deep, irreconcilable interests of the Arab presence in Palestine.” In the “Iron Wall” he wrote, according to Remick:

Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized…That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the 'Land of Israel.'

So he recognized that Arab resistance was not some evil, anti-Semitic impulse, but the expected reaction of any people to “being colonized”.

But, according to Remick:

Rivlin is no doubt sincere when he says that he would give Arabs full civil rights in a Greater Israel, but he can be viewed as the more benign face of a right-wing one-state ideology. Others on the right who talk of one state want mainly to sanctify the annexing, in some form, of occupied territory. As Margalit puts it, “The rest really believe in apartheid in the West Bank. They believe in full surveillance, full dominion, something resembling a Stasi state as in that film "The Lives of Others."

When we look at Bennett’s plan it is apparent that this is what he advocates. 

But just as it was important for Israelis and their supporters to have realized that the Arabs had to fight as long as they could, it is equally important to realize that the fight is over. There is no longer any threat to Israel’s existence. There has not been since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and probably not since the 1967 war. Today, Israel has peace treaties with its main Arab opponents, Egypt and Jordan, Syria in the midst of its civil war is hardly a threat, and Iran, despite its bluster about wanting Israel to disappear, has never suggested that it plans to be the instrument of that demise. It is not likely to ever get the bomb, but even if it did, Israel’s own atomic bomb would be more than an adequate deterrence to any attempted attack, as would its iron done. Talk of needing more territory for its security, (which would have no effect on any threat from Iran) is blatantly and transparently dishonest, for if Israel’s border of 1948 could withstand the Arab armies, surely the much improved 1967 borders, could and would do so. But the so-called military threat is a phony, trumped up, excuse for the messianic drive for the annexation of Judea and Samara, as Israel likes to call the West Bank.

And opposition to the two state solution now comes from the many propaganda outlets for whatever the new Israeli policy is. Like the old communist party and their adherents, the Israeli propaganda machine, and their adherents, fall in line.

Thus the American Jewish Committee, gives voice to the new paradigm through an article by Lt. Col. (res.) Avital Leibovich writing in the New York Times she argues:

Recent statements by Sweden’s new prime minister and a nonbinding British resolution recognizing a Palestinian state could damage peace prospects by creating false expectations among Palestinians. Such recognition is premature. A two-state solution can only be achieved through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Of course, what that means is that Israel insists on the right to veto any Palestinian state. It is more than apparent that it is not negotiating in good faith, and even as it has pretended to negotiate, it has constantly created ”facts on the ground”, which make a mockery of those negotiations. As the new position against a two state solution become increasingly shrill, even if not yet official, it is apparent that negotiations are now, and have always been, a mere pretense toward the drive for a “Greater Israel.” Gaza is to remain the great prison, where the majority of Palestinians are to be confined, without any rights, except such as Israel may deign to grant them, or that may be extracted by resistance, at great cost in human lives and suffering.

But let us look at the words of the Israeli spokes person explaining why a Palestinian state cannot come into being:

Any nation wishing to declare independence should meet three essential elements: a strong central government, control of defined territory and security. The Palestinian Authority does not yet meet any of them.

Why does it not meet these criteria? It is because Israel has not allowed it to! The P.L.O. is beholden to Israel for the collection of its taxes, which Israel withhold at its whim. It is responsible for security as Israel’s agent, much like Vichy was in occupied France, and as for defined territory, it would be clearly defined if Israel would stop grabbing more and more chunks.

Then the good lieutenant colonel (res) tells us that they can’t trust Mahmoud Abbas, because he isn’t popular enough. Is it any wonder, when he is seen as Israel’s poodle?

The excuses are legion. Abbas is too weak. He does not speak for the Gazans. They can only deal with someone who can speak for all Palestinians. So Hamas agrees to place itself under the P.L.O. Oh no, we will not deal with a unity government. The fact is that they have no desire to negotiate. Facts on the ground is the name of the game.

And then we hear the usual canard about Hamas. They will not recognize Israel. But now they said they are willing to abide by any treaty the P.L.O. negotiates. But they don’t trust them. But what about the fact that the charter of Likud forbids any ceding of any part of the West Bank? No one is supposed to know that, or mention it.

Facts on the Ground! Sincere negotiations require that the status quo be maintained, if not the status quo ante. Absent that, negotiations are a fig leaf for the endless and relentless creeping annexation of the West Bank, and the endless blockade of Gaza.

No wonder many Palestinians prefer a resistance leadership, rather than what they see as a collaborationist entity. Israel can’t have it both ways. It demands that Abbas collaborate and then claims they can’t negotiate with him because his collaboration has hurt his popularity. They can’t negotiate with their friends, and they certainly can’t with their enemies. But they can create facts on the ground.

And so we move to the final solution. An Apartheid state, with some Bantustans, and a Gaza under endless siege, a truly large, but not economically viable, Bantustan.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.

I AM A JEW (PART XI - The Israeli Propaganda Machine)

As the title shows this is the 11th part (actually the 12^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on the titles: "I AM A JEW (Part I)," "I AM A JEW (Part II)," "I AM A JEW (Part III)," "I AM A JEW (Special Bulletin)," "I AM A JEW (Part IV - The Torah & The Talmud)," "I AM A JEW (Part V - Gaza Is A Huge Prison)," "I AM A JEW (PART VI - The Palestinians)," "I AM A JEW (PART VII - A Defense of Israel’s Policies and a Rebuttal)", "I AM A JEW (PART VIII - Hamas & Likud)" ,"I AM A JEW (PART IX- The Palestinian Diaspora & The Right of Return)" and "I AM A JEW (PART X - The Abject Poverty of the Palestinians)."

As I write these articles I become increasingly aware of how uninformed and misinformed we are about the nature of the Israeli government, its aims and its crimes.

This was brought home to me when in response to my post "I AM A JEW (PART IX - The Palestinian Diaspora & The Right of Return)" one of my subscribers, Ernest Hauser of the Bronx, NY, wrote:

The Arab refugee problem is indeed sad and difficult.

In 1948 the Arab neighbors Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan] urged the Arabs to flee and return after the Jews were driven into the sea. Well, that did not happen.  

Israel took in about a half million Jews who were persecuted in the Arab world, but none of the Arab lands gave citizenship to any of the Palestinian refugees.

They prefer to keep then in camps as a thorn to Israel.

This brought home to me just how effective Israeli propaganda has been and continues to be.

The vast majority of Americans and particularly American Jews probably believe the statement by Ernest Hauser, yet it is demonstrably false. I myself may have believed it, until I did the extensive research required for this series. Yet, even in the face of facts contradicting Hauser’s assertion, the myth lives on.

My response to Hauser is set forth below:

You are simply repeating the standard line from Israeli propaganda sources. Before you mindlessly repeat things you ought to take the time to research the matter to determine the facts.

Or at least read my posts.

In "I AM A JEW (Part II)” I wrote and I quote:

There has long been a debate about whether Arabs left Israel out of their own free will, at the urgings of their leaders or were driven out by Israeli forces conducting ethnic cleansing. After extensive research I have concluded that both are true. What has come to be known as the Deir Yassin massacre is instructive.

I quote from Wikipedia:

The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab village of roughly 600 people. The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem by Palestinian forces during the civil war that preceded the end of British rule in Palestine.

Around 107 villagers were killed during and after the battle for the village, including women and children—some were shot, while others died when hand grenades were thrown into their homes. Several villagers were taken prisoner and may have been killed after being paraded through the streets of West Jerusalem, though accounts vary. Four of the attackers died, with around 35 injured. The killings were condemned by the leadership of the Haganah—the Jewish community's main paramilitary force—and by the area's two chief rabbis. The Jewish Agency for Israel sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which he rebuffed.

The deaths became a pivotal event in the Arab–Israeli conflict for their demographic and military consequences. The narrative was embellished and used by various parties to attack each other—by the Palestinians against Israel; by the Haganah to play down their own role in the affair; and by the Israeli Left to accuse the Irgun and Lehi of violating the Jewish principle of purity of arms, thus blackening Israel's name around the world. News of the killings sparked terror within the Palestinian community, encouraging them to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish troop advances, and it strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later. (Emphasis added)

And in an article by David Remick in The New Yorker, entitled: "Blood and Sand - A revisionist Israeli historian revisits his country’s origins” published on May 5, 2008, he writes:

"In 1988, Morris published “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949,” which revolutionized Israeli historiography and, to a great extent, a nation’s understanding of its own birth. Relying less on testimony than on the newly available documents, Morris described how and why sixty per cent of the Palestinians were uprooted and their society destroyed. It was a far more complex picture than many Israelis were prepared to accept. The book features a map that shows three hundred and eighty-nine Arab villages, from upper Galilee to the Negev Desert. Morris revealed that in forty-nine of these villages the indigenous Arabs were expelled by the Haganah and other Jewish military forces; in sixty-two villages, the Arabs fled out of fear, having heard rumors of attacks and even massacres; in six, the villagers left at the instruction of Palestinian local leaders. The refugees, who probably expected to return to their homes in a matter of weeks or months, went to Gaza and the West Bank, and also to surrounding Arab countries—Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria—where, to this day, they have never been fully absorbed."

You can also take a look here and I quote, e.g.

Various quotes have been attributed to Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, such as “The Arabs were urged to flee by their own leaders" and "The refugees were confident their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two”. Childers investigated this claim:

"Another stock quotation down the years has been that, supposedly, of the Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Galilee. For example, Israel's Abba Eban told the U.N. Special Political Committee in 1957 that the Archbishop had "fully confirmed" that the Arabs were urged to flee by their own leaders. I wrote to His Grace, asking for his evidence of such orders. I hold signed letters from him, with permission to publish, in which he has categorically denied ever alleging Arab evacuation orders; he states that no such orders were ever given. He says that his name has been abused for years; and that the Arabs fled through panic and forcible eviction by Jewish troops. 

As for the comment: "but none of the Arab lands gave citizenship to any of the Palestinian refugees. They prefer to keep then in camps as a thorn to Israel”, it is true that none of the Arab lands gave citizenship to any of the Palestinian refugees, but it is not true that they did it so to keep the camps as a thorn to Israel.

Unlike the myth that Arabs are “one people” they consist of very diverse tribes, with many different forms of Islamic religions and ethnicities. The Arab countries are poor and struggling to survive themselves. The refugee camps are an enormous burden, and trying to assimilate, a foreign poverty-stricken group into their society, is very difficult. In fact in Jordan, they are considered a threat to the monarchy.  In Lebanon the Christians don’t want more Muslims. Egypt today is more attuned to Israel than to Hamas.

There is zero evidence that it is a plot against Israel.

So before you make glib statement without doing your homework, you should make it a point to truly ascertain the facts.

But why is there such universality of misconceptions? There can be little doubt that the Israeli propaganda machine in the US is extremely powerful. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations lists 51 organizations. Most of these are charitable and have no political agenda.

But the most prominent among them, are at the forefront of the defense of Israel, the shaping of public opinion and the lobbying of our government. They defend and advocate Israeli government policy as faithfully as the Communist party did in days of yore and its most faithful adherents believe and propagate these views as faithfully as members of the Communist party once did.

Wikipedia describes “The Israeli lobby” as

...the diverse coalition of those who, as individuals and as groups, seek to influence the foreign policy of the United States in support of Zionism, Israel or the specific policies of its government. The lobby consists of Jewish-American secular and religious groups. The most famous and visible group within the Israel lobby is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC and other groups within the Israel lobby influence American public policy in a variety of ways such as through education, responding to criticism of Israel, and putting forth arguments in support of Israel. The Israel lobby is known for its success in encouraging U.S. lawmakers to support the policies that it supports.

AIPAC is probably the second-most powerful lobby in the US, second only to the NRA. 

October 19, 2014 – NBC News headline: “Obama speaks at AIPAC conference”

March 2012 (during the primary campaign for the Republican nomination for President) The Washington Post headline “GOP hopefuls blast Obama at AIPAC” and to quote from the article: “Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich on Tuesday dismissed Obama’s promises and accused the White House of weakness in trying to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.”

How many other organization, and particularly lobbies for foreign governments get such overwhelming attention form the country’s leaders and aspiring leaders?

But AIPAC is not alone among the Israeli lobby. There are the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Friends of Likud. Any media criticism of Israel will quickly bring a response from any of these by column if possible, by Letter to the Editor if needed. They influence public opinion and they influence our government.

To a large extent this explains the extensive misconceptions and misinformation of the American public that I am, in my small way, trying to correct.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete. 

I AM A JEW (PART X - The Abject Poverty of the Palestinians)

As the title shows this is the 10th part (actually the 11^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on the titles: "I AM A JEW (Part I)," "I AM A JEW (Part II)," "I AM A JEW (Part III)," "I AM A JEW (Special Bulletin)," "I AM A JEW (Part IV - The Torah & The Talmud)," "I AM A JEW (Part V - Gaza Is A Huge Prison)," "I AM A JEW (PART VI - The Palestinians)," "I AM A JEW (PART VII - A Defense of Israel’s Policies and a Rebuttal)", "I AM A JEW (PART VIII - Hamas & Likud)" and "I AM A JEW (PART IX- The Palestinian Diaspora & The Right of Return)."

I am forever struck by how American Jewish liberals are at the forefront of the fight against poverty in the United States. They are at the forefront in fighting for the right of minorities from discrimination, be they African-Americans or Hispanics, and yet they seem to be tone deaf to the plight of the Palestinians, the discrimination practiced against them, their permanent status as refugees without permanent homes, rights of citizenship, and dire poverty.

Right now the focus is on Gaza, for a temporary end to hostilities there has brought about once again an International effort to raise money to rebuild that which Israeli bombs, shells, and other explosives destroyed. We keep hearing the same old mantra, that all that Israel did was defend itself, but in fact it was the Gazans, (and it matters not at all, whether we call them Gazans or Palestinians) who erupted after years of blockade, entry and exit permits, and once again the mass arrest and incarceration of many of its members, in response to the murder of three Israelis.  Israel has far from abandoned its policy of collective punishment.

What is the arrest and incarceration of 500, without trial because they belong to an organization some of whose members committed a heinous crime, except collective punishment?

Some rockets are lobbed at Israel in bitter retaliation and the whole of the Gaza population is punished, thousands killed, many more wounded, old men, young men trying to support their families, women, children. Israel tell us they were just collateral damage and Hamas is to blame - they put them in harm's way. But where were they to go? Israel propaganda, which is too often echoed by the American apologists for Israel, tell us they dropped warning leaflets. What a joke! Rockets were falling everywhere and leaflets told them to go somewhere else when bombs where dropping everywhere. Children killed on the beach. Were there bombs hidden under the sand?

Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas of the world. See this Washington Post article. According to Info Please it is the fifth-densest population area in the world, but, of course, in the others the people are not trying to escape bombardment.

According to the BBC this is what Gaza looks like:

The BBC reports “International donors have pledged $5.4bn (£3.4bn) for the Palestinians at a conference in Cairo.”

Will that bring back the thousands of lives lost? Will that end the poverty?

Here is another photo from the BBC:

It’s all rubble. And how long before another incident, or plain desperation will start the cycle all over again?

Does anybody have any idea what kind of suffering has been imposed on the Palestinians? What kind of abject poverty they have been reduced to? Here is an article in Haaretz, or try here.

Allow me to quote from its beginning:

Life has never seemed so grim for the Mustafas, a family of seven cramped into a shabby two-room hovel in Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp.

 Seven years into an Israeli blockade and ten months into a crippling Egyptian one, Gaza's economic growth has evaporated and unemployment soared to almost 40 percent by the end of 2013.

Opposition to the Hamas militant group which runs the Gaza Strip has led its neighbors to quarantine the enclave, shutting residents out of the struggling Mideast peace process and leaving them with plenty of parties to blame.

 Living on U.N. handouts of rice, flour, canned meat and sunflower oil, with limited access to proper health care or clean water, families like the Mustafas - seemingly permanent refugees from ancestral lands now part of Israel - have no money, no jobs and no hope.

 "We're drowning... We feel like the whole world is on top of us. I turn on the television and I see the lifestyles on there, and I think, God help me leave this place," said Tareq, 22.

The Mustafas often must pick up and move when rain floods their low-lying home - even on a sunny day, it's lined with slick, smelly mildew. They stand in the dark, as 12-hour power cuts are now the norm throughout Gaza due to scant fuel.

 "There's no money for university or to get married. There's not even enough to spend outside the house so we can escape a little. What kind of life is this?" Tareq asks.

Well over half of Gaza residents receive food from the United Nations, and the number is on the rise.

What about the West Bank?

Reuters reported in September of 2012:

(Israeli) restrictions on movement, faltering aid flows, a paralyzed private sector and a chronic fiscal crisis cloud the horizons," UNCTAD declared. Amid persistent high unemployment, it added, "one in two Palestinians is classified as poor."

 The report, for an UNCTAD meeting in Geneva later this month, said the impact of the Israeli occupation since 1968 on the productive base of the Palestinian economy, and especially its once-flourishing agriculture, "has been devastating."

 The economy has lost access to 40 per cent of West Bank land, 82 percent of its ground water, and more than two thirds of its grazing land.

A Beirut Lebanon newspaper reports: 

BEIRUT (Ma'an) -- Around 160,000 Palestinians are living below the poverty line in refugee camps in Lebanon, the ambassador to Beirut says.

 Nearly 13,000 Palestinian refugees are living in extreme poverty in Lebanon, Ashraf Dabour told Ma'an.

 Palestinian refugees are banned from entering 75 professions in Lebanon. "Practicing any of these careers is considered a breach of Lebanese law," Dabour said.

 The Lebanese parliament amended a law restricting Palestinian refugees' access to work. "However, the Lebanese cabinet has not put that amendment into effect," the Palestinian ambassador said.

 "We hear sweet talk from Lebanese officials about the Palestinian refugees' right to work and live in dignity, but in reality nothing is translated into action."

I could go on country by country, because the story is the same everywhere.

But what about in Israel proper?

From The New Yorker of June 4, 2013

… in May, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released a report showing that, of the world’s thirty-four economically developed countries, Israel is the most impoverished. With a poverty rate of twenty-one per cent, Israel has a higher percentage of poor people than Mexico, Turkey, or debt-ridden Spain and Greece. The report’s findings made front-page headlines in Israel, and officials there scrambled to sound both indignant and unconcerned. They had some explaining to do: How does a nation with double the average growth rate of other countries in the developed world have a fifth of its population living in poverty?

 … twenty-eight percent of Arab Israeli(s) (are) children receiving an education that is below that of many third-world countries, …

And finally from the British newspaper The Guardian:

Aid alone won't help the desperate Palestinians A UN reports links all of the Palestinian economy's dire problems to the Israeli occupation and associated constraints. Aid from the EU and others is merely a sop for political failure.

And referring to a report released by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) the paper goes on to say:

A quick look at the report's section headings gives an immediate picture of how desperate the situation is: aid-driven, jobless economic growth, with an eroded productive base; erosion of manufacturing capacity; broad economic divergence between Gaza and the West Bank; high levels of poverty and food insecurity; high and persistent unemployment undermines the quality of human capital; separation barrier deepens isolation from global markets; heavy dependence on trade with Israel, and a worsening trade deficit; fiscal vulnerability remains high, despite austerity measures; withholding [Palestinian Authority] customs clearance revenue aggravates fiscal instability; indirect imports from Israel and lost Palestinian revenue.

 An idea of the desperation facing the Palestinians is given by a 2010 survey conducted by the World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, which says: "Palestinian people have used various strategies to cope with poverty and food insecurity under prolonged Israeli occupation. These strategies have included – in addition to borrowing – receiving food support from family and friends, restricting food to adults in order to feed children, reducing health and education spending, running down savings, and selling off jewellery, furniture and productive assets. The top three coping strategies used are deferring payment of utility bills, lowering the quality and quantity of food intake, and borrowing."

 The litany of problems appears endless. While it is tempting to reel off the plethora of depressing statistics provided in this report, it is perhaps better to reflect on the salient theme – Israel and the occupation. No attempt is made to describe the problems facing the Palestinian economy without reference to the continued occupation and associated constraints.

 Unemployment (at 30%, and 43% for under-30s), manufacturing and agricultural decline (despite a recent upturn), large-scale revenue losses, "dire" humanitarian conditions, worsening socioeconomic indicators – all these issues and more are linked explicitly and repeatedly to the political situation.

How much longer will the liberal American Jewish community make excuses and defend the indefensible? Where is Christian charity?

I ask no more of my Jewish and Christian brethren but that they live by the words of the Bible, Isaiah 49:6. and to demand that Israel be a “light unto the nations” instead of one that leads us into darkness.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.

The Silence is Deafening

It has been more than a month since I posted and distributed my commentary "Racism Rears Its Ugly Head In The SCOTUS/The Sequester" where I suggested that the focus on preventing any changes to Social Security and Medicare might just be “the concerns of a predominately white middle class, who are more concerned with their entitlements, than with the effects on the most vulnerable.”

I concluded with “It is time to ask that question!!!”

I had hoped that in posing this challenging question, I would start a discussion of our priorities, but as my title exclaims "The Silence is Deafening."

I urge my readers (and I don’t know how many of the approximately 80 who indicated a desire to remain on my distribution list actually read my posts) to read or re-read my post: "Racism Rears Its Ugly Head In The SCOTUS/The Sequester" (click on the title) or the relevant portion, which you can find here and to express their views.

It is instructive that where at one time a main theme of Presidential campaigns was a concern for the poor, that is no longer a subject addressed. The poor vote in very small numbers. The middle class votes in large numbers. But that is precisely why the middle class, or at least the Liberal segment thereof, must represent the poor.

How much we should be concerned with the poor in our midst is illustrated in an article in the New Yorker entitled "Our Invisible Poor" and commented on in Smithsonian Magazine under the title "How a New Yorker Article Launched the First Shot in the War Against Poverty."

At the same time the New York Times reports in an article entitled "Growing Number Are Near Poverty" that in New York City "nearly half of the population (has fallen) into the ranks of the poor or near poor in 2011" but the problem gets scant attention as the Times Public Editor points out in a article about Times Coverage. See here. 

In the meantime the emphasis on raising the federal minimum wage is getting scant attention, even though the Campaign for America’s Future reports: “4.4 million Americans currently earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25, or less. 284,000 of them are college graduates. Worse, the minimum wage has not kept up with the cost of living. After adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage is lower than it was in 1956." 

But it seems that the only thing that matters is preventing any change to entitlements.

It is not as though we were protecting the original conception of Social Security. The number of times the Social Security Act has been amended is legion as can be seen from the listing shown here and here. Benefits paid in 1940 totaled $35 million. In 2009, $650 billion was paid out in Social Security benefits. It wasn’t until the 50’s and 60’s “that domestic labor, household employees working at least two days a week for the same person were added in 1950, along with nonprofit workers and the self-employed. Hotel workers, laundry workers, all agricultural workers, and state and local government employees were added in 1954.”

It wasn’t until 1972 that the average payment per month rose from $133 to $166 and the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) was instituted. See here.

The payroll tax as set forth in the original Social Security Act of 1935 was 2% (employee and employer combined). It is now 12.4% (employee and employer combined). That is an enormous burden on low wageworkers. Isn’t it time that we addressed this very burdensome regressive tax. See here. 

Don’t get me wrong!! I have no sympathy for the Republican/Ryan approach, which is to gut the program, and I think the President’s proposal for a chained CPI is wrong, for it reduces benefits on all recipients, including those who desperately need an increase in benefits.

According to the AARP nearly nine million older Americans are facing the threat of hunger; Over 20 million low-income people over 50 do not have adequate financial resources. Over 13 million older Americans cannot afford their housing costs. See here.

But people who have an adequate and even generous income from pensions, 401k savings and/ or investments or other income can accept lower benefits, and even none, so that the needs of those who truly need more can be addressed. The payroll tax on lower incomes must be reduced or even eliminated.

My proposal as set forth here is an attempt to at least start a conversation.

If I cannot trigger some thought, and/or some discussion, then I am wasting my time in writing these posts.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified

The President’s re-election

I recently had dinner with some good friends and they greeted me with the exclamation: “Aren’t you elated that Obama won.” I looked at them and said: “I am relieved, but not elated.”

I am relieved because while it is true that we would have avoided the fiscal cliff if Mitt Romney had been elected, which was the rationale for the endorsement of Romney by the Des Moines Register, who posed the question as, “Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals?” meaning avoiding the cliff, and concluded: “When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate…”

Of course, for Romney there would have been no need to compromise. He would have embraced the program of the Tea Party, with only a Democratic Senate (which was in doubt until the results came in) standing between him and his cohorts gaining a complete victory.

The likelihood of falling off the cliff has certainly increased as a result of the Presidents re-election. But the result of capitulation, while possibly less frightening in the short run, would have dire consequences in the long run, as I outlined in my blog posting entitled "The Election." The consequences of just the domestic sequester staying in place is ably outlined in an article in the New York Times entitled "White House Details Potential Effects If Automatic Budget Cuts Go Through" which I urge the reader to read.

So we are caught on the horns of a dilemma. Holding firm risks going over the cliff, i.e. if automatic spending cuts go into force and all the Bush-era tax cuts expire, then according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the nation would slip into recession next year and unemployment would rise to 9.1 percent, from October’s rate of 7.9 percent. But simply canceling those deficit-reduction measures would risk a financial crisis that would make matters worse …” according to this watch dog. See here.

And looming just behind the fiscal cliff is the debt ceiling. The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the U.S. probably will hit its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit by the end of the year, at the same time that Congress will be grappling with the automatic tax hikes and large government spending cuts scheduled to kick in Jan. 1. See here. Republicans, as they did last year, are talking again about refusing to raise it, which would force the US into default and bring into serious question its invaluable credit worthiness. Last time around even the threat of default caused Standard and Poor's to lower the rating for the US from AAA to AA+ See this CNN Money article wherein Standard and Poor's is quoted as giving the reason for the downgrade as: “The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed."

The lower rating fortunately had no effect on the markets, with US securities remaining in large demand and continuing to sell at interest rates at all time lows.

But then there was no default, only the threat of one.

In any case with these frightening potential developments, is it any wonder that I find myself less than elated? I will be elated when the President succeeds in navigating these currents and works out a compromise that very substantially increases revenue, while protecting our safety net, not from some cost saving reforms, which are inevitable, but from having them undermined. I do not find Paul Krugman’s argument as set forth in his November 11 column  persuasive. Krugman says: “Contrary to the way it’s often portrayed, the looming prospect of spending cuts and tax increases isn’t a fiscal crisis. It is, instead, a political crisis brought on by the G.O.P.’s attempt to take the economy hostage.”

I take it from this that Krugman would be perfectly happy for taxes not to go up, even on the very rich, as the President wants, because while he doesn’t specifically say so, he argues that the larger the deficit the better. Of course, what he really wants is for there to be no changes in Medicare and Social Security, writing in his column of November 15 entitled: "Life, Death and Deficits":  “… right now the most dangerous zombie is probably the claim that rising life expectancy justifies a rise in both the Social Security retirement age and the age of eligibility for Medicare.” He makes some cogent arguments to support this, but fails to propose any reasonable alternatives, such as having a different retirement age for the relatively affluent and well-educated, and a different one for Americans in the bottom half of the income distribution, who aren’t living much longer. (He doesn’t cite any actuarial tables) and does not even propose closing the Social Security budget gap by raising the Social Security tax ceiling for the affluent.

As for Medicare he argues against raising the eligibility age with which I agree, and argues that the way to control costs is to “… give Medicare the ability to bargain over drug prices. Let the Independent Payment Advisory Board, created as part of Obamacare to help Medicare control costs, do its job instead of crying “death panels.” With which I also agree, but in making these arguments isn’t he implicitly recognizing that we can’t just ignore deficits.

But as can be seen from the above, the re-election of Obama has not magically solved our problems. We have a tendency to think, as we did four years ago, that as long as we elect a good man/woman to the Presidency, we have solved the nation’s problems. That is true only in the fantasy world that so many on the Left in our nation inhabit.

The fact is that in order for the President to be in a strong bargaining position with Republicans, he must signal a willingness to go over the cliff if Republicans are too intransient. Or as John Cassidy writes in the New Yorker: 

“Fiscal discipline, equity, and economic experience all point toward a return to the top tax rates of the Clinton era. In order to get there, though, Obama is going to have to demonstrate that he is willing to leap off the fiscal cliff, and that he isn’t bluffing. Anything short of an ironclad commitment to let all the Bush tax cuts, including the ones that affect the middle class, expire on December 31st if an agreement isn’t reached, will be exploited by the Republicans, who otherwise don’t have many cards to play. 

“Basically, this is an exercise in brinksmanship—the logic of which is well understood. If Obama’s threat is perceived to be credible, he almost certainly won’t have to go through with it. But if the Republicans think he is likely to back down—as he did in 2010, when he initially opposed extending the Bush tax cuts—they will stonewall, figuring that the White House, at the last minute, will offer them a compromise along the lines Boehner is suggesting. Don’t forget, this is a G.O.P. that hasn’t agreed to a rise in tax rates for more than twenty years. In the current House of Representatives, all but six of the two-hundred-and-forty-two Republicans have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge “to oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses.”

Whether the President needs to be that demanding and that uncompromising is open to question, but that he must signal a willingness to take the plunge is an absolute sin qua non to successful negotiations. But that means that we run the danger of, as the CBO has stated, of the nation slipping into recession next year with unemployment rising to 9.1 percent, from October’s rate of 7.9 percent. That is why I am not elated at the outcome of the election. We are far from out of the woods.

Of course, if the House of Representatives had gone Democratic, we would have a totally different landscape, and then I would have been elated. But despite the fact that Democrats “won one million more votes than Republicans” for the House, they did not win a majority due to very effective gerrymandering. This, in my view, represents a clear violation of the Equal Protection clause of the US Constitution, which says: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” However the US Supreme Court in 2003 in Vieth v. Pennsylvania upheld by a vote of 4 to 4 a lower court ruling that gerrymandering was not unconstitutional. The four justices holding gerrymandering constitutional were Scalia, Rehnquist, O’Connor, and Thomas. Justice Anthony Kennedy agreed that no justiciable standard existed and affirmed the district court’s opinion, joined in dismissing the claim, but would not go so far as to say all partisan gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, David Souter (joined by Ruth Bader Ginsberg), and John Paul Stevens dissented from the plurality, with each dissent proposing a new test for federal courts to adjudicate partisan gerrymandering.

And so we have the ridiculous situation where Democrats gain more than a million vote majority in the House, but Republicans gain far more seats and we end up with a political crisis.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.