ABQjournal: Venezuela’s Chavez Avoids Class War By Sergio Pareja, Law Professor

“But what is Chavez doing that you hate so much?” I asked. “What, specifically, are his governing policies?” The answers I received, while purely anecdotal, were telling. In general, the wealthy criticize his taxes and social programs, many of which are remarkably similar to U.S. social programs.

I discovered that, for the first time in Venezuela’s history, the government is truly enforcing its tax laws. What does this mean from a leader who claims to be a “21st century socialist”? I asked my cousin, a successful orthopedic surgeon, what he now must pay in income taxes under Chavez. “10 percent to 15 percent of my income,” was the response — not quite the wealth redistribution I’d envisioned.

I also learned that one of the biggest complaints about Chavez is that he has raised the national minimum wage from about $25 a week to about $40 a week. For live-in household servants, the rate increased from about $15 a week to about $25 a week.

To put this in context, this is what it costs to have somebody work for you from before sunrise until after dinner. Servants cook, clean, do laundry, watch your children, and basically do anything you ask them to do.

What else has Chavez done? In exchange for oil to Cuba, Castro has sent teams of Cuban physicians to Venezuela. Chavez then sends them into poor neighborhoods to provide free health care for people who have never seen a doctor in their lives.

In addition, he has built vocational schools in poor neighborhoods so poor people can learn skills that will allow them to earn more. The wealthy view this as raising the cost of labor.

What else has Chavez done? The Chavez government uses its oil wealth to hire workers to engage in public works projects, such as fixing potholes in roads, keeping parks clean, and improving public buildings. For example, the government is building the first-ever public subway system in Valencia. People of means complain that “only poor people will use it.”

The government also has started a housing program for the poor through which the government works with builders to build livable, low-cost housing. It works with banks to provide long-term, low-interest loans to home buyers.

The feeling I got in Venezuela last month is that people with money still have money. I saw an abundance of new expensive cars on the road. One of my uncles continues to build and run high- rise apartments and hotels at a healthy profit.

I saw a complete freedom to speak out against the government, with daily newspaper articles and songs on the radio calling for Chavez’s ouster. It made me question our freedom here in the United States. With so many people here opposed to the war in Iraq, and with some brilliant anti-war songs being written, why haven’t I heard even one of those songs on the radio?

I am painfully aware that Chavez may ultimately turn out to be a cruel and corrupt dictator. That has been the history of Venezuela, and it certainly could happen again.

However, by giving a voice to the poor, Chavez also may have prevented a bloody class war. I have seen that Venezuelan war coming for years.

It is an embarrassment that our secretary of state doesn’t see, or won’t admit to seeing, any of the good that Chavez has done. It’s also an embarrassment that the founder of the largest Christian political organization in this country would call for Chavez’s assassination.

Sergio Pareja teaches at the University of New Mexico School of Law.

In Orwell’s 1984, the character Syme, one of the writers of that totalitarian society’s dictionary, explains to the protagonist Winston, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”

An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy — or worse.

—

I wore my flag tonight. First time. Until now I haven’t thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans.

Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustained me, whose armed forces protected me, and whose ideals inspired me; I offered my heart’s affections in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother’s picture on my lapel to prove her son’s love. Mother knew where I stood; so does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax returns on April 15.

So what’s this doing here? Well, I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo — the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the good housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration’s patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s little red book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread.

But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They’re in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks even as they call for more spending on war.

So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash). I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what Bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it’s not un-American to think that war — except in self-defense — is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomacy. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.

—

I confess to some puzzlement that the Wall Street Journal, which in the past editorialized to cut PBS off the public tap, is now being subsidized by American taxpayers although its parent company, Dow Jones, had revenues in just the first quarter of this year of $400 million. I thought public television was supposed to be an alternative to commercial media, not a funder of it.

But in this weird deal, you get a glimpse of the kind of programming Mr. Tomlinson apparently seems to prefer. Alone of the big major newspapers, the Wall Street Journal has no op-ed page where different opinions can compete with its right-wing editorials. The Journal’s PBS broadcast is just as homogenous –- right- wingers talking to each other.

From Free Press : Bill Moyers’ speech to the National Conference for Media Reform

Bush and Katrina:
A time for action, not aloofness” href=”http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=59884″>The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News – 03-Sep-05 – Bush and Katrina:
A time for action, not aloofness

A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease. …

[Showing] a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.

Wow, people are surprised by Bush’s diffident detachment? mjh

When Government Is ‘Good’
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, September 2, 2005; Page A29

The sight of rescue workers, the police and the Coast Guard, governors, mayors, and federal officials struggling desperately with the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina brings to mind Cohen’s Law: “Government is the enemy until you need a friend.”

Bill Cohen, the former defense secretary, minted the phrase nine years ago when he was a Republican senator from Maine. He was speaking then of a plane crash and the public’s hankering for more effective safety regulation. Cohen’s point was that government-bashing is easy in good times for those doing just fine. But when disaster strikes, many turn around and ask why government didn’t do more to prevent a catastrophe — or why it wasn’t doing more to relieve its effects. …

Yet this is a moment in which individual acts of charity and courage, though laudable and absolutely necessary, cannot be enough. It is a time when government is morally obligated to be competent, prepared, innovative, flexible, well-financed — in short, smart enough and, yes, big enough to undertake an enormous task. Not only personal lives but also public things must be put back together.

|| RedState.org Katrina: The Political Hurricane
By: Tim Saler

Democrats want to play politics over the carnage, destruction, and devastation in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. They are using the bodies of those who lost their lives in this tragedy as a rhetorical platform from which to attack the President and everything he stands for. Republicans don’t want to fight about this issue, but when Democrats start firing, we have no choice but to oblige them in their desire for political combat.

The lack of speedy response to this disaster can be summed up simply as this: after decades of Democrats reinforcing the domination of this country by the federal government, we now have a situation where state and local governments no longer have the motivation nor the funding or equipment necessary to take care of the own problems. Many left-wingers are using this disaster as an example of how small government has failed the American people and must be replaced with a gargantuan, overbearing federal government presence to solve all of our problems. If anything, this disaster is the ultimate failure of federal power.

We do not need a larger federal government to solve our problems. We do not need a larger, heavier, and more expensive federal government to go clean up the disaster area in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. We need a smaller government, a more nimble government. We need a federal government that works in conjunction with state and local governments rather than displacing them and instilling in them a mental condition by which they are helpless in the face of crisis. The President shouldn’t need to be in Louisiana right now for Louisiana to be able to take care of its own business.

After decades of Democrats attempting to utterly destroy the federal system of government on which this country was founded, people like Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin freeze in the face of disaster. They no longer do what they need to do at the state and local level to help their citizens. Instead, they look for the federal government to come step in and save them. The federal government as our great American mommy has utterly and completely failed us.

The solution is not to make it bigger and stronger, but to put it back in its place and give states and local governments their constitutionally-defined power to take care of their own business. We will never know the number of lives that could have been saved if only we had respected the right and ability of states and local governments to do their job.

The Politburo Diktat » Blog Archive » Bloggers on Hurricane Katrina

raptor Says:
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:58 am

I have been checking blogs,both left and right.
Overwhemlinglly the left are showing themselves(agin)to be cold-hearted,selfserving bastards.The right are(agin)overwhelminglly showing thier compassion and willingness to help.

I offer this is support of my rejection of the claim that Americans hold science in awe. In fact, this seems to be the new sex ed. Parents were unprepared to teach their kids anything useful about sex; they are far less qualified to choose between science and anti-science. mjh

Most in poll want creationism taught
Those in favor included liberals, secular supporters
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
THE NEW YORK TIMES

In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released Tuesday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools.

The poll found that 42 percent of respondents hold strict creationist views, agreeing that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”

In contrast, 48 percent said they believed that humans had evolved over time; but of those, 18 percent said that evolution was “guided by a supreme being,” and 26 percent said that evolution occurred through natural selection. In all, 64 percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution, while 38 percent favored replacing evolution with creationism.

The poll was conducted July 7-17 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The questions about evolution were asked of 2,000 people, and the margin of error is 2.5 percentage points. …

Intelligent design, a descendant of creationism, is the belief that life is so intricate that only a supreme being could have designed it.

The poll showed 41 percent of Americans want parents to have the primary say over how evolution is taught, compared with 28 percent who say teachers and scientists should decide and 21 percent who say school boards should. Asked whether they believed creationism should be taught instead of evolution, 38 percent were in favor, and 49 percent were opposed.

More of those who believe in creationism said they were “very certain” of their views (63 percent), compared with those who believe in evolution (32 percent).

The poll also asked about religion and politics. This question was asked of a smaller pool of 1,000 respondents and the margin of error is 2.5 percentage points, Pew researchers said.

The public’s impression of the Democratic Party has changed in the last year, the survey found. Only 29 percent of respondents said they viewed Democrats as being “friendly toward religion,” down from 40 percent in August of 2004. Fifty-five percent said the Republican Party was friendly toward religion.

Several things are troubling about the following argument. We are called upon to be open-minded, non-dogmatic to allow for a view held by dogmatic, close-minded people. In classic “1984”-style, Galileo is used to indict Science and defend Religion. We are told that “complexity” is next to godliness — if we haven’t figured it out yet, we can’t and won’t cuz it’s god’s doing. Letting ID into the classroom will keep religion out? Nonsense. mjh

ABQjournal: Science Classes Should Educate, Not Indoctrinate By Rebecca Keller, Science Text Publisher

However, being willing to consider a design inference, if the data point in that direction, is good science regardless of the philosophical or religious implications.

No scientist should ever be so committed to an ideology, whether that ideology is religious or philosophical in nature, that it blinds him to possible interpretations of scientific data. That happened in Galileo’s time and it is happening today whenever people close their eyes and plug their ears to design inferences in biology.

Living things are incredibly complex. Even on the microscopic scale each cell is literally packed with interacting networks of molecular machines. It looks designed. If it looks designed, how can it be unscientific to wonder if that design is real?

It is understandable that people are concerned about the metaphysical implications; if there is design then there must be a designer.

But the basic trouble, and the underlying reason this controversy never ends, is that evolution is a creation story; it has huge metaphysical implications no matter how it is taught. How is it less religious or less controversial to teach evolution as it is now, pretending that we somehow know that there is no design? …

In fact, disagreeing about how data should be interpreted is what scientists do. That is science. The history of science illustrates that disagreements in science are the very thing that fuels scientific discovery.

Evolution as a secular creation story is already being preached from the classroom pulpit. Teaching the controversy helps keep religion, of any flavor, out of the classroom. [mjh: how can she possibly believe that last statement?]

This is good science education and this is what is being proposed in Rio Rancho and across the country.

Rebecca Keller, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of New Mexico, is president of Gravitas Publications of Albuquerque and writes elementary and middle-school science textbooks.