Talk is Cheap

By Ellen Ratner
I would be "one happy camper" if the president's words and actions were more closely associated with one another. As he said in the opening remarks of his second inaugural address, "At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together." This is an eloquent way of saying "talk is cheap."



The president would do well not to throw so many stones out of his glass house. If the president actually believes freedom is the antidote to the world's spiraling security and stability index, then I would be curious to know why he has only supported democracy in a country blessed with the world's second-largest oil reserve.

On the other hand, the president stood by while those who the president would normally refer to as "gangs and thugs" overthrew a legitimately elected Haitian president. Yes, Haiti has had its share of problems, but as President Bush said in his speech, "The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it."

Today, the Haitian people live in fear and squalor. President Aristede was not the chosen president of this administration and until a suitable candidate is found or selected, Haiti can count on more misery. I guess the president wasn't serious when he said, "The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: 'Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.'"

What about Venezuela? They are in our hemisphere and they even have oil. Hugo Chavez, however, is pals with Fidel Castro and that makes him enemy No. 1. This administration has at best stood idly by, and at worst, supported the attempts to overthrow Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. There seems to be a trend developing. If you don't think like this administration does, then the decision of your voting public does not count for anything.

I would be remiss if I did not discuss the president's freedom "blind spots" and there are many. He says, "In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty." This must not apply to longtime Bush-family friends who happen to be members of various royal families throughout the Middle East.

As one member of the Saudi royal family said on a BBC roundtable discussion prior to the invasion of Iraq, "Freedom is incompatible with Islam." It sure is when "one man, one vote" would turn the Saudi Royal family back into Bedouins overnight. This same line of logic can be applied to the rest of the so-called "gulfie states" as well.

Speaking of human rights and the rule of law, one need not look far to see the giant blind spot that festers in our backyard. The U.S. Constitution, Geneva Convention and Human Rights "Free Zone" of Guantanamo Bay has definitely, as the president says, "... lit a fire – a fire in the minds of men." This abrogation of the Magna Carta is a cancer on the soul of America and has emboldened a new generation of terrorists. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the "poison in the wound of terror," as the longtime Israeli peace proponent, Uri Avnery says, Guantanamo is a whole new way to spread the terrorism virus.

The president's vision of freedom is also a bit blurry when it comes to equal protection under the law for our own citizens. He says:

In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character – on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives ... that edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Quran, and the varied faiths of our people.

Perhaps I am missing something, but nowhere in the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount do I see mention of a need to discriminate against a person on the basis of their sexual orientation. Granted, I cannot speak for the entire Quran or the "varied faiths of our people." But I do know the meaning of the word, "tolerance" and it doesn't end with an amendment that seeks to undermine what the president calls, "the durable wisdom of our Constitution." If the Constitution is so durable, why does the president seek to amend it?

In the end, faith without works is dead. The president, as usual, has attempted to speak hope into the hearts of people who live without freedom. It would have been a beautiful speech had the man's words been backed by his actions.

Their Due

By Ellen Ratner
"It's our due," was the argument Vice President Cheney gave to the president for why he should proceed with a tax cut for the wealthy in the middle of a war. This same logic of entitlement provides the only reason I can come up with why this president is proceeding with the most expensive Inauguration in the history of this nation at a time when, according to the same president, we are still in a war for the future of civilization.



Simply put, the Inauguration isn't a 60-second recitation of the oath of office – it is a 72-hour party-victory lap for those who invested over $274 million dollars to keep this wartime president at war. These donors and political action men and women are entitled to a $40-plus million hoot. Florida and Ohio have been rewarded with their own separate events. It's their due, you might say.

So far, the Bush fund-raising militia has collected up to $40 million for the Inauguration. There is no pesky $2,000 limit like there is for the presidential campaign, so it's easier to collect the money – just pull up the Brink's truck to the back doors of corporate America. Soon, these donors will be pulling up their own Brink's trucks to the back porch of the White House.

Of course, this $40 million doesn't begin to cover the total cost of the Inaugural fest. For the first time the city of Washington, D.C., will have to eat over $11 million in additional security costs alone. This additional money is from the federal money appropriated for homeland security. Nor do the private donations cover the cost of the loss of a workday for federal workers. This amounts to $66 million according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Some might say I am bitter – that if John Kerry had won, I would be writing a personal check for his Inauguration and dusting off my inaugural gown. I don't deny that I would be raising a glass of bubbly, but the fact is that this inaugural bender is another example of where rhetoric does not meet action when it comes to the presidency of George W. Bush.

The post-election data is very clear. Barney and Mrs. Beasley are still eating dog biscuits stamped with the presidential seal because a majority of Americans believed that George W. was the best man for the job in a time of war. He ran as a wartime president and he won as a wartime president. Unfortunately, the president's war resume is full of rhetorical resolve, but short on action and short on sacrifice.

A downsized Inauguration would have been a small sacrifice on the part of this president and his supporters, but a powerful symbolic gesture to our troops and the families who worry every minute that they may never see them again.

Better yet, the president's donor militia could have raised the $40 million and given it to the families of service men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in a war that this president personally sent them to fight. Instead, the president is hosting a "commander in chief ball" for those who have served or will serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A commander in chief ball is this president's way of saying thank you. How about getting your checkbook out for those same service members and their families? It's criminal that returning service members have no health coverage the day they walk out of their base into the civilian world. While there is now a bipartisan bill sponsored by Sens. Sessions and Lieberman to increase the "death gratuity" for the families of the fallen from $12,000 to $100,000, why not put a down payment on that right now with the corporate donations. This is particularly fitting given the fact that many of these same corporations are profiting from the blood of these fallen men and women.

The president's approval rating is hardly a cause for inaugural celebration. It is lower than any second-term president in the last 80 years. He is right at 52 percent approval, compared with Jimmy Carter's and Ronald Reagan's 62 percent. Perhaps if this president talked less about war, about supporting our troops and acted more, he might not need to have a "commander in chief ball" to say thank you. His gratitude to our troops would be conveyed through his actions. Of course, the president's favorite "base" wouldn't get their due.

Declare Victory and Go Home

By Ellen Ratner
I have been on record as being against the war in Iraq from the beginning. I do not know one person – Red State, Blue State, Democrat, Republican, military, civilian – who can say that the war in Iraq is going well or has gone well. It's so bad we don't even know how to measure "going well." The war in Iraq has been one long domino chain of dysfunction, destruction and death.



It started with poor intelligence and got worse from there. The military assured that if they cut off the head, the body would die. Here's all you gotta do troops – just git rid of Saddam and we can break out the cigars. The military did what they were told and eliminated the official command element. Saddam is in jail. Our military works 24x7 to stay alive and there has never been time for cigars. What's a commander in chief to do?

Why not just declare victory and go home? It's not as though we are making things any better for the Iraqi people by staying there.

Even the most optimistic of government officials admit that the insurgents are becoming more emboldened. As one such official said, "They are pouring into the country from everywhere and they have no shortage of money or arms." An Iraqi I spoke with estimates that the Baathist insurgents alone could number up to 50,000. That's 50,000 men who know they have no future with a new government made up of Shiites.

Remember the Baathists? They are the guys who put the Shiites in mass graves for the last few decades. The insurgents see that their best alternative to losing is death, so why not fight to the death? As the Iraqi official said, "No one will change their hearts and minds."

The generous American taxpayers have gone into debt to the tune of about $150 billion over Iraq. What do we have to show for this money? There are no specific measurable results to point to other than Saddam is in prison. While this may be no small trick, it is a far cry from peace and prosperity. The death toll in Iraq for the U.S. military and civilians gets higher and higher each month.

Iraqi oil production is dropping due to sabotage. Public-works projects are daily targets of the insurgents. We are losing the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people by not being able to secure the nation despite dropping 500 pound bombs like candy in their civilian neighborhoods. This is no way to win a war, a heart, a mind, a peace.

Of course, the administration is putting all the chips on the newly elected government and the Iraqi security forces. I've been told by military members that their hardest job is trying to work with these Iraqi troops. Hello? Can anyone name a time when this commando joint venture plan has worked for the United States? Vietnam, Nicaragua, ...?

The president admits the Iraqi troops have been a "disappointment." I wonder how this president would feel if one of his children or even a distant Bush cousin were serving side by side with Iraqi troops that are known to be infiltrated with insurgents. Wait, this is impossible because there are no Bushes in Iraq.

I can usually count on Secretary Powell for an occasional glimmer of hope when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. The soon to be "former" secretary of state, hinted last week that we may be able to celebrate the return of our troops sooner rather than later. As API reported, when the secretary was asked to define success in Iraq, Powell said it would be putting in place an elected government representing all Iraqis, and creating an Iraqi security force capable of protecting the country from insurgents and outside forces. "If we accomplish those two things, then we've accomplished our mission," he said.

I'm not ready to break out the champagne yet, but it's on ice. After the elections, it will be very easy to make the argument that the Iraqi security forces are "OK" and that their government is the most representative government in the Middle East. Voila! We're cleared for take off. It's like we were never there.

If we don't start sending our troops home, we aren't going to have troops to send anywhere. Currently, 40 percent of the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are Reserve and Guard forces. By law, they cannot be activated for more than two years. The clock is ticking. If this law is changed, as some are proposing and our Guard and Reserve troops are deployed one out of every five years of their careers, then you better start getting the draft cards ready because there will be a mass exodus from the Guard and Reserves (who, by the way, are already having a recruiting crisis).

And this time, the young Bushes and Cheneys may have to become Canadian citizens, as there won't be any hidin' in the Guard or deferments. No sireee.

Manmade Disasters

By Ellen Ratner
The year 2005 began under an umbrella of grief. A tsunami, in the blink of an eye, wiped out the lives and livelihoods of tens upon tens of thousands of victims. The death toll is already over 141,000 and expected to rise.



This disaster has unearthed unprecedented generosity. The United Nations reports that over $2 billion have been pledged for relief aid. This is the largest amount of aid pledged in the organization's history. People all over the world are signing onto the Internet to give to private organizations. The Red Cross took in $64 million dollars worth of donations over the weekend. Military airlift, muscle and medical relief has arrived in the tsunami-stricken area from all over the world.

I am heartened by the outpouring of generosity, but I cannot help but question why it is that we so generously rush to assist the victims of a natural disaster and ensure that their plight is aired around the clock, but we seem helpless or hapless to the plight of the victims of the manmade disasters of conflict.

The year 2004 had many more victims of manmade conflict than natural disasters. Over 2 million people have been driven from their homes in Sudan. The death toll was predicted to rise to 300,000 as the year ended. The United Nations describes the situation in Sudan as the "worst humanitarian crisis in history."

The U.S. Congress passed a bill in December to give Sudan $300 million in aid, but the money has not been appropriated. There is no military commitment to Sudan in this bill. This should not surprise us since the United States (under President Clinton) has a track record of being too late and too little to stop genocide. Over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 1994 while we stood on the sidelines and watched.

Meanwhile, we must take responsibility for the death resulting from our own doing. Iraq war causalities mount daily. The U.S. military death toll is over 1,300. The Iraqi civilian death toll is estimated to be any number from 15,000 to 100,000, depending on the reporting agency.

The cost of the Iraq war is close to $148 billion and projected to cost at least $40 billion a year for the foreseeable future. This number represents an enormous opportunity cost in what good we could do for our nation and the nations of the world. As President Eisenhower reminded the nation in 1953, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

I am told that the United States is a "Christian nation." I am not sure what this means. I thought Christ taught to do good to those who harm you, turn the other cheek, reconcile yourself to your brother – that whatever you do the least of these you do unto me; that blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God. I appreciate the generosity of the good people who opened their wallets to help heal tsunami's wounds, but I am saddened that these same people are unwilling to open their wallets or even their mouths to help the victims of conflict.

We are also blind to pain of those who have suffered on the periphery of conflict. We have lost interest, or perhaps never had interest in the plight of those tortured at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base. It is as though we think these fellow human beings are not worthy of our sympathy because they are Muslim and could be terrorists. It rarely gets reported that several of these men we tortured were found later to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Our blind spot to suffering caused by human hands is inexcusable.

I am often told that conflict is inevitable and that I am wasting my time to even mention it. As I begin the new year, I am reminded of a passage in one of the readings during Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. A man is standing on the street corner begging his fellow men to change their destructive ways. Another man stops him to ask, "Why do you stand here and protest? You will change nothing." And the man says, "I stand here so that I am not changed."

The Saudiazation of America

By Ellen Ratner
The same man who coined the phrase from last week's article, "Charge-and-spend Republicans" gave me another pearl of wisdom. He described the president's immigration policy as the "Saudiazation of America."



You see, our friends in the "magic kingdom" don't do manual labor, or what president Bush calls "hard jobs." The Saudis import labor from so-called "third countries." These workers are called "Third Country Nationals" or "TCNs." They come from Pakistan, the Philippines and nearby countries to make up much of the work force of Saudi Arabia. They have no permanent status or benefits other than the ability to earn a better wage than what they would earn in their home country. They live in community housing and send money back to their families. Sound familiar?

It was fortuitous that I had the "Saudiazation" conversation just a few days before the president's last minute pre-holiday press conference. On a couple of different occasions, the president supported his proposed immigration policy by saying that these workers are doing "jobs that Americans don't want." I just about fell out of my chair when the president repeatedly said that Americans are above certain types of labor and that's why we need to allow immigrant workers a legitimate status, but no citizenship.

I am now convinced more than ever that this president is completely out of touch with the ordinary, "non-elite," Maxwell House-drinking type folks. He owes his second term to these ordinary Americans. They voted for him in light of shrinking paychecks, the loss of their pensions, rising health care and the elimination of their industries. They voted for this president because, as some said, the president is the kind of guy I'd like to have a beer with. He's like me. I can relate to him."

Yet, as outlined in the president's press conference, he's more like a member of the Saudi royal family than any ordinary American I have ever met. The president is the worst kind of "elite swine." He votes for policies which benefit the rich, while pretending to be "for the common folk."

Perhaps the president is too out of touch to realize that the reason Americans "don't want" these jobs is that a person cannot survive on minimum wage. Or perhaps he knows this, but has made a conscious decision to put the interests of the wealthy above the interests of ordinary Americans.

The New York Times – yes that "elitist, liberal rag" – released a housing study on Christmas Day that concluded it is impossible to survive on minimum wage in America. The Times reports that "in only four of the nation's 3,066 counties can someone who works full-time and earns the federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment."

The National Low Income Housing Coalition study also found that "a typical worker must earn at least $15.37 an hour to pay rent and utilities" on a two-bedroom apartment. This isn't editorial bias. These numbers are hard facts.

Does the president even know what the federal minimum wage is? Remember, he couldn't answer the question in the third presidential debate as to whether he would support an increase in minimum wage. The simple fact is that no, he does not support an increase in that $5.15 an hour wage.

He would rather import labor from our borders and have these workers live in camp-like conditions before paying someone triple what they make now in order to qualify to live in a two-bedroom home and raise and support a family. I guess you can count "family values and the sanctity of marriage" in the loss column for this president because it's impossible for a family to survive in George W. Bush's America.

So what if we grant the president's argument and say, "Yes, Americans are above this kind of work"? What do Americans do? We are trailing now in math and science skills. We are losing our middle-tech jobs to India, China and Eastern Europe. We are outsourcing our manufacturing jobs to China where $5.15 an hour would be a dream job.

Where is this president's investment in the future? Education? He just cut the Pell grants by $300 million for education. Technology? He said he "supports" broadband for the nation, but has not funded it. Does the president believe this new economy is going to be born in the cabbage patch, like where babies come from?

In the end, it's all spin and more spin. The president does not value work. He does not value education. In the past, the president has been characterized CEO in chief. I agree. He thinks like a CEO who is determined to squeeze the most out of the least, even if it means moving his company overseas.

These captains of industry are driven by shareholder value and executive compensation – not their work force. This president gets his compensation in the form of campaign contributions from the likes of those who benefit from outsourcing jobs abroad and importing manual labor.

As for shareholder value, the president's stock is as high as ever among the ordinary Americans. Perhaps one day these Maxwell House drinkers who voted for President Bush will wake up and smell the coffee.