Prairie Weather

I'm just sorry I'm supposed to feel like I'm sorry.

New Yorker blogger, George Packer, has something to say about the differing moral codes in Switzerland and the US.  The top guys at USB, the bank the Swiss government bailed out, "will forgo twenty-seven million dollars in compensation and bonuses. It appears that these Swiss bankers have a faint pulse of shame."

Sure.  But not our guys.  Our Wall Street gang is stuck in early moral development, Packer reports.

"Having brought the American and global economy to its knees through their reckless, short-sighted, downright stupid investments, and then looked to the government for a very expensive lifeline, the leaders of Citigroup, A.I.G., Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, and other financial giants are maintaining a carefully nonchalant public posture. Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Attorney General, had to hold a threatening press conference on Wall Street in order to frighten A.I.G. into announcing that raises, bonuses, and lavish retreats will be suspended. But fear is not the same thing as shame. Morally speaking, it’s inferior."

"The moral code of these Wall Street executives corresponds to stage one of Lawrence Kohlberg’s famous stages of morality: 'The concern is with what authorities permit and punish.' Morally, they are very young children. The Swiss bankers are closer to stage four, most common among late teens, where a concern for maintaining the good functioning of society takes hold. Stage six, an elaboration of universal moral principles based on an idea of the good society, is a distant dream for the titans of global finance."

Time to make sure these guys aren't let off the hook without at least a serious apology, Packer writes.  

"I would like to see these malefactors of great wealth apologize to the country. I would like to see them organize their own press conference in a lineup on Wall Street and, in the manner of disgraced Japanese officials, bow low to the pavement, express contrition, and beg their countrymen’s forgiveness. Such a scene would go some way toward cleansing the smell of the financial crisis.

"Of course, nothing like this is going to happen. So instead, like the parents of two-year-olds, the next Congress should summon them to Washington and publicly punish these executives who, in Kohlberg’s terms, 'see morality as something external to themselves, as that which the big people say they must do.'"

Lotsa luck. I think the "parents" are just as unapologetic as Wall Street's brats.

Defense detritus

Imagine if this had been the only revelation about wrongdoing during the Bush administration.  In normal times (remember normal times?), this alone would have shaken the country enough to turn on the Bush war machine.  Maybe the sheer accumulation of evidence of malfeasance at high levels during the 2000-2008 period has tended to dull our appetite for vengeance.  Still, it's interesting that the New York Times is acknowledging the "military-industrial-media complex" with General McCaffrey as an example of the kind of military we don't want.

Most of us have been sharply critical of the media over the past eight years.  But the military?  No, we still suffer as a culture from a dangerous attitude that the military should not be criticized.  Time's up on that self-delusion.  Being willing critics of the conduct of the military is essential to our freedom. 

General Barry McCaffrey has been tied closely not only to the Pentagon but to the defense industry and a corrupt media.  He's an example of the kind of military which was normal in the Mussolini era -- or any fascist regime -- but not of the military we like to believe America has.  McCaffrey's behaviors should never be acceptable in the US.  The Pentagon's inspector general has McCaffrey on its black list.  Congress should too, along with all other military and civilian leadership in the Pentagon who break faith with the Constitution and with the people they serve.  Not to mention the decent people they serve with.

Did Bill Ayers do the right thing?

Maybe the better question is how great our freedoms really are and what patriotism (America's truthiness about itself) really consists of.  This interview with Bill Ayers is quite chilling in many ways, not least for what it reveals about how little our country has changed since the '60's,  save a sharp turn to the right.  Far too many Americans are willing to go to war and then lie to themselves about why and how the war is being fought.  Our media have always been very supportive of the big lie -- of  truthiness -- providing a narrative context which sustains the war and the lies needed to fuel it with troops and materiel.  The question remains, who is on the right side?

From indignation to giggles to indignation

We were indignant at the sight of  President Bush dragging other nations into his war on Iraq and (omigod!) calling this unhappy few "the coalition of the willing."   That's like calling the deer who got nabbed by a mountain lion in my neighborhood last week "the happy dinner."  We didn't think it was funny; we were pretty nervous.  There he was -- that unelected tinpot president using his access to the biggest war toy chest in the world.  There he was, setting up his disposable soldiers with the help of invented "allies" from around the world.   There he was, playing World War Three, and we couldn't manage to stop him.

But there really is something horribly funny now as Bush slinks out of office, defeated and disgraced, while the "coalition of the willing" heads for home.  The Times of London reports:

President Bush's “coalition of the willing” is set to all but disappear from Iraq by the end of the year, with 13 countries, including South Korea, Japan, Moldova and Tonga preparing to withdraw their few remaining troops.

Britain, Australia, Romania, Estonia and El Salvador are the only nations, apart from the US, that plan to remain after a UN mandate authorising their presence expires on December 31.

London must still reach an agreement with Baghdad, however, to keep its 4,100-strong contingent on the ground into the new year. Failure to do so in time would leave British troops without legal cover and they too would have to leave.

But the profit-making continues.

While the coalition is dissolving, another force of foreigners is still thriving in the country: thousands of private contractors from developing countries such as Peru, Uganda, the Philippines and Bangladesh.

Drug companies are getting hit -- kind of ...

How many of us read the business section of the New York Times in detail?  Well, I've begun to -- regularly, at least, if not in great detail, to check which cracks in the corporate iceberg are on display.  During the past week, the pharmaceuticals have been getting a drubbing.

Europeans are furious.  European Union's competitiveness (uh, the basis of capitalism, right?) commissioner, Neelie Kroes, is going after the drug companies for preventing competition.  Surprise.

"She ...turned her sights on the generics companies, which she said had received $200 million from pharmaceutical companies over seven years in exchange for holding their products off the market. Patients and health care systems in Europe would have saved at least 3 billion euros, or $3.8 billion, from 2000 to 2007 — or shaved 5 percent off the medical bills — if companies had let generics into the market sooner, she said."

Here at home we're taking drugs we don't need.  The cheaper, old-fashioned ones worked better.  Six years after finding that the old stuff is just fine, doctors are still being persuaded to prescribe the newer drugs in spite of the fact that at least one causes a 38% increase in heart failure.

"The surprising news made headlines in December 2002. Generic pills for high blood pressure which had been in use since the 1950s and cost only pennies a day, worked better than newer drugs that were up to 20 times as expensive high blood pressure, which had been in use since the 1950s and cost only pennies a day, worked better than newer drugs that were up to 20 times as expensive.

"The findings, from one of the biggest clinical trials ever organized by the federal government, promised to save the nation billions of dollars in treating the tens of millions of Americans with hypertension — even if the conclusions did seem to threaten pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer that were making big money on blockbuster hypertension drugs."

Two prominent doctors have been in the news during the past week because of their very lucrative ties to drug companies.  Dr. Joseph Biederman, a well-known child pyschiatrist, has been pushing drugs on his young patients and their families.

"In a motion filed two weeks ago, lawyers for the families argued that they should be allowed to interview Dr. Biederman under oath because his work had been crucial to the widespread acceptance of pediatric uses of antipsychotic medicines."

The other is Fred Goodwin, a respected psychiatrist who also serves as a program host for NPR.  Godowin has been profiting from his relationship with Smith Glaxo Kline.  In return for well over $1 million, he's been selling the idea -- on Public Radio -- of dosing your kids with bipolar treatments.

These, and more details of how drug companies protect and increase their profits, are just one week's worth of New York Times reporting.  In the Business Section.  Keep this in mind:  these doctors probably haven't received anything like the money Pharma has doled out to Congress.  Which is why we may not see any reforms.  Not anytime soon, in spite of the Times' occasional focus on the pharmaceutical iceberg.

Healthcare system, in general, is under attack from the inside

The Washington Post has an article in its Sunday edition which examines the disgust expressed by many leaders in the healthcare community with our system.

"Talk to the chief executives of America's preeminent health-care institutions, and you might be surprised by what you hear: When it comes to medical care, the United States isn't getting its money's worth. Not even close.

"'We're not getting what we pay for,' says Denis Cortese, president and chief executive of the Mayo Clinic. 'It's just that simple.'

"'Our health-care system is fraught with waste,' says Gary Kaplan, chairman of Seattle's cutting-edge Virginia Mason Medical Center. As much as half of the $2.3 trillion spent today does nothing to improve health, he says.

"Not only is American health care inefficient and wasteful, says Kaiser Permanente chief executive George Halvorson, much of it is dangerous."

But after Thanksgiving ...

"There has been no talk of the newly elected Congress undertaking a sweeping investigation of the Bush administration’s activities along the lines of the Church Committee. During my conversations with the senators [Obama and McCain], I sometimes had the impression that their irritation with the White House’s arrogance toward Congress had overshadowed their concerns about the administration’s policies themselves. I wondered if along the way they had lost sight of their duty to represent the interests of their constituents. For all of the legislature’s complaints about being excluded from the political process during the Bush years, it seems fair to question whether Congress really wants to be a full partner in America’s government." ... Jonathan Mahler, "Imperial Presidency," New York Times Magazine.

In fact, as Mahler points out, there's some legitimate question as to whether Congress is willing to assist in the necessary self-correction or whether we're stuck with an increasingly authoritarian nation.  Will our representatives -- will we -- trade in our freedoms for "homeland security" centered in the White House?  After all, "financial crisis" and "market meltdown" can be just as powerful as "war on terror" when it comes to justifying the retention of unconstitutional powers.

The Times printed three responses to Mahler's November 9th article.  One came from John Conyers, Judiciary Committee chair in the House, correcting an error in Mahler's chronicle of Congressional abdication of powers.  Another notes that Mahler didn't come down hard on Pelosi and Reid for not initiating impeachment proceedings. 

The third, from, covers important ground Mahler left out.  "There are two additional and extremely serious items that President-elect Obama will need to consider undoing," Ian Alterman writes from New York.

"The first is the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, which passed the House last year and is being considered by the Senate. This act would have a chilling effect on free speech and could, technically, lead to a person’s arrest for publicly reciting the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. If passed by the Senate, Obama must veto it.

"Perhaps even more critical, the evisceration of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by the Defense Authorization Act of 2007 made it easier for the president to declare martial law. In addition — and unquestionably of most immediate concern — Bush has already used his newfound power under this act to deploy the First Brigade Combat Team of the Third Infantry Division within the United States. It is the first time since Reconstruction that federally controlled military personnel (as opposed to state-controlled National Guard units) have been given a dedicated assignment within U.S. borders, setting a truly dangerous precedent."

About-to-be President Obama is a constitutional lawyer, a democrat, an experienced legislator, and a consummate politician.  He's moving into the White House after an election which clearly signaled the rejection of eight years of autocratic and corrupt rule on the part of the majority party and with the shameless assistence of the minority party. There have been no clear signals from the Democrats in Congress that they will do their constitutional job.  For those of us who actively supported Obama's election and the election of a Democratic Congress, the work  has only just begun. 

We continue to be the constituents the president (and Congress) will not be allowed to forget.  That's not a threat; that's a promise.