Levees Not War

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

—Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam,” Riverside Church, New York City, April 4, 1967

While we’re enjoying good old-fashioned 4th of July cookouts, fireworks, and other traditional Independence Day pleasures, let’s also take some time to remember the soldiers far away in Iraq and Afghanistan who are not with their families, as well as those who are recovering (we hope) in military hospitals, and let’s begin mentally drafting letters and phone call messages to the White House and Congress to demand the nation’s independence from those unaffordable wars. Bring the troops home already. We can’t wait until July 2011, which Obama suggested as a potential beginning of a drawdown when he announced the 30,000-troop escalation at West Point last December when the Afghan war was already in its eighth year. (See our assessment of the president’s decision to escalate, “Deeper into Afghanistan: 360 Degrees of Damnation.”)

The explosive revelations in Michael Hastings’s Rolling Stone article “The Runaway General” were only superficially about Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s trash-talking Obama’s national security team. It may be that in the long term the most damaging consequences will be the revelations that the troops in Afghanistan do not support the vaunted counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy for which the additional 30,000+ troops have been “surged” into the hell-hole, and even McChrystal himself has doubts that the COIN strategy can work there (see “Afghanistan: More Insane Than a Quagmire” below). We expect no substantial changes under Gen. David Petraeus, whose 99–o approval by the Senate on June 30 can only be interpreted as a license to do as he will, for as long as he pleases, whatever it may cost.

Costs of War: Unaffordable, Unsustainable, Unconscionable

This past week, when Senate Republicans and Ben Nelson (D-NE) warmed up the nation for the 4th of July festivities by filibustering for a third straight time an extension of unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans—15 million are out of work, about the number who were unemployed when Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933—the House approved $80 billion for Afghan war funding. Sounds just like the Bush years. The Center for American Progress reports that “as of July 3, an estimated 1.7 million workers will lose their benefits. If this drags on through July, a total of 3.2 million workers will lose their benefits.”

Think Progress reports that 17 senators from states with double-digit jobless rates have repeatedly voted to filibuster unemployment benefits. Click the chart to read all about it.

(more…)

Bloomberg reports recovery from worst recession since 1930s is “broadening and becoming more entrenched”

Some good news on the employment front: The U.S. Labor Department reported Friday that while the unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent, the national economy added 162,000 jobs in March. This figure includes the government’s hiring of 48,000 temporary workers for the Census, and private employers’ adding 123,000 jobs, the most since May 2007. Republicans and conservative “news outlets” are pushing the line that all the increase is due only to the temporary hiring of Census workers, but in fact the trend has been growing for several months—March’s is the third gain in the past five months—as shown in the graphic above and as detailed here by Bloomberg News.

This is all good but it’s not good enough. Too many millions are still unemployed and underemployed. We supported and still support the stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) of 2009 but we want at least another stimulus bill that big with more job-creation. We have also advocated a Civilian Conservation Corps–like jobs program to restore the coast of southern Louisiana and other fragile, flood-prone environments (Sacramento and environs, for example, could also use some help). America’s infrastructure is in serious disrepair—the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the U.S.A. a D grade and estimates a five-year investment of $.2.2 trillion is needed to get the nation back in shape. There’s some jobs waiting to be filled. What we need is political will, incessant pressure on Congress and the White House. You know how to get it done: Roll up sleeves, pick up phone . . .