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A Trillion Dollar Recovery
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Poverty is on the rise, record numbers of people are relying on food stamps and we've seen no relief for the foreclosure crisis. There are increasing rates of child abuse and domestic violence linked to this recession. State governments don't have financial resources to cope at the exact moment when those resources are most needed. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have lowered Medicaid payments or eliminated people from eligibility. The senior economist of the International Monetary Fund recently warned of another Great Depression
We don't need a stimulus, we need a recovery. And that means investing $1 trillion over the next two years.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) has proposed a plan to do just that--a detailed $1 trillion recovery plan to kick start the economy, invest in sustainable, long term growth and target individuals and communities that are most desperate for resources.
(135) CommentsDecember 30, 2008
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In the Trenches and Fighting Slavery
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
A delegation from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers recently took time during its "Northeast Tour for Fair Food" to visit The Nation offices in New York City. It was an honor to meet with them, to learn more about their work helping workers in the fields of Florida. We spent some time discussing how The Nation could continue to expose the working and living conditions of migrant workers and advocate for needed change.
Last Friday--just days after CIW's visit--a Florida judge rendered his sentence on the state's most recent slavery case. CIW had helped the Department of Justice investigate what Chief Assistant US Attorney Doug Molloy described as one of Southwest Florida's "biggest, ugliest slavery cases ever." There was shockingly little coverage of this outrage--even in Florida--where a slavery story should knock Governor Blagojevich right off the front pages. (The dedication of reporter Amy Bennett Williams of the Fort Myers News-Press is a notable exception.)
The Navarrete family had pleaded guilty to holding twelve men on their property from 2005 to 2007. They were beaten, chained and imprisoned in a truck, and forced to urinate and defecate in the corners. Two family members were sentenced to twelve years, and four were sentenced on lesser charges and will serve up to three years and ten months.
(31) CommentsDecember 23, 2008
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Airstrikes in Gaza
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
This statement was issued in response to Israel's attack in Gaza by Professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and a longtime member of the Nation editorial board.
27 December 2008
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
(67) CommentsDecember 28, 2008
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Butter Over Guns
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
In a recent post, Todd Gitlin rightly calls out "the huge missing argument in Washington" against 54% of our discretionary spending going to the military budget -- and that doesn't even include the funding for 2 wars and permanent earmarks like the $13 billion per year missile defense program.
This is a subject I've blogged about over at TheNation.com for a long time -- probably a good 25 posts over the past 2 years, including a few recently (here, here, and here).
Gitlin approvingly cites an interesting argument on Huffington Post by Lorelei Kelly in which Kelly argues against progressives making a case for spending on butter over guns:
(165) CommentsDecember 18, 2008
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Zero Nukes
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
An important and inspiring new group, Global Zero, launched in Paris this week with a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in 20 to 25 years.
More than 100 prominent military, political, faith, and business leaders met in Paris and delegations then visited both Washington and Moscow to push Global Zero's program. The group sees this as a watershed moment -- with President-elect Barack Obama declaring his support for a nuclear-free world and polling in 21 countries indicating 76% favorability for a timetable leading to the elimination of nukes. Through diplomacy and a global public education campaign, Global Zero will work toward a binding verifiable agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons. The US and Russia still possess 96% of the world's nukes so the organization sees reductions there as a key first step towards achieving its goal and bringing other nations on board.
There are many prominent figures involved with the group. Some of the signatories include: Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lawrence Bender, Sandy Berger, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Joe Cirincione, Michael Douglas, Lawrence Eagleburger, Chuck Hagel, Lee Hamilton, Frank Von Hippel, Anthony Lake, Robert McNamara, David Owen, Thomas Pickering, Mary Robinson, Jonathan Schell (see below), Nation contributor Martin Sherwin, Desmond Tutu, Muhammad Yunnus, Anthony Zinni, Ehsan Ul-Haq, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Pakistan, and Brajesh Mishra, former Indian National Security Advisor.
(69) CommentsDecember 13, 2008
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The Blagojevich Moment
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
It is absolutely mind boggling to read of the pay-to-play corruption gone wild in the indictment against Governor Rod Blagojevich -- from withholding money for a children's hospital unless given campaign contributions, to trying to sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder, to demanding editors be fired by the Tribune Company in exchange for help selling Wrigley Field, to speeding up all of these efforts before a new ethics law taking effect this January 1…. not to mention the egomaniacal profanity with which Blagojevich issued his demands.
But beyond the shock and sadness of this moment, what's key is something that novelist Scott Turow zeroed in on in a New York Times editorial today. He writes, "I hope the governor's arrest galvanizes public outrage and at last speeds reform."
Hit the nail on the head.
(68) CommentsDecember 10, 2008
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To Spend or Not to Spend?
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
One day after the government reported the worst hemorrhaging of jobs in a month since 1974 -- with 533,000 jobs lost in November -- President-elect Barack Obama revealed aspects of his (hopefully sufficiently) ambitious plan for a stimulus package that would save or create a minimum of 2.5 million jobs while investing in our long-term infrastructure.
Obama's plan includes investments in bridges and roads, schools, sewer systems, mass transit and other public utilities. The New York Times reports that investments in green jobs might be to the tune of $100 billion over two years, "including jobs dedicated to creating alternative fuels, windmills and solar panels; building energy efficient appliances, or installing fuel-efficient heating or cooling systems."
There is speculation that the entire package will run anywhere from $400 billion to $1 trillion, and Democratic leadership wants the legislation ready for Obama's signature on Inauguration Day.
(54) CommentsDecember 9, 2008
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Shinseki--The General Who Battled Rumsfeld
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
In June 2003 I wrote about how General Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, was shunted aside by the arrogant civilians running Defense--Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith. ( I post the blog below.)
Reading between the lines of his 2003 Farewell Address, Shinseki blasted these men---men who not only exaggerated the threat Iraq posed, but gravely underestimated the problems of postwar occupation.
On December 7th, the 67th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President-Elect Obama will nominate the retired General-- the highest ranking Asian-American in US military history (he is Japanese-American)-- to head the Department of Veteran Affairs. The Department, second largest after Defense (with 240,000 employees) administers health and other benefits for active military and veterans. It is underfunded, antiquated and stretched to the breaking point by a war this country should never have waged.
(57) CommentsDecember 6, 2008
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Bread, Bombs, and the Big Stimulus
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
In 2007, over 37 million Americans, or 12.5 percent of the US population, lived below the federal poverty line--$21,200 for a family of four (well below the income truly required to make ends meet in our economy.) And now, as we head into this deepening recession, we're looking at a jump in the number of people living in poverty.
According to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), based on Goldman Sachs' projection of a 9 percent unemployment rate by the end of 2009, the number of Americans living in poverty will increase from 7.5 to 10.3 million people, of which 3.3 million total will be poor children, with 1.5 to 2 million more children living in families with incomes below half of the poverty line, or what is called "deep poverty". (CBPP's numbers are consistent with the rise in poverty relative to the increase in unemployment over the last three recessions.)
What's even more ominous about the current recession as compared to those of the past, the CBPP report warns, is the truly depleted state of the safety net: "Because this recession is likely to be deep and the government safety net for very poor families who lack jobs has weakened significantly in recent years, increases in deep poverty in this recession are likely to be severe."
(76) CommentsDecember 3, 2008
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Robert Gates: Wrong Man for the Job
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Barack Obama not only had the good judgment to oppose the war in Iraq but , as he told us earlier this year, "I want to end the mindset that got us into war." So it is troubling that a man of such good judgment has asked Robert Gates to stay on as Secretary of Defense--and assembled a national security team of such narrow bandwidth. It is true that President Obama will set the policy. But this team makes it more difficult to seize the extraordinary opportunity Obama's election has offered to reengage the world and reset America's priorities. Maybe being right about the greatest foreign policy disaster in US history doesn't mean much inside the Beltway? How else to explain that not a single top member of Obama's foreign policy/national security team opposed the war--or the dubious claims leading up to it?
The appointment of Hillary Clinton, who failed to oppose the war, has worried many. But I am more concerned about Gates. I spent the holiday weekend reading many of the speeches Hillary Clinton gave in her trips abroad as First Lady, especially those delivered at the UN Beijing Women's Conference and the Vital Voices Conferences, and I believe she will carve out an important role as Secretary of State through elevating women's (and girl's) rights as human rights. As she said in Belfast in 1998, "Human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights." That is not to diminish her hawkish record on several issues, but as head of State she is in a position to put diplomacy back at the center of US foreign policy role--and reduce the Pentagon's.
It's the appointment of Gates which has a dispiriting, stay-the-course feel to it. Some will argue, and I've engaged in my fair share of such arguments, that Gates will simply be carrying out Obama's policies and vision. And a look at history shows that other great reform Presidents--Lincoln and Roosevelt--brought people into their cabinets who were old Washington hands or people they believed to be effective managers. Like Obama, they confronted historic challenges that compelled (and enabled) them to make fundamental change. But Gates will undoubtedly help to shape policy and determine which issues are given priority. And while Gates has denounced "the gutting" of America's "soft power," he has been vocally opposed to Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan. And at a time when people like Henry Kissinger and George Shultz are calling for steps toward a world free of nuclear weapons (a position Obama has adopted), Gates has been calling for a new generation of nuclear weapons.
(101) CommentsDecember 1, 2008
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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