Memo To Supremes: Got Ethics?

Good grief - how can someone so smart be so stupid? So clueless? So wrong?

John Roberts is not just any someone. He's Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the judicial body of last resort with god-like power to impose "justice" and alter the rules that the rest of us are expected to obey. But what rules of ethical conduct must these nine justices obey?

The answer is: None. While there are written codes of conduct for every other judge in America, the Supremes have majestically exempted themselves from any such enforceable ethical burden. This is now causing a public stink for the Court, since three of the exalted jurists have recently been exposed for participation in nakedly political events to advance the fortunes of right-wing corporate interests for whom they've been ruling. This political partisanship is expressly prohibited by the code of conduct that governs other federal judges, so why should these nine public officials be exempt?

Because, explained Chief Justice Roberts, all nine of us are "jurists of exceptional integrity and experience." He added that they do "consult" the code, ducking the obvious difference that he and his eight privileged colleagues can ignore the code with impunity. "At the end of the day," sniffed the imperious Roberts, "no compilation of ethical rules can guarantee integrity." Wow, Chief, how sage is that? Since written rules can't "guarantee" your integrity, why have them for lower courts, for any public office holder, or even for common citizens?

Roberts proves that you can't cover stupidity with a law degree and a black robe. A coalition of citizen organizations is demanding that the Court stop toying with the integrity of the judicial system and at least follow the code of conduct for other judges. To join the push, contact www.commoncause.org.
(c) 2012 Jim Hightower's latest book, "If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates," is available in a fully revised and updated paperback edition.

Obama's War On Pot
In a shocking about-face, the administration has launched a government-wide crackdown on medical marijuana.
By Tim Dickinson

Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. "I'm not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue," he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration's high-profile raids on providers of medical pot, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multiagency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana. With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush's record for medical-marijuana busts. "There's no question that Obama's the worst president on medical marijuana," says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. "He's gone from first to worst."

The federal crackdown imperils the medical care of the estimated 730,000 patients nationwide - many of them seriously ill or dying - who rely on state-sanctioned marijuana recommended by their doctors. In addition, drug experts warn, the White House's war on law-abiding providers of medical marijuana will only drum up business for real criminals. "The administration is going after legal dispensaries and state and local authorities in ways that are going to push this stuff back underground again," says Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, a former Republican senator who has urged the DEA to legalize medical marijuana, pulls no punches in describing the state of affairs produced by Obama's efforts to circumvent state law: "Utter chaos."

In its first two years, the Obama administration took a refreshingly sane approach to medical marijuana. Shortly after Obama took office, a senior drug-enforcement official pledged to Rolling Stone that the question of whether marijuana is medicine would now be determined by science, "not ideology." In March 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder emphasized that the Justice Department would only target medical-marijuana providers "who violate both federal and state law." The next morning, a headline in The New York Times read OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO STOP RAIDS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSERS. While all forms of marijuana would remain strictly illegal under federal law - the DEA ranks cannabis as a Schedule I drug, on par with heroin - the feds would respect state protections for providers of medical pot. Framing the Obama administration's new approach, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske famously declared, "We're not at war with people in this country."

That original hands-off policy was codified in a Justice Department memo written in October 2009 by Deputy Attorney General David Ogden. The so-called "Ogden memo" advised federal law-enforcement officials that the "rational use of its limited investigative and prosecutorial resources" meant that medical-marijuana patients and their "caregivers" who operate in "clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law" could be left alone.

At the same time, Ogden was concerned that the feds not "be made a fool of" by illegal drug traffickers. In that vein, his memo advised U.S. attorneys to focus on going after pot dispensaries that posed as medicinal but were actively engaged in criminal acts, such as selling to minors, possession of illegal firearms or money-laundering. The idea, as Holder put it, was to raid only those hardcore traffickers who "use medical-marijuana laws as a shield."

The Ogden memo sent a clear message to the states: The feds will only intervene if you allow pot dispensaries to operate as a front for criminal activity. States from New Mexico to Maine moved quickly to license and regulate dispensaries through their state health departments - giving medical marijuana unprecedented legitimacy. In California, which had allowed "caregivers" to operate dispensaries, medical pot blossomed into a $1.3 billion enterprise - shielded from federal blowback by the Ogden memo.

The administration's recognition of medical cannabis reached its high-water mark in July 2010, when the Department of Veterans Affairs validated it as a legitimate course of treatment for soldiers returning from the front lines. But it didn't take long for the fragile federal detente to begin to collapse. The reversal began at the Drug Enforcement Agency with Michele Leonhart, a holdover from the Bush administration who was renominated by Obama to head the DEA. An anti-medical-marijuana hard-liner, Leonhart had been rebuked in 2008 by House Judiciary chairman John Conyers for targeting dispensaries with tactics "typically reserved for the worst drug traffickers and kingpins." Her views on the larger drug war are so perverse, in fact, that last year she cited the slaughter of nearly 1,000 Mexican children by the drug cartels as a counterintuitive "sign of success in the fight against drugs."

In January 2011, weeks after Leonhart was confirmed, her agency updated a paper called "The DEA Position on Marijuana." With subject headings like THE FALLACY OF MARIJUANA FOR MEDICINAL USE and SMOKED MARIJUANA IS NOT MEDICINE, the paper simply regurgitated the Bush administration's ideological stance, in an attempt to walk back the Ogden memo. Sounding like Glenn Beck, the DEA even blamed "George Soros" and "a few billionaires, not broad grassroots support" for sustaining the medical-marijuana movement - even though polls show that 70 percent of Americans approve of medical pot. Almost immediately, federal prosecutors went on the attack. Their first target: the city of Oakland, where local officials had moved to raise millions in taxes by licensing high-tech indoor facilities for growing medical marijuana. A month after the DEA issued its hard-line position, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag warned the city that the feds were weighing "criminal prosecution" against the proposed pot operations. Abandoning the Ogden memo's protections for state-sanctioned "caregivers," Haag effectively re-declared war on medical pot. "We will enforce the Controlled Substances Act vigorously against individuals and organizations that participate in unlawful manufacturing and distribution activity involving marijuana," she wrote, "even if such activities are permitted under state law." Haag's warning shot had the desired effect: Oakland quickly scuttled its plans, even though the taxes provided by the indoor grows could have single-handedly wiped out the city's $31 million deficit.

Two months later, federal prosecutors in Washington state went even further, threatening state employees responsible for implementing new regulations for pot dispensaries. U.S. attorneys sent a letter to Gov. Christine Gregoire, warning that state employees "would not be immune from liability under the Controlled Substances Act." Shocked by the threat - "It subjected Washington state employees to felony criminal prosecution!" - Gregoire vetoed the new rules. A similar federal threat in Rhode Island forced Chafee to follow suit, putting an indefinite hold on the planned opening of three state-licensed "compassion centers" to distribute marijuana to seriously ill patients.

In isolation, such moves might be seen as the work of overzealous U.S. attorneys, who operate with considerable autonomy. But last June, the Justice Department effectively declared that it was returning to the Bush administration's hard-line stance on medical marijuana. James Cole, who had replaced Ogden as deputy attorney general, wrote a memo revoking his predecessor's deference to states on the definition of "caregiver." The term, Cole insisted, applied only to "individuals providing care to individuals with cancer or other serious illnesses, not commercial operations cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana." Pot dispensaries, in short, were once again prime federal targets, even if they were following state law to the letter. "The Cole memo basically adopted the Bush policy," says Kampia, "which was only that the Justice Department will not go after individual patients."

In reality, however, the Obama administration has also put patients in the cross hairs. Last September, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms moved to deprive Americans who use medical marijuana of their gun rights. In an open letter to gun sellers, the ATF warned that it is unlawful to sell "any firearm or ammunition" to "any person who uses or is addicted to marijuana, regardless of whether his or her state has passed legislation authorizing marijuana use for me dicinal purposes." If your doctor advises you to use medicinal pot, in other words, you can no longer legally own a gun. Hunting advocates were outraged. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, wrote a furious letter calling on the Justice Department to reassess its "chilling" policy, declaring it "unacceptable that law-abiding citizens would be stripped of their Second Amendment rights."

Since the federal crackdown began last year, the DEA has raided dozens of medical-cannabis dispensaries from Michigan to Montana. Haag, the U.S. attorney for Northern California, claims the federal action is necessary because the state's legalized pot dispensaries have been "hijacked by profiteers" who are nothing more than criminals.

It's true that California has no shortage of illegal pot dealers. Nonmedical marijuana is the state's largest cash crop, raking in an estimated $14 billion a year. And demand is growing, in part because former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger thwarted a ballot measure aimed at full legalization in 2010 by removing criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of pot. But instead of focusing limited federal resources on off-the-grid growers in places like Humboldt County, who are often armed and violent, Haag targeted Matthew Cohen, a medical-marijuana farmer in Mendocino who was growing 99 plants under the direct supervision of the county sheriff. As part of a pioneering collaboration with local law enforcement, Cohen marked each of his plants with county-supplied tags, had his secured facility inspected and distributed the marijuana he grew directly to patients in his nonprofit collective.

Cohen appeared to be precisely the kind of caregiver that the Ogden memo advised should be given safe harbor for operating in "clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law." But last October, DEA agents stormed Cohen's farm in the middle of the night and cut down his crop. Sheriff Tom Allman, who learned of the raid on his turf only an hour before it was executed, was outraged. "Matt Cohen was not in violation of any state or local ordinances when federal agents arrived at his location," Allman says. In January, Haag took the fight to the next level, threatening county officials like Allman with federal sanctions. Three weeks later, county supervisors voted to abandon the program to license and monitor Mendocino's legal growers. "This is a huge step backward," says Allman.

Haag's treatment of urban dispensaries has been equally ham-handed. She recently shuttered one of the oldest dispensaries in the state, a nonprofit that serves a high percentage of female patients in Marin County, which has the nation's highest rate of breast cancer. She has threatened to seize the properties that landlords rent to legal pot dispensaries. And in San Francisco, she targeted Divinity Tree, a cooperative run by a quadriplegic who himself relies on prescribed cannabis for relief from near-constant muscle spasms. At a time of high unemployment and huge budget deficits, the move killed more than a dozen jobs and deprived the state of $180,000 in annual tax revenue. In San Diego alone, the feds have shut down nearly two-thirds of the county's dispensaries. Statewide, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union estimates, the federal crackdown has destroyed some 2,500 jobs in California. It also sent street prices soaring by at least 20 percent, putting more money in the hands of actual criminals.

In addition, the federal war on medical marijuana has locked pot dispensaries out of the banking system - especially in Colorado, home to the nation's second-largest market for medicinal cannabis. Top banks - including Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America - are refusing to do business with state-licensed dispensaries, for fear of federal prosecution for money-laundering and other federal drug crimes. In a House hearing in December, Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado warned Attorney General Holder that strong-arming banks will actually raise the likelihood of crime. If pot dispensaries have to work outside the normal financial system, Polis told Holder, "it makes the industry harder for the state to track, to tax, to regulate them, and in fact makes it prone to robberies, because it becomes a cash business."

The IRS has also joined in the administration's assault on pot dispensaries, seeking to deny them standard tax deductions enjoyed by all other businesses. Invoking an obscure provision of the tax code meant to trip up drug kingpins, the IRS now maintains that pot dispensaries can deduct only one expense - ironically, the cost of the marijuana itself. All other normal costs of doing business - including employee salaries and benefits, rent, equipment, electricity and water - have been denied.

The agency has used the provision to go after Harborside Health Center, one of the largest and most respected providers of medical cannabis in California. Its Oakland branch, serving 83,000 patients in conforming with state law, paid more than $1 million in city taxes last year - placing it in the top 10 percent of local businesses. "It's incredibly tightly run and very, very professional," says Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance. "But it's also big - and it may be that big is bad as far as the feds are concerned." Slapped with an IRS bill for $2.5 million in back taxes, Harborside now faces bankruptcy. "It's profoundly inaccurate to characterize us as a 'drug-trafficking' organization," says Harborside president Steve DeAngelo. "We are a nonprofit community-service organization that helps sick and suffering people get the medicine they need to be well. This is not an attempt to tax us - it's an attempt to tax us out of existence."

Supporters of medical marijuana are baffled by Obama's abrupt about-face on the issue. Some blame the federal crackdown not on the president, but on career drug warriors determined to go after medical pot. "I don't think the federal onslaught is being driven by the highest levels of the White House," says Nadelmann. "What we need is a clear statement from the White House that federal authorities will defer to responsible local regulation."

The White House, for its part, insists that its position on medical pot has been "clear and consistent." Asked for comment, a senior administration official points out that the Ogden memo was never meant to protect "such things as large-scale, privately owned industrial marijuana cultivation centers" like the one in Oakland. But the official makes no attempt to explain why the administration has permitted a host of federal agencies to revive the Bush-era policy of targeting state-approved dispensaries. "Somewhere in the administration, a decision was made that it would be better to close down legal, regulated systems of access for patients and send them back to the street, back to criminals," says DeAngelo. "That's what's really at stake."

The administration's retreat on medical pot is certainly consistent with its broader election-year strategy of seeking to outflank Republicans on everything from free trade to offshore drilling. Obama's advisers may be betting that a tough-on-pot stance will shore up the president's support among seniors in November, as well as voters in Southern swing states like Virginia and North Carolina that are less favorable to drug reform. But the president could pay a steep price for his anti-pot crackdown this fall, particularly if it winds up alienating young voters in swing states like Colorado, where two-thirds of residents support medical marijuana. In November, Colorado voters will likely consider a referendum to legalize all pot use for adults - and undercutting enthusiasm for the issue will only dampen turnout that could benefit the president. "Medical marijuana is twice as popular as Obama," notes Kampia. "It doesn't make any political sense."

The sharpest and most surprising rebuke to the administration has come from centrist governors who are fed up with the war on medicinal pot. In November, Gregoire and Chafee issued a bipartisan petition to the DEA, asking the agency to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule II drug, the same as cocaine and meth - one with a recognized medicinal value, despite its high potential for abuse. "It's time to show compassion, and it's time to show common sense," says Gregoire. "We call on the federal government to end the confusion and the unsafe burden on patients."

A petition by two sitting governors is historic - but it's unlikely to shift federal policy. Last June, after a nine-year delay, the Obama administration denied a similar petition. An official at the Department of Health and Human Services left little hope for reclassification, reiterating the Bush-era position that there is "no accepted medical use for marijuana in the United States."

For law-enforcement officials who handle marijuana on the front lines, such attitudes highlight how out of touch the administration has become. "Whether you call it medical or recreational, the marijuana genie is out of the bottle, and there's no one who's going to put it back in," insists Sheriff Allman of Mendocino, whose department had been targeted by federal prosecutors for its attempts to regulate medical pot. "For federal officials who plug their ears and say, 'No, it's not true, it's not true,' I have some words for them: You need to get over it."
(c) 2012 Tim Dickinson

The Monsanto Aspartame Plot
By James Donahue

The toxic sweetener Aspartame has been found out and American shoppers are reading labels to avoid prepared foods and soft drinks lased with this substance. But beware, the Monsanto Corporation, which owns the Aspartame patent, has produced a newly patented variation of Aspartame called Neotame.

The worst news here is that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has given Monsanto a green light to market Neotame and that food processors will not be required to list this produce on food labels.

Notice that at the same time this is going on, there is a movement in Washington to put controls on the amount of sugar being used in processed food, some calling it an addictive substance. This may lead to a special sugar tax and perhaps legislation limiting the amount of sugar food processors can add to those flavored soft drinks, sauces, milk products, prepared meals and canned fruits and vegetables.

Of course the plausable answer to this will be to add Monsanto's Neotame to our food.

Aspartame has been proven to be an addictive "excitotoxin" that gives consumers a temporary mental jolt by over-stimulating the production of dopamine in the brain. The rush is so extreme that the chemical has been shown to kill brain cells and increase the risk of stroke and heart attack.

This product has been shown to have up to 92 different side effects that mimic diseases. These range from eye and hearing disorders to joint pain, epileptic seizures, itching, anxiety, tremors, depression, asthma, depressed mental development in newborns, severe weight gain, and irreversible brain damage. The list goes on and on.

So why did the FDA roll over for Monsanto and approve the production and sale of a variation of the same chemical ingredients in U. S. food products? Would the fact that in 2009 President Obama appointed Michael Taylor, formerly a vice president for Monsanto, to the position of deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA, give us a clue?

How many other "sold out" FDA operatives do we have hidden within that agency?

Like so many other factions of our federal government, the Food and Drug Administration, an agency originally designed to be a watchdog over the safety of the products Americans consume, appears to be in the pockets of big corporate interests. How can we trust anything the FDA tells us? Most pressing of all, how do we escape the looming onslaught of Monsanto's deadly new sweetener in the food we buy at the grocery store?
(c) 2012 James L. Donahue is a retired newspaper reporter, editor and columnist with more than 40 years of experience in professional writing. He is the published author of five books, all dealing with Michigan history, and several magazine articles. He currently produces daily articles for this web site.

Romney, Severely Awful
By Joel S. Hirschhorn

There are many, many reasons to have low regard for Mitt Romney. All but the totally delusional correctly see him as disingenuous, dishonest, devious and devoid of an authentic set of core beliefs. He is a shill for corporate and rich elites. He is the phony smiling, perfect hair poster jerk for the proverbial one percent. But I now clearly see that there is another, more important reason to feel like vomiting at the thought of President Romney.

As almost everyone knows by now, Romney has been a senior, influential member of the Mormon Church, which has been roundly criticized for being an inauthentic Christian religion and for various beliefs and practices made comical in the hugely successful Broadway show The Book of Mormon. But there is one particular Mormon practice that is so upsetting to most people who learn about it that deserves to become an issue in this presidential campaign.

I want Mitt Romney to stand up and have the courage and decency to proclaim to Americans exactly whether he personally supports the Mormon practice known as proxy baptism. If you are not a member of the Mormon faith, then you should take this very seriously. Proxy baptism is like email spam, junk mail and unwanted marketing phone calls that invade our lives, destroy our privacy, waste our time and make our blood boil. Actually, proxy baptism is a zillion times worse. It represents the invasion of one religion against all others and atheism also.

In a nutshell, proxy baptism refers to the Mormon practice of baptizing a living person on behalf of someone who is dead and was not a member of the Mormon Church. The goal is to get that non-Mormon person into Mormon-defined heaven, which is totally different than what all other religions think of as heaven. The dead person nor anyone related to the dead person does not necessarily give permission or express any desire to be so baptized.

Standing in for dead people are young Mormon men and women dressed in white robes in Mormon temple ceremonies worldwide, which is considered an honor for them.

Over time many people who are not Mormons have mounted attacks on this practice, viewing the Mormon practice as a serious invasion of their lives and beliefs. Someone who has received considerable attention as such a critic is Nobel-laureate Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and a top official from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He has focused on posthumously baptizing Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Despite his attempts to stop Mormons doing this and despite promises they would, the practice has continued.

I think it totally reasonable for everyone to demand that Romney take a public position on this Mormon practice. Specifically, I want Romney to declare in clear, unambiguous language whether he has participated in such proxy baptisms, whether he believes that this practice is appropriate, and whether or not he understands why non-Mormons would object to this practice.

Should Americans resent a US President that supports Mormon proxy baptizing? Absolutely.

Officially, the Mormon Church has refused to abandon this practice. "With deepest respect to our Jewish friends, the church cannot abandon fundamental aspects of its religious doctrine and practice," the church says on its website, "and it should not be asked to do so." Many millions of non-Mormons have apparently been proxy baptized, including famous people: Adolph Hitler, Christopher Columbus, most signers of the US Declaration of Independence, Paul Revere, William Shakespeare, Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, President Obama's mother and Irving Berlin, for example. There is no attempt by the church to document that non-Mormons had expressed any desire to be baptized into the Mormon faith. And church attempts to limit proxy baptizing to a member's or family member's ancestors apparently have failed.

Interestingly, those in the Hindu faith have said that Hindu feelings would naturally be hurt if their ancestors were baptized without their will. Similarly, the Catholic Church has also publicly objected to the Mormon baptism of its members.

To be fair and non-partisan, I also believe that US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who also is a Mormon should similarly be pressured to state publicly his positions on proxy baptizing. After all, because this practice is imposed on non-Mormons, we have a right to know whether elected officials endorse it.

If there is any part of Mitt Romney's life that he should be able to speak honestly about it is his religious beliefs. So go ahead Mitt, tell Americans exactly what you believe about this Mormon proxy baptizing practice. Be severely honest just as you have been severely conservative.

In sum, the central issue is RESPECT. Mormons are not respecting the religious beliefs of people they are proxy baptizing. Similarly, all the evil people hitting me with spam emails, junk mail and unwanted phone calls show me no respect whatsoever. Do I believe that Mormons have the power to send non-Mormons into their heaven? Hell no. I do not believe that even Mormons will get into their conception of heaven. Of all religions that I have ever learned about I find Mormonism the most ridiculous and cult like. I just hope if any reporter has the courage to ask Romney about proxy baptizing that they also ask him if he is wearing his magic underwear that as a dedicated and very senior member of the Mormon Church he is supposed to be wearing all the time...
(c) 2012 Joel S. Hirschhorn observed our corrupt federal government firsthand as a senior official with the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association and is the author of Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government. To discuss issues write the author. The author has a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering and was formerly a full professor of metallurgical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The 10 Most Excellent Reasons To Attack Iran

10. They won't give our drone back. Enough said.
(c) 2012 David Swanson is the author of "War Is A Lie."

A Federal Judge Thwarts Title VII And The Pregnancy Discrimination Act By Ruling Bizarrely That Lactation Is Not Related To Pregnancy!

But Venters, the plaintiff in Houston Funding, was simply asking not to be fired after revealing that she planned to breastfeed (and pump milk) after returning to work. She deserved the chance to prove that her employer had fired her for just that reason-and thus to vindicate her right against this form of discrimination. Health care reform may resolve the important and longstanding problem with contraceptive access in this country, but even though this important battle has been mostly won, we must not forget about other aspects of the reproductive process that still leave women especially vulnerable in the workplace.
This article first appeared in Justia's Verdict
(c) 2012 Joanna L. Grossman, a Justia columnist, is a professor of law at Hofstra University. She is the coauthor of Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America (Princeton University Press 2011) and the coeditor of Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press 2009). Her columns focus on family law, trusts and estates, and sex discrimination.

Pain Without Gain

Look, I understand why influential people are reluctant to admit that policy ideas they thought reflected deep wisdom actually amounted to utter, destructive folly. But it's time to put delusional beliefs about the virtues of austerity in a depressed economy behind us.
(c) 2012 Paul Krugman --- The New York Times

The Quotable Quote...

Cash Of The Titans

Conversely, personal devotion to a fear-bulwarked, habitually self-serving egoism, as opposed to embracing a soul-infused selfhood, creates a catastrophe of malignant greed--a disastrously narrow, resonance-bereft approach to consciousness that alone cannot carry the multiverse of the self into the world. Hence, a selfish man's relentless obsession to possess the bounty of our planet can never assuage his sense of insecurity and emptiness, not even if all the plundered riches of the ravaged earth were laid before him for his taking.
(c) 2012 Phil Rockstroh, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. Visit Phil's website, and at FaceBook.

Corporations Don't Need A Tax Cut, So Why Is Obama Proposing One?

It's discouraging. The President gives a rousing speech, as he did on December 6 in Kansas. Then he misses an opportunity to put his campaign where his mouth is.
(c) 2012 Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.

The Dead Letter Office...

America's Youth Uprising
By John Nichols

This essay is adapted from John Nichols's Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, From Madison to Wall Street, published in February by Nation Books.

The uprising of February 2011 made a single word, "Wisconsin," not just the name of a state but the reference point for a renewal of labor militancy, mass protest and radical politics. But it did something else. It signaled that a new generation of young Americans would not just reject the lie of austerity. They would lead a fight-back that has extended from the Capitol in Madison to Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan and across the United States.

A remarkable transition has happened since Wisconsinites occupied their streets and their Capitol. Progressives have moved from despair to hope. Not to victory, but to a sense of possibility. That is the radical progress that students, young workers, rockers and rappers demanded from a political process too prone to cynicism and surrender-and it is the radical change they have made. To understand how radical, consider where things began.

Governor Scott Walker, a Republican narrowly elected in the GOP sweep of 2010, proposed just weeks after taking office to strip teachers and other public sector workers of the collective bargaining rights and union representation that provide the last thin layers of protection in an era of globalization, privatization, downsizing and deep cuts. The governor and his party had the upper hand, with control of both houses of the state legislature, a dysfunctional Democratic opposition, weakened unions, a pliant press and a right-wing machine funded by billionaires like Charles and David Koch.

By the estimate of most pundits, even those who sympathized generally with labor and specifically with the Democratic Party, defeating the governor's project was a hopeless struggle. But someone forgot to tell the students. Days after Walker's announcement, 1,000 members and supporters of the Teaching Assistants' Association at the University of Wisconsin-the oldest graduate employee union in the world-gathered at the Capitol to raise handmade signs and teeth-chattering voices in protest.

They kept rallying, joined first by other embattled public sector unions and then by members of private sector unions who saw that their rights were threatened as well, then by retirees, farmers and small-business owners. The Capitol was surrounded and then peacefully occupied, with students leading their teachers through the doors. The numbers steadily grew, reaching close to 100,000 just one week after that first rally. Democratic state senators, after hearing the shouts of "Kill the bill!" from outside and inside the Capitol, bolted, fleeing across the state line to deny the GOP the quorum it needed to rubber-stamp Walker's agenda. Their exit created the opening for a mass movement, as the rallies and marches spread to communities across the state. Nothing was going as planned for the governor, his party or their paymasters in the executive suites. But nothing was going as planned for the unions or their allies either.

This was an uprising, uncharted and uncontrolled. Into the thick of it strode Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and a ragtag band of rockers who had come to sing labor songs for the tens of thousands rallying outside the Capitol. It was an electric moment that saw Wisconsinites from toddlers to septuagenarians jumping to the most rhythmic version anyone had ever heard of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." Morello then led the crew into the Capitol, where thousands of students, workers and their multigenerational supporters had packed the rotunda and every cranny of the sprawling century-old building. Leo Gerard, the burly Steelworkers union president, grabbed a bullhorn and told the crowd, "You have inspired this fat old white guy." Morello was equally inspired. He told participants in the most sustained mass protest in recent American history, "Governor Walker...didn't count on you. He didn't count on your resolve!... This is going to be the first domino to fall in a new resurgence of labor and student power around this country. You're setting an unprecedented example-in my lifetime, in this country, for people around the world. Believe it!"

They did believe, and thousands accepted his invitation to a free concert that night in the cavernous confines of the city's convention center. The key claim of those who would dismiss the Wisconsin uprising has always been that it was "just a bunch of union agitators bused in from around the country." But here, on a cold February night, were 3,500 high school and college students, most of whom had never been union members, many of whom came from families with no union ties. They were hanging on every word of songs about a labor struggle that did not involve them directly but would define their future. When Mike McColgan, the former firefighter turned lead singer of Street Dogs, urged the crowd to raise their fists and sing "Up the Union," they did just that, with that rare mixture of joy and resolve that is the essential match of movement making. Finishing a song about creating a new labor age, McColgan shouted, "Do it!" And the students and young workers responded, "Yes! Do it!"

Commentators on these times do not turn with comfort or frequency to discussions of real change, of fundamental shifts-let alone to serious consideration of new generations demanding new worlds. What passes for journalism these days respects cynicism rather than optimism; editors and reporters have for the most part become guardians against any leap of faith. The fear of hope is not just a bow to the status quo, not just deference to the powerful. Even among the most progressive observers, there is a disinclination to employ the language of possibility for fear of stirring false faith-and, just as important, for fear of being identified as one who dares to believe that what is to come might actually be better than what was. After all, these have not been progressive times; even when the people have chosen leaders who promise "Change we can believe in," they have been repaid with compromise we cannot understand or justify.

But on that winter night the only reasonable response was to believe that the next generation might not be so easily defeated. That it might actually renew and extend movements that seemed, just days before, to have been teetering on the brink of extinction. For as long as I can remember, labor activists and their lefty allies have wrestled with the question of how to reach out to youth. Many of the smartest and most committed radicals of the 1960s and '70s made lifetime commitments to organize, maintain and lead unions. Those who initiated movement-conscious projects like the farm labor organizing and Justice for Janitors campaigns of the '80s, the anti-sweatshop work of the '90s and the protests against corporate-friendly globalization that shook Seattle in 1999-all invited a next generation into the struggle. Sometimes they succeeded. But there remained a tentativeness, a sense that the one step forward would be followed by the inevitable two steps back.

But what I saw in Madison on that February night, and what I see even now, as the uprising continues in states across the country, and with the fresh variations of the Occupy movement, has been different. The connection was made-and not just at one show or for one night. The threat of a future without the right to organize, seemingly esoteric but in reality immediate and fully understandable, spurred high school and college students, young workers and the young unemployed to make a movement. They showed up, again and again and again in Madison, for rallies, marches and vigils, and they organized on their own terms: with Twitter and Facebook savvy, with energy, with a rock-and-rap passion that reminded older activists that idealism at its best comes with an edge.

I could not help recalling on that remarkable night the response of Claude Levi-Strauss to requests that he identify the "golden age" of human civilization. The father of modern anthropology rejected the question as absurd on its face, and absurdly disempowering in its implications. In Tristes Tropiques, Levi-Strauss explained that "if men have always been concerned with only one task-how to create a society fit to live in-the forces which inspired our distant ancestors are also present in us. Nothing is settled; everything can still be altered. What was done but turned out wrong, can be done again. 'The Golden Age,' which blind superstition had placed behind [or ahead of] us, is in us." Those are not blandly optimistic words. They are demanding. They suggest that we have fewer excuses than we thought, that this is the place, that now is the time and that there is truth in the maxim that we are the people we've been waiting for. In Wisconsin, as would soon be the case nationwide, a rising generation accepted that challenge and shouted that, yes, they were ready to "Do it!"
(c) 2012 John Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.

Life Without God
An Interview with Tim Prowse
By Sam Harris

Tim Prowse was a United Methodist pastor for almost 20 years, serving churches in Missouri and Indiana. Tim earned a B.A. from East Texas Baptist University, a Master of Divinity (M.Div) from Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, and a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min) from Chicago Theological Seminary. Acknowledging his unbelief, Tim left his faith and career in 2011. He currently lives in Indiana. He was kind enough to discuss his experience of leaving the ministry with me by email.

*****

Can you describe the process by which you lost your belief in the teachings of your Church?

An interesting thing happened while I was studying at East Texas Baptist University: I was told not to read Rudolf Bultmann. I asked myself: Why? What were they protecting me from? I picked up Bultmann's work, and that decision is the catalyst that ultimately paved the road to today. Throughout my educational journey, which culminated in an Ordination from the United Methodist Church where I've served for seventeen years, I've continued to ask the question "Why?" Ironically, it was seminary that inaugurated my leap of unfaith. It was so much easier to believe when living in an uncritical, unquestioning, naïve state. Seminary training with its demands for rigorous and intentional study and reflection coupled with its values of reason and critical inquiry began to undermine my naïveté. I discovered theologians, philosophers and authors I never knew existed. I found their questions stimulating but their answers often unsatisfying. For example, the Bible is rife with vileness evidenced by stories of sexual exploitation, mass murder and arbitrary mayhem. How do we harmonize this fact with the conception of an all-loving, all-knowing God? While many have undertaken to answer this question even in erudite fashion, I found their answers lacking. Once I concluded that the Bible was a thoroughly human product and the God it purports does not exist, other church teachings, such as communion and baptism, unraveled rather quickly. To quote Nietzsche, I was seeing through a different "perspective" - a perspective based on critical thinking, reason and deduction. By honing these skills over time, reason and critical thinking became my primary tools and faith quickly diminished. Ultimately, these tools led to the undoing of my faith rather than the strengthening of it.

It sounds like you lost your faith in the process of becoming a minister—or did you go back and forth for some years? How long did you serve as a minister, and how much of this time was spent riven by doubt?

I didn't lose faith entirely during the ministerial process, although a simmering struggle between faith and doubt was clearly evident. This simmering would boil occasionally throughout my seventeen-year career, but any vacillations I experienced were easily suppressed, and faith would triumph, albeit, for non-religious reasons. Besides the money, time, and energy I had invested during the process, familial responsibilities deterred any decisions to alter course. These faithful triumphs were ephemeral and I found myself living in constant intellectual and emotional turmoil. By not repudiating my career, I could not escape the feeling I was living a lie. I continued to juggle this stressful dichotomy to the point of being totally miserable. Only recently have I succumbed to the doubt that has always undergirded my faith journey.

After I read your book, The End of Faith, I could no longer suppress my unbelief. Since I'd never felt comfortable in clergy garb and refused to accept a first-century worldview, your book helped me see that religion could no longer be an instrument of meaning in my life. I'm sad to say, Sam, this conclusion did not result in an immediate career change. I didn't break from the church immediately, but rather feigned belief for two more years.

If you could go back in time and reason with your former self, what could you say that might have broken the spell sooner?

I would tell myself to ask questions, to read the text, to wonder, to explore the nuances, to take seriously my intuition and abilities to debate. I'd tell myself to listen to what is actually being said with critical and reasoning ears. I'd tell myself to substitute "Invisible Friend" for "God" every time I encountered the word and notice how ridiculous the rhetoric sounds from grown-ups. I would challenge myself to be more skeptical, to study science. I'd tell myself to find joy in life - it's the only one you are going to get - don't waste a second.

Believers often allege that there is a deep connection between faith and morality. For instance, when I debated Rick Warren, he said that if he did not believe in God, he wouldn't have any reason to behave ethically. You've lived on both sides of the faith continuum. I'm wondering if you felt any associated change in your morality, for better or worse.

I'd be interested to know what behaviors or impulses God is deterring Rick Warren from acting upon. I doubt very seriously if "God's goodness" evaporated tomorrow, Warren would begin robbing banks, raping children, or murdering his neighbors! These types of statements, while common, are fallacious in my opinion. When Rick Warren uses God as his reason for being good, he is not using God in a general sense. He isn't referring to Thor, Neptune, or Isis, either.

One can find a few biblical passages that do promote "goodness" to use Rick Warren's term, but only by cherry picking them and avoiding the numerous passages that are appalling, offensive and destructive.

Since God is nothing more than our creation and projection, any talk of God is our reflection looking back at us. Hence, our morality begins with us anyway. My morality hasn't changed for the worse since I left the faith. If anything, it is much more honest because I am forced to consider what is really going on in ethical decisions. Family, culture, beliefs and values, genetic tendencies, all play a role in shaping morality, but I'm not arguing an extreme relativism. While I do give credence to certain cultural influences on determining right and wrong, I believe that some issues are universal. Which is why, unless Rick Warren is truly demented, he wouldn't begin doing heinous acts if his faith evaporated tomorrow, and if he did, it would be more the result of mental illness than lack of faith.

Did you ever discuss your doubts with your fellow clergy or parishioners? Did you encounter other ministers who shared your predicament (some can be found at http://clergyproject.org/)? And what happened when you finally expressed your unbelief to others?

As an active minister, I did not discuss my atheism with colleagues or parishioners. Facing lost wages, housing and benefits, I chose to remain silent. However, I did confide in my wife who provided a level of trust, understanding, and support that proved invaluable. Unfortunately, some ministers do not enjoy mature confidants. Some have lost marriages and partners, friends and family, leaving them with feelings of isolation and abandonment. Hence, many continue living in estrangement, uncertain where to turn or who to trust, waiting for their lives to be completely upended when the truth finally is discovered.

This is why the Clergy Project is so important. It provides an invaluable resource of support for current and former clergy who are atheists. It is a safe and anonymous place to discuss the issues atheist clergy encounter while providing encouragement and support that is genuine and heartfelt. It greatly eases the desperation and uncertainty of where to turn or who to trust! I've been a member of the Clergy Project since July 2011, and it prepared me well for the responses to expect from friends and family during my post-clergy conversations. So far, I have not been surprised by the responses I've received nor have I lost any significant relationships due to my professed atheism, but time will tell.

It is nice to hear that your exit from the ministry has been comparatively smooth. What will you do next?

Repudiating my ordination and leaving faith behind was much smoother than I had anticipated. Ironically, something I had worked years to accomplish ended in a matter of minutes. When I slid my ordination certificates across a Bob Evan's tabletop to my District Superintendent, I was greatly relieved. The lie was over. I was free. This freedom does not come without consternation, however.

Fortunately, a dear friend helped my family by offering their second home to rent at a very reasonable price. Another dear friend has procured a sales job for me in her company. While housing and employment have been provided in the short term, long term my future is much more uncertain. Ideally, I'd love to write and lecture on my experiences; especially concerning the negative impacts faith and church have on individuals and societies. I'd love to write a novel.

I do not have visions of grandeur, however. If the rest of my life is spent just being a regular "Joe" that will be fine by me. I have a wonderful family and a few good friends. My heart and mind are at ease. I'm healthier now than I've been in years and tomorrow looks bright. For the first time in my life, I'm living. Truly living, Sam. (c) 2012 Sam Harris is the author of "The End Of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" and "Letter to a Christian Nation" and is the co-founder of The Reason Project, which promotes scientific knowledge and secular values. Follow Sam Harris on Twitter.

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