Who the Hell Can You Trust???

Recently a few of my friends expressed frustration about how they want to be more informed about current events, but they just don’t know who to trust.  As a person who invests a lot of time researching and staying current on politics and the economy, I’ve compiled the following list of people, organizations, and tips for people who want to get informed about politics. I’m willing to bet there are a lot of people out there in this same predicament. They want to understand what’s going on in the world, but they have no idea where to start.

1. Turn off CNN!!!!

I’ll bet you expected me to say Fox News. You’re right about Fox, of course, but the truth is, sometimes it’s difficult for me to tell the difference between Fox and CNN. In some ways CNN is more dangerous because it’s more subtle. It’s obvious that you shouldn’t pay attention to Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, for example, but did you know that Wolf Blitzer and Sanjay Gupta should also be avoided? That said, Anderson Cooper is okay, but he’s not someone I would turn to for the hard hitting news of the day. Fareed Zakaria also has some good commentary, but you can pick up on it through other news outlets without having to watch his show all the time.

2. Basically turn off the TV altogether

Okay, this will come as no surprise, but there’s basically no way to be really informed about the world if all you do is watch television. MSNBC has some good people like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, but you just can’t watch hours of news on the same network and expect to get a well rounded view of current events. To be clear, I’m not saying that I don’t like The Ed Show (Ed’s a decent dude and totally down with working America). Also, I think Lawrence O’Donnell has some good commentary from time to time even if I think he’s a pompous egomaniac who makes me cringe about 85% of the time. Overall, however, I’d skip the two of them in favor of doing some independent reading on the interwebs. Rachel Maddow is the only program on MSNBC that I regularly tune into. Chris Hayes’s program is on at the most ridiculous time slot in history, so unless you’re seriously awake at 7am on Saturdays, you’re better off checking out his writing or catching clips online. (If you are awake that early, you might need to do some more research about how to have more fun on Friday nights—this may not be the blog for you.)

3. Customize Your RSS Feed

Personally, I like using a customized iGoogle page with headlines and snippets from my favorite news/blog sources. I have several different pages customized for various things like Alternative Energy and local SF stuff, but the page I look at the most contains the following:

ThinkProgress: All around good journalism. I find myself posting a lot of links to this site on FB. Highly recommended that people follow this.

TruthDig: TruthDig is home to some great writers such as Chris Hedges who I very much recommend paying attention to. Also, they cross post good articles from other media outlets and have funny political cartoons.

DailyKos: I don’t care all that much for Markos Koulitsas (“Kos”) in terms of his personality for some reason, but there are a lot of great writers on this site that are worth paying attention to. Plus, the weekly “Hate-Mail-a-Palooza” can be amusing.

Crooks & Liars: Another all around good blog that posts links to funny and/or poignant political videos, as well as commentary and snippets of news from a variety of sources, so you don’t miss anything important.

Salon.com: Lots of good writers on this site like Glenn Greenwald. I especially respect Glenn Greenwald’s defense of Wikileaks, which was not all that popular with a lot of people for some reason. IMHO, if you want to know what’s going on in the world, but you don’t defend an open exchange of information, then why bother to inform yourself at all? Keep drinking the Kool-Aid!

DemocracyNow!: Amy Goodman is excellent. I don’t watch her all the time because the videos tend to be longer than I have time for, but you should definitely pay attention to her. Also, she interviews Noam Chomsky sometimes. In case you haven’t noticed, Noam Chomsky has essentially been blacklisted from all major news outlets. If this doesn’t convince you that you should turn off your television then what will?

Media Matters: I don’t read Media Matters all the time, but they provide exhaustive research to debunk idiotic claims made by Fox News pundits. They do a fantastic job—I just don’t have time to read the whole thing usually. Instead, I browse their articles to see what outrageous claims Fox News (or whoever) has made in the past 24 hours and browse through enough evidence to convince myself that it’s garbage.

The Huffington Post: I don’t look at the Huffington Post all that often because it seems to have a lot of news about celebrities and other things I could care less about, but they do have some good articles from time to time (as well as some dumb ones).

I wish I could follow The Nation more closely, but the sad truth is that they have a terrible iGoogle app, so I can never get their RSS feed to work the way I want it. The Nation is definitely a news source that I would encourage people to read though. Chris Hayes is an editor-at-large for The Nation, which is how I first heard of him before I started seeing him on MSNBC.

4. Get Familiar With A Starter List of Names You Can Trust

Paul Krugman, Economist/New York Times/Nobel Prize Recipient

Robert Reich, Economist/Public Policy Professor at UC Berkeley/Former Labor Secretary under Clinton

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post

Keith Olbermann, Current TV

Rachel Maddow, MSNBC

Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Chris Hedges, TruthDig

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, DemocracyNow!

Cenk Uygar, The Young Turks (I don’t watch enough of this guy for sure)

Noam Chomsky, Linguist/MIT Professor

Melissa Harris-Perry, The Nation/Political Science Professor at Tulane University

Naomi Klein, The Nation (if you haven't read The Shock Doctrine pick up a copy ASAP)

Bernie Sanders, Independent Senator from Vermont (self-proclaimed democratic socialist!)

5. Do Some Independent Research

This is by no means an exhaustive list. These are just the people that I personally trust and recommend as a jumping off point. Plus, I’m sure there are lots of people that I’m just not remembering as I’m writing this that are perfectly excellent sources of information and commentary.

It’s also worth noting that I don’t agree with everything that anyone has to say 100% of the time. The bottom line is that there's a difference between disagreeing with someone's opinion from time to time and not being able to trust what a person has to say. The people and organizations listed above are trustworthy and are generally concerned about the same things we’re all concerned about:

Rising social and financial inequality

How to fix the economy (unlike some of the right’s economic advisors, Paul Krugman actually has a Nobel Prize)

Honesty in journalism

How money affects our politics

Healthcare access

Etc

6. Always Watch Bill Maher’s “New Rules” Segment

Politics can be dreary, depressing stuff in light of idiotic things like “Super Committees” and “Austerity Measures.” That’s why it’s so important to keep up on Bill Maher’s “New Rules” segment. Some random person typically uploads the latest clips to YouTube by Sunday evening, so if you don’t have HBO (I don’t), then there’s no excuse not to type “Bill Maher New Rules November 2011” into the YouTube machine. Happy viewing!

Everything you ever wanted to know about progressive tax rates (but were afraid to ask)...

Okay, I know I'm not the nation's foremost authority on tax rates or really any kind of authority at all, but there are a few misconceptions about progressive tax rates that hopefully I can clear up.

First of all, what do I mean by a "progressive tax"?

A progressive tax is a system of taxation in which taxes are assessed at a higher rate as an individual's ability to pay taxes increases (i.e., the wealthier you are, the more you pay).

Sounds simple, right?

Well, yeah, it kind of is, but a common misconception is that it's applied based on a percentage of your total income. In other words, if you make $30,000 you pay 10% and if you make $100,000 you pay 50%, etc. Obviously, this would be stupid. Let's say you taxed people at 30% of their income if they made under $50,000, but you increased their rate to 50% if they made over $50,000. A person who made $50,000 would end up with $35,000 after taxes, and a person who made $60,000 would end up with $30,000. This would be totally retarded, and no one is advocating this.

In contrast, if we applied a real progressive tax rate, your income would be taxed at different rates according to how much of your income falls into certain tax brackets. For example, if you made $30,000, you would be taxed at 10% on $30,000. If you made $50,000, you would be taxed at 10% on $30,000 and 15% on the remaining $20,000. If you made $100,000, you would be taxed at 10% on $30,000, 15% on $20,000, and 20% on the remaining $50,000. Your effective tax rate (and by that I mean the percentage of your income that you pay in taxes) would gradually increase, but it wouldn't be based on your total income.

An alternative to the progressive tax--one that conservatives often advocate--is to tax everyone at the same percentage rate. For example, we could tax everyone at 30% so that if you made $30,000 then you would pay $9,000, and if you made $100,000 then you would pay $30,000, etc. Although this sounds fair at first, the problem is that $9,000 means a lot more to someone making $30,000 than $30,000 means to someone making $100,000. For example, if you made $30,000 then you'd have only $21,000 after taxes, which isn't a lot of money when you add up rent, food, electricity, etc. That extra $9,000 could make the difference between having medical coverage for your children or worrying about whether you can afford to eat by the end of the week. In contrast, if you made $100,000, you'd have $70,000 after taxes. You probably wouldn't be happy to have to pay so much (I know, I wouldn't), but in general, you could afford all of the basic necessities, plus put some extra money in the bank, buy a car, save up for a house, and send your offspring to a decent college.

So here's the problem:

A lot of people in our country right now think that the scenario I just mentioned is fair. The only difference is that they recognize that because 30% is excessive for someone making $30,000, they think we should lower everyone's percentage rate so that instead of paying 30% of your income, we make it 20% or even 10% or whatever we feel is "fair" for everyone. At first, this might seem like a good idea. Hell, if I don't think about it too much, I'm all for it! Pay 10% of my total income? That would be awesome! The problem is, at a certain point it turns out we can't afford things like, oh, I don't know, making sure our bridges don't collapse, our grandmothers aren't begging in the streets, and our houses don't burn to the ground. (Not to mention, we really can't afford to bomb other countries into oblivion, but I suppose that's another issue...)

In the end, if we care about making life tolerable for everyone (and for the sake of our humanity, I hope we do), a progressive tax rate would ensure that the people at the bottom of the pyramid can survive and the people at the top of the pyramid pay enough so that our roads don't fall into disrepair and our water isn't toxic. I mean, hey, maybe I'm alone here, but wouldn't it be nice to maintain clean air standards and oh, I don't know, make sure there's some kind of oversight for things like pipeline safety?

In the end, at the risk of sounding preachy, the fact is that not everyone goes to college and lands a high paying job--and nor should they. It takes all kinds of people to form a society, so why should we begrudge people for choosing different paths? We need people to make things and provide services to keep our society afloat, and these services should be valued. Not all services necessitate huge wages (there's a trade off, after all), but it doesn't mean we should spit on people because they don't make a bazillion dollars. I hope we can all agree that everyone deserves dignity, no matter what they do. The sooner we quit demonizing people who rely on social services and start progressively taxing the very, very wealthy people who can afford to pay for this stuff, the sooner we'll ALL enjoy a better quality of life.

And oh yeah, if you think your own fate isn't wrapped up in the fate of all of the other people in our society, then sorry, but think again. Poverty and desperation breed higher crime rates and larger slums, and these things affect EVERYONE...unless you can afford to live in a gated community. Can you?

Brava, Wikileaks!

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Wikileaks and the Julian Assange rape allegations, and I've come to the conclusion that Julian Assange (the founder of Wikileaks) is the biggest hero in journalism in decades. If you've never read the "About Wikileaks" section on the Wikileaks website, you should check it out right now before they shut it down again or find a way to block it (because they will). "They," in this case, are literally an unprecedented coalition of state and corporate powers around the world. Suddenly, countries that don't seem to agree on anything in the public sphere can agree on one thing: that the truth must be hidden at all costs.

And if this doesn't disturb you, it should.

What better way to discredit someone who's politically unpopular than to claim they're a rapist? It's incredibly unlikely that a person motivated to fight for government transparency and ethics could simultaneously rape anyone, much less multiple women. It's ideologically inconsistent to believe on the one hand in justice and human rights and then on the other hand to be some kind of raping psychopath. So is Julian Assange really a rapist or is it just possible that this is a cheap, politically motivated character assassination designed to silence an important journalist?

As for the people who tell you that publishing classified information weakens our national security... Sorry, but that's a retarded position. The idea that we're even remotely safe in a country that gives incentives to corporations to exploit worldwide labor forces so we can buy cheap trinkets at Walmart is just laughable. There is no security in a world like that. It's the price we pay for cheap oil and free trade policies. Censoring a website that attempts to shed light on this stuff is not in the interest of national security. What would really improve our national security would be understanding what's wrong with our foreign policy and making better policy decisions.

If we really believed in "freedom"--which we don't--then we'd support the free press and demand that they expose corporate and government lies without the fear of censorship. If we actually knew or cared about what was really going on in the world, and not just what the idiot propaganda machine feeds us, then maybe we'd quit voting for idiots and start talking about what's really in our best interest.

Incidentally, this situation is a perfect illustration of why we should be screaming very loudly about net neutrality. Without net neutrality, corporations (and the governments they control) can restrict our access to independent websites exactly like Wikileaks. Is this really what we've come to?

UPDATE: The Wikileaks site that I linked to earlier (wikileaks.ch) has already been censored. There is a massive internet hacking effort going on right now to keep the site mirrored. For a list of mirrors, click here: Wikileaks.

Why Reinstating the Draft Would be Good for America

I know what you're thinking... something along the lines of "What the hell is she thinking? Reinstituting the draft is a terrible idea!!! America is a FREE country!!!!" I grant you that it's not a popular viewpoint--hell, I would have agreed with you a couple of weeks ago. Then a coworker of mine brought to my attention that if we had a draft, maybe we'd be more reluctant to engage in meaningless warfare?

While on the one hand, I agree that drafting our teenagers to fight wars for us is terrible, and I don't support war in general, isn't there a fairly obvious link between our lust for endless oil wars, our imperialist military presence around the world, and our lack of an across-the-board draft? I know we've had bases in other countries since WWII, but I can't help but wonder if it would change the equation somewhat if rich people's kids had the same probability of being drafted as a factory worker's kids in the midwest (not that there are many factories left in America, but you get the idea). If the wealthiest among us had to risk their own children's lives to fight to maintain their oil monopolies, maybe they'd think twice before shipping everyone else's children off to war?

Our current system exploits the underpriveledged. That's a fact. If you have other opportunities, like, oh I don't know, let's say education, then it's unlikely that you'll choose dying in a foreign desert over a bachelor's degree in engineering. But "equal access" to education, if in fact it ever existed, is a thing of the past. The reality is that education costs and the cost-of-living have skyrocketed while wages have stagnated. The choice kids are faced with nowadays is to pay out the ass for an education (in the hope of landing a decent enough job to pay off ridiculous student loans) or enlist in the army and take their chances. I guess kids could theoretically find something else, but personally I never aspired to be the manager of my local Burger King.

Our actual military hardly even fights our wars anymore anyway. With corporate, war-profiteering, mercenary companies like Blackwater (or whatever they're calling themselves these days), you can make a lot more money as a contractor than a soldier. Apparently we believe so little in our own causes that we hire mercenaries to fight our wars for us. I wonder if I were to ask Joe Sixpack (or our stereotype du jour) why we're fighting this war, whether he'd reply, "For FREEDOM!!!" while simultaneously arguing that we're free to make the CHOICE to fight for that freedom. As if that makes any sense.

Regardless of the stupidity of the war itself, exploiting other people's children to fight corporate wars is a terrible way to support our "way of life." If our way of life is anything worth fighting for then let's fight it at home by turning off the fucking Fox News channel and educating ourselves about what's really going on in America. Ignorance is our number one enemy, folks, and she ain't overseas.

Reflections on the American Dream

I read an article recently by Tony Judt (1948-2010) called "What is Living and What is Dead in Social Democracy," which drew my attention to our irrational relationship between finance and policy decision in America. For example, why are policy decisions so strictly linked to economic considerations? Business, financial, and consumer interests are important and should be weighed appropriately, but why are these the only considerations that merit discussion? According to Judt:

For the last thirty years, in much of the English-speaking world [...] when asking ourselves whether we support a proposal or initiative, we have not asked, is it good or bad? Instead we inquire: Is it efficient? Is it productive? Would it benefit gross domestic product? Will it contribute to growth?

I agree that these are important considerations, but should we give these questions greater weight than, say, ethical considerations or questions of human dignity?

A recent example, of course, is the debate in Congress regarding extension of unemployment benefits. The tone of the Right's argument (in addition to being generally offensive) was that unemployment benefits were "too expensive" and that the unemployed were "too lazy," and therefore, extending unemployment benefits was not acceptable--end of debate. Obviously, this idea didn't play well with their constituents, so eventually unemployment benefits were renewed, but it left me wondering how we've managed to convince ourselves that if something costs money and doesn't directly benefit corporate financial interests, then somehow its "too expensive" and "un-American"?

The answer is pretty simple--we're a brainwashed nation that will believe anything we see on TV. But in all seriousness: When did the "the American Dream"--i.e., "freedom" and pursuit of happiness--become inextricably linked with finance? Is this really what we mean by the American Dream? When we say "freedom" do we mean "freedom to make a profit"? Similarly, when we say "pursuit of happiness" do we mean "pursuit of our own interests regardless of what implications those interests might have for the common good"?

Recently, I posed these questions to a fellow American who told me that basically Americans just want to be left alone. They don't want to be bothered by government intrusion because they only care about their own interests. The emphasis of the "American Dream" is therefore on individual pursuit--in opposition (one assumes) to collective well-being. My response was, of course, to point out that for a society that claims to be based on Christian values (regardless of whether or not these claims are true), our rejection of social well-being seems a tad hypocritical.

When you think about it for a minute and deconstruct the word "society," you get "social," "socialism," "socialist." But unfortunately, we're told in America that Socialism is a terrible solution (because we saw it on TV) and that Capitalism (which leads to centralization of power and the exploitation of the working class) is the only system of government worthy of our consideration.

I find it ironic that we think of ourselves as a "democracy." Without the "social" aspect of democracy, aren't we basically just slaves to the corporate plutocracy? What would be the harm in taking some of the "capital" out of our capitalist democracy and reinvesting it in collective, social policy? We pay nearly the same taxes as a socialist democracy but with none of the benefits. Instead we get endless oil wars (because someone somewhere is making a profit) and no healthcare (because you make a better profit in denying care than giving it away for "free"). Are financial costs really the only costs worth considering?

German Domination

Somehow in the past week I made time in my hectic American schedule to research and purchase a half-dozen Socialist-related books. Here they are, in no particular order:

--The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development by Michael A. Lebowitz

--Envisioning Real Utopias by Erik Olin Wright

--The Meaning of Marxism by Paul D'Amato

--The Government and Politics of France (Fourth Edition) by Andrew Knapp and Vincent Wright

--Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky

--Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life by Thomas Geoghegan

The last book, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent, is my current read. It's about an American labor lawyer's travels in Europe (Germany, in particular) where he goes to great lengths to research the "German model" of socialism/capitalism to compare it to our arguably less successful version of capitalism in America. At first I was put off by the choppy writing in the opening chapters, but the more I get into it, the more compelling it becomes. It's a fascinating exposé of German Socialist Democracy that turns on its head the prevailing American wisdom about the supposed "collapse" of Europe in this decade.

In fact, the first thing Americans do to dispute my claim that Europe is not collapsing is to bring up Greece--as if Greece is the only country in Europe, and therefore, every socialist-leaning country is in total shambles. Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth, but try explaining that to Americans, even in San Francisco, and watch the fur fly!*

Just as an example, did you know that since 2003 it's been Germany (and not China) that has dominated world exports? They have their problems, to be sure, but it's Germany--and NOT China, as the conventional wisdom dictates--that's been the consistently rising superstar in the global export market. Both countries have around $1.2 trillion in export sales with the difference being that in Germany, they have skilled workers, fair wages, and a fraction of the population.

So what makes the German model so superior?

Well, for one thing, they don't compete based on labor costs. Instead of going for the cheapest labor (and therefore the cheapest products) they compete based on quality rather than quantity. I know that's difficult to understand in America because basically everyone that I talk to is convinced that it's our unions that have decimated our factories, regardless of the fact that labor is a comparatively tiny percentage of production costs. I grant you that there are unions in America that are unreasonable, and I am in no way advocating that workers who call in sick for two days should be able to collect overtime at the end of the week (See MUNI), but for all of their problems (because every country does have its problems), we could really, honestly, genuinely learn something from Germany.**

Then again, if only we could get over ourselves, we could learn a lot of things. It's just that, unfortunately, to learn anything, you generally have to begin by admitting that you don't already know everything. And who in America is willing to do that?

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*Just as a side note--while nothing should be oversimplified--a lot of Greece's problems can be traced back to our very American Goldman Sachs.

**As another side note, contrary to popular belief, it does not automatically follow that a Socialist country is an anti-Capitalist country. I am in no way arguing that Capitalism should be abolished. We do, however, need to protect ourselves from the excesses of Capitalism.

Equal Opportunity

Tonight, at a local bar, I had a discussion with someone from from Arkansas. I can't remember how it started except that I'm sure I instigated it, but the substance of it had to do with my questioning him about how people from Arkansas feel about American opportunity and the American ideal. It's hard for me to understand how someone in a state as poor as Arkansas can not want to have worker protections--because naturally, what with my living in San Francisco, I imagine that everyone in Arkansas is living in a log cabin with their third cousins, chopping firewood, cleaning guns, and fuming about how it's somehow the Democrats' fault that their diabetic grandmothers are dying in the next room because Obama cut their Medicare.

At one point we argued about "equal opportunity." Personally, I don't see how any rational person can look at America and not see the inherent inequalities within our system. As if it's even remotely reasonable to believe that a person born in the Upper East Side of Manhattan has the same opportunities as someone born in East Oakland. What with his being a white Southerner, he went on and on about how we're all free to do whatever we want and everyone has the same opportunities if they're willing to work hard enough for it. Needless to say, the black door guy tended to disagree.

In the end, my Arkansas aquaintance turned out to be the (not an but THE) I.T. guy for the Arkansas State Police. And here he is arguing that we don't need government?

I asked him how he'd feel if they quit funding his job, and he said he'd "just find another job." (As if the Arkansas police don't need an I.T. guy...?) As much as I enjoyed this conversation, and he struck me as a reasonable, thoughtful person, isn't this just a little bit hypocritical? It's not like he doesn't understand where he gets his paycheck. How can someone argue against tax-payer funded infrastructure and simultaneously suck off the government teat?

[7/31 Note: I forgot to mention that he was in San Francisco on official business for some sort of computer training. I wonder how the citizens of Arkansas would feel about that?]