Constant Democracy

Here's an article I wrote before the Presidential election this year.

In Egypt and Tunisia, masses of protesters successfully removed authoritarian, western-backed autocrats from power.

In Greece and throughout Europe, bands of activists have united to challenge the harmful austerity measures being forced on them.

Even in the United States, thousands have gathered in Zuccotti Park and in cities across the country to protest the gross inequality that dominates the American political and economic systems.

But like previous election cycles, this year we have the same old choice of two representatives of the American power structure, both Harvard graduates, who will likely receive over one billion dollars each in campaign contributions, mostly from corporate donors.

The most important issue in the 2012 election is not any of the significant problems facing the country: unemployment, health reform, or inequality. It is clear that President Obama’s proposals will do little to address any of these and Governor Romney’s will likely make the situation worse.

Nor is it any of the potentially cataclysmic problems facing the planet: climate change, hunger, or war. Both candidates are even more indifferent to confronting these because they are seemingly far away and ignored by the corporate media.

No, the most important issue surrounding the 2012 elections is the nature of our democracy itself.

In particular, what is important this year is how our democracy is becoming increasingly eroded due to the influence of corporate money. This process has been ongoing for decades now, but has become even more relevant with the Supreme Court’s devastating decision in the Citizens United case.

This presidential election will be the first since that fateful Supreme Court decision and it is increasingly clear the winner will likely be decided by who can best sell themselves to corporate power.

At the most basic level, a democracy must ensure that each citizen can have an equal role in the political process. When money, which is distributed incredibly unequally in the United States, is used as the basis for political speech than this fundamental tenet disappears.

The implications of this upheaval are dire. While Washington has always been aloof of the interests of the public, it can now further insulate itself behind a wall of money from corporate donors and lobbyists. Any issue, foreign or domestic, will be decided based on the whims of corporate power, which almost always runs contradictory to the needs and will of the public.

The harmful effects of these corporate influences can be seen in almost any area. They extend from health reform, where the power of wealthy insurance companies overcame the needs of the uninsured and poor by preventing significant reform, to climate change, where efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions were halted by the fossil fuel industry’s continuous effort to prevent any real measures from passing. Even in the realm of foreign policy, where defense contractors and private security firms use their influence to keep us mired in conflicts that drain money from the government into their own pockets while resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians.


So how can we counter these seemingly unstoppable forces?


The first thing we must do this election year is understand that true democracy is not something that will be handed down from above. This is the ultimate lesson from Tahrir square and other sites of revolution.


Many on the left, myself included, made the mistake of thinking that simply electing President Obama in 2008 was enough to generate real change. The last four years have made it clear that we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves.


Using this year’s election to reinforce in our minds and the minds of others the limits of electoral politics is our best hope to create mobilization to strengthen our democracy. Making this fact clear will not be an easy task. The corporate media will focus on the minute, almost imperceptible differences between each candidate, trying to make the options seem significantly different. It is our job to reveal this charade and convince the public that the choices we are presented with are not real choices at all—it’s Coke and Pepsi or McDonalds and Burger King.


We can achieve this goal a number of ways. We can help support and publicize third party candidates to make it clear how much wider the spectrum is than that presented by the two major parties. We can occupy the elections—making our presence felt at campaign rallies and debates, when the media’s attention is the highest. And we must make valuable connections with both forces already in opposition to our present predicament and those who have become disillusioned.


Most of all, we need to break free of the mindset that traps us in the perception that democracy is something that happens only during election years and learn that constant democracy is the only genuine democracy.

Muslim Rage?

I did not like the NATO-U.S. intervention in Libya. But I must admit when I hear stories of Libyans who tried to save the American ambassador's life who shouted the Takbir when he was a live and those who had nothing to do with his death apologizing, I feel very emotional. I wonder if Americans will ever treat innocents killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Palestine in a similar way. If this is Muslim rage, than I think the world needs more Muslim rage.

Protests and Hypocricy

Whenever the Western or Israeli media criticizes anti-Semitic rhetoric or programming in Arab or Muslim countries (which, in the case of the Palestinian media, is often used as part of the justification for violence on a much larger scale than what has happened at the U.S. Embassies) no one talks about the Arabs or the Palestinians right to free speech. They just denounce it and tell them to stop. But when a westerner creates an anti-Muslim film, all we hear about is his right to free speech (which I of course support). Just another example of the infuriating hypocrisy of the western media.

Double Standard for Israel

Here's a letter to the editor I sent to the Washington Post in response to this article about Mitt Romney's comments about Palestinian culture. I will update if it is published.

 Double Standards for Israel

Reading Marc A. Thiessen’s August 1^st article “There was no Romney gaffe in Israel” begs the question: would Mr. Thiessen support the same standards he applies to Palestinians if they were applied to Israel?

For example, Thiessen justifies Israel’s blockade, which has been estimated to cost Gaza’s economy $2 billion a year [1], and Israel’s illegal trade restrictions in the West Bank by referring to the “culture of terrorism that permeates the Palestinian territories.” Conspicuously absent from Thiessen’s account is any mention Israel’s “culture of terrorism” or their heavily militarized culture and how this may have affected their society.

This absence is particularly striking when one considers the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem estimate that 6,000 Palestinians have been killed since the year 2000, , which is 5,000 more causalities than Israel has experienced during the same period [2].

With this in mind, if, as Thiessen suggests, Palestinian terrorism justifies Israel’s blockade, restriction and occupation of Palestinian territory, do Palestinians have the right to apply the same policies to Israel?

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1. "Israeli occupation hitting Palestinian economy, claims report,” Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian,September 29, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/29/israeli-occupation-hits-palestinian-economy)

2. http://old.btselem.org/statistics/english/Casualties.asp

Government Must Take Lead to Boost Economy

Here's a letter to the editor that I had published in the Lowell Sun about the causes of persistent unemployment. Here's the link.



It is clear what is causing persistent unemployment in the U.S. It is not regulation or taxes, as pundits and politicians on both the left and right argue. Nor is it concern about deficits as others claim. It is lack of demand.

This assessment is supported by a recent poll in which 34 percent of the small-business owners cited weak demand as the biggest problem they face, an amount far greater than those who cited taxes or regulation.

So how can we increase demand and thereby decrease unemployment? The fastest and most obvious way to achieve this goal is through government investment in jobs programs and public works. The size of this investment must be on par with the demand lost over the last few years, unlike the relatively small stimulus program passed in 2009.

Following through with these programs will have the twin benefit of lowering unemployment and repairing the nations degrading infrastructure.

A time of economic recession is not the time to cut deficits, as Democrats and Republicans frequently claim. Focusing on deficits in a time of recession will only make things worse. To see the effects that deficit reduction would have now, one need only look to many European countries that are experiencing rising unemployment and falling GDP, largely due to austerity programs that focus on deficit reduction.

The economic problems we face can be solved if both political parties stop looking out for the wealthy who fund them and instead focus on common-sense policies to help the unemployed.

Jerusalem Post Letter to the Editor

Surprisingly  I had a letter to the editor published by the Jerusalem Post.  I wrote it in response to this Alan Dershowitz article about Alice Walker's decision to not have The Color Purple published by an Israeli firm. The letter (you'll have to scroll down to read it) was edited quite a bit and I am afraid it sounds a bit weak. If I knew that it would be published, I would have said a lot more about the brutal occupation of Palestine, but then it probably wouldn't have been published. Catch-22... Anyway, you can read it below. 

Sir, – It is clear that Alice Walker’s decision to not have The Color Purple published by an Israeli firm was not motivated by bigotry. Instead, she is preventing a publishing company, which she feels benefits from the brutal treatment of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories, from profiting from her book. In fact, there is already a Hebrew translation of her novel, just not one sold by an Israeli publisher.

If Alan Dershowitz were to prevent one of his books from being published by a Palestinian or Iranian publisher because of a desire to not support the regimes there, I think it would be unfair to accuse him of bigotry against the Palestinian or Persian people. It is the same case with Walker.