Ron Paul is an interesting man who adds some life to otherwise moribund Republican debates (as does Dennis Kucinich for the Democrats). He suffers from hard-case libertarian, even Utopian, values. He would virtually eliminate government in every aspect of our lives. When he turns his vision to foreign policy, it gets interesting.

The following is from a brief interview he did in Business Week (12/10/07, p22):

You want to take the troops out of Iraq, but what about Iran? What do we do if other nations turn hostile?

I’d treat them something like what we did with the Soviets. I was called to military duty [as a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon] in the ’60s when they were in Cuba, and they had 40,000 nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, and we didn’t have to fight them. We didn’t have to invade their country. But to deal with terrorism, we can’t solve the problem if we don’t understand why they [attack us]. And they don’t come because we’re free and prosperous. They don’t go after Switzerland and Sweden and Canada. They come after us because we’ve occupied their land, and instead of reversing our foreign policy after 9/11, we made it worse by invading two more countries and then threatening a third. Why wouldn’t they be angry at us? It would be absolutely bizarre if they weren’t. We’ve been meddling over there for more than 50 years. We overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953; we were Saddam Hussein’s ally and encouraged him to invade Iran. If I was an Iranian, I’d be annoyed myself, you know. So we need to change our policy, and I think we would reduce the danger.

That “why” – why they attack us, why they hate us, is key and critical and studiously ignored by our largely right wing American media and virtually all the candidates.

Ron Paul’s not got a chance in hell. If he won the nomination, Republican handlers would probably organize a motorcade through Dealey Plaza. But he’s interesting to watch. He, like Kucinich, traffics without fear in areas otherwise verboten, saying things that are (gasp!) plainly true. That’s not allowed in American political campaigns.

Helen Thomas is a revered member of the old guard, a tough old broad who has been in the face of presidents and press secretaries since before I have memories. She recently let go with a bomb over at Huffington Post – I hope other members of the White House Press Corp, FOX, CNN and the networks all see it.

Here’s what she said: “It’s our job to probe.”

Michael Massing has reviewed several books at New York Review, and has written a long piece in the most recent issue called Iraq: The Hidden Human Costs. It’s well worth a read.

Here in the US, we don’t see much of the Iraq War except those parts we are intended to see. There have been horrible attacks on Nasiriyah and Fallujah that virtually destroyed those cities and killed tens of thousands, yet all we knew here was a sanitized version, if anything at all. An air war has been waged from the beginning, yet all we hear are reports of bombing raids killing this or that “Al Qaeda” operative.

Massing reports on four books, focusing on two: One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, by Nathaniel Fick and Generation Kill, by Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright. Wright travels as an embed on a journey through Iraq during the invasion in 2003. He was with only a small group of marines, yet the devastation they wrought was significant, killing Iraqi civilians in the teens, but also countless unseen others as they lofted barrage after barrage of munitions into Nasiriyah.

One small group of soldiers left behind a swatch of death and violence. Along come groups like Hopkins and ORB to detail the carnage, and Americans are incredulous. The reason is simple: It’s all been hidden from us by a government intent on controlling images (the lesson of Vietnam), and a media embedded with that government.

The article is long, and I don’t have the inclination today to supplement Massing’s eloquent prose with my own of lesser caliber. But I will offer a couple of glimpses of what Iraqis have witnessed that Americans have not.

First a little carnage. Hide your young. Massing quotes from House to House: An Epic Memoir of War, by Staff Sergeant David Bellavia—a gung-ho supporter of the Iraq war as he casually recounts how in 2004, while his platoon was on just its second patrol in Iraq,

a civilian candy truck tried to merge with a column of our armored vehicles, only to get run over and squashed. The occupants were smashed beyond recognition. Our first sight of death was a man and his wife both ripped open and dismembered, their intestines strewn across shattered boxes of candy bars. The entire platoon hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours. We stopped, and as we stood guard around the wreckage, we grew increasingly hungry. Finally, I stole a few nibbles from one of the cleaner candy bars. Others wiped away the gore and fuel from the wrappers and joined me.

Candy, anyone?

From Evan Wright:

During their initial thrust into Iraq, the Marines encounter little resistance. Speeding along Iraq’s highways, they are cheered on by excited Iraqi children. By the third day, the platoon has pushed to within twenty kilometers of the southern city of Nasiriyah. Along with 10,000 other Marines, they park on the road, waiting for orders. Even while idle, they leave their mark, in the form of garbage and—a subject rarely broached by the mainstream media—bodily waste. “Taking a shit is always a big production in a war zone,” Wright observes.

In the civilian world, of course, utmost care is taken to perform bodily functions in private. Public defecation is an act of shame, or even insanity. In a war zone, it’s the opposite. You don’t want to wander off by yourself. You could get shot by enemy snipers, or by Marines when you’re coming back into friendly lines. So everyone just squats in the open a few meters from the road, often perching on empty wooden grenade crates used as portable “shitters.” Trash from thousands of discarded MRE packs litters the area. With everyone lounging around, eating, sleeping, sunning, pooping, it looks like some weird combat version of an outdoor rock festival.

In a cluster of mud-hut homes across from the platoon’s position, old ladies in black robes stand outside, “staring at the pale, white ass of a Marine” who, naked from the waist down, is “taking a dump in their front yard.” A Marine says to Wright, “Can you imagine if this was reversed, and some army came into suburbia and was crapping in everyone’s front lawns? It’s fucking wild.”

Just a glimpse. It’s all going on over there right now, and here we sit, with occasional reports of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, or of Iraqis killing Americans as we try to protect them. Scorn and ridicule are heaped on those who are trying to smuggle the truth to us.

What a country.

I spent my Monday morning deep in a reading trance, but one thought took hold as I read of the defeat of proposed constitutional reforms in Venezuela – one of them was for a six hour work day, a 36 hour week. How would such a thing impact our work-stressed hyper-materialistic society?

I can only speak from personal experience. I was once employed by others, and marched lockstep. I was at work by eight AM, home at five, dancing to the tune. The man who signs the paycheck also has influence over thoughts. It’s the Stockholm Syndrome – we come to share the views of our captor. I worked in the oil business, and was a Republican oil guy. My kids remind me now and then how strict I was in dictating to them – they could not watch certain shows (The Simpson’s, for one); we marched them off to church and enrolled them in Catholic schools. I was intent that they adopt the conservative’s mind-eye view on the world. I would not have wanted me for a parent.

What changed was my schedule. I became a self-employed CPA on April Fools’ Day, 1986. Slowly I began to notice something – I had time on my hands. A CPA’s life is fairly busy during tax season, but for the rest of the year you’ll see empty offices often staffed by clerical help. We do have time, and I unconsciously used my time to un-indoctrinate myself. I had some intellectual yearnings, and began to read – at first, the conservative stuff – books by right wingers and magazines from outfits like Heritage. It was very unsatisfying. I had political leanings too – enough of the hand-sitting! I went door-to-door for to-be Governor Stan Stephens in 1988, and proudly shook hands with old yellow-teeth himself, Conrad Burns, on election night that year. As he stood outside Republican headquarters smoking a cigarette, I could only think of the cat who swallowed the canary. Even as a Republican, I thought little of him.

But time is the enemy of the good citizen, and I was also going some non-doctrinaire meandering. I wandered into a minefield – two areas of American foreign policy, Cuba and Vietnam, that had been the dominant themes during my coming-to-awareness time in the 60’s. I had only seen the right-wing side – that’s all my school and parents ever let me see. I began to read about them, and trouble ensued. Much of what was available was pro forma, but there was subversive stuff out there too. I experienced some minor disorientation that would, over a period of two years, become complete loss of faith. I experienced something rare – a crumbling of my foundations. First a small leak, then stronger, until in the end I was without fortification.

Enough of that. Each to his own, everyone to safety. In retrospect, it was a coming-of-age that is life-shattering. I experienced true freedom of thought. Few do. I was lucky, and it started with the end of employment.

The point is this: I had time. I was able to pursue my interests. I could read in the morning (a habit I engage in to this day), and take little diversions during the day. In so doing, the patriot was unraveled.

I was lucky – damned lucky. I could explore with my mind. I wonder if that is what Chavez has in mind for Venezuelans – to give them time and education, to free them.

No wonder he is so feared.

I got this over at Crooks and Liars. Couldn’t resist.

PS: I’m just fostering dialogue here.

I set out this morning to investigate Fred Thompson’s new “flat” tax proposal. I could only find Thompson-friendly sources – virtually all are carbon reprints of his talking points. There may be more to learn as it filters down.

The Thompson “flat” tax is fairly simple and not very well thought out – he doesn’t know how much it will cost the treasury. But here’s how it would work:

We would have a choice of paying taxes using the current code, or his flat tax. With the flat tax we would be offered a $25,000 standard deduction, plus a $3,500 personal exemption, so that a family of four would not pay the tax until it earned $39,000. Then the tax would kick in – 10% on incomes up to $100,000, and 25% thereafter.

There’s more to it, of course, but that is the nitty gritty. How they call a two-tiered tax a “flat” tax escapes me. But that’s not the only problem.

Thompson, like every other candidate in either party save perhaps Dennis Kucinich, is blind to the payroll tax. That’s the tax that in a sneaky way takes 14.2% of everyone’s earnings up to $102,000 (2008), and 2.9% thereafter. It’s a regressive tax, and it applies only to wages. Dividends and interest and capital gains – the kind of income wealthy people are more likely to have – are exempt from it.

The payroll tax is a cash cow. The most recent year for which I have numbers, 2004, shows that the government raised more money from the payroll tax than the income tax, even though payroll taxes applied only to the first $87,900 of wages at that time. Thompson kisses the ring on the hand that feeds him, and slyly ignores this tax.

Here’s the Thompson proposal in full disclosure mode:

Family of four depending on wages: Income up to $39,000 taxed at 14.2%, income up to $102,000 taxed at 24.2%, income up to $139,000 taxed at 12.9%, all income thereafter taxed at 27.9%. He creates a donut hole between 102 and 139.

Family of four depending on passive income (interest, dividends, royalties, capital gains): Income up to $39,000, no tax. Income up to $139,000, taxed at 10%. All income thereafter taxed at 25%.

Thompson maintains the basic unfairness of the current tax code – he double-taxes wages while giving passive income a pass. It’s a push in the ‘right’ direction – in the idealized conservative world, all taxes would be paid by wage earners, none by owners of capital. They are pushing us in that direction – in 2008, the initial tax on dividends and capital gains is 0%. Zero.

The idea behind this is, of course, trickle down, aka feeding the sparrows through the cow. I’m not sure they really believe in that, but it’s a nice bouquet of flowers that hides an ugly bride. It’s a way of making the little guy pay the freight. Since it is so inherently unfair and indefensible, there’s no real justification for its implementation. So the best thing to do is what Fred Thompson has done. Ignore it.

When given a free hand to implement their will, conservatives have pushed for “reforms” at the point of a gun. They reimposed private health care on Iraq, and installed a flat tax of 15%. In that country they could have their way. Paul Bremer was a dictator. In this country it’s not so easy. But the essence of the Thompson plan – that wages should be taxed twice while all other income is tax only once, if at all, is an unacknowledged part of our system. No ‘credible’ candidate wants to change that basic structure.

And Thompson is no exception. His candidacy is going nowhere, but his flat tax has legs, I’m sure, in Catoland. Watch out for it. It’s a new version of the current regressive system dolled up to look like something else.

From Carlos Mencia on proposals to build a fence on the Mexican border to keep out immigrants: Who the hell do you think is going to build it?

We suffer great indignities due to that annoying pest that drives our consumer economy – advertising. It pops up in our faces, sneaks up behind us. It’s subversive and in-your-face all at once. Broadcast TV is useless because of it – I watch very little on regular channels due to the high volume of ads. Commercial radio is a cruel joke – current ratio, so far as I can tell, is twenty minutes of ad content per hour. All of it annoying.

Ah, the marketplace. What a beautiful place, full of carnival barkers yapping in our ears. There’s no peace, no respite, unless you go to those places where you pay extra for content without ads. One such place is the movie house.

But wait! We went to a movie yesterday, and endured a full five minutes of ads before the trailers began. Advertisers love it – we’re a captive audience, and they have no shame. We can only get up and leave the theater, and few do that. Most of us just grit our teeth and endure. And advertisers know something we don’t – they know that mere exposure to ads is effective, even if we don’t like the experience. I’m a little more ad-resistant than most – I refuse to buy products whose ads are annoying. I don’t drink Coke, would never buy a Chevy, and … wait …. what’s this?

Yesterday, after the pre-trailer ads, they unleashed yet another indignity on us – a four minute music video. It was for the National Guard. Kind of funny, really, as we were at a movie that was mildly anti-war (Lions for Lambs). The ad is aimed at young men and women. They’re looking for fodder to send off to Iraq, but the video made it appear as though the Guard spends its time rescuing kids from hurricanes.

That’s the essence of advertising, by the way – lies. It lies about everything. It has to. The truth doesn’t sell. Try selling the Guard by showing a disillusioned kid in a 130 degree desert. Trying selling a Chevy when Toyota makes a superior product. Try selling a high fructose corn product based on dietary advantages, or smelly male perfume based on real female response. Try selling a sloppy hamburger with greasy fries for what they really are … crap. Doesn’t work. Advertising has to lie to be effective.

I turned to my wife about half way through the National Guard video yesterday and said “This is really pissing me off.” Doesn’t matter – advertising loses its impact as people age. I’m no longer in their demographic. They need fresh faces, kids, who grow up exposed to thousands of hours of ads, who can’t escape it at school, who, ultimately, have to fight our wars for us.

The schools have done their part. The kids are dumb and indoctrinated. The movies are merely adding the finishing touches.

Making the rounds:

“A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt……If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.”

— Thomas Jefferson, 1798 letter after the passage of the Sedition Act