thoughtmechanics

“Republicans have made perfectly clear who they stand with and who they are willing to fight for: the privileged few.” -Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

As the carnage in Iraq continues and Israel plays a futile and ever deadlier game of “whack-a-mole” in Lebanon, this week the Republican controlled Congress continues it’s steady march to turn the United States economy into a feudal system.

The House has passed a measure by a vote of 230 to 180 that will raise the minimum wage for the first time since 1997. However, in an effort to insure passage by the Senate, the House Republican leadership added a permanent cut to the estate tax to the minimum wage bill. Many Democrats are outraged at this tactic, especially involving the estate tax cut, that will only benefit a very small number of the wealthiest American families and cost the Treasury an estimated $263 billion of lost revenue over the next ten years. The Washington Post reports that, “Republicans believed they had found a way to snatch the minimum-wage issue away from Democrats, who had been using it as a cudgel, while securing passage of a central plank of their economic program: all but eliminating the estate tax.”

So in this little Republican gambit, if Democratic Senators do the fiscally responsible thing and vote against this bill, their opponents in November’s midterm elections can claim, in a tone of mock populism, that they had cast a vote against ‘working class Americans’ on the minimum wage issue.

This ‘compromise’ was called “legislative extortion” and “…beyond cynical… disgraceful” by some Democrats. I couldn’t agree more.

Michael Webster
http://tierradelciego.com

One of the most perplexing questions regarding the situation in Lebanon has to do with the inability or unwillingness of Arab governments to take decisive action when one of their own is in need.

Over the last three weeks we have watched Israel pulverize block after block of civilian structures and civil infrastructure. We have heard the lament of PM Saniora and his desperate cries for help from the other Arab countries and the international community as a whole.

The silence coming from the other side has been deafening. How can that be? How can two dozen Arab nations remain silent in the face of this destruction and criminal wantonness by Israel and the USA?

This deafening silence can only lend credence to the claims that various groups have made, that Arab governments are corrupt and only interested in maintaining control over their own population at the expense of progress in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

While Iran, a non Arab state, is perhaps seeking to develop nuclear weapons, many Arab states have in their hands a weapon that is much more powerful. Yet, they refuse to use it.

If the Arab governments had decided to actually put an end to Israeli aggression and to force the US and Israel to the negotiating table, then they would turn off the oil flow to the west until hostilities ceased and negotiations began on all points.

If the Arab countries that hold the oil weapon in their hands were to use it, then Secretary Rice would not be on ‘vacation’ in Israel, making war plans in tandem with Olmert and Peretz.

If these Arab countries were to put their inane self-interest aside, then Bush would feel like calling Kofi and telling him to get on the phone with Olmert and telling him to stop that ’shit’.

But the Arab countries that count are more worried about Iran and the spread of its influence. To minimize that influence, they are willing to see hundreds of innocents massacred by Israel.

Their unwillingness to act will have repercussions. They too, like the Israelis and the Americans, will not be able to sleep in peace. They will not be able to enjoy their wealth without the nagging feeling that someone is stalking them, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

What is happening in Lebanon reveals the shame of the Arab nation. It reveals the hypocrisy of all those who would pretend to have the interest of their own people in mind.