economy

The following was copied from the T&G editorial. I thought it was so well written that I felt compelled to share it. Over the past decade, I have gone before the city council, many times, and stated that Public Access, WCCA TV, is about building community through electronic media and empowering individuals with a resource that includes media tools, education, expertise, on a non-discriminatory basis. As I experience the city's consideration to change funding formula to support PEG, which could possibly mean less funding for WCCA, to see the city settle for a five year cable license rather than a ten year, to see a cable license with less benefit for the people than the last ten year contract provided, to see a final cable license that leaves the existing PEG channels pitted against themselves, it seems to me, that perhaps we are experiencing a microcosm of what Mary's editorial letter speaks so well about. Remember WCCA TV is more about building lives, and community through electronic media that it is about making that slick action tabloid news or making huge mega profits.Inclusiveness and Community is the heart of everything we do. Why is WCCA or even public access threatened? Perhaps Mary can shed some light on that.

"Capitalism at the core of society’s ruination

Our society is in profound crisis, for it is suffering from end-stage capitalism. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, America’s greatest president, had the instinctive genius to recognize that unless capitalism was counterbalanced by humanity, it would take the country down with it, for at its core lies sadism.

Absolute capitalism always leads to absolute social sadism, just as power without limits and accountability always turns diabolical.

Unregulated capitalism has turned America into a madhouse of the predators and the preyed upon, the shakers and the shaken down, the shills and their victims, a nation able to build only casinos and prisons because it cannot build lives.

When greed goes nuclear and profit becomes the only remaining social value, a mass psychosis develops. The society starts moving at the speed of greed, becoming increasingly manic, demanding work without rest and war without peace. Art and leisure are sacrificed to a concentration camp-style 24/7 work culture.

The need to punish, brutalize, imprison and extort grows more intense, for rage is a byproduct of end-stage capitalism. The society grows more unresponsive to the needs of the public, more authoritarian and abusive until the impulse toward a police state and the declaration of martial law become irresistible.

The society’s leader starts exhibiting signs of profound mental disturbance, claiming the powers of a sun god, while America’s flag flies for the torture of fellow human beings and imprisonment without trial or charges.

All that remains is the collapse into depression."

MARY JARVIS

Gardner

Fighting the Shiite Militias (At Last)
by Doug Grindle
April 12, 2008

Years of sweeping one of Iraq's biggest problems under the rug has finally come home to roost.

Since Sunday, reports indicate 19 Americans have died in Iraq. That’s the worst week in Iraq this year. It is up significantly from the average of casualties over the past few months, which have been running at just under 40 per month.

Conventional wisdom holds that violence in Iraq is bad. But in this case, perhaps that's not as true as usual.

Much of the fighting is centered on delivering a major blow to the Shia militia known as the Mahdi Army, run by renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This is no rag-tag militia of no account.

Estimates have held steady for years that the militia has between 70,000 and 80,000 members. Al Sadr is supported by Iran politically and almost certainly financially. And Iran almost certainly gives the Mahdi Army and other militias the worst type of roadside bombs, called "explosively formed projectiles", or EFPs, which are highly effective in killing Americans.

The Mahdi Army is bad. It is out of control. Last year, for several months in mid-year, half of the American casualties in Baghdad were caused by Shia militias; of them, the Mahdi Army is the biggest and most dangerous one.

In this context, a reckoning is long overdue. Reports indicate that reckoning was originally scheduled for June by American and Iraqi forces, but was precipitously brought forward by the Maliki government more than two weeks ago, when Iraqi soldiers launched an assault on Shia militias in Basra.

That rush was not without cost. Any assault in Basra was almost bound to fail without meticulous and extensive preparation, given that the British moved out of the center of Basra last year and retreated to the city's airport, allowing Shia militias and organized criminals to assume creeping control of the place.

In Iraq there have only ever been two main opponents. The biggest, most urgent security threat came from the Sunni insurgents and their al Qaeda allies. That threat has fallen away as tens of thousands of Sunnis switched to the side of the government, which has put their erstwhile al Qaeda allies in a real bind, as they have been pushed farther from Baghdad into Diyala Province and Mosul in the north.

The other main opposition was always going to be the Shia militias, of which al Sadr is by far the most notorious and violence-prone leader. America and its Iraqi allies either would not or could not address this problem - until now - the thinking being that it was too difficult to fight both Shiites and Sunnis at the same time, and the Sunnis took precedence.

Instead the Shia problem was put on hold. Policy makers seemed to assume either the Shiite militias would fade away, as the legitimate Shia government co-opted them into the political process, or would eventually require a military solution when spare troops became available.

It appears that with the Sunni insurgency on the wane, the Maliki government feels those extra forces are now available.

As the casualty figures flow in, one hopes the cost of the recent fighting will not be too high. But one hopes even more fervently that this spasm of violence will bring about the true denouement of the al Sadr problem, and that his ultimate reckoning will not just fizzle out. The problem cannot be allowed to fester, to appear again another day. If it is not solved now, when will it be?