One has to give credit where it is due.  Congratulations are due to Dutch Ruppersberger on his convincing win in yesterday’s primary election.  He also deserves credit and thanks for signing the Anti-Corruption Pledge circulated by MoveOn.org.

     I agree with his call for improvement of the domestic economy.  What seems to be very difficult for many people, including the voters, to accept is that we need to scale down the military to loosen up the economy.  I am hopeful he will consider ending the wars so we can improve conditions at home.  Even such a consummate politician as President Johnson could not provide guns and butter at the same time.  But it’s curious to me that most politicians don’t seem to make the connection.  Maybe Dutch will surprise me again and make the connection.

     Once again, congratulations.

     I spent three and a half hours waving to traffic with my huge banners this afternoon and evening along U.S. Route 40 near Ebenezer Road and Route 43 interchange, until the sun went down.  There were many people who are responsive to my message, “$ FOR JOBS NOT WAR.”  It does seem there is a widespread awareness that people do have a choice this year and they are going to exercise it.  What the outcome will be is anyone’s guess. 

     Change is a part of life and usually democratic systems are designed for change to occur if the voting citizens want it.  In ancient Greece in the cities officials were regularly voted in and out, and often only with single year terms of office.  The tendency of those who attain power, however, is to try to prevent change from happening.  Benjamin Franklin was insightful when he commented that the people were being given a republic by the founding fathers “if you can keep it.”   Let us not forget that our founding fathers had just thrown off a monarchy and faced a formidable array of other monarchies and empires in Europe.  They were keenly aware that despotism would be lurking in many unsuspected places. 

     We have already seen in the last ten years how fragile the democratic rights we have are, with the passage of the Patriot Act, with unlawful detainment without charges of “enemy combatants” without habeas corpus and the application of the Geneva Conventions,  and the usurpation of Congressional power by the Executive to wage foreign wars.  Right now the government is engaged in a huge spying program to intercept computer and telephone communications; it is a program that may easily come to be abused and directed against our own citizens.  So our rights as citizens in this republic and under the Constitution are indeed fragile.  Young people who join the military can also be sent to foreign lands to die in conflicts which have never actually been constitutionally authorized but are funded under the lame excuses that congressmen are “supporting the troops.”    That is a lie.  If Congress was supporting the troops, they would demand strict adherence to guidelines that they would have set forth but did not set forth.   Congress would not send young farm boys and city girls into conflicts and into places which even the Congress does not understand, if they were doing their jobs properly.

     Before I digress too much, let me say to the political clubs that did not invite any input from the other candidates, and endorsed the incumbent, shame on you.  You demonstrated that you have closed minds, and closed minds don’t learn anything.  Listening to others’ points of view is the other side of the democratic process of free expression.  There are legitimate grievances to be aired about the incumbent.  That there were three candidates who stood up to challenge him should tell you that disgruntlement with the incumbent is more than an isolated event.  It may be more widespread than you think and the results of the election will indicate how widespread they are. 

     We are living in a Brave New World, post-post World War II, and there is a sense of bewilderment about what is right, what is fair and what is decent.  We live in an exciting time, but one fraught with dangers.   Issues of leadership are most serious and deserve the attention of serious-minded people, because the results of bad leadership as we are learning with the Bush-Cheney years, can be catastrophic.  The United States is on the brink of insolvency, fighting multiple wars by a military machine that is out of control, while at home there are serious needs that need to be addressed.  Can it get any worse than this?  Yes it can!  That is why these discussions and debates and elections are so important.  They are not about stroking politicians’ egos.  They are about our own future as a people. 

     Should I become the nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2nd District congressional seat, I will insist on debates that include all of the parties’ candidates, not just the Democratic and Republican Party nominees.  We need the input of candidates from all of the parties.  A political debate is a discourse about the future.  What can be so selfish and narrow- minded as to exclude other political parties?  It is this type of behaviour which disgusts so much of the American public about our politics.  The reason all parties need to be included is that there are ideas that the other parties present that need to be considered. 

     The American public understands that Congress is broken and the public needs to fix its politics.  The system of special interest influence, political perks, and a two party system that chokes off other parties, is not working for us any longer.  Our country was in a severe crisis in the late 1850’s when the Repulican Party was formed.  There were the Democrats and the Whigs then.  A man from Illinois who had served only a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives was elected president in 1860.  He became the greatest president since the founders and had to struggle with holding the country together during a calamitous civil war.  The Republican Party went on to become, from its humble roots, a great political party for another 80 years, but now it is run by a collection of blithering, hate-filled fools and is on the brink of making itself almost totally politically irrelevant.  The need for an open political system where new parties have an opportunity to compete needs to be supported.  Because without a Republican Party in the 1860s, our country, or our countries, might be very different now.   

     The Baltimore Sun deserves a big thank you for sponsoring these political blogs.  The blogs have given those of us who care to write, the opportunity to discuss many issues.   It has been a pleasure to participate in it.  Thank you very much for this opportunity.

     This primary race is as much about the soul of the Democratic Party as it is about any specific policies.  I have run as an anti-war Democrat against an incumbent who I will call a Corporate Democrat.  The problem with Washington and established politicians is that they no longer represent the people who elected them because they have been successfully seduced by the special interests and the power brokers who are sucking the life out of our democracy. 

     This is a problem that affects the Congress and the Presidency alike.  Recent polling showed that only 32 percent of the public was satisfied with the representation of congressional Republicans, while only 33 approved of congressional Democrats.  On the presidential side, Barack Obama’s approval rates have decreased from the low 60 percent shortly after he was inaugurated to the mid 40’s now.  His administration has gotten bogged down in Asian wars and the economy remains in a funk.  Progressives are disappointed with how he has arranged his priorities, continuing a Bush-lite orientation that is distressing and non-productive.  Appeals to Congressman Ruppersberger have fallen on deaf ears, and until the wars are stopped, the Congress will have few funds to help our domestic economy recover. 

     Unless Democrats do something to re-invent themselves, Republicans will have an easy time picking off vulnerable seats. 

      Just a few days ago Republican congressional candidate Josh Dowlut sent off a salvo detailing Ruppersberger’s record as a money-grubbing public official with some questionable actions.  Dowlut deserves credit for bringing some of these incidents to light in his political blog, especially the entry on Dutch’s involvement in trying to have parts of eastern Baltimore County taken by eminent domain ten years ago.   But Josh does err in identifying the Pennsylvania mortgage solicitation with the congressman when it was really his son who did it.  Even if it was Dutch’s son and not Dutch himself who was sued by the Pennsylvania attorney general, it is incongruous that the former Baltimore County prosecutor’s son was involved.  As for Rupp and Associates, the bill collection agency owned by Dutch, it is a disturbing activity for someone who holds a high office to still be involved with it (though he may need a fallback income should he be ousted).   The point of Dowlut’s blog, however, is that there are too many questionable conflicts of interest that Ruppersberger has, combined with his general insensitivity on questions of war and peace, that make a convincing case for a change.

     I think I have made that case for a change, focusing on real policy issues.  

     We have not heard the last of these recent accusations as long as Dutch remains the nominee.  In fact, Republicans are banking on the possibility that he will be the nominee.  The attack ads are probably being crafted now.  The question is who are they being crafted for.  My guess is that Marcus Cardarelli will be the nominee, even though Dowlut has run a far superior campaign on the issues.  But Dowlut is probably too young, too brash and too uncontrollable for many Republicans to go with him.  They prefer Cardarelli because he is a well-heeled doctor and they can hide behind his respectability. 

      Should Dutch be renominated, the attack ads will be withering.  Republicans will do their very best to reclaim the seat, even though their job was made much more difficult by the Maryland legislature which gerrymandered the district into a higher percentage of Democrats than it was in the days of Congresswoman Helen Bentley.  Ellen Sauerbrey has signed on as the chair of the Cardarelli effort and will no doubt tap national Republican money sources, to be added to Cardarelli’s own money. 

     When the attack ads come, they will be incessant and devastating.  Democrats won’t be able to do anything, first of all, because most of the ads will be true, and secondly, because they will remain as dispirited as they are now, without any good choices in the election. 

     That is why Ruppersberger needs to be replaced by Democrats with a candidate who has a clear vision of what needs to be done, whose activities are not clouded by possible conflicts of interest and questionable old deals.  It is time for new leadership.  If the Democrats re-invent themselves in the 2nd Congressional District, the Republicans will be confounded and will not have any issues to pound away on because the Democrats will have removed those issues.  It will be easier to save the seat and preserve the Democratic majority in the House while at the same time sending someone to Washington who will also try to shake up the corporate Democrats who still remain. 

     Recently I went to the incumbent’s Padonia Road district office as part of a Move.on.org effort to have Ruppersberger sign the anti-corruption pledge against taking special interest money.  The office is almost as far on the northern edge of the district as it can be, just a short distance away from the congressman’s home in Cockeysville.  In the same building is another office, Rupp and Associates, the bill collection agency that Dutch owns.  The congressional office has a little sign by the door that says it is the property of the citizens of the district, but once inside, it was clear we were in the office of someone whose main concern is money.  The office is huge.  I had no idea a district office could be so big.  Besides being away from the concentration of people in the district, it was much too expensive. 

     If I am elected, I will locate a district office in Dundalk, Essex or Middle River, in the center of the district, and it will be a working man’s office, not a luxury suite.  The lavishness of Dutch’s Padonia Road office was embarrassing. 

     Another comment that sticks in my mind was made at the recent candidate’s debate at the New Harford Democratic Club on Sept. 1.  Dutch said he wished congressional elections were held every four years not every two.  I’ll bet he does feel that way.   he has largely acted this year as if there were no election.  But the framers of the Constitution thought better.  They wanted the House to be responsive to the popular will, not convenient for its members.  The Senate is where a more deliberative attitude was intended.  The House was designed so that no one in it gets too comfortable in office, even though special interest money and congressional perks now make it much harder to unseat sitting House members.   Dutch already regards his House seat as a permanent sinecure rather than as a representative voice for what concerns his constituents.   

   Because all of the above, it is better that Democrats reclaim the seat and assign it to someone who is truer to New Deal/New Frontier and other Democratic values.  Otherwise, the Republicans will do their best to reclaim the seat for their own purposes.

     Perhaps it is wisdom or old age setting in, but this campaign season it has been a pleasure to participate in the election process.  I have been participating in elections ever since I was a kid.  I gave an Adlai Stevenson speech in my school in 1956.  In 1960 I delivered leaflets for Sen. Hubert Humphrey in Wisconsin, who was beaten by John F. Kennedy who went on as we know to become president. 

     In the 1960’s I discovered I had some talent for writing the political polemic, as my letters were often printed in my local Wisconsin newspaper.  It was then and there that I got the idea that I should be a professional writer, which I became and remained for twenty years until I found a better way to make a living. 

      It was on my writing reputation that I obtained a job with Rep. Robert W. Kastenmeier.  I went to Washington in the summer of 1966 with the assisgnment of doing writing and research for the Wisconsin congressman.  But the opportunity just to soak up the sights, sounds and personalities of Washington and Congress was a thrilling experience which changed me.  My friendship and admiration for Kastenmeier, who was a workhorse on the House Judiciary Committee and played a major role in drafting civil rights legislation, motivated me to want to be a congressman too.  Wanting to be a congressman converged with my early conviction that a single person can make a difference if only one tries and stays true to one’s principles (which also need to be good for others).  Over the years I have consistently tried to live up to that goal. 

     That period of the 1960’s was very formative for me.  In Washington I saw both surviving Kennedy brothers, Ted and Bobby, at the height of their influence in Washington.  We celebrated President Lyndon Johnson’s successes passing civil rights legislation and suffered his tragic involvement in the Vietnam War.  In 1967 and 1968 I became involved in the McCarthy for President campaign.   My picture was on the lower corner of his official campaign poster through an accident of luck.   I and others in my generation went “Clean for Gene”, then saw his successes overwhelmed by Bobby Kennedy’s entry into the political race, and witnessed then the collapse of the anti-war presidential campaign by Bobby’s assassination.   There were the dark moments of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination only two months before that.   But those who die in a cause were living for those who learned and were takiing their places to follow.  I learned and I continued to follow the idealism of that era. 

     But emulating my mentor, Bob Kastenmeier, Ifound, was more difficult than it seemed.  It is tough winning a seat in Congress, but it is still an endeavor worth undertaking, win or lose.  It is what a person can get out of it that makes it a valuable effort or not.  I have perfectly enjoyed campaigning for the Democratic nomination this year. 

     Advocating for peace is a good endeavor.  I am reminded by the line in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall inherit the earth.”  I was raised as a Quaker, with a belief in the peace testimony.  How I happened to be raised as a Quaker is I think a story worth repeating.

     My father, Eugene Boardman, was a high ranking officer in the U.S. Marines Corp, serving in intelligence in the Pacific theater in World War II.  He was an Asian history scholar and he had learned colloquial Japanese as part of a Marine Corps program.  He and my mother traveled to Pearl Harbor in the summer of 1941.  They were there during the Japanese raid.  My father witnessed the attack while hiking in the hills in Punch Bowl overlooking the harbor.  My mother, pregnant with my oldest sister at the time, was in an apartment just blocks from the waterfront and felt the shaking of the bomb blasts.  During the next four years my father was on the general staffs of both the First and Second Marine Divisions and worked with some of the top generals at the time.  He witnessed too much slaughter and carnage, and was lucky to survive it or I would not be here to write these words.  When he and my mother returned to Madison, Wisconsin, where he received an appointment to teach history, both of my parents felt the appeal of Quakerism and the peace testimony.  My father was awarded some of the highest medals the government can bestow for his service in World War II.  But he was also convinced that human beings must find a better way than mass extermination as a way of settling disputes.     He once told me he was haunted by the images of so many dead bodies on the beaches.

     This was reminiscent of a comment made by another highly decorated military man, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who as we know became president from 1952 to 1960.  He described walking over a huge field of battle in Europe so filled with dead soldiers that it was possible to walk from one end to the other without actually stepping on the ground.  This military man said, “there has to be a better of settling our affairs than this.”  (That may not actually be the literal quotation.)

     President Eisenhower also made the prescient prediction during his farewell address, “beware the excesses of the military industrial complex.”   Eisenhower gives a lot of us a lot to think about as our military industrial complex consumes $700 billion a year and more than the military budgets of all the rest of the other nations combined.  Also as we wage two and possibly three wars all at the same time even as there are many other critical needs to be addressed.

     I went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree in non-western history and a Master of Liberal Arts ( more history).  I have tried to apply what I learned to my political advocacy.  I believe that peace is possible and it is desirable, that the peace is an endeavor that needs to be actively pursued.  Aggression is deeply rooted in the human experience and is a common response to challenges, but humans have also been endowed with a higher intelligence which should help them to resolve differences without resort to arms.   Should I be elected I will be a consistent advocate for thinking out the problems rather than rushing to arms. 

     It has been challenging campaigning throughout the district with limited funds and with little attention paid to the campaign by the media.  But I have connected with many people, and I believe the effort has been worthwhile. 

     I want to thank the many people who have helped me in mostly small ways.  Supportive words or encouragement, volunteer help, small campaign contributions, have all been appreciated.    The congressional district is a place with a lot of people–approximately 700,000 and it is tough to reach them all, but I have tried. 

     So please make an effort to vote on September 14 and also this November.  Our country sorely depends on the civic mindedness of its citizens to remain vibrant and active, and a beacon of light for the many who live on other shores.

     The Towson Times reports that State Senator Delores Kelley was miffed years ago when then-Delegate Joseph Bartenfelder, now running for Baltimore County executive, had another delegate deliver a bushel of collard greens to her as a gift.  Sen. Kelley took umbrage at the gesture because she reportedly thought Bartenfelder’s gesture was racially motivated.   Since I was not a witness to the event, I cannot judge the motivation for the gift of food.

     It may be that collard greens are regarded as such a soul food that people cannot help associating them with African Americans.  I know that soul food was not part of my upbringing, but when I tasted collard greens cooked just right, I found another food that justly deserves to be loved.  The broth that the greens are cooked in is the key to the success of the dish, and my mouth waters over receiving more collard greens because they really are that good.  If you enjoy cooked spinach that is done just right, you will love collard greens even more.

     The other thing about collards is that they are truly good for you.  Another green leafy vegetable, they have all the vitamins and nutrients you would ever want.  Maybe a professional nutritionist would have something further to say about this, but my conventional view is that collards are good for you, and more is better.

     The other thing about Joe Bartenfelder having fresh vegetables hand delivered to a fellow legislator is that he is capable of doing it.  There is something about a produce farmer, growing things for other peoples’ tables, that is ultimately attractive.  Joe and his family have been producing fresh vegetables for lots and lots of people for many years.  I respect and admire him for doing that.  It shows that his values are in the right things.  Farming is a great and honorable profession. 

     Now, if Joe were to deliver me a bushel of collard greens (and I am not telling him not to do it!) free of charge, I would be greatly honored and would go about cooking the vegetables and freezing them for use during the oncoming winter, if I did not donate them to a food kitchen as Sen. Kelley did.  There is nothing more generous or hospitable than receiving a bushel basket of food.  But maybe Joe could mix it up with some other produce as well.  Maybe that was what bothered Sen. Kelley.

      All I know is that Joe Bartenfelder is a fine fellow though maybe not a perfect one, and that Baltimore County would be well served by him should he become their next county executive.

     The Huffington Post brings an article  to its web site from The Washington Post this morning, “The Iraq War’s True Cost–$3 Trillion and Beyond” by Joseph Stiglitz anbd Linda Bilmes. 

     While many of the direct costs have been published–the $3 trillion–it is the indirect costs which the article enumerates. 

     First, the cost of oil was driven up throughout the world and investment in oil production was pushed down in the Middle East as a result of the war.  In addition, Iraqi production of oil was effectively stopped. 

     The price of oil was less than $25 a barrel before the war and reached $140 a barrel in 2008.  “The higher oil prices meant that money spent buying oil abroad was money not being spent at home,” the authors write.

     “A war completely funded by borrowing,” they continued, caused the U.S. debt to soar from 6.4 trillion in March 2003 to 10 trillion in 2008. 

     Meanwhile, war spending provided less of an economic boost than other forms of spending would have, Stiglitz and Bilmes said. “”The Iraqi war didn’t just ontribute to the seveity of the crisis (of the economy at home)..it also kept us from responding to it effectively.”

     Go to “The Huffington Post” for more information.

     When will the American people wake up and notice that even though we didn’t want to pay for the war and didn’t think we were, we are nonetheless?

    Vote the rascals out who are funding the war with our money.  Elect Taylor for Senate and Boardman for Congress District 2.

     The election consultants Nip and Tuck were sitting at a cafe enjoying their morning coffee and going over their notes.  They had been studying the primary election in Maryland’s 2nd Congressional District, which had turned into a barnburner.  Nip and Tuck are not the consultants’ real names as they ask that their identities be hidden.

     NIP:  You know, I think that candidate Boardman has a chance, with the voters so angry at incumbents this year.

     TUCK:  Yeah, well that’s what he hopes.  But there are two other candidates running against against the incumbent.  That pretty well scatters the opposition vote.

     NIP: That very well may be true, but the two other candidates might be taking the votes away from Ruppersberger so that Boardman has to make up that much less  to win.

     TUCK: How do you figure that? 

     NIP:  Jeff Morris is a conservative Democrat.  So is Ruppersberger, so if anyone votes for Morris, he’s most likely taking a vote away from Dutch.  As for this other guy, Ray Atkins, he’s all over the place, but his main message is disgust with Dutch.  I saw him the other day waving a sign in traffic that said “Dump Dutch.”  So that stokes the anti-incumbent feeling.  I’m not sure who Atkins helps.  It hardly seems as if he helps himself because mainly his message is anti-incumbent, not pro-Atkins. 

     TUCK:  That is a good point.  But here is the situation.  Dutch doesn’t think he has to campaign at all.  I have not seen a single sign or political ad of his during the entire primary election. 

     NIP:  He doesn’t want to draw any attention to himself, because the voters are so mad at incumbents.  But it is a calculated risk he is taking.  If he campaigns, he draws attention to his opponents and himself, and he doesn’t want to do that.   If he doesn’t campaign, he hopes the voters will fall asleep and pull the levers for him as they have before.

     TUCK:  It seems like the old Rope-a-Dope tactic of Muhammad Ali. 

     NIP:  But it’s still risky.  The voters are going to weigh in on this one, and Dutch has to keep his fingers crossed that no one is running an effective enough campaign to beat him. 

     TUCK:  It doesn’t seem as if he has spent any money at all, with a $1,000,000 war chest waiting in the wings.

     NIP:  Anything Dutch spends on a primary campaign might as well be spent on his opponents’ campaigns.  He is hoarding the money to spend against the Republican candidate, assuming he survives to run in the general election.  As I said, it’s a risky strategy and  he’s in a delicate situation.

     TUCK:  MoveOn.org is sponsoring a big rally to get Dutch to sign the anti-corruption pledge.  The rally will be at his Padonia Road office in Timonium at 3:30 p.m.   So far Dutch has not agreed to not take special interest money, that’s what that is all about. 

     NIP:  Boardman has signed the pledge.  He’s also been invited to come to the rally.

     TUCK:  Interesting…

     NIP:  I know Boardman has been actively campaigning.  He is limited by the amount of funds he has available, but he is using really big banners to display in busy traffic intersections in the district.  It’s a pretty inexpensive way to reach the voters, but it is effective. 

     TUCK:  I don’t know if the Rope-a-Dope strategy is going to win this time.  It worked for Ali, but it might not work for Dutch.

     NIP:  Ruppersberger might hope everyone else is asleep, but I think they are asleep.  Did you hear that one about the yard sign?

     TUCK:  No, what was that?

     NIP:  The Ruppersberger campaign called Boardman’s house and asked him if he wanted to display a yard sign for Rupp.  They didn’t even know Boardman was running against him.  It’s been years since Boardman displayed a yard sign for Ruppersberger.   Boardman made a few jokes about it at the New Harford Democratic Club congressional forum the other night.  Dutch got mad and said his campaign was calling Boardman for the general election, assuming he would win the primary.   Dutch wants to sail through the primary on auto pilot while he snoozes.

     TUCK:  I’ll say he’s been asleep.  You might as well call him Rupp Van Winkle…

     NIP:  The world might just pass him by as he gets his zees.

     Last night was a night to remember as Democratic congressional candidates duked it out over various approaches to representing their districts–the 1st, 6th and second–at the New Harford Democratic Club meeting in Aberdeen . 

     Let’s dispense first with the races in the 6th and 1st districts.  No candidates appeared but there were spokespeople for incumbentFrank Kratovil in the first and challenger Andrew Duck in the 6th.  Since Kratovil is unopposed in the primary and since Duck’s primary opponent has dropped out, there isn’t much to discuss.

     In the 2nd District, things were different.  Jeff Morris, a conservative Democrat from Anne Arundel County; Ray Atkins, an attorney running on the platforms “Had Enough?”  and “Dump Dutch”, was another candidate, then there was yours truly the anti-war candidate, and incumbent C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, the sure vote for military spending.

      Dutch took brickbats from the other candidates.  It was good that he appeared at a forum of his constituents.   But in a conversation with him after the meeting it was clear to me how deeply enmeshed he is in the military culture and how intractable his views are on the need for warfare.   He thinks he is an expert on international relations by traveling around to military bases, but the military mindset misses a lot, such as the opportunity to build peace without killing and maiming people. 

     Dutch is a very pleasant person and I believe he is sincere about what he expouses.  It’s just too bad that he’s wrong.  That’s why I’m running against him.  The district, the congress and the country generally need a fresh approach to foreign policy.  War-making has become a way of life–and death–and as we know from another era, “war is not healthy for children and other living things.”   

     Dutch said he thought the country had to get better at providing replacement hands, fingers, feet and so forth from those wounded veterans who need them–prosthetic devices.  Dutch is to be commended for his concern for the veterans–we are all concerned about the veterans.  But what apparently escapes him is that we need to stop putting our soldiers into situations where they are going to lose their limbs, brains, bodies and lives.  We need to improve our peace-making skills.  Dutch’s comments were grotesque, to say the least.  While they were well-intentioned in a certain sense, they revealed his blindness about the devastation of war.

     Later I had a conversation with an observer of the debate who told me that the government has to prepare for “contingencies”.    These “what-if” situations are dreamed up by war planners in obscure offices of the Pentagon.  The problem with “what-ifs’ is that defense contractors start preparing for the “what-ifs” by building bases in far off places and manufacturing exotic weapons, all at tremendous costs, because the “what-ifs” COULD HAPPEN, but if the U.S. Government were doing better job at preparing for peaceful relations, the “what-ifs” are much less likely to happen. 

     We have a perfect example of this with Iran.  The U.S. is building a big air force base in Bagram, Afghanistan.  It can’t be to intercept Taliban donkey trains or random pickup trucks in the Afghanistan mountains.  The base instead is made for the purpose (not expressed) of attacking Iran which is on the border.  Now Iran has not declared war on the U.S.  It just is not having a very friendly relationship with the Israelis (see my previous articles on this subject).  The Iranians have made some positive overtures to the U.S. but the war-dominated government of ours has chosen to ignore the overtures and instead the neocons in our midst are working on having Iran installed in the American public’s psyche as the “enemy.”  In addition to the air force base, we have warships patrolling the Indian Ocean and Red Sea near Iran, and also large amounts of troops have been re-deployed to Kuwait from Iraq.  In all these cases the situation becomes less secure rather than more secure.  But the motivating force behind all of this is fear.  Fear is what drives militarism.

     With armaments, preparing for war makes war more likely.  I am sure that the leaders in Europe prior to World War I didn’t intend for the war to be as bloody and devastating as it turned out to be.  But it was.  The competing alliances between the allies and the empires set up a powder keg that blew with the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by the Serbian terrorist Principe.  Rather than being treated as an isolated incident, the assassination set off a string of events that led to the great war, and it was the precursor to World War II.  The military planning actually made the world less secure, not moreso. 

     We are hearing a lot of hoo-hah about how successful the Iraqi adventure was and is, but I am sure there are a lot of people in Iraq who don’t believe it. Various reports show that Iraq’s infrastructure has been set back 50 years or more.  Even before the “Shock and Awe” campaign started in 2003 millions of children died because of U.N. sanctions against importing foodstuffs into that country following the First Gulf War.  It is true that Saddam Hussein is not in power any longer, but it should not be forgotten that the CIA supported Saddam in his early reign and at the time he was working to overthrow the king of Iraq in the 1960s.  How much better things would probably have turned out if the CIA had never gotten involved.  Of course it would not be surprising if oil provided the motivation for backing him.   Later, our government devoted its resources and the blood of more than 5,000 soldiers who died in ousting Saddam and installing the pseudo-democracy that is there now under a very tenuous peace.

     Now, the U.S. Government is devoting $200 million a day and the lives of further soldiers in ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan.  This is the same Taliban organization that we supported when they rebelled against the Soviets.   Wouldn’t it be better to open negotiations with the Taliban and other parties in Afghanistan and establish a truce so that the country can be rebuilt peacefully? 

     Enough is enough.  It is time to change course and strategy and do things differently.  I made a reference in a previous article to the Peloponnesian War in Greece in the 5th Century B.C.  This was a 30 – 40 year marathon which left Greece devastated and impoverished after so much civil strife.  The same could be happening to us now in the U.S.

     Last year I commented during the debate over my anti-Afghanistan War resolution that was introduced in the New Harford Democratic Club, that the War in Vietnam had destroyed Lyndon Johson’s presidency.  Now, this year President Obama is trying to hold together his majorities in the U.S. House and Senate but may have a very difficult time doing so.  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, may end up destroying his presidency.  No one wanted to hear this then, and they’d rather not hear it now.  But it could happen.  Now that is a war contingency of a totally different stripe!

     MoveOn.org, the progressive political action internet movement, reports that its effort to enlist pledges to fight Washington corruption from congress members is progressing well.  They have gotten 115 members to sign the pledge and are pushing for 150 by September 10.  They report that Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger so far has refused to sign the pledge, and his office has not indicated whether he will sign.

     My guess is that he won’t.  Why would he, when most of his $1,000,000 campaign funds have been collected from special interests instead of individual voters?   But MoveOn wants his constituents to try to get him to sign.  They are asking them to call him at 410-628-2701. 

     The MoveOn pledge commits signers to a three point plan:

     “Overturn the Supreme Court decisions allowing unlimited corporate spending on elections.

     “Support fair elections–provide public financing to grassroots candidates so they can compete; and

     “End backroom deals with corporate lobbyists by making all lobbying activity public, and shutting the door between K Street and the government.”

     As I said, I don’t think he will support the pledge, but hopefully he will.  I hope he proves me wrong.  Stay tuned.

     The Baltimore Sun published a lead story in the Sunday edition today about the pay of hospital CEOs, listing the pay of 27 of them, which totaled approximately $32,867,000 for 2009.   This pay averages $1,217,000 per CEO and ranged from the $7,780.686 paid to Edward Notebaert of the University of Maryland Medical System to $270,163 paid to Sheldon Stein of the Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital.  Not listed on the pay schedule published in the Sun but mentioned nonetheless were expense accounts and country club memberships paid for many of these CEOs.

     Yet it should not be forgotten that the reason hospitals exist is to provide skilled nursing care.  Diagnostic studies such as X rays, MRIs and labs, plus doctor consultations can all be done out of the hospital.  But if the patient is too sick, that work will be done inside the hospital.  And who takes care of the patients?  Nurses, of course.  Nurses are the backbone of the hospital health care system.  As a male registered nurse myself, I salute the millions of hard working female registered nurses who take care of our sick, injured and dying.  These nurses are selfless, dedicated persons who have studied long and worked hard to be who they are.  One of them is my wife, who has been a registered nurse for 42 years and has found incredible strength to do her work all of this time.

     It is seldom that a nurse makes more than $100,000 per year, but it does happen occasionally.  You can bet that the money has been earned.  Just about every regulatory agency possible is also looking over the shoulders of nurses to make sure they do their jobs well.  Hospital nursing is possibly the most highly regulated profession that there is, and one of the most difficult jobs that there is.

     In the fourteen years I have been a nurse, I have never seen a hospital CEO empty a bedpan, clean an incontinent patient, dress a huge wound, start an IV line, administer IV medications or do any of the many other things that nurses do.  So what entitles them to earn twelve times or more than nurses?  Schmoozing with other rich people at the country club?  I didn’t know the pay could be so good doing that.   I know it may take some administrative talent to do what they do.   But shuffling paper, talking on the phone, shaking hands is not equal to doing the things that cure people. 

     Recently we finished a round of the national health care debate where some modest modifications were made to our health care system.  The issue of executive pay in hospitals was not addressed, though we know that CEOs of health care management systems can easily make much more than hospital CEOs.  But let’s also not forget that the building blocks of the health care system are the providers, the doctors and nurses, who actually do the hard work of taking care of people.  These providers are expected to do their jobs right all of the time, and at the end of the day, if they have any energy left they will want to get off their feet.  But they don’t have any energy left for a round of golf because they have been working too hard all day. 

     I calculated that if we paid hospital CEOs $200,000 per year, each one would receive twice of what it takes to live comfortably.  For the 27 hospital CEOs that would come to $5,400,000 in compensation per year compared to the $32,867,000 that they received in 2009.  Or to a savings of $27,467,000.  How many sick people could we take care of, how many free clinics for people without health care insurance would be cared for with $27 million? 

     We need to rethink a lot of things about our health care delivery system, and not do the rethinking while taking special interest money.  As your new congressman, and as a nurse who has worked in the trenches, you have my promise to do a much better job than the person who is currently there.