The Dangers of Living in an Arrogant Age

 by Nomad

The artist David Hockney once said:

We seem to live in an arrogant age; in fact, the idea that there's not much to learn from the past is rather disturbing. In some ways, we might say we do know more but we seem to have forgotten some things they knew in the past.   

It's an excellent observation, I think. I have no idea what the context of that remark actually was - most likely art- but it got me a bit nostalgic.

Leader or Party Hack? How Marco Rubio's Support for Veterans took a Back Seat to Budget Austerity

by Nomad

With the Alabama primary approaching, Candidate Rubio suddenly remembered US veterans. He makes a lot of fine promises and may have fooled a few people. But let's take a look at his record when it comes to supporting the troops.

Rubio's Recruits

In the lead-up to Alabama's March 1 primary, Republican Candidate Marco Rubio is pulling out his big guns in an attempt to recruit Alabama veterans. He will soon roll out the unimaginatively entitled "Alabama Veterans for Marco" according to a local paper.

Said a regional spokesman for the Rubio campaign:

"Our campaign is honored to have earned the support of these brave individuals who selflessly served our country...Throughout this campaign, Marco has not only highlighted what he has done on behalf of veterans, but stressed that we must improve the care that we offer them. We are proud that these heroic service-members will be a part of Marco's team to spread that message across Alabama."

Howard Koplowitz, writing for AL.com, pointed out that Rubio has enlisted a lot of brass too. Twenty-one Alabama veterans are reporting for duty, he writes, to boost Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.  

One group member and chairman of the group,  Marine Cpl. Don Fisher of Montgomery, cited Rubio's promise to reform the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) which has come under fire for the poor state of its hospitals.

However, one website, CorrecttheRecord, calls into question the image of Rubio as a defender of American veterans. When it comes to Republicans in the Senate, Rubio has been much more of a follower than a leader. And overall, the GOP's record on support for veterans isn't exactly a pretty thing to behold. 

VA Reform or Sell-Off?

When it came to Rubio's campaign promises to reform the VA, there's more than meets the eye. What he seems to be advocating is a form of privatization of the VA and then, turning around and calling it reform.

As often happens in Washington, it is quite  possible to reform an agency without improving it and it is possible to make matters worse. 

OXI and Austerity: The Secret Historical Meaning of the Greek Referendum

by Nomad

In a nation like Greece, with its long and proud history, messages can be conveyed by symbolic acts that echo and invite comparisons. The recent Greek referendum was one of those events.

Many news commentators were mystified when the left-wing Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for a nation-wide referendum on the European debt payback proposals. The attitude ran something along the lines that the Greek people had no authority to vote on such complicated issues. What was the point and what did any result actually mean?

I recall one of the reporters asking if the Greek people even understood what they were voting for. It was, they said, all too complicated an issue for the average citizen to understand. 

This was, it was implied, a matter for governments, not for citizens. Despite the fact, it was past administrations and armies of faceless bureaucrats that had engineered this experiment in austerity. Never mind that it was the people who would ultimately suffer under the proposed austerity measures, their opinion counted for nothing. 

True, there were people on fixed incomes, there were countless numbers of unemployed citizens that were entirely dependent on government support, there were large numbers of Greeks who had already suffered for the last five years from belt-tightening austerity.

According to the prevailing attitude expressed by some in the media, the opinion of these people counted for nothing.

Paving Paradise: Austerity, Pristine Beaches and the Greek Fire Sale

by Nomad

Critics to proposed Greek legislation opening up beach development worry that in an effort to abide by harsh austerity measure, the Mediterranean nation will be selling off its greatest treasure, its untouched coasts. 

Teacher and chemist Irini Chassiotou, writing for a European environmental news portal, GreenFudge, describes how the Greek economic crisis has been used an pretext to undermine environmental protections and to open up areas to commercial exploitation.. 

The target? The country’s unspoiled beaches and 13,676 kilometres (8,498 mi) of coastline. On the surface, legislation proposed by the government was aimed at reducing bureaucracy and increasing investments. 

Oklahoma Lawmakers Find Money for Capitol Renovation but Not for Programs for Poor

by Nomad

When it comes to social programs for the needy, the Oklahoma lawmakers are all about cutting programs for the poor and lowering taxes. However, strangely, they have still managed to find enough money to refurbish and repair the ostentatious Capitol building. 

Journalist Dylan Goforth, writing for TulsaWorld, reports how lawmakers in Oklahoma are faced with a delicate situation: how to justify the renovation of the Capitol building while making deep cuts to programs for the poor. 
Already renovations to three floors on the Senate side totaled $3.3 million. That's just the beginning.

The entire project has drawn some criticism. The two sides received a total of $7 million at a time when numerous state agencies were requesting money.

Seven of two-story drapes, each costing over $2500, and shutters, costing $2000 each, totaled to more than $30,000. That's just the window treatments, mind you. Add to this two large screen television, two credenzas from which the televisions rise, a projector and a video screen. The article lists other expenses such as a full kitchen, complete with dishwasher, ice machine, refrigerator and new cabinets, cost $14,542. 
It all adds up quickly and that just the beginning. 

Lawmakers complain about the sewage that's seeping and mold that's stenching and the toilets that (someday soon) will not flush. While they all might agree that the Capitol building  is in a dreadful state, it looks pretty snazzy from the "before" photos. Not true, say staffers.

Electrical wiring in the building is so bad that there are sections where plainly visible cables are knotted together in a jumble. Some of the wiring remains from the building's early-20th-century days, staffers said.

It might lead you to think that nothing has been done since the ornate building of the pink and gray granite and white limestone was completed in 1917. 

That's not the case. 

In fact, work was done in 1998. But not renovation. In that year, the legislature funded the construction of a grandiose dome crowned with a 22-foot-tall bronze sculpture called The Guardian. The cost? $20.8 million. That dome was completed on November 16, 2002. Instead of a swanky dome, the $20 million could have easily paid for all of the cost for today's work.

Riding the Rails and Ryan's Return to Failed Policies of the Past

by Nomad

While scouring the Internet for anything and everything, I found this extraordinary PBS documentary online called Riding the Rails. Here's a description of this independently produced feature length film.

At the height of the Great Depression, more than a quarter million teenagers were living on the road in America, many criss-crossing the country by illegally hopping freight trains. This film tells the story of ten of these teenage hobos -- from the reasons they left home to what they experienced -- all within the context of depression-era America.

If you have some free time, I invite you to watch. I haven't finished the whole thing yet but just listening to these stories of people at their lowest points (but who somehow survived) is truly inspiring.

The US and Greece: Does the Public Have a Right to Know What Politicians are Hiding?

by Nomad

No matter how cynical Americans are about their politicians and the political process, nothing can compare to the Greeks. Most Greeks you ask on the street would tell you that their government has been corrupt for as long as they can remember.

And that way of thinking goes back to the ancient times too. The philosopher Anacharsis once said,

Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them. 

If the Greek public weren’t already by their nature skeptical about the politics, the austerity measures imposed on Greece by the European Union have pushed that cynicism to the breaking point. Mass protests have erupted into violence throughout Greece as European Union leaders in Brussels have attempted to pull the nation back from the edge of bankruptcy.

The Lost LaGarde List

When journalist and HOT DOC magazine editor, Kostas Vaxevanis, published a list of 1,991 people who had 1.95 billion in deposits in the Geneva, Switzerland HSBC bank branch, many were enraged but few were totally surprised.

According to Greek law, there is nothing illegal about having a Swiss bank accounts as long as they are declared and taxes are paid on them. The editor stressed that people on the list should not be considered tax evaders unless it is proved they did not pay taxes on the deposits.

What was interesting was the names on that list which reported included “several politicians, an advisor to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, well-known businessmen, journalists, doctors, lawyers and engineers, actors and civil servants – some of them working at the Finance Ministry.” The list contained names, not only of Greeks, but foreign nationals who had apparently emptied their accounts from Greek banks and transferred them to HSBC.

The list contains also the names of three former ministers, of whom one died sometime ago. Also the names of owners of enterprises that have gone bankrupt. But also students studying abroad, pensioners and housewives.