Egemonia

di Joseph Halevi

(il manifesto, 08/07/2007)

I primi sei mesi dell'anno si sono chiusi all'insegna di una accresciuta instabilità finanziaria, con fenomeni curiosi come le fortissime rivalutazioni del dollaro australiano o neozelandese. Ambedue le economie sono altamente indebitate verso l'estero e se per l'Australia, serbatoio di minerali, potrebbero valere le aspettative circa i prezzi delle materie indotte dal risucchio cinese o indiano, per la Nuova Zelanda - con suoi pesci e montagne - di quali aspettative si dovrebbe parlare? Solo del fatto che - proprio per via dell'indebitamento e quindi per evitare un circolo vizioso di svalutazione ed inflazione - il governo laburista continuerà ad attuare una politica di alti tassi di interesse sui propri buoni del Tesoro. Qui scatta il carry trade dello yen, praticato alla grande proprio da banche e società finanziarie nipponiche. Dal Giappone i soldi «partono» elettronicamente per comprare buoni pubblici neozelandesi.
Il ragionamento si applica anche all'Australia e le aspettative circa i prezzi dei minerali contano fino ad un certo punto. Infatti il dollaro neozelandese ha subito una rivalutazione maggiore di quello australiano. Per i due paesi gli alti tassi di interesse e l'afflusso di soldi esteri per l'acquisto di titoli pubblici non sono un ostacolo alla crescita economica; anzi, ne permettono la continuazione.
Il sistema bancario infatti è diventato estremamente elastico: fa soldi a tonnellate grazie all'accresciuta liquidità, ricicla e aumenta il debito delle famiglie; le quali, pur vedendo il rapporto debito/reddito aumentare, cercano di non cadere nella delinquenza finanziaria. Ci si butta perciò ulteriormente sul mercato del lavoro, ormai liberalizzato, con occupazioni precarie, flessibilissime nei tempi di lavoro (verso l'alto) e nei salari (stagnanti o verso il basso). Ne consegue che la disoccupazione si situa ben al disotto del 5%, sebbene una crescente proporzione delle famiglie si trovi a rischio di insolvibilità (soprattutto rispetto ai mutui).
Questi due casi esprimono in maniera sintetica la nuova dinamica capitalistica. L'accumulazione finanziaria viene in qualche modo contabilizzata nel pil che quindi «cresce», la precarizzazione riduce la disoccupazione senza dover ricorrere a politiche keynesiane, visto che i due paesi - contrariamente agli Usa ed al Giappone - hanno conti pubblici in attivo o vicini al pareggio. Come gli Usa - che però abbisognano del sistema militar-industriale - Gran Bretagna, Australia e Nuova Zelanda hanno internalizzato la disoccupazione da esercito di riserva in una maniera che nemmeno Marx avrebbe immaginato. Infatti l'esercito di riserva si situa dentro l'occupazione stessa: per questo la disoccupazione può calare al 4,5%. In questo contesto. margini per politiche keynesiane non ne esistono.
Anche negli Usa la spesa pubblica militar-industriale non ha effetti keynesiani. Ne aveva durante la rimpianta Guerra nel Vietnam, quando aumentavano i salari e l'inserimento nei contratti di buone clausole sanitarie e pensionistiche, oggi in via di cancellazione anche per chi è già in pensione. Ora la spesa pubblica serve a far fare soldi alle corporations; come dimostra l'imperiosa richiesta della Boeing, poche settimane fa, di aumentare la spesa militare.
Alto indebitamento estero ed alti tassi di interesse permettono alla girandola di continuare, ma sono effetti derivati di processi il cui epicentro è il circuito Usa-Giappone-Cina-Usa, su cui si fonda la capacità degli Stati uniti di gestire il debito estero ed interno, sia pubblico che privato. I tre paesi emettori di liquidità mondiale sono Usa, Giappone e Cina. Poco prima del recente incontro dei G8 il Fmi - puro portavoce del Tesoro di Washington - emise una nota che consigliava al Giappone di non precipitarsi ad aumentare i saggi di interesse. Un gioco delle parti pirandelliano, perchè Tokyo ha semmai l'intenzione opposta. La svalutazione dello yen rispetto al dollaro, connessa al tasso dello 0,50% garantisce il riciclaggio del surplus nipponico, non solo di quello realizzato nei confronti degli Usa, verso il settore finanziario statunintense.
L'effetto viene ampliato dalle operazioni nel carry trade soprattutto quando intervengono i prodotti derivati ed i capitali equity, cose che il Financial Times ha definito «fabbriche di liquidità». Ne consegue che gli Usa non sono interessati ad eventuali rialzi del tasso nipponico nè, quindi, ad una rivalutazione dello yen. Anche in Cina i tassi di interesse sui depositi bancari sono bassi, addirittura negativi se rapportati all'inflazione. E' con questa politica che, ad esempio, Pechino è riuscita a creare la rete di miriadi di imprese private che lavorano in subappalto per le multinazionali della distribuzione. Ad una politica monetaria estremamente elastica, si cumula l'effetto della trasformazione di una buona fetta del surplus estero in moneta locale. Il tutto porta ad uno tsunami di liquidità che, in parte, trova sbocco nel mercato azionario di Shanghai, i cui valori sono aumentati di oltre il 40% dallo scorso anno.
In questo contesto di bolla generalizzata, la cui fonte sono i poteri pubblici dei tre paesi in questione, i «mercati» vengono ogni tanto attraversati dal timore che il denaro facile possa prosciugarsi e si mettono in fuga verso i buoni pubblici di paesi ad alto rendimento, come Australia e Nuova Zelanda. La reazione alla prima caduta della borsa di Shanghai, all'inizio di marzo, venne rapidamente circoscritta per via del fatto che i controlli sui movimenti di capitale da parte di Pechino impediscono la fungibilità completa del mercato cinese con i mercati esteri, che è altamente imperfetta anche tra Shanghai e Hong Kong. Vi è stato un certo ruolo cinese nelle turbolenze della prima metà di questo mese, ma l'impulso principale proveniva dagli Usa. La crisi dei mutui sub prime sta avendo un impatto minore di quello paventato, mentre il governo - come chiesto da Boeing - rilancerà la spesa militare. Pertanto si ipotizza un rallentamento dell'economia Usa meno severo del previsto e un'inflazione maggiore (con tassi di interessi più elevati).
Per il mondo finanziario speculativo - ormai dominante - si profilano due fenomeni. Il rendimento futuro dei buoni del Tesoro Usa (ma anche dei paesi summenzionati) è destinato ad aumentare rispetto ad azioni e obbligazioni, per cui i soldi delle finanziarie si rifugeranno nel settore dei buoni pubblici. Il peso delle operazioni note come leveraged buyout - la componente principale degli investimenti societari al di fuori della Cina - aumenterà inoltre notevolmente. Il leveraged buyout consiste nell'acquisire, tramite mega-indebitamenti, il controllo di società per ristrutturarle in senso speculativo. Infatti il peso del debito viene scaricato sulla società da ristrutturare (quindi: salari da tagliare, pensioni da decurtare o perdere del tutto, dipendenti da licenziare e neoassunti da precarizzare), la quale per essere rivenduta con lucro dovrà esibire profitti al netto del debito. Se lo tsunami di liquidità pubblica si spegne, la ferocia delle ristrutturazioni aumenterà considerevolmente. Tutte queste vicende mostrano come il concetto di «crescita», cui si aggrappano politici di ogni colore, non ha alcuna valenza sociale positiva.

di Tonino Bucci

(tratto da Liberazione della Domenica, 8 luglio 2007)

Chiacchierati, bistrattati, trascinati nei talk show televisivi, additati a eroi o banditi a seconda delle mode del tempo e poi, ancora, gettati in pasto a editorialisti e opinionisti di giornali di grido. E' toccato a ogni grande personaggio storico che si rispetti. Attenzione però allo snobismo intellettuale, attenzione a non trascurare centenari, ricorrenze e celebrazioni. Perché la memoria si scrive - e si riscrive - anche in queste occasioni. E a volte funziona.
Vale anche per Garibaldi. A duecento anni dalla sua nascita ne ha scritto qualche giornale e sugli scaffali delle librerie figurano alcuni titoli appena usciti a firma di storici. Poco. Specie se raffrontato con la popolarità del personaggio. Ancora in vita Garibaldi è stato celebrato, venerato, trasformato in figura di culto, circondato di un alone mitologico. A ogni entrata e uscita dalla scena pubblica del suo tempo, ogni volta che appariva per mettere su, tra gli entusiasmi, un corpo di volontari in armi, per poi ritirarsi nella sua isola di Caprera, l'Italia era attraversata da un vociferare isterico. Garibaldi a Roma per difendere la Repubblica, Garibaldi con i Mille per abbattere l'odiato regno borbonico, Garibaldi sull'Aspromonte sull'orlo d'una guerra civile con i Savoia. E poi a Mentana e nella terza guerra d'indipendenza. Ogni impresa è preceduta dall'attesa spasmodica dell'eroe, ne parlano tutti, le voci si rincorrono, si rintuzzano e si amplificano e alla fine l'effetto è assicurato. Sulle ali dell'entusiasmo accorrono i volontari, tanti per quei tempi. Lasciano casa, famiglia, lavoro, si armano alla meglio per seguire il condottiero. Tra loro ci sono borghesi, ma non solo, ci sono anche i popolani delle città.
Mobilita le passioni, Garibaldi, anche quelle dei nemici. E' personaggio estremo anche nell'accendere gli odi di moderati, conservatori, monarchici, aristocratici, regnanti stranieri, difensori dell'assolutismo e, last but not least , del nemico per antonomasia, la chiesa e i preti. Per i politici che dopo l'unità d'Italia si affrettano a difendere l'ordine sotto l'egida della monarchia dei Savoia, Garibaldi diventa un pericoloso sovversivo, un bandito dell'illegalismo. Per la Chiesa, invece, il capopolo anticlericale conterà meno di un cane morto. Dal clero parte la condanna più dura, la damnatio memoriae che ancora oggi, a distanza di tanto tempo, genera il silenzio degli intellettuali sull'eredità garibaldina. Insomma, Garibaldi è finito nel dimenticatoio della storia, dicono tutti male di lui. Chi lo accusa d'essere un anticlericale demodé e chi un prototipo di quell'illegalismo di cui l'Italia moderata non vuol sentire parlare. Punto.
E allora? Approfittiamo del bicentenario e ricominciamo a parlarne. «E' venuto il momento di dir bene di Garibaldi», scrive fuor di finzione Mario Isnenghi in Garibaldi fu ferito. Storia e mito di un rivoluzionario disciplinato (Donzelli, pp. 216, euro 14). Per lungo tempo sono circolate tante memorie che si sono contese l'eredità del personaggio. C'è stata la memoria di conservatori e filomonarchici che ne ha fatto sì un eroe risorgimentale celebrato, ma da addomesticare, un uomo d'azione disciplinato pronto a rientrare ogni volta nei ranghi dell'ordine. C'è stata persino, absit iniuria verbis , una versione fascista del mito garibaldino, promossa dal nipote Ezio in piena epoca mussoliniana. E naturalmente c'è stato un culto di Garibaldi a sinistra, sia agli albori del movimento socialista sia più tardi da parte delle brigate internazionali in Spagna e dei partigiani nella Resistenza italiana vicini al Pci.

Garibaldi non va di moda. Non sarà perché siamo diventati incapaci di avere miti e non possiamo fare altro che distruggere gli ideali?
Oggi - ce lo raccomandano tutti - non c'è spazio per i miti. O meglio: per i miti di sinistra. Quelli di centro hanno ottima stampa. La politica è diventata solo ricerca di marchingegni istituzionali. Si discute di quale legge elettorale possa garantire maggiore governabilità. E abbiamo invece tralasciato la partecipazione. Non è una brutta parola. Magari non riusciamo più a realizzarla. Anche la militanza abbiamo dimenticato, non va di moda, ma non tutti l'hanno abbandonata. Si tratta di definirne i contenuti. A parole mi pare che anche il nascituro Pd parli di cittadinanza e di mobilitazione della società civile. Ma cos'è la società civile se non quella che nell'800 dava luogo al volontariato? Era la società civile che andava al fronte volontariamente e non perché si fosse di leva o per mestiere.

Nel pantheon del Pd non trova posto la figura di Garibaldi...
No e sarebbe curioso se ci fosse spazio per lui. Però altre formazioni politiche potrebbero farci un pensierino. Anche se i pantheon sono una cosa più seria se si sedimentano storicamente. D'altra parte, se andiamo a studiare come si formano le memorie possiamo recuperare il momento in cui qualcuno ha costruito una politica della memoria. Quando le politiche della memoria riescono e diventano memorie, ci appaiono a posteriori istintive. Quindi bisogna stare attenti a giudicare artificiosa ogni idea di pantheon. Tutto sommato piuttosto che la negligenza rispetto alla memoria, personalmente mi adatto più volentieri all'idea di costruire un pantheon e discutere cosa recuperare del passato e cosa no. L'azzeramento del passato mi sembra il peggior male.

Chissà che oggi non si possa ricostruire una memoria garibaldina "antagonista" proprio a partire dall'anticlericalismo. Perché lasciarla nelle mani ostili dei leghisti o in pasto, come lei scrive, al revisionismo colto di Galli della Loggia che considera Garibaldi il padre di un "brigatismo senza fine"?
Lo cito proprio nell'incipit. Galli della Loggia ha scritto sul Corriere il 27 aprile un editoriale che ha fatto discutere. Per criticare certi slogan del 25 aprile a Milano l'ha presa alla lontana dando la colpa alla violenza del risorgimento dietro la quale s'intravede, anche se non nominato, l'illegalismo di Garibaldi. Lo aveva già fatto Vittorio Emanuele Orlando a vent'anni nel 1880 quando ammoniva a tagliar via le radici con l'illegalismo. Le posizioni politiche sono legittime. L'importante, però, è non confonderle con la storiografia.

Il movimento operaio che è sempre stato internazionalista, a un certo punto ha scoperto Garibaldi che era un patriota nazionale. Però difendeva gli oppressi di tutti i paesi e appoggiò in età avanzata la Comune parigina. L'"eroe dei due mondi" era un internazionalista ante litteram?
Mi sembra opportuno soffermarsi su questa coppia nazionale-internazionale se si vuole approntare una lettura "da sinistra" di Garibaldi. Non possiamo farne un intellettuale lucidamente cosciente delle proprie scelte anche su un piano teorico. Anche se non dobbiamo neanche cadere nell'errore contrario, nella contrapposizione astuta dei moderati - e di Cavour - che ne facevano un uomo d'azione tutto braccio e niente mente. Sarebbe eccessivo. In realtà è un uomo che pensa, che legge, che scrive a partire dalla cultura di un marinaio autodidatta. Ha tanto tempo a disposizione, specie nei periodi di ritiro a Caprera, per tenersi informato. E' un prosatore, un narratore, addirittura un poeta. Non molti se lo aspetterebbero. Andiamo nello specifico. Una serie di espressioni e anche di gesti, come quello della Comune, consentono al socialismo delle origini di guardare a Garibaldi come a un uomo che sta dalla stessa parte di un'ideale barricata. Non racchiudibile da quell'altra parte dove sta un principio di nazione ormai superata dal principio della Internazionale - tra l'altro nella Prima internazionale c'è posto quasi per tutti e, quindi, anche per elaborazioni libertarie dell'idea di nazione. L'idea di nazione nel risorgimento italiano è un'idea libertaria. Non per niente i nazionalisti di inizio Novecento dovranno liberarsi di Mazzini per andare oltre, verso quel nazionalismo che poi caratterizzerà già in parte la Prima guerra mondiale e poi, del tutto, la cultura nazional-fascista.

L'idea di nazione ci è arrivata piena delle incrostazioni nazionalistiche del '900...
La storiografia inglese attuale che continua positivamente a occuparsi del risorgimento usa non distinguere il nazionalismo dall'Ottocento italiano. E' equivoco. Non è così. La nazione di Mazzini e di tutti i mazziniani - chi non lo è stato, Garibaldi compreso? - non è una nazione sopraffattrice e potenzialmente imperialista. Questo consente al protosocialismo di guardare ai democratici risorgimentali - Pisacane e Garibaldi in prima fila - come a dei padri della generazione precedente. Nella banda internazionalista del Matese nel 1877 alla quale partecipa il giovane Malatesta, ci sono garibaldini che non sono rifluiti a destra ma anzi si radicalizzano. Provano a fare una rivoluzione sociale invece che soltanto politica e nazionale. Garibaldi è ancora vivo, ha notizia di questi ventenni. Sono anarco-socialisti e internazionalisti e pensano che gli sviluppi della rivoluzione vadano ormai oltre la nazione. Veniamo al '900. La nazione tiene. E si svolge in senso militarista e imperialista con la cultura del neonazionalismo di Alfredo Rocco e di Enrico Corradini. E, naturalmente, tiene ancor più quando la cultura nazionalfascista ispira il movimento e poi il regime fascista. Ma intanto cosa succede a sinistra? Il partito comunista nasce nel '21 come sezione dell'Internazionale. Nel primo dopoguerra sembra che le sinistre si muovano in orizzonti che vanno oltre la nazione, se non contro la nazione. La Terza internazionale non è così variegata e, diciamolo pure, così confusa, come la Prima. Ed è profondamente diversa dalla Seconda che era socialdemocratica. Dovranno passare anni, bisognerà assistere al fascismo che procede lungo la strada del nazionalismo armato negatore della nazionalità oltre che delle classi altrui, perché a sinistra, tra i prigionieri delle carceri, nei partiti, al confino e nei fuoriusciti dell'esilio, emerga la politica dei fronti popolari e dell'unità politico-militare nella differenza. Con la guerra di Spagna risorge Garibaldi come esempio di una dialettica possibile tra nazione e internazionale. Qui si tratta di difendere lo svolgimento autonomo della nazionalità spagnola in un quadro, però, di lotta dell'antifascismo contro il fascismo, quindi di guerra internazionale. Carlo Rosselli lancia da Radio Barcellona il famoso grido "Oggi in Spagna, domani in Italia". I giellisti, poi azionisti, sono interni a questo recupero della nazione in senso mazziniano, salveminiano e democratico. Però sono anche europeisti. Anche questi antifascisti borghesi tendono a una sintesi tra nazione e internazionale. Naturalmente la loro idea di internazionale non è la stessa dei comunisti. Mentre i socialisti di Nenni e di Pertini oscillano e cercano la loro posizione. Vediamo quindi dialettiche complesse tra nazione e qualcosa che va oltre anche se è coniugabile con essa - sia l'internazionalismo democratico o quello socialista e comunista. Infine, la Resistenza italiana. Il Pcd'I diventa Partito comunista italiano e sceglie Garibaldi come simbolo delle brigate partigiane e, poi, insieme ai socialisti, del Fronte popolare del '48 come insegna di un secondo risorgimento, distinto da quello degli azionisti. Garibaldi è simbolo della sinistra risorgimentale, il capopopolo di sinistra che non si è mai lasciato andare alla soluzione istituzionale moderata e monarchica.

Eppure è passata l'immagine di un rivoluzionario disciplinato che alla fine si sottomette al re. Come mai?
Nel mio libro lavoro proprio sulla dialettica e la tensione tra moderati e democratici fin dalla spedizione dei Mille. E' un'alleanza complessa. Alla fine tiene, ma Garibaldi non sarà mai un governista - semmai è uno statalista. Si fa carico del problema della costruzione dello Stato, certo che sì, e anche del rapporto con la Chiesa - e questo tira in ballo la questione complessa dell'antirisorgimento ecclesiastico. Ma non è un governista. Che qualunque scelta di Torino gli vada bene, beh, questo proprio no! E' un uomo di grande responsabilità, ma non nella luce del famoso "obbedisco" che è stato molto enfatizzato e strumentalizzato. Il fatto che Garibaldi arretri nel momento in cui c'è la possibilità che la guerra civile deflagri - il momento più topico è quello dell'Aspromonte nel '62 - ha a che fare anche con le sue dottrine di grande capo guerrigliero, non con una moralità istituzionale o con il rapporto con i moderati e con Torino. Sa benissimo quali sono i rapporti di forza e che non si ingaggia battaglia quando non ci sono possibilità di vincere. In questi casi il guerrigliero va via, non fa il bel gesto. Garibaldi non è l'uomo dei bei gesti simbolici, ha il senso della realtà e se non ci sono possibilità di vittoria dà l'ordine di non sparare e di ritirarsi. Quando nel '49 lascia Roma dopo la sconfitta della Repubblica romana ha con sé quattromila volontari, mica tanto pochi! Quattro volte i Mille. Un romantico idealista avrebbe potuto dire leopardianamente «procomberò sol io», anzi con tutti i quattromila. E invece no. Il grande leader guerrigliero trova la maniera per sfuggire a tutti gli eserciti che gli corrono dietro e via via lascia partire tutti i volontari perché non è possibile supportarli e non è possibile fare la guerriglia nell'Italia centrale nel 1849.

Il mito garibaldino funziona come un formidabile meccanismo di mobilitazione per migliaia e migliaia di volontari. Numeri non irrilevanti per l'Italia di allora. Minoritario o anche popolare, qual è la verità sul risorgimento?
I Mille diventano 50 mila in poco più di due mesi. Niente male. E anche in Aspromonte Garibaldi mette assieme duemila uomini, il doppio dei Mille. Abbiamo lasciato enfatizzare troppo il carattere minoritario del risorgimento. Dobbiamo ragionare rispetto ai contesti politici in Italia e nell'Europa del 1800. Non dobbiamo ragionare come se allora ci fosse già il suffragio universale e la coscrizione obbligatoria. Sì, certo, sono minoranze, ma minoranze che in certe fasi riescono a diventare in tempi rapidi molto corpose, da poche centinaia a decine di migliaia. Anche nella Terza guerra d'indipendenza Garibaldi riesce a tirarsi dietro 38 mila volontari quando l'esercito regolare di La Marmora ne ha ottantamila. Non c'è bisogno di calcoli originali, basta andare a rileggere il classico di Piero Pieri, Storia militare del risorgimento . La spedizione dei Mille è solo il culmine di un pullulio di lotte per bande, la più riuscita. Le bande e quelli che le componevano sono cresciuti via via, anche se la caratteristica dell'agire per banda è che talvolta il piccolo numero può bastare. Mille erano molto di più dei dodici con cui era partito Pisacane e dei trenta-quaranta dei fratelli Bandiera. Ma non è solo questione di quantità al momento della partenza. Il problema era l'analisi politica: c'era o non c'era la polveriera nel Meridione d'Italia? Bisogna capire il fenomeno qualitativo del volontarismo armato, la continuità sul filo di decenni della capacità della penisola di animare successive bande.

Ma quali sono i miti che spingono questi giovani a lasciare tutto e imbracciare il fucile al fianco di Garibaldi?
Il romanticismo, senza dubbio. La cultura dell'io, della passione di un Noi affiorante e possibile. Ma anche la condivisione del bisogno di un insieme che si chiama Italia da duemila anni e che ora può diventare Stato. Non parla ai contadini questo discorso? Sì, lo sappiamo. Anche se Pieri insegna che magari non parlerà ai contadini - e Garibaldi se ne lamenta nelle sue Memorie - però nelle città parla ai popolani. Molti braccianti vengono reclutati nelle osterie. Che male c'è? I borghesi e gli aristocratici vengono reclutati nei caffé! Si dà anche qualche moneta ai braccianti perché se sospendono di lavorare non saprebbero come mantenere la famiglia. Qualcuno potrebbe obiettare "ma come, li pagavano"?! Che discorsi! La politica non pagata se la possono permettere solo i borghesi e i ricchi. Nel '48 bolognese, per esempio, tornano i nomi di quelli che avevano già partecipato ai moti di qualche anno prima - se non erano già stati fucilati. Segno che non andavano semplicemente in cerca di lavoro. Non erano mercenari.

Garibaldi è un simbolo della guerra per bande. Corrado Augias l'ha paragonato a Che Guevara. Il raffronto regge?
Perché no? Quando ragioniamo di miti e della loro presa sul modo di pensare e agire della gente non possiamo tralasciare le analogie. Se dovessimo fare della filologia dovremmo coltivare l'arte dei distinguo, d'accordo. Ma se discutiamo di miti, piuttosto mi chiedo perché il mito di Garibaldi non abbia agito di più e non di meno sulla gioventù novecentesca. O perché ci sia stato bisogno di una tradizione di film western ambientati negli Stati Uniti d'America. Perché non esiste un genere risorgimentista e garibaldino? A me pare che le radici e le condizioni ci sarebbero pur state per una simile rielaborazione. Penso sia colpa della solita esterofilia e snobismo provinciale.

Buona parte della classe dirigente dell'Italia unita è stata garibaldina. Quelli come Crispi che vanno al potere rinnegheranno il proprio passato?
Tratto con rispetto Crispi, a differenza di Depretis. Non è un semplice opportunista trasformista. Naturalmente Crispi fa anche parte di questa storia, dell'elaborazione involutiva di coloro che sono stati giovani mazziniani e giovani garibaldini e che si troveranno nel prosieguo della loro vita a lavorare in altri contesti politici. Crispi accetta pienamente la monarchia e lo Stato che storicamente si è fatto in forme monarchiche. Così, lui che statalista è, smette di sognare la repubblica e, anzi, legge i conati repubblicani come pericolo rosso paragonabile al pericolo nero che viene dai preti e dal clero intransigente. Vede lo Stato degli ultimi trent'anni del secolo come una navicella assediata da destra e da sinistra sul cui ponte di comando si erge lui, Crispi, il depositario della memoria e della storia degli italiani che sono riusciti a costruire questo Stato. E come ogni buon rivoluzionario andato al potere diventa conservatore. Cosa c'è di strano? E' successo in tutte le rivoluzioni della storia. Se succede anche quando semplicemente si vincono le elezioni con 24 mila voti, figuriamoci dopo una rivoluzione vinta! Crispi ritiene di poter fare le riforme di struttura dall'alto con la forza dello Stato. Va in giro a erigere monumenti a Garibaldi e al Re, mica a Cavour. E' l'Italia crispina che individua in questa diarchia simbolica l'essenziale di come sono andate le cose nella costruzione dello Stato nazionale. Questa Sinistra storica, sinistra di governo, non è equivalente, ad esempio, al partito democratico. E' l'espressione di uno statalismo laico e perciò anticlericale. Per quella generazione lì l'anticlericalismo non è una brutta parola, anzi è un motivo fondante. Non si capisce perché oggi sia letta come una bestemmia. Bisogna tornare al vocabolario e alla storia, e restituire al termine "anticlericalismo" la sua dignità di posizione politica: imprescindibile, in Italia, perché l'anomalia italiana è la Chiesa Romana.

Perché la memoria garibaldina si è interrotta nel corso del '900?
Quando i comunisti e i partigiani vicini al Pci scelgono il nome di Brigate Garibaldi confermano la lungimiranza di certe intuizioni di Gramsci che in carcere aveva capito la necessità di studiare la storia nazionale. E ancora nel dopoguerra comunisti e socialisti scelgono Garibaldi come simbolo del Fronte popolare per lanciare un messaggio nell'aspra campagna elettorale del '48: «Noi non siamo contro il paese, ma scegliamo un altro risorgimento, un'altra tradizione democratico-radicale». Negli anni successivi i comunisti diventano il "partito delle istituzioni". E dimenticano Garibaldi, ma del resto non penso che Togliatti potesse infatuarsi del mito garibaldino. Semmai Togliatti propende per Cavour o Giolitti. Nonostante la vocazione istituzionale, nelle celebrazioni rituali della Resistenza non mancheranno mai i fazzoletti rossi alla garibaldina. La figura di Garibaldi verrà invece esplicitamente richiamata più tardi nell'82, nel primo centenario dalla morte, ma non precipuamente dai comunisti. A contendersi la sua memoria saranno i socialisti di Craxi e i repubblicani di Spadolini. All'ombra del primo circolerà addirittura il "socialismo tricolore", illimitatamente aperto a destra.

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

AlterNet. Posted on July 9, 2007


According to a new study, white and black Americans have been shrinking dramatically relative to their European counterparts since the end of World War II.

Researchers say a population's average height is a "mirror" reflecting the socioeconomic health of a society and speculate that Americans' worship of "market-based" social policies may explain why we're now looking up to the Germans and Swedes.

It's a dramatic reversal. We had always been giants, with the tallest men in the world, going back as far as the data exists (at least to the mid-19th century). During the First World War, American GIs still towered over the Europeans they liberated. But for three decades beginning at the end of World War II, Americans' average height stagnated while Europeans continued the growth-spurt that one would expect to see during a period of relative peace and rising incomes.

Now, with an average height of 5'10", American men are now significantly shorter than men from countries like Denmark (6-footers) or the Netherlands (6' 1"). In fact, Americans -- men and women -- are now shorter, on average, than the citizens of every single country in Western and Northern Europe.

And our vertical challenge is continuing to grow; American whites born between 1975-1983 started growing again, but still not as quickly as Western Europeans born in the same period. Meanwhile, the average height of American blacks in that age group remained unchanged.

The study avoided capturing the effect that immigrants coming from less developed (and presumably shorter) countries might have by looking only at non-Hispanic whites and blacks in the United States. The researchers also compared people born in the same period in order to avoid the effect aging has on height. The data were actual measurements rather than the heights people reported to researchers, as some earlier studies had used.

How can one explain that reversal -- a turnaround the study's authors, Benjamin Lauderdale at Princeton University and John Komlos at the University of Munich, call "remarkable"? They believe it's a result of "differences in the socioeconomic institutions of Europe and the United States":

We conjecture that the U.S. healthcare system, as well as the relatively weak welfare safety net, might be why human growth in the United States has not performed as well in relative terms ...

What determines the height of a population?

Scientists have a good understanding of the factors that determine height. Genetic variations are key to individuals' heights but aren't a significant factor in the average height of a population. That has to do with health and nutrition, especially during childhood, from prenatal health through adolescence. The authors of the study note that, in the scientific community, "there is widespread agreement that nutritional intake, the incidence of diseases and the availability of medical services have a major impact on human size."

More research is needed to fully understand why Americans are shrinking relative to the Europeans, but some differences between the two cultures -- and their political economies -- stand out.

Healthcare is one. It's not just that Europeans are universally covered while one out of seven Americans is uninsured; it's also the difference in approach. Specifically, public-sector healthcare puts a greater emphasis on prevention, while our for-profit insurance-based system creates incentives to treat illness rather than prevent it. This leads not only to much greater costs -- the United States spends about twice as much per person on healthcare as the rest of the advanced economies do -- but also plays a likely role in our declining stature.

The United States also has far more concentrated wealth than any of its European allies. That means that while we are, on average, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we also lead all the advanced economies in poverty. Poverty limits access to both healthcare and good nutrition.

A more important factor, in terms of average height, is childhood poverty. Here, the United States stands alone among the advanced economies with a stunning figure: 18 percent of American children -- almost one in five -- live in poverty. No other industrialized country comes close -- it's about five times the child poverty rate in Northern Europe. Again, nutrition and access to healthcare both vary with family income for children just as they do in adults.

Nutrition is a key determinant of height. According to the study, "U.S. children consume more meals prepared outside the home, more fast food rich in fat, high in energy density, and low in essential micronutrients, than do European children." That is ultimately a cultural issue -- a result of a fast-food lifestyle that may have long-term consequences for growing bones. Public and corporate policies play a role as well: the United States stands out from Europe (and the rest of the world) in its lack of family-friendly workplaces. According to a study conducted by researchers at Harvard, it is among only five countries in the world that doesn't mandate some form of paid maternal leave. The only other advanced economy among those five is Australia, where women are guaranteed an entire year of unpaid leave.

That makes it all but impossible for most people to effectively balance work and family life and that, in turn, means more fast food on the run and less time taking care of sick kids -- both factors that constrain average height. And the potential impact on height might be greater still before the kids are born; research shows that every week of paid maternity leave significantly reduces infant mortality rates, a key indicator of prenatal health.

Priorities

The key finding of the study is is not that we are shrinking in absolute terms, it's that we're falling behind relative to our wealthy cousins. Europeans have grown in height as much as the rise in their average incomes during the 20th century would predict; Americans have not.

And it's not just height. Among the 20 most developed countries in the world, the United States is now dead last in life expectancy at birth but leads the pack in infant mortality -- forty percent higher than the runnerup -- and in the percentage of the population that will die before reaching 60. (Perhaps it shouldn't be much of a surprise, then, that we lead the world in mental illness.)

These are above all else, a reflection of our priorities. It's not just that we accept a child poverty rate that would be a front-page scandal in most of the world's wealthy countries, we also spend the least on social services. The two are correlated; as economist Sylvia Allegretto has pointed out, "Those countries with higher social expenditures -- as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP -- have dramatically lower poverty rates among children."

According to Lauderdale and Komlos, one has to look at the interplay between several factors to understand what's going on. "[T]he political economy of the healthcare system, education, transfers to the poor and government policy toward equality (hence taxation policy) all matter" in determining average height, say the researchers.

These are policy matters that are usually understood as ideological, as left-right issues. In one sense they certainly are, but they're also questions of gearing public policy to the long- or the short-term, and we seem to prefer short-term approaches. Investing in our children's health and well-being may not pay off in terms of lower taxes next quarter or next year, but it might allow them to walk a bit taller a generation or two down the line.

Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

By Kim Ridley, Ode
AlterNet. Posted on July 7, 2007


One of the biggest myths about health care is that more is always better. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the United States, which offers a cautionary tale for other countries seeking health care reform -- including those in Europe looking across the Atlantic for inspiration. The American people spent nearly $2.1 trillion on health care in 2006 -- more than was spent on food -- yet Americans aren't exceptionally healthy or long-lived as a result. They have shorter life expectancies than people in Western Europe, Canada and Japan and are no less hindered by disease than their counterparts in other developed countries.

In spite of all this spending, nearly 47 million Americans have no health insurance, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And here's another irony: Although insured people often feel they receive too little medical attention, many are actually getting too much in the form of unneeded tests and treatments. This "overtreatment" is at the root of America's health care woes, according to medical journalist Shannon Brownlee, author of the upcoming book Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer. Brownlee contends that up to a third of health care dollars in the U.S are wasted on unnecessary care that doesn't improve people's health -- and may even endanger it.

A study of nearly a million Medicare patients (older Americans who receive government-funded health insurance) provides a compelling example of how too much care can cause harm. Medicare patients treated at hospitals that did the most tests and treatment and spent the most money were up to 6 percent more likely to die than patients at hospitals spending the least. In short, more spending, more hospitalization, more technology and more drugs do not necessarily equal better health care.

Why do doctors and hospitals provide too much care in the first place? They are stuck in a dysfunctional system driven by money. Doctors get paid for how much care they deliver -- not how well they take care of their patients. Meanwhile, hospitals are pressured to recoup the expensive investments they've made in pricey technologies and specialists. This means the more care doctors and hospitals provide, the more money they make.

Much of what doctors do is prescribe medications, some of which help save lives, like insulin for diabetics and cyclosporine for organ-transplant patients. But when it comes to medications, doctors are increasingly under the sway of drug companies. Brownlee observes that the pharmaceutical industry now foots the bill for at least 80 percent of clinical research (formerly funded by the federal government) and underwrites 90 percent of continuing medical education, wielding unprecedented influence over the content of medical journals and what doctors do and don't know about drugs.

When money drives every aspect of health care, from doctors to hospitals to the pushing of dangerous -- and often inadequately tested -- drugs, what can be done? Brownlee finds inspiration and solutions in one of the most unlikely places: the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA). A horrific shambles in the mid-1990s, the VHA has been transformed over the past decade into a model of effective, affordable and humane care. Today the agency, which cares for military veterans -- including many of America's oldest, poorest and sickest patients -- outperforms most other U.S. health-care institutions at a little more than half the cost per person. The VHA's prescription-accuracy rate is 99.9 percent and it has a lower rate of hospital-acquired infections than most other health-care institutions in the U.S.

In 1994, Kenneth W. Kizer took over the VHA as undersecretary for health. He introduced new information technology that helped lower rates of drug error and infections, while reducing unnecessary care. VHA doctors are encouraged to choose drugs carefully, based on scientific evidence rather than slick marketing, a step that has reduced costs and unneeded prescriptions. And patients report a high rate of satisfaction.

The perfect system may not exist, but the VHA story suggests that effective, affordable and compassionate health care -- publicly funded, no less -- isn't a pipe dream, but an achievable reality. Patients, policymakers and anyone concerned about the future of health care around the world would do well to read Brownlee's book.

Shannon Brownlee's book, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Bloomsbury), will be out in September.

Kim Ridley is co-editor of "Signs of Hope: In Praise of Ordinary Heroes." She writes about people creating positive social change for Ode Magazine.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
AlterNet. Posted on July 6, 2007


Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.

The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state.

Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since.

Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel's withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington's enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israeli and American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile.

The barrier weaves its way through the West Bank, creating isolated pockets of impoverished Palestinians in ringed ghettos. By the time the barrier is finished it will probably in effect seize up to 40 percent of Palestinian land. This is the largest land grab by Israel since the 1967 war. And although the United States officially opposes settlement expansion and the barrier, it also funds them.

The U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems and given Israel access to some of the most sophisticated items in its own military arsenal, including Blackhawk attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. The United States also gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies. And when Israel refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the United States stood by without a word of protest as the Israelis built the region's first nuclear weapons program.

U.S. foreign policy, especially under the current Bush administration, has become little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

There is now volcanic anger and revulsion by Arabs at this blatant favoritism. Few in the Middle East see any distinction between Israeli and American policies, nor should they. And when the Islamic radicals speak of U.S. support of Israel as a prime reason for their hatred of the United States, we should listen. The consequences of this one-sided relationship are being played out in the disastrous war in Iraq, growing tension with Iran, and the humanitarian and political crisis in Gaza. It is being played out in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is gearing up for another war with Israel, one most Middle East analysts say is inevitable. The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is unraveling. And it is doing so because of this special relationship. The eruption of a regional conflict would usher in a nightmare of catastrophic proportions.

There were many in the American foreign policy establishment and State Department who saw this situation coming. The decision to throw our lot in with Israel in the Middle East was not initially a popular one with an array of foreign policy experts, including President Harry Truman's secretary of state, Gen. George Marshall. They warned there would be a backlash. They knew the cost the United States would pay in the oil-rich region for this decision, which they feared would be one of the greatest strategic blunders of the postwar era. And they were right. The decision has jeopardized American and Israeli security and created the kindling for a regional conflagration.

The alliance, which makes no sense in geopolitical terms, does makes sense when seen through the lens of domestic politics. The Israel lobby has become a potent force in the American political system. No major candidate, Democrat or Republican, dares to challenge it. The lobby successfully purged the State Department of Arab experts who challenged the notion that Israeli and American interests were identical. Backers of Israel have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to support U.S. political candidates deemed favorable to Israel. They have brutally punished those who strayed, including the first President Bush, who they said was not vigorous enough in his defense of Israeli interests. This was a lesson the next Bush White House did not forget. George W. Bush did not want to be a one-term president like his father.

Israel advocated removing Saddam Hussein from power and currently advocates striking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Direct Israeli involvement in American military operations in the Middle East is impossible. It would reignite a war between Arab states and Israel. The United States, which during the Cold War avoided direct military involvement in the region, now does the direct bidding of Israel while Israel watches from the sidelines. During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel was a spectator, just as it is in the war with Iraq.

President Bush, facing dwindling support for the war in Iraq, publicly holds Israel up as a model for what he would like Iraq to become. Imagine how this idea plays out on the Arab street, which views Israel as the Algerians viewed the French colonizers during the war of liberation.

"In Israel," Bush said recently, "terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq."

Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world. They remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability for this isolation. U.S. "spin" paints the rest of the world as unreasonable, but Israel, Americans are assured, will always be on our side.

Israel is reaping economic as well as political rewards from its lock-down apartheid state. In the "gated community" market it has begun to sell systems and techniques that allow the nation to cope with terrorism. Israel, in 2006, exported $3.4 billion in defense products -- well over a billion dollars more than it received in American military aid. Israel has grown into the fourth largest arms dealer in the world. Most of this growth has come in the so-called homeland security sector.

"The key products and services," as Naomi Klein wrote in The Nation, "are hi-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems -- precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. And that is why the chaos in Gaza and the rest of the region doesn't threaten the bottom line in Tel Aviv, and may actually boost it. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the 'global war on terror.' "

The United States, at least officially, does not support the occupation and calls for a viable Palestinian state. It is a global player, with interests that stretch well beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, and the equation that Israel's enemies are our enemies is not that simple.

"Terrorism is not a single adversary," John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in The London Review of Books, "but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organizations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or 'the West'; it is largely a response to Israel's prolonged campaign to colonize the West Bank and Gaza Strip. More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around."

Middle Eastern policy is shaped in the United States by those with very close ties to the Israel lobby. Those who attempt to counter the virulent Israeli position, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, are ruthlessly slapped down. This alliance was true also during the Clinton administration, with its array of Israel-first Middle East experts, including special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, one of the most powerful Israel lobbying groups in Washington. But at least people like Indyk and Ross are sane, willing to consider a Palestinian state, however unviable, as long as it is palatable to Israel. The Bush administration turned to the far-right wing of the Israel lobby, those who have not a shred of compassion for the Palestinians or a word of criticism for Israel. These new Middle East experts include Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, the disgraced I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and David Wurmser.

Washington was once willing to stay Israel's hand. It intervened to thwart some of its most extreme violations of human rights. This administration, however, has signed on for every disastrous Israeli blunder, from building the security barrier in the West Bank, to sealing off Gaza and triggering a humanitarian crisis, to the ruinous invasion and saturation bombing of Lebanon.

The few tepid attempts by the Bush White House to criticize Israeli actions have all ended in hasty and humiliating retreats in the face of Israeli pressure. When the Israel Defense Forces in April 2002 reoccupied the West Bank, President Bush called on then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "halt the incursions and begin withdrawal." It never happened. After a week of heavy pressure from the Israel lobby and Israel's allies in Congress, meaning just about everyone in Congress, the president gave up, calling Sharon "a man of peace." It was a humiliating moment for the United States, a clear sign of who pulled the strings.

There were several reasons for the war in Iraq. The desire for American control of oil, the belief that Washington could build puppet states in the region, and a real, if misplaced, fear of Saddam Hussein played a part in the current disaster. But it was also strongly shaped by the notion that what is good for Israel is good for the United States. Israel wanted Iraq neutralized. Israeli intelligence, in the lead-up to the war, gave faulty information to the U.S. about Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And when Baghdad was taken in April 2003, the Israeli government immediately began to push for an attack on Syria. The lust for this attack has waned, in no small part because the Americans don't have enough troops to hang on in Iraq, much less launch a new occupation.

Israel is currently lobbying the United States to launch aerial strikes on Iran, despite the debacle in Lebanon. Israel's iron determination to forcibly prevent a nuclear Iran makes it probable that before the end of the Bush administration an attack on Iran will take place. The efforts to halt nuclear development through diplomatic means have failed. It does not matter that Iran poses no threat to the United States. It does not matter that it does not even pose a threat to Israel, which has several hundred nuclear weapons in its arsenal. It matters only that Israel demands total military domination of the Middle East.

The alliance between Israel and the United States has culminated after 50 years in direct U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. This involvement, which is not furthering American interests, is unleashing a geopolitical nightmare. American soldiers and Marines are dying in droves in a useless war. The impotence of the United States in the face of Israeli pressure is complete. The White House and the Congress have become, for perhaps the first time, a direct extension of Israeli interests. There is no longer any debate within the United States. This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich. The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high.

This means there will be no peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It means the incidents of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and Israel will grow. It means that American power and prestige are on a steep, irreversible decline. And I fear it also means the ultimate end of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East.

The weakening of the United States, economically and militarily, is giving rise to new centers of power. The U.S. economy, mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war, is increasingly dependent on Chinese trade imports and on Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. China holds dollar reserves worth $825 billion. If Beijing decides to abandon the U.S. bond market, even in part, it would cause a free fall by the dollar. It would lead to the collapse of the $7-trillion U.S. real estate market. There would be a wave of U.S. bank failures and huge unemployment. The growing dependence on China has been accompanied by aggressive work by the Chinese to build alliances with many of the world's major exporters of oil, such as Iran, Nigeria, Sudan and Venezuela. The Chinese are preparing for the looming worldwide clash over dwindling resources.

The future is ominous. Not only do Israel's foreign policy objectives not coincide with American interests, they actively hurt them. The growing belligerence in the Middle East, the calls for an attack against Iran, the collapse of the imperial project in Iraq have all given an opening, where there was none before, to America's rivals. It is not in Israel's interests to ignite a regional conflict. It is not in ours. But those who have their hands on the wheel seem determined, in the name of freedom and democracy, to keep the American ship of state headed at breakneck speed into the cliffs before us.

Chris Hedges is the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning."

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

AlterNet. Posted by Adam Howard at 12:21 PM on July 5, 2007.

How many times did the Bush White House say they were going to "get to the bottom" of the Plame Leak? The long road to Libby's escape from prison.


"If the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." -George W. Bush

Sometimes you have to wonder if this White House just makes stuff up as it goes along or if everything they do is part of some grand design. And when I say grand I mean incredibly illegal and/or offensive to everything honest Americans stand for. From the very beginning of the Plame leak controversy, President Bush insisted that the Plame leak was a very serious crime and that he would want whoever was responsible to pay the price. All of this footage now, especially all pieced together as the folks at the Talking Points Memo have done in the video to your right, it all becomes so much more infuriating in light of Bush's complete reversal a few days ago.

di Rita Di Leo

(il manifesto, 4 Luglio 2007)

Il fallimento dell'esperimento sovietico e l'eclisse della «politica progetto» socialdemocratica europea hanno dato egemonia alla politica del primato dell'economia, stilizzata nel modello Usa. Per esso la politica è un servizio in funzione dell'interesse economico, un servizio che ha la forma del governo delle politiche pubbliche. Nel grande paese la politica ha da sempre la forma del governo delle politiche pubbliche (locali, statali, federali). Non vi è stato lì un 1789 e dunque nemmeno un 1989. Gli uomini e le istituzioni che pilotano l'opinione pubblica hanno il monopolio di quel governo; e pilotano anche l'ostracismo per la politica come politica progetto all'europea. Dopo il 1989 l'arena internazionale è stata occupata dalla pratica e dalla teoria politica, ispirata al primato dell'economia e legittimate dal declino della tradizione europea nella versione sovietica e in quella socialdemocratica. L'attenzione si è focalizzata sul modello Usa, in rodaggio lì sin dalla nascita del grande paese. Un rodaggio che ha una sua storia, culture, e una forte ideologia. Il modello ha la sua attrazione nel fatto che si basa sul semplice scambio del dare per avere tra due attori concreti. Lo scambio ha una consistenza materiale, privata, individuale che lega colui che decide a colui che esegue in una relazione diretta, senza bisogno di rappresentanza, di trattative, di collegialità, di ideologie del consenso e ancor meno di pratiche costrittive. E' inteso che le élites esercitano un controllo sulle risorse economiche del paese tale da soddisfare da un lato le proprie strategie di potere e dall'altro le aspettative dell'individuo, produttore, consumatore, elettore.

Il potere dello scambio
La politica nella forma del governo delle politiche pubbliche ha una dimensione locale (municipale), regionale (statale), nazionale (federale) con complessità che appunto crescono di livello ma non cambiano di natura: una relazione di scambio tra le parti alla ricerca del proprio privato interesse. In parallelo a livello politico c'è una testa, un voto e ecco eletto un amministratore, un governatore, un presidente, legittimato a far funzionare il rapporto di scambio, dove si intrecciano potere e consenso. Nell'ambito del governo locale il consenso è il risultato dell'incontro tra gli interessi delle parti coinvolte nella distribuzione delle risorse. Le parti sono da un lato gli amministratori locali, gli uomini dell'economia, dei servizi, dell'istruzione, del tempo libero e dall'altro i produttori-consumatori nella veste di elettori. La destinazione e l'uso delle risorse ha il suo punto d'equilibrio nelle aspettative differenti delle differenti parti. E dunque l'elettore si aspetta dall'amministratore che rispetti il programma per cui ha dato il suo voto. L'amministratore si aspetta che le élites economiche locali utilizzino le risorse loro attribuite per l'esecuzione del programma secondo le aspettative del governo locale e del suo elettorato. Gli uomini dell'economia sono la punta di diamante del modello, infatti è dall'utilizzo conveniente delle risorse pubbliche e private che dipende la sopravvivenza politica dell'amministratore, o l'arrivo del suo concorrente. E dunque l'amministratore è legato a chi ha ottenuto la risorsa economica secondo una logica di scambio, simile a quella tra datore di lavoro e lavoratore.

La soddisfazione delle parti
Si tratta sempre di uno scambio con l'obiettivo della soddisfazione delle parti e in quanto tale è politico. In agenda però non c'è il bene comune o l'interesse generale, caratteristiche della tradizione politica europea ma il vantaggio privato del singolo da cui discende il consenso politico per il sistema di potere. La politica come governo delle politiche pubbliche ha oggi una valenza ideologica ben più avvincente dell'esperimento sovietico e della stagione socialdemocratica europea. Difatti in ambedue le versioni la politica come progetto chiedeva al singolo di sacrificare la propria individualità in vista dell'esecuzione del progetto sovietico o del programma socialdemocratico. Era implicito il presupposto che il singolo si realizzava al meglio nell'azione collettiva secondo idee guida che sublimavano le sue personali aspettative. Invece la forma della politica basata sull'interesse economico ha come principio guida che ciascun individuo è legittimato a perseguire il proprio privato obiettivo di vita. Senza preoccuparsi del bene comune e dell'interesse generale. Senza preoccuparsi degli altri se non in relazione al proprio successo. Non esistono basi per azioni collettive giacché lo scambio prevede due soli attori, chi offre e chi prende. La privatizzazione dell'agire del singolo influenza le dinamiche della società. In essa c'è il mondo del lavoro dove domina lo scambio tra chi chiede e chi dà e c'è il mondo dopo il lavoro dove vi sono l'etnia, la religione, la cultura, e legami comunitari volontari.

La sfera politica e quella sociale
Sono questi legami le occasioni che consentono all'individuo di avere rapporti sociali. Non politici. Dal suo orizzonte culturale è sparita la politica come adesione a un obiettivo di interesse collettivo. Non c'è una cultura politica differente da quella potente e attraente del rapporto di scambio tra interessi privati. All'interno delle comunità etniche e religiose esistono organizzazioni o iniziative di sostegno etico/umanitario a favore di coloro che hanno difficoltà a integrarsi nella società dello scambio. Secondo l'ideologia sono difficoltà temporanee, se permangono l'individuo viene emarginato dalla sua comunità, escluso come socialmente inabile. E' una società che prevede come suo cittadino colui che vive per conquistare qualche suo privato obiettivo. Vi sono biblioteche intere di ricerche che definiscono il modello descritto come già compiuto e universale, la quadratura del cerchio delle antiche dispute europee su potere e politica, su élites e masse, su parlamento e governo e partiti. Nella comparazione tra il passato europeo e il presente americano il punto di partenza è la forza dell'ideologia americana. I suoi capisaldi sono i dogmi della libertà, della parità nello scambio, della capacità/forza/meritocrazia, posti alla base di una dinamica esistenziale considerata la più attraente possibile per l'uomo. Sono queste priorità da valutare nel loro inveramento nella vita quotidiana. Da un lato libertà, parità, capacità e dall'altro tre storie concrete di quanto la realtà sia differente dall'ideologia. In assoluto nulla di nuovo se non la peculiarità di questa ideologia così potente da marginalizzare la distanza tra parole e fatti. L'esperimento sovietico è sprofondato nel fossato esistente tra utopia e realtà. Con l'aiuto degli intellettuali che se ne sono lamentati e null'altro hanno saputo fare.

Le regole del contratto sociale
La peculiarità del modello Usa sta proprio nella sua resistenza alla prova dello stato reale delle cose. La resistenza ha più cause. La prima è per l'appunto la forza di un'ideologia secondo la quale il modello consente all'uomo di fare quello che l'uomo desidera per il suo personale successo. Senza vincoli esterni come nelle altre società. Il costo del successo è una questione privata che riguarda le capacità del singolo e lui solo. Le sue vittorie e le sue sconfitte non sono ascrivibili all'esterno ma a se stesso sulla base del contratto che nascendo ha stretto con il suo paese. Si tratta di un contratto dove le regole sono state elaborate nel tempo dall' élite del primato dell'economia, la quale ha via via consolidato le sue capacità di controllo ideologico e di potere di fatto. Sono regole che prevedono l'integrazione o l'estraneazione del singolo, spetta a lui adeguarsi o vivere ai margini. Iscriversi nelle liste elettorali oppure non votare, accettare sul posto di lavoro il rapporto di scambio a due senza pretendere sindacato e contratto, diventare membro di una comunità etnica, religiosa, ricreativa o altrimenti esistere senza identità socialmente riconosciute. Le regole infatti non prevedono portavoci o rappresentati per coloro che non si adeguano alle regole. Essi esistono perché per mantenersi in vita lavorano. Sono, però, una massa di lavoratori e consumatori senza voce che costituiscono involontariamente un'altra importante testimonianza di resistenza del modello alla prova della realtà. Infatti la massa senza voce vive ai margini e non è in grado di utilizzare alcuno strumento di dissenso dal modello semplicemente perché istituzionalmente non esistono strumenti. O si è dentro o si è fuori. Non è previsto essere dentro per cambiare le regole. C'è la libertà di accettarle o di rifiutarle. Ancora una volta è una scelta individuale che può essere cambiata dimostrando di essere capaci di integrarsi nella società del lavoro, nelle comunità del dopo lavoro, offerte dal modello. Nella vita del grande paese lasciare senza voce le masse è sempre stata una rendita di posizione di cui hanno storicamente goduto le élites economiche prima ancora di ricorrere all'ideologia con le sue norme che regolano l'integrazione del singolo o il suo ostracismo. Su tali norme si è venuto costituendo un ambiente sociale ben precedente al 1789. E' come se ancora Hobbes e Locke e Spinoz a dovessero raccontare come è l'uomo. Il modello prospetta infatti un ambiente per l'uomo dello stato di natura, forte e capace, l'uomo dello scambio, l'uomo solo.

Primato dell'economia
Libertà dell'individuo e solitudine dell'uomo contraddistinguono una società dove il dissenso, i conflitti, le tensioni, le lotte collettive, il cambiamento sono considerati desideri alla stregua di tradimenti nei confronti del proprio paese. E diversamente dal caso sovietico gli intellettuali sono integrati nel modello e forniscono alle élites economiche un gran sostegno. Suggeriscono strumenti e tecniche perché la politic a del primato dell'economia sia offerto come soluzione universale, la quadratura del cerchio del governo degli uomini. All'egemonia Usa si contrappone oggi la teocrazia di alcuni paesi, ex colonie europee, ex terzo mondo. Il resto del mondo, Europa in testa, sembra irresistibilmente attirato dal modello. Sino al 1989 nei paesi europei e in quelli a lungo influenzati dal modello europeo, la politica come progetto - e il progetto politico come strumento per cambiare la società - era un dato identitario irreversibile. Poi così come era successo all' ancien régime con lo stato-nazione, nell'immaginario collettivo la dissoluzione dell'Urss e l'eclisse socialdemocratica hanno coinciso con il declino della politica progetto. Dopo il 1989 politici e intellettuali europei che vi avevano fatto riferimento, hanno calato una saracinesca sull'intero passato e senza pudori si sono girati dall'altra parte. Difficile oggi trovare qualcuno disposto a dire no alla politica e alla società e alle comunità all'americana. A dire no e a proporre qualcosa di europeo.

By Howard Zinn, Progressive Media Project
AlterNet. Posted on July 4, 2007


On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession."

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day."


On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to war.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness."

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier, is the author of the best- selling "A People's History of the United States" (Perennial Classics, 2003, latest edition). This piece was distributed by the Progressive Media Project.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

By Peter Teague and Jeff Navin, The American Prospect
AlterNet. Posted on July 3, 2007


This article is reprinted from the American Prospect.

The camera pans in on a scene in a simple American bedroom. An elderly woman sits on the bed, getting dressed to venture out into the cold. She puts on an old coat, over the top of another coat, and then a scarf and hat. Just when we think she's going to get up, she turns off the lamp, lies down, and pulls the covers up.

Fade to black.

Imagine this 30-second ad, narrated by a familiar-sounding voice, describing the higher electricity bills and hardship millions of Americans will face if Congress votes to take action on climate change. Remember how quickly the insurance industry overcame widespread public support for health care reform and destroyed the Clinton plan for universal coverage? Meet the Harry and Louise of global warming.

The Other Global Warming Lesson from California

Environmentalists point to California's new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, signed into law by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as a sign that federal action on global warming is inevitable. But, last November, California voters offered us another lesson about what it will take to craft politically sustainable solutions to global warming. This lesson has largely been ignored, but is arguably more important.

Proposition 87 would have imposed a tax on oil production in California to support $4 billion in expenditures to develop and promote alternative energy technologies. The ballot initiative, which began with strong approval ratings, and whose proponents spent almost $50 million to secure passage, was defeated by a ten-point margin. Why? Oil companies succeeded in convincing voters that it would increase gas prices.

A recent survey of public opinion research conducted by American Environics for the Nathan Cummings Foundation reveals just how sensitive voters are to energy costs.

It also clarifies the complexity of Americans' views on the interconnected issues of energy independence, global warming, taxes, public investment, and jobs. What begins to emerge from the data is a path through, an approach and a vision that might attract sustainable majorities of Americans bringing the power to enact and then defend comprehensive policies to solve global warming.

What the Data Reveals

Americans' anxiety over rising energy costs is a serious challenge to anyone seeking a solution to global warming. The anxiety is real, and the vast majority of Americans perceive these costs as causing financial hardship for their families. Proposals that raise energy prices risk triggering populist anger; Americans uniformly reject government efforts to increase the cost of gasoline or electricity as a way of encouraging certain kinds of behaviors.

Nobody disagrees that regulatory strategies alone will raise energy costs. And raising the price of carbon high enough to have a real effect on global warming -- by cutting emissions and by providing sufficient motivation for industry to invest in new technologies -- will raise energy costs significantly.

One example: The price for carbon debated in the 2007 Senate energy bill would set a price of $7.00/ton, rising to $15.00/ton by 2050; experts estimate that it would take a cost of $150.00/ton to produce the technology necessary to make clean coal a viable future energy source.

With a regulatory-only approach, we will end with a debate between environmentalists arguing about the cost of global warming, and industry economists telling Americans how much more they'll pay for everything from electricity to gasoline to consumer products. And they'll argue that these higher prices will result in job losses.

Policy makers are aware of this challenge and have added provisions to their regulatory bills that are aimed at easing voters' fears. There are proposals for tax rebates and offsets and even the creation of a "Climate Change Credit Corporation" to help voters with the anticipated increase in consumer energy costs.

The trouble is that the bills either provide tiny amounts to authorize studies of the problem, or they remain silent about how much help voters can expect. It's important to remember that the proponents of Prop. 87 made a well-supported case that the initiative wouldn't raise energy costs at all. Its defeat demonstrates that it's going to take more than good intentions about global warming and vaguely-worded proposals to convince voters.

The Debate to Come

A recent NPR segment noted that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report on environmentalists' preferred regulatory approach that says "low-income Americans and coal miners might suffer the most if the government adopts a so called cap and trade program to reduce emissions of green house gasses." The NPR report said, "Consumers will bear the cost of this kind of program. They would face higher prices for electricity, gasoline and other products. Since low-income Americans spend a higher portion of their incomes on such costs, they'll be hit the hardest."

Keep in mind that this was NPR -- not Fox News.

The "right-wing populist vs. liberal elite" frame is dropping into place with the help of those calling for the deepest cuts in carbon. The deep-cut mantra, repeated without any real understanding of what might be required to get to 60 or 80 percent reductions in emissions, ignores voters' anxieties. It also reflects the questionable view that these changes can be achieved with little more than trivial disruptions in our lives -- a view easier to hold if you're in a financial position to buy carbon credits for your beachfront house.

Labor has indicated a willingness to support action on climate change, but it won't support deep cuts if working people are the most affected. This will leave environmentalists up against the well-financed business lobby. Good luck holding onto moderate Democrats, let alone Republicans -- even those who are beginning to understand the need for action on global warming.

History teaches us that regulatory proposals that fail politically often lead to legislative paralysis. In 1993, the public was adamant that action be taken to address health care, and it seemed inevitable that some sort of reform would soon be signed into law. In 1994, the Clinton health care reform proposal failed before coming to a vote. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 to reject the United Nations Kyoto framework before it was even fully developed. Voters are still waiting for action on health care and global warming.

A More Expansive Approach

Ultimately, the global warming crisis will be solved by the emergence of a new clean energy economy that is also capable of meeting the needs and aspirations of America's -- and the world's -- growing population. Regulation should be only one piece of a larger set of strategies designed to speed the emergence of that economy, with interlocking investment, tax, and fiscal policies also designed to send the right market signals and prompt private-sector investment and innovation. These policies must both solve the problem of climate change and have the political support to be enacted and sustained.

Good policy is therefore inseparable from good politics. Long-term success will require a broad-based coalition of Americans who see their values in alignment with the transition to the green economy and who will form a political base of support powerful enough to see this transition through decades of well-resourced opposition. This formation is beginning to emerge from some unexpected places.

Witness Mayor Michael Bloomberg's PlaNYC, a 30-year policy blueprint to make New York City a world leader in environmental sustainability. The plan shows an understanding that global warming will be solved as part of a comprehensive package of initiatives to improve the quality of life by simultaneously addressing the need for housing, jobs, clean air, clean water, and public parks. It calls for spending to re-build the city's antiquated infrastructure, retrofit buildings for energy efficiency, and expand public transportation, all while returning what Goldman Sachs estimates will be a 14 percent return on investment.

Compare this bold call to make New York "Greener and Greater" to the mantra of "80 percent cuts" in carbon; there's no doubt which is more likely to inspire a political coalition capable of taking on powerful industry opposition over the course of decades.

Much of the inspiration for the Bloomberg plan came from the Apollo Project, an alliance of trade unionists, grassroots community activists, progressive intellectuals, and local environmentalists. (Full disclosure: Apollo is funded in part by the Nathan Cummings Foundation).

Apollo operates nationally and in over 20 locations around the country, including New York City. It has provided much of the basic policy work as well as the relationships and organizing that brought environmental justice, civil rights, faith, labor, and business interests to the table in New York, and is doing the same in places as disparate as Los Angeles, Washington State, Oakland, and Pennsylvania.

At Apollo's core is a common demand for a ten-year, $300 billion public investment in the transition to a clean energy economy. And the Apollo Alliance has produced credible studies showing that this investment would more than pay for itself in increased revenues to the treasury, without even tallying the multiple economic benefits of millions of new jobs, a revitalized manufacturing sector, and reduced reliance on foreign oil.

When compared to the Apollo demand or other budgetary line items, the global warming commitment made by the various presidential contenders looks paltry. Senator Clinton leads the pack, with a new call for a $50 billion energy R&D fund to be spent over an unspecified number of years. But the recent transportation bill authorizes $286 billion, the 2002 farm bill authorized nearly $100 billion in spending, and of course, we've spent over $500 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Global warming experts like U.C. Berkeley's Dan Kammen suggest that the current energy R&D budget, which is less than half what it was in 1979 (in real dollars), should be increased ten-fold, to roughly $30 billion annually.

The Case for Investment

Mayor Bloomberg's plan calls both for new fees and regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions and for a $5 billion investment in the city's new green economy. This is in keeping with recommendations from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as virtually every public policy expert on global warming, for a two-pronged approach to deal with the crisis: limit the amount of heat-trapping gases released into the atmosphere and invest in new renewable energy technologies.

From the IPCC to the British Government's Stern Review on climate change to last September's special issue of Scientific American on energy policy, energy experts acknowledge the need for major public investment, as well as putting a price on carbon.

Strangely, environmentalists are more quiet on the need for investment, preferring to argue that regulation will drive innovation, which will in turn create jobs and economic opportunity. To the extent that public investment in innovation is mentioned (a survey of environmental web sites and public statements found little on the subject), it seems to be regarded as a hoped-for by-product of the regulatory scheme rather than its core intention. But with a narrow focus on regulation, environmentalists and liberals risk alienating poor and working people with a discredited reliance on the magic of markets -- albeit regulated markets -- to give us the solutions we need.

What's more likely to happen is what is happening. Regulation, or the promise of regulation, is sending billions of dollars in venture capital chasing short-term gains in the alternative energy field. This investment is as unlikely to produce the long-term technological breakthroughs we'll need as it is to result in the broadly-shared benefits that would drive the creation of sustainable political majorities.

The Politics to Get Us from Here to There

The kinds of large-scale, long-term investments that were instrumental in producing the Internet, the interstate highway system, and the biotech revolution came from government, and for a reason: Private capital won't stay in the game long enough, and the benefits of private investment are likely to be largely private.

On the other hand, broadly shared costs have led to broadly shared benefits, and that's a recipe for strategies that can be maintained over time, politically and financially. Fortunately, the investments that are likely to speed the development of the right mix of new technologies, create a hundred-year's-worth of good jobs retrofitting our infrastructure, and take current technologies to commercial scale are also the key to a successful, long-term political strategy.

Prior to the 2004 presidential election, the Apollo Alliance asked voters in Pennsylvania what they thought of the proposal to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to speed the transition to a clean energy economy. The results were surprising -- 74 percent approved, and among white, non-college educated males, classic "Reagan Democrats," the approval rating was 81 percent. In fact, the higher the dollar figure, the more these voters liked the idea. These were the very people who were thought to have bought the conservatives' anti-tax, anti-spending, anti-government message lock, stock, and barrel.

These results were confirmed and our understanding deepened by American Environics' recent review of public opinion data. The analysis revealed that, while the public sees global warming as a threat, they see many other issues as a higher priority.

Among those high-priority concerns are the nation's dependence on foreign oil, jobs, and energy costs. Fortunately, these concerns -- combined with concern about global warming -- create an appetite for the kinds of investments experts agree will be necessary. A policy with enough investment to credibly claim to lead to increased energy independence, reduced energy costs, and job creation will generate the widespread public support necessary for sustained, serious action to solve global warming.

The analysis also reveals that shifting public opinion on the size of government makes it easier to build a case for investment. To be sure, there is no evidence that any sizable segment of the electorate is calling for a dramatic expansion of the size of government.

But it appears we have reached a point where the public is less sensitive to congressional spending than they are to regulations that will increase the cost of energy. Today energy costs seem to generate the kind of ire taxes did a decade ago. Based on this analysis, we believe that investment as a frame can help build support for comprehensive global warming legislation.

Where are the advocates for large-scale public investment in the transition to a clean energy economy? Who will make the Churchillian call?

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Many proponents of global warming legislation have convinced themselves that a solution containing substantial public investment is not politically viable. But this fear of proposing serious investments backs them into a reliance on regulatory policies that will drive up both energy costs and voter anger.

The public opinion data and California's experience with Prop. 87 suggest that it will be better for proponents to risk conservative name-calling, stand up for spending commensurate with the threats and opportunities, and adapt Mayor Bloomberg's vision to the national stage: They should become the champions of a Greener, Greater America.

This article is available on The American Prospect website. © 2007 by The American Prospect, Inc.

Peter Teague is Director of the Environment Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation and former environmental advisor to Senator Barbara Boxer. Jeff Navin is Managing Director of American Environics Strategies and former Research Director for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

By Jeremy Leaming, Church and State
AlterNet. Posted on July 2, 2007


Tucked away a few miles off Interstate 40 just outside Asheville, N.C., the LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center provides Southern Baptists with a remote place to facilitate the nurturing of "Biblical Solutions for Life."

The sprawling 1,300-acre compound in the Blue Ridge Mountains is made up of chapels, a book store, café, guest housing, drab-colored brick buildings, fences topped with barbed wire and plenty of wooded grounds for religious contemplation or recreation. It is not easily or quickly located; its address cannot be found via a Google Maps search or traced on a Global Positioning System (GPS).

Despite its isolated location, during the last week of May hundreds of Religious Right activists and their families made their way there for a four-day "Worldview Super Conference." They came to hear fundamentalist Christian speakers rail about the nation's moral confusion, claim the public schools are bastions of secular humanism and warn that Christians, especially their type of Christians, are in danger of being persecuted by America.

The gathering, dubbed "Preparing This Generation to Capture the Future," was hosted by American Vision, a ministry that has been toiling away since 1978 to "help Christians build a truly Biblical worldview." In a conference handout, American Vision states that "By God's grace, we will work together to make America a truly Christian nation for our children's children."

Based in Powder Springs, Ga., American Vision also produces reams of material that push Christian Reconstructionism, a form of fundamentalism that argues for a re-writing of American history, dismantling secular democracy and constructing an America governed by "biblical law." Reconstructionists seek to impose the criminal code of the Old Testament, applying the death penalty for homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators, witches, incorrigible juvenile delinquents and those who spread false religions.

Despite its overtly radical theocratic agenda, American Vision is allied with some of the Religious Right's most powerful outfits. This year's conference was cosponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund, a well-funded Religious Right lawyers' outfit that James Dobson and other religious broadcasters helped create; Michael Farris's Home School Legal Defense Association; the late TV preacher Jerry Falwell's Liberty University School of Law; and World Magazine, Marvin Olasky's influential evangelical Christian periodical.

The event was promoted heavily by the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, and it was held in a facility owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest non-Catholic denomination and a religious body closely aligned with the Bush administration.

In an opening prayer, American Vision President Gary DeMar set the stage for what would be a major theme running through the gathering: restoring the sovereignty of God and God's people -- namely, folks like those at the conference.

"We know," said DeMar, "that you are a sovereign and omniscient God.... We know that you have called us to be responsible servants in the advancement of your kingdom through the proclamation of the gospel and the application of your word in every area of life."

Worldview speaker after speaker vacillated between decrying the nation as wildly secular and ready for a radical makeover led by fundamentalist Christians.

One of the first speakers, Gary Cass, offered a dire picture of a country that is doomed unless it embraces a rigid form of government led by fundamentalist Christian edicts.

"We need a new American vision," said Cass, former head of TV preacher D. James Kennedy's now-defunct Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, "because we've lost our biblical heritage, our Christian birthright, which has been given to us by our founders, we have squandered for a poisonous bowl of atheistic humanism and political correctness.

"And now our culture is experiencing its deadly effects," he continued. "The putrid stench of the culture of death fills our living rooms, coming to us every night on the evening news. And this Worldview weekend, I believe, is the antidote for the culture of death."

He continued, "By God's grace you are here to reclaim our godly heritage and to reassert, without apology to the atheists and the neo-pagans of our day, that this was and is a Christian nation, built on Christian ideals."

Cass's stark call for a fundamentalist Christian takeover of America was later followed by claims that the nation is increasingly hostile to religious people. To some chuckles from the audience, he insisted that the United States is in "great need of a Christian anti-defamation league."

"Defamation," Cass argued, "is the precursor to persecution." Defamation leads to marginalization, he continued, and marginalization sets the "stage for discrimination," which inevitably leads to the final stage of religious cleansing.

"Genocide being the ultimate expression," Cass declared, "the deliberate, systematic extermination of a group of people." Kind of like what is happening in Sudan's Darfur region, he added.

Other speakers brutally attacked the public school system and promoted home schooling and private Christian education. The Ridgecrest bookstore was full of materials offering curriculums for parents interested in escaping the public schools.

On the conference's first day, attendees gathered in Ridgecrest's Spilman Auditorium were treated to a lengthy rant against public schools by a Baptist preacher from Texas.

The Rev. Voddie Baucham Jr., pastor at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas and founder of Voddie Baucham ministries, is indignant that so many "blood-washed" Christians choose to send their children to public schools. He boasted about his involvement in pushing a resolution before the Southern Baptists' annual convention that calls on church members to yank their kids from public schools.

"If we continue to send our children to Caesar for their education, we need to stop being surprised when they come home as Romans," Baucham said.

Baucham encouraged the gathering to do what his family does, which is to keep children at home and immerse them in religiosity. The towering pastor -- virtually the only African-American at the conference -- noted that his son Trey travels with him full time.

"Trey travels everywhere with me," he said. "Trey is 14 years old; I am his teacher. When our sons reach the age of 13, they go through a rite of passage; they enter into manhood. And when they enter into manhood, their mother closes up the books and hands them to me."

There are things that only a man can teach a man, Baucham said, though he did not elaborate other than to say that his son is his assistant now.

All the railing against public schools and other state-supported institutions has long been a focal point for Christian Reconstructionists, whose goal is a society where their harsh version of biblical law permeates everything. DeMar provided a platform for some of the movement's most radical voices.

On the second day, Doug Phillips, oldest son of long-time right-wing activist Howard Phillips, declared that God created the universe and the Bible is a history book for understanding God's design.

Phillips heads up a San Antonio-based group called Vision Forum that advocates for the "Biblical family." The organization is also a staunch supporter of home schooling and families where the men take precedence.

"If we encourage our daughters to pursue a careerist philosophy," the Vision Forum's mission statement reads, "if we fail to make our homes economically vital, hospitable centers for love and learning, we are hypocrites."

Phillips spent the next hour railing against what he said was a plot by secularists to write Christianity out of American history, concluding that "those who control history define the culture." Like other Worldview speakers, Phillips promoted removing kids from public schools and immersing them in fundamentalist Christian training.

Later in the day, DeMar introduced Gary North to the attendees, lauding him as "a mentor." North is a son-in-law of the late Rousas J. Rushdoony, who is widely touted as the founder of Christian Reconstructionism. North has written boatloads of books and articles about the need to establish "Christendom."

His plentiful material has left a track record of extremism. North has called for the death penalty, like Rushdoony did, for youngsters who curse their parents, gays and others who violate his interpretation of biblical law. He has argued that stoning is the preferred means of capital punishment, noting that it is a communal activity and "the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost." Writing for Reason magazine in 1998, Walter Olson observed that Reconstructionists like North "provide the most enthusiastic constituency for stoning since the Taliban seized Kabul."

North skipped stoning at his Worldview appearance and offered a strident rant against secularism. According to North, the universe is ordered by an all-powerful God who will ultimately dispose of all the "covenant-breakers." The so-called "covenant-keepers," on the other hand, will inherit the riches of the heavens.

Citing the Book of Genesis, North said, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, that establishes God as the absolute authority, since he is the creator; since he is the creator, he is the owner of all of creation. And, therefore, absolutely sovereign over that creation."

During his lengthy discussion, North conceded that his views have not been embraced by the public yet.

"Most of the people in this room are fringe people," North claimed to a hushed audience. "And not just 'kind of' fringe people, not just 'kind of' Christian evangelicals."

He added that the Worldview audience is on the fringe because it is in the forefront of the war against "Darwinism" and the secular culture.

"We really are on the extreme fringe of society today," North continued. "And that's our curse. And if we do our work well, and if the grace of God is on us, in retrospect that will be our blessing."

Many of the speakers blasted civil liberties organizations for supposedly waging an ongoing, aggressive effort to remove religion, Christianity in particular, from the public square.

DeMar specifically targeted the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, claiming that if those groups had their way God would be excised from "everything" in America. But thankfully, DeMar maintained, "there's a new sheriff" in town.

"The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State," DeMar said, "really have a battle on their hands with organizations like the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF)."

DeMar praised ADF, a $25 million operation based in Scottsdale, Ariz., for training young lawyers to fight for a "biblical worldview." Two ADF representatives appeared before the Worldview audience and promoted the group's work to bring the legal system under Christian control.

Ken Fletcher, an ADF development director, insisted that America was "started on a biblical worldview," but has been wrenched from its religious moorings by secularists and "activist courts."

"Our Christian liberties are under attack in our nation," Fletcher maintained. "I guess back in the '60s it really got under attack, where the secular agenda really started replacing the Christian worldview that we had in our nation."

Besides home schooling and trying to convert people to their religious principles, Fletcher argued that the courts "cannot be left out of the equation." "The right to abort a baby came through the courts; prayer and the Bible taken out of the public schools, that all came through the courts," he maintained. "Homosexual marriage," Fletcher added also came through the courts.

So in 1994, an array of powerful fundamentalist broadcasters, such as James Dobson, D. James Kennedy and Bill Bright, got together to form the ADF, he said, because "if we don't start showing up in the courts, our religious liberty is going to be lost in this country."

The conference also heard from Janet Folger, a former executive director of Kennedy's disbanded Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. Folger, who now heads a Religious Right lobbying group dubbed "Faith2Action," was especially ticked off at the new make-up of Congress, blasting it for supporting hate-crimes legislation. She is also seriously convinced that fundamentalist Christians are in danger of persecution in America.

Folger, author of a book titled The Criminalization of Christianity, repeatedly attacked the "homosexual agenda" as one of the main driving forces against fundamentalist Christianity. Aping comments from Kennedy, she tagged gays as plotting to criminalize the Christian religion.

Folger said gays want to use hate-crimes legislation to "do away" with terms applied to homosexuality such as "abomination," which she noted is a word from Leviticus. The gays want to ban the Bible, according to Folger.

"If they can silence the truth," Folger said referring to gay lobbying groups like the Human Rights Campaign, "make no mistake, they will silence the gospel."

She then claimed that Canada, Sweden, England and France are already persecuting Christians who cite Bible passages in demonizing gays. America, she claimed, is following those nations' lead. (In fact, the hate-crimes legislation pending in Congress specifically protects speech and penalizes only hate-motivated violence.)

During her afternoon appearance, Folger said she sobbed and felt almost defeated when the U.S. House of Representatives passed hate-crimes legislation earlier this year.

We just need to bring "God back into this debate," Folger maintained. She argued that when large numbers of fundamentalist Christians get to the voting booth, good things will transpire and pointed to the election and re-election of President George W. Bush as evidence.

Folger urged attendees to be especially politically active in 2008, saying that they should not be lulled into believing that a "values voter" candidate cannot retain control of the White House.

Lauding the U.S. Supreme Court for upholding a federal ban on so-called "partial-birth" abortion, Folger maintained that Christians are "so close to winning this thing, of overturning Roe v. Wade."

"We are one judge away," she said.

Concluding her afternoon talk with a prayer for President Bush and for God to assert dominion over the land, she started to weep.

"I'm asking You how to take this land," she prayed, "and how to keep it until You come."

ADF Senior Vice President Jeff Ventrella trumpeted the work of his organization as one of the ways the nation can be returned to a biblical foundation. Ventrella bemoaned the secularization of society, claimed Christian children from coast to coast face harassment from public school teachers and officials and that the legal system must be used to fight back.

For over an hour, Ventrella blathered on about the Apostle Paul and other characters from the Bible, declaring that "truth in the public square has stumbled." At one point in his rambling, angry talk, he warned that any "spies" amongst the Worldview gathering had better not misquote him.

The ADF attorney claimed that his organization exists, in part, to "do damage to evil. We must do damage to evil." Ventrella also asked the afternoon gathering whether they wanted to "win the world for Christ. We can't be on the sidelines," he said.

The evening featured one of the conference's oddest presentations. Gary Bates, head of Creation Ministries International, spoke for well over an hour about his recent book Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection.

In a nutshell, Bates contends that the UFOs some Americans claim to see are not space aliens, but rather angels. Some of those angels are good, he indicated, and some of them are bad. He said that Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, and the Muslim prophet Mohammed had both been visited by fallen angels.

The evening's biggest draw, however, was the debate between Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn and Herb Titus, a former dean at TV preacher Pat Robertson's Regent University and former attorney for disgraced Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. The two advocates sparred over whether the First Amendment prevents "a Bibically-Based Public Policy."

The ADF's Ventrella served as moderator of the exchange and told the audience that his role was to "be invisible." He apparently could not contain himself, however. Throughout, he chided Lynn for not asking a question of Titus quickly enough, said Lynn, not Titus, carried the burden in the debate and gave his own opinion of the question at the debate's conclusion.

Lynn told the 800 conferees what they didn't particularly want to hear.

"American public policy cannot be based," he said, "solely on the Bible, any more than it could be based solely on the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita.

"The laws that govern our daily lives," Lynn continued, "need to be based on commonly shared secular values, including those found in the Bill of Rights. Lawmakers take an oath, sometimes on a holy book even, to uphold the Constitution. They do not put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.

"Political leaders represent all Americans, Christian and otherwise," he said, "so yes, to base public policy on one constituency's religious text and, moreover, a particular interpretation of that text, would fly directly in the face of the First Amendment's guarantee that there will be no laws respecting, touching upon an establishment of religion."

Lynn's comments were the only words in a four-day talk-a-thon that promoted a free society.

The major theme of this year's Worldview conference was a call for an ongoing push by Christian fundamentalists to tear down democracy and replace it with theocracy. Far from being super, it was rather scary.


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