Category: USA
This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s website.
In the period from roughly 610 to 622 CE (“AD”), Muhammad ibn Abdallah of the noble Quraysh tribe in the western Arabian city of Mecca preached monotheism to an outraged polytheistic city dedicated to the worship of ancient Near Eastern goddesses, and the commerce of which deeply depended on fairs dedicated to those deities.
In the manner of biblical prophets like Isaiah, Muhammad denounced the goddesses as demons and threatened their worshipers with hellfire, urging them to turn to adoration of the one God, the God of Abraham, David, John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth.
Most of the clans of Mecca turned against him and constantly harassed him and his small band of followers. Some Muslims had to escape for a while to nearby Christian Ethiopia. Others were tortured. The whole community was subjected at one point to an economic boycott.
Muhammad’s uncle, powerful Quraysh clan leader Abu Talib, stood with him even though he remained loyal to the goddesses and did not convert. Abu Talib was able to ensure that the Muslims were not summarily killed, but could not keep them from being bothered
Another of Muhammad’s uncles, however, Abd al-`Uzza the son of `Abd al-Muttalib (d. 624), took the lead in tormenting the prophet. al-`Uzza was one of the goddesses worshipped in Mecca, so his very name showed devotion to her. He gained the epithet Abu Lahab (father of flame), it is said, because of his ruddy complexion.
Since two of Abu Lahab’s sons had married daughters of Muhammad this relationship was the in-laws from hell. Abu Lahab ordered his sons to divorce the girls.
According to Muslim traditions, Abu Lahab was a stalker. He followed Muhammad around as the latter preached in markets, contradicting him and slandering him. He threw trash in his path. At one point he threw entrails on him. Muhammad just cleaned them off. Abu Lahab led the economic boycott that made the early Muslims’ lives miserable and turned them into outcasts.
There is no evidence in the traditions of Muhammad ever doing more than denouncing Abu Lahab as an idolator and tormentor. He never took, or advocated taking physical action against him. His typical attitude to such opposition seems to have been to pray that they or their children would become pious believers in the one God. The traditions have him saying that he came not as a curse on people but as a mercy to them: “Abu Hurayrah mentions: “It was said to the Prophet: ‘God’s Messenger! Pray to God against the idolaters.’ He replied: ‘I have not been sent to curse people; I have been sent as mercy to mankind.’” (Related by Muslim and by Al-Bukhari in Al-Adab Al-Mufrad).”
A couple years after Abu Talib died and Abd al-`Uzza became leader of the Quraysh, Muhammad emigrated with many followers to the nearby city of Yathrib, which became known as Madinat al-Nabi or the city of the prophet (i.e. Medina).
Medinans and Meccans gradually went to war with one another, but the Qur’an indicates that the Muslims viewed this as a defensive war– that the Meccans were bloodthirsty, militant polytheists who were determined to overwhelm the young monotheistic community and slaughter it. While Muslims were ordered to defend themselves and their women and children, they were instructed not to pursue hostilities with anyone who did not physically attack them or who sued for peace.
Abu Lahab appears to have died of small pox or some other disease involving pustules in 624, shortly after the Muslims in Medina won the first major battle between them and the Meccan forces.
Unlike contemporary extremists, early Muslim sources on the life of the prophet did not see him as divine. They frankly reported Abu Lahab’s charges against Muhammad of being a liar or of being mentally unbalanced, though of course they refuted them.
Surely making harsh criticism of Muhammad a serious offense is an attempt to elevate him from human being to god, since in most societies it is the divine that is taboo.
The Qur’an (41:6) itself instructed Muhammad that he was just a human being:
“Say: ‘I am just a human being like you, who has received revelation: that your god is but one God; so take a straight path to Him and seek His forgiveness, and woe be to the idolators.’”
It is one of the features of the human estate to be open to ridicule and humiliation.
Many Muslims such as the Salafis are nowadays attempting to reach back beyond medieval glosses and rediscover the Islam of the prophet and his companions. A dispassionate survey of the early sources such as Ibn Hisham shows an attitude of calm and peaceful resignation by early Muslims to the denunciations of the polytheists, and a determination to simply wait out their antipathy. Only when Mecca violently attacked the Muslims, plotted Muhammad’s assassination, etc., did the latter turn to defensive violence, but that was not vigilanteism (as it would have been in Mecca) but rather an organized response of a city-state. Muslims in the West are in a position similar to that of Muslims in Mecca before the Hijra or migration, and would do well to consider how the earliest community dealt with Islamophobia in the first years of the religion. (The Dallas Muslim community, which is part of a local interfaith peace coalition, knew this well and stayed away from the Geller event). Despite all the questions that can be raised about early Muslim historical sources, the community preserved traditions showing tolerance, forbearance and steadfastness in the absence of violence toward them.
This is the only way to avoid the Muslim-American community being trolled by extreme Zionists like Pamela Geller, who are attempting to deprive them of a public voice by painting them all as violent fanatics to whom no attention should be paid. In turn, this tactic is aimed at keeping Palestinians stateless and upholding the Apartheid situation in Israel/Palestine. After all, if Palestinians don’t have standing to complain about their statelessness on account of being beyond the pale, then no one need listen to them. Ironically, it is a supremacist vision of Israel that is the equivalent for Zionist extremists of caricaturing the prophet. That is why the Jewish Defense League targeted Rep. Darrell Issa, an Arab-American, for assassination, and why Baruch Goldstein shot up Palestinians in Hebron. Because the Zionist extremists understand that there are hot button issues like Israelolatry that can lead to violence from their community, they know exactly how to get the goat of extremists on the other side. In essence, this is a tango of sharpening contradictions.
Human Rights Watch is accusing the Saudi Arabia-led coalition of dropping banned cluster bombs manufactured and supplied by the U.S. on civilian areas in Yemen. Cluster bombs contain dozens or even hundreds of smaller munitions designed to fan out over a wide area, often the size of a football field. They are banned under a 2008 treaty for the high civilian toll they can cause. The treaty was adopted by 116 countries — although not by Saudi Arabia, Yemen or the United States. According to Human Rights Watch, the U.S.-supplied cluster bombs have landed near rebel-held villages in northern Yemen, putting residents in danger. On Monday, the State Department said it is “looking into” the report’s allegations, adding it takes “all accounts of civilian deaths in the ongoing hostilities in Yemen very seriously.” We are joined by Stephen Goose, director of Human Rights Watch’s Arms Division and chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition, and Belkis Wille, Yemen and Kuwait researcher at Human Rights Watch.
The right-wing response to stories of police violence and brutality against blacks, and black deaths at the hands of police, is becoming as predictable as the stories themselves. Only the names and locations seem to change.
Here we are again. Another unarmed black man has died in the custody of another city police department with a long record of brutality, under highly questionable circumstances. By now its de riguer on the right to blame the victims, and spout racist rhetoric.
A couple of weeks ago, it was Walter Scott, shot in the back while fleeing a traffic stop in North Carolina, and denied medical help while the officer in question joked about the “adrenaline rush” he got from the killing. This week, it’s Freddie Gray, who emerged from a ride in a police van with serious, unexplained injuries, and died a week later. As in many other recent cases, some of what happened to Gray was caught on video.
While the media ignored the thousands of peaceful protestors across the country to focus on the protests that turned violent, right-wingers were quick to blame the protestors, their parents, and even President Obama – everyone but the police – for the conditions that fueled the unrest.
- Billionaire real estate mogul and reality start Donald Trump fired off several angry tweets blaming President Obama for the unrest in Baltimore. One read: “Our great African-American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore.”
- Fox News host and Fox contributor Lou Dobbs and Dr. Keith Ablow blamed President Obama for the violence in Baltimore. On his show, Dobbs claimed that “there is a war on law enforcement” that is “corroborated if not condoned by this administration.”
- Fox News host Carson Tucker called the protests “a threat to civilization itself,” and asked, “Why wouldn’t someone fire a shotgun in the air and say knock it off?” Because random gunfire from the police always calms things down.
- Presidential candidate Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blamed the unrest in Baltimore on “the breakdown of the family structure, the lack of fathers, the lack of sort of a moral code in our society.” Paul’s comments came just days after his son, was arrested for driving under the influence in Lexington, Kentucky. This was 22-year-old William Hilton Paul’s third alcohol-related arrest.
- Rush Limbaugh asked why Democrats are suddenly calling on parents to control their kids.
- A Baltimore protestor shamed Fox News host Sean Hannity. “We shouldn’t be moralizing people’s frustration and pain. What we should be moralizing is the systemic violence that has been put on people in Baltimore,” Adam J. Jackson said, before Hannity ended the interview.
- On “Fox & Friends,” Dr. Phil McGraw, of televisions “Dr. Phil,” asked “Where are their parents?” in reference to the protesters.
Gray, 25, was arrested in West Baltimore, on April 12, when he made eye contact with one police officer at about 8:30 a.m., and fled when several police officers on bicycles approached. After officers discovered a small pocket knife on him, Gray was arrested for weapon possession without force or incident. Why Gray ran and why he was pursued are unknown, but a friend told the Baltimore Sun that Gray had a record of drug-related arrests and “had a history with that police beating.”
Bystander video shows Gray screaming in pain while being dragged to a police van. He also reportedly requested an inhaler, because he suffered from asthma. At 8:46 a.m., the van stopped because Gray was “acting irate” according to police. Officers took him our of the van to put leg shackles on him. Again, video trumps the police account, because video of the stop counters officers claims.
When Gray was placed back in the van, police admit he was not placed in a seatbelt – a direct violation of police policy. At 9:24 a.m., police requested paramedics to take Gray to an area hospital. A subsequent charging document said, “During transport to Western District via wagon transport the Defendant suffered a medical emergency and was transported to Shock Trauma.”
Gray’s “medical emergency,” suffered in those 45 minutes, resulted in three fractured neck vertebrae that left his spine 80 percent severed at his neck, and a crushed voice box, which doctors said could result from “powerful blunt force” and “hyperextension of the neck.” After spending a week in a coma, Gray died of his injuries on April 19.
The attorney representing the officers in the case said Gray was hurt while riding inside the police van. Police commission Anthony W. Batts also admitted that officers failed to get medical attention for Gray “in a timely manner,” and should have called for an ambulance when he was initially arrested. Batt admitted that officers violated department procedure by not putting Gray in a seat belt.
Baltimore’s police department has paid out million of dollars to people injured in police vans, during “rough rides” or “nickel rides,” in which a police van is driven recklessly while detainees in the back are wearing handcuffs and/or leg irons, but not seat belts.
- The family of Donald Johnson, Sr., won $7.4 million verdict against officers, after a 2005 van ride left him a paraplegic.
- Jeffrey Alston was awarded $39 million by a jury, after he was paralyzed from the neck down as the result of a van ride.
- The city paid $100,000 to the family of Homer Long, after he suffered a fatal heart attack in a police van in 2003.
*Since 2011, Baltimore has settled or lost more than 100 police brutality cases, to the tune of nearly $6 million.
PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Because of irresponsible reporting by conservative sources, many Americans have been led to believe that social programs are bankrupting our nation. The mainstream media fawningly concurs, with statements like this from USA Today: “The massive deficits…[and] chronic underfunding…are largely the result of Washington’s habit of committing too much money to benefit programs.” States are now beginning to attack imagined safety net abuses, such as the use of food stamp funds to pay for fortune tellers and pleasure cruises.
But hungry people rarely waste their modest benefits, and most are eager to work to support their households. Almost three-quarters of those enrolled in food stamps and other social programs are members of working families. And according to the US Department of Agriculture, only 1 cent of every SNAP dollar is used fraudulently.
The real threat is the array of entitlements demanded by the very rich. As they get richer, they’re gradually bankrupting the greater part of America, the middle and lower classes. The following annual numbers may help to put our country’s expenses and benefits in perspective.
The Safety Net: $370 Billion
The 2014 safety net (non-medical) included the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), WIC (Women, Infants, Children), Child Nutrition, Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Education & Training, and Housing. These few programs, collectively termed “welfare” by those fortunate enough to survive without them, amount to a lot less than the $1 trillion per year publicized by the conservative press.
Social Security: $863 Billion
The threat of “entitlement,” in the case of Social Security, is more properly defined as an “earned benefit.” Social Security is the major source of income for most of the elderly, who have paid for it. As of 2010, according to the Urban Institute, the average two-earner couple making average wages throughout their lifetimes receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in.
Tax Avoidance: $2,200 Billion
That’s $2.2 trillion in tax expenditures, tax underpayments, tax havens, and corporate nonpayment. It is estimated that two-thirds of tax breaks accrue to the top quintile of taxpayers.
Investment Gains: $5,000 Billion
That’s $5 trillion dollars a year, the annual amount gained in US wealth from the end of 2008 to the middle of 2014. In the six years since the recession, for every $1 of safety net costs, $10 in new wealth went to the richest 10%.
Investment income welfare for the well-to-do appears in the form of capital gains tax breaks, which mean zero taxes on deferred investment gains, and zero taxes for most of the investment gains passed along to descendants.
Most Extreme: 14 Billionaires vs. 46 Million Hungry Americans
America’s 14 richest individuals made more from their investments last year than the $80 billion provided for people in need of food.
Clearly, conservative sources don’t tell us the full story. They dwell on the cost of the safety net, emphasizing its accumulating total over several years, while stubbornly ignoring the real problem.
The super-rich feel they deserve all the tax breaks and the accumulation of wealth from our nation’s many years of productivity.
That’s the true threat of entitlement.
http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2015/04/27/39737/fbn-dobbs-20150427-obamatoblame
Fox Business host Lou Dobbs and Fox News contributor Keith Ablow blamed President Obama and his administration for violence in the wake of the mysterious death of Freddie Gray, who died a week after suffering an unexplained injury while in the custody of Baltimore police officers.
On April 19, 25-year-old Freddie Gray died of a reported spinal cord injury that he mysteriously suffered after being arrested on April 12 by police officers. After Gray’s funeral on April 27, the governor of Maryland declared a state of emergency in Baltimore and activated the National Guard to respond to violence and looting in the city that resulted in injury to at least 15 police officers.
On the April 27 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox host Lou Dobbs responded to the events by blaming the violence against the police on Obama, asserting that “there is a war on law enforcement” that is being “corroborated if not condoned by this administration.”
Later during the show, Dobbs invited Fox contributor Keith Ablow to comment, and he also blamed Obama for the violence, adding that people who want to tear down the system like the people in Baltimore “might be taking [their] cues from this president” (emphasis added):
DOBBS: I’d like to begin with what drives, in your judgment, a police department and a mayor, who basically have given a free pass to those who are tearing up property, and injuring others, including law enforcement?
ABLOW: What drives them is a lack of respect for the foundation of governing and foundation of law upon which this nation rests. Contempt for such things and a kind of tacit acceptance, that protests can be violent because people are so frustrated. But the bottom line Lou, is that if you want to change things, you work within the system, that is the way it has always been. If you want to tear down the system, you might be taking your cues, by the way, from a president who has given the appearance that there is every justification for any level of anger at our country because we’re such despicable people.
While reporting on the protests earlier in the day, Fox News’ Shep Smith urged his colleagues to report on the protests objectively by “for now, just covering what happens,” instead of indicting the community
BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
The Koch Brothers, who have pledged to spend at least $100 billion dollars between now and the 2016 elections, first appeared to be building the Good Ship Scott Walker, and now … that may not be putting away their construction gear. At a recent fundraiser for the New York State Republican Party, David Koch told donors that he and his brother were thinking that the Wisconsin’s Governor could be a winning candidate. “We will support whoever the candidate is,” David Koch said, “but it should be Scott Walker,” according to an account in The New York Times.
While Koch fell short of a full-throated endorsement of Walker, several attendees at the fundraiser told The New York Times that the billionaire brothers seemed to have picked their man. “Scott Walker is terrific and I really wish him all the best,” Koch said. “He’s a tremendous candidate to be the nominee in my opinion.” He later added that he wasn’t “endorsing or supporting any candidate for president at this point in time.”
A day later, Charles Koch moonwalked his brother’s remarks, telling USA Today that there were four other candidates the brothers were paying close attention to: former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida. “Those are the ones we have talked to the most and who seem to be the possible leaders,” he said.
“What we’ve told them all is that right now, we’re not supporting anyone,” Koch said. “We’re telling them that if they want our support, one way to get it is articulating a good message to help Americans get a better understanding and a better appreciation of how certain policies … will benefit them and will benefit all America.”
What seemed like a stunning and significant development for Team Walker, now appears to have been a bit premature.
If Walker does get the full financial backing of the Koch brothers, it will not be the first time. According to the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Walker has received “at least $11.6 million in support for Walker from the Kochs and their affiliated groups, plus millions more in indirect funding.”
In February 2011, Lisa Graves, the executive director of CMD, reported that the Koch Brothers had found their man in Wisconsin and that man was Scott Walker.
Brendan Fischer recently reported at PR Watch (a CMD project), that “In his first months after taking office, Walker — a star alumnus of the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — signed 19 ALEC bills into law, which went after unions, enacted voter ID restrictions, and made it harder to hold corporations accountable in the courts. In many ways, the new pat-on-the-back by two of the biggest moneymen in the game is an astonishing affirmation of deep ties forged years ago at ALEC.
Walker agenda demonstrations by thousands at the Wisconsin state house and ultimately resulted in a 2012 recall election. According to Fischer, the Koch Brothers “came to his rescue.”
“During the 2012 recall elections, David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity spent $10 million supporting Walker, which included at least 70 paid staffers flown into Wisconsin, plus bus tours, rallies, town hall meetings, phone banks, and canvassers, not to mention the months of TV ads.”
As if that spending wasn’t enough, Fischer reported that “A mysterious group called ‘Coalition for American Values’ poured $400,000 into a barrage of last-minute ads that made a unique appeal: instead of promoting Governor Scott Walker or attacking his opponent, the ads attacked the premise of the recall itself.”
To the surprise of many, Walker prevailed. “CMD discovered that all of Coalition for American Values’ known contributions came the Koch-tied Freedom Partners.”
“We’re helping him, as we should. We’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years,” David Koch told the Palm Beach Post in early 2012. “We’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We’re going to spend more . . . What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He’s an impressive guy and he’s very courageous.”
“The Kochs have been on a kick to portray themselves as socially liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-immigration, and pro-criminal justice reform,” Brendan Fischer, General Counsel for The Center on Media and Democracy told me in an email. However, “their support for Walker is further proof that they are more than willing to bankroll elected officials who actively oppose all of those issues as long as the politicians cut taxes and deregulate.”
At this point, however, it remains to be seen if Walker will be the Koch Brothers’ love child. If he is, despite his gaffes, his unwillingness to directly answer questions from the press, his relative unpopularity at home, and most recently, his ridiculously awkward statements about legal immigration, he will be back in the Koch’s financial catbird seat. If he can’t get the love, he won’t get the money. And that will spell the end of Walker’s dream of leaving Madison.
Robert Reich
This originally appeared on Robert Reich’s blog.
It’s a paradox.
Almost all the economic gains are still going to the top, leaving America’s vast middle class with stagnant wages and little or no job security. Two-thirds of Americans are working paycheck to paycheck.
Meanwhile, big money is taking over our democracy.
If there were ever a time for a bold Democratic voice on behalf of hardworking Americans, it is now.
Yet I don’t recall a time when the Democratic Party’s most prominent office holders sounded as meek. With the exception of Elizabeth Warren, they’re pussycats. If Paul Wellstone, Teddy Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, or Ann Richards were still with us, they’d be hollering.
The fire now is on the right, stoked by the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, and a pocketful of hedge-fund billionaires.
Today’s Republican firebrands, beginning with Ted Cruz, blame the poor, blacks, Latinos, and immigrants for what’s been happening. They avoid any mention of wealth and power.
Which brings me to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In declaring her candidacy for President she said “The deck is stacked in favor of those at the top. Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion.”
Exactly the right words, but will she deliver?
Some wonder about the strength of her values and ideals. I don’t. I’ve known her since she was 19 years old, and have no doubt where her heart is. For her entire career she’s been deeply committed to equal opportunity and upward mobility.
Some worry she’s been too compromised by big money – that the circle of wealthy donors she and her husband have cultivated over the years has dulled her sensitivity to the struggling middle class and poor.
But it’s wrong to assume great wealth, or even a social circle of the wealthy, is incompatible with a deep commitment to reform – as Teddy Roosevelt and his fifth-cousin Franklin clearly demonstrated.
The more relevant concern is her willingness to fight.
After a devastating first midterm election, her husband famously “triangulated” between Democrats and Republicans, seeking to find a middle position above the fray.
But if Hillary Clinton is to get the mandate she needs for America to get back on track, she will have to be clear with the American people about what is happening and why – and what must be done.
For example, she will need to admit that Wall Street is still running the economy, and still out of control.
So we must resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and bust up the biggest banks, so millions of Americans don’t ever again lose their homes, jobs, and savings because of Wall Street’s excesses.
Also: Increase taxes on the rich in order to finance the investments in schools and infrastructure the nation desperately needs.
Strengthen unions so working Americans have the bargaining power to get a fair share of the gains from economic growth.
Limit the deductibility of executive pay, and raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Oppose trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership designed to protect corporate property but not American jobs.
And nominate Supreme Court justices who will reverse “Citizens United.”
I’m not suggesting a long list. Democratic candidates too often offer mind-numbing policy proposals without explaining why they’re important.
She should use such policies to illustrate the problem, and make a vivid moral case for why such policies are necessary.
In recent decades Republicans have made a moral case for less government and lower taxes on the rich, based on their idea of “freedom.”
They talk endlessly about freedom but they never talk about power. But it’s power that’s askew in America –concentrated power that’s constraining the freedom of the vast majority.
Hillary Clinton should make the moral case about power: for taking it out of the hands of those with great wealth and putting it back into the hands of average working people.
In these times, such a voice and message make sense politically. The 2016 election will be decided by turnout, and turnout will depend on enthusiasm.
If she talks about what’s really going on and what must be done about it, she can arouse the Democratic base as well as millions of Independents and even Republicans who have concluded, with reason, that the game is rigged against them.
The question is not her values and ideals. It’s her willingness to be bold and to fight, at a time when average working people need a president who will fight for them more than they’ve needed such a president in living memory.
This is a defining moment for Democrats, and for America. It is also a defining moment for Hillary Clinton.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written 13 books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His new movie “Inequality for All” is in Theaters. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon can’t say what happened to more than $500 million worth of gear—including “small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies”—it had given to the Yemeni government. The news comes as Al Qaeda and Iranian-backed groups vie to control the country following the collapse of the country’s US-backed regime in January. The Post noted that the Pentagon has stopped further shipments of aid, but the damage has been done. “We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” an anonymous legislative aide said.
This isn’t the first time US military aid to allies has gone AWOL or wound up in the wrong hands. A few notable examples:
Libya: In late 2012, the New York Times reported that weapons from a US-approved deal had eventually gone to Islamic militants in Libya. The deal, which involved European weapons sent to Qatar as well as US weapons originally supplied to the United Arab Emirates, had been managed from the sidelines by the Obama administration.
Syria: More than once, American arms intended to help bolster the fight against ISIS in Syria and northern Iraq have ended up in the group’s control. Last October, an airdrop of small arms was blown off target by the wind, according to the Guardian. ISIS quickly posted a video of its fighters going through crates of weapons attached to a parachute.
Iraq: American weapons supplied to the Iraqi army have also found their way ISIS via theft and capture. And weapons meant for the Iraqi army have also gone to Shiite militias backed by Iran. This isn’t a new problem: As much as 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces between 2004 and early 2007 could not be accounted for.
Afghanistan: It’s been widely documented that American forces invading Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 had to face off against weapons the United States had once supplied to mujahideen fighters battling the Soviets in the ’80s.
Somalia: In 2011, Wired reported that as much as half of the US-supplied arms given to Uganda and Burundi in support of the fight against al-Shabaab was winding up with the Somali militant group.
This post originally ran on Robert Reich’s website.
The U.S. economy is picking up steam but most Americans aren’t feeling it. By contrast, most European economies are still in bad shape, but most Europeans are doing relatively well.
What’s behind this? Two big facts.
First, American corporations exert far more political influence in the United States than their counterparts exert in their own countries
In fact, most Americans have no influence at all. That’s the conclusion of Professors Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, who analyzed 1,799 policy issues — and found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
Instead, American lawmakers respond to the demands of wealthy individuals (typically corporate executives and Wall Street moguls) and of big corporations – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns.
The second fact is most big American corporations have no particular allegiance to America. They don’t want Americans to have better wages. Their only allegiance and responsibility to their shareholders — which often requires lower wages to fuel larger profits and higher share prices.
When GM went public again in 2010, it boasted of making 43 percent of its cars in place where labor is less than $15 an hour, while in North America it could now pay “lower-tiered” wages and benefits for new employees.
American corporations shift their profits around the world wherever they pay the lowest taxes. Some are even morphing into foreign corporations.
As an Apple executive told The New York Times, “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems.”
I’m not blaming American corporations. They’re in business to make profits and maximize their share prices, not to serve America.
But because of these two basic facts – their dominance on American politics, and their interest in share prices instead of the wellbeing of Americans – it’s folly to count on them to create good American jobs or improve American competitiveness, or represent the interests of the United States in global commerce.
By contrast, big corporations headquartered in other rich nations are more responsible for the wellbeing of the people who live in those nations.
That’s because labor unions there are typically stronger than they are here — able to exert pressure both at the company level and nationally.
VW’s labor unions, for example, have a voice in governing the company, as they do in other big German corporations. Not long ago, VW even welcomed the UAW to its auto plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Tennessee’s own politicians nixed it.)
Governments in other rich nations often devise laws through tri-partite bargains involving big corporations and organized labor. This process further binds their corporations to their nations.
Meanwhile, American corporations distribute a smaller share of their earnings to their workers than do European or Canadian-based corporations.
And top U.S. corporate executives make far more money than their counterparts in other wealthy countries.
The typical American worker puts in more hours than Canadians and Europeans, and gets little or no paid vacation or paid family leave. In Europe, the norm is five weeks paid vacation per year and more than three months paid family leave.
And because of the overwhelming clout of American firms on U.S. politics, Americans don’t get nearly as good a deal from their governments as do Canadians and Europeans.
Governments there impose higher taxes on the wealthy and redistribute more of it to middle and lower income households. Most of their citizens receive essentially free health care and more generous unemployment benefits than do Americans.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that even though U.S. economy is doing better, most Americans are not.
The U.S. middle class is no longer the world’s richest. After considering taxes and transfer payments, middle-class incomes in Canada and much of Western Europe are higher than in U.S. The poor in Western Europe earn more than do poor Americans.
Finally, when at global negotiating tables – such as the secretive process devising the “Trans Pacific Partnership” trade deal — American corporations don’t represent the interests of Americans. They represent the interests of their executives and shareholders, who are not only wealthier than most Americans but also reside all over the world.
Which is why the pending Partnership protects the intellectual property of American corporations — but not American workers’ health, safety, or wages, and not the environment.
The Obama administration is casting the Partnership as way to contain Chinese influence in the Pacific region. The agents of America’s interests in the area are assumed to be American corporations.
But that assumption is incorrect. American corporations aren’t set up to represent America’s interests in the Pacific region or anywhere else.
What’s the answer to this basic conundrum? Either we lessen the dominance of big American corporations over American politics. Or we increase their allegiance and responsibility to America.
It has to be one or the other. Americans can’t thrive within a political system run largely by big American corporations — organized to boost their share prices but not boost America.
olddogthoughts 
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