Letter to Lugar: tax cut showdown

My letter to Senator Lugar about
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/12/01/131725152/senate-gop-vows-to-block-all-except-tax-cut-debt-bills and
http://www.examiner.com/unemployment-benefits-in-new-york/after-unemployment-extension-fails-senate-benefits-lapse-for-millions

I am appalled to learn of the vow of GOP Senators to filibuster all
government business until the budget-busting tax cuts of the Bush
administration, which have already put us $2 trillion in unnecessary
debt, are renewed. Appalled that such irresponsible brinksmanship games
are being played while the same GOP caucus has blocked extension of
unemployment benefits, increasing the desperation of millions of
Americans and, incidentally, hurting the economy, its future growth
(hungry children do not grow up to be first class workers) and long term
tax revenues.

Your business is to reduce the 10% unemployment rate, through proven
Keynesian means, not to worry about debt when interest rates are rock
bottom, and still less to pursue tax cuts for the rich which would only
increase that debt, and least of all to cause government shutdowns over
said tax cuts.

Wikileaks results

You may have heard of Wikileaks and Cablegate and the dumping of tons of alleged US diplomatic cables. Good or bad -- and for whom? Glenn Greenwald has a good summary with lots of further links:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/01/wikileaks/index.html

A few things of note: video of Apache gunship attack on journalists and children; a formal US policy of not investigating human rights abuses by the Iraqi regime; the head of the Bank of England getting illegally involved in politics; US pushing Germans to coverup our kidnapping and torture; UK officials covering for US ones.

Glenn notes that Scott Ritter and Eliot Spitzer got sex crime allegations or charges after they threatened the powers that be, as Assange has. He also links to an Economist blog
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/overseeing_state_secrecy
which ends on the note that critics claim lack of secrecy may cost lives -- not that there's been evidence of this -- but the secrecy had killed thousands of Americans and on the order of 100,000 Iraqis.

Glenn also says that every document which isn't a big deal, but which also didn't need to be classified, is itself a blow against democracy, in which the government should be transparent by default, not secret by default.

Juan Cole has http://www.juancole.com/2010/12/top-ten-middle-east-wikileaks-revelations-so-far.html

A Spanish mafia-busting judge called Russia a mafia state
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s3083375.htm
US troops have been secretly embedded in Pakistan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/wikileaks-cables-us-forces-embedded-pakistan

One cable notes US/Swedish cooperation that had to be kept secret from the Swedish people, which perhaps casts a shadow on the convenient Swedish charges against Assange.
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2007/05/07STOCKHOLM506.html

This describes Assange's philosophy: not just of specific damning revelations (though those seem abundant, contrary to media spin like "it's just gossip"), but of threatening the whole culture of secrecy that enables conspiracy.
https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/

If you want to support Wikileaks, voila:
http://wikileaks.org/support.html

(see next entry http://mindstalk.livejournal.com/264371.html )