William Rivers Pitt at TruthOut writes—The Sham of Austerity and the Storms to Come:
It was recently revealed by way of a massive document leak that the wealthiest of the global wealthy have taken trillions of dollars and, through the services of a secretive Panamanian law firm, squirrelled that money away inside virtual coffee cans in tax havens all over the world. The "Panama Papers" scandal, as it has come to be called, has ensnared a large number of world leaders, and cost Iceland's prime minister his job.
Those 11 million pages contain the names of hundreds of Americans who also used the services of that Panamanian firm to hide their money. They are the focus of my rage, because they did what they did to avoid paying taxes. Taxes, which pay for the school my daughter will attend, the textbooks she will read, the teachers who will guide her, the roads that will carry her there, the police and fire departments that protect her, the public servants who will help her register to vote someday and who clear the roads when the storms turn white.
Meanwhile, the paid lackeys of these thieves run up and down the halls of Congress, and all over the media, shouting about how broke we are as a nation. Austerity, they cry, budget cuts, no food for poor children or assistance for poor families. Social Security and Medicare must be cut because that's the responsible thing to do. No support for wounded and traumatized veterans, but of course we can afford more war. We need education budget cuts, no infrastructure repair, no health care reform, because look, see, we're broke.
No, we aren't. We were robbed, and we can get that money back if we choose to act. This is a fiction we live in, cunningly crafted to cover the tracks of those who care only for themselves. Between the bloated "defense" budget and all that untaxed money lying offshore, we have the revenue required to address these pressing issues and chase the "austerity" argument off like a diseased cur.
HIGH IMPACT STORIES • THE WEEK’S HIGH IMPACT STORIES
TOP COMMENTS
FFS DU JOUR
Man Exonerated After 33 Years in Prison Was Convicted by Unreliable Bite-mark Evidence
Keith Allen Harward is 60 years old and free now. But for 33 years he was imprisoned for a rape and murder committed by another man. A life wrecked by a hypnotized witness and bite-mark evidence. Finally a DNA test matched that of sailor Harward’s now-deceased shipmate on the USS Vinson. That’s good news, so why is it here in FFS?
The murdered woman had bite marks on her legs. During Harward’s original and second trial, a total of six forensic experts claimed the bite marks were a match for Harward’s dental alignment. But, says Chris Fabricant, director of Strategic Litigation for the Innocence Project: “We have no idea how many other people may have been wrongly convicted based on this evidence, but any conviction resting on this grossly unreliable technique is inherently flawed. Every state in the nation should be conducting reviews to see if there are others like Mr. Harward sitting in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. Moreover, that this technique is still used in our justice system, including current capital prosecutions, presents a public safety threat.”
At least 25 people have been exonerated in cases where bite-mark evidence had been key to their convictions. In one of those cases, what was labeled a human bite by a supposed forensic expert was instead most likely decomposition plus insect and crawfish bites.
"[Harward’s] case has resulted in unspeakable loss for so many people," said Olga Akselrod, a lawyer with the Innocence Project who helped to set Harward free. "The 33 years that Mr. Harward lost cannot be returned to him. Those are years people are building careers, and families."
Harward, at least, will be compensated for his time in prison, though none of those years can be erased by money. Under a Virginia statute, he is due recompense worth 90 percent of the per capita personal income in the state, about $47,000, for each year he served—$1.6 million—plus $10,000 in free tuition at Virginia’s community college system.
Only 30 states and the District of Columbia have statutes setting compensation for wrongful convictions. But some of those statutes are a joke: Montana will only provide educational aid to a wrongfully convicted person. New Hampshire will compensate such person a total of only $20,000 no matter how long s/he was imprisoned.
|
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—How to Spend a Billion Dollars:
For the 2008 cycle, the presidential candidates are expected to raise and spend a billion dollars in pursuit of the White House, and—based on the recent numbers—well more than half of that money will be spent by Democrats. While that number screams of the need to reform our system of elections, it also shows an unmatched opportunity to change the game in a more fundamental way. Democrats have already shown they're capable of making better use of the Internet than their counterparts on the right, but most of that money is likely to end up going into the bottomless maw of the traditional media.
Face it, there really is such a thing as media saturation. The second flyer from a candidate is less effective than the first. The third commercial less noticeable than the second. The fourth visit from volunteers is more irritation than enticement. The fifth phone call is more likely to generate rage than a positive response. There really is a point of diminishing returns, and it takes far less than the kind of numbers being tossed around this season to get there. A hundred million dollar campaign may be more effective than a ten million dollar effort, but it's far from ten times as effective. At some point, each dollar pushed into a traditional media effort is about as effective as construction funding in Iraq.
Besides, if the Democratic candidates spend their millions on traditional advertising, much of that money will be going back to media conglomerates who want their campaigns to fail. Democratic dollars will flow into the pockets of CEOs who will be on the "Ranger" list for the Republican candidates. Democratic funds donated by millions of contributors, will end up as commercials that pay the salaries of Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh.
I'd like to propose that Democratic candidates for president demonstrate their boldness by taking a different approach to their campaign spending this year. I want them to give it away. Not all of it, mind you. Just 10%.
|
Monday through Friday you can catch the Kagro in the Morning Show 9 AM ET by dropping in here, or you can download the Stitcher app (found in the app stores or at Stitcher.com), and find a live stream there, by searching for "Netroots Radio.”
|