Jonathan P. Baird

One nice thing about having the website is the opportunity to tout heroes. I.F. Stone is a hero of mine.
 
I first came across him during the war in Vietnam when he was putting out I.F. Stone’s Weekly. Long before bloggers and the internet, Stone was almost single-handedly destroying the government’s case for the war in Vietnam. I.F. Stone’s Weekly was indispensable reading.
 
He was a newspaperman and an investigative journalist. He went his own way and dug up stories by reading everything and finding stories that no one else covered. He did this for a lifetime.
 
For years I have had the quote below on my bulletin board at work. Stone is worthy of a much more detailed post but I mostly wanted to share the quote which I have always enjoyed:
 
“It’s just wonderful to be a pariah. I really owe my success to being a pariah. It is so good not to be invited to respectable dinner parties. People used to say to me, “Izzy, why don’t you go down and see the Secretary of State and put him straight. Well, you know, you’re not supposed to see the Secretary of State. He won’t pay attention to you anyway. He’ll hold your hand, he’ll commit you morally for listening. To be a pariah is to be left alone to see things your own way, as truthfully as you can. Not because you’re brighter than anybody else is – or your own truth so valuable. But because, like a painter or a writer or an artist, all you have to contribute is the purification of your own vision, and add that to the sum total of other visions. To be regarded as nonrespectable, to be a pariah, to be an outsider, this is really the way to do it. To sit in your tub and not want anything. As soon as you want something, they’ve got you!”   I.F. Stone

It is with sadness that I read about the death of Teddy Pendergrass last month. Teddy died in Bryn Mawr Hospital in the Philadelphia area on Jan 13.
 
I doubt if anyone has ever sung in a sexier, more passionate way than Teddy on “Close the Door”. To this day, that song still knocks me out.
 
I remember when Teddy’s album “Life is a Song Worth Singing” came out in 1978. I ran out, bought it, and listened to it about a thousand times. Even before that, when Teddy sang with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, the music was amazing and affirmative. “Wake Up Everybody” could have been a counter national anthem.
 
I just want to mention some of the other Philly sound artists from that era who I loved. The Spinners, Deniece Williams, and the O’Jays were right up there. I think of Lou Rawls singing, “See You When I Get There”. Wow!
 
I guess I always have been partisan to soul, R&B, and blues. Growing up in the Philly area, I think the first two albums I ever owned were the Temptations Greatest Hits and the Four Tops Greatest Hits. Soul music got me. Honestly, whether it was Philly soul or Motown, I loved it.
 
Thinking back on that era, this was also the time of Frank Rizzo, the now deceased former Mayor and Police Commissioner of Philadelphia. Rizzo was a character from the dark side. The awful image that stands out to me is the photo of Rizzo’s police lining up naked Black Panthers after a police raid. I recall the photo running in the Philadelphia papers.
 
There were many raids across the country on Black Panther headquarters. Only a fool would think that was an accident. The FBI  and J. Edgar Hoover were out to get the Panthers. I would not be surprised to learn the Philadelphia raid was a Cointelpro operation. Of course, it could have been solely Rizzo and his department doing their thing.
 
Rizzo’s signature photo was the famous shot of him wearing a tuxedo with a billyclub sticking through his cummerbund.
 
My sister Lisa was active in the Stop Rizzo movement of the 70’s. I had left Philly by then. Last time I was in South Philly last year I was surprised to see a huge Frank Rizzo wall portrait on the back of a building. It is pitiful that Rizzo would be considered a symbol of ethnic pride.
 
The Philadelphia sound was the other side of the coin from the ugliness represented by Frank Rizzo. The sound was galvanizing, sexy and life-affirming. Not too long ago I heard the songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. Gamble and Huff were the architects of the Philly sound. All I can say is that I think those guys were geniuses.
 
I will miss Teddy but fortunately the music will live on.
 

On this last Friday, my sister Lisa would have turned 57 if she had lived. Her birthday is Jan 29. She has now been gone for over three months. To me, it does not seem that long
 
I realized today that I still have her number on my cellphone speed dial.  I do not want to remove it. I have looked at her emails to me over and over again. Mostly they are about nothing special, just everyday life stuff. I have not wanted to delete them. They are my last lingering connections.
 
I do think about what Lise would be thinking about so many things. I wonder if she would be mad at Obama like so much of the Left. Chances are, not very. I know, though, she was not on board with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Could I have gotten her to go see Avatar? Yes, definitely. She would have liked the 3-D, especially at an IMAX. Not that she wished anything bad on anyone but she would be glad Scott Roeder, the guy who murdered Dr Tiller, got convicted of first degree murder.
 
It is a certainty that Lise would have been uninterested in the upcoming Super Bowl. Even if the Eagles were in it, she would not have cared although she would have been happy for me. Just about my only football memory with Lise goes back to childhood. She came to a game at Franklin Field in the early 60’s where the Eagles played before they played at the Vet. I remember she got lost when she went to get a hot dog. My dad found her. It was a different world then. No one thought about missing children like they might think now.
 
Lise was a big Phillies fan along with her kids, her de facto ex-husband, and her whole birth family. She did not live sports but this is the Phillies Golden Age. Hard not to like a team with Ryan Howard, J. Roll, Chase Utley,  and Shane Victorino. She enjoyed the sheer pleasure of watching such a great team. I don’t think it will ever be better than this for Phillies fans.
 
Since Lisa died, I have thought about going to a grief counselor but I haven’t gotten it together to do that. I did get a couple therapist names. It has helped me to talk and email friends about Lise. I suppose this has given me an outlet. At the suggestion of Lise’s friend and my friend Bebo, I checked out a book, Surviving the Death of a Sibling, by T.J. Wray.
 
Wray argues that when an adult loses a sibling, society fails to recognize the depth of the loss. She describes what she calls dismissive condolences by people who expect you to get over it.
 
What I find hard and what bothers me is that I always expected Lisa to be here for my whole life. I wrongly assumed her ongoing presence. She was a keeper of secrets and a repository of family knowledge. She knew me like a book and she and I could level. She had worked harder than anyone at keeping our family together.
 
To say there is a loss does not come close to specifying the degree of emptiness of Lisa’s absence. Lisa’s death, along with our Dad’s last May, completely tossed my birth family to hell. We are like a fragment of what we were.
 
Through this all, my mom has been an unbelieveable rock. I treasure her. She is tough and has soldiered through a nightmare. I feel incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful mother. She has totally been there for me.
 
I did want to note that in the last week our family received notice that Lisa would be honored posthumously on Feb 24, 2010 at the Campeones de la Justicia Banquet by the Immigration Law Society and Alianza, the Latino Law Student Society. This event honors the most prominent and distinguished Hispanic leaders in the legal community in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The event will be at 6pm at hte Camden County Boathouse on Cooper River Park.
 
I want to end with a poem by Ferlighetti. Lisa loved Ferlinghetti and she and I had shared a copy of Coney Island of the Mind.
 
    The world is a beautiful place
                                          to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
                                   not always being
                                                        so very much fun
    if you don’t mind a touch of hell
                                              now and then
             just when everything is fine
                                            because even in heaven
                            they don’t sing
                                                all the time
            The world is a beautiful place
                                                  to be born into
    if you don’t mind some people dying
                                                        all the time
                      or maybe only starving
                                                    some of the time
                which isn’t half so bad
                                                if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
                                              to be born into
            if you don’t mind
                                 a few dead minds
                in the higher places
                                            or a bomb or two
                        now and then
                                           in your upturned faces
    or such other improprieties
                                          as our Name Brand Society
                            is prey to
                                        with its men of distinction
        and its men of extinction
                                          and its priests
                    and other patrolmen
                                            and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
                                            and other constipations
            that our fool flesh
                                    is heir to
    Yes the world is the best place of all
                                                  for a lot of such things as
        making the fun scene
                                        and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
                  and singing low songs and having inspirations
      and walking around
                                looking at everything
                                                        and smelling flowers
        and goosing statues
                                    and even thinking
                                                    and kissing people and
        making babies and wearing pants
                                                and waving hats and
                                    dancing
                                      and going swimming in rivers
                        on picnics
                                in the middle of the summer
        and just generally
                                ‘living it up’
Yes
    but then right in the middle of it
                                            comes the smiling
                                    mortician

I wanted to say a few words about Howard Zinn who died on Jan 27. For people on the left of my generation (I am 59), I cannot think of anyone else, with the possible exception of Noam Chomsky, who made a bigger political contribution to American life.
 
I did not know Howard personally. I lived around Boston during the 1970’s and I heard him speak many times, often at anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. Howard had amazing presence. He was funny, charming, and direct.
 
I feel indebted to Howard for his leading role in opposing the insanity that was the Vietnam War. It was a different world
then. Being anti-war was not as acceptable as it is now. Howard had guts. While he is best known for “A People’s History of the United States”, I remember his book “Vietnam:The Logic of Withdrawal”, published in 1967 or 1968. It pushed the anti-war movement. About this, Chomsky said:
 
“Howard really broke through. He was the first person to say
– loudly,publicly, very persuasively – that this simply has to stop;we should get out, period, no conditions; we have no right to be there; it’s an act of aggression;pull out.”
 
Of the times I heard Howard speak, the experience I remember the best was not at a rally. I went to BU to see the movie Burn which featured Marlon Brando. Howard gave a talk to introduce the movie. Burn is a story about a slave revolt on a Caribbean island. It was made by Gillo Pontecorvo who also made The Battle of Algiers. Because of its anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist story, the movie was suppressed by the movie industry that made it.
 
Howard told the story of Burn and its suppression to a large audience. I have to say his talk was fantastic. He was captivating, funny, and utterly entertaining. I do not think I ever saw anyone give a better talk about anything. I don’t know how available Burn is these days. Very worth seeing.
 
Howard’s counter-narrative of American history remains an absolutely necessary corrective to conventional wisdom. Instead of a history dominated by Great Men, Howard looked at what he called “the countless small actions of unknown people”. That perspective is valid and needs further development.
 
In reading about Howard this last week, I came across this Zinn quote cited by Matthew Rothschild of the Progressive Magazine:
 
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And, if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that iis bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
 
I will miss Howard’s presence on the planet. I always looked forward to hearing whatever he had to say. He helped to make the world a saner place. What more could any one person do.

On Jan. 27, the New Hampshire Legislature will have an opportunity to support consumer protection and to oppose predatory lending. The House will vote on Senate Bill 193, which imposes a 36 percent interest rate cap on all small loans under $10,000. SB 193 has already passed the Senate.
The bill is a follow-up to the legislation passed in 2008 when the state, in very timely fashion, acted to stop financial exploitation of New Hampshire families by regulating payday and auto title loans.
That consumer-friendly legislation protected innumerable people from a debt trap. Given the bad economy, it is highly likely that thousands of citizens would have turned to payday or title loans out of sheer desperation if the option had been available. Payday and title lenders would have reaped a financial bonanza at the expense of economically struggling families.
An interest rate cap is the strongest remedy against predatory lending. Nationally it has proven to be the most reliable weapon for consumer protection, which probably explains why opponents fight it so hard.
There is no question that unlimited interest rates equal usury. Opposing usury is not some fringe, leftwing critique. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have all scripturally and doctrinally forbidden usury. For most of American history, states have had usury caps in the range of 6 to 8 percent.
Only relatively recently, in the last 40 years or so, a number of states uncapped interest rates. In New Hampshire, that happened in 1999.
The new small loan bill, SB 193, is necessary because predatory lenders have not ceased trying to find a loophole to evade the payday and auto title interest rate cap. While there is a whack-a-mole quality about this, SB 193 should close the door on such usury.
New Hampshire Banking Commissioner Peter Hildreth has had to issue three orders since early 2009 against lenders who wanted to restructure loans to get around the rate cap. It is instructive to take a look at Hildreth’s orders on these loans.
The commissioner found that the interest rates charged by these lenders, roughly 300 to 400 percent annual percentage rate, were unfair. He found the loan products offered were also oppressive and unscrupulous. He described consumers who borrowed $500 for a year having to pay back $2,325 in interest payments.
In May 2009, CashForce USA, a lender, tried to evade the interest rate cap by advertising small loan open-end lines of credit up to $1,500. Hildreth initiated an investigation and ultimately found that the use of monthly access fees and interest would result in a cost of $3,100 to pay off $250 if the borrower paid the minimum monthly payment. The commissioner concluded that such small loan open-end lines of credit were unethical, and he would not allow the product to be offered in New Hampshire.
On Jan. 6, the small loan bill was actively debated by the New Hampshire House. There were four very close votes, and final voting on the bill was postponed until Jan. 27.
While many arguments were advanced pro and con, I did want to address the argument that SB 193 would hurt small business. That is a red herring. The loans at issue are consumer loans – not small business loans. No business could become viable if it depended on a small loan of this nature.
I have to say that I find it hysterical that opponents of the small loan bill leafletted the Legislature on Jan. 6 describing the bill as “anti-liberty.” Apparently liberty includes the freedom to exploit and scam consumers. When you defend 400 percent interest, you are defending the liberty of the loan shark.
It is a bizarro world view that reserves sympathy for userers but has not a peep to say about victimized consumers. Only willfully blind true believers could miss the role free market ideology has played in the collapse of the larger economy.
Free marketeers have brought us such great innovations as the sub-prime mortgage along with the payday loan. These financial instruments stand as perfect symbols of our deregulated age. Could there be any clearer indicator of moral depravity and corruption than these products?
What happens with the small loan bill may well be a harbinger for consumer protection in New Hampshire. Defeat of the legislation may signal a green light for sleazy financial schemers, connivers and predatory lenders of all stripes.

While it is not surprising that Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try the 9/11 suspects in the federal court in New York was heavily criticized, it was the right call. We try people in America. We do not create star chambers. Nor do we, generally speaking, disappear defendants into a gulag.
One of the worst aspects of the George W. Bush presidency was the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects for years with no legal recourse. It is widely recognized that, along with the guilty, many innocent people were swept up and held in Guantanamo and other black sites during the past decade.
Holding suspects indefinitely without access to counsel is contrary to our deepest legal traditions. The founders prominently inscribed both the right to a speedy, public trial and the right to counsel in our Constitution.
John Adams probably gave the clearest statement about those rights in his closing argument in his defense of the British soldiers accused of committing murder in the Boston Massacre. Adams argued that it is more important to the community that innocence should be protected than that guilt be punished. Adams famously stat-
ed:
“We find in the rules laid down by the greatest English judges, who have been the brightest of mankind, that we are to look upon it as more beneficial that many guilty persons should escape unpunished than one innocent person should suffer.”
Adams warned about the consequence of what happens when innocence is condemned, especially to die. Then it does not matter if a person behaved well or badly because, as he said, virtue is no security.
It is hard to imagine less sympathetic defendants than the 9/11 suspects, and I would guess the government has plenty of evidence of their guilt. I do not know if these defendants have counsel yet, but the idea of representing the 9/11 suspects made me think of the defense attorney Bill Kunstler, who passed away in 1995.
If Kunstler were alive today, I think he would be representing one of the 9/11 defendants. He never retreated from representing controversial clients. Kunstler was a fearless attorney. Abbie Hoffman once described him as having the most moxie of anyone he ever met.
I mention Kunstler because I want to tell a story about him with a Concord connection. Although unnoticed at the time, Kunstler appeared before Judge Martin Loughlin in the federal court in Concord in 1984.
Kunstler was brought in as counsel on a case in which the FBI had wiretapped attorney-client conversations with the defendant’s original lawyer. That Boston lawyer, Rob Doyle, happened to be a friend of mine. I played hooky from law school and went to the federal court to observe the case.
When I arrived at the court, I sat down in the back. Two women came over to me and asked who I was. After I explained, they told me to come sit with them. They were friends of the defendant and they let me know they were witches. They were casting spells on the prosecutors and they did not think it was a good idea for me to sit where I had been. I moved.
I remember Bill grilling an FBI agent on cross-examination most of the morning. Bill, even then, was something of a legend. He was a huge, imposing man. Judge Loughlin, a wonderful man himself, treated Bill with great deference and called him “Billy.”
After the morning, Bill took me, Rob Doyle, and my friend Steve Cherry out to lunch at the old Thursday’s Restaurant. I remember Bill flashing a roll of hundred-dollar bills when he paid.
Bill was in his mid-60s at the time. At lunch, he confided in us that the secret to a long life was to have sex every day. Bill made it to 76, so feel free to draw your own conclusions.
Bill was a total character. I admired his chutzpah and bravery.
For anyone who would want to know more about him, his autobiography, My Life as a Radical Lawyer, is a revealing and wonderful read. The scope of his career was amazing.
Defense attorneys like Kunstler protect our rights by vigorously asserting them. These are the same rights John Adams fought for when he defended the British soldiers in 1770. Without that advocacy, rights shrivel and become dead pieces of paper.
The 9/11 suspects deserve the same rights as other criminal defendants, including the right to counsel and the right to a public trial. It is also appropriate that they are being tried in the place the crime was committed. Ensuring the fairness of the process is an important value in and of itself.

On Oct. 21, my beautiful sister Lisa died from breast cancer. She was 56.
Lisa originally received the diagnosis of breast cancer in 1992. She underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. She remained in remission for more than 15 years.
Then, in late 2007, Lisa developed a persistent cough. After much prodding, she went back to the doctor. In December of that year, she got the bad news of a recurrence. There was evidence of cancer in her lung, liver and brain.
Lisa gamely pursued both traditional and non-traditional treatment. She was starting her sixth round of chemotherapy when she died.
Her life had evolved into an unending whirl of medical appointments. She underwent almost weekly chemo infusions. She contemptuously brushed off side effects and hid her suffering behind a mask of stoicism.
The cumulative effects of the chemo aged Lisa dramatically. It was like someone flicked a switch and the aging process speeded up. She lost her hair. A gray pallor replaced her previously rosy skin. Lisa also lost her appetite and, despite constant protestations that she needed to eat, she wasted away. She said food did not taste good anymore.
It was the spread of cancer to her liver that proved most problematic. The chemo delayed tumor growth but could not stop it. Lisa developed ascites, a fluid buildup in her abdomen. She became increasingly jaundiced.
I accompanied her to her last scheduled chemo appointment. It turned out that she was too weak to have it. Tapping her abdomen to drain off fluid was the only medical treatment left. That treatment temporarily stopped discomfort, but the ascites did not stop. It relentlessly returned, worsening as it progressed. Doctors tapped Lisa’s stomach a number of times.
Earlier, it had seemed
like Lisa had cancer on the run, but that turned around. Cancer did not take a day off.
Lisa worked until the day she died. She was an immigration law attorney in Philadelphia with a large and active private practice. For months, I had tried to get her to stop practicing. I thought she should apply for Social Security Disability, for which she would have been medically eligible. She consistently refused my suggestion.
I would call her on a Saturday night and more often than not she would be working on a case. I would say, “C’mon Lise, it’s Saturday night.” She ignored me. I wanted to lessen her stress, but work gave her satisfaction and a sense of creative self-expression. She got pleasure out of helping people, and it paid bills.
On her last day of life, lying in bed, she asked to make a phone call.
“Who do you want to call?” I asked.
“An immigration officer.”
I handed over my cell phone. In laborious but woozy fashion, Lisa punched in the number, got voicemail and left a message. She explained that she was calling on behalf of a client and she spelled out the client’s name. She said, “I am not feeling too well today. Could you give me a call in the morning?”
When she got off the phone, she told me, “You don’t understand. If this guy gets deported, his life will be over.” She told me she had worked on the client’s case for years.
Lisa died that night. She had been sleeping more, and she lapsed into unconsciousness. She spent her last couple of hours gasping for breath.
Breast cancer remains an absolute beast. Despite all the pink ribbons and races for the cure, treatment options leave much to be desired, especially for older women who have a recurrence. In Lisa’s case, I would say this is true even though she had a fine oncologist whom she trusted.
I had somehow expected better. I was surprised to find out that the average life expectancy after breast cancer recurrence for someone like my sister is only six to 12 months. That stinks.
Lisa made it almost two years. That is better than most. She did get that earlier 15 years, too. Still, she went through medical hell and ultimately treatment failed.
I remain outraged at the disease that took my sister. It is a cold killer. According to the Centers for Disease Control, aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women. In 2005, the most recent year numbers were available, 186,467 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 41,116 women died from it. These are staggering numbers.
To say we need better, more effective treatment seems lamely weak.
We need the equivalent of an Apollo program for curing breast cancer. We should set goals and a timetable for a cure.
I don’t think we even ask the right questions about breast cancer. Where is all the money raised going? How effectively has it been used? How about looking at food, water, and other environmental factors to see if they are a contributing cause? How about critically assessing if breast cancer treatment is actually better than it was 50 years ago?
Rather than an elite discussion among a handful of experts speaking medical jargon, how about an accessible public discussion?
It is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security what with all the pink everything. I have nothing against the pink. I like seeing NFL players and coaches wearing pink. Still, potentially thousands of lives of our sisters, mothers and daughters are at stake.
I did not expect my beloved sister to die so soon. I do not think I will ever get over that.

Somebody needs to say this: both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are pointless. They are a death trap and a financial sinkhole. The lives of our soldiers are too valuable to be wasted there.
 
The Iraq War lacks any compelling justification. The Bush administration sold the war to the public on two grounds. Bush and company argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and they also argued the link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Both turned out to be false.
 
There was also the unspoken reason — access to oil. That reason strikes closer to truth, but I submit it is warped to ask American soldiers to die for an environmentally backward commercial interest.  Our national security does not depend on access to Iraqi oil.
 
The reason given for the Afghanistan War is primarily the destruction of Al Qaeda. At the time of the September 11th attacks, Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan. The Taliban had given Al Qaeda sanctuary. Most current reports now place the Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. Al Qaeda remains an international terrorist movement with members in many countries.
 
Unfortunately, fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan is not the same as fighting Al Qaeda. While the Taliban is a deeply troubling entity, it is a response to issues internal to Afghanistan. Afghanis, not Americans, must settle this civil war.
 
The idea that fighting the Taliban translates into fighting Al Qaeda is a fallacy. Combating Al Qaeda depends on police and intelligence work, not the creation of a conventional army deployed to fight a national counterinsurgency.
 
As part of the generation of Americans who experienced the Vietnam War, I think it is critical we look hard at the reasons given to justify war. The Vietnam War is the prototype for stupid, unjustified wars. Nearly 59,000 Americans and 3.4 million Indochinese people died as a result of the Vietnam War. Untold numbers of Vietnam veterans returned home messed up with traumatic and devastating injuries. And for what?
 
We must learn from the Vietnam debacle. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan pose any threat to our national security. The reasons given to continue the Iraq War and to escalate the Afghanistan War are shockingly unpersuasive. The reasons are ultimately about face-saving, desire not to lose the huge investment already made, and speculation about what might happen if the United States withdrew militarily.
 
Maybe it is time to give diplomacy, not war-making, a chance. Security for the Iraqi and Afghani people would be better promoted by peaceful, humanitarian means.
 
We have reached a sad place with our too casual attitude toward war. It has become a first resort, not the last resort. A rational approach would gauge the appropriateness of a military response to whether there actually was a proximate threat to national security.
 
I have been a fan of Barack Obama. I campaigned and voted for him. But, along with many liberals and progressives, I will not go along with military escalation in the Middle East. Probably the major reason Obama gained support during the campaign for the presidency was his stated opposition to the war in Iraq.
 
It is impossible to forget that a Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, presided over the escalation of the war in Vietnam. The consequences were disastrous. Progressives must pressure Obama against the dangers of escalation. We saw this movie before. It was horrible the first time and there is no need to see it again.
 

Somebody needs to say this: both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are pointless. They are a death trap and a financial sinkhole. The lives of our soldiers are too valuable to be wasted there.
 
The Iraq War lacks any compelling justification. The Bush administration sold the war to the public on two grounds. Bush and company argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and they also argued the link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Both turned out to be false.
 
There was also the unspoken reason — access to oil. That reason strikes closer to truth, but I submit it is warped to ask American soldiers to die for an environmentally backward commercial interest.  Our national security does not depend on access to Iraqi oil.
 
The reason given for the Afghanistan War is primarily the destruction of Al Qaeda. At the time of the September 11th attacks, Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan. The Taliban had given Al Qaeda sanctuary. Most current reports now place the Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. Al Qaeda remains an international terrorist movement with members in many countries.
 
Unfortunately, fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan is not the same as fighting Al Qaeda. While the Taliban is a deeply troubling entity, it is a response to issues internal to Afghanistan. Afghanis, not Americans, must settle this civil war.
 
The idea that fighting the Taliban translates into fighting Al Qaeda is a fallacy. Combating Al Qaeda depends on police and intelligence work, not the creation of a conventional army deployed to fight a national counterinsurgency.
 
As part of the generation of Americans who experienced the Vietnam War, I think it is critical we look hard at the reasons given to justify war. The Vietnam War is the prototype for stupid, unjustified wars. Nearly 59,000 Americans and 3.4 million Indochinese people died as a result of the Vietnam War. Untold numbers of Vietnam veterans returned home messed up with traumatic and devastating injuries. And for what?
 
We must learn from the Vietnam debacle. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan pose any threat to our national security. The reasons given to continue the Iraq War and to escalate the Afghanistan War are shockingly unpersuasive. The reasons are ultimately about face-saving, desire not to lose the huge investment already made, and speculation about what might happen if the United States withdrew militarily.
 
Maybe it is time to give diplomacy, not war-making, a chance. Security for the Iraqi and Afghani people would be better promoted by peaceful, humanitarian means.
 
We have reached a sad place with our too casual attitude toward war. It has become a first resort, not the last resort. A rational approach would gauge the appropriateness of a military response to whether there actually was a proximate threat to national security.
 
I have been a fan of Barack Obama. I campaigned and voted for him. But, along with many liberals and progressives, I will not go along with military escalation in the Middle East. Probably the major reason Obama gained support during the campaign for the presidency was his stated opposition to the war in Iraq.
 
It is impossible to forget that a Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, presided over the escalation of the war in Vietnam. The consequences were disastrous. Progressives must pressure Obama against the dangers of escalation. We saw this movie before. It was horrible the first time and there is no need to see it again.
 

On television, radio and the internet and in the newspapers, you hear that there are promising signs of economic recovery. As a legal aid lawyer representing low-income people, I wish I could say I have seen those signs. I have not.
What I have seen are many unemployed workers struggling for economic survival. Despite their best efforts, these workers are staying unemployed for longer periods of time. They are competing against six other workers for every job opening.
Many who never previously needed to seek help have turned to the state Department of Health and Human Services for food stamps. Caseloads in all categories at Health and Human Services have spiked upward every month since September 2008.
If it were not for unemployment benefits, food stamps and other public assistance, the hurt would be much worse. In this economy, without those programs, large numbers of people would be utterly destitute. Jobs are not out there.
Here are three vignettes from my last couple of weeks.
There was the 55-year-old Sullivan County man who cried his eyes out in my office. His employer terminated his job last January. In the past year, his wife left him and he lost his home to foreclosure.
The state initially denied his claim for unemployment benefits. It took him months to get an appeal hearing, as things have been so backed up at Employment Security. In his first bit of good luck in a long time, he drew a very professional, smart and caring hearing officer who promptly decided the case in his favor. This was huge for him as he collected 26 weeks of back benefits, his first income since he lost his job.
Then there was the unemployed single mother of three who also depended on unemployment benefits. Her ex-husband had stopped paying child support when he too got laid off. She had been in constant severe pain from medical problems that impair her ability to stand and walk. She needs to lie down frequently.
Because of her lack of income, she has faced a continuing threat of eviction and utility shutoff. When she sought assistance from her town, a town official had the chutzpah to suggest that she give up her children.
Lastly, I represented a mentally disabled veteran who had been homeless for several years. He had been living in a tent community in the southern tier of the state. Imagine living in a tent through the last two New Hampshire winters.
The guy had applied for both financial and medical assistance from the state through the Medicaid program. Even though the state medical reviewers had knowledge of his homelessness for a period of months, they ignored the fact. Delay and bureaucratic indifference defined the quality of response to his case. After a hearing, he is awaiting a decision.
Unfortunately, these cases are the tip of the iceberg. According to the most recent statistics from New Hampshire Employment Security, there were 9,318 new unemployment claims in July. That compares with 5,569 new claims in July 2008. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the unemployment rate will remain above 9 percent nationally through 2011.
Wisely, the New Hampshire Legislature recognized the gravity of the unemployment crisis last session and increased employer tax rates, which had been among the lowest in the nation. The tax increase will be gradually implemented over three years, and it will help the solvency of the unemployment trust fund.
Still, more federal and state action is required. An estimated 1,478 New Hampshire workers will exhaust their unemployment benefits by December. A top congressional priority must be to provide additional weeks of extended benefits for long-term jobless workers. Also, features of the economic stimulus legislation should be continued. Specifically, boosting unemployment benefits by $25 per week and allowing the first $2,500 of unemployment benefits to be received tax free.
At the state level, the Legislature must recognize and fund the actual caseload increases at Health and Human Services. It is a dangerous game to construct budgets based on assumptions that are known to be factually inaccurate.
Those who complain about government spending for unemployed workers and for other human needs have not explained what help they would offer the unemployed and vulnerable. Doing nothing is not an option. Government has an essential role to play to alleviate economic hardship.