Head Still Buried In The Sand

Political Cartoon is by Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News.

Gun Ownership Is NOT Increasing In The United States

(Cartoon image above is by Jen Sorensen at jensorensen.com.)

As all of us have seen, there has recently been a spate of individuals carrying guns openly into restaurants and other establishments. Put that together with the fact that there is nearly one gun in circulation for every American, and since the election of President Obama there has been an increase in gun sales, and one might think that most Americans own a firearm (and the number of people owning firearms is growing).

But that would not be true. Those carrying guns into business establishments are just a tiny fringe element of a minority of Americans who want to see "open carry" become legal and/or commonplace. They are not even smart enough to know they are hurting their own cause -- by terrifying other customers (who have no way to know if they are there to shoot people or just demonstrate). These actions are already creating a backlash among the general public.

The large number of guns in circulation and the increase in gun sales are also misleading. It turns out that that large number of guns are owned by a minority of Americans, and the increase in gun sales is going mainly to that minority that already own guns (and who are now just stockpiling guns). As a New York Times article tells us (see chart below), gun ownership in the United States is actually decreasing -- and the number of households with at least one gun has dropped by 18 points in the last 40 years (from 50% in 1970 to only 32% in 2010).

That means that two out of every three American households do not own or keep a gun in their home. These people know that a gun in the home is far more likely to be used against a member of their family than a criminal -- an unpleasant fact that the NRA doesn't want people to know. Frankly, this restores my faith in the commonsense of most Americans.

NOTE -- My remarks above should not be interpreted to say I believe guns should be confiscated from law-abiding Americans (or even registered). Unlike some of my progressive brothers/sisters, I read the Second Amendment as guaranteeing the right of individual Americans to own a firearm (regardless of what our Forefathers might or might not have intended).

But the Supreme Court has found repeatedly that the right to own a firearm (like many other rights) is not absolute -- and cities and states can make reasonable restrictions on that right (like denying criminals and other dangerous individuals the right to possess a gun). I do believe closing the loopholes in our background check law would be a reasonable and constitutional action that should be done. It simply makes no sense that criminals (and other dangerous individuals) can buy a firearm without any background check.

Gun Crazy

Political Cartoon is by David Fitzsimmons in the Arizona Daily Star.

Green Party Praises New Effort To Ban Nuclear Weapons

The Green Party of the United States supports the renewed effort by most of the world's nations to ban nuclear weapons -- for all countries. Here is how Green Party Shadow Cabinet member Alice Slater put it in an article posted on May 27th:

The 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), extended indefinitely in 1995 when it was due to expire, provided that five nuclear weapons states which also happened to hold the veto power on the Security Council (P-5)-- the US, Russia, UK, France, and China-- would  “pursue negotiations in good faith”(1) for nuclear disarmament. In order to buy the support of the rest of the world for the deal, the nuclear weapons states “sweetened the pot” with a Faustian bargain promising the non-nuclear weapons state an “inalienable right”(2) to so-called “peaceful” nuclear power, thus giving them the keys to the bomb factory.(3) Every country in the world signed the new treaty except for India, Pakistan, and Israel, which went on to develop nuclear arsenals.  North Korea, an NPT member, took advantage of the technological know-how it acquired through its “inalienable right” to nuclear power and quit the treaty to make its own nuclear bombs.  Today there are nine nuclear weapons states with 17,000 bombs on the planet, 16,000 of which are in the US and Russia!

At the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, a new network of NGOs, Abolition 2000, called for immediate negotiations of a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons and a phase out of nuclear power.(4) A Working Group of lawyers, scientists and policy makers drafted a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention(5) laying out all the necessary steps to be considered for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. It became an official UN document and was cited in Secretary General Ban-ki Moon’s 2008 proposal for a Five Point Plan for Nuclear Disarmament.(6) The NPT’s indefinite extension required Review Conferences every five years, with Preparatory Committee meetings in between.

In 1996, the NGO World Court Project sought an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of the bomb.  The Court ruled unanimously that an international obligation exists to “conclude negotiations on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects”, but disappointingly said only that the weapons are “generally illegal” and held that it was unable to decide whether it would be legal or not to use nuclear weapons “when the very survival of a state was at stake”.(7) Despite the NGOs best efforts at lobbying for continued promises given by the P-5 at subsequent NPT reviews, progress on nuclear disarmament was frozen. In 2013, Egypt actually walked out of an NPT meeting because a promise made in 2010 to hold a conference on a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East (WMDFZ) had still not taken place, even though a promise for a WMDFZ was offered to the Middle East states as a bargaining chip to get their vote for the indefinite extension of the NPT nearly 20 years earlier in 1995. 

In 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross made an unprecedented breakthrough effort to educate the world that there was no existing legal ban on the use and possession of nuclear weapons despite the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from nuclear war, thus renewing public awareness about the terrible dangers of nuclear holocaust.(8) A new campaign, I Can Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) had been launched to make known the disastrous effects to all life on earth should nuclear war break out, either by accident or design, as well as the inability of governments at any level to adequately respond.  They are calling for a legal ban on nuclear weapons, just as the world had banned chemical and biological weapons, as well as landmines and cluster munitions.  In 1996, NGOs in partnership with friendly nations, led by Canada, met in Ottawa, in an unprecedented circumvention of the blocked UN institutions to negotiate a treaty to ban on landmines.  This became known as the “Ottawa Process” which was also used by Norway in 2008, when it hosted a meeting outside the blocked UN negotiating fora to hammer out a ban on cluster munitions.(9)

Norway also took up the call of the International Red Cross in 2013, hosting a special Conference on the Humanitarian Effects of Nuclear Weapons.  The Oslo meeting took place outside of the usual institutional settings such as the NPT, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and the First Committee of the General Assembly, where progress on nuclear disarmament has been frozen because the nuclear weapons states are only willing to act on non- proliferation measures, while failing to take any meaningful steps for nuclear disarmament. This, despite a host of empty promises made over the 44 year history of the NPT, and nearly 70 years after the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The P-5 boycotted the Oslo conference, issuing a joint statement claiming it would be a “distraction” from the NPT!  Two nuclear weapons states did show up—India and Pakistan, to join the 127 nations that came to Oslo and those two nuclear weapons states again attended this year’s follow-up conference hosted by Mexico, with 146 nations.

There is transformation in the air and a shift in the zeitgeist in how nations and civil society are addressing nuclear disarmament.  They are meeting in partnership in greater numbers and with growing resolve to negotiate a nuclear ban treaty which would prohibit the possession, testing, use, production and acquisition of nuclear weapons as illegal, just as the world has done for chemical and biological weapons. The ban treaty would begin to close the gap in the World Court decision which failed to decide if nuclear weapons were illegal in all circumstances, particularly where the very survival of a state was at stake.   

This new process is operating outside of the paralyzed institutional UN negotiating structures, first in Oslo, then in Mexico with a third meeting planned in Austria, this very year, not four years later in 2018 as proposed by the non-aligned movement of countries which fail to grasp the urgent need to move swiftly for nuclear abolition, and has not received any buy-in from the recalcitrant P-5. Indeed, the US, France and UK didn’t even bother to send a decent representative to the first high level meeting in history for heads of state and foreign ministers to address nuclear disarmament at the UN’s General Assembly last fall. And they opposed the establishment of the UN Open Ended Working Group for Nuclear Disarmament that met in Geneva in an informal arrangement with NGOs and governments, failing to show up for a single meeting held during the summer of 2013.

At Nayarit, Mexico, the Mexican Chair sent the world a Valentine on February 14, 2014 when he concluded his remarks to a standing ovation and loud cheers by many of the government delegates and the NGOs in attendance saying:

The broad-based and comprehensive discussions on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons should lead to the commitment of States and civil society to reach new international standards and norms, through a legally binding instrument. It is the view of the Chair that the Nayarit Conference has shown that time has come to initiate a diplomatic process conducive to this goal. Our belief is that this process should comprise a specific timeframe, the definition of the most appropriate fora, and a clear and substantive framework, making the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons the essence of disarmament efforts. It is time to take action. The 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks is the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal. Nayarit is a point of no return.  

The world has begun an Ottawa Process for nuclear weapons that can be completed in the very near future if we are united and focused! One obstacle that is becoming apparent to the success of achieving a broadly endorsed ban treaty is the position of “nuclear umbrella” states such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and NATO members. They ostensibly support nuclear disarmament but still rely on lethal “nuclear deterrence”, a policy which demonstrates their willingness to have the US incinerate cities and destroy our planet on their behalf. 

Achieving a ban treaty negotiated without the nuclear weapons states would give us a cudgel to hold them to their bargain to negotiate for the total elimination of nuclear weapons  in a reasonable time by shaming them for not only failing to honor the NPT but for totally undermining their “good faith” promise for nuclear disarmament. They continue to test and build new bombs, manufacturing facilities, and delivery systems while Mother Earth is assaulted with a whole succession of so-called “sub-critical” tests, as these outlaw states continue to blow up plutonium underground at the Nevada and Novaya Zemlya test sites. The P-5’s insistence on a “step by step” process, supported by some of the nuclear “umbrella states”, rather than the negotiation of a legal ban demonstrates their breathtaking hypocrisy as they are not only modernizing and replacing their arsenals, they are actually spreading nuclear bomb factories around the world in the form of nuclear reactors for commercial gain, even ”sharing” this lethal technology with India, a non-NPT party, an illegal practice in violation of the NPT prohibition against sharing nuclear technology with states that failed to join the treaty.

With a follow up meeting coming in Austria, December 7th and 8th of this year, we should be strategic in pushing the impetus forward for a legal ban. We need to get even more governments to show up in Vienna, and make plans for a massive turnout of NGOs to encourage states to come out from under their shameful nuclear umbrella and to cheer on the burgeoning group of peace-seeking nations  in our efforts to end the nuclear scourge!

Saddled With Debt

Political Cartoon is by Steve Sack in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Cruz Wins RLC Straw Poll In New Orleans

Good news for Democrats. It's still looking like the Republicans want to nominate a right-wing extremist candidate in 2016 -- a candidate with no hope of winning.

Morally Acceptable

Chart is from The Gallup Poll.

Another Shameful Statistic For The United States

The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an organization containing 34 countries -- with many of them, including the United States, being among the most developed and richest nations in the world. But even these nations are not immune to poverty and hunger. Since 2007, the average percentage of OECD households with children that struggle to find enough food has climbed from 15% to 21%. Some nations have a pretty low percentage (the Nordic nations) and some do not (like Turkey, Hungary, Mexico, and Greece).

How does the United States (the richest nation in the world) fare? One would think that a nation as rich as the United States would have a very low percentage of hungry households -- but it doesn't. The United States actually ranks 6th out of the 34 nations in having the highest percentage of households struggling to feed their families (with a shameful 23%, or more than one out of every five households). And it doesn't stop there. The United States ranks 4th among the nations with the fastest growing percentage of households struggling to find enough food -- growing by 12% in the past 12 months.

This might have been justifiable in the past, when this country didn't have the wealth or adequate social structures to eliminate poverty and hunger. But that is no longer the case. The United States is not just the richest nation in the world -- it has enough money to wipe out poverty and feed all of its citizens. So why are 23% of U.S. households struggling to find enough food?

The simple answer is greed. Too many people in power (politicians, rich, corporations) have decided that poverty and hunger are not as important as excessive profits and incomes for corporations and the wealthy. They are willing to let the poor struggle to find enough food (and other essentials) to keep taxes abnormally low for the rich and the corporations. These politicians, especially the Republicans, will tell you that keeping taxes abnormally low for the rich and the corporations is good for everyone in the United States. That is an outrageous lie, and has been proven to be untrue by the failure of their "trickle-down" policy.

The truth is that we could eliminate poverty and hunger in this country. We just lack the morality and/or political courage to do so. That may seem strange in a country that prides itself on being a "christian" nation, but it is true -- and that should shame all Americans.

The charts above were made from information contained in surveys of the 34 OECD nations by the Gallup Poll.

Ugly Pimple

Political Cartoon is by Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kerry Trashes His Liberal Persona By Attacking Snowden

Secretary of State John Kerry has a proud liberal past -- from his involvement with the anti-war movement as a decorated veteran to his service for years in the United States Senate. But his ridiculous response to Edward Snowden's TV appearance made him look more like a right-wing apologist.

After Snowden gave an interview to NBC News, Kerry felt it necessary to try and denigrate Snowden, instead of taking the high road and just letting the rather tepid interview fade away. Taking a person shot at Snowden, Kerry said:

"This is a man who has betrayed his country."

"He should man up and come back to the US."

"The fact is, he has damaged his country very significantly. I find it sad and disgraceful."

Frankly I had thought Kerry was better than that. I guess I was wrong. Snowden did not "betray his country". He was a whistleblower who exposed the massive and unconstitutional spying the United States government was doing on its own citizens. That spying was a clear abuse of the nefarious Patriot Act, and showed that both Presidents Bush and Obama had been lying when they said assured Americans that they were not being spied upon. Snowden is a hero who struck a blow for the constitutional rights of all Americans. I understand that Kerry was just trying to defend the government as its representative, but in saying Snowden "betrayed" his country, Kerry abandons his own progressive principles.

As for the statement that Snowden should "man up and come back", I consider that to be an unnecessary and rather cowardly statement. It's easy for a man in a powerful position like Kerry to make fun of someone else, but we all know that there's no way Snowden could get a fair trial from the United States government if he did come back. Snowden embarrassed some powerful people, and they want their revenge. They have poisoned the public view of Snowden, and there is no way any trial blow could be considered just.

I will go along with the "sad and disgraceful" part -- not for Snowden, but for Presidents Bush and Obama (both of whom owe the American people a big apology for spying on them). When the Patriot Act was passed, progressives warned that it would be abused by the government and used against American citizens. That has been proven to be true (and is probably still happening).

In attacking Snowden in this way, John Kerry is trashing his own proud liberal past. He should be embarrassed.

(The caricatures of Edward Snowden and John Kerry are by DonkeyHotey.)

Easy Access

Political Cartoon is by Steve Sack in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

The Rapidly Growing Acceptance Of The LGBT Community

American attitudes toward the LGBT community is changing rapidly. While they once had to stay "in the closet" just to survive, they are now being accepted by most Americans. We already know from the Gallup Poll that 55% of Americans think same-sex couples should have the same marriage rights as opposite-sex couples -- and if you replace the word "marriage" with "civil unions" the percentage goes much higher (even in the so-called red states). We also know that a huge majority of Americans don't find job discrimination because of sexual preference is right (also true in the red states).

But this acceptance of the LGBT community goes further than just the issues of same-sex marriage and job discrimination. As you can see from the chart above, nearly two out of three Americans (63%) now believe that same-sex couples should have the legal right to adopt children. Just a couple of decades ago, only 29% of Americans believed this while 63% said no. That has now flipped (and only 35% currently say no). And this has happened in a remarkably short period of time -- with those saying yes going from 46% in 2007 to 63% in 2014 (a 17 point jump in just the last seven years).

Homophobia has quickly become an unacceptable form of bigotry for most Americans -- even when it is wrapped in religion.

The chart above was made from surveys taken by the Gallup Poll -- the most recent being done between May 8th and 22nd of a random national sample of 1,028 adults (with a margin of error of about 4 points).

Schools

Political Cartoon is by Jim Morin in The Miami Herald.

Threat To Religious Extremism

Including christian extremists.