----- Original Message ----- From: "Sid Shniad" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=906199 w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m 23/09/2007 Puppet leader By Gideon Levy Mahmoud Abbas has to stay home. As things stand right now, he must not go to Washington. Even his meetings with Ehud Olmert are gradually turning into a disgrace and have become a humiliation for his people. Nothing good will come of them. It has become impossible to bear the spectacle of the Palestinian leader's jolly visits in Jerusalem, bussing the cheek of the wife of the very prime minister who is meanwhile threatening to blockade a million and a half of his people, condemning them to darkness and hunger. If Abu Mazen were a genuine national leader instead of a petty retailer, he would refuse to participate in the summit and any other meetings until the blockade of Gaza is lifted. If he were a man of truly historic stature he would add that no conference can be held without Ismail Haniyeh, another crucial Palestinian representative. And if Israel really wanted peace, not only an "agreement of principles" with a puppet-leader that will lead nowhere, it should respect Abbas' demand. Israel should aspire for Abu Mazen to be considered a leader in the eyes of his people, not only a marionette whose strings are pulled by Israel and the United States, or affected by other short-term power plays. Right now power rests with the powerless Abu Mazen. Since Washington - and perhaps Jerusalem as well - badly want the photo-op otherwise known as a "peace summit" to show off an "achievement," Abu Mazen could and should threaten to boycott the meeting to try and force some achievement on behalf of his people. Palestinians live in Gaza, too - an area controlled by Hamas, which Abu Mazen so loathes: He cannot continue to ignore the inhumane conditions in which Gazans live, caged in by Israel. But the impression Abu Mazen makes is that he's no more than a political survivor. He's participating in the American-Israeli masked ball not because of naivete or weakness - for him, Gaza is just as "hostile territory" as Israel is. Therefore, he shares a shameful common interest with Israel, which will do neither side any good. Judging by his behavior Abu Mazen not only doesn't object to what Israel is doing in Gaza, he may even agree with the twisted doctrine arguing that cruel pressure will subdue Hamas and return the people to Fatah's embrace. In so doing, Abu Mazen proves that he's no "downy chick," as Ariel Sharon once put it, but a cynical rooster who cares little for the welfare of his people. A genuine peace conference should involve all the hawks. Peace is forged between bitter enemies. The question of whether Saudi Arabia will take part in the summit or not is futile unless it includes real Palestinian representation. At most Abu Mazen represents only half of his people and could achieve, at best, half an agreement that wouldn't survive anyhow, given Hamas' strong opposition. It is in the interests of all the parties involved, including Abu Mazen, to drag Hamas to the negotiation table. A peace conference without Hamas and without Syria is a joke. But the short-sighted coalition of the royal triumvirate, Jerusalem-Washington-Ramallah, is trying to promote a false vision of "peace talks" without the decisive partners, while the world is busy applauding this illusion. Obviously, it is hard to expect from Abu Mazen that he will rise above his narrow interests and call for an invitation to be issued to Hamas, the party that was democratically elected to lead the Palestinian government. But the least one could expect from the person with the lofty title of "President of the Palestinian Authority" is to strive for the greater good of all his people, especially in light of the extent of their distress. But instead of acting to bring about a cessation of hostilities and opening Gaza to the world, the triumvirate is busy formulating yet another position paper that won't be worth the paper it's written on and that will soon find itself in the garbage bin of history, along with its predecessors. It will only serve to impose increasingly cruel hardships on the people of Gaza. Abu Mazen must not participate in this farce. *** Commentaries are sent to Sustainer Donors of Z/ZNet To learn more, consult ZNet at http://www.zmag.org Today's commentary: http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2007-09/24sandronsky.cfm ZNet Commentary Want Financial Stability? Hands Off Social Security! by Seth Sandronsky Say it loud. Social Security is rock-solid. Contrast that with the financial instability of the housing and stock markets exposing lenders and borrowers near and far to bankruptcy. No small number of creditors and debtors are caught in this financial mess stateside and globally. Some of the bigger fish are getting bailed out with cash from central banks. Social Security has no such need now or in the foreseeable future for that or for the U.S. central bank, the Fed, to cut interest rates. The program has adequate money to pay full benefits through 2046 without such monetary policy changes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Social Security is the crown jewel of the U.S. welfare state, which protects working people, active and retired, able and disabled, older and younger, from the harsh marketplace. Thus Social Security has been under attack since its birth in 1935 by the nation?s ruling circles and the voices they bankroll. A current voice of discontent with the program is the Cato Institute. Writers there routinely get their views in the corporate media such as USA Today, arguing that Social Security is a leaky ship fixable with private savings accounts that individuals own. Meanwhile, tens of millions of the American people get their monthly Social Security checks for the full amount. Just ask a Social Security recipient, young or not so young. S/he will tell you of the absence of risk involved in the program. Exposure to risk defines housing and stock markets. The current meltdowns are a case in point. This trend is hard to see when prices skyrocket during speculative bubbles. Now let's take a step back for a brief look at the mist-enveloped past of American history. Not too far- 2005 is about right. Recall that younger workers were the target audience for President George W. Bush's vision to remove risk from Social Security. He assumed the program faced a shortage of funds in the future, which required policy changes. So the president took to the road to sell this policy vision to the U.S. populace. His solution to the problem of younger workers? retirements was the creation of private savings accounts for Social Security. In a nutshell, the president sought a major change to the current funding system of Social Security from payroll taxes paid by employees, 6.2 percent of their wages. Employers match that amount. Currently, there is a surplus of this tax collected and not paid to current recipients. The surplus goes into the Social Security Trust Fund, as the Greenspan Commission designed in 1983. I know, this is ancient history. Ironically, Greenspan's cheap-credit policy as head of the Federal Reserve Bank nourished the lending and spending practices that fueled the stock market and housing booms of the 1990s and this decade, respectively. Cut to this millennium. Borrowers late to the housing market are most at-risk, generally speaking. Besides falling home prices and sales, some of these buyers by hook or by crook signed mortgage agreements without the long-term means to make regular payments. U.S. home foreclosure filings spike, up 93 percent in July 2007 from July 2006. Crucially, the Social Security Trust Fund has steered clear of such risky investment. Yes, the federal government does borrow from the trust fund. Then Uncle Sam pays it back in full. What if Social Security invested in private accounts? What if these funds were invested in the stock shares of home building and home lending firms, banks included, that are losing money now? Uh oh. Good-bye financial stability for Social Security. Hello risk where none now exists. And one other thing about private savings accounts for Social Security invested on Wall Street. Such investments would require administrative costs. Firms Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley don't work for free. That's how they get paid, with those at the top of the company pyramids getting a bonanza. "In 2006 the[se] five leading Wall Street firms awarded an estimated $36 billion to $44 billion worth of bonuses to their 173,000 employees," writes author and CSU Chico professor of economics Michael Perelman in The Confiscation of American Prosperity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). "The bulk will go to the top 1,000 people. Two executives alone account for almost $100 million." Speaking of being free, we might agree that the Washington press corps has a bit of freedom. My suggestion for them is to use it well. How? Ask the president about private savings accounts for Social Security in light of his recent comments on the strong fundamentals of the U.S. economy as housing and stock markets wobble across America and around the world. What do you wager are the odds of that happening? Seth Sandronsky lives and writes in Sacramento. 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