: re: Jury Is Still Out on European Central Bank’s Stimulus Program

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:02 PM
Subject: re: Jury Is Still Out on European Central Bank’s Stimulus Program
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    Contrary to Jack Ewing, expanding the currency pool is not always a "zero-sum game". John Maynard Keynes showed 85 years ago that--in the absence of other economic activity--printing money is the necessary corrective to keep a recession from spiraling into a depression. 

   The "jury" is not "still out" on whether stimulus works. That has been proven in the affirmative time and time again. What remains to be seen is how long governments (mostly in Europe) will hew to Herbert Hoover's disastrously wrong austerity creed.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/business/international/jury-is-still-out-on-european-central-banks-stimulus-program.html?_r=0

: re:Afghans Form Militias and Call on Warlords to Battle Taliban

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, May 25, 2015 at 9:50 AM
Subject: re:Afghans Form Militias and Call on Warlords to Battle Taliban
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:
    For half a century, the United States has staunchly defended borders around the globe, many of which make no sense. It was therefore surprising when in 2009, general David Petraeus began arming and empowering sectarian militias in Iraq rather than building the national army.  To suppress daily casualties among U.S. ground forces, he fueled the civil war that is tearing Iraq apart today.
   Now the Petraeus Plan has come to Afghanistan. It may be that a confederation of ethnic states is the best that can be achieved there. But if power is to rest with sectarian militias, we should stop pissing money into the Kabul project that is trying to  build a unified Afghan nation.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/world/asia/as-taliban-advance-afghanistan-reluctantly-recruits-militias.html?_r=0

: re: The Escalation of Unauthorized Wars

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Fri, May 22, 2015 at 2:39 PM
Subject: re: The Escalation of Unauthorized Wars
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   In 1935, our Supreme Court established ("Schechter Poultry") that no branch of our Federal government can delegate any of its proper powers to another branch. Since, as you observe, it is "Congress’s constitutional responsibility to declare, authorize and allocate funds for wars", it follows that no Authorization for the Use of Military Force can be constitutional. The ball is in Congress' hands to declare war or not. Punting is not an option.

Barry Haskel Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/opinion/the-escalation-of-unauthorized-wars.html?_r=0

: re: Free Trade Is Not the Enemy

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, May 19, 2015 at 9:31 AM
Subject: re: Free Trade Is Not the Enemy
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    William M. Daley murmurs soothingly "...if the TPP passes...China’s economic fortunes will be tied to joining our alliance, which would necessitate raising its standards on labor conditions, the environment and the rule of law." Has he broken the law to divulge this secret to us? Or is he just making this stuff up?
     In the normal course of events, my senators would debate and deliberate and seek the voters' input on a issue of this m magnitude. But as long as it's conducted in secret,  I stand with professor Wagstaff; I'm against it.
Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/opinion/free-trade-is-not-the-enemy.html

: re: A Debate Over How Long Democracy Can Wage Battles in Shadows

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, May 15, 2015 at 5:37 PM
Subject: re: A Debate Over How Long Democracy Can Wage Battles in Shadows
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   No one seriously asserts that a government can function without any secrets. "Secrecy has always been traditional and accepted in wartime, but traditional wars have an end." In the world before 1945, wars began with a diplomatic declaration and ended with a treaty. Captured combatants were interned for the duration of hostilities, and war secrets (e.g. troop movements) were allowed to the military leaders by the sovereign People until the war's end. 

      We haven't lived in that world for seventy years now. The U.S. government is still holding secrets from WWII and there is no prospect that the "war on terror" will ever end. The result has been an unremarked coup d'etat. An electorate that no longer knows the issues at stake in our elections is participating in a sham; it isn't "sovereign" in any meaningful sense.
Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/us/politics/nsa-opens-debate-over-how-long-democracy-can-wage-battles-in-shadows.html

: re: Technology That Could Have Prevented Amtrak Derailment Was Absent

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, May 14, 2015 at 8:42 AM
Subject: re: Technology That Could Have Prevented Amtrak Derailment Was Absent
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor;

   Although Americans are largely allergic to the word, there are problems to which socialism is the right answer. Head of the list is the national defense. Our armed forces are paid by and answerable to (i.e. owned by) the public.  To open this function to competitive bidding between private contractors would be stupid. Likewise, although firefighting could be provided by competing private companies with redundant resources, Americans overwhelmingly prefer that this be a government service, owned by the public.

    Where shall we place railroads on the spectrum between what's best served as a government function and what's best solved by the invisible hand of the market? When Americans are dying because competing railroad companies haven't implemented known safety technology, we should consider putting rail transport into the public column.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/technology-that-could-have-prevented-amtrak-derailment-was-absent.html?_r=0

: re: The Center-Right Moment

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, May 12, 2015 at 8:40 AM
Subject: re: The Center-Right Moment
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    Characteristically, David Brooks proceeds from bad history to false conclusions. In this case, Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party did win the recent election in Israel. But it did so by cannibalizing votes from  parties that were further to the right, while the Israeli electorate swung a bit to the Left. This speaks volumes about the dysfunction of Israeli multi-party politics. But it does not speak for a global rightward political swing.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/opinion/david-brooks-the-center-right-moment.html?_r=0