“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Nathan Schneider: What’s left of May Day?
The eight-hour day that the Chicago strikers sought in 1886 is still out of reach for many Americans. Many of us are forced to work overtime or multiple jobs just to make ends meet. The economist Thomas Piketty has revealed how profoundly wealth inequality is widening and deepening; a recent study, meanwhile, documents the vastly outsize influence of a wealthy few on U.S. politics – which we see reflected in the absence of policies to confront crises from mass incarceration to climate change.
Replacing May Day with Labor Day was part of a decades-long effort to stifle the vibrancy of populist movements. And Labor Day is not enough. As inequality widens and our democracy weakens, we are losing the spirit of May Day, and suffering the consequences. Occupy’s May Day didn’t catch on as some hoped, but what it aspired to was right: an organized population powerful enough to confront an entrenched elite, and hopeful enough to celebrate democracy in the streets.
David Cole: How Many Have We Killed?
On Monday, The New York Times reported that “the Senate has quietly stripped a provision from an intelligence bill that would have required President Obama to make public each year the number of people killed or injured in targeted killing operations in Pakistan and other countries where the United States uses lethal force.” National security officials in the Obama administration objected strongly to having to notify the public of the results and scope of their dirty work, and the Senate acceded. So much for what President Obama has called “the most transparent administration in history.”
The Senate’s decision is particularly troubling in view of how reticent the administration itself continues to be about the drone program. To date, Obama has publicly admitted to the deaths of only four people in targeted killing operations. That came in May 2013, when, in conjunction with a speech at the National Defense University, and, in his words, “to facilitate transparency and debate on the issue,” President Obama acknowledged for the first time that the United States had killed four Americans in drone strikes. But according to credible accounts, Obama has overseen the killing of several thousand people in drone strikes since taking office. Why only admit to the four Americans’ deaths? Is the issue of targeted killings only appropriate for debate when we kill our own citizens? Don’t all human beings have a right to life?
Clayton Lockett’s agonizing final minutes were the results of a failed experiment, proving states can no longer be trusted to run their laboratories. Let’s stop tinkering with the machinery of death
Now is the time for the supreme court to step in, once again, and impose a nationwide moratorium on executions. These justices may never end capital punishment themselves, but America has more than enough reasons for pause. When the majority of death sentences are reversed, the efficacy of the entire capital punishment system gets called into question. A majority of justices agree that the death penalty does not deter would-be killers. In economic terms, death penalty cases are far more expensive than cases which result in life without parole sentences.
The exercise by a state of its most awesome power – the power to deprive a citizen of his life – must be accompanied by due process and complete transparency. A government which seeks to kill its citizens by way of a process veiled in secret – that is a government which does not deliver justice.
Arvina Martin: Welcome to the beginning of the end of the GOP’s voter-imposter performance
Wisconsin’s voter ID ruling affirms what some Republicans won’t acknowledge: racist laws have no place in our political system
After Tuesday’s court ruling that the Republican-sponsored voter ID law in Wisconsin was going to prevent more real votes than fraudulent votes from being cast, Republicans who insist on pushing more states to adopt these overreaching laws are going to have to do some serious mental gymnastics to convince anyone that voter impersonation is a real issue, let alone a big enough problem to affect any election. [..]
In a country where corporations are now considered people, and where money is now considered speech, there thankfully remains hope that the actual people of this country will be able to access the vote – and have a say in how their governments are run. This week’s Wisconsin ruling, which mirrors some of the same arguments that led to a Pennsylvania court putting the kibosh on their own voter ID laws, is at least a start.
Craig Aaron: The FCC’s Flimsy Defense of Fake Net Neutrality
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wants you to calm down.
A firestorm of public outrage flared up after his latest plans to permit a pay-to-play Internet leaked. The Federal Communications Commission lit up with angry phone calls, irate emails, and a lot (I mean a lot) of bad press.
In a speech on Wednesday at the big “Cable Show” in Los Angeles, Wheeler had this to say to his former industry colleagues: “Reports that we are gutting the open Internet rules are incorrect. I am here to say wait a minute. Put away the party hats.”
And in a blog post on the FCC website, Wheeler claimed that the many critics of his plan are “misinformed.”
Does that mean that it’s time for Net Neutrality fans to put down their pitchforks?
Hell, no. It’s time to get even louder.
Tom Engelhardt: In a Land Where the Dollar Can Speak Its Mind, But We Can’t
The old words are on the rebound, the ones that went out in the last century when the very idea of a Gilded Age, and the plutocrats and oligarchy of wealth that went with it, left the scene in the Great Depression. Now, those three classic terms that were never to return (or so it once seemed) are back in our vocabularies. They’ve been green-lighted by society. (If they’re not on SAT tests in the coming years, I’ll eat my top hat.)
Of course, an inequality gap has been widening into an abyss for decades now, but when it comes to the present boom in old-fashioned words that once went with being really, really, obscenely wealthy and powerful, give the Occupy movement of 2011 credit. After all, they were the ones who took what should already have been on everyone’s lips — the raging inequality in American society — out of the closet and made it part of the national conversation. 1%! 99%!
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