Seventy Years Ago: First Year Of The Pacific War

The war had been going on for a year. It was mostly a naval war.

If the war were scored like a game of checkers, you would conclude that Japan was ahead. But Japan had made no significant advances since the early weeks. Repeated attempts to take control of Papua New Guinea had failed. Japan was hanging on to Buna, Salamaua and Lae on the northern coast by their fingernails.

Japanese soldiers on Guadalcanal had been unable to expel US Marines. The Japanese navy was unable to supply troops with food, much less with ammunition.

But fierce battles at sea had been costly to both sides. The score in ships sunk:

Warship losses in the First Year of the Pacific War.

	U.S.	Allies	Japanese
Battleships	2	2 RN	2
Fleet Carriers	4	-	4
Light Carriers	-	1 RN	2
Heavy Cruisers	5	3 RN , 1 Aus	4
Light Cruisers	2	2 Dutch, 1 Aus	2
Destroyers	23	8 Dutch, 7+3 RN. 2+2 Aus	26
Submarines	7	5 Dutch	21

Seventy Years Ago: 27th Air Depot Group Leaves Brisbane

Ten weeks after arriving in Australia, the 27th Air Depot Group has loaded up and shipped out from Brisbane. Destination: Port Moresby, New Guinea. The voyage will take six days.

The equipment they brought with them, designed to rebuild airplanes, was supplemented with all kinds of heavy equipment. Who would operate the equipment? The soldiers. My dad, M/Sgt J. Cox, was recruited to operate a bulldozer. He had operated road graders, bulldozers and other heavy equipment since he was a teenager. He would bulldoze landing strips, areas to pitch tents, build hangars, warehouses, aircraft taxiways, for example.

The soldiers had to build their own hangars, barracks, mess halls and other structures. But there was no lumber. Not to worry. There were plenty of logs in the jungle and the ships carried a complete sawmill. Among the aircraft mechanics, welders, electronic technicians and other specialists, there were soldiers who had operated sawmills.

Some of the 900-odd men were carried by truck for miles into a desolate area covered by fibrous waist-high Kunai grass laden with mosquitoes. Their camp was in a valley nicknemed "death valley" between two existing airfields.

It was mid-January before they began major construction. In the meantime the soldiers had only their barracks bags and field packs. Other supplies and equipment had to be brought from the ships and uncrated before field kitchens and tents could be set up. Forty percent of the soldiers spent their first weeks on site building the depot.

Among the wooden boxes were some marked "tools" and "aircraft parts;" "Attention M/Sgt Cox." When opened, they proved to contain sturdy cots, mosquito nets and air mattresses for greater comfort in the jungle.

In the Navy, we call it "forehandedness." 

Post Election Poll: "Republicans Not Handling Election Results Well"

Public Policy Polling (PPP), a Raleigh, NC polling firm, reports results of a national post-election poll.

PPP summarizes  that Republicans are taking the outcome hard and also declining in numbers.

Nearly half believe ACORN stole the 2012 election for Obama. (ACORN ceased to exist in 2010.)  55% of Romney voters believe Democrats committed voter fraud and 25% want their state to secede from the Union because Obama was reelected.

The PPP summary has a link to a printable pdf file of the complete poll. PPP conducts its polls with robocalls and does not contact cell phone numbers.

Fourteenth Amendment And The Fiscal Cliff

The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified in July, 1868. Section 1 was aimed at preventing former slave states from enforcing "black laws" that sought to return former slaves to a condition very similar to slavery. Section 2 provided a possible sanction against states that prevented former slaves from voting. Section 3 prohibited former officials who had sworn to uphold the US Constitution and subsequently took part in the rebellion from holding public office.

The most interesting provision is Section 4 that "the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." It also provided that neither the United States nor any state could pay any debt incurred in support of the rebellion. That referred to a fairly large number of Confederate bonds purchased by British and French investors during the Civil War.

The obvious concern of the "public debt" provision was that states of the former Confederacy might be able to prevent the United States from repaying debt that had financed Union conduct of the war, thus paralyzing the government. We now have a similar possibility if Republicans in the House of Representatives refuse to authorize an increase in the debt limit.

Some argue that the debt limit itself violates Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, though that has never been adjudicated. Will Republicans push the country to the brink once again? Stand by.

For what it's worth, I find the argument persuasive that Congressional refusal to increase the debt limit to allow the Treasury to pay obligations already authorized by law would violate the Fourteenth Amendment.

14th Amendment

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Public Trust Lands: Public Trust Waters

A good op-ed article in yesterday's New York Times addresses the problem of building up and developing our shorelines in the context of the shore as a public trust. How this is handled varies from state to state, even though the public trust doctrine was brought here from England as a feature of common law.

Interestingly enough, the article holds up Texas as a favorable example of a state that protects the public trust shoreline very effectively. Who knew? Texans know.

The New York Times piece stimulated economist Matthew Kahn, who specializes in Environmental and Urban economic issues, to post his thoughts here on what economists refer to as the "tragedy of the commons." Professor Kahn contends that the large scale of the destruction by Hurricane Sandy reflects the privatization of the shoreline and consequent destruction by owners of natural environments defenses.

Another way to put it is that we have privatized the benefits of living along shore, but socialized the risk. How this works has been revealed anew as "gated communities" in and around New York City, whose "private streets" have been damaged now want the city and the state to help them with repair, even while they wish to continue excluding the public from their developments.

We see a similar development along the North Carolina shore, especially the outer banks. Waterfront property owners naturally want the government (taxpayers) to pay to restore facilities (roads, bridges, houses, piers, groins, etc) damaged by hurricanes. And, by the way, to prevent the outer banks from moving.

Lewis Carroll in his poem The Walrus and The Carpenter described the task facing those who live along the shore:


The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead--
There were no birds to fly.


The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"


"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

Dave Brubeck: December 6, 1920 - December 5, 20012

Americans asked to name great Swiss-Americans might (if they hail from North Carolina) remember Cristophe de Graffenreid, founder of New Bern.

They would probably not think of Dave Brubeck, whose father was of Swiss heritage.

What a giant of the world of jazz! Dave Brubeck enriched the lives of all jazz lovers.

RIP.

Where Do Republicans Troll For Votes?

I've been watching this for a long time, so I thought I'd share some observations.

In the past year, I have read a number of articles by Republicans emphasizing that the Democratic party was the party of white supremacists. I admit that used to be the case, at least in part. The "solid south" was dominated by a racist party of white supremacy.

Not all southern democrats were obsessed with race. But those who ran for public office had to make an accommodation with racists. In those days, a southern democrat (all white people were democrats) would describe a particularly hot day by saying "I'm sweatin' like a n****r at a white folks' election." In fact, there were "white folks' elections" at least until 1944 when the US Supreme Court ruled against party primaries that excluded black voters.

The Democratic party "big tent" began to fray in the 1940's. First, President Truman integrated the armed forces by executive order. Then, northern progressive Democrats like Hubert Humphrey began speaking out. This led, at the 1948 Democratic convention, to defection of progressives (former Vice President Wallace's Progressive Party) as well as southern racists (Strom Thurmond and the States' Rights party).

That still didn't lead to Republican victory in the presidential race, but led to a concerted effort by Southern Republicans to recruit southern democrats to their party banner. That move, initiated by the chair of the Virginia republican party had only modest success, but the move expanded. By the time Richard Nixon ran for president, the "southern strategy" had already been underway for a decade.

This "southern strategy" got a boost from Brown v. Board of Education, wherein the US Supreme Court rejected the principle of "separate but equal."

Passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act led to massive defections from the democratic party, as Lyndon Johnson foretold. But it was the right thing.

Even so, the southern democratic party didn't become the minority party in the South until after integration of public schools began to really happen. That's also about the time we first heard widespread alarm at the "failure" of public schools and the creation of private, usually "Christian" "academies" unaffected by Brown.

Until that time, the Republican party had been largely a regional party confined to the North and Midwest and widely understood to favor the interests of northern industrialists and financiers.

How could Republicans become a truly national party? Elementary. Play the race card. In a recently uncovered audio recording of a 1981 interview, Lee Atwater, the Carl Rove of his generation, candidly revealed the strategy:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

There were dangers with this strategy. Many Republicans genuinely relished identification with the party of the Great Emancipator - the party of Abraham Lincoln. But the challenge facing the party was in many respects similar to the challenge that faced the Federalist Party as the electorate expanded: how to get voters from the lower classes when the organizing principle of the party was to further the economic and political interests of the wealthy and powerful?

The answer? Play the race card.

Ronald Reagan did it in 1980 when he opened his campaign for the presidency at a rally in Philadelphia, Mississippi, site of the lynching of three civil rights workers seeking to register blacks to vote. When he attacked "welfare queens," everyone got the message. It was Lee Atwater's message.

More recently, when Mitt Romney inveighed against the "47%" and talked about "moochers" and "dependency," it was the same theme: "the Democrats want to tax you hard-working white workers for the benefit of those lazy, shiftless blacks and hispanics and other aliens."

That was the message. It was heard loud and clear by many of Romney's supporters. It was also heard loud and clear by all citizens of color and other groups (e.g. Jewish citizens) despised by white racists and militant evangelical Christians.

It didn't work, at least for president.

It did work in North Carolina, for state offices. But the resulting victory for voters answering to the racist dog whistle, will work to the detriment of working people across the state.

Well before the election - in fact, last September - Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates focused his gaze on the "welfare queen" idea and how this is becoming a losing proposition for Republicans.  Not only because of racism, though it is clear that African Americans, Hispanics and Oriental Americans have no trouble decoding the racist message of Republican candidates.

Then, too, there's the demography thing.

Political Contributions To Presidential Candidates

Washington Post's Harold Meyerson has put together an analysis of the major groups of contributors to the Obama and Romney campaigns.

The results are very interesting. Meyerson summarizes:

"Obama won overwhelming backing from the most productive and innovative sector of American capitalism. Romney won the backing of finance and casinos, whose contributions to American productivity and well-being are more difficult to discern, and which are industries based on reshuffling resources in games the house almost always wins. Obama, if you will, won the makers; Romney, the takers."

That observation is based on where serious money came from. It is quite a different matter to analyze where the votes came from and why.

I'll save that for later.