As a reminder, Kitty is engaged in a very very tight battle for reelection, and could use your help.

If you want the mayor of Oregon's second-largest city to be a progressive, pitch in a few hours or a few bucks.

Chris, you can go back into typepad and add your name (it's the category field at the top)

Hey Chris -- Welcome to BlueOregon, and congrats on your first post! It's a great one!

Thanks Kari. The one thing I meant to put in the post that got left out due to hurrying to get somewhere was to thank Mayor Piercy for her leadership, which in my view exemplifies a perfect exercise of an important role of local officials too often overlooked: Acting thoughtfully, informed by conscience and judgment, as tribunes of the people to whom ordinary citizens have easier and fuller access, to amplify our voices to more distant officials at higher levels of government in this huge country of ours (when the nation was founded, its entire population was approximately that of Oregon today).

Evan, thanks for the link. I'll use it.

Jim is not a Republican, he is a former Republican. He is now an Independent.

both of your sources are far from impartial

The CommonDreams.org link Tom gave is a reprint of an article from the Los Angeles Times.

It's an organization not without its troubles, but it is one of the largest newspapers in the country. What greater authority do you want?

Jim Torrey became Independant when he realized that he couldn't get elected in Eugene on the Republican ticket as shown in the Senate race against Vicki Walker. His reasoning was that the Republican party had become too extreme to represent him.

In 2004, Jim Torrey didn't think that George W Bush was too extreme to represent him so he contributed $2000, the maximum allowable contribution, to his campaign. I think that says it all.

mlw,

The right of a military commander to tactical situational self-defense is not at stake here, such self-defense being part of the ordinary purposes for which military budgets are appropriated, without regard to the attacker. The language of this resolution is not legislation, and should Congress take up such a law, it certainly would be drafted in a way that would not interfere with such ordinary rights of self defense.

What the resolution clearly refers to is systematic military action directed at Iran by the president.

The scale of Iranian irresponsibility is minuscule by comparison to that of the U.S. Let's set aside for a moment that those acts of irresponsibility occur within a context created by the U.S. through its criminally irresponsible aggression in the first place, its irresponsible incompetence in preparation for bringing a new order to Iraq after conquest in the second place, and the by now well-documented uninterest of the U.S. military in "nation-building' over the longer term of the occupation that have extended the initial basic incompetence and contributed materially to Iraqi civil war. Let's take those as given.

Let's begin with the irresponsibility of harshly belligerent rhetoric (found on the Iranian side too of course). Next, sources that hardly are left-wing such as the Israeli-based Debka have reported U.S. special forces incursions into Iran on more than one occasion (though to be fair, Debka may be far enough right to have an interest in raising U.S. Iranian tensions). The U.S. has massed multiple aircraft carrier groups close to Iran several times, in a cruise missile and jet update of the old gunboat diplomacy, a threat similar in kind to the Iranian gunboats and the U.S. ships, but on a scale many orders of magnitude greater. And credible reporting by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker provides evidence of war planning against Iran so irresponsible as to include the use of nuclear weapons at one stage, though apparently dropped in later iterations. Let's finish with the simple irresponsible refusal of the U.S. to engage in diplomacy with Iran as a means of dispute resolution, which both international law and common sense dictate as the proper course of action before contemplating war, much less threatening it as the U.S. has done.

None of the threats or damages you cite come close to justifying the consequences of a large-scale U.S. attack on Iran

As for administration "restraint", this is not a matter of systematic, coherent, unified policy. It reflects a potentially precarious predominance of cooler heads within the administration. That possibly has been sustained by more technocratic analyses of lack of capacity deal with the consequences of an attack, over still-powerful forces that favor aggression.

I further believe that public opposition to starting another war, in fact, open-mouthed incredulity at the idiocy of even considering such a venture, also has been part of that restraint. Yet the war drums keep beating from the spider holes of the the Vice-President and his remaining allies, and too many of the people in the press and Congress and the tendentious hawkish think tanks who said "everyone knows" Iraq has weapons of mass destruction by defining those who disagreed as nobody are up to the same thing again -- your own lack of sense of proportion as to who is threatening whom fits the part of the pattern that says listening to such nonsense is reasonable.

In this context it is a great national service the mayors will do if they pass this resolution, and that the sponsors will have done even if it does not pass, to voice the popular opposition to reckless aggression and the sure and true fact that the consequences would come back to haunt every city and town in this country.

As I said before, they are acting as tribunes of the people, to help make sure that the restraint holds, in Congress as well as the White House. It is an entirely appropriate and laudable role.

Actually Harry there is a very interesting argument being developed in a number of states to back state-level efforts to prevent National Guard deployments that the conditions of both authorizations have either expired, or if they have not, were too broad because they would entail the permanent federalization of the Guard. We will have to see how that goes, it would need to get through at least one state lege, and then would face a court challenge. But it's an interesting strategy, one among many.

The "let's set aside" paragraph is ironic in the literary sense, i.e. something that says the opposite of what it means -- if I'd really set it aside I wouldn't have brought it up.

The point of that para and what follows was a specific response to the "Iran is to blame because the Iranians are irresponsible," which is just a point.

I have to disagree with you partially about the authorization part, for a couple of reasons. First, Bush pretty clearly has been contemplating any attack on Iran without seeking authorization from Congress. Requiring such a new authorization in part would amount to a statement that the previous authorizations are not in force. Bush might ignore it, but that would set up conditions to have a battle out in public including perhaps impeachment (even after he's out of office) that could reassert the Congressional role in warmaking (or not) against some of its erosion.

Second, I really do think that the conditions are quite different "in the present conjuncture" as some of my old theory readings would put it than they were in 2001 and 2002. So if this got passed to begin with, which might be the real sticking point what with Democratic unwillingness to change the filibuster and cloture rules in the Senate, I think that for a while, at least, there would be a substantial likelihood of denying authorization. We're both speculating, of course, and I certainly could be wrong.

In the longer term there might be a reversion to form, but in any case that risk couldn't be dealt with in a law like this -- Congress can't in statute forbid itself from doing something in a meaningful way because it always retains the power of legislation.

Anyway, putting opposition from as many quarters as possible to any attack on Iraq into the public discourse is a useful thing to do, and having a pretty decent specification of crucial facts in a body of officials isn't bad either. IMO. For the short term needs.

Thanks Harry.

Interesting factoid: Kitty's husband, David, and I served together in the Peace Corps in Iran from 1964-66. We have followed events there closely ever since, understand the Persian culture, and decry falseness of Bush's saber-rattling rhetoric about Iran. The Gulf of Tonkin, Al-Qaida's ties to Sadaam, and now imminent danger from Iran. All part of the same big lie. When will Americans learn?

Nothing to add to your great post and cogent, insightful comments other than WELCOME to BlueOregon! It will be a better place with you here!

Thanks Kristin, I'm honored to join such good company as yourself.

Stephen, that is interesting. I know just enough about Persian history and culture to wish I knew more. The Iranian American Friendship Council is part of the Portland peace movement with which I am active, the PDX Peace coalition, and had a presence at day long educational "tent city" we organized, along with the more typical rally and march, when marking 5 years of invasion and occupation in Iraq. I concur with your other remarks.

Update 6/20: Dan Bates informs me that Portland Mayor Tom Potter added his name as a co-sponsor of the resolution and that it passed out of committee on a 7-5 vote, so it will be debated by the general U.S. Mayors' Conference meeting.

Kurt, the Iraq occupation is affecting me locally, in bad ways, and an Iran attack would be worse. Same applies to the city as a whole, IMO. If local leaders think national policies are hurting their localities, should they just stay out of it?

Should local leaders affected by federal timber policy just stay out of it? How about federal immigration policy?

Kurt, I'm glad to learn that you are part of the majority of Americans who oppose attacking Iran. Quite why you object to a group of prominent & influential citizens acting in concert to voice that opposition in a way likely to draw public attention and press coverage, and thereby make such an attack less likely (see "tribune of the people" argument above) still remains a mystery to me.

However, that is not what you asked. In general my argument is an opportunity-cost argument, which could be argued either from a lost opportunities for local and regional federal public investment point of view, or from a lost opportunities to reduce public spending point of view, according to your preference.

The Iraq occupation is a borrow-and-spend proposition, a deficit-funded war contributing a large portion to the Bush budget deficits ($150 billion for the next 12 months, roughly, as we learned with yesterday's war supplemental). That means that the costs are not only the direct expenditures, but also the compounding interest costs that make debt service a growing portion of the federal budget, crowding out other potential uses of revenue, or entailing government spending that can't be cut, according to your preference.

It's in the nature of localism that I don't know exactly what kinds of federally-assisted investment in Eugene might be affected, but I am sure there are some. Among the things which the budget deficits affect is federal financial aid to college and university students, including grants, federally subsidized work-study programs, and federal backing of student loans. They also cut into federal funding for academic science and medical research. Both Eugene as the home of U. of O. and Portland, with PSU and OHSU (where I am currently a graduate student) as well as the largest concentration of other colleges in the state are affected by these cuts. Students at PCC and Lane Community College may be especially affected by the student aid cuts.

Among the victims of Bush administration efforts to make a show of spending restraint to soothe the Republican wing (ineffectively) is funding of Department of Energy clean-up of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, WA. The quantity of nuclear and other toxic waste being sequestered and vitrified or otherwise dealt with annually has been reduced to such a low rate that the full clean-up would take about 300 years if that rate persists. Meanwhile the wastes continue to leach into the soil and migrate slowly toward areas where they will begin to enter the Columbia River, a prospect affecting localities all up and down the Columbia, including especially downstream localities including Portland (you can make the list), but also upstream potentially, e.g. through negative effects on salmon recovery efforts that might raise pressures for dam breaching.

The budget deficits have had an effect on items like the State Children's Health Insurance Program ("S-CHIP"), which is an important contributor to state efforts to insure low-income children. Lack of such insurance affects localities in a number of ways. It may mean that local governments have to pay a larger proportion of subsidies for childhood immunizations provided through county public health clinics, or have more children go without them for reasons of cost, with more children seeking publicly subsidized treatment of preventable diseases later at county clinics. More generally, lack of insurance leads to lack of other kinds of preventive care and the inappropriate use of emergency departments for primary care treatment of diseases at later and more expensive to treat stages of illness. This has local effects on public, non-profit and for-profit hospitals, and on the complex of cost-shifting and differential rate negotiations with insurers, raising premium rates to employers and to individuals either through their employers or in being priced out of the individual market. (Pressure on other federal Medicaid funding and local state responses to restrictions or cuts also play into these processes).

Although you choose not to address my "stalking dog" about federal timber payments and localities in southern Oregon from the point of view of the legitimacy of local official advocacy, the situation also provides and example of something that the substantially though not exclusively Iraq occupation driven deficits have (or probably have) crowded out.

Deficits limit potential federal contributions to infrastructure improvement and especially maintenance, leading to maintenance deferral infrastructure degradation.

Federal borrowing to fund occupation-war deficit spending competes with other borrowing and contributes to the "credit crunch," which affects abilities in particular of small-business entrepreneurs to start or sustain businesses, and local efforts to foster economic development. Likewise the debt service competes with other government spending, both civilian and military, and to the extent that reduction of that other spending is not elastic, for legal and political reasons, raises the "size of government" measured in dollar terms.

In Portland-Vancouver, various plans for dealing with the "Columbia Crossing" of I-5 depend on federal funding; although the proponents of the most expansive plan favored by state transportation departments appear confident of gaining the projected level of federal funding, the federal deficits and their contribution to the overall economic slowdown probably will make competition for this "round" of such funding fiercer, as well perhaps as affecting local willingness to pay local taxes for the local share (as happened when Vancouverites rejected paying what would have been their share of a projected light-rail plan in the 1990s, resulting in the loss of huge federal contributions). Regardless of what one thinks of any particular version of ways to handle the future of the I-5 Columbia Crossing, it indubitably is a matter of local and regional political focus that is affected by federal actions and resources affected by Iraq costs.

I am quite sure I could come up with other examples if I were more intimately familiar with what other local activities federal money supports, sustains or promotes. I know they exist.

None of this begins to address the most local level of all, that of families and individuals. Although it doesn't involve Iran, yet (keep your fingers crossed), next year 3500 National Guard personnel from Oregon are scheduled to be deployed in Iraq, the largest deployment since World War II. They and their families are the most affected, but the effects ripple out to our communities. Employers must find and train replacements, then deal with requirements to rehire returning Guard soldiers. My child may find that one of her classmates has a parent who is far away and in danger, who has to try to cope with that, whose emotional struggles could affect my child in any number of ways. The towns and friends of mostly young men and women who may be killed, physically wounded, or harmed in less visible psychological and emotional ways, and the friends of spouses, parents and other relatives who are worrying and who have to cope with the effects of harms their loved ones may suffer are affected too -- all of these represent local effects of federal war and peace decisions.

And there are, for me at any rate, psychological effects of issues of conscience about my responsibility as a citizen of a nation that I believe is committing illegal aggression and operating in reckless disregard of the lives of innocent people, wreaking havoc on international law and on our own constitutional order in the name of erroneous claims of executive power and authority, and the apparent inability of my federal elected representatives to deal adequately with any of that.

At this level, there is a fundamental philosophical question: is our relationship to the federal government and its actions purely direct and unmediated, so that our only proper way to communicate to our representatives and to the executive branch is directly (call this the "Protestant" option)? Or is our political system so much more complicated and intertwined at different levels that our political communications and expressions of public opinion need to take mediated as well as unmediated forms (call this the "Catholic" option)?

My personal view, obviously, is the latter. This is partly because of the sheer size of the country. It also reflects the way that federal concentration and distance from localities (even in places much closer than Oregon) isolates federal officials of all sorts. I was able to take an initiative, get access to Mayor Potter's office, get a quick response and raise an issue that affected the mayor's actions at the U.S. Mayors' Conference meeting. That may play a small part in creating a voicing of public opinion about attacking Iran that may make it that much harder for irresponsible adventurists in the administrations to bring about such an attack much more powerful than I could make on my own. It also created an occasion for me and various other individuals working on the issue to communicate laterally and improve our more direct advocacy as a group or movement. If the mayors actually pass the resolution, it will become a tool we can use for further cooperation to raise more voices.

All of this seems good to me, like something that makes political life in our oligarchical polity a little more democratic (small d). So I'm going to continue to ask local and state officials to play such roles when the opportunity presents itself, or if I/we can create them.

Kurt,

Thanks for your generous and thoughtful reply. It may be that what looks Quixotic to you doesn't so much to me because I'm doing a lot of anti-war work that you might also regard as Quixotic, I'm not sure. The fact that I'm involved that way probably influences why it doesn't look like a waste of time to me.

As we saw with Iraq, if the administration and the Congress and the Washington pundits and the Washington think-tankers are let alone to carry out foreign policy and war & peace debates, they create an echo chamber in which they convince themselves that things are true because everyone in their closed circle conversations thinks it is -- and they mistake "everyone around here who I pay attention to thinks" for a real "everyone thinks."

The problem as I see it with the risk of an attack on Iran is to prevent the formation of another such echo chamber. It is hard to know how to do that. Contacting Congress doesn't get much response. So I tend to support whatever ways of getting other voices in to break up the closed Washington circuit.

I do see your final point, but just think that the potential risks of unintended consequences of attacking Iran spinning out of control are big enough, and likely to come back to bite American domestic affairs badly enough, on top of it being wrong and also bad foreign policy as such, that it doesn't seem like such a lot of time to put into getting another voice out there that may have a decent chance of getting heard and reported.

If the country weren't so darn big some of this might look different to me. The sheer scale makes democracy difficult IMO.

Anyway, even if we don't quite have a meeting of the minds, thanks for keeping me honest by pressing me to get more specific about where I think the connections lie. It was interesting to think about and to see what I think I know and realize that there are other places where I suspect there would be effects but can't name them clearly. Something to work on.