Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Sidney and Max Blumenthal, just chatting - January 2003

Email Exchange between Sidney Blumenthal and his son, Max.

Subj: idea 
Date: 1/16/2003 1:54:19 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: xamxam1@yahoo.com
To: sbwhoeop@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)


here's another idea. if only someone could pick up on
these as fast as i can come up with them and research
them. did you see the full page ad in the times
yesterday in support of people's mojahedin of iraq by
a bi-partisan commission of congressmen? PMOI is a
terrorist group based in eastern iraq financed by
hussein and condemned by amnesty international for
bombings in tehran that killed civilians and storming
the u.n. in 1992 with knives. among the supporters of
the group is ilean ros-lehtinen, who with jeb bush's
assistance, arranged for orlando bosch's pardon. and
tom tancredo's there too. seth waxman, who i think was
clinton's solicitor general, denied PMOI's petition to
be removed from a gov. list of terror groups.

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Max

I don't know if Grandpa has gone to the rehab institute. He was supposed to. I'll let you know.
GOod idea on the war and good analogy to West Bank. I would write to elempinen@salon.com and see if that works. You can write Joan Walsh, too, at jwalsh@salon.com. Tell her you want to get in touch with Ed and why.
Love
Yr Father
Subj: Fwd: Boom and Bust 
Date: 1/13/2003 5:05:47 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Sbwhoeop
To: Jackieblumenthal



-----------------
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Re: Boom and Bust 
Date: 1/13/2003 4:57:55 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: xamxam1@yahoo.com
To: Sbwhoeop@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

bush is selling the cut on the idea of assymetrical
warfare, which doesn't require massive troop buildups
or manuevers. everything i've read by columnists
opposed to bush is either exploiting nostalgia about
past american wars as a national sacrifice or they're
trying to direct everyone's attention to north korea.
i think the best issue to hit on is that a u.s.
occupation of an arab country, like the one that's
inevitable in iraq, will be a collosal disaster and
that point needs to be exploited more, with parallels
drawn to israel's naivete after the 67 war going into
the west bank.
i'm trying to find ed lempinen's number to propose the
maria suarez story today since i'm not feeling sure
about rolling stone and i think i can pump out a story
by friday.
marcia called me and told me to call grandpa direct
but he's not in the room anymore. is he in rehab now?
 

--- Sbwhoeop@aol.com wrote:
>
>
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outlook13jan13,0,1209828.c
>
> olumn?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dnation
>
> January 13, 2003   
>
> <A
>
HREF="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-columnist-rbrownstein,0,7063543.columnist?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dnation">Ronald
> Brownstein:
> Washington Outlook
> Bush Breaks With 140 Years of History in Plan for
> Wartime Tax Cut
>          
>           
> Old question: What did you do in the war, Daddy?
>
> New answer: I pocketed a large tax cut, honey.
>
> Pause.
>
> And then I passed the bill for the war onto you.
>
> That, essentially, is the generational transaction
> established by the
> sweeping tax cut President Bush proposed last week.
> The proposal commits Bush
> to a goal unprecedented in U.S. history: cutting
> taxes in wartime.
>
> Forget guns and butter: Bush is now offering bombs
> and caviar.
>
> That's an odd combination, as Bush demonstrated last
> week when he announced
> his plan. First he emphasized the threat that
> international terrorism poses
> to U.S. security and somberly declared that this is
> a "time of war."
>
> Then he proposed a good-time economic plan that
> would shower Americans with
> $674 billion in tax breaks over the next decade --
> at a time when the federal
> budget has fallen back into deficit and faces
> irresistible demands for more
> spending on defense and homeland security. The
> unavoidable result will be
> bigger federal deficits and a larger national debt,
> which amounts to shifting
> the cost of defending the nation onto our children.
>
> With this push to slash taxes during wartime, Bush
> broke from 140 years of
> history under presidents of both parties. In every
> major conflict the United
> States has fought since the Civil War (and some
> minor ones), Washington has
> raised taxes to pay for the war.
>
> Americans are never particularly happy about tax
> increases. But we have
> always accepted heavier burdens as the price those
> at home pay to support
> those under fire on the front. One World War I-era
> economist wrote:
> "Patriotism can often be translated into dollars and
> cents -- in fact, the
> material side of patriotism is often quite as
> important as the spiritual
> side."
>
> The income tax and the inheritance tax (which Bush
> is trying to eliminate)
> were signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, the first
> Republican president, to
> help pay for the Civil War. As journalist Steven R.
> Weisman recounts in his
> engaging recent book, "The Great Tax Wars," by the
> time the war ended,
> Congress had imposed a top income tax rate of 10% on
> all incomes over $5,000.
> The inheritance tax, he writes, "passed Congress
> with little debate because
> of the widespread demand in the North for sacrifice,
> especially from the
> wealthy."
>
> After the war, both taxes were eventually allowed to
> lapse. But to pay for
> the Spanish-American War, President McKinley -- also
> a Republican -- signed
> into law an excise tax on petroleum and sugar
> companies and reinstated the
> inheritance tax.
>
> To fund the country's entry into World War I,
> President Wilson -- a Democrat
> -- massively increased the number of Americans
> subject to the income tax and
> raised the top rate from 7% to 77%.
>
> Congress cut taxes during the 1920s. But when the
> nation fought World War II,
> Americans reached into their pockets again. Once
> more, the number of
> Americans subject to the income tax soared (from 4
> million to nearly 43
> million) and the top rate rose to 91%.
>
> Taxes increased again to fund the Korean War; even
> in the Vietnam War,
> President Johnson belatedly imposed a war surtax on
> incomes.
>
> The war against terrorism or a possible return match
> against Iraq won't
> demand nearly as many resources as World Wars I or
> II, or even Vietnam and
> Korea. But these tests will still impose significant
> burdens on the
> government.
>
> By 2005, Bush wants to spend at least $100 billion a
> year more on defense
> than President Clinton proposed in his final budget;
> a war in Iraq would add
> to that bill. Bush has also proposed to spend $38
> billion on homeland
> security this year. And even those commitments, the
> administration concluded
> in a homeland security plan last summer, "must be
> viewed as down payments to
> cover the most immediate security vulnerabilities."
>
> As Weisman writes, when Wilson urged higher taxes in
> World War I, he stressed
> the nation's obligation to avoid burdening future
> generations with the war's
> cost through excessive borrowing: "The industry of
> this generation should pay
> the bills of this generation," he said. Bush seems
> to be ignoring that
> lesson.
>
> By proposing large new tax cuts when Washington is
> already in deficit and
> facing growing costs for defense, Bush is
> threatening an explosive growth in
> the national debt. When Bush took office, the
> nonpartisan Congressional
> Budget Office said Washington would eliminate the
> publicly held national debt
> by 2008 -- as long as the government fulfilled the
> pledge Bush and Al Gore
> each made in the 2000 presidential campaign to apply
> the surplus temporarily
> accumulating in Social Security toward paying down
> that debt.
>
> But Bush abandoned that promise under the pressure
> of recession, the war on
> terrorism and the cost of his $1.35-trillion,
> 10-year tax cut of 2001. Even
> before Bush's new proposals, the CBO had estimated
> that Washington would need
> to divert more than $2 trillion from the Social
> Security surplus to operate
> the rest of government through 2012. With that money
> no longer available for
> debt reduction, CBO projected the debt would rise to
> $3.8 trillion by 2008.
>
> The further tax cuts Bush proposed last week will
> only deepen that hole.
> Because the operating side of the federal budget is
> already deeply in
> deficit, every penny of Bush's new tax cut would
> have to come from taxes
> raised for Social Security or by increasing the
> national debt. The Democratic
> staff on the Senate Budget Committee has estimated
> that if the new Bush tax
> cut plan passes, as well as the prescription drug
> plan for senior citizens he
> has endorsed, the national debt will balloon to $4.8
> trillion in 2008.
>
> More debt means higher interest costs for the
> government, which means higher
> taxes on future generations. It all amounts to
> Americans voting themselves a
> tax cut and letting their children pay for defending
> the country through a
> larger national debt. Surely Woodrow Wilson better
> captured the nation's
> spirit when he said, as the bullets flew in World
> War I, that Americans "know
> ... the war must be paid for and that it is they who
> must pay for it, and if
> the burden is justly distributed ... they will carry
> it
=== message truncated ===


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haven't heard anything from anyone on my proposals
yet. i guess i'll have to wait until tuesday. i'm
going to try to find connie rice's contact because i'm
sure the la weekly will run that if salon won't.

______
i did that late friday. i've been looking for connie
rice but to no avail. i'll have to wait until tuesday
to find a contact number. i saw the movie the quiet
american with michael caine. you'd like it although
it's showing has been suppressed in the u.s. so it
might not be out in d.c. have fun sleeping with the
fishes in antigua.

--- Sbwhoeop@aol.com wrote:
> Send emails out for everyone has them on Monday
> saying you're eager to hear from them on your
> proposals. Those emails will be waiting for them
> first thing Monday morning. They WILL get back to
> you. The Connie Rice idea is a good one, especially
> now.
> Yr mother and I are in Antigua, It's very restful,
> and we're going to the beach soon. Keep up with me
> by email.
>
> Love
> Yr Father


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