Forty-six percent of homicides and an astounding seventy-six percent of rapes in California remain unsolved. Translated into raw numbers, it means in excess of 90,000 violent criminals are freely walking the streets.

     What are we doing about that? Well, for starters, we’re cutting the number of police officers, shutting down crime labs and gutting criminal investigation units. With budgets under strain, we have chosen the emotional satisfaction of endlessly prosecuting the 714 convicted murderers presently on death row – already safely removed from society – rather than finding and arresting the tens of thousands of predators loose on the street.

     There have been 13 executions in California since the death penalty was reinstated. The total amount spent on implementing the death penalty in that time has been close to $4 billion. This is an average of $304 million for each execution represented.

     By contrast, keeping those convicted of murder behind bars for life could be accomplished for a mere $11.5 million per year or a total of $379.5 million for the entire time the death penalty has been in place.

     Petitions are circulating to get an initiative on November’s ballot to fix this problem. Backed by more than 100 leaders in law enforcement, including former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, the initiative would restore the penalty for murder to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, and use a portion of the savings to bolster efforts to arrest and prosecute those responsible for unsolved violent crimes.

     “My frustration is more about the fact that the death penalty does not serve any useful purpose and it's very expensive," said Garcetti.

     For others, the frustration isn’t about getting more bang for the buck, or the maximum sentence for those who took their loved ones. It’s about getting any justice at all.

     “We continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the death penalty even though it has never been proven to deter murderers, even though one thousand killers get away with murder each year,” said Aqeela Sherrills, the father of one young murder victim. “We should work toward preventing violence and getting murderers off of our streets by solving cold cases instead of executing the select few murderers who are already in prison.”

     Judy Kerr, whose brother’s murderer was never caught, agrees. “We spend so much money and focus so much attention on a few aging convicts when these resources would be better spent on law enforcement, state crime labs and investigations to bring these murderers to justice … Our pain, suffering and doubt are prolonged endlessly. Our communities remain at risk and killers roam free. The truth is California's death penalty wastes precious funds and does not deter crime.”

     The enemies of justice in opposition to this initiative are powerful and predictable. They include strutting politicians ironically wanting to appear “tough on crime,” and the prison industry itself, which is happy to maintain the status quo of housing a relative few offenders for tens of millions of dollars more than it would cost to incarcerate many. Finally, it will require overcoming the ignorance and apathy of voters.

     “We should fry ‘em all,” responded one man who refused to sign the petition with a self-satisfied grin and all of the emotional, self-defeating bravado often displayed by the ill-informed.

     The 90,000 violent criminals free on the streets certainly won’t be signing this petition either.

     Will you?

Free Enterprise, Socialism, Capitalism, Regulation, and an 80-percent Average Top Marginal Tax Rate

In spite of much fevered insistence that things must be All One Way – unregulated, laissez-faire, free-market capitalism - or All The Other Way – full-blown Leninist-Stalinist communism – there is, in fact, a THIRD option. This might be called The American Way: That is, to take what works for the public good, and to use it to support, maintain, direct, and discipline the energies of a free market – also to the benefit of public good.

Let’s take these elements one-by-one and look at how they built American prosperity:
#1 Socialism: Back before the word even existed, the practice was essential.  The raising of the barn, tilling of the soil, and clearing of roads were necessary acts of communal survival, and remain so today. These foundations, known as “the commons” provide the necessary infrastructure and platform for …  

#2 Free Enterprise:  Entrepreneurs create small businesses and still provide the vast majority of jobs in the United States. This allows for a strong consumer class, flowing tax revenues and large-scale development of social infrastructure. We The People pooled the tax revenues, and, based upon decisions made in democratic elections, chose to build roads, schools, the electrical grid, and a whole host of other things that created an educated work force, access to electricity and gas, and long-distance transport of goods and services, which allowed free enterprise to flourish, people to become wealthy, and the institution of ...

#3 Capitalism: Contrary to the popular belief that opening a lemonade stand is “capitalism,” capitalism is simply the act of making money from money. This works astoundingly well in fostering free enterprise (“I shall fund your lemonade stand for a cut of the pie!”). Unfortunately, while great wealth brings great power and influence, it is no assurance of morality, ethics or social consciousness. This led to the creation of the next two pillars …

#4 Regulation – America’s founders had learned a bitter lesson in their dealings with large corporations in bed with the British Crown. The East India Company, in particular, had gained a monopoly on the American tea trade, enforced by the power of the Monarchy. America’s revolt, and subsequent formation of democracy, can be said to be a direct result of their experiences with this corrupt combination of wealth and power. They knew that given free reign, there are plenty of wealthy elite who might say, "I shall buy Glenwood Canyon in Colorado, and charge vehicles $100.00 to pass through on I-70, and I shall become wealthy beyond dreams, as there is no other route." This, of course, would kill free enterprise, socialism, and eventually capitalism itself, so We The People created certain rules: You can’t dam all the rivers and blackmail people for water, for example, and you can’t hand out free vials of crack to school children to create a customer base. Another was the Corporate Death penalty, which was used regularly for our first century: Your business was reviewed once a year to answer the question, "Are you serving, or harming, the interests of society?" If the latter, your corporation was dissolved.

To be sure that the monied powers were serving the public interest to begin with, one of the most successful rules We The People ever created was  ...

#5 The 80-percent Average Top Marginal Tax Rate:  Over the 50 years prior to 1980, the top marginal rate (taxes on income above $3.2 million) had ranged from 68 to 94 percent. This is enormously successful because, when facing such a tax, folks will do ANYTHING to avoid paying it. How? Simple: Deductions were written into the code specifically to direct capital to that which was of benefit to society. You can then write those off as a business expense:  Things like hiring new employees, opening new factories, and buying inventory and equipment.  
Today, commitment to the common good has floundered. As once feared, a wealthy elite has hijacked the republic, and is again using the power of government to enforce scantily-disguised monopolies, while denying both dissent and competition. Even free enterprise itself is once again at stake. This system will lead to neo-feudalism – a small number of wealthy elite lording over a broadly impoverished underclass.
We can change that – but only by knowing our history.

Created the Wealthiest Country the World Has Ever Known

Day after day, I hear commentators and pundits discussing the woes of the economy, foreclosures, and unemployment. Time after time, I shake my head, astounded that these discussions never mention the historical reason for America's phenomenal past success: The 90 percent top marginal tax rate.

For the 50 years prior to Ronald Reagan, the average top marginal tax rate was 77.4 percent. For sixteen of those years -- including all through the 1950s -- it was 90 to 94 percent. Those were the years that created McDonald's, K-Mart, and Wal Mart, and hundreds of other American titans of industry. Most Americans, astounded, will ask, "But how did confiscating all that money from entrepreneurs not kill all of those companies?"

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On December 6th Occupy Wall Street will join in solidarity with a Brooklyn community to re-occupy a foreclosed home. The day of action marks a national kick-off for a new frontier for the occupy movement: the liberation of vacant bank-owned homes for those in need. The banks got bailed out, but our families are getting kicked out. The fight to reclaim democracy from the banks is growing from Wall Street to Main Street.

The NYC foreclosure tour and home re-occupation is part of a big national day of action on Dec. 6 that will focus on the foreclosure crisis and protest fraudulent lending practices, corrupt securitization, and illegal evictions by banks. The Occupy movement actions, including eviction defense at foreclosed properties, takeovers of vacant properties by homeless families, and foreclosure action disruptions, will take place in more than 25 cities across the country.

Millions of Americans have lost their homes in the Wall Street recession and one in four homeowners are currently underwater on their mortgages. The 99% is bearing the brunt of a crisis caused by Wall Street and big banks.

That's why, all across the country, Americans have begun standing up to the banks that are trying to evict them. It's already happened in Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and cities and towns across the country. Now, it's happening in Brooklyn. Soon, it will be happening everywhere.

Wall Street and the big banks are making record profits while most Americans are struggling to stay in their homes. They break the law with impunity, but millions of us get served with eviction. They make trillions and get bailouts, while we face record unemployment and record debt.

No more! Our system has been serving Wall Street, big banks, and the one percent.

We are the 99%. We are reclaiming our democracy.
And we are reclaiming our homes.

Welcome to everyone reading this column for the first time and thanks to Information Press and Sandra Marshall for including us in the publication. For a long time, NOW published our news and views in the Women’s Community Center’s Women’s Press, including this column. However, at the end of 2010, the WP gave up its print edition, and concentrated only on the on-line version. While that’s a great ecological move (saves ink, paper and associated carbon exhaust), it also means that some people without daily access to a computer were unable to keep up with the action, and action is what NOW is all about. Check the national NOW web page for lots of information on all the topics that should interest you as a thinking woman (or man) at now.org. You can also check our local website thanks to KCBX at kcbx.net/~slonow.
Here’s a print recap of some of those issues for those who are reading this column. We hope to give you “food for thought” every month. This month, it’s the economy.

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