President George Bush deflects criticism of his war plans by claiming that his critics have no plans of their own.  Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, asserts that matters of war must be left in the hands of the President (presumably no matter how brilliant your alternative plan).

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) has had an exit plan on his website for over three years.  Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D., Calif.) has held several hearings discussing exit plans over the past year and a half.  Peace activists, including Tom Hayden, have published and promoted a variety of exit plans over the past couple of years, and have even gone so far as to meet and discuss them with members of the Iraqi Parliament. 

Two prominent labor organizations have sued the Bush administration for failing to protect nearly 20 million workers from job injuries. In 1999 the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed a rule requiring employers to pay for protective clothing, face shields, gloves and other equipment used by workers. But before the proposal became a standard Mr. Bush was elected to office. Since then, the Department of Labor has neglected to enact the standard and has consistently failed to ensure the safety of America’s working men and women.

The personal protective equipment (PPE) rule would require employers to pay for safety items that protect workers from job hazards. Many workers in the nation’s most dangerous industries, including meatpacking, poultry, and construction, who have high rates of injury, are forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear because of the failure of OSHA to implement the PPE rule. According to OSHA’s own figures, 400,000 workers have been injured and 50 have died owing to the lack of the PPE rule.

Larry Everest made an interesting comment on a panel we did in Memphis last weekend. He said that if Nancy Pelosi, who claims her top priority is ending the war and who claims to support democracy, were to ask people to come to Washington, D.C., on January 27th to march against the war, probably 20 million people would come. Such an action by Pelosi would not require that she take any controversial position, merely that she lead.

Rev. Glenda Hope sent around an Email that was forwarded to me and a lot of other people. She has a ministry in Pelosi's district and recently met with Pelosi's office. Hope was joined in the meeting by the President of the University of San Francisco (a Catholic priest), the pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church (the largest church in San Francisco), the Senior Rabbi of the largest synagogue in San Francisco (Congregation Emanu-el), and Richard Smoak, a Presbyterian minister and founder/director of San Francisco Network Ministries (a 34-year-old ministry among the poor in San Francisco's Tenderloin). They met for 45 minutes with Pelosi's District Director Dan Bernal and Deputy District Director Melanie Nutter in Nancy Pelosi's office.

Ever notice how we're always getting the "done deal" treatment from the powers that be? We blunder into Iraq on lies and inanities and suddenly, you know, the proprietors of the Pottery Barn step out from behind the counter and inform us: "You break it, you bought it."

And so we have no choice, apparently, but to keep on stomping our unintended purchase with a mad frenzy - that is to say, allowing the same swaggering blunderers who precipitated the disaster to do more of the same, except at greater cost and with more collateral damage. The only logic here is the self-perpetuating logic of incompetence. This becomes our foreign policy: a fait accompli sinkhole.

Thus temporary necessity is the fallback justification for every initiative that pushes against conscience and sanity, however permanent the ramifications. Nowhere is this more evident than in the nuclear weapons industry, which has managed to remain viable and prosperous a generation after the Cold War ended. Its latest ploy is to develop something called the Reliable Replacement Warhead, a $100 billion program to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal.