Health Attack

Before the increasingly unglued House Republicans vote – for the 38^th time – to repeal Obamacare, they might look a bit more closely at how Americans have fared under the old system. The Republicans claim that the new law – which, lest we forget, was supported by the American Medical Association, passed by both houses of Congress, signed into law by the president, and approved by the Supreme Court – will (1) bankrupt the country and (2) diminish and “ration” care. So how did we do in the old days? According to a 2010 study of health care and spending by developed countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (published by 24/7 Wall Street), the United States spent far more on health care than any other country and achieved worse results than most. We spent over $8,500 per person annually, including $1,000 on drugs, all of which added up to a staggering 17.7% of GDP – figures that put America in a league of its own. And the results? Off-the-charts obesity and a life expectancy that ranks America 9^th from last. And yet the United States remains almost the only developed nation not to provide universal coverage.

Meanwhile, in a further blow to America’s personal and political health, House Republicans unanimously passed a farm bill that (1) abandons food stamps, the 40-year-old program that provides critical nutrition to the nation’s poor, and (2) reaffirms their commitment to corporate welfare by rolling back food safety measures and providing billions to special interests who gleefully [pork] belly up to the public trough.

Note: I will not be posting for a while, as I am teaching a course this week that meets from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Talk with you next week.

The Mommy-and-Daddy State

The philosophical principle called Occam’s razor holds that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. That’s worth noting these days when hyperbole, contorted reasoning and convoluted language have become the coin of our political conversation. Take, for example, the [condensed] response of Heritage Foundation Fellow Ryan Anderson when a Times reporter asked if the Supreme Court’s gay-marriage decision “isn’t the ultimate conservative ruling because it [leaves] people’s lives to themselves:” “The reason the government is in the marriage business isn’t because it cares about the love lives of consenting adults. Government is in the marriage business because there is a certain type of union – the union between a man and a woman – that can produce new life. Government wants to make sure that new life has a mom and a dad; and upholding the institution of marriage is the least coercive way to ensure that. When this doesn’t happen, that is when we’ve seen government grow – the welfare state grows, crime increases, the prison population rises, child poverty increases, social mobility decreases. So, everything you care about, if you care about limited government and the poor, about liberty and social justice, is better served by a healthy marriage culture.”

If I understand this breathtaking – and unproven – assertion, we need government to enforce a particular view of the most intimate parts of our lives so that all the problems that require government solutions will disappear, and the state, as Engels wrote, will “wither away.” Good-bye, Nanny State. Hello, Mommy-and-Daddy State.

Clandestine Transparency

Perhaps because I keep trying to get the government to listen to me, my initial reaction to the National Security Agency’s widespread “data mining” program was: Hey, maybe they are listening to me, and I just don’t know it. I do find the NSA’s activities worrisome. As a first-amendment fundamentalist and a privacy zealot, I believe the Patriot Act should be repealed. And yet my outrage meter over the current revelations is low. Why?

• The over-the-top reactions from right and left about the assault on our civil liberties seem to have little connection to the scope or intent of the program as I understand it.
• I am uncomfortable with a 29-year-old high-school dropout – who joined the Special Forces to free Iraqis “from oppression” and wants to bring transparency to the NSA – deciding on his own what should be declassified.
• Fear. It’s true – I’m more afraid of terrorists than of my government, and I don’t feel I am living in an Orwellian state.
• This is not “Pentagon Papers II”, which exposed a massive cover-up of government wrongdoing that caused countless casualties.
• The irony is not lost on me that the government had to go to Google, Microsoft and Verizon to implement the program – that’s where the real information on our lives is stored.

We need a vigorous and public debate on transparency and security, and insofar as his revelations help spur it, we should thank Edward Snowden. But we should not let our visceral reactions curtail the debate before it happens.

Tax Abuse

Never mind how, but a 2013 Membership Appeal of the Tea Party Patriots has found its way into my hands. The appeal asks for money and then outlines how it will use it:

1. Keep Obama and the Liberal Democrats from bankrupting the country, shackling our liberties and turning America into a second-rate state.
2. Keep John Boehner and the Republican leadership from betraying the party’s core principles.
3. Get legislation that will reduce spending and the debt, unshackle free markets and preserve liberty.

To accomplish this the Patriots are launching:

•  “A massive 2013 Congressional Accountability Project” to keep those folks in line.
• “A state-by-state ground game” to develop coalitions and activate voters.
• “A media Boot Camp” for party candidates and elected officials.
• “The public advancement of serious legislation”.
• “A nationwide TV and radio campaign”.

This is how democracy works: you advance your creepy program and I counter with mine. The problem with this letter is its stamp. It says “Nonprofit org”, which means it comes from one of those 501(c)(4) organizations that have gotten the IRS publicly toasted of late. Would you think the organization that sent this operates “exclusively for the promotion of social welfare”, as the law requires? Then why would an IRS employee? These Patriots are violating the spirit and the letter of the law, while taking advantage of the government they wish to dismantle.

PS The Patriots have launched a $500,000 campaign on Mark Levin’s radio show. If you've never listened to Mark, you should. He'll turn your stomach.

Drones and the Law

Anwar al-Awlaki was not the first American citizen to wage war against the United States. Former Vice-President Aaron Burr certainly thought about it, and former Senator Jefferson Davis actually did it. But al-Awlaki was the first to be taken out by a drone. Probably the most famous homegrown terrorist to declare war on the United States was John Brown, whose band of 21 men captured the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859. Brown planned to arm nearby slaves and lead a guerilla army in a war against slavery. Ten of his followers were killed in action; seven, including Brown, were captured, tried and subsequently hanged. The idea that Brown (or Burr or Davis) would not be accorded his legal right to a fair trial was unthinkable, even as the nation careered toward civil war.

Does that make al-Awlaki’s killing unjustified? No. He was engaged in activities that put Americans in real and imminent danger. The nation must have the right to protect its citizens from such a threat however it can – and those of us who fly on airplanes would be hypocrites to say otherwise. But the same cannot be said for Samir Khan, 'Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Awlaki, and Jude Mohammed, who were “not specifically targeted by the United States” but became collateral damage in the war on terror. Given their names and locations, there has been little public outcry, but Obama’s thoughtful speech yesterday made clear that our government is once again taking seriously the rule of law.

One Powerful Man

With 54 of 100 senators voting in favor, and strong popular support in the country, Senate Bill 649 was defeated yesterday. The Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013, a compromise offered by NRA members Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia and Patrick Toomey (R) of Pennsylvania, would have required background checks for online and gun show sales only. But the National Rifle Association, which once supported such checks, threw its money and muscle into the fight, as Wayne LaPierre, its executive vice president, has emerged from the carnage in Newtown as one of the most powerful men in America. We have come a long way since 2000, when a single Supreme Court vote gave George Bush the mandate to invade Iraq. Yesterday, a majority of senators could not pass a bill. Much is being made of the partisan nature of the vote: only four Democrats voted no and four Republicans voted yes. But consider this: according to a recent study, the ten states with the most gun violence are: (10) Georgia; (9) Arkansas; (8) Missouri; (7) New Mexico; (6) South Carolina; (5) Mississippi; (4) Arizona; (3) Alabama; (2) Alaska; (1) Louisiana. In those ten states, 15 senators (75%) voted against SB 649, including two of the four Democrats, Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. The only Republican to vote yes was John McCain.

Note the absence from the list of all those big urban states, which are actually curbing gun violence in their cities. Meanwhile, the most gun-violent states want no checks. Sometimes you reap what you sow.

Stockman’s Screed

David Stockman, the aging boy wonder who was Ronald Reagan’s budget director at 34, wrote a 2700-word op-ed piece in Sunday’s New York Times. Its bottom line was “get out of the markets and hide out in cash.” Stockman takes us on quite a journey to get to this simple point. He tells a tawdry story, peopled with many scoundrels and few heroes, an eight-decade morality play of government excess, corporate greed, entitlement explosion, political cowardice and intellectual dishonesty, in which the losers are the 99% of Americans, and especially the poor, while the winners, at least for now, are the greedy manipulators of finance and their bi-partisan henchmen in Congress, the oval office and, above all, the Federal Reserve Bank. It’s a relentless, depressing march to Armageddon – one that is actually part of a long American tradition of populist anger that stretches from the Whiskey Rebellion to the Tea Party. Sometimes the issues change: in the 1890s the insurgents wanted cheap money; Stockman (and the Doctors Paul) want a return to the gold standard. Its twin villains are Washington and Wall Street. Its solutions are less clear: “These policies have brought America to an end-stage metastasis,” writes Stockman. “The way out would be so radical it can’t happen.”

From a curmudgeonly conservative, this is a disquietingly bi-partisan indictment. Stockman challenges the core policies of both parties, and his analysis of a country whose answer to everything is, as George Bush urged, to “go shopping” is too insightful to be dismissed.

Thelma and Louise

The 1991 film ends with Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon floating timelessly above the Colorado River, having just driven their car over the Grand Canyon cliff. Spared the bloody crash that must come next, gullible movie fans could dream of a miraculous escape. Just like last night. To save itself from a disaster it had created almost entirely by itself, Congress passed a bill that solves virtually nothing. But it had no choice. For while the bill enshrines most of the odious Bush tax cuts and does nothing to address the questions our children must face, it just might stave off the recession that Republicans seem eager to trigger by destroying our government when we need it most.

That concept was lost on both the liberal lobby group, moveon.org, and the Tea Party, which demanded that their followers oppose the legislation. But leave it to Congressman Darrell Issa of California to capture the utter irresponsibility of the Republican right. “I thank all of you who will vote for [the bill],” he said. “I cannot bring myself to vote for it” (i.e., thank you for bailing me out, so I can save the only job I care about – my own).

With the cliff momentarily averted, Democrats must now show they are serious about entitlement reform – not by neutering Medicare, but by ensuring the future of the most important social program we have. Caring for its sick is a fundamental responsibility of every human community.

Thank You

Several of you wrote me wonderfully kind notes about my mother’s death. Many who didn’t know Mum seemed to grasp her essence, which was heartwarming to me. She was not your standard-issue mother, but, of course, nobody’s is. Over the last weeks I have learned something about the American health care system and the bureaucracy of death, on which I will undoubtedly pontificate in the months ahead. I learned that people matter. Mum’s doctor was more than her medical professional. He was her friend, and he made house calls. And when staff members of all levels at her assisted-living residence embraced me in tears this week, I knew that people really cared for my mother.

The health system is a mess because too often it crushes that caring, and people don’t seem to be its focus. When Mum was in the hospital, I said to my sister, “we seem to be the least important people in the process . . . except for the patient.” To those who say, if you think it’s bad now, wait for Obamacare, I say, I can’t wait for Obamacare because there is something inherently incompatible between corporate demands and patient needs. Our lives should not be “measured out with coffee spoons.”

As Hospice shows. At every step of the last days, the people of this extraordinary organization were sensitive to the dignity of Mum’s life and the dignity of her death – something that seems too often absent in the political debates about when life begins and how it ends.

Modern Malefactors

I was going to decry the folly of John Boehner (R, Ohio), who occupies the Speaker’s chair and appears to think of himself as co-president, even though his party could not even carry Ohio. But behind Boehner – and often in opposition to him – stands the implacable right wing of the Republican Party. And behind them stand the vested interests of finance, whose pockets are stuffed with money and politicians – people like the Koch Brothers, the most venal twosome in America, and their lackeys like Sarah Palin, the most ludicrous. These people simply want to do away with government, which is the one thing that stands between them and a return to the robber-baron era of the 19^th century, when the country was dominated by those whom Teddy Roosevelt called “the malefactors of great wealth." How else can we explain their insistence that any additional budget revenues must come from a source other than taxes? Taxes are the way governments raise money. And right now the government needs money, not just to rein in the national debt, but more importantly, to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. With corporations sitting on historic amounts of cash, the economy in a shambles because of the criminal behavior of the private financial system, and the world facing a grueling recession, it is time for our government to restore our highways and bridges, our public schools and universities, our national parks and transport systems.

This will cost money, but it will put people to work now creating an investment that will benefit the entire country for years to come.

Who Elected Grover Norquist Anything?

Senator Saxby Chambliss, (R) Georgia, suggested last week that he might renege on the “taxpayer protection pledge,” which has been a litmus test for Republican politicians for over 25 years. Dreamed up in 1986 by Grover Norquist, and signed by 95% of all GOP federal officeholders, including Chambliss, the pledge requires signees to vote against any tax increase in whatever costume slippery liberals try to dress it. Naturally, Mitt Romney was the first presidential candidate to sign the pledge, which he had refused to sign as governor of Massachusetts. Every other Republican hopeful, except Jon Huntsman, followed suit. This kind of lockstep simple-mindedness is at the root of Congressional gridlock. It is the main reason we have to watch John Boehner feign bipartisanship while robotically repeating that Republicans will oppose any deficit plan that increases taxes on anyone – any plan, in other words, that is actually bipartisan.

It is mind-boggling that Norquist has gained such power by enforcing political thoughtlessness – not just on taxes but on the role of government itself. His most famous utterance, “I am not in favor of abolishing government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" – with its pleasant image of drowning babies – continues to be smugly quoted by politicians who have spent their professional lives feeding at the public trough.

Perhaps it’s finally dawning on Chambliss and others that we would have a better government if those who live off it treated it with more respect.

Sacred Cows Redux

In which we look more closely at yesterday’s non-partisan six-point economic plan.

1. Eliminate the home mortgage deduction: America’s most popular deduction costs the government $84 billion annually in lost revenues and inflates home prices. Its social-engineering goal, long abetted by highways and oil subsidies, is to subsidize the American Dream of single-family suburban home ownership. Those who really dream big can get us to subsidize their second homes as well.
2. End tax deduction for company-provided health care: This perk, non-taxable to donor and recipient, encourages enhanced coverage and more usage, which drives up health costs for everyone else. I’m not saying it’s bad . . . but with all these deductions, we should recognize how entitled those who rant against entitlements really are.
3. Eliminate the corporate income tax: Bad, say the economists, because it taxes job creation. To get money from the rich, tax the owners. That make sense, but we still need to regulate corporate activities . . . and when they break they law, fine them without mercy. That might close the deficit right there.
4. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes: Taxes discourage what your taxing, economists say, and income is good. So where would the money come from? The economists recommend a consumption tax that protects low-income households. I’m all for a progressive consumption tax, and ending the regressive payroll tax . . . but we still need a graduated income tax to provide for our national needs and to assert fairness as a core principle.
5. Tax carbon emissions: Tax bad things. But since carbon and consumption drive our entire economy, wouldn’t taxing them actually slow growth? It might force us to, finally, reconsider the increasingly ugly and unsustainable path our current obsession with growth is taking us.
6. Legalize marijuana: Like, yo. If we do this, who cares about the other five?

Sacred Cows

NPR, which, along with Planned Parenthood, has become the focus of the administration's extremist funding priorities and out-of-control spending, ran an interesting series last weekend on All Things Considered. “A Tax Plan That Economists Love (And Politicians Hate)” asked five politically diverse economists to come up with policy changes that would drive the economy and stem the red ink. Here are six proposals on which they all agreed:

• Eliminate the home mortgage deduction, perhaps the country’s most popular entitlement program.
• End the tax deduction companies receive for providing health care to their employees.
• Eliminate the corporate income tax.
• Eliminate all income and payroll taxes.
• Tax carbon emissions . . . and so drive up the price of gasoline.
• Legalize marijuana.

At first blush this lists seems closer to Ron Paul or the Libertarian platform than to either of the major parties – and in the latest polls the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, stands at a whopping 3%. Indeed, when NPR presented the economists’ platform to two experienced political consultants, they responded with something less than enthusiasm.

“You’re insane,” said one, calling it “a radical plan to bankrupt families.”

“You should move to another country,” said the other.

But in fact, not only is there is something in the plan for everybody to hate, there is also a good deal to chew on . . . once you have adjusted to seeing a landscape strewn with the carcasses of sacred cows or looked at the world through the haze of your now-legal joint.

We’ll look more closely tomorrow.

The Limits of Ideology

“The hearing never established what it might have taken to repel the Sept. 11 attack on the compound in Benghazi that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans” (The New York Times, Oct. 11, 2012). “[Abigail] Fisher’s lawyer, Bert Rein, told the court Fisher suffered “constitutional injury” because of her denial to the college of her first choice” (New York Daily News, Oct. 11, 2012).

I admire those who hold strong views, defend them vigorously, and listen to others who disagree. It is the third piece that is missing these days, and two of yesterday’s big news stories reveal how badly we have become derailed. It is not just that we can’t have a civil conversation with our foes. We can’t even appear to waffle among ourselves, lest that give aid to the enemy.

Something went terribly wrong in Benghazi the night that Chris Stevens and three others were killed. It is important to know what happened, how it happened and how it can be prevented from happening again. Sometimes adversarial hearings can help get there, but not, as yesterday, when their purpose is to score political points, where one side simply attacks and the other cannot admit mistakes. Have we reached the point where we can no longer say, let’s work together to get to the bottom of this?

It is the same with affirmative action. I wish my children had known they had suffered “constitutional injury” during the awful process of college admissions. They didn’t even know they had a constitutional right at stake.

The whole concept of affirmative action demands open and honest discussion. What does it mean in a nation with as much diversity, at both the societal and the individual level, as America? I believe that affirmative has done great good and its job is not yet finished. But does that mean it will never be finished, that it is not a process toward justice but an entitlement?

These are critical questions for all of us to ask. But I wonder at times if anyone is listening?

Doctors, No

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recently collected almost $200 million in fees from companies engaged in “fracking” across the state. The industry lobby simultaneously congratulated itself for its benevolence and complained about a burden that was “staggering by any measure.” When it became law in February, Pennsylvania’s Act 13 was touted for bringing order to a chaotic field in a state where fracking was out of control and the energy companies resisted paying any fees for their infant industry. (For the record, Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest drillers, has a market capitalization of $13 trillion.)

Of course, if Act 13 were that simple, it wouldn’t need to be 174 pages long, passed with only 2 Democratic votes, and had parts of it already declared unconstitutional.

For despite the industry yelping, its fingerprints are all over this bill, as Sandra Steingraber noted in a recent Orion article.

It simply dispensed with zoning, forbidding municipalities to ban drilling even in residential areas, a provision the Commonwealth Court struck down by a 4-3 vote (with Robert Simpson of Voter ID fame a dissenter).

It requires health professionals to justify their medical need to know and to sign a confidentiality agreement before getting access to a list of trade-secret chemicals to help them treat patients.

And it exempts such chemicals from Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know law.

In the name of economic progress, Act 13 runs roughshod over communities and puts corporate profits before public health.

Since 2000, nine Pennsylvania legislators have been convicted of crimes against the public trust. The body appears to have many slow learners. Perhaps it’s something in the water.

Lights Out

Two days ago a massive blackout in northern India left 670 million people in the dark, in the heat and, in the case of 200 coal miners, in the ground. Now there is much head scratching over what caused this colossal electrical failure and endless finger pointing over who is to blame.

It seems pretty obvious to me.

Let’s begin with water. India’s monsoon rains are well below normal, which geometrically affects hydroelectric power because farmers are competing with energy producers for ever-scarcer supplies.

Then there are demographics. With half its population under 25 and two-thirds under 35, India is on its way to becoming the world’s most populous country, and its energy production lags well behind – in fact 300 million Indians have no power at all.

None of this has stopped the country’s monomaniacal pursuit of industrial growth that is based on a 19^th-century model of extractive development, including a heavy reliance on coal, and an obsession with economic growth at all costs.

And finally there is the equally old-fashioned corruption, with charges and counter-charges of diverting power to political cronies, demanding bribes for access and selling electricity at prices below production costs.

The conventional solution is to double down: produce more energy to grow faster to get richer to pull more people out of poverty and become a world power. Disregard the troublesome global climate hoax and blame low-level bureaucrats and the Indian culture of corruption.

This strikes me as a foolproof formula for ignoring the systemic causes of the problems, which are global, and reinforcing a positive feedback loop that will ensure they get worse.

Greetings!

Israel’s “unity government” collapsed yesterday. The issue that brought it down was the draft. Contrary to my assumption, there are lots of exemptions to Israeli conscription – primarily to Ultra-Orthodox Jews who are excused to study the Torah, and Israeli Arabs, whose status in the country is, well, complicated. In fact, Israel’s “universal service” is so laced with loopholes that only half the young people actually serve. The issue has seethed for years below the surface . . . and the Supreme Court declared the system unconstitutional last February.

In this country, which spends far more than any other on its military, less than one percent of the population currently serves, and the growing gap between military and civilian life has: led to multiple tours in war zones for soldiers and families already under great stress; made the rest of us far less concerned than we ought to be with what is happening in those places; and exacerbated a class system in a country that refuses to recognize it has one.

A democracy only works if there is (1) a shared burden (n.b. the rich pay taxes) and (2) civilian control of the military. Both these are threatened by the current situation. The only solution I can think of is national service (with non-military alternatives) for everyone, without exception. There is so much that needs to be done in this country, and we all need to pitch in and do it.

Most of us didn’t want the letter from our draft board that opened with “Greetings!” But it’s time to bring it back.

Paradigm Shift

While the Supreme Court’s decision last week has spawned a fierce backlash, it did make Affordable Health Care the law of the land – at least for now. This is an enormous step, for it proclaims it a national goal to provide good health care for everyone. As we address the critical question of how to pay for it,  two things are worth remembering: (1) the United States already spends more on health care than any other country; and (2) those currently uncovered either go without care or get emergency treatment at public expense. In either case, the cost to the nation is enormous.

As discussed in a post on Woody Brock’s book, the key is to increase the supply of health-care providers faster than rising demand – something that has not happened under the current system. The source of that new supply already exists, but to take full advantage of it requires a shift in how we think about medical care.

The source is nurse practitioners and the shift is from surgical invasion to preventive and community care. (Full disclosure: my daughter is an NP and I have served on the board of a nurse-managed health center). This is not new. In the 19^th century, surgeons were considered skilled craftsmen; now they command superstar salaries from competing institutions. As someone with titanium knees, I know the value of good surgeons. But the key to universal health care is preventive medicine, good health habits and clinics that understand the needs of their clients. It is the dearth of these things now that is both driving up health costs and damaging the nation’s health.

Maybe It’s Not the Economy

Much has been made – and rightly so – of the almost-40% drop in median family wealth in the United States in the last five years – from $126,400 to $77,300. The main reason was the collapse of the housing market. But the recession has taken its toll in other ways, particularly through high unemployment, much of it unrecorded but obvious to those who see growing numbers of homeless people begging on our city streets. The current election is being fought over two economic visions, as David Brooks described last Friday: the Democrats’ contention that the welfare state got hijacked by the ultra-rich and fairness needs to be reinstated vs. the Republicans’ argument that the welfare state is obsolete and needs to be replaced with something more dynamic that would create “an efficiency explosion.”

In 1972 some people from MIT published The Limits to Growth, which argued that spiraling economic and population growth would soon come up against the limits of a finite world. The thesis enjoyed a short day in the sun, not least because of the first great oil crisis that had people shooting each other waiting in lines at gas stations. Then oil prices dropped precipitously, and the world seemed limitless again.

But maybe the authors were right, and decades of relatively cheap oil obscured the enormous pressures we continue to put on our environment – creating feedback loops of resource extraction and population growth that we cannot sustain and cycles of hunger and poverty that we should not countenance.

Suicide

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.  Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” So opens “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus’ essay on the meaning of life in an absurd world, written as the Nazi atrocities had commenced in France.

Camus’ philosophical musings – which were born of the resistance movements in both France and Algeria – met the modern world head on last week when the Associated Press reported that suicides in Afghanistan now exceed combat deaths among American troops.

Part of the reason is that we are winding down the war: since January 1^st there have “only” been 124 combat deaths. By contrast, there have been 154 suicides, a number that has been rising since 2005.

The Pentagon and veterans groups give several reasons for the increase, one of the primary ones being the ongoing lack of compassion for soldiers who seek treatment for emotional stress. That stress is compounded by the traumas of multiple combat tours and family and financial problems back home.

War is the ultimate theater of the absurd. In it, young people are trained to kill – and taught to die – in defense of life . . . and then discarded. Their isolation is exacerbated in a professional military that is cut off from the people whom it is meant to serve. The old draft kept the army connected to those people, if only because it had to train so many who did not want to be there and because they asked the question that all commanders dread: why are we doing this?