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<p>Is it just me or is there a smell of Vietnam in the desert air? Once again, in its haste to get its war on, the U.S. has gone into a foreign land, ignorant of its culture, believing that its technological might would lead to a swift victory, forgetting the force of nationalism when a people believe themselves to be invaded,</p>
<p>And the U.S. generals and politicians in charge pretend that all is going swimmingly and that the war will be over just as soon as the “coalition” forces get into downtown Baghdad and punish the enemy Big Time.</p>
<p>Does any of this sound familiar? How do you spell Q-U-A-G-M-I-R-E?</p>
<p>As we now know, the generals and policy advisors warned successive U.S. presidents not to get involved in Vietnam (see Daniel Ellsberg’s book, “Secrets”), but each President dismissed those inside experts and went ahead anyway, the result of which was the expension of our blood and treasure — an d our sense of ourselves as a moral nation — in an unwinnable war.</p>
<p>We know that the top echelons of our current military early on warned the Bush politicos and Mr. Bush himself not to launch this war on Iraq, absent an overt provocation and without a huge international coalition on board; the brass were warned by Rumsfeld to get in line with Bush policy or get another job. They got in line.</p>
<p>The policy behind the Iraq war comes mainly from chickenhawks — i.e., armchair soldiers who made sure they didn’t have to serve in Vietnam or any other wars. These Project for the New American Century ideologues were certain that the Iraqis would welcome the U.S. soldiers as liberators, they knew how weak Saddam’s regime was, they were sure they could roll the members of the U.N. Security Council into backing their fait accompli war, they knew Turkey would accept the bribe and come around, they knew everything. Infallible.</p>
<p>Bush, not having any ideas of his own, was a prime candidate for swallowing such malarkey and turning it into doctrine. And so, against the advice of everyone who should count in such things — former President Bush and his top security advisors; his own military brass; the Pope and other world religious leaders; his European allies; the Arab World, virtually unanimously; ten million citizens of various countries who took to the streets to denounce the planned invasion, and so on — Bush launched a “pre-emptive” war on Iraq, absent any provocation.</p>
<p>He wouldn’t need as big an invading force as many military leaders told him might come in handy. When the Iraqis see our might, and feel our bombs, are properly shocked and awed by our greatness, it’ll all be over before you can say “Halliburton contract.” So went the Bush mantra, and in the early days, Rumsfeld laid on the “inevitability” line big time. It’s all but over, they’ll see it momentarily and then we will have won, we will have “liberated” the Iraqi people.</p>
<p>Hasn’t worked out that way. The Iraqis will take U.S. food packages and water, and then denounce America as an infidel invader, the “Satan” that’s bombing their villages and cities, killing their citizens, trying to humiliate them in the world’s eyes.</p>
<p>Why did we expect otherwise? The Bush Administration — which wears blinders, just like successive administrations with regard to Vietnam, so that it will see only what it wants to see — accepted everything the Iraqi opposition-in-exile told them about what would happen once U.S. troops set foot on Iraqi soil. The people would rise up, throw off the Saddam shackles and place flowers at the feet of their American saviors.</p>
<p>It’s at least conceivable that something like that could have happened had the U.S. been lucky with its opening-night overture bombing and decapitated the entire Iraqi military/political leadership in one fell swoop. But without an instantaneous success, the U.S. found itself fighting in Saddam’s war-scenario rather than being fully able to carry out its own.</p>
<p>And now the “coalition” (mainly the U.S. and U.K., plus whatever others could be badgered and bullied and bribed into lending their names but no troops) is getting ready to enter Baghdad, for the jolly good fun of house-by-house, street-by-street fighting in territory known exclusively by their enemy.</p>
<p>It’s going to be a turkey shoot for the Iraqis as they ambush and booby trap and lead the U.S. troops down one blind alley after another, for months, perhaps for years. And you know what the response will be from the Superpower: more bombing from the air in an urban environment, civilian casualties galore, more sympathy for the Iraqis from the Arab world, less patience with the U.S. around the globe, a vision of the U.S. as a giant bully who just wants to beat up someone to demonstrate his authority.</p>
<p>Whenever things looked dark in Vietnam, the military would ask for another 100,000 troops. That’ll make us invulnerable, that’ll take care of those gooks. We’ll up the ante. More B-52 bombings, more napalm, more infantry, the boys’ll be home by Christmas.</p>
<p>Things are looking poorly along the road to Baghdad, so the call already is out: Another 100,000 troops already are on their way to Iraq. (And you can bet your bottom dollar that there are brass in the Pentagon thinking, but not yet saying: “We told you so, you dumb civilian a-holes!”)</p>
<p>Things have moved so quickly. The antiwar marches were drawing millions in this country and around the globe, and the fricking war hadn’t even started yet! And now that the war officially is on, conservative Foreign Service Officers are resigning, conservative Republican Party officials are resigning, Australian pilots are refusing their bomb-run orders — all because, in good conscience, they can’t condone what their government is asking them to do in this illegal and immoral war. That development took years and years to happen in Vietnam. And we’re just in the opening weeks of this war.</p>
<p>Will Bush&amp;Co. realize the truths they should have realized before they launched their invasion, and pack it in? Oh, terribly sorry, we made a bad mistake; rather than waste more of our precious youth and treasure on this sorry mess, we’re pulling out and going back to the United Nations for direction. Yeah, sure. It would take a government of great moral courage to do something like that — and, in case you haven’t noticed, that’s not who’s in charge these days.</p>
<p>No, too much is riding on this gigantic gamble for PNAC and the rest of Bush&amp;Co. In order to carry out its vision for the region, and the world — i.e., regional and world dominance, control of natural resources, being able to threaten and put down any would-be competitors (be they nation-states or international organizations) — Iraq has to fall. No ifs, ands or buts.</p>
<p>These guys will bankrupt the U.S. before they abandon their grandiose scheme, will send more and more young men and women to their deaths to get what they want. They want the world and they want it NOW, and nothing you or I say will deter them from their self-appointed rounds. God has anointed them, you see, and the geopolitical situation offers the opportunity — no other Superpower around to stop them — so get out of our way, damn it.</p>
<p>The idea that they can be defeated by non-superpowers — like the world’s citizens boycotting American goods, by millions of anti-war demonstrators leaning on their governments abroad to combat U.S. imperial ambitions, the beginning rumbles for impeachment, even (possibly) the United Nations stepping in to force their hand — simply hasn’t entered their craniums. Yet.</p>
<p>But they’d better start thinking such thoughts, because their crass arrogance, bullyboy behavior, and desperate flailing around militarily have energized the world against them, and are starting to make inroads even into the fearful American polity, who are starting to wonder whether these are the best leaders for our already scary times. (There are rumors circulating that the Bush Administration is examining options to call off the 2004 elections, to take care of that possibility outright. And, if not, to ensure that most of us vote by computer touch-screens, with no paper trail with which to double-check the results.)</p>
<p>In the meantime, prepare yourself for more bad news out of Iraq. The boys won’t be home anytime soon — even, or especially, if there’s a “victory.” The PNAC scenario, you see, calls for the U.S. to establish a major military base in Iraq, from which the next phase of the operation to control the Middle East region (“benevolently,” of course) will be run. Get ready to rumble.</p>
<p>BERNARD WEINER, a poet and playwright, was the San Francisco Chronicle’s theater critic/editor for 16 years; a Ph.D. in government &amp; international relations, he’s taught at various universities, and currently co-edits <a href="http://www.crisispapers.org/" type="external">The Crisis Papers</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | smell vietnam desert air haste get war us gone foreign land ignorant culture believing technological might would lead swift victory forgetting force nationalism people believe invaded us generals politicians charge pretend going swimmingly war soon coalition forces get downtown baghdad punish enemy big time sound familiar spell quagmire know generals policy advisors warned successive us presidents get involved vietnam see daniel ellsbergs book secrets president dismissed inside experts went ahead anyway result expension blood treasure sense moral nation unwinnable war know top echelons current military early warned bush politicos mr bush launch war iraq absent overt provocation without huge international coalition board brass warned rumsfeld get line bush policy get another job got line policy behind iraq war comes mainly chickenhawks ie armchair soldiers made sure didnt serve vietnam wars project new american century ideologues certain iraqis would welcome us soldiers liberators knew weak saddams regime sure could roll members un security council backing fait accompli war knew turkey would accept bribe come around knew everything infallible bush ideas prime candidate swallowing malarkey turning doctrine advice everyone count things former president bush top security advisors military brass pope world religious leaders european allies arab world virtually unanimously ten million citizens various countries took streets denounce planned invasion bush launched preemptive war iraq absent provocation wouldnt need big invading force many military leaders told might come handy iraqis see might feel bombs properly shocked awed greatness itll say halliburton contract went bush mantra early days rumsfeld laid inevitability line big time theyll see momentarily liberated iraqi people hasnt worked way iraqis take us food packages water denounce america infidel invader satan thats bombing villages cities killing citizens trying humiliate worlds eyes expect otherwise bush administration wears blinders like successive administrations regard vietnam see wants see accepted everything iraqi oppositioninexile told would happen us troops set foot iraqi soil people would rise throw saddam shackles place flowers feet american saviors least conceivable something like could happened us lucky openingnight overture bombing decapitated entire iraqi militarypolitical leadership one fell swoop without instantaneous success us found fighting saddams warscenario rather fully able carry coalition mainly us uk plus whatever others could badgered bullied bribed lending names troops getting ready enter baghdad jolly good fun housebyhouse streetbystreet fighting territory known exclusively enemy going turkey shoot iraqis ambush booby trap lead us troops one blind alley another months perhaps years know response superpower bombing air urban environment civilian casualties galore sympathy iraqis arab world less patience us around globe vision us giant bully wants beat someone demonstrate authority whenever things looked dark vietnam military would ask another 100000 troops thatll make us invulnerable thatll take care gooks well ante b52 bombings napalm infantry boysll home christmas things looking poorly along road baghdad call already another 100000 troops already way iraq bet bottom dollar brass pentagon thinking yet saying told dumb civilian aholes things moved quickly antiwar marches drawing millions country around globe fricking war hadnt even started yet war officially conservative foreign service officers resigning conservative republican party officials resigning australian pilots refusing bombrun orders good conscience cant condone government asking illegal immoral war development took years years happen vietnam opening weeks war bushampco realize truths realized launched invasion pack oh terribly sorry made bad mistake rather waste precious youth treasure sorry mess pulling going back united nations direction yeah sure would take government great moral courage something like case havent noticed thats whos charge days much riding gigantic gamble pnac rest bushampco order carry vision region world ie regional world dominance control natural resources able threaten put wouldbe competitors nationstates international organizations iraq fall ifs ands buts guys bankrupt us abandon grandiose scheme send young men women deaths get want want world want nothing say deter selfappointed rounds god anointed see geopolitical situation offers opportunity superpower around stop get way damn idea defeated nonsuperpowers like worlds citizens boycotting american goods millions antiwar demonstrators leaning governments abroad combat us imperial ambitions beginning rumbles impeachment even possibly united nations stepping force hand simply hasnt entered craniums yet theyd better start thinking thoughts crass arrogance bullyboy behavior desperate flailing around militarily energized world starting make inroads even fearful american polity starting wonder whether best leaders already scary times rumors circulating bush administration examining options call 2004 elections take care possibility outright ensure us vote computer touchscreens paper trail doublecheck results meantime prepare bad news iraq boys wont home anytime soon even especially theres victory pnac scenario see calls us establish major military base iraq next phase operation control middle east region benevolently course run get ready rumble bernard weiner poet playwright san francisco chronicles theater criticeditor 16 years phd government amp international relations hes taught various universities currently coedits crisis papers 160 160 | 785 |
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<p>A Democratic pushback to the $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan proposed by the Bush administration is underway. At a Senate banking committee hearing on Monday morning, Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat and self-described “dirt farmer” from Montana, asked Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke why members of Congress only had one week to determine whether to spend $700 billion or watch the financial system “go down the pipes?” In other words, why the rush? Bernanke said the bailout was necessary to prevent a shutdown in credit that would lead to more unemployment, more foreclosures, and an economic contraction. “Lenders have to be able to lend,” Paulson remarked.</p>
<p>But there are a lot of details in the plan to review and consider. And while the hearing was going on, over on the House side, a group of progressive- and populist-minded Democrats were trying to start a quasi-rebellion. On Monday afternoon, Representative Brad Sherman of California, who serves on the financial services committee, convened a meeting with eight other Democrats, and the group on Tuesday morning released a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioning whether the Paulson plan has to be approved by week’s end and demanding at least eleven major changes in the proposal.</p>
<p>Here’s that letter:</p>
<p>Dear Madame Speaker,</p>
<p>We are concerned about the Bailout Bill proposal submitted by the Administration. Some of us believe that the bill should be paid for by taxes on the top 1%, and/or should include transfer of equity interests in the bailed-out entities to the government. Some of us question whether a bill should be passed this week.</p>
<p>In any case, we believe the bill would be improved by the following:</p>
<p>1) Supervision. The Secretary of the Treasury shall not enter into any contract until it is approved by a bipartisan three-member Board. Before we pass the bill, Bush must unequivocally agree to appoint one person selected by the Speaker and one selected by the Senate Majority Leader to the three-member Board. Asset purchase agreements of less than $1 billion and service contracts providing for fees of less than $10 million are exempt from this requirement.</p>
<p>2) Phased Authorization. Congress should authorize only $200 billion now, while committing itself to pass additional authorizations in the future, as necessary, up to $700 billion. This would give Congress the ability to monitor and improve the program. Otherwise, once Bush gets the $700 billion, he will veto further Congressional fine-tuning.</p>
<p>3) Fast track for Regulatory &amp; Corporate Governance Reform. Throughout the 111th Congress, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, shall have the extraordinary powers to call up any bill dealing with corporate governance and/or financial services reform under the following rules: the bill shall be subject to limited debate, followed by an up or down vote. If the bill does not include this provision, next year Wall Street can hire 4100 lobbyists to persuade 41 senators to delay any reform bill until it is diluted.</p>
<p>4) US Investors Only. No mortgage-related asset shall be purchased under the bill unless it is established that such asset was owned on September 20th, 2008, by an entity headquartered in the United States. (We have no collective position on whether a U.S. entity should be disqualified because it is owned by a foreign parent.)</p>
<p>5) Obligation to invest in the United States. Any entity selling assets under this bill to the United States must agree to invest the proceeds of such sale in the United States for no less than five years.</p>
<p>6) Tough Standards on Executive Compensation. As to any entity (or affiliate thereof) selling assets to the Treasury, any executive compensation contract calling for compensation in excess of the amounts which are deductible under Internal Revenue Code Section 162(m) is hereby void as against public policy.</p>
<p>7) Homeowner’s States Rights Not Preempted. The federal government shall comply with all state and local laws which protect the homeowner, not withstanding any argument that the federal government is exempt [from] the reform.</p>
<p>8) Reports to Congress. The reports to Congress required by Section 4 of the Paulson Act shall be rendered every 2 weeks.</p>
<p>9) Minority and small business contractors; Buy American. At least 10% (in dollar volume) of the asset management contracts and advisor contracts must be small enough that a firm of 100 or fewer staff could perform the contract. Otherwise, minority and small business will be effectively excluded. In contracting with private entities for services regarding the acquisition and management of mortgage-related assets, the Secretary of the Treasury shall be bound by all applicable laws designed to benefit minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, and small businesses and shall be bound by all applicable “Buy American” provisions.</p>
<p>10) Review. Section 8 of Secretary Paulson’s proposal should be deleted. The actions by the Secretary shall be reviewable by administrative agencies and the courts, as provided by existing law.</p>
<p>11) Valuation. The Treasury shall not pay more for any asset than the asset’s fair market value.</p>
<p>We believe the bill should also include appropriate homeowner protection/bankruptcy reform, and appropriate economic stimulus.</p>
<p>Some of us also support a surtax on excessive compensation received by executives of bailed-out entities.</p>
<p>Nine members is not a lot in the House of Representatives. (In addition to Sherman the group includes Representatives Peter DeFazio, Lloyd Doggett, Donna Edwards, Bob Filner, Rush Holt, Mike McIntyre, Bobby Scott, and Donna Christensen.) Sherman says he is seeking more members to sign on to the letter to Pelosi. So the question is, how far does the skepticism extend within the Democratic caucus? Will it catch fire and spread? There’s no major revolt yet. But that doesn’t mean one is not brewing. After all, some conservative Republican representatives and senators are also complaining about the bailout.</p>
<p>Paulson and the Bush administration are looking for a quick sell of the plan. But the bailout is not yet a done deal. And the brush on Capitol Hill is quite dry.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | democratic pushback 700 billion wall street bailout plan proposed bush administration underway senate banking committee hearing monday morning senator jon tester democrat selfdescribed dirt farmer montana asked treasury secretary hank paulson federal reserve chief ben bernanke members congress one week determine whether spend 700 billion watch financial system go pipes words rush bernanke said bailout necessary prevent shutdown credit would lead unemployment foreclosures economic contraction lenders able lend paulson remarked lot details plan review consider hearing going house side group progressive populistminded democrats trying start quasirebellion monday afternoon representative brad sherman california serves financial services committee convened meeting eight democrats group tuesday morning released letter house speaker nancy pelosi questioning whether paulson plan approved weeks end demanding least eleven major changes proposal heres letter dear madame speaker concerned bailout bill proposal submitted administration us believe bill paid taxes top 1 andor include transfer equity interests bailedout entities government us question whether bill passed week case believe bill would improved following 1 supervision secretary treasury shall enter contract approved bipartisan threemember board pass bill bush must unequivocally agree appoint one person selected speaker one selected senate majority leader threemember board asset purchase agreements less 1 billion service contracts providing fees less 10 million exempt requirement 2 phased authorization congress authorize 200 billion committing pass additional authorizations future necessary 700 billion would give congress ability monitor improve program otherwise bush gets 700 billion veto congressional finetuning 3 fast track regulatory amp corporate governance reform throughout 111th congress speaker house representatives majority leader united states senate shall extraordinary powers call bill dealing corporate governance andor financial services reform following rules bill shall subject limited debate followed vote bill include provision next year wall street hire 4100 lobbyists persuade 41 senators delay reform bill diluted 4 us investors mortgagerelated asset shall purchased bill unless established asset owned september 20th 2008 entity headquartered united states collective position whether us entity disqualified owned foreign parent 5 obligation invest united states entity selling assets bill united states must agree invest proceeds sale united states less five years 6 tough standards executive compensation entity affiliate thereof selling assets treasury executive compensation contract calling compensation excess amounts deductible internal revenue code section 162m hereby void public policy 7 homeowners states rights preempted federal government shall comply state local laws protect homeowner withstanding argument federal government exempt reform 8 reports congress reports congress required section 4 paulson act shall rendered every 2 weeks 9 minority small business contractors buy american least 10 dollar volume asset management contracts advisor contracts must small enough firm 100 fewer staff could perform contract otherwise minority small business effectively excluded contracting private entities services regarding acquisition management mortgagerelated assets secretary treasury shall bound applicable laws designed benefit minorityowned businesses womenowned businesses small businesses shall bound applicable buy american provisions 10 review section 8 secretary paulsons proposal deleted actions secretary shall reviewable administrative agencies courts provided existing law 11 valuation treasury shall pay asset assets fair market value believe bill also include appropriate homeowner protectionbankruptcy reform appropriate economic stimulus us also support surtax excessive compensation received executives bailedout entities nine members lot house representatives addition sherman group includes representatives peter defazio lloyd doggett donna edwards bob filner rush holt mike mcintyre bobby scott donna christensen sherman says seeking members sign letter pelosi question far skepticism extend within democratic caucus catch fire spread theres major revolt yet doesnt mean one brewing conservative republican representatives senators also complaining bailout paulson bush administration looking quick sell plan bailout yet done deal brush capitol hill quite dry | 587 |
<p>Photo by Kate Ausburn | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p>As if he has, overnight, been transformed into a master politician, Donald Trump’s 27-hour trip to Israel has left many analysts mystified.</p>
<p>Quoting former Israeli political adviser, Mitchell Barack, the New York Times <a href="" type="internal">referred to Trump</a> as the ‘Liberace of world leaders”, in reference to flamboyant, piano player, Wladziu Valantino Liberace. The latter, known as “Mr. Showmanship”, was, at times, the highest paid entertainer in the world and his successful career lasted over four decades.</p>
<p>New York Magazine Online quoted former US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, too, trying to decipher the supposedly complicated persona of Trump.</p>
<p>“Either Trump’s visit was substance-free — or he ‘is being uncharacteristically subtle’ in planting the seeds for new round of peace negotiations,” <a href="" type="internal">NYmag quoted</a> and paraphrased Shapiro’s tweets.</p>
<p>‘Liberal’ US media, which has stooped to many lows in its attacks on Trump – including his family, his mannerism, his choice of words, even mere body language – became much more sober and quite respectful in the way they attempted to analyze his short trip to Israel, and the very <a href="" type="internal">brief detour</a> to Bethlehem, where he met with Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas.</p>
<p>“Mr. Trump’s speech at the Israeli Museum was so friendly and considerate of Israeli emotions,” <a href="" type="internal">reported the New Your Times</a>, “that one right-wing Israeli legislator described it as deeply expressive of the ‘Zionist narrative.’”</p>
<p>Palestinian emotions, however, were of no consequence, neither to the Trump entourage, nor, of course, to the New York Times or others in mainstream media.</p>
<p>The Washington Post, on the other hand, still found faults, but, certainly not because of Trump’s lack of balance and his failure to deride the Israeli Occupation and Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that Trump has, indeed, fully embraced a ‘Zionist narrative’, and a rightwing version of it (for example, he made no reference to a Palestinian state), he still fell short. His performance at Israel’s national Holocaust Memorial (Yad Vashem) <a href="" type="internal">did not impress</a>.</p>
<p>Max Bearak wrote in the Post: “Trump’s entry in the guest book at Israel’s National Holocaust Memorial was strangely upbeat, self-referential and written in his signature all caps: ‘IT IS A GREAT HONOR TO BE HERE WITH ALL OF MY FRIENDS — SO AMAZING &amp; WILL NEVER FORGET!’”</p>
<p>Bearak found such choice of words and the style in which it was written sort of offensive, especially if compared with the supposed thoughtfulness of former President Barack Obama.</p>
<p>In contrast, Obama wrote a significantly longer note, which partly read: “At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man’s potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world.”</p>
<p>Neither then, nor now, did the Washington Post bother to examine the historical context in which this particular sentence was written and find the hypocrisy of the whole endeavor.</p>
<p>If they bothered to ask Palestinians, they would have found a whole different interpretation of Obama’s words.</p>
<p>Indeed, wherever occupied Palestinians look, they find “man’s potential for great evil”: a 400-mile Israeli Wall being mostly built over their land; hundreds of military checkpoints dotting their landscape; a suffocating military occupation, controlling every aspect of their lives. They see the holiest of their cities, Bethlehem and Al-Quds – Occupied East Jerusalem – subdued by a massive military force; thousands of their leaders thrown into prison, many without charge or trial. They see siege; an endless war; daily deaths and senseless destruction.</p>
<p>But since none of this matters to the ‘Zionist narrative’, it subsequently matters so very little to mainstream American media, as well.</p>
<p>Trump’s trip to Israel, however short, was, indeed, a master stroke by the ever-unpredictable Liberace of world politics, although, it takes no particular genius to figure out why.</p>
<p>From an American mainstream media perspective, to be judged “presidential” enough, all US presidents would have to commit to three main policies. They are, in no particular order: privileging the economic business elites, war at will and unconditionally supporting Israel.</p>
<p>So far, US media, which has been otherwise polarized based on political allegiances, has taken a break from its raging conflict over Trump’s presidency, and rallied behind him on two separate occasions: when he randomly <a href="" type="internal">bombed Syria</a> and during his visit to Israel.</p>
<p>Ironically, the man has been often judged for lacking substance on numerous occasions in the past. In fact, his trip to Israel was the most lacking and most divisive. However, the fact that he, time and again, reiterated Israeli priorities was all that the media needed to give the man a chance. Their collective verdict seems to rebrand his lack of substance as his unique ‘subtle’ way of making politics.</p>
<p>Israeli media, which is often more critical of the Israeli government than US media ever dare, needed to keep up with its ‘democratic’ tradition. But Trump’s groveling also gave them little room for criticism. The often-impulsive Trump, this time stuck to the script and followed his repeatedly rehearsed speech and media comments to the letter.</p>
<p>But Josefin Dolsten insisted on finding a way to nitpick, composing for the <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/7-awkward-moments-from-trumps-israel-trip/" type="external">Times of Israel</a> the “7 awkward moments from Trump’s Israel trip.”</p>
<p>One of these awkward moments, Dolsten wrote was “a White House statement listing Trump’s goals for the trip included a hilarious (and juicy!) typo: ‘Promote the possibility of lasting peach’ between Israel and the Palestinians. Yes, we get it — it meant to say peace, but who’s to say the two sides can’t bond over some delicious fruit?”</p>
<p>For Palestinians, it must not be easy to find the humor in these tough times. Hundreds of their prisoners, including their most popular leader, Marwan Barghouti, were enduring a prolonged and life-threatening <a href="" type="internal">hunger strike</a> in which they were making the most basic demands for better treatment, longer visitation hours with their families and ending of arbitrary detentions.</p>
<p>More telling, on the day Trump, along with rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lectured Palestinians on peace, a 17-year-old Tuqua Hammad was shot for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli military vehicles at the entrance of her village of Silwad, near Ramallah.</p>
<p>Tuqua “was shot in the lower extremities and Israeli troops prevented a Palestinian ambulance from accessing the victim to treat her,” <a href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/17-year-old-girl-shot-by-israelis-in-west-bank/" type="external">Ma’an news agency reported</a>.</p>
<p>Merely a few miles away, Trump was writing his remarks after visiting Israel’s Holocaust Museum. Regrettably, he failed to meet the expectations of the Washington Post, for unlike Obama, he was not poignant enough in his language and style.</p>
<p>The irony of the whole story is inescapable; but American media cannot see this, for it, too, seems to follow a script, in which Palestinian rights, dignity and freedom are hardly never mentioned.</p> | true | 4 | photo kate ausburn cc 20 overnight transformed master politician donald trumps 27hour trip israel left many analysts mystified quoting former israeli political adviser mitchell barack new york times referred trump liberace world leaders reference flamboyant piano player wladziu valantino liberace latter known mr showmanship times highest paid entertainer world successful career lasted four decades new york magazine online quoted former us ambassador israel dan shapiro trying decipher supposedly complicated persona trump either trumps visit substancefree uncharacteristically subtle planting seeds new round peace negotiations nymag quoted paraphrased shapiros tweets liberal us media stooped many lows attacks trump including family mannerism choice words even mere body language became much sober quite respectful way attempted analyze short trip israel brief detour bethlehem met palestinian authority leader mahmoud abbas mr trumps speech israeli museum friendly considerate israeli emotions reported new times one rightwing israeli legislator described deeply expressive zionist narrative palestinian emotions however consequence neither trump entourage course new york times others mainstream media washington post hand still found faults certainly trumps lack balance failure deride israeli occupation israels mistreatment palestinians despite fact trump indeed fully embraced zionist narrative rightwing version example made reference palestinian state still fell short performance israels national holocaust memorial yad vashem impress max bearak wrote post trumps entry guest book israels national holocaust memorial strangely upbeat selfreferential written signature caps great honor friends amazing amp never forget bearak found choice words style written sort offensive especially compared supposed thoughtfulness former president barack obama contrast obama wrote significantly longer note partly read time great peril promise war strife blessed powerful reminder mans potential great evil also capacity rise tragedy remake world neither washington post bother examine historical context particular sentence written find hypocrisy whole endeavor bothered ask palestinians would found whole different interpretation obamas words indeed wherever occupied palestinians look find mans potential great evil 400mile israeli wall mostly built land hundreds military checkpoints dotting landscape suffocating military occupation controlling every aspect lives see holiest cities bethlehem alquds occupied east jerusalem subdued massive military force thousands leaders thrown prison many without charge trial see siege endless war daily deaths senseless destruction since none matters zionist narrative subsequently matters little mainstream american media well trumps trip israel however short indeed master stroke everunpredictable liberace world politics although takes particular genius figure american mainstream media perspective judged presidential enough us presidents would commit three main policies particular order privileging economic business elites war unconditionally supporting israel far us media otherwise polarized based political allegiances taken break raging conflict trumps presidency rallied behind two separate occasions randomly bombed syria visit israel ironically man often judged lacking substance numerous occasions past fact trip israel lacking divisive however fact time reiterated israeli priorities media needed give man chance collective verdict seems rebrand lack substance unique subtle way making politics israeli media often critical israeli government us media ever dare needed keep democratic tradition trumps groveling also gave little room criticism oftenimpulsive trump time stuck script followed repeatedly rehearsed speech media comments letter josefin dolsten insisted finding way nitpick composing times israel 7 awkward moments trumps israel trip one awkward moments dolsten wrote white house statement listing trumps goals trip included hilarious juicy typo promote possibility lasting peach israel palestinians yes get meant say peace whos say two sides cant bond delicious fruit palestinians must easy find humor tough times hundreds prisoners including popular leader marwan barghouti enduring prolonged lifethreatening hunger strike making basic demands better treatment longer visitation hours families ending arbitrary detentions telling day trump along rightwing israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu lectured palestinians peace 17yearold tuqua hammad shot allegedly throwing stones israeli military vehicles entrance village silwad near ramallah tuqua shot lower extremities israeli troops prevented palestinian ambulance accessing victim treat maan news agency reported merely miles away trump writing remarks visiting israels holocaust museum regrettably failed meet expectations washington post unlike obama poignant enough language style irony whole story inescapable american media see seems follow script palestinian rights dignity freedom hardly never mentioned | 661 |
<p>The Sept. 30 attempted coup in Ecuador that killed three and held the elected president hostage serves as a warning. Democratic transitions remain fragile and incomplete in Latin America and some of the boldest moves away from colonialism and toward inclusive societies are being met with reactionary force. As the Ecuadorean police uprising shows, nations could lose the important gains that have been made over the past decades.</p>
<p>Facts support the thesis that what happened Sept. 30 was a coup attempt–albeit a clumsy and poorly planned one. The police rose up in arms not only in the capital city of Quito, but also simultaneously in departments throughout the country. President Rafael Correa was held captive until national security forces were forced to stage a military operation to free him. Correa was physically attacked and his supporters were fired on with tear gas and rubber bullets. He later stated that the armored car he rode in during his rescue was riddled with bullet holes.</p>
<p>In a special session of the Organization of American States (OAS), members unanimously resolved to support President Correa and Ecuadorean democracy. An OAS press release on Sept. 30 called on governments to “stop the coup d’état from becoming a reality”. UNASUR and nations throughout the region also immediately issued statements denouncing the coup attempt.</p>
<p>The U.S. State Department issued a statement saying, “The United States deplores violence and lawlessness and we express our full support for President Rafael Correa, and the institutions of democratic government in that country.” Although the State Department fell short of calling it a coup, spokesperson P.J. Crowley noted that “to some extent, [it] did represent a challenge to the government.”</p>
<p>After order was restored, the OAS praised “the civic demonstration by the Ecuadorean people who peacefully and en masse rejected the coup d’état, which constitutes an example to all of us of how all democrats are compelled to defend democracy with all our strength.”</p>
<p>The international right and much of the mainstream media have opposed any characterization of the Sept. 30 events as an attempted coup, to avoid associating the rightwing with the bungled attack on democracy and to deny Correa the hero aura of a coup survivor. A Washington Post editorial on October 20 even went so far as to trivialize the kidnapping of the president and the violent deaths, calling the day-long confrontation a “dust-up” with police.</p>
<p>But precise definitions are important. When the Obama administration waffled on naming the Honduran coup d’état that took place on June 28, 2009, at first it seemed like a question of semantics. In the end, that deliberate lack of definition made it possible to avoid strong actions in Congress and block restoring President Manuel Zelaya–another ALBA member– to office. The success of the Honduran coup, first in remaining in power and then in staging elections for its successor, set a dangerous precedent. Many Latin American leaders warned that it could encourage other attacks on democracy in the region. The Ecuadorean coup attempt confirms those fears.</p>
<p>Thankfully, President Correa has returned to office and his government has initiated investigations and prosecution of those responsible. As things calm down in Ecuador, some lessons emerge for the Andean nation and for the U.S. government, which, for better or worse– and usually the latter–considers itself the umpire of democracy in the region.</p>
<p>Inside Ecuador, the coup attempt revealed the strength and desperation of economic elites living under progressive governments–the source of the Latin American backlash. But it also exposed a complex set of divisions and tangled power lines. According to a Gallup poll in 2010, President Correa enjoys a 63% approval rating among the population, but that number hides the strength of growing opposition from the left and the right.</p>
<p>For the right, the new Ecuadorean Constitution that recognizes a plurinational state and rights of nature, strikes a blow to the heart of their model of economic integration that would open up the world and all its resources to transnational exploitation. In principle, indigenous peoples are given a say in resource use in their territories.</p>
<p>The Correa government has also made some bold moves to cut back on the looting of Ecuador’s natural resources and the environmental destruction of the past. The historic decision to ban oil exploration and exploitation in the Amazonian Yasuni National Park that recently received the support of the United Nations put billions of dollars in oil reserves outside the grasp of oil companies. Ecuador proposed to protect the park and called for compensation from the international community to keep the oil in the ground. In many ways, the example set by the Yasuni plan presents even more of a threat to Big Oil and fossil-fuel consumer societies than the plan itself.</p>
<p>Moves to regulate and tax foreign exploitation of natural resources, to default on billions of dollars in foreign debt ruled illegitimate, to prohibit the presence of foreign armies (after closing the U.S. Manta base), and to ally with the Venezuela-led ALBA group challenge neoliberal free trade and investment regimes and the ability to control access to natural resources through military power. These moves have galvanized opposition to the Correa government among powerful national and international economic elite and sectors of the U.S. government, especially the Pentagon.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the broad-based indigenous organizations that helped bring Correa to power have become increasingly disillusioned with his presidency. They charge that the rush to promote mining, oil and agrobusiness ventures violates the new Constitution and the indigenous rights he promised to fight for. Although Correa has required companies to pay a larger share of profits to the government as mentioned above, he promoted the extractive model of national development that encroaches on indigenous lands and rights and has led to massive environmental destruction.</p>
<p>The well-founded criticisms of the indigenous organizations provoked unfounded accusations that they were involved in or supported the coup attempt against Correa. The indigenous ECUARUNARI spelled out its position of neither relinquishing its demands on the government nor supporting rightwing efforts to overthrow it.</p>
<p>“We have no doubt that this political crisis is a right-wing reaction against the 2008 Constitution, adopted by the affirmative vote of 64% of Ecuadorians, and is therefore a clear threat to democracy, Plurinationalism, and the Sumak Kawsay (living well).</p>
<p>“The vast majority of popular organizations that resist dictatorships and neoliberal policies of the pro-imperialist Ecuadorean oligarchies, in spite of having deep disagreements with the national government and several of our leaders prosecuted under the charge of “terrorists”, say this is no reason to place ourselves on the side of our historic enemies. Behind the police protest and their wage demands lies the intent to annul the Constitution in which we achieved recognition of many of our proposals and historic struggles…”</p>
<p>The ECUARUNARI statement claims that Correa’s concessions to the right and business interests are in part responsible for the coup attempt. It calls for a “great plurinational dialogue” to build national consensus. Organizations including the CONAIE noted that the divisions that have grown up between the president and his former base among grassroots organizations emboldened the right to make the Sept. 30 attempt on his government. In Ecuador, one lesson that grassroots organizations hope will come of this is that Correa will reach out to his base and enter into dialogue, eschewing what many have called an increasingly authoritarian style.</p>
<p>ECUARUNARI ends by saying “We have suffered too much from dictatorships. Honduras is a fresh wound. Not one more dictatorship in Latin America.”</p>
<p>Their conclusion brings the discussion back around to broader issues of democracy and the U.S. role in the region.</p>
<p>U.S. government actions allowed the Honduran coup to stand after condemning it, and subsequently assisted in installing its successor. As the OAS still refuses to recognize the Lobo government, the State Department is actively pursuing reinstatement of Honduras with no efforts to condemn the on-going human right violations. Recently Congressman Sam Farr and 29 other members of Congress circulated a “Dear Colleagues” letter calling for suspension of aid to Honduras and not to reinstate the country in the OAS pending a human rights investigation and an end to impunity for crimes committed during and after the coup. So far, the State Department has not indicated its intention to heed the call.</p>
<p>In Haiti, the Obama administration is supporting elections that exclude powerful opposition parties, including the country’s most popular political party, Famni Lavalas. Members of Congress have called on the State Department to reconsider its position. Elections that do not allow opposition parties to participate would be a far cry from a real exercise of democracy and would undermine reconstruction efforts.</p>
<p>Although members of the Correa government have stated that they do not believe the Obama administration was directly involved, they have expressed suspicions that rightwing forces in the U.S. played a role. Also, the U.S. government was actively involved in training the anti-narcotics unit and many of the police units that participated in the coup attempt, raising questions about the political content of that training.</p>
<p>This is good opportunity to review military and police training programs and the so-called “democracy promotion” programs that have so often been implicated in meddling in the affairs of foreign countries and encouraging opposition to governments deemed unfavorable to U.S. interests. There must be greater transparency and close citizen and Congressional oversight, leading to the elimination or re-orientation of these programs.</p>
<p>Ecuador now must recover from the coup attempt and deal with its own challenges. Meanwhile, U.S. citizens and their government must reaffirm a commitment to support democracy in Latin America, without politically motivated exceptions or hidden agendas.</p>
<p>LAURA CARLSEN is director of the Americas Policy Program in Mexico City. She can be reached at: (lcarlsen(a)ciponline.org).</p> | true | 4 | sept 30 attempted coup ecuador killed three held elected president hostage serves warning democratic transitions remain fragile incomplete latin america boldest moves away colonialism toward inclusive societies met reactionary force ecuadorean police uprising shows nations could lose important gains made past decades facts support thesis happened sept 30 coup attemptalbeit clumsy poorly planned one police rose arms capital city quito also simultaneously departments throughout country president rafael correa held captive national security forces forced stage military operation free correa physically attacked supporters fired tear gas rubber bullets later stated armored car rode rescue riddled bullet holes special session organization american states oas members unanimously resolved support president correa ecuadorean democracy oas press release sept 30 called governments stop coup détat becoming reality unasur nations throughout region also immediately issued statements denouncing coup attempt us state department issued statement saying united states deplores violence lawlessness express full support president rafael correa institutions democratic government country although state department fell short calling coup spokesperson pj crowley noted extent represent challenge government order restored oas praised civic demonstration ecuadorean people peacefully en masse rejected coup détat constitutes example us democrats compelled defend democracy strength international right much mainstream media opposed characterization sept 30 events attempted coup avoid associating rightwing bungled attack democracy deny correa hero aura coup survivor washington post editorial october 20 even went far trivialize kidnapping president violent deaths calling daylong confrontation dustup police precise definitions important obama administration waffled naming honduran coup détat took place june 28 2009 first seemed like question semantics end deliberate lack definition made possible avoid strong actions congress block restoring president manuel zelayaanother alba member office success honduran coup first remaining power staging elections successor set dangerous precedent many latin american leaders warned could encourage attacks democracy region ecuadorean coup attempt confirms fears thankfully president correa returned office government initiated investigations prosecution responsible things calm ecuador lessons emerge andean nation us government better worse usually latterconsiders umpire democracy region inside ecuador coup attempt revealed strength desperation economic elites living progressive governmentsthe source latin american backlash also exposed complex set divisions tangled power lines according gallup poll 2010 president correa enjoys 63 approval rating among population number hides strength growing opposition left right right new ecuadorean constitution recognizes plurinational state rights nature strikes blow heart model economic integration would open world resources transnational exploitation principle indigenous peoples given say resource use territories correa government also made bold moves cut back looting ecuadors natural resources environmental destruction past historic decision ban oil exploration exploitation amazonian yasuni national park recently received support united nations put billions dollars oil reserves outside grasp oil companies ecuador proposed protect park called compensation international community keep oil ground many ways example set yasuni plan presents even threat big oil fossilfuel consumer societies plan moves regulate tax foreign exploitation natural resources default billions dollars foreign debt ruled illegitimate prohibit presence foreign armies closing us manta base ally venezuelaled alba group challenge neoliberal free trade investment regimes ability control access natural resources military power moves galvanized opposition correa government among powerful national international economic elite sectors us government especially pentagon hand broadbased indigenous organizations helped bring correa power become increasingly disillusioned presidency charge rush promote mining oil agrobusiness ventures violates new constitution indigenous rights promised fight although correa required companies pay larger share profits government mentioned promoted extractive model national development encroaches indigenous lands rights led massive environmental destruction wellfounded criticisms indigenous organizations provoked unfounded accusations involved supported coup attempt correa indigenous ecuarunari spelled position neither relinquishing demands government supporting rightwing efforts overthrow doubt political crisis rightwing reaction 2008 constitution adopted affirmative vote 64 ecuadorians therefore clear threat democracy plurinationalism sumak kawsay living well vast majority popular organizations resist dictatorships neoliberal policies proimperialist ecuadorean oligarchies spite deep disagreements national government several leaders prosecuted charge terrorists say reason place side historic enemies behind police protest wage demands lies intent annul constitution achieved recognition many proposals historic struggles ecuarunari statement claims correas concessions right business interests part responsible coup attempt calls great plurinational dialogue build national consensus organizations including conaie noted divisions grown president former base among grassroots organizations emboldened right make sept 30 attempt government ecuador one lesson grassroots organizations hope come correa reach base enter dialogue eschewing many called increasingly authoritarian style ecuarunari ends saying suffered much dictatorships honduras fresh wound one dictatorship latin america conclusion brings discussion back around broader issues democracy us role region us government actions allowed honduran coup stand condemning subsequently assisted installing successor oas still refuses recognize lobo government state department actively pursuing reinstatement honduras efforts condemn ongoing human right violations recently congressman sam farr 29 members congress circulated dear colleagues letter calling suspension aid honduras reinstate country oas pending human rights investigation end impunity crimes committed coup far state department indicated intention heed call haiti obama administration supporting elections exclude powerful opposition parties including countrys popular political party famni lavalas members congress called state department reconsider position elections allow opposition parties participate would far cry real exercise democracy would undermine reconstruction efforts although members correa government stated believe obama administration directly involved expressed suspicions rightwing forces us played role also us government actively involved training antinarcotics unit many police units participated coup attempt raising questions political content training good opportunity review military police training programs socalled democracy promotion programs often implicated meddling affairs foreign countries encouraging opposition governments deemed unfavorable us interests must greater transparency close citizen congressional oversight leading elimination reorientation programs ecuador must recover coup attempt deal challenges meanwhile us citizens government must reaffirm commitment support democracy latin america without politically motivated exceptions hidden agendas laura carlsen director americas policy program mexico city reached lcarlsenaciponlineorg | 939 |
<p>Long gone, says <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-professors-we-need-you.html?smid=tw-share&amp;_r=2" type="external">Nicholas Kristof</a>, are the days of academics making a difference in the public sphere. Today’s scholars are either pigeonholed into jargon-heavy and paywall-protected academic journals, or their politics are too radically left to hold a viable position in mainstream discourse.</p>
<p>In a rebuttal, <a href="http://coreyrobin.com/2014/02/16/look-who-nick-kristofs-saving-now/" type="external">Corey Robin points</a>&#160;to the many academics and intellectuals who do indeed have a presence in the public sphere, and who are using online criticism as their modus operandi. Contemporary academics (and younger scholars especially) are now publishing in an array of online magazines and blogs and are being taken seriously.</p>
<p>Robin depicts the authors of new media as brave interlocutors, taking career risks by spending their precious time writing for widely-accessible venues. And, he notes, making one’s voice heard is more feasible now than in generations past, since interfaces like Tumblr and Twitter offer unique “baby steps” to making it into more well-known outlets.</p>
<p>I share Robin’s admiration of the growing cadre of young scholars and writers, who are indeed taking big risks. These writers may be offering cutting-edge ideas that have yet to see the light (or dark) of the peer-review process, and they are putting themselves within arm’s reach of the biting criticism of internet trolls. At more conservative institutions, providing any hint of left-leaning political analysis, even on the web, can <a href="https://chronicle.com/article/We-Have-to-Protect-Ourselves/144775/" type="external">jeopardize one’s career</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, I want to hold Robin accountable to his desire for a “materialist analysis of the relationship between politics, economics, and culture.” He nods in this direction, describing in sober terms how in the current economic climate, not all young scholars, especially adjuncts, have the time or the means to participate in this new sphere of debate.</p>
<p>However, I think he wrongly characterizes the conditions under which many of these young academics are writing. The risk of being a public intellectual, he posits, comes from the fact that these scholars are taking time away from their academic writing. He asks, “Are future employers going to take a pass on them simply because they’ve written as brilliantly and edgily as they have?”</p>
<p>In many cases, writing for popular online outlets will do less to undermine the writer’s credentials than to prove that they are committed to the intellectual project and productive enough to communicate their research findings to a wider audience. This in itself is not inherently bad. Certainly, the findings produced by academics should be shared with and held accountable by people beyond the formal classroom.</p>
<p>The problem is that Robin goes on to romanticize the lives of young scholar-writers, saying that their work arises from intrinsic desires, whose realization is made possible by new technology: “they’re more used to writing for public audiences — and are thus better equipped to communicate ideas in intelligible, stylish prose — than we were.”</p>
<p>In my own experience as a PhD student, and from talking with other early-career academics, I have found that writing for popular audiences is not solely an internal passion, but has actually become an external demand of young scholars, another metric by which their job application or tenure-file is evaluated. <a href="http://theprofessorisin.com/2012/02/07/the-ins-and-outs-of-a-professional-academic-website-guest-post-2/" type="external">Advice columns</a> across the web tell budding intellectuals that to get ahead, they must make a name for themselves early on by networking, “ <a href="http://www.nextscientist.com/graduate-school-advice-series-starting-phd/" type="external">pimping their online profile</a>,” and making themselves relevant even beyond the bounds of higher education.</p>
<p>The workload of academics has <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/Op-Ed/2013/09/18/Death-of-an-adjunct/stories/201309180224" type="external">increased exponentially</a> in recent years, as has been well-documented. A generation ago, most PhD students would have never dreamed of publishing an academic article before taking their qualifying exams; it is now not only not uncommon, but often expected that graduate students will publish before they’ve formally proven themselves as “experts” in their fields. The mantra of “publishing early and often” has intensified, especially in a tight job market. As tenured horizons grow grimmer, new scholars must do anything they can to stand out above a crowd of over-achievers. Publish early, publish often — and now, publish online.</p>
<p>The swelling workloads of academics are indicative of the micropolitics of neoliberalism. Michel Foucault used the term homo economicus to describe the ways in which large swaths of the population — and here we can include academics — have internalized the demands of the market, in essence becoming “an entrepreneur of [themselves].”</p>
<p>In this sense, every personal development is also an investment in one’s self, something to be capitalized on. Young scholars are compelled to transform themselves into academic entrepreneurs, creating a brand that they promote through their blogs, tweets, and online profiles.</p>
<p>Consider the website Academia.edu, which allows academics to create personal pages, connect with and follow other scholars, and post their articles online, potentially making their research available to the general public. This is a dream for anyone who wants to create horizontal access to information. But the site also exemplifies the quantification of the productive self, with each profile displaying the number of views, article downloads, and followers for each academic. Sites like this simultaneously serve as mechanisms to democratize knowledge and treat scholarship as a commodity to be marketed.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder that I’ve also seen a growing number of colleagues (myself included) add a “Public Scholarship” section to their CVs. For many people, the promise of sharing their findings is why they went into academia: they thought they could spend their days thinking through some of society’s most pressing problems and, perhaps naively, to try to change the world. But if they have any hope of getting a job, <a href="" type="internal">they must put a dollar sign on those desires</a>, molding their activism to fit the job market and letting the job market shape their activism.</p>
<p>Academia therefore embodies and reproduces the characteristics of capitalism that it often critiques. The labor of public intellectualism is more than a political project, or even a charitable effort of self-expression — it’s another manifestation of exploitation. Young academics work themselves to the ground because they are taught to treat their scholarship as a direct extension of their personal identities. This makes examining academia as a site of labor that much more difficult, since it also means critiquing the same projects that scholars dedicate so much of their lives to.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://fromphdtolife.com/2013/04/05/transition-q-a-sarah-kendzior/" type="external">Sarah Kendzior</a> puts it, “The most unnerving thing I see in the job market nowadays — academic or otherwise — is people working in terrible conditions in the hope of a future that never comes.” As a result, young academics trying to keep up with new media are writing, reading blogs and engaging in Twitter wars during lunch breaks, between teaching commitments, and well into the night. <a href="http://threadandcircuits.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/against-efficiency-machines/" type="external">Mimi Thi Nguyen</a>, drawing on Johnathan Crary’s <a href="http://www.versobooks.com/books/1429-24-7" type="external">frightening treatise</a> on time-use under late capitalism, deftly notes, “Such consumption then acclimates all our activities — eating, reading, and other stolen moments for leisure — as imminent and immaterial labor.” To meet the demands of academic capitalism, there’s now even less of a chance of ever clocking out.</p>
<p>The burdens on young scholars in many ways mirror what is happening to most other precarious workers who are trying to climb an increasingly steep career ladder. Across sectors, jobs are being slashed, pay cut, and employer demands are rising. To get a job and stay ahead requires people to be even more productive than ever, and unemployment is framed as an individual failure, despite the lack of job growth.</p>
<p>It is in this context that Robin’s depiction of young academic writers seems troubling. Yes, let us praise the young writers whose voices are being seen and heard across the blogosphere, and luxuriate in the possibilities of transcending the borders of the Ivory Tower. But let us not forget that writing, even on the Internet, and even for the “public good,” is still work. And whenever we’re encouraged to do more work, we should be a bit wary.</p> | true | 4 | long gone says nicholas kristof days academics making difference public sphere todays scholars either pigeonholed jargonheavy paywallprotected academic journals politics radically left hold viable position mainstream discourse rebuttal corey robin points160to many academics intellectuals indeed presence public sphere using online criticism modus operandi contemporary academics younger scholars especially publishing array online magazines blogs taken seriously robin depicts authors new media brave interlocutors taking career risks spending precious time writing widelyaccessible venues notes making ones voice heard feasible generations past since interfaces like tumblr twitter offer unique baby steps making wellknown outlets share robins admiration growing cadre young scholars writers indeed taking big risks writers may offering cuttingedge ideas yet see light dark peerreview process putting within arms reach biting criticism internet trolls conservative institutions providing hint leftleaning political analysis even web jeopardize ones career time want hold robin accountable desire materialist analysis relationship politics economics culture nods direction describing sober terms current economic climate young scholars especially adjuncts time means participate new sphere debate however think wrongly characterizes conditions many young academics writing risk public intellectual posits comes fact scholars taking time away academic writing asks future employers going take pass simply theyve written brilliantly edgily many cases writing popular online outlets less undermine writers credentials prove committed intellectual project productive enough communicate research findings wider audience inherently bad certainly findings produced academics shared held accountable people beyond formal classroom problem robin goes romanticize lives young scholarwriters saying work arises intrinsic desires whose realization made possible new technology theyre used writing public audiences thus better equipped communicate ideas intelligible stylish prose experience phd student talking earlycareer academics found writing popular audiences solely internal passion actually become external demand young scholars another metric job application tenurefile evaluated advice columns across web tell budding intellectuals get ahead must make name early networking pimping online profile making relevant even beyond bounds higher education workload academics increased exponentially recent years welldocumented generation ago phd students would never dreamed publishing academic article taking qualifying exams uncommon often expected graduate students publish theyve formally proven experts fields mantra publishing early often intensified especially tight job market tenured horizons grow grimmer new scholars must anything stand crowd overachievers publish early publish often publish online swelling workloads academics indicative micropolitics neoliberalism michel foucault used term homo economicus describe ways large swaths population include academics internalized demands market essence becoming entrepreneur sense every personal development also investment ones self something capitalized young scholars compelled transform academic entrepreneurs creating brand promote blogs tweets online profiles consider website academiaedu allows academics create personal pages connect follow scholars post articles online potentially making research available general public dream anyone wants create horizontal access information site also exemplifies quantification productive self profile displaying number views article downloads followers academic sites like simultaneously serve mechanisms democratize knowledge treat scholarship commodity marketed wonder ive also seen growing number colleagues included add public scholarship section cvs many people promise sharing findings went academia thought could spend days thinking societys pressing problems perhaps naively try change world hope getting job must put dollar sign desires molding activism fit job market letting job market shape activism academia therefore embodies reproduces characteristics capitalism often critiques labor public intellectualism political project even charitable effort selfexpression another manifestation exploitation young academics work ground taught treat scholarship direct extension personal identities makes examining academia site labor much difficult since also means critiquing projects scholars dedicate much lives sarah kendzior puts unnerving thing see job market nowadays academic otherwise people working terrible conditions hope future never comes result young academics trying keep new media writing reading blogs engaging twitter wars lunch breaks teaching commitments well night mimi thi nguyen drawing johnathan crarys frightening treatise timeuse late capitalism deftly notes consumption acclimates activities eating reading stolen moments leisure imminent immaterial labor meet demands academic capitalism theres even less chance ever clocking burdens young scholars many ways mirror happening precarious workers trying climb increasingly steep career ladder across sectors jobs slashed pay cut employer demands rising get job stay ahead requires people even productive ever unemployment framed individual failure despite lack job growth context robins depiction young academic writers seems troubling yes let us praise young writers whose voices seen heard across blogosphere luxuriate possibilities transcending borders ivory tower let us forget writing even internet even public good still work whenever encouraged work bit wary | 720 |
<p>In the agitated August of 1968, the myopic Soviet Union rolled its drab tank platoons into Czechoslovakia, crushing a spontaneous outbreak of free speech and self-determination known as the Prague Spring. Far away, perhaps cloistered in some poet’s atelier, W.H. Auden scripted his impressions from a distance:</p>
<p>The Ogre does what ogres can, Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Ogre cannot master Speech: About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain, The Ogre stalks with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips.</p>
<p>— “August 1968”</p>
<p>Auden’s swift and masterful portrait of the autocratic state imagined the Soviet state as Czech citizens surely saw it, though not as inhabitants of the Kremlin saw the monolith whose gears they so crudely engineered. Today the Ogre has relocated, no longer a habitué of Moscow and its onion-shaped domes, but of Washington and its own drab neoclassical domes and pedestals. It peers out of its labyrinth not at the Moskva River but the Potomac.</p>
<p>Propaganda as Projection</p>
<p>Today, U.S. foreign policy is the Ogre, a narcissistic psychopath for whom the mainstream media (MSM) is the mirror it glances in every morning to confirm its noble visage. Normally, the image reflected back to the onlooker confirms its identity: a judicious paternal chaperon of the new world order, guided in most cases by noblesse oblige, in rare instances by humanitarian concern, a felt responsibility to protect, and–it goes without saying–an overarching wish to impart democratic values to benighted tribes in various global backwaters. When in the rare instance that the mirror gives a glimpse of the ogre shrouded behind that mask of altruism (a stray truth-telling <a href="" type="internal">editorial</a> in the Boston Globe, for instance), the shock is minimal. It is simply a question of optics. The lighting is poor, the wardrobe needs updating, the mirror itself is warped. At no point is there the slightest trace of self-recognition. All the qualities at the bristling core of the reflected cyclops—the obsession with power, the avarice, the bloodlust, the fearmongering, the compartmentalization, and the blindness—have been projected onto the perceived enemy, who then becomes the perfect replica of the Ogre itself.</p>
<p>The Media as Mirror-Image</p>
<p>In 2014, then Secretary of State John Kerry described Russian President Vladimir Putin thusly to the Wall Street Journal, “You almost feel that he’s creating his own reality, and his own sort of world, divorced from a lot of what’s real on the ground for all those people, including people in his own country.” He also said of Russia after it had reintegrated Crimea into the Russian Federation, “You just don’t, in the twenty-first century, behave in nineteenth-century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext.” Kerry uttered neither of these comments with the slightest trace of irony or self-awareness. They were characterized by the now tiresome American quality of earnestness. An earnestness purblind to its own hypocrisies, in large part because the titular journalists that are on the receiving end of these bombshells refuse to deliver even the most meager of rebukes. Rather they nod, smile, reaffirm, compound, and ask benevolently for more. Instead of a reflective glass, the media are supposed to be the fourth estate, that institution tasked with holding power to account, which is a laughable proposition in the 21st century, when nearly every overt war or covert intervention has been cheer-led, mischaracterized, or unreported by the armchair courtiers tasked with showing the Ogre what he wants to see. You’ll rarely see the kind of gloves-off honesty you sometimes see in the movies or on Netflix, like Jeff Daniels’ cynical news anchor in Newsroom, finally <a href="" type="internal">cracking</a> and telling a bubbly patriot that, “When you ask why America is the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”</p>
<p>Instead, when inconvenient facts slip through the filter, the corridors of power do not become halls of self-reflection, where the managers of bureaucracy pause the wheels of the machine and take stock of their strategy. Rather those corridors are flooded with consultants, each brandishing a fresh storyline that will restore the internal coherence of the narrative of manifest destiny, by which America would lay claim to the wealth of the world. Branding democracy has often <a href="" type="internal">preceded</a> changing policy as a method of crisis resolution, as the Bush administration attempted in its failed in-country rebrand of Iraq policy. What the Bush administration failed to understand is that, like the Democrats in the 2016 election, “perception management” is far more difficult in the domestic arena because the target audience actively experiences the impact of government policy. Iraqis, like working class Americans, largely rejected attempts to recalibrate their perception of reality. When propagandizing a domestic audience on foreign policy, however, perception management is easier because the domestic population doesn’t experience the impact of policy firsthand, only through on-the-ground reporting. And their understanding of actual events can be reshaped by a media that reimagines the motivations for foreign policy action: instead of imperial aggression, actions can be recast as self-defense or nobly defending vulnerable allies. This can generally secure popular support, or indifference.</p>
<p>It is a fairly simple task. All one must do, as Adolf Hitler never tired of reminding his acolytes, is to make sure the masses are never presented with more than a single enemy. Focus their malleable minds with singular intensity, as Hitler biographer Joachim Fest <a href="" type="internal">wrote</a>, “…upon a single phenomenon as the presumptive cause of the evils in the world…a specifically imaginable figure, never any elusive cluster of causes.”</p>
<p>As an empire, this is best achieved by projecting all of one’s faults onto some innocuous character pulled from the swelling ranks of proletarian nations. Ideally some colonial ruin now struggling to police its borders, feed its people, and conjure some notion of national purpose. However, sometimes actual world powers must be comprehensively demonized in order to prime the national consciousness for any manner of dangerously aggressive action, to be characterized as defensive. This is the case with Russia. Notice how the myriad complexities of its behaviors have been rolled like a piece of clay into a perfectly odious but psychologically digestible image of evil. This demented projection developed in the hermetically-sealed bubble of the beltway is then transcribed and replicated in a million television tickers, mobile alerts, and bite-sized summaries for the news-curious electorate.</p>
<p>Exemplary Deceits</p>
<p>Just consider the Ukraine. There Russia must be made to appear to be an absolute aggressor, having apparently invaded and annexed Crimea; and an inveterate meddler, having evidently and clandestinely funneled soldiers and weapons into Donbass; and a poor and untrustworthy negotiator, having apparently been unable to keep ceasefires in check. All of this can be chalked up to some underlying imperial impulse in the Slavic character, perhaps phrased in a more genteel fashion, so as not to needlessly awaken any social justice warriors. All other possible Russian motivations must be uniformly elided from view. No mention need be or can be made of the association agreement with the European Union that former President Viktor Yanukovych <a href="" type="internal">rejected</a>, or the competing offer he favored from Moscow, or the <a href="" type="internal">importance</a> of the federation’s sole naval port at Sevastopol, or the billions Washington poured into Ukraine this decade to <a href="" type="internal">effect</a> a change in rule, or the U.S.-fomented neo-fascist putsch in Kiev, or the <a href="" type="internal">reasons</a> why a civil war broke out in the country immediately afterward, or how Minsk Accords were used by Kiev to rearm, or the ethnic character of Eastern Ukraine, or the plebiscite that signaled that region’s desire to <a href="" type="internal">reunite</a> with Russia, or the predictably <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/one-year-after-washington-installed-yats-ukraines-economy-has-been-shattered/&amp;usd=2&amp;usg=AFQjCNGU1LoIqycOy_zsbzURaUOwKGfGzg" type="external">disastrous</a> surge in utility prices once the association agreement was finally penned with the EU, or the new regime’s open butchery of its own citizens in <a href="" type="internal">Odessa</a>, or the geostrategic importance of Ukraine as a <a href="" type="internal">thoroughfare</a> for energy to Europe, or its coveted heavy industry. Isn’t it so much easier for the lazy journalist with an obsequious desire to repeat the state’s talking points to simply sweep all such exhaustingly complicated matters aside and sketch a crude image of an ogre casting a dark shadow over Europe, his gaze appetitive, his mouth drooling, his eyes supercilious, his claws clutching cruise missiles, his boot on the neck of some tattered and luckless camp of freedom fighters? How much more appetizing for the public, too. How much more fun to be a Mary Shelly than a Walter Cronkite. More clicks, more dollars. More dollars, more status. Beowulf is memorable, but policy wonks fleshing out the details of some ill-starred ceasefire, not so much.</p>
<p>Blind Imaginings</p>
<p>We have, as journalist Dmitry Babich of Sputnik News remarked, worked “to replace reality with ideology,” a prescient statement about the intellectual culture of Washington. (I recognize that the source of this comment instantly delegitimizes this article in the eyes of many a conspiracy theorist, but that rather makes my point in another fashion.)</p>
<p>Babich also noted how the American press reminded him of King Lear, particularly when Lear admonished Gloucester,</p>
<p>Get thee glass eyes, And like a scurvy politician seem To see the things thou dost not.</p>
<p>King Lear (4.6.163-5)</p>
<p>Where Kerry was a font of ideological cant in the Obama administration, the same comes courtesy of the revanchist cold warriors that President Trump has unleashed on the world. Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis has <a href="" type="internal">claimed</a> that ISIS is Washington’s priority in the Middle East, and that Bashar Al Assad still possesses chemical weapons, the first claim belied by U.S. behavior in Syria and the second presented evidence-free. Then National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster literally <a href="" type="internal">blamed</a> Moscow for having “perpetuated a civil war” in Syria, said the Russians did nothing to prevent the Idleb chemical attack earlier last month, and accused President Vladimir Putin of “subversive actions in Europe.”</p>
<p>There are at least four lies embedded in McMaster’s claims, most notably that Russia escalated the war in Syria, when it has intervened at Syria’s behest to bring the war to an end. Actually, the war would end if the United States and its extremist allies in the Gulf were not funding, training, and arming foreign jihadists against the Syrian government. The U.S. is likewise <a href="" type="internal">increasing</a> its direct presence in Syria and massing troops and weapons on its border. Next, the war is not principally a civil war and never was; it has always been a proxy war by the West to stymie the influence of the Iranian-Syrian-Russian axis and assert its primacy. Trump’s bristling Svengali also presented zero evidence to support his claims that Russia knew a tragedy would happen or that the <a href="" type="internal">event</a> was a chemical attack at all. His vague reference to Muscovite subversion elsewhere on the European continent simply resurrects the image of the old Ogre, peering hungrily across the European plain. The comment was likely an oblique reference to the French elections, where extremist neoliberal (called a “centrist” by the mainstream media) Emmanuel Macron <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUan3Hx4uDA" type="external">has</a> happily spread rumors of Russian interference, establishing, like the Democrats did, a fanciful excuse to deploy if he loses the runoff with Marine Le Pen.</p>
<p>The rest of the tale, that of the flour-pure protagonist, practically writes itself. Simply reverse all the moral horrors you’ve imputed to the make-believe mutant you’ve erected in the national consciousness. Not amoral, but noble. Not acquisitive, but altruistic. Not monstrous, but magnanimous. Easy work. The lusus naturae, as it were, the cackling colossus of your imagination, will seem more real than reality itself, as Secretary Kerry said, and you will find yourself charging windmills believing they are dragons, and perhaps one day finding that the dragons are indeed real, breathing a fire that feels fiercer than any bland fiction.</p> | true | 4 | agitated august 1968 myopic soviet union rolled drab tank platoons czechoslovakia crushing spontaneous outbreak free speech selfdetermination known prague spring far away perhaps cloistered poets atelier wh auden scripted impressions distance ogre ogres deeds quite impossible man one prize beyond reach ogre master speech subjugated plain among desperate slain ogre stalks hands hips drivel gushes lips august 1968 audens swift masterful portrait autocratic state imagined soviet state czech citizens surely saw though inhabitants kremlin saw monolith whose gears crudely engineered today ogre relocated longer habitué moscow onionshaped domes washington drab neoclassical domes pedestals peers labyrinth moskva river potomac propaganda projection today us foreign policy ogre narcissistic psychopath mainstream media msm mirror glances every morning confirm noble visage normally image reflected back onlooker confirms identity judicious paternal chaperon new world order guided cases noblesse oblige rare instances humanitarian concern felt responsibility protect andit goes without sayingan overarching wish impart democratic values benighted tribes various global backwaters rare instance mirror gives glimpse ogre shrouded behind mask altruism stray truthtelling editorial boston globe instance shock minimal simply question optics lighting poor wardrobe needs updating mirror warped point slightest trace selfrecognition qualities bristling core reflected cyclopsthe obsession power avarice bloodlust fearmongering compartmentalization blindnesshave projected onto perceived enemy becomes perfect replica ogre media mirrorimage 2014 secretary state john kerry described russian president vladimir putin thusly wall street journal almost feel hes creating reality sort world divorced lot whats real ground people including people country also said russia reintegrated crimea russian federation dont twentyfirst century behave nineteenthcentury fashion invading another country completely trumpedup pretext kerry uttered neither comments slightest trace irony selfawareness characterized tiresome american quality earnestness earnestness purblind hypocrisies large part titular journalists receiving end bombshells refuse deliver even meager rebukes rather nod smile reaffirm compound ask benevolently instead reflective glass media supposed fourth estate institution tasked holding power account laughable proposition 21st century nearly every overt war covert intervention cheerled mischaracterized unreported armchair courtiers tasked showing ogre wants see youll rarely see kind glovesoff honesty sometimes see movies netflix like jeff daniels cynical news anchor newsroom finally cracking telling bubbly patriot ask america greatest country world dont know fuck youre talking instead inconvenient facts slip filter corridors power become halls selfreflection managers bureaucracy pause wheels machine take stock strategy rather corridors flooded consultants brandishing fresh storyline restore internal coherence narrative manifest destiny america would lay claim wealth world branding democracy often preceded changing policy method crisis resolution bush administration attempted failed incountry rebrand iraq policy bush administration failed understand like democrats 2016 election perception management far difficult domestic arena target audience actively experiences impact government policy iraqis like working class americans largely rejected attempts recalibrate perception reality propagandizing domestic audience foreign policy however perception management easier domestic population doesnt experience impact policy firsthand ontheground reporting understanding actual events reshaped media reimagines motivations foreign policy action instead imperial aggression actions recast selfdefense nobly defending vulnerable allies generally secure popular support indifference fairly simple task one must adolf hitler never tired reminding acolytes make sure masses never presented single enemy focus malleable minds singular intensity hitler biographer joachim fest wrote upon single phenomenon presumptive cause evils worlda specifically imaginable figure never elusive cluster causes empire best achieved projecting ones faults onto innocuous character pulled swelling ranks proletarian nations ideally colonial ruin struggling police borders feed people conjure notion national purpose however sometimes actual world powers must comprehensively demonized order prime national consciousness manner dangerously aggressive action characterized defensive case russia notice myriad complexities behaviors rolled like piece clay perfectly odious psychologically digestible image evil demented projection developed hermeticallysealed bubble beltway transcribed replicated million television tickers mobile alerts bitesized summaries newscurious electorate exemplary deceits consider ukraine russia must made appear absolute aggressor apparently invaded annexed crimea inveterate meddler evidently clandestinely funneled soldiers weapons donbass poor untrustworthy negotiator apparently unable keep ceasefires check chalked underlying imperial impulse slavic character perhaps phrased genteel fashion needlessly awaken social justice warriors possible russian motivations must uniformly elided view mention need made association agreement european union former president viktor yanukovych rejected competing offer favored moscow importance federations sole naval port sevastopol billions washington poured ukraine decade effect change rule usfomented neofascist putsch kiev reasons civil war broke country immediately afterward minsk accords used kiev rearm ethnic character eastern ukraine plebiscite signaled regions desire reunite russia predictably disastrous surge utility prices association agreement finally penned eu new regimes open butchery citizens odessa geostrategic importance ukraine thoroughfare energy europe coveted heavy industry isnt much easier lazy journalist obsequious desire repeat states talking points simply sweep exhaustingly complicated matters aside sketch crude image ogre casting dark shadow europe gaze appetitive mouth drooling eyes supercilious claws clutching cruise missiles boot neck tattered luckless camp freedom fighters much appetizing public much fun mary shelly walter cronkite clicks dollars dollars status beowulf memorable policy wonks fleshing details illstarred ceasefire much blind imaginings journalist dmitry babich sputnik news remarked worked replace reality ideology prescient statement intellectual culture washington recognize source comment instantly delegitimizes article eyes many conspiracy theorist rather makes point another fashion babich also noted american press reminded king lear particularly lear admonished gloucester get thee glass eyes like scurvy politician seem see things thou dost king lear 461635 kerry font ideological cant obama administration comes courtesy revanchist cold warriors president trump unleashed world defense secretary james mad dog mattis claimed isis washingtons priority middle east bashar al assad still possesses chemical weapons first claim belied us behavior syria second presented evidencefree national security advisor hr mcmaster literally blamed moscow perpetuated civil war syria said russians nothing prevent idleb chemical attack earlier last month accused president vladimir putin subversive actions europe least four lies embedded mcmasters claims notably russia escalated war syria intervened syrias behest bring war end actually war would end united states extremist allies gulf funding training arming foreign jihadists syrian government us likewise increasing direct presence syria massing troops weapons border next war principally civil war never always proxy war west stymie influence iraniansyrianrussian axis assert primacy trumps bristling svengali also presented zero evidence support claims russia knew tragedy would happen event chemical attack vague reference muscovite subversion elsewhere european continent simply resurrects image old ogre peering hungrily across european plain comment likely oblique reference french elections extremist neoliberal called centrist mainstream media emmanuel macron happily spread rumors russian interference establishing like democrats fanciful excuse deploy loses runoff marine le pen rest tale flourpure protagonist practically writes simply reverse moral horrors youve imputed makebelieve mutant youve erected national consciousness amoral noble acquisitive altruistic monstrous magnanimous easy work lusus naturae cackling colossus imagination seem real reality secretary kerry said find charging windmills believing dragons perhaps one day finding dragons indeed real breathing fire feels fiercer bland fiction | 1,111 |
<p />
<p>Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,
&#160;Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.</p>
<p>Shakespeare,&#160;Henry VI</p>
<p>A number of writers and critics have noted the astounding smugness and outsized indignation of white liberals during this election season. The Clinton supporters, basically. And I think it is useful to examine the relationship between the media and the Clintons. For no political mafia has ever penetrated Hollywood and NY media to the extent the Clintons have. Shows such as&#160;Madame Secretary&#160;and&#160;House of Cards&#160;could well have been scripted by the Clinton inner circle. Hell, by Bill himself. And outlets like&#160;Huffington Post&#160;and&#160;MSNBC&#160;and&#160;CNN&#160;operate as the press outlets for the DNC.</p>
<p>But the real nadir of media capitulation and bad faith was the response to the brutal murder of the Russian diplomat Andrei Karlov in Istanbul, on video, at an art opening. The western press spun this as a freedom fighter attacking the brutal Russian empire and defending Allepo. Almost nothing was said about the family of the slain Russian, or about terrorism. I guess terrorism doesn’t exist if its directed at the enemy du jour. The celebrations on the streets of Aleppo seemed to have been erased by western TV and print editors, too. And all of this is in line, of course, with Hillary Clinton’s (and her advisors) pathological and obsessive hatred of Putin. And with the Clinton imprint on mainstream media.</p>
<p>So, back to those white liberals. Every single person (save one) that I once knew in theatre and in Hollywood, are liberal and none of them really do much in the way of research or political reading. All of them are arch Democrats. And never before, I don’t think ever, has an election so starkly revealed the stratification of classes and sub classes, even, in the U.S. I have found a just amazing, almost surreal level of wilful and intentional blindness on the part of liberal america to the crimes of the Clintons, and to the basic corruption of the Democratic Party. One can say over and over and over and over and over that Clinton orchestrated a neo nazi fascist coup in Ukraine, a fascist junta in Honduras and an illegal assassination of a foreign leader in Libya. You can say this again and again and I guarantee you will get no response. The stunning silence of white liberal America to the crimes of the Clintons stands as the most profound element in the entire scenario of this election.</p>
<p>The propaganda against Russia, culminating in the truly grotesque coverage of Karlov’s murder, has been pitched at levels that I’ve personally never seen or heard before. And then there is a strange sort of cognitive dissonance regarding the *fake news* issue, launched, of course, by Obama. And this was the lame duck Obama, a figure that actually the public has not seen before, or seen very little. The urbane repressed buttoned down lawyer is being gradually peeled back and an oddly callused cruel figure emerges. A borderline sadist even. And while we know for certain that Hillary is a sadist, I think Obama is at least her equal. But of late Obama has exhibited a curious if not unsettling lack of proportion between his comments and his relaxed manner and style. It is the relaxation, one must say, of a sociopath. I don’t say this glibly. But during the fake news remarks I felt as if this must have been how detectives felt interviewing Ted Bundy. All smiles, winks, and good natured charm. But he was discussing a new open war on dissent. Obama initiated drone assassination and discussed it in the same tone as he discussed his vacations. In fact he joked about drone killing at the Correspondent’s Dinner a couple years back. There is, in this lame duck version of Obama, the sense of letting his character armoring slip just a little. And it reveals just another layer of armoring. There is such an empty core to this man that I think he made the perfect chameleon. He was the black Max Headroom. I am reminded of the Book of Job…Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue.</p>
<p>That the economy is now a disaster cannot be hidden. In fact, 90% of Obama’s new jobs were part time. Women were hardest hit during his eight years.Traditional fields for women workers in medicine and education were the biggest losers. Full time employment, the traditional 9 to 5 secure fixed job is all but extinct. There are fewer of those jobs today than during the great depression. But this is not anything that really affects the haute bourgeoisie, the affluent white liberals from Connecticut, Long Island, or Westchester County, or Bel Air, the Pacific Palisades, or Westwood. Or Menlo Park and Mill Valley. The educated classes. They don’t work day gigs. They don’t punch time clocks. They inherit and their family helps find them managerial positions or something akin. These are the people disproportionately visible in media. They don’t live paycheck to paycheck. And this is the point. The stratification of classes. And the markers for these class divides are becoming more fixed. If you use public transportation, for example, you are part of the lumpen masses these days. Nobody rides a bus to work at NBC or SONY pictures or Time Warner. Except maybe the kitchen staff.</p>
<p>Now, Trump is obviously, if we can judge from the last six months, a very thin skinned and rather terrified man. The son of a slum lord and a man who constantly seeks attention, and who wanted to be the biggest swinging dick in the house…well, once the Casino, now the White House. But he knows he’s not. And that can be a very dangerous personality flaw for someone with power. Trump’s eldest sons, Don Jr and Eric are perhaps the greatest indictment against Trump. I keep finding myself thinking of Roger Ballen’s famed photos of the Plattland farmers in South Africa; in particular Dressie &amp; Cassie, the unfortunate twin brothers of the Transvaal. Don Jr and might well think, ‘there but for fortune’. But I digress.</p>
<p>The protests in the street, the agitation around counting ballots, and the open charges of treason — this is the stuff of a Capra movie on acid. It’s a strange dystopic vision. (And as ridiculous in its way as the catered sit in for gun control earlier this year, also courtesy of the Democratic Party leadership). And all in service of somehow getting Hillary Clinton elected. As, I guess, these people feel was ordained by a higher power, and hence their sense of the world coming apart at the seams. Why has god forsaken them, one can almost hear such screams in the night. Honestly, the degradation of electoral politics has hit bottom. It has to be clear, to even the most indoctrinated, that the voting system is broken. The problem is, for all the Diebald troubles and hacking claims and the electoral college; the real problem is simply basic inequality. Period. There are a fair number of people with relative wealth and there are a shit load of people with nothing. People who have no savings, and who live week to week, even with a family. People who pay rent, use food stamps if they can get them, and who if they get sick, stay sick. Or die. People who, if their children get seriously ill, will borrow themselves into lifetime debt to save their child. A debt they cant hope to ever crawl out from under. People who count pennies to buy their Copenhagen or Skoal — and weigh that against another tin of coffee. This is the America who didn’t vote. They didn’t because they are busy surviving. And the average liberal heaps scorn on these people as apathetic or selfish or whatever. The truth is, the average professional class white liberal has no fucking idea what poverty feels like. None. And the poor know what the affluent liberal does not. And that is that Hillary doesnt give anymore of a shit about them than the Donald.</p>
<p>The obvious take away from this has been touched on by several writers; Diana Johnstone wrote</p>
<p>“The entire Western establishment, roughly composed of neoconservative ideologues, liberal interventionists, financial powers, NATO, mainstream media and politicians in both the United States and Western Europe, committed to remaking the Middle East to suit Israel and Saudi Arabia and to shattering impertinent Russia, have been thrown into an hysterical panic at the prospect of their joint globalization project being sabotaged by in ignorant intruder.”</p>
<p>and Jonathan Cook noted…</p>
<p>“Much more significantly, the systematic deceptions perpetrated by corporate media for many decades have left swaths of western publics distrustful and cynical. Social media has only added to widespread alienation because it has made it easier to expose to readers these mainstream deceptions. Trump, like Brexit, is a symptom of the growing disorientation and estrangement felt by western electorates.
But the claim of “fake news” does usefully offer western security agencies, establishment politicians and the corporate media a powerful weapon to silence their critics. After all, these critics have no platform other than independent websites and social media. Shut down the sites and you shut up your opponents.”</p>
<p>And Andre Damon summed it up best, however…</p>
<p>“There is not an ounce of democratic content in the positions of either faction of the state and intelligence apparatus and nothing to choose from between the arch-reactionary Trump and the veteran warmonger Clinton. However the disputes are resolved, the result will be a massive escalation of war abroad and the attack on the working class within the United States.”</p>
<p>Indeed. And again, the leaked emails were real, the content was real, just as were those strange connections between Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Clintons have long had close ties with the royal family and never once have either of them made mention of the gross human rights violations of the monarchy. Obama, too, has said nothing critical of the Saudis. These politicians all answer to the same people and places. (read Hillary’s speeches to her Wall Street backers!).</p>
<p>Now a recent poll indicated, interestingly, that almost 70% of Americans didn’t buy the Russia hacking claims. And half of America doesnt trust either party. And why should they? The new star of the DNC appears to be Keith Ellison of whome Bruce Dixon wrote…&#160;“Ellison is black. He’s the first Muslim elected to Congress, he’s smart enough and telegenic. He votes infallibly to support the apartheid regime in Israel, and he says if it were up to him there’d have been a no-fly zone (and possible shooting war with the Russians) a long time ago.”&#160;In other words, Ellison is another pro-interventionist, a friend of foreign war profiteers, and a man who has done everything in his power not to offend anyone. You don’t get to the top tier of the DNC without following the script.</p>
<p>The anger of the bourgeoisie then is about something else. Its not really policy, its about their own entitlement. Its about their sense of affront and insult. This is what I keep seeing and reading. They are insulted and hurt. I’ve never seen such hostility and anger on social media. Never. I see a constant stream of insults directed at Trump. I see his wife insulted, and his children. And while it is easy enough to hate and even fear aspects of Trump (and his taste and vulgarity) the real anger seems directed even more acutely at anyone who disagrees with their demand for the coronation of Clinton. The underclass in the U.S. has been brutalized by an increasingly militarized domestic police apparatus, and by a nakedly racist judicial system. They have seen whatever small safety net they once had be reduced to almost nothing. And they are right to fear Trump’s appointments. Just as they would have been right to fear Clinton’s. This is now an institutional machine of control and domination, and in many ways it is running on auto pilot now. The stand off at Standing Rock was representative of the ruling elite’s strategy. If it becomes a big enough nuisance, then just adjust course and get what is wanted another way. The resistance at Standing Rock was important, however. Perhaps mostly symbolically, but important nonetheless. For it demonstrated a level of awakening for many. Anytime the underlcass organizes, they achieve victories. And this is because the great giant is actually very weak.</p>
<p>Trump’s appointments are actually pretty predictable. No president in fifty years has not chosen from the banking elite, and the upper echelon of the military, and over the last twenty or so years from the corporate CEO class. And since Bill Clinton the very worst millionaires that can be found were put in positions of influence, and certainly since Bush/Cheney the neo-con group has retained considerable power. There is an inexorable drive toward purely authoritarian policing of what is now viewed as a disposable population. It is happening regardless of who is elected. There are no jobs and there won’t be any jobs. There is an environmental crisis and pollution crisis, and none of that would have been made any better under Clinton. One cannot keep hawking military hardware, fighter jets, and battleships and be at all green. The desire for this ruling cabal is global hegemony. That is the delusional dream of the U.S. ruling political class of both parties. Hence the over 4 billion dollars a DAY spent on defence. The U.S. leads the world in weapons sales. We sell to Saudi Arabia first so they can destroy the poor and helpless nation of Yemen. And in fact, the U.S. sent advisors directly to Riyadh to help coordinate the vicious bombing of that small country that left a half million children starving (liberals compassion is more concerned with public restroom choices). The U.S. helps sell to ISIS, too. And to Israel. There is nobody we won’t sell to in fact. Business is business and war is the biggest business in the world. So all the chatter about the Paris climate talks, and all the health care cut backs that are coming, and the intensification of this war on free speech — all of that was in the cards either way. The attacks on minorities, women, the LGBT community is coming under Trump — it was going to come, but in another fashion, under Clinton. AGAIN THEY BEHEAD GAY PEOPLE IN SAUDI ARABIA. And Clinton is basically underwritten by the House of Saud. Women have suffered hugely in places like Haiti and Honduras and Libya and Ukraine from Secretary of State Clinton’s policies. And nothing is going to help climate change except a radical and total change in living. And the death of Capitalism, frankly.</p>
<p>The authority structure is afraid. They are afraid of China and Russia and they are even more afraid of the unhappy and now more and more desperate American working class. And the poor. The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world. And its growing. And it is reaching a kind of maximum limit. It is a gulag of made up of the poor, primarily black and brown, and it is a place to which the rich are never invited. How many people exactly can the system keep in containers? We may well find out. Jeff Sessions will want as many as possible, thats for sure. Trump is an ignorant man and no doubt it is dawning on him just how over his head he is now, and since I actually believe he began this with no desire to really win, he is probably in a state of near panic right now. His advisors, people like Steve Bannon, sense their own lack of ability to run a country, too, I would guess. Recent photos of Bannon reveal that deer caught in the headlights look.</p>
<p>The thing that will become the signature of Trumps first 100 days is going to happen at the nuts and bolts level. I suspect things, daily bureaucratic things are going to grind to a halt. This is the 100 days of incompetence in the most basic operations of government. Trump will escalate his twitter output, though, and perhaps the eventual Trump library will all be tweets. And built in Vegas.</p>
<p>What comes from all this depends on people deciding to emulate the small symbolic victory of Standing Rock. It does not come from an entitled elite petulantly demanding their war loving sociopath replace the other parties vulgarian and authoritarian clown. This is 21st century post modern fascism. Its only which style code you feel best with. Reject this binary world view. Reject any candidate who endorses U.S. Imperialism and 800 plus military bases throughout the world. Stop all U.S. intervention and stop believing the manufactured narratives on Syria, about Russia, about Castro, and about China. Most everything MSNBC tells you can be turned on its head…and it will be closer to the actual truth. The U.S. is far more guilty of everything it charges other countries with doing. As such Samantha Power deserves a special seat in hell. The U.S. commits more war crimes, more human rights violations, more interference in the affairs and elections of other countries, than anyone else. And we prosecute dissent more ruthlessly, and are the least transparent of any country in the world save maybe Uzbekistan. We have intelligence agencies fighting proxy wars with other of our intelligence agencies. The U.S. is now a massive societal dinosaur. To go the way of the Great Auk or Woolly Mammoth might not be such a bad thing for the planet.</p> | true | 4 | plantagenet like thee nero 160play lute beholding towns burn shakespeare160henry vi number writers critics noted astounding smugness outsized indignation white liberals election season clinton supporters basically think useful examine relationship media clintons political mafia ever penetrated hollywood ny media extent clintons shows as160madame secretary160and160house cards160could well scripted clinton inner circle hell bill outlets like160huffington post160and160msnbc160and160cnn160operate press outlets dnc real nadir media capitulation bad faith response brutal murder russian diplomat andrei karlov istanbul video art opening western press spun freedom fighter attacking brutal russian empire defending allepo almost nothing said family slain russian terrorism guess terrorism doesnt exist directed enemy du jour celebrations streets aleppo seemed erased western tv print editors line course hillary clintons advisors pathological obsessive hatred putin clinton imprint mainstream media back white liberals every single person save one knew theatre hollywood liberal none really much way research political reading arch democrats never dont think ever election starkly revealed stratification classes sub classes even us found amazing almost surreal level wilful intentional blindness part liberal america crimes clintons basic corruption democratic party one say clinton orchestrated neo nazi fascist coup ukraine fascist junta honduras illegal assassination foreign leader libya say guarantee get response stunning silence white liberal america crimes clintons stands profound element entire scenario election propaganda russia culminating truly grotesque coverage karlovs murder pitched levels ive personally never seen heard strange sort cognitive dissonance regarding fake news issue launched course obama lame duck obama figure actually public seen seen little urbane repressed buttoned lawyer gradually peeled back oddly callused cruel figure emerges borderline sadist even know certain hillary sadist think obama least equal late obama exhibited curious unsettling lack proportion comments relaxed manner style relaxation one must say sociopath dont say glibly fake news remarks felt must detectives felt interviewing ted bundy smiles winks good natured charm discussing new open war dissent obama initiated drone assassination discussed tone discussed vacations fact joked drone killing correspondents dinner couple years back lame duck version obama sense letting character armoring slip little reveals another layer armoring empty core man think made perfect chameleon black max headroom reminded book jobthough wickedness sweet mouth though hide tongue economy disaster hidden fact 90 obamas new jobs part time women hardest hit eight yearstraditional fields women workers medicine education biggest losers full time employment traditional 9 5 secure fixed job extinct fewer jobs today great depression anything really affects haute bourgeoisie affluent white liberals connecticut long island westchester county bel air pacific palisades westwood menlo park mill valley educated classes dont work day gigs dont punch time clocks inherit family helps find managerial positions something akin people disproportionately visible media dont live paycheck paycheck point stratification classes markers class divides becoming fixed use public transportation example part lumpen masses days nobody rides bus work nbc sony pictures time warner except maybe kitchen staff trump obviously judge last six months thin skinned rather terrified man son slum lord man constantly seeks attention wanted biggest swinging dick housewell casino white house knows hes dangerous personality flaw someone power trumps eldest sons jr eric perhaps greatest indictment trump keep finding thinking roger ballens famed photos plattland farmers south africa particular dressie amp cassie unfortunate twin brothers transvaal jr might well think fortune digress protests street agitation around counting ballots open charges treason stuff capra movie acid strange dystopic vision ridiculous way catered sit gun control earlier year also courtesy democratic party leadership service somehow getting hillary clinton elected guess people feel ordained higher power hence sense world coming apart seams god forsaken one almost hear screams night honestly degradation electoral politics hit bottom clear even indoctrinated voting system broken problem diebald troubles hacking claims electoral college real problem simply basic inequality period fair number people relative wealth shit load people nothing people savings live week week even family people pay rent use food stamps get get sick stay sick die people children get seriously ill borrow lifetime debt save child debt cant hope ever crawl people count pennies buy copenhagen skoal weigh another tin coffee america didnt vote didnt busy surviving average liberal heaps scorn people apathetic selfish whatever truth average professional class white liberal fucking idea poverty feels like none poor know affluent liberal hillary doesnt give anymore shit donald obvious take away touched several writers diana johnstone wrote entire western establishment roughly composed neoconservative ideologues liberal interventionists financial powers nato mainstream media politicians united states western europe committed remaking middle east suit israel saudi arabia shattering impertinent russia thrown hysterical panic prospect joint globalization project sabotaged ignorant intruder jonathan cook noted much significantly systematic deceptions perpetrated corporate media many decades left swaths western publics distrustful cynical social media added widespread alienation made easier expose readers mainstream deceptions trump like brexit symptom growing disorientation estrangement felt western electorates claim fake news usefully offer western security agencies establishment politicians corporate media powerful weapon silence critics critics platform independent websites social media shut sites shut opponents andre damon summed best however ounce democratic content positions either faction state intelligence apparatus nothing choose archreactionary trump veteran warmonger clinton however disputes resolved result massive escalation war abroad attack working class within united states indeed leaked emails real content real strange connections clintons top aide huma abedin kingdom saudi arabia clintons long close ties royal family never either made mention gross human rights violations monarchy obama said nothing critical saudis politicians answer people places read hillarys speeches wall street backers recent poll indicated interestingly almost 70 americans didnt buy russia hacking claims half america doesnt trust either party new star dnc appears keith ellison whome bruce dixon wrote160ellison black hes first muslim elected congress hes smart enough telegenic votes infallibly support apartheid regime israel says thered nofly zone possible shooting war russians long time ago160in words ellison another prointerventionist friend foreign war profiteers man done everything power offend anyone dont get top tier dnc without following script anger bourgeoisie something else really policy entitlement sense affront insult keep seeing reading insulted hurt ive never seen hostility anger social media never see constant stream insults directed trump see wife insulted children easy enough hate even fear aspects trump taste vulgarity real anger seems directed even acutely anyone disagrees demand coronation clinton underclass us brutalized increasingly militarized domestic police apparatus nakedly racist judicial system seen whatever small safety net reduced almost nothing right fear trumps appointments would right fear clintons institutional machine control domination many ways running auto pilot stand standing rock representative ruling elites strategy becomes big enough nuisance adjust course get wanted another way resistance standing rock important however perhaps mostly symbolically important nonetheless demonstrated level awakening many anytime underlcass organizes achieve victories great giant actually weak trumps appointments actually pretty predictable president fifty years chosen banking elite upper echelon military last twenty years corporate ceo class since bill clinton worst millionaires found put positions influence certainly since bushcheney neocon group retained considerable power inexorable drive toward purely authoritarian policing viewed disposable population happening regardless elected jobs wont jobs environmental crisis pollution crisis none would made better clinton one keep hawking military hardware fighter jets battleships green desire ruling cabal global hegemony delusional dream us ruling political class parties hence 4 billion dollars day spent defence us leads world weapons sales sell saudi arabia first destroy poor helpless nation yemen fact us sent advisors directly riyadh help coordinate vicious bombing small country left half million children starving liberals compassion concerned public restroom choices us helps sell isis israel nobody wont sell fact business business war biggest business world chatter paris climate talks health care cut backs coming intensification war free speech cards either way attacks minorities women lgbt community coming trump going come another fashion clinton behead gay people saudi arabia clinton basically underwritten house saud women suffered hugely places like haiti honduras libya ukraine secretary state clintons policies nothing going help climate change except radical total change living death capitalism frankly authority structure afraid afraid china russia even afraid unhappy desperate american working class poor us largest prison population world growing reaching kind maximum limit gulag made poor primarily black brown place rich never invited many people exactly system keep containers may well find jeff sessions want many possible thats sure trump ignorant man doubt dawning head since actually believe began desire really win probably state near panic right advisors people like steve bannon sense lack ability run country would guess recent photos bannon reveal deer caught headlights look thing become signature trumps first 100 days going happen nuts bolts level suspect things daily bureaucratic things going grind halt 100 days incompetence basic operations government trump escalate twitter output though perhaps eventual trump library tweets built vegas comes depends people deciding emulate small symbolic victory standing rock come entitled elite petulantly demanding war loving sociopath replace parties vulgarian authoritarian clown 21st century post modern fascism style code feel best reject binary world view reject candidate endorses us imperialism 800 plus military bases throughout world stop us intervention stop believing manufactured narratives syria russia castro china everything msnbc tells turned headand closer actual truth us far guilty everything charges countries samantha power deserves special seat hell us commits war crimes human rights violations interference affairs elections countries anyone else prosecute dissent ruthlessly least transparent country world save maybe uzbekistan intelligence agencies fighting proxy wars intelligence agencies us massive societal dinosaur go way great auk woolly mammoth might bad thing planet | 1,559 |
<p>The summer break is officially over in Lebanon. At about 5pm yesterday, a roughly 40 kg bomb placed in a Mercedes was detonated in a bustling part of Sin el-Fil district of Beirut. The immediate target was member of Parliament (MP) Antoine Ghanim of the right-wing Phalange party and pro-government March 14 coalition, the fourth MP to be assassinated since former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s murder in March 2005 split the country and paralyzed the state.</p>
<p>Six other civilians were killed and over 50 wounded in the blast, with the vast majority of Lebanese both apprehensive and disgusted with a political class that has failed them politically, socially, economically, and security-wise.</p>
<p>The real target of yesterday’s assassination, however, was the apparently not-far-off consensus among key government and opposition players seeking to resolve the crisis enveloping the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for next week. March 14 currently holds a slim (though disputed) Parliamentary majority-now, tragically, made even slimmer-and has hinted that it could break from the traditional constitutional interpretation and elect a president by a simple majority rather than the customary two-thirds required quorum. This has infuriated opposition figures who consider the current pro-US government of Fouad Siniora to be illegitimate and supportive of US-Israeli desires to disarm the resistance.</p>
<p>Following several months of futile negotiations and bitter recriminations from both sides, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri recently launched a last-ditch compromise initiative which was widely seen to have achieved a break through. As former President Amin Gemeyal correctly noted: “This is how Lebanese politics work. At the last quarter-hour, everybody realizes that the bargaining time is up, and they would put all the papers on the table and agree on a compromise that would save the country. The alternative is disastrous.”</p>
<p>Berri’s compromise requires the opposition–which includes Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement lead by General Michel Aoun, the most popular Christian leader in Lebanon–to participate in a Parliament session on 25 September to elect a new President in return for explicit recognition by March 14 that a two-thirds parliamentary majority is indeed required for the election as per the Lebanese Constitution. After this, a national unity government would be appointed.</p>
<p>After receiving the blessing by the leader of March 14 coalition, Saad Hariri, Speaker Berri was due to meet with the Maronite (Christian) Patriarch, who serves as a power broker among the competing presidential candidates (who must be Maronite Christian according to Lebanon’s power-sharing agreement). Such a meeting, if successful, could have paved the way for a consensus Presidential candidate and, just maybe, the beginning of a wider resolution of the Lebanese crisis that has deepened since Israel’s bloody invasion of Lebanon last summer.</p>
<p>This week’s car bomb, then, must be read against this context. While we will never know who actually masterminded this murder-such cases stretching back many years have never been solved by Lebanese investigators, usually for political reasons-it did not take long for accusations to be bandied about.</p>
<p>Live on TV, several MPs and officials from March 14 stated clearly that “everyone” knows who is behind not only this heinous murder, but all the others of the past two and a half years: Syria. Saad Hariri even, bizarrely, accused Syria of assassinating Ghanim in retaliation for Israel’s recent aerial strike in Syrian territory. Some March 14 politicians also seized the opportunity to openly accuse any opposition MP who does not attend the 25 September parliamentary session of treason, and thus indirectly of being complicit with Ghanim’s assassination.</p>
<p>Lebanese opposition figures and Syrian spokesmen, who had all unequivocally condemned yesterday’s terrorist act, angrily rejected such logic and accused anyone who took advantage of this tragedy for political gains of fomenting discord and serving “foreign” interests. For them, these attacks on March 14 MPs always come conveniently whenever the momentum seems to be swinging away from US and Israeli interests and towards internal consensus.</p>
<p>It is too early to tell what the precise fall out from this latest murder will be. Alas, genuine statesmen capable of rising above petty interests are in short supply here, and Lebanese will now expect more assassinations as Lebanon head towards a worst case scenario, namely the formation of two governments (in case no consensus is reached before the current President’s term expires on 24 November) and the effective partition of the country, not to mention state institutions. If this is allowed to happen, the future could be grim indeed.</p>
<p>Yesterday’s events cannot be taken out of the larger regional context. Just as prospects for Lebanon’s unity was taking a beating-and Iraq continues its violent spiral towards partition-Palestine was being further divided with Israel officially declaring Gaza, now a huge prison with 1.5 million people living in atrocious conditions, a “hostile territory” (with American blessing). Leaving aside the obvious legal and humanitarian considerations of such a provocative move by Israel, as noted by the UN Secretary General, it is clear that the Arab region is undergoing yet another round of internationally-sponsored violence and perhaps even partition, redrawing the regional map along the line fantasized by some neocons. The objective of such policy is to establish a string of “pro-US” (and neoliberal) regimes across the region and punish the “bad guys,” those state (e.g., Iran, Syria) or non-state (e.g., Hizbullah, Hamas) actors who reject Pax Americana and Israeli regional hegemony.</p>
<p>It is customary to end such an article with a plea to sane people everywhere to ensure that just settlements are reached in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq. However, my feeling today is that we have only just begun a particularly violent stage of our history here, and lasting settlements–let alone justice–seems very far away indeed.</p>
<p>KARIM MAKDISI is an Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Dept. of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut. He can be reached at: <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | summer break officially lebanon 5pm yesterday roughly 40 kg bomb placed mercedes detonated bustling part sin elfil district beirut immediate target member parliament mp antoine ghanim rightwing phalange party progovernment march 14 coalition fourth mp assassinated since former prime minister rafiq hariris murder march 2005 split country paralyzed state six civilians killed 50 wounded blast vast majority lebanese apprehensive disgusted political class failed politically socially economically securitywise real target yesterdays assassination however apparently notfaroff consensus among key government opposition players seeking resolve crisis enveloping upcoming presidential elections scheduled next week march 14 currently holds slim though disputed parliamentary majoritynow tragically made even slimmerand hinted could break traditional constitutional interpretation elect president simple majority rather customary twothirds required quorum infuriated opposition figures consider current prous government fouad siniora illegitimate supportive usisraeli desires disarm resistance following several months futile negotiations bitter recriminations sides parliament speaker nabih berri recently launched lastditch compromise initiative widely seen achieved break former president amin gemeyal correctly noted lebanese politics work last quarterhour everybody realizes bargaining time would put papers table agree compromise would save country alternative disastrous berris compromise requires oppositionwhich includes hizbullah free patriotic movement lead general michel aoun popular christian leader lebanonto participate parliament session 25 september elect new president return explicit recognition march 14 twothirds parliamentary majority indeed required election per lebanese constitution national unity government would appointed receiving blessing leader march 14 coalition saad hariri speaker berri due meet maronite christian patriarch serves power broker among competing presidential candidates must maronite christian according lebanons powersharing agreement meeting successful could paved way consensus presidential candidate maybe beginning wider resolution lebanese crisis deepened since israels bloody invasion lebanon last summer weeks car bomb must read context never know actually masterminded murdersuch cases stretching back many years never solved lebanese investigators usually political reasonsit take long accusations bandied live tv several mps officials march 14 stated clearly everyone knows behind heinous murder others past two half years syria saad hariri even bizarrely accused syria assassinating ghanim retaliation israels recent aerial strike syrian territory march 14 politicians also seized opportunity openly accuse opposition mp attend 25 september parliamentary session treason thus indirectly complicit ghanims assassination lebanese opposition figures syrian spokesmen unequivocally condemned yesterdays terrorist act angrily rejected logic accused anyone took advantage tragedy political gains fomenting discord serving foreign interests attacks march 14 mps always come conveniently whenever momentum seems swinging away us israeli interests towards internal consensus early tell precise fall latest murder alas genuine statesmen capable rising petty interests short supply lebanese expect assassinations lebanon head towards worst case scenario namely formation two governments case consensus reached current presidents term expires 24 november effective partition country mention state institutions allowed happen future could grim indeed yesterdays events taken larger regional context prospects lebanons unity taking beatingand iraq continues violent spiral towards partitionpalestine divided israel officially declaring gaza huge prison 15 million people living atrocious conditions hostile territory american blessing leaving aside obvious legal humanitarian considerations provocative move israel noted un secretary general clear arab region undergoing yet another round internationallysponsored violence perhaps even partition redrawing regional map along line fantasized neocons objective policy establish string prous neoliberal regimes across region punish bad guys state eg iran syria nonstate eg hizbullah hamas actors reject pax americana israeli regional hegemony customary end article plea sane people everywhere ensure settlements reached lebanon palestine iraq however feeling today begun particularly violent stage history lasting settlementslet alone justiceseems far away indeed karim makdisi assistant professor international relations dept political studies public administration american university beirut reached makdisi007yahoocom 160 | 588 |
<p>Sealand&lt;a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sealand.jpg"&gt;Ryan Lackey/Wikimedia Commons</p>
<p />
<p>A few months ago, internet entrepreneur Avi Freedman received an unexpected email from a prince. A decade earlier, Freedman had been part of an effort to create a data haven—a safe place where information could be stashed far from the reach of prying eyes and nosy governments—on the world’s smallest and most notorious <a href="" type="internal">micronation</a>, Sealand, a 120-by-50-foot anti-aircraft platform seven miles off the British coast and 60 feet above the waters of the cold North Sea. Now Freedman’s ex-partners, the self-proclaimed royal family of Sealand, wanted to try again.</p>
<p>Freedman said yes. HavenCo, the Sealand-based data haven that failed spectacularly a decade ago, relaunched this weekend. And this time, Freedman thinks it’s going to work. HavenCo is offering customers total control over how secure their data is—and if used correctly, its technology could help internet users who want to avoid the National Security Agency’s sweeping data dragnet.</p>
<p>To understand what HavenCo is trying now, it helps to understand how this all started. HavenCo’s first iteration was intended as a kind of techno-utopia where the revolutionary potential of the internet could be protected. It was supposed to be a self-contained, hypersecure data fortress, with servers located on site in the middle of the North Sea. The company promised it would destroy its servers rather than ever reveal its clients’ data. But like many dot-com-era schemes, its founders’ fantastical vision overshot what the market, and their own capabilities, could bear.</p>
<p>The&#160; <a href="http://www.sealandgov.org/" type="external">Principality of&#160;Sealand</a>, where&#160;HavenCo&#160;was once based, was founded in 1967 by a waggish former British Army Major named Roy Bates. Bates, who had launched Radio Essex, an unlicensed “pirate” radio station, after leaving the Army, took over the rusting World War II-era anti-aircraft platform that became&#160;Sealand&#160;after the British government had shut down his previous base, another anti-aircraft platform closer to the British shore. On Christmas Day 1966, Bates evicted the staff of a rival pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, from the platform. When the Radio Caroline broadcasters tried to retake it, Bates defended his prize with an air rifle, homemade bombs, and a good bit of skullduggery. But it wasn’t until the summer of 1967 that his wife, Joan, made a crack about wanting “a flag with some palm trees” to go with her “island” that the couple found a “dereliction of sovereignty” loophole in international law that they believe allowed them to take over what Britain had neglected and proclaim&#160;Sealand&#160;its own sovereign nation.</p>
<p>The Bateses furnished their tiny kingdom with all the trappings of nationhood—minting currency, sewing a flag, issuing stamps and passports (at one point suffering a scandal when forgeries popped up in an international smuggling ring), and topping it off with a national anthem and elaborate titles for them and their friends. There was even a coup by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Achenbach, who had Prince Michael Bates, Roy’s son, taken hostage. The Bates retook their country in a dawn helicopter raid with the help of a James Bond stunt pilot. Achenbach later set up a Sealand <a href="http://principality-of-sealand.eu/welcome_e.html" type="external">government-in-exile</a> ( <a href="http://principality-of-sealand.eu/" type="external">complete with a website</a>), which, <a href="http://arstechnica.tumblr.com/post/20061605168/death-of-a-data-haven-cypherpunks-wikileaks-and" type="external">according to Ars Technica</a>, “dabbles in perpetual motion machines, UFOs, conspiracy theories, and revisionist history.” The Brits also considered ousting the Bates, but Roy played the press expertly, offering them madcap stories. Headlines of Marines being readied to storm Sealand and the Ministry of Defense falling for Roy’s double agent proved that it was better to leave the Bates alone than continue looking foolish.</p>
<p>A brief, quixotic history of DIY aquatic micronations</p>
<p>Republic of New Atlantis (1964-66)Location: 8-by-30-foot bamboo raft anchored eight miles off JamaicaRaison d’être: Founded by <a href="http://eupdates.hrc.utexas.edu/site/PageServer?pagename=Hemingway_New_Atlantis" type="external">Ernest Hemingway’s brother, Leicester</a>, under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. Economy based on stamps honoring Churchill, Hubert Humphrey, and LBJ.</p>
<p>Principality of Sealand (1967-present)Location: World War II military platform six miles off the English coastRaison d’être: Vanity project of <a href="http://www.sealandgov.org/about" type="external">Prince Roy Bates of Sealand</a>. Sells royal titles and has been suggested as a <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/sealand-and-havenco/" type="external">data haven</a> for the likes of WikiLeaks.</p>
<p>Republic of Rose Island (1967-68)Location: Platform seven miles off the Italian coastRaison d’être: Speaking Esperanto, printing stamps, possibly tax evasion. <a href="http://rose-island.livenations.net/" type="external">Blown up</a> by the Italian navy.</p>
<p>Republic of Minerva (1972)Location: Reef in the South PacificRaison d’être: Libertarian utopia, minting gold coins. Invaded by Tonga.</p>
<p>Oceania (1993-94)Location: Man-made floating “hexagons” 50 miles off PanamaRaison d’être: <a href="http://oceania.org/info.html#1.3" type="external">Laissez-faire capitalist paradise</a>. “In Oceania the sharks and barnacles will be in the sea, not on your property!” Never got off the drawing board.</p>
<p>Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (2004-present)Location: Tiny islands in the Great Barrier ReefRaison d’être: Pro-gay-marriage protest against Australia. National anthem: Gloria Gaynor’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj8C43r4zm0" type="external">“I Am What I Am.”</a> —Dave Gilson</p>
<p>Over the next three-plus decades, Sealand was approached with various outlandish schemes involving smuggling, tax havens, a “pleasure island,” and even an outpost for disgruntled Argentines during the Falklands War. In the mid-1990s, a Spanish businessman claiming to be Sealand’s “prime minister” began soliciting investors for a project to expand the platform and build a “luxury hotel and casino, business center, sports complex, medical center, tuition-free University of Sealand, and Roman Catholic cathedral.”</p>
<p>It looked like Sealand had finally found the perfect match for its maverick, give-’em-hell spirit when it paired up with Ryan Lackey and Sean Hastings. Lackey was a 21-year-old cryptography wiz who had recently dropped out of MIT to work on an electronic-payment startup that he had cofounded. With a round face and shaved head, often donning all black in pictures, he looked every bit the part of hacker rebel. Hastings, 32, was also a dropout. In 1989, he left the University of Michigan without a degree because he didn’t want to fulfill his humanities requirement, and had since made a living playing poker and working as a programmer. After a job with an offshore-betting company fell apart, Hastings moved to the island of Anguilla, where he started a company called IsleByte, to operate as a data haven—like a tax haven, but for information, allowing pornographers, gamblers, and copyright pirates to operate beyond the reach of local laws banning their businesses.</p>
<p>When Hastings and Lackey met at a financial-cryptography conference on the island in 1998, they discovered they were kindred spirits. They both belonged to a class of techno-libertarians called “cypherpunks,” who believed encryption and technology were the key to fighting government overreach. Not long after the cryptography conference, Hastings ditched island life and headed back to the United States, where he and Lackey started to brainstorm. Anguilla might have been good for offshore companies, but Hastings had found it a poor fit for his data haven project—porn and gambling were both heavily restricted and could get the site shut down. If Hastings and Lackey wanted to create a real data haven, they decided they need to find a more permissive base of operations. Once they were both back in the States, the pair began looking for a lax, welcoming government. They scoped out Pacific islands and even considering building their own on the Cortez Bank, 100 miles of the coast of San Diego, or mooring a tanker off the coast of LA. But when they read about Sealand and its authority-flouting, pirate radio past in Erwin Strauss’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Start-Your-Own-Country/dp/1581605242" type="external">How to Start Your Own Country</a>, they knew they’d found what they were looking for. The Royal Family of Sealand, it seemed, was a bunch of bomb-throwing mavericks, just like them.</p>
<p>To entice the Bateses, Hastings pitched the project as “pirate internet.” Using Sealand as its base, HavenCo was going to offer unprecedented protection for its clients’ information. All hosting would be done on secure servers jammed into the legs that support Sealand’s deck. The servers would live in an atmosphere of pure nitrogen, so you’d need scuba gear to access them, and they’d be connected to triple-redundant generators and three independent internet links. To cement the Bondian flare of their plans, the platform would have armed guards manning .50-caliber machine guns, as well as magnetic mines to fend off gunboats, self-destruct devices in the servers, and a general “bugger off” attitude to anyone who wanted to come snooping. If they were ever forced at gunpoint to hand a server over, <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/haven_pr.html" type="external">Lackey told Wired</a>, “We’d power off the machine, optionally destroy it, possibly turn over the smoking wreck to the attacker, and securely and anonymously refund payment to the owner of the server.”</p>
<p>The company would cater to people who, for one reason or another, wanted to operate without the hindrance of laws. Hastings and Lackey envisioned a client list that ranged from the exiled Tibetan government to pyramid schemes, and online gambling sites to companies sending porn into Saudi Arabia, providing, as James Grimmelmann, the law professor who penned <a href="http://illinoislawreview.org/wp-content/ilr-content/articles/2012/2/Grimmelmann.pdf" type="external">the definitive legal history of HavenCo</a>, wrote, “a combination of first-world infrastructure and third-world regulation.” It was a place where just about anything you wanted to do was fair game. It had a few key rules, written according to its own code of ethics: child porn traffickers, drug-money launderers, spammers, corporate saboteurs, and anything else that could jeopardize its access to the net were all persona non grata.</p>
<p>The revolutionary vision behind HavenCo caught the eyes of the heavyweights of the tech world (including a glowing <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/haven_pr.html" type="external">7,000 word profile in Wired</a>) and the pair eventually scraped together a reported $1 million seed fund. A serious chunk of the money came from two big-deal backers: Joi Ito, now the Director of MIT’s Media Lab, and Avi Freedman. “I think it’s a great project and I hope to see it test some of the edges of our geopolitical economy,” Ito told Wired just before HavenCo’s initial launch. Freedman also thought HavenCo could become a powerful political catalyst. “I have a firm belief that countries that encourage and foster open communication will prosper. Those that don’t, won’t,” he told Wired. “I see the establishment of a company to focus on the data haven aspect as an important first step. There is idealism involved. This is not strictly economic.” But money was a consideration—and the founders of HavenCo talked big. “Five years from now,” Lackey told Wired, “we are either going to be completely broke or we’re going to be fantastically wealthy.” One of the backers estimated that HavenCo would be pulling in $50 to $100 million in profits by the end of its third year.</p>
<p />
<p>The hype might have done more harm than good. HavenCo struggled to get up and running. “Almost all time was spent dealing with press,” Lackey said in a presentation at the tech conference Defcon in 2003. “No one took responsibility for sales, and there was no ticketing system, so basically all initial inquiries were lost or mishandled.”</p>
<p>It wasn’t just that the business was disorganized—HavenCo struggled to put together the kind of high-tech data fortress that the Wired profile had promised. The sparkling, secured server rooms never came close to what the public statements depicted. “The real reason visitors weren’t allowed down the south tower [where the servers were kept],” writes Grimmelmann, “wasn’t because they might see or damage something they shouldn’t, but rather because there was nothing to see.” HavenCo’s headline grabbing advantage—its improbable location—also turned out to be one of its biggest stumbling blocks. There’s a reason you don’t see many data centers on sea platforms—Sealand, Grimmelman noted, had “an absurdly inefficient cost structure. Every single piece of equipment, drop of fuel, and scrap of food had to be brought in by boat or helicopter.”</p>
<p>To make things worse, the dot-com bubble burst, and the company that had provided HavenCo’s fiber-optic link to the rest of the world went bust. The data haven site became a target for denial of service attacks. Then, for reasons he never made public, Hastings abandoned ship in early 2000, leaving Lackey pulling long shifts on the platform. Lackey’s relationship with the royal family of Sealand began to fray. He became more secretive, they claimed, starting projects without telling anyone, chaffing at the way the family did business and nosed into his technical decisions. He “became doctor evil in his lair,” Roy’s son Michael <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/sealand-and-havenco/" type="external">told Ars Technica in 2012</a>.</p>
<p>When the royal family nixed a plan to host a site that would illegally rebroadcast DVDs to its users—exactly the sort of shady project that HavenCo had been built for—things finally broke down. Despite Sealand’s wild history, the Bateses were wary of antagonizing the British and upsetting their delicately balanced claim to sovereignty. They worried that the deal could compromise their relationship with the United Kingdom, and refused to host the DVD site. Lackey was done. In May 2002, he took a deal from the royal family to be repaid the $220,000 he had put into HavenCo and hit the bricks. HavenCo announced that Lackey wasn’t employed there anymore, took his computer, and locked him out. According to Lackey, Sealand had “nationalized” HavenCo.</p>
<p>After that, HavenCo just kind of faded away. The dreams of nitrogen-flooded rooms, armed guards, and glittering rows of secure servers never worked out. HavenCo’s website finally went dead in 2008, and the company was no more.</p>
<p>In the intervening years, though, Freedman stayed in touch with the Bateses, meeting them for dinner in London or catching up with them on family trips to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The idea of a new HavenCo first came up in London in the summer of 2010, when he was talking with Prince James Bates, Roy’s grandson, about the e-commerce site James had launched to peddle Sealand gear. For the next two and a half years, the idea floated in limbo. By this January, when Prince James sent Freedman a three-line missive about the idea, things had changed. Freedman had noticed the trend of hosting companies offering beefed-up security, and was mulling how he could do better. He said yes.</p>
<p>HavenCo 2.0, like its predecessor, still aims to help users “control the tradeoffs between privacy and security on the one end and convenience and ease of use on the other,” Freedman says. But Freedman and the Bates have accepted that “a crypto-utopia is never going to be adopted by the masses,” Freedman says. If the first HavenCo was built for security purists, the mission of HavenCo 2.0 is to bring the best tools of the tech world to a wider audience, and let people control their own security. The idea is to give people the tools to send and store stuff with as many levels of security as is practically feasible, and then let them decide how paranoid they want to be. “Sealand has always prided itself on freedom,” says Prince James Bates, Roy Bates’ grandson. “New laws around the world remove so much of an individual’s right to freedom and privacy that we want to give that back. It’s not about protecting criminals, it’s about helping law abiding citizens to avoid this unregulated drag net surveillance.”</p>
<p>This time, Freedman decided to focus on building an ultrasecure communication and storage system that bundled existing technological tools. HavenCo 2.0 has four main components: virtual private networks (VPN), which create private networks over public ones; secure network storage; Least-Authority File System (LAFS) storage, an open-source, decentralized storage system; and web proxying, which allows users to shield their IP address by routing through other servers. The end goal is creating communications and storage that are key-encrypted from start to finish.</p>
<p />
<p>A way to stay out of the NSA dragnet might be the biggest draw, and the combination of proxies, VPNs, and encryption that HavenCo has packaged could help protect users’ data from the kind of wide-scale surveillance that has recently come to light. The NSA revelations “have turned [data security] into a market that is needed by everyone using the internet and not just the select few that previously understood the need for privacy,” says Prince James. “The revelations about the NSA coming out confirmed what a lot people expected,” adds Freedman, “but it didn’t change what we’re doing.”</p>
<p>Sealand still plays a role in HavenCo’s new business plan, but this time, Freedman says, HavenCo 2.0’s servers are going to be based in the United States and the European Union, not stuffed into the legs of an anti-aircraft platform. (Some of the servers are even in northern Virginia, a couple dozen miles from the NSA’s Maryland headquarters.) The company will use the platform to stash cold data (i.e., drives that aren’t connected to the internet and don’t need to be quickly accessible), including encryption keys. Without the encryption keys, the data stored on the mainland servers is all but useless, and Sealand gives HavenCo enough time to shut down their backup servers and dump the keys. “We’re not advertising thermite charges or EMPs,” says Freedman, but “it’s a less exotic method of making the machine a cold dead box.”</p>
<p>It’s not clear whether HavenCo’s 2.0’s backers have fixed all the problems that doomed the first iteration of their quixotic venture. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. Roy Bates, Sealand’s first prince, had a saying about life in his little nation: “We may die rich, we may die poor. But we certainly shall not die of boredom.”</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | sealandlta hrefhttpcommonswikimediaorgwikifilesealandjpggtryan lackeywikimedia commons months ago internet entrepreneur avi freedman received unexpected email prince decade earlier freedman part effort create data havena safe place information could stashed far reach prying eyes nosy governmentson worlds smallest notorious micronation sealand 120by50foot antiaircraft platform seven miles british coast 60 feet waters cold north sea freedmans expartners selfproclaimed royal family sealand wanted try freedman said yes havenco sealandbased data failed spectacularly decade ago relaunched weekend time freedman thinks going work havenco offering customers total control secure data isand used correctly technology could help internet users want avoid national security agencys sweeping data dragnet understand havenco trying helps understand started havencos first iteration intended kind technoutopia revolutionary potential internet could protected supposed selfcontained hypersecure data fortress servers located site middle north sea company promised would destroy servers rather ever reveal clients data like many dotcomera schemes founders fantastical vision overshot market capabilities could bear the160 principality of160sealand where160havenco160was based founded 1967 waggish former british army major named roy bates bates launched radio essex unlicensed pirate radio station leaving army took rusting world war iiera antiaircraft platform became160sealand160after british government shut previous base another antiaircraft platform closer british shore christmas day 1966 bates evicted staff rival pirate radio station radio caroline platform radio caroline broadcasters tried retake bates defended prize air rifle homemade bombs good bit skullduggery wasnt summer 1967 wife joan made crack wanting flag palm trees go island couple found dereliction sovereignty loophole international law believe allowed take britain neglected proclaim160sealand160its sovereign nation bateses furnished tiny kingdom trappings nationhoodminting currency sewing flag issuing stamps passports one point suffering scandal forgeries popped international smuggling ring topping national anthem elaborate titles friends even coup minister foreign affairs alexander achenbach prince michael bates roys son taken hostage bates retook country dawn helicopter raid help james bond stunt pilot achenbach later set sealand governmentinexile complete website according ars technica dabbles perpetual motion machines ufos conspiracy theories revisionist history brits also considered ousting bates roy played press expertly offering madcap stories headlines marines readied storm sealand ministry defense falling roys double agent proved better leave bates alone continue looking foolish brief quixotic history diy aquatic micronations republic new atlantis 196466location 8by30foot bamboo raft anchored eight miles jamaicaraison dêtre founded ernest hemingways brother leicester guano islands act 1856 economy based stamps honoring churchill hubert humphrey lbj principality sealand 1967presentlocation world war ii military platform six miles english coastraison dêtre vanity project prince roy bates sealand sells royal titles suggested data likes wikileaks republic rose island 196768location platform seven miles italian coastraison dêtre speaking esperanto printing stamps possibly tax evasion blown italian navy republic minerva 1972location reef south pacificraison dêtre libertarian utopia minting gold coins invaded tonga oceania 199394location manmade floating hexagons 50 miles panamaraison dêtre laissezfaire capitalist paradise oceania sharks barnacles sea property never got drawing board gay lesbian kingdom coral sea islands 2004presentlocation tiny islands great barrier reefraison dêtre progaymarriage protest australia national anthem gloria gaynors dave gilson next threeplus decades sealand approached various outlandish schemes involving smuggling tax havens pleasure island even outpost disgruntled argentines falklands war mid1990s spanish businessman claiming sealands prime minister began soliciting investors project expand platform build luxury hotel casino business center sports complex medical center tuitionfree university sealand roman catholic cathedral looked like sealand finally found perfect match maverick giveemhell spirit paired ryan lackey sean hastings lackey 21yearold cryptography wiz recently dropped mit work electronicpayment startup cofounded round face shaved head often donning black pictures looked every bit part hacker rebel hastings 32 also dropout 1989 left university michigan without degree didnt want fulfill humanities requirement since made living playing poker working programmer job offshorebetting company fell apart hastings moved island anguilla started company called islebyte operate data havenlike tax information allowing pornographers gamblers copyright pirates operate beyond reach local laws banning businesses hastings lackey met financialcryptography conference island 1998 discovered kindred spirits belonged class technolibertarians called cypherpunks believed encryption technology key fighting government overreach long cryptography conference hastings ditched island life headed back united states lackey started brainstorm anguilla might good offshore companies hastings found poor fit data projectporn gambling heavily restricted could get site shut hastings lackey wanted create real data decided need find permissive base operations back states pair began looking lax welcoming government scoped pacific islands even considering building cortez bank 100 miles coast san diego mooring tanker coast la read sealand authorityflouting pirate radio past erwin strausss start country knew theyd found looking royal family sealand seemed bunch bombthrowing mavericks like entice bateses hastings pitched project pirate internet using sealand base havenco going offer unprecedented protection clients information hosting would done secure servers jammed legs support sealands deck servers would live atmosphere pure nitrogen youd need scuba gear access theyd connected tripleredundant generators three independent internet links cement bondian flare plans platform would armed guards manning 50caliber machine guns well magnetic mines fend gunboats selfdestruct devices servers general bugger attitude anyone wanted come snooping ever forced gunpoint hand server lackey told wired wed power machine optionally destroy possibly turn smoking wreck attacker securely anonymously refund payment owner server company would cater people one reason another wanted operate without hindrance laws hastings lackey envisioned client list ranged exiled tibetan government pyramid schemes online gambling sites companies sending porn saudi arabia providing james grimmelmann law professor penned definitive legal history havenco wrote combination firstworld infrastructure thirdworld regulation place anything wanted fair game key rules written according code ethics child porn traffickers drugmoney launderers spammers corporate saboteurs anything else could jeopardize access net persona non grata revolutionary vision behind havenco caught eyes heavyweights tech world including glowing 7000 word profile wired pair eventually scraped together reported 1 million seed fund serious chunk money came two bigdeal backers joi ito director mits media lab avi freedman think great project hope see test edges geopolitical economy ito told wired havencos initial launch freedman also thought havenco could become powerful political catalyst firm belief countries encourage foster open communication prosper dont wont told wired see establishment company focus data aspect important first step idealism involved strictly economic money considerationand founders havenco talked big five years lackey told wired either going completely broke going fantastically wealthy one backers estimated havenco would pulling 50 100 million profits end third year hype might done harm good havenco struggled get running almost time spent dealing press lackey said presentation tech conference defcon 2003 one took responsibility sales ticketing system basically initial inquiries lost mishandled wasnt business disorganizedhavenco struggled put together kind hightech data fortress wired profile promised sparkling secured server rooms never came close public statements depicted real reason visitors werent allowed south tower servers kept writes grimmelmann wasnt might see damage something shouldnt rather nothing see havencos headline grabbing advantageits improbable locationalso turned one biggest stumbling blocks theres reason dont see many data centers sea platformssealand grimmelman noted absurdly inefficient cost structure every single piece equipment drop fuel scrap food brought boat helicopter make things worse dotcom bubble burst company provided havencos fiberoptic link rest world went bust data site became target denial service attacks reasons never made public hastings abandoned ship early 2000 leaving lackey pulling long shifts platform lackeys relationship royal family sealand began fray became secretive claimed starting projects without telling anyone chaffing way family business nosed technical decisions became doctor evil lair roys son michael told ars technica 2012 royal family nixed plan host site would illegally rebroadcast dvds usersexactly sort shady project havenco built forthings finally broke despite sealands wild history bateses wary antagonizing british upsetting delicately balanced claim sovereignty worried deal could compromise relationship united kingdom refused host dvd site lackey done may 2002 took deal royal family repaid 220000 put havenco hit bricks havenco announced lackey wasnt employed anymore took computer locked according lackey sealand nationalized havenco havenco kind faded away dreams nitrogenflooded rooms armed guards glittering rows secure servers never worked havencos website finally went dead 2008 company intervening years though freedman stayed touch bateses meeting dinner london catching family trips las vegas los angeles idea new havenco first came london summer 2010 talking prince james bates roys grandson ecommerce site james launched peddle sealand gear next two half years idea floated limbo january prince james sent freedman threeline missive idea things changed freedman noticed trend hosting companies offering beefedup security mulling could better said yes havenco 20 like predecessor still aims help users control tradeoffs privacy security one end convenience ease use freedman says freedman bates accepted cryptoutopia never going adopted masses freedman says first havenco built security purists mission havenco 20 bring best tools tech world wider audience let people control security idea give people tools send store stuff many levels security practically feasible let decide paranoid want sealand always prided freedom says prince james bates roy bates grandson new laws around world remove much individuals right freedom privacy want give back protecting criminals helping law abiding citizens avoid unregulated drag net surveillance time freedman decided focus building ultrasecure communication storage system bundled existing technological tools havenco 20 four main components virtual private networks vpn create private networks public ones secure network storage leastauthority file system lafs storage opensource decentralized storage system web proxying allows users shield ip address routing servers end goal creating communications storage keyencrypted start finish way stay nsa dragnet might biggest draw combination proxies vpns encryption havenco packaged could help protect users data kind widescale surveillance recently come light nsa revelations turned data security market needed everyone using internet select previously understood need privacy says prince james revelations nsa coming confirmed lot people expected adds freedman didnt change sealand still plays role havencos new business plan time freedman says havenco 20s servers going based united states european union stuffed legs antiaircraft platform servers even northern virginia couple dozen miles nsas maryland headquarters company use platform stash cold data ie drives arent connected internet dont need quickly accessible including encryption keys without encryption keys data stored mainland servers useless sealand gives havenco enough time shut backup servers dump keys advertising thermite charges emps says freedman less exotic method making machine cold dead box clear whether havencos 20s backers fixed problems doomed first iteration quixotic venture perhaps doesnt matter roy bates sealands first prince saying life little nation may die rich may die poor certainly shall die boredom | 1,703 |
<p>The Venezuelan congressional elections of December 4, 2005 mark a turning point in domestic politics and US-Venezuelan relations. President Chavez’s party, the Movement of the Fifth Republic, won approximately 68 per cent of the congressional seats and with other pro-government parties , elected all the representatives.</p>
<p>The turnout for the congressional elections without a presidential campaign was 25 per cent. The pro-Chavez percentage exceeds the pluralities secured in previous congressional elections in 1998 (11.24 per cent) and 2000 (17 per cent). If we compare the voter turnout with the most recent election, which included the opposition (the August 2005 municipal elections), the abstention campaign accounted for only a 6 per cent increase in citizens who chose not to vote (69 per cent to75 per cent). The claim that the low turnout was a result of the US backed opposition’s boycott is clearly false.</p>
<p>The argument that the level of turnout calls into question the legitimacy of the elections would, if applied to any US “off-year” election, de-legitimize many congressional, municipal and gubernatorial elections.</p>
<p>One of the most striking aspects of the election was the highly polarized voter participation: In the elite and upper middle class neighborhoods voter turnout was below 10 per cent, while in the numerous popular neighborhoods the BBC reported lines waiting to cast their ballots.</p>
<p>With close to a majority of the poor voting and over 90 per cent voting for Chavez’ party, and electing an all Chavez legislature, the way is open for new, more progressive legislation, without the obstructionist tactics of a virulent opposition. This should lead to measures accelerating the expropriation of latifundios (large estates) and of bankrupt and closed factories as well as new large-scale social and infrastructure investments. It is also possible a new constitutional amendment will allow for a third term for President Chavez.</p>
<p>The Bush Administration (with Democratic Congressional backing) has engaged in desperado ‘casino’ politics, namely an ‘all or nothing’ approach, instead of a gradualist incremental opposition. Washington pushed its client trade union confederation (CTV) ,with financial support and “advice” from the AFL-CIO, into a general strike in 2001. This failed and eventually led to the formation of a new confederation reducing the CTV to an impotent .</p>
<p>In April 2002 the US backed a military coup, which was defeated in 47 hours by a mass popular uprising backed by constitutionalist military officers, resulting in the dismissal of hundreds of pro-US military officials. From December 2002 to February 2003, US-backed officials and their entourage in the state petroleum company, PDVS, organized a lockout, temporarily paralyzing the economy.</p>
<p>Loyalist workers and engineers backed by the government broke the lockout and all the senior officials and employees engaged in the lockout were fired, setting in motion a major shift in petroleum revenue allocation from the upper class to the poor. Likewise the US poured millions via the NED into a non-governmental organ ization, SUMATE, to fund a referendum to recall Chavez in 2004. The referendum was defeated by a 16-point margin (58 per cent to 42 per cent) leading to demoralization, apathy and depoliticizing of the voter constituency of the right.</p>
<p>In the recent congressional campaign, polls indicated another massive electoral defeat, Washington pressured its NGO and political clients to withdraw from the ballot and call for an abstention, with the above-mentioned result — total loss of any institutional sphere of influence, further isolation of its political constituency and the inevitable turn of the business class toward direct negotiations with the Chavez congress-people instead of via the opposition.</p>
<p>In each confrontation, Washington burned a strategic client group in its bid to grab state power in the shortest time. Washington rejected a gradualist insider political strategy of accumulating forces over time, modifying legislation through negotiations, exploring real or imagined grievances and tempering the demagogic rhetoric embedded in its foreign policy.</p>
<p>The basic question is: why did Washington persist in its go-for-broke policies despite a sequence of defeats?</p>
<p>Between 2001-2002, the ideologues of multiple wars, under the guise of anti-terrorism and the slogan “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” (Bush, September 23, 2001), were determined to make short shrift of the Chavez regime. The reason was that President Chavez was one of the very few non-communist regimes to oppose the US war against Afghanistan and condemn US terror (Chavez stated “You can’t fight terror with terror.”).</p>
<p>Given that mad-dog fanatics controlled power in Washington as early as October 2001, a US State Department official (Grossman) threatened Chavez that “He and future generations (of Venezuelans) would pay” for opposing US aggression. Along with US Ambassador Charles Shapiro, the neo-conservatives, especially the Cuban-Americans in the State Department who designed Latin American policies, overestimated their influence in the Venezuelan military and exaggerated the power of the mass media and the business elite in shaping the outcome of a military coup. The precipitate action was due to the upcoming invasion of Iraq and the obsessive need to silence foreign governmental opposition — given the mass opposition in the US and Europe to a war against Iraq.</p>
<p>The second factor which influenced Washington’s pursuit of go-for-broke politics, at the time of the lockout, was the pending oil crisis with the invasion of Iraq and Chavez’ ties with Iraq and Iran via its leadership of OPEC.</p>
<p>Having pulled its “military levers” without success, Washington played its oil card to weaken or break OPEC and thus deter any price increases and also to guarantee an increased flow of oil from Venezuela. One of the immediate measures imposed by the 47-hour coup-makers had been to withdraw Venezuela from OPEC. The oil lockout executives would likely have followed suit if they had been able to overthrow the Chavez government.</p>
<p>Washington’s policy of immediate confrontation also followed from Chavez’ growing relations with Cuba. The virulent anti-Cuba lobby and its State Department representatives, Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, were intent on destroying Cuba’s strategic ally in Venezuela, no matter what the risk to US clients in Venezuela, just as the pro-Israel zealots in the Pentagon pushed the war with Iraq and are prepared to offer US support for an Israeli attack on Iran — no matter what the cost to US backed Arab clients in the Middle East.</p>
<p>The third factor that shaped Bush’s policy was Chavez’ opposition to the Latin American Free Trade Area of the Americas and the growing support in Latin America for his proposed Bolivarian Latin American integration alliance (ALBA).</p>
<p>The Washington ultras viewed Latin America as infected by a series of “left of center” regimes “bought” or influenced by Venezuelan oil offers and petroleum financing, undermining US hegemony. In reality none of the regimes in question (Lula in Brazil, Kitchner in Argentina, Vazquez in Uruguay, etc) was in any way pursuing Chavez domestic welfare policies or his critical position on US imperialism.</p>
<p>Given the US failures to consolidate rule in Iraq or Afghanistan, and US defeats in the UN and OAS in isolating Cuba, the ultras were desperate for a political victory. So they pursued their strategy of confrontatiohn with Venezuela, each time with less institutional and political support, in a losing game to compensate for previous defeats. The weaker their client forces, the shriller the rhetoric, the less resonance in Venezuela, Latin America and even in the US Congress — thanks to Chavez’ policy of offering subsidized oil to low-income consumers in the US.</p>
<p>What will the old parties, which boycotted the elections, do now that they excluded themselves from Congress? The two major parties, the Democratic Action (AD) and Social Christians (COPEI), relied heavily on party patronage, government jobs to secure activists and voters. Without it the party apparatus possibly could survive on handouts from the phony US NGOs (The Democratic and Republican Institutes) but without jobs and perks the loyalists will look elsewhere and perhaps hook onto some of the more conservative pro-Chavez political groups or retire from politics or form a new party.</p>
<p>Chavez was absolutely right when he said these elections spelled the burial of the traditional parties as viable contenders for electoral power. Some but not most of the political supporters of the traditional parties are not prepared nor have the stomach for bomb throwing and street fighting. However some of the other groups like the pseudo-populist Justice First Party and the extremists around the Bush-backed NED-financed NGO, SUMATE, may engage in some sort of street violence.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the Venezuelan right is incapable of replicating the CIA-Soros “color revolutions” in the Caucasus for several reasons. First the Chavez regime has a mass active and engaged popular base, which dominates the street action. Secondly there is no issue around which the right can mobilize and unify a popular movement. The vast welfare programs are popular, the economy is growing, living standards are rising, corruption is not out of control and there is complete freedom of assembly, press and speech.</p>
<p>The conservative business associations increasingly are prospering from government contracts and depend on contacts with the victorious party in power to consummate deals They are not likely to make a risky bet with defeated NGOs and parties with a history of failed adventurous politics when it would be easier to make money now, notwithstanding their hyperventilating against “the negro” at their private cocktail parties.</p>
<p>That leaves the opposition two options. The pragmatists, especially among the business elite, will probably look to opening a dialogue via the conservative Archbishop of Caracas with the more moderate wing of the Chavez government (the economic and finance ministries) and Congress to gain influence and limit changes from “within”.</p>
<p>The second option is a turn to violent extra-parliamentary action and recruitment of some military or intelligence officials of ambiguous loyalties. We can expect a few bombings as took place on Election Day — blowing up of an oil pipeline and a stick of dynamite being tossed next to a Caracas military base. Neither of these had major repercussions. An upgrading of community vigilance committees and counter-terrorist operations should be able to handle these extremists, despite their obvious CIA backing.</p>
<p>Clearly Washington’s strategy has led to the decommissioning of the most significant levers of power, which Washington possessed in Venezuelan society. What remain are the private mass media, which can still mount a formidable anti-government, pro-US propaganda campaign. The US can be counted on to strengthen and perhaps radicalize its message, in hopes of provoking a crackdown, under the bizarre belief that the “worse the better”. Already Thomas Shannon, the US Undersecretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs, responded to the sweeping Chavez electoral victory by calling it “a step toward totalitarianism”, a judgment rejected by every country in North and South America, the United Nations and an army of European Union electoral observers.</p>
<p>US propagandists have failed to recognize the fact that extremism has led to virtual total isolation, even among the US’s most loyal clients in the region. Washington may try to pressure Colombia and its President Uribe to create border conflicts, but that is not going to work either. Venezuelan-Colombian trade is growing rapidly and amounts to $3 billion dollars, greater than Colombia’s trade with the US. Moreover, Venezuela is Colombia’s most important market for manufactured goods (accounting for 25 per cent of the total). With a major billion dollar Venezuelan gas and petrol pipeline passing through Colombia, there is hardly a rancher, industrialist or banker supporting a US-backed Colombian foray into Venezuela.</p>
<p>Washington has two other levers — the NGOs and the clandestine terrorists who can attempt to sow chaos and destruction in order to provoke a coup or, at least, street demonstrations. There are two problems which undermine the effectiveness of the NGOs like SUMATE. Their dependence on US financing and lack of an independent standing has deflated their legitimacy among the lower middle class, shopkeepers, professionals and conservative sectors of public employees. Moreover, their numerous failed campaigns and the loss of institutional power has demoralized those who used to turn out for demonstrations. That leaves Washington with the clandestine armed terrorists, who have some support among a reduced sector of the elite in the form of safe houses, access to weapons and money. Without totally disregarding their capacity to set off bombs, terrorism is likely to boomerang — strengthen popular demands for greater security measures — a “mano duro”.</p>
<p>That leaves us with a possible direct US intervention. While the ultras in Washington are theoretically capable of such a move, practically they lack regional allies, their internal political assets are at their weakest point and the internal political weakness of the Bush Administration and the increasingly anti-war US public (and even some sectors of Congress) preclude a new invasion, involving a prolonged war against a government backed by millions of its citizens, with and without arms.</p>
<p>However given the combined AON outlook and the extremism in Washington nothing can be absolutely excluded.</p>
<p>With the demise of the traditional parties, political pluralism, debate and political competition will be expressed elsewhere. There are numerous political parties and tendencies who are “pro-Chavez” including a dozen parties, which can be classified as social democratic, social liberal, nationalist and a variety of Marxist groups. Likewise in the agrarian and industrial sectors and within the social movements and trade unions, there are divisions and competition between reformers, centrists and revolutionaries. Within Congress and the ministries these tendencies argue, debate, propose and modify policies. And Chavez himself has a ‘reformist’ pragmatic and revolutionary side to his discourse and practice. In other words, pluralistic democracy is alive and well. The big questions between market and state, private and public ownership, landowners and peasants, self-managed factories and private monopolies, and foreign and domestic capital will be taken up and resolved within the multi-tendency Chavista umbrella.</p>
<p>The moderate or conservative wing of Chavismo is concerned about legitimacy despite the clean and certified elections. They are likely to seek and reach out to the less extreme personalities, church notables and business leaders in order to encourage a new “reasonable” political opposition, in order to countermand the US screeds amplified by the local media about creeping totalitarianism. The pragmatists will look toward maintaining fiscal discipline, limiting social spending and promoting joint public-private “partnerships”.</p>
<p>The centrist groups and parties will seek to consolidate political power within the institutions and their electorate by promoting piecemeal reforms, increasing social spending and distributing big infrastructure contracts to the progressive bourgeoisie.</p>
<p>The left groups, organized mainly in the new class-oriented trade unions, neighborhood and community based cooperatives, peasant social movements and, especially, in the worker self-managed enterprises and movements, are pushing for a deepening of the socialization process and greater investment in local productive enterprises to reduce the 50 per cent of the labor force which remains unemployed or underemployed. At the same time they attack the top-down selection of electoral candidates. Conflicts are likely to emerge between the mass activists in the neighborhoods and trade unions and certain opportunist and corrupt municipal and provincial officials, especially in the allocation of funds and the style of leadership.</p>
<p>Chavez stands with the left and the mass movements but he does not discount the pragmatists who decide macro-economic policy nor the centrists who are attempting to institutionalize political power. Yet it is Chavez who synthesizes the different positions, educates the public and provides the charismatic leadership, which unifies and moves the whole movement forward. It is Chavez who denounces US imperialism and meets with Iranian leaders, and it is Chavez who signs economic agreements with Colombia’s neo-liberal Uribe and praises Brazil’s corruption-tainted, Wall Street cover boy, Lula Da Silva.</p>
<p>Chavez calls for a wide-ranging debate on his vision of 21st century socialism, sells subsidized oil to poor countries and people (even in the US) and approves of new petrol exploitation contracts with the multinational petroleum giants.</p>
<p>Washington’s support for the self-immolation of the Venezuelan congressional opposition opens the door for greater advances in legislation promoting jobs, public ownership, agrarian reform, progressive labor legislation and the building of bridges toward greater Latin American integration. The loss of US levers of power presents a great opportunity for reformists and revolutionaries to seize the historical moment and demonstrate their capacity not only to defeat the empire but to build an democratic, just and egalitarian socialist society in which the mass of the population is engaged in legislation, not just voting for politicians who may or may not defend their best interests.</p>
<p>Epilogue</p>
<p>The issue of the legitimacy of the elections is not a serious question. Latin American monitors from the electoral commissions of numerous conservative countries declared the elections and the election outcomes, democratic, transparent and an honest reflection of the will of the voters. The electoral observers from the European Union certified that the elections were transparent.</p>
<p>Regarding the 25 per cent turnout and the abstention campaign promoted by the US-backed opposition: First most of those who did not vote included many supporters of President Chavez. They did not turn out for several reasons:</p>
<p>They saw no reason to vote since victory was assumed; a competitive election would have brought many of them out to vote.</p>
<p>Chavez was not running. The mass popular base is more pro-Chavez than supportive of the Chavista parties or even his own Movement for the Fifth Republic.</p>
<p>Many grassroots pro-Chavez supporters abstained because they did not like the manner in which their candidates were elected (top-down) or didn’t like their policies or style of politics (corruption, nepotism, lack of initiative in pushing reforms.</p>
<p>Many of the beneficiaries of the welfare reforms are passive because they are more accustomed to receiving aid from above rather than struggling for benefits from below. Welfare distributed in a paternalistic way does not encourage political activity.</p>
<p>Secondly many of the opposition voters did not bother to vote because of apathy and demoralization over recent electoral failures (referendums, municipal elections) and costly self-destructive campaigns, which led to job and salary losses (lockouts and coups). This group of non-voters included many who, while not sympathetic to the Chavez parties, are benefiting from the economic programs, and are put off by the extremist rhetoric and violence perpetrated by sectors of the opposition. Many if not most non-voters were not supporters of the opposition’s abstention campaign. Unquestionably voter turnout will at least double for the Presidential elections when Chavez runs for re-election whether the opposition abstains or runs a candidate or candidates.</p>
<p>JAMES PETRAS, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50 year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in brazil and argentina and is co-author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1856499383/counterpunch" type="external">Globalization Unmasked</a> (Zed). His new book with Henry Veltmeyer, <a href="" type="internal">Social Movements and the State: Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina</a>, will be published in October 2005. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | venezuelan congressional elections december 4 2005 mark turning point domestic politics usvenezuelan relations president chavezs party movement fifth republic approximately 68 per cent congressional seats progovernment parties elected representatives turnout congressional elections without presidential campaign 25 per cent prochavez percentage exceeds pluralities secured previous congressional elections 1998 1124 per cent 2000 17 per cent compare voter turnout recent election included opposition august 2005 municipal elections abstention campaign accounted 6 per cent increase citizens chose vote 69 per cent to75 per cent claim low turnout result us backed oppositions boycott clearly false argument level turnout calls question legitimacy elections would applied us offyear election delegitimize many congressional municipal gubernatorial elections one striking aspects election highly polarized voter participation elite upper middle class neighborhoods voter turnout 10 per cent numerous popular neighborhoods bbc reported lines waiting cast ballots close majority poor voting 90 per cent voting chavez party electing chavez legislature way open new progressive legislation without obstructionist tactics virulent opposition lead measures accelerating expropriation latifundios large estates bankrupt closed factories well new largescale social infrastructure investments also possible new constitutional amendment allow third term president chavez bush administration democratic congressional backing engaged desperado casino politics namely nothing approach instead gradualist incremental opposition washington pushed client trade union confederation ctv financial support advice aflcio general strike 2001 failed eventually led formation new confederation reducing ctv impotent april 2002 us backed military coup defeated 47 hours mass popular uprising backed constitutionalist military officers resulting dismissal hundreds prous military officials december 2002 february 2003 usbacked officials entourage state petroleum company pdvs organized lockout temporarily paralyzing economy loyalist workers engineers backed government broke lockout senior officials employees engaged lockout fired setting motion major shift petroleum revenue allocation upper class poor likewise us poured millions via ned nongovernmental organ ization sumate fund referendum recall chavez 2004 referendum defeated 16point margin 58 per cent 42 per cent leading demoralization apathy depoliticizing voter constituency right recent congressional campaign polls indicated another massive electoral defeat washington pressured ngo political clients withdraw ballot call abstention abovementioned result total loss institutional sphere influence isolation political constituency inevitable turn business class toward direct negotiations chavez congresspeople instead via opposition confrontation washington burned strategic client group bid grab state power shortest time washington rejected gradualist insider political strategy accumulating forces time modifying legislation negotiations exploring real imagined grievances tempering demagogic rhetoric embedded foreign policy basic question washington persist goforbroke policies despite sequence defeats 20012002 ideologues multiple wars guise antiterrorism slogan youre either us youre terrorists bush september 23 2001 determined make short shrift chavez regime reason president chavez one noncommunist regimes oppose us war afghanistan condemn us terror chavez stated cant fight terror terror given maddog fanatics controlled power washington early october 2001 us state department official grossman threatened chavez future generations venezuelans would pay opposing us aggression along us ambassador charles shapiro neoconservatives especially cubanamericans state department designed latin american policies overestimated influence venezuelan military exaggerated power mass media business elite shaping outcome military coup precipitate action due upcoming invasion iraq obsessive need silence foreign governmental opposition given mass opposition us europe war iraq second factor influenced washingtons pursuit goforbroke politics time lockout pending oil crisis invasion iraq chavez ties iraq iran via leadership opec pulled military levers without success washington played oil card weaken break opec thus deter price increases also guarantee increased flow oil venezuela one immediate measures imposed 47hour coupmakers withdraw venezuela opec oil lockout executives would likely followed suit able overthrow chavez government washingtons policy immediate confrontation also followed chavez growing relations cuba virulent anticuba lobby state department representatives otto reich roger noriega intent destroying cubas strategic ally venezuela matter risk us clients venezuela proisrael zealots pentagon pushed war iraq prepared offer us support israeli attack iran matter cost us backed arab clients middle east third factor shaped bushs policy chavez opposition latin american free trade area americas growing support latin america proposed bolivarian latin american integration alliance alba washington ultras viewed latin america infected series left center regimes bought influenced venezuelan oil offers petroleum financing undermining us hegemony reality none regimes question lula brazil kitchner argentina vazquez uruguay etc way pursuing chavez domestic welfare policies critical position us imperialism given us failures consolidate rule iraq afghanistan us defeats un oas isolating cuba ultras desperate political victory pursued strategy confrontatiohn venezuela time less institutional political support losing game compensate previous defeats weaker client forces shriller rhetoric less resonance venezuela latin america even us congress thanks chavez policy offering subsidized oil lowincome consumers us old parties boycotted elections excluded congress two major parties democratic action ad social christians copei relied heavily party patronage government jobs secure activists voters without party apparatus possibly could survive handouts phony us ngos democratic republican institutes without jobs perks loyalists look elsewhere perhaps hook onto conservative prochavez political groups retire politics form new party chavez absolutely right said elections spelled burial traditional parties viable contenders electoral power political supporters traditional parties prepared stomach bomb throwing street fighting however groups like pseudopopulist justice first party extremists around bushbacked nedfinanced ngo sumate may engage sort street violence doubt venezuelan right incapable replicating ciasoros color revolutions caucasus several reasons first chavez regime mass active engaged popular base dominates street action secondly issue around right mobilize unify popular movement vast welfare programs popular economy growing living standards rising corruption control complete freedom assembly press speech conservative business associations increasingly prospering government contracts depend contacts victorious party power consummate deals likely make risky bet defeated ngos parties history failed adventurous politics would easier make money notwithstanding hyperventilating negro private cocktail parties leaves opposition two options pragmatists especially among business elite probably look opening dialogue via conservative archbishop caracas moderate wing chavez government economic finance ministries congress gain influence limit changes within second option turn violent extraparliamentary action recruitment military intelligence officials ambiguous loyalties expect bombings took place election day blowing oil pipeline stick dynamite tossed next caracas military base neither major repercussions upgrading community vigilance committees counterterrorist operations able handle extremists despite obvious cia backing clearly washingtons strategy led decommissioning significant levers power washington possessed venezuelan society remain private mass media still mount formidable antigovernment prous propaganda campaign us counted strengthen perhaps radicalize message hopes provoking crackdown bizarre belief worse better already thomas shannon us undersecretary state western hemispheric affairs responded sweeping chavez electoral victory calling step toward totalitarianism judgment rejected every country north south america united nations army european union electoral observers us propagandists failed recognize fact extremism led virtual total isolation even among uss loyal clients region washington may try pressure colombia president uribe create border conflicts going work either venezuelancolombian trade growing rapidly amounts 3 billion dollars greater colombias trade us moreover venezuela colombias important market manufactured goods accounting 25 per cent total major billion dollar venezuelan gas petrol pipeline passing colombia hardly rancher industrialist banker supporting usbacked colombian foray venezuela washington two levers ngos clandestine terrorists attempt sow chaos destruction order provoke coup least street demonstrations two problems undermine effectiveness ngos like sumate dependence us financing lack independent standing deflated legitimacy among lower middle class shopkeepers professionals conservative sectors public employees moreover numerous failed campaigns loss institutional power demoralized used turn demonstrations leaves washington clandestine armed terrorists support among reduced sector elite form safe houses access weapons money without totally disregarding capacity set bombs terrorism likely boomerang strengthen popular demands greater security measures mano duro leaves us possible direct us intervention ultras washington theoretically capable move practically lack regional allies internal political assets weakest point internal political weakness bush administration increasingly antiwar us public even sectors congress preclude new invasion involving prolonged war government backed millions citizens without arms however given combined aon outlook extremism washington nothing absolutely excluded demise traditional parties political pluralism debate political competition expressed elsewhere numerous political parties tendencies prochavez including dozen parties classified social democratic social liberal nationalist variety marxist groups likewise agrarian industrial sectors within social movements trade unions divisions competition reformers centrists revolutionaries within congress ministries tendencies argue debate propose modify policies chavez reformist pragmatic revolutionary side discourse practice words pluralistic democracy alive well big questions market state private public ownership landowners peasants selfmanaged factories private monopolies foreign domestic capital taken resolved within multitendency chavista umbrella moderate conservative wing chavismo concerned legitimacy despite clean certified elections likely seek reach less extreme personalities church notables business leaders order encourage new reasonable political opposition order countermand us screeds amplified local media creeping totalitarianism pragmatists look toward maintaining fiscal discipline limiting social spending promoting joint publicprivate partnerships centrist groups parties seek consolidate political power within institutions electorate promoting piecemeal reforms increasing social spending distributing big infrastructure contracts progressive bourgeoisie left groups organized mainly new classoriented trade unions neighborhood community based cooperatives peasant social movements especially worker selfmanaged enterprises movements pushing deepening socialization process greater investment local productive enterprises reduce 50 per cent labor force remains unemployed underemployed time attack topdown selection electoral candidates conflicts likely emerge mass activists neighborhoods trade unions certain opportunist corrupt municipal provincial officials especially allocation funds style leadership chavez stands left mass movements discount pragmatists decide macroeconomic policy centrists attempting institutionalize political power yet chavez synthesizes different positions educates public provides charismatic leadership unifies moves whole movement forward chavez denounces us imperialism meets iranian leaders chavez signs economic agreements colombias neoliberal uribe praises brazils corruptiontainted wall street cover boy lula da silva chavez calls wideranging debate vision 21st century socialism sells subsidized oil poor countries people even us approves new petrol exploitation contracts multinational petroleum giants washingtons support selfimmolation venezuelan congressional opposition opens door greater advances legislation promoting jobs public ownership agrarian reform progressive labor legislation building bridges toward greater latin american integration loss us levers power presents great opportunity reformists revolutionaries seize historical moment demonstrate capacity defeat empire build democratic egalitarian socialist society mass population engaged legislation voting politicians may may defend best interests epilogue issue legitimacy elections serious question latin american monitors electoral commissions numerous conservative countries declared elections election outcomes democratic transparent honest reflection voters electoral observers european union certified elections transparent regarding 25 per cent turnout abstention campaign promoted usbacked opposition first vote included many supporters president chavez turn several reasons saw reason vote since victory assumed competitive election would brought many vote chavez running mass popular base prochavez supportive chavista parties even movement fifth republic many grassroots prochavez supporters abstained like manner candidates elected topdown didnt like policies style politics corruption nepotism lack initiative pushing reforms many beneficiaries welfare reforms passive accustomed receiving aid rather struggling benefits welfare distributed paternalistic way encourage political activity secondly many opposition voters bother vote apathy demoralization recent electoral failures referendums municipal elections costly selfdestructive campaigns led job salary losses lockouts coups group nonvoters included many sympathetic chavez parties benefiting economic programs put extremist rhetoric violence perpetrated sectors opposition many nonvoters supporters oppositions abstention campaign unquestionably voter turnout least double presidential elections chavez runs reelection whether opposition abstains runs candidate candidates james petras former professor sociology binghamton university new york owns 50 year membership class struggle adviser landless jobless brazil argentina coauthor globalization unmasked zed new book henry veltmeyer social movements state brazil ecuador bolivia argentina published october 2005 reached jpetrasbinghamtonedu 160 160 | 1,846 |
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<p>On May 12, Arctic explorers Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen will set off on a summer crossing of the Arctic Sea, by way of the North Pole –- a journey so difficult that no polar adventurer has ever seriously considered it.</p>
<p>The North Pole was first reached by Robert E. Peary almost a century ago, and every expedition there since has been undertaken during the winter months, for a simple reason: in the winter the entire crossing is made over ice and snow. In summer you’d to cross vast expanses of ice and water.</p>
<p>To be sure, a winter explorer has to contend with extreme conditions–primarily severe cold. Larsen and Dupre, by contrast, have to prepare for hot and cold, wet and dry, shifting ice, days and days of continuous sun, and long hours of impenetrably thick fog.</p>
<p>If that’s not challenge enough, Dupre and Larsen are planning to travel the roughly 1,200 mile, 100 day journey without any outside support, meaning they will bring absolutely everything they need with them, paddling or towing over 340 pounds each, the entire length of the trip.</p>
<p>What gives these two men the confidence they can pull this off? For one thing, both have years of experience in the Arctic. In 1989, Dupre crossed the Bering Sea with six Soviets and six Americans to promote peace between the two superpowers. Between 1997 and 2001, he circumnavigated Greenland.</p>
<p>It was on his four-year journey around Greenland that Dupre encountered entire cultures of people who were directly experiencing the rapid effects of global warming. The current expedition is intended, in part, to bring attention to similar effects in the Arctic. The region may be devoid of sea ice as soon as the middle of this century, animals like polar bears are on the verge of extinction, and native populations like the Inuit may be forced to abandon their ways of life.</p>
<p>Dupre and Larsen sat down to chat with Mother Jones on a recent visit to San Francisco.</p>
<p>Mother Jones: Tell us a little about the journey you have planned.</p>
<p>Lonnie Dupre: The name of the expedition is the “One World Expedition” and it will begin on May 12th from a place called Cape Arcitchesky off Russia’s Northern coast. We’re gonna make a 1,250 mile crossing of the Arctic Ocean by the North Pole to Canada’s Ellesmere Island. The purpose of the expedition is to bring attention to global warming.</p>
<p>No one’s ever even tried this in the summer before, and once we leave the Cape, we’ll have everything we need in our canoe-sled for a hundred days of travel, which is about how long we’re expecting our trip to last. The entire journey will be unsupported – we’ll be out there on our own.</p>
<p>MJ: What kind of preparation did this require?</p>
<p>LD: It’s a logistical nightmare! Any time you’re dealing with Russia and large sums of money you get quite nervous because you wonder whether or not all the permits and paperwork are really getting done.</p>
<p>Eric Larsen: It’s complicated because we have to get ourselves and all our gear to our starting point which means a commercial flight to Moscow, another flight to Khatanga – which is a smaller community Northern Siberia – then a 10-hour helicopter flight and then a final flight to our departure point at Cape Arcitchesky. All of this is weather dependent.</p>
<p>Once we launch we’re on our own. But still, you have to think, “what if we need to get rescued?” That all needs to be planned in advance as well. If we get in trouble, we have to rely on helicopters or Russian Icebreakers. If we make it past the Pole to a point where we’re out of range of the Russian helicopters, we have to rely on Canadian support, and there’ll be a period in there where a rescue would actually be impossible. These are a few of the reasons why this trip hasn’t even been attempted before. The logistics are so incredibly complicated.</p>
<p>MJ: So you just hope for the best I suppose…</p>
<p>EL: To a certain degree we’re taking a big risk, but we also need to be responsible ourselves. As modern-day explorers, we don’t want to rely on the goodwill of nation’s to rescue us. Just like somebody on a weekend hike needs to be responsible – there’s no difference. Our journey is just on a grander scale.</p>
<p>EL: We don’t wanna die. Our goal is to live.</p>
<p>MJ: Once you guys are on your own, what does the trip look like?</p>
<p>LD: At the heart of it, we use a strategy of skiing and canoeing. Skiing and pulling a sled is common; skiing and pulling a canoe is what makes our mission amphibious, it’s a modified version of what I developed when I traveled around Greenland. We used to drag kayaks across the ice but they don’t drag real well–they go one way or the other, they’re too long, they cross your path up. As I was going through this stuff I was thinking, “what would be the optimum boat to use on the pack ice? And it turned out to be a whitewater canoe.”</p>
<p>MJ: I imagine that’s the only way to do a trip like this?</p>
<p>LD: In the summer, yes. I mean, you go across a mile of ice and there’s gonna be water to contend with. If this is a winter expedition, we’d have had our gear planned two years ago. And if it was a completely summer expedition in the sub-Arctic, that’d be no problem either. But this is a combination of the two – and you need equipment for all sorts of conditions, wet and dry, warm and cold.</p>
<p>EL: There will be times that we’re coming up to leads that are so choked with ice that we can’t paddle through them and may not be not consolidated enough to ski across. So we may end up crawling across and pulling our boats or half swimming. We have these things called gaffe hooks – just a wooden pole with hooks on the end–and we’ll just gaffe our way through.</p>
<p>LD: It won’t always be pretty. This is a technique we used in Greenland, and it worked fairly well. With the dry-suits, in these conditions, we can actually salamander across the top of the ice chunks with a rope attached to the suit and the boat. We can just tow the boat through these conditions.</p>
<p>MJ: You guys are planning on sending pictures back – will we get to see the “salamander” in action?</p>
<p>EL: We have a nice little digital camera that’s water resistant, so we should be able to get some interesting pictures – maybe Lonnie’s face resting on an ice-block somewhere, towing the canoe behind him.</p>
<p>Later in the expedition we’ll probably be skiing more once we reach some more solid pack. We’ll still encounter leads where we’ll have to get in the canoes, but by that time they’ll mostly be used as sleds. It will also be the height of summer, which means more melt-water pools and mushier snow conditions. We have snowshoes we can use on pressured ice and we have some pretty heavy duty crampons, too.</p>
<p>LD: We’ll actually be the first expedition to use snowshoes on the Arctic Ocean since Robert Peary went up there in 1909.</p>
<p>MJ: What kind of food will you be bringing – we heard something about 300 Clif bars?</p>
<p>LD: 340 each! Actually I love Clif Bars. Other than that, everything’s a one-pot meal, and already in the bag – you just put it in boiling water and shut the stove off and let it steep for 20 minutes. You save a lot of fuel and it makes it much easier when you’re tired from too many hours of travel.</p>
<p>Breakfast is mainly oatmeal, but to break that monotony we have some buckwheat cereal, rice pudding, and dehydrated beans that we mix with dehydrated eggs to make huevos rancheros – or at least a version of it. We’ll wash all that down with some energy drink.</p>
<p>For lunch we’ll have some aged Italian salami, more Clif bars, of course, and chocolate bars, with nuts and raisins for a little more protein. For dinner we’ll have a base of rice, pasta, or potatoes. That comes out to around 6,000 calories a day. You’d be amazed how hungry you are after dragging a 300 pound sled all day long.</p>
<p>EL: And we’ll end up losing weight. It’s the first diet where you lose weight after eating 6,000 calories per day!</p>
<p>MJ: So why hasn’t this been done before? I mean, it seems people have traveled on every inch of the globe, but you say this is the first Arctic summer crossing?</p>
<p>LD: Explorers from Peary’s time in 1909 have been going to the North Pole. But I think people just haven’t thought out of the box. Also, an Arctic crossing requires two types of Arctic travel skills–Arctic kayaking and winter traveling.</p>
<p>EL: Even now we talk to a lot of the prominent polar explorers, and they still can’t seem to grasp what we’re doing because it is so unconventional. They say it’s impossible, or very unlikely.</p>
<p>MJ: I think people have this impression that the Arctic is this vast expanse of ice and water–which it really is–but I imagine, after all the time you both have spent up there, that you regard it as more than just some harsh, barren wilderness.</p>
<p>LD: Well, if you travel on the surface, the Arctic seems dead and lifeless. But if you flip an ice pan over, it’s full of algae and there are little fish that live under there. There are seals you don’t see. It’s a living ocean like any other ocean. And when we get across, the world is going to seem that much smaller. I had that feeling after traveling around Greenland, which is huge, and yet we were able to go around it. It just makes the whole world feel like a very small place, and reminds us that we need to protect these spots.</p>
<p>EL: The thing about the Arctic is that it’s a real subtle beauty. But it’s more than that, too, because it’s so vast–and that’s not subtle at all. You’re just this small thing in this vast space, and it’s really inspiring just to be there. And you may think looking from a position high above that it’s all the same, but traveling across at a snail’s pace you notice details like a piece of snow curved delicately. It’s a sublime beauty.</p>
<p>Now on the other hand when you’re having a bad day and the boat feels like a million pounds and you think, “left foot… right foot,” and all you see are your skies and boots…</p>
<p>MJ: You both have years of experience in the Arctic. Have you noticed the effects of global warming?</p>
<p>LD: Absolutely. Even growing up in Minnesota you’d have to be blind not to see the changes. We used to have substantial winters in Minnesota and massive amounts of snowfall. Now you don’t even know if you can cross-country ski in northern Minnesota in a given year.</p>
<p>I’ve lived and traveled with the Inuit in Alaska and Canada and the polar Eskimos of Greenland and they all have told me about changes that are happening in the Arctic. The ice is melting and undermining the foundations of many of their buildings. They’re seeing robins for the first time, and species of insects they don’t even have names for. Migration patterns of some of the animals that they hunt are changing. Ice is forming later in the winter and melting earlier in the spring, so dog-sledding becomes very dangerous. The Inuit elders used to be able to predict the weather at least three days out. Now they can’t predict the weather from one day to the next.</p>
<p>MJ: Doing this sort of adventure journey is a completely different way of focusing people’s attention towards global warming. Do you think it could captivate the American public in a way scientists and politicians haven’t been able to?</p>
<p>EL: We’re just two average guys but we’re busting our butts across all that sea ice, and I think adventure is interesting to many, many people. We’re using the expedition as a tool to communicate the dramatic changes that are happening to a worldwide audience, who hopefully will be influenced into action.</p>
<p>MJ: Have you linked exploration and activism in the past?</p>
<p>LD: During our circumnavigation of Greenland we had a website linked to 300 schools in the upper Midwest, and kids followed us along the journey and asked us questions like “Did you see any polar bears today?” That was more of a cultural and geography program to learn about the way these people lived, and what life was like in the Northern-most place in the world that people actually live in. I thought this expedition would be a good conduit to send an environmental message through.</p>
<p>MJ: If you were doing a summer crossing 50-60 years ago, before global warming had really kicked in, would the journey be different?</p>
<p>LD:You’d still need the canoes, although the major difference is that there is much more open water now.</p>
<p>EL: And there’s probably more surface melt water now. This will be a benefit at times, and a hindrance at times too.</p>
<p>LD: But in the end, it won’t be nice to see all that melting going on. That’s the bottom line.</p>
<p>MJ: And you’re working with scientists?</p>
<p>EL: Dr. Don Perovich, who is with the Army Corp of Engineers Cold Regions Environment and Engineering Laboratory, does a lot of research on Arctic sea ice and surface melt. He’s designing a measuring protocol for us to document the amount of surface water that’s on the sea ice, so we’ll be able to establish data about the size, quality, and quantity of melt-water pools that we encounter.</p>
<p>LD: And we’re working with Dr. Paul Mayewski from the University of Maine. We’ll be taking snow samples about every 50 miles along the way and they’ll be analyzed for particulate and heavy metal content, like mercury and lead. Eric and I aren’t scientists, but the scientists that are involved see our expedition as a really good opportunity to collect data.</p>
<p>MJ: I’m curious, who are your heroes?</p>
<p>LD: I admire a friend of mine’s son, Dan Hanson, who can’t do expeditions like this because he’s in a wheel chair. I admire his courage. That would be the worst–not being able to get out and explore.</p>
<p>EL: How do you follow that up? I really admire Greg LeMond. He sat down when he was a teenager and made a list of the things he wanted to do: win the Tour de France, win the world championship. And he did it! And Will Steger -– he went to the North Pole in 1986, he’s a Minnesota guy. Crossed Antarctica, and he’s lived a life of adventure. I admire that guy.</p>
<p>MJ: Tell us about the dynamic between you two. This trip seems like the ultimate test of teamwork and friendship.</p>
<p>EL: It is interesting, because Lonnie and I are pretty different people, we solve problems really differently. It was hard initially, when we didn’t know each other and weren’t able to communicate so well. Over time it’s been good because we’ve been able to balance out – one person’s strength and one person’s weakness and vice versa –- to come up with a better end result.</p>
<p>MJ: When are you planning to finish the crossing?</p>
<p>LD: We’re expecting to hit Canada on around August 21. The last possible date we want to be out there is September 5th. After that we start losing lots of light, fall storms come in, and the ice starts to refreeze. There are parts where the ice is just thick enough that you can’t paddle through it or walk on top of it.</p>
<p>EL: We’re going to try to make haste around the 10th of August.</p>
<p>LD: At around 88 degrees North on the Canadian side we’ll start to pull out all the stops.</p>
<p>MJ: How can people check out what you’re doing?</p>
<p>EL: Our website, <a href="http://http:www.oneworldexpedition.com" type="external">oneworldexpedition.com</a>, will be updated every day while we’re on the expedition. We’ll be using a satellite phone hooked up to a palm-pilot to send text and images. <a href="http://www.projectthinice.org" type="external">Projectthinice.org</a> will also be updated with our specific daily adventures.</p>
<p>LD: By having these updates coming out every single day, it brings more and more people to the site. We’re hoping to get somewhere between 7 and 8 million hits per month during the expedition.</p>
<p>MJ: Well, we wish you guys the best of luck, and we’ll be watching.</p>
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<p /> | true | 4 | may 12 arctic explorers lonnie dupre eric larsen set summer crossing arctic sea way north pole journey difficult polar adventurer ever seriously considered north pole first reached robert e peary almost century ago every expedition since undertaken winter months simple reason winter entire crossing made ice snow summer youd cross vast expanses ice water sure winter explorer contend extreme conditionsprimarily severe cold larsen dupre contrast prepare hot cold wet dry shifting ice days days continuous sun long hours impenetrably thick fog thats challenge enough dupre larsen planning travel roughly 1200 mile 100 day journey without outside support meaning bring absolutely everything need paddling towing 340 pounds entire length trip gives two men confidence pull one thing years experience arctic 1989 dupre crossed bering sea six soviets six americans promote peace two superpowers 1997 2001 circumnavigated greenland fouryear journey around greenland dupre encountered entire cultures people directly experiencing rapid effects global warming current expedition intended part bring attention similar effects arctic region may devoid sea ice soon middle century animals like polar bears verge extinction native populations like inuit may forced abandon ways life dupre larsen sat chat mother jones recent visit san francisco mother jones tell us little journey planned lonnie dupre name expedition one world expedition begin may 12th place called cape arcitchesky russias northern coast gon na make 1250 mile crossing arctic ocean north pole canadas ellesmere island purpose expedition bring attention global warming ones ever even tried summer leave cape well everything need canoesled hundred days travel long expecting trip last entire journey unsupported well mj kind preparation require ld logistical nightmare time youre dealing russia large sums money get quite nervous wonder whether permits paperwork really getting done eric larsen complicated get gear starting point means commercial flight moscow another flight khatanga smaller community northern siberia 10hour helicopter flight final flight departure point cape arcitchesky weather dependent launch still think need get rescued needs planned advance well get trouble rely helicopters russian icebreakers make past pole point range russian helicopters rely canadian support therell period rescue would actually impossible reasons trip hasnt even attempted logistics incredibly complicated mj hope best suppose el certain degree taking big risk also need responsible modernday explorers dont want rely goodwill nations rescue us like somebody weekend hike needs responsible theres difference journey grander scale el dont wan na die goal live mj guys trip look like ld heart use strategy skiing canoeing skiing pulling sled common skiing pulling canoe makes mission amphibious modified version developed traveled around greenland used drag kayaks across ice dont drag real wellthey go one way theyre long cross path going stuff thinking would optimum boat use pack ice turned whitewater canoe mj imagine thats way trip like ld summer yes mean go across mile ice theres gon na water contend winter expedition wed gear planned two years ago completely summer expedition subarctic thatd problem either combination two need equipment sorts conditions wet dry warm cold el times coming leads choked ice cant paddle may consolidated enough ski across may end crawling across pulling boats half swimming things called gaffe hooks wooden pole hooks endand well gaffe way ld wont always pretty technique used greenland worked fairly well drysuits conditions actually salamander across top ice chunks rope attached suit boat tow boat conditions mj guys planning sending pictures back get see salamander action el nice little digital camera thats water resistant able get interesting pictures maybe lonnies face resting iceblock somewhere towing canoe behind later expedition well probably skiing reach solid pack well still encounter leads well get canoes time theyll mostly used sleds also height summer means meltwater pools mushier snow conditions snowshoes use pressured ice pretty heavy duty crampons ld well actually first expedition use snowshoes arctic ocean since robert peary went 1909 mj kind food bringing heard something 300 clif bars ld 340 actually love clif bars everythings onepot meal already bag put boiling water shut stove let steep 20 minutes save lot fuel makes much easier youre tired many hours travel breakfast mainly oatmeal break monotony buckwheat cereal rice pudding dehydrated beans mix dehydrated eggs make huevos rancheros least version well wash energy drink lunch well aged italian salami clif bars course chocolate bars nuts raisins little protein dinner well base rice pasta potatoes comes around 6000 calories day youd amazed hungry dragging 300 pound sled day long el well end losing weight first diet lose weight eating 6000 calories per day mj hasnt done mean seems people traveled every inch globe say first arctic summer crossing ld explorers pearys time 1909 going north pole think people havent thought box also arctic crossing requires two types arctic travel skillsarctic kayaking winter traveling el even talk lot prominent polar explorers still cant seem grasp unconventional say impossible unlikely mj think people impression arctic vast expanse ice waterwhich really isbut imagine time spent regard harsh barren wilderness ld well travel surface arctic seems dead lifeless flip ice pan full algae little fish live seals dont see living ocean like ocean get across world going seem much smaller feeling traveling around greenland huge yet able go around makes whole world feel like small place reminds us need protect spots el thing arctic real subtle beauty vastand thats subtle youre small thing vast space really inspiring may think looking position high traveling across snails pace notice details like piece snow curved delicately sublime beauty hand youre bad day boat feels like million pounds think left foot right foot see skies boots mj years experience arctic noticed effects global warming ld absolutely even growing minnesota youd blind see changes used substantial winters minnesota massive amounts snowfall dont even know crosscountry ski northern minnesota given year ive lived traveled inuit alaska canada polar eskimos greenland told changes happening arctic ice melting undermining foundations many buildings theyre seeing robins first time species insects dont even names migration patterns animals hunt changing ice forming later winter melting earlier spring dogsledding becomes dangerous inuit elders used able predict weather least three days cant predict weather one day next mj sort adventure journey completely different way focusing peoples attention towards global warming think could captivate american public way scientists politicians havent able el two average guys busting butts across sea ice think adventure interesting many many people using expedition tool communicate dramatic changes happening worldwide audience hopefully influenced action mj linked exploration activism past ld circumnavigation greenland website linked 300 schools upper midwest kids followed us along journey asked us questions like see polar bears today cultural geography program learn way people lived life like northernmost place world people actually live thought expedition would good conduit send environmental message mj summer crossing 5060 years ago global warming really kicked would journey different ldyoud still need canoes although major difference much open water el theres probably surface melt water benefit times hindrance times ld end wont nice see melting going thats bottom line mj youre working scientists el dr perovich army corp engineers cold regions environment engineering laboratory lot research arctic sea ice surface melt hes designing measuring protocol us document amount surface water thats sea ice well able establish data size quality quantity meltwater pools encounter ld working dr paul mayewski university maine well taking snow samples every 50 miles along way theyll analyzed particulate heavy metal content like mercury lead eric arent scientists scientists involved see expedition really good opportunity collect data mj im curious heroes ld admire friend mines son dan hanson cant expeditions like hes wheel chair admire courage would worstnot able get explore el follow really admire greg lemond sat teenager made list things wanted win tour de france win world championship steger went north pole 1986 hes minnesota guy crossed antarctica hes lived life adventure admire guy mj tell us dynamic two trip seems like ultimate test teamwork friendship el interesting lonnie pretty different people solve problems really differently hard initially didnt know werent able communicate well time good weve able balance one persons strength one persons weakness vice versa come better end result mj planning finish crossing ld expecting hit canada around august 21 last possible date want september 5th start losing lots light fall storms come ice starts refreeze parts ice thick enough cant paddle walk top el going try make haste around 10th august ld around 88 degrees north canadian side well start pull stops mj people check youre el website oneworldexpeditioncom updated every day expedition well using satellite phone hooked palmpilot send text images projectthiniceorg also updated specific daily adventures ld updates coming every single day brings people site hoping get somewhere 7 8 million hits per month expedition mj well wish guys best luck well watching 160 | 1,445 |
<p>Isn't he charming?&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephferris76/6110816135/"&gt;Joseph Ferris III&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com" type="external" />This <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175449/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_the_end_of_america%27s_pacific_century/" type="external">story</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a> website.</p>
<p>The United States has long styled itself a Pacific power. It established the model of counterinsurgency in the Philippines in 1899 and defeated the Japanese in World War II. It faced down the Chinese and the North Koreans to keep the Korean peninsula divided in 1950, and it armed the Taiwanese to the teeth. Today, America maintains the most powerful military in the Pacific region, supported by a constellation of military bases, bilateral alliances, and about 100,000 service personnel.</p>
<p>It has, however, reached the high-water mark of its Pacific presence and influence. The geopolitical map is about to be redrawn. Northeast Asia, the area of the world with the greatest concentration of economic and military power, is on the verge of a regional transformation. And the United States, still preoccupied with the Middle East and hobbled by a stalled and stagnating economy, will be the odd man out.</p>
<p>Elections will be part of the change. Next year, South Koreans, Russians, and Taiwanese will all go to the polls. In 2012, the Chinese Communist Party will also ratify its choice of a new leader to take over from President Hu Jintao. He will be the man expected to preside over the country’s rise from the number two spot to the pinnacle of the global economy.</p>
<p>But here’s the real surprise in store for Washington. The catalyst of change may turn out to be the country in the region that has so far changed the least: North Korea. In 2012, the North Korean government has trumpeted to its people a promise to create kangsong taeguk, or an economically prosperous and militarily strong country. Pyongyang now has to deliver somehow on that promise—at a time of food shortages, overall economic stagnation, and political uncertainty. This dream of 2012 is propelling the regime in Pyongyang to shift into diplomatic high gear, and that, in turn, is already creating enormous opportunities for key Pacific powers.</p>
<p>Washington, which has focused for years on North Korea’s small but developing nuclear arsenal, has barely been paying attention to the larger developments in Asia. Nor will Asia’s looming transformation be a hot topic in our own presidential election next year. We’ll be arguing about jobs, health care, and whether the president is a socialist or his Republican challenger a nutcase. Aside from some ritual China-bashing, Asia will merit little mention.</p>
<p>President Obama, anxious about giving ammunition to his opponent, will be loath to fiddle with Asia policy, which is already on autopilot. So while others scramble to remake East Asia, the United States will be suffering from its own peculiar form of continental drift.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Pyongyang Turns on the Charm</p>
<p>On April 15, 1912, in an obscure spot in the Japanese empire, a baby was born to a Christian family proud of its Korean heritage. The 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder and dynastic leader, is coming up next year. Ordinarily, such an event would be of little importance to anyone other than 24 million North Koreans and a scattering of Koreans elsewhere. But this centennial also marks the date by which the North Korean regime has promised to finally turn things around.</p>
<p>Despite its pretensions to self-reliance, Pyongyang has amply proven that it can only get by with a lot of help from its friends. Until recently, however, North Korea was not exactly playing well with others.</p>
<p>It responded in a particularly hardline fashion, for instance, to the more hawkish policies adopted by new South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, when he took office in February 2008. The <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/11/korea" type="external">shooting</a> of a South Korean tourist at the Mount Kumgang resort that July, the <a href="http://www.fpif.org/blog/cheonan_retaliate_with_diplomacy" type="external">sinking</a> of the South Korean naval ship the Cheonan in March 2010 (Pyongyang still claims it was not the culprit), and the <a href="http://www.fpif.org/blog/is_south_korea_seeking_reunification_by_fire_-_live_fire_that_is" type="external">shelling</a> of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island later that year all accelerated a tailspin in north-south relations. During this period, the North tested a second nuclear device, prompting even its closest ally, China, to react in disgust and support a U.N. declaration of condemnation. Pyongyang also managed to further alienate Washington by revealing in 2010 that it was indeed pursuing a program to produce highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium, something it had long denied.</p>
<p>These actions had painful economic consequences. South Korea cancelled almost all forms of cooperation. The North’s second nuclear test scotched any incipient economic rapprochement with the United States. (The Bush administration had removed North Korea from its terrorism list, and there had been hints that other longstanding sanctions might sooner or later be dropped as part of a warming in relations.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608461548/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />Only the North’s relationship with China was unaffected, largely because Beijing is gobbling up significant quantities of valuable minerals and securing access to ports in exchange for just enough food and energy to keep the country on life support and the regime afloat. Between 2006 and 2009, an already anemic North Korean economy <a href="http://www.nkeconwatch.com/nk-uploads/bok-dprk-gdp-2009.pdf" type="external">contracted</a>, and chronic food shortages <a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-09-16/news/30163461_1_food-shortages-food-prices-food-aid" type="external">again became acute</a>.</p>
<p>To these economic travails must be added political ones. The country’s leadership is long past retirement, with 70-year-old leader Kim Jong Il younger than most of the rest of the ruling elite. He has designated his youngest son, Kim Jeong Eun, as his successor, but the only thing that this mystery boy seems to have going for him is his resemblance to his grandfather, Kim Il Sung.</p>
<p>Still, North Korea seems no closer to full-scale collapse today than during previous crises—like the devastating famine of the mid-1990s. A thoroughly repressive state and zero civil society seem to insure that no color revolution or “Pyongyang Spring” is in the offing. Waiting for the North Korean regime to go gently into the night is like waiting for Godot.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean change isn’t in the air. To jumpstart its bedraggled economy and provide a political boost for the next leader in the year of kangsong taeguk, North Korea is suddenly in a let’s-make-a-deal mode.</p>
<p>Kim Jong Il’s recent visit to Siberia to meet Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, for instance, raised a few knowledgeable eyebrows. Conferring at a Russian military base near Lake Baikal, for the first time in a long while the North Korean leader even raised the possibility of a moratorium on nuclear weapons production and testing. More substantially, he concluded a preliminary agreement on a natural gas pipeline that could in itself begin to transform the politics of the region. It would transfer gas from the energy-rich Russian Far East through North Korea to economically booming but energy-hungry South Korea. The deal could net Pyongyang as much as <a href="http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-22/lee-sees-russia-gas-pipeline-via-north-korea-as-win-win-for-cheaper-energy" type="external">$100 million a year</a>.</p>
<p>The North’s new charm offensive wouldn’t have a hope in hell of succeeding if a similar change of heart weren’t also underway in the South.</p>
<p>The Bulldozer’s Miscalculation</p>
<p>On taking office, the conservative South Korean president Lee Myung Bak, known as “the Bulldozer” when he headed up Hyundai’s engineering division, promised to put Korean relations on a new footing. Ten years of “engagement policy” with the North had, according to Lee, produced an asymmetrical relationship. The South, he insisted, was providing all the cash, and the North was doing very little in exchange. Lee promised a relationship based only on quid pro quos.</p>
<p>What he got instead was tit for tat: harsher rhetoric and military action. Ultimately, although the North made no friends below the 38th parallel that way, the new era of hostility didn’t help the Lee administration either. South Koreans generally watched in horror as a relatively peaceful relationship veered dangerously close to military conflict.</p>
<p>Lee’s ruling party suffered a loss in last April’s by-elections, and in August, he <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/MI16Dg01.html" type="external">replaced</a> his hardline “unification” minister with a more conciliatory fellow. Still insisting on an apology for the Cheonan sinking and the Yeonpyeong shelling, the ruling party is nevertheless <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/09/27/idINIndia-59572820110927" type="external">looking for ways</a> to restore commercial ties and again provide humanitarian assistance to the North. Since the summer, representatives from North and South have met twice to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Although the two sides haven’t made substantial progress, the stage is set for the resumption of the Six Party Talks between the two Koreas, Russia, Japan, China, and the United States that broke off in 2007.</p>
<p>Even if the opposition party doesn’t sweep the conservatives out of power in the 2012 elections, South Korea will likely abandon Lee’s tough-guy approach. In September, his likely successor as the ruling party candidate in 2012, Park Geun-Hye, openly criticized Lee’s approach in an <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68136/park-geun-hye/a-new-kind-of-korea" type="external">article in Foreign Affairs</a> that called instead for “trustpolitik.”</p>
<p>One project Park singled out for mention is an inter-Korean railroad line that would “perhaps transform the Korean Peninsula into a conduit for regional trade.” That’s an understatement. Restoring the line and hooking it up to Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railroad would connect the Korean peninsula to Europe, reduce the shipment time of goods from one end of Eurasia to the other by about two weeks, and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Uelfz0m0xNYC&amp;pg=PA69&amp;lpg=PA69&amp;dq=%22%2434+to+%2450+per+ton+%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=1AJb6CbAHT&amp;sig=e-RouHxP6MoLwC_Jm2Z96U_57p4&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=himBTtuvHuP10gHs9u2QAQ&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=5&amp;ved=0CDIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&amp;q=%22%2434" type="external">save South Korea</a> up to $34 to $50 per ton in shipping costs. Meanwhile, the natural gas pipeline, which South Korea approved at the end of September, could reduce its gas costs by <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-09-23/lee-sees-russia-pipeline-via-n-korea-as-win-on-energy-cost.html" type="external">as much as 30 percent</a>. For the world’s second largest natural gas importer, this would be a major savings.</p>
<p>Serious economic steps toward Korean reunification are not just a dream, in other words, but good business, too. Even in the worst moments of the recent period of disengagement, it’s notable that the two countries managed to preserve the Kaesong industrial complex located just north of the Demilitarized Zone. Run by South Korean managers and employing more than 45,000 North Koreans, the business zone is a boon to both sides. It helps South Korean enterprises facing competition from China, even as it provides hard currency and well-paying jobs to the North. The railroad and the pipeline would offer similar mutual benefits.</p>
<p>According to conventional wisdom, North Korea has a single bargaining chip, its small nuclear arsenal, which it will never give up. But a real estate agent would look at the situation differently. What North Korea really has is “location, location, location,” and it finally seems ready to cash in on its critical position at the heart of the world’s most vital economic region.</p>
<p>The train line would bind the world’s two biggest economic regions into a huge Eurasian market. And the pipeline, coupled with green energy projects in China, South Korea, and Japan, might begin to wean East Asia from its dependency on Middle Eastern oil and thus on the US military to secure access and protect shipping routes.</p>
<p>Thought of another way, these projects and others like them lurking in the Eurasian future are significant not just for what they connect, but what they leave out: the United States.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Out in the Cold</p>
<p>The Bush administration anticipated Lee Myung Bak’s approach to North Korea by chucking the carrot and waving the stick. By 2006, however, Washington had made a U-turn and was beginning to engage Pyongyang seriously. The Obama administration took another tack, eventually adopting a policy of “strategic patience,” a euphemism for ignoring North Korea and hoping it wouldn’t throw a tantrum.</p>
<p>It hasn’t worked. North Korea has plunged full speed ahead with its nuclear program. The US/NATO air campaign against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who had given up his nuclear program to secure better relations with the West, only reinforced Pyongyang’s belief that nukes are the ultimate guarantor of its security. The Obama administration continues to insist that the regime show its seriousness about denuclearization as a precondition for resuming talks. Even though Washington recently sent a small amount of flood relief, it <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ba625410-e3a4-11e0-8990-00144feabdc0.html" type="external">refuses</a> to offer any serious food assistance. Indeed, in June, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the agriculture bill that prohibited all food aid to the country, regardless of need.</p>
<p>Though the administration will likely send envoy Stephen Bosworth to North Korea later this year, no one expects major changes in policy or relations to result. With a presidential election year already looming, the Obama administration isn’t likely to spend political capital on North Korea—not when Republicans would undoubtedly label any new moves as “appeasement” of a “terrorist state.”</p>
<p>Obama came into office with <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/after-bin-laden-a-new-foreign-policy.html" type="external">a desire to shift US policy</a> away from its Middle Eastern focus and reassert America’s importance as a Pacific power, particularly in light of China’s growing regional influence. But the president has invested more in <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175447/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_washington%27s_field_of_screams/" type="external">drones</a> than in diplomacy, sustaining the war on terror at the expense of the sort of bolder engagement of adversaries that Obama hinted at as a candidate. In the meantime, the administration is prepared to just wait it out until the next elections are history—and by then, it might already be too late to catch up with regional developments.</p>
<p>After all, Washington has watched China become the top trading partner of nearly every Asian country. Similarly, the economic links between China and Taiwan have deepened considerably, a reality to which even that island’s opposition party <a href="http://updatednews.ca/2011/09/09/taiwan-opposition-cements-moderate-path-with-running-mate/" type="external">must bow</a>. The Obama administration’s recent decision not to upset Beijing too much by selling advanced F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, opting instead for a mere upgrade of the F-16s it bought in the 1990s, is a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-power-shift-in-asia/2011/09/23/gIQAhIdjrK_story.html" type="external">clear sign</a> of relative US decline in the region, suggests big-picture analyst Robert Kaplan.</p>
<p>Then there’s the sheer cost of the US military presence in the Pacific, which looks like a juicy target to budget cutters in Washington. Key members of Congress like Senators John McCain and Carl Levin have already <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/webbs-parting-shots-on-wa_b_876886.html" type="external">signaled their anxiety</a> about the high price tag of a planned “strategic realignment” in Asia that involves, among other things, an expansion of the US military base in Guam and an upgrading of facilities in Okinawa. In response to a question about potential military cuts, new Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has confirmed that reducing US troops and bases overseas is <a href="http://www.military.com/news/article/official-overseas-troop-reductions-on-the-table.html" type="external">“on the table.”</a></p>
<p>The future of East Asia is hardly a given, nor is an economic boom and regional integration the only possible scenario. Virtually every country in the region has hiked its military spending. Tension points abound, particularly in potentially energy-rich waters that various countries claim as their own. China’s staggering economic growth is not likely to be sustainable in the long term. And North Korea could ultimately decide to make do as an economically destitute but adequately strong military power.</p>
<p>Still, the trend lines for 2012 and after point to greater engagement on the Korean peninsula, across the Taiwan Strait, and between Asia and Europe. Right now, the United States, for all of its military clout, is not really part of this emerging picture. Isn’t it time for America to gracefully acknowledge that its years as the Pacific superpower are over and think creatively about how to be a pacific partner instead?</p>
<p>John Feffer is the co-director of <a href="http://www.fpif.org/" type="external">Foreign Policy in Focus</a> at the Institute for Policy Studies, writes its regular <a href="http://www.fpif.org/worldbeat" type="external">World Beat column</a>, and will be publishing a book on Islamophobia with City Lights Press in 2012. His past essays, including those for <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175260/tomgram%3A_john_feffer,_pax_ottomanica/" type="external">TomDispatch.com</a>, can be read at <a href="http://www.johnfeffer.com/" type="external">his website</a>. To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Feffer discusses the 2012 election season in Asia click <a href="http://tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2011/10/pacific-power-or-pacific-partner.html" type="external">here</a>, or download it to your iPod <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=j0SS4Al/iVI&amp;amp;subid=&amp;amp;offerid=146261.1&amp;amp;type=10&amp;amp;tmpid=5573&amp;amp;RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Ftomcast-from-tomdispatch-com%2Fid357095817" type="external">here</a>. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com <a href="https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:Join/signupId:43308/acctId:25612" type="external">here</a>.</p> | true | 4 | isnt charminglta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotosjosephferris766110816135gtjoseph ferris iiiltagtflickr story first appeared tomdispatch website united states long styled pacific power established model counterinsurgency philippines 1899 defeated japanese world war ii faced chinese north koreans keep korean peninsula divided 1950 armed taiwanese teeth today america maintains powerful military pacific region supported constellation military bases bilateral alliances 100000 service personnel however reached highwater mark pacific presence influence geopolitical map redrawn northeast asia area world greatest concentration economic military power verge regional transformation united states still preoccupied middle east hobbled stalled stagnating economy odd man elections part change next year south koreans russians taiwanese go polls 2012 chinese communist party also ratify choice new leader take president hu jintao man expected preside countrys rise number two spot pinnacle global economy heres real surprise store washington catalyst change may turn country region far changed least north korea 2012 north korean government trumpeted people promise create kangsong taeguk economically prosperous militarily strong country pyongyang deliver somehow promiseat time food shortages overall economic stagnation political uncertainty dream 2012 propelling regime pyongyang shift diplomatic high gear turn already creating enormous opportunities key pacific powers washington focused years north koreas small developing nuclear arsenal barely paying attention larger developments asia asias looming transformation hot topic presidential election next year well arguing jobs health care whether president socialist republican challenger nutcase aside ritual chinabashing asia merit little mention president obama anxious giving ammunition opponent loath fiddle asia policy already autopilot others scramble remake east asia united states suffering peculiar form continental drift 160 pyongyang turns charm april 15 1912 obscure spot japanese empire baby born christian family proud korean heritage 100th anniversary birth kim il sung north koreas founder dynastic leader coming next year ordinarily event would little importance anyone 24 million north koreans scattering koreans elsewhere centennial also marks date north korean regime promised finally turn things around despite pretensions selfreliance pyongyang amply proven get lot help friends recently however north korea exactly playing well others responded particularly hardline fashion instance hawkish policies adopted new south korean president lee myung bak took office february 2008 shooting south korean tourist mount kumgang resort july sinking south korean naval ship cheonan march 2010 pyongyang still claims culprit shelling south koreas yeonpyeong island later year accelerated tailspin northsouth relations period north tested second nuclear device prompting even closest ally china react disgust support un declaration condemnation pyongyang also managed alienate washington revealing 2010 indeed pursuing program produce highly enriched weaponsgrade uranium something long denied actions painful economic consequences south korea cancelled almost forms cooperation norths second nuclear test scotched incipient economic rapprochement united states bush administration removed north korea terrorism list hints longstanding sanctions might sooner later dropped part warming relations norths relationship china unaffected largely beijing gobbling significant quantities valuable minerals securing access ports exchange enough food energy keep country life support regime afloat 2006 2009 already anemic north korean economy contracted chronic food shortages became acute economic travails must added political ones countrys leadership long past retirement 70yearold leader kim jong il younger rest ruling elite designated youngest son kim jeong eun successor thing mystery boy seems going resemblance grandfather kim il sung still north korea seems closer fullscale collapse today previous criseslike devastating famine mid1990s thoroughly repressive state zero civil society seem insure color revolution pyongyang spring offing waiting north korean regime go gently night like waiting godot doesnt mean change isnt air jumpstart bedraggled economy provide political boost next leader year kangsong taeguk north korea suddenly letsmakeadeal mode kim jong ils recent visit siberia meet russian president dmitri medvedev instance raised knowledgeable eyebrows conferring russian military base near lake baikal first time long north korean leader even raised possibility moratorium nuclear weapons production testing substantially concluded preliminary agreement natural gas pipeline could begin transform politics region would transfer gas energyrich russian far east north korea economically booming energyhungry south korea deal could net pyongyang much 100 million year norths new charm offensive wouldnt hope hell succeeding similar change heart werent also underway south bulldozers miscalculation taking office conservative south korean president lee myung bak known bulldozer headed hyundais engineering division promised put korean relations new footing ten years engagement policy north according lee produced asymmetrical relationship south insisted providing cash north little exchange lee promised relationship based quid pro quos got instead tit tat harsher rhetoric military action ultimately although north made friends 38th parallel way new era hostility didnt help lee administration either south koreans generally watched horror relatively peaceful relationship veered dangerously close military conflict lees ruling party suffered loss last aprils byelections august replaced hardline unification minister conciliatory fellow still insisting apology cheonan sinking yeonpyeong shelling ruling party nevertheless looking ways restore commercial ties provide humanitarian assistance north since summer representatives north south met twice discuss pyongyangs nuclear program although two sides havent made substantial progress stage set resumption six party talks two koreas russia japan china united states broke 2007 even opposition party doesnt sweep conservatives power 2012 elections south korea likely abandon lees toughguy approach september likely successor ruling party candidate 2012 park geunhye openly criticized lees approach article foreign affairs called instead trustpolitik one project park singled mention interkorean railroad line would perhaps transform korean peninsula conduit regional trade thats understatement restoring line hooking russias transsiberian railroad would connect korean peninsula europe reduce shipment time goods one end eurasia two weeks save south korea 34 50 per ton shipping costs meanwhile natural gas pipeline south korea approved end september could reduce gas costs much 30 percent worlds second largest natural gas importer would major savings serious economic steps toward korean reunification dream words good business even worst moments recent period disengagement notable two countries managed preserve kaesong industrial complex located north demilitarized zone run south korean managers employing 45000 north koreans business zone boon sides helps south korean enterprises facing competition china even provides hard currency wellpaying jobs north railroad pipeline would offer similar mutual benefits according conventional wisdom north korea single bargaining chip small nuclear arsenal never give real estate agent would look situation differently north korea really location location location finally seems ready cash critical position heart worlds vital economic region train line would bind worlds two biggest economic regions huge eurasian market pipeline coupled green energy projects china south korea japan might begin wean east asia dependency middle eastern oil thus us military secure access protect shipping routes thought another way projects others like lurking eurasian future significant connect leave united states 160 cold bush administration anticipated lee myung baks approach north korea chucking carrot waving stick 2006 however washington made uturn beginning engage pyongyang seriously obama administration took another tack eventually adopting policy strategic patience euphemism ignoring north korea hoping wouldnt throw tantrum hasnt worked north korea plunged full speed ahead nuclear program usnato air campaign libyas muammar gaddafi given nuclear program secure better relations west reinforced pyongyangs belief nukes ultimate guarantor security obama administration continues insist regime show seriousness denuclearization precondition resuming talks even though washington recently sent small amount flood relief refuses offer serious food assistance indeed june house representatives passed amendment agriculture bill prohibited food aid country regardless need though administration likely send envoy stephen bosworth north korea later year one expects major changes policy relations result presidential election year already looming obama administration isnt likely spend political capital north koreanot republicans would undoubtedly label new moves appeasement terrorist state obama came office desire shift us policy away middle eastern focus reassert americas importance pacific power particularly light chinas growing regional influence president invested drones diplomacy sustaining war terror expense sort bolder engagement adversaries obama hinted candidate meantime administration prepared wait next elections historyand might already late catch regional developments washington watched china become top trading partner nearly every asian country similarly economic links china taiwan deepened considerably reality even islands opposition party must bow obama administrations recent decision upset beijing much selling advanced f16 fighter jets taiwan opting instead mere upgrade f16s bought 1990s clear sign relative us decline region suggests bigpicture analyst robert kaplan theres sheer cost us military presence pacific looks like juicy target budget cutters washington key members congress like senators john mccain carl levin already signaled anxiety high price tag planned strategic realignment asia involves among things expansion us military base guam upgrading facilities okinawa response question potential military cuts new deputy secretary defense ashton carter confirmed reducing us troops bases overseas table future east asia hardly given economic boom regional integration possible scenario virtually every country region hiked military spending tension points abound particularly potentially energyrich waters various countries claim chinas staggering economic growth likely sustainable long term north korea could ultimately decide make economically destitute adequately strong military power still trend lines 2012 point greater engagement korean peninsula across taiwan strait asia europe right united states military clout really part emerging picture isnt time america gracefully acknowledge years pacific superpower think creatively pacific partner instead john feffer codirector foreign policy focus institute policy studies writes regular world beat column publishing book islamophobia city lights press 2012 past essays including tomdispatchcom read website listen timothy macbains latest tomcast audio interview feffer discusses 2012 election season asia click download ipod stay top important articles like sign receive latest updates tomdispatchcom | 1,527 |
<p>The problem of sexual assault and rape culture on college campuses is a serious one, and an even greater one <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf" type="external">beyond college campuses</a>. Nevertheless, the recent documentary film The Hunting Ground (2015) is at best problematic and at worst counter-productive in its approaches towards evidence and advocacy. Moreover, progressive journalist Amy Goodman’s persistent and uncritical promotion of the film on Democracy Now! has been equally problematic and troubling, both journalistically and politically.</p>
<p>The film exists in a moral and Manichaean world of its own, detached from the need for evidence and respect for possible complexity and contradiction in individual cases, as well as detached from more <a href="https://www.aau.edu/Climate-Survey.aspx?id=16525" type="external">complex survey research</a>, <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsavcaf9513.pdf" type="external">varied results, and positive historical trends</a> which are not always useful for their shock and outrage value.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that most (but certainly not all) of the subjects in the film are victims. I do doubt whether their stories—in the manner that they are related—help the viewer to understand the nature and scope of this problem in ways that might generate effective personal, relational, preventive, institutional, legal, and political solutions. The notion of rape culture implicitly dominates the film, but as a primal force and pervasive reality it is left undefined and critically unexplored. Moreover, the implication that <a href="" type="internal">campus administrators routinely deny or protect rape culture</a> is both frequent and unbelievable.</p>
<p>The political right, exemplified by <a href="" type="internal">Reason magazine</a>, has had a field day with this film and related issues, largely but not always motivated by anti-feminism of various ideological hues. But leftists, especially those critical of identity politics, should be equally skeptical. Yet I can find no clear instances of this, except perhaps from the two female Harvard Law Professors referred to below. The de-contextualized moral world portrayed by The Hunting Ground exists apart from broader struggles for social justice, even in the campus context, and is particularly problematic in terms of race.</p>
<p>It is hard to believe that any broadly critical leftist would not be highly resistant to the shamelessly manipulative cinematic and propagandistic techniques employed by the filmmakers, from beginning to end, in narrative structure, image, music, and song. In spite of its superimposed author/scholarly references, this film has nothing to do with above-board data-based and scholarly integrity, and banishes the notion of doubt from its relentless, mono-thematic narrative. These qualities are sorely needed in difficult and complicated struggles for gender equality and respect on campus, including in relation to sexual coercion and violence. They are also needed for a better understanding of the pitfalls of intimate relations and sexuality among young adults.</p>
<p>The Hunting Ground reflects and promotes what <a href="" type="internal">JoAnn Wypijewski</a>, in response to the movie Spotlight and its unfounded accusations against some Catholic priests, has called moral panic:</p>
<p>By their nature, moral panics are hysterical. They jettison reason for emotion, transform accusation into proof, spur more accusation and create a climate that demands not deliberation or evidence or resistance to prejudice but mindless faith. They are the enemy of skepticism, which those on the left and near-left, liberals, progressives, regard as the sword and shield of journalism when it’s convenient or ideologically appealing.</p>
<p>Wypijewski has questioned the notion of <a href="" type="internal">“recovered memories”</a> in relation to accusations against priests, as did the late <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Cockburn</a> and others in relation to allegations of ritual sexual abuse at daycare centers in the 1980s. No damage done to innocent individuals by The Hunting Ground will measure up to these prior examples of collective hysteria professionally (journalistically, therapeutically) fabricated out of thin air. But the familiar McCarthyite/Red Scare tactics remain. Harvard Law Professor Jennie Suk, who along with <a href="" type="internal">18 other HLPs</a> defended Harvard Law student Brandon Winston against allegations made by his fellow student (and former friend) Kamilah Willingham, a case featured in The Hunting Ground, wrote in the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/argument-sexual-assault-race-harvard-law-school" type="external">New Yorker</a> in December 2015:</p>
<p>At the Sundance festival première (January 2015), which I attended, when an audience member asked what people could do to join the fight against campus sexual assault, one of the survivors featured in the film responded, simply, “Believe us.” It is a near-religious teaching among many people today that if you are against sexual assault, then you must always believe individuals who say they have been assaulted. Questioning in a particular instance whether a sexual assault occurred violates that principle. Examining evidence and concluding that a particular accuser is not indeed a survivor, or a particular accused is not an assailant, is a sin that reveals that one is a rape denier, or biased in favor of perpetrators.</p>
<p>Amy Goodman also covered the <a href="" type="internal">Sundance première</a>, interviewing Director Kirby Dick and Producer Amy Ziering. Seventeen months later, this past June 9th, <a href="" type="internal">Ziering appeared again</a> on DN with Kamilah Willingham, the above-mentioned plaintiff in the <a href="" type="internal">now-famous if not notorious case</a> against <a href="http://brandonproject.org/the-facts/" type="external">Brandon Winston</a>. After four years of litigation in the criminal justice system, 2011-2015, Winston was convicted by a jury of a single misdemeanor, non-sexual assault and battery, against Willingham’s female friend; he was then allowed to complete his Harvard Law degree, 4 years after his original classmate Willingham.</p>
<p>Yet, in response to Goodman’s request to “Explain what you mean. Explain what happened, Kamilah,” Willingham boldly asserted: “I was sexually assaulted by a friend and classmate. He actually assaulted me and another girl on the same night.”</p>
<p>The occasion for this interview—part of a series of interviews on June 8th and 9th, was the controversy and outrage over <a href="" type="internal">California Judge Aaron Persky’s</a> minimal sentencing of Brock Allen Turner, a former Stanford student and convicted rapist. Yet Goodman seized the moment to re-visit what is, to say the least, a clearly more ambiguous case; and to promote an accusation that has been judged baseless in a court of law. I do not know enough law to know whether this can be judged as libelous. But I would think that the one-sidedly “leading” nature of this public interaction can be judged to be a violation of journalistic ethics, certainly including those that Goodman purports to be her own.</p>
<p>In fairness, when co-host Juan Gonzales asked Willingham and Ziering about the support of 19 Harvard Law Professors for Winston, viewers were told to go to the film’s website for the facts. But the <a href="http://www.thehuntinggroundfilm.com/the-facts/" type="external">facts on the website</a> simply re-iterate that Winston was convicted of a (misdemeanor, unstated on the website) non-sexual assault in a Massachusetts court of law.</p>
<p>Former Florida State University football player Jameis Winston (no relation to Brandon), accused of rape by Erica Kinsman but <a href="http://www.fsu.edu/the-hunting-ground/" type="external">not charged after extensive legal review</a>, is also featured in The Hunting Ground. While Brandon Winston, Kamilah Willingham, and Jameis Winston are black, Kinsman is white. In the same New Yorker article, Jennie Suk stated:</p>
<p>The dynamics of racially disproportionate impact affect minority men in the pattern of campus sexual-misconduct accusations, which schools, conveniently, do not track, despite all the campus-climate surveys. Administrators and faculty who routinely work on sexual-misconduct cases, including my colleague <a href="" type="internal">Janet Halley</a>, tell me that most of the complaints they see are against minorities, and that is consistent with what I have seen at Harvard. The “always believe” credo will aggravate and hide this context, aided by campus confidentiality norms that make any racial pattern difficult to study and expose.</p>
<p>What also particularly raised my critical antennae in the most recent DN interview was this statement by <a href="" type="internal">Producer Amy Ziering</a>:</p>
<p>Well, Invisible War was the first film Kirby Dick and I made on this issue, and it broke the story of the epidemic of rape in our military. And like you said, Amy, it was resoundingly embraced and, you know—and not challenged, you know, sort of accepted. And what I really give the Pentagon credit for is that they saw the film as a critique, not an attack, and they started using it as a training tool on bases. They said, “Oh, my god, we have a problem, we really have to take care of it.”</p>
<p>And what’s so interesting is that the reception to The Hunting Ground was much more like what you see—you know, what we’ve seen played out with the Stanford case, not post-letter, but pre-letter, in that the focus and the concern was more on—was sort of questioning and challenging, “Oh, is this really going on? Is there really an epidemic? Could this be true?” as opposed to saying, “Oh, well, thank you for pointing this out, and let’s go take care of it.”</p>
<p>Ziering may or may not be an opponent of our military invasions and occupations in the Middle East and elsewhere. But if she were an opponent she might be less impressed with the Pentagon’s putative response to sexual assaults in the military. She might be more inclined to address one of the obvious contextual factors—our imperial and war-making policies. Such opposition seems unlikely. Perhaps predictably, President Obama makes a cameo appearance at the end of the film, in order to help us further compartmentalize our images of him as both a neoliberal warrior and an advocate for human rights and gender equality. The general support of our neoliberal establishment for a campaign such as that promoted by this film is all too predictably hypocritical.</p>
<p>Finally, I would note that The Hunting Ground is a CNN-produced film, and aired on that network in November 2015. In a June 9th interview with Stanford Law Professor Michele Landis Dauber, who is spearheading the <a href="" type="internal">problematic movement to remove Judge Persky</a>, Goodman <a href="" type="internal">stated</a>:</p>
<p>That’s the trailer for The Hunting Ground, very interesting. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival, got a lot of attention. CNN bought it. And when CNN runs a film, like they did Blackfish, you tune on CNN at any point, and you see this documentary, Blackfish, about SeaWorld and how killer whales were dealt with. I mean, ultimately, I mean, it led to a campaign that got the use of the whales in SeaWorld banned. But this film, The Hunting Ground, I believe it only aired once on CNN, yet they own it, so I don’t know if we can see it again. So this involves two issues: one, the power of what you just watched and heard, and also, though, what happens when a film is made, and do we get to see it.</p>
<p>Regardless of the well-known manipulative nature of corporate media outlets, Goodman is clearly reaching for a non-existent conspiracy here. The film is available in several of the usual streaming formats, and I obtained a copy from my local public library. Obviously she herself has publicized the film on several occasions over the past 17 months.</p>
<p>Those on the left in particular should check their identity politics at the door and see it. Many will conclude that while there is much work to be done in relation to rape culture and violence against women, including on college campuses, this film, with its shameless lack of intellectual and political integrity, curiously reinforces the status quo more than it challenges it.</p> | true | 4 | problem sexual assault rape culture college campuses serious one even greater one beyond college campuses nevertheless recent documentary film hunting ground 2015 best problematic worst counterproductive approaches towards evidence advocacy moreover progressive journalist amy goodmans persistent uncritical promotion film democracy equally problematic troubling journalistically politically film exists moral manichaean world detached need evidence respect possible complexity contradiction individual cases well detached complex survey research varied results positive historical trends always useful shock outrage value dont doubt certainly subjects film victims doubt whether storiesin manner relatedhelp viewer understand nature scope problem ways might generate effective personal relational preventive institutional legal political solutions notion rape culture implicitly dominates film primal force pervasive reality left undefined critically unexplored moreover implication campus administrators routinely deny protect rape culture frequent unbelievable political right exemplified reason magazine field day film related issues largely always motivated antifeminism various ideological hues leftists especially critical identity politics equally skeptical yet find clear instances except perhaps two female harvard law professors referred decontextualized moral world portrayed hunting ground exists apart broader struggles social justice even campus context particularly problematic terms race hard believe broadly critical leftist would highly resistant shamelessly manipulative cinematic propagandistic techniques employed filmmakers beginning end narrative structure image music song spite superimposed authorscholarly references film nothing aboveboard databased scholarly integrity banishes notion doubt relentless monothematic narrative qualities sorely needed difficult complicated struggles gender equality respect campus including relation sexual coercion violence also needed better understanding pitfalls intimate relations sexuality among young adults hunting ground reflects promotes joann wypijewski response movie spotlight unfounded accusations catholic priests called moral panic nature moral panics hysterical jettison reason emotion transform accusation proof spur accusation create climate demands deliberation evidence resistance prejudice mindless faith enemy skepticism left nearleft liberals progressives regard sword shield journalism convenient ideologically appealing wypijewski questioned notion recovered memories relation accusations priests late alexander cockburn others relation allegations ritual sexual abuse daycare centers 1980s damage done innocent individuals hunting ground measure prior examples collective hysteria professionally journalistically therapeutically fabricated thin air familiar mccarthyitered scare tactics remain harvard law professor jennie suk along 18 hlps defended harvard law student brandon winston allegations made fellow student former friend kamilah willingham case featured hunting ground wrote new yorker december 2015 sundance festival première january 2015 attended audience member asked people could join fight campus sexual assault one survivors featured film responded simply believe us nearreligious teaching among many people today sexual assault must always believe individuals say assaulted questioning particular instance whether sexual assault occurred violates principle examining evidence concluding particular accuser indeed survivor particular accused assailant sin reveals one rape denier biased favor perpetrators amy goodman also covered sundance première interviewing director kirby dick producer amy ziering seventeen months later past june 9th ziering appeared dn kamilah willingham abovementioned plaintiff nowfamous notorious case brandon winston four years litigation criminal justice system 20112015 winston convicted jury single misdemeanor nonsexual assault battery willinghams female friend allowed complete harvard law degree 4 years original classmate willingham yet response goodmans request explain mean explain happened kamilah willingham boldly asserted sexually assaulted friend classmate actually assaulted another girl night occasion interviewpart series interviews june 8th 9th controversy outrage california judge aaron perskys minimal sentencing brock allen turner former stanford student convicted rapist yet goodman seized moment revisit say least clearly ambiguous case promote accusation judged baseless court law know enough law know whether judged libelous would think onesidedly leading nature public interaction judged violation journalistic ethics certainly including goodman purports fairness cohost juan gonzales asked willingham ziering support 19 harvard law professors winston viewers told go films website facts facts website simply reiterate winston convicted misdemeanor unstated website nonsexual assault massachusetts court law former florida state university football player jameis winston relation brandon accused rape erica kinsman charged extensive legal review also featured hunting ground brandon winston kamilah willingham jameis winston black kinsman white new yorker article jennie suk stated dynamics racially disproportionate impact affect minority men pattern campus sexualmisconduct accusations schools conveniently track despite campusclimate surveys administrators faculty routinely work sexualmisconduct cases including colleague janet halley tell complaints see minorities consistent seen harvard always believe credo aggravate hide context aided campus confidentiality norms make racial pattern difficult study expose also particularly raised critical antennae recent dn interview statement producer amy ziering well invisible war first film kirby dick made issue broke story epidemic rape military like said amy resoundingly embraced knowand challenged know sort accepted really give pentagon credit saw film critique attack started using training tool bases said oh god problem really take care whats interesting reception hunting ground much like seeyou know weve seen played stanford case postletter preletter focus concern onwas sort questioning challenging oh really going really epidemic could true opposed saying oh well thank pointing lets go take care ziering may may opponent military invasions occupations middle east elsewhere opponent might less impressed pentagons putative response sexual assaults military might inclined address one obvious contextual factorsour imperial warmaking policies opposition seems unlikely perhaps predictably president obama makes cameo appearance end film order help us compartmentalize images neoliberal warrior advocate human rights gender equality general support neoliberal establishment campaign promoted film predictably hypocritical finally would note hunting ground cnnproduced film aired network november 2015 june 9th interview stanford law professor michele landis dauber spearheading problematic movement remove judge persky goodman stated thats trailer hunting ground interesting premiered sundance film festival got lot attention cnn bought cnn runs film like blackfish tune cnn point see documentary blackfish seaworld killer whales dealt mean ultimately mean led campaign got use whales seaworld banned film hunting ground believe aired cnn yet dont know see involves two issues one power watched heard also though happens film made get see regardless wellknown manipulative nature corporate media outlets goodman clearly reaching nonexistent conspiracy film available several usual streaming formats obtained copy local public library obviously publicized film several occasions past 17 months left particular check identity politics door see many conclude much work done relation rape culture violence women including college campuses film shameless lack intellectual political integrity curiously reinforces status quo challenges | 1,005 |
<p>It was a quite a show at the Senate Intelligence Committee’s worldwide threat assessment briefing on Tuesday, Feb. 24. Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., outdid himself as damage control officer for fallout from failed intelligence.</p>
<p>Sen. Roberts captured the spirit when he told reporters that, although “everybody would have some second thoughts” about the reasons for the war, he believes that Saddam Hussein posed a threat “in some ways more dangerous [than weapons of mass destruction],” because his leadership had deteriorated (sic). Small wonder that Roberts took pains to ensure there would be none who might snicker at the formal briefing.</p>
<p>The casting was a dead giveaway. For the first time since annual threat assessment briefings by the heads of key intelligence agencies began a decade ago, the director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) was disinvited.</p>
<p>Roberts and his Republican colleagues decided to preclude the possibility that some recalcitrant senator might ask why INR was able to get it right on Iraq when everyone else was wrong. Recall that the CIA and other intelligence agencies signed on to the worst National Intelligence Estimate in 40 years–the one issued in October 2002 with the loaded title “Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction.” (The only near rival in infamy is the NIE of September 1962, which said that the Soviet Union would not risk trying to put missiles in Cuba. The missiles were already en route.)</p>
<p>Punished For Honesty</p>
<p>INR has been forced to sit with its face to the wall ever since it resisted White House pressure to cook intelligence to the recipe of high policy. CIA Director George Tenet and other malleable intelligence managers acquiesced in that pressure and became accomplices in the Bush administration’s successful effort in the fall of 2002 to deceive Congress into forfeiting to the president its constitutional prerogative to declare war.</p>
<p>INR was the skunk at that picnic. It dissented loudly from some of the most important key judgments of the NIE of October 2002. For example, the canard about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger–impossible on its face and based on a forgery–found its way into the estimate, but INR’s footnote dismissed the story as “highly dubious.”</p>
<p>This was no small matter. As Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., noted in an irate letter to the president on March 17, 2002, the Iraq/Niger canard had been “a central part of the U.S. case against Iraq” –a key piece of “evidence” used to sway Congress to give its approval for war.</p>
<p>INR analysts also debunked the fable about aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment for Iraq. Although the tubes had been advertised by National Security Adviser Condolleeza Rice as useful only in a nuclear application, State Department intelligence analysts joined counterparts in the Department of Energy and U.N. specialists in pointing out, correctly, that the tubes were for conventional artillery.</p>
<p>Most obstreperous of all, on the highly neuralgic nuclear issue, INR was unwilling to predict when Iraq’s “nuclear weapons program” was likely to yield a nuclear device. Why? It saw no compelling evidence that Vice President Dick Cheney was correct in claiming that the previous nuclear weapons program had been “reconstituted.”</p>
<p>And if that were not enough, State Department intelligence committed several sins not directly connected with the NIE. INR’s most experienced Middle East specialists prepared a study exposing as a chimera the notion that democracy could be brought to the area at the point of a gun. INR also provided invaluable support to the interagency team that worked so hard to prepare sensibly for post-war Iraq. Its analysis and recommendations were trashed by Pentagon neophytes who knew the invasion would be a “cakewalk”–and by Vice President Dick Cheney, who knew that our troops would be seen as liberators.</p>
<p>Who Needs Context?</p>
<p>A bad lot, those State Department intelligence types! Always trying to “put things in context;” unable to see the overriding need to “get with the program.”</p>
<p>Last year, INR’s director, Carl Ford, harped on the need for putting the country’s best analysts to work providing policymakers with the context in which threats arise. Ford has retired, but the current acting director, Thomas Fingar, is cut of the same cloth–the kind of straight shooter likely to say things that would embarrass the CIA, the administration and maybe even the committee itself.</p>
<p>Who needs context? Better to let them talk about how many terrorists they can kill than the conditions that breed terrorism. Let them continue to use the paradigm of combating malaria: Surely it’s easier to try to shoot down the mosquitoes as they leave the swamp than to drain the swamp.</p>
<p>And tell Tenet, too, to lay off this context business. The administration is still smarting from that memorandum he sent up two years ago warning that “the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist.” That CIA report cited a Gallup poll of almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents described the United States as “ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased.”</p>
<p>Rubbish! They just hate our democracy.</p>
<p>When senators ask–as they undoubtedly will–if the United States is safer now than after the 9/11 attacks, we want to have folks who know the correct answer. Tenet, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell Jacoby know it has to be “yes.” As for the State Department, although Secretary Colin Powell has now been brought into line, you can never be sure his intelligence specialists will see the light and “get with the program.”</p>
<p>Better to keep them away.</p>
<p>RAY McGOVERN is a 27-year veteran CIA analyst whose duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an outreach ministry in the inner city of Washington, DC. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | quite show senate intelligence committees worldwide threat assessment briefing tuesday feb 24 committee chairman sen pat roberts rkan outdid damage control officer fallout failed intelligence sen roberts captured spirit told reporters although everybody would second thoughts reasons war believes saddam hussein posed threat ways dangerous weapons mass destruction leadership deteriorated sic small wonder roberts took pains ensure would none might snicker formal briefing casting dead giveaway first time since annual threat assessment briefings heads key intelligence agencies began decade ago director state departments bureau intelligence research inr disinvited roberts republican colleagues decided preclude possibility recalcitrant senator might ask inr able get right iraq everyone else wrong recall cia intelligence agencies signed worst national intelligence estimate 40 yearsthe one issued october 2002 loaded title iraqs continuing programs weapons mass destruction near rival infamy nie september 1962 said soviet union would risk trying put missiles cuba missiles already en route punished honesty inr forced sit face wall ever since resisted white house pressure cook intelligence recipe high policy cia director george tenet malleable intelligence managers acquiesced pressure became accomplices bush administrations successful effort fall 2002 deceive congress forfeiting president constitutional prerogative declare war inr skunk picnic dissented loudly important key judgments nie october 2002 example canard iraq seeking uranium nigerimpossible face based forgeryfound way estimate inrs footnote dismissed story highly dubious small matter rep henry waxman dcalif noted irate letter president march 17 2002 iraqniger canard central part us case iraq key piece evidence used sway congress give approval war inr analysts also debunked fable aluminum tubes uranium enrichment iraq although tubes advertised national security adviser condolleeza rice useful nuclear application state department intelligence analysts joined counterparts department energy un specialists pointing correctly tubes conventional artillery obstreperous highly neuralgic nuclear issue inr unwilling predict iraqs nuclear weapons program likely yield nuclear device saw compelling evidence vice president dick cheney correct claiming previous nuclear weapons program reconstituted enough state department intelligence committed several sins directly connected nie inrs experienced middle east specialists prepared study exposing chimera notion democracy could brought area point gun inr also provided invaluable support interagency team worked hard prepare sensibly postwar iraq analysis recommendations trashed pentagon neophytes knew invasion would cakewalkand vice president dick cheney knew troops would seen liberators needs context bad lot state department intelligence types always trying put things context unable see overriding need get program last year inrs director carl ford harped need putting countrys best analysts work providing policymakers context threats arise ford retired current acting director thomas fingar cut cloththe kind straight shooter likely say things would embarrass cia administration maybe even committee needs context better let talk many terrorists kill conditions breed terrorism let continue use paradigm combating malaria surely easier try shoot mosquitoes leave swamp drain swamp tell tenet lay context business administration still smarting memorandum sent two years ago warning underlying causes drive terrorists persist cia report cited gallup poll almost 10000 muslims nine countries respondents described united states ruthless aggressive conceited arrogant easily provoked biased rubbish hate democracy senators askas undoubtedly willif united states safer 911 attacks want folks know correct answer tenet fbi director robert mueller defense intelligence agency director lowell jacoby know yes state department although secretary colin powell brought line never sure intelligence specialists see light get program better keep away ray mcgovern 27year veteran cia analyst whose duties included chairing national intelligence estimates cofounder veteran intelligence professionals sanity codirector servant leadership school outreach ministry inner city washington dc reached rmcgovernslschoolorg 160 | 576 |
<p>America stumbled yet further this week into the ditch of fanaticism, led by its blind President who is led by Ariel Sharon. With the exit of Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, leader of the Labor Party, from Sharon’s coalition government, and with Sharon’s appointment of Shaul Mofaz as Defense Minister, a hardliner who has directed the occupation of the Palestinians for the past two years, America’s support for Israel drags it further into the morass of rabid fundamentalism. Following the exit, Sharon’s coalition retains only 55 of 120 seats. He will turn to ultra-right and religious parties to garner the numbers he needs to retain control. Such a coalition will move Israel even further in the direction of eliminating the Palestinian right to a homeland. That in turn will drag the region further and further into chaos.</p>
<p>Mofaz’ appointment already complements Sharon’s drive to force religious fundamentalism on the people of Israel. As his cabinet moves to the extreme right, he ineluctably pushes his people to the fulfillment of ancient myths. More tellingly for America, President Bush’s continuing capitulation to Ariel Sharon’s deeply rooted desire to destroy any possibility of a Palestinian state yokes America’s foreign policy to these same ancient myths that have tethered ultra conservative Jews together for over 2500 years. While the Zionist movement can be traced to 1885 when Nathan Birnbaum edited Selbst-Emanzipation and promulgated the ideas of the Hovevei Zion movement (The Jewish Agency for Israel, www.us-israel.org), the belief that God’s chosen people had a right to “Judea and Samaria,” the “Promised Land,” goes back to Moses. Indeed, the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise asserts “Some Religious Zionist Jews see the formation of the secular state as accelerating the process of redemption, with themselves playing a major role in doing G-d’s will by serving the state, whose creation is often seen as miraculous.” (Emphasis mine) ( <a href="http://www.us-israel.org/" type="external">www.us-israel.org</a>)</p>
<p>As Sharon’s cabinet closes ranks around the right-wing Likud priorities, and with the entrance into that cabinet of Effi Eitam, head of the National Religious Party, the merger of Sharon’s political agenda, the denial that the Palestinians have a right to a homeland, and the mythological beliefs of Eitam’s expressed purpose for entering politics, the return of the Promised Land to God’s chosen, Israeli policy toward the Palestinian people becomes mired in religious myths more than 2500 years old, myths that give the Jews authorization to destroy “… the experts of impurity, cursedness and evil.” as Eitam characterizes the Palestinians. (LA TIMES, Sunday, 6/30/02, A11)</p>
<p>According to Eitam, the Palestinians are not ordinary people, but “uncircumcised,” “little people,” and “evil,” by contrast with the Jews who are “the blessed,” and who have “returned home for our rendezvous with the Lion of the World and the Lioness that is our nation.” (LA TIMES) This man, who claims to bring morality back to politics, openly proclaims his policy toward the Palestinians: “And when we pounce on you (the Palestinians), and it will happen ­ when we come with vengeance against your terrible evil, woe will be unto you ­ we will make a reckoning with you.” (LA TIMES) Here is a prophet of old speaking in the language of the Old Testament as though it were truth and the source of domestic and foreign policy in this new millennium.</p>
<p>Eitam is not alone in his expressed ideology. Gush Emunim rabbis, another right-wing religious group, have “reiterated that Jews who kill Arabs should be free from all punishment.” They have gone further; they claim that Arabs living in Palestine are thieves because the land was Jewish and belongs to them. (Prof. Israel Shahak, www.abbc.com) These beliefs arise from adherence to centuries old myths that have no relevance in today’s world either politically of theologically, yet they persist despite our perspective on dramatically similar events in the past.</p>
<p>Consider our enlightened view of the ancient “Crusades,” those ushered in by Urban II and later by Innocent III, as they compare with the conflicts current in Palestine. Innocent gathered 50,000 troops to destroy the Cathars in the 13th century, a heretical sect that threatened the absolute authority of the Roman Catholic Church. The recounting of the slaughters of the heretics during the “Albigensian Crusade” by the monk of Vaux-Cernay concludes with the same phrase after each massacre, “and the pilgrims (crusaders) seizing nearly sixty heretics burned them with infinite joy.” (Sismondi 45) They, too, like Eitam, found joy in slaughtering those God determined to be evil. Indeed, the radical elite tend to enjoy fulfilling God’s word as they have determined His meaning: Sismondi declares “The more zealous they were for the glory of God, the more ardently they labored for the destruction of heretics, the better Christians they thought themselves.”</p>
<p>Now we have Eitam and Likud coupled with Sharon’s personal drive to ensure that only the Jews possess what used to be Palestinian land. How similar the cries of praise to God of the Crusaders, “How glorious are the victors who return from battle! How blessed are the martyrs who die in battle.” Compare this response to the conquering Jews after the 1982 war, “Oh Lord, Oh Lord, You have chosen us for conquest!” (Chomsky 96) All ruling elites use ancient myths to move their people to “take up the cross” against the impure so that sacred land given to them by God can be cleansed and returned to its rightful owners.</p>
<p>These myths lie deep in the psyche of the ultra-right and the National Religious Party that Eitam heads. Perhaps the article by Mordechai Nisan, “Judaism and Politics” in the Jerusalem Post of Jan. 18, 1983, captures the thinking most graphically: “At the dawn of Jewish history, contact with the Land of Israel established the principle that the presence of non-Jews in the country is morally and politically irrelevant to the national right of the Jews to settle and possess the Land The Bible states the Jewish right regardless of non-Jewish presence Dwelling in the Land is the Jewish priority and it is no way restricted, let alone nullified, by a non-Jewish majority population in any given part of the Land” (Chomsky 444).</p>
<p>Nisan understands the dilemma this position causes in a democratic age since it appears to be a non-democratic position. But his response is blatantly pro-Jewish: “it is nowhere provided that non-Jews will enjoy full equal rights as a national community. The fact that “the Land is in the eternal possession of the Jewish people alone” is not fully understood by other people because they have not recognized that Western liberal ideas are no longer sustainable in this modern age! Chomsky offers this quote that references Maimonides thinking: “There is no relation between the law of Israel [Torat Yisrael] and atheistic modern humanism in a divinely-commanded war one must destroy, kill and eliminate men, women, and children.”</p>
<p>Gush Emunim thinking and its counterparts among the growing elite that seem to have gained power in Israel in this last year fall prey to the malaise that inflicted Kurtz in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”: the acceptance in themselves of absolute righteousness and self-perceived fulfillment resulting in the unquestioned need to wantonly slaughter innocents to achieve their own conception of their eminence despite behavior that is barbaric, bestial, and inhumane. Reaching this level of behavior requires dissembling rational thought, indeed a total rejection of it, blind adherence to beliefs that have no justification outside of the fanatical zealots own cult, and an abhorrence of normal morality that applies to humans in favor of a morality that fulfills the cults own perceived destiny. Ultimate depravity becomes the end product of God’s commands.</p>
<p>The belief in the “unity of man,” in the natural rights of men and women, has given way to the “unity of nations,” specifically in this instance to the Israeli nation, the homeland of the Jewish race. This understanding places the elite, who interpret the Biblical stories, in a position of immense power since they have not only determined that God speaks, but that God has given a specific piece of geography to a specific people regardless of conditions that have existed for thousands of years. This understanding allows for, indeed demands, that international law, internationally determined human rights provisions, and the philosophical foundations of Western thought be abandoned in favor of God’s directives as determined by a small segment of a small population as though they alone possess truth.</p>
<p>The President, a known born-again Christian, has ties to those fundamentalist denominations that support the Zionist aspirations to create a Jewish state, not because they favor Judaism, but because they believe in ancient myths as well: the necessity for the Jews to reoccupy Judea and Samaria if the Second Coming is to happen. Bush’s linkage to these denominations and his dependence on the Israeli lobbyists in this country have governed his policy toward the conflicts in the mid-east. His recent “vision” statement (an apt mythological appellation) on the conflict unites him ineluctably to Sharon. Nothing that he said forestalls or even minimizes the likelihood of complete Israeli control and occupation of the land formerly owned by the Palestinians. In short, the President has linked America to those ancient myths, stories that compel one people to slaughter another because their God has given them the right to act. This thinking is no different than that used by Hamas authorities when they inculcate into their members the God given right to destroy the Jews because that is what God demanded in the Koran.</p>
<p>Would anyone have believed that in the year 2002 America would join ranks with fanatics driven by fabricated stories more than 2500 years old as the basis for foreign policy? Our acceptance of Sharon’s administration and its savage policies also means we have accepted the fanatics of Islam who use the same God as the Israelis to justify their atrocities. These mythologies become the motivating tools of those in power to justify their purpose. They grab at the opportunities present — fear inflicted by enemies of the people, righteous behavior demanded by their God, promise of rewards in the hereafter for those joining against the forces of evil, and ultimate victory for the myths that gave them purpose to carry out their desires. It is unfortunate that America has been hoodwinked into supporting beliefs that should have died a quiet death years and years ago. What a mockery of international law, of the Geneva Convention on Human Rights, and America’s proclaimed belief in Democracy and the inherent rights guaranteed to all people is our obeisance to the whims of those who would find recourse to oppression in the pages of a mythological text.</p>
<p>William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | true | 4 | america stumbled yet week ditch fanaticism led blind president led ariel sharon exit binyamin beneliezer leader labor party sharons coalition government sharons appointment shaul mofaz defense minister hardliner directed occupation palestinians past two years americas support israel drags morass rabid fundamentalism following exit sharons coalition retains 55 120 seats turn ultraright religious parties garner numbers needs retain control coalition move israel even direction eliminating palestinian right homeland turn drag region chaos mofaz appointment already complements sharons drive force religious fundamentalism people israel cabinet moves extreme right ineluctably pushes people fulfillment ancient myths tellingly america president bushs continuing capitulation ariel sharons deeply rooted desire destroy possibility palestinian state yokes americas foreign policy ancient myths tethered ultra conservative jews together 2500 years zionist movement traced 1885 nathan birnbaum edited selbstemanzipation promulgated ideas hovevei zion movement jewish agency israel wwwusisraelorg belief gods chosen people right judea samaria promised land goes back moses indeed americanisraeli cooperative enterprise asserts religious zionist jews see formation secular state accelerating process redemption playing major role gds serving state whose creation often seen miraculous emphasis mine wwwusisraelorg sharons cabinet closes ranks around rightwing likud priorities entrance cabinet effi eitam head national religious party merger sharons political agenda denial palestinians right homeland mythological beliefs eitams expressed purpose entering politics return promised land gods chosen israeli policy toward palestinian people becomes mired religious myths 2500 years old myths give jews authorization destroy experts impurity cursedness evil eitam characterizes palestinians la times sunday 63002 a11 according eitam palestinians ordinary people uncircumcised little people evil contrast jews blessed returned home rendezvous lion world lioness nation la times man claims bring morality back politics openly proclaims policy toward palestinians pounce palestinians happen come vengeance terrible evil woe unto make reckoning la times prophet old speaking language old testament though truth source domestic foreign policy new millennium eitam alone expressed ideology gush emunim rabbis another rightwing religious group reiterated jews kill arabs free punishment gone claim arabs living palestine thieves land jewish belongs prof israel shahak wwwabbccom beliefs arise adherence centuries old myths relevance todays world either politically theologically yet persist despite perspective dramatically similar events past consider enlightened view ancient crusades ushered urban ii later innocent iii compare conflicts current palestine innocent gathered 50000 troops destroy cathars 13th century heretical sect threatened absolute authority roman catholic church recounting slaughters heretics albigensian crusade monk vauxcernay concludes phrase massacre pilgrims crusaders seizing nearly sixty heretics burned infinite joy sismondi 45 like eitam found joy slaughtering god determined evil indeed radical elite tend enjoy fulfilling gods word determined meaning sismondi declares zealous glory god ardently labored destruction heretics better christians thought eitam likud coupled sharons personal drive ensure jews possess used palestinian land similar cries praise god crusaders glorious victors return battle blessed martyrs die battle compare response conquering jews 1982 war oh lord oh lord chosen us conquest chomsky 96 ruling elites use ancient myths move people take cross impure sacred land given god cleansed returned rightful owners myths lie deep psyche ultraright national religious party eitam heads perhaps article mordechai nisan judaism politics jerusalem post jan 18 1983 captures thinking graphically dawn jewish history contact land israel established principle presence nonjews country morally politically irrelevant national right jews settle possess land bible states jewish right regardless nonjewish presence dwelling land jewish priority way restricted let alone nullified nonjewish majority population given part land chomsky 444 nisan understands dilemma position causes democratic age since appears nondemocratic position response blatantly projewish nowhere provided nonjews enjoy full equal rights national community fact land eternal possession jewish people alone fully understood people recognized western liberal ideas longer sustainable modern age chomsky offers quote references maimonides thinking relation law israel torat yisrael atheistic modern humanism divinelycommanded war one must destroy kill eliminate men women children gush emunim thinking counterparts among growing elite seem gained power israel last year fall prey malaise inflicted kurtz conrads heart darkness acceptance absolute righteousness selfperceived fulfillment resulting unquestioned need wantonly slaughter innocents achieve conception eminence despite behavior barbaric bestial inhumane reaching level behavior requires dissembling rational thought indeed total rejection blind adherence beliefs justification outside fanatical zealots cult abhorrence normal morality applies humans favor morality fulfills cults perceived destiny ultimate depravity becomes end product gods commands belief unity man natural rights men women given way unity nations specifically instance israeli nation homeland jewish race understanding places elite interpret biblical stories position immense power since determined god speaks god given specific piece geography specific people regardless conditions existed thousands years understanding allows indeed demands international law internationally determined human rights provisions philosophical foundations western thought abandoned favor gods directives determined small segment small population though alone possess truth president known bornagain christian ties fundamentalist denominations support zionist aspirations create jewish state favor judaism believe ancient myths well necessity jews reoccupy judea samaria second coming happen bushs linkage denominations dependence israeli lobbyists country governed policy toward conflicts mideast recent vision statement apt mythological appellation conflict unites ineluctably sharon nothing said forestalls even minimizes likelihood complete israeli control occupation land formerly owned palestinians short president linked america ancient myths stories compel one people slaughter another god given right act thinking different used hamas authorities inculcate members god given right destroy jews god demanded koran would anyone believed year 2002 america would join ranks fanatics driven fabricated stories 2500 years old basis foreign policy acceptance sharons administration savage policies also means accepted fanatics islam use god israelis justify atrocities mythologies become motivating tools power justify purpose grab opportunities present fear inflicted enemies people righteous behavior demanded god promise rewards hereafter joining forces evil ultimate victory myths gave purpose carry desires unfortunate america hoodwinked supporting beliefs died quiet death years years ago mockery international law geneva convention human rights americas proclaimed belief democracy inherent rights guaranteed people obeisance whims would find recourse oppression pages mythological text william cook professor english university la verne southern california reached cookbulvedu | 977 |
<p>Bolling Thanks "SEAL Team 6" Because Obama "Failed To Mention" Them. On the May 1 edition of Fox News' The Five, co-host Eric Bolling played clips of Obama and former President Clinton discussing the raid that killed Bin Laden and responded by claiming Obama "failed to mention the Navy SEALs" and said, "I'll do it for you, Mr. President. Thank you SEAL Team 6." From Fox News' The Five:</p>
<p>BOLLING: Presidents Clinton and Obama failed to mention the Navy SEALs who executed the target, the CIA who gleaned the intel to pull off the mission and most importantly the reason that we were ever in a position to kill bin Laden, namely the declared "War on Terror" by the Bush administration. So I guess I'll do it for you, Mr. President. Thank you, SEAL Team 6, thank you CIA intelligence gatherers, and thank you George Bush and Dick Cheney. [Fox News, The Five, 5/1/12]</p>
<p>Rove: "President Obama Doesn't Want To Give Credit To Anybody But His Own Brilliance." On the May 2 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Fox News contributor Karl Rove claimed that "the SEAL team, the logistics people, the pilots, all of those who planned and executed this mission have sort of gone back into the shadows as President Obama's put a big Klieg light on himself for the purpose of launching a partisan attack against his presumptive Republican opponent." Later in the segment, Rove said, "I know President Obama doesn't want to give credit to anybody but his own brilliance," but that the "president would make himself look bigger if he made" the Navy SEALs "look bigger by giving them the credit that's due to them." [Fox News, Hannity, 5/2/12]</p>
<p>Krauthammer: Obama Said, "It's All About Me," But "What About The Guys Out There Who Did It?" On the May 3 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer claimed that Obama used bin Laden's death "inappropriately for himself" and asked, "What about the guys out there who did it and who risked their lives?" From Special Report:</p>
<p>KRAUTHAMMER: It isn't just that Obama has managed to turn a positive, something he did well, into a negative by attacking, using it as a partisan weapon which diminishes him. Also, it diminishes the solemnity of the event, which was a national event, and he used it inappropriately for himself. It is the narcissism -- and that is the deeper issue here -- how they quote Obama again and again, using the first personal pronoun in his announcement of the event. It's all about me, I commander-in-chief, I ordered it, I did this. What about the guys out there who did it and who risked their lives?</p>
<p>And secondly, this idea that what was at stake was the political fortunes of the president if the lives of his own soldiers whom he ordered into battle were lost. That is devastating, because I think it speaks to an underlying issue with Obama, of the self-regard and the narcissism that is implicit in a lot of what he does, but involved in an event of this kind where soldiers are at risk, I think it really hits hard. And if -- if this ad were to play around the country, I think it would have a devastating effect. [Fox News, Special Report, 5/3/12]</p>
<p>Bolling: "Nowhere Do You Hear" Obama Say "Thank You SEAL Team 6." On the May 3 edition of Fox News' Hannity, host Sean Hannity responded to an NBC News interview with Obama about the raid that killed bin Laden by claiming, "The president insists on gloating one year after the heroic raid by our Navy SEALs." Later in the program, Fox News' The Five co-host Eric Bolling claimed, "Nowhere do you hear, anywhere do you hear, 'thank you Navy ... Thank you SEAL Team 6." From Hannity:</p>
<p>KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE (Fox News host): It's almost unbelievable. You think, how does he get away with this? And wouldn't you be embarrassed and a little ashamed to be gloating and taking one successive victory lap after another --</p>
<p>HANNITY: He's not.</p>
<p>GUILFOYLE: Why does he even need a campaign or a team, because he's got the mainstream media. He has NBC throwing this all out for him. Unbelievable.</p>
<p>HANNITY: Somebody's got to file a complaint with the [FCC]. You can't buy that type of free coverage on a --</p>
<p>BOLLING: I can't imagine how much they would have to pay if they were going to buy that coverage. This is a full hour of "what, look what I did, look what we did. I, me, I, we, we, me. Nowhere, anywhere do you hear thank you Navy --</p>
<p>HANNITY: "I, we, I, me."</p>
<p>GUILFOYLE: Yeah.</p>
<p>BOLLING: -- "Thank you SEAL Team 6, thank you CIA enhanced interrogation group" that got the intel that led to the kill shot that President Obama may or may not have actually taken himself. We don't really know exactly how that went down. [Fox News, Hannity, 5/3/12]</p>
<p>Obama: "We Give Thanks For The Men Who Carried Out This Operation, For They Exemplify The Professionalism, Patriotism, And Unparalleled Courage Of Those Who Serve Our Country." In his May 2, 2011, address announcing the operation that killed bin Laden, Obama gave "thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country." From the White House:</p>
<p>Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who've worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.</p>
<p>We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day. [WhiteHouse.gov, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/remarks-president-osama-bin-laden" type="external">5/2/11</a>]</p>
<p>Obama: Navy SEALs "Deserve Credit For One Of The Greatest Intelligence Military Operations In Our Nation's History." In a May 6, 2011, speech to troops stationed at Fort Campbell, Obama said the troops involved in the mission "deserve credit for one of the greatest intelligence military operations in our nation's history." He also stated: "Thanks to the incredible skill and courage of countless individuals -- intelligence, military -- over many years, the terrorist leader who struck our nation on 9/11 will never threaten America again." From the White House:</p>
<p>Thanks to the incredible skill and courage of countless individuals</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>And today, here at Fort Campbell, I had the privilege of meeting the extraordinary Special Ops folks who honored that promise. It was a chance for me to say</p>
<p>They're America's "quiet professionals" -- because success demands secrecy. But I will say this. Like all of you, they could have chosen a life of ease. But like you, they volunteered. They chose to serve in a time of war, knowing they could be sent into harm's way. They trained for years. They're battle-hardened. They practiced tirelessly for this mission. And when I gave the order, they were ready.</p>
<p>Now, in recent days, the whole world has learned just how ready they were. These Americans deserve credit for one of the greatest intelligence military operations in our nation's history. But so does every person who wears America's uniform, the finest military the world has ever known. (Applause.) And that includes all of you men and women of 101st. (Applause.) [WhiteHouse.gov, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/06/remarks-president-and-vice-president-troops-fort-campbell-ky" type="external">5/6/11</a>]</p>
<p>Obama Privately Thanked Navy SEAL Team That Killed Bin Laden. A May 5, 2011, ABC News article reported that Obama "privately thanked the Navy SEALs who cornered and killed Osama bin Laden, congratulating them for a 'job well done.'" From ABC News:</p>
<p>President Obama today privately thanked the Navy SEALs who cornered and killed Osama bin Laden, congratulating them for a "job well done."</p>
<p>The president met the elite Team 6 squad on the same day that bin Laden's terror network, al Qaeda, admitted that its leader was dead. Al Qaeda vowed that it would try to make America pay for his death.</p>
<p>Among the team members the president met was the SEAL who fired the shot that killed bin Laden, though he was not told which one it was, according to administration sources. [ABC News, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-seals-troops-back-afghanistan-job-well-done/story?id=13543148#.T6OuFmv1Hpo" type="external">5/6/11</a>]</p>
<p>Obama Awarded Military Units Involved In Mission With Highest Possible Honor That Can Be Given To A Military Unit. A May 6, 2011, CNN article reported that Obama "awarded Presidential Unit Citations to the units involved in the Pakistan mission ... the highest such honor that can be given to a military unit." From CNN:</p>
<p>Obama and Biden thanked the commandos and were briefed on the operation by the unit members who conducted it, according to a White House official.</p>
<p>Obama awarded Presidential Unit Citations to the units involved in the Pakistan mission, the official said. The citation is the highest such honor that can be given to a military unit.</p>
<p>"They practiced tirelessly for this mission, and when I gave the order they were ready," the president told the troops. "They're America's quiet professionals." [CNN, <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-06/politics/bin.laden.obama_1_abbottabad-compound-bin-qaeda?_s=PM:POLITICS" type="external">5/6/11</a>]</p>
<p>Obama: Bin Laden's Death Is "A Mark Of The Excellence Of Our Intelligence Teams And Our Military Teams." In an April 30 press conference, Obama called the operation "a mark of the excellence of our intelligence teams and our military teams." From the White House:</p>
<p>OBAMA: I think that people -- the American people rightly remember what we as a country accomplished in bringing to justice somebody who killed over 3,000 of our citizens. And it's a mark of the excellence of our intelligence teams and our military teams; a political process that worked. And I think for us to use that time for some reflection to give thanks to those who participated is entirely appropriate, and that's what's been taking place. [WhiteHouse.gov, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/30/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-noda-japan-joint-press-confer" type="external">4/30/12</a>]</p>
<p>Obama: "[B]ecause Of The Sacrifices Now Of A Decade, And A New Greatest Generation ... We Were Able To Finally Bring Osama Bin Laden To Justice." From Obama's May 1 remarks to troops in Afghanistan:</p>
<p>THE PRESIDENT: We don't go looking for a fight. But when we see our homeland violated, when we see our fellow citizens killed, then we understand what we have to do. And because of the sacrifices now of a decade, and a new Greatest Generation, not only were we able to blunt the Taliban momentum, not only were we able to drive al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but slowly and systematically we have been able to decimate the ranks of al Qaeda, and a year ago we were able to finally bring Osama bin Laden to justice.</p>
<p>TROOPS: Hooah! (Applause.)</p>
<p>THE PRESIDENT: That could have only happened because each and every one of you, in your own way, were doing your jobs. Each and every one of you -- without a lot of fanfare, without a lot of fuss -- you did your jobs. No matter how small or how big, you were faithful to the oath that you took to protect this nation. And your families did their job -- supporting you and loving you and remembering you and being there for you. [WhiteHouse.gov, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/05/01/remarks-president-obama-troops-afghanistan" type="external">5/1/12</a>]</p>
<p>Obama Says That Flag Presented To Him By SEAL Team "Will Probably Be The Most Important Possession That I Leave With From This Presidency." On the May 2 edition of NBC News' Rock Center, host Brian Williams interviewed Obama about the bin Laden operation. During the interview, Obama said the flag presented to him by Navy SEAL Team 6 will "probably be the most important possession that I leave with from this presidency." From NBC News:</p>
<p>WILLIAMS: Back home, days later the president got to meet the SEALs who had conducted themselves so brilliantly and with characteristic modesty, including the veteran pilot whose expertly controlled crash landing prevented disaster and saved all the SEALs on board his helicopter.</p>
<p>OBAMA: I will tell you, when I saw that pilot, I gave him a pretty good hug.</p>
<p>WILLIAMS: What was it like for you to get to know them and to see them?</p>
<p>OBAMA: Great guys. They presented me with the flag that had gone on that mission, signed by all of them on the back. And I think it's fair to say that will probably be the most important possession that I leave with from this presidency. [NBC News, Rock Center, 5/2/12, via Nexis]</p> | true | 4 | bolling thanks seal team 6 obama failed mention may 1 edition fox news five cohost eric bolling played clips obama former president clinton discussing raid killed bin laden responded claiming obama failed mention navy seals said ill mr president thank seal team 6 fox news five bolling presidents clinton obama failed mention navy seals executed target cia gleaned intel pull mission importantly reason ever position kill bin laden namely declared war terror bush administration guess ill mr president thank seal team 6 thank cia intelligence gatherers thank george bush dick cheney fox news five 5112 rove president obama doesnt want give credit anybody brilliance may 2 edition fox news hannity fox news contributor karl rove claimed seal team logistics people pilots planned executed mission sort gone back shadows president obamas put big klieg light purpose launching partisan attack presumptive republican opponent later segment rove said know president obama doesnt want give credit anybody brilliance president would make look bigger made navy seals look bigger giving credit thats due fox news hannity 5212 krauthammer obama said guys may 3 edition fox news special report fox news contributor charles krauthammer claimed obama used bin ladens death inappropriately asked guys risked lives special report krauthammer isnt obama managed turn positive something well negative attacking using partisan weapon diminishes also diminishes solemnity event national event used inappropriately narcissism deeper issue quote obama using first personal pronoun announcement event commanderinchief ordered guys risked lives secondly idea stake political fortunes president lives soldiers ordered battle lost devastating think speaks underlying issue obama selfregard narcissism implicit lot involved event kind soldiers risk think really hits hard ad play around country think would devastating effect fox news special report 5312 bolling nowhere hear obama say thank seal team 6 may 3 edition fox news hannity host sean hannity responded nbc news interview obama raid killed bin laden claiming president insists gloating one year heroic raid navy seals later program fox news five cohost eric bolling claimed nowhere hear anywhere hear thank navy thank seal team 6 hannity kimberly guilfoyle fox news host almost unbelievable think get away wouldnt embarrassed little ashamed gloating taking one successive victory lap another hannity hes guilfoyle even need campaign team hes got mainstream media nbc throwing unbelievable hannity somebodys got file complaint fcc cant buy type free coverage bolling cant imagine much would pay going buy coverage full hour look look nowhere anywhere hear thank navy hannity guilfoyle yeah bolling thank seal team 6 thank cia enhanced interrogation group got intel led kill shot president obama may may actually taken dont really know exactly went fox news hannity 5312 obama give thanks men carried operation exemplify professionalism patriotism unparalleled courage serve country may 2 2011 address announcing operation killed bin laden obama gave thanks men carried operation exemplify professionalism patriotism unparalleled courage serve country white house today direction united states launched targeted operation compound abbottabad pakistan small team americans carried operation extraordinary courage capability americans harmed took care avoid civilian casualties firefight killed osama bin laden took custody body tonight give thanks countless intelligence counterterrorism professionals whove worked tirelessly achieve outcome american people see work know names tonight feel satisfaction work result pursuit justice give thanks men carried operation exemplify professionalism patriotism unparalleled courage serve country part generation borne heaviest share burden since september day whitehousegov 5211 obama navy seals deserve credit one greatest intelligence military operations nations history may 6 2011 speech troops stationed fort campbell obama said troops involved mission deserve credit one greatest intelligence military operations nations history also stated thanks incredible skill courage countless individuals intelligence military many years terrorist leader struck nation 911 never threaten america white house thanks incredible skill courage countless individuals today fort campbell privilege meeting extraordinary special ops folks honored promise chance say theyre americas quiet professionals success demands secrecy say like could chosen life ease like volunteered chose serve time war knowing could sent harms way trained years theyre battlehardened practiced tirelessly mission gave order ready recent days whole world learned ready americans deserve credit one greatest intelligence military operations nations history every person wears americas uniform finest military world ever known applause includes men women 101st applause whitehousegov 5611 obama privately thanked navy seal team killed bin laden may 5 2011 abc news article reported obama privately thanked navy seals cornered killed osama bin laden congratulating job well done abc news president obama today privately thanked navy seals cornered killed osama bin laden congratulating job well done president met elite team 6 squad day bin ladens terror network al qaeda admitted leader dead al qaeda vowed would try make america pay death among team members president met seal fired shot killed bin laden though told one according administration sources abc news 5611 obama awarded military units involved mission highest possible honor given military unit may 6 2011 cnn article reported obama awarded presidential unit citations units involved pakistan mission highest honor given military unit cnn obama biden thanked commandos briefed operation unit members conducted according white house official obama awarded presidential unit citations units involved pakistan mission official said citation highest honor given military unit practiced tirelessly mission gave order ready president told troops theyre americas quiet professionals cnn 5611 obama bin ladens death mark excellence intelligence teams military teams april 30 press conference obama called operation mark excellence intelligence teams military teams white house obama think people american people rightly remember country accomplished bringing justice somebody killed 3000 citizens mark excellence intelligence teams military teams political process worked think us use time reflection give thanks participated entirely appropriate thats whats taking place whitehousegov 43012 obama sacrifices decade new greatest generation able finally bring osama bin laden justice obamas may 1 remarks troops afghanistan president dont go looking fight see homeland violated see fellow citizens killed understand sacrifices decade new greatest generation able blunt taliban momentum able drive al qaeda afghanistan slowly systematically able decimate ranks al qaeda year ago able finally bring osama bin laden justice troops hooah applause president could happened every one way jobs every one without lot fanfare without lot fuss jobs matter small big faithful oath took protect nation families job supporting loving remembering whitehousegov 5112 obama says flag presented seal team probably important possession leave presidency may 2 edition nbc news rock center host brian williams interviewed obama bin laden operation interview obama said flag presented navy seal team 6 probably important possession leave presidency nbc news williams back home days later president got meet seals conducted brilliantly characteristic modesty including veteran pilot whose expertly controlled crash landing prevented disaster saved seals board helicopter obama tell saw pilot gave pretty good hug williams like get know see obama great guys presented flag gone mission signed back think fair say probably important possession leave presidency nbc news rock center 5212 via nexis | 1,135 |
<p>The case studies are scattered around in the medical journals: a 62-year-old woman with acute psychosis; a 73-year-old man with “severe delirious psychotic features”; a woman of 47 suffering from insomnia and barely able to stand or walk; a 62-year-old woman who ruptures her Achilles tendon; a man, 75, struck with repeated seizures; a 64-year-old diabetic woman with life-threatening hypoglycemia.</p>
<p>All of those people had suffered the side effects of a specific class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones. Because they target bacteria and not our own tissues, antibiotics are often not scrutinized for side effects by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) or manufacturers as carefully as are, say, psychiatric drugs. But in the bodies of people, cats, rats, and mice, fluoroquinolones not only kill bacteria but also appear to attach to certain brain and nerve receptors, kill tendon cells, and cause other kinds of havoc.</p>
<p>Clinical trials conducted over three decades in the process of gaining FDA approval for fluoroquinolones — which encompass many drugs, among the most familiar of which are ciprofloxacin (Cipro) and levofloxacin (Levaquin) [1] — showed that psychiatric and central-nervous-system problems occurred in more than 10 percent of patients.[2] Such trials, as well as “adverse drug reaction” (ADR) reports that began to be filed by US doctors and patients once the drugs were being marketed, indicated serious reactions in about 1 to 2 percent of cases in which the drugs are administered.</p>
<p>A study of ADRs in Italy, published in 2005, found that among more than 50 types of drugs, fluoroquinolones accounted for 11 percent of all adverse events and were involved in the largest number of serious problems, edging out antidepressants.[3]</p>
<p>When, near the end of one of those ask-your-doctor commercials, a fast-talking disembodied voice reads off a drug’s side effects, usually over a scene involving fields of waving grass and a puppy dog, it tends to sound like a lot of nasty stuff that’s going to happen to someone else. But in reading and writing about the pharmaceutical industry for the past couple of years, I started wondering about what life is like for the real people who do experience those side effects. Then last fall, when my own father was assaulted with terrible symptoms apparently caused by a widely prescribed fluoroquinolone, I didn’t have to wonder any longer. “A remarkable safety record”</p>
<p>If even only one person in 100 suffers a grave side effect of such a popular class of drug, that can mean millions of people affected. At their worst, fluoroquinolones can ruin or, potentially, end lives. On the Internet, people who have been “floxed” as they call it (because the generic names of many such drugs contain the letters “flox”) come together in forums and discussion groups to swap graphic accounts of searing pain, psychosis, blistering skin, kidney and liver damage, muscle-wasting, tendon rupture, hallucinations, insomnia, suicidal thoughts, and panic attacks. Award-winning journalist Stephen Fried was moved to write a book, Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs (1999) after his wife Diane suffered long-term damage after taking a single pill of a fluoroquinolone called Floxin.</p>
<p>Dr. Jay Cohen, a medical researcher and associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, published a paper on peripheral neuropathy caused by fluoroquinolones on 2001. Since then, he says, “I have received several hundred emails, most of which relate terrible, often catastrophic reactions to Levaquin, and some to Cipro. These reactions are slow to pass, leaving some people disabled for months or years. It is an awful problem.”</p>
<p>Clinical trials and case studies published by doctors in leading medical journals also make it clear that such problems exist, but in the journals, it’s common to see conclusions like this, from a 2002 paper: “Levofloxacin [Levaquin] has been used in more than 200 million prescriptions, with a remarkable safety record.”[4]</p>
<p>In their practices, doctors often appear to be attributing fluoroquinolone damage to other causes. Says Cohen, “Unfortunately, many doctors do not know that fluoroquinolones can cause such severe, long-lasting reactions. When a reaction occurs, some doctors deny that it could have been caused by the drug. Doctors order a battery of tests to seek other causes, but the tests usually show nothing.” The spoils of war</p>
<p>People who find themselves under assault by bacteria (including the 2 million who get infected each year in hospitals) desperately need antibiotics. And, better late than never, there is a growing awareness that the use of antibiotics must be planned much more rigorously, to curtail the development of resistant bacteria. But the popularity of some of the drugs has as much to do with historical accident as with safety and efficacy.</p>
<p>The huge commercial success of the fluoroquinolones can be traced to 1990 and Operation Desert Shield, when the US military was concerned that Iraqi forces with whom they were soon to do battle were planning to use anthrax as a bacterial weapon. The armed forces ordered 30 million doses of the fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin — Cipro — to be administered to troops as a preventative measure. That drug was chosen mainly because it was new, and the Iraqis would not have been expected to have selected an anthrax strain resistant to it.[5]</p>
<p>Although no anthrax attack is known to have been launched in Kuwait or Iraq (and Desert Storm veterans have blamed the side effects of the antibiotic for some of the symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome), Cipro got the reputation as a kind of superdrug, and sales rose through the 90s. The actual anthrax attacks of October 2001 triggered a wave of panic-buying and pill-swallowing, and Cipro’s manufacturer Bayer responded by producing 200 million additional doses within two months.</p>
<p>A shocked David Flockhart, chief of clinical pharmacology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, told the Los Angeles Times, “Cipro is basically a big gun whose benefits outweigh its risks in certain circumstances, but the bigger gun you use, the more damage you can expect as collateral.”[6] Of more than 3000 postal employees who took Cipro following the anthrax attacks, 26 percent had problems with their digestive system, and 14 percent reported neurological problems.[7]</p>
<p>Cipro and its newer fluoroquinolone cousins have since become the most frequently prescribed class of antibiotics in the US, accounting for one prescriptions out of four. By 2003, more than a half-billion prescriptions had been written for Cipro and Levaquin alone.[8] Under contracts then in effect, the Defense Department and Veterans Administration together were dispensing about 9 million doses of fluoroquinolones per year.[9]</p>
<p>The quinolone family of antibiotics grew out of research on anti-malarial drugs, which also carry a heavy load of side effects. One member of that family, a malaria medication called mefloquine (Larium), has become notorious for causing problems that include, according to FDA, “psychiatric symptoms ranging from anxiety, paranoia, and depression to hallucinations and psychotic behavior. On occasions, these symptoms have been reported to continue long after mefloquine has been stopped.”</p>
<p>In what passes for innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, companies continue to modify the chemical structure of fluoroquinolones in search of similar, effective antibiotics that be patented. One recent study warned that members of the newest generation of such drugs, judging from their chemical structures, are even more likely to cause adverse side-effects than are now-popular ones like Cipro and Levaquin.[10] Because the truly informative testing of drugs occurs not during the FDA approval process but through their use by millions of patients, a lot of people are certain to experience damage from these drugs first-hand. One victim’s story</p>
<p>At 77, my father was a specimen of good health who ate a solid vegetarian diet and would regularly bike 20 or more miles in a day. So it came as a terrible blow when, in October, he had to go in for emergency cardiac artery bypass and valve-replacement surgery. Complications of the surgery kept him hospitalized longer than expected — with two more trips to the operating room — weak, exhausted, and down to only 125 pounds from his former 155.</p>
<p>A full month after being admitted, he finally seemed to begin recovering. But at that point, he plunged once again into a terribly weakened state, sleeping little or not at all, his arms and legs almost constantly in motion, unable to walk without falling backward. That went on for almost two weeks, until he made a quick turnaround, regained his ability to walk, and was discharged.</p>
<p>When he had been out of the hospital for five days, feeling wiped out but not ill in any way, a physician’s assistant decided that he needed an antibiotic prescription in case he might have pneumonia. The drug was Levaquin. He took the first dose that night, and by the following evening, he was going downhill fast. He spent almost all of the next day in bed, too weak to walk or even sit up, spending most of the time with his eyes closed or in a blank stare, making bizarre sounds and gestures.</p>
<p>Unable to get any answers from his doctors, my mother and I, in desperation, stopped giving him the Levaquin. (As a geneticist, I was as aware as anyone of the rule that says never to stop an antibiotic in mid-course, but we were indeed desperate.) Within 36 hours, he had begun improving remarkably but remains very weak six weeks later. His doctor has since concluded that he never had pneumonia.</p>
<p>When I went back and looked at my father’s 33-page hospital file of doctors’ notes, along with the 146-page (!) daily file of medications he’d been given, I saw that his earlier abrupt deterioration, a month into the hospital stay, had coincided with the start of a course of a fluoroquinolone called moxifloxacin (Avelox), also given for suspected (but nonexistent) pneumonia. The just-as-abrupt improvement that led to his discharge occurred a day and a half after his last dose of moxifloxacin. Who’s minding the (drug)store?</p>
<p>The label for Levaquin includes information that is typical for fluoroquinolones: “Convulsions and toxic psychoses have been reported in patients receiving quinolones, including levofloxacin. Quinolones may also cause … tremors, restlessness, anxiety, lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion and hallucinations, paranoia, depression, nightmares, insomnia and, rarely, suicidal thoughts or acts. These reactions may occur following the first dose.”</p>
<p>In, 2004 the FDA issued a new warning on fluoroquinolones, stating that treatment should be stopped if patients felt strange neurological symptoms like “pain, burning, tingling, numbness, and/or weakness … in order to prevent the development of an irreversible condition.” In 2005-06, the Illinois Attorney general and the group Public Citizen petitioned the FDA to add a so-called “black box” warning to packages, this one regarding the danger of tendon rupture, a well-documented effect of the drugs. So far, no action has been taken.</p>
<p>Jay Cohen responded to FDA’s addition of the 2004 statement by asking, “The question is, will doctors notice these warnings? Doctors do not reread package inserts or the PDR every time they prescribe the same drug. Moreover, the package inserts of quinolones are very long, and the information can easily be overlooked. Perhaps the greatest usefulness of the new warnings may be for patients who develop side effects with quinolones and who consult the Physician’s Desk Reference [PDR], or for doctors who consult the PDR after patients complain about side effects.”[11]</p>
<p>In that sense, the warning does its job, but too late for the patient: Once my father was in big trouble, I indeed looked up the fine-print warnings. Among several of his doctors with whom I discussed his experience with fluoroquinolones afterward, none had known that the drugs can have serious effects on the central nervous system — yet none was surprised that they do.</p>
<p>One of the nurses told us that the cardiac-surgery patients she sees are “generally sent home with about 20 prescriptions.” Without some of the drugs he received during surgery and his six-week hospital stay, my father would not have survived. But as he struggled to regain his health, he twice had his recovery reversed (and, it seems, nearly ended altogether) by the side effects of drugs prescribed for an illness that he never actually had.</p>
<p>Tragically, his overmedication is not unusual. Studies of outpatients have consistently shown that more than half the drugs they were taking were unnecessary. By one estimate, 20 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions are written in the US every year and as many as 100,000 Americans die annually from reactions to prescription drugs of all kinds.[12] With a toll like that, the costs of overmedication can’t fully be measured in dollars. (And one study found that only 6 percent of adverse reactions are accurately reported.)</p>
<p>A survey of patients admitted to two hospitals’ emergency departments found that for half of those patients who were taking multiple drugs at the time, it was the pharmaceuticals themselves that had landed them in the emergency room. Another survey of patient charts found that three-fourths of the time, the documents did not accurately list all the drugs being taken.[13]</p>
<p>The risks of drugs in general are known to be much higher in elderly patients. As what one letter to the Journal of Clinical Oncology called “the leading drug consumers”, our older friends and relatives have far too many opportunities for drugs to interact with an existing medical condition or another drug. At any given time, says one study, 78 percent of people over 65 years of age are on medications — and half of that group are regularly taking five or more drugs.[14]</p>
<p>Elderly patients not only take more drugs; they also have more health problems that can magnify the side effects and often mislead patients and doctors about what ails them. In the words of one researcher, “It is easy to ascribe decline in functional status to worsening disease or old age and not thoroughly investigate the contribution of inappropriate drug therapy.”[15] That’s what happened to my father; until the drug effects became too obvious to ignore, we all assumed he was still suffering aftershocks of surgery.</p>
<p>Another study put its finger on the bigger problem, noting that despite having learned in medical school about systematic approaches to prescribing, “physicians learn how to prescribe in ‘real-world’ settings … and they are influenced by their peers, pharmaceutical company marketing, healthcare systems, and patient demands and expectations.”[16]</p>
<p>Hazardous interactions among medications continue to be a big issue in medicine. Through hard experience, medical administrators have come up with a list of the ten most dangerous drug interactions, and two of those involve fluoroquinolones. But as for actually preventing such problems, there is always more talk than action. Were a proposed drug to be safety-tested not only on its own, but in combinations with other drugs, its sponsoring company would have to shell out many times as much money and spend a lot more development time.</p>
<p>That won’t happen. Drug executives are already threatening to stop developing antibiotics altogether, because in the companies’ eyes, they don’t justify the cost of research and testing. That’s because they are usually prescribed only for a matter of days at a time, not for many years like the more profitable lifestyle drugs and treatments for chronic diseases.[17]</p>
<p>Having in their inventories a class of antibiotics that’s so popular among physicians and on which so many chemical variations-on-a-theme are possible, companies are not acknowledging the toll being taken by fluoroquinolones on vulnerable patients. Jay Cohen says, “As far as I can tell, the manufacturers have not lifted a finger to try to help these people, nor have they undertaken research to try to explain these reactions and to develop measures to help patients avoid them.”</p>
<p>He adds that drugs like Levaquin, Cipro, or Avelox “should not be used as first line antibiotics. Other, safer drugs should be tried first. The need for antibiotic therapy with fluoroquinolones should be gauged carefully, and unnecessary use should be avoided.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, most people don’t learn about the risks of fluoroquinolones or other drugs until, like me, they encounter them first hand and look around for information. Then they find sites like Cohen’s www.medicationsense.com or the most comprehensive fluoroquinolones victims’ site, www.fqresearch.org. That site is urging that the drugs never be used “unless there is a direct threat to the patient’s life or limb.”</p>
<p>STAN COX is a plant breeder and writer in Salina, Kansas. His book <a href="" type="internal">Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine</a> will be published by Pluto Press in April. They can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>NOTES</p>
<p>1. See the long list of fluoroquinolones at <a href="http://www.fqresearch.org/alphabetical_listings.htm" type="external">http://www.fqresearch.org/alphabetical_listings.htm</a></p>
<p>2. For example, see <a href="" type="internal">www.fda.gov/cder/foi/nda/96/020634-1.pdf</a></p>
<p>3. Galatti et al., Neuropsychiatric reactions to drugs: an analysis of spontaneous reports from general practitioners in Italy. Pharmacological Research 3: 211 (2005)</p>
<p>4. Rubinstein and Camm, Carditoxicity of fluroquinolones. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 49: 593 (2002)</p>
<p>5. Enserink, Researchers question obsession with Cipro. Science 294: 759 (2001)</p>
<p>6. Krucoff, Drug of choice has a downside. Los Angeles Times, 29 Oct. 2001</p>
<p>7. <a href="" type="internal">http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5047a2.htm</a></p>
<p>8. Rubinstein and Camm (2002) and Houston Chronicle, 1 Nov. 2001</p>
<p>9. <a href="" type="internal">http://www.fbodaily.com/</a></p>
<p>10. Mandell and Tillotson, Safety of fluoroquinolones: An update. Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases 13: 54 (2002)</p>
<p>11. <a href="" type="internal">http://www.medicationsense.com/</a></p>
<p>12. See references in <a href="" type="internal">http://www.lef.org/magazine/</a></p>
<p>13. Both studies referenced by Delafuente, Understanding and preventing drug interactions in elderly patients. Clinical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology 48: 133 (2003)</p>
<p>14. Jörgensen et al, Prescription drug use, diagnoses, and healthcare utilization among the elderly. Annals of Pharmacotherapy 35: 1004 (2001)</p>
<p>15. Deafuente (2003)</p>
<p>16. Hanlon et al., Suboptimal prescribing in older inpatients and outpatients. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 49: 200­209 (2001)</p>
<p>17. Projan, Why is big Pharma getting out of antibacterial drug discovery? Current Opinion in Microbiology 6: 427 (2003)</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | case studies scattered around medical journals 62yearold woman acute psychosis 73yearold man severe delirious psychotic features woman 47 suffering insomnia barely able stand walk 62yearold woman ruptures achilles tendon man 75 struck repeated seizures 64yearold diabetic woman lifethreatening hypoglycemia people suffered side effects specific class antibiotics known fluoroquinolones target bacteria tissues antibiotics often scrutinized side effects federal drug administration fda manufacturers carefully say psychiatric drugs bodies people cats rats mice fluoroquinolones kill bacteria also appear attach certain brain nerve receptors kill tendon cells cause kinds havoc clinical trials conducted three decades process gaining fda approval fluoroquinolones encompass many drugs among familiar ciprofloxacin cipro levofloxacin levaquin 1 showed psychiatric centralnervoussystem problems occurred 10 percent patients2 trials well adverse drug reaction adr reports began filed us doctors patients drugs marketed indicated serious reactions 1 2 percent cases drugs administered study adrs italy published 2005 found among 50 types drugs fluoroquinolones accounted 11 percent adverse events involved largest number serious problems edging antidepressants3 near end one askyourdoctor commercials fasttalking disembodied voice reads drugs side effects usually scene involving fields waving grass puppy dog tends sound like lot nasty stuff thats going happen someone else reading writing pharmaceutical industry past couple years started wondering life like real people experience side effects last fall father assaulted terrible symptoms apparently caused widely prescribed fluoroquinolone didnt wonder longer remarkable safety record even one person 100 suffers grave side effect popular class drug mean millions people affected worst fluoroquinolones ruin potentially end lives internet people floxed call generic names many drugs contain letters flox come together forums discussion groups swap graphic accounts searing pain psychosis blistering skin kidney liver damage musclewasting tendon rupture hallucinations insomnia suicidal thoughts panic attacks awardwinning journalist stephen fried moved write book bitter pills inside hazardous world legal drugs 1999 wife diane suffered longterm damage taking single pill fluoroquinolone called floxin dr jay cohen medical researcher associate professor university california san diego published paper peripheral neuropathy caused fluoroquinolones 2001 since says received several hundred emails relate terrible often catastrophic reactions levaquin cipro reactions slow pass leaving people disabled months years awful problem clinical trials case studies published doctors leading medical journals also make clear problems exist journals common see conclusions like 2002 paper levofloxacin levaquin used 200 million prescriptions remarkable safety record4 practices doctors often appear attributing fluoroquinolone damage causes says cohen unfortunately many doctors know fluoroquinolones cause severe longlasting reactions reaction occurs doctors deny could caused drug doctors order battery tests seek causes tests usually show nothing spoils war people find assault bacteria including 2 million get infected year hospitals desperately need antibiotics better late never growing awareness use antibiotics must planned much rigorously curtail development resistant bacteria popularity drugs much historical accident safety efficacy huge commercial success fluoroquinolones traced 1990 operation desert shield us military concerned iraqi forces soon battle planning use anthrax bacterial weapon armed forces ordered 30 million doses fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin cipro administered troops preventative measure drug chosen mainly new iraqis would expected selected anthrax strain resistant it5 although anthrax attack known launched kuwait iraq desert storm veterans blamed side effects antibiotic symptoms gulf war syndrome cipro got reputation kind superdrug sales rose 90s actual anthrax attacks october 2001 triggered wave panicbuying pillswallowing cipros manufacturer bayer responded producing 200 million additional doses within two months shocked david flockhart chief clinical pharmacology indiana university school medicine told los angeles times cipro basically big gun whose benefits outweigh risks certain circumstances bigger gun use damage expect collateral6 3000 postal employees took cipro following anthrax attacks 26 percent problems digestive system 14 percent reported neurological problems7 cipro newer fluoroquinolone cousins since become frequently prescribed class antibiotics us accounting one prescriptions four 2003 halfbillion prescriptions written cipro levaquin alone8 contracts effect defense department veterans administration together dispensing 9 million doses fluoroquinolones per year9 quinolone family antibiotics grew research antimalarial drugs also carry heavy load side effects one member family malaria medication called mefloquine larium become notorious causing problems include according fda psychiatric symptoms ranging anxiety paranoia depression hallucinations psychotic behavior occasions symptoms reported continue long mefloquine stopped passes innovation pharmaceutical industry companies continue modify chemical structure fluoroquinolones search similar effective antibiotics patented one recent study warned members newest generation drugs judging chemical structures even likely cause adverse sideeffects nowpopular ones like cipro levaquin10 truly informative testing drugs occurs fda approval process use millions patients lot people certain experience damage drugs firsthand one victims story 77 father specimen good health ate solid vegetarian diet would regularly bike 20 miles day came terrible blow october go emergency cardiac artery bypass valvereplacement surgery complications surgery kept hospitalized longer expected two trips operating room weak exhausted 125 pounds former 155 full month admitted finally seemed begin recovering point plunged terribly weakened state sleeping little arms legs almost constantly motion unable walk without falling backward went almost two weeks made quick turnaround regained ability walk discharged hospital five days feeling wiped ill way physicians assistant decided needed antibiotic prescription case might pneumonia drug levaquin took first dose night following evening going downhill fast spent almost next day bed weak walk even sit spending time eyes closed blank stare making bizarre sounds gestures unable get answers doctors mother desperation stopped giving levaquin geneticist aware anyone rule says never stop antibiotic midcourse indeed desperate within 36 hours begun improving remarkably remains weak six weeks later doctor since concluded never pneumonia went back looked fathers 33page hospital file doctors notes along 146page daily file medications hed given saw earlier abrupt deterioration month hospital stay coincided start course fluoroquinolone called moxifloxacin avelox also given suspected nonexistent pneumonia justasabrupt improvement led discharge occurred day half last dose moxifloxacin whos minding drugstore label levaquin includes information typical fluoroquinolones convulsions toxic psychoses reported patients receiving quinolones including levofloxacin quinolones may also cause tremors restlessness anxiety lightheadedness dizziness confusion hallucinations paranoia depression nightmares insomnia rarely suicidal thoughts acts reactions may occur following first dose 2004 fda issued new warning fluoroquinolones stating treatment stopped patients felt strange neurological symptoms like pain burning tingling numbness andor weakness order prevent development irreversible condition 200506 illinois attorney general group public citizen petitioned fda add socalled black box warning packages one regarding danger tendon rupture welldocumented effect drugs far action taken jay cohen responded fdas addition 2004 statement asking question doctors notice warnings doctors reread package inserts pdr every time prescribe drug moreover package inserts quinolones long information easily overlooked perhaps greatest usefulness new warnings may patients develop side effects quinolones consult physicians desk reference pdr doctors consult pdr patients complain side effects11 sense warning job late patient father big trouble indeed looked fineprint warnings among several doctors discussed experience fluoroquinolones afterward none known drugs serious effects central nervous system yet none surprised one nurses told us cardiacsurgery patients sees generally sent home 20 prescriptions without drugs received surgery sixweek hospital stay father would survived struggled regain health twice recovery reversed seems nearly ended altogether side effects drugs prescribed illness never actually tragically overmedication unusual studies outpatients consistently shown half drugs taking unnecessary one estimate 20 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions written us every year many 100000 americans die annually reactions prescription drugs kinds12 toll like costs overmedication cant fully measured dollars one study found 6 percent adverse reactions accurately reported survey patients admitted two hospitals emergency departments found half patients taking multiple drugs time pharmaceuticals landed emergency room another survey patient charts found threefourths time documents accurately list drugs taken13 risks drugs general known much higher elderly patients one letter journal clinical oncology called leading drug consumers older friends relatives far many opportunities drugs interact existing medical condition another drug given time says one study 78 percent people 65 years age medications half group regularly taking five drugs14 elderly patients take drugs also health problems magnify side effects often mislead patients doctors ails words one researcher easy ascribe decline functional status worsening disease old age thoroughly investigate contribution inappropriate drug therapy15 thats happened father drug effects became obvious ignore assumed still suffering aftershocks surgery another study put finger bigger problem noting despite learned medical school systematic approaches prescribing physicians learn prescribe realworld settings influenced peers pharmaceutical company marketing healthcare systems patient demands expectations16 hazardous interactions among medications continue big issue medicine hard experience medical administrators come list ten dangerous drug interactions two involve fluoroquinolones actually preventing problems always talk action proposed drug safetytested combinations drugs sponsoring company would shell many times much money spend lot development time wont happen drug executives already threatening stop developing antibiotics altogether companies eyes dont justify cost research testing thats usually prescribed matter days time many years like profitable lifestyle drugs treatments chronic diseases17 inventories class antibiotics thats popular among physicians many chemical variationsonatheme possible companies acknowledging toll taken fluoroquinolones vulnerable patients jay cohen says far tell manufacturers lifted finger try help people undertaken research try explain reactions develop measures help patients avoid adds drugs like levaquin cipro avelox used first line antibiotics safer drugs tried first need antibiotic therapy fluoroquinolones gauged carefully unnecessary use avoided unfortunately people dont learn risks fluoroquinolones drugs like encounter first hand look around information find sites like cohens wwwmedicationsensecom comprehensive fluoroquinolones victims site wwwfqresearchorg site urging drugs never used unless direct threat patients life limb stan cox plant breeder writer salina kansas book sick planet corporate food medicine published pluto press april reached tstancoxnet notes 1 see long list fluoroquinolones httpwwwfqresearchorgalphabetical_listingshtm 2 example see wwwfdagovcderfoinda960206341pdf 3 galatti et al neuropsychiatric reactions drugs analysis spontaneous reports general practitioners italy pharmacological research 3 211 2005 4 rubinstein camm carditoxicity fluroquinolones journal antimicrobial chemotherapy 49 593 2002 5 enserink researchers question obsession cipro science 294 759 2001 6 krucoff drug choice downside los angeles times 29 oct 2001 7 httpwwwcdcgovmmwrpreviewmmwrhtmlmm5047a2htm 8 rubinstein camm 2002 houston chronicle 1 nov 2001 9 httpwwwfbodailycom 10 mandell tillotson safety fluoroquinolones update canadian journal infectious diseases 13 54 2002 11 httpwwwmedicationsensecom 12 see references httpwwwleforgmagazine 13 studies referenced delafuente understanding preventing drug interactions elderly patients clinical reviews oncologyhematology 48 133 2003 14 jörgensen et al prescription drug use diagnoses healthcare utilization among elderly annals pharmacotherapy 35 1004 2001 15 deafuente 2003 16 hanlon et al suboptimal prescribing older inpatients outpatients journal american geriatrics society 49 200209 2001 17 projan big pharma getting antibacterial drug discovery current opinion microbiology 6 427 2003 160 160 160 | 1,705 |
<p>As the Flotilla boats to Gaza are prevented from leaving the Greek ports, the Israeli government congratulates its diplomatic efforts in pressuring Greece to stop the activists. Earlier in the week, the Israeli press cited an army debrief when all major newspapers reported the Flotilla activists will carry lethal acid on board their ships, according to army intelligence. The Real News' Lia Tarachansky questions Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, and the Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, Yuli Edelstein. She also speaks with Huweida Arraf, the Co-Founder of the Free Gaza Movement, and Ofer Neiman, Editor of the Occupation Magazine about the Israeli coverage of the Flotilla to Gaza, and the media battle between government and activists.</p>
<p />
<p />
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<p /> LIA TARACHANSKY, TRNN: On Friday, the Greek leadership issued an order preventing the flotilla boats from leaving its shores for Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, in a speech on Thursday. According to an unnamed top Israeli official, today there is a different Greece when it comes to Israel, the organizers of the flotilla did not understand this, and now they're paying the price. On Wednesday, the Government Press Office held a briefing with Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein.
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<p />YULI EDELSTEIN, MINISTER OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND DIASPORA AFFAIRS: First of all, we are not trying to hide. On the contrary, we are proud that we've made a lot of diplomatic efforts in different countries in order to explain to the governments, leaders, people, the things that I've been just saying [snip] probably could influence, you know, in the positive direction this whole intention of coming with this violent and unnecessary flotilla.
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<p />TARACHANSKY: On Saturday, Israeli activists gathered outside the Greek embassy in Tel Aviv to voice their opposition.
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<p />CROWD: No justice! No peace! Shame on you Greece!
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<p />CROWD (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Let the flotilla into Gaza! Send the traitors to jail!
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<p />TARACHANSKY: [incompr.] the media battle between Israel and the coming flotilla sharply escalated when the Israeli press reported flotilla activists were carrying sulphuric acid with the intention of killing as many Israeli soldiers as possible. The articles, which cited an army debrief from Sunday night, portrayed the Free Gaza Movement as a front for terrorists. Ofer Neiman is the editor of the Israeli Occupation Magazine.
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<p />OFER NEIMAN, EDITOR, OCCUPATION MAGAZINE: It seems very orchestrated, I mean, even more than previous affairs, like you said. All the main newspapers, including Haaretz, coming out with pretty much the same report as facts. If you use such a headline, "Coming to Kill", they're coming to kill us, this amounts to a blood libel campaign against the activists. What this says implicitly is that it's permissible to kill the activists because they're coming to kill us.
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<p />TARACHANSKY: Two men were identified in this Maariv article as being linked to Hamas and were named as passengers on the flotilla.
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<p />EDELSTEIN: We are getting prepared. And when I say we, it's a very big we: it's all the government ministries, it's the IDF, it's us on the front of diplomacy, public diplomacy, information efforts. We are trying to get ready for all the possible scenarios. We don't know how many people of different persuasion will be there on these ships. We know for a fact that the number of representatives of different terror groups, terror organizations, are on their way to join the flotilla.
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<p />~~~
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<p />TARACHANSKY: According to the organizers of the flotilla, the two people that were identified in the press as being linked to Hamas, Amin Abu Rashid and Mohammed Ahmed Hanoun, they're not on the list of people to join the boats. What's your comment on that?
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<p />EDELSTEIN: Well, if that would be the case, I would be more than happy. My doubt is not about these two specific Hamas terrorists. My doubt is whether they can really--the organizers of these nice delegations coming from, you name it, Ireland, Canada, United States, or wherever, whether they can really be in that kind of control and can really, in real time, confront the terrorists or unidentified people who will be joining the flotilla.
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<p />~~~
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<p />TARACHANSKY: The Real News spoke with Huweida Arraf, one of the founders of the Free Gaza Movement, who organized nine previous attempts to break the siege on Gaza.
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<p />HUWEIDA ARRAF, COFOUNDER, FREE GAZA MOVEMENT: --another empty accusation by Israel. I am also the cofounder of the International Solidarity Movement. I've been working in the occupied territories with activists from all around the world for the last decade. And this same accusation was thrown at us almost from the day of our founding, that we support terror or enable terrorism, or that people that come with us are terrorists. Israeli propaganda agents even labeled our colleague that they killed, Rachel Corrie, you know, as a terrorist supporter, and they blamed her for her own death, that she jumped in front of a bulldozer. I mean, this is part of Israel's propaganda, and there's absolutely no truth to that whatsoever.
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<p />TARACHANSKY: So you're not bringing on board Amin Abu Rashid and Mohammed Ahmed Hanoun?
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<p />ARRAF: Well, first of all I should say that I do not in any way justify or agree with Israel's claims that these two are terrorists in any way. And we know that--how loosely Israel throws that term and everyone that it throws that term at. However, no, both of those people have been organizing, have been working to support the people of Palestine and the people of Gaza in terms of the effort to break the siege on Gaza, but they are not on our list of passengers.
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<p />~~~
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<p />TARACHANSKY: Yesterday I spoke to the Israeli army press woman, and she said, we have no way of knowing what's on these ships, because we can't inspect them in the countries that they're sailing from, because that would be overstepping our territorial boundaries, but we also can inspect them at sea.
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<p />NEIMAN: Yeah. I mean, but he says that they do know that there are various chemicals and terrorists and assassins on board these ships. I mean, if that's what she said, that clearly indicates that what they've been saying to the press is just propaganda.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />TARACHANSKY: Did you talk about whether you are bringing chemicals and what your intention with them is?
<p />
<p />ARRAF: I really don't know how they could have come to that conclusion. There's absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever. Right now I am collecting a list of cargo that have been donated by people, and that is not on our list of cargo yet. However, if this agricultural supplies, which might include some chemical fertilizer and otherwise, is donated, I don't think we would have a problem taking that if it's not to be used, thrown at anybody or used against soldiers, it is to be delivered to the farmers of Gaza. But as of right now, to be clear, we do not have that on our cargo list.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />TARACHANSKY: But Neiman and Arraf are not the only ones charging the Israeli leadership with spin. On Thursday, ministers from the Security Cabinet spoke out against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and accused him of presenting them with one version of intelligence and feeding another one to the press. AFB reported one of the ministers as saying Netanyahu decided to change the version about the nature of the flotilla for two reasons. The first is for reasons of covering himself. If suddenly in the course of the military operation something goes awry and there are casualties, Israel will be able to say that it warned of that in advance. The second reason is to apply pressure on the international community so that governments will prevent the ships from leaving for the flotilla from the outset. This is the second time this week that an internal struggle in the Israeli leadership made it to the press. On Saturday, the Government Press Office sent a letter to foreign journalists warning them that if they cover the flotilla on board, they may be banned from Israel for ten years. The next day, following an outcry from Knesset members from his own party, Netanyahu recanted. Also speaking on Wednesday was Major General Eitan Dangot, the coordinator of the government activities in the occupied territories. After the flotilla last year, Israel decided to allow the import of many items it previously banned, such as cumin, dried fruit, and fishing rods. While being questioned by journalists, Dangot denied that the drastic reversal of Israel's ban on import had anything to do with last year's flotilla. Dangot also denied that Israel's prohibition of trade in and out of Gaza is based on a policy of economic warfare, something that the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks revealed.
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />TARACHANSKY: Sorry. I mean in terms specifically as a policy of economic warfare, do you think that because of the economic punishment, Hamas is weakened?
<p />
<p />MAJ. GEN. EITAN DANGOT, COORDINATOR, GOV'T ACTIVITIES IN THE TERRITORIES: [incompr.] economic punishment. We are not talking about punishment of population. We are talking about security needs. I think that today, or as I say, after the deterrence of the last operation, when we have the opportunity to extend the policy, and the result today, as you see, is different. This is therefore the long-term policy. There are some times that you have to close crossing while it is [incompr.] But no one has a policy from the beginning to damage economy or individuals for someone to live, but only under security needs and [incompr.]
<p />
<p />~~~
<p />
<p />TARACHANSKY: While Dangot was presenting data showing the number of trucks getting into the Gaza Strip, he claimed Israel does not allow exports out of the Gaza Strip, because it doesn't have the scanning equipment for security checks. However, before the Hamas government was elected in 2006, 85 percent of the goods exported from the Strip were bound for Israel and the West Bank. Gisha is an Israeli organization that works with Gazans on the freedom of movement. In a recent press release, they said 83 percent of Gaza's factories are now closed or working at 50 percent or less capacity. In the second part of this segment, we speak to Sari Bashi, the executive director of Gisha, about the naval blockade on Gaza and the easing of the siege as outlined by Major General Eitan Dangot.
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<p />End of Transcript
<p />
<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | true | 4 | flotilla boats gaza prevented leaving greek ports israeli government congratulates diplomatic efforts pressuring greece stop activists earlier week israeli press cited army debrief major newspapers reported flotilla activists carry lethal acid board ships according army intelligence real news lia tarachansky questions maj gen eitan dangot coordinator government activities territories minister public diplomacy diaspora affairs yuli edelstein also speaks huweida arraf cofounder free gaza movement ofer neiman editor occupation magazine israeli coverage flotilla gaza media battle government activists lia tarachansky trnn friday greek leadership issued order preventing flotilla boats leaving shores gaza israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu congratulated greek prime minister george papandreou speech thursday according unnamed top israeli official today different greece comes israel organizers flotilla understand theyre paying price wednesday government press office held briefing public diplomacy diaspora affairs minister yuli edelstein yuli edelstein minister public diplomacy diaspora affairs first trying hide contrary proud weve made lot diplomatic efforts different countries order explain governments leaders people things ive saying snip probably could influence know positive direction whole intention coming violent unnecessary flotilla tarachansky saturday israeli activists gathered outside greek embassy tel aviv voice opposition crowd justice peace shame greece crowd subtitled transl let flotilla gaza send traitors jail tarachansky incompr media battle israel coming flotilla sharply escalated israeli press reported flotilla activists carrying sulphuric acid intention killing many israeli soldiers possible articles cited army debrief sunday night portrayed free gaza movement front terrorists ofer neiman editor israeli occupation magazine ofer neiman editor occupation magazine seems orchestrated mean even previous affairs like said main newspapers including haaretz coming pretty much report facts use headline coming kill theyre coming kill us amounts blood libel campaign activists says implicitly permissible kill activists theyre coming kill us tarachansky two men identified maariv article linked hamas named passengers flotilla edelstein getting prepared say big government ministries idf us front diplomacy public diplomacy information efforts trying get ready possible scenarios dont know many people different persuasion ships know fact number representatives different terror groups terror organizations way join flotilla tarachansky according organizers flotilla two people identified press linked hamas amin abu rashid mohammed ahmed hanoun theyre list people join boats whats comment edelstein well would case would happy doubt two specific hamas terrorists doubt whether reallythe organizers nice delegations coming name ireland canada united states wherever whether really kind control really real time confront terrorists unidentified people joining flotilla tarachansky real news spoke huweida arraf one founders free gaza movement organized nine previous attempts break siege gaza huweida arraf cofounder free gaza movement another empty accusation israel also cofounder international solidarity movement ive working occupied territories activists around world last decade accusation thrown us almost day founding support terror enable terrorism people come us terrorists israeli propaganda agents even labeled colleague killed rachel corrie know terrorist supporter blamed death jumped front bulldozer mean part israels propaganda theres absolutely truth whatsoever tarachansky youre bringing board amin abu rashid mohammed ahmed hanoun arraf well first say way justify agree israels claims two terrorists way know thathow loosely israel throws term everyone throws term however people organizing working support people palestine people gaza terms effort break siege gaza list passengers tarachansky yesterday spoke israeli army press woman said way knowing whats ships cant inspect countries theyre sailing would overstepping territorial boundaries also inspect sea neiman yeah mean says know various chemicals terrorists assassins board ships mean thats said clearly indicates theyve saying press propaganda tarachansky talk whether bringing chemicals intention arraf really dont know could come conclusion theres absolutely evidence whatsoever right collecting list cargo donated people list cargo yet however agricultural supplies might include chemical fertilizer otherwise donated dont think would problem taking used thrown anybody used soldiers delivered farmers gaza right clear cargo list tarachansky neiman arraf ones charging israeli leadership spin thursday ministers security cabinet spoke israeli prime minister netanyahu accused presenting one version intelligence feeding another one press afb reported one ministers saying netanyahu decided change version nature flotilla two reasons first reasons covering suddenly course military operation something goes awry casualties israel able say warned advance second reason apply pressure international community governments prevent ships leaving flotilla outset second time week internal struggle israeli leadership made press saturday government press office sent letter foreign journalists warning cover flotilla board may banned israel ten years next day following outcry knesset members party netanyahu recanted also speaking wednesday major general eitan dangot coordinator government activities occupied territories flotilla last year israel decided allow import many items previously banned cumin dried fruit fishing rods questioned journalists dangot denied drastic reversal israels ban import anything last years flotilla dangot also denied israels prohibition trade gaza based policy economic warfare something diplomatic cables released wikileaks revealed tarachansky sorry mean terms specifically policy economic warfare think economic punishment hamas weakened maj gen eitan dangot coordinator govt activities territories incompr economic punishment talking punishment population talking security needs think today say deterrence last operation opportunity extend policy result today see different therefore longterm policy times close crossing incompr one policy beginning damage economy individuals someone live security needs incompr tarachansky dangot presenting data showing number trucks getting gaza strip claimed israel allow exports gaza strip doesnt scanning equipment security checks however hamas government elected 2006 85 percent goods exported strip bound israel west bank gisha israeli organization works gazans freedom movement recent press release said 83 percent gazas factories closed working 50 percent less capacity second part segment speak sari bashi executive director gisha naval blockade gaza easing siege outlined major general eitan dangot end transcript disclaimer please note transcripts real news network typed recording program trnn guarantee complete accuracy | 930 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Several weeks ago, I joined with Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform in urging state governors to emulate and go beyond the advances in bringing more openness to governmental expenditures put forth by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.</p>
<p>Early in 2005, Governor Daniels issued an executive order which enables Hoosiers to find on the Internet the total number of state contracts entered into each year, the total amount of dollars awarded under state contracts each year, and the number and percentage of Indiana businesses and out-of-state businesses to whom state contracts are awarded each year. In addition the entire text of most contracts covered by the executive order is available online.</p>
<p>Mr. Norquist and I disagree on many other issues, but we strongly share the belief that taxpayers should be able to easily access clear and concise information on how their tax dollars are being spent by governments at all levels.</p>
<p>At the federal level, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act will create a free, publicly searchable website for all federal contracts and grants. Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) and Senator Barack Obama (D. IL) introduced this bill requiring the dollar amounts and recipients of all grants and earmarked contracts be placed in a publicly accessible database.</p>
<p>This important step toward transparency was signed into law by President Bush on September 26, 2006, the law states that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has to ensure the existence of a searchable website is available no later than January 1, 2008. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle came together and joined forces to move in the right direction. But this is only a first step, since the actual contract language will not be made available.</p>
<p>When he was Director of the OMB in the federal government, Mitch Daniels expressed his support for putting all federal contracts and grants online above a minimum amount and invited public comment. Included in his proposal were defense contracts, prudently redacted, which, of course, means a large area of governmental spending historically off limits to public scrutiny.</p>
<p>Recently Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley enthusiastically supported the idea of amending the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, to include the full text of contracts. Senator Grassley, a champion of the taxpayer and government whistleblowers knows that greater transparency will benefit taxpayers.</p>
<p>There is momentum to require the full text of government contracts be put online. But, don’t underestimate the power of lethargy. I first wrote to President Bill Clinton and asked him to issue an Executive Order setting procedures for every agency of the federal government to place its contracts online back in January of 2000. On February 8, 2000, President Clinton wrote back saying he had forwarded this request to the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review. On September 10, 2001, I wrote to Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., then the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, urging him to give taxpayers access to the full text of government contracts. On June 6, 2003, as a result of Mr. Daniels drive on this issue, a Federal Register Notice was issued asking for public comments on a pilot project to put contracts online. His successors at the OMB have not followed up.</p>
<p>We are moving in the right direction with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, but as we all know the “devil is in the details.” Requiring federal agencies and departments to post online the full text of all federal contracts would be a wonderful next step. The computer age should make it possible to efficiently allow for certain redactions related to legitimate concerns about business confidentiality and national security in contracts before they are posted online in a publicly-available database.</p>
<p>A large coalition from across the political spectrum has been pushing for increased transparency in government, which is good for a more competitive procurement process, the taxpayer and our democracy.</p>
<p>Contracting out what the state and federal government do and contracting to obtain what governments need is a large part of our economy. The former includes letting corporations perform government functions and the latter includes buying supplies like fuel, paper, food, medicines and vehicles. Taken together, they amount to spending trillions of dollars over the past decade – our tax dollars.</p>
<p>Putting the full text of these contracts online will: could give taxpayers both savings and better value; let the media focus more incisively on this vast area of government disbursements to inform the wider public; encourage constructive comments and alarms from the citizenry; and stimulate legal and economic research by scholars interested in structural topics related to government procurement, transfers, subsidies and giveaways.</p>
<p>Congress should amend the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.</p>
<p>And, Governors should work expeditiously to make the full text of all state contracts, ranging from procurement of goods and services to grants, leaseholds and labor contracts, available to the public on the Internet in a clear and searchable format.</p>
<p>Transparency is one of the core principles of representative democracy. Another way of putting it is that “information is the currency of democracy.”</p>
<p>RALPH NADER is the author of <a href="" type="internal">The Seventeen Traditions</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | 160 several weeks ago joined grover norquist president americans tax reform urging state governors emulate go beyond advances bringing openness governmental expenditures put forth indiana governor mitch daniels early 2005 governor daniels issued executive order enables hoosiers find internet total number state contracts entered year total amount dollars awarded state contracts year number percentage indiana businesses outofstate businesses state contracts awarded year addition entire text contracts covered executive order available online mr norquist disagree many issues strongly share belief taxpayers able easily access clear concise information tax dollars spent governments levels federal level federal funding accountability transparency act create free publicly searchable website federal contracts grants senator tom coburn r okla senator barack obama il introduced bill requiring dollar amounts recipients grants earmarked contracts placed publicly accessible database important step toward transparency signed law president bush september 26 2006 law states office management budget omb ensure existence searchable website available later january 1 2008 lawmakers sides aisle came together joined forces move right direction first step since actual contract language made available director omb federal government mitch daniels expressed support putting federal contracts grants online minimum amount invited public comment included proposal defense contracts prudently redacted course means large area governmental spending historically limits public scrutiny recently iowas republican senator chuck grassley enthusiastically supported idea amending federal funding accountability transparency act include full text contracts senator grassley champion taxpayer government whistleblowers knows greater transparency benefit taxpayers momentum require full text government contracts put online dont underestimate power lethargy first wrote president bill clinton asked issue executive order setting procedures every agency federal government place contracts online back january 2000 february 8 2000 president clinton wrote back saying forwarded request ombs office information regulatory affairs review september 10 2001 wrote mitchell e daniels jr director office management budget urging give taxpayers access full text government contracts june 6 2003 result mr daniels drive issue federal register notice issued asking public comments pilot project put contracts online successors omb followed moving right direction federal funding accountability transparency act know devil details requiring federal agencies departments post online full text federal contracts would wonderful next step computer age make possible efficiently allow certain redactions related legitimate concerns business confidentiality national security contracts posted online publiclyavailable database large coalition across political spectrum pushing increased transparency government good competitive procurement process taxpayer democracy contracting state federal government contracting obtain governments need large part economy former includes letting corporations perform government functions latter includes buying supplies like fuel paper food medicines vehicles taken together amount spending trillions dollars past decade tax dollars putting full text contracts online could give taxpayers savings better value let media focus incisively vast area government disbursements inform wider public encourage constructive comments alarms citizenry stimulate legal economic research scholars interested structural topics related government procurement transfers subsidies giveaways congress amend federal funding accountability transparency act governors work expeditiously make full text state contracts ranging procurement goods services grants leaseholds labor contracts available public internet clear searchable format transparency one core principles representative democracy another way putting information currency democracy ralph nader author seventeen traditions 160 | 514 |
<p>Scores of millions of Americans – many who laughed at his fumble mouth antics – now feel the impact of George W. Bush’ eight year legacy. The man who made comedians’ careers has had his revenge. His tax cuts – they paled before the importance of the Iraq war – kissed the asses (the G spot) of the top corporate executives, and other extremely wealthy individuals (they’ve had a fine time since the 1970s, but super good under Bush). By 2001, thanks to the tax cut, Washington received reduced revenues as expenses rose thanks to W’s wars.</p>
<p>The Bushies paid scant attention to the expanding real estate bubble, dubious derivatives and other sneaky banky pranks. Who in Washington cared if government spending rose and revenues dropped? After all, anyone with a home could refinance. Long live credit!</p>
<p>Then in 2007, Bush “had to” bail out non-performing banks, auto companies and insurance giants, a subsidy for the ultra rich that Obama continued. This forced greater government spending while W, as a matter of principle, insisted on providing his friends and benefactors with low or no taxes. But bailouts, plus raging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, coincided with decreased government revenue. So, the Republicans borrowed. Exciting!</p>
<p>Bush’ presidential term, we recall, began with a yawn. Then on September 11, 2001, fanatical men –15 were Saudis – armed with box-cutters and suicidal urges aroused the passive W and changed U.S. culture. (Interestingly, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld soon met one of Al-Qaeda’s demands – the U.S. removed its base from Saudi Arabia.) Simultaneously, President Bush waged a hi-tech, expensive war against those who attacked with low-priced, low-tech weapons. Bush and Vice President Cheney invaded nations that had little to do with the suicide bombers. Yes, the ruling Taliban let Al-Qaeda run a camp in Afghanistan. Indeed, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ran a secular nation, and had received threats from Al-Qaeda. But by calling the invasion of Iraq part of the war on terror because it had links to Al-Qaeda (not) and WMD (not) Bush finessed his bellicose ploy.</p>
<p>The U.S. invaded Afghanistan and months later Iraq – presumably to crush al-Qaeda that didn’t exist in Iraq and who had quickly left Afghanistan after U.S. troops made it inhospitable. Now in 2011, Al-Qaeda or other groups linked or not to the Taliban have made it inhospitable for U.S. troops.</p>
<p>The approximately $3 trillion cost of the wars, not including Obama’s new “humanitarian” missiles intervention in Libya, does not include costs of the drone wars against “terrorists” in a variety of countries; nor account for the expenses of kill teams and covert lethal shenanigans (all lumped as war on terror). The U.S. intelligence and homeland security “communities” spend about $80 billion a year, outside of Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet “al-Qaeda and affiliates only have about 4,000 members worldwide. That’s $20 million per terrorist per year,” according to former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair (Noah Shachtman, Wired, July 31, 2011).</p>
<p>Since no nation stands behind or for Al-Qaeda, one might question the expenditure. Compare the War on Terror with the cost of 40+ years of Cold War – which cost less. Remember thousands of Soviet ICBMs and missile supplies? Millions of troops and vast military apparatus in both the USSR and China? How come 19 guys with delusions of virgins in Heaven can catalyze the mammoth spending not even visible during the four decades of nuclear standoffs? How did one event provoke two wars that had virtually nothing to do with the event?</p>
<p>Not digesting lessons from Vietnam, where the U.S. spent a decade to lose, two U.S. presidents have maintained an occupation in Afghanistan. In early August, 30 U.S. servicemen (mostly Navy Seals) perished when Taliban insurgents shot down their helicopter with one rocket-propelled grenade.</p>
<p>A war on terror, Gore Vidal quipped, will be won when the war on dandruff is won. Meanwhile, it consumes the nation’s treasure. The war on the Taliban, who are not terrorists and could have been paid off to remove bin Laden and pals, makes little sense. Yes, the Taliban hardly reek of democratic or progressive virtues, but Al-Qaeda now locates its sparse forces in other places.</p>
<p>Pakistan, our uncertain ally, is not listed as a terrorist state despite the routine terrorist bombings there. Its government has allowed U.S. forces to drone bomb targets on its national territory and occasionally attack some Taliban groups. In return Pakistan receives billions of dollars – and some dead Pakistani civilians.</p>
<p>Our enemies have no national boundaries, formal armed forces or regular equipment. A skinny, old guy with rotting kidneys who preached fanatical Islam somehow appealed to some people, perhaps to those whose close relatives got droned, or targeted by kill teams, or simply caught shrapnel from a stray NATO bomb or missile.</p>
<p>Hundreds of suspected and tortured Al-Qaeda operatives remain at Guantanamo. To what avail? The U.S. has not charged most of them with a crime.</p>
<p>Meantime, we’re hurting badly economically, the citizens have lost faith in their government as the infrastructure crumbles and the fabled American dream becomes a nightmare. Eternal wars, no taxes for billionaires, screw the middle class and poor! Bush’s legacy. George W. Bush belongs in the Worst Presidents Hall of Fame. He has infected the nation with his NSTD (non-sexually transmitted disease). The joke? Many who laughed at or scorned him have bought into his inheritance.</p>
<p>Saul Landau&#160;is the author of&#160; <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">A Bush and Botox World</a>&#160;(CounterPunch / AK Press).</p> | true | 4 | scores millions americans many laughed fumble mouth antics feel impact george w bush eight year legacy man made comedians careers revenge tax cuts paled importance iraq war kissed asses g spot top corporate executives extremely wealthy individuals theyve fine time since 1970s super good bush 2001 thanks tax cut washington received reduced revenues expenses rose thanks ws wars bushies paid scant attention expanding real estate bubble dubious derivatives sneaky banky pranks washington cared government spending rose revenues dropped anyone home could refinance long live credit 2007 bush bail nonperforming banks auto companies insurance giants subsidy ultra rich obama continued forced greater government spending w matter principle insisted providing friends benefactors low taxes bailouts plus raging wars afghanistan iraq coincided decreased government revenue republicans borrowed exciting bush presidential term recall began yawn september 11 2001 fanatical men 15 saudis armed boxcutters suicidal urges aroused passive w changed us culture interestingly defense secretary rumsfeld soon met one alqaedas demands us removed base saudi arabia simultaneously president bush waged hitech expensive war attacked lowpriced lowtech weapons bush vice president cheney invaded nations little suicide bombers yes ruling taliban let alqaeda run camp afghanistan indeed iraqi leader saddam hussein ran secular nation received threats alqaeda calling invasion iraq part war terror links alqaeda wmd bush finessed bellicose ploy us invaded afghanistan months later iraq presumably crush alqaeda didnt exist iraq quickly left afghanistan us troops made inhospitable 2011 alqaeda groups linked taliban made inhospitable us troops approximately 3 trillion cost wars including obamas new humanitarian missiles intervention libya include costs drone wars terrorists variety countries account expenses kill teams covert lethal shenanigans lumped war terror us intelligence homeland security communities spend 80 billion year outside afghanistan iraq yet alqaeda affiliates 4000 members worldwide thats 20 million per terrorist per year according former director national intelligence dennis blair noah shachtman wired july 31 2011 since nation stands behind alqaeda one might question expenditure compare war terror cost 40 years cold war cost less remember thousands soviet icbms missile supplies millions troops vast military apparatus ussr china come 19 guys delusions virgins heaven catalyze mammoth spending even visible four decades nuclear standoffs one event provoke two wars virtually nothing event digesting lessons vietnam us spent decade lose two us presidents maintained occupation afghanistan early august 30 us servicemen mostly navy seals perished taliban insurgents shot helicopter one rocketpropelled grenade war terror gore vidal quipped war dandruff meanwhile consumes nations treasure war taliban terrorists could paid remove bin laden pals makes little sense yes taliban hardly reek democratic progressive virtues alqaeda locates sparse forces places pakistan uncertain ally listed terrorist state despite routine terrorist bombings government allowed us forces drone bomb targets national territory occasionally attack taliban groups return pakistan receives billions dollars dead pakistani civilians enemies national boundaries formal armed forces regular equipment skinny old guy rotting kidneys preached fanatical islam somehow appealed people perhaps whose close relatives got droned targeted kill teams simply caught shrapnel stray nato bomb missile hundreds suspected tortured alqaeda operatives remain guantanamo avail us charged crime meantime hurting badly economically citizens lost faith government infrastructure crumbles fabled american dream becomes nightmare eternal wars taxes billionaires screw middle class poor bushs legacy george w bush belongs worst presidents hall fame infected nation nstd nonsexually transmitted disease joke many laughed scorned bought inheritance saul landau160is author of160 bush botox world160counterpunch ak press | 559 |
<p>The four international observers came to watch and film as displaced Colombian families occupied an abandoned, government-owned slaughterhouse. Instead, they were seized and taken away by police, accused of organizing the peaceful protest and paraded before television news cameras. Eleven hours later, the Spanish, Italian and U.S. citizens were released, with police officials warning that their “life histories were being analyzed to proceed with their deportation.”</p>
<p>The four, who work for the International Peace Observatory, consider their arrest “a diversion by the authorities to take attention away from internally displaced persons and the violence the state was planning to commit against this civilian population.” Far from organizing the protest, the four arrived after police had surrounded the 300 internally displaced persons, and watched as police gassed and beat the men, women and children.</p>
<p>An IPO observer reported: “I myself saw police ripping children from their parents and striking indiscriminately against a defenseless population. In the end, when over 100 persons were locked up in the city jail, three ambulances were needed to transport the gravely wounded. One man was disappeared for two days ­ he eventually “re-appeared” in a small town in the outskirts of Bogotá. There were hundreds of riot police, an obvious disproportionate measure in and of itself. The authorities simply refused to address the legitimate needs of the internally displaced population to such basic rights as housing, food, health, and education.”</p>
<p>The three hundred protesters are victims of Colombia’s hidden war, a war usually unseen or perhaps simply ignored by the rest of the world. Like the “low-intensity” wars in Central America during the 1980s, Colombia’s war drives people from their homes as it destroys communities. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees reports three three million internally displaced persons in Colombia, a population of internal war refugees second only to Sudan.</p>
<p>According to the United Nations, Colombia has enlightened laws guaranteeing help to these refugees, but does not follow those laws. Peaceful occupations of property have been an effective means of pressuring the government. Before their attempt to occupy the slaughterhouse, the September 4 protesters had issued a statement detailing the government’s failure to fulfill an agreement signed in 2005, in which the government promised to provide for the displaced people’s health, education, housing, humanitarian aid, accompaniment and safe return to their places of origin. The 2005 agreement was the fruit of a takeover of vacant houses in another part of Bogotá.</p>
<p>The Colombian Constitutional Court in 2004 denounced the government’s failure to aid displaced persons, reporting that 92 percent of displaced persons were unable to meet their basic needs, 80 percent were indigent, 63.5 percent lacked decent housing, 49 percent lacked access to public services, and 23 percent of children under the age of six were malnourished. According to the U.N. World Food Program, mortality rates for displaced persons are six times higher than the national average. Leaders and members of displaced communities are frequent targets of death threats and violence.</p>
<p>International observers are usually safer than Colombia’s internally displaced persons, indigenous communities, teachers, union leaders, journalists or human rights workers. Military and paramilitary soldiers violate human rights, kidnap and even kill with impunity. In just the past few weeks, a university professor was taken from his home in Bogotá by several armed men and shot to death, a human rights leader in the Valle de Cauca department was kidnapped and remains missing, riot police attacked an anti-war march with tear gas and water cannons, the army attacked a mining town, soldiers killed a local resident in the Arenal municipality the list goes on and on.</p>
<p>On September 7, an Amnesty International report criticized the Colombian government for giving a “green light” to attacks on human rights activists. According to the report, “The official strategy against human rights campaigners seems to be three folded: government authorities publicly question their legitimacy, mount unfounded legal processes and fail to bring to justice those who commit the attacks, even when evidence is widely available.”</p>
<p>The harassment and public denunciation of the International Peace Observatory team on September 4 certainly fit that description. “As far as what happened to the members of the International Peace Observatory (IPO),” writes one member, “the situation is delicate. We were publicly threatened with deportation, and accused of committing illegal acts and organizing the action. With the active complicity of the mass media, Colonel Yamil Moreno Arias, an instructor for the School of the Americas in 1994 and involved in the judicial persecution of the San José de Apartado Peace Community as the commander for the National Police in Uraba, went before the cameras and slandered us excessively. All of our faces were plastered on the afternoon news bulletins. This of course on a certain level raises the level of risk for all.”</p>
<p>According to Sofia Nordenmark, Amnesty International human rights defenders coordinator, “Attacks against human rights activists in Colombia have a double purpose: they aim to silence individuals and prevent others from continuing with their work.”</p>
<p>The International Peace Observatory team has not yet been silenced, and intends to continue. “While national and international attention has focused on us and on the absurd tale invented by the police, hundreds of homeless families continue to go hungry,” they say. “We remain firm in our decision to continue to accompany communities as they strive for a truly democratic and just nation.”</p>
<p>Mary Turck can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | four international observers came watch film displaced colombian families occupied abandoned governmentowned slaughterhouse instead seized taken away police accused organizing peaceful protest paraded television news cameras eleven hours later spanish italian us citizens released police officials warning life histories analyzed proceed deportation four work international peace observatory consider arrest diversion authorities take attention away internally displaced persons violence state planning commit civilian population far organizing protest four arrived police surrounded 300 internally displaced persons watched police gassed beat men women children ipo observer reported saw police ripping children parents striking indiscriminately defenseless population end 100 persons locked city jail three ambulances needed transport gravely wounded one man disappeared two days eventually reappeared small town outskirts bogotá hundreds riot police obvious disproportionate measure authorities simply refused address legitimate needs internally displaced population basic rights housing food health education three hundred protesters victims colombias hidden war war usually unseen perhaps simply ignored rest world like lowintensity wars central america 1980s colombias war drives people homes destroys communities un high commission refugees reports three three million internally displaced persons colombia population internal war refugees second sudan according united nations colombia enlightened laws guaranteeing help refugees follow laws peaceful occupations property effective means pressuring government attempt occupy slaughterhouse september 4 protesters issued statement detailing governments failure fulfill agreement signed 2005 government promised provide displaced peoples health education housing humanitarian aid accompaniment safe return places origin 2005 agreement fruit takeover vacant houses another part bogotá colombian constitutional court 2004 denounced governments failure aid displaced persons reporting 92 percent displaced persons unable meet basic needs 80 percent indigent 635 percent lacked decent housing 49 percent lacked access public services 23 percent children age six malnourished according un world food program mortality rates displaced persons six times higher national average leaders members displaced communities frequent targets death threats violence international observers usually safer colombias internally displaced persons indigenous communities teachers union leaders journalists human rights workers military paramilitary soldiers violate human rights kidnap even kill impunity past weeks university professor taken home bogotá several armed men shot death human rights leader valle de cauca department kidnapped remains missing riot police attacked antiwar march tear gas water cannons army attacked mining town soldiers killed local resident arenal municipality list goes september 7 amnesty international report criticized colombian government giving green light attacks human rights activists according report official strategy human rights campaigners seems three folded government authorities publicly question legitimacy mount unfounded legal processes fail bring justice commit attacks even evidence widely available harassment public denunciation international peace observatory team september 4 certainly fit description far happened members international peace observatory ipo writes one member situation delicate publicly threatened deportation accused committing illegal acts organizing action active complicity mass media colonel yamil moreno arias instructor school americas 1994 involved judicial persecution san josé de apartado peace community commander national police uraba went cameras slandered us excessively faces plastered afternoon news bulletins course certain level raises level risk according sofia nordenmark amnesty international human rights defenders coordinator attacks human rights activists colombia double purpose aim silence individuals prevent others continuing work international peace observatory team yet silenced intends continue national international attention focused us absurd tale invented police hundreds homeless families continue go hungry say remain firm decision continue accompany communities strive truly democratic nation mary turck reached mturckamericasorg 160 160 | 552 |
<p>Hello friends! Have you heard the terrific news? President Obama stands up for women, and speaks out against rape! “Rape is rape!” Except when the U.S. Military is doing the raping, of course, in which case political expediency requires Barack Obama to whitewash and completely ignore rape, forever.</p>
<p>In May 2009, Barack Obama announced he would not comply with a court order that would have brought hundreds of <a href="" type="internal">meticulously documented cases of rape and sexual assault</a> from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan to the forefront of public debate and scrutiny.</p>
<p>The court order stipulated the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs taken from Abu Ghraib and six other prisons across Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the formal inquiry into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, the photographs in question <a href="" type="internal">depict</a> “torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.”</p>
<p>Explaining his decision to ignore the order, President Obama argued, “The most direct consequence of releasing [the photographs], I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”</p>
<p>I think I found the perfect keynote speaker for your college’s next Take Back the Night rally!</p>
<p>President Obama went on to add, apparently with no sense of shame whatsoever, “I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational.”</p>
<p>And as a precautionary measure against the possibility that rape is actually “sensational” — especially when perpetrated (and gleefully documented) by the U.S military — the Pentagon’s <a href="" type="internal">official position on this matter</a> is that the photographs in question do not even exist. Indeed, it’s unlikely that any of this “rape” stuff even happened. There’s certainly no evidence to support such wild claims.</p>
<p>But what about the video Major General Taguba obtained during his investigation, which shows “a male American soldier in uniform <a href="" type="internal">sodomizing a female detainee</a>“? Don’t worry, that’s not “particularly sensational.” No need to fret! Move along! Also: that video doesn’t exist, and that never happened.</p>
<p>How about the photograph that depicts “an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner”? Or the photograph that shows “a male translator raping a male detainee”? Or the countless photographs which are said to document “sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube”? How about the photo that shows “a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts”?</p>
<p>That’s just a long list of “not particularly sensational”, misinformed speculation. Please try to remember: these photographs don’t even exist, according to the Obama Administration.</p>
<p>Also, <a href="" type="internal">this never happened:</a></p>
<p>Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”</p>
<p>By now we are all well acquainted with Rep. Todd Akin’s ridiculous <a href="" type="internal">comments</a> about “legitimate” rape, as well as President Obama’s widely-praised and publicized <a href="http://thehill.com/video/administration/244399-president-obama-rape-is-rape-calls-rep-akins-comments-way-out-there" type="external">rebuttal</a>, in which he called Akin’s remarks “offensive.” Obama went on to state, “rape is rape” and that Akin’s comments were “way out there.” As the November election looms, Obama supporters have jumped at the opportunity to contrast the president with the out-of-touch, anti-woman Rep. Akin, the latest poster boy for the Republican War On Women.</p>
<p>Yes, Barack Obama knows that “rape is rape.” Except when the U.S. military rapes women and children. Then rape is “not particularly sensational” or worthy of public disclosure, dialog or debate; then rape never even occurred, probably. And we don’t need to talk about rape that never happened. That’s just common sense, folks.</p>
<p>The President, <a href="" type="internal">‬according</a> to BUST Magazine,&#160;has become “the new feminist in town,” and his mighty takedown of Rep. Akin has been enshrined forever in the Annals of Brave Lip Service (“as if you needed <a href="" type="internal">another reason</a> to swoon over our amazing president”; “We think feminism <a href="http://www.nerve.com/love-sex/introducing-feminist-barack-obama" type="external">looks good on him</a>“).</p>
<p>But Obama’s “rape is rape” lip service to America isn’t for everyone; it doesn’t really “resonate” if you’re a female detainee who was videotaped being raped by a U.S. soldier in uniform and then told that there’s nothing “particularly sensational” about that, no need to cause a commotion, think about the Troops that will be put in harm’s way! This is all silly goose talk anyway, since there is no evidence that such a rape even occurred. (Even though there is.)</p>
<p>But don’t be fooled: Todd Akin’s uninformed, hypothetical conjecturing about rape is the real war crime that needs to be exposed. That’s the real war being fought, in Jezebel Land, which apparently now suffers from <a href="http://jezebel.com/5936679/rape-fatigue-and-you-when-theres-just-no-anger-left" type="external">“rape fatigue.”</a></p>
<p>And women will continue to praise Barack Obama for his bravery and feminism. And why shouldn’t they? The alternative is simply too gross to think about; whether a drone strike wiped out an entire village, whether President Obama covered up hundreds of rapes, or whether a phone call was placed by a high official in a forgotten, endless war…The point is, we need to bring Todd Akin to justice, before Jezebel explodes!</p>
<p>Riley Waggaman was the former co-editor of Wonkette.com.&#160;</p> | true | 4 | hello friends heard terrific news president obama stands women speaks rape rape rape except us military raping course case political expediency requires barack obama whitewash completely ignore rape forever may 2009 barack obama announced would comply court order would brought hundreds meticulously documented cases rape sexual assault prisons iraq afghanistan forefront public debate scrutiny court order stipulated release estimated 2000 photographs taken abu ghraib six prisons across iraq afghanistan according major general antonio taguba led formal inquiry prisoner abuse abu ghraib photographs question depict torture abuse rape every indecency explaining decision ignore order president obama argued direct consequence releasing photographs believe would inflame antiamerican public opinion put troops greater danger think found perfect keynote speaker colleges next take back night rally president obama went add apparently sense shame whatsoever want emphasize photos requested case particularly sensational precautionary measure possibility rape actually sensational especially perpetrated gleefully documented us military pentagons official position matter photographs question even exist indeed unlikely rape stuff even happened theres certainly evidence support wild claims video major general taguba obtained investigation shows male american soldier uniform sodomizing female detainee dont worry thats particularly sensational need fret move along also video doesnt exist never happened photograph depicts american soldier apparently raping female prisoner photograph shows male translator raping male detainee countless photographs said document sexual assaults prisoners objects including truncheon wire phosphorescent tube photo shows female prisoner clothing forcibly removed expose breasts thats long list particularly sensational misinformed speculation please try remember photographs dont even exist according obama administration also never happened among graphic statements later released us freedom information laws kasim mehaddi hilas says saw name translator kid age would 15 18 years kid hurting bad covered doors sheets heard screaming climbed door top wasnt covered saw name wearing military uniform putting little kids female soldier taking pictures well acquainted rep todd akins ridiculous comments legitimate rape well president obamas widelypraised publicized rebuttal called akins remarks offensive obama went state rape rape akins comments way november election looms obama supporters jumped opportunity contrast president outoftouch antiwoman rep akin latest poster boy republican war women yes barack obama knows rape rape except us military rapes women children rape particularly sensational worthy public disclosure dialog debate rape never even occurred probably dont need talk rape never happened thats common sense folks president according bust magazine160has become new feminist town mighty takedown rep akin enshrined forever annals brave lip service needed another reason swoon amazing president think feminism looks good obamas rape rape lip service america isnt everyone doesnt really resonate youre female detainee videotaped raped us soldier uniform told theres nothing particularly sensational need cause commotion think troops put harms way silly goose talk anyway since evidence rape even occurred even though dont fooled todd akins uninformed hypothetical conjecturing rape real war crime needs exposed thats real war fought jezebel land apparently suffers rape fatigue women continue praise barack obama bravery feminism shouldnt alternative simply gross think whether drone strike wiped entire village whether president obama covered hundreds rapes whether phone call placed high official forgotten endless warthe point need bring todd akin justice jezebel explodes riley waggaman former coeditor wonkettecom160 | 522 |
<p>Who needs Russia Today when you have Oliver Stone?</p>
<p>That’s the question Russian President Vladimir Putin ought to be asking himself in light of the film director’s latest foray into the anti-American conspiracy genre. “Excuse my absence these past weeks,” Stone <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheOliverStone/posts/901387646552202" type="external">announced</a> last week on his Facebook page, the oracular tone an appropriate introduction for the half-baked pronouncements to follow. Stone had recently returned from a trip to Moscow, where he had conducted a four-hour interview with Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine who, after his security forces killed some 100 demonstrators protesting his corrupt rule last February, escaped to Russia. Moscow’s subsequent annexation of Crimea and its ongoing invasion of Eastern Ukraine have raised tensions between East and West to levels not seen since the Cold War.</p>
<p>Stone interviewed Yanukovych for “an English language documentary produced by Ukrainians,” with which he no doubt hopes to impress Putin. In November, Stone <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oliver-stone-planning-doc-russian-747366" type="external">revealed</a> that he wishes to make a film about the Russian strongman, who “represents a different point of view that Americans don’t hear.” Such homage would, alongside previous works on Fidel Castro and the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, complete a trifecta of adoring portraits devoted to thuggish autocrats.</p>
<p>Understanding that Stone’s ultimate goal is to obtain Putin’s cooperation on his next feature provides important context for the director’s social media ramblings. Above a photograph of himself laughing alongside Yanukovych, Stone explained that his interlocutor “was the legitimate President of Ukraine until he suddenly wasn’t on February 22 of this year.” Yanukovych ceased being president on that day because he fled Kiev, rendering himself incapable of performing his presidential duties under the Ukrainian constitution. Over three-quarters of the country’s parliament, including many members of Yanukovych’s own party, voted effectively to impeach him that day.</p>
<p>But that’s not what Stone would have us believe. “It seems clear that the so-called ‘shooters’ who killed 14 policemen, wounded some 85 and killed 45 protesting civilians, were outside, third-party agitators,” he wrote. “Many witnesses, including Yanukovich [sic] and police officials, believe these foreign elements were introduced by pro-Western factions—with CIA fingerprints on it.” Stone’s comments were readily <a href="http://rt.com/news/219211-stone-ukraine-us-policy/" type="external">picked up</a> by a variety of Kremlin-funded media and other pro-Russian outlets.</p>
<p>Stone’s blockbuster allegation runs counter to the 90 gigabytes of video and photographs, obtained <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2014/03/30/exclusive-photographs-expose-russian-trained-killers-in-kiev.html" type="external">exclusively</a> by my Daily Beast colleague Jamie Dettmer last year, indicating that the massacre in Kiev’s Maidan (central square) on February 20, 2014, was very much the work of Yanukovych’s security forces. These time-stamped images depict members of the crack, anti-terrorist, Russian-trained “Alfa Unit” meticulously preparing in the courtyard of the internal security service headquarters for an armed assault. According to a lengthy New York Times investigation, published on Sunday, into Yanukovych’s turbulent, final days in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/world/europe/ukraine-leader-was-defeated-even-before-he-was-ousted.html?_r=0" type="external">office</a>, security officials close to the ex-president decided to abandon him—once he had signed a truce with opposition leaders calling for investigations into police who killed protesters. These revelations essentially concede that men under Yanukovych’s orders pulled the trigger; had they not, they would have had no reason to retreat. “When a leader stops being a leader, all the people around him fall away,” Mykhalo Dobkin, a close Yanukovych ally, told the Times.</p>
<p>That Stone would slander the democratic, pro-Western, EuroMaidan revolution as a CIA coup is no surprise. This is, after all, a man who released an entire film assigning blame for the assassination of John F. Kennedy to an agency-linked, reactionary, homosexual sadomasochistic <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-21/entertainment/ca-557_1_gay-characters-glaad-lesbian" type="external">sex ring</a>. (Stone’s obsession with this bizarre and debunked conspiracy theory helps explain why he so admires the gay-bashing Putin.) But Stone’s wild imagination is no excuse for getting simple facts wrong: More than 100 “protesting civilians” died in the midst of last February’s violence, not 45.</p>
<p>Why would the CIA work to overthrow the Ukrainian government? “The US cannot tolerate the idea of any rival economic entity,” Stone writes. Yanukovych’s refusal to sign a European Union trade agreement led to the protests that ultimately brought about his political demise. Installing a pro-Western government in Kiev to replace him, Stone presumably believes, frustrates Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union, a crude imitation of the E.U. composed of corrupt, ex-Soviet autocracies. Let’s accept, for the sake of argument, Stone’s premise that the enfeebling of potential economic competitors is the ultimate driver of American foreign policy decision-making. Russia’s GDP is roughly the size of Italy’s, and its backward economy is almost entirely dependent on the price of a single, finite commodity: oil. Nearly every economic and social barometer, from the birth rate to life expectancy, paints a country in steep and irreversible decline. Unlike the Soviet Union at a certain period in history, the Russian economy does not hold a candle to that of the United States. Accusing his opponents of being locked in a Cold War mind-set, it is Stone who is beholden to old orthodoxies. Moreover, how does shouldering the burden of a corrupt economic basket case of a country like Ukraine strengthen American financial hegemony? Since Yanukovych left office, an unending stream of Ukrainian politicians has begged the West for tens of billions of dollars in bailouts.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s newfound Western orientation—its desire to voluntarily associate itself with a consensual club of democracies—doesn’t endanger Russia or its power. What it endangers is a narrow conception of Russian power, understood through the eyes of its dictatorial leader. A successful Ukrainian democracy represents an existential threat to nothing other than Putin’s grip domestically and his ability to subjugate neighbors through coercion. It is this system of corrupt and malevolent authority that Stone shields when he defames the brave Ukrainians who gave their lives on the Maidan as tools of the CIA. “A dirty story through and through, but in the tragic aftermath of this coup, the West has maintained the dominant narrative of ‘Russia in Crimea’ whereas the true narrative is ‘USA in Ukraine,’” he says. The reason the former “narrative” is “dominant” is because Russia has annexed Crimea, whereas the United States has done no such thing in Ukraine.</p>
<p>For Stone, however, Russia’s Anschluss, the first territorial annexation on European soil since World War II, and American “interference” in Ukraine, is a distinction without difference. In a follow-up post the next day, our iconoclastic cineaste <a href="http://www.facebook.com/TheOliverStone/posts/902035439820756" type="external">wrote</a> that “Many Ukrainians wanted [Yanukovych] out, but there is evidence of pro-Western, 3rd party interference, i.e. Victoria Nuland, John McCain, USAID, National Endowment for Democracy.” Stone doesn’t need to elaborate, never mind provide real evidence, for the reckless accusations he levels. Simply mentioning these names and institutions is a dog whistle to the breed of conspiracy theorists, on both the left and <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2014/03/16/ron-paul-is-supporting-russia-s-illegal-occupation-of-crimea.html" type="external">right</a>, who have emerged unified on the question of American perfidy in Ukraine. To this crowd, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s handing out of sandwiches to people on the Maidan and the National Endowment for Democracy’s funding election monitors are proof positive that Langley orchestrated a coup d’état.</p>
<p>This is not the first time the director has fallen for Russian propaganda. The thesis of the aforementioned JFK, which blamed the CIA for the murder of our 35th president, was based on a <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/fall_winter_2001/article02.html" type="external">hoax</a> published in a communist-controlled Italian newspaper in 1967. “By the late 1970’s,” Cambridge University historian Christopher Andrew and Soviet defector Vasili Mitrokhin <a href="https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=wVndU5P4V-8C&amp;pg=PT208&amp;lpg=PT208&amp;dq=%E2%80%9Cthe+KGB+could+fairly+claim+that+far+more+Americans+believed+some+version+of+its+own+conspiracy+theory+of+the+Kennedy+assassination,+involving+a+right-wing+plot+and+the+US+intelligence+community,+than+still+accept+the+main+findings+of+the+Warren+Commission.%E2%80%9D&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=gcxisZSQB-&amp;sig=NKzS7FXwAl-E5aeH8-lX6uZCeBo&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=woWoVPfGHsalgwTA3oP4Bg&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q=%E2%80%9Cthe%20KGB%20could%20fairly%20claim%20that%20far%20more%20Americans%20believed%20some%20version%20of%20its%20own%20conspiracy%20theory%20of%20the%20Kennedy%20assassination%2C%20involving%20a%20right-wing%20plot%20and%20the%20US%20intelligence%20community%2C%20than%20still%20accept%20the%20main%20findings%20of%20the%20Warren%20Commission.%E2%80%9D&amp;f=false" type="external">wrote</a> in their magisterial account of the Soviet intelligence apparatus, “the KGB could fairly claim that far more Americans believed some version of its own conspiracy theory of the Kennedy assassination, involving a right-wing plot and the US intelligence community, than still accept the main findings of the Warren Commission.” The enduring power of this bit of Soviet disinformation owes much to Stone’s film. Likewise, the 2013 book Stone co-authored with American University historian Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/11/19/oliver-stone-s-junk-history-of-the-united-states-debunked.html" type="external">delivers</a> the potted Josef Stalin version of the Cold War, in which the Nazi-Soviet pact was but a minor detail and the Berlin Wall an entirely defensible reaction to Western re-armament.</p>
<p>“The big picture is the US has never given up on using Ukraine as a launching pad to the underbelly of the Soviet Union, now a reduced Russia,” Stone laments. “This Cold War 2.0 policy continues in a most deadly fashion, and whether they know it or not, the Ukrainian civilian population in the middle has suffered greatly from this ideological crusade.” It is astoundingly patronizing for Stone to lecture Ukrainians—thousands of whom have fought and died defending their dismembered country from an all-out invasion by their much more powerful neighbor—about what they do and do not know about Viktor Yanukovych, Russia, and the potential for a new Cold War. Sucking up to a despot and continuing his own “ideological crusade” against America, Oliver Stone reduces the courageous Ukrainians who died giving their lives for a more decent society to pawns.</p> | true | 4 | needs russia today oliver stone thats question russian president vladimir putin ought asking light film directors latest foray antiamerican conspiracy genre excuse absence past weeks stone announced last week facebook page oracular tone appropriate introduction halfbaked pronouncements follow stone recently returned trip moscow conducted fourhour interview viktor yanukovych former president ukraine security forces killed 100 demonstrators protesting corrupt rule last february escaped russia moscows subsequent annexation crimea ongoing invasion eastern ukraine raised tensions east west levels seen since cold war stone interviewed yanukovych english language documentary produced ukrainians doubt hopes impress putin november stone revealed wishes make film russian strongman represents different point view americans dont hear homage would alongside previous works fidel castro late venezuelan president hugo chavez complete trifecta adoring portraits devoted thuggish autocrats understanding stones ultimate goal obtain putins cooperation next feature provides important context directors social media ramblings photograph laughing alongside yanukovych stone explained interlocutor legitimate president ukraine suddenly wasnt february 22 year yanukovych ceased president day fled kiev rendering incapable performing presidential duties ukrainian constitution threequarters countrys parliament including many members yanukovychs party voted effectively impeach day thats stone would us believe seems clear socalled shooters killed 14 policemen wounded 85 killed 45 protesting civilians outside thirdparty agitators wrote many witnesses including yanukovich sic police officials believe foreign elements introduced prowestern factionswith cia fingerprints stones comments readily picked variety kremlinfunded media prorussian outlets stones blockbuster allegation runs counter 90 gigabytes video photographs obtained exclusively daily beast colleague jamie dettmer last year indicating massacre kievs maidan central square february 20 2014 much work yanukovychs security forces timestamped images depict members crack antiterrorist russiantrained alfa unit meticulously preparing courtyard internal security service headquarters armed assault according lengthy new york times investigation published sunday yanukovychs turbulent final days office security officials close expresident decided abandon himonce signed truce opposition leaders calling investigations police killed protesters revelations essentially concede men yanukovychs orders pulled trigger would reason retreat leader stops leader people around fall away mykhalo dobkin close yanukovych ally told times stone would slander democratic prowestern euromaidan revolution cia coup surprise man released entire film assigning blame assassination john f kennedy agencylinked reactionary homosexual sadomasochistic sex ring stones obsession bizarre debunked conspiracy theory helps explain admires gaybashing putin stones wild imagination excuse getting simple facts wrong 100 protesting civilians died midst last februarys violence 45 would cia work overthrow ukrainian government us tolerate idea rival economic entity stone writes yanukovychs refusal sign european union trade agreement led protests ultimately brought political demise installing prowestern government kiev replace stone presumably believes frustrates putins eurasian economic union crude imitation eu composed corrupt exsoviet autocracies lets accept sake argument stones premise enfeebling potential economic competitors ultimate driver american foreign policy decisionmaking russias gdp roughly size italys backward economy almost entirely dependent price single finite commodity oil nearly every economic social barometer birth rate life expectancy paints country steep irreversible decline unlike soviet union certain period history russian economy hold candle united states accusing opponents locked cold war mindset stone beholden old orthodoxies moreover shouldering burden corrupt economic basket case country like ukraine strengthen american financial hegemony since yanukovych left office unending stream ukrainian politicians begged west tens billions dollars bailouts ukraines newfound western orientationits desire voluntarily associate consensual club democraciesdoesnt endanger russia power endangers narrow conception russian power understood eyes dictatorial leader successful ukrainian democracy represents existential threat nothing putins grip domestically ability subjugate neighbors coercion system corrupt malevolent authority stone shields defames brave ukrainians gave lives maidan tools cia dirty story tragic aftermath coup west maintained dominant narrative russia crimea whereas true narrative usa ukraine says reason former narrative dominant russia annexed crimea whereas united states done thing ukraine stone however russias anschluss first territorial annexation european soil since world war ii american interference ukraine distinction without difference followup post next day iconoclastic cineaste wrote many ukrainians wanted yanukovych evidence prowestern 3rd party interference ie victoria nuland john mccain usaid national endowment democracy stone doesnt need elaborate never mind provide real evidence reckless accusations levels simply mentioning names institutions dog whistle breed conspiracy theorists left right emerged unified question american perfidy ukraine crowd assistant secretary state victoria nulands handing sandwiches people maidan national endowment democracys funding election monitors proof positive langley orchestrated coup détat first time director fallen russian propaganda thesis aforementioned jfk blamed cia murder 35th president based hoax published communistcontrolled italian newspaper 1967 late 1970s cambridge university historian christopher andrew soviet defector vasili mitrokhin wrote magisterial account soviet intelligence apparatus kgb could fairly claim far americans believed version conspiracy theory kennedy assassination involving rightwing plot us intelligence community still accept main findings warren commission enduring power bit soviet disinformation owes much stones film likewise 2013 book stone coauthored american university historian peter kuznick untold history united states delivers potted josef stalin version cold war nazisoviet pact minor detail berlin wall entirely defensible reaction western rearmament big picture us never given using ukraine launching pad underbelly soviet union reduced russia stone laments cold war 20 policy continues deadly fashion whether know ukrainian civilian population middle suffered greatly ideological crusade astoundingly patronizing stone lecture ukrainiansthousands fought died defending dismembered country allout invasion much powerful neighborabout know viktor yanukovych russia potential new cold war sucking despot continuing ideological crusade america oliver stone reduces courageous ukrainians died giving lives decent society pawns | 879 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;search_tracking_id=AK2UFczWc86TKYvdadGvAA&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=prison&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=95386006&amp;src=2cOdou2Y5TKj9PmraKseXA-1-102"&gt;ollyy&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
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<p>UPDATE 3: Friday, September 6: On Thursday, 60 days after 30,000 inmates in California prisons refused their state-issued meals, prison activists and corrections officials announced the end of the hunger strike. In the two months since it began, the number of striking inmates shrunk to about 100. Yesterday the <a href="http://cdcrtoday.blogspot.com/2013/09/cdcr-secretary-jeff-beard-issues.html" type="external">CDCR said</a> all participants have started taking their meals or begun the process of re-feeding.</p>
<p>“We are pleased this dangerous strike has been called off before any inmates became seriously ill,” said CDCR Secretary Jeff Beard in a press release.</p>
<p>While <a href="http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/day-60-mediation-team-statement-september-5-2013/" type="external">activists say</a> most of the demands for prison reform have not been met, the decision to end the strike came following the news that two California state lawmakers announced they will hold public hearings on the state’s use of solitary confinement.</p>
<p>Anne Weills, a lawyer representing some of the strike leaders, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/inmates-end-hunger-strike-in-california.html" type="external">told the New York Times</a> that the corrections department had promised to meet with some of the protesters this month to discuss their demands.</p>
<p><a href="#update" type="external">Click here to jump to earlier updates.</a></p>
<p>Monday marked the 50th day of a massive hunger strike in California prisons. The strike initially involved some 30,000 fasting inmates; some 42 of them are still refusing to eat, putting themselves at extremely high risk of death, according to <a href="http://www.cphcs.ca.gov/docs/careguides/MassHungerStrikeCareGuide2012-10-4.pdf" type="external">state medical officials</a>. A judge last week ruled that the state can <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/161727249/Order-Granting-Joint-Request-Authorizing-Refeeding" type="external">force-feed prisoners</a> who are near death, even if they’ve signed “do not resuscitate” directives. Yet those interventions still might not be enough to keep all of the hunger strikers alive, or prevent them from suffering long-term medical problems.</p>
<p>Why are prisoners striking? More than anything, the hunger strikers want to put an end to the increasingly common practice of long-term solitary confinement in the state’s prisons. Most of them are inmates in the Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit (SHU), where 1,198 <a href="#correction" type="external">*</a> people are being held in 11-foot-by-7-foot windowless cells; about 400 have been in solitary confinement there for <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/23/us-usa-california-torture-idUSBRE97M0QU20130823" type="external">more than a decade</a>.</p>
<p>The SHU is meant to segregate prisoners who pose a high security risk, such as gang leaders, former escapees, or inmates who are prone to violence. Yet prisoners can be thrown into the SHU indefinitely without any due process, meaning that they never get a chance to review or contest the evidence that they’ve done something wrong. Prisoners have been confined to the SHU based on&#160; <a href="" type="internal">evidence</a> as tenuous as having appeared in a photo with a known gang member or possessing a copy of of Machiavelli’s The Prince. Ryan Jacobs lists <a href="" type="internal">seven innocuous items</a> that have landed prisoners in the hole.</p>
<p>Last year, the journalist and former Iran hostage Shane Bauer <a href="" type="internal">toured the Pelican Bay SHU</a> for Mother Jones and found that the conditions there were worse, in some ways, than what’s he’d experienced during his 26 months of solitary at Tehran’s most notorious political prison.</p>
<p>How many prisoners are in the hole? All told, about <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/23/us-usa-california-torture-idUSBRE97M0QU20130823" type="external">80,000 US prisoners</a> are in solitary confinement, including 12,000 in California, according to the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Here’s a state-by-state <a href="" type="internal">map of where prisoners are held in solitary confinement</a>.</p>
<p>Is long-term solitary confinement torture? The short answer is probably yes.</p>
<p>“It is an awful thing, solitary,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wrote of his two years in solitary in Vietnam. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” And this is coming from a man who was denied adequate medical treatment for multiple broken bones, beaten regularly, and tortured to the point of having an arm broken again.</p>
<p>“Even if solitary confinement is applied for short periods of time, it often causes mental and physical suffering or humiliation, amounting to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” Juan E. Méndez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, said last week in response to the hunger strike. “And if the resulting pain or sufferings are severe, solitary confinement even amounts to torture.” He has called for a ban on solitary confinement stints exceeding 15 days.</p>
<p>Countless studies have shown humans to be inherently social animals; when denied the contact of others they develop pathologies ranging from hallucinations to memory loss to bouts of depression, self-mutilation, or rage. In a 2009 investigation of solitary confinement, The New Yorker‘s Atul Gawande found the evidence of the physical and mental effects of solitary confinement “ <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande" type="external">profoundly unsettling”</a>:</p>
<p>EEG (electroencephalogram) studies going back to the nineteen sixties have shown diffuse slowing of brain waves in prisoners after a week or more in solitary confinement. In 1992, fifty-seven prisoners of war, released after an average of six months in detention camps in the former Yugoslavia, were examined using EEG-like tests. The recordings revealed brain abnormalities months afterward; the most severe were in prisoners who had either endured head trauma sufficient to render them unconscious, or, yes, solitary confinement. Without sustained social interaction, the human brain may become as impaired as one that has suffered a traumatic injury.</p>
<p>For a piece on the neurological effects of sensory deprivation, read Michael Mechanic’s “ <a href="" type="internal">What Extreme Isolation Does to Your Mind</a>.”</p>
<p>What are the conditions prisoners face in solitary? The UN’s Méndez <a href="https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40097&amp;;Cr=torture&amp;Cr1=%20ForceRecrawl:%200" type="external">defines</a> solitary confinement as any case in which an inmate is held in isolation from others, except guards, for at least 22 hours a day.</p>
<p>In California, prisoners in most solitary units are detained in concrete, windowless cells equipped with a toilet, a shower, and a slot in the door large enough for a guard to slip a food tray through. Prisoners are frequently deprived of telephone calls and contact visits. “Recreation” involves being taken, often in handcuffs and shackles, to another empty space where prisoners can pace alone for an hour before being returned to their cell, according to the <a href="http://ccrjustice.org/solitary-factsheet" type="external">Center for Constitutional Rights</a>. There’s plenty more detail in James Ridgeway’s recent series “ <a href="" type="internal">America’s 10 Worst Prisons</a>.”</p>
<p>Is solitary confinement a necessary evil? Advocates of the punishment say that it weeds out the worst offenders, making prisons safer for guards and inmates alike. <a href="" type="internal">But the evidence doesn’t bear that out.</a> After Arizona, Illinois, and Minnesota opened up their supermax prisons, blending serious offenders with run-of-the-mill inmates, a 2003 study found that inmate-on-inmate violence was unchanged, and inmate-on-guard violence changed unpredictably, rising in Arizona, declining in Illinois, and holding steady in Minnesota. Prison violence may have more to do with problems such as overcrowding and the cutting of rehabilitation programs.</p>
<p>How did the strike begin? The organizers formed the Pelican Bay State Prison SHU Short Corridor Collective <a href="http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/voices-from-inside/why-prisoners-are-protesting/" type="external">two years ago</a> to protest prolonged solitary confinement based on nebulous evidence. The initial hunger strike, launched in&#160; <a href="http://www.psmag.com/politics/thousands-of-california-inmates-on-hunger-strike-against-solitary-confinement-62196/" type="external">July 2011,</a> lasted about a month, until the organizers put it on hold when the <a href="http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/1st-round/" type="external">California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation agreed to make reforms</a>. Yet prisoners felt that CDCR still hadn’t addressed their most pressing concerns, such as the way that prisoners can be thrown into the SHU and kept there for extended periods based on limited evidence of gang affiliations. The following August, the Corridor Collective announced that it had negotiated an <a href="http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/agreement-to-end-hostilities/" type="external">agreement to end hostilities</a> between all racial groups in the Pelican Bay SHU—an unprecedented showing of prisoner solidarity that opened the door for a relaunch of the hunger strike on a much wider scale, starting last month.</p>
<p>Who are the leaders of the strike? According to the Associated Press, the four inmates who’ve signed letters on behalf of the hunger strikers have all been accused of having leadership roles in various street or prison gangs: Todd Ashker (Aryan Brotherhood), Arturo Castellanos (the LA street gang Florencia 13), Ronnie Dewberry (Black Guerilla Family), and Antonio Guillen (Nuestra Familia). The San Francisco Chronicle <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Leaders-of-Calif-prison-hunger-strike-4744339.php" type="external">has their rap sheets</a>.</p>
<p>Is the hunger strike just a power play by prison gangs? “Don’t be fooled,” Jeffrey Beard, the head of the CDCR, wrote in an August 6 op-ed in the LA Times. “Many of those participating in the hunger strike are under extreme pressure to do so from violent prison gangs, which called the strike in an attempt to restore their ability to terrorize fellow prisoners, prison staff, and communities throughout California.”</p>
<p>Anne Weills, an attorney for the strikers, says state officials offered no evidence to back up that claim. “I see it as a political attack on the hunger strikers,” she told me. “It is another way for the governor to advance his proposition that these men are harsh, cold, calculating characters who would order somebody to refuse to live because they want to prove a point.”</p>
<p>Weills contends that by isolating prison gang leaders in the SHU, the state has unintentionally forced them to overcome their differences and work together. “All the attempts of the system to divide and separate people based on color and geographical origin is blowing up in their faces.”</p>
<p>What do the hunger strikers want? The Short Corridor Collective has put forth <a href="http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/the-prisoners-demands-2/" type="external">five core demands</a>. They want to make it harder to confine prisoners to the SHU, improve conditions there, and abolish long-term solitary confinement.</p>
<p>What has been the state’s response? Authorities at Pelican Bay and California State Prison, Corcoran, have relocated hunger striking prisoners to separate wards in an apparent effort to prevent the strike from spreading&#160;(UPDATE: CDCR says the inmates were moved for “medical reasons”). According to <a href="http://solitarywatch.com/" type="external">Solitary Watch</a>, a prisoner’s rights advocacy group, prison officials have also at times issued disciplinary citations to striking inmates, confiscated their property, denied them visits from outsiders, placed sandbags at the bottom of their cell doors, and delayed or rejected mail to and from family members.</p>
<p>Prison officials have not agreed to any system-wide reforms as a result of the strike, but inmates at San Quentin and Calipatria State Prison have negotiated verbal settlements with their wardens, according to prison rights groups.</p>
<p>What are the physical risks of hunger striking? According to the California Correctional Health Care Services, after a few days without food, people stop feeling hunger pangs. The body soon starts to break down muscle proteins to create glucose, the sugar vital for cell metabolism, and the body begins to lose fat and muscle mass. After two weeks, people on a hunger strike may have difficulty standing, and they can suffer from severe dizziness, sluggishness, loss of coordination, low heart rates, and a feeling of being cold. After two or three weeks, low levels of thiamine (vitamin B1) can result in severe neurological problems including cognitive impairment, vision loss, and lack of motor skills. After more than a month, or when more than 18 percent of body weight is lost, severe and permanent medical complications can occur. It can become very difficult to swallow water, a person can lose sight and hearing, breathing can become labored, and organ failure can set in. Beyond 45 days, death is a very real risk due to cardiovascular collapse or severe infection.</p>
<p>Has anybody died yet? On July 22 at California State Prison, Corcoran, inmate Billy Michael Sell committed suicide, hanging himself in his cell while in solitary confinement. He’d been hunger striking from July 8 until July 21. It’s not clear whether Sell left a suicide note.</p>
<p>How is the health of the remaining hunger strikers? Not good, based on what can be gleaned from letters and interviews. In an August 11 letter provided by the group Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, a hunger striker reported that his weight was down to 188 pounds from 235 pounds in early July. On August 6 and again on August 8 he was rushed to the ER with low blood pressure, and later a racing heart rate. “If you note me drifting or grammatical errors, I want to apologize in advanced [sic],” wrote the prisoner, whose name was not released by the group. “I’ve not eaten in 35 days and counting and it’s affecting me in ways I’m not immediately aware of.”</p>
<p>Some hunger strikers who’d broken fast have now resumed the strike. As of Sunday there were a total of 96 hunger strikers in three prisons.</p>
<p>What’s next? Strike leaders continue to seek concessions from prison authorities. Meanwhile, attorneys for the prisoners have filed a federal lawsuit against California Gov. Jerry Brown that is seeking an end to indefinite solitary detention and to institute due process for prisoners before they’re thrown in the hole.</p>
<p>Mother Jones will be following this story as it unfolds. Check back for updates.</p>
<p>UPDATE 1: Wednesday, September 4:&#160;In an&#160; <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/783168-terry-thorton-email.html" type="external">email</a>&#160;to&#160;Mother Jones, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Deputy Press Secretary Terry Thornton disputed the accuracy of numerous details in this story. It appears that she also contested the portrayal of&#160;the hunger strike in&#160; <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/searching-for-the-truth-about-californias-prison-hunger-strike-20130813" type="external">Rolling Stone</a>. In response to&#160;Thorton’s&#160;email, we have updated the number of inmates held in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Units to reflect&#160;CDCR’s&#160;most recent data, and we’ve included her explanation of why&#160;CDCR&#160;has relocated some of the inmates on hunger strike. Here are some of&#160;Thorton’s&#160;other points:</p>
<p>UPDATE 2: Wednesday, September 4: Two California lawmakers have&#160; <a href="http://www.asmdc.org/members/a17/press-releases/ammiano-hancock-announce-hearings-on-hunger-strike-issues" type="external">promised to hold public hearings</a>&#160;on “the use and conditions of solitary confinement in California’s prisons.”&#160;Senator Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) pointed to a federal court ruling authorizing prisoners who’ve been held in solitary confinement to sue the State of California for denying them protection from cruel and unusual punishment. The lawmakers also cited to a UN report equating long term solitary confinement with torture.&#160;</p>
<p>Correction: The original number of inmates in the SHU was based on our report on Pelican Bay State Prison from earlier this year.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | lta hrefhttpwwwshutterstockcomcatmhtmllangenampsearch_sourcesearch_formampsearch_tracking_idak2ufczwc86tkyvdadgvaaampversionllv1ampanyorallallampsafesearch1ampsearchtermprisonampsearch_groupamporientampsearch_catampsearchtermxampphotographer_nameamppeople_genderamppeople_ageamppeople_ethnicityamppeople_numberampcommercial_okampcolorampshow_color_wheel1id95386006ampsrc2codou2y5tkj9pmraksexa1102gtollyyltagtshutterstock update 3 friday september 6 thursday 60 days 30000 inmates california prisons refused stateissued meals prison activists corrections officials announced end hunger strike two months since began number striking inmates shrunk 100 yesterday cdcr said participants started taking meals begun process refeeding pleased dangerous strike called inmates became seriously ill said cdcr secretary jeff beard press release activists say demands prison reform met decision end strike came following news two california state lawmakers announced hold public hearings states use solitary confinement anne weills lawyer representing strike leaders told new york times corrections department promised meet protesters month discuss demands click jump earlier updates monday marked 50th day massive hunger strike california prisons strike initially involved 30000 fasting inmates 42 still refusing eat putting extremely high risk death according state medical officials judge last week ruled state forcefeed prisoners near death even theyve signed resuscitate directives yet interventions still might enough keep hunger strikers alive prevent suffering longterm medical problems prisoners striking anything hunger strikers want put end increasingly common practice longterm solitary confinement states prisons inmates pelican bay state prisons security housing unit shu 1198 people held 11footby7foot windowless cells 400 solitary confinement decade shu meant segregate prisoners pose high security risk gang leaders former escapees inmates prone violence yet prisoners thrown shu indefinitely without due process meaning never get chance review contest evidence theyve done something wrong prisoners confined shu based on160 evidence tenuous appeared photo known gang member possessing copy machiavellis prince ryan jacobs lists seven innocuous items landed prisoners hole last year journalist former iran hostage shane bauer toured pelican bay shu mother jones found conditions worse ways whats hed experienced 26 months solitary tehrans notorious political prison many prisoners hole told 80000 us prisoners solitary confinement including 12000 california according united nations office high commissioner human rights heres statebystate map prisoners held solitary confinement longterm solitary confinement torture short answer probably yes awful thing solitary sen john mccain rariz wrote two years solitary vietnam crushes spirit weakens resistance effectively form mistreatment coming man denied adequate medical treatment multiple broken bones beaten regularly tortured point arm broken even solitary confinement applied short periods time often causes mental physical suffering humiliation amounting cruel inhuman degrading treatment punishment juan e méndez united nations special rapporteur torture said last week response hunger strike resulting pain sufferings severe solitary confinement even amounts torture called ban solitary confinement stints exceeding 15 days countless studies shown humans inherently social animals denied contact others develop pathologies ranging hallucinations memory loss bouts depression selfmutilation rage 2009 investigation solitary confinement new yorkers atul gawande found evidence physical mental effects solitary confinement profoundly unsettling eeg electroencephalogram studies going back nineteen sixties shown diffuse slowing brain waves prisoners week solitary confinement 1992 fiftyseven prisoners war released average six months detention camps former yugoslavia examined using eeglike tests recordings revealed brain abnormalities months afterward severe prisoners either endured head trauma sufficient render unconscious yes solitary confinement without sustained social interaction human brain may become impaired one suffered traumatic injury piece neurological effects sensory deprivation read michael mechanics extreme isolation mind conditions prisoners face solitary uns méndez defines solitary confinement case inmate held isolation others except guards least 22 hours day california prisoners solitary units detained concrete windowless cells equipped toilet shower slot door large enough guard slip food tray prisoners frequently deprived telephone calls contact visits recreation involves taken often handcuffs shackles another empty space prisoners pace alone hour returned cell according center constitutional rights theres plenty detail james ridgeways recent series americas 10 worst prisons solitary confinement necessary evil advocates punishment say weeds worst offenders making prisons safer guards inmates alike evidence doesnt bear arizona illinois minnesota opened supermax prisons blending serious offenders runofthemill inmates 2003 study found inmateoninmate violence unchanged inmateonguard violence changed unpredictably rising arizona declining illinois holding steady minnesota prison violence may problems overcrowding cutting rehabilitation programs strike begin organizers formed pelican bay state prison shu short corridor collective two years ago protest prolonged solitary confinement based nebulous evidence initial hunger strike launched in160 july 2011 lasted month organizers put hold california department corrections rehabilitation agreed make reforms yet prisoners felt cdcr still hadnt addressed pressing concerns way prisoners thrown shu kept extended periods based limited evidence gang affiliations following august corridor collective announced negotiated agreement end hostilities racial groups pelican bay shuan unprecedented showing prisoner solidarity opened door relaunch hunger strike much wider scale starting last month leaders strike according associated press four inmates whove signed letters behalf hunger strikers accused leadership roles various street prison gangs todd ashker aryan brotherhood arturo castellanos la street gang florencia 13 ronnie dewberry black guerilla family antonio guillen nuestra familia san francisco chronicle rap sheets hunger strike power play prison gangs dont fooled jeffrey beard head cdcr wrote august 6 oped la times many participating hunger strike extreme pressure violent prison gangs called strike attempt restore ability terrorize fellow prisoners prison staff communities throughout california anne weills attorney strikers says state officials offered evidence back claim see political attack hunger strikers told another way governor advance proposition men harsh cold calculating characters would order somebody refuse live want prove point weills contends isolating prison gang leaders shu state unintentionally forced overcome differences work together attempts system divide separate people based color geographical origin blowing faces hunger strikers want short corridor collective put forth five core demands want make harder confine prisoners shu improve conditions abolish longterm solitary confinement states response authorities pelican bay california state prison corcoran relocated hunger striking prisoners separate wards apparent effort prevent strike spreading160update cdcr says inmates moved medical reasons according solitary watch prisoners rights advocacy group prison officials also times issued disciplinary citations striking inmates confiscated property denied visits outsiders placed sandbags bottom cell doors delayed rejected mail family members prison officials agreed systemwide reforms result strike inmates san quentin calipatria state prison negotiated verbal settlements wardens according prison rights groups physical risks hunger striking according california correctional health care services days without food people stop feeling hunger pangs body soon starts break muscle proteins create glucose sugar vital cell metabolism body begins lose fat muscle mass two weeks people hunger strike may difficulty standing suffer severe dizziness sluggishness loss coordination low heart rates feeling cold two three weeks low levels thiamine vitamin b1 result severe neurological problems including cognitive impairment vision loss lack motor skills month 18 percent body weight lost severe permanent medical complications occur become difficult swallow water person lose sight hearing breathing become labored organ failure set beyond 45 days death real risk due cardiovascular collapse severe infection anybody died yet july 22 california state prison corcoran inmate billy michael sell committed suicide hanging cell solitary confinement hed hunger striking july 8 july 21 clear whether sell left suicide note health remaining hunger strikers good based gleaned letters interviews august 11 letter provided group legal services prisoners children hunger striker reported weight 188 pounds 235 pounds early july august 6 august 8 rushed er low blood pressure later racing heart rate note drifting grammatical errors want apologize advanced sic wrote prisoner whose name released group ive eaten 35 days counting affecting ways im immediately aware hunger strikers whod broken fast resumed strike sunday total 96 hunger strikers three prisons whats next strike leaders continue seek concessions prison authorities meanwhile attorneys prisoners filed federal lawsuit california gov jerry brown seeking end indefinite solitary detention institute due process prisoners theyre thrown hole mother jones following story unfolds check back updates update 1 wednesday september 4160in an160 email160to160mother jones california department corrections rehabilitation deputy press secretary terry thornton disputed accuracy numerous details story appears also contested portrayal of160the hunger strike in160 rolling stone response to160thortons160email updated number inmates held pelican bays security housing units reflect160cdcrs160most recent data weve included explanation why160cdcr160has relocated inmates hunger strike of160thortons160other points update 2 wednesday september 4 two california lawmakers have160 promised hold public hearings160on use conditions solitary confinement californias prisons160senator loni hancock dberkeley assemblymember tom ammiano dsan francisco pointed federal court ruling authorizing prisoners whove held solitary confinement sue state california denying protection cruel unusual punishment lawmakers also cited un report equating long term solitary confinement torture160 correction original number inmates shu based report pelican bay state prison earlier year | 1,367 |
<p>Afghan national army soldiers display more than six kilograms of opium discovered in a former insurgent safe house in Farah province, Dec. 16.</p>
<p>The UN Office of Drug Control (UNODC) has thoroughly documented the violence, crime, and corruption linked with the worldwide heroin and opium trade. The U.S. news media report every day on the mayhem and corruption of government officials caused by the drug wars in Mexico, Colombia, and other points south of our border. In Afghanistan, the Taliban tax the opium trade and protect poppy farmers from eradication, fueling the insurgency and our 11-year war.</p>
<p>However, these problems are all consequences of drug prohibition, not of the drugs themselves. In legal terms, drugs are malum prohibitum (wrong because prohibited by law) rather than malum in se (inherently wrong, such as theft or murder). During the U.S. experiment with Prohibition (1920-1933), alcohol was malum prohibitum; as soon as it was legalized, it again became a normal regulated, traded, and taxed consumer product.</p>
<p>We need to rethink our prohibition of drugs. What problem are we trying to solve by making drugs illegal? Have we chosen the most effective and affordable solution? Are the collateral consequences worth it?</p>
<p>We should start with the premise that neither demand for drugs nor the drugs themselves can be eliminated. UNODC estimates the ultimate street value of drugs originating in southern Afghanistan, primarily Helmand and Kandahar, as $68 billion. Where there is demand, there will be supply. If Afghan supplies were reduced, production would simply move elsewhere—as it did when it moved into Afghanistan in the 1980s after being pushed out of Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle.</p>
<p>The American experience of Prohibition is instructive.</p>
<p>The U.S. ban on alcohol served primarily to corrupt public officials and endanger the public. Supplying the unabated demand for alcohol required traffickers to pay bribes to police and politicians. As prices increased as a result, cutting quality was one way to keep the retail price down, which resulted in deaths from adulterated products. Moreover, the rise of violent, organized crime during this period—required to move the product and handle disputes within the trade—created criminal organizations that endure to this day.</p>
<p>The Prohibition experiment was relatively short-lived. Part of the impetus for repeal was that Prohibition was not having the intended effect of cutting either alcohol use or the social problems resulting from its abuse (the potential for alcohol tax revenues in the midst of the Great Depression was another factor). Whatever successes the experiment had were outweighed by the costs in corruption and violence, not to mention widespread public cynicism and hypocrisy.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the substantial and unanticipated costs of Prohibition were borne almost entirely by the United States. It was our own police and elected officials who were corrupted. It was our own cities afflicted by the criminal patronage networks battling over turf. We never attempted to force other countries to make the trade in alcohol illegal or participate in our war on alcohol.</p>
<p>The day after Prohibition was repealed, beer distributors no longer had to turn to the Mafia for enforcement of their franchise agreements. They took their disputes to court. The collateral violence largely stopped, and corrupt politicians and police suddenly lost a source of income. Product quality could be standardized. States could make individual decisions about regulating and taxing alcohol.</p>
<p>Of course, the social problems—particularly family violence—that were the ostensible reason for Prohibition continued, as they do to this day. My own experience as a prosecutor in Domestic Violence Court in Chicago in the 1980s is illustrative. If it hadn’t been for alcohol-related crimes, the court could have been closed. Alcohol had adverse effects on families that many other drugs did not have.</p>
<p>But by 1933, we had come to the realization that prohibition was an ineffective way to address abuse and indeed sidelined attempts to address alcoholism and family violence. There is still no simple solution to these problems, but we understood then that any response must directly address the problem. We as a society have come to terms with the inescapable downsides of a product that the public insists on having but that is subject to abuse. We have struck a balance since realizing that criminalizing the trade in alcohol only made everything worse.</p>
<p>Federal statute criminalized narcotics beginning in 1914. There was no nationwide public advocacy campaign as there was leading up to Prohibition. Legislation seems to have been driven primarily by racial fears—of “cocaine-crazed Negroes” raping white women and “Chinamen” in California both using opium and seducing white women into becoming opium addicts. Perhaps there was political value in coming out against the evil of drug use by disfavored groups when it seemed costless to do so.</p>
<p>But we now know a great deal about the worldwide costs in violence, crime, and corruption of making drugs illegal. If the downsides of our drug policy are now so clear, why haven’t drugs (opium and heroin as well as marijuana) been legalized? Why is the calculation different from that made vis a vis ending Prohibition?</p>
<p>After spending more than four years in Afghanistan and seeing first-hand the impact of our drug policies—consequences most Americans never see—I have come to the conclusion that we persist on this course primarily because the costs of our drug policies are borne by other countries, not by us. In contrast with our experience under Prohibition, the corruption of American police and politicians by the drug trade is a relatively minor problem. Demand within the United States is just not high enough to necessitate much bribery.</p>
<p>The serious corruption is instead all on the production end, and this we have succeeded in outsourcing to foreign countries. Our war on drugs is fought on the territories of countries such as Colombia, Honduras, and Mexico. The headless bodies in Mexico barely make the inside pages of American newspapers (imagine if dozens of mutilated bodies were dumped in suburban Maryland). We have requisitioned foreign turf for our war on drugs. Citizens of these countries have no voice in the matter. Their leaders’ acquiescence to U.S. policies undercuts electoral accountability, and corruption of their police and courts undermines the rule of law. We have compromised democracy in our own hemisphere.</p>
<p>In Afghanistan, we have failed to connect the dots between drugs and corruption. At the July 2012 donors’ conference in Tokyo, donor after donor urged President Karzai to combat corruption. However, as long as we insist on the illegality of poppy, we are making a demand that cannot possibly be met.</p>
<p>A country that supplies 80-90 percent of the world’s demand for poppy products must necessarily be corrupt. To move the heroin, opium, and marijuana from field to market, officials and police can demand payment to look the other way (or engage in the trade themselves). The import of chemicals for processing requires the cooperation of customs and border police. Even the poppy eradication process itself has been corrupted, as officials target the fields of rivals while protecting their own. And any eradication in one area inevitably pushes production to another, simply pushing a bubble around in a balloon.</p>
<p>Afghan citizens are well aware of the suitcases full of dollars that leave Kabul Airport every day for Dubai. While kickbacks from development and military contracts are undoubtedly involved, drug profits in particular have to be moved out of the country. In Helmand Province, district chief of police positions are reportedly purchased for sums as high as $150,000 (and that is only the initial payment, not the yearly “rent”), and the chief expects to recoup his investment. District governors, appointed by the president, are merely shifted in musical-chairs fashion around the province when citizens or the U.S. military complains about corruption.</p>
<p>The Karzai government has also chosen not to implement those provisions of the 2004 Afghan constitution that call for the election of mayors and district and city councils. Instead, these councils do not exist, and all local officials report to the president. One can only imagine that all these officials are in place for a reason. For example, the mayor of Kandahar, a city of 800,000, is a presidential appointee, not answerable to local citizens. As a result, prior to his assassination in 2011, the president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, had a free hand in managing affairs in Kandahar province. As in Latin America, democratic accountability is the loser. The money at stake is so overwhelming that honest and accountable government cannot be implemented without changing the drug nexus. The incentives are just too strong.</p>
<p>If opium and heroin (as well as marijuana) were legalized, what would happen? Corrupt Afghan officials would suddenly lose a source of income, as poppy is illegal in Afghanistan primarily at U.S. insistence. The Taliban would be unable to extract protection money from farmers, or tax the drug trade. The war might wind down to a speedy conclusion, and Afghanistan could fund its own development and security forces out of sales of a legal commodity. Latin American democracy too would undoubtedly be strengthened and violence would decrease.</p>
<p>The U.S. government could save all the money it now spends on the DEA, interdiction, and drug prosecutions. States could make their own decisions about drugs. Local police and sheriffs could quit chasing after pot growers (who could now standardize and advertise product quality and potency), and devote scarce public safety budgets to the crimes that the average citizen prioritizes. State prisons that are overwhelmed with drug offenders could downsize. Of course, the entire anti-drug enterprise of U.S. officials and government contractors, greased by U.S. security assistance to drug producer nations, would drastically downsize too—and so the anti-drug lobby seeking to preserve its livelihood would undoubtedly be a political force in opposition. Likewise the manufacturers of medicinal morphine who have a monopoly on licensed poppy from India.</p>
<p>On the demand side of the equation, prices might well drop as the costs of paying protection were eliminated. It’s possible that usage would increase, but users don’t seem to have much difficulty obtaining supplies right now. With all the resources freed from fighting an unwinnable war against drugs, we could attend to the social problems that facilitate certain kinds of drug use (heroin use being primarily a lower-class phenomenon) and result from substance abuse. There are many options to explore once the problem is defined honestly and resources are available for experimentation.</p>
<p>Even if the middle class doesn’t care what happens to the lower class, the costs of prosecution and incarceration are a direct drain on the public purse, and an indirect drain as imprisonment itself causes family disruption and disintegration. Under a legalization regime, we would no longer have so many poorly educated young men with drug convictions rendered ineligible for future legitimate employment. Curtailed voting rights for those with felony convictions also means that individuals affected by drug laws have had no voice in changing them—a fundamental requirement of a democracy. Citizens in the 1930s could vote their interest in repealing Prohibition. These rights must be restored.</p>
<p>The immediate response to potential drug legalization is usually, “Why do you want our children hooked on drugs?!” (The rationales of 1914 are no longer mentioned.) Remember, however, that those campaigning for repeal of Prohibition did not say, “We’re in favor of alcohol-induced family violence.” Or, “Let’s have more alcohol-related carnage on the highways.” People were quite aware of the problems—which continued during Prohibition as before and since. We as a society concluded in 1933, however, that prohibition was an ineffective way of dealing with this particular societal ill, and that illegality created second- and third-order effects that were far worse than the evil that Prohibition was supposed to address.</p>
<p>As with alcohol, we need to be honest with ourselves about the costs and benefits of our social policies and recognize that not all problems have comprehensive or entirely satisfactory solutions. We can only do our best to make decisions that take into consideration all of the costs and benefits of our choices and not pretend that moral crusades are costless. We need to address honestly the morality of foisting upon other countries the violence, corruption, and damage to democracy caused by U.S. drug policies and driven by U.S. demand. &#160;</p>
<p>Legalization is the only solution to the problem of Afghan and Latin American violence and corruption—and the less obvious but more insidious problems of poverty, over-incarceration, and the misallocation of public resources within the United States. Only legalization can change the worldwide nexus of drugs and criminality.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.fpif.org" type="external">Foreign Policy In Focus</a> contributor Inge Fryklund was a Chicago prosecutor during the 1980s. From 2004 to 2012, she spent more than four years in Afghanistan.</p> | true | 4 | afghan national army soldiers display six kilograms opium discovered former insurgent safe house farah province dec 16 un office drug control unodc thoroughly documented violence crime corruption linked worldwide heroin opium trade us news media report every day mayhem corruption government officials caused drug wars mexico colombia points south border afghanistan taliban tax opium trade protect poppy farmers eradication fueling insurgency 11year war however problems consequences drug prohibition drugs legal terms drugs malum prohibitum wrong prohibited law rather malum se inherently wrong theft murder us experiment prohibition 19201933 alcohol malum prohibitum soon legalized became normal regulated traded taxed consumer product need rethink prohibition drugs problem trying solve making drugs illegal chosen effective affordable solution collateral consequences worth start premise neither demand drugs drugs eliminated unodc estimates ultimate street value drugs originating southern afghanistan primarily helmand kandahar 68 billion demand supply afghan supplies reduced production would simply move elsewhereas moved afghanistan 1980s pushed southeast asias golden triangle american experience prohibition instructive us ban alcohol served primarily corrupt public officials endanger public supplying unabated demand alcohol required traffickers pay bribes police politicians prices increased result cutting quality one way keep retail price resulted deaths adulterated products moreover rise violent organized crime periodrequired move product handle disputes within tradecreated criminal organizations endure day prohibition experiment relatively shortlived part impetus repeal prohibition intended effect cutting either alcohol use social problems resulting abuse potential alcohol tax revenues midst great depression another factor whatever successes experiment outweighed costs corruption violence mention widespread public cynicism hypocrisy importantly substantial unanticipated costs prohibition borne almost entirely united states police elected officials corrupted cities afflicted criminal patronage networks battling turf never attempted force countries make trade alcohol illegal participate war alcohol day prohibition repealed beer distributors longer turn mafia enforcement franchise agreements took disputes court collateral violence largely stopped corrupt politicians police suddenly lost source income product quality could standardized states could make individual decisions regulating taxing alcohol course social problemsparticularly family violencethat ostensible reason prohibition continued day experience prosecutor domestic violence court chicago 1980s illustrative hadnt alcoholrelated crimes court could closed alcohol adverse effects families many drugs 1933 come realization prohibition ineffective way address abuse indeed sidelined attempts address alcoholism family violence still simple solution problems understood response must directly address problem society come terms inescapable downsides product public insists subject abuse struck balance since realizing criminalizing trade alcohol made everything worse federal statute criminalized narcotics beginning 1914 nationwide public advocacy campaign leading prohibition legislation seems driven primarily racial fearsof cocainecrazed negroes raping white women chinamen california using opium seducing white women becoming opium addicts perhaps political value coming evil drug use disfavored groups seemed costless know great deal worldwide costs violence crime corruption making drugs illegal downsides drug policy clear havent drugs opium heroin well marijuana legalized calculation different made vis vis ending prohibition spending four years afghanistan seeing firsthand impact drug policiesconsequences americans never seei come conclusion persist course primarily costs drug policies borne countries us contrast experience prohibition corruption american police politicians drug trade relatively minor problem demand within united states high enough necessitate much bribery serious corruption instead production end succeeded outsourcing foreign countries war drugs fought territories countries colombia honduras mexico headless bodies mexico barely make inside pages american newspapers imagine dozens mutilated bodies dumped suburban maryland requisitioned foreign turf war drugs citizens countries voice matter leaders acquiescence us policies undercuts electoral accountability corruption police courts undermines rule law compromised democracy hemisphere afghanistan failed connect dots drugs corruption july 2012 donors conference tokyo donor donor urged president karzai combat corruption however long insist illegality poppy making demand possibly met country supplies 8090 percent worlds demand poppy products must necessarily corrupt move heroin opium marijuana field market officials police demand payment look way engage trade import chemicals processing requires cooperation customs border police even poppy eradication process corrupted officials target fields rivals protecting eradication one area inevitably pushes production another simply pushing bubble around balloon afghan citizens well aware suitcases full dollars leave kabul airport every day dubai kickbacks development military contracts undoubtedly involved drug profits particular moved country helmand province district chief police positions reportedly purchased sums high 150000 initial payment yearly rent chief expects recoup investment district governors appointed president merely shifted musicalchairs fashion around province citizens us military complains corruption karzai government also chosen implement provisions 2004 afghan constitution call election mayors district city councils instead councils exist local officials report president one imagine officials place reason example mayor kandahar city 800000 presidential appointee answerable local citizens result prior assassination 2011 presidents brother ahmed wali karzai free hand managing affairs kandahar province latin america democratic accountability loser money stake overwhelming honest accountable government implemented without changing drug nexus incentives strong opium heroin well marijuana legalized would happen corrupt afghan officials would suddenly lose source income poppy illegal afghanistan primarily us insistence taliban would unable extract protection money farmers tax drug trade war might wind speedy conclusion afghanistan could fund development security forces sales legal commodity latin american democracy would undoubtedly strengthened violence would decrease us government could save money spends dea interdiction drug prosecutions states could make decisions drugs local police sheriffs could quit chasing pot growers could standardize advertise product quality potency devote scarce public safety budgets crimes average citizen prioritizes state prisons overwhelmed drug offenders could downsize course entire antidrug enterprise us officials government contractors greased us security assistance drug producer nations would drastically downsize tooand antidrug lobby seeking preserve livelihood would undoubtedly political force opposition likewise manufacturers medicinal morphine monopoly licensed poppy india demand side equation prices might well drop costs paying protection eliminated possible usage would increase users dont seem much difficulty obtaining supplies right resources freed fighting unwinnable war drugs could attend social problems facilitate certain kinds drug use heroin use primarily lowerclass phenomenon result substance abuse many options explore problem defined honestly resources available experimentation even middle class doesnt care happens lower class costs prosecution incarceration direct drain public purse indirect drain imprisonment causes family disruption disintegration legalization regime would longer many poorly educated young men drug convictions rendered ineligible future legitimate employment curtailed voting rights felony convictions also means individuals affected drug laws voice changing thema fundamental requirement democracy citizens 1930s could vote interest repealing prohibition rights must restored immediate response potential drug legalization usually want children hooked drugs rationales 1914 longer mentioned remember however campaigning repeal prohibition say favor alcoholinduced family violence lets alcoholrelated carnage highways people quite aware problemswhich continued prohibition since society concluded 1933 however prohibition ineffective way dealing particular societal ill illegality created second thirdorder effects far worse evil prohibition supposed address alcohol need honest costs benefits social policies recognize problems comprehensive entirely satisfactory solutions best make decisions take consideration costs benefits choices pretend moral crusades costless need address honestly morality foisting upon countries violence corruption damage democracy caused us drug policies driven us demand 160 legalization solution problem afghan latin american violence corruptionand less obvious insidious problems poverty overincarceration misallocation public resources within united states legalization change worldwide nexus drugs criminality foreign policy focus contributor inge fryklund chicago prosecutor 1980s 2004 2012 spent four years afghanistan | 1,176 |
<p>It’s undeniable that Bernie Sanders <a href="" type="internal">has made a massive impact</a> on the Democratic party this last year. Even though it’s very unlikely his goal of becoming the party’s nominee is going to happen, just based on the success of his campaign alone he’s brought positive changes to the party as a whole. Not only that, but win or lose, he’s made a profound impact on Hillary Clinton that will make her a better candidate this November.</p>
<p>That being said, there’s <a href="" type="internal">a chunk of Sanders supporters</a> who are often referred to as “Bernie or bust.” These are people who’ve either declared that they’ll write his name in on election day, won’t vote at all or some have even said they’ll <a href="" type="internal">vote for Donald Trump</a>. However,&#160;I believe you lose all right to call yourself “liberal” or “progressive” if you would even entertain the thought of voting for someone who’s called for banning all Muslims; wants to overturn Roe v. Wade; calls women pigs; wants to rip apart millions of families; and has been embraced by white supremacist groups.</p>
<p>While&#160;I’m sure many of these folks aren’t Democrats, progressives or liberals – some of them&#160;are. Though I’ll admit, it’s been a rather interesting few months trying to decipher who’s a legitimate Sanders supporter and who’s just “supporting”&#160;him <a href="" type="internal">because they’re a “troll”</a> trying to take down Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>However, what “Bernie or bust” could eventually lead to is everything Sanders has accomplished this last year (and even throughout his entire career in Congress) being undone and tarnished. If Democrats lose the White House in November in a way where the numbers indicate this “Bernie or bust” crowd ultimately benefitted Republicans, all history will remember Bernie Sanders as is the candidate who helped elect Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Doubt me?</p>
<p>Tell me, how does history view&#160;Ralph Nader? You know, the candidate who ultimately did nothing but help <a href="" type="internal">George W. Bush get elected in 2000</a> – the president who then went on to wreck this country over the next eight years. While Florida gets most of the attention, New Hampshire was&#160;actually the state that gave Bush the White House. In 2000, Al Gore lost New Hampshire by just over 7,000 votes. How many did Nader get? Around 22,000. Had Gore won New Hampshire’s 4 electoral votes, the final results would have been Gore 270 vs. Bush 267.</p>
<p>Now, you tell me, which option is worse:</p>
<p>Almost nobody looks at Nader as some sort of revolutionary who changed anything – not even close. History will forever look back upon him during the 2000 election as the third-party candidate who did just enough to hurt Gore, which opened&#160;the door for one of the worst presidents in our nation’s history&#160;to win the presidency.</p>
<p>Well, in 2016, we could see that same sort of scenario play out. And if it does, everything Bernie Sanders has tried to do this election will be undone almost instantly.</p>
<p>Putting aside all the campaign rhetoric, the number one goal Sanders has stated throughout his entire campaign is, no matter what happens, <a href="" type="internal">we cannot allow Republicans to win this November</a>. He’s also made it clear that he’ll proudly support Clinton this November if she ultimately defeats him for the nomination.</p>
<p>The truth is, he could have run as a true third-party candidate but he knew doing so would do nothing but hand Republicans the White House in a landslide. So, writing him in as a third-party candidate is literally someone saying “I don’t care what he wanted – I’m doing it my way.” Everyone has the right to do that if they so choose, but it goes against Sanders’ primary goal of making sure Republicans don’t win the presidency.</p>
<p>So it’s a bit confusing to say you respect, admire and trust Bernie Sanders – then instantly do the very thing he has said repeatedly he doesn’t want to see happen: Help Republicans win the White House.</p>
<p>Even avid Sanders supporter <a href="" type="internal">Bill Maher has said</a> that the “Bernie or bust” people are going to be the “death of liberals.”</p>
<p>I’ve said for a while now, win or lose, <a href="" type="internal">Sanders has changed everything</a>. He’s pushed Clinton to the left and made the entire Democratic party rethink its party’s positions. Even if Clinton does become our next president, because of the undeniable impact Sanders has had on her, some of his ideas will be represented in her administration. Not only that, but his stature in the Senate has grown immensely due to the exposure he’s gotten from his campaign.</p>
<p>But none of that’s going to matter if the “Bernie or bust” folks get their way. If they do, the only thing Sanders will be remembered as is the candidate who weakened Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primary and built a movement that ultimately did nothing but help elect Donald Trump to the White House.</p>
<p>And if that happens, Bernie Sanders won’t be remembered as the revolutionary who helped change nearly everything within the Democratic party – which is the legacy he has now and deserves – he’ll be remembered as 2016’s Ralph Nader.</p>
<p>Don’t take this as me trying to “guilt” Sanders voters into supporting Clinton – though I’m sure that’s what some reading this will accuse me of trying to do. People are free to do whatever they like. All I’m outlining here is a reality that will happen if Trump wins and&#160;it’s determined that this “Bernie or bust” movement helped him get the victory. Reject that if you want, tell me I’m full of it and nothing but a “shill for Hillary” (because I’m sure that’s coming – just go read the comment section), but I’m telling you all that’s exactly how history will look back on&#160;2016 and Bernie Sanders if these&#160;“Bernie or bust” folks get their way.</p>
<p>It&#160;would be a damn disgrace to throw away everything Bernie Sanders has fought for this year and throughout his career. No matter what he’s said or done throughout the campaign, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/277909-sanders-if-im-not-nominee-ill-fight-to-make-sure-a" type="external">Sanders has said repeatedly</a>&#160;that his&#160;number one goal&#160;is to make damn sure the Republican party doesn’t win the White House.</p>
<p>But if you don’t believe me, here’s a direct quote from Bernie Sanders himself:</p>
<p>“I think Hillary Clinton and I agree on this, that we will do everything we can to make sure that a Republican does not win the White House, and I will knock my brains out.&#160;I will work seven days a week to make sure that&#160;that does not happen if I am the nominee and if I am not the nominee. That’s what I will do.” (Emphasis added by me)</p>
<p>Again, those are his words, not mine.</p>
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<p><a href="" type="internal">If You're Still "Bernie or Bust" at This Stage of the Election, Let's Talk About What You Really Are</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Bill Maher Blasts Petty Clinton, Sanders Supporters: They'll Lead to the 'Death of Liberals' (Video)</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">'Fraud, Sell Out': Some of Bernie Sanders' Supporters are Now Turning on Him</a></p>
<p>0 Facebook comments</p> | true | 4 | undeniable bernie sanders made massive impact democratic party last year even though unlikely goal becoming partys nominee going happen based success campaign alone hes brought positive changes party whole win lose hes made profound impact hillary clinton make better candidate november said theres chunk sanders supporters often referred bernie bust people whove either declared theyll write name election day wont vote even said theyll vote donald trump however160i believe lose right call liberal progressive would even entertain thought voting someone whos called banning muslims wants overturn roe v wade calls women pigs wants rip apart millions families embraced white supremacist groups while160im sure many folks arent democrats progressives liberals them160are though ill admit rather interesting months trying decipher whos legitimate sanders supporter whos supporting160him theyre troll trying take hillary clinton however bernie bust could eventually lead everything sanders accomplished last year even throughout entire career congress undone tarnished democrats lose white house november way numbers indicate bernie bust crowd ultimately benefitted republicans history remember bernie sanders candidate helped elect donald trump doubt tell history view160ralph nader know candidate ultimately nothing help george w bush get elected 2000 president went wreck country next eight years florida gets attention new hampshire was160actually state gave bush white house 2000 al gore lost new hampshire 7000 votes many nader get around 22000 gore new hampshires 4 electoral votes final results would gore 270 vs bush 267 tell option worse almost nobody looks nader sort revolutionary changed anything even close history forever look back upon 2000 election thirdparty candidate enough hurt gore opened160the door one worst presidents nations history160to win presidency well 2016 could see sort scenario play everything bernie sanders tried election undone almost instantly putting aside campaign rhetoric number one goal sanders stated throughout entire campaign matter happens allow republicans win november hes also made clear hell proudly support clinton november ultimately defeats nomination truth could run true thirdparty candidate knew would nothing hand republicans white house landslide writing thirdparty candidate literally someone saying dont care wanted im way everyone right choose goes sanders primary goal making sure republicans dont win presidency bit confusing say respect admire trust bernie sanders instantly thing said repeatedly doesnt want see happen help republicans win white house even avid sanders supporter bill maher said bernie bust people going death liberals ive said win lose sanders changed everything hes pushed clinton left made entire democratic party rethink partys positions even clinton become next president undeniable impact sanders ideas represented administration stature senate grown immensely due exposure hes gotten campaign none thats going matter bernie bust folks get way thing sanders remembered candidate weakened hillary clinton 2016 primary built movement ultimately nothing help elect donald trump white house happens bernie sanders wont remembered revolutionary helped change nearly everything within democratic party legacy deserves hell remembered 2016s ralph nader dont take trying guilt sanders voters supporting clinton though im sure thats reading accuse trying people free whatever like im outlining reality happen trump wins and160its determined bernie bust movement helped get victory reject want tell im full nothing shill hillary im sure thats coming go read comment section im telling thats exactly history look back on1602016 bernie sanders these160bernie bust folks get way it160would damn disgrace throw away everything bernie sanders fought year throughout career matter hes said done throughout campaign sanders said repeatedly160that his160number one goal160is make damn sure republican party doesnt win white house dont believe heres direct quote bernie sanders think hillary clinton agree everything make sure republican win white house knock brains out160i work seven days week make sure that160that happen nominee nominee thats emphasis added words mine youre still bernie bust stage election lets talk really bill maher blasts petty clinton sanders supporters theyll lead death liberals video fraud sell bernie sanders supporters turning 0 facebook comments | 632 |
<p>US law officially proclaims Memorial Day “as a day of prayer for permanent peace.”</p>
<p>However, the US is much closer to permanent war than permanent peace.&#160; Corporations are profiting from wars and lobbying politicians for more.&#160; The US, and the rest of the world, cannot afford the rising personal and financial costs of permanent war.</p>
<p>No doubt, the USA is number one in war.&#160; This coming year the US will spend 708 billion dollars on war and another $125 billion for Veterans Affairs – over $830 billion.&#160; In a distant second place is China which spent about $84 billion on its military in 2008.</p>
<p>The US also leads the world in the sale of lethal weapons to others, selling about one of every three weapons worldwide.&#160; The USA’s major clients?&#160; South Korea, Israel and United Arab Emirates.</p>
<p>Our country has 5 percent of the world’s population but accounts for more than 40% of the military spending for the whole world.</p>
<p>Harm</p>
<p>Our nation does not respect our soldiers by engaging in permanent war.&#160; War is grinding up our children.&#160; The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost over 5000 US lives and tens of thousands more lives of people in those countries.&#160; Over 20% of those in our military who served in these two wars, 320,000 people, have war-related traumatic brain injuries.&#160; Suicide rates are up by 26 percent among 18 to 29 year old male veterans in the latest Veterans Administration study.&#160; Mental health hospitalizations are now the leading cause of hospital admissions for the military, higher than injuries.&#160; On any given night, over 100,000 veterans are homeless and living on our nation’s streets.</p>
<p>Rising Costs of War</p>
<p>Since 2001, the US has spent over $6 trillion (a trillion is a million millions) on war and preparations for war.&#160; That is about $20,000 for every woman, man and child in the US.&#160; Iraq and Afghanistan alone have cost the US taxpayer over a trillion dollars since 2001.</p>
<p>No End in Sight</p>
<p>Earlier this month, Marine General James Cartwright, the Vice-Chair of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Army Times that the US can expect continuing war “for as far as the eye can see.”</p>
<p>In the name of this perpetual war against terrorism the US still jails hundreds without trial in Guantanamo, holds hundreds more in prisons on bases and in secret detention world-wide, tries to avoid constitutional trials for anyone accused of terrorism, admits it is trying to assassinate an American citizen Muslim cleric in Yemen, and launches deadly drone strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen killing civilians and suspects whenever we decide.</p>
<p>Who benefits from permanent war?</p>
<p>One support for permanent war is that there are corporations in the US which openly lobby for more and more money to be invested in war.&#160; Why?&#160; Because they profit enormously from government contracts.</p>
<p>President Dwight Eisenhower, who believed in a strong military, warned the US about just this in his farewell address to the nation in 1961.</p>
<p>“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”</p>
<p>War is Big Business</p>
<p>War is very big business.&#160; People know that private companies are doing much more in war.&#160; In January 2010, the Congressional Research Service reported that there are at least 55,000 private armed security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and maybe many more – as many as 70,000 in Afghanistan alone.</p>
<p>But much bigger money is available to defense contractors.&#160; In 2008 alone, the top ten defense contractors received nearly $150 billion in federal contracts. These corporations spent millions to lobby for billions more in federal funds and hired ex-military leaders and ex-officials to help them profit off war.</p>
<p>For example, look at the top three defense contractors, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman.&#160; They demonstrate why perpetual war is profitable and part of the reason it continues.</p>
<p>Lockheed Martin</p>
<p>Lockheed Martin is the largest military contractor in the world with 140,000 employees, taking in over $40 billion annually, over $35 billion of which comes from the US government.&#160; Lockheed Martin boasts that they have increased their dividend payments by more than 10 percent for the seventh consecutive year – perfectly in line with the increase in war spending by the US.&#160; Its chairman, Robert Stevens, received over $72 million in compensation over the past three years.</p>
<p>Lockheed’s board of directors includes a former Under Secretary of Defense, a former US Air Force Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, a former Deputy Director of Homeland Security, and a former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe.&#160; These board members receive over $200,000 a year in compensation.&#160; Its political action committee gave over a million dollars a year to federal candidates in 2009, and is consistently one of the top spending PACs in the US.&#160; They appeal to all members of Congress because they strategically have operations in all fifty states.&#160; And, since 1998, Lockheed has spent over $125 million to lobby Congress.</p>
<p>Northrop Grumman</p>
<p>Northrop Grumman is a $33 billion company with 120,000 employees.&#160; In 2008, it received nearly $25 billion in federal contracts.&#160; Its chairman, Ronald Sugar, received over $54 million in compensation over the past three years.</p>
<p>Northrop’s Board includes a former Admiral of the Navy, a former 20 year member of Congress, a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former commissioner of the Security and Exchange Commission and a former U.S. Naval officer.&#160; The members of its board of directors received over $200,000 each in 2009.&#160; Its Pac is listed as making over $700,000 in federal campaign donations in 2009.&#160; Since 1998, it has spent over $147 million lobbying Congress.</p>
<p>Boeing</p>
<p>Boeing has 150,000 employees and took in over $23 billion in federal contracts in 2008.&#160; With revenues of $68 billion in 2009, its chair, James McNerney, was paid over $51 million over the past three years.&#160; Its board members are paid well over $200,000 a year.&#160; Boeing’s directors include a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, a former White House chief of staff, a former vice chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a former U.S. Ambassador and U.S. Trade Representative.&#160; It hosts the 10th largest political action committee, giving away more than one million dollars to federal candidates in 2009.&#160; Since 1998, it has spent $125 million lobbying Congress.</p>
<p>Time to Terminate the Permanent War</p>
<p>These corporations take billions from the government and profit from our perpetual state of war.&#160; They recycle some of that money back into lobbying the same people who gave it to them, and hire ex-military and government officials to help smooth the process.&#160; Their leaders make tens of millions off this work.</p>
<p>The trillions of dollars that it costs to wage permanent war are taxing the US economy.&#160; Yet where are the voices in Congress, Democrat or Republican, that talk seriously of dramatically reducing our military spending?&#160; President Obama and the Democrats are effectively continuing the permanent war policies of the Bush years.&#160; It is past time for change.</p>
<p>Remember this Memorial Day that, while thousands have been laid in their graves and hundreds of thousands wounded, private military contractors are prospering and profiting as the business of war booms.</p>
<p>The US should not only remember its dead but work to reverse the profitable permanent war that promises to add more names to the dead and disabled in this country and around the world.</p>
<p>BILL QUIGLEY is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. &#160;His email is <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
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<p /> | true | 4 | us law officially proclaims memorial day day prayer permanent peace however us much closer permanent war permanent peace160 corporations profiting wars lobbying politicians more160 us rest world afford rising personal financial costs permanent war doubt usa number one war160 coming year us spend 708 billion dollars war another 125 billion veterans affairs 830 billion160 distant second place china spent 84 billion military 2008 us also leads world sale lethal weapons others selling one every three weapons worldwide160 usas major clients160 south korea israel united arab emirates country 5 percent worlds population accounts 40 military spending whole world harm nation respect soldiers engaging permanent war160 war grinding children160 wars afghanistan iraq cost 5000 us lives tens thousands lives people countries160 20 military served two wars 320000 people warrelated traumatic brain injuries160 suicide rates 26 percent among 18 29 year old male veterans latest veterans administration study160 mental health hospitalizations leading cause hospital admissions military higher injuries160 given night 100000 veterans homeless living nations streets rising costs war since 2001 us spent 6 trillion trillion million millions war preparations war160 20000 every woman man child us160 iraq afghanistan alone cost us taxpayer trillion dollars since 2001 end sight earlier month marine general james cartwright vicechair military joint chiefs staff told army times us expect continuing war far eye see name perpetual war terrorism us still jails hundreds without trial guantanamo holds hundreds prisons bases secret detention worldwide tries avoid constitutional trials anyone accused terrorism admits trying assassinate american citizen muslim cleric yemen launches deadly drone strikes iraq afghanistan pakistan yemen killing civilians suspects whenever decide benefits permanent war one support permanent war corporations us openly lobby money invested war160 why160 profit enormously government contracts president dwight eisenhower believed strong military warned us farewell address nation 1961 councils government must guard acquisition unwarranted influence whether sought unsought militaryindustrial complex potential disastrous rise misplaced power exists persist must never let weight combination endanger liberties democratic processes war big business war big business160 people know private companies much war160 january 2010 congressional research service reported least 55000 private armed security contractors iraq afghanistan maybe many many 70000 afghanistan alone much bigger money available defense contractors160 2008 alone top ten defense contractors received nearly 150 billion federal contracts corporations spent millions lobby billions federal funds hired exmilitary leaders exofficials help profit war example look top three defense contractors lockheed martin boeing northrop grumman160 demonstrate perpetual war profitable part reason continues lockheed martin lockheed martin largest military contractor world 140000 employees taking 40 billion annually 35 billion comes us government160 lockheed martin boasts increased dividend payments 10 percent seventh consecutive year perfectly line increase war spending us160 chairman robert stevens received 72 million compensation past three years lockheeds board directors includes former secretary defense former us air force commander us strategic command former deputy director homeland security former supreme allied commander europe160 board members receive 200000 year compensation160 political action committee gave million dollars year federal candidates 2009 consistently one top spending pacs us160 appeal members congress strategically operations fifty states160 since 1998 lockheed spent 125 million lobby congress northrop grumman northrop grumman 33 billion company 120000 employees160 2008 received nearly 25 billion federal contracts160 chairman ronald sugar received 54 million compensation past three years northrops board includes former admiral navy former 20 year member congress former chair joint chiefs staff former commissioner security exchange commission former us naval officer160 members board directors received 200000 2009160 pac listed making 700000 federal campaign donations 2009160 since 1998 spent 147 million lobbying congress boeing boeing 150000 employees took 23 billion federal contracts 2008160 revenues 68 billion 2009 chair james mcnerney paid 51 million past three years160 board members paid well 200000 year160 boeings directors include former us secretary commerce former white house chief staff former vice chair us joint chiefs staff former us ambassador us trade representative160 hosts 10th largest political action committee giving away one million dollars federal candidates 2009160 since 1998 spent 125 million lobbying congress time terminate permanent war corporations take billions government profit perpetual state war160 recycle money back lobbying people gave hire exmilitary government officials help smooth process160 leaders make tens millions work trillions dollars costs wage permanent war taxing us economy160 yet voices congress democrat republican talk seriously dramatically reducing military spending160 president obama democrats effectively continuing permanent war policies bush years160 past time change remember memorial day thousands laid graves hundreds thousands wounded private military contractors prospering profiting business war booms us remember dead work reverse profitable permanent war promises add names dead disabled country around world bill quigley legal director center constitutional rights law professor loyola university new orleans 160his email quigley77gmailcom words stick 160 | 774 |
<p>By Sandy Tolan / <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176199/tomgram%3A_sandy_tolan%2C_the_death_of_the_two-state_solution/#more" type="external">TomDispatch</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/volvob12b/" type="external">Bernard Spragg. NZ</a> / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/" type="external">public domain</a></p>
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<p>Washington has finally thrown in the towel on its long, tortured efforts to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians. You won’t find any acknowledgement of this in the official record. Formally, the U.S. still supports a two-state solution to the conflict. But the Obama administration’s recent 10-year, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/world/middleeast/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-military-aid.html" type="external">$38-billion</a> pledge to renew Israel’s arsenal of weaponry, while still ostensibly pursuing “peace,” makes clear just how bankrupt that policy is.</p>
<p />
<p>For two decades, Israeli leaders and their neoconservative backers in this country, hell-bent on building and expanding settlements on Palestinian land, have worked to undermine America’s stated efforts — and paid no price. Now, with that <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/us-agrees-record-38-billion-military-aid-deal-israel-498216" type="external">record</a> weapons package, the U.S. has made it all too clear that they won’t have to. Ever.</p>
<p>The military alliance between the United States and Israel has long been at odds with the stated intentions of successive administrations in Washington to foster peace in the Holy Land. One White House after another has preferred the “solution” of having it both ways: supporting a two-state solution while richly rewarding, with lethal weaponry, an incorrigible client state that was working as fast as it could to undermine just such a solution.&#160;</p>
<p>This ongoing duality seemed at its most surreal in the last few weeks.&#160; First, President Obama announced the new military deal, with its promised delivery of fighter jets and other hardware, citing the “ <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/14/statement-president-memorandum-understanding-reached-israel" type="external">unshakable</a>” American military alliance with Israel.&#160; The following week, at the United Nations, he declared, “Israel must recognize that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.” Next, he flew to Israel for the funeral of Shimon Peres, and in a tribute to the Nobel Prize-winning former Israeli president, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/30/shimon-peres-funeral-unprecedented-security-as-world-leaders-gather-for-ceremony" type="external">spoke of</a> a man who grasped that “the Jewish people weren’t born to rule another people” and brought up the “unfinished business” of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. (Peres is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/opinion/shimon-peres-the-peacemaker-who-wasnt.html?_r=0" type="external">remembered</a> quite differently by Palestinians as an <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/218501" type="external">early pioneer</a> of settlement building and the author of the brutal <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/isrleb/Isrleb.htm" type="external">Operation Grapes of Wrath</a> assaults on Lebanon in 1996.) Not long after the funeral, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brazenly approved a new settlement deep in the West Bank, prompting the State Department to “ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/world/middleeast/obama-israel-west-bank-settlements.html" type="external">strongly condemn</a>” the action as “deeply troubling.”&#160;</p>
<p>Such scolding words, however, shrivel into nothingness in the face of a single number: 38 billion.&#160; With its latest promise of military aid, the United States has essentially sanctioned Israel’s impunity, its endless colonization of Palestinian land, its military occupation of the West Bank, and its periodic attacks by F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters using Hellfire missiles on the civilians of Gaza.&#160;</p>
<p>Yes, Hamas’s crude and occasionally deadly <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/09/hamass-new-rocket-is-inaccurate-its-also-a-serious-upgrade/" type="external">rockets</a> sometimes help provoke Israeli fire, and human rights investigations have found that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/" type="external">both sides</a> have committed war crimes.&#160; But <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/26/israel-bombing-stunsusofficers.html" type="external">Israel’s explosive power</a> in the 2014 Gaza war, fueled in large part by American military aid and political support, exceeded that of Hamas by an estimated 1,500-to-1.&#160; By one estimate, all of Hamas’s rockets, measured in explosive power, were <a href="http://www.palestine-studies.org/jps/fulltext/186668" type="external">equal to</a> 12 of the one-ton bombs Israel dropped on Gaza.&#160; And it loosed hundreds of those, and fired tens of thousands of shells, rockets and mortars.&#160; In the process, nearly <a href="http://gaza.ochaopt.org/2015/06/key-figures-on-the-2014-hostilities/" type="external">250 times</a> more Palestinian civilians died than civilians in Israel.</p>
<p>Now, with Gaza severed from the West Bank, and Palestinians facing new waves of settlers amid a half-century-long military occupation, the U.S. has chosen not to apply pressure to its out-of-control ally, but instead to resupply its armed forces in a massive way.&#160; This means that we’ve finally arrived at something of a historic (if hardly noticed) moment.&#160; After all these decades, the two-state solution, <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175989/tomgram%3A_sandy_tolan,_the_one-state_conundrum/" type="external">critically flawed as it was</a>, should now officially be declared dead — and consider the United States an accomplice in its murder. &#160;In other words, the Obama administration has handed Israel’s leaders and the neoconservatives who have long championed this path the victory they’ve sought for more than two decades.&#160;</p>
<p>The Chaos Kids</p>
<p>Twenty years ago, the pro-Israel hard right in America designed the core strategy that helped lead to this American capitulation.&#160; In 1996, a task force led by neocons Richard Perle (future chairman of the <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/12/neocons200612" type="external">Defense Policy Board</a>), David Wurmser (future <a href="http://www.hudson.org/experts/1098-david-wurmser" type="external">senior Middle East adviser</a> to Vice President Dick Cheney), Douglas Feith (future <a href="http://www.dougfeith.com/" type="external">undersecretary of defense</a>), and others issued a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140125123844/http:/www.iasps.org/strat1.htm" type="external">policy paper</a> aimed at incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” advocated that Israel walk away from its embrace of the Oslo peace process and Oslo’s focus on territorial concessions. &#160;The paper’s essential ingredients included weakening Israel’s neighbors via regime change in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and “roll back” in Syria and Iran. The authors’ recommendations turned out to be anything but a wish list, given that a number of them would soon hold <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2003-11-01/remaking-world-bush-and-neoconservatives" type="external">influential positions</a> in the administration of George W. Bush.</p>
<p>As journalist Jim Lobe <a href="https://lobelog.com/from-generation-to-generation/" type="external">wrote</a> in 2007:</p>
<p>“[T]he task force, which was chaired by Perle, argued that regime change in Iraq — of which Feith was among the most ardent advocates within the Pentagon — would enable Israel and the U.S. to decisively shift the balance of power in the region so that Israel could make a ‘clean break’ from the Oslo process (or any framework that would require it to give up ‘land for peace’) and, in so doing, ‘secure the realm’ against Palestinian territorial claims.”</p>
<p>In other words, as early as 1996, these neocons were already imagining what would become the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003.&#160; You could argue, of course, that neither the neocons nor Netanyahu could have foreseen the chaos that would follow, with Iraq nearly cracking open and Syria essentially collapsing into horrific civil war and violence, civilians stranded under relentless bombing, and the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/20/world/unhcr-displaced-peoples-report/" type="external">biggest refugee crisis</a> since World War II gripping Europe and the world.&#160; But you would, at least in some sense, be wrong, for certain of the neocon advocates of regime change imagined chaos as an essential part of the process from early on. &#160;</p>
<p>“One can only hope that we turn the region into a caldron, and faster, please,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pSQJLqms8CcC&amp;pg=PA231&amp;lpg=PA231&amp;dq=One+can+only+hope+that+we+turn+the+region+into+a+caldron,+and+faster,+please&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=P6_npNSDd2&amp;sig=jco1DbMFBg_KzxNa3dbya2s5nbw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjb9pmcu8vPAhVJ7GMKHdVh" type="external">wrote</a> Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute in the National Review during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq.&#160; (In 1985, as a consultant to the National Security Council and to Oliver North, Ledeen had helped broker the illegal arms-for-hostages deal with Iran by setting up meetings between weapons dealers and Israel.) “The war won’t end in Baghdad,” Ledeen later <a href="http://www.dailyalert.org/rss/Mainissues.php?id=48089" type="external">wrote</a>, in the Wall Street Journal.&#160; “We must also topple terror states in Tehran and Damascus.”&#160;&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>The neocons got so much more than they bargained for in Iraq, and so much less than they wanted in Syria and Iran.&#160; Their recent attempts — with Netanyahu as their chief spokesman — to block the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal, for example, went down in flames.&#160; Still, it’s stunning to think just how much their strategy of regime change and chaos helped transform our world and the Greater Middle East for the worse, and to be reminded that its ultimate goal, at least in those early days, was in large part to keep Israel from having to pursue a peace deal with the Palestinians.&#160; Of course, there were other benefits the neocons imagined back then as part of their historic attempt to <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2002/dec/01/opinion/op-tolan1" type="external">redraw</a> the map of the Middle East. Controlling some of the vast oil reserves of that region was one of them, but of course that didn’t exactly turn out to be a “mission accomplished” moment either. Only the Israeli part of the plan seemed to succeed as once imagined.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608198138/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external" />So here we are 20 years later. &#160;All around the Holy Land, states are collapsing or at least their foundations are crumbling, and Israel’s actions make clear that it isn’t about to help improve the situation in any way. It visibly intends to pursue a policy of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/opinion/ali-jarbawi-israels-colonialism-must-end.html" type="external">colonization</a>, permanent human rights <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37511-a-continuous-war-mentality-richard-falk-on-israel-s-human-rights-abuses" type="external">violations</a>, and absolute rule over the Palestinians. These are facts on the ground that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Netanyahu, the Israeli right wing, and those American neocon visionaries fought so hard to establish. A succession of leaders in Washington — at least those who weren’t designing this policy themselves — have been played for fools.</p>
<p>In the two-plus decades since the 1993 <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo" type="external">Oslo Agreement</a>, which some believed would put Israel and the Palestinians on the path to peace, and that “Clean Break” document which was written to undermine it, the West Bank settler population has grown from 109,000 to nearly <a href="http://europe.newsweek.com/study-15-west-bank-settlers-are-american-nationals-332168?rx=us" type="external">400,000</a> (an estimated 15% of whom are American).&#160; The would-be capital of a Palestinian state, East Jerusalem, is now surrounded by <a href="https://chronicle.fanack.com/specials/palestinian-israeli-conflict/jewish-settlements/settlements-in-east-jerusalem/" type="external">17 Jewish settlements</a>.&#160; Palestinians nominally control a mere <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank_Areas_in_the_Oslo_II_Accord" type="external">18%</a> of the West Bank (also known as <a href="http://archive.peacenow.org/map.php" type="external">Area A</a>), or 4% of the entire land base of Israel/Palestine.</p>
<p>The Palestinians’ would-be homeland is now <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=http://www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/West_Bank_Access_Restrictions__September_2014.pdf&amp;chrome=true" type="external">checkered</a> with military bases, <a href="http://archive.peacenow.org/map.php" type="external">settlements</a>, settler-only roads, and hundreds of checkpoints and barriers — all in a West Bank the size of Delaware, our second-smallest state. An estimated <a href="http://www.addameer.org/advocacy/briefings_papers/general-briefing-palestinian-political-prisoners-israeli-prisons" type="external">40%</a> of adult male Palestinians, and thousands of children, have seen the insides of Israeli jails and prisons; many of them languish there <a href="http://www.btselem.org/topic/administrative_detention" type="external">without charges</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>Israel has, in essence, created a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/07/israel-and-palestine-not-so-separate-deeply-unequal.html" type="external">Jim Crow-like</a> separate and unequal reality there: a one-state “solution” that it alone controls. &#160;The United States has done almost <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20160804-us-grilled-for-inaction-over-israeli-illegal-settlement/" type="external">nothing</a> about this (other than carefully couched, <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/236814.pdf" type="external">periodic</a> State Department words of complaint), while its ally marched forward unchecked.&#160; Not since James Baker was secretary of state under the first President Bush before — notably enough — the signing of the Oslo accords has any U.S. leader <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-25/news/mn-2625_1_loan-guarantees" type="external">threatened</a>to withhold funds unless Israel stops building settlements on Palestinian land.&#160; The phrase “friends don’t let friends drive drunk” no longer applies in U.S.-Israeli relations.&#160; Rather, what we hear are regular pledges of “absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel’s security.” Those were, in fact, the words of Vice President Joe Biden during a 2010 visit to Israel — a pledge offered, as it turned out, only a few hours before the Netanyahu government announced the construction of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/world/middleeast/10biden.html" type="external">1,600 new apartments</a> in East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>“Unvarnished commitment” in 2016 means that $38 billion for what Obama called “the world’s most advanced weapons technology.”&#160; That includes 33 of <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/30/obamas-gift-to-israel-and-lockheed/" type="external">Lockheed</a>’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, <a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/09/15/F-35-Gets-Big-Win-Israel-Scores-38-Billion-US-Military-Aid" type="external">at $200 million per jet</a>, part of a <a href="http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/03/20130306-air-forces-f-35a-not-ready-for-combat.html" type="external">troubled</a> <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/384088/the-pentagons-15-trillion-mistake/" type="external">$1.5 trillion</a> weapons system subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. Other deadly hardware headed for Israel: cargo planes, F-15 fighter jets, <a href="http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/72457/idf-tank-technology-takes-giant-leap-forward-new-merkava-mk-4/#4d37O5POum8zGSmU.97" type="external">battle tanks</a>, armored personnel carriers, a new class of warships whose guided missiles would undoubtedly be aimed <a href="http://www.janes.com/article/58939/israeli-navy-to-roll-out-new-c2-system-across-fleet" type="external">directly at Gaza</a>, and more of Lockheed’s Hellfire missiles.&#160; If <a href="http://www.amnesty.ca/sites/amnesty/files/usaisraelarmsexports31july14.pdf" type="external">recent history</a> is any indication, you would need to add fresh supplies of bombs, grenades, torpedoes, rocket launchers, mortars, howitzers, machine guns, shotguns, pistols, and bayonets.&#160; As part of the agreement, <a href="https://www.afsc.org/resource/us-corporations-complicit-military-attacks-gaza" type="external">U.S. arms manufacturers</a> will soon supply 100% of that weaponry, while Israeli weapons manufacturers will be phased out of U.S. military aid.&#160; “It’s a win-win for Israeli security and the U.S. economy,”&#160;a White House aide <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.742074" type="external">cheerily told</a> the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.</p>
<p>The Clinton (Trump) White House and Israel</p>
<p>Current policy, if that’s the right word, could perhaps be summed up as weapons, weapons, and more weapons, while Washington otherwise washed its hands of what was always known as “the peace process” (despite that fig leaf still in place).&#160; Today, functionally, there’s no such process left.&#160; And that’s unlikely to change under either a President Clinton or a President Trump.&#160; If anything, it may get worse.</p>
<p>During the Democratic primary campaign, for instance, Hillary Clinton promised to invite Netanyahu to the White House “during my first month in office” in order to “reaffirm” Washington’s “unbreakable bond with Israel.”&#160; In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which <a href="http://www.aipac.org/" type="external">labels itself</a> “America’s pro-Israel lobby,” she was virtually silent on the Israeli settlement issue, except to promise to protect Israel against its own&#160; <a href="http://www.afsc.org/resource/israel%E2%80%99s-settlement-policy-occupied-palestinian-territory" type="external">violations of international law</a>.&#160; She <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/21/clinton-bashes-trumps-neutral-stance-on-israel-in-speech-to-lobbyists/" type="external">attacked Trump</a>&#160;from the right, denouncing his once-expressed wish to remain “neutral” on the issue of Israel and Palestine.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, as first lady, Clinton had stirred controversy by uttering the word “Palestine” and <a href="http://www.jpost.com/International/As-first-lady-Hillary-was-a-prized-Jewish-keynoter-until-she-kissed-Suha-Arafat-398658" type="external">kissing</a> Yasser Arafat’s widow, Suha, on the cheek.&#160; Now she fully embraces those who believe Israel can do no wrong, including Hollywood mogul <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/05/10/the-influencer" type="external">Haim Saban</a>, who has donated at least <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/haim-saban-hillary-clinton-millions-donated-campaign/" type="external">$6.4 million</a> to her campaign, and millions more to the Clinton Foundation and the Democratic National Committee.&#160; Saban, an Israeli-American whose billions came largely from the <a href="http://www.sabanbrands.com/entertainment/franchise" type="external">Mighty Morphin</a> Power Rangers franchise, describes himself as “a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.”</p>
<p>Last year, he convened a “secret” Las Vegas meeting with fellow billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the bankroller of a panoply of Republican candidates and a huge supporter of Israel’s settlement project. Their aim:&#160; <a href="http://forward.com/news/israel/309676/secret-sheldon-adelson-summit-raises-up-to-50m-for-strident-anti-bds-push/" type="external">to shut down</a>, if not <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/aipacs-anti-bds-campaign_b_9505552.html" type="external">criminalize</a>, the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/" type="external">BDS</a>.&#160; That boycott movement targets cultural institutions and businesses including those that <a href="http://www.mintpressnews.com/73-million-tiaa-cref-caterpillar-divestment-major-bds-victory/31096/" type="external">profit</a> from the occupation of the West Bank.&#160; Its approach is akin to the movement to impose sanctions on South Africa during the apartheid era.</p>
<p>With Saban’s millions destined for her campaign war chest, Clinton wrote <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2158218-hillary-clintons-letter-to-haim-saban-against-bds.html" type="external">to her benefactor</a> to express her “alarm” over BDS, “seeking your thoughts and recommendations” to “work together to counter BDS.”&#160; Yet it’s a nonviolent movement that aims to confront Israel’s human rights abuses through direct economic and political pressure, not guns or terror attacks.&#160; Would Clinton prefer suicide bombers and rockets? &#160;Never mind that the relatively modest movement has been endorsed by an assortment of international&#160; <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/12552--britains-biggest-trade-union-slams-israeli-apartheid-commits-to-bds-campaigning" type="external">trade unions</a>,&#160; <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/23/middle-east-studies-scholars-discuss-academic-boycott-israel" type="external">scholarly associations</a>, <a href="http://www.ucc.org/news_general_synod_israel_palestine_resolution_06302015" type="external">church groups</a>,&#160;the <a href="https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/boycott-divestment-and-sanctions/jvp-supports-the-bds-movement/" type="external">Jewish Voice for Peace</a>, and Nobel Peace Prize winner <a href="http://www.peaceandjustice.org/statement-from-archbishop-desmond-tutu-on-us-anti-bds-legislation/" type="external">Desmond Tutu</a>. &#160;At the root of BDS, Clinton has hinted darkly, is anti-Semitism. “At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise across the world,” she wrote Saban, “we need to repudiate forceful efforts to malign and undermine Israel and the Jewish people.”</p>
<p>As for Trump, some Palestinians were encouraged by his <a href="" type="internal">statement</a> to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that he might “be sort of a neutral guy” on the issue.&#160; He <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-donald-trump-interview-20151203-story.html" type="external">told</a> the AP:&#160; “I have a real question as to whether or not both sides want to make it. A lot will have to do with Israel and whether or not Israel wants to make the deal — whether or not Israel’s willing to sacrifice certain things.”&#160; Yet Trump subsequently fell in line with Republican orthodoxy, pledging among other things to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a litmus test for supporters of the hard right in Israel, and a virtual guarantee that East Jerusalem, at the center of the Palestinian dream of statehood, will remain in Israel’s hands.</p>
<p>In the short term, then, the prospect for an American-brokered just peace may be as bleak as it’s ever been — even though U.S. officials know full well that a just solution to the conflict would remove a primary recruiting tool for jihadists.&#160; For the next four to eight years, American leadership will, by all indications, shore up the status quo, which means combining all that weaponry and de facto acquiescence in Israel’s land grabs with, perhaps, the occasional hand-wringing State Department statement.</p>
<p>“With Patience, Change Will Come”</p>
<p>However, like Jim Crow, like South African apartheid, the status quo of this moment simply can’t last forever.&#160; Eventually, the future of the region will not be left to the self-proclaimed “honest brokers” of Washington who lecture Palestinians on the proper forms of nonviolence, while offering no genuine alternatives to surrender. &#160;Given the long history of Palestinian resistance, it is foolhardy to expect such a surrender now and particularly unwise to slander a movement of nonviolent resistance — especially given what we know about the kinds of resistance that are possible.</p>
<p>Whether by peaceful resistance or other means, the status quo will change, in part simply because it must: a structure this twisted cannot stand on its own forever. Already AIPAC’s monumental attempts to scuttle the Iran deal have led to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/09/03/how-aipac-lost-the-iran-deal-fight/" type="external">humiliating defeat</a> and that’s just a taste of what, sooner or later, the future could hold.&#160; After all, <a href="http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/203589/young-americans-moving-away-from-israel-support/" type="external">young Americans</a>, including young Jews, are increasingly opposed to Israel’s domination of Palestinian lands, and increasingly supportive of the boycott movement.&#160; In addition, the balance of power in the region is shifting.&#160; We can’t know how Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran will operate there in the years to come, but amid the ongoing chaos, U.S. influence will undoubtedly diminish over time.&#160; As a member of a prominent Gaza family said to me many years ago: “Does Israel think America will always protect them, always give them arms, and that they will always be the biggest power in the Middle East?&#160; Do they really expect they can maintain this hold on us forever?”</p>
<p>A popular Arab folk ballad, El Helwa Di, promises a penniless child who has placed her life in God’s hands: “With patience, change will come. All will be better.”</p>
<p>Perhaps it will prove useful, in the end, to abandon the illusions of the now-terminal two-state solution, at least as envisioned in the Oslo process.&#160; In the language of those accords, after all, the words “freedom” and “independence” never appear, while “security” is mentioned 12 times.</p>
<p>In a regime of growing confinement, the Israelis have steadily undermined Palestinian sovereignty, aided and abetted by an American acquiescence in Israel’s ongoing settlement project. Now, at least, there is an opportunity to lay the foundations for some newer kind of solution grounded in human rights, freedom of movement, complete cessation of settlement building, and equal access to land, water, and places of worship.&#160; It will have to be based on a new reality, which Israel and the United States have had such a hand in creating.&#160; Think of it as the one-state solution.</p>
<p>Sandy Tolan, a <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175989/tomgram%3A_sandy_tolan,_the_one-state_conundrum/" type="external">TomDispatch regular</a>, is the author of the international bestseller, The Lemon Tree, and of the acclaimed <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1632863413/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Children of the Stone</a> about one Palestinian’s dream to establish music schools under Israel’s military occupation. He has reported from more than 35 countries and is professor at the Annenberg School for Journalism and Communication at USC.&#160; His website is <a href="http://sandytolan.com/#home" type="external">sandytolan.com</a>, his Twitter handle, @sandy_tolan.</p>
<p>Follow TomDispatch on <a href="https://twitter.com/TomDispatch" type="external">Twitter</a> and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse’s&#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608466485/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead</a>, and Tom Engelhardt’s latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 2016 Sandy Tolan</p> | true | 4 | sandy tolan tomdispatch bernard spragg nz public domain washington finally thrown towel long tortured efforts establish peace israel palestinians wont find acknowledgement official record formally us still supports twostate solution conflict obama administrations recent 10year 38billion pledge renew israels arsenal weaponry still ostensibly pursuing peace makes clear bankrupt policy two decades israeli leaders neoconservative backers country hellbent building expanding settlements palestinian land worked undermine americas stated efforts paid price record weapons package us made clear wont ever military alliance united states israel long odds stated intentions successive administrations washington foster peace holy land one white house another preferred solution ways supporting twostate solution richly rewarding lethal weaponry incorrigible client state working fast could undermine solution160 ongoing duality seemed surreal last weeks160 first president obama announced new military deal promised delivery fighter jets hardware citing unshakable american military alliance israel160 following week united nations declared israel must recognize permanently occupy settle palestinian land next flew israel funeral shimon peres tribute nobel prizewinning former israeli president spoke man grasped jewish people werent born rule another people brought unfinished business israelipalestinian peace process peres remembered quite differently palestinians early pioneer settlement building author brutal operation grapes wrath assaults lebanon 1996 long funeral government prime minister benjamin netanyahu brazenly approved new settlement deep west bank prompting state department strongly condemn action deeply troubling160 scolding words however shrivel nothingness face single number 38 billion160 latest promise military aid united states essentially sanctioned israels impunity endless colonization palestinian land military occupation west bank periodic attacks f16 fighter jets apache helicopters using hellfire missiles civilians gaza160 yes hamass crude occasionally deadly rockets sometimes help provoke israeli fire human rights investigations found sides committed war crimes160 israels explosive power 2014 gaza war fueled large part american military aid political support exceeded hamas estimated 1500to1160 one estimate hamass rockets measured explosive power equal 12 oneton bombs israel dropped gaza160 loosed hundreds fired tens thousands shells rockets mortars160 process nearly 250 times palestinian civilians died civilians israel gaza severed west bank palestinians facing new waves settlers amid halfcenturylong military occupation us chosen apply pressure outofcontrol ally instead resupply armed forces massive way160 means weve finally arrived something historic hardly noticed moment160 decades twostate solution critically flawed officially declared dead consider united states accomplice murder 160in words obama administration handed israels leaders neoconservatives long championed path victory theyve sought two decades160 chaos kids twenty years ago proisrael hard right america designed core strategy helped lead american capitulation160 1996 task force led neocons richard perle future chairman defense policy board david wurmser future senior middle east adviser vice president dick cheney douglas feith future undersecretary defense others issued policy paper aimed incoming israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu clean break new strategy securing realm advocated israel walk away embrace oslo peace process oslos focus territorial concessions 160the papers essential ingredients included weakening israels neighbors via regime change saddam husseins iraq roll back syria iran authors recommendations turned anything wish list given number would soon hold influential positions administration george w bush journalist jim lobe wrote 2007 task force chaired perle argued regime change iraq feith among ardent advocates within pentagon would enable israel us decisively shift balance power region israel could make clean break oslo process framework would require give land peace secure realm palestinian territorial claims words early 1996 neocons already imagining would become disastrous invasion iraq 2003160 could argue course neither neocons netanyahu could foreseen chaos would follow iraq nearly cracking open syria essentially collapsing horrific civil war violence civilians stranded relentless bombing biggest refugee crisis since world war ii gripping europe world160 would least sense wrong certain neocon advocates regime change imagined chaos essential part process early 160 one hope turn region caldron faster please wrote michael ledeen american enterprise institute national review buildup invasion iraq160 1985 consultant national security council oliver north ledeen helped broker illegal armsforhostages deal iran setting meetings weapons dealers israel war wont end baghdad ledeen later wrote wall street journal160 must also topple terror states tehran damascus160160160 neocons got much bargained iraq much less wanted syria iran160 recent attempts netanyahu chief spokesman block obama administrations iran nuclear deal example went flames160 still stunning think much strategy regime change chaos helped transform world greater middle east worse reminded ultimate goal least early days large part keep israel pursue peace deal palestinians160 course benefits neocons imagined back part historic attempt redraw map middle east controlling vast oil reserves region one course didnt exactly turn mission accomplished moment either israeli part plan seemed succeed imagined 20 years later 160all around holy land states collapsing least foundations crumbling israels actions make clear isnt help improve situation way visibly intends pursue policy colonization permanent human rights violations absolute rule palestinians facts ground former prime minister ariel sharon netanyahu israeli right wing american neocon visionaries fought hard establish succession leaders washington least werent designing policy played fools twoplus decades since 1993 oslo agreement believed would put israel palestinians path peace clean break document written undermine west bank settler population grown 109000 nearly 400000 estimated 15 american160 wouldbe capital palestinian state east jerusalem surrounded 17 jewish settlements160 palestinians nominally control mere 18 west bank also known area 4 entire land base israelpalestine palestinians wouldbe homeland checkered military bases settlements settleronly roads hundreds checkpoints barriers west bank size delaware secondsmallest state estimated 40 adult male palestinians thousands children seen insides israeli jails prisons many languish without charges160 israel essence created jim crowlike separate unequal reality onestate solution alone controls 160the united states done almost nothing carefully couched periodic state department words complaint ally marched forward unchecked160 since james baker secretary state first president bush notably enough signing oslo accords us leader threatenedto withhold funds unless israel stops building settlements palestinian land160 phrase friends dont let friends drive drunk longer applies usisraeli relations160 rather hear regular pledges absolute total unvarnished commitment israels security fact words vice president joe biden 2010 visit israel pledge offered turned hours netanyahu government announced construction 1600 new apartments east jerusalem unvarnished commitment 2016 means 38 billion obama called worlds advanced weapons technology160 includes 33 lockheeds f35 joint strike fighter jets 200 million per jet part troubled 15 trillion weapons system subsidized us taxpayers deadly hardware headed israel cargo planes f15 fighter jets battle tanks armored personnel carriers new class warships whose guided missiles would undoubtedly aimed directly gaza lockheeds hellfire missiles160 recent history indication would need add fresh supplies bombs grenades torpedoes rocket launchers mortars howitzers machine guns shotguns pistols bayonets160 part agreement us arms manufacturers soon supply 100 weaponry israeli weapons manufacturers phased us military aid160 winwin israeli security us economy160a white house aide cheerily told israeli newspaper haaretz clinton trump white house israel current policy thats right word could perhaps summed weapons weapons weapons washington otherwise washed hands always known peace process despite fig leaf still place160 today functionally theres process left160 thats unlikely change either president clinton president trump160 anything may get worse democratic primary campaign instance hillary clinton promised invite netanyahu white house first month office order reaffirm washingtons unbreakable bond israel160 speech american israel public affairs committee aipac labels americas proisrael lobby virtually silent israeli settlement issue except promise protect israel own160 violations international law160 attacked trump160from right denouncing onceexpressed wish remain neutral issue israel palestine 1990s first lady clinton stirred controversy uttering word palestine kissing yasser arafats widow suha cheek160 fully embraces believe israel wrong including hollywood mogul haim saban donated least 64 million campaign millions clinton foundation democratic national committee160 saban israeliamerican whose billions came largely mighty morphin power rangers franchise describes oneissue guy issue israel last year convened secret las vegas meeting fellow billionaire sheldon adelson bankroller panoply republican candidates huge supporter israels settlement project aim160 shut criminalize propalestinian boycott divestment sanctions movement bds160 boycott movement targets cultural institutions businesses including profit occupation west bank160 approach akin movement impose sanctions south africa apartheid era sabans millions destined campaign war chest clinton wrote benefactor express alarm bds seeking thoughts recommendations work together counter bds160 yet nonviolent movement aims confront israels human rights abuses direct economic political pressure guns terror attacks160 would clinton prefer suicide bombers rockets 160never mind relatively modest movement endorsed assortment international160 trade unions160 scholarly associations church groups160the jewish voice peace nobel peace prize winner desmond tutu 160at root bds clinton hinted darkly antisemitism time antisemitism rise across world wrote saban need repudiate forceful efforts malign undermine israel jewish people trump palestinians encouraged statement msnbcs joe scarborough might sort neutral guy issue160 told ap160 real question whether sides want make lot israel whether israel wants make deal whether israels willing sacrifice certain things160 yet trump subsequently fell line republican orthodoxy pledging among things move us embassy jerusalem litmus test supporters hard right israel virtual guarantee east jerusalem center palestinian dream statehood remain israels hands short term prospect americanbrokered peace may bleak ever even though us officials know full well solution conflict would remove primary recruiting tool jihadists160 next four eight years american leadership indications shore status quo means combining weaponry de facto acquiescence israels land grabs perhaps occasional handwringing state department statement patience change come however like jim crow like south african apartheid status quo moment simply cant last forever160 eventually future region left selfproclaimed honest brokers washington lecture palestinians proper forms nonviolence offering genuine alternatives surrender 160given long history palestinian resistance foolhardy expect surrender particularly unwise slander movement nonviolent resistance especially given know kinds resistance possible whether peaceful resistance means status quo change part simply must structure twisted stand forever already aipacs monumental attempts scuttle iran deal led humiliating defeat thats taste sooner later future could hold160 young americans including young jews increasingly opposed israels domination palestinian lands increasingly supportive boycott movement160 addition balance power region shifting160 cant know russia china turkey iran operate years come amid ongoing chaos us influence undoubtedly diminish time160 member prominent gaza family said many years ago israel think america always protect always give arms always biggest power middle east160 really expect maintain hold us forever popular arab folk ballad el helwa di promises penniless child placed life gods hands patience change come better perhaps prove useful end abandon illusions nowterminal twostate solution least envisioned oslo process160 language accords words freedom independence never appear security mentioned 12 times regime growing confinement israelis steadily undermined palestinian sovereignty aided abetted american acquiescence israels ongoing settlement project least opportunity lay foundations newer kind solution grounded human rights freedom movement complete cessation settlement building equal access land water places worship160 based new reality israel united states hand creating160 think onestate solution sandy tolan tomdispatch regular author international bestseller lemon tree acclaimed children stone one palestinians dream establish music schools israels military occupation reported 35 countries professor annenberg school journalism communication usc160 website sandytolancom twitter handle sandy_tolan follow tomdispatch twitter join us facebook check newest dispatch book nick turses160 next time theyll come count dead tom engelhardts latest book shadow government surveillance secret wars global security state singlesuperpower world copyright 2016 sandy tolan | 1,814 |
<p>Screenshot: CBC News</p>
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<p><a href="#update5" type="external">Click here for the latest updates.</a></p>
<p>Downtown Ottawa is under lockdown as police investigate reports of shootings in two locations: the National War Memorial and Parliament Hill. Police have <a href="http://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/news/index.aspx?newsId=afcfc348-7311-4f2a-9039-418830ba2eca" type="external">confirmed</a> that, contrary to earlier reports, no shooting incidents occurred at the Rideau Centre shopping mall.&#160; Police have confirmed reports that an unknown gunman shot and killed a <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCAlerts/status/525024066152169473" type="external">soldier</a>, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, standing guard by Canada’s National War Memorial with a rifle, then moved on to Canada’s Parliament Hill and Centre Block and opened fire, resulting in the ongoing lockdown at Canada’s Parliament building. A shooter <a href="http://live.cbc.ca/Event/Ottawa_War_Memorial_shooting/130698511" type="external">wounded</a> a security guard near Parliament Hill before he was shot, according to the CBC. Canadian Parliament member <a href="https://twitter.com/TonyclementCPC" type="external">Tony Clement</a> tweeted that at least 30 shots were fired just <a href="http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2014-10-22/article-3912373/Shooting-at-Parliament-Hill-in-Ottawa/1" type="external">before 10 a.m.</a> during a caucus meeting where most MPs were located; Clement and two colleagues, Mark Strahl and Kyle Seeback, remained inside the building under lockdown. The prime minister, Stephen Harper, was <a href="http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2014-10-22/article-3912373/Shooting-at-Parliament-Hill-in-Ottawa/1" type="external">rushed</a> out of the building.</p>
<p>Readers should note that <a href="http://www.onthemedia.org/story/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-pdf/" type="external">breaking news stories often contain inaccuracies</a>. Many details of the attack remain unclear, and even initial information from law enforcement sources in this type of situation can be wrong. Check back for updates. (Also see how Canadian TV news coverage <a href="" type="internal">has put American cable news coverage to shame</a>.)</p>
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<p>The Globe and Mail‘s Josh Wingrove captured live footage of the shootings inside the Parliament building:</p>
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<p>Wingrove <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-scene-inside-gunfire-breaks-out-on-a-busy-caucus-day/article21218709/?from=21217602&amp;click=sf_globe#dashboard/follows/" type="external">described</a>the scene in a firsthand account: “Once police were halfway down the hallway, gunfire erupted again—an estimated two dozen shots that ended with a motionless body falling from a doorway just in front of the library. It was unclear who the person was. Guards briefly appeared to check for a pulse before beginning a search of the rest of the building.”</p>
<p>According to reporters on the scene, the atmosphere calmed down around 10:30 a.m., but the Parliament building remained on lockdown and those inside were being told to <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_wingrove/status/524941499633766401" type="external">stay away</a> from the windows. Many fled the building after hearing shots in multiple corridors, some escaping down scaffolding being used for renovations, <a href="http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2014-10-22/article-3912373/Shooting-at-Parliament-Hill-in-Ottawa/1" type="external">according to</a> the Telegram.&#160;A helicopter <a href="https://twitter.com/StuMillsCBC" type="external">arrived</a>on scene just before 11:30 a.m., according to CBC reporter Stu Mills.</p>
<p>The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board <a href="https://twitter.com/OCDSB" type="external">told</a> parents not to come to schools to pick up their children, who were also on lockdown in their classrooms. Some reporters claimed that <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=laura_payton" type="external">cellphone signal</a> is going in and out of service. Police said they suspect that <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/ID/2396780283/" type="external">two other shooters</a> might be on the loose, and police reportedly are going door-to-door <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=cbcjlong" type="external">searching</a> for a suspect. (Reports of additional shooters in these sorts of situations are often <a href="http://www.onthemedia.org/story/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-pdf/" type="external">wrong</a>.)</p>
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<p>CBC News reporter Andrew Davidson <a href="http://live.cbc.ca/Event/Ottawa_War_Memorial_shooting/130694845" type="external">posted</a> this map of the Canadian Parliament and National War Memorial Area at 11:15 a.m.</p>
<p>And CNN posted this map of the area where the attacks have been reported:</p>
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<p>UPDATE 1, Wednesday, Oct 22, 2:28 p.m. EST: Ottawa police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have released this statement:</p>
<p>(Ottawa)—The Ottawa Police Service and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) responded to reports of shooting incidents this morning in the downtown area. Police can now confirm that incidents occurred at the National War Memorial and on Parliament Hill.&#160;</p>
<p>Contrary to earlier reports no incident occurred near the Rideau Centre.</p>
<p>One shooting victim succumbed to injuries. He was a member of the Canadian Forces.&#160; Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his loved ones.</p>
<p>Next of kin notification is underway and as such, the victim’s identification will not be released.&#160;</p>
<p>One male suspect has also been confirmed deceased. There is no further update on injuries at this time.</p>
<p>This is an ongoing joint police operation and there is no one in custody at this time.</p>
<p>Ottawa residents are asked to stay away from the downtown area while the investigation continues.&#160; If you work in one of the downtown buildings, follow the instructions from the building management you are in.</p>
<p>A number of RCMP and Federal government buildings are also closed to the public; as is Ottawa City Hall and all Ottawa Police stations.</p>
<p>UPDATE 2, Wednesday, Oct 22, 2:55 p.m. EST: Ottawa police chief Charles Bordeleau speaks to the public:</p>
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<p>UPDATE 3, Wednesday, Oct 22, 3:46 p.m. EST: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have created a <a href="http://www.services3.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ut/index-en.php" type="external">website</a> for potential witnesses to Wednesday’s shootings to upload photos and videos. Additionally, President Barack Obama spoke with Prime Minister Harper, and the National Security Council tweeted the conversation.</p>
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<p>UPDATE 4, Wednesday, Oct 22, 5:04 p.m. EST: CBC News reports that the soldier killed outside the National War Memorial today was 24 year-old Corporal Nathan Cirillo.</p>
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<p>UPDATE 5, Thursday, Oct 23, 11:20 a.m. EST: Canadian officials have <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/22/world/americas/canada-ottawa-shooting/index.html" type="external">confirmed</a> that the identify of the shooter in yesterday’s incidents was Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Canadian citizen born in 1982. Zehaf-Bibeau was shot and killed at the scene <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29735163" type="external">by</a> Sergeant-at-arms Kevin Vickers. Multiple lines of inquiry are opening up in the United States and Canada into the identity of the gunman, his apparent radicalization, and what intelligence communities in both countries knew about him prior to the attacks. CBC News is <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/michael-zehaf-bibeau-slain-ottawa-shooter-had-criminal-record-in-quebec-b-c-1.2809562" type="external">reporting</a> that Bibeau had a criminal record in Quebec going back 10 years, including charges of drug possession, robbery, and “uttering threats.” CTV News <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ottawa-shootings-profile-of-gunman-michael-joseph-zehaf-bibeau-1.2067255" type="external">reported</a> Wednesday night that “the federal government had recently seized his passport to prevent him from traveling abroad,” according to an anonymous source. CBS News first <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/525013278343581696" type="external">reported</a> Bibeau’s name on Wednesday evening, attributing the information to US officials.</p>
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<p /> | true | 4 | screenshot cbc news click latest updates downtown ottawa lockdown police investigate reports shootings two locations national war memorial parliament hill police confirmed contrary earlier reports shooting incidents occurred rideau centre shopping mall160 police confirmed reports unknown gunman shot killed soldier corporal nathan cirillo standing guard canadas national war memorial rifle moved canadas parliament hill centre block opened fire resulting ongoing lockdown canadas parliament building shooter wounded security guard near parliament hill shot according cbc canadian parliament member tony clement tweeted least 30 shots fired 10 caucus meeting mps located clement two colleagues mark strahl kyle seeback remained inside building lockdown prime minister stephen harper rushed building readers note breaking news stories often contain inaccuracies many details attack remain unclear even initial information law enforcement sources type situation wrong check back updates also see canadian tv news coverage put american cable news coverage shame 160 globe mails josh wingrove captured live footage shootings inside parliament building wingrove describedthe scene firsthand account police halfway hallway gunfire erupted againan estimated two dozen shots ended motionless body falling doorway front library unclear person guards briefly appeared check pulse beginning search rest building according reporters scene atmosphere calmed around 1030 parliament building remained lockdown inside told stay away windows many fled building hearing shots multiple corridors escaping scaffolding used renovations according telegram160a helicopter arrivedon scene 1130 according cbc reporter stu mills ottawacarleton district school board told parents come schools pick children also lockdown classrooms reporters claimed cellphone signal going service police said suspect two shooters might loose police reportedly going doortodoor searching suspect reports additional shooters sorts situations often wrong 160 cbc news reporter andrew davidson posted map canadian parliament national war memorial area 1115 cnn posted map area attacks reported update 1 wednesday oct 22 228 pm est ottawa police royal canadian mounted police released statement ottawathe ottawa police service royal canadian mounted police rcmp responded reports shooting incidents morning downtown area police confirm incidents occurred national war memorial parliament hill160 contrary earlier reports incident occurred near rideau centre one shooting victim succumbed injuries member canadian forces160 thoughts prayers loved ones next kin notification underway victims identification released160 one male suspect also confirmed deceased update injuries time ongoing joint police operation one custody time ottawa residents asked stay away downtown area investigation continues160 work one downtown buildings follow instructions building management number rcmp federal government buildings also closed public ottawa city hall ottawa police stations update 2 wednesday oct 22 255 pm est ottawa police chief charles bordeleau speaks public update 3 wednesday oct 22 346 pm est royal canadian mounted police created website potential witnesses wednesdays shootings upload photos videos additionally president barack obama spoke prime minister harper national security council tweeted conversation update 4 wednesday oct 22 504 pm est cbc news reports soldier killed outside national war memorial today 24 yearold corporal nathan cirillo update 5 thursday oct 23 1120 est canadian officials confirmed identify shooter yesterdays incidents michael zehafbibeau canadian citizen born 1982 zehafbibeau shot killed scene sergeantatarms kevin vickers multiple lines inquiry opening united states canada identity gunman apparent radicalization intelligence communities countries knew prior attacks cbc news reporting bibeau criminal record quebec going back 10 years including charges drug possession robbery uttering threats ctv news reported wednesday night federal government recently seized passport prevent traveling abroad according anonymous source cbs news first reported bibeaus name wednesday evening attributing information us officials 160 | 564 |
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<p><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-303412p1.html?cr=00&amp;pl=edit-00" type="external">Mykhaylo Palinchak</a> / <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/?cr=00&amp;pl=edit-00" type="external">Shutterstock.com</a></p>
<p>What did Washington expect to gain from a successful coup d’état in Ukraine? It gained little enough from the “Orange Revolution” in 2005, that first put Viktor Yuschenko and Yulia Tymoshenko into power in independent Ukraine. Their power produced rivalry, as well as a return of corruption to national government (the Orange Revolution, so-called, was itself inspired by popular protests against corruption in the preceding government of Viktor Yanukovych, causing his ouster). Yanukovych, of course, returned to power in 2010 (with 48 percent of the vote), after which Yulia Tymoshenko was conveniently charged and imprisoned on corruption charges.</p>
<p>Yanukovych has now again been toppled from power by popular protest and violence, after refusing to sign an association agreement with the European Union, choosing instead to agree to Vladimir Putin’s urging (and monetary inducements) to join the Eurasian economic bloc, centered on Russia, which the Russian president is forming as a rival to the EU.</p>
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<p>The Congressionally-funded American NGOs that promoted the Orange Revolution a decade ago, and its counterpart “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, cannot be said to have gained much from their efforts. They got Victor Yanukovych and still another corrupt government back in power in Kiev in 2006, with Yulia Tymoshenko still in jail, and in Georgia they got a three-day war of territorial re-vindication between Georgia and Russia in 2008, when former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili decided to seize from Russia Georgia’s allegedly “lost” land of South Ossetia — and spectacularly lost. Nikolas Sarkozy was president of the European Union at the time, and intervened with Moscow to get a settlement that left the disputed (and Russian-speaking) territory in Russia’s control.</p>
<p>Russia’s President Vladimir Putin insists that what happened in Kiev last week was another foreign-sponsored coup d’état. Whatever his other reasons for saying that, (and plenty of evidence exists concerning the American role in promoting the 2004-2005 Ukrainian “Revolution”), he has confirmation this time from American Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, provided in the course of her telephone conversation with American Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, saying of the revolt in Kiev “Yats is the guy…he’s the guy you know [and he will] need all the help he can get ….” “Yats” is Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the 39-year-old central banker and ex-foreign minister who ended up (surprise!) as the pro-tem prime minister of the Ukrainian government that emerged from last week’s upheaval in Kiev.</p>
<p>So what happens now? Russia has taken possession of the naval base it leases in Crimea, and pro-Russian militia have appeared elsewhere in Crimea, which was an Ottoman possession in the 15th to 18th centuries, the Russia Empire from the 18th to 20th centuries, and was given to Ukraine as a gift by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 as a gift. (First Secretary Khrushchev made his career mainly in Crimea.) The peninsula is mostly Russia in population, with a Muslim Tatar minority. In eastern, Russo-phone Ukraine, militias have also appeared, together with some demands for partition of Ukraine and union of eastern Ukraine with Russia.</p>
<p>John Kerry went to Kiev this week to lay flowers to honor those killed in the revolt. Russia says that it will talk with NATO. Nobody will go to the UN since both Russia and the U.S. possess vetoes. The United States issues stern statements and warnings of economic reprisals, aware that trade sanctions against Russia can provoke Russian sanctions against Western Europe, which gets much of its gas from Russia. This is why Angela Merkel has been the most active European leader in seeking a solution. Moscow says that it will continue to deal with former Prime Minister Yanukovych, as the legitimate leader of Ukraine, temporarily inconvenienced. The U.S. says the present government in Kiev is legitimate as it is appointed by the elected National Assembly. President Obama has not had much to say of any moment. Mr. Putin would seem, to use a Southern American colloquialism, once more to be sitting in the catbird seat.</p>
<p>The possibilities would appear to be war, which all sides recognize would be absurd.</p>
<p>The country could be partitioned, but that would be complex, unpopular and provide grounds for still more ethnic and national disputes in the future.</p>
<p>The country could be divided, with a federation.</p>
<p>However, there is another possibility. In the 1990s the 55-state member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (the OSCE) was created as a result of the Helsinki negotiations, begun in 1975, to deal with détente Europe and emerging post-cold war problems in Europe. The conference was held in Finland, and its meetings, and the Helsinki Final Act subscribed to by its members, contributed yeoman service in that difficult period.</p>
<p>The OSCE still exists, and its mandate is early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. The new government in Kiev has already asked the OSCE to send observers to document Russian military activity.</p>
<p>However, more important is that Mr. Putin, according to the German Foreign Office, has agreed “to immediately establish a mission of inquiry as well as a contact group, possibly under the direction of the OSCE, to open a political dialogue.” According to Le Monde, Samantha Power, American ambassador to the UN, has already evoked the possibility of an OSCE intervention. The OSCE sounds like precisely the organization needed to do a great deal more to sort out the present crisis and draft and underwrite the negotiation of an impartial solution. Is President Obama willing to accept its mediation? If the answer is yes, a serious step has been taken toward a solution.</p>
<p>Visit William Pfaff’s website for more on his latest book, “The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America’s Foreign Policy” (Walker &amp; Co., $25), at <a href="http://www.williampfaff.com" type="external">www.williampfaff.com</a>.</p>
<p>© 2014 Tribune Media Services, Inc.</p> | true | 4 | mykhaylo palinchak shutterstockcom washington expect gain successful coup détat ukraine gained little enough orange revolution 2005 first put viktor yuschenko yulia tymoshenko power independent ukraine power produced rivalry well return corruption national government orange revolution socalled inspired popular protests corruption preceding government viktor yanukovych causing ouster yanukovych course returned power 2010 48 percent vote yulia tymoshenko conveniently charged imprisoned corruption charges yanukovych toppled power popular protest violence refusing sign association agreement european union choosing instead agree vladimir putins urging monetary inducements join eurasian economic bloc centered russia russian president forming rival eu congressionallyfunded american ngos promoted orange revolution decade ago counterpart rose revolution georgia said gained much efforts got victor yanukovych still another corrupt government back power kiev 2006 yulia tymoshenko still jail georgia got threeday war territorial revindication georgia russia 2008 former georgian president mikheil saakashvili decided seize russia georgias allegedly lost land south ossetia spectacularly lost nikolas sarkozy president european union time intervened moscow get settlement left disputed russianspeaking territory russias control russias president vladimir putin insists happened kiev last week another foreignsponsored coup détat whatever reasons saying plenty evidence exists concerning american role promoting 20042005 ukrainian revolution confirmation time american assistant secretary state european affairs victoria nuland provided course telephone conversation american ambassador geoffrey pyatt saying revolt kiev yats guyhes guy know need help get yats arseniy yatsenyuk 39yearold central banker exforeign minister ended surprise protem prime minister ukrainian government emerged last weeks upheaval kiev happens russia taken possession naval base leases crimea prorussian militia appeared elsewhere crimea ottoman possession 15th 18th centuries russia empire 18th 20th centuries given ukraine gift nikita khrushchev 1954 gift first secretary khrushchev made career mainly crimea peninsula mostly russia population muslim tatar minority eastern russophone ukraine militias also appeared together demands partition ukraine union eastern ukraine russia john kerry went kiev week lay flowers honor killed revolt russia says talk nato nobody go un since russia us possess vetoes united states issues stern statements warnings economic reprisals aware trade sanctions russia provoke russian sanctions western europe gets much gas russia angela merkel active european leader seeking solution moscow says continue deal former prime minister yanukovych legitimate leader ukraine temporarily inconvenienced us says present government kiev legitimate appointed elected national assembly president obama much say moment mr putin would seem use southern american colloquialism sitting catbird seat possibilities would appear war sides recognize would absurd country could partitioned would complex unpopular provide grounds still ethnic national disputes future country could divided federation however another possibility 1990s 55state member organization security cooperation europe osce created result helsinki negotiations begun 1975 deal détente europe emerging postcold war problems europe conference held finland meetings helsinki final act subscribed members contributed yeoman service difficult period osce still exists mandate early warning conflict prevention crisis management postconflict rehabilitation new government kiev already asked osce send observers document russian military activity however important mr putin according german foreign office agreed immediately establish mission inquiry well contact group possibly direction osce open political dialogue according le monde samantha power american ambassador un already evoked possibility osce intervention osce sounds like precisely organization needed great deal sort present crisis draft underwrite negotiation impartial solution president obama willing accept mediation answer yes serious step taken toward solution visit william pfaffs website latest book irony manifest destiny tragedy americas foreign policy walker amp co 25 wwwwilliampfaffcom 2014 tribune media services inc | 559 |
<p>Ironically a few days ago in the afternoon I was with my friend Raissa buying a supply of batteries and flashlights to take with me to Baghdad. We parted at the Astor Place subway where Raissa got on the #6 train to make her way to Queens, and I walked the few blocks home. The weather was oppressively hot and humid, just a feather touch of a breeze if you stood still under a tree. It was a “normal” afternoon in New York city. Less than half an hour later the power went down, and the now already infamous “Black Out 2003” began to unfold.</p>
<p>From one moment to the next the traffic lights went out and cars, buses and trucks began to back up. People were stranded in elevators or caught (like Raissa) in darkened subways. Thousands of people suddenly faced the dilemma of getting home from, or to, their workplaces. And there was no air conditioning, not even a fan, to bring relief from the relentless heat.</p>
<p>I had an early dinner invitation with friends Sabra, Joe and their children a few blocks away, and I paused as I walked by a man sitting on a stoop with a battery-operated radio to listen to the news. We heard that a great part of the northeastern US and parts of Canada as well had lost power. The radio announcer reassured us that this was almost certainly NOT a terrorist attack. At my friends’ home, I watched Joe pack up his toothbrush and set out on foot to his workplace about an hour walk across town. Unable to get through by phone, he feared the evening staff at the adult residence where he works would not be able to get in, and so he was preparing to spend the night there.</p>
<p>Later Sabra walked me home with her youngest one-year old in the stroller. It was about 7:30pm. Many stores and restaurants had already closed down as they had no lights, the cash registers didn’t work and there was no air-conditioning or refrigeration. We thought of the countless people in the city especially the elderly and the very young who live in high story buildings dependent on elevators and A/C units. Then we thought about the countless people of Iraq and how they have lived under similar and yet much worse circumstances for almost 5 months now!</p>
<p>In our area of town the mood outside that evening could be described as festive. Together with everyone else we sat on our stoops “hanging out” as folks walked by. Some were playing instruments like a trombone or harmonica as they walked along, and the Hells Angels set off an occasional firecracker down the block. Inside we had candles stationed here and there to provide illumination in the dark halls, fearing folks might fall in the stairwells.</p>
<p>It was after midnight as I lay on my bed sweating and listening to reports on my own battery-operated radio, when my attention was caught by an announcer’s comment. “People are getting weary now,” she said, people are weary.” I couldn’t help counting the hours since the blackout began not even seven!</p>
<p>I thought back to endless nights in Baghdad when we were in the pitch dark with bombs exploding all around us. I remembered too vividly parents with small children in their arms desperately groping in dark stairwells trying to make their way down to the basement to escape the bombs! The words, “people are getting weary,” are not easy for me to hear when I think of the unspeakable hardships that the Iraqis have had to endure and are still having to suffer.</p>
<p>The terror of three weeks of bombing, violence, death and destruction. Unable to locate loved ones. Are they alive or dead? The foreign occupation of their beloved country. Tanks and machine guns pointed at them. Orders shouted at them in English. Raids on their homes, people being detained, handcuffed, arrested, searched. Men and women and children. No one is spared. Five months and electricity is still only sporadic. No traffic lights, no refrigeration. The temperature at 130 degrees and not even a fan to bring relief. No potable drinking water and people with gastrointestinal infections are beginning to crowd the hospitals. Parents so fearful for their children.</p>
<p>Last night I was walking around the neighborhood with a friend at about 9:00 or 9:30pm when suddenly the lights came on in our part of town, on of the last areas to have energy restored. There was cheering and a palpable feeling of relief from everyone around us. This morning on the radio we are already speaking about the “black out babies” and the courage of the people in New York city in surmounting this crisis. I heard president Bush on the radio say he feels that this black out is a “wake up call” to reassess and upgrade our power system so that this will never happen again.</p>
<p>I too believe that we would do well to look at this event as a wake up call. Here in New York city many of us had an almost 24 hour period of time where our TVs and computers were cut off, our lives were interrupted and where our attention was caught. How valuable an experience this could be for us as a country if it would make us aware that we are connected with other people around the world and therefore subject at times to the same hardships, sacrifices and deprivations. More importantly however at this time in history, it is critical that we recognize our responsibility for the tragic situation in Iraq and acknowledge the horrific consequences of the war we waged against them. Though we might insist that life for us goes on as usual, tragically the war continues. And deep within ourselves we sense that something is wrong. Something is very wrong. It can be very good when we let our lives be “interrupted.”</p>
<p>CATHY BREEN, who lives in New York City, recently returned from Iraq after living there during the war and the first 10 days of occupation.)</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | ironically days ago afternoon friend raissa buying supply batteries flashlights take baghdad parted astor place subway raissa got 6 train make way queens walked blocks home weather oppressively hot humid feather touch breeze stood still tree normal afternoon new york city less half hour later power went already infamous black 2003 began unfold one moment next traffic lights went cars buses trucks began back people stranded elevators caught like raissa darkened subways thousands people suddenly faced dilemma getting home workplaces air conditioning even fan bring relief relentless heat early dinner invitation friends sabra joe children blocks away paused walked man sitting stoop batteryoperated radio listen news heard great part northeastern us parts canada well lost power radio announcer reassured us almost certainly terrorist attack friends home watched joe pack toothbrush set foot workplace hour walk across town unable get phone feared evening staff adult residence works would able get preparing spend night later sabra walked home youngest oneyear old stroller 730pm many stores restaurants already closed lights cash registers didnt work airconditioning refrigeration thought countless people city especially elderly young live high story buildings dependent elevators ac units thought countless people iraq lived similar yet much worse circumstances almost 5 months area town mood outside evening could described festive together everyone else sat stoops hanging folks walked playing instruments like trombone harmonica walked along hells angels set occasional firecracker block inside candles stationed provide illumination dark halls fearing folks might fall stairwells midnight lay bed sweating listening reports batteryoperated radio attention caught announcers comment people getting weary said people weary couldnt help counting hours since blackout began even seven thought back endless nights baghdad pitch dark bombs exploding around us remembered vividly parents small children arms desperately groping dark stairwells trying make way basement escape bombs words people getting weary easy hear think unspeakable hardships iraqis endure still suffer terror three weeks bombing violence death destruction unable locate loved ones alive dead foreign occupation beloved country tanks machine guns pointed orders shouted english raids homes people detained handcuffed arrested searched men women children one spared five months electricity still sporadic traffic lights refrigeration temperature 130 degrees even fan bring relief potable drinking water people gastrointestinal infections beginning crowd hospitals parents fearful children last night walking around neighborhood friend 900 930pm suddenly lights came part town last areas energy restored cheering palpable feeling relief everyone around us morning radio already speaking black babies courage people new york city surmounting crisis heard president bush radio say feels black wake call reassess upgrade power system never happen believe would well look event wake call new york city many us almost 24 hour period time tvs computers cut lives interrupted attention caught valuable experience could us country would make us aware connected people around world therefore subject times hardships sacrifices deprivations importantly however time history critical recognize responsibility tragic situation iraq acknowledge horrific consequences war waged though might insist life us goes usual tragically war continues deep within sense something wrong something wrong good let lives interrupted cathy breen lives new york city recently returned iraq living war first 10 days occupation 160 | 519 |
<p>In the wake of a food crisis that gripped the media’s attention during the summer of 2008, a new set of questions is beginning to surface. As analysts predict that the era of cheap resources is finally over, that the food emergency is no blip but a situation that could last indefinitely, the international community is being forced to re-examine the basic direction of world development.</p>
<p>Could it be that the interlinked crises in food, energy and financial markets indicate the commencement of a terminal decline in the export-led, free market development model that has defined the past few decades of globalisation? Or will the emergency in food provision, as previously happened in 1974, reinforce the same policies in favour of large-scale industrial farming that have already devastated rural communities throughout the developing world?</p>
<p>The inability of world leaders to face up to the root causes or policy contradictions of a food crisis is nothing new. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, mass protests over a recurring food crisis in developing countries were popularly known as “IMF riots”, although the solutions – as today – were handed to the very structures that caused those crises.</p>
<p>The Ethiopian famine during the 1980s led not to initiatives that helped sustain poor rural dwellers, but rather the dedication of good land to export crops under the tutelage of the World Bank, thus further exacerbating food insecurity and storing up a repeat of the famine situation that is surfacing today. In Peru in August 1990, following the dictats of the IMF, fuel prices increased 30 times overnight, and bread prices increased 12 times within a day. In Caracas, 1989, after a 200 percent increase in the price of bread, anti-IMF riots led to the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children.</p>
<p>More examples could be repeated ad infinitum. Compared to the last major food and fuel crisis of 1973/4, which culminated in similarly vain promises from the FAO’s first World Food Conference to end hunger and prevent a repeat occurrence, the needed lessons after 34 years are far from being acknowledged.</p>
<p>The main difference today is in the parting of extremes, or the deepening polarisation between alternative paradigms, narratives and solutions. On one side of the court stand the impassioned NGOs and hardened campaigners who have long opposed large-scale agribusiness in place of food sovereignty, bottom-up development, and the empowerment of small farmers through local and regional markets. The food price crisis, they say, has exposed the disaster of global agricultural production and the conclusive failure of a market fundamentalist ideology left unchecked for far too long.</p>
<p>On the other side of the court, supported by Gordon Brown, George W. Bush, Bill Gates’ pockets and the most powerful financial institutions in the world, stand the Green Revolutionaries led by chemical technologies and multinational corporations from the E.U and U.S.A. One path, say almost all of the NGOs, will lead to social justice, the strengthening of local communities and food security for all, while the current path is inherently unsustainable, responsible for continued hunger in a world of plenty, and incapable of ending poverty.</p>
<p>By 2008 it should be a platitude to state that the escalating global food crisis, which some NGO’s are pointedly distinguishing as the “food price crisis”, is the inevitable long-term consequence of misguided economic policies and a disastrous free market restructuring of agricultural land. The official version of history over the past few decades as interpreted by G8 governments, however, could not be more different. In the World Bank’s latest World Development Report 2008 on agriculture, the same model of development that has created a global crisis in food production in the first place – import liberalization, elimination of tariffs, a dependency on cash crops, GMO seeds and fertilizers, and all other measures that work in favour of agribusiness and against the millions of small-scale farmers struggling against poverty and hunger – is being promoted as the only solution.The $1.2 billion of extra loans as part of the World Bank’s ‘Global Food Crisis Response Facility’ will be handed out with the same underlying conditions of further trade liberalisation and market reforms.</p>
<p>Likewise, the IMF used the crisis to augment its existing arrangements under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), attaching the same conditions requiring structural adjustment to the 10 countries, mostly in Africa, already forced to make new agreements. The World Trade Organisation similarly tried to capitalise on the crisis by working to increase its mandate through the Doha Round of trade agreements, alongside a push to persuade developing countries to further liberalise their financial sectors under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).Between the expert rhetoric and analysis by international financial institutions on the catastrophic extent of the crisis, with even the IMF declaring that some countries are at “tipping point”, their proffered medicine is still being mixed with the same deep-seated poisons.</p>
<p>This basic contradiction of agreeing to increase agricultural production in developing countries to address the plight of small and poor farmers, while promoting policies that achieve the opposite ends, was set in stone after the UN’s emergency food summit held in Rome. The final declaration made no attempt to address the structural problems and deeper causes of the crisis, as evidenced in key paragraph 7(e) that concluded: “We encourage… efforts in liberalizing international trade in agriculture by reducing trade barriers and market distorting policies.” A rare mention of small farmers was only made in reference to international markets, underlining the continued prioritising of market fundamentalism and trade over food security. A renewed commitment was made to reduce by half the number of undernourished people by 2015, but after 45 years of similar promises one NGO called this “the big lie” that no-one at the Summit believes will happen.</p>
<p>Despite both Ban Ki-moon and Jacques Diouf’s impassioned speeches and articles over the period of the Summit, neither of them sought to address the entrenched structural origins of the food crisis. Most worrying was Ban’s simplistic prescriptions for improved market efficiency and a 50 percent rise in food production by 2030 to meet rising demand, thus playing into the hands of politicians who seek to divert political debate away from the role of agribusinesses in the current food crisis, as well as the corporations who wish to accelerate a “Doubly Green Revolution” in agriculture as propounded by Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation.</p>
<p>The inevitable result, without a critical re-examination of the unsustainable manner in which food is produced and distributed, will be more of the same; more privatization, more corporate monopolization of food systems, more GMO crop initiatives, more displacement of poor farmers, more migration into cities and slums, more hunger, more poverty, more overconsumption and obesity. And all this without even considering the environmental footprint of producing more food on less available land, or transporting more food through international markets which contradicts the urgent need of reducing CO2 emissions. The search for technical fixes to produce cheap and abundant food may have made sense in the 1940s, but 70 years of the “productionist” model has led to the vital challenge of defining a sustainable diet – one that recognises the central crisis of distribution and overcomes the co-existence of under-, over- and mal-consumption in a world defined by extremes of inequality. Not even Ban Ki-moon, it seems, was able to acknowledge the most basic contradiction of all: that already we are producing more than enough food.</p>
<p>There are signs, however, that the world direction is changing course. As a knee-jerk response to skyrocketing food price inflation, those developing governments fortunate enough to have export stocks began pulling out of the global market to safeguard their domestic prices. The failure of the Doha round of trade negotiations, which sought to further liberalise agricultural markets, was widely interpreted as recalcitrance on the part of developing countries – and the issue of agriculture, in the light of the food crisis, was cited by most accounts to have provoked the collapse.</p>
<p>The only source of good to emerge from spiralling food price inflation is the resultant crisis of faith amongst poorer and developing countries in neoliberal economic orthodoxy. Unlike the crisis of 1970s stagflation that signalled the end for the Keynesian social-democratic model, 2008 could be marked down in history for setting in motion an opposite trend. A notable example of this gradual shift in economic thinking is set down in the UN’s latest World Economic and Social Survey (WESS), released a week before the G8 Summit. A belief in the self-regulating market is no longer credible, was the Report’s message, noting that “John Maynard Keynes, until recently persona non grata in policy circles, is once again the ‘defunct economist’ to consult.”</p>
<p>Such an acknowledgement of the redistribution agenda is no longer confined to renegade economists exempt from mainstream discussion. Although the food price crisis has failed to serve as a wake-up call to world leaders, a crucial international debate has started to emerge on the whole theology of food security. For now, the redundant model of export-led agriculture and import dependency has won through, but the calls for people-led social change are rapidly achieving a long-awaited consensus.</p>
<p>ADAM W. PARSONS is the editor for Share the World’s Resources (stwr), an NGO that advocates for essential resources such as food, water and energy to be shared internationally under the agency of the United Nations. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | wake food crisis gripped medias attention summer 2008 new set questions beginning surface analysts predict era cheap resources finally food emergency blip situation could last indefinitely international community forced reexamine basic direction world development could interlinked crises food energy financial markets indicate commencement terminal decline exportled free market development model defined past decades globalisation emergency food provision previously happened 1974 reinforce policies favour largescale industrial farming already devastated rural communities throughout developing world inability world leaders face root causes policy contradictions food crisis nothing new throughout 1980s 90s mass protests recurring food crisis developing countries popularly known imf riots although solutions today handed structures caused crises ethiopian famine 1980s led initiatives helped sustain poor rural dwellers rather dedication good land export crops tutelage world bank thus exacerbating food insecurity storing repeat famine situation surfacing today peru august 1990 following dictats imf fuel prices increased 30 times overnight bread prices increased 12 times within day caracas 1989 200 percent increase price bread antiimf riots led indiscriminate killing men women children examples could repeated ad infinitum compared last major food fuel crisis 19734 culminated similarly vain promises faos first world food conference end hunger prevent repeat occurrence needed lessons 34 years far acknowledged main difference today parting extremes deepening polarisation alternative paradigms narratives solutions one side court stand impassioned ngos hardened campaigners long opposed largescale agribusiness place food sovereignty bottomup development empowerment small farmers local regional markets food price crisis say exposed disaster global agricultural production conclusive failure market fundamentalist ideology left unchecked far long side court supported gordon brown george w bush bill gates pockets powerful financial institutions world stand green revolutionaries led chemical technologies multinational corporations eu usa one path say almost ngos lead social justice strengthening local communities food security current path inherently unsustainable responsible continued hunger world plenty incapable ending poverty 2008 platitude state escalating global food crisis ngos pointedly distinguishing food price crisis inevitable longterm consequence misguided economic policies disastrous free market restructuring agricultural land official version history past decades interpreted g8 governments however could different world banks latest world development report 2008 agriculture model development created global crisis food production first place import liberalization elimination tariffs dependency cash crops gmo seeds fertilizers measures work favour agribusiness millions smallscale farmers struggling poverty hunger promoted solutionthe 12 billion extra loans part world banks global food crisis response facility handed underlying conditions trade liberalisation market reforms likewise imf used crisis augment existing arrangements poverty reduction growth facility prgf attaching conditions requiring structural adjustment 10 countries mostly africa already forced make new agreements world trade organisation similarly tried capitalise crisis working increase mandate doha round trade agreements alongside push persuade developing countries liberalise financial sectors general agreement trade services gatsbetween expert rhetoric analysis international financial institutions catastrophic extent crisis even imf declaring countries tipping point proffered medicine still mixed deepseated poisons basic contradiction agreeing increase agricultural production developing countries address plight small poor farmers promoting policies achieve opposite ends set stone uns emergency food summit held rome final declaration made attempt address structural problems deeper causes crisis evidenced key paragraph 7e concluded encourage efforts liberalizing international trade agriculture reducing trade barriers market distorting policies rare mention small farmers made reference international markets underlining continued prioritising market fundamentalism trade food security renewed commitment made reduce half number undernourished people 2015 45 years similar promises one ngo called big lie noone summit believes happen despite ban kimoon jacques dioufs impassioned speeches articles period summit neither sought address entrenched structural origins food crisis worrying bans simplistic prescriptions improved market efficiency 50 percent rise food production 2030 meet rising demand thus playing hands politicians seek divert political debate away role agribusinesses current food crisis well corporations wish accelerate doubly green revolution agriculture propounded bill gates rockefeller foundation inevitable result without critical reexamination unsustainable manner food produced distributed privatization corporate monopolization food systems gmo crop initiatives displacement poor farmers migration cities slums hunger poverty overconsumption obesity without even considering environmental footprint producing food less available land transporting food international markets contradicts urgent need reducing co2 emissions search technical fixes produce cheap abundant food may made sense 1940s 70 years productionist model led vital challenge defining sustainable diet one recognises central crisis distribution overcomes coexistence malconsumption world defined extremes inequality even ban kimoon seems able acknowledge basic contradiction already producing enough food signs however world direction changing course kneejerk response skyrocketing food price inflation developing governments fortunate enough export stocks began pulling global market safeguard domestic prices failure doha round trade negotiations sought liberalise agricultural markets widely interpreted recalcitrance part developing countries issue agriculture light food crisis cited accounts provoked collapse source good emerge spiralling food price inflation resultant crisis faith amongst poorer developing countries neoliberal economic orthodoxy unlike crisis 1970s stagflation signalled end keynesian socialdemocratic model 2008 could marked history setting motion opposite trend notable example gradual shift economic thinking set uns latest world economic social survey wess released week g8 summit belief selfregulating market longer credible reports message noting john maynard keynes recently persona non grata policy circles defunct economist consult acknowledgement redistribution agenda longer confined renegade economists exempt mainstream discussion although food price crisis failed serve wakeup call world leaders crucial international debate started emerge whole theology food security redundant model exportled agriculture import dependency calls peopleled social change rapidly achieving longawaited consensus adam w parsons editor share worlds resources stwr ngo advocates essential resources food water energy shared internationally agency united nations reached editorstwrorg 160 160 ad 160 160 160 160 | 909 |
<p>The Democrats need to win just 15 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate to win majorities in both houses of Congress, making George Bush a badly battered lame duck for the next two years.</p>
<p>This is Hillary Clinton’s, Al Gore’s, John Kerry’s and John Edwards’ dream scenario. Likewise, many liberal and progressive activists who seek to end the war in Iraq are putting their hopes in this outcome as well.</p>
<p>But how likely is a Democratic victory–and would it have anything to do with ending the war?</p>
<p>Recent polls show a 40 percent-to-30 percent preference for Democrats over Republicans in the mid-term elections. Over the spring and summer, Bush’s polls sank below 35 percent, a large majority of people grew disgusted with the war in Iraq, and falling wages and living standards were weighing heavily on workers’ minds.</p>
<p>Republican scandals are the talk of the town, and the festering sore of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina remains unhealed. Topping it all off, millions of immigrants took to the streets to protest a racist bill passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.</p>
<p>This would be welcome news to any genuine opposition party. But the Democrats seem as nervous about the brewing class anger as their counterparts across the aisle, and they continue to cling tightly to their “Republican Lite” strategy–portraying themselves as the party that can “win” the “war on terror.”</p>
<p>Thus, the election campaign of the next eight weeks will be very predictable. George Bush and the Republicans will raise security threats to orange and red, accuse the Democrats of wanting to “cut and run” from Iraq, and preach the old-time religion of tax cuts.</p>
<p>The Democrats will complain that Bush isn’t enacting enough Homeland Security measures (guarding our ports, bus stations, etc.) and that he bungled the war in Iraq. They will accuse Bush of giving away the farm to his wealthy pals, but they won’t propose transferring much more than pocket change from rich to poor.</p>
<p>And on Election Day, more than half of those eligible won’t vote.</p>
<p>In the past month, the Democrats’ full-throated cheering of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, their cooperation with Bush to push through anti-immigrant legislation in the Senate, and their inability to articulate a plan to bring economic relief to the working class majority has opened the door to a Bush recovery of sorts. Bush’s poll numbers are back up over 40 percent.</p>
<p>With Congress so thoroughly gerrymandered that winning even 15 House seats is difficult, the chances of a Democratic sweep are far from certain. Pure-and-simple lesser evilism</p>
<p>SOME SECTIONS of the liberal establishment agree that the Democrats are acting too conservatively, but will organize support for them anyway on the grounds that anyone is better than the Republicans–that the Democrats are at least a “lesser evil.”</p>
<p>AFL-CIO President John Sweeney clearly expressed this line of thought, saying, “George Bush isn’t on the ballot this November, but his agenda is, and the Republicans in Congress who have rubber-stamped his priorities are.” He went on to pledge $40 million in union members’ dues money to help Democrats in 80 targeted congressional races.</p>
<p>This strategy doesn’t even make the pretense of supporting “progressive” Democrats. Rather, the AFL-CIO will throw cash at any Democrat who has a chance to win.</p>
<p>But it isn’t just Republicans who have been, as Sweeny put it, “rubber-stamping” Bush’s agenda. Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 for Bush’s latest $450 billion Pentagon budget–the latest unanimous vote for Bush’s outrageous military spending requests. Similarly, the Senate voted 99-1 for the USA PATRIOT Act and 100-0 to invade Afghanistan.</p>
<p>In May, 38 out of 45 Democratic senators voted for so-called compromise legislation on immigration, supported by Bush, that would deport millions of people, build a bigger wall on the border with Mexico and establish a guest-worker program. More Democrats voted for the Bush-supported bill than Republicans!</p>
<p>On Labor Day, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) told immigrant rights marchers that the Republican Congressional leaders should “listen” to Bush. Progressive lesser evilism</p>
<p>SOME SELF-described progressive forces, whose main aim is to become players in the Democratic Party, claim to reject Sweeney’s pure-and-simple “lesser evilism.” Instead, they argue that the Democrats can only win if they are “pushed” to the left by grassroots pressure.</p>
<p>While accepting the idea that the Democrats winning is the most important thing, they highlight so-called “progressive” candidates as part of a plan to “take back” the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>MoveOn.org exemplifies this trend, and its current poster boy is Ned Lamont, who beat conservative Democrat Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Senate primary election. But if you scratch the surface, you find that Ned Lamont is not so much antiwar as he is anti-Lieberman.</p>
<p>This is what Lamont’s Web site said after Israel invaded Lebanon and murdered 1,000 civilians: “At this critical time in the Middle East, I believe that when Israel’s security is threatened, the United States must unambiguously stand with our ally to be sure that it is safe and secure. On this principle, Americans are united.”</p>
<p>On Iraq, Lamont says, “I salute the patriotism and wisdom of Congressman John Murtha and others who emphasize that ‘stay the course’ is not a winning strategy for Iraq or America. While we will continue to provide logistical and training support as long as we are asked, our frontline military troops should begin to be redeployed, and our troops should start heading home.”</p>
<p>While this sounds vaguely “antiwar,” the devil is in the details. “Redeployment” is Murtha’s codeword for pushing the Iraqi puppet-army forward and relying more on American air power in Iraq.</p>
<p>Moreover, Lamont says only that “frontline troops” (what about special forces' the CIA?), should “begin” to “start heading home.” Last December, after the election in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that American troops could “begin” to “start heading home.” A year later, nothing has changed.</p>
<p>Just because Lamont is a Democrat, he shouldn’t be permitted to play the same verbal games with the lives of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers. Antiwar lesser evilism</p>
<p>FINALLY, THERE are people who genuinely want to end the war, but continue to cling to the hope that a reformed Democratic Party will lead the fight, or at least believe that supporting “antiwar” Democrats must be a central component of a successful antiwar strategy.</p>
<p>The Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and the leadership of the United for Peace and Justice antiwar coalition represent these ideas.</p>
<p>One of the PDA’s main activities this fall is Camp Democracy, a two-week-long event in Washington, D.C., which was billed as a protest of the war featuring prominent liberal Democrats. Yet while PDA politicians such as Reps. Lynne Woolsey, Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Lee can sound very antiwar sometimes, when push came to shove, all either voted for or abstained on the House resolution cheering on Israel’s assault on Lebanon.</p>
<p>Moreover, they agree with the more conservative Democrats that one of the big problems with the war in Iraq is that it is an “ineffective way” to fight the “war on terror.” As Woolsey put it at Camp Democracy’s opening day, the war in Iraq has made “the world a more dangerous place and increase[d] the terrorist threat… [It has] created more jihadists and inspire[d] more hatred of America among Muslim extremists…”</p>
<p>Emphasizing the “terrorist threat” and “Muslim extremists” is not exactly a principled basis on which to organize an antiwar movement.</p>
<p>This only goes to show how little difference there is between the so-called “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party and the corporate powerbrokers who run it.</p>
<p>In 2004, Dennis Kucinich campaigned in the presidential primary for months denouncing John Kerry’s support for the invasion of Iraq. Then, at the Democrats’ convention, he disciplined his supporters to shut up and get in line behind John “I’ll send more troops to Iraq” Kerry.</p>
<p>The PDA politicians put their loyalty to the Democratic Party above the interests of the movement. They aren’t part of the process of building an antiwar movement that puts ending the war as its primary goal, but are an obstacle to it.</p>
<p>The longer it takes our movement to reject all versions of lesser evilism, the longer it will take to build a movement powerful enough to win peace and social justice.</p>
<p>TODD CHRETIEN is the Green Party candidate for US Senate, running against Sen. Dianne Feinstein in California. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | democrats need win 15 seats house six seats senate win majorities houses congress making george bush badly battered lame duck next two years hillary clintons al gores john kerrys john edwards dream scenario likewise many liberal progressive activists seek end war iraq putting hopes outcome well likely democratic victoryand would anything ending war recent polls show 40 percentto30 percent preference democrats republicans midterm elections spring summer bushs polls sank 35 percent large majority people grew disgusted war iraq falling wages living standards weighing heavily workers minds republican scandals talk town festering sore new orleans following hurricane katrina remains unhealed topping millions immigrants took streets protest racist bill passed republicancontrolled house representatives would welcome news genuine opposition party democrats seem nervous brewing class anger counterparts across aisle continue cling tightly republican lite strategyportraying party win war terror thus election campaign next eight weeks predictable george bush republicans raise security threats orange red accuse democrats wanting cut run iraq preach oldtime religion tax cuts democrats complain bush isnt enacting enough homeland security measures guarding ports bus stations etc bungled war iraq accuse bush giving away farm wealthy pals wont propose transferring much pocket change rich poor election day half eligible wont vote past month democrats fullthroated cheering israels invasion lebanon cooperation bush push antiimmigrant legislation senate inability articulate plan bring economic relief working class majority opened door bush recovery sorts bushs poll numbers back 40 percent congress thoroughly gerrymandered winning even 15 house seats difficult chances democratic sweep far certain pureandsimple lesser evilism sections liberal establishment agree democrats acting conservatively organize support anyway grounds anyone better republicansthat democrats least lesser evil aflcio president john sweeney clearly expressed line thought saying george bush isnt ballot november agenda republicans congress rubberstamped priorities went pledge 40 million union members dues money help democrats 80 targeted congressional races strategy doesnt even make pretense supporting progressive democrats rather aflcio throw cash democrat chance win isnt republicans sweeny put rubberstamping bushs agenda earlier month us senate voted 980 bushs latest 450 billion pentagon budgetthe latest unanimous vote bushs outrageous military spending requests similarly senate voted 991 usa patriot act 1000 invade afghanistan may 38 45 democratic senators voted socalled compromise legislation immigration supported bush would deport millions people build bigger wall border mexico establish guestworker program democrats voted bushsupported bill republicans labor day sen ted kennedy dmass told immigrant rights marchers republican congressional leaders listen bush progressive lesser evilism selfdescribed progressive forces whose main aim become players democratic party claim reject sweeneys pureandsimple lesser evilism instead argue democrats win pushed left grassroots pressure accepting idea democrats winning important thing highlight socalled progressive candidates part plan take back democratic party moveonorg exemplifies trend current poster boy ned lamont beat conservative democrat joe lieberman connecticut senate primary election scratch surface find ned lamont much antiwar antilieberman lamonts web site said israel invaded lebanon murdered 1000 civilians critical time middle east believe israels security threatened united states must unambiguously stand ally sure safe secure principle americans united iraq lamont says salute patriotism wisdom congressman john murtha others emphasize stay course winning strategy iraq america continue provide logistical training support long asked frontline military troops begin redeployed troops start heading home sounds vaguely antiwar devil details redeployment murthas codeword pushing iraqi puppetarmy forward relying american air power iraq moreover lamont says frontline troops special forces cia begin start heading home last december election iraq defense secretary donald rumsfeld said american troops could begin start heading home year later nothing changed lamont democrat shouldnt permitted play verbal games lives iraqis us soldiers antiwar lesser evilism finally people genuinely want end war continue cling hope reformed democratic party lead fight least believe supporting antiwar democrats must central component successful antiwar strategy progressive democrats america pda leadership united peace justice antiwar coalition represent ideas one pdas main activities fall camp democracy twoweeklong event washington dc billed protest war featuring prominent liberal democrats yet pda politicians reps lynne woolsey dennis kucinich barbara lee sound antiwar sometimes push came shove either voted abstained house resolution cheering israels assault lebanon moreover agree conservative democrats one big problems war iraq ineffective way fight war terror woolsey put camp democracys opening day war iraq made world dangerous place increased terrorist threat created jihadists inspired hatred america among muslim extremists emphasizing terrorist threat muslim extremists exactly principled basis organize antiwar movement goes show little difference socalled progressive wing democratic party corporate powerbrokers run 2004 dennis kucinich campaigned presidential primary months denouncing john kerrys support invasion iraq democrats convention disciplined supporters shut get line behind john ill send troops iraq kerry pda politicians put loyalty democratic party interests movement arent part process building antiwar movement puts ending war primary goal obstacle longer takes movement reject versions lesser evilism longer take build movement powerful enough win peace social justice todd chretien green party candidate us senate running sen dianne feinstein california reached toddchretienmaccom 160 160 | 812 |
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<p>The 1998 IRS reform bill signed into law by President Clinton last week has been hyped as one of those bills for all of us: a populist’s pipe dream come true. It will transform the IRS into a kinder, gentler agency, proclaimed the media. It “will give the American people something they deserve,” said President Clinton. However, closer inspection of the bold new legislation reveals that it is still business as usual in Washington, where shady deals are made in backrooms, the rich get the breaks, and veterans—who shed their blood to make America sometimes a great nation—get the shaft.</p>
<p>One of the most hyped tax breaks in the IRS reform package is the new capital gains legislation, which reduces the time an investor has to hold property from 18 months to one year in order to be eligible for a lower tax rate.</p>
<p>What does this mean for most of us? “It has trivial effects for the average taxpayer,” says Bob McIntyre, director of <a href="http://www.ctj.org" type="external">Citizens for Tax Justice</a>. “The average taxpayer might save a few pennies.” Capital gains taxes represent only about 1.2 percent, or $12, of federal income taxes paid by most Americans (those making $50,000 a year or less).</p>
<p>In reality, McIntyre says, this is a tax break for the rich. “Seventy-six percent of the capital gains cut goes to people who make over $200,000,” people who spend on average 17.1 percent, or $20,675, of their federal taxes on capital gains.</p>
<p>Big investors aren’t the only ones who get a tax break. Wealthy septuagenarians and their progeny will be interested to learn that they can shelter even more of their lucre from the government. A last-minute provision slipped into the bill in conference committee by Sen. William Roth (R-Del.) allows those over the age of 70 with annual incomes over $100,000 to turn their pokey old IRAs into Roth IRAs—which allow investors to let their money grow tax-free.</p>
<p>Investors will have to pay taxes on their old IRAs in order to move their money into a Roth IRA, which could raise $8 billion over the next 10 years according to Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation. However, McIntyre claims these numbers are a shell game, since tax revenues received from the Roth IRAs in the long run will be less than from the original IRAs.</p>
<p>“That was their attempt to cook the books,” says McIntyre. “They basically borrowed money to pay for the bill and they will have to pay it back later.</p>
<p>“What it says is that very high-income elderly people who have IRAs they don’t plan to use can convert those to Roth IRAs by paying taxes due at that point. After that, there is no tax on future earnings. The reason you would do this is to leave it to your heirs.”</p>
<p>In addition to what was added, something notable was left out as well. In an oversight left over from the 1997 tax law, beneficiaries of estates worth more than $17 million earned a $200,000 tax break. This blunder is projected to cost the U.S. Treasury $880 million over the next decade. Despite Senate and Treasury Department efforts to fix it in the new IRS reform bill, Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas) insisted, also in conference committee, that the loophole be kept on the books. Archer represents a wealthy district of Houston.</p>
<p>But the most controversial measure in the new IRS law has nothing to do with taxes at all; instead, it eliminates benefits for veterans with tobacco-related illnesses, and for their families. This too was added in conference committee, where the House and Senate reconcile their differing versions of a bill—meaning that when the bill came up for a vote, it could only be passed or declined, not amended. Conference reports also make it difficult to track exactly who added what measures to a specific bill, thus giving congressional leaders room to maneuver around issues which might prove unpopular amongst their constituents.</p>
<p>The vet-benefit ambush prompted Sen. John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), one of two senators to vote against the reform bill citing veterans issues, to call the bill “an example of a process run amok, where any provision, no matter how heinous or unrelated, can be added in conference under the cover of darkness.”</p>
<p>Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), a conference member who refused to sign the report due to the veterans issue—but voted for it anyway—complained on the Senate floor that “conference committees are the vehicle by which lawmakers fast-track controversial measures behind closed doors in order to avoid unpopular votes. There are no fingerprints. Issues which were not in the House-passed bill, not in the Senate-passed bill, too often mysteriously appear in the final conference report.” Cleland says even he doesn’t know exactly who inserted the benefit cut.</p>
<p>So how did a veterans issue end up in an IRS conference report? The trail leads to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), but it begins at the White House. In an effort to shave $17 billion from his 1999 budget, President Clinton proposed reversing a 1993 Veterans’ Affairs Department ruling that gave cash disability benefits to veterans with tobacco-related illness; he used the savings to offset a boost in education spending. Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) later allocated the offset to pay for a transportation bill the President thought was $19 billion too big, a move the administration backed. When Sen. Rockefeller vowed to offer an amendment to strike the language affecting veterans’ benefits, Sen. Lott told <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/samples/congressdaily/" type="external">CongressDaily</a> he would stick it in another bill “where [Rockefeller] can’t touch it.” The cut finally showed up in the IRS reform conference report, where Rockefeller and others could do nothing about it.</p>
<p>The new law eliminates veterans’ right to make disability claims for tobacco-related illnesses, even if they can prove their tobacco addiction and subsequent illnesses took place while serving on active duty. It also eliminates survivors benefits to the relatives of servicemen who have died from tobacco-related diseases. The legislation has raised the ire of veterans’ groups across the country.</p>
<p>“The entire veterans community is asking what they will go after next,” said Steve Robertson, national legislation director for the American Legion. Robertson points out that veterans with tobacco-related illnesses were not exactly breaking the government’s bank. “To date, there have been about 9,000 claims filed [for tobacco-related illnesses]. 5,000 of those have been adjudicated and only 359 have been granted. The approval rate is less than 8 percent. For the few that would have gotten the benefit, not only does it knock out compensation, but if they die from tobacco-related illnesses, their families don’t qualify for survivor benefits.”</p>
<p>Robertson, a Gulf War veteran, says this is especially odious to veterans as it was the U.S. government that promoted smoking within the military in the first place. “Squad packs had cigarette rations in them. There were no warnings on cigarettes in the military until the 1970s. The World War I through the Vietnam vets, every one of those guys should be entitled to [the disability benefit]. The Department of Defense is still the largest distributor of tobacco products. There were a lot of things I couldn’t get access to in Dhaharan, but tobacco wasn’t one of them.”</p>
<p>“Lott deliberately sticking this to a conference with no chance for amendment shows that this was a money grab,” says Robertson. “The transportation bill comes out and it goes over by $19 billion. These benefits save $17 billion. A blind man could see what’s happening here.”</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | 1998 irs reform bill signed law president clinton last week hyped one bills us populists pipe dream come true transform irs kinder gentler agency proclaimed media give american people something deserve said president clinton however closer inspection bold new legislation reveals still business usual washington shady deals made backrooms rich get breaks veteranswho shed blood make america sometimes great nationget shaft one hyped tax breaks irs reform package new capital gains legislation reduces time investor hold property 18 months one year order eligible lower tax rate mean us trivial effects average taxpayer says bob mcintyre director citizens tax justice average taxpayer might save pennies capital gains taxes represent 12 percent 12 federal income taxes paid americans making 50000 year less reality mcintyre says tax break rich seventysix percent capital gains cut goes people make 200000 people spend average 171 percent 20675 federal taxes capital gains big investors arent ones get tax break wealthy septuagenarians progeny interested learn shelter even lucre government lastminute provision slipped bill conference committee sen william roth rdel allows age 70 annual incomes 100000 turn pokey old iras roth iraswhich allow investors let money grow taxfree investors pay taxes old iras order move money roth ira could raise 8 billion next 10 years according congress joint committee taxation however mcintyre claims numbers shell game since tax revenues received roth iras long run less original iras attempt cook books says mcintyre basically borrowed money pay bill pay back later says highincome elderly people iras dont plan use convert roth iras paying taxes due point tax future earnings reason would leave heirs addition added something notable left well oversight left 1997 tax law beneficiaries estates worth 17 million earned 200000 tax break blunder projected cost us treasury 880 million next decade despite senate treasury department efforts fix new irs reform bill rep bill archer rtexas insisted also conference committee loophole kept books archer represents wealthy district houston controversial measure new irs law nothing taxes instead eliminates benefits veterans tobaccorelated illnesses families added conference committee house senate reconcile differing versions billmeaning bill came vote could passed declined amended conference reports also make difficult track exactly added measures specific bill thus giving congressional leaders room maneuver around issues might prove unpopular amongst constituents vetbenefit ambush prompted sen john jay rockefeller iv dwva one two senators vote reform bill citing veterans issues call bill example process run amok provision matter heinous unrelated added conference cover darkness sen max cleland dga conference member refused sign report due veterans issuebut voted anywaycomplained senate floor conference committees vehicle lawmakers fasttrack controversial measures behind closed doors order avoid unpopular votes fingerprints issues housepassed bill senatepassed bill often mysteriously appear final conference report cleland says even doesnt know exactly inserted benefit cut veterans issue end irs conference report trail leads senate majority leader trent lott rmiss begins white house effort shave 17 billion 1999 budget president clinton proposed reversing 1993 veterans affairs department ruling gave cash disability benefits veterans tobaccorelated illness used savings offset boost education spending senate budget chairman pete domenici rnm later allocated offset pay transportation bill president thought 19 billion big move administration backed sen rockefeller vowed offer amendment strike language affecting veterans benefits sen lott told congressdaily would stick another bill rockefeller cant touch cut finally showed irs reform conference report rockefeller others could nothing new law eliminates veterans right make disability claims tobaccorelated illnesses even prove tobacco addiction subsequent illnesses took place serving active duty also eliminates survivors benefits relatives servicemen died tobaccorelated diseases legislation raised ire veterans groups across country entire veterans community asking go next said steve robertson national legislation director american legion robertson points veterans tobaccorelated illnesses exactly breaking governments bank date 9000 claims filed tobaccorelated illnesses 5000 adjudicated 359 granted approval rate less 8 percent would gotten benefit knock compensation die tobaccorelated illnesses families dont qualify survivor benefits robertson gulf war veteran says especially odious veterans us government promoted smoking within military first place squad packs cigarette rations warnings cigarettes military 1970s world war vietnam vets every one guys entitled disability benefit department defense still largest distributor tobacco products lot things couldnt get access dhaharan tobacco wasnt one lott deliberately sticking conference chance amendment shows money grab says robertson transportation bill comes goes 19 billion benefits save 17 billion blind man could see whats happening | 717 |
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<p>Article created by <a href="http://www.tcf.org" type="external">The Century Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to looking at the outlook for this year’s Congressional elections. One is the “macro” approach, where one looks at a variety of national indicators to gauge the mood of the electorate and how that’s likely to affect the incumbent and challenging parties. The other approach is the “micro” approach, which assesses how each individual House and Senate race is likely to turn out, and aggregates up from that level to assess the likely gains and losses of the two parties.</p>
<p>The two methods tend to tell different stories and that is particularly true this year. First, let’s look at the macro story. According to these indicators, the GOP is in terrible shape and likely to get swamped by the Democrats in the election. Indeed, by these indicators, as Charlie Cook recently pointed out, the GOP is at least as bad off as the Democrats were at this point in the 1994 election cycle.</p>
<p>Right Direction/Wrong Track</p>
<p>In spring of 1994, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal (NBC/WSJ) poll has this critical indicator of the public mood at 47 percent wrong track/33 percent right direction. Today, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/poll20060315.pdf" type="external">the same poll</a> has this indicator at 62 percent wrong track/26 percent right direction.</p>
<p>Generic Congressional Contest</p>
<p>In <a href="http://poll.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=21928" type="external">the most recent Gallup poll</a>, the Democrats had a sixteen point lead among registered voters (55 percent to 39 percent) in the generic congressional contest, their largest lead on this question since 1982. The Democrats’ average lead in all public polls since the beginning of March is 13 points. Even assuming the generic question overestimates Democratic support by 5 points (the average difference between Gallup’s final poll among registered voters and the actual election result), that still gives the Democrats an average lead of 8 points.</p>
<p>The Democrats are also running large leads among independents in the generic Congressional ballot—generally in the 14–22 point range. As far back as I can get data (1982), the Democrats have never had a lead among independents larger than 4 points in an actual election, a level they managed to achieve in both 1986 and 1990. Indeed, since 1990, they’ve lost independents in every congressional election: by 14 points in 1994; by 4 points in 1998; and by 2 points in 2002. So, even leaving questions of relative partisan turnout aside (and I suspect the Democrats will do better, not worse, in this respect in 2006), the implications of a strong Democratic lead among independents in this year’s election, if it holds, are huge.</p>
<p>Generic congressional data also tend to show substantial shifts away from the GOP among base Republican and swing voters. <a href="http://www.democracycorps.com/reports/analyses/Democracy_Corps_March_3_2006_Memo.pdf" type="external">As recently summarized by Democracy Corps</a>:</p>
<p>The most important shifts are taking place among the world of Republican loyalists, which will have big strategic consequences. It is reflected in the most recent Democracy Corps poll where defection of 2004 Bush voters to the Democrats is twice the level of defection of Kerry voters to the Republicans. Only 31 percent of voters in blue counties (those carried by Kerry) are voting Republican for Congress, but 41 percent of red county voters are supporting the Democratic candidate. The combined data set shows major shifts in the Deep South and rural areas (even before the most recent controversies), blue-collar white men, and the best educated married men with high incomes. . . .</p>
<p>The other big shifts are taking place across the contested groups that form the swing blocs in the electorate. That is bringing big Democratic gains among older (over 50) non-college voters, the vulnerable women, practicing Catholics and the best-educated men. It is as if the entire center of the electorate shifted. . . .</p>
<p>The Democracy Corps quote mentioned the South. Yes, the South. Consider these data from a poll of 4,000 voters in AL, FL, LA, GA, MS, NC, SC, TN and VA, conducted by Insider Advantage for Hasting Wyman’s Southern Political Report. In this poll, Bush has a net negative approval rating in these states (45 percent approval/50 percent disapproval) and Democrats are preferred over the GOP to control Congress by 44 percent to 43 percent.</p>
<p>According to Insider Advantage CEO Matt Towery:</p>
<p>This is disastrous for the Republican Party. Even with legislative and congressional districts in most Southern states being drawn favorably for the GOP, there is a potential for a Republican meltdown at the polls in the mid-term elections this November. . . . When we broke the numbers down, we found the general trend that the larger of the state we surveyed, the more support for a Democratic Congress there was.</p>
<p>Most remarkably, FL’s preference for a Dem-controlled Congress was almost ten points. Wow.</p>
<p>Presidential Job Approval</p>
<p>Again, comparing NBC/Wall Street Journal data, Clinton’s approval rating at this time in 1994 was 55 percent approval/36 percent disapproval. Even at the time of the election, it was still 46 percent/46 percent. Bush’s current rating in the same poll is 37 percent approval/58 percent disapproval—net negative by 21 points.</p>
<p>Congressional Job Approval</p>
<p>The most recent Gallup poll has Congress’ job approval at just 27 percent, the worst Gallup has measured in more than a decade. Right before the 1994 election, Congress’ job approval stood at 23 percent. This indicator is not just bad for the incumbent GOP in general, but there are reasons to believe this is a key indicator of potentially large seat swings. As <a href="http://poll.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=21928&amp;VERSION=p" type="external">the Gallup report</a> on these data notes:</p>
<p>During recent midterm election years, low congressional approval ratings have been associated with greater shifts in the partisan composition of the U.S. House of Representatives. In the five elections since 1974 in which Congress’ approval rating was below 40%, the average net change in U.S. House seats from one party to the other was 29. In the three midterm elections in which congressional approval ratings were above 40%, the average change was five seats. . . .</p>
<p>The fact that both congressional and presidential approval ratings are low does not bode well for the Republican Party. The current situation is similar to the political environment in 1978 and 1994, when Democrats controlled both the legislative and executive branches— which were both unpopular. Those elections resulted in net losses for the Democratic Party of 11 and 53 seats, respectively.</p>
<p>Forecasting</p>
<p>Another way of relating mood indicators to seat swing comes from forecasting models of the popular congressional vote and its relation to seat gain and loss. A recent model developed by Alan Abramowitz predicts that, if Bush’s approval stays in –20 net negative territory through the election, the GOP will only get 47.9 percent of the popular vote. Because the predicted relationship between the popular vote split and the House seat split is closer than one might think, Abramowitz finds that such a popular vote share could translate into only 199 GOP-held seats, for a net loss of thirty-three seats. Of course, there are many caveats here and it is possible that the popular vote-House seat distribution relationship has been changing too rapidly to be accurately captured by models. But it does provide another way of illustrating the very good macro environment for the Democrats.</p>
<p>Enthusiasm</p>
<p>There now appears to be an enthusiasm gap among voters in the Democrats’ favor. In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, they asked voters to rate their interest in voting from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. The result: 53 percent of Democrats rated themselves a “10″ but only 43 percent of Republicans. Similarly, 53 percent of those who expressed a preference for a Democrat-controlled Congress rated themselves a 10, but only 38 percent of those who preferred a Republican-controlled Congress.</p>
<p>Turning to the micro story, we find things not looking so rosy for the Democrats. As <a href="http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0306/032806op.htm" type="external">summarized by Charlie Cook</a> (and it is hard to find a micro-analysis that diverges strongly from his):</p>
<p>Despite national political trends indicating that the GOP is in serious trouble, a race-by-race “micro” analysis suggests that Democrats cannot easily seize control of the House or the Senate this fall.</p>
<p>In the Senate, Democrats need a net gain of six seats. Republicans are truly fortunate to have only one senator retiring, Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee. Although Democratic Rep.Harold Ford is a talented candidate, he will have his work cut out for him against the winner of a competitive three-way August GOP primary for Frist’s seat. The South has become a GOP stronghold. In 2004, Democrats went 0 for 5 in attempting to hold open Senate seats in that region.</p>
<p>Democrats need to win in Tennessee and knock off five GOP incumbents. Only five look truly vulnerable: Conrad Burns of Montana, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, and Jim Talent of Missouri. . . .</p>
<p>In the House, where Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats, only about three dozen are truly in play today. So far, 17 Republicans and 10 Democrats have announced their retirements. Ten of those Republicans serve in safe GOP districts, where Democrats stand little chance of winning.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, despite their herculean efforts, Democratic recruiters have enticed few first-tier challengers into running this year. Instead, the party has an abundance of second- and third-tier candidates who could never prevail on their own and would need a hurricane-force wind at their backs to cross the finish line first. (Democrats last had a strong political wind propelling them in 1982—and before that in 1974.) So, as with the Senate, Democrats need to win every truly competitive House race.</p>
<p>A hurricane does seem likely to hit the GOP this November. But the micro analysis shows that structural barriers in the House and Senate are protecting the Republican majorities like seawalls, and would likely withstand the surge from a Category 1, 2, or 3 storm. They probably couldn’t withstand a Category 4 or 5, though.</p>
<p>In 1994, the last wave election, Democrats were protected by many of the same barriers, particularly in the House. The tsunami that slammed into their party had looked perhaps 10 stories tall, not enough for the GOP to shift the necessary 40 seats. But the wave ended up being 15 stories high, and Republicans picked up 52 seats (plus two party switchers).</p>
<p>In four out of five elections, the micro analysis proves accurate. But in about one out of five, it doesn’t. Will this year be one of those exceptions?</p>
<p>To make this year one of those exceptions, clearly the macro situation has to become very closely connected to the micro. That is, individual races have to allow, to the maximum extent possible, for the expression of macro sentiments that are leaning so heavily against the incumbent party.</p>
<p>That means, of course, an election that is heavily nationalized. There are some signs that this is already happening. For example, the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that, by 37 percent to 20 percent, voters are seeing their vote as a signal of opposition to, not support for, Bush. That compares to 31 percent to 19 percent the other way in October of 2002. That suggests that views about Bush are nationalizing the election in the Democrats’ favor.</p>
<p>Moreover, by 44 percent to 40 percent, voters now say that their representative’s position on national issues will be more important than their representative’s performance in taking care of district problems. That compares to 35 percent national/51 percent district in October of 1994, a “wave” election that was significantly nationalized by the GOP. By this indicator, the Democrats are well on their way—and then some—to a nationalized election.</p>
<p>Iraq</p>
<p>In this election, there is also one issue in particular that has a chance to drive further nationalization of the election, almost by itself: Iraq. I have covered in detail the ever-worsening public sentiments on Iraq. But there is no indication we have hit bottom yet. Indeed, it is possible we are on the verge of a qualitative negative shift in public attitudes toward the war and the administration responsible for it. A March 27 New York Times story, “ <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/politics/27war.html?_r=1&amp;oref=slogin" type="external">In an Election Year, a Shift in Public Opinion on the War,”</a> reported:</p>
<p>Interviews with voters, elected officials and candidates around the country suggest a deepening and hardening opposition to the war. Historians and analysts said this might mark a turning point in public perception.</p>
<p>“I’m less optimistic because I see the fatalities every day,” said Angela Kirby, 32, a lawyer from St. Louis who initially supported the war. “And the longer it goes on, the less optimistic I am.”</p>
<p>Here in New Mexico, Dollie Shoun, 67, said she had gone from being an ardent supporter of the war and the president to a fierce critic of both.</p>
<p>“There has been too many deaths, and it is time for them to come back home,” Ms. Shoun said. Speaking of Mr. Bush, she added: “I was very much for him, but I don’t trust him at this point in time.”</p>
<p>Polls have found that support for the war and expectations about its outcome have reached their lowest level since the invasion. A Pew Research Center poll this week found that 66 percent of respondents said the United States was losing ground in preventing a civil war in Iraq, a jump of 18 percent since January. . . .</p>
<p>Richard B. Wirthlin, who was the pollster for President Ronald Reagan, says he sees the beginning of a decisive turn in public opinion against the war. “It is hard for me to imagine any set of circumstances that would lead to an enhancement of the public support that we have seen,” he said. “It is more likely to go down, and the question is how far and how fast.”</p>
<p>Widen the Playing Field</p>
<p>A nationalized election has to have the candidates and money to contest every possible election and therefore catch the wave to the maximum extent possible. It is getting a bit late on the candidate recruitment front, but it is never too late for money. As Cook points out, if the wave is high enough, even second and their tier candidates have a decent chance to win. But they still need money.</p>
<p>As I have argued before, the investment of adequate money in these marginal races is a far wiser use of resources than throwing more and more money at the most obviously competitive races. <a href="http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001287.php" type="external">As lucidly explained by political scientists Donald Green and Jonathan Krasno</a>:</p>
<p>Because of diminishing returns, we know that a large investment in an expensive race will bring few votes, while a small investment in a cheaper race may bring many. Parties shy away from the latter on the grounds that hopeless candidates are hopeless causes. But the math says different. Suppose that we could increase the odds of twenty candidates from 5 to 10 percent for the same cost of helping two candidates with 45 percent chances get to 50 percent. By helping the twenty hapless candidates, we would increase the expected number of victories from 20 x 0.05 = 1 to 20 x 0.10 = 2. By helping the well-heeled candidates, we would increase the expected number of victories from 2 x .45 = 0.90 to 2 x .50 = 1. The first investment portfolio has an expected return of 1 additional victory, while the second one is just one-tenth of an additional victory.</p>
<p>That is a fairly realistic scenario. Seventy challengers in 2004 spent between $100,000 to $500,000, and 19 of them won at least 40 percent of the vote. Boosting their spending by as little as $50,000 or $100,000 would have a discernable effect on their chances, while increasing expenditures by $500,000 in an expensive race would likely have little effect. Parties ignore long shots because viewed individually no single candidate has a particularly good chance of winning. But as a group, long shots are ripe with possibility because of their numbers and because their low spending gives parties a chance to influence their chances. Targeting overlooks many potential winners. . . .</p>
<p>The bottom line is that targeting does not help parties win elections. Instead, it impels them into high-spending races where the value of their contributions is minimal. The narrow group of targeted contests excludes many other elections where they have a distinct, albeit distant, chance of winning. By focusing so sharply on top-tier races, the parties effectively narrow the playing field in congressional elections, limiting their potential gains. . . .</p>
<p>Where’s the Beef?</p>
<p>Finally, there is the ideas issue. Democrats consistently have been running deficits to the Republicans on which party has clear ideas—both in general and on specific issues like Iraq—and on which party knows what they stand for.</p>
<p>In only the most recent manifestation of this pattern, <a href="http://www.srbi.com/TimePoll_Final_Report-2006-03-24.pdf" type="external">the new Time magazine poll</a> finds just 36 percent saying “Democrats have a clear set of policies for the country,” compared to 56 percent who don’t. Republicans fare better with a 43 percent clear policies/50 percent not clear policies assessment.</p>
<p>Does this matter? Certainly one can go far in terms of nationalizing the election simply by concentrating on the sins of the other side and, in particular, on Bush himself and the need to change course from his direction for the country. This case is argued, with supporting documentation, in the latest Democracy Corps memo, “ <a href="http://www.democracycorps.com/reports/analyses/Democracy_Corps_March_27_2006_Memo.pdf" type="external">Defining the 2000 Election</a>.”</p>
<p>And this is an off-year election, less conducive than a presidential contest for laying out an elaborate set of ideas about what Democrats stand for. Moreover, the persistent Republican taunting of the Democrats for having no ideas suggests an interest on the GOP’s part in shifting the conversation away from their considerable problems and onto (hopefully complicated and vulnerable) ideas that Democrats put forward.</p>
<p>But it’s hard to avoid the sense that voters still would like to know what Democrats stand for and that, if Democrats could convey a few clear and simple things they stood for, that would help nationalize the election further to their benefit. “Together, we can do better” doesn’t really do that job.</p>
<p>The Democracy Corps memo does recommend a short set of policy themes that are somewhat more specific than the ringing call to do better:</p>
<p>Block any pay raise for Congress until the incomes of average workers begin to rise.</p>
<p>Replace Bush’s prescription drug plan with a simple one that controls costs.</p>
<p>Raise the minimum wage to $7 an hour.</p>
<p>Close the new tax loophole that encourages companies to move operations overseas.</p>
<p>Implement all the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission on Homeland</p>
<p>Security and inspect 100 percent of containers coming into America.</p>
<p>Repeal the cuts in all student loan programs and increase tax breaks for college costs.</p>
<p>Create tax incentives to expand the development of wind, solar, and biofuel technologies.</p>
<p>These are indeed worthy ideas and they do appear to test well. But they’ve got a bit of a laundry list feel and it’s not clear they would go that far toward crystallizing an image of what the Democratic party stands for in voters’ minds. There’s also nothing about Iraq, which seems an odd omission in light of the centrality of that issue.</p>
<p>This suggests Democrats may need to throw a few big ideas into the mix at this point to clarify what they stand for and further nationalize the election in their favor. One idea should be a responsible but definite exit strategy and timetable for ending the Iraq war. Another might be moving toward universal health care.</p>
<p>Sure, big ideas like these, even pitched at a fairly high level of generality, might give the other side something to shoot at. But if would also give the voters some of the answers they’re looking for about what the Democrats stand for. At this point, I’d say the Democrats should err on the side of giving the voters what they want.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | article created century foundation broadly speaking two approaches looking outlook years congressional elections one macro approach one looks variety national indicators gauge mood electorate thats likely affect incumbent challenging parties approach micro approach assesses individual house senate race likely turn aggregates level assess likely gains losses two parties two methods tend tell different stories particularly true year first lets look macro story according indicators gop terrible shape likely get swamped democrats election indeed indicators charlie cook recently pointed gop least bad democrats point 1994 election cycle right directionwrong track spring 1994 nbc newswall street journal nbcwsj poll critical indicator public mood 47 percent wrong track33 percent right direction today poll indicator 62 percent wrong track26 percent right direction generic congressional contest recent gallup poll democrats sixteen point lead among registered voters 55 percent 39 percent generic congressional contest largest lead question since 1982 democrats average lead public polls since beginning march 13 points even assuming generic question overestimates democratic support 5 points average difference gallups final poll among registered voters actual election result still gives democrats average lead 8 points democrats also running large leads among independents generic congressional ballotgenerally 1422 point range far back get data 1982 democrats never lead among independents larger 4 points actual election level managed achieve 1986 1990 indeed since 1990 theyve lost independents every congressional election 14 points 1994 4 points 1998 2 points 2002 even leaving questions relative partisan turnout aside suspect democrats better worse respect 2006 implications strong democratic lead among independents years election holds huge generic congressional data also tend show substantial shifts away gop among base republican swing voters recently summarized democracy corps important shifts taking place among world republican loyalists big strategic consequences reflected recent democracy corps poll defection 2004 bush voters democrats twice level defection kerry voters republicans 31 percent voters blue counties carried kerry voting republican congress 41 percent red county voters supporting democratic candidate combined data set shows major shifts deep south rural areas even recent controversies bluecollar white men best educated married men high incomes big shifts taking place across contested groups form swing blocs electorate bringing big democratic gains among older 50 noncollege voters vulnerable women practicing catholics besteducated men entire center electorate shifted democracy corps quote mentioned south yes south consider data poll 4000 voters al fl la ga ms nc sc tn va conducted insider advantage hasting wymans southern political report poll bush net negative approval rating states 45 percent approval50 percent disapproval democrats preferred gop control congress 44 percent 43 percent according insider advantage ceo matt towery disastrous republican party even legislative congressional districts southern states drawn favorably gop potential republican meltdown polls midterm elections november broke numbers found general trend larger state surveyed support democratic congress remarkably fls preference demcontrolled congress almost ten points wow presidential job approval comparing nbcwall street journal data clintons approval rating time 1994 55 percent approval36 percent disapproval even time election still 46 percent46 percent bushs current rating poll 37 percent approval58 percent disapprovalnet negative 21 points congressional job approval recent gallup poll congress job approval 27 percent worst gallup measured decade right 1994 election congress job approval stood 23 percent indicator bad incumbent gop general reasons believe key indicator potentially large seat swings gallup report data notes recent midterm election years low congressional approval ratings associated greater shifts partisan composition us house representatives five elections since 1974 congress approval rating 40 average net change us house seats one party 29 three midterm elections congressional approval ratings 40 average change five seats fact congressional presidential approval ratings low bode well republican party current situation similar political environment 1978 1994 democrats controlled legislative executive branches unpopular elections resulted net losses democratic party 11 53 seats respectively forecasting another way relating mood indicators seat swing comes forecasting models popular congressional vote relation seat gain loss recent model developed alan abramowitz predicts bushs approval stays 20 net negative territory election gop get 479 percent popular vote predicted relationship popular vote split house seat split closer one might think abramowitz finds popular vote share could translate 199 gopheld seats net loss thirtythree seats course many caveats possible popular votehouse seat distribution relationship changing rapidly accurately captured models provide another way illustrating good macro environment democrats enthusiasm appears enthusiasm gap among voters democrats favor latest nbcwall street journal poll asked voters rate interest voting 1 10 10 highest result 53 percent democrats rated 10 43 percent republicans similarly 53 percent expressed preference democratcontrolled congress rated 10 38 percent preferred republicancontrolled congress turning micro story find things looking rosy democrats summarized charlie cook hard find microanalysis diverges strongly despite national political trends indicating gop serious trouble racebyrace micro analysis suggests democrats easily seize control house senate fall senate democrats need net gain six seats republicans truly fortunate one senator retiring majority leader bill frist tennessee although democratic repharold ford talented candidate work cut winner competitive threeway august gop primary frists seat south become gop stronghold 2004 democrats went 0 5 attempting hold open senate seats region democrats need win tennessee knock five gop incumbents five look truly vulnerable conrad burns montana lincoln chafee rhode island mike dewine ohio rick santorum pennsylvania jim talent missouri house democrats need net gain 15 seats three dozen truly play today far 17 republicans 10 democrats announced retirements ten republicans serve safe gop districts democrats stand little chance winning meanwhile despite herculean efforts democratic recruiters enticed firsttier challengers running year instead party abundance second thirdtier candidates could never prevail would need hurricaneforce wind backs cross finish line first democrats last strong political wind propelling 1982and 1974 senate democrats need win every truly competitive house race hurricane seem likely hit gop november micro analysis shows structural barriers house senate protecting republican majorities like seawalls would likely withstand surge category 1 2 3 storm probably couldnt withstand category 4 5 though 1994 last wave election democrats protected many barriers particularly house tsunami slammed party looked perhaps 10 stories tall enough gop shift necessary 40 seats wave ended 15 stories high republicans picked 52 seats plus two party switchers four five elections micro analysis proves accurate one five doesnt year one exceptions make year one exceptions clearly macro situation become closely connected micro individual races allow maximum extent possible expression macro sentiments leaning heavily incumbent party means course election heavily nationalized signs already happening example latest nbcwall street journal poll shows 37 percent 20 percent voters seeing vote signal opposition support bush compares 31 percent 19 percent way october 2002 suggests views bush nationalizing election democrats favor moreover 44 percent 40 percent voters say representatives position national issues important representatives performance taking care district problems compares 35 percent national51 percent district october 1994 wave election significantly nationalized gop indicator democrats well wayand someto nationalized election iraq election also one issue particular chance drive nationalization election almost iraq covered detail everworsening public sentiments iraq indication hit bottom yet indeed possible verge qualitative negative shift public attitudes toward war administration responsible march 27 new york times story election year shift public opinion war reported interviews voters elected officials candidates around country suggest deepening hardening opposition war historians analysts said might mark turning point public perception im less optimistic see fatalities every day said angela kirby 32 lawyer st louis initially supported war longer goes less optimistic new mexico dollie shoun 67 said gone ardent supporter war president fierce critic many deaths time come back home ms shoun said speaking mr bush added much dont trust point time polls found support war expectations outcome reached lowest level since invasion pew research center poll week found 66 percent respondents said united states losing ground preventing civil war iraq jump 18 percent since january richard b wirthlin pollster president ronald reagan says sees beginning decisive turn public opinion war hard imagine set circumstances would lead enhancement public support seen said likely go question far fast widen playing field nationalized election candidates money contest every possible election therefore catch wave maximum extent possible getting bit late candidate recruitment front never late money cook points wave high enough even second tier candidates decent chance win still need money argued investment adequate money marginal races far wiser use resources throwing money obviously competitive races lucidly explained political scientists donald green jonathan krasno diminishing returns know large investment expensive race bring votes small investment cheaper race may bring many parties shy away latter grounds hopeless candidates hopeless causes math says different suppose could increase odds twenty candidates 5 10 percent cost helping two candidates 45 percent chances get 50 percent helping twenty hapless candidates would increase expected number victories 20 x 005 1 20 x 010 2 helping wellheeled candidates would increase expected number victories 2 x 45 090 2 x 50 1 first investment portfolio expected return 1 additional victory second one onetenth additional victory fairly realistic scenario seventy challengers 2004 spent 100000 500000 19 least 40 percent vote boosting spending little 50000 100000 would discernable effect chances increasing expenditures 500000 expensive race would likely little effect parties ignore long shots viewed individually single candidate particularly good chance winning group long shots ripe possibility numbers low spending gives parties chance influence chances targeting overlooks many potential winners bottom line targeting help parties win elections instead impels highspending races value contributions minimal narrow group targeted contests excludes many elections distinct albeit distant chance winning focusing sharply toptier races parties effectively narrow playing field congressional elections limiting potential gains wheres beef finally ideas issue democrats consistently running deficits republicans party clear ideasboth general specific issues like iraqand party knows stand recent manifestation pattern new time magazine poll finds 36 percent saying democrats clear set policies country compared 56 percent dont republicans fare better 43 percent clear policies50 percent clear policies assessment matter certainly one go far terms nationalizing election simply concentrating sins side particular bush need change course direction country case argued supporting documentation latest democracy corps memo defining 2000 election offyear election less conducive presidential contest laying elaborate set ideas democrats stand moreover persistent republican taunting democrats ideas suggests interest gops part shifting conversation away considerable problems onto hopefully complicated vulnerable ideas democrats put forward hard avoid sense voters still would like know democrats stand democrats could convey clear simple things stood would help nationalize election benefit together better doesnt really job democracy corps memo recommend short set policy themes somewhat specific ringing call better block pay raise congress incomes average workers begin rise replace bushs prescription drug plan simple one controls costs raise minimum wage 7 hour close new tax loophole encourages companies move operations overseas implement recommendations 911 commission homeland security inspect 100 percent containers coming america repeal cuts student loan programs increase tax breaks college costs create tax incentives expand development wind solar biofuel technologies indeed worthy ideas appear test well theyve got bit laundry list feel clear would go far toward crystallizing image democratic party stands voters minds theres also nothing iraq seems odd omission light centrality issue suggests democrats may need throw big ideas mix point clarify stand nationalize election favor one idea responsible definite exit strategy timetable ending iraq war another might moving toward universal health care sure big ideas like even pitched fairly high level generality might give side something shoot would also give voters answers theyre looking democrats stand point id say democrats err side giving voters want | 1,888 |
<p>Tel Aviv.</p>
<p>Whatever is happening to the Israeli social protest movement?</p>
<p>Good question. It is not only being asked abroad, but in Israel, too.</p>
<p>Last year the movement reached its peak in a giant demonstration. Hundreds of thousands marched in Tel Aviv.</p>
<p>The government did what governments do in such situations: it appointed a commission, headed by a respected professor named Manuel Trajtenberg. The commission made some good but limited recommendations, a tiny fraction of which were actually implemented.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the protest movement hibernated. For no good reason, it was somehow accepted that a protest movement should act only in summertime. (Personally, I much prefer winter demonstrations. Summers are really too damn hot.)</p>
<p>When summer 2012 came around – and a specially hot summer it is – the protest movement moved again.</p>
<p>Daphni Leef, who had started it all, called for a demonstration. She gathered around her some 10,000 people, a respectable number but far less than last year’s multitudes. And for a good (or bad) reason: on the very same day and at the very same hour, less than a kilometer away, another demonstration was taking place. It was about army service (more about that later).</p>
<p>Last Saturday night, Daphni called for another protest, and again some 10,000 gathered. Why not more? Because on the very same day and at the very same hour another demonstration took place on Tel Aviv’s seashore.</p>
<p>What was the difference between the two? None whatsoever. Both claimed to be the legitimate successor of last year’s protest. They used the same slogans.</p>
<p>I don’t generally subscribe to conspiracy theories. But this time it was hard not to suspect that some hidden hand was applying the old Roman maxim “divide et impera”, divide and rule. (Seems that it was not really coined by the Romans, but by the French king Louis XIV , who said “diviser pour régner”.)</p>
<p>The success of Daphni’s demonstration last Saturday was assured by an event nobody could have foreseen.</p>
<p>When the march reached the government quarter of Tel Aviv (the former village of Sarona, founded by German religious settlers in the mid 19th century) something shocking happened. One of the protesters, a middle-aged man from Haifa, set himself on fire and suffered terrible burns.</p>
<p>Jews are not Buddhist monks and nothing like this has ever happened here before. Desperate people commit suicide, but not publicly and not by fire. I think that since the days when converted Jews were burned by the Spanish inquisition, Jews have abhorred this kind of death.</p>
<p>The man, Moshe Silman, was a hard-luck story. Last year he was active in the protest movement. He was a small entrepreneur who twice failed in business, suffered a series of strokes and was left with nothing but large debts. He was about to be evicted from his small apartment. Rather than become homeless, he decided to take his life, after distributing a suicide note to people around him.</p>
<p>Most believers in the American way would probably say that his failure was his own fault, and that nobody had to help him. Jewish ethics are different and demand that a person in desperation, even if caused by his own failures, should be assured of a minimum existence compatible with human dignity.</p>
<p>Binyamin Netanyahu, an ardent admirer of the free market, published a statement dismissing the event as a “personal tragedy”. The demonstrators answered with posters:” Bibi, you are our personal tragedy!”</p>
<p>Silman has become a national symbol. He has given a huge push to the protest movement, which has now resumed its place in public consciousness.</p>
<p>However, the news at the moment is dominated by the competing protest – the one concerning military service.</p>
<p>It is not about refusing service in the army because of the occupation. Such refusers are few, and their courageous acts find, alas, no echo.</p>
<p>No, it is about an entirely different subject: the fact that 6000 able-bodied orthodox youngsters are excused every year from military service, as well as from the alternative civilian service. Those youngsters who serve three full years in the army and then almost a month every year in the reserves are fed up. They demand “equal division of duty”. Among the secular majority, and even among the Zionist religious youth, this is a hugely popular slogan.</p>
<p>Its popularity can be measured by the fact that Itzik Shmuli is there. Shmuli, it will be remembered, is the ambitious student leader who joined Daphni last year and then left her in the lurch. Recently it was disclosed that one of Israel’s foremost tycoons has given him 200,000 dollars for a project.</p>
<p>The orthodox don’t dream of serving. They have very good reasons. For example: the study of the Torah is obviously more important for the security of the state than military service, since, as everybody knows, God protects us only as long as this study goes on. (I once talked about this with Ariel Sharon, and to my surprise and consternation he agreed with this theory.)</p>
<p>The real reason for the orthodox is, of course, their determination to avoid at all costs any contact between their boys and girls and ordinary Israelis, who are steeped in alcohol, crime, sex and drugs.</p>
<p>Netanyahu could easily rule without the orthodox by relying on his secular partners. But he knows that in times of trouble, the orthodox will stick with him, while the others may well melt away.</p>
<p>This week. his fertile mind was feverishly dreaming up compromise solutions that would change everything, while leaving the status quo completely unchanged. For example, it was proposed to draft all religious males, but not at the age of 18, like everybody else, but at the age of 26, when virtually all orthodox men are already married with four children, making their conscription impossible or vastly expensive.</p>
<p>Only 70 days ago, the Kadima party hurriedly joined the government. Its justification was that a coalition comprising 80% of the Knesset would provide Netanyahu with the necessary safety net for a total overhaul of the military draft exemption system.</p>
<p>The real reason was that Kadima had been left without any issue it could call its own. Still the largest faction in the Knesset, with one seat more than the Likud, it was threatened with total annihilation in the next election. A squabble with the hated orthodox could change all that.</p>
<p>So this week, on the 70th day of its membership in the glorious coalition, Kadima left again. It can now march towards the coming elections under the proud banner of Equal Service For All.</p>
<p>There is another angle to this story.</p>
<p>The orthodox are not the only ones exempted from military (and civilian) service. So are the Arab citizens, though for quite different reasons.</p>
<p>The Israeli army never wanted to draft the Arabs and give them – God forbid! – military training and arms. Only the Druze, an old religious-ethnic community with a vague connection to Shiite Islam, do serve, as do a few Bedouin.</p>
<p>Now, with Equal Service slogans rampant, this exemption is coming up, too. Why don’t the Arabs serve? Why are they not called up, at least, for civilian service?</p>
<p>The Arab citizens refuse, of course.&#160; Military service against their own people – fellow Palestinians and fellow Arabs – is out of the question. They refuse civilian service, too, claiming that the state that discriminates against them in so many ways has no right to call them up at all. Even when offered social service within their own community they refuse, causing much resentment among Jewish youths who have to go to the army while Arabs of the same age can go to university or earn good money working.</p>
<p>Thus the movement for Equal Service is in the happy position of attacking the two communities most hated by the majority: the orthodox and the Arabs. Bigotry, racism and secularism, all in the name of equality. Who could wish for more?</p>
<p>Netanyahu is &#160;now left with his former small majority. He has to find a quick solution to the service of the orthodox, since the Supreme Court is breathing down his neck. The present draft law, which was rejected by the court, expires at the end of this month. By then, a new law must be in place.</p>
<p>For Netanyahu, the preferred solution is calling early elections, perhaps next February. He would like that, since currently there is no one around who could compete with his popularity. New parties would have no time to establish themselves.</p>
<p>But Netanyahu is no gambler. He has no appetite for risk-taking. With elections, like wars, one can never be quite sure of the outcome. Stuff happens.</p>
<p>An excellent alternative would be to split Kadima. Having just started to enjoy the sweet taste of government, some of its members may feel disinclined to let go. The Likud would be only too happy to receive them into its ranks.</p>
<p>Divide et impera may have life in it yet.</p>
<p>URI AVNERY&#160;is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book&#160; <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | tel aviv whatever happening israeli social protest movement good question asked abroad israel last year movement reached peak giant demonstration hundreds thousands marched tel aviv government governments situations appointed commission headed respected professor named manuel trajtenberg commission made good limited recommendations tiny fraction actually implemented meantime protest movement hibernated good reason somehow accepted protest movement act summertime personally much prefer winter demonstrations summers really damn hot summer 2012 came around specially hot summer protest movement moved daphni leef started called demonstration gathered around 10000 people respectable number far less last years multitudes good bad reason day hour less kilometer away another demonstration taking place army service later last saturday night daphni called another protest 10000 gathered day hour another demonstration took place tel avivs seashore difference two none whatsoever claimed legitimate successor last years protest used slogans dont generally subscribe conspiracy theories time hard suspect hidden hand applying old roman maxim divide et impera divide rule seems really coined romans french king louis xiv said diviser pour régner success daphnis demonstration last saturday assured event nobody could foreseen march reached government quarter tel aviv former village sarona founded german religious settlers mid 19th century something shocking happened one protesters middleaged man haifa set fire suffered terrible burns jews buddhist monks nothing like ever happened desperate people commit suicide publicly fire think since days converted jews burned spanish inquisition jews abhorred kind death man moshe silman hardluck story last year active protest movement small entrepreneur twice failed business suffered series strokes left nothing large debts evicted small apartment rather become homeless decided take life distributing suicide note people around believers american way would probably say failure fault nobody help jewish ethics different demand person desperation even caused failures assured minimum existence compatible human dignity binyamin netanyahu ardent admirer free market published statement dismissing event personal tragedy demonstrators answered posters bibi personal tragedy silman become national symbol given huge push protest movement resumed place public consciousness however news moment dominated competing protest one concerning military service refusing service army occupation refusers courageous acts find alas echo entirely different subject fact 6000 ablebodied orthodox youngsters excused every year military service well alternative civilian service youngsters serve three full years army almost month every year reserves fed demand equal division duty among secular majority even among zionist religious youth hugely popular slogan popularity measured fact itzik shmuli shmuli remembered ambitious student leader joined daphni last year left lurch recently disclosed one israels foremost tycoons given 200000 dollars project orthodox dont dream serving good reasons example study torah obviously important security state military service since everybody knows god protects us long study goes talked ariel sharon surprise consternation agreed theory real reason orthodox course determination avoid costs contact boys girls ordinary israelis steeped alcohol crime sex drugs netanyahu could easily rule without orthodox relying secular partners knows times trouble orthodox stick others may well melt away week fertile mind feverishly dreaming compromise solutions would change everything leaving status quo completely unchanged example proposed draft religious males age 18 like everybody else age 26 virtually orthodox men already married four children making conscription impossible vastly expensive 70 days ago kadima party hurriedly joined government justification coalition comprising 80 knesset would provide netanyahu necessary safety net total overhaul military draft exemption system real reason kadima left without issue could call still largest faction knesset one seat likud threatened total annihilation next election squabble hated orthodox could change week 70th day membership glorious coalition kadima left march towards coming elections proud banner equal service another angle story orthodox ones exempted military civilian service arab citizens though quite different reasons israeli army never wanted draft arabs give god forbid military training arms druze old religiousethnic community vague connection shiite islam serve bedouin equal service slogans rampant exemption coming dont arabs serve called least civilian service arab citizens refuse course160 military service people fellow palestinians fellow arabs question refuse civilian service claiming state discriminates many ways right call even offered social service within community refuse causing much resentment among jewish youths go army arabs age go university earn good money working thus movement equal service happy position attacking two communities hated majority orthodox arabs bigotry racism secularism name equality could wish netanyahu 160now left former small majority find quick solution service orthodox since supreme court breathing neck present draft law rejected court expires end month new law must place netanyahu preferred solution calling early elections perhaps next february would like since currently one around could compete popularity new parties would time establish netanyahu gambler appetite risktaking elections like wars one never quite sure outcome stuff happens excellent alternative would split kadima started enjoy sweet taste government members may feel disinclined let go likud would happy receive ranks divide et impera may life yet uri avnery160is israeli writer peace activist gush shalom contributor counterpunchs book160 politics antisemitism 160 | 807 |
<p>For several months now, there have been troubling reports of a number of Iraqi civilians murdered over the past year by American troops. The military has recently indicted several soldiers and marines. Not all the evidence is at hand and no one has been convicted. However, the enormity of the incident and its ramifications for the war as well as for what’s left of our standing in the Middle East (and the world as a whole) call for reflection, however preliminary it might be. How do massacres of civilians happen? What forces are at work? What will the impact be on the war?</p>
<p>Cultural Images</p>
<p>Pointing out sordid currents in American life for answers will recall the accusations of racism and militarism during the Vietnam War. Many who remember the heated rhetoric of the time will reflexively reject similar arguments to explain events in Iraq. But the assertion that American troops are shaped by their nation’s values is not manifestly implausible, and in any case the connection is eagerly praised when framing acts of courage in battle and largesse toward civilians. We boast of our compassionate traits when displayed in war; we should acknowledge abhorrent ones if they appear.</p>
<p>The soldiers who went off to Southeast Asia brought with them supreme confidence that right and wrong were clearly defined, any American cause was just, and killing the enemy virtuous. These beliefs had entered the American mind at the country’s inception in battle, but the Second World War deepened them and made the nation’s mission in the world more insistent. Fighting, killing, and prominent display of weapons were every-where in youth culture, signaling that war and violence were natural and essential to resolving matters. The media beamed out the message, repeatedly, in countless war films, magazines, news stories, and even comic books.</p>
<p>America was blessed, ordained to enlighten the world. The beliefs and institutions that had defeated fascism would hold the line against if not rollback communism then spread the freedom and abundance we enjoyed. Attitudes toward the Third World, including Vietnam, ranged from a patronizing view that it had to be placed on the proper developmental track, by force if need be, to a darker one that saw its people as sinister jungle denizens, much like the Japs in the films we boys watched so devotedly from the early forties on.</p>
<p>The defeat in Vietnam gave rise to short-lived antimilitarism but more importantly to new war myths that permeated youth culture and inspired the next generation of soldiers. We lost, it was widely held, because we had to fight (all together now) with one arm tied behind our backs and because civilians meddled with war policy. These legends were driven home, repetitively and iconically, in a slew of vengeance films, whose stars, despite their age and good health, had adroitly avoided the opportunity to show their mettle in Southeast Asia and to teach us that an insurgency is best fought through massive firepower followed by magnanimously patting the head of a grateful local national. Operating outside the contemptibly pusillanimous command structure, a lone man achieves an ersatz victory through the proper use of force that had been denied the American soldier. Many Vietnam veterans wryly smiled or wistfully contemplated the creation before their very eyes of a new heroic war mythology, one at least as alluring and illusory as the old one John Wayne had embodied, the one that had brought hope and joy to their youths but bitterness and alienation to their adolescence.</p>
<p>Over the years, the cinema has made great efforts to portray non-whites and non-Americans in a more respectable light than had earlier efforts. Blacks, Asians, and other minorities are presented in a more favorable manner, but not so the benighted denizens of the Middle Eastern wastelands. Numerous films, many churned out by the Golan-Globus mill, depicted Arabs as treacherous, unreasonable, backward, fanatical, and bloodthirsty beasts who had to be nobly confronted and justly slain, mano a mano, by American warriors, often disillusioned Vietnam veterans, often the same actors who had earlier proven their valor and craft in the vengeance genre. Once again, our champions manfully operated outside the confines of spineless authority.</p>
<p>Though not necessarily well known among cinema-goers, such films did well with boys ­ the rank and file of our next wars ­ who learned that the only good Arab was one immolated or blown to bits. The nettlesome matter of collateral damage, with which only pacifists and defeatists concern themselves anyway, was deftly handled by the unguent credo proclaimed on the young war enthusiast’s T-shirt of choice: Kill Them All – Let God Sort Them Out. World events, it must be admitted, did little to balance the Golan-Globus depiction of the Arab; but, it must also be admitted, neither did other filmmakers. The 9/11 attacks solidified the image, and while much of it remained with the war enthusiasts who stayed a-bed, it was also carried along by many troops going off to the Middle East. Rarely had an enemy been so demonized before the outbreak of war.</p>
<p>Military Training</p>
<p>In basic training, the recruit is uprooted and reoriented into a new moral environment to reduce individuality, accept harshness, and put aside civilian norms. Military life after initial indoctrination continues to be rough, wearing down sensibilities and inculcating obedience. Soldiers must distance themselves from family and community to become parts of a total institution dedicated to controlled violence.</p>
<p>In 1942, civilians went into the service reluctantly, often despised the harsh regimen, and did their duty. But postwar youths were eager to be converted into warriors and looked forward to their war. Military training became harsher and more brutal than during World War Two, in part because studies found that training had not adequately prepared soldiers for combat. But it also stemmed from the increasingly militarized society recruits came from, and from the aura surrounding drill instructors who had won their spurs at Normandy and Okinawa and were held in awe by postwar youth. Owing to renewed interest in World War Two, the pathos of Vietnam, and attendant mythologies, similar eagerness has been found in young soldiers of recent years. Whatever their generation and war sentiments, soldiers learn to put aside much of their pasts and become willing if not eager to pull the trigger. They are taught to obey the commandment all but engraved into every part of military life ­ Thou Shalt Kill. But only at the appropriate time.</p>
<p>No effective military can be an assemblage of wanton killers, and ours certainly isn’t one. Killing is circumscribed by lawful orders, directed through the chain of command, based on international principles of warfare and specific rules of engagement. The zeal for violence instilled by early socialization and military training must be held in check by NCOs and officers. They must assess specific situations as they appear in combat, control their troops’ aggressive impulses, and channel them into lawful and tactically appropriate directions, lest hatreds and frustrations erupt into murderousness and engagements degenerate into slaughter.</p>
<p>At the tactical level, the Dak Tos and Ramadis, the A Shau and Tigris valleys, this responsibility is placed on soldiers in their early twenties, young men under more stress than most can imagine. If there is a greater responsibility heaped on a young man, I don’t want to know it. At the elevated and remote level of geopolitics, the onus of maintaining the line between civilization and barbarism lies with presidents and generals. If there is a place at which killing has been more effectively planned and carried through, I don’t want to know it. As the dismal history of wartime massacres attests, each level has failed.</p>
<p>The Experience of War</p>
<p>Readers can to some extent understand the culture from which soldiers come, and perhaps also the training and coarsening they go through, but the experience of combat is far from the ken of almost all Americans ­ hence our naiveté on many matters of war. As a young soldier is sent into combat, he feels horribly vulnerable and for the first time mortal. He ponders the superficiality of his preparation for war and the puerile understanding of it his upbringing conveyed. The entrancing surrealism of war begins to take hold, from the vacant or hostile stares of experienced soldiers (two weeks often suffice), bullet and blast marks on vehicles, shrapnel singing homage to the Doppler effect, and the occasional glimpse of the wounded, or worse.</p>
<p>The mind looks for analogous experiences in one’s past. It’s not playing war in the backyard. It’s not television or a movie. The mind jumps from worthless experiences and stock footage to the deadly present, and a sense of cold immediacy takes hold. “So this is war. A new world; different rules; us versus them.” In time (two months often suffice), emotion flattens, one’s death there is accepted, and the ensuing resignation of hopes and fears allows for proper functioning. It is perhaps a sine qua non. War becomes an almost dispassionate routine of maneuver and destruction, which though corrosive to the soul is at least an obstacle to bloodlust.</p>
<p>It is well known that an insurgency has no frontline, except for the thousands of them that pop up suddenly and disappear just as suddenly, usually after an inconclusive exchange of ordnance. In that imprecise and ill-boding world, soldiers see civilians around them, Vietnamese or Iraqi, as adepts in the guerilla movement or at least aware of ambush positions and mine locales. A villager selling a drink is surely trying to poison you; a farmer’s concerned look as a patrol nears is proof of membership in a local cell; and it’s common knowledge that even little kids will pop a frag on you. The bleak almost paranoid outlook is a natural evolution of the us-versus-them world of the infantry, which is a useful operating assumption in some places, but the basis of a lethal reaction in others.</p>
<p>In combat, the theory of NCO and junior officer discipline at the squad, platoon, and company levels has to be put into practice more firmly than at Bragg or Pendleton. It is there, naturally, that it is most prone to breaking. Ever mindful of the breakdown of authority in Vietnam, the military now strictly enforces uniform and personal appearance regs, doubtless in the expectation that a tidy, close-shaven soldier is a more controlled one in combat. Army doctrine and socio-consultants tell us so.</p>
<p>In combat, however, new leaders come in as more experienced ones become casualties on the daily patrols. The fluidity of an action can require detaching a squad and sending it to the next village or block. The frustrations of continuous casualties ­ landmines and snipers often figure here ­ without the ugly, primal, but disturbingly mollifying experience of killing an enemy combatant come to a head. And the failure of a young sergeant or lieutenant to repel the swarming rages and push aside the seductive answer of slipping off the safety (a simple silent thumb motion, this) and repeatedly squeezing the trigger ­ hooch to hooch, room to room ­ results in a My Lai, perhaps in a Haditha.</p>
<p>Socialization, training, and combat stress account for only so much. They only make the murderous release a little faster, the remorse a little slower and maybe less sincere. As much as many of us wish to lay blame on politicos in Washington, only partisan casuistry, of which there is no shortage today, can do so. The fault for a My Lai-like massacre lies squarely with the local commander: the sergeant or lieutenant in the hamlet or town. Though many faults may be ascribed to our war leadership, they are no more responsible for a massacre in Iraq than they are for an act of decency there, of which there is certainly no shortage either.</p>
<p>Consequences</p>
<p>What effects will Haditha, in fact and hearsay, have on the war? Domestic support for the war has already fallen so far that the event is unlikely to alter many Americans’ opinions. The allegations, even if borne out by investigation and trial, might have little impact on the Sunni Arabs. Fear of losing support in the Sunni Triangle might rest upon illusions that most Iraqis there do not already dislike or even loathe us. It has long been widely assumed in central Iraq (and also in the Islamic world) that Hadithas are commonplace, parts of a systematic, centuries-long campaign to divide and humiliate them.</p>
<p>It is disagreeable commentary on present sectarian animosities in Iraq that many Kurds and Shi’as will welcome reports of US troops slaughtering Sunni Arabs, whom hard experience, through many decades, has taught them to despise. They might feel that the US has finally realized what they have long known: that successive Sunni Arab regimes have misruled the majority of Iraqis in a heavy-handed manner, and that the end of Saddam’s regime has afforded the opportunity to exert the will of the majority and to right ­ no, avenge ­ past wrongs, fearful and bloody though that will be.</p>
<p>The impact could be most pronounced among our troops there. Transformation from cheery optimism to sullen disillusionment has been the tragic experience of soldiers in war at least since the First World War, and this war, whatever we come to call it, will be no different. Haditha may bring to the fore what they have long suspected or known but felt obliged ­ because of official doctrine, mythic self-images, and fear of sanctions ­ to relegate to the back of their minds: that the cause of winning over the Iraqi people and westernizing them is lost. And it has been a lost cause for over a year, perhaps since Abu Ghraib, perhaps when we crossed the Kuwait-Iraq frontier.</p>
<p>Rebuilding schools and bridges, dispensing the talismanic American candy bars, and even smiling at local nationals will be increasingly reckoned as absurd mummery decreed by distant leaders with no comprehension of the situation in Baquba, Baghdad, or the entire region for that matter. They will see more clearly that the grins of children whom they give small tokens of the American Idea give way swiftly to joy when a convoy is hit by an IED. A redeployment of their us-versus-them outlook will reveal that their dedication and idealism have been cynically manipulated by authority figures their upbringing taught to respect. They will see war policy emanates from men who evaded military service as adroitly as they later cashed out of foundering holdings, by men who value the lives of young Americans much as noblemen once did those of the Hessians and Sepoys they sent off to fight for empire.</p>
<p>The administration is fond of the vogue phrase “tipping point,” and invokes its accompanying imagery from time to time to suggest progress in the war, a corner turned, a light . . . . But other, less beneficial junctures are being reached, if they have not been already. Our soldiers are coming to realize that a majority of Iraqis and Arabs and Muslims see them, as many Vietnamese saw us who came of age in their war-ravaged country, not as the munificent avatars of the American Way as we initially saw ourselves, but increasingly as the Evil in the Valley.</p>
<p>Brian M. Downing is a veteran of the Vietnam War and author of several works of political and military history, including <a href="" type="internal">The Military Revolution and Political Change</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1877275581/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>© Brian M. Downing</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | several months troubling reports number iraqi civilians murdered past year american troops military recently indicted several soldiers marines evidence hand one convicted however enormity incident ramifications war well whats left standing middle east world whole call reflection however preliminary might massacres civilians happen forces work impact war cultural images pointing sordid currents american life answers recall accusations racism militarism vietnam war many remember heated rhetoric time reflexively reject similar arguments explain events iraq assertion american troops shaped nations values manifestly implausible case connection eagerly praised framing acts courage battle largesse toward civilians boast compassionate traits displayed war acknowledge abhorrent ones appear soldiers went southeast asia brought supreme confidence right wrong clearly defined american cause killing enemy virtuous beliefs entered american mind countrys inception battle second world war deepened made nations mission world insistent fighting killing prominent display weapons everywhere youth culture signaling war violence natural essential resolving matters media beamed message repeatedly countless war films magazines news stories even comic books america blessed ordained enlighten world beliefs institutions defeated fascism would hold line rollback communism spread freedom abundance enjoyed attitudes toward third world including vietnam ranged patronizing view placed proper developmental track force need darker one saw people sinister jungle denizens much like japs films boys watched devotedly early forties defeat vietnam gave rise shortlived antimilitarism importantly new war myths permeated youth culture inspired next generation soldiers lost widely held fight together one arm tied behind backs civilians meddled war policy legends driven home repetitively iconically slew vengeance films whose stars despite age good health adroitly avoided opportunity show mettle southeast asia teach us insurgency best fought massive firepower followed magnanimously patting head grateful local national operating outside contemptibly pusillanimous command structure lone man achieves ersatz victory proper use force denied american soldier many vietnam veterans wryly smiled wistfully contemplated creation eyes new heroic war mythology one least alluring illusory old one john wayne embodied one brought hope joy youths bitterness alienation adolescence years cinema made great efforts portray nonwhites nonamericans respectable light earlier efforts blacks asians minorities presented favorable manner benighted denizens middle eastern wastelands numerous films many churned golanglobus mill depicted arabs treacherous unreasonable backward fanatical bloodthirsty beasts nobly confronted justly slain mano mano american warriors often disillusioned vietnam veterans often actors earlier proven valor craft vengeance genre champions manfully operated outside confines spineless authority though necessarily well known among cinemagoers films well boys rank file next wars learned good arab one immolated blown bits nettlesome matter collateral damage pacifists defeatists concern anyway deftly handled unguent credo proclaimed young war enthusiasts tshirt choice kill let god sort world events must admitted little balance golanglobus depiction arab must also admitted neither filmmakers 911 attacks solidified image much remained war enthusiasts stayed abed also carried along many troops going middle east rarely enemy demonized outbreak war military training basic training recruit uprooted reoriented new moral environment reduce individuality accept harshness put aside civilian norms military life initial indoctrination continues rough wearing sensibilities inculcating obedience soldiers must distance family community become parts total institution dedicated controlled violence 1942 civilians went service reluctantly often despised harsh regimen duty postwar youths eager converted warriors looked forward war military training became harsher brutal world war two part studies found training adequately prepared soldiers combat also stemmed increasingly militarized society recruits came aura surrounding drill instructors spurs normandy okinawa held awe postwar youth owing renewed interest world war two pathos vietnam attendant mythologies similar eagerness found young soldiers recent years whatever generation war sentiments soldiers learn put aside much pasts become willing eager pull trigger taught obey commandment engraved every part military life thou shalt kill appropriate time effective military assemblage wanton killers certainly isnt one killing circumscribed lawful orders directed chain command based international principles warfare specific rules engagement zeal violence instilled early socialization military training must held check ncos officers must assess specific situations appear combat control troops aggressive impulses channel lawful tactically appropriate directions lest hatreds frustrations erupt murderousness engagements degenerate slaughter tactical level dak tos ramadis shau tigris valleys responsibility placed soldiers early twenties young men stress imagine greater responsibility heaped young man dont want know elevated remote level geopolitics onus maintaining line civilization barbarism lies presidents generals place killing effectively planned carried dont want know dismal history wartime massacres attests level failed experience war readers extent understand culture soldiers come perhaps also training coarsening go experience combat far ken almost americans hence naiveté many matters war young soldier sent combat feels horribly vulnerable first time mortal ponders superficiality preparation war puerile understanding upbringing conveyed entrancing surrealism war begins take hold vacant hostile stares experienced soldiers two weeks often suffice bullet blast marks vehicles shrapnel singing homage doppler effect occasional glimpse wounded worse mind looks analogous experiences ones past playing war backyard television movie mind jumps worthless experiences stock footage deadly present sense cold immediacy takes hold war new world different rules us versus time two months often suffice emotion flattens ones death accepted ensuing resignation hopes fears allows proper functioning perhaps sine qua non war becomes almost dispassionate routine maneuver destruction though corrosive soul least obstacle bloodlust well known insurgency frontline except thousands pop suddenly disappear suddenly usually inconclusive exchange ordnance imprecise illboding world soldiers see civilians around vietnamese iraqi adepts guerilla movement least aware ambush positions mine locales villager selling drink surely trying poison farmers concerned look patrol nears proof membership local cell common knowledge even little kids pop frag bleak almost paranoid outlook natural evolution usversusthem world infantry useful operating assumption places basis lethal reaction others combat theory nco junior officer discipline squad platoon company levels put practice firmly bragg pendleton naturally prone breaking ever mindful breakdown authority vietnam military strictly enforces uniform personal appearance regs doubtless expectation tidy closeshaven soldier controlled one combat army doctrine socioconsultants tell us combat however new leaders come experienced ones become casualties daily patrols fluidity action require detaching squad sending next village block frustrations continuous casualties landmines snipers often figure without ugly primal disturbingly mollifying experience killing enemy combatant come head failure young sergeant lieutenant repel swarming rages push aside seductive answer slipping safety simple silent thumb motion repeatedly squeezing trigger hooch hooch room room results lai perhaps haditha socialization training combat stress account much make murderous release little faster remorse little slower maybe less sincere much many us wish lay blame politicos washington partisan casuistry shortage today fault lailike massacre lies squarely local commander sergeant lieutenant hamlet town though many faults may ascribed war leadership responsible massacre iraq act decency certainly shortage either consequences effects haditha fact hearsay war domestic support war already fallen far event unlikely alter many americans opinions allegations even borne investigation trial might little impact sunni arabs fear losing support sunni triangle might rest upon illusions iraqis already dislike even loathe us long widely assumed central iraq also islamic world hadithas commonplace parts systematic centurieslong campaign divide humiliate disagreeable commentary present sectarian animosities iraq many kurds shias welcome reports us troops slaughtering sunni arabs hard experience many decades taught despise might feel us finally realized long known successive sunni arab regimes misruled majority iraqis heavyhanded manner end saddams regime afforded opportunity exert majority right avenge past wrongs fearful bloody though impact could pronounced among troops transformation cheery optimism sullen disillusionment tragic experience soldiers war least since first world war war whatever come call different haditha may bring fore long suspected known felt obliged official doctrine mythic selfimages fear sanctions relegate back minds cause winning iraqi people westernizing lost lost cause year perhaps since abu ghraib perhaps crossed kuwaitiraq frontier rebuilding schools bridges dispensing talismanic american candy bars even smiling local nationals increasingly reckoned absurd mummery decreed distant leaders comprehension situation baquba baghdad entire region matter see clearly grins children give small tokens american idea give way swiftly joy convoy hit ied redeployment usversusthem outlook reveal dedication idealism cynically manipulated authority figures upbringing taught respect see war policy emanates men evaded military service adroitly later cashed foundering holdings men value lives young americans much noblemen hessians sepoys sent fight empire administration fond vogue phrase tipping point invokes accompanying imagery time time suggest progress war corner turned light less beneficial junctures reached already soldiers coming realize majority iraqis arabs muslims see many vietnamese saw us came age warravaged country munificent avatars american way initially saw increasingly evil valley brian downing veteran vietnam war author several works political military history including military revolution political change paths glory war social change america great war vietnam reached brianmdowninggmailcom brian downing 160 160 | 1,410 |
<p>Police officers deployed in Munich on July 22Michael Dalder/Reuters via ZUMA Press</p>
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<p>As a string of gun rampages continues in America and beyond, more evidence is emerging that copycat mass shooters are on the rise—a danger amplified and accelerated by social media. Two mass shootings this month build on disturbing patterns seen in other recent cases: an attack on police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and another on mallgoers in Munich, Germany, whose perpetrator displayed a host of behaviors underscoring this troubling phenomenon.</p>
<p>The attacker in Baton Rouge, a 29-year-old black Army veteran who killed three cops and wounded three others before a SWAT officer took him out, was prolific on social media before he struck. Among the many YouTube videos Gavin Long made of himself and shared via Twitter and Facebook are ones where he expressed his admiration for the mass killer who gunned down officers in Dallas just 10 days before Long’s own attack. “With a brother killing the police you get what I’m saying—it’s justice,” Long <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/17/alleged-baton-rouge-cop-killer-gavin-long-had-a-crazed-online-double-life.html" type="external">declared</a> about the Dallas attacker—himself a young black Army veteran who had served in a war zone.</p>
<p>The gun rampage carried out <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/world/europe/munich-mall.html?action=click&amp;contentCollection=Europe&amp;module=RelatedCoverage&amp;region=Marginalia&amp;pgtype=article" type="external">in Munich</a> last Friday by 18-year-old Ali Sonboly threw that city into chaos over fears of a multipronged terrorist attack. (Early reports of active shootings these days invariably are fraught with misinformation—a <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20160714-dallas-police-shooter-killed-4-officers-on-the-street-1-through-a-second-floor-window.ece" type="external">similar unfounded panic</a> hit Dallas—though Munich had plenty of reason to overreact, with Germany increasingly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/world/europe/ansbach-germany-music-festival-explosion.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=second-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news" type="external">targeted by ISIS</a>.) But Sonboly, the lone perpetrator who killed nine people and injured numerous others before committing suicide as law enforcement closed in, appears to have had no connection to Islamist terrorism.</p>
<p>Instead, investigators have uncovered a range of evidence suggesting Sonboly was a textbook copycat attacker. The many parallels with past cases are striking:</p>
<p>Obsession with prior mass shooters One such piece of evidence was literally a textbook: In the apartment where Sonboly lived, investigators found a German-language edition of <a href="https://schoolshooters.info/why-kids-kill-book" type="external">Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters</a>. The book’s author, American psychologist and school shootings expert <a href="https://schoolshooters.info/" type="external">Peter Langman</a>, told me that his “heart sank” when he learned of that discovery. It was not the first time an attacker displayed an interest in Langman’s case studies. The 18-year-old who went on a <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/publications/AHS-Report/Report_on_the_Arapahoe_High_School_Shooting_FINAL.pdf" type="external">rampage at Arapahoe High School</a> in Colorado in December 2013 also had a copy of the book. Investigators in Munich also learned that Sonboly had collected news coverage and other information on past attacks, a behavior familiar from the Newtown killer and many other mass shooters.</p>
<p>Such content helps fulfill the need of aspiring killers to find people they can identify with, says Langman. “Having a role model or an ideology that supports their violent intentions may serve the purpose of transforming what is otherwise aberrant and abhorrent into something admirable,” he says. “It validates their urge toward violence.”</p>
<p>Targeting an anniversary Sonboly went on his rampage precisely <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/suspect-munich-attack-book-columbine-virginia-tech-shooters/story?id=40821013" type="external">five years after</a> one of Europe’s worst massacres in modern history, the attack carried out in July 2011 in Norway by a lone killer who took the lives of 77 people and injured hundreds of others. As with the Norway massacre, which took place primarily at a youth summer camp, most of Sonboly’s victims were teenagers.</p>
<p />
<p>The desire to strike on the anniversary of a high-profile mass killing is not uncommon among would-be copycats, as I documented last year in my investigation of the “ <a href="" type="internal">Columbine effect</a>.” Since 1999, at least 14 perpetrators who emulated the Columbine killers have plotted to attack schools around the United States on that same date in April.</p>
<p>“Pseudocommando” ambitions Forensic psychologists specializing in <a href="" type="internal">threat assessment</a> have documented numerous mass shooters who cultivated a “ <a href="https://leb.fbi.gov/2016/april/perspective-identifying-warning-behaviors-of-the-individual-terrorist" type="external">pseudocommando</a>” image—those who were obsessed with military weapons and paraphernalia and aspired to a “warrior mentality.” In Sonboly’s case, he may have nurtured such tendencies in part through first-person shooter games, including <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Counter-Strike-Source-PC/dp/B000AOJ7FK" type="external">Counter-Strike: Source</a>, a game that German investigators <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/24/europe/germany-munich-shooting/" type="external">said</a> he was obsessed with.</p>
<p>Weaponizing social media Particularly chilling is how Sonboly apparently used Facebook to try to lure young victims to a McDonald’s restaurant across from Munich’s Olympia shopping mall, where he shot seven of his victims. (According to investigators, he may either have hacked a teenage girl’s account or created a phony Facebook page where he promised free food at the restaurant.)</p>
<p>Other recent rampage shooters have used social media as a tool in their attacks: In August 2015, an enraged ex-TV journalist gunned down two former colleagues in Virginia during a live broadcast and then posted his own footage of the killing on Facebook and Twitter, in what was dubbed the first “ <a href="" type="internal">social-media murder</a>.” And in June, the mass killer who struck inside an Orlando nightclub logged onto Facebook while he was in the process of killing, to see if news of his attack had gone viral. Threat assessment experts warn of <a href="" type="internal">more of this behavior to come</a>.</p>
<p>A pre-attack pilgrimage Another disturbing facet of Sonboly’s attack planning connects to a previous case: Investigators found evidence that he began preparing for the rampage about a year ago, after he visited the site of a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/europe/12germany.html?_r=0" type="external">2009 school massacre</a> in Winnenden, Germany. “We found a manifesto of his, in which he considers such attacks,” <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/world/europe/munich-gunman-portrayed-as-having-planned-attack-for-a-year.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=second-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=2" type="external">said</a> Robert Heimberger, the chief of the Bavarian State Criminal Police. “From photos we found on a digital camera, we know that he visited the site and took pictures there.” Heimberger added that Sonboly was “obsessed” with the school shooting in Winnenden.</p>
<p />
<p>Other mass shooters have engaged in these types of pilgrimages, seeking inspiration, tactical information, or both. As my investigation last year also showed, there are three publicly known cases in which perpetrators traveled to Columbine High School from other states as they plotted lethal attacks, two of which were ultimately carried out. (One took place in Washington state and another in North Carolina; an attack planned for a school in Utah was thwarted.) And those are just the cases that have been reported in the media—there have been more. In the course of my research on mass shootings, several veteran law enforcement officials have told me about other cases—involving Columbine as well as other sites of high-profile attacks—that have drawn these kinds of visits. (The officials, from regional and federal law enforcement agencies, shared this information under the condition that the details remain private.)</p>
<p>The rise of ISIS-inspired attacks in Europe and the United States has only further complicated the question of what motivates individuals to carry out mass shootings. A complex set of factors plays into this, from <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/jihadists-exploit-mental-illness-attacks-experts-194239065.html" type="external">mental health</a> to the role of social media. In the aftermath of Orlando, popular wisdom quickly settled on “ISIS terrorist”—but as I reported then, some threat assessment experts suggest that explanation, favoring the ideological over the clinical, may have been too simple or <a href="" type="internal">possibly even wrong</a>.</p>
<p>Over the last few months, as I’ve spoken with threat assessment and security experts who work in a wide range of settings around the country, I’ve been struck by a similar theme from many of them: Threat caseloads have been growing, and their “op tempo” has been rising. A bitterly contentious political climate, the threat of terrorism, and global instability undoubtedly are factors. But with mass shootings heavily in the air these days—perhaps in part because of <a href="" type="internal">unwarranted hype from the media</a>—some are concerned that we’ve entered “a new normal.”</p>
<p>During and immediately after the Baton Rouge attack earlier this month, I happened to be attending a conference with numerous law enforcement officials and security experts; unsurprisingly, the atmosphere among this typically stoic group of professionals included some palpable emotion and concern. One veteran school security leader from Colorado spoke of dealing with a record threat caseload over the past year. A leader of a SWAT unit from a Northeastern state described to me the added contingencies he was now tasked with putting in place for any public events drawing crowds—now there is the added layer of protecting the police as they protect the public.</p>
<p>There is a troubling sense of streams converging, of thresholds being crossed.</p>
<p>“I think that the more the taboo against mass murder is broken, the easier it becomes for the next perpetrator. Thus, it seems to me that this phenomenon is feeding on itself, growing with each new incident,” says Langman. “For those who feel like they are nobody, the path to becoming somebody is very simple—get a gun and shoot a lot of people.”</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | police officers deployed munich july 22michael dalderreuters via zuma press string gun rampages continues america beyond evidence emerging copycat mass shooters risea danger amplified accelerated social media two mass shootings month build disturbing patterns seen recent cases attack police officers baton rouge louisiana another mallgoers munich germany whose perpetrator displayed host behaviors underscoring troubling phenomenon attacker baton rouge 29yearold black army veteran killed three cops wounded three others swat officer took prolific social media struck among many youtube videos gavin long made shared via twitter facebook ones expressed admiration mass killer gunned officers dallas 10 days longs attack brother killing police get im sayingits justice long declared dallas attackerhimself young black army veteran served war zone gun rampage carried munich last friday 18yearold ali sonboly threw city chaos fears multipronged terrorist attack early reports active shootings days invariably fraught misinformationa similar unfounded panic hit dallasthough munich plenty reason overreact germany increasingly targeted isis sonboly lone perpetrator killed nine people injured numerous others committing suicide law enforcement closed appears connection islamist terrorism instead investigators uncovered range evidence suggesting sonboly textbook copycat attacker many parallels past cases striking obsession prior mass shooters one piece evidence literally textbook apartment sonboly lived investigators found germanlanguage edition kids kill inside minds school shooters books author american psychologist school shootings expert peter langman told heart sank learned discovery first time attacker displayed interest langmans case studies 18yearold went rampage arapahoe high school colorado december 2013 also copy book investigators munich also learned sonboly collected news coverage information past attacks behavior familiar newtown killer many mass shooters content helps fulfill need aspiring killers find people identify says langman role model ideology supports violent intentions may serve purpose transforming otherwise aberrant abhorrent something admirable says validates urge toward violence targeting anniversary sonboly went rampage precisely five years one europes worst massacres modern history attack carried july 2011 norway lone killer took lives 77 people injured hundreds others norway massacre took place primarily youth summer camp sonbolys victims teenagers desire strike anniversary highprofile mass killing uncommon among wouldbe copycats documented last year investigation columbine effect since 1999 least 14 perpetrators emulated columbine killers plotted attack schools around united states date april pseudocommando ambitions forensic psychologists specializing threat assessment documented numerous mass shooters cultivated pseudocommando imagethose obsessed military weapons paraphernalia aspired warrior mentality sonbolys case may nurtured tendencies part firstperson shooter games including counterstrike source game german investigators said obsessed weaponizing social media particularly chilling sonboly apparently used facebook try lure young victims mcdonalds restaurant across munichs olympia shopping mall shot seven victims according investigators may either hacked teenage girls account created phony facebook page promised free food restaurant recent rampage shooters used social media tool attacks august 2015 enraged extv journalist gunned two former colleagues virginia live broadcast posted footage killing facebook twitter dubbed first socialmedia murder june mass killer struck inside orlando nightclub logged onto facebook process killing see news attack gone viral threat assessment experts warn behavior come preattack pilgrimage another disturbing facet sonbolys attack planning connects previous case investigators found evidence began preparing rampage year ago visited site 2009 school massacre winnenden germany found manifesto considers attacks said robert heimberger chief bavarian state criminal police photos found digital camera know visited site took pictures heimberger added sonboly obsessed school shooting winnenden mass shooters engaged types pilgrimages seeking inspiration tactical information investigation last year also showed three publicly known cases perpetrators traveled columbine high school states plotted lethal attacks two ultimately carried one took place washington state another north carolina attack planned school utah thwarted cases reported mediathere course research mass shootings several veteran law enforcement officials told casesinvolving columbine well sites highprofile attacksthat drawn kinds visits officials regional federal law enforcement agencies shared information condition details remain private rise isisinspired attacks europe united states complicated question motivates individuals carry mass shootings complex set factors plays mental health role social media aftermath orlando popular wisdom quickly settled isis terroristbut reported threat assessment experts suggest explanation favoring ideological clinical may simple possibly even wrong last months ive spoken threat assessment security experts work wide range settings around country ive struck similar theme many threat caseloads growing op tempo rising bitterly contentious political climate threat terrorism global instability undoubtedly factors mass shootings heavily air daysperhaps part unwarranted hype mediasome concerned weve entered new normal immediately baton rouge attack earlier month happened attending conference numerous law enforcement officials security experts unsurprisingly atmosphere among typically stoic group professionals included palpable emotion concern one veteran school security leader colorado spoke dealing record threat caseload past year leader swat unit northeastern state described added contingencies tasked putting place public events drawing crowdsnow added layer protecting police protect public troubling sense streams converging thresholds crossed think taboo mass murder broken easier becomes next perpetrator thus seems phenomenon feeding growing new incident says langman feel like nobody path becoming somebody simpleget gun shoot lot people | 810 |
<p>While the automobile companies deserve some blame for the problems in their industry, there is blame to spread around.&#160; The root cause of the biggest problems is the alliance between big corporations and government which has led to poor decision-making in Washington. &#160;It is embarrassing to hear Congress put all the blame on the Detroit triopoly and not acknowledge their irresponsible behavior in bowing to corporate pressures.</p>
<p>Solving the auto industry problems is an opportunity to begin to shape a more effective new economy that changes the relationship between corporations and government as well as share’s the wealth more equitably.</p>
<p>The Causes of the Auto Crisis</p>
<p>Corporate-government created the three major causes of the auto industry crisis: health care, the credit crunch and low efficiency cars.</p>
<p>Health care is an out of control cost where double digit annual price increases are more common than rare. While other industrialized nations have controlled the cost of health care, the United States has not.&#160; President Truman called for a single payer national health insurance plan many decades ago, but the Congress has been unable to show the will to face-up to the issue because of the power of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. While health insurance is on the Obama-Kennedy agenda, they are still not challenging those industries as they should and not confronting the real problems.</p>
<p>Every business small and large has struggled with paying the health insurance costs of their employees.&#160; It has held back hiring and holds back wages.&#160; A mega-corporation like General Motors sees those problems amplified.&#160; It would not be unfair to describe General Motors as a health insurance provider who happens to make cars.&#160; GM spends $5 billion annually on health care for 1.2 million people – only 150,000 of whom work for the company.&#160; GM, Ford and Chrysler have a combined unfunded retiree health care obligation of more than $90 billion. Health care adds $1,500 to the cost of each vehicle.&#160; This reality alone makes it virtually impossible for GM to have a successful economic model and it is not something GM can fix.&#160; Health care is a major problem not only for the auto industry, but the airline and steel industry as well as businesses of all size.&#160; The failure of Congress to face up to single payer health care is becoming a threat to the American economy.</p>
<p>The second major cause of the current auto industry crisis is the crash of the credit markets.&#160; This has made getting loans to purchase cars more difficult and has resulted in a massive drop in automobile purchases. The U.S. auto market fell 14.8% through the first 10 months of 2008 and sales in October plunged 31.9%. Why? The lack of available credit for potential car buyers. And, on the other end, the industry cannot get loans to cover the dramatic loss in car sales.</p>
<p>The credit crisis is also not the fault of the automobilie industry. The cause of the credit crisis falls back on bad government that allowed the stock market to be turned into an unregulated casino. The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Congress and regulators failure to apply basic regulation to the financial markets and money supply are to blame (even free marketer Alan Greenspan now admits this mistake) – but now Congress wants to put the blame on the auto industry rather than accept responsibility for their failure and clean up the mess.</p>
<p>The third cause, inefficient 20th Century automobiles rather than forward looking efficient 21st Century green cars is a shared error of government and the auto industry.&#160; The Congress did not have the political will to demand energy efficiency, indeed they provided a tax credit for SUV purchases, and the auto industry lobbied to prevent such standards.</p>
<p>All there of these causes have the same source:&#160; corporate controlled government.&#160; The health insurance industry did not want the more efficient single payer national health insurance.&#160; The finance industry wanted to be free to treat the stock market like a casino, liked the Fed’s easy money and did not want to be regulated.&#160; And, the auto industry did not want to be told to build more efficient cars.&#160; Corporate-government is the root of the problems we face today.</p>
<p>While the CEO’s who flew in on private jets to beg for money will pay a price if their businesses fail, a bigger price will be paid by their workers, their families and retirees.&#160; The Congress has no problem giving $700 billion to white collar Wall Street, but when it comes to blue collar Main Street, the coffers are closed, or more difficult to pry open, even with the risk of a deepening recession and even a depression before them.</p>
<p>Solutions That Can Build a New Economy and Begin to End Corporate-Government</p>
<p>Solving the auto industry financial shortfall is an opportunity to begin to re-make the relationship between corporations and government.&#160; While the bailout of Wall Street has rightly enraged Americans, the reality is that hundreds of billions annually is given in corporate welfare to big business every year.&#160; The bailout is business as usual brought out in the open.&#160; Even wealthy, highly profitable businesses like the oil and pharmaceutical industries are doled out billions in tax payer dollars annually.</p>
<p>Taxpayer support – the common wealth of Americans – has not resulted in a fair sharing of the profits.&#160; As a result the wealth divide between the rich and the poor, between CEO’s and employees has grown grotesquely wide.&#160; President Obama talked about “sharing the wealth.”&#160; President Bush talked about an “ownership society.”&#160; In fact, we have neither an ownership society nor equitable sharing of wealth when we should have both.</p>
<p>Corporate welfare needs to be transformed into an equity investment by taxpayers. That is a first step to creating a real ownership society.&#160; And, taxpayers need to be treated like major investors.&#160; This means a role in setting the direction of the company and a return on their investment, in dividends.&#160; Indeed, Chrysler issued a statement on November 17th saying that it expected any loan package to come with conditions “including taxpayers having equity. . . . The Company is open to further discussions with Congress.”&#160; Some have suggested in the automobile case, “a government-appointed receiver—someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical—should have broad power to revamp GM with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible.”</p>
<p>The suggestion is half right, the taxpayer is already on-line to fund the transition to&#160; efficiency with $25 billion and we have been auto industry investors for years through tax payer dollars. Thus, an equity stake is appropriate and&#160; will also ensure that the auto industry gets even more on board with the new energy economy that needs to develop.&#160; And, if Americans have an equity stake in the industry, it will help U.S. automakers – will Americans be more likely to buy U.S. cars when they profit from doing so?</p>
<p>And, to spur the new auto market, the government could create a consumer auto loan guarantee through 2010 for the purchase of cars that the EPA estimates to get over 30 miles per gallon.&#160; This could be coupled with a tax credit that is based on fuel efficiency – the more efficient, the bigger the credit.&#160; These should not be limited to purchases from GM, Ford and Chrysler but to any auto company that makes efficient cars as this will encourage an energy efficiency competition and move the U.S. toward the new energy economy that is essential.</p>
<p>Further, one requirement of receiving government funds should be correcting the imbalance in pay, including bonuses, between blue collar and white collar workers. GM’s chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, received a 33% raise for 2008 and equity compensation of at least $1.68 million for his performance in 2007 plus stock and options, in a year for which the auto maker reported a loss of $38.7 billion. The salary increase puts Wagoner’s salary for this year at $2.2 million, compared with $1.65 million in 2007. Wagoner’s overall compensation is down from 2003 when he made $8.3 million in compensation from salary and bonuses alone. Fords’ Alan Mulally received $2 million in base salary, a $4 million bonus and more than $11 million of stock and options in 2007. His base salary was unchanged over 2006. Crysler’s CEO pay is unknown since it is a privately held corporation.&#160; However, Chrysler plans to pay retention bonuses promised to executives which pay out in August 2009 at $30 million.</p>
<p>On the blue collar side, UAW members will forgo most pay raises for the next two years keeping their wages at $29.78 an hour plus health care and retirement, which bring the total to $69 per hour (dropping to $62 by 20101). New hires are getting only $14 per hour. &#160;Under a recent agreement retirees will pay some of their health care costs totaling $1 billion a year.&#160; So, the workers, already paid disproportionately less than executives, are taking cuts in pay.</p>
<p>The corporate-government folks in DC applaud the blue collar worker pay cuts.&#160; But, this has been a problem that underlies the failure of the U.S. economy.&#160; Even though consumer purchases are the main driver of the economy, the American worker is losing buying power. In fact, real wages in the U.S. declined by 12% between 1974 and 2004.&#160; Standard of living has been kept up by having both spouses working, increasing consumer debt (and no savings) and cheap foreign products. &#160;None of this is sustainable.&#160; In order to have a sustainable economy we need working Americans to see increases in real wages not decreases.</p>
<p>The failure to find a creative solution to the automobile crisis with a taxpayer equity investment risks an already deep recession becoming even deeper and potentially evolving into a depression, especially in the Midwest states that produce autos.&#160; And, it is short-sighted.&#160; The loss of the big three will be a loss of $156 billion over three years in tax revenue to the federal government.&#160; After the immediate crisis, serious consideration should be given to whether having three-too-large-to-fail companies is in the national interest, creates the kind of competition needed and the flexibility needed in a rapidly changing economy.</p>
<p>The auto crisis is the result of years of corporate-controlled government coming home to roost. Over and over, Congress put the interests of big business ahead of sound policy and common sense.&#160; Now it is time to turn the relationship between corporations and government on its head and ensure that both corporations and government work for the interest of the people rather than the short term profits of corporations and the re-election of politicians with big business campaign contributions.</p>
<p>KEVIN ZEESE is director of the Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Poltics ( <a href="http://www.freshaircleanpolitics.net/" type="external">www.FreshAirCleanPolitics.net</a>) whose newest project is <a href="http://www.breakthebailout.com/" type="external">www.BreakTheBailout.com</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | automobile companies deserve blame problems industry blame spread around160 root cause biggest problems alliance big corporations government led poor decisionmaking washington 160it embarrassing hear congress put blame detroit triopoly acknowledge irresponsible behavior bowing corporate pressures solving auto industry problems opportunity begin shape effective new economy changes relationship corporations government well shares wealth equitably causes auto crisis corporategovernment created three major causes auto industry crisis health care credit crunch low efficiency cars health care control cost double digit annual price increases common rare industrialized nations controlled cost health care united states not160 president truman called single payer national health insurance plan many decades ago congress unable show faceup issue power health insurance pharmaceutical industries health insurance obamakennedy agenda still challenging industries confronting real problems every business small large struggled paying health insurance costs employees160 held back hiring holds back wages160 megacorporation like general motors sees problems amplified160 would unfair describe general motors health insurance provider happens make cars160 gm spends 5 billion annually health care 12 million people 150000 work company160 gm ford chrysler combined unfunded retiree health care obligation 90 billion health care adds 1500 cost vehicle160 reality alone makes virtually impossible gm successful economic model something gm fix160 health care major problem auto industry airline steel industry well businesses size160 failure congress face single payer health care becoming threat american economy second major cause current auto industry crisis crash credit markets160 made getting loans purchase cars difficult resulted massive drop automobile purchases us auto market fell 148 first 10 months 2008 sales october plunged 319 lack available credit potential car buyers end industry get loans cover dramatic loss car sales credit crisis also fault automobilie industry cause credit crisis falls back bad government allowed stock market turned unregulated casino federal reserve treasury department congress regulators failure apply basic regulation financial markets money supply blame even free marketer alan greenspan admits mistake congress wants put blame auto industry rather accept responsibility failure clean mess third cause inefficient 20th century automobiles rather forward looking efficient 21st century green cars shared error government auto industry160 congress political demand energy efficiency indeed provided tax credit suv purchases auto industry lobbied prevent standards causes source160 corporate controlled government160 health insurance industry want efficient single payer national health insurance160 finance industry wanted free treat stock market like casino liked feds easy money want regulated160 auto industry want told build efficient cars160 corporategovernment root problems face today ceos flew private jets beg money pay price businesses fail bigger price paid workers families retirees160 congress problem giving 700 billion white collar wall street comes blue collar main street coffers closed difficult pry open even risk deepening recession even depression solutions build new economy begin end corporategovernment solving auto industry financial shortfall opportunity begin remake relationship corporations government160 bailout wall street rightly enraged americans reality hundreds billions annually given corporate welfare big business every year160 bailout business usual brought open160 even wealthy highly profitable businesses like oil pharmaceutical industries doled billions tax payer dollars annually taxpayer support common wealth americans resulted fair sharing profits160 result wealth divide rich poor ceos employees grown grotesquely wide160 president obama talked sharing wealth160 president bush talked ownership society160 fact neither ownership society equitable sharing wealth corporate welfare needs transformed equity investment taxpayers first step creating real ownership society160 taxpayers need treated like major investors160 means role setting direction company return investment dividends160 indeed chrysler issued statement november 17th saying expected loan package come conditions including taxpayers equity company open discussions congress160 suggested automobile case governmentappointed receiversomeone hardnosed nonpoliticalshould broad power revamp gm viable business plan return private operation soon possible suggestion half right taxpayer already online fund transition to160 efficiency 25 billion auto industry investors years tax payer dollars thus equity stake appropriate and160 also ensure auto industry gets even board new energy economy needs develop160 americans equity stake industry help us automakers americans likely buy us cars profit spur new auto market government could create consumer auto loan guarantee 2010 purchase cars epa estimates get 30 miles per gallon160 could coupled tax credit based fuel efficiency efficient bigger credit160 limited purchases gm ford chrysler auto company makes efficient cars encourage energy efficiency competition move us toward new energy economy essential one requirement receiving government funds correcting imbalance pay including bonuses blue collar white collar workers gms chairman chief executive rick wagoner received 33 raise 2008 equity compensation least 168 million performance 2007 plus stock options year auto maker reported loss 387 billion salary increase puts wagoners salary year 22 million compared 165 million 2007 wagoners overall compensation 2003 made 83 million compensation salary bonuses alone fords alan mulally received 2 million base salary 4 million bonus 11 million stock options 2007 base salary unchanged 2006 cryslers ceo pay unknown since privately held corporation160 however chrysler plans pay retention bonuses promised executives pay august 2009 30 million blue collar side uaw members forgo pay raises next two years keeping wages 2978 hour plus health care retirement bring total 69 per hour dropping 62 20101 new hires getting 14 per hour 160under recent agreement retirees pay health care costs totaling 1 billion year160 workers already paid disproportionately less executives taking cuts pay corporategovernment folks dc applaud blue collar worker pay cuts160 problem underlies failure us economy160 even though consumer purchases main driver economy american worker losing buying power fact real wages us declined 12 1974 2004160 standard living kept spouses working increasing consumer debt savings cheap foreign products 160none sustainable160 order sustainable economy need working americans see increases real wages decreases failure find creative solution automobile crisis taxpayer equity investment risks already deep recession becoming even deeper potentially evolving depression especially midwest states produce autos160 shortsighted160 loss big three loss 156 billion three years tax revenue federal government160 immediate crisis serious consideration given whether threetoolargetofail companies national interest creates kind competition needed flexibility needed rapidly changing economy auto crisis result years corporatecontrolled government coming home roost congress put interests big business ahead sound policy common sense160 time turn relationship corporations government head ensure corporations government work interest people rather short term profits corporations reelection politicians big business campaign contributions kevin zeese director campaign fresh air clean poltics wwwfreshaircleanpoliticsnet whose newest project wwwbreakthebailoutcom 160 160 160 160 160 | 1,034 |
<p>When news broke last year that conservative economist Stephen Moore had acquiesced to <a href="/content/dailybeast/features/2016/donald-trump.html" type="external">Donald Trump</a>’s protectionist policies, political observers were stunned. After all, as the founder of the Club for Growth, Moore had worked to defeat Republican politicians who didn’t pass his purity litmus test on issues like free trade; now he was championing one… for president!</p>
<p>“I used to be unilateral free trader,” Moore <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/307462-trump-adviser-tells-house-republicans-youre-no-longer-reagans-party" type="external">said in November</a>. “But the political reality… is there’s a backlash against trade. Whether we like it or not we better adapt the rules in ways that benefit American workers more, or free trade is not going to flourish.”</p>
<p>His comments went over like a lead balloon. One friend told him he “ <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442605/donald-trump-republican-party-populist-working-class-america-first" type="external">must have been drunk</a>” when he made them. Economics professor Don Boudreaux fired off a sharp-elbowed <a href="http://cafehayek.com/2016/12/open-letter-to-steve-moore.html" type="external">open letter</a> to Moore. “Moore is the definition of a ‘high-falutin’ intellectual, except that now he’s embraced some FDR-style down-home populism because it’s politically convenient,” scolded <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/12/trump-economic-adviser-moore-doubles-down-this-is-trumps-party-now" type="external">Ben Shapiro at Conservative Review</a>. And for every person who spoke out publicly, dozens were murmuring at conservative conclaves and cocktail parties. Moore had become the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2010/12/06/131792296/ted-olson-gay-marriage-s-unlikely-legal-warrior" type="external">Ted Olson</a> of trade.</p>
<p>Moore isn’t cowed by the critics. “These guys can sit in ivory towers,” he said when we spoke over the phone last Friday, “but if you’re not convincing people in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Flint, it’s not going to get you very far.”</p>
<p>To be fair, his comments were generally misinterpreted as his having switched sides, but a better criticism would be that he accepted defeat. “I’m a free trade guy. I’m with Richard Rahn. I’m with Art Laffer, and all the rest of them,” Moore assured me. “But we as free-market people better do a better job of figuring out how to sell free trade. To go around saying, ‘Adam Smith did this or that’ doesn’t go a long way,” he lamented.</p>
<p>Until recently, though, it did go a long way. So much so that wearing an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/07/us/neckties-with-an-economics-lesson.html" type="external">Adam Smith necktie</a> ( <a href="https://www.leadershipinstitute.org/AdamSmith/" type="external">still available</a>) was how the fashion-conscience free marketer could signal his devotion to the pioneering father of capitalism. Once worn in the Reagan White House, this necktie is still the de rigueur “uniform” in some circles, worn smartly with kahkis and a blue blazer (which are assigned during your first internship in the conservative movement).</p>
<p>It’s an outward sign of how, in modern times, Republican philosophy has been decidedly free trade. To the extent that protectionism existed in modern American political thought, it had mostly lain dormant―occasionally trotted out in campaigns by failed populists hoping to pander to the Rust Belt workers or labor unions.</p>
<p>It was widely understood that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage" type="external">David Ricardo had it right</a>; by specializing in what each country did best, free trade was more efficient. It was also a win-win; specializing in what you do best (and trading for what you don’t) made everybody more prosperous. It was accepted—going back to the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042/quotes" type="external">Smoot Hawley Tariff Act</a>—that protectionist trade policies were not a panacea and might even be disastrous.</p>
<p>Multilateral deals were accepted as more efficient than dozens of bilateral deals, because importers and exporters could deal with one set of rules and thereby reduce compliance costs. It was accepted that consumers benefitted from free trade; cheap products at Wal-Mart—and the fact that an iPhone is affordable—are thanks to free trade. And it was a given that having mutually beneficial trade relationships with other nations would also have national security implications. (In the case of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), America’s abandonment of the deal only <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/23/news/economy/tpp-trump-china/" type="external">opens the door for China to fill the vacuum</a>).</p>
<p>But in record time, Donald Trump changed all of that by cancelling TPP, promising to <a href="http://www.vox.com/world/2017/2/9/14362666/trump-renegotiate-nafta-mexico-canada" type="external">renegotiate NAFTA</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/04/trump-warns-of-retribution-for-companies-that-offshore-jobs-threatening-35-percent-tariff/?utm_term=.841ce7337290" type="external">threatening to impose tariffs</a>, and generally favoring bilateral deals over multilateral ones.</p>
<p>Nobody has ever accused President Donald Trump of being an orthodox conservative. But it is his penchant for protectionist trade policies where his apostasy is most stark.</p>
<p>In an attempt to remain onboard with this new Republican president, free traders have had to concoct self-soothing theories and coping mechanisms.</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
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<p>Some fiscal conservatives, like Steve Moore, simply point out the political realities. Not only have the American people spoken, but also the Republican primary base has spoken. This is <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442605/donald-trumps-republican-party-populist-working-class-america-first" type="external">Trump’s party</a> now.</p>
<p>To stomach this concession, it helps to be reminded that so many of Trump’s other positions are quite good—maybe even good enough to make up for his trade protectionism.</p>
<p>“[Trump’s] broad policy goals are pro-growth,” CNBC Senior Contributor <a href="http://www.mattklewis.com/?p=9070" type="external">Larry Kudlow told me last November</a>. “And I understand there are glitches,” Kudlow continued. “I understand trade is a glitch. But… on the main, you’ve got tax reform, regulatory reform, big healthcare changes—Obamacare and so forth. Unshackle energy. He’s got the basic building blocks right.”</p>
<p>This is not an absurd argument. “It is reasonable to recognize that no candidate and no administration is going to fully reflect your exact set of policy preferences and priorities,” says Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). “I don’t think we should be disparaging people who say… in my judgment the good of x, y, and z outweighs the bad of a, b, and c.”</p>
<p>Others hope that his talk of tariffs is really just an opening gambit in a game designed to cut better trade deals in the future. “Since he prides himself on being a negotiator, this could just be his opening bid,” postulates the aforementioned Richard Rahn, a free-market conservative who advised presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush on economic matters.</p>
<p>Trump’s argument that he isn’t against free trade―but that he just wants “fair trade”―might be sophistry, but it’s still a great line. While there is truth in saying that Trump’s statements are usually negotiations, Trump’s abandonment of TPP suggests that he’s not merely negotiating.</p>
<p>One of the most optimistic theories comes from Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who suggests Trump’s pro-growth positions might render his trade policies moot (instead of merely making them tolerable). In Norquist’s world, trade isn’t the problem—the real culprits are taxes, onerous regulations, and labor unions that drive up the cost of hiring American workers. “Where’s [America] hollowed out?” he asks rhetorically. “I don’t know. Look at labor union concentration.”</p>
<p>Norquist scoffs at the notion that globalism is the real problem with the economy. “The Chinese people don’t write EPA regulations,” he says. “China doesn’t create union labor laws that damage workers as long as they get more union dues.”</p>
<p>Ultimately, Norquist believes that Trump will turn around the economy, and then Americans will be more open to free-trade agreements. “It’s sort of like Nixon going to China,” he says. “I think Trump can pass more and better trade deals with a growing economy than Hillary Clinton―or even another Republican―could.”</p>
<p>To be sure, not everyone is so optimistic. The aforementioned George Mason University Professor Don Boudreaux rejects the notion that there a tradeoff. “Cut taxes? Bunk,” Boudreaux barked in <a href="http://cafehayek.com/2016/10/it-literally-hurts-my-brain-to-read-the-economic-idiocy-emitted-by-trumpkins.html" type="external">a letter to The Wall Street Journal</a> last October. “Trump famously promises to raise taxes on Americans who buy imports. Reduce regulation? Rubbish. Trump promises more government intrusions into Americans’ commerce with foreigners.”</p>
<p>Others worry that Trump’s protectionism is tantamount to crony capitalism. “It’s true that if you have a totally free market, there will still be winners and losers,” concedes Andy Roth, Vice President for the Club for Growth (a group I have spoken to in the past), but “that’s called competition and it’s what drives our economy.” Protectionism amounts to swapping Trump’s hands for Adam Smith’s invisible hand. “When the government protects the sugar industry,” Roth explains, “the sugar companies and workers win, but the candy companies and their workers lose. So do consumers.”</p>
<p>The truth is that almost every conservative economist concedes that free trade is a better economic policy that brings the most prosperity to the most people. But free-trade purists have their work cut out for them. For one thing, the benefits to consumers are dispersed, while the alleged benefits of protectionism (for example, saving a factory) are concentrated. This makes free trade seem esoteric and theoretical, while protectionism seems simple and tangible.</p>
<p>For this reason, support for free trade has always been an inch deep and a mile wide. Unlike one of the key issues (like life or taxes), free trade hasn’t been a moral issue for most conservatives. Aside from a handful of committed free traders, it was always a box you checked on a list of policy preferences―but not a hill anyone wanted to die on.</p>
<p>“I think Steve Moore, Grover Norquist, [and Larry] Kudlow, they’re all sort of supply-side, low-tax guys,” said Daniel Ikenson, a free-trade advocate who works at the libertarian Cato Institute. “So that’s their primary issue, I think. I think they’re rationalizing to a certain extent.”</p>
<p>The real story here isn’t whether free trade is good or bad—or whether it’s a deal-breaker—but that so many prominent free-traders have given up so easily.</p>
<p>This is the way free trade ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper.</p> | true | 4 | news broke last year conservative economist stephen moore acquiesced donald trumps protectionist policies political observers stunned founder club growth moore worked defeat republican politicians didnt pass purity litmus test issues like free trade championing one president used unilateral free trader moore said november political reality theres backlash trade whether like better adapt rules ways benefit american workers free trade going flourish comments went like lead balloon one friend told must drunk made economics professor boudreaux fired sharpelbowed open letter moore moore definition highfalutin intellectual except hes embraced fdrstyle downhome populism politically convenient scolded ben shapiro conservative review every person spoke publicly dozens murmuring conservative conclaves cocktail parties moore become ted olson trade moore isnt cowed critics guys sit ivory towers said spoke phone last friday youre convincing people grand rapids michigan flint going get far fair comments generally misinterpreted switched sides better criticism would accepted defeat im free trade guy im richard rahn im art laffer rest moore assured freemarket people better better job figuring sell free trade go around saying adam smith doesnt go long way lamented recently though go long way much wearing adam smith necktie still available fashionconscience free marketer could signal devotion pioneering father capitalism worn reagan white house necktie still de rigueur uniform circles worn smartly kahkis blue blazer assigned first internship conservative movement outward sign modern times republican philosophy decidedly free trade extent protectionism existed modern american political thought mostly lain dormantoccasionally trotted campaigns failed populists hoping pander rust belt workers labor unions widely understood david ricardo right specializing country best free trade efficient also winwin specializing best trading dont made everybody prosperous acceptedgoing back smoot hawley tariff actthat protectionist trade policies panacea might even disastrous multilateral deals accepted efficient dozens bilateral deals importers exporters could deal one set rules thereby reduce compliance costs accepted consumers benefitted free trade cheap products walmartand fact iphone affordableare thanks free trade given mutually beneficial trade relationships nations would also national security implications case transpacific partnership tpp americas abandonment deal opens door china fill vacuum record time donald trump changed cancelling tpp promising renegotiate nafta threatening impose tariffs generally favoring bilateral deals multilateral ones nobody ever accused president donald trump orthodox conservative penchant protectionist trade policies apostasy stark attempt remain onboard new republican president free traders concoct selfsoothing theories coping mechanisms start finish day top stories daily beast speedy smart summary news need know nothing dont fiscal conservatives like steve moore simply point political realities american people spoken also republican primary base spoken trumps party stomach concession helps reminded many trumps positions quite goodmaybe even good enough make trade protectionism trumps broad policy goals progrowth cnbc senior contributor larry kudlow told last november understand glitches kudlow continued understand trade glitch main youve got tax reform regulatory reform big healthcare changesobamacare forth unshackle energy hes got basic building blocks right absurd argument reasonable recognize candidate administration going fully reflect exact set policy preferences priorities says michael strain director economic policy studies american enterprise institute aei dont think disparaging people say judgment good x z outweighs bad b c others hope talk tariffs really opening gambit game designed cut better trade deals future since prides negotiator could opening bid postulates aforementioned richard rahn freemarket conservative advised presidents reagan george hw bush economic matters trumps argument isnt free tradebut wants fair trademight sophistry still great line truth saying trumps statements usually negotiations trumps abandonment tpp suggests hes merely negotiating one optimistic theories comes grover norquist president americans tax reform suggests trumps progrowth positions might render trade policies moot instead merely making tolerable norquists world trade isnt problemthe real culprits taxes onerous regulations labor unions drive cost hiring american workers wheres america hollowed asks rhetorically dont know look labor union concentration norquist scoffs notion globalism real problem economy chinese people dont write epa regulations says china doesnt create union labor laws damage workers long get union dues ultimately norquist believes trump turn around economy americans open freetrade agreements sort like nixon going china says think trump pass better trade deals growing economy hillary clintonor even another republicancould sure everyone optimistic aforementioned george mason university professor boudreaux rejects notion tradeoff cut taxes bunk boudreaux barked letter wall street journal last october trump famously promises raise taxes americans buy imports reduce regulation rubbish trump promises government intrusions americans commerce foreigners others worry trumps protectionism tantamount crony capitalism true totally free market still winners losers concedes andy roth vice president club growth group spoken past thats called competition drives economy protectionism amounts swapping trumps hands adam smiths invisible hand government protects sugar industry roth explains sugar companies workers win candy companies workers lose consumers truth almost every conservative economist concedes free trade better economic policy brings prosperity people freetrade purists work cut one thing benefits consumers dispersed alleged benefits protectionism example saving factory concentrated makes free trade seem esoteric theoretical protectionism seems simple tangible reason support free trade always inch deep mile wide unlike one key issues like life taxes free trade hasnt moral issue conservatives aside handful committed free traders always box checked list policy preferencesbut hill anyone wanted die think steve moore grover norquist larry kudlow theyre sort supplyside lowtax guys said daniel ikenson freetrade advocate works libertarian cato institute thats primary issue think think theyre rationalizing certain extent real story isnt whether free trade good bador whether dealbreakerbut many prominent freetraders given easily way free trade ends bang whimper | 897 |
<p>In this week’s episode of “ <a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/amy-trask-a-powerful-woman-in-the-world-of-football" type="external">Scheer Intelligence</a>,” Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer speaks with Amy Trask, former long-time Oakland Raiders CEO. In her new book, “ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&amp;index=blended&amp;keywords=978-1629371870&amp;link_code=qs&amp;tag=kcco04-20" type="external">You Negotiate Like a Girl</a>,” Trask shares moments from her 15-year career in which she was the only woman in a room full of men. Trask tells Scheer what it was like working in a male-dominated field, and explains that she never worried about being a woman working in the NFL. She also shares stories of her time working with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Davis" type="external">Al Davis</a>, the owner and manager of the Raiders, for almost thirty years.</p>
<p>Listen to the full interview below:</p>
<p>—Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Emma Niles</a></p>
<p>Rushed transcript:</p>
<p />
<p>Robert Scheer:&#160;Hi, I’m Bob Scheer, and this is another episode of Scheer Intelligence for KCRW. The intelligence of course comes from my guest, and in this case it’s Amy Trask. I have to confess that in this interview I am deeply biased, because Amy was actually the first and I think still only CEO of an NFL team that wasn’t an owner. Is that correct?</p>
<p>Amy Trask:&#160;The only woman.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Woman I meant, yeah, which is great, to break that glass ceiling. She’s written a terrific book, You Negotiate Like a Girl, which she has turned into a compliment. It’s a great reflection on this circus of the Raiders as some people have referred to it, certainly the most interesting of professional football league teams, with its legendary owner Al Davis. My prejudice in this is I am part of the Raider Nation. I’ve been going to Raider games since, I don’t know, the ’60s. Right now I finally moved from the black hole and I’m actually on the 50 yard line, so I can’t claim to be totally objective on the subject.</p>
<p>The Raiders have been in a lot of different struggles in this League, and you’re the serious CEO. You’re not on the player personnel side, you’re on the business side. Why don’t we begin with that? This is big business. It’s a major part of American culture. Big issues are made. Let’s start with one of the ones that your book deals with, the whole question of affirmative action, breaking racial/gender codes. As you point out in the book, Al Davis, what everyone thinks of him, and he’s bee a controversial figure, certainly was a pioneer in professional sports in general and certainly in the NFL in challenging segregation and challenging segregation of roles. He’s the first person to hire an African American coach, I think. Am I wrong?</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Certainly in the modern era, Art Shell, and Tom Flores, the first Hispanic head coach, and you had referenced that he hired me.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Yes, right. Why don’t we talk about that? In the book you describe telling Al Davis, “Hey, you’re getting some negative press here and everything. Why don’t you ever mention that you’ve been a great advocate of inclusion and diversity and so forth?” He said, “I didn’t do it for publicity,” and he ordered you not to ever mention it.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;We did argue about that. Look, I know that some of your listeners may love the Raiders and love Al Davis, and many may be what are collectively referred to by some as Raider Haters and they may not appreciate or like, they may have disliked Al Davis, but one thing I believe and I hope that everyone will agree and acknowledge is that he was more inclusive than anyone, and I would go even further and say not simply in sports but in business in general at a time before anyone was thinking of doing this. We just spoke of it. He hired the first Hispanic head coach. He then hired me in an executive role. He hired Art Shell, the first African American head coach in modern times. He operated and he hired and he advanced and he cussed at us without regard to race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or any of those characteristics which have no bearing whatsoever on whether someone can get a job done or not.</p>
<p>I tease about the cussing and I talk about it in the book. That’s the way it should be. There was an instance in which we were in a meeting room and he was introducing himself to a businesswoman who was there as our guest. He went on about he tried very hard not to swear in front of women. I’m looking around the room at my colleagues as if to say, “Is he nuts?” Then he said, “Even if I sometimes slip and swear in front of a woman, I would never swear at a woman.” At that point, my pen just flew in the air and thudded on the table. He looked over and he said, “Oh, I swear at Amy, but I don’t consider her a woman.” Isn’t that what we hope? Isn’t that what we aspire to and dream, that we will all be regarded without respect to race or gender, ethnicity or religion? He did that for decades.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Yeah, but also some of us dream of having bosses who don’t swear at us all the time, but you also-</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Didn’t bother me.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;I know, but you also present actually that he was quite supportive of you …</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Yes, he was.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;… and the swearing was not an indication …</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Oh, of course not.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;… of contempt. I must say, it’s the most flattering view of Al Davis that I’ve read, but I think you back it up in a very solid way. People forget that Davis was a rebel in many ways regarding the power of the league, challenging ways. One of those was on the whole question of playing in the segregated South. Why don’t we just begin with that?</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;You are absolutely right. I shared the story or the anecdote about swearing not because it was at all offensive to me. To the contrary, the fact that he regarded me without respect to my gender was very, very significant and spoke to Al, just as did his refusal two times during his career to play a game in what was then the segregated South when he learned that the team could not stay in the same hotel. He simply said, “Well, then I’m not going. We’re not going.” Each of those games was moved. It was those sorts of issues, the games being moved because he refused to play them there, his decades and decades long track record of inclusive hiring. You referenced this earlier. I did say to him, “You know, it would be nice if people knew this about you,” and he just stopped me in my tracks, as you noted, and said, “Hey, young lady, let me get this straight with you. I didn’t do it for notoriety.” That was the point. He did it for the right reasons.Scheer:&#160;Let me bring up a less flattering aspect about Davis to someone like myself who very happily went to the game just three days ago, and this talk about leaving Oakland once again and, God, go to Las Vegas? At least if you go to LA you could find a lot of good Raider fans.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;They tried.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;You did it once before, and I opposed it then actually, full disclosure. I wrote a column. I was writing for the LA Times.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;I remember.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;I wrote a column. I said that this will never be forgiven or forgotten, this coming to LA. I attacked LA for courting the Raiders. I said, “This is equivalent to stealing the water from the north.” I thought it was outrageous. I actually will break with my lifelong loyalty to the Raiders if they move from out of Oakland. I think it’ll hurt Oakland. I think the team plays a positive role. The city has supported it. People like myself paid an extra tax for our seat and so forth. Yeah, maybe you want a stadium where you don’t have the baseball team and the football team playing into the mixed season. There are other reasons. I was on the BART going there. It’s one of the great things. You just get on BART, you go to the game. You don’t even have to park or take your car. Then I went out the other way to Pleasanton, and you see the folks from the whole region coming to this place called Oakland, which, yes, it’s being gentrified, but it’s a city that’s gone through a lot of struggles, and the Raiders are critical to that city’s feeling.</p>
<p>I get the sense that, I don’t want to put you on the spot here, but I get the feeling that the Raiders are doing what every other team does. They’re holding up the public. They’re demanding things from a city that can really not afford it, and they’re threatening to go to some decadent place like Las Vegas where the people don’t know what they’re doing.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;You’re not putting me on the spot at all, and you are in many regards singing to the choir. I was not with the organization when Al made the decision to move it from Oakland to Los Angeles. I was a student at Cal Berkeley and enjoyed making that little trek from Berkeley over to Oakland to watch the games. I wasn’t with the team when he moved it from Oakland to Los Angeles. I was with the organization when he chose to move back to Oakland. I agree with you. The site on which that stadium sits is in my view the most magnificent of any site in the NFL in terms of ingress, egress, a central location. It is the best served by public transportation of any stadium. As you noted, people come from all over the region and the state and beyond to a place they might not otherwise visit, a diverse, dynamic city in Oakland.</p>
<p>There is a deal to be made in Oakland if the team wishes to make a deal, and there’s a deal that can be made. I know we don’t want to turn this into a discussion of debt coverage ratios and EBITDA, but there’s an intelligent deal to be made that will be good for the city, good for the county, good for the taxpayers, good for the team, and good for the National Football League. What we’ve seen is in the last several years the team commit tremendous resources in an effort to relocate to Los Angeles with the Chargers, and that effort failed. Now the team is devoting those resources to an effort to move to Las Vegas, which may or may not happen, but Nevada keeps passing bills to make it more possible that that happens. There’s a deal to be made in Oakland if the team wishes to stay.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Football is so important to the cultural life of America that it gets into every other area, whether we talk about health and concussions and kids playing football, whether we talk about gay rights and a gay football player and what gays come in, whether we talk about violence, family violence and when football players, and they’re not the only athletes, they’re not the only people who engage in domestic violence, but it’s a real issue. On those issues the NFL has kept up an image of itself, during the concussions in particular, and I know you’ve gone to a lot of these meetings. You’ve represented the Raiders at NFL meetings. You know a lot about the League. There was a very good documentary called A League of Denial on the concussion issue. What is your insider view about the League and its relation to some of these social issues? Particularly let’s begin with concussions.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;There’s certainly been a change since I joined the League. I joined the Raiders in the mid-’80s and was with the team almost 30 years until I resigned and transitioned into television. There has been a change over the course of those three decades. When I joined the League, when someone was hit, he got dinged. The mantra all week for someone who had gotten dinged or was banged up, another expression was, “Can he go? Can he go?” or the player would be asked, “Can you go? Can you go?” Internally we’d be having discussions prior to a game. “Can he go? Can he go?” That’s obviously changing, and it’s not started changing until much, I’m probably going to butcher this grammar, but the change has been recent. The change didn’t start at the beginning of my career, in the first decade or so of my career.</p>
<p>We are seeing a greater awareness, and I think with respect to all the issues you just raised: concussions, social issues, domestic violence, animal abuse, all of those things. Fans engage in some cognitive dissonance. We’re all complicit, because we can look at something which happens and we can find the behavior abhorrent, but we’re still turning on the game on Sunday.Scheer:&#160;There’s no doubt we’re complicit. Let me ask you a question about that, because sometimes, particularly watching college games … At least with the pros, okay, these guys knew what they were doing. They’re going to be compensated. There is a support system. In fact, some of those rules have changed, because you used to not get medical coverage if you weren’t there three years. I forget all the details. That’s actually seems to have improved, but even people like Kenny Stabler and everything were quite bitter at the end, and he was a concussion victim, about whether they got enough support and whether they were alerted to the dangers. Junior Seau is another person. I’ve talked to people in his family about it and whether he was alerted to it. On the college level, it seems to me horrible in that these student athletes are really not protected, and then the NFL gets to treat the college game as a farm team without any responsibility for it. They blow out a knee and then they don’t have the career and then what happens to?</p>
<p>The other question I want to relate to that is a question of: Are these gladiators, these players? Increasingly they’re black. You have like two paths that’s presented to kids, say, in the Oakland ghetto. There’s prison for a large number of people. There’s, if you’re a good athlete, basketball, football, another way. There’s a disconnect. You went to USC after Berkeley. I teach at USC. Sometimes I go to those games and I think, “Wait a minute, the people in the stands, and this is not just true of USC, it’s true generally, don’t look so much like the people on the field.” What’s going on here?</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;You raise a number of good topics, and I want to focus on the one you raised at the outset, which is the difference between professional football and collegiate football. Look, if I’m given a choice, play a sport and earn possibly millions and millions and millions of dollars … Certainly the veteran minimum is close to a million dollars, so even if I’m on a team let’s say two or three years, close to an average career, I can make a substantial amount of money in those. I would get the rookie minimum to start and then the veteran minimum. I’m making a choice. Do I want to pursue that financial opportunity in exchange for the physical risks I will take?</p>
<p>I have some very strong feelings about the way collegiate athletes are treated, and the push-back I get when I share my views is, “But they’re getting a free education.” Well, the value that they are bringing the university by playing on that team and the money these universities are making off of the backs of these collegiate athletes far surpass the value of tuition that they’re getting. Something does need to be done for them medically on a long-term basis.</p>
<p>Look, it wasn’t until just a year or so ago that collegiate athletes were even allowed to have snacks around the clock. We were sending, we collectively as a country, as college football fans, were sending athletes to bed hungry. I touch on that because when you think about the amount of money that collegiate football, and to a lesser extent basketball programs, raise for the universities, the thought that these kids are getting sent to bed, or were because this changed in the last year or so, hungry because rules prohibited them from having round the clock snacks, I use that as simply an example of we’ve got to revisit the way collegiate athletes of all sports are treated.</p>
<p>One thing I would posit is lifetime medical for any injury incurred while an intercollegiate athlete. You blow out a knee and you now don’t have a career in the NFL … Maybe it has to be addressed, if you ultimately do because a professional, the knee injury or whatever injury it was didn’t hamper you, you’re now a professional, you’ve got your medical coverage from the NFL. If you’re a collegiate athlete who tears up a knee such that you can’t pursue a professional career, I think the college has an obligation to you.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Let me ask you a question that always comes up with breaking the glass ceiling. Of course it’s a human right to be treated equally regardless of gender or race or sexual preference or anything else. That’s a given we’re not going to argue about. There’s always been the idea that there’s a female sensibility that might be added to decision making, yet we’ve had, taking it to a political level, we’ve had Margaret Thatcher in England and she seemed quite capable of going to war, and we have Hillary Clinton now as the leading candidate for President and she seems every bit as hawkish and tough-minded as Donald Trump. I wonder, in terms of this football world, what did you bring as a woman that was different?</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;I don’t think I brought anything different as a woman. My view has always been gender-blind means gender-blind. Look, I’ve interacted with women who I think have tremendous sensibility and add tremendous amounts to their respective businesses, and I’ve interacted with men who do the same. I’ve interacted with women who I think are knuckleheads. I’ve interacted with men who I think are knuckleheads. There’s an expression, “Women should support women.” I don’t agree with that in a categorical sense. There’s a lot of women for whom I have tremendous respect who disagree with me on this, but I don’t believe I’m being gender-blind, as I hope others are, if I support people simply because of their gender. I support women who I believe warrant or merit my support, and I support men who I believe warrant or merit my support.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;I’m Bob Scheer. This is Scheer Intelligence with Amy Trask. We’ll be right back.Scheer:&#160;Welcome back. This is Robert Scheer. I’m talking with our guest, Amy Trask, about her career in the NFL. Let’s talk about this disagreement and the question of whether this is a plantation economy, football, with the billionaire owners. The players, even when they make a lot of money, unless they’re really exceptional they can’t go buy a team. I was wondering about that, because Al Davis was a self-made man. He came up through the ranks, played, was a coach and everything else. I never did understand the finances of the Raiders. I don’t to this day, because there were other owners and then somehow he bought them out and ended up owning a team. It’s a story unto itself.</p>
<p>The question of whether athletes have a right to speak up. We’ve seen in basketball increasingly and football athletes saying, “Hey, we have a point of view about a lot of things.” You’ve got it right now on the question of the national anthem and the quarterback of the 49ers saying he’s going to take a knee or not stand, others backing him on different teams. The first response of the Raiders was like the super patriotic one, which Al Davis also was associated with. His slogan was, “I’ll do it my way,” like from the Frank Sinatra song, but his way tended to be pretty conventional in many ways. What do you think about this stirring among professional athletes that, “We can have a point of view that may be unpopular, but we can still play the game”?</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;To answer that in reverse order, I discussed those sorts of issues with Al over the course of my career, and he was very patriotic and loved his country, our country, very, very much, but he also recognized when we didn’t do things correctly and he was also very quick to criticize. Look, his refusal to play games in the segregated South is an example of that. One can both love one’s country and take a stand when one doesn’t believe things are being done well or they need to be done better. I’ve been asked by a number of people what I believe his view would be of what Colin Kaepernick has done. Look, Al’s a man who stood up for the courage of his convictions, and I think he would both recognize that one can be patriotic while wanting and demanding one’s country do better than it is doing, and our country does need to do better in a number of areas. Colin Kaepernick has started a discussion we need to have.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Maybe there is some growth in openness. It used to be for so long that you could describe it as a plantation. Even if you were a very famous, high paid athlete in one of the major sports, you lost your right to speak out. Cassius Clay, before he became Muhammad Ali, was certainly the first world-renowned actor to … Well, I guess Joe Louis too at the very beginning when he was boxing in Germany. There have been a few, but it’s been very rare.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;There have been some. I have the pleasure and the privilege of working with, one of the television shows on which I appear I work with Laila Ali, Muhammad Ali’s daughter, and the conversations about this, whether it’s Muhammad Ali or any number of other athletes, there have been a few over the course of time. I think and I hope we’re going to be hearing from more athletes, because they do have a position in society where people listen. Again, not everybody has to agree with what Colin Kaepernick is doing, but everybody should agree, I hope, that whether you like his method or not, he has started a national dialogue which is overdue.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;I want to ask you, end with a few personal questions, but the last political one or social one concerns gay involvement in football. It seems to me, yes, you can not have exactly the speed or something, but you had a very good player who didn’t make it through the camp. Do you think this will change? Is this, the resistance to having gay-</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;I’m not sure I understand your reference to speed and how it relates.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;They said he went to the combine and the speed … You know, you test it and-</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Oh, you’re talking about Michael Sam.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Yeah.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;You’re talking about Michael Sam.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;I’m sorry.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;I’m sorry. I didn’t-</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;I should’ve set this up better.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Got it.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;He was flushed out, but his college career was stellar and he clearly I think should’ve been in the pros or at lest given a shot, and it didn’t happen. Is this the last taboo?</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;I think that question depends on who you ask. I spent almost 30 years in and around a locker room environment, and while I was not in the locker room as an athlete, I was in an environment in which there were locker rooms. There were locker rooms in our facility, our year-round facility, at our training camp, in our stadium. I believe, at least with the men with whom I worked, my sense was if you could perform on the field, you would be accepted. I can’t speak for every organization. I can’t speak for every locker room. I’m not suggesting it is not a problem in some places. I just know that there have been situations in which men in the locker room know about one another’s personal life and they go out and they play together.Scheer:&#160;Let me just say in wrapping this up, this is a series I’m doing on what I call American Originals, people who come from mixed background and so forth, the crazy quilt of American culture. Somehow we throw up truly interesting people. I don’t always agree with everything they say, but they’re fascinating. Maybe there are other interesting countries in the world, but we have this melting pot. I’ve always known you from afar. I’ve met you a couple of times, but only as a public figure. Who are you?</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Let me interrupt and say that you started by saying that you wanted to raise a potential bias about you being a Raider fan. I will share a bias right now. I’ve long been a fan of yours. I have long been a fan of your wife. That’s my bias, which I will share before I dive into answering these questions about who I am.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Let me ask you who you are, because you were at Berkeley and you went to USC for law school, and then you became a lawyer. In your book you say you really had no intention of ever being in a court room. Explain how you end up at the Raiders of all places.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;My parents were sensational in many regards, one of which was making education of all of the children in my family, me, my siblings, their number one priority. As I was getting ready to graduate from Cal, it never was a question of if I would go to graduate school, but really what sort of graduate degree I wished to pursue, and that’s a luxury that I have never for a moment taken for granted. It was a tremendous, tremendous benefit. I chose to go to law school with the stated intent of never practicing law a day in my life, and certainly, even to the extent I would practice business law or transactional law, never, ever, ever, ever finding the inside of a courtroom, which I managed, other than to be a witness in some of Al’s litigation or the NFL litigation.</p>
<p>I fell in love with the game of football as a junior high school student when I attended my first junior high school football game. It’s a very, very cerebral game. Many fans watch and they see the speed and the power and the size and the strength and the collisions, but it’s a very cerebral game. It’s a game of match-ups. It’s a game of strategy. How do I best position my players to best match up against my opponent? It’s high-speed, high-impact chess.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Oh, that’s an interesting way to put it. Of course, Al Davis, the one who pioneered the offense –</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;The vertical game, right?</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;The vertical game. You ended up there and you’ve fought the good fight over many things, particularly that a woman be taken seriously. Is the game changing? Will there be more diversity? You’ve sort of answered it with some of the issues, but-</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Yeah, it is. Look, I never perceived that I was fighting a fight. I did my job. When I am asked, over the course of my career when I was asked, I’m still asked by young women, “What advice would you give us as young women who want to pursue a career in sports?” my answer is twofold. One, I’ll give you the same advice I’d give a young man. Work hard. Work really, really hard. Work as hard as you can, and when you don’t think you can work any harder, find a way to work harder. Number two, stop thinking about the fact that you’re a woman. Do your job. If you don’t want others thinking about the fact that you’re a woman, it makes no sense for you to be thinking about the fact that you’re a woman. That’s how I approached my career.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Let me ask one final question. Why the male sports? This is something you feel … I teach, as I say, at USC college, and I watch these games that women play, soccer and volleyball and swimming and track and all of these things. Football is a particularly, it seems to fit in with the misogynist, violent male culture, and it’s not particularly the most … I know you say it’s cerebral, and obviously I like it, I go watch it and all that, but it’s hard when you’re at a college and you say, “Wait a minute, why are certain sports, they’re cash sports, people go to them, they pay money?” Basketball is a perfect example. Women’s basketball seems to me to be as elegant and complex as male basketball, but it doesn’t make any money. Is that the whole thing?</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;I’m going to disagree with one word you used, which is misogynistic or misogynist.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;I’ll take it back. I take it back.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Okay. That’s the only thing. I don’t agree with that characterization.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;It is a male, violent, macho … You could say the same about rugby.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Right, but to equate a sport …</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;You’re right, you’re right.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;… where you hit between the lines to something that one would take outside of the lines, on that I will disagree.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;I accept, I accept.</p>
<p>Trask:&#160;Look, your question is an excellent question, and it comes down to us as a consuming public. I believe in a free market economy, and people tune in for men’s basketball more than they do for women’s basketball. If we want to change the economy, if we want to change the relative value, well then we need to tune in more to x and not to y and to patronize the sponsors who are sponsoring products or sponsoring the sports, selling products for the sports that may not be as watched. In other words, we have that power as consumers. To a great extent, businesses are businesses. They’re looking at ratings: What are we tuning in to watch? They’re looking at sales: Whose products are we buying? I don’t know the answer to the question, but I know that if people want the result to change, tune in.</p>
<p>Scheer:&#160;Okay. That’s a good point on which to end it. I’ve been talking to Amy Trask. She’s written a really delightful book. I say “delightful” not to mean that it doesn’t have heft. It raises a lot of really important points such as we’ve been discussing, but it’s a very enjoyable read, You Negotiate Like a Girl. It’s out there. Pick it up. That’s it for Scheer Intelligence. Our producers are Joshua Scheer and Rebecca Mooney. Our engineers are Kat Yore and Mario Diaz. We’ll see you next week.</p> | true | 4 | weeks episode scheer intelligence truthdig editor chief robert scheer speaks amy trask former longtime oakland raiders ceo new book negotiate like girl trask shares moments 15year career woman room full men trask tells scheer like working maledominated field explains never worried woman working nfl also shares stories time working al davis owner manager raiders almost thirty years listen full interview posted emma niles rushed transcript robert scheer160hi im bob scheer another episode scheer intelligence kcrw intelligence course comes guest case amy trask confess interview deeply biased amy actually first think still ceo nfl team wasnt owner correct amy trask160the woman scheer160woman meant yeah great break glass ceiling shes written terrific book negotiate like girl turned compliment great reflection circus raiders people referred certainly interesting professional football league teams legendary owner al davis prejudice part raider nation ive going raider games since dont know 60s right finally moved black hole im actually 50 yard line cant claim totally objective subject raiders lot different struggles league youre serious ceo youre player personnel side youre business side dont begin big business major part american culture big issues made lets start one ones book deals whole question affirmative action breaking racialgender codes point book al davis everyone thinks hes bee controversial figure certainly pioneer professional sports general certainly nfl challenging segregation challenging segregation roles hes first person hire african american coach think wrong trask160certainly modern era art shell tom flores first hispanic head coach referenced hired scheer160yes right dont talk book describe telling al davis hey youre getting negative press everything dont ever mention youve great advocate inclusion diversity forth said didnt publicity ordered ever mention trask160we argue look know listeners may love raiders love al davis many may collectively referred raider haters may appreciate like may disliked al davis one thing believe hope everyone agree acknowledge inclusive anyone would go even say simply sports business general time anyone thinking spoke hired first hispanic head coach hired executive role hired art shell first african american head coach modern times operated hired advanced cussed us without regard race gender ethnicity religion characteristics bearing whatsoever whether someone get job done tease cussing talk book thats way instance meeting room introducing businesswoman guest went tried hard swear front women im looking around room colleagues say nuts said even sometimes slip swear front woman would never swear woman point pen flew air thudded table looked said oh swear amy dont consider woman isnt hope isnt aspire dream regarded without respect race gender ethnicity religion decades scheer160yeah also us dream bosses dont swear us time also trask160didnt bother scheer160i know also present actually quite supportive trask160yes scheer160 swearing indication trask160oh course scheer160 contempt must say flattering view al davis ive read think back solid way people forget davis rebel many ways regarding power league challenging ways one whole question playing segregated south dont begin trask160you absolutely right shared story anecdote swearing offensive contrary fact regarded without respect gender significant spoke al refusal two times career play game segregated south learned team could stay hotel simply said well im going going games moved sorts issues games moved refused play decades decades long track record inclusive hiring referenced earlier say know would nice people knew stopped tracks noted said hey young lady let get straight didnt notoriety point right reasonsscheer160let bring less flattering aspect davis someone like happily went game three days ago talk leaving oakland god go las vegas least go la could find lot good raider fans trask160they tried scheer160you opposed actually full disclosure wrote column writing la times trask160i remember scheer160i wrote column said never forgiven forgotten coming la attacked la courting raiders said equivalent stealing water north thought outrageous actually break lifelong loyalty raiders move oakland think itll hurt oakland think team plays positive role city supported people like paid extra tax seat forth yeah maybe want stadium dont baseball team football team playing mixed season reasons bart going one great things get bart go game dont even park take car went way pleasanton see folks whole region coming place called oakland yes gentrified city thats gone lot struggles raiders critical citys feeling get sense dont want put spot get feeling raiders every team theyre holding public theyre demanding things city really afford theyre threatening go decadent place like las vegas people dont know theyre trask160youre putting spot many regards singing choir organization al made decision move oakland los angeles student cal berkeley enjoyed making little trek berkeley oakland watch games wasnt team moved oakland los angeles organization chose move back oakland agree site stadium sits view magnificent site nfl terms ingress egress central location best served public transportation stadium noted people come region state beyond place might otherwise visit diverse dynamic city oakland deal made oakland team wishes make deal theres deal made know dont want turn discussion debt coverage ratios ebitda theres intelligent deal made good city good county good taxpayers good team good national football league weve seen last several years team commit tremendous resources effort relocate los angeles chargers effort failed team devoting resources effort move las vegas may may happen nevada keeps passing bills make possible happens theres deal made oakland team wishes stay scheer160football important cultural life america gets every area whether talk health concussions kids playing football whether talk gay rights gay football player gays come whether talk violence family violence football players theyre athletes theyre people engage domestic violence real issue issues nfl kept image concussions particular know youve gone lot meetings youve represented raiders nfl meetings know lot league good documentary called league denial concussion issue insider view league relation social issues particularly lets begin concussions trask160theres certainly change since joined league joined raiders mid80s team almost 30 years resigned transitioned television change course three decades joined league someone hit got dinged mantra week someone gotten dinged banged another expression go go player would asked go go internally wed discussions prior game go go thats obviously changing started changing much im probably going butcher grammar change recent change didnt start beginning career first decade career seeing greater awareness think respect issues raised concussions social issues domestic violence animal abuse things fans engage cognitive dissonance complicit look something happens find behavior abhorrent still turning game sundayscheer160theres doubt complicit let ask question sometimes particularly watching college games least pros okay guys knew theyre going compensated support system fact rules changed used get medical coverage werent three years forget details thats actually seems improved even people like kenny stabler everything quite bitter end concussion victim whether got enough support whether alerted dangers junior seau another person ive talked people family whether alerted college level seems horrible student athletes really protected nfl gets treat college game farm team without responsibility blow knee dont career happens question want relate question gladiators players increasingly theyre black like two paths thats presented kids say oakland ghetto theres prison large number people theres youre good athlete basketball football another way theres disconnect went usc berkeley teach usc sometimes go games think wait minute people stands true usc true generally dont look much like people field whats going trask160you raise number good topics want focus one raised outset difference professional football collegiate football look im given choice play sport earn possibly millions millions millions dollars certainly veteran minimum close million dollars even im team lets say two three years close average career make substantial amount money would get rookie minimum start veteran minimum im making choice want pursue financial opportunity exchange physical risks take strong feelings way collegiate athletes treated pushback get share views theyre getting free education well value bringing university playing team money universities making backs collegiate athletes far surpass value tuition theyre getting something need done medically longterm basis look wasnt year ago collegiate athletes even allowed snacks around clock sending collectively country college football fans sending athletes bed hungry touch think amount money collegiate football lesser extent basketball programs raise universities thought kids getting sent bed changed last year hungry rules prohibited round clock snacks use simply example weve got revisit way collegiate athletes sports treated one thing would posit lifetime medical injury incurred intercollegiate athlete blow knee dont career nfl maybe addressed ultimately professional knee injury whatever injury didnt hamper youre professional youve got medical coverage nfl youre collegiate athlete tears knee cant pursue professional career think college obligation scheer160let ask question always comes breaking glass ceiling course human right treated equally regardless gender race sexual preference anything else thats given going argue theres always idea theres female sensibility might added decision making yet weve taking political level weve margaret thatcher england seemed quite capable going war hillary clinton leading candidate president seems every bit hawkish toughminded donald trump wonder terms football world bring woman different trask160i dont think brought anything different woman view always genderblind means genderblind look ive interacted women think tremendous sensibility add tremendous amounts respective businesses ive interacted men ive interacted women think knuckleheads ive interacted men think knuckleheads theres expression women support women dont agree categorical sense theres lot women tremendous respect disagree dont believe im genderblind hope others support people simply gender support women believe warrant merit support support men believe warrant merit support scheer160im bob scheer scheer intelligence amy trask well right backscheer160welcome back robert scheer im talking guest amy trask career nfl lets talk disagreement question whether plantation economy football billionaire owners players even make lot money unless theyre really exceptional cant go buy team wondering al davis selfmade man came ranks played coach everything else never understand finances raiders dont day owners somehow bought ended owning team story unto question whether athletes right speak weve seen basketball increasingly football athletes saying hey point view lot things youve got right question national anthem quarterback 49ers saying hes going take knee stand others backing different teams first response raiders like super patriotic one al davis also associated slogan ill way like frank sinatra song way tended pretty conventional many ways think stirring among professional athletes point view may unpopular still play game trask160to answer reverse order discussed sorts issues al course career patriotic loved country country much also recognized didnt things correctly also quick criticize look refusal play games segregated south example one love ones country take stand one doesnt believe things done well need done better ive asked number people believe view would colin kaepernick done look als man stood courage convictions think would recognize one patriotic wanting demanding ones country better country need better number areas colin kaepernick started discussion need scheer160maybe growth openness used long could describe plantation even famous high paid athlete one major sports lost right speak cassius clay became muhammad ali certainly first worldrenowned actor well guess joe louis beginning boxing germany rare trask160there pleasure privilege working one television shows appear work laila ali muhammad alis daughter conversations whether muhammad ali number athletes course time think hope going hearing athletes position society people listen everybody agree colin kaepernick everybody agree hope whether like method started national dialogue overdue scheer160i want ask end personal questions last political one social one concerns gay involvement football seems yes exactly speed something good player didnt make camp think change resistance gay trask160im sure understand reference speed relates scheer160they said went combine speed know test trask160oh youre talking michael sam scheer160yeah trask160youre talking michael sam scheer160im sorry trask160im sorry didnt scheer160i shouldve set better trask160got scheer160he flushed college career stellar clearly think shouldve pros lest given shot didnt happen last taboo trask160i think question depends ask spent almost 30 years around locker room environment locker room athlete environment locker rooms locker rooms facility yearround facility training camp stadium believe least men worked sense could perform field would accepted cant speak every organization cant speak every locker room im suggesting problem places know situations men locker room know one anothers personal life go play togetherscheer160let say wrapping series im call american originals people come mixed background forth crazy quilt american culture somehow throw truly interesting people dont always agree everything say theyre fascinating maybe interesting countries world melting pot ive always known afar ive met couple times public figure trask160let interrupt say started saying wanted raise potential bias raider fan share bias right ive long fan long fan wife thats bias share dive answering questions scheer160let ask berkeley went usc law school became lawyer book say really intention ever court room explain end raiders places trask160my parents sensational many regards one making education children family siblings number one priority getting ready graduate cal never question would go graduate school really sort graduate degree wished pursue thats luxury never moment taken granted tremendous tremendous benefit chose go law school stated intent never practicing law day life certainly even extent would practice business law transactional law never ever ever ever finding inside courtroom managed witness als litigation nfl litigation fell love game football junior high school student attended first junior high school football game cerebral game many fans watch see speed power size strength collisions cerebral game game matchups game strategy best position players best match opponent highspeed highimpact chess scheer160oh thats interesting way put course al davis one pioneered offense trask160the vertical game right scheer160the vertical game ended youve fought good fight many things particularly woman taken seriously game changing diversity youve sort answered issues trask160yeah look never perceived fighting fight job asked course career asked im still asked young women advice would give us young women want pursue career sports answer twofold one ill give advice id give young man work hard work really really hard work hard dont think work harder find way work harder number two stop thinking fact youre woman job dont want others thinking fact youre woman makes sense thinking fact youre woman thats approached career scheer160let ask one final question male sports something feel teach say usc college watch games women play soccer volleyball swimming track things football particularly seems fit misogynist violent male culture particularly know say cerebral obviously like go watch hard youre college say wait minute certain sports theyre cash sports people go pay money basketball perfect example womens basketball seems elegant complex male basketball doesnt make money whole thing trask160im going disagree one word used misogynistic misogynist scheer160ill take back take back trask160okay thats thing dont agree characterization scheer160it male violent macho could say rugby trask160right equate sport scheer160youre right youre right trask160 hit lines something one would take outside lines disagree scheer160i accept accept trask160look question excellent question comes us consuming public believe free market economy people tune mens basketball womens basketball want change economy want change relative value well need tune x patronize sponsors sponsoring products sponsoring sports selling products sports may watched words power consumers great extent businesses businesses theyre looking ratings tuning watch theyre looking sales whose products buying dont know answer question know people want result change tune scheer160okay thats good point end ive talking amy trask shes written really delightful book say delightful mean doesnt heft raises lot really important points weve discussing enjoyable read negotiate like girl pick thats scheer intelligence producers joshua scheer rebecca mooney engineers kat yore mario diaz well see next week | 2,516 |
<p>When the Medical Marijuana Patients Union held a symposium in Fort Bragg in August, 2004, Sheriff Tony Craver asked an organizer to please introduce him to Dr. Tod Mikuriya. It turned out that Mikuriya had left after participating in a morning panel. “That’s one man I’ve always wanted to meet,” said Craver, looking down in disappointment. The sheriff knew there was something unique about Mikuriya, and so did half the cops and prosecutors in California, who, unlike Tony Craver, fiercely resented him for conferring legitimacy on people previously considered criminals.</p>
<p>Mikuriya died Sunday at his home in the Berkeley Hills. He was 73. The cause was complications of cancer. In the final days he’d been in the care of his sisters, Beverly, an MD from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Mary Jane of San Francisco, and his longtime assistant, John Trapp. Cancer had been diagnosed originally in his lungs, and as of last March it had been detected in his liver, too. Dennis Peron and Dale Gieringer threw farewell parties for him. He canceled a trip to Hungary where he was to present a paper at the International Cannabinoid Research Society meeting. His office began steering patients to other doctors.</p>
<p>And then his condition improved. In late May 2006 Mikuriya attended his 50th reunion at Reed College and sang rounds with his old madrigal group. His office geared up again. He wrote the lead section of an article recounting what California doctors had learned in the 10 years since the passage of Prop 215 (“Medical Marijuana in California, 1996-2006,” O’Shaughnessy’s, Winter/Spring 2007). He met with a publisher about reissuing “Marijuana Medical Papers,” his 1973 anthology of pre-prohibition medical literature -the new edition to include a CD containing eight more articles that had come to his attention over the years. He had many visits from his 12-year-old daughter, Hero, the apple of his eye; they even went cross-country skiing one weekend.</p>
<p>As recently as this March Mikuriya played a key role organizing a symposium at which retired colonel James Ketchum, MD, discussed the Army’s secret search for a cannabinoid-based incapacitating agent. Mikuriya had begun assembling the contents for a new anthology, “Cannabis Clinical Papers,” that would include studies by colleagues and three major papers of his own: “Cannabis as a Substitute for Alcohol;” “Cannabis as a First-Line Treatment for Mental Disorders;” and “Cannabis Eases Post-Traumatic Stress.” (The titles alone reflect the relevance of Mikuriya’s concerns. Even his historical studies related to our present time and place. For example: “An 1873 survey by British tax officials in India elicited a range of views on cannabis that seems strikingly contemporary… ‘the general opinion seems to be that the evil effects of ganja have been exaggerated.'”)</p>
<p>Mikuriya liked to use the slogans “Grandfather it in!” and “Back to the future!” in discussing the legalization of cannabis for medical use. The generations of Americans who discovered cannabis in social settings in the 1960s and the decades that followed had no idea that it had been widely used in this country between the Civil War and the Great Depression, with tinctures manufactured by Eli Lilly, Parke, Davis and other major pharmaceutical companies available by prescription. For decades Mikuriya was the only MD among the small group of activists and scholars who collected the bottles and labels and sought to unearth and publicize the history that our educational system had erased so systematically.</p>
<p>Mikuriya was given to creating polysyllabic phrases that forced one to puzzle over their meaning. For example, America’s cultural preference for the modern he called “temporal chauvinism.” Cannabis clubs, he said, showed the efficacy of “proactive structuralism;” by which he meant, “People can create something and, by doing so, set a precedent.”</p>
<p>Tod Hiro Mikuriya was born in Eastern Pennsylvania in 1933 to Anna (Schwenk) and Tadafumi Mikuriya. His father was a Japanese Samurai who converted to Christianity, his mother a German immigrant and practicing Baha’i. Tod and his two younger sisters went to Quaker schools. “The Quakers were proprietors of the underground railway,” Tod noted. “The cannabis prohibition has the same dynamics as the bigotry and racism my family and I experienced starting on December 7, 1941, when we were transformed from normal-but-different people into war-criminal surrogates.”</p>
<p>He graduated from Reed College in 1956, served as a medic in the U.S. Army, and then attended Temple University School of Medicine. It was at Temple that a reference in a pharmacology text to the medical utility of marijuana triggered the interest that would define Mikuriya’s career.</p>
<p>After getting his medical degree, Mikuriya served an internship at Southern Pacific General Hospital in San Francisco, specialized in psychiatry at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, and completed his training at Mendocino State Hospital. In 1967 he became director of non-classified marijuana research for the National Institute of Mental Health Center for Narcotics and Drug Abuse. He left the position after several months, he said, “When it became clear they only wanted research into damaging effects, not helpful ones.”</p>
<p>Mikuriya moved to Berkeley in 1970 and entered private practice. He was active in Amorphia, a West Coast reform group that eventually folded into NORML, and helped organize a 1972 marijuana legalization initiative, working alongside Michael and Michelle Aldrich, Pebbles Trippet, and others who stayed with the struggle through the ensuing decades of cultural and political rollback.</p>
<p>“Western medicine has forgotten almost all it once knew about the therapeutic properties of marijuana,” Mikuriya lamented to a UCSF medical student interviewing him in 1996. (I had the privilege of sitting in.) “Hemp-based tinctures and preparations were prescribed for myriad purposes-analgesic and hypnotic; appetite stimulant; anti-epileptic and antispasmodic; for the prevention and treatment of the neuralgias, including migraine and tic doloreux; antidepressant and tranquilizer; oxytocic (to induce uterine contractions); topical anesthetic; withdrawal agent for opiate, chloral and alcohol addiction; intraocular hypotensive; childbirth analgesic; hypothermogenic.” Cannabis is also an anti-asthmatic and antitussive (cough suppressant), Mikuriya told the med student. It went out of favor with doctors in the early decades of the 20th century “not because it was deemed toxic or dangerous but because alternatives came on the market -injectable opiates and synthetics such as aspirin and barbiturates- that were quicker-acting and offered more consistency in dosage and patient response.”</p>
<p>When Dennis Peron launched the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club at the start of the ’90s, Mikuriya saw “a unique research opportunity.” He began interviewing club members in an attempt to confirm or add to descriptions in the pre-prohibition literature. When Prop 215 was being drafted, Mikuriya contributed the all-important phrase in the first sentence that allows doctors to approve marijuana use in treating “any…condition for which marijuana provides relief.” (Eleven other states have since passed laws allowing marijuana use to treat specific conditions. Mikuriya considered them all intellectually dishonest compromises.)</p>
<p>Mikuriya’s contention that marijuana alleviates an extremely wide range of symptoms was ridiculed by Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey and other federal officials at a press conference in December, 1996. Reform advocates promptly sued the drug czar’s office and obtained a federal injunction confirming the Constitutional right of doctors and patients to discuss marijuana as a treatment option. Nevertheless, for several years following the passage of Prop 215, almost no California MDs were willing to risk the wrath of the government by putting in writing a recommendation for cannabis in the treatment of say, depression, or lower back pain. People all over the state were calling cannabis clubs to report that their doctors -many of whom had expressed their approval of marijuana previously- would not give them a written “letter of diagnosis” entitling them to join a club. These people would very often be given the name and phone number of Tod Mikuriya.</p>
<p>Thus Mikuriya became the doctor of last resort for thousands of California patients. He flew or drove with John Trapp to cities and towns around the state to preside at ad hoc clinics. “It’s one of the most satisfying experiences for me as a psychiatrist to be able to remove the stigma of criminality from an individual,” he said after testifying for an alcoholic Vietnam vet in 1998. “Not just the self-perceived stigma, but removing the real danger of civil forfeiture and other kinds of state viciousness.”</p>
<p>Mikuriya was investigated by the California medical board on the basis of complaints from law enforcement officers (none from patients, and no allegations of harm to a patient). At a disciplinary hearing in 2003 all the patients named in the accusation praised and thanked Mikuriya. He was placed on probation by the board, but continued to practice until two weeks ago. Then his decline was rapid. He had issued some 9,000 approvals.</p>
<p>Mikuriya was the founder of the Society of Cannabis Clinicians, a specialty group whose members have issued more than 160,000 approvals. “Tod was the mentor of every doctor working in the field,” says SCC president Philip A. Denney, MD. “His observation that cannabis alleviates so many seemingly disparate symptoms has been explained by recent research showing that its active ingredients modulate virtually every neurotransmission system in the body.” In other words, the finding the drug czar mocked as “a fraud” turned out to be a most significant truth.</p>
<p>A Quaker service honoring our mutual friend will be held at 4:30 p.m. Friday at the Berkeley Friends Church, 1600 Sacramento St., Berkeley.</p>
<p>FRED GARDNER edits O’Shaughnessy’s, the Journal of Cannabis in Clinical Practice. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | medical marijuana patients union held symposium fort bragg august 2004 sheriff tony craver asked organizer please introduce dr tod mikuriya turned mikuriya left participating morning panel thats one man ive always wanted meet said craver looking disappointment sheriff knew something unique mikuriya half cops prosecutors california unlike tony craver fiercely resented conferring legitimacy people previously considered criminals mikuriya died sunday home berkeley hills 73 cause complications cancer final days hed care sisters beverly md bucks county pennsylvania mary jane san francisco longtime assistant john trapp cancer diagnosed originally lungs last march detected liver dennis peron dale gieringer threw farewell parties canceled trip hungary present paper international cannabinoid research society meeting office began steering patients doctors condition improved late may 2006 mikuriya attended 50th reunion reed college sang rounds old madrigal group office geared wrote lead section article recounting california doctors learned 10 years since passage prop 215 medical marijuana california 19962006 oshaughnessys winterspring 2007 met publisher reissuing marijuana medical papers 1973 anthology preprohibition medical literature new edition include cd containing eight articles come attention years many visits 12yearold daughter hero apple eye even went crosscountry skiing one weekend recently march mikuriya played key role organizing symposium retired colonel james ketchum md discussed armys secret search cannabinoidbased incapacitating agent mikuriya begun assembling contents new anthology cannabis clinical papers would include studies colleagues three major papers cannabis substitute alcohol cannabis firstline treatment mental disorders cannabis eases posttraumatic stress titles alone reflect relevance mikuriyas concerns even historical studies related present time place example 1873 survey british tax officials india elicited range views cannabis seems strikingly contemporary general opinion seems evil effects ganja exaggerated mikuriya liked use slogans grandfather back future discussing legalization cannabis medical use generations americans discovered cannabis social settings 1960s decades followed idea widely used country civil war great depression tinctures manufactured eli lilly parke davis major pharmaceutical companies available prescription decades mikuriya md among small group activists scholars collected bottles labels sought unearth publicize history educational system erased systematically mikuriya given creating polysyllabic phrases forced one puzzle meaning example americas cultural preference modern called temporal chauvinism cannabis clubs said showed efficacy proactive structuralism meant people create something set precedent tod hiro mikuriya born eastern pennsylvania 1933 anna schwenk tadafumi mikuriya father japanese samurai converted christianity mother german immigrant practicing bahai tod two younger sisters went quaker schools quakers proprietors underground railway tod noted cannabis prohibition dynamics bigotry racism family experienced starting december 7 1941 transformed normalbutdifferent people warcriminal surrogates graduated reed college 1956 served medic us army attended temple university school medicine temple reference pharmacology text medical utility marijuana triggered interest would define mikuriyas career getting medical degree mikuriya served internship southern pacific general hospital san francisco specialized psychiatry oregon state hospital salem completed training mendocino state hospital 1967 became director nonclassified marijuana research national institute mental health center narcotics drug abuse left position several months said became clear wanted research damaging effects helpful ones mikuriya moved berkeley 1970 entered private practice active amorphia west coast reform group eventually folded norml helped organize 1972 marijuana legalization initiative working alongside michael michelle aldrich pebbles trippet others stayed struggle ensuing decades cultural political rollback western medicine forgotten almost knew therapeutic properties marijuana mikuriya lamented ucsf medical student interviewing 1996 privilege sitting hempbased tinctures preparations prescribed myriad purposesanalgesic hypnotic appetite stimulant antiepileptic antispasmodic prevention treatment neuralgias including migraine tic doloreux antidepressant tranquilizer oxytocic induce uterine contractions topical anesthetic withdrawal agent opiate chloral alcohol addiction intraocular hypotensive childbirth analgesic hypothermogenic cannabis also antiasthmatic antitussive cough suppressant mikuriya told med student went favor doctors early decades 20th century deemed toxic dangerous alternatives came market injectable opiates synthetics aspirin barbiturates quickeracting offered consistency dosage patient response dennis peron launched san francisco cannabis buyers club start 90s mikuriya saw unique research opportunity began interviewing club members attempt confirm add descriptions preprohibition literature prop 215 drafted mikuriya contributed allimportant phrase first sentence allows doctors approve marijuana use treating anycondition marijuana provides relief eleven states since passed laws allowing marijuana use treat specific conditions mikuriya considered intellectually dishonest compromises mikuriyas contention marijuana alleviates extremely wide range symptoms ridiculed drug czar barry mccaffrey federal officials press conference december 1996 reform advocates promptly sued drug czars office obtained federal injunction confirming constitutional right doctors patients discuss marijuana treatment option nevertheless several years following passage prop 215 almost california mds willing risk wrath government putting writing recommendation cannabis treatment say depression lower back pain people state calling cannabis clubs report doctors many expressed approval marijuana previously would give written letter diagnosis entitling join club people would often given name phone number tod mikuriya thus mikuriya became doctor last resort thousands california patients flew drove john trapp cities towns around state preside ad hoc clinics one satisfying experiences psychiatrist able remove stigma criminality individual said testifying alcoholic vietnam vet 1998 selfperceived stigma removing real danger civil forfeiture kinds state viciousness mikuriya investigated california medical board basis complaints law enforcement officers none patients allegations harm patient disciplinary hearing 2003 patients named accusation praised thanked mikuriya placed probation board continued practice two weeks ago decline rapid issued 9000 approvals mikuriya founder society cannabis clinicians specialty group whose members issued 160000 approvals tod mentor every doctor working field says scc president philip denney md observation cannabis alleviates many seemingly disparate symptoms explained recent research showing active ingredients modulate virtually every neurotransmission system body words finding drug czar mocked fraud turned significant truth quaker service honoring mutual friend held 430 pm friday berkeley friends church 1600 sacramento st berkeley fred gardner edits oshaughnessys journal cannabis clinical practice reached fredplebesitecom 160 160 | 924 |
<p>“I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither.”</p>
<p>Cindy Sheehan</p>
<p>Memorial Day 2007 Cindy Sheehan packed it in and went back to what was left of the life she had before. After years of being the “face” of the “anti-war movement”, the death threats and being called a whore, she’d had enough. She was elevated to star status because her son Casey had been (as she often said) “killed by his own country.” She was resolutely clear and unblinking about the depravity of the system she saw, and non-partisan in the scorn she displayed for our murderous regime. She was a voice which was permitted to speak because—in a country far along on the freeway to fascism— she had a military connection through her dead son. It’s a measure of how far we’ve fallen now, that without the supposed gravitas of “vet-dom” or a connection to military “service,” voices critical of America’s serial wars of aggression are deemed illegitimate. If you weren’t trained to kill, or family of someone who was—-shut up.</p>
<p>In her letter of resignation, Sheehan, referred to her uniquely American status—in debt because of health care. “My hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings…” Yes, dear reader, it’s as true for anti-imperial workers as for more traditional American wage-slaves: In The Country of Bombs—better not get sick. Grown cynical and impoverished, Sheehan announced her return to her role as mom to her surviving children. Her parting shot darkly warned of a doomed culture in “a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives.”</p>
<p>OK. She’s tired and fed up. But Sheehan’s musings about the structural rot at the core of this country’s consumerist soul bear more than a passing glance. It’s tough being against killing and looting in a country based on (and dedicated to) those institutional imperitives. People who battle imperial slaughter usually adopt a mind-set that goes something like this: Americans are fair-minded people who mean well and are generous. They are courageous and dedicated to standing against tyranny. The only reason that they are governed by thugs, mean-spirited louts, and liars is that their institutions are temporarily in disarray. Electoral politics is totally captive to monied interests. The educational system is a mere plaything of The Money Power producing uncritical droids and thing-seekers. The advertiser-based “free media” system largely filters out, marginalizes, and lampoons anti-imperial ideas or speakers. Conventional political parties do the same. But… (the mind-set soldiers on) when the people have finally heard the arguments and earnest public-spirited candidates present themselves “our democracy” will be reclaimed. For the sake of sanity and empiricism, it’s sometimes necessary to admit the possibility that such an optimistic rationale is simply wrong.</p>
<p>OK, so Bush stole the last two elections. But he could only do that because the elections were close enough to steal. Millions of people—without guns to their temples—-willingly cast secretive ballots for a man whose signal accomplishment as governor of Texas was to be leader in the State execution race. He gleefully snuffed poor people whose lawyers had slept though their trials. He mocked the condemned in their pleas for mercy. Sure, he lied about that “compassionate conservative” stuff, but nobody who was paying any attention at all took that seriously in the first place. He wouldn’t have gotten five votes in a civilized country. But, ahhh—-there’s the rub. I don’t know who voted for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bush I, Bill Clinton or Bush II : Killers and despoilers all. But it wasn’t me. We’ve made electing war criminals an art form in this country. It’s now necessary for credibility’s sake that one be willing (even eager) to drop explosive devices from 5-miles up on women, children and old men sleeping in huts. They call that “statecraft” and “defending our country.” “Everything’s on the table,” they say. A greatful nation nods in agreement, and checks out “Dancing With The Stars.”</p>
<p>Author Doug Henwood’s 20th anniversary issue of his Left Business Observer newsletter brought a useful analysis to this question recently. Why, he wondered, are the American people so passive in the face of massive actual and economic warfare? (The latter squarely aimed at them.) On the downward mobility front, Henwood echoes historian Richard Hofstadter’s observation that American Protestants have long nurtured a sympathy for The Market with its completely unaccountable lash gleefully applied to the unworthy and weak. Henwood sums up the Calvinist outlook thusly, “If people are poor, it’s because they’re immoral, impatient, or wasteful.” This sadistic fantasy–of The Market as a “wonderful mechanism of social discipline”— he concludes, may help “explain why there’s so little political price paid for the economic march back to the 19th century.”</p>
<p>Further, Henwood observes that amid mass distractions, with a depoliticized population both ignorant of and hostile to protracted political struggle, short-term progress toward civilization is unlikely. “Much of the electorate despises conflict, and has the naive idea that politics isn’t about struggles over principles and material shares, but working for the common good. But in many areas of political life there is no common good. The normal operation of the economic system requires that some do badly so that the few do well, and any attempt to redress the imbalance is going to provoke conflict.”</p>
<p>Iraqis must do badly now (very badly) if Americans are to continuously sprawl. People get that—self-serving Fox News-style cover stories aside. Cindy Sheehan gets that. Five Crawford acres are for sale.</p>
<p>She’s going home.</p>
<p>RICHARD RHAMES lives in Biddeford, Maine. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | invested everything trying bring peace justice country wants neither cindy sheehan memorial day 2007 cindy sheehan packed went back left life years face antiwar movement death threats called whore shed enough elevated star status son casey often said killed country resolutely clear unblinking depravity system saw nonpartisan scorn displayed murderous regime voice permitted speak becausein country far along freeway fascism military connection dead son measure far weve fallen without supposed gravitas vetdom connection military service voices critical americas serial wars aggression deemed illegitimate werent trained kill family someone wasshut letter resignation sheehan referred uniquely american statusin debt health care hospital bills last summer almost died collection used energy trying stop country slaughtering innocent human beings yes dear reader true antiimperial workers traditional american wageslaves country bombsbetter get sick grown cynical impoverished sheehan announced return role mom surviving children parting shot darkly warned doomed culture country cares next american idol many people killed next months democrats republicans play politics human lives ok shes tired fed sheehans musings structural rot core countrys consumerist soul bear passing glance tough killing looting country based dedicated institutional imperitives people battle imperial slaughter usually adopt mindset goes something like americans fairminded people mean well generous courageous dedicated standing tyranny reason governed thugs meanspirited louts liars institutions temporarily disarray electoral politics totally captive monied interests educational system mere plaything money power producing uncritical droids thingseekers advertiserbased free media system largely filters marginalizes lampoons antiimperial ideas speakers conventional political parties mindset soldiers people finally heard arguments earnest publicspirited candidates present democracy reclaimed sake sanity empiricism sometimes necessary admit possibility optimistic rationale simply wrong ok bush stole last two elections could elections close enough steal millions peoplewithout guns templeswillingly cast secretive ballots man whose signal accomplishment governor texas leader state execution race gleefully snuffed poor people whose lawyers slept though trials mocked condemned pleas mercy sure lied compassionate conservative stuff nobody paying attention took seriously first place wouldnt gotten five votes civilized country ahhhtheres rub dont know voted richard nixon ronald reagan bush bill clinton bush ii killers despoilers wasnt weve made electing war criminals art form country necessary credibilitys sake one willing even eager drop explosive devices 5miles women children old men sleeping huts call statecraft defending country everythings table say greatful nation nods agreement checks dancing stars author doug henwoods 20th anniversary issue left business observer newsletter brought useful analysis question recently wondered american people passive face massive actual economic warfare latter squarely aimed downward mobility front henwood echoes historian richard hofstadters observation american protestants long nurtured sympathy market completely unaccountable lash gleefully applied unworthy weak henwood sums calvinist outlook thusly people poor theyre immoral impatient wasteful sadistic fantasyof market wonderful mechanism social discipline concludes may help explain theres little political price paid economic march back 19th century henwood observes amid mass distractions depoliticized population ignorant hostile protracted political struggle shortterm progress toward civilization unlikely much electorate despises conflict naive idea politics isnt struggles principles material shares working common good many areas political life common good normal operation economic system requires badly well attempt redress imbalance going provoke conflict iraqis must badly badly americans continuously sprawl people get thatselfserving fox newsstyle cover stories aside cindy sheehan gets five crawford acres sale shes going home richard rhames lives biddeford maine reached rrhamesxpressamericanet 160 160 160 | 547 |
<p>Photo Credit: Levent Konuk via Shutterstock.com</p>
<p>The latest news stories from the brave frontiers of a movement known as “education reform” are in, and the consensus view is that down continues to be the new up.</p>
<p>Personnel programs such as <a href="//www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20131013-texas-merit-pay-plan-for-teachers-quietly-disappears.ece" type="external">teacher merit pay</a> that were supposed to improve the financial efficiency of schools are now being discarded for financial reasons. New competitive forms of schooling such as cyber charters that were supposed to reform the system through competition are now in need of <a href="//www.publicopiniononline.com/opinion/ci_24258655/cyber-charter-schools-need-top-bottom-reform-pa" type="external">“top-bottom reform.”</a> Teachers who are held more accountable for children’s motivation to pursue education are discouraged to <a href="//dianeravitch.net/2013/10/14/states-dont-want-to-pay-teachers-for-earning-masters-degrees/" type="external">seek more education</a> for themselves. Schools that are <a href="//www.impatientoptimists.org/Posts/2012/08/Can-Schools-Defeat-Poverty-by-Ignoring-It" type="external">supposed to rescue children from poverty</a> are bearing the <a href="//www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&amp;id=4011" type="external">brunt of deep cuts in spending</a>.</p>
<p>Amidst this colossally dysfunctional scenario descends the new national standards known as the Common Core, what many believe constitutes <a href="//blogs.edweek.org/edweek/engagement_and_reform/2013/08/reform_20--but_without_funding.html" type="external">education reform 2.0</a>. Is it any wonder people are skeptical?</p>
<p>Whether you’re a big fan of the new standards or not, it should be clear that the old way of doing “education reform” will not work for the Common Core. Yet that seems to be the strategy rolling out, and no one seems to be coming forward to propose a better way forward.</p>
<p>Common Core Not&#160; For Kids?</p>
<p>By <a href="//blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2013/10/nearly_every_teacher_in_the.html" type="external">all indicators</a>, teachers are generally favorable to the new standards. But like its predecessor No Child Left Behind, the Common Core is proving to have many unanticipated consequences.</p>
<p>Who would have thought, for instance, that adopting new academic standards would necessitate kindergartners barely able to hold pencils being made to take bubble-in tests?</p>
<p>In states, such as New York, that are on the advanced guard of implementing the new standards and their accompanying tests, multiple choice tests are being pushed down to the youngest students, not because they’re good for the kids, but because they’re required to evaluate whether teachers are teaching according to the new standards.</p>
<p>Based on the report linked above in <a href="//www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/kindergarten-tough-multiple-choice-tests-article-1.1481197" type="external">The Daily News</a>, the exams are a “complete headache” for teachers, making the very act of testing “slow and traumatic.”</p>
<p>“Trying to get a proper answer was next to impossible,” the reporter observed, and teachers complained that the process caused their little pupils to “break down” and “cry.”</p>
<p>“‘Developmentally, it’s not the right thing to do,’ said one Queens teacher.”</p>
<p>New York is not alone in encountering unanticipated problems related to the new reforms. According to a report in <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/elementary-students-learn-keyboard-typing-ahead-of-new-common-core-tests/2013/10/13/d329ba66-3289-11e3-9c68-1cf643210300_story.html?wprss=rss_education" type="external">The Washington Post</a>, 14 states that have agreed to field-test the new exams linked to the Common Core are realizing that implementing the exams requires teaching little kids, from kindergarten up, to learn how to use a computer.</p>
<p>The standardized tests “require students to be able to manipulate a mouse; click, drag and type answers on a keyboard; and, starting in third grade, write online.” And while most elementary-age children are no strangers to technology, what they’re used to is operating those devices with “a swipe of a finger” rather than using them to compose a well-structured paragraph.</p>
<p>“It’s a huge deal,” said a California teacher who writes a popular blog called <a href="//askatechteacher.com/" type="external">Ask A Tech Teacher</a>. “All these elementary teachers are dying, worrying how they’re going to get their kids to meet these new requirements.”</p>
<p>The need to get little kids “to sit with two feet on the floor, elbows bent, hands hovering over keys and eyes on the screen” caused at least one Arizona teacher – like her colleague in New York struggling with paper-and-pencil tests – to wonder “whether developmentally, if it’s appropriate for kids.” A professor of educational psychology quoted in the article clarified: It’s not.</p>
<p>“The current Common Core is not developmentally appropriate,” she stated.</p>
<p>Setting Struggling Schools Further Behind?</p>
<p>Getting little kids up to expectations for implementing the Common Core seems difficult enough – now imagine what it’s like when they also don’t speak English.</p>
<p>That’s the situation for teachers in the <a href="//www.lohud.com/article/20131010/NEWS/310100074/Districts-more-Spanish-speaking-students-struggle-state-standards" type="external">lower Hudson Valley area of New York</a> who have already seen how their predominantly Spanish-speaking students performed on the first go-round of new standards-based tests.</p>
<p>“We have children come to us in seventh, eighth, ninth grade with no English skills and little education,” explained the head of the local teachers’ association. Nevertheless, these children were supposed to meet the same assessment targets as their English speaking peers elsewhere in the state.</p>
<p>The test results weren’t pretty: over 80 percent of seventh- and eighth-graders failing in math, and 85 to as many as 92 percent of fourth- and fifth-graders missing state goals for English language arts.</p>
<p>Noted the reporter, “These districts are used to relatively low test results, as many students from poor, Spanish-speaking homes don’t develop rich language skills before reaching school age. But the new tests results have set them back further.”</p>
<p>Adaptations To Children Not Allowed?</p>
<p>Traditionally, when teachers encounter students who lack the readiness to tackle new academic work – whether for developmental, linguistic, or personal interest reasons – they’ve been trained to devise their own strategies for engaging the students in learning.</p>
<p>Implementing the Common Core may leave little room for this according to an <a href="//abetteriowa.desmoinesregister.com/2013/09/24/prime-common-core-kills-the-dinosaurs-again/" type="external">Iowa teacher</a>, Amy Prime, whose blog post about implementing the Common Core in her class went viral on the Internet. In her experience with the new standards, teachers are being given “new materials packaged and sold as magic bullets to cover everything Common Core” and told to “cover” those materials “without deviation.”</p>
<p>“I was trained as a teacher in the ’90s ” Prime explained. “We were taught to discover what our students were interested in and then create cross-curricular units of study that would build upon those interests to instigate learning.”</p>
<p>Elaborating in an <a href="//www.newtondailynews.com/mobile/article.xml/articles/2013/10/07/dc80b8c3c063491dad8f041032ce4905/index.xml" type="external">interview with a local reporter</a>, Prime expanded, “The problem is when districts chose to bring in [a] program that is purchased and marketed as covering the Common Core; then they insist upon teachers following that without deviation and fidelity.”</p>
<p>Further, Prime continued, “When you are required to spend 90 minutes to two hours a day on a specific program that [school officials] purchased … it shuts out other things. A huge majority of our day has to be focused on teaching reading and math. But what does that do for science, what does that do for physical education, what does that do for the arts, what does that do for social studies and history and all of those things that are important to a well-rounded education? It just narrows the focus down, and it hurts kids.”</p>
<p>Your Opinion Doesn’t Matter?</p>
<p>Even the biggest fan of the Common Core would have to admit, “Houston, we have a problem.”</p>
<p>But the old ways of doing reform – NCLB’s command-control driven administration, demanding compliance or else – seem to apply with the implementation of the Common Core.</p>
<p>Dismissing teachers’ concerns about the inappropriateness of using bubble tests with kindergarteners, a New York department of education official responded that the new tests were just examples of “multiple tools” that every teacher “should” want to employ in order to “diagnose what students already know and what they need help with.”</p>
<p>“I can tell when a student needs help,” replied a Staten Island veteran. “I don’t have to give them a test.” But who believes her opinion will be heard?</p>
<p>Some teachers who are struggling to get their students’ keyboarding skills up to the proficiency required for Common Core testing may get a reprieve and use pencil-and-paper versions for the first year, depending on which type of test their state has chosen. But is a reprieve just a delay in implementing a potentially mistaken policy?</p>
<p>Teachers in New York who are seeing their progress set back because the new tests are not accommodating to the needs of students struggling with English got a visit from State Education Commissioner John King. The teachers explained, “They are trying to embrace the new Common Core learning standards despite a lack of money and the challenges posed by a student body with a wide range of English skills.”</p>
<p>According to the reporter, King “had no easy answers on how to address the test-score gap.” And he took the opportunity to opine, “We have to do a lot better as a state – and as a country – to help English-language learners acquire English skills.” To which one would imagine any thoughtful teacher replying, “Of course. But that’s not the point.”</p>
<p>Responding to teacher Amy Prime, who felt coerced to use Common Core aligned curriculum that narrowed the learning experiences of her students,her state’s Elementary Educational Services Director expressed no doubt that what his office is imposing “is working.” His proof?</p>
<p>“It’s making a difference in the performance of students,” which really means, “Test scores are up.” In other words, rather than taking into account authentic classroom experiences and the voices of teachers, test scores – the criteria that has ruled since the imposition of NCLB – remain the order of the day.</p>
<p>A Revolt In The Offing?</p>
<p>Will teachers and parents who witnessed the collapse of NCLB and education reform 1.0 get steamrolled by the same sort of mistaken top-down, test-driven process again?</p>
<p>“No way,” declared a mass audience gathered recently in upstate New York.</p>
<p>Writing for a <a href="//www.buffalonews.com/city-region/education/forum-on-testing-reform-draws-2500-vocal-teachers-parents-and-administrators-20131002" type="external">Buffalo, NY newspaper</a>, a reporter observed, “Reform of high-stakes testing for schoolchildren, a groundswell movement of lawn signs and small-scale protests, became an earthquake Wednesday evening.”</p>
<p>The event drew an audience large enough to reach the rafters of a local music performance hall but also included a host of political leaders that “looked like a Western New York State Legislature roll call.” The speeches tapped disgruntled teachers and parents who take issue with the reform agenda of high-stakes testing and teacher evaluations linked to student test scores.</p>
<p>“We’ve had a lot of quote-unquote educational reform in the past decades aimed at poor schools in the cities,” declared one state assemblyman, “But now all schools are feeling the pain, regardless of their previous performance. This is why you see a lot of suburban parents here tonight. They’re all being treated poorly. They’re mad about these tests.”</p>
<p>Echoing the discontent up-state from them, New Yorkers clogged a Poughkeepsie PTA-sponsored forum – originally intended to be the first in a series – to express their dissent to State Commissioner King about how the Common Core is being rolled out in their schools.</p>
<p>A <a href="//www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Eiz406VAs" type="external">video</a> captured the event, as speaker after speaker rose to declare that the current agenda for education reform must “stop, stop, stop,” that the implementation of new standards and tests is being rushed, and that an imposed one-size-fits-all education program herds students into data points and percentages rather than engaging them as learners with individual and unique needs.</p>
<p>“These citizens are raising concerns which, prior to this event, have not been given a chance to be aired,” noted Education Week blogger <a href="//blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/10/parents_voice_concerns_about_c.html" type="external">Anthony Cody</a>, “The frustration at their lack of input is palpable.”</p>
<p>Award-winning Long Island principal Carol Burris, writing at <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/13/how-new-yorks-education-commissioner-blew-it-principal/" type="external">Valerie Strauss’</a> blog at The Washington Post, described the frustration: “By the last half hour of the evening, the audience was both boisterous and impassioned, angered because there was limited opportunity to speak. What little time remained for the audience was twice interrupted by Commissioner John King, who had held the floor for an hour and a half.”</p>
<p>“‘My will be done’ has been the tone and the tenor of chaotic reform in New York,” Burris continued. “In its rush to implement teacher evaluations, the Common Core and new testing, the state leadership has likened it to <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-dangers-of-building-a-plane-in-the-air/2011/09/30/gIQAojqWAL_blog.html" type="external">building a plane in the air</a>. Cut scores anchored to ridiculously high performance on the SAT caused proficiency <a href="//www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/12/how-come-officials-could-predict-results-on-new-test-scores/" type="external">scores to plummet</a>. Students, often in tears, rushed to finish tests that were too difficult and too long. The Common Core Algebra modules are still not finished, even though teachers must teach the course to students now.”</p>
<p>King’s response to the outpouring from parents and teachers was to cancel the rest of the series of hearings. His rationale, quoted in a <a href="//www.newsday.com/long-island/state-education-chief-suspends-li-town-hall-meeting-1.6246532" type="external">local news article</a>, “The disruptions caused by the ‘special interests’ have deprived parents of the opportunity to listen, ask questions, and offer comments.”</p>
<p>Marginalizing Dissent Is Not The Answer</p>
<p>Regarding teachers and parents, and their students and children, as “special interests” to be marginalized or ignored seems less than a workable plan for the Common Core’s success.</p>
<p>The real “special interests” who appear to be running the Common Core show are, in fact, not at all invisible to teachers and parents witnessing the battle over the Core’s roll out. Writing for <a href="//www.politico.com/story/2013/09/education-common-core-standards-schools-96964.html#ixzz2hNjPwHwc" type="external">Politico</a>, Stephanie Simon and Nirvi Shah recently revealed, “Tens of millions of dollars are pouring into the battle over the Common Core.”</p>
<p>“Think tanks and advocacy groups” cited in the article, not teachers and parents, are using their money to engineer the debate, while all us little people need to figure out how we can “earn our place at the table,” at least according to a <a href="//blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2013/10/seizing_opportunity_from_crisis.html" type="external">prominent operative</a> from one of the very think tanks pushing the reform agenda.</p>
<p>If you’re a fan of the Common Core, these are not the people you want to see running the show: public officials and policy makers who refuse to embrace input from teachers and parents, pundits and philanthropists who continue to treat education as their pet cause, and businesses and entrepreneurs who are only in it for the money.</p>
<p>They had their shot running previous versions of “reform,” and they blew it.</p>
<p>We don’t need that kind of “reform” again. Instead, heed the voices from classrooms and communities – critics and all. Then, and only then, does any sort of positive way forward have a chance to succeed.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | photo credit levent konuk via shutterstockcom latest news stories brave frontiers movement known education reform consensus view continues new personnel programs teacher merit pay supposed improve financial efficiency schools discarded financial reasons new competitive forms schooling cyber charters supposed reform system competition need topbottom reform teachers held accountable childrens motivation pursue education discouraged seek education schools supposed rescue children poverty bearing brunt deep cuts spending amidst colossally dysfunctional scenario descends new national standards known common core many believe constitutes education reform 20 wonder people skeptical whether youre big fan new standards clear old way education reform work common core yet seems strategy rolling one seems coming forward propose better way forward common core not160 kids indicators teachers generally favorable new standards like predecessor child left behind common core proving many unanticipated consequences would thought instance adopting new academic standards would necessitate kindergartners barely able hold pencils made take bubblein tests states new york advanced guard implementing new standards accompanying tests multiple choice tests pushed youngest students theyre good kids theyre required evaluate whether teachers teaching according new standards based report linked daily news exams complete headache teachers making act testing slow traumatic trying get proper answer next impossible reporter observed teachers complained process caused little pupils break cry developmentally right thing said one queens teacher new york alone encountering unanticipated problems related new reforms according report washington post 14 states agreed fieldtest new exams linked common core realizing implementing exams requires teaching little kids kindergarten learn use computer standardized tests require students able manipulate mouse click drag type answers keyboard starting third grade write online elementaryage children strangers technology theyre used operating devices swipe finger rather using compose wellstructured paragraph huge deal said california teacher writes popular blog called ask tech teacher elementary teachers dying worrying theyre going get kids meet new requirements need get little kids sit two feet floor elbows bent hands hovering keys eyes screen caused least one arizona teacher like colleague new york struggling paperandpencil tests wonder whether developmentally appropriate kids professor educational psychology quoted article clarified current common core developmentally appropriate stated setting struggling schools behind getting little kids expectations implementing common core seems difficult enough imagine like also dont speak english thats situation teachers lower hudson valley area new york already seen predominantly spanishspeaking students performed first goround new standardsbased tests children come us seventh eighth ninth grade english skills little education explained head local teachers association nevertheless children supposed meet assessment targets english speaking peers elsewhere state test results werent pretty 80 percent seventh eighthgraders failing math 85 many 92 percent fourth fifthgraders missing state goals english language arts noted reporter districts used relatively low test results many students poor spanishspeaking homes dont develop rich language skills reaching school age new tests results set back adaptations children allowed traditionally teachers encounter students lack readiness tackle new academic work whether developmental linguistic personal interest reasons theyve trained devise strategies engaging students learning implementing common core may leave little room according iowa teacher amy prime whose blog post implementing common core class went viral internet experience new standards teachers given new materials packaged sold magic bullets cover everything common core told cover materials without deviation trained teacher 90s prime explained taught discover students interested create crosscurricular units study would build upon interests instigate learning elaborating interview local reporter prime expanded problem districts chose bring program purchased marketed covering common core insist upon teachers following without deviation fidelity prime continued required spend 90 minutes two hours day specific program school officials purchased shuts things huge majority day focused teaching reading math science physical education arts social studies history things important wellrounded education narrows focus hurts kids opinion doesnt matter even biggest fan common core would admit houston problem old ways reform nclbs commandcontrol driven administration demanding compliance else seem apply implementation common core dismissing teachers concerns inappropriateness using bubble tests kindergarteners new york department education official responded new tests examples multiple tools every teacher want employ order diagnose students already know need help tell student needs help replied staten island veteran dont give test believes opinion heard teachers struggling get students keyboarding skills proficiency required common core testing may get reprieve use pencilandpaper versions first year depending type test state chosen reprieve delay implementing potentially mistaken policy teachers new york seeing progress set back new tests accommodating needs students struggling english got visit state education commissioner john king teachers explained trying embrace new common core learning standards despite lack money challenges posed student body wide range english skills according reporter king easy answers address testscore gap took opportunity opine lot better state country help englishlanguage learners acquire english skills one would imagine thoughtful teacher replying course thats point responding teacher amy prime felt coerced use common core aligned curriculum narrowed learning experiences studentsher states elementary educational services director expressed doubt office imposing working proof making difference performance students really means test scores words rather taking account authentic classroom experiences voices teachers test scores criteria ruled since imposition nclb remain order day revolt offing teachers parents witnessed collapse nclb education reform 10 get steamrolled sort mistaken topdown testdriven process way declared mass audience gathered recently upstate new york writing buffalo ny newspaper reporter observed reform highstakes testing schoolchildren groundswell movement lawn signs smallscale protests became earthquake wednesday evening event drew audience large enough reach rafters local music performance hall also included host political leaders looked like western new york state legislature roll call speeches tapped disgruntled teachers parents take issue reform agenda highstakes testing teacher evaluations linked student test scores weve lot quoteunquote educational reform past decades aimed poor schools cities declared one state assemblyman schools feeling pain regardless previous performance see lot suburban parents tonight theyre treated poorly theyre mad tests echoing discontent upstate new yorkers clogged poughkeepsie ptasponsored forum originally intended first series express dissent state commissioner king common core rolled schools video captured event speaker speaker rose declare current agenda education reform must stop stop stop implementation new standards tests rushed imposed onesizefitsall education program herds students data points percentages rather engaging learners individual unique needs citizens raising concerns prior event given chance aired noted education week blogger anthony cody frustration lack input palpable awardwinning long island principal carol burris writing valerie strauss blog washington post described frustration last half hour evening audience boisterous impassioned angered limited opportunity speak little time remained audience twice interrupted commissioner john king held floor hour half done tone tenor chaotic reform new york burris continued rush implement teacher evaluations common core new testing state leadership likened building plane air cut scores anchored ridiculously high performance sat caused proficiency scores plummet students often tears rushed finish tests difficult long common core algebra modules still finished even though teachers must teach course students kings response outpouring parents teachers cancel rest series hearings rationale quoted local news article disruptions caused special interests deprived parents opportunity listen ask questions offer comments marginalizing dissent answer regarding teachers parents students children special interests marginalized ignored seems less workable plan common cores success real special interests appear running common core show fact invisible teachers parents witnessing battle cores roll writing politico stephanie simon nirvi shah recently revealed tens millions dollars pouring battle common core think tanks advocacy groups cited article teachers parents using money engineer debate us little people need figure earn place table least according prominent operative one think tanks pushing reform agenda youre fan common core people want see running show public officials policy makers refuse embrace input teachers parents pundits philanthropists continue treat education pet cause businesses entrepreneurs money shot running previous versions reform blew dont need kind reform instead heed voices classrooms communities critics sort positive way forward chance succeed 160 160 | 1,281 |
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<p>MIFFLINTOWN, PA – Hillary Clinton spent a rainy Sunday afternoon in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the sort of small town that has recently been at the center of her race against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.</p>
<p>In a mirror of the Ohio primary, in which Obama took heat for the <a href="/mojoblog/archives/2008/03/7443_whoops_obama_ad.html" type="external">Goolsbee/NAFTA</a> affair right before election day, Obama has spent the week before Tuesday’s Pennsylvania vote explaining his comment that in “a lot of small towns in the Midwest,” people are “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion.” Clinton has sought to portray Obama as out-of-touch and to portray herself of the true champion of small town values. She entered Greater Johnstown Senior High School (home of the 2007 Laurel Highlands Section 2 softball champions) to the sounds of John Mellencamp’s folk rock tune “This Is Our Country.” And if that wasn’t on-the-nose enough for the thousand or so attendees, she exited to Mellencamp’s <a href="http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/john+mellencamp/small+town_20074448.html" type="external">“Small Town.”</a></p>
<p>But aside from some very subtle references (Clinton said she wanted to be the president of “every city, every town, every village”), the attack de jour was elsewhere.</p>
<p>Governor Ed Rendell, a stalwart Clinton supporter who spoke before the Senator, tipped off the crowd when he paraphrased this statement Senator Obama made earlier in the day:</p>
<p>“You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain. And all three of us would be better than George Bush.”</p>
<p>The critique was that Obama was willing to give an inch — the Democratic talking point of the campaign is that McCain is running for a third Bush term, and saying otherwise suggests that the speaker is either soft or naïve.</p>
<p>Clinton used the opportunity to hammer Obama and McCain both, saying:</p>
<p>“Sen. Obama said today that John McCain would be better for the country than George Bush. Now, Sen. McCain is a real American patriot who has served our country with distinction, but Sen. McCain would follow the same failed policies that have been so wrong for our country the last seven years.</p>
<p>“Sen. McCain thinks it is okay to keep our troops in Iraq for the next 100 years. Is that better than George Bush?</p>
<p>“Sen. McCain will continue the failed economic policies of George Bush that have brought us deficit and increasing debt. Is that better than George Bush?</p>
<p>“Sen. McCain does not have a health care plan that will cover every American. In fact, we will have more and more uninsured Americans. Is that better than George Bush?</p>
<p>“Sen. McCain has no plans to end the housing foreclosure crisis or cut the cost of gas at the pump. Is that better than George Bush?</p>
<p>“We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain, and I will be that nominee.”</p>
<p>This last bit was pure political theater, of course. No one reasonably expects Obama to “cheer on” John McCain when he is running against him in the general election. It was perhaps a sign that “bitter”-gate had run its course or not been effective at all (polls show Obama’s three to seven point deficit hasn’t really moved in the last week). Or perhaps it was a one-day shot at Obama, simply more grist for the mill.</p>
<p>Other than that, Clinton’s stump speech could have been out of Iowa. She addressed the bread and butter topics that every Democrat has discussed for months — gas prices, health care, the war, veterans’ benefits, college affordability — and used the oldies but goodies against Obama. Real change won’t come by hoping for it, she said, or making speeches about it. It comes only from experience, solutions, and a willingness to take on the tough problems. At an event later in the day at Penn State, Clinton said that when voters make up their minds they need to “get beyond the generalities, get beyond the speeches… you’re electing a president to solve problems, not to give speeches.” By now, this is familiar territory for anyone who has paid even cursory attention to the presidential primary.</p>
<p>Most of the people in attendance were committed Clinton supporters who didn’t need the events of the last ten days to tell them who to vote for. Mary Jane Seth, a homemaker, said she has been waiting for a chance to vote for Clinton since her husband’s presidency. “She knows her business. She’s capable, she’s confident, she’s intelligent. She’s ready and able to do the job.” But Seth added that she didn’t care about Obama’s comments. “Everyone makes stupid comments,” she said. “One or two stupid comments does not the person make. I do not hold that against him.” Seth said “bitter”-gate was mostly a creation of the media.</p>
<p>That sentiment was echoed by others. Joe Skrinjorich, a trucker and fan of Senator Clinton’s health care plan, said he had heard the comments but wasn’t swayed by them. “The way I see it, it’s just the way you take it. It could have been taken out of context,” he said. “Even though I live in a small, rural town it doesn’t bother me.”</p>
<p>Multiple people — all white, all working class — were hesitant to respond when asked if they would support Obama if he won the nomination, an indication that the Illinois Senator will have some work to do to win over Clinton’s base should he take the nomination. One woman, reflecting the feeling of others, said, “I won’t vote for a Republican. But I might sit it out.”</p>
<p>Considering the state of the race, however, none of this may matter. A close win for Clinton in Pennsylvania puts her in a deeper hole than she is already in, because the delegate gap between her and Obama will remain basically the same and she will have fewer states and thus fewer outstanding delegates with which to make it up. It’s possible that the song that fits the moment best is one that blared over the loudspeakers shortly before Clinton took the state: the ominous tones of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” <a href="http://www.motherjones.org/washington_dispatch/2007/12/romney-iowa-losing-evangelicals.html" type="external">the last thing Mitt Romney played before he lost Iowa</a>.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | mifflintown pa hillary clinton spent rainy sunday afternoon johnstown pennsylvania sort small town recently center race barack obama democratic presidential nomination mirror ohio primary obama took heat goolsbeenafta affair right election day obama spent week tuesdays pennsylvania vote explaining comment lot small towns midwest people bitter cling guns religion clinton sought portray obama outoftouch portray true champion small town values entered greater johnstown senior high school home 2007 laurel highlands section 2 softball champions sounds john mellencamps folk rock tune country wasnt onthenose enough thousand attendees exited mellencamps small town aside subtle references clinton said wanted president every city every town every village attack de jour elsewhere governor ed rendell stalwart clinton supporter spoke senator tipped crowd paraphrased statement senator obama made earlier day real choice election either democrat would better john mccain three us would better george bush critique obama willing give inch democratic talking point campaign mccain running third bush term saying otherwise suggests speaker either soft naïve clinton used opportunity hammer obama mccain saying sen obama said today john mccain would better country george bush sen mccain real american patriot served country distinction sen mccain would follow failed policies wrong country last seven years sen mccain thinks okay keep troops iraq next 100 years better george bush sen mccain continue failed economic policies george bush brought us deficit increasing debt better george bush sen mccain health care plan cover every american fact uninsured americans better george bush sen mccain plans end housing foreclosure crisis cut cost gas pump better george bush need nominee take john mccain cheer john mccain nominee last bit pure political theater course one reasonably expects obama cheer john mccain running general election perhaps sign bittergate run course effective polls show obamas three seven point deficit hasnt really moved last week perhaps oneday shot obama simply grist mill clintons stump speech could iowa addressed bread butter topics every democrat discussed months gas prices health care war veterans benefits college affordability used oldies goodies obama real change wont come hoping said making speeches comes experience solutions willingness take tough problems event later day penn state clinton said voters make minds need get beyond generalities get beyond speeches youre electing president solve problems give speeches familiar territory anyone paid even cursory attention presidential primary people attendance committed clinton supporters didnt need events last ten days tell vote mary jane seth homemaker said waiting chance vote clinton since husbands presidency knows business shes capable shes confident shes intelligent shes ready able job seth added didnt care obamas comments everyone makes stupid comments said one two stupid comments person make hold seth said bittergate mostly creation media sentiment echoed others joe skrinjorich trucker fan senator clintons health care plan said heard comments wasnt swayed way see way take could taken context said even though live small rural town doesnt bother multiple people white working class hesitant respond asked would support obama nomination indication illinois senator work win clintons base take nomination one woman reflecting feeling others said wont vote republican might sit considering state race however none may matter close win clinton pennsylvania puts deeper hole already delegate gap obama remain basically fewer states thus fewer outstanding delegates make possible song fits moment best one blared loudspeakers shortly clinton took state ominous tones journeys dont stop believing last thing mitt romney played lost iowa | 556 |
<p>Mother Jones illustration</p>
<p>One of the few bright spots this past year was supposed to be the revival of journalism. And to be sure, it’s been a great time for muckraking, with newsrooms bringing home scoop after scoop on the Trump administration. Subscriptions to everything from the New York Times to Mother Jones are up. And for the first time in decades, trust in news media is rising too: Today, <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2482" type="external">54 percent of the public</a> have confidence in journalists to tell the truth, while only 36 percent trust the president.&#160;</p>
<p>So: Will Donald Trump, perhaps the most anti-journalism president in modern times, actually end up saving journalism?</p>
<p>Here’s where the story turns more complicated. Look at this picture of newspaper circulation nationwide: <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/01/circulation-and-revenue-fall-for-newspaper-industry/ft_17-05-25_newspapers_revenue3/" type="external" /></p>
<p>No “Trump bump” there. As a regional newspaper editor recently told me, “I showed that graph to our newsroom and said: If that line keeps going, there’s no one left working here in 10 years.” Right after that I watched a presentation on <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/23/wibbitz-series-c/" type="external">news robots</a>—algorithms that can put together credible stories with stunningly little help from humans. It’s not at all hard to imagine newsrooms populated largely by artificial intelligence a few years hence.</p>
<p>And it’s not just legacy shops that are imploding. Virtually every news organization in America has seen its audience decline (and in some cases crater) since the record numbers of last winter. Some blame the Google and Facebook algorithms (could real news&#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/technology/google-search-bias-claims.html" type="external">getting caught up</a> in the fight against the fake stuff?). Others speculate that readers and viewers are <a href="" type="internal">simply tiring</a> of the 24/7 onslaught of crazy.</p>
<p>Either way, declining audience equals declining advertising revenue, and we know what that means: “Pivot to video,” laying off journalists, the whole desperate search for anything that will keep parent companies or venture capitalists from pulling their cash and finding another cat toy.</p>
<p>Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/theres-a-digital-media-crash-but-no-one-will-say-it" type="external">good analogy</a>: Digital news sites have been playing musical chairs as they compete for a shrinking amount of ad revenue. Their investors have been betting that any day now, their chosen site will get really, really big (while not needing a lot more staff than when it was small), resulting in advertising revenue at the scale needed to turn a profit. But that’s not happening, and with ads increasingly shifting from publishers to platforms, odds are it never will.</p>
<p>The past few days have brought an onslaught of news in this vein. Buzzfeed, the big media success story of the past decade, projects&#160; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/buzzfeed-set-to-miss-revenue-target-signaling-turbulence-in-media-1510861771" type="external">missing its earnings targets</a> by some 20 percent. CNN&#160; <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/cnn-digital-is-facing-a-20-million-budget-shortfall?utm_term=.iwgEZGg7B#.nynZ3mLjb" type="external">faces shortfalls</a>, despite its incredible scoops and a political climate that’s had all of us glued to the headlines. Mashable, another investor darling, announced its sale for about a fifth of its valuation just two years ago. The Daily Beast, owned by the same parent company as Tinder, is&#160; <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/17/media/daily-beast-sale-digital-media-companies/index.html" type="external">looking at a sale</a>, and Univision is&#160; <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/11/16/16666550/univision-fusion-gawker-gizmodo-media-sale-funding" type="external">on the hunt</a> for someone to take a piece of the former Gawker sites. Alternative weeklies are on <a href="" type="internal">life support</a>&#160;and Conde Nast is&#160; <a href="http://wwd.com/business-news/media/layoffs-hit-gq-as-conde-nast-cuts-continue-11046736/" type="external">making cuts</a>. Billionaire Republican donor Joe Ricketts <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-dnainfo-shutting-down-20171102-story.html" type="external">shut down</a> the Gothamist network of news sites after the staff voted to unionize. The list goes on.</p>
<p>If this keeps up, Trump’s (and Steve Bannon’s and Kellyanne Conway’s) dream could soon come true: The news landscape will be dominated by cheap, shallow fluff and propaganda of the sort that turns reality-show celebs into presidents. Independent, critical journalism will end up FAILING, not because it’s not doing its job, but because no one will pay to do that job.</p>
<p>If that happens, we journalists will not be blameless. I’ll start with myself: I was trained to ignore not only what the business side was up to (that separation of church and state is healthy and important), but to not think much about the audience either. Once you worried about who was reading or watching, the reasoning went, you would automatically start pandering: Puff pieces, sensationalism, cat videos, blah blah.</p>
<p>It took me a long time to realize how insulting it was to assume that the people you’re trying to reach will inevitably choose crap over substance. But it was an assumption that permeated the industry: You, readers and viewers, were considered by much of our industry to be unwitting dupes needing to be conned into consuming content.</p>
<p>Thus, headlines that promised what stories couldn’t deliver or manipulated your emotions to get you to click “Like.” Webpages slathered with intrusive advertising, or simply ads masquerading as stories. All this was done, in some ways, with good intentions; it’s really hard to make enough money to pay for journalism. But in the end, publishers inched ever closer to squandering the one thing they could not replace: The audience’s trust.</p>
<p>But then Donald Trump came along and did the one thing that could reverse this spiral: He redrew the battle lines. He brutally humiliated reporters (especially women) who covered the campaign. He cheered his surrogates as they insisted on “alternative facts” and cast the press as “the enemy of the people.” He joked with Vladimir Putin, under whose government journalists <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/" type="external">keep mysteriously dying</a>, about journalists being spies. Like authoritarian figures the world over, the only kind of coverage he tolerated was Hannity-style fawning.</p>
<p>When Trump lashed out at “fake news,” when Steve Bannon called reporters “ <a href="https://www.indy100.com/article/donald-trump-president-press-enemies-people-twitter-tweet-7586866" type="external">the enemy of the people</a>,” when a Congressional candidate <a href="" type="internal">body-slammed</a> a reporter, they asked Americans to take sides—with them, or with a free, fact-oriented press. And, remarkably, a majority is coming down on the side of journalism.</p>
<p>That’s an extraordinary show of support, given our history of not endearing ourselves to audiences. But now it’s on us to prove that we deserve it. To show that we are not here to manipulate or “monetize” you, but to stand with you, fight with you, for the values of democracy and vigorous debate and pluralism that we all felt down to our core on Election Day. It’s time to earn your trust, not rent it out to the highest bidder.&#160;</p>
<p>And when we do that, we may end up earning your support, too. That’s certainly been true here at MoJo.&#160;Even back at our founding, back in 1976, it was pretty clear that the booze, tobacco, and car industries (then the mainstays of magazine revenue) would not support exposes on things like <a href="" type="internal">exploding Ford Pintos</a>. And it’s even clearer now, when advertisers pay mere pennies per bushel of eyeballs, and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-et-mn-disney-lifts-ban-20171107-story.html" type="external">demand compliance</a> with their corporate agenda to boot.</p>
<p>The days of investigative reporting brought to you by corporate America and venture capitalists are over. We can either leave what’s left of America’s newsrooms to the robots and Rupert Murdochs—or we can take charge of them ourselves.</p>
<p>At Mother Jones, we’ve made our bet: We don’t have owners or investors besides you, our readers. We work for you and we’re accountable to you. And right now, we look to you to keep us strong at a time when speaking truth to power matters more than ever.&#160;So as you start making your end-of-year charitable giving decisions, I hope you’ll consider joining (or re-joining) the community of some 50,000 MoJo donors with a tax-deductible gift <a href="" type="internal">here.&#160;</a>And you can search for other independent, nonprofit newsrooms, many of them in communities being left behind by for-profit media companies, and help them <a href="https://www.newsmatch.org/" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>Trump won’t save journalism. But you—and your support for the news you trust, wherever you find it—can.</p>
<p>Image credit: Rich Legg/Getty</p> | true | 4 | mother jones illustration one bright spots past year supposed revival journalism sure great time muckraking newsrooms bringing home scoop scoop trump administration subscriptions everything new york times mother jones first time decades trust news media rising today 54 percent public confidence journalists tell truth 36 percent trust president160 donald trump perhaps antijournalism president modern times actually end saving journalism heres story turns complicated look picture newspaper circulation nationwide trump bump regional newspaper editor recently told showed graph newsroom said line keeps going theres one left working 10 years right watched presentation news robotsalgorithms put together credible stories stunningly little help humans hard imagine newsrooms populated largely artificial intelligence years hence legacy shops imploding virtually every news organization america seen audience decline cases crater since record numbers last winter blame google facebook algorithms could real news160 getting caught fight fake stuff others speculate readers viewers simply tiring 247 onslaught crazy either way declining audience equals declining advertising revenue know means pivot video laying journalists whole desperate search anything keep parent companies venture capitalists pulling cash finding another cat toy josh marshall talking points memo good analogy digital news sites playing musical chairs compete shrinking amount ad revenue investors betting day chosen site get really really big needing lot staff small resulting advertising revenue scale needed turn profit thats happening ads increasingly shifting publishers platforms odds never past days brought onslaught news vein buzzfeed big media success story past decade projects160 missing earnings targets 20 percent cnn160 faces shortfalls despite incredible scoops political climate thats us glued headlines mashable another investor darling announced sale fifth valuation two years ago daily beast owned parent company tinder is160 looking sale univision is160 hunt someone take piece former gawker sites alternative weeklies life support160and conde nast is160 making cuts billionaire republican donor joe ricketts shut gothamist network news sites staff voted unionize list goes keeps trumps steve bannons kellyanne conways dream could soon come true news landscape dominated cheap shallow fluff propaganda sort turns realityshow celebs presidents independent critical journalism end failing job one pay job happens journalists blameless ill start trained ignore business side separation church state healthy important think much audience either worried reading watching reasoning went would automatically start pandering puff pieces sensationalism cat videos blah blah took long time realize insulting assume people youre trying reach inevitably choose crap substance assumption permeated industry readers viewers considered much industry unwitting dupes needing conned consuming content thus headlines promised stories couldnt deliver manipulated emotions get click like webpages slathered intrusive advertising simply ads masquerading stories done ways good intentions really hard make enough money pay journalism end publishers inched ever closer squandering one thing could replace audiences trust donald trump came along one thing could reverse spiral redrew battle lines brutally humiliated reporters especially women covered campaign cheered surrogates insisted alternative facts cast press enemy people joked vladimir putin whose government journalists keep mysteriously dying journalists spies like authoritarian figures world kind coverage tolerated hannitystyle fawning trump lashed fake news steve bannon called reporters enemy people congressional candidate bodyslammed reporter asked americans take sideswith free factoriented press remarkably majority coming side journalism thats extraordinary show support given history endearing audiences us prove deserve show manipulate monetize stand fight values democracy vigorous debate pluralism felt core election day time earn trust rent highest bidder160 may end earning support thats certainly true mojo160even back founding back 1976 pretty clear booze tobacco car industries mainstays magazine revenue would support exposes things like exploding ford pintos even clearer advertisers pay mere pennies per bushel eyeballs demand compliance corporate agenda boot days investigative reporting brought corporate america venture capitalists either leave whats left americas newsrooms robots rupert murdochsor take charge mother jones weve made bet dont owners investors besides readers work accountable right look keep us strong time speaking truth power matters ever160so start making endofyear charitable giving decisions hope youll consider joining rejoining community 50000 mojo donors taxdeductible gift here160and search independent nonprofit newsrooms many communities left behind forprofit media companies help trump wont save journalism youand support news trust wherever find itcan image credit rich legggetty | 680 |
<p>“Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist” A book by Bill McKibben</p>
<p>By Curtis Brainard</p>
<p>The documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” may have secured global warming’s place in American consciousness and pop culture — a laudable accomplishment, to be sure — but Al Gore didn’t inspire the type of grass-roots movement that could stand up to politicians and institutions to rein in the oil and gas industry. That task fell to Bill McKibben, a journalist and writer who, in the past two years, has spearheaded campaigns that stymied approval of the Keystone XL pipeline — a focal point of battles over climate and energy policy — and persuaded dozens of cities, universities and religious institutions to think about ditching their investments in fossil-fuel companies.</p>
<p />
<p>“I didn’t particularly want to lead a movement, but I wanted to join one, and so I helped to build it,” McKibben writes in his memoir, “Oil and Honey,” an endearing account of his reluctant rise to leadership. The book weaves together his life on the road stirring up opposition to corporate excess and his life at home trying to build a sustainable world, one local farm at a time.</p>
<p>McKibben would’ve preferred to spend a lot more time in Vermont, hiking the mountains outside his house and helping his friend Kirk Webster, whose apiary he’d financed, tend to his beehives. But a sense of responsibility pulled him away. He had already written many books and articles on the ways humans screw up the Earth, but in the past decade, he came to the conclusion that it wasn’t enough. In the face of planetary abuses such as climate change, he needed to do more, so he began agitating and organized his first protest in 2006.</p>
<p>McKibben quickly proved to be a nimble organizer. Working with a group of students at Middlebury College, where he taught, he launched <a href="http://350.org/" type="external">350.org</a>, which coordinated 5,200 climate-change rallies in 181 countries in the fall of 2009. The group led a similar day of action the following year. It was the “first big green movement for the Internet age,” as he proudly describes it, and an intentional change of tactics from the “Beltway operations” of the country’s major environmental groups, which “were better suited for the 1970s, when they could lobby Congress with some hope of victory.”</p>
<p>While keeping his ire focused on the oil and gas industry and politicians, McKibben doesn’t hide his frustration with environmental groups’ lack of grass-roots organizing, arguing at one point that their supporters are better at “writing checks” than protesting. But he’s also honest about his own shortcomings in the field.</p>
<p>Despite two worldwide climate rallies, the Obama administration was poised by the summer of 2011 to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and McKibben recognized the need for special measures. “We’d need to go to jail,” he realized, so he sat down to write a letter to 350.org’s friends and supporters, urging them to join him in a march on the White House that would probably get them arrested for trespassing. After he finished, his hand hovered above the send button — he knew he was about to cross a line. “To this point I’d been able to pretend that I was mostly a writer who happened to be helping with some activism,” he writes. Now he was an unabashed activist.</p>
<p>Over two weeks, the police arrested 1,253 Keystone XL opponents outside the White House, making it “the biggest civil disobedience action since the protests against nuclear testing in the 1980s,” McKibben writes. The nights he spent in jail made him feel like he “was finally taking action on a scale that began to match the scale of the problem.” But the arrests got scant notice from the White House, and he promised to keep the pressure on. Just over two months later, he followed through by organizing a human ring that encircled the White House, and soon after, the administration postponed the decision on Keystone XL.</p>
<p>McKibben’s descriptions of his civil disobedience in Washington are positively gleeful, but the charm of activism (at least the kind that keeps you constantly moving) quickly wore off. Less than a year after his pipeline victory, he organized another day of worldwide climate rallies, and shortly thereafter he launched a campaign urging local governments, universities and other institutions to shed their investments in fossil-fuel companies. Each of these efforts involved weeks to months of crisscrossing the country to drum up grass-roots support and participation, and for McKibben, the challenge became as much about psyching himself up as psyching up the crowd. “The trick is to say something for the hundredth time and have it sound fresh, to mean it as you say it,” he writes, and he often went to bed at night yearning for home.“Oil and Honey” is as much about McKibben’s life in Vermont as it about his life on the road, and he interlaces the tale of his activism with the tale of his friendship, and eventual business partnership, with Webster, a beekeeper he’d met in 2001 when he invited him to speak to a class on local food production at Middlebury. McKibben admired Webster, who’d survived threats to his business through clever adaptation. Instead of using chemicals, he developed innovative breeding techniques that fostered pest-tolerant bees; and instead of taking on massive loans, he lived within his means, settling for meager to modest profits. Webster’s apiary was the antithesis of giant agribusinesses “powered by fossil fuel,” and it inspired in McKibben a vision of “producing a nation of careful, small-scale farmers … who can adapt to the crazed new world with care and grace, and who don’t do much more damage in the process.”</p>
<p>But McKibben admits that in his case the appeal of the apiary was “not just or even mainly intellectual.” Acknowledging that it’s not for everybody (he mentions more than once that Webster was never able to find a wife), he extols the virtues of a quiet existence that’s more in sync with the cycles of the natural world than with the rhythm of email and politics.</p>
<p>There are a lot of bee analogies in “Oil and Honey.” There are the expected ones about the “pollination” of a movement and the promotion of durability through “squat, hardy colonies,” but the most interesting one is darker and more complicated. Likening fossil-fuel companies to bees, McKibben observes that they are able to “gather resources from great distances, carry them exactly where they’re needed, and combine various skills to produce something of great value from crude raw materials.” But fossil-fuel companies and bees are also “simple,” McKibben argues, in the sense that they are “single-minded” about production — it’s what they do, and the more the better.</p>
<p>“If you want honey, you need a hive of bees,” he writes. “But if you were trying to decide if making honey was a good idea, bees would be the last creatures to ask. You know what their answer is going to be. In fact, if you get in their way they’ll be a little perplexed for a while. … And if you persist in getting in their way, they’re eventually going to get mad and sting. That’s just how it works.”</p>
<p>So it is with fossil-fuel companies, McKibben has learned, conceding, somewhere along the line in his engaging memoir, that he’s actually afraid of bees. Thankfully, though, he is not afraid of fossil-fuel companies, and he is not asking them whether they think more oil production is a good idea. He’s asking the public.</p>
<p>McKibben insists again and again that he “wasn’t cut out to be a leader,” but his story of how he reluctantly became one seems genuine, revealing the difficult choices and sacrifices that he made on the road from writer to activist. Neither an acerbic screed against modern industry nor a naive vision of some bucolic utopia, his book is simply an enjoyable tale of one man’s decision to fight for a world with less oil and more honey.</p>
<p>Curtis Brainard is a freelance reporter and a contributing editor at Columbia Journalism Review.</p>
<p>©2013, Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group</p>
<p>To see long excerpts from “Oil and Honey” at Google Books, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=HNvChFW5VFkC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=OIL+AND+HONEY:+The+Education+of+an+Unlikely+Activist+By+Bill+McKibbe&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=E5VcUqyQIeGfjALGrYCACQ&amp;ved=0CDQQuwUwAA#v=onepage&amp;q=OIL%20AND%20HONEY%3A%20The%20Education%20of%20an%20Unlikely%20Activist%20By%20Bill%20McKibbe&amp;f=false" type="external">click here</a>.</p> | true | 4 | oil honey education unlikely activist book bill mckibben curtis brainard documentary inconvenient truth may secured global warmings place american consciousness pop culture laudable accomplishment sure al gore didnt inspire type grassroots movement could stand politicians institutions rein oil gas industry task fell bill mckibben journalist writer past two years spearheaded campaigns stymied approval keystone xl pipeline focal point battles climate energy policy persuaded dozens cities universities religious institutions think ditching investments fossilfuel companies didnt particularly want lead movement wanted join one helped build mckibben writes memoir oil honey endearing account reluctant rise leadership book weaves together life road stirring opposition corporate excess life home trying build sustainable world one local farm time mckibben wouldve preferred spend lot time vermont hiking mountains outside house helping friend kirk webster whose apiary hed financed tend beehives sense responsibility pulled away already written many books articles ways humans screw earth past decade came conclusion wasnt enough face planetary abuses climate change needed began agitating organized first protest 2006 mckibben quickly proved nimble organizer working group students middlebury college taught launched 350org coordinated 5200 climatechange rallies 181 countries fall 2009 group led similar day action following year first big green movement internet age proudly describes intentional change tactics beltway operations countrys major environmental groups better suited 1970s could lobby congress hope victory keeping ire focused oil gas industry politicians mckibben doesnt hide frustration environmental groups lack grassroots organizing arguing one point supporters better writing checks protesting hes also honest shortcomings field despite two worldwide climate rallies obama administration poised summer 2011 approve keystone xl pipeline mckibben recognized need special measures wed need go jail realized sat write letter 350orgs friends supporters urging join march white house would probably get arrested trespassing finished hand hovered send button knew cross line point id able pretend mostly writer happened helping activism writes unabashed activist two weeks police arrested 1253 keystone xl opponents outside white house making biggest civil disobedience action since protests nuclear testing 1980s mckibben writes nights spent jail made feel like finally taking action scale began match scale problem arrests got scant notice white house promised keep pressure two months later followed organizing human ring encircled white house soon administration postponed decision keystone xl mckibbens descriptions civil disobedience washington positively gleeful charm activism least kind keeps constantly moving quickly wore less year pipeline victory organized another day worldwide climate rallies shortly thereafter launched campaign urging local governments universities institutions shed investments fossilfuel companies efforts involved weeks months crisscrossing country drum grassroots support participation mckibben challenge became much psyching psyching crowd trick say something hundredth time sound fresh mean say writes often went bed night yearning homeoil honey much mckibbens life vermont life road interlaces tale activism tale friendship eventual business partnership webster beekeeper hed met 2001 invited speak class local food production middlebury mckibben admired webster whod survived threats business clever adaptation instead using chemicals developed innovative breeding techniques fostered pesttolerant bees instead taking massive loans lived within means settling meager modest profits websters apiary antithesis giant agribusinesses powered fossil fuel inspired mckibben vision producing nation careful smallscale farmers adapt crazed new world care grace dont much damage process mckibben admits case appeal apiary even mainly intellectual acknowledging everybody mentions webster never able find wife extols virtues quiet existence thats sync cycles natural world rhythm email politics lot bee analogies oil honey expected ones pollination movement promotion durability squat hardy colonies interesting one darker complicated likening fossilfuel companies bees mckibben observes able gather resources great distances carry exactly theyre needed combine various skills produce something great value crude raw materials fossilfuel companies bees also simple mckibben argues sense singleminded production better want honey need hive bees writes trying decide making honey good idea bees would last creatures ask know answer going fact get way theyll little perplexed persist getting way theyre eventually going get mad sting thats works fossilfuel companies mckibben learned conceding somewhere along line engaging memoir hes actually afraid bees thankfully though afraid fossilfuel companies asking whether think oil production good idea hes asking public mckibben insists wasnt cut leader story reluctantly became one seems genuine revealing difficult choices sacrifices made road writer activist neither acerbic screed modern industry naive vision bucolic utopia book simply enjoyable tale one mans decision fight world less oil honey curtis brainard freelance reporter contributing editor columbia journalism review 2013 washington post book world servicewashington post writers group see long excerpts oil honey google books click | 737 |
<p>With mere days to go until Chelsea Clinton, Bill and Hillary’s 30-year-old daughter, ties the knot with hedge funder Marc Mezvinsky, the press has more questions than answers: What will the dress look like? Who will attend? Is it really all going down next door to Annie Leibovitz?</p>
<p>But there’s one question which looks beyond the frenzy, over the nuptials, past the honeymoon, and into the broad American horizon: Will Chelsea Victoria Clinton keep her name?</p>
<p>“I learned the hard way that some voters in Arkansas were seriously offended that I kept my maiden name,” Hillary wrote in her memoir.</p>
<p>“You can bet on it that she will,” said New York political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who worked on Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign in 1996.</p>
<p>The considerations must be tense. For a woman who has made a point of avoiding the limelight, would Chelsea Mezvinsky be a more comfortable handle? For someone who might come around to a more public role in the future, might Chelsea Clinton be more helpful on a business card? It’s tough to say what resonance the Clinton name will have in 20 years. For the time being, Bill Clinton may be trading in his reputation as a lady-killer for one as a statesman. (His <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-2-3-the-bizarre.html" type="external">approval rating</a> is at 61 percent, besting both Barack Obama and George W. Bush.) And Hillary has added luster to the surname in her service as secretary of state. Mezvinsky isn’t exactly a fresh start: Marc’s father, Edward, a former Democratic congressman, spent five years in the pokey for fraud.</p>
<p>A survey of the sorority of first daughters presents two predictable options. Susan Elizabeth Ford, daughter of Gerald, held onto the patronym. Amy Lynn Carter, Jimmy’s only daughter, who married in 1996, avoided her husband’s name. (It is Wentzel.)</p>
<p>Dropping the president’s name has been a sign of protest: Ronald Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis, remembered for posing in Playboy, took Nancy Reagan’s maiden name instead of the Gipper’s. Caroline Kennedy <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1002414,00.html" type="external">stayed a Kennedy</a> when she married designer Edwin Schlossberg. Richard Nixon’s daughters, Julie Nixon Eisenhower and Tricia Nixon Cox, went halfway, accepting their husbands’ names and moving the family name into the middle. Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of George H.W. Bush, married in 1992 and kept up the middle-way tradition. So did the most recent first daughter to wed, Jenna Bush Hager.</p>
<p>But this mishmash of possibilities does illustrate the quandary facing wives-to-be in certain social circles. Even after many waves of feminism have crashed onto our shores, the vast majority of American women still take their husband’s name. A <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-08-11-change-name_N.htm" type="external">university study</a> conducted in 2009 found that 70 percent of respondents said a wife should do just that. Yet the costs of trading Ms. for Mrs. are greater than stationery for some. Psychologists at the Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research in the Netherlands <a href="http://www.stapel.socialpsychology.nl/downloads/Noordewier-et-al-BASP.pdf" type="external">announced this spring</a> that women who go by their husband’s name earn on average $1,500 less per month than their sisters who stuck with their maiden names.</p>
<p>“The challenge today is that there really aren’t any rules anymore. There are almost too many options, which makes it harder because every little decision is so open,” said Caroline Tiger, the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/159474436X/thedaibea-20" type="external">The Newlywed’s Instruction Manual</a>. “You really have to think about everything. It’s tough in [Chelsea’s] situation because her last name is so recognizable and comes with so much baggage, good and bad. It’s basically a brand in our culture.”</p>
<p>Chelsea might look beyond the first daughter clique and take a cue from her future mother-in-law, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, the former Pennsylvania representative who hyphenated her name when she married Mezvinsky in 1975. That path, said Tiger, is becoming passé.</p>
<p>No matter what she decides, Chelsea should also take a note of her mother’s peculiar name odyssey.</p>
<p>When Bill and Hillary said “I do” in 1975, somewhere between 2 and 4 percent of brides kept their maiden names. Hillary was one of them.</p>
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<p>“It showed that I was still me,” Hillary said, according to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307388557/thedaibea-20" type="external">Carl Bernstein’s biography</a>.</p>
<p>• <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2010/07/28/chelseas-wedding-dress-oscar-de-la-renta-vs-vera-wang.html" type="external">Claire Howorth: Oscar vs. Vera—Chelsea’s Wedding Dress Dilemma</a>• <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2010/07/26/chelsea-clintons-ex-boyfriends.html" type="external">Gallery: Chelsea’s Former Flames</a>• <a href="" type="internal">View Our Full Coverage of Chelsea Clinton’s Wedding</a>Around Little Rock, Hillary remaining Hillary Rodham struck some as a put-on for the lawyer from up north, with her hippie clothes and Wellesley manners. During Bill’s 1980 reelection campaign, her name became a weapon for the opposition, as the Republican candidate Frank White made a point of introducing his wife as “Mrs. Frank White.”</p>
<p>“I learned the hard way that some voters in Arkansas were seriously offended that I kept my maiden name,” Hillary <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007YJ3OI/thedaibea-20" type="external">wrote in her memoir</a>. “…I was an oddity because of my dress, my Northern ways, and the use of my maiden name.”</p>
<p>With Bill running again for the governor’s seat in 1982, Hillary Rodham finally became Hillary Rodham Clinton. She gave into some family pressure, too: Even Hillary’s mother directed her letters to “Mr. and Mrs. Bill Clinton.” Shucking her maiden name, Hillary was moving in the opposite direction of American women, who were refusing their husbands’ surnames with greater regularity in the 1970s and ’80s. Of course, the name game didn’t stop there for Hillary Rodham Clinton. By the time she returned to the campaign trail in 2007 as the principal rather than the candidate’s wife, both Rodham and Clinton seemed to disappear altogether. Now running for president, she was just “Hillary,” a one-name phenomenon. It was an obvious effort for the former first lady to stand on her own two feet.</p>
<p>“When a multiple-ton elephant is chasing you down the road, you cannot run fast enough, so how do you get away from it?” asked Sheinkopf. “The Clinton name is like that. You can’t get away from that. In order to win, you can try to establish your own identity.”</p>
<p>If Hillary’s decision to keep her name was an act of rebellion against society’s norms, Chelsea might have to make the opposite choice to pull off a similar effect. Still, becoming Chelsea Mezvinsky would put her in line with many of her peers. According to a <a href="http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/08.26/11-namechange.html" type="external">study conducted by Harvard economist Claudia Goldin</a> in 2004, the percentage of educated women in their 30s who kept their name dropped during the 1990s from 23 percent to 17 percent by the end of the decade.</p>
<p>In the end, perhaps no marriage license or change of name will alter Chelsea’s fate.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t even matter because she will always be known as Chelsea Clinton,” Sheinkopf said. “She can change her name, and she will still be known as Chelsea Clinton.”</p>
<p>Samuel P. Jacobs is a staff reporter at The Daily Beast. He has also written for The Boston Globe, The New York Observer, and The New Republic Online.</p> | true | 4 | mere days go chelsea clinton bill hillarys 30yearold daughter ties knot hedge funder marc mezvinsky press questions answers dress look like attend really going next door annie leibovitz theres one question looks beyond frenzy nuptials past honeymoon broad american horizon chelsea victoria clinton keep name learned hard way voters arkansas seriously offended kept maiden name hillary wrote memoir bet said new york political consultant hank sheinkopf worked bill clintons reelection campaign 1996 considerations must tense woman made point avoiding limelight would chelsea mezvinsky comfortable handle someone might come around public role future might chelsea clinton helpful business card tough say resonance clinton name 20 years time bill clinton may trading reputation ladykiller one statesman approval rating 61 percent besting barack obama george w bush hillary added luster surname service secretary state mezvinsky isnt exactly fresh start marcs father edward former democratic congressman spent five years pokey fraud survey sorority first daughters presents two predictable options susan elizabeth ford daughter gerald held onto patronym amy lynn carter jimmys daughter married 1996 avoided husbands name wentzel dropping presidents name sign protest ronald reagans daughter patti davis remembered posing playboy took nancy reagans maiden name instead gippers caroline kennedy stayed kennedy married designer edwin schlossberg richard nixons daughters julie nixon eisenhower tricia nixon cox went halfway accepting husbands names moving family name middle dorothy bush koch daughter george hw bush married 1992 kept middleway tradition recent first daughter wed jenna bush hager mishmash possibilities illustrate quandary facing wivestobe certain social circles even many waves feminism crashed onto shores vast majority american women still take husbands name university study conducted 2009 found 70 percent respondents said wife yet costs trading ms mrs greater stationery psychologists tilburg institute behavioral economics research netherlands announced spring women go husbands name earn average 1500 less per month sisters stuck maiden names challenge today really arent rules anymore almost many options makes harder every little decision open said caroline tiger author newlyweds instruction manual really think everything tough chelseas situation last name recognizable comes much baggage good bad basically brand culture chelsea might look beyond first daughter clique take cue future motherinlaw marjorie margoliesmezvinsky former pennsylvania representative hyphenated name married mezvinsky 1975 path said tiger becoming passé matter decides chelsea also take note mothers peculiar name odyssey bill hillary said 1975 somewhere 2 4 percent brides kept maiden names hillary one start finish day top stories daily beast speedy smart summary news need know nothing dont showed still hillary said according carl bernsteins biography claire howorth oscar vs verachelseas wedding dress dilemma gallery chelseas former flames view full coverage chelsea clintons weddingaround little rock hillary remaining hillary rodham struck puton lawyer north hippie clothes wellesley manners bills 1980 reelection campaign name became weapon opposition republican candidate frank white made point introducing wife mrs frank white learned hard way voters arkansas seriously offended kept maiden name hillary wrote memoir oddity dress northern ways use maiden name bill running governors seat 1982 hillary rodham finally became hillary rodham clinton gave family pressure even hillarys mother directed letters mr mrs bill clinton shucking maiden name hillary moving opposite direction american women refusing husbands surnames greater regularity 1970s 80s course name game didnt stop hillary rodham clinton time returned campaign trail 2007 principal rather candidates wife rodham clinton seemed disappear altogether running president hillary onename phenomenon obvious effort former first lady stand two feet multipleton elephant chasing road run fast enough get away asked sheinkopf clinton name like cant get away order win try establish identity hillarys decision keep name act rebellion societys norms chelsea might make opposite choice pull similar effect still becoming chelsea mezvinsky would put line many peers according study conducted harvard economist claudia goldin 2004 percentage educated women 30s kept name dropped 1990s 23 percent 17 percent end decade end perhaps marriage license change name alter chelseas fate doesnt even matter always known chelsea clinton sheinkopf said change name still known chelsea clinton samuel p jacobs staff reporter daily beast also written boston globe new york observer new republic online | 671 |
<p>Flickr/&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskeegan/319921513/"&gt;Chris Keegan&lt;/a&gt; (&lt;a href="http://www.creativecommons.org"&gt;Creative Commons&lt;/a&gt;).</p>
<p />
<p>Throwing open vast swaths of the outer continental shelf to offshore drilling is the latest effort by the Obama administration to grease the way forward on comprehensive energy and climate reform. But the administration’s conciliatory approach—which has largely entailed the administration giving and its congressional opponents taking—is looking increasingly like a gamble that’s going to backfire. Meanwhile, as the president extends olive branches to his critics, he’s alienating allies in the environmental community, who say his policies are reminding them more and more of those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Some enviros are even likening Obama to Alaska’s oil-loving ex-governor, Sarah Palin.</p>
<p>“Is this President Obama’s clean energy plan or Palin’s drill baby drill campaign?” quipped Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford in a statement on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Under the administration’s plan, hundreds of thousands of acres of virgin territory along the eastern seaboard, the Gulf Coast, and within the Arctic Ocean will soon be available. Obama has framed offshore drilling as a sweetener to draw more support for his other energy plans, such as expanding the use of renewable energy resources and putting a cap on carbon pollution. But on Wednesday Obama announced a major drilling expansion with no promise in return that opponents of his energy plans would relent in their efforts to block them.</p>
<p>Beginning on the campaign trail, Obama signaled that he would be willing to include drilling as <a href="http://www.grist.org/article/obamas-new-new-energy-plan/" type="external">part of a deal</a> to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation. He <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/29/obamas_green_bargain" type="external">reaffirmed that idea</a> in his State of the Union address this year, declaring a the clean energy future will require “making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.”</p>
<p>But so far the deal-making has been largely one-sided. The Senate remains at an impasse over climate and energy legislation. And even if Congress passes anything this year to address climate change–a big if–it’s <a href="" type="internal">not going to be as aggressive</a> as Obama and his environmental supporters originally envisioned. In the pursuit of the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster, the senators hammering out the legislation have been <a href="" type="internal">heavily courting industry and fossil-fuel friendly senators</a>, but to date there has been little payoff in terms of support. The administration’s announcement is just the latest concession to woo votes, say enviros. “He’s hoping it jars loose some Republican votes and quiets some of ‘drill, baby, drill’ crazies,” said Athan Manuel, director of the lands protection program at Sierra Club. “I don’t know how this helps. This isn’t the magic wand to get to 60 votes.”</p>
<p>So far, Obama’s gesture at bipartisanship has been met with scorn on the right. On Wednesday, John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House minority leader, <a href="" type="internal">fired off a statement</a> saying that Obama’s plan did not open up enough off-shore territory for drilling and chiding him for “delaying American energy production off all our shores.” Obama’s previous offering to Republicans and apprehensive Democrats, a major <a href="" type="internal">expansion of government support for nuclear power</a>, was met with <a href="" type="internal">similar disdain</a>.</p>
<p>While Obama’s overtures aren’t earning him much goodwill among detractors, his drilling plan is sure to anger the Senate’s progressive, coastal state senators, who <a href="" type="internal">last week fired off a missive</a> to the senators working on a climate and energy package that said expanded off-shore drilling was a deal-breaker. New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg today <a href="" type="internal">condemned the plan</a> as a “Kill, baby, kill” approach to energy policy.</p>
<p>Environmental advocates have been bracing for a new era of offshore extraction to commence since October 2008, when the Democratic Congress <a href="http://www.grist.org/article/requiem-for-a-moratorium/" type="external">allowed the long-standing moratorium on offshore drilling to expire</a>. (Months earlier, George W. Bush’s had lifted an executive order baning off-shore driliing that was put in place by his father.) Despite promises at the time to return to the issue and restore protections under a Democratic president,&#160; congressional Democrats have not followed through. And Obama has moved in quite the opposite direction, choosing to open areas that had been protected for 18 years under both Democratic and Republican presidents.</p>
<p>Environmentalists may have been anticipating an announcement on off-shore drilling, but the plan the administration unveiled was far worse than they expected. “We had been hearing that they were going to release the plan, and had been told we weren’t going to like it, but we don’t like it even more than we thought we would,” said Anna Aurilio, director of the DC office of Environment America.</p>
<p>Environmentalists are not just angry that Obama is giving away the store on oil and gas drilling, they also feel that he’s basing his decision on a dubious premise—that more drilling will enhance the nation’s energy security. The US currently imports 57 percent of its oil, according to the Energy Information Administration. The nation accounts for 23 percent of total world oil consumption, but has only 3 percent the world’s oil reserves within its borders. Drilling off every coast in the US won’t resolve that issue. Even the most productive portion of the area opened to drilling, the eastern Gulf, is expected to yield only 3.5 billion barrels of oil. The US consumes <a href="http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.htm" type="external">19.5 million barrels of oil per day</a>, which means that these wells would only produce about 180 days worth of oil. And at current global oil prices, recoverable American-produced petroleum isn’t likely to be cost-competive.</p>
<p>“You could look for oil everywhere in United States and you wouldn’t find enough to reduce the price at the pump and improve energy independence,” said the Sierra Club’s Manuel. “It’s fantasy to say this is going to increase our energy security or make us more energy independent … We’ve tried for 30 years to drill our way out of this problem, and it’s never ever worked.”</p>
<p>For envionmentalists, there were a few pieces of good news in Obama’s plan. The administration has decided to protect Bristol Bay, an environmentally sensitive area of the Bering Sea in southwest Alaska. Also off-limits to drilling are the entire Pacific Coast and the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey north. The administration also pledged to double the federal fleet of hybrid vehicles, and on Thursday is expected to unveil new automobile fuel economy standards that are anticipated to cut oil use 11.6 billion gallons per year by 2016.</p>
<p>These positive developments did little to appease Obama’s supporters in the environmental community, for whom his announcement was not just a blow but a betrayal. “I woke up this morning, listened to radio, and thought I had woken up back under the Bush administration,” said Environment America’s Aurilio.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | flickrlta hrefhttpwwwflickrcomphotoschriskeegan319921513gtchris keeganltagt lta hrefhttpwwwcreativecommonsorggtcreative commonsltagt throwing open vast swaths outer continental shelf offshore drilling latest effort obama administration grease way forward comprehensive energy climate reform administrations conciliatory approachwhich largely entailed administration giving congressional opponents takingis looking increasingly like gamble thats going backfire meanwhile president extends olive branches critics hes alienating allies environmental community say policies reminding predecessor george w bush enviros even likening obama alaskas oilloving exgovernor sarah palin president obamas clean energy plan palins drill baby drill campaign quipped greenpeace executive director phil radford statement wednesday administrations plan hundreds thousands acres virgin territory along eastern seaboard gulf coast within arctic ocean soon available obama framed offshore drilling sweetener draw support energy plans expanding use renewable energy resources putting cap carbon pollution wednesday obama announced major drilling expansion promise return opponents energy plans would relent efforts block beginning campaign trail obama signaled would willing include drilling part deal pass comprehensive energy climate legislation reaffirmed idea state union address year declaring clean energy future require making tough decisions opening new offshore areas oil gas development far dealmaking largely onesided senate remains impasse climate energy legislation even congress passes anything year address climate changea big ifits going aggressive obama environmental supporters originally envisioned pursuit 60 votes necessary overcome filibuster senators hammering legislation heavily courting industry fossilfuel friendly senators date little payoff terms support administrations announcement latest concession woo votes say enviros hes hoping jars loose republican votes quiets drill baby drill crazies said athan manuel director lands protection program sierra club dont know helps isnt magic wand get 60 votes far obamas gesture bipartisanship met scorn right wednesday john boehner rohio house minority leader fired statement saying obamas plan open enough offshore territory drilling chiding delaying american energy production shores obamas previous offering republicans apprehensive democrats major expansion government support nuclear power met similar disdain obamas overtures arent earning much goodwill among detractors drilling plan sure anger senates progressive coastal state senators last week fired missive senators working climate energy package said expanded offshore drilling dealbreaker new jersey democrat frank lautenberg today condemned plan kill baby kill approach energy policy environmental advocates bracing new era offshore extraction commence since october 2008 democratic congress allowed longstanding moratorium offshore drilling expire months earlier george w bushs lifted executive order baning offshore driliing put place father despite promises time return issue restore protections democratic president160 congressional democrats followed obama moved quite opposite direction choosing open areas protected 18 years democratic republican presidents environmentalists may anticipating announcement offshore drilling plan administration unveiled far worse expected hearing going release plan told werent going like dont like even thought would said anna aurilio director dc office environment america environmentalists angry obama giving away store oil gas drilling also feel hes basing decision dubious premisethat drilling enhance nations energy security us currently imports 57 percent oil according energy information administration nation accounts 23 percent total world oil consumption 3 percent worlds oil reserves within borders drilling every coast us wont resolve issue even productive portion area opened drilling eastern gulf expected yield 35 billion barrels oil us consumes 195 million barrels oil per day means wells would produce 180 days worth oil current global oil prices recoverable americanproduced petroleum isnt likely costcompetive could look oil everywhere united states wouldnt find enough reduce price pump improve energy independence said sierra clubs manuel fantasy say going increase energy security make us energy independent weve tried 30 years drill way problem never ever worked envionmentalists pieces good news obamas plan administration decided protect bristol bay environmentally sensitive area bering sea southwest alaska also offlimits drilling entire pacific coast atlantic coast new jersey north administration also pledged double federal fleet hybrid vehicles thursday expected unveil new automobile fuel economy standards anticipated cut oil use 116 billion gallons per year 2016 positive developments little appease obamas supporters environmental community announcement blow betrayal woke morning listened radio thought woken back bush administration said environment americas aurilio | 652 |
<p>The idea that the Chinese government wants ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel for a segment on his show in which a child suggested that the U.S. government could “kill everyone in China” to settle its sovereign debt seems, at first blush, like a real mismatch between the force being applied to a situation and the magnitude of the incident. Heaven forfend Chinese government officials ever get a glimpse of the pilot of Dads, with its jokes about Chinese parenting, Chinese men’s anatomy, and the idea that “Shanghai” is “a verb for a reason,” and which was written by actual adults and defended by the president of the network which chose to air it. But the revealing thing isn’t just that the Chinese are flexing some muscle on the comments that aired on Kimmel’s show — it’s how ABC is responding, and what it says about the entertainment industry’s reliance on access to the Chinese market.</p>
<p>Deadline <a href="http://www.deadline.com/2013/11/chinese-foreign-ministry-tells-abc-to-respond-to-protesters-reasonable-demands-over-jimmy-kimmel-comedy-bit/" type="external">notes that</a>:</p>
<p>Heading into the weekend, with protests scheduled around the country, ABC had issued another apology, in Chinese and English, calling the segment an “egregious mistake” that “should never have been broadcast,” but slipped through the cracks when “systems we have in place for these types of things did not function properly.” In its latest apology, ABC promised it had beefed up its Standards &amp; Practices and executive safeguards to prevent something similar from happening again — and killed dead the show’s running Kids Table franchise.</p>
<p>Additionally the company noted, it has done “everything in our power to ensure that the segment receives no further exposure,” editing the skit out of any future broadcast of that episode and taking down the clip from all of its online platforms. In the wake of the reaction to the sketch, Kimmel apologized on-air, in writing, and met with protesters. Today Xinhau News Agency reported, simultaneously, in headlines that “American broadcaster urged to acknowledge misconduct,” in the Kimmel affair, and “ABC confirms to Xinhua it apologized for offensive talk show skit.” CCTV has broadcast video of Kimmel being asked when he met with protesters days after the segment was broadcast, how he would respond to a group of Chinese Americans who were raising money to sue him. “Well, in America, we have the freedom of the press. If they want to waste their money suing me — I’d recommend they don’t do that — but that’s their choice,” Kimmel said in CCTV’s broadcast.</p>
<p>Kimmel’s response is characteristic and entirely appropriate. But it’s contrasted with a rather striking display of deference on behalf of ABC.</p>
<p>That deference might be odd for an independent television network, but for ABC, given its corporate context, the rush to apologize makes perfect sense. Despite a loosening of the restrictions that allow a limited number of foreign films into the Chinese market, rules that are meant to give a boost to the Chinese film industry and to prevent some kind of content from reaching Chinese audiences, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304682504579153241399905968" type="external">American films can still be denied access to Chinese theaters at the last moment</a>. American studios looking to avoid quota restrictions and ease their films’ arrivals into China <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinese-american-movie-productions-is-444814" type="external">still have to navigate a complicated co-production process to bring on Chinese partners</a>.</p>
<p>But getting the right movie onto Chinese screens can be exceptionally lucrative, which is why it’s worth it to studios to try to maintain good relationships with a country that hasn’t always been receptive to American filmmakers and their work. Iron Man 3 <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/china/?yr=2013&amp;wk=18&amp;p=.htm" type="external">made $64.5 million in China</a> on its opening week there, which isn’t as much as the <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3682&amp;p=.htm" type="external">$174.1 million it pulled in domestically</a> on its opening weekend, but is surely enough to buy Robert Downey Jr. plenty more flying robot CGI. A movie like the kaiju actioner Pacific Rim may actually be more geared to audiences in Asian countries like China than it is to American filmgoers: that movie made <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/china/?yr=2013&amp;wk=31&amp;p=.htm" type="external">$45.3 million during its first week</a> in China, <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&amp;id=pacificrim.htm" type="external">better than it performed</a> in its American opening weekend.</p>
<p>ABC is owned by Disney, which also happens to own Marvel and Lucasfilm. With the former, it’s developing a long-running and extremely complex series of superhero stories, which spans both multiple movie franchises and, <a href="" type="internal">with the addition of four Netflix shows</a> to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC, five television shows. For Marvel, making sure audiences have access to as many of its projects as possible is a matter of both narrative continuity and box office momentum. As Disney prepares to build out the Star Wars universe, that approach seems likely to hold for Episode VII, and for many other projects to come. I’m sure ABC, which suffers from terminally low ratings, is eager not to become the cause of one — or many — of the movies in those cycles not getting access to the Chinese marketplace.</p>
<p>And while I don’t think that Kimmel’s post at ABC is really in any particular danger, the kerfuffle is a reminder that the free speech rights he’s claiming isn’t the same thing as a guarantee of an unfettered platform. Until now, much of China’s influence on the American entertainment industry has been additive: we’re seeing more Asian actors in movies, and more action sequences set in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Kimmel kerfuffle is a reminder that positive portrayals aren’t the only thing we’re likely to see Chinese officials look for from the American entertainment industry. And while it’s always a good thing to have pressure for more diversity of characters and settings, limiting the things you can say about those characters and setting — even if some of them are ugly — is a step back. The Kimmel controversy isn’t likely to end this hugely complex negotiation. But it is the beginning of a franker public phase of the conversation.</p> | true | 4 | idea chinese government wants abc fire jimmy kimmel segment show child suggested us government could kill everyone china settle sovereign debt seems first blush like real mismatch force applied situation magnitude incident heaven forfend chinese government officials ever get glimpse pilot dads jokes chinese parenting chinese mens anatomy idea shanghai verb reason written actual adults defended president network chose air revealing thing isnt chinese flexing muscle comments aired kimmels show abc responding says entertainment industrys reliance access chinese market deadline notes heading weekend protests scheduled around country abc issued another apology chinese english calling segment egregious mistake never broadcast slipped cracks systems place types things function properly latest apology abc promised beefed standards amp practices executive safeguards prevent something similar happening killed dead shows running kids table franchise additionally company noted done everything power ensure segment receives exposure editing skit future broadcast episode taking clip online platforms wake reaction sketch kimmel apologized onair writing met protesters today xinhau news agency reported simultaneously headlines american broadcaster urged acknowledge misconduct kimmel affair abc confirms xinhua apologized offensive talk show skit cctv broadcast video kimmel asked met protesters days segment broadcast would respond group chinese americans raising money sue well america freedom press want waste money suing id recommend dont thats choice kimmel said cctvs broadcast kimmels response characteristic entirely appropriate contrasted rather striking display deference behalf abc deference might odd independent television network abc given corporate context rush apologize makes perfect sense despite loosening restrictions allow limited number foreign films chinese market rules meant give boost chinese film industry prevent kind content reaching chinese audiences american films still denied access chinese theaters last moment american studios looking avoid quota restrictions ease films arrivals china still navigate complicated coproduction process bring chinese partners getting right movie onto chinese screens exceptionally lucrative worth studios try maintain good relationships country hasnt always receptive american filmmakers work iron man 3 made 645 million china opening week isnt much 1741 million pulled domestically opening weekend surely enough buy robert downey jr plenty flying robot cgi movie like kaiju actioner pacific rim may actually geared audiences asian countries like china american filmgoers movie made 453 million first week china better performed american opening weekend abc owned disney also happens marvel lucasfilm former developing longrunning extremely complex series superhero stories spans multiple movie franchises addition four netflix shows marvels agents shield abc five television shows marvel making sure audiences access many projects possible matter narrative continuity box office momentum disney prepares build star wars universe approach seems likely hold episode vii many projects come im sure abc suffers terminally low ratings eager become cause one many movies cycles getting access chinese marketplace dont think kimmels post abc really particular danger kerfuffle reminder free speech rights hes claiming isnt thing guarantee unfettered platform much chinas influence american entertainment industry additive seeing asian actors movies action sequences set hong kong shanghai kimmel kerfuffle reminder positive portrayals arent thing likely see chinese officials look american entertainment industry always good thing pressure diversity characters settings limiting things say characters setting even ugly step back kimmel controversy isnt likely end hugely complex negotiation beginning franker public phase conversation | 524 |
<p>If you are familiar with Toni Morrison’s work (who isn’t?), you will want to read her new novella, <a href="" type="internal">Home</a>, in one sitting.&#160; It will take only two or three hours, and that one sitting will help you keep in mind the story’s beautiful symmetry.&#160; Home is a reverse journey, a return to an earlier place, a going back instead of forward—at least physically—though it can just as easily be argued that the protagonist (Frank Money) advances as much as he retreats. &#160;And that metaphor of advancing is especially suitable, given the fact that Frank has recently returned from the war in Korea.&#160; He’s been traumatized by horrific events but is equally unsettled when he realizes that he’s returned to the same racist country he left before he departed to fight for America.</p>
<p>There is also a reverse migration because Frank’s story begins in the North.&#160; He’s pretty much decided he will never return to Lotus, Georgia where he grew up until he receives a letter about his younger sister, Cee, warning him that she is fatally ill and he’d better get home as quickly as he can if he has any intention of ever seeing her again.&#160; The problem is that even though he’s got a girl, Frank’s pretty much in a vegetative state, too often sitting and staring into space.&#160; He makes the decision to help his sister, but even that plan is frequently thwarted by others.&#160; He’s accused of <a href="" type="internal" />vagrancy and clapped in jail in one town but manages to escape and is helped by a clergyman who gives him enough money to get him to the next place.&#160; He’s mugged, loses all his money, but helped, again, by other black people, as he inches closer and closer to his sister, Cee, and his childhood origins.</p>
<p>“Lotus, Georgia, is the worst place in the world, worse than any battlefield.&#160; At least on the field there is a goal, excitement, daring, and some chance of winning along with many chances of losing.&#160; Death is a sure thing but life is just as certain.&#160; Problem is you can’t know in advance.&#160; In Lotus you did know in advance since there was no future, just long stretches of killing time.&#160; There was no goal other than breathing, nothing to win and, save for somebody else’s quiet death, nothing to survive or worth surviving for.”</p>
<p>That’s pretty much rock bottom, supported by numerous flashbacks in the story, almost all of them depicting violence against black people: lynchings, black families being run out of Texas, and—in the worst incident (which involves Frank’s sister, Cee,) becoming a guinea pig for a Southern white doctor who shares affinities with Josef Mengele.&#160; Frank’s two closest buddies, whom he grew up with, were both killed in Korea, contributing to—if not responsible for—his PTS.&#160; You could say that Toni Morrison’s picture of Frank Money’s America mirrors the horrors of what we have seen in her earlier novels, but that analysis, in fact, would be inaccurate, superficial.</p>
<p>Above all, Home demonstrates a sense of community, not just within the physical environment of one’s origins but also with the assistance that total strangers offer Frank Money.&#160; The poorest people in the country extend a hand, share, and rehabilitate others when necessary.&#160; These values are shown to be so redemptive that they cancel out what many people believe to be natural instincts of revenge, of payback, of an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth.</p>
<p>To reveal anything else would be unfair.&#160; Home is an engaging narrative, full of surprises and profundities for such a slim book.&#160; If you haven’t read Morrison’s earlier novels The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, then start with them in that order.&#160; Otherwise, set aside part of an afternoon or an evening and lose yourself in the richness and complexity of Toni Morrison’s eighth novel.</p>
<p>With Herta Müller’s new novel, <a href="" type="internal">The Hunger Angel</a>, there is also a journey within a context even darker than Morrison’s. Müller won the Nobel Prize in 2009.&#160; Though she is Romanian, she writes in German and much of her fiction, including the current novel, mirrors her country’s totalitarianism.&#160; In this case, the focus is on the Fascist era at the end of World War II, when Romania—formerly an ally of Nazi Germany—turned to Russia and sent all the Germans who were living in the country to the Soviet Union.&#160; Ostensibly, those thousands of people (settled in forced labor-camps) were sent to Russia to help rebuild the war-ravaged country.&#160; In an Afterword to her novel, Müller states that her story about a man named Leo Auberg was based on actual incidents in the life of a Romanian poet whose name is Oskar Pastior.</p>
<p>What is so unique about this account of work within a concentration camp is the manner in which Müller narrates much of the plot.&#160; The opening chapter shows us seventeen-year-old Leo’s departure for the camp, but once he arrives, the “story” is conveyed more by objects than by incidents.&#160; It’s a remarkable way of depicting the <a href="" type="internal" />depravities of living under such appalling circumstances.&#160; Thus, the first chapter after Leo’s arrival is titled “Orach,” the name for a local weed which is edible during certain periods of the year.&#160; And since there is so little food for any of the laborers, they all hoard as much of the plant as possible and eat it to supplement the food (mostly cabbage and potatoes severed as a thin gruel) provided by the state.&#160; The problem with orach is that it grows so quickly in the summer that it begins to taste bitter, and it becomes so tough that it is more like stinging nettles than tender leaves.&#160; In the fall, “The time for eating orach is over.&#160; But not the hunger, which is always greater than we are.”</p>
<p>Leo asks, “How can you face the world if all you can say about yourself is that you’re hungry.&#160; If you can’t think of anything else.&#160; Your mouth begins to extend, its roof rises to the top of your skull, all senses alert for food. When you can no longer bear the hunger, your whole head is racked with pain, as though the pelt from a freshly skinned hare were being stretched out to dry inside.&#160; Your cheeks wither and get covered with pale fur.”</p>
<p>Even worse, the cement that Leo has to work with (described in the following chapter titled “Cement”) works its way into all of the pores of your body: “The cement eats away at your gums.&#160; When you open your mouth your lips tear like the cement-sack paper.&#160; So you keep your mouth shut and obey.”&#160;&#160; All of the inmates in the camp lose weight, “When the flesh on your body disappears, your bones become a burden, and the ground pulls you downward.”&#160; Relating his story of incarceration decades after he was released, Leo says, “For sixty years, ever since I came back from the camp, I have been eating against starvation.”</p>
<p>The Hunger Angel is a bleak story not so far removed from Blaine Harden’s Escape from Camp 14 (see CounterPunch, April 13th).&#160; Leo works for five years, mining coal, making bricks and cinder blocks, moving them manually from one place to another.&#160; There is a vague sense of camaraderie within the camp, but because of the constant hunger (“Everything I did was hungry”) also rivalry and secretness.&#160; On one occasion when Leo is permitted to go outside the camp to an adjacent town, he finds ten rubles, quickly spends it on real food (not cabbage and potatoes) and, then, almost immediately, because of the shock to his system, throws everything up.</p>
<p>Herta Müller’s fictive world is brutal and bleak, repressive, and largely without hope.&#160; Like others who have written about such extreme situations, there’s a life-long period of adjustment for those who escape or—in Leo’s case—are sent back home after five years of forced labor.&#160; So the journey depicted in The Hunger Angel is every bit as unsettling as Frank Money’s return to the South in Toni Morrison’s Home.&#160; But what are we to expect when the world’s most esteemed novelists reflect on the lives and the situations of people they have observed?</p>
<p>Toni Morrison: <a href="" type="internal">Home</a></p>
<p>Knopf, 147 pp., $24</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Herta Müller: <a href="" type="internal">The Hunger Angel</a></p>
<p>Translated by Philip Boehm</p>
<p>Metropolitan Books, 290 pp., $26</p>
<p>Charles R. Larson is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University in Washington, D.C.&#160; Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | familiar toni morrisons work isnt want read new novella home one sitting160 take two three hours one sitting help keep mind storys beautiful symmetry160 home reverse journey return earlier place going back instead forwardat least physicallythough easily argued protagonist frank money advances much retreats 160and metaphor advancing especially suitable given fact frank recently returned war korea160 hes traumatized horrific events equally unsettled realizes hes returned racist country left departed fight america also reverse migration franks story begins north160 hes pretty much decided never return lotus georgia grew receives letter younger sister cee warning fatally ill hed better get home quickly intention ever seeing again160 problem even though hes got girl franks pretty much vegetative state often sitting staring space160 makes decision help sister even plan frequently thwarted others160 hes accused vagrancy clapped jail one town manages escape helped clergyman gives enough money get next place160 hes mugged loses money helped black people inches closer closer sister cee childhood origins lotus georgia worst place world worse battlefield160 least field goal excitement daring chance winning along many chances losing160 death sure thing life certain160 problem cant know advance160 lotus know advance since future long stretches killing time160 goal breathing nothing win save somebody elses quiet death nothing survive worth surviving thats pretty much rock bottom supported numerous flashbacks story almost depicting violence black people lynchings black families run texas andin worst incident involves franks sister cee becoming guinea pig southern white doctor shares affinities josef mengele160 franks two closest buddies grew killed korea contributing toif responsible forhis pts160 could say toni morrisons picture frank moneys america mirrors horrors seen earlier novels analysis fact would inaccurate superficial home demonstrates sense community within physical environment ones origins also assistance total strangers offer frank money160 poorest people country extend hand share rehabilitate others necessary160 values shown redemptive cancel many people believe natural instincts revenge payback eyeforaneye toothforatooth reveal anything else would unfair160 home engaging narrative full surprises profundities slim book160 havent read morrisons earlier novels bluest eye song solomon beloved start order160 otherwise set aside part afternoon evening lose richness complexity toni morrisons eighth novel herta müllers new novel hunger angel also journey within context even darker morrisons müller nobel prize 2009160 though romanian writes german much fiction including current novel mirrors countrys totalitarianism160 case focus fascist era end world war ii romaniaformerly ally nazi germanyturned russia sent germans living country soviet union160 ostensibly thousands people settled forced laborcamps sent russia help rebuild warravaged country160 afterword novel müller states story man named leo auberg based actual incidents life romanian poet whose name oskar pastior unique account work within concentration camp manner müller narrates much plot160 opening chapter shows us seventeenyearold leos departure camp arrives story conveyed objects incidents160 remarkable way depicting depravities living appalling circumstances160 thus first chapter leos arrival titled orach name local weed edible certain periods year160 since little food laborers hoard much plant possible eat supplement food mostly cabbage potatoes severed thin gruel provided state160 problem orach grows quickly summer begins taste bitter becomes tough like stinging nettles tender leaves160 fall time eating orach over160 hunger always greater leo asks face world say youre hungry160 cant think anything else160 mouth begins extend roof rises top skull senses alert food longer bear hunger whole head racked pain though pelt freshly skinned hare stretched dry inside160 cheeks wither get covered pale fur even worse cement leo work described following chapter titled cement works way pores body cement eats away gums160 open mouth lips tear like cementsack paper160 keep mouth shut obey160160 inmates camp lose weight flesh body disappears bones become burden ground pulls downward160 relating story incarceration decades released leo says sixty years ever since came back camp eating starvation hunger angel bleak story far removed blaine hardens escape camp 14 see counterpunch april 13th160 leo works five years mining coal making bricks cinder blocks moving manually one place another160 vague sense camaraderie within camp constant hunger everything hungry also rivalry secretness160 one occasion leo permitted go outside camp adjacent town finds ten rubles quickly spends real food cabbage potatoes almost immediately shock system throws everything herta müllers fictive world brutal bleak repressive largely without hope160 like others written extreme situations theres lifelong period adjustment escape orin leos caseare sent back home five years forced labor160 journey depicted hunger angel every bit unsettling frank moneys return south toni morrisons home160 expect worlds esteemed novelists reflect lives situations people observed toni morrison home knopf 147 pp 24 160 herta müller hunger angel translated philip boehm metropolitan books 290 pp 26 charles r larson emeritus professor literature american university washington dc160 email clarsonamericanedu | 767 |
<p />
<p>By now, the idea of “blowback”— that U.S. covert intelligence operations have yielded harmful, unintended consequences—is becoming widely known. Author Chalmers Johnson, most notably, has documented how our dirty dealings around the world, especially during the Cold War, have returned to haunt us. In recent decades, the men and women of our armed forces have been sent to vanquish despots that their own government once supported, from the CIA-trained Manuel Noriega to the U.S. arms recipient Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden, a beneficiary of U.S. funding to the Afghan mujahideen.</p>
<p>But perhaps no secret operations have yielded more devastating consequences than those carried out in Pakistan, which was considered a vital and strategically placed ally against Soviet communism, and later against Islamist terrorism. Covert American support propped up the repressive military dictatorships that have ruled Pakistan for the better part of its history as a nation, leading right up through the current crisis. U.S. funding, channeled from the CIA through the Pakistani intelligence service to fuel insurgencies in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, helped give rise to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.</p>
<p>Now, the research and documentation provided by two British investigative journalists show the extent to which Pakistan, emboldened by the purposeful neglect of U.S. policymakers and the American intelligence community, spread nuclear materials and technologies to such notorious U.S. adversaries as Libya, North Korea, Saddam’s Iraq, and Iran. If we should go to war with Iran over nuclear weapons, we will have Pakistan—and ourselves—to thank for that as well.</p>
<p>This story is told in a new book called Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, longtime correspondents for the Sunday Times and then the Guardian, who reported from South Asia for more than a decade. Earlier this week I spoke at length with Levy about Pakistan’s proliferation activities, and America’s acquiescence.</p>
<p>The critical period stretches from the inauguration of Ronald Reagan through the end of the Soviet-Afghan War in 1989, when, Levy and Scott-Clark contend, the CIA, State Department, and Pentagon allowed Pakistan’s WMD program to remain on track. Reagan dismantled the federal Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and downgraded the National Security Council and the office of the National Security Adviser. The CIA, under zealous director William Casey, was in ascendance, and intelligence was employed to push forward the Reagan political agenda. “They busied themselves by disrupting and interrupting all of the operations mounted by the various agencies to [block] the WMD program that would arm Pakistan,” explains Levy.</p>
<p>Pakistan is one of four nations that refuses to abide by the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (the others are India, Israel, and North Korea), and while it is nominally a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has a long history of resisting oversight from the watchdog group. Thus, with the United States looking the other way, Pakistan was free to develop and sell nuclear materials and technologies.</p>
<p>Pakistan’s nuclear program got its start in the early 1970s under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Benazir Bhutto’s father) and was brought to fruition by the notorious Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, a German-trained scientist who had worked in a uranium enrichment facility in Europe and reportedly stolen technologies that he brought back to Pakistan. By the early 1980s, Pakistan, now under the military dictatorship of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, possessed enriched uranium as well as bomb designs and other technology, much of it from China; by 1987 there was evidence that the country had usable weapons. (It is thought to have between 50 and 100 today.) During the 1980s, Levy says, “Pakistan stockpiled enormous amounts of fissionable material and ready-made assembled warheads and bombs without any check or security measures or command and control systems implemented. . .They had no idea how the security devices employed by the West worked, so there was no separation of warheads from triggers. . .and they didn’t have any of the things we call ‘permissive’ active links, which supposedly ensure a bomb can’t go off accidentally.”</p>
<p>After the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan was exempt from a U.S. law that prohibited aid to countries that import materials for nuclear weapons. Both Reagan and George H.W. Bush resisted sporadic efforts by Congress to suspend aid—some of which was covertly channeled to the military and potentially used to build nuclear weapons—and continued to certify that Pakistan itself did not have the bomb, despite credible evidence to the contrary. According to Deception, “State Department officials [were] actively obstructing other arms of government which could not help but fall over intelligence about Pakistan’s nuclear trade. Evidence was destroyed, criminal files were diverted, Congress was repeatedly lied to, and in several cases, in 1986 and 1987, presidential appointees even tipped off the Pakistani government so as to prevent its agents from getting caught in U.S. Customs Service stings that aimed to catch them buying nuclear components in America.”</p>
<p>By 1990, however, the Soviets had withdrawn from Afghanistan, and Pakistan was no longer needed as a security springboard for the United States. When U.S. aid was suspended in October 1990, Levy says, the Pakistanis warned what the consequences would be of ending their “special” relationship. General Mirza Aslam Beg, chief of army staff and a man determined to defy the West, sought out three U.S. officials—Ambassador Robert Oakley, Centcom commander Norman Schwarzkopf, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Harry Rowan—and told them that “if America turned its back on Pakistan, it would sell its nuclear technology, and Iran would be the first client. All three officials reported back and they got no feedback from Washington.”</p>
<p>According to information obtained by the authors of Deception, the Pakistani military and intelligence service, working with A. Q. Khan, wasted no time in carrying out General Beg’s threat. In the fall of 1990, they opened a channel with North Korea, offering what Levy and Scott-Clark call an “hors d’oeuvre” in the form of Stinger missiles. The Stinger, supplied by the U.S. in large numbers to the Afghan mujahideen, was regarded as a key weapon in winning the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis were supposed to collect the unused missiles and return them to the CIA, which, needless to say, they did not do. (Former mujahideen Stingers are now thought to be in the possession of North Korea, China, Iran, and a number of terrorist groups.) By the middle of the ’90s, Khan was making frequent visits to Pyongyang, and there were signs that the Pakistanis were trading nuclear technology for North Korean-built missiles and other arms—many of them duly noted by the CIA and British intelligence.</p>
<p>During the same time frame, in the fall of 1990, the world was reacting to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. On this matter, Pakistan appeared to be split: The civilian side of the government backed the Saudis who, of course, were socked into the American coalition. But the military, the real power in Pakistan, sided with Saddam Hussein. In fact, just as the United States began assembling troops for Desert Storm, a Pakistani agent arrived in Baghdad with the offer of designs for a nuclear bomb, and help in building one. The proposal seemed so outrageous, Levy says, Saddam thought he was being set up, and blocked the deal.</p>
<p>The details of the agent’s offer came to light five years later, in 1995, when an IAEA inspection team raided a farm owned by General Hussein Kamel, Hussein’s son-in-law, who had run Iraq’s weapons programs. Gary Dillon, a Briton who led the inspection, found boxes of documents including a one-page memo headed “Top Secret Proposal” that referred to the code name “A/B.” Dillon’s people thought it was a fake. “The memo appeared to be from the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service, and dated 6 October 1990,” he told Levy and Scott-Clark in an interview for their book. “It was an account of a meeting that had taken place in the offices of the Mukhabarat.”</p>
<p>Reportedly, the memo said, “We have enclosed for you the following proposal from the Pakistani scientist Dr. Abd-el-Qadeer Khan [sic] regarding the possibility of helping Iraq establish a project to enrich uranium and manufacture a nuclear weapon.” The Pakistani offer included not only blueprints for making a bomb, but advice on how to build a uranium-enrichment facility and obtain components, which were to be run through Dubai, from European companies.</p>
<p>The inspection team was alarmed. “We registered our extreme concern to the IAEA and I tried to prick the U.S. interest, too,” Dillon told the authors. After reviewing the documents, “I believed that they were an accurate representation of what Pakistan had put on the table—although we could never know for sure. As for the overall code name ‘A/B,’ I puzzled over this for some time until I realized what the letters stood for: Atom Bomb. The truth is often far simpler than one thinks.”</p>
<p>When it became clear that American-led Gulf War forces would defeat Hussein’s army, the Pakistani military about-faced, dropping Iraq and approaching Iran. In a meeting with the prime minister, “Beg came straight out with it,” a Pakistani official told Levy and Scott-Clark. “‘We should transfer nuclear technology to a friendly state, for the sum of $12 billion.’ By friendly state he meant Iran, and with that figure Beg could have underwritten the defense budget for a decade to come.”</p>
<p>Later, in the summer of 2003, IAEA inspectors, who had been tracking Iran’s nuclear weapons program since the 1990s, would observe the “remarkable similarities between the Iranian centrifuges and those acquired then adapted by Khan.” According to Deception, “swipe samples taken from the pilot plant at Nantz revealed particles of highly enriched uranium that could not have been produced inside Iran, as they were enriched well beyond the capabilities of the Iranian rig.”</p>
<p>The Iranians eventually admitted they had imported used components, but refused to identify the source. Realizing the jig was up, Iran actually approached the United States, offering what the book calls an incredible deal. “In return for the United States addressing Iran’s security concerns, the lifting of economic sanctions and normalization of relations. . .Tehran was offering to cut off support to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad” and rein in Hezbollah in Lebanon. Secretary of State Colin Powell favored the deal, but the Pentagon and White House rejected it, and continued efforts to destabilize this “axis of evil” country. Beyond that, the U.S. took no action related to the obvious Pakistani sales to Iran, and sandbagged an effort by the British to address Pakistan’s rampant nuclear proliferation. The road laid at that time may yet lead to war with Iran.</p>
<p>The Pakistanis also appear to have engaged in nuclear dealings with the Saudis, our long-term allies in the Middle East. According to Levy, by the early 1990s, the Saudis already had bought nuclear-capable missiles from China, in a deal brokered by Pakistan. Then “the Saudis requested warheads for the missiles and gave millions to the Pakistani nuclear program by way of a down payment.” Officials at the IAEA suspected the deal, and so did German and Israeli intelligence agencies. But, again, no one could get Washington to assist in getting to the bottom of it, Levy says. One U.S. nuclear specialist interviewed for Deception explained, “When the Saudis said there was no Pakistani deal, our side, without any further investigation, accepted the answer. We took an entirely different approach when the guy across the border in Iraq said: ‘I have no WMD.'” The Pakistanis, it turned out, also sold materials to Libya and offered them to Syria.</p>
<p>When George W. Bush first took office, even some of the hawks on his team expressed the desire to address Pakistan’s nuclear program, which had continued apace after the coup by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999. But after 9/11, according to Levy and Scott-Clark, “the Bush administration weighed [Pakistan’s] value as a potential ally against the harm Pakistan’s nuclear program could do, just as Carter and Reagan had done before. Despite overwhelming evidence of a building nuclear crisis, in which a state leaking nuclear technology was also concealing terrorists who were seeking it, the White House decided to do nothing.”</p>
<p>The White House again began approving aid to Pakistan, which has totaled $10 billion since September 2001. And when both Libya and Iran made disclosures to the IAEA about the source of their nuclear technologies, Pakistan offered up a convenient fall guy in A. Q. Khan. In February 2004, Khan confessed on national television that he had been involved in “unauthorized proliferation activities.” Pakistani nuclear materials spread around the globe, the story went, had all been sold on the black market by Khan, without the knowledge of the military or the government, which professed to be shocked by his confession. Khan was arrested, but never tried, and Musharraf will not allow him to be questioned by Western countries or international agencies—a restriction to which Bush agreed, still loyal to his man in Islamabad.</p>
<p>Just this week, the New York Times broke the story (after holding it back for three years at the request of the White House) that “Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program” to help Musharraf “secure his country’s nuclear weapons.” Nevertheless, the story continues, “with the future of that country’s leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan’s reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.” In fact, according to an op-ed in last Sunday’s Times, protecting Pakistan’s domestic nuclear arsenal may soon become another job for American troops.</p>
<p>I asked Adrian Levy about the crisis that has come to a head in Pakistan in recent months, with the explosive visit of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in October, followed by Musharraf’s November 3 crackdown and imposition of so-called emergency rule. He spoke of the by now widely known behind-the-scenes dealings between Bhutto and Musharraf over a possible power-sharing agreement—dealings that have broken down but may not, Levy believes, be completely dead.</p>
<p>The United States has been involved here as well, seeking a solution that provides at least the veneer of democracy, while still preserving Musharraf’s rule; the Pentagon wants to see the military remain in power, even though the State Department has been warning since 2001 that this is a doomed strategy, certain to advance destabilization. Levy and Scott-Clark spoke with Bhutto just before and just after her return to Pakistan in October, and she said that in any power-sharing agreement, she would have to “give up foreign policy, the WMD program, internal and external security, and elements of the financial portfolio as well,” Levy reports.</p>
<p>Perhaps Musharaff can save himself by yielding more power to Bhutto, who is growing bolder as the crisis develops. But it is also possible that the military may cut Musharaff out, says Levy, forging an alliance with Bhutto. “I think [the military] will accept slipping out of power for now, and may well in the future evolve into a political force, as the military has in Turkey and Thailand,” he says. The military currently owns 12 percent of all the land in Pakistan, and as businessmen probably favors moderation in the long term. “But that is long term, and this evolution depends on the West building and supporting a democratic movement in Pakistan that can resist or stand up to and contain the military.”</p>
<p>Such an evolution seems unlikely, given the American government’s long and checkered history with Pakistan—of overlooking even nuclear proliferation in the interest of furthering its own flawed foreign-policy agenda.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | idea blowback us covert intelligence operations yielded harmful unintended consequencesis becoming widely known author chalmers johnson notably documented dirty dealings around world especially cold war returned haunt us recent decades men women armed forces sent vanquish despots government supported ciatrained manuel noriega us arms recipient saddam hussein osama bin laden beneficiary us funding afghan mujahideen perhaps secret operations yielded devastating consequences carried pakistan considered vital strategically placed ally soviet communism later islamist terrorism covert american support propped repressive military dictatorships ruled pakistan better part history nation leading right current crisis us funding channeled cia pakistani intelligence service fuel insurgencies sovietoccupied afghanistan helped give rise al qaeda taliban research documentation provided two british investigative journalists show extent pakistan emboldened purposeful neglect us policymakers american intelligence community spread nuclear materials technologies notorious us adversaries libya north korea saddams iraq iran go war iran nuclear weapons pakistanand ourselvesto thank well story told new book called deception pakistan united states secret trade nuclear weapons adrian levy catherine scottclark longtime correspondents sunday times guardian reported south asia decade earlier week spoke length levy pakistans proliferation activities americas acquiescence critical period stretches inauguration ronald reagan end sovietafghan war 1989 levy scottclark contend cia state department pentagon allowed pakistans wmd program remain track reagan dismantled federal arms control disarmament agency downgraded national security council office national security adviser cia zealous director william casey ascendance intelligence employed push forward reagan political agenda busied disrupting interrupting operations mounted various agencies block wmd program would arm pakistan explains levy pakistan one four nations refuses abide 1968 nuclear nonproliferation treaty others india israel north korea nominally member international atomic energy agency iaea long history resisting oversight watchdog group thus united states looking way pakistan free develop sell nuclear materials technologies pakistans nuclear program got start early 1970s zulfikar ali bhutto benazir bhuttos father brought fruition notorious dr abdul qadeer khan germantrained scientist worked uranium enrichment facility europe reportedly stolen technologies brought back pakistan early 1980s pakistan military dictatorship general muhammad ziaulhaq possessed enriched uranium well bomb designs technology much china 1987 evidence country usable weapons thought 50 100 today 1980s levy says pakistan stockpiled enormous amounts fissionable material readymade assembled warheads bombs without check security measures command control systems implemented idea security devices employed west worked separation warheads triggers didnt things call permissive active links supposedly ensure bomb cant go accidentally soviet intervention afghanistan 1979 pakistan exempt us law prohibited aid countries import materials nuclear weapons reagan george hw bush resisted sporadic efforts congress suspend aidsome covertly channeled military potentially used build nuclear weaponsand continued certify pakistan bomb despite credible evidence contrary according deception state department officials actively obstructing arms government could help fall intelligence pakistans nuclear trade evidence destroyed criminal files diverted congress repeatedly lied several cases 1986 1987 presidential appointees even tipped pakistani government prevent agents getting caught us customs service stings aimed catch buying nuclear components america 1990 however soviets withdrawn afghanistan pakistan longer needed security springboard united states us aid suspended october 1990 levy says pakistanis warned consequences would ending special relationship general mirza aslam beg chief army staff man determined defy west sought three us officialsambassador robert oakley centcom commander norman schwarzkopf assistant secretary defense harry rowanand told america turned back pakistan would sell nuclear technology iran would first client three officials reported back got feedback washington according information obtained authors deception pakistani military intelligence service working q khan wasted time carrying general begs threat fall 1990 opened channel north korea offering levy scottclark call hors doeuvre form stinger missiles stinger supplied us large numbers afghan mujahideen regarded key weapon winning war soviets afghanistan pakistanis supposed collect unused missiles return cia needless say former mujahideen stingers thought possession north korea china iran number terrorist groups middle 90s khan making frequent visits pyongyang signs pakistanis trading nuclear technology north koreanbuilt missiles armsmany duly noted cia british intelligence time frame fall 1990 world reacting iraqs invasion kuwait matter pakistan appeared split civilian side government backed saudis course socked american coalition military real power pakistan sided saddam hussein fact united states began assembling troops desert storm pakistani agent arrived baghdad offer designs nuclear bomb help building one proposal seemed outrageous levy says saddam thought set blocked deal details agents offer came light five years later 1995 iaea inspection team raided farm owned general hussein kamel husseins soninlaw run iraqs weapons programs gary dillon briton led inspection found boxes documents including onepage memo headed top secret proposal referred code name ab dillons people thought fake memo appeared mukhabarat iraqi intelligence service dated 6 october 1990 told levy scottclark interview book account meeting taken place offices mukhabarat reportedly memo said enclosed following proposal pakistani scientist dr abdelqadeer khan sic regarding possibility helping iraq establish project enrich uranium manufacture nuclear weapon pakistani offer included blueprints making bomb advice build uraniumenrichment facility obtain components run dubai european companies inspection team alarmed registered extreme concern iaea tried prick us interest dillon told authors reviewing documents believed accurate representation pakistan put tablealthough could never know sure overall code name ab puzzled time realized letters stood atom bomb truth often far simpler one thinks became clear americanled gulf war forces would defeat husseins army pakistani military aboutfaced dropping iraq approaching iran meeting prime minister beg came straight pakistani official told levy scottclark transfer nuclear technology friendly state sum 12 billion friendly state meant iran figure beg could underwritten defense budget decade come later summer 2003 iaea inspectors tracking irans nuclear weapons program since 1990s would observe remarkable similarities iranian centrifuges acquired adapted khan according deception swipe samples taken pilot plant nantz revealed particles highly enriched uranium could produced inside iran enriched well beyond capabilities iranian rig iranians eventually admitted imported used components refused identify source realizing jig iran actually approached united states offering book calls incredible deal return united states addressing irans security concerns lifting economic sanctions normalization relations tehran offering cut support hamas islamic jihad rein hezbollah lebanon secretary state colin powell favored deal pentagon white house rejected continued efforts destabilize axis evil country beyond us took action related obvious pakistani sales iran sandbagged effort british address pakistans rampant nuclear proliferation road laid time may yet lead war iran pakistanis also appear engaged nuclear dealings saudis longterm allies middle east according levy early 1990s saudis already bought nuclearcapable missiles china deal brokered pakistan saudis requested warheads missiles gave millions pakistani nuclear program way payment officials iaea suspected deal german israeli intelligence agencies one could get washington assist getting bottom levy says one us nuclear specialist interviewed deception explained saudis said pakistani deal side without investigation accepted answer took entirely different approach guy across border iraq said wmd pakistanis turned also sold materials libya offered syria george w bush first took office even hawks team expressed desire address pakistans nuclear program continued apace coup general pervez musharraf 1999 911 according levy scottclark bush administration weighed pakistans value potential ally harm pakistans nuclear program could carter reagan done despite overwhelming evidence building nuclear crisis state leaking nuclear technology also concealing terrorists seeking white house decided nothing white house began approving aid pakistan totaled 10 billion since september 2001 libya iran made disclosures iaea source nuclear technologies pakistan offered convenient fall guy q khan february 2004 khan confessed national television involved unauthorized proliferation activities pakistani nuclear materials spread around globe story went sold black market khan without knowledge military government professed shocked confession khan arrested never tried musharraf allow questioned western countries international agenciesa restriction bush agreed still loyal man islamabad week new york times broke story holding back three years request white house past six years bush administration spent almost 100 million highly classified program help musharraf secure countrys nuclear weapons nevertheless story continues future countrys leadership doubt debate intensifying whether washington done enough help protect warheads laboratories whether pakistans reluctance reveal critical details arsenal undercut effectiveness continuing security effort fact according oped last sundays times protecting pakistans domestic nuclear arsenal may soon become another job american troops asked adrian levy crisis come head pakistan recent months explosive visit former prime minister benazir bhutto october followed musharrafs november 3 crackdown imposition socalled emergency rule spoke widely known behindthescenes dealings bhutto musharraf possible powersharing agreementdealings broken may levy believes completely dead united states involved well seeking solution provides least veneer democracy still preserving musharrafs rule pentagon wants see military remain power even though state department warning since 2001 doomed strategy certain advance destabilization levy scottclark spoke bhutto return pakistan october said powersharing agreement would give foreign policy wmd program internal external security elements financial portfolio well levy reports perhaps musharaff save yielding power bhutto growing bolder crisis develops also possible military may cut musharaff says levy forging alliance bhutto think military accept slipping power may well future evolve political force military turkey thailand says military currently owns 12 percent land pakistan businessmen probably favors moderation long term long term evolution depends west building supporting democratic movement pakistan resist stand contain military evolution seems unlikely given american governments long checkered history pakistanof overlooking even nuclear proliferation interest furthering flawed foreignpolicy agenda | 1,502 |
<p>The International Cannabinoid Research Society held its 18th annual&#160; symposium June 26-29, under the craggy Cairngorm Mountains in Aviemore,&#160; Scotland. More than 200 scientists affiliated with universities and/or&#160; pharmaceutical companies presented papers and/or posters. At least half were&#160; women. (I didn’t count.) Labs from all over the world were represented. “The&#160; Italians dominate. Then the Spaniards,” said Martin Lee, as if we were&#160; covering the Olympics. Come to think of it, the stars gathered in Aviemore&#160; are racing one another (while working in teams), and winning a medal means a&#160; lot to them, though their competition is far less intense than in other&#160; scientific fields.</p>
<p>ICRS scientists accept the constraints of marijuana prohibition. Their&#160; practical goal is to develop drugs that exert certain beneficial effects of&#160; the “crude” plant -countering nausea, inflammation, malignancy, bone loss, &#160;etc. -without inducing “euphoria.”&#160; Their research has yet to yield a&#160; blockbuster drug but it has led to the discovery and elucidation of the&#160; endocannabinoid system. Since the ICRS was founded in 1990, its members have&#160; identified two agonists produced in the body –Anandamide and 2-AG- which&#160; work as chemical counterpunches, sent from cells that are receiving chemical&#160; signals to cells that are transmitting them (to modulate the rate of&#160; transmission). The researchers have identified two kinds of receptors&#160; (protein molecules on the outside of certain cells) activated by these&#160; endocannabinoids. CB1 is concentrated in the brain and the central and&#160; peripheral nervous systems. CB2 is found mainly in tissue associated with&#160; the immune system and in nerve tissue associated with inflammation&#160; –but is present in brain, too. There are probably other agonists and&#160; receptors and chemical players to be named later.</p>
<p>At this year’s ICRS meeting, Patricia Reggio of the Center for Drug&#160; Discovery, University of North Carolina Greensboro, showed a computer&#160; simulation of 2-AG being released from a “post-synaptic” cell and moving&#160; across the synapse to a CB1 receptor embedded in the membrane of the&#160; transmitting cell. Instead of penetrating the CB1 binding pocket from&#160; without, according to Reggio’s amazing graphic, 2-AG penetrates the cell&#160; membrane near the receptor and then shimmies into the binding pocket from&#160; within the membrane and deliver its chemical message. Then you can see it&#160; lighting up a cigarette.</p>
<p>ICRS scientists have been systematically studying the compounds involved in&#160; the creation and breakdown of 2-Ag and anandamide, trying to determine which&#160; precursor components and degrading enzymes might be targets for drug&#160; development. There was buzz at this year’s meeting around a report by&#160; Raphael Mechoulam and Itai Bab of Hebrew University in Jerusalem that a&#160; byproduct of anandamide, oleoyl serine, shows phenomenal efficacy in&#160; promoting bone growth and slowing bone resorption. Mechoulam said he deduced&#160; that the body would make oleoyl serine by applying “nature’s law of&#160; stinginess” –and it was subsequently found in brain and bone. If a truly&#160; effective drug to treat osteoporosis -a natural product- goes on the market&#160; in about eight years, you read it here first. Ditto a Nobel Prize for&#160; Mechoulam_s role in discovering Anandamide and, long before that, the&#160; chemical structure of delta-9 THC.</p>
<p>Good news for modern man –or at least a source of guidance with a difficult&#160; decision– was recounted by Christopher Fowler, who studied the role of the&#160; endocannabinoid system in prostate cancer.&#160; The prognosis in prostate-cancer&#160; cases -how advanced and fast-moving the cancer is deemed to be- determines&#160; whether invasive treatment is called for, but often the prognosis is&#160; indeterminate. Fowler and colleagues at Umea University in Sweden&#160; hypothesized that the expression of CB1 receptors in response to prostate&#160; cancer growth would indicate how likely the cancer was to metastasize. They&#160; studied preserved tissue samples that had been removed from patients with&#160; enlarged prostates, the course of whose cancers was known. They measured the&#160; amount of CB1 protein present in the tissue samples and found higher levels&#160; in those with poorer prognoses. Doctors and prostate-cancer patients may in&#160; the future take into account CB1 level in making treatment decisions.</p>
<p>Another point from Fowler, et al: The proliferation of CB1 receptors&#160; triggered by aggressive prostate cancers implies that such cancers may be&#160; treatable by cannabinoids. “Given that the endocannabinoid system can affect&#160; the invasivity of prostate cancer tumor cells in vitro, its modulation may&#160; be a possible therapeutic approach for prostate cancer.”</p>
<p>Esther Fride of Ariel University and colleagues had established previously&#160; that normal sucking behavior in newborn mice involves activation of the CB1&#160; receptor by the endocannabinoid 2-AG (which is expressed in quantity in&#160; mother’s milk). Mice treated with a CB1 antagonist at birth will be&#160; undernourished and undersized. An analogous syndrome -“non-organic&#160; failure-to-thrive,” or NOFTT– occurs among some 4% of human infants.&#160; Newborn mice with CBl blockaded -“NOFTT mice,” according to Fride’s model–&#160; exhibit symptoms, including low weight, short height, anxiety and&#160; hyperactivity that last into adulthood. But if 2-AG is administered during&#160; the neonatal period, NOFTT symptoms won’t develop. Fride and her colleagues&#160; tested various infant formulas and found 2-AG to be “absent, or present in&#160; low concentrations… as opposed to considerably higher levels in maternal&#160; milk.” They suggest that NOFTT can be reduced by adding 2-AG or&#160; “endocannabinoid-enhancing supplementation” to formulas.</p>
<p>ICRS researchers are testing numerous drugs that inhibit formation of FAAH&#160; –fatty acid amide hydrolase, the enzyme that breaks down anandamide. FAAH&#160; inhibition means more anandamide available at the synapse. “Endocannabinoid&#160; Modulation of Pruritus” was one of several papers on the promise of FAAH&#160; inhibitors presented at Aviemore. Investigators from Virginia Commonwealth&#160; University found that mice made to itch by injection of a mast-cell&#160; degranulator, “Compound 48/80,” would reduce their scratching if given a&#160; FAAH inhibitor called URB597. And the mice wouldn’t get high! “The FAAH&#160; inhibitor URB597 reduced the response to Compound 48/80 scratching without&#160; the increased hypomotility associated with CB1 receptor activity.”</p>
<p>Almost every West Coast doctor surveyed by O’Shaughnessy’s has reported a&#160; few patients using cannabis as a treatment for pruritis. Which is not to say&#160; that there won’t be plenty of customers for a synthetic sold on TV with a&#160; name like Soothex. URB597 was developed by Daniele Piomelli of Kadmus&#160; Pharmaceuticals in La Jolla. The patent is now owned by a Organon, a&#160; subsidiary of Shering-Plough.URB597 also shows efficacy against intestinal&#160; inflammation, according to a paper by Sharkey, et al., “Inhibitors of&#160; Endocannabinoid Degradation Reduce Colitis By Activation of CB1 and CB2&#160; Receptors.” [Again, Dr. Hergenrather and colleagues in the Society of&#160; Cannabis Clinicians have monitored and reported many cases in which cannabis&#160; is used to treat Crohn’s Disease and inflammatory bowel disorders.]</p>
<p>Investigators led by Sandor Batkai of the National Institutes of Health have&#160; found that URB597 and another FAAH Inhibitor, AM-3506, effectively lower&#160; blood pressure in rats by preventing the breakdown of anandamide. Ingesting&#160; THC would have the same effect on blood pressure, but… “Because inhibition&#160; of FAAH does not elicit behavioral effects predictive of addictive&#160; potential, FAAH inhibitors such as AM-3506 may be considered for treatment&#160; of hypertension.”</p>
<p>CBD Still Waiting at the Altar</p>
<p>Non-psychoactive cannabidiol, not THC, is the predominant cannabinoid when&#160; the cannabis plant is in the wild. High-THC strains have been developed over&#160; time by growers who valued psychoactivity. CBD modulates the effects of THC&#160; by an unknown mechanism. It may be an antagonist at a putative third&#160; cannabinoid receptor.</p>
<p>Today, California “high-grade” sinsemilla may be 15% THC, 0.1% CBD. A few&#160; growers have reportedly obtained seeds that are 4-7% CBD. When their crops&#160; start to come in, straightforward popular research into the medical&#160; potential of cannabis will become possible. In the meantime, we can only&#160; glean the potential of CBD from reports to the ICRS. Here are some&#160; highlights from the abstract book:</p>
<p>• A team of Spanish and Scottish researchers used a piglet model of&#160; hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (brain damage due to insufficient oxygen,&#160; which affects an appalling number of premature babies and for which there is&#160; no specific treatment). They concluded, “Administration of CBD alone after&#160; HI reduced brain damage and was associated with extracerebral benefits.”</p>
<p>• Philip Robson of Oxford University, Dept. of Psychiatry, and GW&#160; Pharmaceuticals, reviewed psychiatric adverse events in the records of 496&#160; MS patients who had received Sativex (a cannabis-plant extract containing an&#160; equal mix of THC and CBD, prescribable in Canada and the UK) and 434 who&#160; received placebo. Sativex was found to have induced adverse events at a low&#160; rate -disorientation (5.4%), depression (3%), dissociation (2.8%),&#160; hallucinations (1.8%), confusional state (1%), and paranoia (.8%). Anxiety&#160; and insomnia occurred more frequently following placebo. “There was no&#160; evidence from these studies that Sativex poses any long-term psychiatric&#160; risks to patients,” Robson and co-author Tilden Etges concluded. “The&#160; presence of CBD may inhibit some unwanted effects of THC.”</p>
<p>• A team led by Michael Cawthorne of the Clore Laboratory, University of&#160; Buckingham, reported on “The Metabolic Effects of THCV and CBD.” THCV is a&#160; cannabinoid produced by the plant that is an antagonist at the CB-1&#160; receptor. The investigators conducted a five-week trial treating genetically&#160; obese mice with purified THCV, purified CBD, and a 1:1 mix of the two. The&#160; mix was most promising. The THCV exerted a thermogenic effect (increased&#160; energy expenditure) while the CBD raised plasma HDL-cholesterol&#160; concentration and reduced liver triglyceride levels. “This is the first&#160; demonstration of potential beneficial effects of CBD in&#160; hypercholesterolaemia and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,” the authors&#160; concluded. “In combination with THCV, it potentially addresses a number of&#160; components of the metabolic syndrome.”</p>
<p>• Saorise O’Sullivan of the University of Nottingham, Derby City General&#160; Hospital, looked at the vascular effects of CBD on rat aorta isolated in&#160; vitro. She had previously shown that THC has a relaxant effect that is&#160; partially inhibited by the antagonism of a putative third CB receptor. This&#160; year she concluded, “CBD causes significant vasorelaxation over time… The&#160; majority of the vasorelaxant effects of CBD appear to be through calcium&#160; channel inhibition.”</p>
<p>• Several investigators are trying to figure out how cannabinoids exert&#160; anti-tumor effects. An Italian group studying “Inhibition of Human Glioma&#160; Cell Migration and Invasiveness Induced by Cannabidiol” found that CBD&#160; inhibits production of an enzyme (Matrix Metalloproteinase-2) required for&#160; tumor growth.</p>
<p>• “CBD Ameliorates Cognitive Impairments Associated with a Model of Chronic&#160; Liver Disease in Mice” –the title sums up the study reported by Iddo Magen&#160; of the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical. The structure of CBD, Magen&#160; noted, “resembles that of resveratrol, which is found in red wine and has&#160; anti-inflammatory activity. Resveratrol has also been shown to decrease&#160; liver oxidative stress.” So let’s have a glass of Charles Shaw Merlot before&#160; moving on to the posters.</p>
<p>FRED GARDNER edits O’Shaughnessy’s, the journal of cannabis in clinical&#160; practice. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | international cannabinoid research society held 18th annual160 symposium june 2629 craggy cairngorm mountains aviemore160 scotland 200 scientists affiliated universities andor160 pharmaceutical companies presented papers andor posters least half were160 women didnt count labs world represented the160 italians dominate spaniards said martin lee were160 covering olympics come think stars gathered aviemore160 racing one another working teams winning medal means a160 lot though competition far less intense other160 scientific fields icrs scientists accept constraints marijuana prohibition their160 practical goal develop drugs exert certain beneficial effects of160 crude plant countering nausea inflammation malignancy bone loss 160etc without inducing euphoria160 research yet yield a160 blockbuster drug led discovery elucidation the160 endocannabinoid system since icrs founded 1990 members have160 identified two agonists produced body anandamide 2ag which160 work chemical counterpunches sent cells receiving chemical160 signals cells transmitting modulate rate of160 transmission researchers identified two kinds receptors160 protein molecules outside certain cells activated these160 endocannabinoids cb1 concentrated brain central and160 peripheral nervous systems cb2 found mainly tissue associated with160 immune system nerve tissue associated inflammation160 present brain probably agonists and160 receptors chemical players named later years icrs meeting patricia reggio center drug160 discovery university north carolina greensboro showed computer160 simulation 2ag released postsynaptic cell moving160 across synapse cb1 receptor embedded membrane the160 transmitting cell instead penetrating cb1 binding pocket from160 without according reggios amazing graphic 2ag penetrates cell160 membrane near receptor shimmies binding pocket from160 within membrane deliver chemical message see it160 lighting cigarette icrs scientists systematically studying compounds involved in160 creation breakdown 2ag anandamide trying determine which160 precursor components degrading enzymes might targets drug160 development buzz years meeting around report by160 raphael mechoulam itai bab hebrew university jerusalem a160 byproduct anandamide oleoyl serine shows phenomenal efficacy in160 promoting bone growth slowing bone resorption mechoulam said deduced160 body would make oleoyl serine applying natures law of160 stinginess subsequently found brain bone truly160 effective drug treat osteoporosis natural product goes market160 eight years read first ditto nobel prize for160 mechoulam_s role discovering anandamide long the160 chemical structure delta9 thc good news modern man least source guidance difficult160 decision recounted christopher fowler studied role the160 endocannabinoid system prostate cancer160 prognosis prostatecancer160 cases advanced fastmoving cancer deemed determines160 whether invasive treatment called often prognosis is160 indeterminate fowler colleagues umea university sweden160 hypothesized expression cb1 receptors response prostate160 cancer growth would indicate likely cancer metastasize they160 studied preserved tissue samples removed patients with160 enlarged prostates course whose cancers known measured the160 amount cb1 protein present tissue samples found higher levels160 poorer prognoses doctors prostatecancer patients may in160 future take account cb1 level making treatment decisions another point fowler et al proliferation cb1 receptors160 triggered aggressive prostate cancers implies cancers may be160 treatable cannabinoids given endocannabinoid system affect160 invasivity prostate cancer tumor cells vitro modulation may160 possible therapeutic approach prostate cancer esther fride ariel university colleagues established previously160 normal sucking behavior newborn mice involves activation cb1160 receptor endocannabinoid 2ag expressed quantity in160 mothers milk mice treated cb1 antagonist birth be160 undernourished undersized analogous syndrome nonorganic160 failuretothrive noftt occurs among 4 human infants160 newborn mice cbl blockaded noftt mice according frides model160 exhibit symptoms including low weight short height anxiety and160 hyperactivity last adulthood 2ag administered during160 neonatal period noftt symptoms wont develop fride colleagues160 tested various infant formulas found 2ag absent present in160 low concentrations opposed considerably higher levels maternal160 milk suggest noftt reduced adding 2ag or160 endocannabinoidenhancing supplementation formulas icrs researchers testing numerous drugs inhibit formation faah160 fatty acid amide hydrolase enzyme breaks anandamide faah160 inhibition means anandamide available synapse endocannabinoid160 modulation pruritus one several papers promise faah160 inhibitors presented aviemore investigators virginia commonwealth160 university found mice made itch injection mastcell160 degranulator compound 4880 would reduce scratching given a160 faah inhibitor called urb597 mice wouldnt get high faah160 inhibitor urb597 reduced response compound 4880 scratching without160 increased hypomotility associated cb1 receptor activity almost every west coast doctor surveyed oshaughnessys reported a160 patients using cannabis treatment pruritis say160 wont plenty customers synthetic sold tv a160 name like soothex urb597 developed daniele piomelli kadmus160 pharmaceuticals la jolla patent owned organon a160 subsidiary sheringploughurb597 also shows efficacy intestinal160 inflammation according paper sharkey et al inhibitors of160 endocannabinoid degradation reduce colitis activation cb1 cb2160 receptors dr hergenrather colleagues society of160 cannabis clinicians monitored reported many cases cannabis160 used treat crohns disease inflammatory bowel disorders investigators led sandor batkai national institutes health have160 found urb597 another faah inhibitor am3506 effectively lower160 blood pressure rats preventing breakdown anandamide ingesting160 thc would effect blood pressure inhibition160 faah elicit behavioral effects predictive addictive160 potential faah inhibitors am3506 may considered treatment160 hypertension cbd still waiting altar nonpsychoactive cannabidiol thc predominant cannabinoid when160 cannabis plant wild highthc strains developed over160 time growers valued psychoactivity cbd modulates effects thc160 unknown mechanism may antagonist putative third160 cannabinoid receptor today california highgrade sinsemilla may 15 thc 01 cbd few160 growers reportedly obtained seeds 47 cbd crops160 start come straightforward popular research medical160 potential cannabis become possible meantime only160 glean potential cbd reports icrs some160 highlights abstract book team spanish scottish researchers used piglet model of160 hypoxicischemic encephalopathy brain damage due insufficient oxygen160 affects appalling number premature babies is160 specific treatment concluded administration cbd alone after160 hi reduced brain damage associated extracerebral benefits philip robson oxford university dept psychiatry gw160 pharmaceuticals reviewed psychiatric adverse events records 496160 ms patients received sativex cannabisplant extract containing an160 equal mix thc cbd prescribable canada uk 434 who160 received placebo sativex found induced adverse events low160 rate disorientation 54 depression 3 dissociation 28160 hallucinations 18 confusional state 1 paranoia 8 anxiety160 insomnia occurred frequently following placebo no160 evidence studies sativex poses longterm psychiatric160 risks patients robson coauthor tilden etges concluded the160 presence cbd may inhibit unwanted effects thc team led michael cawthorne clore laboratory university of160 buckingham reported metabolic effects thcv cbd thcv a160 cannabinoid produced plant antagonist cb1160 receptor investigators conducted fiveweek trial treating genetically160 obese mice purified thcv purified cbd 11 mix two the160 mix promising thcv exerted thermogenic effect increased160 energy expenditure cbd raised plasma hdlcholesterol160 concentration reduced liver triglyceride levels first160 demonstration potential beneficial effects cbd in160 hypercholesterolaemia nonalcoholic fatty liver disease authors160 concluded combination thcv potentially addresses number of160 components metabolic syndrome saorise osullivan university nottingham derby city general160 hospital looked vascular effects cbd rat aorta isolated in160 vitro previously shown thc relaxant effect is160 partially inhibited antagonism putative third cb receptor this160 year concluded cbd causes significant vasorelaxation time the160 majority vasorelaxant effects cbd appear calcium160 channel inhibition several investigators trying figure cannabinoids exert160 antitumor effects italian group studying inhibition human glioma160 cell migration invasiveness induced cannabidiol found cbd160 inhibits production enzyme matrix metalloproteinase2 required for160 tumor growth cbd ameliorates cognitive impairments associated model chronic160 liver disease mice title sums study reported iddo magen160 hadassah hebrew university medical structure cbd magen160 noted resembles resveratrol found red wine has160 antiinflammatory activity resveratrol also shown decrease160 liver oxidative stress lets glass charles shaw merlot before160 moving posters fred gardner edits oshaughnessys journal cannabis clinical160 practice reached fredplebesitecom 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 | 1,162 |
<p>The following prologue is excerpted from “ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804173524/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0804173524&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=truthdig20-20" type="external">The Snowden Files</a>” by Luke Harding. © 2014 by The Guardian. Excerpted by permission of Vintage, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.</p>
<p>Prologue: The Rendezvous Mira Hotel, Nathan Road, Hong Kong Monday 3 June 2013</p>
<p>‘I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded …’ EDWARD SNOWDEN</p>
<p>It began with an email.</p>
<p />
<p>‘I am a senior member of the intelligence community…’</p>
<p>No name, no job title, no details. The Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, who was based in Brazil, started to correspond with this mysterious source. Who was he? The source said nothing about himself. He was an intangible presence, an online ghost. Possibly even a fiction.</p>
<p>After all, how could it be real? There had never before been a big leak out of the National Security Agency. Everybody knew that America’s foremost intelligence-gathering organisation, based at Fort Meade near Washington DC, was impregnable. What the NSA did was a secret. Nothing got out. ‘NSA, No Such Agency’, as the Beltway wits had it.</p>
<p>Yet this strange person did appear to have access to some remarkable top-secret documents. The source was sending Greenwald a sample of highly classified NSA files, dangling them in front of his nose. How the ghost purloined them with such apparent ease was a mystery. Assuming they were genuine, they appeared to blow the lid off a story of global importance. They suggested the White House wasn’t just spying on its enemies (bad guys, al-Qaida, terrorists, the Russians), or even on its supposed allies (Germany, France), but on the communications of millions of private US citizens.</p>
<p>Joined with the US in this mass snooping exercise was the UK. The NSA’s British counterpart, GCHQ, was based deep in the English countryside. The UK and USA had a close intelligence-sharing relationship dating back to the second world war. To the uncharitable, Britain was the US’s reliable poodle. Alarmingly, the documents revealed that the NSA was stumping up millions of dollars for British surveillance activities.</p>
<p>And now Greenwald was about to meet his Deep Throat. Promising further disclosures, the source was summoning him to fly from his home in Rio de Janeiro to Hong Kong, run by communist China and thousands of miles away. Greenwald felt the location was ‘bizarre’ and confusing: did he have a senior foreign posting there?</p>
<p>The rendezvous was to be in Kowloon’s Mira Hotel, a chic, modern edifice in the heart of the tourist district, and a short cab ride away from the Star Ferry to Hong Kong Island. Accompanying Greenwald was Laura Poitras, also an American citizen, documentary film-maker and notable thorn in the side of the US military. She had been a matchmaker, the first to point Greenwald in the ghost’s direction.</p>
<p>The two journalists were given meticulous instructions. They were to meet in a less-trafficked, but not entirely obscure, part of the hotel, next to a large plastic alligator. They would swap pre-agreed phrases. The source would carry a Rubik’s cube. Oh, and his name was Edward Snowden.</p>
<p>It appeared the mystery interlocutor was an experienced spy. Perhaps one with a flair for the dramatic. Everything Greenwald knew about him pointed in one direction: that he was a grizzled veteran of the intelligence community. ‘I thought he must be a pretty senior bureaucrat,’ Greenwald says. Probably 60-odd, wearing a blue blazer with shiny gold buttons, receding grey hair, sensible black shoes, spectacles, a club tie … Greenwald could visualise him already. Perhaps he was the CIA’s station chief in Hong Kong; the mission was down the road.</p>
<p>This theory, mistaken as it was, was based on two clues: the very privileged level of top-secret access the source appeared to enjoy, and the sophistication of his political analysis. With the very first batch of secrets the source had sent a personal manifesto. It offered his motive — to reveal the extent of what he regarded as the ‘suspicion-less’ surveillance state. It claimed the technology to spy on people had run way beyond the law. Meaningful oversight had become impossible.</p>
<p>The scale of the NSA’s ambition was extraordinary, the source said. Over the past decade the volume of digital information coursing between continents had increased. Exploded, even. Against this backdrop the agency had drifted from its original mission of foreign intelligence gathering. Now, it was collecting data on everybody. And storing it. This included data from both the US and abroad. The NSA was secretly engaged in nothing less than electronic mass observation. Or so the source had said.</p>
<p>The pair reached the alligator ahead of schedule. They sat down. They waited. Greenwald briefly pondered whether the alligator had some significance in Chinese culture. He wasn’t sure. Nothing happened. The source didn’t show. Strange.</p>
<p>If the initial meeting failed, the plan was to return later the same morning to the same anonymous corridor, running between the Mira’s glitzy internal shopping mall and one of its restaurants. Greenwald and Poitras came back. They waited for a second time.And then they saw him — a pale, spindle-limbed, nervous, preposterously young man. In Greenwald’s shocked view, he was barely old enough to shave. He was dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans. In his right hand he was carrying a scrambled Rubik’s cube. Had there been a mistake? ‘He looked like he was 23. I was completely discombobulated. None of it made sense,’ Greenwald says.</p>
<p>The young man — if indeed he were the source — had sent encrypted instructions as to how the initial verification would proceed:</p>
<p>GREENWALD: What time does the restaurant open?</p>
<p>THE SOURCE: At noon. But don’t go there, the food sucks …</p>
<p>The exchange was faintly comic. Greenwald — nervous — said his lines, struggling to keep a straight face.</p>
<p>Snowden then said simply: ‘Follow me.’ The three walked silently towards the lift. No one else was around — or, at least, nobody they could see. They rode to the first floor, and followed the cube-man to room 1014. He opened the door with his swipe card, and they entered. ‘I went with it,’ Greenwald says.</p>
<p>It was already a weird mission. But now it had acquired the feel of a wild-goose chase. This thin-framed student type was surely too callow to have access to super-sensitive material? Optimistically, Greenwald speculated that possibly he was the son of the source, or his personal assistant. If not, then the encounter was a waste of time, a hoax of Jules Verne proportions.</p>
<p>Poitras, too, had been secretly communicating with the source for four months. She felt she knew him — or at least the online version of him. She was also struggling to adjust. ‘I nearly fainted when I saw how old he was. It took me 24 hours to rewire my brain.’</p>
<p>Over the course of the day, however, Snowden told his story. He was, he said, a 29-year-old contractor with the National Security Agency. He had been based at the NSA’s regional operations centre in Kunia on the Pacific island of Hawaii. Two weeks ago he had quit his job, effectively abandoned and bid farewell to his girlfriend, and secretly boarded a flight to Hong Kong. He had taken with him four laptops.</p>
<p>The laptops were heavily encrypted. But from them Snowden had access to documents taken from NSA and GCHQ’s internal servers. Tens of thousands of documents, in fact. Most were stamped ‘Top Secret’. Some were marked ‘Top Secret Strap 1’ — the British higher tier of super-classification for intercept material — or even ‘Strap 2’, which was almost as secret as you could get. No one — apart from a restricted circle of security officials — had ever seen documents of this kind before. What he was carrying, Snowden indicated, was the biggest intelligence leak in history.</p>
<p>Greenwald noticed the accumulated debris of many days of room service — trays, abandoned bowls of noodles, dirty cutlery. Snowden said he had ventured out just three times since checking into the Mira under his own name a fortnight earlier. He sat on the bed as Greenwald bombarded him with questions: where did you work, who was your boss in the CIA, why? Greenwald’s credibility was on the line. So was that of his editors at the Guardian. Yet if Snowden were genuine, at any moment a CIA SWAT team could burst into the room, confiscate his laptops, and drag him away.</p>
<p>Snowden, they began to feel certain, was no fake. His information could well be real. And his reasons for becoming a whistleblower were cogent, too. His job as a systems administrator meant — he explained lucidly, persuasively, coolly – that he had a rare overview of the NSA’s extraordinary surveillance capacities, that he could see the dark places where the agency was going.</p>
<p>The NSA could bug ‘anyone’, from the president downwards, he said. In theory the spy agency was supposed to collect only signals intelligence on foreign targets, known as SIGINT. In practice this was a joke, Snowden told Greenwald: it was already hoovering up metadata from millions of Americans. Phone records, email headers, subject lines, seized without acknowledgement or consent. From this you could construct a complete electronic narrative of an individual’s life — their friends, their lovers, their joys, their sorrows.</p>
<p>Together with GCHQ, the NSA had secretly attached intercepts to the undersea fibre-optic cables that ringed the world. This allowed the US and UK to read much of the globe’s communications. Secret courts were compelling telecoms providers to hand over data. What’s more, pretty much all of Silicon Valley was involved with the NSA, Snowden said — Google, Microsoft, Facebook, even Steve Jobs’s Apple. The NSA claimed it had ‘direct access’ to the tech giants’ servers.</p>
<p>While giving themselves unprecedented surveillance powers, the US intelligence community was concealing the truth about its activities, Snowden said. If James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, had deliberately lied to Congress about the NSA’s programs, he had committed a felony. The NSA was flagrantly violating the US constitution and the right to privacy. It had even put secret back doors into online encryption software — used to make secure bank payments — weakening the system for everybody.</p>
<p>As Snowden told the story, the NSA’s behavior seemed culled from 20th-century dystopian fiction. It was recognisable from the writings of Aldous Huxley or George Orwell. But the NSA’s ultimate goal seemed to go even further: to collect everything from everybody, everywhere and to store it indefinitely. It signaled a turning point. It looked like the extirpation of privacy. The spy agencies had hijacked the internet — once a platform for individuality and self-expression. Snowden used the word ‘panopticon’. This was a significant coinage by the 18th-century British philosopher and codifier Jeremy Bentham. It described an ingenious circular jail where the warders could see the prisoners at all times, without their knowing if they were being observed.And this, Snowden asserted, was why he had decided to go public. To throw away his life and career. He told Greenwald he didn’t want to live in a world ‘where everything that I say, everything that I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of love or friendship is recorded’.</p>
<p>Over the coming weeks, Snowden’s claims would ignite an epochal debate. They would enrage the White House and Downing Street. And they would cause international havoc, as Snowden slipped out of Hong Kong, attempted to gain asylum in Latin America, and got stuck in Vladimir Putin’s Moscow.</p>
<p>In America and Europe (though not at first in the Britain of James Bond), there was a spirited argument about the right balance between security and civil liberties, between freedom of speech and privacy. Despite the febrile polarisation of US politics, right-wing libertarians and left-wing Democrats joined together to support Snowden. Even President Obama conceded the debate was overdue and reform was required. Though this didn’t stop US authorities from cancelling Snowden’s passport, charging him with espionage and demanding his return from Russia.</p>
<p>The fight to publish Snowden’s story was to present the journalists themselves with dramatic problems — legal, logistical, editorial. It pitted a famous newspaper, its global website and a few media allies against some of the most powerful people on the planet. And it would lead to the destruction of the Guardian’s computer hard drives in an underground basement, watched over by two British GCHQ boffins. The machine-smashing was to be a particularly surreal episode in the history of western journalism and its battles against the state.</p>
<p>As he sat in his Hong Kong hotel room, throwing the switch to launch all this, Snowden was calm. According to Greenwald, he was convinced of the rightness of his actions, intellectually, emotionally and psychologically. In the aftermath of his leaks, Snowden recognised imprisonment would surely follow. But during that momentous summer he radiated a sense of tranquility and equanimity. He had reached a rock-like place of inner certainty. Here, nothing could touch him.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | following prologue excerpted snowden files luke harding 2014 guardian excerpted permission vintage division random house llc rights reserved part excerpt may reproduced reprinted without permission writing publisher prologue rendezvous mira hotel nathan road hong kong monday 3 june 2013 dont want live world everything say everything everyone talk every expression creativity love friendship recorded edward snowden began email senior member intelligence community name job title details guardian columnist glenn greenwald based brazil started correspond mysterious source source said nothing intangible presence online ghost possibly even fiction could real never big leak national security agency everybody knew americas foremost intelligencegathering organisation based fort meade near washington dc impregnable nsa secret nothing got nsa agency beltway wits yet strange person appear access remarkable topsecret documents source sending greenwald sample highly classified nsa files dangling front nose ghost purloined apparent ease mystery assuming genuine appeared blow lid story global importance suggested white house wasnt spying enemies bad guys alqaida terrorists russians even supposed allies germany france communications millions private us citizens joined us mass snooping exercise uk nsas british counterpart gchq based deep english countryside uk usa close intelligencesharing relationship dating back second world war uncharitable britain uss reliable poodle alarmingly documents revealed nsa stumping millions dollars british surveillance activities greenwald meet deep throat promising disclosures source summoning fly home rio de janeiro hong kong run communist china thousands miles away greenwald felt location bizarre confusing senior foreign posting rendezvous kowloons mira hotel chic modern edifice heart tourist district short cab ride away star ferry hong kong island accompanying greenwald laura poitras also american citizen documentary filmmaker notable thorn side us military matchmaker first point greenwald ghosts direction two journalists given meticulous instructions meet lesstrafficked entirely obscure part hotel next large plastic alligator would swap preagreed phrases source would carry rubiks cube oh name edward snowden appeared mystery interlocutor experienced spy perhaps one flair dramatic everything greenwald knew pointed one direction grizzled veteran intelligence community thought must pretty senior bureaucrat greenwald says probably 60odd wearing blue blazer shiny gold buttons receding grey hair sensible black shoes spectacles club tie greenwald could visualise already perhaps cias station chief hong kong mission road theory mistaken based two clues privileged level topsecret access source appeared enjoy sophistication political analysis first batch secrets source sent personal manifesto offered motive reveal extent regarded suspicionless surveillance state claimed technology spy people run way beyond law meaningful oversight become impossible scale nsas ambition extraordinary source said past decade volume digital information coursing continents increased exploded even backdrop agency drifted original mission foreign intelligence gathering collecting data everybody storing included data us abroad nsa secretly engaged nothing less electronic mass observation source said pair reached alligator ahead schedule sat waited greenwald briefly pondered whether alligator significance chinese culture wasnt sure nothing happened source didnt show strange initial meeting failed plan return later morning anonymous corridor running miras glitzy internal shopping mall one restaurants greenwald poitras came back waited second timeand saw pale spindlelimbed nervous preposterously young man greenwalds shocked view barely old enough shave dressed white tshirt jeans right hand carrying scrambled rubiks cube mistake looked like 23 completely discombobulated none made sense greenwald says young man indeed source sent encrypted instructions initial verification would proceed greenwald time restaurant open source noon dont go food sucks exchange faintly comic greenwald nervous said lines struggling keep straight face snowden said simply follow three walked silently towards lift one else around least nobody could see rode first floor followed cubeman room 1014 opened door swipe card entered went greenwald says already weird mission acquired feel wildgoose chase thinframed student type surely callow access supersensitive material optimistically greenwald speculated possibly son source personal assistant encounter waste time hoax jules verne proportions poitras secretly communicating source four months felt knew least online version also struggling adjust nearly fainted saw old took 24 hours rewire brain course day however snowden told story said 29yearold contractor national security agency based nsas regional operations centre kunia pacific island hawaii two weeks ago quit job effectively abandoned bid farewell girlfriend secretly boarded flight hong kong taken four laptops laptops heavily encrypted snowden access documents taken nsa gchqs internal servers tens thousands documents fact stamped top secret marked top secret strap 1 british higher tier superclassification intercept material even strap 2 almost secret could get one apart restricted circle security officials ever seen documents kind carrying snowden indicated biggest intelligence leak history greenwald noticed accumulated debris many days room service trays abandoned bowls noodles dirty cutlery snowden said ventured three times since checking mira name fortnight earlier sat bed greenwald bombarded questions work boss cia greenwalds credibility line editors guardian yet snowden genuine moment cia swat team could burst room confiscate laptops drag away snowden began feel certain fake information could well real reasons becoming whistleblower cogent job systems administrator meant explained lucidly persuasively coolly rare overview nsas extraordinary surveillance capacities could see dark places agency going nsa could bug anyone president downwards said theory spy agency supposed collect signals intelligence foreign targets known sigint practice joke snowden told greenwald already hoovering metadata millions americans phone records email headers subject lines seized without acknowledgement consent could construct complete electronic narrative individuals life friends lovers joys sorrows together gchq nsa secretly attached intercepts undersea fibreoptic cables ringed world allowed us uk read much globes communications secret courts compelling telecoms providers hand data whats pretty much silicon valley involved nsa snowden said google microsoft facebook even steve jobss apple nsa claimed direct access tech giants servers giving unprecedented surveillance powers us intelligence community concealing truth activities snowden said james clapper director national intelligence deliberately lied congress nsas programs committed felony nsa flagrantly violating us constitution right privacy even put secret back doors online encryption software used make secure bank payments weakening system everybody snowden told story nsas behavior seemed culled 20thcentury dystopian fiction recognisable writings aldous huxley george orwell nsas ultimate goal seemed go even collect everything everybody everywhere store indefinitely signaled turning point looked like extirpation privacy spy agencies hijacked internet platform individuality selfexpression snowden used word panopticon significant coinage 18thcentury british philosopher codifier jeremy bentham described ingenious circular jail warders could see prisoners times without knowing observedand snowden asserted decided go public throw away life career told greenwald didnt want live world everything say everything everyone talk every expression love friendship recorded coming weeks snowdens claims would ignite epochal debate would enrage white house downing street would cause international havoc snowden slipped hong kong attempted gain asylum latin america got stuck vladimir putins moscow america europe though first britain james bond spirited argument right balance security civil liberties freedom speech privacy despite febrile polarisation us politics rightwing libertarians leftwing democrats joined together support snowden even president obama conceded debate overdue reform required though didnt stop us authorities cancelling snowdens passport charging espionage demanding return russia fight publish snowdens story present journalists dramatic problems legal logistical editorial pitted famous newspaper global website media allies powerful people planet would lead destruction guardians computer hard drives underground basement watched two british gchq boffins machinesmashing particularly surreal episode history western journalism battles state sat hong kong hotel room throwing switch launch snowden calm according greenwald convinced rightness actions intellectually emotionally psychologically aftermath leaks snowden recognised imprisonment would surely follow momentous summer radiated sense tranquility equanimity reached rocklike place inner certainty nothing could touch | 1,219 |
<p>The Syrian upheaval has gone through several stages. It began with relatively peaceful protests by crowds in a handful of small and medium-size cities outside the large metropolitan areas of Damascus and Aleppo. Severe repression by the national regime led some revolutionaries to turn to guerrilla tactics. The ruling Baath government subjected the quarters held by the Free Syrian Army to heavy artillery and tank assaults. More recently, as the rebellion continued to spread in small towns, the military has provided cover to death squads that have massacred civilians in an attempt to scare them into submission. The most frightening thing about this spiral of ever greater violence and brutality is that some of the now-hardened lines have been sectarian.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57453190/united-nations-observers-enter-cleansed-syrian-town-of-haffa-after-days-of-trying-to-gain-access/" type="external">Syrian army assault</a> on the rebellious Sunni village of al-Haffa in Latakia province, which has left it a ghost town, exemplifies this move toward religious war. Latakia is heavily <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/02/syrian-president-alawite-what-does-that-mean-and-why-does-it-matter.html%20" type="external">Alawite</a>, and protecting members of this religious group from Sunni dominance is one of the latent functions of the regime. The upper echelons of the ruling Baath Party and its officer corps are <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,MARP,,SYR,,469f3ad7c,0.html%20" type="external">dominated</a> by the Alawite sect of Shiite Islam. Only about 10 percent of Syrians are Alawite. On the order of 70 percent of Syrians belong to the rival Sunni branch of Islam. (Many Syrian Sunnis are secularists.) The <a href="http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?section=middleeast&amp;xfile=data/middleeast/2012/June/middleeast_June160.xml" type="external">car bomb</a> that recently damaged the Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zaynab in Damascus may have primarily targeted nearby Intelligence Ministry buildings, but those who detonated it may have been happy enough to hurt Shiite religious sensibilities.</p>
<p>The death squads, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14482968%20" type="external">Shabiha</a>, deployed by the regime against the towns of Houla and Mazraat al-Qubair in recent weeks are drawn from the Alawi sect. Many of the Sunnis being targeted have been organized by the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Houla and Mazraat al-Qubair are largely Sunni hamlets surrounded by powerful Alawi towns.</p>
<p>The black-garbed Shabiha, or “ghost gangs,” began as criminal organizations in the Alawite-dominated port of Latakia in the 1970s after the Alawite Assad family came to power in Syria, and some of its members are drawn from the Assad and related Deeb and Makhlouf clans. Although the groups were curbed in the 1990s after they became too arrogant even for the Assads to countenance, they re-emerged in 2011 as paramilitary adjuncts to the army and security police. In Alawite areas, they have been accused of detaining Syrians with Sunni names at checkpoints and doing away with them.</p>
<p />
<p>The Baath Party was founded in the 1940s by two Christian intellectuals who advocated a secular Arab nationalism. In some ways, the “Resurrection,” or Baath, party was to resemble the Communist Party, but instead of championing the working class and being universal it would uplift ethnic Arabs and unite them to throw off the vestiges of Western, colonial domination. This attempt to subvert socialism with an appeal to essentially racist themes made the Baath an odd hybrid of fascism and Third-Worldism. Non-Arab minorities in Baath-ruled countries, such as the Kurds, often faced discrimination or worse.</p>
<p>Baathists came to power through coups in Syria and Iraq in the 1960s. Ironically, the Baath one-party state became a vehicle for well-organized minorities to take over the government. Thus, in Syria the Alawite Shiites dominated the Baath regime from 1970, whereas in Iraq control of the ruling Baath party was held by a Sunni clan from Tikrit (that of Saddam Hussein).</p>
<p>Syria’s Baath Party has lasted so long and attracted the loyalty of so many Syrians over the decades in part because it aided Syria’s transition from a rural, peasant country to an urban one. It carried out a land reform that redistributed land to peasants and liquidated the old big-landlord class. The Baathists built dams and irrigation works for farmers, earning the gratitude and support of many rural Sunni clans. Largely rural depot towns such as Deraa in the south near the Jordanian border were among the biggest beneficiaries of these Baath programs, and so were known as strong party backers, producing several high regime officials and officers.</p>
<p>Rural Syria has had a prolonged and severe drought, and the Baath government has not been good in this decade about managing water resources. Rural Sunni clans have suffered most from this water crisis.</p>
<p>A majority of Syrians now live in towns and cities, and their needs are different from those of their farming parents. The Baath Party’s <a href="http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/political-economy-syria?print" type="external">reduction of fuel and other subsidies</a> and encouragement of unaccountable big business have angered the urban population. (These policies, pushed by international banks and elites, are generally referred to as “Neoliberalism.”) Largely Sunni towns have seen high unemployment, especially in slums on outskirts full of former farmworkers forced to seek jobs in the cities, often unsuccessfully.</p>
<p>At its heart, the Syrian crisis is a conflict that pits the urban metropolises (Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia) that benefit from government largesse against the medium-size cities and rural towns that have suffered from drought and Neoliberal policies. It so happens that this divide also aligns, if unevenly, with sectarian cleavages, with the provincial cities and towns being mostly religiously conservative and Sunni, and the big-cities bastions of minority power and secular Sunni business classes dependent on the regime.</p>
<p>The Syrian government’s resort to Alawite death squads in recent weeks, however, has threatened the big-city alliance that has allowed the Baath to survive. The sight of Sunni women and children massacred by the Shabiha in Houla and Mazraat al-Qubair drove Sunni shopkeepers in the capital to instigate a <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2012-06-11/middleeast/world_meast_syria-battle-for-cities_1_damascus-merchants-joshua-landis-daraa?_s=PM:MIDDLEEAST" type="external">general strike</a>. Protests and small insurgencies are now taking place even in Damascus.</p>
<p>The regime of Bashar Assad squandered whatever good will it had in rural and small-town Syria by its heavy-handed repression of the protests. Among its few remaining assets was the support of Christian, Alawi and secular Sunni middle classes in the large cities, groups that fear the rise of Sunni fundamentalism, are disturbed by the decline of security for property, and benefit from Baath government licenses and contracts. The deployment of Shabiha death squads, however, has clearly pushed many of these former supporters into the opposition. It is now the regime that is threatening public security and fanning the flames of sectarian hatred. If the Syrian revolution finally succeeds, it will be because the Baath regime betrayed its commitments to secularism, socialism and public order, becoming in the eyes of the public just another sectarian mafia.</p> | true | 4 | syrian upheaval gone several stages began relatively peaceful protests crowds handful small mediumsize cities outside large metropolitan areas damascus aleppo severe repression national regime led revolutionaries turn guerrilla tactics ruling baath government subjected quarters held free syrian army heavy artillery tank assaults recently rebellion continued spread small towns military provided cover death squads massacred civilians attempt scare submission frightening thing spiral ever greater violence brutality nowhardened lines sectarian syrian army assault rebellious sunni village alhaffa latakia province left ghost town exemplifies move toward religious war latakia heavily alawite protecting members religious group sunni dominance one latent functions regime upper echelons ruling baath party officer corps dominated alawite sect shiite islam 10 percent syrians alawite order 70 percent syrians belong rival sunni branch islam many syrian sunnis secularists car bomb recently damaged shiite shrine sayyida zaynab damascus may primarily targeted nearby intelligence ministry buildings detonated may happy enough hurt shiite religious sensibilities death squads shabiha deployed regime towns houla mazraat alqubair recent weeks drawn alawi sect many sunnis targeted organized sunni muslim brotherhood houla mazraat alqubair largely sunni hamlets surrounded powerful alawi towns blackgarbed shabiha ghost gangs began criminal organizations alawitedominated port latakia 1970s alawite assad family came power syria members drawn assad related deeb makhlouf clans although groups curbed 1990s became arrogant even assads countenance reemerged 2011 paramilitary adjuncts army security police alawite areas accused detaining syrians sunni names checkpoints away baath party founded 1940s two christian intellectuals advocated secular arab nationalism ways resurrection baath party resemble communist party instead championing working class universal would uplift ethnic arabs unite throw vestiges western colonial domination attempt subvert socialism appeal essentially racist themes made baath odd hybrid fascism thirdworldism nonarab minorities baathruled countries kurds often faced discrimination worse baathists came power coups syria iraq 1960s ironically baath oneparty state became vehicle wellorganized minorities take government thus syria alawite shiites dominated baath regime 1970 whereas iraq control ruling baath party held sunni clan tikrit saddam hussein syrias baath party lasted long attracted loyalty many syrians decades part aided syrias transition rural peasant country urban one carried land reform redistributed land peasants liquidated old biglandlord class baathists built dams irrigation works farmers earning gratitude support many rural sunni clans largely rural depot towns deraa south near jordanian border among biggest beneficiaries baath programs known strong party backers producing several high regime officials officers rural syria prolonged severe drought baath government good decade managing water resources rural sunni clans suffered water crisis majority syrians live towns cities needs different farming parents baath partys reduction fuel subsidies encouragement unaccountable big business angered urban population policies pushed international banks elites generally referred neoliberalism largely sunni towns seen high unemployment especially slums outskirts full former farmworkers forced seek jobs cities often unsuccessfully heart syrian crisis conflict pits urban metropolises damascus aleppo latakia benefit government largesse mediumsize cities rural towns suffered drought neoliberal policies happens divide also aligns unevenly sectarian cleavages provincial cities towns mostly religiously conservative sunni bigcities bastions minority power secular sunni business classes dependent regime syrian governments resort alawite death squads recent weeks however threatened bigcity alliance allowed baath survive sight sunni women children massacred shabiha houla mazraat alqubair drove sunni shopkeepers capital instigate general strike protests small insurgencies taking place even damascus regime bashar assad squandered whatever good rural smalltown syria heavyhanded repression protests among remaining assets support christian alawi secular sunni middle classes large cities groups fear rise sunni fundamentalism disturbed decline security property benefit baath government licenses contracts deployment shabiha death squads however clearly pushed many former supporters opposition regime threatening public security fanning flames sectarian hatred syrian revolution finally succeeds baath regime betrayed commitments secularism socialism public order becoming eyes public another sectarian mafia | 612 |
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>at least ten Indians are (to be) killed for each white life lost.You should not allow the troops to settle down on the defensive but carry the war to the Indian camps, where the women and children arethe truth should be ascertained and reported, but should not delay the punishment of the Indians as a people. It is not necessary to find the very men who committed the acts, but destroy all of the same breed.</p>
<p>-U.S. Major General William T. Sherman, 1866</p>
<p>27 February 1991: Oxford, Ohio.</p>
<p>This morning I woke to a winter wonderland, nice clean snow, and that silence that snow seems to effect. Now, a few hours later, the temperature has risen, and a steady rain is coming down. The snow is nearly all gone — just a few patches here and there. The sky is stern, but the air is cold and clean.</p>
<p>I heard on the news that the smoke from the oil fires in Kuwait was seeding clouds and bringing down torrential rain — black rain. The smell of oil. I smiled when I heard the description. I never knew the smell of air without oil until I left Oklahoma when I was 21. For a long time I missed the odor. Even now when I drive by Hercules, outside San Francisco, or down through Bakersfield or Long Beach, or through Houston or Lake Charles, as I just did in January, I catch a waft of oil in the air and feel a warm fluid flow through me, followed instantly by a sharp pain. Memories of childhood are like that, especially a childhood such as mine in rural western Oklahoma, my dad driving a Mobil truck. The SOHIO oil pipeline was our main diversion as children; I think we believed it had been put there for children to play on.</p>
<p>This morning, I thought about the children of the Persian Gulf, of Arab children, the poor ones, and the children of those scared-looking Filipina servants. I suppose the smell of oil seems like a natural phenomenon to them, too, and the pipeline is about their only diversion. Unless you count war, and the smell of gunpowder.</p>
<p>William Appleman Williams, the late historian, described American imperialism as “a strategy of annihilation unto unconditional surrender.” Some of us used to know that, during the Vietnam War. Did we think it had gone away, evaporated? Maybe we bought into the “superpower” myth, which reasoned that once one “empire” collapsed or cried Uncle, the other would follow suit. Maybe we forgot what we should have known: that the United States of America has been imperialistic from its founding, and is the principal heir to the historical legacy of imperialism. “We Americans,” said Williams, “have produced very, very few anti-imperialists. Out idiom has been empire, and so the primary division was and remains between the soft and the hard.”</p>
<p>SMART BOMBS: I have been reading more than I ever thought possible about the machinery of war. One commentary in particular struck me: “It is difficult to imagine the scale of the air war because it is unprecedented in human history… Not only is the air war distant and remote, and much of it secret, but we have neither the experience nor the language to grasp it… Since the technology of the air war is always developing and since much of it is covered with secrecy, the public is never aware of the newest lethal systems being prepared or used… The importance of reducing American ground casualties is one of the key arguments used to support the electronic battlefield… [that] even further depersonalizes a depersonalized war.”</p>
<p>This may sound like a recent report, but it is not, It is about the war in Southeast Asia, circa 1971, from Tom Hayden’s The Love of Possession is a Disease with Them. Depressingly, the secrecy surrounding such bombing 20 years ago was not present in the Gulf war. Rather, during the six weeks of nonstop bombing of Iraq, each day in press briefings U.S. military commanders reported, openly and without embarrassment, and without challenge from the press corps or negative public reaction, on the use of napalm and fragmentation bombs, on B-52 carpet-bombing, day after day, week after week.</p>
<p>In interviews after the war, B-52 pilots were excited by their success. “We rediscovered high-level bombing,” Col. Randall E. Wooten told the New York Times. In 19 days, the 70 B-52s dropped more than 1,158 tons of bombs, including anti-personnel cluster bomb units. “Rolling Thunder” is what they called B-52 carpet-bombing in Vietnam. And, after two weeks of delivering “smart” bombs and cruise missiles, the military turned to Rolling Thunder in Iraq. They did it to create terror. It was the Americans, in front of their televisions, who were impressed with “smart” bombs, not the Iraqis. Terror, extreme exemplary violence, was necessary to annihilate unto unconditional surrender.</p>
<p>INDIAN COUNTRY: On February 19, Brigadier General Richard Neal, briefing reporters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, stated that the U.S. military wanted to be certain of speedy victory once they committed land forces to “Indian Country.” The following day, in a little-publicized statement of protest, the National Congress of American Indians pointed out that 15,000 Native Americans were serving as combat troops in the Gulf.</p>
<p>But the term “Indian Country” is not merely an insensitive racial slur to indicate the enemy, tastelessly employed by accident. (Neither Neal nor any other military authority has apologized for the statement.). “Indian Country” is a military term of trade, a technical term, such as “collateral damage” and “ordnance,” which appears in military training manuals and is used on a regular basis. “Indian Country” is the military term for “behind enemy lines.” Its current use should serve to remind us of the origins and development of the U.S. military, as well as the nature of our political and social history: annihilation unto unconditional surrender. The historical context is, I think, essential to understanding the present war, and the love of the war we are witnessing.</p>
<p>When the redundant “ground war” against Iraq was begun, at the front of the miles of heavy metal killing machines were armored scouting vehicles of the Second Armored Calvary Regiment (ACR), a self-contained elite unit that was made famous by being at the head of Patton’s Third Army when it crossed Europe during World War II. In the Gulf war, the ACR played the role of chief scouts for the U.S. Seventh Corps. A retired commander of the ACR proudly told his TV interviewer that the Second ACR was formed in the 1830s to fight the Seminoles, and that it had its first great victory when it finally defeated the Seminoles in the Florida Everglades in 1836. I do not think putting the Second ACR in front of the ground assault on Iraq was an accident. It was just another Indian war in the U.S. military tradition of annihilation unto unconditional surrender.</p>
<p>The Ohio Valley is a strange place to be during the Gulf war and the orgy of patriotism. As an historian, I feel I am almost reliving that period two centuries ago when U.S. imperialism was cast in blood, and when annihilation unto unconditional surrender was first employed by the U.S.A., just down the road from where I am, at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.</p>
<p>In the late 1780s, Native Nations, led by Joseph Brant (Mohawk), Little Turtle (of the Miami Nation, after which this university is named), Blue Jacket (Shawnee) and others, had launched a series of attacks against encroaching Euroamerican settlers across Indiana, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania. In September, 1790, a force of 1,500 soldiers was sent by President/General Washington to silence Native resistance to occupation and colonization, but the Native guerrilla fighters ambushed them in northwestern Ohio, killing two hundred soldiers. The following year, Washington sent six thousand troops who met a similar fate.</p>
<p>The Native alliance was able to clear the entire Ohio area of the colonizers. But Washington was determined to crush Native resistance. In the autumn of 1793, General Anthony Wayne led a third army of conquest into Ohio. Using a scorched-earth strategy, the U.S. forces overwhelmed the two thousand resistance fighters and forced the signing of an agreement ceding the entire southern two-thirds of Ohio.</p>
<p>Subsequently, the U.S. military hammered away, leveling Native towns, burning crops, reducing the Shawnee and the Delaware, the Miami and the Wyandotte. In 1809 (Everything at Miami University dates back to 1809, when the university was founded), under the Treaty of Fort Wayne, the U.S. opened three million acres of Delaware and Pottawatomie land in Indiana to settlement. (If you identify the names of these Native Nations with Oklahoma, you are correct; the war refugees were forcibly deported to Oklahoma territory).</p>
<p>Out of the carnage and ruins was born an incomparable liberation movement, led by Tecumseh, the Ho Chi Minh of North America. In 1809, Tecumseh, and his brother, Elskwatawa, of the Shawnee Nation, began to travel among the Native villages of all the Nations. They warned of their common threat and called for an alliance against the invaders. Their headquarters became the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Allegheny Mountains to the Mississippi. Tecumseh denounced the United States as wicked and corrupt, a source of evil.</p>
<p>In 1811, William Henry Harrison, governor of the U.S.-claimed “Indiana Territory,” organized a thousand mercenaries with full authority from the Secretary of War to do whatever was necessary to wipe out the movement. The mercenaries attacked the Native headquarters and burned it to the ground, but most escaped and set the region on fire for several months. At a fierce engagement near Detroit, at the “Battle of the Thames,” as it is called in U.S. military annals, Tecumseh fell.</p>
<p>The Native alliance shifted its theater of operation to the Southeast, under Creek Nation leadership. General Andrew Jackson headed the Tennessee militia, another mercenary outfit, “panting for the orders of our government to punish a ruthless foe,” as Jackson put it in 1808. (One of his officers, Davy Crockett, would later be a mercenary on behalf of imperialism in Mexico and die at the Alamo.) By 1814, Jackson’s scorched-earth campaigns and cannon had destroyed the southeast nations’ farmlands and food supplies and reduced their numbers by slaughtering women and children in the villages. Jackson seized 22 million acres of Creek land, nearly two-thirds of their nation.</p>
<p>The warriors from all the nations allied in resistance, along with thousands of Africans who had escaped slavery, moved into the Florida Everglades, then Spanish territory. The First Seminole War began in 1818. The following year, the U.S. annexed Spanish Florida and claimed to be fighting terrorists. The Seminole Nation is a nation born in struggle. “Seminole” means rebel in the Creek (Muskogee) language, which was the common language of that new people. The Seminoles were never defeated and never signed a treaty, but after the third war, in 1836, the U.S. stopped fighting them. By then, Jackson was president and had dissolved Native title in the Southeast and overridden the Supreme Court’s decision to prohibit U.S. settlement in Cherokee territory. The Nations east of the Mississippi were forced to relocate to Oklahoma.</p>
<p>It was here–in the Ohio Valley, the “old Northwest”–that the U.S. military was formed, in five decades of unrelenting war, of annihilation unto unconditional surrender. It was here that U.S. imperialism was born and its ideology fixed, and that U.S. nationalism was defined, inseparable from imperialism.</p>
<p>TOUGH LOVE: I kept hoping we would lose the war. Of course, it was only a far-fetched dream, the possibility of losing the war in the Gulf. I never really had any confidence in that result. Yet, I kept hoping that Allah, or God, or Fate, or the Goddess, or the Force, maybe Martians, maybe even Soviets, would intervene and make the impossible, possible. David and Goliath, something definitive to prove that might does not make right, to prove that the only solution to conflict is dialog and cooperation, to put a brake on this tendency to annihilate unto unconditional surrender.</p>
<p>Even if my dream of losing had come true, it would have come late, maybe too late. Our last opportunity to have changed course, perhaps, was the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. The Iranians were demanding an international tribunal to investigate U.S. war crimes related to the CIA role in forming and maintaining SAVAK, the Shah of Iran’s murderous secret police. Of course, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were wrong to occupy an embassy and seize diplomats, and the U.S. took Iran to the World Court and won the case. Yet, just imagine, what if President Carter had gone on television in 1980, preempting Gorbachev’s call to a new order of cooperation, disarmament and international law, to tell us the truth: that the Iranians did not lie in their accusations, that we apologize, that it was wrong to overthrow their government, that it was wrong to prop up a decadent monarch and train his secret police, that our government renounced past invasions, interventions, toppling leaders, not only in Iran, but in North American Native Nations, in Mexico over and over, taking half the country, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Greece, Cuba, and practically every other nook and cranny of the world, that we would never behave that way again, that we would lift strangling embargoes against Vietnam and Cuba. What if? Instead, from the Carter era, we have the neutron bomb, the Stealth bomber, the Cruise missile, and smarter weapons than ever before. Just consider that fateful second half of 1980. In August, at the U.N. Special Session on Development, the Carter administration sent a low level delegation to announce that the New International Economic Order was dead in the water. In October, Iraq, acting as a U.S. client, attacked Iran, initiating eight years of war, leaving millions dead and maimed. In November, Reagan was elected. In December, the entire Salvadoran democratic opposition leadership was assassinated and four U.S. churchwomen were brutally murdered.</p>
<p>A strategy of annihilation unto unconditional surrender.” So, the imperial policy of the U.S. continues in the present situation. Extreme exemplary violence was the rationale behind the cruel aerial bombing of Iraq every minute, twenty-four hours a day, for six weeks. How many times did we hear authority figures (mostly old white men) tell us that we would not have to act as world policeman and do future wars, that the treatment of Iraq would show other would-be wrong-doers the price of errant behavior. Is not that the philosophy behind “tough love?”</p>
<p>In Iraqi officers’ quarters in Kuwait City, the U.S. Special Forces found pigeons in cages and notes in Arabic strewn over a desk, which they interpreted to mean that the Iraqi commanders were communicating with their troops, and even with Baghdad, by carrier pigeons.</p>
<p>Now we are at the heroic stage — welcome the warriors home, honor them, not like Vietnam. High tech soldiers fighting an army that communicated by carrier pigeons. Something to be proud of.</p>
<p>In December, I heard a Vietnam vet (a peace activist) say that only permanent peace could vindicate 58,000 dead American soldiers in Vietnam, and all the misery suffered by those who returned; only if Vietnam was truly the war to end all wars, revealing as it did the brutality and senselessness of war in general, and the wrongness of U.S. imperialism; only permanent peace, he said, could allow the Vietnam vet self-forgiveness and significance; that another genocidal war against a brown people would make him and other Vietnam vets murderers, not fallen innocents, victims of history. There was a plea in his voice, a heartbreaking crack. I thought of what he had said when I heard a soldier say to a reporter on National Public Radio, regarding waiting in the desert for the ground war to begin: “I’m so tired of just sitting around here that if I don’t get to kill somebody soon, I’m going to kill somebody.” [Published in CrossRoads, March 1991]</p>
<p>**************</p>
<p>Fast forward to March 2003. A rare and little read report from Associated Press correspondent, Ellen Nickmeyer, is telling. Once again we find the armored scouting vehicles and their troops, reenacting its bloody and imperialist history:</p>
<p>March 19, 2003: NEAR THE IRAQI DESERT, KUWAIT (AP)</p>
<p>Tank crews from the Alpha Company 4th Battalion 64 Armor Regiment perform a “Seminole Indian war dance” before convoying to a position near the Iraqi border Wednesday, March 19, 2003.</p>
<p>Capt. Phillip Wolford’s men leaped into the air and waved empty rifles in an impromptu desert war dance. Troops of the 101st Airborne Division ate a special pre-combat meal of lobster and steak. Soldiers sent e-mails to loved ones and savored what could be a last good shower for a long while.</p>
<p>To the ever-louder drone of warplanes, American soldiers in the northern desert that will serve as a launch pad for attacking Iraq engaged Wednesday in some final rituals before a war that seemed inevitable</p>
<p>Upon hearing of the attack, Marine Lance Cpl. Chad Borgmann, 23, of Sydney, Neb., said: “It’s about time. Today we’ve been here a month and a week. We’re ready to go.”</p>
<p>“It’s the right thing to do. We are going to be part of the liberation of Iraq,” said a fellow member of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Lance Cpl Daymond Geer, 20, of Sacramento, Calif.</p>
<p>With no sign that Saddam and his sons would heed Bush’s order to go into exile, the 20,000 men of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division had received some of the first orders Wednesday to line up near Iraq.</p>
<p>With thousands of M1A1 Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Humvees and trucks, the mechanized infantry unit known as the “Iron Fist” would be the only U.S. armored division in the fight, and would likely meet any Iraqi defenses head on.</p>
<p>“We will be entering Iraq as an army of liberation, not domination,” said Wolford [the commander], of Marysville, Ohio, directing the men of his 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment to take down the U.S. flags fluttering from their sand-colored tanks.</p>
<p>After a brief prayer, Wolford leaped into an impromptu desert war dance. Camouflaged soldiers joined him, jumping up and down in the sand, chanting and brandishing rifles carefully emptied of their rounds</p>
<p>About 300,000 troops–most of them from the United States, about 40,000 from Britain–were waiting Wednesday within striking distance of Iraq. Backing them were scores of attack helicopters and more than 1,000 airplanes.</p>
<p>ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ is a longtime activist, university professor, and writer. In addition to numerous scholarly books and articles she has published two historical memoirs, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859841627/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie</a> (Verso, 1997), and <a href="" type="internal">Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960­1975</a> (City Lights, 2002), and is working on a third, Norther: Re-Covering Nicaragua, about the 1980s contra war against the Sandinistas.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | 160 least ten indians killed white life lostyou allow troops settle defensive carry war indian camps women children arethe truth ascertained reported delay punishment indians people necessary find men committed acts destroy breed us major general william sherman 1866 27 february 1991 oxford ohio morning woke winter wonderland nice clean snow silence snow seems effect hours later temperature risen steady rain coming snow nearly gone patches sky stern air cold clean heard news smoke oil fires kuwait seeding clouds bringing torrential rain black rain smell oil smiled heard description never knew smell air without oil left oklahoma 21 long time missed odor even drive hercules outside san francisco bakersfield long beach houston lake charles january catch waft oil air feel warm fluid flow followed instantly sharp pain memories childhood like especially childhood mine rural western oklahoma dad driving mobil truck sohio oil pipeline main diversion children think believed put children play morning thought children persian gulf arab children poor ones children scaredlooking filipina servants suppose smell oil seems like natural phenomenon pipeline diversion unless count war smell gunpowder william appleman williams late historian described american imperialism strategy annihilation unto unconditional surrender us used know vietnam war think gone away evaporated maybe bought superpower myth reasoned one empire collapsed cried uncle would follow suit maybe forgot known united states america imperialistic founding principal heir historical legacy imperialism americans said williams produced antiimperialists idiom empire primary division remains soft hard smart bombs reading ever thought possible machinery war one commentary particular struck difficult imagine scale air war unprecedented human history air war distant remote much secret neither experience language grasp since technology air war always developing since much covered secrecy public never aware newest lethal systems prepared used importance reducing american ground casualties one key arguments used support electronic battlefield even depersonalizes depersonalized war may sound like recent report war southeast asia circa 1971 tom haydens love possession disease depressingly secrecy surrounding bombing 20 years ago present gulf war rather six weeks nonstop bombing iraq day press briefings us military commanders reported openly without embarrassment without challenge press corps negative public reaction use napalm fragmentation bombs b52 carpetbombing day day week week interviews war b52 pilots excited success rediscovered highlevel bombing col randall e wooten told new york times 19 days 70 b52s dropped 1158 tons bombs including antipersonnel cluster bomb units rolling thunder called b52 carpetbombing vietnam two weeks delivering smart bombs cruise missiles military turned rolling thunder iraq create terror americans front televisions impressed smart bombs iraqis terror extreme exemplary violence necessary annihilate unto unconditional surrender indian country february 19 brigadier general richard neal briefing reporters riyadh saudi arabia stated us military wanted certain speedy victory committed land forces indian country following day littlepublicized statement protest national congress american indians pointed 15000 native americans serving combat troops gulf term indian country merely insensitive racial slur indicate enemy tastelessly employed accident neither neal military authority apologized statement indian country military term trade technical term collateral damage ordnance appears military training manuals used regular basis indian country military term behind enemy lines current use serve remind us origins development us military well nature political social history annihilation unto unconditional surrender historical context think essential understanding present war love war witnessing redundant ground war iraq begun front miles heavy metal killing machines armored scouting vehicles second armored calvary regiment acr selfcontained elite unit made famous head pattons third army crossed europe world war ii gulf war acr played role chief scouts us seventh corps retired commander acr proudly told tv interviewer second acr formed 1830s fight seminoles first great victory finally defeated seminoles florida everglades 1836 think putting second acr front ground assault iraq accident another indian war us military tradition annihilation unto unconditional surrender ohio valley strange place gulf war orgy patriotism historian feel almost reliving period two centuries ago us imperialism cast blood annihilation unto unconditional surrender first employed usa road battle fallen timbers late 1780s native nations led joseph brant mohawk little turtle miami nation university named blue jacket shawnee others launched series attacks encroaching euroamerican settlers across indiana ohio western pennsylvania september 1790 force 1500 soldiers sent presidentgeneral washington silence native resistance occupation colonization native guerrilla fighters ambushed northwestern ohio killing two hundred soldiers following year washington sent six thousand troops met similar fate native alliance able clear entire ohio area colonizers washington determined crush native resistance autumn 1793 general anthony wayne led third army conquest ohio using scorchedearth strategy us forces overwhelmed two thousand resistance fighters forced signing agreement ceding entire southern twothirds ohio subsequently us military hammered away leveling native towns burning crops reducing shawnee delaware miami wyandotte 1809 everything miami university dates back 1809 university founded treaty fort wayne us opened three million acres delaware pottawatomie land indiana settlement identify names native nations oklahoma correct war refugees forcibly deported oklahoma territory carnage ruins born incomparable liberation movement led tecumseh ho chi minh north america 1809 tecumseh brother elskwatawa shawnee nation began travel among native villages nations warned common threat called alliance invaders headquarters became great lakes gulf mexico allegheny mountains mississippi tecumseh denounced united states wicked corrupt source evil 1811 william henry harrison governor usclaimed indiana territory organized thousand mercenaries full authority secretary war whatever necessary wipe movement mercenaries attacked native headquarters burned ground escaped set region fire several months fierce engagement near detroit battle thames called us military annals tecumseh fell native alliance shifted theater operation southeast creek nation leadership general andrew jackson headed tennessee militia another mercenary outfit panting orders government punish ruthless foe jackson put 1808 one officers davy crockett would later mercenary behalf imperialism mexico die alamo 1814 jacksons scorchedearth campaigns cannon destroyed southeast nations farmlands food supplies reduced numbers slaughtering women children villages jackson seized 22 million acres creek land nearly twothirds nation warriors nations allied resistance along thousands africans escaped slavery moved florida everglades spanish territory first seminole war began 1818 following year us annexed spanish florida claimed fighting terrorists seminole nation nation born struggle seminole means rebel creek muskogee language common language new people seminoles never defeated never signed treaty third war 1836 us stopped fighting jackson president dissolved native title southeast overridden supreme courts decision prohibit us settlement cherokee territory nations east mississippi forced relocate oklahoma herein ohio valley old northwestthat us military formed five decades unrelenting war annihilation unto unconditional surrender us imperialism born ideology fixed us nationalism defined inseparable imperialism tough love kept hoping would lose war course farfetched dream possibility losing war gulf never really confidence result yet kept hoping allah god fate goddess force maybe martians maybe even soviets would intervene make impossible possible david goliath something definitive prove might make right prove solution conflict dialog cooperation put brake tendency annihilate unto unconditional surrender even dream losing come true would come late maybe late last opportunity changed course perhaps 1979 iranian hostage crisis iranians demanding international tribunal investigate us war crimes related cia role forming maintaining savak shah irans murderous secret police course iranian revolutionary guards wrong occupy embassy seize diplomats us took iran world court case yet imagine president carter gone television 1980 preempting gorbachevs call new order cooperation disarmament international law tell us truth iranians lie accusations apologize wrong overthrow government wrong prop decadent monarch train secret police government renounced past invasions interventions toppling leaders iran north american native nations mexico taking half country guatemala el salvador nicaragua chile uruguay argentina vietnam laos cambodia greece cuba practically every nook cranny world would never behave way would lift strangling embargoes vietnam cuba instead carter era neutron bomb stealth bomber cruise missile smarter weapons ever consider fateful second half 1980 august un special session development carter administration sent low level delegation announce new international economic order dead water october iraq acting us client attacked iran initiating eight years war leaving millions dead maimed november reagan elected december entire salvadoran democratic opposition leadership assassinated four us churchwomen brutally murdered strategy annihilation unto unconditional surrender imperial policy us continues present situation extreme exemplary violence rationale behind cruel aerial bombing iraq every minute twentyfour hours day six weeks many times hear authority figures mostly old white men tell us would act world policeman future wars treatment iraq would show wouldbe wrongdoers price errant behavior philosophy behind tough love iraqi officers quarters kuwait city us special forces found pigeons cages notes arabic strewn desk interpreted mean iraqi commanders communicating troops even baghdad carrier pigeons heroic stage welcome warriors home honor like vietnam high tech soldiers fighting army communicated carrier pigeons something proud december heard vietnam vet peace activist say permanent peace could vindicate 58000 dead american soldiers vietnam misery suffered returned vietnam truly war end wars revealing brutality senselessness war general wrongness us imperialism permanent peace said could allow vietnam vet selfforgiveness significance another genocidal war brown people would make vietnam vets murderers fallen innocents victims history plea voice heartbreaking crack thought said heard soldier say reporter national public radio regarding waiting desert ground war begin im tired sitting around dont get kill somebody soon im going kill somebody published crossroads march 1991 fast forward march 2003 rare little read report associated press correspondent ellen nickmeyer telling find armored scouting vehicles troops reenacting bloody imperialist history march 19 2003 near iraqi desert kuwait ap tank crews alpha company 4th battalion 64 armor regiment perform seminole indian war dance convoying position near iraqi border wednesday march 19 2003 capt phillip wolfords men leaped air waved empty rifles impromptu desert war dance troops 101st airborne division ate special precombat meal lobster steak soldiers sent emails loved ones savored could last good shower long everlouder drone warplanes american soldiers northern desert serve launch pad attacking iraq engaged wednesday final rituals war seemed inevitable upon hearing attack marine lance cpl chad borgmann 23 sydney neb said time today weve month week ready go right thing going part liberation iraq said fellow member 15th marine expeditionary unit lance cpl daymond geer 20 sacramento calif sign saddam sons would heed bushs order go exile 20000 men armys 3rd infantry division received first orders wednesday line near iraq thousands m1a1 abrams tanks bradley fighting vehicles humvees trucks mechanized infantry unit known iron fist would us armored division fight would likely meet iraqi defenses head entering iraq army liberation domination said wolford commander marysville ohio directing men 4th battalion 64th armor regiment take us flags fluttering sandcolored tanks brief prayer wolford leaped impromptu desert war dance camouflaged soldiers joined jumping sand chanting brandishing rifles carefully emptied rounds 300000 troopsmost united states 40000 britainwere waiting wednesday within striking distance iraq backing scores attack helicopters 1000 airplanes roxanne dunbarortiz longtime activist university professor writer addition numerous scholarly books articles published two historical memoirs red dirt growing okie verso 1997 outlaw woman memoir war years 19601975 city lights 2002 working third norther recovering nicaragua 1980s contra war sandinistas 160 | 1,800 |
<p>Announcing the arrest last Wednesday of suspects in two drugs-for-weapons deals, Attorney General John Ashcroft declared, “The war on terrorism has been joined with the war on illegal drug use.” One could almost hear him lick his lips, savoring the thought of it.</p>
<p>Since the September 11 attacks last year, the drug war has ceded priority to the war on terrorism. Government funding that previously went toward counter-narcotics efforts has been reallocated to fighting terror; manpower has been reassigned, including several hundred FBI agents; and public attention has shifted.</p>
<p>Never notable for its success, the drug war, juxtaposed against the more menacing threat of terrorism, has began to seem like a dispensable extravagance.</p>
<p>Ashcroft would no doubt be the last person to acknowledge this. When he was appointed Attorney General, he vowed to reinvigorate the country’s counter-drug efforts. “I want to escalate the war on drugs. I want to renew it. I want to refresh it, relaunch it, if you will,” said Ashcroft, in his first interview upon taking office. His words were buttressed by his record in the U.S. Senate, where he was a drearily reliable proponent of tough anti-drug policies and long prison sentences for drug offenders.</p>
<p>It must have been straight away obvious, in the wake of September 11, that the best way to revive the drug war would be to piggyback it on the war against terrorism. That Ashcroft would seek to join the two was probably a given.</p>
<p>For now, the pressing question is this: What does the proclaimed merger entail? With drugs and terror conjoined, can we expect Bolivian coca growers to swell the ever-growing crowd of “enemy combatants” on Guantanamo? Will drug couriers face “targeted killing,” like the missile strike carried out last week in Yemen? Or is Ashcroft’s latest gambit just a way to update the same old formula for filling up prisons, discouraging effective drug treatment, and ruining lives?</p>
<p>War as War, or as Metaphor</p>
<p>Given the circumstances of Ashcroft’s announcement–involving arrests, criminal charges, and indictments–it would be premature to predict an end to the traditional law enforcement approach to the drug “war.” (Yes, the mocking quotes are still appropriate.) But the possibility of using more war-like tactics in confronting drugs and terror is worth examining.</p>
<p>Before September 11, loose references to “war” made by people like our Attorney General could be safely understood, and decoded, as a sort of linguistic convention. War, as declared by such generals, was simply a shorthand way of saying: we’re really serious, we’re going to put a lot of resources into this, and we’re going to succeed. Indeed, in more optimistic times, the United States even declared war on poverty–and no one really thought we would kill the poor.</p>
<p>Even though the war on terrorism was declared long before 2001, the United States continued to prosecute terrorists as criminals, fill Guantanamo with Haitians instead of Arabs, and focus defense thinking on missile shields rather than on airport security. War was a metaphor in those days, not a literal fact.</p>
<p>That era has passed. The war on terrorism may still be a metaphor, but it is now a metaphor with an army behind it. Putting aside, for the moment, the question of whether the government is correct to characterize the anti-terrorism effort as a war that justifies a military approach, it is indisputable that the tactics have changed.</p>
<p>There is, to begin with, the armed conflict in Afghanistan, although that seems to be winding down dramatically. But Bush Administration officials insist, at any rate, that the relevant war is not the Afghan war, which they see as just a battlefield, but rather the much larger–indeed, global–war on terrorism. It is for that reason that even if Afghanistan quiets down and ultimately evolves into a Central Asian Switzerland, the 625 detainees held on Guantanamo as “enemy combatants” cannot expect to claim their freedom.</p>
<p>But at least they’re still alive, the detainees might tell themselves, were they to know about the Bush Administration’s missile strike against six alleged terrorists in Yemen last week. (The detainees have probably not thought to celebrate their good fortune, however, because they have absolutely no access to news.)</p>
<p>The Yemen group of “enemy combatants,” caught driving across the desert in a car, even included a U.S. citizen: a dead version of Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi. (Like the latter two “enemy combatants,” he paid a price for his alleged Al Qaeda links without ever having been put on trial.) According to news accounts, moreover, the Yemen air strike will almost certainly be followed by others.</p>
<p>Fighting the Drug War with Arrests or with Missiles?</p>
<p>Whether the drug war will ever be fought using such overtly military methods remains to be seen. Despite Ashcroft’s martial rhetoric, I do not really expect to see a fundamental change in the existing approach. His words are part of a strategy for preserving the status quo, not for transforming it.</p>
<p>And even in the past, of course, the drug “war” has occasionally lived up to its moniker. Just over a decade ago, the U.S. invaded Panama in order to bring back military strongman Manuel Noriega, now a drug war prisoner in Florida.</p>
<p>In Peru, another drug war battleground, the U.S. has sponsored air interdiction operations by which planes suspected of drug smuggling are shot down if the pilots do not respond to calls to land. An American missionary and her seven-month-old daughter were killed last year–becoming real civilian casualties of a metaphorical war–in one such operation. The small Cessna that transported them, flown by the woman’s husband, who survived the crash, was mistakenly downed after a CIA surveillance plane called in a Peruvian jet to intercept it.</p>
<p>A Losing War</p>
<p>But let’s stick with the assumption that Ashcroft’s repackaging of the drug war is more about preserving counter-narcotics funding, and gaining public support, than it is about adopting military tactics. What is objectionable about that?</p>
<p>Without attempting a comprehensive list of the drug war’s failures, suffice to say that its impact in reducing the flow of drugs has been negligible. By Ashcroft’s own estimation, Americans spend about $64 billion annually on illegal drugs. Overall drug use has hardly changed since the mid-1980s, and the price of most drugs has fallen. Billions of dollars spent, millions of people incarcerated, and no results–it’s a dismal picture.</p>
<p>The drug-trafficking-and-terrorism angle, moreover, has its own complications. Ashcroft may be factually correct in spotting a link between the two activities, but he should think about why this is so. By making the drug trade illegal, the government ensures that only criminal organizations profit from it. If drugs were decriminalized, then traffickers would have to fall back on other criminal enterprises–immigrant-smuggling, for example, or the illegal arms trade.</p>
<p>Oh yes, the arms trade. That reminds me of one final reason to doubt the sincerity of Ashcroft’s drug-terror reasoning. Recall that the case in which Ashcroft made his announcement about drugs and terror actually involved a drugs-for-weapons scheme, with the weapons meant for two groups on the official U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.</p>
<p>Here is an inventory of the weaponry that the defendants were hoping to buy: 9,000 assault rifles, including AK-47 submachine guns and sniper rifles; 300 pistols; approximately 53 million rounds of various types of ammunition; rocket-propelled grenade launchers and almost 300,000 grenades; and several shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. In short, a very scary bag of loot – scarier, to me, than the hashish and opium that was going to be exchanged for it.</p>
<p>So can somebody please explain why Ashcroft isn’t trumpeting his office’s efforts to stem the flow of illegal arms?</p>
<p>End the Drug War</p>
<p>The drug war and the war on terrorism do resemble each other in important ways, although not those that Ashcroft emphasizes. Both efforts are open-ended, or maybe never-ending. Both lend themselves to broad extensions of government power, and thus, if not carefully controlled, both can lead to violations of fundamental rights. But in trying to combat terrorism the government has at least chosen a worthwhile opponent.</p>
<p>The drug war is not just a conspicuously unsuccessful war, it is a misguided one. Reviving it under the guise of fighting terrorism–and possibly making it more war-like in the process–will only make matters worse.</p>
<p>JOANNE MARINER is a human rights attorney in New York.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | announcing arrest last wednesday suspects two drugsforweapons deals attorney general john ashcroft declared war terrorism joined war illegal drug use one could almost hear lick lips savoring thought since september 11 attacks last year drug war ceded priority war terrorism government funding previously went toward counternarcotics efforts reallocated fighting terror manpower reassigned including several hundred fbi agents public attention shifted never notable success drug war juxtaposed menacing threat terrorism began seem like dispensable extravagance ashcroft would doubt last person acknowledge appointed attorney general vowed reinvigorate countrys counterdrug efforts want escalate war drugs want renew want refresh relaunch said ashcroft first interview upon taking office words buttressed record us senate drearily reliable proponent tough antidrug policies long prison sentences drug offenders must straight away obvious wake september 11 best way revive drug war would piggyback war terrorism ashcroft would seek join two probably given pressing question proclaimed merger entail drugs terror conjoined expect bolivian coca growers swell evergrowing crowd enemy combatants guantanamo drug couriers face targeted killing like missile strike carried last week yemen ashcrofts latest gambit way update old formula filling prisons discouraging effective drug treatment ruining lives war war metaphor given circumstances ashcrofts announcementinvolving arrests criminal charges indictmentsit would premature predict end traditional law enforcement approach drug war yes mocking quotes still appropriate possibility using warlike tactics confronting drugs terror worth examining september 11 loose references war made people like attorney general could safely understood decoded sort linguistic convention war declared generals simply shorthand way saying really serious going put lot resources going succeed indeed optimistic times united states even declared war povertyand one really thought would kill poor even though war terrorism declared long 2001 united states continued prosecute terrorists criminals fill guantanamo haitians instead arabs focus defense thinking missile shields rather airport security war metaphor days literal fact era passed war terrorism may still metaphor metaphor army behind putting aside moment question whether government correct characterize antiterrorism effort war justifies military approach indisputable tactics changed begin armed conflict afghanistan although seems winding dramatically bush administration officials insist rate relevant war afghan war see battlefield rather much largerindeed globalwar terrorism reason even afghanistan quiets ultimately evolves central asian switzerland 625 detainees held guantanamo enemy combatants expect claim freedom least theyre still alive detainees might tell know bush administrations missile strike six alleged terrorists yemen last week detainees probably thought celebrate good fortune however absolutely access news yemen group enemy combatants caught driving across desert car even included us citizen dead version jose padilla yaser hamdi like latter two enemy combatants paid price alleged al qaeda links without ever put trial according news accounts moreover yemen air strike almost certainly followed others fighting drug war arrests missiles whether drug war ever fought using overtly military methods remains seen despite ashcrofts martial rhetoric really expect see fundamental change existing approach words part strategy preserving status quo transforming even past course drug war occasionally lived moniker decade ago us invaded panama order bring back military strongman manuel noriega drug war prisoner florida peru another drug war battleground us sponsored air interdiction operations planes suspected drug smuggling shot pilots respond calls land american missionary sevenmonthold daughter killed last yearbecoming real civilian casualties metaphorical warin one operation small cessna transported flown womans husband survived crash mistakenly downed cia surveillance plane called peruvian jet intercept losing war lets stick assumption ashcrofts repackaging drug war preserving counternarcotics funding gaining public support adopting military tactics objectionable without attempting comprehensive list drug wars failures suffice say impact reducing flow drugs negligible ashcrofts estimation americans spend 64 billion annually illegal drugs overall drug use hardly changed since mid1980s price drugs fallen billions dollars spent millions people incarcerated resultsits dismal picture drugtraffickingandterrorism angle moreover complications ashcroft may factually correct spotting link two activities think making drug trade illegal government ensures criminal organizations profit drugs decriminalized traffickers would fall back criminal enterprisesimmigrantsmuggling example illegal arms trade oh yes arms trade reminds one final reason doubt sincerity ashcrofts drugterror reasoning recall case ashcroft made announcement drugs terror actually involved drugsforweapons scheme weapons meant two groups official us list foreign terrorist organizations inventory weaponry defendants hoping buy 9000 assault rifles including ak47 submachine guns sniper rifles 300 pistols approximately 53 million rounds various types ammunition rocketpropelled grenade launchers almost 300000 grenades several shoulderfired antiaircraft missiles short scary bag loot scarier hashish opium going exchanged somebody please explain ashcroft isnt trumpeting offices efforts stem flow illegal arms end drug war drug war war terrorism resemble important ways although ashcroft emphasizes efforts openended maybe neverending lend broad extensions government power thus carefully controlled lead violations fundamental rights trying combat terrorism government least chosen worthwhile opponent drug war conspicuously unsuccessful war misguided one reviving guise fighting terrorismand possibly making warlike processwill make matters worse joanne mariner human rights attorney new york 160 | 797 |
<p>The suspected assassination of yet another <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2012/01/11/bomb-kills-iranian-nuclear-scientist.html" type="external">scientist linked to Iran’s nuclear program</a> is renewing questions over whether such attempts will slow enrichment efforts, or push Iranian leaders to more aggressively pursue their nuclear ambitions.</p>
<p>But how is all this playing out in Iran?</p>
<p>On Wednesday, a Tehran bomb blast killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who served as deputy director of commercial affairs at the Natanz nuclear facility. According to official Iranian media, a man on a motorcycle stuck a magnetic bomb to Roshan’s car as the 32-year-old was leaving his home. Two men who were accompanying Roshan were also injured in the blast. It marks the seventh attempt on the lives of Iran’s nuclear-program employees and the sixth death.</p>
<p>Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton “categorically denied any U.S. involvement in any act of violence in Iran. “The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this,” stated Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council.</p>
<p>Iranian officials immediately <a href="/content/dailiybeast/articles/2012/01/11/the-endgame-behind-the-iranian-nuclear-scientist-assassinations.html" type="external">pointed the finger at the U.S. and Israel</a>. Just two months ago, when a deadly explosion at an Iranian missile complex caused the death of a top Iran commander and 16 others, a number of analysts did not rule out the possibility of foreign involvement and sabotage.</p>
<p>“Today on the nuclear energy scene, [the] U.S. and Zionism have chosen the lowest methods of blind assassination of our nuclear scientists, and think that with assassinating these scientists and making them martyrs they can prevent our nuclear advancement,” Rostam Ghasemi, Iran’s oil minister and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said Thursday. “The martyrdom of our nuclear scientists leads to further commitment of our people and scientists to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”</p>
<p>“I think the assassination of an Iranian citizen is a blatant act of terrorism perpetuated by experts in targeted assassinations, and it has to be categorically denounced,” Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University told The Daily Beast. “These scientists are national treasures. This is an egregious act of violation of many different rights, to infiltrate into a sovereign state and to assassinate its citizens.”</p>
<p>“The United Nations has to intervene. Any civilized country has to intervene. And the [Israelis] claim to be the only democracy in the region?! That’s insane!,” he added.</p>
<p>In the U.S., killing Iranian scientists in order to slow down Iran’s nuclear program has been a strategy advocated by a number of Republican presidential candidates.</p>
<p>At a campaign event in October, Rick Santorum endorsed the idea. “On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. <a href="http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-27/politics/30327433_1_nuclear-program-iranian-scientists-russian-scientists" type="external">I think that’s a wonderful thing, candidly.”</a> Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has also approved of the killing of Iranian scientists. But how might it affect Iran’s nuclear program?</p>
<p>“I don’t believe a program on such a large scale as Iran’s nuclear program is eliminated or slowed down as a result of the elimination of some individuals,” Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the former Tehran mayor and a close ally of reformist leader Mehdi Karroubi, told The Daily Beast. “It does have a psychological effect, but it will not have an impact in the nuclear program itself. Its psychological effect is not favorable, either, as people hate the perpetrators.”</p>
<p>“However way you look at terror, people hate it, no matter where in the world it happens, especially if an innocent young individual suffers this fate. This is what people oppose vehemently,” Karbaschi added.</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>A journalist in Tehran told The Daily Beast under the condition of anonymity that he was shocked when he heard news of the assassination. “When I talk to people, they feel insulted that a foreign state would come and murder an Iranian citizen to cheers and nods from others,” he said. “These assassinations are a great gift to the Iranian government and military, who can now push their agendas forward with them. The Iranian government could not be helped any better; it can now present its nuclear program as legitimate and to cry foul.”</p>
<p>Mohsen Sazegara, an influential opposition figure based in Washington who has advocated civil disobedience against the Iranian government, said that although American, British, and Israeli authorities deny any involvement in these operations, Tehran considers sabotage and the assassinations acts of Western <a href="/content/dailiybeast/articles/2012/01/11/who-is-killing-irans-bomb-makers.html" type="external">intelligence services and Israel’s Mossad</a>. He said such incidents are very telling about Iran.</p>
<p>“Observing all of this, more than anything else, Iranian people see the Iranian intelligence apparatus’s weakness,” said Sazegara. “The same Intelligence Ministry and [Revolutionary Guards] that on a daily basis arrest and suppress workers, teachers, students, journalists, and different groups of the society, are incapable of protecting top-secret facilities and their employees.”</p>
<p>But pro-democracy forces in Iran, which have been under extreme pressure since the disputed 2009 presidential election, say the assassinations are likely to backfire against the West—enhancing the military state by legitimizing the nuclear program in the eyes of the Iranian people. It doesn’t seem to matter to them if the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization, an opposition group (known as the MKO) which is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, is responsible, or the Israelis, or anyone else.</p>
<p>Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who served as vice president under President Mohammad Khatami and was imprisoned for several months after the 2009 elections, told The Daily Beast that people consider such acts outside the realm of capabilities of opposition groups like the MKO.</p>
<p>“This type of operation looks more like it was done by Israelis,” said Abtahi, adding, “Iranian people would consider such an action as an insult, and to be honest, it would create more legitimacy for the military powers inside Iran.”</p>
<p>“In Iran, there is solidarity about national assets and reactions to such actions are very negative,” he added. “Even if the nuclear program’s increasing costs had started to damage its legitimacy, this would increase its legitimacy. It would generate an even higher demand inside the country to pursue the program.”</p> | true | 4 | suspected assassination yet another scientist linked irans nuclear program renewing questions whether attempts slow enrichment efforts push iranian leaders aggressively pursue nuclear ambitions playing iran wednesday tehran bomb blast killed mostafa ahmadi roshan served deputy director commercial affairs natanz nuclear facility according official iranian media man motorcycle stuck magnetic bomb roshans car 32yearold leaving home two men accompanying roshan also injured blast marks seventh attempt lives irans nuclearprogram employees sixth death secretary state hillary rodham clinton categorically denied us involvement act violence iran united states absolutely nothing stated tommy vietor spokesman national security council iranian officials immediately pointed finger us israel two months ago deadly explosion iranian missile complex caused death top iran commander 16 others number analysts rule possibility foreign involvement sabotage today nuclear energy scene us zionism chosen lowest methods blind assassination nuclear scientists think assassinating scientists making martyrs prevent nuclear advancement rostam ghasemi irans oil minister former commander revolutionary guards said thursday martyrdom nuclear scientists leads commitment people scientists islamic republic iran think assassination iranian citizen blatant act terrorism perpetuated experts targeted assassinations categorically denounced hamid dabashi professor iranian studies columbia university told daily beast scientists national treasures egregious act violation many different rights infiltrate sovereign state assassinate citizens united nations intervene civilized country intervene israelis claim democracy region thats insane added us killing iranian scientists order slow irans nuclear program strategy advocated number republican presidential candidates campaign event october rick santorum endorsed idea occasion scientists working nuclear program iran turn dead think thats wonderful thing candidly former house speaker newt gingrich also approved killing iranian scientists might affect irans nuclear program dont believe program large scale irans nuclear program eliminated slowed result elimination individuals gholamhossein karbaschi former tehran mayor close ally reformist leader mehdi karroubi told daily beast psychological effect impact nuclear program psychological effect favorable either people hate perpetrators however way look terror people hate matter world happens especially innocent young individual suffers fate people oppose vehemently karbaschi added start finish day top stories daily beast speedy smart summary news need know nothing dont journalist tehran told daily beast condition anonymity shocked heard news assassination talk people feel insulted foreign state would come murder iranian citizen cheers nods others said assassinations great gift iranian government military push agendas forward iranian government could helped better present nuclear program legitimate cry foul mohsen sazegara influential opposition figure based washington advocated civil disobedience iranian government said although american british israeli authorities deny involvement operations tehran considers sabotage assassinations acts western intelligence services israels mossad said incidents telling iran observing anything else iranian people see iranian intelligence apparatuss weakness said sazegara intelligence ministry revolutionary guards daily basis arrest suppress workers teachers students journalists different groups society incapable protecting topsecret facilities employees prodemocracy forces iran extreme pressure since disputed 2009 presidential election say assassinations likely backfire westenhancing military state legitimizing nuclear program eyes iranian people doesnt seem matter mojahedine khalgh organization opposition group known mko state departments list terrorist organizations responsible israelis anyone else mohammad ali abtahi served vice president president mohammad khatami imprisoned several months 2009 elections told daily beast people consider acts outside realm capabilities opposition groups like mko type operation looks like done israelis said abtahi adding iranian people would consider action insult honest would create legitimacy military powers inside iran iran solidarity national assets reactions actions negative added even nuclear programs increasing costs started damage legitimacy would increase legitimacy would generate even higher demand inside country pursue program | 572 |
<p>When Senator Hillary Clinton voted on October 11, 2002, to turn over to President George W. Bush the power that the Constitution vested in her and congressional colleagues to decide whether or not to wage war – or, quoting House Joint Resolution 114, whether an attack on Iraq was “necessary and appropriate” – she appeared to have a conflict of interest:</p>
<p>Her husband, Bill, was of course the former chief of the executive branch. And during her eight years as first lady, Mrs. Clinton never objected to Bill’s eight wars, attacks, or interventions: in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and Yugoslavia. He bombed Iraq in 1993 soon after taking office, again in 1996, and from 1998 till he left office. For a time, he was dropping bombs on Iraqis and Yugoslavs simultaneously in 1999.</p>
<p>None of those acts of war were authorized by Congress. The House of Representatives even voted its opposition to the undeclared bombing war on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, i.e. Serbia and Montenegro (4-28-99). Bill paid no attention and carried on his one-sided warfare for eleven weeks.</p>
<p>Mrs. Clinton had been instrumental in persuading Bill to attack Yugoslavia, according to multiple writers. Biographer Gail Sheehy wrote in “Hillary’s Choice” (p. 345): “On March 21, 1999, Hillary expressed her views by phone to the president. ‘I urged him to bomb [Yugoslavia].’ ” Bill was indecisive. She invoked the Holocaust, alluding to claims of mass killings by Milosovic and his men, and asked, “What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?” (Originally it was to defend western Europe against a possible Soviet attack.) Days later the president gave the go-ahead for war, thereby usurping the constitutional prerogative of Congress.</p>
<p>The Milosovic-massacre tale (which Senator Clinton repeated in her 2002 Senate speech) was subsequently debunked by several European pathological teams. The Clinton-NATO air raids, however, killed a couple of thousand civilians. A year later Amnesty International charged that international law was violated by indiscriminate bombings.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Calls aggression defense</p>
<p>Speaking in behalf of the Iraq war resolution Senator Clinton praised her husband’s bombing of Iraq and argued that “undisputed” facts linked Saddam Hussein to weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons program, and to ties to Al-Qaeda. But such a contention was indeed disputed by facts presented by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, buried stories in the leading papers, and many Internet sites. She denied that the resolution amounted to a rush to war, though it came from the White House, which had already decided to wage war on Iraq.</p>
<p>When Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003, Senator Clinton called it defense. Even after the supposed facts about WMD and terrorist ties were exposed as monstrous lies, the senator defended her vote for war, never renouncing it. She claimed it was just to support negotiation, but the resolution said nothing about negotiation. And she claimed she had been given incorrect intelligence, but cited no details. She opposed any timetable for withdrawal and advocated more troops and permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.</p>
<p>As of last September, that supposed defensive war was estimated, by the British polling agency Opinion Research Business, to have taken 1.2 million Iraqi lives.</p>
<p>Even if the lies she fell for had been proven true, the senator’s lack of concern for international law would still stand revealed. The Charter of the United Nations, which as a U.S. treaty has the force of law, says (in Article 2): “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state….”</p>
<p>The North Atlantic Treaty – the basis for the organization that Bill Clinton, with his wife’s encouragement, perverted from a defensive to an aggressive force – echoes that principle (in Article 1): “The Parties undertake … to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, before there was a UN or a NATO, there was the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928, renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. It was used to convict Nazis of crimes against peace, and it remains in effect as a U.S. treaty.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Threatens Iran and others</p>
<p>Just as Senator Clinton accepted Bush and Cheney’s fiction about danger from Iraq and supported the 2003 aggression against that country, she tends to accept their drive for an encore against Iran. At Princeton University in January 2006, she said, “A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, its neighbors and beyond. The regime’s pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses.”</p>
<p>In her own, anti-Iranian rhetoric, she threatened a nation that had not attacked anyone for centuries and that – U.S. intelligence now states – had given up its atomic bomb program three years earlier: “We cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran — that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons.” Three months later, Bush used nearly the same expression when asked if he planned a nuclear attack on that country: “All options are on the table” (AP, 4-8-06).</p>
<p>Last September 26, Senator Clinton voted for a Senate resolution urging Bush to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a major branch of the Iranian armed forces, as a foreign terrorist organization. She has echoed the proofless Bush charges of support for Iraqi insurgents (mostly Sunni) by Iran (Shiite).</p>
<p>She has refused to rule out presidential use of nuclear weapons, notwithstanding the 1996 World Court ruling that use of the weapons violates international humanitarian law because they blindly strike civilians and military targets alike. And she voted to end restrictions on countries violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.</p>
<p>Senator Clinton has called for more toughness on Syria and leftist regimes in Latin America, supported arms and training for various repressive dictatorships, opposed bans on land mines and cluster-bomb exports, and advocated even more military spending than Bush requested. More contributions from war contractors have reached Hillary for President than any competing campaign.</p>
<p>The senator boasts of her experience. She is indeed experienced in jumping to bellicose conclusions on the basis of meager facts and false information. If she wins, I expect her to follow the pattern of husband Bill in shooting from the hip in actions abroad, to ignore both the Constitution and international law, and to try to prove that a woman president can be just as warlike as any man.</p>
<p>PAUL W. LOVINGER, of San Francisco, has been a journalist, author, and antiwar activist. He was a newspaper reporter and columnist for over 20 years. His last published book was “The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style.” He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | senator hillary clinton voted october 11 2002 turn president george w bush power constitution vested congressional colleagues decide whether wage war quoting house joint resolution 114 whether attack iraq necessary appropriate appeared conflict interest husband bill course former chief executive branch eight years first lady mrs clinton never objected bills eight wars attacks interventions afghanistan bosnia colombia haiti iraq somalia sudan yugoslavia bombed iraq 1993 soon taking office 1996 1998 till left office time dropping bombs iraqis yugoslavs simultaneously 1999 none acts war authorized congress house representatives even voted opposition undeclared bombing war federal republic yugoslavia ie serbia montenegro 42899 bill paid attention carried onesided warfare eleven weeks mrs clinton instrumental persuading bill attack yugoslavia according multiple writers biographer gail sheehy wrote hillarys choice p 345 march 21 1999 hillary expressed views phone president urged bomb yugoslavia bill indecisive invoked holocaust alluding claims mass killings milosovic men asked nato defend way life originally defend western europe possible soviet attack days later president gave goahead war thereby usurping constitutional prerogative congress milosovicmassacre tale senator clinton repeated 2002 senate speech subsequently debunked several european pathological teams clintonnato air raids however killed couple thousand civilians year later amnesty international charged international law violated indiscriminate bombings 160 calls aggression defense speaking behalf iraq war resolution senator clinton praised husbands bombing iraq argued undisputed facts linked saddam hussein weapons mass destruction including nuclear weapons program ties alqaeda contention indeed disputed facts presented international atomic energy agency knight ridder newspaper chain buried stories leading papers many internet sites denied resolution amounted rush war though came white house already decided wage war iraq bush invaded iraq march 2003 senator clinton called defense even supposed facts wmd terrorist ties exposed monstrous lies senator defended vote war never renouncing claimed support negotiation resolution said nothing negotiation claimed given incorrect intelligence cited details opposed timetable withdrawal advocated troops permanent us bases iraq last september supposed defensive war estimated british polling agency opinion research business taken 12 million iraqi lives even lies fell proven true senators lack concern international law would still stand revealed charter united nations us treaty force law says article 2 members shall refrain international relations threat use force territorial integrity political independence state north atlantic treaty basis organization bill clinton wifes encouragement perverted defensive aggressive force echoes principle article 1 parties undertake refrain international relations threat use force manner inconsistent purposes united nations furthermore un nato kelloggbriand peace pact 1928 renouncing war instrument national policy used convict nazis crimes peace remains effect us treaty 160 threatens iran others senator clinton accepted bush cheneys fiction danger iraq supported 2003 aggression country tends accept drive encore iran princeton university january 2006 said nuclear iran danger israel neighbors beyond regimes proterrorist antiamerican antiisrael rhetoric underscores urgency threat poses antiiranian rhetoric threatened nation attacked anyone centuries us intelligence states given atomic bomb program three years earlier take option table sending clear message current leadership iran permitted acquire nuclear weapons three months later bush used nearly expression asked planned nuclear attack country options table ap 4806 last september 26 senator clinton voted senate resolution urging bush designate islamic revolutionary guard corps major branch iranian armed forces foreign terrorist organization echoed proofless bush charges support iraqi insurgents mostly sunni iran shiite refused rule presidential use nuclear weapons notwithstanding 1996 world court ruling use weapons violates international humanitarian law blindly strike civilians military targets alike voted end restrictions countries violating nuclear nonproliferation treaty senator clinton called toughness syria leftist regimes latin america supported arms training various repressive dictatorships opposed bans land mines clusterbomb exports advocated even military spending bush requested contributions war contractors reached hillary president competing campaign senator boasts experience indeed experienced jumping bellicose conclusions basis meager facts false information wins expect follow pattern husband bill shooting hip actions abroad ignore constitution international law try prove woman president warlike man paul w lovinger san francisco journalist author antiwar activist newspaper reporter columnist 20 years last published book penguin dictionary american english usage style reached paulwlohotmailcom 160 160 160 | 665 |
<p>Kabul</p>
<p>Before coming to Afghanistan, I spent a week with students and teachers from a Colorado College nonviolence class who invited me to join them for their retreat near Crestone, Colorado, in an area of the Rocky Mountains described as one of the ten most peaceful places on earth.&#160; Coyotes, woodpeckers, and songbirds were easily audible.&#160; We reveled in the quiet beauty of an area that is home to 23 spiritual groups, all of whom prize the valley they share as a sacred space.</p>
<p>The area is also home to Canon Air Force Base, Fort Carson and several other military installations.&#160; Before leaving Colorado, I visited the U.S. Air Force Academy’s chapel, one of the state’s largest tourist attractions.&#160; Pasted on the back of every hymnal in the pews of the Protestant chapel is a prayer that reads, in part, “Make me a channel of your peace that I may defend the skies which canopy free nations.”&#160; Ironically, some Coloradans are petitioning the state government to stop the Air Force military flights over their peaceful valleys, and ranchers are likewise insisting that their land shouldn’t be used for combat training.</p>
<p>Peace activists with a long history of opposing war preparations, in Colorado Springs, are protesting a USAF plan to acquire a new Combat Aviation Brigade, consisting of 120 helicopter gunships. To accommodate training operations, 16 landing pads have already been carved out in the mountains surrounding Colorado Springs and Crestone, CO. Two thousand Joint Special Operation Forces (JSOF))are also in these mountains, training for work in rugged winter conditions.&#160; Their activities include organizing and carrying out night raids, assassinations and death squads.</p>
<p>The 120 attack helicopters are requisitioned for use in Afghanistan.&#160; It seems likely that the JSO force s are also training for deployment to Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The Washington Post recently reported&#160; that 75 per cent of the U.S. public supports a drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.&#160; On March 12, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, extending condolences to families of nine children gunned down by a U.S. attack helicopter, expressly asked that the U.S. end operations in Afghanistan.&#160; The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers have carefully documented NGOs in Afghanistan with a long history of humanitarian work who have rebuked the U.S. and NATO forces for human rights abuses and for killing civilians.</p>
<p>The most recent attack against Afghan children happened on March 15, when two children helping their parents clean out irrigations systems were killed by an aerial attack.&#160; On the day following the March 1, 2011 attack that killed nine children who were collecting wood on a mountain side, General Petraeus apologized to the families.&#160; But, the U.S. has yet to acknowledge the deaths and injuries inflicted on civilians in February, 2011, when, according to President Hamid Karzai’s official report, at least 65 civilians were killed by a U.S. assault.&#160; Instead, General Petraeus utterly shocked people in President Hamid Karzai’s presidential palace, on February 19th, 2011, when he suggested that injured children might have been burned by their own parents as a measure of discipline.&#160; A month earlier, on January 19th, General Petraeus had remarked that “we have our teeth in the jugular,” referring to Afghanistan, and the U.S. isn’t going to quit now.</p>
<p>Testifying before the U.S. congress, in mid-March, General Petraeus spoke of the fragile and reversible gains the U.S. has made in Afghanistan. &#160;He asks the U.S. people not to undermine the “progress” the U.S. war is achieving.&#160; We’re urged to treat the military with kid gloves, to handle with care their progress, and not to dwell, unpatriotically, on the war crimes that massacre children.</p>
<p>Twenty seven international peace activists, most of them from the United States, have come to Kabul to hear youngsters whom they’ve begun to regard as brothers and sisters speak about their experiences living in a country ravaged by warfare for the past three decades.</p>
<p>Last evening, they showed us photos of an unusual walk they’d held in the streets of downtown Kabul that morning.&#160; Dressed in white, with the young women wearing sky blue veils and the young men in the same color neck scarves, the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers carried sky blue and white banners proclaiming that Peace is a Pre-Requisite for Progress. They are seeking an end to wars in their country.&#160; “Why did you choose sky blue?” I asked.&#160; “Because it shows that there is just one sky over all of us,” Chahara replied.&#160; Although they came from different ethnicities and various provinces, they walked shoulder to shoulder, 40 of them, on a bright, warm day.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that many people in Colorado’s Air Force Academy chapel feel calmed and pleasantly righteous when they read the prayer posted on the back of the hymnal.&#160; “Make me a channel of your peace,” the prayer begins. The line comes from the St. Francis Peace Prayer which prays for the ability to sow love rather than hatred.&#160; The Air Force prayer seeks, instead, to be involved in “defending skies that canopy free lands.”</p>
<p>Rather than invoke the false image of separated skies that distinguish between those who have a right to live and those who live in lands where they can’t escape our terrifying helicopter gunships, drones, night raids, and death squads,&#160; we do well to hear Pete Seeger singing “One blue sky above us, one ocean lapping at our shores, …”</p>
<p>And take a look at youngsters in Kabul, wearing sky blue, who even believe in love of enemy.</p>
<p>On March 19, in Kabul, Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers will hold a candlelight commemoration, remembering the children recently killed in Afghanistan.&#160; Following&#160; this ceremony they will plant saplings as a symbol of their dedication to a nonviolent future. Their compassion extends beyond Afghanistan to young people in other lands, some of whom they will connect with through a “Global Day of Listening,”&#160; a 24 hour Skype communication which they’ll host on the first day of spring, Afghanistan’s “Nau Roz” (New Year’s Day) holiday.&#160; Colorado College students, on their spring break, plan to participate (see:&#160; <a href="http://www.livewithoutwars.org" type="external">www.livewithoutwars.org</a> and <a href="http://www.ourjourneytosmile.com" type="external">www.ourjourneytosmile.com</a>&#160; or email <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>&#160; to arrange participation for yourself and/or your community.</p>
<p>KATHY KELLY co-coordinates <a href="http://www.vcnv.org/" type="external">Voices for Creative Nonviolence</a> and has worked closely with the <a href="http://www.livewithoutwars.org/" type="external">Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers</a>. She is the author of <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">Other Lives, Other Dreams</a> published by CounterPunch / AK Press. She can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p /> | true | 4 | kabul coming afghanistan spent week students teachers colorado college nonviolence class invited join retreat near crestone colorado area rocky mountains described one ten peaceful places earth160 coyotes woodpeckers songbirds easily audible160 reveled quiet beauty area home 23 spiritual groups prize valley share sacred space area also home canon air force base fort carson several military installations160 leaving colorado visited us air force academys chapel one states largest tourist attractions160 pasted back every hymnal pews protestant chapel prayer reads part make channel peace may defend skies canopy free nations160 ironically coloradans petitioning state government stop air force military flights peaceful valleys ranchers likewise insisting land shouldnt used combat training peace activists long history opposing war preparations colorado springs protesting usaf plan acquire new combat aviation brigade consisting 120 helicopter gunships accommodate training operations 16 landing pads already carved mountains surrounding colorado springs crestone co two thousand joint special operation forces jsofare also mountains training work rugged winter conditions160 activities include organizing carrying night raids assassinations death squads 120 attack helicopters requisitioned use afghanistan160 seems likely jso force also training deployment afghanistan washington post recently reported160 75 per cent us public supports drawdown us troops afghanistan160 march 12 afghanistans president hamid karzai extending condolences families nine children gunned us attack helicopter expressly asked us end operations afghanistan160 afghan youth peace volunteers carefully documented ngos afghanistan long history humanitarian work rebuked us nato forces human rights abuses killing civilians recent attack afghan children happened march 15 two children helping parents clean irrigations systems killed aerial attack160 day following march 1 2011 attack killed nine children collecting wood mountain side general petraeus apologized families160 us yet acknowledge deaths injuries inflicted civilians february 2011 according president hamid karzais official report least 65 civilians killed us assault160 instead general petraeus utterly shocked people president hamid karzais presidential palace february 19th 2011 suggested injured children might burned parents measure discipline160 month earlier january 19th general petraeus remarked teeth jugular referring afghanistan us isnt going quit testifying us congress midmarch general petraeus spoke fragile reversible gains us made afghanistan 160he asks us people undermine progress us war achieving160 urged treat military kid gloves handle care progress dwell unpatriotically war crimes massacre children twenty seven international peace activists united states come kabul hear youngsters theyve begun regard brothers sisters speak experiences living country ravaged warfare past three decades last evening showed us photos unusual walk theyd held streets downtown kabul morning160 dressed white young women wearing sky blue veils young men color neck scarves afghan youth peace volunteers carried sky blue white banners proclaiming peace prerequisite progress seeking end wars country160 choose sky blue asked160 shows one sky us chahara replied160 although came different ethnicities various provinces walked shoulder shoulder 40 bright warm day im guessing many people colorados air force academy chapel feel calmed pleasantly righteous read prayer posted back hymnal160 make channel peace prayer begins line comes st francis peace prayer prays ability sow love rather hatred160 air force prayer seeks instead involved defending skies canopy free lands rather invoke false image separated skies distinguish right live live lands cant escape terrifying helicopter gunships drones night raids death squads160 well hear pete seeger singing one blue sky us one ocean lapping shores take look youngsters kabul wearing sky blue even believe love enemy march 19 kabul afghan youth peace volunteers hold candlelight commemoration remembering children recently killed afghanistan160 following160 ceremony plant saplings symbol dedication nonviolent future compassion extends beyond afghanistan young people lands connect global day listening160 24 hour skype communication theyll host first day spring afghanistans nau roz new years day holiday160 colorado college students spring break plan participate see160 wwwlivewithoutwarsorg wwwourjourneytosmilecom160 email globaldayoflisteninggmailcom160 arrange participation andor community kathy kelly cocoordinates voices creative nonviolence worked closely afghan youth peace volunteers author lives dreams published counterpunch ak press reached kathyvcnvorg 160 160 160 160 | 637 |
<p>Instead of depending on unreliable government officials to defend them, CHTU has decided to push for collective bargaining agreements between tenants and landlords that would write protections for tenants directly into the deeds of rented buildings.</p>
<p>This is an expanded verison of the story that ran in the September issue of In These Times.</p>
<p>The past two months have been a roller-coaster ride for affordable housing activists in New York. Despite a fight over the renewal of state rent regulations that ended in an unsatisfying&#160; <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/06/8571033/accord-reached-421-program-rent-law-renewal" type="external">stalemate</a>&#160;between landlords and renter advocates, activists won an unprecedented&#160; <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/bill-de-blasio-won-call-rent-freeze-article-1.2275172" type="external">rent freeze</a>&#160;for all rent-stabilized apartments with one-year leases in New York City from Mayor de Blasio’s Rental Guidelines Board just one week later, raising hopes for future victories.&#160;</p>
<p>But one group of organizers, based in the rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, sees better prospects for change outside of the&#160; <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/05/8567609/cuomos-forgotten-glenwood-meetings" type="external">developer-friendly</a>&#160;state capital. They've decided that the problem with affordable housing is not necessarily that tenant laws aren't strong enough—New York has some of the strongest housing regulations in the country—it's that tenants lack the power to ensure that the law is enforced. The Crown Heights Tenant Union (CHTU) is exactly what its name implies—a union in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights based around an organizing model adapted from the labor movement. Instead of depending on unreliable government officials to defend them, CHTU has decided to push for collective bargaining agreements between tenants and landlords that would write protections for tenants directly into the deeds of rented buildings.</p>
<p>CHTU’s&#160; <a href="http://crownheightstenantunion.org/our-demands/" type="external">ultimate goal</a>&#160;is to negotiate a neighborhood-wide contract between landlords and tenants that would regulate future rent increases (and impose a five-year rent freeze on all units), codify standards on repairs and renovations, guarantee automatic lease renewals and protect tenants from displacement and harassment, putting the brakes on skyrocketing rents that have forced many long-time residents to leave the neighborhood.</p>
<p>“The landlords are so powerful politically that we felt we had to confront them directly if we wanted to get real concessions, and the only thing that is truly binding is a contract,” says Joel Feingold, an Occupy veteran who helped found the group in October 2013.</p>
<p>That's just one of many reasons why CHTU is so unique. Few other groups in the United States are using this strategy, save for City Life/Vida Urbana, an affordable-housing group in Boston, pushed for collectively bargained “ <a href="http://www.clvu.org/our_history" type="external">affordability agreements</a>” in the mid-2000s, winning housing subsidies and limits on rent increases in more than 40 buildings.&#160;Tenant unions are commonplace, however, in countries like Sweden, where they form&#160; <a href="http://www.hyresgastforeningen.se/In_English/Sidor/default.aspx" type="external">the backbone</a>&#160;of tenant-friendly housing regulations.</p>
<p>This model has helped CHTU build an alliance between old and new residents that lies at the heart of its organizing strategy. While popular conceptions often paint gentrification as a clash between long-time residents of low-income communities and bespectacled hordes of invading hipsters, CHTU is premised on the idea that both groups have fundamentally shared interests.</p>
<p>“What is typically called ‘gentrification’ is actually a cycle of exploitation, where long-term working-class tenants in a neighborhood are pushed out, and then the same landlords turn around and overcharge—illegally, in many instances—the new tenants,” Feingold says. “Not only are there shared material interests, but both groups need each other to break that cycle.”</p>
<p>So far, CHTU has yet to successfully negotiate a contract for any of its buildings, but it’s come close. CHTU Local 2, which comprises four buildings owned by the private equity firm Burke Leighton, forced building management to the bargaining table after months of protests and legal action when the landlord “cut and ran” by&#160; <a href="http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/05/14/burke-leighton-doubles-money-with-44m-sale-of-crown-heights-rental/" type="external">selling</a>&#160;off several buildings to another real estate firm, effectively ending negotiations.</p>
<p>That experience, says Feingold, was a watershed moment for the tenant union. Realizing that individual landlords could scuttle negotiations by selling off buildings and forcing tenants to start negotiations from scratch with the new landlord—a problem compounded by rampant speculation in the real estate market—CHTU has shifted its focus from negotiating with individual landlords to securing a collective bargaining agreement for the entire neighborhood. Toward that end, CHTU is launching a massive organizing campaign seeking to expand CHTU’s reach into nearly every rental unit in the neighborhood.</p>
<p>While this may seem like an ambitious goal, Feingold thinks the radically democratic structure of the tenant union will help make it possible. An organizing committee provides leadership on issues of strategy and organization, but ultimately all decision-making power lies in the hands of the rank and file, which discusses and votes on proposals during monthly meetings. These meetings also serve as spaces for education on both legal and practical issues: how to find your unit’s rent history and combat rent overcharge, how to write a press release, how to report a landlord for failing to make repairs, how to organize neighbors and more.</p>
<p>Roger Myers, a member of CHTU who has lived in Crown Heights for more than 40 years, says these trainings have been one of the group’s biggest successes, empowering residents to fight back against illegal evictions and other harassment tactics used by landlords to push out older residents in favor of more affluent newcomers willing to pay top dollar for an apartment in an up-and-coming Brooklyn neighborhood. In years past, he says, “We put up with all the killing and the violence. Now that the neighborhood is better, they want to take it from us.”</p>
<p>And for a long time, it seemed like “they” would. Over the past five years, new landlords, often backed by large Wall Street private equity firms, have flooded the neighborhood, buying up buildings and filling them with new residents who often pay three or four times the existing rent. To force old residents to leave, landlords sometimes resort to harassment campaigns and&#160; <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/209737/how-dump-tenants-and-make-fortune" type="external">illegal tactics</a>: refusing to cash rent checks, failing to make basic repairs, serving tenants phony eviction notices. Two years ago, Myers says his landlord changed the locks to the building and refused to give him or his mother (who lives with him) a new key, even threatening to have them arrested if they tried to break the locks. He had to take his landlord to court before he could finally get a new set of keys.</p>
<p>But now he thinks residents have a fighting chance. A campaign to report overdue repairs in his building led to a visit from the city inspector, educational efforts have helped tenants learn to navigate New York’s complicated housing bureaucracy and the landlord’s office has even become a little friendlier since the lawsuit.</p>
<p>“Now they realize we know what our rights are. Knowledge is power. If you know what you’re owed, it’s harder for them to take advantage of you. They have to take you seriously,” he says. “If I didn’t have that knowledge, I’d probably be out on my heels.”</p>
<p>While it’s too early to tell how this model will hold up in the long run, CHTU has already grown to encompass six&#160; <a href="http://crownheightstenantunion.org/member-buildings/" type="external">active locals</a>&#160;spread across two dozen buildings in less than two years of existence. Feingold sees this as a sign that the union model is able to gain residents’ trust, a crucial challenge for affordable housing groups across the country:</p>
<p>“We’ve grown through being very sincere about building a democratic, militant, tenant-led union movement in this neighborhood. We create victories in individual buildings that help us create a democratic tide of support. Solidarity works.”</p>
<p>This article originally stated that City Life/Vida Urbana has transitioned away from a collective bargaining strategy for tenants. While CL/VU has shifted some of its organizing to homeowners in foreclosure since the financial crisis, the group continues to organize tenants.&#160;</p>
<p>Ethan Corey is a writer and researcher based in New York. His work has appeared in <a href="https://www.thenation.com/authors/ethan-corey/" type="external">The Nation</a>, Rolling Stone and MEL magazine.</p> | true | 4 | instead depending unreliable government officials defend chtu decided push collective bargaining agreements tenants landlords would write protections tenants directly deeds rented buildings expanded verison story ran september issue times past two months rollercoaster ride affordable housing activists new york despite fight renewal state rent regulations ended unsatisfying160 stalemate160between landlords renter advocates activists unprecedented160 rent freeze160for rentstabilized apartments oneyear leases new york city mayor de blasios rental guidelines board one week later raising hopes future victories160 one group organizers based rapidly gentrifying brooklyn neighborhood crown heights sees better prospects change outside the160 developerfriendly160state capital theyve decided problem affordable housing necessarily tenant laws arent strong enoughnew york strongest housing regulations countryits tenants lack power ensure law enforced crown heights tenant union chtu exactly name impliesa union brooklyn neighborhood crown heights based around organizing model adapted labor movement instead depending unreliable government officials defend chtu decided push collective bargaining agreements tenants landlords would write protections tenants directly deeds rented buildings chtus160 ultimate goal160is negotiate neighborhoodwide contract landlords tenants would regulate future rent increases impose fiveyear rent freeze units codify standards repairs renovations guarantee automatic lease renewals protect tenants displacement harassment putting brakes skyrocketing rents forced many longtime residents leave neighborhood landlords powerful politically felt confront directly wanted get real concessions thing truly binding contract says joel feingold occupy veteran helped found group october 2013 thats one many reasons chtu unique groups united states using strategy save city lifevida urbana affordablehousing group boston pushed collectively bargained affordability agreements mid2000s winning housing subsidies limits rent increases 40 buildings160tenant unions commonplace however countries like sweden form160 backbone160of tenantfriendly housing regulations model helped chtu build alliance old new residents lies heart organizing strategy popular conceptions often paint gentrification clash longtime residents lowincome communities bespectacled hordes invading hipsters chtu premised idea groups fundamentally shared interests typically called gentrification actually cycle exploitation longterm workingclass tenants neighborhood pushed landlords turn around overchargeillegally many instancesthe new tenants feingold says shared material interests groups need break cycle far chtu yet successfully negotiate contract buildings come close chtu local 2 comprises four buildings owned private equity firm burke leighton forced building management bargaining table months protests legal action landlord cut ran by160 selling160off several buildings another real estate firm effectively ending negotiations experience says feingold watershed moment tenant union realizing individual landlords could scuttle negotiations selling buildings forcing tenants start negotiations scratch new landlorda problem compounded rampant speculation real estate marketchtu shifted focus negotiating individual landlords securing collective bargaining agreement entire neighborhood toward end chtu launching massive organizing campaign seeking expand chtus reach nearly every rental unit neighborhood may seem like ambitious goal feingold thinks radically democratic structure tenant union help make possible organizing committee provides leadership issues strategy organization ultimately decisionmaking power lies hands rank file discusses votes proposals monthly meetings meetings also serve spaces education legal practical issues find units rent history combat rent overcharge write press release report landlord failing make repairs organize neighbors roger myers member chtu lived crown heights 40 years says trainings one groups biggest successes empowering residents fight back illegal evictions harassment tactics used landlords push older residents favor affluent newcomers willing pay top dollar apartment upandcoming brooklyn neighborhood years past says put killing violence neighborhood better want take us long time seemed like would past five years new landlords often backed large wall street private equity firms flooded neighborhood buying buildings filling new residents often pay three four times existing rent force old residents leave landlords sometimes resort harassment campaigns and160 illegal tactics refusing cash rent checks failing make basic repairs serving tenants phony eviction notices two years ago myers says landlord changed locks building refused give mother lives new key even threatening arrested tried break locks take landlord court could finally get new set keys thinks residents fighting chance campaign report overdue repairs building led visit city inspector educational efforts helped tenants learn navigate new yorks complicated housing bureaucracy landlords office even become little friendlier since lawsuit realize know rights knowledge power know youre owed harder take advantage take seriously says didnt knowledge id probably heels early tell model hold long run chtu already grown encompass six160 active locals160spread across two dozen buildings less two years existence feingold sees sign union model able gain residents trust crucial challenge affordable housing groups across country weve grown sincere building democratic militant tenantled union movement neighborhood create victories individual buildings help us create democratic tide support solidarity works article originally stated city lifevida urbana transitioned away collective bargaining strategy tenants clvu shifted organizing homeowners foreclosure since financial crisis group continues organize tenants160 ethan corey writer researcher based new york work appeared nation rolling stone mel magazine | 769 |
<p>The excitement over Obama’s acceptance of gay marriage, albeit on a state by state basis, illustrates two often overlooked political points:</p>
<p>• &#160; The lesser of two evils occasionally does something right, which, in fact, is what defines his lesserdom.</p>
<p>• &#160;Just because the person you voted for won the White House doesn’t mean you can’t keep pressing your causes, a point ignored by most liberals during the Obama and Clinton years, thus aiding these administrations’ drift to the right on issues such as social welfare, war and civil liberties.</p>
<p>Rather than being treated as a unique event, the gay marriage advance could better be used as a model for liberal and progressive behavior in the coming months. Obama has no programs of his own other than to win reelection, which is one of the reasons he is not doing better against Romney in the polls. It would be a favor to shove him towards policies which he presently rejects out of cowardice or indifference, by demonstrating their power, popularity and potential.</p>
<p>The possibilities are numerous. There is majority support for a large range of policies that Obama is terrified of touching, many of which he hasn’t even started “evolving” on.</p>
<p>But the ones that could make the biggest difference in the least amount of time would be those dealing with the economic crisis. For example, Obama could:</p>
<p>· &#160;Finally come up with a meaningful program to help troubled homeowners, such as a reverse mortgage system under which the government bought back over time a portion of troubled mortgages or simply bought a share of the equity in financially endangered homes at current values. Remember: we are in a recession or depression and the <a href="" type="internal" />values of homes dramatically reflect it. Thus chances are good that a government program of this sort could actually make money in ten or twenty years.</p>
<p>· &#160; Put a limit on credit card interest rates based on the single digit levels of the 1980s. There is no justification for the current credit card usury.</p>
<p>But the one that could be a real swinger in this election would be a program that blends America’s sense of patriotism with its need for public works and economic stimulation.</p>
<p>Right now, the employment situation of veterans is appalling. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports:</p>
<p>“The unemployment rate for veterans who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces at any time since September 2001 — a group referred to as Gulf War-era II veterans — was 12.1 percent in 2011. The jobless rate for all veterans was 8.3 percent. . . Young male veterans (those ages 18 to 24) who served during Gulf War era II had an unemployment rate of 29.1 percent in 2011, higher than that of young male nonveterans (17.6 percent).”</p>
<p>And what are we doing for these vets? Hardly anything. Compare that with what we did for veterans after World War II, programs which also helped the whole country make the transition to a peacetime econmy – including major aid for home loans and education. The present veterans’ policy is pathetic, almost – one might say out on the stump – verging on the anti-patriotic.</p>
<p>What if we had, instead, a Veterans Works Project, a program in which money now being used futilely in Afghanistan is put to work on domestic public works projects staffed primarily by veterans?</p>
<p>Suddenly the political game changes. Instead of Obama defending socialism, as the Republicans would have use believe, the policy becomes a patriotic cause.</p>
<p>And the interesting thing is that Obama could get support from, of all places, the defense industry. The end of war means less defense contracts. What if many of these contracts were shifted to domestic public works programs?</p>
<p>As a final touch, once the program got going, Americorps – which currently has 85,000 volunteers a year – could be expanded to include veterans on a part or full&#160; salary basis.</p>
<p>Our post WWII efforts were not the only time that economics has been blended with patriotism. Eisenhower boosted the massive interstate highway program in the 1950s on the grounds that it was necessary for national defence. If America were ever invaded, we needed good roads to get the Army where it needed to be.&#160; He had come by the idea originally as a participant in a transcontinental motor convoy staged by the Army in 1919 to point out the need for better highways.</p>
<p>Thus, &#160;a&#160; Veterans Works Project would have at least three good precedents.</p>
<p>And while we’re talking about precedents, let us not forget the works programs of the New Deal which make current stimulus efforts look absurdly puny.&#160; As Wikipedia recounts</p>
<p>“The Works Progress Administration&#160; employed 8.5 million people in its seven-year history, working on 1.4 million projects, including the building or repair of 103 golf courses, 1,000 airports, 2,500 hospitals, 2,500 sports stadiums, 3,900 schools, 8,192 parks, 12,800 playgrounds, 124,031 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, and 651,087 miles of highways and roads.”</p>
<p>And the patriotic angle was not ignored, as the Art Story notes:</p>
<p>“Several U.S. politicians had originally envisioned a fusing of art and patriotic American values. This inspired President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to begin the Works Progress Administration in the spring of 1935, and its subprogram, the Federal Art Project, several months later. The FAP was designed to both supplement artists’ incomes and, more importantly, fund patriotic art projects in an effort to rally dispirited American citizens.”</p>
<p>It is essential for progressives and liberals to rediscover their former role as leaders in economic decency and equity. And helping veterans would be is not only a necessity in its own right – it would be a politically smart way to start a much broader economic revival. After all, it’s worked before and it could work again.</p>
<p>Sam Smith&#160;edits the&#160; <a href="http://www.prorev.com/" type="external">Progressive Review</a>. He is the author of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">The Great American Repair Manual</a>.</p> | true | 4 | excitement obamas acceptance gay marriage albeit state state basis illustrates two often overlooked political points 160 lesser two evils occasionally something right fact defines lesserdom 160just person voted white house doesnt mean cant keep pressing causes point ignored liberals obama clinton years thus aiding administrations drift right issues social welfare war civil liberties rather treated unique event gay marriage advance could better used model liberal progressive behavior coming months obama programs win reelection one reasons better romney polls would favor shove towards policies presently rejects cowardice indifference demonstrating power popularity potential possibilities numerous majority support large range policies obama terrified touching many hasnt even started evolving ones could make biggest difference least amount time would dealing economic crisis example obama could 160finally come meaningful program help troubled homeowners reverse mortgage system government bought back time portion troubled mortgages simply bought share equity financially endangered homes current values remember recession depression values homes dramatically reflect thus chances good government program sort could actually make money ten twenty years 160 put limit credit card interest rates based single digit levels 1980s justification current credit card usury one could real swinger election would program blends americas sense patriotism need public works economic stimulation right employment situation veterans appalling bureau labor statistics reports unemployment rate veterans served active duty us armed forces time since september 2001 group referred gulf warera ii veterans 121 percent 2011 jobless rate veterans 83 percent young male veterans ages 18 24 served gulf war era ii unemployment rate 291 percent 2011 higher young male nonveterans 176 percent vets hardly anything compare veterans world war ii programs also helped whole country make transition peacetime econmy including major aid home loans education present veterans policy pathetic almost one might say stump verging antipatriotic instead veterans works project program money used futilely afghanistan put work domestic public works projects staffed primarily veterans suddenly political game changes instead obama defending socialism republicans would use believe policy becomes patriotic cause interesting thing obama could get support places defense industry end war means less defense contracts many contracts shifted domestic public works programs final touch program got going americorps currently 85000 volunteers year could expanded include veterans part full160 salary basis post wwii efforts time economics blended patriotism eisenhower boosted massive interstate highway program 1950s grounds necessary national defence america ever invaded needed good roads get army needed be160 come idea originally participant transcontinental motor convoy staged army 1919 point need better highways thus 160a160 veterans works project would least three good precedents talking precedents let us forget works programs new deal make current stimulus efforts look absurdly puny160 wikipedia recounts works progress administration160 employed 85 million people sevenyear history working 14 million projects including building repair 103 golf courses 1000 airports 2500 hospitals 2500 sports stadiums 3900 schools 8192 parks 12800 playgrounds 124031 bridges 125110 public buildings 651087 miles highways roads patriotic angle ignored art story notes several us politicians originally envisioned fusing art patriotic american values inspired president franklin delano roosevelt begin works progress administration spring 1935 subprogram federal art project several months later fap designed supplement artists incomes importantly fund patriotic art projects effort rally dispirited american citizens essential progressives liberals rediscover former role leaders economic decency equity helping veterans would necessity right would politically smart way start much broader economic revival worked could work sam smith160edits the160 progressive review author of160 great american repair manual | 564 |
<p>By Nate Terani / <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176204/tomgram%3A_nate_terani%2C_one_veteran%27s_war_on_islamophobia/#more" type="external">TomDispatch</a></p>
<p>I’m not an immigrant, but my grandparents are. More than 50 years ago, they arrived in New York City from Iran. I grew up mainly in central New Jersey, an American kid playing little league for the Raritan Red Sox and soccer for the Raritan Rovers. In 1985, I travelled with my family to our ancestral land. I was only eight, but old enough to understand that the Iranians had lost their liberty and freedom. I saw the abject despair of a people who, in a desperate attempt to bring about change, had ushered in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution-of-1978-1979" type="external">nationalist tyrants</a> led by Ayatollah Khomeini.</p>
<p>What I witnessed during that year in Iran changed the course of my life. In 1996, at age 19, wanting to help preserve the blessings of liberty and freedom we enjoy in America, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy. &#160;Now, with the rise of Donald Trump and his nationalist alt-right movement, I’ve come to feel that the values I sought to protect are in jeopardy.</p>
<p>In Iran, theocratic fundmentalists sowed division and hatred of outsiders — of Westerners, Christians, and other religious minorities. Here in America, the right wing seems to have stolen passages directly from their playbook as it spreads hatred of immigrants, particularly Muslim ones. This form of nationalistic bigotry — Islamophobia — threatens the heart of our nation. When I chose to serve in the military, I did so to protect what I viewed as our sacred foundational values of liberty, equality, and democracy. Now, 20 years later, I’ve joined forces with fellow veterans to again fight for those sacred values, this time right here at home.</p>
<p />
<p>“Death to America!”</p>
<p>As a child, I sat in my class at the international school one sunny morning and heard in the distance the faint sounds of gunfire and rising chants of “Death to America!” That day would define the rest of my life.</p>
<p>It was Tehran, the capital of Iran, in 1985. I was attending a unique school for bilingual students who had been born in Western nations. It had become the last refuge in that city with any tolerance for Western teaching, but that also made it a target for military fundamentalists. As the gunfire drew closer, I heard boots pounding the marble tiles outside, marching into our building, and thundering down the corridor toward my classroom. As I heard voices chanting “Death to America!” I remember wondering if I would survive to see my parents again.</p>
<p>In a flash of green and black uniforms, those soldiers rushed into our classroom, grabbed us by our shirt collars, and yelled at us to get outside. We were then packed into the school’s courtyard where a soldier pointed his rifle at our group and commanded us to look up. Almost in unison, my classmates and I raised our eyes and saw the flags of our many nations being torn down and dangled from the balcony, then set ablaze and tossed, still burning, into the courtyard. As those flags floated to the ground in flames, the soldiers fired their guns in the air. &#160;Shouting, they ordered us — if we ever wanted to see our families again — to swear allegiance to the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini and trample on the remains of the burning symbols of our home countries. I scanned the smoke that was filling the courtyard for my friends and classmates and, horrified, watched them capitulate and begin to chant, “Death to America!” as they stomped on our sacred symbols.</p>
<p>I was so angry that, young as I was, I began to plead with them to come to their senses. No one paid the slightest attention to an eight year old and yet, for the first time in my life, I felt something like righteous indignation. I suspect that, born and raised in America, I was already imbued with such a sense of privilege that I just couldn’t fathom the immense danger I was in.&#160; Certainly, I was acting in ways no native Iranian would have found reasonable.</p>
<p>Across the smoke-filled courtyard, I saw a soldier coming at me and knew he meant to force me to submit. I spotted an American flag still burning, dropped to my knees, and grabbed the charred pieces from underneath a classmate’s feet. As the soldier closed in on me, I ducked and ran, still clutching my charred pieces of flag into a crowd of civilians who had gathered to witness the commotion. The events of that day would come to define all that I have ever stood for — or against.</p>
<p>“Camel Jockey,” “Ayatollah,” and “Gandhi”</p>
<p>My parents and I soon returned to the United States and I entered third grade. More than anything, I just wanted to be normal, to fit in and be accepted by my peers. Unfortunately, my first name, Nader (which I changed to Nate upon joining the Navy), and my swarthy Middle Eastern appearance, were little help on that score, eliciting regular jibes from my classmates. Even at that young age, they had already mastered a veritable thesaurus of ethnic defamation, including “camel jockey,” “sand-nigger,” “raghead,” “ayatollah,” and ironically, “Gandhi” (which I now take as a compliment). My classmates regularly sought to “other-ize” me in those years, as if I were a lesser American because of my faith and ethnicity.</p>
<p>Yet I remember that tingling in my chest when I first donned my Cub Scout uniform — all because of the American flag patch on its shoulder. Something felt so good about wearing it, a feeling I still had when I joined the military. It seems that the flag I tried to rescue in Tehran was stapled to my heart, or that’s how I felt anyway as I wore my country’s uniform.</p>
<p>When I took my oath of enlistment in the U.S. Navy, I gave my mom a camera and asked her to take some photos, but she was so overwhelmed with pride and joy that she cried throughout the ceremony and managed to snap only a few images of the carpet. She cried even harder when I was selected to serve as the first Muslim-American member of the <a href="http://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/ndw/about/ceremonial_guard.html" type="external">U.S. Navy Presidential Ceremonial Honor Guard</a>. On that day, I was proud, too, and all the taunts of those bullies of my childhood seemed finally silenced.</p>
<p>Being tormented because of my ethnicity and religion in those early years had another effect on me.&#160; It caused me to become unusually sensitive to the nature of other people.&#160; Somehow, I grasped that, if it weren’t for a fear of the unknown, there was an inherent goodness and frail humanity lurking in many of the kids who bullied and harassed me. Often, I discovered, those same bullies could be tremendously kind to their families, friends, or even strangers. I realized, then, that if, despite everything, I could lay myself bare and trust them enough to reach out in kindness, I might in turn gain their trust and they might then see me, too, and stop operating from such a place of fear and hate.</p>
<p>Through patience, humor, and understanding, I was able to offer myself as the embodiment of my people and somehow defang the “otherness” of so much that Americans found scary. To this day, I have friends from elementary school, middle school, high school, and the military who tell me that I am the only Muslim they have ever known and that, had they not met me, their perspective on Islam would have been wholly subject to the prevailing fear-based narrative that has poisoned this country since September 11, 2001.</p>
<p>In 1998, I became special assistant to the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy and then, in 1999, I was recruited to serve at the Defense Intelligence Agency. In August 2000, I transferred to the Naval Reserve.</p>
<p>In the wake of 9/11, I began to observe how so many of my fellow Americans were adopting a fundamentalist “us vs. them” attitude towards Muslims and Islam. I suddenly found myself in an America where the scattered insults I had endured as a child took on an overarching and sinister meaning and form, where they became something like an ideology and way of life.</p>
<p>By the time I completed my military service in 2006, I had begun to understand that our policies in the Middle East, similarly disturbed, seemed in pursuit of little more than perpetual warfare.&#160; That, in turn, was made possible by the creation of a new enemy: Islam — or rather of a portrait, painted by the powers-that-be, of Islam as a terror religion, as a hooded villain lurking out there somewhere in the desert, waiting to destroy us. I knew that attempting to dispel, through the patient approach of my childhood, the kind of Islamophobia that now had the country by the throat was not going to be enough. Post-9/11 attacks on Muslims in the U.S. and elsewhere were not merely childish taunts.</p>
<p>For the first time in my life, in a country gripped by fear, I believed I was witnessing a shift, en masse, toward an American fundamentalism and ultra-nationalism that reflected a wanton lack of reason, not to mention fact. As a boy in Iran, I had witnessed the dark destination down which such a path could take a country. Now, it seemed to me, in America’s quest to escape the very demons we had sown by our own misadventures in the Middle East, and forsaking the hallmarks of our founding, we risked becoming everything we sought to defeat.</p>
<p>The Boy in the Schoolyard Grown Up</p>
<p>On February 10, 2015, three young American students, Yusor Abu-Salha, Razan Abu-Salha, and Deah Shaddy Barakat, were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/14/us/fbi-inquiry-muslim-student-killings-chapel-hill-north-carolina.html" type="external">executed</a> at an apartment complex in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The killer was a gun-crazy white man filled with hate and described by his own daughter as “a monster.” Those assassinations struck a special chord of sorrow and loss in me.&#160; My mom and I cried and prayed together for those students and their families.</p>
<p>The incident in Chapel Hill also awoke in me some version of the righteous indignation I had felt so many years earlier in that smoke-filled courtyard in Iran. I would be damned if I stood by while kids in my country were murdered simply because of their faith. It violated every word of the oath I had taken when I joined the military and desecrated every value I held in my heart as a sacred tenet of our nation. White nationalists and bigots had, by then, thrown down the gauntlet for so much of this, using Islamophobia to trigger targeted assassinations in the United States. This was terrorism, pure and simple, inspired by hate-speakers here at home.</p>
<p>At that moment, I reached out to fellow veterans who, I thought, might be willing to help — and it’s true what they say about soul mates being irrevocably drawn to each other. When I contacted <a href="https://www.veteransforpeace.org/" type="external">Veterans For Peace</a>, an organization dedicated to exposing the costs of war and militarism, I found the leadership well aware of the inherent dangers of Islamophobia and of the need to confront this new enemy. So Executive Director Michael McPhearson formed a committee of vets from around the country to decide how those of us who had donned uniforms to defend this land could best battle the phenomenon — and I, of course, joined it.</p>
<p>From that committee emerged <a href="http://veteranschallengeislamophobia.org/" type="external">Veterans Challenge Islamophobia</a> (VCI). It now has organizers in Arizona, Georgia, New Jersey, and Texas, and that’s just a beginning. Totally nonpartisan, VCI focuses on politicians of any party who engage in hate speech. We’ve met with leaders of American Muslim communities, sat with them through Ramadan, and attended their Iftar dinners to break our fasts together. In the wake of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/news-event/2016-orlando-shooting" type="external">Orlando shooting</a>, we at VCI also mobilized to fight back against attempts to pit the Muslim community against the LGBTQ+ community.</p>
<p>Our group was born of the belief that, as American military veterans, we had a responsibility to call out bigotry, hatred, and the perpetuation of endless warfare. We want the American Muslim community to know that they have allies, and that those allies are indeed veterans as well. We stand with them and for them and, for those of us who are Muslim, among them.</p>
<p>Nationalism and xenophobia have no place in American life, and I, for my part, don’t think Donald Trump or anyone like him should be able to <a href="http://time.com/4367120/orlando-shooting-donald-trump-transcript/" type="external">peddle Islamophobia</a> in an attempt to undermine our national unity. Without Islamophobia, there no longer exists a “clash of civilizations.” Without Islamophobia, whatever the problems in the world may be, there is no longer an “us vs. them” and it’s possible to begin reimagining a world of something other than perpetual war.</p>
<p>As of now, this remains the struggle of my life, for despite my intense love for America, some of my countrymen increasingly see American Muslims as the “other,” the enemy.</p>
<p>My Mom taught me as a boy that the only thing that mattered was what was in my heart. Now, with her in mind and as a representative of VCI, when I meet fellow Americans I always remember my childhood experiences with my bullying peers. And I still lay myself bare, as I did then. I give trust to gain trust, but always knowing that these days this isn’t just a matter of niceties.&#160; It’s a question of life or death.&#160; It’s part of a battle for the soul of our nation.</p>
<p>In many ways, I still consider myself that boy in the school courtyard in Tehran trying to rescue charred pieces of that flag from those trampling feet. It’s just that now I’m doing it in my own country.</p>
<p>Nate Terani is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and served in military intelligence with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He is currently a member of the leadership team at <a href="http://www.commondefensepac.org/" type="external">Common Defense PAC</a> and regional campaign organizer with <a href="http://veteranschallengeislamophobia.org/" type="external">Veterans Challenge Islamophobia</a>. He is a featured columnist with the <a href="http://azmuslimvoice.wordpress.com" type="external">Arizona Muslim Voice</a> newspaper.</p>
<p />
<p>Follow TomDispatch on <a href="https://twitter.com/TomDispatch" type="external">Twitter</a> and join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch" type="external">Facebook</a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse’s&#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608466485/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead</a>, and Tom Engelhardt’s latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" type="external">Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 2016 Nate Terani</p> | true | 4 | nate terani tomdispatch im immigrant grandparents 50 years ago arrived new york city iran grew mainly central new jersey american kid playing little league raritan red sox soccer raritan rovers 1985 travelled family ancestral land eight old enough understand iranians lost liberty freedom saw abject despair people desperate attempt bring change ushered nationalist tyrants led ayatollah khomeini witnessed year iran changed course life 1996 age 19 wanting help preserve blessings liberty freedom enjoy america enlisted us navy 160now rise donald trump nationalist altright movement ive come feel values sought protect jeopardy iran theocratic fundmentalists sowed division hatred outsiders westerners christians religious minorities america right wing seems stolen passages directly playbook spreads hatred immigrants particularly muslim ones form nationalistic bigotry islamophobia threatens heart nation chose serve military protect viewed sacred foundational values liberty equality democracy 20 years later ive joined forces fellow veterans fight sacred values time right home death america child sat class international school one sunny morning heard distance faint sounds gunfire rising chants death america day would define rest life tehran capital iran 1985 attending unique school bilingual students born western nations become last refuge city tolerance western teaching also made target military fundamentalists gunfire drew closer heard boots pounding marble tiles outside marching building thundering corridor toward classroom heard voices chanting death america remember wondering would survive see parents flash green black uniforms soldiers rushed classroom grabbed us shirt collars yelled us get outside packed schools courtyard soldier pointed rifle group commanded us look almost unison classmates raised eyes saw flags many nations torn dangled balcony set ablaze tossed still burning courtyard flags floated ground flames soldiers fired guns air 160shouting ordered us ever wanted see families swear allegiance grand ayatollah khomeini trample remains burning symbols home countries scanned smoke filling courtyard friends classmates horrified watched capitulate begin chant death america stomped sacred symbols angry young began plead come senses one paid slightest attention eight year old yet first time life felt something like righteous indignation suspect born raised america already imbued sense privilege couldnt fathom immense danger in160 certainly acting ways native iranian would found reasonable across smokefilled courtyard saw soldier coming knew meant force submit spotted american flag still burning dropped knees grabbed charred pieces underneath classmates feet soldier closed ducked ran still clutching charred pieces flag crowd civilians gathered witness commotion events day would come define ever stood camel jockey ayatollah gandhi parents soon returned united states entered third grade anything wanted normal fit accepted peers unfortunately first name nader changed nate upon joining navy swarthy middle eastern appearance little help score eliciting regular jibes classmates even young age already mastered veritable thesaurus ethnic defamation including camel jockey sandnigger raghead ayatollah ironically gandhi take compliment classmates regularly sought otherize years lesser american faith ethnicity yet remember tingling chest first donned cub scout uniform american flag patch shoulder something felt good wearing feeling still joined military seems flag tried rescue tehran stapled heart thats felt anyway wore countrys uniform took oath enlistment us navy gave mom camera asked take photos overwhelmed pride joy cried throughout ceremony managed snap images carpet cried even harder selected serve first muslimamerican member us navy presidential ceremonial honor guard day proud taunts bullies childhood seemed finally silenced tormented ethnicity religion early years another effect me160 caused become unusually sensitive nature people160 somehow grasped werent fear unknown inherent goodness frail humanity lurking many kids bullied harassed often discovered bullies could tremendously kind families friends even strangers realized despite everything could lay bare trust enough reach kindness might turn gain trust might see stop operating place fear hate patience humor understanding able offer embodiment people somehow defang otherness much americans found scary day friends elementary school middle school high school military tell muslim ever known met perspective islam would wholly subject prevailing fearbased narrative poisoned country since september 11 2001 1998 became special assistant master chief petty officer navy 1999 recruited serve defense intelligence agency august 2000 transferred naval reserve wake 911 began observe many fellow americans adopting fundamentalist us vs attitude towards muslims islam suddenly found america scattered insults endured child took overarching sinister meaning form became something like ideology way life time completed military service 2006 begun understand policies middle east similarly disturbed seemed pursuit little perpetual warfare160 turn made possible creation new enemy islam rather portrait painted powersthatbe islam terror religion hooded villain lurking somewhere desert waiting destroy us knew attempting dispel patient approach childhood kind islamophobia country throat going enough post911 attacks muslims us elsewhere merely childish taunts first time life country gripped fear believed witnessing shift en masse toward american fundamentalism ultranationalism reflected wanton lack reason mention fact boy iran witnessed dark destination path could take country seemed americas quest escape demons sown misadventures middle east forsaking hallmarks founding risked becoming everything sought defeat boy schoolyard grown february 10 2015 three young american students yusor abusalha razan abusalha deah shaddy barakat executed apartment complex chapel hill north carolina killer guncrazy white man filled hate described daughter monster assassinations struck special chord sorrow loss me160 mom cried prayed together students families incident chapel hill also awoke version righteous indignation felt many years earlier smokefilled courtyard iran would damned stood kids country murdered simply faith violated every word oath taken joined military desecrated every value held heart sacred tenet nation white nationalists bigots thrown gauntlet much using islamophobia trigger targeted assassinations united states terrorism pure simple inspired hatespeakers home moment reached fellow veterans thought might willing help true say soul mates irrevocably drawn contacted veterans peace organization dedicated exposing costs war militarism found leadership well aware inherent dangers islamophobia need confront new enemy executive director michael mcphearson formed committee vets around country decide us donned uniforms defend land could best battle phenomenon course joined committee emerged veterans challenge islamophobia vci organizers arizona georgia new jersey texas thats beginning totally nonpartisan vci focuses politicians party engage hate speech weve met leaders american muslim communities sat ramadan attended iftar dinners break fasts together wake orlando shooting vci also mobilized fight back attempts pit muslim community lgbtq community group born belief american military veterans responsibility call bigotry hatred perpetuation endless warfare want american muslim community know allies allies indeed veterans well stand us muslim among nationalism xenophobia place american life part dont think donald trump anyone like able peddle islamophobia attempt undermine national unity without islamophobia longer exists clash civilizations without islamophobia whatever problems world may longer us vs possible begin reimagining world something perpetual war remains struggle life despite intense love america countrymen increasingly see american muslims enemy mom taught boy thing mattered heart mind representative vci meet fellow americans always remember childhood experiences bullying peers still lay bare give trust gain trust always knowing days isnt matter niceties160 question life death160 part battle soul nation many ways still consider boy school courtyard tehran trying rescue charred pieces flag trampling feet im country nate terani veteran us navy served military intelligence defense intelligence agency currently member leadership team common defense pac regional campaign organizer veterans challenge islamophobia featured columnist arizona muslim voice newspaper follow tomdispatch twitter join us facebook check newest dispatch book nick turses160 next time theyll come count dead tom engelhardts latest book shadow government surveillance secret wars global security state singlesuperpower world copyright 2016 nate terani | 1,208 |
<p>Can a hard case slime the public image of a profession while making for bad law?</p>
<p>The <a href="" type="internal">Gawker trial</a>—which begins its second week of testimony Monday in Hulk Hogan’s $100 million lawsuit against the Web outlet for posting a video in October 2012 of the pro-wrestling legend having sex—might ultimately confirm the worst iteration of the age-old legal maxim.</p>
<p>But it is also doing no favors for the battered façade of the Fourth Estate.</p>
<p>The journalism business as a whole is already under terrible and, in some instances, terminal stresses from the financial and practical imperatives of the Internet, to say nothing of the popular culture’s ever-escalating amplification of the tawdry and the trivial.</p>
<p>Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, in many ways a beneficiary of these trends as a Hulk Hogan-like reality-television star, <a href="" type="internal">regularly refers</a> to the news media as “liars” and “scum” at his rowdy, <a href="" type="internal">increasingly violent</a> campaign rallies that resemble WWE spectacles.</p>
<p>Alas, the Gawker trial is presenting a damaging and reinforcing narrative (maybe journalists are scum if not precisely liars), just when the reporting trade was a getting a huge lift from the Oscar-winning movie <a href="" type="internal">Spotlight</a>, which dramatizes the real-life story of the Boston Globe investigative reporters who exposed the Catholic Church’s cover-up of an epidemic of priestly pedophilia.</p>
<p>The 2016 winner of the <a href="" type="internal">Best Picture Academy Award</a> reveals journalism at its best.</p>
<p>Not since <a href="" type="internal">All The President’s Men</a>, four decades ago, has the reporting trade been so generally ennobled in the public sphere.</p>
<p>But the state circuit court jury in St. Petersburg, Florida, has been hearing about a far less principled aspect of the news biz courtesy of Nick Denton’s media empire—the opposite of Spotlight values.</p>
<p>In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll declare my preference (probably shared by anyone hoping to earn a living at this game) that Hogan—who is suing under his legal name, Terry Bollea—not get a dime out of the jury’s verdict.</p>
<p>As Gawker’s team of high-priced attorneys managed to place into the trial record last week, there is ample evidence that the 62-year-old Bollea—in his persona as the Hulk—talked freely in radio and television interviews not only about his purported sexual exploits and supposedly massive penis size (“I do not have a 10-inch penis,” he was forced to admit in court under Gawker attorney Michael Sullivan’s withering cross-examination), but he also joked about the sex video in interviews with TMZ and Howard Stern.</p>
<p>It’s true, however, that Bollea, a favorite son of Tampa, across the bay from the trial venue of St. Petersburg, has a home field advantage in a case that, but for some slick legal maneuvering, ordinarily would come before a federal court.</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>In Circuit Court Judge Pamela A.M. Campbell, a Jeb Bush appointee who was re-elected in 2014, Bollea has a trial judge who has consistently ruled in his favor and against Gawker—most recently denying the defense’s motion to remove Denton from the lawsuit because he had no role in the decision to post either the video, which Gawker eventually took down, <a href="http://gawker.com/5948770/even-for-a-minute-watching-hulk-hogan-have-sex-in-a-canopy-bed-is-not-safe-for-work-but-watch-it-anyway" type="external">or the accompanying detailed description</a>, which remains on the site.</p>
<p>Campbell has even apparently signed on to the plaintiff’s bizarre theory that Hogan and Bollea are actually two distinct personalities—Hogan being the blustery sexual braggart who advertises his prowess, and Bollea being a shy, sensitive, soft-spoken “normal person” who treasures his privacy and whose feelings are easily injured.</p>
<p>Never mind that Campbell allows Bollea to show up in court day after day sporting the trademark Hulk Hogan bandana on his head. At one point last week, after Team Hogan objected to Gawker lawyer Sullivan’s reference to “Mr. Bollea’s” discussion of his sex life in public, the judge’s bench conference resulted in Sullivan’s changing the reference to “Mr. Hogan.”</p>
<p>Yet it’s difficult to fathom how reasonable people can conclude that a celebrity who so promiscuously markets his alleged amatory adventures, as Hogan has, could have suffered much if any reputational or psychic harm from the posting of a less than two-minute video (edited down from half an hour), only 9 seconds of which depicts actual sex.</p>
<p>But unless the Gawker trial’s six jurors are First Amendment absolutists, they are unlikely to be sympathetic to sneering gossip hounds callously invading the privacy of their fellow human beings in the service of clicks, revenue, and personal amusement.</p>
<p>By most accounts, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/09/media/hulk-hogan-gawker-trial-editor/" type="external">especially the excellent reporting</a> and informative Twitter feed of CNN’s Tom Kludt, Hogan’s lawyers have done a fairly persuasive job of portraying Gawker’s <a href="https://twitter.com/TomKludt" type="external">conduct as unappetizing at best</a>.</p>
<p>The video depositions of former Gawker editor in chief A.J. Daulerio—excerpts of which were played in court on Wednesday—were perhaps the best moment for Team Hogan so far and potentially devastating for defendants Gawker Media, Daulerio and Denton.</p>
<p>Looking scruffy and sleep-deprived as well as bored in much of the footage shown to the jury—recorded in 2013, when a full-blown trial was widely deemed unlikely—Daulerio occasionally mumbled his answers to Hogan’s attorneys, and came across at points as arrogant and supercilious.</p>
<p>Daulerio, who posted the Hogan sex video snippet and wrote the accompanying story, said he “enjoyed watching the video...because I found it very amusing.”</p>
<p>He added that he was “proud” of what he had published.</p>
<p>“Can you imagine a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy?” Hogan attorney Douglas Mirell asked in the deposition.</p>
<p>“If they were a child,” Daulerio replied.</p>
<p>“Under what age?” Mirell asked.</p>
<p>“Four,” Daulerio answered, imprudently mining a sarcastic vein.</p>
<p>“No four-year-old sex tapes, OK,” Mirell said.</p>
<p>The jurors, four of whom were spotted furiously taking notes, clearly didn’t find this exchange “very amusing.”</p>
<p>Daulerio claimed he wouldn’t really mind if a video of himself having sex were published unless “something went horribly wrong.”</p>
<p>“I somewhat expect that to happen at some point,” he added.</p>
<p>Denton—who in his own video deposition claimed traditional journalistic standards are “irrelevant, even damaging, in the Internet era”—presented himself as more polished and arguably more sympathetic than Daulerio.</p>
<p>At least he admitted that he’d be embarrassed if someone ever posted a sex video of him.</p>
<p>“What is the difference between you and [Hogan] in that case?” one of Hogan’s attorneys demanded.</p>
<p>“Very little,” Denton answered.</p>
<p>Team Hogan produced evidence that was perhaps even more hurtful to Gawker’s—and by extension the news biz’s—standing with the jury when one of Hogan’s lawyers read into the trial record various emails from Daulerio’s stint running the Gawker Media sports site Deadspin.</p>
<p>In May 2010, Daulerio had posted video of a young woman having sex in a bathroom stall at a Bloomington, Indiana, sports bar.</p>
<p>Days later, when the woman claimed she was the person in the video, and pleaded with Daulerio to take it down, he initially refused.</p>
<p>“I am the girl in it and it was stolen from me and put up without my permission,” she wrote.</p>
<p>Daulerio advised her by email to “not make a big deal out of this,” and added: “I’m sure it’s embarrassing but these things do pass, keep your head up.”</p>
<p>A Gawker attorney also emailed the woman at the time, telling her the video was “completely newsworthy” and adding reproachfully that “one’s actions can have unintended consequences.”</p>
<p>The next day, however, Daulerio relented and removed the video after deciding that it “wasn’t funny” and “was possibly rape.”</p>
<p>The 41-year-old Daulerio—who no doubt has been spending the weekend practicing humility and earnestness—will have an opportunity to redeem himself with the jury in the week ahead when Team Gawker presents its defense.</p>
<p>Another likely witness to be called by the defense is Denton, who recently sold a minority stake in his privately owned company to Columbus Nova Technology Partners, an investment firm, in order to defray the exorbitant costs of the trial, which are now well into seven figures.</p>
<p>Since Gawker’s widely condemned outing of a little-known heterosexually married Conde Nast executive’s allegedly secret gay sex life last July, Denton has been publicly attempting to reinvent his company as “20 percent nicer” and has seemed more respectful of the journalistic traditions he previously disdained.</p>
<p>Maybe he and Daulerio will be able to convince the jury that they and their co-workers are not scum, after all.</p>
<p>The spotlight will be on them.</p> | true | 4 | hard case slime public image profession making bad law gawker trialwhich begins second week testimony monday hulk hogans 100 million lawsuit web outlet posting video october 2012 prowrestling legend sexmight ultimately confirm worst iteration ageold legal maxim also favors battered façade fourth estate journalism business whole already terrible instances terminal stresses financial practical imperatives internet say nothing popular cultures everescalating amplification tawdry trivial republican presidential frontrunner donald trump many ways beneficiary trends hulk hoganlike realitytelevision star regularly refers news media liars scum rowdy increasingly violent campaign rallies resemble wwe spectacles alas gawker trial presenting damaging reinforcing narrative maybe journalists scum precisely liars reporting trade getting huge lift oscarwinning movie spotlight dramatizes reallife story boston globe investigative reporters exposed catholic churchs coverup epidemic priestly pedophilia 2016 winner best picture academy award reveals journalism best since presidents men four decades ago reporting trade generally ennobled public sphere state circuit court jury st petersburg florida hearing far less principled aspect news biz courtesy nick dentons media empirethe opposite spotlight values interest full disclosure ill declare preference probably shared anyone hoping earn living game hoganwho suing legal name terry bolleanot get dime jurys verdict gawkers team highpriced attorneys managed place trial record last week ample evidence 62yearold bolleain persona hulktalked freely radio television interviews purported sexual exploits supposedly massive penis size 10inch penis forced admit court gawker attorney michael sullivans withering crossexamination also joked sex video interviews tmz howard stern true however bollea favorite son tampa across bay trial venue st petersburg home field advantage case slick legal maneuvering ordinarily would come federal court start finish day top stories daily beast speedy smart summary news need know nothing dont circuit court judge pamela campbell jeb bush appointee reelected 2014 bollea trial judge consistently ruled favor gawkermost recently denying defenses motion remove denton lawsuit role decision post either video gawker eventually took accompanying detailed description remains site campbell even apparently signed plaintiffs bizarre theory hogan bollea actually two distinct personalitieshogan blustery sexual braggart advertises prowess bollea shy sensitive softspoken normal person treasures privacy whose feelings easily injured never mind campbell allows bollea show court day day sporting trademark hulk hogan bandana head one point last week team hogan objected gawker lawyer sullivans reference mr bolleas discussion sex life public judges bench conference resulted sullivans changing reference mr hogan yet difficult fathom reasonable people conclude celebrity promiscuously markets alleged amatory adventures hogan could suffered much reputational psychic harm posting less twominute video edited half hour 9 seconds depicts actual sex unless gawker trials six jurors first amendment absolutists unlikely sympathetic sneering gossip hounds callously invading privacy fellow human beings service clicks revenue personal amusement accounts especially excellent reporting informative twitter feed cnns tom kludt hogans lawyers done fairly persuasive job portraying gawkers conduct unappetizing best video depositions former gawker editor chief aj daulerioexcerpts played court wednesdaywere perhaps best moment team hogan far potentially devastating defendants gawker media daulerio denton looking scruffy sleepdeprived well bored much footage shown juryrecorded 2013 fullblown trial widely deemed unlikelydaulerio occasionally mumbled answers hogans attorneys came across points arrogant supercilious daulerio posted hogan sex video snippet wrote accompanying story said enjoyed watching videobecause found amusing added proud published imagine situation celebrity sex tape would newsworthy hogan attorney douglas mirell asked deposition child daulerio replied age mirell asked four daulerio answered imprudently mining sarcastic vein fouryearold sex tapes ok mirell said jurors four spotted furiously taking notes clearly didnt find exchange amusing daulerio claimed wouldnt really mind video sex published unless something went horribly wrong somewhat expect happen point added dentonwho video deposition claimed traditional journalistic standards irrelevant even damaging internet erapresented polished arguably sympathetic daulerio least admitted hed embarrassed someone ever posted sex video difference hogan case one hogans attorneys demanded little denton answered team hogan produced evidence perhaps even hurtful gawkersand extension news bizsstanding jury one hogans lawyers read trial record various emails daulerios stint running gawker media sports site deadspin may 2010 daulerio posted video young woman sex bathroom stall bloomington indiana sports bar days later woman claimed person video pleaded daulerio take initially refused girl stolen put without permission wrote daulerio advised email make big deal added im sure embarrassing things pass keep head gawker attorney also emailed woman time telling video completely newsworthy adding reproachfully ones actions unintended consequences next day however daulerio relented removed video deciding wasnt funny possibly rape 41yearold dauleriowho doubt spending weekend practicing humility earnestnesswill opportunity redeem jury week ahead team gawker presents defense another likely witness called defense denton recently sold minority stake privately owned company columbus nova technology partners investment firm order defray exorbitant costs trial well seven figures since gawkers widely condemned outing littleknown heterosexually married conde nast executives allegedly secret gay sex life last july denton publicly attempting reinvent company 20 percent nicer seemed respectful journalistic traditions previously disdained maybe daulerio able convince jury coworkers scum spotlight | 807 |
<p />
<p>To say, as some have, that the 2004 presidential election was won and lost on “moral values” is probably an overstatement. It’s nevertheless true that among church-going, God-fearing types who think the country has lost its moral bearings, George W. Bush enjoyed vastly more support than did his rival, John Kerry. Is there a lesson here for the Democrats?</p>
<p>Yes, there is, according to Jim Wallis, editor of the leftish religious magazine Sojourners, whose new book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, argues that Democrats, if they ever want to win an election, must learn how to talk about moral values, indeed, to talk the language of moral values, in a way that remains true to the party’s principles.</p>
<p>The American Right has been able to define “moral values” narrowly, almost exclusively in terms of wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage. It doesn’t have to be this way, Wallis argues. Drawing on more than 30 years of work combating poverty, as well as an intimate knowledge of the Bible, Wallis, an evangelical Christian, argues that moral values encompass actions and attitudes toward a host of issues, including poverty, the environment, criminal justice and war.</p>
<p>Through a conversational combination of first-person stories, news analysis, statistics and old fashion preaching (on the written page), Wallis paints a very different picture of what religion means than the one President Bush and many of his supporters have in mind.</p>
<p>His message seems to be resonating with Americans from across the political spectrum. Published by HarperSanFrancisco late in January, it is now fifth on the New York Times bestseller list. For more than a month now, Wallis has been traveling the country to promote God’s Politics. Speaking in churches, bookstores and on radio and television talk shows, Wallis says he is witnessing what could be the birth of a new movement that challenges the hold the Right has had on religion and morality for decades. In San Francisco recently, he dropped by to speak with MotherJones.com.</p>
<p>MotherJones.com: The subtitle of your book is “Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it.” What does the Right get wrong?</p>
<p>Jim Wallis: The Right is comfortable with the language of religion, values, God talk. So much so that they sometimes claim to own that territory. Or own God. But then they narrow everything down to one or two issues: abortion and gay marriage.</p>
<p>I am an evangelical Christian, and I can’t ignore thousands of verses in the Bible on [another] subject, which is poverty. I say at every stop, “Fighting poverty’s a moral value, too.” There’s a whole generation of young Christians who care about the environment. That’s their big issue. Protecting God’s creation, they would say, is a moral value, too. And, for a growing number of Christians, the ethics of war—how and when we go to war, whether we tell the truth about going to war—is a religious and moral issue as well.</p>
<p>I think the Right has made a serious mistake in adopting a moral-values strategy, because they’re winning in the short run. [But] in the long run, they’re going to lose this debate because they won’t be able to restrict it to two issues. Once you open that door to a values conversation, it’s going to undercut a right-wing economic agenda, which values wealth over work and favors the rich over the poor, or resorts to war as the first resort and not the last. To quote the White House, when it comes to moral values in this discussion, I say, “Bring it on!” Let’s have the conversation, because the Right’s going to lose this debate in the end. But not if the Left doesn’t even get in the conversation.</p>
<p>MJ.com: Is that what you mean when you say the Left doesn’t get it?</p>
<p>JW: [Democrats] forget their own progressive history. Every major social movement in our history was fueled in large part by religion and faith. Abolitionism, women’s suffrage, child labor law, and most famously, civil rights. Where would we be if the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had kept his faith to himself? Here’s a party that was vitally connected to the civil rights movement, led by black churches, now has driven so far [away], they’re successfully portrayed by the Right as a secular party hostile to religion.</p>
<p>I think people who are religious or, say, even spiritual, have not felt like there’s much of a home on the Left. That’s at least a huge political concern. Even those who aren’t religious need to respect people of faith. The connection the world’s waiting for is to connect the hunger for spirituality with passion for social change. Because spirituality, when it isn’t disciplined by social justice, in an affluent society, becomes narcissistic. We buy the books, we buy the tapes. We hear the guru speaker. Barnes &amp; Noble has a whole wall of how to be spiritual, balanced, healed, whole. Spirituality becomes a commodity to be bought and sold. So spirituality has to be disciplined by social justice.</p>
<p>MJ.com: And the Left’s big mistake is that it has ignored that potential?</p>
<p>JW: Not just ignored; they’ve ceded the territory. They’ve ignored it at their peril and they’ve turned it over so that the Right gets to say, “Okay, we’ll define it our way. Abortion, gay marriage. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing else.”</p>
<p>MJ.com: What would you say to what you call in the book “secular fundamentalists” who say, “I don’t want anything to do with religion, and I don’t want my politics or my party to have anything to do with religion either?”</p>
<p>JW: I don’t call all secular people “secular fundamentalists.” At every book stop, people say, “I’m secular; I’m an agnostic. Thank you for making me included tonight. I feel spiritually inspired, but I’m not religious. But I care about moral values.” So, to those people I would say, “You know, you can be who you are, but just respect people who are people of faith and include [them] in the movement.” To the secular fundamentalists who want to exclude any religion, I would say, “Do you want to lose every election for the rest of your life? Get smart. Remember progressive history.” We all have an investment in our politics having a moral compass.</p>
<p>MJ.com: In the book you say that it’s not a matter of whether religion should influence politics, it’s a matter of how.</p>
<p>JW: Yeah. This is America. This is the most religious nation on the face of the earth. Religion will be a factor in our public life. The founders wanted to separate church and state not to diminish the role of religion but to strengthen it. Europe has a state church framework and religion has almost no influence. Here, where it’s separated, it’s more dependent and more vital, and stronger. The founders thought strong religion was a factor in the political health of the nation.</p>
<p>I say in the book how Lincoln gets this right, that you don’t invoke God’s blessing on the nation’s policies. You don’t say, “God is on our side.” That leads to all the worst stuff in politics: triumphalism, hubris, bad foreign policy. If you worry that you are on God’s side, that leads to humility and reflection, accountability, maybe even penitence—the missing values in politics.</p>
<p>King did it best: Bible in one hand, Constitution in the other. He never said, “I’m religious, so I get to win.” He didn’t said, “God spoke to me, and I have the fix for Social Security.” He said, “I’m motivated by my faith, but I’ve got to persuade the public on the basis not of religion but of the common good.”</p>
<p>MJ.com: And nowhere in the book do you say that people need to get religion.</p>
<p>JW: In a funny way, I say both parties need to get religion on poverty. This is the big issue on God’s heart, if we take the Bible seriously. Three million people living on less than $2 a day. Thirty thousand children dying every single day of what I call a silent tsunami—nobody pays attention to it.</p>
<p>The Right is attacking me for trying to help the Democrats get religious language so they can win an election. I say to Democrats when they call, “If you want Bible verses and cheap God-talk, I’m not really interested. This isn’t going to be a sprint for you, but a marathon. Not a forum, but a long-term conversation.” I’m interested in content more than language. What is the content of our politics? If getting religion means caring about poverty, then I want both parties to do that. [And for President Bush], I’d like to see some real serious commitment to poverty reduction both at home and around the world. I’d like to see him do the right thing. But so far, it’s faith-based initiatives over here and a budget over here and there’s no commitment to poverty whatsoever.</p>
<p>MJ.com: And that says a lot about this country, right? That we allow that to happen?</p>
<p>JW: I don’t hear people saying, “What about what the Bible says about the poor?” So if his religious backers don’t raise that question and the Democrats don’t speak ever about religion, then he gets to say, “I’m a Christian and it applies to this, this and this, but it doesn’t apply to my budget.” We ought to say, “Yeah, faith does scrutinize budgets, so let’s have a moral values audit of the budget.”</p>
<p>MJ.com: You mentioned in the book a poll that came out shortly after the election that said the majority of Americans wanted to hear about poverty.</p>
<p>JW: “What is the greatest moral crisis facing America?” is the poll. This is after the flawed exit poll. Sixty-four percent said either greed and materialism or poverty and economic justice. And I think about 16 percent, abortion, and 11 percent or less, gay marriage. So when the question was asked straight up, moral values, that’s what happened.</p>
<p>MJ.com: If that’s what’s on the minds of the American people, and at least in election years, candidates theoretically listen to their constituents, then why wasn’t that part of the discussion?</p>
<p>JW: Good question. Why didn’t John Edwards get listened to? He did by the voters; he didn’t by his own party. He became vice president and they put him on the shelf. John Edwards was speaking to this powerfully in the spring. Two Americas. Good language. And he was put on the shelf.</p>
<p>What if we had a candidate who spoke to the issues of economic justice as a moral value? I think there’d be a deep resonance among American people. Democrats haven’t made poverty a moral issue in years.</p>
<p>MJ.com: So you think it was more the party not heeding the issue than the citizens?</p>
<p>JW: Absolutely. I’m out in the country all the time now; this is a big, big issue. This is a big issue for religious and non-religious people. Poverty could be the thing that calls us together across our political dividing lines. But you need political leaders who articulate that and say why this is connected to our faith, our humanity, and our security. The line [from my book] that draws a great response every single time is, “Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which these mosquitoes of terrorism breed, we’ll never overcome terrorism.” Everybody knows that. Most Americans know that you can’t defeat terrorism by killing terrorists. So the president says, “My response to terrorism is to kill terrorists.” And John Kerry says, “Yup. And my response is to kill even more of them.” That was our debate. It’s politically foolish and spiritually bankrupt.</p>
<p>[The prophet] Micah’s said that there’s no security apart from common security. Israelis aren’t going to ever be secure unless Palestinians are. Wealthy nations won’t be secure until poor nations are. That’s just true.</p>
<p>MJ.com: But our foreign policies won’t change until the leadership in the Democratic Party—or even the Republican Party—brings moral values into the discussion?</p>
<p>JW: John Kerry should have said in the debates when he was being beat up on abortion and Eucharist, “Mr. President, the Pope says the war in Iraq is wrong. The Pope says it isn’t a just war. Mr. President, why are you defying the Holy Father in Iraq? As a Catholic I must ask you that question.” Well, he couldn’t say that because he didn’t have a clear position himself on Iraq, John Kerry didn’t.</p>
<p>MJ.com: In the book you said the President didn’t meet with you or other religious leaders before the war. Tony Blair did. What do you make of the president using religious language to justify the war, yet refusing to acknowledge religious leaders?</p>
<p>JW: At first, he was genuinely open and had meetings with several of us about poverty and faith-based initiatives. The first time I met him, he actually said this very candid thing: “I don’t understand poor people, I’ve never been around poor people. I’m a white Republican guy who doesn’t get it. I’d like to. How do I get it?”</p>
<p>I don’t hear presidents talking that way very much. That made me hopeful. But then, he closed off after Sept. 11, and Iraq especially. He uses the language of religion but he’s not willing to be accountable to biblical faith, so he doesn’t want to listen to religious wisdom that might disagree with him. A moral response to terror is a complicated issue, and he should avail himself of all the wisdom he can find. He wouldn’t have to agree with it all. Just listen. Tony Blair listened for over an hour. And talked. Rigorous, good moral dialogue with Blair. And Bush—even his own Methodist bishops he wouldn’t listen to. That’s a mistake. It’s a political mistake. It’s a moral failure to not listen.</p>
<p>The majority of Christians throughout the world were opposed to the war in Iraq. That’s a fact. And the Christian president fought the war in Iraq. What does that mean about his perception of faith?</p>
<p>MJ.com: Well, what do you make of that?</p>
<p>JW: That we’re dealing with a religion that is more American than Christian. He changes the words of scripture. “The light shines in the darkness. The darkness does not overcome it,” he said at Ellis Island, the first anniversary of Sept. 11. Well, that’s [from the Gospel of] John. It’s not the American beacon of freedom to the world. You don’t change the words of scriptures. That bothers us evangelicals.</p>
<p>Or he changes hymnology: “Power, power, wonder working power.” When he said that in the State of the Union, he got 60 million people going, “I know that song.” But the wonder working power in the song is the salvation of Christ—not the faith and idealism of the American people. This is an American civil religion. This isn’t biblical faith. I think the president just doesn’t want to be accountable to biblical faith.</p>
<p>MJ.com: So Bush has a selective reading of the Bible. But for readers who may not know the Bible very well, which teachings of Jesus is Bush practicing and which is he not?</p>
<p>JW: My conversion text is the 25th chapter of Matthew, where Jesus said, “As you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.” I don’t hear Bush ever talking about the Sermon on the Mount; I just don’t hear it. I’m hard pressed to think of teachings of Jesus that are being talked about in the White House.</p>
<p>Jesus didn’t speak at all about homosexuality. There are about 12 verses in the Bible that touch on that question. Most of them are very contextual. There are thousands of verses on poverty. I don’t hear a lot of that conversation.</p>
<p>What you really don’t hear [from Bush] is Jesus saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Or even more, how many sermons have we heard since Sept. 11 on the text, “Love your enemies?” It hasn’t been a very popular text since Sept. 11. Well, we should at least have a debate about what Jesus meant by blessed are the peacemakers and love your enemies in a world full of terrorism and tyranny.</p>
<p>I remember Bill O’Reilly one night was yelling at me about Iraq. I said, “Bill, what would Jesus do? Can you imagine him climbing into the cockpit of a B-52 and dropping a load of bombs over Baghdad?” And Bill said, “Well, Jesus would surely want to protect the American people.” And I said, “Really? What about the Iraqis?” “Well, well, them, too.” Once you start talking about this in a religious frame, it’s troubling.</p>
<p>The Republicans will not hold [Bush] accountable to the biblical prophets when they think all the issues are about abortion, and the Democrats don’t even know the language. He gets away with it. There’s got to be a progressive religious response to Bush that says, “We don’t quibble with your piety, but we challenge your theology.” There is no American exceptionalism in the Bible. The Gospel is uneasy with empire—except American empire?</p>
<p>MJ.com: And in your travels you’ve seen that kind of response to Bush growing up from the grassroots?</p>
<p>JW: It’s become a national town meeting. Folks who’ve been coming out feel that when faith is talked about in the media or the White House it’s not their faith. It’s always this narrow, either Religious Right or this White House religion, and I think people are finding their own voice and their own faith in the safe space of a discussion about a book. There are evangelicals, Catholics, mainline, black churches, Jews, Muslims, young people who say they’re spiritual but not religious, agnostics who say they’re secular but care about moral politics.</p>
<p>MJ.com: Yet even if there is all that energy, unless it’s organized and geared towards a goal …</p>
<p>JW: Well, the conversation back around my shop is, “What do we do with this?” This isn’t just about selling books now. This is about how to build a movement on the back of a book tour. The story now is not the book, but the tour. Why are so many people at bookstores?</p>
<p>We’re getting 400 in Dayton, Ohio, and Austin, Texas, and Wichita, Kan. Also in Philadelphia and Boston. They’re sitting on the floor. In Los Angeles, it was pouring rain. A thousand people showed up. It’s this buzzing thing, which means that something is needing to be expressed.</p>
<p>I’m getting 30 new speaking invitations every day. There are a lot of young, articulate spokespeople who ought to be out in the churches speaking, so we’re going to create a speakers bureau and then move these invitations out to this new generation of young women, young men who have a lot to say.</p>
<p>I think it’s less about my voice than [the people’s]. They don’t feel their voice has been represented in the conversation. And this is a chance to be heard. The good news is that the monologue of the Religious Right is now over and a new dialogue is finally beginning.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | say 2004 presidential election lost moral values probably overstatement nevertheless true among churchgoing godfearing types think country lost moral bearings george w bush enjoyed vastly support rival john kerry lesson democrats yes according jim wallis editor leftish religious magazine sojourners whose new book gods politics right gets wrong left doesnt get argues democrats ever want win election must learn talk moral values indeed talk language moral values way remains true partys principles american right able define moral values narrowly almost exclusively terms wedge issues like abortion gay marriage doesnt way wallis argues drawing 30 years work combating poverty well intimate knowledge bible wallis evangelical christian argues moral values encompass actions attitudes toward host issues including poverty environment criminal justice war conversational combination firstperson stories news analysis statistics old fashion preaching written page wallis paints different picture religion means one president bush many supporters mind message seems resonating americans across political spectrum published harpersanfrancisco late january fifth new york times bestseller list month wallis traveling country promote gods politics speaking churches bookstores radio television talk shows wallis says witnessing could birth new movement challenges hold right religion morality decades san francisco recently dropped speak motherjonescom motherjonescom subtitle book right gets wrong left doesnt get right get wrong jim wallis right comfortable language religion values god talk much sometimes claim territory god narrow everything one two issues abortion gay marriage evangelical christian cant ignore thousands verses bible another subject poverty say every stop fighting povertys moral value theres whole generation young christians care environment thats big issue protecting gods creation would say moral value growing number christians ethics warhow go war whether tell truth going waris religious moral issue well think right made serious mistake adopting moralvalues strategy theyre winning short run long run theyre going lose debate wont able restrict two issues open door values conversation going undercut rightwing economic agenda values wealth work favors rich poor resorts war first resort last quote white house comes moral values discussion say bring lets conversation rights going lose debate end left doesnt even get conversation mjcom mean say left doesnt get jw democrats forget progressive history every major social movement history fueled large part religion faith abolitionism womens suffrage child labor law famously civil rights would rev dr martin luther king jr kept faith heres party vitally connected civil rights movement led black churches driven far away theyre successfully portrayed right secular party hostile religion think people religious say even spiritual felt like theres much home left thats least huge political concern even arent religious need respect people faith connection worlds waiting connect hunger spirituality passion social change spirituality isnt disciplined social justice affluent society becomes narcissistic buy books buy tapes hear guru speaker barnes amp noble whole wall spiritual balanced healed whole spirituality becomes commodity bought sold spirituality disciplined social justice mjcom lefts big mistake ignored potential jw ignored theyve ceded territory theyve ignored peril theyve turned right gets say okay well define way abortion gay marriage thats thats nothing else mjcom would say call book secular fundamentalists say dont want anything religion dont want politics party anything religion either jw dont call secular people secular fundamentalists every book stop people say im secular im agnostic thank making included tonight feel spiritually inspired im religious care moral values people would say know respect people people faith include movement secular fundamentalists want exclude religion would say want lose every election rest life get smart remember progressive history investment politics moral compass mjcom book say matter whether religion influence politics matter jw yeah america religious nation face earth religion factor public life founders wanted separate church state diminish role religion strengthen europe state church framework religion almost influence separated dependent vital stronger founders thought strong religion factor political health nation say book lincoln gets right dont invoke gods blessing nations policies dont say god side leads worst stuff politics triumphalism hubris bad foreign policy worry gods side leads humility reflection accountability maybe even penitencethe missing values politics king best bible one hand constitution never said im religious get win didnt said god spoke fix social security said im motivated faith ive got persuade public basis religion common good mjcom nowhere book say people need get religion jw funny way say parties need get religion poverty big issue gods heart take bible seriously three million people living less 2 day thirty thousand children dying every single day call silent tsunaminobody pays attention right attacking trying help democrats get religious language win election say democrats call want bible verses cheap godtalk im really interested isnt going sprint marathon forum longterm conversation im interested content language content politics getting religion means caring poverty want parties president bush id like see real serious commitment poverty reduction home around world id like see right thing far faithbased initiatives budget theres commitment poverty whatsoever mjcom says lot country right allow happen jw dont hear people saying bible says poor religious backers dont raise question democrats dont speak ever religion gets say im christian applies doesnt apply budget ought say yeah faith scrutinize budgets lets moral values audit budget mjcom mentioned book poll came shortly election said majority americans wanted hear poverty jw greatest moral crisis facing america poll flawed exit poll sixtyfour percent said either greed materialism poverty economic justice think 16 percent abortion 11 percent less gay marriage question asked straight moral values thats happened mjcom thats whats minds american people least election years candidates theoretically listen constituents wasnt part discussion jw good question didnt john edwards get listened voters didnt party became vice president put shelf john edwards speaking powerfully spring two americas good language put shelf candidate spoke issues economic justice moral value think thered deep resonance among american people democrats havent made poverty moral issue years mjcom think party heeding issue citizens jw absolutely im country time big big issue big issue religious nonreligious people poverty could thing calls us together across political dividing lines need political leaders articulate say connected faith humanity security line book draws great response every single time unless drain swamp injustice mosquitoes terrorism breed well never overcome terrorism everybody knows americans know cant defeat terrorism killing terrorists president says response terrorism kill terrorists john kerry says yup response kill even debate politically foolish spiritually bankrupt prophet micahs said theres security apart common security israelis arent going ever secure unless palestinians wealthy nations wont secure poor nations thats true mjcom foreign policies wont change leadership democratic partyor even republican partybrings moral values discussion jw john kerry said debates beat abortion eucharist mr president pope says war iraq wrong pope says isnt war mr president defying holy father iraq catholic must ask question well couldnt say didnt clear position iraq john kerry didnt mjcom book said president didnt meet religious leaders war tony blair make president using religious language justify war yet refusing acknowledge religious leaders jw first genuinely open meetings several us poverty faithbased initiatives first time met actually said candid thing dont understand poor people ive never around poor people im white republican guy doesnt get id like get dont hear presidents talking way much made hopeful closed sept 11 iraq especially uses language religion hes willing accountable biblical faith doesnt want listen religious wisdom might disagree moral response terror complicated issue avail wisdom find wouldnt agree listen tony blair listened hour talked rigorous good moral dialogue blair busheven methodist bishops wouldnt listen thats mistake political mistake moral failure listen majority christians throughout world opposed war iraq thats fact christian president fought war iraq mean perception faith mjcom well make jw dealing religion american christian changes words scripture light shines darkness darkness overcome said ellis island first anniversary sept 11 well thats gospel john american beacon freedom world dont change words scriptures bothers us evangelicals changes hymnology power power wonder working power said state union got 60 million people going know song wonder working power song salvation christnot faith idealism american people american civil religion isnt biblical faith think president doesnt want accountable biblical faith mjcom bush selective reading bible readers may know bible well teachings jesus bush practicing jw conversion text 25th chapter matthew jesus said youve done least youve done dont hear bush ever talking sermon mount dont hear im hard pressed think teachings jesus talked white house jesus didnt speak homosexuality 12 verses bible touch question contextual thousands verses poverty dont hear lot conversation really dont hear bush jesus saying blessed peacemakers even many sermons heard since sept 11 text love enemies hasnt popular text since sept 11 well least debate jesus meant blessed peacemakers love enemies world full terrorism tyranny remember bill oreilly one night yelling iraq said bill would jesus imagine climbing cockpit b52 dropping load bombs baghdad bill said well jesus would surely want protect american people said really iraqis well well start talking religious frame troubling republicans hold bush accountable biblical prophets think issues abortion democrats dont even know language gets away theres got progressive religious response bush says dont quibble piety challenge theology american exceptionalism bible gospel uneasy empireexcept american empire mjcom travels youve seen kind response bush growing grassroots jw become national town meeting folks whove coming feel faith talked media white house faith always narrow either religious right white house religion think people finding voice faith safe space discussion book evangelicals catholics mainline black churches jews muslims young people say theyre spiritual religious agnostics say theyre secular care moral politics mjcom yet even energy unless organized geared towards goal jw well conversation back around shop isnt selling books build movement back book tour story book tour many people bookstores getting 400 dayton ohio austin texas wichita kan also philadelphia boston theyre sitting floor los angeles pouring rain thousand people showed buzzing thing means something needing expressed im getting 30 new speaking invitations every day lot young articulate spokespeople ought churches speaking going create speakers bureau move invitations new generation young women young men lot say think less voice peoples dont feel voice represented conversation chance heard good news monologue religious right new dialogue finally beginning | 1,674 |
<p>This essay is adapted from the new preface of the post 9/11 edition of <a href="" type="internal">Dreaming the End of the World: Apocalypse as a Rite of Passage</a> by MICHAEL ORTIZ HILL (Spring1994/2004).</p>
<p>Dreaming the End of the World was begun before the end of the cold war and finished a few months after the fall of the Berlin wall. The world has changed has it not?</p>
<p>Apocalypse was not on everybody’s lips but now it is. Many people with excitement or dread see this as the time when history and prophecy coincide: The final days. But the book is not about history really. Or rather it is about history as the ritual theater of a rite of initiation fierce and true as any culture might enact. Contemporary history is the place where myth crawls under the skin where that it might transform. The apocalyptic rite of initiation is about the awakening of compassion in a dark time.</p>
<p>In this initiation we meet the Messiah and the Beast, that which would save the world and that which would devour it. This old story/paradigm is at the foundation of Indo-European culture: Babylon was founded when Marduk slayed the chaos dragon, Tiamat. A late version, the Revelation of St. John, where Christ was pitted against Antichrist, was grafted into Christian scripture reluctantly in the fourth century. It seems that the heretic Montanus, rather like some contemporary Christians and Muslims, took it literally, whereas the Early Fathers knew it to be allegory. Montanus was quite sure Christ would soon establish his kingdom in his native Smyrna.</p>
<p>But there is literalism and then there is literalism. On July 17, 1945 north of Alamogordo, New Mexico the Messiah and the Beast resolve into a singular, terrifying, ecstatic image: The mushroom cloud. What had been the legacy of apocalyptic myth became a technological possibility, became the nightmare of the daily news.</p>
<p>This, again, is not only history. It is myth. And because it is myth it is an invitation to initiation. Remember the Bomb was and continues to be our culture hero, our Messiah. It was going to defeat Hitler, after all, and who could argue with that? Many intelligent people, like Oppenheimer believed it could make war itself obsolete. Simultaneously it was and is the Beast, proliferating, hungry.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly the nuclearization of the myth of apocalypse found its way into the dream life of contemporary people. What did surprise was that the patterns of these dreams bear a ritual intelligence consistent with rites of initiation that are hundreds of thousands of years old. As the soul approaches the incomprehensible it is cut away from the community and “common” sense. Stripped bare it suffers the raw truth of the moment, its conundrums and heart break and witnesses the death and rebirth of the self/planet. The images are contemporary but my initiations as a tribal healer in Africa confirmed that the ritual grammar is ancient: Separation, vision, return. If history is a nightmare the apocalyptic initiation is about waking up from its self-destructive imperative.</p>
<p>The end of the Cold War presented the possibility that an epic hallucination might come to an end. What could possibly equal Stalin or Mao, the gulags and reeducation camps, the Khmer Rouge and Sendero Luminoso? What Beast might step forth to contend with the Messiah?</p>
<p>In 1987 an Arab translation of The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey was published in Cairo. Lindsey’s book, first issued in the early seventies, has sold twenty million copies and has had a pervasive influence on the End Times worldview of fundamentalist Christians in America and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Before its publication in Egypt the Muslim apocalyptic tradition had been dormant for centuries. Not so now. Lindsey’s book and the fertile atmosphere of the first Gulf War reawakened the apocalyptic imagination in the Arab world, informing, for example, Al Qaeda. David Cook, the principal scholar of Muslim apocalyptic literature writes, “The contemporary Muslim sees the present world turned upside down by Christian Millennialism. In defense, Muslims make heavy use of the Bible, or one might say the Bible as seen through the eyes of Hal Lindsey….The only difference is that the ‘good guys’ are Muslims, not Christians.”</p>
<p>This postmodern cross pollenization of cultures has assured that the world keep faith with the old story. The impulse towards destruction ­ the Beast ­ now hides in the bloody heart of a myth shared by enemies bent on destroying one another: Redemption through apocalypse. Messiah/Beast has transmuted into a Crusader/Jihadi complex. Two honorable and sometimes radiant traditions are led towards the abyss by their lunatic fringe: Each driven to conquer the world for God, each bearing the sword of unassailable righteousness.</p>
<p>The Crusader/Jihadi makes real its cosmos by drawing to itself final things: The afterlife, the end of the world, the full sanctification of the children of God. This sacred solipsism translated into a religious vernacular the Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War. Without detente.</p>
<p>Its self-convinced righteousness is of a piece with the unspoken, unspeakable, sociopathy that will destroy whatever it deems necessary. The other does not exist, is not quite human, until he or she converts. Cluster bombs dropped into a suburb of Baghdad will deliver the unbelievers to damnation but if the pilot is by chance downed not a small portion of his people are assured that he will rise to heaven. The Jihadi whispering “Allah Akbar” as the plane strikes the World Trade Center knows exactly where he’s going on the other side of death and exactly where he delivers his not-quite-human victims. One commandment forever in stone whatever the bloodshed: Thou shall not for a moment recognize any resemblance between thyself and thine enemy.</p>
<p>It’s almost dawn, the sky lightening to dark blue after a long night. The stellar jays are mad with chatter and the snow is at last beginning to melt. I invite the reader to the wilderness, to the beginning of the apocalyptic rite of passage. My description of the way though is perhaps more relevant now than when I first wrote it down. That being said I offer this book with a single caveat: Beware the seduction of the image, mine and others, for the myth of apocalypse seeks to enthrall us into an epic fiction with very real consequences. Beware the fascination with what is larger than life, this vulgar Passion Play that would crucify the world.</p>
<p>MICHAEL ORTIZ HILL is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Dreaming the End of the World: Apocalypse as a Rite of Passage</a> (Spring Publications, Fall 2003) and with Augustine Kandemwa, Gathering in the Names (Spring Audio and Journal, 2002). He can be emailed at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>Companion pieces to this essay can be read at www.gatheringin.com.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | essay adapted new preface post 911 edition dreaming end world apocalypse rite passage michael ortiz hill spring19942004 dreaming end world begun end cold war finished months fall berlin wall world changed apocalypse everybodys lips many people excitement dread see time history prophecy coincide final days book history really rather history ritual theater rite initiation fierce true culture might enact contemporary history place myth crawls skin might transform apocalyptic rite initiation awakening compassion dark time initiation meet messiah beast would save world would devour old storyparadigm foundation indoeuropean culture babylon founded marduk slayed chaos dragon tiamat late version revelation st john christ pitted antichrist grafted christian scripture reluctantly fourth century seems heretic montanus rather like contemporary christians muslims took literally whereas early fathers knew allegory montanus quite sure christ would soon establish kingdom native smyrna literalism literalism july 17 1945 north alamogordo new mexico messiah beast resolve singular terrifying ecstatic image mushroom cloud legacy apocalyptic myth became technological possibility became nightmare daily news history myth myth invitation initiation remember bomb continues culture hero messiah going defeat hitler could argue many intelligent people like oppenheimer believed could make war obsolete simultaneously beast proliferating hungry surprisingly nuclearization myth apocalypse found way dream life contemporary people surprise patterns dreams bear ritual intelligence consistent rites initiation hundreds thousands years old soul approaches incomprehensible cut away community common sense stripped bare suffers raw truth moment conundrums heart break witnesses death rebirth selfplanet images contemporary initiations tribal healer africa confirmed ritual grammar ancient separation vision return history nightmare apocalyptic initiation waking selfdestructive imperative end cold war presented possibility epic hallucination might come end could possibly equal stalin mao gulags reeducation camps khmer rouge sendero luminoso beast might step forth contend messiah 1987 arab translation late great planet earth hal lindsey published cairo lindseys book first issued early seventies sold twenty million copies pervasive influence end times worldview fundamentalist christians america elsewhere publication egypt muslim apocalyptic tradition dormant centuries lindseys book fertile atmosphere first gulf war reawakened apocalyptic imagination arab world informing example al qaeda david cook principal scholar muslim apocalyptic literature writes contemporary muslim sees present world turned upside christian millennialism defense muslims make heavy use bible one might say bible seen eyes hal lindseythe difference good guys muslims christians postmodern cross pollenization cultures assured world keep faith old story impulse towards destruction beast hides bloody heart myth shared enemies bent destroying one another redemption apocalypse messiahbeast transmuted crusaderjihadi complex two honorable sometimes radiant traditions led towards abyss lunatic fringe driven conquer world god bearing sword unassailable righteousness crusaderjihadi makes real cosmos drawing final things afterlife end world full sanctification children god sacred solipsism translated religious vernacular mutually assured destruction cold war without detente selfconvinced righteousness piece unspoken unspeakable sociopathy destroy whatever deems necessary exist quite human converts cluster bombs dropped suburb baghdad deliver unbelievers damnation pilot chance downed small portion people assured rise heaven jihadi whispering allah akbar plane strikes world trade center knows exactly hes going side death exactly delivers notquitehuman victims one commandment forever stone whatever bloodshed thou shall moment recognize resemblance thyself thine enemy almost dawn sky lightening dark blue long night stellar jays mad chatter snow last beginning melt invite reader wilderness beginning apocalyptic rite passage description way though perhaps relevant first wrote said offer book single caveat beware seduction image mine others myth apocalypse seeks enthrall us epic fiction real consequences beware fascination larger life vulgar passion play would crucify world michael ortiz hill author dreaming end world apocalypse rite passage spring publications fall 2003 augustine kandemwa gathering names spring audio journal 2002 emailed michaelortizhillearthlinkent companion pieces essay read wwwgatheringincom 160 | 600 |
<p>Photo Credit: YouTube Screengrab</p>
<p>The constitutional crisis that's upon us began not with the derangement of Donald Trump, but with the derangement of America’s political and civic culture that made him so plausible to so many in the first place. Getting rid of Trump is imperative and urgent. But doing so won’t prove this is no longer the country that elected him.</p>
<p>Trump isn't an aberration or an imposition on our country; he's a symptom of what’s gone wrong with it. Today's clear and present danger has been generated by a decades-old political myopia and civic pollution no special counsel or congressional investigation is likely to grasp, much less redress. &#160;</p>
<p>To understand what's at stake, let me step back from the scramble to "stay on top of the story" and look past Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey and Russia’s meddling in our democracy to something that's seemingly trivial: the scourge of “political correctness” Trump and others have condemned, sometimes rightly enough, but a bit too furiously for their own good.</p>
<p>Political correctness has a much-longer, more revealing history than Trump and its other obsessive critics seem to know. I’m not thinking about the witch hunters of Salem, MA in 1692, but about other moral scourges who emerged in 1968, in the town of Wellesley.&#160;</p>
<p>In May of that year, some townspeople’s feverish determination to secure their comfortable suburb as a physically, politically, and culturally safe space prompted them to shout down and arraign teenagers and teachers who’d tried to broaden speech and “diversity” quite modestly by today’s standards. The townspeople's furious reaction to that modest effort eerily anticipated today's eruptions of “political correctness” on American campuses—mirrored them word for word, demand for demand, shunning for shunning, and punishment for punishment. The irony is too instructive to ignore.</p>
<p>In what became known nationally as the " <a href="//www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1969mar15-00067" type="external">Wellesley Incident</a>,"&#160;hundreds of residents assailed others who'd participated in a day-long program on civil rights hosted by Wellesley High School just after Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination. The program included a presentation of "The Slave," a play by LeRoy Jones, with a bit of profanity and a scene where a black man nuzzles a white woman. Although most students and teachers were rapt and constructively engaged, the four-letter words and fleeting interracial intimacy were too much for a few teachers who stormed out and for many of the 1,200 townspeople who packed a subsequent school committee hearing.</p>
<p>When a white high school senior at the hearing confronted the program’s angry critics by repeating a line from the play with one of the offending words and telling them, “I first learned to say ‘f__k’ when I was five years old on a playground at school in Wellesley, Massachusetts,” grown men got up and shouted, “Get him!” He was dragged out and handcuffed by two police officers and charged with disturbing the peace. The district attorney also charged four adults—the play’s producer, two teachers, and a member of the Wellesley Committee on Racism—with introducing an obscene and indecent play to minors in a place of education, a crime that carried a sentence of five days' imprisonment and a $5,000 fine.</p>
<p>The charges against the student were dropped after he wrote an apology, and a judge dismissed the charges against the adults. But no one who has videotaped, criticized or armchair-psychoanalyzed today’s politically correct demands for “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings” and “disinvitations” of controversial speakers can deny that the town of Wellesley experienced a politically correct rampage nearly half a century ago.</p>
<p>If any more evidence is needed, in 1971, David and Holly Franke, the latter a former Wellesley resident, published a book touting communities that protected residents from what the authors characterized as dangers coming from a country on the verge of “a real breakdown.” Wellesley received a laudatory listing. The book’s title:&#160; <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Safe_places.html?id=EVAaAQAAIAAJ" type="external">Safe Places</a>.</p>
<p>There is one glaring difference between then and now, and it gets us closer to Trump and his mobs: In the Wellesley Incident, it was conservative adults who demanded safe spaces and tried to suppress the repugnant speech and offensive ways of black actors and the “liberal” white students and teachers who applauded them. And some of the conservative adults' targets—the dreaded “hippies” and “radicals”—were trying to open things up, not shut them down, although many of their efforts later soured and collapsed nationally under enormous pressures, including being shouted down and beaten or literally shot down.</p>
<p>Today, by contrast, it’s self-avowedly progressive students, some of them black, at Middlebury, Yale and other colleges, who've shouted down and tried to punish conservative white adults for expressing views these students and some of their mentors find so repugnant. Like Wellesley’s would-be protectors of half a century ago, they’ve tried to prevent others from hearing them.</p>
<p>These identical responses from such apparently different cohorts carry an important lesson. Although the 1960s young radicals and hippies and today’s politically correct zealots have often been wrong and sometimes destructive, their most obsessive critics, the self-styled defenders of civic comity and virtue, have been even more tragically wrong in mistaking a virulent symptom—the protests of the disaffected young—for the disease. This has prompted not only the protests but massacres in schools, police militarization and shootings of unarmed young men, white working-class opioid addiction, gladiatorial sports, degrading entertainment, and in response, elaborate home-security systems, students carrying guns legally at the University of Texas, and palliatives and escapes that leave many people too weak and isolated to react except in politically correct or authoritarian mobs.</p>
<p>What's really driving our&#160; <a href="" type="internal">derangement</a>&#160;is not occasionally ridiculous, destructive displays of righteous anger but the market-driven distortion of our civic-republican wellsprings and of our young people’s rites of passage to adulthood. That disease has been metastasizing in our body politic for decades at an accelerating pace that culminated in Trump's vulgar, violence-invoking presidential campaign, and now, in Trump's presidency. But its first tremors were evident long ago in assaults on civic culture, not by politically correct disciplinarians, whether in the town of Wellesley or on college campuses, but by market forces to which they were reacting.</p>
<p>A strong civic culture needs a “cultic” dimension that taps into communal and personal histories and generates rich myths or narratives—even more potent than Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings—that inspire the young in their most impressionable, formative moments. It also needs rites of passage, tests of prowess and dedication to the community that are decisive enough to mold youths’ rising, unfocused strengths under the eyes of wise elders who ratify them as members of an intergenerational community.</p>
<p>When kids can’t find credible myths and rites, they can’t help but let us know it. Some try to concoct their own rites, tattooing or cutting themselves. Others try on garments of ethno-racial solidarity, sectarian purity or imperious political correctness.&#160;Still others flock to leaders who promise to help them meet society’s daunting challenges. When young Americans shouting, “Yes we can!” swarmed Barack Obama in 2008 and cheered Bernie Sanders in 2016, the glow of delight on their faces was anthropological even more than it was electoral.</p>
<p>But so was the electric charge on the faces of young Americans shouting, “Build the wall!” as Donald Trump vowed to restore their stolen cultural belonging by channeling a million silent humiliations and hurts into torrents of rage against scapegoats who weren’t nearly as destructive of civic culture as Trump himself has been. (When a vibrant civic culture falters, a Steve Bannon enters.)</p>
<p>The cause of the crisis is that our leaders, officially or by default, have abandoned and contracted out the design and delivery of our civic narratives and rites to anonymous whorls of investors who are driven algorithmically by civically mindless marketing to offer the young&#160;"violence without context and sex without attachment,”&#160;as Senator Bill Bradley&#160; <a href="//www.jimsleeper.com/articles/signature-pieces/The%20Other%20Bill.pdf" type="external">put it in 1995</a>.&#160; Along with tech-driven tsunamis of empty information, chillingly intrusive surveillance traps us like flies in a spider’s web of 800-numbered, sticky-fingered pick-pocketing machines whose purpose is to foment impulse-buying, not to nurture vigilant citizens. &#160;</p>
<p>True, our republican narratives and rites of passage have never been as pure as Henry David Thoreau demanded in 1849, when he wrote&#160;Resistance to Civil Government&#160;(Civil Disobedience), only 12 miles from Wellesley, inspired by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American war. At other times,&#160;our civic myths have been as harsh and hypocritical as Salem’s witch-hunters made them. Our public spirit may have been best represented by any Jack Nicholson movie character’s juggling of democratic fakery and faith, of blustery self-aggrandizement, sneaky self-service, and showy “generosity.”</p>
<p>But by now the accumulation of civic implosions since the Wellesley Incident in 1968 has deflated even Nicholson’s wickedly funny juggling as a believable portrait of our civic life. Scourges of political correctness have become codependent with their targets as the walking wounded of a deeply unjust civil order. In his 2016 campaign, Trump cynically ratcheted up the co-dependency of the politically correct and their obsessive critics by joining the latter’s outcry against campus cry-bullies. So doing, he only reinforced both the targets’ and their critics’ self-righteousness.</p>
<p>Wellesley’s conservatives had at least one good argument on their side: They understood—as conservative Republicans no longer seem to—that what the First Amendment quite rightly protects in provocative free speech, a good civil society quite rightly modulates to keep a cacophonous free-for-all from imploding into a brutal free-for-none. But Wellesley’s tribunes of public virtue carried their point too far against playwrights and students who were only trying conscientiously to find the right balance.</p>
<p>Those who double down similarly now on denouncing feckless liberals’ and radicals’ excesses may really just be doubling down on denying their own complicity in what’s destroying all boundaries: not “totalitarian” kids but omnivorous markets. Trump and other would-be tribunes of American greatness have come to resemble&#160;Captain Renault from the movie Casablanca, who was “shocked, shocked” to find gambling in the café, even as he served a system whose force and fraud made that vice all but inevitable.</p>
<p>Let’s all stop claiming to be “shocked, shocked,” that many Americans are frightened and angry that a regime of casino-like financing, predatory lending, intrusive, addictive consumer-marketing has chosen as its president a financer of casinos and a predatory self-marketer whose only country is himself and whose fellow Americans aren’t sovereign citizens but props on his stage. We need to re-weave rites of passage that can’t be strip-mined for quick profit. We need to replenish narrative wellsprings that won’t be drained by forces more powerful than a high school program or a college student screaming at a professor.&#160;&#160;Our current legal and constitutional crisis is urgent, but the future of the republic depends on what happens to the swift, dark undertows that swept Trump to power in the first place.</p>
<p>Jim Sleeper, a lecturer in political science at Yale, is the author of "Liberal Racism" (1997) and "The Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York" (1990).</p> | true | 4 | photo credit youtube screengrab constitutional crisis thats upon us began derangement donald trump derangement americas political civic culture made plausible many first place getting rid trump imperative urgent wont prove longer country elected trump isnt aberration imposition country hes symptom whats gone wrong todays clear present danger generated decadesold political myopia civic pollution special counsel congressional investigation likely grasp much less redress 160 understand whats stake let step back scramble stay top story look past trumps firing fbi director james comey russias meddling democracy something thats seemingly trivial scourge political correctness trump others condemned sometimes rightly enough bit furiously good political correctness muchlonger revealing history trump obsessive critics seem know im thinking witch hunters salem 1692 moral scourges emerged 1968 town wellesley160 may year townspeoples feverish determination secure comfortable suburb physically politically culturally safe space prompted shout arraign teenagers teachers whod tried broaden speech diversity quite modestly todays standards townspeoples furious reaction modest effort eerily anticipated todays eruptions political correctness american campusesmirrored word word demand demand shunning shunning punishment punishment irony instructive ignore became known nationally wellesley incident160hundreds residents assailed others whod participated daylong program civil rights hosted wellesley high school martin luther king jrs assassination program included presentation slave play leroy jones bit profanity scene black man nuzzles white woman although students teachers rapt constructively engaged fourletter words fleeting interracial intimacy much teachers stormed many 1200 townspeople packed subsequent school committee hearing white high school senior hearing confronted programs angry critics repeating line play one offending words telling first learned say f__k five years old playground school wellesley massachusetts grown men got shouted get dragged handcuffed two police officers charged disturbing peace district attorney also charged four adultsthe plays producer two teachers member wellesley committee racismwith introducing obscene indecent play minors place education crime carried sentence five days imprisonment 5000 fine charges student dropped wrote apology judge dismissed charges adults one videotaped criticized armchairpsychoanalyzed todays politically correct demands safe spaces trigger warnings disinvitations controversial speakers deny town wellesley experienced politically correct rampage nearly half century ago evidence needed 1971 david holly franke latter former wellesley resident published book touting communities protected residents authors characterized dangers coming country verge real breakdown wellesley received laudatory listing books title160 safe places one glaring difference gets us closer trump mobs wellesley incident conservative adults demanded safe spaces tried suppress repugnant speech offensive ways black actors liberal white students teachers applauded conservative adults targetsthe dreaded hippies radicalswere trying open things shut although many efforts later soured collapsed nationally enormous pressures including shouted beaten literally shot today contrast selfavowedly progressive students black middlebury yale colleges whove shouted tried punish conservative white adults expressing views students mentors find repugnant like wellesleys wouldbe protectors half century ago theyve tried prevent others hearing identical responses apparently different cohorts carry important lesson although 1960s young radicals hippies todays politically correct zealots often wrong sometimes destructive obsessive critics selfstyled defenders civic comity virtue even tragically wrong mistaking virulent symptomthe protests disaffected youngfor disease prompted protests massacres schools police militarization shootings unarmed young men white workingclass opioid addiction gladiatorial sports degrading entertainment response elaborate homesecurity systems students carrying guns legally university texas palliatives escapes leave many people weak isolated react except politically correct authoritarian mobs whats really driving our160 derangement160is occasionally ridiculous destructive displays righteous anger marketdriven distortion civicrepublican wellsprings young peoples rites passage adulthood disease metastasizing body politic decades accelerating pace culminated trumps vulgar violenceinvoking presidential campaign trumps presidency first tremors evident long ago assaults civic culture politically correct disciplinarians whether town wellesley college campuses market forces reacting strong civic culture needs cultic dimension taps communal personal histories generates rich myths narrativeseven potent harry potter lord ringsthat inspire young impressionable formative moments also needs rites passage tests prowess dedication community decisive enough mold youths rising unfocused strengths eyes wise elders ratify members intergenerational community kids cant find credible myths rites cant help let us know try concoct rites tattooing cutting others try garments ethnoracial solidarity sectarian purity imperious political correctness160still others flock leaders promise help meet societys daunting challenges young americans shouting yes swarmed barack obama 2008 cheered bernie sanders 2016 glow delight faces anthropological even electoral electric charge faces young americans shouting build wall donald trump vowed restore stolen cultural belonging channeling million silent humiliations hurts torrents rage scapegoats werent nearly destructive civic culture trump vibrant civic culture falters steve bannon enters cause crisis leaders officially default abandoned contracted design delivery civic narratives rites anonymous whorls investors driven algorithmically civically mindless marketing offer young160violence without context sex without attachment160as senator bill bradley160 put 1995160 along techdriven tsunamis empty information chillingly intrusive surveillance traps us like flies spiders web 800numbered stickyfingered pickpocketing machines whose purpose foment impulsebuying nurture vigilant citizens 160 true republican narratives rites passage never pure henry david thoreau demanded 1849 wrote160resistance civil government160civil disobedience 12 miles wellesley inspired disgust slavery mexicanamerican war times160our civic myths harsh hypocritical salems witchhunters made public spirit may best represented jack nicholson movie characters juggling democratic fakery faith blustery selfaggrandizement sneaky selfservice showy generosity accumulation civic implosions since wellesley incident 1968 deflated even nicholsons wickedly funny juggling believable portrait civic life scourges political correctness become codependent targets walking wounded deeply unjust civil order 2016 campaign trump cynically ratcheted codependency politically correct obsessive critics joining latters outcry campus crybullies reinforced targets critics selfrighteousness wellesleys conservatives least one good argument side understoodas conservative republicans longer seem tothat first amendment quite rightly protects provocative free speech good civil society quite rightly modulates keep cacophonous freeforall imploding brutal freefornone wellesleys tribunes public virtue carried point far playwrights students trying conscientiously find right balance double similarly denouncing feckless liberals radicals excesses may really doubling denying complicity whats destroying boundaries totalitarian kids omnivorous markets trump wouldbe tribunes american greatness come resemble160captain renault movie casablanca shocked shocked find gambling café even served system whose force fraud made vice inevitable lets stop claiming shocked shocked many americans frightened angry regime casinolike financing predatory lending intrusive addictive consumermarketing chosen president financer casinos predatory selfmarketer whose country whose fellow americans arent sovereign citizens props stage need reweave rites passage cant stripmined quick profit need replenish narrative wellsprings wont drained forces powerful high school program college student screaming professor160160our current legal constitutional crisis urgent future republic depends happens swift dark undertows swept trump power first place jim sleeper lecturer political science yale author liberal racism 1997 closest strangers liberalism politics race new york 1990 | 1,061 |
<p>Mexico vs United States CONCACAF Cup, October 10, 2015, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA (Photo Credit: Joel Tena)</p>
<p>Watch any soccer game of the Mexican national team or from Mexico’s LigaMX and inevitably you will hear that word. As the goalie readies for a goal kick a cheer rises from the crowd: “Ehhhhhhhhh…..” until like a slingshot the pent-up verbiage is released the moment laces strike the ball: “¡PUTO!”</p>
<p />
<p>Most fútbol fans are aware of this behavior. Many Mexicans who witness it will chuckle or laugh, or roll their eyes at the low-brow humor. But there are others who see it as another example of their stigmatization, ostracization&#160;and isolation —from their families, from their communities— because they are gay. Because for many in the LGBTQ community, the word “puto” is a homophobic slur.</p>
<p>Ask your average Mexican soccer fan (ask your average Mexican) if “puto” is anti-gay and chances are you will hear a resounding “No.” Many folks of Mexican descent, myself included, grew up with the word meaning something to the effect of “male prostitute,” “gigolo,” or “man whore”—the counterpoint to “puta,” which means a female prostitute. It was a rude term. You wouldn’t use the word in front of older adults you respected and certainly not something you would say in front of your parents.</p>
<p>Homophobia is prevalent in Mexican culture (as it is in the U.S. and in much of the world), and sadly there were and are many other words that one would use to express those feelings.</p>
<p>But it does emasculate. It does demonize and disassemble traditional male heterosexual roles. Since there is no reason a male prostitute couldn’t sell his “services” to either a man or a woman, there is the implication that it might be related to sexuality. It’s certainly common for words questioning one’s sexuality to be used has verbal weapons to dehumanize and negate another individual, and to contrast them with the assumed positive, preferred lifestyle of a straight man.</p>
<p>These sentiments didn’t just spring forth in a vacuum. Mexican culture, like all other post-colonial cultures in our Américas, has traditionally frowned upon, dismissed, ridiculed and attacked its queer sisters and brothers. In our patriarchal societies, men are seen as superior and dominating, and woman are seen as submissive and inferior. To be gay meant to be no longer on the level of other straight men, but to be on level with women. Someone to be dominated, ridiculed and, deep down, threatened by.</p>
<p>It’s these hyper-masculine cultures in both the United States and Mexico that conditioned men to question other men’s sexuality and forces younger men to stand vigilant against any such attacks lest they be perceived as less than a man. It’s this social conditioning which leads to the number of acts of violence against women, shootings, murders and homophobic attacks. It’s no coincidence that most murders are committed by men, like the horrific mass killing of 49 people, <a href="" type="internal">predominant queer Latinos</a> who were mostly of Puerto Rican descent, by a deeply violent, homophobic, and bigoted individual in Orlando last Sunday.</p>
<p>What connects Mexico to this tragedy in Orlando is the extent to which homophobia manifests itself through violence there. Mexico is considered by researchers at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) to be <a href="http://aristeguinoticias.com/1705/mexico/mexico-segundo-pais-con-mas-violencia-por-homofobia/" type="external">the second most dangerous country in the world</a> for LGBTQ folks. In its recent study, the Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género found that between 1996-2015 over 1,200 homophobic murders took place in Mexico, about one a week. And this isn’t limited to interpersonal violence. Mass shootings have also taken place. Last December, three people were murdered when gunmen <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Three-People-Murdered-in-Acapulcos-Gay-Queen-Festival-20151201-0031.html" type="external">fired upon the crowd</a> at the Reina Gay Festival outside of Acapulco. Just this past May, five people were killed and over a dozen injured when four gunmen <a href="http://www.sinembargo.mx/24-05-2016/1664218" type="external">opened fire inside a packed gay nightclub</a> in the university town and Veracruz state capital of Xalapa.</p>
<p>Since Orlando, we have heard a refrain amongst the LGBTQ community: the attack on Pulse hits deep because LGBTQ nightclubs are more than just clubs. Gay and lesbian bars and clubs are spaces of freedom in a heterosexual world, spaces that allowed queer folks the ability to be who they really are to talk, dance, love and be together—free from the repercussions of a homophobic and bigoted world on the outside.</p>
<p>That impact was felt that much more among the Latino queer community. As a straight Latino man, the LGBTQ folks I know say they feel alienated from many mainstream (white) gay community spaces, and have a hard time finding space among other people of color. Having a Latin-themed gay club meant that those most isolated, disenfranchised, and excluded from their own communities (both their Latino families and friends as well as other queer folks) had a place to call their own, a safe place… shattered and devastated by the massacre in Orlando.</p>
<p />
<p>There are so many aspects of being gay and lesbian that most straight folks like myself can’t even begin to understand. For instance, given the homophobia present in Latino societies, many brown folks choose to remain in the closet where it is “safer,” both physically and emotionally, and allow them to continue with familial ties. Sadly, because of Orlando, there are families who will only find out through the death of a loved one that they were gay. And while times have changed, and families and communities are much more embracing and loving of their LGBTQ sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, many folks still remain rooted in the homophobia and bigotry prevalent in our societies, denying their love and casting shame upon their own flesh and blood.</p>
<p>Therefore, many queer Latinos stay hidden because to do otherwise would expose them to the harm and pain of being denied one’s family, friends and social network.</p>
<p>Then they go to or watch a Mexican soccer game, where they hear an anti-gay slur chanted by thousands.</p>
<p>Claims that no one is offended because no one says anything ring hollow given the reality and the necessity of many queer folks to remain in the proverbial shadows.</p>
<p>Claims that they are just words also fall flat.</p>
<p>We know words can be isolating, damaging and can hurt. We in the Mexican/Chicano community only have to turn on the TV to hear and experience how much pain words can inflict, and how dehumanizing they can be. Whether it’s Trump labeling immigrants “rapists” and “drug dealers” or sports reporters telling us they didn’t think <a href="" type="internal">Mexicans were “that smart,”</a> we as a community know all too well how this kind of negative language can affect folks for the worse.</p>
<p>The pain and hurt caused by people who claim no ill will towards us as a group. How are we to know what that feels like? We don’t have to imagine. We as a Mexican/Latino/immigrant community know all too well.</p>
<p>Why then is it so hard for Mexicans, specifically Mexican soccer fans, to stop using the word “puto” at games?</p>
<p>For starters, folks have been saying it for a while. It’s not some long-standing tradition that some make it out to be, but it has been fairly omnipresent at games involving Mexicans, and now throughout Latin America, over the last ten years.</p>
<p>Yet that&#160;is still no excuse.</p>
<p>It’s&#160;same weak sauce rationale white Southern racists use for flying the Confederate flag these days: that it’s part of their heritage and culture, and that it doesn’t mean what you think it means.</p>
<p>Even if the “puto” chant were use for a century, that doesn’t excuse it for the pain it causes others. And as stated above, many folks who say it don’t think that it’s homophobic. They do not realize the broader implications of using the word. It is true that sometimes we don’t know pain we cause others. But when made aware of it to continue to inflict that pain is unconscionable.</p>
<p>And fans have indeed been made aware.</p>
<p>During the 2014 Brazil World Cup, more and more footy supporters&#160;and LGBTQ activists and allies <a href="" type="internal">have been speaking out</a> against usage of the word. At that tournament, Mexico fans used the word during match play. Soon, more and more people from other countries heard it. Many fans, especially those here in the U.S., saw the word as undeniably homophobic.</p>
<p>FIFA, world football’s governing body, heard the concerns and earlier this year began leveling fines to football associations where the chant has been used. This happened in several Latin Americans countries, including Mexico. The fines were relatively small, but came with the ominous warning that FIFA will continue to review the matter, with more penalties to come, including stiffer fines and possibly having to play official games behind closed doors, should the chants continue.</p>
<p>In the last month, the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) put out a series of public service announcements featuring star Mexican goalies Guillermo Ochoa, Alfredo Talavera and Jesus Corona with the tagline “Ya párale”, or “Stop it”, in reference to the chant, to help educate fans.</p>
<p />
<p>Unfortunately, these efforts have been underwhelming and are clearly not working.</p>
<p>Mexico is currently in the midst of the 2016 Copa América Centenario, a celebration of South America’s older soccer tournament. The games are being held in the United States for the first time, and Mexico, with its incredibly large fan base here (it’s not hyperbole to say that the Mexican national team is the single most popular soccer team in the United States) was invited and is seen as one of the favorites to win the tournament. In every El Tri match, no matter what city it is being played in, the overwhelming majority of the fans are Mexican.</p>
<p>And at every goal kick, the unmistakable cry of “puto” is heard throughout.</p>
<p>The last such occurrence is seen by some as the biggest black eye of Mexico’s tournament run thus far. On Monday, less than 48 hours after the homophobic Orlando attack that saw many Latinos die (including three Mexicans), and after a touching moment of silence where both El Tri and the Venezuelan national team stood in honor of those who lost their lives, as soon as Vinotinto goalie Dani Hernández touched the ball, the anti-gay “puto” chant rang out.</p>
<p>What will it take to change our behavior?</p>
<p>First, the Mexican soccer community has to formally acknowledge that this is a problem. Homophobia has absolutely no place in our society, and that includes our soccer culture. We must absolutely open up and embrace folks regardless of sexual preference. Because it’s not an “us” vs “them,” it is ALL OF US, our sisters and brothers, who have the absolute right to be, free from stigma, shame and violence.</p>
<p>Second, the whole framing of this issue is wrong. We shouldn’t stop using the word because of what FIFA may do. We all know the problems and inherent contradictions within FIFA. The fact they are going after fans using a homophobic chant while working with governments like Russia, known to be openly hostile to their queer community, and Qatar, which outright criminalizes homosexuality, exposes their ridiculous hypocrisy in the name of profit. FIFA, Russia and Qatar should hang their heads in shame.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, we should do the right thing, always. We should think about the way the “puto” chant makes those around us feel. We should acknowledge that it is wrong to knowingly ostracize, alienate and dehumanize a large segment of our population. This isn’t about being tolerant. It is about realizing who we are as a people and who we are as a society as a whole. We are queer folks and straight folks, and we should be open, accepting, and embracing… because that’s what makes us a family.</p>
<p>Third, the Mexican Football Federation needs to take this issue seriously. Their initial attempts seem bungled at best. Not calling out what they want stopped, and why it should be stopped, is a problem. Not working with LGBTQ groups in Mexico and the U.S. was a huge mistake. The Federation should tackle the problem head on, from talking more direct about the chant with its ad campaign, to educating its players on why this need exists, to working with the fans and supporters groups to help them in their own efforts to eradicate the chant from the stands.</p>
<p>Finally, fans need to step up. We need to make homophobia as toxic and repulsive as racism in the stands. We wouldn’t stand for <a href="" type="internal">monkey chants</a>. We would call those people out for what they were doing. We should do the same for the folks who knowingly foster and perpetuate a climate of hate.</p>
<p>Many on both sides will be angered by these suggestions, both those who will swear they are not being homophobic when they yell “puto,” and those who condemn Mexican fans for not terminating the word from their lexicon with extreme prejudice.</p>
<p>Sorry.</p>
<p>To my Mexican homies, you are on the wrong side of history and morality because it is more important to listen and learn how your actions impact others than which definition of a word you can cherry pick from the internet. Plain and simple, you are not right and need to move on, embracing your LGBTQ sisters and brothers in the process.</p>
<p>To folks in the U.S., primarily white folks, who don’t understand why the chant won’t stop immediately, there needs to be some kind of understanding and reflection of the mountain of prejudice and misunderstanding in relation to LGBTQ issues that exists both in our Mexican culture, and in U.S. society. This isn’t about bad people doing bad things. It’s about people not knowing, or not believing that what they are doing is bad. It’s about educating and opening those up people to understand what they do to their own folks. It’s about learning and supporting efforts among the Mexican and Latino communities already working to help eradicate homophobia.</p>
<p>Don’t get clouded by your own sense of moral superiority, cultural insensitivity and even latent racism, especially right now when a major presidential candidate is basing most of his campaign on scapegoating the Mexican community. Frankly, if we could solve the Mexican fans’ homophobic chant overnight, we should bottle and sell that plan to a world suffering from longstanding bigotry. Especially here in the U.S., homophobia and racism haven’t been solved and we continue to deal with their ugly manifestations every day. To expect differently from Mexicans is hypocrisy of the highest order.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean we accept the status quo, nor does it mean we don’t try our hardest. It means we do so knowing full well that fans (people) don’t change immediately, but if shown the way, they will change for the better. As Sergio Tristan, founder of the Pancho Villa’s Army Mexican national team supporters group <a href="http://www.soccernation.com/pancho-villas-army-seeks-to-end-the-infamous-goalkeeper-chant-from-mexico-matches-in-the-u-s/" type="external">has said many times</a>, “It’s going to take time, it’s going to take one fan at a time, but (the “puto” chant) will be eliminated.”</p>
<p>Let’s start working towards that goal: together and today.</p>
<p>Let’s work to end the hate, end the “puto” chant, and let love win.</p>
<p>We’ve lost far too many of our loved ones to do anything less.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Joel Tena is a proud father, husband, son, Mexican. When he’s not lovingly arguing with his son as to who should be Barcelona’s starting goalkeeper, he’s in the streets of Oakland fighting for social, racial, and economic justice.&#160;He tweets from <a href="http://twitter.com/joeltena" type="external">@joeltena</a>.</p>
<p>One of the more interesting backstories surrounding the World Cup looks like a non-issue, now that FIFA has weighed in today with a statement about coordinated "puto" chants by Mexican fans at this year's global tournament: Disciplinary proceedings were opened against Mexico for improper conduct of spectators during the match,…</p>
<p>June 23, 2014</p>
<p>Out of our more than 250 contributors, these op-eds topped the list in 2016.</p>
<p>December 31, 2016</p>
<p>As with any embarrassingly disappointing opinion piece that gets my attention, I usually find out about it via Twitter. This weekend&#160;was no different, when @RachelDecoste tweeted this: @julito77 Historical amnesia: @EnriqueKrauze in NYTimes «Latin America’s Talent for Tolerance» http://t.co/7HtHdJT0N7 #latino #racism— Rachel Décoste (@RachelDecoste) July 12, 2014 After tapping my…</p>
<p>July 13, 2014</p> | true | 4 | mexico vs united states concacaf cup october 10 2015 rose bowl pasadena ca photo credit joel tena watch soccer game mexican national team mexicos ligamx inevitably hear word goalie readies goal kick cheer rises crowd ehhhhhhhhh like slingshot pentup verbiage released moment laces strike ball puto fútbol fans aware behavior many mexicans witness chuckle laugh roll eyes lowbrow humor others see another example stigmatization ostracization160and isolation families communities gay many lgbtq community word puto homophobic slur ask average mexican soccer fan ask average mexican puto antigay chances hear resounding many folks mexican descent included grew word meaning something effect male prostitute gigolo man whorethe counterpoint puta means female prostitute rude term wouldnt use word front older adults respected certainly something would say front parents homophobia prevalent mexican culture us much world sadly many words one would use express feelings emasculate demonize disassemble traditional male heterosexual roles since reason male prostitute couldnt sell services either man woman implication might related sexuality certainly common words questioning ones sexuality used verbal weapons dehumanize negate another individual contrast assumed positive preferred lifestyle straight man sentiments didnt spring forth vacuum mexican culture like postcolonial cultures américas traditionally frowned upon dismissed ridiculed attacked queer sisters brothers patriarchal societies men seen superior dominating woman seen submissive inferior gay meant longer level straight men level women someone dominated ridiculed deep threatened hypermasculine cultures united states mexico conditioned men question mens sexuality forces younger men stand vigilant attacks lest perceived less man social conditioning leads number acts violence women shootings murders homophobic attacks coincidence murders committed men like horrific mass killing 49 people predominant queer latinos mostly puerto rican descent deeply violent homophobic bigoted individual orlando last sunday connects mexico tragedy orlando extent homophobia manifests violence mexico considered researchers universidad nacional autónoma de méxico unam second dangerous country world lgbtq folks recent study programa universitario de estudios de género found 19962015 1200 homophobic murders took place mexico one week isnt limited interpersonal violence mass shootings also taken place last december three people murdered gunmen fired upon crowd reina gay festival outside acapulco past may five people killed dozen injured four gunmen opened fire inside packed gay nightclub university town veracruz state capital xalapa since orlando heard refrain amongst lgbtq community attack pulse hits deep lgbtq nightclubs clubs gay lesbian bars clubs spaces freedom heterosexual world spaces allowed queer folks ability really talk dance love togetherfree repercussions homophobic bigoted world outside impact felt much among latino queer community straight latino man lgbtq folks know say feel alienated many mainstream white gay community spaces hard time finding space among people color latinthemed gay club meant isolated disenfranchised excluded communities latino families friends well queer folks place call safe place shattered devastated massacre orlando many aspects gay lesbian straight folks like cant even begin understand instance given homophobia present latino societies many brown folks choose remain closet safer physically emotionally allow continue familial ties sadly orlando families find death loved one gay times changed families communities much embracing loving lgbtq sons daughters sisters brothers many folks still remain rooted homophobia bigotry prevalent societies denying love casting shame upon flesh blood therefore many queer latinos stay hidden otherwise would expose harm pain denied ones family friends social network go watch mexican soccer game hear antigay slur chanted thousands claims one offended one says anything ring hollow given reality necessity many queer folks remain proverbial shadows claims words also fall flat know words isolating damaging hurt mexicanchicano community turn tv hear experience much pain words inflict dehumanizing whether trump labeling immigrants rapists drug dealers sports reporters telling us didnt think mexicans smart community know well kind negative language affect folks worse pain hurt caused people claim ill towards us group know feels like dont imagine mexicanlatinoimmigrant community know well hard mexicans specifically mexican soccer fans stop using word puto games starters folks saying longstanding tradition make fairly omnipresent games involving mexicans throughout latin america last ten years yet that160is still excuse its160same weak sauce rationale white southern racists use flying confederate flag days part heritage culture doesnt mean think means even puto chant use century doesnt excuse pain causes others stated many folks say dont think homophobic realize broader implications using word true sometimes dont know pain cause others made aware continue inflict pain unconscionable fans indeed made aware 2014 brazil world cup footy supporters160and lgbtq activists allies speaking usage word tournament mexico fans used word match play soon people countries heard many fans especially us saw word undeniably homophobic fifa world footballs governing body heard concerns earlier year began leveling fines football associations chant used happened several latin americans countries including mexico fines relatively small came ominous warning fifa continue review matter penalties come including stiffer fines possibly play official games behind closed doors chants continue last month mexican football federation fmf put series public service announcements featuring star mexican goalies guillermo ochoa alfredo talavera jesus corona tagline ya párale stop reference chant help educate fans unfortunately efforts underwhelming clearly working mexico currently midst 2016 copa américa centenario celebration south americas older soccer tournament games held united states first time mexico incredibly large fan base hyperbole say mexican national team single popular soccer team united states invited seen one favorites win tournament every el tri match matter city played overwhelming majority fans mexican every goal kick unmistakable cry puto heard throughout last occurrence seen biggest black eye mexicos tournament run thus far monday less 48 hours homophobic orlando attack saw many latinos die including three mexicans touching moment silence el tri venezuelan national team stood honor lost lives soon vinotinto goalie dani hernández touched ball antigay puto chant rang take change behavior first mexican soccer community formally acknowledge problem homophobia absolutely place society includes soccer culture must absolutely open embrace folks regardless sexual preference us vs us sisters brothers absolute right free stigma shame violence second whole framing issue wrong shouldnt stop using word fifa may know problems inherent contradictions within fifa fact going fans using homophobic chant working governments like russia known openly hostile queer community qatar outright criminalizes homosexuality exposes ridiculous hypocrisy name profit fifa russia qatar hang heads shame meanwhile right thing always think way puto chant makes around us feel acknowledge wrong knowingly ostracize alienate dehumanize large segment population isnt tolerant realizing people society whole queer folks straight folks open accepting embracing thats makes us family third mexican football federation needs take issue seriously initial attempts seem bungled best calling want stopped stopped problem working lgbtq groups mexico us huge mistake federation tackle problem head talking direct chant ad campaign educating players need exists working fans supporters groups help efforts eradicate chant stands finally fans need step need make homophobia toxic repulsive racism stands wouldnt stand monkey chants would call people folks knowingly foster perpetuate climate hate many sides angered suggestions swear homophobic yell puto condemn mexican fans terminating word lexicon extreme prejudice sorry mexican homies wrong side history morality important listen learn actions impact others definition word cherry pick internet plain simple right need move embracing lgbtq sisters brothers process folks us primarily white folks dont understand chant wont stop immediately needs kind understanding reflection mountain prejudice misunderstanding relation lgbtq issues exists mexican culture us society isnt bad people bad things people knowing believing bad educating opening people understand folks learning supporting efforts among mexican latino communities already working help eradicate homophobia dont get clouded sense moral superiority cultural insensitivity even latent racism especially right major presidential candidate basing campaign scapegoating mexican community frankly could solve mexican fans homophobic chant overnight bottle sell plan world suffering longstanding bigotry especially us homophobia racism havent solved continue deal ugly manifestations every day expect differently mexicans hypocrisy highest order doesnt mean accept status quo mean dont try hardest means knowing full well fans people dont change immediately shown way change better sergio tristan founder pancho villas army mexican national team supporters group said many times going take time going take one fan time puto chant eliminated lets start working towards goal together today lets work end hate end puto chant let love win weve lost far many loved ones anything less joel tena proud father husband son mexican hes lovingly arguing son barcelonas starting goalkeeper hes streets oakland fighting social racial economic justice160he tweets joeltena one interesting backstories surrounding world cup looks like nonissue fifa weighed today statement coordinated puto chants mexican fans years global tournament disciplinary proceedings opened mexico improper conduct spectators match june 23 2014 250 contributors opeds topped list 2016 december 31 2016 embarrassingly disappointing opinion piece gets attention usually find via twitter weekend160was different racheldecoste tweeted julito77 historical amnesia enriquekrauze nytimes latin americas talent tolerance httptco7hthdjt0n7 latino racism rachel décoste racheldecoste july 12 2014 tapping july 13 2014 | 1,451 |
<p>Machines will produce 99.4% of the election results for the upcoming 2004 presidential election. With all the hoopla over voting machine “glitches,” porous software, leaked memos, and the creepy corporations that sell and service these contraptions, and with all the controversy that surrounds campaign financing, voter registration, redistricting issues, and the general privatization of the election process – we are missing the boat on the biggest crisis facing our democracy.</p>
<p>Americans aren’t really voting. Machines are. Call it faking democracy.</p>
<p>And no one seems to be challenging it. As far as I can tell from my own investigations and from discussions with law professors, attorneys, and others, there has never been a lawsuit that challenges the right of machines to be used in the voting process. Recent lawsuits that have been filed by Susan Marie Webber of California and Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) are based on verification. The plaintiffs want voting machines to produce paper ballots so that voters can verify that the machine’s output matched their input. They also want paper ballots for manual audits and recounts.</p>
<p>But these lawsuits, as well as proposed legislation in Congress from Congressman Rush Holt and Senator Bob Graham, leave voting machines in control of election results. The public is being offered a set of false choices – paperless touchscreen voting machines or touchscreen machines with ballot printers. Machine-free elections are not on the menu.</p>
<p>Part of the reason may be that people believe the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires states to use voting machines. It does no such thing, not even for the disabled. Anther reason the machine-free option is not widely discussed is the popular misconception that people will not “go back” to paper ballots. But they already have. Absentee voting continues to grow in popularity despite real security problems with the chain of custody of the ballots.</p>
<p>It is particularly confounding to this writer that our foremost legal scholars and political scientists have yet to address this issue. Instead, a bold band of tech heads are leading a charge against paperless voting machines. But, they are not looking at the broader Constitutional issues. Being technical, they’re calling for a technical fix – ballot printers.</p>
<p>The only fix that will give Americans back their constitutional right to vote is to ditch the machines.</p>
<p>In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court said that a “legal vote” is one in which there is a “clear indication of the intent of the voter.” Voting machines (lever, optical scan, touchscreen, the Internet, etc.) produce circumstantial evidence of the voter’s intent, at best. Think of voting as a three-step process: marking, casting, and counting ballots. Once a machine is involved in any one of those steps, the result is hard evidence of the machine’s output and circumstantial evidence of the voter’s input.</p>
<p>Many activists are calling for ballot printers, hand counts, and strict audits to ensure honest election results. That will not fix the problem of using voting machines. Voting rights are for people, not machines. The voting process must be transparent in order for voting rights to be enforced. Machines are not transparent.</p>
<p>When voting machines are used, critical parts of the Voting Rights Act can’t be enforced. Under Section 8 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 &lt;U.S.Code&gt; sec1973f, Federal Observers are authorized to observe “… whether persons who are entitled to vote are being permitted to vote …(and) whether votes cast by persons entitled to vote are being properly tabulated…”</p>
<p>Under “Prohibited acts” in sec1973i, the “Failure or refusal to permit casting or tabulation of vote”…can result in civil and criminal penalties. “No person acting under color of law shall fail or refuse to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote…(and) Whoever…knowingly and willfully falsifies or conceals a material fact… shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five year, or both.”</p>
<p>Voting machines violate those provisions. Vote casting and tabulation take place inside of a box. Federal Observers can’t observe “… whether persons who are entitled to vote are being permitted to vote …(and) whether votes cast …are being properly tabulated..” Voting machines by their very design “conceals a material fact.”</p>
<p>Although, Susan Marie Webber and Congressman Wexler are suing to force states to require manufacturers to attach ballot printers to voting machines, the resulting ballot would still be only circumstantial evidence of the voter’s intent. It’s been predicted by election officials (and it makes common sense, to boot) that many voters won’t bother to verify their ballots. In which case, who is to say if the vote cast matched the voter’s intent? Some will say that it’s the voter’s responsibility to verify their ballot, but that view misses the point. Why should people verify the work of a machine? That puts the voter playing second fiddle to technology. Whose right to vote is it?</p>
<p>The contention that voters too often don’t fill out ballots properly or the elections officials too often don’t count correctly is not born out by the facts, but is moot, regardless. Again, the right to vote and to observe your vote counted properly can belongs to people, not machines.</p>
<p>Consideration of time and convenience is another red herring in this debate. Those issues have simple no-tech solutions, anyway. If officials want a fast ballot count then they can limit the size of the voting precincts or increase the number of election officials. If more elections officials are needed they can be drafted into public service as is done all year around for jury duty. Likewise, voters who don’t understand English could order ballots in their own language in advance of an election.</p>
<p>Voting machines have been marketed as ‘assisting voters’ (i.e., President Bush’s Elections Assistance Committee), rather than what they really do, which is to interfere with a citizen’s right to vote. It’s particularly galling to see the needs of the disabled voters used to force voting machines down the throats of the electorate. The simple ballot template, which is used in Rhode Island, Canada, and around the world, allows the blind to vote privately and independently, or as independently as possible. Actually, when the disabled use voting machines they certainly are not voting independently. They are relying on the machine to vote for them, just like able-bodied voters.</p>
<p>It’s insane when you think about it. Using machines in elections. Yet, we’ve been doing it since 1888. How can Americans be so naive? How can we surrender our precious right to vote to some hunk of junk and so few people seem to notice or to care? How can we call ourselves a democracy?</p>
<p>It is painful to think that as African Americans intensified their struggle for the vote in the 1960’s, voting machines were already in widespread use and perfectly positioned to control election results, and according to some accounts, were already doing so. Just imagine how the Iraqi people would react if the U.S. government told them that their elections will be electronic and that Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, and Microsoft will provide the machines and the software they run on? Exactly. The Iraqis would burn the place down, some more.</p>
<p>Yet, here we Americans go again. Not connecting the dots. Shooting at the wrong target. Attaching printer machines to the voting machines that don’t belong there in the first place. Asking voters to verify a machine’s output, leaving the voter’s input indirect and in doubt.</p>
<p>I wonder what the United Nations think about a country that fakes democracy? They probably already know.</p>
<p>LYNN LANDES is the publisher of <a href="http://www.EcoTalk.org/" type="external">EcoTalk.org</a> and a news reporter for DUTV in Philadelphia, PA. Formerly Lynn was a radio show host for WDVR in New Jersey and a regular commentator for a BBC radio program. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | machines produce 994 election results upcoming 2004 presidential election hoopla voting machine glitches porous software leaked memos creepy corporations sell service contraptions controversy surrounds campaign financing voter registration redistricting issues general privatization election process missing boat biggest crisis facing democracy americans arent really voting machines call faking democracy one seems challenging far tell investigations discussions law professors attorneys others never lawsuit challenges right machines used voting process recent lawsuits filed susan marie webber california congressman robert wexler dfl based verification plaintiffs want voting machines produce paper ballots voters verify machines output matched input also want paper ballots manual audits recounts lawsuits well proposed legislation congress congressman rush holt senator bob graham leave voting machines control election results public offered set false choices paperless touchscreen voting machines touchscreen machines ballot printers machinefree elections menu part reason may people believe help america vote act hava requires states use voting machines thing even disabled anther reason machinefree option widely discussed popular misconception people go back paper ballots already absentee voting continues grow popularity despite real security problems chain custody ballots particularly confounding writer foremost legal scholars political scientists yet address issue instead bold band tech heads leading charge paperless voting machines looking broader constitutional issues technical theyre calling technical fix ballot printers fix give americans back constitutional right vote ditch machines bush v gore supreme court said legal vote one clear indication intent voter voting machines lever optical scan touchscreen internet etc produce circumstantial evidence voters intent best think voting threestep process marking casting counting ballots machine involved one steps result hard evidence machines output circumstantial evidence voters input many activists calling ballot printers hand counts strict audits ensure honest election results fix problem using voting machines voting rights people machines voting process must transparent order voting rights enforced machines transparent voting machines used critical parts voting rights act cant enforced section 8 voting rights act 42 ltuscodegt sec1973f federal observers authorized observe whether persons entitled vote permitted vote whether votes cast persons entitled vote properly tabulated prohibited acts sec1973i failure refusal permit casting tabulation votecan result civil criminal penalties person acting color law shall fail refuse permit person vote entitled voteand whoeverknowingly willfully falsifies conceals material fact shall fined 10000 imprisoned five year voting machines violate provisions vote casting tabulation take place inside box federal observers cant observe whether persons entitled vote permitted vote whether votes cast properly tabulated voting machines design conceals material fact although susan marie webber congressman wexler suing force states require manufacturers attach ballot printers voting machines resulting ballot would still circumstantial evidence voters intent predicted election officials makes common sense boot many voters wont bother verify ballots case say vote cast matched voters intent say voters responsibility verify ballot view misses point people verify work machine puts voter playing second fiddle technology whose right vote contention voters often dont fill ballots properly elections officials often dont count correctly born facts moot regardless right vote observe vote counted properly belongs people machines consideration time convenience another red herring debate issues simple notech solutions anyway officials want fast ballot count limit size voting precincts increase number election officials elections officials needed drafted public service done year around jury duty likewise voters dont understand english could order ballots language advance election voting machines marketed assisting voters ie president bushs elections assistance committee rather really interfere citizens right vote particularly galling see needs disabled voters used force voting machines throats electorate simple ballot template used rhode island canada around world allows blind vote privately independently independently possible actually disabled use voting machines certainly voting independently relying machine vote like ablebodied voters insane think using machines elections yet weve since 1888 americans naive surrender precious right vote hunk junk people seem notice care call democracy painful think african americans intensified struggle vote 1960s voting machines already widespread use perfectly positioned control election results according accounts already imagine iraqi people would react us government told elections electronic halliburton carlyle group microsoft provide machines software run exactly iraqis would burn place yet americans go connecting dots shooting wrong target attaching printer machines voting machines dont belong first place asking voters verify machines output leaving voters input indirect doubt wonder united nations think country fakes democracy probably already know lynn landes publisher ecotalkorg news reporter dutv philadelphia pa formerly lynn radio show host wdvr new jersey regular commentator bbc radio program reached lynnlandesearthlinknet 160 | 729 |
<p>At Guantánamo last week, the Military Commission trial system convened for only the second time since President Obama announced <a href="" type="internal">a four-month freeze</a> on all proceedings on his first day in office to give the new administration’s inter-departmental <a href="" type="internal">Guantánamo Task Force</a> an opportunity to review the best ways in which to deal with the remaining prisoners inherited from the Bush administration.</p>
<p>Reviving the Commissions, ill-advisedly</p>
<p>In May, in <a href="" type="internal">a major speech</a> on national security, Barack Obama signaled that he was planning to revive the Commissions, arguing that, with some amendments, they would be “fair, legitimate, and effective,” and promising to “work with Congress and legal authorities across the political spectrum on legislation” that would fulfill these aims.</p>
<p>Pleasant though it was to hear a President talk of involving Congress, without having to have his arm twisted to do so, Obama’s willingness to revive the Commissions flew in the face of widespread opposition from civilian lawyers and a wide range of legal experts, and, most significantly, from seven former prosecutors who resigned in disgust at what they saw as the politicization of the system or its irremediable faults (including <a href="" type="internal">Col. Morris Davis</a>, the former chief prosecutor, and <a href="" type="internal">Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld</a>, who resigned last September), and all of the government-appointed defense attorneys, who have been prepared to risk their careers to oppose what they all realized was an unjust system.</p>
<p>Critics — myself included — were <a href="" type="internal">not placated</a> by Obama’s proposed tweaking of the Commissions’ rules, and insisted that the only way forward was to drop the Commissions and proceed with federal court trials. Bizarrely, on the same day as Obama’s speech, the administration announced that <a href="" type="internal">Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani</a>, a suspect in the 1998 African embassy bombings, would face a trial in New York, and, moreover, in an accompanying <a href="" type="internal">press release</a>, the Justice Department trumpeted its “long history of … successfully prosecuting terror suspects through the criminal justice system” (and <a href="" type="internal">attached a list</a> of successful prosecutions over the last 16 years), which rather seemed to prove the point that the Commissions — which have achieved only three dubious results ( <a href="" type="internal">David Hicks</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Salim Hamdan</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Ali Hamza al-Bahlul</a>) — should not be revived.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, in the last few weeks the Senate Armed Services Committee — and its chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, who really should know better — bowed to the President’s wishes and tweaked the wording of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (which revived the Commissions after the Supreme Court ruled that their first incarnation was illegal), even though, as <a href="" type="internal">I reported last week</a> when Lt. Col. Vandeveld delivered testimony to the Committee which should have halted the politicians in their tracks, it still allows the use of information masquerading as evidence that was obtained through coercion, and still allows for hearsay information to be appraised as evidence by judges who are not qualified to make such decisions.</p>
<p>The legislation has yet to be approved by the Senate, but last week the Commissions reconvened anyway, even though the as-yet-undecided debate about their future added another layer of confusion to events that, as has been typical throughout the long and ignominious history of the Commissions, involved technical difficulties, uncooperative prisoners, and bouts of wrangling over the rules.</p>
<p>An outlandish claim kicks off the proceedings</p>
<p>One of the week’s few dramatic highlights came at the very beginning. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, before the pre-trial hearings began, Navy Capt. John Murphy, the Commissions’ <a href="" type="internal">new chief prosecutor</a>, announced that prosecutors were ready to proceed with cases against 66 of the remaining 228 prisoners (the 229th, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, is already locked up for life — in a cell on his own somewhere in Guantánamo — after his <a href="" type="internal">disturbingly one-sided trial</a> in November).</p>
<p>As David Danzig, Deputy Program Director at <a href="" type="internal">Human Rights First</a>, explained, Murphy said, “We have 66 viable cases,” and added that he was “personally comfortable” that “the government could mount a case that would not depend on evidence gathered through the use of coercion.” Danzig also noted that Murphy “refrained from commenting on whether the government might seek to bring some of those cases to trial in federal civilian courts.”</p>
<p>Personally, I’m amazed that Murphy could claim that there are as many as “66 viable cases,” given that <a href="" type="internal">intelligence reports</a> over the years have put the number of prisoners with any meaningful connection to terrorism as somewhere between two dozen and 40 of the prisoners (and also given that, of the 23 cases that were still active when Bush left office, two involved juveniles, and at least eight of the cases had nothing to do with “war crimes”), but what particularly exercised some of the reporters was that the prosecutor’s office seemed to be “making decisions about what evidence was appropriate and what evidence was not appropriate to use without any independent review.”</p>
<p>Vic Hansen, a former Army Judge Advocate General officer who was observing the proceedings for the National Institute of Military Justice, said, “They say repeatedly that they are not going to rely on evidence that was obtained using coercion. Well, it’s the prosecution who is making that call alone without any transparency.”</p>
<p>This was a very valid point, and as Danzig noted, although Murphy “said that the prosecution had developed ‘a standard’ to ensure that no evidence obtained improperly would be used in the trials … he declined to elaborate on that standard,” and did not refer to the fact that the Senate is still discussing whether to impose a voluntariness standard (at the instigation of the Obama administration), which, as Danzig stated, “would presumably exclude coerced evidence.” As Hansen added, “What it comes down to is more or less the government saying, ‘just trust us.’”</p>
<p>Challenges and calls for delay in the case of Ibrahim al-Qosi</p>
<p>On Wednesday, when the pre-trial hearings were supposed to begin, court staff complained they couldn’t hear Navy Cmdr. Dirk Padgett introduce himself as a prosecutor in the case of Ibrahim al-Qosi, one of three prisoners whose cases were being discussed that day, prompting a reply from Padgett that, to some, could serve as a motto for the whole of the Commissions. “Hopefully, this is going to get better,” he said.</p>
<p>In the event, things didn’t get better at all. In the case of al-Qosi, a 49-year old Sudanese prisoner who is accused of being a bodyguard and sometime driver for Osama bin Laden, prosecutors called for a delay “in the interests of justice” until September, which would, apparently, give the Obama administration time to complete its review of the cases. Marine Corps Capt. Seamus Quinn, one of al-Qosi’s prosecutors, stated, “The continuance is needed … to address and eliminate all possible challenges to this process,” according to <a href="" type="internal">Reuters</a>.</p>
<p>The call for a delay infuriated al-Qosi’s defense lawyers, who have long maintained that their client was nothing more than a cook for bin Laden, and of no more significance than <a href="" type="internal">Salim Hamdan</a>, one of bin Laden’s drivers, who is now a free man in Yemen, having served a five-month sentence that he was given after his trial last August. As Reuters described it, al-Qosi’s lawyers asked the military judge “to either dismiss the charges or move forward.”</p>
<p>“You cannot sit somebody in indefinite detention,” Navy Lt. Cmdr. Travis Owens said. “It violates every principle we have as Americans.” Invoking what Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald described as a “justice-delayed, justice-denied” argument, on the grounds that al-Qosi “was among the first men taken to the prison camps when they opened in January 2002,” Owens added, “He was one of the guys who was kept in the dog cages. Talk about oppressive confinement.”</p>
<p>Challenges and calls for delay in the case of Mohammed Kamin</p>
<p>While the judge, Air Force Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, refused to make an immediate ruling on the prosecutors’ request, even more chaotic scenes took place in an adjacent courtroom, where a second pre-trial hearing was taking place in the case of Mohammed Kamin, an Afghan seized in 2003.</p>
<p>Kamin’s is one of the more ludicrous cases put forward for a trial by Military Commission — or, for that matter, any kind of trial — as <a href="" type="internal">I explained last March</a>, when he was arraigned:</p>
<p>[Kamin] is accused of “providing material support for terrorism,” specifically by receiving training at “an al-Qaeda training camp,” conducting surveillance on U.S. and coalition military bases and activities, planting two mines under a bridge, and launching missiles at the city of Khost while it was occupied by U.S. and coalition forces. He is not charged with harming, let along killing U.S. forces, and were it not for his supposed al-Qaeda connection — he apparently stated in interrogation that he was “recruited by an al-Qaeda cell leader” — it would, I think, be impossible to make the case that he was involved in “terrorism” at all.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Kamin boycotted the proceedings, telling a military official who offered him the opportunity to take a shower before the hearing, “I’ll take a shower when you guys are ready to send me home.” In his absence, prosecutors also called for a delay, although no one actually turned up to make the request. Instead, a heavily pregnant prosecutor, Navy Lt. Rachel Trest, called in by closed-circuit feed from Washington, although, as Carol Rosenberg noted, “her argument was inaudible at the media center designed years ago to simultaneously broadcast both trials to journalists.”</p>
<p>There was, however, an outburst of drama when, in spite of a court tip sheet predicting that Navy Lt. Rich Federico, one of Kamin’s defense lawyers, would “ask for guidance on how much trial preparation could take place during the White House-mandated interregnum,” Federico instead urged dismissal of the entire case, referring to comments made last week by Justice Department national security lawyer David Kris, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee ( <a href="" type="internal">PDF</a>), “Our experts believe that there is a significant risk that appellate courts will ultimately conclude that material support for terrorism is not a traditional law of war offence, thereby reversing hard-won convictions and leading to questions about the system’s legitimacy.”</p>
<p>As this is the only charge Kamin faces, Federico told the judge, “They cannot ethically proceed on this charge in this forum. It’s appalling. It’s just a waste of everyone’s time.” The <a href="" type="internal">Wall Street Journal</a> added that he also said that the government’s continued pursuit of the case was “unethical, immoral and unjust,” called the proceedings “a charade, a complete fraud,” and stated that the Commissions remained “a broken system.”</p>
<p>As with al-Qosi’s case, Kamin’s judge, Air Force Col. Thomas Cumbie, refused to make an immediate ruling on the prosecution’s call for a delay — or Federico’s unexpected intervention — although, in response to a challenge from Federico he conceded that “the rules of the court were still evolving,” as Carol Rosenberg put it, and stated, “I’m not saying in any way you ambushed me. Things change.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the questions regarding the validity of the “material support” charge are unlikely to go away, and will need resolving before any further hearings take place, Ironically, the charge is a valid crime in a federal court, but has been contested in the Commissions since it was first grafted onto the legislation in 2006. As Salim Hamdan’s civilian lawyer, Harry Schneider, explained on Wednesday, “We’ve always been of the view that [material support] was not a war crime and the conviction should not stand.” He added, as Carol Rosenberg put it, that the debate in the Commissions “appeared to enhance a Hamdan clemency bid already on file with the Pentagon,” and stated that, if the administration does drop material support as a crime in the Commissions, “Salim would be exonerated in the sense that he would never have been convicted of anything.”</p>
<p>No lawyers for Omar Khadr</p>
<p>On Wednesday afternoon, <a href="" type="internal">Omar Khadr</a>, the Canadian who was just 15 when he was seized in 2002, returned to the court to resume the discussions about his lawyers that he was having on June 1, when the Commissions <a href="" type="internal">first reconvened</a>. On that occasion, as Michelle Shephard explained in the <a href="http://www.thestar.com/article/643575" type="external">Toronto Star</a>, Army Col. Patrick Parrish “repeatedly lambasted Khadr’s legal team” for their in-fighting, which had led Khadr to conclude that he couldn’t trust any of them, but commended Khadr himself for being “well-spoken” and “professional.”</p>
<p>Six weeks ago, Parrish refused to allow Khadr to be unrepresented, and the Canadian reluctantly decided to stick with Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, who, it must be noted, has campaigned assiduously on Khadr’s behalf, but on Wednesday, Khadr’s suspicions were back to the fore. “I don’t trust the office of military defense,” he said, prompting Parrish to make the unprecedented decision to appoint two civilian lawyers instead.</p>
<p>Mostly a no-show for the 9/11 pre-trial hearing</p>
<p>The big news of the week was supposed to be the pre-trial hearing of <a href="" type="internal">the five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks</a>, but in the end this too was a damp squib. No one turned up at all in the morning, after the men refused to leave their cells, and in the afternoon, <a href="" type="internal">Khalid Sheikh Mohammed</a>, the <a href="" type="internal">unarguable showman</a> of the group, refused to attend, as did Ramzi bin al-Shibh, even though the hearing was convened to deal with ongoing issues regarding his mental competency, and that of another of the five, Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Al-Hawsawi, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Walid bin Attash eventually turned up in the courtroom, but there was little activity.</p>
<p>According to <a href="" type="internal">Reuters</a>, “al-Hawsawi soon demanded to leave after complaining he would not be allowed to speak,” and “bin Attash, given five minutes to address the court, complained that the presiding judge, Army Colonel Steven Henley, had not responded to letters the five men had written to him ‘a long time ago.’” In the only flicker of the dissent normally associated with KSM’s presence, he explained, “If you don’t have enough patience to take this case, just give it to a different judge. We view the judge and prosecution as one person. There’s no difference.” Later, bin Attash showed his disdain for the proceedings by throwing a paper plane — fashioned, presumably, from his court papers — at one of his co-accused.</p>
<p>The rest of the session focused on attempts by bin al-Shibh’s lawyers to “allow a defense consultant to examine CT scans of her client’s brain and perform further tests, including possibly an MRI, to ‘determine whether any lesions in his brain affect his cognitive functioning.’” Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier explained that bin al-Shibh has been diagnosed with “delusional disorder,” but when she tried to explain that he had been subjected to sleep deprivation, a court censor cut off the feed to the media center.</p>
<p>In an attempt to rebuff these complaints, one of the prosecutors, Navy Lt. Clayton Trivett, said that bin al-Shibh’s complaints about sleep deprivation may have been produced by his pre-existing condition. Trivett explained that bin al-Shibh “has accused guards of pumping foul smells and loud noises into his cell and ‘vibrating his bed’ to keep him awake,” even though “The government’s position is that it’s not happening and it’s never been happening,” although another interpretation could be that the initial collapse of bin al-Shibh’s mental health was caused by whatever happened to him during the four years that he was held in a secret CIA prison before his arrival at Guantánamo in September 2006.</p>
<p>With no visible progress — and with the little that did take place overshadowed by the dispute over the charge of material support for terrorism, which would have a knock-on effect on several other cases — this was another dismal outing for the Commissions, and, surely, another warning for the Obama administration that any kind of revival of the wretched trial system will remain fraught with insoluble problems.</p>
<p>ANDY WORTHINGTON is a British journalist and historian, and the author of ‘ <a href="" type="internal">The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’</a> (published by Pluto Press). Visit his website at: <a href="http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/" type="external">www.andyworthington.co.uk</a></p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | guantánamo last week military commission trial system convened second time since president obama announced fourmonth freeze proceedings first day office give new administrations interdepartmental guantánamo task force opportunity review best ways deal remaining prisoners inherited bush administration reviving commissions illadvisedly may major speech national security barack obama signaled planning revive commissions arguing amendments would fair legitimate effective promising work congress legal authorities across political spectrum legislation would fulfill aims pleasant though hear president talk involving congress without arm twisted obamas willingness revive commissions flew face widespread opposition civilian lawyers wide range legal experts significantly seven former prosecutors resigned disgust saw politicization system irremediable faults including col morris davis former chief prosecutor lt col darrel vandeveld resigned last september governmentappointed defense attorneys prepared risk careers oppose realized unjust system critics included placated obamas proposed tweaking commissions rules insisted way forward drop commissions proceed federal court trials bizarrely day obamas speech administration announced ahmed khalfan ghailani suspect 1998 african embassy bombings would face trial new york moreover accompanying press release justice department trumpeted long history successfully prosecuting terror suspects criminal justice system attached list successful prosecutions last 16 years rather seemed prove point commissions achieved three dubious results david hicks salim hamdan ali hamza albahlul revived nevertheless last weeks senate armed services committee chairman sen carl levin really know better bowed presidents wishes tweaked wording military commissions act 2006 revived commissions supreme court ruled first incarnation illegal even though reported last week lt col vandeveld delivered testimony committee halted politicians tracks still allows use information masquerading evidence obtained coercion still allows hearsay information appraised evidence judges qualified make decisions legislation yet approved senate last week commissions reconvened anyway even though asyetundecided debate future added another layer confusion events typical throughout long ignominious history commissions involved technical difficulties uncooperative prisoners bouts wrangling rules outlandish claim kicks proceedings one weeks dramatic highlights came beginning speaking reporters tuesday pretrial hearings began navy capt john murphy commissions new chief prosecutor announced prosecutors ready proceed cases 66 remaining 228 prisoners 229th ali hamza albahlul already locked life cell somewhere guantánamo disturbingly onesided trial november david danzig deputy program director human rights first explained murphy said 66 viable cases added personally comfortable government could mount case would depend evidence gathered use coercion danzig also noted murphy refrained commenting whether government might seek bring cases trial federal civilian courts personally im amazed murphy could claim many 66 viable cases given intelligence reports years put number prisoners meaningful connection terrorism somewhere two dozen 40 prisoners also given 23 cases still active bush left office two involved juveniles least eight cases nothing war crimes particularly exercised reporters prosecutors office seemed making decisions evidence appropriate evidence appropriate use without independent review vic hansen former army judge advocate general officer observing proceedings national institute military justice said say repeatedly going rely evidence obtained using coercion well prosecution making call alone without transparency valid point danzig noted although murphy said prosecution developed standard ensure evidence obtained improperly would used trials declined elaborate standard refer fact senate still discussing whether impose voluntariness standard instigation obama administration danzig stated would presumably exclude coerced evidence hansen added comes less government saying trust us challenges calls delay case ibrahim alqosi wednesday pretrial hearings supposed begin court staff complained couldnt hear navy cmdr dirk padgett introduce prosecutor case ibrahim alqosi one three prisoners whose cases discussed day prompting reply padgett could serve motto whole commissions hopefully going get better said event things didnt get better case alqosi 49year old sudanese prisoner accused bodyguard sometime driver osama bin laden prosecutors called delay interests justice september would apparently give obama administration time complete review cases marine corps capt seamus quinn one alqosis prosecutors stated continuance needed address eliminate possible challenges process according reuters call delay infuriated alqosis defense lawyers long maintained client nothing cook bin laden significance salim hamdan one bin ladens drivers free man yemen served fivemonth sentence given trial last august reuters described alqosis lawyers asked military judge either dismiss charges move forward sit somebody indefinite detention navy lt cmdr travis owens said violates every principle americans invoking carol rosenberg miami herald described justicedelayed justicedenied argument grounds alqosi among first men taken prison camps opened january 2002 owens added one guys kept dog cages talk oppressive confinement challenges calls delay case mohammed kamin judge air force lt col nancy paul refused make immediate ruling prosecutors request even chaotic scenes took place adjacent courtroom second pretrial hearing taking place case mohammed kamin afghan seized 2003 kamins one ludicrous cases put forward trial military commission matter kind trial explained last march arraigned kamin accused providing material support terrorism specifically receiving training alqaeda training camp conducting surveillance us coalition military bases activities planting two mines bridge launching missiles city khost occupied us coalition forces charged harming let along killing us forces supposed alqaeda connection apparently stated interrogation recruited alqaeda cell leader would think impossible make case involved terrorism wednesday kamin boycotted proceedings telling military official offered opportunity take shower hearing ill take shower guys ready send home absence prosecutors also called delay although one actually turned make request instead heavily pregnant prosecutor navy lt rachel trest called closedcircuit feed washington although carol rosenberg noted argument inaudible media center designed years ago simultaneously broadcast trials journalists however outburst drama spite court tip sheet predicting navy lt rich federico one kamins defense lawyers would ask guidance much trial preparation could take place white housemandated interregnum federico instead urged dismissal entire case referring comments made last week justice department national security lawyer david kris told senate armed services committee pdf experts believe significant risk appellate courts ultimately conclude material support terrorism traditional law war offence thereby reversing hardwon convictions leading questions systems legitimacy charge kamin faces federico told judge ethically proceed charge forum appalling waste everyones time wall street journal added also said governments continued pursuit case unethical immoral unjust called proceedings charade complete fraud stated commissions remained broken system alqosis case kamins judge air force col thomas cumbie refused make immediate ruling prosecutions call delay federicos unexpected intervention although response challenge federico conceded rules court still evolving carol rosenberg put stated im saying way ambushed things change nevertheless questions regarding validity material support charge unlikely go away need resolving hearings take place ironically charge valid crime federal court contested commissions since first grafted onto legislation 2006 salim hamdans civilian lawyer harry schneider explained wednesday weve always view material support war crime conviction stand added carol rosenberg put debate commissions appeared enhance hamdan clemency bid already file pentagon stated administration drop material support crime commissions salim would exonerated sense would never convicted anything lawyers omar khadr wednesday afternoon omar khadr canadian 15 seized 2002 returned court resume discussions lawyers june 1 commissions first reconvened occasion michelle shephard explained toronto star army col patrick parrish repeatedly lambasted khadrs legal team infighting led khadr conclude couldnt trust commended khadr wellspoken professional six weeks ago parrish refused allow khadr unrepresented canadian reluctantly decided stick lt cmdr william kuebler must noted campaigned assiduously khadrs behalf wednesday khadrs suspicions back fore dont trust office military defense said prompting parrish make unprecedented decision appoint two civilian lawyers instead mostly noshow 911 pretrial hearing big news week supposed pretrial hearing five men accused involvement 911 attacks end damp squib one turned morning men refused leave cells afternoon khalid sheikh mohammed unarguable showman group refused attend ramzi bin alshibh even though hearing convened deal ongoing issues regarding mental competency another five mustafa alhawsawi alhawsawi ali abdul aziz ali walid bin attash eventually turned courtroom little activity according reuters alhawsawi soon demanded leave complaining would allowed speak bin attash given five minutes address court complained presiding judge army colonel steven henley responded letters five men written long time ago flicker dissent normally associated ksms presence explained dont enough patience take case give different judge view judge prosecution one person theres difference later bin attash showed disdain proceedings throwing paper plane fashioned presumably court papers one coaccused rest session focused attempts bin alshibhs lawyers allow defense consultant examine ct scans clients brain perform tests including possibly mri determine whether lesions brain affect cognitive functioning navy cmdr suzanne lachelier explained bin alshibh diagnosed delusional disorder tried explain subjected sleep deprivation court censor cut feed media center attempt rebuff complaints one prosecutors navy lt clayton trivett said bin alshibhs complaints sleep deprivation may produced preexisting condition trivett explained bin alshibh accused guards pumping foul smells loud noises cell vibrating bed keep awake even though governments position happening never happening although another interpretation could initial collapse bin alshibhs mental health caused whatever happened four years held secret cia prison arrival guantánamo september 2006 visible progress little take place overshadowed dispute charge material support terrorism would knockon effect several cases another dismal outing commissions surely another warning obama administration kind revival wretched trial system remain fraught insoluble problems andy worthington british journalist historian author guantánamo files stories 774 detainees americas illegal prison published pluto press visit website wwwandyworthingtoncouk reached andyandyworthingtoncouk 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 | 1,504 |
<p>and BRENDAN SMITH</p>
<p>A jury verdict in Memphis late last year caused little stir among the general public, but it may have caught the attention of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and other high officials of the Bush administration. The jury found Colonel Nicolas Carranza, former Vice Minister of Defense of El Salvador and now a U.S. citizen living in Memphis, responsible for overseeing the torture and killing in that country 25 years ago. (1) Could similar charges be brought against high U.S. officials for the actions of their subordinates in Abu Ghraib, Falluja, and Guantanamo?</p>
<p>Carranza was sued by victims of armed forces under his control. The jury applied the principle of “command responsibility,” which holds a superior legally responsible for human rights abuses by subordinates if the official knew or should have known about them and failed to prevent them or punish those who committed them.</p>
<p>Intelligence agency whistleblowers recently leaked to ABC News a list of six “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” authorized for CIA agents in mid-March 2002. The agents, according to an ABC News report, did so “because the public needs to know the direction their agency has chosen.” (2)</p>
<p>The techniques included “Water Boarding:” “The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.” CIA officers who subjected themselves to the technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. According to John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, “It really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law.” (3)</p>
<p>President Bush has said “We do not torture.” (4)</p>
<p>But according to a classified report by the CIA’s own Inspector General John Helgerwon, the techniques appeared “to constitute cruel and degrading treatment under the [ Geneva ] convention.” (5)</p>
<p>If so, they are likely to be crimes not only under international law, but under the U.S. Anti-Torture and War Crimes Acts.</p>
<p>Where they have acknowledged prisoner abuse, Bush administration officials have often blamed it on a few “bad apples” at the bottom of the chain of command. But under the principle of command responsibility, this is no excuse-and no legal defense.</p>
<p>Colin Powell’s top aide, Colonel Larry Wilkerson, said late last year that the United States has tortured and “There’s no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated-in the vice president of the United States’ office.”</p>
<p>According to Wilkerson, “His implementer in this case was Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department.” Wilkerson explained, “The vice president had to cover this in order for it to happen and in order for Secretary Rumsfeld to feel as though he had freedom of action.” (6)</p>
<p>The former commander at Abu Ghraib prison, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, confirms Wilkerson’s charge: Abusive techniques at Abu Ghraib were “delivered with full authority and knowledge of the secretary of defense and probably Cheney.” (7)</p>
<p>This is not just a question of past abuses. According to Wilkerson, “There’s no doubt in my mind that we may still be doing it.” When the vice president of the United States “lobbies the Congress on behalf of cruel and unusual punishment” Wilkerson says he can “only assume” that “it’s still going on.” (8)</p>
<p>Asked whether Cheney was guilty of a war crime, Col. Wilkerson said the vice president’s actions were certainly a domestic crime and, he would suspect, “an international crime as well.” 9 Wilkerson says his charges are based on an “audit trail” he prepared for Secretary Powell, including government memoranda and reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross. (10)</p>
<p>Criminal investigation is warranted where facts or circumstances “reasonably indicate” that a crime has been committed. (11) Wilkerson’s charges are sufficient in themselves to require the Department of Justice to immediately open a criminal investigation of Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Such an investigation could take as its starting point Wilkerson’s “audit trail,” the statements of CIA agents and the CIA Inspector General, and extensive published evidence indicating torture and prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel around the world.</p>
<p>If I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and other high government officials can be investigated for outing Valerie Plame, don’t facts that “reasonably indicate” war crimes and crimes against humanity deserve equal time?</p>
<p>Bush administration officials have said over and over that they have acted within the law. If so, they have nothing to fear from an investigation and should encourage one to clear the air.</p>
<p>The United States is supposed to have “equal justice under law.” Colonel Carranza has had his day in court. We as citizens-and our prosecutors, judges, and elected representatives-need to address the question: When will Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, and their collaborators get theirs?</p>
<p>End Notes</p>
<p>1. Julia Preston, “Ex-Salvadoran Colonel is Ordered to Pay for Crimes against Humanity,” New York Times, November 19, 2005; “El Salvador: Col. Nicolas Carranza,” Center for Justice and Accountability, <a href="http://www.cja.org/cases/carranza.shtml" type="external">www.cja.org/cases/carranza.shtml</a>.</p>
<p>2. Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, “CIA’s Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described,” ABC News, November 19, 2005.</p>
<p>3. Ross and Esposito.</p>
<p>4. “Bush Defends Detainees Policy,” Associated Press, November 7, 2005.</p>
<p>5. New York Times, November 9, 2005, quoted in Ross and Esposito.</p>
<p>6. “Powell Aide: Torture ‘Guidance’ from VP,” CNN, 11/20/05.</p>
<p>7. Marjorie Cohn, ” Abu Ghraib General Lambastes Bush Administration,” truthout, August 24, 2005.</p>
<p>8. “Powell Aide: Torture ‘Guidance’ from VP,” CNN.com, 11/20/2005.</p>
<p>9. Rupert Cornwell, “Cheney ‘Created Climate’ for U.S. War Crimes,” The Independent , November 30, 2005.</p>
<p>10. “Powell Aide: Torture ‘Guidance’ from VP,” CNN.com, 11/20/2005.</p>
<p>11. “The Attorney General’s Guidelines on General Crimes, Racketeering Enterprise, and Terrorism Enterprise Investigations,” IND, p. 105.</p>
<p>JEREMY BRECHER and Brendan Smith, with Jill Cutler, are the co-editors of <a href="" type="internal">In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond</a> (New York: Metropolitan/Holt, 2005) and co-founders of War Crimes Watch. They are frequent contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus ( <a href="http://www.fpif.org/" type="external">www.fpif.org)</a>. They can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p>Legal scholar Brendan Smith and historian JEREMY BRECHER are the editors, with Jill Cutler, of In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond (Metropolitan/Holt, 2005) ( www.americanempireproject.com), and the founders of www.warcrimeswatch.org. They are regular contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org).</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | brendan smith jury verdict memphis late last year caused little stir among general public may caught attention dick cheney donald rumsfeld high officials bush administration jury found colonel nicolas carranza former vice minister defense el salvador us citizen living memphis responsible overseeing torture killing country 25 years ago 1 could similar charges brought high us officials actions subordinates abu ghraib falluja guantanamo carranza sued victims armed forces control jury applied principle command responsibility holds superior legally responsible human rights abuses subordinates official knew known failed prevent punish committed intelligence agency whistleblowers recently leaked abc news list six enhanced interrogation techniques authorized cia agents midmarch 2002 agents according abc news report public needs know direction agency chosen 2 techniques included water boarding prisoner bound inclined board feet raised head slightly feet cellophane wrapped prisoners face water poured unavoidably gag reflex kicks terrifying fear drowning leads almost instant pleas bring treatment halt cia officers subjected technique lasted average 14 seconds caving according john sifton human rights watch really amounts mock execution illegal international law 3 president bush said torture 4 according classified report cias inspector general john helgerwon techniques appeared constitute cruel degrading treatment geneva convention 5 likely crimes international law us antitorture war crimes acts acknowledged prisoner abuse bush administration officials often blamed bad apples bottom chain command principle command responsibility excuseand legal defense colin powells top aide colonel larry wilkerson said late last year united states tortured theres question mind philosophical guidance flexibility order originatedin vice president united states office according wilkerson implementer case donald rumsfeld defense department wilkerson explained vice president cover order happen order secretary rumsfeld feel though freedom action 6 former commander abu ghraib prison brig gen janis karpinski confirms wilkersons charge abusive techniques abu ghraib delivered full authority knowledge secretary defense probably cheney 7 question past abuses according wilkerson theres doubt mind may still vice president united states lobbies congress behalf cruel unusual punishment wilkerson says assume still going 8 asked whether cheney guilty war crime col wilkerson said vice presidents actions certainly domestic crime would suspect international crime well 9 wilkerson says charges based audit trail prepared secretary powell including government memoranda reports international committee red cross 10 criminal investigation warranted facts circumstances reasonably indicate crime committed 11 wilkersons charges sufficient require department justice immediately open criminal investigation vice president cheney donald rumsfeld investigation could take starting point wilkersons audit trail statements cia agents cia inspector general extensive published evidence indicating torture prisoner abuse us personnel around world lewis scooter libby high government officials investigated outing valerie plame dont facts reasonably indicate war crimes crimes humanity deserve equal time bush administration officials said acted within law nothing fear investigation encourage one clear air united states supposed equal justice law colonel carranza day court citizensand prosecutors judges elected representativesneed address question vice president cheney secretary rumsfeld collaborators get end notes 1 julia preston exsalvadoran colonel ordered pay crimes humanity new york times november 19 2005 el salvador col nicolas carranza center justice accountability wwwcjaorgcasescarranzashtml 2 brian ross richard esposito cias harsh interrogation techniques described abc news november 19 2005 3 ross esposito 4 bush defends detainees policy associated press november 7 2005 5 new york times november 9 2005 quoted ross esposito 6 powell aide torture guidance vp cnn 112005 7 marjorie cohn abu ghraib general lambastes bush administration truthout august 24 2005 8 powell aide torture guidance vp cnncom 11202005 9 rupert cornwell cheney created climate us war crimes independent november 30 2005 10 powell aide torture guidance vp cnncom 11202005 11 attorney generals guidelines general crimes racketeering enterprise terrorism enterprise investigations ind p 105 jeremy brecher brendan smith jill cutler coeditors name democracy american war crimes iraq beyond new york metropolitanholt 2005 cofounders war crimes watch frequent contributors foreign policy focus wwwfpiforg reached blsmith28gmailcom 160 160 160 legal scholar brendan smith historian jeremy brecher editors jill cutler name democracy american war crimes iraq beyond metropolitanholt 2005 wwwamericanempireprojectcom founders wwwwarcrimeswatchorg regular contributors foreign policy focus 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<p>On the eve of a showdown with one of the most powerful corporations in the U.S., delegates to the Communications Workers of America (CWA) convention will have a choice between the status quo and a candidate who vows to step up to the challenge.</p>
<p>CWA Local 1440 President Don Trementozzi is challenging incumbent Annie Hill for secretary-treasurer of the CWA on a platform of standing up to telecom giant Verizon’s demands for sweeping concessions in current negotiations while gearing up the union to take on other employers as well.</p>
<p>The contract comes as the union continues to struggle to organize the nonunion Verizon Wireless division.</p>
<p>“Verizon’s top management has built an artificial wall separating wireless and other business operations from wireline,” Trementozzi said [1]. “Management is using this wall to block members from the high-growth, high-profit segments of the company.”</p>
<p>Trementozzi is familiar with aggressive employers. He got his start in the labor movement as a machinist at Brown and Sharpe, where workers waged an epic two-year strike in the early 1980s as the corporate war on labor was getting underway. He later worked in a hospital, where he was also a leading activist in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.</p>
<p>As a Verizon worker before taking office at the head of Local 1440, Trementozzi is well acquainted with the company’s hard-line management. But in this contract round, Verizon wants to deal a decisive blow to the union in bargaining a contract for 40,000 workers.</p>
<p>The company wants to eliminate the current health insurance plans that are 100 percent paid by the company and replace them with coverage that forces workers to contribute to premiums and pay deductibles. Further, under the company’s proposals, there would be no general wage increases or seniority-based raises unless workers pass the company’s evaluation. Pay for sick time and disability would also be cut.</p>
<p>Workers’ paychecks would also shrink as a result of changes that would eliminate differential pay for nights and weekends, end Sunday premium pay and eliminate double time for working more than 49 hours in a week. Pension benefits would be cut, too. Verizon wants to freeze pension accruals as of December 31, 2011. New hires would get no pension at all.</p>
<p>Verizon wants these cuts despite making huge profits–$10.2 billion in 2010 on revenues of $106.6 billion. “Their proposals seek to destroy our future,” Trementozzi’s Local 1400 bargaining team said of Verizon’s demands. “We need to send a very clear message that this is not acceptable, that we will not be passive as they seek to gut our contract.”</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>THE CWA leadership was slow to gear up for the Verizon contract campaign. And rather than hold the line on concessions, the union has been in retreat.</p>
<p>The latest example is the recently ratified contract with General Electric. In that deal, members of the CWA’s International Union of Electrical Workers, in coalition with other unions such as the United Electrical Workers, agreed to a deal for 15,2000 workers that eliminated defined-benefit pensions for new hires, sharply increased health care costs and pegged pay raises to barely more than the rate of inflation. By surrendering pensions for future workers at GE, CWA will only encourage Verizon to be even more aggressive in pursuing the same demand.</p>
<p>Verizon is also encouraged to take a hard line by the CWA’s failure to resist givebacks demanded by industry rival AT&amp;T in 2009 contract negotiations that covered 100,000 workers. In that round, CWA leaders vowed to restore pattern bargaining at the “new AT&amp;T,” a company created by mergers from the remnants of the old Bell System that was broken up in 1984.</p>
<p>By allowing all the regional contracts to expire, the union vowed to use the leverage to resist company demands for concessions, particularly on health care. Instead, the contract campaign–overseen in part by Trementozzi’s opponent, Annie Hill–fizzled as each regional contract settled separately. In those deals, the CWA gave ground in key areas–in particular, health care. Workers have to pay part of monthly premiums for the first time, with new hires paying a higher share.</p>
<p>In one contract, some 35,000 land line workers in the Southeast did reject a tentative deal before approving a somewhat improved agreement. But even that deal eliminated defined benefit pensions–which pay a set amount each month–for new hires.</p>
<p>As the AT&amp;T contract campaign unraveled under Hill’s leadership, Local 1298 in Connecticut was left to fight on alone, waging a months-long contract campaign that finally achieved its goal of limiting AT&amp;T’s scope to move jobs out of the state.</p>
<p>Local 1298 President William Henderson was in the midst of that fight, which saw hundreds of workers disciplined by the company for actions such as wearing union T-shirts with slogans. He’s backing Trementozzi:</p>
<p>I firmly believe our organization needs strong leadership for the issues we face today. Clearly, organized labor is in jeopardy, as witnessed recently in Wisconsin where workers’ rights were taken away. Times are changing, and we have to be ready to meet the changes head on. We need your presence in Washington and stand ready for you to accomplish this goal.</p>
<p>Trementozzi also wants the CWA to do more for workers in other industries –members in jobs ranging from flight attendants to public-sector workers and health care workers. Many of these workers came into the CWA through mergers and, according to Trementozzi, don’t get the support they need. If elected secretary-treasurer, he promises to put more union resources into organizing in an airline industry, where jobs are threatened by mergers, and in health care, where workers facing constant pressure.</p>
<p>In all industries, the CWA must step up to defend the workers of the future, Trementozzi said:</p>
<p>The spread of two-tier conditions undermines the appeal of our union and all unions to younger workers. “Next Generation” meetings, reports and recommendations won’t count for much if the union movement becomes widely perceived by new hires as only being concerned about “our generation” in the workforce, not theirs.</p>
<p>With Trementozzi in a top position, the CWA would be much better able to take on that fight.</p>
<p>Lee Sustar writes for the <a href="http://www.socialistworker.org" type="external">Socialist Worker.</a></p>
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<p /> | true | 4 | eve showdown one powerful corporations us delegates communications workers america cwa convention choice status quo candidate vows step challenge cwa local 1440 president trementozzi challenging incumbent annie hill secretarytreasurer cwa platform standing telecom giant verizons demands sweeping concessions current negotiations gearing union take employers well contract comes union continues struggle organize nonunion verizon wireless division verizons top management built artificial wall separating wireless business operations wireline trementozzi said 1 management using wall block members highgrowth highprofit segments company trementozzi familiar aggressive employers got start labor movement machinist brown sharpe workers waged epic twoyear strike early 1980s corporate war labor getting underway later worked hospital also leading activist american federation state county municipal employees verizon worker taking office head local 1440 trementozzi well acquainted companys hardline management contract round verizon wants deal decisive blow union bargaining contract 40000 workers company wants eliminate current health insurance plans 100 percent paid company replace coverage forces workers contribute premiums pay deductibles companys proposals would general wage increases senioritybased raises unless workers pass companys evaluation pay sick time disability would also cut workers paychecks would also shrink result changes would eliminate differential pay nights weekends end sunday premium pay eliminate double time working 49 hours week pension benefits would cut verizon wants freeze pension accruals december 31 2011 new hires would get pension verizon wants cuts despite making huge profits102 billion 2010 revenues 1066 billion proposals seek destroy future trementozzis local 1400 bargaining team said verizons demands need send clear message acceptable passive seek gut contract cwa leadership slow gear verizon contract campaign rather hold line concessions union retreat latest example recently ratified contract general electric deal members cwas international union electrical workers coalition unions united electrical workers agreed deal 152000 workers eliminated definedbenefit pensions new hires sharply increased health care costs pegged pay raises barely rate inflation surrendering pensions future workers ge cwa encourage verizon even aggressive pursuing demand verizon also encouraged take hard line cwas failure resist givebacks demanded industry rival atampt 2009 contract negotiations covered 100000 workers round cwa leaders vowed restore pattern bargaining new atampt company created mergers remnants old bell system broken 1984 allowing regional contracts expire union vowed use leverage resist company demands concessions particularly health care instead contract campaignoverseen part trementozzis opponent annie hillfizzled regional contract settled separately deals cwa gave ground key areasin particular health care workers pay part monthly premiums first time new hires paying higher share one contract 35000 land line workers southeast reject tentative deal approving somewhat improved agreement even deal eliminated defined benefit pensionswhich pay set amount monthfor new hires atampt contract campaign unraveled hills leadership local 1298 connecticut left fight alone waging monthslong contract campaign finally achieved goal limiting atampts scope move jobs state local 1298 president william henderson midst fight saw hundreds workers disciplined company actions wearing union tshirts slogans hes backing trementozzi firmly believe organization needs strong leadership issues face today clearly organized labor jeopardy witnessed recently wisconsin workers rights taken away times changing ready meet changes head need presence washington stand ready accomplish goal trementozzi also wants cwa workers industries members jobs ranging flight attendants publicsector workers health care workers many workers came cwa mergers according trementozzi dont get support need elected secretarytreasurer promises put union resources organizing airline industry jobs threatened mergers health care workers facing constant pressure industries cwa must step defend workers future trementozzi said spread twotier conditions undermines appeal union unions younger workers next generation meetings reports recommendations wont count much union movement becomes widely perceived new hires concerned generation workforce trementozzi top position cwa would much better able take fight lee sustar writes socialist worker 160 160 160 160 160 | 606 |
<p>Dear Ayatollah Shahroudi,</p>
<p>It’s been a while that I have planned to write to you. But as we are both aware, the anti-God forces in our countries keep us quite busy! I have been very occupied doing my share to keep these forces in check here. But their attacks against God and I has not died down, and they have been pushing me to the edge. The funny thing is they claim they are law-abiding citizens who are fighting to preserve their constitutionally guaranteed rights. Big words coming out of little heads! What does our actions have to do with the law and the constitution?! These ignorant infidels fail to see that it’s God that’s above all, and it’s God that we serve. It was God’s will that put me and you where we are, and it’s God that drives us to do what we do. We do respect law and constitution, as long as they are within the God’s domain. And we judge as God shall do on the judgment day. Is that so difficult to understand? You and I do!</p>
<p>Now I’m finally writing to you to congratulate you on your greatest achievement. When I heard the news that you have sentenced that infidel Aghajari to death, adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I suddenly felt I have wings and could fly high up. My biggest regret at that moment was that I could not be present in your courtroom and witness this brave and just ruling. How dare this professor advocates people not to follow us like monkeys! In this day and age we need followers, specially of the blind type, more than ever. I actually feel jealous about your ruling. I feel you are getting closer to God and I’m being left behind! And I sure wish to join you in every step that you take towards God!</p>
<p>It made me even happier that you have also sentenced this blasphemous man to lashes and banned him from teaching for 10 years. We certainly don’t want the evil thoughts of this man to be propagated through the vulnerable academic community. Actually, based on my research, the weakest link in our society is the academia. You should also be aware of this fact. I do remember that in the early years of your revolution, you and your peers closed all the universities for a few years and performed a thorough cleansing of the evil thoughts, sort of like what the exorcists do I guess. But that must not have been enough. It’s clear that the cancer has spread again. And now that you are about to kill the first hopeless patient, I cannot agree with you more. Sometimes we have to make painful decisions. We know it must be done, and there are certainly many hopeless patients in the academia. So it’s so painful that we only have to take out one patient at a time! There was a time that the patients would just succumb to God’s will and vanish peacefully. Isn’t it great when this creates a “chain” reaction? But now that the patients are not so willing to vanish quietly, we have to perform our God-given duties in the public’s eyes. But this is probably a blessing in disguise. It’s true that we are both modest people and prefer to perform our tasks without any fanfare or witnesses. The only witness we normally prefer to have is God. That works better for us in the courts too. Doesn’t it? But if we have to act in the open, there must be a reason. God must have wanted it this way!</p>
<p>As I’m now witnessing the tremendous pressure that is being applied to you to reverse this just and historic order, I’m praying every day and asking God to give you strength to successfully carry out this holly task and cleanse the earth of this man and then stop him from teaching ever again. That will surely strengthen us in our beliefs and give us hope that very soon we can also implement the policy of “you are either with God or against us” in this greatest country of the world!</p>
<p>And before I forget, I also want to ask for your advice regarding another important issue. I’ve always followed with interest the regular checkpoints that your Basij volunteer forces set up in the streets and roads to enforce God’s wishes. We have recently implemented our own checkpoints program. But I’m afraid our forces are very inexperienced and naive and cannot run this program very effectively. So I was wondering if we can benefit from your experience in this area. It would be extremely helpful to us if we can borrow a few hundred of your Basij personnel for a period of a year or two to train our staff. I’m in particular interested to learn how we too can run this as a volunteer program so we can also operate outside the limitations set forth by the law and constitution and similar buz words.</p>
<p>Of course I will personally make sure that your Basij forces will not be fingerprinted or photographed when entering the United States, as this kind of treatment is only reserved for ordinary people who live within a 5000 mile radius of the terrorists and is really intended to convince these people and everyone else that we are serious about what we do. Then perhaps they’ll stop talking so much about us or other important issues. Why is it that everyone takes this “freedom of expression” thing of ours so seriously? Even our people are starting to grasp that there is a limit to everything including exercising, freedom and expression. It’s about time people from other countries did that too. We think fingerprinting them will show them who the boss is around here, and photographing them upon arrival pops their eyes wide open so they can see better for the rest of their stay here, and of course we’ll do everything in our power and beyond to make that stay uncomfortable! The party is over!</p>
<p>I also want to assure you that your Basiji staff will enjoy the most comfortable accommodations during their tenure here, and their devotion to God and to me shall be generously rewarded both in this world and the next. I sure hope that this will result in more cultural exchanges between the United States and Iran.</p>
<p>You know, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the public hangings and the stonings that your staff have been performing. Since I know you are specially found of crane hangings, I hope the sanctions hasn’t stopped you from acquiring U.S. made cranes for the job. If it has, I’ll sure be glad to ask for a special waver or favor for crane sales to you. We’ve of course been trying to stay in par with you as far as the number of executions go, but we are definitely lagging when it comes to execution methods. What are executions good for if the public cannot view them and learn from them? God willing we are going to do something about this. Right now I’m shooting for public executions starting in early 2004 followed by stonings in mid 2006. And there again I’m counting on you to share with us your expertise. This is certainly another area we can benefit from cultural exchanges!</p>
<p>And finally, my biggest wish right now is to enjoy your companionship and play host to you personally here in the United States or enjoy your hospitality there in Iran. There are certainly a lot of ideas and experiences the two of us can share and exchange. I cannot stop thinking the ideas the two of us can come up with if we put our heads together. After all, as one of my dearest friends Dan Quayle once said, “what a waste it is to lose one’s mind.” And here we are talking about two minds!</p>
<p>I wish you continuous success in serving God and punishing your people. And I look forward to hearing from you soon.</p>
<p>God Bless you! Yours Truly, Ayatollah John Ashcroft</p>
<p>P.S. I hope you’ll allow me to use the title of ayatollah. I felt I’ve earned it, and that also makes me feel closer to you and my other peers there. I actually feel more ayatollah than some of the ayatollahs over there. But if you feel I need to do more to deserve this title, I’m certainly ready for the challenge.</p>
<p>ALI MOAYEDIAN can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | dear ayatollah shahroudi planned write aware antigod forces countries keep us quite busy occupied share keep forces check attacks god died pushing edge funny thing claim lawabiding citizens fighting preserve constitutionally guaranteed rights big words coming little heads actions law constitution ignorant infidels fail see god thats god serve gods put god drives us respect law constitution long within gods domain judge god shall judgment day difficult understand im finally writing congratulate greatest achievement heard news sentenced infidel aghajari death adrenaline rushed veins suddenly felt wings could fly high biggest regret moment could present courtroom witness brave ruling dare professor advocates people follow us like monkeys day age need followers specially blind type ever actually feel jealous ruling feel getting closer god im left behind sure wish join every step take towards god made even happier also sentenced blasphemous man lashes banned teaching 10 years certainly dont want evil thoughts man propagated vulnerable academic community actually based research weakest link society academia also aware fact remember early years revolution peers closed universities years performed thorough cleansing evil thoughts sort like exorcists guess must enough clear cancer spread kill first hopeless patient agree sometimes make painful decisions know must done certainly many hopeless patients academia painful take one patient time time patients would succumb gods vanish peacefully isnt great creates chain reaction patients willing vanish quietly perform godgiven duties publics eyes probably blessing disguise true modest people prefer perform tasks without fanfare witnesses witness normally prefer god works better us courts doesnt act open must reason god must wanted way im witnessing tremendous pressure applied reverse historic order im praying every day asking god give strength successfully carry holly task cleanse earth man stop teaching ever surely strengthen us beliefs give us hope soon also implement policy either god us greatest country world forget also want ask advice regarding another important issue ive always followed interest regular checkpoints basij volunteer forces set streets roads enforce gods wishes recently implemented checkpoints program im afraid forces inexperienced naive run program effectively wondering benefit experience area would extremely helpful us borrow hundred basij personnel period year two train staff im particular interested learn run volunteer program also operate outside limitations set forth law constitution similar buz words course personally make sure basij forces fingerprinted photographed entering united states kind treatment reserved ordinary people live within 5000 mile radius terrorists really intended convince people everyone else serious perhaps theyll stop talking much us important issues everyone takes freedom expression thing seriously even people starting grasp limit everything including exercising freedom expression time people countries think fingerprinting show boss around photographing upon arrival pops eyes wide open see better rest stay course well everything power beyond make stay uncomfortable party also want assure basiji staff enjoy comfortable accommodations tenure devotion god shall generously rewarded world next sure hope result cultural exchanges united states iran know ive also thinking lot public hangings stonings staff performing since know specially found crane hangings hope sanctions hasnt stopped acquiring us made cranes job ill sure glad ask special waver favor crane sales weve course trying stay par far number executions go definitely lagging comes execution methods executions good public view learn god willing going something right im shooting public executions starting early 2004 followed stonings mid 2006 im counting share us expertise certainly another area benefit cultural exchanges finally biggest wish right enjoy companionship play host personally united states enjoy hospitality iran certainly lot ideas experiences two us share exchange stop thinking ideas two us come put heads together one dearest friends dan quayle said waste lose ones mind talking two minds wish continuous success serving god punishing people look forward hearing soon god bless truly ayatollah john ashcroft ps hope youll allow use title ayatollah felt ive earned also makes feel closer peers actually feel ayatollah ayatollahs feel need deserve title im certainly ready challenge ali moayedian reached adsbestcom 160 | 651 |
<p>“‘I owe my throne to God, my people, my army and to you!’ By ‘you’ he [the shah] meant me and the two countries-Great Britain and the United States-I was representing. We were all heroes.”</p>
<p>Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran, Kermit Roosevelt, 1979</p>
<p>It is ironic that CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, published his book on the 1953 CIA coup in Iran and the return of the shah in the same year that “his majesty’s government” was overthrown. An American friend gave a copy of the book to me shortly after its publication in 1979. I skimmed through the book and put it on my bookshelf. The CIA coup appeared irrelevant when the old and decadent institution of monarchy in Iran seemed to be finished once and for all.</p>
<p>More importantly, however, I, along with many other Iranians of my generation, knew the story full well and did not need Kermit to repeat it. We knew that the shah owed his throne to the likes of Kermit. But we also knew something that Kermit didn’t know, or didn’t say. We knew that we owe to the Kermits of the world our tortured past: years of being forced as students to stand in the hot sun of Tehran in lines, waving his majesty’s picture or flag as his entourage passed by in fast moving, shiny, big black cars with darkened-glass windows; years of being forced to rise and stay standing in every public event, including movie theaters, while his majesty’s national anthem was being played; years of watching a dense megalomaniac try to imitate “Cyrus the Great” by wearing ridiculous ceremonial robes in extravagant celebration of his birthdays or crowning of his queens; years of being hushed by our parents, fearful of being arrested, if we uttered a critical word about his majesty’s government or his American advisors; years of worrying about secret police (SAVAK) informants, who were smartly, but ruthlessly, trained by the best of the US’s CIA and Israeli’s Mossad; years of witnessing our friends and acquaintances being taken to jail, some never heard from again; years of passing by buildings in which, we were told, people were being tormented; years of hearing about people dying under torture or quietly executed; years of being exiled in a foreign country, which ironically was the belly of the beast, the metropolis, the center which masterminded much of our misfortune in the first place; years of spending our precious youth to free or save thousands of political prisoners by marching in the streets of the metropolis, wearing masks to hide our identities and looking bizarre to those who knew nothing about our story; and, finally, years of trying to prove to the American people that the 1953 CIA coup was not a fig-leaf of our imagination or a conspiracy theory, that it indeed happened and that they, whether they like it or not, have a certain culpability in what their government does around the world.</p>
<p>Most Americans, however, did not believe our story or did not care about it until the 1979 Revolution in Iran and the subsequent storming of the US Embassy in Tehran by the “students following the line of Imam.” Once 52 Americans were blindfolded and held by the students in what they called the “nest of spies,” questions began to be raised: Who lost Iran? How did we lose it? Why are the Iranians so insanely agitated? Why do they burn our flag? Why do they hate us so much? In the midst of the hysteria, of course, no intelligent answer was sought and none was given. Surely, no meaningful answer was ever offered by the US government then or in the next two decades.</p>
<p>It was not until the US corporations-which, as a result of the US’s economic sanctions and executive orders, were prevented from making lucrative deals with Iran-put pressure on the US government in the late 1990s that we saw the first admissions of guilt about the events of 1953. On April 12, 1999, in an offhand remark in front of the captains of industry, President Clinton said:</p>
<p>Iran, because of its enormous geopolitical importance over time, has been the subject of quite a lot of abuse from various Western nations. I think sometimes it’s quite important to tell people, look, you have a right to be angry at something my country or my culture or others that are generally allied with us did to you 50 or 60 or 100 or 150 years ago.</p>
<p>(The Washington Post, May 1, 1999)</p>
<p>Of course, had the President, who was now apparently “feeling our pain,” devoted some of his extracurricular activities to reading Kermit’s book, he might have given a better speech in terms of who did what to whom and when. But given his limitations, this was the best that he could do to please the corporate crowd.</p>
<p>But the greatest admission of guilt came from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who in a meeting of corporate lobbyists in March 2000 stated:</p>
<p>In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh…the coup was clearly a set back for Iran’s political development and it is easy to see why so many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affair.</p>
<p>(US Department of State, March 17, 2000)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this opaque confession did not console us much, since it was not a genuine expression of sorrow but merely an attempt to improve relations with the Iranian clergy in order to open the floodgates of corporate profit.</p>
<p>After Albright’s speech, on April 16, 2000, The New York Times broke what its writer, James Risen, called the US’s “stony silence” by devoting a number of pages to publishing parts of a still classified document on the “secret history” of the 1953 coup. The history was written by one Donald N. Wilbur, an expert in Persian architecture and one of the “leading planners” of the operation “TP-Ajax.” The report chronicled gruesome details of the events in 1953: how, by spending a meager sum of $1 million, the CIA “stirred up considerable unrest in Iran, giving Iranians a clear choice between instability and supporting the shah”; how it brought “the largest mobs” into the street; how it “began disseminating ‘gray propaganda’ passing out anti-Mossadegh cartoons in the streets and planting unflattering articles in local press”; how the CIA’s “Iranian operatives pretending to be Communists threatened Muslim leaders with ‘savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh'”; how the “house of at least one prominent Muslim was bombed by CIA agents posing as Communists”; how the CIA tried to “orchestrate a call for a holy war against Communism”; how on August 19 “a journalist who was one of the agency’s most important Iranian agents led a crowd toward Parliament, inciting people to set fire to the offices of a newspaper owned by Dr. Mossadegh’s foreign minister”; how American agents swung “security forces to the side of the demonstrators”; how the shah’s disbanded “Imperial Guard seized trucks and drove through the street”; how by “10:15 there were pro-shah truckloads of military personnel at all main squares”; how the “pro-shah speakers went on the air, broadcasting the coups’ success and reading royal decrees”; how at the US embassy, “CIA officers were elated, and Mr. Roosevelt got General Zahedi out of hiding” and found him a tank that “drove him to the radio station, where he spoke to the nation”; and, finally, how “Dr. Mossadegh and other government officials were rounded up, while officers supporting General Zahedi placed ‘unknown supports of TP-Ajax’ in command of all units of Tehran garrison.” “It was a day that should have never ended,” Risen quotes Wilbur as saying, for “it carried with it such a sense of excitement, of satisfaction and of jubilation that it is doubtful whether any other can come up to it.”</p>
<p>To those who still believe in the fairytale of a righteous US government wanting to spread democracy around the world such revelations might sound shocking. But to us, whose lives were forever changed as a result of this cheap, “$1 million” coup, none of this was news. Like bedtime stories, we had heard them all a hundred times from our parents. The only difference was that where Wilbur saw a glorious day, we saw a day of infamy; where he wished the day had never ended, we wished it had never begun; and where he saw a dazzling picture of his majesty’s restoration to power, we saw grotesque pictures of a brutal dictatorship, informants, dungeons, torture, executions and 52 blindfolded Americans marching up and down the steps of the “nest of spies.” Perhaps Wilbur did not see what we saw or, perhaps, he just did not say.</p>
<p>It is, of course, meaningless to write an iffy history. However, one can’t help but imagine how things might have been different had it not been for the Kermits and Wilburs of the world. Would the Islamic Revolution of 1979 have taken place? Would Americans have been held hostage for 444 days in exchange for the shah and frozen assets? Would the US have helped Saddam start the Iraq-Iran war? Would over a million people have died as a result of the war? Would the US have imposed numerous unilateral sanctions against Iran for over two decades and made the captains of industry lose billions of dollars? Would Saddam have invaded Kuwait? Would the US have invaded Iraq twice and be in the mess that it is in right now? I guess a better question is this: Will the US ever learn that the Kermits and Wilburs of the world are not that clever, have no foresight, and, in the long-run, do more damage to this country than good? Or, to put it differently, will there ever be an enlightened US government in which there is no room for the likes of Kermits and Wilburs?</p>
<p>On August 19, 2003, I will read Kermit once again and think of what he did not say. I will reflect on my years in exile and dream of someday returning home, a home which by then will be as foreign to me as the one in which I presently reside.</p>
<p>SASAN FAYAZMANESH is Associate Professor of Economics at California State University in Fresno. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | owe throne god people army shah meant two countriesgreat britain united statesi representing heroes countercoup struggle control iran kermit roosevelt 1979 ironic cia agent kermit roosevelt grandson theodore roosevelt published book 1953 cia coup iran return shah year majestys government overthrown american friend gave copy book shortly publication 1979 skimmed book put bookshelf cia coup appeared irrelevant old decadent institution monarchy iran seemed finished importantly however along many iranians generation knew story full well need kermit repeat knew shah owed throne likes kermit also knew something kermit didnt know didnt say knew owe kermits world tortured past years forced students stand hot sun tehran lines waving majestys picture flag entourage passed fast moving shiny big black cars darkenedglass windows years forced rise stay standing every public event including movie theaters majestys national anthem played years watching dense megalomaniac try imitate cyrus great wearing ridiculous ceremonial robes extravagant celebration birthdays crowning queens years hushed parents fearful arrested uttered critical word majestys government american advisors years worrying secret police savak informants smartly ruthlessly trained best uss cia israelis mossad years witnessing friends acquaintances taken jail never heard years passing buildings told people tormented years hearing people dying torture quietly executed years exiled foreign country ironically belly beast metropolis center masterminded much misfortune first place years spending precious youth free save thousands political prisoners marching streets metropolis wearing masks hide identities looking bizarre knew nothing story finally years trying prove american people 1953 cia coup figleaf imagination conspiracy theory indeed happened whether like certain culpability government around world americans however believe story care 1979 revolution iran subsequent storming us embassy tehran students following line imam 52 americans blindfolded held students called nest spies questions began raised lost iran lose iranians insanely agitated burn flag hate us much midst hysteria course intelligent answer sought none given surely meaningful answer ever offered us government next two decades us corporationswhich result uss economic sanctions executive orders prevented making lucrative deals iranput pressure us government late 1990s saw first admissions guilt events 1953 april 12 1999 offhand remark front captains industry president clinton said iran enormous geopolitical importance time subject quite lot abuse various western nations think sometimes quite important tell people look right angry something country culture others generally allied us 50 60 100 150 years ago washington post may 1 1999 course president apparently feeling pain devoted extracurricular activities reading kermits book might given better speech terms given limitations best could please corporate crowd greatest admission guilt came former secretary state madeline albright meeting corporate lobbyists march 2000 stated 1953 united states played significant role orchestrating overthrow irans popular prime minister mohammed mossadeghthe coup clearly set back irans political development easy see many iranians continue resent intervention america internal affair us department state march 17 2000 unfortunately opaque confession console us much since genuine expression sorrow merely attempt improve relations iranian clergy order open floodgates corporate profit albrights speech april 16 2000 new york times broke writer james risen called uss stony silence devoting number pages publishing parts still classified document secret history 1953 coup history written one donald n wilbur expert persian architecture one leading planners operation tpajax report chronicled gruesome details events 1953 spending meager sum 1 million cia stirred considerable unrest iran giving iranians clear choice instability supporting shah brought largest mobs street began disseminating gray propaganda passing antimossadegh cartoons streets planting unflattering articles local press cias iranian operatives pretending communists threatened muslim leaders savage punishment opposed mossadegh house least one prominent muslim bombed cia agents posing communists cia tried orchestrate call holy war communism august 19 journalist one agencys important iranian agents led crowd toward parliament inciting people set fire offices newspaper owned dr mossadeghs foreign minister american agents swung security forces side demonstrators shahs disbanded imperial guard seized trucks drove street 1015 proshah truckloads military personnel main squares proshah speakers went air broadcasting coups success reading royal decrees us embassy cia officers elated mr roosevelt got general zahedi hiding found tank drove radio station spoke nation finally dr mossadegh government officials rounded officers supporting general zahedi placed unknown supports tpajax command units tehran garrison day never ended risen quotes wilbur saying carried sense excitement satisfaction jubilation doubtful whether come still believe fairytale righteous us government wanting spread democracy around world revelations might sound shocking us whose lives forever changed result cheap 1 million coup none news like bedtime stories heard hundred times parents difference wilbur saw glorious day saw day infamy wished day never ended wished never begun saw dazzling picture majestys restoration power saw grotesque pictures brutal dictatorship informants dungeons torture executions 52 blindfolded americans marching steps nest spies perhaps wilbur see saw perhaps say course meaningless write iffy history however one cant help imagine things might different kermits wilburs world would islamic revolution 1979 taken place would americans held hostage 444 days exchange shah frozen assets would us helped saddam start iraqiran war would million people died result war would us imposed numerous unilateral sanctions iran two decades made captains industry lose billions dollars would saddam invaded kuwait would us invaded iraq twice mess right guess better question us ever learn kermits wilburs world clever foresight longrun damage country good put differently ever enlightened us government room likes kermits wilburs august 19 2003 read kermit think say reflect years exile dream someday returning home home foreign one presently reside sasan fayazmanesh associate professor economics california state university fresno reached sasanfcsufresnoedu 160 | 903 |
<p>Ron Jenkins/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/ZumaPress.com</p>
<p />
<p>Last Wednesday’s explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant, which left at least 15 people dead and more than 100 injured, was made possible by an <a href="" type="internal">ultra-lax</a> state and federal oversight climate that make inspections of such facilities all but a rubber-stamp process—when they even happen. If the chemical lobby and its allies in Congress get their way, a regulatory process dismissed by environmental activists and labor unions as extremely weak would be watered down even more.</p>
<p>In February, 11 congressmen—10 Republicans and one Democrat—joined some <a href="http://www.americanchemistry.com/Policy/Security/113th-Congress-General-Duty-Clause-Clarification-Act-Multi-Trade-Support-Letter.pdf" type="external">two dozen</a> industry groups, including the Fertilizer Institute, the American Chemistry Council, and the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration, to back the <a href="http://pompeo.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pompeogdcbackgroundinfo.pdf" type="external">General Duty Clarification Act</a>. The bill is designed to sap the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to regulate safety and security at major chemical sites, as prescribed by the Clean Air Act.</p>
<p>“We call that the Koch brothers bill,” Greenpeace legislative director Rick Hind says, because the bill’s sponsor, GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo, represents the conservative megadonors’ home city of Wichita, Kansas. (The sponsor of the sister legislation in the senate, GOP Sen. Pat Roberts, represents the Kochs’ home state of Kansas.) The brothers have huge investments in fertilizer production, and Hind thinks they’ll ultimately get what they want, whether or not the bill becomes law. “It’s not necessarily intended to achieve legislative passage—it’s more about intimidation of a beleaguered agency.”</p>
<p>The fight over fertilizer and the Clean Air Act has its origins in the passage of the law back in 1990. Although the original bill included language that would have permitted the EPA to regulate the emissions of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide—both of which are important ingredients and fertilizer manufacturing—a fierce lobbying push from the fertilizer industry resulted in the compounds being stricken from the formal list.</p>
<p>But battle intensified after 9/11, when President George W. Bush’s EPA director, Christine Todd Whitman, decided to take on what was seen as a serious security threat. Whitman, the moderate former New Jersey Republican governor, was working with Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge on a plan to regulate chemical plants, which were considered uniquely vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Whitman believed the law already empowered the agency do that, but she and Ridge sketched out legislation that would expand that authority and put aside any ambiguity.</p>
<p>“They were all set to announce that publicly and the White House yanked it,” recalls Paul Orum, a chemical safety consultant for the Blue Green Chemical Security Coalition. Philip Perry, Dick Cheney’s son-in-law, and at the time the general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget, <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0703.levine.html" type="external">told her</a> his bosses would never let any such legislation pass. In her 2005 book, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=HcbGZaiFanAC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=it%27s+my+party&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=2cZwUc_mGJep4APbrICgBQ&amp;ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=chemical&amp;f=false" type="external">It’s My Party Too</a>, Whitman places the blame squarely at the feet of the American Chemistry Council, which she chides for its “extremism and closed-mindedness.”</p>
<p>Whitman was rebuffed. Her powers were instead transferred through a 2007 budget deal to DHS, which was (and is) considered to be less concerned with things like environmental impacts or workplace standards. She resigned in 2003. Legislation designed to improve safety at chemical plants was introduced in the Senate in 2006, but blocked by Republicans.</p>
<p>But there was another interpretation of the Clean Air Act. As the thinking went, a provision of the law (section 112-R) already authorized the EPA to monitor and regulate chemical plants. Manufacturers were obligated to study the worst-case scenarios of a major accident or attack, and assess the consequences such incidents would have on workers and nearby residents. But most importantly, the agency had the power to make new rules as necessary. Environmental groups and labor unions had long supported this interpretation, but it was dead as a doornail during the remainder of the Bush Administration. Last year, Whitman pushed Lisa Jackson, President Obama’s EPA administrator, to act unilaterally. “This is the right thing to do, and it is a step that the E.P.A. could take right now,” she argued in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/opinion/the-epa-can-fix-the-chemical-flaw.html?_r=0" type="external">New York Times op-ed</a>.</p>
<p>The fertilizer industry, along with its allies in the agriculture and chemical industries, was less than pleased. Last June, Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) wrote a letter to Jackson protesting the proposal to regulate chemical plants. “[W]e do not support the use of the accidental release prevention provisions of the Clean Air Act to address site security from terrorist attacks at chemical facilities,” they wrote.</p>
<p>Their argument was a <a href="http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2012/February/EPA-chemical-terrorism-data.asp" type="external">simple one</a>: If a report detailing the safety and security weaknesses of a chemical facility fell into the hands of a terrorist, it could become a magnet for a future attack. But it was also something of a red herring. Industry groups and their congressional allies have opposed using section 112-R to crack down on chemical plants long before fears of Al Qaeda had gripped the Capitol. It also rested on a logical fallacy—the point of the safety regulations was to force manufacturers to shore up the workplace so that there wouldn’t be any obvious weaknesses to exploit.</p>
<p>Later that year, they introduced a bill to formally prohibit the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate security and safety at chemical production and storage sites, by mandating that any such inspections be carried out by the Department of Homeland Security instead. Their bill also left it up to manufacturers to determine whether or not to make improvements to the safety of their workplace. In February, Pompeo introduced the General Duty Clarification Act of 2013, a repeat of the 2012 bill, with 10 Republican cosponsors—and one Democrat, Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah. The bill was backed by some of the nation’s most powerful lobbying groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce.</p>
<p>“Dividing safety and security has been a game that the chemical industry has tried to play for many years,” Orum says. “That’s the point of the Pompeo bill—divide safety from security. But they’re not separable.”</p>
<p>In the meantime, advocates for greater oversight of America’s great unregulated fertilizer facilities hope that maybe, just maybe, the explosion in West will be enough of a wake-up call to get Congress and the EPA to finally act.</p>
<p>“Most of these things are human error,” says Neil Carman, clean air program director at the Sierra Club’s Austin chapter and a former investigator at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which inspects plants like West. “These things don’t happen all of a sudden. Every accident that I’ve looked at in industrial plants, it was like, ‘Hey, you’ve got a ticking time bomb there.'”</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | ron jenkinsfort worth startelegramzumapresscom last wednesdays explosion west texas fertilizer plant left least 15 people dead 100 injured made possible ultralax state federal oversight climate make inspections facilities rubberstamp processwhen even happen chemical lobby allies congress get way regulatory process dismissed environmental activists labor unions extremely weak would watered even february 11 congressmen10 republicans one democratjoined two dozen industry groups including fertilizer institute american chemistry council international institute ammonia refrigeration back general duty clarification act bill designed sap environmental protection agency powers regulate safety security major chemical sites prescribed clean air act call koch brothers bill greenpeace legislative director rick hind says bills sponsor gop rep mike pompeo represents conservative megadonors home city wichita kansas sponsor sister legislation senate gop sen pat roberts represents kochs home state kansas brothers huge investments fertilizer production hind thinks theyll ultimately get want whether bill becomes law necessarily intended achieve legislative passageits intimidation beleaguered agency fight fertilizer clean air act origins passage law back 1990 although original bill included language would permitted epa regulate emissions ammonia hydrogen sulfideboth important ingredients fertilizer manufacturinga fierce lobbying push fertilizer industry resulted compounds stricken formal list battle intensified 911 president george w bushs epa director christine todd whitman decided take seen serious security threat whitman moderate former new jersey republican governor working secretary homeland security tom ridge plan regulate chemical plants considered uniquely vulnerable terrorist attacks whitman believed law already empowered agency ridge sketched legislation would expand authority put aside ambiguity set announce publicly white house yanked recalls paul orum chemical safety consultant blue green chemical security coalition philip perry dick cheneys soninlaw time general counsel white house office management budget told bosses would never let legislation pass 2005 book party whitman places blame squarely feet american chemistry council chides extremism closedmindedness whitman rebuffed powers instead transferred 2007 budget deal dhs considered less concerned things like environmental impacts workplace standards resigned 2003 legislation designed improve safety chemical plants introduced senate 2006 blocked republicans another interpretation clean air act thinking went provision law section 112r already authorized epa monitor regulate chemical plants manufacturers obligated study worstcase scenarios major accident attack assess consequences incidents would workers nearby residents importantly agency power make new rules necessary environmental groups labor unions long supported interpretation dead doornail remainder bush administration last year whitman pushed lisa jackson president obamas epa administrator act unilaterally right thing step epa could take right argued new york times oped fertilizer industry along allies agriculture chemical industries less pleased last june reps fred upton rmich ed whitfield rky john shimkus rill wrote letter jackson protesting proposal regulate chemical plants support use accidental release prevention provisions clean air act address site security terrorist attacks chemical facilities wrote argument simple one report detailing safety security weaknesses chemical facility fell hands terrorist could become magnet future attack also something red herring industry groups congressional allies opposed using section 112r crack chemical plants long fears al qaeda gripped capitol also rested logical fallacythe point safety regulations force manufacturers shore workplace wouldnt obvious weaknesses exploit later year introduced bill formally prohibit epa using clean air act regulate security safety chemical production storage sites mandating inspections carried department homeland security instead bill also left manufacturers determine whether make improvements safety workplace february pompeo introduced general duty clarification act 2013 repeat 2012 bill 10 republican cosponsorsand one democrat rep jim matheson utah bill backed nations powerful lobbying groups including us chamber commerce dividing safety security game chemical industry tried play many years orum says thats point pompeo billdivide safety security theyre separable meantime advocates greater oversight americas great unregulated fertilizer facilities hope maybe maybe explosion west enough wakeup call get congress epa finally act things human error says neil carman clean air program director sierra clubs austin chapter former investigator texas commission environmental quality inspects plants like west things dont happen sudden every accident ive looked industrial plants like hey youve got ticking time bomb | 649 |
<p>On March 21, 2012, the fifteen-member UN Security Council voted unanimously, for the first time, to push the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, towards a diplomatic settlement, by ordering it to comply with the Six Point plan presented by Kofi Anan, the former UN Secretary-General. Assad, in fact, accepted the plan on March 27.</p>
<p>This diplomatic process was inscribed into a “Presidential Statement,” not a Council resolution. The difference between the two is that the former requires unanimous support from the Council, and it is also non-binding. The Statement threatened Syria with certain unspecified “further steps,” that do not necessarily include military action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, but that include tougher diplomatic and economic measures backed by Russia and China, which would harm and embarrass the Assad regime. Additionally, that would include sanctions against Syria’s First Lady, Asma, thus preventing her from traveling in the 27 nations that constitute the European Union.</p>
<p>The Presidential Statement expressed its “gravest concern at the deteriorating situation in Syria, which has resulted in a serious human rights crisis and a deplorable humanitarian situation.” The Statement, however, made concessions to Bashar al-Assad by not including “threats, ultimatums, and “unilateral demands.” It, moreover, appeased Assad by including a Russian proposal that condemned the mid-March bombing attacks on Syrian government installations in Damascus and Aleppo, describing them as acts of terrorism, rather than “resistance,” which the Syrian opposition claims.</p>
<p>This action by the UN Security Council, which was not vetoed this time by Russia and China, was meant to extract from Syria an agreement to endorse the Kofi Anan plan, which begins with a cease-fire, and culminates in a peace process demanding that all parties unite behind it, else those consequences, costs, penalties would be activated. Undoubtedly, the new attitude by Russia and China must have steered the Assad regime towards embracing the Anan Plan.</p>
<p>Such a plan, which has scrupulously avoided severe action against Syria, yet carefully avoided recriminations, seems to strike a balance between the intransigence of Bashar regime, heretofore backed by Russia and China, on the one hand, and the positions of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and even Israel, on the other.</p>
<p>This type of conflict resolution is cumbersome and complex, combining the local with the regional, and the latter with the international. Although Libya has many attributes similar to those of the Syrian situation, the former is essentially a tribal society. Libya is no Syria. Libya has neither the middle class, nor the sophistication of Syrian society. Syria, on the other hand, is a modern state which plays a leading role in the Middle East and is considered a center of Arab nationalism. It has developed a network of crucial regional alliances including the Soviet Union and later Russia, China, Iran and Hezbollah.&#160; Libya’s dictator for more than four decades, the late Moammar Qaddafi, &#160;saw himself as a protégé of the Egyptian Leader, Gamal Abd al Nasser.</p>
<p>Not only is the Syrian conflict complex, but also regional and global, as well. Syria is the center of a cold war, not unlike that which prevailed during the second half of the past century. The Syrian faction consists of Iran, Hezbollah, some Lebanese elements, Russia, and China. Its opposite number includes The US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, and Jordan. Of course, these coalitions are not mutually exclusive nor are they permanent “alliances.” Shifting alignments, at the present, reflect shifting interests, and in fact, can be viewed as an attempt to settle ongoing competition for hegemony, domination, and super-ordination, if not re-colonization. Most probably, the latter applies to Libya, Syria, Bahrein, Yemen, and Iraq. The former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, expressed her optimism when she made her famous statement about an emerging new Middle East, i.e. a subservient region defined by a US, Saudi, Israeli hegemony in which Syria will cease to be the address for Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism.</p>
<p>Thus, the ongoing crises in Syria,&#160; designed to marginalize the Assad regime, under the pretext of human rights, would represent an attempt to settle previous accounts: Syria’s close ally, Hezbollah would not be allowed to get away with an apparent military victory over Israel in 2006; Syria would not go unpunished for its alleged role in the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister, the late&#160; Rafiq Hariri; nor will Syria’s “coalition” remain exempt from the consequences that usually come with the counter revolutionary restraint presumably inherent in Rice’s “new Middle East” formula, &#160;particularly in the aftermath of the seemingly successful revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. These revolutions cannot run loose in a Middle East that is steadily becoming an American lake.</p>
<p>How long will the lake remain to serve the interests of colonial powers in an age of de-colonization will depend on the dwindling economies of the Anglo-Saxon world, which may face difficulties in trying to sustain a neo-colonialist order in the Middle East. It may also depend on the continuing readiness of NATO to support counter-revolutionary forces ala Libya, the enduring ability of America’s surrogates, such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar .etc to escape the revolutionary tide in the Arab world and the rising expectations of a new public whose willingness to sacrifice for a democratic polity has proven to be boundless. A western lake and an Arab spring simply cannot co-exist.</p>
<p>NASEER ARURI is Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His latest book (with the late Samih Farsoun) is&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Palestine and the Palestinians: A Social and Political History</a>.</p> | true | 4 | march 21 2012 fifteenmember un security council voted unanimously first time push syrian regime bashar alassad towards diplomatic settlement ordering comply six point plan presented kofi anan former un secretarygeneral assad fact accepted plan march 27 diplomatic process inscribed presidential statement council resolution difference two former requires unanimous support council also nonbinding statement threatened syria certain unspecified steps necessarily include military action chapter vii un charter include tougher diplomatic economic measures backed russia china would harm embarrass assad regime additionally would include sanctions syrias first lady asma thus preventing traveling 27 nations constitute european union presidential statement expressed gravest concern deteriorating situation syria resulted serious human rights crisis deplorable humanitarian situation statement however made concessions bashar alassad including threats ultimatums unilateral demands moreover appeased assad including russian proposal condemned midmarch bombing attacks syrian government installations damascus aleppo describing acts terrorism rather resistance syrian opposition claims action un security council vetoed time russia china meant extract syria agreement endorse kofi anan plan begins ceasefire culminates peace process demanding parties unite behind else consequences costs penalties would activated undoubtedly new attitude russia china must steered assad regime towards embracing anan plan plan scrupulously avoided severe action syria yet carefully avoided recriminations seems strike balance intransigence bashar regime heretofore backed russia china one hand positions united states saudi arabia qatar even israel type conflict resolution cumbersome complex combining local regional latter international although libya many attributes similar syrian situation former essentially tribal society libya syria libya neither middle class sophistication syrian society syria hand modern state plays leading role middle east considered center arab nationalism developed network crucial regional alliances including soviet union later russia china iran hezbollah160 libyas dictator four decades late moammar qaddafi 160saw protégé egyptian leader gamal abd al nasser syrian conflict complex also regional global well syria center cold war unlike prevailed second half past century syrian faction consists iran hezbollah lebanese elements russia china opposite number includes us saudi arabia qatar israel jordan course coalitions mutually exclusive permanent alliances shifting alignments present reflect shifting interests fact viewed attempt settle ongoing competition hegemony domination superordination recolonization probably latter applies libya syria bahrein yemen iraq former us secretary state condoleezza rice expressed optimism made famous statement emerging new middle east ie subservient region defined us saudi israeli hegemony syria cease address arab nationalism anticolonialism thus ongoing crises syria160 designed marginalize assad regime pretext human rights would represent attempt settle previous accounts syrias close ally hezbollah would allowed get away apparent military victory israel 2006 syria would go unpunished alleged role assassination lebanons former prime minister late160 rafiq hariri syrias coalition remain exempt consequences usually come counter revolutionary restraint presumably inherent rices new middle east formula 160particularly aftermath seemingly successful revolutions egypt tunisia revolutions run loose middle east steadily becoming american lake long lake remain serve interests colonial powers age decolonization depend dwindling economies anglosaxon world may face difficulties trying sustain neocolonialist order middle east may also depend continuing readiness nato support counterrevolutionary forces ala libya enduring ability americas surrogates saudi arabia israel qatar etc escape revolutionary tide arab world rising expectations new public whose willingness sacrifice democratic polity proven boundless western lake arab spring simply coexist naseer aruri chancellor professor emeritus political science university massachusetts dartmouth latest book late samih farsoun is160 palestine palestinians social political history | 547 |
<p>Margot Riphagen of New Orleans wears a birth control pills costume as she protests in front of the US Supreme Court.Charles Dharapak/AP Photo</p>
<p>Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Inc., the closely watched case in which the Oklahoma-based craft store chain has challenged the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, requiring insurance policies to cover birth control without a copay. Hobby Lobby’s high-profile case may have nabbed most of the headlines so far, but it’s far from the only company that’s taking on the Obama administration over the mandate.</p>
<p>Since February 2012, 71 other for-profit companies have challenged the ACA’s contraceptive mandate in court, according to the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). The majority of these for-profit cases (46 in addition to Hobby Lobby’s) are still pending. Jump to the full list of cases by <a href="#cases" type="external">clicking here</a>.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs maintain that the federal government, by requiring contraceptive coverage under the ACA, is infringing on their religious views. Like Hobby Lobby, many of these companies had already covered birth control under their insurance plans, but they oppose the ACA’s rules requiring health plans to cover contraceptives including the drug Plan B, which they argue causes abortions. The Thomas More Law Center, a law firm “dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians,” <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/mar/24/hobby-lobby-sureme-court-obamacare-contraception" type="external">has filed</a> 11 cases on behalf of <a href="http://www.thomasmore.org/news/thomas-more-law-center-files-supreme-court-brief-supporting-hobby-lobby-and-conestoga-and-relig" type="external">33 plaintiffs</a> against the ACA contraceptive mandate. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the center asserts in an <a href="http://www.thomasmore.org/sites/default/wp-content/uploads/files/13-354%2C%2013-356%20bsac%20Thomas%20More%20Law%20Center.pdf" type="external">amicus brief</a> supporting Hobby Lobby, protects employers fighting the mandate “from being forced, under threat of ruinous government fines, to fund products and services that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.”</p>
<p>“Forced” is not quite accurate, though, as my colleague Stephanie Mencimer reported <a href="" type="internal">last week</a>. An employer doesn’t have to provide health insurance to its employees at all; in fact, it’s probably cheaper for a company to instead pay the tax that would help subsidize its employees’ coverage obtained through the exchanges or Medicaid.</p>
<p>A Supreme Court ruling in Hobby Lobby’s favor could have a far-reaching impact, potentially dismantling corporate laws that have long shielded CEOs and board members from lawsuits or paving the way for companies to claim religious exemptions from other federal regulations, as we <a href="" type="internal">reported last week</a>. But a pro-Hobby Lobby verdict would most immediately affect the more than 22,000 people employed by the companies who brought these lawsuits, says Gretchen Borchelt, senior counsel and director of state reproductive health policy at the NWLC, which has been <a href="http://www.nwlc.org/status-lawsuits-challenging-affordable-care-act%C2%92s-birth-control-coverage-benefit" type="external">tracking the cases</a>. The outcome of many of these cases, she says, may hinge on the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling.</p>
<p>So who are some of these other companies fighting the Obama administration over the ACA contraceptive mandate?</p>
<p>In Michigan, there’s Trijicon, a military contractor specializing in optics equipment for weapons. The company last made headlines in 2010, when it came under fire for <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/21/trijicon-will-remove-secr_n_432349.html" type="external">stamping</a> references to Bible verses on its combat rifle sights. According to data provided to Mother Jones by the Department of Defense, Trijicon currently holds at least $8.9 million in active contracts with the US military.</p>
<p>In its August 2013 <a href="https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/08.05.13_complaint.pdf" type="external">lawsuit</a>, Trijicon claims that the company “and its shareholders have a deeply held religious belief that life begins at conception/fertilization.” The company’s website states: “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.” Depending on where the Supreme Court lands on Hobby Lobby, that belief could mean no more birth control coverage for the company’s 257 employees, <a href="http://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/08.05.13_complaint.pdf" type="external">212 of whom</a> are currently enrolled in the company’s insurance plan. Trijicon did not respond to interview requests or emailed questions.</p>
<p>In West Virginia, Joe Holland, a born-again Christian who owns a local car dealership, is taking on the contraceptive mandate in court even while publicly touting his company’s support for women. Joe Holland Chevrolet, which <a href="http://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/FA-WV-0001-0001.pdf" type="external">filed suit</a> against the Obama administration in June 2013, is closed on Sundays; on Monday mornings, Holland conducts an informal prayer session that’s open to his 150 employees. Holland is proud to have women filling positions throughout his dealership, all the way up to the management level. “When we think of women in the automotive industry, most of us see a receptionist or someone behind the desk doing paper work and other behind the scene tasks,” says a company webpage <a href="http://www.joehollandforwomen.com/" type="external">created in 2011</a>. “Not at Joe Holland Chevrolet &amp; Imports of South Charleston, WV…At Joe Holland we understand the need for women to feel they are receiving trustworthy information and advice when it comes to service on their vehicle or the purchase of a vehicle.”</p>
<p>Ohio-based companies <a href="http://www.freshwayfoods.com/about/story.php" type="external">Freshway Foods</a> and Freshway Logistics, a produce processor and distributor run by brothers Philip and Frank Gilardi Jr., are also taking on Obamacare over the contraception mandate. “[A]s the two owners with controlling interests in the two corporations,” <a href="" type="internal">the Gilardis</a>, who are Catholic, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/freshway_d_ct_order_denying_pi.pdf" type="external">argue</a> in their legal complaint, “they conduct their businesses in a manner that does not violate their sincerely-held religious beliefs or moral values, and they wish to continue to do so.”</p>
<p>Some Freshway workers might beg to differ. In 2011, former Freshway employee Lilia Trujillo-Salas sued the company for sexual harassment, after allegedly enduring multiple incidents of “unwelcome sexual comments, sexual innuendo, and physical contact,” according to court documents. Trujillo-Salas complained to her supervisors and asked to transfer jobs after a male coworker allegedly held her in a storage room and told her she wouldn’t be released until she kissed him. Another time, a coworker allegedly propositioned her for sex. Eventually, Trujillo-Salas was suspended then fired after injuring herself at work. Freshway denied the sexual-assault allegations but settled the case with an undisclosed payout.</p>
<p>One company NWLC’s Borchelt was particularly surprised to see on the list is Eden Foods, the Michigan-based organic food company, which she says has an “outstanding record of social and environmental responsibility.”</p>
<p>The company filed suit against the Obama administration in early 2013, eventually losing its case at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Eden Foods did not respond to interview requests, but when Salon reporter Irin Carmon <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/eden_foods_ceo_digs_himself_deeper_in_birth_control_outrage/" type="external">interviewed</a> the company’s CEO, Michael Potter, about the case last April, he argued:</p>
<p>“I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that?…I’m not trying to get birth control out of Rite Aid or Wal-Mart, but don’t tell me I gotta pay for it.”</p>
<p>This interview, the 6th Circuit’s Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey later wrote in <a href="http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/13a0304p-06.pdf" type="external">her opinion</a> on the case, showed that Potter’s “deeply held religious beliefs more resembled a laissez-faire, anti-government screed.”</p>
<p>Even after a string of <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/eden_foods_ceos_bad_week_continues/" type="external">bad press</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/edenfoods" type="external">considerable customer backlash</a>, Potter <a href="http://www.edenfoods.com/articles/view.php?articles_id=219" type="external">defended</a> the lawsuit: “We believe in a woman’s right to decide, and have access to, all aspects of their health care and reproductive management. This lawsuit does not block, or intend to block, anyone’s access to health care or reproductive management. This lawsuit is about protecting religious freedom and stopping the government from forcing citizens to violate their conscience. We object to the HHS mandate and its government overreach.”</p>
<p>Borchelt doesn’t see it that way. “These companies are not hiring based on the religious beliefs of the workers. Imagine being someone applying for a warehouse position at an organic food company. Why would you ever think, ‘Oh, I need to research this owner’s religious beliefs to know whether or not I’m going to get access to birth control insurance’?”</p>
<p>Below is a <a type="external" href="">full list</a> of the pending cases, as tracked by the NWLC. Watch this space for periodic updates. Look up individual <a href="https://www.aclu.org/reproductive-freedom/challenges-federal-contraceptive-coverage-rule#cases" type="external">court documents</a> at the American Civil Liberties Union’s website.</p>
<p /> | true | 4 | margot riphagen new orleans wears birth control pills costume protests front us supreme courtcharles dharapakap photo last week supreme court heard oral arguments sebelius v hobby lobby inc closely watched case oklahomabased craft store chain challenged affordable care acts contraceptive mandate requiring insurance policies cover birth control without copay hobby lobbys highprofile case may nabbed headlines far far company thats taking obama administration mandate since february 2012 71 forprofit companies challenged acas contraceptive mandate court according national womens law center nwlc majority forprofit cases 46 addition hobby lobbys still pending jump full list cases clicking plaintiffs maintain federal government requiring contraceptive coverage aca infringing religious views like hobby lobby many companies already covered birth control insurance plans oppose acas rules requiring health plans cover contraceptives including drug plan b argue causes abortions thomas law center law firm dedicated defense promotion religious freedom christians filed 11 cases behalf 33 plaintiffs aca contraceptive mandate religious freedom restoration act center asserts amicus brief supporting hobby lobby protects employers fighting mandate forced threat ruinous government fines fund products services violate sincerely held religious beliefs forced quite accurate though colleague stephanie mencimer reported last week employer doesnt provide health insurance employees fact probably cheaper company instead pay tax would help subsidize employees coverage obtained exchanges medicaid supreme court ruling hobby lobbys favor could farreaching impact potentially dismantling corporate laws long shielded ceos board members lawsuits paving way companies claim religious exemptions federal regulations reported last week prohobby lobby verdict would immediately affect 22000 people employed companies brought lawsuits says gretchen borchelt senior counsel director state reproductive health policy nwlc tracking cases outcome many cases says may hinge supreme courts hobby lobby ruling companies fighting obama administration aca contraceptive mandate michigan theres trijicon military contractor specializing optics equipment weapons company last made headlines 2010 came fire stamping references bible verses combat rifle sights according data provided mother jones department defense trijicon currently holds least 89 million active contracts us military august 2013 lawsuit trijicon claims company shareholders deeply held religious belief life begins conceptionfertilization companys website states believe america great people good goodness based biblical standards throughout history strive follow morals depending supreme court lands hobby lobby belief could mean birth control coverage companys 257 employees 212 currently enrolled companys insurance plan trijicon respond interview requests emailed questions west virginia joe holland bornagain christian owns local car dealership taking contraceptive mandate court even publicly touting companys support women joe holland chevrolet filed suit obama administration june 2013 closed sundays monday mornings holland conducts informal prayer session thats open 150 employees holland proud women filling positions throughout dealership way management level think women automotive industry us see receptionist someone behind desk paper work behind scene tasks says company webpage created 2011 joe holland chevrolet amp imports south charleston wvat joe holland understand need women feel receiving trustworthy information advice comes service vehicle purchase vehicle ohiobased companies freshway foods freshway logistics produce processor distributor run brothers philip frank gilardi jr also taking obamacare contraception mandate two owners controlling interests two corporations gilardis catholic argue legal complaint conduct businesses manner violate sincerelyheld religious beliefs moral values wish continue freshway workers might beg differ 2011 former freshway employee lilia trujillosalas sued company sexual harassment allegedly enduring multiple incidents unwelcome sexual comments sexual innuendo physical contact according court documents trujillosalas complained supervisors asked transfer jobs male coworker allegedly held storage room told wouldnt released kissed another time coworker allegedly propositioned sex eventually trujillosalas suspended fired injuring work freshway denied sexualassault allegations settled case undisclosed payout one company nwlcs borchelt particularly surprised see list eden foods michiganbased organic food company says outstanding record social environmental responsibility company filed suit obama administration early 2013 eventually losing case 6th circuit court appeals eden foods respond interview requests salon reporter irin carmon interviewed companys ceo michael potter case last april argued dont care federal government telling buy employees jack daniels birth control gives right tell thatim trying get birth control rite aid walmart dont tell got ta pay interview 6th circuits judge martha craig daughtrey later wrote opinion case showed potters deeply held religious beliefs resembled laissezfaire antigovernment screed even string bad press considerable customer backlash potter defended lawsuit believe womans right decide access aspects health care reproductive management lawsuit block intend block anyones access health care reproductive management lawsuit protecting religious freedom stopping government forcing citizens violate conscience object hhs mandate government overreach borchelt doesnt see way companies hiring based religious beliefs workers imagine someone applying warehouse position organic food company would ever think oh need research owners religious beliefs know whether im going get access birth control insurance full list pending cases tracked nwlc watch space periodic updates look individual court documents american civil liberties unions website | 784 |
<p>Simon &amp; Schuster</p>
<p>“Wrestling With His Angel 1849-1856: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II” A book by Sidney Blumenthal</p>
<p>Reviewed by Allen Barra</p>
<p>Historian Steven Hahn, writing last May in The New York Times on the first volume of Sidney Blumenthal’s political life of Abraham Lincoln, “A Self-Made Man,” said that Blumenthal’s next volume on Lincoln “might serve as a vital hub around which new perspectives on the 19tth century could be devised. This is possible. … But I have my doubts.” Hahn and other historians who seemed to be searching for reasons to belittle Blumenthal’s achievement must now dispel their doubts.</p>
<p />
<p>The most written-about human being in history has had the greatest body of literature about him emerge in the last 25 years. Garry Wills’ “Lincoln at Gettysburg” (1992), Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” (2005), and James McPherson’s “Tried by War: Lincoln as Commander in Chief” (2009) concentrated on particular aspects of Lincoln’s career. The greatest single-volume biography, David Herbert Donald’s “Lincoln” (1995), focused on Lincoln’s personal life. All are indispensable.</p>
<p>Blumenthal is the first historian to define Lincoln solely through his political evolution. “Wrestling With His Angel 1849-1856” — the title is taken from Genesis 32, in which Jacob wrestles all night with an angel — places Lincoln squarely in the storm of U.S. politics between the Mexican War (which ended in 1848) and the Civil War that resulted from the struggle over whether the vast new tracts of territory won from Mexico should allow slavery.</p>
<p>The author takes a daring chance that could not be taken in a standard biography: Lincoln is scarcely mentioned in nearly the first third of the book. When he finally emerges, it is not like Athena springing fully formed from the head of Zeus. The political Lincoln was forged by adherence to the ideals of Henry Clay, the senator from Kentucky and secretary of state, who was Lincoln’s “beau ideal of a statesman”; Lincoln attended one of Clay’s speeches “lying on the ground and listening for two hours as he whittled sticks.” Another powerful influence was Massachusetts senator and twice Secretary of State Daniel Webster, “the most eloquent orator of his age, already immortalized for famous addresses against [Sen. John C.] Calhoun and his states’ rights acolytes.” As the end of the decade approached, Calhoun, who had done so much to create the atmosphere that would lead to war, moaned as he lay dying, “The Union is doomed to dissolution, there is no mistaking the signs.”</p>
<p>Lincoln’s rise is measured against and contrasted with Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois, “the most racist state in the North,” and Jefferson Davis, senator from Mississippi, secretary of war under Franklin Pierce, and, finally, president of the Confederacy. “The parallel lives of these two men,” Blumenthal writes, “would define Lincoln’s.”</p>
<p>Jefferson Davis is seen in a new and sharper focus than even in William C. Davis’ 2016 biography, “The Man and His Hour,” and it’s hard to see him in retrospect as anything but a sinister and destructive figure. Called “the autocrat of the cabinet” by The New York Times, Davis increased the size of the standard army by 30 percent and appointed West Point graduates as officers for new regiments in the federal army. He helped develop new, more deadly weapons. Far from all his admirers were Southerners; they included his president, Franklin Pierce, and “a promising West Point-educated young lieutenant … George Brinton McClellan … [who] proudly considered himself one of Secretary Davis’s star protégés.”</p>
<p>With an eye for the kind of detail that makes “Wrestling With His Angel” fascinating reading, Blumenthal relates the story of an executive who refused to pay Lincoln after a court case, “regarding him as too lowly to receive a princely sum.” The executive was the above-mentioned George B. McClellan, the man who Lincoln would later entrust with command of the Army of the Potomac, and then relieve from his post for lack of aggressiveness.</p>
<p>Davis did a great deal more than lead the Confederacy: He helped create it. “From the moment he took office, the secretary of war waged political warfare against Southern Unionists. … By mid-1853, Davis and his Southern Rights faction had gained control of the state [Mississippi] Democratic Party.” And “Jefferson Davis’s control of federal patronage tilted in favor of Southern Rightists.”</p>
<p>Stephen Douglas did almost as much as Davis to bring the country to war, or as one Douglas critic phrased it, “We have found another northern man with strong southern feelings.” Douglas “never uttered an anti-slavery sentiment in his life. … He took no moral stand whatsoever.” Or stated another way, “Slavery was not a moral question at all, he insisted. It’s simply a matter like ‘horse stealing or anything else’ to be decided by popular sovereignty. …” So openly racist was his everyday speech that William H. Seward told him, “Douglas, no one who spells Negro with two g’s will ever be elected President of the United States.”</p>
<p>Lincoln had debated Douglas numerous times since 1838. But senator Douglas commanded a national stage, while Lincoln left public office in 1849 after his first term in Congress. In 1854 he came up against him again on the subject of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which made possible the extension of slavery to the West.</p>
<p>Lincoln “constantly measured himself against Douglas,” and in his own eyes, he constantly came up short: “Twenty-two years ago Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure — a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation; and it is not unknown, even, in foreign lands.”</p>
<p>A friend of Lincoln wrote, “Mr. Douglas’s great success in obtaining place and distinction was a standing offense to Mr. Lincoln’s self-love and individual ambition. … He was intensely jealous of him [Douglas]. And longed to pull him down, or outstrip him in the race for popular favor. …”</p>
<p>Despite Lincoln’s best efforts in seven speeches, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed, and “In a stroke, the old order cracked apart. All that had been proclaimed to be permanent shattered into pieces; everything settled became undone.”</p>
<p>The old Whig party, unable to proclaim itself either for or against slavery, lost the support of pro-slavery Southerners to the Democrats. In the North, a new party began to emerge, pulled together from disparate elements with one thing in common: hatred of slavery.</p>
<p>(The Whig party began in 1835, its popular base forming largely in reaction to the populism of Andrew Jackson, particularly his forced removal of Indians in the South. It favored the power of Congress over the president and also a progressive program in banking and economics to stimulate the economy. The Democrats were Jacksonian populists whose catchphrase was “the sovereignty of the people”; their general principle for governing was majority rule.</p>
<p>The Whigs began to split on the issue of slavery in territories acquired in the war with Mexico. The majority of Whigs in the north were opposed to slavery and moved inexorably to the new Republican Party, which was unambiguously anti-slavery. The Whigs dissolved in 1854.)</p>
<p>As 1860 approached, “Both parties, i.e. the Democrats and the Whigs, had lost their equilibrium.” Lincoln, originally a Whig, was finding common ground with different groups and received unexpected support from Republicans. He was bolstered by his wife Mary Todd, the true founder of “Our Lincoln Party,” and began a sudden meteoric rise that would eventually see him eclipse first Douglas and then Jefferson Davis.</p>
<p>But that is the story for the third and final volume. For now, we are left with Blumenthal’s judgment that “when Lincoln proclaimed himself as a Republican … it was among the most significant events in the coming of the Civil War.”</p>
<p>Blumenthal, probing the cracks and eddies of American history, politics and culture before 1854, has produced a masterwork. It is a tour de force, where none was expected, in the life of a man whom everyone thinks they know. But the Lincoln revealed here is discovered for the first time in “Wrestling With His Angel.”</p> | true | 4 | simon amp schuster wrestling angel 18491856 political life abraham lincoln volume ii book sidney blumenthal reviewed allen barra historian steven hahn writing last may new york times first volume sidney blumenthals political life abraham lincoln selfmade man said blumenthals next volume lincoln might serve vital hub around new perspectives 19tth century could devised possible doubts hahn historians seemed searching reasons belittle blumenthals achievement must dispel doubts writtenabout human history greatest body literature emerge last 25 years garry wills lincoln gettysburg 1992 doris kearns goodwins team rivals 2005 james mcphersons tried war lincoln commander chief 2009 concentrated particular aspects lincolns career greatest singlevolume biography david herbert donalds lincoln 1995 focused lincolns personal life indispensable blumenthal first historian define lincoln solely political evolution wrestling angel 18491856 title taken genesis 32 jacob wrestles night angel places lincoln squarely storm us politics mexican war ended 1848 civil war resulted struggle whether vast new tracts territory mexico allow slavery author takes daring chance could taken standard biography lincoln scarcely mentioned nearly first third book finally emerges like athena springing fully formed head zeus political lincoln forged adherence ideals henry clay senator kentucky secretary state lincolns beau ideal statesman lincoln attended one clays speeches lying ground listening two hours whittled sticks another powerful influence massachusetts senator twice secretary state daniel webster eloquent orator age already immortalized famous addresses sen john c calhoun states rights acolytes end decade approached calhoun done much create atmosphere would lead war moaned lay dying union doomed dissolution mistaking signs lincolns rise measured contrasted sen stephen douglas illinois racist state north jefferson davis senator mississippi secretary war franklin pierce finally president confederacy parallel lives two men blumenthal writes would define lincolns jefferson davis seen new sharper focus even william c davis 2016 biography man hour hard see retrospect anything sinister destructive figure called autocrat cabinet new york times davis increased size standard army 30 percent appointed west point graduates officers new regiments federal army helped develop new deadly weapons far admirers southerners included president franklin pierce promising west pointeducated young lieutenant george brinton mcclellan proudly considered one secretary daviss star protégés eye kind detail makes wrestling angel fascinating reading blumenthal relates story executive refused pay lincoln court case regarding lowly receive princely sum executive abovementioned george b mcclellan man lincoln would later entrust command army potomac relieve post lack aggressiveness davis great deal lead confederacy helped create moment took office secretary war waged political warfare southern unionists mid1853 davis southern rights faction gained control state mississippi democratic party jefferson daviss control federal patronage tilted favor southern rightists stephen douglas almost much davis bring country war one douglas critic phrased found another northern man strong southern feelings douglas never uttered antislavery sentiment life took moral stand whatsoever stated another way slavery moral question insisted simply matter like horse stealing anything else decided popular sovereignty openly racist everyday speech william h seward told douglas one spells negro two gs ever elected president united states lincoln debated douglas numerous times since 1838 senator douglas commanded national stage lincoln left public office 1849 first term congress 1854 came subject kansasnebraska act made possible extension slavery west lincoln constantly measured douglas eyes constantly came short twentytwo years ago judge douglas first became acquainted young trifle younger even ambitious perhaps quite much race ambition failure flat failure one splendid success name fills nation unknown even foreign lands friend lincoln wrote mr douglass great success obtaining place distinction standing offense mr lincolns selflove individual ambition intensely jealous douglas longed pull outstrip race popular favor despite lincolns best efforts seven speeches kansasnebraska act passed stroke old order cracked apart proclaimed permanent shattered pieces everything settled became undone old whig party unable proclaim either slavery lost support proslavery southerners democrats north new party began emerge pulled together disparate elements one thing common hatred slavery whig party began 1835 popular base forming largely reaction populism andrew jackson particularly forced removal indians south favored power congress president also progressive program banking economics stimulate economy democrats jacksonian populists whose catchphrase sovereignty people general principle governing majority rule whigs began split issue slavery territories acquired war mexico majority whigs north opposed slavery moved inexorably new republican party unambiguously antislavery whigs dissolved 1854 1860 approached parties ie democrats whigs lost equilibrium lincoln originally whig finding common ground different groups received unexpected support republicans bolstered wife mary todd true founder lincoln party began sudden meteoric rise would eventually see eclipse first douglas jefferson davis story third final volume left blumenthals judgment lincoln proclaimed republican among significant events coming civil war blumenthal probing cracks eddies american history politics culture 1854 produced masterwork tour de force none expected life man everyone thinks know lincoln revealed discovered first time wrestling angel | 781 |
<p>Here’s my in-depth analysis of the latest iteration of the Trump tax plan as it was defined in the US House of Representatives version this past week. (listen to my Alternative Visions radio show tomorrow, friday, Nov. 10, at 2pm eastern time, for my initial take on the emerging US Senate version and changes, at&#160; <a href="http://prn.fm/?s=Alternative+Visions" type="external">http://prn.fm/?s=Alternative+Visions</a>)</p>
<p>“Last month Trump and released his initial proposals for cutting taxes on the rich. The proposals were developed behind closed doors by his key economic policy makers, Steve Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary, and Gary Cohn, director of the Trump Economic Council—both former senior managers of the Goldman Sachs investment bank. (see my prior article this blog, ‘The Trump-Goldman Sachs Tax Cut for the Rich’).</p>
<p>The initial Trump-Goldman Sachs proposal defined only the broad outlines of the Trump tax plan, but still clearly benefiting the wealthy and their businesses. But the proposal said little how the multi-trillion dollar handout would be paid for. This past week the tax plan was further revised and clarified by the Republican-run US House of Representatives.</p>
<p>The Trump-Goldman Sachs-Paul Ryan Tax Plan</p>
<p>The Trump-Goldman Sachs proposals have been melded with tax cuts proposed by US House speaker, Paul Ryan, who has led the effort for years to use the tax system to transfer wealth to the rich and their corporations. This past week’s Trump-Ryan proposals now clarify further ‘who pays’—i.e. mostly the middle class and especially working class households earning less than $50,000 annual income.</p>
<p>How exactly are they paying, in this latest iteration of the tax cuts and income transfer for the rich that’s been going on since Reagan in the 1980s, accelerating under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama?</p>
<p>The Trump-Republican latest iteration of the tax handouts will cost about $1.5 trillion, according to the Trump administration. That’s what they say it will cost the federal government budget deficit and thus will add to the federal debt. But the total tax cuts are actually around $4.5 trillion. The $1.5 trillion number is only the estimated final impact of the cuts on federal budget deficits. By Congressional rules, if the Trump-Ryan version can keep the budget impact to $1.5 trillion, it needs only 50% votes (plus one) in Congress to pass; but if the hit to the deficit is more than $1.5 trillion, it takes 60%.</p>
<p>The $2.6 Trillion Corporate-Business Tax Cuts</p>
<p>It’s estimated the corporate tax cut measure in the Trump-Ryan bill alone—cutting the nominal tax rate from current 35% to 20% and the corporate Alternate Minimum Tax–will together reduce tax revenue and raise deficits by&#160;$1.5 trillion, according to the Congress Joint Committee on Taxation. But that’s only the beginning of the total tax cuts to businesses. That’s just for corporate businesses and just one of the several big corporate tax cut windfalls in the plan.</p>
<p>There are tax reductions for non-corporate businesses as well. By reducing the nominal tax rate for non-corporate businesses from 39.6% to 25% (affecting what’s called ‘pass-through business income’) the result, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, is an additional&#160;$448 billion tax reduction for businesses that are proprietorships, partnerships, S corporations, and other non-traditional corporations. And this cut goes to the wealthiest, the high end of non-corporate companies. Small businesses (mom and pop businesses) whose owners earn less than $260,000 a year would see nothing of this proposed ‘pass through’ reduction. Half of all ‘pass through’ business income is earned by the wealthiest 1% non-corporate businesses.</p>
<p>Back to the corporate tax cutting, then there’s the daddy of all big corporate tax cuts for US multinational corporations. Trump, Ryan and other business interests claim that US multinationals—i.e. Apple, Google, big Pharma companies, global banks, oil companies and their ilk—pay the highest corporate taxes in the world and therefore cannot compete with their offshore counterparts in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. But that’s a lie. Studies have shown that US MNCs pay an effective tax rate (i.e. actual and not just ‘on paper’ nominal rate) of only 12.5%. Add to that 12.5% a mere 2-4% additional tax they pay in offshore countries, and another 2% or so they pay to US States with corporate income tax laws, and the true, the total global tax rate is around 17%–not 35%.</p>
<p>US MNC’s currently hoard at least $2.4 trillion in their offshore subsidiaries (what they publicly admit to) that they have been refusing pay taxes on for years. Apple Corp., one of the worst tax avoiders, currently has $268 billion in cash; 95% of that $268 billion is stashed away in its offshore subsidiaries in order to avoid paying US corporate taxes. That’s just the legally admitted number. No one knows how much Apple, other MNCs, and wealthy individual investors sock away in offshore tax havens and shelters in order to avoid even reporting, let alone paying, taxes on.</p>
<p>The Trump-Ryan plan for this $2.4 trillion tax avoided money hoard is to cut the tax rate for cash held offshore from 35% to 12%. But that 12% is really 5%, since the 12% applies only to cash offshore; other forms of corporate ‘liquid’ assets are taxed at only 5%. That means it will be easy for corporations like Apple to ‘game’ the system by temporarily converting cash to liquid assets and then back again after the lower 5% rate is paid. They’ll pay 5%, not the 10%. Another measure calls for a 10% tax on future profits earned, but only on ‘excess offshore profits’ held by subsidiaries. If it’s not ‘excess profits’, then the tax rate is 0%. Just the latter measure, referred to as the ‘territorial tax’, is estimated to reduce MNC’s taxes by $207 billion.</p>
<p>A variation of this very same tax shell game was played previously, in 2005. Under George W. Bush, US multinational corporations were hoarding about $700 billion offshore by 2005. They were given a special ‘one time’ deal of a 5.25% tax rate if they brought the money back to the US and reinvested it in jobs. They brought about half of the $700 billion back—but didn’t reinvest in production. Instead, they used it to buy back stock and pay more dividends that didn’t produce any jobs, and finance mergers and acquisitions of their competitors which actually reduced jobs. US MNCs got away with a 35% to 5.25% tax cut in 2005, so they began repeating the practice of shifting US profits to their offshore subsidiaries immediately after once again in order to avoid paying taxes. Now Congress is cutting them a similar deal—i.e. for a second time while calling it once again, as in 2005, a ‘one time’ deal. This so-called ‘repatriation tax’ measure results in is an incentive to shift even more production and operations to offshore subsidiaries, which reduces jobs in the US even further.</p>
<p>All this amounts to a total tax cut windfall for US multinational corporations of at least&#160;$500 billion, and likely even hundreds of billions of dollars more over the coming decade.</p>
<p>And there’s still more, however, for corporations in the Trump-Ryan plan. The tax plan’s ‘depreciation’ provision, which is another name for tax cuts for investment, are also liberalized to the tune of&#160;$41 billion&#160;new tax cuts. Companies can deduct from their tax bill the cost of all the new equipment they buy in the same year. And they can do that for the next five years. As that paragon advocate of economic justice, Larry Summers, former champion of bank deregulation, recently admitted recently in the business daily, Financial Times: “Effective tax rates on new investment is reduced to zero or less, before even considering the corporate rate reduction.” And there’s another roughly&#160;$50 billion&#160;in miscellaneous business tax cuts involving limits on business expensing and other provisions.</p>
<p>How Trump Personally Benefits</p>
<p>The commercial real estate industry—i.e. where Trump made his billions and continues to do so—gets a particularly sweet deal. It is exempt from any cap the Trump plan places on its deduction of business expenses. Commercial real estate companies are also allowed to continue deferring taxes when they exchange properties. And the industry’s numerous tax loopholes remain unchanged in the Trump-Ryan bill. Yet Trump himself says he will not benefit personally from the tax proposals—even though the tax returns he released for one year back before 2005 show his company realized billions in tax relief from the special loopholes enjoyed by the commercial real estate industry. And Trump himself paid $35 million in the corporate AMT, which is now projected to go away as well.</p>
<p>In summary, there’s at least $2.6 trillion in total corporate-business tax cuts in the Trump-Ryan plan. That’s well above the $1.5 trillion limit mandated by Congressional rules, however. And the $2.6 trillion does not include personal income tax reduction for wealthy households and investors. The corporate-business tax cuts alone amount to almost twice the $1.5 trillion allowed by Congressional rules. But the personal income tax cuts for the wealthy will cost another minimum $2 trillion, just for changes in top personal income tax rates and for limiting, then ending, the Alternative Minimum Tax and the Inheritance Tax. That’s&#160;$4.6 trillion&#160;and three times the $1.5 trillion!</p>
<p>The Personal Income Tax Cuts for the Wealthy</p>
<p>While personal income taxes will rise for the middle and working classes to cover the tax cuts for business, the hikes will also have to cover simultaneous tax cuts for wealthy individuals, 1% households, and investors. There are three big ways wealthy individuals and investors get tax cuts in their personal income tax in the Trump-Ryan bill: (1) reducing of personal tax brackets and lowering of rates; (2) reducing and then eliminating altogether the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT); and (3) exempting and then ending the Inheritance (Estate) tax.</p>
<p>The top&#160;personal tax rate&#160;is currently 39.6%. The cutoff occurs for those earning $466,000 a year or more. They pay the 39.6%. But many more now will not under the bill. The Trump-Ryan bill raises the threshold at which they pay the 39.6% to $1 million. Those now earning between $466,000 and $1 million will now pay a lower rate of 33%. Those previously paying 33% are now reduced to 25%. Those at 25%–i.e. the middle class—stay at 25% and thus get no cut. So the personal tax rate on the middle-class rate is not reduced, but the higher income levels are significantly reduced. The total tax cut from lower tax brackets for the wealthy has been estimated at&#160;$1.1 trillion, according to the Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation.</p>
<p>The&#160;Inheritance, or Estate, tax&#160;is paid by only 0.2% of households. Nonetheless, the exemption will double from the first $5.5 million value of the estate to $11 million per person. And it will be completely repealed by 2024. The gift tax, through which the wealthy pass on much of their estates before dying, will also enjoy a $10 million exemption. That all amounts to a&#160;$172 billion&#160;tax cut for the 1% wealthiest households.</p>
<p>The other ‘biggie’ tax cut for the rich is the reduction and subsequent elimination of the&#160;Alternative Minimum Tax, AMT. This was designed to get the rich to pay something in taxes, after they exploited all their available tax loopholes and/or stashed their money offshore in tax shelters and havens, both legally and illegally. (Note: the just-released so-called ‘Paradise Papers’, show how much and where they hide their wealth offshore to avoid taxes—from Queen Elizabeth of Britain to entertainment celebrities like Madonna, Bono, and a long list). 60% of the AMT is paid by individuals earning more than $500,000 a year, and another 20% by those earning adjusted income of more than $200,000. The AMT measures in the Trump-Ryan bill will amount to a&#160;$696 billion&#160;tax cut for the wealthy, according to estimates by the Joint Committee of Congress last week. And that’s not even counting the changes to the AMT paid by businesses as well.</p>
<p>Just the ‘big 3’ personal income tax cuts amount to nearly $2 trillion in total reductions. Add to that the estimated additional $2.5 trillion in corporate-business tax cuts and the total is $4.5 trillion—not the $1.5 or even $1.75 trillion currently referred to in the business and mainstream media.</p>
<p>How the Middle and Working Classes Pay for it All</p>
<p>* Personal Exemptions and Standard Deductions</p>
<p>The personal exemption for a family of four current reduces taxable income by $16,600 a year. This is ended under Trump-Ryan and replaced with an increase in the Standard Deduction, from current $13,000 a year to $24,400. So the Standard Deduction rises by $11,400 but is less than $16,600. So the net result is an increase in $5,200 in taxable income for a family of four.</p>
<p>The increase is even greater for a family of four that itemizes its deductions. For a total itemization of $15,000, they will find their taxable income increasing by $7,200 a year. These gaps will also rise over the 10 year period and result in even higher taxes over time.</p>
<p>Repeal and changes to the Personal exemption and Standard deductions amount to a&#160;$1.6 trillion&#160;tax hike.</p>
<p>* Elimination of Itemized Deductions</p>
<p>Nearly half of all tax filers with annual income between $50,000 and $75,000—i.e. the core of the middle and working classes—currently itemize deductions to reduce their total taxable income and taxes paid. So it’s not true that only the rich itemize. And here is where the Trump-Ryan tax proposals take their biggest whack at the middle class.</p>
<p>-All State and Local income tax deductions are ended under the Trump plan. That’s a roughly $186 billion tax hike—a measure that will mostly hit ‘blue’ Democratic states where state income taxes exist. Contrary to Trump-Ryan propaganda, only 27% of state-local tax deduction is claimed by the wealthiest 1% households. The majority of the deduction is by the middle class.</p>
<p>-Limits on the property tax deduction will result in further tens of $billions of tax hikes. Limits on this deduction will also reduce property values and thus have a negative wealth effect on middle class homeowners—especially in the ‘blue’ coastal states where home prices are highest.</p>
<p>-Deductible interest on first mortgages are reduced by half. This will reduce new home construction, and result in an indirect effect of escalating apartment rental costs, reducing middle and working class real incomes.</p>
<p>-Ending the extraordinary medical expenses deduction will hike taxes by $182 billion. These expenses are incurred by families with extraordinary medical expenses, as health insurance coverage pays less and less of such coverage. Previously they could deduct up to 10% of their income. This is now ended. Expenses formerly deducted for personal casualty losses, un-reimbursed employment expenses for teachers, alimony, moving to a new job expenses, equity home loans interest, are all totally eliminated under the Trump-Ryan plan.</p>
<p>Limits and elimination of deductions are estimated at a tax hike of another&#160;$1.3 trillion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.</p>
<p>That’s $2.9 trillion to offset the $4.6 trillion in tax cuts for corporations, businesses, and the wealthiest households!</p>
<p>In addition are further miscellaneous tax hikes on the Middle Class in the following ways:</p>
<p>* Alternative Energy Credits</p>
<p>Current credits for installing solar and other alternative energy end, raising taxes by $12.3 billion.</p>
<p>* Adoption Credits</p>
<p>Credits for families adopting children end, raising taxes of $3.8 billion</p>
<p>* Flexible Health Savings Accounts and Elderly Dependents Expenses</p>
<p>Currently, workers may reduce taxes from gross wages by setting aside some income in a flexible health savings account. Business also enjoy a tax deduction for payments they make into health insurance plans and pensions. The total amounts to $540 billion a year. Businesses can continue their tax deduction for health payments, but workers will not. Nor may they deduct expenses for elderly dependents’ care. Their costs also tens of billions of dollars.</p>
<p>* Education Credits</p>
<p>Students and colleges take a big hit under the Trump-Ryan plan. Several education credit programs are ended, leaving one education credit. The result is a cut and tax hike of $17 billion. Student loan interest deductions are also ended, costing $13 billion. Companies that assisted higher education programs for employees with $5,250 tax free tuition aid for employee and company are ended; now they are taxable. May companies will now reduce their tuition assistance programs. Education tuition costs deductions for low income households are ended. So are tax free interest higher education savings bonds and savings accounts. It’s a total tax hike of $65 to $95 billion over the decade.</p>
<p>* New Price Index and Reduced EITC</p>
<p>The Trump-Ryan bill brags that it reduces taxes for the near and working poor who now pay an income tax rate of 15% and 10%, by consolidating the two brackets to a combined 12% rate. The former 10% group will of course get a 2% tax hike. But the increase in the income limit at which taxes are paid, from current $12,000 to $24,000, will offset this hike, according to Trump-Ryan. But the plan’s shift to a new, lower consumer price index will reduce the amount increasingly over time the working poor may claim tax reimbursement under the Earned Income Tax Credit, EITC. And it’s highly likely in any final bill that the $24,000 will be significantly reduced.</p>
<p>The foregoing is just a short list of the many ways the middle and working classes will pay for the Trump-Ryan tax bill. We’re talking about approximately $3.5 trillion in tax hikes in the Trump-Ryan bill negatively affecting mostly middle and working class households.</p>
<p>Closing 3 Big Capital Income Tax Loopholes</p>
<p>If Trump-Ryan really wanted to raise taxes, instead of targeting the middle class, they could have easily raised $2 trillion by ending just two other programs: Eliminating the preferential tax rate for long term capital gains taxation, which would bring in $1.34 trillion by 2024; and ending the practice of foregoing all taxation on stocks transferred at death, for which recipients of the stock pay no taxes whatsoever. That would generate another $644 billion. That’s $2 trillion. Another at least $2.5 trillion could be raised by ending corporate tax deductions for payments into company pension and health insurance plans. Workers don’t get to deduct their contributions to these plans. Why should employers?</p>
<p>In other words, just three measures alone targeting corporate and capital incomes would raise $4.5 trillion in tax income over the coming decade. The three could pay for all the corporate-business-wealthiest 1% tax cuts in the Trump-Ryan bill, without raising any taxes on the middle and working classes! But that’s targeting capital incomes of the rich and their corporations, and politicians elected and paid for by the same won’t ‘bite the hand that feeds them’, as they say.</p>
<p>Concluding Comments</p>
<p>If the cost of the Trump-Ryan tax cut proposals are thus $4 trillion at a minimum, and if the proposals only call for $1.3 trillion in tax hikes for the middle and working classes by raising their personal income taxes, where is the remaining $2.7 trillion to come from?</p>
<p>My prediction is that the Senate version, and final joint House-Senate version, of the bill that will now follow in coming weeks, will have to pare down the tax cuts for wealthy individuals and raise some more the tax hikes on the middle class. Cutting the corporate tax rate is the priority for the Trump administration. After that ensuring US Multinational corporations get to shield even more of their profits from taxation. Congress will take it out of the personal income tax provisions which will be scaled back from the current Trump-Ryan proposals. Tax breaks for wealthy individuals will be softened, and new ways to quietly raise taxes on the middle-class households may be found.</p>
<p>But the main solution will be to offset the more than $1.5 trillion net tax breaks with more spending cuts on social programs. In 2011 Congress and Obama cut spending by $1 trillion on education, health, transport, etc. Another $500 billion was cut in 2013. They will, therefore, try to repeat the ‘fiscal austerity’ solution to enable tax cutting for corporations. But that’s not new. The process of spending cuts to finance corporate-wealthy tax cuts has been going on since Ronald Reagan. It’s one of the main causes of the growing income inequality in the US that is the hallmark of Neoliberal policy since the 1980s.</p>
<p>The Trump-Ryan proposals are just the latest iteration of Neoliberal fiscal policy that has been making the rich richer while destroying the economic and social base of the USA. Neoliberal policies associated with tax and spending programs, free money for bankers and investors provided by the central bank (the Federal Reserve), industrial policy deregulating everything and destroying unions, and trade policy enabling offshoring of production and jobs and free re-entry of US goods produced overseas back to the US (aka free trade) have been together ripping a gaping and ever-growing hole in the social fabric of the country. That has in turn been giving rise to ever more desperate radical right-wing politics and solutions—i.e. the political consequences of the Neoliberal economic policies.”</p> | true | 4 | heres indepth analysis latest iteration trump tax plan defined us house representatives version past week listen alternative visions radio show tomorrow friday nov 10 2pm eastern time initial take emerging us senate version changes at160 httpprnfmsalternativevisions last month trump released initial proposals cutting taxes rich proposals developed behind closed doors key economic policy makers steve mnuchin treasury secretary gary cohn director trump economic councilboth former senior managers goldman sachs investment bank see prior article blog trumpgoldman sachs tax cut rich initial trumpgoldman sachs proposal defined broad outlines trump tax plan still clearly benefiting wealthy businesses proposal said little multitrillion dollar handout would paid past week tax plan revised clarified republicanrun us house representatives trumpgoldman sachspaul ryan tax plan trumpgoldman sachs proposals melded tax cuts proposed us house speaker paul ryan led effort years use tax system transfer wealth rich corporations past weeks trumpryan proposals clarify paysie mostly middle class especially working class households earning less 50000 annual income exactly paying latest iteration tax cuts income transfer rich thats going since reagan 1980s accelerating george w bush barack obama trumprepublican latest iteration tax handouts cost 15 trillion according trump administration thats say cost federal government budget deficit thus add federal debt total tax cuts actually around 45 trillion 15 trillion number estimated final impact cuts federal budget deficits congressional rules trumpryan version keep budget impact 15 trillion needs 50 votes plus one congress pass hit deficit 15 trillion takes 60 26 trillion corporatebusiness tax cuts estimated corporate tax cut measure trumpryan bill alonecutting nominal tax rate current 35 20 corporate alternate minimum taxwill together reduce tax revenue raise deficits by16015 trillion according congress joint committee taxation thats beginning total tax cuts businesses thats corporate businesses one several big corporate tax cut windfalls plan tax reductions noncorporate businesses well reducing nominal tax rate noncorporate businesses 396 25 affecting whats called passthrough business income result according joint committee taxation additional160448 billion tax reduction businesses proprietorships partnerships corporations nontraditional corporations cut goes wealthiest high end noncorporate companies small businesses mom pop businesses whose owners earn less 260000 year would see nothing proposed pass reduction half pass business income earned wealthiest 1 noncorporate businesses back corporate tax cutting theres daddy big corporate tax cuts us multinational corporations trump ryan business interests claim us multinationalsie apple google big pharma companies global banks oil companies ilkpay highest corporate taxes world therefore compete offshore counterparts europe asia elsewhere thats lie studies shown us mncs pay effective tax rate ie actual paper nominal rate 125 add 125 mere 24 additional tax pay offshore countries another 2 pay us states corporate income tax laws true total global tax rate around 17not 35 us mncs currently hoard least 24 trillion offshore subsidiaries publicly admit refusing pay taxes years apple corp one worst tax avoiders currently 268 billion cash 95 268 billion stashed away offshore subsidiaries order avoid paying us corporate taxes thats legally admitted number one knows much apple mncs wealthy individual investors sock away offshore tax havens shelters order avoid even reporting let alone paying taxes trumpryan plan 24 trillion tax avoided money hoard cut tax rate cash held offshore 35 12 12 really 5 since 12 applies cash offshore forms corporate liquid assets taxed 5 means easy corporations like apple game system temporarily converting cash liquid assets back lower 5 rate paid theyll pay 5 10 another measure calls 10 tax future profits earned excess offshore profits held subsidiaries excess profits tax rate 0 latter measure referred territorial tax estimated reduce mncs taxes 207 billion variation tax shell game played previously 2005 george w bush us multinational corporations hoarding 700 billion offshore 2005 given special one time deal 525 tax rate brought money back us reinvested jobs brought half 700 billion backbut didnt reinvest production instead used buy back stock pay dividends didnt produce jobs finance mergers acquisitions competitors actually reduced jobs us mncs got away 35 525 tax cut 2005 began repeating practice shifting us profits offshore subsidiaries immediately order avoid paying taxes congress cutting similar dealie second time calling 2005 one time deal socalled repatriation tax measure results incentive shift even production operations offshore subsidiaries reduces jobs us even amounts total tax cut windfall us multinational corporations least160500 billion likely even hundreds billions dollars coming decade theres still however corporations trumpryan plan tax plans depreciation provision another name tax cuts investment also liberalized tune of16041 billion160new tax cuts companies deduct tax bill cost new equipment buy year next five years paragon advocate economic justice larry summers former champion bank deregulation recently admitted recently business daily financial times effective tax rates new investment reduced zero less even considering corporate rate reduction theres another roughly16050 billion160in miscellaneous business tax cuts involving limits business expensing provisions trump personally benefits commercial real estate industryie trump made billions continues sogets particularly sweet deal exempt cap trump plan places deduction business expenses commercial real estate companies also allowed continue deferring taxes exchange properties industrys numerous tax loopholes remain unchanged trumpryan bill yet trump says benefit personally tax proposalseven though tax returns released one year back 2005 show company realized billions tax relief special loopholes enjoyed commercial real estate industry trump paid 35 million corporate amt projected go away well summary theres least 26 trillion total corporatebusiness tax cuts trumpryan plan thats well 15 trillion limit mandated congressional rules however 26 trillion include personal income tax reduction wealthy households investors corporatebusiness tax cuts alone amount almost twice 15 trillion allowed congressional rules personal income tax cuts wealthy cost another minimum 2 trillion changes top personal income tax rates limiting ending alternative minimum tax inheritance tax thats16046 trillion160and three times 15 trillion personal income tax cuts wealthy personal income taxes rise middle working classes cover tax cuts business hikes also cover simultaneous tax cuts wealthy individuals 1 households investors three big ways wealthy individuals investors get tax cuts personal income tax trumpryan bill 1 reducing personal tax brackets lowering rates 2 reducing eliminating altogether alternative minimum tax amt 3 exempting ending inheritance estate tax top160personal tax rate160is currently 396 cutoff occurs earning 466000 year pay 396 many bill trumpryan bill raises threshold pay 396 1 million earning 466000 1 million pay lower rate 33 previously paying 33 reduced 25 25ie middle classstay 25 thus get cut personal tax rate middleclass rate reduced higher income levels significantly reduced total tax cut lower tax brackets wealthy estimated at16011 trillion according congresss joint committee taxation the160inheritance estate tax160is paid 02 households nonetheless exemption double first 55 million value estate 11 million per person completely repealed 2024 gift tax wealthy pass much estates dying also enjoy 10 million exemption amounts a160172 billion160tax cut 1 wealthiest households biggie tax cut rich reduction subsequent elimination the160alternative minimum tax amt designed get rich pay something taxes exploited available tax loopholes andor stashed money offshore tax shelters havens legally illegally note justreleased socalled paradise papers show much hide wealth offshore avoid taxesfrom queen elizabeth britain entertainment celebrities like madonna bono long list 60 amt paid individuals earning 500000 year another 20 earning adjusted income 200000 amt measures trumpryan bill amount a160696 billion160tax cut wealthy according estimates joint committee congress last week thats even counting changes amt paid businesses well big 3 personal income tax cuts amount nearly 2 trillion total reductions add estimated additional 25 trillion corporatebusiness tax cuts total 45 trillionnot 15 even 175 trillion currently referred business mainstream media middle working classes pay personal exemptions standard deductions personal exemption family four current reduces taxable income 16600 year ended trumpryan replaced increase standard deduction current 13000 year 24400 standard deduction rises 11400 less 16600 net result increase 5200 taxable income family four increase even greater family four itemizes deductions total itemization 15000 find taxable income increasing 7200 year gaps also rise 10 year period result even higher taxes time repeal changes personal exemption standard deductions amount a16016 trillion160tax hike elimination itemized deductions nearly half tax filers annual income 50000 75000ie core middle working classescurrently itemize deductions reduce total taxable income taxes paid true rich itemize trumpryan tax proposals take biggest whack middle class state local income tax deductions ended trump plan thats roughly 186 billion tax hikea measure mostly hit blue democratic states state income taxes exist contrary trumpryan propaganda 27 statelocal tax deduction claimed wealthiest 1 households majority deduction middle class limits property tax deduction result tens billions tax hikes limits deduction also reduce property values thus negative wealth effect middle class homeownersespecially blue coastal states home prices highest deductible interest first mortgages reduced half reduce new home construction result indirect effect escalating apartment rental costs reducing middle working class real incomes ending extraordinary medical expenses deduction hike taxes 182 billion expenses incurred families extraordinary medical expenses health insurance coverage pays less less coverage previously could deduct 10 income ended expenses formerly deducted personal casualty losses unreimbursed employment expenses teachers alimony moving new job expenses equity home loans interest totally eliminated trumpryan plan limits elimination deductions estimated tax hike another16013 trillion according joint committee taxation thats 29 trillion offset 46 trillion tax cuts corporations businesses wealthiest households addition miscellaneous tax hikes middle class following ways alternative energy credits current credits installing solar alternative energy end raising taxes 123 billion adoption credits credits families adopting children end raising taxes 38 billion flexible health savings accounts elderly dependents expenses currently workers may reduce taxes gross wages setting aside income flexible health savings account business also enjoy tax deduction payments make health insurance plans pensions total amounts 540 billion year businesses continue tax deduction health payments workers may deduct expenses elderly dependents care costs also tens billions dollars education credits students colleges take big hit trumpryan plan several education credit programs ended leaving one education credit result cut tax hike 17 billion student loan interest deductions also ended costing 13 billion companies assisted higher education programs employees 5250 tax free tuition aid employee company ended taxable may companies reduce tuition assistance programs education tuition costs deductions low income households ended tax free interest higher education savings bonds savings accounts total tax hike 65 95 billion decade new price index reduced eitc trumpryan bill brags reduces taxes near working poor pay income tax rate 15 10 consolidating two brackets combined 12 rate former 10 group course get 2 tax hike increase income limit taxes paid current 12000 24000 offset hike according trumpryan plans shift new lower consumer price index reduce amount increasingly time working poor may claim tax reimbursement earned income tax credit eitc highly likely final bill 24000 significantly reduced foregoing short list many ways middle working classes pay trumpryan tax bill talking approximately 35 trillion tax hikes trumpryan bill negatively affecting mostly middle working class households closing 3 big capital income tax loopholes trumpryan really wanted raise taxes instead targeting middle class could easily raised 2 trillion ending two programs eliminating preferential tax rate long term capital gains taxation would bring 134 trillion 2024 ending practice foregoing taxation stocks transferred death recipients stock pay taxes whatsoever would generate another 644 billion thats 2 trillion another least 25 trillion could raised ending corporate tax deductions payments company pension health insurance plans workers dont get deduct contributions plans employers words three measures alone targeting corporate capital incomes would raise 45 trillion tax income coming decade three could pay corporatebusinesswealthiest 1 tax cuts trumpryan bill without raising taxes middle working classes thats targeting capital incomes rich corporations politicians elected paid wont bite hand feeds say concluding comments cost trumpryan tax cut proposals thus 4 trillion minimum proposals call 13 trillion tax hikes middle working classes raising personal income taxes remaining 27 trillion come prediction senate version final joint housesenate version bill follow coming weeks pare tax cuts wealthy individuals raise tax hikes middle class cutting corporate tax rate priority trump administration ensuring us multinational corporations get shield even profits taxation congress take personal income tax provisions scaled back current trumpryan proposals tax breaks wealthy individuals softened new ways quietly raise taxes middleclass households may found main solution offset 15 trillion net tax breaks spending cuts social programs 2011 congress obama cut spending 1 trillion education health transport etc another 500 billion cut 2013 therefore try repeat fiscal austerity solution enable tax cutting corporations thats new process spending cuts finance corporatewealthy tax cuts going since ronald reagan one main causes growing income inequality us hallmark neoliberal policy since 1980s trumpryan proposals latest iteration neoliberal fiscal policy making rich richer destroying economic social base usa neoliberal policies associated tax spending programs free money bankers investors provided central bank federal reserve industrial policy deregulating everything destroying unions trade policy enabling offshoring production jobs free reentry us goods produced overseas back us aka free trade together ripping gaping evergrowing hole social fabric country turn giving rise ever desperate radical rightwing politics solutionsie political consequences neoliberal economic policies | 2,127 |
<p>There is a deeply misguided attempt to sacrifice Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning and <a href="" type="internal">Jeremy Hammond</a> on the altar of the security and surveillance state to justify the leaks made by Edward Snowden. It is argued that Snowden, in exposing the National Security Agency’s global spying operation, judiciously and carefully leaked his information through the media, whereas WikiLeaks, Assange, Manning and Hammond provided troves of raw material to the public with no editing and little redaction and assessment. Thus, Snowden is somehow legitimate while WikiLeaks, Assange, Manning and Hammond are not.</p>
<p>“I have never understood it,” said <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ratner%20" type="external">Michael Ratner</a>, who is the U.S. lawyer for WikiLeaks and Assange and who I spoke with Saturday in New York City. “Why is Snowden looked at by some as the white hat while Manning, Hammond, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange as black hats? One explanation is that much of the mainstream media has tried to pin a dumping charge on the latter group, as if somehow giving the public and journalists open access to the raw documents is irresponsible and not journalism. It sounds to me like the so-called Fourth Estate protecting its jobs and ‘legitimacy.’ There is a need for both. All of us should see the raw documents. We also need journalists to write about them. Raw documents open to the world give journalists in other countries the chance to examine them in their own context and write from their perspectives. We are still seeing many stories based on the WikiLeaks documents. We should not have it any other way. Perhaps another factor may be that Snowden’s revelations concern the surveillance of us. The WikiLeaks/Assange/Manning disclosures tell us more about our war crimes against others. And many Americans do not seem to care about that.”</p>
<p>The charge that the WikiLeaks dump was somehow more damaging to the security and surveillance state because it was unedited, however, is false. Snowden’s revelations to the journalist <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/snowden-and-greenwald-the-men-who-leaked-the-secrets-20131204" type="external">Glenn Greenwald</a>, which are ongoing, have been far more devastating to the security apparatus than the material provided by Manning. Among the four larger data sets released by Manning — collectively 735,614 documents — only 223 documents were charged against the Army private first class under “reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation,” as stated in the Espionage Act. Specifically there were 116 diplomatic cables, 102 Army field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, and five Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, as the journalist <a href="" type="internal">Alexa O’Brien</a> has reported.</p>
<p>As O’Brien points out, many of the individual documents that resulted in charges have not been identified and those that have been are turning out to be very, very benign. For example, the government prosecuted the soldier, then known as Bradley Manning, for three detainee assessment briefs from Guantanamo Bay that were nothing more than profiles of the “Tipton 3,” British citizens who were held for years without trial or charges before finally being released. The information Manning made public was not top secret. There was much in the WikiLeaks release that was already public or unclassified. All the leaked material had been widely circulated to at least half a million military and government officials as well as private contractors. It had no serious impact on U.S. operations at home or abroad. Even then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in a letter to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, admitted that a Department of Defense review of the leaked Manning documents had “not revealed any sensitive intelligence source and methods.” But what the leaks did do was expose the deep cynicism of U.S. policy, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the plethora of government lies about what was happening under U.S. occupation. The WikiLeaks material documented several important war crimes that the government had covered up. Manning wrote, correctly, in a letter last October to The Guardian newspaper: ” … [T]he public cannot decide what actions and policies are or are not justified if they don’t even know the most rudimentary details about them and their effects.”</p>
<p />
<p>Manning, whose material was published by WikiLeaks as the Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War Diary, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in his court-martial at Fort Meade, Md., on 22 charges, including espionage, exceeding authorized access, stealing U.S. government property and wanton publication. The Snowden case differs substantially from Manning’s. The Snowden leaks are top secret. They expose the National Security Agency’s wholesale abuse of privacy across the world and repeated lies told by senior officials, including President Barack Obama, to cover up the massive capture, monitoring and storage of electronic communications of Americans and others. Snowden’s revelations, unlike most of the revelations from Manning and WikiLeaks, detail current, ongoing operations. And these violations are being committed not only against foreigners but against us. Snowden is hated as much as any of the other leakers by the security and surveillance apparatus. He has done, arguably, far more damage than WikiLeaks by exposing the illegality of our surveillance state. It will not assist him if he or his supporters try to parse his way out of his legal problem — some of the charges against him are under the Espionage Act, which was used to charge Manning — by attempting to differentiate himself from other courageous whistle-blowers. The government propaganda machine, working feverishly to discredit Snowden, as well as Greenwald, the reporter who made public the Snowden documents, considers all leakers and their allies to be traitors. It doesn’t make distinctions among them. And we shouldn’t either.</p>
<p>The attempt to paint Snowden as prudent in his disclosures and Manning, Assange, WikiLeaks and Hammond as reckless will not protect Snowden. It myopically lends credibility to the relentless attacks by the government against Manning, Assange, WikiLeaks and others, such as Hammond, who has courageously and at great personal sacrifice opened a window into the nefarious world of the power elite.</p>
<p>If the corporate state were legitimate it would be worthy of more judicious and careful consideration. If the corporate state truly cared about the common good it would have to be treated with more deference. If the war on terror was, in actuality, a war to protect us rather than an excuse to enslave us we could take as serious our leaders’ warnings about loss of secrecy. But our corporate overlords are gangsters in pinstriped suits. They care nothing for the rule of law. They have put into place the most sophisticated system of internal security in human history. They have shredded our most basic constitutional rights and civil liberties. They have turned the three branches of government into wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state. They have seized control of the systems of information to saturate the airwaves with lies. They distort the law and government regulations to advance their own pillage and exploitation of us, as well as the ecosystem, which now totters toward global collapse. They have arrogated the right to assassinate U.S. citizens and to rain terror and death from the skies across the planet even though we have not declared war on any state that is being attacked by drone aircraft. There is no internal mechanism left, whether the courts, electoral politics, the executive branch of government or the traditional press, by which these corporate elites can be reigned in or held accountable. The corporate state, in theological terms, is about unchecked exploitation and death. And if the corporate state is not vanquished, and vanquished soon, the human species will not survive.</p>
<p>The most crucial point about the leaks from Assange, Manning, Hammond and Snowden is that they expose egregious crimes by the state and a concerted attempt by the government to mask and lie about its criminal activity. We have a legitimate right to be informed about these crimes. And those who live in foreign countries have a legitimate right to know about the crimes we have carried out and are carrying out against them. But we live in a state where the rule of law no longer functions. We live in a state where those who commit crimes are the persecutors and those who expose them are the persecuted. This is the nature of all totalitarian states. Manning, Assange, Snowden and Hammond, whatever their differences, function as our prophets. They are the voices crying out in the wilderness. And they are the ones the state intends to martyr. Just as the differences between Jeremiah and Amos in the Hebrew Bible did not diminish their courage and their voices, the differences among Snowden, Manning, Assange and Hammond should not be permitted to diminish the vital importance of all their acts.</p> | true | 4 | deeply misguided attempt sacrifice julian assange wikileaks chelsea manning jeremy hammond altar security surveillance state justify leaks made edward snowden argued snowden exposing national security agencys global spying operation judiciously carefully leaked information media whereas wikileaks assange manning hammond provided troves raw material public editing little redaction assessment thus snowden somehow legitimate wikileaks assange manning hammond never understood said michael ratner us lawyer wikileaks assange spoke saturday new york city snowden looked white hat manning hammond wikileaks julian assange black hats one explanation much mainstream media tried pin dumping charge latter group somehow giving public journalists open access raw documents irresponsible journalism sounds like socalled fourth estate protecting jobs legitimacy need us see raw documents also need journalists write raw documents open world give journalists countries chance examine context write perspectives still seeing many stories based wikileaks documents way perhaps another factor may snowdens revelations concern surveillance us wikileaksassangemanning disclosures tell us war crimes others many americans seem care charge wikileaks dump somehow damaging security surveillance state unedited however false snowdens revelations journalist glenn greenwald ongoing far devastating security apparatus material provided manning among four larger data sets released manning collectively 735614 documents 223 documents charged army private first class reason believe information could used injury united states advantage foreign nation stated espionage act specifically 116 diplomatic cables 102 army field reports iraq afghanistan five guantanamo bay detainee assessment briefs journalist alexa obrien reported obrien points many individual documents resulted charges identified turning benign example government prosecuted soldier known bradley manning three detainee assessment briefs guantanamo bay nothing profiles tipton 3 british citizens held years without trial charges finally released information manning made public top secret much wikileaks release already public unclassified leaked material widely circulated least half million military government officials well private contractors serious impact us operations home abroad even thensecretary defense robert gates letter chairman senate armed services committee admitted department defense review leaked manning documents revealed sensitive intelligence source methods leaks expose deep cynicism us policy especially iraq afghanistan plethora government lies happening us occupation wikileaks material documented several important war crimes government covered manning wrote correctly letter last october guardian newspaper public decide actions policies justified dont even know rudimentary details effects manning whose material published wikileaks iraq war logs afghan war diary sentenced 35 years prison courtmartial fort meade md 22 charges including espionage exceeding authorized access stealing us government property wanton publication snowden case differs substantially mannings snowden leaks top secret expose national security agencys wholesale abuse privacy across world repeated lies told senior officials including president barack obama cover massive capture monitoring storage electronic communications americans others snowdens revelations unlike revelations manning wikileaks detail current ongoing operations violations committed foreigners us snowden hated much leakers security surveillance apparatus done arguably far damage wikileaks exposing illegality surveillance state assist supporters try parse way legal problem charges espionage act used charge manning attempting differentiate courageous whistleblowers government propaganda machine working feverishly discredit snowden well greenwald reporter made public snowden documents considers leakers allies traitors doesnt make distinctions among shouldnt either attempt paint snowden prudent disclosures manning assange wikileaks hammond reckless protect snowden myopically lends credibility relentless attacks government manning assange wikileaks others hammond courageously great personal sacrifice opened window nefarious world power elite corporate state legitimate would worthy judicious careful consideration corporate state truly cared common good would treated deference war terror actuality war protect us rather excuse enslave us could take serious leaders warnings loss secrecy corporate overlords gangsters pinstriped suits care nothing rule law put place sophisticated system internal security human history shredded basic constitutional rights civil liberties turned three branches government wholly owned subsidiaries corporate state seized control systems information saturate airwaves lies distort law government regulations advance pillage exploitation us well ecosystem totters toward global collapse arrogated right assassinate us citizens rain terror death skies across planet even though declared war state attacked drone aircraft internal mechanism left whether courts electoral politics executive branch government traditional press corporate elites reigned held accountable corporate state theological terms unchecked exploitation death corporate state vanquished vanquished soon human species survive crucial point leaks assange manning hammond snowden expose egregious crimes state concerted attempt government mask lie criminal activity legitimate right informed crimes live foreign countries legitimate right know crimes carried carrying live state rule law longer functions live state commit crimes persecutors expose persecuted nature totalitarian states manning assange snowden hammond whatever differences function prophets voices crying wilderness ones state intends martyr differences jeremiah amos hebrew bible diminish courage voices differences among snowden manning assange hammond permitted diminish vital importance acts | 758 |
<p>French writer, essayist and novelist, Maurice Blanchot died on Thursday February 20 at the age of 95. In a fantasy world his death would have gone almost unnoticed. Only in a fantasy, nonetheless. For Blanchot was the most enigmatic writer of 20th century France. And, in an untypical sense, he was one of its greatest.</p>
<p>After frenetic activity as a rightwing political journalist in his youth, Blanchot leaned toward the novel and nationalist revolution, only to join the French Resistance during WWII. In the ensuing decades, his galvanizing communism led him away from fiction and toward the essay idiom to forge one of the most profound oeuvres in French literature. He published little since the nineteen-eighties. Yet his literary presence draped an unfathomed cape of darkness over the course of what we call here: ‘French poststructural thought’; and there: philosophy tout court.</p>
<p>Next to Jean-Paul Sartre, Blanchot’s incarnation as a writer turned an entire generation of philosophers and intellectuals toward musings on literature. Alain Badiou unequivocally labeled his effect on philosophy as one of literary fetishism. His work shrunk philosophy into the meandering lines of ambiguity in which truth is less determined as a value than as descriptive energy. Its consequence was to make the ‘void’ into an ever-evolving concept, regardless of its perpetual withdrawal.</p>
<p>To be sure, the metaphysical extremism characteristic of Blanchot’s deepest essays is a Western study in philosophical fanaticism. From the care with which his circle kept him screened from media exposure, to his elation for political extremism first of the Right, then of the Left, Blanchot’s truth has lain in the shelter that a shadow affords. But it also made analysis succumb to the confusion of a place from which there is barely a return.</p>
<p>In the heat of the events of May-June 1968 in Paris, the author described his silhouette venturing into the assemblies of a student occupied Sorbonne. At a moments’ resolve, Michel Foucault had hoisted a black flag in celebration of the fall of classical France. A passing non-encounter with Foucault embodied the terms according to which Blanchot struck his key concept of the dehors, the outside, into the nature of friendship itself. Yet only in writing did the silhouette he carry for his readers in real life end up endowed with a body. Writing for him was a spiritual, radical act of creation. As the author’s self vanished in the text, events arose into the obscure presence of the type of act from which consecration is unleashed.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, Blanchot’s written art was primarily one in search of spatial limits. His individualistic and uncompromising undertaking into the drift lines of Holderlin’s poetry and Kafka’s world on a pinhead best embodied the approach and immersion he sought of the infinite. This was no mathematical journey, regardless of how ‘Platonic’ a mathematician is willing to be. Blanchot’s infinite was the lived experience of death in L’Espace literaire (translated by Ann Shmock in 1989 as <a href="" type="internal">The Space of Literature</a>). It swung stoically to and fro on a painful line by which the utterly outside was made accessible. That this was no unreachable absolute was underscored by the openness of his prose to any reader. Its experience was nonetheless reserved for the slow tempo of reading, and for readers alone.</p>
<p>To say that you are confronted to your own death in reading Blanchot is merely to proclaim the desirable. A pattern of thought emptied to the extreme of categories and models is a desert landscape where only scorpions thrive. Yet even their contours fail to resist the kind of depletion the mind performs at its limits.</p>
<p>Nor was there perhaps an essayist as sadistic with the “infinite interview” compelled onto a writer in his relationship with the tools of art. Beneath the frustration with the timeless inertia of Blanchot’s death concept, largely emanating from the misleading pressures of daily life, lies a reading experience unrivalled in its proximity to the reader’s own dissolution. In it converge the desires of an atheist meditation.</p>
<p>Brought up in a devout Catholic family, Blanchot’s rejection of God appears to bear out all margins of faith. His literary extremism stretched between a step and a breath. But the political extremism of his youth often moved closer to a strike and a bomb. It is what one gets when depriving analysis from the realities of class and sectorial struggle, technocratic interest, the lies of international finance, emphatic corporatism and religious tows and trends, not to mention consumerist delusions and free market folly.</p>
<p>Strikingly, when some of these points of attack were part of Blanchot’s politics, he remained on the far-right. When his writing conjured them away as profoundly corrupted thought, his projection of egalitarian community grew ever more concrete.</p>
<p>None of this belies the fact that the beauty of Blanchot’s prose was obtained only at the cost of having embraced political extremism. Beauty’s sustenance prevails in writing after writing primarily in the wake of the memory and strength of radical collective invention. For Blanchot truth circulates within a compass, but the geography it measures only ends up in terror when the writer fails art by forcing it to coexist with politics.</p>
<p>This is how and why his question remains ours as well. Is the bridge between poles and extremes the primary access to deepest knowledge? And doesn’t such knowledge compel us as political and moral beings to have to seek social justice and de-concentration of wealth by means that keep adjourning the need to finally utter: let’s get the deed done by any means necessary?</p>
<p>Surely Blanchot’s profoundly unwavering friendship with philosopher Emmanuel Levinas is testimony to the depths to which brotherly love prevails, unmoved by offence and innovated upon the tensions relationships instigate. To Levinas’ ethical disposition, Blanchot offered radical subversion. To Levinas’ Talmudic dissolution of European Christian philosophy, Blanchot, for a time, embraced anti-Semitism as the nihilistic end of Western thought-at least in the representation it expressed up to the Shoah. In the concept each thinker held of ‘ends’ lay renewal in resistance, thought and the written form. And each struggled consciously with the “errors” that extremism seems often to bring out of necessity-to which neither were immune.</p>
<p>Blanchot’s political resistance to modern capitalism took hold at the moment when thought and art reach their breaking point in the rule of mediocrity. The preeminence of death as a motive for truth seemed to consciously reject the idea of any commitment that sought to avoid confrontation as a means to gain knowledge. This tension is what keeps shaping our struggles today.</p>
<p>Devotion and loyalty, intrigue and death, Blanchot’s literature was ultimately a fanatical commitment to breaking down politics as the destiny of humankind as so many splintered groupings. Thrown into collectives and manifolds, the outside is a moment reached only when the individual effects self-dissolution. Yet, no matter how the ontological rigor of his prose may have transformed many of his readers, it has also left us deprived of the tie to political innovation. Or, at least, did his logic entail that such innovation lay outside of what can be imagined within the framework of contemporary democracies.</p>
<p>So is it that in his extremism Blanchot’s politics were beyond all else a devotion to liberty and difference. He rejected the politics of victimization issuing from the privatized, corporate collectivities fostered by management theory in the latter’s lofty attempts at coining the limits of efficient group dynamics. And he showed not only little contempt for all the privatized pseudo-scientific self-help therapies born in its wake.</p>
<p>This is how the knowledge of the outside to where Blanchot has brought us may ultimately be one from which the rule of political moderation over extremism wields a most subtle sword. Far from betraying his faith in extremism, this conclusion only underscores how it is through a lack of compromise in relation to truth that the manipulation the country now faces must be dealt with. Radical collective innovation based on structurally egalitarian models in art as in politics summons the truth like no other stance.</p>
<p>In the end, Blanchot’s lesson is that one has to choose, and that one has no choice but to choose. A new breed of necessity is what others misrepresent as destiny. Few choices lead to effect. The greatness of Blanchot’s work is that effects made choice itself a radical necessity for art. Far from the atheist saint his literary silhouette projects, Blanchot’s memory prevails in its most accomplished form as a philosophical demon altering the terms on which communities may match the expectations and demands of crowds.</p>
<p>NORMAN MADARASZ, a regular contributor to CounterPunch, lives in Brazil. He can be reached at: <a href="mailt:/[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | french writer essayist novelist maurice blanchot died thursday february 20 age 95 fantasy world death would gone almost unnoticed fantasy nonetheless blanchot enigmatic writer 20th century france untypical sense one greatest frenetic activity rightwing political journalist youth blanchot leaned toward novel nationalist revolution join french resistance wwii ensuing decades galvanizing communism led away fiction toward essay idiom forge one profound oeuvres french literature published little since nineteeneighties yet literary presence draped unfathomed cape darkness course call french poststructural thought philosophy tout court next jeanpaul sartre blanchots incarnation writer turned entire generation philosophers intellectuals toward musings literature alain badiou unequivocally labeled effect philosophy one literary fetishism work shrunk philosophy meandering lines ambiguity truth less determined value descriptive energy consequence make void everevolving concept regardless perpetual withdrawal sure metaphysical extremism characteristic blanchots deepest essays western study philosophical fanaticism care circle kept screened media exposure elation political extremism first right left blanchots truth lain shelter shadow affords also made analysis succumb confusion place barely return heat events mayjune 1968 paris author described silhouette venturing assemblies student occupied sorbonne moments resolve michel foucault hoisted black flag celebration fall classical france passing nonencounter foucault embodied terms according blanchot struck key concept dehors outside nature friendship yet writing silhouette carry readers real life end endowed body writing spiritual radical act creation authors self vanished text events arose obscure presence type act consecration unleashed 1960s blanchots written art primarily one search spatial limits individualistic uncompromising undertaking drift lines holderlins poetry kafkas world pinhead best embodied approach immersion sought infinite mathematical journey regardless platonic mathematician willing blanchots infinite lived experience death lespace literaire translated ann shmock 1989 space literature swung stoically fro painful line utterly outside made accessible unreachable absolute underscored openness prose reader experience nonetheless reserved slow tempo reading readers alone say confronted death reading blanchot merely proclaim desirable pattern thought emptied extreme categories models desert landscape scorpions thrive yet even contours fail resist kind depletion mind performs limits perhaps essayist sadistic infinite interview compelled onto writer relationship tools art beneath frustration timeless inertia blanchots death concept largely emanating misleading pressures daily life lies reading experience unrivalled proximity readers dissolution converge desires atheist meditation brought devout catholic family blanchots rejection god appears bear margins faith literary extremism stretched step breath political extremism youth often moved closer strike bomb one gets depriving analysis realities class sectorial struggle technocratic interest lies international finance emphatic corporatism religious tows trends mention consumerist delusions free market folly strikingly points attack part blanchots politics remained farright writing conjured away profoundly corrupted thought projection egalitarian community grew ever concrete none belies fact beauty blanchots prose obtained cost embraced political extremism beautys sustenance prevails writing writing primarily wake memory strength radical collective invention blanchot truth circulates within compass geography measures ends terror writer fails art forcing coexist politics question remains well bridge poles extremes primary access deepest knowledge doesnt knowledge compel us political moral beings seek social justice deconcentration wealth means keep adjourning need finally utter lets get deed done means necessary surely blanchots profoundly unwavering friendship philosopher emmanuel levinas testimony depths brotherly love prevails unmoved offence innovated upon tensions relationships instigate levinas ethical disposition blanchot offered radical subversion levinas talmudic dissolution european christian philosophy blanchot time embraced antisemitism nihilistic end western thoughtat least representation expressed shoah concept thinker held ends lay renewal resistance thought written form struggled consciously errors extremism seems often bring necessityto neither immune blanchots political resistance modern capitalism took hold moment thought art reach breaking point rule mediocrity preeminence death motive truth seemed consciously reject idea commitment sought avoid confrontation means gain knowledge tension keeps shaping struggles today devotion loyalty intrigue death blanchots literature ultimately fanatical commitment breaking politics destiny humankind many splintered groupings thrown collectives manifolds outside moment reached individual effects selfdissolution yet matter ontological rigor prose may transformed many readers also left us deprived tie political innovation least logic entail innovation lay outside imagined within framework contemporary democracies extremism blanchots politics beyond else devotion liberty difference rejected politics victimization issuing privatized corporate collectivities fostered management theory latters lofty attempts coining limits efficient group dynamics showed little contempt privatized pseudoscientific selfhelp therapies born wake knowledge outside blanchot brought us may ultimately one rule political moderation extremism wields subtle sword far betraying faith extremism conclusion underscores lack compromise relation truth manipulation country faces must dealt radical collective innovation based structurally egalitarian models art politics summons truth like stance end blanchots lesson one choose one choice choose new breed necessity others misrepresent destiny choices lead effect greatness blanchots work effects made choice radical necessity art far atheist saint literary silhouette projects blanchots memory prevails accomplished form philosophical demon altering terms communities may match expectations demands crowds norman madarasz regular contributor counterpunch lives brazil reached normanmadarasz2hotmailcom 160 | 784 |
<p>Honduras' Aguan Valley continues to be ground zero in the ongoing conflict that followed the 2009 military coup. Police burned an entire community to the ground without so much as an eviction notice. The community, known as Rigores, had been living there for 12 years and had been on a path toward getting land titles when the coup turned that dream upside down. Many believe that the land is destined to be bought up by Honduras' richest person, Miguel Facusse, to add to his massive palm oil business. But, the farmers of Rigores vow to continue fighting for their land, as well as participating in the national resistance movement to refound Honduras on more equitable terms.</p>
<p>Produced by Jesse Freeston.</p>
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<p /> SANTIAGO (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Here is the house of a friend, destroyed.
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<p />JESSE FREESTON, TRNN: This is what's left of the village of Rigores in Honduras's Aguan Valley. At first glance, it looks like a scene after a hurricane, but this was no natural disaster. It's called the desolojo, the Spanish word for eviction. It's when the police, the military, or hired paramilitary forces demolish communities of the country's smaller landless farmers, known as campesinos. On this occasion, it was the Honduran national police force, armed with automatic weapons, torches, and bulldozers, that destroyed more than 100 homes here, most of which were burned to the ground.
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<p />SANTIAGO: Here we can see how they destroyed this community.
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<p />FREESTON: Santiago ... is a member of one of the 114 families that lost their homes.
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<p />SANTIAGO: They didn't provide us with any eviction notice.
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<p />FREESTON: Not a single building was left intact by the operation.
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<p />SANTIAGO: This house here is a church--was a church. These buildings were our schools, where the teachers gave our kids the gift of knowledge, and you can see here they destroyed them as well. These people had no compassion. This was the kindergarten where our five- and six-year-olds received classes.
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<p />FREESTON: The campesinos of Rigores have been living on and farming this land for almost 12 years. They came from all corners of the country, drawn by promises of land in the Aguan Valley. Twelve years ago, they made use of Honduran land reform laws and occupied this plot, then owned by plantation owners that were holding more than the 300 hectare limit allowed in the Aguan Valley. Their legal claim was never recognized, and their occupation was consistently threatened until 2008. That's when the government of Manuel Zelaya included Rigores amongst a group of communities nationwide that was to be awarded government loans in order to buy the land at market value from the plantation owner and get their long-sought legal titles for the community. But following the overthrow of President Zelaya in a military coup in 2009, the Supreme Court declared the minor land reform decree unconstitutional. Rigores and many other communities never got their titles.
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<p />SANTIAGO: We left our homes in hope of finding a piece of land like the one we found 12 years ago. But look at the extreme we're at today, when we thought the land was about to be legalized because that's what they told us.
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<p />FREESTON: Believing that the land was about to be legalized, ... was one of the farmers to begin investing in his home. He built a second room out of concrete to put the kitchen in. It stood alongside the one-room hut made of wood and earth that the family slept in. Now they've lost both.
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<p />SANTIAGO: This was my house. They came and yelled, "Get out! Get out!" without giving us a chance. Then they quickly brought in the bulldozer. They knocked it over in one swoop and left it destroyed. That was my flashlight. They didn't give us time to grab our stuff. Some people managed to save a few things that are now in the community center.
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<p />FREESTON: Sofia Lopez is the community's kindergarten teacher. She gave us a tour of the community center located a mile or so from the community.
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<p />SOFIA LOPEZ (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Most of the stuff was lost. We didn't have a chance to get it out. We lost beds, stoves, kitchenware.
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<p />FREESTON: The one-room building is currently serving as both home and school to 80 of the homeless families. ... Castro was one of two women in the group who suffered miscarriages in the days following the attack. She shows us the bruises that were inflicted upon her by police batons.
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<p />CASTRO (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): My entire body is bruised. We have nowhere to raise our kids. We need this land. And these people need to pay for what they've done to us. They even caused us to have miscarriages. I feel bad for all of this. Why? Because I lost my child. That's all I have to say.
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<p />FREESTON: The story of the community of Rigores is just one example of a desalojo in Honduras, a country where organized farmers are fighting for control of land with a handful of wealthy plantation owners. We were denied an interview with the man who claims to own the land of Rigores. But many speculate that he plans to sell the land to Honduras's richest person, Miguel Facusse. Facusse's African Palm plantations surround Rigores on three sides. And palm is the dominant business in the Aguan, where the fruit is made into a high-energy oil used for lard, snack foods, and, most recently, biodiesel. Rigores, on the other hand, is a community producing healthy food for local consumption.
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<p />SANTIAGO: Here we see an orange orchard that was also destroyed by the same police officers that carried out the desalojo. They took our own machetes and cut the trees down.
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<p />FREESTON: ... is coordinating the little food that the community has to work with.
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<p />(SUBTITLED TRANSL.): It's really hard to be without food, to watch them burn our harvest and cut down the orange trees just as we were wanting to harvest them. The same officers took our coconuts off our trees and ate them. It's terrible to know that the police aren't here to defend us but instead to destroy us.
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<p />FREESTON: The Honduran police force is currently receiving funding and training from various governments and political parties across Europe, the United States, Canada, Colombia, and Japan. If it weren't for the coup, the campesinos of Rigores would have likely had titles to their land today. Instead, they're homeless. They're also all active members of the national anticapitalist resistance movement that has been organizing since the 2009 coup with a goal to rewrite the Honduran Constitution and, in their words, refound Honduras. For the campesinos of Rigores, the resistance represents their path toward a Honduras with a more equal land distribution.
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<p />SANTIAGO: Ever since the coup, we've left behind the foolishness of thinking in terms of the traditional political parties that only bring us misfortune. We are with the resistance.
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<p />(SUBTITLED TRANSL.): We are honorable campesinos. We don't steal anything from anyone. We're only fighting to work the land, to grow our beans, our corn, and our squash, everything for eating. I don't know what else to tell you. The truth is, it hurts to have planted my corn one day before they took us out in this way. So I ask you to help us in this fight. Let's win our land. God gave the land for all of us, not just for a small few. That's all I can add.
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<p />~~~
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<p />FREESTON (SUBTITLED TRANSL.): You're wearing a T-shirt from the National People's Resistance Front.
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<p />LOPEZ: Oh, yes! Look! "We women aren't taking back the country."
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<p />FREESTON: What does the resistance mean to you?
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<p />LOPEZ: Well, it's for the struggle that we're all in, men, women, and children. Nobody's going to give up here. We are going to win. That's how we'll prevail, with everyone together.
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<p />~~~
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<p />FREESTON (ENGLISH): From Honduras's Aguan Valley for The Real News Network, I'm Jesse Freeston.
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<p />End of Transcript
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<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | true | 4 | honduras aguan valley continues ground zero ongoing conflict followed 2009 military coup police burned entire community ground without much eviction notice community known rigores living 12 years path toward getting land titles coup turned dream upside many believe land destined bought honduras richest person miguel facusse add massive palm oil business farmers rigores vow continue fighting land well participating national resistance movement refound honduras equitable terms produced jesse freeston santiago subtitled transl house friend destroyed jesse freeston trnn whats left village rigores hondurass aguan valley first glance looks like scene hurricane natural disaster called desolojo spanish word eviction police military hired paramilitary forces demolish communities countrys smaller landless farmers known campesinos occasion honduran national police force armed automatic weapons torches bulldozers destroyed 100 homes burned ground santiago see destroyed community freeston santiago member one 114 families lost homes santiago didnt provide us eviction notice freeston single building left intact operation santiago house churchwas church buildings schools teachers gave kids gift knowledge see destroyed well people compassion kindergarten five sixyearolds received classes freeston campesinos rigores living farming land almost 12 years came corners country drawn promises land aguan valley twelve years ago made use honduran land reform laws occupied plot owned plantation owners holding 300 hectare limit allowed aguan valley legal claim never recognized occupation consistently threatened 2008 thats government manuel zelaya included rigores amongst group communities nationwide awarded government loans order buy land market value plantation owner get longsought legal titles community following overthrow president zelaya military coup 2009 supreme court declared minor land reform decree unconstitutional rigores many communities never got titles santiago left homes hope finding piece land like one found 12 years ago look extreme today thought land legalized thats told us freeston believing land legalized one farmers begin investing home built second room concrete put kitchen stood alongside oneroom hut made wood earth family slept theyve lost santiago house came yelled get get without giving us chance quickly brought bulldozer knocked one swoop left destroyed flashlight didnt give us time grab stuff people managed save things community center freeston sofia lopez communitys kindergarten teacher gave us tour community center located mile community sofia lopez subtitled transl stuff lost didnt chance get lost beds stoves kitchenware freeston oneroom building currently serving home school 80 homeless families castro one two women group suffered miscarriages days following attack shows us bruises inflicted upon police batons castro subtitled transl entire body bruised nowhere raise kids need land people need pay theyve done us even caused us miscarriages feel bad lost child thats say freeston story community rigores one example desalojo honduras country organized farmers fighting control land handful wealthy plantation owners denied interview man claims land rigores many speculate plans sell land hondurass richest person miguel facusse facusses african palm plantations surround rigores three sides palm dominant business aguan fruit made highenergy oil used lard snack foods recently biodiesel rigores hand community producing healthy food local consumption santiago see orange orchard also destroyed police officers carried desalojo took machetes cut trees freeston coordinating little food community work subtitled transl really hard without food watch burn harvest cut orange trees wanting harvest officers took coconuts trees ate terrible know police arent defend us instead destroy us freeston honduran police force currently receiving funding training various governments political parties across europe united states canada colombia japan werent coup campesinos rigores would likely titles land today instead theyre homeless theyre also active members national anticapitalist resistance movement organizing since 2009 coup goal rewrite honduran constitution words refound honduras campesinos rigores resistance represents path toward honduras equal land distribution santiago ever since coup weve left behind foolishness thinking terms traditional political parties bring us misfortune resistance subtitled transl honorable campesinos dont steal anything anyone fighting work land grow beans corn squash everything eating dont know else tell truth hurts planted corn one day took us way ask help us fight lets win land god gave land us small thats add freeston subtitled transl youre wearing tshirt national peoples resistance front lopez oh yes look women arent taking back country freeston resistance mean lopez well struggle men women children nobodys going give going win thats well prevail everyone together freeston english hondurass aguan valley real news network im jesse freeston end transcript disclaimer please note transcripts real news network typed recording program trnn guarantee complete accuracy | 721 |
<p>It was the summer of 1976 when I took my first civics course, along with four other courses. I was 18 and determined to graduate in three years with an engineering degree. Class discussion on the first day centered on the Watergate scandal and the separation of powers. Having come from a region where authoritarian regimes and political repression thrive, I was fascinated with the American system of government. By the end of the week, the professor asked us to research what he called the “2 D’s”: dissent and due process, cornerstones of American democracy.</p>
<p>Looking in the Arabic-English dictionary, I could not find the word “due process.” So I looked up the two words separately. Put together, they did not make much sense to me. It was many discussions later that I grasped this novel idea of the American justice system. Little did I know that two decades later, I would be in the national spotlight in a heated debate concerning the two D’s.</p>
<p>By now, much of America has heard of my case. Pick up any newspaper, turn to any news channel or surf the Internet and you’re sure to learn of the tenured University of South Florida professor under the threat of being fired for controversy stemming from activism for the Palestinian cause. Not only have many of these media reports frequently misrepresented the facts, but they are to a large extent responsible for my current predicament.</p>
<p>Moreover, in a number of ways my case is indicative of the status of civil liberties in post-9/11 America. In the wake of the attacks against our country, it is conceivable that public reaction to the misinformation about me would be frantic. It is distressing, however, that many in this country seized the moment of widespread fear to rehash accusations that a federal judge already had thrown out of court. Recent charges by USF are clearly politically motivated attacks on freedom of speech. All of these allegations have been rejected outright in a court of law.</p>
<p>In the case of my brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, who was detained on the basis of secret evidence for nearly four years, immigration judge R. Kevin McHugh ultimately said the following concerning the organizations in question: “Although there were allegations that the ICP (Islamic Committee for Palestine) and WISE (World Islamic Studies Enterprise) were fronts for Palestinian political causes, there is no evidence before the court that demonstrates that either organization was a front for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. To the contrary, there is evidence in the record to support the conclusion that WISE was a reputable and scholarly research center and the ICP was highly regarded.”</p>
<p>This same ruling was upheld by a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C., and then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who all had access to the secret evidence. This did not stop irresponsible journalists from reaching their own conclusions. Throughout this ordeal, among other things, my views have been completely misrepresented.</p>
<p>I have never once in my life advocated the killing of innocent civilians. I abhor terrorism at all levels, against all people. I condemn all violence against civilians — regardless of the faith of the perpetrators — whether they are in pizza parlors, bus stations or refugee camps. It’s wrong not only politically, but, more important, on religious, moral and ethical grounds.</p>
<p>Following the Sept. 11 tragedy, I was one of the first Muslim leaders to condemn the attacks and call for justice for the victims. Within a few days, our mosque and the Islamic Community of Tampa Bay collected more than $10,000 for the victims’ fund in New York, and I led a blood drive during which 75 local Muslims participated. In addition, I presided over a three-hour ecumenical service where all Abrahamic faiths were represented. The Islamic teachings of cooperation, unity and tolerance for all faith communities became visible during this painful time.</p>
<p>Throughout much of my last 25 years, I’ve given hundreds of sermons and speeches, as well as participated in many debates and panel discussions. America’s promise for me was to give equal opportunity to all points of view, whether popular or unpopular. This is the meaning of the first “D,” the right to dissent. As a stateless Palestinian refugee, I appreciated the freedom and opportunity afforded to me to talk about the importance of ending the injustices done to the Palestinians.</p>
<p>As recent events have played out, however, I am very certain that I am being punished because of my speeches and political opinions of at least 10 years ago, none of which was ever brought into the classroom. If I had said “Death to God,” even on campus, I would not be fired. Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, as recently as March of this year, has directly advocated violence and torture against the Palestinians without causing a stir. His job and his life were not threatened as a result of these words. Unpopular opinions, even offensive ones, are part of American intellectual life.</p>
<p>Certainly, in the heat of the moment, one may not use the best expressions, especially during impromptu presentations. I had such regrettable moments. However, on many occasions, some of my speeches were misquoted, mistranslated, or taken completely out of context. Here, I’m reminded of the great Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who wrote to his translator, Ibn Tibbon, in 1199. Ibn Tibbon was translating the work of his teacher from Arabic to Hebrew and was seeking the author’s advice. This is part of what he said: “Let me premise one rule. Whoever wishes to translate and aims at rendering each word literally and at the same time adheres slavishly to the order of words and sentences in the original will meet with much difficulty and his rendering will be faulty and untrustworthy.”</p>
<p>Throughout this saga, I have made my positions on various issues clear to those who wish to know the truth. With regard to the Middle East conflict, I have repeatedly stated that Israel must choose two out of the following three points: maintaining its exclusively Jewish character, being a democratic state, and controlling all the territories. If it chooses the first two, then there would be a two-state solution, which the Oslo process attempted but failed to achieve with the persistence of the brutal occupation and constant expansion of illegal settlements. This option is called the 78-22 solution, a Jewish state on 78 percent of historical Palestine, and a Palestinian state on 22 percent of the land, including the West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem. However, if Israel insists on maintaining control of the territories and adhering to democratic ideals, this would mean the one-state solution, which I’ve always preferred — a bi-national, non-sectarian state. Palestinians would become full citizens and enjoy the same rights as Jews: one person, one vote as happened in South Africa. In addition, this would solve the right of return problem, as the one state would easily accommodate the return of refugees as well as Jews, the world over.</p>
<p>The third alternative, with which we are now faced, is an exclusively Jewish state that wishes to maintain illegal control of the territories against the will of its native population. As I’m sure all would agree, this situation has been untenable for some time, and will only grow worse unless one of the other two options is pursued.</p>
<p>Here at home, I have prided myself on being a champion for civil liberties and human rights. Over the years, I have constantly maintained the view that changes in government policy must be achieved from within the system. When Mazen was denied his right to a trial and illegally detained, our community formed coalitions, lobbied Congress, and met with editorial boards and administration officials to express our outrage at the use of secret evidence. By the end, we had made it a national issue, garnering more than 130 supporters on a bill in Congress to ban the use of secret evidence.</p>
<p>During the presidential race, the use of secret evidence became a national issue when then Gov. George Bush came out against this policy during the second debate, giving him the support of Arab and Muslim voters.</p>
<p>Sept. 11 should not be used in order to sacrifice this great tradition. In addition, the backlash against the Arab-American and Muslim communities in the United States in the aftermath of the horrible tragedy was wrong and must be condemned. Similarly, to exploit the atmosphere of fear and insecurity in order to silence me is also contrary to our values.</p>
<p>Since 9/11 — and indeed, long before — I have not said or done anything to justify the continuous onslaught against me. This fight for academic freedom, free speech and preservation of tenure is indeed a worthy struggle. I will continue the struggle and I appreciate the support I received from my family, friends and community, and the many professors, students, unions and countless others. We have no choice but to continue defending these rights. As Mark Twain once said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it is time to pause and reflect.”</p>
<p>Sami Al-Arian is a computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida who has been on forced paid leave for the past 11 months.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | summer 1976 took first civics course along four courses 18 determined graduate three years engineering degree class discussion first day centered watergate scandal separation powers come region authoritarian regimes political repression thrive fascinated american system government end week professor asked us research called 2 ds dissent due process cornerstones american democracy looking arabicenglish dictionary could find word due process looked two words separately put together make much sense many discussions later grasped novel idea american justice system little know two decades later would national spotlight heated debate concerning two ds much america heard case pick newspaper turn news channel surf internet youre sure learn tenured university south florida professor threat fired controversy stemming activism palestinian cause many media reports frequently misrepresented facts large extent responsible current predicament moreover number ways case indicative status civil liberties post911 america wake attacks country conceivable public reaction misinformation would frantic distressing however many country seized moment widespread fear rehash accusations federal judge already thrown court recent charges usf clearly politically motivated attacks freedom speech allegations rejected outright court law case brotherinlaw mazen alnajjar detained basis secret evidence nearly four years immigration judge r kevin mchugh ultimately said following concerning organizations question although allegations icp islamic committee palestine wise world islamic studies enterprise fronts palestinian political causes evidence court demonstrates either organization front palestinian islamic jihad contrary evidence record support conclusion wise reputable scholarly research center icp highly regarded ruling upheld threejudge panel washington dc thenattorney general janet reno access secret evidence stop irresponsible journalists reaching conclusions throughout ordeal among things views completely misrepresented never life advocated killing innocent civilians abhor terrorism levels people condemn violence civilians regardless faith perpetrators whether pizza parlors bus stations refugee camps wrong politically important religious moral ethical grounds following sept 11 tragedy one first muslim leaders condemn attacks call justice victims within days mosque islamic community tampa bay collected 10000 victims fund new york led blood drive 75 local muslims participated addition presided threehour ecumenical service abrahamic faiths represented islamic teachings cooperation unity tolerance faith communities became visible painful time throughout much last 25 years ive given hundreds sermons speeches well participated many debates panel discussions americas promise give equal opportunity points view whether popular unpopular meaning first right dissent stateless palestinian refugee appreciated freedom opportunity afforded talk importance ending injustices done palestinians recent events played however certain punished speeches political opinions least 10 years ago none ever brought classroom said death god even campus would fired harvard professor alan dershowitz recently march year directly advocated violence torture palestinians without causing stir job life threatened result words unpopular opinions even offensive ones part american intellectual life certainly heat moment one may use best expressions especially impromptu presentations regrettable moments however many occasions speeches misquoted mistranslated taken completely context im reminded great jewish philosopher maimonides wrote translator ibn tibbon 1199 ibn tibbon translating work teacher arabic hebrew seeking authors advice part said let premise one rule whoever wishes translate aims rendering word literally time adheres slavishly order words sentences original meet much difficulty rendering faulty untrustworthy throughout saga made positions various issues clear wish know truth regard middle east conflict repeatedly stated israel must choose two following three points maintaining exclusively jewish character democratic state controlling territories chooses first two would twostate solution oslo process attempted failed achieve persistence brutal occupation constant expansion illegal settlements option called 7822 solution jewish state 78 percent historical palestine palestinian state 22 percent land including west bank gaza arab east jerusalem however israel insists maintaining control territories adhering democratic ideals would mean onestate solution ive always preferred binational nonsectarian state palestinians would become full citizens enjoy rights jews one person one vote happened south africa addition would solve right return problem one state would easily accommodate return refugees well jews world third alternative faced exclusively jewish state wishes maintain illegal control territories native population im sure would agree situation untenable time grow worse unless one two options pursued home prided champion civil liberties human rights years constantly maintained view changes government policy must achieved within system mazen denied right trial illegally detained community formed coalitions lobbied congress met editorial boards administration officials express outrage use secret evidence end made national issue garnering 130 supporters bill congress ban use secret evidence presidential race use secret evidence became national issue gov george bush came policy second debate giving support arab muslim voters sept 11 used order sacrifice great tradition addition backlash arabamerican muslim communities united states aftermath horrible tragedy wrong must condemned similarly exploit atmosphere fear insecurity order silence also contrary values since 911 indeed long said done anything justify continuous onslaught fight academic freedom free speech preservation tenure indeed worthy struggle continue struggle appreciate support received family friends community many professors students unions countless others choice continue defending rights mark twain said whenever find side majority time pause reflect sami alarian computer engineering professor university south florida forced paid leave past 11 months 160 | 819 |
<p>Let me introduce myself.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="http://law.widener.edu/Spiffs/FacultyProfiles/JohnCulhane.aspx" type="external">law professor</a> who teaches and writes on a variety of subjects, including disaster compensation; tort law; gun policy; sports law; and public health law. (I also write about these issues on my own blog, <a href="http://wordinedgewise.org" type="external">wordinedgewise.org</a>, and as an occasional contributor to <a href="http://slate.com" type="external">Slate Magazine</a>. (Come visit!) But as you’ve probably guessed from my presence on this site, I’m especially interested in LGBT rights.</p>
<p>For the past year and a half and until last week, I’ve been writing a weekly column for the now-departed 365gay.com; now I have the privilege of talking to the lively and engaged audience here at The New Civil Rights Movement. Thanks to David Badash for giving me this platform. For now, I’ll try to post here as often as I have time and something to say, but not on a certain day each week. I’ll also be weighing in on any major developments in litigation or legislation as they arise.</p>
<p>Marriage equality is likely the most covered issue on this site, and I’ve written about it extensively, too. I’ll continue to do so here, but today let’s look at the deeper question:</p>
<p>Why all this attention paid to marriage equality? The arguments against the emphasis are well-known. In The Trouble with Normal, Michael Warner has criticized the movement for what might be called a limited approach to dignity – let’s get the gays equal to the straights, but leave out all those in other relationships, who, by this emphasis, are disrespected.</p>
<p>There’s something to this argument, but Warner misses a couple of crucial points.</p>
<p>First, law sends a message about LGBT people by excluding same-sex couples from marriage. A second and related point is this: Laws that discriminate don’t, in fact, only harm those who want to engage in the prohibited activity – here, marriage. They harm others in the “out” group, too.</p>
<p>To prove the point, consider the historical treatment of women under the marriage laws. The crippling legal disabilities they faced are well known. Until the late 1800′s, women didn’t exist as individuals once they married. Their legal existences were swallowed whole by marriage, with the husband gaining the right to manage what had been their property, to bring lawsuits in their wives’ names, and to make binding decisions for them. Women had no right to contract, either.</p>
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<p>This latter disability was a basis for the Supreme Court’s decision in Bradwell v. Illinois, a 1873 case where the Court found no constitutional problem in the fact that Illinois wouldn’t admit to the state bar a woman who was otherwise qualified to practice law – after all, married women couldn’t enter into contracts, which would be more than a minor inconvenience in her effort to establish a professional relationship with her clients.</p>
<p>But, to quote the Cat in the Hat, “that is not all.” The Court’s ruling affected not only married women, but all women; the prevalence of married women was enough to allow the (all-male) Court to conclude that no exception need be made for unmarried women. As Justice Bradley thundered in a concurring opinion, these outliers weren’t fulfilling “the[ir] paramount destiny [as] wife and mother.” Because they were violating “the law of the Creator,” Bradley must have thought that allowing these women to practice law would have sent the wrong signal to other women who might then have been tempted to shuck the whole butter-churning, sock-darning, ten-kid-raising domestic gig for a career.</p>
<p>So the suffocating marriage laws ended up devaluing not only married women, but also their unmarried sisters.</p>
<p>Marriage equality is similar. Here’s a good example: Since we can’t marry in most states, some courts have refused to recognize us as proper plaintiffs in torts suits where we claim interference with a relational interest. Now, a court could hold that a same-sex relationship can ground a claim for loss of consortium (companionship) or for the emotional distress at seeing our partners injured, but often they don’t.</p>
<p>In one emotional distress case, a judge opined that our relationships weren’t worthy of protection because they weren’t marriages and — tying up the circular argument quite nicely — the legislature had determined that only opposite-sex couples could marry. We lose because we’re not married even though we can’t marry! Granting us marriage rights might get the court to see things differently, though of course there are no guarantees.</p>
<p>The denial of equality has other, less direct effects, too. In a culture that still sees marriage as an institution toward which responsible adults gravitate, we’re easier to demonize if we can’t marry.</p>
<p>Once marriage equality takes hold (as it will, inevitably), the hill becomes&#160; steeper. No longer will reasonable people be able to ignore the families in plain sight; and such&#160; ignorance, whether innocent or deliberate, is the discriminators’ best ally. Equality doesn’t just help those who directly benefit from it. Warner fears that normalization of the two-parent, child-rearing gay family will sharpen the contrast between those who conform to dominant norms and those who don’t. But it’s fantasy to think that mainstream society will become any more disparaging of the most radical queer people than it already is. Instead, by conferring legal rights and dignity on same-sex couples, society broadens the group whose humanity is recognized. That broadening, I dare hope, can be a giant step toward recognizing others just outside of it, and then outward from there — and so on. In short, legal equality can signal societal acceptance of the radical idea that people should be able to structure their lives in ways that make sense for them.</p>
<p>I’m not naive. I don’t think that the most feared and detested of our LGBT tribe will be swept into a warm embrace just because we can marry. But on balance it will do more harm than good even to those who can’t or won’t take advantage of it. Add to that the obvious, intrinsic benefits of marriage equality and we’re talking about an easier case than is sometimes acknowledged.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before, the law both teaches and confers dignity; to that I’d add that the dignity doesn’t stop at the law’s border.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Were he born 10,000 years ago, John Culhane would not have survived to adulthood; he has no useful, practical skills. He is a law professor who writes about various and sundry topics, including: disaster compensation; tort law; public health law; literature; science; sports; his own personal life (when he can bear the humanity); and, especially, LGBT rights and issues. He teaches at the Widener University School of Law and is a Senior Fellow at the Thomas Jefferson School of Population Health.</p>
<p>He is also a contributor to Slate Magazine, and writes <a href="http://wordinedgewise.org" type="external">his own eclectic blog</a>. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter if you’re blessed with lots of time.</p>
<p>John Culhane lives in the Powelton Village area of Philadelphia with his partner David and their twin daughters, Courtnee and Alexa. Each month, he awaits the third Saturday evening for the neighborhood Wine Club gathering.</p>
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">broader</a>, <a href="" type="internal">conferring</a>, <a href="" type="internal">david badash</a>, <a href="" type="internal">dignity</a>, <a href="" type="internal">equality california</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Marriage Equality</a>, <a href="" type="internal">marriage equality usa</a>, <a href="" type="internal">marriage laws</a>, <a href="" type="internal">married women</a>, <a href="" type="internal">michael warner</a>, <a href="" type="internal">public health law</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Same-Sex Marriage</a>, <a href="" type="internal">sex couples</a>, <a href="" type="internal">slate magazine</a></p>
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equality arguments emphasis wellknown trouble normal michael warner criticized movement might called limited approach dignity lets get gays equal straights leave relationships emphasis disrespected theres something argument warner misses couple crucial points first law sends message lgbt people excluding samesex couples marriage second related point laws discriminate dont fact harm want engage prohibited activity marriage harm others group prove point consider historical treatment women marriage laws crippling legal disabilities faced well known late 1800s women didnt exist individuals married legal existences swallowed whole marriage husband gaining right manage property bring lawsuits wives names make binding decisions women right contract either 160 160 latter disability basis supreme courts decision bradwell v illinois 1873 case court found constitutional problem fact illinois wouldnt admit state bar woman otherwise qualified practice law married women couldnt enter contracts would minor inconvenience effort establish professional relationship clients quote cat hat courts ruling affected married women women prevalence married women enough allow allmale court conclude exception need made unmarried women justice bradley thundered concurring opinion outliers werent fulfilling paramount destiny wife mother violating law creator bradley must thought allowing women practice law would sent wrong signal women might tempted shuck whole butterchurning sockdarning tenkidraising domestic gig career suffocating marriage laws ended devaluing married women also unmarried sisters marriage equality similar heres good example since cant marry states courts refused recognize us proper plaintiffs torts suits claim interference relational interest court could hold samesex relationship ground claim loss consortium companionship emotional distress seeing partners injured often dont one emotional distress case judge opined relationships werent worthy protection werent marriages tying circular argument quite nicely legislature determined oppositesex couples could marry lose married even though cant marry granting us marriage rights might get court see things differently though course guarantees denial equality less direct effects culture still sees marriage institution toward responsible adults gravitate easier demonize cant marry marriage equality takes hold inevitably hill becomes160 steeper longer reasonable people able ignore families plain sight such160 ignorance whether innocent deliberate discriminators best ally equality doesnt help directly benefit warner fears normalization twoparent childrearing gay family sharpen contrast conform dominant norms dont fantasy think mainstream society become disparaging radical queer people already instead conferring legal rights dignity samesex couples society broadens group whose humanity recognized broadening dare hope giant step toward recognizing others outside outward short legal equality signal societal acceptance radical idea people able structure lives ways make sense im naive dont think feared detested lgbt tribe swept warm embrace marry balance harm good even cant wont take advantage add obvious intrinsic benefits marriage equality talking easier case sometimes acknowledged ive said law teaches confers dignity id add dignity doesnt stop laws border born 10000 years ago john culhane would survived adulthood useful practical skills law professor writes various sundry topics including disaster compensation tort law public health law literature science sports personal life bear humanity especially lgbt rights issues teaches widener university school law senior fellow thomas jefferson school population health also contributor slate magazine writes eclectic blog follow facebook twitter youre blessed lots time john culhane lives powelton village area philadelphia partner david twin daughters courtnee alexa month awaits third saturday evening neighborhood wine club gathering tagged broader conferring david badash dignity equality california marriage equality marriage equality usa marriage laws married women michael warner public health law samesex marriage sex couples slate magazine friends invite sign new mailing list and160 subscribe new civil rights movement via email rss also please160 like us facebook follow us twitter | 683 |
<p>Few would consider the opinions of the world’s central bankers to be unbiased or even accurate.&#160; These self-proclaimed wise men of international finance didn’t see the recession coming until it blew up in their faces — a blast that destroyed their credibility.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is interesting to hear them talk, not because they’re fun to listen to, but because of “the messaging” that rich investors use religiously in placing their stock market bets, while the rest of us are given a calming sermon, so that the bankers’ lackeys — the politicians — may continue ruining the country uncontested.</p>
<p>Recently the wise bankers jointly announced that the world economy was “on the verge” of a recovery.&#160; The language was purposely vague: they can’t afford to be utterly wrong again and destroy their last shreds of authority.&#160; So they’re hedging their bets.&#160; The President of the European Central Bank was extra cautious, saying that the economy was in for a “very bumpy road ahead.”</p>
<p>The truth is they have absolutely no idea what will happen or when. Other mainstream economists are presenting a gloomier picture of the situation.&#160; For example, the flagship publication of corporate America, the Wall Street Journal, recently announced that the accelerating number of bank failures in the U.S. amounted to a “new phase” in the crisis, where built-up junk-debt was beginning to tear down banks at a faster tempo.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Economist magazine concluded recently that, instead of a “V shaped recovery” —meaning a quick bounce back — we should prepare ourselves for “a gloomy U [shape] with a long, flat bottom of weak growth… [for] the next few years.”</p>
<p>This type of analysis is now what passes for optimism in mainstream economics.&#160; A “gloomy U” is much better than a “terrifying w” — meaning another potential crash.&#160; Thus, we are told that bailing out the banks averted “utter disaster” and that we should be content if the economy produces a slow, “jobless recovery.”&#160; Of course, the economy has not recovered if millions of people remain unemployed.&#160; Terms like “jobless recovery” were invented to accustom people to suffering, while the mega-profits of Goldman Sachs are presented as “promising signs.”&#160; Indeed, the suffering of millions of people and the profits of corporations have a direct relationship that the media is not discussing.</p>
<p>Big recessions destroy wages and benefits.&#160; The huge reserve of unemployed workers helps employers threaten workers with joblessness if they do not accept lower wages, while other companies force lower wages for “the survival of the company.”&#160; Free market economists rationalize this by calling it a “market adjustment”: the labor market supposedly produced too high of wages for profits to be maintained.</p>
<p>This period is likely to continue for some time.&#160; One reason is that retirement will not be a reality for millions of people who either were unable to save enough or had their savings in 401(k) accounts destroyed by the recession.</p>
<p>A Career Builders poll reported that 73 per cent of those planning to retire would delay their retirement for at least six years.&#160; Many older workers, because of the nosedive their 401(k) took, were forced out of retirement to accept low paying jobs, meaning more competition for younger workers.</p>
<p>According to a New York Times Op Ed by Bob Herbert:</p>
<p>“…only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16-through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they’re catastrophic.” .</p>
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<p>Many other workers have chosen to ride out the recession by going back to school.&#160; While in school — or after graduation — these students become “interns,” a way that many employers are using to replace paid workers.</p>
<p>A New York Times story by Gerry Shih reported that:</p>
<p>“With paying jobs so hard to get in this weak market, a lot of college graduates would gladly settle for a nonpaying internship. But even then, they are competing with laid-off employees with far more experience.”</p>
<p>In addition to internships, many other unemployed workers are simply doing volunteer work to build their resumes.&#160; All of these good intentions are used by employers to drive down wages or eliminate paid positions entirely.</p>
<p>The mass joblessness is creating a tense, dog-eat-dog situation for millions. Rather than blame the crisis on the bankers and others profiting from the recession, society’s most vulnerable people — immigrants — are likely to be the continued targets.</p>
<p>But targeting immigrants will not improve the lives of workers.&#160; This can be done only by collectively confronting their employers and demanding higher wages and benefits. If necessary, workers must demand and organize to keep their jobs from being shipped off-shore to prevent companies from searching for literal slave wages.</p>
<p>For unemployed workers, organizing with demands on local and federal governments for a real stimulus program to create jobs is an absolute necessity.&#160; Obama’s first stimulus has been an obvious failure: not only was it too small, but much of it was dedicated to tax breaks and not job creation.</p>
<p>The economy is not going to correct itself.&#160; Powerful interests are bailing out banks while pushing down wages and will continue to do so until they are pushed back.</p>
<p>A job-creating stimulus that pays living wages will help ease tremendous suffering.&#160; But such a program is unlikely to be given to us by the corporate-owned Democrats.&#160; It must be taken.</p>
<p>Throughout this economic crisis the Democratic Party has eagerly served the interests of the rich:&#160; It refused to pass serious legislation that would have greatly helped working people avoid foreclosures on their homes; it is abandoning the option of a government-run health care program; it refused to pass EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have removed barriers to forming unions; it has given billions of bailout dollars to reckless bankers; it refused to nationalize the banks, so they could begin to operate in everyone’s interests, and not just the rich; it has continued to fight foreign wars that benefit giant corporations only, while not restoring civil liberties at home; and it has failed to promote a massive job creation program that would have the potential to alleviate the suffering of millions of U.S. workers.</p>
<p>The lesson of this economic crisis is becoming starkly clear: working people will have to create their own political party dedicated to fighting for their own interests.&#160; Such a party will not come into existence on its own.&#160; Rank and file union members, community organizations, and the unemployed must begin organizing now to promote policies that the Democrats have refused to touch.&#160; A giant coalition of progressive forces working towards these goals can easily transform itself into a political party capable of brushing aside the two parties of big business.</p>
<p>SHAMUS COOKE is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action ( <a href="http://www.workerscompass.org/" type="external">www.workerscompass.org</a>).&#160; He can be reached at [email protected]</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | would consider opinions worlds central bankers unbiased even accurate160 selfproclaimed wise men international finance didnt see recession coming blew faces blast destroyed credibility nevertheless interesting hear talk theyre fun listen messaging rich investors use religiously placing stock market bets rest us given calming sermon bankers lackeys politicians may continue ruining country uncontested recently wise bankers jointly announced world economy verge recovery160 language purposely vague cant afford utterly wrong destroy last shreds authority160 theyre hedging bets160 president european central bank extra cautious saying economy bumpy road ahead truth absolutely idea happen mainstream economists presenting gloomier picture situation160 example flagship publication corporate america wall street journal recently announced accelerating number bank failures us amounted new phase crisis builtup junkdebt beginning tear banks faster tempo meanwhile economist magazine concluded recently instead v shaped recovery meaning quick bounce back prepare gloomy u shape long flat bottom weak growth next years type analysis passes optimism mainstream economics160 gloomy u much better terrifying w meaning another potential crash160 thus told bailing banks averted utter disaster content economy produces slow jobless recovery160 course economy recovered millions people remain unemployed160 terms like jobless recovery invented accustom people suffering megaprofits goldman sachs presented promising signs160 indeed suffering millions people profits corporations direct relationship media discussing big recessions destroy wages benefits160 huge reserve unemployed workers helps employers threaten workers joblessness accept lower wages companies force lower wages survival company160 free market economists rationalize calling market adjustment labor market supposedly produced high wages profits maintained period likely continue time160 one reason retirement reality millions people either unable save enough savings 401k accounts destroyed recession career builders poll reported 73 per cent planning retire would delay retirement least six years160 many older workers nosedive 401k took forced retirement accept low paying jobs meaning competition younger workers according new york times op ed bob herbert 28 every 100 males employed 16through 19yearold age group minority teenagers forget numbers beyond scary theyre catastrophic 160 many workers chosen ride recession going back school160 school graduation students become interns way many employers using replace paid workers new york times story gerry shih reported paying jobs hard get weak market lot college graduates would gladly settle nonpaying internship even competing laidoff employees far experience addition internships many unemployed workers simply volunteer work build resumes160 good intentions used employers drive wages eliminate paid positions entirely mass joblessness creating tense dogeatdog situation millions rather blame crisis bankers others profiting recession societys vulnerable people immigrants likely continued targets targeting immigrants improve lives workers160 done collectively confronting employers demanding higher wages benefits necessary workers must demand organize keep jobs shipped offshore prevent companies searching literal slave wages unemployed workers organizing demands local federal governments real stimulus program create jobs absolute necessity160 obamas first stimulus obvious failure small much dedicated tax breaks job creation economy going correct itself160 powerful interests bailing banks pushing wages continue pushed back jobcreating stimulus pays living wages help ease tremendous suffering160 program unlikely given us corporateowned democrats160 must taken throughout economic crisis democratic party eagerly served interests rich160 refused pass serious legislation would greatly helped working people avoid foreclosures homes abandoning option governmentrun health care program refused pass efca employee free choice act would removed barriers forming unions given billions bailout dollars reckless bankers refused nationalize banks could begin operate everyones interests rich continued fight foreign wars benefit giant corporations restoring civil liberties home failed promote massive job creation program would potential alleviate suffering millions us workers lesson economic crisis becoming starkly clear working people create political party dedicated fighting interests160 party come existence own160 rank file union members community organizations unemployed must begin organizing promote policies democrats refused touch160 giant coalition progressive forces working towards goals easily transform political party capable brushing aside two parties big business shamus cooke social service worker trade unionist writer workers action wwwworkerscompassorg160 reached shamuscookyahoocom 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 | 642 |
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<p>On September 26, the UN announced that the number of unexploded cluster “bomblets” left in southern Lebanon by Israeli forces may be three times higher than previous estimates. A million or more antipersonnel weapons may be strewn across a region one-third the size of Rhode Island.(1)</p>
<p>Israel has yet to respond to repeated requests for information about the locations of its cluster bomb strikes in Lebanon. UN demining experts say this has made their job ‘far more difficult’.(2) Two hundred thousand people cannot return to their homes due to the severity of destruction and the massive quantities of unexploded ordnance and cluster bomblets covering their communities.(3) Since the beginning of the ceasefire less than two months ago, 20 people have been killed and 120 others have been injured by cluster bomblets and unexploded ordnance.(4)</p>
<p>UN humanitarian coordinator David Shearer wants to know why the IDF deployed 90 percent of its cluster bombs during the last 72 hours of the conflict, while the UN ceasefire resolution was being approved.(5) UN officials are reportedly “dumbfounded”.(6) What could explain Israel’s intention in such an act, when peace was at hand?</p>
<p>The IDF responds that the “use of cluster munitions is legal under international law,” and claims its military “uses such munitions in accordance with international standards.”(7) Yet reports from deminers, aid workers, and civilians in the region clearly state that cluster bomblets are being found on roofs, in gardens, streets, and yards, everywhere people live.(8) To say that Israel used cluster bombs indiscriminately in Lebanon would miss the point. Israel deployed cluster bombs heavily in civilian areas. A number of villages were hit with multiple cluster munitions attacks. Well over a million of these antipersonnel weapons were fired by highly accurate artillery batteries, frequently at targets that were civilian beyond a shadow of a doubt.(9)</p>
<p>The explosive and destructive powers of these bomblets range roughly from those of a hand grenade to those of an anti-tank landmine. One type is designed to hurl projectiles that penetrate up to seven inches of steel armor. In shape and size they are similar to toy balls, candy bars, and cans of soda.(10)</p>
<p>In the lexicon of cluster bombs, the “dud rate” is the percentage of deployed submunitions (bomblets) that fail to explode when deployed. Unexploded cluster bomblets continue to kill and maim innocent people, especially children, for decades. In effect, Israel has left a million small, soulless suicide bombers in south Lebanon, each awaiting its call to action.</p>
<p>The UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (UN-MACC) has documented and cleared cluster munitions in several theatres of war. Working with NGOs and the Lebanese Armed Forces in southern Lebanon, UN-MACC continues to report that approximately 40 percent of Israel’s bomblets failed to explode.(11) An overall dud rate of 40 percent is unusually high. We will explore possible reasons for this reported poor performance of Israel’s cluster munitions.</p>
<p>In terms of dud rates, two classes of cluster bombs are available on the market today: high dud rate and low dud rate. It appears the cluster munitions Israel used in Lebanon were predominantly, perhaps exclusively, of the ‘high dud rate’ variety.</p>
<p>The vast majority of bomblets reported from Lebanon have published dud rates ranging from 14 to 23 percent.(12) To explode, most of them must impact a relatively solid surface at an angle fairly close to vertical. Sloping or soft terrain can raise dud rates significantly. The drag ribbons attached to some of these bomblets can interfere with obstacles during descent, preventing detonation.</p>
<p>A cluster bomb, rocket, or shell opens in mid-air to spin out many bomblets over a wide area. Dud rates jump when the trajectory of the “parent” projectile is too high or too low. Cluster munitions also lose reliability with age, another common cause of dud rates significantly higher than manufacturers’ published rates.(13)</p>
<p>Low dud rate bomblets are a relatively recent alternative. They are usually fitted with a self-destruct fuse and a more sensitive detonator, and sometimes include other ‘failsafe’ features. The objective for designers of these antipersonnel weapons is a dud rate of less than one percent.</p>
<p>This is a long-delayed victory for the anti-cluster bomb campaigners who began advocating these simple changes four decades ago. At the time it was a pragmatic compromise to try to save Vietnamese children, who were being blown up by the unexploded forerunners of a bomblet that Israel uses today, the BLU 63.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, our government did not respond. Since the war ended in 1975, an estimated 38,000 Vietnamese have been killed by unexploded cluster bomblets. As bomblets deteriorate, death and injury rates are escalating.(14) In Laos, over 12,000 people have died, and the ‘bombies’ are now killing 120 people a year. Half are children.(15)</p>
<p>In the last six to eight years, the Israeli and US militaries have finally begun to show an interest in low dud rate cluster munitions, mainly for their own protection. It’s a significant and welcome improvement, but it does not address the other crucial question about cluster bombs: where are the civilians when the other 99 percent of the bomblets explode?</p>
<p>Israeli Military Industries (IMI) makes low dud rate M85 cluster bomblets to “ensure[] that no hazardous duds are encountered by advancing friendly forces.” They leave “a clean [sic] operating area after the firing ends”.(16)</p>
<p>In addition to cluster bombs, IMI produces the self-destruct fuses that are the key to low dud rate performance. Israel’s top defense contractor also enjoys a strategic alliance with ATK ­ Alliant Techsystems, a multibillion-dollar US defense contractor, with whom it produces Israeli-technology cluster munitions in the US.(17)(18)</p>
<p>Israel prizes such relationships, since the resulting IDF-spec weapons may often be purchased from the US at a steep discount, if not simply received as gifts, through Israel’s rapidly growing military aid package from the US, now approaching $3 billion per year.(19)</p>
<p>Israeli Military Industries says that its self-destruct fuses exceed the Pentagon’s requirements, which are reportedly “stringent”: they must produce a dud rate of no more than one percent at a cost of no more than $10 per unit.(20) (Although the military has not shied from the expense of packing titanium pellets and radar units into mass-produced cluster bomblets, it refuses to spend more than ten bucks to make sure one doesn’t lie in wait to blow up a GI, or an innocent civilian.)</p>
<p>IMI is seeking buyers for its self-destructing M85 DPICM (Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition) cluster bomblets. It has produced more than 60 million M85s. Until 1998, they had a published failure rate of 14 percent. That year the M85 was converted to a low dud rate bomblet: too many Israeli soldiers were being injured and killed by unexploded M85s.(21)</p>
<p>An obvious question arises: If Israel was already making cluster bombs that would not have turned southern Lebanon into a minefield, why didn’t it use them?</p>
<p>The early results of submunitions clearing efforts conducted by the Lebanese Army and NGOs indicate that some M85s were deployed. They comprise about 8 percent of the dud submunitions reported by type.(22)</p>
<p>One might assume that these would be low dud rate bomblets made after 1998. However, it’s quite possible that when the new ‘soldier-sparing’ M85 became available, the IDF mothballed its remaining ‘high dud’ M85s. If so, they were probably saved for use when Israeli soldiers would not have to enter target zones after the cluster bombing; for example, immediately preceding a ceasefire or withdrawal. This, however, is only speculation.</p>
<p>Until we learn more about the type(s) of M85s used, we’ll have to assume that around 90 percent of the submunitions deployed by Israel were high dud rate cluster bomblets fired primarily in artillery shells and rocket warheads.</p>
<p>The Israeli commander who famously told Ha’aretz that, “in Lebanon, we covered entire villages with cluster bombswhat we did there was crazy and monstrous,” was an officer in the IDF’s Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) unit. He said the army had launched 1,800 rockets that dropped 1.2 million cluster bomblets on Lebanon.</p>
<p>Soldiers were ordered to “flood” target areas with the unguided rockets, ostensibly because they were inaccurate. Reservists were reportedly “surprised” that the army was using the MLRS rocket launchers. They had been told the rockets were “the IDF’s ‘judgment day weapons'” and were “intended for use in a full-scale war.”(23)</p>
<p>Yet UN-MACC estimates that IDF artillery units fired even more bomblets than were carried by the “judgment day” rockets, probably between 1.4 million and 2.8 million.(24)</p>
<p>If the early clearance data is a rough reflection of the whole, an additional 500,000 BLU 63 bomblets may have been dropped by Israeli warplanes. When we add up UN-MACC’s most conservative estimates and modest estimates of BLU 63 and M85 deployment based on early data,(25) the lowest reasonable estimate for the number of cluster submunitions released over southern Lebanon is three million.</p>
<p>In that case, the roughly 500 square mile target region would have “received” one cluster bomblet for every 4400 square feet of land, or thirteen bomblets for every (American) football field.(26) If three million bomblets had been evenly dispersed, every living thing would have been within killing range-eventually.</p>
<p>If the 40 percent dud rate repeatedly found in the first 45,000 recovered bomblets is confirmed across the region, the total number of unexploded cluster submunitions in Lebanon may be 1.2 million or more, a possibility that must concern UN and Lebanese officials.</p>
<p>Why would Israel’s cluster submunitions perform so poorly? Part of the answer may lie in the IDF’s reliance on US-made M26 rockets and their M77 bomblets, which have posted wartime dud rates as high as 40 percent.(27) Meron Rapoport of Ha’aretz wrote that in some cases the IDF fired its M26 rockets “at a range of less than 15 kilometers, even though the manufacturer’s guidelines state that firing at this range considerably increases the number of duds.” (28)</p>
<p>However, the M77’s problems don’t explain the equally poor performance of the artillery’s M42 bomblets, or the dud BLU 63s. In the absence of evidence that the Lebanese terrain or other conditions were at fault, our search for a common “failure factor” must focus on the IDF and its weapons.</p>
<p>One possibility is that the IDF deliberately increased dud rates by “shooting” its cluster bombs, rockets, and shells too high or too low, as discussed above. However, without further evidence this is merely speculation.</p>
<p>Another possibility is that the IDF’s cluster munitions inventory may have been stocked with outdated weapons. Some could have been leftovers from Israel’s last war against Lebanon. Others could have come from the expired inventories of another nation that wished to dump its outdated munitions. This is a growing international problem that threatens to saddle the world with high dud rate cluster bombs for decades to come.(29)</p>
<p>Excepting the M85, Israel is believed to purchase most, if not all, of its cluster munitions from the United States. This factor may have significantly contributed to the abysmal performance of the IDF’s cluster bomblets in Lebanon.</p>
<p>The US hoards huge stockpiles of cluster munitions, including some types that date back to the Vietnam era. Human Rights Watch reported last year that Washington has 369,576 M26 rockets in its inventory.(30) They would presumably be capable of spinning out 238 million highly lethal M77 bomblets, 200 times as many as Israel spewed over south Lebanon this year. With the Pentagon debuting a new generation of lower dud rate antipersonnel and anti-vehicle weapons in Iraq, the US has an obvious interest in getting rid of these “notoriously inaccurate” rockets and the rest of its mountain of aging ‘cluster junk’-to the right buyer, of course.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it can be “useful” to have some supplies of suitably aged cluster munitions on hand. According to Captain Josef Dirschka of the German Armed Forces in Kosovo, 1999:</p>
<p>“Unexploded duds are also used deliberately just to spread insecurity. You can’t move around freely here as you don’t know what state the bombs are in. Will they go off or won’t they? If you drive too close to where unexploded duds are lying, it’s possible that the vibrations of the vehicle will set the bomb off. You can’t know for sure. A certain number of duds is desirable.”(31)</p>
<p>Thus, a nation out to “spread insecurity” might have an interest in acquiring and maintaining an inventory of outdated cluster munitions.</p>
<p>On August 11, the first day of the cluster blitz and three days before the ceasefire, the New York Times reported that Israel had made an urgent request to the Bush administration for the delivery of more M26 cluster munition rockets. They “can be effective against hidden missile launchers”, the Times explained.(32)</p>
<p>This report suggests one of two things: either the decision to launch the massive cluster bomb campaign was a last minute, ad hoc affair, or procurement specialists in Olmert’s administration really dropped the ball.</p>
<p>The peculiarity of Israel’s timing becomes acute when we consider how few targets were left for all those cluster bombs to kill. By the final week of the war, most people in the target zone had evacuated to escape Israel’s relentless bombing and shelling, which had erased several villages from the face of the earth. Hezbollah fighters should have been able to ride out Israel’s cluster bombing waves in the safety of their bunkers. Nonetheless, the IDF must have made an all-out effort to deploy nearly three million bomblets within 72 hours, probably involving all units capable of delivering such devices. What were they shooting at?</p>
<p>The specifics of the available evidence support one “logical” objective for this attack: Israel used cluster munitions as substitutes for landmines.</p>
<p>The IDF’s proclivity for mining southern Lebanon is well known. The IDF mined the region heavily prior to its withdrawal in 2000, especially the border area, where mines still line the length of Lebanon’s side of the Blue Line and plague adjacent fields and villages.(33) At the end of 2003, a staggering 410,000 landmines remained. By the end of 2005, 30 civilians had died and 173 had been wounded by Israel’s landmines.(34)</p>
<p>The most plausible short-term military objective of Israel’s cluster bomb campaign would have been to “demobilize” southern Lebanon with cluster duds, to deny safe passage to Hezbollah fighters on their home turf. Israel’s leaders clearly sought to make the region uninhabitable, probably hoping to also deny Hezbollah its sympathetic civilian base. The strategic objective may have been to force Hezbollah to redeploy the bulk of its forces to safer ground, which is now well north of the Litani River.(35)</p>
<p>The most intensively cluster-bombed region of Lebanon is home to hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are unable to return home. On the other hand, Israel considers Hezbollah’s fighting force to number about 1,500 men.(36) Simple math reveals the shocking truth: Innocent civilians were perhaps 200 times more likely than Hezbollah militants to be killed or maimed by Israel’s region-wide cluster bombing. This basic statistic could not have been unknown to Israeli strategists.</p>
<p>Faced with an apparently indisputable violation of several articles of the Geneva Conventions and a US-Israeli weapons trade agreement, the US State Department confirmed on September 1 that it had begun an investigation into Israel’s use of US-supplied cluster munitions in Lebanon.(37)</p>
<p>The likelihood that anything substantive will emerge from this “investigation” is slim. Even slimmer is the chance that Congress and the administration will act as they did in 1982, when Reagan suspended cluster munitions sales to Israel in response to its gross abuses at the time-in Lebanon.</p>
<p>Ten years later, America was cheering its own cluster bombing of Iraq. During the infamously “fast and clean” Gulf War, US and Allied warplanes dropped 20 million bomblets, while the artillery fired another 30 million submunitions. The dud rates of some of these bomblets ranged as high as 30 percent. According to Human Rights Watch in 2003: “At least eighty U.S. casualties during the war were attributed to cluster munition duds. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed or injured by cluster munition duds since the end of the war.”(38)</p>
<p>In the darkness of our own long and hideous record with cluster munitions, after al-Hilla and Fallujah and all the other cluster bomb massacres in the current wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, where can the US stand against Israel on the subject?(39)</p>
<p>Where, for that matter, is the political will to hold Israel accountable for any of the thousands of other crimes it has committed in Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories? The State Department “investigation” is merely a sop to diplomats in Brussels and the UN, who were demanding that the US ‘do something’ about Israel’s behavior.</p>
<p>The long-running US-Israeli partnership in the manufacture, trade, and repetitive anti-civilian use of cluster bombs is emblematic of a larger relationship stubbornly mired in the ways of war. The US has dumped sixteen times more dud-prone cluster bomblets on Iraq than Israel seems to have fired on Lebanon this summer. Our government has created a yardstick by which Israelis can claim that “flooding” southern Lebanon with stay-behind cluster bomblets was a “proportionate response” to the crime of living in the wrong place.</p>
<p>International sanctions against the use of cluster munitions in civilian areas should be strengthened. But that would be unlikely to stop nations like Israel and the US from using cluster bombs as de facto landmines. We must also ban high dud rate cluster munitions altogether, through an internationally agreed timetable to phase in low dud rate standards and destroy high dud rate cluster bomb inventories. It is the logical, humane, and urgently needed sequel to the Mine Ban Treaty-which the US and Israel have so far refused to join.</p>
<p>JAMES BROOKS serves as webmaster for <a href="http://www.vtjp.org/%3Ewww.vtjp.org" type="external">Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel</a>. He can be contacted at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>1. ‘ <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5382192.stm" type="external">Million bomblets’ in S Lebanon</a> BBC, 9/26/2006</p>
<p>2. <a href="" type="internal">9-Year-Old Boy, 4 Other People Hurt By Cluster Bomb Explosions</a> An Nahar, 9/27/2006</p>
<p>3. <a href="" type="internal">200,000 remain displaced</a> Electronic Intifada/OCHA, 9/28/2006</p>
<p>4. <a href="" type="internal">South Lebanon Cluster Bomb Info Sheet</a> UN Mine Action Coordination Center, 10/10/2006</p>
<p>5. <a href="" type="internal">UN: Israel cluster bomb use in Lebanon ‘outrageous’</a> YNet News, 9/19/2006</p>
<p>6. <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6154818" type="external">Cluster Bombs a Vestige of Israel’s Lebanon Fight</a> NPR, All Things Considered, 9/27/2006</p>
<p>7. <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7BE824EC-6574-457D-A77D-2DD1B2EDFCCA.htm" type="external">Israel used cluster grenades on civilians</a> AlJazeera, 7/25/2006</p>
<p>8. <a href="" type="internal">LEBANON: Leftover Israeli cluster bombs kill civilians</a> IRIN – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 8/21/2006</p>
<p>9. South Lebanon Cluster Bomb Info Sheet, op. cit.</p>
<p>10. <a href="http://www.mcc.org/clusterbombs/resources/research/tomorrow/killtomorrow.pdf" type="external">Drop Today, Kill Tomorrow</a> Mennonite Central Committee, 1997</p>
<p>11. South Lebanon Cluster Bomb Info Sheet, op. cit.</p>
<p>12. <a href="" type="internal">Persian Gulf: U.S. cluster bomb duds a threat</a> Human Rights Watch, 3/18/2003</p>
<p>13. <a href="" type="internal">Cluster Bombs and Cluster Munitions: A Threat to Life</a> Aktionsbündnis Landmine.de, 1st edition 2004</p>
<p>14. <a href="http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/9.2/profiles/vietnam/vietnam.htm" type="external">Vietnam</a> Wendy Waldeck and Sarah Sensamaust, Journal of Mine Action, 2/2006</p>
<p>15. <a href="" type="internal">LAOS: More than 30 Years On, the Unquiet Land</a> By Lynette Lee Corporal, IPS Asia-Pacific/Probe Media Foundation</p>
<p>16. <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/m85.htm" type="external">M85 dual-purpose bomblet</a> GlobalSecurity.org</p>
<p>17. ibid.</p>
<p>18. <a href="http://www.circlevision.org/alliantaction/info/book/ELWMILdocv3a.pdf" type="external">Employee Liabilities of Weapon Manufacturers Under International Law</a> AlliantACTION, 2004</p>
<p>19. <a href="http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/israel.lebanon.FINAL2.pdf" type="external">U.S. Military Assistance and Arms Transfers to Israel: U.S. Aid, Companies Fuel Israeli Military (PDF)</a> By Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung, World Policy Institute, 7/20/2006</p>
<p>20. M85 dual-purpose bomblet, op. cit.</p>
<p>21. ibid.</p>
<p>22. <a href="http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/news.asp?id=33" type="external">Latest update on cluster munition problem in south Lebanon</a> Cluster Munition Coalition, 9/20/2006 (?)</p>
<p>23. <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=761781" type="external">IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon</a> Ha’aretz, 9/12/2006</p>
<p>24. South Lebanon Cluster Bomb Info Sheet, op. cit.</p>
<p>25. Latest update on cluster munition problem in south Lebanon, op. cit.</p>
<p>26. <a href="" type="internal">770 Cluster Bombs Strikes Map</a> UN Mine Action Coordination Center South Lebanon, 10/10/2006</p>
<p>27. Cluster Bombs and Cluster Munitions: A Threat to Life, op. cit.</p>
<p>28. <a href="" type="internal">When rockets and phosphorous cluster</a> By Meron Rapoport, Ha’aretz, 9/30/2006</p>
<p>29. Cluster Bombs and Cluster Munitions: A Threat to Life, op. cit.</p>
<p>30. <a href="" type="internal">U.S.: Deny Israeli Request for Cluster Munitions</a> Human Rights Watch, 8/11/2006</p>
<p>31. [Speaking to Report Mainz, 11/17/2003] Cluster Bombs and Cluster Munitions: A Threat to Life, op. cit.</p>
<p>32. <a href="" type="internal">Israel Asks U.S. to Ship Rockets With Wide Blast</a> New York Times, 8/11/2006</p>
<p>33. 770 Cluster Bombs Strikes Map op. cit.</p>
<p>34. <a href="http://www.maccsl.org/mineproblem.htm" type="external">The Mine Problem: Southern Lebanon</a> UN Mine Action Coordination Center South Lebanon, 2006</p>
<p>35. 770 Cluster Bombs Strikes Map op. cit.</p>
<p>36. <a href="" type="internal">Peres: Israel achieved its war goals, weakened Hezbollah</a> Ha’aretz, 8/16/2006</p>
<p>37. <a href="" type="internal">US investigating Israel cluster bomb use in Lebanon</a> Yahoo! News, 9/1/2006</p>
<p>38. Persian Gulf: U.S. cluster bomb duds a threat op. cit.</p>
<p>39. <a href="" type="internal">America at War: Killing People in order to Save Them?</a> By Dave Lindorff, Baltimore Chronicle, 9/6/2006</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | 160 september 26 un announced number unexploded cluster bomblets left southern lebanon israeli forces may three times higher previous estimates million antipersonnel weapons may strewn across region onethird size rhode island1 israel yet respond repeated requests information locations cluster bomb strikes lebanon un demining experts say made job far difficult2 two hundred thousand people return homes due severity destruction massive quantities unexploded ordnance cluster bomblets covering communities3 since beginning ceasefire less two months ago 20 people killed 120 others injured cluster bomblets unexploded ordnance4 un humanitarian coordinator david shearer wants know idf deployed 90 percent cluster bombs last 72 hours conflict un ceasefire resolution approved5 un officials reportedly dumbfounded6 could explain israels intention act peace hand idf responds use cluster munitions legal international law claims military uses munitions accordance international standards7 yet reports deminers aid workers civilians region clearly state cluster bomblets found roofs gardens streets yards everywhere people live8 say israel used cluster bombs indiscriminately lebanon would miss point israel deployed cluster bombs heavily civilian areas number villages hit multiple cluster munitions attacks well million antipersonnel weapons fired highly accurate artillery batteries frequently targets civilian beyond shadow doubt9 explosive destructive powers bomblets range roughly hand grenade antitank landmine one type designed hurl projectiles penetrate seven inches steel armor shape size similar toy balls candy bars cans soda10 lexicon cluster bombs dud rate percentage deployed submunitions bomblets fail explode deployed unexploded cluster bomblets continue kill maim innocent people especially children decades effect israel left million small soulless suicide bombers south lebanon awaiting call action un mine action coordination centre unmacc documented cleared cluster munitions several theatres war working ngos lebanese armed forces southern lebanon unmacc continues report approximately 40 percent israels bomblets failed explode11 overall dud rate 40 percent unusually high explore possible reasons reported poor performance israels cluster munitions terms dud rates two classes cluster bombs available market today high dud rate low dud rate appears cluster munitions israel used lebanon predominantly perhaps exclusively high dud rate variety vast majority bomblets reported lebanon published dud rates ranging 14 23 percent12 explode must impact relatively solid surface angle fairly close vertical sloping soft terrain raise dud rates significantly drag ribbons attached bomblets interfere obstacles descent preventing detonation cluster bomb rocket shell opens midair spin many bomblets wide area dud rates jump trajectory parent projectile high low cluster munitions also lose reliability age another common cause dud rates significantly higher manufacturers published rates13 low dud rate bomblets relatively recent alternative usually fitted selfdestruct fuse sensitive detonator sometimes include failsafe features objective designers antipersonnel weapons dud rate less one percent longdelayed victory anticluster bomb campaigners began advocating simple changes four decades ago time pragmatic compromise try save vietnamese children blown unexploded forerunners bomblet israel uses today blu 63 unfortunately government respond since war ended 1975 estimated 38000 vietnamese killed unexploded cluster bomblets bomblets deteriorate death injury rates escalating14 laos 12000 people died bombies killing 120 people year half children15 last six eight years israeli us militaries finally begun show interest low dud rate cluster munitions mainly protection significant welcome improvement address crucial question cluster bombs civilians 99 percent bomblets explode israeli military industries imi makes low dud rate m85 cluster bomblets ensure hazardous duds encountered advancing friendly forces leave clean sic operating area firing ends16 addition cluster bombs imi produces selfdestruct fuses key low dud rate performance israels top defense contractor also enjoys strategic alliance atk alliant techsystems multibilliondollar us defense contractor produces israelitechnology cluster munitions us1718 israel prizes relationships since resulting idfspec weapons may often purchased us steep discount simply received gifts israels rapidly growing military aid package us approaching 3 billion per year19 israeli military industries says selfdestruct fuses exceed pentagons requirements reportedly stringent must produce dud rate one percent cost 10 per unit20 although military shied expense packing titanium pellets radar units massproduced cluster bomblets refuses spend ten bucks make sure one doesnt lie wait blow gi innocent civilian imi seeking buyers selfdestructing m85 dpicm dual purpose improved conventional munition cluster bomblets produced 60 million m85s 1998 published failure rate 14 percent year m85 converted low dud rate bomblet many israeli soldiers injured killed unexploded m85s21 obvious question arises israel already making cluster bombs would turned southern lebanon minefield didnt use early results submunitions clearing efforts conducted lebanese army ngos indicate m85s deployed comprise 8 percent dud submunitions reported type22 one might assume would low dud rate bomblets made 1998 however quite possible new soldiersparing m85 became available idf mothballed remaining high dud m85s probably saved use israeli soldiers would enter target zones cluster bombing example immediately preceding ceasefire withdrawal however speculation learn types m85s used well assume around 90 percent submunitions deployed israel high dud rate cluster bomblets fired primarily artillery shells rocket warheads israeli commander famously told haaretz lebanon covered entire villages cluster bombswhat crazy monstrous officer idfs multiple launch rocket system mlrs unit said army launched 1800 rockets dropped 12 million cluster bomblets lebanon soldiers ordered flood target areas unguided rockets ostensibly inaccurate reservists reportedly surprised army using mlrs rocket launchers told rockets idfs judgment day weapons intended use fullscale war23 yet unmacc estimates idf artillery units fired even bomblets carried judgment day rockets probably 14 million 28 million24 early clearance data rough reflection whole additional 500000 blu 63 bomblets may dropped israeli warplanes add unmaccs conservative estimates modest estimates blu 63 m85 deployment based early data25 lowest reasonable estimate number cluster submunitions released southern lebanon three million case roughly 500 square mile target region would received one cluster bomblet every 4400 square feet land thirteen bomblets every american football field26 three million bomblets evenly dispersed every living thing would within killing rangeeventually 40 percent dud rate repeatedly found first 45000 recovered bomblets confirmed across region total number unexploded cluster submunitions lebanon may 12 million possibility must concern un lebanese officials would israels cluster submunitions perform poorly part answer may lie idfs reliance usmade m26 rockets m77 bomblets posted wartime dud rates high 40 percent27 meron rapoport haaretz wrote cases idf fired m26 rockets range less 15 kilometers even though manufacturers guidelines state firing range considerably increases number duds 28 however m77s problems dont explain equally poor performance artillerys m42 bomblets dud blu 63s absence evidence lebanese terrain conditions fault search common failure factor must focus idf weapons one possibility idf deliberately increased dud rates shooting cluster bombs rockets shells high low discussed however without evidence merely speculation another possibility idfs cluster munitions inventory may stocked outdated weapons could leftovers israels last war lebanon others could come expired inventories another nation wished dump outdated munitions growing international problem threatens saddle world high dud rate cluster bombs decades come29 excepting m85 israel believed purchase cluster munitions united states factor may significantly contributed abysmal performance idfs cluster bomblets lebanon us hoards huge stockpiles cluster munitions including types date back vietnam era human rights watch reported last year washington 369576 m26 rockets inventory30 would presumably capable spinning 238 million highly lethal m77 bomblets 200 times many israel spewed south lebanon year pentagon debuting new generation lower dud rate antipersonnel antivehicle weapons iraq us obvious interest getting rid notoriously inaccurate rockets rest mountain aging cluster junkto right buyer course hand useful supplies suitably aged cluster munitions hand according captain josef dirschka german armed forces kosovo 1999 unexploded duds also used deliberately spread insecurity cant move around freely dont know state bombs go wont drive close unexploded duds lying possible vibrations vehicle set bomb cant know sure certain number duds desirable31 thus nation spread insecurity might interest acquiring maintaining inventory outdated cluster munitions august 11 first day cluster blitz three days ceasefire new york times reported israel made urgent request bush administration delivery m26 cluster munition rockets effective hidden missile launchers times explained32 report suggests one two things either decision launch massive cluster bomb campaign last minute ad hoc affair procurement specialists olmerts administration really dropped ball peculiarity israels timing becomes acute consider targets left cluster bombs kill final week war people target zone evacuated escape israels relentless bombing shelling erased several villages face earth hezbollah fighters able ride israels cluster bombing waves safety bunkers nonetheless idf must made allout effort deploy nearly three million bomblets within 72 hours probably involving units capable delivering devices shooting specifics available evidence support one logical objective attack israel used cluster munitions substitutes landmines idfs proclivity mining southern lebanon well known idf mined region heavily prior withdrawal 2000 especially border area mines still line length lebanons side blue line plague adjacent fields villages33 end 2003 staggering 410000 landmines remained end 2005 30 civilians died 173 wounded israels landmines34 plausible shortterm military objective israels cluster bomb campaign would demobilize southern lebanon cluster duds deny safe passage hezbollah fighters home turf israels leaders clearly sought make region uninhabitable probably hoping also deny hezbollah sympathetic civilian base strategic objective may force hezbollah redeploy bulk forces safer ground well north litani river35 intensively clusterbombed region lebanon home hundreds thousands people many unable return home hand israel considers hezbollahs fighting force number 1500 men36 simple math reveals shocking truth innocent civilians perhaps 200 times likely hezbollah militants killed maimed israels regionwide cluster bombing basic statistic could unknown israeli strategists faced apparently indisputable violation several articles geneva conventions usisraeli weapons trade agreement us state department confirmed september 1 begun investigation israels use ussupplied cluster munitions lebanon37 likelihood anything substantive emerge investigation slim even slimmer chance congress administration act 1982 reagan suspended cluster munitions sales israel response gross abuses timein lebanon ten years later america cheering cluster bombing iraq infamously fast clean gulf war us allied warplanes dropped 20 million bomblets artillery fired another 30 million submunitions dud rates bomblets ranged high 30 percent according human rights watch 2003 least eighty us casualties war attributed cluster munition duds 4000 civilians killed injured cluster munition duds since end war38 darkness long hideous record cluster munitions alhilla fallujah cluster bomb massacres current wars iraq afghanistan us stand israel subject39 matter political hold israel accountable thousands crimes committed lebanon occupied palestinian territories state department investigation merely sop diplomats brussels un demanding us something israels behavior longrunning usisraeli partnership manufacture trade repetitive anticivilian use cluster bombs emblematic larger relationship stubbornly mired ways war us dumped sixteen times dudprone cluster bomblets iraq israel seems fired lebanon summer government created yardstick israelis claim flooding southern lebanon staybehind cluster bomblets proportionate response crime living wrong place international sanctions use cluster munitions civilian areas strengthened would unlikely stop nations like israel us using cluster bombs de facto landmines must also ban high dud rate cluster munitions altogether internationally agreed timetable phase low dud rate standards destroy high dud rate cluster bomb inventories logical humane urgently needed sequel mine ban treatywhich us israel far refused join james brooks serves webmaster vermonters peace palestineisrael contacted jamiedbwildbluenet 1 million bomblets lebanon bbc 9262006 2 9yearold boy 4 people hurt cluster bomb explosions nahar 9272006 3 200000 remain displaced electronic intifadaocha 9282006 4 south lebanon cluster bomb info sheet un mine action coordination center 10102006 5 un israel cluster bomb use lebanon outrageous ynet news 9192006 6 cluster bombs vestige israels lebanon fight npr things considered 9272006 7 israel used cluster grenades civilians aljazeera 7252006 8 lebanon leftover israeli cluster bombs kill civilians irin un office coordination humanitarian affairs 8212006 9 south lebanon cluster bomb info sheet op cit 10 drop today kill tomorrow mennonite central committee 1997 11 south lebanon cluster bomb info sheet op cit 12 persian gulf us cluster bomb duds threat human rights watch 3182003 13 cluster bombs cluster munitions threat life aktionsbündnis landminede 1st edition 2004 14 vietnam wendy waldeck sarah sensamaust journal mine action 22006 15 laos 30 years unquiet land lynette lee corporal ips asiapacificprobe media foundation 16 m85 dualpurpose bomblet globalsecurityorg 17 ibid 18 employee liabilities weapon manufacturers international law alliantaction 2004 19 us military assistance arms transfers israel us aid companies fuel israeli military pdf frida berrigan william hartung world policy institute 7202006 20 m85 dualpurpose bomblet op cit 21 ibid 22 latest update cluster munition problem south lebanon cluster munition coalition 9202006 23 idf commander fired million cluster bombs lebanon haaretz 9122006 24 south lebanon cluster bomb info sheet op cit 25 latest update cluster munition problem south lebanon op cit 26 770 cluster bombs strikes map un mine action coordination center south lebanon 10102006 27 cluster bombs cluster munitions threat life op cit 28 rockets phosphorous cluster meron rapoport haaretz 9302006 29 cluster bombs cluster munitions threat life op cit 30 us deny israeli request cluster munitions human rights watch 8112006 31 speaking report mainz 11172003 cluster bombs cluster munitions threat life op cit 32 israel asks us ship rockets wide blast new york times 8112006 33 770 cluster bombs strikes map op cit 34 mine problem southern lebanon un mine action coordination center south lebanon 2006 35 770 cluster bombs strikes map op cit 36 peres israel achieved war goals weakened hezbollah haaretz 8162006 37 us investigating israel cluster bomb use lebanon yahoo news 912006 38 persian gulf us cluster bomb duds threat op cit 39 america war killing people order save dave lindorff baltimore chronicle 962006 160 160 160 | 2,178 |
<p>PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake's re-election race is becoming a case study in the GOP's convulsions between the establishment, a furious base and angry donors.</p>
<p>After bucking Donald Trump in a state the president won, Flake is bottoming out in polls. Yet Republicans look like they may be stuck with a hard-core conservative challenger who some fear could win the primary but lose in the general election.</p>
<p>A White House search for a candidate to replace former state Sen. Kelli Ward in the primary appears to have hit a wall. And now conservatives want to turn Arizona into the latest example of a Trump Train outsider taking down a member of the GOP establishment.</p>
<p>"People are fooling themselves if they think Jeff Flake is anything but a walking dead member of the United State Senate," said Andy Surabian, whose Great America Alliance is backing Ward.</p>
<p>"I don't see how he survives a primary. I don't see how he survives a general. The numbers just don't add up," added Surabian, who worked at the White House as an adviser to Steve Bannon, then the president's top strategist.</p>
<p>Despite discontent among some Republicans over Ward, Bannon met with her last week at a conservative conference in Colorado Springs to encourage her campaign, according to a Republican official who demanded anonymity to disclose the previously unreported private meeting.</p>
<p>Ward unsuccessfully challenged Arizona's senior senator, John McCain, in last year's election, losing in the primary by a wide margin. But in Flake, she would face a more vulnerable candidate at a moment when the GOP establishment is on the defensive, facing a simmering anti-incumbent mood heightened by Republicans' failure to make good on seven years of promises to scrap Barack Obama's health care law.</p>
<p>Flake is in danger of becoming the latest victim of this voter wrath. Yet rather than making an effort to soothe pro-Trump GOP voters, he's all but dared them to take him down by kicking off his campaign with an anti-Trump manifesto, "Conscience of a Conservative," a book in which he bemoaned his party's failure to stand up to Trump in last year's presidential race.</p>
<p>"We pretended that the emperor wasn't naked," Flake wrote.</p>
<p>Trump, in turn, has lashed out at Flake on Twitter, calling him "toxic," while praising Ward. White House officials say there's little chance Trump will have a change of heart over supporting Flake. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity to disclose private deliberations, said Trump is irritated not only by Flake's public criticism, but by what Trump sees as the senator's attempts to use his critiques of the president to gain attention.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Flake, 54, insists he won't be getting out of the race. The primary is Aug. 29.</p>
<p>"We always knew we would have a tough primary. We always knew we would have a tough general," Flake said in a brief interview at the Capitol. Asked about Trump's opposition, Flake smiled and said, "There's a long time between now and next August."</p>
<p>Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has protected vulnerable GOP senators in the past, but his ability to do so in the future was thrown into question last month by Sen. Luther Strange's loss to rabble-rousing Roy Moore in a runoff in Alabama. A McConnell-aligned super PAC had spent around $9 million to help Strange.</p>
<p>Trump was encouraged by McConnell and others to back Strange, a decision which he reportedly now regrets and which only added to the frictions between the president and the Senate leader. Flake's candidacy could provide occasion for yet more conflict between the two, given the possibility that they will be on opposite sides in the primary.</p>
<p>Adding to Flake's problems, donations to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP campaign arm, have dried up after the "Obamacare" failure. Some donors say they intend to withhold money from incumbent senators like Flake until they start delivering on Trump's agenda, a strategy encouraged privately by some top White House officials.</p>
<p>"Donors are going to start cutting off funding for all senators until they get Trump's initiatives passed," said Roy Bailey, a Trump supporter and fundraiser in Texas. "I think there's a real kind of movement going around that is catching momentum."</p>
<p>Flake's campaign points to strong fundraising numbers and upcoming events including a fundraising visit Monday by Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio. But Flake can't even count on support from fellow members of his Arizona delegation. GOP Rep. Trent Franks demurred when asked if he would be supporting Flake for re-election</p>
<p>"I'm probably not going to, for a lot of reasons, not going to address that," Franks said. "Obviously Sen. Flake knows how profoundly bewildered and disappointed I was with his actions that, in the general election last year, if everyone had followed that line of reasoning would have resulted in Hillary Clinton's election."</p>
<p>Franks' name is one of several that have circulated as potential primary challengers to Flake, along with Rep. Paul Gosar, state university board member Jay Heiler and former state GOP Chairman Robert Graham. Several Republicans said the White House has been searching for some alternative to Ward.</p>
<p>Yet Ward shows no sign of stepping aside, and another consideration, usually unspoken, is McCain's brain cancer which will likely mean another vacant Senate seat at some point in the future.</p>
<p>Ward's erratic history, which causes mainline Republicans to view her as damaged goods, is underscored by comments she made after McCain's July cancer diagnosis where she urged him to step down and suggested she should be considered to replace him.</p>
<p>"Look, you see what her numbers were in the McCain race - I don't know what would make us think different now," said Rep. Dave Schweikert, R-Ariz. Whichever Republican emerges from the primary will likely face Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, seen as a strong candidate.</p>
<p>It's all adding to a season of trouble for GOP senators like Flake and Dean Heller of Nevada, who also faces a primary challenge from the right. The good news for Senate Republicans, who hold a 52-48 majority, is that they have an extremely favorable map next year that has them defending only two genuinely endangered incumbents, Flake and Heller, while Democrats are on defense in 10 states Trump won.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Werner reported from Washington.</p> | true | 4 | phoenix ap arizona republican sen jeff flakes reelection race becoming case study gops convulsions establishment furious base angry donors bucking donald trump state president flake bottoming polls yet republicans look like may stuck hardcore conservative challenger fear could win primary lose general election white house search candidate replace former state sen kelli ward primary appears hit wall conservatives want turn arizona latest example trump train outsider taking member gop establishment people fooling think jeff flake anything walking dead member united state senate said andy surabian whose great america alliance backing ward dont see survives primary dont see survives general numbers dont add added surabian worked white house adviser steve bannon presidents top strategist despite discontent among republicans ward bannon met last week conservative conference colorado springs encourage campaign according republican official demanded anonymity disclose previously unreported private meeting ward unsuccessfully challenged arizonas senior senator john mccain last years election losing primary wide margin flake would face vulnerable candidate moment gop establishment defensive facing simmering antiincumbent mood heightened republicans failure make good seven years promises scrap barack obamas health care law flake danger becoming latest victim voter wrath yet rather making effort soothe protrump gop voters hes dared take kicking campaign antitrump manifesto conscience conservative book bemoaned partys failure stand trump last years presidential race pretended emperor wasnt naked flake wrote trump turn lashed flake twitter calling toxic praising ward white house officials say theres little chance trump change heart supporting flake one official speaking condition anonymity disclose private deliberations said trump irritated flakes public criticism trump sees senators attempts use critiques president gain attention nevertheless flake 54 insists wont getting race primary aug 29 always knew would tough primary always knew would tough general flake said brief interview capitol asked trumps opposition flake smiled said theres long time next august majority leader mitch mcconnell rky protected vulnerable gop senators past ability future thrown question last month sen luther stranges loss rabblerousing roy moore runoff alabama mcconnellaligned super pac spent around 9 million help strange trump encouraged mcconnell others back strange decision reportedly regrets added frictions president senate leader flakes candidacy could provide occasion yet conflict two given possibility opposite sides primary adding flakes problems donations national republican senatorial committee senate gop campaign arm dried obamacare failure donors say intend withhold money incumbent senators like flake start delivering trumps agenda strategy encouraged privately top white house officials donors going start cutting funding senators get trumps initiatives passed said roy bailey trump supporter fundraiser texas think theres real kind movement going around catching momentum flakes campaign points strong fundraising numbers upcoming events including fundraising visit monday florida gop sen marco rubio flake cant even count support fellow members arizona delegation gop rep trent franks demurred asked would supporting flake reelection im probably going lot reasons going address franks said obviously sen flake knows profoundly bewildered disappointed actions general election last year everyone followed line reasoning would resulted hillary clintons election franks name one several circulated potential primary challengers flake along rep paul gosar state university board member jay heiler former state gop chairman robert graham several republicans said white house searching alternative ward yet ward shows sign stepping aside another consideration usually unspoken mccains brain cancer likely mean another vacant senate seat point future wards erratic history causes mainline republicans view damaged goods underscored comments made mccains july cancer diagnosis urged step suggested considered replace look see numbers mccain race dont know would make us think different said rep dave schweikert rariz whichever republican emerges primary likely face democratic rep kyrsten sinema seen strong candidate adding season trouble gop senators like flake dean heller nevada also faces primary challenge right good news senate republicans hold 5248 majority extremely favorable map next year defending two genuinely endangered incumbents flake heller democrats defense 10 states trump ___ werner reported washington | 636 |
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<p>Photo by Alan Cleaver | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p />
<p>It is a crushing blow to have your idols defrocked before your eyes. Generally speaking, the best course of action is denial, which can at least forestall having to cope with reality for as long as you can reasonably deny what happened. The neoliberal Clintonistas have done just that in the wake of their heroine’s epic meltdown last fall, when all manner of misdirection was employed to whitewash the neocon hobgoblin Hillary Clinton into some kind of iconic facsimile of humility and virtue, the brave flagbearer for female kind. Anyone familiar with Clinton’s record found themselves retching in alleyways as the pro-Hillary throngs flowed down the streets, chanting and punching the sky with their baleful banners.</p>
<p>The Clintonistas have chiefly attempted to salve their psyches by transmuting their worshipful emotions into a seething animus for Donald Trump, who has always presented as the antichrist to Hillary’s redeemer. The usefulness of Donald Trump is that he provided a perfect cipher into which identity politics neoliberals could pour all of their unbridled fury over the rejection of their political idol. Make America Great Again meant nothing. Much like Barack Obama represented for these same neoliberals a void on to which they could project all of their finest ideals about race, equality, and justice. Change You Can Believe In meant nothing.</p>
<p>To that end, Trump has thus far served as a punching bag for neoliberal tribes and their digital Sherpas, namely The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, FOX News, among others. The palpitating witch hunt that neoliberals have launched, aided and abetted by the deep state, i.e., foreign policy community plus finance, has led us into a most unusual circumstance. First, the in-denial Democratic Party retooled itself into a Neo-McCarthyite cabal dedicated to the <a href="" type="internal">defense</a> of democratic institutions against mythical Kremlin puppets. This, in turn, exerted tremendous pressure on the White House, as public hearings and a steady stream of leaks from the intelligence community put the administration on its heels, faltering and fearing impeachment. The president found himself lurching left and right looking for a means by which to fend off the increasingly imminent demise of his presidency. This led to the ill-conceived military action of the past week, as the president lashed out at a war-weary foreign nation, either as a misguided punitive measure, or in an attempt to flex enough muscle to scare away the Russophobes chopping away at his clay feet.</p>
<p><a type="external" href="" />Just Do It, Dad!</p>
<p>Into this tense atmosphere some deviant soul along the Turkish-Syrian border introduced the second Syrian false flag event in four years. The first had nearly baited Barack Obama into directly bombing the Assad government. The second would have to do a better job. Evidently, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) bombed a weapons armory and inadvertently exploded a cache of chemical weapons that caught a breeze and killed dozens of locals. The mediasphere, a wholly owned subsidiary of the one percent, of the imperialists who need war in order to increase profits, responded with swift and unerring groupthink. Assad had done the deed on purpose, a claim that required no supporting evidence since the Syrian leader had been comprehensively vilified for years. Who could believe that this unfeeling monster could restrain himself from brutally attacking his own population at the most inopportune moments (i.e., just as UN weapons inspectors enter the country or just as his army had nearly won the war).</p>
<p>What happened next is an open question. Reports <a href="" type="internal">suggest</a> that Ivanka Trump, which The New York Times comically referred to as the president’s wife, was so thunderstruck by the images of dead children in the wake of the chemical leakage, that she implored her floundering father to do something. In foreign policy matters, doing something usually means taking military or financial action, both of which decimate civilian communities, an always regrettable and unexpected side effect of our principled interventions, if Washington is to be believed. Still, Ivanka succeeded in luring the old man into a bootless act of international aggression based on nothing other than the crocodile tears of a pampered scionness in a gilt tower.</p>
<p>The other possibility, perhaps more likely, is that The Donald understood that there was probably only one thing that could make his problems go away: a war. Were these, then, ‘opportunity strikes’, like Bill Clinton’s missile attack on Iraq at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which <a href="" type="internal">some</a> saw as a political diversion? As everyone knows, state violence produces consensus like nothing else. And not just consensus, but supportive and sycophantic groupthink designed to bolster the hand of the glorious leader, who must act to preserve our freedoms.</p>
<p>Bombing for a Boost</p>
<p>In the wake of the attack, Trump’s approval ratings saw a small <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-latest-approval-rating-rises-slightly-syria-airstrikes-581965" type="external">boost</a> within the margin of error. But if it didn’t springboard the pride of Mar-a-Lago into the stratosphere, it certainly changed the tenor of the conversation in Congress and in MSM editorial pages. Many of the deranged Congressmen who were ransacking digital files for evidence of Kremlin collusion found themselves ferociously applauding the presidential violence, including most of the Democrats. Even the unhinged vaudeville duo of John McCain and Lindsey Graham paused their side show to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWRTedAyMkY" type="external">offer</a> unqualified praise of the president’s imperial crime.</p>
<p>Had the president dodged the treason bullet? Perhaps. This will likely depend on whether or not he escalates the Syrian conflict into a full-blown regime-change operation that sidelines the Democrats’ witch hunt (sometimes known as “Russiagate”). Thus far the MSM is doing its best to justify the president’s attack, which a) was a criminal act of war on a sovereign state that violated international law and the UN Charter; b) was an illegal action that required Congressional approval but didn’t get it; c) was aimed at the wrong target, since the SAA did not launch a chemical attack, and ISIS has <a href="" type="internal">launched</a> 52 in the last few years; d) turned the U.S. military into al Qaeda’s de facto air force by attacking the main means by which Syria is defeating them; and e) demonstrated complete contempt for Washington’s relationship with Moscow.</p>
<p>The action hasn’t been condemned on any of these points, but that isn’t too surprising. The MSM has become remarkably careless, almost extravagantly so, in its use of outright lies. Propaganda has historically consisted of some combination of fact, omitted fact, and lies, all adding up to a deeply misleading interpretation of world events. But the MSM seems now to have adopted pure fabrication as its tactical nous. The fatal tragedy involving the inadvertent release of chemical weapons has been regularly referred to as an “attack” with the blame assigned invariably to the Assad government. The mainstream has done its level best to bury <a href="#comments" type="external">arguments</a> to the contrary. No proper or impartial investigation has been undertaken, of course. This was a lesson the new administration learned from the last: don’t hesitate or your justifications may be shown to be disingenuous and imbecilic. President Trump didn’t bother to wait for confirmation. Hearsay was enough.</p>
<p>The power-worshipping parasites that mottle the hide of the imperial beast could barely contain their glee. Such an unexpected boon to the champions of imperialism. The Obama administration last year and Trump last week had soured on the idea of forcing regime-change in Syria, not least because NATO’s proxy takfiris were getting blitzed and broken by incessant Russian and Syrian bombing. Hard to win a war without an air force. This caused considerable discouragement among the venerable warmongers at the Council on Foreign Relations, Heritage Foundation, Brookings Institute, and associated think tanks, plus frustration among defense contractors always looking for a stock spike thanks to a hot war. Now here was the author of The Art of the Deal eschewing all deals with comrade Putin and firing a fusillade of Tomahawks (Trump has a small investment in Raytheon) at a Syrian airbase. Did he do it for Ivanka or as a calculated strike to save his own imperiled hide? It hardly mattered, with Bill Kristol in The Washington Post, Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times, and Ryan Lizza at The New Yorker all ‘weighing in’ with their pro-war editorials and, surprise, hinting at regime change. How quickly the topic has resurfaced. Thomas Friedman, also in the Times, has called for Manpads for “moderate rebels” and a Sunni statelet. Lindsey Graham happily <a href="" type="internal">declared</a> that, “ISIS should be Germany and Assad should be Japan, like World War II…” Samantha Power impersonator and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has prophesied that she expects Assad to be replaced. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, who troublingly <a href="http://screenrant.com/superman-best-lex-luthor-facts-trivia-comics/?view=all" type="external">resembles</a> Lex Luthor, has <a href="" type="internal">announced</a> that the administration is open to further military action in Syria but that Washington prefers a negotiated solution. Well, of course! Where would anyone get the idea that America hates effete diplomacy when it could just as easily dispatch a few destroyers to make the same points with cruise missiles? As a general rule in Washington, the cruder the better.</p>
<p>Fareed Zakaria now believes Donald Trump is truly the president of the United States (said with his ghoulish skeletal smile). Brian Williams, fan of battlefield fictions, summoned Leonard Cohen to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4n3SI81m9w" type="external">explain</a> that he was, “guided by the beauty of our weapons” as he gazed at pictures of Tomahawks launching from destroyer decks in a blaze of fire. So, while the verdict is still out on whether the president has saved himself, the media has certainly turned in his favor.</p>
<p>A Deep State Sigh of Relief</p>
<p>It seems the celestial bodies have returned to their natural orbits. It was a close scrape for the deep state, to be sure. Just think about the ‘horrifying’ near-catastrophes of the last year. First, there was the Bernie fiasco. What tremendous legwork was required to put down that spurious challenge to the world order. Compromising the DNC to favor Hillary; hastily burying the potentially campaign-shattering Seth Rich story; pressuring the media to marginalize Bernie and malign his bros.</p>
<p>And then for all that hard work to backfire and help put a semi-fascist rabble rouser in the White House. Who could have seen that coming? In any event, that required a new campaign of leaks and defamation to bring the new president in line. All of that foolish rhetoric about detente with Russia had to be discredited with fanatical conspiracies about Russian stooges and the republic in peril. Thank god the exhausted electorate didn’t fight back on that transparent fairy tale. In the end, it was surprisingly easy to push the president into complete conformity with deep state goals. All it really required was a nonstop supply of damning leaks to the press, which swiftly produced the resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, a temporary threat to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the removal of reputed white nationalist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council. Truly embarrassing appointments by The Donald, but fairly easy to rectify once Lex Luthor was installed as NSA. After banishing Bannon, Luthor brilliantly <a href="" type="internal">relocated</a> Flynn’s former Svengali K.T. McFarland from her Deputy NSA post to a humid ambassadorship in distant Singapore, where her career will vanish in a pitiless monsoon. Flynn himself is pinioned in a desperate negotiation to dodge jail time.</p>
<p>Now that the table has been reset, and detente and defunding NATO are off the table, and war and full-spectrum dominance are back on, the only lingering questions are what additional crimes to pin on the Assad “regime” to rouse the public’s appetite for destruction. Rest assured, this will get ugly before it gets better.</p>
<p>Stay Tuned, More War and Chaos After the Break…</p>
<p>Not that anyone inside the beltway cares. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, knows the score. He recently conceded that Moscow has a pretty clear grasp of the imperial grand strategy in Washington. He called it “managed chaos.” Couldn’t have said it better. Look at the Middle East and you’ll instantly see the plan in action. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Congo, etc. All flaming dumpster fires with no firemen in sight.</p>
<p>Men like Bill Kristol know this, too. As FAIR’s Adam Johnson astutely noted, Kristol penned a flurry of pro-vengeance puff pieces for various mainstream papers in advance of the Libyan demolition job in late 2011. Once Gadhafi was deposed, captured, brutally sodomized, and slain, Kristol banished Libya from his byline. Not a word in five years. Beltway cowards that hyperventilate about conflict remind me of George Orwell’s comment about war, “It’s the same in every war. The soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets within a mile of a trench, except in the briefest of propaganda tours.”</p>
<p>Now Democrat Jack Reed, the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has gone on Jake Tapper’s sycophantic CNN show, The Lead, and thrown the Obama administration under the proverbial bus. Reed once voted against allowing George W. Bush to invade Iraq, not because it was a transparently criminal enterprise, mind you, but rather, taking a position young Obama would echo years later, that it was a strategic mistake. But the days are long gone when principal factors into Congressional decision-making. The Rhode Island Senator told the Tapper that if you draw a red line, you ought to enforce it. Obama surely knew that he’d never be forgiven for not enforcing his red line and attacking Assad when he had a flimsy pretext at hand (a shamble of YouTube videos supplied by the venerable John Kerry). The entire interview with Reed featured not a single question by Tapper about whether or not Assad was actually responsible for the chemical chaos in Idleb or the attack in Ghouta in 2013. It was simply assumed that the Damascan optometrist was the only man capable of such perversity. Naturally, nobody mentioned ISIS’s 52 chemical attacks. But then ISIS is Washington’s battering ram, a rabid offshoot of al Qaeda, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s brainchild from the 1980s. Why undermine your own argument?</p>
<p>The president, if not teeing up a Titleist at Mar-a-Lago, is probably reviewing battle plans as we speak. Weighing options, listening to the various hypnotists at his side, H.R., Ivanka, Jared, Steve, as they pour their ideological potion in his ear. Russia’s evil President Vladimir Putin <a href="" type="internal">has</a> said that new false flags are in the works around Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called for an unbiased investigation into the chemical incident. (When will Sergey learn that nobody in Washington cares about facts, except as tools for the advancement of imperial ends?) The administration’s wild-eye and possibly feral press secretary Sean Spicer mentioned that the president would now respond to the use of barrel bombs, which would guarantee a relentless bombing campaign. And the president himself <a href="" type="internal">approved</a> Montenegro’s accession to NATO, adding another staging ground for NATO aggression. Secretary of State Rex “I didn’t want this job” Tillerson announced Assad’s regime is “coming to an end” as he traveled to Moscow to discuss whether or not Assad’s regime would come to an end. An uncomfortable presser followed, with Tillerson and Lavrov looking less than pleased to be there. Meanwhile, an American carrier group is steaming toward North Korea, which has promised a nuclear attack at any sign of a pre-emptive strike.</p>
<p>Status Update: Same As It Ever Was</p>
<p>Will any of this incautious behavior be challenged? No. The entire beltway establishment and its mainstream media back war, and there seems to be little appetite among the populace for mass protest unless it perceives that there are social justice issues at stake. As economist Michael Hudson lamented, “You don’t have a working class march. You don’t have a wage earners march. You don’t have a peace march. You don’t have an anti-war march. You don’t have a march against the New Cold War. You don’t have a march to keep infrastructure public. You don’t have a march for single-payer healthcare.” What we have are anti-discrimination marches by neoliberals who mainly care about sexual, gender, ethnic, and religious rights, but accept austerity at home and military and financial violence abroad (which happens to be racist). Fighting discrimination on all its fronts is definitely a valid cause, but if that is all the liberal side of the spectrum puts its energy against, we will wind up as timid surveillance slaves, impoverished by the costs of globalized imperial warfare, and spoon-fed a series of fairy tales that keep us afraid, broke, and counterintuitively self-righteous.</p>
<p>Hudson connects economics to war not simply by pointing out that money gets spent for war instead of social needs, but by pointing out that it is capitalism that produces wars. Hudson renames the UN’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine as “Responsibility to Privatize (R2P).” This is exactly it. We are interested in overthrowing Assad because he subscribes to a development model that does not privilege Western multinationals. It does not privilege our pipeline projects and it does not permit elite capital to buy up Syrian corporations and especially its infrastructure, such as its utilities–its energy companies, its ports, its communications infrastructure, and so on. That is the treasure that the restless capital of the one percent seeks. The surest way to get it is by force. Which gives the lie to West’s hypocritical but oh-so-predictable wringing of hands over the sight of dead babies in Idleb. This isn’t about bloody civilians or red lines or even black flags. It’s about green stacks and white power, and it always has been. As one friend likes to admonish me, don’t get it twisted.</p> | true | 4 | photo alan cleaver cc 20 crushing blow idols defrocked eyes generally speaking best course action denial least forestall cope reality long reasonably deny happened neoliberal clintonistas done wake heroines epic meltdown last fall manner misdirection employed whitewash neocon hobgoblin hillary clinton kind iconic facsimile humility virtue brave flagbearer female kind anyone familiar clintons record found retching alleyways prohillary throngs flowed streets chanting punching sky baleful banners clintonistas chiefly attempted salve psyches transmuting worshipful emotions seething animus donald trump always presented antichrist hillarys redeemer usefulness donald trump provided perfect cipher identity politics neoliberals could pour unbridled fury rejection political idol make america great meant nothing much like barack obama represented neoliberals void could project finest ideals race equality justice change believe meant nothing end trump thus far served punching bag neoliberal tribes digital sherpas namely new york times washington post npr msnbc cnn fox news among others palpitating witch hunt neoliberals launched aided abetted deep state ie foreign policy community plus finance led us unusual circumstance first indenial democratic party retooled neomccarthyite cabal dedicated defense democratic institutions mythical kremlin puppets turn exerted tremendous pressure white house public hearings steady stream leaks intelligence community put administration heels faltering fearing impeachment president found lurching left right looking means fend increasingly imminent demise presidency led illconceived military action past week president lashed warweary foreign nation either misguided punitive measure attempt flex enough muscle scare away russophobes chopping away clay feet dad tense atmosphere deviant soul along turkishsyrian border introduced second syrian false flag event four years first nearly baited barack obama directly bombing assad government second would better job evidently syrian arab army saa bombed weapons armory inadvertently exploded cache chemical weapons caught breeze killed dozens locals mediasphere wholly owned subsidiary one percent imperialists need war order increase profits responded swift unerring groupthink assad done deed purpose claim required supporting evidence since syrian leader comprehensively vilified years could believe unfeeling monster could restrain brutally attacking population inopportune moments ie un weapons inspectors enter country army nearly war happened next open question reports suggest ivanka trump new york times comically referred presidents wife thunderstruck images dead children wake chemical leakage implored floundering father something foreign policy matters something usually means taking military financial action decimate civilian communities always regrettable unexpected side effect principled interventions washington believed still ivanka succeeded luring old man bootless act international aggression based nothing crocodile tears pampered scionness gilt tower possibility perhaps likely donald understood probably one thing could make problems go away war opportunity strikes like bill clintons missile attack iraq height monica lewinsky scandal saw political diversion everyone knows state violence produces consensus like nothing else consensus supportive sycophantic groupthink designed bolster hand glorious leader must act preserve freedoms bombing boost wake attack trumps approval ratings saw small boost within margin error didnt springboard pride maralago stratosphere certainly changed tenor conversation congress msm editorial pages many deranged congressmen ransacking digital files evidence kremlin collusion found ferociously applauding presidential violence including democrats even unhinged vaudeville duo john mccain lindsey graham paused side show offer unqualified praise presidents imperial crime president dodged treason bullet perhaps likely depend whether escalates syrian conflict fullblown regimechange operation sidelines democrats witch hunt sometimes known russiagate thus far msm best justify presidents attack criminal act war sovereign state violated international law un charter b illegal action required congressional approval didnt get c aimed wrong target since saa launch chemical attack isis launched 52 last years turned us military al qaedas de facto air force attacking main means syria defeating e demonstrated complete contempt washingtons relationship moscow action hasnt condemned points isnt surprising msm become remarkably careless almost extravagantly use outright lies propaganda historically consisted combination fact omitted fact lies adding deeply misleading interpretation world events msm seems adopted pure fabrication tactical nous fatal tragedy involving inadvertent release chemical weapons regularly referred attack blame assigned invariably assad government mainstream done level best bury arguments contrary proper impartial investigation undertaken course lesson new administration learned last dont hesitate justifications may shown disingenuous imbecilic president trump didnt bother wait confirmation hearsay enough powerworshipping parasites mottle hide imperial beast could barely contain glee unexpected boon champions imperialism obama administration last year trump last week soured idea forcing regimechange syria least natos proxy takfiris getting blitzed broken incessant russian syrian bombing hard win war without air force caused considerable discouragement among venerable warmongers council foreign relations heritage foundation brookings institute associated think tanks plus frustration among defense contractors always looking stock spike thanks hot war author art deal eschewing deals comrade putin firing fusillade tomahawks trump small investment raytheon syrian airbase ivanka calculated strike save imperiled hide hardly mattered bill kristol washington post nicholas kristof new york times ryan lizza new yorker weighing prowar editorials surprise hinting regime change quickly topic resurfaced thomas friedman also times called manpads moderate rebels sunni statelet lindsey graham happily declared isis germany assad japan like world war ii samantha power impersonator un ambassador nikki haley prophesied expects assad replaced national security advisor hr mcmaster troublingly resembles lex luthor announced administration open military action syria washington prefers negotiated solution well course would anyone get idea america hates effete diplomacy could easily dispatch destroyers make points cruise missiles general rule washington cruder better fareed zakaria believes donald trump truly president united states said ghoulish skeletal smile brian williams fan battlefield fictions summoned leonard cohen explain guided beauty weapons gazed pictures tomahawks launching destroyer decks blaze fire verdict still whether president saved media certainly turned favor deep state sigh relief seems celestial bodies returned natural orbits close scrape deep state sure think horrifying nearcatastrophes last year first bernie fiasco tremendous legwork required put spurious challenge world order compromising dnc favor hillary hastily burying potentially campaignshattering seth rich story pressuring media marginalize bernie malign bros hard work backfire help put semifascist rabble rouser white house could seen coming event required new campaign leaks defamation bring new president line foolish rhetoric detente russia discredited fanatical conspiracies russian stooges republic peril thank god exhausted electorate didnt fight back transparent fairy tale end surprisingly easy push president complete conformity deep state goals really required nonstop supply damning leaks press swiftly produced resignation national security advisor michael flynn temporary threat attorney general jeff sessions removal reputed white nationalist steve bannon national security council truly embarrassing appointments donald fairly easy rectify lex luthor installed nsa banishing bannon luthor brilliantly relocated flynns former svengali kt mcfarland deputy nsa post humid ambassadorship distant singapore career vanish pitiless monsoon flynn pinioned desperate negotiation dodge jail time table reset detente defunding nato table war fullspectrum dominance back lingering questions additional crimes pin assad regime rouse publics appetite destruction rest assured get ugly gets better stay tuned war chaos break anyone inside beltway cares sergey lavrov russias foreign minister knows score recently conceded moscow pretty clear grasp imperial grand strategy washington called managed chaos couldnt said better look middle east youll instantly see plan action iraq afghanistan libya syria somalia congo etc flaming dumpster fires firemen sight men like bill kristol know fairs adam johnson astutely noted kristol penned flurry provengeance puff pieces various mainstream papers advance libyan demolition job late 2011 gadhafi deposed captured brutally sodomized slain kristol banished libya byline word five years beltway cowards hyperventilate conflict remind george orwells comment war every war soldiers fighting journalists shouting true patriot ever gets within mile trench except briefest propaganda tours democrat jack reed ranking member senate armed services committee gone jake tappers sycophantic cnn show lead thrown obama administration proverbial bus reed voted allowing george w bush invade iraq transparently criminal enterprise mind rather taking position young obama would echo years later strategic mistake days long gone principal factors congressional decisionmaking rhode island senator told tapper draw red line ought enforce obama surely knew hed never forgiven enforcing red line attacking assad flimsy pretext hand shamble youtube videos supplied venerable john kerry entire interview reed featured single question tapper whether assad actually responsible chemical chaos idleb attack ghouta 2013 simply assumed damascan optometrist man capable perversity naturally nobody mentioned isiss 52 chemical attacks isis washingtons battering ram rabid offshoot al qaeda zbigniew brzezinskis brainchild 1980s undermine argument president teeing titleist maralago probably reviewing battle plans speak weighing options listening various hypnotists side hr ivanka jared steve pour ideological potion ear russias evil president vladimir putin said new false flags works around syria russian foreign minister sergey lavrov called unbiased investigation chemical incident sergey learn nobody washington cares facts except tools advancement imperial ends administrations wildeye possibly feral press secretary sean spicer mentioned president would respond use barrel bombs would guarantee relentless bombing campaign president approved montenegros accession nato adding another staging ground nato aggression secretary state rex didnt want job tillerson announced assads regime coming end traveled moscow discuss whether assads regime would come end uncomfortable presser followed tillerson lavrov looking less pleased meanwhile american carrier group steaming toward north korea promised nuclear attack sign preemptive strike status update ever incautious behavior challenged entire beltway establishment mainstream media back war seems little appetite among populace mass protest unless perceives social justice issues stake economist michael hudson lamented dont working class march dont wage earners march dont peace march dont antiwar march dont march new cold war dont march keep infrastructure public dont march singlepayer healthcare antidiscrimination marches neoliberals mainly care sexual gender ethnic religious rights accept austerity home military financial violence abroad happens racist fighting discrimination fronts definitely valid cause liberal side spectrum puts energy wind timid surveillance slaves impoverished costs globalized imperial warfare spoonfed series fairy tales keep us afraid broke counterintuitively selfrighteous hudson connects economics war simply pointing money gets spent war instead social needs pointing capitalism produces wars hudson renames uns responsibility protect r2p doctrine responsibility privatize r2p exactly interested overthrowing assad subscribes development model privilege western multinationals privilege pipeline projects permit elite capital buy syrian corporations especially infrastructure utilitiesits energy companies ports communications infrastructure treasure restless capital one percent seeks surest way get force gives lie wests hypocritical ohsopredictable wringing hands sight dead babies idleb isnt bloody civilians red lines even black flags green stacks white power always one friend likes admonish dont get twisted | 1,681 |
<p>Elsewhere in Mother Jones, David Corn <a href="" type="internal">analyzes</a> the political gamble Obama took in authorizing the attack, Dave Gilson <a href="" type="internal">breaks down</a> the numbers behind the most expensive manhunt in history, and Josh Harkinson <a href="" type="internal">rounds up</a> ten ways the right is spinning bin Laden’s death. Adam Weinstein <a href="" type="internal">reports on</a> the reactions of bin Laden’s supporters as well as active-duty soldiers, Stephanie Mencimer <a href="" type="internal">checks in</a> on the tea party, and Mike Mechanic pulls together a <a href="" type="internal">slideshow of major daily front pages</a>.</p>
<p>Pete Marovich/ZumaThis <a href="http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/bin-laden-reading-guide-how-to-cut-through-the-coverage" type="external">post</a> first appeared on the <a href="http://www.propublica.org/" type="external">ProPublica website</a>.</p>
<p>The death of Osama bin Laden has sent news organizations scrambling for details on how it happened, where it happened, and what it all means. We’ve rounded up some of the best coverage, being careful to note what’s been said, what’s already being disputed, and what still remains to be seen. &#160;</p>
<p>How they found the most wanted man in the world:</p>
<p>The New York Times has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03intel.html?hp=&amp;pagewanted=all" type="external">vivid account of the hunt for bin Laden</a> in the weeks leading up to the strike, with dialogue straight from the situation room as the operation unfolded. As for the specific trail of intelligence, the Associated Press traces how detainees in both the <a href="http://ap.stripes.com/dynamic/stories/U/US_BIN_LADEN_HUNT_FOR_BIN_LADEN?SITE=DCSAS&amp;=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" type="external">CIA’s secret network of prisons and in Guantanamo</a> provided clues about the trusted courier who ultimately led the United States to bin Laden’s hideaway. The AP cites former officials asserting that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, was not being waterboarded while discussing the courier, though that still leaves unanswered what interrogation methods were used on the <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/02/113549/tip-that-led-to-bin-laden-may.html" type="external">other, tip-giving detainees</a>—many of whom haven’t been identified.</p>
<p>But here’s the interrogation file of <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/87933-interrogation-file-of-abu-faraj-al-libi.html#document/p5/a17091" type="external">one detainee</a> who may have proved useful: The file of Abu al-Libi contained an early clue as to the whereabouts of a bin Laden courier in Abbottabad. &#160;</p>
<p>What we actually know about the operation and what’s still fuzzy:</p>
<p>Most accounts of the bin Laden operation at this point cite background briefings from the White House. Those transcripts are interesting for both the details they provide and the details that officials skirt around. Here’s <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/press-briefing-senior-administration-officials-killing-osama-bin-laden" type="external">yesterday’s</a> and <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-and-assistant-president-homela" type="external">today’s</a>.</p>
<p>Many of the blow-by-blows of the bin Laden operation are still fairly sketchy, and Obama administration officials already appear to be backing away from a <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54162.html" type="external">few of the earlier descriptions</a> of the circumstances surrounding bin Laden’s death. For instance, early claims that bin Laden was armed at the time of his death and had used his wife as a human shield have since been contradicted by officials, Politico reported.</p>
<p>Given this, Slate’s Jack Shafer has <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2292717/" type="external">a must-read</a>, pointing out several instances of vague sourcing and inconsistencies in some of the coverage of the bin Laden story.</p>
<p>Of course, some have taken that skepticism a step further and veered into conspiracy theories, seizing on the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bin-laden-conspiracy-20110503,0,3052618.story" type="external">sea burial and the timing of the President’s announcement</a> as suspicious. (Slate has more on why the <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2292724/" type="external">sea burial is unusual</a>.) The administration has said it’s <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54178.html" type="external">considering releasing</a> the photo of bin Laden’s body or videos of the raid and the burial to put these suspicions to rest.</p>
<p>The Joint Special Operations Command, whose <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/the-secret-team-that-killed-bin-laden-20110502" type="external">elite team of Navy Seals executed the operation</a>, costs the country more than $1 billion annually, according to National Journal. Despite some of its personnel having been involved in abuse of prisoners and rendition, JSOC has operated without much scrutiny since 9/11—read the piece for <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/the-secret-team-that-killed-bin-laden-20110502" type="external">more helpful context</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>About the town where he was found, Abbottabad:</p>
<p>Abbottabad is north of Islamabad, less than mile away from the Pakistani military academy—the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.abbottabad/" type="external">Pakistani equivalent of West Point</a>, as some have noted. ProPublica’s Scott Klein <a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/following-the-reaction-to-bin-ladens-death/#why-commandos-do-not-use-google-maps" type="external">mapped it out</a>.</p>
<p>Some useful people to follow on the ground in Abbottabad are CNN’s Nic Robertson (@ <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/NicRobertsonCNN" type="external">NicRobertson</a>), TIME journalist Omar Waraich (@ <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/omarwaraich" type="external">Omar Waraich</a>, and IT consultant Sohaib Athar (@ <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/ReallyVirtual" type="external">ReallyVirtual</a>), the man who <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/ReallyVirtual/status/65085855315931136" type="external">unwittingly live-Tweeted</a> the US operation <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/ReallyVirtual/status/64780730286358528" type="external">as it unfolded</a> and has since been tweeting <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/ReallyVirtual/status/65252872199217152" type="external">photos and observations</a> from the city.</p>
<p>The New Yorker’s Steve Coll notes that the location <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/notes-on-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden.html#ixzz1LIbnk3Yp" type="external">raises serious questions</a> about what Pakistan knew about the whereabouts of the United States’ most wanted man:</p>
<p>It stretches credulity to think that a mansion of that scale could have been built and occupied by bin Laden for six years without its coming to the attention of anyone in the Pakistani Army.</p>
<p>The initial circumstantial evidence suggests that the opposite is more likely—that bin Laden was effectively being housed under Pakistani state control. Pakistan will deny this, it seems safe to predict, and perhaps no convincing evidence will ever surface to prove the case. &#160;</p>
<p>What Pakistan knew:</p>
<p>The Obama administration has paid lip service to its robust counterterrorism partnership with Pakistan, but it also said that it planned and executed the operation without Pakistan’s prior knowledge. Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs has said that “US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13268517" type="external">making use of blind spots in the radar coverage</a>.” Pakistan has also maintained that it had <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-obama-statement-idUSTRE74107920110503" type="external">no idea</a> that bin Laden was in Abbottabad.</p>
<p>Foreign Policy has a <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/02/osama_bin_who?page=full" type="external">roundup</a> of Pakistani officials’ past denials that bin Laden could be hiding in their country. An unnamed Pakistani intelligence official told the BBC that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13268517" type="external">they’re embarrassed</a> that they weren’t able to find bin Laden, and that, though they raided the Abbottabad compound while it was in construction in 2003, it was “not on our radar” since then.</p>
<p>In a White House press briefing yesterday afternoon, Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, said that bin Laden <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-and-assistant-president-homela" type="external">must have had some Pakistani support</a>, though he refused to speculate who might have given it and how high it went.</p>
<p>Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/us-officials-equate-pakistani-spy-agency-with-terror-groups-in-leaked-docum?utm_source=socmed&amp;utm_medium=Twitter&amp;utm_content=tweet2&amp;utm_campaign=Pakistani%2Bspy" type="external">complicated since 9/11</a>—the recently leaked GITMO files showed that US officials have been suspicious of Pakistan for years. Last week, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/what-pakistan-knew-about-osama-bin-laden.html" type="external">publicly accused the Pakistani military</a> of supporting the Haqqani network, a wing of the Taliban with close ties to al-Qaida. We’ve covered how Pakistan’s intelligence service has been a <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/discovery-of-obl-hideout-spotlights-concerns-about-pakistans-intel-service" type="external">frenemy</a> in past cases. Last year, we laid out the evidence that officers in Pakistan’s powerful intelligence service <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/mumbai-case-offers-rare-picture-of-ties-between-pakistans-intelligence-serv" type="external">collaborated on the Mumbai terrorist attacks</a>.</p>
<p>This mission also wasn’t the first time the United States has carried out a covert raid in Pakistan without alerting local officials. We have a look at <a href="http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/bin-laden-mission-underscores-prior-u.s.-raids-in-pakistan" type="external">past US military operations in Pakistan</a> in recent years and the tensions that have grown out of them.</p>
<p>As details continue to emerge, some good reporters and experts to follow on Twitter include our own national security reporter Dafna Linzer (@ <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/dafnalinzer" type="external">dafnalinzer</a>), TIME’s national security correspondent Mark Thompson (@ <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/mthompsontime" type="external">mthompsontime</a>) and National Journal’s Marc Ambinder (@ <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/marcambinder" type="external">marcambinder</a>), who authored one of the most detailed early stories on the team that killed bin Laden. &#160;</p>
<p>Background on bin Laden and his followers:</p>
<p>The New York Times obituary for bin Laden is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/02osama-bin-laden-obituary.html?" type="external">six pages</a>—a detailed retrospective on who he was and how he founded al-Qaida.</p>
<p>Check out Frontline’s <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/" type="external">bin Laden files</a>—seems there’s a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/2011/05/the-bin-laden-files.html" type="external">lot to dig through</a>, including a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/etc/cron.html" type="external">chronology of his political life</a> and a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/bio.html" type="external">brief biography</a>. Frontline’s also <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/fighting-for-bin-laden/" type="external">airing a show tonight</a> about a band of bin Laden loyalists in Afghanistan, CIA kill raids in Pakistan, and new evidence of secret Pakistani support for elements of the Taliban.</p>
<p>The New Yorker’s 2005 piece on bin Laden has several interviews with former schoolmates about <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/12/051212fa_fact?currentPage=all" type="external">his childhood and his radicalization</a>. Over the years, several pieces have been written about the US trail on Osama going cold, including <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/08/04/030804fa_fact?currentPage=all" type="external">Jane Mayer’s 2003 piece</a> in the New Yorker and the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/09/AR2006090901105.html" type="external">Washington Post’s 2006 piece</a>. Peter Bergen, writing for the New Republic in 2009, gives an account of <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/the-battle-tora-bora?passthru=MWVlZjYxNzBiY2E1ZjI3Mzk1MGY3YWZiZjM1ZTgyZDU" type="external">a failed attempt</a> by the US military to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora, a mountainous region in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border—crucial for the years of war it could have spared the United States had it succeeded.</p>
<p>The Daily Beast has <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-02/osama-bin-laden-dead-read-longform-journalism-about-the-al-qaeda-terrorist/" type="external">a few more</a> suggested long reads on the subject.</p>
<p>So, what happens next?</p>
<p>While national security officials are saying bin Laden’s death and the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/02/cia-analyze-electronic-evidence-seized-bin-laden-compound/?cmpid=cmty_twitter_foxnews_cia-analyze-electronic-evidence-seized-bin-laden-compound" type="external">raid itself</a> have been important blows to al-Qaida, the consensus seems to be that the threat isn’t over. The New Yorker’s <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/notes-on-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden.html" type="external">Steve Coll writes</a> that while this is the first time al-Qaida will have to face a change in leadership, it’s also a decentralized network—essentially an ideology—that can’t be dismantled by just picking off the leaders.</p>
<p>Foreign Policy has a <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/02/spinning_osama?page=full" type="external">useful guide</a> to all the major arguments being made about the implications of bin Laden’s death; the Atlantic has a good selection of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/bin-laden" type="external">post-bin Laden analysis and predictions</a>; and the New York Times has a Room for Debate segment on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/02/the-war-on-terror-after-osama-bin-laden?ref=opinion" type="external">what comes next in the war on terror</a>.</p>
<p>Al Jazeera has a piece with <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/05/20115214431590378.html" type="external">reactions from Afghan officials and residents</a>, some of whom fear for the long-term stability of the region if NATO and US forces leave. The Guardian has a guide to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/may/02/al-qaida-osama-bin-laden?CMP=twt_gu" type="external">bin Laden’s inner circle</a>, a potential roadmap of who’s next in line.</p>
<p>For following all the developments, <a href="http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/asia/live-blog-death-bin-laden" type="external">Al Jazeera</a> and the <a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/latest-updates-on-the-death-of-bin-laden/?hp#reporters-get-closer-to-bin-laden-compound" type="external">New York Times</a> have live blogs going, and Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel is <a href="http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/" type="external">continually rolling out analysis</a>.</p> | true | 4 | elsewhere mother jones david corn analyzes political gamble obama took authorizing attack dave gilson breaks numbers behind expensive manhunt history josh harkinson rounds ten ways right spinning bin ladens death adam weinstein reports reactions bin ladens supporters well activeduty soldiers stephanie mencimer checks tea party mike mechanic pulls together slideshow major daily front pages pete marovichzumathis post first appeared propublica website death osama bin laden sent news organizations scrambling details happened happened means weve rounded best coverage careful note whats said whats already disputed still remains seen 160 found wanted man world new york times vivid account hunt bin laden weeks leading strike dialogue straight situation room operation unfolded specific trail intelligence associated press traces detainees cias secret network prisons guantanamo provided clues trusted courier ultimately led united states bin ladens hideaway ap cites former officials asserting khalid sheikh mohammed 911 mastermind waterboarded discussing courier though still leaves unanswered interrogation methods used tipgiving detaineesmany havent identified heres interrogation file one detainee may proved useful file abu allibi contained early clue whereabouts bin laden courier abbottabad 160 actually know operation whats still fuzzy accounts bin laden operation point cite background briefings white house transcripts interesting details provide details officials skirt around heres yesterdays todays many blowbyblows bin laden operation still fairly sketchy obama administration officials already appear backing away earlier descriptions circumstances surrounding bin ladens death instance early claims bin laden armed time death used wife human shield since contradicted officials politico reported given slates jack shafer mustread pointing several instances vague sourcing inconsistencies coverage bin laden story course taken skepticism step veered conspiracy theories seizing sea burial timing presidents announcement suspicious slate sea burial unusual administration said considering releasing photo bin ladens body videos raid burial put suspicions rest joint special operations command whose elite team navy seals executed operation costs country 1 billion annually according national journal despite personnel involved abuse prisoners rendition jsoc operated without much scrutiny since 911read piece helpful context 160 town found abbottabad abbottabad north islamabad less mile away pakistani military academythe pakistani equivalent west point noted propublicas scott klein mapped useful people follow ground abbottabad cnns nic robertson nicrobertson time journalist omar waraich omar waraich consultant sohaib athar reallyvirtual man unwittingly livetweeted us operation unfolded since tweeting photos observations city new yorkers steve coll notes location raises serious questions pakistan knew whereabouts united states wanted man stretches credulity think mansion scale could built occupied bin laden six years without coming attention anyone pakistani army initial circumstantial evidence suggests opposite likelythat bin laden effectively housed pakistani state control pakistan deny seems safe predict perhaps convincing evidence ever surface prove case 160 pakistan knew obama administration paid lip service robust counterterrorism partnership pakistan also said planned executed operation without pakistans prior knowledge pakistans ministry foreign affairs said us helicopters entered pakistani airspace making use blind spots radar coverage pakistan also maintained idea bin laden abbottabad foreign policy roundup pakistani officials past denials bin laden could hiding country unnamed pakistani intelligence official told bbc theyre embarrassed werent able find bin laden though raided abbottabad compound construction 2003 radar since white house press briefing yesterday afternoon obamas chief counterterrorism adviser john brennan said bin laden must pakistani support though refused speculate might given high went relations united states pakistan complicated since 911the recently leaked gitmo files showed us officials suspicious pakistan years last week chairman joint chiefs staff publicly accused pakistani military supporting haqqani network wing taliban close ties alqaida weve covered pakistans intelligence service frenemy past cases last year laid evidence officers pakistans powerful intelligence service collaborated mumbai terrorist attacks mission also wasnt first time united states carried covert raid pakistan without alerting local officials look past us military operations pakistan recent years tensions grown details continue emerge good reporters experts follow twitter include national security reporter dafna linzer dafnalinzer times national security correspondent mark thompson mthompsontime national journals marc ambinder marcambinder authored one detailed early stories team killed bin laden 160 background bin laden followers new york times obituary bin laden six pagesa detailed retrospective founded alqaida check frontlines bin laden filesseems theres lot dig including chronology political life brief biography frontlines also airing show tonight band bin laden loyalists afghanistan cia kill raids pakistan new evidence secret pakistani support elements taliban new yorkers 2005 piece bin laden several interviews former schoolmates childhood radicalization years several pieces written us trail osama going cold including jane mayers 2003 piece new yorker washington posts 2006 piece peter bergen writing new republic 2009 gives account failed attempt us military capture bin laden tora bora mountainous region afghanistan near pakistani bordercrucial years war could spared united states succeeded daily beast suggested long reads subject happens next national security officials saying bin ladens death raid important blows alqaida consensus seems threat isnt new yorkers steve coll writes first time alqaida face change leadership also decentralized networkessentially ideologythat cant dismantled picking leaders foreign policy useful guide major arguments made implications bin ladens death atlantic good selection postbin laden analysis predictions new york times room debate segment comes next war terror al jazeera piece reactions afghan officials residents fear longterm stability region nato us forces leave guardian guide bin ladens inner circle potential roadmap whos next line following developments al jazeera new york times live blogs going foreign policys afpak channel continually rolling analysis | 881 |
<p>Today, Democrats go to the polls in ten states. With 865 pledged delegates at stake in the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses — along with an additional 150 superdelegates — today’s contests will determine about 23 percent of the total delegates to the Democratic National Convention in July, where the party’s nominee will ultimately be decided.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton leads in almost every state except Massachusetts, Colorado, and Vermont, enjoying especially high support in southern states like Georgia and Alabama. The other exception is Oklahoma, where Clinton and Bernie Sanders are virtually tied. Two weeks ago, <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/02/clinton-leads-in-10-of-12-early-march-primaries-benefits-from-overwhelming-black-support.html" type="external">polls</a> reported that Sanders was projected to receive 44 percent of the vote, just a couple&#160;points behind Clinton’s 46 percent — well within the margin of error. Polls released yesterday <a href="http://www.monmouth.edu/assets/0/32212254770/32212254991/32212254992/32212254994/32212254995/30064771087/493ca395-91a3-466e-83f0-8c006dbfaa1e.pdf" type="external">show</a> a five-point lead for Sanders — 48 percent to Clinton’s 43, with 8 percent undecided — but this difference also falls within the margin of error.</p>
<p>Politically, there’s much to distinguish the two presidential contenders. Clinton represents the conservative mainstream of the Democratic Party, while Sanders’s campaign has been likened to an insurrection within party ranks. While&#160;Sanders proposes ambitious reforms like single-payer health care and free higher education, Clinton promises a continuation of Obama administration policies, emphasizing her political savvy and experience as secretary of state.</p>
<p>But one issue in particular may play a central role in determining how people vote in today’s contests: hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — a controversial oil and natural gas extraction method that ruins drinking water, causes earthquakes, and releases potent methane gas into the atmosphere. Fracking accounts for 43 percent of US oil production and produces 67 percent of the country’s natural gas, generating billions of dollars in revenue for American energy companies each year.</p>
<p>Sanders is the only presidential candidate who is opposed to fracking. His platform calls for a nationwide moratorium modelled on the fracking ban already in effect in his home state of Vermont. Clinton, on the other hand, has <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-johnson/on-eve-of-caucuses-clinto_b_9117712.html" type="external">accepted billions</a> from the same natural gas companies that profit from this environmentally devastating process. And, as secretary of state, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron" type="external">she lobbied</a> other world governments to allow fracking within their borders, clearing the path for American firms such as&#160;Chevron to sign lucrative overseas contracts.</p>
<p>Like the GOP presidential contenders, Clinton <a href="http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clinton-fueling-americas-energy-future/" type="external">wants to expand fracking</a>. Sanders wants to abolish it.</p>
<p>In the build-up to today’s contests, Sanders mounted a late-in-the-game offensive in three states — Oklahoma, Colorado, and Minnesota. Each of these states has been severely affected by the fracking industry in recent years, a reality not lost on the democratic socialist candidate.</p>
<p>The Sanders campaign allocated a portion of its tightly rationed television budget to run <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLKafDlKC2Q&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">anti-fracking ad</a>s in Colorado and Minnesota. And while visiting Oklahoma on Friday, the Sanders campaign released a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/26/sanders-rips-clinton-for-donations-from-those-who-would-profit-off-the-destruction-of-the-planet/" type="external">statement</a> putting his position on fracking in the starkest terms possible. After noting&#160;a recent Clinton fundraiser organized by a group of fracking investors, the statement included the following quote from Sanders: “I do not support fracking. I don’t need money from hedge fund managers and I don’t want money from those who profit off of the destruction of our planet.”</p>
<p>Sanders’s principled opposition to fracking resonates with his broader critique of inequality in American society. Fracking enriches energy companies and their investors while jeopardizing the wellbeing&#160;of ordinary people, as Sanders pointed out in a statement referencing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LBjSXWQRV8" type="external">flammable water</a> and the wave of fracking-related earthquakes in Oklahoma.</p>
<p>There were 907 earthquakes above a three-point magnitude in Oklahoma last year, up from only two before fracking activity began in earnest in 2009. And the earthquakes show no signs of stopping or slowing down — there have been more than three hundred&#160;in the state since the start of this year, averaging more than five a day. <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/oklahoma-earthquakes-linked-fracking-study" type="external">Several studies</a> have linked the wave of earthquakes to fracking, suggesting that the injection of wastewater fluids into underground disposal wells has the effect of lubricating subterranean faults, which, in turn, produces increased seismic activity.</p>
<p>Oklahomans have come forward to <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/town-hall-meeting-about-oklahoma-earthquakes-gets-heated/" type="external">express their outrage</a>, voicing concerns about property damage and compromised safety.&#160;Class action <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/12/3738417/oklahoma-earthquake-residents-lawsuit/" type="external">lawsuits</a> filed last month in several Oklahoma counties take aim at energy companies, reporting structural damage to homes and alleging that wastewater injection constitutes an “ultrahazardous activity.”</p>
<p>In Colorado — where recent polls show Sanders with a slight&#160;lead — citizen advocates have successfully pushed for some of the strongest industrial disclosure laws in the country to combat irresponsible frackers. Colorado currently has more than 45,000 drill sites, despite growing <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_28580729/anti-fracking-group-colorado-challenges-state-commission" type="external">popular opposition</a> to their installation. In 2013, widespread flooding damaged pipelines and distributed fracking pollutants all over the state.</p>
<p>In Minnesota, residents have raised concerns over silica mining, which releases carcinogens and demolishes entire hillsides of quartz with explosives and other highly invasive mining techniques. Colloquially known as “frac sand,” the coarse sediment is combined with a chemical cocktail which is then injected into underground shale, fracturing it and releasing the natural gas underneath. Minnesota’s mines satisfy the massive demand for frac sand in nearby North Dakota and other energy-rich regions across the country.</p>
<p>Hydraulic fracturing has economic as well as ecological effects. The industry is associated with a boom-and-bust production cycle, in which millions of dollars in new investments are poured into gas-rich regions only to be abruptly extracted when the profits dry up.</p>
<p>People once flocked to fracking hubs in North Dakota seeking employment; now workers increasingly find themselves <a href="http://www.alternet.org/fracking/fracking-towns-desperate-laid-workers-they-dont-tell-you-its-all-lie" type="external">laid off and destitute</a>, with some even sleeping in their trucks or in utility sheds. In western Pennsylvania, a recent downturn in fracking activity has caused a <a href="http://triblive.com/business/headlines/9791824-74/foreclosures-energy-housing#axzz3xKDkYAvf" type="external">spike in home foreclosures</a> in several of the state’s impoverished rural counties.</p>
<p>More troubling still, the predatory land speculation that goes hand in hand with fracking has been responsible for the demolition of trailer parks and the <a href="http://wnep.com/2012/06/13/pipeline-construction-starts-at-riverdale-mobile-home-park/" type="external">displacement of their residents</a>. Despite legal protections for locals who lease portions of their property to gas drillers, many cash-poor landowners have been <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/11/3731125/fracking-may-have-defrauded-thousands/" type="external">cheated</a> out of the gas royalties to which they’re entitled.</p>
<p>Fracking generates billions of dollars in profits each year, but almost none of that makes it back to the communities where the oil or natural gas originated. Instead, energy companies get richer while local residents are left to deal with the consequences — including economic downturns and polluted water sources.</p>
<p>Sanders has drawn a line in the sand in battleground states like Oklahoma and Colorado, sharply distinguishing himself from his fracking-friendly opponents. And this position could have effects beyond Super Tuesday, as his message may resonate with primary voters in other key states — like <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/science/earth/youngstown-injection-well-stays-shut-after-earthquake.html?_r=1" type="external">Ohio</a>, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia — who have witnessed the ecological and economic degradation caused by hydraulic fracturing.</p>
<p>Over the course of this election season, the Sanders campaign’s attention to environmental issues has forced Clinton to tack left on several issues — including the Keystone XL pipeline and Arctic drilling — in an effort to maintain her hold on environmentally concerned members of the Democratic base.</p>
<p>But Clinton’s connections to oil and gas interests are too strong for her to drift even more to the left on this issue — she has gone no further than to suggest lukewarm reforms like raising gas extraction rates on public land and introducing automatic safety valves to help prevent fracking-related methane leaks. Ultimately, this is where Clinton’s liberal environmentalism breaks down.</p>
<p>For Clinton, the environmental crisis is a special-interest issue, best solved gradually through technological innovation and clever policy changes aimed at encouraging increased investment in clean energy. But Sanders’s wholesale opposition to fracking demonstrates a robust environmentalism, connected to his alternative economic vision.</p>
<p>Sanders recognizes the problem for what it is, getting to its root by pointing out the <a href="" type="internal">disproportionate wealth and power</a> of energy companies relative to the communities they affect. Environmentally degrading practices like fracking generate tremendous wealth for some while contributing to the economic precarity of many, threatening ordinary people’s access to necessities like water and forcing the public to foot the bill for costly clean-ups and restorative programs.</p>
<p>Fracking has no place in the more equitable economy Sanders and his supporters envision. And today, as Democrats go to the polls, voters in Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Colorado may affirm that fracking has no place in the future they envision either.</p> | true | 4 | today democrats go polls ten states 865 pledged delegates stake super tuesday primaries caucuses along additional 150 superdelegates todays contests determine 23 percent total delegates democratic national convention july partys nominee ultimately decided hillary clinton leads almost every state except massachusetts colorado vermont enjoying especially high support southern states like georgia alabama exception oklahoma clinton bernie sanders virtually tied two weeks ago polls reported sanders projected receive 44 percent vote couple160points behind clintons 46 percent well within margin error polls released yesterday show fivepoint lead sanders 48 percent clintons 43 8 percent undecided difference also falls within margin error politically theres much distinguish two presidential contenders clinton represents conservative mainstream democratic party sanderss campaign likened insurrection within party ranks while160sanders proposes ambitious reforms like singlepayer health care free higher education clinton promises continuation obama administration policies emphasizing political savvy experience secretary state one issue particular may play central role determining people vote todays contests hydraulic fracturing fracking controversial oil natural gas extraction method ruins drinking water causes earthquakes releases potent methane gas atmosphere fracking accounts 43 percent us oil production produces 67 percent countrys natural gas generating billions dollars revenue american energy companies year sanders presidential candidate opposed fracking platform calls nationwide moratorium modelled fracking ban already effect home state vermont clinton hand accepted billions natural gas companies profit environmentally devastating process secretary state lobbied world governments allow fracking within borders clearing path american firms as160chevron sign lucrative overseas contracts like gop presidential contenders clinton wants expand fracking sanders wants abolish buildup todays contests sanders mounted lateinthegame offensive three states oklahoma colorado minnesota states severely affected fracking industry recent years reality lost democratic socialist candidate sanders campaign allocated portion tightly rationed television budget run antifracking ads colorado minnesota visiting oklahoma friday sanders campaign released statement putting position fracking starkest terms possible noting160a recent clinton fundraiser organized group fracking investors statement included following quote sanders support fracking dont need money hedge fund managers dont want money profit destruction planet sanderss principled opposition fracking resonates broader critique inequality american society fracking enriches energy companies investors jeopardizing wellbeing160of ordinary people sanders pointed statement referencing flammable water wave frackingrelated earthquakes oklahoma 907 earthquakes threepoint magnitude oklahoma last year two fracking activity began earnest 2009 earthquakes show signs stopping slowing three hundred160in state since start year averaging five day several studies linked wave earthquakes fracking suggesting injection wastewater fluids underground disposal wells effect lubricating subterranean faults turn produces increased seismic activity oklahomans come forward express outrage voicing concerns property damage compromised safety160class action lawsuits filed last month several oklahoma counties take aim energy companies reporting structural damage homes alleging wastewater injection constitutes ultrahazardous activity colorado recent polls show sanders slight160lead citizen advocates successfully pushed strongest industrial disclosure laws country combat irresponsible frackers colorado currently 45000 drill sites despite growing popular opposition installation 2013 widespread flooding damaged pipelines distributed fracking pollutants state minnesota residents raised concerns silica mining releases carcinogens demolishes entire hillsides quartz explosives highly invasive mining techniques colloquially known frac sand coarse sediment combined chemical cocktail injected underground shale fracturing releasing natural gas underneath minnesotas mines satisfy massive demand frac sand nearby north dakota energyrich regions across country hydraulic fracturing economic well ecological effects industry associated boomandbust production cycle millions dollars new investments poured gasrich regions abruptly extracted profits dry people flocked fracking hubs north dakota seeking employment workers increasingly find laid destitute even sleeping trucks utility sheds western pennsylvania recent downturn fracking activity caused spike home foreclosures several states impoverished rural counties troubling still predatory land speculation goes hand hand fracking responsible demolition trailer parks displacement residents despite legal protections locals lease portions property gas drillers many cashpoor landowners cheated gas royalties theyre entitled fracking generates billions dollars profits year almost none makes back communities oil natural gas originated instead energy companies get richer local residents left deal consequences including economic downturns polluted water sources sanders drawn line sand battleground states like oklahoma colorado sharply distinguishing frackingfriendly opponents position could effects beyond super tuesday message may resonate primary voters key states like ohio pennsylvania west virginia witnessed ecological economic degradation caused hydraulic fracturing course election season sanders campaigns attention environmental issues forced clinton tack left several issues including keystone xl pipeline arctic drilling effort maintain hold environmentally concerned members democratic base clintons connections oil gas interests strong drift even left issue gone suggest lukewarm reforms like raising gas extraction rates public land introducing automatic safety valves help prevent frackingrelated methane leaks ultimately clintons liberal environmentalism breaks clinton environmental crisis specialinterest issue best solved gradually technological innovation clever policy changes aimed encouraging increased investment clean energy sanderss wholesale opposition fracking demonstrates robust environmentalism connected alternative economic vision sanders recognizes problem getting root pointing disproportionate wealth power energy companies relative communities affect environmentally degrading practices like fracking generate tremendous wealth contributing economic precarity many threatening ordinary peoples access necessities like water forcing public foot bill costly cleanups restorative programs fracking place equitable economy sanders supporters envision today democrats go polls voters oklahoma minnesota colorado may affirm fracking place future envision either | 836 |
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<p>A friend once got a bit of a reputation by pointing out that “you don’t need the weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.” But you do need a demographer to know which way the Jews are going.</p>
<p>Some readers will recall the journalistic hockey brawl in the NY Times over the National Jewish Population Survey 2000/2001, partially released in October 2002. Now the full survey is out, but the sticks are still flying, and the penalty box is full.</p>
<p>J. J. Goldberg, editor of Forward, the leading ‘Jewish community’ weekly, contributed an op-ed to the 9/17 Times, denouncing “flawed figures.” James Tisch, chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, replied in the 9/22 issue, defending their numbers against “critics” who “try in vain to ascribe to us ulterior motives.”</p>
<p>If gentile readers were confused about the furor, they will be comforted in knowing that most Jews likewise don’t grasp the underlying issues. But valid stats are crucial to a scientific understanding of the evolution of American Jewry. And with the US military all over the Middle East, and Palestine/Israel certain to be a priority concern in the forthcoming presidential election, universal misunderstanding of the status of Jewry in modern America can have fatal consequences for Palestinians, Israelis and Americans.</p>
<p>The best way for us to start is with the reader estimating the percentage of Americans who are Jews. Got your number? Now the scholars’ calculations. Their figures sit between 2.2% and 2.5%. Now compare your estimate and these figures with the guesses put forth by Americans in a 3/90 Gallup poll.</p>
<p>Twenty-four percent had no opinion. Beyond them, the average American thought that America was 18% Jewish.</p>
<p>That broke down to eight percent of Americans thinking that Jews are less than 5% of the people, 10% saying that Jews are between 5% and 9%, 25% believing that Jews are between 10% and 19%, 18% estimating that Jews are between 20% and 29%, 12% coming up with between 30% and 49%, and 3% reckoning that Jews are 50% — or more! — of all Americans.</p>
<p>Pretty wild? But why should gentile Americans know better? Their guesses are based on what they see. Turn on the TV, go to the movies, pick up a newspaper, follow an election, and in every case Jewish involvement is far above 2.5%.</p>
<p>It is much more shocking that most Jewish estimates are also surreal. Here are the numbers given by American Jews in a 3/98 poll, done nationally by the LA Times.</p>
<p>Twelve percent of our Jews think they are 2% of Americans, 13% think Jews are 3%, and 11% say they don’t know, which is also a ‘proper’ answer. But 7% of America’s Jews think they are 1% of Americans. Five percent of the Jews thought Jews are 4%. Ten percent of the Jews said they are 5%. Eighteen percent believed Jews are 6-10%. Six percent estimated our Jews to be 11-15%, and 18% of America’s Jews projected themselves as over 15% of the population, a whopping margin of error of over 600%.</p>
<p>So, where did those delicious Jewish overestimations come from? Jews know the country is overwhelmingly Protestant, and that the Jewish percentage is much smaller than the Catholics. But they watch the same TV, go to the same movies, etc. Thus, while their numbers aren’t as stratospheric as most gentiles, they likewise tend to be on the high side.</p>
<p>There are two reasons for the Jewish miscalculations. They fall into two broad categories, religious and non-religious. Pious Jews may or may not read the Bible, but the overwhelming majority definitely don’t read much about the mundane history of Judaism since biblical times. And while atheists and agnostics know enough about their ex-religion’s follies to justify abandoning it, once they bail out they usually lose interest in its evolution.</p>
<p>To be sure, many Jews, nationally, read the NY Times, which ran stories on the 1990 NJPS and the 2000-1 follow-up. Atheists might read an article about a bombing in Israel, but they often ignore articles about Judaism as a religion as they see it as not worth reading about. And most religious Jews don’t read the Times or the community weeklies which sit, for the most part unbought, on newsstands in their neighborhoods.</p>
<p>The scholars, real and alleged, argue over the absolute number of Jews because the US census doesn’t count people by religion and it doesn’t accept ‘Jewish’ as an ethnic category. While the contested figures range from 5.2 million in the 2000-1 Survey, to a high of 6.7 million give by a few dissenters, the blood really flows over the intermarriage rate.</p>
<p>The 1990 Survey reported a 52% intermarriage rate. The latest survey reports that “the intermarriage rate for Jews who have married since 1996 is 47%. Differences between intermarriage rates … are due to differences between the “born Jewish” definition used for the 1990 analysis and the “currently Jewish” definition used in this report.”</p>
<p>They say that 1990 NJPS researchers “calculated and presented an intermarriage rate for ‘born Jews,’ a category that included those they considered Jewish at the time of the survey and some they considered non-Jewish, including non-Jews who had been born to at least one Jewish parent and were raised in a non-Jewish religion.”</p>
<p>They admit further on that “In the current survey, applying the broad “born Jews” definition to people whose marriages began in 1991-95 and since 1996 yields intermarriage rates of 53% and 54%, respectively.”</p>
<p>To understand their distinctions between “born Jews” and “currently Jewish,” you must appreciate the sociological law which, as I’m its discoverer, I call, with my customary modesty, Brenner’s law: All religions lie about how many followers they have, and all left wing groups lie about how many people came to their last demonstration. Indeed, more paper has been wasted on debates over who is a Jew than on any other topic, including who really is a Trotskyist.</p>
<p>Today, with the enormous intermarriage rate, the Jewish establishment can’t face reality. They know that “slightly more than a fifth of Jewish adults who were raised by two Jewish parents are intermarried. In contrast, nearly three-quarters of Jewish adults with just one Jewish parent are intermarried. In other words, Jewish adults who are the children of intermarriages are more than three times as likely to be married to non-Jews themselves. At the same time, among those who had intermarried parents, a Jewish upbringing reduces the rate of intermarriage. Almost 60% of Jewish adults who were raised Jewish by intermarried parents are themselves intermarried, compared to 86% of their counterparts who had intermarried parents but were not raised Jewish by them.”</p>
<p>So they stopped counting adults who convert to another monotheistic religion as Jews, and don’t put kids of intermarried Jews, who aren’t raised Jewish, in their ‘current Jews’ category, and, lo presto, they come up with the 47% figure.</p>
<p>Serious scholars find this grotesque. Bob Dylan, my friend mentioned above, converted to Christianity. But many pollsters consider him to be the most famous Jew of his generation. Subsequently, Bob oriented towards Menachem Schneersohn, the late Lubavicher ‘rebbe,’ who most members of his Orthodox sub-sect believe to be the messiah, hovering over his grave in New York, eventually to come back again. It would be unworkable for demographers tracking the evolution of Jewry to drop Bob from their rolls of Jewry because he became a Jesus freak, and then put him back, but as a convert from Christianity.</p>
<p>When doing scientific surveys of religions, races, nationalities, the standard rule is ‘all’s fish that comes into the net.’ T. S. Elliot became a British citizen, but every literary critic correctly lists him as an American poet.</p>
<p>The intermarriage rate has become such an obsession with the Jewish honchos that they overlook an even more ominous stat. Eight out of 10 Jews living with a sexual partner without benefit of clergy is sleeping with a non-Jew. But in their formalistic minds, ‘only’ 47%, for marriages, means that they are still in business, if in deep trouble, whereas if a majority of kids with at least one born Jewish parent intermarry, and the rest are shacking up with gentiles, “organized Jewry,” as their journals call them, is unmistakably little more than the dirty ring in the bathtub after the water is gone down the drain.</p>
<p>For all their abracadabras, Judaism is well and truly shriveling up, everywhere except in Israel, and it doesn’t matter what intermarriage percentage they concoct. Intermarriage is a symptom of the collapse of Jewry, not its cause.</p>
<p>The 1st colonial American Jews, known as the Sephardim, of Portuguese and Spanish descent, in time intermarried and converted to Christianity, as did most of the 1st colonial Ashkenazis, meaning German and Eastern European Jews. In the 19th century, almost 200,000 German Jews came here. About 60,000 converted in that century. By now, most of the rest have intermarried, tho not necessarily converted, and have no connection to organized Jewry.</p>
<p>From 1881 and the 1st czarist pogroms, thru to 1921, when the US established immigration quotas, to keep out Jews and other undesirables, a minority of Ashkenazis from the Russian empire came here already Marxist atheists. They still considered themselves Jews because they spoke Yiddish, which only Jews spoke. Once here, they recruited other immigrants to leftist atheism.</p>
<p>In the 30s, another minority of American-born Jews became Communists. They also saw themselves as Jews because most lived in Jewish neighborhoods, and most married atheist Jews. Moreover anti-Semitism was still a force here, and they were considered Jews by the larger American public. But most of their descendants, usually no longer leftists, are completely assimilated</p>
<p>Today things are significantly different. Many young Jews grow up in ‘white’ suburbs, mixed in with gentiles. They don’t know a word of Yiddish. They go to school with and then work with gentiles. Most of them never encounter anti-Semitism. This is the sociological basis for the intermarriage wave.</p>
<p>Their great-grandparents came here ‘Orthodox,’ now only 9.7% of our Jews, by the NJPS numbers, even less in other surveys. Orthodoxy segregates women in a separate section of the synagogue. Only men can be rabbis. Everyone keeps the kosher laws, no pork, shrimp, etc. Somewhere along the line most of their families abandoned Orthodoxy for either the ‘Conservative’ sect, 15.2%, with its synagogues having local option on segregation and women rabbis, or ‘Reform,’ 17.4%. They have complete gender equality and now have some gay rabbis. They also have, according to rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, an intermarriage rate of “60% to 70%.”</p>
<p>Even if they went to Hebrew school after their day in public school, after their bar mitzvah, their initiation into theological adulthood, at 13, most drop away from any form of Jewish identification. Some of the consequences were described by Reform’s Michael Myers in “Beyond Survival and Philanthropy,” a book based on a symposium in Israel, re the disintegration of American Jewry:</p>
<p>“Host cultures, especially that of America, represent a more serious threat to our collective Jewish existence than ever before. Not only are Jews more socially acceptable then ever in the past, but so is Judaism. The problem is that Jewish tradition is seen as narrow and prejudiced the moment it makes any claim to exclusivity, the moment it makes any claim to superiority.”</p>
<p>Two contributors, Steven Cohen and Charles Liebman, presented the problem from a Zionist perspective:</p>
<p>“After all, if all people are to be treated equally without regard to race, religion, national origin, sex, and most recently, sexual preference, how can American Jews feel totally comfortable in maintaining a special relationship with, let alone granting preference to, Israelis?</p>
<p>The end result of the process of de facto assimilation is expressed in a host of stats from the 2000-1 NJPS, and from the American Jewish Identity Survey-2001, done at the Center for Jewish Studies at City University of New York. The latter is based on the methodology of the 1990 NJPS and is more reliable than the 2000-1 NJPS, compromised as it is by sugarcoating facts to please the establishment.</p>
<p>According to the AJIS, “More Jews than most other Americans respond ‘None,’ when asked ‘What is your religion, if any?’…. Fewer Jews than members of most other American religious groups agree with the essential proposition of religious belief that ‘God exists.'” Twenty-seven percent of all Jews are uncertain or reject theism, with only 14% of Americans saying they have no religion. The AJIS reported that by 2001 only 51% still believed in some form of Judaism, a 12% decline since 1990. By my reckoning, by this writing, a majority of US Jews reject Judaism. Even the NJPS 2000-1 concedes that only 46% belong to synagogues. That minority divides up 39% Reform, 33% Conservative, 21% Orthodox, 7% other types.</p>
<p>Inevitably the Zionist movement has been dramatically affected by the migrations into religious skepticism and intermarriage. A 1995 American Jewish Committee poll found only 22 percent of America’s Jews calling themselves Zionists, down from 90 percent in 1948. I haven’t found a later percentage figure, but, according to an article in New York’s May 2002 Jewish Post, the decline continues. In 1997, 107,802 votes were cast for American delegates to the World Zionist Congress. In 2002, 88,753 votes were cast.</p>
<p>Even that decline doesn’t tell the whole story of the movement’s decadence. Reform’s slate got 42.24% of the vote, the conservatives received 22.29% and the Orthodox slate garnered 20.23%. The American branch of the Israeli Labor Party got 2.2% and Meretz, a liberal ally of the LP received 3.96%. The rest went to tiny factions supporting Sharon’s ruling Likud Party.</p>
<p>Followers of the late terrorist, Meir Kahane, are not allowed to run in the elections, but they number a few dozen to a couple of hundred, at most. The most significant outside group are the Lubavitchers, who number about 15,000. They are major funders of the Likud and many New York Democrats and Republicans. When the rebbe was alive, a visit to him was a ritual stop for our politicians. Altho most Jews look upon the Lubavichers as the Jewish Amish, and have nothing to do with them, a photo op with Schneersohn meant you were ‘good for the Jews.’</p>
<p>The election percentages give an impression that is contradicted by visible reality. Everyone attending the annual NY Salute to Israel Day parade notices that almost all the men wear kippot, Hebrew for skull caps, which tells us that they are Orthodox. Reform and Conservative rabbis got their congregations to sign up for the election so that they could put pressure on the Israeli government to grant equality to their co-religionists there, who are not allowed to legally marry or divorce even their own followers. But the bulk of the voters do nothing more than vote.</p>
<p>The vote drop from 1997 to 2002 can be explained, in large part, by disenchantment over the fact that Israel didn’t do anything significant in the way granting them their rights. Reform Zionists have an ideology of ‘Jewish peoplehood,’ which ties them to Israel in spite of their getting nothing more than a kick in the teeth from the government. In case you haven’t noticed, most politicians, everywhere, operate on one principle. ‘If we don’t give the beggars what they want, what will they do to hurt us?’ Since the Reform rabbis will do nothing, they get nothing. But the penalty they and Zionism pay is that the bulk of Reform, especially the youth, are de facto non-Zionist. As Beyond Survival and Philanthropy delicately put it, US Jews “have such difficulty appreciating the virtual monopoly the Orthodox exercise over the meaning of Judaism in Israel.”</p>
<p>Our universities are disaster areas for Judaism and Zionism. Darwin and physics courses destroy most students lingering faith in the Old Testament. And the devil, taking the form of left-wing professors and the anti-war movement, does the rest. The 1/4/02 issue of Ha’ aretz, Israel’s liberal daily, reported that out of “about 400,000 Jewish students … only about 5 percent have any connection to the Jewish community.”</p>
<p>In many respects, the best illustration of Zionism’s increasing isolation are the tourist stats. According to the NJPS, “just over one-third of all American Jewish adults have been to Israel, (35%).” Ninety-two percent of all Jews have traveled abroad, but England and France outrank Israel as a destination. Altho Reform’s members are the most affluent of the 3 groups, they are least likely to go to Israel.</p>
<p>We see this again with immigration to Israel. Most of the true believers who go there to live, and especially the ones who actually stay, are Orthodox.</p>
<p>It is characteristic of the NJPS that it didn’t ask a direct question, ‘are you a Zionist?’ Instead it asked vague questions as to emotional attachment, whether US and Israeli Jews shared a common destiny, etc.</p>
<p>“My people are American. My time is today.” George Gershwin, who was never even bar mitzvahed, said that in 1926. Its taken decades for the typical young Jew to get to that point, but that is the case today. And the assimilation process is a worldwide one, with intermarriage rates of over 50% in every country in the world except Israel and Australia, and even in that last country the rate is climbing.</p>
<p>Why then is the Zionist lobby so powerful when their own scholars write endlessly about the alienation of their youth from the movement? The answer is simple: the Jews are the richest ethnic or religious stratum in the US. Because their standard of living is so high, they are the most educated. Because they are the most educated, they are the most scientific oriented, hence most inclined towards atheism or religious skepticism. But the true believer minority still has an unbelievable amount of money to throw at the politicians.</p>
<p>In 1991, I interviewed Harold Seneker, then the editor of the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, for an article in The Nation. I told him that I found Jews, 2.2% of the population, to be about 25% of the 400. He told me that he thought this a success story, both for American capitalism and for the Jews, and that he wanted to write a story on it. But Forbes wouldn’t let him. The then publisher had gone thru the Hitler era, when talking about Jewish money was an anti-Semitic specialty.</p>
<p>This mentality is still common on the left as well, and it is wide spread among elderly Jews. Forbes, much of the left, and old Jews share what must be called a ‘folk Marxist’ mentality. Despite the differences in their politics, they all believe that history repeats itself. Someday there is going to be another 1929 Depression. The capitalists will, once again, call up central casting and get another Hitler to smash the left.</p>
<p>This is fantasy. Its a projection of the past, and Germany’s past at that, into America’s future. In reality, journalists constantly turn out articles for Zionist publications about how Jewish campaign contributors play a major role in funding both parties and, very rarely, the topic is touched on in the mainstream media. “The Political Future of American Jews,” a1985 American Jewish Congress pamphlet by Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, declared that “While there have been few reliable statistics on the subject — and some reluctance to gather any — the journalistic and anecdotal evidence is overwhelming that more than a majority of Democratic funds on a national level, and as much as a quarter of Republican funds have come from Jewish sources.” They were referring to private contributions, as was an article in the 1/5/93 NY Times announcing that “Jews contributed about 60 percent of Mr. Clinton’s noninstitutional campaign funds.”</p>
<p>My estimate is that 84 of the latest 400 are Jews. The magazine doesn’t list religious affiliations unless the person involved is distinctive in giving to religious charities, etc. And not all of the Jews are pro-Zionists. Some listees are among the educated disaffiliated we are discussing. But Zionist money is prodigious. James Tisch, chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations isn’t on the list, altho he is CEO of Loews Corp., listed on the Fortune 500 list. But daddy, Laurence, is, at $2 billion, and uncle Preston is worth $2.3 billion. His predecessors at the Conference were Ronald Lauder, $1.8 billion, and Mort Zuckerman, who struggles along with a penny ante $1.2 billion. Chaim Sabon, $1.7 billion, is a University of California regent. Mayhaps he got the job because he gave the Democrats the largest campaign contribution in American history?</p>
<p>Because of the establishment’s cover-up of the extent of the disintegration of organized Jewry, it is reasonable to think that most gentile politicians don’t realize it. But the Jewish pols do. And there is no reason to think that the gentiles would stop pandering to Zionists even if they understood that they are a shrinking minority among Jews.</p>
<p>Both major parties pick their candidates via primaries which any member can enter. So occasionally an honest Democrat or Republican is elected to congress and begins to criticize their party’s Israel über alles line. Usually it doesn’t take long before a tidal wave of Zionist cash pours in against them in the next election and out they go.</p>
<p>Some Arabs denounce Zionist funding, all day and all night, but there is no way of suppressing Zionist campaign contributions without doing away with the whole structure of privately funded campaigns, and they never talk about that. Many leftists don’t like to talk about it because of their fear of raising anti-Semitism. They want to talk about oil money. That’s fine. Any kid who they let cross streets alone knows that oil is the major reason that the US in so deeply involved in the Middle East. But that doesn’t explain why the two capitalist parties are so pro-Zionist. Indeed their pro-Zionism creates problems for them with the Arab masses. And it doesn’t explain why liberal Democrats are as zealous for Israel as the most fanatic Republican Christian Zionist.</p>
<p>If liberals constantly badmouths big business, they don’t get contributions from the major corporations. But Zionist money is single issue money. A liberal can dump on oil companies, or whatever, and he still gets a share of the Zionist gusher.</p>
<p>A personal experiences tell it all about liberals and Zionism. In 1971, the Vietnam-era National Peace Action Coalition asked me to draw in Eldon Clingen, the Liberal Party member of the New York City Council from Manhattan. We had been in the Socialist Party’s youth In the 1950s. He joined the Libs on assignment but subsequently involved himself in Democratic Party politics, without changing party registration. But, as he was “Mr. Clean Air” for his leadership in the anti-pollution effort, the Libs asked him to be their Council candidate.</p>
<p>He was pleased to get his Lib faction involved. We chatted. I mentioned that lower-case liberals, against war in Vietnam, shot passing Arabs, even camels, to get Jewish votes.</p>
<p>“Oh, you have me wrong. I’m of Christian descent, and when I think of the terrible things Christians have done to Jews, I say I can’t do enough for the Jews.”</p>
<p>I told him that the next time he called for more ‘enough’ for Israel, he should write a check to me because, although I’m a Jew, I don’t get any of that ‘enough.’</p>
<p>“OK, I’ll tell it like it is: In order for a liberal — and I mean a lower-case liberal — to win in New York, he must have the Black, Puerto Rican and Jewish votes because he can’t get the Irish or Italian vote. They are locked away with the right-wing. But Blacks and Puerto Ricans don’t give us money. So don’t tell me about terrible things Israelis are doing to Palestinians. It would upset me. But I’m not going to break with my meal ticket.”</p>
<p>The moral of the story is that, while it is crucial to talk about oil industry domination of US foreign policy, it is just as crucial to talk about Zionist funding and its enormous influence on domestic politics. The discussion of both factors must be within a context of insisting that ordinary Americans, Jew or gentile, are fools if they continue to support parties that are so obviously funded by the rich.</p>
<p>Far from being afraid of discussing Zionist funding, it should be a major point in any critique of private contributions. Jews are less than 2.5% of the people. Zionists are now considerably less than 22% of all Jews. (My current estimate is ca. 10%.) And rich campaign contributors are a minority of Zionists. Yet we have an overwhelmingly gentile Congress that is emphatically more pro-Zionist than the majority of Jews.</p>
<p>Far from being a diversion of public attention from the capitalist nature of American politics, as some leftists fear, talking about Zionist money is one of the best ways of making that point. Because of the civil rights struggle and other battles, equality for all races, religions, nationalities, has become part of the broad American value system. Because of this, my percentage estimate of the Jewish proportion of the 400 richest Americans, which, trust me on this, is shared by serious scholars, has an automatic tendency to shock. But isn’t capitalism is about inequality? It is absurd to think that a system that sanctifies inequality could be egalitarian in the ethno-religious distribution of wealth.</p>
<p>All that is necessary to make the important point that it isn’t Jewish contributions but Zionist slush that is offensive, is to cite the fact that we now can see that the Zionists are a minority of Jews. Talk about the oil industry and Zionist contributions at the same time, and people will get the correct idea that we are trying to explain a complex problem in detail.</p>
<p>Let’s go further. What US support for Israel and support for Saudi Arabia additionally have in common is that both regimes are theocratic states. An atheist of Jewish background should be concerned if we talked about Israel and didn’t talk about Saudi Arabia. So the moral of the story is talk about both. Additionally, everyone now sees a growing alliance between the Zionist establishment and the so-called Christian Zionists. These fanatics support Israel because of their lunatic notion that the creation of Israel means that Christ is coming, any minute now, to save a Christian America, and send all those atheist Jews, and atheist gentiles, to hell. Hitherto, the Jewish establishment could at least be relied on to resist attempts to convert America into a ‘Christian’ government. But, with the new alliance on foreign policy, that resistance is getting weaker and weaker. The Christian right now reasonably expects an increase in Zionist votes and funding for their candidates. Indeed it is a central tenet of Jewish neo-con politics that it is unreasonable to expect perpetual Christian Zionist support for Israel, unless they get something back in return.</p>
<p>In other words, we are now in a complex political crisis with profound domestic and international consequences. A complex situation can’t be dealt with in a one-sided manner. We have no choice but to examine all parts of the situation. If we denounce all the criminals, Americans, Arabs, Christians, Israelis, Jews, Muslims, for their crimes, from a democratic secular perspective, in a scientific manner, the Zionists and their Democratic and Republican patrons can say anything they want. An educated public will see that we don’t want to deny anyone their rights. On the contrary, they will see that we want to extend human equality and secularism, here and in the Middle East.</p>
<p>LENNI BRENNER is editor of <a href="" type="internal">51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis</a>, and a contributor to CounterPunch’s new book <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Bookshop.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a> (AK Press). Brenner will be one of the featured speakers, along with Alex Cockburn and Jeffrey Blankfort, at <a href="events.html" type="external">the CounterPunch forum on the book in Berkeley on October 19</a>. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | 160 friend got bit reputation pointing dont need weatherman know way wind blowing need demographer know way jews going readers recall journalistic hockey brawl ny times national jewish population survey 20002001 partially released october 2002 full survey sticks still flying penalty box full j j goldberg editor forward leading jewish community weekly contributed oped 917 times denouncing flawed figures james tisch chair conference presidents major american jewish organizations replied 922 issue defending numbers critics try vain ascribe us ulterior motives gentile readers confused furor comforted knowing jews likewise dont grasp underlying issues valid stats crucial scientific understanding evolution american jewry us military middle east palestineisrael certain priority concern forthcoming presidential election universal misunderstanding status jewry modern america fatal consequences palestinians israelis americans best way us start reader estimating percentage americans jews got number scholars calculations figures sit 22 25 compare estimate figures guesses put forth americans 390 gallup poll twentyfour percent opinion beyond average american thought america 18 jewish broke eight percent americans thinking jews less 5 people 10 saying jews 5 9 25 believing jews 10 19 18 estimating jews 20 29 12 coming 30 49 3 reckoning jews 50 americans pretty wild gentile americans know better guesses based see turn tv go movies pick newspaper follow election every case jewish involvement far 25 much shocking jewish estimates also surreal numbers given american jews 398 poll done nationally la times twelve percent jews think 2 americans 13 think jews 3 11 say dont know also proper answer 7 americas jews think 1 americans five percent jews thought jews 4 ten percent jews said 5 eighteen percent believed jews 610 six percent estimated jews 1115 18 americas jews projected 15 population whopping margin error 600 delicious jewish overestimations come jews know country overwhelmingly protestant jewish percentage much smaller catholics watch tv go movies etc thus numbers arent stratospheric gentiles likewise tend high side two reasons jewish miscalculations fall two broad categories religious nonreligious pious jews may may read bible overwhelming majority definitely dont read much mundane history judaism since biblical times atheists agnostics know enough exreligions follies justify abandoning bail usually lose interest evolution sure many jews nationally read ny times ran stories 1990 njps 20001 followup atheists might read article bombing israel often ignore articles judaism religion see worth reading religious jews dont read times community weeklies sit part unbought newsstands neighborhoods scholars real alleged argue absolute number jews us census doesnt count people religion doesnt accept jewish ethnic category contested figures range 52 million 20001 survey high 67 million give dissenters blood really flows intermarriage rate 1990 survey reported 52 intermarriage rate latest survey reports intermarriage rate jews married since 1996 47 differences intermarriage rates due differences born jewish definition used 1990 analysis currently jewish definition used report say 1990 njps researchers calculated presented intermarriage rate born jews category included considered jewish time survey considered nonjewish including nonjews born least one jewish parent raised nonjewish religion admit current survey applying broad born jews definition people whose marriages began 199195 since 1996 yields intermarriage rates 53 54 respectively understand distinctions born jews currently jewish must appreciate sociological law im discoverer call customary modesty brenners law religions lie many followers left wing groups lie many people came last demonstration indeed paper wasted debates jew topic including really trotskyist today enormous intermarriage rate jewish establishment cant face reality know slightly fifth jewish adults raised two jewish parents intermarried contrast nearly threequarters jewish adults one jewish parent intermarried words jewish adults children intermarriages three times likely married nonjews time among intermarried parents jewish upbringing reduces rate intermarriage almost 60 jewish adults raised jewish intermarried parents intermarried compared 86 counterparts intermarried parents raised jewish stopped counting adults convert another monotheistic religion jews dont put kids intermarried jews arent raised jewish current jews category lo presto come 47 figure serious scholars find grotesque bob dylan friend mentioned converted christianity many pollsters consider famous jew generation subsequently bob oriented towards menachem schneersohn late lubavicher rebbe members orthodox subsect believe messiah hovering grave new york eventually come back would unworkable demographers tracking evolution jewry drop bob rolls jewry became jesus freak put back convert christianity scientific surveys religions races nationalities standard rule alls fish comes net elliot became british citizen every literary critic correctly lists american poet intermarriage rate become obsession jewish honchos overlook even ominous stat eight 10 jews living sexual partner without benefit clergy sleeping nonjew formalistic minds 47 marriages means still business deep trouble whereas majority kids least one born jewish parent intermarry rest shacking gentiles organized jewry journals call unmistakably little dirty ring bathtub water gone drain abracadabras judaism well truly shriveling everywhere except israel doesnt matter intermarriage percentage concoct intermarriage symptom collapse jewry cause 1st colonial american jews known sephardim portuguese spanish descent time intermarried converted christianity 1st colonial ashkenazis meaning german eastern european jews 19th century almost 200000 german jews came 60000 converted century rest intermarried tho necessarily converted connection organized jewry 1881 1st czarist pogroms thru 1921 us established immigration quotas keep jews undesirables minority ashkenazis russian empire came already marxist atheists still considered jews spoke yiddish jews spoke recruited immigrants leftist atheism 30s another minority americanborn jews became communists also saw jews lived jewish neighborhoods married atheist jews moreover antisemitism still force considered jews larger american public descendants usually longer leftists completely assimilated today things significantly different many young jews grow white suburbs mixed gentiles dont know word yiddish go school work gentiles never encounter antisemitism sociological basis intermarriage wave greatgrandparents came orthodox 97 jews njps numbers even less surveys orthodoxy segregates women separate section synagogue men rabbis everyone keeps kosher laws pork shrimp etc somewhere along line families abandoned orthodoxy either conservative sect 152 synagogues local option segregation women rabbis reform 174 complete gender equality gay rabbis also according rabbi arthur hertzberg intermarriage rate 60 70 even went hebrew school day public school bar mitzvah initiation theological adulthood 13 drop away form jewish identification consequences described reforms michael myers beyond survival philanthropy book based symposium israel disintegration american jewry host cultures especially america represent serious threat collective jewish existence ever jews socially acceptable ever past judaism problem jewish tradition seen narrow prejudiced moment makes claim exclusivity moment makes claim superiority two contributors steven cohen charles liebman presented problem zionist perspective people treated equally without regard race religion national origin sex recently sexual preference american jews feel totally comfortable maintaining special relationship let alone granting preference israelis end result process de facto assimilation expressed host stats 20001 njps american jewish identity survey2001 done center jewish studies city university new york latter based methodology 1990 njps reliable 20001 njps compromised sugarcoating facts please establishment according ajis jews americans respond none asked religion fewer jews members american religious groups agree essential proposition religious belief god exists twentyseven percent jews uncertain reject theism 14 americans saying religion ajis reported 2001 51 still believed form judaism 12 decline since 1990 reckoning writing majority us jews reject judaism even njps 20001 concedes 46 belong synagogues minority divides 39 reform 33 conservative 21 orthodox 7 types inevitably zionist movement dramatically affected migrations religious skepticism intermarriage 1995 american jewish committee poll found 22 percent americas jews calling zionists 90 percent 1948 havent found later percentage figure according article new yorks may 2002 jewish post decline continues 1997 107802 votes cast american delegates world zionist congress 2002 88753 votes cast even decline doesnt tell whole story movements decadence reforms slate got 4224 vote conservatives received 2229 orthodox slate garnered 2023 american branch israeli labor party got 22 meretz liberal ally lp received 396 rest went tiny factions supporting sharons ruling likud party followers late terrorist meir kahane allowed run elections number dozen couple hundred significant outside group lubavitchers number 15000 major funders likud many new york democrats republicans rebbe alive visit ritual stop politicians altho jews look upon lubavichers jewish amish nothing photo op schneersohn meant good jews election percentages give impression contradicted visible reality everyone attending annual ny salute israel day parade notices almost men wear kippot hebrew skull caps tells us orthodox reform conservative rabbis got congregations sign election could put pressure israeli government grant equality coreligionists allowed legally marry divorce even followers bulk voters nothing vote vote drop 1997 2002 explained large part disenchantment fact israel didnt anything significant way granting rights reform zionists ideology jewish peoplehood ties israel spite getting nothing kick teeth government case havent noticed politicians everywhere operate one principle dont give beggars want hurt us since reform rabbis nothing get nothing penalty zionism pay bulk reform especially youth de facto nonzionist beyond survival philanthropy delicately put us jews difficulty appreciating virtual monopoly orthodox exercise meaning judaism israel universities disaster areas judaism zionism darwin physics courses destroy students lingering faith old testament devil taking form leftwing professors antiwar movement rest 1402 issue ha aretz israels liberal daily reported 400000 jewish students 5 percent connection jewish community many respects best illustration zionisms increasing isolation tourist stats according njps onethird american jewish adults israel 35 ninetytwo percent jews traveled abroad england france outrank israel destination altho reforms members affluent 3 groups least likely go israel see immigration israel true believers go live especially ones actually stay orthodox characteristic njps didnt ask direct question zionist instead asked vague questions emotional attachment whether us israeli jews shared common destiny etc people american time today george gershwin never even bar mitzvahed said 1926 taken decades typical young jew get point case today assimilation process worldwide one intermarriage rates 50 every country world except israel australia even last country rate climbing zionist lobby powerful scholars write endlessly alienation youth movement answer simple jews richest ethnic religious stratum us standard living high educated educated scientific oriented hence inclined towards atheism religious skepticism true believer minority still unbelievable amount money throw politicians 1991 interviewed harold seneker editor forbes 400 list richest americans article nation told found jews 22 population 25 400 told thought success story american capitalism jews wanted write story forbes wouldnt let publisher gone thru hitler era talking jewish money antisemitic specialty mentality still common left well wide spread among elderly jews forbes much left old jews share must called folk marxist mentality despite differences politics believe history repeats someday going another 1929 depression capitalists call central casting get another hitler smash left fantasy projection past germanys past americas future reality journalists constantly turn articles zionist publications jewish campaign contributors play major role funding parties rarely topic touched mainstream media political future american jews a1985 american jewish congress pamphlet seymour martin lipset earl raab declared reliable statistics subject reluctance gather journalistic anecdotal evidence overwhelming majority democratic funds national level much quarter republican funds come jewish sources referring private contributions article 1593 ny times announcing jews contributed 60 percent mr clintons noninstitutional campaign funds estimate 84 latest 400 jews magazine doesnt list religious affiliations unless person involved distinctive giving religious charities etc jews prozionists listees among educated disaffiliated discussing zionist money prodigious james tisch chair conference presidents major jewish organizations isnt list altho ceo loews corp listed fortune 500 list daddy laurence 2 billion uncle preston worth 23 billion predecessors conference ronald lauder 18 billion mort zuckerman struggles along penny ante 12 billion chaim sabon 17 billion university california regent mayhaps got job gave democrats largest campaign contribution american history establishments coverup extent disintegration organized jewry reasonable think gentile politicians dont realize jewish pols reason think gentiles would stop pandering zionists even understood shrinking minority among jews major parties pick candidates via primaries member enter occasionally honest democrat republican elected congress begins criticize partys israel über alles line usually doesnt take long tidal wave zionist cash pours next election go arabs denounce zionist funding day night way suppressing zionist campaign contributions without away whole structure privately funded campaigns never talk many leftists dont like talk fear raising antisemitism want talk oil money thats fine kid let cross streets alone knows oil major reason us deeply involved middle east doesnt explain two capitalist parties prozionist indeed prozionism creates problems arab masses doesnt explain liberal democrats zealous israel fanatic republican christian zionist liberals constantly badmouths big business dont get contributions major corporations zionist money single issue money liberal dump oil companies whatever still gets share zionist gusher personal experiences tell liberals zionism 1971 vietnamera national peace action coalition asked draw eldon clingen liberal party member new york city council manhattan socialist partys youth 1950s joined libs assignment subsequently involved democratic party politics without changing party registration mr clean air leadership antipollution effort libs asked council candidate pleased get lib faction involved chatted mentioned lowercase liberals war vietnam shot passing arabs even camels get jewish votes oh wrong im christian descent think terrible things christians done jews say cant enough jews told next time called enough israel write check although im jew dont get enough ok ill tell like order liberal mean lowercase liberal win new york must black puerto rican jewish votes cant get irish italian vote locked away rightwing blacks puerto ricans dont give us money dont tell terrible things israelis palestinians would upset im going break meal ticket moral story crucial talk oil industry domination us foreign policy crucial talk zionist funding enormous influence domestic politics discussion factors must within context insisting ordinary americans jew gentile fools continue support parties obviously funded rich far afraid discussing zionist funding major point critique private contributions jews less 25 people zionists considerably less 22 jews current estimate ca 10 rich campaign contributors minority zionists yet overwhelmingly gentile congress emphatically prozionist majority jews far diversion public attention capitalist nature american politics leftists fear talking zionist money one best ways making point civil rights struggle battles equality races religions nationalities become part broad american value system percentage estimate jewish proportion 400 richest americans trust shared serious scholars automatic tendency shock isnt capitalism inequality absurd think system sanctifies inequality could egalitarian ethnoreligious distribution wealth necessary make important point isnt jewish contributions zionist slush offensive cite fact see zionists minority jews talk oil industry zionist contributions time people get correct idea trying explain complex problem detail lets go us support israel support saudi arabia additionally common regimes theocratic states atheist jewish background concerned talked israel didnt talk saudi arabia moral story talk additionally everyone sees growing alliance zionist establishment socalled christian zionists fanatics support israel lunatic notion creation israel means christ coming minute save christian america send atheist jews atheist gentiles hell hitherto jewish establishment could least relied resist attempts convert america christian government new alliance foreign policy resistance getting weaker weaker christian right reasonably expects increase zionist votes funding candidates indeed central tenet jewish neocon politics unreasonable expect perpetual christian zionist support israel unless get something back return words complex political crisis profound domestic international consequences complex situation cant dealt onesided manner choice examine parts situation denounce criminals americans arabs christians israelis jews muslims crimes democratic secular perspective scientific manner zionists democratic republican patrons say anything want educated public see dont want deny anyone rights contrary see want extend human equality secularism middle east lenni brenner editor 51 documents zionist collaboration nazis contributor counterpunchs new book politics antisemitism ak press brenner one featured speakers along alex cockburn jeffrey blankfort counterpunch forum book berkeley october 19 reached brennerl21aolcom 160 160 | 2,526 |
<p>If anyone thinks, says or writes that the Catalan question is easy to understand, I would say that she or he did not understand anything. The question comes from long back and is complex. Catalan independence can appear to a foreign eye, both as a matter of avarice (Catalonia not willing to share its economic wealth with the rest of Spain), and simultaneously as a political force of emancipation (similar, but obviously different to that of the Kurds or Saharawi).</p>
<p>I’ve lived in Barcelona for ten years. I’ve witnessed the cultural, economic and political motivations of contemporary Catalan ‘independetism’ (separatism might be a more common expression for this in English, but not in Latin languages). In response to the referendum that took place on October 1st, I suggest the need for mediation, rather than repression to tackle a political conflict that questions the meaning of democracy itself.</p>
<p>Catalonia is a small region between Spain and France, with Barcelona as the capital, and 7.5 million people. The name is used since the Middle Age, and is roughly the same territory of the County of Barcelona created around 800 dC. In those years, Muslims controlled almost the whole of the Iberian peninsula under the name Caliphate of Cordoba (or al-Ándalus). For centuries Catalonia has been conquered repeatedly by neighboring kingdoms (more or less Spain and France, in today’s configuration). It was an independent republic, under the protectorate of France, between <a href="" type="internal" />1640 and 1652, before falling definitively under the Spanish dominance in the War of Succession ended in 1714. At that time, the King was Philip V of Spain (1683 – 1746) of the Bourbon dynasty, still reigning in Spain. Today the King is Philip VI. Catalan nationalism (that <a href="" type="internal">Paul Mason calls ‘cosmopolitan’</a>), as we know it today, has its roots in the second half of the 19th century, at the time of industrialization. From the beginning, and through out its history, nationalism has been supported by both progressive and conservative forces. The first Catalanist party was the Lliga Regionalista de Catalunya (1901-1936; Regionalist League of Catalonia). In 1931, the party, which still exists, the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalonia) supports the cause of a Catalan republic, but they would have to be content with an autonomous region under the name of Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia). The autonomous government between 1936 and 1939 will be abolished after the victory of the putschist Francisco Franco. Political autonomy is canceled and the Catalan language is forbidden. Once Franco died in 1975, the new Spanish Constitution of 1978 allowed for the formation of the new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia in 1979, similar to that of 1932 abolished under the dictatorship. In 2006, the Catalans approve a new Estatut by referendum, that would further expand the authority of the Generalitat de Catalunya, but the Constitutional Court challenged its constitutionality and modified it substantially. This generated a lot of frustration, and as a consequence the option of independence from Spain, up to that time rather a minority position, begins to gain terrain in the public opinion. This is demonstrated by the increasing participation in the Diada (Catalan National Day) on September 11th each year, with 2 million people according to the organizers (and 600,000 according to the Spanish government) in 2012 demanding independence. In 2014, the first popular consultation is celebrated and in the elections of 2015 the coalition of independent parties wins the elections. Here’s how we get to the referendum on October 1st 2017, vite fait.</p>
<p>To simplify, I would say that there are three main elements of contemporary Catalan indepententism that have to do with culture, economy and politics.</p>
<p>First of all, the Catalans are very proud of their language and culture, and feel different from the Spaniards. Catalonia is completely bilingual, Spanish and Catalan. Those who went to school under Franco’s fascist dictatorship (from 1939 until 1975) speak Catalan but often do not know how to write it. It was forbidden even to speak it. Of course, schools today are in Catalan. The memory of the civil war (1936-1939) and the fascist oppression is very alive.</p>
<p>Secondly, there is an economic issue, that recalls reasons behind the Brexit. Catalonia accounts for 20% of Spanish GDP, 16% of the population and pays 23% of taxes but receives ‘only’ <a href="" type="internal">10 % of investments</a>. There would therefore be a fiscal deficit, between what Catalonia contributes and receives from Spain. So if Catalonia was independent, it could ‘earn’ <a href="" type="internal">about 10% of its GDP</a>. I confess that the exact logic of these estimates escapes me. For example, in terms of energy, Catalonia is largely dependent on foreign imports of fossil fuels, and its industrialization has been allowed by migratory flows from southern Spain and from abroad. What is the deficit and debt not only economic, but also ecological, between Catalonia, Spain and the rest of the world is questionable. In a more comprehensive way, the Catalan left-wing eco-feminist party <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Unity_Candidacy" type="external">CUP</a>, based on autonomous local assemblies according to the principles of deliberative democracy, calls from a transition from autonomy to sovereignty, not only in political and economic terms, but also in relation to energy, food, health and education.</p>
<p>The economic issue has certainly been aggravated by the financial crisis. Although it was the Catalan government to apply the first austerity measures, these were said to be justified by the lack of funding from the Spanish government. The economic question is the most controversial one.</p>
<p>The last question would be the political one. Spain is a parliamentary hereditary monarchy, divided into 17 autonomous communities. Communities have ample competences, which include health and education, and to the state only corresponds the basic legislation. Some communities such as the Basque Country and Catalonia have their own political dynamics with their regional parties. They complain that Spain has never recognized to be a pluri-national state. The Catalans do not feel identified with the Spanish government, now dominated by the right-wing post-fascist Partido Popular of Mariano Rajoy. There is also the hypothesis that if the government was at a lower geographical level, it would be more democratic. Last, there is the intention to break with the 1978 Constitution, which many on the left think it has not made justice with the fascist past (a transaction rather than a transition). Each one projects on a potential Catalan republic her/his own expectations and fantasies, many of which are in itself contradictory. For example, CUP sees it as an opportunity for a revolutionary project focused on anti-capitalism, direct democracy, feminism and ecology. This is definitively not the position of the majority of Catalans.</p>
<p>In conclusion, even though these issues contribute to understanding the emergence of Catalan independetism, I still wonder whether there are broader issues that have to do with global processes, such as some refusal to globalization, and which could potentially be valid elsewhere. Some argue that <a href="" type="internal">across the world, people yearn to govern themselves</a>. Are there increasing aspirations for direct democracy? We shall see.</p>
<p>Hoping to have clarified some of the origins of Catalan independetism, let’s focus on today. The current Catalan government convened a referendum on October 1st with the question: “Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic?” Yes or no.</p>
<p>The Catalan government, made up of independentists (or separatists), celebrated the referendum, according to a law approved in the Catalan parliament. More than 2.000.000 Catalans casted their vote, 90% in favour of independence. The Spanish government considers it illegal because it violates the Spanish Constitution, and attempted to prevent it with violent repression. The Catalan government consists of the coalition Junts pel Sí (with the two main catalan parties Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, center-left, and the Partit Demòcrata Europeu Català, center-right) with the <a href="" type="internal">Candidatura d’Unitat Popular</a> (CUP), left-wing, eco-feminist and pro-degrowth. These Catalan parties have 72 votes in a parliament with 135 votes. Against, with 52 votes, there are the Catalan branches of main Spanish parties Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, il Partit Popular de Catalunya e Ciutadanos. The other 11 deputies are from Podem (the Catalan Podemos) are in the middle: they are not in favor of independence, but of a referendum.</p>
<p>With the same firmness, the Spanish government (in minority) of the Partido Popular has been determined to prevent it. Even the Partido Socialista Obrero Español opposes, while Podemos no. The Constitutional Court has suspended it. Over the past two weeks, government officials have already been arrested and 10 million ballot papers have been seized, calling 700 (out of 900) Catalan mayors to declare in the Court for showing their support for the referendum. The Spanish government has sent in Catalonia about 10,000 members of the Spanish military police Guardia Civil (same that under the fascist dictatorship), which are partly hosted by three Italian cruise ships. The Spanish government has little faith in the Catalan police (the mossos) with 16,000 members. Let alone that one of the cruise ships, Moby Dada, is decorated with the canary Tweety and Sylvester the Cat. The brutality of the Spanish anti-riot police has left 800 wounded voters, despite their peaceful attitude. In Catalonia <a href="" type="internal">human and civil rights, freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom of assembly are being violated by Spain’s central government</a>, in a dangerous drift towards authoritarianism. The unquestionable truth is: the more the repression by the Spanish government, the more the support for Independence in Catalonia. This is linked to a fundamental question: What is democracy? Is it defending the Spanish Constitution principle of the indissoluble unity of Spain with repression, or voting to exercise people’s right to self determination?</p>
<p>This recalls <a href="" type="internal">an old debate in political science</a> regarding whether national self-determination, in the form of creation of a new state through secession, overrides the principles of majority rule and of equal rights. <a href="" type="internal">Surveys</a> say that around 80% of Catalans think that they should be legally allowed to vote. Participation would be about 60/70%, and about 50% would vote for independence. Instead, <a href="" type="internal">60% of Spaniards</a> think that such a referendum should not be allowed. The Catalan question is a political conflict that I doubt can be solved with repression. It needs mediation, urgently.</p>
<p>Federico Demaria is an ecological economist at Environmental Science and Technology Institute, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain). He is the co-editor of <a href="" type="internal">Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era</a>(Routledge, 2015), a book translated into ten languages.</p> | true | 4 | anyone thinks says writes catalan question easy understand would say understand anything question comes long back complex catalan independence appear foreign eye matter avarice catalonia willing share economic wealth rest spain simultaneously political force emancipation similar obviously different kurds saharawi ive lived barcelona ten years ive witnessed cultural economic political motivations contemporary catalan independetism separatism might common expression english latin languages response referendum took place october 1st suggest need mediation rather repression tackle political conflict questions meaning democracy catalonia small region spain france barcelona capital 75 million people name used since middle age roughly territory county barcelona created around 800 dc years muslims controlled almost whole iberian peninsula name caliphate cordoba alÁndalus centuries catalonia conquered repeatedly neighboring kingdoms less spain france todays configuration independent republic protectorate france 1640 1652 falling definitively spanish dominance war succession ended 1714 time king philip v spain 1683 1746 bourbon dynasty still reigning spain today king philip vi catalan nationalism paul mason calls cosmopolitan know today roots second half 19th century time industrialization beginning history nationalism supported progressive conservative forces first catalanist party lliga regionalista de catalunya 19011936 regionalist league catalonia 1931 party still exists esquerra republicana de catalunya erc republican left catalonia supports cause catalan republic would content autonomous region name generalitat de catalunya government catalonia autonomous government 1936 1939 abolished victory putschist francisco franco political autonomy canceled catalan language forbidden franco died 1975 new spanish constitution 1978 allowed formation new statute autonomy catalonia 1979 similar 1932 abolished dictatorship 2006 catalans approve new estatut referendum would expand authority generalitat de catalunya constitutional court challenged constitutionality modified substantially generated lot frustration consequence option independence spain time rather minority position begins gain terrain public opinion demonstrated increasing participation diada catalan national day september 11th year 2 million people according organizers 600000 according spanish government 2012 demanding independence 2014 first popular consultation celebrated elections 2015 coalition independent parties wins elections heres get referendum october 1st 2017 vite fait simplify would say three main elements contemporary catalan indepententism culture economy politics first catalans proud language culture feel different spaniards catalonia completely bilingual spanish catalan went school francos fascist dictatorship 1939 1975 speak catalan often know write forbidden even speak course schools today catalan memory civil war 19361939 fascist oppression alive secondly economic issue recalls reasons behind brexit catalonia accounts 20 spanish gdp 16 population pays 23 taxes receives 10 investments would therefore fiscal deficit catalonia contributes receives spain catalonia independent could earn 10 gdp confess exact logic estimates escapes example terms energy catalonia largely dependent foreign imports fossil fuels industrialization allowed migratory flows southern spain abroad deficit debt economic also ecological catalonia spain rest world questionable comprehensive way catalan leftwing ecofeminist party cup based autonomous local assemblies according principles deliberative democracy calls transition autonomy sovereignty political economic terms also relation energy food health education economic issue certainly aggravated financial crisis although catalan government apply first austerity measures said justified lack funding spanish government economic question controversial one last question would political one spain parliamentary hereditary monarchy divided 17 autonomous communities communities ample competences include health education state corresponds basic legislation communities basque country catalonia political dynamics regional parties complain spain never recognized plurinational state catalans feel identified spanish government dominated rightwing postfascist partido popular mariano rajoy also hypothesis government lower geographical level would democratic last intention break 1978 constitution many left think made justice fascist past transaction rather transition one projects potential catalan republic herhis expectations fantasies many contradictory example cup sees opportunity revolutionary project focused anticapitalism direct democracy feminism ecology definitively position majority catalans conclusion even though issues contribute understanding emergence catalan independetism still wonder whether broader issues global processes refusal globalization could potentially valid elsewhere argue across world people yearn govern increasing aspirations direct democracy shall see hoping clarified origins catalan independetism lets focus today current catalan government convened referendum october 1st question want catalonia independent state form republic yes catalan government made independentists separatists celebrated referendum according law approved catalan parliament 2000000 catalans casted vote 90 favour independence spanish government considers illegal violates spanish constitution attempted prevent violent repression catalan government consists coalition junts pel sí two main catalan parties esquerra republicana de catalunya centerleft partit demòcrata europeu català centerright candidatura dunitat popular cup leftwing ecofeminist prodegrowth catalan parties 72 votes parliament 135 votes 52 votes catalan branches main spanish parties partit dels socialistes de catalunya il partit popular de catalunya e ciutadanos 11 deputies podem catalan podemos middle favor independence referendum firmness spanish government minority partido popular determined prevent even partido socialista obrero español opposes podemos constitutional court suspended past two weeks government officials already arrested 10 million ballot papers seized calling 700 900 catalan mayors declare court showing support referendum spanish government sent catalonia 10000 members spanish military police guardia civil fascist dictatorship partly hosted three italian cruise ships spanish government little faith catalan police mossos 16000 members let alone one cruise ships moby dada decorated canary tweety sylvester cat brutality spanish antiriot police left 800 wounded voters despite peaceful attitude catalonia human civil rights freedom speech freedom information freedom assembly violated spains central government dangerous drift towards authoritarianism unquestionable truth repression spanish government support independence catalonia linked fundamental question democracy defending spanish constitution principle indissoluble unity spain repression voting exercise peoples right self determination recalls old debate political science regarding whether national selfdetermination form creation new state secession overrides principles majority rule equal rights surveys say around 80 catalans think legally allowed vote participation would 6070 50 would vote independence instead 60 spaniards think referendum allowed catalan question political conflict doubt solved repression needs mediation urgently federico demaria ecological economist environmental science technology institute universitat autonoma de barcelona spain coeditor degrowth vocabulary new eraroutledge 2015 book translated ten languages | 947 |
<p>The Death of the Secret is a crime that no one really wants to solve. Perhaps the same perp killed the Author, that shady fraud who once crept around the title pages of books taking on different names with the ease of an expert forger. Like The Pentagon Papers and WikiLeaks, our truly hidden books are written collectively, and the enemy knows full well that the appalling evidence is always the labor of unskilled workers on both sides. Recent investigation has determined that the murder of all secrets was either suicide or an Orient Express-type board decision. And the witnesses? Only a fool would believe a historian, a grand vizier, or an alchemist.</p>
<p>Secrets may die but the society of secrets is immortal. The profound image of the Russian Doll haunts candidates, bureaus, corporations and nationalist blood orders. The venerable Rosy Crucians, who opened their first stateside office in Los Angeles, apparently date back to the Enlightenment and have lent a clandestine hand in distributing the film of history ever since. A new version of one of this shadowy brotherhood’s foundational texts, <a href="" type="internal">The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz</a>, attributed to mysterious Lutheran prelate Johann Valentin Andreae and first published in Germany in 1616, will be unveiled to the masses this November.</p>
<p>John Crowley has consulted several older English versions, as well as living German advisors (Rosicrucian adepts?), and has come up with an utterly unpretentious working of this weird old parable which reads like a late-night barroom colloquy. The action materializes in static allegorical scenes on a one-dimensional plateau, as if the religious art of the Middle Ages, quite archaic by the 1600s, had sprang to life in movable type. The secrets of the Chemical Wedding appear in number, fantastic animals, columns with engraved ciphers, extraordinary machines and crystal observatories, by the technology of communiqué and dream. Every repetition seems to hide a vast chart of correspondences. Every character is a symbol on its way to resurrection. Every tale has ending which does not quite make sense. This meddle is admirably depicted in Theo Fadel’s lovely line drawings which accompany the text. Crowley’s giddy English gives it all an exciting unheimliche tension, contra the silly half-assed lingua occulta adopted by most grimoire peddlers.</p>
<p>Christian Rosenkreutz (Rosy Cross) is invited to a wedding which he had seen earlier in a dream. A chance event leads him to take one of four paths (one for each element) to a great castle where he is met by a hall of absurd poltroons who stand for the various crackpot sciences of the day. This allows Andreae to take the piss out of disciplines such as alchemy and <a href="" type="internal" />astrology while hinting that he knows their true meaning. Christian undergoes a series of odd interrogations and initiations, listens to stories bitten from Boccaccio, and is shown all kinds of occult symbolic phenomena. I leave out the resolution, but it involves a complex of fugitive pages, detective intuition and lively Borgesian games on the part of commentators famous and infamous.</p>
<p>It is hard to escape the feeling that we are reading of the last gasps of Spengler’s Magian world here. Its ancestors are Avicenna’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan, ‘Attar’s Conference of Birds and other pearls of Islamic wisdom. Thus, the allegorical journey has an atmosphere of multiple buzzing heresies: Muslim, Freethinking, Deist. While Crowley rightly compares reading it today to Max Ernst’s collage-novels, it is closer to a Mughal miniature in form. Une semaine de bonté works against the received order of time and valorizes thievery and dislocation; The Chemical Wedding has the feeling of living for only an instant and it has quite different things to prove than homelessness.</p>
<p>The story also seems Utopian. Andreae himself was involved in a number of outré scholastic projects (one of which counted Kepler as a student), and he is deliberately obscure about whether his political vision is Digger Proto-socialist or Platonic Monarchist. Such confusion has lasted down to present-day cabal theory, where secret societies are thought to be simultaneously communist and elitist. During the Nazi Occupation in France, someone plastered the walls and mailed out threats supposedly from a shadowy tendency called Synarchism. The texts were so confusing and contradictory that the fascists were unable to determine the guilty party: Was it the Left resistance, the Allies’ propaganda arm, Freemasons, or some ultra-secret program of their own superiors? Synarchy never existed and was probably the work of a Claude Cahun-type partisan operating on her own in a basement. Anyway, it certainly came to be as a supply and demand mechanism of the Occupation’s pathological reaction.</p>
<p>Part of the strangeness in reading The Chemical Wedding is that we start to suspect all manner of intelligences working on its behalf – the spirit of the author (somewhat disputed), the spirit of the time it was written, and the spirit of the gulf that separates us from that world. It is impossible to grasp the innocence of the forest of symbols because they now conceal new, unintended things made just for us and possibly of our own making. An allegory uprooted from its time can only return later as a new and beguiling mobile. Interpretation, which has rendered the old readings obsolete, is left with highly odd symbolic shells which take on contemporary gravity like moss to an old barge, a groaning relic of phantom weight hanging in the readers’ mind. You – or rather I and Thou— are continually haunted by the idea that this little goblin book can say nothing at all to us, that it is truly inscrutable because its alchemic fable is so transparent. The initiatory ‘plot’ and rigid statuesque scenes no longer conceal any depth; it is actually hard to believe they ever did, which lends weight to the theory that the book was starkest parody. Behind the allegory there seems only an endless impenetrable black screen like the reverse of a common household mirror, a terror that we are constantly told is uniquely modern. But this is just the sort of fear than a magician who sees everything as it is not, meaning as it truly is, could never have possessed.</p>
<p>Perhaps once such a forbidden book lead outward to a world where hidden forms lurked behind both sculpture and birch. But the maze and the minotaur have undergone an unsubtle transformation over the centuries. Now this same initiatory process leads to a strange counterfeit inwardness of fetish-objects and the productions of an arctic medium between outposts of information. The answer as to why the lion has devoured the sun can no longer be found in the Great Work which dazzled Christian Rosenkreutz with its semblances, but in the phantasmagoria which cheaply hides the House of Pain in Derivatives and other djinn of the financial world. The sweatshop is the present initiatory garden and it leads to dark value prized from the Global South. Wasn’t the quest for knowledge always told as a journey to the East? Now rigged in tinsel of the poor allegory, a repetitive stain of bloody hands.</p> | true | 4 | death secret crime one really wants solve perhaps perp killed author shady fraud crept around title pages books taking different names ease expert forger like pentagon papers wikileaks truly hidden books written collectively enemy knows full well appalling evidence always labor unskilled workers sides recent investigation determined murder secrets either suicide orient expresstype board decision witnesses fool would believe historian grand vizier alchemist secrets may die society secrets immortal profound image russian doll haunts candidates bureaus corporations nationalist blood orders venerable rosy crucians opened first stateside office los angeles apparently date back enlightenment lent clandestine hand distributing film history ever since new version one shadowy brotherhoods foundational texts chemical wedding christian rosenkreutz attributed mysterious lutheran prelate johann valentin andreae first published germany 1616 unveiled masses november john crowley consulted several older english versions well living german advisors rosicrucian adepts come utterly unpretentious working weird old parable reads like latenight barroom colloquy action materializes static allegorical scenes onedimensional plateau religious art middle ages quite archaic 1600s sprang life movable type secrets chemical wedding appear number fantastic animals columns engraved ciphers extraordinary machines crystal observatories technology communiqué dream every repetition seems hide vast chart correspondences every character symbol way resurrection every tale ending quite make sense meddle admirably depicted theo fadels lovely line drawings accompany text crowleys giddy english gives exciting unheimliche tension contra silly halfassed lingua occulta adopted grimoire peddlers christian rosenkreutz rosy cross invited wedding seen earlier dream chance event leads take one four paths one element great castle met hall absurd poltroons stand various crackpot sciences day allows andreae take piss disciplines alchemy astrology hinting knows true meaning christian undergoes series odd interrogations initiations listens stories bitten boccaccio shown kinds occult symbolic phenomena leave resolution involves complex fugitive pages detective intuition lively borgesian games part commentators famous infamous hard escape feeling reading last gasps spenglers magian world ancestors avicennas hayy ibn yaqzan attars conference birds pearls islamic wisdom thus allegorical journey atmosphere multiple buzzing heresies muslim freethinking deist crowley rightly compares reading today max ernsts collagenovels closer mughal miniature form une semaine de bonté works received order time valorizes thievery dislocation chemical wedding feeling living instant quite different things prove homelessness story also seems utopian andreae involved number outré scholastic projects one counted kepler student deliberately obscure whether political vision digger protosocialist platonic monarchist confusion lasted presentday cabal theory secret societies thought simultaneously communist elitist nazi occupation france someone plastered walls mailed threats supposedly shadowy tendency called synarchism texts confusing contradictory fascists unable determine guilty party left resistance allies propaganda arm freemasons ultrasecret program superiors synarchy never existed probably work claude cahuntype partisan operating basement anyway certainly came supply demand mechanism occupations pathological reaction part strangeness reading chemical wedding start suspect manner intelligences working behalf spirit author somewhat disputed spirit time written spirit gulf separates us world impossible grasp innocence forest symbols conceal new unintended things made us possibly making allegory uprooted time return later new beguiling mobile interpretation rendered old readings obsolete left highly odd symbolic shells take contemporary gravity like moss old barge groaning relic phantom weight hanging readers mind rather thou continually haunted idea little goblin book say nothing us truly inscrutable alchemic fable transparent initiatory plot rigid statuesque scenes longer conceal depth actually hard believe ever lends weight theory book starkest parody behind allegory seems endless impenetrable black screen like reverse common household mirror terror constantly told uniquely modern sort fear magician sees everything meaning truly could never possessed perhaps forbidden book lead outward world hidden forms lurked behind sculpture birch maze minotaur undergone unsubtle transformation centuries initiatory process leads strange counterfeit inwardness fetishobjects productions arctic medium outposts information answer lion devoured sun longer found great work dazzled christian rosenkreutz semblances phantasmagoria cheaply hides house pain derivatives djinn financial world sweatshop present initiatory garden leads dark value prized global south wasnt quest knowledge always told journey east rigged tinsel poor allegory repetitive stain bloody hands | 650 |
<p>David Mandel teaches political science at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal. He specializes in countries of former Soviet Union, especially labour. For many year has been involved in labour education in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, where he visiting this summer. David is the author of many articles and books, among which is Labour after Communism (Black Rose Press, Montreal, 2005).</p>
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<p /> JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. And welcome to part two of our count conversation with our guest David Mandel to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.
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<p />David is a professor of political science at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and he specializes in the countries of the former Soviet Union, specifically looking at labor.
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<p />Thank you so much for joining us, David.
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<p />DAVID MANDEL, PROF. POLI. SCI., UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL: I'm glad to be here.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: So, David, I want us to kind of understand the historical context of this recent civil war. What has been the economic and political relationship with Russia? What has Ukraine's relationship been like since their independence in 1991?
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<p />MANDEL: Well, so the eastern part of the Ukraine, which is the more industrialized part--I mean, the Soviet Union was a highly integrated economy. Since independence, there was some move to try to detach Ukraine to some degree, but still the Donbas, the Eastern Ukraine, and the Northeast and South are still highly integrated, especially the machine-building sectors, with Russia. The East is more agrarian. It's mostly smaller towns. And so they don't have that same economic interest or tie.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: Wait. So the West is more--. Okay.
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<p />MANDEL: The West is--I mean, there's three reasons. I mean, I think [incompr.] provinces are regions there are, but there's quite a few. But there's three that are really the--what shall I say?--the cradle of Russian nationalism, which is a very anti-Russian nationalism. And this was part of Ukraine that was separate from the rest of the country for hundreds of years and only rejoined the rest of Ukraine in 1939 under Stalin, actually. It was part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty, and at the end of the war it was occupied, and at the end of the war occupied by the Soviet Union. So this part is actually--it's more to the west. It's extremely anti-Russian, hostile to Russia. And also there's not much economically or in terms of family ties, certainly no linguistic--not really much linguistically, ethnically. It had--it's a different religion. It's [incompr.] church [incompr.] in the East, it's the Russia Orthodox. So it doesn't have the same ties. And as I said, its nationalism has--a major part of its nationalism is hatred of Russia, and to some degree of Russians.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: Was there ever talk of partitioning sections of Ukraine? I mean, was there ever that conversation that they should divide the country at all?
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<p />MANDEL: Well, not really. But the eastern parts of Ukraine were--at the turn of the 20th century, it started being built up as industrial parts--coal mining, metallurgy, some machine building. And it was basically--I wouldn't say unpopulated, but they were nomadic peoples. There were Cossacks there, who--it's not clear if they're Russian or Ukrainian. Anyway, people--cities started to be built and people came from all over. But they were Russians. These towns were Russian-speaking. Generally, in Ukraine the cities are Russian-speaking. So that--and it wasn't really considered part of Ukraine at the time. It was called small Russia, Malorossiya.
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<p />Then, after the Civil War, though, in 1920, the Communist government decided to make this part part of Ukraine. So even this part became part of Ukraine only since 1920, really. And local communist elements actually opposed that to some degree, but they were overruled. And then they have the western regions, the three western regions, which were joined to the Ukraine only in--basically in 1940, 1939 and in the 1940s.
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<p />And the state, as--Ukraine as a state never really existed before. I mean, there was maybe a few months during the Civil War in Russia. So it first came into existence in 1991. And so it's extremely fragile. And you'd think this kind of state, the political elites would be very concerned about keeping it together and creating a national identity or making everyone feel at home. But what there's been since 1991 is a kind of tug-of-war, the western province wanted to impose their [incompr.] and their orientation, anti-Russian orientation, on the rest. And, of course, this is anathema to the east. And then the East, this last government that was overthrown, was more identified with the East, and it was overthrown in what people [incompr.] see as a kind of Western-sponsored coup d'etat, and they see it as illegitimate. So is what's been going on.
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<p />And I'd say--and so the political elites, which have been basically at the surface of the so-called oligarchs, which is the new capitalist class--it's a small class, but extremely rich, was basically pillaging the country for the last two-plus decades. They've been making--instead of trying to calm down these nationalist passions and these different linguistic and ethnic differences, have been actually exacerbating them to get [incompr.] in their inter-elite struggles and to gain elections, etc. That's it. Yeah.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: So, David, you've been involved in labor you education in Ukraine for many years. So for you, what are the issues faced by the Ukrainian working class? You mentioned that, that elite that has kind of risen to power, these oligarchs. Can you speak to that a little bit? And what are the concerns of the working people?
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<p />MANDEL: Well, that's just it. This kind of--it's kind of a postmodern identity struggle, although there are economic interests somewhere involved. But basically it keeps the working people [incompr.] mass of the population are very poor in Ukraine. Most are really known as the working class in terms of [incompr.] There's almost no social safety net in Ukraine. It's much worse. I mean, you get sick and Ukraine, you pay for everything. You pay for the sheets. You pay for the food. You pay for the soap that cleans the floor. And you get nothing. You pay for the doctor, you pay for the medicine, you pay for the bed dressers. So there's really no social safety net. And this is the mass of the population that, instead of--.
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<p />And then there's a ruling group, a small ruling group of oligarchs. They're called oligarchs. This is big capital who basically just pillage the country and grasp for pennies, grab the factories and all the wealth that was inherited from the Soviet Union, and created very little. You have this group that keeps the population divided along these ethnic and linguistic lines so they can't get together to fight the corruption. The corruption is just horrible in Ukraine.
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<p />And so that's the real--and for me the real issue is to overcome this communitarian strife, so that you can get [incompr.] social and economic issues and fight corruption and get control over the economy so that it can start developing. I mean, Ukraine is--I think it's one of two or maybe the only one of the former Soviet republics that hasn't yet reached the level of GDP per capita that it was in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: So for you, then, does it mean that being in this, like, sphere of influence, I guess, to kind of borrow the language of geopolitics, of either Russia or Europe, would either one really benefit the conditions of workers? Do you have a stance on that?
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<p />MANDEL: Sure. I mean, just from a purely rational point of view, the most advantageous position for Ukraine is to be neutral and to be between the east, Russia, and European Union, to, as much as possible, play one against the other. And I think that's something that Russia would definitely accept. I mean, it's probably not proved its first choice. But the West is insisting that Ukraine become part of, be drawn into the Western camp in a kind of [incompr.] really hostile move. I mean, there was a declaration in 2008 that the intention of NATO is to bring, eventually, Ukraine in. I mean, how real that it is is another question.
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<p />And then this government, the prime minister, the government announced that it's going to apply for NATO membership. I don't think it'll get in, but that's beside the point. I mean, they have to--from Russia's point of view, what's been happening since the Soviet Union fell apart is that NATO has been advancing, incorporating the country--advancing toward the east, incorporating countries that are getting closer and closer to Russia's border. And Russia views this as basically--I mean, it doesn't--it's a hostile policy aimed at containing Russia, eliminating any kind of influence it has within its own borders, and surrounding it with hostile states. And if you know anything of Russian history of the first half of the 20th century, you can understand how sensitive Russia would be.
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<p />And Ukraine is the big prize, as its 2,500 kilometers of common border with Russia--I mean, this is--and this is--it's bordering on the part of Russia where all the population and the great part of the industry is. Ukraine has deep, deep historical, ethnic, family, linguistic, and other ties. And the West has just been totally indifferent to that, you know, insensitive to that. And that's the basic source of the problem. [incompr.] I think if the West were not supporting to the hilt the Ukrainian--the nationalist faction of the Ukrainian elite, we wouldn't have seen the Civil War. So the West bears a lot of responsibility.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: Alright. David Mandel, thank you for joining us.
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<p />MANDEL: Okay. Thank you.
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<p />DESVARIEUX: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
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<p />End
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<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | true | 4 | david mandel teaches political science universite du quebec montreal specializes countries former soviet union especially labour many year involved labour education russia belarus ukraine visiting summer david author many articles books among labour communism black rose press montreal 2005 jessica desvarieux trnn producer welcome real news network im jessica desvarieux baltimore welcome part two count conversation guest david mandel discuss crisis ukraine david professor political science university quebec montreal specializes countries former soviet union specifically looking labor thank much joining us david david mandel prof poli sci universitÉ du quÉbec À montrÉal im glad desvarieux david want us kind understand historical context recent civil war economic political relationship russia ukraines relationship like since independence 1991 mandel well eastern part ukraine industrialized parti mean soviet union highly integrated economy since independence move try detach ukraine degree still donbas eastern ukraine northeast south still highly integrated especially machinebuilding sectors russia east agrarian mostly smaller towns dont economic interest tie desvarieux wait west okay mandel west isi mean theres three reasons mean think incompr provinces regions theres quite theres three really thewhat shall saythe cradle russian nationalism antirussian nationalism part ukraine separate rest country hundreds years rejoined rest ukraine 1939 stalin actually part molotovribbentrop treaty end war occupied end war occupied soviet union part actuallyits west extremely antirussian hostile russia also theres much economically terms family ties certainly linguisticnot really much linguistically ethnically hadits different religion incompr church incompr east russia orthodox doesnt ties said nationalism hasa major part nationalism hatred russia degree russians desvarieux ever talk partitioning sections ukraine mean ever conversation divide country mandel well really eastern parts ukraine wereat turn 20th century started built industrial partscoal mining metallurgy machine building basicallyi wouldnt say unpopulated nomadic peoples cossacks whoits clear theyre russian ukrainian anyway peoplecities started built people came russians towns russianspeaking generally ukraine cities russianspeaking thatand wasnt really considered part ukraine time called small russia malorossiya civil war though 1920 communist government decided make part part ukraine even part became part ukraine since 1920 really local communist elements actually opposed degree overruled western regions three western regions joined ukraine inbasically 1940 1939 1940s state asukraine state never really existed mean maybe months civil war russia first came existence 1991 extremely fragile youd think kind state political elites would concerned keeping together creating national identity making everyone feel home theres since 1991 kind tugofwar western province wanted impose incompr orientation antirussian orientation rest course anathema east east last government overthrown identified east overthrown people incompr see kind westernsponsored coup detat see illegitimate whats going id sayand political elites basically surface socalled oligarchs new capitalist classits small class extremely rich basically pillaging country last twoplus decades theyve makinginstead trying calm nationalist passions different linguistic ethnic differences actually exacerbating get incompr interelite struggles gain elections etc thats yeah desvarieux david youve involved labor education ukraine many years issues faced ukrainian working class mentioned elite kind risen power oligarchs speak little bit concerns working people mandel well thats kind ofits kind postmodern identity struggle although economic interests somewhere involved basically keeps working people incompr mass population poor ukraine really known working class terms incompr theres almost social safety net ukraine much worse mean get sick ukraine pay everything pay sheets pay food pay soap cleans floor get nothing pay doctor pay medicine pay bed dressers theres really social safety net mass population instead theres ruling group small ruling group oligarchs theyre called oligarchs big capital basically pillage country grasp pennies grab factories wealth inherited soviet union created little group keeps population divided along ethnic linguistic lines cant get together fight corruption corruption horrible ukraine thats realand real issue overcome communitarian strife get incompr social economic issues fight corruption get control economy start developing mean ukraine isi think one two maybe one former soviet republics hasnt yet reached level gdp per capita 1991 soviet union fell apart desvarieux mean like sphere influence guess kind borrow language geopolitics either russia europe would either one really benefit conditions workers stance mandel sure mean purely rational point view advantageous position ukraine neutral east russia european union much possible play one think thats something russia would definitely accept mean probably proved first choice west insisting ukraine become part drawn western camp kind incompr really hostile move mean declaration 2008 intention nato bring eventually ukraine mean real another question government prime minister government announced going apply nato membership dont think itll get thats beside point mean tofrom russias point view whats happening since soviet union fell apart nato advancing incorporating countryadvancing toward east incorporating countries getting closer closer russias border russia views basicallyi mean doesntits hostile policy aimed containing russia eliminating kind influence within borders surrounding hostile states know anything russian history first half 20th century understand sensitive russia would ukraine big prize 2500 kilometers common border russiai mean isand isits bordering part russia population great part industry ukraine deep deep historical ethnic family linguistic ties west totally indifferent know insensitive thats basic source problem incompr think west supporting hilt ukrainianthe nationalist faction ukrainian elite wouldnt seen civil war west bears lot responsibility desvarieux alright david mandel thank joining us mandel okay thank desvarieux thank joining us real news network end disclaimer please note transcripts real news network typed recording program trnn guarantee complete accuracy | 875 |
<p>For some weeks now, a red light has been flickering in my mind, illuminating a word in large Gothic letters: Weimar.</p>
<p>As a 9-year old I saw with my own eyes the collapse of the German republic that came into being after World War I. It was generally referred to as the Weimar Republic, because its constitution was written in the town of the two towering figures of German Kultur, Goethe and Schiller. Some months after its breakdown, we fled Germany and thus our lives were saved.</p>
<p>Since then, the sights and sounds of the collapse of the republic are engraved in my mind. I have read hundreds of books about this event. The big question that has been haunting me ever since and which has remained unanswered to this day is: How could such a thing happen? How could a gang of thugs with an inhuman ideology take over a state that, in its time, was perhaps the most cultured country in the world?</p>
<p>On the eve of the Eichmann trial, in 1960, I wrote a book on this, concluding with the question: Can it happen here?</p>
<p>Today, there is no escape from the terrible answer: Yes, it can happen here. If we behave like the people of Weimar, we shall suffer the same fate as the people of Weimar.</p>
<p>In the past I have often hesitated to use this analogy. We have a taboo concerning Nazi Germany. Since nothing in the world can compare with the Holocaust, no comparisons should be made with Germany of that time.</p>
<p>Only rarely has this taboo been broken. David Ben-Gurion once called Menachem Begin “a disciple of Hitler”. Begin for his part called Yasser Arafat “the Arab Hitler”, and before that, Gamal Abd-el-Nasser was referred to in Israel as “Hitler on the Nile”. Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, in his usual provocative way, spoke about “Judeo-Nazis” and compared the special units of the Israeli army to the SS. But these were exceptions. Generally, the taboo was observed.</p>
<p>Not any more. In their fight against the “rotten” Israeli democracy, the settlers have adopted the Holocaust symbols. They are ostentatiously wearing the Yellow Star that was imposed by the Nazis on the Jews before their extermination, only substituting orange for yellow. They inscribe their forearm with their identity number, like the numbers the Nazis tattooed on the Auschwitz prisoners. They call the government the “Judenrat”, after the Jewish councils appointed by the Nazis in the ghettoes, and liken the evacuation of the settlers from Gush Katif to the deportation of the Jews to the death camps. All this live on television.</p>
<p>So, there is no reason anymore for not calling the spade a spade: a large fascist camp is now threatening Israeli democracy.</p>
<p>What happened last week in Israel was not a legitimate “protest”, nor a democratic endeavor to influence public opinion in order to change the decisions of the government and the Knesset. It was not even a campaign of civil disobedience by a minority trying to force the reversal of a decision of the majority.</p>
<p>It is much more: the beginning of an attempt to overturn by force the democratic system itself.</p>
<p>Confronting Israeli democracy now is the hard core of the settlers, which practically all the settlers accept as their spokemen. This week we saw tens of thousands of them, and there is no escape from the realization that this is a revolutionary movement with a revolutionary ideology using revolutionary means.</p>
<p>What is this ideology? It was proclaimed loudly, again and again, by the central spokesmen of the movement: God gave us this country. All the land and its fruits belong to us. Anybody who gives away even one square meter of it to foreigners (meaning the Arabs, who have been living here for many generations) is violating the commandments of the Torah. The Torah is binding. All government decisions, Knesset laws and court judgments are null and void if they contravene the word of God, as conveyed to us by the rabbis who stand above the cabinet ministers, the Knesset members, the Supreme Court judges and the army commanders. Like in Khomeini’s fundamentalist Iran.</p>
<p>A large part of this camp openly adheres to the teachings of Meir Kahane, whose face was displayed everywhere by marching settlers on their shirts, flags and posters. Kahane publicly preached what many of the settlers, and perhaps most of them, say in private: that God not only promised us this country, but also commanded us (in the book of Joshua) to eradicate the non-Jewish inhabitants. They have no place here. If they cannot be terrorized into leaving by themselves (“voluntary transfer”), they must be eliminated. In the words of one of the rabbis on TV this week, if they don’t leave, they must “pay the price”. This includes, of course, also the million and a quarter Arab citizens of Israel proper.</p>
<p>One of the leaders of the march, Tsviki Bar-Hai, declared on TV: “The struggle is about the character of the state.”</p>
<p>Ninety-nine percent of the many thousands seen on TV this week wore kippas, and many of them had beards and peyoth. The women wore long skirts and had their hair covered. All of them are “born-again Jews” or belong to the “national-religious” camp – a nationalist-messianic sect that believes that it is paving the way for “redemption”. It must be clearly understood: in Israel, the Jewish religion has undergone a mutation that has completely changed its face.</p>
<p>There is no agreed scientific definition of “fascism”. I define it as having the following attributes: the belief in a superior people (master Volk, chosen people, superior race), a complete absence of moral obligations toward others, a totalitarian ideology, the negation of the individual except as a part of the nation, contempt for democracy and a cult of violence. According to this definition, a large proportion of the settlers are fascists.</p>
<p>It has been said about the Weimar Republic that it was not overthrown by the “brown shirts”, but collapsed by itself, because at the moment of truth almost no one was prepared to stand up and defend it.</p>
<p>Last week, thousands of “orange shirts” marched towards Gush Katif, in a distant echo of the 1920 “March on Rome” by Benito Mussolini’s “black shirts” that overthrew the Italian democracy. Some 20 thousand soldiers and police were mobilized to stop them. On the face of it, the army and police won, since the orange shirts did not reach the Gaza strip. But for three days, under the blazing sun, the rebels put on public display their determination, unity and discipline.</p>
<p>There was a cacophony of voices. The settler men and women shouted, their brainwashed children screamed, the red-faced, sweating babies cried in their mothers’ arms, the leaders made speeches, army and police officers yelled orders. Only one voice was absent: the voice of the Israeli public.</p>
<p>During these three fateful days, not one of the leading intellectuals, no writer like S. Yishar, Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua or David Grossman, no important professor, no poet or artist raised their voice against the settlers and their allies. The many personalities who had fallen in the past into the trap of “conciliation” with the settlers and “cultural pacts” with the extreme religious right did not dare to extricate themselves now and point out the great danger to the democratic state. One of their excuses was that they did not wish to be seen as supporting Ariel Sharon.</p>
<p>None of the big public organizations – from the Bar Association and the Chambers of Commerce to the Journalists’ Association and the academic bodies – found it necessary to raise their voice in defense of democracy, while the orange militants were flooding all the TV channels, which made no attempt to present other views. The Silence of the Sheep. The silence of Weimar.</p>
<p>I hope that all this will change when the confrontation approaches its climax. I hope that Israeli democracy will find in itself the hidden strength that was so tragically lacking in Weimar. But this will not happen if courageous people do not sound the trumpet, and if the silent majority does not abandon its silence and demonstrate its stand in voice and color.</p>
<p>Otherwise, the “March on Gush Katif” will be only a foretaste of the “March on Jerusalem”.</p>
<p>URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156584789X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal</a>. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s book <a href="" type="internal">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p> | true | 4 | weeks red light flickering mind illuminating word large gothic letters weimar 9year old saw eyes collapse german republic came world war generally referred weimar republic constitution written town two towering figures german kultur goethe schiller months breakdown fled germany thus lives saved since sights sounds collapse republic engraved mind read hundreds books event big question haunting ever since remained unanswered day could thing happen could gang thugs inhuman ideology take state time perhaps cultured country world eve eichmann trial 1960 wrote book concluding question happen today escape terrible answer yes happen behave like people weimar shall suffer fate people weimar past often hesitated use analogy taboo concerning nazi germany since nothing world compare holocaust comparisons made germany time rarely taboo broken david bengurion called menachem begin disciple hitler begin part called yasser arafat arab hitler gamal abdelnasser referred israel hitler nile professor yeshayahu leibowitz usual provocative way spoke judeonazis compared special units israeli army ss exceptions generally taboo observed fight rotten israeli democracy settlers adopted holocaust symbols ostentatiously wearing yellow star imposed nazis jews extermination substituting orange yellow inscribe forearm identity number like numbers nazis tattooed auschwitz prisoners call government judenrat jewish councils appointed nazis ghettoes liken evacuation settlers gush katif deportation jews death camps live television reason anymore calling spade spade large fascist camp threatening israeli democracy happened last week israel legitimate protest democratic endeavor influence public opinion order change decisions government knesset even campaign civil disobedience minority trying force reversal decision majority much beginning attempt overturn force democratic system confronting israeli democracy hard core settlers practically settlers accept spokemen week saw tens thousands escape realization revolutionary movement revolutionary ideology using revolutionary means ideology proclaimed loudly central spokesmen movement god gave us country land fruits belong us anybody gives away even one square meter foreigners meaning arabs living many generations violating commandments torah torah binding government decisions knesset laws court judgments null void contravene word god conveyed us rabbis stand cabinet ministers knesset members supreme court judges army commanders like khomeinis fundamentalist iran large part camp openly adheres teachings meir kahane whose face displayed everywhere marching settlers shirts flags posters kahane publicly preached many settlers perhaps say private god promised us country also commanded us book joshua eradicate nonjewish inhabitants place terrorized leaving voluntary transfer must eliminated words one rabbis tv week dont leave must pay price includes course also million quarter arab citizens israel proper one leaders march tsviki barhai declared tv struggle character state ninetynine percent many thousands seen tv week wore kippas many beards peyoth women wore long skirts hair covered bornagain jews belong nationalreligious camp nationalistmessianic sect believes paving way redemption must clearly understood israel jewish religion undergone mutation completely changed face agreed scientific definition fascism define following attributes belief superior people master volk chosen people superior race complete absence moral obligations toward others totalitarian ideology negation individual except part nation contempt democracy cult violence according definition large proportion settlers fascists said weimar republic overthrown brown shirts collapsed moment truth almost one prepared stand defend last week thousands orange shirts marched towards gush katif distant echo 1920 march rome benito mussolinis black shirts overthrew italian democracy 20 thousand soldiers police mobilized stop face army police since orange shirts reach gaza strip three days blazing sun rebels put public display determination unity discipline cacophony voices settler men women shouted brainwashed children screamed redfaced sweating babies cried mothers arms leaders made speeches army police officers yelled orders one voice absent voice israeli public three fateful days one leading intellectuals writer like yishar amos oz ab yehoshua david grossman important professor poet artist raised voice settlers allies many personalities fallen past trap conciliation settlers cultural pacts extreme religious right dare extricate point great danger democratic state one excuses wish seen supporting ariel sharon none big public organizations bar association chambers commerce journalists association academic bodies found necessary raise voice defense democracy orange militants flooding tv channels made attempt present views silence sheep silence weimar hope change confrontation approaches climax hope israeli democracy find hidden strength tragically lacking weimar happen courageous people sound trumpet silent majority abandon silence demonstrate stand voice color otherwise march gush katif foretaste march jerusalem uri avnery israeli writer peace activist gush shalom one writers featured israel voices dissent refusal also contributor counterpunchs book politics antisemitism reached avnerycounterpunchorg | 713 |
<p>The amount of insult and betrayal the liberal-to-left spectrum is willing to swallow has few limits, if any. What follows is a survey of one election’s worth of pre- and post-election betrayal from the Democratic Party.&#160;The time has arrived for all those that abandoned their movements in 2004 to root for John Kerry to now abandon Barack Obama and the Democrats on the national level and join those working outside of the party’s stifling structure, as was recently called for by Ron Paul, Ralph Nader and other third party candidates running for president this year.</p>
<p>The Howard Dean Machine</p>
<p>The 2004 election year began with phony “anti-war” candidate ex-Vermont governor Howard Dean leading in the Democratic Party primary polls.&#160;Dean’s pragmatic “anti-war” position was indeed conditional. Had the Bush administration produced better intelligence, or had the international community and UN backed the US invasion, Dean would have happily signed on to the Iraq undertaking. However, the conservative and rabidly pro-business Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) panicked in response to Dean’s rise to the top of the primary pack, out of fear that his invigorated base could challenge party brass.</p>
<p>The DLC’s top choices, “war heroes” (the DLC’s favorite term) Wesley Clark and John Kerry, lagged pathetically behind in the early primary polls. Both Clark and Kerry had difficulty articulating firm stances on the Iraq war, and Clark’s criticisms of the invasion jibed poorly with prior effusive statements supporting not only the war effort, but also several right-wing Republicans throughout the 1980s and 1990s including Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.</p>
<p>Kerry, meanwhile, took to baiting Dean’s “anti-war” stance, a variant of which he would later adopt himself, and which the Republican Party (accurately) used to characterize him as a “flip-flopper.” Even Howard Dean’s followers caught on early to Kerry’s equivocations when they made flip-flop Hawaiian sandals with John Kerry caricatures plastered on the bottom during the Iowa primary.</p>
<p>By summer 2003 Dean had earned undeservedly the “anti-war” label.&#160; But Dean wasn’t “anti-war”; rather he simply disliked the “unilateral” way in which the Bush Administration carried out the Iraq invasion — bypassing the United Nations and NATO.</p>
<p>Following the assault Dean argued that the occupation had to continue, in spite of journalistic and official reports on the impending difficulties and long-term hostilities to military occupation, permanent establishment of military bases, as well as private US contracting of Iraqi reconstruction. Dean stood by the notion that gun-point democracy was a gracious venture.</p>
<p>Still, Dean played his “anti-war” card marvelously, and his public persona admittedly contained more magnetism than the cardboard cut-outs of Kerry, Clark, Gephardt, and Joseph Lieberman, combined. Petrified, the DLC began a concerted campaign to take Dean down.</p>
<p>DLC machinations from many corrupt characters within the organization lasted right up to the disastrous Iowa caucus, in which Dean placed a miserable third, and derailed his chances of capturing the nomination and solidified his downfall when the media overplayed his histrionic rallying speech to his youthful supporters.</p>
<p>As Dean recounted in his campaign memoir, You Have the Power, DLC co-founding member, star, and former President Bill Clinton placed a wave of influential phone calls to Dean supporters during the months prior to the Iowa caucus, urging them to throw their support behind Wesley Clark instead.</p>
<p>Clinton’s rationale?&#160; A homophobic one.&#160; Dean, declared Clinton, had “forfeited his right to run for President” because he had signed a bill in Vermont as governor permitting civil unions.&#160; Clinton’s anti-gay position would repeat itself during the Kerry 2004 campaign, when Clinton urged, albeit unsuccessfully, Kerry to embrace the proposed federal gay marriage ban.</p>
<p>Other DLC elements also worked actively to portray Dean as an unstable radical.&#160; The DLC’s flagship publication labeled him “misguided,” “an aberration,” and an “activist” who was “defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist, interest-group liberalism at home.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, other DLC bankrollers founded an ad hoc group, with DLC fundraiser David Jones at the helm, to air negative ads in Iowa that attacked Dean from the faux-left, noting his NRA endorsements and support for NAFTA, among other positions that betrayed the “progressive” persona Dean and his campaign manager Joe Trippi whipped out from time to time in front of accommodating crowds.</p>
<p>The torrent of attack ads and underhanded DLC background activity from the likes of Clinton and his ilk effectively doomed Dean’s candidacy, as did the fact that most of his supporters were unable to realize that political mobilization extends beyond the world of inane political blogs and button clicking.</p>
<p>Dennis was not, and never will be, a Menace</p>
<p>With Howard Dean neutralized, one anti-war candidacy soldiered on — that of Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who opposed the war in principle throughout and called for an end to occupation within six months.&#160;As Democratic candidate after Democratic candidate dropped out of the race, and as John Kerry ascended and locked up the required delegates for the nomination, Kucinich nonetheless declared that he would stay in the race until the Democratic National Convention (DNC), so as to influence the Democratic Party’s platform and to allow principled anti-war voters an outlet and voice.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, as the Convention date approached, Kucinich’s independence appeared to wane. In a public speech that evoked reflexive pity from so many who observed, Kucinich endorsed his party’s pro-war candidate, John Kerry, weeks before the DNC, despite having throughout his campaign declared the Iraq war the central issue of the election season.</p>
<p>“Unless we have a firm and unshakeable resolve for John Kerry, we will have no opportunity to take America in a new direction,” Kucinich declared.&#160; “Unity is essential.” Kucinich repeated this mantra later in the fall of 2004 with a video on his website that implored supporters to “close ranks.” “Do we have differences of opinion? Yes. But the time is over to continue talking about those [issues],” he remarked.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, many Kucinich delegates at the convention felt dejected. Initially, the man for whom they had devoted much time and energy intimated that he would “release” them, paving the way for their robotic votes for Kerry.</p>
<p>Later, after hearing impassioned (and tearful) testimonies from his delegates, Kucinich changed his mind, and told them to “vote their conscience.”&#160; Fair enough.&#160; But most ended up voting for Kerry regardless. And what did they receive in return for their candidate and most of their delegates’ support for Kerry?&#160; Not much.</p>
<p>Despite the generally symbolic role of the platform in modern politics (GW Bush in 2000 infamously bragged that he had never read the GOP platform), seventeen Kucinich platform demands were axed in exchange for a borderline nonsensical statement with no hint of an exit strategy or an impending pullout from Iraq.&#160; It pledged to remove troops “when appropriate so that the military support needed by a sovereign Iraqi government will no longer be seen as the direct continuation of an American military presence.”</p>
<p>Absent from the platform was support for Palestinian rights, a repeal of the PATRIOT Act, as well as repudiation of the pre-emptive war doctrine in principle and as executed in Iraq.</p>
<p>“I ask you, are millions of anti-war/anti-occupation Americans welcome in the Democratic Party? If such voters are indeed welcome, I urge you to demonstrate this by permitting debate within the party on the war and occupation issue, both in Miami and in Boston,” wrote Jessie Jackson, prior to campaigning for a candidate who said nary a word about the exponential proliferation of the racist prison-industrial complex, increasing poverty, or black male unemployment, now over 50% in New York City alone.</p>
<p>As much as one can appreciate Congressman Kucinich’s past efforts, it is clear that noble attempts to transform the Democratic Party from within are wasted endeavors.</p>
<p>The convention itself was a difficult affair for many who attended.&#160; As polls indicated, 80-90% of the attending delegates declared themselves anti-war.&#160; Those trying to express such a view quickly received the muzzle.</p>
<p>Charles Underwood, the only Minnesota Kucinich delegate to vote for Kucinich, told Amy Goodman’s radio program Democracy Now!: “I am just very disappointed that there is no ability to express any hope for peace on the floor of this convention. We have had our signs confiscated, we’ve had our scarves for peace,&#160;you know, ‘Delegate For Peace,’ confiscated. We have had people that tell us to sit down and be quiet.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the anti-war delegates were not lucky enough to hear any speeches at the DNC that matched their point of view, and in fact were presented with two gung-ho militaristic ones instead.</p>
<p>Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards told the anti-war delegates: “We will always use our military might to keep the American people safe. And we, John and I, will have one clear unmistakable message for al Qaeda and these terrorists. You cannot run. You cannot hide.&#160; And we will destroy you.”</p>
<p>Dissent Squashed</p>
<p>Having neutralized Dean and later Kucinich, the two major voices of dissent in the party (one superficial, the other genuine), Kerry embraced the pre-emptive war doctrine on live national television during the Presidential debates, all while declaring alternately that the Iraq war was a “mistake,” and all while expressing support for continued occupation.&#160; Classification as “flip-flopper” worked beautifully for Karl Rove and the GOP.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Kerry allowed a growing number of rogues to assist his crafting of foreign policy.&#160; Richard Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State to Jimmy Carter and green-stamper of additional arms shipments to Indonesia during the Suharto regime, wrote many rapid-response memos on Kerry’s web site.</p>
<p>Holbrooke’s actions during the Carter administration occurred as Indonesian repression of East Timor reached genocidal levels. Kerry’s other foreign policy appointee, Rand Beers, crafted the notorious Plan Colombia, which Kerry took the lead in boosting through the legislature towards the tail-end of the Clinton Administration.</p>
<p>Plan Colombia allocates billions of dollars in military aid (monetary and arms) to the country’s right-wing government.&#160; Originally meant for defoliation of coca crops (which have devastated the peasant economy and legal enterprises such as sugar and coffee), according to investigative reporting, Plan Colombia funds are closely linked to violent repression of trade unionists. Colombia is now the top site for murders of trade unionists in the world.</p>
<p>Certainly Kerry’s loss did not come as a surprise. He offered few positive alternatives, other than being the “anybody” in “Anybody But Bush.”&#160;His economic prescriptions were tepid, and his stances on foreign policy issues such as war and Empire reflected those of the neocons.</p>
<p>When all the hype about the “youth vote,” “e-activism,” “buses to Ohio,” and “house DVD parties” cleared so tragically and so pathetically on Election Day 2004 — and with devout Kerry-Edwards supporters battling denial — the only forces on the left remaining were the Anti-Anybody-But-Bush crew.&#160; Indeed the anti-ABBers had been vindicated.</p>
<p>The Bleak Dem Future</p>
<p>However, many on the liberal-to-left spectrum still aren’t learning.&#160; Barack Obama has done his best to resurrect the lies of a progressive Democratic Party. Nicholas Kristof, days after the November disaster of 2004, urged that it is “time to get religion” for progressives and Democrats.&#160; Chat room and bulletin board rumbling suggests a drive for a Hillary Clinton Presidential DLC run in 2008. The Democratic future was, and is, indeed bleak.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Democrats continued self-destructive tendencies and betrayal of loyal constituencies, enthusiastically nominating pro-war, anti-choice, Nevada extremist Harry Reid for the party’s Senate leader.&#160; Reid, a conservative Mormon, received slightly under a 30% rating from NARAL, the largest pro-choice advocacy group in the US.</p>
<p>Reid’s nomination came after months of cheap Nader-baiting, in which Democrats and liberals characterized Ralph Nader’s run as a threat to abortion rights. Comparable wrath directed against the anti-choice Reid nomination did not exist, even though Reid’s elevation to one of the most influential Senate positions, and the highest post held by a Democrat in the country, will determine the strength, or rather the weakness of Democratic opposition to federal judicial appointments.</p>
<p>The most morally reprehensible action came later after the election with the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General.&#160; Much of the mainstream press and Democrats described John Ashcroft’s replacement as “moderate.”&#160; But Gonzales wrote the infamous memos essentially authorizing the Bush Administration to flout international human rights law as defined in the Geneva Convention.</p>
<p>So what did the liberals do?&#160; The ACLU would not “take an official position.”&#160; Pro-war Democrat Charles Schumer opined: “It’s encouraging that the president has chosen someone less polarizing.”&#160; And Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee chimed in tellingly: “I like him.”</p>
<p>Some may continue to recommend “reforming the Democratic Party from within.” Many Nader bashers and ABBers adopted such a line in 2004, claiming that if Nader would only run as a Democratic candidate for the party’s Presidential nomination, he could do oh-so-much to influence its direction.&#160; Yet the examples of Dean and Kucinich have shown us what happens when one makes such attempts — relentless attacks, backstabbing, and silencing.&#160;Reformism within the Democratic Party is a hopeless endeavor.</p>
<p>A little about the new Democratic hope. Like the majority of his colleagues, Obama has done very little to change the face of American politics. He has voted for war spending, appeased the pro-Israel lobby, and helped build the erroneous case against Iran, saying nothing about Israel’s plentiful arsenal of nuclear warheads. In short, Barack Obama is not an ally to those of us who oppose the ambiguous War on Terror.</p>
<p>“I want you to know that today I’ll be speaking from my heart, and as a true friend of Israel,” Obama announced a day after he locked up his party’s nomination to a crowd of pro-Israel zealots. “[W]hen I visit with AIPAC, I am among friends, Good friends. Friends who share my strong commitment to make sure that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow, and forever.”</p>
<p>Yet here we are again, like 2004, with “progressives” and other lefties ogling a hope-filled candidacy. But it’s not just Obama’s war support that should raise our hackles.</p>
<p>Obama supports the death penalty, opposes single-payer health care, supports looking into nuclear energy, opposes a carbon pollution tax, supports sending more troops to Afghanistan, and will not end the vast array of federal subsidies to corporations, including those to the oil and gas cartel.</p>
<p>And as the United States economy slides into a deep recession, Barack Obama is promising more of the same, despite his criticism of John McCain’s economic plan. But behind the curtains of Obama’s strategy team is the same set of economic troglodyte intellectuals that led us in to our current financial disaster.</p>
<p>Obama’s advisory team includes Harvard economist Jeffrey Liebman, a former Clinton adviser, who believes we ought to privatize social security. Then we have the renowned David Cutler, another Harvardite, who believes our economy can be boosted through an increase in privatized health care costs. Writing for New England Journal of Medicine in 2006, Cutler explained, “The rising cost … of health care has been the source of a lot of saber rattling in the media and the public square, without anyone seriously analyzing the benefits gained.”</p>
<p>And that’s just the tip of a very large iceberg.</p>
<p>As we again face a momentous election and try to amass opposition to the war in Iraq, let’s not forget what happened to the antiwar movement under the miserable and failing banner of “Anybody But Bush,” which now reads “Nobody but Obama.” It is time for an end to a bankrupt fusion politics, which ensures that we are left out election after election.</p>
<p>JOSHUA FRANK is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of <a href="" type="internal">Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush</a> (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the brand new book <a href="http://www.redstaterebels.org" type="external">Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland</a>, published by AK Press in July 2008.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | true | 4 | amount insult betrayal liberaltoleft spectrum willing swallow limits follows survey one elections worth pre postelection betrayal democratic party160the time arrived abandoned movements 2004 root john kerry abandon barack obama democrats national level join working outside partys stifling structure recently called ron paul ralph nader third party candidates running president year howard dean machine 2004 election year began phony antiwar candidate exvermont governor howard dean leading democratic party primary polls160deans pragmatic antiwar position indeed conditional bush administration produced better intelligence international community un backed us invasion dean would happily signed iraq undertaking however conservative rabidly probusiness democratic leadership council dlc panicked response deans rise top primary pack fear invigorated base could challenge party brass dlcs top choices war heroes dlcs favorite term wesley clark john kerry lagged pathetically behind early primary polls clark kerry difficulty articulating firm stances iraq war clarks criticisms invasion jibed poorly prior effusive statements supporting war effort also several rightwing republicans throughout 1980s 1990s including ronald reagan george bush sr kerry meanwhile took baiting deans antiwar stance variant would later adopt republican party accurately used characterize flipflopper even howard deans followers caught early kerrys equivocations made flipflop hawaiian sandals john kerry caricatures plastered bottom iowa primary summer 2003 dean earned undeservedly antiwar label160 dean wasnt antiwar rather simply disliked unilateral way bush administration carried iraq invasion bypassing united nations nato following assault dean argued occupation continue spite journalistic official reports impending difficulties longterm hostilities military occupation permanent establishment military bases well private us contracting iraqi reconstruction dean stood notion gunpoint democracy gracious venture still dean played antiwar card marvelously public persona admittedly contained magnetism cardboard cutouts kerry clark gephardt joseph lieberman combined petrified dlc began concerted campaign take dean dlc machinations many corrupt characters within organization lasted right disastrous iowa caucus dean placed miserable third derailed chances capturing nomination solidified downfall media overplayed histrionic rallying speech youthful supporters dean recounted campaign memoir power dlc cofounding member star former president bill clinton placed wave influential phone calls dean supporters months prior iowa caucus urging throw support behind wesley clark instead clintons rationale160 homophobic one160 dean declared clinton forfeited right run president signed bill vermont governor permitting civil unions160 clintons antigay position would repeat kerry 2004 campaign clinton urged albeit unsuccessfully kerry embrace proposed federal gay marriage ban dlc elements also worked actively portray dean unstable radical160 dlcs flagship publication labeled misguided aberration activist defined principally weakness abroad elitist interestgroup liberalism home meanwhile dlc bankrollers founded ad hoc group dlc fundraiser david jones helm air negative ads iowa attacked dean fauxleft noting nra endorsements support nafta among positions betrayed progressive persona dean campaign manager joe trippi whipped time time front accommodating crowds torrent attack ads underhanded dlc background activity likes clinton ilk effectively doomed deans candidacy fact supporters unable realize political mobilization extends beyond world inane political blogs button clicking dennis never menace howard dean neutralized one antiwar candidacy soldiered representative dennis kucinich ohio opposed war principle throughout called end occupation within six months160as democratic candidate democratic candidate dropped race john kerry ascended locked required delegates nomination kucinich nonetheless declared would stay race democratic national convention dnc influence democratic partys platform allow principled antiwar voters outlet voice nevertheless convention date approached kucinichs independence appeared wane public speech evoked reflexive pity many observed kucinich endorsed partys prowar candidate john kerry weeks dnc despite throughout campaign declared iraq war central issue election season unless firm unshakeable resolve john kerry opportunity take america new direction kucinich declared160 unity essential kucinich repeated mantra later fall 2004 video website implored supporters close ranks differences opinion yes time continue talking issues remarked meanwhile many kucinich delegates convention felt dejected initially man devoted much time energy intimated would release paving way robotic votes kerry later hearing impassioned tearful testimonies delegates kucinich changed mind told vote conscience160 fair enough160 ended voting kerry regardless receive return candidate delegates support kerry160 much despite generally symbolic role platform modern politics gw bush 2000 infamously bragged never read gop platform seventeen kucinich platform demands axed exchange borderline nonsensical statement hint exit strategy impending pullout iraq160 pledged remove troops appropriate military support needed sovereign iraqi government longer seen direct continuation american military presence absent platform support palestinian rights repeal patriot act well repudiation preemptive war doctrine principle executed iraq ask millions antiwarantioccupation americans welcome democratic party voters indeed welcome urge demonstrate permitting debate within party war occupation issue miami boston wrote jessie jackson prior campaigning candidate said nary word exponential proliferation racist prisonindustrial complex increasing poverty black male unemployment 50 new york city alone much one appreciate congressman kucinichs past efforts clear noble attempts transform democratic party within wasted endeavors convention difficult affair many attended160 polls indicated 8090 attending delegates declared antiwar160 trying express view quickly received muzzle charles underwood minnesota kucinich delegate vote kucinich told amy goodmans radio program democracy disappointed ability express hope peace floor convention signs confiscated weve scarves peace160you know delegate peace confiscated people tell us sit quiet meanwhile antiwar delegates lucky enough hear speeches dnc matched point view fact presented two gungho militaristic ones instead vice presidential candidate john edwards told antiwar delegates always use military might keep american people safe john one clear unmistakable message al qaeda terrorists run hide160 destroy dissent squashed neutralized dean later kucinich two major voices dissent party one superficial genuine kerry embraced preemptive war doctrine live national television presidential debates declaring alternately iraq war mistake expressing support continued occupation160 classification flipflopper worked beautifully karl rove gop meanwhile kerry allowed growing number rogues assist crafting foreign policy160 richard holbrooke assistant secretary state jimmy carter greenstamper additional arms shipments indonesia suharto regime wrote many rapidresponse memos kerrys web site holbrookes actions carter administration occurred indonesian repression east timor reached genocidal levels kerrys foreign policy appointee rand beers crafted notorious plan colombia kerry took lead boosting legislature towards tailend clinton administration plan colombia allocates billions dollars military aid monetary arms countrys rightwing government160 originally meant defoliation coca crops devastated peasant economy legal enterprises sugar coffee according investigative reporting plan colombia funds closely linked violent repression trade unionists colombia top site murders trade unionists world certainly kerrys loss come surprise offered positive alternatives anybody anybody bush160his economic prescriptions tepid stances foreign policy issues war empire reflected neocons hype youth vote eactivism buses ohio house dvd parties cleared tragically pathetically election day 2004 devout kerryedwards supporters battling denial forces left remaining antianybodybutbush crew160 indeed antiabbers vindicated bleak dem future however many liberaltoleft spectrum still arent learning160 barack obama done best resurrect lies progressive democratic party nicholas kristof days november disaster 2004 urged time get religion progressives democrats160 chat room bulletin board rumbling suggests drive hillary clinton presidential dlc run 2008 democratic future indeed bleak meanwhile democrats continued selfdestructive tendencies betrayal loyal constituencies enthusiastically nominating prowar antichoice nevada extremist harry reid partys senate leader160 reid conservative mormon received slightly 30 rating naral largest prochoice advocacy group us reids nomination came months cheap naderbaiting democrats liberals characterized ralph naders run threat abortion rights comparable wrath directed antichoice reid nomination exist even though reids elevation one influential senate positions highest post held democrat country determine strength rather weakness democratic opposition federal judicial appointments morally reprehensible action came later election nomination alberto gonzales attorney general160 much mainstream press democrats described john ashcrofts replacement moderate160 gonzales wrote infamous memos essentially authorizing bush administration flout international human rights law defined geneva convention liberals do160 aclu would take official position160 prowar democrat charles schumer opined encouraging president chosen someone less polarizing160 patrick leahy ranking democrat senate judiciary committee chimed tellingly like may continue recommend reforming democratic party within many nader bashers abbers adopted line 2004 claiming nader would run democratic candidate partys presidential nomination could ohsomuch influence direction160 yet examples dean kucinich shown us happens one makes attempts relentless attacks backstabbing silencing160reformism within democratic party hopeless endeavor little new democratic hope like majority colleagues obama done little change face american politics voted war spending appeased proisrael lobby helped build erroneous case iran saying nothing israels plentiful arsenal nuclear warheads short barack obama ally us oppose ambiguous war terror want know today ill speaking heart true friend israel obama announced day locked partys nomination crowd proisrael zealots visit aipac among friends good friends friends share strong commitment make sure bond united states israel unbreakable today tomorrow forever yet like 2004 progressives lefties ogling hopefilled candidacy obamas war support raise hackles obama supports death penalty opposes singlepayer health care supports looking nuclear energy opposes carbon pollution tax supports sending troops afghanistan end vast array federal subsidies corporations including oil gas cartel united states economy slides deep recession barack obama promising despite criticism john mccains economic plan behind curtains obamas strategy team set economic troglodyte intellectuals led us current financial disaster obamas advisory team includes harvard economist jeffrey liebman former clinton adviser believes ought privatize social security renowned david cutler another harvardite believes economy boosted increase privatized health care costs writing new england journal medicine 2006 cutler explained rising cost health care source lot saber rattling media public square without anyone seriously analyzing benefits gained thats tip large iceberg face momentous election try amass opposition war iraq lets forget happened antiwar movement miserable failing banner anybody bush reads nobody obama time end bankrupt fusion politics ensures left election election joshua frank coeditor dissident voice author left liberals helped reelect george w bush common courage press 2005 along jeffrey st clair editor brand new book red state rebels tales grassroots resistance heartland published ak press july 2008 160 ad 160 160 160 160 160 | 1,577 |
<p>Capitalism was once considered the epitome of economic evil, to such an extent that until recently the very word was avoided by its practitioners or apologists; it was the system that dared not speak its name.</p>
<p>“Freedom” was the preferred euphemism during most of the twentieth century.&#160;No longer. Capitalism has outed itself and, despite its troubles, is now lauded by banker and politician, portentous pundit and airhead breakfast TV host alike, on the grounds that no alternative is or ever could be desirable.</p>
<p>Therefore the least departure from capitalist norms on any continent, however moderately expressed or practiced, arouses the frenzy of the privileged and their retinues. Fear of the unexpected — uprisings, electoral revolts that challenge the status quo, street protests by the young, peasant jacqueries — compels the global elites to depend, in the last instance, on the threat or use of US military strength to settle every dispute in their favor. This creates a level playing field for the global rich alone, regardless of the resulting slaughter. Baghdad, Helmand, Tripoli, Kinshasa tell the tale.</p>
<p>Not since the interwar years has conflict been incited so shamelessly, and with such frightening frivolity. The combination of unchallengeable military power and the political intoxication it produces sweeps all else to the side. What the whole world knows to be false is proclaimed by the United States to be the truth, with media networks, vassals, and acolytes obediently in tow. The triumph of crude force is portrayed as a mark of intelligence or courage; criminal arrogance is described as moral energy.</p>
<p>Of course, such aggression doesn’t always succeed politically and, in most cases, the chaos it unleashes is much worse than what existed before. But the economic gains are palpable: the privatization of Libyan and Iraqi oil are the most salient examples.</p>
<p>How can hope be sustained in such a world? First, by shedding all illusions about the capacity of the rulers of the world to reform themselves.</p>
<p>The conditions and circumstances that have enabled <a href="" type="internal">US imperial power</a> to reach its present level of ascendancy are hardly a secret. And the questions currently being debated are extremely relevant. What are the limits of US power? What factors might contribute to its decline? How is US hegemony exercised today?</p>
<p>The answers would take into account America’s size, natural resources, technology, manpower, and military superiority, compared to those of its economic rivals, and also consider how long domestic consent to such an existence is liable to continue.</p>
<p>A well-meaning, if obvious, shortcut is to indulge in wishful thinking, which comes in various guises. The simplest of these queries the very notion of an imperial United States of America, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some write of the differences between the old European pattern of colonization and the current variant, employing a sleight of mind to give Washington a clean bill of health.</p>
<p>Such a view ignores institutions and emphasizes individuals. To present the aggressive post-9/11 forward march as the initiative of “crazies” (Cheney/Rumsfeld), or a dumb and malign George W. Bush, encourages amnesia. The fact that Obama/Clinton have effectively continued the policies of the preceding administration and, in some cases, gone beyond them suggests that Bush and his associates did not have a monopoly on “craziness.”</p>
<p>The political literature on the decline and coming fall of the American Empire has proliferated in recent years, and is equally unsatisfactory. There is an air of desperation. Setbacks are interpreted as crushing defeats, while deluded hopes fasten onto the rise of China, or Putin’s Russia, or even onto political Islam.</p>
<p>In reality, the imperial highway is unconquered and unconquerable from without; the only serious exit route lies within the country. What combination of social forces at home can defeat the labyrinthine power structures of the United States? However bleak such a vision might appear at the moment, there is no other on the horizon.</p>
<p>A “good” patriot today is made to feel that she must, of necessity, also be pro-imperialist. More skeptical citizens who believe that the Empire’s military bases should be&#160;dismantled, its troops brought home, its military expenditure reduced, and America itself redefined as just a large state among others, only using force when it is directly threatened, are viewed as “bad” patriots, which is to say, little more than backstabbing traitors. They are by default the enemy within.</p>
<p>They are regarded as such not only at home, but also by those who fear US withdrawal abroad: vassal politicians and states in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the loyal few in South America. The rulers of the only vassal continent — Australia — would, given its geography, be equally disturbed to contemplate independence.</p>
<p>Yet in both the Arab world and the heartlands of Western capitalism, the systemic order imposed through the Washington Consensus since the collapse of the Soviet Union has appeared to be in forward flight. The Arab world seeks to escape its recent history, while some European states, in the grip of parliamentary paralysis, dream of external deliverance from the very bankers who were responsible for the crash of 2008.</p>
<p>The atrophy of the productive economy in the United States and large swathes of the European Union reveal a malady that was already at an advanced stage, even as some claimed that the disease had been defeated forever. In response, the optimists argued that the US was confronted by an involution similar to the one that had afflicted Britain at the heyday of its empire. Questions long treated as defunct began to be raised again, if only on the margins of the political system.</p>
<p>The impact of this doubt on popular consciousness has spread rapidly. The events have laid bare the weaknesses of the system, exposed its bald patches, and revealed yet again that the motive force underlying empires, wars, and conquest for the last two thousand&#160;years is not ideology, but the drive to accumulate and monopolize the distribution and flow of wealth by all necessary means.&#160;The struggle to extract and transport gold and silver may have been replaced by split-second, push-button transfers on tiny machines, like the Thompson gun has been replaced by the drone, but the masters of our world are playing the same ruthless game as their forebears.</p>
<p>2011 witnessed the concatenation of two crises. One was symbolized by the spate of Arab uprisings challenging indigenous and Western-backed despotisms in the name of freedom. These events were much more reminiscent of the 1848 upheavals in continental Europe than of the “springtime of the peoples” of 1989, which effectively exchanged one form of dependence for another, seeing in neoliberal capitalism the only future.</p>
<p>The other blew in like a breeze through public spaces and university campuses once again, and the noise of mass uproar could be heard on more than one continent. Mediterranean Europe in particular was engulfed by general strikes and mass mobilizations numbering millions. Do these disruptions herald the birth of a new social order, inside or outside capitalism?</p>
<p>The answer from the upper classes is a resounding “No.” They have been hard at work using the state to bail out (Europe) or stimulate (US) the existing neoliberal system. The notion that there might be a managerial revolt from within the system, a technocrats’ uprising, belongs to the realm of science fiction. It has no precedent in history. Any change from above or within the existing structures is unlikely, unless the threats from below become too strong to resist.</p>
<p>The democratic shell within which Western capitalism has, until recently, prospered is showing a number of cracks. Since the nineties democracy has, in the West, taken the form of an extreme center, in which center-left and center-right collude to preserve the status quo; a dictatorship of capital that has reduced political parties to the status of the living dead. How did we get here?</p>
<p>Following the collapse of communism in 1991, Edmund Burke’s notion that “in all societies consisting of different classes, certain classes must necessarily be uppermost,” and that “the apostles of equality only change and pervert the natural order of things,” became the wisdom of the age, embraced by servant and master alike. Nevertheless, money corrupted politics. Leading politicians of the extreme center&#160;became rich during their years in power. Many were given consultancies as soon as they left office, as part of a “sweetheart deal” with the companies concerned.</p>
<p>Throughout the heartlands of capital we have witnessed the convergence of political choices: Republicans and Democrats in the United States, New Labour and Tories in the vassal state of Britain, Socialists and Conservatives in France, the German coalitions, the Scandinavian center-right and center-left, and so on.</p>
<p>In virtually each case the two-party system has morphed into an effective national government. The hallowed notion that political parties and the differences between them constitute the essence of modern democracies has begun to look like a sham. Cultural differences persist, and the issues raised are important; but the craven capitulation &#160;on the fundamentals of how the country is governed means that cultural liberals, in permanent hock to the US Democrats or their equivalents, have helped to create the climate in which so many social and cultural rights are menaced.</p>
<p>A new market extremism has come into play. The symbiosis between politics and corporate capital has become a model for the new-style democracies. It was the politicians who ushered private capital into the most sacred domains of social provision.</p>
<p>As 2014 drew to a close, how did the United States fare? Far from appearing overstretched or on the verge of collapse, America was conducting business as usual across the world. The NATO intervention and “ <a href="" type="internal">victory</a>” in Libya was carried out via a monopoly of air space, sealing Africa Command’s first military triumph, setting the tone for dealing with the rest of the continent in the decade that lies ahead.</p>
<p>The Arab East remains unstable; nevertheless, the moderate Islamist forces in the region are only too happy to accommodate most imperial needs, with the odd disagreement on Israel largely for show and not reflecting any fundamental shift in policy. The Taliban and ISIS will do the same when the time comes. Meanwhile, the oil giants — BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and ConocoPhillips — netted profits in the region of $900 billion over the last decade.</p>
<p>Elsewhere further advances are dotted on the world map. The traditionally servile Australian elite agreed to a new US military base in Australia with alacrity. This was accompanied by hard anti-Chinese talk in which President Obama underlined the imperial presence in the Far East, stressing that the US was an Asian power and warning the Chinese to “play by the rules of the road.” These are rules that the Chinese know are formulated, interpreted, and enforced by the US.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, only South America has experienced a rise of political resistance to imperial hegemony, both political and economic. This is the first time since the Monroe doctrine that four states are without US ambassadors: Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The largest state in the region, Brazil, has asserted a degree of independence lacking in recent decades. State Department functionaries visit Brasilia regularly to reassure the political elite that “Obama is not Bush,” a message greeted with some skepticism.</p>
<p>It is hardly a secret that Obama/Clinton approved the coup in Honduras and that death squads are back in favor. Plans to destabilize the Bolivarian states and topple their governments have not been abandoned, as the 2012 overthrow of Fernando Lugo in Paraguay revealed. Washington searches out the weakest link in the enemy camp and then proceeds to destroy it, with military force when necessary, but preferably by using local relays and manipulating the system, as in Asunción, and in Venezuela after Chávez succumbed to cancer.</p>
<p>To think that the military-political leadership of the United States is preparing to go back home after organizing a soft dismantling of its overseas empire is eminently comforting and wholly untrue.</p> | true | 4 | capitalism considered epitome economic evil extent recently word avoided practitioners apologists system dared speak name freedom preferred euphemism twentieth century160no longer capitalism outed despite troubles lauded banker politician portentous pundit airhead breakfast tv host alike grounds alternative ever could desirable therefore least departure capitalist norms continent however moderately expressed practiced arouses frenzy privileged retinues fear unexpected uprisings electoral revolts challenge status quo street protests young peasant jacqueries compels global elites depend last instance threat use us military strength settle every dispute favor creates level playing field global rich alone regardless resulting slaughter baghdad helmand tripoli kinshasa tell tale since interwar years conflict incited shamelessly frightening frivolity combination unchallengeable military power political intoxication produces sweeps else side whole world knows false proclaimed united states truth media networks vassals acolytes obediently tow triumph crude force portrayed mark intelligence courage criminal arrogance described moral energy course aggression doesnt always succeed politically cases chaos unleashes much worse existed economic gains palpable privatization libyan iraqi oil salient examples hope sustained world first shedding illusions capacity rulers world reform conditions circumstances enabled us imperial power reach present level ascendancy hardly secret questions currently debated extremely relevant limits us power factors might contribute decline us hegemony exercised today answers would take account americas size natural resources technology manpower military superiority compared economic rivals also consider long domestic consent existence liable continue wellmeaning obvious shortcut indulge wishful thinking comes various guises simplest queries notion imperial united states america especially collapse soviet union write differences old european pattern colonization current variant employing sleight mind give washington clean bill health view ignores institutions emphasizes individuals present aggressive post911 forward march initiative crazies cheneyrumsfeld dumb malign george w bush encourages amnesia fact obamaclinton effectively continued policies preceding administration cases gone beyond suggests bush associates monopoly craziness political literature decline coming fall american empire proliferated recent years equally unsatisfactory air desperation setbacks interpreted crushing defeats deluded hopes fasten onto rise china putins russia even onto political islam reality imperial highway unconquered unconquerable without serious exit route lies within country combination social forces home defeat labyrinthine power structures united states however bleak vision might appear moment horizon good patriot today made feel must necessity also proimperialist skeptical citizens believe empires military bases be160dismantled troops brought home military expenditure reduced america redefined large state among others using force directly threatened viewed bad patriots say little backstabbing traitors default enemy within regarded home also fear us withdrawal abroad vassal politicians states europe asia middle east africa loyal south america rulers vassal continent australia would given geography equally disturbed contemplate independence yet arab world heartlands western capitalism systemic order imposed washington consensus since collapse soviet union appeared forward flight arab world seeks escape recent history european states grip parliamentary paralysis dream external deliverance bankers responsible crash 2008 atrophy productive economy united states large swathes european union reveal malady already advanced stage even claimed disease defeated forever response optimists argued us confronted involution similar one afflicted britain heyday empire questions long treated defunct began raised margins political system impact doubt popular consciousness spread rapidly events laid bare weaknesses system exposed bald patches revealed yet motive force underlying empires wars conquest last two thousand160years ideology drive accumulate monopolize distribution flow wealth necessary means160the struggle extract transport gold silver may replaced splitsecond pushbutton transfers tiny machines like thompson gun replaced drone masters world playing ruthless game forebears 2011 witnessed concatenation two crises one symbolized spate arab uprisings challenging indigenous westernbacked despotisms name freedom events much reminiscent 1848 upheavals continental europe springtime peoples 1989 effectively exchanged one form dependence another seeing neoliberal capitalism future blew like breeze public spaces university campuses noise mass uproar could heard one continent mediterranean europe particular engulfed general strikes mass mobilizations numbering millions disruptions herald birth new social order inside outside capitalism answer upper classes resounding hard work using state bail europe stimulate us existing neoliberal system notion might managerial revolt within system technocrats uprising belongs realm science fiction precedent history change within existing structures unlikely unless threats become strong resist democratic shell within western capitalism recently prospered showing number cracks since nineties democracy west taken form extreme center centerleft centerright collude preserve status quo dictatorship capital reduced political parties status living dead get following collapse communism 1991 edmund burkes notion societies consisting different classes certain classes must necessarily uppermost apostles equality change pervert natural order things became wisdom age embraced servant master alike nevertheless money corrupted politics leading politicians extreme center160became rich years power many given consultancies soon left office part sweetheart deal companies concerned throughout heartlands capital witnessed convergence political choices republicans democrats united states new labour tories vassal state britain socialists conservatives france german coalitions scandinavian centerright centerleft virtually case twoparty system morphed effective national government hallowed notion political parties differences constitute essence modern democracies begun look like sham cultural differences persist issues raised important craven capitulation 160on fundamentals country governed means cultural liberals permanent hock us democrats equivalents helped create climate many social cultural rights menaced new market extremism come play symbiosis politics corporate capital become model newstyle democracies politicians ushered private capital sacred domains social provision 2014 drew close united states fare far appearing overstretched verge collapse america conducting business usual across world nato intervention victory libya carried via monopoly air space sealing africa commands first military triumph setting tone dealing rest continent decade lies ahead arab east remains unstable nevertheless moderate islamist forces region happy accommodate imperial needs odd disagreement israel largely show reflecting fundamental shift policy taliban isis time comes meanwhile oil giants bp chevron exxonmobil shell conocophillips netted profits region 900 billion last decade elsewhere advances dotted world map traditionally servile australian elite agreed new us military base australia alacrity accompanied hard antichinese talk president obama underlined imperial presence far east stressing us asian power warning chinese play rules road rules chinese know formulated interpreted enforced us elsewhere south america experienced rise political resistance imperial hegemony political economic first time since monroe doctrine four states without us ambassadors cuba venezuela ecuador bolivia largest state region brazil asserted degree independence lacking recent decades state department functionaries visit brasilia regularly reassure political elite obama bush message greeted skepticism hardly secret obamaclinton approved coup honduras death squads back favor plans destabilize bolivarian states topple governments abandoned 2012 overthrow fernando lugo paraguay revealed washington searches weakest link enemy camp proceeds destroy military force necessary preferably using local relays manipulating system asunción venezuela chávez succumbed cancer think militarypolitical leadership united states preparing go back home organizing soft dismantling overseas empire eminently comforting wholly untrue | 1,082 |
<p>“Arafat is guilty of everything here.” Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon declared on television Monday night. “Arafat has made his strategic choices: a strategy of terrorism.” In sync with these fierce words, Israeli forces launched attacks close to the Palestinian leader’s house and destroyed his helicopters, an onslaught that the US government conspicuously failed to condemn.</p>
<p>So, in the wake of the last suicide bomb attacks launched by Hamas, the sky is now the limit for Israeli reprisals: the killing of Arafat, and, not so far down the road, perhaps forced expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank. In other words, the substitution of untrammeled military repression by Israel’s forces, and a deaf ear by the US to all Palestinian calls for fair dealing. Write FINIS to all efforts across the past 35 years to secure a just settlement in Israel and some measure of satisfaction for Palestinian aspirations.</p>
<p>But to be honest about it, is not that exactly what militant Israelis like Ariel Sharon have wanted all along? Can anyone claim with a straight face that Sharon and those like him actually want a just peace that would see an end to Israeli settlements on the West Bank, the rise of a Palestinian state in any guise other than pathetic little Bantustans ringed by Israel’s security forces?</p>
<p>There are those in Israel who outlined clearly a couple of weeks ago Sharon’s plan to force matters exactly along the lines they have now taken.</p>
<p>Alex Fishman is the main commentator on security matters for Israel’s largest mass circulation paper, Yediot Achronot, a publication with right-of-center politics. Fishman is known for his excellent contacts in the military. On Sunday, November 25, Fishman issued a prediction based on the recent assasination on November 23 by Israel’s security services of the Hamas leader, Mahmud Abu Hunud. It was featured in a box on the newspaper’s front page.</p>
<p>It began, “We again find ourselves preparing with dread for a new mass terrorist attack within the Green Line [Israel’s pre-’67 border].” Since Fishman was entirely accurate in this regard, we should mark closely what he wrote next. “Whoever gave a green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman’s agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line, of the kind perpetrated at the Dolphinarium [discotheque in Tel-Aviv].”</p>
<p>Fishman stated flatly that such an agreement did exist, even if neither the Palestinian Authority nor Hamas would admit to it in public. “It is a fact,” he continued, ” that, while the security services did accumulate repeated warnings of planned Hamas terrorist attacks within the Green Line, these did not materialize. That cannot be attributed solely to the Shabak’s impressive success in intercepting the suicide bombers and their controllers. Rather, the respective leaderships of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas came to the understanding that it would be better not to play into Israel’s hands by mass attacks on its population centres.”</p>
<p>In other words Arafat had managed to convince Hamas to curb its suicide bombers. This understanding was shattered by the assassination of Abu Hunud. “Whoever decided upon the liquidation of Abu Hunud,” Fishman continued, ” knew in advance that that would be the price. The subject was extensively discussed both by Israel’s military echelon and its political one, before it was decided to carry out the liquidation. Now, the security bodies assume that Hamas will embark on a concerted effort to carry out suicide bombings, and preparations are made accordingly.”</p>
<p>Ever since September 11 Israel’s leaders followed with deep trepidation the building of the coalition against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The months of studious indifference displayed by the Bush administration towards the Middle East’s crises suddenly gave way to President Bush’s abrupt, post September 11 statement that he had always nourished the dream of a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>Consequently the prime task of the Israeli government and of its suppporters here has been to turn back any serious pressure for accomodation with even the most modest of Palestinian demands. In parallel the faction mustered around deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle has been to push for the US to reopen direct hostilities with Iraq and settle accounts with Saddam Hussein, once and for all.</p>
<p>The Wolfowitz-Perle group knows perfectly well that any serious new confrontation with Saddam Hussein would probably be a prolonged and bloody affair. There is no Northern Alliance ready and eager for US intervention in Iraq. The Shia in the south remember well what happened in 1991 when they rose against Saddam and the US stood by while Saddam methodically slaughtered them. The Kurds know that a post Saddam regime might move against them, with similar US indifference. If the US acted as supervisor and guarantor for an invasion by Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, the military and diplomatic consequences would be both bloody and far-reaching.</p>
<p>It’s clear that the Wolfowitz-Perle group is equable in the face of such uncertainties, since whatever the ghastly consequences for ordinary people in Iraq the one outcome that would be certain is that Israel would be resoundingly confirmed in its status as the United States’ prime ally and client in the region, even as the post-September 11 coalition with Islamic countries falls apart. Small wonder they rapturously echo Sharon’s denunciations of Arafat as a man of terror even though they, being smart people, probably don’t need Alex Fishman to explain how the real game is actually being played.</p>
<p>These are the stakes. They’re far larger than the present tragi-comic efforts to assemble a coalition to run Afghanistan, and there isn’t much sign thus far that President Bush understands that comic-book advisories such as “You’re for us or against us” do not, in this situation, really apply.</p> | true | 4 | arafat guilty everything israeli prime minister ariel sharon declared television monday night arafat made strategic choices strategy terrorism sync fierce words israeli forces launched attacks close palestinian leaders house destroyed helicopters onslaught us government conspicuously failed condemn wake last suicide bomb attacks launched hamas sky limit israeli reprisals killing arafat far road perhaps forced expulsion tens thousands palestinians west bank words substitution untrammeled military repression israels forces deaf ear us palestinian calls fair dealing write finis efforts across past 35 years secure settlement israel measure satisfaction palestinian aspirations honest exactly militant israelis like ariel sharon wanted along anyone claim straight face sharon like actually want peace would see end israeli settlements west bank rise palestinian state guise pathetic little bantustans ringed israels security forces israel outlined clearly couple weeks ago sharons plan force matters exactly along lines taken alex fishman main commentator security matters israels largest mass circulation paper yediot achronot publication rightofcenter politics fishman known excellent contacts military sunday november 25 fishman issued prediction based recent assasination november 23 israels security services hamas leader mahmud abu hunud featured box newspapers front page began find preparing dread new mass terrorist attack within green line israels pre67 border since fishman entirely accurate regard mark closely wrote next whoever gave green light act liquidation knew full well thereby shattering one blow gentlemans agreement hamas palestinian authority agreement hamas avoid near future suicide bombings inside green line kind perpetrated dolphinarium discotheque telaviv fishman stated flatly agreement exist even neither palestinian authority hamas would admit public fact continued security services accumulate repeated warnings planned hamas terrorist attacks within green line materialize attributed solely shabaks impressive success intercepting suicide bombers controllers rather respective leaderships palestinian authority hamas came understanding would better play israels hands mass attacks population centres words arafat managed convince hamas curb suicide bombers understanding shattered assassination abu hunud whoever decided upon liquidation abu hunud fishman continued knew advance would price subject extensively discussed israels military echelon political one decided carry liquidation security bodies assume hamas embark concerted effort carry suicide bombings preparations made accordingly ever since september 11 israels leaders followed deep trepidation building coalition taliban al qaeda months studious indifference displayed bush administration towards middle easts crises suddenly gave way president bushs abrupt post september 11 statement always nourished dream palestinian state consequently prime task israeli government suppporters turn back serious pressure accomodation even modest palestinian demands parallel faction mustered around deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz defense policy board chairman richard perle push us reopen direct hostilities iraq settle accounts saddam hussein wolfowitzperle group knows perfectly well serious new confrontation saddam hussein would probably prolonged bloody affair northern alliance ready eager us intervention iraq shia south remember well happened 1991 rose saddam us stood saddam methodically slaughtered kurds know post saddam regime might move similar us indifference us acted supervisor guarantor invasion ahmed chalabi iraqi national congress military diplomatic consequences would bloody farreaching clear wolfowitzperle group equable face uncertainties since whatever ghastly consequences ordinary people iraq one outcome would certain israel would resoundingly confirmed status united states prime ally client region even postseptember 11 coalition islamic countries falls apart small wonder rapturously echo sharons denunciations arafat man terror even though smart people probably dont need alex fishman explain real game actually played stakes theyre far larger present tragicomic efforts assemble coalition run afghanistan isnt much sign thus far president bush understands comicbook advisories youre us us situation really apply | 568 |
<p>The nuclear power plant at Green River, Utah is a proposal of Blue Castle Holdings (BCH), which is an unregistered subsidary of Transition Power Development, a new start Utah limited liability company with no assets other than venture capital. The CEO is Aaron Tilton, a former member of the Utah legislature turned energy lobbyist. The BCH website is devoid of any pertinent information about the project and instead reads like a white paper to convince investors and the public that nuclear energy is the safe and affordable.</p>
<p>A possible alternative proposal to this turn key boondoogle is to place solar panels on every south-facing roof in sun-drenched Utah. Such a proposal would have broader public acceptance, is less expensive, faster to implement, uses less water overall, preserves open space, avoids massive vapor plumes in the viewsheds of national parks, and avoids the controversy of radioactive waste, leaks, accidents and issues of homeland security.</p>
<p>The electricity from the nuclear facility is targeted for the Wasatch Front (Salt Lake City) with surplus for Wyoming, California, Nevada and Arizona. It is also possible that the energy could be targeted to develop oil shale and tar sands in the Uinta Basin of the Colorado Plateau, which would resemble mountain top removal in Appalachia, or the destruction of the boreal forests and watersheds of Alberta, Canada.</p>
<p>The total cost is projected to be 16 billion dollars with a projected completion date of Unit One in 2020, which is too optimistic when considering the actual construction calendar of Unit One at Arizona’s Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. Nor does the schedule and price tag account for protests, rallies, direct action and legal challenges from the general public. The Colorado Plateau does have, afterall, the highest concentration of national parks and monuments in North America.</p>
<p>Green River is a cozy, small farming town with sleep over motels, but the price tag does not consider the zero housing available for the necessary staff and construction workers of the power plant, nor the cost of improving basic utilities, services, schools, and the expansion of the city sewer system. Green River City doesn’t even have a hospital.</p>
<p>The proposed facility is located on 1,627 acres of School Institutional Trust Lands (SITLA) near the Intersection of Hwy 6 and Interstate 70, a few miles west of Green River City. SITLA is a state land agency that behaves like an obsessive real estate broker who would approve an oil derrick next to your grandmother’s garden without the decency of telling her.</p>
<p>The water intake would be near the I-70 bridge crossing the Green River with a high-security pipeline corridor to the power plant. The total annual amount of water to be consumed by the power plant is 54,000 acre-feet; there are no return flows to the Green River. There is no contract with the federal government to supply water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to the project in times of shortages, so when the demand for water is high in July and August, the withdrawal will pose a significant threat to endangered fish. Sandbar nursery habitats are closed to entry or exit when the river drops in elevation. This event can either reduce available habitat for juvenille fish, or strand fish that will then succumb to poor water quality or predators.</p>
<p>This project is really about securing more rights to water for the state of Utah, than it is about securing energy for the nation. Water in search of a project is another way of putting it. The decision before Utah Division of Water Rights is about approving the transfer of two water rights to Emery County, one from San Juan County and the other from Kane County. The original points of diversion (POD) are the San Juan River and Lake Powell. The two counties would lease their water rights to Blue Castle Holdings and then use those funds to develop small surface water projects in their perspective counties. In otherwords, this proposed transfer will increase the overall consumption of surface water in three Utah counties.</p>
<p>The problems are two-fold: surplus water does not exist in the Colorado River basin and the endangered species problem does.</p>
<p>The state of Utah is the last hope for the recovery of endangered fish species because the Green River flows free for 425 miles between Flaming Gorge Reservoir and Lake Powell. In the summertime the river flows are dangerously low due to over-consumption and evaporation. It is quite common to see comatose fish floating upside down along the Green River, victims of summertime hypoxia (lack of oxygen).</p>
<p>The other problem is the water supply of the Colorado River has peaked basin-wide. In fact, every metropolis in the arid west is at peak water. Their conservation programs are not about easing water stress for their communities, since the water savings is quickly converted into yet more urban sprawl.</p>
<p>Four species of native fish are endangered, and populations are augmented artificially from fish hatchery stock. Additionally, three threatened fish species in the Green River are approaching endangerment. If the looming fish problem is not solved soon, which is unlikely considering 28 years of unsuccessful programming, the fish will eventually get the higher priority for water. If the Endangered Species Act is gutted by Congress, the water quanity/quality problem would still exist in the form of Lakes Powell and Mead going empty. For example, Lake Mead only has to drop another 20 feet before cutbacks to Nevada and Arizona begin. If the problem escalates further, the hydrosociety will be dependent on a system called “run of the river” which is what existed before Hoover Dam was built. A return to dust, as it were.</p>
<p>The water agencies are not thrilled about the proposal of Blue Castle Holdings. The Bureau of Reclamation is concerned that water for the Central Utah Project is at risk. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is concerned about the recovery of endangered fish, as is Utah Division of Water Resources.</p>
<p>There is compelling information for the State Engineer of the Utah Division of Water Rights to deny this water transfer application, but Blue Castle Holdings has the ear of the state legislature, which finds the time to pass dubious resolutions like denying climate change, scolding professors at Brigham Young University, and challenging the public ownership of federal lands in the court system with the legal fees paid for by the SITLA sleeze fund.</p>
<p>JOHN WEISHEIT, the Colorado Riverkeeper, is director of <a href="http://www.livingrivers.org" type="external">Living Rivers</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>This article originally appeared in <a href="http://www.onthecolorado.org" type="external">On the Colorado</a>.</p>
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<p /> | true | 4 | nuclear power plant green river utah proposal blue castle holdings bch unregistered subsidary transition power development new start utah limited liability company assets venture capital ceo aaron tilton former member utah legislature turned energy lobbyist bch website devoid pertinent information project instead reads like white paper convince investors public nuclear energy safe affordable possible alternative proposal turn key boondoogle place solar panels every southfacing roof sundrenched utah proposal would broader public acceptance less expensive faster implement uses less water overall preserves open space avoids massive vapor plumes viewsheds national parks avoids controversy radioactive waste leaks accidents issues homeland security electricity nuclear facility targeted wasatch front salt lake city surplus wyoming california nevada arizona also possible energy could targeted develop oil shale tar sands uinta basin colorado plateau would resemble mountain top removal appalachia destruction boreal forests watersheds alberta canada total cost projected 16 billion dollars projected completion date unit one 2020 optimistic considering actual construction calendar unit one arizonas palo verde nuclear generating station schedule price tag account protests rallies direct action legal challenges general public colorado plateau afterall highest concentration national parks monuments north america green river cozy small farming town sleep motels price tag consider zero housing available necessary staff construction workers power plant cost improving basic utilities services schools expansion city sewer system green river city doesnt even hospital proposed facility located 1627 acres school institutional trust lands sitla near intersection hwy 6 interstate 70 miles west green river city sitla state land agency behaves like obsessive real estate broker would approve oil derrick next grandmothers garden without decency telling water intake would near i70 bridge crossing green river highsecurity pipeline corridor power plant total annual amount water consumed power plant 54000 acrefeet return flows green river contract federal government supply water flaming gorge reservoir project times shortages demand water high july august withdrawal pose significant threat endangered fish sandbar nursery habitats closed entry exit river drops elevation event either reduce available habitat juvenille fish strand fish succumb poor water quality predators project really securing rights water state utah securing energy nation water search project another way putting decision utah division water rights approving transfer two water rights emery county one san juan county kane county original points diversion pod san juan river lake powell two counties would lease water rights blue castle holdings use funds develop small surface water projects perspective counties otherwords proposed transfer increase overall consumption surface water three utah counties problems twofold surplus water exist colorado river basin endangered species problem state utah last hope recovery endangered fish species green river flows free 425 miles flaming gorge reservoir lake powell summertime river flows dangerously low due overconsumption evaporation quite common see comatose fish floating upside along green river victims summertime hypoxia lack oxygen problem water supply colorado river peaked basinwide fact every metropolis arid west peak water conservation programs easing water stress communities since water savings quickly converted yet urban sprawl four species native fish endangered populations augmented artificially fish hatchery stock additionally three threatened fish species green river approaching endangerment looming fish problem solved soon unlikely considering 28 years unsuccessful programming fish eventually get higher priority water endangered species act gutted congress water quanityquality problem would still exist form lakes powell mead going empty example lake mead drop another 20 feet cutbacks nevada arizona begin problem escalates hydrosociety dependent system called run river existed hoover dam built return dust water agencies thrilled proposal blue castle holdings bureau reclamation concerned water central utah project risk us fish wildlife service concerned recovery endangered fish utah division water resources compelling information state engineer utah division water rights deny water transfer application blue castle holdings ear state legislature finds time pass dubious resolutions like denying climate change scolding professors brigham young university challenging public ownership federal lands court system legal fees paid sitla sleeze fund john weisheit colorado riverkeeper director living rivers reached johnlivingriversorg article originally appeared colorado 160 words stick 160 | 656 |
<p>Everyone has the right to change his or her mind. Even Danny Tirzeh.</p>
<p>Colonel Tirzeh was responsible for planning the wall that “envelopes” Jerusalem – the one that cuts the city off from the West Bank in order to turn it into the United Capital Of Israel For All Eternity.</p>
<p>And now, suddenly, Tirzeh pops up as the main opponent of the wall he himself planned. He wants to move it, so as to leave the lands of al-Walaja village on the “Israeli” side.</p>
<p>The Colonel has ceased acting on behalf of the Israeli army and now represents private entrepreneurs who want to build 14 thousand housing units for 45 thousand Jewish souls. All this, of course, for the greater good of Zionism, the Jewish people, Israel’s Eternal Capital, and many tens of millions of shekels.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>COLONEL TIRZEH is not just anybody. He is a symbol.</p>
<p>For years I kept meeting him in the halls of the Supreme Court. He had become almost a fixture: the star witness, the expert and the moving spirit in scores of hearings dealing with the Separation and Annexation Wall.</p>
<p>He knows everything. Every kilometer of the Wall and the Fence. Every hill, every stone. He always carries with him a large bundle of maps which he lays before the judges, earnestly explaining why the Wall must pass here and not there, why the security of the state demands that the Palestinian villages be separated from their land, why leaving an olive grove in the hands of its owner would expose Israeli soldiers to mortal danger.</p>
<p>Generally, the judges are persuaded.&#160; After all, he is the expert. He is the man who knows. How can they take upon themselves the responsibility for changing the route of the Wall, if this could result in Jews being killed?</p>
<p>There are exceptions. At Bil’in village, the court was convinced that the Fence could be moved a few hundred meters without causing the security of the state to collapse and heaps of Jewish bodies to litter the landscape.</p>
<p>So the Supreme Court accepted the plea of the villagers and decided to move the Fence and — nothing. The Fence has remained where it was. The government and the military just ignored the court order.</p>
<p>In vain did the President of the Supreme Court admonish them that her decisions “are not recommendations”. Like dozens of other court decisions concerning the settlers, this one, too, is gathering dust.</p>
<p>The case of Bil’in is especially conspicuous, and not only because protesters – Palestinians, Israelis and others – have been killed and injured there. It is conspicuous because the motive trying to hide behind the Fence is so striking.</p>
<p>Not Zionism. Not security or defense from the terrorists. Not the dreams of generations. Not the vision of Theodor Herzl, whose 150th birthday is being celebrated now.</p>
<p>Just money. Lots of money.</p>
<p>The area lying between the present Fence and the alternative path has been earmarked for the Orthodox settlement Modi’in-Illit. Giant corporations are to build many hundreds of “housing units” there, a business worth many millions.</p>
<p>Everywhere, the areas stolen from the Palestinians immediately turn into real estate. They pass though mysterious channels into the jaws of land sharks. The sharks then build huge housing projects and sell the “housing units” for a fortune.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>HOW IS this done? The public is now receiving a lesson in the form of the Holyland affair, a lesson in installments – every day new details emerge and new suspects turn up.</p>
<p>On the site of an old and modest hotel by this name, a giant housing project has sprung up – a line of high-rise apartment buildings and a skyscraper. This ugly monster dominates the landscape – but the part of the project which can be seen from afar is only a fraction of the whole. The other bits have already received the blessing of all the relevant municipal and government authorities.</p>
<p>How? The investigation is still going on. Almost every day, new suspects are being arrested. Almost everybody who has had anything to do with the authorization of the project, up to the highest level, is suspect – ministers, senior government officials, the former mayor, members of the municipal council, and municipal officials. At present, the investigators are trying to trace the bribe money all over the world.</p>
<p>Holyland is located in West Jerusalem (in what before 1948 was the Arab neighborhood of Katamon).</p>
<p>The question naturally arising: if things are done this way in the West of the city, what is happening in the East? If those politicians and officials dare to steal and take bribes in West Jerusalem – what do they allow themselves in East Jerusalem, whose inhabitants have no representation in either the municipality or the government?</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>ONLY A few minutes drive separate Holyland from the village of al-Walaja.</p>
<p>One could write volumes about this small village, which for more than 60 years has served as a target of abuse.</p>
<p>Briefly: the original village was occupied and annexed to Israel in the 1948 war. The inhabitants were expelled and founded a new village on the part of their land which remained on the other side of the Green Line. The new village was occupied in the 1967 war and annexed to Jerusalem, which was annexed to Israel. According to Israeli law, the houses are illegal. The inhabitants live in their own houses, on their own land, but are officially considered illegal residents who can be evicted at any time.</p>
<p>Now the land sharks are ogling this succulent piece of land, which is worth a lot of money for building projects. They follow the proven Zionist routine. First of all, the Arab name of the place is replaced with a pure Hebrew one, preferably from the Bible. Much as nearby Jebel-Abu-Ghneim became Har Homa, before the eyesore monster housing project was erected there, thus al-Walaja has now become Giv’at Yael. Clearly a place called Hill of Yael must belong to the Jewish people, and it is a divine duty to build another settlement there.</p>
<p>So what if this necessitates the moving of the Wall? One can always find a used army officer who will justify this on security grounds.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>FOR YEARS now I have been suggesting that this side of the settlement enterprise should be examined more closely.</p>
<p>The public debate was always about lofty ideals. The divine promise as against the human vision. Greater Israel as against the Two-State solution. Zionist values as against the value of peace. Fascism as against humanism.</p>
<p>And somebody was laughing all the way to the bank.</p>
<p>The settlements are growing rapidly all the time. All over the West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements spring up like toxic mushrooms, poisoning the prospects of peace. In this matter there was never any difference between Golda Meir and Menachem Begin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres and Binyamin Netanyahu.</p>
<p>Among the settlers there is a hard core of ideological zealots. But many of the builders are just clever businessmen, whose only god is Mammon. They easily make friends with the leaders of Likud and the chiefs of Labor, not to mention the Kadima crowd.</p>
<p>The massive settlements in East Jerusalem – those already existing and those still planned – are proceeding along the same lines as the monster on Holyland hill, and they need the same permits from the same municipal and government authorities. Jerusalem, after all, has been united. Therefore, the same dark cloud is hanging over them.</p>
<p>What is needed is a judicial board of inquiry to investigate all the permits issued in Jerusalem in recent years, certainly from the beginning of Ehud Olmert’s term as mayor. Olmert fought like a tiger for the establishment of Har Homa and the other large settlements in East Jerusalem. All for the sake of Zionism and Jewish rule over the Holy City. Now he is Suspect No. 1.</p>
<p>Everything must be investigated from the beginning. And every new project must be stopped until its propriety has been established beyond any doubt.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>THESE THINGS are grave enough in themselves, and they are even more serious when they are located at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Israel-US crisis.</p>
<p>For the sake of the Israeli housing projects in East Jerusalem, the Netanyahu government is endangering our lifeline to the US. The extreme-right mayor declares that he doesn’t give a damn for government orders and will continue to build all over, whatever Netanyahu may or may not say. The Palestinians understandably refuse to negotiate with the Israeli government while building activities in East Jerusalem go on.</p>
<p>Shall we endanger the future of Israel for generations, just so that land sharks can make more millions?</p>
<p>Do the patriots who are sharing out East Jerusalem include elected and appointed officials hoping for large bribes from the builders?</p>
<p>Is there a connection between the rampant corruption, of which the Holyland affair is only the tip of the iceberg, and historic national decisions?</p>
<p>In short, will we allow the future of the holy land be sacrificed on the unholy altar of the profits of corruption?</p>
<p>URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>.</p>
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<p /> | true | 4 | everyone right change mind even danny tirzeh colonel tirzeh responsible planning wall envelopes jerusalem one cuts city west bank order turn united capital israel eternity suddenly tirzeh pops main opponent wall planned wants move leave lands alwalaja village israeli side colonel ceased acting behalf israeli army represents private entrepreneurs want build 14 thousand housing units 45 thousand jewish souls course greater good zionism jewish people israels eternal capital many tens millions shekels colonel tirzeh anybody symbol years kept meeting halls supreme court become almost fixture star witness expert moving spirit scores hearings dealing separation annexation wall knows everything every kilometer wall fence every hill every stone always carries large bundle maps lays judges earnestly explaining wall must pass security state demands palestinian villages separated land leaving olive grove hands owner would expose israeli soldiers mortal danger generally judges persuaded160 expert man knows take upon responsibility changing route wall could result jews killed exceptions bilin village court convinced fence could moved hundred meters without causing security state collapse heaps jewish bodies litter landscape supreme court accepted plea villagers decided move fence nothing fence remained government military ignored court order vain president supreme court admonish decisions recommendations like dozens court decisions concerning settlers one gathering dust case bilin especially conspicuous protesters palestinians israelis others killed injured conspicuous motive trying hide behind fence striking zionism security defense terrorists dreams generations vision theodor herzl whose 150th birthday celebrated money lots money area lying present fence alternative path earmarked orthodox settlement modiinillit giant corporations build many hundreds housing units business worth many millions everywhere areas stolen palestinians immediately turn real estate pass though mysterious channels jaws land sharks sharks build huge housing projects sell housing units fortune done public receiving lesson form holyland affair lesson installments every day new details emerge new suspects turn site old modest hotel name giant housing project sprung line highrise apartment buildings skyscraper ugly monster dominates landscape part project seen afar fraction whole bits already received blessing relevant municipal government authorities investigation still going almost every day new suspects arrested almost everybody anything authorization project highest level suspect ministers senior government officials former mayor members municipal council municipal officials present investigators trying trace bribe money world holyland located west jerusalem 1948 arab neighborhood katamon question naturally arising things done way west city happening east politicians officials dare steal take bribes west jerusalem allow east jerusalem whose inhabitants representation either municipality government minutes drive separate holyland village alwalaja one could write volumes small village 60 years served target abuse briefly original village occupied annexed israel 1948 war inhabitants expelled founded new village part land remained side green line new village occupied 1967 war annexed jerusalem annexed israel according israeli law houses illegal inhabitants live houses land officially considered illegal residents evicted time land sharks ogling succulent piece land worth lot money building projects follow proven zionist routine first arab name place replaced pure hebrew one preferably bible much nearby jebelabughneim became har homa eyesore monster housing project erected thus alwalaja become givat yael clearly place called hill yael must belong jewish people divine duty build another settlement necessitates moving wall one always find used army officer justify security grounds years suggesting side settlement enterprise examined closely public debate always lofty ideals divine promise human vision greater israel twostate solution zionist values value peace fascism humanism somebody laughing way bank settlements growing rapidly time west bank east jerusalem settlements spring like toxic mushrooms poisoning prospects peace matter never difference golda meir menachem begin ehud barak ariel sharon shimon peres binyamin netanyahu among settlers hard core ideological zealots many builders clever businessmen whose god mammon easily make friends leaders likud chiefs labor mention kadima crowd massive settlements east jerusalem already existing still planned proceeding along lines monster holyland hill need permits municipal government authorities jerusalem united therefore dark cloud hanging needed judicial board inquiry investigate permits issued jerusalem recent years certainly beginning ehud olmerts term mayor olmert fought like tiger establishment har homa large settlements east jerusalem sake zionism jewish rule holy city suspect 1 everything must investigated beginning every new project must stopped propriety established beyond doubt things grave enough even serious located center israelipalestinian conflict israelus crisis sake israeli housing projects east jerusalem netanyahu government endangering lifeline us extremeright mayor declares doesnt give damn government orders continue build whatever netanyahu may may say palestinians understandably refuse negotiate israeli government building activities east jerusalem go shall endanger future israel generations land sharks make millions patriots sharing east jerusalem include elected appointed officials hoping large bribes builders connection rampant corruption holyland affair tip iceberg historic national decisions short allow future holy land sacrificed unholy altar profits corruption uri avnery israeli writer peace activist gush shalom contributor counterpunchs book politics antisemitism words stick 160 | 790 |
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